History Of The Decline And Fall Of The
Edward Gibbon, Esq.
With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
Vol. 4
1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)
Chapter XXXIX:
Part I.
Zeno And
Anastasius, Emperors Of The East. - Birth,
Education, And First Exploits Of Theodoric The Ostrogoth.
- His
Invasion And Conquest Of
State Of The West. - Military And Civil Government. - The
Senator
Boethius. - Last Acts And Death Of Theodoric.
After the fall
of the
of fifty years, till the memorable reign of Justinian, is
faintly
marked by the obscure names and imperfect annals of Zeno,
Anastasius, and Justin, who successively ascended to the
throne
of
flourished under the government of a Gothic king, who
might have
deserved a statue among the best and bravest of the ancient
Romans.
Theodoric the
Ostrogoth, the fourteenth in lineal descent of
the royal line of the Amali, ^1 was born in the
neighborhood of
victory had restored the independence of the Ostrogoths;
and the
three brothers, Walamir, Theodemir, and Widimir, who
ruled that
warlike nation with united counsels, had separately
pitched their
habitations in the fertile though desolate
The Huns still threatened their revolted subjects, but
their
hasty attack was repelled by the single forces of
Walamir, and
the news of his victory reached the distant camp of his
brother
in the same auspicious moment that the favorite concubine
of
Theodemir was delivered of a son and heir. In the eighth year of
his age, Theodoric was reluctantly yielded by his father
to the
public interest, as the pledge of an alliance which Leo,
emperor
of the East, had consented to purchase by an annual
subsidy of
three hundred pounds of gold. The royal hostage was educated at
all the exercises of war, his mind was expanded by the
habits of
liberal conversation; he frequented the schools of the
most
skilful masters; but he disdained or neglected the arts
of
elements of science, that a rude mark was contrived to
represent
the signature of the illiterate king of
had attained the age of eighteen, he was restored to the
wishes
of the Ostrogoths, whom the emperor aspired to gain by
liberality
and confidence.
Walamir had fallen in battle; the youngest of
the brothers, Widimir, had led away into
of Barbarians, and the whole nation acknowledged for
their king
the father of Theodoric.
His ferocious subjects admired the
strength and stature of their young prince; ^4 and he
soon
convinced them that he had not degenerated from the valor
of his
ancestors. At the
head of six thousand volunteers, he secretly
left the camp in quest of adventures, descended the
as Singidunum, or
the spoils of a Sarmatian king whom he had vanquished and
slain.
Such triumphs, however, were productive only of fame, and
the
invincible Ostrogoths were reduced to extreme distress by
the
want of clothing and food. They unanimously resolved to desert
their Pannonian encampments, and boldly to advance into
the warm
and wealthy neighborhood of the Byzantine court, which
already
maintained in pride and luxury so many bands of
confederate
Goths. After
proving, by some acts of hostility, that they could
be dangerous, or at least troublesome, enemies, the
Ostrogoths
sold at a high price their reconciliation and fidelity,
accepted
a donative of lands and money, and were intrusted with
the
defence of the
succeeded after his father's death to the hereditary
throne of
the Amali. ^5
[Footnote 1: Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 13, 14, p.
629, 630,
edit. Grot.) has drawn the pedigree of Theodoric from
Gapt, one
of the Anses or Demigods, who lived about the time of
Domitian.
Cassiodorus, the first who celebrates the royal race of
the
Amali, (Viriar. viii. 5, ix. 25, x. 2, xi. 1,) reckons
the
grandson of Theodoric as the xviith in descent. Peringsciold
(the Swedish commentator of Cochloeus, Vit. Theodoric. p.
271,
&c., Stockholm, 1699) labors to connect this
genealogy with the
legends or traditions of his native country.
Note: Amala
was a name of hereditary sanctity and honor
among the Visigoths.
It enters into the names of Amalaberga,
Amala suintha, (swinther means strength,) Amalafred,
Amalarich.
In the poem of the Nibelungen written three hundred years
later,
the Ostrogoths are called the Amilungen. According to
Wachter it
means, unstained, from the privative a, and malo a
stain. It is
pure Sanscrit, Amala, immaculatus. Schlegel. Indische
Bibliothek, 1. p. 233. - M.]
[Footnote 2: More correctly on the banks of the Lake
Pelso,
(Nieusiedler- see,) near Carnuntum, almost on the same
spot where
Marcus Antoninus composed his meditations, (Jornandes, c.
52, p.
659. Severin.
Pannonia Illustrata, p. 22. Cellarius,
Geograph.
Antiq. (tom. i. p. 350.)]
[Footnote !: The date of Theodoric's birth is not
accurately
determined. We can hardly err, observes Manso, in placing
it
between the years 453 and 455, Manso, Geschichte des Ost
Gothischen Reichs, p. 14. - M.]
[Footnote 3: The four first letters of his name were
inscribed on
a gold plate, and when it was fixed on the paper, the
king drew
his pen through the intervals (Anonym. Valesian. ad
calcem Amm.
Marcellin p. 722.) This authentic fact, with the
testimony of
Procopius, or at least of the contemporary Goths,
(Gothic. 1. i.
c. 2, p. 311,) far outweighs the vague praises of
Ennodius
(Sirmond Opera, tom. i. p. 1596) and Theophanes,
(Chronograph. p.
112.)
Note: Le Beau
and his Commentator, M. St. Martin, support,
though with no very satisfactory evidence, the opposite
opinion.
But Lord Mahon (Life of Belisarius, p. 19) urges the much
stronger argument, the Byzantine education of Theodroic.
- M.]
[Footnote 4: Statura est quae resignet proceritate
regnantem,
(Ennodius, p. 1614.) The bishop of Pavia (I mean the
ecclesiastic
who wished to be a bishop) then proceeds to celebrate the
complexion, eyes, hands, &c, of his sovereign.]
[Footnote 5: The state of the Ostrogoths, and the first
years of
Theodoric, are found in Jornandes, (c. 52 - 56, p. 689 -
696) and
Malchus, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 78 - 80,) who erroneously
styles him
the son of Walamir.]
A hero,
descended from a race of kings, must have despised
the base Isaurian who was invested with the Roman purple,
without
any endowment of mind or body, without any advantages of
royal
birth, or superior qualifications. After the failure of
the
Theodosian life, the choice of Pulcheria and of the
senate might
be justified in some measure by the characters of Martin
and Leo,
but the latter of these princes confirmed and dishonored
his
reign by the perfidious murder of Aspar and his sons, who
too
rigorously exacted the debt of gratitude and
obedience. The
inheritance of Leo and of the East was peaceably devolved
on his
infant grandson, the son of his daughter Ariadne; and her
Isaurian husband, the fortunate Trascalisseus, exchanged
that
barbarous sound for the Grecian appellation of Zeno. After the
decease of the elder Leo, he approached with unnatural
respect
the throne of his son, humbly received, as a gift, the
second
rank in the empire, and soon excited the public suspicion
on the
sudden and premature death of his young colleague, whose
life
could no longer promote the success of his ambition. But the
palace of Constantinople was ruled by female influence,
and
agitated by female passions: and Verina, the widow of
Leo,
claiming his empire as her own, pronounced a sentence of
deposition against the worthless and ungrateful servant
on whom
she alone had bestowed the sceptre of the East. ^6 As
soon as she
sounded a revolt in the ears of Zeno, he fled with
precipitation
into the mountains of Isauria, and her brother
Basiliscus,
already infamous by his African expedition, ^7 was
unanimously
proclaimed by the servile senate. But the reign of the usurper
was short and turbulent. Basiliscus presumed to assassinate
the
lover of his sister; he dared to offend the lover of his
wife,
the vain and insolent Harmatius, who, in the midst of
Asiatic
luxury, affected the dress, the demeanor, and the surname
of
Achilles. ^8 By the conspiracy of the malecontents, Zeno
was
recalled from exile; the armies, the capital, the person,
of
Basiliscus, were betrayed; and his whole family was
condemned to
the long agony of cold and hunger by the inhuman
conqueror, who
wanted courage to encounter or to forgive his enemies. ^*
The
haughty spirit of Verina was still incapable of
submission or
repose. She provoked the enmity of a favorite general,
embraced
his cause as soon as he was disgraced, created a new
emperor in
Syria and Egypt, ^* raised an army of seventy thousand
men, and
persisted to the last moment of her life in a fruitless
rebellion, which, according to the fashion of the age,
had been
predicted by Christian hermits and Pagan magicians. While the
East was afflicted by the passions of Verina, her
daughter
Ariadne was distinguished by the female virtues of
mildness and
fidelity; she followed her husband in his exile, and
after his
restoration, she implored his clemency in favor of her
mother.
On the decease of Zeno, Ariadne, the daughter, the
mother, and
the widow of an emperor, gave her hand and the Imperial
title to
Anastasius, an aged domestic of the palace, who survived
his
elevation above twenty-seven years, and whose character
is
attested by the acclamation of the people, "Reign as
you have
lived!" ^9 ^!
[Footnote 6: Theophanes (p. 111) inserts a copy of her
sacred
letters to the provinces.
Such female pretensions would have
astonished the slaves of the first Caesars.]
[Footnote 7: Vol. iii. p. 504 - 508.]
[Footnote 8: Suidas, tom. i. p. 332, 333, edit. Kuster.]
[Footnote *: Joannes Lydus accuses Zeno of timidity, or,
rather,
of cowardice; he purchased an ignominious peace from the
enemies
of the empire, whom he dared not meet in battle; and
employed his
whole time at home in confiscations and executions. Lydus, de
Magist. iii. 45, p. 230. - M.]
[Footnote *: Named Illus. - M.]
[Footnote 9: The contemporary histories of Malchus and
Candidus
are lost; but some extracts or fragments have been saved
by
Photius, (lxxviii. lxxix. p. 100 - 102,) Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, (Excerpt. Leg. p. 78 - 97,) and in
various
articles of the Lexicon of Suidas. The Chronicles of Marcellinus
(Imago Historiae) are originals for the reigns of Zeno
and
Anastasius; and I must acknowledge, almost for the last
time, my
obligations to the large and accurate collections of
Tillemont,
(Hist. des Emp. tom. vi. p. 472 - 652).]
[Footnote !: The Panegyric of Procopius of Gaza, (edited
by
Villoison in his Anecdota Graeca, and reprinted in the
new
edition of the Byzantine historians by Niebuhr, in the
same vol.
with Dexippus and Eunapius, viii. p. 488 516,) was
unknown to
Gibbon. It is
vague and pedantic, and contains few facts.
The
same criticism will apply to the poetical panegyric of
Priscian
edited from the Ms. of Bobbio by Ang. Mai. Priscian, the gram
marian, Niebuhr argues from this work, must have been
born in the
African, not in either of the Asiatic Caesareas. Pref. p. xi. -
M.]
Whatever fear
of affection could bestow, was profusely
lavished by Zeno on the king of the Ostrogoths; the rank
of
patrician and consul, the command of the Palatine troops,
an
equestrian statue, a treasure in gold and silver of many
thousand
pounds, the name of son, and the promise of a rich and
honorable
wife. As long as
Theodoric condescended to serve, he supported
with courage and fidelity the cause of his benefactor;
his rapid
march contributed to the restoration of Zeno; and in the
second
revolt, the Walamirs, as they were called, pursued and
pressed
the Asiatic rebels, till they left an easy victory to the
Imperial troops. ^10 But the faithful servant was
suddenly
converted into a formidable enemy, who spread the flames
of war
from Constantinople to the Adriatic; many flourishing
cities were
reduced to ashes, and the agriculture of Thrace was
almost
extirpated by the wanton cruelty of the Goths, who
deprived their
captive peasants of the right hand that guided the
plough. ^11 On
such occasions, Theodoric sustained the loud and specious
reproach of disloyalty, of ingratitude, and of insatiate
avarice,
which could be only excused by the hard necessity of his
situation. He reigned, not as the monarch, but as the
minister of
a ferocious people, whose spirit was unbroken by slavery,
and
impatient of real or imaginary insults. Their poverty was
incurable; since the most liberal donatives were soon
dissipated
in wasteful luxury, and the most fertile estates became
barren in
their hands; they despised, but they envied, the
laborious
provincials; and when their subsistence had failed, the
Ostrogoths embraced the familiar resources of war and
rapine. It
had been the wish of Theodoric (such at least was his
declaration) to lead a peaceful, obscure, obedient life
on the
confines of Scythia, till the Byzantine court, by
splendid and
fallacious promises, seduced him to attack a confederate
tribe of
Goths, who had been engaged in the party of
Basiliscus. He
marched from his station in Maesia, on the solemn
assurance that
before he reached Adrianople, he should meet a plentiful
convoy
of provisions, and a reenforcement of eight thousand
horse and
thirty thousand foot, while the legions of Asia were
encamped at
Heraclea to second his operations. These measures were
disappointed by mutual jealousy. As he advanced into Thrace, the
son of Theodemir found an inhospitable solitude, and his
Gothic
followers, with a heavy train of horses, of mules, and of
wagons,
were betrayed by their guides among the rocks and
precipices of
Mount Sondis, where he was assaulted by the arms and
invectives
of Theodoric the son of Triarius. From a neighboring height, his
artful rival harangued the camp of the Walamirs, and
branded
their leader with the opprobrious names of child, of
madman, of
perjured traitor, the enemy of his blood and nation. "Are you
ignorant," exclaimed the son of Triarius, "that
it is the
constant policy of the Romans to destroy the Goths by
each
other's swords?
Are you insensible that the victor in this
unnatural contest will be exposed, and justly exposed, to
their
implacable revenge?
Where are those warriors, my kinsmen and thy
own, whose widows now lament that their lives were
sacrificed to
thy rash ambition?
Where is the wealth which thy soldiers
possessed when they were first allured from their native
homes to
enlist under thy standard? Each of them was then master of three
or four horses; they now follow thee on foot, like
slaves,
through the deserts of Thrace; those men who were tempted
by the
hope of measuring gold with a bushel, those brave men who
are as
free and as noble as thyself." A language so well
suited to the
temper of the Goths excited clamor and discontent; and
the son of
Theodemir, apprehensive of being left alone, was
compelled to
embrace his brethren, and to imitate the example of Roman
perfidy. ^12 ^*
[Footnote 10: In ipsis congressionis tuae foribus cessit
invasor,
cum profugo per te sceptra redderentur de salute
dubitanti.
Ennodius then proceeds (p. 1596, 1597, tom. i. Sirmond.)
to
transport his hero (on a flying dragon?) into Aethiopia,
beyond
the tropic of Cancer.
The evidence of the Valesian Fragment, (p.
717,) Liberatus, (Brev. Eutych. c. 25 p. 118,) and
Theophanes,
(p. 112,) is more sober and rational.]
[Footnote 11: This cruel practice is specially imputed to
the
Triarian Goths, less barbarous, as it should seem, than
the
Walamirs; but the son of Theodemir is charged with the
ruin of
many Roman cities, (Malchus, Excerpt. Leg. p. 95.)]
[Footnote 12: Jornandes (c. 56, 57, p. 696) displays the
services
of Theodoric, confesses his rewards, but dissembles his
revolt,
of which such curious details have been preserved by
Malchus,
(Excerpt. Legat. p. 78 - 97.) Marcellinus, a domestic of
Justinian, under whose ivth consulship (A.D. 534) he
composed his
Chronicle, (Scaliger, Thesaurus Temporum, P. ii, p. 34 -
57,)
betrays his prejudice and passion: in Graeciam
debacchantem
...Zenonis munificentia pene pacatus ...beneficiis
nunquam
satiatus, &c.]
[Footnote *: Gibbon has omitted much of the complicated
intrigues
of the Byzantine court with the two Theodorics. The weak emperor
attempted to play them one against the other, and was
himself in
turn insulted, and the empire ravaged, by both. The details of
the successive alliance and revolt, of hostility and of
union,
between the two Gothic chieftains, to dictate terms to
the
emperor, may be found in Malchus. - M.]
In every state
of his fortune, the prudence and firmness of
Theodoric were equally conspicuous; whether he threatened
Constantinople at the head of the confederate Goths, or
retreated
with a faithful band to the mountains and sea-coast of Epirus.
At length the accidental death of the son of Triarius ^13
destroyed the balance which the Romans had been so
anxious to
preserve, the whole nation acknowledged the supremacy of
the
Amali, and the Byzantine court subscribed an ignominious
and
oppressive treaty. ^14 The senate had already declared,
that it
was necessary to choose a party among the Goths, since
the public
was unequal to the support of their united forces; a
subsidy of
two thousand pounds of gold, with the ample pay of
thirteen
thousand men, were required for the least considerable of
their
armies; ^15 and the Isaurians, who guarded not the empire
but the
emperor, enjoyed, besides the privilege of rapine, an
annual
pension of five thousand pounds. The sagacious mind of Theodoric
soon perceived that he was odious to the Romans, and
suspected by
the Barbarians: he understood the popular murmur, that
his
subjects were exposed in their frozen huts to intolerable
hardships, while their king was dissolved in the luxury
of
Greece, and he prevented the painful alternative of
encountering
the Goths, as the champion, or of leading them to the
field, as
the enemy, of Zeno.
Embracing an enterprise worthy of his
courage and ambition, Theodoric addressed the emperor in
the
following words: "Although your servant is
maintained in
affluence by your liberality, graciously listen to the
wishes of
my heart! Italy,
the inheritance of your predecessors, and Rome
itself, the head and mistress of the world, now fluctuate
under
the violence and oppression of Odoacer the
mercenary. Direct me,
with my national troops, to march against the
tyrant. If I fall,
you will be relieved from an expensive and troublesome
friend:
if, with the divine permission, I succeed, I shall govern
in your
name, and to your glory, the Roman senate, and the part
of the
republic delivered from slavery by my victorious
arms." The
proposal of Theodoric was accepted, and perhaps had been
suggested, by the Byzantine court. But the forms of the
commission, or grant, appear to have been expressed with
a
prudent ambiguity, which might be explained by the event;
and it
was left doubtful, whether the conqueror of Italy should
reign as
the lieutenant, the vassal, or the ally, of the emperor
of the
East. ^16
[Footnote 13: As he was riding in his own camp, an unruly
horse
threw him against the point of a spear which hung before
a tent,
or was fixed on a wagon, (Marcellin. in Chron. Evagrius,
l. iii.
c. 25.)]
[Footnote 14: See Malchus (p. 91) and Evagrius, (l. iii.
c. 35.)]
[Footnote 15: Malchus, p. 85. In a single action, which was
decided by the skill and discipline of Sabinian,
Theodoric could
lose 5000 men.]
[Footnote 16: Jornandes (c. 57, p. 696, 697) has abridged
the
great history of Cassiodorus. See, compare, and reconcile
Procopius, (Gothic. l. i. c. i.,) the Valesian Fragment,
(p.
718,) Theophanes, (p. 113,) and Marcellinus, (in Chron.)]
The reputation
both of the leader and of the war diffused a
universal ardor; the Walamirs were multiplied by the
Gothic
swarms already engaged in the service, or seated in the
provinces, of the empire; and each bold Barbarian, who
had heard
of the wealth and beauty of Italy, was impatient to seek,
through
the most perilous adventures, the possession of such
enchanting
objects. The march
of Theodoric must be considered as the
emigration of an entire people; the wives and children of
the
Goths, their aged parents, and most precious effects,
were
carefully transported; and some idea may be formed of the
heavy
baggage that now followed the camp, by the loss of two
thousand
wagons, which had been sustained in a single action in
the war of
Epirus. For their
subsistence, the Goths depended on the
magazines of corn which was ground in portable mills by
the hands
of their women; on the milk and flesh of their flocks and
herds;
on the casual produce of the chase, and upon the
contributions
which they might impose on all who should presume to
dispute the
passage, or to refuse their friendly assistance. Notwithstanding
these precautions, they were exposed to the danger, and
almost to
the distress, of famine, in a march of seven hundred
miles, which
had been undertaken in the depth of a rigorous
winter. Since the
fall of the Roman power, Dacia and Pannonia no longer
exhibited
the rich prospect of populous cities, well-cultivated
fields, and
convenient highways: the reign of barbarism and
desolation was
restored, and the tribes of Bulgarians, Gepidae, and
Sarmatians,
who had occupied the vacant province, were prompted by
their
native fierceness, or the solicitations of Odoacer, to
resist the
progress of his enemy.
In many obscure though bloody battles,
Theodoric fought and vanquished; till at length,
surmounting
every obstacle by skilful conduct and persevering
courage, he
descended from the Julian Alps, and displayed his
invincible
banners on the confines of Italy. ^17
[Footnote 17: Theodoric's march is supplied and
illustrated by
Ennodius, (p. 1598 - 1602,) when the bombast of the
oration is
translated into the language of common sense.]
Odoacer, a
rival not unworthy of his arms, had already
occupied the advantageous and well-known post of the
River
Sontius, near the ruins of Aquileia, at the head of a
powerful
host, whose independent kings ^18 or leaders disdained
the duties
of subordination and the prudence of delays. No sooner had
Theodoric gained a short repose and refreshment to his
wearied
cavalry, than he boldly attacked the fortifications of
the enemy;
the Ostrogoths showed more ardor to acquire, than the
mercenaries
to defend, the lands of Italy; and the reward of the
first
victory was the possession of the Venetian province as
far as the
walls of Verona. In the neighborhood of that city, on the
steep
banks of the rapid Adige, he was opposed by a new army,
reenforced in its numbers, and not impaired in its
courage: the
contest was more obstinate, but the event was still more
decisive; Odoacer fled to Ravenna, Theodoric advanced to
Milan,
and the vanquished troops saluted their conqueror with
loud
acclamations of respect and fidelity. But their want either of
constancy or of faith soon exposed him to the most
imminent
danger; his vanguard, with several Gothic counts, which
had been
rashly intrusted to a deserter, was betrayed and
destroyed near
Faenza by his double treachery; Odoacer again appeared
master of
the field, and the invader, strongly intrenched in his
camp of
Pavia, was reduced to solicit the aid of a kindred
nation, the
Visigoths of Gaul.
In the course of this History, the most
voracious appetite for war will be abundantly satiated;
nor can I
much lament that our dark and imperfect materials do not
afford a
more ample narrative of the distress of Italy, and of the
fierce
conflict, which was finally decided by the abilities,
experience,
and valor of the Gothic king. Immediately before the battle of
Verona, he visited the tent of his mother ^19 and sister,
and
requested, that on a day, the most illustrious festival
of his
life, they would adorn him with the rich garments which
they had
worked with their own hands. "Our glory," said he, "is mutual
and inseparable.
You are known to the world as the mother of
Theodoric; and it becomes me to prove, that I am the
genuine
offspring of those heroes from whom I claim my
descent." The wife
or concubine of Theodemir was inspired with the spirit of
the
German matrons, who esteemed their sons' honor far above
their
safety; and it is reported, that in a desperate action,
when
Theodoric himself was hurried along by the torrent of a
flying
crowd, she boldly met them at the entrance of the camp,
and, by
her generous reproaches, drove them back on the swords of
the
enemy. ^20
[Footnote 18: Tot reges, &c., (Ennodius, p. 1602.) We
must
recollect how much the royal title was multiplied and
degraded,
and that the mercenaries of Italy were the fragments of
many
tribes and nations.]
[Footnote 19: See Ennodius, p. 1603, 1604. Since the orator, in
the king's presence, could mention and praise his mother,
we may
conclude that the magnanimity of Theodoric was not hurt
by the
vulgar reproaches of concubine and bastard.
Note: Gibbon
here assumes that the mother of Theodoric was
the concubine of Theodemir, which he leaves doubtful in
the text.
- M.]
[Footnote 20: This anecdote is related on the modern but
respectable authority of Sigonius, (Op. tom. i. p.
580. De
Occident. Impl. l. xv.:) his words are curious:
"Would you
return?" &c.
She presented and almost displayed the original
recess.
Note: The
authority of Sigonius would scarcely have weighed
with Gibboa except for an indecent anecdote. I have a
recollection of a similar story in some of the Italian
wars. -
M.]]
From the Alps
to the extremity of Calabria, Theodoric
reigned by the right of conquest; the Vandal ambassadors
surrendered the Island of Sicily, as a lawful appendage
of his
kingdom; and he was accepted as the deliverer of Rome by
the
senate and people, who had shut their gates against the
flying
usurper. ^21 Ravenna alone, secure in the fortifications
of art
and nature, still sustained a siege of almost three
years; and
the daring sallies of Odoacer carried slaughter and
dismay into
the Gothic camp.
At length, destitute of provisions and hopeless
of relief, that unfortunate monarch yielded to the groans
of his
subjects and the clamors of his soldiers. A treaty of peace was
negotiated by the bishop of Ravenna; the Ostrogoths were
admitted
into the city, and the hostile kings consented, under the
sanction of an oath, to rule with equal and undivided
authority
the provinces of Italy. The event of such an agreement
may be
easily foreseen.
After some days had been devoted to the
semblance of joy and friendship, Odoacer, in the midst of
a
solemn banquet, was stabbed by the hand, or at least by
the
command, of his rival.
Secret and effectual orders had been
previously despatched; the faithless and rapacious
mercenaries,
at the same moment, and without resistance, were
universally
massacred; and the royalty of Theodoric was proclaimed by
the
Goths, with the tardy, reluctant, ambiguous consent of
the
emperor of the East.
The design of a conspiracy was imputed,
according to the usual forms, to the prostrate tyrant;
but his
innocence, and the guilt of his conqueror, ^22 are
sufficiently
proved by the advantageous treaty which force would not
sincerely
have granted, nor weakness have rashly infringed. The jealousy
of power, and the mischiefs of discord, may suggest a
more decent
apology, and a sentence less rigorous may be pronounced
against a
crime which was necessary to introduce into Italy a
generation of
public felicity.
The living author of this felicity was
audaciously praised in his own presence by sacred and
profane
orators; ^23 but history (in his time she was mute and
inglorious) has not left any just representation of the
events
which displayed, or of the defects which clouded, the
virtues of
Theodoric. ^24 One record of his fame, the volume of
public
epistles composed by Cassiodorus in the royal name, is
still
extant, and has obtained more implicit credit than it
seems to
deserve. ^25 They exhibit the forms, rather than the
substance,
of his government; and we should vainly search for the
pure and
spontaneous sentiments of the Barbarian amidst the
declamation
and learning of a sophist, the wishes of a Roman senator,
the
precedents of office, and the vague professions, which,
in every
court, and on every occasion, compose the language of
discreet
ministers. The
reputation of Theodoric may repose with more
confidence on the visible peace and prosperity of a reign
of
thirty-three years; the unanimous esteem of his own
times, and
the memory of his wisdom and courage, his justice and
humanity,
which was deeply impressed on the minds of the Goths and
Italians.
[Footnote 21: Hist. Miscell. l. xv., a Roman history from
Janus
to the ixth century, an Epitome of Eutropius, Paulus
Diaconus,
and Theophanes which Muratori has published from a Ms. in
the
Ambrosian library, (Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. i. p.
100.)]
[Footnote 22: Procopius (Gothic. l. i. c. i.) approves
himself an
impartial sceptic. Cassiodorus (in Chron.) and Ennodius
(p. 1604)
are loyal and credulous, and the testimony of the
Valesian
Fragment (p. 718) may justify their belief. Marcellinus spits
the venom of a Greek subject - perjuriis illectus,
interfectusque
est, (in Chron.)]
[Footnote 23: The sonorous and servile oration of
Ennodius was
pronounced at Milan or Ravenna in the years 507 or 508,
(Sirmond,
tom. i. p. 615.) Two or three years afterwards, the
orator was
rewarded with the bishopric of Pavia, which he held till
his
death in the year 521.
(Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. v. p. 11 -
14. See Saxii
Onomasticon, tom. ii. p. 12.)]
[Footnote 24: Our best materials are occasional hints
from
Procopius and the Valesian Fragment, which was discovered
by
Sirmond, and is published at the end of Ammianus
Marcellinus.
The author's name is unknown, and his style is barbarous;
but in
his various facts he exhibits the knowledge, without the
passions, of a contemporary. The president Montesquieu had
formed the plan of a history of Theodoric, which at a
distance
might appear a rich and interesting subject.]
[Footnote 25: The best edition of the Variarum Libri xii.
is that
of Joh. Garretius, (Rotomagi, 1679, in Opp. Cassiodor. 2
vols. in
fol.;) but they deserved and required such an editor as
the
Marquis Scipio Maffei, who thought of publishing them at
Verona.
The Barbara Eleganza (as it is ingeniously named by
Tiraboschi)
is never simple, and seldom perspicuous]
The partition
of the lands of Italy, of which Theodoric
assigned the third part to his soldiers, is honorably
arraigned
as the sole injustice of his life. ^* And even this act
may be
fairly justified by the example of Odoacer, the rights of
conquest, the true interest of the Italians, and the
sacred duty
of subsisting a whole people, who, on the faith of his
promises,
had transported themselves into a distant land. ^26 Under
the
reign of Theodoric, and in the happy climate of Italy,
the Goths
soon multiplied to a formidable host of two hundred
thousand men,
^27 and the whole amount of their families may be
computed by the
ordinary addition of women and children. Their invasion
of
property, a part of which must have been already vacant,
was
disguised by the generous but improper name of
hospitality; these
unwelcome guests were irregularly dispersed over the face
of
Italy, and the lot of each Barbarian was adequate to his
birth
and office, the number of his followers, and the rustic
wealth
which he possessed in slaves and cattle. The distinction
of noble
and plebeian were acknowledged; ^28 but the lands of
every
freeman were exempt from taxes, ^* and he enjoyed the
inestimable
privilege of being subject only to the laws of his
country. ^29
Fashion, and even convenience, soon persuaded the
conquerors to
assume the more elegant dress of the natives, but they
still
persisted in the use of their mother- tongue; and their
contempt
for the Latin schools was applauded by Theodoric himself,
who
gratified their prejudices, or his own, by declaring,
that the
child who had trembled at a rod, would never dare to look
upon a
sword. ^30 Distress might sometimes provoke the indigent
Roman to
assume the ferocious manners which were insensibly
relinquished
by the rich and luxurious Barbarian; ^31 but these mutual
conversions were not encouraged by the policy of a
monarch who
perpetuated the separation of the Italians and Goths;
reserving
the former for the arts of peace, and the latter for the
service
of war. To
accomplish this design, he studied to protect his
industrious subjects, and to moderate the violence,
without
enervating the valor, of his soldiers, who were
maintained for
the public defence.
They held their lands and benefices as a
military stipend: at the sound of the trumpet, they were
prepared
to march under the conduct of their provincial officers;
and the
whole extent of Italy was distributed into the several
quarters
of a well- regulated camp. The service of the palace and of the
frontiers was performed by choice or by rotation; and
each
extraordinary fatigue was recompensed by an increase of
pay and
occasional donatives.
Theodoric had convinced his brave
companions, that empire must be acquired and defended by
the same
arts. After his example, they strove to excel in the use,
not
only of the lance and sword, the instruments of their
victories,
but of the missile weapons, which they were too much
inclined to
neglect; and the lively image of war was displayed in the
daily
exercise and annual reviews of the Gothic cavalry. A firm though
gentle discipline imposed the habits of modesty,
obedience, and
temperance; and the Goths were instructed to spare the
people, to
reverence the laws, to understand the duties of civil
society,
and to disclaim the barbarous license of judicial combat
and
private revenge. ^32
[Footnote *: Compare Gibbon, ch. xxxvi. vol. iii. p. 459,
&c. -
Manso observes that this division was conducted not in a
violent
and irregular, but in a legal and orderly, manner. The
Barbarian, who could not show a title of grant from the
officers
of Theodoric appointed for the purpose, or a prescriptive
right
of thirty years, in case he had obtained the property
before the
Ostrogothic conquest, was ejected from the estate. He conceives
that estates too small to bear division paid a third of
their
produce. - Geschichte des Os Gothischen Reiches, p. 82. -
M.]
[Footnote 26: Procopius, Gothic, l. i. c. i. Variarum,
ii. Maffei
(Verona Illustrata, P. i. p. 228) exaggerates the
injustice of
the Goths, whom he hated as an Italian noble. The plebeian
Muratori crouches under their oppression.]
[Footnote 27: Procopius, Goth. l. iii. c. 421. Ennodius
describes (p. 1612, 1613) the military arts and
increasing
numbers of the Goths.]
[Footnote 28: When Theodoric gave his sister to the king
of the
Vandals she sailed for Africa with a guard of 1000 noble
Goths,
each of whom was attended by five armed followers,
(Procop.
Vandal. l. i. c. 8.) The Gothic nobility must have been
as
numerous as brave.]
[Footnote *: Manso (p. 100) quotes two passages from
Cassiodorus
to show that the Goths were not exempt from the fiscal
claims. -
Cassiodor, i. 19, iv. 14 - M.]
[Footnote 29: See the acknowledgment of Gothic liberty,
(Var. v.
30.)]
[Footnote 30: Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 2. The Roman boys learnt
the language (Var. viii. 21) of the Goths. Their general
ignorance is not destroyed by the exceptions of
Amalasuntha, a
female, who might study without shame, or of Theodatus,
whose
learning provoked the indignation and contempt of his
countrymen.]
[Footnote 31: A saying of Theodoric was founded on
experience:
"Romanus miser imitatur Gothum; ut utilis (dives)
Gothus imitatur
Romanum." (See the Fragment and Notes of Valesius,
p. 719.)]
[Footnote 32: The view of the military establishment of
the Goths
in Italy is collected from the Epistles of Cassiodorus
(Var. i.
24, 40; iii. 3, 24, 48; iv. 13, 14; v. 26, 27; viii. 3, 4,
25.)
They are illustrated by the learned Mascou, (Hist. of the
Germans, l. xi. 40 - 44, Annotation xiv.)
Note: Compare
Manso, Geschichte des Ost Gothischen Reiches,
p. 114. - M.]
Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.
Part II.
Among the Barbarians
of the West, the victory of Theodoric
had spread a general alarm. But as soon as it appeared that he
was satisfied with conquest and desirous of peace, terror
was
changed into respect, and they submitted to a powerful
mediation,
which was uniformly employed for the best purposes of
reconciling
their quarrels and civilizing their manners. ^33 The
ambassadors
who resorted to Ravenna from the most distant countries
of
Europe, admired his wisdom, magnificence, ^34 and
courtesy; and
if he sometimes accepted either slaves or arms, white
horses or
strange animals, the gift of a sun-dial, a water-clock,
or a
musician, admonished even the princes of Gaul of the
superior art
and industry of his Italian subjects. His domestic
alliances, ^35
a wife, two daughters, a sister, and a niece, united the
family
of Theodoric with the kings of the Franks, the
Burgundians, the
Visigoths, the Vandals, and the Thuringians, and
contributed to
maintain the harmony, or at least the balance, of the
great
republic of the West. ^36 It is difficult in the dark
forests of
Germany and Poland to pursue the emigrations of the
Heruli, a
fierce people who disdained the use of armor, and who
condemned
their widows and aged parents not to survive the loss of
their
husbands, or the decay of their strength. ^37 The king of
these
savage warriors solicited the friendship of Theodoric,
and was
elevated to the rank of his son, according to the
barbaric rites
of a military adoption. ^38 From the shores of the
Baltic, the
Aestians or Livonians laid their offerings of native
amber ^39 at
the feet of a prince, whose fame had excited them to
undertake an
unknown and dangerous journey of fifteen hundred
miles. With the
country ^40 from whence the Gothic nation derived their
origin,
he maintained a frequent and friendly correspondence: the
Italians were clothed in the rich sables ^41 of Sweden;
and one
of its sovereigns, after a voluntary or reluctant
abdication,
found a hospitable retreat in the palace of Ravenna. He had
reigned over one of the thirteen populous tribes who
cultivated a
small portion of the great island or peninsula of
Scandinavia, to
which the vague appellation of Thule has been sometimes
applied.
That northern region was peopled, or had been explored,
as high
as the sixty- eighth degree of latitude, where the
natives of the
polar circle enjoy and lose the presence of the sun at
each
summer and winter solstice during an equal period of
forty days.
^42 The long night of his absence or death was the
mournful
season of distress and anxiety, till the messengers, who
had been
sent to the mountain tops, descried the first rays of
returning
light, and proclaimed to the plain below the festival of
his
resurrection. ^43
[Footnote 33: See the clearness and vigor of his
negotiations in
Ennodius, (p. 1607,) and Cassiodorus, (Var. iii. 1, 2, 3,
4; iv.
13; v. 43, 44,) who gives the different styles of
friendship,
counsel expostulation, &c.]
[Footnote 34: Even of his table (Var. vi. 9) and palace,
(vii.
5.) The admiration of strangers is represented as the
most
rational motive to justify these vain expenses, and to
stimulate
the diligence of the officers to whom these provinces
were
intrusted.]
[Footnote 35: See the public and private alliances of the
Gothic
monarch, with the Burgundians, (Var. i. 45, 46,) with the
Franks,
(ii. 40,) with the Thuringians, (iv. 1,) and with the
Vandals,
(v. 1;) each of these epistles affords some curious
knowledge of
the policy and manners of the Barbarians.]
[Footnote 36: His political system may be observed in
Cassiodorus, (Var. iv. l ix. l,) Jornandes, (c. 58, p.
698, 699,)
and the Valesian Fragment, (p. 720, 721.) Peace,
honorable peace,
was the constant aim of Theodoric.]
[Footnote 37: The curious reader may contemplate the
Heruli of
Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 14,) and the patient reader
may
plunge into the dark and minute researches of M. de Buat,
(Hist.
des Peuples Anciens, tom. ix. p. 348 - 396.)
Note: Compare
Manso, Ost Gothische Reich. Beylage, vi.
Malte- Brun brings them from Scandinavia: their names,
the only
remains of their language, are Gothic. "They fought almost
naked, like the Icelandic Berserkirs their bravery was
like
madness: few in number, they were mostly of royal blood.
What
ferocity, what unrestrained license, sullied their
victories!
The Goth respects the church, the priests, the senate;
the Heruli
mangle all in a general massacre: there is no pity for
age, no
refuge for chastity.
Among themselves there is the same
ferocity: the sick and the aged are put to death. at
their own
request, during a solemn festival; the widow ends her
days by
hanging herself upon the tree which shadows her husband's
tomb.
All these circumstances, so striking to a mind familiar
with
Scandinavian history, lead us to discover among the
Heruli not so
much a nation as a confederacy of princes and nobles,
bound by an
oath to live and die together with their arms in their
hands.
Their name, sometimes written Heruli or Eruli. sometimes
Aeruli,
signified, according to an ancient author, (Isid. Hispal.
in
gloss. p. 24, ad calc. Lex. Philolog. Martini, ll,)
nobles, and
appears to correspond better with the Scandinavian word
iarl or
earl, than with any of those numerous derivations
proposed by
etymologists." Malte- Brun, vol. i. p. 400, (edit.
1831.) Of all
the Barbarians who threw themselves on the ruins of the
Roman
empire, it is most difficult to trace the origin of the
Heruli.
They seem never to have been very powerful as a nation,
and
branches of them are found in countries very remote from
each
other. In my opinion
they belong to the Gothic race, and have a
close affinity with the Scyrri or Hirri. They were, possibly, a
division of that nation.
They are often mingled and confounded
with the Alani.
Though brave and formidable. they were never
numerous. nor did they found any state. - St. Martin,
vol. vi. p.
375. - M. Schafarck considers them descendants of the
Hirri. of
which Heruli is a diminutive, - Slawische Alter thinner -
M.
1845.]
[Footnote 38: Variarum, iv. 2. The spirit and forms of this
martial institution are noticed by Cassiodorus; but he
seems to
have only translated the sentiments of the Gothic king
into the
language of Roman eloquence.]
[Footnote 39: Cassiodorus, who quotes Tacitus to the
Aestians,
the unlettered savages of the Baltic, (Var. v. 2,)
describes the
amber for which their shores have ever been famous, as
the gum of
a tree, hardened by the sun, and purified and wafted by
the
waves. When that
singular substance is analyzed by the chemists,
it yields a vegetable oil and a mineral acid.]
[Footnote 40: Scanzia, or Thule, is described by
Jornandes (c. 3,
p. 610 - 613) and Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 15.)
Neither the
Goth nor the Greek had visited the country: both had
conversed
with the natives in their exile at Ravenna or
Constantinople.]
[Footnote 41: Sapherinas pelles. In the time of Jornandes they
inhabited Suethans, the proper Sweden; but that beautiful
race of
animals has gradually been driven into the eastern parts
of
Siberia. See
Buffon, (Hist. Nat. tom. xiii. p. 309 - 313, quarto
edition;) Pennant, (System of Quadrupeds, vol. i. p. 322
- 328;)
Gmelin, (Hist. Gen des. Voyages, tom. xviii. p. 257,
258;) and
Levesque, (Hist. de Russie, tom. v. p. 165, 166, 514,
515.)]
[Footnote 42: In the system or romance of Mr. Bailly,
(Lettres
sur les Sciences et sur l'Atlantide, tom. i. p. 249 -
256, tom.
ii. p. 114 - 139,) the phoenix of the Edda, and the
annual death
and revival of Adonis and Osiris, are the allegorical
symbols of
the absence and return of the sun in the Arctic
regions. This
ingenious writer is a worthy disciple of the great
Buffon; nor is
it easy for the coldest reason to withstand the magic of
their
philosophy.]
[Footnote 43: Says Procopius. At present a rude Manicheism
(generous enough) prevails among the Samoyedes in Greenland
and
in Lapland, (Hist. des Voyages, tom. xviii. p. 508, 509,
tom.
xix. p. 105, 106, 527, 528;) yet, according to Orotius
Samojutae
coelum atque astra adorant, numina haud aliis iniquiora,
(de
Rebus Belgicis, l. iv. p. 338, folio edition) a sentence
which
Tacitus would not have disowned.]
The life of
Theodoric represents the rare and meritorious
example of a Barbarian, who sheathed his sword in the
pride of
victory and the vigor of his age. A reign of three and thirty
years was consecrated to the duties of civil government,
and the
hostilities, in which he was sometimes involved, were
speedily
terminated by the conduct of his lieutenants, the
discipline of
his troops, the arms of his allies, and even by the
terror of his
name. He reduced,
under a strong and regular government, the
unprofitable countries of Rhaetia, Noricum, Dalmatia, and
Pannonia, from the source of the Danube and the territory
of the
Bavarians, ^44 to the petty kingdom erected by the
Gepidae on the
ruins of Sirmium.
His prudence could not safely intrust the
bulwark of Italy to such feeble and turbulent neighbors;
and his
justice might claim the lands which they oppressed,
either as a
part of his kingdom, or as the inheritance of his
father. The
greatness of a servant, who was named perfidious because
he was
successful, awakened the jealousy of the emperor
Anastasius; and
a war was kindled on the Dacian frontier, by the
protection which
the Gothic king, in the vicissitude of human affairs, had
granted
to one of the descendants of Attila. Sabinian, a general
illustrious by his own and father's merit, advanced at
the head
of ten thousand Romans; and the provisions and arms,
which filled
a long train of wagons, were distributed to the fiercest
of the
Bulgarian tribes.
But in the fields of Margus, the eastern
powers were defeated by the inferior forces of the Goths
and
Huns; the flower and even the hope of the Roman armies
was
irretrievably destroyed; and such was the temperance with
which
Theodoric had inspired his victorious troops, that, as
their
leader had not given the signal of pillage, the rich
spoils of
the enemy lay untouched at their feet. ^45 Exasperated by
this
disgrace, the Byzantine court despatched two hundred
ships and
eight thousand men to plunder the sea-coast of Calabria
and
Apulia: they assaulted the ancient city of Tarentum,
interrupted
the trade and agriculture of a happy country, and sailed
back to
the Hellespont, proud of their piratical victory over a
people
whom they still presumed to consider as their Roman brethren.
^46
Their retreat was possibly hastened by the activity of
Theodoric;
Italy was covered by a fleet of a thousand light vessels,
^47
which he constructed with incredible despatch; and his
firm
moderation was soon rewarded by a solid and honorable peace. He
maintained, with a powerful hand, the balance of the
West, till
it was at length overthrown by the ambition of Clovis;
and
although unable to assist his rash and unfortunate
kinsman, the
king of the Visigoths, he saved the remains of his family
and
people, and checked the Franks in the midst of their
victorious
career. I am not
desirous to prolong or repeat ^48 this
narrative of military events, the least interesting of
the reign
of Theodoric; and shall be content to add, that the
Alemanni were
protected, ^49 that an inroad of the Burgundians was
severely
chastised, and that the conquest of Arles and Marseilles
opened a
free communication with the Visigoths, who revered him as
their
national protector, and as the guardian of his
grandchild, the
infant son of Alaric. Under this respectable character,
the king
of Italy restored the praetorian praefecture of the
Gauls,
reformed some abuses in the civil government of Spain,
and
accepted the annual tribute and apparent submission of
its
military governor, who wisely refused to trust his person
in the
palace of Ravenna. ^50 The Gothic sovereignty was
established
from Sicily to the Danube, from Sirmium or Belgrade to
the
Atlantic Ocean; and the Greeks themselves have
acknowledged that
Theodoric reigned over the fairest portion of the Western
empire.
^51
[Footnote 44: See the Hist. des Peuples Anciens, &c.,
tom. ix. p.
255 - 273, 396 - 501.
The count de Buat was French minister at
the court of Bavaria: a liberal curiosity prompted his
inquiries
into the antiquities of the country, and that curiosity
was the
germ of twelve respectable volumes.]
[Footnote 45: See the Gothic transactions on the Danube
and the
Illyricum, in Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 699;) Ennodius, (p.
1607 -
1610;) Marcellmus (in Chron. p. 44, 47, 48;) and
Cassiodorus, in
(in Chron and Var. iii. 29 50, iv. 13, vii. 4 24, viii.
9, 10,
11, 21, ix. 8, 9.)]
[Footnote 46: I cannot forbear transcribing the liberal
and
classic style of Count Marcellinus: Romanus comes
domesticorum,
et Rusticus comes scholariorum cum centum armatis
navibus,
totidemque dromonibus, octo millia militum armatorum
secum
ferentibus, ad devastanda Italiae littora processerunt,
ut usque
ad Tarentum antiquissimam civitatem aggressi sunt;
remensoque
mari in honestam victoriam quam piratico ausu Romani ex
Romanis
rapuerunt, Anastasio Caesari reportarunt, (in Chron. p.
48.) See
Variar. i. 16, ii. 38.]
[Footnote 47: See the royal orders and instructions,
(Var. iv.
15, v. 16 - 20.) These armed boats should be still
smaller than
the thousand vessels of Agamemnon at the siege of
Troy. (Manso,
p. 121.)]
[Footnote 48: Vol. iii. p. 581 - 585.]
[Footnote 49: Ennodius (p. 1610) and Cassiodorus, in the
royal
name, (Var. ii 41,) record his salutary protection of the
Alemanni.]
[Footnote 50: The Gothic transactions in Gaul and Spain
are
represented with some perplexity in Cassiodorus, (Var.
iii. 32,
38, 41, 43, 44, v. 39.) Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 698, 699,)
and
Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 12.) I will neither hear nor
reconcile
the long and contradictory arguments of the Abbe Dubos
and the
Count de Buat, about the wars of Burgundy.]
[Footnote 51: Theophanes, p. 113.]
The union of
the Goths and Romans might have fixed for ages
the transient happiness of Italy; and the first of
nations, a new
people of free subjects and enlightened soldiers, might
have
gradually arisen from the mutual emulation of their
respective
virtues. But the
sublime merit of guiding or seconding such a
revolution was not reserved for the reign of Theodoric:
he wanted
either the genius or the opportunities of a legislator;
^52 and
while he indulged the Goths in the enjoyment of rude
liberty, he
servilely copied the institutions, and even the abuses,
of the
political system which had been framed by Constantine and
his
successors. From a
tender regard to the expiring prejudices of
Rome, the Barbarian declined the name, the purple, and
the
diadem, of the emperors; but he assumed, under the
hereditary
title of king, the whole substance and plenitude of
Imperial
prerogative. ^53 His addresses to the eastern throne were
respectful and ambiguous: he celebrated, in pompous
style, the
harmony of the two republics, applauded his own
government as the
perfect similitude of a sole and undivided empire, and
claimed
above the kings of the earth the same preeminence which
he
modestly allowed to the person or rank of Anastasius. The
alliance of the East and West was annually declared by
the
unanimous choice of two consuls; but it should seem that
the
Italian candidate who was named by Theodoric accepted a
formal
confirmation from the sovereign of Constantinople. ^54
The Gothic
palace of Ravenna reflected the image of the court of
Theodosius
or Valentinian.
The Praetorian praefect, the praefect of Rome,
the quaestor, the master of the offices, with the public
and
patrimonial treasurers, ^* whose functions are painted in
gaudy
colors by the rhetoric of Cassiodorus, still continued to
act as
the ministers of state. And the subordinate care of
justice and
the revenue was delegated to seven consulars, three
correctors,
and five presidents, who governed the fifteen regions of
Italy
according to the principles, and even the forms, of Roman
jurisprudence. ^55 The violence of the conquerors was
abated or
eluded by the slow artifice of judicial proceedings; the
civil
administration, with its honors and emoluments, was
confined to
the Italians; and the people still preserved their dress
and
language, their laws and customs, their personal freedom,
and two
thirds of their landed property. ^! It had been the
object of
Augustus to conceal the introduction of monarchy; it was
the
policy of Theodoric to disguise the reign of a Barbarian.
^56 If
his subjects were sometimes awakened from this pleasing
vision of
a Roman government, they derived more substantial comfort
from
the character of a Gothic prince, who had penetration to
discern,
and firmness to pursue, his own and the public interest.
Theodoric loved the virtues which he possessed, and the
talents
of which he was destitute. Liberius was promoted to the office
of Praetorian praefect for his unshaken fidelity to the
unfortunate cause of Odoacer. The ministers of Theodoric,
Cassiodorus, ^57 and Boethius, have reflected on his
reign the
lustre of their genius and learning. More prudent or more
fortunate than his colleague, Cassiodorus preserved his
own
esteem without forfeiting the royal favor; and after
passing
thirty years in the honors of the world, he was blessed
with an
equal term of repose in the devout and studious solitude
of
Squillace. ^*
[Footnote 52: Procopius affirms that no laws whatsoever
were
promulgated by Theodoric and the succeeding kings of
Italy,
(Goth. l. ii. c. 6.) He must mean in the Gothic
language. A
Latin edict of Theodoric is still extant, in one hundred
and
fifty-four articles.
Note: See
Manso, 92. Savigny, vol. ii. p. 164, et seq. - M.]
[Footnote 53: The image of Theodoric is engraved on his
coins:
his modest successors were satisfied with adding their
own name
to the head of the reigning emperor, (Muratori,
Antiquitat.
Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. ii. dissert. xxvii. p. 577 -
579.
Giannone, Istoria Civile di Napoli tom. i. p. 166.)]
[Footnote 54: The alliance of the emperor and the king of
Italy
are represented by Cassiodorus (Var. i. l, ii. 1, 2, 3,
vi. l)
and Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 6, l. iii. c. 21,) who
celebrate
the friendship of Anastasius and Theodoric; but the
figurative
style of compliment was interpreted in a very different
sense at
Constantinople and Ravenna.]
[Footnote *: All causes between Roman and Roman were
judged by
the old Roman courts.
The comes Gothorum judged between Goth and
Goth; between Goths and Romans, (without considering
which was
the plaintiff.) the comes Gothorum, with a Roman jurist
as his
assessor, making a kind of mixed jurisdiction, but with a
natural
predominance to the side of the Goth Savigny, vol. i. p.
290. -
M.]
[Footnote 55: To the xvii. provinces of the Notitia, Paul
Warnefrid the deacon (De Reb. Longobard. l. ii. c. 14 -
22) has
subjoined an xviiith, the Apennine, (Muratori, Script.
Rerum
Italicarum, tom. i. p. 431 - 443.) But of these Sardinia
and
Corsica were possessed by the Vandals, and the two
Rhaetias, as
well as the Cottian Alps, seem to have been abandoned to
a
military government.
The state of the four provinces that now
form the kingdom of Naples is labored by Giannone (tom.
i. p.
172, 178) with patriotic diligence.]
[Footnote !: Manso enumerates and develops at some length
the
following sources of the royal revenue of Theodoric: 1. A
domain,
either by succession to that of Odoacer, or a part of the
third
of the lands was reserved for the royal patrimony. 1. Regalia,
including mines, unclaimed estates, treasure-trove, and
confiscations. 3.
Land tax. 4. Aurarium, like the
Chrysargyrum,
a tax on certain branches of trade. 5. Grant of Monopolies. 6.
Siliquaticum, a small tax on the sale of all kinds of
commodities. 7.
Portoria, customs Manso, 96, 111.
Savigny (i.
285) supposes that in many cases the property remained in
the
original owner, who paid his tertia, a third of the
produce to
the crown, vol. i. p. 285. - M.]
[Footnote 56: See the Gothic history of Procopius, (l. i.
c. 1,
l. ii. c. 6,) the Epistles of Cassiodorus, (passim, but
especially the vth and vith books, which contain the
formulae, or
patents of offices,) and the Civil History of Giannone,
(tom. i.
l. ii. iii.) The Gothic counts, which he places in every
Italian
city, are annihilated, however, by Maffei, (Verona
Illustrata, P.
i. l. viii. p. 227; for those of Syracuse and Naples (Var
vi. 22,
23) were special and temporary commissions.]
[Footnote 57: Two Italians of the name of Cassiodorus,
the father
(Var. i. 24, 40) and the son, (ix. 24, 25,) were
successively
employed in the administration of Theodoric. The son was born in
the year 479: his various epistles as quaestor, master of
the
offices, and Praetorian praefect, extend from 509 to 539,
and he
lived as a monk about thirty years, (Tiraboschi Storia
della
Letteratura Italiana, tom. iii. p. 7 - 24. Fabricius, Bibliot.
Lat. Med. Aevi, tom. i. p. 357, 358, edit. Mansi.)]
[Footnote *: Cassiodorus was of an ancient and honorable
family;
his grandfather had distinguished himself in the defence
of
Sicily against the ravages of Genseric; his father held a
high
rank at the court of Valentinian III., enjoyed the
friendship of
Aetius, and was one of the ambassadors sent to arrest the
progress of Attila.
Cassiodorus himself was first the treasurer
of the private expenditure to Odoacer, afterwards
"count of the
sacred largesses." Yielding with the rest of the
Romans to the
dominion of Theodoric, he was instrumental in the
peaceable
submission of Sicily; was successively governor of his
native
provinces of Bruttium and Lucania, quaestor, magister,
palatii,
Praetorian praefect, patrician, consul, and private secretary,
and, in fact, first minister of the king. He was five times
Praetorian praefect under different sovereigns, the last
time in
the reign of Vitiges.
This is the theory of Manso, which is not
unencumbered with difficulties. M. Buat had supposed that it was
the father of Cassiodorus who held the office first
named.
Compare Manso, p. 85, &c., and Beylage, vii. It certainly
appears improbable that Cassiodorus should have been
count of the
sacred largesses at twenty years old. - M.]
As the patron
of the republic, it was the interest and duty
of the Gothic king to cultivate the affections of the
senate ^58
and people. The
nobles of Rome were flattered by sonorous
epithets and formal professions of respect, which had
been more
justly applied to the merit and authority of their
ancestors.
The people enjoyed, without fear or danger, the three
blessings
of a capital, order, plenty, and public amusements. A visible
diminution of their numbers may be found even in the
measure of
liberality; ^59 yet Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, poured
their
tribute of corn into the granaries of Rome an allowance
of bread
and meat was distributed to the indigent citizens; and
every
office was deemed honorable which was consecrated to the
care of
their health and happiness. The public games, such as the Greek
ambassador might politely applaud, exhibited a faint and
feeble
copy of the magnificence of the Caesars: yet the musical,
the
gymnastic, and the pantomime arts, had not totally sunk
in
oblivion; the wild beasts of Africa still exercised in
the
amphitheatre the courage and dexterity of the hunters;
and the
indulgent Goth either patiently tolerated or gently
restrained
the blue and green factions, whose contests so often
filled the
circus with clamor and even with blood. ^60 In the
seventh year
of his peaceful reign, Theodoric visited the old capital
of the
world; the senate and people advanced in solemn
procession to
salute a second Trajan, a new Valentinian; and he nobly
supported
that character by the assurance of a just and legal
government,
^61 in a discourse which he was not afraid to pronounce
in
public, and to inscribe on a tablet of brass. Rome, in this
august ceremony, shot a last ray of declining glory; and
a saint,
the spectator of this pompous scene, could only hope, in
his
pious fancy, that it was excelled by the celestial
splendor of
the new Jerusalem. ^62 During a residence of six months,
the
fame, the person, and the courteous demeanor of the
Gothic king,
excited the admiration of the Romans, and he contemplated,
with
equal curiosity and surprise, the monuments that remained
of
their ancient greatness.
He imprinted the footsteps of a
conqueror on the Capitoline hill, and frankly confessed
that each
day he viewed with fresh wonder the forum of Trajan and his
lofty
column. The
theatre of Pompey appeared, even in its decay, as a
huge mountain artificially hollowed, and polished, and
adorned by
human industry; and he vaguely computed, that a river of
gold
must have been drained to erect the colossal amphitheatre
of
Titus. ^63 From the mouths of fourteen aqueducts, a pure
and
copious stream was diffused into every part of the city;
among
these the Claudian water, which arose at the distance of
thirty-eight miles in the Sabine mountains, was conveyed
along a
gentle though constant declivity of solid arches, till it
descended on the summit of the Aventine hill. The long and
spacious vaults which had been constructed for the
purpose of
common sewers, subsisted, after twelve centuries, in
their
pristine strength; and these subterraneous channels have
been
preferred to all the visible wonders of Rome. ^64 The
Gothic
kings, so injuriously accused of the ruin of antiquity,
were
anxious to preserve the monuments of the nation whom they
had
subdued. ^65 The royal edicts were framed to prevent the
abuses,
the neglect, or the depredations of the citizens
themselves; and
a professed architect, the annual sum of two hundred
pounds of
gold, twenty-five thousand tiles, and the receipt of
customs from
the Lucrine port, were assigned for the ordinary repairs
of the
walls and public edifices. A similar care was extended to
the
statues of metal or marble of men or animals. The spirit of the
horses, which have given a modern name to the Quirinal,
was
applauded by the Barbarians; ^66 the brazen elephants of
the Via
sacra were diligently restored; ^67 the famous heifer of
Myron
deceived the cattle, as they were driven through the
forum of
peace; ^68 and an officer was created to protect those
works of
rat, which Theodoric considered as the noblest ornament
of his
kingdom.
[Footnote 58: See his regard for the senate in Cochlaeus,
(Vit.
Theod. viii. p. 72 - 80.)]
[Footnote 59: No more than 120,000 modii, or four
thousand
quarters, (Anonym. Valesian. p. 721, and Var. i. 35, vi.
18, xi.
5, 39.)]
[Footnote 60: See his regard and indulgence for the
spectacles of
the circus, the amphitheatre, and the theatre, in the
Chronicle
and Epistles of Cassiodorus, (Var. i. 20, 27, 30, 31, 32,
iii.
51, iv. 51, illustrated by the xivth Annotation of Mascou's
History), who has contrived to sprinkle the subject with
ostentatious, though agreeable, learning.]
[Footnote 61: Anonym.
Vales. p. 721. Marius
Aventicensis in
Chron. In the
scale of public and personal merit, the Gothic
conqueror is at least as much above Valentinian, as he
may seem
inferior to Trajan.]
[Footnote 62: Vit. Fulgentii in Baron. Annal. Eccles.
A.D. 500,
No. 10.]
[Footnote 63: Cassiodorus describes in his pompous style
the
Forum of Trajan (Var. vii. 6,) the theatre of Marcellus,
(iv.
51,) and the amphitheatre of Titus, (v. 42;) and his
descriptions
are not unworthy of the reader's perusal. According to
the modern
prices, the Abbe Barthelemy computes that the brick work
and
masonry of the Coliseum would now cost twenty millions of
French
livres, (Mem. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom.
xxviii. p.
585, 586.) How small a part of that stupendous fabric!]
[Footnote 64: For the aqueducts and cloacae, see Strabo,
(l. v.
p. 360;) Pliny, (Hist. Natur. xxxvi. 24; Cassiodorus,
(Var. iii.
30, 31, vi. 6;) Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 19;) and
Nardini,
(Roma Antica, p. 514 - 522.) How such works could be
executed by
a king of Rome, is yet a problem.
Note: See
Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 402. These
stupendous works
are among the most striking confirmations of Niebuhr's
views of
the early Roman history; at least they appear to justify
his
strong sentence - "These works and the building of
the Capitol
attest with unquestionable evidence that this Rome of the
later
kings was the chief city of a great state." - Page
110 - M.]
[Footnote 65: For the Gothic care of the buildings and
statues,
see Cassiodorus (Var. i. 21, 25, ii. 34, iv. 30, vii. 6,
13, 15)
and the Valesian Fragment, (p. 721.)]
[Footnote 66: Var. vii. 15. These horses of Monte Cavallo had
been transported from Alexandria to the baths of
Constantine,
(Nardini, p. 188.) Their sculpture is disdained by the
Abbe
Dubos, (Reflexions sur la Poesie et sur la Peinture, tom.
i.
section 39,) and admired by Winkelman, (Hist. de l'Art,
tom. ii.
p. 159.)]
[Footnote 67: Var. x. 10.
They were probably a fragment of some
triumphal car, (Cuper de Elephantis, ii. 10.)]
[Footnote 68: Procopius (Goth. l. iv. c. 21) relates a
foolish
story of Myron's cow, which is celebrated by the false
with of
thirty-six Greek epigrams, Antholog. l. iv. p. 302 - 306,
edit.
Hen. Steph.; Auson.
Epigram. xiii. - lxviii.)]
Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.
Part III.
After the
example of the last emperors, Theodoric preferred
the residence of Ravenna, where he cultivated an orchard
with his
own hands. ^69 As often as the peace of his kingdom was
threatened (for it was never invaded) by the Barbarians,
he
removed his court to Verona ^70 on the northern frontier,
and the
image of his palace, still extant on a coin, represents
the
oldest and most authentic model of Gothic
architecture. These
two capitals, as well as Pavia, Spoleto, Naples, and the
rest of
the Italian cities, acquired under his reign the useful
or
splendid decorations of churches, aqueducts, baths,
porticos, and
palaces. ^71 But the happiness of the subject was more
truly
conspicuous in the busy scene of labor and luxury, in the
rapid
increase and bold enjoyment of national wealth. From the shades
of Tibur and Praeneste, the Roman senators still retired
in the
winter season to the warm sun, and salubrious springs of
Baiae;
and their villas, which advanced on solid moles into the
Bay of
Naples, commanded the various prospect of the sky, the
earth, and
the water. On the
eastern side of the Adriatic, a new Campania
was formed in the fair and fruitful province of Istria,
which
communicated with the palace of Ravenna by an easy
navigation of
one hundred miles.
The rich productions of Lucania and the
adjacent provinces were exchanged at the Marcilian
fountain, in a
populous fair annually dedicated to trade, intemperance,
and
superstition. In
the solitude of Comum, which had once been
animated by the mild genius of Pliny, a transparent basin
above
sixty miles in length still reflected the rural seats
which
encompassed the margin of the Larian lake; and the
gradual ascent
of the hills was covered by a triple plantation of
olives, of
vines, and of chestnut trees. ^72 Agriculture revived
under the
shadow of peace, and the number of husbandmen was
multiplied by
the redemption of captives. ^73 The iron mines of
Dalmatia, a
gold mine in Bruttium, were carefully explored, and the
Pomptine
marshes, as well as those of Spoleto, were drained and
cultivated
by private undertakers, whose distant reward must depend
on the
continuance of the public prosperity. ^74 Whenever the
seasons
were less propitious, the doubtful precautions of forming
magazines of corn, fixing the price, and prohibiting the
exportation, attested at least the benevolence of the
state; but
such was the extraordinary plenty which an industrious
people
produced from a grateful soil, that a gallon of wine was
sometimes sold in Italy for less than three farthings,
and a
quarter of wheat at about five shillings and sixpence.
^75 A
country possessed of so many valuable objects of exchange
soon
attracted the merchants of the world, whose beneficial
traffic
was encouraged and protected by the liberal spirit of
Theodoric.
The free intercourse of the provinces by land and water
was
restored and extended; the city gates were never shut
either by
day or by night; and the common saying, that a purse of
gold
might be safely left in the fields, was expressive of the
conscious security of the inhabitants.
[Footnote 69: See an epigram of Ennodius (ii. 3, p. 1893,
1894)
on this garden and the royal gardener.]
[Footnote 70: His affection for that city is proved by
the
epithet of "Verona tua,' and the legend of the hero;
under the
barbarous name of Dietrich of Bern, (Peringsciold and
Cochloeum,
p. 240,) Maffei traces him with knowledge and pleasure in
his
native country, (l. ix. p. 230 - 236.)]
[Footnote 71: See Maffei, (Verona Illustrata, Part i. p.
231,
232, 308, &c.) His amputes Gothic architecture, like
the
corruption of language, writing &c., not to the
Barbarians, but
to the Italians themselves. Compare his sentiments with those of
Tiraboschi, (tom. iii. p. 61.)
Note: Mr.
Hallam (vol. iii. p. 432) observes that "the image
of Theodoric's palace" is represented in Maffei, not
from a coin,
but from a seal.
Compare D'Agincourt (Storia dell'arte, Italian
Transl., Arcitecttura, Plate xvii. No. 2, and Pittura, Plate
xvi. No. 15,) where there is likewise an engraving from a
mosaic
in the church of St. Apollinaris in Ravenna, representing
a
building ascribed to Theodoric in that city. Neither of these,
as Mr. Hallam justly observes, in the least approximates
to what
is called the Gothic style. They are evidently the degenerate
Roman architecture, and more resemble the early attempts
of our
architects to get back from our national Gothic into a
classical
Greek style. One
of them calls to mind Inigo Jones inner
quadrangle in St. John's College Oxford. Compare Hallam
and
D'Agincon vol. i. p. 140 - 145. - M]
[Footnote 72: The villas, climate, and landscape of
Baiae, (Var.
ix. 6; see Cluver Italia Antiq. l. iv. c. 2, p. 1119,
&c.,)
Istria, (Var. xii. 22, 26,) and Comum, (Var. xi. 14;
compare with
Pliny's two villas, ix. 7,) are agreeably painted in the
Epistles
of Cassiodorus.]
[Footnote 73: In Liguria numerosa agricolarum progenies,
(Ennodius, p. 1678, 1679, 1680.) St. Epiphanius of Pavia
redeemed
by prayer or ransom 6000 captives from the Burgundians of
Lyons
and Savoy. Such
deeds are the best of miracles.]
[Footnote 74: The political economy of Theodoric (see
Anonym.
Vales. p. 721, and Cassiodorus, in Chron.) may be
distinctly
traced under the following heads: iron mine, (Var. iii.
23;) gold
mine, (ix. 3;) Pomptine marshes, (ii. 32, 33;) Spoleto,
(ii. 21;)
corn, (i. 34, x. 27, 28, xi. 11, 12;) trade, (vi. 7, vii.
9, 23;)
fair of Leucothoe or St. Cyprian in Lucania, (viii. 33;)
plenty,
(xii. 4;) the cursus, or public post, (i. 29, ii. 31, iv.
47, v.
5, vi 6, vii. 33;) the Flaminian way, (xii. 18.)
Note: The
inscription commemorative of the draining of the
Pomptine marshes may be found in many works; in Gruter,
Inscript.
Ant. Heidelberg, p. 152, No. 8. With variations, in Nicolai De'
bonificamenti delle terre Pontine, p. 103. In Sartorius, in his
prize essay on the reign of Theodoric, and Manse Beylage,
xi. -
M.]
[Footnote 75: LX modii tritici in solidum ipsius tempore
fuerunt,
et vinum xxx amphoras in solidum, (Fragment. Vales.) Corn was
distributed from the granaries at xv or xxv modii for a
piece of
gold, and the price was still moderate.]
A difference
of religion is always pernicious, and often
fatal, to the harmony of the prince and people: the
Gothic
conqueror had been educated in the profession of
Arianism, and
Italy was devoutly attached to the Nicene faith. But the
persuasion of Theodoric was not infected by zeal; and he
piously
adhered to the heresy of his fathers, without
condescending to
balance the subtile arguments of theological metaphysics.
Satisfied with the private toleration of his Arian
sectaries, he
justly conceived himself to be the guardian of the public
worship, and his external reverence for a superstition
which he
despised, may have nourished in his mind the salutary
indifference of a statesman or philosopher. The Catholics of his
dominions acknowledged, perhaps with reluctance, the peace
of the
church; their clergy, according to the degrees of rank or
merit,
were honorably entertained in the palace of Theodoric; he
esteemed the living sanctity of Caesarius ^76 and
Epiphanius, ^77
the orthodox bishops of Arles and Pavia; and presented a
decent
offering on the tomb of St. Peter, without any scrupulous
inquiry
into the creed of the apostle. ^78 His favorite Goths,
and even
his mother, were permitted to retain or embrace the
Athanasian
faith, and his long reign could not afford the example of
an
Italian Catholic, who, either from choice or compulsion,
had
deviated into the religion of the conqueror. ^79 The
people, and
the Barbarians themselves, were edified by the pomp and
order of
religious worship; the magistrates were instructed to
defend the
just immunities of ecclesiastical persons and
possessions; the
bishops held their synods, the metropolitans exercised
their
jurisdiction, and the privileges of sanctuary were
maintained or
moderated according to the spirit of the Roman
jurisprudence. ^80
With the protection, Theodoric assumed the legal
supremacy, of
the church; and his firm administration restored or
extended some
useful prerogatives which had been neglected by the
feeble
emperors of the West.
He was not ignorant of the dignity and
importance of the Roman pontiff, to whom the venerable
name of
Pope was now appropriated. The peace or the revolt of Italy
might depend on the character of a wealthy and popular
bishop,
who claimed such ample dominion both in heaven and earth;
who had
been declared in a numerous synod to be pure from all
sin, and
exempt from all judgment. ^81 When the chair of St. Peter
was
disputed by Symmachus and Laurence, they appeared at his
summons
before the tribunal of an Arian monarch, and he confirmed
the
election of the most worthy or the most obsequious
candidate. At
the end of his life, in a moment of jealousy and
resentment, he
prevented the choice of the Romans, by nominating a pope
in the
palace of Ravenna.
The danger and furious contests of a schism
were mildly restrained, and the last decree of the senate
was
enacted to extinguish, if it were possible, the
scandalous
venality of the papal elections. ^82
[Footnote 76: See the life of St. Caesarius in Baronius,
(A.D.
508, No. 12, 13, 14.) The king presented him with 300
gold
solidi, and a discus of silver of the weight of sixty
pounds.]
[Footnote 77: Ennodius in Vit. St. Epiphanii, in Sirmond,
Op.
tom. i. p. 1672 - 1690.
Theodoric bestowed some important favors
on this bishop, whom he used as a counsellor in peace and
war.]
[Footnote 78: Devotissimus ac si Catholicus, (Anonym.
Vales. p.
720;) yet his offering was no more than two silver
candlesticks
(cerostrata) of the weight of seventy pounds, far
inferior to the
gold and gems of Constantinople and France, (Anastasius
in Vit.
Pont. in Hormisda, p. 34, edit. Paris.)]
[Footnote 79: The tolerating system of his reign
(Ennodius, p.
1612. Anonym.
Vales. p. 719. Procop. Goth. l. i. c. 1,
l. ii.
c. 6) may be studied in the Epistles of Cassiodorous,
under the
following heads: bishops, (Var. i. 9, vii. 15, 24, xi.
23;)
immunities, (i. 26, ii. 29, 30;) church lands (iv. 17,
20;)
sanctuaries, (ii. 11, iii. 47;) church plate, (xii. 20;)
discipline, (iv. 44;) which prove, at the same time, that
he was
the head of the church as well as of the state.
Note: He
recommended the same toleration to the emperor
Justin. - M.]
[Footnote 80: We may reject a foolish tale of his
beheading a
Catholic deacon who turned Arian, (Theodor. Lector. No.
17.) Why
is Theodoric surnamed After? From Vafer? (Vales. ad loc.) A
light conjecture.]
[Footnote 81: Ennodius, p. 1621, 1622, 1636, 1638. His libel was
approved and registered (synodaliter) by a Roman council,
(Baronius, A.D. 503, No. 6, Franciscus Pagi in Breviar.
Pont.
Rom. tom. i. p. 242.)]
[Footnote 82: See Cassiodorus, (Var. viii. 15, ix. 15,
16,)
Anastasius, (in Symmacho, p. 31,) and the xviith
Annotation of
Mascou. Baronius,
Pagi, and most of the Catholic doctors,
confess, with an angry growl, this Gothic usurpation.]
I have
descanted with pleasure on the fortunate condition of
Italy; but our fancy must not hastily conceive that the
golden
age of the poets, a race of men without vice or misery,
was
realized under the Gothic conquest. The fair prospect was
sometimes overcast with clouds; the wisdom of Theodoric
might be
deceived, his power might be resisted and the declining
age of
the monarch was sullied with popular hatred and patrician
blood.
In the first insolence of victory, he had been tempted to
deprive
the whole party of Odoacer of the civil and even the
natural
rights of society; ^83 a tax unseasonably imposed after
the
calamities of war, would have crushed the rising
agriculture of
Liguria; a rigid preemption of corn, which was intended
for the
public relief, must have aggravated the distress of
Campania.
These dangerous projects were defeated by the virtue and
eloquence of Epiphanius and Boethius, who, in the
presence of
Theodoric himself, successfully pleaded the cause of the
people:
^84 but if the royal ear was open to the voice of truth,
a saint
and a philosopher are not always to be found at the ear
of kings.
The privileges of rank, or office, or favor, were too
frequently
abused by Italian fraud and Gothic violence, and the
avarice of
the king's nephew was publicly exposed, at first by the
usurpation, and afterwards by the restitution of the
estates
which he had unjustly extorted from his Tuscan
neighbors. Two
hundred thousand Barbarians, formidable even to their
master,
were seated in the heart of Italy; they indignantly
supported the
restraints of peace and discipline; the disorders of
their march
were always felt and sometimes compensated; and where it
was
dangerous to punish, it might be prudent to dissemble,
the
sallies of their native fierceness. When the indulgence of
Theodoric had remitted two thirds of the Ligurian
tribute, he
condescended to explain the difficulties of his
situation, and to
lament the heavy though inevitable burdens which he
imposed on
his subjects for their own defence. ^85 These ungrateful
subjects
could never be cordially reconciled to the origin, the
religion,
or even the virtues of the Gothic conqueror; past
calamities were
forgotten, and the sense or suspicion of injuries was
rendered
still more exquisite by the present felicity of the
times.
[Footnote 83: He disabled them - alicentia testandi; and
all
Italy mourned - lamentabili justitio. I wish to believe, that
these penalties were enacted against the rebels who had
violated
their oath of allegiance; but the testimony of Ennodius
(p. 1675
- 1678) is the more weighty, as he lived and died under
the reign
of Theodoric.]
[Footnote 84: Ennodius, in Vit. Epiphan. p. 1589,
1690. Boethius
de Consolatione Philosphiae, l. i. pros. iv. p. 45, 46,
47.
Respect, but weigh the passions of the saint and the
senator; and
fortify and alleviate their complaints by the various
hints of
Cassiodorus, (ii. 8, iv. 36, viii. 5.)]
[Footnote 85: Immanium expensarum pondus ...pro ipsorum
salute,
&c.; yet these are no more than words.]
Even the
religious toleration which Theodoric had the glory
of introducing into the Christian world, was painful and
offensive to the orthodox zeal of the Italians. They respected
the armed heresy of the Goths; but their pious rage was
safely
pointed against the rich and defenceless Jews, who had
formed
their establishments at Naples, Rome, Ravenna, Milan, and
Genoa,
for the benefit of trade, and under the sanction of the
laws. ^86
Their persons were insulted, their effects were pillaged,
and
their synagogues were burned by the mad populace of
Ravenna and
Rome, inflamed, as it should seem, by the most frivolous
or
extravagant pretences.
The government which could neglect, would
have deserved such an outrage. A legal inquiry was instantly
directed; and as the authors of the tumult had escaped in
the
crowd, the whole community was condemned to repair the
damage;
and the obstinate bigots, who refused their
contributions, were
whipped through the streets by the hand of the
executioner. ^*
This simple act of justice exasperated the discontent of
the
Catholics, who applauded the merit and patience of these
holy
confessors. Three hundred pulpits deplored the
persecution of the
church; and if the chapel of St. Stephen at Verona was
demolished
by the command of Theodoric, it is probable that some
miracle
hostile to his name and dignity had been performed on
that sacred
theatre. At the close of a glorious life, the king of
Italy
discovered that he had excited the hatred of a people
whose
happiness he had so assiduously labored to promote; and
his mind
was soured by indignation, jealousy, and the bitterness
of
unrequited love.
The Gothic conqueror condescended to disarm the
unwarlike natives of Italy, interdicting all weapons of
offence,
and excepting only a small knife for domestic use. The deliverer
of Rome was accused of conspiring with the vilest
informers
against the lives of senators whom he suspected of a
secret and
treasonable correspondence with the Byzantine court. ^87
After
the death of Anastasius, the diadem had been placed on
the head
of a feeble old man; but the powers of government were
assumed by
his nephew Justinian, who already meditated the
extirpation of
heresy, and the conquest of Italy and Africa. A rigorous law,
which was published at Constantinople, to reduce the
Arians by
the dread of punishment within the pale of the church,
awakened
the just resentment of Theodoric, who claimed for his
distressed
brethren of the East the same indulgence which he had so
long
granted to the Catholics of his dominions. ^! At his
stern
command, the Roman pontiff, with four illustrious
senators,
embarked on an embassy, of which he must have alike
dreaded the
failure or the success.
The singular veneration shown to the
first pope who had visited Constantinople was punished as
a crime
by his jealous monarch; the artful or peremptory refusal
of the
Byzantine court might excuse an equal, and would provoke
a
larger, measure of retaliation; and a mandate was
prepared in
Italy, to prohibit, after a stated day, the exercise of
the
Catholic worship.
By the bigotry of his subjects and enemies,
the most tolerant of princes was driven to the brink of
persecution; and the life of Theodoric was too long,
since he
lived to condemn the virtue of Boethius and Symmachus.
^88
[Footnote 86: The Jews were settled at Naples,
(Procopius, Goth.
l. i. c. 8,) at Genoa, (Var. ii. 28, iv. 33,) Milan, (v.
37,)
Rome, (iv. 43.) See likewise Basnage, Hist. des Juifs,
tom. viii.
c. 7, p. 254.]
[Footnote *: See History of the Jews vol. iii. p. 217. -
M.]
[Footnote 87: Rex avidus communis exitii, &c.,
(Boethius, l. i.
p. 59:) rex colum Romanis tendebat, (Anonym. Vales. p.
723.)
These are hard words: they speak the passions of the
Italians and
those (I fear) of Theodoric himself.]
[Footnote !: Gibbon should not have omitted the golden
words of
Theodoric in a letter which he addressed to Justin: That
to
pretend to a dominion over the conscience is to usurp the
prerogative of God; that by the nature of things the
power of
sovereigns is confined to external government; that they
have no
right of punishment but over those who disturb the public
peace,
of which they are the guardians; that the most dangerous
heresy
is that of a sovereign who separates from himself a part
of his
subjects because they believe not according to his
belief.
Compare Le Beau, vol viii. p. 68. - M]
[Footnote 88: I have labored to extract a rational
narrative from
the dark, concise, and various hints of the Valesian
Fragment,
(p. 722, 723, 724,) Theophanes, (p. 145,) Anastasius, (in
Johanne, p. 35,) and the Hist Miscella, (p. 103, edit.
Muratori.)
A gentle pressure and paraphrase of their words is no
violence.
Consult likewise Muratori (Annali d' Italia, tom. iv. p.
471 -
478,) with the Annals and Breviary (tom. i. p. 259 - 263)
of the
two Pagis, the uncle and the nephew.]
The senator
Boethius ^89 is the last of the Romans whom Cato
or Tully could have acknowledged for their
countryman. As a
wealthy orphan, he inherited the patrimony and honors of
the
Anician family, a name ambitiously assumed by the kings
and
emperors of the age; and the appellation of Manlius
asserted his
genuine or fabulous descent from a race of consuls and
dictators,
who had repulsed the Gauls from the Capitol, and
sacrificed their
sons to the discipline of the republic. In the youth of Boethius
the studies of Rome were not totally abandoned; a Virgil
^90 is
now extant, corrected by the hand of a consul; and the
professors
of grammar, rhetoric, and jurisprudence, were maintained
in their
privileges and pensions by the liberality of the Goths.
But the
erudition of the Latin language was insufficient to
satiate his
ardent curiosity: and Boethius is said to have employed
eighteen
laborious years in the schools of Athens, ^91 which were
supported by the zeal, the learning, and the diligence of
Proclus
and his disciples.
The reason and piety of their Roman pupil
were fortunately saved from the contagion of mystery and
magic,
which polluted the groves of the academy; but he imbibed
the
spirit, and imitated the method, of his dead and living
masters,
who attempted to reconcile the strong and subtile sense
of
Aristotle with the devout contemplation and sublime fancy
of
Plato. After his
return to Rome, and his marriage with the
daughter of his friend, the patrician Symmachus, Boethius
still
continued, in a palace of ivory and marble, to prosecute
the same
studies. ^92 The church was edified by his profound
defence of
the orthodox creed against the Arian, the Eutychian, and
the
Nestorian heresies; and the Catholic unity was explained
or
exposed in a formal treatise by the indifference of three
distinct though consubstantial persons. For the benefit of his
Latin readers, his genius submitted to teach the first
elements
of the arts and sciences of Greece. The geometry of Euclid, the
music of Pythagoras, the arithmetic of Nicomachus, the
mechanics
of Archimedes, the astronomy of Ptolemy, the theology of
Plato,
and the logic of Aristotle, with the commentary of
Porphyry, were
translated and illustrated by the indefatigable pen of
the Roman
senator. And he
alone was esteemed capable of describing the
wonders of art, a sun-dial, a water-clock, or a sphere
which
represented the motions of the planets. From these abstruse
speculations, Boethius stooped, or, to speak more truly, he
rose
to the social duties of public and private life: the
indigent
were relieved by his liberality; and his eloquence, which
flattery might compare to the voice of Demosthenes or
Cicero, was
uniformly exerted in the cause of innocence and
humanity. Such
conspicuous merit was felt and rewarded by a discerning
prince:
the dignity of Boethius was adorned with the titles of
consul and
patrician, and his talents were usefully employed in the
important station of master of the offices. Notwithstanding the
equal claims of the East and West, his two sons were
created, in
their tender youth, the consuls of the same year. ^93 On
the
memorable day of their inauguration, they proceeded in
solemn
pomp from their palace to the forum amidst the applause
of the
senate and people; and their joyful father, the true
consul of
Rome, after pronouncing an oration in the praise of his
royal
benefactor, distributed a triumphal largess in the games
of the
circus. Prosperous in his fame and fortunes, in his
public honors
and private alliances, in the cultivation of science and
the
consciousness of virtue, Boethius might have been styled
happy,
if that precarious epithet could be safely applied before
the
last term of the life of man.
[Footnote 89: Le Clerc has composed a critical and
philosophical
life of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boetius, (Bibliot. Choisie,
tom. xvi. p. 168 - 275;) and both Tiraboschi (tom. iii.)
and
Fabricius (Bibliot Latin.) may be usefully
consulted. The date
of his birth may be placed about the year 470, and his
death in
524, in a premature old age, (Consol. Phil. Metrica. i.
p. 5.)]
[Footnote 90: For the age and value of this Ms., now in
the
Medicean library at Florence, see the Cenotaphia Pisana
(p. 430 -
447) of Cardinal Noris.]
[Footnote 91: The Athenian studies of Boethius are
doubtful,
(Baronius, A.D. 510, No. 3, from a spurious tract, De
Disciplina
Scholarum,) and the term of eighteen years is doubtless
too long:
but the simple fact of a visit to Athens is justified by
much
internal evidence, (Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom.
iii. p.
524 - 527,) and by an expression (though vague and
ambiguous) of
his friend Cassiodorus, (Var. i. 45,) "longe positas
Athenas
intrioisti."]
[Footnote 92: Bibliothecae comptos ebore ac vitro ^*
parietes,
&c., (Consol. Phil. l. i. pros. v. p. 74.) The
Epistles of
Ennodius (vi. 6, vii. 13, viii. 1 31, 37, 40) and
Cassiodorus
(Var. i. 39, iv. 6, ix. 21) afford many proofs of the
high
reputation which he enjoyed in his own times. It is true, that
the bishop of Pavia wanted to purchase of him an old
house at
Milan, and praise might be tendered and accepted in part
of
payment.
Note: Gibbon
translated vitro, marble; under the impression,
no doubt that glass was unknown. - M.]
[Footnote 93: Pagi, Muratori, &c., are agreed that
Boethius
himself was consul in the year 510, his two sons in 522,
and in
487, perhaps, his father. A desire of ascribing the last
of these
consulships to the philosopher had perplexed the
chronology of
his life. In his
honors, alliances, children, he celebrates his
own felicity - his past felicity, (p. 109 110)]
A philosopher,
liberal of his wealth and parsimonious of his
time, might be insensible to the common allurements of
ambition,
the thirst of gold and employment. And some credit may be due to
the asseveration of Boethius, that he had reluctantly
obeyed the
divine Plato, who enjoins every virtuous citizen to
rescue the
state from the usurpation of vice and ignorance. For the
integrity of his public conduct he appeals to the memory
of his
country. His authority had restrained the pride and
oppression of
the royal officers, and his eloquence had delivered
Paulianus
from the dogs of the palace. He had always pitied, and often
relieved, the distress of the provincials, whose fortunes
were
exhausted by public and private rapine; and Boethius
alone had
courage to oppose the tyranny of the Barbarians, elated
by
conquest, excited by avarice, and, as he complains,
encouraged by
impunity. In these
honorable contests his spirit soared above
the consideration of danger, and perhaps of prudence; and
we may
learn from the example of Cato, that a character of pure
and
inflexible virtue is the most apt to be misled by
prejudice, to
be heated by enthusiasm, and to confound private enmities
with
public justice.
The disciple of Plato might exaggerate the
infirmities of nature, and the imperfections of society;
and the
mildest form of a Gothic kingdom, even the weight of
allegiance
and gratitude, must be insupportable to the free spirit
of a
Roman patriot. But
the favor and fidelity of Boethius declined
in just proportion with the public happiness; and an
unworthy
colleague was imposed to divide and control the power of
the
master of the offices.
In the last gloomy season of Theodoric,
he indignantly felt that he was a slave; but as his
master had
only power over his life, he stood without arms and
without fear
against the face of an angry Barbarian, who had been
provoked to
believe that the safety of the senate was incompatible
with his
own. The senator Albinus
was accused and already convicted on
the presumption of hoping, as it was said, the liberty of
Rome.
"If Albinus be criminal," exclaimed the orator,
"the senate and
myself are all guilty of the same crime. If we are innocent,
Albinus is equally entitled to the protection of the
laws." These
laws might not have punished the simple and barren wish
of an
unattainable blessing; but they would have shown less
indulgence
to the rash confession of Boethius, that, had he known of
a
conspiracy, the tyrant never should. ^94 The advocate of
Albinus
was soon involved in the danger and perhaps the guilt of
his
client; their signature (which they denied as a forgery)
was
affixed to the original address, inviting the emperor to
deliver
Italy from the Goths; and three witnesses of honorable
rank,
perhaps of infamous reputation, attested the treasonable
designs
of the Roman patrician. ^95 Yet his innocence must be
presumed,
since he was deprived by Theodoric of the means of
justification,
and rigorously confined in the tower of Pavia, while the
senate,
at the distance of five hundred miles, pronounced a
sentence of
confiscation and death against the most illustrious of
its
members. At the
command of the Barbarians, the occult science of
a philosopher was stigmatized with the names of sacrilege
and
magic. ^96 A devout and dutiful attachment to the senate
was
condemned as criminal by the trembling voices of the
senators
themselves; and their ingratitude deserved the wish or
prediction
of Boethius, that, after him, none should be found guilty
of the
same offence. ^97
[Footnote 94: Si ego scissem tu nescisses. Beothius adopts this
answer (l. i. pros. 4, p. 53) of Julius Canus, whose
philosophic
death is described by Seneca, (De Tranquillitate Animi,
c. 14.)]
[Footnote 95: The characters of his two delators,
Basilius (Var.
ii. 10, 11, iv. 22) and Opilio, (v. 41, viii. 16,) are
illustrated, not much to their honor, in the Epistles of
Cassiodorus, which likewise mention Decoratus, (v. 31,)
the
worthless colleague of Beothius, (l. iii. pros. 4, p.
193.)]
[Footnote 96: A severe inquiry was instituted into the
crime of
magic, (Var. iv 22, 23, ix. 18;) and it was believed that
many
necromancers had escaped by making their jailers mad: for
mad I
should read drunk.]
[Footnote 97: Boethius had composed his own Apology, (p.
53,)
perhaps more interesting than his Consolation. We must be
content with the general view of his honors, principles,
persecution, &c., (l. i. pros. 4, p. 42 - 62,) which
may be
compared with the short and weighty words of the Valesian
Fragment, (p. 723.) An anonymous writer (Sinner, Catalog.
Mss.
Bibliot. Bern. tom. i. p. 287) charges him home with
honorable
and patriotic treason.]
While
Boethius, oppressed with fetters, expected each moment
the sentence or the stroke of death, he composed, in the
tower of
Pavia, the Consolation of Philosophy; a golden volume not
unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but which
claims
incomparable merit from the barbarism of the times and
the
situation of the author.
The celestial guide, whom he had so
long invoked at Rome and Athens, now condescended to
illumine his
dungeon, to revive his courage, and to pour into his
wounds her
salutary balm. She
taught him to compare his long prosperity and
his recent distress, and to conceive new hopes from the
inconstancy of fortune.
Reason had informed him of the
precarious condition of her gifts; experience had
satisfied him
of their real value; he had enjoyed them without guilt;
he might
resign them without a sigh, and calmly disdain the
impotent
malice of his enemies, who had left him happiness, since
they had
left him virtue.
From the earth, Boethius ascended to heaven in
search of the Supreme Good; explored the metaphysical
labyrinth
of chance and destiny, of prescience and free will, of
time and
eternity; and generously attempted to reconcile the
perfect
attributes of the Deity with the apparent disorders of
his moral
and physical government.
Such topics of consolation so obvious,
so vague, or so abstruse, are ineffectual to subdue the
feelings
of human nature.
Yet the sense of misfortune may be diverted by
the labor of thought; and the sage who could artfully
combine in
the same work the various riches of philosophy, poetry,
and
eloquence, must already have possessed the intrepid
calmness
which he affected to seek. Suspense, the worst of evils, was at
length determined by the ministers of death, who
executed, and
perhaps exceeded, the inhuman mandate of Theodoric. A strong
cord was fastened round the head of Boethius, and
forcibly
tightened, till his eyes almost started from their
sockets; and
some mercy may be discovered in the milder torture of
beating him
with clubs till he expired. ^98 But his genius survived
to
diffuse a ray of knowledge over the darkest ages of the
Latin
world; the writings of the philosopher were translated by
the
most glorious of the English kings, ^99 and the third
emperor of
the name of Otho removed to a more honorable tomb the
bones of a
Catholic saint, who, from his Arian persecutors, had acquired
the
honors of martyrdom, and the fame of miracles. ^100 In
the last
hours of Boethius, he derived some comfort from the
safety of his
two sons, of his wife, and of his father-in-law, the
venerable
Symmachus. But the
grief of Symmachus was indiscreet, and
perhaps disrespectful: he had presumed to lament, he
might dare
to revenge, the death of an injured friend. He was dragged in
chains from Rome to the palace of Ravenna; and the
suspicions of
Theodoric could only be appeased by the blood of an innocent
and
aged senator. ^101
[Footnote 98: He was executed in Agro Calventiano,
(Calvenzano,
between Marignano and Pavia,) Anonym. Vales. p. 723, by order of
Eusebius, count of Ticinum or Pavia. This place of confinement
is styled the baptistery, an edifice and name peculiar to
cathedrals. It is
claimed by the perpetual tradition of the
church of Pavia.
The tower of Boethius subsisted till the year
1584, and the draught is yet preserved, (Tiraboschi, tom.
iii. p.
47, 48.)]
[Footnote 99: See the Biographia Britannica, Alfred, tom.
i. p.
80, 2d edition.
The work is still more honorable if performed
under the learned eye of Alfred by his foreign and
domestic
doctors. For the
reputation of Boethius in the middle ages,
consult Brucker, (Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. iii. p.
565, 566.)]
[Footnote 100: The inscription on his new tomb was
composed by
the preceptor of Otho III., the learned Pope Silvester
II., who,
like Boethius himself, was styled a magician by the
ignorance of
the times. The Catholic martyr had carried his head in
his hands
a considerable way, Baronius, A.D. 526, No. 17, 18;) and
yet on a
similar tale, a lady of my acquaintance once observed,
"La
distance n'y fait rien; il n'y a que lo remier pas qui
coute."
Note: Madame
du Deffand. This witticism referred to
the
miracle of St. Denis. - G.]
[Footnote 101: Boethius applauds the virtues of his
father-in-law, (l. i. pros. 4, p. 59, l. ii. pros. 4, p.
118.)
Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. i.,) the Valesian Fragment,
(p. 724,)
and the Historia Miscella, (l. xv. p. 105,) agree in
praising the
superior innocence or sanctity of Symmachus; and in the
estimation of the legend, the guilt of his murder is
equal to the
imprisonment of a pope.]
Humanity will
be disposed to encourage any report which
testifies the jurisdiction of conscience and the remorse
of
kings; and philosophy is not ignorant that the most
horrid
spectres are sometimes created by the powers of a
disordered
fancy, and the weakness of a distempered body. After a life of
virtue and glory, Theodoric was now descending with shame
and
guilt into the grave; his mind was humbled by the
contrast of the
past, and justly alarmed by the invisible terrors of
futurity.
One evening, as it is related, when the head of a large
fish was
served on the royal table, ^102 he suddenly exclaimed,
that he
beheld the angry countenance of Symmachus, his eyes
glaring fury
and revenge, and his mouth armed with long sharp teeth,
which
threatened to devour him.
The monarch instantly retired to his
chamber, and, as he lay, trembling with aguish cold,
under a
weight of bed-clothes, he expressed, in broken murmurs to
his
physician Elpidius, his deep repentance for the murders
of
Boethius and Symmachus. ^103 His malady increased, and
after a
dysentery which continued three days, he expired in the
palace of
Ravenna, in the thirty-third, or, if we compute from the
invasion
of Italy, in the thirty-seventh year of his reign. Conscious of
his approaching end, he divided his treasures and
provinces
between his two grandsons, and fixed the Rhone as their
common
boundary. ^104 Amalaric was restored to the throne of
Spain.
Italy, with all the conquests of the Ostrogoths, was
bequeathed
to Athalaric; whose age did not exceed ten years, but who
was
cherished as the last male offspring of the line of
Amali, by the
short-lived marriage of his mother Amalasuntha with a
royal
fugitive of the same blood. ^105 In the presence of the
dying
monarch, the Gothic chiefs and Italian magistrates
mutually
engaged their faith and loyalty to the young prince, and
to his
guardian mother; and received, in the same awful moment,
his last
salutary advice, to maintain the laws, to love the senate
and
people of Rome, and to cultivate with decent reverence
the
friendship of the emperor. ^106 The monument of Theodoric
was
erected by his daughter Amalasuntha, in a conspicuous
situation,
which commanded the city of Ravenna, the harbor, and the
adjacent
coast. A chapel of
a circular form, thirty feet in diameter, is
crowned by a dome of one entire piece of granite: from
the centre
of the dome four columns arose, which supported, in a
vase of
porphyry, the remains of the Gothic king, surrounded by
the
brazen statues of the twelve apostles. ^107 His spirit,
after
some previous expiation, might have been permitted to
mingle with
the benefactors of mankind, if an Italian hermit had not
been
witness, in a vision, to the damnation of Theodoric, ^108
whose
soul was plunged, by the ministers of divine vengeance,
into the
volcano of Lipari, one of the flaming mouths of the
infernal
world. ^109
[Footnote 102: In the fanciful eloquence of Cassiodorus,
the
variety of sea and river fish are an evidence of
extensive
dominion; and those of the Rhine, of Sicily, and of the
Danube,
were served on the table of Theodoric, (Var. xii. 14.)
The
monstrous turbot of Domitian (Juvenal Satir. iii. 39) had
been
caught on the shores of the Adriatic.]
[Footnote 103: Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 1. But he might have
informed us, whether he had received this curious
anecdote from
common report or from the mouth of the royal physician.]
[Footnote 104: Procopius, Goth. l. i. c. 1, 2, 12,
13. This
partition had been directed by Theodoric, though it was
not
executed till after his death, Regni hereditatem
superstes
reliquit, (Isidor. Chron. p. 721, edit. Grot.)]
[Footnote 105: Berimund, the third in descent from
Hermanric,
king of the Ostrogoths, had retired into Spain, where he
lived
and died in obscurity, (Jornandes, c. 33, p. 202, edit.
Muratori.) See the discovery, nuptials, and death of his
grandson
Eutharic, (c. 58, p. 220.) His Roman games might render
him
popular, (Cassiodor. in Chron.,) but Eutharic was asper
in
religione, (Anonym. Vales. p. 723.)]
[Footnote 106: See the counsels of Theodoric, and the
professions
of his successor, in Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 1, 2,)
Jornandes,
(c. 59, p. 220, 221,) and Cassiodorus, (Var. viii. 1 -
7.) These
epistles are the triumph of his ministerial eloquence.]
[Footnote 107: Anonym. Vales. p. 724. Agnellus de Vitis. Pont.
Raven. in Muratori Script. Rerum Ital. tom. ii. P. i. p.
67.
Alberti Descrittione d' Italia, p. 311.
Note: The
Mausoleum of Theodoric, now Sante Maria della
Rotonda, is engraved in D'Agincourt, Histoire de l'Art, p
xviii.
of the Architectural Prints. - M]
[Footnote 108: This legend is related by Gregory I.,
(Dialog. iv.
36,) and approved by Baronius, (A.D. 526, No. 28;) and
both the
pope and cardinal are grave doctors, sufficient to
establish a
probable opinion.]
[Footnote 109: Theodoric himself, or rather Cassiodorus,
had
described in tragic strains the volcanos of Lipari
(Cluver.
Sicilia, p. 406 - 410) and Vesuvius, (v 50.)]
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.
Part I.
Elevation Of
Justin The Elder. - Reign Of Justinian. - I.
The Empress Theodora. - II. Factions Of The Circus, And Sedition
Of Constantinople. - III.
Trade And Manufacture Of Silk. - IV.
Finances And Taxes. - V. Edifices Of Justinian. - Church
Of St.
Sophia. - Fortifications And Frontiers Of The Eastern
Empire. -
Abolition Of The Schools Of Athens, And The Consulship Of
Rome.
The emperor
Justinian was born ^1 near the ruins of Sardica,
(the modern Sophia,) of an obscure race ^2 of Barbarians,
^3 the
inhabitants of a wild and desolate country, to which the
names of
Dardania, of Dacia, and of Bulgaria, have been
successively
applied. His
elevation was prepared by the adventurous spirit of
his uncle Justin, who, with two other peasants of the
same
village, deserted, for the profession of arms, the more
useful
employment of husbandmen or shepherds. ^4 On foot, with a
scanty
provision of biscuit in their knapsacks, the three youths
followed the high road of Constantinople, and were soon
enrolled,
for their strength and stature, among the guards of the
emperor
Leo. Under the two
succeeding reigns, the fortunate peasant
emerged to wealth and honors; and his escape from some
dangers
which threatened his life was afterwards ascribed to the
guardian
angel who watches over the fate of kings. His long and
laudable
service in the Isaurian and Persian wars would not have
preserved
from oblivion the name of Justin; yet they might warrant
the
military promotion, which in the course of fifty years he
gradually obtained; the rank of tribune, of count, and of
general; the dignity of senator, and the command of the
guards,
who obeyed him as their chief, at the important crisis
when the
emperor Anastasius was removed from the world. The powerful
kinsmen whom he had raised and enriched were excluded
from the
throne; and the eunuch Amantius, who reigned in the
palace, had
secretly resolved to fix the diadem on the head of the
most
obsequious of his creatures. A liberal donative, to conciliate
the suffrage of the guards, was intrusted for that
purpose in the
hands of their commander.
But these weighty arguments were
treacherously employed by Justin in his own favor; and as
no
competitor presumed to appear, the Dacian peasant was
invested
with the purple by the unanimous consent of the soldiers,
who
knew him to be brave and gentle, of the clergy and
people, who
believed him to be orthodox, and of the provincials, who
yielded
a blind and implicit submission to the will of the
capital. The
elder Justin, as he is distinguished from another emperor
of the
same family and name, ascended the Byzantine throne at
the age of
sixty-eight years; and, had he been left to his own
guidance,
every moment of a nine years' reign must have exposed to
his
subjects the impropriety of their choice. His ignorance was
similar to that of Theodoric; and it is remarkable that
in an age
not destitute of learning, two contemporary monarchs had
never
been instructed in the knowledge of the alphabet. ^* But
the
genius of Justin was far inferior to that of the Gothic
king: the
experience of a soldier had not qualified him for the
government
of an empire; and though personally brave, the
consciousness of
his own weakness was naturally attended with doubt,
distrust, and
political apprehension.
But the official business of the state
was diligently and faithfully transacted by the quaestor
Proclus;
^5 and the aged emperor adopted the talents and ambition
of his
nephew Justinian, an aspiring youth, whom his uncle had
drawn
from the rustic solitude of Dacia, and educated at
Constantinople, as the heir of his private fortune, and
at length
of the Eastern empire.
[Footnote 1: There is some difficulty in the date of his
birth
(Ludewig in Vit. Justiniani, p. 125;) none in the place -
the
district Bederiana - the village Tauresium, which he
afterwards
decorated with his name and splendor, (D'Anville, Hist.
de
l'Acad. &c., tom. xxxi. p. 287 - 292.)]
[Footnote 2: The names of these Dardanian peasants are
Gothic,
and almost English: Justinian is a translation of
uprauda,
(upright;) his father Sabatius (in Graeco-barbarous
language
stipes) was styled in his village Istock, (Stock;) his
mother
Bigleniza was softened into Vigilantia.]
[Footnote 3: Ludewig (p. 127 - 135) attempts to justify
the
Anician name of Justinian and Theodora, and to connect
them with
a family from which the house of Austria has been
derived.]
[Footnote 4: See the anecdotes of Procopius, (c. 6,) with
the
notes of N. Alemannus.
The satirist would not have sunk, in the
vague and decent appellation of Zonaras. Yet why are those names
disgraceful? - and what German baron would not be proud
to
descend from the Eumaeus of the Odyssey!
Note: It is
whimsical enough that, in our own days, we
should have, even in jest, a claimant to lineal descent
from the
godlike swineherd not in the person of a German baron,
but in
that of a professor of the Ionian University. Constantine
Koliades, or some malicious wit under this name, has
written a
tall folio to prove Ulysses to be Homer, and himself the
descendant, the heir (?), of the Eumaeus of the Odyssey.
- M]
[Footnote *: St. Martin questions the fact in both
cases. The
ignorance of Justin rests on the secret history of
Procopius,
vol. viii. p. 8.
St. Martin's notes on Le Beau. - M]
[Footnote 5: His virtues are praised by Procopius,
(Persic. l. i.
c. 11.) The quaestor Proclus was the friend of Justinian,
and the
enemy of every other adoption.]
Since the
eunuch Amantius had been defrauded of his money,
it became necessary to deprive him of his life. The task was
easily accomplished by the charge of a real or fictitious
conspiracy; and the judges were informed, as an
accumulation of
guilt, that he was secretly addicted to the Manichaean
heresy. ^6
Amantius lost his head; three of his companions, the
first
domestics of the palace, were punished either with death
or
exile; and their unfortunate candidate for the purple was
cast
into a deep dungeon, overwhelmed with stones, and
ignominiously
thrown, without burial, into the sea. The ruin of Vitalian was a
work of more difficulty and danger. That Gothic chief had
rendered himself popular by the civil war which he boldly
waged
against Anastasius for the defence of the orthodox faith,
and
after the conclusion of an advantageous treaty, he still
remained
in the neighborhood of Constantinople at the head of a
formidable
and victorious army of Barbarians. By the frail security
of
oaths, he was tempted to relinquish this advantageous
situation,
and to trust his person within the walls of a city, whose
inhabitants, particularly the blue faction, were artfully
incensed against him by the remembrance even of his pious
hostilities. The
emperor and his nephew embraced him as the
faithful and worthy champion of the church and state; and
gratefully adorned their favorite with the titles of
consul and
general; but in the seventh month of his consulship,
Vitalian was
stabbed with seventeen wounds at the royal banquet; ^7
and
Justinian, who inherited the spoil, was accused as the
assassin
of a spiritual brother, to whom he had recently pledged
his faith
in the participation of the Christian mysteries. ^8 After
the
fall of his rival, he was promoted, without any claim of
military
service, to the office of master-general of the Eastern
armies,
whom it was his duty to lead into the field against the
public
enemy. But, in the
pursuit of fame, Justinian might have lost
his present dominion over the age and weakness of his
uncle; and
instead of acquiring by Scythian or Persian trophies the
applause
of his countrymen, ^9 the prudent warrior solicited their
favor
in the churches, the circus, and the senate, of
Constantinople.
The Catholics were attached to the nephew of Justin, who,
between
the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies, trod the narrow
path of
inflexible and intolerant orthodoxy. ^10 In the first
days of the
new reign, he prompted and gratified the popular
enthusiasm
against the memory of the deceased emperor. After a schism of
thirty-four years, he reconciled the proud and angry
spirit of
the Roman pontiff, and spread among the Latins a
favorable report
of his pious respect for the apostolic see. The thrones of the
East were filled with Catholic bishops, devoted to his
interest,
the clergy and the monks were gained by his liberality,
and the
people were taught to pray for their future sovereign,
the hope
and pillar of the true religion. The magnificence of Justinian
was displayed in the superior pomp of his public
spectacles, an
object not less sacred and important in the eyes of the
multitude
than the creed of Nice or Chalcedon: the expense of his
consulship was esteemed at two hundred and twenty-eight
thousand
pieces of gold; twenty lions, and thirty leopards, were
produced
at the same time in the amphitheatre, and a numerous
train of
horses, with their rich trappings, was bestowed as an
extraordinary gift on the victorious charioteers of the
circus.
While he indulged the people of Constantinople, and
received the
addresses of foreign kings, the nephew of Justin
assiduously
cultivated the friendship of the senate. That venerable name
seemed to qualify its members to declare the sense of the
nation,
and to regulate the succession of the Imperial throne:
the feeble
Anastasius had permitted the vigor of government to
degenerate
into the form or substance of an aristocracy; and the
military
officers who had obtained the senatorial rank were
followed by
their domestic guards, a band of veterans, whose arms or
acclamations might fix in a tumultuous moment the diadem
of the
East. The
treasures of the state were lavished to procure the
voices of the senators, and their unanimous wish, that he
would
be pleased to adopt Justinian for his colleague, was
communicated
to the emperor.
But this request, which too clearly admonished
him of his approaching end, was unwelcome to the jealous
temper
of an aged monarch, desirous to retain the power which he
was
incapable of exercising; and Justin, holding his purple
with both
his hands, advised them to prefer, since an election was
so
profitable, some older candidate. Not withstanding this
reproach, the senate proceeded to decorate Justinian with
the
royal epithet of nobilissimus; and their decree was
ratified by
the affection or the fears of his uncle. After some time the
languor of mind and body, to which he was reduced by an
incurable
wound in his thigh, indispensably required the aid of a
guardian.
He summoned the patriarch and senators; and in their
presence
solemnly placed the diadem on the head of his nephew, who
was
conducted from the palace to the circus, and saluted by
the loud
and joyful applause of the people. The life of Justin was
prolonged about four months; but from the instant of this
ceremony, he was considered as dead to the empire, which
acknowledged Justinian, in the forty-fifth year of his
age, for
the lawful sovereign of the East. ^11
[Footnote 6: Manichaean signifies Eutychian. Hear the furious
acclamations of Constantinople and Tyre, the former no
more than
six days after the decease of Anastasius. They produced, the
latter applauded, the eunuch's death, (Baronius, A.D.
518, P. ii.
No. 15. Fleury,
Hist Eccles. tom. vii. p. 200, 205, from the
Councils, tom. v. p. 182, 207.)]
[Footnote 7: His power, character, and intentions, are
perfectly
explained by the court de Buat, (tom. ix. p. 54 - 81.) He
was
great-grandson of Aspar, hereditary prince in the Lesser
Scythia,
and count of the Gothic foederati of Thrace. The Bessi, whom he
could influence, are the minor Goths of Jornandes, (c.
51.)]
[Footnote 8: Justiniani patricii factione dicitur
interfectus
fuisse, (Victor Tu nunensis, Chron. in Thesaur. Temp.
Scaliger,
P. ii. p. 7.) Procopius (Anecdot. c. 7) styles him a
tyrant, but
acknowledges something which is well explained by
Alemannus.]
[Footnote 9: In his earliest youth (plane adolescens) he
had
passed some time as a hostage with Theodoric. For this curious
fact, Alemannus (ad Procop. Anecdot. c. 9, p. 34, of the
first
edition) quotes a Ms. history of Justinian, by his
preceptor
Theophilus. Ludewig (p. 143) wishes to make him a
soldier.]
[Footnote 10: The ecclesiastical history of Justinian
will be
shown hereafter. See Baronius, A.D. 518 - 521, and the
copious
article Justinianas in the index to the viith volume of
his
Annals.]
[Footnote 11: The reign of the elder Justin may be found
in the
three Chronicles of Marcellinus, Victor, and John Malala,
(tom.
ii. p. 130 - 150,) the last of whom (in spite of Hody,
Prolegom.
No. 14, 39, edit. Oxon.) lived soon after Justinian,
(Jortin's
Remarks, &c., vol. iv p. 383:) in the Ecclesiastical
History of
Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 1, 2, 3, 9,) and the Excerpta of
Theodorus
Lector, (No. 37,) and in Cedrenus, (p. 362 - 366,) and
Zonaras,
(l. xiv. p. 58 - 61,) who may pass for an original.
Note: Dindorf,
in his preface to the new edition of Malala,
p. vi., concurs with this opinion of Gibbon, which was
also that
of Reiske, as to the age of the chronicler. - M.]
From his
elevation to his death, Justinian governed the
Roman empire thirty-eight years, seven months, and
thirteen days.
The events of his reign, which excite our curious
attention by
their number, variety, and importance, are diligently
related by
the secretary of Belisarius, a rhetorician, whom
eloquence had
promoted to the rank of senator and praefect of
Constantinople.
According to the vicissitudes of courage or servitude, of
favor
or disgrace, Procopius ^12 successively composed the
history, the
panegyric, and the satire of his own times. The eight books of
the Persian, Vandalic, and Gothic wars, ^13 which are
continued
in the five books of Agathias, deserve our esteem as a
laborious
and successful imitation of the Attic, or at least of the
Asiatic, writers of ancient Greece. His facts are collected from
the personal experience and free conversation of a
soldier, a
statesman, and a traveller; his style continually
aspires, and
often attains, to the merit of strength and elegance; his
reflections, more especially in the speeches, which he
too
frequently inserts, contain a rich fund of political
knowledge;
and the historian, excited by the generous ambition of
pleasing
and instructing posterity, appears to disdain the
prejudices of
the people, and the flattery of courts. The writings of
Procopius ^14 were read and applauded by his
contemporaries: ^15
but, although he respectfully laid them at the foot of
the
throne, the pride of Justinian must have been wounded by
the
praise of a hero, who perpetually eclipses the glory of
his
inactive sovereign.
The conscious dignity of independence was
subdued by the hopes and fears of a slave; and the
secretary of
Belisarius labored for pardon and reward in the six books
of the
Imperial edifices.
He had dexterously chosen a subject of
apparent splendor, in which he could loudly celebrate the
genius,
the magnificence, and the piety of a prince, who, both as
a
conqueror and legislator, had surpassed the puerile
virtues of
Themistocles and Cyrus. ^16 Disappointment might urge the
flatterer to secret revenge; and the first glance of
favor might
again tempt him to suspend and suppress a libel, ^17 in
which the
Roman Cyrus is degraded into an odious and contemptible
tyrant,
in which both the emperor and his consort Theodora are
seriously
represented as two daemons, who had assumed a human form
for the
destruction of mankind. ^18 Such base inconsistency must
doubtless sully the reputation, and detract from the
credit, of
Procopius: yet, after the venom of his malignity has been
suffered to exhale, the residue of the anecdotes, even
the most
disgraceful facts, some of which had been tenderly hinted
in his
public history, are established by their internal
evidence, or
the authentic monuments of the times. ^19 ^* From these
various
materials, I shall now proceed to describe the reign of
Justinian, which will deserve and occupy an ample
space. The
present chapter will explain the elevation and character
of
Theodora, the factions of the circus, and the peaceful
administration of the sovereign of the East. In the three
succeeding chapters, I shall relate the wars of
Justinian, which
achieved the conquest of Africa and Italy; and I shall
follow the
victories of Belisarius and Narses, without disguising
the vanity
of their triumphs, or the hostile virtue of the Persian
and
Gothic heroes. The series of this and the following
volume will
embrace the jurisprudence and theology of the emperor;
the
controversies and sects which still divide the Oriental
church;
the reformation of the Roman law which is obeyed or
respected by
the nations of modern Europe.
[Footnote 12: See the characters of Procopius and
Agathias in La
Mothe le Vayer, (tom. viii. p. 144 - 174,) Vossius, (de
Historicis Graecis, l. ii. c. 22,) and Fabricius,
(Bibliot.
Graec. l. v. c. 5, tom. vi. p. 248 - 278.) Their
religion, an
honorable problem, betrays occasional conformity, with a
secret
attachment to Paganism and Philosophy.]
[Footnote 13: In the seven first books, two Persic, two
Vandalic,
and three Gothic, Procopius has borrowed from Appian the
division
of provinces and wars: the viiith book, though it bears
the name
of Gothic, is a miscellaneous and general supplement down
to the
spring of the year 553, from whence it is continued by
Agathias
till 559, (Pagi, Critica, A.D. 579, No. 5.)]
[Footnote 14: The literary fate of Procopius has been
somewhat
unlucky.
1. His book de
Bello Gothico were stolen by Leonard Aretin,
and published (Fulginii, 1470, Venet. 1471, apud Janson.
Mattaire, Annal Typograph. tom. i. edit. posterior, p.
290, 304,
279, 299,) in his own name, (see Vossius de Hist. Lat. l.
iii. c.
5, and the feeble defence of the Venice Giornale de
Letterati,
tom. xix. p. 207.)
2. His works
were mutilated by the first Latin translators,
Christopher Persona, (Giornale, tom. xix. p. 340 - 348,)
and
Raphael de Volaterra, (Huet, de Claris Interpretibus, p.
166,)
who did not even consult the Ms. of the Vatican library,
of which
they were praefects, (Aleman. in Praefat Anecdot.)
3. The Greek
text was not printed till 1607, by Hoeschelius
of Augsburg, (Dictionnaire de Bayle, tom. ii. p. 782.)
4. The Paris
edition was imperfectly executed by Claude
Maltret, a Jesuit of Toulouse, (in 1663,) far distant
from the
Louvre press and the Vatican Ms., from which, however, he
obtained some supplements. His promised commentaries, &c., have
never appeared.
The Agathias of Leyden (1594) has been wisely
reprinted by the Paris editor, with the Latin version of
Bonaventura Vulcanius, a learned interpreter, (Huet, p.
176.)
Note: Procopius
forms a part of the new Byzantine collection
under the superintendence of Dindorf. - M.]
[Footnote 15: Agathias in Praefat. p. 7, 8, l. iv. p.
137.
Evagrius, l. iv. c. 12.
See likewise Photius, cod. lxiii. p.
65.]
[Footnote 16: Says, he, Praefat. ad l. de Edificiis is no
more
than a pun! In
these five books, Procopius affects a Christian
as well as a courtly style.]
[Footnote 17: Procopius discloses himself, (Praefat. ad
Anecdot.
c. 1, 2, 5,) and the anecdotes are reckoned as the ninth
book by
Suidas, (tom. iii. p. 186, edit. Kuster.) The silence of
Evagrius
is a poor objection.
Baronius (A.D. 548, No. 24) regrets the
loss of this secret history: it was then in the Vatican
library,
in his own custody, and was first published sixteen years
after
his death, with the learned, but partial notes of
Nicholas
Alemannus, (Lugd. 1623.)]
[Footnote 18: Justinian an ass - the perfect likeness of
Domitian
- Anecdot. c. 8. - Theodora's lovers driven from her bed
by rival
daemons - her marriage foretold with a great daemon - a
monk saw
the prince of the daemons, instead of Justinian, on the
throne -
the servants who watched beheld a face without features,
a body
walking without a head, &c., &c. Procopius declares his own and
his friends' belief in these diabolical stories, (c.
12.)]
[Footnote 19: Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur
et la
Decadence des Romains, c. xx.) gives credit to these
anecdotes,
as connected, 1. with the weakness of the empire, and, 2.
with
the instability of Justinian's laws.]
[Footnote *: The Anecdota of Procopius, compared with the
former
works of the same author, appear to me the basest and
most
disgraceful work in literature. The wars, which he has
described
in the former volumes as glorious or necessary, are
become
unprofitable and wanton massacres; the buildings which he
celebrated, as raised to the immortal honor of the great
emperor,
and his admirable queen, either as magnificent
embellishments of
the city, or useful fortifications for the defence of the
frontier, are become works of vain prodigality and
useless
ostentation. I
doubt whether Gibbon has made sufficient
allowance for the "malignity" of the Anecdota;
at all events, the
extreme and disgusting profligacy of Theodora's early
life rests
entirely on this viratent libel - M.]
I. In the exercise of supreme power, the first
act of
Justinian was to divide it with the woman whom he loved,
the
famous Theodora, ^20 whose strange elevation cannot be
applauded
as the triumph of female virtue. Under the reign of Anastasius,
the care of the wild beasts maintained by the green
faction at
Constantinople was intrusted to Acacius, a native of the
Isle of
Cyprus, who, from his employment, was surnamed the master
of the
bears. This
honorable office was given after his death to
another candidate, notwithstanding the diligence of his
widow,
who had already provided a husband and a successor. Acacius had
left three daughters, Comito, ^21 Theodora, and
Anastasia, the
eldest of whom did not then exceed the age of seven
years. On a
solemn festival, these helpless orphans were sent by
their
distressed and indignant mother, in the garb of
suppliants, into
the midst of the theatre: the green faction received them
with
contempt, the blues with compassion; and this difference,
which
sunk deep into the mind of Theodora, was felt long
afterwards in
the administration of the empire. As they improved in age and
beauty, the three sisters were successively devoted to
the public
and private pleasures of the Byzantine people: and
Theodora,
after following Comito on the stage, in the dress of a
slave,
with a stool on her head, was at length permitted to
exercise her
independent talents.
She neither danced, nor sung, nor played on
the flute; her skill was confined to the pantomime arts;
she
excelled in buffoon characters, and as often as the
comedian
swelled her cheeks, and complained with a ridiculous tone
and
gesture of the blows that were inflicted, the whole
theatre of
Constantinople resounded with laughter and applause. The beauty
of Theodora ^22 was the subject of more flattering
praise, and
the source of more exquisite delight. Her features were
delicate
and regular; her complexion, though somewhat pale, was
tinged
with a natural color; every sensation was instantly
expressed by
the vivacity of her eyes; her easy motions displayed the
graces
of a small but elegant figure; and either love or
adulation might
proclaim, that painting and poetry were incapable of
delineating
the matchless excellence of her form. But this form was degraded
by the facility with which it was exposed to the public
eye, and
prostituted to licentious desire. Her venal charms were
abandoned to a promiscuous crowd of citizens and
strangers of
every rank, and of every profession: the fortunate lover
who had
been promised a night of enjoyment, was often driven from
her bed
by a stronger or more wealthy favorite; and when she
passed
through the streets, her presence was avoided by all who
wished
to escape either the scandal or the temptation. The
satirical
historian has not blushed ^23 to describe the naked
scenes which
Theodora was not ashamed to exhibit in the theatre. ^24
After
exhausting the arts of sensual pleasure, ^25 she most
ungratefully murmured against the parsimony of Nature;
^26 but
her murmurs, her pleasures, and her arts, must be veiled
in the
obscurity of a learned language. After reigning for some time,
the delight and contempt of the capital, she condescended
to
accompany Ecebolus, a native of Tyre, who had obtained
the
government of the African Pentapolis. But this union was frail
and transient; Ecebolus soon rejected an expensive or
faithless
concubine; she was reduced at Alexandria to extreme
distress; and
in her laborious return to Constantinople, every city of
the East
admired and enjoyed the fair Cyprian, whose merit
appeared to
justify her descent from the peculiar island of Venus.
The vague
commerce of Theodora, and the most detestable
precautions,
preserved her from the danger which she feared; yet once,
and
once only, she became a mother. The infant was saved and
educated in Arabia, by his father, who imparted to him on
his
death-bed, that he was the son of an empress. Filled with
ambitious hopes, the unsuspecting youth immediately
hastened to
the palace of Constantinople, and was admitted to the
presence of
his mother. As he
was never more seen, even after the decease of
Theodora, she deserves the foul imputation of
extinguishing with
his life a secret so offensive to her Imperial virtue.
[Footnote 20: For the life and manners of the empress Theodora
see the Anecdotes; more especially c. 1 - 5, 9, 10 - 15,
16, 17,
with the learned notes of Alemannus - a reference which
is always
implied.]
[Footnote 21: Comito was afterwards married to Sittas,
duke of
Armenia, the father, perhaps, at least she might be the
mother,
of the empress Sophia. Two nephews of Theodora may be the
sons of
Anastasia, (Aleman. p. 30, 31.)]
[Footnote 22: Her statute was raised at Constantinople,
on a
porphyry column. See Procopius, (de Edif. l. i. c. 11,)
who gives
her portrait in the Anecdotes, (c. 10.) Aleman. (p. 47)
produces
one from a Mosaic at Ravenna, loaded with pearls and
jewels, and
yet handsome.]
[Footnote 23: A fragment of the Anecdotes, (c. 9,)
somewhat too
naked, was suppressed by Alemannus, though extant in the
Vatican
Ms.; nor has the defect been supplied in the Paris or
Venice
editions. La Mothe
le Vayer (tom. viii. p. 155) gave the first
hint of this curious and genuine passage, (Jortin's
Remarks, vol.
iv. p. 366,) which he had received from Rome, and it has
been
since published in the Menagiana (tom. iii. p. 254 - 259)
with a
Latin version.]
[Footnote 24: After the mention of a narrow girdle, (as
none
could appear stark naked in the theatre,) Procopius thus
proceeds. I have
heard that a learned prelate, now deceased, was
fond of quoting this passage in conversation.]
[Footnote 25: Theodora surpassed the Crispa of Ausonius,
(Epigram
lxxi.,) who imitated the capitalis luxus of the females
of Nola.
See Quintilian Institut. viii. 6, and Torrentius ad Horat.
Sermon. l. i. sat. 2, v. 101. At a memorable supper, thirty
slaves waited round the table ten young men feasted with
Theodora. Her
charity was universal.
Et lassata viris, necdum satiata, recessit.]
[Footnote 26: She wished for a fourth altar, on which she
might
pour libations to the god of love.]
[Footnote *: Gibbon should have remembered the axiom
which he
quotes in another piece, scelera ostendi oportet dum
puniantur
abscondi flagitia. - M.]
In the most
abject state of her fortune, and reputation,
some vision, either of sleep or of fancy, had whispered
to
Theodora the pleasing assurance that she was destined to
become
the spouse of a potent monarch. Conscious of her approaching
greatness, she returned from Paphlagonia to
Constantinople;
assumed, like a skilful actress, a more decent character;
relieved her poverty by the laudable industry of spinning
wool;
and affected a life of chastity and solitude in a small
house,
which she afterwards changed into a magnificent temple.
^27 Her
beauty, assisted by art or accident, soon attracted,
captivated,
and fixed, the patrician Justinian, who already reigned
with
absolute sway under the name of his uncle. Perhaps she contrived
to enhance the value of a gift which she had so often
lavished on
the meanest of mankind; perhaps she inflamed, at first by
modest
delays, and at last by sensual allurements, the desires
of a
lover, who, from nature or devotion, was addicted to long
vigils
and abstemious diet.
When his first transports had subsided, she
still maintained the same ascendant over his mind, by the
more
solid merit of temper and understanding. Justinian delighted to
ennoble and enrich the object of his affection; the
treasures of
the East were poured at her feet, and the nephew of
Justin was
determined, perhaps by religious scruples, to bestow on
his
concubine the sacred and legal character of a wife. But
the laws
of Rome expressly prohibited the marriage of a senator
with any
female who had been dishonored by a servile origin or
theatrical
profession: the empress Lupicina, or Euphemia, a
Barbarian of
rustic manners, but of irreproachable virtue, refused to
accept a
prostitute for her niece; and even Vigilantia, the
superstitious
mother of Justinian, though she acknowledged the wit and
beauty
of Theodora, was seriously apprehensive, lest the levity
and
arrogance of that artful paramour might corrupt the piety
and
happiness of her son.
These obstacles were removed by the
inflexible constancy of Justinian. He patiently expected
the
death of the empress; he despised the tears of his
mother, who
soon sunk under the weight of her affliction; and a law
was
promulgated in the name of the emperor Justin, which
abolished
the rigid jurisprudence of antiquity. A glorious repentance (the
words of the edict) was left open for the unhappy females
who had
prostituted their persons on the theatre, and they were
permitted
to contract a legal union with the most illustrious of
the
Romans. ^28 This indulgence was speedily followed by the
solemn
nuptials of Justinian and Theodora; her dignity was
gradually
exalted with that of her lover, and, as soon as Justin
had
invested his nephew with the purple, the patriarch of
Constantinople placed the diadem on the heads of the
emperor and
empress of the East.
But the usual honors which the severity of
Roman manners had allowed to the wives of princes, could
not
satisfy either the ambition of Theodora or the fondness
of
Justinian. He
seated her on the throne as an equal and
independent colleague in the sovereignty of the empire,
and an
oath of allegiance was imposed on the governors of the
provinces
in the joint names of Justinian and Theodora. ^29 The
Eastern
world fell prostrate before the genius and fortune of the
daughter of Acacius.
The prostitute who, in the presence of
innumerable spectators, had polluted the theatre of
Constantinople, was adored as a queen in the same city,
by grave
magistrates, orthodox bishops, victorious generals, and
captive
monarchs. ^30
[Footnote 27: Anonym. de Antiquitat. C. P. l. iii. 132,
in
Banduri Imperium Orient. tom. i. p. 48. Ludewig (p. 154) argues
sensibly that Theodora would not have immortalized a
brothel: but
I apply this fact to her second and chaster residence at
Constantinople.]
[Footnote 28: See the old law in Justinian's Code, (l. v.
tit. v.
leg. 7, tit. xxvii. leg. 1,) under the years 336 and
454. The
new edict (about the year 521 or 522, Aleman. p. 38, 96)
very
awkwardly repeals no more than the clause of mulieres
scenicoe,
libertinae, tabernariae.
See the novels 89 and 117, and a Greek
rescript from Justinian to the bishops, (Aleman. p. 41.)]
[Footnote 29: I swear by the Father, &c., by the
Virgin Mary, by
the four Gospels, quae in manibus teneo, and by the Holy
Archangels Michael and Gabriel, puram conscientiam
germanumque
servitium me servaturum, sacratissimis DDNN. Justiniano et
Theodorae conjugi ejus, (Novell. viii. tit. 3.) Would the
oath
have been binding in favor of the widow? Communes tituli et
triumphi, &c., (Aleman. p. 47, 48.)]
[Footnote 30: "Let greatness own her, and she's mean
no more,"
&c. Without
Warburton's critical telescope, I should never have
seen, in this general picture of triumphant vice, any
personal
allusion to Theodora.]
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.
Part II.
Those who
believe that the female mind is totally depraved
by the loss of chastity, will eagerly listen to all the
invectives of private envy, or popular resentment which
have
dissembled the virtues of Theodora, exaggerated her
vices, and
condemned with rigor the venal or voluntary sins of the
youthful
harlot. From a
motive of shame, or contempt, she often declined
the servile homage of the multitude, escaped from the
odious
light of the capital, and passed the greatest part of the
year in
the palaces and gardens which were pleasantly seated on
the
sea-coast of the Propontis and the Bosphorus. Her private hours
were devoted to the prudent as well as grateful care of
her
beauty, the luxury of the bath and table, and the long
slumber of
the evening and the morning. Her secret apartments were occupied
by the favorite women and eunuchs, whose interests and
passions
she indulged at the expense of justice; the most
illustrious
person ages of the state were crowded into a dark and
sultry
antechamber, and when at last, after tedious attendance,
they
were admitted to kiss the feet of Theodora, they
experienced, as
her humor might suggest, the silent arrogance of an
empress, or
the capricious levity of a comedian. Her rapacious avarice to
accumulate an immense treasure, may be excused by the
apprehension of her husband's death, which could leave no
alternative between ruin and the throne; and fear as well
as
ambition might exasperate Theodora against two generals,
who,
during the malady of the emperor, had rashly declared
that they
were not disposed to acquiesce in the choice of the
capital. But
the reproach of cruelty, so repugnant even to her softer
vices,
has left an indelible stain on the memory of
Theodora. Her
numerous spies observed, and zealously reported, every
action, or
word, or look, injurious to their royal mistress.
Whomsoever they
accused were cast into her peculiar prisons, ^31
inaccessible to
the inquiries of justice; and it was rumored, that the
torture of
the rack, or scourge, had been inflicted in the presence
of the
female tyrant, insensible to the voice of prayer or of
pity. ^32
Some of these unhappy victims perished in deep,
unwholesome
dungeons, while others were permitted, after the loss of
their
limbs, their reason, or their fortunes, to appear in the
world,
the living monuments of her vengeance, which was commonly
extended to the children of those whom she had suspected
or
injured. The
senator or bishop, whose death or exile Theodora
had pronounced, was delivered to a trusty messenger, and
his
diligence was quickened by a menace from her own
mouth. "If you
fail in the execution of my commands, I swear by Him who
liveth
forever, that your skin shall be flayed from your
body." ^33
[Footnote 31: Her prisons, a labyrinth, a Tartarus,
(Anecdot. c.
4,) were under the palace. Darkness is propitious to cruelty,
but it is likewise favorable to calumny and fiction.]
[Footnote 32: A more jocular whipping was inflicted on
Saturninus, for presuming to say that his wife, a
favorite of the
empress, had not been found. (Anecdot. c. 17.)]
[Footnote 33: Per viventem in saecula excoriari te
faciam.
Anastasius de Vitis Pont. Roman. in Vigilio, p. 40.]
If the creed
of Theodora had not been tainted with heresy,
her exemplary devotion might have atoned, in the opinion
of her
contemporaries, for pride, avarice, and cruelty. But, if she
employed her influence to assuage the intolerant fury of
the
emperor, the present age will allow some merit to her
religion,
and much indulgence to her speculative errors. ^34 The
name of
Theodora was introduced, with equal honor, in all the
pious and
charitable foundations of Justinian; and the most
benevolent
institution of his reign may be ascribed to the sympathy
of the
empress for her less fortunate sisters, who had been
seduced or
compelled to embrace the trade of prostitution. A palace, on the
Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, was converted into a
stately and
spacious monastery, and a liberal maintenance was
assigned to
five hundred women, who had been collected from the
streets and
brothels of Constantinople. In this safe and holy
retreat, they
were devoted to perpetual confinement; and the despair of
some,
who threw themselves headlong into the sea, was lost in
the
gratitude of the penitents, who had been delivered from
sin and
misery by their generous benefactress. ^35 The prudence
of
Theodora is celebrated by Justinian himself; and his laws
are
attributed to the sage counsels of his most reverend wife
whom he
had received as the gift of the Deity. ^36 Her courage
was
displayed amidst the tumult of the people and the terrors
of the
court. Her
chastity, from the moment of her union with
Justinian, is founded on the silence of her implacable
enemies;
and although the daughter of Acacius might be satiated
with love,
yet some applause is due to the firmness of a mind which
could
sacrifice pleasure and habit to the stronger sense either
of duty
or interest. The
wishes and prayers of Theodora could never
obtain the blessing of a lawful son, and she buried an
infant
daughter, the sole offspring of her marriage. ^37
Notwithstanding
this disappointment, her dominion was permanent and
absolute; she
preserved, by art or merit, the affections of Justinian;
and
their seeming dissensions were always fatal to the
courtiers who
believed them to be sincere. Perhaps her health had been
impaired by the licentiousness of her youth; but it was
always
delicate, and she was directed by her physicians to use
the
Pythian warm baths.
In this journey, the empress was followed by
the Praetorian praefect, the great treasurer, several
counts and
patricians, and a splendid train of four thousand
attendants: the
highways were repaired at her approach; a palace was
erected for
her reception; and as she passed through Bithynia, she
distributed liberal alms to the churches, the monasteries,
and
the hospitals, that they might implore Heaven for the
restoration
of her health. ^38 At length, in the twenty-fourth year
of her
marriage, and the twenty-second of her reign, she was
consumed by
a cancer; ^39 and the irreparable loss was deplored by
her
husband, who, in the room of a theatrical prostitute,
might have
selected the purest and most noble virgin of the East.
^40
[Footnote 34: Ludewig, p. 161 - 166. I give him credit for the
charitable attempt, although he hath not much charity in
his
temper.]
[Footnote 35: Compare the anecdotes (c. 17) with the
Edifices (l.
i. c. 9) - how differently may the same fact be
stated! John
Malala (tom. ii. p. 174, 175) observes, that on this, or
a
similar occasion, she released and clothed the girls whom
she had
purchased from the stews at five aurei apiece.]
[Footnote 36: Novel. viii. 1. An allusion to
Theodora. Her
enemies read the name Daemonodora, (Aleman. p. 66.)]
[Footnote 37: St. Sabas refused to pray for a son of
Theodora,
lest he should prove a heretic worse than Anastasius
himself,
(Cyril in Vit. St. Sabae, apud Aleman. p. 70, 109.)]
[Footnote 38: See John Malala, tom. ii. p. 174. Theophanes, p.
158. Procopius de Edific. l. v. c. 3.]
[Footnote 39: Theodora Chalcedonensis synodi inimica canceris
plaga toto corpore perfusa vitam prodigiose finivit,
(Victor
Tununensis in Chron.) On such occasions, an orthodox mind
is
steeled against pity.
Alemannus (p. 12, 13) understands of
Theophanes as civil language, which does not imply either
piety
or repentance; yet two years after her death, St.
Theodora is
celebrated by Paul Silentiarius, (in proem. v. 58 - 62.)]
[Footnote 40: As she persecuted the popes, and rejected a
council, Baronius exhausts the names of Eve, Dalila,
Herodias,
&c.; after which he has recourse to his infernal
dictionary:
civis inferni - alumna daemonum - satanico agitata
spiritu -
oestro percita diabolico, &c., &c., (A.D. 548,
No. 24.)]
II. A material difference may be observed in the
games of
antiquity: the most eminent of the Greeks were actors,
the Romans
were merely spectators. The Olympic stadium was open to
wealth,
merit, and ambition; and if the candidates could depend
on their
personal skill and activity, they might pursue the
footsteps of
Diomede and Menelaus, and conduct their own horses in the
rapid
career. ^41 Ten, twenty, forty chariots were allowed to
start at
the same instant; a crown of leaves was the reward of the
victor;
and his fame, with that of his family and country, was
chanted in
lyric strains more durable than monuments of brass and
marble.
But a senator, or even a citizen, conscious of his
dignity, would
have blushed to expose his person, or his horses, in the
circus
of Rome. The games
were exhibited at the expense of the
republic, the magistrates, or the emperors: but the reins
were
abandoned to servile hands; and if the profits of a
favorite
charioteer sometimes exceeded those of an advocate, they
must be
considered as the effects of popular extravagance, and
the high
wages of a disgraceful profession. The race, in its first
institution, was a simple contest of two chariots, whose
drivers
were distinguished by white and red liveries: two
additional
colors, a light green, and a caerulean blue, were
afterwards
introduced; and as the races were repeated twenty-five
times, one
hundred chariots contributed in the same day to the pomp
of the
circus. The four
factions soon acquired a legal establishment,
and a mysterious origin, and their fanciful colors were
derived
from the various appearances of nature in the four
seasons of the
year; the red dogstar of summer, the snows of winter, the
deep
shades of autumn, and the cheerful verdure of the spring.
^42
Another interpretation preferred the elements to the
seasons, and
the struggle of the green and blue was supposed to
represent the
conflict of the earth and sea. Their respective victories
announced either a plentiful harvest or a prosperous
navigation,
and the hostility of the husbandmen and mariners was
somewhat
less absurd than the blind ardor of the Roman people, who
devoted
their lives and fortunes to the color which they had
espoused.
Such folly was disdained and indulged by the wisest
princes; but
the names of Caligula, Nero, Vitellius, Verus, Commodus,
Caracalla, and Elagabalus, were enrolled in the blue or
green
factions of the circus; they frequented their stables,
applauded
their favorites, chastised their antagonists, and
deserved the
esteem of the populace, by the natural or affected
imitation of
their manners. The
bloody and tumultuous contest continued to
disturb the public festivity, till the last age of the
spectacles
of Rome; and Theodoric, from a motive of justice or
affection,
interposed his authority to protect the greens against
the
violence of a consul and a patrician, who were passionately
addicted to the blue faction of the circus. ^43
[Footnote 41: Read and feel the xxiid book of the Iliad,
a living
picture of manners, passions, and the whole form and
spirit of
the chariot race West's Dissertation on the Olympic Games
(sect.
xii. - xvii.) affords much curious and authentic
information.]
[Footnote 42: The four colors, albati, russati, prasini,
veneti,
represent the four seasons, according to Cassiodorus,
(Var. iii.
51,) who lavishes much wit and eloquence on this
theatrical
mystery. Of these
colors, the three first may be fairly
translated white, red, and green. Venetus is explained by
coeruleus, a word various and vague: it is properly the
sky
reflected in the sea; but custom and convenience may
allow blue
as an equivalent, (Robert. Stephan. sub voce. Spence's
Polymetis, p. 228.)]
[Footnote 43: See Onuphrius Panvinius de Ludis
Circensibus, l. i.
c. 10, 11; the xviith Annotation on Mascou's History of
the
Germans; and Aleman ad c. vii.]
Constantinople
adopted the follies, though not the virtues,
of ancient Rome; and the same factions which had agitated
the
circus, raged with redoubled fury in the hippodrome. Under the
reign of Anastasius, this popular frenzy was inflamed by
religious zeal; and the greens, who had treacherously
concealed
stones and daggers under baskets of fruit, massacred, at
a solemn
festival, three thousand of their blue adversaries. ^44
From this
capital, the pestilence was diffused into the provinces
and
cities of the East, and the sportive distinction of two
colors
produced two strong and irreconcilable factions, which
shook the
foundations of a feeble government. ^45 The popular
dissensions,
founded on the most serious interest, or holy pretence,
have
scarcely equalled the obstinacy of this wanton discord,
which
invaded the peace of families, divided friends and
brothers, and
tempted the female sex, though seldom seen in the circus,
to
espouse the inclinations of their lovers, or to
contradict the
wishes of their husbands.
Every law, either human or divine, was
trampled under foot, and as long as the party was
successful, its
deluded followers appeared careless of private distress
or public
calamity. The license, without the freedom, of democracy,
was
revived at Antioch and Constantinople, and the support of
a
faction became necessary to every candidate for civil or
ecclesiastical honors.
A secret attachment to the family or sect
of Anastasius was imputed to the greens; the blues were
zealously
devoted to the cause of orthodoxy and Justinian, ^46 and
their
grateful patron protected, above five years, the
disorders of a
faction, whose seasonable tumults overawed the palace,
the
senate, and the capitals of the East. Insolent with royal favor,
the blues affected to strike terror by a peculiar and
Barbaric
dress, the long hair of the Huns, their close sleeves and
ample
garments, a lofty step, and a sonorous voice. In the day they
concealed their two-edged poniards, but in the night they
boldly
assembled in arms, and in numerous bands, prepared for
every act
of violence and rapine. Their adversaries of the green
faction,
or even inoffensive citizens, were stripped and often
murdered by
these nocturnal robbers, and it became dangerous to wear
any gold
buttons or girdles, or to appear at a late hour in the
streets of
a peaceful capital.
A daring spirit, rising with impunity,
proceeded to violate the safeguard of private houses; and
fire
was employed to facilitate the attack, or to conceal the
crimes
of these factious rioters. No place was safe or sacred
from their
depredations; to gratify either avarice or revenge, they
profusely spilt the blood of the innocent; churches and
altars
were polluted by atrocious murders; and it was the boast
of the
assassins, that their dexterity could always inflict a
mortal
wound with a single stroke of their dagger. The dissolute youth
of Constantinople adopted the blue livery of disorder;
the laws
were silent, and the bonds of society were relaxed:
creditors
were compelled to resign their obligations; judges to
reverse
their sentence; masters to enfranchise their slaves;
fathers to
supply the extravagance of their children; noble matrons
were
prostituted to the lust of their servants; beautiful boys
were
torn from the arms of their parents; and wives, unless
they
preferred a voluntary death, were ravished in the
presence of
their husbands. ^47 The despair of the greens, who were
persecuted by their enemies, and deserted by the
magistrates,
assumed the privilege of defence, perhaps of retaliation;
but
those who survived the combat were dragged to execution,
and the
unhappy fugitives, escaping to woods and caverns, preyed
without
mercy on the society from whence they were expelled.
Those
ministers of justice who had courage to punish the
crimes, and to
brave the resentment, of the blues, became the victims of
their
indiscreet zeal; a praefect of Constantinople fled for
refuge to
the holy sepulchre, a count of the East was ignominiously
whipped, and a governor of Cilicia was hanged, by the
order of
Theodora, on the tomb of two assassins whom he had
condemned for
the murder of his groom, and a daring attack upon his own
life.
^48 An aspiring candidate may be tempted to build his
greatness
on the public confusion, but it is the interest as well
as duty
of a sovereign to maintain the authority of the
laws. The first
edict of Justinian, which was often repeated, and
sometimes
executed, announced his firm resolution to support the
innocent,
and to chastise the guilty, of every denomination and
color. Yet
the balance of justice was still inclined in favor of the
blue
faction, by the secret affection, the habits, and the
fears of
the emperor; his equity, after an apparent struggle,
submitted,
without reluctance, to the implacable passions of
Theodora, and
the empress never forgot, or forgave, the injuries of the
comedian. At the
accession of the younger Justin, the
proclamation of equal and rigorous justice indirectly
condemned
the partiality of the former reign. "Ye blues, Justinian is no
more! ye greens,
he is still alive!" ^49
[Footnote 44: Marcellin. in Chron. p. 47. Instead of the vulgar
word venata he uses the more exquisite terms of coerulea
and
coerealis.
Baronius (A.D. 501, No. 4, 5, 6) is satisfied that
the blues were orthodox; but Tillemont is angry at the
supposition, and will not allow any martyrs in a
playhouse,
(Hist. des Emp. tom. vi. p. 554.)]
[Footnote 45: See Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 24.) In
describing
the vices of the factions and of the government, the
public, is
not more favorable than the secret, historian. Aleman. (p. 26)
has quoted a fine passage from Gregory Nazianzen, which
proves
the inveteracy of the evil.]
[Footnote 46: The partiality of Justinian for the blues
(Anecdot.
c. 7) is attested by Evagrius, (Hist. Eccles. l. iv. c.
32,) John
Malala, (tom ii p. 138, 139,) especially for Antioch; and
Theophanes, (p. 142.)]
[Footnote 47: A wife, (says Procopius,) who was seized
and almost
ravished by a blue-coat, threw herself into the
Bosphorus. The
bishops of the second Syria (Aleman. p. 26) deplore a
similar
suicide, the guilt or glory of female chastity, and name
the
heroine.]
[Footnote 48: The doubtful credit of Procopius (Anecdot.
c. 17)
is supported by the less partial Evagrius, who confirms
the fact,
and specifies the names. The tragic fate of the praefect
of
Constantinople is related by John Malala, (tom. ii. p.
139.)]
[Footnote 49: See John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 147;) yet he
owns
that Justinian was attached to the blues. The seeming discord of
the emperor and Theodora is, perhaps, viewed with too
much
jealousy and refinement by Procopius, (Anecdot. c. 10.)
See
Aleman. Praefat. p. 6.]
A sedition,
which almost laid Constantinople in ashes, was
excited by the mutual hatred and momentary reconciliation
of the
two factions. In
the fifth year of his reign, Justinian
celebrated the festival of the ides of January; the games
were
incessantly disturbed by the clamorous discontent of the
greens:
till the twenty-second race, the emperor maintained his
silent
gravity; at length, yielding to his impatience, he condescended
to hold, in abrupt sentences, and by the voice of a
crier, the
most singular dialogue ^50 that ever passed between a
prince and
his subjects.
Their first complaints were respectful and modest;
they accused the subordinate ministers of oppression, and
proclaimed their wishes for the long life and victory of
the
emperor. "Be
patient and attentive, ye insolent railers!"
exclaimed Justinian; "be mute, ye Jews, Samaritans,
and
Manichaeans!" The greens still attempted to awaken
his
compassion.
"We are poor, we are innocent, we are injured, we
dare not pass through the streets: a general persecution
is
exercised against our name and color. Let us die, O emperor! but
let us die by your command, and for your service!"
But the
repetition of partial and passionate invectives degraded,
in
their eyes, the majesty of the purple; they renounced
allegiance
to the prince who refused justice to his people; lamented
that
the father of Justinian had been born; and branded his
son with
the opprobrious names of a homicide, an ass, and a
perjured
tyrant. "Do
you despise your lives?" cried the indignant
monarch: the blues rose with fury from their seats; their
hostile
clamors thundered in the hippodrome; and their
adversaries,
deserting the unequal contest spread terror and despair
through
the streets of Constantinople. At this dangerous moment, seven
notorious assassins of both factions, who had been
condemned by
the praefect, were carried round the city, and afterwards
transported to the place of execution in the suburb of
Pera.
Four were immediately beheaded; a fifth was hanged: but
when the
same punishment was inflicted on the remaining two, the
rope
broke, they fell alive to the ground, the populace
applauded
their escape, and the monks of St. Conon, issuing from the
neighboring convent, conveyed them in a boat to the
sanctuary of
the church. ^51 As one of these criminals was of the
blue, and
the other of the green livery, the two factions were
equally
provoked by the cruelty of their oppressor, or the
ingratitude of
their patron; and a short truce was concluded till they
had
delivered their prisoners and satisfied their
revenge. The
palace of the praefect, who withstood the seditious
torrent, was
instantly burnt, his officers and guards were massacred,
the
prisons were forced open, and freedom was restored to
those who
could only use it for the public destruction. A military force,
which had been despatched to the aid of the civil
magistrate, was
fiercely encountered by an armed multitude, whose numbers
and
boldness continually increased; and the Heruli, the
wildest
Barbarians in the service of the empire, overturned the
priests
and their relics, which, from a pious motive, had been
rashly
interposed to separate the bloody conflict. The tumult was
exasperated by this sacrilege, the people fought with
enthusiasm
in the cause of God; the women, from the roofs and
windows,
showered stones on the heads of the soldiers, who darted
fire
brands against the houses; and the various flames, which
had been
kindled by the hands of citizens and strangers, spread
without
control over the face of the city. The conflagration involved
the cathedral of St. Sophia, the baths of Zeuxippus, a
part of
the palace, from the first entrance to the altar of Mars,
and the
long portico from the palace to the forum of Constantine:
a large
hospital, with the sick patients, was consumed; many
churches and
stately edifices were destroyed and an immense treasure
of gold
and silver was either melted or lost. From such scenes of horror
and distress, the wise and wealthy citizens escaped over
the
Bosphorus to the Asiatic side; and during five days
Constantinople was abandoned to the factions, whose
watchword,
Nika, vanquish!
has given a name to this memorable sedition. ^52
[Footnote 50: This dialogue, which Theophanes has
preserved,
exhibits the popular language, as well as the manners, of
Constantinople, in the vith century. Their Greek is mingled with
many strange and barbarous words, for which Ducange
cannot always
find a meaning or etymology.]
[Footnote 51: See this church and monastery in Ducange,
C. P.
Christiana, l. iv p 182.]
[Footnote 52: The history of the Nika sedition is
extracted from
Marcellinus, (in Chron.,) Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c.
26,) John
Malala, (tom. ii. p. 213 - 218,) Chron. Paschal., (p. 336
- 340,)
Theophanes, (Chronograph. p. 154 - 158) and Zonaras, (l.
xiv. p.
61 - 63.)]
As long as the
factions were divided, the triumphant blues,
and desponding greens, appeared to behold with the same
indifference the disorders of the state. They agreed to censure
the corrupt management of justice and the finance; and
the two
responsible ministers, the artful Tribonian, and the
rapacious
John of Cappadocia, were loudly arraigned as the authors
of the
public misery. The
peaceful murmurs of the people would have
been disregarded: they were heard with respect when the
city was
in flames; the quaestor, and the praefect, were instantly
removed, and their offices were filled by two senators of
blameless integrity.
After this popular concession, Justinian
proceeded to the hippodrome to confess his own errors,
and to
accept the repentance of his grateful subjects; but they
distrusted his assurances, though solemnly pronounced in
the
presence of the holy Gospels; and the emperor, alarmed by
their
distrust, retreated with precipitation to the strong
fortress of
the palace. The
obstinacy of the tumult was now imputed to a
secret and ambitious conspiracy, and a suspicion was
entertained,
that the insurgents, more especially the green faction, had
been
supplied with arms and money by Hypatius and Pompey, two
patricians, who could neither forget with honor, nor
remember
with safety, that they were the nephews of the emperor
Anastasius.
Capriciously trusted, disgraced, and pardoned, by
the jealous levity of the monarch, they had appeared as
loyal
servants before the throne; and, during five days of the
tumult,
they were detained as important hostages; till at length,
the
fears of Justinian prevailing over his prudence, he
viewed the
two brothers in the light of spies, perhaps of assassins,
and
sternly commanded them to depart from the palace. After a
fruitless representation, that obedience might lead to
involuntary treason, they retired to their houses, and in
the
morning of the sixth day, Hypatius was surrounded and
seized by
the people, who, regardless of his virtuous resistance,
and the
tears of his wife, transported their favorite to the
forum of
Constantine, and instead of a diadem, placed a rich
collar on his
head. If the
usurper, who afterwards pleaded the merit of his
delay, had complied with the advice of his senate, and
urged the
fury of the multitude, their first irresistible effort
might have
oppressed or expelled his trembling competitor. The Byzantine
palace enjoyed a free communication with the sea; vessels
lay
ready at the garden stairs; and a secret resolution was
already
formed, to convey the emperor with his family and
treasures to a
safe retreat, at some distance from the capital.
Justinian was
lost, if the prostitute whom he raised from
the theatre had not renounced the timidity, as well as
the
virtues, of her sex.
In the midst of a council, where Belisarius
was present, Theodora alone displayed the spirit of a
hero; and
she alone, without apprehending his future hatred, could
save the
emperor from the imminent danger, and his unworthy
fears. "If
flight," said the consort of Justinian, "were
the only means of
safety, yet I should disdain to fly. Death is the condition of
our birth; but they who have reigned should never survive
the
loss of dignity and dominion. I implore Heaven, that I may never
be seen, not a day, without my diadem and purple; that I
may no
longer behold the light, when I cease to be saluted with
the name
of queen. If you
resolve, O Caesar! to fly, you have
treasures;
behold the sea, you have ships; but tremble lest the
desire of
life should expose you to wretched exile and ignominious
death.
For my own part, I adhere to the maxim of antiquity, that
the
throne is a glorious sepulchre." The firmness of a
woman restored
the courage to deliberate and act, and courage soon
discovers the
resources of the most desperate situation. It was an easy and a
decisive measure to revive the animosity of the factions;
the
blues were astonished at their own guilt and folly, that
a
trifling injury should provoke them to conspire with
their
implacable enemies against a gracious and liberal
benefactor;
they again proclaimed the majesty of Justinian; and the
greens,
with their upstart emperor, were left alone in the hippodrome.
The fidelity of the guards was doubtful; but the military
force
of Justinian consisted in three thousand veterans, who
had been
trained to valor and discipline in the Persian and
Illyrian wars.
Under the command of Belisarius and Mundus, they silently
marched
in two divisions from the palace, forced their obscure
way
through narrow passages, expiring flames, and falling
edifices,
and burst open at the same moment the two opposite gates
of the
hippodrome. In
this narrow space, the disorderly and affrighted
crowd was incapable of resisting on either side a firm
and
regular attack; the blues signalized the fury of their
repentance; and it is computed, that above thirty
thousand
persons were slain in the merciless and promiscuous
carnage of
the day. Hypatius
was dragged from his throne, and conducted,
with his brother Pompey, to the feet of the emperor: they
implored his clemency; but their crime was manifest,
their
innocence uncertain, and Justinian had been too much
terrified to
forgive. The next morning the two nephews of Anastasius,
with
eighteen illustrious accomplices, of patrician or
consular rank,
were privately executed by the soldiers; their bodies
were thrown
into the sea, their palaces razed, and their fortunes
confiscated. The hippodrome itself was condemned, during
several
years, to a mournful silence: with the restoration of the
games,
the same disorders revived; and the blue and green
factions
continued to afflict the reign of Justinian, and to
disturb the
tranquility of the Eastern empire. ^53
[Footnote 53: Marcellinus says in general terms,
innumeris
populis in circotrucidatis. Procopius numbers 30,000 victims:
and the 35,000 of Theophanes are swelled to 40,000 by the
more
recent Zonaras.
Such is the usual progress of exaggeration.]
III. That
empire, after Rome was barbarous, still embraced
the nations whom she had conquered beyond the Adriatic,
and as
far as the frontiers of Aethiopia and Persia. Justinian reigned
over sixty-four provinces, and nine hundred and
thirty-five
cities; ^54 his dominions were blessed by nature with the
advantages of soil, situation, and climate: and the
improvements
of human art had been perpetually diffused along the
coast of the
Mediterranean and the banks of the Nile from ancient Troy
to the
Egyptian Thebes.
Abraham ^55 had been relieved by the well-known
plenty of Egypt; the same country, a small and populous
tract,
was still capable of exporting, each year, two hundred
and sixty
thousand quarters of wheat for the use of Constantinople;
^56 and
the capital of Justinian was supplied with the
manufactures of
Sidon, fifteen centuries after they had been celebrated
in the
poems of Homer. ^57 The annual powers of vegetation,
instead of
being exhausted by two thousand harvests, were renewed
and
invigorated by skilful husbandry, rich manure, and
seasonable
repose. The breed
of domestic animals was infinitely multiplied.
Plantations, buildings, and the instruments of labor and
luxury,
which are more durable than the term of human life, were
accumulated by the care of successive generations. Tradition
preserved, and experience simplified, the humble practice
of the
arts: society was enriched by the division of labor and
the
facility of exchange; and every Roman was lodged,
clothed, and
subsisted, by the industry of a thousand hands. The invention of
the loom and distaff has been piously ascribed to the
gods. In
every age, a variety of animal and vegetable productions,
hair,
skins, wool, flax, cotton, and at length silk, have been
skilfully manufactured to hide or adorn the human body;
they were
stained with an infusion of permanent colors; and the
pencil was
successfully employed to improve the labors of the
loom. In the
choice of those colors ^58 which imitate the beauties of
nature,
the freedom of taste and fashion was indulged; but the
deep
purple ^59 which the Phoenicians extracted from a
shell-fish, was
restrained to the sacred person and palace of the
emperor; and
the penalties of treason were denounced against the
ambitious
subjects who dared to usurp the prerogative of the
throne. ^60
[Footnote 54: Hierocles, a contemporary of Justinian,
composed
his (Itineraria, p. 631,) review of the eastern provinces
and
cities, before the year 535, (Wesseling, in Praefat. and
Not. ad
p. 623, &c.)]
[Footnote 55: See the Book of Genesis (xii. 10) and the
administration of Joseph.
The annals of the Greeks and Hebrews
agree in the early arts and plenty of Egypt: but this
antiquity
supposes a long series of improvement; and Warburton, who
is
almost stifled by the Hebrew calls aloud for the
Samaritan,
Chronology, (Divine Legation, vol. iii. p. 29, &c.)
Note: The
recent extraordinary discoveries in Egyptian
antiquities strongly confirm the high notion of the early
Egyptian civilization, and imperatively demand a longer
period
for their development. As to the common Hebrew
chronology, as far
as such a subject is capable of demonstration, it appears
to me
to have been framed, with a particular view, by the Jews
of
Tiberias. It was
not the chronology of the Samaritans, not that
of the LXX., not that of Josephus, not that of St. Paul.
- M.]
[Footnote 56: Eight millions of Roman modii, besides a
contribution of 80,000 aurei for the expenses of
water-carriage,
from which the subject was graciously excused. See the 13th
Edict of Justinian: the numbers are checked and verified
by the
agreement of the Greek and Latin texts.]
[Footnote 57: Homer's Iliad, vi. 289. These veils, were the work
of the Sidonian women.
But this passage is more honorable to the
manufactures than to the navigation of Phoenicia, from
whence
they had been imported to Troy in Phrygian bottoms.]
[Footnote 58: See in Ovid (de Arte Amandi, iii. 269,
&c.) a
poetical list of twelve colors borrowed from flowers, the
elements, &c.
But it is almost impossible to discriminate by
words all the nice and various shades both of art and
nature.]
[Footnote 59: By the discovery of cochineal, &c., we
far surpass
the colors of antiquity.
Their royal purple had a strong smell,
and a dark cast as deep as bull's blood - obscuritas
rubens,
(says Cassiodorus, Var. 1, 2,) nigredo saguinea. The president
Goguet (Origine des Loix et des Arts, part ii. l. ii. c.
2, p.
184 - 215) will amuse and satisfy the reader. I doubt whether
his book, especially in England, is as well known as it
deserves
to be.]
[Footnote 60: Historical proofs of this jealousy have
been
occasionally introduced, and many more might have been
added; but
the arbitrary acts of despotism were justified by the
sober and
general declarations of law, (Codex Theodosian. l. x.
tit. 21,
leg. 3. Codex
Justinian. l. xi. tit. 8, leg. 5.) An inglorious
permission, and necessary restriction, was applied to the
mince,
the female dancers, (Cod. Theodos. l. xv. tit. 7, leg.
11.)]
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.
Part III.
I need not
explain that silk ^61 is originally spun from the
bowels of a caterpillar, and that it composes the golden
tomb,
from whence a worm emerges in the form of a
butterfly. Till the
reign of Justinian, the silk- worm who feed on the leaves
of the
white mulberry-tree were confined to China; those of the
pine,
the oak, and the ash, were common in the forests both of
Asia and
Europe; but as their education is more difficult, and
their
produce more uncertain, they were generally neglected, except
in
the little island of Ceos, near the coast of Attica. A
thin gauze
was procured from their webs, and this Cean manufacture,
the
invention of a woman, for female use, was long admired
both in
the East and at Rome.
Whatever suspicions may be raised by the
garments of the Medes and Assyrians, Virgil is the most
ancient
writer, who expressly mentions the soft wool which was
combed
from the trees of the Seres or Chinese; ^62 and this
natural
error, less marvellous than the truth, was slowly
corrected by
the knowledge of a valuable insect, the first artificer
of the
luxury of nations.
That rare and elegant luxury was censured, in
the reign of Tiberius, by the gravest of the Romans; and
Pliny,
in affected though forcible language, has condemned the
thirst of
gain, which explores the last confines of the earth, for
the
pernicious purpose of exposing to the public eye naked
draperies
and transparent matrons. ^63 ^* A dress which showed the
turn of
the limbs, and color of the skin, might gratify vanity,
or
provoke desire; the silks which had been closely woven in
China
were sometimes unravelled by the Phoenician women, and
the
precious materials were multiplied by a looser texture,
and the
intermixture of linen threads. ^64 Two hundred years
after the
age of Pliny, the use of pure, or even of mixed silks,
was
confined to the female sex, till the opulent citizens of
Rome and
the provinces were insensibly familiarized with the
example of
Elagabalus, the first who, by this effeminate habit, had
sullied
the dignity of an emperor and a man. Aurelian complained, that a
pound of silk was sold at Rome for twelve ounces of gold;
but the
supply increased with the demand, and the price
diminished with
the supply. If
accident or monopoly sometimes raised the value
even above the standard of Aurelian, the manufacturers of
Tyre
and Berytus were sometimes compelled, by the operation of
the
same causes, to content themselves with a ninth part of
that
extravagant rate. ^65 A law was thought necessary to
discriminate
the dress of comedians from that of senators; and of the
silk
exported from its native country the far greater part was
consumed by the subjects of Justinian. They were still more
intimately acquainted with a shell-fish of the
Mediterranean,
surnamed the silk-worm of the sea: the fine wool or hair
by which
the mother-of-pearl affixes itself to the rock is now
manufactured for curiosity rather than use; and a robe
obtained
from the same singular materials was the gift of the
Roman
emperor to the satraps of Armenia. ^66
[Footnote 61: In the history of insects (far more
wonderful than
Ovid's Metamorphoses) the silk-worm holds a conspicuous
place.
The bombyx of the Isle of Ceos, as described by Pliny,
(Hist.
Natur. xi. 26, 27, with the notes of the two learned
Jesuits,
Hardouin and Brotier,) may be illustrated by a similar
species in
China, (Memoires sur les Chinois, tom. ii. p. 575 - 598;)
but our
silk-worm, as well as the white mulberry-tree, were
unknown to
Theophrastus and Pliny.]
[Footnote 62: Georgic. ii. 121. Serica quando venerint in usum
planissime non acio: suspicor tamen in Julii Caesaris
aevo, nam
ante non invenio, says Justus Lipsius, (Excursus i. ad
Tacit.
Annal. ii. 32.) See Dion Cassius, (l. xliii. p. 358,
edit.
Reimar,) and Pausanius, (l. vi. p. 519,) the first who
describes,
however strangely, the Seric insect.]
[Footnote 63: Tam longinquo orbe petitur, ut in publico
matrona
transluceat ...ut denudet foeminas vestis, (Plin. vi. 20,
xi.
21.) Varro and Publius Syrus had already played on the
Toga
vitrea, ventus texilis, and nebula linen, (Horat. Sermon.
i. 2,
101, with the notes of Torrentius and Dacier.)]
[Footnote *: Gibbon must have written transparent
draperies and
naked matrons. Through sometimes affected, he is never
inaccurate. - M.]
[Footnote 64: On the texture, colors, names, and use of
the silk,
half silk, and liuen garments of antiquity, see the
profound,
diffuse, and obscure researches of the great Salmasius,
(in Hist.
August. p. 127, 309, 310, 339, 341, 342, 344, 388 - 391,
395,
513,) who was ignorant of the most common trades of Dijon
or
Leyden.]
[Footnote 65: Flavius Vopiscus in Aurelian. c. 45, in
Hist.
August. p. 224. See Salmasius ad Hist. Aug. p. 392, and
Plinian.
Exercitat. in Solinum, p. 694, 695. The Anecdotes of Procopius
(c. 25) state a partial and imperfect rate of the price
of silk
in the time of Justinian.]
[Footnote 66: Procopius de Edit. l. iii. c. 1. These pinnes de
mer are found near Smyrna, Sicily, Corsica, and Minorca;
and a
pair of gloves of their silk was presented to Pope
Benedict XIV.]
A valuable
merchandise of small bulk is capable of defraying
the expense of land-carriage; and the caravans traversed
the
whole latitude of Asia in two hundred and forty-three
days from
the Chinese Ocean to the sea-coast of Syria. Silk was
immediately
delivered to the Romans by the Persian merchants, ^67 who
frequented the fairs of Armenia and Nisibis; but this
trade,
which in the intervals of truce was oppressed by avarice
and
jealousy, was totally interrupted by the long wars of the
rival
monarchies. The
great king might proudly number Sogdiana, and
even Serica, among the provinces of his empire; but his
real
dominion was bounded by the Oxus and his useful
intercourse with
the Sogdoites, beyond the river, depended on the pleasure
of
their conquerors, the white Huns, and the Turks, who
successively
reigned over that industrious people. Yet the most savage
dominion has not extirpated the seeds of agriculture and
commerce, in a region which is celebrated as one of the
four
gardens of Asia; the cities of Samarcand and Bochara are
advantageously seated for the exchange of its various
productions; and their merchants purchased from the
Chinese, ^68
the raw or manufactured silk which they transported into
Persia
for the use of the Roman empire. In the vain capital of China,
the Sogdian caravans were entertained as the suppliant
embassies
of tributary kingdoms, and if they returned in safety,
the bold
adventure was rewarded with exorbitant gain. But the difficult
and perilous march from Samarcand to the first town of
Shensi,
could not be performed in less than sixty, eighty, or one
hundred
days: as soon as they had passed the Jaxartes they
entered the
desert; and the wandering hordes, unless they are
restrained by
armies and garrisons, have always considered the citizen
and the
traveller as the objects of lawful rapine. To escape the Tartar
robbers, and the tyrants of Persia, the silk caravans
explored a
more southern road; they traversed the mountains of
Thibet,
descended the streams of the Ganges or the Indus, and
patiently
expected, in the ports of Guzerat and Malabar, the annual
fleets
of the West. ^69 But the dangers of the desert were found
less
intolerable than toil, hunger, and the loss of time; the
attempt
was seldom renewed, and the only European who has passed
that
unfrequented way, applauds his own diligence, that, in
nine
months after his departure from Pekin, he reached the
mouth of
the Indus. The
ocean, however, was open to the free
communication of mankind. From the great river to the
tropic of
Cancer, the provinces of China were subdued and civilized
by the
emperors of the North; they were filled about the time of
the
Christian aera with cities and men, mulberry- trees and
their
precious inhabitants; and if the Chinese, with the
knowledge of
the compass, had possessed the genius of the Greeks or
Phoenicians, they might have spread their discoveries
over the
southern hemisphere.
I am not qualified to examine, and I am not
disposed to believe, their distant voyages to the Persian
Gulf,
or the Cape of Good Hope; but their ancestors might equal
the
labors and success of the present race, and the sphere of
their
navigation might extend from the Isles of Japan to the
Straits of
Malacca, the pillars, if we may apply that name, of an
Oriental
Hercules. ^70 Without losing sight of land, they might
sail along
the coast to the extreme promontory of Achin, which is
annually
visited by ten or twelve ships laden with the
productions, the
manufactures, and even the artificers of China; the Island
of
Sumatra and the opposite peninsula are faintly delineated
^71 as
the regions of gold and silver; and the trading cities
named in
the geography of Ptolemy may indicate, that this wealth
was not
solely derived from the mines. The direct interval between
Sumatra and Ceylon is about three hundred leagues: the
Chinese
and Indian navigators were conducted by the flight of
birds and
periodical winds; and the ocean might be securely
traversed in
square-built ships, which, instead of iron, were sewed
together
with the strong thread of the cocoanut. Ceylon, Serendib,
or
Taprobana, was divided between two hostile princes; one
of whom
possessed the mountains, the elephants, and the luminous
carbuncle, and the other enjoyed the more solid riches of
domestic industry, foreign trade, and the capacious
harbor of
Trinquemale, which received and dismissed the fleets of
the East
and West. In this hospitable isle, at an equal distance
(as it
was computed) from their respective countries, the silk
merchants
of China, who had collected in their voyages aloes,
cloves,
nutmeg, and sandal wood, maintained a free and beneficial
commerce with the inhabitants of the Persian Gulf. The subjects
of the great king exalted, without a rival, his power and
magnificence: and the Roman, who confounded their vanity
by
comparing his paltry coin with a gold medal of the
emperor
Anastasius, had sailed to Ceylon, in an Aethiopian ship,
as a
simple passenger. ^72
[Footnote 67: Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 20, l. ii. c.
25;
Gothic. l. iv. c. 17.
Menander in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107.
Of
the Parthian or Persian empire, Isidore of Charax (in
Stathmis
Parthicis, p. 7, 8, in Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. ii.)
has
marked the roads, and Ammianus Marcellinus (l. xxiii. c.
6, p.
400) has enumerated the provinces.
Note: See St.
Martin, Mem. sur l'Armenie, vol. ii. p. 41. -
M.]
[Footnote 68: The blind admiration of the Jesuits
confounds the
different periods of the Chinese history. They are more
critically distinguished by M. de Guignes, (Hist. des
Huns, tom.
i. part i. in the Tables, part ii. in the Geography. Memoires de
l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxii. xxxvi. xlii.
xliii.,)
who discovers the gradual progress of the truth of the
annals and
the extent of the monarchy, till the Christian aera. He has
searched, with a curious eye, the connections of the
Chinese with
the nations of the West; but these connections are
slight,
casual, and obscure; nor did the Romans entertain a
suspicion
that the Seres or Sinae possessed an empire not inferior
to their
own.
Note: An
abstract of the various opinions of the learned
modern writers, Gosselin, Mannert, Lelewel, Malte-Brun,
Heeren,
and La Treille, on the Serica and the Thinae of the
ancients, may
be found in the new edition of Malte-Brun, vol. vi. p.
368, 382.
- M.]
[Footnote 69: The roads from China to Persia and
Hindostan may be
investigated in the relations of Hackluyt and Thevenot,
the
ambassadors of Sharokh, Anthony Jenkinson, the Pere
Greuber, &c.
See likewise Hanway's Travels, vol. i. p. 345 - 357. A
communication through Thibet has been lately explored by
the
English sovereigns of Bengal.]
[Footnote 70: For the Chinese navigation to Malacca and
Achin,
perhaps to Ceylon, see Renaudot, (on the two Mahometan
Travellers, p. 8 - 11, 13 - 17, 141 - 157;) Dampier,
(vol. ii. p.
136;) the Hist. Philosophique des deux Indes, (tom. i. p.
98,)
and Hist. Generale des Voyages, (tom. vi. p. 201.)]
[Footnote 71: The knowledge, or rather ignorance, of
Strabo,
Pliny, Ptolemy, Arrian, Marcian, &c., of the
countries eastward
of Cape Comorin, is finely illustrated by D'Anville,
(Antiquite
Geographique de l'Inde, especially p. 161 - 198.) Our
geography
of India is improved by commerce and conquest; and has
been
illustrated by the excellent maps and memoirs of Major
Rennel.
If he extends the sphere of his inquiries with the same
critical
knowledge and sagacity, he will succeed, and may surpass,
the
first of modern geographers.]
[Footnote 72: The Taprobane of Pliny, (vi. 24,) Solinus,
(c. 53,)
and Salmas. Plinianae Exercitat., (p. 781, 782,) and most
of the
ancients, who often confound the islands of Ceylon and
Sumatra,
is more clearly described by Cosmas Indicopleustes; yet
even the
Christian topographer has exaggerated its
dimensions. His
information on the Indian and Chinese trade is rare and
curious,
(l. ii. p. 138, l. xi. p. 337, 338, edit. Montfaucon.)]
As silk became
of indispensable use, the emperor Justinian
saw with concern that the Persians had occupied by land
and sea
the monopoly of this important supply, and that the
wealth of his
subjects was continually drained by a nation of enemies
and
idolaters. An
active government would have restored the trade of
Egypt and the navigation of the Red Sea, which had
decayed with
the prosperity of the empire; and the Roman vessels might
have
sailed, for the purchase of silk, to the ports of Ceylon,
of
Malacca, or even of China. Justinian embraced a more humble
expedient, and solicited the aid of his Christian allies,
the
Aethiopians of Abyssinia, who had recently acquired the
arts of
navigation, the spirit of trade, and the seaport of
Adulis, ^73
^* still decorated with the trophies of a Grecian
conqueror.
Along the African coast, they penetrated to the equator
in search
of gold, emeralds, and aromatics; but they wisely
declined an
unequal competition, in which they must be always
prevented by
the vicinity of the Persians to the markets of India; and
the
emperor submitted to the disappointment, till his wishes
were
gratified by an unexpected event. The gospel had been preached
to the Indians: a bishop already governed the Christians
of St.
Thomas on the pepper-coast of Malabar; a church was
planted in
Ceylon, and the missionaries pursued the footsteps of
commerce to
the extremities of Asia. ^74 Two Persian monks had long
resided
in China, perhaps in the royal city of Nankin, the seat
of a
monarch addicted to foreign superstitions, and who
actually
received an embassy from the Isle of Ceylon. Amidst their pious
occupations, they viewed with a curious eye the common
dress of
the Chinese, the manufactures of silk, and the myriads of
silk-worms, whose education (either on trees or in
houses) had
once been considered as the labor of queens. ^75 They
soon
discovered that it was impracticable to transport the short-lived
insect, but that in the eggs a numerous progeny might be
preserved and multiplied in a distant climate. Religion
or
interest had more power over the Persian monks than the
love of
their country: after a long journey, they arrived at
Constantinople, imparted their project to the emperor,
and were
liberally encouraged by the gifts and promises of
Justinian. To
the historians of that prince, a campaign at the foot of
Mount
Caucasus has seemed more deserving of a minute relation
than the
labors of these missionaries of commerce, who again
entered
China, deceived a jealous people by concealing the eggs
of the
silk-worm in a hollow cane, and returned in triumph with
the
spoils of the East.
Under their direction, the eggs were hatched
at the proper season by the artificial heat of dung; the
worms
were fed with mulberry leaves; they lived and labored in
a
foreign climate; a sufficient number of butterflies was
saved to
propagate the race, and trees were planted to supply the
nourishment of the rising generations. Experience and
reflection
corrected the errors of a new attempt, and the Sogdoite
ambassadors acknowledged, in the succeeding reign, that
the
Romans were not inferior to the natives of China in the
education
of the insects, and the manufactures of silk, ^76 in
which both
China and Constantinople have been surpassed by the
industry of
modern Europe. I
am not insensible of the benefits of elegant
luxury; yet I reflect with some pain, that if the
importers of
silk had introduced the art of printing, already
practised by the
Chinese, the comedies of Menander and the entire decads
of Livy
would have been perpetuated in the editions of the sixth
century.
A larger view of the globe might at least have promoted
the
improvement of speculative science, but the Christian
geography
was forcibly extracted from texts of Scripture, and the
study of
nature was the surest symptom of an unbelieving
mind. The
orthodox faith confined the habitable world to one
temperate
zone, and represented the earth as an oblong surface,
four
hundred days' journey in length, two hundred in breadth,
encompassed by the ocean, and covered by the solid
crystal of the
firmament. ^77
[Footnote 73: See Procopius, Persic. (l. ii. c. 20.)
Cosmas
affords some interesting knowledge of the port and
inscription of
Adulis, (Topograph. Christ. l. ii. p. 138, 140 - 143,)
and of the
trade of the Axumites along the African coast of Barbaria
or
Zingi, (p. 138, 139,) and as far as Taprobane, (l. xi. p.
339.)]
[Footnote *: Mr. Salt obtained information of
considerable ruins
of an ancient town near Zulla, called Azoole, which
answers to
the position of Adulis.
Mr. Salt was prevented by illness, Mr.
Stuart, whom he sent, by the jealousy of the natives,
from
investigating these ruins: of their existence there seems
no
doubt. Salt's 2d
Journey, p. 452. - M.]
[Footnote 74: See the Christian missions in India, in
Cosmas, (l.
iii. p. 178, 179, l. xi. p. 337,) and consult Asseman.
Bibliot.
Orient. (tom. iv. p. 413 - 548.)]
[Footnote 75: The invention, manufacture, and general use
of silk
in China, may be seen in Duhalde, (Description Generale
de la
Chine, tom. ii. p. 165, 205 - 223.) The province of
Chekian is
the most renowned both for quantity and quality.]
[Footnote 76: Procopius, (l. viii. Gothic. iv. c. 17. Theophanes
Byzant. apud Phot. Cod. lxxxiv. p. 38. Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiv.
p. 69. Pagi (tom.
ii. p. 602) assigns to the year 552 this
memorable importation.
Menander (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 107)
mentions the admiration of the Sogdoites; and Theophylact
Simocatta (l. vii. c. 9) darkly represents the two rival
kingdoms
in (China) the country of silk.]
[Footnote 77: Cosmas, surnamed Indicopleustes, or the
Indian
navigator, performed his voyage about the year 522, and
composed
at Alexandria, between 535, and 547, Christian
Topography,
(Montfaucon, Praefat. c. i.,) in which he refutes the
impious
opinion, that the earth is a globe; and Photius had read
this
work, (Cod. xxxvi. p. 9, 10,) which displays the
prejudices of a
monk, with the knowledge of a merchant; the most valuable
part
has been given in French and in Greek by Melchisedec
Thevenot,
(Relations Curieuses, part i.,) and the whole is since
published
in a splendid edition by Pere Montfaucon, (Nova Collectio
Patrum,
Paris, 1707, 2 vols. in fol., tom. ii. p. 113 - 346.) But
the
editor, a theologian, might blush at not discovering the
Nestorian heresy of Cosmas, which has been detected by La
Croz
(Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 40 - 56.)]
IV. The subjects of Justinian were dissatisfied
with the
times, and with the government. Europe was overrun by the
Barbarians, and Asia by the monks: the poverty of the
West
discouraged the trade and manufactures of the East: the
produce
of labor was consumed by the unprofitable servants of the
church,
the state, and the army; and a rapid decrease was felt in
the
fixed and circulating capitals which constitute the
national
wealth. The public
distress had been alleviated by the economy
of Anastasius, and that prudent emperor accumulated an
immense
treasure, while he delivered his people from the most
odious or
oppressive taxes. ^* Their gratitude universally
applauded the
abolition of the gold of affliction, a personal tribute
on the
industry of the poor, ^78 but more intolerable, as it
should
seem, in the form than in the substance, since the
flourishing
city of Edessa paid only one hundred and forty pounds of
gold,
which was collected in four years from ten thousand
artificers.
^79 Yet such was the parsimony which supported this
liberal
disposition, that, in a reign of twenty-seven years,
Anastasius
saved, from his annual revenue, the enormous sum of
thirteen
millions sterling, or three hundred and twenty thousand
pounds of
gold. ^80 His example was neglected, and his treasure was
abused,
by the nephew of Justin.
The riches of Justinian were speedily
exhausted by alms and buildings, by ambitious wars, and
ignominious treaties.
His revenues were found inadequate to his
expenses. Every art was tried to extort from the people
the gold
and silver which he scattered with a lavish hand from
Persia to
France: ^81 his reign was marked by the vicissitudes or
rather by
the combat, of rapaciousness and avarice, of splendor and
poverty; he lived with the reputation of hidden
treasures, ^82
and bequeathed to his successor the payment of his debts.
^83
Such a character has been justly accused by the voice of
the
people and of posterity: but public discontent is
credulous;
private malice is bold; and a lover of truth will peruse
with a
suspicious eye the instructive anecdotes of
Procopius. The
secret historian represents only the vices of Justinian,
and
those vices are darkened by his malevolent pencil. Ambiguous
actions are imputed to the worst motives; error is
confounded
with guilt, accident with design, and laws with abuses;
the
partial injustice of a moment is dexterously applied as
the
general maxim of a reign of thirty-two years; the emperor
alone
is made responsible for the faults of his officers, the
disorders
of the times, and the corruption of his subjects; and even
the
calamities of nature, plagues, earthquakes, and
inundations, are
imputed to the prince of the daemons, who had
mischievously
assumed the form of Justinian. ^84
[Footnote *: See the character of Anastasius in Joannes
Lydus de
Magistratibus, iii. c. 45, 46, p. 230 - 232. His economy is
there said to have degenerated into parsimony. He is accused of
having taken away the levying of taxes and payment of the
troops
from the municipal authorities, (the decurionate) in the
Eastern
cities, and intrusted it to an extortionate officer named
Mannus.
But he admits that the imperial revenue was enormously
increased
by this measure. A
statue of iron had been erected to Anastasius
in the Hippodrome, on which appeared one morning this
pasquinade.
This epigram
is also found in the Anthology. Jacobs, vol.
iv. p. 114 with some better readings.
This iron statue meetly do we place To thee,
world-wasting king,
than brass more base; For all the death, the penury,
famine, woe,
That from thy wide-destroying avarice flow, This fell
Charybdis,
Scylla, near to thee, This fierce devouring Anastasius,
see; And
tremble, Scylla!
on thee, too, his greed, Coining thy brazen
deity, may feed.
But Lydus,
with no uncommon inconsistency in such writers,
proceeds to paint the character of Anastasius as endowed
with
almost every virtue, not excepting the utmost
liberality. He was
only prevented by death from relieving his subjects
altogether
from the capitation tax, which he greatly diminished. -
M.]
[Footnote 78: Evagrius (l. ii. c. 39, 40) is minute and
grateful,
but angry with Zosimus for calumniating the great
Constantine.
In collecting all the bonds and records of the tax, the
humanity
of Anastasius was diligent and artful: fathers were
sometimes
compelled to prostitute their daughters, (Zosim. Hist. l.
ii. c.
38, p. 165, 166, Lipsiae, 1784.) Timotheus of Gaza chose
such an
event for the subject of a tragedy, (Suidas, tom. iii. p.
475,)
which contributed to the abolition of the tax, (Cedrenus,
p. 35,)
- a happy instance (if it be true) of the use of the
theatre.]
[Footnote 79: See Josua Stylites, in the Bibliotheca
Orientalis
of Asseman, (tom. p. 268.) This capitation tax is
slightly
mentioned in the Chronicle of Edessa.]
[Footnote 80: Procopius (Anecdot. c. 19) fixes this sum
from the
report of the treasurers themselves. Tiberias had vicies ter
millies; but far different was his empire from that of
Anastasius.]
[Footnote 81: Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 30,) in the next
generation,
was moderate and well informed; and Zonaras, (l. xiv. c.
61,) in
the xiith century, had read with care, and thought
without
prejudice; yet their colors are almost as black as those
of the
anecdotes.]
[Footnote 82: Procopius (Anecdot. c. 30) relates the idle
conjectures of the times.
The death of Justinian, says the
secret historian, will expose his wealth or poverty.]
[Footnote 83: See Corippus de Laudibus Justini Aug. l.
ii. 260,
&c., 384, &c
"Plurima sunt vivo nimium neglecta parenti, Unde tot
exhaustus
contraxit debita fiscus."
Centenaries of gold were brought by strong men into the
Hippodrome,
"Debita persolvit, genitoris cauta recepit."]
[Footnote 84: The Anecdotes (c. 11 - 14, 18, 20 - 30)
supply many
facts and more complaints.
Note: The work
of Lydus de Magistratibus (published by Hase
at Paris, 1812, and reprinted in the new edition of the
Byzantine
Historians,) was written during the reign of
Justinian. This
work of Lydus throws no great light on the earlier
history of the
Roman magistracy, but gives some curious details of the
changes
and retrenchments in the offices of state, which took
place at
this time. The
personal history of the author, with the account
of his early and rapid advancement, and the emoluments of
the
posts which he successively held, with the bitter disappointment
which he expresses, at finding himself, at the height of
his
ambition, in an unpaid place, is an excellent
illustration of
this statement.
Gibbon has before, c. iv. n. 45, and c. xvii. n.
112, traced the progress of a Roman citizen to the
highest honors
of the state under the empire; the steps by which Lydus
reached
his humbler eminence may likewise throw light on the
civil
service at this period. He was first received into the
office of
the Praetorian praefect; became a notary in that office,
and made
in one year 1000 golden solidi, and that without
extortion. His
place and the influence of his relatives obtained him a
wife with
400 pounds of gold for her dowry. He became chief chartularius,
with an annual stipend of twenty-four solidi, and considerable
emoluments for all the various services which he
performed. He
rose to an Augustalis, and finally to the dignity of
Corniculus,
the highest, and at one time the most lucrative office in
the
department. But
the Praetorian praefect had gradually been
deprived of his powers and his honors. He lost the
superintendence of the supply and manufacture of arms;
the
uncontrolled charge of the public posts; the levying of
the
troops; the command of the army in war when the emperors
ceased
nominally to command in person, but really through the
Praetorian
praefect; that of the household troops, which fell to the
magister aulae. At
length the office was so completely stripped
of its power, as to be virtually abolished, (see de
Magist. l.
iii. c. 40, p. 220, &c.) This diminution of the
office of the
praefect destroyed the emoluments of his subordinate
officers,
and Lydus not only drew no revenue from his dignity, but
expended
upon it all the gains of his former services.
Lydus gravely
refers this calamitous, and, as he considers
it, fatal degradation of the Praetorian office to the
alteration
in the style of the official documents from Latin to
Greek; and
refers to a prophecy of a certain Fonteius, which
connected the
ruin of the Roman empire with its abandonment of its
language.
Lydus chiefly owed his promotion to his knowledge of
Latin! - M.]
After this
precaution, I shall briefly relate the anecdotes
of avarice and rapine under the following heads: I. Justinian
was so profuse that he could not be liberal. The civil and
military officers, when they were admitted into the
service of
the palace, obtained an humble rank and a moderate
stipend; they
ascended by seniority to a station of affluence and
repose; the
annual pensions, of which the most honorable class was
abolished
by Justinian, amounted to four hundred thousand pounds;
and this
domestic economy was deplored by the venal or indigent
courtiers
as the last outrage on the majesty of the empire. The posts, the
salaries of physicians, and the nocturnal illuminations,
were
objects of more general concern; and the cities might
justly
complain, that he usurped the municipal revenues which
had been
appropriated to these useful institutions. Even the soldiers
were injured; and such was the decay of military spirit,
that
they were injured with impunity. The emperor refused, at the
return of each fifth year, the customary donative of five
pieces
of gold, reduced his veterans to beg their bread, and
suffered
unpaid armies to melt away in the wars of Italy and
Persia. II.
The humanity of his predecessors had always remitted, in
some
auspicious circumstance of their reign, the arrears of
the public
tribute, and they dexterously assumed the merit of
resigning
those claims which it was impracticable to enforce. "Justinian,
in the space of thirty-two years, has never granted a
similar
indulgence; and many of his subjects have renounced the
possession of those lands whose value is insufficient to
satisfy
the demands of the treasury. To the cities which had suffered by
hostile inroads Anastasius promised a general exemption
of seven
years: the provinces of Justinian have been ravaged by
the
Persians and Arabs, the Huns and Sclavonians; but his
vain and
ridiculous dispensation of a single year has been
confined to
those places which were actually taken by the
enemy." Such is the
language of the secret historian, who expressly denies
that any
indulgence was granted to Palestine after the revolt of
the
Samaritans; a false and odious charge, confuted by the
authentic
record which attests a relief of thirteen centenaries of
gold
(fifty-two thousand pounds) obtained for that desolate
province
by the intercession of St. Sabas. ^85 III. Procopius has
not
condescended to explain the system of taxation, which
fell like a
hail-storm upon the land, like a devouring pestilence on
its
inhabitants: but we should become the accomplices of his
malignity, if we imputed to Justinian alone the ancient
though
rigorous principle, that a whole district should be
condemned to
sustain the partial loss of the persons or property of
individuals. The
Annona, or supply of corn for the use of the
army and capital, was a grievous and arbitrary exaction,
which
exceeded, perhaps in a tenfold proportion, the ability of
the
farmer; and his distress was aggravated by the partial
injustice
of weights and measures, and the expense and labor of
distant
carriage. In a
time of scarcity, an extraordinary requisition
was made to the adjacent provinces of Thrace, Bithynia,
and
Phrygia: but the proprietors, after a wearisome journey
and
perilous navigation, received so inadequate a
compensation, that
they would have chosen the alternative of delivering both
the
corn and price at the doors of their granaries. These
precautions might indicate a tender solicitude for the
welfare of
the capital; yet Constantinople did not escape the
rapacious
despotism of Justinian.
Till his reign, the Straits of the
Bosphorus and Hellespont were open to the freedom of
trade, and
nothing was prohibited except the exportation of arms for
the
service of the Barbarians. At each of these gates of the
city, a
praetor was stationed, the minister of Imperial avarice;
heavy
customs were imposed on the vessels and their
merchandise; the
oppression was retaliated on the helpless consumer; the
poor were
afflicted by the artificial scarcity, and exorbitant
price of the
market; and a people, accustomed to depend on the
liberality of
their prince, might sometimes complain of the deficiency
of water
and bread. ^86 The aerial tribute, without a name, a law,
or a
definite object, was an annual gift of one hundred and
twenty
thousand pounds, which the emperor accepted from his
Praetorian
praefect; and the means of payment were abandoned to the
discretion of that powerful magistrate. IV.
Even such a tax was
less intolerable than the privilege of monopolies, ^*
which
checked the fair competition of industry, and, for the
sake of a
small and dishonest gain, imposed an arbitrary burden on
the
wants and luxury of the subject. "As soon" (I transcribe the
Anecdotes) "as the exclusive sale of silk was
usurped by the
Imperial treasurer, a whole people, the manufacturers of
Tyre and
Berytus, was reduced to extreme misery, and either
perished with
hunger, or fled to the hostile dominions of Persia."
A province
might suffer by the decay of its manufactures, but in
this
example of silk, Procopius has partially overlooked the
inestimable and lasting benefit which the empire received
from
the curiosity of Justinian. His addition of one seventh to the
ordinary price of copper money may be interpreted with
the same
candor; and the alteration, which might be wise, appears
to have
been innocent; since he neither alloyed the purity, nor
enhanced
the value, of the gold coin, ^87 the legal measure of
public and
private payments.
V. The ample jurisdiction
required by the
farmers of the revenue to accomplish their engagements
might be
placed in an odious light, as if they had purchased from
the
emperor the lives and fortunes of their
fellow-citizens. And a
more direct sale of honors and offices was transacted in
the
palace, with the permission, or at least with the
connivance, of
Justinian and Theodora.
The claims of merit, even those of
favor, were disregarded, and it was almost reasonable to
expect,
that the bold adventurer, who had undertaken the trade of
a
magistrate, should find a rich compensation for infamy,
labor,
danger, the debts which he had contracted, and the heavy
interest
which he paid. A
sense of the disgrace and mischief of this
venal practice, at length awakened the slumbering virtue
of
Justinian; and he attempted, by the sanction of oaths ^88
and
penalties, to guard the integrity of his government: but
at the
end of a year of perjury, his rigorous edict was
suspended, and
corruption licentiously abused her triumph over the
impotence of
the laws. VI. The testament of Eulalius, count of the
domestics, declared the emperor his sole heir, on
condition,
however, that he should discharge his debts and legacies,
allow
to his three daughters a decent maintenance, and bestow
each of
them in marriage, with a portion of ten pounds of
gold. But the
splendid fortune of Eulalius had been consumed by fire,
and the
inventory of his goods did not exceed the trifling sum of
five
hundred and sixty-four pieces of gold. A similar instance, in
Grecian history, admonished the emperor of the honorable
part
prescribed for his imitation. He checked the selfish murmurs of
the treasury, applauded the confidence of his friend,
discharged
the legacies and debts, educated the three virgins under
the eye
of the empress Theodora, and doubled the marriage portion
which
had satisfied the tenderness of their father. ^89 The
humanity of
a prince (for princes cannot be generous) is entitled to
some
praise; yet even in this act of virtue we may discover
the
inveterate custom of supplanting the legal or natural
heirs,
which Procopius imputes to the reign of Justinian. His charge is
supported by eminent names and scandalous examples;
neither
widows nor orphans were spared; and the art of soliciting,
or
extorting, or supposing testaments, was beneficially
practised by
the agents of the palace.
This base and mischievous tyranny
invades the security of private life; and the monarch who
has
indulged an appetite for gain, will soon be tempted to anticipate
the moment of succession, to interpret wealth as an
evidence of
guilt, and to proceed, from the claim of inheritance, to
the
power of confiscation.
VII. Among the forms of rapine, a
philosopher may be permitted to name the conversion of
Pagan or
heretical riches to the use of the faithful; but in the
time of
Justinian this holy plunder was condemned by the
sectaries alone,
who became the victims of his orthodox avarice. ^90
[Footnote 85: One to Scythopolis, capital of the second
Palestine, and twelve for the rest of the province. Aleman. (p.
59) honestly produces this fact from a Ms. life of St.
Sabas, by
his disciple Cyril, in the Vatican Library, and since
published
by Cotelerius.]
[Footnote 86: John Malala (tom. ii. p. 232) mentions the
want of
bread, and Zonaras (l. xiv. p. 63) the leaden pipes,
which
Justinian, or his servants, stole from the aqueducts.]
[Footnote *: Hullman (Geschichte des Byzantinischen
Handels. p.
15) shows that the despotism of the government was
aggravated by
the unchecked rapenity of the officers. This state monopoly,
even of corn, wine, and oil, was to force at the time of
the
first crusade. - M.]
[Footnote 87: For an aureus, one sixth of an ounce of
gold,
instead of 210, he gave no more than 180 folles, or ounces
of
copper. A
disproportion of the mint, below the market price,
must have soon produced a scarcity of small money. In England
twelve pence in copper would sell for no more than seven
pence,
(Smith's Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p.
49.) For
Justinian's gold coin, see Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 30.)]
[Footnote 88: The oath is conceived in the most
formidable words,
(Novell. viii. tit. 3.) The defaulters imprecate on
themselves,
quicquid haben: telorum armamentaria coeli: the part of
Judas,
the leprosy of Gieza, the tremor of Cain, &c.,
besides all
temporal pains.]
[Footnote 89: A similar or more generous act of
friendship is
related by Lucian of Eudamidas of Corinth, (in Toxare, c.
22, 23,
tom. ii. p. 530,) and the story has produced an ingenious,
though
feeble, comedy of Fontenelle.]
[Footnote 90: John Malala, tom. ii. p. 101, 102, 103.]
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.
Part IV.
Dishonor might
be ultimately reflected on the character of
Justinian; but much of the guilt, and still more of the
profit,
was intercepted by the ministers, who were seldom
promoted for
their virtues, and not always selected for their talents.
^91 The
merits of Tribonian the quaestor will hereafter be
weighed in the
reformation of the Roman law; but the economy of the East
was
subordinate to the Praetorian praefect, and Procopius has
justified his anecdotes by the portrait which he exposes
in his
public history, of the notorious vices of John of
Cappadocia. ^92
^* His knowledge was not borrowed from the schools, ^93
and his
style was scarcely legible; but he excelled in the powers
of
native genius, to suggest the wisest counsels, and to
find
expedients in the most desperate situations. The corruption of
his heart was equal to the vigor of his understanding.
Although
he was suspected of magic and Pagan superstition, he
appeared
insensible to the fear of God or the reproaches of man;
and his
aspiring fortune was raised on the death of thousands,
the
poverty of millions, the ruins of cities, and the
desolation of
provinces. From
the dawn of light to the moment of dinner, he
assiduously labored to enrich his master and himself at
the
expense of the Roman world; the remainder of the day was
spent in
sensual and obscene pleasures, ^* and the silent hours of
the
night were interrupted by the perpetual dread of the
justice of
an assassin. His
abilities, perhaps his vices, recommended him
to the lasting friendship of Justinian: the emperor
yielded with
reluctance to the fury of the people; his victory was
displayed
by the immediate restoration of their enemy; and they
felt above
ten years, under his oppressive administration, that he
was
stimulated by revenge, rather than instructed by
misfortune.
Their murmurs served only to fortify the resolution of
Justinian;
but the resentment of Theodora, disdained a power before
which
every knee was bent, and attempted to sow the seeds of
discord
between the emperor and his beloved consort. Even
Theodora
herself was constrained to dissemble, to wait a favorable
moment,
and, by an artful conspiracy, to render John of
Coppadocia the
accomplice of his own destruction. ^! At a time when
Belisarius,
unless he had been a hero, must have shown himself a
rebel, his
wife Antonina, who enjoyed the secret confidence of the
empress,
communicated his feigned discontent to Euphemia, the
daughter of
the praefect; the credulous virgin imparted to her father
the
dangerous project, and John, who might have known the
value of
oaths and promises, was tempted to accept a nocturnal,
and almost
treasonable, interview with the wife of Belisarius. An ambuscade
of guards and eunuchs had been posted by the command of
Theodora;
they rushed with drawn swords to seize or to punish the
guilty
minister: he was saved by the fidelity of his attendants;
but
instead of appealing to a gracious sovereign, who had
privately
warned him of his danger, he pusillanimously fled to the
sanctuary of the church.
The favorite of Justinian was
sacrificed to conjugal tenderness or domestic
tranquility; the
conversion of a praefect into a priest extinguished his
ambitious
hopes: but the friendship of the emperor alleviated his
disgrace,
and he retained in the mild exile of Cyzicus an ample
portion of
his riches. Such
imperfect revenge could not satisfy the
unrelenting hatred of Theodora; the murder of his old
enemy, the
bishop of Cyzicus, afforded a decent pretence; and John
of
Cappadocia, whose actions had deserved a thousand deaths,
was at
last condemned for a crime of which he was innocent. A great
minister, who had been invested with the honors of consul
and
patrician, was ignominiously scourged like the vilest of
malefactors; a tattered cloak was the sole remnant of his
fortunes; he was transported in a bark to the place of
his
banishment at Antinopolis in Upper Egypt, and the praefect
of the
East begged his bread through the cities which had
trembled at
his name. During
an exile of seven years, his life was
protracted and threatened by the ingenious cruelty of
Theodora;
and when her death permitted the emperor to recall a
servant whom
he had abandoned with regret, the ambition of John of
Cappadocia
was reduced to the humble duties of the sacerdotal
profession.
His successors convinced the subjects of Justinian, that
the arts
of oppression might still be improved by experience and
industry;
the frauds of a Syrian banker were introduced into the
administration of the finances; and the example of the
praefect
was diligently copied by the quaestor, the public and
private
treasurer, the governors of provinces, and the principal
magistrates of the Eastern empire. ^94
[Footnote 91: One of these, Anatolius, perished in an
earthquake
- doubtless a judgment!
The complaints and clamors of the people
in Agathias (l. v. p. 146, 147) are almost an echo of the
anecdote. The
aliena pecunia reddenda of Corippus (l. ii. 381,
&c.,) is not very honorable to Justinian's memory.]
[Footnote 92: See the history and character of John of
Cappadocia
in Procopius.
(Persic, l. i. c. 35, 25, l. ii. c. 30.
Vandal.
l. i. c. 13. Anecdot. c. 2, 17, 22.) The agreement of the
history
and anecdotes is a mortal wound to the reputation of the
praefct.]
[Footnote *: This view, particularly of the cruelty of
John of
Cappadocia, is confirmed by the testimony of Joannes
Lydus, who
was in the office of the praefect, and eye-witness of the
tortures inflicted by his command on the miserable
debtors, or
supposed debtors, of the state. He mentions one horrible
instance of a respectable old man, with whom he was
personally
acquainted, who, being suspected of possessing money, was
hung up
by the hands till he was dead. Lydus de Magist. lib. iii. c. 57,
p. 254. - M.]
[Footnote 93: A forcible expression.]
[Footnote *: Joannes Lydus is diffuse on this subject,
lib. iii.
c. 65, p. 268. But
the indignant virtue of Lydus seems greatly
stimulated by the loss of his official fees, which he
ascribes to
the innovations of the minister. - M.]
[Footnote !: According to Lydus, Theodora disclosed the
crimes
and unpopularity of the minister to Justinian, but the
emperor
had not the courage to remove, and was unable to replace,
a
servant, under whom his finances seemed to prosper. He
attributes the sedition and conflagration to the popular
resentment against the tyranny of John, lib. iii. c 70,
p. 278.
Unfortunately there is a large gap in his work just at
this
period. - M.]
[Footnote 94: The chronology of Procopius is loose and
obscure;
but with the aid of Pagi I can discern that John was
appointed
Praetorian praefect of the East in the year 530 - that he
was
removed in January, 532 - restored before June, 533 -
banished in
541 - and recalled between June, 548, and April 1,
549. Aleman.
(p. 96, 97) gives the list of his ten successors - a
rapid series
in a part of a single reign.
Note: Lydus
gives a high character of Phocas, his successor
tom. iii. c. 78 p. 288. - M.]
V. The edifices of Justinian were cemented with
the blood
and treasure of his people; but those stately structures
appeared
to announce the prosperity of the empire, and actually
displayed
the skill of their architects. Both the theory and practice of
the arts which depend on mathematical science and
mechanical
power, were cultivated under the patronage of the
emperors; the
fame of Archimedes was rivalled by Proclus and Anthemius;
and if
their miracles had been related by intelligent
spectators, they
might now enlarge the speculations, instead of exciting
the
distrust, of philosophers. A tradition has prevailed, that the
Roman fleet was reduced to ashes in the port of Syracuse,
by the
burning-glasses of Archimedes; ^95 and it is asserted,
that a
similar expedient was employed by Proclus to destroy the
Gothic
vessels in the harbor of Constantinople, and to protect
his
benefactor Anastasius against the bold enterprise of
Vitalian.
^96 A machine was fixed on the walls of the city,
consisting of a
hexagon mirror of polished brass, with many smaller and
movable
polygons to receive and reflect the rays of the meridian
sun; and
a consuming flame was darted, to the distance, perhaps of
two
hundred feet. ^97 The truth of these two extraordinary
facts is
invalidated by the silence of the most authentic
historians; and
the use of burning-glasses was never adopted in the
attack or
defence of places. ^98 Yet the admirable experiments of a
French
philosopher ^99 have demonstrated the possibility of such
a
mirror; and, since it is possible, I am more disposed to
attribute the art to the greatest mathematicians of
antiquity,
than to give the merit of the fiction to the idle fancy
of a monk
or a sophist.
According to another story, Proclus applied
sulphur to the destruction of the Gothic fleet; ^100 in a
modern
imagination, the name of sulphur is instantly connected
with the
suspicion of gunpowder, and that suspicion is propagated
by the
secret arts of his disciple Anthemius. ^101 A citizen of
Tralles
in Asia had five sons, who were all distinguished in
their
respective professions by merit and success. Olympius
excelled in
the knowledge and practice of the Roman jurisprudence.
Dioscorus
and Alexander became learned physicians; but the skill of
the
former was exercised for the benefit of his
fellow-citizens,
while his more ambitious brother acquired wealth and
reputation
at Rome. The fame
of Metrodorus the grammarian, and of Anthemius
the mathematician and architect, reached the ears of the
emperor
Justinian, who invited them to Constantinople; and while
the one
instructed the rising generation in the schools of
eloquence, the
other filled the capital and provinces with more lasting
monuments of his art.
In a trifling dispute relative to the
walls or windows of their contiguous houses, he had been
vanquished by the eloquence of his neighbor Zeno; but the
orator
was defeated in his turn by the master of mechanics,
whose
malicious, though harmless, stratagems are darkly
represented by
the ignorance of Agathias. In a lower room, Anthemius arranged
several vessels or caldrons of water, each of them
covered by the
wide bottom of a leathern tube, which rose to a narrow
top, and
was artificially conveyed among the joists and rafters of
the
adjacent building. A fire was kindled beneath the
caldron; the
steam of the boiling water ascended through the tubes;
the house
was shaken by the efforts of imprisoned air, and its
trembling
inhabitants might wonder that the city was unconscious of
the
earthquake which they had felt. At another time, the friends of
Zeno, as they sat at table, were dazzled by the
intolerable light
which flashed in their eyes from the reflecting mirrors
of
Anthemius; they were astonished by the noise which he
produced
from the collision of certain minute and sonorous
particles; and
the orator declared in tragic style to the senate, that a
mere
mortal must yield to the power of an antagonist, who
shook the
earth with the trident of Neptune, and imitated the
thunder and
lightning of Jove himself. The genius of Anthemius, and
his
colleague Isidore the Milesian, was excited and employed
by a
prince, whose taste for architecture had degenerated into
a
mischievous and costly passion. His favorite architects
submitted their designs and difficulties to Justinian,
and
discreetly confessed how much their laborious meditations
were
surpassed by the intuitive knowledge of celestial
inspiration of
an emperor, whose views were always directed to the
benefit of
his people, the glory of his reign, and the salvation of
his
soul. ^102
[Footnote 95: This conflagration is hinted by Lucian (in
Hippia,
c. 2) and Galen, (l. iii. de Temperamentis, tom. i. p.
81, edit.
Basil.) in the second century. A thousand years afterwards, it
is positively affirmed by Zonaras, (l. ix. p. 424,) on
the faith
of Dion Cassius, Tzetzes, (Chiliad ii. 119, &c.,)
Eustathius, (ad
Iliad. E. p. 338,) and the scholiast of Lucian. See Fabricius,
(Bibliot. Graec. l. iii. c. 22, tom. ii. p. 551, 552,) to
whom I
am more or less indebted for several of these
quotations.]
[Footnote 96: Zonaras (l. xi. c. p. 55) affirms the fact,
without
quoting any evidence.]
[Footnote 97: Tzetzes describes the artifice of these
burning-glasses, which he had read, perhaps, with no
learned
eyes, in a mathematical treatise of Anthemius. That treatise has
been lately published, translated, and illustrated, by M.
Dupuys,
a scholar and a mathematician, (Memoires de l'Academie
des
Inscriptions, tom xlii p. 392 - 451.)]
[Footnote 98: In the siege of Syracuse, by the silence of
Polybius, Plutarch, Livy; in the siege of Constantinople,
by that
of Marcellinus and all the contemporaries of the vith
century.]
[Footnote 99: Without any previous knowledge of Tzetzes
or
Anthemius, the immortal Buffon imagined and executed a
set of
burning-glasses, with which he could inflame planks at
the
distance of 200 feet, (Supplement a l'Hist. Naturelle,
tom. i.
399 - 483, quarto edition.) What miracles would not his
genius
have performed for the public service, with royal expense,
and in
the strong sun of Constantinople or Syracuse?]
[Footnote 100: John Malala (tom. ii. p. 120 - 124)
relates the
fact; but he seems to confound the names or persons of
Proclus
and Marinus.]
[Footnote 101: Agathias, l. v. p. 149 - 152. The merit of
Anthemius as an architect is loudly praised by Procopius
(de
Edif. l. i. c. 1) and Paulus Silentiarius, (part i. 134,
&c.)]
[Footnote 102: See Procopius, (de Edificiis, l. i. c. 1,
2, l.
ii. c. 3.) He relates a coincidence of dreams, which
supposes
some fraud in Justinian or his architect. They both saw, in a
vision, the same plan for stopping an inundation at
Dara. A
stone quarry near Jerusalem was revealed to the emperor,
(l. v.
c. 6:) an angel was tricked into the perpetual custody of
St.
Sophia, (Anonym. de Antiq. C. P. l. iv. p. 70.)]
The principal
church, which was dedicated by the founder of
Constantinople to St. Sophia, or the eternal wisdom, had
been
twice destroyed by fire; after the exile of John
Chrysostom, and
during the Nika of the blue and green factions. No sooner did
the tumult subside, than the Christian populace deplored
their
sacrilegious rashness; but they might have rejoiced in
the
calamity, had they foreseen the glory of the new temple,
which at
the end of forty days was strenuously undertaken by the
piety of
Justinian. ^103 The ruins were cleared away, a more
spacious plan
was described, and as it required the consent of some
proprietors
of ground, they obtained the most exorbitant terms from
the eager
desires and timorous conscience of the monarch. Anthemius formed
the design, and his genius directed the hands of ten
thousand
workmen, whose payment in pieces of fine silver was never
delayed
beyond the evening.
The emperor himself, clad in a linen tunic,
surveyed each day their rapid progress, and encouraged
their
diligence by his familiarity, his zeal, and his
rewards. The new
Cathedral of St. Sophia was consecrated by the patriarch,
five
years, eleven months, and ten days from the first
foundation; and
in the midst of the solemn festival Justinian exclaimed
with
devout vanity, "Glory be to God, who hath thought me
worthy to
accomplish so great a work; I have vanquished thee, O
Solomon!"
^104 But the pride of the Roman Solomon, before twenty
years had
elapsed, was humbled by an earthquake, which overthrew
the
eastern part of the dome.
Its splendor was again restored by the
perseverance of the same prince; and in the thirty- sixth
year of
his reign, Justinian celebrated the second dedication of
a temple
which remains, after twelve centuries, a stately monument
of his
fame. The architecture of St. Sophia, which is now
converted into
the principal mosch, has been imitated by the Turkish
sultans,
and that venerable pile continues to excite the fond
admiration
of the Greeks, and the more rational curiosity of
European
travellers. The
eye of the spectator is disappointed by an
irregular prospect of half-domes and shelving roofs: the
western
front, the principal approach, is destitute of simplicity
and
magnificence; and the scale of dimensions has been much
surpassed
by several of the Latin cathedrals. But the architect who first
erected and aerial cupola, is entitled to the praise of
bold
design and skilful execution. The dome of St. Sophia,
illuminated by four-and-twenty windows, is formed with so
small a
curve, that the depth is equal only to one sixth of its
diameter;
the measure of that diameter is one hundred and fifteen
feet, and
the lofty centre, where a crescent has supplanted the
cross,
rises to the perpendicular height of one hundred and
eighty feet
above the pavement. The circle which encompasses the
dome,
lightly reposes on four strong arches, and their weight
is firmly
supported by four massy piles, whose strength is
assisted, on the
northern and southern sides, by four columns of Egyptian
granite.
A Greek cross, inscribed in a quadrangle, represents the
form of
the edifice; the exact breadth is two hundred and
forty-three
feet, and two hundred and sixty-nine may be assigned for
the
extreme length from the sanctuary in the east, to the
nine
western doors, which open into the vestibule, and from
thence
into the narthex or exterior portico. That portico was the
humble station of the penitents. The nave or body of the church
was filled by the congregation of the faithful; but the
two sexes
were prudently distinguished, and the upper and lower
galleries
were allotted for the more private devotion of the women.
Beyond
the northern and southern piles, a balustrade, terminated
on
either side by the thrones of the emperor and the
patriarch,
divided the nave from the choir; and the space, as far as
the
steps of the altar, was occupied by the clergy and
singers. The
altar itself, a name which insensibly became familiar to
Christian ears, was placed in the eastern recess, artificially
built in the form of a demi-cylinder; and this sanctuary
communicated by several doors with the sacristy, the
vestry, the
baptistery, and the contiguous buildings, subservient
either to
the pomp of worship, or the private use of the
ecclesiastical
ministers. The
memory of past calamities inspired Justinian with
a wise resolution, that no wood, except for the doors,
should be
admitted into the new edifice; and the choice of the
materials
was applied to the strength, the lightness, or the
splendor of
the respective parts.
The solid piles which contained the cupola
were composed of huge blocks of freestone, hewn into
squares and
triangles, fortified by circles of iron, and firmly
cemented by
the infusion of lead and quicklime: but the weight of the
cupola
was diminished by the levity of its substance, which
consists
either of pumice-stone that floats in the water, or of
bricks
from the Isle of Rhodes, five times less ponderous than
the
ordinary sort. The whole frame of the edifice was
constructed of
brick; but those base materials were concealed by a crust
of
marble; and the inside of St. Sophia, the cupola, the two
larger,
and the six smaller, semi-domes, the walls, the hundred
columns,
and the pavement, delight even the eyes of Barbarians,
with a
rich and variegated picture. A poet, ^105 who beheld the
primitive lustre of St. Sophia, enumerates the colors,
the
shades, and the spots of ten or twelve marbles, jaspers,
and
porphyries, which nature had profusely diversified, and
which
were blended and contrasted as it were by a skilful
painter. The
triumph of Christ was adorned with the last spoils of
Paganism,
but the greater part of these costly stones was extracted
from
the quarries of Asia Minor, the isles and continent of
Greece,
Egypt, Africa, and Gaul. Eight columns of porphyry, which
Aurelian had placed in the temple of the sun, were
offered by the
piety of a Roman matron; eight others of green marble
were
presented by the ambitious zeal of the magistrates of
Ephesus:
both are admirable by their size and beauty, but every
order of
architecture disclaims their fantastic capital. A variety of
ornaments and figures was curiously expressed in mosaic;
and the
images of Christ, of the Virgin, of saints, and of
angels, which
have been defaced by Turkish fanaticism, were dangerously
exposed
to the superstition of the Greeks. According to the sanctity of
each object, the precious metals were distributed in thin
leaves
or in solid masses.
The balustrade of the choir, the capitals of
the pillars, the ornaments of the doors and galleries,
were of
gilt bronze; the spectator was dazzled by the glittering
aspect
of the cupola; the sanctuary contained forty thousand
pounds
weight of silver; and the holy vases and vestments of the
altar
were of the purest gold, enriched with inestimable
gems. Before
the structure of the church had arisen two cubits above
the
ground, forty-five thousand two hundred pounds were
already
consumed; and the whole expense amounted to three hundred
and
twenty thousand: each reader, according to the measure of
his
belief, may estimate their value either in gold or
silver; but
the sum of one million sterling is the result of the
lowest
computation. A
magnificent temple is a laudable monument of
national taste and religion; and the enthusiast who
entered the
dome of St. Sophia might be tempted to suppose that it
was the
residence, or even the workmanship, of the Deity. Yet how dull
is the artifice, how insignificant is the labor, if it be
compared with the formation of the vilest insect that
crawls upon
the surface of the temple!
[Footnote 103: Among the crowd of ancients and moderns
who have
celebrated the edifice of St. Sophia, I shall distinguish
and
follow, 1. Four original spectators and historians:
Procopius,
(de Edific. l. i. c. 1,) Agathias, (l. v. p. 152, 153,)
Paul
Silentiarius, (in a poem of 1026 hexameters, and calcem
Annae
Commen. Alexiad.,) and Evagrius, (l. iv. c. 31.) 2. Two
legendary
Greeks of a later period: George Codinus, (de Origin. C.
P. p. 64
- 74,) and the anonymous writer of Banduri, (Imp. Orient.
tom. i.
l. iv. p. 65 - 80.)3. The great Byzantine
antiquarian. Ducange,
(Comment. ad Paul Silentiar. p. 525 - 598, and C. P.
Christ. l.
iii. p. 5 - 78.) 4. Two French travellers - the one,
Peter
Gyllius, (de Topograph. C. P. l. ii. c. 3, 4,) in the
xvith; the
other, Grelot, (Voyage de C. P. p. 95 - 164, Paris, 1680,
in
4to:) he has given plans, prospects, and inside views of
St.
Sophia; and his plans, though on a smaller scale, appear
more
correct than those of Ducange. I have adopted and reduced the
measures of Grelot: but as no Christian can now ascend
the dome,
the height is borrowed from Evagrius, compared with
Gyllius,
Greaves, and the Oriental Geographer.]
[Footnote 104: Solomon's temple was surrounded with
courts,
porticos, &c.; but the proper structure of the house
of God was
no more (if we take the Egyptian or Hebrew cubic at 22
inches)
than 55 feet in height, 36 2/3 in breadth, and 110 in
length - a
small parish church, says Prideaux, (Connection, vol. i.
p. 144,
folio;) but few sanctuaries could be valued at four or
five
millions sterling!
Note *: Hist
of Jews, vol i p 257. - M]
[Footnote 105: Paul Silentiarius, in dark and poetic
language,
describes the various stones and marbles that were
employed in
the edifice of St. Sophia, (P. ii. p. 129, 133, &c.,
&c.:)
1. The Carystian - pale, with iron veins.
2. The Phrygian - of two sorts, both of a rosy hue; the
one with
a white shade, the other purple, with silver flowers.
3. The Porphyry of Egypt - with small stars.
4. The green marble of Laconia.
5. The Carian - from Mount Iassis, with oblique veins,
white and
red.
6. The Lydian - pale, with a red flower.
7. The African, or Mauritanian - of a gold or saffron
hue.
8. The Celtic - black, with white veins.
9. The Bosphoric - white, with black edges. Besides the
Proconnesian which formed the pavement; the Thessalian,
Molossian, &c., which are less distinctly painted.]
So minute a
description of an edifice which time has
respected, may attest the truth, and excuse the relation,
of the
innumerable works, both in the capital and provinces,
which
Justinian constructed on a smaller scale and less durable
foundations. ^106 In Constantinople alone and the
adjacent
suburbs, he dedicated twenty-five churches to the honor
of
Christ, the Virgin, and the saints: most of these
churches were
decorated with marble and gold; and their various
situation was
skilfully chosen in a populous square, or a pleasant
grove; on
the margin of the sea-shore, or on some lofty eminence
which
overlooked the continents of Europe and Asia. The church of the
Holy Apostles at Constantinople, and that of St. John at
Ephesus,
appear to have been framed on the same model: their domes
aspired
to imitate the cupolas of St. Sophia; but the altar was
more
judiciously placed under the centre of the dome, at the
junction
of four stately porticos, which more accurately expressed
the
figure of the Greek cross. The Virgin of Jerusalem might exult
in the temple erected by her Imperial votary on a most ungrateful
spot, which afforded neither ground nor materials to the
architect. A level
was formed by raising part of a deep valley
to the height of the mountain. The stones of a
neighboring quarry
were hewn into regular forms; each block was fixed on a
peculiar
carriage, drawn by forty of the strongest oxen, and the
roads
were widened for the passage of such enormous
weights. Lebanon
furnished her loftiest cedars for the timbers of the
church; and
the seasonable discovery of a vein of red marble supplied
its
beautiful columns, two of which, the supporters of the
exterior
portico, were esteemed the largest in the world. The
pious
munificence of the emperor was diffused over the Holy
Land; and
if reason should condemn the monasteries of both sexes
which were
built or restored by Justinian, yet charity must applaud
the
wells which he sunk, and the hospitals which he founded,
for the
relief of the weary pilgrims. The schismatical temper of Egypt
was ill entitled to the royal bounty; but in Syria and
Africa,
some remedies were applied to the disasters of wars and
earthquakes, and both Carthage and Antioch, emerging from
their
ruins, might revere the name of their gracious
benefactor. ^107
Almost every saint in the calendar acquired the honors of
a
temple; almost every city of the empire obtained the
solid
advantages of bridges, hospitals, and aqueducts; but the
severe
liberality of the monarch disdained to indulge his
subjects in
the popular luxury of baths and theatres. While Justinian
labored for the public service, he was not unmindful of
his own
dignity and ease.
The Byzantine palace, which had been damaged
by the conflagration, was restored with new magnificence;
and
some notion may be conceived of the whole edifice, by the
vestibule or hall, which, from the doors perhaps, or the
roof,
was surnamed chalce, or the brazen. The dome of a spacious
quadrangle was supported by massy pillars; the pavement
and walls
were incrusted with many-colored marbles - the emerald
green of
Laconia, the fiery red, and the white Phrygian stone,
intersected
with veins of a sea-green hue: the mosaic paintings of
the dome
and sides represented the glories of the African and
Italian
triumphs. On the
Asiatic shore of the Propontis, at a small
distance to the east of Chalcedon, the costly palace and
gardens
of Heraeum ^108 were prepared for the summer residence of
Justinian, and more especially of Theodora. The poets of the age
have celebrated the rare alliance of nature and art, the
harmony
of the nymphs of the groves, the fountains, and the
waves: yet
the crowd of attendants who followed the court complained
of
their inconvenient lodgings, ^109 and the nymphs were too
often
alarmed by the famous Porphyrio, a whale of ten cubits in
breadth, and thirty in length, who was stranded at the
mouth of
the River Sangaris, after he had infested more than half
a
century the seas of Constantinople. ^110
[Footnote 106: The six books of the Edifices of Procopius
are
thus distributed the first is confined to Constantinople:
the
second includes Mesopotamia and Syria the third, Armenia
and the
Euxine; the fourth, Europe; the fifth, Asia Minor and
Palestine;
the sixth, Egypt and Africa. Italy is forgot by the
emperor or
the historian, who published this work of adulation
before the
date (A.D. 555) of its final conquest.]
[Footnote 107: Justinian once gave forty-five centenaries
of gold
(180,000l for the repairs of Antioch after the
earthquake, (John
Malala, tom. ii p 146 - 149.)]
[Footnote 108: For the Heraeum, the palace of Theodora,
see
Gyllius, (de Bosphoro Thracio, l. iii. c. xi.,)
Aleman. (Not.
ad. Anec. p. 80, 81, who quotes several epigrams of the
Anthology,) and Ducange, (C. P. Christ. l. iv. c. 13, p.
175,
176.)]
[Footnote 109: Compare, in the Edifices, (l. i. c. 11,)
and in
the Anecdotes, (c. 8, 15.) the different styles of
adulation and
malevolence: stripped of the paint, or cleansed from the
dirt,
the object appears to be the same.]
[Footnote 110: Procopius, l. viii. 29; most probably a
stranger
and wanderer, as the Mediterranean does not breed whales.
Balaenae quoque in nostra maria penetrant, (Plin. Hist.
Natur.
ix. 2.) Between the polar circle and the tropic, the
cetaceous
animals of the ocean grow to the length of 50, 80, or 100
feet,
(Hist. des Voyages, tom. xv. p. 289. Pennant's British Zoology,
vol. iii. p. 35.)]
The
fortifications of Europe and Asia were multiplied by
Justinian; but the repetition of those timid and
fruitless
precautions exposes, to a philosophic eye, the debility
of the
empire. ^111 From Belgrade to the Euxine, from the
conflux of the
Save to the mouth of the Danube, a chain of above
fourscore
fortified places was extended along the banks of the
great river.
Single watch-towers were changed into spacious citadels;
vacant
walls, which the engineers contracted or enlarged
according to
the nature of the ground, were filled with colonies or
garrisons;
a strong fortress defended the ruins of Trajan's bridge,
^112 and
several military stations affected to spread beyond the
Danube
the pride of the Roman name. But that name was divested of its
terrors; the Barbarians, in their annual inroads, passed,
and
contemptuously repassed, before these useless bulwarks;
and the
inhabitants of the frontier, instead of reposing under
the shadow
of the general defence, were compelled to guard, with
incessant
vigilance, their separate habitations. The solitude of
ancient
cities, was replenished; the new foundations of Justinian
acquired, perhaps too hastily, the epithets of
impregnable and
populous; and the auspicious place of his own nativity
attracted
the grateful reverence of the vainest of princes. Under the name
of Justiniana prima, the obscure village of Tauresium
became the
seat of an archbishop and a praefect, whose jurisdiction
extended
over seven warlike provinces of Illyricum; ^113 and the
corrupt
apellation of Giustendil still indicates, about twenty
miles to
the south of Sophia, the residence of a Turkish sanjak.
^114 For
the use of the emperor's countryman, a cathedral, a
place, and an
aqueduct, were speedily constructed; the public and
private
edifices were adapted to the greatness of a royal city;
and the
strength of the walls resisted, during the lifetime of
Justinian,
the unskilful assaults of the Huns and Sclavonians. Their
progress was sometimes retarded, and their hopes of
rapine were
disappointed, by the innumerable castles which, in the
provinces
of Dacia, Epirus, Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace,
appeared to
cover the whole face of the country. Six hundred of these forts
were built or repaired by the emperor; but it seems
reasonable to
believe, that the far greater part consisted only of a
stone or
brick tower, in the midst of a square or circular area,
which was
surrounded by a wall and ditch, and afforded in a moment
of
danger some protection to the peasants and cattle of the
neighboring villages. ^115 Yet these military works,
which
exhausted the public treasure, could not remove the just
apprehensions of Justinian and his European
subjects. The warm
baths of Anchialus in Thrace were rendered as safe as
they were
salutary; but the rich pastures of Thessalonica were
foraged by
the Scythian cavalry; the delicious vale of Tempe, three
hundred
miles from the Danube, was continually alarmed by the
sound of
war; ^116 and no unfortified spot, however distant or
solitary,
could securely enjoy the blessings of peace. The Straits of
Thermopylae, which seemed to protect, but which had so
often
betrayed, the safety of Greece, were diligently
strengthened by
the labors of Justinian.
From the edge of the sea-shore, through
the forests and valleys, and as far as the summit of the
Thessalian mountains, a strong wall was continued, which
occupied
every practicable entrance. Instead of a hasty crowd of
peasants, a garrison of two thousand soldiers was
stationed along
the rampart; granaries of corn and reservoirs of water
were
provided for their use; and by a precaution that inspired
the
cowardice which it foresaw, convenient fortresses were
erected
for their retreat.
The walls of Corinth, overthrown by an
earthquake, and the mouldering bulwarks of Athens and
Plataea,
were carefully restored; the Barbarians were discouraged
by the
prospect of successive and painful sieges: and the naked
cities
of Peloponnesus were covered by the fortifications of the
Isthmus
of Corinth. At the
extremity of Europe, another peninsula, the
Thracian Chersonesus, runs three days' journey into the
sea, to
form, with the adjacent shores of Asia, the Straits of
the
Hellespont. The
intervals between eleven populous towns were
filled by lofty woods, fair pastures, and arable lands;
and the
isthmus, of thirty seven stadia or furlongs, had been
fortified
by a Spartan general nine hundred years before the reign
of
Justinian. ^117 In an age of freedom and valor, the
slightest
rampart may prevent a surprise; and Procopius appears
insensible
of the superiority of ancient times, while he praises the
solid
construction and double parapet of a wall, whose long
arms
stretched on either side into the sea; but whose strength
was
deemed insufficient to guard the Chersonesus, if each
city, and
particularly Gallipoli and Sestus, had not been secured
by their
peculiar fortifications.
The long wall, as it was emphatically
styled, was a work as disgraceful in the object, as it
was
respectable in the execution. The riches of a capital diffuse
themselves over the neighboring country, and the
territory of
Constantinople a paradise of nature, was adorned with the
luxurious gardens and villas of the senators and opulent
citizens. But their wealth served only to attract the
bold and
rapacious Barbarians; the noblest of the Romans, in the
bosom of
peaceful indolence, were led away into Scythian
captivity, and
their sovereign might view from his palace the hostile
flames
which were insolently spread to the gates of the Imperial
city.
At the distance only of forty miles, Anastasius was
constrained
to establish a last frontier; his long wall, of sixty
miles from
the Propontis to the Euxine, proclaimed the impotence of
his
arms; and as the danger became more imminent, new
fortifications
were added by the indefatigable prudence of Justinian.
^118
[Footnote 111: Montesquieu observes, (tom. iii. p. 503,
Considerations sur la Grandeur et la Decadence des
Romains, c.
xx.,) that Justinian's empire was like France in the time
of the
Norman inroads - never so weak as when every village was
fortified.]
[Footnote 112: Procopius affirms (l. iv. c. 6) that the
Danube
was stopped by the ruins of the bridge. Had Apollodorus, the
architect, left a description of his own work, the
fabulous
wonders of Dion Cassius (l lxviii. p. 1129) would have
been
corrected by the genuine picture Trajan's bridge
consisted of
twenty or twenty-two stone piles with wooden arches; the
river is
shallow, the current gentle, and the whole interval no
more than
443 (Reimer ad Dion. from Marsigli) or 5l7 toises,
(D'Anville,
Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 305.)]
[Footnote 113: Of the two Dacias, Mediterranea and
Ripensis,
Dardania, Pravalitana, the second Maesia, and the second
Macedonia. See
Justinian (Novell. xi.,) who speaks of his
castles beyond the Danube, and on omines semper bellicis
sudoribus inhaerentes.]
[Footnote 114: See D'Anville, (Memoires de l'Academie,
&c., tom.
xxxi p. 280, 299,) Rycaut, (Present State of the Turkish
Empire,
p. 97, 316,) Max sigli, (Stato Militare del Imperio
Ottomano, p.
130.) The sanjak of Giustendil is one of the twenty under
the
beglerbeg of Rurselis, and his district maintains 48
zaims and
588 timariots.]
[Footnote 115: These fortifications may be compared to
the
castles in Mingrelia (Chardin, Voyages en Perse, tom. i.
p. 60,
131) - a natural picture.]
[Footnote 116: The valley of Tempe is situate along the
River
Peneus, between the hills of Ossa and Olympus: it is only
five
miles long, and in some places no more than 120 feet in
breadth.
Its verdant beauties are elegantly described by Pliny,
(Hist.
Natur. l. iv. 15,) and more diffusely by Aelian, (Hist.
Var. l.
iii. c. i.)]
[Footnote 117: Xenophon Hellenic. l. iii. c. 2. After a long and
tedious conversation with the Byzantine declaimers, how
refreshing is the truth, the simplicity, the elegance of
an Attic
writer!]
[Footnote 118: See the long wall in Evagarius, (l. iv. c.
38.)
This whole article is drawn from the fourth book of the
Edifices,
except Anchialus, (l. iii. c. 7.)]
Asia Minor,
after the submission of the Isaurians, ^119
remained without enemies and without fortifications. Those bold
savages, who had disdained to be the subjects of
Gallienus,
persisted two hundred and thirty years in a life of
independence
and rapine. The
most successful princes respected the strength
of the mountains and the despair of the natives; their
fierce
spirit was sometimes soothed with gifts, and sometimes
restrained
by terror; and a military count, with three legions,
fixed his
permanent and ignominious station in the heart of the
Roman
provinces. ^120 But no sooner was the vigilance of power
relaxed
or diverted, than the light-armed squadrons descended
from the
hills, and invaded the peaceful plenty of Asia. Although the
Isaurians were not remarkable for stature or bravery,
want
rendered them bold, and experience made them skilful in
the
exercise of predatory war. They advanced with secrecy and
speed
to the attack of villages and defenceless towns; their
flying
parties have sometimes touched the Hellespont, the
Euxine, and
the gates of Tarsus, Antioch, or Damascus; ^121 and the
spoil was
lodged in their inaccessible mountains, before the Roman
troops
had received their orders, or the distant province had
computed
its loss. The
guilt of rebellion and robbery excluded them from
the rights of national enemies; and the magistrates were
instructed, by an edict, that the trial or punishment of
an
Isaurian, even on the festival of Easter, was a
meritorious act
of justice and piety. ^122 If the captives were condemned
to
domestic slavery, they maintained, with their sword or
dagger,
the private quarrel of their masters; and it was found
expedient
for the public tranquillity to prohibit the service of
such
dangerous retainers.
When their countryman Tarcalissaeus or Zeno
ascended the throne, he invited a faithful and formidable
band of
Isaurians, who insulted the court and city, and were
rewarded by
an annual tribute of five thousand pounds of gold. But the hopes
of fortune depopulated the mountains, luxury enervated
the
hardiness of their minds and bodies, and in proportion as
they
mixed with mankind, they became less qualified for the
enjoyment
of poor and solitary freedom. After the death of Zeno, his
successor Anastasius suppressed their pensions, exposed
their
persons to the revenge of the people, banished them from
Constantinople, and prepared to sustain a war, which left
only
the alternative of victory or servitude. A brother of the last
emperor usurped the title of Augustus; his cause was powerfully
supported by the arms, the treasures, and the magazines,
collected by Zeno; and the native Isaurians must have
formed the
smallest portion of the hundred and fifty thousand
Barbarians
under his standard, which was sanctified, for the first
time, by
the presence of a fighting bishop. Their disorderly numbers were
vanquished in the plains of Phrygia by the valor and
discipline
of the Goths; but a war of six years almost exhausted the
courage
of the emperor. ^123 The Isaurians retired to their
mountains;
their fortresses were successively besieged and ruined;
their
communication with the sea was intercepted; the bravest
of their
leaders died in arms; the surviving chiefs, before their
execution, were dragged in chains through the hippodrome;
a
colony of their youth was transplanted into Thrace, and
the
remnant of the people submitted to the Roman
government. Yet
some generations elapsed before their minds were reduced
to the
level of slavery.
The populous villages of Mount Taurus were
filled with horsemen and archers: they resisted the
imposition of
tributes, but they recruited the armies of Justinian; and
his
civil magistrates, the proconsul of Cappadocia, the count
of
Isauria, and the praetors of Lycaonia and Pisidia, were
invested
with military power to restrain the licentious practice
of rapes
and assassinations. ^124
[Footnote 119: Turn back to vol. i. p. 328. In the course of
this History, I have sometimes mentioned, and much
oftener
slighted, the hasty inroads of the Isaurians, which were
not
attended with any consequences.]
[Footnote 120: Trebellius Pollio in Hist. August. p. 107,
who
lived under Diocletian, or Constantine. See likewise Pancirolus
ad Notit. Imp. Orient c. 115, 141. See Cod. Theodos. l. ix. tit.
35, leg. 37, with a copious collective Annotation of
Godefroy,
tom. iii. p. 256, 257.]
[Footnote 121: See the full and wide extent of their
inroads in
Philostorgius (Hist. Eccles. l. xi. c. 8,) with
Godefroy's
learned Dissertations.]
[Footnote 122: Cod. Justinian. l. ix. tit. 12, leg.
10. The
punishments are severs - a fine of a hundred pounds of
gold,
degradation, and even death. The public peace might
afford a
pretence, but Zeno was desirous of monopolizing the valor
and
service of the Isaurians.]
[Footnote 123: The Isaurian war and the triumph of
Anastasius are
briefly and darkly represented by John Malala, (tom. ii.
p. 106,
107,) Evagrius, (l. iii. c. 35,) Theophanes, p. 118 -
120,) and
the Chronicle of Marcellinus.]
[Footnote 124: Fortes ea regio (says Justinian) viros
habet, nec
in ullo differt ab Isauria, though Procopius (Persic. l.
i. c.
18) marks an essential difference between their military
character; yet in former times the Lycaonians and
Pisidians had
defended their liberty against the great king, Xenophon.
Anabasis, l. iii. c. 2.) Justinian introduces some false
and
ridiculous erudition of the ancient empire of the
Pisidians, and
of Lycaon, who, after visiting Rome, (long before
Aeenas,) gave a
name and people to Lycaoni, (Novell. 24, 25, 27, 30.)]
Chapter XL: Reign Of Justinian.
Part V.
If we extend
our view from the tropic to the mouth of the
Tanais, we may observe, on one hand, the precautions of
Justinian
to curb the savages of Aethiopia, ^125 and on the other,
the long
walls which he constructed in Crimaea for the protection
of his
friendly Goths, a colony of three thousand shepherds and
warriors. ^126 From that peninsula to Trebizond, the
eastern
curve of the Euxine was secured by forts, by alliance, or
by
religion; and the possession of Lazica, the Colchos of
ancient,
the Mingrelia of modern, geography, soon became the
object of an
important war.
Trebizond, in after- times the seat of a romantic
empire, was indebted to the liberality of Justinian for a
church,
an aqueduct, and a castle, whose ditches are hewn in the
solid
rock. From that
maritime city, frontier line of five hundred
miles may be drawn to the fortress of Circesium, the last
Roman
station on the Euphrates. ^127 Above Trebizond
immediately, and
five days' journey to the south, the country rises into
dark
forests and craggy mountains, as savage though not so
lofty as
the Alps and the Pyrenees. In this rigorous climate, ^128 where
the snows seldom melt, the fruits are tardy and
tasteless, even
honey is poisonous: the most industrious tillage would be
confined to some pleasant valleys; and the pastoral
tribes
obtained a scanty sustenance from the flesh and milk of
their
cattle. The
Chalybians ^129 derived their name and temper from
the iron quality of the soil; and, since the days of
Cyrus, they
might produce, under the various appellations of Cha
daeans and
Zanians, an uninterrupted prescription of war and
rapine. Under
the reign of Justinian, they acknowledged the god and the
emperor
of the Romans, and seven fortresses were built in the
most
accessible passages, to exclude the ambition of the
Persian
monarch. ^130 The principal source of the Euphrates
descends from
the Chalybian mountains, and seems to flow towards the
west and
the Euxine: bending to the south-west, the river passes
under the
walls of Satala and Melitene, (which were restored by
Justinian
as the bulwarks of the Lesser Armenia,) and gradually
approaches
the Mediterranean Sea; till at length, repelled by Mount
Taurus,
^131 the Euphrates inclines its long and flexible course
to the
south-east and the Gulf of Persia. Among the Roman cities beyond
the Euphrates, we distinguish two recent foundations,
which were
named from Theodosius, and the relics of the martyrs; and
two
capitals, Amida and Edessa, which are celebrated in the
history
of every age.
Their strength was proportioned by Justinian to
the danger of their situation. A ditch and palisade might be
sufficient to resist the artless force of the cavalry of
Scythia;
but more elaborate works were required to sustain a
regular siege
against the arms and treasures of the great king. His skilful
engineers understood the methods of conducting deep
mines, and of
raising platforms to the level of the rampart: he shook
the
strongest battlements with his military engines, and
sometimes
advanced to the assault with a line of movable turrets on
the
backs of elephants.
In the great cities of the East, the
disadvantage of space, perhaps of position, was
compensated by
the zeal of the people, who seconded the garrison in the
defence
of their country and religion; and the fabulous promise
of the
Son of God, that Edessa should never be taken, filled the
citizens with valiant confidence, and chilled the
besiegers with
doubt and dismay. ^132 The subordinate towns of Armenia
and
Mesopotamia were diligently strengthened, and the posts
which
appeared to have any command of ground or water were
occupied by
numerous forts, substantially built of stone, or more
hastily
erected with the obvious materials of earth and
brick. The eye
of Justinian investigated every spot; and his cruel
precautions
might attract the war into some lonely vale, whose
peaceful
natives, connected by trade and marriage, were ignorant
of
national discord and the quarrels of princes. Westward of
the
Euphrates, a sandy desert extends above six hundred miles
to the
Red Sea. Nature
had interposed a vacant solitude between the
ambition of two rival empires; the Arabians, till Mahomet
arose,
were formidable only as robbers; and in the proud
security of
peace the fortifications of Syria were neglected on the
most
vulnerable side.
[Footnote 125: See Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 19. The altar of
national concern, of annual sacrifice and oaths, which
Diocletian
had created in the Isla of Elephantine, was demolished by
Justinian with less policy than]
[Footnote 126: Procopius de Edificiis, l. iii. c. 7. Hist. l.
viii. c. 3, 4. These unambitious Goths had refused to
follow the
standard of Theodoric.
As late as the xvth and xvith century,
the name and nation might be discovered between Caffa and
the
Straits of Azoph, (D'Anville, Memoires de l'academie,
tom. xxx.
p. 240.) They well deserved the curiosity of Busbequius,
(p. 321
- 326;) but seem to have vanished in the more recent
account of
the Missions du Levant, (tom. i.,) Tott, Peysonnnel,
&c.]
[Footnote 127: For the geography and architecture of this
Armenian border, see the Persian Wars and Edifices (l.
ii. c. 4 -
7, l. iii. c. 2 - 7) of Procopius.]
[Footnote 128: The country is described by Tournefort,
(Voyage au
Levant, tom. iii. lettre xvii. xviii.) That skilful
botanist soon
discovered the plant that infects the honey, (Plin. xxi.
44, 45:)
he observes, that the soldiers of Lucullus might indeed
be
astonished at the cold, since, even in the plain of
Erzerum, snow
sometimes falls in June, and the harvest is seldom
finished
before September.
The hills of Armenia are below the fortieth
degree of latitude; but in the mountainous country which
I
inhabit, it is well known that an ascent of some hours
carries
the traveller from the climate of Languedoc to that of
Norway;
and a general theory has been introduced, that, under the
line,
an elevation of 2400 toises is equivalent to the cold of
the
polar circle, (Remond, Observations sur les Voyages de
Coxe dans
la Suisse, tom. ii. p. 104.)]
[Footnote 129: The identity or proximity of the
Chalybians, or
Chaldaeana may be investigated in Strabo, (l. xii. p.
825, 826,)
Cellarius, (Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 202 - 204,) and
Freret,
(Mem. de Academie, tom. iv. p. 594) Xenophon supposes, in
his
romance, (Cyropaed l. iii.,) the same Barbarians, against
whom he
had fought in his retreat, (Anabasis, l. iv.)]
[Footnote 130: Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 15. De Edific. l.
iii. c. 6.]
[Footnote 131: Ni Taurus obstet in nostra maria venturus,
(Pomponius Mela, iii. 8.) Pliny, a poet as well as a
naturalist,
(v. 20,) personifies the river and mountain, and
describes their
combat. See the
course of the Tigris and Euphrates in the
excellent treatise of D'Anville.]
[Footnote 132: Procopius (Persic. l. ii. c. 12) tells the
story
with the tone, half sceptical, half superstitious, of
Herodotus.
The promise was not in the primitive lie of Eusebius, but
dates
at least from the year 400; and a third lie, the
Veronica, was
soon raised on the two former, (Evagrius, l. iv. c. 27.)
As
Edessa has been taken, Tillemont must disclaim the
promise, (Mem.
Eccles. tom. i. p. 362, 383, 617.)]
But the
national enmity, at least the effects of that
enmity, had been suspended by a truce, which continued
above
fourscore years.
An ambassador from the emperor Zeno accompanied
the rash and unfortunate Perozes, ^* in his expedition
against
the Nepthalites, ^! or white Huns, whose conquests had
been
stretched from the Caspian to the heart of India, whose
throne
was enriched with emeralds, ^133 and whose cavalry was
supported
by a line of two thousand elephants. ^134 The Persians ^*
were
twice circumvented, in a situation which made valor
useless and
flight impossible; and the double victory of the Huns was
achieved by military stratagem. They dismissed their royal
captive after he had submitted to adore the majesty of a
Barbarian; and the humiliation was poorly evaded by the
casuistical subtlety of the Magi, who instructed Perozes
to
direct his attention to the rising sun. ^!! The indignant
successor of Cyrus forgot his danger and his gratitude;
he
renewed the attack with headstrong fury, and lost both
his army
and his life. ^135 The death of Perozes abandoned Persia
to her
foreign and domestic enemies; ^!!! and twelve years of
confusion
elapsed before his son Cabades, or Kobad, could embrace
any
designs of ambition or revenge. The unkind parsimony of
Anastasius was the motive or pretence of a Roman war;
^136 the
Huns and Arabs marched under the Persian standard, and
the
fortifications of Armenia and Mesopotamia were, at that
time, in
a ruinous or imperfect condition. The emperor returned his
thanks to the governor and people of Martyropolis for the
prompt
surrender of a city which could not be successfully
defended, and
the conflagration of Theodosiopolis might justify the
conduct of
their prudent neighbors.
Amida sustained a long and destructive
siege: at the end of three months the loss of fifty
thousand of
the soldiers of Cabades was not balanced by any prospect
of
success, and it was in vain that the Magi deduced a
flattering
prediction from the indecency of the women ^* on the
ramparts,
who had revealed their most secret charms to the eyes of
the
assailants. At
length, in a silent night, they ascended the most
accessible tower, which was guarded only by some monks,
oppressed, after the duties of a festival, with sleep and
wine.
Scaling-ladders were applied at the dawn of day; the
presence of
Cabades, his stern command, and his drawn sword,
compelled the
Persians to vanquish; and before it was sheathed,
fourscore
thousand of the inhabitants had expiated the blood of
their
companions. After
the siege of Amida, the war continued three
years, and the unhappy frontier tasted the full measure
of its
calamities. The gold of Anastasius was offered too late,
the
number of his troops was defeated by the number of their
generals; the country was stripped of its inhabitants,
and both
the living and the dead were abandoned to the wild beasts
of the
desert. The resistance of Edessa, and the deficiency of
spoil,
inclined the mind of Cabades to peace: he sold his
conquests for
an exorbitant price; and the same line, though marked
with
slaughter and devastation, still separated the two
empires. To
avert the repetition of the same evils, Anastasius resolved
to
found a new colony, so strong, that it should defy the
power of
the Persian, so far advanced towards Assyria, that its
stationary
troops might defend the province by the menace or
operation of
offensive war. For this purpose, the town of Dara, ^137
fourteen
miles from Nisibis, and four days' journey from the
Tigris, was
peopled and adorned; the hasty works of Anastasius were
improved
by the perseverance of Justinian; and, without insisting
on
places less important, the fortifications of Dara may represent
the military architecture of the age. The city was surrounded
with two walls, and the interval between them, of fifty
paces,
afforded a retreat to the cattle of the besieged. The inner wall
was a monument of strength and beauty: it measured sixty feet
from the ground, and the height of the towers was one
hundred
feet; the loopholes, from whence an enemy might be
annoyed with
missile weapons, were small, but numerous; the soldiers
were
planted along the rampart, under the shelter of double
galleries,
and a third platform, spacious and secure, was raised on
the
summit of the towers.
The exterior wall appears to have been
less lofty, but more solid; and each tower was protected
by a
quadrangular bulwark.
A hard, rocky soil resisted the tools of
the miners, and on the south-east, where the ground was
more
tractable, their approach was retarded by a new work,
which
advanced in the shape of a half-moon. The double and treble
ditches were filled with a stream of water; and in the
management
of the river, the most skilful labor was employed to
supply the
inhabitants, to distress the besiegers, and to prevent
the
mischiefs of a natural or artificial inundation. Dara continued
more than sixty years to fulfil the wishes of its
founders, and
to provoke the jealousy of the Persians, who incessantly
complained, that this impregnable fortress had been
constructed
in manifest violation of the treaty of peace between the
two
empires. ^*
[Footnote *: Firouz the Conqueror - unfortunately so
named. See
St. Martin, vol. vi. p. 439. - M.]
[Footnote !: Rather Hepthalites. - M.]
[Footnote 133: They were purchased from the merchants of
Adulis
who traded to India, (Cosmas, Topograph. Christ. l. xi. p. 339;)
yet, in the estimate of precious stones, the Scythian
emerald was
the first, the Bactrian the second, the Aethiopian only
the
third, (Hill's Theophrastus, p. 61, &c., 92.) The
production,
mines, &c., of emeralds, are involved in darkness;
and it is
doubtful whether we possess any of the twelve sorts known
to the
ancients, (Goguet, Origine des Loix, &c., part ii. l.
ii. c. 2,
art. 3.) In this war the Huns got, or at least Perozes
lost, the
finest pearl in the world, of which Procopius relates a
ridiculous fable.]
[Footnote 134: The Indo-Scythae continued to reign from the
time
of Augustus (Dionys. Perieget. 1088, with the Commentary
of
Eustathius, in Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iv.) to that
of the
elder Justin, (Cosmas, Topograph. Christ. l. xi. p. 338,
339.) On
their origin and conquests, see D'Anville, (sur l'Inde, p.
18,
45, &c., 69, 85, 89.) In the second century they were
masters of
Larice or Guzerat.]
[Footnote *: According to the Persian historians, he was
misled
by guides who used he old stratagem of Zopyrus. Malcolm, vol. i.
p. 101. - M.]
[Footnote !!: In the Ms. Chronicle of Tabary, it is said
that the
Moubedan Mobed, or Grand Pontiff, opposed with all his
influence
the violation of the treaty. St. Martin, vol. vii. p. 254. - M.]
[Footnote 135: See the fate of Phirouz, or Perozes, and
its
consequences, in Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 3 - 6,) who
may be
compared with the fragments of Oriental history,
(D'Herbelot,
Bibliot. Orient. p. 351, and Texeira, History of Persia,
translated or abridged by Stephens, l. i. c. 32, p. 132 -
138.)
The chronology is ably ascertained by Asseman. (Bibliot. Orient.
tom. iii. p. 396 - 427.)]
[Footnote !!!: When Firoze advanced, Khoosh-Nuaz (the
king of the
Huns) presented on the point of a lance the treaty to
which he
had sworn, and exhorted him yet to desist before he
destroyed his
fame forever.
Malcolm, vol. i. p. 103. - M.]
[Footnote 136: The Persian war, under the reigns of
Anastasius
and Justin, may be collected from Procopius, (Persic. l.
i. c. 7,
8, 9,) Theophanes, (in Chronograph. p. 124 - 127,)
Evagrius, (l.
iii. c. 37,) Marcellinus, (in Chron. p. 47,) and Josue
Stylites,
(apud Asseman. tom. i. p. 272 - 281.)]
[Footnote *: Gibbon should have written "some
prostitutes." Proc
Pers. vol. 1 p. 7. - M.]
[Footnote 137: The description of Dara is amply and
correctly
given by Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 10, l. ii. c. 13.
De
Edific. l. ii. c. 1, 2, 3, l. iii. c. 5.) See the
situation in
D'Anville, (l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 53, 54, 55,)
though he
seems to double the interval between Dara and Nisibis.]
[Footnote *: The situation (of Dara) does not appear to
give it
strength, as it must have been commanded on three sides
by the
mountains, but opening on the south towards the plains of
Mesopotamia. The
foundation of the walls and towers, built of
large hewn stone, may be traced across the valley, and
over a
number of low rocky hills which branch out from the foot
of Mount
Masius. The circumference I conceive to be nearly two
miles and a
half; and a small stream, which flows through the middle
of the
place, has induced several Koordish and Armenian families
to fix
their residence within the ruins. Besides the walls and
towers,
the remains of many other buildings attest the former
grandeur of
Dara; a considerable part of the space within the walls
is arched
and vaulted underneath, and in one place we perceived a
large
cavern, supported by four ponderous columns, somewhat
resembling
the great cistern of Constantinople. In the centre of the
village are the ruins of a palace (probably that
mentioned by
Procopius) or church, one hundred paces in length, and
sixty in
breadth. The
foundations, which are quite entire, consist of a
prodigious number of subterraneous vaulted chambers,
entered by a
narrow passage forty paces in length. The gate is still
standing; a considerable part of the wall has bid
defiance to
time, &c. M
Donald Kinneir's Journey, p. 438. - M]
Between the
Euxine and the Caspian, the countries of
Colchos, Iberia, and Albania, are intersected in every
direction
by the branches of Mount Caucasus; and the two principal
gates,
or passes, from north to south, have been frequently
confounded
in the geography both of the ancients and moderns. The
name of
Caspian or Albanian gates is properly applied to Derbend,
^138
which occupies a short declivity between the mountains
and the
sea: the city, if we give credit to local tradition, had
been
founded by the Greeks; and this dangerous entrance was
fortified
by the kings of Persia with a mole, double walls, and
doors of
iron. The Iberian
gates ^139 ^* are formed by a narrow passage
of six miles in Mount Caucasus, which opens from the
northern
side of Iberia, or Georgia, into the plain that reaches
to the
Tanais and the Volga. A fortress, designed by Alexander
perhaps,
or one of his successors, to command that important pass,
had
descended by right of conquest or inheritance to a prince
of the
Huns, who offered it for a moderate price to the emperor;
but
while Anastasius paused, while he timorously computed the
cost
and the distance, a more vigilant rival interposed, and
Cabades
forcibly occupied the Straits of Caucasus. The Albanian and
Iberian gates excluded the horsemen of Scythia from the
shortest
and most practicable roads, and the whole front of the
mountains
was covered by the rampart of Gog and Magog, the long
wall which
has excited the curiosity of an Arabian caliph ^140 and a
Russian
conqueror. ^141 According to a recent description, huge
stones,
seven feet thick, and twenty-one feet in length or
height, are
artificially joined without iron or cement, to compose a
wall,
which runs above three hundred miles from the shores of
Derbend,
over the hills, and through the valleys of Daghestan and
Georgia.
Without a vision, such a work might be undertaken by the
policy
of Cabades; without a miracle, it might be accomplished
by his
son, so formidable to the Romans, under the name of
Chosroes; so
dear to the Orientals, under the appellation of
Nushirwan. The
Persian monarch held in his hand the keys both of peace
and war;
but he stipulated, in every treaty, that Justinian should
contribute to the expense of a common barrier, which
equally
protected the two empires from the inroads of the
Scythians. ^142
[Footnote 138: For the city and pass of Derbend, see
D'Herbelot,
(Bibliot. Orient. p. 157, 291, 807,) Petit de la
Croix. (Hist.
de Gengiscan, l. iv. c. 9,) Histoire Genealogique des
Tatars,
(tom. i. p. 120,) Olearius, (Voyage en Perse, p. 1039 -
1041,)
and Corneille le Bruyn, (Voyages, tom. i. p. 146, 147:)
his view
may be compared with the plan of Olearius, who judges the
wall to
be of shells and gravel hardened by time.]
[Footnote 139: Procopius, though with some confusion,
always
denominates them Caspian, (Persic. l. i. c. 10.) The pass
is now
styled Tatar-topa, the Tartar-gates, (D'Anville,
Geographie
Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 119, 120.)]
[Footnote *: Malte-Brun. tom. viii. p. 12, makes three
passes:
1. The
central, which leads from Mosdok to Teflis.
2. The
Albanian, more inland than the Derbend Pass.
3. The Derbend
- the Caspian Gates.
But the
narrative of Col. Monteith, in the Journal of the
Geographical Society of London. vol. iii. p. i. p. 39,
clearly
shows that there are but two passes between the Black Sea
and the
Caspian; the central, the Caucasian, or, as Col. Monteith
calls
it, the Caspian Gates, and the pass of Derbend, though it
is
practicable to turn this position (of Derbend) by a road
a few
miles distant through the mountains, p. 40. - M.]
[Footnote 140: The imaginary rampart of Gog and Magog,
which was
seriously explored and believed by a caliph of the ninth
century,
appears to be derived from the gates of Mount Caucasus,
and a
vague report of the wall of China, (Geograph. Nubiensis,
p. 267 -
270. Memoires de
l'Academie, tom. xxxi. p. 210 - 219.)]
[Footnote 141: See a learned dissertation of Baier, de
muro
Caucaseo, in Comment. Acad. Petropol. ann. 1726, tom. i.
p. 425 -
463; but it is destitute of a map or plan. When the czar Peter
I. became master of Derbend in the year 1722, the measure
of the
wall was found to be 3285 Russian orgyioe, or fathom,
each of
seven feet English; in the whole somewhat more than four
miles in
length.]
[Footnote 142: See the fortifications and treaties of
Chosroes,
or Nushirwan, in Procopius (Persic. l. i. c. 16, 22, l.
ii.) and
D'Herbelot, (p. 682.)]
VII. Justinian
suppressed the schools of Athens and the
consulship of Rome, which had given so many sages and
heroes to
mankind. Both
these institutions had long since degenerated from
their primitive glory; yet some reproach may be justly
inflicted
on the avarice and jealousy of a prince, by whose hand
such
venerable ruins were destroyed.
Athens, after
her Persian triumphs, adopted the philosophy
of Ionia and the rhetoric of Sicily; and these studies
became the
patrimony of a city, whose inhabitants, about thirty
thousand
males, condensed, within the period of a single life, the
genius
of ages and millions.
Our sense of the dignity of human nature
is exalted by the simple recollection, that Isocrates
^143 was
the companion of Plato and Xenophon; that he assisted,
perhaps
with the historian Thucydides, at the first
representation of the
Oedipus of Sophocles and the Iphigenia of Euripides; and
that his
pupils Aeschines and Demosthenes contended for the crown
of
patriotism in the presence of Aristotle, the master of
Theophrastus, who taught at Athens with the founders of
the Stoic
and Epicurean sects. ^144 The ingenuous youth of Attica
enjoyed
the benefits of their domestic education, which was
communicated
without envy to the rival cities. Two thousand disciples heard
the lessons of Theophrastus; ^145 the schools of rhetoric
must
have been still more populous than those of philosophy;
and a
rapid succession of students diffused the fame of their
teachers
as far as the utmost limits of the Grecian language and
name.
Those limits were enlarged by the victories of Alexander;
the
arts of Athens survived her freedom and dominion; and the
Greek
colonies which the Macedonians planted in Egypt, and
scattered
over Asia, undertook long and frequent pilgrimages to
worship the
Muses in their favorite temple on the banks of the
Ilissus. The
Latin conquerors respectfully listened to the
instructions of
their subjects and captives; the names of Cicero and
Horace were
enrolled in the schools of Athens; and after the perfect
settlement of the Roman empire, the natives of Italy, of
Africa,
and of Britain, conversed in the groves of the academy
with their
fellow-students of the East. The studies of philosophy and
eloquence are congenial to a popular state, which
encourages the
freedom of inquiry, and submits only to the force of
persuasion.
In the republics of Greece and Rome, the art of speaking
was the
powerful engine of patriotism or ambition; and the
schools of
rhetoric poured forth a colony of statesmen and
legislators.
When the liberty of public debate was suppressed, the
orator, in
the honorable profession of an advocate, might plead the
cause of
innocence and justice; he might abuse his talents in the
more
profitable trade of panegyric; and the same precepts
continued to
dictate the fanciful declamations of the sophist, and the
chaster
beauties of historical composition. The systems which professed
to unfold the nature of God, of man, and of the universe,
entertained the curiosity of the philosophic student; and
according to the temper of his mind, he might doubt with
the
Sceptics, or decide with the Stoics, sublimely speculate
with
Plato, or severely argue with Aristotle. The pride of the
adverse sects had fixed an unattainable term of moral
happiness
and perfection; but the race was glorious and salutary;
the
disciples of Zeno, and even those of Epicurus, were
taught both
to act and to suffer; and the death of Petronius was not
less
effectual than that of Seneca, to humble a tyrant by the
discovery of his impotence. The light of science could
not indeed
be confined within the walls of Athens. Her incomparable
writers
address themselves to the human race; the living masters
emigrated to Italy and Asia; Berytus, in later times, was
devoted
to the study of the law; astronomy and physic were
cultivated in
the musaeum of Alexandria; but the Attic schools of
rhetoric and
philosophy maintained their superior reputation from the
Peloponnesian war to the reign of Justinian. Athens,
though
situate in a barren soil, possessed a pure air, a free
navigation, and the monuments of ancient art. That sacred
retirement was seldom disturbed by the business of trade
or
government; and the last of the Athenians were
distinguished by
their lively wit, the purity of their taste and language,
their
social manners, and some traces, at least in discourse,
of the
magnanimity of their fathers. In the suburbs of the city, the
academy of the Platonists, the lycaeum of the
Peripatetics, the
portico of the Stoics, and the garden of the Epicureans,
were
planted with trees and decorated with statues; and the
philosophers, instead of being immured in a cloister,
delivered
their instructions in spacious and pleasant walks, which,
at
different hours, were consecrated to the exercises of the
mind
and body. The
genius of the founders still lived in those
venerable seats; the ambition of succeeding to the
masters of
human reason excited a generous emulation; and the merit
of the
candidates was determined, on each vacancy, by the free
voices of
an enlightened people.
The Athenian professors were paid by
their disciples: according to their mutual wants and
abilities,
the price appears to have varied; and Isocrates himself,
who
derides the avarice of the sophists, required, in his
school of
rhetoric, about thirty pounds from each of his hundred
pupils.
The wages of industry are just and honorable, yet the
same
Isocrates shed tears at the first receipt of a stipend:
the Stoic
might blush when he was hired to preach the contempt of
money;
and I should be sorry to discover that Aristotle or Plato
so far
degenerated from the example of Socrates, as to exchange
knowledge for gold. But some property of lands and houses
was