LECTURE VII. Gaiseric.

We have seen that though the north-east corner of Italy was cruelly ravaged by the Huns, the Eternal City herself escaped the degradation of their presence as conquerors. But the blow, which had been averted by the embassy of Pope Leo, fell three years later (455), the agents of destruction being now, not the Huns, but the Vandals. I purposely abstained in my last lecture from making any but the slightest allusion to the Vandal conquest of Africa (428-439), though that was in fact one of the most important events under the government of Placidia, and certainly the event which produced the most permanently disastrous consequences for Rome.

Early history of the Vandals.

If we go back from the fifth century after Christ to the first, we shall find that the Vandals were then dwelling not far from the Baltic coast in the countries which we now call West Prussia and Posen. A little later on, sharing the general southward movement of all these races, they appear in Silesia and give their name to the Vandalici Montes, which are the same that are now called Riesengebirge, the Mountains of the Giants. Possibly there may be in the new name some dim remembrance of the old, for we are told⁠[86] that the Vandals, as well as the Gepidae, were nearly allied in blood to the Goths, and like them were tall of stature, fair-skinned, yellow-haired, and handsome.

In the reign of Marcus Aurelius (171) we find them in the plains of Hungary warring against the Romans. Three years later they have become the allies of Rome, and this attitude of friendship towards the Empire is generally maintained by them for more than two centuries (174-406). Especially was this the case in the latter part of the reign of the Emperor Constantine (330), when the Vandals had suffered a terrible and well-nigh exterminating defeat at the hands of their Gothic kindred, by the banks of the river Marisia. The survivors of that terrible day humbly pleaded for permission to enter the province of Pannonia on the western shore of the Danube, and there to dwell as foederati under the protection of the Empire. For more than sixty years they faithfully observed this treaty. This was probably the time in which they embraced the Christian faith under that Arian form of it which Ulfilas had preached to the Goths. Many of their chiefs doubtless entered the service of the Emperors as life-guardsmen, and it was probably in this way that the father of the great Stilicho, though a Vandal, rose high enough to prepare a splendid position for his son.

The Vandals enter Gaul, 406.

The calumniators of Stilicho attributed to him, probably most unjustly, a share in the next development of Vandal history. It came to pass in the year 406, in the interval of suspense between the first and second invasions of Alaric, and just after the exhausting campaign with the terrible Radagaisus, that (as has been already mentioned) three great barbarian hordes, taking advantage of the defenceless state of the Rhine-frontier, denuded of its legions for the defence of Italy, poured westwards into the provinces of Gaul. These three tribes were the Suevi, a name of puzzling indefiniteness, once including almost all the High-German family of nations; the Alans, a Tartar horde who had come into Europe at the same time as the Huns, but had pressed further westwards than their kinsmen; and the Vandals.

War with the Franks.

If Stilicho had anything whatever to do with the invitation or the permission given to these barbarian hordes to enter Gaul, it is probable⁠[87] that he did it in the hope of finding in them a counterpoise to the Franks, who were already appearing with menacing strength in the north-eastern provinces of that country. At any rate the Franks are the only enemy that we hear of as attempting to bar their way. A great battle was fought, in which Godigisclus, the Vandal king, fell with 20,000 of his followers, and only the timely intervention of Respendial, King of the Alans, saved the Vandals from utter destruction.

Three years of ravage, 407-409.

Of the three years which followed (407-409) we know nothing, but must imagine the three confederated nations marching up and down in Gaul during that period, slaying and plundering at their will. Then, by the internal discords of the Empire, a fresh prospect of rapine was opened out before them. The British usurper, Constantine, who had penetrated with his legions into Spain, found his precarious throne undermined by one of his officers named Gerontius, who proclaimed his son Maximus Emperor. While usurper and sub-usurper were quarrelling, the defence of the Empire, which both pretended to maintain, was neglected. The passes of the Pyrenees, which had hitherto been easily and faithfully guarded, were left open to the enemy, and the three confederate nations marching through them, found the rich and fruitful peninsula of Spain, which had enjoyed four centuries of unbroken peace, at their mercy. The day of the month, even the day of the week of this terrible invasion, was recorded by the Spanish chroniclers, faithfully reproducing the deep dint which it had made on the memories of their countrymen.

The Vandals and their confederates enter Spain, 28 Sept. 409.

413.

‘In this year’ (409) ‘the Alani and Wandali and Suevi entered the provinces of Spain, on the 28th of September, on the third day of the week⁠[88]⁠.’ After wandering about for some time, enjoying the luxury of promiscuous pillage, they divided the country in some rough fashion between them, the Suevi taking to themselves Gallicia in the north-western corner of Spain, the Alans, Lusitania on the west and the province of Carthagena on the east. The Vandals were divided into two branches, the smaller of whom, the Asdingi, dwelt in Gallicia near to the Suevi, while the powerful clan of the Silingi occupied the fertile province of Baetica in the south. To these entered, four years after, the Visigoths under Ataulfus: and by these four, or if we choose so to consider them, five barbarian nations, as well as by the Roman garrisons in the strong cities which remained like islands amid the barbarian flood, the hapless provinces of Spain were ruled and plundered. Famine soon followed in the train of war. Women were accused of eating their own children: and some Visigothic soldiers bought of some Vandals a small mug-full of wheat for an aureus (= 12 shillings).

Internecine war between the barbarians in Spain, 413-428.

I need not trouble you with the details of the wars which raged in Spain from 413 to 428. The Visigoths were generally in alliance with the Empire, and fought their fellow-barbarians, especially the Vandals, with whom they had a long-standing family quarrel, with a ferocity which astonished the Romans. First the Silingian Vandals in Baetica and then the Alans sustained crushing defeats at their hands: and the scanty remnants of these tribes joined themselves to the Asdingian Vandals, who under their king Gunderic, son of Godigisclus, had now, from the most insignificant, become the most powerful nation in the Peninsula, especially as the Visigoths at this time seem to have withdrawn most of their men north of the Pyrenees, being intent on building up their dominion in Southern Gaul.

The Vandals occupy Andalusia, 420.

Death of King Gunderic, 427.

Accession of Gaiseric.

In 420 the Asdingian Vandals, with their dependents the Alans marched across Spain and took up their quarters in the fertile Baetica, where their kinsmen formerly dwelt. In 422, Gunderic won a decisive victory over Castinus, the Roman Master of the Soldiery, leaving 20,000 Imperial soldiers dead upon the field. In 425 he took the great city of Hispalis (Seville), and fitted out a naval expedition for the conquest of the Balearic Islands. In 427 Gunderic died,—‘attacked by a demon,’ says a Spanish chronicler, ‘by the just judgment of God, to punish him for having stretched forth his hand against the Church of Seville,’ and he was succeeded by Gaiseric⁠[89]⁠, the illegitimate son of his father Godigisclus.

Gaiseric invited by Count Bonifacius to enter Africa, 427.

Such was the position of affairs in Spain when a messenger came from Bonifacius, Count of Africa, inviting the Vandals to cross the sea and wrest that province from the Empire. The cause of this strange proposition is fully told us by one historian⁠[90]⁠, writing a hundred years after the event, and though accurate and trustworthy for his own times, very apt to confuse persons and places of which he had no personal knowledge. His narrative has been lately subjected to a severe analysis by a great master of historical criticism⁠[91]⁠, who has shown how many questionable elements it contains. Still, in the absence of all other information, it holds the field, and I will therefore, with this caution, tell the story in the words of Procopius himself.

Procopius’s story of the rivalry between Aetius and Bonifacius.

‘The calamity of Africa came to pass in this fashion. There were two Roman generals, Aetius and Bonifacius, both able men, and in knowledge of the art of war second to none of their time. Between these men jealousies arose as to the government of the Empire: but so great were their magnanimity and other virtues that if any one were to call each of them the last of the Romans he would not be far from the truth, so completely had all the glory of Rome become merged in these two men. One of these two men, Bonifacius, Placidia set over the whole of Africa, hereby offending Aetius, who, however, did not show his displeasure, for the ill-feeling between them had not yet produced an open rupture, but was hidden under the mask of friendship.

‘Now when Bonifacius had departed for Africa, Aetius began to calumniate him to Placidia as a man who aspired to the Imperial dignity and would wrest Africa from her and the Emperor. He assured her that it would not be difficult to bring this matter to the test, for if she summoned Bonifacius to Rome, he would not come. When the lady heard this, she approved and followed the advice of Aetius. The latter, however, had previously written secretly to Bonifacius that the Emperor’s mother was laying snares for his destruction, and as a token of the truth of his assertion he told him that he would find himself without cause suddenly recalled. Hearkening to this warning of Aetius but keeping a profound silence concerning it, when the messengers arrived to invite him to the Imperial Court he declared that he would not obey the Emperor or his mother either. Placidia, on the receipt of this news, looked upon Aetius as a most faithful servant of the throne, but regarded Bonifacius with suspicion. The latter, feeling himself unable to cope with the power of the Emperor, yet accounting himself a doomed man if he started for Rome, began to consider how he could attach the Vandals to his cause, who had obtained possession of the neighbouring province of Spain. Bonifacius, then, having sent to Spain certain of the most influential of his friends, concluded a treaty on terms of equality with both the sons of Godigisclus, to the effect that each of them should receive a third part of Africa, and that if any one of the three were attacked in war, his danger should be shared by the other two.’

War between Vandals and Suevi.

428. Numbering of the people.

So far Procopius. It will be seen that he makes Bonifacius send his invitation to both Kings of the Vandals, but if this were so, certainly before the departure of the host from Spain, Gunderic was dead and Gaiseric was sole ruler of his nation. While he was engaged in his preparations for departure, the King of the Suevi made a devastating inroad on the northern part of the Vandal possessions. To show that he was not yet to be thus contumeliously ignored even on Spanish territory, Gaiseric suspended his African projects for a while, turned round and inflicted on the Suevi a bloody defeat, after which their king was drowned in the waters of the Gaudiana. Then resuming his plans for the descent upon Africa, he collected his people (or rather his two peoples, for he was now always saluted as King of the Vandals and Alans) upon the sunny Andalusian shore. Here in the month of May, 428⁠[92]⁠, he had his nation-army numbered, and found all the males, including old men and little children, to amount to 80,000. Another computation, which it is difficult to reconcile with this unless the limits of age for military service were very wide, makes the warriors alone amount to 50,000 men.

The Vandals transported to Africa.

The ships which Bonifacius, Count of Africa, supplied from the great port of Carthage, co-operating with the little fleet of Gaiseric, carried this great mass of persons, certainly not fewer than 160,000 in number, to the African coast and landed them, probably in the province of Numidia. Thus was the dream of Alaric realised by another German chieftain, and thus did the intrigues and counter-intrigues of Roman officials enable a Teutonic invader to strike at Rome in her most vulnerable point, the great grain-producing provinces of Africa.

428. Bonifacius repents of his treason and is reconciled to Placidia.

Scarcely had the Vandals landed on the African coast when the alliance between them and Bonifacius, born of treachery and misunderstanding, died in the daylight of truth. To resume the narrative of Procopius. ‘All those at Rome who were well acquainted with Bonifacius, reflecting on his character and the extreme improbability of his being so far carried away by the desire of reigning, were filled with wonder at what had taken place. Some of these persons, by order of Placidia, proceeded to Carthage, conversed with Bonifacius, saw the letters of Aetius, and understanding the whole intrigue returned with all speed to Rome and explained the position in which Bonifacius had been placed. Placidia, filled with astonishment, did not dare openly to blame Aetius, so great was his power and so necessary his help, in the lamentable state into which the Empire was falling. But calling for the friends of Bonifacius, she explained to them the secret counsels of Aetius, and binding them to secrecy by an oath adjured them, if it were possible, to recall him to the love of his country, and not to allow the Roman Empire to fall under the yoke of the barbarians. When Bonifacius understood all these things, he was filled with repentance for his late designs and for the treaty which he had made with the barbarians, and besought them, with the lure of many promises, that they would depart from Africa. But as the Vandals would not listen to his words, but rather taunted him with his broken faith towards them, he was forced to engage in battle with them, and being defeated withdrew to Hippo Regius, a very strong city by the sea-coast of Numidia.

Siege of Hippo, June, 430 to July, 431.

‘As the Vandals after a long time could neither take Hippo by storm nor induce it to surrender, and were moreover themselves beginning to suffer from hunger, they broke up the siege. Not long after, Bonifacius and the Romans under his command joined forces with an army sent from Byzantium under the command of Aspar, and dared to try the fortune of war in a great pitched battle, but being much inferior to the enemy, they fled whither they could, and Aspar returned to his own land. But Bonifacius betook himself to the Court of Placidia, and there completely purged himself of the suspicions which had been entertained of him.’

432.

From other sources we learn that Placidia not only forgave Bonifacius but received him into high favour, and conferred upon him the dignity of Master of the Soldiery. Apparently he would have supplanted Aetius in his position of Chief Counsellor of the Empress and virtual ruler of the Empire, but at this moment Aetius returned with his army from a victorious campaign against the Franks, and joined battle with his foe. Aetius was defeated, but Bonifacius lost his life, according to one account, in single combat with his rival, and, strange to say, in the act of dying, adjured his wife to re-marry with Aetius if the death of his wife should make such wedlock possible, as he and no other of living Romans was worthy to be the successor as he had been the conqueror of Bonifacius.

Strange character of this story.

The whole story of the rivalry of these two Imperial generals is strange, romantic, almost self-contradictory. Contemporary annalists scarcely mention it; later historians tell us a good deal which it is hardly possible that they could have known. We should be disposed to send it back into the region of romance, to which it seems properly to belong, but for this one clear and all-important fact—that the Roman governor of Africa did himself promote the passage of the Vandals into his province, and only when it was too late and the irretrievable mischief was done, turned against them, and by vain threats and vainer promises, sought to persuade them to leave the fruitful land into which he had given them entrance.

Result of the Vandal migrations.

Thus, then, at length were the dwellers by the Elbe and the Oder settled on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. In 406 they were in Pannonia, in 439 in Carthage. Thirty-three years, the ordinary length of a generation, had brought them from Austria to Tunis, and in their way they had ravaged Languedoc and set up a short-lived kingdom in Andalusia. Remembering always that it was not a mere army, but a nation, which thus roamed over mountains and rivers and changed its place of abode from continent to continent, we feel that the period of history of which we are now treating is indeed well named by the Germans Völker-wanderung, ‘the migration of the nations.’

Death of St. Augustine during the siege of Hippo, 28 Aug. 430.

‘Vandalism.’

The siege of Hippo Regius (Bona), which has been already alluded to by Procopius, lasted for a little more than thirteen months (June 430 to July 431), and was, as has been already said, one of the few failures of the Vandals. It was memorable in the history of the Church, because the Bishop of Hippo—the greatest of all the bishops of the African Church—St. Augustine, was present within the city at its commencement, and died in the third month of the blockade. His biographer, Possidius, Bishop of Calama, was with him at the end; and from his hand we have an interesting picture of the venerable old man’s last days, sitting, as he did, surrounded by bishops from the whole province of Africa, who had seen their cities burned, their churches levelled with the ground, the fruit-trees of the agriculturists torn up by the roots. It was the fury of this first onslaught, and the especial delight taken by the heretical barbarians in the destruction of churches, which caused their name to become a synonym for the demolishers of beautiful buildings. Practically, when we speak of Vandalism, we now generally think of some brutal outrage perpetrated on a temple or a statue; and this in the fifth century would be more probably the work of fanatic monk than of Vandal barbarian. But the deeds of the followers of Gaiseric during the first fury of their conquest, and afterwards, were sufficiently brutal to excuse the opprobrium which the usage of fourteen centuries has linked indissolubly with their name.

Temporary peace with the Empire, 11 Feb. 435.

After seven years of desolating warfare, peace was concluded between Gaiseric and the Empire. Aetius no doubt recognised that the fatal work of Bonifacius could not be undone, nor the 50,000 Vandal and Alan warriors (reinforced probably by many Moorish nomads and ruined Roman Provincials) be forced to relinquish their prey. On his part Gaiseric had had enough of plundering; he wished now to occupy and to rule, and he meant to make the Romans pay a costly price for the peace which he was willing to concede to them. The strong city of Hippo, which he had failed to conquer by force of arms, became his as the result of negotiation. He had Numidia and the larger part of the African territory secured to him as his lawful possession, perhaps on the promised payment of a yearly tribute⁠[93] to the Emperor, and he had to promise to leave unmolested Carthage, the capital of the Roman Diocese and that part of the Province which immediately adjoined it, a rich and fertile district certainly, and the gem of the whole dominion. His son Huneric was sent to Rome as a hostage for the fulfilment of this condition.

Gaiseric pounces on Carthage, 19 Oct. 439.

The peace seemed like a confession of something like failure on the part of the Vandal conqueror. But he had only ‘recoiled in order to make a bolder spring.’ He waited his time; on some pretence or other he obtained the return of his hostage-son, and then, while Aetius was busy warring with the Visigoths in Gaul, and Attila from his Hungarian village was beginning to worry Placidia with his embassies and his armaments, suddenly, on the 19th of October, 439, Gaiseric entered Carthage and made all the vast wealth of the African capital his own. Torture was freely used to compel some of the citizens to yield up to him their hidden stores.

Appearance and character of Gaiseric.

The Vandal king had now reached, apparently, the summit of his ambition. Lord of the Roman Provinces of Africa and of the great city of Carthage, he felt himself indeed a king; and whatever title he may have borne before, he dated his reign—a reign which lasted thirty-seven years—from this conquest. Like Ataulfus, like Attila (one might add, like Napoleon and like Wellington), he was somewhat under the usual size, and he had a limp in his gait owing to a fall from his horse. He was, by the consenting testimony of all contemporary historians, a man of great ability, admirably preparing his means to compass the desired ends, simple in his habits, of few words, patient, and tenacious of purpose; but on the other hand, sullen in his wrath, covetous, always stirring up strife and vexing the nations, and absolutely ruthless towards all who crossed his path⁠[94]⁠. In Alaric, notwithstanding some outbursts of barbaric rage, there was much that was chivalrous and noble. Even the dark soul of Attila was irradiated with fitful gleams of generosity and compassion. But in Gaiseric I do not think we can discern a single lineament of nobleness. All is hard, cruel, vulgar in his remorseless soul. Alas that we must add, all is also successful in his life. This cruel and greedy, but supremely able barbarian succeeded where the nobler Alaric and the gentler Ataulfus had failed.

His maritime power and piratical expeditions.

His magnificent power of adapting means to ends was well displayed in the change which he made in the habits of his nation after he had become master of Carthage. The Vandals, who had dwelt so long on the skirts of the Riesengebirge, in the highlands of Austria, or in the plains of Hungary, were essentially an inland people, who only dabbled a little in seamanship, when they reached the Andalusian shore. But now that the fleets, the arsenal, the docks of Carthage were all their own, now that its harbour—one of the finest in the Old World—reflected everywhere the Vandal flag, they became under Gaiseric’s guidance the first naval power on the Mediterranean, and he, by a singular anticipation of the history of the Barbary States in later days, made himself the great Buccaneer-King. With every returning spring his long ships of war were made ready in the harbour. Sometimes he ravaged Sicily, sometimes the southern coasts of Italy, leading the inhabitants of one city into captivity, throwing down the walls of another, wasting the whole country with his wide-reaching raids. Then when the very poverty of these lands frighted him away from their devastated shores, he turned to the Eastern Empire. Illyricum, Peloponnesus, the islands of the Ionian and Aegean seas, all that bore the name of Hellas, bewailed the visits of Gaiseric. Then to Italy and Sicily again, to try if there were any nook which had hitherto escaped his visitations. At length the work became almost monotonous, and the choice of a victim hard. Once when the fleet had weighed anchor and was sailing forth from the broad harbour of Carthage, the helmsman turned to the king and asked for what port he should steer. ‘For the men with whom God is angry,’ answered the Vandal king, and left the winds and the waters to settle the question who were the proper objects of the wrath of Heaven.

Vandal land-settlement.

The land-settlement of the Vandals and the order of succession to the Vandal throne were two subjects to which Gaiseric’s legislative energies were especially directed. (1) The rich Province in which Carthage was situated, called Zeugitana, or the Proconsular Province, the last of all the acquisitions of the Vandals, was portioned out among the warriors of the nation, who received these estates as an inheritance to be transmitted to their children, and who paid no taxes of any kind for them. In the other Provinces, far larger in extent but not nearly so fertile in quality, lay the vast domains of Gaiseric and his sons, consisting of estates forcibly taken away from their Roman owners, often men of culture and noble birth, who were in some cases compelled to cultivate as slaves the lands of which the invader had despoiled them. The poor and barren lands were for the most part left to their former owners, but so burdened with taxes and obligations of service that the unhappy possessors could barely make a livelihood out of them. Many of these unhappy possessors tried to flee, but were arrested and executed, sundry grievous charges being brought against them, especially the one unforgivable sin of concealing treasure from Gaiseric. ‘Thus,’ as the historian⁠[95] says, ‘did the Provincials of Africa fall into every kind of misery.’

Law of succession to the throne.

(2) As for the succession to the throne, in order to avert the rivalries and civil wars which often resulted from the elective character of Teutonic royalty, and at the same time to prevent the crown from being worn by a fatuous boy like Honorius or Valentinian, he ordained that the oldest living male among his descendants should, on the death of each reigning monarch, ascend the Vandal throne. The law was like that which has regulated the succession of the Ottoman Sultans and the Egyptian Pashas. It worked smoothly for near sixty years after the death of Gaiseric, who was succeeded by his eldest son Huneric, he by his two nephews, Gunthamund and Thrasamund, and the latter of these by his cousin Hilderic, the son of Huneric. Then dissensions broke out: Hilderic was dethroned and finally put to death by his cousin Gelimer, but religious differences—for Gelimer was an Arian and Hilderic a Catholic—were the chief cause of these disputes, for which I am not sure that we can fairly blame the Vandal law of succession.

Persecution of the Catholics.

In this allusion to religious differences I have touched upon that which was the distinguishing and the shameful characteristic of the Vandal kingdom, especially under Gaiseric and his son; I mean, their brutal persecution of the Catholics. In their profession of Arianism the Vandals, as we have seen, only followed the example of all the other barbarian nations who had embraced Christianity in any form. Naturally Attila, who worshipped a naked sword, while hating all priests and coveting their costly Communion-plate, was under no temptation to treat the orthodox believers in the Homoousion worse than the Arian believers in the Homoiousion (if any such there yet remained), but would slay both with ferocious impartiality. Naturally, too, the still heathen ancestors of Clovis robbed and murdered the Catholic bishops of Belgic Gaul simply as rich and civilised men, without any special antipathy to them on account of their Catholicism. With the Visigoths, Suevi, and Burgundians the case was different. They were parties to the long Arian lawsuit, and were disposed to depress, and sometimes to harass, the Athanasian litigants on the other side, but they did not systematically persecute, and there are few if any instances of Catholics actually put to death by them for their faith.

Gaiseric, however, seems to have hugged his Arian belief with the fanatical love of a convert, and to have hated the Nicene Confession with the bitter hatred of an apostate. It was indeed reported⁠[96] in Spain that such was the very truth, that he had been once a Catholic and had ‘apostatised to the Arian infidelity’: but it is difficult to understand how the son of King Godigisclus can have been brought up in the Athanasian faith, unless his illegitimate birth permitted him to be trained by his mother, probably a Gaulish concubine of the king, in the despised faith of the Roman Provincials.

Whatever the cause there can be no doubt that Gaiseric detested the Catholic faith, the faith of the vast majority of his new subjects, and showed that detestation by acts of savage cruelty. The churches were not merely plundered—that the barbarian hunger for gold would sufficiently account for—but wantonly burned: and insult was sometimes added to rapine, as when the beautiful altar-cloths were cut up and made into shirts and drawers for the grooms of a barbarian officer. In the regions which paid tribute to the Palace the bishops were accused of stirring up the people to revolt, and of likening the king to Pharaoh, Holofernes, and Nebuchadnezzar: and a number of them were sent into exile. The Bishop of Carthage, with several of his clergy, was sent to sea in a crazy ship, which it was hoped would founder on the voyage, but arrived safe but penniless on the shores of Campania. The Metropolitan Church of Carthage was forbidden to elect any successor to the exile, and seems to have remained for twenty years or more ‘widowed of its bishop.’ The same measure was meted out to a great number of African Churches, evidently with the intention of breaking down their episcopal organisation for ever.

In his own palace Gaiseric seemed as if he could not endure the presence of an adherent of the rival creed. Sebastian, the son-in-law of Bonifacius, though a man who was on other grounds acceptable at Court and influential with the king, was put to death because he refused to change his religion. Count Armogast, for the same refusal, was stretched upon the rack, hung head downwards from the ceiling by one foot, and at last sent to do the work of a ditcher and a shepherd in the fields, where he soon died of his hardships.

These and many similar stories which are told us by Victor Vitensis, show the intense and bitter animosity of the great Vandal against all who refused to accept what the ecclesiastical historians call ‘the Arian infidelity.’ At the same time they fail to bring before us any well-concerted and systematic scheme of persecution, which could by possibility have rooted out the Catholic faith from Africa. Gaiseric was evidently no Diocletian, with sad thoroughness undertaking to eradicate a hostile faith in order to fulfil his duty to the State. Nor was he a Louis XIV, organising dragonnades and revoking edicts of toleration in order that he might keep his mistresses and yet save his soul. He was essentially a barbarian, though a clever one, with all that intolerance of opposition which is shown not by barbarians only when

He could not bear that any of those about him should dare to belong to any other than ‘the King’s religion,’ and he tortured, degraded, banished, at last sometimes even killed, in order to punish those who differed from him for their independence.

Such was the character and such the past career of the founder of the great Buccaneer State. We have now to glance at the course of events which, in the year 455, brought him across the sea to Rome.

Family relations of Valentinian III.

Valentinian III, in the year 437, when he had reached the age of eighteen, went on a visit of state to his cousin, Theodosius II, at Constantinople, and returned bringing with him that cousin’s daughter as a bride. She bore the name which, with slight modifications, had been borne by two previous generations of Imperial ladies in the palace at Constantinople, Eudoxia or Eudocia. Of this marriage there was no male issue, but two daughters were born to the Imperial pair, Eudoxia and Placidia.

His jealousy of Aetius.

On the death of Attila (453) the thought, the base thought, began to insinuate itself into the mind of Valentinian that he had now less need of the services of the great minister, Aetius. Men called that minister ‘the great safeguard of the Western Commonwealth and the terror of Attila⁠[97]⁠.’ His praises were sung with wearisome repetition, and the very presence of the strenuous, care-worn warrior was an oppression and a rebuke to the frivolous Emperor who ‘reigned but did not govern.’ The growing dislike, now that the wise Placidia was laid in the grave, could be fostered at their pleasure by the mischief-making lacqueys of the palace, and one of these, the eunuch Heraclius, for ever seeming to anticipate the Emperor’s wishes, and really making him the tool of his own base designs, had begun to talk of possible means of freeing Valentinian from the yoke of his minister and making him master in his own house. Hints of treachery reached the ears of Aetius, and to secure himself he pressed the Emperor to exchange with him solemn oaths of mutual faith. At the same time a scheme which had probably been for some time talked of, and which seemed to promise the undisturbed succession to the throne of a hero’s son, received its final ratification. Valentinian promised to give one of his daughters in marriage to Gaudentius⁠[98]⁠, the son of Aetius.

454. Valentinian murders Aetius.

Such was the state of affairs, a hollow crust of reconciliation and plighted vows over the red-hot lava of hatred and suspicion, when one day Aetius entered the palace and had an interview with the Emperor. He spoke of the covenant entered into between them: he perhaps urged the completion of the marriage at once, and hinted that his master was seeking to evade the fulfilment of his promise. Valentinian was, or feigned to be, enraged against his importunate petitioner. He struck Aetius a blow: the swords of the surrounding courtiers, we are told, ‘cruelly finished the work.’ The last of the Romans was lying dead at the feet of one of the meanest of the Caesars. Along with Aetius fell one of his friends, bearer of a name destined to European celebrity,—Boetius, an ancestor of the author of the ‘Consolation of Philosophy.’

Soon after the foul deed had been done Valentinian asked a Roman nobleman if he had done well in slaying Aetius. ‘Well done, or ill done, most noble Augustus, I am hardly able to decide. But I know one thing, that you have chopped off your right hand with your left.’

Vengeance on Valentinian. 455.

The death of Aetius, which probably occurred towards the end of 454, remained not long unavenged. Valentinian, who with all his many vices does not appear to have been a coward, allowed the friends and retainers of the murdered man to approach him without hindrance. He supposed that what his flatterers told him was true, and that the deed of the Emperor of Rome would be accepted as if it were the decree of heaven by his adoring subjects. Little did he know the longing for revenge which filled the hearts of the barbarian guardsmen of Aetius, who, like the Comitatus of a German chief, deemed themselves for ever disgraced by the unrequited murder of their lord. On the 16th of March, 455, Valentinian rode forth from the City to a place called ‘the Two Laurels,’ to watch some contest (perhaps a wrestling match) which was going forward. While he was intent on the spectacle two henchmen of Aetius, named Optila and Thraustila⁠[99]⁠—their names reveal their barbarian origin—approached and ‘stabbed him with unexpected blows⁠[100]⁠.’ The eunuch Heraclius, who had been his accomplice in the murder of Aetius, was slain at the same time.

Accession of Maximus.

His marriage with Eudoxia.

455.

With the death of Valentinian the dynasty of Theodosius came to an end, his cousin Pulcheria, the Augusta at Constantinople, having died two years before (453). The person who was chosen to succeed him was Maximus, an elderly Senator, a man who had been twice Consul, and had filled various offices of the State with credit and distinction. The hopes which had been formed of a wise and honourable administration of the affairs of the Republic by the new Emperor were, however, soon disappointed. Maximus not only left the murder of his predecessor unavenged: he even seemed ostentatiously to court the society of the murderers, thus definitely enrolling himself as a partisan of the family of Aetius and an antagonist of the probably still numerous adherents of the Theodosian house. He carried this partisanship to such lengths as to suggest to the minds of his subjects that he had himself been privy to the death of his predecessor. The suspicion was probably unfounded, but the mere fact that it was widely entertained must have been fatal to the moral ascendency of the new Emperor. Moreover he compelled the beautiful widow of Valentinian, who was still truly mourning her unworthy husband, to accept his hand in marriage, and proposed to marry his son Palladius to her daughter, Placidia. If he hoped thus to consolidate his dynasty by a double union with the family of his predecessor, he was bitterly disappointed. Eudoxia was wounded in her affections by the indecent haste with which she had been compelled to accept this elderly and commonplace civil servant instead of the brilliant, if worthless, husband of her youth. She was wounded in her pride by a marriage, or rather by two marriages, deemed by her to be beneath the dignity of that great Theodosian house to which she belonged by a double title, and which had now for three quarters of a century been, in the flattering dialect of the Court, ‘domus divina.’

Eudoxia invokes the aid of Gaiseric.

Like her sister-in-law Honoria, in her rage and despair she looked to the barbarian for aid. She found means to send a messenger to Gaiseric, inviting him to attack Rome and deliver her from shameful bondage. The messenger found the Vandal king in no unwilling mood. Most likely he had often discussed with himself the probabilities of success or failure in the most brilliant enterprise that ambition and avarice could suggest to a Teutonic warrior: and now all doubts were removed by the knowledge that Rome’s powers of resistance, feeble at the best, would be paralysed by internal dissensions. His ships were no doubt all equipped in readiness for his usual spring-tour of desolation: he had but to give to the waiting pilot the word of command, ‘for Rome.’

Gaiseric sets sail for Rome, June, 455.

Flight and death of Maximus.

The Vandal fleet reached the mouth of the Tiber in the early days of June (455); but already, three days before their arrival, the reign of Maximus, which lasted only about ten or eleven weeks, had come to an end. The rumour of the impending invasion, fears of domestic treachery, the unconcealed scorn and hatred of Eudoxia, quite unnerved the elderly Emperor, who, after publishing a proclamation granting liberty to leave the City to all who desired to do so, himself claimed the permission which he had accorded to his subjects and stole away from the palace. As soon as his departure was discovered an insurrection broke out. The servants of the palace, who were all on Eudoxia’s side, followed and overtook the fugitive. According to the ghastly precedent set in the case of Rufinus, they tore him limb from limb, dragged the pieces of his body through the streets of Rome and hurled them contemptuously into the Tiber. Already, in the general ruin of society, the men who called themselves Romans were showing themselves even more barbarous than the barbarians.

Surrender of the City.

455. Plunder of Rome.

A city thus left without a ruler, and probably divided against itself, (the enemies and the friends of the late Theodosian dynasty regarding one another with hatred and fear,) could offer no effectual resistance, and appears to have offered no resistance at all, to the mighty Vandal. Once more the expedient of Papal intercession was resorted to, but this time with only partial success. When Pope Leo with his clergy met Gaiseric outside the Porta Portuensis the conqueror agreed—no doubt on condition that his entry should be unopposed—to spare the lives of the inhabitants, to set fire neither to church, palace, nor private dwelling, and to abstain from the use of torture for the discovery of hidden wealth. These conditions being observed, there was to be no limit to the Vandal capacities for spoliation. ‘For fourteen days,’ says an annalist⁠[101]⁠, ‘with secure and unhindered investigation, Rome was stripped of all her wealth.’ Temple and Christian church were impartially plundered. Half of the gilded roof of the Temple of Capitolian Jove, the Communion-plate of all the great basilicas, statues from forum and hippodrome and villa, the crown and jewelled ornaments of Theodosius and his posterity, even the seven-branched candlestick and the table of the shew-bread which Titus had brought from ruined Jerusalem, these and endless other treasures were borne during those fourteen days of leisurely spoliation along the Via Portuensis and stowed away in the capacious holds of the Vandal galleys⁠[102]⁠. The vessel which bore the statues and other treasures of art most unfortunately foundered on the voyage. The spoils of the Jewish temple reached their destination in safety, and after reposing in the recesses of the Vandal palace at Carthage for seventy-nine years were carried to Constantinople to grace the triumph of Belisarius: but the Roman Emperor Justinian, fearing that these sacred treasures which had already witnessed the sack of three great cities, Jerusalem, Rome, and Carthage, bringing ill fortune with them like the Ark of God to the cities of the Philistines, might also witness the fall of Constantinople, sent them back to their original home on Mount Moriah, where apparently they must still have been stored up when Omar, at the head of his true believers, stormed the Holy City.

Gaiseric returns to Africa.

Captivity of Eudoxia and her daughters.

Gaiseric, having fully accomplished his purpose, not conquest but plunder, returned to Carthage, laying waste on his way the shores of Campania and ruining the cities of Capua and Nola. The Empress Eudoxia and her two daughters were transported to Carthage. The elder daughter, Eudoxia, was married to Gaiseric’s eldest son, Huneric,—a most miserable union, since she was a devoted Catholic and her husband a bitter Arian. In 472, after twenty-seven years of wedlock, she escaped from the hated land to Jerusalem, and there died, after a few months spent in religious seclusion, at the Tomb of the Saviour. The Empress Eudoxia and her other daughter, Placidia, were sent to Constantinople in 462, after seven years’ captivity, in consideration of a large ransom paid by the Emperor Leo, who, though no relation of the Theodosian family, felt his dignity wounded by the detention of the widow and daughter of an Emperor in the palace of the barbarian.

Further fortunes of the Theodosian family.

Placidia’s husband, a senator named Olybrius, was one of the ‘shadow-Emperors’ whose coming and going marked the last twenty years of the Empire of the West. In March, 472, he was proclaimed Augustus by Ricimer, the successor of Stilicho and Aetius in the position of ‘powerful friend’ of the Emperors. In October of the same year he died of dropsy, having produced no perceptible eddy in the swift downward current of the fortunes of Rome. A grandson of his and Placidia’s, a great-grandson of Valentinian III, named also Olybrius, was Consul in 491. His inconspicuous name is the last vestige left in history of the family of the great Theodosius.

I have overpassed the proper limits of my subject by a few years in order to trace the fortunes of the Theodosian family. The Theodosian dynasty ended, as we have seen, in March, 455; and that event, with the immediately succeeding sack of Rome by Gaiseric, is a fitting close to my narrative.

Conclusion.

In 375, before the Huns had crossed the Dniester, or the fugitive Visigoths had crowded to the shore of the Danube, beseeching the hospitality of the Empire, it seemed as if the stately fabric reared by the Senate and People of Rome, which had already stood for eleven centuries, might stand for eleven centuries more. In 455, when the ships of the Vandal king were bearing away the widow and daughters of an Emperor, the spoils of the city and palace, and a crowd of well-born captives, to his robber-fortress of Carthage, the sceptre of the great world-conquering power was broken. Britain, Gaul, Germany, Spain, Africa, were lost to her dominion. Rome herself had twice surrendered to a barbarian conqueror, and had twice been sacked by his soldiers. The sacred soil of Italy had for years been trodden under foot by the armies of the Goth, the Hun, and the Vandal. The Empire’s reputation of unconquerableness had departed from her, and when Roman and barbarian met on the battle-field, the expectation in both armies was that the legions would not be victorious. A long and wonderful existence yet lay before the New Rome by the Bosphorus, but from the Old Rome by the Tiber the spell of Empire had for a time departed. Yet already there were indications in the sky from what quarter her new day would dawn. Already the majestic figure of Leo betokened the uprising of a new order of men, the avowed successors of a fisherman of Bethsaida, who should rule over a wider world than the Roman Empire, and wield a more absolute authority than had been enjoyed by the proudest of the successors of Augustus.