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 Italy and Gaul an army 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, and he soon convinced them that he had not degenerated from the valour of his ancestors. At the head of six thousand volunteers he secretly left the camp in quest of adventures, descended the Danube as far as Singidunum or Belgrade, and soon returned to his father with 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 neighbourhood of the Byzantine court, which already maintained in pride and luxury so many bands of confederate Goths. 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 lower Danube under the command of Theodoric, who succeeded after his father's death to the hereditary throne of the Amali. b After The reign of Zeno, Feb., April 9 An hero, descended from a race of kings, must have despised the base Isaurian who was invested with the Roman purple, without endowments of mind or body, without any any advantages of royal birth or superior qualifications. After A.D. 474-491, the failure of the Theodosian line, the choice of Pulcheria and of the senate might be justified in some measure by the characters of Marcian and Leo; but the latter of these princes confirmed and dishonoured his reign by the perfidious murder of Aspar authentic fact, with the testimony of Procopius, or at least of the contemporary Goths (Gothic. 1. i. c. 2, p. 312 [ed. Paris; tom. ii. p. 14, ed. Bonn]), far outweighs the vague praises of Ennodius (Sirmond. Opera, tom. i. p. 1596) and Theophanes (Chronograph. p. 112 [ed. Par.; p. 202, 203, ed. Bonn])." Statura est quæ 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. 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 [ed. Par.; p. 244248, ed. Bonn]), who erroneously styles him the son of Walamir. 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 argu ment, the Byzantine education of Theodoric.-M. Theodoric began to reign not later than 476, when he was about 22 years of age. Clinton, Fast. Rom. vol. ii. p. 146.-S. 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. 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, 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 demeanour, and the surname of Achilles. 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 favourite 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 b Theophanes (p. 111 [p. 200, ed. Bonn]) inserts a copy of her sacred letters to the provinces; ἴστε ὅτι τὸ βασίλειον ἡμέτερόν ἐστι. . . καὶ ὅτι προχειρησάμεθα βασιλέα ΤρασκαλToy, &c. Such female pretensions would have astonished the slaves of the first Cæsars. 7 Vol. iv. p. 284, seq. Suidas, tom. i. p. 332, 333, edit. Kuster. 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 [p. 238, ed. Bonn].-M. b Named Illus.—M. 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 favour of her mother. On the decease of Zeno, Ariadne, the daughter, the mother, and the widow Of Anasof an emperor, gave her hand and the Imperial title to tasius, Anastasius, an aged domestic of the palace, who survived April 11, his elevation above twenty-seven years, and whose cha- July 8. racter is attested by the acclamation of the people, "Reign as you "have lived!” 9 a A.D. 491-518, revolt of Whatever fear or affection could bestow was profusely lavished by Zeno on the king of the Ostrogoths; the rank of patrician Service and and consul, the command of the Palatine troops, an eques- Theodoric, trian statue, a treasure in gold and silver of many thousand A.D. 475-488. pounds, the name of son, and the promise of a rich and honourable 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." On such occasions Theo "The contemporary histories of Malchus and Candidus are lost; but some extracts or fragments have been saved by Photius (lxxviii. lxxix. p. 100-102 [p. 54-56, ed. Bekk.]), Constantine Porphyrogenitus (Excerpt. Leg. p. 78-97), and in various articles of the Lexicon of Suidas. The Chronicles of Marcellinus. (Imago Historia) 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). 10 In ipsis congressionis tuæ 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 Æthiopia, beyond the tropic of Cancer. The evidence of the Valesian Fragment (p. 717), Liberatus (Brev. Eutych. c. 25, p. 118), and Theophanes (p. 112 [p. 203, ed. Bonn]), is more sober and rational. "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 [ed. Par.; p. 238, ed. Bonn]). The Panegyric of Procopius of Gaza (edited by Villoison in his Anecdota Græca, and reprinted in the new edition of the Byzantine historians by Niebuhr, in the same vol. with Dexippus and Eunapius, 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 grammarian, Niebuhr argues from this work, must have been born in the African, not in either of the Asiatic Cæsareas. Pref. p. xi. -M. b Malchus does not say that the Goths cut off the right hand of the peasants, but that they cut off the hands of the Roman A.D. 478. doric 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 Mæsia, on the solemn assurance that before he reached Adrianople he should meet a plentiful convoy of provisions, and a reinforcement 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 an neavy train of horses, of mules, and of waggons, 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 neighbouring 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 con"test will be exposed, and justly exposed, to their implacable re"venge? 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 general Harmatius, and expelled the husbandmen from the country. Gibbon seems to have misconstrued this passage.-S. a The name of this mountain, which is found only in this passage, is probably corrupt. We ought perhaps to read Succi, and seek the mountain near Soneium on the borders of Dacia and Thrace, where the mountain-pass was loftiest. Manso, Geschichte des Ost-Gothischen Reiches, p. 26.—S. 66 "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 clamour 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." takes the of Italy, A.D. 481. In every state of his fortune the prudence and firmness of Theodoric were equally conspicuous: whether he threatened He underConstantinople at the head of the confederate Goths, or conquest retreated with a faithful band to the mountains and sea- AD. 479. 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.1 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 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 [p. 244 sqq., ed. Bonn]). 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 [apud] Græciam debacchantem... Zenonis munificentiâ pene pacatus... beneficiis nunquam satiatus, &c. [p. 368, 369, and 370, ed. Sirmond]. 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 waggon (Marcellin. in Chron. Evagrius, 1. iii. c. 25). 14 See Malchus (p. 91 [ed. Par.; p. 268, ed. Bonn]) and Evagrius (1. iii. c. 35). 15 Malchus, p. 85 [p. 256, ed. Bonn]. In a single action, which was decided by the skill and discipline of Sabinian, Theodoric could lose 5000 men. |