Part 30

Constantius’ reign is particularly remarkable for the Arian persecution of the Homoousians and the orthodox party, especially of the great Bishop Athanasius. The latter displayed in it a wonderful strength of character, and the most striking power over the minds of a vast population: of this one may find the details in the ecclesiastical history of that lover of truth, the Abbé Fleury. During his reign, likewise, was the Arian council of Rimini held, which was directed against that of Nice; but other councils, particularly in Julian’s days, very soon renounced it.

Julian’s is an ever memorable name, which has sometimes been overrated beyond measure, and on the other hand cried down in the most unworthy manner. Distinguished men of most opposite minds have during the last fifty years turned their attention to him; first of all, Gibbon, who was not, however, carried away by his anti-christian feelings, but very readily acknowledges his weak points; then Eckhel in his work on coins, wherein he shows so much candour of judgment, that I altogether refer you to him; and last of all, Neander, whose treatise on Julian is excellent.

Julian was a man of uncommon talent: one has only to read his writings to see this. He was truly Attic; since Dio Chrysostom, Greece has not had such an elegant Attic writer: he is far superior to Libanius. That he was a distinguished general, a humane and paternal ruler in Gaul, is beyond all doubt: he was also great in delaying to march against Constantius, that in the meanwhile he might still fight against the barbarians, so as to hinder them from breaking out. The purity of his morals was spotless; his passions were completely under control: his only happiness was to live entirely in thought. Yet, leaving aside the truth of the Christian religion, we cannot but acknowledge that the attempt to revive Paganism was a downright absurdity. Heathenism, as a real popular faith, had long since been dead; its place had been taken by Neo-Platonism, the groundwork of which indeed was Monotheism, and which was ingeniously tricked out with a good deal of eastern demonology and theology, with theurgy and thaumaturgy. All the old legends of the gods had been allegorized: people saw in Homer and the other old writers everything but what the Greeks had seen in them. Had the religion still lived in tradition, it would have still been able to make a struggle, now it was impossible. This artificial, new-fangled system, which itself was partly borrowed from Christianity, was at most suited for one or two Metaphysicians. Besides Julian and his counsellors and court-philosophers, such a creed could not have numbered five hundred or a thousand followers: moreover there was in the provinces a crowd of negative partisans, who only cared to oppose Christianity. It was, therefore, in fact a counter-revolutionary undertaking: he wished to introduce a hierarchy into paganism, to create quite a new heathen religion which was much nearer Gnosticism than that of the Hellenes, to which indeed it was diametrically opposed. As it was impossible for him to carry this through, he was driven to use tyranny and craft; and yet he could not succeed after all. Christianity was certainly far from being the faith of the majority as yet; but it had firmly taken root.

The lines of Prudentius[66] on Julian are the best thing which has been said of him, doing the greatest honour, both to him who made them, and to him on whom they were made:—

——_Ductor fortissimus armis, Conditor et legum celeberrimus, ore manuque Consultor patriæ;—— Perfidus ille Deo, sed non et perfidus orbi._

The absurdities of Julian in the whole of this undertaking are manifest: hence arose his follies and his tyrannical acts, however mild he may otherwise have been. The late Count Stolberg thought that the whole life at the court of his uncle Constantius, which was looked upon as Christian, was his full excuse. Julian with a cruel sneer forbade the Christians to read the classic authors in their schools: “Ye despise them,” said he, “and ye will have nothing to do with the heathen gods; well then, ye ought not to know anything of their literature either.” In many particular cases, he showed the greatest partiality; not only when the pagans again took possession of the temples which had been shut up, and of the estates which belonged to them, but also in actual litigations. Real persecutions were out of question; but religion was made a source of suffering.

Having already set out for the East against Constantius, he continued his march even after his death. He staid for a year in Antioch, where his philosophical strictness came into conflict with the frivolity and luxury of the people. Since the days of Hadrian it had been the fashion to wear beards; but, as Constantine and his sons used to shave, Julian, so long as he was at court, was obliged to do the same: in Gaul, however, he let his beard grow again, as it was a badge of the Greek philosophers; and for this the people of Antioch now railed at him, From Libanius and John Chrysostom, we learn that they were a thoroughly good for nothing set, having all the vices of an overgrown city. By them he was now received with hatred: there may have been, ever since the time of Constantius, a hostile party to him in the place; his simplicity, which indeed was carried to the verge of affectation, was offensive to them. Another thing in his way, was the Christian religion, which, although in the East it certainly was still that of the minority, had both life and energy, whilst the other religions were split by dissensions. There is no denying that Constantine’s Christianity was an abortion; but he became a Christian, because in the empire of Galerius and Licinius the sect of the Christians was the most numerous: the West was attached to him, even without it, from his father’s time. In Rome, the fashionable world were still polytheists; but of the people properly so called, many thousands already professed the Christian faith. Constantine had the advantage which the leaders of exclusive bodies always have: hence also arose such a powerful party against Julian. To this quarrel we owe the Misopogon, one of the prettiest pieces which Greek literature has produced during the period of its revival. Here, as well as in his _Cæsares_, Julian shows a good deal of wit and liveliness.

He now undertook the war against Persia, which seems to have been interrupted hitherto by other wars. The plan was beautifully devised, only he had reckoned a great deal too much on everything turning out well. He intended to march with his army along the banks of the Euphrates, where supplies could always be procured by means of the river; then to transport his fleet by canals into the Tigris, and thus strike a deadly blow into the heart of the enemy: it was perhaps his object to make Babylon a province. From Nisibis in Mesopotamia, Procopius and Sebastian were to cross the Tigris and join him in the plains of Armenia. Then he made sure that the Armenians, from whom, in the last years of Constantine the Great (or under Constantius), Aderbidjan had been wrested by Sapor, would advance against Media; and no doubt he also reckoned upon the Iberians, whom Sapor had again brought under his rule. But in Armenia and Iberia, Julian’s religious opinions were in his way: the Armenian princes were Arsacidæ and Christians, and therefore hostile to the Persians even because of their bigoted Magianism; yet they were still more hostile to the Ἀποστάτης. They would have been little inclined to give him help, even if a man like Tiridates, who gained such distinction in Galerius’ war, had been at their head; but they were now governed by a prince of very little spirit. The Armenians therefore kept neutral; the Iberians even showed themselves to be the foes of the Romans. Procopius and Sebastian met with immense difficulties in their undertaking, and they were not the men to overcome them. Julian marched down along the Euphrates; but he had started on his expedition too late. For the summer is so hot there, that he ought to have set out even in the midst of winter, so as to reach Babylon in the real season of spring, that is to say, in March or April; for in the middle of April, summer begins in those countries, and they have already got in the harvest. But he did not set out before March, when he came down the Euphrates: his approach struck the Persians with the utmost dismay. After having reduced two strong towns, he arrived before Ctesiphon, where he expected to find Procopius and Sebastian waiting for him. Thus far, all his operations are masterly, and they show his great skill as a general; but he had not thought that Ctesiphon was so strongly fortified as it really was: (its fortifications must have been erected since the time of Carus, as Trajan, Septimius Severus, and Carus had taken it). He became convinced that he should not be able to effect anything here with his army; yet this conviction came too late. He was quite right in not attempting to storm the place, as his soldiers wanted him to do: his fatal blunder was not a military one. Sapor had repeatedly sued for peace in the most pressing manner; but Julian wished, as it would seem, altogether to destroy the Persian empire, so that he might no more be hindered by a war in the East when facing his enemies in the West and in the North. The Persian empire still continued to be made up of vassal kingdoms, and therefore it would certainly have been possible to dismember it. But he ought, after all, to have contented himself with the peace which was within his reach, and thus in all likelihood he might have obtained the cession of Aderbijan,—perhaps even more than that, everything indeed but Babylon; but he was dreaming of a success, with regard to which the scales fell from his eyes eight days after the last ambassadors had left him. While Sapor was arming with great energy, Julian was unable to do anything against Ctesiphon, and the army of Procopius did not come up: he now found himself obliged to retreat. As it was impossible to drag the fleet up the river, he resolved upon destroying it and leading the army back again across the hills of Assyria. This retreat in the hot, burning plains, surrounded by the Persian cavalry, in the dogdays, under the sky of Babylon, was an almost hopeless undertaking: harassed by continual skirmishes he was obliged to leave behind every one of the killed and wounded; all the stragglers died, the Persians spoiling the water for them. Nevertheless the army might have held out for five days longer, when it would have reached the high ground where it would have been safe; but on the 26th of July, Julian was mortally wounded: his death caused the deepest dejection. Whether he was killed by a traitor, or by one of the enemy, is a question which it is quite useless to enter into: the joy of his domestic enemies was at least greater than that of his foreign ones. As it was found necessary to proceed to an election at once, the _præfectus prætorio_, Sallustius, unfortunately for the empire, declared that he was too old to take upon himself the imperial dignity; and thus the choice fell upon Jovian. The new emperor concluded a peace, giving up Nisibis and the five provinces beyond the Tigris; and at this price, Sapor granted him a free retreat and the needful supplies for his army.

Jovian seems to have been a very commonplace kind of man, of whom, however, on the other hand, not much ill can be said: great merit is due to him for his edict for absolute freedom of belief, as he himself was a Christian. At the end of a year and a half, while following the army into the West, he died suddenly at Ancyra. The reports of a violent death are not to be trusted, any more than that of his having died from having used a pan of burning charcoal.

After his death, there was again the same difficulty about the election of his successor. His son being an infant, the consulship was then for the first time profaned by a child being inscribed in the Fasti. Sallustius again declined to be elected, and so Valentinian, an Illyrian, who had greatly distinguished himself in the Persian war, came to the throne (365). It is remarkable that in all these appointments we meet no more with any trace of donations: in the case of Probus, they had already been lowered to a tenth (twenty _aurei_ = 100 dollars); now in the fourth century, we no longer find any at all. Valentinian, a few weeks after his accession, took Valens, his brother, as his colleague: in this he gratified the wishes of the public, who, however, would have looked for an able man, such a one, for instance, as Dagalaiphus. Valentinian is a remarkable being, one of those characters of which it is difficult to give a brief opinion. Distinguished as a general, he raised up the state again when it was rapidly sinking; and he won splendid trophies in a war with the Alemanni and Franks, and also in a war with the Sarmatians. He also kept order in his realm. Many praiseworthy laws and decrees of his are still extant; and although he was himself an uneducated man, he did what he could for science and learning: he also severely punished tyrannical governors and reckless judges. But he was cruel; and whenever he was offended, or suspected a conspiracy, he gave free vent to his rage. It may therefore be supposed that the higher classes did not feel comfortable under his rule, whilst the common people, on the other hand, were fond of him. His brother Valens was not bloodthirsty, but implacable and cruel; and the more implacable, the more cowardly he was. His government was far from doing the good which that of Valentinian did; besides which, he was a fanatical Arian, and exerted all his power to crush the Homoousians or Athanasians. For this reason, the memory of his reign is deservedly hateful with the writers of the Church. Valentinian was also an Arian; but he always allowed a just liberty in matters of faith, oppressing neither heathens nor Athanasians. From year to year, the Christians went on increasing; and Manichæism also spread, though not at the expense of orthodoxy, but of the old gnostic sects, which daily dwindled more and more. Against the foreigner, the empire was powerful: with Persia, it was at peace, and old Sapor remained quiet. Valentinian had two sons: by his first wife he had Gratian, and by his second Valentinian II., an infant. Gratian was an amiable boy, and great care was bestowed upon his education. Valentinian, who had much good sense, had keenly felt his own want of learning; but it is not to be wondered at, that owing to this deficiency he erred in the choice of a master. He thought that he had found in Ausonius an excellent tutor for Gratian; just as Antoninus had been mistaken in Fronto.

At the death of Valentinian in 375, Gratian was seventeen years of age, and really able to hold the reins of government. During the first years of his reign, his rule was all that one could wish; for he behaved with justice and lenity, and allowed of religious freedom. Taking possession of Italy and the West, he left the East to his uncle Valens, upon whom there soon fell a fearful visitation. The Goths, who since the days of Claudius and Aurelian had settled in Dacia, invaded the Roman empire under Hermanric, whose memory has been handed down in the Heldenbuch, and in the Icelandic Sagas.—The lay of the Nibelungen is originally Gothic, from which language it has been paraphrased.—Whether Hermanric belongs to the time in which Jornandes places him, is a question hard to answer; I for my part rather believe him to have been much earlier: but an historical person he is. In short, there was once upon a time a great Gothic empire in the South-east of Europe, which was destroyed by the Huns. I am likewise convinced that De Guigne’s idea of the early history of the Huns is incorrect: they were a powerful nomadic people of Mongolian race, quite distinct from the Southern Asiatics and the Europæans; and they make their appearance like the other nations of the tablelands of Upper Asia.

The Goths were divided into three tribes, the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, and the Gepidæ. They were anything but uncivilized, and as a people they had been Christians much sooner than the inhabitants of the Roman empire: when they overran it, the great majority of them had already embraced Christianity. It is now certain that the Huns, from reasons which are unknown to us, pushed their way to the Danube, driving the Goths before them. Among the latter, the Visigoths were the most numerous: they had a national civilization of their own, and already possessed an alphabet invented for them by Ulphilas. Being unable to resist the Huns, they in their distress now besought the Romans, with whom they had long been at peace, to harbour them within their empire. It would then undoubtedly have been the true policy of the Romans, to put forth all their strength to keep the Visigoths as they were, by fighting for them in their own country: but this was not thought of at all, the only question being, whether they should be received or not. They were admitted, though on condition that they should lay down their arms and disperse themselves throughout the empire. But this proved to be impossible. The fear of the Huns driving them onwards, they threw themselves into skiffs and on rafts, caring only to get over; and on the other hand, the Romans who had been stationed to receive them, were not sufficient for the duty, and moreover were guilty of much dishonesty: for they allowed themselves to be bribed to let the barbarians keep their arms. Nothing was done that ought to have been done, and everything was done that ought not to have been done. The Goths were not dispersed, but allowed to remain together; yet all the while they were treated with cruelty and plundered: though a promise had been made to supply them with necessaries until they were settled, it was taken advantage of by the Romans to extort exorbitant prices from them. This the Goths bore with great patience; (there were then as yet only the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths being still in the mountains:) they must have been immensely rich, as the Romans made them pay quite incredible sums. At last, however, they were goaded into fury by this ill treatment; and at Marcianopolis (in the neighbourhood of Schumla), the insurrection broke out, and soon became general. At the head of the Visigoths, who had no kings, were two judges, one of whom, Fritigern, a really great man, conducted the war in a resolute manner. While the infatuated Romans had never thought it possible that their crimes should have led to such consequences, the whole of these Goths were all at once under arms, and they overran Mœsia and Thrace. They in vain made attempts against several towns, as for instance, Philippopolis; but the open country lay entirely a prey to them. The dismay was dreadful. The Ostrogoths, who soon followed, rushed into the places which the Western Goths had left; yet otherwise the Goths of the East and those of the West are in every respect two essentially different peoples.—Valens, now roused from his listlessness, secured for himself a peace with Persia, and led the legions of the East into the field: the Goths were besieging Adrianople. He then summoned Gratian from the West to his assistance. Had he waited for his arrival, it would perhaps have been still possible to withstand the whole shock of this migration of nations. The Visigoths were one great mass of warriors, amounting to nearly two hundred thousand fighting men; and had they failed against Adrianople, the change of the world would not have happened as it did. Valens, although he was anything but a general, conducted the war, being resolved upon venturing what he ought never to have risked. This he did, however, from jealousy against Gratian, who was approaching in forced marches, after having already gained a brilliant victory over the Alemanni; and instead of waiting for a few weeks to be joined by him, he undertook the attack single handed. Thus the battle was completely lost: two-thirds of the Roman army were killed, and among them Valens himself. The Goths now overran the whole diocese of Illyricum, and Thrace, extending their inroads even as far as the gates of Constantinople: it is true that they were not able to possess themselves of the towns; but the open country was thoroughly laid waste by them, from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, and to the borders of Greece. Six years now follow, the history of which is utterly obscure.

When Valens had fallen, Gratian, seeing the impossibility of undertaking alone the defence of the whole Roman world, called Theodosius to be his colleague. This resolution of Gratian’s does him great honour, as it proves him to have been capable of the feelings of a great man. Theodosius was the son of a most distinguished person, who in the earlier days of Gratian had recovered Britain and Africa, but had been put to death, though guiltless, on a malignant charge. He was a native of Spain, a province which had likewise given birth to the Emperors Trajan and Hadrian, to whom, however, he was not related: he came from the neighbourhood of Valladolid; the other two were from Seville. He is rightly surnamed the Great: he achieved great things in a great manner, being indeed the last great emperor, if we set aside Majorian whose unlucky star was too powerful for him. His defects were passion and rage, which, however, were allied to his great qualities; but his worst fault was, that after great exertions, he would often give himself entirely up to sloth, and in matters of government become the tool of many an unworthy man, to whom he had given his confidence. Theodosius had a task at which one shudders: with the remaining forces of the Eastern empire,—for the West was no longer able to support him,—he was to keep the Goths at bay. Yet he not only set them bounds, but he also succeeded in disarming them by means of treaties of which we have no knowledge: in a series of campaigns in which he cut off one tribe from the other, he so managed to break them up, that they yielded to the supremacy of Rome. But they remained, as it seems, in Northern Illyricum, in Mœsia, and in Servia, where they dwelt in the country, while the towns remained Roman. In Illyricum, there are still to this day the genuine descendants of the old stock. The Goths lived there under the Roman sovereignty, and they bound themselves to serve the empire, as Theodosius found them very useful in his wars, and likewise there were always Gothic troops in the Roman service: yet they were not tributary, but in fact received a tribute under the name of pay. Matters had been thus settled, more especially since the year 384; and so they remained until the death of Theodosius (395).