Part 33

In the room of Avitus, Ricimer set up a man of a character such as was no more to be looked for in those days of Rome’s decline—Majorian, who, as it seems, was an Italian born, (457). However unwarlike the Italian people then was, it yet produced distinguished generals, as we may see in the cases of Aëtius and Majorian. The latter undoubtedly deserves the high character which Procopius gives him; Sidonius, his epitaph, his laws, the individual traits recorded of him, all redound to his praise. Procopius says that he had surpassed all the Roman emperors in excellence: he had a great mind, and was of a highly practical turn. For four whole years he still stood his ground, and was actually master by the side of the faithless barbarian Ricimer, who had the main forces of the empire at his disposal. The Visigoths in Upper Languedoc and in Catalonia, owned his personal greatness, and paid homage to him and to the majesty of the Roman empire which he had restored. The Vandals being the curse of that empire, he planned an expedition against them, for which he had made extraordinary preparations: he was resolved not to grant them any terms, but to crush them. And they must needs have been overpowered, but for treachery at home. It is quite evident that Ricimer betrayed him, and was the cause of Genseric’s getting the Roman fleet at Carthagena set on fire. Notwithstanding this, Majorian concluded an advantageous peace, which at least secured the coasts of Italy and Sicily. On his return, at the instigation of Ricimer, a rebellion broke out against him: he was obliged to renounce the throne, and a few days after he ceased to live (461).

Ricimer’s absolute sway under a nominal emperor, lasted until 467, during which seven years a quite unknown emperor, Libius Severus, had the empty name of sovereign. Ricimer had an army, enlisted from what were called the _fœderati_ (all sorts of German tribes), and he looked upon Italy as his realm; yet he was in a critical position, as he had to protect Italy; for he could not have kept it against Genseric. His power was limited. What still belonged to the Romans in Gaul and Spain, was subject to the _Magister militum_ Ægidius, a very distinguished man, and a Roman, who had made himself independent, and ruled over Spain and part of Gaul. Marcellinus, another commander, an old and faithful servant of Aëtius, had become prince of Illyricum. Ricimer, after the death of Severus (465), ruled alone; but not beyond Italy. As, however, that country still continued to be a prey to the pirate-ships of the Vandals, Ricimer allowed the senate to apply to the emperor Leo at Constantinople, and to ask him to appoint an emperor under his supremacy, and to come to the aid of the empire.

Leo named Anthemius, the son-in-law of his predecessor Marcian, and whom he was glad to get rid of; sent him with a considerable body of troops; and made preparations for a grand expedition against the Vandals. By the death of Ægidius, the prefecture of Gaul was reunited with Italy; and Marcellinus also had placed Illyricum again under the supremacy of the emperor. On the side of Italy, Sardinia was wrested out of the grasp of the Vandals; Basiliscus, a general of the east and a brother-in-law of Leo, led a considerable army against Carthage; and another was sent against Tripolis. The plan was a brilliant one, and the beginning of the undertaking successful; but Genseric, who always got the advantage by discovering those who would sell themselves, now also warded off the decisive moment by craftiness. There is some suspicion that even Basiliscus sold himself; perhaps Ricimer also was guilty again. However this may have been, the expedition proved a total failure. Ricimer and Anthemius now fell out, although Anthemius had married his daughter to Ricimer; and thus the help which had been expected from the eastern emperor, only became the source of still greater calamity. Ricimer now kept his court at Milan; Anthemius lived at Rome: they were implacable enemies, nor did the attempt to reconcile them lead to any result.

A new pretender to the crown, Olybrius, the husband of the younger daughter of Valentinian, who besides such claims had also those of the _gens Anicia_, now offered himself to Ricimer. The latter caused him to be proclaimed. Anthemius, however, would not give up Rome; on which Ricimer laid siege to it for three months, when he at last burst in over the bridge, and it was taken by storm, and had to suffer all the horrors of a conquered city. As the marriage of Ricimer with the daughter of Anthemius had been the last brilliant moment for Rome, thus the present calamity was the most awful one, being indeed far more terrible than when it was taken by the Goths and Vandals: Pope Gelasius speaks in very strong terms of the horrors which were perpetrated on this occasion. Anthemius himself lost his life: Ricimer and Olybrius survived him only a few months. There seem to have been epidemics, of which there is also mention.

Now Gundobald, the king of the Burgundians, who had taken Ricimer’s place, in his capacity of Patrician appointed a Roman of the name of Glycerius, emperor. Against him, however, the court of Constantinople sent Julius Nepos, another Roman of rank, who with some assistance from Constantinople got possession of Rome and Ravenna. Glycerius abdicated; but Nepos was refused obedience by Orestes, a Roman from Noricum, who had been great even in the days of Attila. At this time, after Gundobald had left Italy, Orestes was Patrician, that is to say, commander-in-chief. Although a Roman by birth, he had been brought up among barbarians, and had adopted their language, manners, dress, and way of living: from reasons which we cannot account for, he conferred the imperial dignity upon his son Romulus, who had received his strange name from the father of his mother, a count Romulus in Noricum. Nepos, that he might be acknowledged by the Visigoths, had already given up the Roman lands in Gaul, even more than those barbarians were able to occupy: the people of Auvergne abandoned the hopeless idea of resistance; but in the north of Gaul, between Burgundy and the settlements of the Franks, a considerable part of the country was still Roman, though separated from the bulk of the empire ever since the death of Ægidius. That territory was now subject to Syagrius, and it yet lasted ten years longer than the western empire, until it was likewise broken up by Clovis. Romulus, who was not called Augustus, but Augustulus, was the last emperor. Against him the barbarian tribes, stirred up by Odoachar, a German prince, arose in rebellion: they demanded, over and above their exorbitant pay, no less than a third of all the lands, like the Visigoths and Burgundians, to be allotted on a tenure of military service. As Orestes would not grant this, they revolted, and, wanting to have a ruler who was one of themselves, proclaimed Odoachar king. He defeated Orestes and his brother in two battles, and they both of them lost their lives. Odoachar marched to Ravenna, and Romulus surrendered to him: he was treated with humanity, as he received a liberal maintenance, and the _Lucullianum_ in Campania was assigned to him as his residence. Whether he died there of a natural death, is more than we know.

Thus ended the Roman empire.

FINE ARTS AND LITERATURE.

Of the fifth century some buildings are still preserved. The noble church of St. Paul, although built up by the robbery of other fabrics, was yet in a grand style, and put together with much taste: the robbery is described in a statute of the emperor Majorian who forbade it. A hundred and fifty years ago, there still existed, in the church of S. Agata di Goti, a mosaic from which it appeared that this church was built and dedicated by Ricimer.

But the history of the Roman nation is not yet run out, although the Romans have ceased to be a state. Even literature survives, not only in Rome, but also at Ravenna. We have still a number of small detached poems, epitaphs, inscriptions on churches, many of which are ingenious and fine: one can see that the times were not yet barbarous. Boëthius was worthy of the best ages of literature. To the seventh and the eighth centuries belong several of the schoolmen who are left to us; for instance, Acron and Porphyrio. The Roman law continued to be much more decidedly in force than is generally believed. A description of the lingering influence of the Roman mind would be highly interesting and much to be desired.

INDEX.

_Abdera_, subject to Macedon, ii, 203.

_Abdera_, Phœnician settlement in Spain, ii, 59.

_Abgarus of Osroëne_, iii, 258.

_Ablavius, præfectus prætorio_, iii, 304.

Ἀβλεψία, iii, 181.

ABORIGINES, the same people as the Siculians, i, 101; the nominative singular must have been _aboriginus_, 101; emigrate from Achaia to Latium, 101; Varro’s opinion of them, 103; their villages were scattered on hills, 110.

_Abyssinian Annals_, from the thirteenth century, contain a piece of contemporary narrative, i, 125.

_Acarnanians_ apply to Rome for help against the Ætolians, ii, 49; call upon Philip for help against the Athenians, 149; part of them Ætolian, 150; united with Macedon, 151; a separate state, 163; become Roman, 175.

ACCENSI, i, 441; are armed in the battle of Veseris, 442.

_Accius._ See Attius.

_Acerræ_ reduced by the Romans, ii, 56; the story of the extermination of the senate unauthenticated, ii, 65; taken by Hannibal, 107; conquered by the Romans, as periœcians of Capua, 114.

_Achæans_ sink into utter insignificance owing to the treason of Aratus, ii, 145; undertake a war against the Ætolians, in conjunction with Philip, 145; dependent on their allies, 145; the extent of their rule, 151; unwarlike, 151; bitterness against Rome, 172; three factions among them, 206; outrages of the Roman party after the victory over Perseus, 217; more than a thousand Achæans sent to Rome, 217; the state of its affairs at the time of the third Punic war, 248; they defeat the Lacedæmonians, 250; extent of their power, 250; oppose the unjust demands of the Romans, 252; scattered near Scarphea, 254; their country changed into a Roman province, 256; their constitution, 256; conf. _Ætolians_.

_Achæan towns_, twelve of them, i, 111.

_Achaia_, belonging to the Achæan league, ii, 151; plundered by the Goths, iii, 280.

_Achillas_, guardian of Ptolemy, iii, 63.

_Achradina_, a quarter of Syracuse, ii, 117.

_C. Acilius_, a Roman senator, writes Roman annals, down to the war with Antiochus, i, 23; his work translated into Latin by a certain Claudius, 23, and ii, 121, 199.

_Acrocorinth_ occupied by the Romans, ii, 162; evacuated, 172.

ACTA DIURNA, a sort of town gazette, which also contained the acts of the senate, i, 9.

ACTA MARTYRUM, spurious, felt quite a particular pleasure in devising and relating the most horrible tortures, ii, 26.

## ACTIONES REPETUNDARUM, for which formerly special _quæsitores_ were

appointed, are from the seventh century to be judged according to the common course of law, ii, 297.

_Actium_, battle of, iii, 111.

_Actius._ See Attius.

_Addiction_, i, 229, 523.

_Aderbidjan_ given up by Persia to Armenia, iii, 296; wrested from the latter by Sapor, 313.

_Adherbal_, general of the Carthaginians, ii, 32.

_Adherbal_, son of Micipsa, ii, 310; taken by the Romans under their protection, 311; beset by Jugurtha in Cirta, 311; murdered, 312.

_Adiabene_, the country east of the Tigris, iii, 253; subject to the supremacy of the Romans, 254.

_Adige_ had fords in it, ii, 331.

_Adis_ (Adin), ii, 21.

_Administrative offices_, no other kind of knowledge was requisite in Rome for holding them, but the _artes liberales_.

_Adolphus_, Alaric’s brother-in-law, commander of the Visigoths, iii, 334; reigns on both sides of the Pyrenees, 334; married to Placidia, 334.

_Adoption_ by will, first known example of it, iii, 84.

_Aduatici_, Cimbrian tribe on the Lower Rhine, ii, 333.

_Æacidas_, father of Pyrrhus, i, 352; attached to Olympias, 352; driven out of his kingdom by Alexander, 352; expelled from Epirus by Cassander, 553.

_Ædiles_, a plebeian magistracy, i, 241; a general Latin magistracy, 241 and 405; are charged with all the police matters in Rome, iii, 123.

ÆDILES CEREALES limited to the plebs, iii, 75.

ÆDILES CURULES elected in the place of the old _quæstores parricidii_, i, 405; their office is held by plebeians also, 405; it becomes a _liturgy_ in the Greek acceptation of the word, 405; their attributes, 405; they are chosen by the _comitia tributa_, 406; they take upon themselves the burden of the public festivals, ii, 43; the holding of the ædileship in turns by the two orders done away with, 269.

_Ædui_ get the hegemony in Gaul, iii, 42; brothers and friends of the Roman people, 42; rising against Tiberius under Julius Sacrovir, 202.

_Ægation islands_, victory of the Romans over the Carthaginian fleet, ii, 38.

_Ægidius_, _magister militum_ in Gaul and Spain, iii, 344.

_Ægina_ taken by the Romans, ii, 146; sold by the Ætolians to Attalus, 146; given up to Eumenes, 163.

_Ælia Capitolina_, iii, 230; the name has been kept up to this day 230.

_Ælianus_, (Lælianus), emperor, conquered by Postumus in Mentz, iii, 282.

_Æmilianus_, governor of Illyricum, proclaimed emperor, defeats Gallus Trebonianus on the borders of Umbria, iii, 279; murdered, 279.

_Æmilianus._ See Scipio.

_Æmilius._ See Lepidus.

_L. Æmilius_, consul in the war of the Cisalpine Gauls, ii, 52.

_Mam. Æmilius_, said to have limited the censorial power to eighteen months, i, 336.

_Q. Æmilius_, general against the Etruscans, i, 506; relieves Sutrium, 507.

_L. Æmilius Barbula_, consul against Tarentum, i, 551.

_Q. Æmilius Papus_, i, 548.

_Q. Æmilius Paullus_, reduces the Illyrians, ii, 57; μισόδημος, having been wrongfully accused after the Illyrian campaign, 98; mortally wounded in the battle of Cannæ, 102.

_L. Æmilius Paullus_, son of the former, brings in Greeks for the education of his children, ii, 199; consul, 212; defeats Perseus in the battle of Pydna, 213; is not to be ranked among the great men, 216; his triumph, 218.

_L. Æmilius Paullus_, consul, iii, 49; bought over by Cæsar, 50; builds the Basilica Æmilia, 50.

_Æneas_, according to Nævius, arrives with on ship only, i, 106; earliest traditions concerning him, 106.

_Ænianians_, subjected to the Ætolians, ii, 151.

_Ænos_, Macedonian, ii, 203.

_Æquians_, are Opicans, i, 98; _gens magna_, 275; march from the Anio against Rome, 275; war of them in the year 323, 343; their power broken by Postumius Tubertus, 344; receive their deathblow from the Gauls, 384; in the first Samnite war allied to the Latins 436; conquered, receive the right of Roman citizenship, 505.

_Æqui Falisci_, i, 361.

_Æquimælium_, the place where the house of Sp. Mælius had stood, i, 338.

_Ærarii_, i, 180, 333; had very likely to pay a war-tax for the _pedites_ to carry on trades, 515.

_Ærarium_, the chest of the plebeians, i, 233; of the senate and of the emperor, iii, 121.

_Æschines_, i, 248.

_Æsculetum_, place of meeting of the _populus_ outside the town, i, 269.

_Æsernia_, colony, i, 535; ii, 106; conquered, by the Samnites, 356; seat of the Italian government, 358.

_Aëtius_, iii, 336; from Lower Mœsia, 336; with the Huns, 340; his achievements, 340; against Attila, 340; defeats Attila, 341; his death, 341; his title is _Patricius_ and _Dux Romanorum_, 341.

_Ætna_, eruption in the year 354, i, 357.

_Ætolians_ and Achæans united against Demetrius, ii, 48; divide Acarnania with Alexander of Epirus, 49; treat the embassy of the Romans with scorn, 49; war of Philip and the Achæans against them, 145; they are humbled by it, 145; free, 145; alliance with the Romans, 146; deserve praise after the Lamian war, 146; they sink afterwards into a state of barbarism, 146; attacked by Philip, they conclude a very disadvantageous peace, 147; hostile to Macedon, 150; extent of their possessions, 150; they have isopolity with many places in Elis and Messene, 151; misunderstanding with Rome, 152; dissensions between them and the Romans after the battle of Cynoscephalæ, 160; their vanity, 160; side with Antiochus, 167; defend Ambracia, 174; peace, 175; outrages of the Roman party after the defeat of Perseus, 216.

_Ætolian_ cavalry is bad, i, 440.

_Afranius_, Pompey’s general in Spain a commonplace man, iii, 54; defeated near Lerida, 56; in Africa, 67.

_Africa_, numerous and zealous church there, iii, 273.

_African school_, iii, 234; has no peculiar dialect, 234; its origin unknown, 234.

_Agathias_, his history is most authentic, iii, 263.

_Agathocles_ employed by the Tarentines, i, 461; his character, 575; shows the weakness of the Carthaginians in Africa, ii, 17.

_Agathyrsians_, i, 369.

AGER LIMITATUS, its law on the _tabula Heracleensis_, seems to have been similar to that which was in force at Rome, i, 269.

_Ager publicus_, i, 243; ii, 270; one instance only of any thing like it in Greece, i, 253; occupation of it, 253; _agrum locare_ and _agrum vendere_ are synonymous, 254.

_Agis_, PROXENUS of the Romans at Tarentum, i, 551.

_Agon Capitolinus_ instituted by Domitian, iii, 210.

_Agrarian law_, i, 250; peculiar to the Romans, 253.

_Agricola Julius_, from Forum Julii, may have sprung from Gallic ancestors, iii, 193; completes the conquest of Britain, 211.

_Agrigentum_ laid waste by the Carthaginians, i, 576; independent, 576; destroyed by the Carthaginians, ii, 4; condition at the outbreak of the Punic wars, 10; sacked, 12; taken by the Romans, 119; its several devastations, 119; afterwards restored, 119.

_C. Agrippa_, iii, 147; adopted by Augustus, 147; sent to Armenia, 147; Velleius’ character of him, 147; murdered there, 148.

_L. Agrippa_ adopted by Augustus, iii, 147; sent to Gaul and Spain, 147; his death, 148.

_M. Agrippa_ Octavian’s adviser, iii, 85; conducts the war against Sextus Pompey, 109; victory near Mylæ, 109; marries Julia, 143, 146; his influence on Augustus, 144; his buildings, 144; Augustus gives him his ring, 146; differences between him and Marcellus, 146; Velleius’ saying of him, 146; withdraws to Mitylene, 146; his death, 146.

_Agrippa Postumus_ adopted by Augustus, iii, 148.

_Agrippina_, Agrippa’s daughter, wife of Germanicus, iii, 146; her virtue, 146, 160; banished by Sejanus, 176.

_Agrippina_, wife of the Emperor Claudius, her character, iii, 183; daughter of Germanicus, 188; mother of Nero, 189; murdered, 189.

_Agron_, king of the Illyrians, ii, 47.

_Agylla_ receives the worship of Greek heroes, i, 147; is called Cære by the Etruscans, 147; Conf. Cære.

_Ahenobarbus._ See Domitius.

_Aisne_, battle, iii, 44.

_Alans_, iii, 288; cross the Rhine, 331; withdraw from Gaul, 332; conquered by Adolphus, 334; treachery towards Aëtius, 341.

_Alaric_, king of the Visigoths, iii, 329; defeated by Stilicho, 329; appointed _magister militum_, 329; appears in the West, 330; defeated near Pollentia, 330; withdraws from Italy, 330; blockades Rome twice, 333; dies in Cosenza, 334.

_Alaric_, the younger, his classical knowledge, iii, 343.

_Alatrum_, town of the Hernicans, i, 247.

_Alba_, on the Alban lake, capital of the ruling conquerors, i, 107; its historical existence, 108; shares with the thirty towns the flesh of the sacrifices on the Alban Mount, 108; religious reference of Roman _gentes_ to Alba, 113; its destruction is historical, 125; not the least connexion between it and Rome, 126; its destruction by the Latins is most probable, 128.

_Alba_ on the Lake Fucinus, from thence the Sacranians issued, i, 107; Roman colony, 505; Syphax dies there as an exile, ii, 137; Perseus and his sons live there in captivity, 245; and likewise Bituitus, king of the Allobroges, 308.

_Albans_ had the dominion over Latium, i, 108; their reception into Rome is probably historical, 125

_Albanian_, the modern Albanian language is like the ancient Illyrian, ii, 57.

_Alban kings_, their chronology is a forgery of L. Cornelius Alexander, i, 107.

_Alban lake_ drained, i, 356–359.

_Albenses_ (_Populi_), in Pliny, i, 107.

_Albinovanus_ makes his peace with Sylla, ii, 282.

_Albinovanus_ Pedo, iii, 140.

_A. Albinus_, surrounded in Africa, ii, 315.

_Albinus Clodius_, the title of Cæsar offered to him by Commodus, iii, 250; proclaimed emperor by the British and Gallic legions, 250; his descent, 253; overreached by Septimius Severus, 253; defeated near Lyons, his death, 253.

_Sp. Albinus_, consul, ii, 315.

_Album_, explanation of the term, i, 6.

_Alcæus of Messene_, epigrams of his, ii, 160.

_Alcibiades_, the bravest Athenian, i, 296.

_Alemanni_, iii, 277; break into the Roman empire, 279; must have undertaken an expedition as far as Spain, 282; pass the Po, 287; war of Probus against them, 288; on both banks of the Rhine, 310; force the passage across the Rhine, 331.

_Aleppo_, famine there, i, 338.

_Alesia_, between Autun and Langres, iii, 47.

_Alexander VI._, Pope, lays down a division of countries in the new world between Spain and Portugal, i, 413.

_Alexander_, L. Cornelius, a freedman of Sylla, i, 107.

_Alexander_, king of Epirus, the treaty with him is the first connexion between Greece and Rome, i, 458; family connexions, 463; unites the Greek towns of Lower Italy in a confederacy, 464; quarrels with the Tarentines, after which he carries on the war as an adventurer, 464; is slain near Pandosia, 465; treaty with the Romans, 465; usurps the kingdom of Æacidas, 552.

_Alexander the Great_, the embassy of the Romans to him seems not to be a fiction, i, 469; embassy of the Samnites and Lucanians, 469; of the Iberians, 469; whether the Romans knew of him, 469; has done little in comparison with Hannibal, ii, 67.

_Alexander_, son of Pyrrhus, ii, 49 and 50.

_Alexander Severus_, formerly called Alexianus, adopted by Elagabalus, iii, 261; his character, 261; the authors seem to have written a sort of Cyropædia on him, 262; weak to Mamæa, 262; Ulpianus his minister, 262; displays great firmness on many occasions, 262; his war against the Persians, 265; contradictions concerning it, 265; goes to the Rhine, 266; mutiny of the troops, 266; murdered, 267.

_Alexandria_, its population, iii, 64; massacre under Caracalla, 257; seat of wit, 257; many Christians there, 273; reduced by Diocletian, 296.

_Alexandrines_, drive Ptolemy Auletes away, iii, 28.

_Alexandrine literature_ must be deemed to end with the death of Eratosthenes, iii, 228.

_Alexianus._ See Alexander Severus.

_Alexo_, an Achæan, discovers a plot in the Carthaginian camp before Lilybæum, ii, 30.

_Alfatarians_, i, 419.

_Algidus_, a cold rugged height, its situation, i, 277.

_Aliens_ were better treated in the Germanic states, than in the ancient world and in France, i, 167.

_Alia_, battle on the, was fought July 16th, i, 373; an historical event, 376; site of the river uncertain, 376; description of the battle, 377.

_Aliphera_ during the war of Hannibal well affected to Macedon, ii, 145.

_Aliso_ on the Lippe, very likely in the neighbourhood of Hamm, iii, 157.

_Allobroges_, are pure Celts, i, 370; their country at the time of Hannibal, ii, 79; their abodes, 308; acknowledge the _majestas populi Romani_, 79; Roman citizens, iii, 23; their envoys at the conspiracy of Catiline, 23; call for Cæsar’s protection against the Helvetians, 41.

_Alps_, their extent in Polybius, ii, 77.

_Alpine tribes_, their treachery to Hannibal, ii, 78.

_Alumentus_, Latin form for Laomedon, ii, 194.

_Alva_, Duke of —’s cruelty in the Netherlands, iii, 297.

_Amazirgh_, ii, 5.

_Ambiorix_, leader of the Eburones, iii, 46.

_Ambitio Campi_, iii, 118.

_Ambitus_, laws against it, ii, 227, 318; iii, 13, 38.

_Ambracia_ yielded to Pyrrhus by the son of Cassander, i, 554; residence of Pyrrhus, 555; siege, ii, 174; given up to the Romans, 175.

_Ambrones_ join the Cimbrians, ii, 324; they are most likely Ligurians, 324; defeated by Marius, 329.

_Ambrose_, iii, 325.

_America_, state of things before the constitution of Washington, ii, 248.

_Americans_, beat the English fleets by means of masses, ii, 14.

_Amida_ taken by Sapor, iii, 309.

_Amiternum_, leagued with the Samnites, taken in the third Samnite war, i, 535.