Part 19

Some time, therefore, about 247 A.D., the Goths invaded and overran the province of Dacia. Crossing the Danube into Mœsia[46] (Bulgaria) they besieged its capital town, now known by the name of Pravadi (twenty-five miles to the west of Varna). The town was ill-protected, for with the whole province of Dacia between it and the frontier of the Empire it anticipated no danger. The inhabitants saw nothing better to do than to buy off the enemy by the payment of a large ransom. Such a policy is seldom successful, as we know from the history of our own island, where the plan of buying off the Danes was tried again and again to very little purpose. The Goths departed, and before long came back again.

Decius, who had by this time supplanted Philip the Arabian on the imperial throne, on receiving the news of this second invasion, marched to the relief of the provinces attacked. He found the barbarians besieging Nicopoli (on the southern bank of the Danube). On his approach they promptly raised the siege, marched across Mœsia and made their way over the Balkans with the intention of attacking Philippopolis. Decius followed them, without apparently taking due precautions against surprise, for the Goths turned upon him, and routed his army. His forces were so shattered that he could not attempt to help Philippopolis, which not very long afterwards was taken by storm and sacked.

Decius, though he had made a disastrous mistake, was a brave and capable soldier. He took prompt measures to retrieve his defeat, guarding the places where the Danube could be crossed and the Balkan passes so as to prevent reinforcements from reaching the Goths. These, on their part, had suffered severely. The siege and storms had cost them many lives; their supplies were running short, for they carried no stores with them, and could draw but little sustenance from a country which they had wasted. And they were much alarmed at the prospect of having their retreat cut off. Under these circumstances they offered to surrender all their booty and all their prisoners, if they were permitted to return unharmed to their own country. Decius refused to accept the offer. He probably thought, and had some reason for thinking, that no agreement could be profitably made with barbarians. The only way to deal with the Goths was to deal with them as Marius had dealt with the Cimbri and Teutones. The invaders prepared to fight. The battle that followed was obstinately contested. The Goths were drawn up in three lines--we may observe from the first indications of a certain military skill and training in the tribe--the third of which was protected by a morass. The first and the second of these were broken; the third stood firm, and repulsed all the attacks of the legions. The Emperor's son had fallen early in the day; of the fate of Decius himself nothing was ever known. What is certain is that the army was almost annihilated. The Goths were able to make their way home without losing their spoil or their prisoners. They even received a great sum for promising not to molest again the provinces of Rome, till, of course--for such must have been the proviso understood on both sides--they should find it convenient to do so. This battle lacks a name, for the place where it was fought cannot be identified, but it was an event of the greatest importance. Rome had suffered worse disasters before, but never one that entailed so great a loss of credit. A barbarian army destroys a provincial capital, defeats two armies, slays the Emperor himself, and returns home, not only with all its booty, but with a heavy bribe with which its forbearance had been purchased. Clearly this was the beginning of the end.

For some years after their campaigns in the region of the Danube, the Goths occupied themselves with expeditions which bear a curious resemblance to those made by their kinsmen of later times, the Vikings and Northmen. They do not seem to have had any seamanship of their own, but they lured or compelled the maritime population of the Black Sea coast-line to assist them. Their first voyage was eastward. They sailed along the northern coast of the Black Sea, taking Pitsunda on their way, rounded the eastern end, and finally captured Trebizond, the wealthiest city in northern Asia Minor, where they possessed themselves of a vast quantity of spoil and a multitude of prisoners. Their next voyage had a westerly direction. They overran the province of Bithynia. The famous towns of Nicala and Nicomedia, among others, fell into their hands, almost without any attempt at resistance. It was more than three centuries since these regions had known the presence of a foreign enemy. They had no troops of their own, except, possibly, some local levies which certainly had had no experience of warfare, and the legions which should have defended them had sadly degenerated both in courage and in discipline. The third expedition of the Goths took them outside the Black Sea into the Ægean. Their fleet sailed into the Piræus. Athens, which had not attempted, possibly had not been permitted, to repair its walls, demolished more than three hundred years before by Sulla, was taken and plundered. Greece could offer no resistance. It had neither means nor men. The invaders still advanced westwards, and threatened Italy itself. Here, however, their progress was stayed. But from this expedition also, audacious as it was, they returned in safety. It gave another proof, not less significant than the death of Decius, how low the Empire had already fallen.

While the Goths were evading the south-eastern provinces of the Empire, other enemies were busy in the north and west. The Franks now make their first appearance in history. The name which meets us frequently in the modern world, notably in France, and in such terms as Franconia, Frankfort, Frankenthal, means the "free," and probably originated in a combination of the tribes who inhabited the eastern bank of the Rhine, and who assumed this title by way of distinguishing themselves from the subjects of Rome on the opposite side of the river. The Franks laid waste the province of Gaul, crossed the Pyrenees and desolated Spain. We know very little of the details of their invasion. One of the so-called "Thirty Tyrants," Postumus by name, is said to have checked their progress, and done something to protect the Roman provinces of the West. Postumus was slain in 267 A.D.

This date belongs to the period of extreme depression which coincides with the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus. Valerian was a favourite lieutenant of the Emperor Decius, and seems to have been a man of high character and ability. But circumstances were too strong for him. Great as were the dangers that threatened the European provinces of the Empire, it was on the Asiatic frontier that he found his presence more imperatively demanded. A revolution in Parthia had restored the ancient dynasty of the Persian kings, or, at least, a family that claimed that character. The new line of kings was now represented by a certain Shapar, or, as the Romans spelt it, Sapor. Armenia, long a bone of contention between Rome and Parthia, was overrun; the garrisons on the Euphrates were forced to surrender. Valerian hastened to meet the new enemy, encountered him near Edessa, and suffered a crushing defeat. We know next to nothing of what happened except that the legions were led, by the folly of their chief or the treachery of those whom he trusted, into a hopeless situation; that their attempt to cut their way through the hosts of the enemy was repulsed with great loss; and that in the end Valerian had to surrender himself to Sapor, and that the legions laid down their arms. There was nothing now to stop the Parthian king. The splendid city of Antioch was taken and plundered or burnt. He even crossed the Taurus range, and captured the wealthy city of Tarsus. It is impossible to say where he would have stopped, had it not been for the courage and ability of Odenathus, the governor of Palmyra and his wife Zenobia. It was they, not the Roman arms that compelled the Parthians to make their way back to their own country.

Valerian was never released from captivity. Stories--whether true or no it is impossible to say--were told of the humiliations to which he was subjected by the Persian king. Whenever Sapor mounted his horse, he used to put his foot on the neck of his captive. And when the unhappy man was released by death, his skin was stuffed with straw, and the figure preserved in one of the Persian temples, "a more real monument of triumph," remarks Gibbon, "than the fancied trophies of brass and marble so often erected by Roman vanity." Whatever may be the truth about this or that fact, it is certain that this period witnessed the infliction of two unprecedented humiliations on the dignity of Rome, one Emperor slain in battle, another kept in a dishonourable captivity.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 43: It is remarkable that the most philosophic of the "Good Emperors" departed from the rule of adoption which had apparently been so beneficial to Rome, and left the succession to his son, of whose real character he could hardly have been ignorant. Gibbon, however, thinks that the want of the hereditary principle was one of the great causes of the troubles of the Empire.]

[Footnote 44: In 165 the legions returning from the East are said to have brought the Oriental plague into Europe.]

[Footnote 45: Gibbon reduces the number to _nineteen_.]

[Footnote 46: The Eastern division of the province.]

II

A CENTURY OF REVIVAL

An observer of the calamities and disgraces which overtook the Empire in what I have called "A Century of Disgrace," might have supposed that the end was at hand. But an ancient institution does not perish so easily. The Empire still possessed a great prestige, an organisation of government which had been worked out by a succession of able statesmen and rulers, and an army with numberless traditions of victory. Given an able leader, there would certainly be a revival of vigour, or, to say the least, a check to the progress of decay. A better time began with the death of Gallienus, the son of Valerian, in A.D. 268. He perished, it is doubtful whether by treachery or accident, in one of the numberless conflicts that occurred during this period between the possessor of the imperial throne and the numerous pretenders who aspired to it. His successor was a soldier of humble origin, though he bore the old patrician name of Claudius. He had soon an opportunity of showing his qualities as a soldier. In the year after his accession to the throne a huge army of Goths and of other tribes who were accustomed to fight under their standard invaded the provinces south of the Danube. Claudius hastened to encounter them, and fought a great battle at Nissa in Servia in which 50,000 of the barbarians are said to have perished. Little is known of the details of this or indeed of any of the conflicts of the time; the chronicles of the age are wanting in the power of description and, indeed, in all literary gift, but we gather that the legions were beginning to give way when Claudius brought up reinforcements to their help. These fresh troops fell upon the barbarian rear, and wholly changed the fortunes of the day. But the victory of Nissa did not put an end to the war. Nor, indeed, did Claudius live to finish it. He did enough, it is true, to win the title of Gothicus, and to deserve it better than was sometimes the case with Emperors who were similarly honoured.[47] But he died--the victim, it was said, of a plague which had originated in the barbarian camp--after a reign of little more than two years, and left the completion of the war to his successor Aurelian.

Aurelian's reign was but little longer than that of Claudius. It began in August, 270, and was ended in March, 275, by assassination; but this brief period was crowded with great achievements. In dealing with the Goths he showed that he was a statesman as well as a soldier. After conclusively proving to them that he could vanquish them in the field, he turned them, by a seasonable generosity, from enemies into friends. It had become evident that the province which Trajan had added to the Empire could no longer be held with advantage; Dacia, accordingly, was given up to the Goths, and a tribe associated with them, of whom we shall hear again, the Vandals. The Goths remained loyal to Rome, till, as we shall see, they were forced into hostility. They even furnished a body of auxiliary cavalry to the imperial army.

But while Aurelian was thus engaged, Italy and even Rome were endangered by the attack of another multitude of the same German race. The Alemanni, a people of which we know next to nothing except the stock to which they belonged,[48] suddenly crossed the Roman frontier, and made their way as far as the north of Italy. The armies of the Empire were engaged elsewhere, and the invaders plundered the country without hindrance. They had even made their way back to the Danube when Aurelian encountered them. It is not easy to understand the story of what followed. The Emperor outmanœuvres the barbarians, and reduces them to such extremities that they beg for peace. When their envoys are introduced to the presence of Aurelian, there is a sudden change of circumstances. The Alemanni, instead of imploring pardon, dictate conditions. They must have a subsidy, if Rome would have them as allies. The Emperor dismisses them with an indignant refusal, and we expect to hear of the severest punishment being inflicted on them. Nothing of the kind occurs. Aurelian, called elsewhere by some demand which he cannot refuse, disappears from the scene, and leaves the completion of the business to his lieutenants. They neglect their duty or fail to perform it; the Alemanni take the opportunity, break through the _cordon_ of troops which had been formed round them, and make their way back to Italy. We next hear of them as ravaging the territory of Milan. Aurelian orders the legions to follow them with all the speed that they could manage, and hastens himself to defend Italy with a quickly moving force, partly composed, it is interesting to observe, of auxiliary cavalry levied from the new settlers in Dacia. The struggle that followed is not what we should have expected after hearing of the straits to which the Alemanni had been reduced at the Danube. At Piacenza the Roman army came perilously near to destruction. The barbarians fall unexpectedly upon the legions as they march carelessly through a wooded defile. Only by the greatest exertions does Aurelian rally them. But though the army is saved from destruction, it cannot arrest the progress of the enemy. When we next hear of them the barbarians have advanced more than a hundred miles nearer to Rome. Near the Metaurus, and not far from the spot where Hasdrubal had perished, the Emperor overtook them. This time they must have suffered a serious defeat, for their third and last appearance in Northern Italy, near Pavia (the ancient _Ticinum_). Historians relate that they were exterminated, and this is probably true, for it was the fate that would naturally overtake unsuccessful invaders of Italy.

I may mention in the very briefest way that Aurelian restored the Roman power in the East by overthrowing Zenobia, who, since the death of her husband Odenathus, had remained independent at Palmyra, and in the West by putting an end to the usurpation of Tetricus, who had maintained his independence in Gaul and Britain for several years. To all appearance, the Empire was restored to what it had been at the death of Marcus Aurelius.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 47: Domitian, for instance, was styled _Germanicus_, though his campaigns against the Germans were marked by disaster rather than by victory.]

[Footnote 48: The historians of the time do not give them the same name.]

III

THREE DEADLY BLOWS

To tell the story of the last century of the Roman Empire in any fullness of detail would be impossible in any space that I can command. I must limit myself to a narrative of what may truly be called the three most significant incidents in that period.

The first of the fatal blows which may be said to have brought the Empire of Rome to an end was dealt almost against the will of those from whom it came. The policy of Aurelian in ceding Dacia to the Goths had been, on the whole, successful. They had been contented and even friendly, finding sufficient employment for their arms in extending their power among their barbarous neighbours, and furnishing not a few recruits to the imperial armies. In 375 they were disturbed by reports of an invading host which was advancing from the north and east. These reports pictured the new-comers as hideous in appearance and cruelly savage in character. We are now used to the Tartar countenance, but to Europe in the fourth century the broad, almost beardless face, flat nose, eyes set wide apart, and squat figure, were as frightful as they were strange. As for the savagery of the Huns--for so the new-comers were called--rumours were scarcely exaggerated. The Goths had themselves in former times been scarcely less ferocious in their manners, but they had now for several generations been in contact with civilisation, and the Christian faith had begun to find its way among them. Both divisions of the nation, known by the names of Ostrogoths and Visigoths, were successively defeated by the invading host, which showed military skill as well as courage. The Ostrogoths submitted, as a body, to the invaders, though a considerable minority contrived to escape, taking with them their infant king. The Visigoths resolved to throw themselves on the protection of Rome. They sent envoys to the Emperor (Valens), and begged that they might be permitted to cross the frontier. After some delay Valens gave his consent, and the whole nation--a few scattered companies excepted--was transported across the Danube. The numbers of the refugees may be calculated at a million, as there were no less than two hundred thousand males of the military age. It had been stipulated that all weapons should be given up. But this condition was very generally evaded. The corrupt officials of the Empire were ready, for a consideration, to permit the Gothic warriors to keep their arms. Having thus allowed them to remain formidable, they proceeded, with almost incredible folly, to insult and oppress them in every possible way. They robbed them of their wives and children, and sold at extortionate prices the food which the Imperial Government was bound to provide without cost. Meanwhile the generals of Valens neglected to maintain the defences of the Danube, and a large body of Ostrogoths who had been refused a passage over the river, took the matter into their own hands, and crossed over into the province. The two branches of the nation were not long in coming to an understanding, and making common cause against their oppressors. It was not long before the smouldering fire burst into flame. The first battle took place not far from Pravadi,[49] where Claudius had defeated the Goths many years before. We know little about this conflict except its result, which, as the historian of the Goths (or, as he calls them, Getæ) puts it, was to bring about a state of things in which the Goths were no longer strangers and foreigners, but members of the State and lords of the country which they occupied. An indecisive engagement followed at a spot called _Salices_ ("The Willows") in the low land near the mouth of the Danube, but the great battle of the war was fought at Hadrianople. Valens, who had spent a considerable time, with little profit to the Empire, at Antioch, returned in the early summer of 378 A.D. to Constantinople. After a brief rest in that city, where he made some changes in the chief commands of his army, he marched northwards and fortified a camp under the walls of Hadrianople. It was debated between the Emperor and his chief advisers whether or no they should fight at once. There were many reasons for delay. Valens occupied a strong position, and had the command of unlimited supplies. The barbarians, on the other hand, were ill-provided in every respect, and would most certainly grow weaker the longer they were compelled to keep the field. Another powerful consideration was, or should have been, the approach of Gratian, Emperor of the West, to whom Valens had appealed for help, and who was now advancing eastward by forced marches. Gratian had, indeed, sent a special messenger imploring Valens not to risk a battle before his arrival. Unfortunately this request had an effect exactly opposed to what had been intended. Valens was anxious to secure for himself all the glory which would come from the victory which he confidently expected, and when Gratian begged for delay, he at once resolved to fight.

It was the height of summer, and Valens was scarcely acting with judgment when he moved out of his position under the walls of Hadrianople, and commenced a march which could not be expected to be accomplished under four hours--the distance to be traversed was ten miles--with the intention of attacking the enemy. In any case the men would have been not a little wearied or exhausted; as it was, one wing of the army considerably out-marched the other, and that which had lagged behind was forced to hurry that it might take its proper place in the line. Even after this time was wasted, for Valens was amused with proposals for a truce or cessation of arms which the enemy had no intention of acting on. One of the imperial generals, possibly impatient of the delay, made an attack which was easily repulsed. The Gothic cavalry, in reply, charged with fatal effect. The Roman horsemen fled before them, and the legions, left alone in an open plain to face an enemy superior in force, were practically destroyed. The fate of Valens is uncertain; but the more generally received account was that, having been severely wounded, he was carried off the field to a cottage in the neighbourhood. Before any way of escape could be discovered, before even his wound could be dressed, the cottage was surrounded by the enemy. The inmates did their best to defend it, and the Goths, impatient of delay, set fire to it and burnt it to the ground. Valens, anyhow, was never seen again. The army of Rome was swept from the earth at Hadrianople as completely as it had been at Cannæ, but Rome had lost in the five centuries that separated these two great disasters her power of recovery.