Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/522

 500 APPENDIX months would have stultified the whole tone of Claudian's poem, which breathes the triumph of a recent victory. Such a line as

et sextas Getica praevelans fronde secures (647)

is inconceivable on any save the first First of January following the victory. Cp. also lines 406, 580, 653. The transition in 1. 201 is suggestive of a considerable interval between the two battles

te quoque non parvxim Getico, Verona, triumpho adiungis cumulum nee plus PoUentia rebus contulit Ausoniis aut moenia vindicis Hastae.

The resulting chronology is :

A.D. 401. Alaric enters Italy (Venetia) in November ; at the same time Radagai- sus (see next Appendix) invades Eaetia. Stilicho advances against Radagaisus.

A.D. 402. Battle of PoUentia on Easter Day.

A.D. 402-403. Alaric in Istria.

A.D. 403, Summer. Alaric again moves westward ; Battle of Verona.

18. RADAGAISUS— (P- 263)

Radagaisus invaded Italy in 405 a.d., at the head of an army of barbarians. He was defeated by Stilicho on the hills of Faesulae. There is no doubt about these facts, in which our "Western authorities agree, Orosius (vii. 37), Prosper, ad ann. 405, and Paulinus (Vita Ambrosii, c. 50). Prosper's notice is : Radagaisus in Tuscia multis Gothorum milibus caesis, ducente exercitum Stilichone, superatus et captus est. But Zosimus (v. 26) places the defeat of Radagaisus on the Ister. " A strange error," Gibbon remarks, ' ' which is awkwardly and imperfectly cured / by reading " for ." Awkwardly and contrariwise to every principle' of criticism. It is an emendation of Leunclavius and Reitemeier's is no better. But Zosimus knew where the Danube was, and the critic has to explain his mistake.

From Gibbon's narrative one would draw the conclusion that this invasion of Italy in 405 (406 Gibbon incorrectly ; see Clinton, ad ann.) was the first occasion on which Radagaisus appeared on the stage of Imperial events. But he ap- peared before. A notice of Prosper, which there is not the smallest cause to question, represents him as co-operating with Alaric, when Alaric invaded Italy. Under the year 400 (there may be reason for questioning the year ; see last Appendix) in his Chronicle we find the record : Gothi Italiam Alarico et Rada- gaiso ducibus ingressi. It is perfectly arbitrary to assume that the notice of the action of Radagaisus on this occasion is a mere erroneous duplication of his action, which is separately and distinctly recorded under the year 405. Pallmann emphasized the importance of the earlier notice of Prosper, and made a suggestion which has been adopted and developed hy Mr. Hodgkin (i. p. 711, 716, 736), that Alaric and Radagaisus combined to attack Italia, Alaric operating in Venetia and his confederate in Bactia in a.c 400-1, and that the winter campaign of Stilicho in Raetia in a.d. 401-2, of which Claudian speaks, was directed against Radagaisus. This combination has everything to recommend it. The passages in Claudian are as follows :

Bell. Goth, 279 sqq. Non si perfidia nacti penetrabile tempus inrupere Getae, nostras dum Raetia vires occupat atque alio desudant Marte cohortes idcirco spes omnis abit, &c. „ „ 329 sqq. sublimis in Arcton prominet Hercyniae confinis Raetia silvae quae se Danuvii iactat Rhenique parentem utraque Romuleo praetendens flumina regno : &c.