Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/874

Rh 850 marked by the speech put into his mouth by Orosius. He had at one time dreamed of destroying the Roman power, of turning Romrmia into 6'0!/u'u, and putting Ataulf in the stead of Augustus ; but he had learned that the world could be governed only by the laws of Rome, and he had deter- mined to use the Gothic arms for the support of the Roman power. And in the confused and contradictory accounts of his actions (for the story in J ordanis cannot be reconciled with the accounts in Olympiodorus and the chroniclers), we can see something of this principle at work throughout. Gaul and Spain were overrun both by barbarian invaders and by rival emperors. The sword of the Goth was to win back the lost lands for Rome. And, amid many shiftings of allegiance, Ataulf seems never to have wholly given up the position of an ally of the empire. His marriage with Placidia, the daughter of the great Theodosius, was taken as the seal of the union between Goth and Roman, and, had their son Theodosius lived, a. dynasty might have arisen uniting both claims. But the career of Ataulf was cut short at Barcelona in 415, by his murder at the hands of another faction of the Goths. The reign of Sigeric was momentary. Under Wallia in 418 a more settled state of things was established. The empire received again, as the prize of Gothic victories, the Tarraconensis in Spain, and Novempopulana and the N-arbonensis in Gaul. The “ second Aquitaine,” with the sea-coast from the mouth of the Garonne to the mouth of the Loire, became the West- Gothic kingdom of Toulouse. The dominion of the Goths was now strictly Gaulish; their lasting Spanish dominion does not yet begin. The reign of the ﬁrst Vest—Gothic Theodoric (-1l8—-151) shows a shifting state of relations betwen the Roman and Gothic powers ; but, after defeats and successes both ways, the older relation of alliance against common enemies was again established. At last Goth and Roman had to join together against the common enemy of Europe and Chris- tendom, Attila the Hun. But they met Gothic warriors in his army. By the terms of their subjection to the Huns, the East-Goths came to ﬁght for Attila against Christ-endom at Ch-alons, just as the Servians came to ﬁght for Bajazet against Christendom at Nicopolis. Theodoric fell in the battle_(451). After this momentary meeting, the history of the East and West Goths again separates for a while. The kingdom of Toulouse grew within Gaul at the expense of the empire, and in Spain at the expense of the Suevi. Under Euric (466-488) the West-Gothic power again became largely a Spanish power. The kingdom of Toulouse took in nearly all Gaul south of the Loire and west of the Rhone, with all Spain, except the north-west corner, which was still held by the Suevi. Provence alone remained to the empire. The West-Gothic kings largely adopted Roman manners and culture; but, as they still kept to their original Arian creed, their rule never became thoroughly acceptable to their Catholic subjects. They stood therefore at a great disadvantage when a new and aggressive Catholic power appeared in Gaul through the conversion of the Frank Chlodwig. Toulouse was, as in days long after, the seat of an heretical power, against which the forces of northern Gaul marched as on a crusade. In 507 the West- Gothic king Alaric fell before the Frankish arms at Bouglé, near Poitiers, and his kingdom, as a great power north of the Alps, fell with him. That Spain and a fragment of Gaul still remained to form a West-Gothic kingdom was owing to the intervention of the East-Goths under the rule of the greatest man in Gothic history. When the Hunnish power broke in pieces on the death of Attila, the East-Goths recovered their full independence. They now entered into relations with the empire, and were settled on lands in Pannonia. During the greater part of the latter half of the 5th century, the East-Goths play in G O T H S south-eastern Europe nearly the same part which the West- Goths played in the century before. They are seen going to and fro, in every conceivable relation of friendship and enmity with the Eastern Roman power, till, just as the ‘Vest-Goths had done before them, they pass from the East to the West. They are still ruled by kings of the house of the Amali, and from that house there new steps forward a great figure, famous alike in history and in romance, in the person of Theodoric son of Theodemir. Born about 454, his childhood was spent at Constantinople as a hostage, where he was carefully educated. The former part of his life is taken up with various disputes, intrigues, and wars within the Eastern empire, in which he has as his rival another Theodoric, son of Triarius, and surnamed Strabo. This older but lesser Theodoric seems to have been the chief (not king) of that branch of the East—Goths which had settled within the empire at an earlier time. Theodoric the Great, as he is sometimes distinguished, is sometimes the friend, sometimes the enemy, of the empire. In the former case he is clothed with various Roman titles and offices, as patrician and consul; but in all cases alike he remains the national East—Gothic king. It was in both characters together that he set out in 488, by commission from the emperor Zeno, to recover Italy from Odoacer. By 493 Ilavenna was taken ; Odoacer was killed by Theodoric’s own hand; and the East—Gothic power was fully estab- lished over Italy, Sicily, Dalmatia, and the lands to the north of Italy. In this war the history of the East and West Goths begins again to unite, if we may accept the witness of one writer (Anon. Vales. 728) that Theodoric was helped by West—Gothie auxiliaries. The two branches of the nation were soon brought much more closely together, when, through the overthrow of the ‘Vest-Gothic kingdom of Toulouse, the power of Theodoric was practically extended over a large part of Gaul and over nearly the whole of Spain. A time of confusion followed the fall of Alaric, and, as that prince was the son-in—law of Theodoric, the East- Gothic king stepped in as the guardian of his grandson Amalaric, and preserved for him all his Spanish and a fragment of his Gaulish dominion. Toulouse passed away to the Frank ; but the Goth kept Narbonne and its district, the land of Septin1ania——the land which, as the last part of Gaul held by the Goths, kept the name of G'otlu'«.z for many ages. Vhile Theodoric lived, the West-Gothic king- dom was practically united to his own dominion. He seems also to have claimed a kind of protectorate over the Teutonic powers generally, and indeed to have practically exercised it, except in the case of the Franks. The East—Gothic dominion was now again as great in extent, and far more splendid, than it could have been in the time of Ermanaric. But it was now of a wholly dif- ferent character. The dominion of Theodoric was not a barbarian but a civilized power. His twofold position ran through everything. He was at once national king of the Goths, and successor, though without any imperial titles, of the Roman emperors of the West. The two nations, clif- fering in Inanners, language, and religion, lived side by side on the soil of Italy; each was ruled according to its own law, by the prince who was, in his two separate characters, the common sovereign of both. The picture of Theodorics rule is drawn for us in the state papers drawn up in his name and in the names of his successors by his Roman minister Cassiodorus. The Goths seem to have been thick on the ground in northern Italy ; in the south they forme.l little more than garrisons. In Theodoric’s theory the Goth was the armed protector of the peaceful Roman ; the Gothic king had the toil of government, while the Roman consul had the honour. All the forms of the Roman administration went on, and the Roman polity and Roman culture had great inﬂuence on the Goths themselves. The