Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/804

Rh 780 E.O M E [HISTORY. inrians vithiu he
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Barbaric uvasions. Vlaric and joths. Marie in
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to which the European half of the empire was becoming barbarized. The policy which had been inaugurated by Augustus himself of settling barbarians within the frontiers had been taken up on a larger scale and in a more systematic way by the Illyrian emperors of the 3d century, and was continued by their successors in the 4th. In Gaul, in the provinces south of the Danube, even in Macedon and Italy, large barbarian settlements had been made Theodosius in particular distinguishing himself by his liberality in this respect. Nor did the barbarians admitted during the 4th century merely swell the class of half-servile coloni. On the contrary, they not only constituted to an increasing extent the strength of the imperial forces, but won their way in ever-growing numbers to posts of dignity and importance in the imperial service. Under Constantino the palace was crowded with Franks. 1 Julian led Gothic troops against Persia, and the army with which Theodosius defeated the tyrant Maximus (388) contained large numbers of Huns and Alans, as well as of Goths. The names of Arbogast, Stilicho, and Eufinus are sufficient proof of the place held by barbarians near the emperor's person and in the control of the provinces and legions of Rome ; and the relations of Arbogast to his nominee for the purple, Eugenius, were an anticipation of those which existed between Ricimer and tho emperors of the latter half of the 5th century. It was by barbarians already settled within the empire that the first of the series of attacks which finally separated the Western provinces from the empire and set up a barbaric ruler in Italy were made, 2 and it was in men of barbarian birth that Rome found her ablest and most successful defenders, and the emperors both of East and West their most capable and powerful ministers. The Visigoths whom Alaric led into Italy had been settled south of the Danube as the allies of the empire since the accession of Theodosius. The greater part of them were Christians at least in name, and Alaric himself had stood high in the favour of Theodosius. The causes which set them in motion are tolerably clear. Like the Germans of the days of Caesar, they wanted land for their own, and to this land-hunger was evidently added in Alaric's own case the ambition of raising himself to the heights which had been reached before him by the Vandal Stilicho at Ravenna and the Goth Rufinus at Constantinople. The jealousy which existed between the rulers of the Western and Eastern empires furthered his plans. In the name of Arcadius, the emperor of the East, or at least with the connivance of Arcadius's minister Rufinus, he occupied the province of Illyricum, and from thence ravaged Greece, which according to the existing division of pro- vinces belonged to the Western empire. Thence in 396 he retreated before Stilicho to Illyricum, with the command of which he was now formally invested by Arcadius, and which gave him the best possible starting point for an attack on Italy. 3 In 400 he led his people, with their wives and families, their waggons and treasure, to seek lands for themselves south of the Alps. But in this first invasion he penetrated no farther than the plains of Lombardy, and after the desperate battle of Pollentia 1 Anim., xv. 5. 8 Accounts of the leading ancient authorities for the period 395- 476 will be found prefixed to the several chapters in Hodgkin's Italy and her Invaders, vols. i. ii. (Oxford, 1880), especially vol. i. pp. 234, 277. Among standard modern authorities are Gibbon, vol. iv. ; Tillemont, Histoire des Empereurs, vol. v. ; Milman, Latin Chris- tianity, vol. i. ; Thierry, Trois Ministres des fils de Theodose (Paris, 1865), and Histoire d' A ttila ; Ranke, Weltgeschichte, vol. iv. , compare especially his criticisms (iv. (2) 249 sq.) on Eusebius, Zosimus, Pro- copius, Jordanes, and Gregory of Tours. For the barbarian migrations see Wietersheim, Oesch. d. Volkencanderung. 3 Hodgkin, op. cit., i. 275. (402) 4 he slowly withdrew from Italy, his retreat being hastened by the promises of gold freely made to him by the imperial government. Not until the autumn of 408 did Alaric again cross the Alps. Stilicho was dead ; the barbarian troops in Honorius's service had been provoked into joining Alaric by the insane anti-Teutonic policy of Honorius and his ministers, and Alaric marched unopposed to Rome. This time, however, the payment of a heavy ransom saved the city. Several months of negotiation followed between Alaric and the court of Ravenna. Alaric's demands were moderate, but Honorius would grant neither lands for his people nor the honourable post in the imperial service which he asked for himself. Once more Alaric sat down before Rome, and this time the panic-stricken citizens discovered a fresh mode of escape. Attalus, a Greek, the prefect of the city, was declared Augustus, and Alaric accepted the post of commander-in- chief. But the incapacity of Attalus was too much for the patience of his barbarian minister and patron, and after a few months' reign Alaric formally deposed him and renewed his offers to Honorius. Again, however, they were declined, and Alaric marched to the siege and sack of Rome (410). 5 His death followed hard on his capture of Rome. Two years later (412) his sue- The cessor Ataulf led the Visigoths to find in Gaul the lands goth which Alaric had sought in Italy. It is characteristic of u the anarchical condition of the West that Ataulf and his Goths should have fought for Honorius in Gaul against the tyrants, 6 and in Spain against the Vandals, Suevi, and Alaui; and it was with the consent of Honorius that in 419 Wallia, who had followed Ataulf as king of the Visigoths, finally settled with his people in south-western Gaul and founded the Visigothic monarchy. 7 It was about the same period that the accomplished Van fact of the division of Spain between the three barbarian Suei tribes of Vandals, Suevi, and Alani was in a similar * manner recognized and approved by the paramount authority of the emperor of the West. 8 These peoples had crossed the Rhine at the time when Alaric was making his first attempt on Italy. A portion of the host led by Radagaisus 9 actually invaded Italy, but were cut to pieces by Stilicho near Florence (405) ; the rest pressed on through Gaul, crossed the Pyrenees, and entered the as yet untouched province of Spain. Honorius died in 423. His authority had survived the dangers to which it had been exposed alike from the Hoi rivalry of tyrants and barbaric invasion, and with the single exception of Britain 10 no province had yet formally broken loose from the empire. But over a great part of the West this authority was now little more than nominal ; throughout the major part of Gaul and in Spain the barbarians had settled, and barbarian states were growing up which still recognized the paramount supremacy of the emperor, but were in all essentials independent of his control. The question for the future was whether this relationship between the declining imperial authority and the vigorous young states which had planted the seeds of a fresh life in the provinces would be maintained. The long reign of Valentinian III. (423-455) is marked Val tini 4 According to others, 403; Hodgkin, i. 310. 5 For the treatment of Rome by Alaric, see Hodgkin, i. 370, with Gibbon, iv. 101, and Ranke, Weltgesch., iv. 246. Allowance must be made for the exaggerations of the ecclesiastical writers. 6 For these " tyrants " see an article by Prof. Freeman in the first number of the new English Historical Review (Jan. 1886), pp. 53-86. 7 The capital of the new state was Tolosa (Toulouse). 8 Jung, Die Romanische Landschajten, 73 sq. 9 For the connexion between his movement and those of Alaric and of the Vandals, see Hodgkin, i. 282, 304 ; Gibbon, iv. 46. 10 The Roman troops were withdrawn from Britain by Constantino in 409; Jung, 305. Ill