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WESTEEN EUEOPE 
 
 IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 
 AN AFTERMATH 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 E. A. FREEMAN, M.A., Hon. D.C.L. 
 
 REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY 
 IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 LONDON 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1904 
 
 All rights reserved 
 

 (:>nSi^ 
 
 OS 
 
 OXFORD : HORACE HART 
 PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
PKEFACE 
 
 When the ]ate Mr. E. A. Freeman set forth on his 
 last visit to Spain his immediate interest was the 
 completion of his History of Sicily. It was known, 
 however, by his friends that he had left behind in an 
 unfinished state the materials for a volume on Western 
 Europe in the Fifth Century. Like many other 
 historical students he was much interested in the few 
 historical notices that have survived concerning the 
 events in Britain during the fifth century. He 
 desired to understand them, and as far as possible to 
 fit them in with what we know of the general political 
 development of Western Europe, and he felt that the 
 only way of approaching this subject with any chance 
 of permanent success was to make sure of the events 
 that had happened in Graul. If we understood clearly 
 what had occurred there we were at least in possession 
 of information which would keep us from wrong ideas 
 as to what might have happened in insular Britain. 
 The incidents that are recorded are so brief and 
 isolated that, taken by themselves, they fail to give 
 us any idea of what was going on, but when we look 
 at them in the light created by events in Gaul we 
 perceive faint traces of a connexion between them ; 
 it is the fading influence of the magic name, res- 
 pvMica Bomana, and the efforts that were being 
 made, secular and religious, to revive it for the 
 salvation of the island. It was then for this purpose 
 that he had given as professor two or three courses 
 of lectures on this subject, and it is evident from such 
 
^ Preface 
 
 portions of his manuscript that remain that he had 
 set out his work with the view to its publication. 
 Some of the chapters he had completed, some were 
 still fragmentary, and for each section he had pro- 
 vided some notes or indications of notes, and in what 
 Avas meant for an appendix he had discussed at 
 greater length than was possible in the text one or 
 two questions of especial importance. The manu- 
 script of these lectures, just as it was found, was 
 handed over to his friend, the late Professor York 
 Powell, who very kindly undertook to see the volume 
 through the press. This, however, he never accom- 
 plished, and after his premature death the portions 
 which he had worked off, a rough print of the rest, 
 and such sheets of the manuscript as could be found, 
 were returned to Mr. Freeman's executors. Professor 
 York Powell had revised for the press sheets B to P, 
 i.e. the first 224 pages. The rest was all in the 
 rough, and called for arrangement, correction, and 
 the verification of the references, an amount of work 
 which his numerous engagements had probably made 
 it impossible for him to accomplish. It is obvious, 
 therefore, that the present volume suffers very much 
 for lack of the author's final notes and arrangement, 
 but it was felt that work so good, carried out on 
 ground which had never before been so carefully 
 considered, should not be allowed to remain un- 
 published. It is now offered to the historical student, 
 a mere earnest of what it would have been, and yet 
 a fragment too valuable to be allowed to perish. 
 
 T. SCOTT HOLMES. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I, The Invasion of Gaul .... 1 
 
 II. A Tyrant of the West .... 35 
 
 III. CONSTANTINE EmPEROR AND MaXIMUS TyRANT 81 
 
 IV. The Barbarian Invaders .... 130 
 V. West-Goths and Burgundians . . .171 
 
 VI. Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine . 226 
 VII. Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius . 264 
 VIII. Chlodowig the Frank 288 
 
 APPENDIX 1. Aetius and Boniface . . .305 
 II. The Second Carausius . .371 
 
 INDEX 375 
 
WESTERN EUROPE IN THE 
 FIFTH CENTURY. 
 
 I. 
 
 [THE INVASION OF GAUL.] 
 
 The movements within and without the Empire 
 which, in the course of a few years at the beginning 
 of the fifth century, altogether changed the face of 
 Western Europe have never, as far as I know, been 
 told in our own tongue, perhaps not in any other 
 tongue, as a connected tale. The facts are recorded 
 by Gibbon with his usual accuracy, clearness, and 
 careful reference to authorities ; but they are scattered 
 over several chapters and are never brought together 
 in their relation to one another. To Gibbon, with 
 Rome itself as his main subject, their importance lay 
 chiefly in their purely Eoman aspect, as so many 
 blows dealt to the power of Rome. To our latest 
 English inquirer into these times they naturally come 
 
 n the same way, important only as they bear on the 
 destinies of Italy and her invaders. Mr. Hodgkin 
 does not give, because he was not called upon to 
 4ve, a minute or a consecutive narrative any more 
 
 aan Gibbon does. Of the German writers on the 
 VolJcerwanderung, Dahn and Pallmann hardly touch 
 
 B 
 
2 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [i. 
 
 these particular years ; Wietersheim has a careful and 
 critical examination of the facts and authorities ; but 
 it hardly amounts to a narrative "^^ Of writers dealing 
 specially with our own island, Lappenberg has a sketch, 
 to the purpose as far as it goes, of the British side of 
 the story, but he hardly attempts to connect it with 
 the continental side. Mr. Green, in the Making of 
 England, attempts no examination of authorities, and 
 he gives a few words only to the continental side ; 
 but it is clear that he had fully grasped the connexion 
 between the two. Tillemont in a past age, Clinton 
 in the age just before our own, have brought the 
 authorities together with their usual painstaking 
 research. And I venture to think that the time 
 has not yet come when we can afford to cast 
 away collectors whom no scrap of information in the 
 original writers ever seems to escape. But Clinton 
 does not attempt a narrative, and the narrative which 
 the worthy Tillemont does attempt, though it is well 
 to follow the example of Gibbon and Hodgkin in 
 keeping it ever at our elbow, can hardly be looked 
 on as sufficient according to the standard of modern 
 criticism. Fauriel, in his Histoire de la Gaule 
 Meridionale sous la domination des conquerants 
 Germains, has used his authorities well, and he 
 comes nearer than any other writer to giving a con- 
 nected narrative of the events with which we are 
 immediately concerned. Still his point of view, the 
 point of /view of a countryman of Sidonius and 
 Gregory, is distinctly South-Gaulish. It is no part 
 
 * Dahn has since in his Urgeschichte come much nearer to a con- 
 nected story. 
 
I.] The Invasion of Gaul, 3 
 
 of his business to take any special points to connect 
 the continental with the insular story. As for myself, 
 I must say that, while I have taken the deepest 
 interest in attempting to put together a fuller and 
 more connected narrative of the whole story than 
 I have yet seen, and in the work which is the 
 necessary condition of so doing, the minute examina- 
 tion of the evidence of the original writers, I have 
 a motive beyond. In much that I shall have to say 
 from this Chair, I shall strive to guide you into 
 Britain by way of Gaul, into England by way, if not 
 of France, yet of the elements out of which France 
 slowly grew. If I keep you long with the Goth and 
 the Frank in their Gaulish realms, it will not be only 
 because of the surpassing interest and instruction of 
 their story in their Gaulish realms, but also because 
 a full understanding of their position in their Gaulish 
 realms is the best means to enable us by force of 
 contrast to grasp the true position of the Angle and 
 the Saxon in their British realms. I am leading you 
 to Northumbrian Bseda by the guidance of Arvernian 
 Gregory. If I am set in this Chair to strive to show 
 that European history is one unbroken tale, I am set 
 in it also to strive to show that Englishmen are 
 Englishmen. I believe that the latest theories of all 
 go once more to set aside that doctrine as an old 
 wives' fable. Now I venture to think that the spritely 
 youths who, I am told, blow their trumpet somewhat 
 loudly to say that what they are pleased to call * the 
 Teutonic theory' is exploded, have not given much 
 of their time to any very deep study of Gregory of 
 Tours. The plain truth, so despised of many, that 
 
 B 2 
 
4 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 
 
 we are ourselves and not somebody else, is more 
 easily grasped if we look first at the fortunes of 
 those branches of our race which did not remain 
 ourselves but did become somebody else, and see how 
 utterly unlike those fortunes are to ours, I trust, 
 before many terms are over, to set before you a dis- 
 tinctly English story. As yet, I am dealing with 
 our kinsfolk in foreign lands. The new theories will 
 tell you that we were no more in our conquered island 
 than they were in the conquered mainland. It is 
 well then, before we examine what was the place 
 that the Jute, the Angle, and the Saxon held in 
 Britain, to understand thoroughly what was the 
 place which the Burgundian, the Goth,, and the Frank 
 held in Gaul. 
 
 Of that inquiry the present course will bring us 
 only to the threshold ; but it is a stage which cannot 
 be left out. The main importance of these years lies 
 in this, that in them the ground was made ready for 
 the plantation of abiding Teutonic settlements in the 
 three great lands of the West, in Gaul, Spain, and 
 Britain. In Gaul, and still more in Spain, not only 
 is the ground made ready, but the settlements actually 
 begin ; in Britain the ground is made ready, but 
 hardly more. In our meagre notices of Britain in 
 these years Teutonic invaders are never distinctly 
 mentioned. They have shown themselves at an 
 earlier time as unsuccessful invaders ; they were soon 
 to show themselves again as abiding settlers; but 
 during the special years with which we are about to 
 deal the Teuton shows himself in Britain at most as 
 a passing plunderer of the coast; his future dwelling- 
 
L] The Invasion of Gaul. 5 
 
 place is making ready for him ; but lie does not as 
 yet take any steps to secure possession. Yet even 
 at this time our own people play no inconsiderable 
 part in the story. It is not to be forgotten that 
 there was a Saxony in Gaul before there was a Saxony 
 in Britain; Bayeux was a Saxon city before Win- 
 chester. Among all the invaders of Gaul the Saxon 
 pirates of the coast are spoken of as the most dreaded, 
 and the rovers of the Channel were not likely to keep 
 themselves to its southern shore only, though it is 
 only on its southern shore that they have found 
 chroniclers of their doings. But beyond this, both 
 at this time and in the generation when the Angle 
 and the Saxon did begin to occupy the great island, 
 it is of the highest moment to mark the connexion 
 between the affairs of Britain and the affairs of the 
 mainland. The Teutonic conquest of Britain, owing 
 to the special circumstances both of the invaders and 
 of the land invaded, took a wholly different shape 
 from the Teutonic conquest of most parts of the main- 
 land. But it was none the less part of the general 
 Volherwanderung, and it was largely affected by the 
 same causes as the Teutonic movements on the main- 
 land. And. one side of the difference between the 
 English conquest of Britain and the Frankish conquest 
 of Gaul, namely the difference in the state of the 
 invaded lands and their inhabitants, was largely owing 
 to the events of these particular half-dozen years. 
 
 At a first glance the events of these years may 
 seem to offer us little more than a series of uninter- 
 esting and almost unintelligible struggles for the 
 crown of the declining Empire of Kome, or at any 
 
6 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 
 
 rate for the imperial dominion in the provinces 
 beyond the Alps. Emperors or tyrants rise and fall, 
 and, by a strange fate, men whose revolt at least 
 shows them to have been men of some energy, are 
 overthrown to the profit of an Emperor who at no 
 time of his reign showed any energy whatever. 
 Honorius cannot keep Rome from the barbarians ; 
 but he can, by the hands at least of his generals, 
 destroy every rival claimant of his diadem and can 
 win back a large part of the provinces which they 
 had usurped. We may safely say that Constantine, 
 Gerontius, Jovinus, Heraclian, were any of them 
 better fitted to reign than the son of Theodosius. 
 But these men have a higher interest than comes 
 from anything that connects them with Honorius. 
 Their rise and fall are directly connected with some of 
 the leading events in the history of the world ; their 
 tale cannot be told without telling the tale of the 
 separation of Gaul, Britain, and Spain from the Roman 
 dominion ; the setting up and putting down of the 
 rival tyrants cannot be recorded apart from the 
 revolutions which at least opened the way for the 
 growth of the leading nations of Western Europe. 
 
 As usual, the history of these years has to be made 
 out by piecing together a great number of authorities, 
 none of which are of first-rate merit. We have an 
 unusual wealth of accounts, such as they are, written 
 by men who lived at the time ; but there is none who 
 claims a high place as a narrator, still less is there 
 any who could understand the full significance of his 
 own days. Nor is there any who gave himself speci- 
 ally to remark and to record that particular chain of 
 
I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 7 
 
 events with which we are specially concerned. All 
 is fragmentary; one fact has to be found here and 
 another there. The age, as one of the great turning- 
 points of the world's history, needed a Polybios to 
 grasp its full meaning ; we have not even an Ammi- 
 anus to set down events in order and to make shrewd 
 observations on them as he goes along. We can 
 hardly doubt that the History of Olympiodoros, the 
 Greek of Egypt, some scraps of whose many books 
 are preserved to us by Ph6tios, would, if he had come 
 down to us whole, have given us something more like 
 a narrative, and that a narrative of some merit, than 
 his followers. He has at any rate given us fragments 
 of considerable importance, whose value has been 
 fully set forth by Mr. Hodgkin. We seek in vain for 
 some further knowledge and some further remains 
 of the two writers quoted by Gregory of Tours, 
 Sulpicius Alexander and Henatus Profuturus Frige - 
 ridus. The collection of names borne by the last 
 writer, with its Christian, its Koman, and its Teutonic 
 elements, raises a certain curiosity about himself. 
 Sulpicius may have concerned himself chiefly with 
 the Franks, a people with whom we have at this 
 moment less to do than with some others. From 
 Orosius we have the complete work of a contem- 
 porary; from Zosimos we have the nearly complete 
 work of most probably a younger contemporary. 
 Both the zealous Christian and the zealous pagan 
 wrote with an object somewhat different from that of 
 simply recording events as they happened, and the 
 prejudices of both must be allowed for in measuring 
 the value of their witness. Z6simos too, though 
 
8 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 
 
 a contemporary, one wlio was alive at tlie time and 
 who wrote not very long after, can hardly be called 
 an original writer. He seems to have written from 
 the accounts of writers, some of whom could not have 
 been much earlier than himself, but whom we may 
 guess that he did not always understand. Though 
 his account of these years seems complete, yet it is 
 almost as fragmentary as those of 01ympiod6ros. It 
 consists of pieces put together with very little regard 
 to connexion or to chronological order, one most 
 likely taken from one source and another from another. 
 Yet some of the scraps of narrative thus embedded, 
 whencesoever they may come, are of the highest 
 moment. They preserve several of the most essential 
 parts of our present story for which we should look 
 in vain elsewhere. We have another narrative, full in 
 some points,in the Ecclesiastical History of Sozomenos, 
 also a writer contemporary, or nearly so. The writers 
 of our own island in after times, British Gildas and 
 Nennius, English Baeda, who in some measure follows 
 Gildas, and the English Chronicler who in some 
 measure follows Baeda, can of course tell us nothing 
 of our times beyond such traditions, written or oral, 
 as may have lingered on till their days. But it is 
 always well to know how the events of a past age 
 looked in the eyes of the descendants or successors of 
 the men who were touched by them at the time. 
 
 We are now in the age of the Annalists. And two 
 of them, as being both contemporary and local, would, 
 if they had written at greater length, have been the 
 very best of all our authorities. Even as it is, the 
 Aquitanian Prosper and the Spanish Idatius count 
 
I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 9 
 
 for as much as any of the more lengthy writers, and 
 Idatius himself enlarges with some force when he 
 comes to the sorrows of his own land. A British or 
 an Armorican annalist, an annalist from the banks of 
 the Rhine, would have been priceless indeed ; but for 
 such we have to yearn in vain. Our nearest approach 
 to such a help is found in that annalist on whom 
 one side of the description of the Aquitanian annalist 
 has so oddly been bestowed, and who commonly 
 figures as Prosper Tiro. Whoever he was, and at 
 whatever value we rate him in other matters, we 
 are thankful for his few and short notices of 
 that island world which the world of Eome seems 
 largely to have forgotten. Above all, we are thankful 
 to him for the one notice from outside, a notice 
 seemingly contemporary, which has come down to us 
 of the English Conquest of Britain. 
 
 We get some help also from some writers in prose 
 and verse whose object was not that of directly and 
 simply recording events. We press into our service 
 alike the pagan laureate and the Christian preacher. 
 The stately hexameters of Claudian, the less famous 
 elegiacs of the poet of Divine Providence, the long 
 harangue of Salvian, the occasional notices of Jerome, 
 all form part of our materials. Actions of Stilicho 
 were, if not the true causes, at least the immediate 
 occasions, of the events with which we are concerned; 
 and where Stilicho acts, we presently hear the 
 trumpet voice of the poet from whom we should 
 never have learned that the devout Honorius was not 
 a worshipper of Jupiter. Our most living picture of 
 the invasion of Gaul itself comes from a poet of 
 
10 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 
 
 another kind, whom some have thought to be the 
 annalist Prosper in yet another shape. Prosper or 
 no Prosper, he is a contemporary witness, whose 
 verses may be more safely accepted as true to fact 
 than the sounding lines of Claudian. He is a man of 
 Gaul who painted the sufferings of Gaul in which he 
 himself had shared. His verse is written to point 
 a moral, the moral of Divine Providence ; so is the 
 prose of Salvian in his treatise of kindred title, where 
 he gives his picture of the evils and sorrows of the 
 time while discoursing of the government of God. 
 We would fain believe that the Teuton was as 
 virtuous and the Roman less vicious than the Roman 
 preacher paints them; but we must doubtless apply 
 the same rule to both, and take off something from 
 the brightness of the one portrait and from the 
 blackness of the other. Saint Jeiome we have to 
 thank for a few fiery touches of the time, for a few 
 geographical details, for a slightly puzzling list of 
 nations, all which certainly add to our knowledge. 
 Altogether our materials are far from scanty; many 
 important periods are far worse off. We cannot 
 venture to ask for a Polybios at every great turn 
 of the world's history. We are inclined to lament 
 that we have no such light as Ammianus throws on 
 the century that goes before and Procopios on the 
 century that follows. 
 
 It is by a sound instinct as to the general march of 
 events, though with some disregard to exact chrono- 
 logy, that Baeda and the English Chronicler connect 
 the separation of Britain from the Roman dominion 
 with the Gothic taking of Rome. Rome was broken 
 
I.] The Invasion of Gaul. ii 
 
 by the Goths, and since then no Eoman kings reigned 
 over Britain *. It was not the actual taking of 
 Kome, but it was that Gothic invasion of Italy of 
 which the taking of Eome was the most striking 
 
 * Bseda (i. 11) brings in his first date with some chronological 
 solemnity. He had Orosius before him, but he leaves out and 
 amplifies to suit his own purpose. His date stands thus ; 
 
 " Anno ab incarnatione Domini quadrigentesimo septimo, tenente 
 imperium Honorio Augusto filio Theodosii minore, loco ab Augusto 
 quadragesimo quarto, ante biennium Romanse irruptionis quae per 
 Alaricum regem Gothorum facta est, cum gentes Alanorum, Sue- 
 vorum, Vandalorum, multseque cum his alias, protritis Francis, 
 transito Hreno, totas per Gallias ssevirent." 
 
 At the point of time thus marked, first Gratian and then Con- 
 stantine are set up ; the history of Constantine follows, and then 
 
 " Fracta est autem Roma a Gothis millesimo centesimo sexagesimo 
 quarto suae conditionis, ex quo tempore Romani in Britannia reg- 
 nare cesserunt, post annos ferme quadringentos septuaginta ex 
 quo Gaius Julius Caesar eamdam insulam adiit." 
 
 The English Chroniclers leave out all the former extract, and 
 translate the second under the year 409 (in the late Canterbury 
 version, 408). The fullest form is in the Peterborough version ; 
 
 " Her waes tobrocen Romana burh fram Gotum, ymb XI hund 
 wintra and X wintra Jjaes j^e eo getimbred waes. SicSSan ofer 
 J)aet ne rixodan leng Romana cinigas on Brytene. Ealles hi 
 tSaer rixodan IIII hund wintre and hund seofenti wintra sicStSan 
 Gaius lulius ]3set land erost gesohte." 
 
 The other versions have several small differences, and the word 
 leng is in Peterborough only. And it may be noticed that, while 
 Baeda does not imply that the Romans had ruled in the island 
 ever since the landing of Gaius Julius, the Chroniclers do. 
 
 Baeda leaves out the actual separation of Britain, as recorded 
 by Zosiraos. Coming between the expedition and the taking of 
 Rome, it got mixed up with both those events, and was lost 
 between them. He also placed, like so many others, the taking 
 of Rome in 409 instead of 410. 
 
12 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 
 
 incident, which led to that general breaking-up of 
 the Eoman power in the West, of which the departure 
 of the legions from Britain was that side which most 
 directly concerned ourselves and our predecessors on 
 British soil. As a matter of fact, Britain had really 
 fallen away from the dominion of Kome before Eome 
 was taken by Alaric. In truth, the actual taking of 
 Rome, looked at as something having a practical 
 effect on the course of events at the time, was of less 
 importance than that it now seems to have or than it 
 seemed to have in the eighth and ninth centuries. 
 In more senses than one, 
 
 Suis et ipsa Eoma viribus ruit. 
 Eome had so thoroughly spread herself over the 
 whole of her own world, the whole of that world had 
 so thoroughly become Eome, that the direct impor- 
 tance of the local Eome had come to be less than that 
 of many other cities. Eome was neither a seat of 
 government nor the guardian of an exposed frontier. 
 Her actual capture and sack was a solemn and terror- 
 striking incident, which gave endless opportunities 
 for pointing a moral ; it was the sign that an old day 
 was passing away and that a new day was coming ; 
 it was a thing to be remembered in later days as no 
 other event of those times was likely to be remem- 
 bered; but at the moment it made little practical 
 difference to any but those who immediately suffered 
 by it. What really changed the face of Western 
 Europe was not that Eome was taken but that Eome 
 was threatened. It was the presence of Alaric in 
 Italy, a presence of which the taking of Rome was as 
 it were the formal witness, which opened the way for 
 
I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 13 
 
 the separation of the Western lands from the Empire 
 and for the beginning of the powers of the modern 
 world. 
 
 Yet, at the moment when our immediate story 
 begins, Alaric was not in Italy; he had entered the 
 land and he had left it ; he had left it, as Eoman 
 poets and official writers loudly proclaimed, a defeated 
 man, chief of a people that Eome had crushed for 
 ever*. He had entered Italy, it would seem, with 
 Kadagaisus, as his ally. Such seems the express 
 witness of such authorities as we havef. It may be 
 that Alaric and Radagaisus entered Italy by distinct 
 paths, and that the warfare of the Eoman armies in 
 Ehsetia, which is described as happening at the same 
 time as the coming of Alaric, may have been warfare 
 directed against another Gothic leader who came in 
 alliance with him \. The fight of PoUentia has been 
 
 * The whole poem of Claudian on the sixth Consulship of 
 Honorius is an expansion of this theme ; but it comes out most 
 tersely in the inscription, if it he genuine, " Getarum nationem in 
 omne sevum domitam." Hodgkin, i. 722-7. 
 
 t Prosper distinctly couples Eadagaisus with Alaric ; " Stilichone 
 et Aureliano coss. Gothi Italiam, Alarico et Eadagaiso ducihus, in- 
 gressi." So Cassiodorus, changing the style to " Halarico et 
 Eadagaiso regibus." 
 
 X So Hodgkin, i. 711-33. The words of Claudian, De Bello 
 Getico, 279, are; 
 
 " Irrupere Getse, nostras dum Esetia vires 
 Occupat, atque alio desudant Marte cohortes." 
 This would certainly be more naturally taken of some movement in 
 Ehsetia itself, quite distinct from the Gothic invasion. I believe 
 there is no other reference to Eadagaisus as a partner of Alaric in 
 this invasion. As for Ehsetia, we must not forget another obscure 
 reference in Claudian, De Bello Getico, 414 ; 
 
14 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 
 
 variously described as a Eoman victory, a Gothic 
 victory, and a drawn battle^'; it is certain that its 
 practical effect was favourable to Eome. Alaric left 
 Italy, and again, as in the last days of the fourth 
 century, the Imperial power was undisputed through- 
 out all the lands of the West. 
 
 But that power was no longer what it had been 
 even at the beginning of the last year of that century. 
 When Stilicho entered on his second final consulship, 
 whatever dangers seemed to threaten the dominions 
 of the Western Emperor still came from the lands 
 which were under the rule of his Eastern brother. 
 The Eastern power of Eome, destined to live on 
 unbroken for more than eight centuries, had been 
 shaken by the coming of the Goth, and had needed 
 the help of the West to rid itself for a while of his 
 presence and his ravages. The Western division of 
 the Empire, destined so soon to break in pieces, still 
 seemed to be safely guarded by the arm of its consul. 
 A few years before Stilicho had, we are told, restored 
 the power of Eome on the Ehenish frontier almost by 
 
 "Accurrit vicina manus quam Eaetia nuper 
 Vindelicis auctam spoliis defensa probavit." 
 Whatever this refers to, it can hardly be taken of a Gothic 
 invasion under Eadagaisus. The question, however, though of 
 some importance for the history of Italy, matters little for that of 
 Gaul and Britain. 
 
 * The question is discussed by Mr. Hodgkin, i. 722. It concerns 
 us very little, as whatever was the military result of Alaric's 
 invasion of Italy, it led to the withdrawal of the legions from the 
 Rhine. I have followed, with Mr. Hodgkin (i. 734-6), the chronology 
 of Pallmann (402 a.d.), which seems based on the sure witness of 
 Prosper. 
 
T.] The Invasion of Gaul. 15 
 
 a look. Drusus and Trajan had been outdone. The 
 Suevian and the Alaman obeyed the laws of Eome. 
 The Frankish kings, with their long yellow hair as 
 the badge of freedom and kingship, were set up and 
 put down at Stilicho's bidding, and Francia — we 
 long for a definition of its boundaries — would no 
 more dream of casting forth the kings that Stilicho 
 gave than Frovincia — ^we are almost tempted to use 
 the later form of the name — would dream of casting 
 out the immediate lieutenants of the Emperor. The 
 Salian had betaken himself to the tilth of the ground ; 
 the Sicambrian had beaten his sword into a pruning- 
 hook ; the traveller crossed the border-stream or sailed 
 along its waters, and asked which shore of Khine 
 was that which Eome specially claimed as her own. 
 Britain, delivered and guarded — waUed in, we are 
 tempted to render it — at the word of the conqueror, 
 had seen the Scot driven back to his own island ; 
 she no longer feared the Pict, nor looked with dread 
 lest every wind should bring the keels of the Saxon 
 to her shores ''^ We wish that we had some further 
 
 * Claudian's poem on the First Coosulship of Stilicho seems to 
 be our only authority for these exploits. He specially enlarges on 
 the speed of his patron's victories (i. 188-97) ; 
 
 " Miramur rabidis hostem succumbere bellis 
 Cum solo terrore ruant? Num classica Francis 
 Intulimus ] Jacuere tamen. N'um Marte Suevos 
 Contudimus, quis jura damus ? Quis credere possit ? 
 Ante tubam nobis audax Germania servit. 
 Cedant, Druse, tui, cedant, Trajane, labores. 
 Vestra manus dubio quidquid discrimine gessit, 
 Transcurrens egit Stilichon ; totidemque diehus 
 Edomuit Rhenum, quot vos potuiatis in annis ; 
 Qv£m ferro alloquiis, quern vos cum milite, solus." 
 
16 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 
 
 authority for this glowing picture than the laureate 
 strains in which Claudian welcomed his patron's con- 
 sulship ; but all cannot be imagination. Ten years 
 
 Again (i. 218); 
 
 " Tempore tarn parvo tot prselia sanguine nullo 
 Perficis ; et Luna nuper nascente profectus 
 Ante redis quam plena fuit." 
 The Franks especially are subdued and subdued for ever (i. 203); 
 " Ingentia quondam 
 Nomina, crinigero Jlaventes vertice reges, 
 Qui nee principibus, donis precibusque vocati, 
 Paruerant, jussi properant, segnique verentur 
 Oflfendisse mora." 
 
 (i. 236.) " Provincia missos 
 Expellet citius, fallax quam Francia reges 
 Quos dederis. Acie nee jam pulsare rebelles 
 Sed vinclis punire licet." 
 
 (i. 220.) " Rhenumque minacem 
 Cornibus infractis adeo mitescere cogis 
 Ut Salius jam rura colat, flexosque Sygambrus 
 In falcem curvet gladios, geminasque viator 
 Cum videat ripas, quce sit Romana requiret." 
 One longs for some otber account, even the driest entry in the 
 Annals. Taken literally, the poet's words imply that Stilicho 
 brought the Franks and other nations to submit, without striking 
 a blow and even without the presence of an army. The account of 
 Stilicho's doings in Britain is even vaguer (ii. 247); 
 
 " Inde Caledonio velata Britannia monstro, 
 Ferro picta genis, cujus vestigia verrit 
 Cserulus, Oceanique sestum mentitur, amictus; 
 Me quoque vicinis i)ereuntem gentibus, inquit, 
 Munivit Stilichon, totam cum Scotus lernen 
 Movit et infesto spumavit remige Tethys. 
 Illius eflfectum curis ne tela timerem 
 
 Scotica, ne Pictum tremerem, ne littore toto S[^ 
 
 Prosjpicerem duhiis venturum Saxona ventis." 
 
I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 17 
 
 or more of quiet in Britain and on the German 
 frontier seem to show that the successes of Stilicho 
 in the first years of the two brothers, however they 
 may have been tricked out by the poet's fancy, were 
 real successes which did their work for a season. His 
 Frankish successes especially seem to have been of 
 real importance and to have had an effect on the 
 events with which we are more immediately con- 
 cerned. The Franks on the left bank of the Ehine, 
 those who were settled within the borders of the 
 Empire as its subjects, though sometimes turbulent 
 subjects, the Salians presently to be so famous, appear 
 in our story as discharging the duty of Eoman allies. 
 But that such successes as those of Stilicho were 
 needed to keep the professed subjects of the Empire, 
 in their allegiance is the surest sign of the growing 
 weakness of the Eoman power in the Western lands. 
 It might be at any moment restored to its full 
 geographical extent and to the outward form of its 
 ancient authority. But the fabric of dominion needed 
 constant propping, not to say rebuilding, and a time 
 came when rebuilding was no longer possible. Before 
 the fourth century was ended, before the year was 
 ended to which Stilicho gave his name, Alaric was in 
 Italy, and to withstand the presence of Alaric in 
 Italy, the mainstay of the Eoman power in the 
 Western lands out of Italy was taken sway. Whether 
 Alaric won or lost the field of Pollentia, his coming 
 indirectly tore away Britain from the Eoman dominion, 
 and began the work of dismemberment in Gaul and 
 Spain. 
 
 For the Gothic invasion of Italy needed to be with- 
 
 c 
 
18 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i, 
 
 stood with all the forces that the declining power 
 of Kome could muster. If Pollentia was a Eoman 
 victory, it was a victory that was won only by 
 leaving the distant frontiers of Rome exposed to 
 every invader. To meet Alaric came not only the 
 troops which had lately defended Rheetia''^, but the 
 troops that guarded the most distant outposts of 
 Rome. The Rhine was left without its defenders ; 
 the men who had kept watch against Chatti and 
 Cherusci and the yellow Sicambri f — in these last at 
 least we see the Ripuarian Franks — came to the 
 defence of Italy ; so did even the legion which had 
 guarded Roman Britain against the Pict and the 
 Scot J. We are bidden to believe that, even when 
 the legions were gone, the dread of the name of 
 Stilicho was so great that it was enough to guard all 
 these frontiers without material help. The over- 
 throw of Alaric struck such fear into all hearts 
 that no subject dared to revolt, no enemy to invade ; 
 even proud Germany remained at peace, and did not 
 risk the passage of the border-stream, although no 
 
 * See above, p. 13, note %. 
 
 t De Bello Getico, 420; 
 
 "Quseque domant Chattos immansuetosque Cheruscos, 
 Hue omnes vertere minas, tutumque remotis 
 Excubiis Rhenum solo terrore relinquunt." 
 
 X lb. 416; 
 
 "Venit et extremis legio prsetenta Britannis, 
 Quae Scoto dat fraena truci, ferroque notatas 
 Perlegit exsangues Picto moriente figuras." 
 As to the particular legion referred to, sixth or twentieth, see 
 Hodgkin, i. 716. 
 
I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 19 
 
 soldier guarded its Roman bank *. And yet this 
 daring flight of panegyric seems to have some ground 
 of fact to start from. When Claudian wrote, things 
 may well have been quiet on the German border ; 
 for they seem to have remained so for more than 
 two years longer. We have no record of any 
 movements on the Ehine till the date, so minutely 
 given, when, on the last day of the year 406 f, the 
 great Teutonic invasion of Gaul began. It was an 
 invasion, not an occupation. Those who now crossed 
 the Ehine found no settled dwelling-place till they 
 had crossed the Pyrenees as well. It was Spain, not 
 Gaul, which the actual invaders of the moment tore 
 away from the Empire. To Gaul the actual invasion 
 was a frightful blow ; but, had nothing more come 
 of it, it would have been only a passing blow. It 
 was the working of this great movement on lands 
 
 * De Bello Getico, 423 ; 
 
 "Ullane posteritas credet? Germania quondam 
 Ilia ferox populis, quae vix instantibus olim 
 Principibus tota poterat cum mole teneri, 
 Tarn sese placidse praestat Stilichonis habenis, 
 Ut nee praesidiis nudato limine tentet 
 Expositum calcare solum, nee transeat amnem, 
 Ineustoditam metuens attingere ripam." 
 He goes on with a comparison between Stilicho and Camillus 
 his only equal ; 
 
 "Vestris namque armis Alarici fracta quievit 
 Et Brenni rabies." 
 t Prosper Aq. ; "Arcadio VI et Probo Coss. Vandali et Alani, 
 trajecto Eheno, Gallias pridie kal. Januarias ingressi." Clinton 
 would read " Jun." for " Jan." placing it in the summer instead 
 of in the winter. 
 
 C 2 
 
20 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 
 
 beyond the bounds of Gaul which caused it to have 
 any lasting effect on the state of Gaul itself. 
 
 Our best authority speaks only of Vandals and 
 Alans as having taken part in the invasion. Yet 
 there can be no doubt that those other writers are 
 quite correct who add the name of the Suevians to 
 the list*. These three nations, Vandals, Alans, and 
 Suevians, are those which we find a few years later 
 establishing kingdoms in Spain. And of those we 
 must remark that two only are strictly Teutonic 
 nations. The Alans, though their history is so much 
 mixed up with that of various branches of the Teu- 
 tonic race, and though we may believe that they had 
 become in some measure Teutonized, were in them- 
 selves barbarians in the strictest sense of the word, 
 aliens to Teutonic as well as to Eoman fellowship. 
 Their invasion would of itself, under other circum- 
 stances, have belono-ed to the same class as the later 
 invasions of the Hun, the Avar, and the Magyar. 
 
 * The chief of these is Orosius (vii. 39), whose account we shall 
 have to examine presently. His list is " Gentes Halanorum et, ut dixi, 
 Suevorum, muUceque cum his alice." So Zosimos (vi. 3), who tells 
 the story rather out of place, to explain the causes of the move- 
 ment in Britain which followed the invasion of Gaul, but which he 
 tells before it. His words are iv rois irpoXa^oixn xpovois, eicrov rjbri 
 TrjV vnaTov exovros 'ApKabiov Koi Upo^ov, BavbiXoi 2vr}0o7s Koi 'AXavols 
 eavTovs avafii^avres tovtovs virep^avres tovs totvovs rois vnep "AXirecriv 
 edvfo-iv fXvpTjvavTo. The Vandals are here made the kernel of the 
 invasion, as they are also by Salvianus (Gub. D. vii. 12), who, in 
 describing the Vandals, tells us how " excitata est in perniciem et 
 dedecus nostrum gens ignavissima (cf. Livy, iii. 67 ; v. 28), quae de 
 loco ad locum pergens, de urbe in urbem transiens, universa 
 vastaret." 
 
I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 21 
 
 As it is, their migration is part of the Teutonic 
 migration, a strange side of it, but one which we 
 cannot separate from the other sides. It is an 
 application on a great scale of the universal law that 
 a great national migration always carries with it 
 some who do not belong to the main stock of the 
 invaders, but who are from some cause led to throw 
 in their lot with them. In this way it may be per- 
 fectly true, as we may be led to gather from the words 
 of an ecclesiastical writer, that a crowd of other nations, 
 Teutonic, Slavonic, Heruli, Gepidae, Sarmatians, 
 Quadi, and many others *, had a share of some kind 
 in the work. Detached bands of any of these nations 
 or any others may have followed the lead of any of 
 the chiefs of the movement. But, if so, they were 
 lost in the general mass ; it was the three nations 
 already spoken of. Vandals, Alans, and Suevians, that 
 gave the movement its character ; it is these three 
 that are distinctly visible in the story and in its 
 results ; it is these three that made Gaul a highway 
 to Spain, and that found in Spain an abiding place 
 for a longer or shorter season. 
 
 * Jerome in his letter (xcii. vol. iv. p. 748) to Agerucliia, gives 
 his list ; " Innumerabiles et ferocissimse nationes universas Gallias 
 occuparunt. Quidquid inter Alpes et Pyrenseum est, quod Oceano 
 et Eheno includitur, Quadus, Wandalus, Sarmata, Halani, Gepi- 
 des, Heruli, Burgundiones, Alemani, et, O lugenda respublica, 
 Pannonii hostes vastarunt." The list reads very like a fancy one ; 
 but there must be some special force in this mention of Pannonian 
 enemies. Who are meant % The Huns % 
 
 Fauriel (i. 39) seems to put the Gepidse of Jerome's list in the 
 place which is held by the Suevians in most versions. In i. 42 
 he seems puzzled at hearing so little about them. 
 
22 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 
 
 As to the immediate occasion of the movement 
 we are in the dark. It is hardly possible to reconcile 
 the language of our authorities with the view that 
 the Teutonic invaders of Gaul in this year were the 
 remnants of the host with which the mysterious 
 and terrible Eadagaisus, whether he had any share 
 in the earlier invasion of Italy or not, certainly led 
 into Italy the year before *. But whoever were the 
 followers of Eadagaisus, it seems plain that they 
 were utterly cut off in Italy by the generalship of 
 Stilicho f. And all our accounts speak of the in- 
 
 * This was the view of Gibbon and of the earlier writers to 
 whom he refers. It does not seem to be adopted by any modern 
 scholar (see Hodgkin, i. [733, 739, 824]), and it certainly is not 
 suggested by the language of Prosper and the other writers. 
 Gibbon rests on the phrase of Orosius, that the invading nations 
 were stirred up by Stilicho. See note below on Orosius' charge. 
 
 + Orosius heads his chapter (vii. 37) with the heading, " Ea- 
 dagaisus hostis Italiam intravit et coesus est cum gente sua." And 
 all his expressions are to the same effect ; " Eadagaisus solus . . . 
 suos deseruit." The rest were worn out with hunger or taken 
 prisoners. So Zosimos, vi. 26 ; uTrav to irokeynov navwXedpia di.e(f>- 
 Bfiptv [6 ^TiXixcov] SxTTe fxrjbeva ax^^°^ ^'^ tovtchv TTepiarudrjvai, itXtiv eXa;^i(T- 
 Tovs o(Tovs airos tji 'Pcopaicov irpoaedjjKe avp-fiaxi-a. One may be sure 
 that there is exaggeration in all this ; but such phrases seem quite 
 inconsistent with the notion that the Suevians, Vandals, and 
 Alans who crossed the Ehine under their own kings were the 
 remnant of this defeated host. 
 
 The " luminous passage of Pi'osper's Chronicle," " In tres partes, 
 per divisos principes, divisus [Eatlagaisi] exercitus," is not from 
 the true Prosper, but from the chronicle so oddly called that of 
 Prosper Tiro (see Hodgkin, i. 702-9 [founding himself on 
 Holder-Egger, Neu. Arch. 1876]), and it goes on: "aliquam re- 
 pugnandi Eomanis aperuit facultatem. Insigni triumpho exercitum 
 tertise partis hostium, circumactis Hunnorum auxiliaribus Stilico 
 
I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 23 
 
 vaders of Gaul in this year as nations, nations crossing 
 the Rhine by a fresh movement, not at all as the 
 remnants of a defeated army. That the invasion 
 was planned in concert with Badagaisus — if so, most 
 likely in concert with Alaric — is perfectly possible * ; 
 but it seems easier to suppose that the nations 
 beyond the Rhine simply took advantage of the 
 withdrawal of the legions which followed on Alaric's 
 invasion of Italy. In any case the coming of these 
 armed nations was not unexpected. Honorius, or 
 those who were so busy at the work of legislation 
 in his name, put forth more than one decree in which 
 an attempt was made to provide for the defence of 
 the provinces. But we hear nothing of any move- 
 ments of the legions to the threatened frontier. We 
 find instead, a touching appeal to the lovers of their 
 country, the lovers of peace, to stand forth each man 
 as his zeal and courage called him, and to do each 
 man his duty in this hour of utmost need. The 
 slaves, too, were called on to help ; in such a strait as 
 the land was in it mattered more what a man could 
 do than what was his state of life ; the slaves of the 
 foreigners in the Boman service, and of those who 
 
 usque ad internecionem delevit." It is hard to say what amount 
 of value we should yield to this statement. Its exactness certainly 
 looks as if it rested on some authority; yet it is hard to infer 
 with Gibbon (Cap. xxx, note 4) that the "luminous passage" connects 
 the history of Italy, Gaul, and Germany. The chronicler puts 
 the invasion of Gaul two years later as a wholly distinct event. 
 
 * So Faurielj i. 40. But the passage in Procopius, Bell. Vand. 
 i. 3 (on which see note below), does not seem to bear on the matter. 
 In the other passage which he refers to Jordanes, 31, the Vandals 
 and Alans go into Gaul " ob metum Gottorum." 
 
24 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. ' 
 
 were actually under arms, were specially bidden to 
 go and fight by the side of their masters. The 
 freeman was promised pay and part of that pay in 
 advance ; the slave was promised a lesser pay, but 
 accompanied by the precious gift of freedom *. Such 
 an appeal from an Emperor who certainly had no 
 thought of joining the muster sets us a-thinking ; 
 
 * Clinton pointed out that some of the laws of Honorius, which 
 had been thought to refer to the invasion of Italy by Radagaisus, 
 really refer to the invasion of Gaul. They are dated in the 
 consulship of Arcadius and Probus, that is 406. That which calls 
 on the slaves is, what we should hardly have looked for, a little 
 earlier than that which calls upon the freemen. Its date is 
 Ravenna, xv. Kal. Mai., and it runs thus ; " Contra hostiles impetus 
 non solas jubemus personas considerari, sed vires, et licet ingenuos 
 araore patriae credamus incitari, servos etiam hujus auctoritate 
 edicti exhortamus ut cum primum se bellicis sudoribus ofierant, 
 prsemium libertatis, si apti ad militiam arma susceperint, pulveratici 
 etiam nomine binos solidos acceptari : prsecipue sane eorum servos 
 quos militia armata detentat, foederatorum nihilominus et dediti- 
 ciorum, quoniam ipsos quoque una cum dominis constat bella 
 tractare" (viii. Cod. Theod. Tit. xiii. De Tironibus, p. 387). 
 Gothofred has a note on pulveraticv/ni, which here at least means the 
 pay — earned by services amid the dust of warfare — which was to 
 be the reward of the slave who turned a soldier. The other law 
 (p. 388) is dated from Eavenna two days later ; " Provinciales pro 
 imminentibus necessitatibus omnes invitamus edicto quos exigit ad 
 militiam innata libertas. Ingenui igitur qui militise obtentu arma 
 capiunt amore pacis et patrige, sciant se denos solidos paratis rebus 
 de nostro percepturos serario, quibus tamen ternos ex summa 
 supradicta jam nunc solidos prsebere mandabimus; nam optimos 
 futures confidimus, quos virtus et utilitas publica necessitatibus 
 obtulit." 
 
 We are not told whether the owners of the liberated slaves were 
 to be paid their value, which would seem to be only recoverable in 
 the case of masters who were themselves under arms. 
 
T.] The Invasion of Gaul. 25 
 
 among things we notice that the meaning of the 
 word country — fatria — has widened a good deal since 
 a prince who moved from Rome to Capri was held to 
 have forsaken his country "'^ The Roman name, now 
 shared by all free inhabitants of the Empire, was held 
 to have created a country and a nationality which, 
 artificial as they might be, were deemed, at least 
 officially, to be capable of calling up the feeling of 
 patriotism in men's hearts. 
 
 The barbarians then were making ready for the 
 great migration, and the Romans were at least called 
 upon to make ready to withstand them. But are we 
 to believe that he who before all men united both 
 characters, the greatest of living warriors, barbarian 
 by descent, but beyond all men Roman by calling, 
 had stirred up the nations which now poured into 
 the Empire which he had twice saved % At least one 
 contemporary writer tells us, and at least one later 
 writer copies his tale, that the invaders of Gaul were 
 led thither by the invitation of Stilicho f. He hoped, 
 
 * Tacitus. 
 
 + Orosius (vii. 38) after some other hard words against Stilicho, 
 charging him among other things with sparing the Goths, goes 
 on ; ' Prseterea gentes alias copiis viribusque intolerabiles, quibus 
 nunc Galliarum Hispaniarumque provincise premuntur ; hoc est 
 Halanorum, Suevorum, Wandalorumque, ipsoque simul motu 
 impulsos Burgundionum ultro in arma soUicitans deterso semel 
 Eomani nominis metu suscitavit." And in a following chapter 
 (vii. 40) we read ; "Ante biennium Eomanse irruptionis [the taking 
 of Eome by Alaric] excitatae per Stiliconem gentes, Halanorum, ut 
 dixi, Suevorum, Wandalorum, multseque cum his alias, Francos 
 proterunt, Ehenum transeunt, Gallias invadunt, directoque impetu 
 Pyrenseum usque perveniunt, cujus obice ad tempus repulsse per 
 
26 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 
 
 we are told, that by raising a storm which he trusted 
 to quell, but which none other could, he might be able 
 to transfer the Empire from his son-in-law to his 
 son*. The tale is the statement of an enemy, but, 
 
 circumjacentes provincias refunduntur." Gibbon (c. xxx. note 46) 
 on the phrase " excitatse a Stilichone gentes," says, " They must 
 mean indirectly. He saved Italy at the expense of Gaul," By 
 a somewhat forced construction this meaning might be put on the 
 second passage of Orosius ; but the first distinctly asserts direct 
 dealings with the invaders on the part of Stilicho. 
 
 Of the Burgundians mentioned by Orosius we shall have to 
 speak again. 
 
 To the same effect is the chronicle called Prosper Tiro ; " xvii 
 [Arcedii et Honorii]; Diversarum gentium rabies Gallias dila- 
 cerare exorsa, immissa quam maxime Stiliconis indigne ferentis 
 filio suo regnum negatum." It is not till three years later that he 
 mentions the three nations spoken of by Orosius. 
 
 The bitterest enemy of Stilicho is the poet Kutilius Namatianus ; 
 but his verses (ii. 41 et seqq.) speak rather of Stilicho as letting 
 the Goths into Italy than as doing anything with regard to Gaul. 
 He tells us how Stilicho 
 
 " Immisit Latise barbara tela neci : 
 Visceribus nudis armatum condidit hostem, 
 
 Illato cladis liberiore dolo. 
 Ipse satellitibus pellitis Roma patebat 
 
 Et captiva prius quam caperetur erat : 
 Nee tantum Geticis grassatur proditer armis ; 
 Ante Sibyllinae fata cremavit opis." 
 Sdzomen (viii, 25 ; ix. 4) refers to the charges of treason against 
 Stilicho, but does not speak of this particular charge, unless it lurks 
 in the description of him as -navras ws il-niiv ^ap^dpovs re Koi 'Pdfiaiovs 
 TTfidonevovs ex(ov. Nor has Philostorgius (xi. 3 ; xii. 1), though 
 seemingly hostile to Stilicho, anything about Gaul. 
 
 See also Dahn, K'dnige der Germanen, v. 42 ; Wietersheim, ii. 138. 
 
 * The words of Orosius (vii. 38) are ; " Sperans miser sub 
 
 hac necessitatis circumstantia, quia et extorquere imperium genero 
 
I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 27 
 
 even as the statement of an enemy, it is strange. 
 Yet we can hardly doubt as to disbelieving it. It is 
 not a statement of visible facts : it is a surmise or 
 a mere invention, such as we are used to in all ae^es. 
 In the eyes of Stilicho's enemies, any mischief that 
 happened was necessarily Stilicho's work. 
 
 In any case Stilicho and his legions did not this 
 time fly to the defence of the Gaulish border; nor 
 do we hear to what extent either the patriotic youth 
 of Gaul or the able-bodied slaves of the barbarian 
 mercenaries took up arms at their distant Emperor's 
 bidding, to defend the peace of their country. Such 
 fighting as was done seems to have been the work 
 of defenders of the Empire of another kind. For 
 Vandals, Alans, and Suevians at least did not enter 
 the Gaulish provinces without finding an enemy to 
 withstand them. Something was done in the way 
 of diplomacy or bribery. One Alan leader, Goar 
 by name, was persuaded to forsake the hostile enter- 
 posset in filium, et gentes barbarse tam facile comprimi quam 
 coramoveri valerent. Itaque ubi imperatori Honorio exercituique 
 Eomano bsec tantorum scelerum scena patefacta est, commoto 
 justissimo exercitu occisus est Stilico, qui, ut unum puerum 
 purpura indueret, totius generis humani sanguinem dedit." 
 Orosius bas a suspicious knowledge of the inner workings of 
 Stilicho's mind, for which he is not so good a witness as he is for 
 the crossing of the Rhine. 
 
 The oddest thing of all is the confusion of Gregory of Tours 
 (ii. 9), who misreads the second reference of Orosius into a campaign 
 of Stilicho at the head of the barbarians ; " Horosius autem et ipse 
 historiographus in septimo operis sui libro ita commemorat, Stilicho, 
 congregatis gentibus, Francos proterit, Ehenum transit, Gallias 
 pervagatur, et ad Pyrenseum usque perlabitur." 
 
28 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 
 
 prise, and to enter the service or alliance of Kome. 
 And if the Komans of Gaul failed in their duty, 
 the allies of Kome on the Gaulish border at the 
 present stage of affairs did theirs manfully. The 
 Franks, that is clearly the Kipuarian Franks on the 
 right bank of the Khine, met the Vandals in battle. 
 The Vandal king Godegisl and twenty thousand of 
 his warriors were slain ; the whole Vandal host 
 would have been cut to pieces if the Alan king 
 Eespendial had not come to its help *. The Franks 
 were overthrown by their joint forces, and the invaders 
 seem to have met with no further resistance in 
 passing the border stream or in spreading themselves 
 where they would over the whole land. The districts 
 first to be harried were naturally the lands which^ 
 under Eoman dominion, still bore the German name f , 
 
 * This comes from one of tlie lost writers who were made use 
 of hy Gregory of Tours (ii. 9), him who bears the names of Eenatus 
 Profuturus Frigeridus, which there, as Gibbon (c. xxx. note 28) re- 
 marks, " denote a Christian, a Roman subject, and a semi-barbarian." 
 " Interea Eespendial rex Alamannorum, Goare ad Eomanos trans- 
 gresso, de Eheno agmen suorum convertit, Wandalis Francorum 
 bello laborantibus, Godigyselo rege absumpto, acie vigenti ferme 
 minibus ferro peremptis, cunctis Wandalorum ad internitionem 
 delendis, nisi Alamannorum vis in tempore subvenisset." Wieter- 
 sheim (ii. 158) is of course right in reading "Alanorum" for 
 " Alamannorum." The mistake is more likely to be due to Gregory 
 than to Eenatus. 
 
 This is the explanation of the two words of Orosius, " Francos 
 proterunt." Of Goar we shall hear again. 
 
 Wietersheim points out the error of Procopius (Bell. Vad. i. 3) 
 in making Godegisl lead the Vandals into Spain ; " Doch ist dieser 
 Schriftsteller iiber Fiihereres anzuverlassig." 
 
 t Salvianus, De Gal. vii. 12 ; "Primam a solo patrio effusa est 
 
I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 29 
 
 and whicli by that name might seem almost to invite 
 the kindred invader. Thence they passed into the 
 specially Belgian land, the Franks, it would seem, 
 no longer withstanding them. Thence they passed 
 into the flourishing land of Aquitaine, and step by 
 step spread themselves over the whole of Gaul, 
 through which they marched and harried as they 
 thought good by the space of three years. Of the 
 sufferings of the land we have more than one vivid 
 picture from contemporary hands. Not the castles 
 perched on the rocks, not the towns crowning the 
 lofty hills, not the cities girded by their rivers — the 
 poet of Divine Providence knew well how to hit off 
 the characteristic features of Gaulish sites — could 
 withstand the craft and the arms of the barbarians *. 
 The head of all, the Imperial dwelling of Constantine 
 and Yalentinian, Augusta of the Treveri, shorn now 
 in common speech of its Imperial style, now under- 
 went one of the many sieges and storms that it 
 suffered in that age. All the usual horrors of a sack, 
 fire and sword and leading into captivity, fell on the 
 
 in Germaniam primam, nomine barbaram, ditione Romanam ; post 
 cujus primum exitium arsit regio Belgarum, deinde opes Aquita- 
 norum luxuriantiam, at post hsec corpus omne Galliarum, sed 
 pauUatim id ipsum tamen, ut dum pars clade cseditur, pars exemplo 
 emendaretur." He is here speaking of the Vandals. The words in 
 italics seem quite inconsistent with the notion that these Vandals 
 had formed part of the host of Radagaisus. 
 * Carmen de Divina Providentia, 35 ; 
 
 "Non castella petris, non oppida montibus altis 
 Imposita, aut urbes amnibus sequoreis, 
 Barbarici superare dolos atque arma furoris 
 Evaluere omnes : ultima pertulimus." 
 
30 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 
 
 devoted city. The streets ran with blood and were 
 heaped with dead bodies ; the buildings were black- 
 ened with the flames. We are even told, in the 
 usual style of exaggeration, that the whole city was 
 burned. For it is certain that Trier was not left 
 desolate without an inhabitant. It still remained 
 a city ; and, when the storm had passed by, the first 
 thought of its citizens, of the nobles who seem to 
 have escaped the sack, was to send their prayer 
 to the Emperors that the games of the circus might 
 begin once more among them*. We are not told 
 by which of the nations that shared in the invasion 
 this present overthrow of Trier was wrought ; nor 
 is any such distinction observed in the case of any 
 of the other towns that are specially named. Mainz, 
 Moguntiacum, was stormed and thousands of its 
 people were slain, in the great church f . Venerable 
 
 * Salvianus, vi. 15; " Excisa ter continuatis eversionibus 
 summa urbe Gallorum, cum omnis civitas combusta est. . . . 
 Exciclio unius urbi adfligebantur quoque alise civitates." The 
 hon'ors are painted in full. Then we read; "Pauci nobiles qui 
 excidio superfuerant, quasi pro summo deletse urbis remedio 
 circenses ab imperatoribus postulabant." They are then soundly 
 rebuked. 
 
 The phrase "ab imperatoribus" would seem to point to the 
 lawful Emperors, Honorius and his colleague, rather than to 
 Constantine or to any other of the tyrants. If so, the petition can 
 hardly have been made for some years, when things may have 
 mended a little. It might be in 409, when Honorius acknow- 
 ledged Constantine as a colleague. Salvian clearly exaggerates in 
 his description. Trier was certainly not utterly destroyed, as is 
 witnessed by the buildings earlier than this time, the basilica and 
 parts of the metropolitan church among them, which still remain. 
 
 t Jerome ad Ageruchiam, xci. s. a. 748 ; " Maguntiacum nobilis 
 
I.] The Invasion of Gaul, 31 
 
 as the present representative of that church is, it 
 does not, like the great church of Trier, itself survive 
 as a witness of those awful times. Vangiones, Worms, 
 fell after a long siege ; we might even infer that for 
 a while the city ceased to exist. Rheims, Amiens, 
 Arras — the tribal name had already supplanted the 
 name of the city — Nemetae and Argentoratum, cities 
 to be more famous under their later names of Speyer 
 and Strassburg, suffered the same havoc as Trier and 
 Mainz. The Morini, most distant of mankind, did 
 not escape in their home at Terouanne. Of the 
 towns of northern Gaul no other, save Tournay, is 
 named ; but the like havoc went on through the whole 
 country. None escaped save a few of the towns of 
 the Lyonnese and Narbonnese provinces, of Aquitaine 
 and of Novempopulania, the later Gascony, One city 
 alone of the south is specially mentioned ; Toulouse 
 was in some way spared yet greater sufferings by 
 its bishop Exsuperius, but the griefs which the city 
 did undergo brought tears to the eyes of those who 
 heard of them *. Heathens and heretics cared nought 
 
 quondam civitas capta atque subversa est, et in ecclesia multa 
 hominum millia trucidata." He does not speak of Trier. 
 
 * lb. *' Vangiones longa obsidione deleti. Eemorum urbs 
 prgepotens, Ambiani, Atrabatse, extremique bominum Morini, 
 Tornacum, Nemetse, Argentoratum, translati in Germaniam. Aqui- 
 tanise, Novemque Populorum, Lugdunensis et Narbonensis pro- 
 vincise, prseter paucas urbes populata sunt cuncta. . . . Non 
 possum absque lacrimis Tolosse facere mentionem, quae ut hucusque 
 non fueret sancti episcopi Exsuperii merita prsestiterunt." In bis 
 next letter to Julian, Jerome describes bis correspondent's losses 
 and sufferings tbrougb an incursion of barbarians whicb seems to 
 be tbe same. 
 
32 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 
 
 for sacred places, kings and persons, for the hallowed 
 church and its vessels, for the devout widow, for the 
 consecrated virgin, for the hermit who had withdrawn 
 from the world to serve God in his solitary cave. 
 Barbarians, we are told, cared not for age or sex ; 
 they slew the innocent children with no more mercy 
 than those whose death might be the just punishment 
 for the sins of a longer life■^^ Those who escaped 
 the sword escaped it only to pass into bondage. The 
 sujfiferings of the clergy are told by one of their own 
 body. They were scourged with whips, branded, 
 loaded with chains. The poet himself had to march 
 under the rod along the hard and dusty road among 
 the wagons and weapons of the barbarians, while his 
 aged bishop, torn from his burned city, led his people 
 like the banished shepherd of a flock of wounded 
 sheep f. As usual one plague followed on another ; 
 
 * Carmen de Provideritia, 41 ; 
 
 " Majores aniii ne forte et nequior setas 
 Offenso tulerint quse meruere Deo : 
 Quid pueri insontes, quid commisere puellse 
 Nulla quibus dederat crimina vita brevis % 
 Quare templa Dei licuit popularier igni ? 
 
 Cur violata sacri vasa ministerii ? 
 Non honor innuptas devotee virginitatis, 
 
 Non texit viduas relligionis amor. 
 Ipsi desertis qui vitam ducere in antris 
 
 Luerant, laudantes nocte dieque Deum, 
 Non aliam subiere necem quam quisque profanus ; 
 Idem turbo bonos sustulit atque malos." 
 t lb. 53 ; 
 
 " Nulla sacerdotes reverentia nominis almi 
 Diseruit miseri suppliciis populi ; 
 
I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 33 
 
 if leading into captivity was the fate of those whom 
 the sword spared, the sharp hunger came in the end 
 to slay them who escaped leading into captivity *. 
 Three years of havoc like this wasted the land. No 
 help could come for Kome or Eavenna. The some- 
 thing which professed to be help came from another 
 quarter, though in truth the help rather took the 
 shape of adding the curse of civil war to the curse of 
 barbarian invasion. 
 
 The troops that still kept Britain for Eome passed 
 over into Gaul. Britain was lost ; we can hardly 
 say that Gaul was saved. The barbarians presently 
 passed on to ravage another Roman land, and so 
 
 Sic duris csesi flagris, sic igne perusti, 
 
 Inclusse vinclis sic gemuere manus. 
 Tu quoque pulvereus plaustra inter et arce Getaium 
 
 Carpebas duram hoc sine fasce viam, 
 Cum sacer ille senex plebem usta pulsus ab urbe, 
 Cum pastor laceras duceret exsuisfeves." 
 " Tu" seems to be the poet himself. He had said ; 
 " Heu csede decenni 
 Vandalicis gladiis sternimur et Geticis." 
 The ten years would count from the invasion in 406 to the peace 
 and restoration of Placidia in 416. It is possible therefore that 
 the description of himself and his bishop may belong to a later 
 time than 406-7, and that " Getse " should be taken in the strict 
 sense of " Goths." Yet the picture would seem to refer to an 
 incursion of altogether untamed barbarians rather than to the move- 
 ments of the comparatively civilized West-Goths. 
 
 * Jerome, u. s. " Quas [urbes] ut ipsas foris gladius intus vastat 
 fames." One thinks of the picture drawn in our own tongue 
 (Chron. 1086), " Da ]?a wreccse men laegen fordrifene full neah to 
 deatSe, and sicScSan com se scearpa hunger and adyde hi mid 
 ealle." 
 
 D 
 
34 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 much of Gaul as clave to the Eoman name was left 
 to be torn in pieces by adventurer after adventurer 
 who rose up to take his chance of winning the rule 
 of Gaul or, if his luck carried him so far, the rule of 
 tlie whole Western World. 
 
11. 
 
 [A TYRANT OF THE WEST.] 
 
 We have thus far seen the more part of Gaul 
 harried by invaders, both Teutonic and otherwise, 
 from beyond the Ehine. From the sufferings of 
 another land, from the doings, partly of strangers, 
 partly of more distant kinsfolk, we must turn for 
 a moment to look at the doings of our own people, 
 we must turn for a somewhat longer time to look at 
 the fates of the land which the doings of our own 
 people were before long to make our own land. One 
 annalist of this time, not to be sure the one highest 
 in authority, but the one who seems to have kept his 
 eye most steadily fixed on the matters which most 
 immediately concern ourselves, speaks of Gaul at 
 this time as a land ravaged, not only by Vandals and 
 Alans, but also by Saxons *. Now fully to under- 
 
 * The Pseudo-Pro sper, or whatever we are to call him, has 
 under the sixteenth year of Honorius (409) this entry ; " Saxonum 
 incursione devastatam Galliarum partem Wanali atque Alani 
 vastavere ; quod reliquum fuerat Constantinus tyrannus obsidet." 
 The entry is odd ; he had mentioned (see above, note, p. 26) the 
 invasion of 406 in its right place, but without the mention of 
 Vandals, Alans, or any nations by name. And one does not see 
 why he specially places the harrying of Gaul by Vandals and 
 Alans in the year in which they left Gaul. Still he could hardly 
 have imagined a Saxon inroad, if none had taken place ; and he 
 
 P 2 
 
36 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 stand the course of things in the fifth century, it is 
 ever needful to bear in mind that the events which 
 led to the settlement of Angles and Saxons in the 
 isle of Britain, and thereby to the growth of the 
 Enolish nation in that isle, do not stand alone. Thev 
 form part, we should never forget, no less than the 
 settlements of Burgundians, Franks, and Goths, of 
 the great tale of the Wandering of the Nations. But 
 the story of the Angles and Saxons differs widely in 
 every detail from the story of the Franks and Bur- 
 gundians. How far is the difference marked by the 
 distinction which has for many ages divided the 
 Teutonic race into the two great branches of High 
 and Low % It might be hard to say how far that 
 distinction, a distinction which we may most truly 
 describe as the parting off of the later High-Dutch 
 forms from the elder forms common toGothand Saxon, 
 had already gone in those days. The later Franks, 
 the Eastern Franks, the Franks of the Carolingian 
 age, appear as a High-Dutch people, at any rate as 
 a people ruled by kings whose speech is High-Dutch. 
 But the names borne by the kings of the Merowingian 
 house distinctly keep the Nether-Dutch forms *, and 
 the first settlements of the Franks, those at least 
 
 coDBects it with the Vandal invasion, seemingly placing it a little 
 earlier. And the entry of this year strangely connects itself 
 with the entry of the year before, to which we shall presently 
 come again. Most likely he is right in his facts and confused in 
 his dates. 
 
 * The names for instance beginning with Theod- take essentially 
 the same shape that they would in Gothic or English. The thorn 
 lives ever, in writing at least, in the French forms of Thierry and 
 Thibault. So in Chilpe-ric we have the Low-Dutch form AeZp-. 
 
 I 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 37 
 
 which mark their first appearance in trustworthy- 
 history, are found in those lands on both sides of 
 Ehine which, wherever the speech of the people has 
 been allowed to abide, are Nether-Dutch still. To 
 Gregory of Tours the city which had been Argento- 
 ratum was still Nether-Dutch Strateburg *. The 
 difference is most likely merely one of chronology; 
 when the first Frank ish conquests began, High- 
 Dutch was not yet, and Chlodwig, no less than Alaric, 
 spoke a tongue essentially the same as our own. 
 But if the Saxon and the Frank were still all but 
 one in point of language, their conditions and their 
 relations to other men were widely different. There 
 is already a wide gap between the Northern and 
 the Southern German ; we might rather say between 
 the German of the sea and the German of the land. 
 The German of the land is already either an ally of 
 the Empire, serving in its armies and loaded with its 
 honours, or else he is an experienced invader of its 
 continental provinces. Very often he flits to and fro 
 between the two characters ; but in either or both 
 he has become familiar with Eoman things ; even as 
 an enemy he is not untouched with admiration and 
 reverence for the state of things into the midst of 
 which he forces his way. In the Gaulish wars of 
 the fifth century the Frank steadily appears as the 
 ally of Kome, till he finds it convenient to overthrow 
 the last remnant of Eoman authority in Gaul, and 
 that, it may be, in the character of the officer of 
 a lawful Emperor overthrowing the rule of a tyrant f. 
 
 * Greg, Tur. ix. 36, x. 19. 
 
 t It is, to say the least, worth arguing whether Chlodwig did 
 
38 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 All the incursions of the Franks, like those of the 
 Goths, are made by land. Both Franks and Goths 
 have been heard of on the water in earlier days * ; 
 but on the water they wrought only sudden and 
 passing exploits ; the historic life of both those 
 nations was wholly a life by land. Altogether unlike 
 them in this age are the northern Germans, the 
 Germans of the sea, the men who have not been 
 brought within the magic circle of Koman friendship 
 and Koman enmity, who have yet to be taught that 
 feeling towards the mighty past of the Empire and 
 its still abiding present which was felt ahke by the 
 heathen Frank and the Arian Goth. I said that 
 they had not been brought within the magic circle 
 of Eoman enmity any more than within that of 
 Eoman friendship. They had indeed felt, alike in 
 Gaul and on the coasts of Britain, the might of Eome 
 when Kome was ruled by Valentinian f ; but they 
 had simply been beaten back in isolated invasions ; 
 the German of the sea had not gone through the 
 same unbroken apprenticeship to Eoman ways which 
 the German of the land found as much in his warfare 
 against Eome as in his warfare under the Eoman 
 banners. The main cause of the difference doubtless 
 lay in the fact that he was the German of the sea. 
 The Saxons of this age answer to the Danes and 
 Northmen of the ninth and tenth centuries, in whom, 
 
 not overthrow Syagrius in tte character of an officer of the 
 Emperor Zeno. 
 
 * See Aurelius Victor, Csesares 23, Zosimos, 1. 
 
 t See the Saxon wars of Valentinian's reiga in Ammianus, 
 xxvii. 8, xxviii. 2, 5. 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 
 
 39 
 
 after an interval of some ages, the heathen and sea- 
 faring Teutonic warrior again comes to life. But the 
 Danes and Northmen come on us as a kind of second 
 outburst of the great Wandering after a lull of 
 centuries ; the Saxon expeditions and settlements 
 of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries are as essen- 
 tially a part of the first great movement as the 
 marches of Alaric ; they form one special side of it, 
 a side that has a character of its own, but both are 
 alike parts of the same great drama. Specially must 
 it be borne in mind that the Saxon inroads of the 
 fifth century, just like the Scandinavian inroads of 
 the ninth, touched both sides of the Channel alike, 
 and that settlements were made on both sides alike. 
 The Saxon of the fifth century seems to have been 
 before all things a haunter of the Channel ; we do 
 not hear of him now, as we do at a time a little 
 earlier*, as threatening the shores of Northern 
 Britain. It is the British sea, the sea which parted 
 Gaul and Britain, which was his special home ; it 
 was there that it was his sport to cleave the wave 
 with his light barks clothed, not yet with iron, but 
 with the skins of slaughtered oxen ; there it was 
 that the men of Armorica were ever looking for hira 
 as the sea-rover who was to bring desolation to their 
 coasts t- Yet he did not always keep himself within 
 
 * See the passages from Claudian collected in N. C. i. 11; 
 " Maduerunt Saxone fuse Orcades," &c. 
 t Sidonius, Pan. in Avitum, 369 ; 
 
 " Quin et Aremoricus piratam Saxona tractus 
 Sperabat, cui pelle salum sulcare Britannum 
 Ludus, et assuto glaucum mare findere lembo. 
 
40 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 the narrow seas; he could brave the strength of 
 Ocean himself, and show himself as a sudden enemy 
 on the western coast of Gaul * . In the eyes of the 
 men on whose shores they showed themselves every 
 Saxon was a sea-robber, a chief of sea-robbers ; 
 plunder was the one trade which they all learned ; it 
 was the one work which the leaders enforced, and 
 which the followers undertook with gladness t. The 
 Saxon was an enemy at once fiercer and more wary 
 than all other enemies ; he was schooled in ship- 
 wrecks ; no danger daunted him ; he fell suddenly 
 on those who did not look for him ; he escaped in 
 safety from those who was looking out for his 
 coming \. The gods of his bloody creed called for the 
 
 Francus Germanum primum Belgamque secundum 
 Sternebat, Rhenumque, ferox Alamanne, bibebas 
 Eomanis ripis." 
 The advance of the Saxons by sea and of the other nations by 
 land is here well marked. 
 
 * See the letter of Sidonius to Nammatius (Ep. viii. 3, ed. 
 Baret), where he gives a picture of the Saxon sea-rovers (cf. 
 Hodgkin, Invaders of Italy, ii. 366). News is brought from 
 Saintes that his friend was called upon " littoribus Oceani curvis 
 inerrare contra Saxonum pandos myoparones." Much learning 
 about the " myoparones " will be found at p. 506 and p. 98 of the 
 old edition of Sidonius by Savaron. Some seem to make the 
 " myoparones " mere coracles, such as seem to be implied in the 
 word " pelle " in the extract in the last note. Others, who are 
 surely right, make them much larger ships, doubtless the " lembi " 
 of the same extract, the Illyrian X€>/3oi of which we read so often 
 in Polybios. They are, I presume, the " keels " of our own story, 
 t lb. ; " Saxonum . . . quorum quot remiges videris, totidem te 
 cernere putes archipiratas ; ita simul omnes imperant, parent, 
 decent, discunt latrocinari." 
 
 % lb. ; " Hostis est omni hoste truculentior. Improvisus aggre- 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 4i 
 
 slaughter and torture of his captives; when he was 
 about to turn his sails from the mainland to his own 
 home, he deemed it a sacred duty to pick out one 
 man out of every ten to perish by a cruel death as 
 the thank-offering of their captor's piety *. So did 
 our fathers look in the eyes of the man who has 
 made the Gaul of the fifth century a living thing for 
 all time. That the Saxon in these days never appears 
 as the ally of Eome is hardly needful to say. While 
 the Frank fights under the Imperial banner, the 
 Saxon leagues himself with the Goth as the enemy 
 of both t. 
 
 It is important to notice that the Saxons of these 
 days, inhabitants, one might almost say, of the 
 British seas, not only harried on both sides of the 
 
 ditur, prsevisus elabitur : spernit objectos, sternit incautos ; si 
 sequatur, intercipit, si fugiat, evadit. Ad hoc exercent illos 
 naufragia, non terrent. Est eis qusedam cum discriminibus pelagi 
 non notitia solum sed familiaritas." 
 
 * lb. ; '' Priusquam de continenti in patriam vela laxantes, hostico 
 mordaces ancoras vado vellant,mos est remeaturis decimum quemque 
 captorum per sequales et cruciarias poenas, plus ob hoc tristi quod 
 superstitioso litu necare, superque collectam turbam periturorum 
 mortis iniquitatem Eortis sequitate dispergere. Talibus eligunt 
 votis, victimis solvunt ; et per hujusmodi non tarn sacrificia 
 purgati quam sacrilegia polluti, religiosum putant csedis infaustse 
 perpetratores, de capite captivo magis exigere tormenta quam 
 pretia." 
 
 Orosius also (vii. 32) paints our early picture ; " Saxonum gen- 
 tem in oceani littoribus et paludibus inviis sitam, virtute atque 
 agilitate terribilem, periculosam Eomanis finibus." 
 
 t In the complicated alliances in Gaul between 463 and 468 
 (see Greg. Tur. ii. 18) we find Romans, Franks, and Britons on 
 one side, Goths and Saxons on the other. 
 
42 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 Channel, but establislied themselves onbothsides. The 
 Saxon of Bayeux and the later Saxon of Winchester 
 were colonists who went forth as parts of one general 
 movement, and just as among the Scandinavians of 
 a later time, the same keels often show themselves 
 on both sides of the narrow seas. The results of 
 the settlements have indeed been widely different 
 in the two cases. The coming of the Saxons, along 
 with the kindred Jutes and Angles, of whom, by 
 those names at least, we hear nothing in Gaul, 
 wholly changed the face of Britain. The face of 
 Gaul was immeasureably less changed than the face 
 of Britain, and, so far as it was changed, it was 
 mainly the Frank who changed it. In the new 
 Teutonic Britain which the events of this century 
 called into being, the Saxon is one of the two great 
 elements alongside of the kindred Angle. In Gaul 
 we must always remember that the Saxon is a real 
 element in the mixed population ; but he is a very 
 subordinate element. His work was local and 
 temporary. He kept a field ready for the coming 
 of the Norman. The Scandinavian invaders of Gaul 
 in the ninth century, the Scandinavian settlers in 
 Gaul in the tenth, found a land already partly 
 Teutonic to receive them ; the truest Normandy, 
 Normandy west of Dives, is specially Norman 
 because it is partly Saxon. One main reason which 
 made the Saxon settlements in Britain so much 
 greater and more lasting than those in Gaul was 
 doubtless that in Britain the Saxons and their fellow- 
 invaders by sea, Anglian and Jutish, had the field 
 to themselves. They came in small parties, a few 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 43 
 
 keels at a time ; but they had no Teutonic rivals 
 in Britain, like Goths, Burgundians, and Franks in 
 Gaul, coming by land, and naturally coming in far 
 greater bodies. In Gaul therefore Saxon settlements 
 were small and scattered, and they were gradually 
 merged in the greater Teutonic elements in the 
 country. In Britain they were also small and 
 scattered, but there was nothing to interfere with 
 their growth, except the resistance which they might 
 meet from the Roman and Celtic elements in the 
 land. From the Celtic element in Britain, Saxons 
 and Angles did indeed meet a long and stubborn 
 resistance, such as none of the Teutonic conquerors 
 of Gaul met from any enemy. The Teutonic kingdoms 
 in Gaul were founded in a moment ; all save one 
 fell in a moment. The Teutonic kingdoms in 
 Britain, so much smaller in extent, were the work 
 of generations ; and they did not fail, but were 
 merged into a single kindred whole. But the main 
 difference of all is that in Britain the Teutonic 
 conquerors displaced the Celtic andRoman inhabitants 
 in a way that they never did in Gaul. They did, not 
 only as in Gaul, form one element among the people 
 of the land ; they became the people of the land 
 itself. They made the land England in a sense in 
 which Gaul never became Gothic or Burgundy, or 
 even France. Some of the causes which led the way 
 to the wide difference between Teutonic settlement 
 on the northern and the southern sides of the Channel 
 will meet us in the chain of events which we have 
 just now reached. 
 
 The same annalist who speaks thus casually of 
 
44 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 Saxon harry ings in Gaul of which we have no other 
 record, does not directly connect that harrying with 
 anything that happened in Britain ; but he has 
 a remarkable entry the year before, the meaning of 
 which seems to be that the Roman power in Britain 
 then practically came to an end *. This entry would 
 seem to be meant as a short summary of a chain 
 of stirring events of which we can, by the help 
 of writers who record things more at length, put 
 together something like a continuous narrative. 
 Britain, the other world, was stirred, as Honorius 
 himself was stirred, by the great movement of the 
 Teutonic nations beyond the Ehine. We may 
 perhaps venture to guess that the Saxon harrying 
 of Gaul, so darkly hinted at, had already taken 
 place, and that it had been accompanied by some 
 Saxon harryings in Britain. However this may be, 
 the legions in Britain, forsaken by their Emperors 
 at Bavenna, feared lest the storm which was sweeping 
 over Gaul should spread to Britain alsof. In such 
 a case they took the law into their own hands. 
 While the Germans and Alans were gathering, while 
 Honorius was calling on the patriots of Gaul to arm, 
 the army of Britain chose an Emperor, a tyrant, of 
 their own, Marcus by name. The step was not new. 
 
 * This is the famous entry in the so-called Prosper Tiro under 
 the fifteenth year of Honorius (408) ; " Hac tempestati prse vale- 
 tudine [al. viribus] Eomanorum vires funditus attenuatse Britannise." 
 The reading is doubtful, and the phrases anyhow are odd ; but 
 there seems no doubt as to the general meaning. 
 
 + The well-known saying of Jerome, Ep. xlii. ad Ctesiphontem 
 (vol. iv. p. 481), "Britannia fertilis provincia tyrannorum." 
 
IT.] A Tyrant of the West. 45 
 
 Britain was already known as a land fruitful in 
 tyrants *. There Carausius and Allectus had reigned ; 
 
 * Olympiodoros, p. 451 ; eV ravrais rats BperavviaK, TtpXv fj 'Ovoipiov 
 TO e^dofxov vnaTevaai, es crTatnv Spfirjcrav to eV avrais crTpaTiwTiKov, MdpKov 
 Tiva aveinov avroKpuropa. As Wietersheim (ii. 160) remarks, the date 
 is fixed to 406, as the seventh consulship of Honorius was 407. 
 We thus see the effect of the mere movement of these nations 
 before they actually crossed the Rhine. Olympiodoros tells the 
 story out of place to account for the elevation of Constantino, yet 
 this date so carefully given must surely be trustworthy. It most 
 likely marks the revolt as taking place late in the year 406, 
 perhaps while the two Augusti were already consules designati. 
 Zosimos in his later account (vi. 2 — he has two earlier references 
 to Constantino) seems not to have noticed the force of npo, and places 
 the elevation of Marcus in the seventh consulship, or 407 ; "Ert /3ao-t- 
 
 \evovTos ApKabiov Koi vwdrcov ovTav 'Ovapiov to e^Sopov Koi Qeobocriov 
 TO bivrepov, ol eu TJj Bperavvia (TTparevopfvoi (rraaiaaavrfs dvdyovai MdpKov 
 en\ Tov ^acriXfiov Bpovov koi wj KparoiipTi rav avToBi irpaypdrcov fTTf idovTo. 
 Then, in the same chapter, he goes on to describe Constantino's 
 crossing into Gaul (which he had already recorded in v. 27) and 
 a good deal of what he did there. Then (vi. 3) he goes back to record 
 the migration of 406, and then comes to the election of Marcus a 
 second time. The Vandals, Suevians, and Alans harry Gaul, koI woXvv 
 
 epyacrdpevoi (fjovop im(J3o^oi Koi rots iv Bperavviais arpaTOTretois iyevovTO, 
 crvvqvdyKaaav 8e, teei tov pi) KaTU cr(f)as npoeXdelv^ els rrjv tcov Tvpdvvaav 
 opprjaai xeiporov'iav, MdpKov Xe'yca Koi Tpariavov Kul eVi rovrois KavrrTav- 
 
 Tivov. So Sozomen (ix. 11), who takes a more general view; vtto 
 fie TovTov TOV xpovov [the taking of Rome] noWav dviaTapevav Tvpdvvcav 
 ev TTJ Trpos bvaiv apxfj, oi pev irpos dXkrjKoav TrinTOpres, ol 8e 7;apa86^a>s 
 avWap^avopevoi, ov ttjv Tvxovaav enepapTvpovp 'Ovapia 6eo<j)iXeiap. 
 UpaTop pev yap ol iv BperraPia (rraaidcravTes tTTpaTiatTai, dvayopevovai 
 MdpKop Tvpappop' pfTu 8e tovtov FpaTiavop, dpfXovTes MdpKop' irrel 8e Kal 
 ovTos oi) TvKiop Tecrcrdpap prjpSyp duXdovTap icfiopevdrj nap' avTa>p, iraXiv 
 K<0P(TTaPTiP0P \eip0T0P0v<Ttp' olrjOePTts KadoTi Tavrrjp fixe Trpoarjyopiap koi 
 Pf^aias avTov KpaTrjafiP ttjp ^a<TiX(iap' €K ToiavTijs yap aiTias (f)aivovTat 
 Ka\ Tovs aXXovs fs Tvpapviha eTTiXe^dpevoi. This seems to imply that 
 Marcus and Gratian, as well as Constantine, were chosen on account 
 
46 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 thence Maximus had gone forth to occupy Gaul and 
 to threaten Italy ; thence the great Constantine him- 
 self had gone forth to win the diadem of the world, 
 with the risk that, if he had failed to win it, he too 
 might have been handed down in history simply as 
 one of the same class as Maximus. But Marcus was 
 not as Constantine ; he was not as Maximus or as 
 Carausius. He and his electors failed to agree*; he 
 was speedily slain ; a man of the province was next 
 chosen, who bore one of the names current in the 
 house of Theodosius. But the British Gratian was 
 also killed after a reign of four months, and in the 
 course of the next year, the year of the seventh 
 consulship of Honorius, a choice which lasted some- 
 what longer was made. A private soldier was chosen, 
 recommended, we are told, by no merit except that 
 he bore the name of the most lucky of his predecessors 
 in the choice of a British army. Another Constantine 
 was chosen, in the hope that his great name would 
 bring good luck with it; and he was hailed as 
 Augustus in the island where the first bearer of it 
 had been first so hailed f. We hear of the acts of 
 
 of their imperial names. It must be rememberetl that several of 
 our authorities leave out Marcus and Gratian, and begin the British 
 story with the elevation of Constantine. 
 
 * Olympiodoros says only, tov 8e [UdpKov] inr' alrav dvaipedevros, 
 Zosimos in a more marked way, dveXovres tovtov as oix SfioXoyovvra 
 Tois avTwv fjdea-i. One would like to know in what the difference 
 lay. 
 
 t Olymp. U. S. ; Tpanavos avTois dvTiKaBiirrarai, eirel Se Km ovtos fls 
 TfTpaixTjvov avTois 7rpoiTKopr]s yeyopas a.iTe(T(f>dyrj, KavcrTavrivos Tore els to 
 TOV avTOKpdTopos dva^i^d^fTM ovopa. So Zosimos (vi. 2) ; ayova-i Tpariavov 
 fls piaov Kai oKovpyiba kcu uTfcfiavov ewiOevTeg i8opv(p6povv «s /3ao-iXea" 
 
Ti.] A Tyrant of the West. 47 
 
 Constantine only from his enemies ; their portrait 
 is of course unfavourable ; yet he must have differed 
 in some way from his two momentary predecessors ; 
 he must at least have had some strength of character 
 to do all that he did, and to bear up for several 
 years against enemies of all kinds and from all 
 quarters. The tale of his first acts is but darkly 
 told, or rather the facts are fairly clear, but it is 
 less easy to judge of causes and motives. Almost 
 
 dva-apearrjaavres 8f Koi Tovra Tea-crapcnv vcrrepov firj(ri TrapaKvaavTes dvat- 
 povari, KavaTavTivm irapabopres rfjv ^aaiXeiav, Sozomen has been quoted 
 already in note, p. 45. Orosius (vii. 40) leaves out Marcus, but 
 mentions Gratian ; " His [Halanis, Wandalis, et Suevis] per 
 Gallias bacchantibus apud Britannias Gratianus municeps ejusdem 
 insulse tyrannus creatur et occiditur. Hujus loco Constantinus 
 ex infima militia, propter solam spem nominis sine merito virtutis 
 eligitur." This looks as if Gratian was not a soldier, but a native 
 or inhabitant of Britain of whatever class. It is possible that 
 the four months of Gratian came wholly within the year 407, 
 in which case the harrying of Gaul would have begun before his 
 election. Prosper does not mention either Marcus or Gratian; 
 but he gives the right date for the elevation of Constantine ; 
 " Honorio vii et Theodosio ii Coss. Constantinus ex infima militia, 
 ob solam speciem nominis in Britannia tyrannus exoritur, et in 
 Gallias transit." Idatius does not trouble himself about British 
 or Gaulish matters, though he has much to say when the invaders 
 reach Spain. Marcellinus knows nothing about them till 411, 
 when he says " Constantinus apud Gallias invasit imperium," and 
 goes on with his later story. 
 
 To these we may in a manner add Zosimos in his first account 
 of Constantine, v. 27 (see below, note, p. 49). One is tempted to 
 think that he knew nothing about Marcus and Gratian till he 
 wrote the latter account. It would almost seem as if nothing was 
 known in Italy of the movements in Britain till Constantine had 
 actually landed in Gaul. 
 
48 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [it. 
 
 the first act of the British tyrant was to forsake his 
 island and to carry the legions across to Gaul. Of 
 his motives for this step we are told nothing. We 
 may read the tale in several ways. Some of the 
 expressions used in describing the elevation of 
 Marcus almost read like a formal secession from Eome 
 and the establishment of a separate empire in Britain. 
 But, if such notions were really held the year before, 
 they certainly had no place in the policy of Con- 
 stantine. It might rather seem that his object was 
 to preserve the unity of the Empire, at any rate the 
 unity of its provinces beyond the Alps. In this 
 view it niio'ht be a wise course not to wait to be 
 attacked in the island, but to cross to the mainland 
 and to deal a blow at the enemy on what he was ' 
 fast making his own ground. Britain might thus be 
 saved by a campaign in Gaul. But if this was the 
 motive, the thought of saving Britain must soon have 
 passed away from the minds of Constantine and his 
 soldiers. Whether they cared for such, an object or 
 not, the course of things on the mainland soon made 
 it hopeless for them to think of keeping up any 
 relations with the great island. The crossing of 
 Constantine into Gaul thus became the end of the 
 Eoman power in Britain *. 
 
 He landed at that Bononia of northern Gaul, once 
 Gessoriacum, which, though not the starting-point 
 
 * The words of Olympiodoros (p. 451) are noteworthy; ras 
 BpeTTavias edaar, TTfpaiovrai afia twu airov eTit Bovaviai', The phrase of 
 Zosimos (vi. 2) ttjv Bperravlav KaraXinatv is hardly SO expressive ; but 
 of course neither was meant to convey the whole of its full 
 meaning. 
 
IT.] A Tyrant of the West. 49 
 
 of Caesar, has been in all ages one of the chief points 
 of passage between the island and the mainland *. 
 He brought with him, it would seem, the whole of 
 the Eoman force with which Britain had been held or 
 defended. It was under the command of two generals, 
 Justinian or Justin, and Neobigast, and it would 
 seem that it was put under their command before 
 the army left Britain f. Of their names, the one is 
 clearly Eoman, the other clearly Frankisb, and we 
 shall presently see that Constantine was on good 
 terms with others of the Prankish allies or subjects 
 of Eome. His stay at Boulogne was not long ; but 
 it is hard to trace his course in the early stages 
 of his advance. He presently gathered under his 
 obedience whatever troops were to be found in Gaul, 
 whether Frankish allies, legionaries who had been left 
 behind by Stilicho, or patriots who had answered 
 the summons of Honorius the year before J. The 
 
 * 01ympiod6ros (p. 451) describes Boulogne as Boj/cai/t'a, ttoXi? 
 
 QVTdi KoXovfievT], TrapadaXaaa-ia Koi TrpdiTi] iv tols rcav TiiKKiav opiois Keifievrj, 
 The description of Zosimos (vi. 2) is more remarkable ; Trparr} Se avrt] 
 irpos Ttj 6a\d(T(rrj Kflrai., Tepfiav'ias ovaa jroXty t^s kutco. One IS re- 
 minded of bis description of Paris (iii. 9) as Tepp.av'i.as noklxvrj. 
 
 t Olympiodoros at least says, 'lovarivov kcli Neo^iyaa-Trjv a-TpaTTjyovs 
 1rpo^aK6p.evos Koi tch Bperavvlas eaa-as, Trepaiovrai. Zosimos WOrds are, 
 6 8e 'lovcTTiviauov Koi Ne^toydoTJ/v apx^eiv rav iv KeArots arpaTicoTaiv 
 
 eTrepaiadr). It would almost seem as if they crossed before their 
 master. Nebiogast is clearly a Frankish name, like Arbogast and 
 like the four sages of the Saliau Law, Wisogast, Bodogast [or 
 Arogast], Saligast, and Windogast. A. Holder, Lex Salica (St. 
 Gallen MS. 731 and Ed. Heroldina), Leipzig, 1880. 
 
 X Olympiodoros, u. s. ; epda [ev Bovavi^ StarptS/^as aal o\ov rov TaKKov 
 Ka\ 'Akvtovov (TTpaTia)Tr]v l8i(moirja-dp,€vos. The opposition between 
 Gaul and Aquitaine is curious. So Zosimos ; navTa olKeiaadfievos ra 
 
 E 
 
50 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 authority of Honorius was represented in Gaul by 
 the Prsefect Limenius and the general Chariobaudes*. 
 The name of this last speaks for his barbarian birth ; 
 we seem to see in him an English Herebald. Of 
 their action at the moment of invasion we hear 
 nothing. These names appear only at a later stage, 
 when we are told that they had fled before the 
 tyrant. But at what stage of his course they fled, 
 and whether they oflered any armed resistance to 
 the invader before they fled, on these points we are 
 left whoUy in the dark. On the whole the chances 
 are against any fighting between the followers of 
 Constantine and any who remained loyal to Honorius. 
 Our authorities are most confused ; but on the whole 
 the story reads as if so much of Gaul as still obeyed 
 any Boman prince at all submitted to Constantine 
 without a blow. 
 
 The mission of the new prince, the object which 
 
 o-TpaTiVfjLara fifxP'- ^^^ ^AXTrecov ovra. He makes them stay at Boulogne 
 only a short time, biarpi^as rjjiepas Tivds. Zosimos writes through 
 the whole story as if he got his facts from Olympiodoros, but 
 thought he could improve his language. 
 
 * These two officers are mentioned by Zosimos in his casual 
 way at a later stage, namely at the time when they are murdered ; 
 
 v. 32. The soldiers (see p. 5) rponov nva irapa^opoi yeyovoTfs At/ue- 
 viou Tf Tov iv To'is VTTep ras "AXireis 'ddveaiv ovra ttjs av\r)s virap^ov 
 anoacfxiTTOvtn, koi afia rovra Xapio^avbrjp tov OTpaTtjyov t5>v eKeltre ray- 
 fiarav' ervxov yap 8ia(jivy6vTfs top rvpavvop Koi v7ravTrj<ravTes Kara to 
 
 Tiiajvov Tw ^aa-iXet. Now Honorius does not seem to have been at 
 Ticinum till 408. If therefore Limenius and Chariobaudes went 
 straight from Gaul to the presence of the Emperor, their flight 
 must have been later, at least not till Constantine had reached 
 Aries. But with such a writer as Z6simos one cannot feel certain 
 one way or another. See Fauriel, i. 55. 
 
 I 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 51 
 
 had brought him from Britain into Gaul, was in 
 some way or other to act against the barbarians who 
 were in full force in Gaul, and who were held to 
 threaten Britain. But it is hard to make out his 
 exact relations, either in war or peace, with the 
 barbarians either within or without the Empire, 
 partly perhaps because our authorities take but little 
 pains to distinguish one set of barbarians from 
 another. According to one version, the army of 
 Constantine saw some sharp service against barbarian 
 enemies, and that seemingly not very long after his 
 landing. We hear of a great battle fought by him 
 or under his auspices, which began wdth a marked 
 Koman success of which the Koman commanders 
 failed to make the most. The barbarians fled; had 
 the Komans pursued, the enemy might have been cut 
 to pieces ; but, as the soldiers or their leaders failed 
 to pursue, the barbarians recovered strength and 
 courage, and, by the accession of new forces, they 
 were enabled to hold themselves at least on equal 
 terms with Constantine *. Of this fighting we are 
 not told the place nor the exact time, nor yet 
 the nationality of the particular enemy. But the 
 story sounds as if the fighting had happened on the 
 frontier against some fresh swarm of barbarians who 
 were striving to make their way into Gaul. For our 
 
 * I see no sign of all this fighting anywhere but in Z6simos, 
 vi. 3, but it may well come from a lost piece of Olympiodoros ; irphs 
 
 ov [Kai/crai/rtj/ovJ fidx^qs Kaprepas yevofievrjs iviKav fieu oi 'Paixaioi, to iroXv 
 tS>v ^ap^apav KaTaa(f)d^avTfs pepos, rois 8e (jievyovcrtv ova ene^fXdovTfS 
 {fj yap hv airavras iravaiXedpia bie({>6(ipav) fi/eSaKav avrois dvaKTtja-apevois 
 TTjv ^TTap Koi ^ap^dpav irXrjdos avvayayuvaiv d^iopd\ovs yivivdai, 
 
 E 2 
 
52 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 informant goes on to say that Constantino placed 
 guards on the borders and secured the whole course 
 of the Ehine. It is a zealous pagan who speaks ; his 
 mind goes back to the days of the hero of his own 
 creed, and he tells us, with some injustice both to 
 the strong reign of Yalentinian and to the more 
 recent exploits of Stilicho, that Constantine guarded 
 the Ehine as it had never been guarded since the 
 days of Julian *. 
 
 On the other hand, the new Emperor or tyrant 
 stands charged with doing the republic great damage 
 by allowing himself to be many times cheated by the 
 barbarians by treaties, vague, it would seem, in their 
 terms, and not strictly kept f. This, we may be sure, 
 refers to the barbarians who were already in Gaul, 
 the Vandals, Suevians, and Alans. Some under- 
 standing between them and Constantine, there must 
 have been. For two years they and he carry on 
 their operations in Gaul, each, it would seem, without 
 any interruption from the other. And when the 
 scene of action is moved from Gaul to Spain, each 
 party carries on its operations there also with as 
 little of mutual let or hindrance. It was most likely 
 only by winking at their presence and at their 
 doings that Constantine obtained possession, so far 
 as Eoman troops and Eoraan administration were 
 
 Zosiinos, VI. 3 ', 8ia rmra toIpvv tovtois tois tottoh (jiiiXaKas eyKare- 
 CTTTjae KavcrravTwoiy as av fxr/ rrjV eli TaKariav dveifiivTjv €)(Oiev irapahov. 
 (yKartcTTrjcre 8e koi tm 'Frjva naaav d(T(paKetav, eK tS>v '\ovki,avov ^a(TiKea><! 
 j(p6v<i3V padvurjde'icrav. 
 
 t Orosius, vii. 40 ; " Ibi [in Galliis] ssepe a barbaris incertis 
 foederibus illusus detrimento magis reipublicae fuit." 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 53 
 
 concerned, of all Gaul from the Channel to the Alps. 
 Certain it is that, at no very long time after his 
 landing, before the end of the year 407, he was 
 possessed of it*. But at that moment no Koman 
 prince could be possessed of much authority in 
 central or western Gaul, where Vandals, Suevians, and 
 Alans were ravaging at pleasure. The dominions of . 
 Constantino must have consisted of a long and narrow i- 
 strip of eastern Gaul, from the Channel to the 
 Mediterranean, which could not have differed very 
 widely from the earliest and most extended of the 
 many uses of the word Lotharingia. He held the 
 Imperial city on the Mosel, the home of Valentinian 
 and the earlier Constantino. Trier, ever ready to rise '^ 
 again from her ashes, rose this time among others, 
 and Constantino may have been, though at a some- 
 what later time, one of the princes to whom her 
 citizens made their prayer for the restoration of their 
 darling games f . Certain it is, from the sure evidence 
 of coins struck there in his name, that he was the 
 acknowledged Emperor in the Treveran Augusta J. 
 The palace of Valentinian, the mighty basilica, the 
 venerable church, as yet in its first and untouched 
 state, the bridge that yokes the river sung by 
 
 * As far as one can make anything out from the confused and 
 casual statement of Zosimos (v. 27), Constantine was looked on as 
 practically master of Gaul before the end of 407. But compare 
 this passage with another in v. 31 ; this looks as if at the 
 moment just spoken of he was not as yet in actual possession of 
 Aries. 
 
 t See above, p. 30. 
 
 X On the coins of Constantine struck at Trier, see Clinton in an. 
 407, and Jahn, Geschichte der Burgundionen, i. 288. 
 
54 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 Ausonius, all that we look down on from the wooded 
 hills that guard the Imperial head of Gaul, all had 
 passed into the possession, and we cannot doubt that 
 it must for a while have beheld the presence, of 
 a third adventurer from Britain. 
 
 Of those three adventurers the second had perished. 
 Maximus was recorded in history simply as a tyrant ; 
 but one Constantino had marched from Britain and 
 from Trier to the highest pitch of power and glory, 
 and another might be destined to equal luck. It 
 did not suit the purposes of Constantino to establish 
 the chief seat of his power by the Khine or the 
 Mosel. He could perhaps, he thought, deal more 
 easily with the barbarians beyond the Ehine than 
 with the rival Emperor beyond the Alps. The chief 
 seat of his new dominion must be nearer to Italy. 
 From henceforth we hear of him chiefly or only in 
 the south-eastern corner of Gaul, the land which 
 was soon to take a new name from its Burgundian 
 conquerors. The land between the Ehone and the 
 Alps, whose renowned cities still live to awe and 
 teach us by the greatness of their Koman works, 
 now becomes the main centre of our tale. Italy, 
 Aquitaine, Britain, even Spain, are for us little more 
 than scenes of occasional episodes. Each of the cities 
 by the broad and rushing stream seems called on in 
 these strange times to stand a siege in the cause of 
 some Emperor or tyrant, and commonly to behold 
 his end. And one city, the foremost of them all 
 since Phokaian Massalia had sunk for a while to 
 a secondary place, was specially bound up with the 
 reign and fate of Constantino. Hardly when the 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 55 
 
 first news came of his crossing the Channel, but at 
 the time when his rival of Bome and Kavenna began 
 to take counsel against him, one sign of the nearness 
 and greatness of the danger was that Constantine 
 reigned in Arelate. The city that was in after-days 
 to give its name to a kingdom was then at the 
 height of its greatness. Its wealth, its splendour, 
 its commerce, that brought to it the good things of 
 every quarter of the world, were sung in the verses 
 of poets and recorded in the edicts of Emperors"^''. 
 Not then, as now, sitting by the side of one mighty 
 stream, but like Kavenna then, like Venice now, 
 floating on many waters, untouched by the blows 
 which were fast falling on Imperial Trier, Aries, now 
 so sadly fallen from its ancient greatness, stood high 
 among the cities of Europe, ready to take the place 
 presently to be granted to it in form, of the head of 
 all the Gauls f. Already did the walls of which such 
 mighty relics abide shelter the dwelling-places of the 
 living ; already did the Elysian Fields, now narrowed 
 and dishonoured, shelter the long line of the tombs, 
 aHke of pagan and Christian dead ; theatre and 
 amphitheatre lifted their bulk, still whole and 
 perfect, the mass of the arena soaring as now above 
 the city, still the home of the savage sports of 
 warfare, but not yet a house of war, its outline as 
 yet unbroken by the towers reared, some say during 
 the momentary possession of the Arab, some say to 
 
 * Ausonius, Ordo Nobilium Urbium. 
 
 t See the Edict of Honorius in the Theodosian Code. It is 
 printed also in Duchfesne, i. 85, Cf. Cass. Var. viii. 10. On the 
 old position of Aries with regard to the waters, see Ch. Lentheric. 
 
56 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [n: 
 
 hinder his possession from being more than moment- 
 ary. Some great basihca fresh from the builders' 
 hands must have rivalled the glories of Eome and 
 Eavenna, on the spot where now stands the imperial 
 church, the dome where the crown that was specially 
 the crown of Aries was set on the head of that 
 Frederick who granted the Peace of Constance and 
 that Charles who signed the most renowned of 
 Golden Bulls. And if as yet Aries could not as in 
 after-days boast of the imperial church, she could 
 boast of an imperial palace. Already by the Ehone 
 stood the still abiding tower, a fragment now of a 
 vast pile that has crumbled into ruin, the tower which 
 still bears the name of the earlier Constantine and 
 which now stood ready to become the dwelling-place 
 of his namesake. That the tyrant reigned in the 
 lesser Eome of Gaul* was news that might well 
 strike fear in the greater Eome of Italy and even 
 within the impregnable ramparts and waters of 
 Eavenna. To Constantine himself the possession 
 of this great city seemed the outward sign of the 
 completion of his hopes. Secure, as he deemed 
 himself, on the throne at least of all the Gauls, he 
 began to take steps for founding a dynasty, a dynasty 
 which might call up again the memory of the 
 Imperial house whose greatest name he bore. He 
 had two sons, both bearing Flavian names, Constans 
 and Julian, the former of whom is said to have been 
 a professed monk. But, when the aggrandizement 
 of his family was concerned, Constantine had slight 
 
 * " Gallula Roma Arelas." O. N. U., Ausonius. 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 57 
 
 regard to ecclesiastical scruples. Constans was called 
 from his monastery to receive the rank of Caesar, 
 and to take an active part in government and war- 
 fare. His younger brother at the same time received 
 the title of Nobilissimus *. 
 
 We are without exact dates ; but the news of the 
 landing of Constantine in Gaul, the news of the 
 occupation of Trier and of Aries, could not have been, 
 very long in reaching Italy. We are not told 
 whether the beginnings of revolt in Britain, the rise 
 and fall of Marcus and of Gratian, had ever been heard 
 of at Eome or Eavenna ; at any rate they are not 
 recorded as having led to any action on the part of 
 the central power. It was otherwise when the 
 successive messages came that Constantine had 
 landed in Gaul and that he was playing the part of 
 Emperor in city after city, and again that he had 
 passed through the whole land and had set up his 
 throne at Arelate f. When the first message came, 
 
 * Olympiodoros as cited ; ovtos hvo iraibas ea-xe Kavcrravra Koi 'lou- 
 "hiavov, oiv Tov fi€V Kavaravra Kaiaapa xeipoTovel, eiravarepov Kara ras avras 
 
 Tjpepai KOI TOV ^lovXiavov va^iKiaaipiov, So Zosimos (vi. 4), who calls Con- 
 stans Trpecr^vTepos tS>p naiBcov, but does not mention Julian by name. 
 The monastic profession of Constans comes from Orosius ; " Con- 
 stantem filium suum, proh dolor, ex monacbo Csesarem factum." 
 The collection of Flavian names in the family of this private soldier 
 is certainly remarkable. Most likely they were popular in Britain. 
 Gregory of Tours (ii. 9) calls Constans Constantius; not so his 
 authorities. 
 
 t So far as it is safe to make any inferences from such a 
 confused tale as that of Zosimos, I seem to see two messages. One 
 (v. 27) comes when Honorius is at Eome and Stilicho at Eavenna — 
 
 idrfKoiiTO ms KtavaraVTlvos eiri6ep.evos e'lr] tt} rvpavvibi Koi eK tt)s BpfTavviKTJs 
 vfjo-ov Trepaim6e\s iv to'ls vnep ras "AXneis e6v€(ri TrapayevoiTo, to, ^aai\fa)s 
 
58 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 Honorius, Emperor and Consul, was at an unusual 
 place, namely in Eome itself. Stilicho was at 
 Ravenna. At that moment tlie friend of Alaric, he 
 was, we are told, making ready for an expedition 
 beyond Hadria, to be carried on in fellowship with 
 the Gothic king, an expedition the object of which 
 was to transfer the cities of lUyricum from the 
 obedience of Arcadius to that of Honorius. His 
 schemes were thwarted by two rumours, by a false 
 report of the death of Alaric and by the true report 
 of the advance of Constantino. This last news was 
 announced to Stilicho by letters from Honorius him- 
 self*. It was not often, one would think, that the 
 Augustus had news to tell to the Consular, news at 
 least of a graver kind than the revolutions of the 
 poultry-yard. Stilicho now gave up the thought of 
 an Illyrian campaign, and hastened to consult — so 
 we are told — his sovereign as to what was to be 
 done. When Gaul had been attacked by a vast 
 alliance of barbarians, nothing had been done beyond 
 the issuing of proclamations in the province itself. 
 
 iv Tails TToKeai npaTTcov. This seems to be still in 407. Then, under 
 the next consuls (see v. 28), come deliberations of Honorius and 
 Stilicho (v. 31) at Bologna, in which one consideration is, ^8r, Kav- 
 (TTavTLVov Tov Tvpdvuov TTjv TdkaTiav naarav StaSpaynoi/ros Koi iv rfi ApeXdrat 
 SiarpidovTos. These, in any writer who at all regarded order, would 
 imply two stages. 
 
 * Zosimos, V. 27. Stilicho is making ready atEavenna; but 8vo 
 
 KoiKvfiaTa avve^T) irapenneaelv, ^Tjfij] re i>s 'Wdpixos TeQveats eijj hiabpapiovaa 
 Koi €K TTJs 'Pa>firis 'Ovaplov ypafipara tuv jSatrtXecos duaSodevra, These con- 
 tained the first piece of news in the last note, p. 57. The report about 
 Alaric was doubtful, and was soon known to be false ; ra 8e irepX ttjs 
 dvapp^a fas Kavaraprivov "Keyofieva irapa irduriv eKpoTfi. Kanke, iv. 1. 232. 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 59 
 
 But tbe rise of a rival Emperor was a more serious 
 matter. The deliberations of Stilicho and Honorius 
 seem to have been carried on into the next year(408), the 
 year of the consulship of Bassus and Philip, the year 
 which saw the death of Arcadius at Constantinople, 
 the year in which Honorius — if we can give Honorius 
 the praise or blame of any deed good or bad — used, in 
 the phrase of the next generation, his left hand to 
 cut oif his right, by the slaughter of Stilicho himself*. 
 But at the beginning of the year Stilicho is still in 
 favour and Honorius contracts the second of his 
 strange marriages with the daughters of the great 
 Vandal f. Disputes with Alaric, now known to be 
 alive, follow; he is ready for warfare in the East, 
 for which Stilicho, with Constantino in Gaul, no 
 longer designs him. With the tyrant at Aries, his 
 counsel now was to send no less a champion than 
 Alaric himself, in the character of a Koman general, 
 to win back the lost provinces for their lawful prince. 
 He himself, Stilicho, will undertake the affairs of the 
 East, while the West-Gothic king represents the true 
 majesty of Eome beyond the Alps \. 
 
 A day was to come before long when a West- 
 Gothic king was to go on such an errand, but the 
 
 * The saying of the barbarian to the last Valentinian after the 
 murder of Aetius (Procop. Bell. Vand. i. 4) ; oti avrov rrfv Be^iav rfi 
 
 erepa X"P' dnoTefiav fir], 
 
 t Zosimos, V. 28. 
 
 X Zosimos, V. 31. Stilicho determines yvafirjv ttjv dplarrjv flvai 
 Koi Tjj iroXiTela \v(TiT€\ova-av, 'AXdpixov fiev eniarpaTeva-at ra rvpavvca, 
 tS)V re (Tvv avra ^ap^apap ayovra fxepos Koi TeXij 'Pw/iaifKci Koi T]y(p.ouas, ot 
 KoivfjcrovcTiv avTia tov Trokep,ov, tt]v eaav Be avTos KaroKri^eiTOai pacrtXecus 
 KeXfvoiTos Koi ypafifiara nepl tov irpaKriov StSdcros. 
 
60 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 work for which Alaric was destined was of another 
 kind. Yet another Goth was sent this very year to 
 do the work of Honorius against Constantine. It is 
 hard, though we are chiefly following one authority, 
 to put the facts together out of a most confused 
 narrative. We hear of the growing influence of 
 Olympius at the court of Honorius, an influence used 
 to bring about the downfall of Stilicho. We hear of 
 Honorius at Ticinum, while Stilicho is at Bologna. 
 We get a picture of the Emperor haranguing the 
 troops who are to march, under whose command we 
 are not told, against the tyrant at Arelate. A mutiny 
 breaks forth, a mutiny which, it is implied, is in 
 some way connected with the intrigues of Olympius 
 against Stilicho. And it is most significant, though 
 we cannot fully understand the significance, that the 
 outbreak of the soldiers led to the slaughter of the 
 two officers, Limenius and Chariobaudes, who had fled 
 before Constantine to Honorius, and who must have 
 joined him quite lately "^^ They were already in the 
 
 * See above, p. 50, note. Honorius is under the influence of Olym- 
 pius. Then (v. 32), says Zosimos, fKTaKKrjBevTcov els to. ^aa-iXtia tS)V 
 arpaTicoTQiv ecjiaiveTO re avrols 6 ^acriXevs Koi els top Kara KcovcTTavnvov rov 
 Tvpavvov 7rape6ap(Tvv€ TtoKepov. Then come the mysterious words, Trept 
 be '2re\L)^a)vos ovdevos KivrjBevros ecpaivero vevcov toIs arpariaiTats 'OXvfnnos 
 Koi axiivep a.vapi.fxvT)crKa>v S)v ervxev avrols ev Trapa^varci 8i.aKe)(6eLS. Then 
 comes the slaughter of Limenius and Chariobaudes, and of [Vin- 
 centius * magister equitum' and Salvius, 6 8e dopea-TiKav rdyparos 
 Trpoea-ras, and] some others. They would thus seem to have been in 
 the interest of Stilicho. As Honorius had been only four days at 
 Ticinum, they could have only just joined him there ; but they 
 need not have come stiaight from Trier, Aries, or whatever part 
 of Gaul they started from. 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 6i 
 
 interest of Stilicho, and on their fate presently follows 
 the fate of Stilicho himself. Yet we read elsewhere 
 that it was at Stilicho's bidding that Sarus, the 
 valiant Goth whose name we so often meet in the 
 history of these times, was sent with a force into 
 Gaul to bring back the land into the obedience of 
 Honorius *. The campaign of Sarus is undoubted ; 
 but we have no means of fixing the relations between 
 his campaign and the force that he held and the 
 contemplated march of the troops that broke out into 
 mutiny at Ticinum. 
 
 Anyhow the newly-built-up throne of Constantine 
 was threatened. Are we to suppose that, after 
 embarking on so hazardous an enterprise, he shrank 
 from personal danger, or that he was conscious of 
 a lack of military skill 1 Some accounts represent 
 him, at a later time at least, as more active at the 
 table than in the camp f. Certain it is that it was 
 not Constantine in person who met the army of 
 Sarus in battle. While the barbarians were marching 
 and harrying throughout the land without let or 
 hindrance, two Roman armies met, both doubtless 
 largely made up of barbarian soldiers. The cause of 
 Constantine was defended by his lieutenant Justinian ; 
 but the fortune of war was on the side of legitimacy. 
 Sarus gained a victory which carried with it the 
 
 * Sarus has been already mentioned by Zosimos, v. 30 ; but our 
 account of this campaign comes wholly from vi. 2 ; Kara tovtovs 
 
 Toiis \p6vovs ^apov tov arpaTTjyov (KnifiTVH pera crTparevparos Kara Kcov- 
 (TTavrivov '2t e\i \ciiv. 
 
 t " Constantinus guise et ventri deditus," says Eenatus Profuturus 
 Frigeridus in Greg. Tur. ii. 9. 
 
62 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 death of Justinian and of the greater part of his 
 army, and the winning of great spoil by the army of 
 Honorius *. Of the details of the fight, of the place, 
 of the exact time, we hear nothing ; but it is clear 
 that it was fought somewhere in the lower Khone- 
 land, and it would seem that the routed army could 
 have been only a small part of the forces of Con- 
 stantino. Where he himself was at the moment we 
 are not told ; we know only that, after the battle, he 
 deemed it wise to secure himself in one of the strong 
 cities of the land, but in one which lies a good way 
 to the north of his newly chosen capital. Many of 
 those cities are greater in old renown, many are 
 richer in abiding remains of Imperial power, but 
 none holds a stronger site ; none looks naore proudly 
 from its height on the great river at its feet, than the 
 city in which Constantino sought shelter against the 
 attack of Sarus. The walls of the Gaulish Valentia 
 do not still stand in witness of those days like the 
 walls of Arelate and the true Vienna ; but in those 
 days the city of the Sagellauni was one of the great 
 fortresses of the land. Its name might suggest the 
 thought of the great prince who had bestowed that 
 name on the recovered regions of the island that 
 Constantino had forsaken. But while the Valentia 
 of Britain did indeed preserve the name of Valen- 
 tinian, the Valentia of Gaul was of older date ; it 
 bore the name of Kome herself, and the Valentia by 
 the Ehone might pass as not only the colony but the 
 
 Zosimos, VI. 2 J 6 6e [^SaposJ 'louortwai/w to (XTparrjya fiera T^f 
 Bvvafieas tijs <tvp avrm a7ravTTj<ras avTov re dvaipei Koi rav oTpartaTav 
 r^u irKfiova pdipav, Koi \eias ttoXX^; yevopevos Kvptos, 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 63 
 
 namesake of the Valentia by the Tiber. There 
 Constantine took his stand. Sarus followed him and 
 laid siege to the strong hill-city. But the Goth 
 went on to sully his hitherto honourable successes 
 by a deed of foul treachery. One of Constan tine's 
 generals, the Eoman Justinian, had fallen in battle ; 
 the other, the Frankish Nebiogast, now made friendly 
 advances to Sarus ; oaths were exchanged ; but oaths 
 went for little with Sarus, and Nebiogast was pre- 
 sently put to death*. And now, after these successes, 
 the whole enterprise of which Sarus was the head 
 breaks down in a strange way, which we should be 
 well pleased to have explained to us at greater 
 length. The murder of Nebiogast must have 
 happened while Sarus was before Valence, which 
 was no great length of time. To replace his lost 
 generals, Constantine appointed two men whose 
 military reputation would seem to have been higher 
 than theirs. Another Frank, Edeobich or Edobich 
 by name, and Gerontius, who had come from Britain, 
 and in whom we can hardly fail to see a name-father 
 of more than one British Gerent, were put at the 
 head of the forces of Constantine. Sarus, we are told, 
 was so fearful of their skill and experience in war that 
 he raised the siege of Valence on the seventh day f. 
 
 lb. «r«8^ YLavaravrivQv avTov eypto noXiv KaraKa^ovTa 'BoKevriav, 
 apKov(Tav avT(S irpos d(T(f)d\eiau, els TToKiopKiav KaTfarrjae. Ne^Stoydorou 8e 
 Tov XfiTTOfjLePov arpaTTjyov Xoyovs tw Sdpco Trepl (piXias npocrdyopTos 
 i8e)(fTo pev a>s (f>iKop top apbpa, bovs 8e Koi Xa/Scbf opKovs dpaipel irapaxprjpa, 
 prjbeva tS>p opKcop itoirjcrdpevos \6yov. 
 
 \ lb. KoiPfTTaPTiPov 8e arrpaTrjyov KaTaarrjaavros 'EScojStyp^oi' ^pdyKOV 
 uPTa TO yeVof, TepopTiop 8e dno rrjs Bperrapias o/a/iw/ieyoi', detcras 6 'Sdpos 
 
64 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 His object was now to get back into Italy ; the 
 generals of Constantine overtook him with a great 
 force and brought him to great straits. But the 
 words of our story would seem to imply that this 
 was rather by harassing his march than by an actual 
 battle. He escaped into Italy with great difficulty, 
 and that only by help which we should hardly have 
 looked for. Alongside of the new scourges of Gaul, 
 barbarian invasion and civil war, a far older scourge 
 had either lived on or had shown itself again. The 
 Bagaudse, the Jacquerie of more than a hundred 
 years earlier, were still in force, at any rate on the 
 Gaulish slopes of the Alps. They met Sarus, with 
 what objects we are not told, but we are given to 
 understand that his passage into Italy was made 
 secure by a timely gift to the Bagaudse of the spoil 
 which he had won in his victory over Justinian *. 
 Nothing can be more unsatisfactory than this kind of 
 
 T^i/ tS>v crTpaTTjymv tovtcou nepi to. TTokefiia Tretpav ofiov Koi avbp'iav ave)(a)pr](r€ 
 riji 'BakevTias, enra TrciXiopKr](ras airfjv fjfiepas. The British Gerent is of 
 qourse merely a form of Gerontios ; but it has become a specially 
 British name, and it is worthy of notice that we see it so early. 
 
 * Zosimos, vi. 2 ; KaradpaiiovToov 8e avTov rS>p KcovoTavrivov crrpaTifyoiv 
 fiera fjLeylaTrjs BvvacrTeias, <Tvv ttoXXm 8i«ro}6q ttovo), ttjv Xeiav ananav butprf- 
 <Tap.evos Tills Trepl ras ''AXneis dTravrrjcracnv aira BaKavSais, ottcos €vpv)(a>pins 
 ■nap avTutv ruxfl T^y eVi rfjv 'iraXlav Trapobov. KarabpafiovTcov would 
 seem to imply skirmishes rather than a regular battle ; Swaa-reia is 
 a singular word for a military force, and there is something strange 
 in this quite taking for granted of the Bagaudse. He does not 
 mention them elsewhere, and his bringing them in in this way 
 might almost suggest that there is something in the view of Dubos- 
 (i. 205, of. Gibbon, v. 223, ed. Milman) that the Bagaudae were, now 
 at least, something of a local militia rather than mere freebooters. 
 See Ducauge in voc. [See my Hist. Essays, Series iv. p. 118.] 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 65 
 
 story. We put up with the mere annalist, who 
 records victory and defeat without attempting to 
 explain their causes ; but here we are told just 
 enough to awaken our curiosity without satisfying 
 it. But in any case the enterprise of Sarus alto- 
 gether broke down ; he had slain in war and by 
 treason two generals of Constantine ; but their death 
 seems only to have led to the advancement of more 
 competent successors. Whatever might become of 
 Britain and Italy, the tyrant from the island was 
 now the only representative of Eoman dominion in 
 Gaul. His power was at all events firmly established 
 in his own south-eastern corner, which Vandals, 
 Suevians, and Alans, on their march from the Belgian 
 lands to the Pyrenees, would be likely to leave 
 untouched *. And as if Gaul were a separate realm 
 and Italy a hostile land, he strengthened himself 
 against a second invasion from beyond the Alps, by 
 placing garrisons in their three chief passes, Cottian, 
 Pennine, and Maritime f. 
 
 Olympiodoros, U. S. ; Kpare^ iravTcav tS)V fiepStp rrjs TaXaTias fi^XP'- ''^'' 
 "AXneav rmv fisTu^v 'iraXtas re Koi TaXaTias. Zosimos (vi. 2), in 
 
 a passage part of which has already been quoted, seems to copy 
 the definition ; irdvra re olKetwardfievos ra a-Tpareviiara fiexpi t5>v "AXneav 
 ovra Totv opi^ovaSiv TdXarLav koi 'IraXiav, d<T(})aXS)s e^eirGai. t^? ^aaiKeias 
 idonei. The distinction is perhaps needful, as Orosius talks of 
 " Pyrensei Alpes." 
 
 1* lb. ; Sapou Toivvu ovTcos els ttjp 'irdXlav BiaaadtvTOS avvayayuv 
 6 KavaTavrivos ttjv 8vpap,iv anatrav e-yi'ca (f>vXaKas dpKovcras eyKarao'Tjiijai 
 Tais "AXireaiv. ^a-av 8e aSrai rpeis, al ras en\ ttjv 'iraXiav diro KeXrau 
 KaKfWev eneKdva ras obovs aTroKXeiovarai, Korrtai Hoivivai Mapiripai. 
 
 Sozomen too (ix. 11) brings in the Cottian Alps, though he makes 
 no mention of the expedition of Sarus. His summary of events 
 
 F 
 
66 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [it. 
 
 Constantine was now undisputed master of Gaul, 
 at least of the remnant of Gaul that clave to Eome. 
 Britain he had left behind him. If he aspired to the 
 dominion of Italy, he prudently put oif any attempts 
 on that side, till he had made himself master of all 
 the provinces beyond the Alps. He was bound, for 
 his own ends, to extend his dominion from Gaul in 
 the geographical sense, to Gaul in the widest official 
 meaning of the word, and to complete his possession 
 of the Gaulish prefecture by the acquisition of Spain. 
 The great peninsula of the west was one of the most 
 flourishing parts of the Homan dominion, and the 
 one which had suffered least from barbarian invasion. 
 Since the Teutonic harryings in the days of Gallienus 
 Spain had been untouched by strangers, free from 
 any oppression save what it may have suffered at 
 their hands who represented the power of Eome 
 witbiii its borders *. The legions that were regularly 
 
 runs ; Ufpaia^eis Se Kffli'oraiTeti'os aTTo BpeTTavias eVt Bovmviav noKiv ttjs 
 TaXarias nepl BaXaacrav Kfifievrju, irpooTjydyeTO tovs irapa TaKarais Koi 
 AKOviravols, arpaTiooTas' Ka\ tovs Tjj8f vutjkoovs TrepieiroiTjcrev iavTci, p^XP^ 
 t5)v pera^v 'iraXias koI TaXaTias opav, as KoTTias AXirfis 'Ptopaioi KaXoviTi. 
 KoDvaraPTa 8e tov Trpea^vTepov rav avrov vteav, ov varepov fiaaiXems crx^pa 
 evedvae, Kaiaapa t6t€ avayopevcras, nfnopt^fv tls S/rawai/. His whole 
 story seems to come from the same source as that of Zosimos, 
 though there are odd differences. The use of 'Papaloi, as in 
 Procopius and long after in Constantine Porphyrogenitos, shows 
 the difficulties sometimes felt by those who were Romans by political 
 allegiance but not Latins iu speech. 
 
 * This seems implied in the emphatic though somewhat involved 
 words of Orosius ; " Irruptse sunt Hispaniae ; csedes vastationes- 
 que passse sunt : nihil quidem novum. Hoc enim nunc per 
 biennium, illud quo hostilis gladius ssevit sustinere a barbaris quod 
 per cc quondam annos passse fiierant a Romanis, quod etiam sub 
 
 i 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the IVest. 67 
 
 quartered in Spain, and which were doubtless largely 
 made up of natives of Spain, claimed the defence of 
 the land as their special work, and resented any 
 intrusion of strangers as a breach of their local 
 privileges *. But the land had commonly been 
 passive in revolutions, and had readily accepted 
 such rulers as bore sway on the other side of the 
 Pyrenees f. But at this particular moment, an element 
 had to be reckoned with in Spain which would hardly 
 have passed for a political influence in any other 
 province. Spain had given the world a dynasty. 
 Theodosius, like Trajan before him, had come forth 
 to rule the Empire from the most western of its 
 provinces, and to rule it, like his great countryman, 
 so as to leave a memorable name behind him. The 
 sons of Theodosius, princes of Spanish descent, still 
 ruled, or at least reigned, at Constantinople and at 
 Eavenna. The kinsfolk of the Imperial house, though 
 not marked out from other men by titles or offices 
 known to the Empire at large, were men of wealth 
 
 imperatore Gallieno per annos propemodum xii Germanis evex-ten- 
 tibus exceperunt." 
 
 * So witnesses Zosimos (vi. 5) a little later ; Tav eV 'l^vpia 
 crpaToneSav ifxirurrevBrfvai, Kara to avvrjBes rrju (jivXaic^v ahrjaavTav, Kot fifj 
 ^evois eTnTpanrjpai rfju ttjs xiapas dacfxiXfiav. 
 
 t Such is the remark of Gibbon (v. 223, ed. Milman); "His 
 throne was soon established by the conquest, or rather submission 
 of Spain ; which yielded to the influence of regular and habitual 
 subordination, and received the laws and magistrates." He adds ; 
 " The only opposition which was made to the authority of Constan- 
 tine proceeded not so much from the powers of government, or the 
 spirit of the people, as from the private zeal and interest of the 
 family of Theodosius." 
 
 F 2 
 
68 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 and influence in their own land, attached to the 
 throne of their Imperial kinsmen and acknowledged 
 by those kinsmen as men bound to them by the ties 
 of blood. To the mass of the people of Spain it 
 might seem most natural that Spain and Gaul should 
 go together; to the members of the Theodosian 
 house and to all who shared their feelings the first 
 object of all was that the land of Theodosius should 
 abide in the allegiance of the sons of Theodosius. 
 Constantino had therefore to look, not so much for 
 any general resistance in arms on the part of the 
 province or its regular defenders, as for whatever 
 amount of opposition in any shape could be stirred 
 up by a few powerful men. But that opposition 
 was likely to be of a very dangerous kind. Con- 
 stantino is described as fearing a joint attack from 
 two branches of the Theodosian family, from the 
 Emperor in Italy by the way of the Alps and from his 
 kinsmen in Spain by way of the Pyrenees. Lest his 
 dominion should fall when thus assaulted on both 
 sides, Constantino determined to forestall all attacks 
 from the Spanish side, and at once to begin the occupa- 
 tion of the peninsula *. The date is not hard to fix. 
 We are still in the year 408, the year of the campaign 
 of Sarus and of the death of Stilicho. That year saw 
 also the death of Arcadius and the beginning of the 
 
 Zosimos, VI. 4 ; twi/ airodi fev 'l/3?7p/a] iravTcap i6vS>v iyKparrjs 
 yevea-dai ^ovXofxfvos, coare koI rfjv dp^fju av^rjaai Koi afta Tf)V tS>v 'Ovapiov 
 (Tvyyfvav avTodi bvvaa-Tfiav eKKoyj/^ai. beos yap avTov elarjei fifj jrore 
 bvvapiv avvayayovres rap avrodi err paricorav avroi peu aira Bia^dvres ttjv 
 Ilvpr]vr)v ineXdoKv, dno 8e ttjs 'iraXlas 6 ^aaiKevs 'Ovapios eTrmip'^^tas avra 
 TO arpaToneBa t^s Tvpavvibos, KVKXa TravraxoGev TrepiKa^cnv, napaXvaeifv. 
 
69 
 
 II.] A Tyrant of the West. 
 
 long reign of the younger Theodosius *. It saw 
 also the operations of the forces of Constantine in 
 Spain. Those operations, it has been truly remarked, 
 imply some kind of treaty or understanding with the 
 barbarians who, it must never be forgotten, were still 
 ranging through Gaul at pleasure f. The relations 
 between him and them, the way in which each side 
 seems to act with no seeming hindrance on the 
 part of the other, form one of the great puzzles 
 of our story. Some of the vain agreements with 
 the invaders of Gaul, so darkly hinted at by a con- 
 temporary J, must surely have taken place at this 
 stage. 
 
 It would almost seem that for a while (408) the pen- 
 insula submitted without any opposition to the ruler 
 of Gaul and to the officers whom he sent to represent 
 himf. But if so, this submission was only for a 
 
 * Theodosius was now in tlie sixth year of his reign as his 
 father's colleague. Born in 401, he became Augustus in 402; he 
 took his first consulship in 403, and kept his g'Mmg'wewnaZm in 407. 
 See Sozomen, viii. 4, and the Fasti. He was as much Emperor 
 before as he was now, only the style now was "Honorius et 
 Theodosius Augg." instead of " Arcadius, Honorius, et Theodosius." 
 
 t Wietersheim, ii. 161 ; " Auch muss zu Beginn dieses Jahres 
 eine Art von friedlichen Yertragnisse zwischen ihm [Constantin] 
 und die Eingedrungenen Barbaren bestanden haben, so dass er 
 ohne Gefahr eines jeden Angriffs durch dieselben an Ausdehnung 
 seiner Herrschaf auf Spanien denken konnte." 
 
 X See above, p. 52, and note. 
 
 § Orosius, u. s. ; "Misit in HispaniasywcZices, quos cum provinciae 
 obedienter accepissent, duo fratres . . . tueri sese patriamque 
 moliti sunt." After this comes the mission of Constans. From the 
 other writers one would think that Constans was sent as the first 
 step on the part of his father towards action in Spain. It seems 
 
70 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 moment. Among the kinsmen of Honorius, four 
 brothers, bearing the names of Didymus, Yerenianus, 
 Theodosius or Theodosiolus, and Lagodius — we may- 
 mark a certain tendency to Greek names in the 
 Theodosian house — held a high position for birth and 
 wealth in different parts of Spain*. Two of them, 
 Didymus and Yerenianus, now raised the standard of 
 legitimacy, the standard of their own house. The 
 other two seem to have taken no part in the enter- 
 prise f . Didymus and his brother, we are pointedly 
 
 more likely that they should have left out an earlier mission than 
 that Orosius should have imagined two missions when there was 
 only one. 
 
 * Theodosius, Theodosiolus, Didymus, Lagodius, Arcadius. On 
 the other hand there is Honorius. Galla Placidia is called after 
 her mother, the daughter of Valentinian. Sozomen (ix. 1 2) speaks 
 of Theodosiolus and Lagodius eV irepais inapxiais diarpl^ovres, while 
 the other brothers carried on the war. 
 
 t The accounts here are somewhat hard to bring into agreement 
 in detail. The clearest account is that of Sozomen (ix. 11, 12), 
 who does not put the events in exactly the same order as Zosimos 
 (vi. 4). Orosius moralities more, but goes less into detail ; from 
 Olympiodoros we unluckily hear nothing again tUl a later stage. 
 After the passage quoted above, Sozomen goes on ; 6 Se [Kwi/o-tos] 
 TO ZQvos KaroKa^av, ap^^ovrai Ihiovs KaT€(TTT]<Te. Koi 8e(rp.iovs aira dxdrjvai 
 npofTera^e Aitvfwv Koi Bepeviavov, tovs 'Ovcoplov avyyevets' ot ra Trpcora 
 Siacfyepofjifvoi npos iavToiis, els Kivbvvov KaTaoTTjtravTfs cap^vorjaav, Koi 
 TrXrjdos aypoiiccov koi olnerav (rvWe^avres, Koivfj Kara rrfv hvavraviav 
 TTapfTa^avTO, /cat ttoXXoit avelXov rmv els aiiWrjyl^iv aiiT&v aTroara'KevTav 
 UTTO Tov Tvpawov orpaTiaTciv' fiera be ravra <rvp.p.a-)(ias npocrTideloTjs rois 
 ivavTiois, ii(oyprjdT](rav, Ka\ afia rais avrav yafierals aTTr])(6r](Tav Ka\ varepov 
 dvr]pe6r]<rav. 
 
 The version of Zosimos runs thus ; eVt tovtois 6 Kavaras els tt/v 
 
 *l^T]piav Ste^i; . . .' tS>v 8e ev rfj avXfj rd^ecov ap^ovrds re ttoKitikovs dfia 
 Kai arpaTKOTiKovs KaracrTqaas, ayei 8id tovtup en' eKeivovs oi yefei tw 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 71 
 
 told, did not themselves assume the tyranny in oppo- 
 sition to the tyrant ; so to do, it seems to be implied, 
 
 /3ao-tXfi GeoSaxrtM TrpoarjKOVTfs to. rrji 'l^rjpias (TweTapdrTovro irpdyfiara, 
 irpoTepov fieu vrpos avrov '^mvaravra 8ia tS>v iv ttj Avairavia arparonebaiv 
 apdpevoi noXefiov, eirel 8e Tr\eoveKTei(Tdai crvvrja-BovTO, TrXrjdos olnermu Koi 
 yfcopywv iinaTpaTexKravTes Koi tvnpa ^paxel KaTaa-rrjaavTes avrov tls peyicrrov 
 Kivhwov. oKKa KavravQa rrfs iknlhos diajxapTovTfs KavaravTi (tvv tois 
 <r<f)S>p yvvai^lv rjaav iv (f>v\aKiJ. 
 
 Orosius goes on from the place already quoted ; " Fratrea 
 juvenes nobiles et locupletes Didymus et Verenianus . . . plurimo 
 tempore servulos tantum suos ex propriis preesidiis colligentes 
 ac vernacula alentes sumptibus, nee dissimulato proposito absque 
 cujusque inquietudine ad Pyrensei claustra tendebant. Adversus 
 hos Constantinus Constantem filium suum, proh dolor, ex monacho 
 Csesarem factum, cum barbaris quibusdam qui quondam in fcedus 
 recepti atque in militiam allecti Honoriani vocabantur, in His- 
 panias misit. Hie apud Hispanias prima mali labes. Nam inter- 
 fectis illis fratribus qui tutari private prsesidio Pyrensei alpes 
 moliebantur," &c. 
 
 Here is first the difference already pointed out that Orosius 
 makes the brothers rise against officers already sent by Constantine, 
 and makes Constans come against them, while in the other two 
 versions the brothers seem at least not to rise till after the 
 coming of Constans, though, in the way that both Sozomen and 
 Zosimos tell the story, the chronological order is not strictly 
 observed, and their words might be understood of an earlier 
 rising. This so far confirms the version of Orosius, though the 
 "judices" whom he makes Constantine send first of all before 
 Constans must surely be the same as the ap^ovres set up by 
 Constans in Sozomen. The apxovres in Zosimos are in a marked 
 way connected with the ev avXjj rd^eis, who seem to be the same as 
 the Honoriani in Orosius. 
 
 Then, whenever the movement of Didymus and Verenianus 
 took place, our authorities seem hopelessly at variance as to its 
 geography. Orosius makes them collect an army of slaves and 
 peasants and occupy the Pyrensean frontier before Constans comes. 
 Both Zosimos and Sozomen make Lusitania the first seat of war ; 
 
72 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 would have been the most natural course for men in 
 their position ; they strove for their country and for 
 
 only Zosimos makea the brothers begin their enterprise with such 
 regular troops as were quartered in Lusitania ; when these are 
 defeated, they gather an army of peasants and slaves, who for 
 a while bring Constans to great straits, but who are afterwards 
 defeated. In Sozomen the brothers, after making up some differ- 
 ences between themselves which are unexplained and of which we 
 hear nothing elsewhere, appear in Lusitania at the head of their 
 irregular army, and seem for a while to be successful in a guerrilla 
 warfare. Then new forces come to the help of Constans, and they 
 are defeated. One may suspect that this last is another version 
 of the coming of Constans himself, and the word a-vfifxaxia suggests 
 the Honorians. In any case, we have, as in Orosius, two sendings 
 of forces to Spain on the part of Constantine. 
 
 The " rustic army of the Theodosian family," as Gibbon calls it, 
 appears in all the versions. It is the one thing about which all 
 the accounts agree, and we therefore accept it as the one thing 
 about which we may be really certain. But our accounts do not 
 agree as to its sphere of action ; or rather Orosius gives us a clear 
 and probable version, while Sozomen and Zosimos are quite vague. 
 Ill Orosius they occupy, or at any rate set out to occupy, the 
 passes of the Pyrenees (" tendebant," " moliebantur," imply rather 
 an attempt than an actual occupation). Yet we can hardly get rid 
 of the mention of Lusitania, a land which is mentioned by both 
 Z6simos and Sozomen, though they differ as to what happened 
 there. I think, on the whole, that we may infer, 
 
 First, That Constantine sent agents or troops into Spain twice, 
 the second time under the command of his son Constans. This is 
 distinctly asserted by Orosius and is partly confirmed by Sozomen. 
 
 Secondly, That the movement of the brothers was a rising 
 against the first occupation, and that Constans was sent to put 
 down their rising. This again is distinctly asserted by Orosius, 
 and several expressions in the other two writers (though they tell 
 another stoi'y) help to confirm it. 
 
 Thirdly, That the rustic army is the most authentic part of the 
 story, as being asserted by all three writers, and that its main 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 73 
 
 their lawful prince at once against the tyrant and 
 against the barbarians who followed him *. But if 
 
 action was directed, seemingly unsuccessfully, towards guarding 
 the Pyrenees. This is distinctly asserted by Orosius, and it is 
 consistent with the language of the other two. 
 
 Fourthly, That something happened in Lusitania before the 
 march of the rustic army towards the Pyrenees. This is the 
 hardest part of the story. Orosius says nothing about Lusitania. 
 In Sozomen the action there is successful action of the rustic 
 army. In Zosimos it is unsuccessful action of regular troops 
 before the rustic army is got together. He makes the rustics 
 fight better than the regulars, which, though unexpected, is quite 
 possible. In the other stories there are no regulars on the side 
 of the brothers. Yet one cannot help thinking that the twofold 
 action of the rustics in Sozomen, first in Lusitania, then somewhere 
 else, is the same as the action in Zosimos, first of the regulars 
 in Lusitania, then of the rustics somewhere else. Zosimos can 
 hardly have imagined his regulars ; so that so far his account 
 has the preference to Sozomen. Only Sozomen represents the first 
 action, whether of rustics or regulars, as successful, Zosimos as 
 unsuccessful. In this kind of warfare, there might be many 
 alternations of success, but the gathering of a second army slightly 
 favours the version of Z6simos. 
 
 On the whole the probabilities of the case would seem to be met 
 by such an account as I have given in the text. 
 
 * So Orosius ; " Non assumpserunt adversus tyrannum quidem 
 tyrannidem, sed imperatori justo adversus tyrannum et harharos 
 tueri sese patriamque suam moliti su^it." He goes on ; " Quod ipso 
 gestae rei ordine patuit. Nam tyrannidem nemo nisi celeriter 
 maturatam secreto invadit, et publicse arma cujus summa est 
 assumpto diademate ac purpura videri ante quam sciri." 
 
 It would seem to be from the phrase " tyrannum et barbaros," 
 where " barbaros " surely means the Honorians, that Isidore of 
 Seville (who seems to be followed by Fauriel, i. 51) developed 
 the picture which is given at the beginning of the "Historia 
 Wandalorum " of Didymus and Verenianus defending the passes of 
 the Pyrenees against the Alans, Suevians, and Vandals during 
 
74 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [ii. 
 
 two of the four brothers were united as to ends, they 
 were not at first of one mind as to means. It was 
 
 the whole time of their sojourn in Gaul. His story is made 
 out of Orosius in a curious way. He first copies the passage 
 quoted above with some noteworthy changes. He leaves out the 
 " multseque cum his alise gentes " of Orosius, doubtless because 
 Vandals, Alans, and Suevians were the only nations whom he 
 could see in the later history of Spain. Then he changes the order 
 of tlie words of Orosius, " Francos proterunt, Rhenum transeunt, 
 Gallias invadunt " into " transito Rheno, Gallias irruunt, Francos 
 proterunt," because he was most used to Franks in Gaul, and 
 hardly understood the process of getting into Gaul by fighting 
 Franks on the other side of the Rhine. Then, whereas Orosius 
 surely means simply that they reached the Pyrenees without 
 hindrance either from man or nature, and then shrank for a while 
 from attempting anything so strange as the mountain passes, 
 Isidore has the passes ready guarded by the kinsmen of Honorius. 
 It is possible that they may have commanded the native forces in 
 Spain ; but there is no reason to think that they did, as this 
 piece of Isidore is full of confusion. He goes on ; " cujus [Pyrenaei] 
 obice per Didymum et Verenianum nobilissimos et potentissimos 
 fratres ab Spania tribus annis repulsi per circumjacentes Gallise 
 provincias vagabantur. Sed postquam iidem fratres, qui privato 
 praesidio Pyrensei claustra tuebantur ob suspicionem tyrannidis 
 insontes et nulla culpa noxii a Constantio Csesare interfecti sunt, 
 memoratse gentes Spanianas provincias irrumpunt." But it was 
 against Constans, not against Vandals and Alans, that the brothers 
 gathered their " privatum prsesidium," and Isidore seems to have 
 jumbled together Constantine, Constans, and Constantius. 
 
 This version of Orosius has been followed by Fauriel, i. 51, 
 where Didymus and " Valerian " appear at a very early stage of 
 the story as guarding the Pyrensean passes at the head of the 
 Pyrensean mountaineers, and with them driving back the bar- 
 barians. All this seems to come out of Orosius' phrase of the 
 "obex," as improved by Isidore. The "barbari" of Orosius' 
 narrative whom Didymus and Verenian oppose are surely the 
 Honorians of Constantine. The Vandals, Suevians, and Alans are 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 75 
 
 only after some unexplained differences among them- 
 selves that Didymus and Verenianus agreed on any 
 combined action. The general course of events is 
 clear ; but it is not easy to put together our various 
 short notices into a connected story. It would seem 
 that Lusitania was the part of Spain in which the 
 brothers had most influence, and that in which they 
 first took up arms. One account reads as if a regular 
 legion quartered on that side of the country joined 
 the cause which they supported. It was seemingly 
 at this stage that the Caesar Constans was sent from 
 Gaul by his father to put down the revolt and to 
 bring its leaders before him in bonds *. He came 
 at the head of the barbarian allies whom his father 
 had found in Gaul. They bore the name of Hono- 
 rians, but they were enlisted on behalf of Constantino 
 against the prince whose name they bore. A motley 
 gathering of troops of various nations, Scots, Moors, 
 and Germans, they ranked among the household 
 troops of the Empire, but they were likely to be 
 indifferent as to which of two rival Augusti they 
 drew their swords to support f. Constans took with 
 
 not seen in Orosius' narrative between the words " His per Gallias 
 bacchantibus " and the words " Perdita Pyrensei custodia claustris- 
 que patefactis." 
 
 * Sozomen, ix. 11 ; 6 be [Kwi/oras] to Wvos napoKa^wv^ apxovras 
 IBiovs KaT(6r]Ke Koi Secrfiiovs avrm dxdrjvai irpocreTa^e AiSvixov Koi Bepeviavov, 
 Tovs 'Ovapiov a-vyyevf'ii. Surely this sounds more like orders given 
 by Constantine to his son on his setting out from Gaul. 
 
 t The passages in the Notitia (§ 38) about these Honoriaci — 
 Honoriani, as in the record, is doubtless the more correct form — are 
 discussed by Gibbon, ch. xxx. note 99 (v. 224) ; Wietersheim, ii. 162; 
 Hodgkin, i. 743, n. The name shows that they could not be 
 
76 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 him the British general Gerontius, and he took with 
 him also as a civil lieutenant a man chiefly memor- 
 able as the forefather of one of his own descendants. 
 Apollinaris, grandfather of the famous Sidonius of 
 Auvergne, came of a senatorial house which ranked 
 high among the nobility of his own province and of 
 all Gaul. The highest office in the Western lands, 
 the praetorian prsefecture of the Gauls, was almost 
 hereditary in his house. But he was the first of his 
 line, as his admiring grandson tells us, to embrace 
 the new creed of the Empire and to have the cross 
 signed upon his brow *. He did not scruple to accept 
 
 regiments of very long standing : says Wietersheim. Gibbon must 
 have been smiling when he suggested that the Scots were "influenced 
 by any partial aflfection for a British prince." Wietersheim lays the 
 seat of war on the west coast, and supposes that the march of 
 Constans was made in connexion with a landing by sea, which is 
 not mentioned in our authorities. [Mr. Hodgkin believes that the 
 " Honorians " did not form " one division of the army," nor " ever 
 necessarily acted together."] 
 
 * Zosimos, VI. 4 ; a-Tparriyov fieu TepevTiov e^oiv, ' AnoWivdpiov 8e t^s 
 avXiis vnapxov. For Terentius, who does not appear in any other 
 part of the story, I venture to read Gerontius. 
 
 Sidonius speaks of his grandfather, Ep. iii. 12 (iii. 1 Baret) and 
 V. 9 (v. 20 Baret), in the former of which letters he gives his 
 epitaph. Some of the lines run ; 
 
 " Prsefectus jacet hie Apollinaris 
 Post praetoria recta Galliarum. 
 Moerentis patriae sinu receptus, 
 Consultissimus utilissimusque 
 Euris, militise, forique cultor, 
 Exemploque aliis periculoso 
 Liber sub dominantibus tyrannis. 
 Hoc sed maxima dignitas probatur, 
 Quod frontem cruce, membra fonte, purgans 
 
II.] A Tyrant of the West. 77 
 
 his office, seemingly as the successor of Limenius, at 
 the hands of the actual ruler of Gaul, and to help 
 that ruler's son in his attempt to add Spain to his 
 father's dominion. The adhesion of such a man to 
 the cause of Constantino is the best witness to the 
 general acquiescence, to say the least, of the Gaulish 
 lands in the transfer of Imperial power to his hands. 
 The joint march of Constans, Gerontius, and Apol- 
 linaris was met at some stage, seemingly on the 
 Spanish side of the Pyrenees, by an irregular army 
 of slaves and peasants, a force which Didymus and 
 Yerenianus had seemingly kept for some while at 
 their own cost *. Their object was to bar the passes 
 of the Pyrenees against the invaders from Gaul, 
 a work for which Spanish guerrilla troops would be 
 excellently fitted in any age. For this it would 
 seem they came too late. Their efforts were indeed 
 not wholly without success ; they are vaguely said to 
 have put Constans in great danger f. But in the 
 end they were routed, and their leaders, Didymus 
 and Yerenianus, were taken prisoners, with their 
 
 Primus de numero patrum suorum 
 Sacris sacrilegis renuntiavit," 
 
 In the other letter he tells us how ApoUinaris and his friend 
 Eusticus " in Constantino inconstantiam, in Jovino facilitatem, in 
 Gerontio perfidiam, singula in singulis, omnia in Dardano crimina 
 simul exsecrarentur." He goes on to mention the offices of his 
 father and his friend of the next generation under Honorius and 
 Valentinian the Third, when " unus Galliarum prsefuit parti, alter 
 soliditati" — the " soliditas," one would think, only of so much as 
 was left. 
 
 * See the passage from Sozomen quoted in note, p. 66. 
 
 t See the passage from Orosius quoted in note, p. 66. 
 
78 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 
 
 wives. The other brothers, who were in some other 
 part of Spain, took fright at the fate of their kins- 
 men, and fled, Theodosiolus to Honorius in Italy and 
 Lagodios to Constantinople *. He could hardly have 
 got thither till the latter part of the year 408, when 
 he found the young Theodosius already the only 
 Emperor in the East. 
 
 Constans now, as a Caesar ruling in Spain, estab- 
 lished his court at Cassaraugusta, the modern 
 Zaragoza, a choice not unconnected with the greater 
 events which we shall presently mention. He had 
 so utterly cast aside his monastic vows that he had 
 taken to him a wife ; whether he had brought her 
 with him to Spain or had found her there, we are not 
 told. He was now summoned by his father into 
 Gaul to discuss the afiairs of their common Empire. 
 He obeyed ; he left his wife in his Csesarean palace 
 at Zaragoza, and entrusted Gerontius with, the com- 
 mand of the Honorian troops and with the defence 
 of Spain. He then hastened to his father, taking 
 with him the captive kinsmen of Honorius, Didy- 
 mus and Verenianus. They were presently put 
 to death by order of Constantino ; of the fate of 
 the wives who shared their captivity we hear 
 nothing f. 
 
 Zosimos, vi. 4 ; onep dKrjKoores ol tovtodv abehf^oi Qeohoaios re Koi 
 Aaya>8ios, 6 (lev fts rrjP 'iraKiav 8i€(f)vyev, 6 8e els r^v iaav Staa-ai&els 
 dvtxo>pr]cr€. S6zomen, ix. 12 ; eV irepais Se fnapxiais biarpi^ovres Qfo- 
 8oaia>kos Koi AayatSios ol airSiv a.8e\(f)ol <f>evyov(rt, rfjv irarpiba, (cat 8iatru>- 
 (pvrai, QeodoaioKos pev els 'iraXlau npos 'Ova>piov tov ^aaiKea, AaywStoi 
 8e npos Qeoboatov fls dvaroXrfv. I cannot think, with Gibbon, that 
 these two brothers had any share in the war. 
 
 t Orosius at this point tells us nothing of the doings of Con- 
 
II,] A Tyrant of the West. 79 
 
 Constantine was thus, to all appearance, undis- 
 puted ruler of Spain and of so much of Gaul as the 
 Vandals, Suevians, and Alans were not at any par- 
 ticular moment laying waste. In the lands on the 
 Khone the retreat of Sarus had left him without 
 a rival. But he was at this moment the only repre- 
 sentative of Eoman power beyond the Alps. His 
 position in the Western world was clearly better 
 than that of the Augustus at Kavenna, threatened 
 every moment by Alaric, and now left without the 
 arm of Stilicho to guard him. That Honorius should 
 outlive both Alaric and Constantine, that he should 
 die an undisputed Emperor, master of so much of the 
 
 stantine and Constans. He is carried away from the subject by 
 a torrent, partly of declamation, partly of valuable historical matter, 
 to which we shall have to look presently. From Sozomen we 
 might almost have fancied that Didymus and Vereniauus were put 
 to death in Spain. See the passage, ix. 11, quoted in note, p. 66. 
 
 He now goes on ; 'O fitv Kavcrras TaiiTa bunrpa^afiepos, inavrjXde npos 
 TOP irarepaj (f>povpav KaTacrTTj(ras dno ratv (TTpanaTaiv t^s e;ri Tijs Siravias 
 napoBov. Z6simos (vi. 5) is clear ; Tavra Kara rfiv 'l^tjpiav 6 Kavarai 
 8ian pa^d/Jievos iTravrjXde irpos rbv irarepa iavTov KavarapTivov, fwayojMevos 
 Beprjviavop Kal ^ibvpiov, KaraXnrav re avTodi tov arpaTtjyov Tepovrioi/, ay.a 
 Tois diro roKarlas orpaTiaTais, ({)v\aKa t^s dno KeXrav eVt t^v ^I^ijpiav 
 irapodov . . . Bepijviapos ptv ovv koi Ai8vfiios as KcovaravTlvov d)(d4vTiS 
 
 dvTjpe'dr](rav napaxp^fia. These troops from Gaul are clearly the 
 Honorians, of whom, as we shall presently see, Orosius has much 
 to say at this point. We have also got the help of one of the 
 fragments of the otherwise unknown writer — Henatus Profuturus 
 Frigeridus, preserved to us by Gregory of Tours, ii. 9 ; " Accito 
 Constantinus tyrannus de Hispaniis Constante filio iterumque 
 tyranno, quo de summa rerum consultarent praesentes ; quo factum 
 est ut Constans, iustrumento aulae et conjuge sua Caesaraugust^ 
 dimissis, Gerontio inter Hispanias omnibus creditis ad patrem 
 continuato itinere decurreret." 
 
80 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 West as was still left to Borne, and that the power 
 of Kome should be yet restored over no small part of 
 the West from which it seemed to have passed away, 
 is one of the strangest things in the strange times 
 which we are studying. 
 
III. 
 
 [CONSTANTINE EMPEROR AND MAXIMUS TYRANT.] 
 
 We left Constantine undisputed master, undis- 
 puted emperor, within so much of Gaul and Spain 
 as obeyed any Emperor at all. Some parts of those 
 lands were still harried at pleasure by detachments 
 of the great host that had crossed the Ehine on the 
 last day of the year 406. Some parts, it may be, 
 were throwing off the dominion of Kome altogether. 
 Britain, the land from which Constantine had set 
 forth, was, not so much throwing off the dominion of 
 Eome, as slipping away from it without effort on 
 either side. The dominions of Constantine in the 
 West were painfully smaller than the dominions of 
 Valentinian and Theodosius. But within them he 
 had no Eoman rival. The master of Italy, far less 
 master in Italy than Constantine was in Gaul, had 
 striven to shake his throne, and he had failed. 
 Throughout the provinces beyond the Alps, the 
 adventurer from Britain, like other adventurers from 
 Britain before him, was " Dominus Noster ; " he was 
 Augustus, he was "Pius," "Felix," and "Pater Patriae." 
 As such his name was graven on inscriptions; his 
 
 G 
 
82 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 image and superscription was, in all the Western lands, 
 the image and superscription of Caesar. What then 
 was lacking to him ? Something which it is not easy 
 to define. With all his success, he was still, in the 
 eyes of men of his own time, as he abides in the 
 pages of history, Constantine the Tyrant. In using 
 that name in these ages, just as in using it in the 
 days of the old Greek commonwealths, we must 
 throw aside that modern abuse of it by which it 
 is vaguely applied to any ruler whom it is meant 
 to brand as an oppressor. This abuse is closely 
 allied to the kindred abuse of other technical terms 
 of Greek and Roman politics, which make it dan- 
 gerous, even in writing Greek or Eoman history, 
 to use the original words in their original meaning 
 without some kind of qualification. At least from 
 the days of Herodotus to the days of William of 
 Malmesbury, the word " tyrant " had a definite mean- 
 ing; and it is wonderful to see how little the 
 meaning of the word in William of Malmesbury has 
 changed from its meaning in Herodotus. The change 
 in the use of the word is simply the change which 
 is implied in a changed state of things. A tyrant 
 is one who takes to himself power without any 
 lawful claim to take it. The name has nothing 
 to do with his use of power when he gets it. 
 Undoubtedly he who gains power wrongfully is under 
 many temptations to use it badly; but his using 
 of it badly is not implied in the mere name of tyrant. 
 The Greek tyrants, as a rule, were oppressors ; but 
 even among them the rule was not universal ; there 
 is no contradiction in terms in speaking of a just 
 
Ill,] Constantine and Maximus. 83 
 
 and merciful tyrant *. The Roman rulers to whom 
 the name was transferred by a happy analogy, 
 hold a higher place ; they are average Emperors, 
 good or bad as may happen. The difference between 
 the Greek and the Roman use comes from the 
 different shapes which the tyranny, that is the un- 
 lawful assumption of power, took among the Greek 
 commonwealths and under the Roman Empire. The 
 Greek tyrant had overthrown a commonwealth ; 
 even if it was an oligarchy and not a free democracy 
 that he had overthrown, even if a large part of the 
 community welcomed him as the destroyer of oli- 
 garchy, he had still overthrown a commonwealth ; 
 he had put his own personal will in the place of 
 a svstem of law and order of some kind ; and if he 
 himself sometimes kept his popularity for life, all 
 traces of good will commonly vanished under the 
 rule of his son. That such a tyrant had no means 
 of giving a formal legitimacy to his power is clear 
 on the face of things. When tyrants of exactly 
 the same kind, tyrants of cities, again showed them- 
 selves in the commonwealths of mediaeval Italy, the 
 means of thus wiping out the original stain was 
 supplied by the power of the Emperor, supreme 
 over all. Not a few of the hereditary dukes and 
 marquesses of Italy were tyrants whom the Imperial 
 authority had raised to the rank of lawful princes. 
 But the old Greek commonwealths knew no overlord ; 
 there was no external power that could change 
 Polykrates or Peisistratos into an outwardly lawful 
 
 * As for instance Strabo (xiii. p. 631) speaks of the tyrants of 
 Kibyra ; ervpapvelro be del' awc^povas de o/nws. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 ruler of Samos or of Athens. It is perfectly plain 
 that the tyrants of the sixth and fifth centuries 
 before Christ were well pleased to be spoken of as 
 fiacriXevs and that flatterers in prose and verse won 
 their favour by so speaking of them. It is not clear 
 that any tyrant before Agathokl^s received or as- 
 sumed the title in any formal way*. In his day 
 the rise of the various Macedonian princes had made 
 kingship familiar to Greek thought. The Koman 
 tyrant, on the other hand, though he came under 
 the same definition as having taken power to himself 
 without lawful authority, had reached power in 
 a very different way from his Greek predecessor. He 
 had in no way changed the constitution of the state. 
 He had neither suppressed a democracy nor delivered 
 men from an oligarchy. He had simply set up his 
 own power instead of the power of some other prince, 
 and there was no presumption that his rule would 
 be any worse than that of the prince whom he 
 supplanted. He was guilty of whatever amount of 
 human suffering was caused by a revolution wrought 
 by violence ; he was not guilty of any general dis- 
 turbance of the order of things. And it was easy 
 for him, as it was not for the Greek tyrant, to 
 
 * I except the case of any cities where the old lawful kingship 
 or some survival of it may have gone on, a point which I may have 
 to discuss elsewhere. See also Plass, Die Tyrannis, i. 262. I doubt 
 if the first Hieron, for instance, was called ^aaiXevs by any but 
 flatterers, Pindar and others. The saying of Diodoros (xi. 26 
 [see my Hist. Sic. vol. II. Appendices I. and XIII.]) about Gelon 
 hardly proves it. On the other hand the second Hieron was 
 undoubtedly jSao-iAeus by a real popular vote. Kingship had then 
 become familiar. 
 
III.] Constantine and Maxzmus. 85 
 
 obtain a formal and regular confirmation of his 
 authority. In the middle of the third century the 
 most common way of reaching Empire was through 
 the mutinies of the army. The soldiers murdered 
 the reigning Emperor; they chose another in his 
 place ; and the Senate presently voted him all the 
 offices, powers, and titles which together made up 
 the practical sovereignty of the Eoman common- 
 wealth. He who received his commission from the 
 senate, that extraordinary commission always renewed 
 out of which the Empire grew, became a lawful 
 Emperor; he who could not obtain it remained 
 a tyrant. In the times which we have now reached, 
 the power of the Senate has dwindled away. The 
 Fathers indeed appear by fits and starts, under the 
 strange circumstances of the time, with something 
 nearer to their old authority than had been seen 
 for a long time ; but, in the absence of any definite 
 law of succession, it is no longer the vote of the 
 Senate which stands forth as the main source of legiti- 
 mate power. The Empire is becoming more like an 
 ordinary kingdom, able to pass, either by hereditary 
 descent to the children of the last prince or by 
 adoption to some successor or colleague of his choosing. 
 The joint rule of several princes was now familiar, 
 and this system suppHed an easy means of bestowing 
 formal legitimacy on a successful tyrant. When the 
 tyrant had won a certain part of the Empire, and 
 saw no hope of winning the rest, when the lawful 
 prince kept a certain part of the Empire and saw 
 no hope of winning back the rest, a compromise was 
 easy. The lawful prince could admit the tyrant as his 
 
86 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 colleague in the Empire, and thus, while raising him 
 to the same level as himself, he could keep at least 
 the rank of primus inter pares. The agreement of 
 course, like other agreements, needed not to be kept 
 any longer than was convenient. If either of the new 
 colleagues found a good opportunity of overthrowing 
 his Imperial brother, of taking his dominions to 
 himself or bestowing them on a colleague whom he 
 liked better, that opportunity was seldom missed. 
 The thing had happened over and over again. The 
 lives of Carausius, of Maximus, of the great Constan- 
 tine himself, supply many and instructive examples. 
 Constantine then, master of E-oman Gaul and 
 Spain, still felt that there was something lacking 
 to his position, and he hastened to make it good. 
 He had torn away the Western lands from the dominion 
 of HoDorius ; the armies of Honorius had failed to 
 recover the lands that he had torn away; he was 
 seemingly safe in Gaul, while Honorius was anything 
 but safe in Italy. Yet he now stoops, as it might 
 seem to us, to ask his defeated enemy to raise him 
 from his irregular position to a lawful place at his 
 own side. It does indeed mark the force of tradi- 
 tional feeling that Constantine, called to the throne 
 by an army which had shown itself able to maintain 
 him there, still felt himself the upstart, the usurper, 
 the tyrant, and owned the higher position of the 
 Emperor who had come to the diadem by peaceful 
 means, by a line of those adoptions and associations 
 of sons and colleagues which passed for lawful suc- 
 cession. The tyrant therefore sought for the acknow- 
 ledgement of his claims by the lawful prince ; he 
 
III.] Constantine and Maximus. 87 
 
 sought for his admission as a third Augustus to 
 the imperial fellowship of Honorius and his young 
 nephew in the East. He sent an embassy (409), an 
 embassy of eunuchs — the soldiers from Britain had 
 conformed to the depraved fashion of the time — to 
 the court of Eavenna, asking the Emperor's forgive- 
 ness for his taking on himself the imperial rank ; 
 it was not, his commissioners were bidden to say, his 
 own act ; the presumptuous step had been forced 
 upon him by his soldiers. It is implied, though it is 
 not said in so many words, that Constantine de- 
 manded the confirmation of their choice, and his own 
 recognition as an Imperial colleague. Honorius was 
 in no position to resist or refuse ; with Alaric and 
 his Goths at no great distance, it was not for him 
 to plunge into another w^ar which might end as the 
 enterprise of Sarus had ended '^'. A domestic reason 
 
 * The embassy is recorded in a fragment of OlympiodSros, 
 
 p. 450 ; "Ort Y^fuvaravTwos els Tvpavvlba apBeis Trpeo-jSeverat npos 'Ovapiov^ 
 aKcav pev ku\ dnb rStv arpaTKOTcov ^laadus dnoXoyovpevos ap^ai, (rvyyvaprjv 
 be alraiv, Koi ttjp ttjs ^aaiKeias d^iav Koivatviav. Koi ^aaCkevs 8ia to. 
 ivearrjKOTa Bvcrx^pfj recos KaraSe'p^erai ttiv ttjs ^acriXeias Koivaviav. It IS 
 
 here that he stops to explain how Constantine came to be tyrant, 
 
 Kara ras BpeTTavias 8e 6 KcavaravTivos ervyxaveu dvrjpyopevpevos, (TTaaei 
 tS)v eKelcre (TTpaTidT&v els Tavrrjv dvrjypevos rfiv dp)(r]v. He then goes 
 
 on with the passage quoted above. Z6sirao3 records this first 
 embassy, v. 43. The last words of the chapter before fix the 
 date to the eighth consulship of Honorius and third of Theodosius, 
 that is the year 409 ; eVi Tovra KmvdTavTivos 6 rvpawos evvovxovs 
 Trpos 'Ovaypiov eoTfXXf, crvyyvaprjv, alrmv eueKa tov ttju ^acriKeiav dve(T)(eadai 
 Xa^elv, pT}8e yap eK -npoaipeaems ekecrdai ravTqv, oKka avdyKrjs avT^ rrapa 
 tS)V (TTpaTicoTUiV e7ra\6ei(n]s. Tavrrjs dKrjKows 6 ^atnXevs Trjs aiTTjaeas, 
 dempoau re as ov pabiou avroi t&v crvv 'AXapix^ ^ap^dpcov ov Troppoi ovratv 
 irepl TToKepav irepav diavoeladaij . . . evSt'Swcri rals alrTjcreatv. 
 
88 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 also moved him — in this matter Honorius himself 
 may have exercised some measure of personal will. 
 His kinsfolk were in the hands of Constantine — 
 Theodosiolus had brought that news with him ; 
 neither he nor Honorius knew that they had been 
 actually put to death before the embassy had been sent, 
 and he deemed that afavourable answer to the demands 
 of their gaoler might be to their advantage*. Honorius 
 therefore acknowledged the claims of Constantine ; he 
 sent him a robe of the imperial purple f. The Boman 
 world, so much of it as was still ruled from Eavenna, 
 Constantinople, and Aries, had again three masters. 
 
 It would seem that some formality was lacking 
 in this transaction. Or it may simply be that Honorius 
 was stirred to some sign of enmity when the news 
 of the death of Didymus and Yerenianus reached him, 
 when he thus saw how he had been in some sort 
 cajoled into an acknowledgement of the tyrant of Gaul. 
 It is certain that later in the year (409) Constantine 
 sent another message to Eavenna, a message carried 
 this time by a more honourable messenger. Its 
 bearer was Jovius, who is described as a man of high 
 culture and of other merits, but whom we have no 
 means to identify with, or' to distinguish from, other 
 bearers of his own and like names. He came to 
 Honorius when that prince was not in a position to 
 refuse anything ; Alaric was on the point of laying 
 
 ZoSimOS, V. 43 J Tpoffert -ye \6yov iroiovfievos arvyyevap olneiav irapa 
 Tov Tvpdvvov Karaxpyiivaiv {ovtol be rjtrav Beprjviavos Koi AibvfjLios) , . . 
 tS)V fiev ovv (Tvyyepmv eveKa fj-araiav ei)(e (jipovriBa, irpo TavTrjs t^s Trpea^eias 
 a'KO(T<payevTa)V, tovs 8e €vvov)(ov5 en\ tovtois a.TTiivep.TVfV. 
 + lb. ; eKirtpTTfi 8e avTw /cat ^a(ri\iKr]v eaB^ra. 
 
III.] Constantine and Maximus. 89 
 
 siege to Eome ■^\ For the slaughter of the Spanish 
 captives the new envoy made much the same excuse 
 as the earlier messengers had made for Constantine's 
 assumption of the diadem ; it had not been done by 
 any orders of Constantine himself f. This statement 
 we may venture to set down as a barefaced falsehood ; 
 even the meekness of Honorius was stirred by it, 
 and the words of our account seem to imply that 
 the person of Jovius was in some danger. But 
 the Emperor was partly at least won over by the 
 arguments of the envoy. With Italy in the state 
 in which it was, it would be wise for him to yield, 
 and, if he, Jovius, was allowed to go back in safety 
 to his master, Constantine would presently come to 
 the relief of Rome at the head of the forces of Gaul 
 Spain, and Britain, wherever these last were to be 
 found \. 
 
 This promise, whatever was the real purpose of 
 
 * This second embassy comes at the beginning of the last book 
 
 of Zosimos, vi. 1 j 'AXdpixos fieu ovv . . . eVt TTjv 'PoifiTjv rjXavve irav- 
 (TTparia, rfj kot air^s TroXiopKt'g Trpoa-KapTeprjaeov. iv toiitco de irapa 
 JLavaravTipov tov Tvpawr](ravTos iv KeXrois a(p'iKeTO irpos 'Ovapiov Kara 
 TTpecr^elav 'lottos, Traideia Koi rais aWais dpeTals 8ia(f)epa)v, ^e^aiad^vai 
 Trjv Trporepov ofioXoyrjOetirav elprjvijv, koi ap.a avyyva)p,r)v ev€Ka ttjs 
 dvaipeaeas Ai8vp,iov /cat Beprjviavov rav avyyfvS>v 'Ovcapiov tov ^aaikeas 
 atreip. 
 
 t lb. ; oTTeXoyeiTO Xiyap as ov Kara irpoaipetrip di-^prjprai KcavaTavTiPov. 
 
 X lb. J (rvvTerapayfiepov 8e top 'Opoipiov diaadfxevos, evXoyop €(pacrK€P 
 eivcu Tols Trepl ttjp 'irdXlap evaaxoXovfiepa (f>povTi<riP epBovvai' a-vy- 
 Xotpovfiepos 8e Trpos KapaTaPTlvov iKbrj/irja-ai Koi to. avvexopra 
 TTjP iTokiap dyyelXaf fier ou noXii Koi avrov ^$eiv dp.a iravri rw ev 
 KsKtoIs Koi iv 'ijSripia Koi ei» rij BperapviK^ vr)cr<a (TTpaTev/MaTi Tois koto, ttjv 
 'irdKiav (cat 'Pafir]v ^OTjdrja-oPTa ireptaTaa-ea-i. koi 6 fiiv lottos cttI 
 TOVTOis dvaf^copeiv iireTpdivri. 
 
90 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 Constantine in making it, leads us for a moment 
 into the midst of the affairs of Italy. We are, as 
 we have seen, in the memorable year (409) of Alaric's 
 second siege of Eome, at that stage of it when the 
 successive ministers or masters of Honorius are 
 stepping into one another's places with amazing 
 speed. The eunuch Eusebius has become the Em- 
 peror's chief chamberlain, and Allobich, a barbarian, 
 perhaps a Frank, has been placed in command of the 
 E-oman cavalry. The chief authority at Ravenna 
 is naturally in the hands of the eunuch ; but the 
 brute force of the master of the horse prevails over 
 the subtler influence of the chamberlain ; when the 
 colleagues no longer agree, Eusebius is publicly 
 beaten to death with rods under the eyes of Honorius*. 
 
 * Our nan*ative has at this point to be put together from, three 
 sources, Olympiodoros, Zosimos, and Sozomen, each of whom fills 
 up gaps in the other, without contradicting. We must remember 
 that both Zosimos and Sozomen had most likely read Olympiodoros 
 in a more perfect state. Neither Orosius nor the Annalists help 
 us just now, and Eenatus Profuturus Frigeridus tells us only 
 (Greg. Tur. ii. 9) that Constantine at this moment had " nullum ex 
 Italia metum." 
 
 The exaltation of Eusebius is mentioned by Olympiodoros (p. 452), 
 who does not mention that of Allobich, which is recorded by 
 Zosimos, V. 48. But Zosimos does not mention the fate either of 
 Eusebius or of Allobich. His account is ; KaraaTria-as 8e 6 ^aaiKei/s 
 |_ Ovupiosj "Evae^iov fj-ev avrl Tepevriov (piiXaKa tov koitoovos . . . Koi fiera 
 BiyeXavTiov AWo^i^ov nrnapxov KaTaarfjcras, ttjv fiev tS>v aTparicDTatv 
 ■naveiv ttcos e^o^e araa-cv. Olympiodoros says ; fifTepxerai Kara ttju 
 Pa^evvav eTTt rov Trpanroo'iTov 'Evcre^iov ^ bwacrTela. os pera iKavof xpovov 
 AXko^i)^ov iiTrjpeia Koi vnodfjKTj 8T]po(Tta aal iir o-^eai rov ^aaiKecos pa/SSots 
 
 avaipe'irai. Avvaareia is a remarkable word to be used of the 
 ascendency of a minister, even of an eunuch under Honorius. 
 
TIL] Constantine and Maximus. 91 
 
 At this moment Constantine steps in ; we read in 
 two independent narratives that he entered Italy 
 with an army; but we get exactly opposite state- 
 ments as to the motive which took him thither. 
 In one version he is marching to Eavenna, to confirm 
 or to carry out his engagements with Honorius, that 
 is doubtless to give help to his Italian colleague 
 against the Goth *. In the other version the master 
 of Gaul and Spain sets out to add Italy to his 
 dominions f. We may therefore assume with safety 
 that the one version represents the purpose that was 
 openly avowed, and the other the purpose which was 
 commonly suspected. There is no reason to suppose 
 any open breach with Honorius so soon after the 
 
 npatrroViTos should be noticed as one of the Latin official names 
 which were creeping into Greek, though as yet sparingly. The 
 exact force of vivo6r]Kr] hr\\iouia I do not profess to understand, any 
 more than Labbe did. 
 
 * So says Olympiodoros, p. 452 ; KtBvorami'oy 6 rvpawos . . . 
 eTreiyonevos irpbs 'Pd^ewav &aT€ aireia-aadai 'Ovcoplco. This was doubtless 
 what was given out publicly. 
 
 t Sozomen, ix. 12 ; KavaravTlvos reas kcto. yvafirfv iipaTTeiv 8okS)V, 
 KcovcrraVTa tov viov avTi Kaicrapos ^acriKea Karaarriaas, e^ovXfvero tt)V 
 
 'iroKiav KaToKa^eiv. That was doubtless what the court of Eavenna 
 feared. 
 
 It certainly seems strange that Gregory's authority, Eenatus 
 Profuturus Frigeridus, altogether leaves out Constantine's Italian 
 expedition. It is just when it should come that he tells us (Greg. 
 Tur. ii. 9) that Constantine was "gulae et ventri deditus," having 
 " nullum ex Italia metum." Does that mean after his return from 
 Italy ] 
 
 I do not see on what ground Wietersheim (ii. 166) places the 
 Italian expedition in 410. Surely the whole story of Eusebius 
 and Allobich fixes it to 409, while Alaric was still only threatening 
 Eome. 
 
92 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 second embassy. Constantine appears to have as- 
 sumed the consulship in partnership with Honorius * ; 
 and on the whole it is most likely that it was now, 
 when he was at the height of his power, that he 
 raised his son CoDstans, who might pass for the 
 conqueror of Spain, from the rank of Csesar to that 
 of Augustus f. There would thus be four acknow- 
 
 * I miglit not have found out this consulship of Honorius and 
 Constantine, which is not to be found in any fasti and which was 
 most likely unheard of outside of Constantine' s dominions, but from 
 the mention of it by Tillemont, v. 570, and the references there 
 given. The insci'iption which is given in Gruter 1072 comes from 
 the church of Saint PauUinus at Trier, and, being in Greek, throws, 
 as usual, some light on the spelling and pronunciation of that 
 tongue. It runs thus ; 
 
 ENGA . KEITE • EYCEBIA • EN 
 
 EIPHNHI . OYCA • lEPOKfiMITI • 
 
 AHO . 1 . KfiMHC AAAANQN ZHCAC 
 
 HMEP • O nPOC . ETQN T • EN 
 
 YHATEIA . ONOPIOY TO H • KAI 
 
 KQNCTANTINOY • TO • A • MHNI 
 
 HANHMOY "ii . HMEPA • 
 
 KI . B • EN EIPHNH. 
 The year is 409. One must suppose that Constantine, on receiving 
 the purple from Honorius, declared himself consul, without regard 
 to the rights of Theodosius. 
 
 How much lost history might have been kept if all makers of 
 epitaphs had put the consuls. 
 
 t So says Sozomen in the passage (ix. 12) quoted above, where 
 he distinctly places it before the Italian expedition of Constantine. 
 I am not sure that this is really contradicted by Zosimos, who does 
 not mention that expedition, when he says (vi. 13), after recording 
 the hostageship of Placidius, to /xev Kara ttjv 'iraXiav kv tovtois ^V 
 KcovarapTipos 6e tw 7rai6i Kavara ro Bidbrifia irepideis Koi avrl tov Kaiaapos 
 jSao'tXeu TrerroiriKas, ATroWivdpiov TrapaXvaas Trjs dp)^rjs erepov dvT avTOV 
 
 vnapxop Inedei^ev. Sozomen's date seems more distinctly given as 
 
 i 
 
III.] Constantine and Maximus. 93 
 
 ledged Imperial colleagues, Ilonorius, Theodosius, 
 Constantine, and Constans ; the making of Emperors 
 was still for a moment in Eoman hands ; it was very 
 soon to pass to the Goth. 
 
 Thus, in all outward seeming, help was coming 
 from Aries to Eavenna. But it was deemed at the 
 court of Eavenna that such help was likely to be 
 dangerous; it was believed that there were high 
 officials about the Italian Augustus who were ready 
 to displace him in favour of his Gaulish brother. 
 Allobich, slayer of Eusebius, had won power, but not 
 confidence ; he was suspected of being in league with 
 Constantine to transfer to him the whole dominion 
 of the West*. It would seem that Honorius, as 
 princes sometimes do, conspired against his minister 
 and found instruments ready to rid him of the 
 suspected traitor. An opportunity was found as 
 Allobich was riding, according to custom, in a solemn 
 procession before his sovereign. Allobich Avas cut 
 down by the loyal assassins, and the Emperor, 
 springing down from his horse, gave God thanks in 
 the hearing of all men for having preserved him 
 from a manifest traitor f. So sultan-like had the 
 
 a date, while that of Zosimos comes in more casually. And 
 Olympiodoros (p. 453), though he too only mentions the matter 
 incidentally, clearly places it before the revolt of Gerontius. 
 That revolt took place Kava-ravrivov rov Tvpdvvov Koi KavaravTOs tov 
 TraiSos, OS Trporepou fiev Kaia-ap, eTreira 8e Koi /Sao-iXevs eKex^ipOTOvrjTO, 
 TovTCiv r]TTr]6ivT(i>v Koi Tre(f)evy6TO)v, 
 
 * Sozomen, ix. 12; ov \^AW6^ixov] 817 (rrparriyov 'Ovmplov ovra koL 
 VTTOTTTOV 0)5 Kwi/oTajTiVo) TTpaypaTevojj.evQV naaav rf/v Trpbs Tr\v ov<nv 
 fiyepov'iav. 
 
 t Olympiodoros (p. 452) records the death of Allobich ; 'AXXd- 
 
94 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 dominion of Eome become that murder was the only 
 way to forestall or to avenge murder. The truth 
 of the suspicion against AUobich seems to be con- 
 firmed by the fact that Constantine, when he heard 
 of his death on his march, turned back, as if his 
 schemes had become altogether hopeless now that 
 his confederate was gone. He had crossed the 
 Cottian Alps and had kept on the left side of the Po 
 till he reached Verona. He was making ready to 
 turn southward, and to cross the river on his way 
 to Eavenna, when the news of Allobich's death met 
 him. He then went back by the way by which he 
 had come, to find troubles enough in the lands of 
 which he was supposed to be the ruler without 
 adding the defence of Italy against Alaric to his 
 other difficulties *. 
 
 His troubles indeed had begun before he started 
 for Eavenna. Spain had quietly submitted to the 
 
 ^iX,os fiera /3jOa;^v, rrjv icji a tov irpanrocriTov Evcre^iov dveTKe S/kjji/ tivwv, 
 yvafirj TOV ISaaiKeas Kara irpoaairov avrov avaipelrai. Sozomen (ix. 1 2) 
 giyes the details ; dvaipfd^vai a-we^rj rare ^Tov 'AWo^ixov], Trporjyov- 
 fievov, as edos, inaviovTos i< rrpoohov tivos rov KparovvTos. fjviKa 8fj Koi 
 6 ^aaiXevs airiKa rov trnrov dno^as, trjpoaria ev-)(api(TTr]pia tw Bern 
 Tjii^aTo, as 7rpocf>avovs eni^ovXov oTraXXayety. 'O Kparmv seems an 
 odd word for the Emperor. On this, passage Gibbon (vol. v. 
 p. 289) remarks that the " assassination of Allobich, in the midst 
 of a public procession, is the only circumstance of his life in 
 which Honorius discovered the faintest symptom of courage or 
 resentment." 
 
 * 01ympiod6ros, p. 452 ; KavaravTlvos . . . t6v 'AXKo^ixov davarov 
 liaBav . . . (})o^r]6f\s VTTotTTpecjiei. Sozomen, ix. 12 ; irapapd^as ras 
 KoTTias AXTTcts, riKev els Ai^epSiva ttoKiv rrjs Aiyovpias. ixeXXcov 8e 
 Trepaiovadai tov 'Hpi8av6v, t^v avTrju oSof dve(rTpe(f)e, fiaBoav tov 'AXKofiixov 
 Bavarov , . . Kcovo-tuvt'ivos 8e (pevycov Tfju 'AprjXaTov KaTfXaj3e. 
 
III.] Constantine and Maximus. 95 
 
 change of rulers in the first instance, and the land 
 might, it would seem, have settled down quietly 
 again after the movement of the kinsmen of Honorius, 
 if the new administration had not wounded local 
 feeling in a very tender point, Spain, as we have 
 seen, had been used to be defended by the arms of 
 her own children. . The legions that served in Spain 
 had been Spanish legions, and the keeping of the 
 Pyrensean passes had been by usage entrusted to 
 what we may call a national militia. Spain had no 
 frontiers through which the barbarians could make 
 their way ; she was not therefore, like Italy and the 
 East, accustomed to have her borders guarded by one 
 body of barbarians hired to keep out another body of 
 their fellows. But now Constantine and Constans 
 were guilty of the fatal, yet not unnatural, mistake 
 of removing the local force, and entrusting the moun- 
 tain passes to the keeping of their own barbarian 
 allies, the Honorians. These troops were further 
 indulged, by their commander Gerontius, it would 
 seem in excessive licence in the way of plunder ; they 
 were above all allowed to harry the district of Valentia, 
 which, doubtless as having supported the cause of 
 Didymus and Verenianus, was dealt with as an 
 enemy's country. The demand of the Spanish legions 
 that the barbarians might be withdrawn, and the old 
 state of things restored, was refused, and great dis- 
 content arose *, To quiet or suppress that discontent 
 
 * This very interesting notice of tlie local usages of tlie Spanish 
 provinces comes in different shapes from Z6simos, Orosius, and 
 S&zomen. The first of these (vi. 5), to the passage quoted above 
 p. 75, mentioning Gerontius as left in command in Spain, adds,, 
 
96 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iil. 
 
 the new Augustus Constans was sent. He went, as 
 far as we can see from our fragmentary authorities, 
 about the time of his father's Italian expedition. It 
 is plain that the Spanish troubles were laid to the 
 charge of the officers whom Constans had left to 
 represent his father in the peninsula. He now took 
 with him a general named Justus, destined, it would 
 seem, to supplant Gerontius, while ApoUinaris lost 
 his office of Prsefect, which was bestowed on a certain 
 Decimius Eusticus, who had hitherto been Master of 
 the Offices *. The wrath of Gerontius was naturally 
 
 KaiToi ye ratv iv 'l^rjpla aTpaTOTreSatv ifnncrrevdrjval Kara to (rvmjdes Tr]V 
 <pvkaiCT]v alTTjaavToyv, koI firj ^evots encTpaTTrjvat rfjv Trjs x^P^^ d(r<f}aXeiav. 
 So Sozomen (ix. 12), 6 fiev Katva-ras . . . inavrjKQe irphs tov Trarepa, 
 (j)povpav KaraaTTjcras ano rasv arpaTuoTav, rris enl ras Snavias irap68ov, t]v 
 8eop.evois ^Trdvois Kara to dpxaiov edos cfyvXaTreiv ovk inerpe^ev. But 
 the most graphic picture is that of Orosius, vii. 40. After the 
 passage quoted on p. 66 he goes on ; " His barbaris [Honoriacis] 
 quasi in pretium victorise praedandi in Palatinis campis licentia 
 data : dehinc supradicti montis claustrorumque eis cura permissa 
 est, remota rusticanorum fideli et utili custodia. Igitur Honoriaci 
 imbuti prseda et illecti abundantia," &c. 
 
 * This has to be put together in a curious way. In Zosimos, 
 vi. 5, we read, Kmva-Tas avdis VTTO TOV TTOTpos els ttjv ^l^rjplav eKTre/iTrerat, 
 'lovarov eTtayofievos. It is only later, in connexion with the appoint- 
 ment of Constans as Augustus, that he mentions (vi. 13, see note 
 above) the deposition of ApoUinaris. Yet we have seen that the 
 appointment of Constans must have come earlier than it is placed 
 by Zosimos, and the substitution of new officers for Gerontius and 
 for ApoUinaris is likely to have been at the same time. It is not 
 so much that the chronology of Zosimos is really confused as that he 
 mentions things when they happen to come into his head without 
 regard to order. The name of the successor of ApoUinaris comes 
 from a notice of Eenatus Profuturus Frigeridus (Greg. Tur. ii. 9) 
 a little later; " Prsefectus jam Decimius Eusticus ex oflficiorum 
 
III.] Constantine and Maximus. 97 
 
 kindled, and he would seem, so far as we can make 
 out from most unsatisfactory records of most im- 
 portant events, to have entered on a scheme of 
 treason of the widest kind, which in its results 
 changed the whole history of Western Europe. He 
 leagued himself with the barbarians. Vandals, Alans, 
 and Suevians, who had been laying waste the greater 
 part of Gaul for the last two years. He seems to have 
 bound himself to them (409) by some kind of formal 
 treaty *. How far it amounted to a regular partition 
 
 magistro." This deposition of his grandfather may have been one 
 reason why Sidonius speaks of the inconstancy of Constantine (see 
 the passage quoted above). It is on more public grounds that 
 Orosius (vii. 40) brands him as " sine merito virtutis." 
 
 * It is not easy just now to fit events into their exact order, as 
 whether the proclamation of Maximus, which is not dated, came 
 before the barbarian invasion of Spain which is fixed to the 
 autumn of 409 or after it (see Wietersheim, ii. 162). I should 
 think that the proclamation came first. The only thing against 
 it is the order of events in Sozomen ; but none of the writers 
 whom we have to follow attend to strict chronological order ; one 
 thing is suggested by another, and out it comes, whether in exact 
 order or not. But the connexion of the two things, that both 
 formed parts of one scheme, that Gerontius, to secure himself 
 against Constantice, favoured the coming of the barbarians into 
 the peninsula, that he even made a treaty with them, are things 
 which seem distinctly made out. 
 
 Sozomen (ix. 12, 13) is not very clear either in his order of 
 facts or in his notions of causes. After the passage quoted above 
 he goes on, 6 koI alnov yeyove fitra ravra rrji dnaXeias rav Trjde' Kara- 
 TreaovaTjs yap rrjs Kcavaravrivov Bvvdfieas, dvaXa^ovres eavTovs Ovavda\oi 
 re KOI Sovt^oi Kai 'AXai/oi, e6vt] ^dp^apa, t^s irap68ov eKparrjaav, Koi 
 TToXXa ^povpia kui TToXeis rav 'lanavSiv koi TaXarav flKov koI tovs 
 
 apxovras rov Tvpdvvov. He then gives the account of Constantino's 
 expedition to Italy, as already quoted. The words cited in the 
 
 H 
 
98 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 of Spain it is impossible to say; but the practical 
 result was that, very much as in the case of Gaul, the 
 Eoman authority was kept up in a corner of the land, 
 while the rest was left to the mercy of the invaders. 
 But the representation of Eoman authority in Spain, 
 as it had passed from Honorius to Constantino, was 
 now to pass from Constantino to Gerontius or to any 
 
 note on p. 91 are followed by a slight reference to the presence of 
 Constans in Spain, KaTO. tovtov fie koI KdvcTTas 6 avrov nals (pevymv e/c 
 Trjs 'la-Travlas. He then again tells of the barbarian invasion, partly 
 in the same words as before but more carefully; KaraTTea-oiicrTjs yap 
 Ttjs KcovaravTivov bvvdfieai, dvaXa^ovres eavTovs Ovavdakoi re koX ^ovi^oi 
 Koi 'A\avo\, (TTTOvB^ ro Uvprjvaiov opos KareKa^ov, evbaijxova K.a\ TrXrjcncoTa- 
 Tqv TTjv ^a>pav CLKovovres. TraprjpeXrjKOTcov re tS>v eniTpaTrevTcov irapa 
 KavcrravTos rfjv (ppovpav rrjs irapohov, iTaprjkdov els 'lanaviav. He then, 
 
 at the beginning of his next chapter, records the elevation of 
 Maximus as happening eV rovra. 
 
 Sozomen here does not personally connect Gerontius with the 
 barbarian entry, but he attributes it to the negligence or treachery 
 of the Honorians under his command. Orosius is to the same 
 effect, but somewhat more explicit. After the words cited above 
 from vii. 40, he adds, "Prodita Pyrenei custodia, claustrisque 
 patefactis cunctas gentes quae per Gallias vagabantur, Hispaniarum 
 provinciis immittunt, iisdemque ipsi adjunguntur." 
 
 Olympiodoros (p. 453) seems distinctly to connect Gerontius 
 personally with the barbarian inroad ; TepovTios 6 arpaTrjyos rfjv 
 irpos Tovs jSap^apovs dapevicras elprjvrjv, Ma^ipov . . . /SacrtXea duayopevei. 
 So Zosimos, vi. 5. Constans enters Spain with Justus, e'0' m 
 TepovTios a)(66pevos, Koi tovs avrodi TrepnTOLrjcrdpevos crrpaTitiTas, inaviarijcn 
 KcovaravTivcp tovs ev KeXrois ^ap^dpovs. He goes On to speak of 
 
 Constantine's dealings in return with other barbarians, but says 
 nothing about Maximus. Renatus too (Greg. Tur. ii. 9) is clear 
 on this head, though it is hard to work in some of the details 
 of his story; "Ab Hispania nuntii commeant a Gerontio Maximum 
 . . . imperio praeditum atque in se [Constantinum et Constantem] 
 comitatu gentium barbararum accinctum parari." 
 
III.] Constantine and Maximus. 99 
 
 one whom Gerontius might think good to clothe with 
 the purple. We are so seldom taken behind the 
 scenes, so seldom allowed to study the motives of the 
 actors in this most confused story, that we can merely 
 guess why Gerontius, instead of laying claim to the 
 Imperial dignity in his own person, set up a certain 
 Maximus as Emperor or tyrant. The proclamation of 
 some rival Emperor was his only chance ; but we can 
 do no more than guess at the causes which made 
 Gerontius forbear from placing the diadem on his own 
 brow. We see easily why at this very moment 
 Alaric w^as setting up a puppet Emperor in Italy for 
 his own ends, why later in the century Eicimer set 
 up and put down Emperors at pleasure. For the 
 days had not yet come for an avowed barbarian to 
 mount the throne of the Caesars in his own person. 
 Stilicho, charged with plotting the elevation of his son 
 Eucherius, is a nearer case to this of Gerontius. But 
 StiHcho was said to come of the stock of the Vandals*. 
 The lapse of another generation, the connexion by 
 marriage between his house and that of the Emperor's, 
 may have caused the son to be looked on as more 
 Eoman than the father. But Gerontius would seem 
 to have been a provincial of the province of Britain, 
 as good a Eoman then, by the edict of Antoninus, as 
 any man in Spain, Gaul, or Italy. It is therefore by 
 no means easy to see, why, when he risked himself 
 
 * If we may believe his enemy Orosius (vii. 38), " Comes 
 Stilico Wandalorum imbellis, avarae, perfidse, et dolosse gentis 
 genere editus." " Imbellis " at least is a strange epithet ; but 
 Livy and Gregory of Tours have equally strange sayings about 
 Latins and West-Goths. 
 
 H2 ^-^fC- 
 
100 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 and all that belonged to him in a struggle for power, 
 in a struggle against Honorius and Constantine at 
 once, he did not at least run the risk on his own 
 behalf and in his own name. Whatever were his 
 motives, the fact is clear. It was not himself but 
 Maximus whom Gerontius chose for the dangerous 
 honour. But who was Maximus 1 That one among 
 our authorities who is on the whole the most trust- 
 worthy, but whose evidence has come down to us in 
 the most fragmentary state, seems to call him the 
 son of Gerontius, in which case we should have the 
 closest parallel of all to the alleged designs of Stilicho. 
 He was, it is said, serving among the domestics, the 
 household troops doubtless of Constantine and Con- 
 stans. Other writers speak more vaguely of Maximus 
 as a friend or dependant of Gerontius. In any case, 
 just as with Constantine himself, the name of the 
 renowned British tyrant of the last century may have 
 gone some way towards securing his elevation, though 
 we are also told that Gerontius deemed him a man 
 personally fit for the post*. Maximus therefore 
 
 * 01ympiod6ros (453) calls Maximus the son of Gerontius; 
 Ma^t/Ltof Tov eavTov Traiba, els ttju bofieariKoiv rd^iv reXovvra, ^aaiXea 
 avayopevei. Sozomen's account (ix. 1 3) is, TepovTios 6 tS>p Kmva-TavTivov 
 (TTparrjywv apiaros, 8v(Tpevfjs avrSt yiyovev, eTTiTrjdfiou re tls Tvpavviba 
 Md^ipop TOV avTov olKelov vofiLcras, ^acrCKiKr^v iveSvaev e(r6rJTa. Renatus, 
 in the passage before quoted, calls him " Maximum, unum e 
 clientibus suis." Wietersheim prefers the witness of Olympiodoros, 
 which is doubtless the best in itself. But it is hard to see how 
 a son could be mistaken for anything else^ while a stranger might 
 be more easily mistaken for a son. Orosius (vii. 42) puts the whole 
 story of Gerontius and Maximus out of date ; " Constantem filium 
 Constantini Gerontius comes suus, vir nequam, magis quam probus, 
 apud Viennam interfecit, atque in ejus locum Maximum quemdam 
 
III.] Constantine and Maximus. loi 
 
 assumed the purple and held his court at Tarragona*. 
 Master of at least the north-eastern corner of Spain, 
 he found himself better able to maintain his authority 
 against other representatives of the Koman power 
 than he was against the common enemies of the 
 Eoman name. 
 
 We cannot have a better illustration of the way in 
 which these tyrants rose and fell than in the story 
 of Gerontius, a story full of striking adventure, on 
 which we have now entered. As Constantine has 
 done by Honorius, so Gerontius now does by Con- 
 stantine. All alike are Emperors to those who accept 
 their dominion, tyrants to all beyond its bounds. 
 The truth is that, during the whole life of the 
 Eoman power, down to the disputes of a Palaiologos 
 and a Kantakouzenos, the only chance for a man 
 at the head of an army who had fallen under the 
 suspicion of the master whom he was supposed to 
 serve was to assume the purple himself It v/as 
 a frightful risk ; but he might succeed ; otherwise 
 he had no hope. Thus the Empire was torn in pieces 
 by the personal interests of particular men, at 
 a moment when no one frontier was safe against 
 foreign enemies. Yet the wonderful thing is how 
 often the Empire came together again. What strikes 
 us at every step in the tangled history of these times 
 
 substituit." This account would be true, if only tbe order of the 
 two facts was turned about. This neglect of chronology comes of 
 the fact that Orosius, after recording the events at the Pyrenees, 
 goes off into an edifying discourse on the doings of tlie barbarians 
 in Spain, and now comes back to give a " catalogus tyrannorum." 
 * S6zomen, U. S. ; eV TapuKovrj bidyeiv e'iaa-ev. 
 
102 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 is the wonderful life which the Koman name and 
 the Koman power still kept when it was thus 
 attacked on every side from without and torn in 
 pieces in every quarter from within. The personal 
 good luck of Honorius has been noticed both in older 
 and in later times*; like the Persian conqueror of 
 old, he overcame most of his enemies without stirring 
 from his hearth t, and those whom he could not over- 
 come he at least outlived. But the good luck, if not 
 of the local Rome, at least of the wider Romania, is 
 still more to be noticed. Whatever blows fall, some- 
 thing escapes, and that something commonly lives ; 
 it grows again, and wins back part at least of what 
 had been lost. At this moment the whole West is 
 overrun by barbarian invasion. Britain falls away; 
 Gaul is ravaged from the Rhine to the Pyrenees ; 
 the greater part of Spain, as we shall presently see, 
 is cut up into barbarian kingdoms. By a blow more 
 striking and terrible than all in its historic and 
 dramatic aspect, Rome itself has been entered and 
 sacked by a barbarian enemy. Yet the Roman name 
 and the Roman power live on. The dominion of 
 the conqueror of Rome passes to a successor who 
 is ready to act as the soldier of Rome and who aspires 
 to be the son and brother of her princes. While 
 Italy is thus saved by the exchange of Alaric for 
 Atawulf, neither Gaul nor Spain is wholly lost. 
 
 * Sozomen (ix. 16) is strong on this head. See also Procopius, 
 Bell. Vand. i. 2, and Gibbon. 
 t ^sch. Pers. 860-63 ; 
 
 oercas S' fiXf ttoXcis iropov 
 ov dia^as "AXvos TroTafiolo, 
 
 ovb d(f) iarias (rvdds. 
 
III.] Constantine and Maximus. i03 
 
 A corner of Gaul escapes barbarian ravage ; a corner 
 of Spain escapes barbarian partition. And if at this 
 moment neither Gaul nor Spain is in the obedience 
 of Kavenna, if each land has its own Emperor or 
 tyrant, yet the tyrants at once turn their arms against 
 one another, and all presently yield to the fortunate 
 star of the lawful prince. And if that lawful prince 
 wins his victories by deputy, one at least of his 
 enemies suffers defeat by deputy also. 
 
 Maximus then is tyrant at this moment in Spain, 
 reigning at Tarragona, but without any such acknow- 
 ledgement of his position as Constantine had won 
 from the unwilling Honorius. His immediate enemy 
 was Constantine, whose power in Spain he had 
 overthrown ; more immediately again it was Constans 
 by whom his father Constantine had been represented 
 in Spain. But Constans, though the greater part of 
 his father's forces were under his command*, could 
 not stand against the movement which had raised 
 Maximus to power. He and his prsefect, Decimius 
 Eusticus, who, we may gather, was specially unpopular, 
 fled into Gaul to Constantine f. From his capital at 
 
 ToO TrXeioj'os t^s Bvvdfieas fiepovs ovtos iv 'l^rjpia says Z6sim0S 
 (vi. 5), but his account is confused, and lie mentions nothing of 
 the acts of Constans, or indeed of Constantine, after Constans 
 went into Spain with Justus. 
 
 t It is again excessively hard to put our accounts together. 
 Olympiodoros (453) tells us how, Kavaravriuov koI KwvcTTavTos . . . 
 fjTTTjdevrav Koi TrecjyevyoTotv, Gerontius sets up Maximus as Emperor, 
 fiVa eTTibia^as KavaravTa, KareTrpd^aTO dvaipedrjuai, Koi Kara irodas furero, 
 Smokcoi; Ka\ rbv Trarepa KcovaravTlvov. One would think from this that 
 Constantine as well as Constans was in Spain ; yet every other 
 picture places him at Gaul, and 01ympiod6ros himself speaks of 
 
104 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [in. 
 
 Aries that prince — an acknowledged colleague of 
 Honorius and Theodosius — had to keep, if he could, 
 so much of Gaul as was still Roman from the attack 
 which was threatening from Spain. Maxim us him- 
 self did not stir, any more than Honorius ; but 
 
 him at Aries directly after. Nor would any one find out the 
 presence of Constans at Vienne. Sozomen (ix. 12, 13) is a little 
 clearer, though he tells his tale in a somewhat strange order. After 
 the return of Constantine from Italy comes the passage cited in 
 a former note ; Kcai'o-Tawti'os 6e (fifvycov ttjv 'AprjXaTou KareXajSe, Kara 
 TovTov 8e KoX Kavcrras 8' avTov nais (f)evyo>v tK ttjs 'icrnavias. Then, as an 
 explanation, follows his second account of the barbarian invasion 
 of Spain above quoted ; then Gerontius makes Maximus Emperor 
 and leaves him at Tarragona, alrhs he KavaravTlva inea-TpaTeva-ev, iv 
 ■7rap68a Ka>v(TTavra tov vlov airov iv Bievvrj ovra avaipedrjvai irapaa-Kevdaas, 
 eVei Se efiaBe KcovaTavrlvos ra Kara Md^ifjiov, 'E86^i)^ov fiev tov avrov 
 (TTpaTTjybv nepav rov 'Ftjvov TreTro/i^ev, ^pdyycov re Koi AXafiavociv avp.- 
 yLa)(j.av TrpoTpeyJAajjievov, KavaTavTi 8e rat avrov TratSt Biewrjs koi Ta>v 
 T^8e noXetov rr^v <pvKaKriv ineTpeyfre. Koi Tepoprtos fikv inX t^p 'AprjXarop 
 iXdaas, eTToKiopicei rfjp ttoXiv. This almost reads as if it had been 
 carelessly copied from two sources, one of them the same as that 
 used by 01ympiod6ros. The account of Eenatus (Greg. Tur. ii. 9) 
 is yet more confused. He makes Constans still with his father — 
 surely in Gaul — where " ab Hispania nuntii commeant a Gerontio 
 Maximum unum e clientibus suis imperio praeditum atque in 
 comitatu gentium barbararum accinctum parari. Quo exterriti 
 Edobeco ad Germanise gentes prsemisso, Constans et praefectus 
 jam Decimius Rusticus [see above, note p. 96] ex officiorum magistro, 
 petunt Gallias, cum Francis et Alamannis omnique militum manu 
 ad Constantinum jamjamque redituri." Here we get some of the 
 same facts as in Sozomen, but in a strange [succession]. Constans, 
 who is already with his father in Gaul, is made to go into Gaul to 
 seek for German allies, an errand on which Edobich is already sent. 
 In the scraps that we have in Gregory, there is nothing about the 
 fate of Constans, but directly after Constantine is besieged some- 
 where, clearly at Aries. Olympiodoros thus fancies father and son 
 
III.] Constantine and Maximus. io5 
 
 Gerontius, in league with the barbarians who had 
 passed into Spain (411), bringing with bim no doubt 
 not a few of them as bis alHes and soldiers*, set off to 
 follow Constans, and doubtless to win the dominions 
 of Constantine for the prince whom he had himself 
 set up. Constantine made preparations to defend the 
 cities of his dominions and to gain barbarian allies. 
 On this latter errand the Frank Edobich was sent 
 beyond the Ehine to collect a force both of his own 
 countrymen and of the Alamans. Nearer home too 
 Constantine, like his rivals, did his main work by 
 deputy; he seems to have shut himself up at Aries, 
 and to have entrusted the general care of his terri- 
 tories to his son Constans, whose headquarters were 
 at Yiennef. That post, so far from the southern 
 frontier^ so far north even from Aries, seems strangely 
 chosen when an invading host was actually on the 
 march from Spain. To one very careful inquirer it 
 
 to be botli in Spain, while Renatus fancies them both to be in Gaul, 
 though directly after he makes Constans " petere Gallias." Sozomen 
 alone brings out that Constantine had come back from Italy to Gaul, 
 while Constans fled from Spain to meet him. The narrative of 
 S6zomen in short hangs together, save that he oddly puts the death 
 of Constans before his commission from his father, and that he 
 clearly mistook the geographical relations of Aries and Vienne. The 
 odd statement of Eenatus that Constans " Gallias petit" to seek for 
 German allies may suggest that he was sent northward from Aries 
 to co-operate in some way with Edobich. On the whole I think we 
 may put together some such narrative as I have given in the text. 
 The confusions in all our authorities are very wonderful, but it is 
 only fair to remember that, while we have the connected work of 
 Sozomen, we have only scraps of Eenatus and Olympiodoros. 
 
 * This may be [gathered] from the words of Eenatus. 
 
 t So I infer from Sozomen compared with Eenatus. 
 
106 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 has seemed so hard to believe that the tale that we 
 are telling happened at Vienne that he has ventured 
 to suggest that the mention of the capital of the 
 Allobroges must be simply a mistake, and that the 
 headquarters of Constans were really at Narbonne*. 
 Truly Narbo Martins is geographically far better 
 suited than Vienna Allobrogum to be the head- 
 quarters of a ruler of south-eastern Gaul who is looking 
 for an invasion from Spain. But it is dangerous to 
 reconstruct history according to what, from a geo- 
 graphical or a military point of view, ought to have 
 happened. When such authorities as we have — not, 
 to be sure, a Thucydides or a Procopius — place 
 Constans at Vienne, I cannot take upon me arbi- 
 trarily to translate him to Narbonne. And, after 
 all, something might be said for the presence of the 
 younger Augustus at Vienne at such a moment. The 
 most natural inference is that Constantino himself 
 was at Aries, that to him was left the immediate 
 defence of Gaul against Maximus and his partisans, 
 
 * SoFauriel, i. 101. The question really comes to this. Sozomen 
 distinctly places this event at Vienne ; but by the use of the words 
 eV irapobm he shows that he did not understand the geography of 
 Vienne, while iv •napoba would exactly suit Narbonne. Is he more 
 likely to have got hold of the right geography with the wrong 
 name, or to have got the right name but to have confused the 
 geography.? To me it seems more likely that he should have 
 heard the name rightly as Vienne, but that, having no clear notion 
 of the position of Vienne or of any special reasons for Constans 
 being there, he should fancy that Vienne was on the natural road 
 from Spain, rather than that he should get hold of the name of 
 Vienne when the thing really happened at Narbonne. But every 
 man must judge for himself. 
 
 I 
 
III.] Constantme and Maximus. io7 
 
 while his more enterprising son fixed himself in a city 
 well fitted either as a bulwark against hostile bar- 
 barians from central Gaul*, or as a trysting-place for 
 friendly barbarians from beyond the Khine. And in 
 the economy of things, when south-eastern Gaul was 
 for a moment, as it has been in some later moments, 
 the chief centre of history in lands beyond the Alps, 
 when each of the great cities of the land had to stand 
 a siege or to witness a revolution, it could not be that 
 no place in the story should be found for so noble a city 
 as the true Vienna, the city of the AUobroges, the city 
 whose walls and whose churches still shelter the dust 
 of more than one of the unkindly forgotten Kings of 
 the Middle Kingdom. Seated, like her fellows, by 
 the broad Rhone, not girded by the waters like the 
 Arelate of those days, not perched on her steep like 
 the Gaulish Valentia, but nestling as it were in the 
 arena of an amphitheatre of hills, the great river 
 itself sweeping through as if ready for the sports 
 of the naumachia, Vienna could then show, whole 
 and perfect, those mighty masses of brickwork whose 
 ruins it is now not always easy to distinguish from the 
 face of the hills that they so boldly climbed. The 
 church of the Primate of Primates, the head, so men 
 at Vienna deemed, of all the Burgundies, had not 
 yet arisen in that vast unbroken length that took 
 six centuries to lead to its full extent at either end. 
 But the basilica in which Avitus ministered may well 
 have been already standing, and that lovely relic 
 of pagan days, second only to its fellow temple at 
 
 * This is suggested by tlie words of Z6simos ; ('n-avlaTrja-i \rep6v- 
 
 Ttos] KcovaTavTLVcp tovs ev KeXrois ^ap^dpovs. 
 
108 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 Nemausus, was there "untouched by age and havoc, 
 perhaps already a house of worship of the new faith 
 of Rome and Gaul. The obelisk between the walls, 
 the shattered theatre within them, the amphitheatre 
 whose site we now faintly trace, the whole range of 
 buildings rising tier on tier, colonnade on colonnade, 
 must have made Vienna a prouder city to meet the 
 eyes of the advancing enemy than that he hurried 
 by on the Valentine hill or even among the lagunes of 
 Imperial Arelate. It was indeed a prize for kings 
 to strive which Constans guarded for his father, which 
 Gerontius attacked, it may be for his son. But again 
 not a word is vouchsafed to us to tell how Vienna fell 
 into the hands of the patron of the new tyrant of 
 Spain. We know not whether the city was stormed 
 or whether it surrendered. We know only that 
 Constans came into the power of Gerontius, and was 
 put to death by the conqueror*. 
 
 From the city defended by the son Gerontius 
 marched to the city defended, or at least dwelled in, 
 by the father. The Briton who had followed Constan- 
 tino from his island now laid siege to his master of 
 yesterday in the august home that he had helped to 
 win for him. In reading this story, the story of the 
 double siege of Aries, we must bear in mind the 
 topography of the country as it stood at the beginning 
 of the fifth century t. The inlets of the sea, which 
 
 * Orosius (vii. 42) ; " Constantem . . . Gerontius comes suus . . . 
 apud Viennam interfecit." 
 
 t On the ancient topography of Aries and the whole country 
 generally see the works of Lentheric, specially La Grfece et 
 L'Orient en Provence, chap, iii., and the plan at page 311. 
 
III.] Constantine and Maximus. io9 
 
 form so marked a feature on the journey from Aries 
 to the Provengal Aix, were then far more numerous 
 and came much further inland than thev do now ; 
 and the branches of the river were then many more 
 than the Great and the Little Khone that are now 
 left. Aries was, then as now, parted from her great 
 suburb — far greater then as the Colonia Julia Paterna 
 than it is now as the Fauxbourg de Trinquetailles — by 
 the main stream of the river, yoked by its bridge, 
 better represented in site by the bridge that now 
 carries the railway than by the bridge which forms 
 the ordinary communication between city and suburb. 
 But waters that are now dried up gave both city and 
 suburb a peninsular shape which they keep no longer. 
 The city itself was washed to the east by a deep 
 inlet of the Mediterranean which formed the Statio 
 N avium of Arelate. The Elysian Fields stretched their 
 long hues of sarcophagi between its banks and the 
 city walls that rose above them. The plain which 
 reaches almost to the foot of the little Alps was 
 then a sea ; the hills ciowned by the holy place of 
 Montmajeur, by the giants' chamber on the height 
 of Cordes, by the rock-hewn dwellings of Les Baux, 
 were then islands in the water, as Avalon and its 
 West-Saxon fellows still were in the days of Alfred. 
 Against the city thus fenced in by art and nature 
 two armies marched at the same moment, each hostile 
 alike to one another and to its defenders. For while 
 Gerontius was marching from Yienne by the high way 
 that, like the modern railway, skirts the left, the 
 eastern, bank of the river, another army was on its 
 march from Italy. The lord of Kavenna, however 
 
110 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 unable to save Eome, could now (41 1) — when he that 
 had threatened Kome had passed away, when Atawulf 
 ruled the Goths in the place of Alaric — find leisure 
 and means to think again of the lands beyond the 
 Alps. And he had those about him who could win 
 back Aries to his obedience, and who could rid him 
 alike of the unwelcome colleague by whom Aries was 
 defended, and of the avowed rebel by whom it was 
 besieged. 
 
 This last distinction, the fact that Constantine held 
 the formal place of a lawful Augustus, must never 
 be forgotten. Yet it is hardly wonderful if the 
 distinction between colleague and rebel was not 
 accurately drawn at the court of Eavenna. The 
 acknowledgement of Constantine by Honorius as an 
 Imperial colleague had hardly been an act of the 
 free will either of Honorius himself or of those by 
 whom he was guided. He no doubt personally felt 
 some grudge against his fellow Emperor on account 
 of the slaughter of his kinsmen, and none the less 
 perhaps because of the pretences by which that 
 slaughter had been feebly excused. And the appear- 
 ance of Constantine in Italy, an appearance which 
 allowed of so many interpretations, might well be 
 looked on as cancelling all claims on the part of the 
 tyrant of Gaul to be looked on as any longer a fellow 
 Emperor with the son and grandson of Theodosius. 
 Constantine was now looked on as an enemy (41 1); the 
 enterprise of Sarus was undertaken again with better 
 luck ; a force was now sent into Gaul to recover that 
 province, or those parts of it in which the Koman 
 name still bore rule, from the obedience of Constantine 
 
III.] Constantme and Maximus. in 
 
 to the obedience of Honorius. A new actor in our 
 story appears in command of the host that was sent 
 on this errand. Constantius, at a later time to be 
 the third Emperor of that name, may be looked on 
 as in some sort continuing that great line of Illyrian 
 princes which had given the Koman power a renewed 
 life. Born at Naissus, bearing one of the great names 
 of the Flavian house, if he did not actually share the 
 blood of the elder Constantii and Constantini, he must 
 at least have inherited their traditions. Schooled 
 in the wars of Theodosius *, he was the best captain 
 that Bome had left, and he had some merits beyond 
 those of the mere man of war. We see in him 
 traces of the generosity and greatness of soul of an 
 older day, and there is something which calls for 
 sympathy in his abiding love for the august lady, 
 Eoman princess and Gothic queen, whose marriage 
 in the end raised him to the throne. He is brought 
 into our story as the future husband of Placidia, the 
 future father of the last Valentinian f ; but he may 
 fairly claim a place on his own account as at least 
 one of the least evil in a bad time. We are told in 
 a marked way that Constantius at this stage was 
 a man of many virtues and specially open of hand, 
 while after his imperial marriage he was fallen into 
 
 * We get several notices of Constantius among the fragments of 
 Olympiodoros. In one (467) we read that 'iXXvpios rjv to yivos atro 
 Naicrou TroXecos ttjs AaKias, koL TroXXaf (TTpareias otto Tmv Qioboaiov )(p6v(ov 
 
 Tov fxeyakov 8ieX6av. See also 450, 457. 
 
 + He is brought in by Sozomen (ix. 13) as Kcava-ravTios 6 tov 
 OiaXevTiviai/ov rraTTjp, and by OlympiodorOS (450) as Kcova-TavTios OS 
 fjydyeTo TiXaKidiav. 
 
112 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 covetousness, and greediness he loved withal *. It 
 was looked on as a deed of justice rather than of 
 cruelty when, at some stage of his career, he caused 
 Olympics, the slanderer of Stilicho, to lose his ears 
 and to be beaten to death with clubs f. We have 
 his personal picture, a picture perhaps not altogether 
 attractive. We can see him with his wide head, his 
 long neck, his large eyes, looking sad and stern as 
 he went forth in warlike array, leaning forward on 
 the neck of his horse, and turning his eyes hither 
 and thither. Men who saw him in such guise said 
 that he bore on him the stamp of one who should 
 one day be a tyrant, a danger which was escaped 
 by his admission among the ranks of lawful princes. 
 But those who saw him in his lighter hours thought 
 otherwise. At the table and at the banquet of wine, 
 he was ever cheerful and bore himself as the equal 
 of his companions. He would rise and take his part 
 in merry strife with the jesters who were brought in 
 
 * Olympiodoros, 467 ', 'Hk raXka fxkv inaiveros Kai XPW^'''^^ ^^ 
 Kpel<T(T<ov, irpiv -q crvva(^driVM HXaKibiq, eVei 5e avrfj (rvve^evKTO, els (}>i\o- 
 xprjl^ariav e^atKeike. This, bating the special metaphor, is almost 
 translated in the words of the Peterborough Chronicle, 1087; 
 " He wses on gitsunge befeallan, and grsedinesse he lufode mid 
 ealle.' 
 
 + This story is told by Olympiodoros (450), but it is not easy to 
 fix the date, and it must have been after our time, after his 
 marriage with Placidia. Olympics lost his power, as is described 
 by Zosimos, v. 46, but rose to power again, and on his second fall, 
 was thus dealt with by Constantius ; e^eVfo-e ttjs apx^s. eha ndKiv 
 fiTf^rf ravTrjs, etra eKireaav, ponaiKois vaTepou vno Kavcrravriov os ijydyero 
 II\aKi8iav Traiofifvos dvaipelrai, Tas aKoas npoTepop eKKOiifU. He adds 
 the moral comment J koL rj 8Ur] top avocriovpyov els rekos ovk a<prJKfv 
 drinaprjTOP. 
 
III.] Constantine and Maximus. 113 
 
 for the common amusement*. Sucli he was in the 
 hours of peace at Eavenna; at Aries he showed 
 himself in his sterner aspect. He set forth on his 
 errand, taking with him as his second in command 
 a valiant Goth who bore the renowned name of 
 Wulfilasf, a name whose cliief renown has been won 
 in other fields than those of warfare. 
 
 Constantius and Wulfilas were sent against Con- 
 stantine ; it is not clear whether they expected to 
 meet with any other enemy. From what point they 
 approached Aries would depend on the road by which 
 they left Italy. They might take either side of the 
 Little Alps and the Durance ; they might or might 
 not pass by Glanum on its plain among the hills, 
 with its arch and its still abiding monument. But 
 we may best conceive them skirting the roots of Mount 
 of Victory, with Gains Marius as passing through 
 the city of Sextius with its health-giving waters, 
 as pressing on by the Stony Plain, thick with the 
 artillery which Zeus himself hurled down to the 
 
 * This curious picture, which has not been neglected either 
 by Gibbon (ch. xxxi.) or Hodgkin (i. 823), comes from Olympio- 
 doros, 457 J rjv he Kcovaravrios iv fiev rais 7rpo68ois KaTJ]<^f)s Koi 
 CTKvdpcairbs, [xeyaXotfydakixos T€ Koi iieyaXavxijv Koi TrXarVAce^aXos, vevoav S 
 oXov iiii Tov Tpaxrjkov rov ^epovros avrov mnov, koi ovroi Tfjde KOKeiae 
 Xo^ov iKirifiirav to opfia, cos, to tov \6yov, nacri ^aiveadai eidos a^iov 
 Tvpavvihos, iv 8e dfiTTVois Koi aviiiroaiois Tepirvos kcu ttoXitikos, as Koi 
 ipi^etv Tols filpois TToWaKis irai^ovfn irpb tt^s ^paire^rjs. 
 
 t " Per Honorii duces Constantium et Ulphulam," says Prosper, 
 411. So Olymp. 453 ; ev a 8e ravra eyiveTo [while Gerontius entered 
 GaulJ KcovaTcivTios /cat Ov\(f)i\as aTroaTeXKovTai Trapa 'Ovapiov Kara 
 KavaTavTivov. Sozomen (ix. 1 3) does not mention "Wulfilas now, but 
 in his next chapter as OvX^iXas 6 KcovaTavTiov ava-Tpar-qyos. 
 
 I 
 
114 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 help of his valiant son"^.^, and which the traveller who 
 threads the streets of Aries might wish that he was 
 not so often called on to trample underfoot. In 
 either case the last stage of their journey would 
 he the same ; they would draw near the city from 
 the north-east;, their approach would immediately 
 threaten the Gaulish Gate with the palace of the 
 two Constantines rising to their right, while the 
 huge mass of the amphitheatre, taken with the city 
 and taught, like the lesser amphitheatre of Eome, 
 to form part of its defences, rose in its vast bulk 
 yet more proudly to their left. We would fain 
 know whether it came on them as a surprise to find 
 that they had to deal with two enemies within and 
 without the city. It was a strange errand on which 
 the army of Constantius had come. Their march 
 had led them to a besieged town ; but they did not 
 come to relieve it ; their object was not to deliver 
 but to capture ; only they were for a moment hin- 
 dered from capturing because yet another power had 
 stepped in before them to besiege. As the troops of 
 Gerontius had come from the direct north, their last 
 stage must have been the same as the last stage 
 of the march of Constantius. The army of Italy 
 must have found the army of Spain actually en- 
 camped before the very gate by which either of the 
 roads one of which they must have taken would lead 
 them to the walls. Here there was an enemy to 
 be dislodged before they could throw up a bank or 
 shoot an arrow against the city itself. Those who 
 
 * Le Crau; see Strabo, iv. 1. 7, and the fragment of ^schylus' 
 Prometheus Invinctus there cited; Dindorf. No. 182. 
 
III.] Constantine and Maximus. 115 
 
 attacked and those who defended Aries were alike 
 traitors to the lawful Emperor whom they served. 
 Constantine the tyrant was within ; Gerontius the 
 general of Maximus the tyrant was without. If they 
 would discharge the errand on which they had been 
 sent, themselves to besiege Aries and to arrest its 
 Emperor, they had first to deal with those who had 
 come out of Spain on the like errand. The work 
 was not a hard one. It may be that the soldiers of 
 Gerontius were in some way moved by the thought 
 that the army of Constantius was the army of a 
 lawful and undisputed Emperor. It is certain that 
 Gerontius had, by the sternness of his discipline, 
 kindled disaffection in his own ranks. The greater 
 part of his forces forsook him and followed the 
 banners of Constantius. He himself with a small 
 party escaped into Spain *, We must presently follow 
 him thither to listen to the thrilling tale of his last 
 hours ; for the present there is more serious work 
 among the streams and the lagunes of Aries, 
 
 By the flight of Gerontius and his few companions 
 the army of Italy, the army of Constantius, had 
 taken the place of the army of Spain as the host 
 to whose lot it fell to besiese Constantine in Aries. 
 
 * 
 
 It is Sozomen (ix. 13) who here gives the fullest and clearest 
 
 account j Tepovnos . . . (^euyei Trapaxp^jfio. jxer oXiyoav (rTpaTicaTasv' ol yap 
 TrXelovs Tois a/i0l rov KavaTcivTiov irpoaexo>pr](Tav. Olympiodoros (454) 
 is less clear, but he gives us the reason for the desertion of the 
 troops of Gerontius ; Tepovnos, Trapayevofievcov OvK(j)iKa koi KcovcrTavTioVf 
 (f>evy€i. Koi KaraKijcpBels, on iyKparas rjpxe tov oiKdov (TTparov, vn 
 avTwv eKeivav em^ovXeveTai. We should hardly find out from this 
 that he got back to Spain, but that he did so is plain from the 
 words which next follow in Sozomen. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 Through the defection of so great a part of the 
 soldiers of Gerontius, the two besieging armies 
 must have been largely made up of the same men. 
 Meanwhile it will be remembered that the Frankish 
 Edobich, now, at all events, the best officer in the 
 service of Constantino, had gone beyond the Rhine 
 to seek for allies for his master among Franks and 
 Alamans. His mission was not in vain. Aries did 
 not yield in a moment. Warfare beneath its walls 
 lasted longer than it had lasted beneath the walls of 
 Valence or seemingly beneath those of Vienne. The 
 siege was already in its fourth month (ill) when the 
 news came that Edobich was drawing near with 
 a vast and motley host of barbarians to the relief of 
 Constantino*. Constantius and Wulfilas were troubled 
 
 * I have here ventured to take a date from Kenatus and a fact 
 from other writers. In the extracts made by Gregory (ii. 9) from 
 Eenatus, Edobich goes to collect Frankish and Alamannian allies, 
 and we hear no more of him. But " vix dum quartus obsidionis 
 Constantini mensis agebatur," not Edobich, but Jovinus, who has 
 already assumed Empire, comes with a vast barbarian host, and 
 then Constantine is given up and sent into Italy. Sozomen, on 
 the other hand, records the mission of Edobich and its issue. 
 He comes back with the troops he has gathered, fights Constantius, 
 and dies as in the text. Then Constantine abdicates. Sozomen 
 then mentions the overthrow of Jovinus, but without mentioning 
 the time of his usurpation. 
 
 It seems to me that, as far as the whole campaign of Constantius 
 is concerned, Sozomen gives a coherent and probable account. 
 Henatus may have done the same, if we had his full text ; but 
 we have only the account that we can put together out of fragments 
 quoted from him by Gregory. "What becomes of Edobich? The 
 march of Jovinus is not mentioned elsewhere. Why should Constan- 
 tine or the defenders of Aries surrender — seemingly to Constantius 
 
III.] Constantine and Maximus. 117 
 
 at the tidings ; for a moment they even, like Sarus, 
 made up their minds to leave Gaul and await the 
 enemy in Italy. But the march of Edobich was too 
 
 — because of the coming of Jovinus? Why did not Constantius 
 stay to fight Jovinus % But if we accept Sozomen's version, the 
 whole is clear. With the failure of Edobich, Constantine's hopes of 
 relief are at an end, and he surrenders. The work of Constantius, 
 in Gaul at least, is done ; the usurpation of Jovinus, we must 
 suppose, comes later. Is it not most likely that there is some 
 confusion in Gregory's extracts from Renatus, and that the host 
 which came in the fourth month of the siege was really that of 
 Edobich and not that of Jovinus % Gregory does not always copy 
 things accurately, as we may see by his quotations from Sidonius, 
 where we can test him. The withdrawal of Constantius, the 
 quiet surrender of Gaul to Jovinus, which Renatus, as we have 
 him, implied, have naturally puzzled both Gibbon and Wieter- 
 sheim. 
 
 No one but Eenatus seems to put the usurpation of Jovinus 
 before the fall of Constantine. Orosius does not follow strict 
 chronological order, for he mentions the death of Constans and 
 adds " in ej us locum [Gerontius] Maximum quemdam substituit.' ' But 
 when he has got rid of Maximus, he says emphatically, " Jovinus 
 postea vir Galliarum nobilissimus in tyrannidem mox ut assurrexit, 
 cecidit." Prosper Tiro (whatever he is worth) places the fall of 
 Constantine in 41 1, and the usurpation of Jovinus (" tyrannidem 
 post Constantium invadit") in 413, the same year as his overthrow. 
 Marcellinus kills Constantine in 411, and in 412 has "Jovinus et 
 Sebastianus in Galliis tyrannidem molientes occisi sunt." The higher 
 authority of Prosper places the fall of Constantine in 411, and in 
 413 has "Jovinus et Sebastianus fratres in Galliis regno arrepto 
 interempti." In all these there is no very distinct or trustworthy 
 statement of the date of the usurpation of Jovinus. The casual 
 mention in Prosper and Marcellinus, though suggesting a later date 
 than that of Renatus, does not amount to a direct statement. 
 Idatius alone is explicit, and I think decisive, on the whole 
 matter; 
 
118 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 speedy to allow this timid scheme to be carried out. 
 The besiegers of Aries were on the left, the eastern, 
 side of the Khone ; Edobich seems to have been 
 marching southward along the western bank. When 
 the news came that he was actually encamped in 
 their near neighbourhood, on the peninsula that is 
 covered by the Julian Colony, the furthest point to 
 the north-east of the dreary region of the Camargue, 
 all thoughts of retreat were cast aside by the generals 
 of Honorius. They determined to face the enemy 
 boldly. They crossed the river to give battle to 
 the new comers. Both this fact, and the scheme 
 of action that was planned between the Eoman and 
 the Gothic commander, a scheme which showed no 
 lack either of skill or of daring, seem to show that 
 the host of Edobich could hardly have reached even 
 the wall of the Colony, and that the battle must 
 have been fought at some little distance from Aries 
 itself*. For the followers of Edobich, unlike the 
 
 "xvii [411] Constantinus post triennium invasse tyrannidis ab 
 Honorii duce Constantio intra Gallias occiditur. 
 
 xviii [412] Jovinus et Sebastianus fratres intra Galliam, et in 
 Africa Heraclianus pari tyrannidis inflantur insania. 
 
 xix [413] Jovinus et Sebastianus oppressi ab Honorii ducibus 
 Narbona interfecti sunt." 
 
 I cannot think that the authority of this very clear statement 
 is weakened by the inaccuracy of placing the death of Constantine 
 (whom he had not mentioned before), as well as his reign and 
 overthrow, " intra Gallias." I hold therefore that Jovinus did not 
 set himself up till after the death of Constantine, and that the 
 army of Jovinus spoken of in Gregory is really the army of Edobich 
 whose fate is described by Sozomen. 
 
 * I think I see something like this change of purpose in the not 
 
III. J Constantine and Maximus. im 
 
 followers of Gerontius, did meet the army of Con- 
 stantius in open fight. According to the plan 
 arranged between him and Wulfilas, Constantius 
 himself*, at the head of the infantry, awaited the 
 attack of the enemy. Wulfilas, with the horse, 
 seemingly a small body, lurked in ambush at no 
 great distance. The host of Edobich, eager for 
 battle, marched by the hidden foes without suspect- 
 ing their presence, and met the troops of Constantius 
 face to face. At a given signal Wulfilas and his 
 horsemen dashed out of their lurking-place and 
 charged straight on the rear of the enemy. The 
 battle was at once decided; the barbarian host was 
 broken ; some fled ; some were slain ; the more 
 part threw down their arms, craved for mercy, and 
 received itf. Edobich fled ; he had, in old Teutonic 
 guise, like Englishmen ages after, waged the actual 
 battle on foot ; the horse was but a means to take 
 the warrior to and from the field. When the day 
 
 very emphatic language of Sozomen (ix. 14). Edobich is said to 
 
 be coming, tovto 8e koI roi/s 'Ovaplov arparrfyovs ov fierpicas i<p6^€i. 
 fiovXevcrafievav re avrmv dvaarpecpeiv els t^v 'iraXiav, mKel Treipadrjvai tov 
 TToXffiov, Koi eneiBr] tovto (TvuedoKei, 7rKr]a'L0v dyyeXdevros 'ESoj3t;)fou, nepaai 
 Pobavov TOV TTOTafiov. Ka\ KavtrTavTios fiev e^cav Toiis ire^ovs, emovTas 
 TTepifievei Toiis 7roXep,iovs' OvXcjjiXds de 6 KtovaTavTiov avaTpaTTjyos, ov 
 TToppcodev aTTOKpv^els fiera tS)v Imreav ekdvOavev. They must have 
 crossed the Rhone in order to bring on a battle now the enemy 
 was actually hard by. As Aries lies on the eastern side of the 
 river, the enemy must have been on the western. 
 
 * Constantius, we must remember, was, according to Sozomen 
 (ix. 16), dvTjp iiaxj-P'OtTaTos Koi aTpaTtjyiKos, 
 
 + aiiTiKa Te TpoTrrjs yevop,ivr]s, oi fiev (pevyovtrip, ol 8' dvaipovvTai, oi oe 
 irKeiovs rot oTrXa dnoOepevoi^ crvyyvaixTjv rJTr]<Tav Koi (p€i8ovs r]^ia)dr](Tav, 
 
120 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 was lost, like the traitors at Maldon or the vanquished 
 remnant on Senlac, he mounted a horse and rode for 
 his life*. Not far from the place of battle was the 
 country-house of one Ecdicius, a man whom Edobich 
 deemed a friend, one to whom he had in former 
 days done many good offices. With him he sought 
 shelter. But in the mind of Ecdicius there was no 
 place for the thought either of hospitality or of 
 thankfulness. He smote off the head of the bene- 
 factor who craved his help, and carried it to the 
 camp of Constantius in hope of a reward. The 
 general who could strive for mastery with pro- 
 fessional buffoons was ready with a grim joke. He 
 took the head and said that for the deed of Wulfilas 
 the republic owed its thanks to Ecdicius f. But 
 when the murderer showed signs of wishing to stay 
 in his company, Constantius bade him begone ; the 
 presence of one who had so evil entreated his 
 guest was not good for him or for his army|. 
 
 * 'ESo|3ixos ^^ iTTTTou int^as f(f)vyev. This is exactly the last 
 scene of the Bayeux Tapestry; only there it was not the chief 
 who fled. 
 
 + KavcrravTios 8e tj]v fiev Ke(f)a\fiv 8e^0T]vai 7rpo<reVa^e, X^P'" ^X^'" 
 'EfcStKio) TO 8T}[j,6(riou eiTriov ttjs Ov\<f)i\a irpd^ecos. The jest is a little 
 hard to follow, though a jest seems to be meant, but it is hardly 
 needful to transpose the two proper names, as was suggested by 
 Valois. The word Sjj/xo'o-joz/ is of more importance, as it clearly 
 translates res pvhlica, the name constantly applied to the Empire 
 long after this time, and which is sometimes a little startling in 
 the mouths of those who were not its subjects. Its use seems also 
 to show that we have a literal translation of the actual words of 
 Constantius. 
 
 J (Tvveivai 8e (nrovba^pvra avrov ava)(a>peiv eKeXevcrev, ovk dyadrfv ij'yij- 
 crdfievos kokov ^evo86)(ov ttju (rvvovalav eaea-dai avra rj rfj arpaTia, 
 
TIL] Constantine and Maxtmus. 121 
 
 And so the man who slew his friend in the day 
 of danger was sent away empty by the man who 
 refused to reward crime even when he gained by it*. 
 The overthrow and death of Edobich sealed the 
 fate of Constantine. Seeing no longer any hope 
 of Empire, or indeed of life if he still laid claim 
 to Empire, he put aside his diadem and purple ; 
 he betook himself to a church — already perhaps 
 a church of Saint Trophimus — for sanctuary. He 
 there found a bishop who perhaps deemed that in 
 such a case he might dispense with the precept to lay 
 hands suddenly on no man. Constans son of Con- 
 stantine had of a monk become Caesar ; Constantine 
 himself was now of an Augustus to become a Christian 
 presbyter f. In that character he deemed that his 
 life at least would be safe. But no great harshness 
 was to be feared from Constantius. The defenders 
 of the city, on receiving the general's oath for their 
 safety and for that of their fallen prince, threw open 
 their gates, and the people of Aries at least had 
 no need to complain of any breach of faith on the 
 part of the conqueror if. No blood was shed by 
 
 * Sozomen seems to quote a proverb; Kara Kevrjs, tovto 8fj roO 
 Xoyou, xavav anrjKBe. 
 
 t Again tlie fullest and clearest account is that of S6zomen 
 (ix. 15), who alone helps us to some geography; /xera r^f vUr^v 
 dvTorepaicodeicrqs avdii npos ttjp ttoKiv t^s 'Ova>ptov arpaTias, paBav 
 Kojj/oraj/Tti'os dvaipe'iadai 'Edo^ixov, airos i^ eavrov ttjv aXovpyida Kai ra 
 (rvfi^oka TTJs ^acnXetas aTredero, Koi KardKa^av ttjv eKKkrjaiav, x^i'POTOveiTai 
 Trpecr^vTfpos. So Olympiodoros, 453; Kcova-Tavrlvos KaTa(f)vya)v els 
 evKTTjpiov, TrpeafivTepos Tore ^eipoToveiTai. 
 
 X S6zomen, u. S. ; SpKovs re wporepov Xd^ovres ot ea-a retxSyv dvolyovai 
 Tas TTvXas Kai ^etSoCs d^iovvrai ndvres. It is from Olympiodoros that we 
 
122 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 Constantius. But Constantine and his younger son 
 Julian the Nohilissimus were sent to E-avenna to 
 ahide the judgement of Honorius. The Emperor 
 remembered the slaughter of his kinsmen and did 
 not hold himself bound by the oath of his general. 
 Messengers of death were sent to meet the prisoners, 
 and the priest Constantine and his son were beheaded 
 at some point of their journey, either on the Mincio 
 or at some point nearer to Ravenna *. 
 learn that the promise of safety was specially made to Constantine 
 
 personally ; SpKcov avra vnep (TcoTrjpias dodevTcoVj Koi rots iroKiopKovuiv 
 ai TTiikat ttjs TroXeas avaneTovvvvTai. 
 
 * Olympiodoros, 454; TrepTrerai. a-vv ra via Kcuva-Tavrlvos TTpos 
 'OvoapwV 6 8e fivrjcriKaKoov avTois virep tS>v dvey^iav avrov ovs irvyxave 
 KavcrravTlvos dveXav Tvpo TpiaKovra rrjs 'Pa^evvrjs pi\la>v irapa tovs opKovs 
 irpoa-TdTTei. avToiis dvaipe6r)vai. The geography of Renatus (Greg. 
 Tur. ii. 9) seems different; " Reserata urbe Constantinus deditur. 
 Confestimque ad Italiam directus, missis a principe obviam per- 
 cussorihus, super Mintiam flumen capite truncatus est." Surely no 
 point on the Mincio can be within thirty miles of Eavenna; yet 
 the exactness, in different ways, of both accounts is remark- 
 able. Sozomen does not mention the place ; KavaTavrivos a/ia 
 'lovKiava rm naiSi irapaTzepCpdels els 'iraXiav, irpXv (pddaai Kara rrjv 686v 
 KTivvvrai. 
 
 It is not wonderful that writers who were not telling the story 
 in the same detail as Sozomen or even as Olympiodoros should 
 have left out the sending into Italy, and have fancied that Con- 
 stantine was put to death at Aries. It mattered a good deal for 
 the characters of Constantius and Honorius ; but it mattered not 
 at all for the general course of things. So Orosius tells the whole 
 story in a few words ; " Constantius comes in Gralliam cum exercitu 
 profectus Constantinum imperatorem apud Arelatum civitatem 
 clausit cepit et occidit." So Idatius in the passage quoted 
 already. Prosper Tiro has simply under 411; "Constantinus 
 tyrannus occiditur." Marcellinus puts the whole story of Constan- 
 tine under 411; "Constantinus apud Gallias invasit imperium, 
 
III.] Constantine and Maximus. 123 
 
 Just at this stage of our story we cannot complain 
 of any lack of personal incident. We part for 
 a moment from the meagre entries of annalists and 
 from fragments pieced together from this source and 
 that, to listen to such a story as the fate of Edobich 
 and its punishment. But the stirring story of the 
 fate of Edobich is tame compared with the thrilling 
 tale of the fate of Gerontius. Flying, as we have 
 seen, from Aries, he betook himself to Spain, deeming 
 that there at least he might reign in the name of 
 the tyrant of his own making. But his hold on the 
 Spanish province was gone. The troops that had 
 been left in Spain scorned the commander who had 
 fled*. They plotted his death, and besieged him 
 in his own house. He had with him his wife 
 Nouuechia, a few slaves, and a faithful Alan. In 
 one version he too is a slave ; in a more likely shape 
 of the story he is an honourable companion in 
 warfare t. The most detailed account of the death 
 
 filiumque suum ex monacho Csesarem fecit. Ipse apud Arelatum 
 civitates occiditur ; Constans filius apud Viennam capite pleetitur." 
 Any one would think that father and son were put to death in the 
 same interest. Prosper himself, who has recorded the revolt of 
 Constantine in its place in 407, sums up his later story under 411; 
 " Constantinus per Honorii duces Constantius et Ulphilam, apud 
 Arelatum oppidum victus et captus est, cujus filium Constantem 
 in Hispania regnare orsum Gerontius comes in Maximum quemdam 
 tyrannidem transferens interemerat.'' 
 
 * Sozomen, U. S. ', oi 8e iv 'laivavlq. crrpaTi&Tai evKaTa(pp6vT}Tov otto TrjS 
 (jivy^s 86^avTa tou TepoPTiov i^ovXevcravTO dveXtlv. 
 
 + In Olympiodoros he is fls avvayaviaTris 'AXavos to yevos, els 
 BovXovs avTov apiGpovfievos. In Sozomen he rises to the rank of eh 
 'AXavos emrrjBetos. Surely this is no slave, but a thegn or Bepdirasvy 
 a gesiiS or 8ios iraipos. 
 
124 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 of Gerontius comes from an ecclesiastical historian 
 who seems suddenly to take up a character oddly 
 mingled between a pagan philosopher and a writer 
 of romance. Gerontius and his few comrades, 
 attacked by night, defend themselves from the 
 upper stage of the house which we must conceive 
 as a strong tower capable of offering some effective 
 resistance. Not a few such miniature fortresses in 
 Ireland and in the border shires of England will enable 
 us to call up the scene. Through the embrasures of 
 the battlements of his pele-tower, sheltered no doubt 
 by the wooden roof coming down on the battlements, 
 Gerontius, his Alan friend, and seemingly the slaves 
 also, did no small execution among the assailants. 
 Themselves almost beyond the reach of missiles, 
 they shot at the besiegers till full three hundred 
 of them were slain, when their stock of arrows 
 failed them. What follows we should hardly beheve 
 if it came from a lighter source than an ecclesiastical 
 history. It was night, and for a while the attacks 
 of the besiegers seem to have ceased. The slaves 
 escaped from the house ; Gerontius, and therefore 
 we may suppose, his wife and his faithful comrade, 
 might have done the same. But Gerontius, restored 
 to his wife, hke Odysseus, after a long absence, could 
 not bring himself, even when the lives of both 
 were at stake, to leave a besieged tower that 
 sheltered her. His Alan thegn *, his true Oepdircov — 
 
 * The details of the story all come from Sozomen. Olympio- 
 
 doros says only, Tzvp Kara ttjs oIkius ovtov dvrjyl^av' 6 8e irpos Toi/s 
 
 inavatnavTas Kaprepas ipa^^ero. He then mentions the presence of 
 
 the Alan. But in Sozomen we read; ^pa^dnevoi vvKxap airov ] 
 
iir.] Constantine and Maximus. 125 
 
 we are hardly wrong if we use either the Teutonic 
 word or its Greek equivalent — tarried with his lord 
 and friend, a doomed groomsman at the renewed 
 wedding. The day dawned, but it brought with it 
 to Nounechia only a morning-gift of death. With 
 the light the besiegers was again active ; their 
 weapons had failed; they now brought fire to the 
 attack, and the three felt that there was no longer 
 hope. But they would not fall alive into the hands 
 of their enemies. First of all Gerontius smote off 
 the head of the faithful Alan, who offered himself to 
 the stroke, a gesi^ who would not outlive his eld,er. 
 Then the weeping Nounechia craved a last gift 
 of the husband who was so strangely to die for love 
 of her ; let her be slain by his hand rather than pass 
 into the power of others. She thrust herself eagerly 
 against the weapon; Gerontius yielded to her prayer, 
 and the faithful wife died by a stroke of the same 
 sword wielded by the same hand that had ended 
 the days of the Alan. Gerontius now stood alone 
 beside the dead ; the stroke of the sword failed him ; 
 he then grasped the trusty dagger that hung by his 
 thigh, and drove it to his heart *. It might seem that 
 
 rr]V oiKiav Karebpafiov, 6 Se fieff ivos 'Akavov iTTinjdelov Koi oXiyav oiKerav, 
 avadep To^evav, vnep tovs rpiaKociovs dpaipei (Trpariaras' iirCKei^dvTmv 
 he tS)V jSeXSi/, (jievyovaiv oi olKerai, KaOivres avroiis tov olKTjfiaros Xddpq. 
 TepovTios fie tov Ictov BiacadTJi/ai dwdfievos, ovx eiKero, KaraaxeBus epcori 
 Nouw;^tas rrjs avTov yap,€Trjs. If lie could escape, surely she could 
 also. 
 
 * Olympiodoros records the three deaths in a few words ; reXos 
 Toi; re 'AXavov koi ttjv yvvaiKa^ tovto 7rpo6vp.ovfifVovs, dvaipet, eTrtKaTacr^a^ft 
 8e Koi eavTov. Sozomen enlarges ; Trept Se Tfjv eco TTvp en^dKovrav rfj 
 oiKia rav aTparKorav, ovk e^cop konrop craTtjpias eX;riSa, Ikovtos tov 
 
126 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iir. 
 
 all these details of deeds of which no witness was 
 left could hardly have been inferred even from a more 
 careful examination of the dead bodies than was 
 likely to be made when wrathful enemies at last 
 made their way into a house which was perhaps 
 already burning, But we must tell the tale as we 
 find it, and specially we must not leave out the 
 comment. Nounechia, so our ecclesiastical guide tells 
 us, a Christian woman, died with a courage worthy 
 of her faith, and left a memory which ought never 
 to be forgotten'"'. It is for some moral ductor 
 diibitantium to rule whether we have here truly 
 a case of " homicide by necessity." The ordinary 
 historian may keep himself to the humbler work of 
 wondering at the minute knowledge of the guide 
 whom he has to follow. 
 
 So, we are to believe, died Gerontius the Briton, who 
 had helped to set up one tyrant in Gaul, and who had 
 set up another in Spain of his own hand. His former 
 
 (TVvovTOS avTO) A\avov dnoTenvei rfjv Ke<pa\^v' fiera he Tovra ttjs Ibiai 
 ■ya/ier^s oXo(f)vpoiJ.€Vt]s koL fj-era SaKpvcov Trpocro}6ovaT]s avrrjv ra ^l(f)ei, Koi 
 Trp\v vcf) irepois yeveadai^ irapa tov dpbpos dirodavelv alrovcrTjs^ Koi tovto 
 TO hSypov varaTov Trap avTov Xa/Setv dvTi^oXovcrrjs .... Tepovrios Se 
 rpiTov eavTov ra ^L(j)ei Traiaas, as ov Kaipiav XajSwi/ ^o-^ero, (Tiraaayievos to 
 Trepl TOV fiTjpov ^i^ibtov, koto, ttjs Kapbias fjXaa-e. 
 
 H p.€v yvv-q, dvbpeia ttjs Bprfanelas fira^las ^aveitra (rjv yap p^pioriai/i)) 
 &)Se Te6vr]Ke, KpeiTTOva \rj6rjs ttjv -rrepX avTTjs fivr]p,rjv tov xpovov Trapadov<ra, 
 Tillemont, 551, 561, is a good deal shocked at Sozomen's good opinion 
 of NounecMa. But was Gerontius a pagan ? the Alan might be 
 more likely than not. Only what were an Alan's gods ? 
 
 Orosius, who does not directly tell the story, but merely brings 
 in the fate of Gerontius in his " catalogus tyrannorum," says merely, 
 " Gerontius a suis militibus occisus est." This was near enough to 
 the fact for his purpose. Cf. Fauriel, i. 76. 
 
III.] Constantine and Maximus. 127 
 
 master Constantine and his master's son Lad fallen 
 with more outward show of civil justice, and their 
 corpses were in the power of the prince in whose 
 interest they were overthrown. According to one 
 strange statement, the heads of Constantine and 
 Julian, as well as the heads of other tyrants earlier 
 and later, were sent from Italy to be set up to the 
 public gaze at Carthage*. It is just possible that 
 such a step may have been taken to remind the 
 furthest parts of the dominions of Honorius of the 
 power and the stern justice of their master. If so, 
 the lesson was in vain. Africa, among the other 
 dangerous growths of its soil, could send forth 
 a tyrant as well as Britain and Spain. But for the 
 moment the whole West, so far as it was not 
 actually in barbarian hands, again obeyed the son 
 of Theodosius. Honorius was undisputed Emperor ; 
 it was by his praefects and officers that the provinces 
 were ruled f. Gaul was at rest ; the corner of Spain 
 
 * This comes from a fragment of Olympic doros (456), where he 
 records the fate of Jovinus and Sebastian ; dvaridevTai aficjxa ai 
 Kecf)a\a). Kapdayevrjs e^codev, evda Koi fj KavaTavrlvov Koi fj 'lovXiavov 
 dneTfirjOtja-av TrpoTfpov. he adds those of Maximus and Eugenius in 
 the time of Theodosius. Mr, Hodgkin (i. 827, n.) once suggested 
 that " Carthage " is a mistake for " Milan." If so, it is a strange 
 one. He now believes that " Carthage " is right. Wietersheim 
 (ii. 159) has no doubt. He calls it an "Ehrebezeugung," which 
 reminds one of the quarrel over the quarters of David of Wales. One 
 notices that the Latin form ILapBayivi} is now the received name among 
 Greek writers for restored Carthage as for New Carthage, which 
 Mr. Bury thinks may be here meant ; Kapxq^oiv is quite an archaism. 
 
 + Sozomen says emphatically ; t6 i^ eKelvov ttoKiv t6 t^Bs vnrjKoov 
 fls TTjv 'Ovcopiov fjyfp.oviau errav^XOe, koi toIs vtt ovtov apxpvatv eiretofTo. 
 This seems inconsistent with Jovinus having revolted already. 
 
128 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 
 
 which still clave to Eoman rule in some shape, 
 submitted to its lawful wielder. Whether the 
 presence of Constantius or of any armed force was 
 needed, we are not directly told. But one or two 
 things look like acts of Constantius. Maximus ceased 
 to reign. He was forsaken by the soldiers whom 
 Gerontius had brought from Gaul. By some 
 authority — and whose could it have been save that 
 of the victor of Aries % — those troops were moved 
 first into Africa and then into Italy. They were 
 most likely on too good terms with the barbarians 
 of Spain, barbarians who were in formal alliance with 
 the deposed tyrant, to be allowed to stay in the 
 peninsula. As for Maximus himself, his personal 
 character and conduct had been so little blameworthy 
 that he was allowed to live. If Constantius had any 
 hand in the matter, he had most likely learned that 
 it was better not to trust Honorius with those whose 
 lives he wished to save. But either Maximus still 
 had fears, or he could not bear to live as a subject 
 where he had reigned even in name ; or it may 
 be that absence from his former dominions was made 
 the condition on which his life was spared. In any 
 case he fled to his barbarian friends, he was living 
 among them when Orosius wrote the last pages of 
 his great homily, and there seems no reason to accept 
 the statement of a much later writer, that, eleven 
 years after the fall of Gerontius and Constantino (422), 
 Maximus was sacrificed at Kome to celebrate the 
 sixth lustrum of the reign of Honorius *. 
 
 * Olympiodoros (454), after recording the death of Gerontius, 
 Md^i/xos 8e 6 nals ravTa fiaOav, irpos Toiis vrroajrovbovs ^evyei 
 
III.] Constanttne and Maxtmus. 129 
 
 Hoiiorius then, four years after the revolt of Con- 
 stantine, is for a moment free from Eoman rivals. 
 Barbarian may lay waste the lands of the Empire; but 
 no tyrant lays claim to its diadem. This peaceful 
 side of the Eoman world is indeed not to last long, and 
 there is meanwhile another side which is anything but 
 peaceful. It is to this last side that we must now 
 turn our eyes. Gerontius, in seizing a corner of 
 Spain for his own creature, had betrayed the rest 
 of the great peninsula to the Vandals, Suevians, and 
 Alans who had made their way thither out of Gaul. 
 It is now time to see something of their doings in the 
 land which they had entered, doings of no small 
 account in the history of Western Europe. 
 
 lBap0apovs, where the word iTroa-novdovs (see above, p. 125, note) should 
 be specially noticed. But both Orosius and Prosper give us some 
 significant hints. Orosius says, " Maximus exutus purpura desti- 
 tutusque a militibus Gallicanis, qui in Africam trajecti deinde in 
 Italiam revocati sunt, nunc inter barbaros in Hispania egens 
 exsulat." Pi-osper under 412 has; "Maximus in Hispania, regno 
 ablato, vita ei concessa, eo quod modestia humilitasque hominis 
 affectati imperii invidiam non mereretur." Idatius tells us nothing 
 about the fate of Maximus ; and there is clearly confusion of some 
 kind in the story in Marcellinus (422), "tercennalis Honorii 
 Maximus tyrannus et Jovinus ferro victi adducti de Hispaniis 
 atque interfecti sunt." Yet Maximus may have come to light 
 again during the warfare of Castinus and Boniface in that year, 
 though that was not a warfare likely to bring prisoners to Italy. 
 
 It certainly seems to me that the notices in Orosius and Prosper 
 suggest some such explanation as I have hinted at in the text. 
 
 K 
 
IV. 
 
 [THE BAEBARIAN INVADERS.] 
 
 In our view of the years with which we are 
 now (leaUng, we have to look at a great drama, 
 two acts of which are going on at the same time, 
 ever influencing one another, but still distinct from 
 one another in idea. We watch the rise and fall of 
 the successive candidates for the Empire of Rome, 
 the tyrants who spring to power for a moment only 
 to yield to the strangely abiding luck of a prince 
 who must in every personal gift have been the 
 inferior of any of them. We watch too with a deeper 
 interest the events which had a more direct effect on 
 the later history of the world, the movements of the 
 barbarian nations, and their settlements within the 
 lands of the Empire. Specially we watch the move- 
 ments and settlements of those nations which were of 
 our own kindred ; above all we trace, whenever we 
 are allowed, as we are now and then in passing, the 
 earliest fortunes of our own people. The two scenes 
 of action, the doings of the tyrants and the doings of 
 the barbarians, cannot be kept asunder. Here the 
 barbarian sets up tyrants and puts them down as suits 
 his purposes. Here the tyrant calls in the barbarians as 
 suits his purposes ; but finds it less easy to send away 
 
The Barbarian Invaders. i3i 
 
 the barbarian whom he has called in than the barbarian 
 finds it to put down the tyrant whom he has set up. 
 There is no side of the affairs of the Empire, no 
 quarter in which those affairs are acted, which does 
 not influence some other side and some other quarter. 
 In our present inquiry the matter and the quarter 
 which seem least directly to concern us are the most 
 striking of events, the most attractive of lands — Italy 
 and her fate during the campaigns of Alaric. While 
 our own story is going on in the narrower fields of 
 Trier or Aries or Tarragona, we must never forget, as 
 we are sometimes tempted to forget, that greater deeds, 
 as we commonly measure the greatness of deeds, were 
 doing on the wider field of Rome. Yet we must 
 remember also that it was the march of Alaric into 
 Italy which was the beginning of our whole story ; 
 it was that march which led to the barbarian invasion 
 of Gaul, to the crossing of Constantino from Britain, 
 and to all that followed on that invasion and that 
 crossing. And now we must remember again that, 
 before Constantino surrendered to Constantius, before 
 Constantius set forth for Aries, Alaric no longer led 
 the West-Gojths. The accession of Atawulf had changed 
 tli&~~whote relations of Romans and barbarians in 
 Italy; it was about to change them in Gaul and 
 Spain. In 411 Honorius could act as he could not 
 have acted in 410 ; when Rome was sacked, Ailes 
 was safe, at least against Honorius. And under 
 Atawulf his people put out a wholly new aspect in our 
 own story. Hitherto it has been only incidentally 
 that we have had to speak of the Goths and their 
 movements. They will soon become the chief 
 
 K 2 
 
132 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv 
 
 actors in our tale. But for them we have to wait 
 another year, and we have also a gap, hardly a gap 
 of a full year (411-412), during which the throne of 
 Honorius w^as not disturbed by the revolt of a single 
 tyrant. We have therefore a moment to look at one 
 act of our drama by itself. We can now see, as far 
 as our lights will let us, how things fared with the 
 native inhabitants, with the barbarian invaders, of 
 Gaul, Spain, and Britain, at the moment when 
 Constantine had fallen, when Jovinus had not yet 
 arisen, and when Atawulf had not made his way into 
 Gaul. But it is an inquiry which will lead us far 
 beyond the moment of our first glimpse, and that 
 above all, in matters which may now and then con- 
 cern our own people, and which speci^dly concern the 
 land to whose winning our own people were drawing 
 nearer day by day. 
 
 We said just now that Maximus, when his life was 
 spared, most likely by the mercy of Constantius, fled 
 to the barbarians. To fly to the barbarians was just 
 now an easy matter, either for deposed Emperors or 
 for other men. In Spain it was easiest of all. We 
 have seen that, five years before this time (406-407), 
 the great combined host of Vandals, Sueviaus, and 
 Alans had entered Gaul, and that, two years before 
 this time (409), they had made their way into Spain. 
 The civil wars of the contending Koman princes are 
 handed down to us in detail, while our notices of 
 the movements of the barbarians are so grievously 
 vague, that it needs an eflbrt to take in how small 
 a part of both Gaul and Spain was touched by the dis- 
 
IV.] The Barbarian hivaders. i35 
 
 puted claims of Honorius, CoDstantine, and Maxiiiius, 
 in other words how small a part of either land was 
 left to the obedience of Kome in any shape. We are 
 tempted to fancy that victory or defeat carried with 
 it the dominion of the whole land, while in truth the 
 whole story is confined to a corner of Gaul and 
 a corner of Spain, while the greater part of both 
 lands were dealt with as the invaders thought good. 
 There is something not a little strange in the sight 
 of rival princes thus struggling with one another for 
 these shreds of Empire, while the common enemy 
 tears away land after land from the dominion of any 
 of them. Yet such are the facts with which we 
 have to deal, facts which are far from standing alone, 
 but which have no lack of parallels both in earlier 
 and in later times. The enemy who was laying 
 waste whole provinces was never looked on as 
 a common enemy; each disputant found it better 
 suited his purpose to use him as an ally against the 
 more immediate enemy among his own people. Con- 
 stantine, as we have seen, clearly had some under- 
 standing with the ravagers of Gaul *; Gerontius, yet 
 more clearly, had an understanding with the same 
 enemies. They fought in his armies ; among them, 
 as among pledged allies, we have just seen that 
 Maximus found shelter. It was indeed the under- 
 standino- between Gerontius and the barbarians 
 which gave Gaul a temporary relief and the Koman 
 power in Gaul a chance of temporary revival. But 
 it gave them only at the cost of the endurance by 
 Spain of the horrors from which Gaul had been set 
 
 * See above, p. 97 and note. 
 
134 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 free, and of the sudden and final overthrow of the 
 Koman power in the greater part of the peninsula. 
 In concert with Gerontius, Vandals, Alans, Suevians 
 left the wasted lands of Gaul to seek fresh prey and 
 this time fresh homes in the untouched lands of 
 Spain. In Gaul they had simply ravaged ; in Spain 
 they sat down and dwelled. 
 
 Of this great revolution we have hardly anything 
 that can be called a narrative. Of the course which 
 the invasion took we know less than we know of the 
 invasion of Gaul just before. Of that we do know 
 the main geographical outlines and the special fate 
 of this and that city. Here, till the partition and 
 settlement a little later, we get no geography at all ; 
 but our chronology is as minute as it was when the 
 same invaders first entered Gaul. Some passed the 
 mountain border on the 28th day of September, 
 others on the istli day of October, in the year of the 
 eighth consulship of Honorius and the third of 
 Theodosius (409) *. The passes of the Pyrenees had, it 
 will be remembered, been left open to them by the 
 
 * It was the Gaulish Prosper who gave us the exact date for the 
 crossing of the Rhine, it is no less fittingly the Spaniard Idatius 
 who gives us the exact date for the crossing of the Pyrenees ; 
 *' Alani et Wandali et Suevi Hispanias ingressi sera ccccxlvii, alii 
 quarto kalendas, alii tertio idus Octobris memoi'ant die, tertia 
 feria, Honorio viii et Theodosio Arcadii filio iii consulibus." Prosper 
 tells us only, " Vandali Hispanias occupaverunt." Isidore, in his 
 Chronicle (Eoncalli, ii. 434), makes a synchronism which it is well 
 to remember ; " Gotthi Romam capiunt, Wandali quoque et Alani 
 et Suevi Hispanias occupant." Cassiodcrus has only " His coss. 
 Wandali Hispanias occupaverunt." Count Mai'cellinus did not 
 think matters so far west worth recording. 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 135 
 
 removal of their native Spanish defenders*. The 
 Honorian troops who had taken their places, instead 
 of offering them any opposition, joined themselves to 
 the new comers f. But we are told nothing as to 
 the particular points where they entered, as to the 
 course which any of them took, or as to the fate of 
 particular cities. We know the name of one only 
 among their leaders, Ermeric chief of the Suevians \. 
 But of their doings we have more than one vivid 
 general picture, and that from contemporaries and 
 natives of the suffering land. While we thank them 
 for telling us thus much, we feel a kind of grudge 
 against them for not giving us all the details which 
 they must have had in their memories. In the few 
 months that were left of the year of their entry 
 a plague arose from which the invaders who were 
 
 * See above, p. 67, note. It is now that Isidore in the Historia 
 Wandalorurn biings in the kinsfolk of Honorius a little before 
 their time. 
 
 t So Orosius ; " Igitur Honoriaci imbuti prseda et allecti abun- 
 dantia, quo magis scelus impunitum foret atque ipsis sceleris plus 
 liceret, prodita Pyrensei custodia claustrisque patefactis cunctas 
 gentes quae per Gallias vagabantur Hispaniarum provinciis immit- 
 tunt, iisdemque ipsi adjunguntur; ubi actis aliquamdiu magnis 
 cruentisque discursibus post graves rerum atque hominum vasta- 
 tiones, quantum ipsos quoquo modo pcenitet, habita sorte et distri- 
 buta usque ad nunc possessione consistunt." 
 
 I Isidore begins his " Historia Suevorum " with the words, 
 " Suevi principe Ermerico cum Alanis et Wandalis simul Spanias 
 ingressi sunt." He goes on to describe his reign of thirty-two years. 
 Wietersheim (ii. 138) remarks that Procopius is mistaken when he 
 says (Bell. Vand. i. 3); Bai'SiXot . . . fjyov^evov airols TobeyiOTKXov, 
 
 ev 'icrnavia i8pv(TavTo, as Godegisel was killed on the other side of 
 the Khine. See above. 
 
136 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 slaughtering far and wide doubtless suffered at least 
 as severely as the natives *. Some resistance they 
 seem to have met with ; at least we are told that 
 the substance of the cities was swallowed up by 
 soldiers and tyrannical tax-gatherers f. The soldiers 
 must be soldiers of Borne, paid to offer some front- to 
 the invaders, and the tax-gatherers are assuredly the 
 officers of Eome, busy after the soldiers' pay and all 
 that came out of the purses of the provincials. 
 Hunger followed in the wake of the sword and the 
 pestilence ; men ate their fellow-men ; even mothers 
 ate their children. The beasts of the field, grown 
 bold by feasting on the dead, presently made victims 
 of the living. The four sore judgements of the Lord 
 announced by his prophets, all fell on the devoted 
 land \. Yet were there some small softenings of the 
 general horror. The whole land was not laid waste 
 at once ; those who were persecuted in one city 
 could sometimes flee to another ; the invaders 
 gradually grew milder ; they who might have slain 
 
 * So Idatius ; " Barbari qui in Hispanias ingressi fuerant, csede 
 deprsedantur hostili. Pestilentia suas partes non segnius operatur." 
 
 + lb. " Debacchantibus per Hispanias barbaris, et sseviente 
 nihilominus pestilentiee malo, opes et conditam in urbibus sub- 
 stautiam tyrannicus exactor diruit et miles exhaurit." 
 
 I lb. " Fames dira grassatur, adeo ut humanee carnes ab humane 
 genere vi famis fuerint devoi atae : matres quoque necatis vel 
 coctis per se natorum suoi'um sint pastse corporibus. Bestige 
 occisorum gladio, fame, pestilentia, cadaveribus assuetse, quosque 
 hominum fortiores interimunt, eorumque carnibus pastse passim in 
 humani generis efferantur interitum. Et ita quatuor plagis ferri, 
 famis, pestilentioe, bestiarum, ubique in toto orbe ssevientibus, 
 prsedictse a Domino per propbetas sues annuntiationes implentur." 
 
 I 
 
IV] The Barbarian Invaders. 137 
 
 all and carried off the goods of all, would sometimes 
 stoop to take a hireling's wages, to defend, to serve, 
 even to bow their shoulders to the carrying of 
 burthens *. Before two years were ended, God moved 
 the hearts of the invaders to occupy the land instead 
 of wasting it. The wandering hosts settled down 
 and became nations dwelling under their kings on 
 the conquered soilf. 
 
 The two sides of the character of the invaders of 
 Spain, as described by natives of Spain recording 
 what they had themselves seen, form a striking 
 contrast, but not an unnatural one. The kind of 
 life which men led during the Wandering of the 
 Nations was likely to bring out very opposite sides 
 of human nature. Quite distinct from the refined 
 delight in actual cruelty which belongs rather to 
 a more advanced and scientific stage of man's training, 
 there seems to be lurking in at least many of uy, not 
 only a general love of excitement, but a certain love 
 of mere havoc which often comes out even in highly 
 
 * The less dark part of the story, though not left out by Idatius, 
 comes out most strongly in Orosius ; " Quae cum ita sint, illud 
 tantum dementia Dei eadem pietate qua dudum prsedixerat 
 procuravit ut secundum evangelium suum quo incessabiliter com- 
 monebat ; cum vos persecuti fuerint in una civitate, fugite in aliam, 
 quisque egrediens quo abire vellet ipsis barbaris mercenariis minis- 
 tris ac defensoribus uteretur. Hoc tunc ipsi offerebant. Et qui 
 auferre omnia interfectis omnibus poterant paiticulam stipendii 
 ob mercedem servitii sui et transvecti oneris flagitabant." 
 
 t Idatius, xvii.Hon.; " subversis memorata plagarum grassatione 
 Hispanise proviuciis, bai-bari ad pacem ineundam, Domino miseraiite, 
 conversijSorte ad inhabitandum sibiprovinciarumdividunt regiones." 
 Orosius speaks of "biennium illud quo hostil's gladius ssevit." 
 
138 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 civilized societies whenever the restraints of law and 
 uSfjge are broken tlirough. The rough dealings of 
 a barbarian invader with men and things in the 
 invaded land have nothing in common with the 
 prolonged and carefully studied cruelties of a Yis- 
 conti. Salvianus, in summing up the vices and 
 virtues of the barbarians, sets down mere cruelty 
 as the characteristic vice of one nation only, though 
 that, we are sorry to say, is the nation in whose 
 reputation we are most nearly concerned*. In 
 speaking of cruelty as the marked fault of the 
 Saxons, Salvianus is but forestalling the more detailed 
 witness of Sidonius. And we may mark the notable 
 distinction which the stern prophet draws between 
 the Teutonic invaders of the Empire and those 
 invaders of wilder nations who were stirring in the 
 world at the same time. It is not likely that 
 Salvianus troubled himself much with ethnoloo;ical 
 theories. He might very likely not notice that the 
 Goth and the Frank, he would assuredly not notice 
 that the Goth and the Eoman, came immeasureably 
 nearer to one another in speech and in all that goes 
 to make nationality, than any of them did to the 
 Hun. The European, who had in him the power 
 
 * This comes from Salvian's (vii. 15) balance of the virtues and 
 vices of the several barbarian nations; "Gothorum quis perfida est, 
 sed pudica ; Alanorum impudica sed minus perfida ; Franci men- 
 daces sed hospitales ; Saxones crudelitate efferi, sed castitate 
 mirandi ; omnes denique gentes habent, sicut peculiaria mala, ita 
 etiam queedam bona." The Eomans of Africa had no good thing 
 found in them. On Saxon cruelty, see the well-known descrip- 
 tion of Sidonius [speaking of their sacrificial slaughter of their 
 captives]. 
 
 I 
 
jv.] The Barbarian Invaders. 139 
 
 of rising to the highest level, akeady marked his 
 superiority over those intruders from Asia whom we 
 may call barbarians from the Teutonic as well as from 
 the Koman point of view. They showed it specially 
 in those matters in which the early society of Teutonic 
 Europe has always kept its superiority over the early 
 society of Africa and Asia. All the nations had their 
 several faults. If the Saxon had his cruelty, the 
 Frank and, we are surprised to hear, the Goth, had 
 his faithlessness. But the strict chastity of all the 
 Teutonic nations is loudly praised. It is praised 
 chiefly in opposition to the corrupt manners of the 
 Komans in general, and specially to those of Aquitaine 
 and Africa*. But it stands in hardly less marked 
 contrast to the manners of those invaders who had 
 no share even in the remoter fellowship of Goth and 
 Koman. The Vandals who burst into Spain were 
 conspicuous for their chastity ; not so the Alans, not 
 so the Huns. The Alans too he brands with a special 
 mark as greedy plunderers, while he lays no such 
 blame on the Vandals, whom he acquits also of that 
 extortion and oppression of the poor which he sets 
 down as one of the worst sins of Koman rulef. Of 
 
 * The people of Africa, and specially those of Carthage, are 
 rebuked, or rather reviled, through nearly the whole of Salviau's 
 treatise. The Aquitanians come in for several hard thrusts, speci- 
 ally at vii. 3. 
 
 + Salvian (v. 8) first sets forth the oppression of the poor which 
 accompanied the Eoman system of taxation, and then asks ; " Ubi 
 aut in quibus sunt nisi in Eomanis tantum hsec mala 1 quorum 
 injustitia tanta nisi nostra ? Franci enim hoc scelus nesciunt : 
 Chuni ab his sceleribus immunes sunt : nihil horum est apud 
 Wandalos, nihil hoium apud Gothos. Tam longe enira est ut hsec 
 
140 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 the third people who now entered Spain, tlie Siievians; 
 Salvianus gives us no picture. Something must 
 always be taken away from his rhetoric on both 
 sides. We need not believe that the Komans were 
 quite so bad, neither dare we flatter ourselves that 
 the Teutonic settlers were quite so good, as they 
 appear in the pages of one who had a strong tempta- 
 tion to exaggerate on both sides. But there must 
 be a groundwork of truth in both pictures. We 
 may believe that even barbarian conquest was not 
 wholly without its less dark side. We must remember 
 the strange contradictions of man's nature. Ravage, 
 plunder, even shiughter, done among the whirl of 
 feelings which must accompany the armed entry into 
 a strange land, are really not inconsistent with much 
 true kindliness of heart lurking below. With men 
 who are not in the habit of either subduing or 
 disguising any of their emotions, the fiercer and 
 the gentler feelings come to the front in a strange 
 kind of alternation. We are therefore not surprissd 
 to read, though we take off a little from rhetoric 
 which is not without a purpose, how before long 
 the invaders beat their swords into plough-shares, 
 how they dealt with the Roman remnant as allies 
 and friends, how not a few Romans of the still 
 untouched lands chose rather to go and enjoy free- 
 dom, though along with poverty, among the bar- 
 inter Gothos baibari tolereut ut ne Piomaui quldem qui inter eos 
 vivunt i.-ita patiantar." It must not be forgotten that S3^stematic 
 taxation is a characteristic of civilized society, and that therefore 
 neither its uses nor its abuses were likely to be found among the 
 barbarians. 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. hi 
 
 barians, rather than to suffer the cares and exactions 
 which fell on a dweller within what was left of the 
 Eoman dominion"'. That dominion had now shrunk 
 up into the north-eastern corner of the peninsula. 
 The rest wais parted out among the new comers. 
 The Suevians and one branch of the Vandals estab- 
 lished themselves in the north-western corner, the 
 land of Gallicia. Another branch of the Vandals, 
 the Silingi, established themselves in the extreme 
 south, in Bcetica, a land whose later name of 
 Andalusia has been thought by some to be a witness 
 of their sojourn. The central lands of Lusitania and 
 the province of New Carthage fell to the lot of 
 
 * After the passage last quoted Salvian goes on ; " Itaque 
 unum illic Eomanorum omnium votum est ne umquam eos necesse 
 sit in jus transire Romanum. Una et consentionis illic Romanse 
 plebis oratio ut liceat eis vitam quam agunt agere cum barbaiis. 
 Et miramur si non vincuntur a nostris partibus Gothi, cum malint 
 apud hos esse quam apud nos Romani. Itaque non solum trans- 
 fugere ab eis ad nos fratres nostri omnino nolunt, sed ut ad eos 
 eonfugiant nos relinquunt." He had said before in the fifth chapter 
 of the same book ; " Quamvis ab his ad quos confugiunt discrepent 
 ritu, discrepent lingua, ipsa etiam, ut ita dicam, corporum atque 
 induviarum barbaricarum fcetore dissentiant, malunt tamen in 
 barbaris pati cultum dissimilem quam in Romanis injustitiam 
 ssevientem. Itaque passim vel ad Gothos vel ad Bacaudas vel ad 
 alios ubique dominantes barbaros migrant, et coraraigrasse non 
 pcenitet: malunt enim sub specie captivitatis vivere liberi quam 
 sub specie libertatis esse captivi." One hardly expected to find 
 the " Bacaudse," who surely were Gaulish provincials, reckoned 
 among barbarians. Orosius speaks in the like sort ; " Continuo 
 barbari exsecrati gladios suos ad aratra conversi sunt, residuos- 
 que Romanos ut socios modo et amicos fovent, ut inveuiantur inter 
 eos quidam Romani qui maliut inter barbaros pauperem libertatem 
 quam inter Romanos tributariam sollicitudinem sustinere." 
 
142 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 Alans, who thus for a moment held a dominion 
 stretching from the Mediterranean to the Ocean *. 
 Of these kingdoms that of the Suevians was the 
 most abiding. A Suevian power, with very fluctu- 
 ating boundaries, lasted in Spain for more than two 
 hundred years. The West-Gothic sword, wielded 
 in the name of Eome, before long made short work 
 of the rest. The Alans and the nortliern Vandals 
 vanish from history. The southern Vandals cross 
 the strait to become more famous in Africa. The 
 Teutonic power which was to be really abiding in 
 the land, which was to hand on to the later life 
 of Spain whatever of Teutonic elements are to be 
 found in it, was neither the Suevian nor the Vandal, 
 but the West-Goth. 
 
 But we have also again to look at the other lands 
 of the West, in one of which the West-Goth is 
 presently to play a memorable, though a less abiding, 
 part than he played in Spain. The war between 
 Gerontius and Constantine led, in some way which 
 it is not easy to understand in detail, to the final 
 separation of Britain from the Boman dominion and 
 to a separation, if at first only partial and for a season, 
 of that part of Gaul which before long began to share 
 the British name. The two events go together ; the 
 fates of the elder Britain in the island and of the 
 
 * The geography is given by Idatius ; " Gallaeciam Wandali 
 occupant et Suevi, sitam in extremitate oceani maris occidua. 
 Alani Lusitaniam et Carthaginiensem provincias, et Wandali 
 cognomine Silingi Boeticum sortiuutur. Hispani per civitates et 
 castella residui a plagis barbarorum per provincias dominantium s^e 
 subjiciunt servituti." 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 143 
 
 younger Britain on the mainland cannot be kept 
 asunder. And the importance of the fates of both 
 is of the highest. On the fate of the island at this 
 moment nothing short of the future calling of our 
 own people turns. Were Angles and Saxons simply 
 to be as Goths and Franks or to be something wholly 
 different \ We were about to take possession of 
 a new home ; it was of the utmost moment to our 
 future life in what state we found that home. Of 
 all historic losses, the cruellest is that which has 
 forbidden us to instruct ourselves by any continuous 
 history of Britain in the fifth century. It is not 
 that such a treasure once was and has perished. We 
 may be sure that nothing of the kind ever was, that 
 nothing of the kind ever could be. But the fact 
 that no history of Britain in those times ever was 
 or ever could be is itself the most instructive of all 
 facts. Our ignorance does in truth teach us better 
 than any amount of knov»rledge could. We mourn 
 that, so far from having a Sidonius or a Gregory for 
 Britain, we have not even a Prosper or an Idatius. 
 But the fact that we have neither sets before us 
 the difference between the fate of Britain and the 
 fate of other lands better than it could be set before 
 us by the minutest knowledge of events. As for the 
 lesser Britain which now began to arise in Gaul, it 
 has not had the same influence on the world's history 
 as the Greater ; yet it plays a memorable part in the 
 history of Gaul from this age onwards ; and its very 
 being is one of the most signal phsenomena of history. 
 A survival of a people, say of Wends, of Lithuanians, 
 of older Basques, is always attractive. But the Celtic 
 
144 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 corner of Gaul is more than the survival of a people. 
 It is the unique phsenomenon of a speech and a nation- 
 ality which must have been at least decaying being 
 suddenly quickened and strengthened, while its 
 fellows were dying out around it, being called up 
 to an abiding life and to some measure of importance 
 in the world, by the settlement of colonists of 
 a kindred stock, and those not hopeful settlers sent 
 forth from a flourishing metropolis, but for the most 
 part men flying from an invaded land to seek other 
 homes for themselves. Here then v/e have one of 
 the great facts of the world's history, coupled with 
 a lesser fact of singular interest in its own way. 
 Only we have to grope after such meagre knowledge 
 as we can reach to about Britain either through 
 a cloud of thick darkness such as shrouds no other 
 part even of the tale, in other parts often dark 
 enough, which we have undertaken to spell out. 
 The island of Britain parted from the dominion of 
 Eome, and a new Britain arose in a corner of Gaul. 
 These are our main facts ; at the details we may 
 guess for ever. 
 
 Truly our knowledge of these events has to be 
 put together from the most meagre and most pro- 
 voking of authorities. For the events in Britain 
 which immediately foUowe'd the departure of Con- 
 stantine from the island comes from one source only, 
 and the narrative is anything but clear, anything 
 but easy to patch on to the other recorded events 
 of the time ; but there is no reason to doubt the 
 final result, however hard it may be to trace out 
 the exact causes and connexion of events. In the 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 145 
 
 version of Zosimos, Gerontius, at the time of his 
 quarrel with Constantine, stirs up the barbarians 
 who were then in Gaul against the master against 
 whom he had revolted. This movement in Gaul 
 seems in his narrative to take the place of the 
 barbarian settlement in Spain. And in a certain 
 sense that settlement might be spoken of as a move- 
 ment against the power of Constantine. But the 
 narrative of Z6simos rather suggests a direct attack 
 on Constantine's dominion in Gaul made by the 
 barbarians wqo were already in that land, and this 
 it is certainly hard to find a place for among the 
 events of the time as more clearly handed down 
 to us elsewhere. That Gerontius was in league with 
 the Vandals, Alans, and Suevians seems certain ; 
 that he took with him allies or mercenaries of those 
 nations in his march against Vienne and Aries there 
 is no reason to doubt. But there is no sign of any 
 general movement on the part of the invaders of 
 Gaul against that south-eastern corner which still 
 clave to Eome, even though to Kome represented 
 by Constantine. Still some of their numbers did 
 doubtless march against Constantine, if only under 
 another Koman banner. And, when we are told that, 
 in order to defend himself from barbarian enemies, 
 Constantine sent for other barbarians from beyond 
 the Khine, we seem clearly to see the host that 
 Edobich brought to the relief of Aries. But it is 
 hard to see how the presence of that host in Provence, 
 or indeed in any part of Gaul, could have caused 
 the inhabitants of Britain to throw off the Koman 
 dominion and to establish themselves as an inde- 
 
146 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 pendent people. They took arms, we are told ; they 
 freed the cities of Britain from the attacks of the 
 barbarians, and they refused to live ajiy longer 
 according to the laws of Eome*. No account could 
 be more trustworthy on the face of it, if we are to 
 understand the story of a struggle of the inhabitants 
 of Koman Britain, forsaken by their Koman masters 
 and protectors, against the barbarians of their own 
 island. But, unless we are to suppose an unrecorded 
 invasion from the continent beaten back by native 
 British valour, it is hard to see the connexion between 
 the new barbarian movements in Gaul and the 
 assertion of British independence. It will be remem- 
 bered that there was a difficulty of the same kind 
 when the changes in Britain which led to the whole 
 career of Constantine were connected in a not very 
 intelligible way with the great invasion of Gaul f. 
 
 Yet, whatever we may say as to the relations of 
 particular events to one another, the general fact 
 which Zosimos records is none the less certain, none 
 the less important in the general history of the world. 
 In these few words which he drops as it were by 
 chance he gives us the key to the whole later history 
 of Britain ; he tells us in short why we are and 
 
 * The story in Zosimos, vi. 5, must be taken together to see its 
 full difficulty, not to say contradiction ; Tepovnos . . . iiraviarqa-t 
 KaviTTavTivai roiis fv KeXrots ^ap^dpovs. Upog ovs ovk avTi,(T)(aiv 6 Kav- 
 tTTavrlvos are dfj tov irXeiovos rrjs Swdpecos pe'povs ovros iv 'l^Tjpia, irdvra 
 KOT i^ovcriav eTriofTes ol vnep tov 'Prjvov ^dp^apoi KareaTrjcrav els dvayKfjV 
 Tovs T€ Tr]v BperavviKriv vrjcrov oIkovvtus Koi twv iv KeKrois i6v5>v evia ttjs 
 'Pdfiaicov dpxrjs drroaT^vai Koi Kad iavrov ^loreveiv^ ovKeri rots Tovrav 
 inraKovovTa vopois. 
 
 t See above, p. 44. 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 147 
 
 what we are instead of being like our neighbours 
 in Gaul and Spain. That there is in any part of the 
 world an English folk speaking the English tongue 
 is largely owing to the facts which lurk in the short 
 statement that the Britons took up arms and set free 
 their cities. The existence of a British people in 
 Britain, a British people free, bearing arms and 
 knowing well how to wield them, was an essential 
 condition of the growth of an English people in 
 Britain. When our turn soon came to take our 
 greatest part in the general Wandering,we had another 
 work to do from that which fell to the lot of Goths, 
 Vandals, and Franks. They had hardly more to do 
 than to receive the submission of Eomans; the con- 
 quest was so easy that they themselves were con- 
 quered ; in speech, in much besides speech, the 
 Goth and the Frank became Eomans. We had 
 not to receive the submission of Eomans but to 
 overcome the long and stubborn resistance of in- 
 dependent Britons. The Eoman of Gaul made in 
 the end the moral conquest of the Frank, because 
 he never overcame him, never faced him, on the 
 field of battle. The Briton had no chance of making 
 the moral conquest of the Angle or the Saxon, 
 because year after year he withstood him, face to 
 face and hand to hand, in defence of a land which 
 was his own land and not the land of a foreign master. 
 The difference is written on the whole history of the 
 fifth and sixth centuries. The Angle and the Saxon 
 won Britain in fight, in fight, not against Eomans, but 
 against Britons. The Teutonic invaders of Britain did 
 not turn their arms against one another till they were 
 
 L 2 
 
148 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 well settled in the land. The Frank won Gaul in 
 fight ; but it was almost wholly in fight with fellow 
 Teutons that he won it. Save in the new-born 
 British peninsula, there were no avowed Celtic 
 enemies to fight with ; with Bomans, that is with 
 Celts who had become Eomans, the Frank had to 
 fight only at that one stage when he won the Eoman 
 remnant of Syagrius. And there again we are 
 followed by the thought whether, at Constantinople 
 at least, Syagrius was not held for a tyrant and 
 Chlodowig for a loyal officer of Augustus. In truth 
 Gaul is what it now is, Britain is what it now is, 
 because there was no day on Gaulish soil like the day 
 when Saxon Cerdic had to fall back for a moment 
 before the might of British Arthur. 
 
 Britain, forsaken by Eome, had fallen away from 
 Borne. Terminus had withdrawn within the lands 
 on his own side of the stream of Ocean. And Eome 
 herself had presently to look the fact in the face ; 
 she had to come as near to formally acknowledging 
 the fact as the proud forms of Eoman diplomacy 
 would allow. Another passage of Zosimos, thrust 
 strangely into the narrative of a wholly different 
 series of events, tells us again in a casual way that 
 Honorius sent letters to the cities of Britain bidding 
 them guard themselves* (4lo). If we can put any 
 
 * In Zosimos, vi. 10, in the midst of the story of Alaric and 
 Attains, we read suddenly ; 'Opcoplov 8e ypdfifiacri npos ras iv BpeTravlq 
 Xpr](Tapevov noXfis <j)v\dTTf(T6ai irapayyiXkovai, Scopeals re dpei'^afievov 
 Toiis arpaTiaras (k twv irapa 'HpaKXfiavov TrepCJidevTav ;)(pj;)LiaT6)i', 6 fieu 
 Ovapios T]v tv paarcovrj Trdcrji rrfv twv d7ravTa)(ov (rTparicarmp inKmao'dpevos 
 evvoiav. 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 149 
 
 trust in the chronology of this most confused narra- 
 tive, these letters were sent in the year of the fall of 
 Rome, but before its fall, while Constantine was still 
 reigning in Southern Gaul. It is not wonderful then 
 if writers in Britain saw a more direct connexion 
 than there really was between the taking of the 
 Roman city and the end of the Roman power in 
 Britain ''^ The notice in Z6simos certainly looks 
 like a formal recognition of the fact that Rome could 
 no longer keep any dominion in Britain, and we 
 cannot help connecting his words with an entry in 
 that one among the continental annalists who seems 
 to have kept the most careful eye on British affairs. 
 He, one of the bearers, by whatever right, of the name 
 of Prosper, speaks, though in vague language, certainly 
 of a decay, perhaps of an utter ending, of the Roman 
 power in Britain, not in the year of the taking of 
 Rome, but i n the year just before it f (408). The letters 
 of Honorius would seem to imply a withdrawal of 
 Roman legions from Britain, if only we could con- 
 ceive any Roman legions remaining there after the 
 crossing of Constantine into Gaul, and still more 
 after the complete separation of Britain from the 
 Roman dominion which Zosimos himself had recorded 
 a few chapters before. And the letters from Honorius 
 to the Britons would seem to imply some application 
 from the Britons to Honorius, which is again some- 
 what puzzling, as one would have thought that, 
 in the year 4O8 or 409, the Roman power would in 
 
 * See the extracts in note, p. 11. 
 
 t Prosper Tiro, Koncalli, 748 ; " xv. Hon. Hac tempestate prse 
 valetudine [?] Romanorum attenuatae Britanniae." 
 
150 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 British eyes have been represented by Constantine. 
 Yet it might be that, having seen how little 
 Constantine could help them, the Britons betook 
 themselves to Honoring as their last chance. In 
 any case, whatever may have been the exact details 
 and the exact chronological order, Zosimos and the 
 annalist cannot fail to refer to the same general 
 course of events, a course of events which carried 
 with it the separation of Britain from the Koman 
 Empire. 
 
 It is not easy to reconcile these notices of British 
 affairs in the continental writers with the traditions 
 which lingered in the island itself, and which are 
 handed down to us by later British and still later 
 English writers. Yet the notices in Zosimos and 
 in the so-called Prosper must refer to the same 
 events as those which, in Gildas and after him in 
 Beeda, take the shape of two embassies from Britain 
 to Rome. Of these the former leads to the sending 
 of a legion, which drives back the enemy and then 
 goes away *. The barbarians then come again ; 
 a second embassy leads to the sending of a second 
 legion, which, after more victories, goes away, and 
 the Komans leave the island for ever f. And these 
 
 * Gildas, 12 ; "Mox destinatur legio prseteriti mali immemor, 
 sufficienter armis instructa : quae ratibus trans oceanum in patriam 
 advecta, et cominus cum gravibus hostibus congressa, magnamque 
 ex eis multitudinem sternens, et omnes a finibus depulit, et suhjectos 
 cives tarn atroci dilaceratione et imminenti captivitate liberavit." 
 This is copied by Bseda, i. 12, wbo gives here "cseteros sociorum 
 finibus expulit." 
 
 t Gildas, 1 4 ; tells this with such a wonderful mass of metaphors 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. isi 
 
 two expeditions are in. the mind of Gildas connected 
 with two great works of Koman power in the island. 
 When the first legion withdraws, the Britons are 
 told to build them a wall to keep out the enemy. 
 They throw up a dyke only, which proves of no use. 
 The second legion therefore, before it goes away, 
 builds a stone wall, and further defends the south 
 coast, as being most exposed to the barbarians — that 
 is clearly to the Saxons — with a regular belt of 
 towers, which may suggest the ma,rtellos of a much 
 
 and other flights of fine writing that the plain English under- 
 standing of Bseda failed to grasp his meaning. When Gildas said 
 that the Roman troops " terribiles inimicorum ungues cervicibus 
 infligunt mucronum casibusque foliorum tempore certo assimulan- 
 dam istam peragunt stragem," Bseda thought it all meant that the 
 legion came in the fall ; "Mittitur legio quae inopinata tempori auc- 
 tumni adveniens magnas hostium strages dedit." The facts of Gildas, 
 14, so far as they can be dug out of the rhetoric, seem to stand 
 thus ; " Mittuntur . . . legati . . . impetrantes a Romanis auxilia. . . . 
 At illi . . . cursus accelerantes . . . inimicorum . .. . peragunt stragem 
 atque ... si qua tamen evadere potuerant, propere trans maria 
 fugaverunt." But what follows, fine writing as it is, is worthy of 
 notice, because it contains the same general idea which we get 
 from Zosimos, that of armed Britons defending themselves ; " Ro- 
 mani patria reversi, denuntiantes nequaquam se tam laboriosis 
 expeditionibus posse frequentius vexari, et, ob imbelles errati- 
 cosque latrunculos, Romana stigmata, tantum talemque exercitum, 
 terra ac mari fatigari ; sed ut insula potius, consuescendo armis ac 
 viriliter dimicando., terram, substantiolam, conjuges, liberos, et, 
 quod his majus est, Ubertatem vitamque totis yiribus vindicaret, et 
 gentibus nequaquam se fortioribus, nisi segnitia et torpore dissolve- 
 rentur, ut inermes vinculis vinciendas nullo modo, sed instructas 
 peltis, ensibus, hastis, et ad csedem promptas protenderent manus, 
 suadentes." 
 
 Bseda, (i. 12) gives a rational abridgement of this tall talk. 
 
152 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 later day. Here we plainly have a confused memory 
 of the more northern dyke of Antoninus, and of the 
 more southern wall of Hadrian, Severn s, and Theo- 
 dosius *. We have here got into an atmosphere of 
 legend ; yet these two embassies clearly answer to 
 the two notices in Zosimos, though oddly enough 
 while the Greek writer attributes the driving back 
 of the barbarians to the valour of the independent 
 
 * Gildas, 1 2 ; after the first legion's coming, adds ; " Quos 
 [cives] jussit [seemingly legio\ inter duo maria constituere trans 
 insulam murum, ut esset arcendis hostibus turba instructus terrori 
 civibusque tutamini : qui vulgo irrationabili absque rectore, factis 
 non tarn lapidibus quam cespitibus non profuit." Then, 1 4 ; before 
 the departure of the second legion, " Eomani . . . murum, non ut 
 alterum sumptu publico privatoque, adjunctis secum miserabilibus 
 indigenis, solito structurse more, tramite a mari usque ad mare 
 inter urbes, qui ibidem forte ob metum hostium collocatse fuerant, 
 directo librant ; fortia formidoloso populo monita tradunt, exem- 
 plaria institueudorum armorum relinquunt. In litore quoque 
 Oceani ad meridianam plagam, qua naves eorum habebantur, quia 
 ut inde barbarise ferse bestise timebantur, turres per intervalla 
 ad prospectum maris collocant, valedicunt tamquam ultra non 
 reversuri." Gildas himself had clearly no notion of either wall 
 belonging to an earlier time. Bseda, on the other hand, had 
 already recorded the building of the wall of Severus (5), and 
 clearly knew both walls. He therefore, in his abridgement of 
 Gildas' rhetoric, puts in the words " ubi et Severus quondam 
 vallum fecerat," and adds some details and measurements. The 
 writer of the analysis of Gildas' chapters does the like. But both 
 these writers seem not to have known that the northern wall was 
 earlier ; so Bseda describes it with some minuteness as a work of 
 this time. 
 
 Bseda knew his Eoman history a great deal better than Gildas. 
 That is to say, at his distance of time, he had really read and 
 thought about it. Gildas, so much nearer to the time, simply sets 
 down the careless traditions of his own day. 
 
 J 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 153 
 
 islanders, the Briton gives the credit to Eoman legions 
 sent over for that purpose. Yet Gildas is perhaps a 
 little disposed to undervalue the merits of his countr}'^- 
 men, and the account in Zosimos agrees far better with 
 the real state of things on the continent at the time. 
 Even amid the rhetoric of Gildas the Britons are left 
 with arms in their hands, and arms which they knew 
 how to wield. But left they are; the Briton has 
 now to defend himself how he can without Eoman 
 help. No dates are given to these events by Gildas or 
 Bseda; but the English Chronicler, who says nothing 
 of the two embassies, records the final departure of 
 the Komans with a distinct date. But we see 
 a strong legendary element in his story also when 
 he tells how that eight or nine years after the taking 
 of Kome and the end, as far as Britain was concerned, 
 of Eoman rule, the Eomans in Britain gathered 
 together their hoards and hid part in the ground 
 and carried the rest over to Gaul *. The hiding in 
 
 * Chron. 418; "Her Eomane gesomnodan al J)a goldhord ]?e 
 on Bretene wseron, and sume on eor]?an ahyddan, j^set hie nsenig 
 mon sy]3]?an findan ne mealite ; and sume mid him on Gallia 
 laeddon." 
 
 It is curious to contrast these accounts put together from various 
 sources with the version of the loss of Britain given by Procopius, 
 Bell. Vand. i. 2. He looks on the separation of Britain from 
 Rome as accomplished by the assumption of the purple by Con- 
 stantine ; of the earlier tyrants he makes no mention. And it is 
 to be noticed that he speaks more respectfully of Constantine than 
 most writers. It is not clear how far he understood the actual 
 state of things in Gaul and Spain. His words are ; Bperrapla 8e 17 
 p^aos 'Pafiaiav ajreWi;, ot tc iKiivrj crrpaTiSiTai, jBaaiXea or^io-i Kutvarav- 
 tIvou flXovTo, ovK d(l)av^ avbpa, os 8fj avTiKa (ttoXov re ayeipas vqS>v Kai 
 arpaTiav Xdyov d^iav.fs 'la-iraviav re Koi TaWiav a>s 8ov\a>a6/iepus arpara 
 
154 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 the ground is of course a guess to explain the 
 frequent finding of Koraan coins ; but one would 
 think that there must be some groundwork in fact 
 for the space of nine years which the story makes 
 between the time when Eoman Emperors ceased to 
 rule in Britain and the time when the Komans 
 themselves left Britain. But it is certainly hard to 
 find in the year 418, the year of the twelfth con- 
 sulship of Honorius and the eighth of the younger 
 Theodosius, anything recorded in which we can 
 recognize the minutely dated fact of our own 
 Chronicler. 
 
 But it is of the deepest importance that, throughout 
 this story, not only in the English Chronicler so long 
 after, but in the British Jeremiah of the next century, 
 the Komans in Britain and out of Britain are looked 
 
 /xeyaXoj eare^aXXev. Then we hear of Honorius designing to fly to 
 Africa and generally of his relations to Attains, down to the death 
 of Alaric. Then we get hack to Gaul and Britain. Constantino 
 is, strangely enough, overcome by the "West-Goths under Atawulf, 
 a clear confusion between two sets of events. Gaul seems to be thus 
 looked on as recovered to the Empire ; but Britain was not won 
 back, and remained under tyrants ; 6 tSv OvKnyoTdav a-rparos, rjyov- 
 fievov (T(pi<riv ASaovX^ov, em TaWias ex(ipr]<Tav, nai KavaTamlvos f^axjl 
 i](r(TTjdf\s ^vv Tols iraia-l dvrjaKei. Bperraviap fxeVTOi 'Tafjiaioi dva(T(o(Te(T6ai 
 ovKe'ri i'<TX0V, oKK' ov<ra vno Tvpuvvois an avTov ep,eve. It is not clear 
 who these tyrants were, any more than those mentioned by Jerome 
 in the famous passage on the fertility of Britain in the growth of 
 that brood, Epist. xliii. ad Ctes. (see Gibbon, cap. xxxi. note 186). 
 But Procopius seems to look on Britain as ceasing to be Homan 
 on the appearance of a tyrant within it, a view which was certainly 
 not taken by Constantino himself. The notion of the unity of 
 the Empire was doubtless stronger at Constantinople than at 
 Aries, or even at Ravenna. 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 155 
 
 on as a separate people, wholly apart from the natives 
 of the island. The Britons are not themselves spoken 
 of as Bomans. The Komans are another set of men, 
 spoken of as the English might be spoken of now 
 with reference to India, They are a people who are 
 in the land, but who may possibly go away. We 
 shall better take in the full force of this way of 
 speaking, if we fancy the language which Gildas uses 
 applied to Provence or Aquitaine by a contemporary 
 of Gildas, say by Gregory himself To such an one 
 the notion of Eomans as a separate people, distinct 
 from the people of the land, a people who might con- 
 ceivably pack up their goods and go away, would 
 have been utterly unintelligible. To such an one 
 the Koman name simply took in the whole free popu- 
 lation of the land, save any barbarian new-comers of 
 yesterday. Sidonius was a Eoman ; even Gregory, 
 under Frankish rule, was still a Eoman ; but Gildas 
 was not. The fact proves volumes as to the utter 
 unlikeness between the story of Britain in these ages 
 and the story of Gaul. No one denies that the 
 political occupation of Eoman Britain was as thorough 
 as the occupation of Eoman Gaul ; the point on which 
 these notices and all our notices and the whole evi- 
 dence of history and language goes to prove is that 
 the people of Eoman Britain, Eomans as they doubtless 
 were by the edict of Antoninus, never became Eomans 
 in habits, speech, and feeling, like the great mass of 
 the people of Gaul and Spain. The fact that the 
 British tongue is still spoken in Britain is of only 
 less moment than the fact that the English tongue is 
 spoken. It is no small part of the evidence which 
 
156 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 shows the utter contrast between the state of the 
 island and the state of the mainland in the days 
 of which we are speaking. Britain was part of the 
 Eoman dominion ; Gaul had become in the strictest 
 sense Eomania. The Komans, as a distinct people, 
 could go away from Britain and leave the land to 
 its own folk. A clearing out of the Eomans from 
 Gaul would have meant something very near to 
 a clearing out of the whole population of the land. 
 
 Our immediate story, the story of the great bar- 
 barian invasion of Gaul and of all that came of it, has 
 brought us so near to the coming of our own folk 
 into our own land that we may go on, if only by way 
 of episode, a little further. The age in which all that 
 we know of Britain, of now independent Britain, 
 comes from incidental and isolated notices has now 
 set in. The next notice of dealings between Kome 
 and Britain in temporal matters comes when the 
 famous groans of the Britons went up to Aetius, thrice 
 consul* (443). But, before we reach that date, we 
 have two notices of the island in continental annalists. 
 One undoubted contemporary speaks of the growth of 
 the Pelagian heresy in Britain, and how PopeCoelestine 
 sent Saint German of Auxerre, him whose name still 
 
 * It is worth contrasting tlie scholar Bgeda with Gildas, "With 
 the Briton Aetius is simply " Eomanse potestatis vir." Bseda tells 
 us how " Aetius vir inlustris qui et patricius fuit, tertio cum 
 Symmacho gessit consulatum." Gildas too merely says, as the 
 result of the letter, " nee pro eis quidquam adjutorii habent." 
 Bseda gives a reason, because Aetius " gravissimis eo tempore bellis 
 cum Blsedla et Attila regibus Hunnorum erat occupatus." He goes 
 on with a good deal more about Attila. The Winchester and 
 Peterborough Chroniclers abridge Bseda. The others are silent. 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 157 
 
 lives by the Tamar and by the Ouse, to recover those 
 who had fallen away * (429). In later writers the mis- 
 sion of German, the mission of German and Lupus, the 
 second mission of German and Severus, are connected 
 in a way which we should hardly have looked for with 
 our own settlement in the island. German helps, in his 
 saintly or prophetic character, towards the overthrow 
 of a host, which, clearly before any date that has been 
 given to the coming of ^lle or Hengest, numbered 
 Saxons in its ranks as well as Picts. It is our own 
 Baeda who tells the tale, and who tells it in so 
 strangely casual a way as to make it clear that he is 
 following British records or traditions f. We are 
 tempted to connect these hints with two notices in 
 
 * Prosper mentions the Pelagian heresy in the year 413. In 429 
 he speaks of its progress in Britain, and adds ; " Ad actionem 
 Palladii diaconi, papa Coelestinus Germanum Autissiodorensem 
 episcopum vice sua mittit, et deturbatis hsereticis Britannos ad 
 catholicam fidem dirigit." 
 
 + Bseda's account of the two missions begins in i. 17, where it 
 oddly follows the first coming of the English and the exploits of 
 Aurelius Ambrosius. The story goes on through several chapters. 
 In c. 17 the Pelagian heresy is said to have broken out; "paucos 
 sane annos ante eorum [Anglorum] adventum." German, Bishop of 
 Auxerre, and Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, are sent, not by Pope 
 Celestine, but by a synod of the Bishops of Gaul. In c. 20, 
 " Saxones Pictique " are the enemies whom German helps to over- 
 throw at the Alleluia victory. In c. 21 German goes to Ravenna, 
 "pro pace Armoricanse gentis supplicaturus " — a saying in itself to 
 be noticed. He is well received by Valentinian and his mother 
 Placidia. All this therefore happened before Placidia's death in 
 450. The death of German is placed in 448 and his second 
 mission in 447 ; but the Saxons appear during the first mission, 
 that of 429. 
 
158 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 the annalist who cares most for British affairs, one of 
 which has been already referred to. The words in 
 which he seems to record the overthrow of the Eoman 
 power in Britain are strangely mixed up with the 
 Vandal, Alan, and Suevian movements in Gaul and 
 Spain, with the usurpation of Constantine, with 
 a Saxon harrying of Gaul which has been already 
 spoken of, and with the taking of Kome itself*. By 
 a little sifting, most of these events fit nearly into 
 their right years, which brings more nearly home to 
 us the possibility that the weakening of the power of 
 Eome in Britain and the Saxon incursion in Gaul 
 which presently follow may have had something to 
 do with one another. His next note of British affairs 
 is far more distinct, far more important. Whatever 
 we think of its date, the meaning of the statement is 
 clear enough. It comes seventeen years after the last 
 entry (425), that is, a good deal sooner than we should 
 have looked for it. Four years before the mission of 
 German, eighteen years before our own Chronicles 
 place the appeal to Aetius, twenty-four years before 
 they place the beginning of Teutonic conquest in 
 Britain, the so-called Prosper tells us that Britain, 
 worn out by endless slaughters and revolutions, was 
 brought under the power of the Saxons f. This is 
 perhaps the last notice from outside either of the island 
 or of those who were settling in it, till the mention 
 
 * The entry of Prosper Tiro quoted p. 149 note, is significantly 
 followed by the words quoted above, about " Saxonum incursions 
 devastatam Galliarum partem." 
 
 t "Theod. xviii. [425] Britannise usque ad hoc tempus variis 
 cladibus eventibusque laceratae in ditionem Saxonum rediguntur." 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 159 
 
 of Britain bj the great historian of the next age, 
 which shows how utterly the island had passed away 
 from Koman thought, how it had become a land of 
 fable about which any wild story might safely be told. 
 When Belisarius, in exchange for the Gothic offer of 
 Sicily, offered Britain as an ancient land of the 
 Empire, it must have sounded somewhat more 
 strange than if one of the later kings of England 
 had offered Normandy or Aquitaine*. He knew that 
 the island was greater than Sicily; further than that 
 we may judge of his knowledge by that of his 
 historian. There was the isle of Brettania to the 
 west ; there was the more wonderful isle of Brittia 
 to the north, the isle of marvels and mysteries, the 
 isle to which the souls of the dead were rowed by 
 night, the isle where the men of old had built 
 a mighty wall from north to south, on the eastern 
 side of which men were still in the world of ordinary 
 life, while to the west of the bulwark are only worms 
 and evil beasts and a deadly air which of itself slays 
 the man who ventures on the enchanted ground. So 
 soon had the greatest work of Eoman power in Britain 
 passed away into the realms of fable. It is more 
 pleasant to hear of threefold folk of the land, British, 
 Frisian, and English — the Saxon strangely has no 
 place in the reckoning of Constantinople — of the 
 English, stoutest of all barbarians in the warfare of 
 men who scorned the help of horses, of their valiant 
 lady, forerunner of ^thelburh and ^thelfl^ed, who 
 
 * Proc. Bell. Goth. ii. 6 ; 'H/nels 8e rdr^ots Bperravlav okrjv (Tvyxco- 
 povfiep i'x^iv, fiei^oi to Trapa noXv SiKeXt'as ovcrav Koi 'Papaiav KaTr\Koov to 
 dveKadev y€y€vrjft.evrjv. 
 
160 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 led her host beyond the sea to chastise her faithless 
 lover. To be sure we have to put up with hints that 
 the Frankish kings claimed the overlordship of the 
 island, and how when an English envoy found his 
 way to the court of Justinian, he came in the following 
 of the embassy of a proud Merwing who would have 
 Augustus decree that Britain was his*. Need we 
 
 * All these strange details come from the famous twentieth 
 chapter of the fourth, book of the Gothic War. I have spoken 
 of some of them in Appendix C. to the first volume of the Norman 
 Conquest. Nothing can be plainer than that here Bpirria and not 
 BpeTTavia is Britain. We cannot be wrong about an island which 
 contains both English and Britons. But in the passage quoted in 
 the last note the Bperjavia which is offered to the Goths must have 
 been the real island of Britain rather than the imaginary island of 
 Britanny. So in Bell. Yand. i. 2, BpeTravla fj vrjaos which revolts 
 from the Romans and where the soldiers choose Constantine must 
 be Britain and not Britanny. The confusion in short is hopeless ; 
 but one may guess that in Procopius' day the peninsula would be 
 fully established by the name of BperTavia, and moreover much 
 more would be heard about it than about the island. Still the 
 evident belief in BpeTravia and BpiTTia as two islands and the 
 division of the history of the real island between the two is very 
 perplexing. There is something singular in the omission of the 
 Saxons, who elsewhere are so much more prominent than the 
 Angles. A Frisian element in the settlement is in every way 
 likely ; but it is odd that it should altogether displace the Saxons. 
 And there is something strange also in which he speaks of Angles, 
 Frisians, and Britons as if they were all alike natural inhabitants 
 of the island. The oldest picture of the English is pleasing; but 
 our national habit of fighing on foot is exaggerated by Procopius 
 into utter ignorance of the horse. The passage which most concerns 
 our general story is that which describes the nations of the island 
 and their relations to the Franks ; 
 
 BpiTTiav be r^v injaov edinj rpia TrdkvnvQpairoTaTa f)(ov(ri, ^aaiXevs 
 re els avrStv eKatrro) e<^eaTr}Kev. ovopara he Kelrai rots edvetri tovtois 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. i6i 
 
 press the argument further % Can any reasonable 
 man believe that the land of which such fables could 
 be told in the ears of Procopius, of Belisarius, and 
 Justinian, was still a land Koman in speech and law 
 like the land over which the Goth, the Burgundian, 
 and the Frank had cast a slight veneer of the speech 
 and law of the German ? 
 
 We may have some other time for trying more 
 fullv to examine and reconcile all these notices : to 
 bring them into strict chronological harmony is hard 
 indeed. Yet nothing is more likely than that some 
 of those unrecorded English settlements in the 
 eastern and northern parts of the land which helped 
 not a lijttle to make England may have come before 
 
 'AyytXoi re Koi ^plfTcroves Koi ot rrj vrjaa 6fiu>vvfioi BpiTTcoves. Toaavrr) 
 be ff TCdvhe rav idvaiu TroXvavBpoania (f)aiveTat oiiaa more dva tvclv eros 
 Kara ttoKKovs ivBivhe jjieTavicrrdfievoi ^vv yvpai^l koi TfOKnv es ^pdyyovs 
 XcopovtTiv. ol 8e avTovs evoiKi^ovaiv es yrjs ttjs (T(j)eTepas ttjv ipr}p.0Tepav 
 8oKov(rav eivai, koL ott avrov ttjv vrjdov •npocnroulcrBai (^aaiv. aycrre ap,eKei 
 oil TToXXa irporepop 6 ^pdyyav fiacriXevs irn Trpecr^eia tuv ol emrrjdeicov 
 Tivas irapa ^aaikea 'lovtrriviapov es Bv^dvriov crreiXas avdpas avTois eit 
 ratv 'AyyiXatv ^vviirep^^e, (jiiKoTiiiovpevos as koI tj vrjaos f}8e irpbs avrov 
 apxerai. 
 
 There is something very strange in this account of the great 
 numbers of the three nations in Britain and their overflow into Gaul. 
 It must be some confused version of the Armorican migration, to 
 which we are just coming; but, as Procopius tells the tale, the settlers 
 may just as well have been Angles or Frisians as Britons. That 
 two of the three nations were conquerors who drove out the third 
 he gives no hint. It is possible that he may have mixed up the 
 flight of the Britons with crossings of Saxon invaders from one 
 side of the Channel to the other. 
 
 The passage about the wall is stranger still. But nothing 
 brings out better the main point, the distinction between the state 
 of Britain and that of Gaul. 
 
 M 
 
162 Western Europe m the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 the more memorable landings of Hengest, ^^EUe, and 
 Cerdic. It is possible that Saint German, on his 
 mission to Britain, may have come across warriors 
 from some of those Teutonic colonies of unrecorded 
 date which grew into the later kingdoms of East- 
 Anglia, Deira, Bernicia, and Mercia*. The chief 
 diiflculty is that the strong language of the 
 annalist could hardly be used of a time when the 
 lands which were to be Kent, Sussex, and Wessex 
 were still British, lands whose fate would be much 
 more likely to interest a continental writer than the 
 lands further to the North. But these points do not 
 immediately concern us. Our business now is rather 
 to take the Eomans out of Britain than to bring the 
 English into it. It is enough for us that, before 
 the end of the reign of Honorius, before the end of the 
 years with which we are specially concerned, the first 
 land that bore the British name had ceased to be one 
 of the lands to which decrees went forth from Caesar 
 Augustus. The last land of the West to be won, it 
 was the first to fall away. Between the conquest of 
 Britain and its separation another part of the Empire 
 had seen the conquest and the separation of Dacia. 
 But Dacia had not fallen away in the same sense as 
 Britain ; it had rather been found wise to give it up 
 to an invading enemy. But now that the insular 
 Britain had set the example, that example was 
 followed by a land which soon came to be reckoned 
 as a second Britain, if indeed it had not begun to 
 put on that character already. At least from this 
 time, most likely even from an earlier time, the 
 * See Norman Conquest, i. 26. 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 163 
 
 north-western peninsula of Gaul, balancing in its 
 geographical position the south-western peninsula of 
 Britain, was beginning to take to itself the name and 
 the nature of a British land. We may believe that, 
 even in the most flourishing days of Eoman dominion, 
 this corner of Gaul, so well fitted, as the experience 
 of later ages has shown, to be the last abiding-place 
 of an ancient folk and an ancient speech, had kept 
 traces of the tongue and the traditions of ancient 
 days which were little dreamed of in Eomanized 
 Lugdunum and Burdigala. Such relics of former 
 times needed only to be strengthened, to be kept up 
 by settlers from other lands where they had never 
 died out, and there might again come into being, in 
 this one corner of the West, a land as purely Celtic 
 as though no part of Gaul beyond the Alps had ever 
 been reckoned as a province of Eome. Such a 
 strengthening was undoubtedly supplied by the im- 
 migration of Britons from the insular Britain fleeing 
 before the swords of Teutonic conquerors. Such, to 
 quote no other writer, not to dwell on long-abiding 
 tradition, is the distinct judgement of Einhard, 
 the very clear assertion of a very clear-headed 
 man*. That assertion it would need some strong 
 contemporary evidence to set aside, and no such 
 evidence is forthcoming. Indeed the saying of 
 
 * See the distinct statement of Einhard, Ann. 786. Charles 
 the Great " exercitum in Brittanniam cismarinam mittere constituit. 
 Nam cum ah Anglis ac Saxonibus Brittannia insula fuisset invasa, 
 magna pars incolarum ejus traiciens, in ultimis Gallise finibus 
 Venetorum et Coriosolitarum regiones occupavit. Is populus a 
 regibus Francorum subactus et tributarius factus," &c. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [IT. 
 
 Procopius about the crowds of Britons who yearly 
 
 took refuge in the dominions of the Franks, is the 
 
 saying of a writer with nothing hke the clearness of 
 
 Einhard, but much nearer to the time ; and it looks 
 
 the same way. That there was an Armorican 
 
 migration, a migration from the greater Britain to the 
 
 land which became the lesser, there can be no 
 
 reasonable ground for doubting. The only question 
 
 is as to its date. And we may be sure that it began 
 
 early in the days of Teutonic conquest in the insular 
 
 Britain. For in the sixth century the continental, 
 
 the lesser Britain is distinctly marked as a land 
 
 having a settled being of its own, with its own 
 
 people, its own princes, quite apart from anything in 
 
 the rest of Gaul. It is plain that, long before the end 
 
 of the fifth century (468), there was a British people 
 
 in this part of Gaul, Britons of the Loire, who played 
 
 a considerable part in Gaulish affairs, who appear as 
 
 the allies of the Koman and the Frank, as the 
 
 enemies of the Goth and the Saxon, as spreading 
 
 themselves inland as far as the land, perhaps as the 
 
 city, of the Bituriges, and as driven out of that 
 
 distant possession by the arms of the Gothic Euric. 
 
 The Britons of Gaul, the Britons of the Loire, had 
 
 their deeds recorded in annals which formed part 
 
 of the materials both of the Goth Jordanis and 
 
 of Gregory of Tours, and there is more than one 
 
 reference to their presence in the writings of Sidonius 
 
 of Auvergne*. At this date at least they are 
 
 * The first mention of Britanny or Britons in Gregory of Tours 
 is in the passage ii. 18, 19, which seems clearly to be copied from 
 annals. The earliest fact about them is "Brittani de Bituricis 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. les 
 
 a recognized people, one of the nations of Gaul, with 
 a prince of their own, called of some a king, who 
 
 a Gothis expulsi sunt, multis apud Dolensen vicum peremptis." 
 This must not be taken for the Breton g-wasi-metropolis of Dol. 
 The place is D^ols in Berry. This note comes among a series of 
 entries from which we gather that Eomans, Franks, and Bretons — 
 Wealas in short and those who were to become Wealas — were 
 on one side, while Saxons and Goths are on the other. The date 
 seems to be 468. Later notices in Gregory are common. 
 
 The event recorded by Gregory is told at greater length by Jorda- 
 nis, Getica, 45; "Anthemius imperator Brittonum solatia postulavit, 
 quorum rex Kiotimus cum duodecim millibus veniens in Bituricas 
 civitatem Oceano e navibus egressus susceptus est. Ad quod rex 
 Vesegothorum Eurichus innumerum ductans advenit exercitum diu- 
 que pugnans Eiotimum Brittonum regem, antequam Romani in ejus 
 societatem conjungerentur, effagavit." Riotimus fled to Burgundy. 
 Sidonius refers to all this in his letter to Vincentius about the 
 affair of the prefect Arvandus (see Gibbon, eh. xxxvi. vol. vi. p. 198, 
 ed. Milner). Arvandus was said to have dictated a treasonable 
 letter to Euric ; " Hsec ad regem Gothorum carta videbatur emitti, 
 pacem cum Grseco imperatore dissuadens, Britannos super Ligerim 
 sitos impugnari oportere demonstrans, cum Burgundionibus jure 
 gentium Gallias dividi debere." In iii. 9 we have a letter from 
 Sidonius to E,iothamus, clearly the same as the Eiotimus of 
 Jordanis, in which he speaks of one who " mancipia sua, Britannis 
 clam soUicitantibus, deplorat." This is about 472. 
 
 The phrase " Grgecus imperator" is odd. It is not a Eoman, 
 though it is a Gothic, way of speaking of the Eastern colleague, 
 and it has been thought not to mean Leo, but to be a sneering 
 way of pointing at Anthemius, the Western Emperor sent by Leo. 
 Yet Sidonius could write (Can. xxii. 30) in the Panegyric of this 
 very Anthemius, 
 
 " Salve, sceptorum columen, regina Orientis, 
 Orbis Eoma tui, rerum mihi principe misso, 
 Jam non Eoo solum veneranda Quiriti, 
 Imperii sedes, sed plus pretiosa, quod exit 
 Imperii genitrix." 
 
166 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv: 
 
 played a part in the general politics of the land. 
 This prince, Eiotimus by name, appears by that name 
 in the story of Jordanis and he is numbered among 
 the correspondents of the poet-bishop. And this 
 people is found ranged alongside of the same allies and 
 in face of the same enemies against whom we should 
 look to find them ranged. The Wecdas of either 
 world, Uiim-Wehli, Gal-Welsh, Br ef -Welsh, with their 
 ally the Frank, still the faithful soldier of Rome, 
 against the more-abiding Teutonism of the Goth and 
 the still young barbaric life of the Saxon. The 
 continental Britons could hardly have gained this 
 position, if their first migration had happened after 
 449. We may rather believe that the migration of 
 those who fled from the Saxon seax merely 
 strengthened a British element which had already 
 taken root on Gaulish soil. The beginnings of this 
 earlier British settlement have been with much 
 likelihood attributed to the days of the elder tyrant 
 Maximus *. Their coming however made no im- 
 mediate change in the provincial nomenclature of the 
 Empire. The only Britain known to the Notitia 
 Imperii is still the island ; the continental Britain, 
 perhaps already so called in common speech, is not 
 entered among the divisions of Gaul. The Lesser 
 Britain was in no way distinguished from the 
 Greater in either the older or the younger form of 
 the Koman tongue, as in the tongue of the Saxon 
 conqueror it has come to be by a slight difference in 
 the form of the name. But in the great survey of 
 the Empire the Lesser Britain is still hidden under 
 * See Wietersheim, ii. 71, 166. 
 
 I 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. i67 
 
 the general name of Armorica, a name then of far 
 wider extent, taking in at least so much of Gaul 
 as lay between the Seine and the Loire *. The 
 Armorican name seems afterwards to have? shrunk 
 Tip into a synonym for the Lesser Britain ; but we 
 should be led astray if we put so narrow a sense 
 upon the word even in the sixth century. At 
 Constantinople, in the days of the Gothic war, the 
 Armorican na.me took in those lands between Seine 
 and Loire which became the kernel of Francia in the 
 later sense, while the lesser Britain seems to have 
 shared the fate of the greater, to have become the 
 subject of the wildest fables, and to have been looked 
 on, no longer as a peninsula of the mainland, but as 
 another island like the land whose name it had taken f. 
 
 * See the "Dux Tractus Armoricani," Notitia Imperii, iii, 106. 
 His jurisdiction takes in Avranches, Coutances, and Rouen, and 
 is further extended over five provinces, Aquitania Prima et 
 Secunda, Senonia, Secunda Lugdunensis et Tertia. He too has 
 "Littus Saxonicum." See Booking's Dissertation, v. 817 et seqq. 
 
 t Whatever we make of Procopius' account of the 'Ap^opvxoi in 
 Bell. Goth. i. 12, we cannot doubt, First, That the word is the 
 same as Armorici or Aremorici, and, Secondly, That it is not meant 
 to be confined to the peninsula of Britanny. His story is most 
 likely a confused account of the conquest of the Roman land 
 of Syagrius by Chlodowig. Its inhabitants did become one people 
 with the Franks, which the Bretons have never done. 
 
 So when Sidonius in the passage quoted above, p. 39, uses the 
 old formal phrase of "Aremoricus tractus," he certainly does not 
 mean Britanny only ; he is perhaps specially thinking of the 
 lands that were to be Normandy and Anjou. 
 
 Of the wonderful stories of Procopius I have spoken already. 
 He clearly got his tales about Britain and Britanny from some 
 quite different source from that where he found his notice of the 
 
168 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 
 
 At the stage which we have now reached, when 
 the insular Britain had fallen away from the dominion 
 of Rome, the example of the islanders is said to have 
 been followed by a considerable part of the Gaulish 
 mainland. If we can accept the geography of our 
 only informant, the spirit of independence spread far 
 beyond the region which did in the end put on 
 a character apart from the rest of Gaul. It was not 
 merely the new continental Britain, but the whole 
 Armorican land and other provinces besides, which 
 asserted their independence of a power which could 
 no longer defend them against barbarian inroads. 
 They drove out the officers of the Eoman government 
 and set up an independent state of their own *. We 
 yearn to know the form of its constitution ; but such 
 knowledge is denied us. We may gather from an 
 incidental source that the revolution was not brought 
 about without changes within as well as without, 
 changes, it would seem, social as well as political. 
 But from the same source it would also seem that the 
 independence of Armorica, at least in the wider sense, 
 was not lasting. A few years later (417-420), a poet of 
 Southern Gaul could rejoice that Exuperantius, seem- 
 ingly Prsefect of the Gauls, had brought back peace 
 to the shores of Armorica and had restored the reign 
 of law and freedom. The poet's standard of freedom 
 may have been different from that of a large part 
 of the inhabitants of Armorica. The effect of the 
 
 * Zosimos, vi. 5 J 6 ^Apfiopixos anas Kai erepai TdKarcov eirapxiai, 
 Bperavvoiis fiiiirjcTdnevoi, koto, top ktov (T(pas TJkevdepaaav rponov, e/c- 
 jSaXXoucrai p.iv tovs 'P(op,aiovs ap)^ovTas, olKelov 8e Kar i^ovcriav noKlrevpa 
 KadiiTTaaai. 
 
IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. i69 
 
 renewed rule of order was that men were no longer 
 slaves to their own bondmen *. We need many 
 more details before we can judge of the exact force 
 of these words, whether they need imply such a 
 revolution as had happened of old in the Etruscan 
 Volsinii, when personal slaves actually set themselves 
 in the seats of their masters. It may be only a poet's 
 dark way of describing changes which put power into 
 new hands, perhaps in the districts to which such 
 a picture would apply, into the hands of the old 
 natives of the land strengthened by the new settlers 
 of kindred race. The whole subject is dark, and we 
 can hardly get beyond probable guesses. We hear 
 of further Armorican revolts, and, when the Franks 
 made their way into central Gaul, we find the eastern 
 part of Armorica in the wide sense, to a great extent 
 a Eoman land, a land which clings to its Koman 
 standing when Rome herself obeyed a barbarian king. 
 But long before that time, as we have just seen, that 
 part of Armorica which formed the continental 
 Britain was a distinct land, with its own people and 
 princes. The inference seems to be that the restora- 
 tion of Roman power by Exuperantius was abiding, at 
 
 * Kutilius Namatianus (i. 213) speaks of a kinsman of his 
 " Cujus Aremoricas pater Exsuperantius oras 
 Nunc postliminium pacis amare docet. 
 Leges restituit libertatemque reducit, 
 Et servos famulis non sinit esse suis." 
 The date (see Tillemont, v. 659) of the poem is shown by an 
 astronomical argument to be either 417 or 420. 
 
 In Prosper Tiro (427?) we read, "II [Theodosii] in Galliis 
 Exsuperantius praefectus a militibus interficitur." That may be 
 the date of the undoing of his work. 
 
170 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 least for some generations, in Armorica in the wider 
 sense, but that in the peninsula which was becoming 
 British, if the Eoman power was ever really again 
 set up, it was cast off again in one of the later 
 revolts. 
 
 This restoration of the Eoman power in Armorica 
 was, we can hardly doubt, connected with another 
 change in the affairs of Gaul which brought two 
 other Teutonic nations to the front in that land, and 
 led to a lasting settlement of one of them which has 
 affected geography ever since. The Franks, as the 
 ruling, or indeed as a leading, people in Gaul, hardly 
 come within the strict range of our present inquiry; 
 the fascination of our own settlement in the second 
 of our three great homes, a fascination the stronger 
 because of the darkness in which our coming is 
 enwrapped, has carried us on that head somewhat 
 beyond our proper limits. But we have come in due 
 order to the first settlements of the West-Goths and 
 the Burgundians within the lands of the Empire, and 
 to the events in the history of the Empire itself, the 
 rise and fall of more than one tyrant, by which those 
 settlements were accompanied. And before all it will 
 bring before us one of the noblest forms in the whole 
 history of our race, one of the men to whose lot it 
 fell to shape the fates of ages, the kingly form of 
 Atawulf the Goth. 
 
V. 
 
 [WEST-GOTHS AND BUEGUNDIANS.] 
 
 We have to deal now with the settlement on 
 Gaulish ground of the West-Goths and of the Bur- 
 gundians. The two names call up widely different 
 thoughts. The Goths seem to belong wholly to the 
 past ; the nation is gone ; the name is gone ; it is 
 mere accident through which the people of Atawulf 
 and the people of Gaiseric seem still to give kingly 
 titles to the sovereigns of Northern Europe, But the 
 Burgundian name is so familiar as the name of a land 
 of modern Gaul, its intermediate history calls up 
 associations so utterly alien to our present tale, that 
 it is a little hard to picture to ourselves Burgundians, 
 like Goths or Vandals or Saxons, as playing their 
 part in the Wandering of the Nations. The Burgun- 
 dian name seems in a manner out of place, almost 
 as the English name does. Yet when we compare 
 the history of the two nations, of the modern-sound- 
 ing Burgundians and of the Goths who seem to 
 belong to so much more distant an age, we shall 
 find that, if the Goths were less abiding as a name — 
 it may be doubted whether they were less abiding 
 as a nation — they were much longer-lived as a 
 political power. The Burgundians, as a people and 
 kingdom, enjoyed little more than a century of 
 independence, and that independence tempered by 
 
172 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 
 
 a degree of deference to the Empire unusual among 
 the nations of Gaul. The Gothic dominion, on the 
 other hand, was not swept away, even in Gaul, till 
 the days of Saracen conquest in the West. Yet the 
 name of Gothic has been for some ages swept away 
 from Gauhsh soil, while the endless changes in the 
 meaning of the word Burgundy, from the time of 
 the first Burgundian settlement down to quite 
 modern days, have been among the standing puzzles 
 of geography. Both these nations now begin to play 
 an important part in Gaulish history. 
 
 The Goths show themselves for the first time on 
 Gauhsh soil in the year that followed the fall of Con- 
 stantine (412). Very short had been the time of peace, 
 the time of union under the acknowledged princes of 
 East and West. Perhaps within a twelvemonth of Con- 
 stantine's overthrow, tyrants again show themselves 
 in Gaul, tyrants who have, as before, to be put down 
 by barbarian help ; but who show more distinctly 
 than before how very largely their power rested on 
 barbarian support. In the year that we have just 
 spoken of we read in our annals that the West- 
 Goths under Atawulf entered Gaul and that Jovinus 
 assumed the purple at MaiDz, by the help of the 
 Alan Goar and of the Burgundian Gunthachar. And 
 in the following year (413) we read that the Burgun- 
 dians obtained the part of Gaul next to the Ehine*. 
 
 * The entries in Prosper are ; 
 " 412. Gothi rege Athaulfo Gallias ingressi. 
 413. Burgundiones partem Gallise propinquantem Eheno obti- 
 nuerunt. 
 
 Jovinus et Sebastianus fratres in Gallia regno arrepto interempti." 
 
v.] West'Goths and Burgundians. 173 
 
 It must strike us at once that we have now come 
 to regular political action in a region whose name 
 we have as yet heard only as suffering passing ravage. 
 One cannot doubt that the authority of Constantine 
 had been acknowledged throughout Eastern Glaul. 
 That would be pretty well shown by his being 
 acknowledged at once at Trier and at Aries ; but 
 Trier is the only point north of the Ehoneland where 
 we see distinct traces of him. It is very hard to keep 
 ourselves from already speaking of that land as Bur- 
 gundy, though the events with which we are now 
 concerned are enough to show how much such a 
 name would be before the time. We have come, 
 not to the first of all the Burgundies in the world, 
 but to the first Burgundy within the bounds of 
 Gaul. And that Burgundy finds itself, not on the 
 lower Bhone, but on the middle Rhine. The centre 
 of action is at Mainz, a city of which we heard as 
 grievously suffering in the great invasion of five 
 
 This makes rather too short work of two years. 
 
 The other Prosper has ; 
 
 " xviii. [Honorii]. Eursum alia prsedatio Galliarum, Gothis qui 
 AJarico duce Romam ceperant, Alpes transgredientibus. 
 xix. Jovinus tyrannidem post Constantinum invadit." 
 
 Idatius (see above, p. iiS, note) only mentions the usurpation of 
 Jovinus and Sebastian in 412. He does not mention the Goths 
 till next year at Narbonne. 
 
 Orosius in the Catalogue of tyrants (vii. 42) says; "Jovinus 
 postea vir Galliarum nobilissimus in tyrannidem mox ut assurrexit 
 cecidit. Sebastianus frater ejusdem hoc solum ut tyrannus more- 
 retur elegit. Nam continuo ut est creatus occisus est." So 
 
 Philostorgios, xii. 8 ; KaTo. Se tovs airovs xpoi/ovs 'Ico^iavos re iiraviarrf , 
 els (pQopav CLTvia^r} Koi 2e/3acmai/os ahek^os avTOv rols Xa-ois inocpdaXixTja-as, 
 
174 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 
 
 years earlier ; but which may have risen from its 
 ruins as easily as Trier. Of the actors in the move- 
 ment, one we have heard of already. He is the 
 Alan King Goar who had been won over to the 
 Eoman service, but, like most of his fellows, was 
 not specially scrupulous as to his strict allegiance 
 to any one Roman prince over another*. His 
 partner in setting up the new Augustus was the 
 head of one of the two Teutonic nations who are now 
 winning themselves homes in Gaul, Gunthachar the 
 Burgundian. The name of his people has long been 
 familiar in the history of the Empire, and a generation 
 or more before Gunthachar they had played a great 
 part in some of the wars on the Gaulish frontier. 
 But, as there is no ground for the legend which 
 claimed for them a Eoman origin, neither is there 
 any ground for the behef of some scholars that they 
 were, before the times with which we are dealing, 
 already settled on Gaulish soil f. Burgundians also 
 
 * The best account of the whole story comes from Olympiodoros 
 (p- 454 et seqq.). The passage which at present concerns us is 
 this ; 'lo^lvos ev Movi'SiaKa ttjs irepas Tepfiavias Kara a-rrovbrjv Toap rod 
 AXavov Koi TovvTiapiov os (jivKap)(os exprniari^e tS)v BovpyovvTiovcav 
 (j)v\upxos Tvpavvos dvT)yopevdr]. 
 
 Goar is the Alan chief who joined the Eomans in 407. He is 
 therefore not marked as (f)v\apxos, while Gunthachar, head of the 
 Burgundian nation, is. These names in -char, as they are now 
 written, are of course the same as our names in -here. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the Movv^mkov of Olympiodoros 
 is Moguntiacum, or Mainz. The form may possibly show that the 
 name was already beginning to be shortened. Mediomatrici had 
 fully sunk to Mettis in the course of the next century. 
 
 t These points are discussed at great length by Albert Jahn, 
 Geschichte der Burgundionen und Burgundiens, i. 237 et seqq. 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 175 
 
 find tlieir place in some of the vaguer lists of the 
 nations which took a part in the great movement 
 of the year 406"'. But we have no distinct account 
 of their share, if they had any, in the transactions 
 of the last six years. There is nothing to show that 
 they bore any part in the general harrying of Gaul ; 
 they clearly had none in the partition of the lands. 
 Whether they took any part in the wars of Con- 
 stantino and his enemies depends on a single most 
 confused passage*. On the whole we may safely 
 say that, if the Burgundians took any part at all 
 in the great events of those memorable years, it was 
 not as chief actors, but in the way in which, in those 
 days of wandering, stray detachments of almost any 
 nations may get mixed up in the acts of any other. 
 But if the Burgundians stood aloof from these 
 greater movements, they might be thereby the better 
 able to settle quietly, almost without notice, in some 
 convenient region near to their older seats beyond 
 the Ehine. Such a settlement they had clearly made 
 by the year following the elevation of Jovinus (413), 
 the year in which their occupation of part of Gaul 
 
 The zeal of this author to refer to every writer from the earliest 
 days to our own day who has said a word upon the subject 
 sometimes makes it hard to dig out his own conclusions. But 
 he seems to show with clearness that there is no reason to suppose 
 any lasting settlement of the Burgundians in Gaul before that with 
 which we are now concerned. 
 
 * In the passage from Gregory quoted above, p. 1 16, Burgundians 
 are mentioned in the army said there to have been led by Jovinus, 
 that is really by Edobich. They may have been there along with 
 the Franks and Alemans, or the mention of them may be owing to 
 the same confusion as the mention of Jovinus. 
 
176 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 
 
 is recorded. And we cannot help connecting the 
 two events which are brought so close together, the 
 elevation of Jovinus and the Burgundian occupation. 
 We may be sure that the Burgundian help which 
 Jovinus received was paid for by the new Emperor 
 with a formal grant of Gaulish territory to the Bur- 
 gundian king and people. Jovinus and his power 
 lasted but for a moment ; but the settlement of the 
 Burgundians, or at least of their name, was for ever. 
 Setting aside the north-eastern corner of Gaul that 
 was held by the various tribes of Franks, the settle- 
 ment of Gunthachar was the first Teutonic settlement 
 in Gaul, as distinguished from mere harrying. It 
 was the first establishment of a regular Teutonic 
 kingdom, even if a kingdom dependent on the 
 Empire, as distinguished from these mere planta- 
 tions of prisoners or mercenaries as immediate sub- 
 jects of Eome*. 
 
 The march of Atawulf into Gaul, the elevation of 
 Jovinus, the establishment of the Burgundians, were 
 all made possible by the withdrawal of Constantius 
 from Gaul after the fall of Constantino, whether he 
 withdrew to rest in Italy or to fight in Spain. 
 A new and in some points dark period now opens, 
 a period in which it is not hard to follow the mere 
 order of events, but in which the connexion of events 
 and the working of causes baffle us at every step. 
 Most hard of all is it to account for the course of 
 Atawulf and his West-Goths. They now left Italy 
 for Gaul. We know the fact ; we know the date ; 
 at causes and motives we are left to guess. If 
 * See Wietersheim, i. 
 
v.] West-Goths and Bur gimdians. \ii 
 
 Atawulf designed any such territorial settlement in 
 Italy as was before long carried out by his successor 
 Wallia, his design at least remained a design that 
 bore no fruit. But if the difficulties of the story 
 are increased, a special interest is added to it by 
 a certain vein of personal romance. The policy 
 of princes and nations was just now largely influenced 
 by the fact that the foremost men of two nations 
 were rival and honourable suitors for the hand of 
 the same bride. PJacidia, the daughter of Theo- 
 dosius, the sister of Honorius, the captive of Alaric, 
 was sought in marriage alike by the King of the 
 West-Goths and by Constantius, already Count and 
 conqueror and to be Consul and Emperor. It adds 
 to the singularity of the case, while it does honour 
 to every side of the character of the Gothic King, 
 that the prize eagerly striven for by such mighty 
 candidates was actually in the power of one of them. 
 Placidia was still the captive of the Goths, but the 
 King of the Goths was Atawulf. Her master was 
 the man who spoke that memorable speech which 
 traced out, which perhaps did much to rule, the 
 coming history of the world. It was indeed a 
 lucky chance for us which brought Orosius to hear 
 the man of Narbonne, the stout soldier of the wars 
 of Theodosius, tell to Jerome in his cell at Bethlehem 
 the words which he had himself hearkened to in his 
 own city in friendly talk with the Gothic King. 
 That the words are truly the words of Atawulf we 
 cannot doubt; the evidence is as good as evidence 
 can be. The thoughts are far more likely to have 
 sprung up freely in the mind of a Goth who wondered 
 
 N 
 
178 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 
 
 at the new world around him than to have been devised 
 by either a Koman monk or a Eoman senator of that 
 day. We seize then our rare chance of listening to 
 the inmost thoughts of one of the men who have 
 indeed made history. We cannot dwell too often 
 on those words so deep with meaning in which 
 Atawulf declared the great change between his earlier 
 and his later thoughts. He had once dreamed of 
 overthrowing the Koman power, of changing Ro- 
 mania into Gothia and placing Atawulf in the place 
 of Caesar Augustus. The lesson of his life had 
 taught him better. The rule of Rome was the rule 
 of law ; by the law of Rome alone could the world 
 be ruled ; he, the Gothic king, would wield the 
 Gothic sword in the cause of Rome ; he would keep 
 the nations under the shelter of the Roman peace 
 and the obedience of the Roman law*. The man 
 who could speak words like these is at once stamped 
 as holding his place among the wisest and noblest 
 of the world's heroes and sages. Atawulf, like Poly- 
 bios, had his lot cast in one of the great turning- 
 points of the world's history, and, like Polybios, he 
 understood the memorable age in which he lived. 
 Not all the lore, not all the experience of the friend 
 of Philopoimen and of Scipio had taught him a 
 clearer insight and a wider view than was revealed 
 to the untutored warrior whom the Goths had heaved 
 on the shield when Alaric was lost to them. For 
 fourteen hundred years men have been consciously, or 
 
 * The wouderful passage just at the end of the last book of 
 Orosius' Histories has been quoted over and over again. It cannot 
 be read too often. 
 
y.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 179 
 
 unconsciously, carrying out Atawulfs teaching, though 
 not always in the lofty spirit of the man who taught 
 the lesson. If we may take the Goth, the noblest 
 form of the Teutonic family, as the representative of 
 the whole household, we may say that all later 
 history has been the carrying out of a process by 
 which Romania has become Gothia without ceasing 
 to be Romania, and Gothia has become Romania 
 without ceasing to be Gothia. If not Atawulf, yet 
 Charles became Rome's Caesar and Augustus without 
 ceasing to be the Teutonic king that he was born to 
 be. The Gothic sword wielded on behalf of the 
 laws of Rome has been in truth the symbol of the 
 whole history of the European world since the day 
 when the foresight of Atawulf first made it so. 
 
 The Goth then is the champion of Rome ; but we 
 must remember that the champion of Rome is not 
 necessarily the champion of Honorius. Atawulf no 
 longer thought of placing himself in the seat of 
 Caesar Augustus ; but he kept to himself the power 
 of choosing between rival Caesars and Augusti. And 
 he did not this time choose the one whom it would 
 have been most easy for him to use as a puppet for 
 his own purposes. The whole story is dark ; we are 
 not told why Atawulf led his army into Gaul ; but we 
 know that he carried with him a deposed Emperor 
 and the sister of a reigning Emperor. An honourable 
 lover, he would take Placidia to wife, but he would 
 take her only with her own consent and that of her 
 brother. A wise statesman, he was not insensible to the 
 advantage which he might gain in negotiations with 
 the brother from the fact that he had the sister in his 
 
 N 2 
 
180 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 
 
 power. And if he had Placidia in his power, he had 
 Attains also. The Emperor whom Alaric had set 
 up and put down as was convenient at each particular 
 moment, was still in the Gothic camp, " for the occa- 
 sional purpose," as it has been inimitably put, " of 
 acting the part of a musician or a monarch *." But 
 Attalus could also play a third part, that of a coun- 
 sellor to his Gothic patron ; only his career in this 
 third character is less intelligible than in either of the 
 other two. It is said to have been by his counsel 
 that Atawulf, champion of Eome, having crossed into 
 Gaul, acknowledged as the representative of Eome 
 the prince who had been just set up by Alan and 
 Burgundian helpf . Jovinus was indeed, so far as we 
 can see, the acknowledged Emperor in so much of 
 Gaul as admitted any Emperor at all \. All men had 
 submitted to him, save only the praefect Dardanus, 
 a puzzling character, the honoured correspondent of 
 
 * Gibbon, ch. xxxi. 
 
 + Our fullest narrative here comes from Olympiodoros, pp. 454 
 et seqq. He now says ; 7rp6s ov ['loiSIz/oj'J Trapayevtadai "AttoXos 
 AoaovXcfiov irapaivei' koI Trapayeverat ap.a tov TrXrjdovs. 
 
 X The Chronicle known as Prosper Tiro gives a clear summary 
 of events, though more than one year seems to be rolled together ; 
 
 "Jovinus tyrannidem post Constantinum invadit. 
 Industria viri strenui qui solus tyranno non cessit, Dardani, 
 Ataulfus, qui post Alaricum Gothis imperitabat, a societate Jovini 
 avertitur. 
 
 Salustius quoque et Sebastianus occisi. 
 
 Valentia nobilissima Galliarum civitas a Gothis effringitur, ad 
 quam se fugiens Jovinus contulerat." 
 
 This division of the two first clauses, given in the note in 
 Eoncalli (cf. Jahn, Burgundiens, i. 311), alone makes sense. As 
 commonly stopped it would mean that Dardanus helped Jovinus. 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. isi 
 
 contemporary saints, of Augustine and of Jerome, 
 but whom a later saint, our own Sidonius, describes 
 as uniting the characteristic sins of all the tyrants. 
 The inconstancy of Constantine, the recklessness of 
 Jovinus, the faithlessness of Gerontius, were blame- 
 worthy each by itself; in Dardanus all were found 
 together *. Yet the career of Dardanus at this time, 
 if harsh and cruel, specially perhaps to the chosen 
 land of Sidonius, is certainly not marked by reckless- 
 ness or perfidy. He is at least faithful to his master, 
 and serves him well alike in diplomacy and in warfare. 
 That he should do all in his power to keep Atawulf on 
 the side of Honorius was a matter of course ; why 
 Attains should try to enlist him for Jovinus is less 
 clear at first sight. Yet it may be that he had given 
 up all hope of his own restoration to power, but still, 
 as was likely enough, cherished a spite against 
 Honorius and was inclined to support any enemy 
 of his. And we can perhaps understand that Jovinus 
 might at once be afraid of such an ally as Atawulf and 
 might distrust the counsellor who had advised his 
 march. But when we are told that Jovinus reproached 
 Attains in riddles, we feel that we have got into the 
 region of riddles ourselves f. Anyhow the advances 
 of Atawulf to Jovinus were not received in a friendly 
 
 * Of Dardanus bishop Sidonius ( Ep. v. 9) says ' cum in Constantino 
 inconstantiam, in 3 oymo facilitatem, in Gerontio perfidiam, singula 
 in singulis, omnia in Dardano crimina simul exsecrarentur." Au- 
 gustine, ep. 87, calls him "illustrius mihi in caritate Christi quam 
 in hujus sseculi dignitate," and ends " nee tua indignitas parvuli." 
 This talk is only theological, 
 
 + Olymp. ib. ; 'lo/Stvos aviaxm kin TJj 'ASaouX<j()ou Trapovaia koL fien^perai 
 S' alviyfiaTcov rat irapaiveiravTi 'AttoXo) ttjv a^i^iv. 
 
182 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 
 
 spirit, and two other grounds of offence, one of them 
 intelligible enough, presently arose between them. 
 
 We have already heard of the valiant Goth Sarus 
 and his fruitless campaign against Constantine in 
 south-eastern Gaul*. This man, the chief seemingly 
 of a small band or tribe of his nation, renowned even 
 among his valiant people for a heroic daring sur- 
 passing that of other men, had been first the follower 
 and then the enemy of Stilicho ; he was the special 
 enemy of Alaric, and seemingly of his house f, Ata- 
 wulf, brother-in-law and successor of Alaric, carried on 
 the deadly feud ; and Sarus, enemy of Atawulf, pre- 
 sently became the enemy of Honorius also. Bellerid, a 
 favourite officer of Sarus, had been slain by unrecorded 
 but seemingly Koman hands. Honorius took no heed 
 to the crime and dealt out no punishment to the 
 murderer \. Sarus, in his wrath, threw off his alle- 
 
 * See above, pp. 64, 65. 
 
 t The relations of Sarus to Stilicho appear in Z6simos, v. 30, 
 
 34, where he figures as koI o-wfioros pwyLtJj koI d^idxrei rav aXXa>i' (TVfi- 
 
 fidxov TTpoexfov. His enmity to Atawulf conies out at the very end 
 
 of ZosimoSj vi. 13 J Avafievas e^tov irpos avrbv \^dpov\ 'ArdouX^os Zk. 
 Tivos Tvpoka^ovaris dWoTpioTrjTos. So Olympiodoros (p. 449) after 
 recording the captivity of Placidia and the elevation of Attalus 
 (a. D. 410), adds, koL on 2dpov, koL avrov TotBov ovra, Koi nXrjdovs p-ev 
 oXiyov endp)(ovTa (p-xpi- ydp 8i,aKocria>v fj TpioKocriiav 6 Xaos e^eruvero) aWws 
 be Tjpco'iKov Tiva koX iv pd^ais dKarayavia-rov, tovtov on 'Pcopmoi fjTaipicravTO 
 d' f'xdpos 'AXapiXdi ovra, aairovhov ix^pov 'A\dpixov enoirjcravTO, The 
 enmity is here carried back from Atawulf to Alaric. Jordanis in his 
 Getica makes Sarus a king. 
 
 ;}i Olymp. p. 455 ; 2dpos rjv aTrooraf 'Ovapiov, on BeXXepiSoi', 6s ^v 
 avTCi dopfariKos, dvaipedevros oi8e\s Xoyos ra jSaciXet Trjs dvaipefreati aide 
 Tov (jiovov ylverai ttcnrpa^is. 
 
 Jordanis (Komana, 321) makes Sarus a "EexGothorum." Sozomen 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. i83 
 
 giance to a prince who did no justice *, and betook 
 himself to the obedience of Jovinus. 
 
 It was only with a handful of men, eighteen or twenty 
 in all, that Sarus made his way into Gaul. But his 
 enemy was there with a force greater beyond measure. 
 Atawulf met his enemy at the head of ten thousand 
 Goths, where we are not told, but at some point 
 doubtless between Narbonne and the Alps. Sarus, 
 true to his old character, would neither flee nor sur- 
 render. He fought against these overwhelming odds 
 in a way worthy of the renown of his former exploits, 
 till he was taken alive and put to death f. Atawulf 
 was not likely to feel more kindly towards the man 
 to whom Sarus had sought to join himself, nor was 
 Jovinus likely to feel more kindly towards the man 
 who had deprived him of such a helper as Sarus. 
 
 (ix. 15, see Dahn, Kbnige des Germanen, v. 57) lias been thought 
 to reckon him among Roman tyrants. His words are, dSoK^Tws 
 dvaipovvrai 'lo/3tafdf re Koi Md^ifios ot Trpoeiprjfievoi rvpavvoi, Koi "Edpos kol 
 SKKoi TrXeTcrrot iirX tovtocs ini^ovKevdavT^s rfj 'Ovapiov /SacrtXeia. Sarus, 
 by trying to join Jovinus, certainly brought himself under this last 
 head ; but he seems to be distinguished from the rvpawM. 
 
 Sozomen in an earlier passage (ix. 9) calls him Sdpos rts ^dp^apoi t6 
 
 yivos, els aKpov to. ndkepia r](rKripevQS. 
 
 * There is a certain likeness to Honorius in the picture of 
 Stephen in the [Old English] Chronicle ; only Stephen could fight 
 like Sarus himself. 
 
 + Olymp. 455 ; 2dpos e/neXXe rrpos 'lojSii/oi/ napayevecrdaf dXX' 'ASciouX- 
 ^05 TOVTO paOcav, TrpoviravTid^ei ^'^'"^"^ 8eKa a-vveirayopevos aTpaTiarrjv 
 [(TTpaTKOToiv ?] €)(ovn av8pas irepl avrbv '2,dp<f oKTcuKaiheKa fj kol eiKoatv. ov 
 fpya fjpat'iiid km Oavpdaei a^ia eniSei^dpevov, poXis adiCKOis i^cayprfo-av, 
 Koi va-repov dvaipovai. I am not concerned in the exact force of 
 o-dKKois, nor do I see why Mr. Hodgkin (i. 829) should in his first 
 Edition have inferred that Sarus was tortured. 
 
184 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 
 
 Dardanus too was now clearly in concert with Ata- 
 wulf, and the annalist who gives him an honourable 
 name attributes it to him that the Goth turned aside 
 from the course of the tyrant *. In another version 
 a much less intelligible cause is given for the breaking 
 out of open enmity between Atawulf and Jovinus. 
 Jovinus associated his brother Sebastian along with 
 himself in the Imperial dignity which he had as- 
 sumed. On this Atawulf, highly wrathful, we are not 
 told wherefore, sent an embassy to Honorius, offering 
 peace and friendship, and promising to send the 
 heads of Jovinus and Sebastian as pledges of his 
 loyalty f. 
 
 The promise was doubly welcome at a time when 
 the throne of Honorius was beset on both sides. 
 Africa had now its tyrant as well as Gaul (412). The 
 most faithful of the servants of Honorius in an 
 earlier day had now turned against him. Heraclian, 
 who had slain Stilicho with his own hand, when to 
 slay StiKcho was deemed good service, who had so 
 steadily maintained the cause of legitimacv and so 
 valiantly defended his own province when Home was 
 threatened by Alaric and Honorius by Attains ;[ — 
 this model of a faithful ruler of a Roman land had 
 now taken up arms against his sovereign. His 
 
 * See p. 180 note. 
 
 f Olymp. 455 ; 'lo/STi/os itapa yvafjtrjv 'ASgouX^ou top tStoi* dSeX^oi' 
 ^e^aariavov fiaaiXea )(€i,poTovr}<Tas fts e)(6pav 'A8aov\c})a KaTea-rrj, Koi nefiTrei 
 A8aovX(j)os Trpos Ovapiov TrpecrjSets, inoaxofxevos rds re t5>v Tvpdvvav 
 Ke(})aXas Koi elprjVTjv e^^"'' 
 
 X On the former career of Heraclian, see, for Ms slaughter of 
 Stilicho, Zosimos, v. 37 ; for his defence of Africa, Sozomen, ix. 8 ; 
 Orosius, vii. 29. 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundtans. iss 
 
 career, like the taking of Rome itself, lies apart 
 from our main subject ; we are concerned with 
 Heraclian simply as illustrating the abundance of the 
 crop of tyrants, perhaps as showing the brood on 
 a somewhat loftier scale than Constantino, Maximus, 
 or Jovinus. But we have no need to dwell on his 
 invasion of Italy, his fleet which men likened to 
 that of Xerxes, his battle on Italian soil, of his own 
 defeat, his flight to his own Africa, the slaughter at 
 Carthage of his army; they are needful only to set 
 before us the nature of the time in which Atawulf and 
 Constantius played their part *. These dangerous 
 rivals were now drawing nearer to each other's path. 
 Atawulf may well have dreamed that the heads of 
 Jovinus and Sebastian should be the price of the 
 daughter of Theodosius, as the foreskins of the 
 Philistines had been the price of the daughter of 
 Saul. He may have as yet seen in Constantius at 
 worst a hostile negotiator and not a hostile lover. 
 A treaty was agreed to, oaths were exchanged, and 
 the promise of tyrants' heads was before long 
 fulfilled. The geography of the story is wholly 
 dark ; we do not know how far south Jovinus and 
 Sebastian had shown themselves in person. Most 
 likely they were still on their way southwards, with 
 
 * His revolt is recorded by Prosper, 413, and referred to by 
 Olympiodoros, 457, where Constantius is said to have got rich out 
 of the goods of Heraclian 6s rvpawlda neXerStv dprjpTjTai. But the 
 grand flourish, comes from Orosius, vii. 42 ; " Nam habuisse tunc 
 iii. M. naves dicitur, quern numerum nee apud Xerxem quidem 
 prseclarum ilium Persarum regem nee Alexandrum magnum vel 
 quemdam alium regis fuisse historise ferunt." 
 
186 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 
 
 Aries as their most likely goal, where their empire 
 and their Hves were cut short. The head of Se- 
 bastian was soon obtained, we" are not told where or 
 how, and was duly sent to Honorius *. But before 
 the head of Jovinus could follow it, the Gaulish 
 Valentia, the city which had lately (l43) stood a siege 
 on behalf of Constans against the forces of Gerontius, 
 had now to stand another on behalf of the present 
 tyrant against the power of Atawulf and the West- 
 Goths. We have no details of the siege, but our 
 single notice seems to point to a stout resistance 
 followed by a storm. *' Valentia, the noble — hardly 
 the noblest — city of the Gauls, where Jovinus had 
 sought for shelter, was broken down by the Goths t." 
 Dardanus, there seems reason to believe, stood with 
 Atawulf before Valentia ; but there is no need to 
 suppose that Constantius, whose eyes seem just now to 
 have turned towards African affairs \, was at this time 
 in Gaul. The next point of the Gothic march was 
 Narbonne, which city the Gothic army entered in 
 the time of vintage. It may be that the King and 
 his Roman colleague were there before them. Any- 
 
 * Olympiodoros, p. 455 ; av [Trpeo-jSea)!/] iTroa-TpeyjrdvTmu koi opxav 
 fieaiTevaavToiv, '2e^aaTiavov fxev TrefnreTai, rw ^acriXei fj KecpaXrj. 
 
 t See above, p. 180 [citing from Prosper Tiro]. 
 
 X One or two things might suggest that Constantius was at 
 this time, if not actually in Africa, yet engaged with African 
 affairs. A law of 412 (Cod. Theod. vii. 18. 17), addressed to 
 Constantius as " magister militum," has wholly to do with Africa. 
 Orosius (vii. 42) rejoices how " his diebus, prsecipiente Honorio et 
 adjuvante Constantio, pax et unitas per universam Afiicam ecclesise 
 catholicse reddita est." Lastly, it appears from Olympiodoros, p. 457, 
 that Constantius received the confiscated property of Heraclian. 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. isr 
 
 how it seems to have been to Narbonne that Jovinus 
 was brought as a captive. The old colony of Narbo, 
 the colony of Mars, the city which gave its name to 
 the whole Mediterranean land of Gaul, now becomes 
 for a while the chief centre of our story. The first 
 town of Gaul, it would seem, to be held by a Gothic 
 king and a Gothic army, it remained the abiding 
 seat of Gothic dominion north of the Pyrenees long 
 after the Gothic name had passed away from the 
 Loire and even from Garonne. A special creation of 
 Rome, the first established seat of the Gaulish 
 dominion of Rome, the commercial rival which went 
 far for a while to supplant the ancient wealth and 
 greatness of Messalia, Narbo Martins was still in the 
 days of our kings and tyrants one of the foremost of 
 Gaulish cities, but it does not now supply us with 
 the same opportunities for tracing the memory of 
 those times in still abiding monuments which we 
 have so freely enjoyed at Arelate and Vienna, The 
 balance between it and Messalia has been restored 
 by physical changes. The haven of Messalia has 
 been for ages growing greater and greater ; the 
 haven of Narbo has passed away far more utterly 
 than that of Arelate. The great mart of Roman 
 trade in Gaul has now become wholly an inland 
 town ; the stronghold of the Roman, the Goth, and 
 the Saracen, has become an unwalled town; no 
 works of Imperial days either crown its slight hill or 
 watch over its narrow river ; memorials of those days 
 are not lacking, but they are wholly of the kind 
 which are treasured in museums, not of the kind 
 which stand forth first of objects to catch the 
 
188 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 
 
 beholder's eye at Arelate and at Nemausus. The 
 Narbo of the days of Atawulf and Placidia gathers 
 round it so many interests that there is no city of 
 which we should be better pleased to call up a living 
 picture as it stood when the Gothic host entered its 
 gates. But this is denied us. We cannot see the 
 scene of the doom of Jovinus as we can see the scene 
 of the doom of Constantine. For the captive of 
 Valentia became the victim of Narbo ; Jovinus was 
 slain by the hand of Dardanus. His head and the 
 head of Sebastian went ia due form to Bavenna, 
 perhaps to Carthage *. It might be well that Africa, 
 
 * The words of Olympiodoros are ; 'lo/SIi/os Se iitto 'ASaovX^ou 
 
 TTokiopKovnevos, iavTov endldacn, Koi TreynTTcrat eKeivos ra jSatriXei, ov 
 avBein-Tjcras AdpSavos 6 enapxos dvaipei. 
 
 This account needs to be explained and filled up from the other 
 authorities. Thus it is from Prosper Tiro that we learn where 
 it was that Jovinus was besieged ; " Valentia nobilissima Galliarum 
 civitas a Gothis effringitur, ad quam se fugiens Jovinus contulerat." 
 Then again the words that follow might make one think that 
 Jovinus was sent alive to Eavenna, and that Dardanus killed him 
 there. But Dardanus, the one loyal man in Gaul, was the 
 inapxos of Honorius there and not at Eavenna. We may perhaps 
 infer from the word TtepneTai that Atawulf designed to send Jovinus 
 alive to Honorius, but that the act of Dardanus hindered him. We 
 thus get the meaning of the entry of Idatius, ' Jovinus et Sebas- 
 tianus oppressi ab Honorii ducibus Narbona interfecti sunt," 
 followed by " Gothi Narbonam ingressi vindemise tempore." 
 Whatever we say of Sebastian, Jovinus is not " oppressus " at 
 Narbonne, but both are put to death at Narbonne. Nor is it 
 needful to bring Constantius to Narbonne for that purpose; 
 Dardanus is at any rate one " dux Honorii," and Atawulf might 
 be called another. They may have been at Narbonne, though the 
 whole Gothic army did not get there till a little later. 
 
 About the sending of heads to Carthage see above, p. 127, n. 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. i89 
 
 restored to the allegiance of its lawful prince, should 
 know that the arm of the lawful prince could strike 
 in other provinces also. A third brother, Sallustius, 
 shared the fate of Jovinus and Sebastian *. And we 
 hear that the re-establishment of the authority of 
 Honorius was accompanied by harsh doings in 
 Auvergne, a land which, we may therefore infer, 
 had been zealous for Jovinus. Many men of rank 
 were put to death, among them Decimius Kusticus, 
 prsefect of the Gauls under Constantino and again 
 prsefect under Jovinus f. He had, it may be re- 
 membered, supplanted Apollinaris, the grandfather 
 of the saint and poet, who may therefore be 
 conceived to have had no special love for him. Yet 
 he was a chief man of Auvergne, he died among 
 others of the chief men of Auvergne, by the act of 
 the generals of Honorius, that is, we can hardly 
 doubt, by the act of Dardanus. The man who slew 
 Jovinus with his own hand was surely the man 
 by whose bidding, perhaps also by whose hand, 
 Decimius, Agrsetius, and the other Arvernian nobles 
 met their end. In this slaughter wrought in his 
 adopted country we at once see the ground for the 
 excessive bitterness which Sidonius displays towards 
 Dardanus. 
 
 * Prosper Tiro (just before the entry of the fall of Valence) writes 
 [as cited above], " Salustius quoque et Sebastianus occisi." Jahn, 
 i. 313. 
 
 + Gregory of Tours (ii. 9) quotes Eenatus Profuturus Frigi- 
 redus as saying " Hisdem diebus praefectus tyrannorum Decimius 
 Eusticus, Agrsetius ex primicerio notariorum Jovini, multique 
 nobiles apud Arvernos capti a ducibus Honorianis crudeliter 
 interempti sunt." 
 
190 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 
 
 The authority of Honorius was thus yet again 
 acknowledged throughout the whole extent of Eoman 
 Graul. And this time its acknowledgement was en- 
 forced by the help of the Gothic sword. But the 
 extent of Roman Gaul was lessened by the same 
 process. The settlement of the Burgundians west of 
 the Ehine was a fact which had to be dealt with. 
 They had not as yet reached any of the lands to 
 which they were to give their name in times to come. 
 Dijon, Geneva, Vienne, Aries, were not as yet seats 
 of Burgundian power. The first Burgundian land in 
 Gaul was, as the chronicler says, in the regions near 
 to the Ehine. It lay among those lands on the 
 Gaulish side of the river which still specially kept 
 the name of Germany. It was at Mainz that the 
 Burgundian king set up his Emperor ; Worms was 
 the traditional home of Burgundian kingship. It 
 was then the land of Mainz, Worms, Speyer, stretch- 
 ing southwards along the river into the land of 
 Elsass, perhaps as far as Strassburg, perhaps not, 
 which Jovinus had given over to his allies as the 
 price of his diadem *. How was the land thus 
 occupied affected by the overthrow of the power of 
 Jovinus % It is plain that the Burgundians did not 
 withdraw to their own homes. Gunthachar and his 
 people appear again among the nations of Gaul twenty 
 years later t. And though they then appear as enemies 
 
 * Jahn (Geschichte der Burgundionen und Burgimdiens, i. 324) 
 traces out the geography very clearly ; but I do not see why they 
 may not (p. 329) have reached as far as Strassburg. 
 
 t See the entries in Prosper and elsewhere under the year 435. 
 They are fully discussed by Jahn, i. 341 et seqq. 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. ]9i 
 
 of Eome, yet on the whole the Burgundians are 
 found more closely connected with the Empire than 
 any other of the Teutonic powers. A hundred j^ears 
 and more after this time, when Emperors no longer 
 reigned at Eome- or Eavenna, the Burgundian kings 
 still acknowledged the supremacy of their successors 
 at Constantinople, and ruled over their Eoman sub- 
 jects under titles held by the grant of the Eoman 
 Augustus *. Our authorities are utterly silent as to 
 the whole matter, except as to the bare fact of the 
 Burgundian settlement. But it seems impossible to 
 avoid the conclusion that the counsellors of Honorius 
 — was it the act of Atawulf or of Constantius '? — 
 acknowledged a fact which it would be hard to undo, 
 and that Gunthachar was commissioned as a lieutenant 
 of the Empire in the lands which had been granted 
 to him by Jovinust. His position would thus be 
 that which was the formal position of so many bar- 
 barian kings, the position of Atawulf and of Wallia, 
 the position of Odowakar and the great Theodoric, 
 perhaps of Chlodowig himself. Gunthachar was Bur- 
 gundian king to his own Burgundians ; he was the 
 partrician or proconsul of the Empire to the Eomans 
 of the ceded land. We have no picture of the Bur- 
 
 * See above all things the letters from Sigisraund to Anastasius, 
 " Sigismundus rex domno imperatori/' among the epistles of Alcimus 
 Avitus, 83, 84. One MS. adds emphatically; "ab Avito episcopo 
 dictata est sub nomine domni Sigismundi regis ad imperatorem." 
 But the king must have known what he was sending, and the 
 letters are the letters of a vassel to his lord. Theodoric appears 
 as " rector Italiae." 
 
 t See Jahn, i. 315. 
 
192 Western Europe m the Fifth Century, [v. 
 
 gundians from the hand of Salvianus ; but it is quite 
 in conformity with this position of their kings that 
 their rule in Gaul seems to have been acknowledged 
 as that which dealt out the least measure of hard- 
 ship to the Koman inhabitants. The Burgundians 
 dealt with the older people of the land, not as 
 subjects, but as friends and brothers. There was not, 
 at least not in the beginning, the unhappy difference 
 of religion to sharpen the difference of nationality. 
 The Burgundians were converted to Christianity, if 
 not before their settlement in Gaul, at any rate while 
 their settlement was still fresh. And they were con- 
 verted to it in its Catholic form *. The Arianism of 
 some of the later Burgundian kings is undoubted, 
 and the belief of the kings was doubtless followed by 
 at least part of the nation. Later in the century the 
 strife between Arian and Catholic in the Burgundian 
 kingdom becomes an important element in the politics 
 of Gaul f. But Burgundian Arianism seems in no 
 sort to have been, with Goths and Vandals, a national 
 
 * The good character and catholic belief of the Burgundians 
 comes from a passage in Orosius (vii. 32) earlier than his descrip- 
 tion of the events with which we have been mainly concerned, 
 a passage in which he mentions this mythical Eoman origin, 
 and also the odd derivation of their name from hurgus. He 
 adds, " Gallise hodieque testes sunt in quibus praesumpta 
 possessione consistunt, quamvis providentia Dei omnes Christiani 
 modo facti Catholica fide, nostrisque clericis quibus obedirent 
 receptis blande mansuete innocenterque vivant, non quasi cum 
 subjectis Gallis sed vere cum fratibus Christianis." 
 
 t Tliis comes out largely in the writings both of Avitus and of 
 Gregory of Tours. See above all the " Collatio Episcoporum " in 
 Peiper's edition of Avitus, p. 161. 
 
,v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 193 
 
 faith adopted in the first moment of conversion, but 
 a rare case of the falling away of Catholics to the 
 heretical teaching. At any rate heresy never was 
 universal ; the kingly house itself was never without 
 Catholic members *. And, somewhat later than our 
 present time, we hear of Burgundians beyond the 
 Ehine still abiding in heathendom till, at the moment 
 of a Hunnish inroad, they too entered the Catholic 
 fold f. At that date Gunthachar was still reigning 
 over the colony of his people in Gaul. The mention 
 of Huns reminds us that he is one of the chosen 
 heroes of Burgundian story, and that his name, 
 like those of so many of the princes of these ages, 
 found its way into the great Teutonic epic of the 
 Nibelungs \. 
 
 * On the religion of the Burgundians see Jahn, i. 122, 385. 
 Chrotechildis, whom the French have made into Clotilde, is of 
 course the great case of later Burgundian orthodoxy. 
 
 + This comes from the passage of S6krates, vii. 30, discussed 
 by Jahn, i. 337. The Burgundians come in; edvos ia-Ti ^ap^apov, 
 
 irepav tov 'Ptjvov exoov rfjv oiKrjaiv' Bovpyov^laves KoKovvraL. It has 
 
 been questioned whether this really belongs to Burgundians east 
 of the Ehine so late as 430, and whether it is not a confusion 
 with the earlier conversion of the Burgundians in Gaul. In strict 
 geography the words irepav tov 'Ptjvov written at Constantinople 
 ought to mean the left bank. But this would imply more accurate 
 study of the map than Sokrates had a chance of. His knowledge 
 would come from Western informants, who by "trans Ehenum" 
 would mean the right bank. The Burgundians are converted Kara 
 
 vovv Xafi^avovTes on 'Pcofiaiatv 6 Qeos ttrxvpais toIs (po^ovfievois avrbv 
 
 ^or)6ei. Here we seem to have almost got back to the Hebrew 
 notion of a national God; but one of the greatest facts in the 
 history of the world lurks beneath the phrase. 
 X See Jahn, i. 341 et al. . 
 
 
 
194 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 
 
 Jovinus had been raised to his short day of Empire 
 by the joint help of Burgundians and Alans, of that 
 branch of the Alans who, under Goar, had entered the 
 Koman service when the mass of the nation went on 
 to their harrying in Gaul and their settlement in 
 Spain. But while we can in some sort trace the 
 history of Guntachar and his Burgundians from this 
 time onwards, we seem to lose sight of Goar and his 
 Alans. We get a singular glimpse somewhat later of 
 an Alan king and an Alan army in an alliance with the 
 Goths of which they are weary* (415). We have to 
 guess at the time and circumstances under which this 
 union was formed ; but it would be nothing wonderful 
 if, after Jovinus had yielded to Atawulf, the Alans 
 were either constrained or found it prudent to' join 
 the side of the conquerors. There seems to be no 
 later mention of Goar or his people ; they must have 
 been merged among some of the other settlers in 
 Gaul, or else have joined their brethren in Spain, who 
 were before long to be merged among the Suevians. 
 No lasting settlement of mere Asiatic barbarians was 
 to be made in the Cisleithan lands of Europe. 
 
 But other Teutonic people besides the Burgundians 
 were stirring at this time on the eastern frontiers. If 
 the Burgundians had shown themselves at Mainz and 
 Worms, the Franks were at work somewhat further 
 to the north. By that name we must just now 
 understand, not the Franks within the Ehine who 
 were Eoman allies and had so lately done their duty 
 in that character. The Franks, of whom we now get 
 
 * This comes from the Eucharisticon of Paulinus of Pella, of 
 whom more anon. 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 195 
 
 a glimpse are the still untamed Franks who lived 
 beyond the boundary stream and who had not 3-et 
 obtained any settlement within the Empire. The 
 head of Gaul, Augusta of the Treveri, which could 
 hardly have recovered from its sack by Vandals, 
 Alans, or Suevians, was now again taken, sacked, 
 and burned by the Franks *. We have no distinct 
 record of the several takings of Trier, four of which, 
 it must be remembered, came within the memory 
 of Salvianus. It may indeed have been after this 
 sack [and not the earlier one] that the people of Trier 
 drew on themselves the stern preacher's indignant 
 rebuke for thinking, as soon as the enemy was gone, 
 of the games of the circus before all things f. But the 
 language of Salvian himself shows that even this last 
 blow did not separate the capital of Valentinian and 
 Maximus from the Empire. Whatever Trier suffered 
 now, the damage must have been so far repaired that 
 it lived on as a city and as a Eoman city. 
 
 But the Franks, whether defending the Empire or 
 
 * This again comes from Gregory's quotations of Kenatus 
 Profuturus Frigeridus. After tlie passage already quoted in note, 
 p. 104, comes " Treverorum civitas a Francis direpta incensaque 
 est secunda irruptione." 
 
 t Salvian, vi. 13, says "expugnata est quater urbs Gallorum 
 opulentissima." But the most striking passage comes at vi. 15, 
 and refers to the third taking of Trier; "ter continuatis ever- 
 sionibus summa urbe Gallorum, cum omuis civitas combusta esset, 
 malis et post excidia crescentibus." Then "pro summo deletes 
 urbis remedio circenses ab imperatoribus postulabant." It is 
 possible that Frigeridus and Salvian may reckon the sieges differ- 
 ently and that they may refer to the same taking. If so, the 
 Emperors must be Honorius and, for form's sake, Tbeodosius. 
 
 O 2 
 
196 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 
 
 sacking its cities, do not as yet form the great centre 
 of Gaulish history. At this time a higher interest 
 gathers round the Burgundian, and a higher still 
 round the Goth. At this moment, if Gunthachar was 
 in form a Eoman oflS.cer, Atawulf was so yet more 
 distinctly. He was so all the more because he was 
 not, like Gunthachar, the ruler of any acknowledged 
 territorial possessions. But his friendship with his 
 formal overlord was not unbroken. The restoration 
 of Placidia was wished for, most hkely by her brother, 
 certainly by her Illyrian lover ; while his Gothic rival 
 had assuredly no mind to give her up. He was the 
 less likely to do so as long as her detention could be 
 diplomatically justified, as long as the plighted price 
 of her release, corn for the feeding of the landless 
 Goths, and that in a year of hunger, still remained 
 unpaid*. In the very year of the fall of Jovinus (413), 
 Goths and Eomans are again in arms against one 
 another. 
 
 It can hardly be doubted that Atawulf now aimed 
 at a great Gothic settlement in Southern Gaul, 
 much like that which was afterwards carried out by 
 his successor Wallia. We find him attacking several 
 of the great cities of that region, and as entering into 
 possession of some of them. We know not in what 
 
 '^ The policy of Atawulf and Constantius is well marked out 
 by Olympiodoros. We read now (p. 456), 'ASdovX^os iXKaKihiav 
 
 d'lrrjTelTO Kara crnovSrjv fidXia-Ta KcDvaravTiov, bs varepov avrfj koI els 
 ydfiovs iX^v^ev. aXka tuiv ivpos Abdov\(f)ov VTrocrx^cecnv nf) Tre paivofiepav, 
 Kal fidkicrra r^j cnroTropmaf, oiire Taiirrjv ajreStSow, Koi els pdx^v ep-eXera ra 
 
 T^s elpfjvrjs 8ia\vfa-6ai. So in a fragment of PMlostorgius, xii. 4, 
 it can only be Constantius who appears as iXnidas rpecfxov, as avrbs 
 KaTanoikfpr]<Tas ^AbdovX(f)ov rr^v HXaKidiav vvp(^evcraiTO. 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 197 
 
 character he waged this warfare, of which we hear 
 only in a most casual way. It would be hardly 
 according to his principles to show himself as the 
 open enemy of the Empire, and we may be tempted 
 to suspect that now, as somewhat later, he followed 
 the policy of setting up a puppet Emperor. It falls 
 in with this view that we incidentally learn that the 
 Goths were admitted into Bourdeaux in perfect peace ; 
 Toulouse, future home of Gothic kings, may have 
 been taken in arms ; it is certain that Atawulf did 
 occupy both those cities, and this seems tlie most 
 likely point in the story for either a warlike or 
 a peaceful entry into them *. Of Narbonne we have 
 already seen him in possession, and there his posses- 
 sion could hardly have been disturbed, as we shall see 
 him there again on a memorable day. But when he 
 pressed beyond the Rhone, and planned a surprise of 
 Marseilles, his conquests came to an end. From the 
 Phokaian city he was beaten back with danger to his 
 life. The blow was dealt by the valour, and seemingly 
 by the very hand, of that renowned Count Boniface, 
 the friend of saints and once well nigh a saint him- 
 
 * The peaceful occupation of Bourdeaux comes from a single 
 line of the Eucharisticon of Paulinus, when describing events a 
 little later ; 
 
 "Nostra ex urbe Gothi fuerant qui in pace recepti." 
 The occupation of Toulouse comes from Eutilius JSTematianus, i. 
 495, where he says of his friend Victorinus, 
 
 "Errantem Tuscis considere compulit agris 
 Et colore externos capta Tolosa lares." 
 
 At least Dahn (K. d. G. v. 59) refers the lines to an occupation 
 at this time. 
 
198 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 
 
 self, but who afterwards fell and rose through the 
 successive stages of sinner, traitor, and penitent*. 
 The negotiations however go on. Constantius is ever 
 demanding Placidia ; Atawulf is ever raising fresh pleas 
 to justify his refusal to restore herf. The next year 
 (414) Constantius, clothed in the glories of the consul- 
 ship and enabled by the confiscated hoards of Heraclian 
 to make his consulship a splendid one %, might seem 
 to be a more dangerous enemy than ever. Yet it is 
 now that, through the influence of Candidianus, 
 seemingly the same who figures later in ecclesiastical 
 story §, the formal consent was won without which 
 Atawulf, in the loftiness of his Gothic honour, would 
 take no advantage of the presence of his beloved in 
 his own camp. It hardly takes away from the merit 
 of Atawulf, and it is not likely to have been taken into 
 account in these endless negotiations, that the Gothic 
 king had already a barbarian wife or mistress, of 
 Sarmatian race, by whom he was the father of several 
 
 Olympiodoros, ib. \ ^A8dovX<f)os anaiTOV^ievos liXaKidlav, avTan^Tei 
 Tou opiaBevra aiTov. uTTopap 8' ovrav rmv vTtO(T)(Ofieva>v tls to bovvai, 
 ovhev Se rfTTOV SixoXoyovvTcov, el Xn/Soiev TiXaKi8iav napao'^eiv, Koi 6 
 ^dp^apos ra opoia vTroKpivero. Then follows liow the barbarian 
 TTpos MaaadKiav, noKiP ovrm Ka\ovfievT]v, irapayevofievos, SoXw TavTrjv Xa^tiv 
 ^TTiCfV. evda jrkrjyels, Boi>t](f)aTiov tov yepvaioTarov jSaXdvros, fidikis top 
 OavaTOP Bia(f)vyuip, els Tag olKelas vnfx^PW^ (TKrivas, ttjp ttoXiv iv evBvpia 
 \i,nav Koi 61 enaipap Koi ev<prip.ias Troiovp.evr)p 'BoprjcbaTiop, 
 
 f lb. p. 457; 'A8dov\(f>os TOV ydp,op peXerap IlXaKiHias, KaporaPTiov 
 ravTTjp anaiToiiPTos, ^apvTepas TrpovTfipep alTTjaeis, ipa 8ia t^p divoTv\iav 
 evXoyop 86^rj ttjp KaTdaxeaip avTfjs irenoirjKepac. 
 
 I It is when recording the consulship of Constantius that Olym- 
 piodoros (p. 457) mentions the grant of Heraclian's property to him 
 (see p. 185) and gives the personal description of him (see p. 112). 
 
 § See Diet, of Christ. Biog. s. n., and Hodgkin, i. 831, n. 
 
v.] PVest-Goths and Burgundtans. 199 
 
 children *. She had to depart to make room for the 
 august bride, and that was all. For now, at the be- 
 ginning of the year (414), came that famous bride-ale 
 of Narbonne, which it was fondly hoped would be far 
 other than bale to many men, Gothic and Komanf. 
 At the wedding of Atawulf the Gothic king took his 
 place alongside of the daughter and sister of Em- 
 perors, while a deposed Emperor led the choir in the 
 wedding-song. The tale has been often told, and in 
 modern Narbonne we shall seek in vain for any sign 
 of the spot, for any trace of the house of Ingenuus 
 which beheld the celebration of the marriage rites. 
 Those rites were gone through in due order according 
 to Eoman usage ; the bridegroom conformed to the 
 national uses of the bride ; the stranger conformed 
 to the national uses of the land in which he was 
 sojourning %. Goth and Eoman rejoiced with equal 
 
 * The iraidla, a eK rris Trporepas yavaiKos eTvy)(avev 'AdaovX<f)at yeyevvr]- 
 
 fj-iva appears in Olympiod. p. 459. Their mother seems to be 
 noticed in a strange fragment of Philostoi-gius (xii. 4) which shows 
 that an Arian ecclesiastical historian could talk quite as mystically 
 
 as any Catholic ; pap^apiKov yap yivovs tov ^avpofidrcov ;;^p);/xartXfti' 
 avT^u Koi crvva(^6r]uai t6t€ rat oarpaKivco yevei tov eK ai^rjpov rffv yeveaiv 
 ekKOvra' ov tovto yap piovov, dWa Ka\ ■qv'iKa izoKiv ^AddovX(f>os yap-iKets 
 SpiKlais rfi UXaKibla avvelneTo, t^v yap oar paKivqv ^vaiv . . . 
 
 t See the song of the bride-ale of Norwich, if it was Norwich, 
 in the Chronicles, 1075. 
 
 X Olympiodoros (457) and after him Mr. Hodgkin (i. 832) 
 describe the wedding with much lively detail. I am most con- 
 cerned with the first words, 'AdaovXcfxa aTrovBfj Kal vnodTjKT} Kavdidiavov 
 6 irpos HXaKLdlav avvTeXeiTat ydpos. The epithalamium is sung 'AttuXov 
 irpSiTov (Ittovtos, and we read, avvTeXelrai 6 ydpos, nai^ovrav koi 
 Xaipovrav 6p.ov tS>v re ^ap^dpav Koi rS>v iv avrols 'Papaiojv. All the 
 
 ceremonies were Roman, and Atawulf wore a Roman dress. Idatius 
 
200" Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [v. 
 
 joy at the wedding which was in truth the symbolic 
 wedding of Gothia and Eomania, the setting forth in 
 a visible shape of the lofty schemes which were 
 working in the mind of Atawulf. The Gothic King, 
 soldier a,nd champion of Eome, was now the brother- 
 in-law of Kome's elder Emperor. But in those days 
 the soldier of Eome, without forsaking the service of 
 Eome, might shift his obedience almost at pleasure 
 from one Eoman prince to another. The prince who 
 at the bride-ale had his turn as musician had again 
 before the year was out his turn as monarch. So 
 soon were the Imperial and royal allies, the Eoman 
 and Gothic brothers-in-law, again at variance. Con- 
 stantius had won back his influence with Honorius, 
 and he was likely to be more wroth than ever with 
 the rival who was in actual possession of the prize 
 that had been so long sought for by both. So, 
 wherever the power of the Goth reached, the Eome 
 from whose cause he never fell away was to be repre- 
 
 sees in the marriage tlie fulfilment of the prophecy of Daniel, 
 " qui ait filiam regis Austri sociandam regi Aquilonis." Jordanis 
 (Getica, 31) gives quite an unexpected place to the marriage, 
 which he strangely fits in before the Gothic march into Gaul. In 
 fact his story is utterly confused; but he, or Cassiodorus before 
 him, quite understood the significance of the event. " Cujus 
 [Honorii] germanam Placidiam Theodosii imperatoris ex altera 
 uxore filiam ab urbe captivam abduxit [Atauulfus], quam tamen ob 
 generis nobilitatem formseque pulcritudinem et integritatem casti- 
 tatis attendens, inForo Juli^milise civitate suo matrimonio legitime 
 copulavit, ut gentes hac societate comperta quasi adunatam Gothis 
 rem publicam efficacius terrerentur, Honorioque Augusto quamvis 
 opibus exhausto tamen jam quasi cognatum grato animo derelin- 
 quens, Gallias tendit." 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 201 
 
 sented by another chief. Attalus Augustus appears 
 once more in Gaul under the patronage of Atawulf, as 
 he had appeared for one moment in Italy under the 
 patronage of Alaric * . Wherever the brother-in-law of 
 Honorius had practical dominion in Gaul, there not 
 Honorius but Attalus was Emperor. Of his acts in 
 that character we know at least one. He bestowed 
 a great oflSce on a man who was not eager for it, 
 a Eoman of high position and descent, whose singular 
 autobiography throws a good deal of light on these 
 times and reveals to us some particular events of 
 which we might otherwise never have heard. 
 
 This is Paulinus, distinguished from many other 
 bearers of his name with some of whom he has 
 sometimes been confounded, as Paulinus of Pella. 
 He notes with some pride that he was a native of 
 the same city as Alexander, though in his day it had 
 become needful to point out the royal seat of the 
 Macedonian kings as being near their own crea- 
 tion of Thessalonicaf. But he was not a man of 
 Macedon, but of Gaul. His family was of Bourdeaux 
 or perhaps of Bazas, and he was the grandson of 
 Decimus Magnus Ausonius, poet and consul, some 
 have thought through his son Hesperius, others 
 through his daughter married to Thalassius ]. His 
 
 * We here lose Olympiodoros for a season, but the new elevation 
 of Attalus is recorded by Prosper, 414 ; " Attalus Gothorum consilio 
 et prsesidio tyrannidem resumit in Galliis." 
 t Paulinus, 24 ; 
 
 "Editus ut Pellius, inter cunabula quondam 
 Eegis Alexandri prope mcenia Thessalonices." 
 { The point is fully argued in the Preface to the new edition of 
 
202 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [y. 
 
 birth east of Hadria was owing to the official employ- 
 ments of his father, who at the time of his birth, in the 
 year in which the Goths crossed the Danube (376), 
 held the vice-prsefectship of Macedonia*. An ap- 
 pointment to the African proconsulship carried father 
 and son to Carthage ; thence the child came by way 
 of Eome to the city of his forefathers, to see his 
 grandfather in the glories of a consulship enjoyed 
 wholly on the banks of the Garonne f (379)- The 
 record of his life, his studies, his pleasures, his affairs, 
 the youthful errors which he confesses^, throws light, 
 like every such record, on the life of the age in which 
 he lived. The piece of detail most worthy of notice 
 is that where, in his somewhat lumbering Latin 
 hexameters, he tells us that he preferred the Greek 
 authors to the Latin, seemingly — was it the result 
 
 Symmachus, as before by Leipziger in his Dissertation (Breslau, 
 1858), p. 3. 
 
 * Paulinus, 26 ; 
 
 " Patre gerente vices illustris prsefecturse." 
 
 + lb. 43-49 ; 
 
 "Majorum in patriam tectisque advectus avitis, 
 Burdigalam veni .... 
 
 Tunc et avus primum illic fit mihi cognitus, anni 
 Ejusdem consul, nostra trieteride prima." 
 
 As the consulship of Ausonius was in 376, this fixes the dates for 
 the whole life of PauKnus ; for he is very careful in always men- 
 tioning his own age, though less so in giving the names of other 
 people. 
 
 X Paulinus, 156 et seqq. The distinction which he draws on 
 this head, and the pointed contrast he makes between " culpa " and 
 " crimen," are worth noting. He was (166) 
 
 " Contentus domus illecebris famulantibus uti." 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 203 
 
 of mere birth in Macedonian air % — that in his youth 
 the Greek tongue came more familiar to him than 
 the Latin, though in his later days he came to set 
 more store by the tongue which was more native to 
 a man of Bourdeaux, even if casually born at Pella *, 
 From his thirty-first year (407), the year when enemies 
 poured into the bowels of the Eoman realm f, his 
 tale of his own life becomes for a while an important 
 contemporary authority for the history of the time. 
 It is from him that we learn the relations between 
 the Goths and the Alans and the Gothic occupation 
 
 * Paulinus, 72 ; 
 
 "... Exacto primo post tempore lustri 
 Dogmata Socratis et bellica plasmata Homeri, 
 EiToresque legens cognoscere cogor Ulixis. 
 Protimis ad libros etiam transire Maronis, 
 Vix bene comperto jubeor sermone Latino, 
 Colloquio Graiorum adsuefactis famulorum, 
 Quos mibi jam longos ludorum vinxerat usus ; 
 Unde labor puero, fateor, fuit hie mihi major, 
 Eloquium librorum ignotce ajpjprehendere linguce.'' 
 
 This is as curious as Orderic's seeming ignorance of French when 
 he was taken from Shrewsbury to Saint Evroul. The child, born 
 at Pella, is taken before he is three years old to Carthage, Eome, 
 Bourdeaux ; yet Latin is " ignota lingua," 
 
 + lb. 232. The date of the great invasion of Gaul is accurately 
 marked ; 
 
 " Sed transacta sevi post trina decennia nostri, 
 Successit duplicis non felix cura laboris ; 
 Publica quippe simul clade in commune dolenda, 
 Hostibus infusis Eomani in viscera regni." 
 
 His father dies, and he has a dispute with his brother about his 
 mother's dowry. 
 
204 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 
 
 of Bourdeaux *. Of that citj Atawulf was still in 
 possession when he again gave the diadem to Attains. 
 Paulinus was one of its chief citizens; he won the 
 favour of the Gothic king, and we shall presently see 
 that he was on intimate terms with an Alan king, 
 doubtless Goar. He obtained the special favour of 
 having no Gothic guest quartered on his house f. 
 But the presence of the strangers who had entered 
 the city in peace was no great burthen ; the Goth 
 knew the duties of a ruler, and the peace of King 
 Atawulf may well have been better kept than the 
 peace of Honorius Augustus. The virtual ruler 
 now proclaimed the empire of the prince under 
 whom, while Alaric lived, he had once held a high 
 military command, and under whose renewed sove- 
 reignty he doubtless rose higher still %. Our poet 
 carefully points out that Attains had in truth 
 no power, no revenue, no soldiers of his own ; he 
 was a Eoman prince wholly by the grace of the 
 Goth. Not out of love for the helpless tyrant, but 
 out of mixed fear and regard for his Gothic master, 
 Paulinus acknowledged the empire of Attains, and 
 
 * See above, p. 197. 
 t Paulinus, 282 ; 
 
 " Otia nota domus specialia commoda plura, 
 Omnibus heu nimium blandis magnisque referta 
 Delitiis, cunctisque bonis in tempore duro, 
 Hospite tunc et quae Gothico jam sola careret." 
 
 X "When Alaric was " magister utriusque militise " {arpaTT]y6s 
 eKarepas Bwdpfcas) under Attalus, Atawulf was " comes domesticorum 
 equitum " {fjyefiuv rav inneav So/xeo-TtKwi/ KaXovfiepwv), Sozomen, ix. 8. 
 Atawulf now doubtless held the higher place. 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundmns. 205 
 
 received from him the post of count of tlie private 
 largesses. The post was not a pleasing one, as 
 Attains had no revenues from which to be bountiful. 
 Yet he submitted ; it was the will of the Goth ; the 
 rule of the Goth was a fact in Aquitaine, and many 
 Eomans had learned how to flourish under it *. 
 
 The Augustus of Bourdeaux and Narbonne had 
 thus a strong helper of another people ; but the 
 Augustus of Eavenna had found a strong helper 
 among his own people. Constantius was now the 
 counsellor of Honorius ; and Constantius could act 
 as well as counsel. The man who had lost Placidia 
 
 * Paulinus, 292 ; 
 " Addita majoris nova est quoque causa labor is, 
 Ut me conquirens solatia vana tyrannus 
 Attalus absentem casso onoraret honoris 
 Nomine, privatse comitivam largitionis 
 Dans mihi, quam sciret nullo consistere censu ; 
 Jamque suo ipse etiam dedisset fidem regno, 
 Solis quippe Gothis fretus male jam sibi notis 
 Quos ad praesidium vitse prsesentis habere 
 Non etiam imperii poterat per se nihil ipse, 
 Aut opibus propriis aut ullo milite nixus. 
 Unde ego non partes infirmi omnino tyranni, 
 Sed Gothicam fateor pacem me esse secutnm, 
 Quse tunc ipsorum consensu optata Gothorum, 
 Paulo post aliis cessit mercede redempta, 
 Nee penitenda manet cum jam in republica nostra 
 Cernamus plures Gothico florere favore." 
 It is to be hoped that Paulinus' Greek verses, if he made any, 
 were better than his Latin. I do not profess to understand every 
 word, and the last lines seem to refer to a later time when the 
 Goths were in fall possession of Aquitaine. But the general sense 
 must be much as I have given it in the text, and in any case we see 
 a " Pax Gothica " supplanting the " Pax Eomana." 
 
206 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 
 
 was sent, with the new rank of Patrician, against the 
 man who had won her. Constantius entered Gaul ; 
 if Boniface, with only pubHc motives for action, had 
 once proved too strong for Atawulf, much more might 
 Constantius, with his own quarrel to stir him to yet 
 further zea]. So it proved. Eoman mihtary science, 
 when combined, as it was in the case of the new 
 Patrician, with a stout heart and a strong arm and 
 a private grudge to boot, proved too skilful for the 
 simpler valour of the Goth. Boniface had saved 
 Marseilles from Atawulf ; Constantius now succeeded 
 in driving him out of all Gaul, and that, if we rightly 
 understand the somewhat dark language of our 
 authorities, without any actual fighting. The work 
 seems to have been done by skilful combinations 
 which cut off the Gothic host from the coast and all 
 supplies. While Constantius kept his own head- 
 quarters at Aries, he constrained Atawulf to depart 
 from Narbonne and from the whole land *. Again 
 
 * At this point Olympiodoros fails us. Prosper only speaks 
 casually of " Grothi ad Hispanias migrantes." Idatius speaks of 
 " Ataulfus a patricio Constantio pulsatus, ut relicta ISTarbona His- 
 panias peteret." It is from Orosius that we get the nearest 
 approach to an account of the campaign ; " Constantius comes 
 apud Arelatum Gallise urbem subsistens magna rerum gerundarum 
 industria Gothos a Narbona expulit, atque abire in Hispaniam 
 cogit, interdicto praecipue et intercluso omni conatu navium et 
 peregrinorum usu commerciorum Gothos." 
 
 Jordanis (Getica, 31) has quite another story. Franks, Bur- 
 gun dians, Vandals, Alans, all flee out of Gaul for fear of the Goths, 
 and take refuge in Spain. Ata-wulf follows them, and at the end of 
 three years is master of Gaul and Spain both. " Tali ergo casu 
 Galliae Atauulfo patema venienti. Confirmato ergo Gothus regno 
 in Galliis Spanorum casu coepit dolere, eosque deliberans a Vanda- 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundtans. 207 
 
 we get some details of great interest and singularity, 
 from the poet of the Eucharisticon. The Goths had 
 entered Bourdeaux in peace, and they had kept 
 peace in it ; but when Atawulf was driven to leave 
 Gaul, and his bidding came that his army was to 
 leave the city, they did not leave it in peace. 
 Attains was still acknowledged by Atawulf as 
 Emperor, and, according to this theory, whatever 
 Constantius might be doing at Aries, the people of 
 Bourdeaux were harmless subjects of a prince in 
 alliance with the Gothic King, and were therefore 
 entitled to the full protection of the Gothic peace. 
 But at such a moment rage and disappointment 
 trampled on all such subtleties as this. The Goths 
 were giving way before Koman enemies ; they had 
 a Koman city in their power ; and, though they had 
 entered it as friends and had dwelled in it as friends, 
 yet, when they had to leave it against their wills, 
 they dealt with it as if it had been taken by storm. 
 Whether at the bidding of Atawulf or not, Bourdeaux 
 was plundered and burned — burned that is doubtless 
 in the way that cities were burned, and from which 
 they so speedily recovered *. The count of the 
 
 lorum cursibus eripere, suas opes Barcilona cum certis fidelibus 
 derelictas plebeque imbelli, interiores Spanias introivit, ubi ssepe 
 cum Vandalis decertans, tertio anno postquam Gallias Spaniasque 
 domuisset, occubuit." Here must surely be a confusion between 
 Atawulf and Wallia. 
 * Paulinus, 308 ; 
 
 " Tristia qugeque tamen perpessis antea multis 
 Pars ego magna fui quorum privatus et ipse, 
 Cunctis quippe bonis propriis patriseque superstes, 
 Namque profecturi regis prsecepto Ataulfi, 
 
208 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 
 
 largesses fared no better than others, or rather 
 worse. His privilege of having no Goth quartered 
 in his house now turned to his loss. Not a few 
 others found the horrors of the sack much lessened 
 by the personal kindness of their Gothic guests ; 
 Paulinus had no such friend to help him''\ His rank 
 as the minister of an allied prince went for nothing ; 
 his goods were plundered ; his house was burned ; 
 he, his mother, and his household, escaped with the 
 loss of all. They were fain to be thankful that they 
 were spared in life and limb, and that the chaste 
 Goths, true to their picture as drawn by Salvian, 
 did no wrong to the honour of any of the female 
 members of the company f. 
 
 Nostra ex urbe Gothi fuerant qui in pace recepti, 
 Non aliter nobis quam belli jure subactis 
 Aspera quseque omni urbe irrogavere cremata." 
 
 The " preefecturus rex Ataulfus" clearly points to the departure 
 of Atawulf into Spain. In so confused a writer we may hope that 
 the " prseceptus " referred only to the departure and not to the 
 sack of Bourdeaux. 
 
 * Paulinus, 286 (after the lines quoted, p. 204, note) ; 
 " Quod post eventu cessit non sero sinistro : 
 Nullo ut quippe domum speciali jure tuente 
 Cederet in preedam populo permissa abeunti; 
 Nam quosdam scimus summa humanitate Gothorum 
 Hospitibus studuisse suis prodesse tuendis." 
 
 t lb. 315 ; 
 
 " In quam me inventum comitem tum principis ejus, 
 Imperio cujus sociatos non sibi norant, 
 Nudavere bonis simul omnibus, et genitricem 
 Juxta meam mecum communi sorte subactos, 
 Uno hoc se nobis credentes parcere captis. 
 Quod nos immunes poena paterentur abire, 
 
v.] IVest-Goths and Burgundians. 209 
 
 All that Paulinus tells us about Bourdeaux is 
 a distinct addition to our knowledge. But for him 
 we should never have found out that the Gothic 
 occupation under Atawulf stretched so far to the west. 
 What follows is yet more remarkable, as it gives us 
 our last glimpse on Gaulish soil of the vanishing 
 race of the Alans, and of their relations towards the 
 West-Goths. We are admitted to the personal 
 acquaintance of an Alan king, who cannot fail to be 
 that Goar of whom we have twice heard. He who 
 had helped to set up Jovtnus was now the fellow- 
 soldier of the patron and officer of Attains. Paulinus 
 and his company, fleeing from Bourdeaux, made 
 their way to Bazas, a city of Novempopulania, lying 
 to the south-west of Bourdeaux, a little way ofl" the 
 left bank of the Garonne. This too was for Paulinus 
 an ancestral city; if his descent from Ausonius was 
 through his daughter, it was most likely the home 
 of the family of Thalassius *. How he and his party 
 were able to enter is not clear; for he found a strange 
 state of things within and without the town. Without 
 it was besieged by a mixed host of Goths and Alans, 
 
 Cunctorumque tamen comitum simul et famulorum, 
 Eventum fuerant nostrum qusecumque secutse 
 Illseso penitus, nullo adtemptante, pudore." 
 
 He is glad that his married daughter had left the country 
 already. 
 * lb. 328 ; 
 
 "Nee postrema tamen tolerati meta laboris 
 Ista fuit nostri quam diximus ; illico namque 
 Exacto laribus patriis tectisque crematis 
 Obsidio hostilis vicina excepit in urbe 
 Vasatis patria majorum et ipsa meorum." 
 P 
 
210 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 
 
 minded clearly in their unwilling retreat to do all 
 mischief that might be to the land which they were 
 leaving. This is intelligible enough. Greater curio- 
 sity is awakened by Paulinus' picture of the internal 
 state of Bazas. The slaves were in revolt, and a few 
 young men of free birth — Catilina has his likeness in 
 many times and places — joined with them in a con- 
 spiracy for the general slaughter of the nobles*. 
 Are we, if the Bagaudse were the mere Jacquerie 
 that they are commonly painted, to suppose civic as 
 well as rural Bagaudsel But in any case it is not 
 wonderful if the confusions that must have followed 
 on successive barbaric invasions had stirred society 
 to its lowest depths. Still servile conspiracies are 
 seldom successful, and Bazas was not, any more than 
 Armoricat, to be as Yolsinii or as Hayti. The 
 revolt was put down w^ith the deaths of a few only 
 of the guilty, and Paulinus is specially thankful to 
 the Providence which allowed him the double satis- 
 faction of forgiveness and of vengeance by causing 
 the man who specially tried to murder him to be 
 punished, but by the hand of another J. But the 
 
 * Paulinus, 333 ; 
 
 " Et gravior multo, circumfusa hostilitate, 
 
 Factio servilis paucorum mixta furori 
 
 Insano juvenum . . . licet ingenuorum, 
 
 Armata in csedem specialem nobilitatis." 
 + See above, pp. 64, 168, 169. 
 X Paulinus, 337 ; 
 
 " Quae tu, juste Deus, insonti a sanguine avertens, 
 
 Illico paucorum sedasti morte reorum, 
 
 Instantemque mihi specialem percussorem 
 
 Me ignorante alio jussisti ultore perire.'' 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 211 
 
 danger within the walls suggested to Paulinus 
 a hazardous scheme of dealing with the besiegers 
 who lay without them. He remembered his old 
 friendship with the Alan king, and he knew that it 
 was not of his own will that he and his people were 
 serving with the Goths against the Eomans. He 
 contrived to make his way without hindrance to the 
 camp of Goar, and asked that by his help he and his 
 family might be allowed to leave the town. To the 
 amazement of Paulinus, the Alan answered that he 
 could not help him, that he could not even allow 
 him to go back into Bazas, unless he were himself 
 admitted into the town. He knew that, if the pro- 
 posed escape were allowed, the wrath of the Goths 
 would be heavy against Paulinus, while he, Goar, 
 was anxious for an opportunity of escaping from 
 Gothic supremacy *. The discourse between Paulinus 
 
 * lb. 343 ; 
 
 " Sed mihi tarn subiti concusso sorte pericli 
 Quo me intra urbem percelli posse videi'em, 
 Subrepsit -fateor nimium trepido novus error ; 
 Consilio, ut me prsesidio regis dudum mihi carl 
 Cujus nos populus longa obsidione premebat, 
 Urbe ab obsessa sperarem abscedere posse, 
 Agmine carorum magno comitante meorum, 
 Hac tamen hos nostros spe sollicitante paratus, 
 Quod scirem, imperio gentis cogente Gothorum, 
 Invitum regem populis incumbere nostris. 
 Explorandi igitur studio digressus ab urbe, 
 Ad regem intrepidus nullo obsistante petendi. 
 Laetior ante tamen prima quam affarer amicum, 
 Alloquio gratumque magis fore quam mihi rebar. 
 Perscrutato autem ut potui interius viri voto 
 P 2 
 
212 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 
 
 and the Alan king is a little less clearly explained 
 than we could have wished, but we may gather that 
 Goar expressed his wish to change from the Gothic 
 to the Eoman side — or, if we like so to put it, from 
 the side of Attains to that of Honorius — and that 
 he went within the walls of Bazas in company with 
 Paul in us, in order to make a treaty to that effect 
 with the chief men of the city. These were doubt- 
 less the members of the curia, the forefathers of 
 those senatorial families who appear so often in the 
 Gaulish history of the next century; in the days of 
 Honorius political life seemed to be falling back into 
 its original elements, and the senate of Bazas, like 
 the senate of Home, might be called to act for itself 
 in matters of peace and war*. The agreement, 
 whatever its exact terms, was made and carried 
 
 Prsesidium se posse mihi prsestare negavit 
 Extra urbem posito, nee tutus jam sibi prodens 
 Ut visum remeare aliter pateretur ad urbem, 
 Ipse nisi mecum mox susciperetur in urbe, 
 Gnarus quippe Gotbos rursum mihi dira minari, 
 Seque ab ipsorum cupiens absolvere jure." 
 
 * Paulinus, 364 ; 
 
 " Obstupui fateor pavefactus conditione 
 Proposita et nimio indicti terrore pericli, 
 Sed miserante Deo afflictis qui semper ubique 
 Imploratus adest, paulo post mente resumpta, 
 Ipse licet trepidus et adbuc nutantis amici 
 Consilium audacter studui pro me ipse fovere, 
 Ardua dissuadens quse scirem omnino neganda, 
 Praestanda et prius quam mox tentanda perurgens, 
 Quse non sero probans vir prudens ipse secutus, 
 Illico consultis per se primatibus urbis, ^ 
 
 Rem cceptam accelerans una sub nocte peregit; 
 
"^'•3 West-Goths and Burgundians. 213 
 
 out. The wife and son of the Alan king were 
 given to the Eomans as hostages for his good faith. 
 He and his people from the enemies became the 
 friends of the Romans of Bazas, and they undertook 
 to guard the city which they had the day before been 
 besieging. But it would seem that they guarded 
 it only from without. An unarmed crowd of both 
 sexes, Paulinus himself, now restored to his friends, 
 being doubtless among them, thronged the walls of 
 Bazas to see the unexpected deliverers by whom 
 they were set free from fear of the Gothic enemy. 
 Close under the walls was the Alan host which had 
 streamed together from all quarters, the women 
 thronging along with their armed husbands. Bazas 
 was closely fenced in by barbarian arms and barbarian 
 waggons, but they were there for the protection and 
 not for the assault of the town. When the Goths saw 
 their army lessened by so important a part of it as 
 their late Alan allies, they deemed that all hope of 
 taking Bazas had passed from them. They marched 
 away, by what exact course it did not concern 
 Paulinus to tell us ; but they must have made their 
 way to join the army which had been driven to leave 
 Narbonne. When the Gothic enemy was gone, the 
 Alan deliverer did not long tarry; he too marched 
 away, we know not whither ; it is the last that we 
 hear of Goar, the last that we hear of his peof)le on 
 Gaulish soil. Bazas was, for the moment at least, 
 free from the presence alike of barbarian friends and 
 
 Auxiliante Deo cujus jam munus habebat, 
 Quo nobis populoque suo succurrere posset." 
 Does the last line but one imply that Goar was a Christian ? 
 
214 Western Europe m the Fifth Century. \y. 
 
 of barbarian enemies *. We should be glad of other 
 such like tales of Gaulish towns during these memor- 
 able years. The Goth had now to withdraw, not 
 only from Bourdeaux and Bazas, but from all Gaul ; 
 
 * Paulinus, 377; 
 
 " Concurrit pariter cunctis ab sedibus omnis 
 Turba Alanaram armatis sociata maritis; 
 Prima uxor regis Eomanis traditur obses, 
 Adjuncto pariter regis caro quoque nato. 
 Eeddor et ipse meis pactse inter fcedera pacis, 
 Communi tanquam Gotbico salvatus ab boste. 
 Yallanturque urbis pomoeria milite Alano, 
 Acceptaque dataque fide certaret parato, 
 Pro nobis nuper quos ipse obsederat bostis, 
 Mira urbis faeies cujus magna undique muros 
 Turba indiscreti sexus circumdat inermis. 
 Subjecta exterius; muris hserentia nostris 
 Agmina barbarica plaustris vallantur et armis, 
 Qui se truncatam parte agminis baud mediocris, 
 Circumjecta videns populorum turba Gothorum, 
 Illico diffidens tuto se posse morari 
 Hoste intestine subito in sua viscera verso, 
 Nil tentare ausa ulterius properanter abire, 
 Sponte sua legit cujus non sero secuti 
 Exemplum et nostri quos diximus auxiliares 
 Discessam fidem pacis servare parati 
 Eomanis quoquo ipsos sors oblata tulisset." 
 
 I can bardly tbink with Fauriel (i. 134) tbat the line (381) 
 " Eeddor et ipse meis pactse inter fcedera pacis " 
 means tbat Paulinus was given up as a bostage to the Alans. But 
 Fauriel is the only writer who has used the witness of Paulinus at 
 any length. Dahn has some references. I doubt whether Gibbon 
 had actually seen the poem. 
 
 The story of Paulinus goes on for forty years longer. It 
 contains much interesting personal matter, and we shall have to 
 turn to it once more for an illustration of general history. 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 215 
 
 Atawulf had to give up all immediate hopes of 
 dominion north of the Pyrenees. He and his Goths 
 passed into Spain. He took with him his puppet 
 Emperor and his Koman queen, the sister of the 
 lawful Augustus of whom he was now again the 
 enemy. 
 
 This was a strange moment in the strangely 
 chequered career of Placidia, As far as Komania 
 was concerned, she had sunk into nothingness. She 
 was a banished woman among a strange folk, a folk 
 at war with her house, and if not formally at war 
 with her country, yet kept from being so only 
 because they had set up the enemy of her house 
 as the nominal ruler of her country. As far as 
 Gothia was concerned, she was the wife of a loving 
 husband, the queen of a mighty king, the royal lady 
 of what still seemed to be a loyal people. An exile 
 from Kome and Kavenna, she had come to share 
 a kingly throne, if only the throne of a barbarian, 
 in the elder home of the Theodosian house. And 
 presently it seemed as if the line of Theodosius and 
 the line of the Baits were to be alike continued in 
 a common representative of Gothia and Eomania. 
 At Barcelona, the new seat of her husband's power, 
 Placidia bore a son (415) who might look to be one day 
 heaved on the shield as a Gothic king, and to wear 
 the diadem of his childless uncle in the palace of 
 Bavenna and on the capitol of Eome. The babe 
 received the name of his Koman grandfather, and the 
 birth of the youngest Theodosius seemed to open 
 a way towards a reconciliation between the families 
 and the nations of his parents. Both Atawulf and 
 
216 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 
 
 Placidia sought for peace and friendship with 
 Honorins *. The claims of Attains were again for- 
 gotten ; whether he was actually sent to Italy as 
 a peace-offering is not quite clear ; anyhow he was 
 cast aside by the Goths ; he was taken at sea 
 by officers of Honorius, delivered up to Constantius, 
 and kept for the judgement of the lawful Emperor. 
 Between Honorius and the first Csesar the likeness 
 is not great ; yet the fate of Attains has something 
 in common with the fate of Vercingetorix. Each 
 kept his captive to adorn his triumph ; for two years 
 after this time (417) Honorius again entered Eome with 
 the ancient ceremonies of a conqueror. Attains was, 
 like Perseus, Jugurtha, or Tetricus, led before the 
 triumphal chariot, but as he escaped the fate of 
 Vercingetorix, he escaped also the harder fate of 
 Jugurtha. Gains Julius could slay, but he did not 
 mutilate, nor did he, like Gains Marius, condemn 
 the victim to a lingering death. Honorius could 
 
 * Olympiodoros, p. 258 ; *A6aovX0or, rexOevTos airS (K Trjs U\a- 
 Ktoias TraiSoy, <o eVe^ero KXrjaiv Qeobocnov, TrXeov fjcrjrd^eTO ttjv Trpos 
 
 'Paiiaiovs (f)iKiav. He does not mention Attains at this point. 
 
 Orosius, who records the marriage of Atawnlf and Placidia, but 
 not the birth of Theodosius, brings out Atawulf 's desire for peace 
 very strongly, and attributes it largely to Placidia's influence ; " Is, 
 ut supra auditum atque ultimo exitu ejus probatuni est, satis 
 studiosse sectator pacis, militare fideliter Honorio imperatori ac 
 pro defendenda Romana republica impendere vires Gothorum 
 prseoptavit." And afterwards — the great passage of all comes 
 between — " Ob hoc abstinere a hello, ob hoc inhiare paci, nitebatur, 
 prsecipue Placidise uxoris suae, feminse sane ingenio acerrimse et 
 religionis satis probatse, ad omnia bonarum ordinationum opera 
 persuasu et consilio temperatus." 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 217 
 
 slay also on occasion ; but he could also mutilate. 
 He might have a special temptation to choose that 
 punishment in the case of Attains. There had been 
 a day when Attains had threatened Honorius with 
 mutilation and banishment to an island *. He was 
 himself to feel in himself what he had thought of 
 for another. His head was not sent to keep company 
 with the heads of so many tyrants at Carthage or 
 elsewhere. Among the ceremonies of the triumph 
 he was led before the tribunal of the conqueror, and 
 then, with the loss only of the thumb and one other 
 finger of his right hand, a disqualification alike for 
 the lyre and for the sceptre, he was sent to end his 
 days on one of the fiery isles of ^olus f. 
 
 * See next page. 
 
 t We read in Prosper, 415, "Attains a GotMs ad Hispanias 
 migrantibus neglectus et praesidio carens, capitur et Constantio 
 patricio vivus offertur." And again in 417, "Honorius trium- 
 phans Komam ingreditur, prseeunte currum ejus Attalo, quern 
 Liparse vivere exsulem jussit." Orosius, without any distinct 
 date, as the fate of Attains is brought in rhetorically along 
 with the ends of the other tyrants — "Attains tamque inane 
 imperii simulacrum cum Gothis usque ad Hispanias portatus est, 
 unde discedens navi, incerta moliens, in mari captus et ad Con- 
 stantium comitem deductus, deinde imperatori Honorio exhibitus 
 truncata manu vitse relictus est." This is followed by Marcellinus, 
 412, who puts the date back through coupling Jovinus and Attalus. 
 He says, " Attalus in mari captus atque Honorio exhibitus, truncata 
 manu vitse relictus est." Nor can I, with Clinton, agree to put 
 the surrender of Attalus in 416 along with the restoration of 
 Placidia, This comes from the passage in Philostorgius, xii. 4; 
 €»c TovTov [on the death of Atawulf] to ftdp^apovTrpos 'Ovwpiov (ririvhfTai, 
 Koi TTfV oiKeiav d8f\(pr]v Koi top "AttoXov tw jSaeriXei irapevTidevrai avToi. 
 
 But he is clearly writing without regard to minute chronology, 
 
218 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 
 
 The offering of Attalus, if an offering he was, 
 might appease the offended dignity of Honorius ; it 
 did not appease the bitter jealousy of Constantius. 
 No peace would he have with the husband of 
 Placidia, the father of Placidia's child *. A strange 
 doom presently transferred those titles to himself, 
 and led the sister of Honorius to a higher throne 
 than that of the West-Groths. But her path to her 
 highest elevation was through deeper sorrow than 
 ever. To become Augusta, wife and mother of 
 Augusti, she had to go through heavy bereavement 
 and harsher captivity. Before the year was out, 
 
 as he adds, \ioipav nva Ti]! Ta\aTS>v ;^a)paff els yecopylav anoKKTjpcocrdiievoi, 
 This can mean only the Aquitanian cession, for which Clinton's 
 date is 418. Prospers order of events is on the other hand clear 
 and careful, and it is hardly set aside by the Paschal Chronicle 
 
 (i. 573, ed. Bonr.) which places ra emviKia to. Kara "AttoKov tov 
 Tvpavvov in the consulship of Theodosius (VII) and Palladius, that 
 is 416. Olympiodoros (452) mentions the fate of Attains casually, 
 when recording his first elevation ; /xera xpovov nva fiacri\evei. eira 
 Kadaipelrai^ Koi fjura ravra varepop enl 'Vd^evvav Trapayeyovas, Kal tovs 
 TTJs Sextos ;)(eip6? 8aKTv\ovs dKpaTr]puicr6els i^op'ia TrapajrefineTai. The 
 
 mutilation however was clearly done, not at Eavenna but at 
 Kome among the ceremonies of the triumph. Philostorgius (xii.) 
 
 gives some curious details ; vnep rod ^ruiaros dva^as \^Ovaipioi\, 6 TTju 
 ■KpQ>Ti]U aiirm ^adfiiba top "AttoKop Bia^aiveip {meriOei .... Sf^ta? ;)(ei/>6f 
 dneTefie roiis 8vo 8aKTv\ovs, wf 6 nep dvTixf'ip, o 8e Xtp^ai/os f-^ei rrjv KXrj(nv. 
 Koi els AiTrdpap rfjv ptJctov tovtop (j)vyabevf(., fMTjbfvos aXXov KaKov Trpbs 
 TTflpap KaraaTTjcras, dWa Koi ras els top jSi'ov ;(p6i'as 7rapa(Tx6fiepos. It 
 
 must be remembered that Attalus had once threatened Honorius 
 with banishment to an island, and that either he or Jovius — 
 more likely Jovius — had added the threat of mutilation. Cf. 
 Olymp. p. 452, with Zosimos, vi. 9. 
 
 * Olymp. p. 458 ', KavaravTiov 8e koi tS)V nepl KcoparravTiop dvri- 
 TrpoTTOPTap, e/iefei' anpuKTOs ^ tovtov koi UXaKibias 6pp.r}. 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 219 
 
 Constantius might rejoice that the son and the 
 husband of his beloved were taken away out of 
 his path, and that without any crime on his part. 
 The infant Theodosius, born to be the hope of two 
 nations and the tie between two periods of the 
 world's history, died to the deep grief of both his 
 parents, and was buried in a casket of silver in 
 a church outside the walls of Barcelona *. The death 
 of the father (415) soon followed on the death of the 
 child. Atawulf had foes of his own nation. Some told 
 how a certain Eoforwulf could not endure the king's 
 jeers at his small stature. Others told how in times 
 past a king of some branch of the Gothic folk had been 
 slain at Atawulf's bidding, how his faithful follower, 
 Dubius by name, cherished vengeance for his slain 
 lord, and one day gave Atawulf a deadly wound, as 
 the King was going the round of his horses f. Atawulf 
 
 * lb. 459; Tek€VTr}(TavTOS tov iraibos, irevdos fieya iroiovaiv eV avrm Ka\ 
 BdnTovaiv iv XdpvaKi Karadevres apyvpa irpo t^s "RapKeKKcDvos ev Tivi 
 evKTTjpia. This last phrase of bedehouse, is perhaps a sign of the 
 probable paganism of 01ympiod6ros. Anyhow it is an early case 
 of burial inside a church. The American use of " casket " seems 
 exactly to translate Xdpva^. 
 
 t This is the story in Jordanis, Getica, 31; " Occubuit gladio 
 ilia perforata Euerwulfi, de cujus solitus erat ridere statura." 
 
 Olympiodoros says ; dvaipeirai ^A8dov\(j)os, els eTriTi]pr]criv t5>v olKeiav 
 tTTJTtov, ms f'i6c(TTo avTa, bcaTpi^ccv iv tw Ittttww. dvaipa. be avrbv eis 
 tS)v olKeicov VotBcop, AovjSioy Tovvofia, e)(6pav iraXaiau Kaipo(f)vS.aKT](ras' 
 TrdXai yap rfv 6 tovtov dfcrnoTr}!, p.oipas Fot^jk^s pfj^, vno 'A8aov\(jiov 
 dvTjprjpevos' e^ ov Koi tov Aov^iov Xa/Swi/ 'ABdov\(j)os aKeiaxraTo' 6 8e 
 T«5 TrpuTO) heairoTT] dpvvtov tov Sfirtpov fiie^prjaaTO. I agree With 
 Mr. Hodgkin, i. 415, that the former lord cannot be Saras. But 
 may not the Aov^ios of Olympiodoros and the Euerwulfus — clearly 
 Eoforwulf, a grand wild beast name — of Jordanis be the same ? 
 
220 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 
 
 died, but not till he had given his dying charge 
 to a brother. A childless widow among a strange 
 folk, there was no longer a place for Placidia in the 
 Gothic camp ; Atawulf could bring himself to bid that 
 she should be given back to her own people, even 
 at the risk of handing her over to the arms of his 
 rival. And, to the last faithful to his mission, the 
 Gothic King, the beginner of the world of modern 
 Europe, died with a worthy bidding on his lips. 
 The last words of Atawulf were the counsel that his 
 Goths should ever dwell, if so it might be, in peace 
 and friendship with the Eomans *. 
 
 A king of a moment followed Atawulf, the successor 
 whom Atawulf would have least wished to follow him. 
 Deep in the next century men in other Teutonic 
 kingdoms remarked on the little regard which the 
 Goths showed to the claims of birth in disposing of 
 their crown. They had an evil practice, so it seemed 
 
 Aov/3ios does not sound like a Gothic name — unless one could fancy 
 something like Duhha — and it might be a Latin nickname. 
 
 Philostorgius (xii. 2) brings in the death of Atawulf with a singular 
 phrase J ov tvoKv to fieaov koi ttoXXo. dpafiarovpyfja-as i^ opyrjs 'A8aov\(f)os 
 vTTo Tivos Ta>v olneicov dnoa-cfidTTeTat. Orosius laments his being cut off 
 while he was so earnestly striving for peace ; " Cumque eidem paci 
 petendse atque offerendse studiosissime insisteret, apud Barchilonem 
 Hispanise urbem dolo suorum, ut fertur, occisus est." Idatius, 
 who places the death of Atawulf in 416, has a singular phrase; 
 "per quemdam Gothum apud Barcelonam inter familiares fabulas 
 jugulatur." Does that mean a friendly chat in the stable 1 
 
 * Olympiodoros, 459 ; TfXfvrau 8e 'A8dov\(f>os irpoairaTTe tw Wia 
 d8e\(f)a uTTodovvai ttjv ItXaKidlav koi, eiri tvvaivTO, rfju 'Pwfjialtov (f)i\iav 
 
 iavTois irepinoirjaaa-dai. This brother does not seem to be spoken 
 of elsewhere. 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundtans. 221 
 
 in Frankish Gaul, of killing their kings, and setting 
 up whom they would in their place *. Nobility of 
 birth, the lofty stock of the Balti andthe Amali, was 
 indeed respected among both Eastern and Western 
 Goths; but in the succession to the Gothic crowns we 
 see neither the Frankish rule which deemed that every 
 son of a king had a right to be a king nor yet the 
 English rule by which the nation chose for itself 
 among the kingly house. Atawulf had left children and 
 a brother ; but some strange passing influence gave 
 for one week the cynehelm of the West-Goths to Sigeric 
 the brother of the slain Sarus. A party favourable to 
 his house and hostile to the house of Atawulf already 
 had the upper hand for the moment t. We are told 
 that Sigeric, no less than Atawulf, sought for peace 
 with Eome ; but it is more certain that he treated 
 the widowed sister of the Emperor with the deepest 
 insult, Placidia, mourning for her child, mourning for 
 her husband, was forced to walk undistinguished 
 
 * Greg. Tur. iii. 30 ; " Sumpserant enim Gothi banc detestabilera 
 consuetudiiiem, ut si quis eis de regibus non placuisset, gladio eum 
 adpeterent, et qui libuisset animo, bunc sibi statuerent regem." 
 
 t " Segericus rex a Gothis creatur," says Orosius ; the name 
 is one of a familiar type. In Greek hands it changes a little ; 
 
 as 01ympid6ros says ; biaboxos 6 tov '2dpov n8eX(f)os ^lyyepixos, arnovhfj 
 fiaXkov Koi BvvaaTeia ij dxoXovdia koL vofia yiverai. This is again 
 
 a curious use of the word bwaa-Teia. The fate of the children is 
 emphatically marked by Olympiodoros ; to re TratS/a a sk ttjs 
 
 erepas yvvaiKOS (Tvyxuvev 'ASaovX^o) yeyet>T]p.epa, avelXe, ^la rS>v tov 
 iiruTKOTTov ^lyrjadpov koXttcov aTroamdcras. Then follows the treatment 
 of Placidia — fts v^piv ' A8aov\(f)ov. See Hodgkin, i. 835. 
 
 Jordania also (Getica, 31) records the election and death of 
 Sigeric. In the chronicles his short dominion passes without notice. 
 Wallia would seem to have immediately succeeded Atawulf. 
 
222 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 
 
 among a crowd of captives who were driven before 
 the horse of Sigeric. Her step-children, the brood 
 of the Sarmatian woman, were torn from the arms 
 of the Bishop Sigesar, a Goth and an Arian, and 
 slaughtered without mercy. But on the seventh 
 day the murderer was himself slain, and a worthier 
 choice was now made. Wallia, the wise and valiant, 
 was heaved on the shield. We hear nothing of his 
 descent or of his earlier deeds ; but what he did in 
 a short reign showed that he had well learned the 
 lesson of Atawulf. The great hindrance to peace, the 
 personal rivalry between Atawulf and Constantius, 
 was now at an end. We know nothing of the 
 domestic relations of Wallia at the time, but he at 
 least did not give Placidia a third suitor. She was 
 given back to her brother, Constantius being the 
 officer whose duty it was to receive her, and the 
 Goths received the long-promised payment of corn 
 in exchange *. The memory of her noble Goth 
 
 * Olympiodoros says of Sigeric, enTO. ^^epas ap^as, avaipfirai, 
 fjyefioav 8e rav rordoiv OvaXlas KaOiaTarai. In a later extract (p. 462) 
 
 he records the restoration of Placidia with some details which 
 are not found elsewhere, especially the payment of the wheat ; 
 
 EvTrXowrtOf 6 fiayKTrpiavos wpos OvaXiav, os tS>v Tordav expTjudri^e 
 (])vXap^os, aTTOOTeXAerat, e(f) a anovbds re deadai elprjviKas nal aTrdXa^e'iu 
 TTjV nXoKiblav, 6 8e erot'/Ltcos 8e)^eTai, Koi airovTakevTOs avra (titov iv 
 iwpidaiv i^rjKovTa, drroXveTai IlXaKtBia Trapatodelaa 'EvTrXovTlco irpbs 
 Oviapiov TOP oiKeiov avTtjs dSeX^df. 
 
 Orosius records the death of Sigeric and the election of Wallia, 
 and adds, somewhat later ; " Pacem optimam cum Honorio im- 
 peratore datis tutissimis obsidibus pepigit. Placidiam imperatoris 
 sororem honorifice apud se honesteque habitam fratri reddidit." 
 
 Philostorgius (xii. 4) records the payment of corn ; but he is 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 223 
 
 lived in her heart, but she at last became the un- 
 willing bride of the man who had so long waited for 
 her. Constantius, count, patrician, consul, held for 
 seven months the rank of Augustus, and even in that 
 short space learned that the diadem did not bring 
 happiness *. Placidia Augusta, mother of Honoria, 
 saw her daughter, if not wedded, yet wooed, by 
 a barbarian of another stamp, from her own Atawulf. 
 Attila claimed her as his ; but at least the blood of 
 Emperors did not actually mingle with the blood 
 of the Hun. Mother of the last Valentinian, the 
 last Eoman prince who could claim even female 
 
 in rather a hurry about Aquitaine, as he is rather too late with 
 Attalus; Ik tovtov [on the death of Atawulf] top ^dp^apov irpos 'Ovapiov 
 anevdeTai ^(ovardvTLOs seemingly] Koi ttjv olKeiav dSeX^jji/, Koi top 
 AttoKov T(5 /SatrtXei jrapaTidevTai avTo), cn/rrjirecrl re be^iovdevTts, Koi 
 polpav Tiva rrjs tS>v TaXaToyu ^(Oipas els yeapyiav a.TTOKKrjpaxrap.evoi, 
 
 Prosper's entry is a little mysterious; "Athaulfus a quodam 
 suorum vulneratus interiit, regnumque ejus Wallia, jperemptis qui 
 idem cwpere intelligehantur, invasit." The words in Italics are 
 an odd way of pointing at Sigeric. Under the next year, 416, 
 his entry is, "Placidiam Theodosii imperatoris filiam, quam Eomse 
 Gothi ceperant, quamque Ataulfus conjugem habuerat, Wallia 
 pacem Honorii expetens reddit, ejusque nuptias Constantius 
 promeretur." 
 
 In this last entry he also is in too great a hurry. 
 
 * Idatius records the marriage ; but he places it in the same 
 year with her restoration and with the death of Atawulf. 
 Olympiodoros (p. 464) fixes it to the first day of the eleventh 
 consulship of Honorius and second of Constantius, that is to 
 January 1, 417. He brings out the unwillingness of Placidia 
 
 very strongly ; TroXXa nev avrrj dvavevova-a TrapeaKevaae Koi t&v avrrjs 
 opyt^eadat BepanovTOiv. reXos Se eV t^ t^s vnareias fjl^epo. dno j^eipos 
 ravTijv 6 ^aaiKeiis koi d8f\<p6s Ovcopios aKovaav \a^a>v, eyx^ipiC^i Trapadovs 
 KcivaTavTia), 
 
224 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 
 
 descent from the stock of Theodosius, she knew 
 exile and she knew rule. Her memory still lives 
 among the columns and mosaics of Eavenna ; it is 
 but a few centuries since she was there in her bodily 
 presence *. 
 
 The reign of Wallia forms the last stage of our 
 story (415-419). He was the direct founder of the 
 Gothic power in Gaul ; he was the indirect founder of 
 the more famous, but hardly in truth more memorable, 
 Gothic power in Spain. At him and his works and 
 the works of those who followed him we must at 
 least look so far as to see the West-Gothic king- 
 dom definitely change from a wandering people to 
 an established territorial power. That power has, 
 beyond all others, a threefold position. It was the 
 Goth who was called, in the forefront of all the 
 nations of Western Europe, to bear the assault of 
 the Saracen, to bridge over the time when the strife 
 was between the older and the newer life of Europe, 
 between the elder power of Eome and the younger 
 power of the Turk, and the time when both had to 
 strive against wholly alien foes from Africa and Asia. 
 Into those days it is not our present business to 
 follow him ; but we must see this power established in 
 the lands in which we have as yet seen him only as 
 a wanderer. Of the three lands whose revolutions 
 during some most eventful years we have under- 
 taken to trace, Britain has passed away into a world 
 
 * On the tomb of Placidia and her embalmed body, which sat 
 there in Imperial state till late in the sixteenth century, see the 
 various accounts of Eavenna and Hodgkin, i. 887, 888. 
 
v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 225 
 
 of fable to come forth again into the world of history 
 under a guise wholly unlike that of either of her 
 fellows. In Spain and Gaul we have still to see 
 some shadow of a return to settled order brought 
 about by the sword of the West-Goth. 
 
VI. 
 
 [WALLIA AND THE SETTLEMENT OF AQUITAINE.] 
 
 Wallia, King of the West-Goths, is one of the 
 men to whom we may be inclined to think that later 
 ages have hardly done justice. The dispensing of his- 
 toric fame is always liable to be somewhat accidental ; 
 it was specially so in the times with which we are 
 now dealing. Our actual narratives are so painfully 
 meagre and piecemeal ; and it is so purely a matter 
 of chance whether any other record of this or that 
 prince or other leading man happens to be preserved. 
 We can hardly fancy that the glory of the great 
 Theodoric could ever have been wholly obscured or 
 brought down to the level of an ordinary barbarian 
 king. Yet from direct narrative we should know 
 hardly anything of his Italian reign; we should 
 know far more — that is, if any human effort could 
 remember the story — of the endless intrigues in 
 which he and his namesake figured while the East- 
 Goth still abode on the eastern side of the Hadriatic. 
 It is to the good luck that has preserved to us the 
 whole mass of the state-papers of one of the most 
 memorable of reigns that we owe that, though there 
 are few kings whose reigns it would be harder to 
 record in detail in the shape of annals, there are few 
 whom we can more fully call up in every detail of 
 
Wallia and the Settlement of Aqmtame. 227 
 
 his internal government and his foreign policy. 
 A lesser, but not contemptible bearer of his name, 
 stands before ns as a living man and not a mere 
 name in a chronicle, because our prelate and poet 
 at Auvergne has by good luck drawn us the full- 
 length portrait of a neighbour whom he dreaded but 
 whom he could not help respecting*. Of Atawulf 
 himself, of the clear sight with which he spanned the 
 ages, of the keen grasp with which he learned the 
 place in the world's history that was meant for him, 
 we should have had but the faintest glimmerings, if 
 a citizen of Narbonne had not told the tale to a saint 
 at Bethlehem in the hearing of a pilgrim from Tarra- 
 gona. On Wallia Orosius has bestowed only a few 
 lines of narrative prose, while Sidonius has bestowed 
 on him the chance gift of a casual mention, taking to 
 be sure the shape of a few sounding hexameters, 
 enough perhaps for a barbarian king, in the long 
 panegyric with which he hails a short-lived Em- 
 peror f. We can judge of him only by his acts, as they 
 are recorded in the meagre materials out of which 
 we have to patch his story. In them he stands forth 
 as the worthy successor of Atawulf, as the man who 
 carried on the work of Atawulf, as the Goth wielding 
 his sword in the cause of Kome, as the prince who 
 found a settled dwelling-place for his people, who 
 established Gothia as a known part of the earth's 
 surface, and that without wiping out Eomania to 
 make room for it. Wallia waged many wars ; but 
 he waged them all, according to the teaching of 
 
 * See the picture of the second Theodoric in Sidonius, i. 2. 
 t Sidonius, Carm. ii. 363, &c. 
 
 Q2 
 
228 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 
 
 Atawulf, as the soldier of the Empire. It is said by 
 one who was writing while Wallia was acting that 
 Wallia was chosen to the West- Gothic kingship 
 in order that he might be the enemy of the Empire, 
 but that he really showed himself its faithful 
 friend *. We see here either a change of purpose 
 in Wallia himself, like the change of purpose which 
 we have seen in Atawulf, or else a difference of 
 objects between Wallia and his people, in which the 
 warlike instincts of the nation submitted in the 
 end to the direction given to them by the King. 
 It seems certain that the first enterprise which 
 Wallia designed was a direct attack on the lands 
 of the Empire, on a province which had been 
 spared invasion for many years. Wallia proposed to 
 forestall with his Goths the work which Gaiseric 
 afterwards carried out with his Vandals, to pass the 
 bounds of Europe and to found a Teutonic dominion 
 in Africa which could have been founded only at the 
 expense of Eome. It was the second time during 
 these wars and settlements that the Goths, after so 
 long a history as a nation ever moving by land, ven- 
 tured, as they had once done so long before, to risk 
 their fate on the waters of the Mediterranean. Alaric, 
 flushed with the spoils of Eome, had designed to 
 brave Skylla and Charybdis and to make Sicily, 
 perhaps a Gothic dominion, perhaps only a field for 
 
 * So at least says Orosius, vii. 43 ; " Segericus rex a Gothis 
 creatus cum itidem judicio Dei ad pacem pronus esset, nihilominus 
 a suis interfectus est. Deinde Vallia successit in regnum, ad hoc 
 electus a Gothis ut pacem infringeret, ad hoc ordinatus a Deo ut 
 pacem confirmaret." 
 
VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 229 
 
 Gothic plunder. The dangers of the strait had been 
 too much for him, and the Gothic fleet was dashed 
 in pieces *. So now Wallia, as the firstfruits of 
 his reign, gathered a fleet to bear his warriors to 
 their African conquest ; but his enterprise shared 
 the fate of that of his predecessor ; another Gothic 
 fleet was dashed in pieces by a mighty storm in 
 the narrow sea between the pillars of H^rakl^s f. 
 Then Wallia thought of the ill luck of Alaric ; he 
 learned that destiny did not design him and his 
 people for warfare with Kome or for warfare on 
 the sea. He would keep himself to the element 
 on which his people had done great things and 
 would there act as the ally and soldier of Eome. 
 He gladly listened to the advances of the Eoman 
 envoy Euplutius, and the peace was concluded be- 
 tween Wallia and the patrician Constantius \. He is 
 
 * See the strange story of the image in 01ympiod6ros, 453. 
 
 t Orosius, vii. 43; " Territus maxime judicio Dei, quia cum magna 
 superiore abhinc anno Gothorum manus instructa armis navigiisque 
 transireinAfricammolii'etur,in duodecim millibus passuumGaditani 
 freti tempestate correpta, miserabili exitu perierat, memor etiam 
 illius acceptge sub Alarico cladis, cum in Siciliam Gothi transire 
 conati, in conspectu suorum miserabiliter arrepti et demersi sunt." 
 
 X lb.; "Pacem optimam cum Honorio imperatore datis lectissimis 
 obsidibus pepigit." So Idatius, who places it in the twenty-second 
 year of Honorius, that is 416 ; " Cui [Ataulfo] succedens Wallia in 
 regno cum patricio Constantio pace mox facta." So Prosper speaks 
 of "Wallia pacem Honorii expetens" in the consulship of Theodosius 
 VII. and Palladius ; that is also 416. This seems to be the right 
 year for the peace and the restoration of Placidia. Only Prosper 
 has put her second marriage too early, and Idatius has put the 
 death of Atawulf too late. 
 
 The name of the negotiator comes from Olympiodoros (462); 
 
230 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 
 
 named as the actor ; and to him the peace was 
 specially interesting, as it was the peace by which 
 Placidia was at last restored to her countryman, and 
 the way opened for her marriage with himself. In 
 the wider view of things this peace — 'pax optima as 
 it is called by the devout Orosius — was marked by 
 the engagement made by the Groths to win back 
 Spain to the obedience of the Empire from the 
 dominion of the Vandals, Suevians, and Alans, by 
 whom so large a part of it was still possessed. If 
 the Yandals really had made a treaty with the 
 Empire, it went for nothing when so promising an 
 alliance offered itself, and one which so much 
 better suited the personal objects of Constantius *. 
 In observance of his new engagements, Wallia, 
 during his short reign, waged many wars in Spain, 
 but always to the at least nominal advantage of 
 the Empire. Yet it is hard to believe, though our 
 authority is the absolutely contemporary Orosius, 
 who recorded the exploits of Wallia in his own 
 land as the best news of the day, that either Wallia 
 or the barbarian king generally sent messages to 
 the Emperor, setting forth the state of things with 
 
 "EvirXovTios 6 fiayiaTpiavos rrpos Ova\iav, os rav TotBohv e)(prjfidTi^e cbv- 
 Xapxos, aTTOoreXXfTat, €0' o) (nrov8ds re decrdai elpriviKas Koi dnoXa^elv rfiv 
 
 HXaKiBiav, k. t. X. Wallia is (}>v\apxos again ia 465 ; he was riyepLav 
 in 659. 
 
 * On this peace see Dahn, i. 145. Procopius (Bell. Vand. i. 3) 
 makes an agreement between Honorius and Godegisl {rore ^vii^aiva. 
 
 FoSiyto-KXa) 'Ovapios ecf) a 8fj ovk eVt Xu/i?; rrjs ■)(i)pas iBpvaovraiY But 
 Godegisl had been killed long before; see above, p. 28. Orosius 
 also seems to refer to something of the kind in words which will 
 be quoted in the next note. 
 
VI.] Walha and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 231 
 
 a plainness of speech unusual among the princes of 
 any age. Let Honorius, he is made to say, abide at 
 peace, and take hostages from all ; in the war between 
 him and the other barbarians, whichever side won, 
 whichever side was overthrown, the loss was the 
 loss of barbarians, the gain in any case would 
 belong to the Emperor and the Eepublic*. With 
 or without this clear understanding of what he was 
 doing, Wallia set forth to bring back that part of 
 Spain which was in the hands of the newly settled 
 barbarian powers, that is to say, all the peninsula 
 save the Eoman corner in the north-east and the 
 few points which still held out elsewhere. Of these 
 powers two were broken in pieces, that one most 
 utterly which seemed most thoroughly out of place. 
 Non-Aryan invaders were not to rule abidingly in 
 Western Europe till they came in quite another 
 shape from that of the half-Teutonized Turanian. 
 
 * Idatius (Eoncalli, vol. i. p. 19) is emphatic on this head; ""Wallia 
 rex Gothorum Eomani nominis causa intra Hispanias csedes magnas 
 efficit barbarorum." Orosius, vii. 43, adds some strange details ; 
 "EomansB securitati periculum suum obtulit [Wallia] ut adversus 
 cseteras gentes quae per Hispanias consedissent sibi pugnaret, et Ro- 
 mania vinceret; quamvis HalanorumcoeteriVanddlorum Suevorumque 
 reges eodem nobiscum placito despecti [al. depecti] forent, mandantes 
 imperatoriHonorio; Tu cum omnibus pacem habe omniumqueobsides 
 accipe : nos nobiscum confligimus ; nobis perimus, tibi vincimus : 
 immortali vero qusestu erit reipublicse tuse si utrique pereamus. 
 Quis hsec crederet, nisi res doceret ? " How strictly contemporaiy 
 Orosius was comes out strongly in the words that follow ; " Ita- 
 que nunc quotidie apud Hispanias geri bella gentium et agi 
 strages ex alterutro barbarorum crebris certisque nuntiis disci- 
 mus, prsecipue Valliam Gothorum regem insistere patrandse paci 
 ferunt." 
 
232 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 
 
 At that moment the Alans were the greatest power 
 of central Spain, cut off indeed from the straits and 
 from the Pyrenees, but stretching from the Ocean 
 to the inner sea, from the haven of Odysseus to the 
 haven of Asdrubal. Their dominion has on the map 
 almost the air of a kingdom of Castile with a 
 kingdom of Portugal added. To the north-west the 
 Suevians under Hermenrich and the AsdingianYandals 
 under Guntheric between them held the Gallician 
 horn of Europe ; south of Anas the Silingian Yandals 
 held the land of Bsetica, the land to which some 
 have thought that they gave their name. The moun- 
 tainous frontier of Gaul, and the land on either side 
 of Ebro, the land of Tarraco and Csesaraugusta, was 
 still held, either by the Boman or by those whom 
 neither Koman nor Saracen could fully overcome. 
 To enlarge this Imperial remnant at the cost of all 
 the settlers of the last few years, the sword of Wallia 
 was now drawn. The Alans, under their king Atax, 
 were so utterly overthrown that they ceased to 
 be a people and a kingdom ; the remnant that 
 escaped from the Goth commended themselves to 
 the Yandal King Guntheric, and lost themselves 
 in the greater mass of his people. Here the report 
 of the contemporary annalist is borne out by later 
 history. The Alans now vanish from Spanish 
 history. It is more startling when the same author 
 says that the Silingian Vandals in Bsetica were 
 all cut off by King Wallia. For that is just 
 the corner of Spain in which the Vandal power 
 lived on till its voluntary departure beyond the 
 straits, and where it showed not a little vigour 
 
VI.] WalUa and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 233 
 
 a few years after this time. A contemporary 
 Spaniard must be supposed to know the geography 
 of his own country; and, if we allow for some- 
 what of exaggeration, if we grant the survival of 
 a remnant which was capable of again becoming a 
 great people by the immigration of a kindred folk, 
 the statement becomes intelligible. We have an 
 entry a little earlier by which it seems that a Vandal 
 king, Frithbald by name, was taken and sent as 
 a trophy to Honorius. But as he was taken by 
 craft without dealing of handstrokes, we may be 
 tempted to guess that those who took him were 
 Eomans rather than Goths *. Anyhow, as long as 
 
 * Our accounts of these wars are very meagre. The clearest 
 account is that of Idatius. After the entry in note, p. 229, placed 
 in 416, come the words " Alanis et Wandalis Silingis in Lusitania 
 et Bsetica sedentibus adversatur [Wallia]." Then comes under the 
 same year, only seemingly with some doubt as to the manuscript 
 authority ; 
 
 "Fredbalum regem gentis Wandalorum sine uUo certamine in- 
 geniose captum ad imperatorem Honorium destinat." 
 
 (The nominative seems to be Constantius, whose marriage comes 
 just before. Only that was certainly in the next year, 417. 
 Honorio XI. et Constantio II. Coss.) 
 
 Then comes the entry quoted in note, p. 231, under the year 417 
 (Honorius XXIY.). Then in the same year; 
 
 " Wandali Silingi in Baetica per Walliam regem omnes extincti. 
 
 " Alani qui "Wandalis et Suevis potentabantur, adeo csesi sunt a 
 Gothis, ut, exstincto Addace rege ipsorum, pauci qui superfuerant, 
 abolito regni nomine, Gunderici regis Wandalorum qui in Gallsecia 
 resederat, se patrocinio subjugarent." 
 
 One finds less help than one looked for in Pallmann, Geschichte 
 der Vblkerwanderung, i. 259, and Dahn, Kbnige der Germanen, 
 V. 56. Wietersheim (Band iv. 178-180) brings out more points in 
 a few words. 
 
234 Western Europe tn the Fifth Century, [vi. 
 
 Wallia remained in Spain, the Gothic sword, wielded, 
 according to the bidding of Atawulf, in the cause 
 of Eome, went on and conquered, and the other 
 barbarian settlers in the land were cut short before 
 the joint advance of Goth and Roman. 
 
 It must be borne in mind throughout the story 
 that all that Wallia did was done in the name of 
 Bome ; all the conquests that he won were held 
 to be restored to the dominion of her Emperor. 
 The dominion, whether of Honorius or of Wallia, 
 seems to have been fully established in western 
 and central Spain, when, it is hard to say from 
 what motive, the loyal conqueror was taken away 
 from his career of victory in the peninsula to enjoy 
 the reward of his labours in a magnificent grant 
 on the other side of the Alps. The West- Goths, 
 before long to be so famous a power in Spain, 
 turned away from the land of which they had been 
 allowed a glimpse and no more *. Their kings were 
 presently to reign on the Garonne ; it was not for 
 several generations that they were to reign on the 
 Tagus. Spain was left to be torn in pieces by the 
 warfare of the barbarians with one another, and by 
 the struggles of the Roman officers against the 
 Vandals, who became great again as soon as Wallia's 
 back was turned. The next year (419), when Wallia 
 was no more, we read of a fierce strife between 
 
 * Idatius (418) seems pointedly to mark how the work of 
 "Wallia in Spain was cut short ; 
 
 " Gothi, intermisso certamine quod agehant, per Constantium ad 
 Gallias revocati, sedes in Aquitanica a Tolosa usque ad Oceanum 
 acceperunt." 
 
VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 235 
 
 Vandals and Suevians — Alans have passed away — in 
 their Gallician corner. The Suevians, destined to 
 keep their place in that region for many generations, 
 had the upper hand; and the remnant, under the 
 guidance of the Eoman Count Asterius, joined their 
 brethren in Bsetica (420), leaving the Suevians 
 successors to the great Alan dominion in central 
 Spain, which they were to hold till successors of 
 Wallia came back again *. This Yandal migration 
 from Gallicia strengthened the feeble remnant of 
 the nation which had been left in the south, and 
 the Vandals again became a powerful people in Spain 
 (422) under the dynasty which had ruled in their 
 short-lived Gallician territory. The Vandals of Bsetica 
 soon called for a Koman force to be sent against 
 them under Castinus, the magister militum, and that 
 Boman force did not go without Gothic help. And 
 if our tale is told truly, here was a case of that 
 Gothic faithlessness of which it startles us to hear 
 in the declamation of Salvian. The besieged Vandals 
 — we are not told the place of the siege — pressed by 
 hunger, were on the point of surrender, when the 
 Eoman commander unwisely risked a pitched battle, 
 and forsaken by his allies — so the Eoman or Spanish 
 annalist tells us — made his way back as a beaten 
 man to Tarragona f. 
 
 * Idatius, 420 ; " Wandali, Suevorum obsidione diiaissa, instante 
 AsterioHispaniarum comite, et subvicario Maurocello,aliquantis Bra-r 
 cera in exitu suo occisis, relicta Gallsecia ad Beeticam transierunt." 
 
 t lb. 422 ; " Castinus magister militum cum magna manu et 
 auxiliis Gothorum bellum in Bsetica Wandalis infert. quos jam ad 
 inopiam vi obsidionis arctaret, adeo ut se tradere jam pararent. 
 
236 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 
 
 Three years later the Vandals of Bsetica had 
 again grown to such power that Guntheric could 
 make Himself master of two of the great cities of 
 Spain, New Carthage on the eastern sea, and His- 
 palis, Seville, on her great river flowing westward 
 to the Ocean *. Either these great cities had 
 held out all along, or they had been won back for 
 Rome by Wallia. Seville now passed aw^ay from the 
 Eoman power for ever ; New Carthage was again 
 to become a possession of the Republic when the 
 conquests of Justinian again stretched its dominion 
 to the Ocean. 
 
 But the later Vandal history is no part of our 
 story, which, at this its last stage, gathers mainly 
 round the West-Goths. The Gothic allies who 
 failed Castinus must have been fetched from the 
 land which was by this time occupied by the Gothic 
 feudatories — it is hard to keep ourselves from the 
 use of that and of kindred words — of the Empire 
 in Gaul. There now was the great seat of Gothic 
 power, the first land within the western border of 
 Eome held by any Gothic people as an established 
 territorial possession. The West-Goths and their 
 king received the second Aquitaine to dwell in and 
 to till t- It was not a land that was new to them. 
 
 inconsulte publico certamine confligens, auxiliorum fraude deceptus 
 ad Terraconam victus effugit." 
 
 * Idatius, 424 ; " Wandali Baliaricas insulas prsedantur, deinde, 
 Carthagine Spartaria et Hispali eversa et Hispaniis deprsedatis, 
 Mauritaniani invadunt." 
 
 + Proaper (419) describes the grant with some accuracy; " Con- 
 stantius patricius pacem firmat cum Wallia, data ei ad habitandam 
 secunda Aquitania et quibusdam civitatibiis confinibus provin- 
 
VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 237 
 
 They had appeared, as friends and as enemies, 
 before more than one of its cities in the days when 
 Atawulf marched through Gaul as the soldier of 
 Attains. The settlement which, we may be sure, 
 had been then designed by Atawulf, but which had 
 been hindered by the successes of Constantius, 
 became a real and memorable fact under Wallia. 
 The land now (418) became the possession of the 
 West-Goths and their king. It was given them to 
 dwell in, to dwell in nominally as subjects and sol- 
 diers of the Empire, in truth to make the land that 
 was thus granted to them the kernel of a great, and 
 for those days abiding Gothic power. The second 
 Aquitaine, the land that lies between the mouths 
 of the two mighty Ocean rivers of Gaul, and which 
 is watered by them and their great tributaries, was 
 a noble prize indeed. Its renowned cities call up 
 the memories of many a stirring day in the later 
 history of our own people, and they had already 
 begun to win their place in the annals of the world 
 and of the Church. Poitiers, on her peninsula, 
 with the monuments of unrecorded days looking 
 down from the other side, steep and woody, of her 
 encircling stream — not yet the city of courts and 
 
 ciarum." Philostorgius (xii. 4) witnesses that his fellow-sectaries 
 were to till the ground ; (xolpdv nva rrji twv TaKaTav xapa^ ks yecopyiau 
 anoKKrfpaxTaiievoi, 
 
 The tilling of the ground by the Goths is referred to also by 
 Merobaudes, Frag. viii. 1 3 ; 
 
 " Csesareoque diu manus obluctata labori 
 Sustinet acceptas nostro sub consule leges, 
 Et quamvis Geticis sulcum confundat aratris 
 Barbara vicinae refugit consortia gentis." 
 
238 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [Vi. 
 
 minstrels, not yet the city of the holy Eadegund, 
 but already the city of the most famous of the 
 Hilaries. The Arian Goth when he entered her gates, 
 entered as master into the home of the champion 
 of orthodoxy, yet not minded, we may believe, to 
 disturb his successors in the baptistery, well nigh 
 without fellow beyond the mountains, which has 
 outlived the church of Hilary's own worship, nor 
 yet in his basilica which had already doubtless in 
 some earlier shape crowned the hill from which the 
 beacon-fire was to flash up to heaven, when, within 
 a hundred years from Wallia's entry, the Frankish 
 convert to the faith of Hilary * marched to break 
 down the Arian dominion in the Aquitanian land. 
 The Goth entered too a second time within the 
 gates of Burdigala, where Atawulf had entered 
 as an ally, and whence his host had marched 
 as destroyers. He now held the city by the 
 estuary of Ocean f, its amphitheatre doubtless still 
 standing whole, perhaps for Wallia, like Theodoric, 
 to wonder at the sports that pleased his Eoman 
 subjects. Besides these more famous cities, the 
 second Aquitaine took in also Saintes and Angouleme 
 and Agen ; it took in the Petracorian city \ by the 
 Dordogne, not yet the borough of Saint Fronto on 
 
 * Greg. Tur. ii. 37. See Sketches of French Travel, " The House 
 of Hilary," and " Churches of Poitiers." 
 
 t " Burdigalam veni cujus speciosa Garumna 
 
 Mcenibus Oceani refluas maris invehit undas, 
 Navigeram per portam quae portum spatiosum 
 Haec etiam maris spatiosa includit in urbe." 
 Paulini Euch. 44. His grandfather before him had been there. 
 X See Hist. Essays, vol. iv. p. 131, for notices of Perigueux, &c. 
 
VL] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 239 
 
 his hill, but still the Vesonna of the Eoman, looking 
 up across the stream to the older home of the Gaul ; 
 so much at least of Yesonna as, in the years of havoc 
 that had just gone by, had been fenced in with 
 the mighty stones of earlier buildings, to guard at 
 least an inner remnant from the flood of barbarian 
 ravage. The Goth entered on the walls, the gates, 
 the amphitheatre, the temple outside the narrowed en- 
 closure, its mighty round tower still perhaps clothed 
 with its marbles and surrounded by its columns, or 
 perhaps standing as a fresh-made ruin, raw and 
 gaping, to tell of the passage of beleaguering Yandals, 
 Alans, or Suevians. He held the land of hills and 
 streams and dwellings deftly hollowed in the hill- 
 sides, dwellings of races whose record had passed 
 away before the coming of the Goth or the coming 
 of the Gaul. But the fief of Wallia and his people 
 was not shut in within the bounds of the second 
 Aquitaine ; it stretched into the first. The head 
 of Aquitaine, Avaricum, Bituriges, Bourges, one day 
 to be the seat of Aquitanian kings and Aquitanian 
 patriarchSj formed no part of the first Gaulish 
 heritage of the Goth. The Arvernian land and 
 city, the land and city where the fellowship of 
 Sidonius and Gregory has made us more at home 
 than on any other spot of Gaulish soil, was one of 
 the latest of Gothic conquests, and never knew 
 Wallia as its master. But within the bounds of the 
 first Aquitaine he ruled over the Eutenian city, 
 one day to be Ehodez with its famous tower, over 
 the land and city of the Cadurci, Cahors of evil 
 name, with her peninsula and her bridge, where 
 
240 Western Europe m the Fifth Century, [vi. 
 
 Eoman walls still guard the memory of men who 
 fought well to save Gaul from the Eoman power- 
 he ruled over the Lemorican and the Albigensian 
 cities, each already seated by its river, each doubt- 
 less already with its great church in its freshness 
 displacing some holy place of pagan days, but whose 
 chief renown was to come in later times. But if the 
 new land of the Goth did not take in the whole 
 of the first Aquitaine, it overleaped the bounds of 
 Aquitaine in the widest sense. It stretched into the 
 older Roman land of Narbo. The city which had 
 seen the wedding of Atawulf and Placidia was not 
 at once to pass into the hands of Atawulf 's successor ; 
 but the Goth now won the city from which his 
 kings were presently to reign on both sides of the 
 Pyrenees. Tolosa, whence Ceepio carried off, as men 
 deemed, the gold of Brennus, Tolosa, seated on no 
 hill-top, but planted by the fierce stream of the 
 broad Garonne, and looking back to the hills which 
 the skill of later times has taught to guard her, 
 Tolosa, whose capitol has proclaimed her to all 
 ages as the true child of Eome, Tolosa, where the 
 first basilica of the holy Saturninus must have 
 already arisen beyond her walls, that renowned city 
 now passed into the hands of the Goth to become 
 his kingly seat. There, as at Narbo Martins, we 
 shall seek in vain for traces of his presence. The 
 traveller is told that the castle or palace of the 
 West-Gothic kings stood where the paltry palace 
 of justice of modern times now stands. That is all 
 the help that he gains to call up the picture of 
 Toulouse as the head of a Gothic kingdom. For 
 
VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 241 
 
 the abiding monuments of Gothic rule, though of 
 Gothic rule later than the days of Wallia, he must 
 go to a place which does not seem as yet to have been 
 reckoned as a city, which was not as yet a possession 
 of the Goth, to the wondrous hill crowned by the 
 twofold walls and towers of Carcassonne. 
 
 Before the great barbarian invasion Aquitaine 
 and the land of Novempopulania to the south of it 
 were held to be the fairest regions of Gaul. The 
 sternest prophet of the age, in order to rebuke the 
 ungrateful wickedness of its people, has drawn a 
 living picture of the richness of the land itself. It 
 is to be noticed that he does not dwell specially on the 
 greatness and splendour of its cities. And indeed, 
 with the single exception of Bourdeaux — for Toulouse 
 lies beyond the bounds of Aquitaine — none of the 
 Aquitanian cities of which we have just spoken, with 
 all the surpassing charm of their sites, their history, 
 and their monuments, can claim a place in the first 
 rank of the cities of Gaul. In the whole of Wallia's 
 possessions, no city, save the two Bourdeaux and 
 Toulouse, could at all stand by the side of Narbonne 
 or of the great cities east of Ehone. What Salvianus 
 specially enlarges on is the richness of the land itself. 
 It is the marrow of all. the Gauls, the breast of all 
 fruitfulness, and more than fruitfulness, of pleasant- 
 ness and beauty and all delight. The meadows, the 
 vineyards, the orchards, the cornfields, the groves, 
 the fountains that watered them, the streams that 
 flowed among them, made the masters of that land 
 seem as if it was not a share of the common earth 
 which had become their portion, but that they had 
 
242 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 
 
 become possessors of the image of paradise *. But 
 the men thus highly favoured, the Christian Eomans 
 of Aquitaine, had shown themselves indeed unworthy 
 of the gifts of Heaven. They were given up to every 
 kind of vice, to unchastity above all. The Eoman 
 of Aquitaine seems to have been the foulest of 
 sinners, save only the Koman of Africa. Such a 
 people needed the chastisement of barbarian inva- 
 sion to slay some and to reform the restf. We 
 should be glad to know exactly in what case the 
 land stood at the moment of Wallia's entry. From 
 the general picture of the passage of the bar- 
 barians which we looked at long ago, we- may fancy 
 that the cities had greatly suffered ; Yesonna, with the 
 narrowed enclosure of its walls, is a living witness of 
 the shifts to which men were driven to defend them- 
 selves. But even the cities, as in the case of Trier, 
 seem to have sprung up again with wonderful ease 
 to some measure of prosperity, and the fertile land, 
 its cornfields, vineyards, and orchards, might be agaiiL 
 smiling now that ten years had passed since the 
 flood of mere havoc had passed over them. And now 
 
 * Salvianus, vii. 2 ; " N"emini dubium est Aquitanos et Novem- 
 populanos meduUam fere omnium Galliarum et uber totius fecundi- 
 tatis habuisse, nee solum fecunditatis, sed quae prseponi interdum 
 fecunditati solent, jucunditatis, pulcritudinis, voluptatis. Adeo 
 illic omnis admodum regio aut intertexta vineis aut florulenta 
 pratis aut distincta culturis aut consita pomis aut amoenata lucis 
 aut inrigua fontibus aut interfusa fluminibus aut crinita messibus 
 fuit, ut vere possessores ac domini terrae illius non tam soli istius 
 portionem quam paradisi imaginem possidere videantur." 
 
 t lb. 1 2 ; " Sed paulatim id ipsum tamen, ut dum pars clade 
 cseditur, pars exemplo emendaretur." 
 
VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 243 
 
 milder visitors had come ; the chaste Goths were 
 there to dwell in the land and rule it and cleanse it 
 from its defilements, the Goths, such true models 
 of virtue, that notwithstanding their heresy, heresy 
 which the presbyter of Massalia hardly deems to 
 have been their fault, they might dare to look with 
 some hope for a place in the kingdom of heaven *. 
 
 The barbarian heretic, in whose dominions none was 
 unclean save the Catholic Eomant, thus sat down 
 to dwell in the land of the Eoman, in his stately 
 cities, amid his goodly fields and vineyards, by the 
 side of his cooling founts and streams. He came in 
 not as a conqueror of the Eoman, but as in some 
 sort his fellow-subject, at least the faithful soldier 
 of his Emperor, rewarded for his faithful service 
 with lands within his Empire. But it is hard to 
 see how the Goth could be settled on the lands of 
 the Eoman except at the cost of the Eoman. If not 
 a conqueror in form, he must have been strongly 
 tempted to become a conqueror in practice. The 
 almost received law of such settlements was that 
 the faithful soldiers of the Empire received as their 
 wages two-thirds of the lands of its peaceful citizens. 
 It is not clear whether this system was regularly 
 
 * Salvianus, v. 2 ; " Errant ergo, sed bono animo errant, non odio 
 sed affectu Dei, honorare se Dominum atque amare credentes. 
 Quamvis non rectam habeant fidem, illi tamen hoc perfectam Dei 
 sestimant caritatem. Qualiter pro Hoc ipso falsse opinionis errore 
 in die judicii puniendi sint, nullus potest scire nisi judex." 
 
 + lb. vii. 6 ; " Esse inter Gotbos non licet scortatorem Gotbum ; 
 soli inter eos praejudicio nationis et nominis permittuntur impuri 
 esse Eomani." 23 ; " Apud Gotbos impudici non sunt nisi Komani, 
 jam apud "Wandalos nee Eomani." 
 
 E 2 
 
244 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 
 
 carried out in the Gothic settlement of Aquitaine *, 
 and it is remarkable that in one case where we 
 happen to know something of the details, we see 
 a much greater regard to earlier rights of property 
 than we should have looked for. Chastity was not 
 the only virtue of the Goth, Even in grasping the 
 lands of others, he could sometimes be touched with 
 the natural feeling of just dealing between man and 
 man, even when man and man took the shape of 
 barbarian and Eoman, of conqueror and conquered. 
 Paulinus of Bourdeaux and Pella, Paulinus grandson 
 of Ausonius, driven from his own city to dwell in 
 exile and poverty at Marseilles, had his fortunes in 
 some measure raised again by the justice or bounty 
 of one of the new settlers. A Goth who had coveted 
 the last remnant of Paulinus' great estates sent its 
 owner a payment, not, the owner thought, equal to 
 the full value of the land, but a payment which 
 made to the banished man the difference between 
 poverty and comfort, a payment which, if the Goth 
 had had the mind to refuse, the Eoman had assuredly 
 no means of enforcing f. And from the picture which 
 
 * See Dahn, K. G. v. 70. 
 
 t Paulini Eucharisticon, 570 ; 
 
 " Ut cum jam penitus fructus de rebus avitis 
 Sperare ulterius nullos me posse probasses, 
 Cunctaque ipsa etiam quae jam tenuatus habere 
 Massilise potui, amissa jam proprietate, 
 Conscripta adstrictus sub conditione tenerem, 
 Emptorem mihi ignotum de gente Gothorum 
 Excires, nostri quondam qui juris agellum 
 Mercari cupiens pretium transmitteret ultro, 
 Haud equidem justum, verumtamen accipienti 
 
VI.] Pf/allta and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 245 
 
 Paulinus gives of the relations between Eoman and 
 Goth during the earlier occupation of Bourdeaux we 
 may infer that his case did not stand alone. We have 
 seen that the Gothic guest, the delicate euphemism 
 for the stranger who was quartered on the lands 
 of the Eoman, showed himself not uncommonly the 
 friend and protector of the host. So in the more 
 lasting settlement, if the Eoman of Aquitaine had to 
 surrender two-thirds of his land to the Goth — and, 
 even without such formal division, the transfer of 
 land cannot fail to have been large — we may be- 
 lieve that the Eoman often enjoyed what was left to 
 him with greater security under barbarian fellow- 
 ship than if he had possessed the whole when subject 
 to those exactions of Imperial rule under which 
 Salvian paints every Eoman land as groaning. 
 
 A third Teutonic kingdom had thus arisen in Gaul. 
 The West-Gothic kingdom was now far greater 
 than those of the Franks or the Burgundians ; it was 
 the first of Gaulish powers ; it was presently, by 
 extension beyond the Pyrenees, to become for a while 
 the first of all powers beyond the Alps. Of the 
 other two Teutonic nations which had settled on 
 Gauhsh soil, one hardly knows how to speak of the 
 Franks. The Safians, under their long-haired kings, 
 are dwelling on lands of the Empire ; they are in form 
 subjects and soldiers of the Empire, and in the last 
 character we have more than once seen them do good 
 service. But though they have come geographically 
 
 Votivum, fateor, posset quo scilicet una 
 Et veteres lapsi census fulcire ruinas 
 Et vitare nova cari mild damna pudoris." 
 
246 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 
 
 within the Eoman boundary, they have not in any 
 but a purely military sense come within the Eoman 
 pale. They have not come into the Roman world 
 in the same way in which Goths and even Burgun- 
 dians have come into it. The Franks still stand 
 outside almost like the Saxons themselves. Sixty 
 years later, they have not yet adopted the religion 
 of the Empire ; they are not even Arian Christians. 
 The Frank, soldier of Kome, perhaps all the more 
 because he is the soldier of Eome, has not yet 
 convinced himself, as the Burgundian has already 
 done, that the God of the Eomans is stronger than 
 the gods of his fathers*. When that conviction 
 was at last brought home to his mind, the conse- 
 quences were memorable indeed. For the military 
 defence of the Empire he is better to be trusted than 
 any other of its nominal vassals ; but he has rent 
 away a certain portion of the earth from fellowship 
 with the Eoman and Christian world in a way that 
 even the revolted Briton, whether in his island or on 
 the mainland, has not done. The Burgundian was 
 a later settler on Imperial soil than the Frank ; but 
 he became a member of the Eoman and Christian 
 world far more speedily. Still he was a new-comer, 
 and was only gradually making his way from his 
 first Ehenish home, from the land of Mainz and 
 Worms, to those cities of the Ehoneland which became 
 the dwelling-place and the burying-place of his kings, 
 but which we have had to look at mainly as the 
 
 * Sokrates, vii. 30 ; Kara vovv Xa^^dvovres OTi 'Pafuiiav 6 Q(6s 
 l<Txyp5)s Tols (po^ovfievois avrov /Soij^et, Koivjj yvafxrj Travres tm to jriOTCvaat 
 
 Tw XpioTM i\r]Xvda(riv. This is in fact Coifi's argiiment. 
 
VI.] Wallta and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 247 
 
 prize for which so many rival claimants of the Eoman 
 people strove in arms. At this moment the Goth, 
 lord of Toulouse, lord of the second Aquitaine and of 
 much beyond the second Aquitaine, is the foremost 
 figure in Gaul. And at this moment he is, before all 
 his fellows, the immediate vassal and soldier of the 
 Empire. It is perhaps hard for any who come to 
 these studies fresh from the popular notions of Goths, 
 Huns, and Vandals — one has seen the uncouth Asiatic 
 name thrust in as a fellow between two great 
 branches of our own stock — as simple destroyers of 
 Eome and her civilization, to take in the fact of the 
 abiding life of Eome in these times, how all Gaul 
 was still under the nominal obedience of the Empire, 
 and how a large part of it was still under its immediate 
 rule. And those who get their notions of Gaul from 
 a time later in the century, from the time when we 
 come to our first glimpses of continuous Frankish 
 history, may be at least a little startled by the political 
 arrangements of the days of Wallia, which are so 
 strikingly unlike the arrangements of the days of 
 Euric. Long before either people passes under the 
 power of the Frank, the West-Goth is the enemy of 
 Eome, making conquests at the expense of Eome, 
 while of all the Western powers the Burgundian 
 kingdom is that which stands in the closest relations 
 to the Empire. In those days again the continental 
 Briton had become the friend of Eome ; in the 
 nomenclature of our forefathers the Bret-wealas had 
 joined with the Rum-wealas against the Goth and 
 the Saxon. As yet the Goth is the faithful soldier 
 of Eome, holding his noble fief as a free gift of Eome, 
 
248 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 
 
 holding it by the tenure of winning back the lost 
 subjects of Eome, the Bret-wealas of Armorica among 
 them. Such was the work of Wallia, during the 
 short time he wore the Gothic cynehelm; Gunthachar, 
 still standing aloof, having made his way into the 
 Empire as the ally of the tyrant Jovinus, formally 
 acknowledged as he was by the lords of the world 
 at Ravenna and Constantinople, held from them no 
 such commission as this. Throughout Gaul, in the 
 theory of this time, the supremacy of Rome was 
 universal ; her immediate dominion was the rule ; 
 the dominion of her vassal kings was the exception. 
 And it should be noted that these exceptional terri- 
 tories, though very large, were isolated. The three 
 Teutonic powers, Gothic, Burgundian, and Frankish, 
 were carefully kept from marching on one another 
 by the retention of all central Gaul in Imperial 
 hands. To restore central and north-western Gaul 
 to the Roman power was in truth the mission of 
 Wallia, the tenure by which he held another part 
 of Gaul as the allotted dwelling-place of his people. 
 That allotted dwelling-place had no foreign frontier ; 
 the Goth had no neighbours except his august 
 overlord and his overlord's doubtful subjects in 
 Armorica. Against these, as we have seen, he had 
 a work to do, and he did it. It could have been 
 only the sword of Wallia which won back for the 
 Empire that restored dominion in Armorica both in 
 the wider and the narrower sense which was so 
 pleasing in the eyes of Rutilius"'. To the south 
 
 * See above, p. 169. Besides Eutilius we have another witness 
 to the recovery of Armorica in Merobaudes, viii. 1. 8 ; 
 
VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitame. 249 
 
 the Gothic dominion was carefully kept awa,y from 
 any Spanish frontier. From the heights above his 
 capital by the Garonne the Gothic king could look 
 forth on the mountains — the Pyrensean Alps of the 
 geography of his day — which parted Gaul from 
 the Spanish land where he had been heaved on the 
 shield, and where he had smitten the Vandal and 
 the Alan. But his dominion nowhere reached to the 
 foot of the mountain barrier. I'rom the Frank and 
 the Burgundian he was parted by a far wider stretch 
 of Eoman land, and much of it which he had himself 
 made Boman land once more. But the firm friend- 
 ship of Goth and Eoman lasted no longer than the 
 days of Wallia, and the days of Wallia were short. 
 The historian of his own people strangely dates events 
 in the twelfth year of his reign "^'^ ; an annalist who 
 
 " Lustrat Aremoricas jam mitior incola saltus ; 
 Perdidit et mores tellus, adsuetaque ssevo 
 Crimine quaesitas silvas celare rapinas 
 Discit inexpertis Cererem committere campis." 
 * Nothing can be more confused ttan Jordanis' account of 
 Wallia, Getica, 32, 33. He seems to conceive him as reigning in 
 Gaul from the beginning. The peace of 418 is contracted by 
 Constantius marching from Spain, and "Wallia marching to the 
 Pyrenees from the north (" Constantius ovans cum copia armatorum 
 et pene jam regio apparatu Spanias petit ; cui Vallias rex Gothorum 
 non cum minori procinctu ad claustra Pyrensei occurrit; ubi ab 
 utraque parte legatione directa ita convenit pacisci," &c.). In 
 his twelfth year, he invades Spain, and the Yandals flee before 
 him into Africa (" Duodecimo anno regni Valise . . . videns Valia 
 Vandalos in suis finibus, id est Spanise solo, audaci temeritate ab 
 interioribus partibus Gallicise ubi eos fugaverat dudum Atauulfus, 
 egresses cuncta in preedas vastare, eo fere tempore quo Hierius 
 et Ardabares consules processissent [a. D. 427], nee mora mox 
 contra eos movit exercitum." Then follows the crossing of 
 
250 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 
 
 is better to be trusted makes him die in the very year 
 of the settlement. His life, at least his kingly life, 
 was short ; and he left no son of his own blood to 
 wear the cynehelm of Alaric after him. The rule of 
 the " Gothic lot " in Gaul passed to the first bearer of 
 the great name of Theodoric, a countryman but not 
 a kinsman. But Wallia left a daughter, who was 
 fated to be the mother of a barbarian chief who filled 
 no small space in the world in his own day. It 
 is as the grandfather of Hicimer, half Goth, half 
 Suevian, that Sidonius sings of the deeds of Wallia. 
 But it is only of his Spanish deeds that the man of 
 Lyons and Auvergne could bring himself to sing. 
 Of his acts in Gaul he says nothing, but he tells how 
 he smote the Vandal in the Tartessian land, how he 
 crushed the allied might of the Alan, and heaped 
 western Calpe with their dead bodies *. 
 
 Gaiseric into Africa. Wallia wishes to follow, but is hindered by 
 the storm of which we have already heard. Then (c. 33) "nobi- 
 litatus intra Spanias incruentamque victoriam potitus Tolosam 
 revertitur, Romano imperio fugatis hostibus aliquantas provincias, 
 quod promiserat, derelinquens, sibique adversa post longum vali- 
 tudine superveniente rebus humanis excessit." 
 
 Yet it is plain that Wallia died very soon after the settlement in 
 Aquitaine. Idatius places his death in 418; Prospex", who places 
 the settlement in 419, must have put his death in 420; though 
 he does not record it. See Clinton; Dahn, K. G. v. 71. Olym- 
 piodoros (465) does not give the date, OlaXiov tov (PvXdpxov reXeuTiJ- 
 
 aavTos, Qevdepi-^os Trpos ap^fjv tiabe'x^eTai. 
 * Carm. ii. 363 ; 
 
 " Quod Tartessiacis avus hujus Wallia terris 
 Wandalicas turmas et junctos Martis Alanos 
 Stravit, et occiduam texere cadavera Calpem." 
 This last line ma^ refer to the shipwreck which shattered "Wallia's 
 
VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 251 
 
 Yet, if the reign of Wallia was short, his work 
 was great, and in a sense abiding. His Aquitanian 
 kingdom perished within a century, and all that 
 the Goth kept on Gaulish soil was a strip of Medi- 
 terranean coast which formed no part of his first 
 grant. But Wallia was none the less the first to 
 found, on a large part of the soil of Gaul, an 
 orderly Teutonic kingdom, a kingdom which, though 
 it was soon to have its wars with Kome, was still 
 essentially a kingdom of the school of Atawulf. 
 Thus we cannot say that the kingdom of the 
 Burgundians was as yet ; we cannot say that the 
 kingdom of the Franks ever became such. Herein 
 we have reached one of the main causes of the 
 abiding difference between northern and southern 
 Gaul. The establishment between the Loire and the 
 Garonne of a Teutonic people who came in so dis- 
 tinctly as the allies and champions of Eome has had 
 a deep effect on later history. The West-Gothic 
 dominion in Gaul, like the more splendid but less 
 abiding East-Gothic dominion in Italy, was the rule 
 of Gothic kings reigning over a Koman people ac- 
 cording to Roman law. The Goth came ; he passed 
 away ; but he left the land thoroughly Eoman. He 
 left it more Roman than he found it. His conquest 
 had the usual effect of such conquests. The conqueror 
 becomes the pupil and missionary of those whom he 
 immediately subdues, and helps to root out any 
 traces that may be left of any state of things that is 
 earlier than either. So in an earlier day the political 
 
 fleet ; but surely the corpses are more naturally those of Vandals 
 slain in Wallia's campaign in Bsetica. 
 
252 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 
 
 supremacy of Eome in the eastern lands only con- 
 firmed the intellectual supremacy of Greece ; wher- 
 ever the Eoman went, he carried Greek culture with 
 him ; he became as familiar with the tongue of 
 Greece as with his own, but he never learned the 
 tongue of the Syrian or the Egyptian. So the 
 Teutonic conquerors of the western lands of Eome 
 became pupils and missionaries of Eome, helping to 
 root out any traces that were left of things older than 
 Boman rule. The Goth, the Burgundian, the Frank, 
 even, we may be sure, the Vandal, all learned to 
 speak the tongue of Eome ; none of them learned to 
 speak the tongue of the Celt, the Iberian, the Phoe- 
 nician, or the Moor. Thus while the new Celtic state, 
 the Britain of the mainland, was growing up in the 
 north-western peninsula of Gaul, a powerful influence 
 was brought to strengthen the work which had been 
 so long going on of wiping out whatever Celtic traces 
 were still left in other parts of the land. We are 
 startled to find, in a casual, a sportive and something 
 dark, passage of Sidonius, words which might seem 
 to imply that in his day traces of Celtic speech still 
 lingered among the Eoman nobles of Auvergne"". 
 I am not sure that his words necessarily imply all 
 
 * Sidonius writes to Ecdicius (Ep. iii. 3) ; " Mitto isthic ob 
 gratiam pueritise tuse undique gentium confluxisse studia lite- 
 rarum, tuseque personse quondam debitum, quod sermonis Celtici 
 squamam depositura nobilitas, nunc oratorio stylo, nunc etiam 
 Camenalibus modis imbuebatur. lUud in te affectum principa- 
 liter universitatis accendit, quod quos dim Latinos fieri exe- 
 geras deinceps esse barbaros vetuisti." But I am not sure that 
 these words, at once playful and high-poHte, need be taken quite 
 literally. 
 
VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 253 
 
 the inferences which have been drawn from them ; 
 but of one thing we may be certain, that the Gothic 
 conquest at which Sidonius so deeply grieved went 
 far to root out any traces of the elder speech which 
 still lived on. What had escaped the sword of 
 Caesar did Euric slay. In this point there is no 
 difference between the Goth and the Frank ; but in 
 another point the two Teutonic conquerors stand 
 quite apart. The coming of the Goth did not bring 
 with it anything like that Teutonic infusion in blood, 
 speech, institutions, which the Frankish settlement 
 brought into northern Gaul, and which has ever 
 distinguished France from Aquitaine and Burgundy. 
 The saying, far truer and truer in far more senses 
 than he who spoke it dreamed of, that " there are no 
 Frenchmen south of Loire," has been largely made 
 to be true by the presence in those lands of Wallia 
 and his West-Goths. If he, first of his race, made 
 a part of Western Europe to be in some sense Gothia, 
 he ruled that whatever he made into Gothia should 
 be Eomania still. He made things ready for the 
 great day when Goth and Eoman as equal powers, 
 equal European and Christian powers, leading in 
 their train the European but not yet Christian con- 
 tingent of the loyal Frank, should march forth side 
 by side to the battle with the Hun. 
 
 One point must never be allowed to pass out of mind, 
 that, for two generations longer (419-486), the Eoman 
 power in Gaul was still a real and living thing, 
 keeping on its being alongside of the powers of the 
 Goth, the Burgundian, and the Frank. Wherever 
 the rule of Eome had not been disturbed — for the 
 
254 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. \yi. 
 
 rule of Constantine was as much the rule of Eome as 
 the rule of Honorius — wherever it had been restored 
 by the victories of Rome's Gothic ally, there the 
 dominion of the Empire went on untouched. So it 
 did no less in Spain, within so much of the land as the 
 Suevian and Vandal had either never occupied or had 
 been forced to give back to the might of Wallia. 
 Within a large, though irregularly shaped, part of 
 Gaul, Caesar Augustus reigned over his Koman 
 people, and it was sometimes decided on Gaulish soil 
 who Caesar Augustus should be. More than thirty 
 years after these times, a man of the land of Sidonius 
 and of Gregory, the father-in-law of our prsefect, 
 poet, and prelate, the Arvernian Avitus, was pro- 
 claimed Augustus, not at Home or at Ravenna, but 
 on the capitol of Toulouse and in the palace of Aries. 
 And he came back after his Italian reign to lay his 
 bones in the holiest place of the Arvernian land (455), 
 before the tomb of Saint Julian of Brioude *. Even 
 then, after the Huns had been driven back from Gaul, 
 Aries, the city of the Constantines, was still neither 
 Gothic nor Burgundian, but Eoman as of old. It 
 remained so, along with the land to which the name 
 of the Frovince still specially clave, and from which 
 
 * Idatius, 455 ; " In Galliis Avitus Gallus civis ab exercita 
 Gallicano et ab honoratis, primum Tolosae, dehinc apud Arelatum 
 Augustus appellatus, Romam pergit et suscipitur." Sidonius, in bis 
 Panegyric, has of course mucb more to say of bim, as not merely 
 " Gallus civis " but specially Arvernian. His deatb in bis native 
 land comes from Gregory of Tours, ii. 11; " Basilicam sancti 
 Juliani martyris cum multis mun ribus expetivit. Sed impleto in 
 itinere vitse cursu, obiit delatusque ad Brivatinsem vicum, ad pedes 
 antedicti martyris est sepultus." 
 
VI.] WalHa and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 255 
 
 it has never been wiped out, for five and twenty years 
 longer (480). The land still loyal to Kome when Kome 
 had in a manner ceased to be Eoman, the land which 
 sent an unavaihng wail to its sovereign at Constanti- 
 nople against the rule of Odowaker*, passed in the 
 course of the next four years under the dominion of 
 Euric the West-Goth f. 
 
 The Goth had indeed often striven to make his 
 way into Aries in the course of the sixty years 
 between the settlement of Wallia in Aquitaine and 
 the conquests of Euric in Provence. And no wonder. 
 For those were the days of the highest greatness of 
 the city of Constantine by the Ehone. Thirty-five 
 years before the elevation of Avitus (420), two years at 
 most after the death of Wallia, the little Kome of 
 Gaul had been raised by the law of Honorius and 
 Theodosius to its highest place, as the head, the 
 metropolis, of seven provinces of Gaul. It is from the 
 sounding language of this decree that we get our 
 most glowing picture of the prosperity of Aries at 
 this moment. The proud city which received the 
 choicest gifts of all the world was to be the place of 
 
 * This comes out in the fragment of Candidas, 476 ; 'oSo'a»tpos 
 
 IraXt'a? xai avTrjs eKpuTTjae 'Pa)[iT]s, icai (TTacriacrdvTap avrS rav Sucr/ttKoJi' 
 TdKarSiv SiaTvpecr^eva-afievcov re avTcHv Koi 'OboaKpov Trpos Zrjvcava, '08od- 
 Kpm paXXov 6 Zr]VQ)v eniKXivev. These western Gauls cannot mean 
 those of Armorica as opposed to those of the Province, but rather, 
 in the mouth of the Byzantine writer, the Gauls of Gaul as distin- 
 guished from those of Asia. So I have known an American writer 
 distinguish Helias of La Fleche as " Count of Eastern Maine," 
 that is of the Gaulish county as opposed to the New England 
 state. 
 
 t See Jordanis, Qetica, 47; Isidor. Chron. Goth. 418. 
 
256 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 
 
 yearly meeting for the chief men of seven provinces, 
 those of Vienne, two of Narbonne, Novempopulania, 
 Maritime Alps, and, what we might hardly have 
 looked for, both the Aqnitaines, though the second of 
 them and part of the other had been given for the 
 Goths to dwell in and to till *. So little was the 
 supreme rule of the Emperor held to be taken away by 
 the presence in the Aquitanian land of his faithful 
 subjects and soldiers. The privilege may seem a 
 vain one ; yet it was cherished and remembered, 
 and ages afterwards copies of this law of Hono- 
 rius and Theodosius were still made and kept in the 
 archives of the great South-Gaulish cities. And in 
 this grouping of provinces round Aries we see in a 
 marked way the signs of that division between 
 southern and northern Gaul of which we have 
 already spoken. It was only of the lands south of 
 Loire that Aries was to be the immediate head, the 
 place of yearly meeting, though doubtless Aries now 
 supplanted Trier, no longer a fit centre for Eoman 
 rule, as the dwelling-place of the Eoman prsefect of the 
 Gauls. Yet lands which formed no part of the seven 
 provinces, which sent no deputies to the gathering at 
 Aries, still clave to Home and to all that the name of 
 Kome implied. Or if we cannot say that they clave 
 to Rome when they were cut off from all communica- 
 tion with Eome, Old or New, when the Old Eome 
 obeyed a barbarian king and the New obeyed an 
 Emperor who disowned them, they at least clave 
 to their Eoman life and Eoman speech and gloried 
 
 * Cod. Theod. There is a special mention of " Novempopulania 
 et secunda Aquitania, quse provinciae longius constitutae sunt." 
 
VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aqnitaine. 257 
 
 in the name of Komans, while Goths, Franks, and 
 Britons were the barbarian neighbours who hemmed 
 them in. In Armorica in the widest sense, in the 
 land between Seine and Loire, the Koman life abode 
 untouched for more than sixty years after the Roman 
 power had been restored in those lands by Wallia. 
 To the West, the peninsular Armorica became inde- 
 pendent as the new British land. To the North, the 
 Frank, if not as yet actually a conqueror of fresh 
 Roman lands, was growing and strengthening him- 
 self to become such before long. To the South, the 
 conquests of the Goth, the advance of the power of 
 Euric, combined with the southward march of the 
 Burgundians along the Ehoneland, altogether cut off 
 this central Roman land from the Roman lands of 
 Italy and Provence. The day of sorrow came when 
 Sidonius saw his dear Auvergne pass under Gothic 
 rule, and when he himself was carried away from his 
 flock and city, at the bidding of a Gothic master. 
 But lands further to the North still were Roman. 
 After Odowaker began to rule in Italy, independent 
 Roman powers still lived on alike in Gaul and in 
 Dalmatia. When ^lla and Cissa drew up their keels 
 on the shore which they were to make a Saxon shore 
 in a new sense, there was still a Roman coast, a coast 
 which they may well have been wont to ravage, on 
 the southern shore of the Channel. But between the 
 Gaulish and the Dalmatian remnant there was one 
 marked difference. In Dalmatia an Emperor who 
 had reigned in Italy still went on reigning after he 
 had ceased to reign in Italy, and it was to the master 
 of Italy, to Odowaker himself, that the power of 
 
 s 
 
258 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 
 
 Julius Nepos gave way. In the still Eoman land of 
 Gaul, at Soissons and Orleans, at Paris and Eouen, 
 there is no distinct evidence to show whether any 
 Emperor was acknowledged at all. In this isolated 
 Eoman dominion the Eoman power was maintained 
 by two rulers, father and son, of whom it seems at 
 least clear that neither ever assumed the purple, 
 -^gidius, faithful subject of Majorian, enemy of 
 Wallia's Suevian grandson, kept on in Gaul the Eoman 
 independence which he strove in vain to keep on in 
 Italy. After him came his son, Syagrius, the last 
 Eoman ruler in GauL Some give him only the 
 obvious title of Duke ; but in one version, in that 
 which has become most famous, in the record of 
 Gregory of Auvergne and Tours, he stands forth 
 with a style which we do not look for till we have 
 reached quite another land and quite another time. 
 The last of Eoman princes in the land that Gains 
 Julius won for Eome appears as bearing at Soissons 
 the title which some deemed that Gaius Julius 
 would gladly have borne in Eome. Since the last 
 "Eex Eomanus"fled toArdeaand Cumae, the dreaded 
 monosyllable had never been coupled with the name 
 of Eome. Her " rex sacrorum," the '* regium " of her 
 pontiffs, lived on as survivals of Numa and of Ancus. 
 As the Empire grew, as extraordinary commissioners 
 grew into abiding sovereigns, the cognates and 
 derivatives of the hated word were freely applied to 
 the rule, to the house, the whole belongings of the 
 Emperor. All about him was kingly ; even his wife 
 was in common speech " regina " ; but none save one 
 member of the Flavian house ever bore the hated 
 
VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 259 
 
 style as a formal title. That there was a " Hanni- 
 balianus Eex" we know by the sure witness of 
 coins; we do not know what his kingdom was or 
 where it lay; assuredly he was not "Eex Romanus" 
 or "Rex Romanorum." But this last astounding 
 title, which seems to bring before us an East-Frankish 
 Henry six hundred years before his time, was borne, 
 if Gregory is to be believed, by Syagrius of Soissons. 
 It may be so or it may not. Gregory, used to kings, 
 may simply have carried back to Syagrius the style 
 of the Ohilperics and Guntchramns among whom his 
 own life was spent. The name was sometimes used 
 in a strange way, whether by carelessness or design. 
 Sulpicius Severus applies the name, at least in its 
 oblique cases, pretty freely to both tyrants and lawful 
 princes. Other cases in the fifth century might be 
 found in which an Emperor or tyrant is spoken of in 
 the same way. But the " Syagrius Rex Romanorum " 
 of Gregory sounds like a formal title *. Could such 
 a title have been used ? It may be that the Romans 
 of Gaul, cut off from the Romans of other lands, 
 brought down to form as it were simply one among 
 the several nations of Gaul, surrounded by nations 
 ruled by kings, may, like the Hebrews of old, have 
 
 * *' Siagrius Eomanorum rex " c. ii. 27, where see the note to 
 Giesebrecht's German translation. He is '• Eomanorum patricius " 
 in the Hist. Epit. 15, and " Dux" in Hincmar. 
 
 I doubt whether Sulpicius ever uses the word in the nominative. 
 It may be refining ; but this almost seems like another stage, 
 beyond that in which the derivatives are freely used but not the 
 word itself. " Siacriua Eomanorum rex," as a formal description, 
 has a somewhat different sound from the casual use of " regi " or 
 " regem." 
 
 S 2 
 
260 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 
 
 wished to be like the nations round about them, and 
 to have a king to go before them. JEgidius, father 
 of Syagrius, is said, in a strange legend, to have been 
 for a while a king, not indeed King of the Bomans, 
 but chosen King of the Franks, as Belisarius might 
 have been chosen King of the East-Goths. For his 
 son to be King of the Komans was only one step 
 further. Anyhow, under whatever style, the Boman 
 state in Gaul lived on after the barbarians had begun 
 to rule in Italy. And it may be after all, as I have 
 hinted already, that when the Boman of Gaul yielded 
 to the Frank, he yielded only to Eoman authority 
 in another shape. It may be that Syagrius, king 
 or tyrant, was disowned by the Augustus at New 
 Eome, to whom his kingly style would certainly not 
 be pleasing. It may be that Chlodowig, soon to be 
 Consul, some said Augustus, entered Orleans and 
 Paris, as Sarus strove to enter Valence, as a Koman 
 officer sent to chastise a tyrant. One thing at least is 
 certain; at Soissons, as at Salona, the year 476 a.d., 
 the year so dear to the compiler and the crammer, 
 the year so really memorable at Bome and at Kavenna, 
 was a year of no special moment. 
 
 We have thus traced the events of thirteen 
 memorable years, years which, more than any other, 
 fixed the later history of Western Europe. The 
 great powers of Western Europe in later times, 
 England, France, Castile, are not yet in being ; nor 
 can we say that the lesser powers of Wales, Bur- 
 gundy, Aquitaine, Aragon, are as yet in being either. 
 But the first steps have been taken which were 
 in the course of time, in some cases in no long 
 
VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 261 
 
 course of time, to call them all into being. No part 
 of Britain is as yet England ; but the Koman has 
 left the island, and the Angle and the Saxon are 
 on their voyage, to reach the prize, it may be, some- 
 what sooner than we are taught by the reckoning 
 of years that we know best. And when the history 
 of the Angle and the Saxon on British soil begins, 
 then begins also the history of Wales, the history 
 of the British people in their old land, but in their 
 new character of Wealas to their Teutonic invaders. 
 The French win Gaul ; it is but a small part of Gaul, 
 and not that part to which the name was specially 
 to cleave, which is already known as Francia ; but 
 he who gave it the name is already in the land, and 
 ready to march on. But the presence of the Goth 
 far to the south of him has fixed a barrier which has 
 decreed that, though southern Gaul may one day 
 politically become French, yet it shall never become 
 Frankish by actual settlement or French by the final 
 results of such settlement. In Spain it might seem 
 that not even the beginnings of the modern world 
 are to be seen. We left the peninsula strangely 
 parted out between the Eoman, the Vandal, and the 
 Suevian, parted out in a way which certainly does 
 not give the slightest hint of a future Castile, but 
 which does suggest a future Aragon and a future 
 Andalusia, and which might be even thought to 
 suggest more faintly a future Portugal. Bat they 
 suggest these things only geographically. The Vandal 
 was soon to pass of his own will from Spain, to 
 play a great part in Africa, and to be swept away 
 by the revived power of Kome. The Koman and 
 
262 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [Vi, 
 
 the Suevian were in their turn to yield to the West- 
 Goth. He has not as yet a foot of ground in the 
 land where Atawulf died and where Wallia conquered ; 
 but he has seen the land, and he is fated to come 
 back to it. He is to come back to it to put on 
 in the course of time the noblest character of all. 
 The Hun was a worse foe than the Saracen ; but 
 against the Hun the Goth had to fight but for 
 a single day; against the Saracen he had to wage 
 the ceaseless battle of five hundred years, till the 
 Saracen was shut up in the momentary home of the 
 Yandal, to pass at last back to the land whence he 
 himself came, the land from which the Vandal had 
 been rooted out. That the slow and steady resurrec- 
 tion of Spain was essentially the work of the Goth 
 we cannot doubt. The tameless mountaineers of the 
 north could keep their homes against all comers, 
 Eoman, Gothic, and Saracen ; it was hardly they 
 who won back the land step by step from the passes 
 of the Pyrenees to the Mount of Tarik. The name 
 of the Goth has passed away alike from Spain and 
 from Gaul ; but he did his work well in both lands. 
 The Frank was to have his day of glory too against 
 the same enemy, when the Arab lords of Koman 
 Africa and Gothic Spain were broken in pieces by 
 the hammer of Austrasian Karl. But the abiding 
 life of Spain, the long endurance, the winning back 
 of the land inch by inch, surely came of a spirit 
 which the Goth had breathed into the Eoman land. 
 The Spain of 711, much as it might have fallen 
 back from the great days of Gothic rule, was still 
 something widely different from the Spain of 409. 
 
VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 263 
 
 It might be crushed ; but it could rise again ; it 
 could rise again of its own strength. The whole 
 inheritance of Atawulf on Spanish soil was the space 
 of ground — far less than seven feet — which was 
 needed for the casket of the infant Theodosius. 
 But his words and his works followed him. The man 
 who laid the foundations of modern Europe had 
 trained a people who could endure the calling to 
 be the foremost and most abiding champions in 
 western lands of Europe in her higher garb of 
 Christendom. 
 
[VII.]^''^ 
 
 [THEODOEIC THE WEST-GOTH AND AETIUS.] 
 
 In a former course of lectures I dealt at some 
 length with the revolutions of Gaul, Spain, and 
 Britain during about twelve eventful years in the 
 early part of the fifth century. Those were the years 
 which saw the great Teutonic settlements in Gaul 
 and Spain, and which, if they did not see any actual 
 Teutonic settlements in Britain, saw the events which 
 opened the way for such settlements and which gave 
 them, when they came, their distinctive character. 
 From Britain the dominion of Bome has passed away ; 
 an independent British people is left, greatly modified 
 no doubt by more than four hundred years of Boman 
 intercourse, by not far short of four hundred years of 
 Bom an dominion, but still in their essence a British 
 people, not a Boman people in the sense in which 
 the provincials of Gaul and Spain were Boman. In 
 Gaul and Spain the Boman power still lives on ; but 
 Borne no longer keeps the full dominion over the 
 whole land. She has sunk to be one power among 
 many. The majesty, the magic, of her name still 
 has its influence over strangers and enemies ; inde- 
 pendent rulers, even conquering foes, are ready to 
 
 [* This lecture was originally the first of a second course.] 
 
Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 265 
 
 acknowledge some shadowy supremacy in the Eoman 
 Augustus. But as regards practical dominion, the 
 rule of Rome takes in only a part of the great lands 
 of Gaul and Spain, and that not the larger part. In 
 the other parts of those lands, the Roman life still 
 goes on ; the tongue, the law, the creed, of Rome is 
 still respected ; the Roman bishop still keeps his 
 church in the Roman city; the Roman magistrate 
 still dispenses the law of Rome to a Roman people ; 
 but the political power has passed away from the 
 Roman Emperor to the Gothic, Burgundian, or 
 Suevian king. Still it is most important to bear in 
 mind, not only how much of Roman life stayed on in 
 the lands which passed under Teutonic rule, but how 
 large a part of the land still, deep into the fifth cen- 
 tury, remained under direct Roman rule. It was not 
 till eighty years after the great crossing of the Rhine 
 that Gaul saw the end of direct Roman dominion in 
 the fall of the kingdom, duchy, patriciate, whatever 
 we are to call it, of ^gidius and Syagrius. By that 
 time the rule of Rome had passed away from Spain ; 
 but it had passed away but yesterday. Only then 
 continuous Roman rule lasted longer in Gaul than in 
 Spain ; when it did pass away, it passed away for 
 ever. A day was to come when the titles of Roman 
 sovereignty were again to be heard in Gaul ; but 
 they were to be heard because a lord of Gaul and 
 Germany was one day to become the lord of Rome. 
 And when they were again heard in Gaul, they were 
 to be again heard in Spain also. For the lord of 
 Gaul and Germany and Rome was to be also the lord 
 of that corner of Spain where continuous Roman rule 
 
266 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vii. 
 
 had been most abiding. But before that day came, 
 that more direct Eoman rule which the fifth century 
 brought to an end in both Gaul and Spain was to 
 revive for seventy years in another corner of the 
 Spanish land. The only Eoman rule that Gaul saw 
 after the fall of Syagrius was the rule of her own 
 KarKngs. But Justinian and Heraclius, who never 
 reigned in Narbo and Nemausus, did reign in Gades 
 and New Carthage. In the middle of the sixth 
 century, in the first years of the seventh, Caesar 
 Augustus, from his throne in the youDger Rome, 
 again ruled from the Euphrates to the Ocean. 
 
 But Spain, like Italy or Constantinople, is, for our 
 immediate purposes, of only secondary importance. 
 Often as our own island has passed away from our 
 sight, often as those who were presently to make it 
 our own have passed away also, neither the land nor 
 the future folk of the land ought ever to have passed 
 out of our thoughts. Every event that I have 
 dwelled on in continental history, every picture that 
 I have striven to give of continental life, during this 
 great period of the Wandering of the Nations, has 
 been meant as an indirect contribution to the history 
 of Britain and of the Teutonic conquerors of Britain. 
 The light of one land enables us, by the power of 
 contrast, to pierce through the darkness of the other. 
 The recorded events of the one land enable us, by 
 the same power of contrast, to call up the unrecorded 
 events of the other. By seeing what Teutonic con- 
 quest was on the mainland, we learn what it was not 
 in Britain, and thereby we learn what it was. But 
 for this purpose the land that best teaches us is 
 
VII.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 267 
 
 Gaul. Of the lands concerned it is, on the whole, 
 the land of which we know the most. We have far 
 fuller pictures of the men and events of Gaul during 
 this time than we have of the men and the events of 
 Spain ; we have pictures at least as full as we have 
 of the men and the events of Italy. Nor is it to 
 be forgotten that what we know of Italy is largely 
 owing to the witness of a man of Gaul. The full 
 light of Gaul is best fitted to pierce the utter dark- 
 ness of Britain. And on every other ground Gaul is 
 of all continental lands the one which it is most 
 obvious to compare and to contrast with Britain. 
 Geography and history have ever brought Gaul and 
 Britain into close contact. And at no time were they 
 brought into closer contact than in those opening 
 years of the fifth century with which we have already 
 dealt. We have seen how deeply the events of one 
 land affected the other. And in Gaul and Britain 
 too we see to some extent the same actors, actors 
 who play no part in the contemporary story of Spain 
 or Italy. In Gaul, as in Britain, we have to record 
 the doings of the Briton and the Saxon, though in 
 Gaul their doings form only a secondary part of the 
 main tale. Gaul gives us the typical picture of 
 a Boman land passing under one form of Teutonic 
 conquest, while Britain, in its very absence of a pic- 
 ture, does in truth give us the clearest picture of 
 a Roman land passing under Teutonic conquest of 
 another kind. But it is only by the clearly marked 
 shapes of the Gaulish picture that we can read any 
 meaning into the dim and shadowy outlines of the 
 British picture. The history of Gaul then, both for 
 
268 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vii. 
 
 its own sake and as our indirect guide to the history 
 — shall we say to the lack of history 1 — of Britain, 
 must be the main subject of our thoughts for some 
 time to come. And for some time to come the main 
 subject in the history of Gaul is the history of the 
 West-Gothic power in Aquitaine. 
 
 We left Gaul, about the year 420, divided into 
 the lands which were still under the direct rule of 
 the Empire and the lands which had passed into the 
 possession of its nominal vassals. These last lands, 
 the dominions of the Goth in the south-west, of the 
 Frank in the north-east, of the Burgundian in the 
 central east, are all isolated. The immediate Boman 
 dominion stretches uninterruptedly, with however 
 irregular a frontier, from the borders of Italy to the 
 Ocean and the British Channel. All central Gaul, all 
 the northern coast west of the marshes of the Frank, 
 is Boman ; for the sword of Wallia is held to have 
 won back the Briton of the mainland to the obedience 
 of Caesar. The bidding of Bavenna is obeyed at 
 Soissons, at Paris, and at Bouen. This is a very 
 different state of things from that of a few years 
 earlier, when Vandal, Alan, and Suevian laid waste 
 the whole land at pleasure, save the corner which 
 was held by the British tyrant at Aries. And this 
 great revival of the Eoman power was largely due 
 to Eoman valour and conduct in the person of Con- 
 stantius. He had taught the Goth that the Boman 
 could still strike, and that it was better to have Csesar 
 for a friend than for an enemy. Still the existence 
 of the Boman dominion in Gaul depended on the 
 will of the Goths and of the other barbarian powers. 
 
VII.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetms. 269 
 
 We may doubt whether any one of them could as 
 yet overthrow it by a single effort. It was before 
 all things unlikely that they should all unite to 
 overthrow it by a common effort. Eome might even 
 hope, if attacked by one barbarian power, to find 
 allies among the others. When the Koman power 
 in Gaul did at last fall, two generations after the 
 time which we have reached, it was because it had 
 been so gradually dismembered by one enemy that it 
 could at least be swallowed with no great effort by 
 another. That Eoman society and Koman govern- 
 ment in Gaul lived on, for nearly seventy years after 
 the settlement of the Goth, for eighty years after 
 the combined invasion of Vandal, Suevian, and Alan, 
 is a speaking witness indeed to the magic power 
 which Eome exercised over the minds of all who had 
 to deal with her. She had indeed led captive her 
 conquerors. 
 
 We begin then our present inquiry with the history 
 of that West-Gothic dominion in Gaul which grew 
 out of the Imperial grant of the second Aquitaine, 
 and something more than the second Aquitaine, to 
 Wallia and his people. To Wallia succeeded Theo- 
 doric, the first bearer of that renowned name with 
 whom we have to deal *. Gothic custom allowed 
 
 * The likeness of the name Theodoric to a familiar class of Greek 
 names — the likeness which caused a modern writer to think that 
 he was doing the specially Teutonic thing when he spoke of its 
 greatest bearer by the far later form of Dietrich — seems to have 
 been caught at from the beginning. When the name was borne 
 by the great East-Goth, it was no longer to be trifled with ; as 
 
270 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vii. 
 
 free choice of kings, and it does not appear that 
 Theodoric was a kinsman of Wallia. His own words 
 however, taken in their natural sense, would imply 
 that he was a grandson of Alaric. through a daughter*. 
 In any case he was the founder of a dynasty which 
 kept the West-Gothic crown through several genera- 
 tions. And he was a worthy founder. His reign 
 was long and stirring ; his end was the most glorious 
 that could fall to the lot of man. And he had to 
 strive with a worthy rival, to be at last changed into 
 a worthier comrade. The two great elements in the 
 Gaul of the fifth century had alike vigorous repre- 
 sentatives in Theodoric the Gothic king and in 
 Aetius the Roman patrician. In the character of 
 the Roman champion there are some dark shades, 
 but on Gaulish soil the}^ are hardly to be seen. His 
 evil deeds, true and imaginary, belong to the tale of 
 Italy and Africa, as his bloody end belongs to that 
 of Italy. On our side of the Alps he is wholly the 
 
 applied to the earlier Tlieodorics it takes various shapes. Sidonius 
 uses several forms in verse (Pan. in Av. 320) ; the first Theodoric 
 is Theudoris ; the second, in his prose portrait (Ep. i. 2), has his 
 real name Theodoricus. Prosper and Idatius use the real name. 
 In Jordanis (Get. 34, 44) the West-Gothic Theodorics are both Theo- 
 doridus or Theodoritus ; the East-Goth is Theodoricus. So Isidore 
 calls the first Theodoric Theodorides, which he afterwards changes 
 to Theodericus and Teudericus. In Ep. i. 1 he plays on the likeness 
 between the Greek and the Gothic names ; " leges Theodosianas 
 calcans, Theodoricianasque proponens." The o in the received form 
 Theodoric is most likely owing to the likeness to Theodorus. Pro- 
 copios' form QevBepixos comes nearer to the Gothic. 
 
 * In the Panegyric on Avitus, 505, Theodoric is made distinctly 
 to call Alaric " noster avus." I find it hard to believe with Dahn 
 (K. G. V. 71) that this simply means " prsedecessor." 
 
VII.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 271 
 
 valiant soldier, the skilled diplomatist, who kept 
 Aries for E-ome against the Goth and who won over 
 the Goth to play his part in a strife that was more 
 than Gothic, more than Roman, the great strife of 
 the Catalaunian fields. 
 
 The relations between Aetius and Theodoric are 
 the relations of the leaders of two nations — at least 
 of two powers — whose relations may be at any time 
 either friendly or hostile, A far greater space, in 
 the general estimate of Aetius, has been given to 
 his alleged personal rivalry with the other eminent 
 Roman captain of the time, that Count Boniface 
 whom we have already seen baffling Atawulf himself 
 on Gaulish soil *. The received tale is tempting, 
 because it enables us to draw, as more than one 
 writer has drawn with great skill, one of the most 
 striking of contrasts f. The two men, each worthy to 
 be called the last of the Romans, seem in a manner 
 to exchange parts and characters. ' As the tale is 
 commonly told, Boniface, so long the foremost cham- 
 pion of Rome against barbarians of every race, comes 
 at last to invite the Vandal into the Roman pro- 
 vince that he guarded, while Aetius, half barbarian 
 by early training, relying throughout his career on 
 barbarian help, after leading Boniface into his old 
 error, after, slaying him with his own hand, comes to 
 be the guardian of Europe against the Hun, as he 
 had once been the guardian of Gaul against the 
 Goth. Now the received view of the long rivalry 
 between Boniface and Aetius rests, as I am fully 
 
 * See above, pp. 197, 198. 
 
 t This contrast is well brought out by Hodgkin, i. 871-6. 
 
272 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vii. 
 
 convinced, on no sure contemporary witness. But 
 the story, and the way in which it has grown up, 
 throws such an instructive light on the history of 
 the fifth century that I have made it the subject of 
 a full examination in another shape *. And after all, 
 true or false, it is not the side of the career of Aetius 
 which concerns us. The defender of Roman Gaul 
 was not a native of Gaul, though it may be that 
 he saw in early life events wrought on Gaulish 
 soil which touched him very closely. Aetius, son of 
 Gaudentius, born on the lower Danube in the Roman 
 Scythia, was, in childhood and youth, a hostage, first 
 with the Goth and then with the Hun. He learned 
 the ways of the barbarians ; he gained power and 
 influence among them; he married a wife of royal 
 Gothic blood. His father, we are told, count and 
 magister equitum, was slain, at some time not stated, 
 in a military outbreak in Gaul. Whether Aetius 
 was with him we know not, nor do we know whether 
 it was before or after his father's death that he rose 
 to a high place, on that side of the Empire in which 
 he was born. Prsefect of Constantinople, he well 
 nigh lost his life by an assassin's dagger. His 
 recorded Western career begins among the confusions 
 which followed the death of Honorius. In these he 
 first plays a part in Italy and then in Gaul. I shall 
 speak more fully of those revolutions and of the 
 part which Aetius played in them in my special 
 monograph on him and Boniface. Their main out- 
 line concerns us here. On the death of Honorius, 
 the Western Empire passed to John the chief notary, 
 
 * See Appendix : Aetius and Boniface. 
 
vii.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 273 
 
 who of course was in the eyes of the Theodosian 
 family and their partisans looked on as a tyrant. 
 But he seems to have been peaceably chosen at 
 Kavenna, and to have been generally acknowledged 
 in those parts of the West which still remained to 
 the Empire. That he was acknowledged in Gaul is 
 shown by clear incidental evidence. The Praetorian 
 Prsefect of Gaul, that Exsuperantius of Poitiers of 
 whose Armorican exploits we have already heard *, 
 was slain at Aries in an outbreak of the soldiers (424), 
 and it is pointedly added that John took no vengeance" 
 for this outrage f. It has been inferred from the 
 failure of John to punish this murder that he looked 
 on the deed as done in his own service, that is 
 doubtless that the cause of John was popular with 
 the soldiers, while Exsuperantius asserted the claim 
 of the Theodosian house |. It would be equally 
 easy to infer that Exsuperantius was at least not an 
 avowed enemy of John, that men looked to John to 
 punish the offenders, but that he did not deem himself 
 strong enough to bring on himself the enmity of the 
 Gothic army. The point is that it was remarked 
 that John did not punish a deed of blood done at 
 Aries, a remark which could be made only of a man 
 whose authority was fully acknowledged in Homan 
 Gaul. In the East he was of course branded as an 
 
 * See above, pp. 168-70. 
 
 t This comes from the version of Prosper in the note to Roncalli, 
 i. 653 ; " Hoc tempore Exuperantius Pictavus, Prsefectus Prsetorii 
 Galliarum, in civitate Arelatensi militum seditione occisus est ; 
 idque apud Joannem inultum fuit." 
 
 ; Fauriel, i. 176. 
 
 T 
 
274 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [Vii. 
 
 usurper at the court of Theodosius, and that Emperor 
 took vigorous means to assert the claims of his 
 house by sending an army into Italy to overthrow 
 John and to establish the rule of his aunt Placidia 
 and her young son Valentinian. Against this attack 
 John availed himself of the help of Aetius, who was 
 his partisan and high in his service. He, the man 
 who knew how to handle barbarians, was sent to 
 bring a Hunnish force to the support of his master. 
 He went ; he came back with his savage allies. 
 But by that time the forces of the East had won 
 back Italy for the Theodosian house, and John had 
 paid his forfeit in the amphitheatre of Aquileia. 
 Aetius came with his Huns ; they even met the 
 forces of Theodosius in arms. Many a man of that 
 day would have used such a power to set up a 
 tyranny of his own. Aetius did otherwise ; he sub- 
 mitted to the Augusta and the young Augustus. 
 His wonderful influence won over the barbarians to 
 go back on payment of a sum of money, and he 
 himself went into Gaul as the officer of Valentinian 
 to maintain the cause of Rome, as represented by 
 him and his mother, against all enemies. 
 
 He found there work enough to do on behalf 
 of his new sovereigns. The history of Gaul for 
 some years is the history of the labours of Aetius 
 to win back the lost dominions of Rome to the 
 Empire. To read his story, whether in the dry 
 prose of the annalists or in the high-flown verses 
 of Sidonius, brings home to us in all fulness at once 
 by how many enemies the Empire was attacked at 
 the same time and what life there still was in the 
 
ai.] Theodonc the West-Goth and Aetius. 275 
 
 Imperial pov^er, what magic in the Imperial name. 
 It needed only a Stilicho or an Aetius, if not, as of 
 old, to win fresh conquests, at least to guard the 
 actual frontier and ever and anon to win back some 
 part of what had been lost. We need not search 
 too minutely into the nationality of the troops by 
 whom the victories of Home were now won. It 
 was doubtless by barbarian arms that Aetius struck 
 down the barbarians ; but they were barbarians 
 who were Roman by allegiance, who had been 
 brought within the range of Homan influences, and 
 whose adoption as the armed guards of the still 
 Roman lands was one of the surest signs of Rome's 
 abiding moral power. But the defender of Rome, 
 at the head of the soldiers of Rome, has to be 
 everywhere. One year in northern, another in 
 southern Gaul, now altogether beyond the bounds 
 of the province, carrying warfare hither and thither 
 wherever an enemy of Rome's western dominion 
 is to be found, now and then finding time to 
 show himself in Italy for the maintenance of his 
 own interests and the overthrow of private adver- 
 saries — such was for years the busy life of the man 
 who, somewhat unfairly perhaps to one or two not 
 unworthy successors, men spoke of as the last of the 
 Bomans. 
 
 His first duty was to withstand the advance of 
 the Teutonic power which had been so lately estab- 
 lished on the Garonne and which was seeking to 
 extend itself to the Rhone and beyond. The King 
 of the West-Goths was laying siege to the city 
 which had been so lately established as the capital 
 
 T 2 
 
276 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, rvii. 
 
 of a land which took in his own dominions"'*. It is 
 another witness to the greatness of Aries in these 
 times that we shall find it for a long while to come 
 
 * It is not easy to put together a consistent account of tlie 
 warfare between Aetius and Theodoric. Were there two wars 
 or one before that which began in 436, the consulship of Isi- 
 dorus and Senator % Prosper records an attack on Aries on the 
 part of the Goths, who are driven back by Aetius, immediately 
 after the fall of John and accession of Valentinian. His next 
 entry after the proclamation of Valentinian as Augustus stands 
 thus ; 
 
 " Arelas nobile oppidum Galliarum a Gothis multa vi oppu- 
 gnatum est, doo^ec imminente Aetio non impuniti discederent." 
 
 Px'osper of Aquitaine^ is our best authority for Gaulish aflPairs ; 
 he has nothing more to say about wars with the Goths till 
 436, 
 
 The Spanish Idatius is also a very valuable writer; but for 
 Gaulish affairs we should, in case of contradiction, commonly 
 prefer Prosper. We are not startled at his having nothing to 
 say about the siege of Aries at the very beginning of Valentinian'a 
 reign ; we notice that, in that Emperor's sixth year (430), he has 
 a notice to which there is nothing answering in Prosper. This 
 runs thus ; 
 
 " Per Aetium comitem baud procul de Arelate quaedam Gothorum 
 manus exstinguitur, Anaulfo optimate eorum capto." 
 
 If this stood quite by itself, I think we should be inclined to 
 look upon it as the same story as that recorded by Prosper, only 
 moved to a wrong year. But it comes in a connexion which gives 
 it unusual importance. In this year and the next Idatius is 
 recording events in Spain, in which he himself was concerned and 
 Aetius also ; he was also clearly narrowly watching the career of 
 Aetius. Under the sixth year of Valentinian he has three entries. 
 He first mentions a Suevian inroad into Gallsecia followed by 
 a peace. Then comes the entry which I have just quoted, followed 
 by the words, " Juthungi per eum similiter debellantur et Nori." 
 The third records the slaughter of Felix at Eavenna, in which we 
 learn from Prosper that Aetius had a hand, a subject on which 
 
Yii.] Theodoric the West-Got h and Aetius. 277 
 
 the chief object of Gothic ambition. Now in what 
 character did Theodoric march against Aries '\ We may 
 take for granted that his choice of a time for action 
 
 I have said more elsewhere [see Appendix]. Under the seventh 
 year comes an entry of which I do not profess to understand 
 every word, and which only incidentally concerns us, but which is 
 incidentally most important ; 
 
 " Aetius, dux utriusque militise, Noros edomat rebellantes. Rur- 
 sum Suevi initam cum Gallsecis pacem libata sibi occasione 
 conturbant. Ob quorum deprsedationem Idatius episcopus ad 
 Aetium ducem, qui exjpeditionem agebat in Gallis, suscijpit lega- 
 tionem. Yetto, qui de Gothis dolose ad Gallseciam venerat, sine 
 aliquo efFectu rediit ad Gothos." 
 
 One wishes to know more of this mission of Vetto, which clearly 
 points to a disposition on the part of Theodoric to win again 
 a Spanish position for the Goths ; but there seems to be nothing 
 more to be found out about it. But the point for us is that 
 Idatius is himself brought into personal relations with Aetius, and 
 that on Gaulish soil. This at once accounts for the care with 
 which he traces the career of Aetius in this year, as in the year 
 before, and also in the year after — when he records the death of 
 Boniface. And it clearly gives a value to his witness as to tbis 
 second campaign of Aetius near Aries, which it otherwise might 
 not have. We can hardly refuse to accept a Gaulish campaign of 
 Aetius from the witness of a man who talked to Aetius, still 
 campaigning in Gaul, in the year in which it is said to have 
 happened. Under such circumstances, it is more likely that 
 Prosper left something out than that Idatius got so utterly wrong 
 in his date. That is, I think, we must on the whole accept the 
 campaign near Aries in which Aetius took Anawulf as different from 
 the earlier campaign in which Aetius delivered Aries just after the 
 accession of Valentin ian. 
 
 Now comes a question as to the date of the peace, the peace 
 of which Sidonius speaks in his Panegyric of Avitus, by which 
 Rome gave hostages to the Goth. What we know for certain 
 is that there was a peace which the Goths broke in 436 — so 
 witnesses Prosper — and which was in force in 431, when Gothic 
 
278 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vit. 
 
 was determined by the disputed succession to the 
 Empire ; but was his attack on the chief city of the 
 Empire in Gaul meant as throwing off his allegiance 
 to the Empire, or as taking this or that side in the 
 struggle for its sovereignty? Atawulf and Wallia 
 had always been the loyal officers of some Emperor, 
 though in Atawulf's case it had sometimes been an 
 Emperor of his own setting up. A later historian 
 of the Goths seems to look on Theodoric as throwing 
 off all obligations to Kome ; but this may come 
 only of looking at things with the notions of later 
 times, and Isidore seems to confound this siege with 
 events two years later*. But if Theodoric marched 
 
 fcederati served at tlie defence of Hippo. Granting that we have 
 established two wars by Aries, one out of Prosper, the other out 
 of Idatius, after which of them came the peace broken in 436 1 
 The later date is surely the more likely. The immediate service of 
 the Goths in Africa might well be one of its terms, and, if this 
 were so, the giving of hostages on the side of the victorious Romans 
 becomes more intelligible. 
 
 In one of the fragments of Merobaudes' prose Panegyric on 
 Aetius (p. 10), there is an account of a victory won by Aetius over 
 Goths. The circumstances of the story, as the sudden attack, seem 
 to agree very well with the first victory of 425, and I have there- 
 fore ventured to make use of some of Merobaudes' details in 
 describing it. 
 
 * Isidore, in the Chronicon Gothorum, p. 716, has the following 
 account ; 
 
 " Theodorides .... regno Aquitanico non contentus, pacis 
 Romanae foedus recusat ; municipia Romanorum vicina sedibus suis 
 occupat. Arelas, nobilissimum Gallise oppidum, vi multa obsessum 
 oppugnat, a cujus obsidione imminente virtute Aetii Romanse 
 militise ducis non impunitus discedit." 
 
 Some phrases here sound like improvements on Prosper; the 
 
viT.] Theodoric the Wesi-Goth and Aetius. 279 
 
 on Aries in the character of a partisan of either 
 claimant of the Empire, of which claimant was it ? 
 It has been inferred that whatever he did was done, 
 in name at least, on behalf of the legitimate sovereigns, 
 that is, of Theodosius, Placidia, and Valentinian'^'". 
 It is easy to guess, but it is hard to determine on 
 points like these, where our evidence is so meagre 
 and obscure. One might easily imagine that, when 
 John was acknowledged as Emperor in Italy and 
 Gaul, it might suit the purposes of the Grothic king 
 to profess loyalty to the princes who had no foothold 
 west of the Hadriatic ; but what we do know for 
 certain is that the lieutenant of those princes dealt 
 with him as an enemy. With whatever motives or 
 objects, Theodoric laid siege to the noblest city of 
 the Gauls, as one writer admiringly calls it. We 
 gather some details from the panegyric of a devout 
 admirer of Aetius to whom the tale was brought 
 as the last piece of news from the West to one 
 who was sojourning far away on the eastern side 
 of Hadria beside the inland sea of Long Salona f. 
 
 piece about the " muni cipia " is an actual quotation; but it is 
 a quotation from the entry under 436. Isidore clearly rolled the 
 events of that year and those of 425 together. 
 
 * Dahn, K. G. v. 73 ; " Ergriff Theodorich die Waffen, wie es 
 scheint, angeblich fiir den legitimen Kaiser, in Wahrheit aber im 
 eigenen Interesse." So in his Urgeschichte, p. 357. 
 
 t Merobaudes, p. 10 ; " Delatus ego in angusti litoris sinum, 
 qua Salonas usque per anfractus terrse pronum pelagus inlabitur, 
 nactus sum quemdam qui se tuis recentibus gestis interfuisse 
 memoraret." Salona nowadays seems a strange place to go to for 
 the last news from Aries; but the great saying of Atawulf at 
 Narbonne came to us by way of Bethlehem. 
 
280 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [Vii. 
 
 The whole force of the Goths went forth with 
 their king : from the camp before Aries they wan- 
 dered hither and thither among the marshes and 
 islands which surrounded the city of the waters, 
 eager to gather spoil from every corner of the 
 Koman land *. But the avenger was upon them. 
 Aetius, at the last stage, as it would seem, of his 
 march from Italy, found them busy in the work of 
 plunder by one of the isolated hills which formed 
 so marked a feature in the land which surrounds 
 Aries to the north-east. Was it the famous hill of 
 Montmajour, the rocky hill to be in after days 
 crowned by a mighty monastery, a monastery and 
 yet a fortress, over whose cloister rises conspicuous 
 to all eyes, not the peaceful bell-tower of the church, 
 but the stern keep of the abbatial castle \ Or was 
 it the yet more rugged hill by its side, the hill of 
 Cordes, with its mysterious monument of earlier 
 days, the giants' chamber, not, as elsewhere, piled 
 up of massy stones, but hewn, like lesser tombs, in 
 the heart of the living rock % One or other of these 
 hills then bore the name of the Mount of Nadders, 
 and by its foot the admirers of Aetius were able 
 to say, with some confusion of metaphors, that the 
 poisons of the republic were overthrown!. The 
 
 * Merobaudes, p. 10; " Gothorum, inquit, maniis universa cum 
 rege exierat B,omana populatum. Hoc ut dux comperit — jam non 
 expectavi ut diceret, progressus est, manum contulit ; neque enim 
 lisec a te acta dubitabam." 
 
 + lb. ; " Qusesivi statim ubi, qualiter, quantosque fudisses. 
 Tunc ille, ad montem, inquit, quern Colubrarium quasi prsescia 
 vocavit antiquitas ; in eo enim nunc reipublicse venena prostrata 
 sunt maxima." This Mount of Nadders near Aries reminds one of 
 
VII.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 281 
 
 plunderers were attacked, driven away, and chased. 
 Some of the Goths who stood firm had to yield to 
 the assault of the Koman army. King Theodoric 
 himself came with the rest of his force, seemingly 
 his horse, to be struck with sudden horror as he 
 found his horse's hoofs trampling on the bodies 
 of his men*. At this stage our more detailed 
 and picturesque narrative breaks oflp. We wish for 
 some picture of the flight of Theodoric, of the entry 
 of Aetius into the ransomed city. But we have 
 evidence enough that the head of Gaul was saved. 
 The towers of Constantine rising above the waters, 
 the theatre of the Greek, the arena of the Roman, 
 the basilica of the saint from Ephesus, were not 
 as yet to pass into barbarian hands. Theodoric 
 and Aetius had had their first meeting in arms; 
 the Goth was driven back, and he and his host 
 paid their penalty for their inroad on Roman 
 lands f. 
 
 This first undoubted Gaulish exploit of Aetius 
 is placed immediately after the proclamation of Yalen- 
 tinian as Emperor (425). The siege and deliverance 
 of Aries took place in the same year as the fall of 
 
 " Mons Eanarum," William of Malmesbury's name for Brent Knoll 
 in Somerset. 
 
 * Merobaudes, p. 10 ; " Hostium partem improvisus, ut solet, 
 neci dedit, fusisque jpedituTn copiis quae plurimse erant ipse palantes 
 turmas persecutus, stantes robore, fugientes alacritate compressit. 
 Nee multo post rex ipse cum reliquis copiis suis adfuit, defixus 
 horrore subito calcata prope cadavera." This reads as if Theodoric 
 was on horseback. 
 
 t See the words of Prosper, followed by Isidore, in note, 
 pp. 276-8. 
 
282 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vii. 
 
 John and the transfer of Aetius to the side of 
 Yalentinian. Most likely he was sent straight from 
 Bavenna to deliver Aries. It is hard to say what 
 was the end of this war. The next event that 
 we hear of, at Aries, not long after the dehverance 
 of the city from Theodoric, was a disturbance which 
 connects itself with several events both ecclesiastical 
 and temporal. The year before the Gothic siege 
 had seen the slaughter of a high military officer 
 in the capital of Gaul; the year after it saw the 
 slaughter of a bishop (426). Patroclus, Bishop of 
 Aries, is a man of doubtful character. A special 
 partisan and friend of Constantius, he made his way 
 into the see in the year 412, in the room of his 
 predecessor Eros or Heros. Heros, described as 
 a holy man and a disciple of Saint Martin, is said 
 to have been unjustly driven out to make way for 
 Patroclus ; but the thing to be noticed is that the 
 irregular deposition and election is not attributed to 
 Constantius himself, but is said to have been the act 
 of the people of Aries, who wished to win the favour 
 of Constantius by the elevation of his friend *. 
 Others speak more favourably of Patroclus and less 
 
 * Prosper, 412 ; " Heros vir sanctus et beati Martini discipulus, 
 cum Arelatensi oppido episcopus prsesideret, a populo ipsius civi- 
 tatis, insons et nuUi insimulationi obnoxius, pulsus est, inqiie ejus 
 locum Patroclus ordinatus, amicus et familiaris Constantii magistri 
 militum, cujus per ipsum gratia quaerebatur. Quae res inter 
 episcopos regionis illius magnarum discordiarum causa fuit." See 
 Tillemont, vi. 186, 188. In "Prosper Tiro" (414) Patroclus is 
 charged witb simony ; " Infami mercatu sacerdotia venditare 
 ausus." 
 
VII.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 283 
 
 favourably of Heros * ; in any case we can hardly 
 avoid the suspicion that the different estimates of 
 the sanctity of these bishops have a political origin, 
 that the fault of Heros was to have been a partisan 
 of Constantine, as he can hardly fail to have been 
 the bishop by whom the tyrant was admitted to the 
 priesthood in the vain hope of saving his life. 
 What we are really concerned with here is the fact 
 that Patroclus, now (426) acknowledged Bishop of 
 Aries, was killed, seemingly in a brutal fashion, by 
 a barbarian tribune, and that the deed was believed 
 to have been done at the secret bidding of the 
 magister militum Felix f. This Felix seems to have 
 succeeded Castinus in his office, and his name appears 
 constantly in the annals for some time to come. 
 He was now the enemy of Boniface ; before long he 
 became the enemy of Aetius, and in that character 
 Aetius knew how to deal with him. But save this 
 slaughter of the intruding bishop, the acts of Felix 
 have little reference to Gaul. His relations with 
 Aetius, and the singular way in which some of his 
 acts seem to have been transferred to Aetius, I have 
 dealt with elsewhere. 
 
 A few years later (43 0-3 1) we hear of another victory 
 won by Aetius over certain Goths in the neighbour- 
 hood of Aries, in which Anawulf, one of their chief 
 
 * Art. Heros in Diet. Christ. Biog. 
 
 t Prosper, 426 ; " Patroclus Arelatensis episcopus a tribune 
 quodam barbaro multis vulneribus laniatus occiditur, quod facinus 
 ad occultam jussionem Felicis magistri militum referebatur." Felix 
 was also charged with the death of a holy deacon named Titus 
 at Rome. 
 
284 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vii. 
 
 men, was taken *. The war of which this was the 
 chief event was, it would seem, ended by a formal 
 peace between the Goths and the Empire. For 
 shortly after that time we find the Goths in their 
 old relation of Roman allies and acting as such in 
 the wars of Africa. While Gothic volunteers swelled 
 the forces of Gaiseric in the siege of Hippo, Gothic 
 foederati helped in the defence of the city. Some 
 of the terms of the peace seem to have been less 
 favourable to the Empire than might have been 
 looked for from these accounts of the victories of 
 Aetius. But we hear of the peace only in incidental 
 notices. A sober annalist, in recording the next 
 war, implies that the present one had been ended 
 by a treaty f. From our poet and rhetorician, our 
 prsefect and bishop, we learn something of its details. 
 One is the important fact that the Roman gave 
 hostages to the Goth. We here get our first glimpse 
 of a future Emperor, an Emperor less famous in the 
 annals of the Empire than in the panegyric of his 
 dutiful son-in-law. Yet Avitus of Auvergne played 
 a considerable part in the affairs of his time, and he 
 perhaps better deserved than most of his contem- 
 poraries to have a pedigree devised for him which 
 made him a patrician of Rome in an older sense 
 than that in which that title was borne by Aetius |. 
 Perhaps only immediate personal danger could 
 justify one of such descent and for whom such 
 
 * See the extract from Idatius in note, p. 276. 
 + Prosper, 436 ; " Gothi pacis placita perturbant." 
 % That is, if we accept Mr. Hodgkin's explanation of the lines 
 in the Panegyric on Avitus, 155-7. 
 
VII.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 285 
 
 prospects were in store in crushing the skull of the 
 nurse of Home with the biggest stone that his boyish 
 arms could wield *. The wild boar, which he smote 
 like another Alcides, the birds of the air, which, 
 like later princes, he loved to subdue by the help 
 of their trained fellows, would in Roman eyes be 
 a more becoming prey f. His studies of Cicero 
 enabled him, while yet a youth, to win the ear of 
 Constantius, not yet Augustus, but already com- 
 manding in Gaul, and to obtain a remission of taxes 
 for his native Auvergne, then suffering from the 
 cruelties of Agrsetius after the fall of Jovius and 
 Sebastian \. 
 
 * Sidonius tells the story in the Panegyric, 177. 
 
 t His bodily exercises are recorded in 173. The wild hoar 
 comes in 183-94. The lines on hawking (202) are curious; 
 they have such a mediaeval sound ; yet hawking was not a new 
 thiag; 
 
 " Quid volucrum studium det quas natura rapaces 
 In vulgus prope cognatum % Quis doctior isto 
 Instituit varias per nubila jungere lites % 
 Alite vincit aves, celerique per sethera plausu 
 Hoc nulli melius pugnator militat unguis." 
 
 \ His studies, specially of Cicero, come in 183-94 ; the mission 
 
 to Constantius in 207 ; 
 
 " Nee minus hsec inter, civilia jura secutus, 
 Eligitur primus, juvenis, solus, mala fractse 
 Alliget ut patriae, poscatque informe recidi 
 Vectigal ; procerum turn forte potentior illic. 
 Post etiam princeps, Constantius omnia praestat, 
 Indole defixus tanta, et miratur in annis 
 Parvis grande bonum, vel in ore precantis ephebi 
 Verba senis." 
 
 Sirmond in his note well points out that the reference must be 
 
288 Western Europe tn the Fifth Century. [Vii. 
 
 He was now able to win equal favour in the 
 eyes of the Gothic king. Of one of the hostages 
 given to Theodoric we know the name ; it was 
 the Greek name so easily confounded with his own ; 
 its bearer was Theodorus, a kinsman of Avitus, 
 and therefore doubtless a man of Auvergne *. It 
 might even be inferred from some of the expressions 
 of the poet that the land of Auvergne had been at 
 some stage of the strife the scene of warfare, and 
 had suffered severely from Gothic invasion. In 
 any case, whether simply to visit Theodore in 
 his captivity or to take steps for his release, Avitus 
 came to seek him, doubtless in Gothic Toulouse. 
 There, in the city from which all signs of Roman 
 and Gothic rule have been swept away, must have 
 been the hall of hina whom Sidonius speaks of as 
 the king clothed with skins t. His daring in the 
 cause of friendship and kindred gained him the King's 
 good opinion and good will. Theodoric tried to win 
 Avitus to his own service ; and he wondered and 
 approved of the constancy of the new Fabricius 
 
 to the doings in Auvergne recorded by Eenatus ; cp. Greg. Tur. 
 ii. 9 (p. 76). 
 
 * Sidonius, 215 ; 
 
 "Variis incussa procellis 
 Bellorum regi Getico tua Gallia pacis 
 Pignora jussa dare est; inter quas nobilis obses, 
 Tu, Theodore, venis." 
 + lb. 218 ; 
 
 . . . . " Quern pro pietate propinqui 
 Expetis in media pelliti principis aula 
 Tutus, Avite, fide." 
 
VTi.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 287 
 
 who, keenly as he felt the duty of a friend, held 
 the duty of a Roman yet dearer *. 
 
 * Sidonius, 220 ; 
 
 . . . . " Probat Mc jam Theudoris altum 
 Exemplum officii ; res mira et digna relatu, 
 Quod fueris blandus regi placuisse feroci. 
 Hinc te paulatim prselibat sensibus imis, 
 Atque animis : vult esse suum ; sed spernis amicum, 
 Plus quam Eomanum gerere. Stupet ille repulsam, 
 Et plus inde places. Eigidum sic, Pyrrbe, videbas 
 Fabricium," &c. 
 
VIII. 
 
 [CHLODOWIG THE FRANK.] 
 
 It was a heathen conqueror who had swept away 
 the last traces of independent Eoman dominion in 
 Gaul. The unbaptized Chlodowig had displaced the 
 Christian Syagrius as the master of Eoman Spissons 
 and Paris. But the Frank stood in a special relation 
 both to Rome and to Christianity. He w^as not the 
 avowed enemy of either. We can never get clear of 
 the dim likelihood that it was as a Roman officer 
 warring with a tyrant that he overthrew the Roman 
 king. We have the certainty that at a later time he 
 was the friend of the Emperor, honoured at his hands 
 with the highest of Roman honours. The conquest 
 of the land which had been the last Gaulish Romania, 
 the land which was to be the special Gaulish Francia, 
 had been a simple conquest and no more. It had 
 not been marked by havoc and desolation, by the 
 ruin of cities, or by the driving out of the inhabitants 
 of the land. Men and things took their chance 
 in the course of actual warfare, things sacred and 
 profane took their chance together. But the very 
 story which sets before us Frankish warriors as 
 plunderers of a church and dividers of its spoils also 
 
Chlodowig the Frank. 289 
 
 sets before us the Frankish king as one whom a 
 Christian bishop would freely approach, to whom 
 he could make his prayer as a friend, and find it 
 listened to in a friendly spirit. Chlodowig, like 
 Childeric before him, may or may not have known 
 anything of the special doctrines of Christianity; but 
 they at least knew it and recognized it as the religion 
 of Eome, as the creed and worship of Eoman neigh- 
 bours and allies, in the new state of things, of Eoman 
 subjects. ' To Chlodowig the Christian religion was 
 part of the general Eoman life, along with the laws, 
 customs, and language which went to make up that 
 Eoman life. With no part of that Eoman life was 
 he called on to interfere. The Frank went on living 
 according to his law, and the Eoman was left to live 
 according to his. We have no such picture of nor- 
 thern Gaul under the heathen Chlodowig as we have 
 of Italy under the Arian Theodoric ; but allowing for 
 broad differences in the circumstances of the men and 
 of the lands, the general relations of the Eoman and 
 the Teuton must have been the same in each case. 
 There was to be sure this special difference, that the 
 presence and the rule of the heretic awakened 
 a deeper grudge than the presence and rule of the 
 heathen. It is the undying difference between the 
 domestic traitor and the foreign enemy. The wor- 
 shipper of Jupiter or Woden stood wholly outside 
 the Church ; he had never rebelled against her. The 
 Goth, cleaving to the teaching of his first apostle, 
 strong in that national creed which he looked on as 
 the Catholic faith*, had in truth rebelled just as 
 * See the decree of the Arian Council of Toledo in 581 (J oh. 
 
 U 
 
290 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [viii. 
 
 little. But the orthodox Roman was not likely to 
 make such a distinction ; to him the Arian Goth 
 would seem one who had wilfully gone astray from 
 the true fold; the heathen Frank was simply one 
 who, more perhaps through his misfortune than his 
 fault, had never entered it. The Catholics through- 
 out Gaul looked on the still heathen Chlodowig as 
 at least not their enemy, as, if not their friend, at 
 least their impartial protector. He could not fail 
 to become before long the enemy of the heretic, and 
 in that character they were ready to welcome him. 
 We are distinctly told that the Eoman subjects of 
 the Goth sought for the Frank as their ruler, even 
 while he still worshipped the gods of his fathers ■^^ 
 But how much greater the gain if he who stood out- 
 side the fold could be prevailed on to come within it. 
 The conversion of the outside stranger was far more 
 hopeful than the conversion of the domestic rebel. 
 And a Catholic sovereign somewhere was sorely 
 needed, when every Teutonic king was either heathen 
 or heretic and when the Emperor himself was deemed 
 to have strayed from the narrow path of orthodoxy. 
 To win the Frankish king to Christianity, and that in 
 its orthodox form, was the dearest wish of all Roman 
 Gaul, and doubtless of every Catholic everywhere 
 
 Bielar. ap. Roncalli, ii. 390); " dicens de Romana religione ad 
 nostram Catholicamfidem venientes non debere baptizari." 
 
 * So at least seems implied in Gregory, ii. 23; "cum jam terror 
 Francorum resonaret in his partibus et omnes eos amore deside- 
 rabili cuperent regnare, sanctus Aprunculus, Lingonicse civitatis 
 episcopus, apud Burgundiones coepit haberi suspectus." Cf. Sid. 
 Ap. ep. ix. 10. This is in the time of Childeric. 
 
VIII.] Chlodowig the Frank. 291 
 
 whose thoughts were ever drawn to the state of 
 things in the Gaulish lands. 
 
 At no time do we more bitterly lament our lack of 
 a contemporary historian than when we come to the 
 memorable change by which the Frankish king, from 
 an impartial protector from outside, became the eldest 
 son of the Church, the one orthodox sovereign in 
 Christendom, the armed missionary of the faith which 
 he accepted against the heretical powers of Gaul. 
 We have the narrative in Gregory of Tours, but it is 
 not as yet Gregory telling of the deeds of his own 
 day in which he himself took no small part, but 
 Gregory putting together the songs and traditions in 
 which events were preserved eighty years after they 
 happened. As to the great historical event, the pro- 
 fession of Christianity by Chlodowig, there is no kind 
 of doubt ; if proof were needed beyond the universal 
 consent of all later Frankish history, the letter in 
 which Bishop Avitus of Yienne congratulates the new 
 proselyte is of itself proof enough. Nor is there any 
 reason to doubt the general outline of the common 
 story in which the conversion of Chlodowig is con- 
 nected with the influence of his Christian wife 
 Chrotechild and with a victorious battle against the 
 Alamans. It would be perfectly safe to say that 
 Chlodowig, believing that he had found by experience 
 that the God of his wife was stronger than the gods 
 of his fathers and of his enemies, deemed it prudent 
 to put himself on the side of the Power whom he 
 deemed to have given him victory in the battle. So 
 much as this mere verbal tradition alone might be 
 trusted to hand down. All is natural ; all is pro- 
 
 u 2 
 
292 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [viir. 
 
 bable ; there is nothing to contradict the main story ; 
 there is nothing to suggest doubt about it. Some 
 details may be legendary ; some are clearly mistakes ; 
 but when we put the story to the severest critical 
 test, the result is not so much to shake our faith in 
 the story itself, as to make ns cast aside some of the 
 less important inferences which have been made from 
 it in modern times. How near Gregory's story comes 
 to the truth we can best see when we compare it with 
 the wild fictions of later writers. Still we could 
 wish that we had the tale in full, told as Kemigius 
 could have told it ; that is if Remigius had the 
 same gift for telling the tale of Chlodowig which 
 Gregory had for telling the tale of Chilperic and 
 Guntchramn. 
 
 The marriage of Chlodowig to a Christian wife and 
 his conversion to her faith are two chapters in a tale 
 which has a distinct unity. It is the first of a series 
 which stretches over nine hundred years, as long in 
 short as any European nation remained heathen. 
 The Christian and the heathen are unequally yoked 
 together; but the unbelieving husband is won to 
 the faith, and the believing wife is credited with 
 a greater or less share in the good work. The part 
 which Chrotechild plays in the conversion of the 
 Frank is played again by her great-granddaughter in 
 Kent and by the Kentish queen's daughter in Nor- 
 thumberland ; long after comes Dombrowka in Poland, 
 and the line is ended when the Lithuanian Jagello, in 
 his new shape as Christian Wladislaf, wins alike the 
 Polish queen and the Polish crown. That such 
 
viiL] Chlodowig the Frank. 293 
 
 a means of conversion could be brought to bear, in 
 other words that the daughter of a Christian prince 
 could, without any violent shock, without any 
 marked feeling of utter incongruity, become the 
 wife of a heathen prince, marks a state of things 
 which has passed away. It passed away when the 
 last European prince and people embraced Christen- 
 dom ; in other words, Jagello was not only the last 
 of the line, but there could not be another. The 
 marriage of a heathen king with a Christian king's 
 daughter could happen only when there was no very 
 broad distinction between the manners, the culture, 
 and the general position of Christian and heathen 
 nations. In our age the idolater differs from the 
 Christian, not only in religion and speech, but in 
 every point of moral and physical difference which 
 can keep men apart from each other. Black, red, or 
 yellow, he is either a mere savage, or else, as in 
 China, he is the representative of a culture which 
 boasts itself to be older and deems itself to be higher 
 than that of Europe, which at any rate keeps itself 
 utterly distinct from that of Europe. The Mussulman, 
 nearer in everything than the idolater, is parted at 
 least as thoroughly by his very nearness. Christendom 
 and Islam are more distinctly enemies, because more 
 distinctly rivals, than has ever been the case between 
 any other two religious systems. But in the ages 
 of which we speak the Christian and the heathen 
 were parted from one another by little besides their 
 differences in religion and some immediate conse- 
 quences of that difference. Christian and heathen 
 belonged to one great family of nations ; they 
 
294 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [viii. 
 
 were ofteD near akin in blood and speech ; their 
 feelings, habits, traditions, were in many things the 
 same ; the Christian Teuton, above all, had over the 
 heathen Teuton no advantage save that of his 
 Christianity itself and of that deeper picture of 
 Roman culture which his Christianity implied. There 
 was nothing shocking, nothing repulsive, about the 
 heathen beyond the fact of his heathendom ; he was 
 not an utter stranger, but an erring brother, a brother 
 too whose error was the pardonable one of cleaving 
 to those once common traditions which the Christian 
 had cast aside. The same causes which, a few cen- 
 turies later, made the missionary work of Christian 
 Teutons among their heathen kinsfolk so immeasure- 
 ably easier than the work of modern European 
 missionaries has ever been among nations wholly 
 strangers to Europe, made this particular form of 
 conversion specially easy. When Chlodowig, already 
 lord of a Roman land, sought for a bride in a Christian 
 and princely house, there could have been nothing 
 about him except his heathendom that could shock 
 either her or her kinsfolk. The mere thought of 
 such an alliance on his part showed, if not that he 
 was inclined to accept the faith of his bride, at any 
 rate that he had no hostile feelings towards it. 
 As long therefore as any part of Europe clave to 
 heathendom, this kind of marriage, with the religious 
 and political consequences which were apt to follow 
 from it, happened ever and anon. The process im- 
 pressed men's minds ; a Christian wife must con- 
 vert her heathen husband. Where history failed 
 legend could supply its place ; Sira must have con- 
 
VIII.] Chlodowig the Frank. 295 
 
 verted Chosroes, and a tale of the conversion of 
 Chosroes grew up *. And we see a kind of shadow 
 of the type of conversion which began with Chrote- 
 child in the cases where the husband has to be won 
 over, not from the worship of false gods, but from 
 some form of Christianity which is deemed imperfect. 
 Thus among the Lombards the Cathohc Theodelind 
 is held to have won over the Arian Agilulf ; thus 
 English Margaret — so at least the English chronicler 
 thought — was needed to bring the household and 
 kingdom of Scottish Malcolm to a fuller understanding 
 of the right way f. But among all such tales, the 
 tale with which we are now concerned, the tale of 
 the wooing and wedding of Frankish Chlodowig and 
 Burgundian Chrotechild, stands out as the first and 
 the most famous. 
 
 It is perhaps dull work, after tracing out the 
 eifect of the marriage, the victory, and the conversion 
 of Chlodowig on the general history of Gaul and the 
 world, to turn to examine the exact geographical and 
 political relations between the Franks and their 
 Alamannian neighbours. They have been the subject 
 of a good deal of research and discussion at the 
 hands of modern scholars. That so it should be is 
 not wonderful when we have the whole story in 
 a fragmentary, and partly a legendary form. The 
 
 * The story is told by Fredegar, Chron. 9, under the year 588, 
 and by Paul the Deacon, Hist. Lang. iv. 52, with a much more 
 confused chronology. John of Bielar (Roncalli, ii. 398) mentions 
 the supposed conversion of Chosroes under the year 590. The 
 groundwork of the whole legend will be found in Evagrius, vi. 21. 
 
 t See the English Chronicle, D. 1067, and Norman Conquest, iv, 
 p. 510. 
 
296 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [viii. 
 
 great tale which became the national epic of the 
 Christian Franks looks at the war with the Alamans 
 simply as the occasion of the conversion of the 
 Frankish king. Its causes and details, the exact 
 date and the exact place of the struggle, were 
 matters of no importance. They might have formed 
 the subject of a poem of their own ; as it was, they 
 were lost in the greater tale of the conversion. In 
 attempting to put together a narrative of the 
 Alamannian war we must take the story as handed 
 down to us, a story trustworthy in the main, and 
 enlarge and illustrate it from our other sources. The 
 main point in which the story as usually told might 
 lead us astray would be if we were led to think that 
 the victory of Chlodowig v/hich led to his conversion 
 was at once followed by the complete submission of 
 the whole nation of the Alamans to the Frankish 
 power. On the other hand there can be little doubt 
 that there were several wars between Franks and 
 Alamans on the part both of Chlodowig and of 
 other Frankish princes, and that two distinct cam- 
 paigns and victories of Chlodowig have been rolled 
 together in one. The battle in which Chlodowig 
 first called on the God of his wife was formerly 
 placed at Zulpich on the Lower Bhine, on the strength 
 of a notice by which it appears that the Kipuarian 
 King Sigeberht received a wound in a battle with 
 the Alamans at that place *. But it is now gener- 
 ally allowed that these two battles are quite distinct. 
 
 * The whole story of the wars of the Franks and Alamans is 
 discussed by Hans von Schubert, Die TJnterwerfung der Alamannen 
 
VIII.] Chlodowig the Frank. -297 
 
 We can only guess whether they were parts of 
 a joint campaign on the part of the two Frankish 
 kings, for the warfare of Sigeberht is recorded 
 incidentally, without date or circumstance. But the 
 place of battle, so far to the north, certainly looks 
 like an invasion of the Ripuarian territory on the 
 part of the Alamans. The site of Chlodowig's battle, 
 on the other hand, without being exactly fixed, can 
 be placed with reasonable confidence in a land far 
 to the south. From another legend, which brings 
 in Saint Vedast, afterwards Bishop of Arras, as an 
 agent in the conversion of the Frank, it appears 
 that the battle was fought near the E-hine at some 
 point from which the Frankish army could be said 
 to go back to Toul on their way to Bheims. This 
 is wholly impossible for Ziilpich, and points to Chlo- 
 dowig's battle as fought at some point between Toul 
 and the Rhine, that is pretty certainly, in the 
 Alamannian land of Elsass. The march of Chlodowig 
 was made to the Bhine with the purpose of crossing 
 it into the main Alamannian land beyond ; but he 
 was met by the Alamannian army. The victory is 
 
 unter den Franken, Strassburg, 1884. His views are accepted by 
 Hodgkin, Italy and ber Invaders, vol. ii. 
 
 Otber views are maintained by Jungbaus, Die Gescbicbte der 
 frankiscben Konige Cbildericb und Cblodovicb, Gottingen, 1857 
 (translated, witb some fresb notes, by G. Monod, Bibliotbeque de 
 I'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, 37ine Fascicule, Paris, 1879). Tbia first 
 point seems perfectly clear. Tbere is notbing in Gregory, ii. 30, 
 to fix Cblodowig's battle to any particular place, nor any reason 
 to infer tbat tbat was tbe battle referred to in tbe incidental 
 reference in ii. 37 (" Sigebertus pugnans contra Alamannos per- 
 cussus in geniculo claudicabat"). 
 
298 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [viii, 
 
 won for the Frank by his prayer to the God of Chrote- 
 child ; the Alamannian king and his people submit 
 — the death of the king, usually placed at this stage, 
 comes later — he marches back to Toul, and thence to 
 E,heims, accompanied, according to this account, by 
 Yedast, who confirms his faith on the road, at Vou- 
 ziers on the Aisne, by the miracle of restoring 
 a blind man to sight *. The miraculous story must 
 share the fate, whatever that fate is ruled to be, of 
 other miraculous stories ; but the geography of the 
 story is probable and uncontradicted. The Alaman- 
 nian territory stretched on both sides of the Rhine ; 
 Chlodowig designed to carry the war into the lands 
 beyond the river, but was met by the enemy on the 
 western side. That this first war did not lead to 
 a complete conquest is paralleled by both the Roman 
 and the Burgundian campaigns of Chlodowig. Sub- 
 mission, with some cession of territory, was the 
 
 * The Life of Saint Vedast is printed in full by Schubert. In 
 cc. 2, 3 we read how Chlodowig goes against the Alamans; "Quo cum 
 venisset hac utroque acies, et nisi obviam hostem habuisset B,eni 
 alveum trassire vellet, cumque ergo utrumque hostium chunei 
 adstarent/' &c. Then follows the battle, the vow, the victory. Then 
 " Chlodoves victor deinde Alamannos cum rege in dicionem coepit 
 ovansque ad patriam festinus rediens ad Tullum oppidum venit." 
 There he finds Vedast, " quern mox sibi itinere juncxit ; dum pariter 
 pergerent, quadam die venerunt in pago Vongise ad locum qui 
 dicitur Grandeponte juxta villam Eiguliac, super fluvium Axono " 
 (on the river Aisne, in the department of Ardennes), where the 
 miracle happens; thence they go to Hheims, and the baptism follows. 
 The geography is qmte consistent. 
 
 The writer of this Life, according to Schubert, was a contem- 
 porary of Gregory, writing about 580. His forms of proper names 
 have a philological value. 
 
VIII.] Chlodowig the Frank. 299 
 
 natural result of a first success. The northern Ala- 
 mannian land on the Main and ISTeckar seems now to 
 have passed under Frankish rule, while the whole 
 Alamannian nation accepted Frankish supremacy *. 
 
 The second. Alamannian war of Chlodowig is no- 
 where recorded ; but its historical character is abun- 
 dantly proved by several passages in the despatches 
 of Cassiodorus which refer to a war between Franks 
 and Alamans, and to a settlement of Alamans under 
 East-Gothic protection which chronology forbids us 
 to refer to the war which led to Chlodowig's con- 
 version f. A letter addressed to the Frankish king 
 
 * This seems the general result ; but the exact boundaries are 
 not of great importance for our subject. 
 
 t The real point on which the whole question turns is a very subtle 
 point of chronology. Cassiodorus could not have written any letter 
 in the name of Theodoric while the war of 496 was still fresh. He 
 was not in a position to write any such letter till after his father's 
 appointment as praetorian prsefect in 500. (See Hodgkin, 
 Letters of Cassiodorus, 12.) He then became Consiliarius to his 
 father, and qusestor. This seems plain from the Anecdota Holderi, 
 p. 4 ; " Juvenis adeo, dum patris Cassiodori patricii et prsefecti 
 praetorii consiliarius fieret et laudes Theodorichi regis Gothorum 
 facundissime recitasset ab eo qusestor est factus." Now it seems 
 clear from the Anonymus Valesii that the elder Cassiodorus, though 
 his name is not mentioned, was appointed prsefect during 
 Theodoric's six months' stay at Eome ; " Ldberium prsefectum 
 prsetorii quern fecerat in initio regni sui fecit patricium, et dedit 
 ei successorem in administrationem prsefecturae." But the visit of 
 Theodoric to Rome was, according to Cassiodorus' own Chronicle, 
 in the consulship of Patricius and Hypatius ; that is in the year 
 500 A.D. The letters written by Cassiodorus the younger in the 
 king's name could therefore hardly begin till the year 501 or 502. 
 It follows therefore that the letter in the Varise, ii. 41, cannot 
 refer to the war of 496, as it refers to a war which was hardly 
 
300 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [viii. 
 
 in the name of his friend and kinsman Theodoric the 
 East-Goth. The language of the letter, if it is not 
 to be taken as mere words of courtesy from one 
 prince to another, would most naturally imply that 
 the war had been provoked by a breach of faith on 
 the part of the Alamans, which is most easily under- 
 stood of a breach of the treaty by which the former 
 war was ended *. Theodoric congratulates his 
 brother-in-law on his victory, a victory which had 
 carried with it the death of the Alamannian king and 
 the slaughter and bondage of a large part of his 
 people. For the rest he prays for mercy; he pleads 
 the example of his own victories, and specially calls 
 on Chlodowig to abstain from any hostile act to those 
 of the vanquished who have sought shelter in his 
 own dominions f. Other documents show that these 
 
 over j that is to say, there must have been a second war between 
 Franks and Alamans in 501 or 502. 
 
 After long weighing of the arguments of Junghaus and Schubert, 
 I had a good deal of difficulty in accepting a second and un- 
 recorded war ; but it seems impossible to escape this series of 
 chronological reasoning. 
 
 * Cass. Var. ii. 41 ; " Gloriosa quidem vestrse virtutis affinitate 
 gratulamur, quod gentem Francorum prisca cetate residem, feliciter 
 in nova prselia concitastis, et Alamannicos populos, caesis fortio- 
 ribus inclinatos, victrici dextra subdidistis. Sed quoniam semper 
 in auctoribus perfidiee resecabilis videtur excessus, nee prima- 
 riorum plectibilis culpa omnium debet esse vindicta, motus ve- 
 stros in confessas reliquias temperate." These words, which could 
 only have been written immediately after the victory, may not 
 necessarily imply a breach of a treaty by the Alamans, but it looks 
 most like it. The words in italics are equally wonderful in 496 
 and in 501. 
 
 t lb. ; " Jure gratise merentur evadere quos ad parentum 
 
Till.] Chlodowig 'the Frank. 301 
 
 were not a mere handful of fugitives, but a consider- 
 able part of the Alamannian nation which was now 
 admitted to new settlements within the former 
 Boman territory under the protection of the East- 
 Gothic king, on whom the rights and duties of Boman 
 sovereignty had fallen. In that character the Danube 
 was his northern frontier, the frontier of Italy in its 
 widest sense as a prsefecture *. In the lands, it 
 would seem, between the Alps and the Danube, in 
 parts of Hhsetia, Noricum, and the eastern lands of 
 Helvetia, the Alamans found new seats as subjects 
 and soldiers of the Gothic king f. So matters seem 
 to have rested during the remainder of the days of 
 the two great conquerors. In this, as in all other 
 
 vestrorum defensionem respicitis confugisse. Estote illis remissi, 
 qui nostris finibus coelantur exterriti." Parentes here takes in 
 a brother-in-law. 
 
 * Ennodius, Paneg. 15 (p. 212, ed. Vogel); "A te Alamannise 
 generalitas intra Italise terminos sine detrimento Romanse pos- 
 sessionis inclusa est, cui evenit habere regem postquam meruit 
 perdidisse. Facta est Latiaris custos imperii semper nostrorum 
 populatione grassata, cui feliciter cessit fugisse patriam suam ; 
 nam sic adepta est soli nostri opulentiam. Adquisistis quae noverit 
 ligonibus tellus adquiescere, quamvis nos contigerit damna nescire." 
 There has been much speculation as to the exact force of " gene- 
 ralitas " and other words in this passage. Without entering into 
 details, it clearly implies a considerable body of settlers planted, 
 one would think, both to till and to do garrison duty on a wasted 
 frontier. The most instructive thing after all is the way in which 
 the rule of Theodoric is assumed to be a Roman rule, and the 
 whole extent of his dominions to be Italy. The prcefectura of 
 Italy, we must not forget, reached to the Danube. 
 
 t For the exact geographical discussion I must refer generally 
 to Junghaus, Schubert, and others, whom it more immediately 
 concerns. 
 
302 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [viii. 
 
 cases, it was the policy of Theodoric, at once first of 
 Teutonic kings and representative of Boman power 
 in the West, to hinder either the excessive aggran- 
 dizement or the utter destruction of any one of the 
 kingdoms and nations among which he bore himself 
 as chief. It was his first call to interfere or to 
 mediate among the powers of Gaul. The overthrow 
 of Syagrius had happened before the march of 
 Theodoric into Italy. Had it been otherwise, we 
 might possibly have some clue that we have not now 
 to the positions of both Frank and Roman in the 
 warfare which wiped out the last traces of Homan 
 power in northern Gaul. The first Alamannian war 
 was fought in lands which had long passed away from 
 the Empire which he claimed to represent, and it did 
 not carry with it the destruction of the weaker side. 
 There was therefore no obvious claim for the inter- 
 ference of the master of Italy. It was otherwise 
 with the second war. The Frank was now clearly 
 seeking the destruction or utter subjugation of the 
 Alamannian people. That in no way fell in with 
 Theodoric's policy, even if the defeated people had 
 not sought shelter within Theodoric's dominions. 
 When they did so, honour and interest alike bade 
 Mm to defend them against their enemy, and to 
 secure his northern frontier by a garrison of willing 
 defenders who would be bound to him by every tie 
 of gratitude. He says in short to Chlodowig, as he 
 did afterwards more emphatically in the case of the 
 West-Goths ; " Thus far shalt thou come and no 
 further." No prince in history ever held a position 
 of greater dignity, or used it with greater moderation, 
 
Yiii.] Chlodowig the Frank. 303 
 
 than Theodoric held his unique place as the common 
 head and protector of Bomans and Teutons alike 
 through all the lands of the West. The modern 
 phrase of " balance of power " is hardly worthy of 
 the calm loftiness with which he watched over the 
 interests, not only of his own immediate subjects, but 
 of all the nations which looked up to him as the 
 first among them. This lofty supremacy of influ- 
 ence Theodoric could exercise as none could before 
 or after him. The E,oman Augustus stood apart 
 from the barbarians, almost like a being of another 
 nature ; he might be sometimes above them, some- 
 times below; he might seem, in the words of 
 Athanaric, like a god upon earth, or he might be, 
 like Attains, a mere puppet in their hands, to be set 
 up and put down at pleasure. But Theodoric was 
 one of themselves, the worthiest of their own stock, 
 the elder brother of the great family, while at the 
 same time. Emperor in all but name, he joined to his 
 Gothic kingship, his Teutonic princedom, the whole 
 power and influence and lofty traditions of Borne. 
 The position of Theodoric is nowhere better shown 
 than in his dealings with Chlodowig; when he 
 speaks and acts, even the mighty Frank has at least 
 to pause. The mere warrior and conqueror halts at 
 the bidding of one who, warrior and conqueror no 
 less than himself, is also the ruler, the lawgiver, 
 the judge between contending men and nations. The 
 contrast between the two men is wonderful ; the 
 contrast between their works is yet more so. Some 
 instruments seem too noble for the work of this 
 world. The position, the work, of Theodoric was 
 
304 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 personal; it died with him. Because he had done 
 for a generation what no other man could do, his 
 work was to pass away with his generation. Chlodo- 
 wig, a conqueror of a meaner type, was to affect all 
 later generations, to do a work which still abides and 
 which shows no sign of perishing. If his creation 
 has been spUt asunder, it lives none the less in each 
 of two foreign and often hostile halves. Theodoric 
 liyes in the books of Cassiodorus, in the memory of 
 the happy breathing-space that he gave to his Italian 
 realms. Chlodowig lives in all that has come after 
 him, for good and for evil, in the long histories of 
 Germany and France *. 
 
 [Here this series of lectures ends, no more being written.] 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 AETIUS AND BONIFACE. 
 
 The ''groans of the Britons" are a familiar flourish of 
 rhetoric, heard of doubtless by many who have never thought 
 of the writing in which the words are found as one of those 
 few precious rays of light which feebly pierce the darkness 
 which covers the fall of Britain and the rise of England. 
 I can remember looking on them in childish days in another 
 light. It may be that I then looked on the groans of the 
 Britons as the groans of men in whom I had a direct interest, 
 as the groans of our forefathers, and not of them whom our 
 forefathers supplanted. But I well remember being puzzled at 
 the description of the person to whom those groans were sent. 
 "Aetius thrice consul" in the middle of the fifth century 
 seemed a strange and contradictory being. We were then 
 taught that the Eoman commonwealth came to an end in the 
 year 30 before Christ, as we were taught that the Eoman 
 empire came to an end in the year 476 after Christ. In those 
 days a Roman consul — other perhaps than the horse of Gains 
 Caesar — after the one mystic year seemed as impossible as 
 a Eoman emperor after the other mystic year. What would 
 one have thought in those days if one had lighted on some 
 of those passages in the Spanish annals of the sixth century 
 which tell how the son of a West-Gothic king rebelled against 
 his father and went over to the republic * ? Even at a far later 
 
 * See John of Biclar in Roncalli, ii. 391, recording the revolt of 
 Eormengild ; " Leonegildus rex, filio Hermenegildo ad rempublicam com- 
 migrante." That means that he withdrew to the imperial province in 
 
 X 
 
306 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 stage of study, it is not without a certain peculiar feeling, 
 
 a slight survival of the days of ignorance, that we find respublica, 
 
 sometimes respublica Romana, sometimes respublica as a word 
 
 which needs no qualifying adjective, used to describe the 
 
 recovered Western dominion of Justinian and his successors. 
 
 And, if in the sixth century, how much more in the fifth ! 
 
 If Eormengild could find a Eoman republic to flee to in Spain, 
 
 much more might Aetius a hundred years earlier, when no 
 
 barbarian king had as yet ruled in Eome or in Eavenna, stand 
 
 forth on the soil of Gaul and Italy as consul of that republic for 
 
 the third time. And in after times another thought might be 
 
 suggested by the superscription of the famous groans. We 
 
 have learned how much and how little the abiding use of the 
 
 phrase respublica really means, how far apart that use is from 
 
 the very modern controversial use both of the Latin word and 
 
 of its English equivalent, the once familiar and honoured name 
 
 of " commonwealth." We have learned how nearly nominal 
 
 and formal the function of the Eoman consuls and the Eoman 
 
 senate had become in ordinary times when the Eoman world 
 
 was awakened by the Wandering of the Nations. And we 
 
 have learned too how the very events of the Wandering of the 
 
 Nations now and then put a new life into the old names and 
 
 the old forms. In its greatest strait the Eoman senate could 
 
 again put forth powers which were only sleeping, and could 
 
 treat with Alaric as it had treated of old with Pyrrhos. So 
 
 now and then a Eoman consul too could stand forth as one 
 
 worthy to bear the title under which a Curius and a Scipio had 
 
 beaten back the enemies of Eome. In one age the consul 
 
 Stilicho saved Italy from the hosts of Eadagaisus ; in another 
 
 age the consul Belisarius won back SicUy to the allegiance of 
 
 Augustus. And so in the days between them, it was with 
 
 a true feeling of the facts of the time, with a sound knowledge 
 
 tlie south of Spain. The phrase is common enough, and goes on into the 
 time of Fredegar and his continuators. It is perhaps strangest of all 
 when Pippin makes Aistulf promise ''ut ulterius ad sedem apostolicam 
 Eomanam et rempublicam nunquam accederet." Only by this time it is 
 just possible that the faintest change of meaning may have been coming 
 over the word. 
 
Appendix /.' 307 
 
 of who it was who could really act to destroy or to deliver, that 
 the groans of the Britons went up, in the year 446 after Christ, 
 not to the august lords of all, to Theodosius and Yalentinian, 
 but to the true king of men whom they rightly saw in Aetius, 
 son of Gaudentius, in that year for the third time consul of the 
 commonwealth of Eome. 
 
 The groans of the Britons are likely to be a very early 
 impression, and the tale that records them does not record any 
 act of Aetius, but rather tells us the reasons why in the affairs 
 of Britain he could not act. Truly it was not even for the man 
 who then held his third consulship, and who lived to be 
 murdered by an ungrateful sovereign in his fourth, to roll back 
 the course of destiny and to decree that Britain should not 
 change into England. He had worthier work to do. He had 
 to be the foremost man on one of the foremost days in the 
 history of the world. No man stands forth with a higher 
 name than his in the most terrible of all the stages of the 
 Eternal Question. Few days indeed in its long story can rise 
 to the greatness of the tremendous issue of the day of the 
 Catalaunian fields. Aetius thrice consul held the torch which 
 had been passed on to him through many earlier hands from 
 Gelon and Themistokles, and which he was to pass on through 
 many later hands to KanarSs and to Skobeleff. The Britons 
 groaned in vain when the consul of Eome already saw the 
 approach of AttUa looming in the distance *. The Scot might 
 overleap the barrier of Hadrian and Theodosius ; the Saxon 
 might harry British and Gaulish coasts from his light keels ; 
 Eoman, Goth, Frank, Burgundian, with the Saxon too and the 
 Briton as lesser actors, might dispute the possession of every 
 inch of Gaulish soil ; all was but as the strife of kites and 
 crows compared with the battle of gods and giants that was 
 coming. Or let us rather look on all disputes within the 
 European world as a friendly strife, a slight practice in the art 
 of giving and taking blows, in face of the great day when 
 
 * The consulship of Aetius and Symmaehus, the third of Aetius, comes 
 in 446, the year after Attila had succeeded to the sole monarchy of the 
 Huns. 
 
 X 2 
 
308 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 Eoman and Goth and Frank were to march forth side by side 
 to do battle with the Hun. 
 
 Of the man who was foremost in such a work as this we 
 naturally seek to have some nearer knowledge. And we have 
 no lack of materials for drawing a picture of Aetius ; the only 
 drawback is that our materials are somewhat contradictory. 
 He has a career in Gaul and he has a career out of Gaul, and 
 the two, at least as his career out of Gaul is commonly told, 
 may at first sight seem inconsistent. In Gaul he appears as 
 the constant and successful champion of the Eoman power 
 against barbarians of every race. He is the defender of Eoman 
 cities, the winner back of lost Eoman provinces ; he is the 
 conqueror of the rebellious or the invading Frank, the guardian 
 of Eoman lands against the advancing Goth, till the moment 
 when his diplomacy wins over Goth and Frank to give help 
 against the common enemy. If his exploits are recorded in 
 high-flown strains in the laureate song of Sidonius, they stand 
 out no less clearly in the drier entries of the annalists. In 
 Gaul, if we have to match him as a direct rival against any 
 man, it will be against the West -Gothic king Theodoric. 
 Between Theodoric and Aetius the relations are the honourable 
 relations of the leaders of two nations which may be at any 
 time either friends or enemies, and whom the skill of Aetius in 
 ids later days changes from enemies into friends. Out of Gaul 
 Aetius appears rather as the friend of the barbarians than as 
 their enemy ; with the Hun above all he appears as united by 
 the closest ties of friendship ; he brings his savage allies into 
 Eoman lands to support the cause of that claimant of the 
 Eoman throne to whose allegiance he has devoted himself. 
 When that claimant is overthrown, he goes over with all speed 
 to the cause of his successful rival ; the minister and general of 
 John becomes at once the general of Valentinian in Gaul, the 
 minister and adviser of Placidia at Eavenna. In this last 
 character he is painted, no longer as the national rival of the 
 Gothic king, but as the political and personal rival of the other 
 great Eoman of his day. The Eoman world cannot contain 
 Boniface and Aetius at once. Aetius uses every base art of 
 intrigue to secure his own power at the imperial court by 
 
Appendix I. so9 
 
 driving his rival into treason. His plots are found out ; the 
 rivalry between the two leaders goes on, till it is ended by 
 a fight, whether open battle or single combat, the result of 
 which is, in one way or another, the death of Boniface. 
 Aetius can now keep his place only by the help of the Hun ; 
 but by the help of the Hun he does keep or regain it. Of this 
 side of him we hardly hear again till after the great defeat 
 of Attila. Then we get two opposite portraits ; in one he wins 
 fresh laurels in Italy ; in another he counsels the emperor to 
 flee to some other land. In any case he dies, three years after 
 the Catalaunian battle, by the hand of his sovereign, stirred up 
 by his eunuchs to suspicions of the great captain's loyalty. 
 
 Of this non-Gaulish side of the life of Aetius, his conduct at 
 the time of the accession of John at Eavenna, his fight with 
 Boniface, and his own murder by Valentinian, are all facts, the 
 main outlines of which rest on good authority. But the long 
 and subtle intrigues of Aetius against Boniface are unknown 
 to the contemporary writers and appear only in the next 
 century. Aetius and Boniface were not always on the same 
 side in politics ; they were opposed to one another on two 
 great occasions, the disputed succession to the empire on the 
 death of Honorius and the time when they actually met in 
 arms. But there is nothing in the annalists which asserts or 
 implies any personal quarrel between Aetius and Boniface 
 earlier than this last strife. The enemies of Boniface at court, 
 the men who plot against him, are first Castinus and then 
 Felix. And of these, strangely enough, Felix meets with 
 death by the hand, or at least by the bidding, of Aetius. In 
 all this there is at least enough to make us stop and doubt 
 whether the story of elaborate intrigue and rivalry on the part 
 of Aetius against Boniface can be accepted. And the whole 
 story seems worth sifting in detail. In the life and character 
 of a man who plays such a part as that of Aetius the smallest 
 point is worth examining. There is much too in the character 
 and history of Boniface which clothes all that touches him with 
 deep interest. The career of Aetius, as we have seen, has two 
 sides, which may easily be looked at apart. His acts on this 
 side of the Alps, his campaigns against the barbarians generally, 
 
310 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 his great career in Gaul, his slight connexion with Britain, are 
 matters which touch me very deeply as part of the great 
 connected history of Gaul and Britain. But they have little 
 to do with his relations towards Boniface, little to do with his 
 relations towards the imperial court or to the affairs of Italy. 
 Even questions about his personal character are of no great 
 importance from the Gaulish side. In Gaul he is simply a great 
 warrior, the successful defender of the declining empire against 
 all foes. Out of Gaul he is, for good or for evil, something 
 more. I propose therefore, leaving his Gaulish career to be 
 dealt with in another shape, to treat of the general history 
 of the man himself in his other relations, and above all in his 
 relation to his alleged rival Boniface. 
 
 As the two are commonly painted — and the picture has in 
 any case many touches of truth in it — the histories of Aetius 
 and Boniface present a singular contrast *. Boniface, the true 
 Koman, so long the special guardian of Rome against barbarians 
 of every race, comes at last to invite barbarians into the pro- 
 vince which he had so long guarded, while Aetius, half 
 barbarian by birth and training, largely supported throughout 
 his career by barbarian help, ends as the foremost defender of 
 Europe against the Hun, as he had once been the defender 
 of Roman Gaul against the Goth. In other words, the earlier 
 day of the one, the later day of the other, is his brightest time. 
 In this picture the barbarian relations of Aetius, the strictly 
 Roman position of Boniface, undoubtedly come from the life. 
 But whether we are to accept the contrast in its fulness 
 depends on the question whether Boniface ever did forsake his 
 Roman position — whether, in short, he did invite the Vandal 
 into Africa, In any case there is a contrast between the two 
 of another kind. There is a side of Boniface in which Aetius 
 has no share. Boniface is an ecclesiastical as well as a military 
 hero ; he is the friend and correspondent of Augustine. And 
 his relations with the saint bring out many points of the man 
 himself, and set before us the nature of the ecclesiastical influ- 
 ences under which a layman of the highest rank and character 
 
 * This reversed comparison is well brought out by Hodgkin, i. 455. 
 
Appendix 1. 311 
 
 and personal importance could be brought in days when Aries 
 and Carthage were decidedly more Christian than Rome. 
 
 The picture of the special rivalry between the two men, of 
 the special intrigues of Aetius against Boniface, seems to come 
 wholly from Procopius' History of the Vandal War. It is not 
 wonderful that a story told by a writer who in his own age 
 ranks among the great masters of history should have won 
 more acceptance than a story which has to be put together 
 from scattered notices in this and that meagre annalist. Yet 
 we must remember that Aetius and Boniface lived in the fifth 
 century, while Procopius wrote in the sixth. Now it in no 
 way takes away from the position of the narrator of the wars 
 of Belisarius as one of the foremost among men who have 
 written the history of their own day that he is not equally 
 trustworthy in dealing with the history of times before his 
 own. Procopius plainly had an inquiring spirit and a keen 
 imagination. He is never an annalist. In the story of the 
 wars he recorded events, many of which happened under his 
 own eyes; he recorded them from his own personal know- 
 ledge, or from the statements of those who had personal 
 knowledge. But he was also well pleased to set down all that 
 he could learn of earlier times or of distant countries. And 
 about them his sources of knowledge were often less trust- 
 worthy. What he was sometimes made to believe about distant 
 lands we may judge by his famous account of our own land and 
 people. Even in so wild a story as that of Brittia and Bretannia 
 we feel that we are still dealing with a master. The reports 
 that he heard were partly true ; when they were, Procopius 
 could grasp the truth and use it, but, as the reports that he 
 heard were partly false, he sets down much fable along with 
 the truth. So with his accounts of earlier times ; he grasps 
 with all the true historian's power the position and character 
 of Theodoric, and sets it forth in a few memorable words. 
 But he also sets down many stories for which the evidence is 
 very weak ; in stories which are essentially true, he is often 
 misinformed as to details. That is to say, he set down the 
 received tale that he heard, which might be true or false. In 
 other words, he was the soldier and statesman, keen to observe, 
 
312 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 cunning to weigh, the events of his own time ; he had not the 
 scholar's instinct for a minute examination of the records of 
 earlier times. One famous story which has been received 
 chiefly on his authority, the stoiy of Valentinian and Petronius, 
 has been lately examined and set aside by a master of the 
 history of those times *. But the judgement had been pro- 
 noiinced already by the chief master of all f. In declining to 
 accept Procopius' account of Aetius except so far as it is 
 otherwise confirmed, I only follow their examples. But I may 
 add that this story of long- continued rivalry and intrigue is 
 one which would naturally grow out of the enmity which 
 undoubtedly did at last arise between Aetius and Boniface. 
 We have a parallel case in our own history. Because Harold 
 and Tostig were enemies in the last stage of their lives, legend 
 has painted them as enemies from childhood. We cannot so 
 easily show in the case of Aetius and Boniface as we can in 
 the ease of Harold and Tostig, that till the last stage of all 
 there was no enmity between them, but full friendship, nor 
 can we in the same way show how the first enmity arose. 
 The general picture which Procopius gives of the two mighty 
 men, each of whom, if the other had not been, would have 
 been rightly called the last of the Eomans, is natural and 
 indeed truthful J. Under the circumstances the tale of abiding 
 enmity easily grew up, and when it had once grown up, 
 details, as ever, attached themselves. But they are details of 
 the kind which are always most suspicious, tales of secret 
 intrigues and treasons which could not be known to the world 
 at large. The utmost that they can be admitted to prove is 
 
 * Hodgkin, ii. 230. 
 
 f Gibbon, cap. xxxv. vi. 135, ed. Milman ; "Procopius is a fabulous 
 writer for the events which precede his own memory." Yet he adopts 
 Procopius' story. 
 
 X Bell. Vand. i. 3 (p. 322) ; Tovtoj rh di/Spe Sia<p6pa) fuv rd. ttoXitiko. eye- 
 viad-qvj is ToaovTov b\ ixi'yaKoxpvxJ.a^ re Kal rrjs d\\r]s dper^s TjKirrjv Siffre, et 
 Tis avToTv eKarepov dvSpa 'Fcofiaiwv varaTOV eiiroi, ovk dv d/jApTOf ovrco Trp/ 
 'Pupiaicuy dpeTT)v ^vixTraaav Is tovtoj tui dvSpe diTOKtKpiaBai TervxrjKf. This 
 illustrates the different uses of the word 'Pcopaioi by Procopius. Aetius 
 and Boniface are the last of ol irdXai 'Pco/xaioi, a class different from both 
 the local and the oecumenical 'Pwjxaioi of his own time. 
 
Appendix I. 3i3 
 
 a general impression that Aetius was a man capable of a 
 subtle plot. And that we can hardly take upon ourselves to 
 deny. 
 
 My present object is, holding the account of Procopius, as it 
 stands, to be legend of the sixth century and not trustworthy 
 history of the fifth, to try to recover the true story as it raay 
 be put together from the annalists, the writings of Saint 
 Augustine, and other more trustworthy authorities. In this 
 work I have found very little help from earlier writers. The 
 received story seems to be taken for granted by English 
 writers, almost without glancing at the other. Gribbon, well 
 as he knew the slight value of the evidence of Procopius in 
 such a case, not only accepts the story, but hardly notices the 
 evidence of the annalists at all *. It is different with foreign 
 writers. From Kuinartt and Tillemont to ''the last German 
 book," which, as far as I know, is that of Dr. Albert Gulden- 
 penning t, I have nothing to complain of in the way of neglect 
 of the authors on whom I have to ground my story. The 
 excellent Tillemont, as ever in both his works §, never passes 
 by a fact, never misses a reference. The whole materials, or 
 the way to them, are open before us in his pages, but it is not 
 lacking in respect to our venerable guide to say that they are 
 not dealt with in a critical spirit. And I cannot say that 
 modern German writers have greatly advanced on the old 
 French ecclesiastical writers. All that I have seen who take 
 any notice of the matter seem to think, with Tillemont, that 
 they are bound to believe both Procopius and the annalists, 
 and to force the two into some kind of agreement. I have not 
 picked up very much from writers like Dahn || and Wieters- 
 heim ^, who come to the story casually as part of something 
 
 * Cap. xxiii. vol. vi. 8 et seqq., ed. Milman. 
 
 t Historia Persecutionis Vandalicse. Paris, 1694. 
 
 J Geschiehte des ostromischen Eeiches unter den Kaisern Arcadius 
 und Theodosius II. Von Dr. Albert Griildenpenning. Halle, 1885. 
 
 § Both .the Histoire des Empereurs, vol. vi. Paris, 1738, and the 
 M6moires pour servir a I'Histoire Ecclesiastique des six premiers sifecles, 
 vol. xiii. (that devoted to Saint Augustine). Paris, 1710. 
 
 II Konige der Germanen, v. 74. 
 
 ^ Geschiehte der VOlkerwanderung, Band iv. 188, 189. 
 
314 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 much longer. A short monograph by Sievers * has helped me 
 to one or two points and references, and the slight mention of 
 the matter by Giildenpenning reveals to me the existence of 
 a German writer, whose book I have not seen — it is not to be 
 found in the Bodleian — but who, I suspect, may to some 
 extent have forestalled me. His name is Hansen, and he 
 published a discourse on Aetius at Doi-pat in 1846 f. It is 
 always hard to say anything which some German scholar has 
 not said before one ; but if it should turn out that Dr. Hansen 
 and I have, at forty years' interval, come independently to the 
 same results, there will be nothing for either to complain of. 
 
 To compare then our two men, we know much more of the 
 early life of Aetius than we do of that of Boniface, but Boniface 
 is the first to appear as a direct actor in history. In the war 
 with Ataulf in Gaul, the war in which Constantius holds the 
 first place on the Eoman side, Boniface appears as the hero of 
 a single exploit, and as the object of the highest praise from 
 one of our best authorities for the time. If the narrative of 
 Olympiodoros were less fragmentary, we might better know 
 how it came about that, when Ataulf was besieging Massalia 
 in the year 412, it was Boniface, the noble Boniface, who 
 came to its defence, who with his own hand smote the Gothic 
 king well nigh to death, who made him withdraw to his camp 
 and raise the siege, and remained himself to receive the thanks 
 and praise of the rescued city %. This exploit stands by itself ; 
 ten years later we hear of him again in a character which more 
 directly connects itself with our present subject. In 422 an 
 expedition is fitting out in Italy against the Vandals in Spain, 
 of which Castinus, the consul of two years later, is the com- 
 mander. We read in somewhat dark language how Castinus, 
 
 * Studien zur Gesciiichte der romischen Kaiser. Berlin, 1870, p. 454 
 et al. 
 
 •|- Giildenpenning, 280. 
 
 % Olymp. 456. Ataulf besieges Massalia, ivda irXrjyels, 'Bovr](paTiov rod 
 yevvaioTCLTov l3a\6vTos, kcu fioXis tuv davaiov SiacpvywVj els rds oiicdas vnexdopriai 
 ffKTjvaSj rj]v iroXiv kv evOvniq Xnrwf/, Kot Si' luaivoji' koX ev(pr]nias iroiovfj.tviji' 
 Bovr](pa.Tiov. Olympiodoros speaks with special admiration of Boniface. 
 
Appendix I. sis 
 
 by misconduct of some kind, by unreasonable and wrongful 
 orders, hindered Boniface, the man so renowned for warlike 
 skill, from taking a share in the enterprise, how Boniface 
 refused to follow such a leader, one so proud and quarrelsome, 
 how he suddenly sailed from Portus to Africa, and how this 
 dispute between the generals was the beginning of great evils 
 to the commonwealth *. Another annalist tells us of the 
 failure of Castinus in his Spanish campaign ; he says nothing 
 directly of any relations between Castinus and Boniface, but 
 a few significant words follow, the force of which can hardly 
 be given except in the original — "Bonifacius palatium deserens 
 Africam invadit f." This last word is emphatic and notable ; it 
 is then, and long after J, a kind of technical term for unjust or 
 unlawful occupation of anything, from a crown downwards. 
 It seems plain that Boniface did not go on the enterprise on 
 which we must suppose that Valentinian or Placidius had sent 
 him, that he left Eavenna and Italy in anger, and, if the entry 
 stood by itself, we should be tempted to infer that he seized on 
 Africa as tyrant, that he began in short the same part that 
 Constantino played a few years before in Britain, Gaul, and 
 Spain. His conduct directly after shows that this can hardly 
 be ; but the words of both annalists read as if he took posses- 
 sion of the government of Africa when the imperial orders 
 would have sent him elsewhere. We are left to make out 
 from these dark hints whether Boniface was already in com- 
 mand in Africa, and was summoned thence to Eavenna to 
 take part in the imperial counsels and in the Spanish expedi- 
 tion, or whether, according, as we have seen, to the words of 
 
 * Prosper ; " Honorio XIII et Theodosio X Coss. Hoc tempore exer- 
 citus ad Hispanias contra Vandalos missus est, cui Castinus dux fuit, qui 
 Bonifacium yirum bellicis artibus praeclarum, inepto et injurioso imperio 
 ab expeditionis suae societate avertit. Nam ille periculosum sibi atque 
 indignum ratus eum sequi quern discordem superbientemque expertus 
 esset, celeriter se ad portum Urbis, atque inde ad Africam proripuit, idque 
 reipublicae multorum laborum initium fuit." 
 
 f Idatius, xxvii. Honorii, a. d. 421. 
 
 J I need not say that "invadere," "invasio,"are among the commonest 
 Domesday phrases for unlawful occupation of every kind. So "regnum 
 invasit " is the set Norman phrase for the accession of Harold. 
 
316 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 one chronicler, lie in tlie strict sense seized on Africa. The 
 former explanation fits in better with his later conduct ; but 
 the use of so strong a word as invadit must not be forgotten. 
 It is at least hardly consistent with the picture which some 
 draw of Boniface as a model of unswerving loyalty. 
 
 One thing is clear, namely that, at whatever time and by 
 whatever means Boniface obtained the chief command in 
 Africa, he won the highest reputation by his conduct there, 
 as he had already done at some time when he was in the same 
 land in an inferior military rank. As a simple tribune, in 
 command of a few allied troops, he had, so his correspondent 
 Saint Augustine witnesses, successfully beaten back the in- 
 vasions of the barbarians*. Olympiodoros paints his picture 
 with glowing enthusiasm. Boniface is a hero, foremost in 
 many strifes with many barbarians ; ready alike to act with 
 few, with many, or with his own single arm, he had cleared 
 Africa of many enemies of various races f. He loved 
 right and hated greediness ; the same tale is told of him 
 which is told of Sultan Mahmoud ; a soldier of his army 
 had taken possession of the house and wife of a country- 
 man ; the injured man makes his moan to Boniface ; the 
 avenger speeds by night to the farm seventy stadia off, and 
 is able the next day to give the head of the adulterer to his 
 suppliant J. The state of things in the African province must 
 have needed reform, when wrong could be punished only in 
 this sultan-like fashion ; still it was something to have a general 
 who was ready to protect the provincial against the soldier in 
 any way. For all this picture of Boniface we have no date § ; 
 
 * Aug. Ep. ccxx. [70], ad Bon.; "Bonifacius . . . tribiinus cum paucis 
 foederatis omnes ipsas gentes [Afros barbaros] expugnando et terrendo 
 pacaverat." 
 
 ')' Olymp. 468 ; Bovrjepanos avfip ^v fipoiiKos leal Kara iroWaiv ttoWcikis 
 Pap^apcov ■^piarevev, dWore fiev aiiv oXiyois kwepxopifvos, aAXore Se aal avv 
 ■nXeloaiv, hvLOTe 5e koX fiovojxaxSiv, Kal aTrXSJs fineiv, navTi Tponw iroWSiv 
 Pap^dpoov Kal Sia(p6pajy lOvSiv amjWa^e ttjv ^Acppiicfjv, -qv Se koX SiKaioavviji 
 tpaajfji Kol xpr] ixdrojv Kpiirrwv. J lb. 
 
 § Tillemont (Mem. Eccl. xiii. 712) fixes tbese early deeds of Boniface to 
 about the year 417. He certainly had a great military reputation as early 
 as 422. 
 
Appendix I. 3i7 
 
 as a time came when his administration in Africa ceased to 
 deserve this unqualified praise, we may conceive that this his 
 most brilliant time came before, or at least did not last long 
 after, the next time when we hear of any action of his that 
 can be assigned to any definite consulship. This comes in 424, 
 when we find Boniface in Africa, resisting the claims of John 
 to the Western throne. In the absence of any direct hint that 
 he was seeking the tyranny for himself, we must suppose that 
 he was avowedly supporting the rights of the Theodosian 
 house ; yet the language of our one authority is very remark- 
 able. Its tone is more favourable to John than to Boniface, 
 and Boniface's possession of Africa is again marked by a word 
 which might suggest doubts as to the full legitimacy of his 
 position *. 
 
 We are now landed in a series of events in which Boniface, 
 Castinus, and Aetius all take their share. But with regard to 
 Aetius this time is a more marked epoch than it is with regard 
 to either of the others. Boniface and Castinus have ah-eady 
 appeared in Western annals ; this is the first time that they 
 mention Aetius. In truth it is now that, at any rate in the 
 West, liis strictly historic action begins ; we may therefore 
 now put together such an account of his career up to this point 
 as many, though scattered, notices enable us to do. Aetius 
 was the son of Gaudentius f, a chief man in the Eoman 
 province of Scythia, the modern Dobrutscha, at the mouth of 
 the Danube. His mother, whose name is not given, was of 
 Italian birth, wealthy, and sprung of a noble stock. The 
 name of their son might point to Greek tastes in one or the 
 other parent ; one almost wonders that no one seems to have 
 played on a name so fitted for the chieftain who bore the 
 
 * Prosper ; " Castino et Victore Coss. Theodosius Valentinianum 
 amitae suse filium Csesarem facifc, et cum Augusta matre sua ad recipien- 
 dum occidentale m.ittit imperium, quo tempore Joannes, dum Africam, 
 quam Bonifacius obtinebat, bello reposcit, ad defensionem. sui infirmior 
 factus est." 
 
 t Renatus Frigeridus ap. Greg. Tur. ii. 8 ; " Gaudentius pater, Scyciae 
 provintise primoris loci . . . mater Itala, nobilis ac locuples foemina." 
 I suppose that, by putting this notice and that of Jordanis together, we 
 get to the statement in the text. " Itala " can hardly be a proper name. 
 
318 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 eagles of the Western Eome to the last and among the greatest 
 of her victories. The son of Gaudentius and his Eoman wife 
 was born at Dorostonon on the Danube, the strong town 
 famous in later wars, in one age as Dorystolon, in another as 
 Silistria. Aetius was thus a native of the lands watered by 
 the great Illyrian river, but he was born too far down its 
 course to rank as a countryman of the great Illyrian emperors 
 of an earlier time*. We are able to trace Gaudentius as 
 holding a high command in Africa, and as playing the part 
 of a zealous Christian by helping in the destruction of pagan 
 temples in that province f. And his importance is shown by 
 the way in which his son, in childhood and youth, seems to be 
 specially chosen as a hostage in actions between the emperor 
 and the barbaric powers. He was for three years a hostage 
 with Alaric ; at a later time, it would seem, the Gothic king 
 again asked for him in that character, but was refused by 
 Honorius. At another time he was a hostage with the Huns +. 
 In these sojourns among strangers, he learned the ways of 
 those among whom he dwelt ; he gained a strong personal 
 influence over them ; he learned alike how to overcome them 
 
 * Jordanis, Get. 34; "Aetius patricius . . . fortissimorum Mcesium 
 stirpe progenitus in Dorostorena civitate a patre Gaudentio, labores 
 bellicos tolerans, rei publicae Eomanae singulariter natus, qui superbam 
 Suavorum Francorumque [he does not add 'Gotborum'] barbariem im- 
 mensis caedibus servire Komano imperio coegisset." The name of the 
 place takes endless forms ; as Dorystolon it was famous in the tenth 
 century and as Silistria in the nineteenth, in two opposite ways. 
 
 -t" In Cod. Theod. xi. 17, 3, we find "Gaudentius vir clarissimus comes 
 Africse." When we remember how the father of Paulinus of Pella was 
 moved about, there is nothing wonderful in finding the same man em- 
 ployed in all parts of the world. 
 
 Augustine (Civ. Dei, xviii. 54, 1) records the fact, and dates it minutely ; 
 " Consule Manlio Theodoro (a.d. 399) ... in civitate notissima et eminen- 
 tissima Carthagine Africae Gaudentius et Jovius comites imperatoris 
 Honorii, quarto decimo Kalendas Aprilis falsorum deorum templa ever- 
 terunt et simulacra fregerunt." This would surely be too much for one 
 day's work ; perhaps the date only marks the beginning. 
 
 % Renatus ap. Greg. Tur. ii. 8; "Aetius a puero praetorianus, tribus 
 annis Alarici obsessus (al. obses), dehinc Chunorum." In Zosimos, vi. 36, 
 Alaric asks Xa^dv opi-qpovs 'Airioy nal 'lacrova, tw filv 'lo^iov yivo/xevov TraiSa, 
 Tov 5€ VavbevTiov. Honorius refuses. This seems (Tillemont, vi. 180~) to 
 come between the two times when he was hostage. 
 
Appendix I. 319 
 
 as enemies of the empire and how to make use of them in the 
 internal politics of the empire. He had a wife of whom we 
 hear much, though her name is not recorded, and two sons, 
 Carpilio and Gaudentius, of whom Carpilio was, like his father, 
 a hostage with the Huns *. Graudentius and his nameless 
 mother connect themselves more directly with the thread of 
 the story. In one account, as Gaudentius is the grandson of 
 an elder Gaudentius, so is CarpUio the grandson of an elder 
 Carpilio. That is, the wife of Aetius was the daughter of 
 Carpilio f- It is hard to reconcile the bit of prose which helps 
 us to this name, which can hardly be the name of a Goth, with 
 the high-flowing verses of two poets in which the wife of 
 Aetius appears as the daughter of Gothic kings and heroes, as 
 grudging that she is herself shut out from her ancestral king- 
 ship, and as striving to make up for the loss by raising her son 
 Gaudentius to the rank of a Eoman Augustus J. It is hard 
 to see the fierce and domineering woman of this picture in 
 another scene where the wife of Aetius is painted as a saintly 
 matron whose prayers have such power with the saints that 
 
 * Priscus, 179 ; Cassiod. Var. i. 4. 
 f Aetius is "Carpilionis gener" in Renatus. 
 
 % " Schwerlich gehorte des Aetius Gattin, allerdings eine gothische Fiir- 
 stentochter, dem Hause des Theoderich an," says Dahn, K. Gr. v. 74. The 
 elder Carpilio was hardly a G-othic prince ; yet in Merobaudes' poem on 
 the birthday of one of the sons (iv. 15), his daughter is thus brought in ; 
 "Adsit cum socio parente conjunx, 
 Conjunx non levibus canenda Musis, 
 Heroum suboles, propago regum, 
 Cujus gloria feminam superstat." 
 This "livida conjux" of Aetius plays a wonderful part in Sidonius' 
 Panegyric on Majorian (126-274), pouring forth hexameters boiling over 
 with Greek legendary references enough to fill a Classical Dictionary. 
 Her name is not given, but she clearly claims a kingly Gothic descent. 
 The most important passage is 203-6 ; 
 
 "Quid faciam infelix? gnato quae regna parabo, 
 Exclusa sceptris Geticis, respublica si me 
 Prseterit, et parvus super hoc Gaudentius hujus 
 Calcatur fatis?" 
 Hujus = Majoriani. Gaudentius, called after the grandfather on the 
 father's side, would actually be the elder son. How are we to reconcile 
 the two poets with the prose writer ? If a Goth could be called Carpilio, 
 there would be no difSculty. 
 
320 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 Heaven can never refuse victory to her husband *. These 
 stories, to one at least of which we shall come again, belong 
 to the later years of the life of Aetius ; we are now concerned 
 with his earlier deeds. It is possible that, far away as his 
 birthplace was from both Gaul and Africa, his connexion both 
 with the land which was to be the special scene of his glory 
 and with the land whose destiny he is said to have ruled from 
 a distance began early. We have seen the father of Aetius in 
 Africa ; one mention of himself tells us that Gaudentius, count 
 and magister militum, was slain, at some time not stated, in 
 a military outbreak in Gaul f. We should have been glad of 
 a date ; but the first mention of Aetius in any recorded year 
 sets him before us in quite another quarter, but in one where 
 one might more naturally look for a notice of the Eoman 
 Scythia than either in Africa or in Gavd. Born as he was east 
 of Hadria, we first hear of Aetius in his own peninsula as 
 prsefect of Constantinople in the consulship of Maximus and 
 Plintha. And he left a name behind him in the Eastern 
 Kome, for two years later the cistern of Aetius was built J. 
 A tale is told how the prsefect Aetius hardly escaped death 
 from a murderous dagger under circumstances which remind 
 us of some of the bloody scenes of Frankish history in the next 
 century. The story runs that, on one Sunday, as the prsefect 
 was going in state to the great church, the old Saint Sophia, 
 an old man named Kyriakos — could the name be suggested by 
 the day ? — pretending to present a petition, struck at him with 
 his hidden weapon, but prevailed no further than to rend his 
 official garments, his Eoruan toga and pcenula §. This Eastern 
 
 * See the story in Greg. Tur. ii. 7- Aetius was fated to die, but she 
 wrestled with Saint Peter and overcame fate. One thinks of Apollo and 
 the Moirai on behalf of Croesus. 
 
 "t* This is in the chronicle known (somewhat strangely) as Prosper Tiro, 
 that which looks so carefully after British affairs. In recording the 
 reign of the tyrant John, it runs; "Aetius, Gaudentii comitis [he is 
 magister equitum in Kenatus] a militibus in Galliis occisi filius, cum 
 Chunnis Joanni opem laturus Italiam ingreditur." 
 
 J Marcellinus, 421; " Cisterna Aetii constructa est." See Codinus^ 
 p. 29 ; Banduri Const. Christ. 80. 
 
 § See Gothofred's Chronology of the Theodosian Code, i. clxv. The 
 
Appendix I S2i 
 
 je of the life of Aetius seems to be overlooked by all 
 modern writers save one or two who somewhat lightly assume 
 that an Aetius at Constantinople must be a different person 
 from the Aetius of Kavenna, Aries, and Eome *. It is hard to 
 see why, in an age when men were moved so freely over all 
 parts of the Eoman world, and in the case of a man whose 
 birth and parentage connected him first of all with the East. 
 We know not whether the prsefectship of Aetius at Con- 
 stantinople came before or after his father's murder in Gaul. 
 Four years later we find him in Italy, as a chief supporter and 
 ofi&cer of the ruler who had supplanted the Theodosian house 
 in the West. 
 
 The action of Aetius at this time comes from the best 
 authorities that we have, and one of them takes the oppor- 
 tunity to paint his portrait at length. The picture is to be 
 found in one of those precious fragments of writers older than 
 his own day which have been preserved to us by Gregory of 
 Auvergne and Tours. Well shaped, of middle height, with 
 a frame, as it is put, neither weak nor burthensome, active in 
 mind, strong in every limb, skilled in every exercise of war, 
 cunning to guide the horse, to use alike the arrow and the 
 javelin, undaunted in danger, bearing up under hunger, thirst, 
 and watching — to Frigeridus at least he seemed no less ad- 
 mirable in peace than in war. For he was moreover one who 
 sought what was just and whom no seducer could beguile from 
 his just purpose ; he was free from the lust of gain, and even, 
 according to the teaching of the new creed of Eome, patient 
 under wrong f. So he seemed to Gaulish admirers, who appear 
 
 consuls are Monaxius and Plintha. In their consulship the Paschal 
 Chronicle (i. 574) places the attempt on Aetius ; Im tovtuv rSiv vwaTcov 
 rifikpa KvpiaK^ elcrtXOSvTOs 'Aertou Inapxov TroXewy ^era rov cr;^97//aTos Iv rfi 
 fj.eyd\Ti ktcKKTjaia fiTjvl nepiTicp irpo ^' KaKavhwv /xapTiaiv em rai €v^dfj.fvov aiirov 
 dweXOeiv KXrjOkvra ev tui iraXaTiw, Kvpiaitos ris jepaiv ^a\wv /xaxo-ipav f^eydXijv 
 els x^-P^V^j diaavel Xl^eWov avrSj Trpoa<pepaiv, eKpovaev avTw Kara rov Sf^iov 
 fiipovs Tov aTTjOovs, uare to -nevoKiov avrov Kal rr}V royav rpTjOjjvat. One is 
 reminded of the slaying of Caesar, also of Ritchie Moniplies presenting his 
 "sifflication " to James Sixth and First. 
 
 * So Sievers (p. 456) half hints that the praefect of Constantinople was 
 not our Aetius. But why ? 
 
 t Ken. Frig.; "Medii corporis, virilis habitudinis, decenter formatus, 
 
 Y 
 
322 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 not to have looked on his conduct at this time as blameworthy. 
 The long and feeble reign of Honorius was drawing to its end, 
 when his last caprice of all, the caprice of hatred following on 
 extravagant fondness, sent away his sister Placidia, now the 
 widow of her Eoman and imperial husband, with her son, the 
 nohilissimits* Valentinian, to seek shelter at Constantinople 
 with her nephew Theodosius. Their absence left the Theo- 
 dosian house without a representative in Italy. The Western 
 throne was open to any adventurer, and it was seized, not by 
 any military chief, but by the civilian John, chief of the 
 notaries. His accession or election seems to have been peaceful 
 and popular, and our only personal portrait of him, drawn to 
 be sure at a later time, is singularly favourable f. But some 
 charged him with Arianism, and his successful rivals in their 
 legislation represent him as trampling on the privileges of the 
 
 quo neque infirmitudini esset neque oneri, animo alacer, membris vegetus, 
 eques prumptissimus, sagittarum jaetu peritus, contu impiger, bellis ap- 
 tissimus, pacis artibus Celebris, nullius avaritiae, minimae cupiditatis, 
 bonis animi praeditUs, ne itopulsoribus quidem. pravis ab instituto sue 
 devians, injuriarum patientissimus, laboris adpetens, inpavidus pericu- 
 lorum, famis, sitis, vigiliarum tolerantissimus. Cui ab ineunte aetata 
 praedictum liquet, quantae potentiae fatis destinaretur, temporibus suia 
 locisque celebrandus.'* 
 
 * See Clinton in an. 424. Olympiodoros makes bim be created " Nobi- 
 lissimus" (NcDiSeAtVcrzyuos) by Theodosius. Pbilostorgios (xii. 12) has him 
 already created k-mcpaviaTaTos, which must mean the same, by Honorius. 
 
 f His panegyrist is ho other than trocopius (Bell. Vand. i. 3), who is 
 copied by Souidas (^Iwavvrjs) \ he makes, however, a strange mistake as to 
 the length of his reign as well as in the description of his calling ; ol 5e 
 T^s kv "Pwjjiri ^aaiXiws avXfjs toiv riva k/cHvp arpariaiTuiv, 'iwavvqv ovofxa, 0a(Ti\ea 
 aipovvrai. -qv Se ovtos avfip npaos re koL ^weffeois eii tjkoiv icnl dperiji fiira- 
 TTOieTcrdaL e^emaTafievo^- ttivre yovv err] Tfjv rvpavviSa exoir' fierpiajs f^rjjTicraTO, 
 Kal ovre rois SiaPdWovai rr/v clkot^v vviax^v ovre <p6vov dSticov fipyacraro fKwv 
 ye elvai ovre xP'JA'otojj' d(paipecrei eneOero' es 5e Pap^apovs oiSlv on koi irpd^ai 
 oi6s re ejeyovei, errei ot rd Ik 'Bv^avriov iroKepLia tjv. We shall soon learn to 
 distrust Procopius for times so long before his own day ; but his picture 
 of John seems rather to fall in with one or two incidental notices. The 
 election spoken of is more likely to have happened at Ravenna than at 
 Rome ; but the curious anecdote preserved by Olympiodoros (468, see 
 Hodgkin, i.) looks as if he was not disliked ; 'Iwdwrjs ris alOevrqaas 
 Tvpavvei' i<p' ov Kal rfis dvapprjaecos yevofJLevrjs, epp-qOrj uicnrep dno rivos iroppTjaeus 
 TrpoaxOiv, "mTTTej, oii arrjKei." Kal ro irXrjOos, wanep dvaXxiovres enl rb prjdev, 
 dva<puvov(ri, "arriKet, ov mnTfi," What is the exact force of avOevTrjaas? 
 
Appendix I. 323 
 
 clergy, much like our Henry II *. He was acknowledged in 
 Italy, Gaul, and Spain ; that he was not acknowledged in 
 Africa we have already seen f. Not a soldier himself, he had 
 men of war at his side. His cause was maintained by the 
 magister militum Castinus, whom we have heard of as the 
 enemy of Boniface %. Aetius was on the same side, Count of 
 the Domestics and holding the civil office of cura palatii under 
 the new sovereign of the West. This last was the office which 
 in a later form became curopalates, the special guardian of the 
 august dwelling-place and its building §. But between Aetius 
 and Boniface, though they are on opposite sides, there is no 
 sign of any direct hostility. The leader of the enterprise 
 against Boniface in Africa may have been the Goth Sigisvult || ; 
 it certainly was not Aetius. For he was sent on an errand in 
 quite an opposite direction. Marked out for such a mission by 
 his knowledge of the barbarians and by his influence araong 
 
 * Cod. Theod. xvi. Tit. ii. 47 (vi. 94) ; "Privilegia ecclesiarum omnium 
 quae sseculo nostro tyrannus invaderat, prona devotioiie revocamus. . . . 
 Clericos etiam quos indiscretim ad saeculares judices debere duel in- 
 faustus ille prsesumptor dixerat, episcopali andientise reservamus." See 
 Tillemont, Hist, des Emp. vi. 184. One tliinks of the Constitutions of 
 Clarendon. 
 
 ■f See above, p. 317, note *. 
 
 t Prosper, 423 ; " Honorius moritur, et regnum ejus Joannes occupat, 
 connivente, ut putabatur, Castino, qui exercitui magister militum prae- 
 fuit," and in 425 on the defeat of John, "Castinus in exsilium actus est, 
 quia videbatur Joannem sine conniventia ipsius regnum non potuisse 
 assumere." He had just before, in 422, said that Castinus '•' Bonifacium 
 virum bellicis artibus prseclarum, inepto et injurioso imperio ab expedi- 
 tionis suae soeietate avertit," &c. 
 
 § So Eenatus ; "Ex comite domesticorum et Johannis cura palatii." 
 See Ducange in Cura. His Formula is given by Cassiodorus, viii. 15. 
 This seems to be the " Castrensis saeri palatii " of the Notitia, i. 4, 47. 
 See Giilden penning, 281. 
 
 II Prosper Tiro places here the entry " Sigisvuldus ad Africam contra 
 Bonifacium properavit," as if Sigisvult had been sent on behalf of John. 
 But one cannot help thinking that this is a confusion with his later 
 expedition. I know not whether Migne's edition has any authority for 
 the form given to his name, " Sigisvultdeus," which savours rather of an 
 African, either Catholic or Donatist, than of an Arian Goth. Elsewhere 
 he is Sigisvulftis or Sigisvuldus. Wald, we may suppose, is the true 
 ending. 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 them, he was sent to bring a Hunnish force to the help of 
 John *. 
 
 This is the earliest act that is distinctly recorded in the 
 "Western career, in the military career, of the man whose 
 highest renown is to have been the first to check the advance 
 of Attila. It is a strange beginning, but the bringing in of 
 barbarian allies had long been too common to be looked on 
 with any special horror, and Hunnish mercenaries had been 
 often employed before and were often employed after. The 
 story sets Aetius before us as wonderfully skilful in the 
 management of Romans and barbarians alike, but he did 
 little for the prince whose cause he had taken up. Johannes 
 Augustus was premature. So, though less glaringly, was 
 Johannes the Eoman consul of the next year. There was 
 a consul John thirty-two years later f : but the first acknow- 
 ledged imperial bearer of the name of the Baptist and the 
 Evangelist was the Armenian hero of the tenth century, the 
 renowned John Tzimiskes. In the imperial fasti of the West 
 no name of that class found a place till the House of Habsburg 
 favoured the world with an august Matthias and two august 
 Josephs. The house of Theodosius, represented by Placidia 
 Augusta and her son, had not lost all hold on the sympathies 
 of the West. The present Theodosius, the ruler of the East, 
 now in loyal eyes sole emperor, sent his aunt and the boy 
 Valentinian, now proclaimed Caesar, to dislodge the tyrant 
 John by the arms of Ardaburius and his son Aspar %. The 
 details of his overthrow do not directly touch the career of 
 Aetius ; but we are carried on towards our later narrative 
 when we see Aquileia playing for the last time the part of one 
 of the great cities of the earth. It was in its hippodrome that 
 John paid the cruel forfeit of less than two years' dominion §. 
 
 * This is most strongly brought up by Eenatus ; "Johannes Aetium, 
 id temporis curam palatii, cum ingenti auri pondere ad Chunos trans- 
 mittit, notus sibi obsidatus sui tempore et familiari amieicia devinctos." 
 
 f Johannes and Vei-anes are consuls in 456. 
 
 X This story is told by Philostorgios, xii. 13 ; Sokrates, yii. 23, 26 ; 
 Olympiodoros, 471. 
 
 § Philost. xii. 13 ; 'laia.fVTjs . . . ds 'Afcokrjiav kKTrefnrfTai, kolku rfp/ bi^iav 
 
Appendix I. 325 
 
 Ravenna, which had maintained his cause, became, after 
 a passing sack, the dwelling-place in life and death of the 
 restored Augusta ; but it was in Rome itself that the third 
 Valentinian, the seven years' old son of the third Constantius, 
 was proclaimed Augustus by the authority of his Eastern 
 colleague *. Three days after the death of John, Aetius came 
 with 60,000 Huns to his support. A battle took place between 
 the new comers and the forces of Valentinian under the com- 
 mand of Aspar, in which many were slain on both sides. An 
 agreement followed ; Aetius entered the service of Placidia 
 and Valentinian with the rank of count. He had influence 
 enough with his barbarian following to persuade them to go 
 back on receiving what, after an analogy in our own history, 
 we may call a JI%mgeld\. Perhaps they also told at home 
 what a city Aquileia would be for some lucky band of Huns to 
 plunder or to destroy. 
 
 The sphere of action of Aetius is now at once changed to 
 Gaul. Enlisted in the service of Placidia and Valentinian, he 
 sets forth to establish the dominion of his sovereigns alike 
 against disaffected Romans, of whom we see some signs, 
 against the West-Goth who threatened Aries, and in course 
 of time against perhaps every barbarian enemy or rebel who 
 had made a settlement in Gaul or was striving either to settle 
 
 irpo5iaT/x.r]6eh, elra Kal rrjs Kf<pa\rii dnoTejxveTai. Procopius (Bell. Vand. i. 3) 
 adds some details ; ^Sivra OvaXevrivtavos 'laiavvrfv \al3cbv eV re r& 'AKvKrjias 
 tnvoSpofiiq) rijv krkpav tcuv x^P^^^ aTtOKOirivTa ela^yev eTro/xtievae re 6vq> oxov- 
 fievov, Kal rroWd irapd ruv dtto cTKrjVTJs evravda ■na$6vra re ical aKOvaavra 
 eKreivev. The importance of Salona is as marked in the story as that of 
 Aquileia. 
 
 * This is told in various ways, but that the admission to the rank of 
 Augustus was at Rome is plain from Olympiodoros. It seems to have 
 been the last fact that he recorded. So Idatius. 
 
 f Our best account is Philostorgios, xii. 14 ; 'Aerios 6 viroarparTjyds 
 'Iwavvov Tov rvpavvov, fXird rpeis ^fiepas rjjs eKeivov rtXevrrjs, ISapPdpovs ayoav 
 pLiaOwrovs eis ^' x'^'^Sas irapayivtrai' Kal avnTr\oKrjs avroO re Kal raiv itepl rbv 
 ""Affnapa yeyevqpievrjs, (povos tKarepeuOev eppvr] troXiis' eneira airovSas 6 'Aerios 
 riOerai npbs Il\aKt8lav Kal OvaXevTiviavov, Kal rf)v rov Ko/jirjTos d^iav Xa/i^avei, 
 Kal 01 ^dpl3apoi xpvffiq) KaraOefxevoi rrjv opyrjv Kal rd oirXa, dfirjpovs re Sovres Kal 
 rd TTiard XajSovres, els rd oiKeia fidt] direxojpTjcrav. This is very like a Dane- 
 geld. So Prosper ; " data venia Aetio, quod Hunni quos per ipsum 
 Joannes acciverat ejusdem studio ad propria reversi stint." 
 
326 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 or to destroy. But this his purely Gaulish and military career 
 will be best dealt with elsewhere ; no one has brought that 
 side of him into connexion with his alleged enmity to Boniface 
 or with political intrigues of any kind. Of the undoubted 
 enemies of Boniface one was now set aside from his rank and 
 another was put in his place. Of the two chief supporters of 
 John, Aetius had won the favour of the \dctorious side ; 
 Castinus was less lucky. He was sent into banishment ; the 
 reason assigned is that it seemed that John could not have 
 assumed the empire without his consent *. The wording is 
 remarkable ; it might imply that the partisanship of Castinus 
 was less open than that of Aetius. If so, the secret plotters 
 fared, and perhaps justly, worse than the avowed enemy who 
 had led the Huns to the attack of the armies of Valentinian. 
 Castinus now vanishes from the story. His office was seem- 
 ingly bestowed on a certain Felix, whom we hear of as magisfer 
 militum in the next year. To this man's power of mischief 
 justice has clearly not been done, and it looks very much as if 
 some of his actions, especially his dealings with Boniface, had 
 been transferred to Aetius. No process could be more natural 
 in the next age, when Aetius was still a great name, but when 
 Felix was doubtless forgotten. His first recorded act has 
 nothing to do with either Boniface or Aetius. He is charged 
 with the deaths of Patroclus bishop of Aries and of Titus, 
 a holy deacon at Eome, who is said to have been killed by the 
 practice of Felix while he was in the act of giving alms to the 
 poor f. The Eoman tale is obscure ; the Gaulish one is of 
 some importance in Gaulish history, and as such I hope to 
 speak of it elsewhere. Neither of them throws any light on 
 the general story, but both — even if they were only suspicions 
 — throw some light on the character of Felix. In the next 
 year Felix comes into the very thick of the main story, and we 
 must look back for a moment at the position of Boniface. We 
 have seen that he was perhaps in command in Africa before 
 
 * See above, p. 323, note J. 
 
 t Prosper (426), after the death of Patroclus, adds "cujus [Felicis] 
 impulsu creditus est etiam Titus diaconus vir sanctus Romse pecuniaa 
 pauperibus distribuens interemptus." 
 
Appendix I. 327 
 
 the expedition of Castinus to Spain in 422, that he certainly 
 was in command there after he had refused to share in that 
 expedition, but whether by a perfectly regular appointment is 
 not quite clear *. We have seen also the way in which Africa 
 under Boniface held out against John. Still we cannot quite 
 forget either the way in which his position in Africa has 
 already been spoken of, or the fact, to which we shall come 
 presently, that the next time we hear of him he is in distinct, 
 perhaps armed, opposition to the emperor's orders. Meanwhile 
 he had gone on for a season winning great glory by his ad- 
 ministration of his province, and his successful defence of it 
 against native African marauders. The words of his corre- 
 spondent Saint Augustine here come happily in to explain the 
 vaguer entries of the annalist, and to make us understand their 
 connexion with the entry that follows. In the annals Boniface 
 does great exploits and wins great glory, and is presently dealt 
 with as a rebel f. The words of Augustine J give us the 
 
 * See above, p. 315, note %. 
 
 + Prosper, 427 ; " Hierio et Ardabure coss. Bonifacio, cujus potentia 
 gloriaque intra Africam augebatur, bellum ad arbitrium Felicis, quia ad 
 Italiam venire abnuerat, publico nomine illatum est." Prosper here 
 seems to speak admiringly of Boniface ; yet we must remember his 
 earlier language about "invadit" and ''obtinebat" ; it is even possible 
 that the w^ord "potentia" looks the same way. At any rate the in- 
 creasing power and glory of a subject were in those days an unavoidable 
 object of jealousy to the prince. Anyhow it is droll when Giildenpenning 
 (280) extols Bonifacius as the ever-loyal adherent of Placidia through all 
 difficulties. This writer, like the good old Tillemont, does not shirk the 
 annalists, but tries to believe them and the legend too. 
 
 X Aug. ep. 220 (or 70), ad Bon. (Op. ii. 814, ed, Bened.) ; '' Quid autem 
 dicam de vastatione Africse, quam faciunt Afri barbari resistente nuUo, 
 dum tu talibus tuis necessitatibus occuparis, nee aliquid ordinas unde 
 ista calamitas avertatur? Quis autem crederet, quis timeret, Bonifacio 
 domesticorum et Africse comite in Africa constituto cum tam magno 
 exercitu et potestate . . . nunc tantum fuisse barbaros ausuros, tantum 
 progressuros, tanta vastaturos, tanta raptures, tanta loca quae plena 
 populis fuerant deserta facturos? Qui non dicebant quandocumque tu 
 comitivam sumeres potestatem, Afros barbaros, non solum domitos, sed 
 etiam tributaries futures Komanae reipublicae ? Et nunc quam in con- 
 traria versa sit spes horainum vides, nee diutius hinc tecum loquendum, 
 quia plus ea tu potes cogitare quam nos dicere." It is not easy to see 
 when Boniface was invested with the rank of count. Augustine's words 
 
328 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 key : we see that, if Boniface had gained great glory, he had 
 deservedly lost it, and had become an object of reasonable 
 suspicion at court. From the same source we learn his exact 
 official rank at this time ; he was Count of the Doraestics and 
 count of Africa. But the count, at any rate at the time of 
 Augustine's letter, was less active than the tribune had been 
 in times past. At the time of his appointment all men had 
 hoped that under his government Africa would again become 
 a peaceful Roman land, with its native tribes again subjects 
 and tributaries of the empire. Now all this had changed ; the 
 barbarians took heart ; they advanced, they laid waste lands 
 which they had never before touched. The discourse is wholly 
 about native Africans. There is not a word which can have 
 any possible reference to the Vandals ; it was clearly written 
 before the coming of the Vandals was thought of. The whole 
 correspondence between the saint and the count is of deep 
 personal and ecclesiastical interest. Boniface is set before us 
 as a dear friend of Augustine, as at one time a man of 
 scrupulous life and religious zeal, full of interest in theological 
 subjects, on which he poses his illustrious friend with hard 
 questions. But he had fallen away from his personal as well 
 as from his official duties. By a story exactly the reverse of 
 that of our own Simon, he had vowed chastity after the death 
 of his wife, but he was now not only married again to a rich 
 lady named Pelagia, but he had allowed his child to receive 
 Arian baptism, and he was further suspected of living with 
 
 might almost imply that all his brilliant exploits had been done when he 
 held no higher rank than that of tribune, and that he had failed in his 
 duty ever since his promotion. We might also suppose that he had not 
 been count very long when the letter was written. Now the letter must 
 be earlier than 428, the year of the coming of the Vandals. It is most 
 naturally fixed to 427, the time of the action of Felix against Boniface. 
 If Boniface in that year was count, but had not been count very long, the 
 most natural time for his appointment would be in 425, as the reward of 
 his defence of Africa against John, This might fall in with the several 
 hints which suggest that there was something irregular about his position 
 in Africa at an earlier time. We may suppose that, whatever it was 
 before, it was legalized now, but that, as Augustine implies, the count 
 fell away from the merits of the tribune and thereby brought on himself 
 the imperial censure which is implied in the events of 427. 
 
Appendix I. 329 
 
 mistresses. So busy was he with his own affairs that he had 
 allowed Africa to be overrun by Africans. For all these faults 
 both as a Christian man and as a Eoman commander, the 
 saint sternly rebukes him and gives him good advice in both 
 characters. But he assuredly in no way reproves him for 
 treasonable dealings with Gaiseric, which, if they ever happened 
 at all, certainly had not happened then *. 
 
 There are one or two other points in the letter that may be 
 noticed. Boniface had been, at some stage or other, anxious 
 to retire from the world, and to give himself wholly to re- 
 ligious duties. He married his second wife in some country 
 which was reached from Africa by sea, and the voyage was one 
 which he undertook by imperial bidding f. This and the fact 
 that the lady seems to have been an Arian might seem to 
 point to Spain. But it is most unlikely that a woman bearing 
 the name of Pelagia should have been of Vandal birth. Boni- 
 face may have been sent to Spain on many unrecorded errands. 
 What we cannot do is to connect such a voyage with that 
 expedition of Castinus when Boniface did not go to Spain. 
 Again Augustine, when rebuking Boniface for his neglect of 
 his military duties, makes Boniface answer that the fault is not 
 with him, but with those who had wronged him and made 
 him an evil return for his good service %. This doubtless 
 points to the enmity of Castinus and Felix. It might even 
 suggest that the letter was written at the very time of the 
 expedition sent by Felix against Boniface, a time not likely 
 
 * See the earlier letter of Augustine to Boniface, No. 185 or 50. In the 
 very weak article on Boniface in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman 
 Biography by a late popular writer, all this about the Africans is turned 
 into "bitter reproaches" for the supposed dealings with Gaiseric. In 
 the Dictionary of Christian Biography no lay Boniface is allowed ; the 
 article on Augustine does not contain the name of Boniface, but it does 
 contain the astounding statement that Augustine died "when the armies 
 of the Huns surrounded the city of Hippo." 
 
 t All this comes out in letter 220. The most important passage is; 
 "Navigasti, uxoremque duxisti, sed navigasse obedientiae fuit quam se- 
 cundum apostolum debebas sublimioribus potestatibus " (ii. 813). 
 
 X Ep. 220; "Sed forte ad ea respondes illis hoc esse potius impu- 
 tandum qui te Iseserant, qui tuis oflficiosis virtutibus non paria sed 
 contraria reddidervmt.'' 
 
330 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 to be marked by vigorous action against the native barbarians. 
 But if Boniface had been in open rebellion at the time of the 
 sending of the letter, surely Augustine would have made some 
 reference to that fact. It is far more likely that the letter 
 comes earlier, and that in the state of things which it describes 
 we see the explanation of what we read in the chronicles. We 
 see Boniface, from whatever cause, falling aside from his 
 former excellence, ghostly and worldly, and above all, what 
 concerned the empire more than his irregular marriage, grossly 
 neglecting his duty as a Roman military commander in the 
 province of Africa. There is no direct mention of Castinus 
 and Felix in the acknowledged letters of Augustine ; but there 
 is a remarkable collection of short letters, purporting to be 
 exchanged between the bishop and the count, which have been 
 unanimously cast aside by Augustine's editors and commen- 
 tators. They are rejected, partly as inconsistent with the 
 saint's style and manner, but partly also as inconsistent with 
 the history of the time. On the former charge the condem- 
 nation seems to rest on good grounds*. There is an abrupt- 
 ness, a jerkiness in truth, about the letters which is not in the 
 manner of Augustine ; their very shortness, when the subject 
 supplied such an opportunity for moralizing, is against them. 
 Some of the expressions used are hardly in character, and it 
 has even been suggested that some of the expressions used are 
 designed to advance certain ecclesiastical theories. On the 
 whole, we cannot accept the letters as genuine writings of 
 Augustine and Boniface. Still they are not without value. 
 The objection to them on historical grounds merely conies to 
 this, that whoever forged them followed the authentic story of 
 the annalists, and not the Procopian legend. He may even 
 have lived at the time and have written from his own know- 
 ledge. If so, his witness is, like that of many a false charter, 
 good on all points save the one which he is trying to establish. 
 Even if we place him later, he at any rate made up his story 
 from trustworthy sources or from traditions consistent with 
 
 * I have to thank Dr. Bright, who knows the writings of Augustine 
 far better than I do, for some most valuable hints on this side of the 
 question. 
 
Appendix I. 331 
 
 them, and he is the only writer who has done so. The 
 invasion of Africa by the imperial troops sent against Boniface 
 is strongly brought out *. Felix is not mentioned by name, 
 but he is clearly alluded to f, and the name of Castinus comes 
 in more than once. If we trust the letters, he sought shelter 
 in Africa when he was banished from Italy in 425 J. The 
 shelter may seem a strange one for the old enemy of Boniface, 
 but we must again remember the very doubtful position of 
 Boniface in Africa. He had defended that province against 
 John ; but his earlier and later relations to Honorius and 
 Placidia are such as to make it possible that the fallen magister 
 militum might expect that his own offences towards Boniface 
 might be thought less of than those of the imperial government. 
 In any case we have the undoubted fact that, only two 
 years after the fall of John, Boniface was looked on at Ea- 
 venna as an enemy of the empire. What was his offence ? It 
 is easy to talk about the intrigues of Aetius or of anybody 
 
 * In Appendix, ep. 4 (or 185), Augustine is made to say, with a clear 
 reference to the Arian Sigisvult ; "Africae litus, ut audio, miles attigit 
 transmarinus, sed hujus militis dux a catholica veritate dissentit. Quid 
 orem sicut oportet ignore. Ab Italia hostis est publicus nuntiatus, contra 
 victricia signa superbas erigens hastas. Pacem inter vos fieri vellem si 
 scirem plenius quod ignoro. Adest quidem Africae olim paratum in 
 Italia bellum, sed tamen non invideo, fili carissime, Romanise. Sed dico 
 quod sentio. Non dabit, divinitate juvante, catholicus hseretico terga. 
 Tui cordis intentio dirigatur ad Deum, non militem timebis, non Gothum 
 non Hunum." 
 
 "t" Boniface, in answer (5 or 186), talks about " quae adversus me tyrannus 
 ille ordinaverit ac disponat," all in a style of high orthodoxy. 
 
 J App. 10 (or 191) ; '' Castinus ille privatus ex consule vitse meae ac 
 nominis, omnibus ut notum est, persecutor, pejores committens ac fingens 
 factiones, quasi ruearum a me gestarum immemor, donationum (another 
 reading is 'Edatium'), Italia fugiens, meis se in Africa defensionibus 
 tradidit committendum." Augustine (11 or 192) answers, " Vir illus- 
 trissimus Castinus sacramento se prodidit quod sit ab omni culpa et 
 erroribus alienus. Quem tibi, ut dicit, fcederatus ille Sonia, adhuc te in 
 palatio posito, falsis suggestionibus concitabat." All this looks as if it 
 referred to an earlier time, to the banishment of Castinus in 425. And 
 who is "Edatius"? — Aetius? or who? But there is enough of likeness 
 to the true story to suggest that there is, after all, something in these 
 letters, and that the stories about Gudila — a name hardly likely to have 
 been invented — may be worth examining. 
 
332 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 else, but once put the Procopian legend out of sight and the 
 matter seems very plain. Boniface, as his saintly friend wit- 
 nesses, had grossly neglected his duty, and he was called on to 
 account for it. After Augustine's letter it is really nothing 
 wonderful if we read in the annals that Boniface was sum- 
 moned to Italy — that is, to Eavenna ; and that when he 
 refused to come, he was declared a public enemy. But the 
 minister who directed this course, whether wise or foolish, was 
 not Aetius but Felix *. Of Aetius just at this moment there 
 is no mention at all; a little while before and a little while 
 after he is carrying on his great career in Gaul f. It is to be 
 noted that at this point the tone of the Aquitanian chronicler 
 betrays perhaps a feeling of sympathy with Boniface, certainly 
 a feeling against Felix, which would be natural enough after 
 even the suspicion of the deaths of Patroclus and Titus. But 
 though Felix may have been a bad and even a bloody minister, 
 his first action against Boniface was assuredly not taken with- 
 out reason. . The count of Africa lets his province be harried 
 by barbarians without resistance ; he is summoned to Eavenna 
 to explain his conduct ; refusing to come, he is declared an 
 enemy of the republic. ■ All this is plain enough ; there is no 
 mention of any action of Aetius ; there is no mention, nor as 
 yet any hint, of any dealings between Boniface and Gaiseric. 
 What we have as yet is a war carried on by the Eoman 
 government against a Eoman rebel. Three commanders are 
 sent against Boniface ; one perhaps would have done the work 
 better, as the three disagreed. Two of them, Mavortius and 
 Galbio, besiege Boniface in some place not named.. Their 
 
 * Prosper, 427 ; " Hierio et Ardabure coss. Bonifacio, cujus potentia 
 gloriaque intra Africam augebatur, bellum ad arbitrium Felicis, quia ad 
 Italiam venire abnuerat, publico nomine illatum est, dueibus Mavortio et 
 Galbione et Sinoce." Giildenpenning (283) knows the workings of the 
 mind of Aetius as minutely as Augustine knew those of Boniface ; 
 "Aetius aber, um nicht dem Argwohn in der Brust der Placidia neue 
 Nahrung zu gewahren, liess sich nicht selbst gegen seinen Nebenbuhler 
 entsenden, sondern sein Parteigenosse, der magister militum Felix, beauf- 
 tragte den Mavortius, Galbio und Sinox mit der Fiihrung der r5mischen 
 Truppen gegen den ' Keichsfeind ' Bonifacius." 
 
 f See Prosper 425 for his Gothic, and 428 for his Prankish victories. 
 
Appefidix I. 333 
 
 colleague Sinox enters into a treasonable correspondence with 
 Boniface, and by his ai-ts the two loyal commanders are killed. 
 Then Boniface discovers Sinox in some plot against himself, 
 and puts him to death also. Another commander, with the 
 distinctly barbarian name of Sigisvult, a man who has already 
 flitted before us as a shadow, is sent to carry on the war with 
 Boniface instead of the three who have all perished. 
 
 All this follows naturally enough : it rests on good authority ; 
 we should simply be glad of fuller details. But between the 
 death of Sinox and the appointment of Sigisvult, we come to 
 an entry of the very darkest, made dark, we may be sure, of 
 set purpose *. While the strife was going on, the disputants, 
 both sides it would seem, asked for the help of certain people 
 who had no knowledge of ships, but to whom the sea was laid 
 open by their invitation. Then comes the appointment of 
 Sigisvult, and then an entry in which our sainted chronicler 
 leaves off speaking in proverbs and tells us plainly that the 
 people of the Vandals crossed from Spain into Africa. That 
 event is perhaps put a little too early ; but its exact date and 
 its exact details do not concern us. Gaiseric may have been 
 planning such an enterprise long before ; it is here implied — 
 for the Vandals of the clear entry are surely the unnamed 
 people of the dark one — that the immediate occasion of the 
 migration was the application for help from some or other of 
 the Eoman commanders in the civil war decreed by Felix 
 against Boniface. The words rather imply that application 
 was made from at least two opposing quarters. Neither 
 Mavortius, Galbio, Sinox, nor Boniface is personally named. 
 Suspicion is very strong against Boniface, but he may not 
 have applied to Gaiseric till his enemies had already done so ; 
 he certainly did not do so till civil war was actually waging 
 
 * Prosper, 427 ; " [Sinox] cujus proditione Mavortius et Galbio, cum 
 Bonifacium obsiderent, interempti sunt, moxque ipse a Bonifacio dolo 
 detectus, occisus est. Exinde gentibus, quae navibus uti nesciebant, dum 
 a concertantibus in auxilium vocantur, mare pervium factum est, bellique 
 contra Bonifacium coepti in Sigisvultum comitem cura translata est. 
 Gens Vandalorum ab Hispania ad Africam transit." Idatius places the 
 coming of the Vandals in 429, and says nothing about Boniface. 
 
334 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 against himself. If he ever thought of making himself tyrant 
 by Vandal help, it was truly a great fall for the saintly hero 
 described to us at an earlier time ; but it was no more than 
 many other Eoman governors had done before him. 
 
 The notice in Prosper is really the nearest approach which 
 can be found in any contemporary writer to a charge against 
 Boniface of inviting the Vandals into Africa. And Prosper 
 does not go beyond a dark allusion, in which Boniface is not 
 distinctly named. From this We may leap to the account in 
 Jordanis, who three times attributes the coming of the Vandals 
 to the treason of Boniface. Nothing is said of Aetius. Boni- 
 face, being under the displeasure of Valentinian, sees no help 
 for himself except in calling in Gaiseric *. In these hurried 
 references there is nothing that at all contradicts the story in 
 Prosper ; Jordanis perhaps hardly understood that the dis- 
 pleasure of Valentinian had come to an actual war, and among 
 the disputants darkly hinted at in the annals, he or those 
 whom he followed naturally preserved the best known name t. 
 We now come to the received story in all its detail, with the 
 elaborate action of Aetius against Boniface. This is found 
 only in the introductory matter with which Procopius brings 
 in the Vandal war. In his narrative Placidia gives Boniface 
 the supreme command in Africa. Aetius is displeased, but 
 hides his displeasure t. When Boniface is away in his govern- 
 ment, he tells Placidia that the count of Africa is aiming at 
 tyranny, that he seeks to deprive Valentinian of the province ; 
 
 * Getica, 167, 168, cap. xxxiii. ; " Gyzericus rex Vandalorum jam a 
 Bonifatio in Africam invitatus, qui Valentiniano principi veniens in 
 offensam non aliter se quam malo reipublicse potuit vindicare." 
 
 f The entry in the Chronicle of Cassiodorus should here be told (Ron- 
 calli, ii. 228) ; " Hierius et Ardabures. His coss. Bonifacio Africam tenenti 
 infauste bellum ingeritui*. Gens Wandalorum a Gothis exclusa, de His- 
 paniis ad Africam transit." Cassiodorus seems to have had Prosper 
 before him ; but Jordanis can hardly have had the Chronicles of Cassio- 
 dorus before him just then, whatever vre say of the Gothic History. 
 
 X Bell. Vand. i. 3, p. 322. (The passage immediately follows the de- 
 scription of Boniface and Aetius quoted above.) tovtolv tov erepov 
 BovifpaTiov 57 HXaKiSia arpaTqybv dneSet^e Atl3vr]s dirdcnjs' tovto 5e ov Bov\o- 
 fxevw Tiv 'Aeriq}, dw' tjkktto, 76 ws avrbv ovk dpea/cei e^rjveyKey' ovirw yap 
 aiiToiv fj tx^po- es ^ws e\r]\v9(i, d\\' virb tw vpocranTUq) iKarkpco iKpinrreTO. 
 
Appendix I. 335 
 
 that she may judge of the truth of his charge by this sign. 
 Let her summon Boniface to Home, and he will not come *. 
 At the same time he writes a letter to Boniface, telling him 
 that the emperor's mother is plotting against his Kfe, and that 
 the sign of her plots is this ; she will recall him without 
 cause t- Boniface receives the letter summoning him to the 
 emperor's presence ; he refuses to go, but does not reveal the 
 warning of Aetius. Placidia on this bestows her fullest con- 
 fidence on Aetius, and debates what course to follow with 
 regard to Boniface J. Boniface meanwhile, feeling that he is 
 not strong enough to withstand the emperor and that to go to 
 Rome would be his destruction §, turns his thoughts to the 
 Vandals and invites G-aiseric into Africa, an invitation which 
 the Vandal accepts and enters the province. Meanwhile the 
 friends of Boniface at Eome are amazed that he of all men 
 should turn tyrant II ; from not a few earlier examples they 
 might infer that the invitation of barbarians and the taking up 
 of the tyranny naturally went together. Some of them, at 
 Placidia's bidding, go to Carthage; they see Boniface; he 
 shows them the letters of Aetius ; they go back to Eome and 
 report to Placidia. Her fear of the power of Aetius hinders her 
 from taking any action against him, or even giving him any 
 rebuke ^ ; but she tells the story to the friends of Boniface, 
 and prays and adjures them to win him back to his duty ; let 
 
 * Bell. Vand. i. 3, p. 322 ; ScePaWev . . . us rvpavvoirj, dnocTTeprjaas avTrjv 
 re Kat fiaaiXea AiPvrjs drrdar]s, k. t. \. Felix must have said sometliing very 
 like this to Placidia. 
 
 "I* lb. ; eyprnpe irphs BovKpariov \d9pa ws entPovXevoi avTw 77 PaatXiois fi'fjrrjp 
 Kal PovXoiTo avTov eKiroSwy iroirjcraaOat, k. t. K. Somebody, not necessarily 
 Felix, may have written this to Boniface in sober earnest. 
 
 t lb. 
 
 § lb. ; icai yap 01 ovre ^acriKeT kSSicei avTird^aaOai o'i<y re eivai, Is 'Pdinrjv re 
 dirioVTi ojEe/xia acoTr/pia fcpaivero. 
 
 II lb. p. 324 ; Tov re rporrov ev9vfj.ovfj,evoi rov dvdpwirov, eK\oji(6fievoi re 
 fjXiKos 6 TrapdXoyos rjv, Iv Oavfiart iieyaXw eiroiovvro, el BovKpdrios rvpavvoirj. 
 
 ^ lb. ; KarairKayeiaa fj yvvrj 'Aeriov p.ev ovSev elpydffaro axo^pi, ovSe ii 
 uveiSiaev Siv avrw « rov PaffiXeoos oTkov enenpaicTO, eirel avros re dvvap,€i fieyaXy 
 exp^TO Kal rd rrjs ^aaiXeias irpdypiara ■novqpd i]5r] ^v. Here we have the 
 contemporary fact that at this stage there was no open quarrel between 
 Placidia and Aetius, with the explanation of a later time that their 
 seeming good understanding was only because of Placidia's fears. 
 
336 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 him not endure that the dominion of the Eomans should pass 
 to barbarians. They again go to Africa and tell him all ; he 
 repents of his alliance with Gaiseric, and strives in vain with 
 great promises to persuade him to go back*. The Vandal, 
 deeming himself mocked f, defeats the army under Boniface 
 and besieges him in Hippo. Strengthened by a reinforcement 
 from Constantinople under Aspar, he holds out till the Vandals 
 raise the siege +. Then Aspar goes back, Boniface goes to 
 Placidia, explains his case, and is received to favour §. Of 
 the later fate of Boniface Procopius has nothing to say; he 
 mentions him once again, but only to tell of a prophecy current 
 before among the boys of Carthage. '' Gr should drive out B and 
 then B should drive out G." So did Graiseric drive out Boniface 
 and Belisarius drive out Gelimer ||. 
 
 It is easy to point out the many difficulties and inconsistencies 
 of this story. First of all, to look at the matter from the 
 most general point of view, all tales of secret intrigue carry 
 a certain suspicion about them, a suspicion which becomes yet 
 greater when we hear of them for the first time in writers long 
 after the event. We do not reject them because they are 
 unlikely, but rather because they are so likely that they are 
 sure to be reported, whether they happened or not. Or rather 
 we do not strictly reject them, unless there is some distinct 
 evidence against them ; we rather put them aside as unproved, 
 as things which very well may have happened, but of which 
 we cannot venture to say that they did happen. But here 
 I think we have distinct evidence against the story. The 
 informant from whom Procopius got the tale had clearly not 
 taken in the state of things at the time. He looked on 
 Boniface as an undoubtedly loyal governor in Africa ; he looked 
 
 * Bell. Vand. i. 3, p. 324 ; t^s t€ irpd^ews airw koI ttjs ks tovs PapP&povs 
 6;io\oyias nere/xeKe Kal avToiii eXiirdpet jxvpia ir&vTa vnoax^pievos and Ai^vrjs 
 dvioTaaOai. 
 
 \ lb. ; rcbv Se ovk evSexo/xevajv roiis \6yovs, dWa irepivfipi^faOai olofievckiv, ly 
 XiTpas aiiTois e\6etv 7)vajicda6r]. 
 
 t lb. p. 325. 
 
 § lb. ; T7)V vTToipiav SieXvey, ws ovk dXrjOovs alrias es avrbv yevoiro. 
 
 II lb. i. 21, p. 397 ; dis TO yajj-ixa Siu^ei ro PrJTa koI irdkiv avrb to firjra 
 Sioj^ei TO ydixfja. 
 
Appendix I, 337 
 
 on Aetius as the minister of Placidia, living in Italy and at 
 Eome. This last mark is curious indeed. When Procopius 
 wrote the Vandal War, he had not had occasion to hear and 
 think so much about Eavenna as he came to do before he 
 wrote the Gothic War. He took Eome for granted as the 
 imperial dwelling-place ; if he found it so assumed in the 
 narrative that he followed, it did not occur to him as any 
 difficulty. A little later, after his mother's death, Valentinian 
 was more at Eome than any emperor had been for a good 
 whUe ; but during the administration of Placidia we may 
 always assume the imperial court to be at Eavenna unless 
 proof can be shown that it was somewhere else. So again we 
 cannot positively deny that Aetius may have been at this 
 m.oment in Italy ; all that we can say is that there is nothing 
 to show that he was in Italy and everything to make us think 
 that he was in Gaul. Gaul was now his regular sphere of 
 action. He has lately smitten the Goths on the Ehone ; he 
 has before long to smite the Franks on the Ehine. The 
 resident minister of Placidia at Eavenna was Felix. Aetius 
 could, as we shall presently see, come to Italy on occasion ; 
 but he was certainly not there habitually, and any tale which 
 places him in Italy, and that not at Eavenna but at Eome, 
 needs some special confirmation. And no such confirmation 
 is to be had, but rather the contrary. The informant of 
 Procopius had no idea of the real circumstances under which 
 Boniface was summoned to Italy, circumstances which we 
 learn from the letter of Augustine. He had no idea of the 
 events which followed the summons, of the war declared 
 against Boniface in the name of the empire and at the insti- 
 gation of Felix. He leaves this out, and goes on at once to the 
 story of the Vandals. He had no notion by whose influence 
 all that happened was brought about ; he does not inention 
 Felix at all ; so far as he preserves any shadow of the real 
 story, he puts Aetius instead of Felix. To me it is plain that 
 the whole story in Procopius grew out of a dim memory of 
 the real later enmity — of which Procopius says nothing — 
 between Aetius and Boniface, mixed up with a dim memory 
 of the action of Felix towards Boniface now. The growth of 
 
 z 
 
338 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 the story is easy. Somebody acted in an unfriendly way to 
 Boniface in 427 ; Aetius and Boniface were enemies in 432. 
 Therefore the enmity of Aetius is carried back to the earlier 
 date ; the name of the real enemy of that date gives way to 
 Aetius' far more famous name ; a story grows up in which the 
 real circumstances of the time are forgotten, and legendary 
 details suiting the supposed circumstances are fitted on. In 
 this shape the tale is told to a statesman and soldier of the 
 next age. He inserts the legend in his history. The true 
 story still abides in the dry entries of a chronicler, which, 
 fully to be understood, needed to be compared with writings 
 with which men were familiar enough for purposes of pious 
 edification, but to which they were not in the habit of turning 
 for points of historical criticism. No wonder then that the 
 legend lived on instead of the truth. Prosper, even with 
 Augustine as his commentator, could not stand against 
 Procopius. 
 
 And now what is the real story about Boniface and G-aiseric ? 
 What was Boniface doing at the time of the Vandal invasion 
 of Africa ? We have seen the story in Procopius. Boniface 
 invites Gaiseric ; he repents ; he wars with the Vandals ; he is 
 besieged in Hippo ; he goes to Placidia and explains himself. 
 In all this there is nothing that contradicts the account in the 
 annals. It simply puts it out of sight. Somebody as we have 
 seen, most Hkely more than one person, did invite Gaiseric, 
 and Boniface is very likely to have been one of them. The 
 battles are likely enough ; a Vandal siege of Hippo in which 
 Boniface defended the city is witnessed by the best possible 
 evidence, by that of Possidius the biographer of Augustine, 
 who was actually within the besieged town *. What we 
 com.plain of is that in the received story we hear only of 
 
 * Possidius, Vit. Aug. 28, after describing the vast host "hostium Van- 
 dalorum et Alanorum commixtam secum habens Gothorum gentem, 
 aliarumque diversarum personas ex Hispanise partibus transmarinis," 
 tells how they besieged Hippo when "in ejus fuerit defensione constitutus 
 comts quondam Bonifacius Gothorum foederatorum exercitui." Possidius 
 was in Hippo with several other bishops. The words in italic look 
 rather as if Boniface, deprived of office, acted as a volvmteer against the 
 Vandals. 
 
Appendix I. 339 
 
 Graiseric and nothing of Sigisvult. Yet Sigisvult was certainly- 
 doing something in Africa, something at Hippo. We have the 
 witness of Augustine himself for that. Sigisvult, clearly 
 a Groth — therefore doubtless an Arian — took with him an 
 Arian bishop, Maximin by name, with whom the saint had 
 long theological disputations, which are extant among his 
 works. Augustine and Maximin met at Hippo in a time of 
 war. The Arian professed that he had not come to Hippo to 
 dispute with the Catholic, but that he was sent by Count 
 "Sigisvult to make peace *. Peace between whom ? Obviously 
 between Sigisvult and Boniface, against whom Sigisvult was 
 sent to make war. It would be a forced construction indeed 
 to make it in any way refer to Gaiseric. So again, in the 
 forged letters, there are several references to an heretical 
 enemy coming from Italy, who can be no other than Sigisvult. 
 Against him Boniface wages war, and Augustine is even made 
 to congratulate him on a victory f. If this is not true history, 
 it is most distinctly well imagined. The most natural expla- 
 nation of all this is that the events referred to in the letters of 
 Augustine, both acknowledged and doubtful, belong to the 
 year 427, the year of the expedition of Sigisvult, or at any rate 
 to a time before the coming of Gaiseric, which is best fixed to 
 429 t. The unlucky thing is that we know nothing of the 
 issue of the expedition of Sigisvult, and it is hard to avoid the 
 conjecture that, as it so utterly passed out of mind, some of its 
 events got mixed up with the story of the coming and settle- 
 
 * Augustine has a long Collatio cum Maximino (vol. viii. 649 of the 
 Benedictine edition). It begins, " Cum Augustinus et Maximinus Hip- 
 pone Regie unum in locum convenissent, . . . Maximinus dixit, Ego non ob 
 istam causam in hanc civitatem adveni ut altereationem proferam cum 
 religione tua, sed missus a comite Sigisvulto contemplatione pacis adveni." 
 For "Sigisvulto" the older edition has "regis multa." See Tillemont, 
 Mem. Eccl. xiii. 1041. Again in Augustine, Sermo cxl. (vol. v. 680 B), we 
 read, " Contra quoddam dictum Maximini Arianorum episcopi, qui cum 
 Sigisvulto comite constitutus in Africa blasphemabat." So Possidius (17) 
 speaks of him as "Ai'ianorum episcopus Maximinus cum Gothis ad 
 Africam veniens." 
 
 t See above, p. 331, note *, and the letters 14 (195), 15 (19o). 
 
 J See above, p. 327, note f. 
 
 Z 2 
 
340 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 ment of Gaiseric. Almost at the same moment Africa under- 
 goes two invasions, and Boniface acts against two invaders. 
 To be sure, one invader was a Eoman officer sent against 
 a rebellious governor, the other was a barbarian king tearing 
 away a province from the empire. Still both were barbarians, 
 both were heretics ; they fought, perhaps actually at the same 
 time, in the same land, against the same enemy. It was easy 
 to forget the difference between the position of Sigisvult the 
 Groth and that of Gaiseric the Vandal, and to merge the doings 
 of the less known man in those of the more famous. It may 
 well be that, as the excellent Tillemont suggests, peace was 
 made between Boniface and the government of Eavenna by 
 a certain Count Darius, another of the correspondents of 
 Augustine, who was certainly sent into Africa about this time 
 to make peace between some disputants or other *. If so, 
 Boniface must have been restored to favour at the latest in 
 430, the year of Augustine's death f, and that most likely as 
 the reward of his services, perhaps volunteered at Hippo. Of 
 the later career of Sigisvult we know only that he must have 
 kept a high reputation in some quarter or other. For ten years 
 later he was consul, consul in company with Aetius t- Aetius 
 was then in the midst of Gaulish warfare, and this, his second 
 appointment, came surely from Eavenna and not from Con- 
 stantinople. This might imply that Sigisvult was in favour in 
 the East as well as in the West. It is unlucky that we hear 
 so little of him ; but we may safely set down the CoUatio 
 between Augustine and Maximin to the year of his action in 
 Africa, probably before the Vandal invasion had begun. And 
 we may fix the acknowledged letter of Augustine to Boniface 
 as belonging to a time earlier still, when their coming was not 
 expected, to a time, one is inclined to think, before the dis- 
 obedience of Boniface to the summons of Placidia. The 
 dangers of which the letter speaks are neither from the Vandals 
 nor from the imperial army, but from native Africans. As to 
 the possible relations between Boniface and Gaiseric Augustine 
 
 * See ep. 229 (or 262), 231 (or 264). The saint's correspondent ia 
 " Darius comes, qui pacis conficiendse causa missus est." 
 t Prosper in anno. X See Prosper in 436, 437, 438. 
 
Appendix I. 341 
 
 tells us nothing. Those relations are so prominent in the 
 version of Procopius, and in all the versions that have been 
 copied from his, that it is hard to keep them out of our heads. 
 But we must remember that there is no direct reference to 
 them in any contemporary writer ; there is only the very dark 
 hint in Prosper. The story has been oddly turned about. 
 The possible, but not more than possible, tale of Boniface 
 inviting Gaiseric into Africa has taken a permanent place in 
 history ; the undoubted fact that he disobeyed the orders of 
 the empress and was therefore proclaimed a public enemy has 
 altogether passed out of memory. 
 
 One part of the story in Procopius may be accepted without 
 doubt, namely the coming of Aspar with the troops from 
 Constantinople. Of Aspar we have heard already as one of 
 the commanders sent to displace John from the Western 
 throne ; in later times he had the disposal of the Eastern 
 throne, and his African campaign was made memorable by the 
 story of the omen which foretold the future greatness of 
 Marcian *. It is only against Gaiseric that Aspar can possibly 
 have been sent. So again, the statement of Procopius that 
 Boniface went to Placidia and explained matters to her 
 satisfaction is doubtless his version of the event of 432, when 
 we do at last see Boniface in Italy, restored to the favour of 
 Placidia, and really acting as the enemy of Aetius. But 
 between the expedition sent to chastise the rebel Boniface in 
 Africa and the appearance of Boniface himself as a high 
 imperial officer in Italy, five years passed, five years of no 
 small moment in the life of Aetius. 
 
 In 428 came his great Prankish campaign, and we are not 
 surprised to hear of his being raised the next year to a higher 
 military rank. In the consulship of Florentius and Dionysius, 
 Felix is exalted to the dignity of patrician, and Aetius takes 
 his place as magister militum f. This is plain enough ; the 
 entries of the next year are very puzzling. Our Spanish bishop 
 records a number of exploits of Aetius in this and in the next 
 
 * Bell. Vand. i. 4, p. 826. 
 
 f Prosper ; " Florentio et Dionysio coss. (429). Felice ad patriciam 
 dignitatem provecto, Aetius raagister militum factus est." 
 
342 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 year, and for the next year he is the best possible witness, as 
 he himself had personal dealings with Aetius. Between 
 Aetjus's exploits of 429 and 430 he tells us that Felix was 
 killed at Ravenna in a military outbreak *. Here is certainly 
 nothing to suggest that Aetius had anything to do with this 
 disturbance ; the entry of the death of Felix breaks in on an 
 otherwise continuous narrative of events in Gaul and Spain in 
 which Aetius is the grand figure ; we might have been tempted 
 to think that it was meant to be specially marked as an event 
 connected in time but no otherwise. Our Aquitanian guide 
 tells us another story. He records the exploits of Aetius in 
 429 ; in 430 he mentions him only for the startling announce- 
 ment that in that year Aetius put to death Felix and his wife 
 Padusia and the deacon Grunnitus, because he found them to 
 be plotting against him f. This entry, when compared with 
 that of Idatius, seems more contradictory than any formal 
 contradiction. Formal contradiction there certainly is none. 
 Aetius may have found time for a hurried journey to Eavenna 
 on this special errand, even at a time when he was, just before 
 and just after, so busy in other parts of the world. This is 
 quite another thing from representing him, as the legend in 
 Procopius does, as the habitual adviser of Placidia at Eavenna 
 or at Eome. Or, though such a reading would be a little 
 forced, the magister militum may have found means to stir up 
 the troops at Eavenna to the slaughter of Felix, even though 
 he was himself elsewhere. In any case, the entry in Prosper, 
 distinct and detailed as it is, is of very high authority. We 
 might almost apply the rule, Credo quia impossihile. It is far 
 more likely that Idatius should have left out the name of 
 Aetius, either purposely or accidentally, than that Prosper 
 should have put it in where it had absolutely no place. But 
 
 * Idatius, VI. Valentiniani ; " Felix qui dicebatur patricius BavennaB 
 tumultu occiditur militari." 
 
 t Prosper ; " Theodosio XIII et Valentiniano III coss. (430). Aetius 
 Felicem cum tixore sua Padusia et Grunnitum diaconum, cum eos 
 insidiari sibi prsesensisset, interemit." Giildenpenning (p. 306) again 
 sees very deep into the heart of Aetius. Padusia has been thought to be 
 the ^vdSovaa of Olympiodoros, p. 467. 
 
Appendix I. 343 
 
 we shall do well to stop and think carefully how much the two 
 entries taken together really prove. The entry in Prosper 
 clearly proves that Aetius was at least very generally charged 
 with the deaths of Felix, Padusia, and Grunnitus. Were it 
 not for the entry in Idatius, we should have said that it proved 
 much more than this. The words of Prosper would certainly 
 not have suggested an outbreak of the soldiers. They would 
 most naturally be taken of private murder ; they are perhaps 
 not quite incompatible with a public execution, military or 
 civil. But they do not distinctly contradict the story of the 
 military sedition, which Idatius distinctly asserts. We must 
 therefore accept the statement that Felix, and therefore most 
 likely his wife and the deacon, were killed in the outbreak of 
 the soldiers. But we can hardly suppose that the magister 
 militum openly gave the word of command for the slaughter of 
 the patrician. Such an act would be perfectly possible, as in 
 the case where Honorius publicly gave thanks for the slaughter 
 of AUobich. But in such a case the word used would hardly 
 be tumultus. We are driven to suppose that the action of 
 Aetius was in any case underhand, that he found means to stir 
 up the soldiers to the bloody work, without actually ordering 
 it in his official character. But this brings the story very near 
 to one of those stories of secret intrigue which are always open 
 to suspicion. Felix is said to have been plotting against 
 Aetius ; Aetius is said to have caused his death in order to 
 escape from his plots. Both sayings may have been true ; 
 Prosper seems to accept the intrigues of Felix as well as the 
 precautionary revenge of Aetius. But we cannot be so certain 
 about either as we may be about things that are recorded to 
 have been done in broad daylight. 
 
 Our knowledge then seems to come to this. The patrician 
 Felix was killed in a tumult of the soldiers. And there was 
 at least a general belief that the tumult was the work of the 
 magister militum Aetius, and a further belief that this action of 
 the magister militum was caused by the discovery (or suspicion) 
 of plots on the part of the patrician against himself. And we 
 must remember that it is the entry in Idatius which leads us 
 to put things in this qualified way ; Prosper alone would have 
 
344 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 led us to charge Aetius with the death of Felix far more boldly. 
 Of the relations between Aetius and Felix we have up to this 
 time had no direct mention. Felix has been the home adviser 
 of the government of Placidia ; Aetius has been its defender 
 against foreign enemies. On the promotion of Felix to 
 a higher rank, Aetius succeeds to the vacant office. There is 
 nothing in this to suggest enmity. But we know not what 
 grudges or jealousies there may have been, and we know from 
 the stories of the bishop of Aries and the deacon Titus that 
 Felix was at least believed to be capable of bringing about 
 men's deaths by secret means. There is nothing unlikely in 
 the story of his plots against Aetius or of the action by which 
 Aetius stopped them. Only we have no statement of details, 
 causes, or results ; and the one thing that gets beyond mere 
 likelihood is the slaughter of Felix by the soldiers at Eavenna. 
 
 Prosper has now no entry of the military exploits of Aetius 
 tUl we reach the Burgundian war of 435. This last is also 
 recorded by Idatius, who further records a Frankish campaign 
 in 431. But between these two wars comes the most remark- 
 able story of all, in which, for the first and last time, in the 
 year 432, the names of Aetius and Boniface are directly 
 brought together in any authentic narrative. Now at least we 
 see them as enemies. Their enmity is the end of the career 
 of Boniface ; it is very far from being the end of the career 
 of Aetius. Of his four consulships it is the year of the first, 
 that which he shared with Valerius. As his last consulship 
 led to his death, so his first led to his momentary fall. The 
 story which Procopius heard in Africa sent Boniface to Italy, 
 but said nothing as to his fate there. In our best authorities, 
 the contemporaiy annals, we have again two versions which it 
 may need some little pains to reconcile. Prosper tells us only 
 that Boniface came to Eavenna from Africa to receive the rank 
 of magister militum, that Aetius withstood him, that he over- 
 came Aetius in battle and died of disease a few days later *. 
 
 * "Aetio et Valerio coss. Bonifaeius ab Africa ad Italiam per Urbem 
 venit, aecepta magistri militum dignitate ; qui cum sibi resistentem 
 Aetium prselio superasset, paucos post dies morbo extinctus est." The 
 
Appendix I. 345 
 
 Idatius is rather fuller. In his version Boniface at the 
 summons of Placidia comes to Ravenna as the rival of Aetius. 
 Aetius is deprived of his office, which is given to Boniface. 
 A few months later the rivals meet in fight, and Boniface 
 receives a wound of which he dies *. From inferior authorities 
 we get minuter details. The other Prosper, or Tiro, or what- 
 ever we are to call him, says that Aetius, after his consulship 
 was over, took himself to strong places to escape Boniface, who 
 had been sent for by Placidia. Then comes a fight of some 
 kind in which Boniface has the better, but dies of a wound f. 
 
 Another of the endless versions which go under Prosper's 
 name cuts the tale down to a few words, but tells us, what no 
 other account does, the place of action. Aetius and Boniface 
 fought five miles from Ariminum %• Count Marcellinus has 
 more remarkable details still. By the stirring up of Placidia 
 a great fight or war takes place between the patricians Boniface 
 and Aetius. The day before the fight Aetius provides himself 
 with a longer weapon than that of Boniface. Boniface is there- 
 fore wounded, while Aetius escapes unhurt. Three months 
 later Boniface dies, counselling his wealthy wife Pelagia to 
 marry no one except Aetius §. 
 
 geography here is remarkable. To go to Italy had, under Honorius and 
 Placidia, become so completely the same thing as to go to Ravenna, that 
 it was possible to speak of going from Africa to Italy through Rome. 
 That was clearly the obvious way to get to Ravenna, as ten years before 
 Boniface had gone from Ravenna to Africa by ■gortvis Urbis. In both 
 places Ravenna is taken for granted. 
 
 * VIII Honorii ; " Bonifacius in semulationem Aetii de Africa per 
 Placidiam evocatus in Italiam ad palatium rediit. Qui depulso Aetio in 
 locum ejus succedens, paucis post mensibus, inito adversum Aetium 
 conflictu, de vulnere quo fuerat percussus interiit." The " palatium " is 
 of course at Ravenna, as before. 
 
 f IX Honorii ; " Consulatu Aetius edito, Bonifacium, qui ab regina 
 accitus ex Africa fuerat, declinans, ad munitiora conscendit. Bonifacius 
 contra Aetium certamine habito, perculsus, victor quidem sed moriturus 
 abscedit." 
 
 J This is the version published by Hille in his Inaugural Dissertation, 
 Berlin, 1866, pp. 6, 15 ; "Aetio et Valerie. Pugna facta inter Aetium et 
 Bonifacium in V (in quinto) de Arimino." The word "pugna" looks 
 rather more like a single combat than some of the words used elsewhere ; 
 but it need not imply it. 
 
 § ' ' Valerie et Aetio coss. Placidiae matris Valentiniani imp. instinctu, 
 
346 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 Here at last Boniface and Aetius do appear as enemies ; but 
 in none of these versions is there any hint as to what made 
 them so. Now we should be inclined to accept the story in 
 Procopius as supplying us with the cause ; only the story 
 in Procopius can hardly be forced into agreement with the 
 authentic narrative about Felix and Sigisvult, and it looks 
 so very much as if it had arisen out of that narrative. Now 
 in such an age as that, perhaps in any age, the two foremost 
 men in the state are likely to be rivals ; but up to this time 
 there has been no authentic mention of their rivalry ; they 
 have been employed in two quite distinct scenes of action. At 
 the time of the usurpation of John they were on opposite sides, 
 but they did not come across each other. And if Aetius was 
 then the rebel and Boniface the loyal commander, since that 
 time their parts have been reversed. While Aetius was re- 
 storing the power of the empire in Gaul, an army had to be 
 sent to Africa to bring Boniface to obedience. And now, at 
 the moment when Aetius is promoted to the highest place in 
 the republic, seemingly in the very year of his consulship, he is 
 deprived of his office of magister militum, and Boniface is sent 
 for from Africa to take it in his stead*. And all this was 
 a sudden change without any assigned reason ; never do we 
 more earnestly wish for some source of knowledge fuller than 
 mere annals. As it is, we can only say that in a despotic 
 court, anything may happen, and that the very services of 
 Aetius and the height of greatness to which he had risen 
 might be turned against him. The date seems fixed. The 
 consul then, in the year of his consulship, is deprived of his 
 
 ingens bellum inter Bonifacium et Aetium patricios gestum est. Aetius 
 longiore Bonifacii telo pridie sibimet praeparato, Bonifacium congre- 
 dientem vulneravit illaesus ; tertioque mense Bonifacius vulnere quo 
 sauciatus fuerat emoritur, Pelagiam uxorem suam valde locupletem nulli 
 alteri nisi Aetio ut nuberet exhortans." Marcellinus is wrong in calling 
 Aetius "patricius," which he did not become till the next year, while 
 Boniface is not mentioned elsewhere as patrician at all. 
 
 * The statement in the article Bonifacius in the Dictionary of Bio- 
 graphy about coins with the head of Boniface is pure misconception. 
 The coins, or rather medals, that are meant have nothing to do with any 
 Boniface. 
 
Appendix I. 347 
 
 military dignity, which is given to another ; but he does not 
 take the insult quietly : he resists in some way or another ; 
 a fight of some kind happens, which is followed by the death 
 of Boniface. So far all stories agree : but there is diversity as 
 to every detail. Boniface and Aetius meet in fight, but is it in 
 single combat, an early case in short of the wager of battle, or 
 is the quarrel to be looked on as rising to the scale of a civil 
 war ? For the single combat there seems to be hardly anything 
 to be called authority. Marcellinus indeed clearly describes 
 a single combat between Boniface and Aetius ; but it reads 
 like a single combat in a war ; ingens helium, even assuming 
 that the later use of bellum could have come in so early, would 
 be a strange phrase to describe a single combat only. And the 
 other Prosper, who seems to connect the whole matter in some 
 not very intelligible way with the appointment of Aetius as 
 consul, clearly looked on Aetius as taking warlike precautions 
 against Boniface, as occupying strong places, and his account 
 of the death of Boniface would be more consistent with 
 a general battle (certamen) than with a single combat. When 
 we come to the contemporary writers, their language is vague ; 
 but there is nothing to suggest the thought of a single combat. 
 Pralium and conflidus are words which imply the meeting of 
 armies, not the meeting of single men. Boniface, according to 
 Prosper, dies of disease, a statement perhaps not inconsistent 
 with the version of Idatius that he died of a wound. But 
 neither implies that the wound was given by the hand of 
 Aetius. That version comes wholly from the account of 
 Marcellinus in the next century. It is, I suspect, from his 
 chronicle that the whole notion of the single combat has come ; 
 certainly no one would think of it from reading Prosper and 
 Idatius only. "What they suggest is rather that, after Aetius' 
 appointment to the consulship, some dispute arose between 
 him and Placidia — that she proposed to deprive him of his 
 post as magister militum and to give it to Boniface — that Aetius, 
 doubtless with an army in his actual command, withstood the 
 transfer of office in arms — that a battle followed, in which 
 Boniface had the better, but received a wound of which he 
 died. This seems the natural interpretation of the words of 
 
348 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 our two best authorities, and it gives a story far more likely in 
 the fifth century than the story of the single combat. By what 
 authority was the single combat to be fought ? Is the empress- 
 mother conceived as the queen of beauty presiding over the 
 knightly contest ? 
 
 She took their hands ; she led them forth into the court below ; 
 She bade the ring be guarded ; she bade the trumpets blow ; 
 For lofty place for that stern race the signal she did throw ; 
 For truth and right the Lord will fight ; together let them go. 
 
 It is hard to see by what law of Theodosius or of any earlier 
 emperor the post of magister militum could be disposed of 
 according to the issue of a single combat between the two 
 illustrious candidates. Again, how are we to explain the issue 
 of the combat ? In Prosper, and in the other Prosper— Prosper 
 Tiro — Boniface wins the battle, but dies of a wound received 
 in it, a likely enough chance of ordinary warfare. But in 
 a single combat, if Aetius, as Marcellinus says, himself unhurt, 
 gave Boniface a deadly wound, then surely Aetius was the 
 victor in the duel and was entitled to whatever was the prize 
 of it. And as such Marcellinus seems to look upon him ; at 
 least he says nothing of any victory on the part of Boniface, 
 which comes out so strongly in Prosper. Surely the real story 
 is that Aetius now, like Boniface five years before, refused 
 obedience to the imperial orders when those orders went to 
 deprive him of his military post, and that Placidia sent for 
 Boniface to bring him to obedience, exactly as Mavortius, 
 Galbio, Sinox, and Sigisvult had been sent to bring Boniface 
 to obedience. The thought does for a moment flash across the 
 mind that in those strange times, where ever and anon some 
 ancient form seems again to come into life for a moment, the 
 consul of the repubKc may have fallen back on the powers of 
 his office in an earlier day. It might too flash across the mind, 
 considering the early importance of Aetius at Constantinople, 
 that his nomination as consul came from the East, and was in 
 some unexplained way unacceptable at Kavenna. The dis- 
 pleasure of Placidia is unexplained on any showing, and the 
 consulship was the natural reward of the long tale of victories 
 
Appendix I. 349 
 
 in which Aetius had smitten nation after nation in the West, 
 winding up with his great Frankish success the year before *. 
 Gaul was for a moment at peace, and the conqueror and consul 
 came to wear his laurels in Italy. To be degraded at such 
 a moment by the caprice of a woman might stir any captain of 
 those days to rebellion. On the whole the story reads far 
 more as if the cemulatio Aetii of Idatius was a rivalry, possibly 
 an intrigue, on the part of Boniface against Aetius rather than 
 a rivalry or intrigue of Aetius against Boniface. 
 
 The best evidence then points to an open war between the 
 two great captains. Can we recover any details of the cam- 
 paign ? There are several notices which may help us. First 
 of all, we may fairly accept the statement of a single annal 
 that the fight took place at the fifth milestone from Ariminum. 
 No one was likely to indulge in invention on such a point as 
 this, while nothing is more easy than for such a small bit of 
 geography to be left out. As for the date of the fighting, 
 according to the story in Idatius, Boniface, summoned by 
 Placidia, displaces Aetius in his office, and some months later 
 comes the fight in which Boniface receives his wound. This 
 fits in curiously with the saying in the other Prosper about 
 Aetius withdrawing before Boniface to strong places. These 
 mionths were clearly occupied in preparations ; then Aetijis, 
 
 * Idatius, who has dealings of his own to record, thus brings in his 
 eighth year of Valentinian, reckoning, it must be remembered, from the 
 death of Honorius, after the manner of Charles the Second and Lewis the 
 Eighteenth; "Superatis per Aetium in certamine Francis et in pace 
 susceptis, Censorius comes legatus mittitur ad Suevos, supradicto secum 
 Idatio redeunte. Bonifacius in aemulationem Aetii," &c. Wietersheim 
 (Geschichte der Volkerwanderung, Band iv. p. 307) fully sees that what 
 happened was a real battle, and he describes the forces on both sides in 
 a way which is very likely in itself, but which it is hard to see in the 
 authorities. Of course Aetius is '• der ehrgeizige Feldherr " who " duldete 
 keine Nebenbuhler " ; he and Boniface are "die erbitterten Feinde," &c. 
 According to this account, "Bonifacius kehrte zwar als Fliichtling, aber 
 doch wohl mit einem nicht unbedeutenden Heer, aus Africa nach Italien 
 lieim." As for the battle, " wir diirfen des Aetius Niederlage vielleicht 
 durch sein schwacheres Heer, dessen grosster Theil in Gallien geblieben 
 sein mag, und durch die besten Haustruppen der Kaiserin, welche dem 
 Bonifacius iiberlassen worden sein mogen, erklaren." 
 
350 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 whether constrained or of his own will, leaves his strong 
 places to meet his enemy in battle. He is defeated, but the 
 victorious Boniface presently dies. As to his curious instruc- 
 tions to his wife, the wife whom, according to Augustine, he 
 ought not to have married, we can say nothing. If we accept 
 it, it can only be quia impossibile. What could have put it into 
 anybody's head ? It might seem a singular piece of advice, 
 even if Aetius had been a single man or a widower. But it 
 seems to go beyond all bounds of credible impossibility when 
 we remember that Aetius had a very powerful, though nameless 
 wife, daughter of G-othic kings and perhaps already aspiring to 
 be mother of Eoman emperors. 
 
 Let us look on a step further to the events that followed the 
 fight and the death of Boniface. It is to be noticed that Mar- 
 cellinus, who gives us the single combat and the instructions to 
 Pelagia, has nothing to tell us as to what immediately followed. 
 But the earlier writers have a good deal to say as to the im- 
 mediate results of the quarrel, and from one of them we can 
 perhaps learn what it was that put the notion of a single 
 combat into anybody's head. Let us again compare our 
 authorities. 
 
 Prosper is the fullest. According to him, Aetius, having 
 lost or laid down his office, was living on his own estate. 
 There a nameless enemy attempts a sudden attack on him. 
 He then flees to Eome and thence to Dalmatia ; from Dalmatia 
 he goes to the Huns by way of Pannonia. He is still in good 
 favour with his old friends ; by their help, in some shape or 
 other, he is restored to the favour of Placidia and Valentirdan, 
 and receives again the office that he had lost. After this 
 Prosper does not mention Aetius again, except in relation to 
 Gaulish affairs ; he does not even record his death. In his 
 annals the third consulship is a blank. But it is to be noticed 
 that in 439 he gives Aetius the title of patrician, and that 
 in 440, when speaking of Gaiseric's inroads in Sicily, he 
 mentions that Gaiseric went back to Carthage, because 
 Sebastian, a man skilled in war, had gone from Spain into 
 Africa. He goes on to speak, but darkly, of the relations 
 between Gaiseric and Sebastian and of the end of Sebastian. 
 
Appendix I. 351 
 
 But there is nothing in his account to imply that Sebastian 
 had anything to do with the affairs of Aetius and Boniface *. 
 
 The account of Idatius lets us know that the Sebastian of 
 Prosper's later story had a good deal to do with both Boniface 
 and Aetius. He is the son-in-law of Boniface, and on his 
 father-in-law's death he is appointed to his office, that of 
 magister militum. But, being overcome by Aetius, he is driven 
 from the palace at Ravenna. Aetius is restored to his old 
 post ; the next year he is raised to the rank of patrician. Of 
 Aetius Idatius has nothing more to say — except in Gaul, where 
 he has a good deal — till he records his last exploits and his 
 death. But he has a great deal to tell us about the singular 
 career of Sebastian. He flees to Constantinople, an event 
 which may seem to be connected with the higher promotion 
 of Aetius. The later entries about Sebastian do not greatly 
 concern us. Only they go some way to explain the dark entry 
 about him in Prosper. After very strange goings to and fro, 
 he was put to death by Gaiseric, according to some accounts, 
 as a Catholic martyr f. 
 
 The other Prosper has nothing to say about Sebastian, but 
 
 * Immediately after the death of Boniface, Prosper goes on, "Aetius 
 vero, cum deposita potestate in agro suo degeret, ibique eum quidam 
 inimicus ejus repentino incursu opprimere tentasset, profugus ad urbem, 
 atque illinc ad Dalmatiam, deinde per Pannoniam ad Hunnos pervenit, 
 quorum amicitia auxilioque usus, pacem principum et jus interpolatae 
 potestatis obtinuit." In 440, Valentiniano Augusto V et Anatolio coss., 
 after a casual mention of Aetius in Gaul, we read, "Geisericus Siciliam 
 graviter affligens, accepto nuntio de Sebastiani ab Hispania ad Africam 
 transitu, celeriter Carthaginem rediit, ratus periculosum sibi ac suis fore 
 si vir bellandi peritus recipiendae Carthagini incubuisset. Verum ille 
 amicum se magis quam hostem videri volens, diversa omnia apud barbari 
 animum quam praesumpserat repperit, eaque spes causa illi maxima et 
 calamitatis et infelicissimas mortis fuit." 
 
 t Immediately after the death of Boniface, Idatius goes on, " Cui [Boni- 
 facio] Sebastianus gener substitutus per Aetium de palatio superatus 
 expellitur." The next year " Aetius dux utriusque militiae patrieiua 
 appellatur," and the next year " Sebastianus exsul et profugus effectus, 
 navigat ad palatium Orientis." Other entries about him come in 444 and 
 450. A full account of his martyrdom is given in Victor Vitensis i. 19. 
 He is there "Sebastianus famosi illius gener comitis Bonifatii, acer 
 cousilio et strenuus in bello." This is Victor's only mention of Boniface. 
 
352 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 he has a great deal more to say about the Huns. After the 
 battle with Boniface, Aetius flees to the Hunnish king Kugila, 
 and asks his help. By that help he enters the Eoman terri- 
 tory ; then the Goths are called to give help against him by 
 the Eomans. In the next year Aetius is restored to favour, 
 and peace is made with Eugila, who dies *. 
 
 Marcellinus has no further mention of Aetius till the time 
 of his death. He in no way connects Sebastian with Aetius ; 
 but he mentions the flight of Sebastian from Constantinople 
 and his death in Africa, seemingly bringing the two events 
 too near together f. 
 
 When we come to compare these statements, there is no 
 kind of contradiction between Prosper and Idatius. Each 
 account is strangely imperfect, but each fills up gaps in the 
 other. Prosper does not tell us what became of the office of 
 magister militum, of which Aetius had been deprived to make 
 room for Boniface, and which now again became vacant by the 
 death of Boniface. We learn from Idatius that it was given 
 to Sebastian, son-in-law of Boniface, husband, that must be, of 
 a daughter of that earlier marriage of which Saint Augustine 
 did not wholly disapprove. He tells us also that Aetius was 
 able in some way or other to dispossess Sebastian. Prosper, 
 though not mentioning Sebastian at this stage, tells us how 
 Aetius came to dispossess him, and gives us some very curious 
 details. Aetius for a moment withdraws into private life, but 
 we raay guess not without a purpose of coming back to the 
 affairs of the world whenever he might have a chance. No 
 longer magister militum, having been deprived of the office and 
 having failed in his attempt to recover it in arms — for the 
 death of Boniface after the battle must not make us forget the 
 defeat of Aetius in the battle — he has no armies to command 
 
 * The death of Boniface is placed in the ninth year of Theodosius, 
 according to his reckoning. Thus we read ; "X. Cum ad Chunnorum 
 gentem, cui tunc Eugila prseerat, post prselium se Aetius contulisset, 
 impetrato auxilio ad Komanum solum regreditur. Gothi ad ferendum 
 auxilium a Eomanis acciti. XI. Aetius in gratiam receptus. Eugila rex 
 Chunnorum, cum quo pax firmata, moritur, cui Bleda successit." He 
 says nothing more about Aetius till the year of his death. 
 
 t Under 435 " Theodosio XY et Valentiniano IV coss." 
 
Appendix I. 353 
 
 in Gaul, and he must have thought that it suited his purpose 
 to stay for a while to watch the course of things in Italy 
 rather than to risk an immediate attempt at seizing power in 
 Gaul. He is clearly not harshly treated, as far as any public 
 dealings went, by the court of Eavenna. He is allowed to 
 withdraw to his private estate ; he therefore had, as was 
 likely enough, lands in Italy. While he is dwelling there 
 a treacherous attempt is made on his life, whether by any 
 secret commission from Placidia, Valentinian, or Sebastian, we 
 have no means of judging. It reminds one of the attempt 
 on Alkibiades which Tissaphernes did order, and of the 
 attempt on Hereward, which William did not. On the whole, 
 without setting up Placidia very high, one had rather not 
 fancy her practising the arts of Fredegund. Anyhow Aetius 
 is more lucky than either Alkibiades or Hereward ; he escapes 
 with life. Now surely we have here the kernel of truth out 
 of which grew the legend of the single combat between 
 Boniface and Aetius. Here is a personal attempt on Aetius, 
 made, not by an army, but by one man or a few. In such 
 a case something very like a single combat might easily take 
 place ; there are plenty of stories of the kind, the two to which 
 I have just referred among them. Nothing could be easier 
 than to mix up this story with that of the battle with Boni- 
 face. Aetius and Boniface met in fight ; Aetius and somebody 
 met in single combat ; it was a slight change to make Aetius 
 and Boniface meet in single combat. This seems likely enough 
 to be the explanation of the story ; but, of course, such an 
 explanation is not needed for the general course of events. 
 Anyhow, after the attempt on his life Aetius no longer thinks 
 himself safe in Italy or anywhere in the Eoman dominions ; 
 he must seek the help of the same barbarian friends whom he 
 had seven years before brought to support the cause of John. 
 We know not in what part of Italy his estate lay, but clearly 
 somewhere where the haven of Eome was the nearest or safest 
 point to take ship. In any case he takes a roundabout way to 
 get to the Huns. The land journey through northern Italy 
 might have brought him dangerously near to Eavenna. He 
 therefore flees to Eome, clearly to set sail from Portus : he 
 
354 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 makes the long voyage to Dalmatia, and so goes to the Huns. 
 By their 'friendship and help,' M'hatever those words may 
 imply, he procures his restoration to imperial favour and to 
 his old oflSce ; this of course implies the deprivation of Se- 
 bastian, the one point recorded by Idatius. 
 
 Now what was the form of this Hunnish friendship and 
 help, by which a Eoman consul or consular is restored to 
 a Eoman office ? Are we to think of Hunnish diplomacy as 
 thus powerful, or did Aetius again bring a Hunnish force 
 into the erapire ? It is at least certain that, if Placidia or 
 hex- advisers yielded to Hunnish diplomacy, it could have been 
 only because Hunnish diplomacy was ready to be backed by 
 Hunnish force. The words in which Idatius records the re- 
 moval of Sebastian, superatus expellHur, look very much like 
 actual force. The fullest account is that of the other Prosper, 
 to which we must give such an amount of trust as we may 
 think good. This version does not necessarily imply an actual 
 war, but it does imply a state of things on the very brink of 
 war. A Hunnish invasion must have been looked for as very 
 near when Gothic allies — West-Goths used to fight against 
 Aetius — were summoned to give help to Kome. Goth and 
 Eoman might have met the Hun on other fields than the 
 Catalaunian, in strife in which Aetius and Theodoric could 
 not have fought side by side. If things had gone so far as 
 this, we should surely have heard of it. Aetius ' came back 
 to Eoman soil by help of the Huns ' ; but this might surely 
 be said though the action of the Huns did not go beyond 
 a threatened march to the frontier, and though the summons 
 to the Goths was not actually followed by their presence in 
 Italy. Surely both dangers were avoided by the simpler 
 process of receiving Aetius to his favour and displacing 
 Sebastian from his office. We must not press the words 
 superatus and expelUtur too far ; they look like force, but they 
 do not absolutely prove it. At any rate the entries in Idatius 
 show that Sebastian, though driven from the palace, remained 
 for a while in Italy. It is only the next year that Aetius rises 
 to the full height of the patriciate, and it is not till the year 
 after that that Sebastian flees to Constantinople as an exile. 
 
Appendix I. 355 
 
 One is tempted to go on with the singular and striking story 
 of Sebastian ; but from this point it really has no bearing on 
 the story or character of Aetius. More important is the fact, 
 which we must take from the other Prosper, that a peace with 
 the Huns followed the restoration of Aetius. There had 
 therefore been a previous state of war, though not necessarily 
 any actual fighting, and it seems plain that the restoration 
 of Aetius was one of the conditions of peace. But we can 
 perhaps find another. In the casual allusion of the best 
 authority on Hunnish matters, that Priscus to whom we owe 
 our living picture of Attila and his household, we hear of 
 a peace of Aetius — like a peace of Nikias or of Antalkidas — by 
 which Pannonia on the Save, that is most likely the land 
 between Save and Drave, was given up to the Hun *. This 
 peace was the last act of Eugila ; he died to make way for 
 Bleda and the mightier name of Attila. We see its fruits 
 in the friendly relations so long kept up between Aetius and 
 the Huns. Three years later than his return in 435, when 
 he smites the Burgundians, the Huns come on to finish his 
 work f. It is in his second consulship in 437 that the Gothic 
 war is carried on by Hunnish help t. It is he who provides 
 Attila with a Eoman secretary §, who receives from Attila 
 the singular gift of a Moorish dwarf and jester ||, and when 
 Valentinian sends an embassy to Attila, the Greek narrator 
 of the event instinctively puts the name of Aetius before the 
 
 * Priscus, 146, 147 ; COpicrrrjs) wKei t^v irpbs rw "Xao) noranw Haidvcuv xupav, 
 T(3 Pappapw KarcL ras 'Aeriov ffrpaTTjyov rwv effnepicDU 'Vcap-aiaiv avvBifKas 
 inraKovovaav. Priscus, chiefly dealing with the affaii's of the East, has to 
 distinguish this treaty, then clearly of some standing, from the diplomacy 
 of Theodosius and of Aetius himself in 448. Haiovis is of course high- 
 polite for Pannonians. 
 
 t See Prosper, 435 ; " Theod. XV et Val. IV coss." 
 
 t lb., 437 ; "Aetio II et Sigisvulto coss. Bellum adversus Gothos 
 Hunnis auxiliantibus geritur." 
 
 § Priscus, 176, 208. 
 
 II See his story in Priscus, pp. 205, 225 (Souidas in Zepicwv). He 
 belonged to Aspar ; he was taken by the Huns in an inroad into Thrace ; 
 he became a favourite with Bleda, was inherited by Attila, given by him 
 to Aetius, and by him back to his old master Aspar. 
 
 A a 2 
 
356 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 name of his master *. We should hardly have looked to see 
 the crowning glory of his life in warfare in which the first 
 great check is given to the advance of the Hunnish power. 
 
 It certainly seems to me that, by thus carefully turning our 
 authorities inside out, we come to a narrative of events which 
 differs a good deal from that which has been commonly received. 
 Some parts of the real story have dropped out of notice. Such 
 is all that concerns Castinus, Felix, and Sigisvult, and the 
 relations of either Aetius or Boniface to any of those persons. 
 The remarkable language of the annalists as to the position of 
 Boniface in Africa, the undoubted fact of his resistance to the 
 imperial orders, and the war which was therefore waged against 
 him as a public enemy, have passed out of sight ; so has the 
 death of Felix and the share of Aetius in it. These are points 
 of some importance both for the story and for the character of 
 the two chief men ; but they seem to have been very early 
 forgotten. Instead of them we get the legend of the com- 
 plicated intrigues of Aetius against Boniface, of the treasonable 
 dealings of Boniface with Gaiseric, and of his later repentance. 
 We have seen that for the intrigues of Aetius there is no real 
 evidence, that the dealings of Boniface with Gaiseric, though 
 likely enough, are very doubtful, and that, if they happened at 
 all, they were caused, not by any plots of Aetius, but by the 
 war declared against Boniface during the ministry of Felix. 
 We come to the end of the joint career of the two men, and we 
 find the main authority for the earlier legend silent, while 
 another later writer supplies a romantic story of a single combat 
 which has displaced the actual battle of the earlier annalists. 
 I think I may claim — unless I have been forestalled at Dorpat — 
 to have put the story together for the first time in its truth and 
 fulness ; but I must again repeat that the modern German 
 writers, though they have, to my thinking, not made all that 
 should have been made of the genuine materials, have by no 
 means neglected them. I have to thank them for some refer- 
 
 * Priscus, 186 ; Trpea^eis Ttapa 'AeTiov koI tov PaaiXevovros ruv effTrepicai/ 
 'Pojfiaiwv laraXTjaav. Did he not know Valentinian's name ? 
 
Appendix I. 357 
 
 ences which I might not have lighted upon for myself. All 
 that I complain of is that they confuse the story by bringing 
 in the details of the Procopian legend as of equal authority with 
 the contemporary annalists. And I believe that every entry of 
 the annalists and every scrap of information about the matter 
 to be found in any quarter has been brought together by 
 Tillemont. Nothing ever escaped the notice of that most 
 careful and valuable scholar ; only in his simple good faith, he 
 sometimes tried to believe two stories when it was impossible 
 to believe both at the same time. 
 
 And now as to the characters of the two men with whom we 
 have been dealing. Boniface we certainly leave a little in the 
 dark. Our personal picture of him comes from Saint Augustine. 
 It is that of a man who sets out with the highest promise, 
 private and public, but who falls away from his duties, private 
 and public. At one time almost a saint, with some tendency 
 to become a monk, he sins against ecclesiastical rules, perhaps 
 against moral rules also. At one time the model of a Roman 
 officer, he neglects his duties in that character also, and leaves 
 his province to be harried by barbarians. This is how Boniface 
 appears in the letters of Augustine ; only the legend has so 
 taken hold of men's minds that, when Augustine writes about 
 native Africans, they have chosen to read about Vandals. The 
 picture drawn by Augustine is a very natural one ; Boniface 
 appears as one of the many men whose early days were their 
 best. A more minute examination of the facts brings out 
 nothing to set aside the witness of Augustine ; it simply gives 
 the political errors of Boniface a somewhat different character 
 from that which they put on in the common story. While the 
 charge of treasonable dealings with foreign enemies must be 
 pronounced uncertain, we must charge him with distinct dis- 
 obedience to his sovereign, and with neglect of official duty in 
 a province which there is some reason to think that he had 
 occupied irregularly. In his public character, in short, he is the 
 man of the fifth century. In that ever-shifting age of revolu- 
 tions, we cannot look for the same kind of loyalty, the same 
 unswerving obedience to lawful authority, which we look for 
 
358 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 either in a citizen of the old Eoman commonwealth or in the 
 subject of a modern constitutional state. Boniface was at least 
 not below the common standard of his contemporaries ; he was 
 very likely above it. He really did nothing very memorable 
 after his exploit at Massalia ; his name has simply drawn to 
 itself a special interest, partly from the legend of his relations 
 to Aetius, partly also from his relations to Augustme. In this 
 latter aspect he comes home to us in a way in which few 
 captains of his age can come *. Of Aetius, of most other men 
 of the time, we do not in the same way know either the private 
 virtues or the private sins. 
 
 Whatever allowances we make for Boniface we must make 
 for Aetius also. He also is a raan of the fifth century, and is 
 assuredly not free from the common faults of the fifth century. 
 Only the faults which real history shows in him are not the 
 same as those which we hear of in the legend. In the legend 
 he appears as a man of subtle and unscrupulous intrigue. 
 There is nothing like this in the genuine story ; for we should 
 hardly speak in this way of the wonderful diplomatic power 
 which ever enabled him to bring some powerful ally to his side, 
 which could bring the Hun to act against the Groth and the 
 Goth to act against the Hun. His fault is the natural fault of 
 a man in his position. Knowing his strength, both in himself 
 and in the powers that he could call upon, he is too ready to 
 appeal to force. In this he is simply the man of his time, 
 neither better nor worse than Boniface. His rebellions, if they 
 are to be so called, strike us more than the rebellion of Boniface, 
 simply because his position allowed them to be wrought on 
 a greater scale and to win greater success. If Aetius brought 
 barbarian allies to decide Eoman quarrels, it was no more than 
 every man of his time, sovereign or subject, did if he had the 
 chance. Indeed, if men were to fight at aU, it was hardly 
 possible for them to fight without barbarian allies. All wars 
 of the time were fought with their help. When Aetius calls 
 
 * Unless indeed we remember that Dardanus, of whom Sidonius (Ep. 
 V. 9) had so very bad an opinion, was also a friend and correspondent of 
 the saint. There is a letter (Ep. Ivii. or 187) in which Augustine discusses 
 theology with him as freely as he does with Boniface. 
 
Appendix I. 359 
 
 in the Huns, all that Placidia can do is to call in the Goths. 
 And if, with our notions, it seems uglier to call in Huns than 
 to call in Goths, we can hardly expect the men of the fifth 
 century to enter minutely into such distinctions, especially as 
 Goth and Hun alike were called in simply as allies or 
 mercenaries. Neither side does anything towards bringing in 
 a Hunnish or Gothic dominion, though of course it was always 
 possible that such thoughts might come into the minds of the 
 Hunnish or Gothic allies themselves. And we may remark 
 further that, though Aetius several times appeals to force against 
 the measures of the reigning emperor, he never appeals to it to 
 supplant the reigning emperor. When many a man, with such 
 powers at his call as Aetius had, would at once have aimed at 
 the tyranny, Aetius is satisfied with being restored to his old 
 office. If at an earlier stage he appears as the supporter of 
 a tyranny, it was at least not a tyranny in his own person, and 
 we must remember that John, like so many others, is called 
 tyrant and not emperor simply because he was unsuccessful. 
 The only thing in the authentic story which looks the least like 
 intrigue, as the intrigues of Aetius are commonly painted, is 
 the story of the death of Felix. If that is intrigue, it is force 
 as well ; but we hardly know enough of the details to pass any 
 judgement. We can only say that Aetius got rid of a man 
 whom he deemed to be dangerous in some way which can 
 hardly fail to have been irregular. 
 
 On the whole, Aetius comes out from his cross-examination 
 as certainly something very unlike a faultless hero. All that 
 we can say for him is that he is certainly not worse, that on 
 the whole he is better, than the received standard of his time. 
 He has the greatest opportunities of any man of his time, and, 
 on the whole, for that time, he does not use them amiss. Of 
 his opportunities for good he avails himself more than other 
 men, of his opportunities for evil he avails himself less. We 
 may fairly say that he is loyal to the empire and the emperor, 
 even though he is fully determined to maintain, by force if need 
 be, his own claim to be the first subject in the empire. The 
 only act that looks like disloyalty to the republic itself is the 
 cession of a certain Pannonian district to the Huns. Most 
 
360 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 likely this was simply giving the Hunnish king a legal posses- 
 sion of a land which was already his for all purposes of plunder 
 and havoc. By such a cession the sufferings of the Koman 
 inhabitants of that land, if any were left, were pretty sure to 
 be lessened. Except with a people who are ready to defend 
 every inch of ground at the sword's point, the acknowledged 
 mastery even of the Hun or the Turk is commonly a less evil 
 than his ceaseless inroads from outside. 
 
 Of the two men with whose names we started, the career of 
 Boniface is over ; the most brilliant time of the career of Aetius 
 is yet to come. Of his Gaulish career I hope to speak in another 
 shape. We may then trace him alike in the dry entries of the 
 annalists and in the sounding verse of the prelate of Auvergne. 
 We may count up how often he beat back the Goth from 
 imperial Aries, how he smote the Burgundian and taught the 
 Frank to know his master. We may then dwell on that clearer 
 tribute to the stoutest champion of Rome which the annalist 
 pays when he takes for granted that, if Gaiseric could tear away 
 Carthage from the republic, it was only because the sword of 
 Aetius was busy against other foes in Gaul *. We may then 
 tell of the great triumph of his diplomacy, when, like Demo- 
 sthenes on his errand to Thebes, like Gellius Egnatius on his 
 errand to Etruria f, he won his enemies to march at his side 
 against their former allies. We may tell of the first and 
 greatest European concert, when Eoman and Goth and Frank 
 — Catholic, Arian, and heathen— when Briton and Saxon, allies 
 for a moment on Gaulish soil J, went forth together at the 
 bidding of the last Eoman of the West §. We may then tell 
 how Saint Anian looked forth from the battlements of Orleans, 
 
 * Prosper; " Theodosio XVII et Festo coss. (439). Aetio rebus quae in 
 Galliis componebantur intento, Geisericus, de cujus amicitia nihil metue- 
 batur, [XIV Kal. Nov.] Carthaginem dolo pacis invadit." 
 
 -(- Arnold's Eome, ii. cap. xxxiii. p. 331. 
 
 X See the list in Jordanis, Getica, 36; "Adfuerunt aiixiliares Franci, 
 Sarmatse, Armoriciani, Liticiani, Burgundiones, Saxones, Ripari, Oli- 
 briones." 
 
 § One may here fairly give Aetius the title that Procopius has devised 
 for him, though not without some memories of Syagrius and iEgidius. 
 
Appendix I. 361 
 
 like our own Wulfstan from, the battlements of Worcester*, 
 and how the armies of the world met to take their fill of the 
 joys of battle on the day of the Catalaunian fields. That was 
 the day of the crowning glory of Aetius, the day of the great 
 salvation wrought by him for all the Grauls, and for all the 
 peoples, nations, and languages, that dwelt within their borders. 
 Let the Goth serve the Eoman or the Eoman serve the Goth, 
 rather than that both should see their common heritage 
 trampled down by the horse-hoofs of the spoiler in whose track 
 grass grows no more. But was the deliverance of Gaul only 
 a step towards the more cruel harrying of Italy? We have 
 heard how Aquileia was to fall and Venice was to rise, and how 
 the Hun was to be turned away from Eome, not by the sword 
 of Aetius the patrician, but by the voice of Leo the bishop. 
 There is too a strange sound of complaint in the annals of the 
 year which followed the victory of victories, as we read them 
 in our Aquitanian guide. We hear how Attila, after losing his 
 forces in Gaul, came again with new forces into Italy, how 
 Aetius — ''Aetius our leader," the annalist still calls him in 
 fondness — did nothing worthy of the renown of the year that 
 was past, how the very passes of the Alps were left unguarded, 
 how the only counsel that the patrician could give to his 
 sovereign was that they should both flee from Italy, how all 
 that could be devised by the wisdom of prince and senate and 
 people was that an embassy should be sent to ward off the 
 wrath of the terrible foe. That was the embassy of the holy 
 pontiff and his companions, famous in history, more famous in 
 legend, most famous of all in the limner's craft f. At all this 
 
 * Jordanis, Getica, 39 ; " Ad certaminis hujus gaudia." 
 f Prosper here (452, " Herculano et Sporatio coss."), as in some other 
 places towards the end of his story, seems almost to forget his character 
 as an annalist, and indulges in the singular vein of complaint and com- 
 mentary which I have tried to analyze. Attila comes "nihil duce nostro 
 Aetio secundum prioris belli opera prospiciente, ita ut ne clusuris quidem 
 Alpium, quibus hostes prohiberi poterant, uteretur, hoc solum spei suis 
 superesse existimans, si ab omni Italia cum imperatore discederet." He 
 adds, "cum hoc plenum dedecoris et periculi videretui", continuit vere- 
 cundia metum." Presently "nihil inter omnia consilia principis ac 
 senatus populique Bomani salubrius visum est quam ut per legates pax 
 
362 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 Prosper wondered, and, if we accept his tale, we can only 
 wonder too. "We can only ask why Aetius left Italy to its fate, 
 with as little hope of a full and perfect answer as when we ask 
 why Heraclius left Jerusalem and Alexandria to their fate. Or 
 may it be that there is no need for wonder ? There is a counter- 
 story from another annalist who has preserved to us the memory 
 of many of the earlier exploits of Aetius. In the version of 
 Idatius, Attila enters Italy, but he is driven to make peace 
 with the empire by the sufferings which his army endures 
 through a combination of causes, human and divine. Some die 
 of hunger, some of disease, some by direct strokes from heaven ; 
 but most of aU by the armies sent from the East, where the 
 energetic Marcian now reigned — armies which Aetius again led 
 to victory *. Which of these two contradictory versions are we 
 to believe ? 
 
 On the side of Prosper there is that commonly safe rule, 
 a rule of such constant application in the earlier Eoman history, 
 which makes us always distrust stories of victories which have 
 the air of being invented, perhaps to balance or conceal actual 
 defeats, perhaps merely to get rid of the shame of simple 
 inaction or other more negative kinds of ill-success. The 
 victory recorded by Idatius might be a little discredited even 
 if the year was a blank in Prosper ; it seems to be yet more 
 discredited when Prosper makes a positive complaint of the 
 inaction of Aetius. Yet both annalists are very trustworthy ; 
 each often leaves things out ; we have never had need to 
 
 truculentissimi regis expeteretur." Then follows the embassy of Leo, 
 Avienus, and Trigetius ; and in the end "rex gavisus est ut et bello 
 abstineri prseciperet et ultra Danubium promissa pace discederet." Jor- 
 danis (Getica, 41, 42) tells essentially the same story with some further 
 details, specially that Attila threatened to come back, unless Honoria 
 was sent to him. In neither is there any hint of warlike action on the 
 part of Aetius, Marcian, or any one on the Eoman side, 
 
 * Idatius, XXIX Valentiniani ; " Secundo regni anno principis Mar- 
 ciani, Hunni qui Italiam praedabantur, aliquantis etiam civitatibus 
 irruptis, divinitus partim fame, partim morbo quodam, plagis cselestibus 
 feriuntur ; missis etiam per Marcianum principem Aetio duce eaeduntur 
 auxiliis ; pariterque in sedibus suis et caalestibus plagis et per Marciani 
 subiguntur exercitum ; et ita subacti, pace facta cum Eomanis, proprias 
 universi repetiint sedes, ad quas rex eorum Attila mox rerersus interiit." 
 
Appendix L 363 
 
 suspect either of inventing. And a Spanish bishop had no 
 particular temptation to invent a deliverance of Italy by the 
 means of armies sent by the Eastern emperor. After all, it is 
 possible that we need not suspect anything more than what we 
 have several times seen already, that one annalist preserves 
 part of the story and the other another. We must conceive 
 Aetius in Italy ; but we must not conceive of him as at the 
 head of forces such as those which he commanded in Gaul. 
 His Goths and Franks, his Britons and Saxons, did not follow 
 him beyond the Alps. The Goths at least were acting by 
 imperial authority against a nearer enemy, Thorismund had 
 succeeded the Theodoric who fell in the great battle — that 
 first Theodoric from whom Aetius had so often delivered Aries. 
 Thorismund had been slain by his brothers Theodoric and 
 Frederic, and Frederic was now, by imperial commission, 
 putting down the Bagaudas south of the Pyrenees *. Aetius 
 may have been really unable to put Italy into any state of 
 defence tiU he received help from the East. That he thought 
 of flight, that he counselled flight to Valentinian, conies under 
 the head, not of facts open to all men, but of whispered sur- 
 mises, as to which neither Prosper's statement nor that of 
 anybody else goes for much. If troops did come from the 
 East, if Aetius acted successfully against Attila, it is certainly 
 strange that Prosper should not only have left out all mention 
 of the fact, but should have spoken as he did about Aetius' 
 earlier conduct. But it would be yet more strange if the 
 statement of Idatius about the Eastern troops is all invention 
 or delusion. A more serious difficulty is to reconcile a dis- 
 comfiture of Attila, whether through natural or military causes, 
 with the story of the embassy of Pope Leo and his colleagues 
 Avienus and Trigetius, an embassy of which Idatius seems to 
 know nothing. Of the reality of that embassy, witnessed by 
 Prosper and by Priscus as represented by Jordanis, there can 
 be no doubt ; but it is quite possible that its circumstances 
 
 * Idatius records the murder of Thorismund under the twenty-ninth 
 year of Valentinian, and in the next says ; "Per Fredericum Theudorici 
 regis fratrem Bacaudae Tarraconenses caeduntur ex auctoritate Komana." 
 This is the year of the death of Aetius. 
 
364 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 may have been misunderstood. It takes something away from 
 the beauty of the story, but it adds to its likelihood as an 
 historical fact, if we believe that the holy awe inspired by the 
 pontiff was backed, not only by the arguments of his lay com- 
 rades, the ex-consul and the ex-praefeet, but by the more 
 powerful argument of disease and hunger in his army, of the 
 presence of Aetius in Italy at the head of the army of the 
 East, and of the daring diversion on the Hunnish lands which 
 another army of the East was making now the East had again 
 a wise and watchful emperor. 
 
 And now we come to the last act of all, to the fourth 
 consulship of Aetius, the last year of his power and of his 
 life. The end of Aetius is in many things like the end of 
 Stilicho, only Valentinian, unlike Honorius, had at least energy 
 enough to do his crimes with his own hand. With Honorius 
 indeed there is always the question whether we are to look on 
 him as an accountable being or not. That Valentinian slew 
 Aetius — that, according to the best accounts, he slew him with 
 his own hands — that, as Sidonius puts it, 
 
 "AetiTim Placid us mactavit semivir aniens *" — 
 
 that the act was the act of one who, as the story pithily puts 
 it, cuts off his right hand with his left f — so far all are agreed. 
 About the circumstances, motives, and instigators of the act 
 there is less agreement. It is to be noticed that the first fall 
 and the death of Aetius, with two-and-twenty years between 
 them, both come when he is in the height of power and glory. 
 In his first consulship Placidia suddenly turns against him ; 
 the war with Boniface follows, and on that the attempt on 
 Aetius' life and the other stirring events of the year. In his 
 last consulship the son of Placidia suddenly turns against him ; 
 no war follows ; but the attempt on his life is repeated success- 
 
 * Panegyric on Avitus, 359. 
 
 •f" Bell. Vand. i. 4 (p. 329) ; 'Poj/taiW tis eTros diruv evSoKifXTjaev. kpofievov 
 yap avTov ^affiXecos et ol icaXws 6 tov 'Aeriov Oavaros epyaffOeirj, dneicpivaTO A67a)j' 
 oiiK «xf' /*«'' elSepcu tovto fire ev eiVe vrj aWrj avrai eipyaarai, iKtivo fxivroi ws 
 apiara k^imcrTaadai on avrov ttjv Se^tav rfj krkpq x*'P' oMoniiMV eiTj. 'Pcu/iaiwv 
 Tis here means a local Roman. 
 
Appendix I. 365 
 
 fully, for it is the emperor himself who attempts it. Aetius 
 had escaped from meaner assassins at Constantinople and at 
 some unknown place in Italy ; in Eome he could not escape 
 the weapon wielded by the hand of Augustus. For now we 
 are at Rome ; the Eternal City has again for a while come 
 to the front ; Valentinian has forsaken his mother's Eavenna, 
 and keeps his court in the old home of empire. As to the 
 causes which made Valentinian the enemy of the consul of 
 454 we are not so utterly in the dark as we were as to the 
 causes which made Placidia the enemy of the consul of 432. 
 Let us follow the account of Prosper. A fierce quarrel arises 
 between the emperor and the consul and patrician out of 
 a cause which the annalist says ought to have been a cause 
 of friendship, an agreement, it would seem, for the marriage 
 of their children *. Valentinian, we know, had daughters ; 
 Aetius had sons ; it is impossible not to connect this notice 
 of Prosper with the hints in Sidonius which have been already 
 referred to about the wife of Aetius — there is nothing said 
 about Aetius himself — seeking the empire for her son Grau- 
 dentius f. Here is another point of likeness to Stilicho ; he too 
 was believed to be seeking the empire for his son Eucherius. 
 It is easy to believe that the agreements and oaths of which 
 Prosper speaks as concluded between Valentinian and Aetius 
 may have had something to do with some scheme, not only 
 for a marriage between Gaudentius and one of the emperor's 
 daughters, but for securing to them the succession to the 
 empire or an association in it. Such a scheme might come 
 naturally when Aetius was at the height of his glory, patrician, 
 four times consul, deliverer of Gaul, perhaps deliverer of Italy. 
 But no scheme would be more likely to stir up the jealousy of 
 Valentinian, already perhaps disposed to envy and hate Aetius 
 on the very ground of his greatness and glory. Valentinian 
 
 * Prosper ; " Aetio et Studio coss. Inter Valentinianum Augustum et 
 Aetiiim patricium, post promissa inTicem fidei sacramenta, post pactum 
 de conjunctione filiorum, dirae inimicitiae convaluerunt, et undo fuit 
 gratia charitatis augenda, inde exarsit fomes odiorum, incentore, ut 
 creditum est, Heraclio spadone, qui ita sibi imperatoris animum insincero 
 famulatu astrinxerat ut eum facile in quae vellet impelleret." 
 
 f See above, p. 319, note %. 
 
366 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 would most likely have no more fondness for successors, col- 
 leagues, and sons-in-law, than Charles of Burgundy had. 
 Valentinian, according to Prosper, was, like so many other 
 princes, under the dominion of an eunuch named Heraclius, 
 who stirred him up against Aetius, and made him believe that 
 his only hope for safety was to forestall the plot of his supposed 
 enemy by his destruction *. Then comes the end. Aetius is 
 in the palace. He demands the fulfilment of the emperor's 
 promises : he presses the claims of his son, whatever they were, 
 with vehemence. Then he is slain, Valentinian, it would seem, 
 dealing the first blow, and those who stood by finishing the 
 work with their swords. Boetius the praetorian praefect is 
 killed at the same time, his crime being firm friendship for 
 Aetius f. 
 
 Idatius tells us that Aetius was by guile invited alone to the 
 palace, and there killed by the hand of the emperor himself. 
 Other honourable men were brought in one by one, and killed 
 by his spatJiarius t- As to the cause, he gives a dark hint in 
 his entry for the next year, namely that the wicked counsels of - 
 Petronius Maximus had something to do with the deaths of 
 all these persons §. Marcellinus also, in the same incidental 
 way, attributes the deed to Maximus. He says that Aetius 
 and his friend Boetius were both killed in the palace by the 
 emperor. He laments the fall of Aetius with much rhetoric ; 
 
 * Prosper, u. s. ; "Cum ergo Heraclius sinistra omnia imperatori de 
 Aetio persuaderet, hoc unum creditum est saluti principis profuturuni, si 
 inimici molitiones suo opera praeoecupasset." 
 
 f lb. ; " Aetius dum placita instantius repetit, et causam filii com- 
 motius agit, imperatoris manu et circumstantium gladiis crudeliter 
 confectus est ; Boethio prsefecto prsetorio simul perempto, qui eidem 
 multa amicitia copulabatur." "Placita" must here mean a meeting or 
 interview, as often in Grregory of Tours. 
 
 X Idatius, XXX Val. ; " Aetius dux et patricius fraudulenter singularis 
 accitus intra palatium manu ipsius Valentinian! imperatoris occiditur. 
 Et cum ipso per spatarium ejus aliqui singulariter intromissi jugulantur 
 honorati." Is "honorati" here to be taken in a technical sense ? and the 
 " spatharius " seems to come in early, 
 
 § " Valentiniano VIII et Anthemio coss. (455). . Qui [Maximus] . . . non 
 sero documento quid animi haberet probavit, siquidem interfectores 
 Valentiniani, non solum non plecterit, sed etiam in amicitiam receperit." 
 He goes on about Eudoxia. Prosper. Aq. 
 
Appendix I. 367 
 
 he was the great salvation of the Western republic, the terror 
 of King Attila ; with him fell the Hesperian realm, and it had 
 never risen again down to his own day *. 
 
 The introduction of Petronius Maximus at once brings us 
 to the account in Procopius. He brings the death of Aetius 
 into his doubtful story about Valentinian and the wife of 
 Maximus f. According to Procopius the murder of Aetius is 
 part of a very subtle scheme of vengeance by which Maximus 
 wishes to repay his own wrongs on Valentinian. He wishes to 
 be emperor himself, and thinks that he will be more likely 
 to succeed if Aetius can be got out of the way. The eunuchs 
 are favourable to his plans ; they persuade Valentinian that 
 Aetius is designing a revolution. With Valentinian the power 
 and merit of Aetius is enough of itself to make him believe 
 the charge. He kills Aetius, and a nameless Eoman makes 
 the sharp saying which has been already quoted +. 
 
 The story about the wife of Maximus must be examined on 
 its own grounds, apart from that of the death of Aetius. I am 
 strongly inclined to think that it sprang, in the strange way 
 in which such stories often do spring, out of the unwilling 
 marriage of Eudoxia to Maximus. But Idatius, who has 
 nothing to say about the wife of Maximus, distinctly charges 
 Maximus with a hand in the death of Aetius ; and Marcellinus, 
 who also knows nothing of the legend, either follows Idatius 
 or repeats the same story from another quarter. It is therefore 
 no part of the legend, but an independent statement, true or 
 
 * "Aetio et Studio coss. Aetius magna occidentalis reipublicae salus 
 et regi Attilae terror, a Valentiniano imp. cum Boetio amico in palatio 
 trucidatur, atque cum ipso Hesperium cecidit regnum, nee hactenus 
 valuit relevari." 
 
 \ Bell. Vand. i. 4 (p. 329) ; ttipiwhwoi roivw 6 Md^i/jioi toTs ^v/jmeffovai 
 yevo/xevos avriKa jxkv Is em^ovKrjv tov fiaaiXiais KaOiffraTO, us Se tov 'h-iriov 
 iwpa /xiya Svvafxevov . . . kvOvfiiov ot kyivero ias ol 'Aerios el ra ■ttpaffaojj.eva 
 I/X7ro5ioy effTac' Tavrd re Siavoovf^ivqi afxeivov 'iSo^ev elvai tov 'Aertov kiciTotwv 
 iroiTjcraaOai Trporepov, ovSev notrjcrap.evq) on fs avrov TrepteffrrjKe iraaa f) 'Pwjxaiuv 
 (\ms. rSiv Se a/x^l t^v ^affikiais Oepaireiav evvovx^f evvocKuis ol l^oi'Ta;!' dveireKTe 
 Tats avTwv fJiT]xa.vais ^aaiXia ais veaiTepots vpayfiaaiv eyxeipoir] 'Aerios, OiiaXev- 
 TiviavQS Se dWco oiiSevt on fjif) ttJ 'Aeriov dvvdixei re ical dper^ TfiCfxrjpiucras tov 
 Xi'yov vyid eTvai Kreivei rbv dvSpa. 
 
 X See above, p. 59, note *, 
 
368 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 false, which has been incorporated in the legend. We have no 
 means of either confirming or refuting the account of Idatius ; 
 it simply comes under the general rule that secret intrigues 
 are for the most part probable but not proved. The intrigue, 
 if it happened, must have been very secret, for, if we accept 
 the plain statement of Prosper, the friends of Aetius knew 
 that the eunuch Heraclius had been the enemy of their chief, 
 but had no suspicion of Maximus. Valentinian, he tells us, 
 was so unwise that he took the friends and military attendants 
 of Aetius into his service. They watched their opportunity, 
 and slew both him and Heraclius at some point outside the 
 city. No one of all the imperial following stirred to defend 
 or to avenge them *. The possible compHcity of Maximus in 
 the deed is darkly hinted at a little later, when it is said that, 
 on assuming the empire, he took the slayers of Valentinian 
 into his favour f. 
 
 Idatius is shorter ; but he adds that the slayers were, as we 
 might have expected, barbarian followers of Aetius. He calls 
 the place where Valentinian was killed campus, and adds that 
 the army was standing around +. The Campus Martius was 
 within the walls of Aurelian, but as being still an open place 
 used for exercises, it might be laxly spoken of as outside the 
 city. The very short account in another version of Prosper 
 gives the spot a name — the Two Laurels §. Marcellinus, as we 
 
 * "Mortem Aetii mors Valentiniani non longo post temipore consecuta 
 est, tarn imprudenter non declinata ut interfeeti Aetii amicos armigerosque 
 ejus sibimet consociaret. Qui concepti facinoris opportunitatem aueu- 
 pantes, egressum. extra Urbem prineipem et ludo gestationis intentum 
 inopinatis ictibus confoderimt, Heraclio simul, ut erat proximus, intef- 
 empto, et nuUo ex multitudine regia ad ultionem tanti sceleris accenso." 
 See Ducange in " Gestatio." 
 
 •\ See above, p. 366, note §. 
 
 % " Quarto regni anno principis Marciani per duos barbaros Aetii 
 familiares Valentinianus Eomse imperator occiditur in campo exercitu 
 eircumstante." 
 
 § Prosperi Chron. ex MS. August. Eoncalli, 701. " Aetio et Studio, 
 Eo anno occisi sunt Aetius et Boetius Patricii. Valentiniano VIII et 
 Anthemio. Valentinianus ipse occisus ad duas lauros XVII Kal. Apr." 
 So Chron. Pasch. i. 591 ; tovt^ toi erei i<T<pd'y7] OvaKevTiviavbs Av-y ovcrros kv 
 'Pujfjfrj fjikaov Si5o Sacpvwy. 
 
Appendix I. 369 
 
 have seen, asserts the complicity of Maximus in the death of 
 Valentinian ; he also gives the slayers the barbarian names 
 of Optila and Transtila*. On the whole it is enough to say 
 that Valentinian was slain by men of Aetius who wished to 
 avenge the blood of their lord. That is plain. Maximus may 
 have had some hand in setting them on at some particular 
 time or in some particular way. If so, he was only the 
 occasion and not the cause. Men who had shared the glories 
 of Aetius and who mourned for his murder, had motive enough 
 to act as the avengers of his blood ; they had a strong enough 
 fmlide against his murderer, whether an ambitious consular and 
 patrician took advantage of their disposition or not. 
 
 And so we end the story of Aetius, as we have some years 
 before ended the story of his supposed rival. To Aetius four 
 times consul the Britons might have sent up yet heavier 
 groans than they sent when he bore the fasces for the third 
 time. Before he had beaten back the Hun, the tale of the 
 second England had begun. The rest of the world seems to 
 have been but slightly stirred in the year when the Jutish 
 eald'ormen landed at Ebbsfleet, never to fall back. But what 
 mattered the sufferings of Kent when the Hun was arming 
 against Europe ? Six years later, Theodoric, Attila, Aetius, 
 have all passed away; Valentinian dies by an irregular ven- 
 geance for his crimes. In the same year, of the two Teutonic 
 Jieretogan who had begun the Making of England, one dies in 
 fight with the Briton, the other becomes the first Teutonic 
 king on British soil. In the consulship of Valentinian and 
 Anthemius, we turn from Aquitanian Prosper and Spanish 
 
 * '' Valentinianus princeps dolo Maximi patricii, cujus etiam fraude 
 Aetius perierat, in campo Martio per Optilam at Transtilam Aetii satel- 
 lites, jam percusso Heraclio spadone, truncatus est." So Jordanis, Getica, 
 45. "We get a little nearer to one of the slayers in Gregory of Tours, ii. 8 
 (ad fin.) ; " Adultus Valentinianus imperator metuens ne se per tyran- 
 nidem Aetius opprimeret, eum nuUis causis extantibus interimit. Ipse 
 postmodum Augustus dum in campo Martio pro tribunali resedens con- 
 cionaretur ad populum, Occila buccellarius Aetii adversum veniens eum 
 gladio perfodit. Talis utrisque extitit finis." This, according to Holder- 
 Egger, comes from the lost annals of Eavenna. 
 
 B b 
 
370 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 Idatius to our own tale in our own tongue: *'An. cccclv. 
 Her Hengest and Horsa gefuhton wiS Wyrtgeorne J^seni 
 cyninge on ]?sere stowe ]3e is gecweden ^glesprop ; and his 
 broSor Horsan man ]?8er ofsloh, and setter ]?8em feng to rice 
 Hengest and jEsc his sunu." 
 
APPENDIX II. 
 
 THE SECOND CARAUSIUS. 
 
 Mr. Arthur J. Evans, in the Numismatic Chronicle, vii,, 
 3rd series, pp. 191-219, has given reasons for the existence 
 of a Second Carausius of the fifth century. A bronze coin was 
 found at Eichborough, with the inscription on the obverse, 
 about the Emperor's diademed and be-cloaked bust, to be read : 
 DOMINO CAEAVSIO CES*; and on the reverse, about the 
 Emperor with phoenix and labarum standard at the vessel's 
 prow steered by Victory, an inscription to be read : DOMIN[0] 
 CONXTA[NTIJNO. These particulars would fix its prototype 
 between 340 and 350 a. d. "Evidently it records a maritime 
 expedition ... it must refer to Constans' passage to Britain 
 in 343, in answer to the appeal of the hard-pressed provincials 
 — one of the most important episodes of his reign, as may be 
 gathered from the reference to it in the later books of Am- 
 mianus Marcellinus " ; to wit, xx. 1. 1 ; xxvii. 8. 4. But the 
 coin itself must be, Mr. Evans thinks, of considerably later 
 date ; the ligatures, form of letters S and E, and style of legend, 
 compare with the well-known Christian Penmachur inscription, 
 CAEAVSIVS HIG lACIT IN HOC CONGEEIES LAPI- 
 DVM, and also with the Eavenhill inscription, which is dated 
 by its reference to Justinian, Constantino's officer, the com- 
 panion in arms, as we have seen, of Nebiogast (Zosimus, vi.), 
 and the victim of Stilicho's general Sarus. The Justinian 
 
 * I have marked the ligatures by a line above the letters linked 
 together. 
 
 B b 2 
 
372 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 
 
 inscription would seem to date from a short time before 407, 
 and is read : IVSTINIANVS PP VINDICIANVS MA[E]- 
 BITEEIV (or MAGISTEEIV) PE M CASTEVM FECIT 
 A[NN]0 . . . Hence Mr. Evans would refer this Carausius 
 coin to the year 409. " The association of our Carausius with 
 the British Constantino indicated by the present coin, may at 
 least be taken as evidence that the new Caesar stood foi-th as 
 the representative of the interests of the Constantinian dynasty 
 in the island as against the faction of the rebel Gerontius and 
 his barbarian allies. It is not unlikely even that he belonged 
 to the same family as Constantino III. The probability that 
 the later Eomano-British princes, Ambrosius Aurelianus, Con- 
 stantino of Damnonia, Aurelius Conan, and others, traced their 
 descent from the third Constantino, has already been shown by 
 Dr. Guest." Cf. Gildas, Hist. xxv. Origines Celticse, ii. 172. 
 There is much else in Mr. Evans' paper that is of interest, 
 especially where he considers the use of 'Rex, Dux, and Con- 
 ventus, va. fifth-century Britain. He has an excellent page 
 upon the ** titular authority" of the Eoman emperors after 
 the overthrow of the direct imperial government in Britain 
 in 409, and the ''sentimental veneration" with which they 
 were regarded down to Gildas' days. ' ' Honorius, by his letters 
 to the cities of Britain, was careful to legalize the new state of 
 things, and the very instrument that abrogated the direct 
 government of his officials still asserted his dominion. The 
 embassy of the Britons to the Consul Aetius implied the recog- 
 nition of his titular sovereign, the Emperor Valentinian III. 
 The mission of St. Germanus was itself a rehabilitation of the 
 spiritual sway of Eome, as against the incursions of Celtic 
 heterodoxy ; and the Sjmod of Verulamium was, from every 
 point of view, a re-cementing of the ties that still bound 
 Britain to the Eespiiblica Bomana." The British prince Eio- 
 timus*, Rex Britonuni, as Jordanis calls him, cheerfully 
 helped the Emperor Anthemios against Euric and his Wisi- 
 
 * This is the king "Eiens" or Eyence, of North Wales, and of all 
 Ireland and of many Isles, the giant monarch whose mantle was purple 
 with the beards of eleven subject kings, the foe of Arthur, the captiTe of 
 Balin and Balan. Malory, Mort Arthiir, i. cap. xxxiv. 
 
Appendix II. 373 
 
 goths in Gaul in 470. Cf. Grregory of Tours, ii. 19. Gildas 
 himself (De Excidio, xiii.) is furious against the British emperor, 
 Magnus Maximus, who had dared to rise against "his lords, 
 the two legitimate emperors." 
 
 Professor Khjs has shown that the name Carausius has left 
 its traces in place-names and legends in Britain. Nennius 
 (Hist. Brit, xxiii. p. 165) makes hitn a perfect British Balbus. 
 
INDEX 
 
 -iEgidius, subject of Marjorian, 
 
 258. 
 preserves Eoman power at 
 
 Soissons and Paris, 258. 
 father of Syagrius, 260. 
 Aetius, marries wife of royal 
 
 Gothic blood, 272. 
 goes to Gaul as officer of 
 
 Valentinian, 274. 
 induces Huns to return 
 
 home, 274. 
 brings help for John from 
 
 the Huns, 274. 
 his warfare with Theodoric, 
 
 cf. note, 276. 
 attack on Theodoric before 
 
 Aries, 281. 
 gains second victory over 
 
 Goths, near Aries, 283. 
 third consulship, 305. 
 foresees approach of Attila, 
 
 .307- 
 his relations with Theodoric, 
 
 308. 
 friend of the Huns, 308. 
 adviser of Placidia, 308. 
 rival of Boniface, 308. 
 keeps his place by help of 
 
 Huns, 309. 
 son of Gaudentius, 317. 
 hostage with Alaric, 318 ; 
 
 with the Huns, 318. 
 wife of, a saintly matron, 
 
 319- 
 praefect of Constantinople, 
 
 320. 
 enters service of Placidia, 
 
 325- 
 
 Aetius, the Huns fight against 
 
 Valentinian, 325. 
 supposed connexion with 
 
 fall of Boniface, 332. 
 magister militum, 341. 
 and Boniface, an account 
 
 of theii- duel, 347, 348. 
 flees to Eugila, 352. 
 restored to favour, 352. 
 attempt on his wife, 353. 
 flees to Eome, 353. 
 goes to Dalmatia, 354. 
 his peace with the Huns, 
 
 355- 
 
 supplies Attila with a Moor- 
 ish jester, 355. 
 
 summary of his character, 
 
 358. 
 seeks empire for his son 
 Gaudentius, 365. 
 Agathokles, first to assume 
 
 title of Tyrant, 84. 
 Agen, in hands of West-Goths, 
 
 238. 
 Agrsetius, an Avernian noble, 
 
 slain, 189. 
 Alans, kingdom in Spain, 20. 
 take part in invasion of 
 
 Gaul, 20. 
 settle in Lusitania, 141. 
 settle at New Carthage, 141. 
 army of, weary of Gothic 
 
 alliance, 194. 
 their dominion in Spain, 
 
 232. 
 commend themselves to 
 Vandal King Guntheric, 
 232. 
 
376 
 
 Index 
 
 Alaric, his coining, the cause 
 of the loss of Britain, 
 
 17- 
 to be sent against Constan- 
 tino, 59. 
 besieges Eome, 89. 
 intended to cross over to 
 Sicily, 228. 
 Alamannian land, borders of, 
 299. 
 war, the second, unrecorded, 
 299. 
 Alamans, their new settle- 
 ments, 301. 
 Allobich, commands Eoman 
 cavalry, 90. 
 murdered, 93. 
 Angles and Saxons, form part 
 of the Wandering of the 
 Nations, 36. 
 Angouleme, in the hands of 
 
 the West-Goths, 238. 
 Apollinaris, goes with Con- 
 stans to Spain, 76. 
 deposition of, 96. 
 Ardaburius and Aspar, help 
 Valentinian against John, 
 
 324- 
 Argentoratum, Nether-Dutch 
 
 Strateburg, 37. 
 Aries, Arelate, Constantino 
 
 reigns there, 55. 
 crown of, 56. 
 
 besieged by Gerontius, 108. 
 topography of, 109. 
 stat'io navmm, 109. 
 captured by Constantino, 
 
 121. 
 account of, 255. 
 supplants Trier, 256. 
 head of land south of Loire, 
 
 256. 
 besieged by King of West- 
 Goths, 276. 
 Armorica, its original extent, 
 
 167. 
 
 Armorica, probably recovered 
 for Eome by the sword of 
 Wallia, 248. 
 
 Aspar, assists Boniface and 
 raises siege of Hippo, 
 
 .336- 
 mission to Africa, 341. 
 Asterius, the Eoman count, 
 leads Vandals in Bsetica, 
 
 235- 
 Atawulf, accession changes 
 relations of Eomans and 
 barbarians in Italy, 131. 
 
 promises heads of Jovinus 
 and Sebastian to Hono- 
 rius, 184. 
 
 estimate of his view of the 
 rule of Eome, 178. 
 
 passes into Spain, 215. 
 
 counsels peace to the Goths, 
 220. 
 
 how his history was pre- 
 served, 227. 
 Atax, the Alan king, over- 
 thrown by Wallia, 232. 
 Attains, counsellor to Atawulf, 
 180. 
 
 emperor in Gaul, 201. 
 
 sent to Honorius as a peace- 
 offering, 216. 
 
 adorns triumph of Hono- 
 rius, 216. 
 
 exiled to Lipari Isles, 217. 
 Augusta Trevirorum, see 
 
 Trier, sacked, 29. 
 Augustine, St., his letters to 
 
 Boniface, 327. 
 Avie4ius, embassy of, 363. 
 Avitus, proclaimed at Tou- 
 louse, 254. 
 
 of Auvergne, 284. 
 
 smites a wild boar, 285. 
 
 his studies of Cicero, 285. 
 
 obtains remission of taxes 
 for Auvergne, 285. 
 
 goes to see Theodosius, 286. 
 
Index 
 
 377 
 
 Avitus, Theodoric tries to win 
 
 Bourdeaux, plundered and 
 
 him, 286. 
 
 burnt by Goths, 207. 
 
 the new Fabricius, 286. 
 
 in the hands of the West 
 
 
 Goths, 238. 
 
 Bseda, on separation of Britain, 
 
 Bret-wealas, join Eum-wealas 
 
 II. 
 
 against Goths and Saxons, 
 
 Bagaudse, Sarus gives them 
 
 . ^47- 
 
 the spoil taken from Jus- 
 
 Britain, supposed unsuccess- 
 
 tinian, 64. 
 
 ful invasion of, by bar- 
 
 Barbarians, ravage Gaul, 134. 
 
 barians in Gaul, 146. 
 
 settle down in Spain, 134. 
 
 withdrawal of Eoman 
 
 Barcelona, infant Theodosius 
 
 legions, 149. 
 
 dies and is buried at, 219. 
 
 embassies from, 150. 
 
 Bayeaux, a Saxon city, 5. 
 
 Gildas' account of persecu- 
 
 Belisarius, consul, 306. 
 
 tions in, 151. 
 
 Bellerid, officer of Sarus, slain. 
 
 Zozimos' account of, 153. 
 
 182. 
 
 Procopius on loss of, 153. 
 
 Bleda, succeeds Eugila as king 
 
 Pelagian heresy in, 156. 
 
 of Huns, 352. 
 
 mission of Germanus and 
 
 Boetius, friend of Aetius, 
 
 Lupus to, 157. 
 
 killed, 366. 
 
 brought under power of 
 
 Boniface, ecclesiastical side of. 
 
 Saxons, 158. 
 
 310. 
 
 Belisarius offers to ex- 
 
 Procopius' account of, 311. 
 
 change, 159. 
 
 relieves Massilia from siege 
 
 Prankish kings claim over- 
 
 of Atawulf, 314. 
 
 lordship, 160. 
 
 avenges injured soldier, 
 
 rise of Gallic, 162. 
 
 316. 
 
 early and brief independence 
 
 marries Pelagia, 328. 
 
 of lesser, 168. 
 
 possible visit to Spain, 329. 
 
 British people, freedom ne- 
 
 regarded as a foe at Eavenna, 
 
 cessary to growth of 
 
 331- 
 
 English in Britain, 148. 
 
 magister militum, 344. 
 
 Britons, not spoken of as 
 
 contends with Aetius at 
 
 Eomans, 155. 
 
 Eavenna, 344. 
 
 never became Eomans in 
 
 dies of disease, 344. 
 
 speech or habits, 155. 
 
 and Aetius, an account of 
 
 groans of, toAetius,i56,305. 
 
 their duel, 347, 348. 
 
 on the Loire, 164. 
 
 summary of his character, 
 
 the continental, friends of 
 
 357- 
 
 Eome, 247. 
 
 Bononia, Boulogne, landing- 
 
 and Saxons, their doings in 
 
 place of Constantine, 48, 
 
 Gaul only secondary, 267. 
 
 49. 
 
 Burgundians, earlier inde- 
 
 Bourdeaux, or Bordeaux, 
 
 pendence in Gaul, 172. 
 
 Goths enter peacefully, 
 
 no settlement in Gaul be- 
 
 197. 
 
 fore fifth century, 174. 
 
378 
 
 Index 
 
 Burgundians, settlement under 
 
 Chlodowig, conversion of, 291. 
 
 Gunthachar, 176. 
 
 Avitus of Vienne congratu- 
 
 the first Teutonic settle- 
 
 lates him, 291. 
 
 ment in Gaul, 176. 
 
 calls on the God of his wife 
 
 orthodox Christians, 192. 
 
 at Ziilpich, 296. 
 
 Burgundy, on the middle 
 
 battle with Alamans be- 
 
 Ehine, 173. 
 
 tween Toul and the Ehine, 
 
 kingdom of, on western 
 
 298. 
 
 border of the Ehine, 190. 
 
 marches back to Eheims, 
 
 
 298. 
 
 Cahors, in hands of West- 
 
 Chrotechild, wife of Chlodowig, 
 
 Goths, 239. 
 
 her influence, 291. 
 
 Candidianus, influence of, 198. 
 
 wooed by Chlodowig, 295. 
 
 Carausius II, evidence for his 
 
 Claudian, hexameters of, 9. 
 
 existence, 371. 
 
 poems of, 15. 
 
 Carpilio, son of Aetius, 319. 
 
 Cruelty, marked fault of 
 
 Cassiodorus, the elder, prefect 
 
 Saxons according to Sal- 
 
 at Kome, 299. 
 
 vianus, 138. 
 
 the younger, writes in name 
 
 Constans, son of Constantino, 
 
 of Theodoric, 299. 
 
 57- 
 
 Castinus, takes Eoman force 
 
 sent by Constantino to put 
 
 against Vandals in Spain, 
 
 down rising in Spain, 75. 
 
 235. 
 
 raised to rank of Augustus, 
 
 retires on Tarragona, 235. 
 
 92. 
 
 fails in Spain, 235, 315. 
 
 flees from Gaul, 103. 
 
 enemy of Boniface, 309. 
 
 put to death by Gerontius, 
 
 commands expedition to 
 
 108. 
 
 Spain, 314. 
 
 Constantino, colleague of 
 
 banished, 326. 
 
 Honorius, 30. 
 
 Celtic corner of Gaul more 
 
 elected by legions in Britain, 
 
 than survival of a people. 
 
 47- 
 
 144. 
 
 carries legions to Gaul, 48. 
 
 Chariobaudes, flight of, 50. 
 
 lands at Bononia, 48. 
 
 represents Honorius in 
 
 guards the Ehine, 52. 
 
 Gaul, 50. 
 
 his firm guarding of the 
 
 slaughter of, 60. 
 
 Ehine frontier, 52. 
 
 Chastity of Teutonic nations, 
 
 dominions in Gaul, 53. 
 
 139- 
 
 restores Trier, 53. 
 
 Chilperic and Guntchramn, 
 
 reigns at Arelate, 55. 
 
 tale of, 292. 
 
 firmly established in S.E. 
 
 Chlodowig, an officer of Zeno, 
 
 Gaul, 65. 
 
 37- 
 
 campaign in Spain, 68, 69. 
 
 Chlodowig, did he enter Paris 
 
 ruler of Spain, 79. 
 
 to chastise tyrant ? 260. 
 
 the Tyrant, meaning of 
 
 master of Soissons, 288. 
 
 title, 82. 
 
 displaces Syagrius, 288. 
 
 demands of Honorius the 
 
Index 
 
 379 
 
 rank of third Augustus, 
 
 87. 
 Constantine, sends embassy to 
 
 Eavenna, 87. 
 enters Italy, 91. 
 raises his son Constans to 
 
 rank of Augustus, 92. 
 turned back at Verona, 94. 
 at Aries, 106. 
 takes sanctuary, 121. 
 is made presbyter, 121. 
 sent prisoner to Eavenna, 
 
 122. 
 beheaded, 122. 
 head set up at Carthage, 127. 
 power reached only to Trier, 
 
 1 73-. 
 Constantius, born at Nai'ssus, 
 III. 
 cuts off ears of Olympius, 112. 
 drives Atawulf from Gaul, 
 
 206. 
 taught the Goth that the 
 Eoman could strike, 268. 
 saves Eoman power in Gaul, 
 268. 
 Curius, consul, 356. 
 
 Dardanus, estimate of his 
 character, 180. 
 with Atawulf before Va- 
 lentia, 186. 
 Darius, the Count, makes 
 peace between Boniface 
 and Eavenna, 340. 
 Demosthenes, his errand to 
 
 Thebes, 360. 
 Didymus, kinsman of Hono- 
 rius in Spain, 70. 
 resists Constantine, 70. 
 captured by Constans, 77. 
 put to death by Constantine, 
 78. 
 Dombrowka, of Poland, refer- 
 ence to, 292. 
 Dubius, murders Atawulf, 219. 
 
 Ecdicius, carries head of 
 Edobich to Constantine, 
 120. 
 Edobich, general of Constan- 
 tine, 63. 
 collects Alamans, 105. 
 brings barbarians to relief 
 of Constantine in Aries, 
 118. 
 defeated outside Aries by 
 
 Constantius, 119. 
 flees for refuge to Ecdicius, 
 
 120. 
 murdered by Ecdicius, 120. 
 Einhard, story of Britons flee- 
 ing to Gaul, 164. 
 English envoys to court of 
 
 Justinian, 160. 
 Eoforwulf, annoyed by Ata- 
 wulf 's gibes, 219. 
 Eormengild, revolt of, 305, 
 Ermeric, chief of Suevians, 
 
 135- 
 
 Euplutius, Eoman envoy to 
 Wallia, 229. 
 
 Euric, drives Britons from 
 land of Bituriges, 164. 
 the West-Goth, 255. 
 
 Eusebia, inscription on her 
 tomb at Trier suggests 
 consulship of Constantius 
 and Honorius, 92. 
 
 Eusebius, the eunuch, cham- 
 berlain of Honorius, 90. 
 
 Exsuperantius, restores Ar- 
 morica to the Empire, 
 168. 
 of Poitiers, 273. 
 asserts claim of Theodosian 
 house, 273. 
 
 Famine in Spain, owing to 
 barbarian ravages, 136. 
 
 Fauriel, Histoire 2. 
 
 Felix, magister militum, 283, 
 326. 
 
380 
 
 Index 
 
 Felix, enemy of Boniface, 309. 
 
 killed by order of Aetius 
 
 at Eavenna, 309, 342, 
 
 343.. 
 Placidia's minister at Ea- 
 venna, 337. 
 Frank, the heathen, contrasted 
 with the Arian Goth, 290. 
 Franks, Vandals attempt to 
 stop their invasion of 
 Gaul, 28. 
 overthrown by the Alan 
 
 Eespendial, 28. 
 the Nether-Dutch speech of, 
 
 36. 
 still heathen, 246. 
 their wars with Alamans, 
 296. 
 Frederic, puts down the Ba- 
 
 gaudsB, 363. 
 Frigeridus, Eenatus Profutu- 
 rus, quoted by Gregory of 
 Tours, 7. 
 Frithbald, Vandal king in 
 Spain, 233. 
 sent as trophy to Honorius, 
 233- 
 
 Gaiseric, was he invited by 
 Boniface? 333. 
 real story concerning him, 
 338. 
 Galba, besieges Boniface, 332. 
 Gaudentius, account of, 318. 
 father of Aetius, 320. 
 slain in Gaul, 320. 
 count and magister militum, 
 320. 
 Gaudentius II, son of Aetius, 
 
 319- 
 Gaul, date of Teutonic inva- 
 sion of, 19. 
 
 not invaded by remnants of 
 army of Eadagaisus, 22. 
 
 ravaged by Saxons, 35. 
 
 comparison of conquest by 
 
 Franks with that of 
 Britain by English, 148. 
 Gaul, occupied by Goths, Huns, 
 and Vandals, and still 
 under Eoman rule, 247. 
 causes of abiding differences 
 between North and South, 
 251. 
 historic light of, helps us to 
 pierce darkness of Britain, 
 267. 
 Gellius Egnatius, his errand 
 
 to Etruria, 360, 
 Germans, of the sea, 38. 
 Gerontius, general of Constan- 
 tino, 63. 
 same as British Gerent, 64. 
 goes with Constans to Spain, 
 
 74. 
 leagues with barbarians, 97. 
 divides Spain, 98. 
 sets up Maximus, his son, 
 
 as Tyrant, 100. 
 advances against Constans, 
 
 105. 
 his army goes over to Con- 
 
 stantius, 115. 
 flees to Spain, 1 15. 
 besieged by his troops in 
 
 Spain, 123. 
 commits suicide, 125. 
 Goar, the Alan king, helps 
 
 Jovinus at Mainz, 172. 
 and Alans join and help 
 
 the Eomans, 174. 
 protect Bazas from Goths, 
 
 213. 
 Godegisl, Vandal king, killed, 
 
 28. 
 Goth, a, sends payment to 
 
 Paulinus for lands he 
 
 occupied, 244. 
 his conquests cut off Eoman 
 
 central Gaul, 257. 
 Gothic people to settle on the 
 
 Garonne, 234, 236. 
 
Index 
 
 381 
 
 Gothic Aquitaine did not take 
 
 Harold and Tostig, compared 
 
 in whole of the first Aqui- 
 
 with Boniface and Aetius, 
 
 taine, 240. 
 
 312. 
 
 West G. kingdom, first 
 
 Helvetia, parts of, settled by 
 
 Teutonic power in Gaul, 
 
 Alamans, 301. 
 
 245- 
 
 Heraclian, the slayer of Stili- 
 
 conquest of Gaul rooted out 
 
 cho, 184. 
 
 traces of earlier speech. 
 
 asserts independence in 
 
 253- 
 
 Africa, 184. 
 
 Goths, appearances in Gaul, 
 
 Heraclius, the eunuch, the 
 
 172. 
 
 enemy of Aetius, 368. 
 
 the West, enter Gaul under 
 
 Heros, bishop of Aries, 282. 
 
 Atawulf, 174. 
 
 his deposition, 282. 
 
 at war with Komans in 
 
 partisan of Constantino, 283. 
 
 S. Gaul, 196. 
 
 Honoria, daughter of Placidia, 
 
 settle in Aquitaine at cost 
 
 is wooed by Attila, 223. 
 
 of Eomans, 243. 
 
 Honorians, name of Constans' 
 
 the chaste, come to cleanse 
 
 soldiers, 75. 
 
 Aquitaine, 243. 
 
 Honorius, laws of, 24. 
 
 and Eomans, friendship lasts 
 
 his laws may refer to inva- 
 
 during reign of Wallia, 
 
 sion of Gaul, cf. note, 24. 
 
 249. 
 
 underinfluence of Olympius, 
 
 and Empire, formal peace 
 
 60. 
 
 between, 284. 
 
 acknowledges Constantino, 
 
 cleave to teaching of their 
 
 88. 
 
 first apostle, 289. 
 
 sends Constantino a purple 
 
 engage to win back Spain to 
 
 robe, 88. 
 
 Empire, 330. 
 
 consulship with Constan- 
 
 Gratian, elected Tyrant by 
 
 tino, 92. 
 
 legions in Britain, 46. 
 
 letters to cities of Britain, 
 
 death of the British, 46. 
 
 148. 
 
 Gregory of Tours on Stilicho, 
 
 sends Placidia to Constan- 
 
 27. 
 
 tinople, 322. 
 
 his reference to Britons in 
 
 
 Gaul, 104. 
 
 Idatius, the Spaniard, his 
 
 Guntchramn and Chilperic, 
 
 chronicle, 8. 
 
 tale of, 292. 
 
 and Prosper, comparison of 
 
 Gunthachar, the Burgundian, 
 
 their story of Aetius, 352. 
 
 172, 174. 
 
 Ingenuus, house of, scene of 
 
 a lieutenant of the Empire, 
 
 Placidia's wedding, 199. 
 
 191. 
 his name in Epic of Mbel- 
 
 Jagello, of Lithuania, 292. 
 
 ungs, 193. 
 
 Jerome, letter to Ageruchia, 
 
 ally of Jovinus, 248. 
 
 21. 
 
 Guntheric, master of New 
 
 hears of Atawulf from sol- 
 
 Carthage and Seville, 236. 
 
 dier of Narbonne, 177. 
 
382 
 
 Index 
 
 John, leaves Exsuperantius 
 
 unavenged, 273. 
 chosen peaceably at Ea- 
 
 venna, 273, 322. 
 executed at Aquileia, 274, 
 
 324- 
 John Tzimiskes, first emperor 
 
 of that name, 324. 
 Jovinus, assumes purple at 
 Mainz, 172. 
 acknowledged by Atawulf, 
 
 180. 
 taken captive at Narbonne, 
 
 187. 
 slain by Dardanus, 188. 
 Jovius, takes to Eavenna the 
 message of Constantino, 
 88. 
 promises aid of Constantine, 
 
 89. 
 allowed to return to Aries, 
 89. 
 Julian, son of Constantine, 56. 
 sent prisoner to Eavenna, 
 
 121. 
 beheaded by order of Hono- 
 
 rius, 122. 
 the Nobilissimus, 122. 
 head set up at Carthage, 
 127. 
 JuKus Nepos, gives way to 
 
 Odowaker, 257-8. 
 Justin, general of Constantine, 
 
 .49- 
 Justinian, falls in battle, 63. 
 
 officer of Constantine, 371. 
 
 Justus, a general of Constans, 
 
 96. 
 
 Kyriakos, attempts the life of 
 Aetius, 320. 
 
 Lagodius, kinsman of Hono- 
 rius, 70. 
 flees to Constantinople, 78. 
 Laurels, the Two, scene of 
 
 the murder of Aetius, 
 
 368. 
 Legions in Britain choose an 
 
 Emperor, 44. 
 Limenius, represents Hono- 
 
 rius in Gaul, 50. 
 flight of, 50. 
 slaughter of, 60. 
 Loire, no Frenchman south 
 
 of, 253. 
 
 Mainz, Moguntiacum, stormed, 
 
 30. 
 Malmesbury, William of, his 
 
 use of word tyrant, 82. 
 Marcus, chosen Tyrant by 
 legions in Britain, 44. 
 date of his election, 45. 
 slain, 46. 
 Margaret, the English, reforms 
 the Scotch Malcolm, 295. 
 Marseilles, Massalia, Massilia, 
 bound up with fate of 
 Constantine, 54. 
 Atawulf repulsed at, 197. 
 saved by Count Boniface, 
 
 197. 
 besieged by Atawulf, 314. 
 Mavortius, besieges Boniface, 
 
 .33?- 
 
 Maximin, chosen by Gerontius 
 as Tyrant, 99. 
 who was he? 100. 
 holds court at Tarragona, 
 
 lOI. 
 
 ceases to reign, 128. 
 flees to barbarian friends, 
 128. 
 Montmajour, the hill of, 280. 
 Mussulman, parted from 
 Christian by his nearness, 
 293- 
 
 Nadders, hill of, 280. 
 Narbonne, suggested head- 
 quarters of Constans, 106. 
 
Index 
 
 383 
 
 Narbonne, entered by Gothic 
 
 army, i86. 
 disruption of, 187. 
 in hands of the West-Goths, 
 
 240. 
 Nebiogast, or Neobigast, a 
 
 general of Constantine, 49. 
 in command of Roman 
 
 legions leaving Britain, 
 
 49. 
 deals with Sarus, 63. 
 is murdered, 63. 
 companion of Justinian, 
 
 371- 
 
 Nounechia, wife of Gerontius, 
 put to death by Geron- 
 tius, 125. 
 
 Novempopulania, land of, the 
 fairest in Gaul, 241. 
 
 Olympiodoros' History, 7. 
 Olympius, intrigues against 
 
 Stilicho, 60. 
 Optila, slayer of Aetius, 369. 
 Orosius' History, 11, 20, 22, 
 
 25- 
 hears the story told to Je- 
 rome at Bethlehem, 177. 
 
 Patria, new meaning of, 25. 
 Patroclus, bishop of Aries, 282. 
 killed at the bidding of 
 Felix, 283. 
 Paulinus of Pella, 201, 244. 
 lives at Bourdeaux, 204. 
 count of the largesse to 
 
 Attalus, 205. 
 flees to Bazas, 209. 
 appeals to Goar, 211. 
 in exile in Marseilles, 244. 
 his land coveted by Goths, 
 244. 
 Pelagia, wife of Boniface, his 
 
 last advice to her, 350. 
 Penmachur, inscription, 371. 
 Petronius Maximus, his com- 
 
 plicity in the death of 
 Aetius, 367. 
 Placidia, the aspirants for her 
 hand, 177. 
 bears a son to Atawulf at 
 
 Barcelona, 215. 
 insulted by Sigeric, 221. 
 sent honourably to Hono- 
 
 rius, 222. 
 Honoria, daughter of, 223. 
 Poictiers, in kingdom of 
 
 Arian Goth, 237. 
 PoUentia, fight of, 13, 17. 
 victory won by Romans 
 through denudation of 
 frontiers, 18. 
 Possidius, besieged at Hippo, 
 
 338. 
 Procopius, his strange story 
 
 of Anglian migration, 161. 
 story of Britons fleeing to 
 
 Gaul, 164. 
 his account of John, 322. 
 his account of entry of 
 
 Vandals into Africa, 
 
 334- 
 Prosper of Aquitaine, his 
 chronicle, 8, 22. 
 his account of entry of 
 Vandals into Africa, 334. 
 and Idatius, comparison of 
 their story of Aetius, 352. 
 Prosper Tiro, his mention of 
 afiairs in Britain, 9. 
 
 Radagaisus, ally of Alaric, 13. 
 
 the hosts of, 29. 
 Renatus Frigeridus, quoted by 
 
 Gregory of Tours, 7. 
 Respendial, the Alan King, 
 
 helps the Vandals, 28. 
 Respublica Romana, meaning 
 
 of, 306. 
 Rhsetia, defenders of, 18. 
 Rhenish frontier, power of 
 
 Rome on, 14. 
 
384 
 
 Index 
 
 Ehodez, in kingdom of the 
 
 West-Goth, 239. 
 Riotimus, British king in 
 
 Gaul, 166, 372. 
 helps Emperor Anthemius, 
 
 373- 
 Eoman Gaul, its view of 
 
 heathen Chlodowig, 290. 
 Eoman power in Britain, end 
 
 of, 48. 
 Eomania, good luck of, 102. 
 Eomans, of Aquitaine, their 
 
 evil character, 242. 
 give' hostages to Goth, 284. 
 Eugila, death of, 352. 
 Eusticus, Decimius, Master of 
 
 the Offices, 96. 
 flees to Constantinople, 1 03. 
 slain, 189. 
 Eutilius Namatianus, enemy 
 
 of Stilicho, 26. 
 
 Saintes, in hands of West- 
 Goths, 238. 
 
 Sallustius, brother of Jovinus, 
 slain, 189. 
 
 Salona, sea of Long, 279. 
 
 Salvian, his writings offer help 
 in history of period, 9. 
 on the four sacks of Eome, 
 
 195: 
 on richness of land of 
 
 Aquitaine, 241. 
 Sarus, sent to Gaul by Stilicho, 
 
 61. 
 gains victory over Justinian, 
 
 61. 
 escapes to Italy, 64. 
 marches against Constan- 
 
 tine, no. 
 the Goth, his deadly feud 
 
 with Atawulf, 182. 
 renounces Honorius and 
 
 joins Jovinus, 183. 
 killed by soldiers of Ata- 
 wulf, 183. 
 
 Saxon settlements in Britain 
 and Gaul contrasted, 43. 
 Saxony, in Gaul, 5. 
 
 in Britain, 5. 
 Saxons, possible invasion of 
 
 Gaul by, 33. 
 Scipio, consul, 306. 
 Sebastian, associated in impe- 
 rial dignity by Jovinus, 
 184. 
 head sent to Honorius, 186. 
 goes from Spain to Africa, 
 
 350. 
 son-in-law of Boniface, 351. 
 flees to Constantinople, 351. 
 Seville, passes permanently 
 from Eoman power, 236. 
 Sidonius, his account of Saxon 
 sea-rovers, 40. 
 ej)itaj)h on his grandfather 
 Apollinaris, 76. 
 Sigeberht, king, wounded at 
 
 Ziilpich, 296. 
 Sigeric, brother of Sarus, 
 hailed king by West- 
 Goths, 221. 
 slaughters children of Ata- 
 wulf, 222. 
 murdered, 222. 
 Sigesar, bishop, deprived of 
 
 Atawulf 's children, 222. 
 Sigisvult, the Goth, 323. 
 carries on war against Boni- 
 face, 333. 
 Silingi, settle in Bsetica, 141. 
 Sinox, plots against Mavortius, 
 
 333- 
 plots against Boniface, 333. 
 
 put to death by Boniface, 
 
 333- 
 Sira, said in legend to have 
 
 converted Chosroes, 295. 
 Spain, untouched by strangei'S 
 
 since days of Gallienus, 66. 
 Spain, small part affected by 
 
 claims of Honorius, 133. 
 
Index 
 
 385 
 
 Spain, settlements of the na- 
 
 Theodoric, contrasted with 
 
 tions in, 232. 
 
 Chlodowig, 303. 
 
 Spanish legions demand with- 
 
 Theodosian family, their rustic 
 
 drawal of Honorians, 95. 
 
 army in Spain, 72. 
 
 Stilicho, restores Eoman power 
 
 routed, 77. 
 
 on banks of Ehine, 14. 
 
 Theodosiolus, a kinsman of 
 
 cuts off the followers of 
 
 Honorius, 70. 
 
 Eadagaisus, 22. 
 
 flees to Honorius, 78. 
 
 invaders of Gaul invited 
 
 Theodosius, son of Atawulf, 
 
 by, 25. 
 
 dies at Barcelona, 219. 
 
 Eutilius' verses on, 26. 
 
 the infant, his grave Ata- 
 
 Gregory of Tours' mistake 
 
 wulf s sole possession in 
 
 concerning, 27. 
 
 Spain, 263. 
 
 lUyrian campaign, 58. 
 
 takes steps to overthrow 
 
 sends Sarus to Gaul, 61. 
 
 John, 274. 
 
 slain by Heraclian, 184. 
 
 a hostage given to Theo- 
 
 consul, 306. 
 
 doric, 286. 
 
 seeks empire for his son 
 
 Thorismund, slain by Theo- 
 
 Eucherius, 365. 
 
 doric and Frederic, 363. 
 
 Suevians, their kingdom in 
 
 Ticinum, harangue of Hono- 
 
 Spain, 20. 
 
 rius to soldiers at, 60. 
 
 take part in invasion of 
 
 meeting at, 61. 
 
 Gaul, 20. 
 
 Tostig and Harold, contrasted 
 
 settle in Galicia,.i4i. 
 
 with Boniface and Aetius, 
 
 Sulpicius Alexander, quoted 
 
 312. 
 
 by Gregory of Tours, 7. 
 
 Toulouse, spared through 
 
 Syagrius, called king by 
 
 Bishop Exsuperius, 31. 
 
 Gregory of Tours, 259. 
 
 future home of Gothic kings. 
 
 Tarragona, Maximus reigns at. 
 
 197. 
 in hands of the West-Goths, 
 
 103. 
 
 240. 
 
 Terouanne, home of Morini, 
 
 Tournay, captured in Teutonic 
 
 3^- . 
 
 invasion, 31. 
 
 Theodolind, the Catholic, wins 
 
 Transtila, slayer of Aetius, 369. 
 
 the Arian Agilulf, 295. 
 
 Trier, sacked by Vandals, 29. 
 
 Theodoric, succeeds Wallia, 
 
 held by Constantine, 53. 
 
 269. 
 
 coins of Constantine struck 
 
 form of name, 269, note. 
 
 there, 53. 
 
 grandson of Alaric, 269. 
 
 sacked by Franks, 195. 
 
 flight from Aries, 281. 
 
 Trigetius, embassy of, 363. 
 
 congratulates Chlodowig, 
 
 Tyrant, general meaning of 
 
 300. 
 
 word, 82-4. 
 
 urges clemency, 300. 
 
 
 his policy, 302. 
 
 Valence, Valentia, one of the 
 
 his restraint of Chlodowig, 
 
 great fortresses of the 
 
 303- 
 
 land, 62. 
 
 c c 
 
386 
 
 Index 
 
 Valence, Constantine takes 
 _ shelter there, 62. 
 siege of, by Sarus, 63. 
 Sarus raises siege of, 64. 
 Valentinian and Placidia sent 
 by Theodosius to dislodge 
 John, 324. 
 slays Aetius, 365, 
 Vandals, their kingdom in 
 Spain, 20. 
 take part in invasion of 
 
 Gaul, 20. 
 of Bsetica, a power in Spain, 
 
 235- 
 besiege Boniface in Hippo, 
 336. 
 Vedast, St., an agent in con- 
 version of the Franks, 
 297. 
 Verenianus, kinsman of Ho- 
 ^ norius in Spain, 70. 
 rises to resist Constantine 
 
 in Spain, 70. 
 captm-ed by Constans, 77. 
 put to death by Constantine, 
 78. 
 Vesonna, in hands of West- 
 
 Groths, 238-9. 
 Vetto, his mission to Spain, 
 
 „. 27.7- 
 
 Vienne, Constans' head- 
 quarters, 105. 
 
 pagan temple at, 107. 
 
 basilica of Avitus at, 107. 
 
 captured by Gerontius, 108. 
 Vouziers, site of the miracle 
 
 worked by St. Vedast, 
 298. 
 
 Wallia, hailed as king, 222. 
 estimate of his character, 
 
 226. 
 successor to Atawulf, 227. 
 faithful friend of the Em- 
 pire, 228. 
 proposed to found an empire 
 
 in Africa, 228. 
 his fleet shattered, 229. 
 listens to Koman envoy 
 
 Euplutius, 229. 
 wages war in Spain in name 
 
 of Eome, 234. 
 Jordanis' confused account 
 
 of his reign, 249. 
 grandfather of Eicimer, 
 250. 
 Wladislaf, wins Polish crown, 
 
 292. 
 Worms, Vaugiones, besieged 
 
 and captured, 31. 
 Wulfilas, goes with Constan- 
 tius against Constantine, 
 .113- 
 his ambush at Aries, 119. 
 
 Zaragoza, Caesar Augusta, Con- 
 stans places his court 
 there, 78. 
 
 Zozimos, History, 22. 
 
 Zozomen, History, 26. 
 
 Zulpich, battle of, 296. 
 
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