Livy considers these two incidents as the effects only of chance and courage. I suspect that they were both managed by the admirable policy of the senate.
See Jerom, tom. i. p. 169, 170, ad Eustochium [cp. 108, ed. Migne, i. p. 878]; he bestows on Paula the splendid titles of Gracchorum stirps, soboles Scipionum, Pauli hæres, cujus vocabulum trahit, Martiæ Papyriæ Matris Africani vera et germana propago. This particular description supposes a more solid title than the surname of Julius, which Toxotius shared with a thousand families of the Western provinces. See the Index of Tacitus, of Gruter’s Inscriptions, c.
Tacitus (Annal. iii. 55) affirms that between the battle of Actium and the reign of Vespasian the senate was gradually filled with new families from the Municipia and colonies of Italy.
Such a compliment paid to the obscure name of the Auchenii has amazed the critics; but they all agree that, whatever may be the true reading, the sense of Claudian can be applied only to the Anician family.
The earliest date in the annals of Pighius is that of M. Anicius Gallus, Trib. Pl. a.u.c. 506. Another Tribune, Q. Anicius, a.u.c. 508, is distinguished by the epithet of Prænestinus. Livy (xlv. 43) places the Anicii below the great families of Rome. [Q. Anicius Prænestinus was curule ædile bc 304.]
Livy, xliv. 30, 31; xlv. 3, 26, 43. He fairly appreciates the merit of Anicius and justly observes that his fame was clouded by the superior lustre of the Macedonian, which preceded the Illyrian, triumph.
The dates of the three consulships are, a.u.c. 593, 818, 967; the two last under the reigns of Nero and Caracalla. The second of these consuls distinguished himself only by his infamous flattery (Tacit. Annal. xv. 74), but even the evidence of crimes, if they bear the stamp of greatness and antiquity, is admitted without reluctance to prove the genealogy of a noble house.
In the sixth century the nobility of the Anician name is mentioned (Cassiodor. Variar. l. x. Ep. 10, 12) with singular respect by the minister of a Gothic king of Italy.
(Claudian in Prob. et Olyb. Consulat. 12, c.) The Annii, whose name seems to have merged in the Anician, mark the Fasti with many consulships, from the time of Vespasian to the fourth century.
The title of first Christian senator may be justified by the authority of Prudentius (in Symmach. i. 553), and the dislike of the pagans to the Anician family. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 183, v. p. 44. Baron. Annal. ad 312, No. 78, ad 322, No. 2.
Probus . . . claritudine generis et potentia et opum magnitudine cognitus Orbi Romano, per quem universum pœne patrimonia sparsa possedit, juste an secus non judicioli est nostri. Ammian. Marcellin. xxvii. 11. His children and widow erected for him a magnificent tomb in the Vatican, which was demolished in the time of Pope Nicholas V. to make room for the new church of St. Peter. Baronius, who laments the ruin of this Christian monument, has diligently preserved the inscriptions and basso-relievos. See Annal. Eccles. ad 395, No. 5-17.
Two Persian Satraps travelled to Milan and Rome to hear St. Ambrose and to see Probus (Paulin. in Vit. Ambros.). Claudian (in Cons. Probin. et Olybr. 30-60) seems at a loss how to express the glory of Probus.
See the poem which Claudian addressed to the two noble youths.
Secundinus, the Manichæan, ap. Baron. Annal. Eccles. ad 390, No. 34.
See Nardini, Roma Antica, p. 89, 498, 500.
The poet lived at the time of the Gothic invasion, A moderate palace would have covered Cincinnatus’s farm of four acres (Val. Max. iv. 4). In laxitatem ruris excurrunt, says Seneca, Epist. 114. See a judicious note of Mr. Hume, Essays, vol. i. p. 562, last 8vo edition.
This curious account of Rome in the reign of Honorius is found in a fragment of the historian Olympiodorus, ap. Photium, p. 197 [fr. 43, 44, F.H.G. iv. p. 67].
The sons of Alypius, of Symmachus, and of Maximus spent during their respective prætorships twelve or twenty or forty centenaries (or hundred-weight of gold). See Olympiodor. ap. Phot. p. 197 [ ib. ]. This popular estimation allows some latitude; but it is difficult to explain a law in the Theodosian Code (l. vi. leg. 5) which fixes the expense of the first prætor at 25,000, of the second at 20,000, and of the third at 15,000 folles. The name of follis (see Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 727) was equally applied to a purse of 125 pieces of silver, and to a small copper coin of the value of 1/2625 part of that purse. In the former sense the 25,000 folles would be equal to 150,000 l., in the latter to five or six pounds sterling. The one appears extravagant [but is the true amount], the other is ridiculous. There must have existed some third and middle value which is understood: but ambiguity is an inexcusable fault in the language of laws.
Nicopolis . . . in Actiaco littore sita possessionis vestræ nunc pars vel maxima est. Jerom in præfat. comment. ad Epistol. ad Titum, tom. ix. p. 243 [ed. Migne, vii. p. 556]. M. de Tillemont supposes, strangely enough, that it was part of Agamemnon’s inheritance. Mém. Ecclés. tom. xii. p. 85.
Seneca, Epist. lxxxix. His language is of the declamatory kind; but declamation could scarcely exaggerate the avarice and luxury of the Romans. The philosopher himself deserved some share of the reproach; if it be true that his rigorous exaction of Quadragenties, above three hundred thousand pounds, which he had lent at high interest, provoked a rebellion in Britain (Dion Cassius, l. lxii. p. 1003 [c. 2]). According to the conjecture of Gale (Antoninus’s Itinerary in Britain, p. 92) the same Faustinus possessed an estate near Bury in Suffolk, and another in the kingdom of Naples.
Volusius, a wealthy senator (Tacit. Annal. iii. 30), always preferred tenants born on the estate. Columella, who received this maxim from him, argues very judiciously on the subject. De Re Rusticâ, l. i. c. 7, p. 408, edit. Gesner, Leipzig, 1735.
Valesius (ad Ammian. xiv. 6) has proved from Chrysostom and Augustin that the senators were not allowed to lend money at usury. Yet it appears from the Theodosian Code (see Godefroy ad l. ii. tit. xxxiii. tom. i. p. 230-239) that they were permitted to take six per cent. or one half of the legal interest; and, what is more singular, this permission was granted to the young senators.
Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 50. He states the silver at only 4380 pounds, which is increased by Livy (xxx. 45) to 100,023: the former seems too little for an opulent city, the latter too much for any private sideboard.
The learned Arbuthnot (Tables of Ancient Coins, c., p. 153) has observed with humour, and I believe with truth, that Augustus had neither glass to his windows nor a shirt to his back. Under the lower empire, the use of linen and glass became somewhat more common. [Glass was used in the age of Augustus.]
It is incumbent on me to explain the liberties which I have taken with the text of Ammianus. 1. I have melted down into one piece the sixth chapter of the fourteenth, and the fourth of the twenty-eighth, book. 2. I have given order and connection to the confused mass of materials. 3. I have softened some extravagant hyperboles and pared away some superfluities of the original. 4. I have developed some observations which were insinuated rather than expressed. With these allowances, my version will be found, not literal indeed, but faithful and exact.
Claudian, who seems to have read the history of Ammianus, speaks of this great revolution in a much less courtly style: —
The minute diligence of antiquarians has not been able to verify these extraordinary names. I am of opinion that they were invented by the historian himself, who was afraid of any personal satire or application. [Not so; Paconius is not uncommon, cp., for example, C.I.L. xiv. 1444, xii. 5038; for Reburrus, cp. xiv. 413; Tarasius is familiar.] It is certain, however, that the simple denominations of the Romans were gradually lengthened to the number of four, five, or even seven pompous surnames; as, for instance, Marcus Mæcius Memmius Furius Balburius Cæcilianus Placidus. See Noris, Cenotaph. Pisan. Dissert. iv. p. 438.
The carrucæ, or coaches, of the Romans were often of solid silver, curiously carved and engraved; and the trappings of the mules or horses were embossed with gold. This magnificence continued from the reign of Nero to that of Honorius; and the Appian way was covered with the splendid equipages of the nobles, who came out to meet St. Melania when she returned to Rome, six years before the Gothic siege (Seneca, epist. lxxxvii.; Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 49; Paulin. Nolan. apud Baron. Annal. Eccles. ad 397, No. 5). Yet pomp is well exchanged for convenience; and a plain modern coach that is hung upon springs is much preferable to the silver or gold carts of antiquity, which rolled on the axle-tree and were exposed, for the most part, to the inclemency of the weather.
In a homily of Asterius, bishop of Amasia, M. de Valois has discovered (ad Ammian. xiv. 6) that this was a new fashion; that bears, wolves, lions and tigers, woods, hunting-matches, c., were represented in embroidery; and that the more pious coxcombs substituted the figure or legend of some favourite saint.
See Pliny’s Epistles, i. 6. Three wild boars were allured and taken in the toils, without interrupting the studies of the philosophic sportsman.
The change from the inauspicious word Avernus, which stands in the text, is immaterial. The two lakes, Avernus and Lucrinus, communicated with each other, and were fashioned by the stupendous moles of Agrippa into the Julian port, which opened, through a narrow entrance, into the gulf of Puteoli. Virgil, who resided on the spot, has described (Georgic ii. 161) this work at the moment of its execution; and his commentators, especially Catrou, have derived much light from Strabo, Suetonius, and Dion. Earthquakes and volcanoes have changed the face of the country, and turned the Lucrine lake, since the year 1538, into the Monte Nuovo. See Camillo Pellegrino Discorsi della Campania Felice, p. 239, 244, c., Antonii Sanfelicii Campania, p. 13, 88.
The regna Cumana et Puteolana; loca cæteroqui valde expetenda, interpellantium autem multitudine pœne fugienda. Cicero ad Attic. xvi. 17.
The proverbial expression of Cimmerian darkness was originally borrowed from the description of Homer (in the eleventh book of the Odyssey), which he applies to a remote and fabulous country on the shores of the ocean. See Erasmi Adagia, in his works, tom. ii. p. 593, the Leyden edition.
We may learn from Seneca, epist. cxxiii., three curious circumstances relative to the journeys of the Romans. 1. They were preceded by a troop of Numidian light horse, who announced, by a cloud of dust, the approach of a great man. 2. Their baggage mules transported not only the precious vases, but even the fragile vessels of crystal and murra, which last is almost proved by the learned French translator of Seneca (tom. iii. p. 402-422) to mean the porcelain of China and Japan. 3. The beautiful faces of the young slaves were covered with a medicated crust or ointment, which secured them against the effects of the sun and frost.
Distributio solemnium sportularum. The sportulæ, or sportellæ, were small baskets, supposed to contain a quantity of hot provisions, of the value of 100 quadrantes, or twelvepence halfpenny, which were ranged in order in the hall, and ostentatiously distributed to the hungry or servile crowd who waited at the door. This indelicate custom is very frequently mentioned in the epigrams of Martial and the satires of Juvenal. See likewise Suetonius in Claud. c. 21, in Neron. c. 16, in Domitian. c. 4, 7. These baskets of provisions were afterwards converted into large pieces of gold and silver coin or plate, which were mutually given and accepted even by the persons of the highest rank (see Symmach. epist. iv. 55, ix. 124, and Miscell. p. 256) on solemn occasions, of consulships, marriages, c.
The want of an English name obliges me to refer to the common genus of squirrels, the Latin glis, the French loir; a little animal who inhabits the woods, and remains torpid in cold weather. (See Plin. Hist. Natur. viii. 82. Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. viii. p. 158. Pennant’s Synopsis of Quadrupeds, p. 289.) The art of rearing and fattening great numbers of glires was practised in Roman villas, as a profitable article of rural economy (Varro, de Re Rusticâ, iii. 15). The excessive demand of them for luxurious tables was increased by the foolish prohibitions of the Censors; and it is reported that they are still esteemed in modern Rome, and are frequently sent as presents by the Colonna princes. (See Brotier, the last editor of Pliny, tom. ii. p. 458, apud Barbou, 1779.)
This game, which might be translated by the more familiar names of trictrac or backgammon, was a favourite amusement of the gravest Romans; and old Mucius Scævola, the lawyer, had the reputation of a very skilful player. It was called ludus duodecim scriptorum, from the twelve scripta, or lines, which equally divided the alveolus, or table. On these the two armies, the white and the black, each consisting of fifteen men, or calculi, were regularly placed, and alternately moved, according to the laws of the game, and the chances of the tesseræ, or dice. Dr. Hyde, who diligently traces the history and varieties of the nerdiludium (a name of Persic etymology) from Ireland to Japan, pours forth, on this trifling subject, a copious torrent of classic and Oriental learning. See Syntagma Dissertat. tom. ii. p. 217-405.
Marius Maximus, homo omnium verbosissimus, qui et mythistoricis se voluminibus implicavit. Vopiscus, in Hist. August. p. 242 [xxix. 1, 2]. He wrote the lives of the emperors from Trajan to Alexander Severus. See Gerard Vossius de Historicis Latin. l. ii. c. 3, in his works, vol. iv. p. 57.
This satire is probably exaggerated. The Saturnalia of Macrobius and the Epistles of Jerom afford satisfactory proofs that Christian theology and classic literature were studiously cultivated by several Romans of both sexes and of the highest rank.
Macrobius, the friend of these Roman nobles, considered the stars as the cause, or at least the signs, of future events (de Somn. Scipion. l. i. c. 19, p. 68).
The histories of Livy (see particularly vi. 36) are full of the extortions of the rich, and the sufferings of the poor debtors. The melancholy story of a brave old soldier (Dionys. Hal. l. vi. c. 26, p. 347, edit. Hudson, and Livy, ii. 23) must have been frequently repeated in those primitive times, which have been so undeservedly praised.
Non esse in civitate duo millia hominum qui rem haberent. Cicero, Offic. ii. 21, and Comment. Paul. Manut. in edit. Græv. This vague computation was made a.u.c. 649, in a speech of the tribune Philippus, and it was his object, as well as that of the Gracchi (see Plutarch), to deplore, and perhaps to exaggerate, the misery of the common people.
See the third Satire (60-125) of Juvenal, who indignantly complains —
Seneca, when he proposes to comfort his mother (Consolat. ad Helv. c. 6) by the reflection that a great part of mankind were in a state of exile, reminds her how few of the inhabitants of Rome were born in the city.
Almost all that is said of the bread, bacon, oil, wine, c., may be found in the fourteenth book of the Theodosian Code, which expressly treats of the police of the great cities. See particularly the titles iii. iv. xv. xvi. xvii. xxiv. The collateral testimonies are produced in Godefroy’s Commentary, and it is needless to transcribe them. According to a law of Theodosius, which appreciates in money the military allowance, a piece of gold (eleven shillings) was equivalent to eighty pounds of bacon, or to eighty pounds of oil, or to twelve modii (or pecks) of salt (Cod. Theod. l. viii. tit. iv. leg. 17). This equation, compared with another, of seventy pounds of bacon for an amphora (Cod. Theod. l. xiv. tit. iv. leg. 4), fixes the price of wine at about sixteen pence the gallon.
The anonymous author of the Description of the World (p. 14 in tom. iii. Geograph. Minor. Hudson) observes of Lucania, in his barbarous Latin, Regio obtima, et ipsa omnibus habundans, et lardum multum foras emittit. Propter quod est in montibus, cujus æscam animalium variam, c.
See Novell. ad calcem Cod. Theod. D. Valent. l. i. tit. xv. This law was published at Rome, 29th June, ad 452.
Sueton. in August. c. 42. The utmost debauch of the emperor himself, in his favourite wine of Rhætia, never exceeded a sextarius (an English pint). Id. c. 77. Torrentius ad loc. and Arbuthnot’s Tables, p. 86.
His design was to plant vineyards along the sea-coast of Etruria (Vopiscus, in Hist. August. p. 225 [xxvi. 48, 2]), the dreary, unwholesome, uncultivated Maremme of modern Tuscany.
Olympiodor. apud Phot. p. 197 [fr. 43].
Seneca (epistol. lxxxvi.) compares the baths of Scipio Africanus, at his villa of Liternum, with the magnificence (which was continually increasing) of the public baths of Rome, long before the stately Thermæ of Antoninus and Diocletian were erected. The quadrans paid for admission was the quarter of the as, about one eighth of an English penny.
Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 6, and l. xxviii. c. 4), after describing the luxury and pride of the nobles of Rome, exposes, with equal indignation, the vices and follies of the common people.
Juvenal, Satir. xi. 191, c. The expressions of the historian Ammianus are not less strong and animated than those of the satirist; and both the one and the other painted from the life. The numbers which the great Circus was capable of receiving are taken from the original Notitiæ of the city. The differences between them prove that they did not transcribe each other; but the sum may appear incredible, though the country on these occasions flocked to the city. [On this question cp. Lanciani, Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome, p. 92, 381.]
Sometimes indeed they composed original pieces.
Horat. Epistol. ad Pisones, 285, and the learned, though perplexed, note of Dacier, who might have allowed the name of tragedies to the Brutus and the Decius of Pacuvius, or to the Cato of Maternus. The Octavia, ascribed to one of the Senecas, still remains a very unfavourable specimen of Roman tragedy. [This play was not the work of one of the Senecas, as it contains a reference to the death of Nero, but it was probably written soon after that event.]
In the time of Quintilian and Pliny, a tragic poet was reduced to the imperfect method of hiring a great room, and reading his play to the company whom he invited for that purpose (see Dialog. de Oratoribus, c. 9, 11, and Plin. Epistol. vii. 17).
See the Dialogue of Lucian, intitled, De Saltatione, tom. ii. p. 265-317 edit. Reitz. The pantomimes obtained the honourable name of χειρόσοϕοι; and it was required that they should be conversant with almost every art and science. Burette (in the Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscrip. tom. i. p. 127, c.) has given a short history of the art of pantomimes.
Ammianus, l. xiv. c. 6. He complains, with decent indignation, that the streets of Rome were filled with crowds of females, who might have given children to the state, but whose only occupation was to curl and dress their hair, and jactari volubilibus gyris, dum exprimunt innumera simulacra, quæ finxere fabulæ theatrales.
Lipsius (tom. iii. p. 423, de Magnitud. Romanâ, l. iii. c. 3) and Isaac Vossius (Observat. Var. p. 26-34) have indulged strange dreams of four, eight, or fourteen millions in Rome. Mr. Hume (Essays, vol. i. p. 450-457), with admirable good sense and scepticism, betrays some secret disposition to extenuate the populousness of ancient times.
Olympiodor. ap. Phot. p. 197 [fr. 43]. See Fabricius, Bibl. Græc. tom. ix. p. 400.
In eâ autem majestate urbis et civium infinitâ frequentiâ innumerabiles habitationes opus fuit explicare. Ergo, cum recipere non posset area plana tantam multitudinem [ad habitandum] in urbe, ad auxilium altitudinis ædificiorum res ipsa coegit devenire. Vitruv. ii. 8. This passage, which I owe to Vossius, is clear, strong, and comprehensive.
The successive testimonies of Pliny, Aristides, Claudian, Rutilius, c., prove the insufficiency of these restrictive edicts. See Lipsius, de Magnitud. Romanâ, l. iii. c. 4.
Read the whole third satire, but particularly 166, 223, c. The description of a crowded insula or lodging-house in Petronius (c. 95, 97) perfectly tallies with the complaints of Juvenal; and we learn from legal authority that in the time of Augustus (Heineccius, Hist. Juris Roman, c. iv. p. 181) the ordinary rent of the several cenacula, or apartments of an insula, annually produced forty thousand sesterces, between three and four hundred pounds sterling (Pandect. l. xix. tit. ii. No. 30), a sum which proves at once the large extent and high value of those common buildings.
This sum total is composed of 1780 [1790] domus, or great houses, of 46,602 insulæ, or plebeian habitations (see Nardini, Roma Antica, l. iii. p. 88), and these numbers are ascertained by the agreement of the texts of the different Notitiæ. Nardini, l. viii. p. 498, 500.
See that accurate writer M. de Messance, Recherches sur la Population, p. 175-187. From probable or certain grounds, he assigns to Paris 23,565 houses, 71,114 families, and 576,630 inhabitants.
This computation is not very different from that which M. Brotier, the last editor of Tacitus (tom. ii. p. 380), has assumed from similar principles; though he seems to aim at a degree of precision which it is neither possible nor important to obtain. [This computation does not differ much from that of Bunsen, for the age of Augustus: 1,300,000, and that of von Wietersheim (1,350,000). Gregorovius puts the population of Rome at the beginning of fifth century as low as 300,000, Mr. Hodgkin at about 1,000,000, cp. Italy and her Invaders, i. p. 814.]
For the events of the first siege of Rome, which are often confounded with those of the second and third, see Zosimus, l. v. p. 350-354 [c. 38 sqq. ]; Sozomen, l. ix. c. 6; Olympiodorus, ap. Phot. p. 180 [fr. 3, F.H.G. iv.]; Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 3; and Godefroy, Dissertat. p. 467-745.
The mother of Læta was named Pissumena. Her father, family, and country are unknown. Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p. 59.
Ad nefandos cibos erupit esurientium rabies, et sua invicem membra laniarunt, dum mater non parcit lactenti infantiæ; et recipit utero, quem paullo ante effuderat. Jerom ad Principiam, tom. i. p. 221 [ep. 127; Migne, i. p. 1094]. The same horrid circumstance is likewise told of the sieges of Jerusalem and Paris. For the latter compare the tenth book of the Henriade, and the Journal de Henri IV. tom. i. p. 47-83; and observe that a plain narrative of facts is much more pathetic than the most laboured descriptions of epic poetry.
Zosimus (l. v. p. 355, 356 [c. 41]) speaks of these ceremonies like a Greek unacquainted with the national superstition of Rome and Tuscany. I suspect that they consisted of two parts, the secret and the public; the former were probably an imitation of the arts and spells by which Numa had drawn down Jupiter and his thunder on Mount Aventine.
The ancilia, or shields of Mars, the pignora Imperii, which were carried in solemn procession on the calends of March, derived their origin from this mysterious event (Ovid. Fast. iii. 259-398). It was probably designed to revive this ancient festival, which had been suppressed by Theodosius. In that case, we recover a chronological date (March the 1st, ad 409) which has not hitherto been observed. [An improbable guess. The siege of Rome was certainly raised in ad 408.]
Sozomen (l. ix. c. 6) insinuates that the experiment was actually, though unsuccessfully, made; but he does not mention the name of Innocent: and Tillemont (Mém. Ecclés. tom. x. p. 645) is determined not to believe that a pope could be guilty of such impious condescension. [The episode of Pompeianus seems to have taken place after the embassy of Basilius and John.]
[Rather, hides dyed scarlet.]
Pepper was a favourite ingredient of the most expensive Roman cookery, and the best sort commonly sold for fifteen denarii, or ten shillings, the pound. See Pliny, Hist. Natur. xii. 14. It was brought from India; and the same country, the coast of Malabar, still affords the greatest plenty: but the improvement of trade and navigation has multiplied the quantity and reduced the price. See Histoire Politique et Philosophique, c., tom. i. p. 457.
This Gothic chieftain is called, by Jornandes and Isidore, Athaulphus; by Zosimus and Orosius, Ataulphus, and by Olympiodorus, Adaulphus. I have used the celebrated name of Adolphus, which seems to be authorised by the practice of the Swedes, the sons or brothers of the ancient Goths.
The treaty between Alaric and the Romans, c., is taken from Zosimus, l. v. p. 354, 355, 358, 359, 362, 363 [41, 42]. The additional circumstances are too few and trifling to require any other quotation. [Mr. Hodgkin conjectures that Alaric’s army at this time “ranged between 50,000 and 100,000 men,” i. p. 812.]
Zosimus, l. v. p. 367, 368, 369 [c. 48. See below, note 90].
Zosimus, l. v. p. 360, 361, 392 [45]. The bishop, by remaining at Ravenna, escaped the impending calamities of the city. Orosius, l. vii. c. 39, p. 573.
For the adventures of Olympius and his successors in the ministry, see Zosimus, l. v. p. 363, 365, 366 [45 sqq. ] and Olympiodor. ap. Phot. p. 180, 181 [fr. 8, 13].
Zosimus (l. v. p. 364 [46]) relates this circumstance with visible complacency, and celebrates the character of Gennerid as the last glory of expiring paganism. Very different were the sentiments of the council of Carthage, who deputed four bishops to the court of Ravenna to complain of the law which had just been enacted that all conversions to Christianity should be free and voluntary. See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. ad 409, No. 12, ad 410, No. 47, 48.
[The opportunity may be seized to correct the text of Zosimus, v. 46, where the Vatican codex gives: ὄντα στρατηγὸν καὶ τω̂ν ἄλλων ὅσαι Παιονίας τε τὰς ἄνω καὶ Νωρικοὺς καὶ Ῥαιτοὺς ὲϕύλαττον. Mendelssohn well suggests ἰλω̂ν for ἄλλων, but we should keep ἄλλων and read: καὶ τω̂ν ἄλλων ἰλω̂ν ὅσαι Παιονάς τε τοὺς ἄνω καὶ κ.τ.λ.]
Zos. l. v. p. 367, 368, 369 [48, 49]. This custom of swearing by the head, or life, or safety, or genius of the sovereign was of the highest antiquity, both in Egypt (Genesis, xlii. 15) and Scythia. It was soon transferred by flattery to the Cæsars; and Tertullian complains that it was the only oath which the Romans of his time affected to reverence. See an elegant Dissertation of the Abbé Massieu on the Oaths of the Ancients, in the Mém. de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. i. p. 208, 209.
Zosimus, l. v. p. 368, 369 [50]. I have softened the expressions of Alaric, who expatiates in too florid a manner on the history of Rome. [It was now that Alaric offered to be content with Noricum, see above, note 84.]
See Sueton. in Claud. c. 20, Dion Cassius, l. lx. p. 949, edit. Reimar [c. 11], and the lively description of Juvenal, Satir. xii. 75, c. In the sixteenth century, when the remains of this Augustan port were still visible, the antiquarians sketched the plati (see d’Anville, Mém. de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxx. p. 198) and declared with enthusiasm that all the monarchs of Europe would be unable to execute so great a work (Bergier, Hist. des grands Chemins des Romains, tom. ii. p. 356).
The Ostia Tiberina (see Cluver. Italia Antiq. l. iii. p. 870-879) in the plural number, the two mouths of the Tiber, were separated by the Holy Island, an equilateral triangle, whose sides were each of them computed at about two miles. The colony of Ostia was founded immediately beyond the left or southern, and the Port immediately beyond the right or northern, branch of the river; and the distance between their remains measures something more than two miles on Cingolani’s map. In the time of Strabo, the sand and mud deposited by the Tiber had choked the harbour of Ostia; the progress of the same cause has added much to the size of the Holy Island, and gradually left both Ostia and the Port at a considerable distance from the shore. The dry channels (fiumi morti) and the large estuaries (stagno di Ponente, di Levante) mark the changes of the river and the efforts of the sea. Consult, for the present state of this dreary and desolate tract, the excellent map of the ecclesiastical state by the mathematicians of Benedict XIV.; an actual survey of the Agro Romano, in six sheets, by Cingolani, which contains 113,819 rubbia (about 570,000 acres); and the large topographical map of Ameti in eight sheets. [Cp. Procopius, B.G. i. 26; Cassidorius, vii. 9; and the description of Gregorovius, Rome in the Middle Ages, Eng. tr., i. p. 400.]
As early as the third (Lardner’s Credibility of the Gospel, part ii. vol. iii. p. 89-92), or at least the fourth, century (Carol. a Sancto Paulo, Notit. Eccles. p. 47), the Port of Rome was an episcopal city, which was demolished, as it should seem, in the ninth century, by Pope Gregory IV. during the incursions of the Arabs. It is now reduced to an inn, a church, and the house or palace of the bishop, who ranks as one of six cardinal bishops of the Romish church. See Eschinard, Descrizione di Roma et dell’ Agro Romano, p. 328.
For the elevation of Attalus consult Zosimus, l. vi. p. 377-380 [7 sqq. ]; Sozomen, l. ix. c. 8, 9; Olympiodor. ap. Phot. p. 180, 181 [fr. 13]; Philostorg. l. xii. c. 3, and Godefroy, Dissertat. p. 470.
We may admit the evidence of Sozomen for the Arian baptism, and that of Philostorgius for the Pagan education, of Attalus. The visible joy of Zosimus, and the discontent which he imputes to the Anician family, are very unfavourable to the Christianity of the new emperor.
He carried his insolence so far as to declare that he should mutilate Honorius before he sent him into exile. But this assertion of Zosimus is destroyed by the more impartial testimony of Olympiodorus, who attributes the ungenerous proposal (which was absolutely rejected by Attalus) to the baseness, and perhaps the treachery, of Jovius.
Procop. de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 2.
[So Sozomen; but the text of Zosimus gives “6 divisions amounting to 40,000,” a number accepted by Mr. Hodgkin, i. 788.]
See the cause and circumstances of the fall of Attalus in Zosimus, l. vi. p. 380-383 [12]; Sozomen, l. ix. c. 8; Philostorg. l. xii. c. 3. The two acts of indemnity in the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. xxxviii. leg. 11, 12, which were published the 12th of February and the 8th of August, ad 410, evidently relate to this usurper.
In hoc, Alaricus, imperatore facto, infecto, refecto, ac defecto. . . . Mimum risit, et ludum spectavit imperii. Orosius, l. vii. c. 42, p. 582.
Zosimus, l. vi. p. 384 [13]; Sozomen, l. ix. c. 9; Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 3. In this place the text of Zosimus is mutilated, and we have lost the remainder of his sixth and last book, which ended with the sack of Rome. Credulous and partial as he is, we must take our leave of that historian with some regret.
Adest Alaricus, trepidam Romam obsidet, turbat, irrumpit. Orosius, l. vii. c. 39, p. 573. He despatches this great event in seven words; but he employs whole pages in celebrating the devotion of the Goths. I have extracted from an improbable story of Procopius the circumstances which had an air of probability. Procop. de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 2. He supposes that the city was surprised while the senators slept in the afternoon; but Jerom, with more authority and more reason, affirms that it was in the night, nocte Moab capta est; nocte cecidit murus ejus, tom. i. p. 121, ad Principiam [ep. 16]. [The date, Aug. 24, is derived from Theophanes ( a.m. 5903; Cedrenus gives Aug. 26). Mr. Hodgkin, laying stress on the word irrumpit in Orosius, rejects the suggestion of treachery, i. 794.]
Orosius (l. vii. c. 39, p. 573-576) applauds the piety of the Christian Goths, without seeming to perceive that the greatest part of them were Arian heretics. Jornandes (c. 30, p. 653) and Isidore of Seville (Chron. p. 714, edit. Grot.), who were both attached to the Gothic cause, have repeated and embellished these edifying tales. According to Isidore, Alaric himself was heard to say that he waged war with the Romans and not with the apostles. Such was the style of the seventh century; two hundred years before, the fame and merit had been ascribed not to the apostles, but to Christ.
See Augustin, de Civitat. Dei. l. i. c. 1-6. He particularly appeals to the example of Troy, Syracuse, and Tarentum.
Jerom (tom. i. p. 121, ad Principiam [ep. 16]) has applied to the sack of Rome all the strong expressions of Virgil:—
Procopius (l. i. c. 2) positively affirms that great numbers were slain by the Goths. Augustin (de Civitat. Dei, l. i. c. 12, 13) offers Christian comfort for the death of those whose bodies ( multa corpora ) had remained ( in tantâ strage ) unburied. Baronius, from the different writings of the Fathers, has thrown some light on the sack of Rome. Annal. Eccles. ad 410, No. 16-44.
Sozomen, l. ix. c. 10. Augustin (de Civitat. Dei, l. i. c. 17) intimates that some virgins or matrons actually killed themselves to escape violation; and, though he admires their spirit, he is obliged by his theology to condemn their rash presumption. Perhaps the good bishop of Hippo was too easy in the belief, as well as too rigid in the censure, of this act of female heroism. The twenty maidens (if they ever existed) who threw themselves into the Elbe, when Magdeburg was taken by storm, have been multiplied to the number of twelve hundred. See Harte’s History of Gustavus Adolphus, vol. i. p. 308.
See Augustin, de Civitat. Dei, l. i. c. 16, 18. He treats the subject with remarkable accuracy; and, after admitting that there cannot be any crime where there is no consent, he adds, Sed quia non solum quod ad dolorem, verum etiam quod ad libidinem, pertinet in corpore alieno perpetrari potest; quicquid tale factum fuerit, etsi, retentam constantissimo animo pudicitiam non excutit, pudorem tamen incutit, ne credatur factum cum mentis etiam voluntate, quod fieri fortasse sine carnis aliquâ voluptate non potuit. In c. 18 he makes some curious distinctions between moral and physical virginity.
Marcella, a Roman lady, equally respectable for her rank, her age, and her piety, was thrown on the ground, and cruelly beaten and whipped, cæsam fustibus flagellisque, c. Jerom, tom. i. p. 121, ad Principiam [ep. 16]. See Augustin, de Civitat. Dei, l. i. c. 10. The modern Sacco di Roma, p. 208, gives an idea of the various methods of torturing prisoners for gold.
The historian Sallust, who usefully practised the vices which he has so eloquently censured, employed the plunder of Numidia to adorn his palace and gardens on the Quirinal hill. The spot where the house stood is now marked by the church of St. Susanna, separated only by a street from the baths of Diocletian, and not far distant from the Salarian gate. See Nardini, Roma Antica, p. 192, 193, and the great Plan of Modern Rome, by Nolli.
[The expressions of Procopius are distinct and moderate (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 2). The Chronicle of Marcellinus speaks too strongly, partem urbis Romæ cremavit; and the words of Philostorgius (ἐν ὲρειπίοις δὲ τη̂ς πόλεως κειμένης, l. xii. c. 3) convey a false and exaggerated idea. Bargæus has composed a particular dissertation (see tom. iv. Antiquit. Rom. Græv.) to prove that the edifices of Rome were not subverted by the Goths and Vandals. [On the forbearance of the Goths to Rome, see Gregorovius, Rome in the Middle Ages, i. p. 158 sqq. (Eng. tr.).]
Orosius, l. ii. c. 19, p. 143. He speaks as if he disapproved all statues; vel Deum vel hominem mentiuntur. They consisted of the kings of Alba and Rome from Æneas, the Romans, illustrious either in arms or arts, and the deified Cæsars. The expression which he uses of Forum is somewhat ambiguous, since there existed five principal Fora; but, as they were all contiguous and adjacent, in the plain which is surrounded by the Capitoline, the Quirinal, the Esquiline, and the Palatine hills, they might fairly be considered as one. See the Roma Antiqua of Donatus, p. 162-201, and the Roma Antica of Nardini, p. 212-273. The former is more useful for the ancient descriptions, the latter for the actual topography.
Orosius (l. ii. c. 19, p. 142) compares the cruelty of the Gauls and the clemency of the Goths. Ibi vix quemquam inventum senatorem, qui vel absens evaserit; hic vix quemquam requiri, qui forte ut latens perierit. But there is an air of rhetoric, and perhaps of falsehood, in this antithesis; and Socrates (l. vii. c. 10) affirms, perhaps by an opposite exaggeration, that many senators were put to death with various and exquisite tortures.
Multi . . . Christiani in captivitatem ducti sunt, Augustin, de Civitat. Dei, l. i. c. 14; and the Christians experienced no peculiar hardships.
See Heineccius, Antiquitat. Juris Roman. tom. i. p. 96.
Appendix Cod. Theodos. xvi. in Sirmond. Opera, tom. i. p. 735. This edict was published the 11th December, ad 408, and is more reasonable than properly belonged to the ministers of Honorius.
The island is now called Giglio. See Cluver. Ital. Antiq. l. ii. p. 502.
As the adventures of Proba and her family are connected with the life of St. Augustin, they are diligently illustrated by Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xiii. p. 620-635. Some time after their arrival in Africa, Demetrias took the veil, and made a vow of virginity; an event which was considered as of the highest importance to Rome and to the world. All the Saints wrote congratulatory letters to her; that of Jerom is still extant (tom. i. p. 62-73, ad Demetriad. de servandâ Virginitat.) and contains a mixture of absurd reasoning, spirited declamation, and curious facts, some of which relate to the siege and sack of Rome [ep. 130; Migne, i. 1107].
See the pathetic complaint of Jerom (tom. v. p. 400), in his preface to the second book of his Commentaries on the prophet Ezekiel.
Orosius, though with some theological partiality, states this comparison, l. ii. c. 19, p. 142, l. vii. c. 39, p. 575. But in the history of the taking of Rome by the Gauls everything is uncertain, and perhaps fabulous. See Beaufort sur l’Incertitude, c., de l’Histoire Romaine, p. 356; and Melot, in the Mém. de l’Académie des Inscript. tom. xv. p. 1-21.
The reader who wishes to inform himself of the circumstances of this famous event may peruse an admirable narrative in Dr. Robertson’s History of Charles V. vol. ii. p. 283; or consult the Annali d’Italia of the learned Muratori, tom. xiv. p. 230-244, octavo edition. If he is desirous of examining the originals, he may have recourse to the eighteenth book of the great but unfinished history of Guicciardini. But the account which most truly deserves the name of authentic and original is a little book, intitled, Il Sacco di Roma, composed, within less than a month after the assault of the city, by the brother of the historian Guicciardini, who appears to have been an able magistrate and a dispassionate writer.
The furious spirit of Luther, the effect of temper and enthusiasm, has been forcibly attacked (Bossuet, Hist. des Variations des Eglises Protestantes, livre i. p. 20-36), and feebly defended (Seckendorf, Comment. de Lutheranismo, especially l. i. No. 78, p. 120, and l. iii. No. 122, p. 556).
Marcellinus in Chron. Orosius (l. vii. c. 39, p. 575) asserts that he left Rome on the third day; but this difference is easily reconciled by the successive motions of great bodies of troops.
Socrates (l. vii. c. 10) pretends, without any colour of truth or reason, that Alaric fled on the report that the armies of the Eastern empire were in full march to attack him.
Ausonius de Claris Urbibus, p. 233, edit. Toll. The luxury of Capua had formerly surpassed that of Sybaris itself. See Athenæus, Deipnosophist l. xii. p. 528, edit. Casaubon.
Forty-eight years before the foundation of Rome (about 800 before the Christian era), the Tuscans built Capua and Nola, at the distance of twenty-three miles from each other; but the latter of the two cities never emerged from a state of mediocrity.
Tillemont (Mém. Ecclés. tom. xiv. p. 1-146) has compiled, with his usual diligence, all that relates to the life and writings of Paulinus, whose retreat is celebrated by his own pen, and by the praises of St. Ambrose, St. Jerom, St. Augustin, Sulpicius Severus, c., his Christian friends and contemporaries.
See the affectionate letters of Ausonius (epist. xix.-xxv. p. 650-698, edit. Toll.) to his colleague, his friend, and his disciple Paulinus. The religion of Ausonius is still a problem (see Mém. de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xv. p. 123-138). I believe that it was such in his own time, and, consequently, that in his heart he was a Pagan. [Cp. vol. iv. App. 5, p. 347.]
The humble Paulinus once presumed to say that he believed St. Felix did love him; at least, as a master loves his little dog.
See Jornandes, de Reb. Get. c. 30, p. 653. Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 3. Augustin, de Civitat. Dei, l. i. c. 10. Baronius, Annal. Eccles. ad 410, No. 45, 46.
The platanus, or plane-tree, was a favourite of the ancients, by whom it was propagated, for the sake of shade, from the East to Gaul, Pliny, Hist. Natur. xiii. 3, 4, 5. He mentions several of an enormous size; one in the Imperial villa at Velitræ, which Caligula called his nest, as the branches were capable of holding a large table, the proper attendants, and the emperor himself, whom Pliny quaintly styles pars umbrae; an expression which might with equal reason be applied to Alaric.
See Gray’s Poems, published by Mr. Mason, p. 197. Instead of compiling tables of chronology and natural history, why did not Mr. Gray apply the powers of his genius to finish the philosophic poem of which he has left such an exquisite specimen?
For the perfect description of the Straits of Messina, Scylla, Charybdis, c., see Cluverius (Ital. Antiq. l. iv. p. 1293, and Sicilia Antiq. l. i. p. 60-76), who had diligently studied the ancients and surveyed with a curious eye the actual face of the country.
Jornandes, de Reb. Get. c. 30, p. 654.
Orosius, l. vii. c. 43, p. 584, 585. He was sent by St. Augustin, in the year 415, from Africa to Palestine, to visit St. Jerom, and to consult with him on the subject of the Pelagian controversy.
Jornandes supposes, without much probability, that Adolphus visited and plundered Rome a second time (more locustarum erasit). Yet he agrees with Orosius in supposing that a treaty of peace was concluded between the Gothic prince and Honorius. See Oros. l. vii. c. 43, p. 584, 585. Jornandes, de Reb. Geticis, c. 31, p. 654, 655.
The retreat of the Goths from Italy, and their first transactions in Gaul, are dark and doubtful. I have derived much assistance from Mascou (Hist. of the ancient Germans, l. viii. c. 29, 35, 36, 37), who has illustrated and connected the broken chronicles and fragments of the times.
See an account of Placidia in Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 72; and Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. i. p. 260, 386, c. tom. vi. p. 240.
Zosim. l. v. p. 350 [38].
Zosim. l. vi. p. 383 [12]. Orosius (l. vii. c. 40, p. 576) and the Chronicles of Marcellinus and Idatius seem to suppose that the Goths did not carry away Placidia until after the last siege of Rome.
See the pictures of Adolphus and Placidia, and the account of their marriage, in Jornandes, de Reb. Geticis, c. 31, p. 654, 655. With regard to the place where the nuptials were stipulated or consummated or celebrated, the MSS. of Jornandes vary between two neighbouring cities, Forli and Imola (Forum Livii and Forum Cornelii). It is fair and easy to reconcile the Gothic historian with Olympiodorus (see Mascou, l. viii. c. 46), but Tillemont grows peevish, and swears that it is not worth while to try to conciliate Jornandes with any good authors. [All the MSS. of Jordanes have Iuli, which the ed. Basil. corrects to Livii. Idatius and Olympiodorus place the marriage at Narbo.]
The Visigoths (the subjects of Adolphus) restrained by subsequent laws the prodigality of conjugal love. It was illegal for a husband to make any gift or settlement for the benefit of his wife during the first year of their marriage, and his liberality could not exceed the tenth part of his property. The Lombards were somewhat more indulgent; they allowed the morgingcap immediately after the wedding-night; and this famous gift, the reward of virginity, might equal the fourth part of the husband’s substance. Some cautious maidens, indeed, were wise enough to stipulate beforehand a present, which they were too sure of not deserving. See Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xix. c. 25. Muratori, delle Antichitá Italiane, tom. i. Dissertazione xx. p. 243.
We owe the curious detail of this nuptial feast to the historian Olympiodorus, ap. Photium, p. 185, 188 [fr. 24].
See in the great collection of the Historians of France by Dom. Bouquet, tom. ii., Greg. Turonens, l. iii. c. 10, p. 191; Gesta Regum Franc. c. 23, p. 557. The anonymous writer, with an ignorance worthy of his times, supposes that these instruments of Christian worship had belonged to the temple of Solomon. If he has any meaning, it must be that they were found in the sack of Rome. [Procopius, B.G. i. 12, states that they were taken from Jerusalem by the Romans.]
Consult the following original testimonies in the Historians of France, tom. ii. Fredegarii Scholastici Chron. c. 73, p. 441. Fredegar. Fragment. iii. p. 463. Gesta Regis Dagobert. c. 29, p. 587. The accession of Sisenand to the throne of Spain happened ad 631. The 200,000 pieces of gold were appropriated by Dagobert to the foundation of the church of St. Denys.
The president Goguet (Origine des Loix, c. tom. ii. p. 239) is of opinion that the stupendous pieces of emerald, the statues and columns which antiquity has placed in Egypt, at Gades, at Constantinople, were in reality artificial compositions of coloured glass. The famous emerald dish which is shown at Genoa is supposed to countenance the suspicion.
Elmacin, Hist. Saracenica, l. i. p. 85. Roderic. Tolet. Hist. Arab. c. 9. Cardonne, Hist. de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne sous les Arabes, tom. i. p. 83. It was called the Table of Solomon according to the custom of the Orientals, who ascribe to that prince every ancient work of knowledge or magnificence.
His three laws are inserted in the Theodosian Code, l. xi. tit. xxviii. leg. 7. L. xiii. tit. xi. leg. 12. L. xv. tit. xiv. leg. 14. The expressions of the last are very remarkable, since they contain not only a pardon but an apology.
Olympiodorus ap. Phot. p. 188 [fr. 25]. Philostorgius (l. xii. c. 5) observes that, when Honorius made his triumphal entry, he encouraged the Romans with his hand and voice (χειρὶ καί γλώττῃ) to rebuild their city; and the Chronicle of Prosper commends Heraclian, qui in Romanæ urbis reparationem strenuum exhibuerat ministerium.
The date of the voyage of Claudius Rutilius Numatianus [Namatianus] is clogged with some difficulties, but Scaliger has deduced from astronomical characters that he left Rome the 24th of September and embarked at Porto the 9th of October, ad 416. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 820. In this political Itinerary Rutilius (l. i. 115, c.) addresses Rome in a high strain of congratulation: —
[Rutilius had been magister officiorum and præf. urbi of Rome.]
Orosius composed his history in Africa only two years after the event; yet his authority seems to be overbalanced by the improbability of the fact. The Chronicle of Marcellinus gives Heraclian 700 ships and 3000 men: the latter of these numbers is ridiculously corrupt, but the former would please me very much.
The Chronicle of Idatius affirms, without the least appearance of truth, that he advanced as far as Otriculum, in Umbria, where he was overthrown in a great battle, with the loss of fifty thousand men.
See Cod. Theod. l. xv. tit. iv. leg. 13. The legal acts performed in his name, even the manumission of slaves, were declared invalid till they had been formally repealed.
I have disdained to mention a very foolish, and probably a false, report (Procop. de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 2) that Honorius was alarmed by the loss of Rome, till he understood that it was not a favourite chicken of that name, but only the capital of the world, which had been lost. Yet even this story is some evidence of the public opinion.
The materials for the lives of all these tyrants are taken from six contemporary historians, two Latins and four Greeks: Orosius, l. vii. c. 42, p. 581, 582, 583; Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus, apud Gregor. Turon. l. ii. c. 9, in the Historians of France, tom. ii. p. 165, 166; Zosimus, l. vi. p. 370, 371, [2 sqq. ]; Olympiodorus, apud Phot. p. 180, 181, 184, 185 [fr. 12-19]; Sozomen, l. ix. c. 12, 13, 14, 15; and Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 5, 6, with Godefroy’s Dissertations, p. 477-481; besides the four Chronicles of Prosper Tiro, Prosper of Aquitain, Idatius, and Marcellinus.
[A dependent friend. Olympiodorus, fr. 16, has τὸν ὲαυτον̂ παɩ̂δα, which doubtless means his “servant,” not his “son.”]
The praises which Sozomen has bestowed on this act of despair appear strange and scandalous in the mouth of an ecclesiastical historian. He observes (p. 379) that the wife of Gerontius was a Christian; and that her death was worthy of her religion and of immortal fame. [For death of Maximus, cp. Appendix 14.]
Εɩ̂̓δος ἄξιον τυράννιδος, is the expression of Olympiodorus, which he seems to have borrowed from Æolus, a tragedy of Euripides, of which some fragments only are now extant (Euripid. Barnes, tom. ii. p. 443, ver. 38). This allusion may prove that the ancient tragic poets were still familiar to the Greeks of the fifth century.
Sidonius Apollinaris (l. v. epist. 9, p. 139, and Not. Sirmond, p. 58), after stigmatising the inconstancy of Constantine, the facility of Jovinus, the perfidy of Gerontius, continues to observe that all the vices of these tyrants were united in the person of Dardanus. Yet the prefect supported a respectable character in the world, and even in the church; held a devout correspondence with St. Augustin and St. Jerom; and was complimented by the latter (tom. iii. p. 66) with the epithets of Christianorum Nobilissime and Nobilium Christianissime.
The expression may be understood almost literally; Olympiodorus says [fr. 17], μόλις σάκκοις ἐζώγρησαν. Σάκκος (or σάκος) may signify a sack, or a loose garment; and this method of entangling and catching an enemy, laciniis contortis, was much practised by the Huns (Ammian. xxxi. 2). Il fut pris vif avec des filets, is the translation of Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 608.
Without recurring to the more ancient writers, I shall quote three respectable testimonies which belong to the fourth and seventh centuries; the Expositio totius Mundi (p. 16 in the third volume of Hudson’s Minor Geographers), Ausonius (de Claris Urbibus, p. 242, edit. Toll.), and Isidore of Seville (Præfat. ad Chron. ap. Grotium, Hist. Goth. p. 707). Many particulars relative to the fertility and trade of Spain may be found in Nonnius, Hispania Illustrata, and in Huet, Hist. du Commerce des Anciens, c. 40, p. 228-234.
The date is accurately fixed in the Fasti and the Chronicle of Idatius. Orosius (l. vii. c. 40, p. 578) imputes the loss of Spain to the treachery of the Honorians, while Sozomen (l. ix. c. 12) accuses only their negligence.
Idatius wishes to apply the prophecies of Daniel to these national calamities; and is therefore obliged to accommodate the circumstances of the event to the terms of the prediction.
Mariana de Rebus Hispanicis, l. v. c. 1, tom. i. p. 148, Hag. Comit. 1733. He had read, in Orosius (l. vii. c. 41, p. 579), that the Barbarians had turned their swords into ploughshares; and that many of the Provincials preferred inter Barbaros pauperem libertatem quam inter Romanos tributariam solicitudinem sustinere.
This mixture of force and persuasion may be fairly inferred from comparing Orosius and Jornandes, the Roman and the Gothic historian. [Force: the words of Orosius ( a Narbona expulit, and coegit ) are confirmed by Idatius (Chron. ed. Momms. p. 19: pulsatus ).]
According to the system of Jornandes (c. 33, p. 659) the true hereditary right to the Gothic sceptre was vested in the Amali; but those princes, who were the vassals of the Huns, commanded the tribes of the Ostrogoths in some distant parts of Germany or Scythia.
The murder is related by Olympiodorus; but the number of children is from an epitaph of suspected authority.
The death of Adolphus was celebrated at Constantinople with illuminations and Circensian games. (See Chron. Alexandrin.) It may seem doubtful whether the Greeks were actuated, on this occasion, by their hatred of the Barbarians or of the Latins.
This supply was very acceptable: the Goths were insulted by the Vandals of Spain with the epithet of Truli, because, in their extreme distress, they had given a piece of gold for a trula, or about half a pound of flour. Olympiod. apud Phot. p. 189. [A trula held somewhat less than ⅓rd of a pint.]
Orosius inserts a copy of these pretended letters. Tu cum omnibus pacem habe, omniumque obsides accipe; nos nobis confligimus, nobis perimus, tibi vincimus; immortalis vero quæstus erit Reipublicæ tuæ, si utrique pereamus. The idea is just; but I cannot persuade myself that it was entertained, or expressed, by the Barbarians.
Romam triumphans ingreditur, is the formal expression of Prosper’s Chronicle. The facts which relate to the death of Adolphus, and the exploits of Wallia, are related from Olympiodorus (apud Phot. p. 188 [26]), Orosius (l. vii. c. 43, p. 584-587), Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 31, 32), and the Chronicles of Idatius and Isidore.
Ausonius (de Claris Urbibus, p. 257-262) celebrates Bourdeaux with the partial affection of a native. See in Salvian (de Gubern. Dei, p. 228. Paris, 1608) a florid description of the provinces of Aquitain and Novempopulania.
Orosius (l. vii. c. 32, p. 550) commends the mildness and modesty of these Burgundians who treated their subjects of Gaul as their Christian brethren. Mascou has illustrated the origin of their kingdom in the four first annotations at the end of his laborious History of the ancient Germans, vol. ii. p. 555-572, of the English translation. [For the ten Burgundies see Appendix 1 of Mr. Bryce’s Holy Roman Empire.]
See Mascou, l. viii. c. 43, 44, 45. Except in a short and suspicious line of the Chronicle of Prosper (in tom. i. p. 638 [pseudo-Prosper; see Mommsen, Chron. Min. i. p. 656]) the name of Pharamond is never mentioned before the seventh [8th] century. The author of the Gesta Francorum (in tom. ii. p. 543) suggests probably enough, that the choice of Pharamond, or at least of a king, was recommended to the Franks by his father Marcomir, who was an exile in Tuscany.
See the whole of the ninth Eclogue, with the useful Commentary of Servius. Fifteen miles of the Mantuan territory were assigned to the veterans, with a reservation, in favour of the inhabitants, of three miles round the city. Even in this favour they were cheated by Alfenus Varus, a famous lawyer, and one of the commissioners, who measured eight hundred paces of water and morass.
See the remarkable passage of the Eucharisticon of Paulinus, 575, apud Mascou, l. viii. c. 42. [See vol. iv. Appendix 5.]
This important truth is established by the accuracy of Tillemont (Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 641) and by the ingenuity of the Abbé Dubos (Hist. de l’Etablissement de la Monarchie Françoise dans les Gaules, tom. i. p. 259).
Zosimus (l. vi. p. 376, 383 [5 and 10]) relates in a few words the revolt of Britain and Armorica. Our antiquarians, even the great Cambden himself, have been betrayed into many gross errors by their imperfect knowledge of the history of the continent.
The limits of Armorica are defined by two national geographers, Messieurs de Valois and d’Anville, in their Notitias of Ancient Gaul. The word had been used in a more extensive, and was afterwards contracted to a much narrower, signification.
Erricus Monach. in Vit. St. Germani, l. v. apud Vales. Notit. Galliarum, p. 43. Valesius alleges several testimonies to confirm this character; to which I shall add the evidence of the presbyter Constantine ( ad 488), who, in the life of St. Germain, calls the Armorican rebels mobilem et indisciplinatum populum. See the Historians of France, tom. i. p. 643.
I thought it necessary to enter my protest against this part of the system of the Abbé Dubos, which Montesquieu has so vigorously opposed. See Esprit des Loix, l. xxx. c. 24.
Βρεταννίαν μέντοι Ῥωμαɩ̂οι ἀνασώσασθαι οὔκετι ε[Editor: illegible character]χον are the words of Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 2, p. 181, Louvre edition) in a very important passage which has been too much neglected. Even Bede (Hist. Gent. Anglican. l. i. c. 12, p. 50, edit. Smith) acknowledges that the Romans finally left Britain in the reign of Honorius. Yet our modern historians and antiquaries extend the term of their dominion; and there are some who allow only the interval of a few months between their departure and the arrival of the Saxons.
Bede has not forgot the occasional aid of the legions against the Scots and Picts; and more authentic proof will hereafter be produced that the independent Britons raised 12,000 men for the service of the emperor Anthemius in Gaul.
I owe it to myself, and to historic truth, to declare that some circumstances in the paragraph are founded only on conjecture and analogy. The stubbornness of our language has sometimes forced me to deviate from the conditional into the indicative mood.
Πρὸς τὰς ἐν Βρεταννίᾳ πόλεις. Zosimus, l. vi. p. 383 [10].
Two cities of Britain were municipia, nine colonies, ten Latii jure donatæ, twelve stipendiariæ of eminent note. This detail is taken from Richard of Cirencester, de Situ Britanniæ, p. 36; and, though it may not seem probable that he wrote from the MSS. of a Roman general, he shews a genuine knowledge of antiquity, very extraordinary for a monk of the fourteenth century. [The treatise is a forgery of the 18th century, by one Bertram; cp. vol. i. Appendix 2.]
See Maffei, Verona Illustrata, part i. l. v. p. 83-106.
An inscription (apud Sirmond., Not. ad Sidon. Apollinar. p. 59) describes a castle, cum muris et portis, tuitioni omnium, erected by Dardanus [Praet. Praef. of Gaul in 409 and 411-13] on his own estate near Sisteron, in the second Narbonnese, and named by him Theopolis. [See C.I.L. xii. 1524; the stone is on the road from Sisteron to St. Genies in Provence. Dardanus is not stated to have given its name to the village or castle of Theopolis (now hamlet of Théon), but to have given it walls and gates.]
The establishment of their power would have been easy indeed, if we could adopt the impracticable scheme of a lively and learned antiquarian; who supposes that the British monarchs of the several tribes continued to reign, though with subordinate jurisdiction, from the time of Claudius to that of Honorius. See Whitaker’s History of Manchester, vol. i. p. 247-257.
Ἀλλ’ ον̂̔σα ὑπὸ τυράννοις ἀπ’ αὐτον̂ ἔμενε. Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 2, p. 181. Britannia fertilis provincia tyrannorum, was the expression of Jerom, in the year 415 (tom. ii. p. 255, ad Ctesiphont.). By the pilgrims, who resorted every year to the Holy Land, the Monk of Bethlem received the earliest and most accurate intelligence.
See Bingham’s Eccles. Antiquities, vol. i. l. ix. c. 6, p. 394. [A discreet and important paper on Early British Christianity by Mr. F. Haverfield appeared in Eng. Hist. Review, July, 1896. The archæological evidence is mustered.]
It is reported of three British bishops who assisted at the council of Rimini, ad 359, tam pauperes fuisse ut nihil [proprium] haberent. Sulpicius Severus, Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 420 [c. 41]. Some of their brethren, however were in better circumstances.
Consult Usher, de Antiq. Eccles. Britannicar. c. 8-12.
See the correct text of this edict, as published by Sirmond (Not. ad Sidon. Apollin. p. 147). Hincmar of Rheims, who assigns a place to the bishops, had probably seen (in the ninth century) a more perfect copy. Dubos, Hist. Critique de la Monarchie Françoise, tom. i. p. 241-255.
It is evident from the Notitia that the seven provinces were the Viennensis, the maritime Alps, the first and second Narbonnese, Novempopulania, and the first and second Aquitain. In the room of the first Aquitain, the Abbé Dubos, on the authority of Hincmar, desires to introduce the first Lugdunensis, or Lyonnese. [The Seven Provinces are not to be confused with Septimania; cp. Appendix 15.]
[Guizot, in his Histoire de la Civilisation en Europe (c. 2), translates this edict. It interests him as an unsuccessful attempt at representative government and centralisation, which were contrary to the nature of a society in which the municipal spirit was predominant. Châteaubriand had already described the institution of the assembly as ‘un très grand fait historique qui annonce le passage à une nouvelle espèce de liberté.’ These and other writers have exaggerated the importance of the edict and ascribed to Honorius and his ministers ideas which were foreign to them. There was certainly no question of anything like a national representation. For recent discussions of the document, see Guiraud, Les assemblées provinciales dans l’Empire romain, and Carette, Les assemblées provinciales de la Gaule romaine. The main objects of Honorius were probably, as M. Carette says, p. 249, to multiply the points of contact between the chief of his Gallic subjects and his governors; and to facilitate the administrative business of the provinces by centralisation. For diocesan, as distinct from provincial, concilia, see C. Th. 12, 12, 9.]
Father Montfaucon, who, by the command of his Benedictine superiors, was compelled (see Longueruana, tom. i. p. 205) to execute the laborious edition of St. Chrysostom, in thirteen volumes in folio (Paris, 1738), amused himself with extracting, from that immense collection of morals, some curious antiquities, which illustrate the manners of the Theodosian age (see Chrysostom. Opera, tom. xiii. p. 192-196, and his French Dissertation, in the Mémoires de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. xiii. p. 474-490). [A. Puech has recently devoted a whole book to the same subject: St. Jean Chrysostome et les mœurs de son temps, 1891.]
According to the loose reckoning that a ship could sail, with a fair wind, 1000 stadia, or 125 miles, in the revolution of a day and night; Diodorus Siculus computes ten days from the Palus Mæotis to Rhodes, and four days from Rhodes to Alexandria. The navigation of the Nile, from Alexandria to Syene, under the tropic of Cancer, required, as it was against the stream, ten days more. Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iii. p. 200, edit. Wesseling. He might, without much impropriety, measure the extreme heat from the verge of the torrid zone; but he speaks of the Mæotis in the 47th degree of northern latitude, as if it lay within the polar circle. [On rates of sea travelling see Appendix 16.]
Barthius, who adored his author with the blind superstition of a commentator, gives the preference to the two books which Claudian composed against Eutropius, above all his other productions (Baillet, Judgemens des Savans, tom. iv. p. 227). They are indeed a very elegant and spirited satire; and would be more valuable in an historical light, if the invective were less vague and more temperate.
After lamenting the progress of the eunuchs in the Roman palace and defining their proper functions, Claudian adds,
Yet it does not appear that the eunuch had assumed any of the efficient offices of the empire, and he is styled only Præpositus sacri cubiculi, in the edict of his banishment. See Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xl. leg. 17.
Claudian (i. 229-270), with that mixture of indignation and humour which always pleases in a satiric poet, describes the insolent folly of the eunuch, the disgrace of the empire, and the joy of the Goths.
The poet’s lively description of his deformity (i. 110-125) is confirmed by the authentic testimony of Chrysostom (tom. iii. p. 384, edit. Montfaucon), who observes that, when the paint was washed away, the face of Eutropius appeared more ugly and wrinkled than that of an old woman. Claudian remarks (i. 469), and the remark must have been founded on experience, that there was scarcely any interval between the youth and the decrepid age of an eunuch.
Eutropius appears to have been a native of Armenia or Assyria. His three services, which Claudian more particularly describes, were these: 1. He spent many years as the catamite of Ptolemy, a groom or soldier of the Imperial stables. 2. Ptolemy gave him to the old general Arintheus, for whom he very skilfully exercised the profession of a pimp. 3. He was given, on her marriage, to the daughter of Arintheus; and the future consul was employed to comb her hair, to present the silver ewer, to wash and to fan his mistress in hot weather. See l. i. 31-137.
Claudian (l. i. in Eutrop. 1-22), after enumerating the various prodigies of monstrous birds, speaking animals, showers of blood or stones, double suns, c., adds, with some exaggeration, — Omnia cesserunt eunucho consule monstra. The first book concludes with a noble speech of the goddess of Rome to her favourite Honorius, deprecating the new ignominy to which she was exposed.
Fl. Mallius Theodorus, whose civil honours, and philosophical works, have been celebrated by Claudian [who by the change of one letter has transformed Mallius into a member of the ancient Manlian family].
Μεθύων δὲ ἤδη τῷ πλούτῳ, drunk with riches, is the forcible expression of Zosimus (l. v. p. 301 [10]); and the avarice of Eutropius is equally execrated in the Lexicon of Suidas and the Chronicle of Marcellinus. Chrysostom had often admonished the favourite, of the vanity and danger of immoderate wealth, tom. iii. p. 381.
Claudian (i. 192-209) so curiously distinguishes the circumstances of the sale that they all seem to allude to particular anecdotes.
Claudian (i. 154-170) mentions the guilt and exile of Abundantius, nor could he fail to quote the example of the artist who made the first trial of the brazen bull which he presented to Phalaris. See Zosimus, l. v. p. 302 [10]. Jerom. tom. i. p. 26 [ep. 60; Migne, i. 600]. The difference of place is easily reconciled; but the decisive authority of Asterius of Amasia (Orat. iv. p. 76 apud Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 435) must turn the scale in favour of Pityus.
Suidas (most probably, from the history of Eunapius) has given a very unfavourable picture of Timasius. The account of his accuser, the judges, trial, c., is perfectly agreeable to the practice of ancient and modern courts. (See Zosimus, l. v. p. 298, 299, 300 [9 sqq. ]). I am almost tempted to quote the romance of a great master (Fielding’s Works, vol. iv. p. 49, c. 8vo edit.), which may be considered as the history of human nature.
The great Oasis was one of the spots in the sands of Libya watered with springs, and capable of producing wheat, barley, and palm-trees. It was about three days’ journey from north to south, about half a day in breadth, and at the distance of about five days’ march to the west of Abydus on the Nile. See d’Anville, Description de l’Egypte, p. 186, 187, 188. The barren desert which encompasses Oasis (Zosimus, l. v. p. 300) has suggested the idea of comparative fertility, and even the epithet of the happy island (Herodot. iii. 26).
The line of Claudian, in Eutrop. l. i. 180: —
Marmaricus claris violatur cædibus Hammon,
evidently alludes to his persuasion of the death of Timasius.
Sozomen, l. viii. c. 7. He speaks from report ὠς τινος έπυθόμην.
Zosimus, l. v. p. 300 [9 ad fin. ]. Yet he seems to suspect that this rumour was spread by the friends of Eutropius.
See the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. 14, ad legem Corneliam de Sicariis, leg. 3, and the Code of Justinian, l. ix. tit. viii. ad legem Juliam de Majestate, leg. 5. The alteration of the title, from murder to treason, was an improvement of the subtle Tribonian. Godefroy, in a formal dissertation which he has inserted in his Commentary, illustrates this law of Arcadius, and explains all the difficult passages which had been perverted by the jurisconsults of the darker ages. See tom. iii. p. 88-111.
Bartolus understands a simple and naked consciousness, without any sign of approbation or concurrence. For this opinion, says Baldus, he is now roasting in hell. For my own part, continues the discreet Heineccius (Element. Jur. Civil. l. iv. p. 411), I must approve the theory of Bartolus; but in practice I should incline to the sentiments of Baldus. Yet Bartolus was gravely quoted by the lawyers of Cardinal Richelieu; and Eutropius was indirectly guilty of the murder of the virtuous de Thou.
Godefroy, tom. iii. p. 89. It is, however, suspected that this law, so repugnant to the maxims of Germanic freedom, has been surreptitiously added to the golden bull.
A copious and circumstantial narrative (which he might have reserved for more important events) is bestowed by Zosimus (l. v. p. 304-312 [13 sqq. ]) on the revolt of Tribigild and Gainas. See likewise Socrates, l. vi. c. 6, and Sozomen, l. viii. c. 4. The second book of Claudian against Eutropius is a fine, though imperfect, piece of history.
Claudian (in Eutrop. l. ii. 237-250) very accurately observes that the ancient name and nation of the Phrygians extended very far on every side, till their limits were contracted by the colonies of the Bithynians of Thrace, of the Greeks, and at last of the Gauls. His description (ii. 257-272) of the fertility of Phrygia, and of the four rivers that produce gold, is just and picturesque.
Xenophon, Anabasis, l. i. p. 11, 12, edit. Hutchinson; Strabo, l. xii. p. 865, edit. Amstel. [8, 15]; Q. Curt. l. iii. c. 1. Claudian compares the junction of the Marsyas and Mæander to that of the Saône and the Rhone; with this difference, however, that the smaller of the Phrygian rivers is not accelerated, but retarded, by the larger.
Selgæ, a colony of the Lacedæmonians, had formerly numbered twenty thousand citizens; but in the age of Zosimus it was reduced to a πολίχνη, or small town. See Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 117.
The council of Eutropius, in Claudian, may be compared to that of Domitian in the fourth satire of Juvenal. The principal members of the former were: juvenes protervi lascivique senes; one of them had been a cook, a second a wool comber. The language of their original profession exposes their assumed dignity; and their trifling conversation about tragedies, dancers, c., is made still more ridiculous by the importance of the debate.
Claudian (l. ii. 376-461) has branded him with infamy; and Zosimus, in more temperate language, confirms his reproaches. L. v. p. 305 [14].
The conspiracy of Gainas and Tribigild, which is attested by the Greek historian, had not reached the ears of Claudian, who attributes the revolt of the Ostrogoth to his own martial spirit and the advice of his wife.
This anecdote, which Philostorgius alone has preserved (l. xi. c. 6, and Gothofred. Dissertat. p. 451-456), is curious and important; since it connects the revolt of the Goths with the secret intrigues of the palace.
See the Homily of Chrysostom, tom. iii. p. 381-386, of which the exordium is particularly beautiful. Socrates, l. vi. c. 5; Sozomen, l. viii. c. 7. Montfaucon (in his Life of Chrysostom, tom. xiii. p. 135) too hastily supposes that Tribigild was actually in Constantinople; and that he commanded the soldiers who were ordered to seize Eutropius. Even Claudian, a Pagan poet (Præfat. ad l. ii. in Eutrop. p. 27), has mentioned the flight of the eunuch to the sanctuary.
Chrysostom, in another homily (tom. iii. p. 386), affects to declare that Eutropius would not have been taken, had he not deserted the church. Zosimus (l. v. p. 313 [18]), on the contrary, pretends that his enemies forced him ἐξαρπάσαντες αὐτόν from the sanctuary. Yet the promise is an evidence of some treaty; and the strong assurance of Claudian (Præfat. ad l. ii. 46),
Sed tamen exemplo non feriere tuo,
may be considered as an evidence of some promise.
Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xi. leg. 14 [ leg. tit. xl., leg. 17]. The date of that law (Jan. 17, ad 399) is erroneous and corrupt; since the fall of Eutropius could not happen till the autumn of the same year. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 780.
Zosimus, l. v. p. 313 [18]. Philostorgius, l. xi. c. 6. [Not using imperial animals (βοσκήμασιν), but imperial decorations (κοσμήμασιν). See note of Valesius, on the passage of Philostorgius (Migne, vol. 65, p. 600).]
Zosimus (l. v. p. 313-323 [18 sqq. ]), Socrates (l. vi. c. 4), Sozomen (l. viii. c. 4), and Theodoret (l. v. c. 32, 33) represent, though with some various circumstances, the conspiracy, defeat, and death of Gainas. [Tribigild’s death is only mentioned by Philostorgius (xi. 8): “having crossed over to Thrace he perishes soon after.”]
Ὁσίας Εὐϕημίας μαρτύριον, is the expression of Zosimus himself (l. v. p. 314 [18]), who inadvertently uses the fashionable language of the Christians. Evagrius describes (l. ii. c. 3) the situation, architecture, relics, and miracles of that celebrated church, in which the general council of Chalcedon was rough breathing afterwards held. [See Appendix 19.]
The pious remonstrances of Chrysostom, which do not appear in his own writings, are strongly urged by Theodoret; but his insinuation that they were successful is disproved by facts. Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. 383) has discovered that the emperor, to satisfy the rapacious demands of Gainas, melted the plate of the church of the Apostles.
The ecclesiastical historians, who sometimes guide, and sometimes follow, the public opinion, most confidently assert that the palace of Constantinople was guarded by legions of angels.
Zosimus (l. v. p. 319 [20, cp. Eunap. fr. 81]) mentions these galleys by the name of Liburnians, and observes that they were as swift (without explaining the difference between them) as the vessels with fifty oars; but that they were far inferior in speed to the triremes, which had been long disused. Yet he reasonably concludes, from the testimony of Polybius, that galleys of a still larger size had been constructed in the Punic wars. Since the establishment of the Roman empire over the Mediterranean, the useless art of building large ships of war had probably been neglected and at length forgotten.
Chishul (Travels, p. 61-63, 72-76) proceeded from Gallipoli, through Hadrianople, to the Danube, in about fifteen days. He was in the train of an English ambassador, whose baggage consisted of seventy-one waggons. That learned traveller has the merit of tracing a curious and unfrequented route.
The narrative of Zosimus, who actually leads Gainas beyond the Danube, must be corrected by the testimony of Socrates and Sozomen, that he was killed in Thrace; and, by the precise and authentic dates of the Alexandrian, or Paschal, Chronicle, p. 307. The naval victory of the Hellespont is fixed to the month Apellæus, the tenth of the calends of January (December 23); the head of Gainas was brought to Constantinople the third of the nones of January (January 3), in the month Audynæus. [These dates imply too short an interval; the second is probably wrong; and we may accept from Marcellinus the notice that Gainas was killed early in February.]
Eusebius Scholasticus acquired much fame by his poem on the Gothic war, in which he had served. Near forty years afterwards, Ammonius recited another poem on the same subject, in the presence of Theodosius. See Socrates, l. vi. c. 6.
The sixth book of Socrates, the eighth of Sozomen, and the fifth of Theodoret afford curious and authentic materials for the life of John Chrysostom. Besides those general historians, I have taken for my guides the four principal biographers of the saint. 1. The author of a partial and passionate Vindication of the Archbishop of Constantinople, composed in the form of a dialogue, and under the name of his zealous partizan Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis (Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xi. p. 500-533). It is inserted among the works of Chrysostom, tom. xiii. p. 1-90, edit. Montfaucon. 2. The moderate Erasmus (tom. iii. epist. mcl. p. 1331-1347, edit. Ludg. Bat.). His vivacity and good sense were his own; his errors, in the uncultivated state of ecclesiastical antiquity, were almost inevitable. 3. The learned Tillemont (Mém. Ecclés., tom. xi. p. 1-405, 547-626, c. c.); who compiles the lives of the saints with incredible patience and religious accuracy. He has minutely searched the voluminous works of Chrysostom himself. 4. Father Montfaucon, who has perused those works with the curious diligence of an editor, discovered several new homilies, and again reviewed and composed the life of Chrysostom (Opera Chrysostom, tom. xiii. p. 91-177). [For modern works see vol. iv. Appendix 5. p. 355.]
As I am almost a stranger to the voluminous sermons of Chrysostom, I have given my confidence to the two most judicious and moderate of the ecclesiastical critics, Erasmus (tom. iii. p. 1344) and Dupin (Bibliothèque Ecclésiastique, tom. iii. p. 38); yet the good taste of the former is sometimes vitiated by an excessive love of antiquity; and the good sense of the latter is always restrained by prudential considerations.
The females of Constantinople distinguished themselves by their enmity or their attachment to Chrysostom. Three noble and opulent widows, Marsa, Castricia, and Eugraphia, were the leaders of the persecution (Pallad. Dialog. tom. xiii. p. 14). It was impossible that they should forgive a preacher who reproached their affectation to conceal, by the ornaments of dress, their age and ugliness (Pallad. p. 27). Olympias, by equal zeal, displayed in a more pious cause, has obtained the title of saint. See Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xi. 416-440.
Sozomen, and more especially Socrates, have defined the real character of Chrysostom with a temperate and impartial freedom, very offensive to his blind admirers. Those historians lived in the next generation, when party violence was abated, and had conversed with many persons intimately acquainted with the virtues and imperfections of the saint.
Palladius (tom. xiii. p. 40, c.) very seriously defends the archbishop: 1. He never tasted wine. 2. The weakness of his stomach required a peculiar diet. 3. Business, or study, or devotion, often kept him fasting till sunset. 4. He detested the noise and levity of great dinners. 5. He saved the expense for the use of the poor. 6. He was apprehensive, in a capital like Constantinople, of the envy and reproach of partial invitations.
Chrysostom declares his free opinion (tom. ix. hom. iii. in Act. Apostol. p. 29) that the number of bishops who might be saved bore a very small proportion to those who would be damned.
See Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xi. p. 441-500.
I have purposely omitted the controversy which arose among the monks of Egypt concerning Origenism and Anthropomorphism; the dissimulation and violence of Theophilus; his artful management of the simplicity of Epiphanius; the persecution and flight of the long, or tall, brothers; the ambiguous support which they received at Constantinople from Chrysostom, c. c.
Photius (p. 53-60) has preserved the original acts of the synod of the Oak [Mansi, Concil. iii. p. 1148]; which destroy the false assertion [of Palladius; see Mansi, Concil. iii. 1153] that Chrysostom was condemned by no more than thirty-six bishops, of whom twenty-nine were Egyptians. Forty-five bishops subscribed his sentence. See Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xi. p. 595.
Palladius owns (p. 30) that, if the people of Constantinople had found Theophilus, they would certainly have thrown him into the sea. Socrates mentions (l. vi. c. 17) a battle between the mob and the sailors of Alexandria in which many wounds were given and some lives were lost. The massacre of the monks is observed only by the Pagan Zosimus (l. v. p. 324 [23]), who acknowledges that Chrysostom had a singular talent to lead the illiterate multitude, [Editor: illegible character]ν γὰρ ὀ ἄνθρωπος ἄλογον ὄχλον ὑπαγαγέσθαι δεινός.
See Socrates, l. vi. c. 18. Sozomen, l. viii. c. 20. Zosimus (l. v. p. 324, 327 [23, 24] mentions, in general terms, his invectives against Eudoxia. The homily, which begins with those famous words, is rejected as spurious. Montfaucon, tom. xiii. p. 151. Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xi. p. 603.
We might naturally expect such a charge from Zosimus (l. v. p. 327 [24]), but it is remarkable enough that it should be confirmed by Socrates, l. vi. c. 18, and the Paschal Chronicle, p. 307. [Cp. Cod. Th. 16, 2. 37.]
He displays those specious motives (Post Reditum, c. 13, 14) in the language of an orator and a politician.
Two hundred and forty-two of the epistles of Chrysostom are still extant (Opera, tom. iii. p. 528-736). They are addressed to a great variety of persons and show a firmness of mind much superior to that of Cicero in his exile. The fourteenth epistle contains a curious narrative of the dangers of his journey.
After the exile of Chrysostom, Theophilus published an enormous and horrible volume against him, in which he perpetually repeats the polite expressions of hostem humanitatis, sacrilegorum principem, immundum dæmonem; he affirms that John Chrysostom had delivered his soul to be adulterated by the devil; and wishes that some farther punishment, adequate (if possible) to the magnitude of his crimes, may be inflicted on him. St. Jerom, at the request of his friend Theophilus, translated this edifying performance from Greek into Latin. See Facundus Hermian. Defens. pro iii. Capitul. l. vi. c. 5, published by Sirmond, Opera, tom. ii. p. 595, 596, 597.
His name was inserted by his successor Atticus in the Diptychs of the church of Constantinople, ad 418. Ten years afterwards he was revered as a saint. Cyril, who inherited the place, and the passions, of his uncle, Theophilus, yielded with much reluctance. See Facund. Hermian. l. iv. c. 1. Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xiv. p. 277-283.
Socrates, l. vii. c. 45. Theodoret, l. v. c. 36. This event reconciled the Joannites, who had hitherto refused to acknowledge his successors. During his lifetime the Joannites were respected by the catholics as the true and orthodox communion of Constantinople. Their obstinacy gradually drove them to the brink of schism.
According to some accounts (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. ad 438, No. 9, 10) the emperor was forced to send a letter of invitation and excuses before the body of the ceremonious saint could be moved from Comana.
Zosimus, l. v. p. 315 [18]. The chastity of an empress should not be impeached without producing a witness; but it is astonishing that the witness should write and live under a prince whose legitimacy he dared to attack. We must suppose that his history was a party libel, privately read and circulated by the Pagans. [For date of Zosimus see above, vol. ii. p. 365.] Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 782) is not averse to brand the reputation of Eudoxia.
Porphyry of Gaza. His zeal was transported by the order which he had obtained for the destruction of eight Pagan temples of that city. See the curious details of his life (Baronius, ad 401, No. 17-51), originally written in Greek, or perhaps in Syriac, by a monk, one of his favourite deacons. [The Greek text was first published by Haupt in the Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy, 1874; and it has been re-edited by the Soc. Philol. Bonnensis Sodales, 1895. For an account of the visit of Porphyry to Constantinople, see Bury, Later Roman Empire, i. p. 200 sqq. ]
Philostorg. l. xi. c. 8, and Godefroy, Dissertat. p. 457.
Jerom (tom. vi. p. 73, 76) describes, in lively colours, the regular and destructive march of the locusts, which spread a dark cloud, between heaven and earth, over the land of Palestine. Seasonable winds scattered them, partly into the Dead Sea, and partly into the Mediterranean.
Procopius, de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 2, p. 8, edit. Louvre.
Agathias, l. iv. p. 136, 137 [c. 26]. Although he confesses the prevalence of the tradition, he asserts that Procopius was the first who had committed it to writing. Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 597) argues very sensibly on the merits of this fable. His criticism was not warped by any ecclesiastical authority: both Procopius and Agathias are half Pagans. [The whole tone of Agathias in regard to the story is sceptical.]
Socr. l. vii. c. 1. Anthemius was the grandson of Philip, one of the ministers of Constantius, and the grandfather of the emperor Anthemius. After his return from the Persian embassy, he was appointed consul and Praetorian prefect of the East, in the year 405; and held the prefecture about ten years. See his honours and praises in Godefroy, Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p. 350. Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom. vi. p. 1, c.
Sozomen, l. ix. c. 5. He saw some Scyrri at work near Mount Olympus, in Bithynia, and cherished the vain hope that those captives were the last of the nation.
Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. xvii. l. xv. tit. i. leg. 49.
Sozomen has filled three chapters with a magnificent panegyric of Pulcheria (l. ix. c. 1, 2, 3); and Tillemont (Mém. Ecclés. tom. xv. p. 171-184) has dedicated a separate article to the honour of St. Pulcheria, virgin and empress.
Suidas (Excerpta, p. 68 in Script. Byzant.) pretends, on the credit of the Nestorians, that Pulcheria was exasperated against their founder, because he censured their connection with the beautiful Paulinus and her incest with her brother Theodosius.
See Ducange, Famil. Byzantin. p. 70. Flaccilla, the eldest daughter, either died before Arcadius, or, if she lived to the year 431 (Marcellin. Chron.), some defect of mind or body must have excluded her from the honours of her rank.
She was admonished, by repeated dreams, of the place where the relics of the forty martyrs had been buried. The ground had successively belonged to the house and garden of a woman of Constantinople, to a monastery of Macedonian monks, and to a church of St. Thyrsus, erected by Cæsarius, who was consul, ad 397; and the memory of the relics was almost obliterated. Notwithstanding the charitable wishes of Dr. Jortin (Remarks, tom. iv. p. 234) it is not easy to acquit Pulcheria of some share in the pious fraud; which must have been transacted when she was more than five and thirty years of age.
There is a remarkable difference between the two ecclesiastical historians, who in general bear so close a resemblance. Sozomen (l. ix. c. 1) ascribes to Pulcheria the government of the empire and the education of her brother; whom he scarcely condescends to praise. Socrates, though he affectedly disclaims all hopes of favour or fame, composes an elaborate panegyric on the emperor, and cautiously suppresses the merits of his sister (l. vii. c. 22, 42). Philostorgius (l. xii. c. 7) expresses the influence of Pulcheria, in gentle and courtly language, τὰς βασιλικὰς σημειώσεις ὑπηπετουμένη καὶ διευθύνουσα. Suidas (Excerpt. p. 53) gives a true character of Theodosius; and I have followed the example of Tillemont (tom. vi. p. 25) in borrowing some strokes from the modern Greeks.
Theodoret, l. v. c. 37. The bishop of Cyrrhus, one of the first men of his age for his learning and piety, applauds the obedience of Theodosius to the divine laws.
Socrates (l. vii. c. 21) mentions her name (Athenais, the daughter of Leontius, an Athenian sophist), her baptism, marriage, and poetical genius. The most ancient account of her history is in John Malala (part ii. p. 20, 21, edit. Venet. 1743), and in the Paschal Chronicle (p. 311, 312). Those authors had probably seen original pictures of the empress Eudocia. The modern Greeks, Zonaras, Cedrenus, c., have displayed the love, rather than the talent, of fiction. From Nicephorus, indeed, I have ventured to assume her age. The writer of a romance would not have imagined that Athenais was near twenty-eight years old when she inflamed the heart of a young emperor. [Her story has been told agreeably by Gregorovius in his Athenais (ed. 3, 1892). The same empress is the subject of monograph by W. Wiegand: Eudocia, 1871.]
Socrates, l. vii. c. 21; Photius, p. 413-420. The Homeric cento is still extant, and has been repeatedly printed, but the claim of Eudocia to that insipid performance is disputed by the critics. See Fabricius, Biblioth. Græc. tom. i. p. 357. The Ionia, a miscellaneous dictionary of history and fable, was compiled by another empress of the name of Eudocia, who lived in the eleventh century; and the work is still extant in manuscript. [The Ionia has been edited by H. Flach. The works of the earlier Eudocia have been recently published by A. Ludwich, 1893.]
Baronius (Annal. Eccles. ad 438, 439) is copious and florid; but he is accused of placing the lies of different ages on the same level of authenticity.
In this short view of the disgrace of Eudocia, I have imitated the caution of Evagrius (l. i. c. 21) and Count Marcellinus (in Chron. ad 440 and 444). The two authentic dates assigned by the latter overturn a great part of the Greek fictions; and the celebrated story of the apple, c., is fit only for the Arabian Nights, where something not very unlike it may be found.
Priscus (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 69 [Müller, F.H.G. iv. p. 94]), a contemporary, and a courtier, dryly mentions her Pagan and Christian names, without adding any title of honour or respect.
For the two pilgrimages of Eudocia, and her long residence at Jerusalem, her devotion, alms, c., see Socrates (l. vii. c. 47) and Evagrius (l. i. c. 20, 21, 22). The Paschal Chronicle may sometimes deserve regard; and, in the domestic history of Antioch, John Malala becomes a writer of good authority. The Abbé Guenée, in a Memoir on the fertility of Palestine, of which I have only seen an extract, calculates the gifts of Eudocia at 20,488 pounds of gold, above 800,000 pounds sterling.
Theodoret, l. v. c. 39. Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xii. p. 356-364. Assemanni, Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iii. p. 396, tom. iv. p. 61. Theodoret blames the rashness of Abdas, but extols the constancy of his martyrdom. Yet I do not clearly understand the casuistry which prohibits our repairing the damage which we have unlawfully committed.
Socrates (l. vii. c. 18, 19, 20, 21) is the best author for the Persian war. We may likewise consult the three Chronicles, the Paschal, and those of Marcellinus and Malala. [For the succession of the Persian kings, see above, vol. iv. Appendix 9.]
This account of the ruin and division of the kingdom of Armenia is taken from the third book of the Armenian history of Moses of Chorene. Deficient as he is of every qualification of a good historian, his local information, his passions, and his prejudices are strongly expressive of a native and contemporary. Procopius (de Ædificiis, l. xiii. c. i. 5) relates the same facts in a very different manner; but I have extracted the circumstances the most probable in themselves and the least inconsistent with Moses of Chorene. [For the division of Armenia see Appendix 17.]
The western Armenians used the Greek language and characters in their religious offices; but the use of that hostile tongue was prohibited by the Persians in the eastern provinces, which were obliged to use the Syriac, till the invention of the Armenian letters by Mesrobes in the beginning of the fifth century and the subsequent version of the Bible into the Armenian language, an event which relaxed the connection of the church and nation with Constantinople.
Moses Choren. l. iii. c. 59, p. 309, and p. 358. Procopius, de Ædificiis, l. iii. c. 5. Theodosiopolis stands, or rather stood, about thirty-five miles to the east of Arzeroum, the modern capital of Turkish Armenia. See d’Anville, Géographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 99, 100. [See Ramsay, Asia Minor, p. 305 note: Theodosiopolis = Kamacha Ani.]
Moses Choren. l. iii. c. 63, p. 316. According to the institution of St. Gregory, the apostle of Armenia, the archbishop was always of the royal family; a circumstance which, in some degree, corrected the influence of the sacerdotal character, and united the mitre with the crown.
A branch of the royal house of Arsaces still subsisted with the rank and possessions (as it should seem) of Armenian satraps. See Moses Choren. i. iii. c. 65, p. 321.
Valarsaces was appointed king of Armenia by his brother, the Parthian monarch, immediately after the defeat of Antiochus Sidetes (Moses Choren. l. ii. c. ii. p. 85), one hundred and thirty years before Christ. Without depending on the various and contradictory periods of the reigns of the last kings, we may be assured that the ruin of the Armenian kingdom happened after the council of Chalcedon, ad 431 (l. iii. c. 61, p. 312), and under Veramus or Bahram, king of Persia (l. iii. c. 64, p. 317), who reigned from ad 420 to 440 [see Appendix 17]. See Assemanni, Bibliot. Oriental, tom. iii. p. 396.
See p. 258-275.
Τὰ συνεχη̂ κατὰ στόμα ϕιλήματα, is the expression of Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. 197 [fr. 40]), who means, perhaps, to describe the same caresses which Mahomet bestowed on his daughter Phatemah. Quando (says the prophet himself) quando subit mihi desiderium Paradisi, osculor eam, et ingero linguam meam in os ejus. But this sensual indulgence was justified by miracle and mystery; and the anecdote has been communicated to the public by the Reverend Father Maracci, in his Version and Confutation of the Koran, tom. i. p. 32.
[ Symptoms in the relative clause seems to have caused the irregular plural.]
For these revolutions of the Western empire, consult Olympiodor. apud Phot. p. 192, 193, 196, 197, 200 [fr. 41, 44, 45, 46]. Sozomen, l. ix. c. 16. Socrates, l. vii. 23, 24. Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 10, 11, and Godefroy, Dissertat. p. 486. Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 3, p. 182, 183. Theophanes, in Chronograph. p. 72, 73, and the Chronicles.
See Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis, l. ii. c. 7. He has laboriously, but vainly, attempted to form a reasonable system of jurisprudence, from the various and discordant modes of royal succession, which have been introduced by fraud or force, by time or accident.
The original writers are not agreed (see Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. iv. p. 139) whether Valentinian received the Imperial diadem at Rome or Ravenna. In this uncertainty, I am willing to believe that some respect was shown to the senate.
The Count de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe, tom. vii. p. 292-300) has established the reality, explained the motives, and traced the consequences of this remarkable cession. [Cp. Appendix 6.]
See the first Novel of Theodosius, by which he ratifies and communicates ( ad 438) the Theodosian Code. About forty years before that time, the unity of legislation had been proved by an exception. The Jews, who were numerous in the cities of Apulia and Calabria, produced a law of the East to justify their exemption from municipal offices (Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. viii. leg. 13); and the Western emperor was obliged to invalidate, by a special edict, the law, quam constat meis partibus esse damnosam. Cod. Theod. l. xi. [ leg. xii.], tit. i. leg. 158.
Cassiodorius (Varior. l. xi. epist. i. p. 238) has compared the regencies of Placidia and Amalasuntha. He arraigns the weakness of the mother of Valentinian, and praises the virtues of his royal mistress. On this occasion flattery seems to have spoken the language of truth.
Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 12, and Godefroy’s Dissertat. p. 493, c.; and Renatus Frigeridus, apud Gregor. Turon. l. ii. c. 8, in tom. ii. p. 163. The father of Aetius was Gaudentius, an illustrious citizen of the province of Scythia, and master-general of the cavalry; his mother was a rich and noble Italian. From his earliest youth, Aetius, as a soldier and a hostage, had conversed with the Barbarians.
For the character of Boniface, see Olympiodorus, apud Phot. p. 196 F.H.G. iv. fr. 42]; and St. Augustin, apud Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xiii. p. 712-715, 886. The bishop of Hippo at length deplored the fall of his friend, who, after a solemn vow of chastity, had married a second wife of the Arian sect, and who was suspected of keeping several concubines in his house.
[From the invasions of Moorish tribes; he went to Africa from Spain in 422 ad , without a regular commission.]
Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 3, 4, p. 182-186) relates the fraud of Aetius, the revolts of Boniface, and the loss of Africa. This anecdote, which is supported by some collateral testimony (see Ruinart, Hist. Persecut. Vandal. p. 420, 421), seems agreeable to the practice of ancient and modern courts, and would be naturally revealed by the repentance of Boniface.
See the Chronicles of Prosper and Idatius. Salvian (de Gubernat. Dei, l. vii. p. 246, Paris, 1608) ascribes the victory of the Vandals to their superior piety. They fasted, they prayed, they carried a Bible in the front of the Host, with the design, perhaps, of reproaching the perfidy and sacrilege of their enemies.
Gizericus (his name is variously expressed) staturâ mediocris et equi casu claudicans, animo profundus, sermone rarus, luxuriæ contemptor, irâ turbidus, habendi cupidus, ad solicitandas gentes providentissimus, semina contentionum jacere, odia miscere paratus. Jornandes, de Rebus Geticis, c. 33, p. 657. This portrait, which is drawn with some skill, and a strong likeness, must have been copied from the Gothic history of Cassiodorius. [The right form of the name, now universally accepted, is Gaiseric (Idatius; Geiseric, Prosper and Victor Vitensis). The nasalised form appears first in writers of the sixth century. Unfortunately there are no coins of this king; see Friedländer’s Die Münzen der Vandalen.]
[It seems far more probable that the Vandals sailed directly to Cæsarea than that they crossed the straits and undertook the long land march through the deserts of western Mauritania; notwithstanding the statement of Victor Vitensis, i. 1.]
See the Chronicle of Idatius. That bishop, a Spaniard and a contemporary, places the passage of the Vandals in the month of May, of the year of Abraham (which commences in October) 2444. This date, which coincides with ad 429, is confirmed [rather, adopted] by Isidore, another Spanish bishop, and is justly preferred to the opinion of those writers who have marked for that event one of the preceding years. See Pagi, Critica, tom. ii. p. 205, c. [So too Clinton. But Mr. Hodgkin, ii. 292, makes out a good case for the date 428, given in the Chron. Pasch. and perhaps really implied by Idatius.]
Compare Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p. 190) and Victor Vitensis (de Persecutione Vandal. l. i. c. 1, p. 3, edit. Ruinart). We are assured by Idatius that Genseric evacuated Spain, cum Vandalis omnibus eorumque familiis; and Possidius (in Vit. Augustin. c. 28, apud Ruinart, p. 427) describes his army as manus ingens immanium gentium Vandalorum et Alanorum, commixtam secum habens Gothorum gentem, aliarumque diversarum personas. [To reconcile the 50,000 fighting men of Procopius with the 80,000 (including old men and parvuli ) of Victor, Mr. Hodgkin supposes that females were excluded in Victor’s enumeration (ii. 231).]
For the manners of the Moors, see Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. ii. c. 6, p. 249); for their figure and complexion, M. de Buffon (Histoire Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 430). Procopius says in general that the Moors had joined the Vandals before the death of Valentinian (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p. 190), and it is probable that the independent tribes did not embrace any uniform system of policy.
See Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xiii. p. 516-558; and the whole series of the persecution in the original monuments, published by Dupin at the end of Optatus, p. 323-515.
The Donatist bishops, at the conference of Carthage, amounted to 279; and they asserted that their whole number was not less than 400. The Catholics had 286 present, 120 absent, besides 64 vacant bishoprics.
The fifth title of the sixteenth book of the Theodosian Code exhibits a series of the Imperial laws against the Donatists, from the year 400 to the year 428. Of these the 54th law, promulgated by Honorius ad 514, is the most severe and effectual.
St. Augustin altered his opinion with regard to the proper treatment of heretics. His pathetic declaration of pity and indulgence for the Manichæans has been inserted by Mr. Locke (vol. iii. p. 469) among the choice specimens of his commonplace book. Another philosopher, the celebrated Bayle (tom. ii. p. 445-496), has refuted, with superfluous diligence and ingenuity, the arguments by which the bishop of Hippo justified, in his old age, the persecution of the Donatists.
See Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xiii. p. 586-592, 806. The Donatists boasted of thousands of these voluntary martyrs. Augustin asserts, and probably with truth, that these numbers were much exaggerated; but he sternly maintains that it was better that some should burn themselves in this world than that all should burn in hell flames.
According to St. Augustin and Theodoret the Donatists were inclined to the principles, or at least to the party, of the Arians, which Genseric supported. Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. vi. p. 68.
See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. ad 428, No. 7, ad 439, No. 35. The cardinal, though more inclined to seek the cause of great events in heaven than on the earth, has observed the apparent connection of the Vandals and the Donatists. Under the reign of the Barbarians, the schismatics of Africa enjoyed an obscure peace of one hundred years; at the end of which, we may again trace them by the light of the Imperial persecutions. See Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. vi. p. 192, c.
In a confidential letter to Count Boniface, St. Augustin, without examining the grounds of the quarrel, piously exhorts him to discharge the duties of a Christian and a subject; to extricate himself without delay from his dangerous and guilty situation; and even, if he could obtain the consent of his wife, to embrace a life of celibacy and penance (Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xiii. p. 890). The bishop was intimately connected with Darius, the minister of peace (Id. tom. xiii. p. 928).
The original complaints of the desolation of Africa are contained: 1. In a letter from Capreolus, bishop of Carthage, to excuse his absence from the council of Ephesus (ap. Ruinart, p. 429). 2. In the life of St. Augustin, by his friend and colleague Possidius (ap. Ruinart, p. 427). 3. In the History of the Vandalic Persecution, by Victor Vitensis (l. i. c. 1, 2, 3, edit. Ruinart). The last picture, which was drawn sixty years after the event, is more expressive of the author’s passions than of the truth of facts.
See Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. part ii. p. 112; Leo African. in Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 70; L’Afrique de Marmol. tom. ii. p. 434, 437; Shaw’s Travels, p. 46, 47. The old Hippo Regius was finally destroyed by the Arabs in the seventh century; but a new town, at the distance of two miles, was built with the materials, and it contained, in the sixteenth century, about three hundred families of industrious, but turbulent, manufacturers. The adjacent territory is renowned for a pure air, a fertile soil, and plenty of exquisite fruits.
The life of St. Augustin, by Tillemont, fills a quarto volume (Mém. Ecclés. tom. xiii.) of more than one thousand pages; and the diligence of that learned Jansenist was excited on this occasion by factious and devout zeal for the founder of his sect.
Such at least is the account of Victor Vitensis (de Persecut. Vandal. l. i. c. 3); though Gennadius seems to doubt whether any person had read, or even collected, all the works of St. Augustin (see Hieronym. Opera, tom. i. p. 319, in Catalog. Scriptor. Eccles.). They have been repeatedly printed; and Dupin (Bibliothèque Ecclés. tom. iii. p. 158-257) has given a large and satisfactory abstract of them, as they stand in the last edition of the Benedictines. My personal acquaintance with the bishop of Hippo does not extend beyond the Confessions and the City of God.
In his early youth (Confess. i. 14) St. Augustin disliked and neglected the study of Greek, and he frankly owns that he read the Platonists in a Latin version (Confess. vii. 9). Some modern critics have thought that his ignorance of Greek disqualified him from expounding the Scriptures, and Cicero or Quintilian would have required the knowledge of that language in a professor of rhetoric.
These questions were seldom agitated from the time of St. Paul to that of St. Augustin. I am informed that the Greek fathers maintain the natural sentiments of the Semi-Pelagians; and that the orthodoxy of St. Augustin was derived from the Manichæan school.
The church of Rome has canonised Augustin, and reprobated Calvin. Yet, as the real difference between them is invisible even to a theological microscope, the Molinists are oppressed by the authority of the saint, and the Jansenists are disgraced by their resemblance to the heretic. In the meanwhile the Protestant Arminians stand aloof, and deride the mutual perplexity of the disputants (see a curious Review of the Controversy, by Le Clerc, Bibliothèque Universelle, tom. xiv. p. 144-398). Perhaps a reasoner still more independent may smile in his turn, when he peruses an Arminian Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans.
Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 67. On one side the head of Valentinian; on the reverse, Boniface, with a scourge in one hand, and a palm in the other, standing in a triumphal car, which is drawn by four horses, or, in another medal, by four stags: an unlucky emblem! I should doubt whether another example can be found of the head of a subject on the reverse of an Imperial medal. See Science des Médailles, by the Père Jobert, tom. i. p. 132-150, edit. of 1739, by the Baron de la Bastie. [Eckhel, 8, 293, explains these as private medals issued in honour of a charioteer named Bonifatius.]
Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 3, p. 185) continues the history of Boniface no farther than his return to Italy. His death is mentioned by Prosper [ad. ann. 432] and Marcellinus; the expression of the latter, that Aetius, the day before, had provided himself with a longer spear, implies something like a regular duel. [So Mr. Hodgkin, i. 879, who sees here “the influence of Teutonic usages.” See further, Appendix 18.]
See Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4, p. 186. Valentinian published several humane laws, to relieve the distress of his Numidian and Mauritanian subjects; he discharged them, in a great measure, from the payment of their debts, reduced their tribute to one eighth, and gave them a right of appeal from their provincial magistrates to the prefect of Rome. Cod. Theod. tom. vi. Novell. p. 11, 12. [By the treaty of 435 the Vandals seem to have been recognised in the possession of Numidia, Byzacena, and Proconsularis, with the exception of Carthage and the adjacent region. It is doubtful what happened at Hippo.]
Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. l. ii. c. 5, p. 26. The cruelties of Genseric towards his subjects are strongly expressed in Prosper’s Chronicle, ad 442.
Possidius, in Vit. Augustin. c. 28, apud Ruinart, p. 428.
See the Chronicles of Idatius, Isidore, Prosper, and Marcellinus [and Chron. Pasch.]. They mark the same year, but different days, for the surprisal of Carthage.
The picture of Carthage, as it flourished in the fourth and fifth centuries, is taken from the Expositio totius Mundi, p. 17, 18, in the third volume of Hudson’s Minor Geographers, from Ausonius de Claris Urbibus, p. 228, 229; and principally from Salvian, de Gubernatione Dei, l. vii. p. 257, 258 [§67 sqq. ]. I am surprised that the Notitia should not place either a mint or an arsenal at Carthage, but only a gynæceum or female manufacture.
The anonymous author of the Expositio totius Mundi compares, in his barbarous Latin, the country and the inhabitants; and, after stigmatising their want of faith, he coolly concludes: Difficile autem inter eos invenitur bonus, tamen in multis pauci boni esse possunt. P. 18.
He declares that the peculiar vices of each country were collected in the sink of Carthage (l. vii. 257 [§ 74]). In the indulgence of vice the Africans applauded their manly virtue. Et illi se magis virilis fortitudinis esse crederent, qui maxime viros fœminei usus probrositate fregissent (p. 268 [§ 87]). The streets of Carthage were polluted by effeminate wretches, who publicly assumed the countenance, the dress, and the character of women (p. 264 [§ 83]). If a monk appeared in the city, the holy man was pursued with impious scorn and ridicule; detestantibus ridentium cachinnis ([cachinnis et d. r. sibilis], p. 289 [viii. 22]).
Compare Procopius de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p. 189, 190; and Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. l. i. c. 4.
Ruinart (p. 444-457) has collected from Theodoret, and other authors, the misfortunes, real and fabulous, of the inhabitants of Carthage.
The choice of fabulous circumstances is of small importance; yet I have confined myself to the narrative which was translated from the Syriac by the care of Gregory of Tours (de Gloriâ Martyrum, l. i. c. 95, in Max. Bibliothecâ Patrum, tom. xi. p. 856), to the Greek acts of their martyrdom (apud Photium, p. 1400, 1401), and to the Annals of the Patriarch Eutychius (tom. i. p. 391, 531, 532, 535. Vers. Pocock).
Two Syriac writers, as they are quoted by Assemanni (Bibliot. Oriental. tom. i. p. 336, 338), place the resurrection of the Seven Sleepers in the year 736 ( ad 425) or 748 ( ad 437) of the era of the Seleucides. Their Greek acts, which Photius had read, assign the date of the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Theodosius, which may coincide either with ad 439, or 446. The period which had elapsed since the persecution of Decius is easily ascertained; and nothing less than the ignorance of Mahomet, or the legendaries, could suppose an interval of three or four hundred years.
James, one of the orthodox fathers of the Syrian church, was born ad 452; he began to compose his sermons, ad 474; he was made bishop of Batnæ, in the district of Sarug, and province of Mesopotamia, ad 519, and died, ad 521 (Assemanni, tom. i. p. 288, 289). For the homily de Pueris Ephesinis, see p. 335-339: though I could wish that Assemanni had translated the text of James of Sarug, instead of answering the objections of Baronius.
See the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists (Mensis Julii, tom. vi. p. 375-397). This immense calendar of saints, in one hundred and twenty-six years (1644-1770), and in fifty volumes in folio, has advanced no farther than the 7th day of October. The suppression of the Jesuits has most probably checked an undertaking, which, through the medium of fable and superstition, communicates much historical and philosophical instruction. [After a long interval, from 1794 to 1845, it was continued, and has now reached November 4 rth (1894).]
See Maracci Alcoran; Sura, xviii. tom. ii. p. 420-427, and tom. i. part iv. p. 103. With such an ample privilege, Mahomet has not shewn much taste or ingenuity. He has invented the dog (Al Rakim) of the Seven Sleepers; the respect of the sun, who altered his course twice a day that he might shine into the cavern; and the care of God himself, who preserved their bodies from putrefaction, by turning them to the right and left.
See D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 139; and Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexandrin, p. 39, 40.
Paul, the deacon of Aquileia (de Gestis Langobardorum, l. i. c. 4, p. 745, 746, edit. Grot.), who lived towards the end of the eighth century, has placed in a cavern under a rock, on the shore of the ocean, the Seven Sleepers of the North, whose long repose was respected by the Barbarians. Their dress declared them to be Romans; and the deacon conjectures that they were reserved by Providence as the future apostles of those unbelieving countries.
I must note that in the Nation, July 7, 1898, Mr. Frederick I. Teggart has made a good case for Gibbon’s view that the Serapeum Library was burned in ad 391.
The statement of Eunapius in the Vita Aedesii: καὶ τὸ Σαραπεɩ̂ον ἰερὸν διεσκεδάννυτο οὐχ ὴ [Editor: illegible character]εραπεία μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ οἰκοδομήματα, cannot be pressed to mean more than that not only was the worship suppressed but the temple itself was demolished.
“The date 403 seems to have originally obtained currency from a simple mistake on the part of Baronius, a mistake fully acknowledged by Tillemont (v. 804).” Hodgkin, i. p. 736.
The Additamenta to Prosper in the Cod. Havn. give the date: x. kal. Sept. (Mommsen, Chron. Min. i. p. 299).
Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, 24, p. 182 sqq. (1884).
Mr. Rushforth points out (in a review of this volume in Eng. Historical Review, xiii. p. 132, 1898) that the statement of Zosimus that the threatened invasion of Radagaisus caused a panic at Rome, taken in connection with the restoration of the walls of Rome in 402 (which Gibbon omits to mention), is a confirmation of the view which I have tried to establish that Zosimus is really relating the campaign of 401.
Cp. further E. Gleye in Byz. Ztsch. v. 460 sqq., where some other of the Excerpts (esp. fr. 12) are treated in their relation to Procopius, with the same result.
He also held a financial post: Seeck conjectures that of a rationalis of a diocese.
Further, Castricia, wife of Saturninus, who was banished with Aurelian, had influence with Eudoxia, as we know from Palladius, Life of Chrysostom.