CHAP. XIX.: Some Particulars of the Grandeur of Attila. The establishment of the Barbarians accounted for. Reasons why the Western Empire was overturned before that in the east.

AS Christianity was established when the empire was in a declining condition, the professors of this religion reproached the Pagans for that decay, and these retorted the charge on the religious doctrines of their antagonists. The Christians replied, that Dioclesian Lactantius, De morte persecutor. ^†230 ruined the empire, by associating his three colleagues; because each emperor would be altogether as expensive, and maintained as great armies as could have subsisted had there been but one sovereign; in consequence of which, those who furnished the contributions being unequally proportioned to the number of the receivers, the charges became so excessive that the lands were forsaken by the husbandmen, and for want of cultivation lay waste, and were covered with wild and barren forests.

The Pagans, on the other hand, were perpetually exclaiming against the strange innovations in religion, introduced by their adversaries, and never heard of till those days. And as the overflowings of the Tyber, and other prejudicial effects of nature, were, in the flourishing state of Rome, ascribed to the displeasure of the gods; so the calamities of declining Rome were imputed to a religious novelty, and the subversion of the ancient altars.

Symmachus the prefect, in a letter Letter of Symmach. lib. x. 4. ^†231 to the emperors, relating to the altar of Victory, attacked the Christian religion with arguments extremely popular, and consequently very seducing, and had art enough

to set them off with all the plausibility invention could furnish.

“What circumstance, says he, can lead us more effectually to the knowledge of the gods, than the experience of our former prosperity? We ought to be faithful to such a series of ages, and pursue the same track in which our fathers so happily followed their ancestors. Imagine Rome herself speaks to you in this manner: O imperial princes! compassionate fathers of your country! Look with eyes of veneration on those years of mine, wherein I always conformed to the ceremonies of my predecessors. Those sacred institutions have made the universe obedient to my laws. These were the allies that chased Hannibal from my walls, and drove the Gauls in confusion from the capitol. We fervently ask peace for the gods of our country, nay, we solicit it in the anguish of our souls, for our compatriot deities! We have no inclination to engage in disputes which are only proper for idle persons, and we would express ourselves in the language of supplication, and not of war.”

Symmachus was answered by three celebrated authors. Orosius composed his history to prove there had always been calamities in the world, as great as those complained of by the Pagans. Salvian likewise wrote his book Of God’s government. ^†232, wherein he maintains, that the ravages of the Barbarians were to be imputed to the degenerate behaviour of the Christians: and St. Austin Of the city of God. ^†233 demonstrates, that the city of heaven is very different from that city on earth in which the ancient Romans received, for a few human virtues, a recompence as vain as the virtues themselves.

We have already observed, that part of the politics of the ancient Romans consisted in dividing all the powers that gave them any umbrage; but that scheme was defeated in after times, and Rome could not prevent Attili from conquering all the northern nations:

he extended his victories from the Danube to the Rhine, demolished all the forts and military works on the banks of those rivers, and made both the empires tributary.

“Theodosius, says he History of the Goths, and relation of the embassy written by Priscus. This emperor was Theodosius the younger. ^†234, with an insolent air, is descended from a father as noble as mine; but the moment I compelled him to pay tribute to me, he fell from the grandeur of his extraction, and became my vassal: and therefore it is unjust in him to act like a base slave, and endeavour to prejudice his master by treachery.”

“An emperor, said he, upon an other occasion, ought not to be a liar; he promised one of my subjects to give him the daughter of Saturninus in marriage; and I will immediately declare war against him, if he presumes to depart from his word; but if the disobedience of those about him puts it out of his power to be punctual, I will march to his assistance.”

It is not to be imagined that Attila was induced by any moderation and lenity of temper, to let the Romans subsist; he only conformed himself to the genius of his nation, which prompted them to awe, and not to conquer foreign states. This prince retiring from the splendor of majesty to his mansion built of wood, according to the representation of Priscus History of the Goths. Hæ sedes regis barbariem totam tenentis; hæc captis civitatibus habitacula præponebat. This was the mansion in which the monarch of all the Barbarian nations resided; this the habitation which he preferred to the stately cities he had conquered Jornandes, De rebus Geticis. ^†235, though at the same time he was lord of all the barbarous nations, and, in some degree, master of the chief part of those who were civilized It appears by the account given by Priscus, that the court of Attila had some thoughts of subjecting even the Persians. ^†236, was one of the greatest monarchs recorded in history.

Ambassadors were dispatched to his court, both from the eastern and western empires of the Romans,

to receive his laws and implore his favour. Sometimes he commanded them to deliver up the Huns who had deserted from his armies, or the Roman slaves who had escaped from the vigilance of his officers. At other times he would not be satisfied till some minister of the emperor was surrendered into his power. He charged the empire of the east with a tribute of two hundred thousand pounds of gold; he received the yearly sum allowed to a Roman general, and sent those he intended to reward to Constantinople, that they might be gratified to their utmost wish, making by these means a constant traffic of the apprehensions of the Romans.

He was feared by his subjects Jornandes and Priscus have drawn the character of this prince, and described the manners of his court. ^†237, but we have no reason to believe they entertained any aversion to his person: he was surprizingly fierce and impetuous, and at the same time exceeding politic and artful. He appeared violent in his rage, but had a sufficient presence of mind to know when to pardon an offence, or defer a punishment as the circumstances were more or less agreeable to his interest. War was never his choice, when he could derive sufficient advantages from peace. He was faithfully served even by the kings who were subordinate to his power, and had collected into his own conduct all the ancient simplicity of the northern manners. In a word, we can never sufficiently admire this gallant sovereign of a people, whose very children were warmed with enthusiastic rage, at the relation of their father’s bravery; whilst those fathers shed manly tears, because they were incapacitated by age to imitate their martial children.

All the Barbarian nations, after his death, were divided into several independent bodies; but the Romans were then so weak, that the most inconsiderable people were in a condition to molest them.

The empire was not ruined by any particular invasion, but sunk gradually under the weight of the several attacks made upon it, after that general assault it sustained in the time of Gallus. It seemed indeed, to be re-established, because none of its territories were dismembered from the main body; but it was stooping to its fall by several degrees of declension, till it was at once laid low in the reigns of Arcadius and Honorius.

In vain did the Romans chase the Barbarians from their settlements in the empire; that people, without any compulsion, would have retired to deposit their spoils in their own country. With as little success did Rome endeavour to exterminate that nation, since her cities were still sacked The Goths were a very destructive nation, they destroyed all the husbandmen in Thrace, and cut off the hands of every charioteer. Byzantine history of Malchus, in the extract of the embassies. ^†238, her villages consumed with flames, and her families either slaughtered or dispersed.

When one province had been wasted, the Barbarians who succeeded the first ravagers, meeting nothing for their purpose, proceeded to another. Their devastations at first were limited to Thrace, Mysia, and Pannonia; and when these countries were ruined, they destroyed Macedonia, Thessaly and Greece; from thence they expatiated to Noricum. The empire, that is to say, those tracts of land which were not depopulated, was continually shrinking, and Italy at last became the frontier.

The reason why the Barbarians established themselves in no fixed settlements in the reigns of Gallus and Gallienus, was, because the countries about them had something left that was worth plundering.

Thus the Normans, who in some measure resembled the conquerors of the empire, ravaged France for several centuries, and when at last they could find no more booty, they thought fit to accept of a depopulated province, and parcelled it into See in the chronicles, collected by Andrew du Chesne, the condition of this province, towards the end of the ninth, or beginning of the tenth century. Script. Norman Hist. Veteres. ^†239 several properties.

Scythia, in those times, lying waste and uncultivated The Goths, as we have intimated, did not cultivate their lands. The Vandals called them Trulli, which was the name of a small measure, because they once sold them such a measure of corn very dear, in a famine. Olimpiador in Biblioth. Phot. lib xxx. ^†240, the inhabitants were frequently subject to famine, and subsisted in a great measure by their commerce with the Romans Priscus relates in his history, that markets were established by treaties on the banks of the Danube. ^†241 , who furnished them with provisions from the provinces bordering on the Danube. The Barbarians, in return, gave them the booty and prisoners they had taken, and the gold and silver which the Romans paid them for their friendship. But when the empire could no longer afford them a sufficient tribute for their subsistence When the Goths sent to desire Zeno to receive Theuderic the son of Triaries into his alliance, on the terms accorded by him to Theuderic the son of Balamer, the senate being consulted on this occasion, said, the revenues of the empire were not sufficient to support two Gothic nations, and that the alliance of only one of them was to be consented to. Malchus’s history, in the extract of the embassies. ^†242 , they were obliged to fix themselves in some settlement.

The western empire was destroyed before that in the East, for these reasons:

When the Barbarians passed the Danube, they found themselves blocked up, on the left hand, by the Bosphorus of Thrace, the city of Constantinople, and all the forces of the eastern empire. This made it necessary for them to bend their march to the right, towards Illyria, and so proceed westward. That part of the country was crouded with a vast conflux of several nations; and, as the passages into Asia were the best guarded, the whole body of the people bore with a full tide into Europe; whereas the forces of the Barbarians were separated in their first invasion.

The empire being parcelled out into two great portions This partition of the empire was very prejudicial to the affairs of the western Romans. Priscus, lib. ii. ^†243, the eastern emperors who were then in alliance

with the Barbarians Honorius was informed, that the Visigoths had made a descent into the western empire, after an alliance with Arcadius. Procop. of the Vandal war. ^†244, would not break it to assist the princes of the west: this division of the administration, says Priscus Lib. ii. ^†245, was very prejudicial to the affairs of the West. Thus the Romans of the East, refused those of the West a naval armament Priscus, ibid. ^†246 , because they had entered into alliance with the Vandals. The Visigoths, in conjunction with Arcadius, made an irruption into the West, and Honorius Procopius, in his war with the Vandal. ^†247 was obliged to fly to Ravenna: lastly, Zeno, to get rid of Theodoric, persuaded him to fall upon Italy, which had been already laid waste by Alaric.

There was a very strict alliance Priscus, lib. ii. ^†248 between Attila, and Genseric, king of the Vandals. The last stood in fear of the Goths See Jornandes, De rebus Geticis, c. xxxvi. ^†249; he had married his son to a daughter of their king; and afterwards slitting her nose, had sent her back to her father. For which reason he united with Attila. The two empires enslaved by these two potentates, had no power to shake off their chains. The situation of that of the West was more particularly deplorable: it had no forces at sea This appeared more especially in the war between Constantinus and Licinius. ^†250, they being all dispersed in Egypt, Cyprus, Phænicia, Ionia, and Greece, the only countries where at that time commerce subsisted. The Vandals and other nations attacked the West from all sides: an embassy came from Italy to Constantinople, says Priscus Priscus, lib. ii. ^†251, representing that it was impossible they should keep their ground, unless peace was made with the Vandals.

Those that presided in the West were not mistaken in their politics. They judged it necessary to save Italy, which was in some respects the head, and in others the heart of the empire. They removed the

Barbarians to the extremities, and settled them there The design was well laid, and as well executed. These nations asked for nothing but subsistence: they gave them the plains, and reserved to themselves the mountainous parts of the country, the defiles, the passes over rivers, and the strong forts upon them, they kept in their own hands the sovereignty. It is probable these people would have been forced to have become Romans; and the facility with which these ravagers were themselves destroyed by the Franks, by the Greeks, and the Moors, is a proof of this conjecture. This whole system was overthrown by one revolution more fatal than all the rest: the army of Italy, composed of strangers, demanded that which had been granted to nations still greater strangers; it formed, under Odoacer, an aristocracy, which claimed the thirds of the lands in Italy; and this was the most fatal blow to the empire.

Amongst so many misfortunes it is natural to enquire, with a melancholy curiosity, after the fate of Rome: it was, we may say, without defence, and could easily be starved by an enemy. The extent of its walls made it almost impracticable for the inhabitants to defend them; and, as it was situated in a plain, it might be stormed without much difficulty. Besides this, no recruits were to be expected; for the number of the people was so extremely diminished, that the emperors were obliged to retire to Ravenna, a city once fortified by the sea as Venice is at this time.

The Romans being generally abandoned by their princes, began to take the sovereign power into their own hands, and stipulated for their safety by treaties In the time of Honorius, Alaric, who besieged Rome, obliged that city to enter into an alliance with him, even against the emperor, who was in no condition to oppose it. Procop. War of the Goths, lib. i. Zozim. lib. vi. ^†252, which is the most likely method of acquiring the supreme authority Zozim. lib. vi. ^†253 .

Armorica and Brittany, seeing themselves forsaken, began to regulate themselves by their own laws.

This was the fatal period of the western empire. Rome ascended to such a height of grandeur, because the scenes of her former wars opened successively, and by an incredible felicity of affairs she was never attacked by one nation till another had been first destroyed; but Rome herself was overpowered at last, because she was invaded at once by all the nations around her.