HISTORY OF ROME. 





shewed themselves on the Lower Rhine, the 

 Swabians on the Maine; while the Goths burst 

 through Dacia, routed the forces of Decius, and 

 slew the emperor himself at Mount Haemus, 

 crossed the Euxine, and ravaged the whole 

 northern coast of Asia Minor. A little later 

 during the reigns of Valerian, Gallienus, and the 

 so-called Thirty Tyrants the empire is nothing 

 but a wild distracted chaos, Franks, Alemanni, 

 Goths, and Persians rushing in from their re- 

 spective quarters, like vultures scenting prey. The 

 Goths swept over the whole of Achaia, pillaging 

 and burning the most famous cities Athens, 

 Corinth, Argos, &c. ; while the Asiatic hordes of 

 Sapor committed even greater havoc in Syria and 

 Asia Minor; and but for the courage and skill of 

 Oclenathus, husband of Zenobia, who had built up 

 a strong independent kingdom in the Syrian 

 desert, with Palmyra for its capital, might have 

 permanently possessed themselves of the regions 

 which they merely devastated. With Claudius 

 Gothicus (268-270 A.D.), the fortunes of the em- 

 pire once more begin to brighten. By him, 

 and his successors Aurelian, Probus, and Carus, 

 the barbarians of the north and north-west, as 

 well as the Persians in the east, were severely 

 chastised. Nay, when Diocletian obtained the 

 purple (284 A.D.), it seemed as if the worst were 

 over, and the empire might still be rescued from 

 destruction; but his division of the empire into 

 East and West, with separate Augusti and assist- 

 ant Ccesars though it sprang from a clear per- 

 ception of the impossibility of one man admin- 

 istering successfully the affairs of so vast a state 

 led to those labyrinthine confusions and civil 

 wars, in which figure the names of Maximian, 

 Constantius, Galerius, Maxentius, Maximin, Li- 

 cinius, and Constantine, and which were only 

 brought to a close by the surpassing genius of the 

 last-mentioned. Under Constantine (324-337 A.D.), 

 as all the world knows, occurred the greatest 

 revolution in Roman history since the birth of 

 Christ, namely, the establishment of Christianity 

 as the religion of the state. He also transferred 

 the seat of government from Rome to Byzantium 

 on the Bosporus, where he founded a new city, 

 and named it after himself. But no sooner was 

 the great statesman dead than the mutinous dis- 

 cords that he had kept under by the vigour of his 

 rule, broke loose ; the empire underwent a triple 

 division among his sons; and though Constantius, 

 the youngest, ere long became sole ruler, he failed 

 to display the genius of his father, and in his 

 repeated campaigns against the Persians reaped 

 nothing but disaster and disgrace. But the 

 political fortunes of the empire now possess only 

 a secondary interest; it is the struggles of the 

 Christian sects and the rise of the Catholic 

 Church that mainly attract the attention of the 

 historian. There, at least, we behold the signs 

 of new life a zeal, enthusiasm, and inward 

 strength of soul that no barbarism could destroy. 

 Christianity came too late to save the ancient 

 civilisation, but it enabled the Roman world to 

 endure three centuries of utter barbarism, and 

 afterwards to recover a portion of the inheritance 

 of culture that it once seemed to have lost for 

 ever. Julian's attempt to revive paganism was a 

 lamentable anachronism, but his efforts, when 

 governor of Gaul under his kinsman Constantius, 

 to repel the incessant incursions of the Franks 



and Alemanni, displayed a fine valour and 

 generalship, and were crowned with success. 

 The judgment of the poet Prudentius on the 

 Apostate is that of posterity: Perfidus ille Deo, 

 sednon et perfidus orbi. But after the death of 

 Julian, the signs of the approaching dissolution of 

 the empire became more unmistakable. Yet the 

 great state was, if we may so speak, loath to die ; 

 and again and again in her death-agony, she put 

 forth a momentary strength that amazed her foes, 

 and taught them that even the expiring struggles 

 of a giant were to be feared. Valentinian, Gra- 

 tian, and Theodosius were rulers worthy of better 

 times. The last-mentioned is even known to 

 history as the ' Great. 7 But they fought against 

 destiny, and their labour was in vain. Already 

 swarms of ferocious Huns from the east had 

 driven the Goths out of Dacia, where they had 

 long been settled, and forced them to cross the 

 Danube into the Roman territory, where the 

 cruelty and oppression of the imperial officers 

 goaded the refugees into insurrection; and in 

 their fury, they devastated the whole east from the 

 Adriatic to the Euxine. Theodosius indeed sub- 

 dued and even disarmed them ; but he could not 

 prevent them from drawing nearer to the heart of 

 the empire, and already they are found scattered 

 over all Mcesia, Servia, and Northern Illyricum. 

 Hardly was Theodosius dead when they rose 

 again, under their chief, Alaric, against Honorius, 

 emperor of the West. Rome was saved (for the 

 moment) only by the splendid bravery and skill 

 of Stilicho, the imperial general; but after his 

 assassination, the barbarians returned, sacked the 

 city (410 A.D.), and ravaged the peninsula. Three 

 years earlier, hordes of Suevi, Burgundians, Ale- 

 manni, Vandals, and Alans burst into Gaul 

 (where the native Celts had long been largely 

 Romanised in language and habits), overran the 

 whole, and then penetrated into Spain, where a 

 Vandal empire was rapidly set up. It is utterly 

 impossible (within our limits) to explain the 

 chaotic imbroglio that followed in the West the 

 struggles between Visigoths and Vandals in Spain, 

 between Romans and both, between usurpers 

 of the purple and loyal generals in Gaul the 

 fatal rivalries of those otherwise noble and gifted 

 men Boniface, governor (comes) of Africa, and 

 yEtius, governor of Gaul which led to the inva- 

 sion of Africa by Genseric, and its devastation 

 from the Strait of Gibraltar to Carthage (429 

 A.D.). While such was the state of affairs in the 

 West, things were not a whit better in the East. 

 There the Huns, from mere love of havoc, had 

 reduced vast regions to an utter desert ; for nearly 

 50 years, indeed, the little ferocious demons had 

 rioted in destruction. At last, a trivial quarrel 

 sent them into Gaul; but somewhere in Cham- 

 pagne, they were routed with great slaughter (451 

 A.D.) by a combined force of Visigoths, Burgun- 

 dians, Franks, and Roman mercenaries, under 

 yEtius and Theodoric, king of the Goths ; and in 

 spite of their successful invasion of Italy in the 

 following year, their strength was permanently 

 broken, and henceforth they play an insignificant 

 part in history. But ./Etius, the only man who 

 could have decently propped up the wretched 

 ruin called the Western Empire, was assassinated 

 by his contemptible sovereign Valentinian, whose 

 own outrages led to his murder too; while his 

 widow, Eudoxia, to be revenged on his murderer 



in 



