Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire (2024)

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire (1898) is a book by Samuel Dill.

PREFACE

A FEW words of preface seem to be necessary to explain theobject of this book, and the limits within which the writer haswished to confine it. It is perhaps superfluous to say thatnothing like a general history of the period has been attempted.That is a task which has been already accomplished by ablerhands. The subject of this work is mainly what it professesto be, the inner life and thoughts of the last three generationsin the Empire of the West. If external events are referred to,it is only because men's private fortunes and feelings cannotbe severed from the fortunes of the State.The limits of the period covered by this study of Romansociety have not been arbitrarily chosen. The last hundredyears of the Western Empire seem marked off both bymomentous events, and, for the student of society, by theauthorities at his command. The commencement of theperiod coincides roughly with the passage of the Gothic hordesacross the Danube, the accession of Gratian and Theodosius,the termination of the long truce between paganism and theChristian Empire, and the reopening of the conflict which,within twenty years, ended in the final prohibition of heathenrites. It closes, not only with the deposition of the lastshadowy Emperor of the West, but with the practical extinction of Roman power in the great prefecture of the Gauls.Perhaps even more obvious are the lines drawn by the fullestauthorities for our subject. The earliest extant letters ofSymmachus, which describe the relations of the last generationvi ROMAN SOCIETYof great pagan nobles, belong to the years 376-390. Theliterary and political activity of Ausonius coincides with thesame years, and from his poems we derive an invaluablepicture of a provincial society in the reigns of Gratian andTheodosius. A searching light is thrown on the same generation by some of S. Jerome's letters, by the Saturnalia ofMacrobius, and by many Inscriptions. At the other end of ourperiod we are almost equally fortunate in our information.The works of Apollinaris Sidonius of Auvergne are a pricelessrevelation of the state of society, both in Rome and in Gaul,from the accession of Avitus till the final triumph of theVisigothic power.Nor is there wanting a certain bond of union among theseand other scattered materials when they are closely scrutinised. At the beginning of the period, Roman society is indeedsharply divided in a determined religious struggle, and thesharpness of the contrast is rendered more decided by theincreasing fervour of asceticism. But at the hottest momentof the conflict there was a mass of scepticism, lukewarmness,or wavering conformity, between the confines of the opposingcreeds. The influences which inspired that attitude had notspent their force at the close of the fourth century. Whenthe terrors of the anti-pagan laws had produced an outwardsubmission, the Christianity of many of the noble andlettered class seems to have been far from enthusiastic.The discipline of the schools was a powerful rival of theChurch. Men who had had that training were steeped in thelingering sentiment of paganism, and looked with distrust , oreven with contempt, on the severer form of Christian renunciation. One can scarcely doubt that Sidonius, in his earlymanhood, and some of his friends down to the fall of theWestern Empire, would have been far more at home in thecompany of Symmachus or Flavianus than in that of S.Paulinus of Nola.It would, of course, be impossible to treat of society inPREFACE viisuch a period without some reference to those who devotedthemselves to the higher ideals of the Christian life. Butthey belong rather to the future. Our interest in these pagesmust be concentrated on those whose greatest pride it was topreserve and transmit the traditions of the past. The mainpurpose of this work is to give some account of that worldlysociety which, in its ideals, tone, and external fortunes, hadundergone but little change between the reign of Gratian andthe dethronement of Romulus Augustulus.The period is an obscure one, and the materials are oftenscanty. The difficulty of arranging them in an orderly viewis not slight; and the writer is painfully conscious that acritical eye may easily discover omissions and faults of treatment. His only claim is that he has made an honest attemptto answer a question which has often presented itself to hisown mind- How were men living, and what were theirthoughts and private fortunes, during that period of stirringchange?It only remains for the author to express his warmestthanks to his old pupil and friend, the Rev. Charles Plummer,Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, for the kind carewith which he has gone over the proof- sheets.4th October 1898.

CONTENTSBOOK ITHE TENACITY OF PAGANISMCHAPTER ITHE PAGAN ARISTOCRACY AND THE CONFUSION OF PARTIESObstinate attachment to paganism both among the vulgar and the educated—Causes of this-Influence of Eastern cults-Philosophic monotheism—Patriotism and antiquarian sentiment -Roman feeling shocked by theascetic spirit which turned its back on public duty-Yet the line betweenChristian and pagan in the fourth century was not sharply drawn--Intermixture of opposing creeds in the same family, and in general society-The latter illustrated by the circle of Q. Aur. Symmachus-Its leadingmembers both Christian and pagan-Character of Symmachus—of Praetex- tatus-of Flavianus-Some German chiefs - S. Ambrose -Sext. Petron.Probus Jovius-Priscus Attalus Pages 3-22CHAPTER IITHE LAST CONFLICTS OF PAGANISM WITH THE CHRISTIAN EMPIREThe long series of anti- pagan laws down to 439-Practical toleration till thereign of Gratian-The removal of the altar of Victory and the protest ofthe Senate Symmachus represents their views to the Emperor-His speech-Symmachus and Flavianus still high in imperial favour in 391 -Decidedlegislation of 392-Yet apostasy was frequent-Why the pagan cause didnot seem hopeless -The usurpation of Eugenius -Flavianus heads thepagan reaction-The battle on the Frigidus-Yet the Senate is still obstinately pagan-Legislation of Honorius-How anti- pagan laws were defeatedby the negligence of governors and inferior officers-Yet this semi - pagansentiment had a good effect in checking the destruction of temples andX ROMAN SOCIETYworks of art-The tolerant policy of Stilicho- Outbreak of pagan feeling on the appearance of Alaric and Radagaesus -Christian calumniesagainst Stilicho--Olympius and the Catholic reaction-Brief triumph ofpaganism under Attalus- Fate of Claudian, the poet of the pagan SenateThe poem of Rutilius Namatianus, another pagan poet - Tone ofRutilius-His hatred of Jews and monks-Magic, astrology, the theatre,and the games are the last strongholds of paganism-Tuscan diviners offertheir services against Alaric - Attitude of Innocent, bishop of RomeLegislation against the magic arts-Neoplatonism gives its countenance tothem-The diviners under the government of Attalus-The gladiatorialshows-They had been exhibited by the best emperors, and defended by men of high character-Their abolition in the reign of Honorius-Thepassion of Romans for the theatre-Character of later legislation on thesubject-How the taste still lasted in the age of the invasions Pages 23-49CHAPTER IIIS. AUGUSTINE AND OROSIUS ON THE CAPTURE OF ROMEThe moral effect of the capture of Rome by Alaric on pagan and Christian minds-Was it due to desertion of the gods of Rome?-Why have Christianssuffered in the sack of the City?-The controversy is keenest in AfricaDoubts of Volusianus and his friends-S. Augustine's answer-The City ofGod begun in 413 -How S. Augustine deals with the catastrophe—Theold religion did not protect its votaries-It did not give prosperity—It wasimpotent for good and fruitful of evil -Orosius arrives in Hippo-Hishistorical task, to prove that past ages suffered far greater calamities thanthe Christian Empire had endured -- Orosius' mode of dealing with history-His curious omissions and gross exaggeration -Both S. Augustine andOrosius addressed an educated class , which must have been numerousand formidable 50-61CHAPTER IVSOME CAUSES OF THE VITALITY OF THE LATER PAGANISMThe character of the native religion of Rome, formal , scrupulous, uninspiring—The real living paganism was of foreign origin-Power of foreign cults inthe fourth century- Evidence of the Inscriptions-Growing influence ofEastern religions under the Empire-The characteristics of the worship ofIsis -The character of Mithra-worship-The mysteries of Mithra-TheTaurobolium in the fourth century-Mithra the great enemy of Christianity-Moral and devotional effects of such worships-Illustration from theinitiation of Lucius in the mysteries of Isis described by Apuleius - Theprocession to the sea-The launching of the sacred bark-The prayers inthe temple-The preparation of Lucius for communion-His baptism andinitiation-His prayer of thanksgiving-Plutarch's monotheism and devoutCONTENTS xifeeling -The monotheistic tendency in the later paganism -Illustrated from the Saturnalia of Macrobius-The tendency to syncretism and monotheism How the Romans identified foreign deities with their own-The influence of the Empire, by bringing so many peoples under one rule, tendedto amalgamation of worships and a vague monotheism-The creed of thepagan Maximus of Madaura in the time of S. Augustine-The influenceof philosophy-Plutarch the father of the movement-Neoplatonism atRome-Fascination of Plotinus-Degeneracy of Neoplatonism in the reignof Julian- Yet Julian's moral aims were high-Why Neoplatonism wascommitted to a defence of paganism, partly by traditional sentiment, partlyby the instinct of philosophic freedom --How the system of Emanation lentit*elf to a support of paganism-The justification of myth-The Divine canonly be expressed by fiction-The superstition of the later Alexandrinesfounded on the doctrine of daemons and of secret affinities linking all partsof the universe together-Yet even in the last age the purer influences ofNeoplatonism were not extinct-Illustration of this from the commentaryof Macrobius on the Dream of Scipio - Its characteristics - It combinesphysical and astronomical speculation with an ethical and devotional purpose-The Supreme One-The universe God's temple-The fall of manthrough the seven spheres-The immersion of the soul in the materialworld-The soul must not quit its prison in the body but await its release ,and keep fresh the memory of its Divine source-Virtue the only hope ofeternal felicity-The different degrees of virtue-A man may serve hiscountry and yet seek a " citizenship which is in heaven " Pages 62-93BOOK IISKETCHES OF WESTERN SOCIETY FROMSYMMACHUS TO SIDONIUSCHAPTER ITHE INDICTMENT OF HEATHEN AND CHRISTIAN MORALISTSThe judgment of satirists and moralists on the morality of an age must beaccepted with caution-Characteristics of Roman satire, especially that ofJuvenal-History proves that it was extravagant-In the last age of theEmpire asceticism condemned the world en masse--It dealt as hardly withChristian as with pagan morality-The views of Ammianus Marcellinus,a pagan, on the character of his age-He is honest, but perhaps ratherhard and narrow- He accuses the upper class of pride, frivolity, andluxury, rather than of gross vice -Judgment of S. Jerome- His connectionwith high society-His female friends -Whyhis censures must be acceptedwith reserve-His ascetic spirit and plain speaking illustrated from thexii ROMAN SOCIETYletter to Demetrias de Virginitate-He does not attack the morals of leading pagans like Praetextatus, but he reveals some of the perils to virtue inRoman life -Corrupting influence of slaves - Female extravagance in dress-Danger in fashionable gatherings-Dangers of the banquet- S. Jerome'sview compared with the picture in the Saturnalia of Macrobius-S . Jeromedeals most hardly with the professedly religious-Worldliness among thehigher clergy-Their luxury, cupidity, and doubtful relations with women-Clerical and monkish avarice-The " Agapetarum pestis " -Painfulpictures of female hypocrisy- Salvianus on the morals of Southern Gaul after the invasions -Account of his career-The theme of the De Gubernatione Dei-The calamities of the time due to Roman profligacy and oppression of the poor by the rich-The corruption of the governing class - Thepassion for the theatre and the circus -The frenzy of debauchery in thecrisis of the invasions-Aquitaine wholly abandoned to vice -Can Salvianusbe believed?-No confirmation to be found in Symmachus, Ausonius, orSidonius-The key to his unconscious exaggeration-He is a preacher and ascetic enthusiast Pages 97-120CHAPTER IITHE SOCIETY OF Q. AURELIUS SYMMACHUSThe family of Q. Aurelius Symmachus-His position and fame as an oratorLack of information on public affairs in his letters-Position of the Senate-Rome no longer the seat of government-Proud reticence of the upperclass--Yet Symmachus gives glimpses of the dangerous state of the cityfrom the failure of the corn- supply in the war with Gildo- The wealth ofthe senatorial class-Estimate of senatorial incomes--Profuse expenditureillustrated by the preparations for the games to be given in honour of thepraetorship of the younger Symmachus-The stiff ceremonious etiquette oflife at Rome-The charms of country life felt as a relief-Passion forliterature and learning in the circle of Symmachus, Praetextatus, andFlavianus - Literary affectation and ambition -Knowledge and criticalstudy of the great authors combined with great degeneracy of style -Influence of cliques-Passion for rhetorical exhibitions still strong-Mutualflattery-Yet there was a genuine love of literature in the upper classHow letters gave a man a career-Palladius, Marinianus, AusoniusThere are glimpses of selfishness and cruelty in the society of Symmachus-But both he and Macrobius leave the impression that the life of theupper class is regular and decent -Testimony of Macrobius as to the decrease of luxury and drunkenness- Stricter ideas about dancing and acting-Humane feeling towards slaves-Family affection of Symmachus-Changein the position of women under the Empire- Became more the intellectualcompanions of men, cultivated , taking a leading part in charity, etc.-Symmachus believed in the old Roman conception of woman's place -Hisanxiety about his children- Care of his son's education-Reads Greekwith him-Symmachus' last letters-His journey to Milan while the Gothsare in the valley of the Po . 121-140CONTENTS xiiiCHAPTER III-THE SOCIETY OF AQUITAINE IN THE TIME OF AUSONIUSThe wealth and peace of Aquitaine-The value of the poems of Ausonius-He haspreserved the portraits of a provincial circle - Family loyalty of Ausonius- Portraits of his grandfather, an Aeduan astrologer, who casts hishoroscope-His father, the Stoic physician-His female relatives, characterised by a Puritan quietude-The literary career of Ausonius-The Gallicrenaissance of the fourth century -Thirty years a professor-His rise in theworld-Yet he is always faithful to letters- His old age at BordeauxLove of the country growing -Ausonius hates the town-Pleasures ofcountry life Visiting and correspondence -The eccentric Theo-- Thesociety of Aquitaine depicted in the Eucharisticos of Paulinus Pellaeus, thepoet's grandson--His account of his youth, temptations, taste for sportHis marriage-Reforms the management of his wife's estates-His love ofease and luxury-A " sectator deliciarum " -The ascetic movement in Gaul-Influence of S. Martin- His Life by Sulpicius-Conversion of S. Paulinusand Sulpicius Severus-How the ascetic movement was opposed even bythe clergy-Influence of S. Jerome - His fame as a Biblical critic - Thecharm of the Holy Places drew great numbers of pilgrims to the EastDescription of a pilgrimage given by Sulpicius Severus - The visit ofPostumianus, a Gallic monk, to Bethlehem and the monasteries of EgyptS. Jerome's correspondents in Gaul-Hedibia -Descended from a Druidicalfamily-Its academic members-Hedibia's questions as to the narratives ofthe Resurrection-Questions of Algasia-" Pray that your flight be not in the winter" Pages 141-156CHAPTER IVTHE SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUSThe family of Apoll . Sidonius-His career--Publication of his letters -Greatchanges in the interval between Ausonius and Sidonius-Yet the conditionof the upper class remains unaltered -Sidonius tells little of the middleand lower classes-His interest centres in his own order-Its exclusive tastes-Minute faithfulness with which he describes his own society-Monotonyof its life -His wide circle of acquaintance -The ideal of the Roman nobleas sketched by Sidonius-Pride of birth-High birth considered even inepiscopal elections-Imperial office generally sought for its external dis- tinction-Yet there must have been a number of men possessing highadministrative capacity to fill the prefectures, etc. -Duties of the Pretorianprefect-But many Gallic nobles were becoming farmers on a large scaleInstance of Syagrius-A country squire on good terms with the GermansExtent of senatorial estates-That of Ausonius at Bazas, about 1000 acresThe villa a little community in itself-Description of it-The arrangementsof a great house-Avitacum- Great houses fortified -Roads unsafe- Modeof travelling-Country house visits —Voroangus and Prusianum-Daily lifexiv ROMAN SOCIETYat a country house -Position of women- They are treated with greatrespect-Few allusions to gross immorality-Picture of the parasite exceptional-General decency of morals-The real vices of Gallo- Roman society,cultivated selfishness, want of high public spirit, absence of ideals - Thesethe result of bureaucratic government and of education which cultivatedonly rhetorical skill -The Christian movement in Gaul-Hidden saints--Picture of Vectius, the ascetic grand seigneur-Sidonius called to theepiscopate-Great change in his life-The position of a bishop in the fifthcentury-His multifarious duties—Two classes of bishops, the monastic andthe aristocratic-Why the aristocratic bishop was a necessity of the times-Two episcopal elections-Sidonius when bishop of Auvergne, aided byEcdicius, defends its independence against the Visigoths- Bishop Patienssaves a large population from famine-Learning and eloquence of the Gallicbishops-S. Remi the apostle of the Franks--Lupus of Troyes- Faustus ofRiez-His career and character-His heresies-His book on the corporealnature of the soul -Reply by Mam. Claudianus-Sidonius equally friendly with both-His tolerance-His reverence for the monastic ideal- Visit toLérins Intercourse with monks-The monk Abraham in Auvergne-TheVisigothic governor stands by his deathbed Pages 157-186THE FAILURE OFBOOK IIIADMINISTRATION, AND THERUIN OF THE MIDDLE CLASS, AS REVEALEDBY THE THEODOSIAN CODECHAPTER ITHE DISORGANISATION OF THE PUBLIC SERVICEGeneral view of the social and administrative disorganisation of the periodThe government with the best intentions strove to find a remedy--Thesense of responsibility expressed by the later emperors-The rhetorical toneof the later legislation -The hereditary guilds of Rome -The corporatibound to their functions, but constantly trying to evade them-Failure ofthe corn- supply through desertion or evasion on the part of the navicularii-Different modes of evasion- Wholesale desertion in 455-Disorganisationin the army-Frequent enactments de re militari in Stilicho's time-Failureof recruits Money accepted from the great proprietors instead of menAversion to military service-Self-mutilation to escape it-Frequency of desertion-Concealment of deserters heavily punished -The frontier garrisonsmelt away-Slaves called to arms in 406 -Disorganisation of the postingservice on the great roads-Abuse of evectio- Officers bound to the servicedesert-The animals are not properly fed-The tyranny and corruption ofthe curiosi―They have to be peremptorily removed from large districts-CONTENTS XVGrowth of brigandage- Character of the shepherds of S. Italy- Shepherdand brigand almost synonymous-Agents on remote states in collusion withthe criminals -The use of horses forbidden throughout seven provinces ofItaly-Deserters from the army become dangerous banditti-Signs of thegrowth of poverty -Sale of children in the famine of 450 -Plunder of tombs-Decay of public buildings -Poor exiles from Africa allowed to practise in the Italian courts Pages 189-203CHAPTER IITHE DECAY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS AND THE AGGRANDIsem*nTOF THE ARISTOCRACYRoman wealth chiefly in land-Decay of commerce from the third century-Depressed condition of the merchant class in the later Empire-Two classes of landed proprietors, the senatorial and the curialSenators exempt from municipal burdens-Decay of the municipalities inthe fourth century-The curia now composed of owners of at least 25jugera of land -Enormous liabilities of the curiales-They had to assess and collect the land- taxes of their district-Liable for all deficits-The curialclass was being depleted without being able to recruit its numbers frombelow-The emperors devote great attention to the curia-192 enactmentsde Decurionibus - The flight of the curiales -Their attempt to obtainadmission to the senatorial class-Means ofdoing so-In the fifth centurythis movement was peremptorily stopped-Persons of curial descent recalled from places in the public service-The curial's position became ahereditary servitude - His personal freedom curtailed on every sideHe could not go abroad or dispose of his property -The whole forceof law exerted to prevent his escape -How he did escape —Oftenby placing himself under the patronage of a great landowner -As thecurial class shrank in numbers, their liabilities became heavier - Forthe Code shows that the tax- bearing area was contracting-And therewas an appreciation in gold, which, since a large proportion of the taxeshad to be paid in gold, rendered the liability heavier-Tendency of thelarge proprietors to absorb the smaller very marked -The ruined farmertakes refuge on the senatorial estate--Growth of this form of patronage-Attempts to check it by legislation ineffectual -How the great proprietor got the small farmer in his grasp-Secret or fraudulent sales—The senatorial class steadily growing in power-They evade taxation,and by social influence and corruption obtain connivance at evasion inothers-Their agents a corrupt class-In league with brigands-Mortgage estates surreptitiously - Illegitimate influence brought to bear onjudges-Measures taken to protect the purity of the bench- Grievances ofthe province of Africa-How the great landowners evaded their burdensEvery branch ofthe revenue service had become corrupt-Frauds and cruelover- exaction of the susceptores and numerarii-The provincials are helplessagainst the tax- gatherer-The enormities of the discussores, described in anedict of Valentinian III. -The efforts of government to check these abuseswere frustrated by the power of the aristocracy and the contumacy of officialsxvi ROMAN SOCIETY-All these evils summed up in the edict of Majorian in 458-Examples ofthe humane spirit of the latest imperial legislation-Remission of taxes overlarge areas-Governors ordered to visit the prisons-Prisoners to be broughtup for trial within a year-Status protected by a term of prescriptionRedeemed captives protected against the redemptor - Exposed infants ofthe servile class saved from servitude-Limit within which fugitive coloni could be reclaimed . Pages 204-234BOOK IVTHE BARBARIANS AND THE FUTURE OFTHE EMPIRECHAPTER ITHE GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE INVASIONSMain subject of this book: the feeling of Romans as to the invaders and thecondition of the Empire-General character of the invasions- Why theRomans were not so much startled by them as we should expect-Theinvasions were nothing new-Invasions of the third and fourth centuriesapparently overwhelming, yet triumphantly repelled -Their effects notlasting-In the fifth century the Roman generals show no fear of the invaders-The barbarians were not impelled by any common purpose or byanyhatred of Rome-They were ready to fight for Rome against their brethren-Barbarian troops in the Roman army for ages-Received lands on militarytenure-The Laeti of Gaul-Peaceful settlement of barbarians within thefrontier from the days of Augustus-Examples-German officers in theRoman army from the third century-Examples in the fourth centurySome brilliant figures among them-They have great social influenceFashion of barbarian dress in Rome has to be restrained by law in thereign of Honorius-Immense number of barbarians settled on estates ascoloni -Examples-The invasions of the fifth century not of a uniform andsweeping character-Estimated strength of the Visigoths, Burgundians, andFranks in Gaul-Invasions differed in character and objects--Some merelyfor plunder, others for regular settlement-In the latter case the chiefacts as a Roman official, and carries on the Roman administration-Widedifferences among the barbarians in culture, religion, and moral character-Example from Noricum in the time of S. Severinus -The invasions, thuscomplex and various in character, produced very different impressions on different minds 237-251CHAPTER IIROMAN FEELING ABOUT THE INVASIONS AND THE FUTURE OFTHE EMPIREThe first terror on the approach of the Goths-Flight to places of security-Thealarm did not last long-Negotiations with Alaric-The moral shock causedCONTENTS xviiby the capture of Rome-Lamentations of S. Jerome-His picture of theinvasions-Flight of the guildsmen of Rome-Fate of aristocratic exiles whofled to Africa-Cruelties of Count Heraclian-Actual damage inflicted bythe Goths probably not very great-The feelings of Rutilius Namatianusabout Rome in 416-His passionate love of her and confidence in herdestiny-The views of Orosius -He makes light of the invasions-Hopes fora rapprochement between Roman and barbarian- Yet the Empire may passaway-Rome has given order to the world, but at a great cost to the provinces-Strong provincial feeling in Orosius-What the poems Ad Uxorem,De Providentia Divina, and the Commonitorium of Orientius tell us ofthe invasions- Pictures of devastation and ruin- Moral effects in GaulLoss of faith in Providence -Growth of atheistic pessimism -Salvianuswrote to refute the same scepticism in his day- Salvianus maintains thatthe calamities of Rome were due to Roman vices-The barbarians weresuperior both in private and public virtue-Oppression made many welcome the rule of the barbarian chief-Orosius and Salvianus compared-They alone faced the problems of the time-Roman feeling is stronger inOrosius, although he has no horror of the barbarians-Salvianus has lostfaith in Roman society, which he thinks hopelessly rotten-The futurebelongs to the new races-Views and feelings of Apollinaris Sidonius-Herepresents a different world from that of Salvianus-His advantages, throughhis family connections, especially with Avitus, for a study of the barbarians-Many brilliant pictures in Sidonius-The Huns-The Burgundians—The Goths, Saxons, and Franks-Wedding procession of Sigismer- Description of Theodoric II. and his court-This written with a political purpose--The party of Gallic independence -With the help of the Visigoths theyraise Avitus to the throne- On the fall of Avitus the party make anothereffort in support of Marcellinus-Triumph and clemency of Majorian-Theintrigues of the prefect Arvandus with Euric-Sidonius probably not aparty to them-Changed attitude of the Goths-Description of society atRome in 467 -Deputation fromGaul on the accession of Anthemius -Journey of Sidonius described -Classical reminiscences-Ravenna-Rome after theVandal sack, apparently little changed-The city enfete for the marriageof Ricimer-Leaders of Roman society-Avianus and Basilius-Sidoniusattaches himself to Basilius, who proposes that Sidonius should celebratethe new Emperor in verse--The Panegyric on Anthemius is rewarded withthe Urban prefecture-Not a word in Sidonius ' letter about the dangersof the Empire-It is in the Panegyrics of Sidonius that his views onthe condition of the Empire are to be found-In spite of the union ofRoman and Visigoth, the Panegyric on Avitus reflects the general gloom—Humiliation of Rome-The need of a warlike prince-There is yet hope,but the hope is in Gaul-The services of Avitus-He can bring the force ofthe Visigoths to the help of Rome-Tone of the poem on Majorian not sopessimistic-Africa beseeches Rome for help against the Vandals-Themight of Rome is only slumbering-The achievements of Majorian, and thehopes of his success-Yet the discontent of Gaul once more breaks outShe is ignored and crushed by taxation-Fate of Majorian-The appeal toLeo, who recommends Anthemius for the throne-Ricimer is to marry hisdaughter-Difficulties of the task of Sidonius in writing the Panegyric on Anthemius-Shock to Roman pride- Hatred of Constantinople -Expressedby Claudian fifty years before-Sidonius does not disguise the weakness ofRome-Her Eastern conquests have passed to her rival-The Empire isxviii ROMAN SOCIETYfinally divided - But division need not mean discord -All jealousy mustbe forgotten in the effort to crush the Vandal power-Ricimer has alreadymade head against the invaders-He is hated by the Vandal king - Butonly an emperor can cope with the danger-Recapitulation of these variousviews Pages 252-287CHAPTER IIIRELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERSSubject of this chapter: the relations of Gallo- Romans with the invaders fromthe first appearance of the Visigoths in Gaul till their conquest of Auvergne in 474-The Eucharisticos of Paulinus Pellaeus-He was a grandson of Ausonius-General character of the poem-Paulinus has littleinterest in public affairs, yet his poem has a great value-It is the sole authority for the temporary occupation of Bordeaux by the Visigoths in 414-Their movements from 412 till 414-Support Jovinus and then overthrow him-Ataulphus at Narbonne-His marriage with Placidia, the sister of Honorius-How Ataulphus came to occupy Bordeaux, and proclaim Attalus as Emperor-Paulinus obliged to accept the office of Countof the Largesses-The Goths leave Bordeaux-Paulinus loses everything and flies to Bazas, which is besieged by the Goths-A servile revoltbreaks out in Bazas- Paulinus determines to appeal for aid to the king ofthe Alans, who is serving with the Goths-Strange interview-The Alanking deserts the Goths, who decamp-The subsequent fortunes of Paulinus-Hethinks of becoming a monk-Falls into poverty-Fate of his sons - Inhis old age receives unexpectedly from an unknown Goth the price of some portion of his estates at Bordeaux-Light which the Eucharisticos throwson the attitude of the Goths to Rome-Fluctuations of Gothic policy in the life- time of Apollinaris Sidonius-They sometimes support the Empire,sometimes they are at war with it-Auvergne long left in peace-Familyof Sidonius on friendly terms with Theodoric II. —Sidonius also on good terms with the Burgundians -Their settlement at Lyons - Chilpericmagister militum-The Burgundians a kindly race, but their personalhabits offend the taste of Sidonius-Change in the attitude of the Visigothic power on the accession of Euric Causes of this - Roman maladministration - Euric an intolerant Arian - His encroachmentsOverthrows the Breton troops in Berry - Assails Auvergne - Gallantdefence made by Ecdicius, brother- in- law of Sidonius-Moral influence of Sidonius - He fortifies the courage of the people by solemnreligious services The Rogations introduced by Mam. Claudianusof Vienne Embassy of Epiphanius to Euric - Negotiations of thefour bishops-They surrender Auvergne to Euric-Indignant protest of Sidonius-How Euric treated the Catholics- Sees left vacant - Churchesfall into ruins-This policy subsequently mitigated, probably through the influence of Leo, Euric's Roman minister- Count Victorius, a Catholic,appointed governor of Auvergne-Sidonius banished for a time to the fortress of Livia-Leo obtains his release-His stay at Bordeaux-Hisflattery of Euric and the queen-He is restored to his diocese-Attitude of the Gallo- Roman nobles to the Germans-Some seclude themselves and----CONTENTS xixfortify their houses-Yet they had probably not much to fear except from irregular bands-Some take service under the German king as administrators Why they were needed -Position and character of Leo, thesecretary of Euric -The tribe of delators-Their sinister arts described by Sidonius-While the Germans wished to maintain order, there are signs ofsuspicion and insecurity -Roads watched-Couriers liable to be stopped- Sidonius tells little of the condition of the lower classes -Dangers frombrigandage-A woman carried off by the Vargi and sold into slavery- A poor squatter on episcopal lands- Raids of the Breton troops inAuvergne-Great famine after the inroad of the Visigoths -Relieved by the munificence of Bishop Patiens and Ecdicius Pages 288-318-BOOK VCHARACTERISTICS OF ROMAN EDUCATION ANDCULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURYSubject of this book: the culture of pagan tradition -Attitude of the Churchto the ancient literary culture-By many Churchmen in the West it waslong viewed with suspicion-Hellenism hostile to Christianity-But in thefourth century the Church determines to use the ancient discipline for itsown purposes-Attitude of SS. Jerome and Augustine-S. Jerome'slove oflearning "Spoiling the Egyptians "-Ancient forms of literature appliedto sacred subjects-Juvencus-Proba-The two Apollinares--No hard and fast line between classical and mediaeval literature-Singular permanenceof the school tradition-Example in the case of Ennodius in the time ofTheodoric-His declamations on hackneyed themes-Failure of originalpower after the Silver Age -Singular barrenness of three centuriesDeadening effect of academic conservatism-Its pagan spirit-Oppositionbetween Hellenism and serious Christianity-Example in the conversion ofS. Paulinus -His correspondence with his old professor Ausonius showsthe gulf between the ascetic and the academic spirit of the time- Influenceof imperial authority and patronage in perpetuating the school systemAcademic endowments under the Empire -Julian claims control overacademic appointments-The stipends of professors fixed in 376-Positionand emoluments of professors as described by Ausonius-Some of the rhetorsmen of wealth and high social standing-Profession of letters greatlyhonoured-Literary enthusiasm of the aristocracy, especially in Gaul-Thegreat schools of Gaul from the earliest times-Marseilles, etc. -The literaryrenaissance of the fourth century-Its centres were Trèves and the schoolsof Aquitaine, especially Bordeaux -Fame of Bordeaux in the Romanworld -The subjects of academic study -Jurisprudence at Arles andNarbonne-Philosophy decaying in the fourth century-Platonists in thetime of Sidonius -But probably little serious study of philosophy—Examples of superficial treatment of the subject in Sidonius and Martianus Capella -Serious study of philosophy found only among ecclesiasticsXX ROMAN SOCIETY-The semi - Pelagian school-The controversy between Faustus and Mam.Claudianus on the nature of the soul - Claudianus shows philosophicgrasp and knowledge-Academic study confined to grammar and rhetoric-Greek and Latin grammarians-But the study of Greek was evidentlydeclining Meaning of grammar-What the grammarian taught—Antiquarianism-Traces of literary appreciation-Criticism of Virgil in theSaturnalia of Macrobius-Virgil the favourite author-Next in popularity,Terence and Horace-The influence of Statius-Cicero not popular in thefifth century-Pliny a favourite model- Sallust the most admired prosewriter-Opposition between literary and antiquarian modes of studyDryasdust scholars at Bordeaux-Grammar might have developed into asystematic liberal education, but came to be far inferior to rhetoric- Therage for declamatory displays in the fourth century—The triumph of therhetor Palladius—The character of the rhetorical training-How it haddegenerated into a mere display of conventional skill in dealing withunreal subjects-The moral and intellectual results of this disciplineAbject submission to authority whether political or literary-It produces atendency to insincere flattery-Example from the Actio Gratiarum ofAusonius-And from the Panegyrics of Sidonius on Avitus and Anthemius-The interchange of flattery in literary coteries-Its absurd exaggerationsillustrated-The passion for literary fame, even in an ascetic like S.Jerome The anxious literary ambition of Sidonius-Yet, in spite of theidolatry of style, there was a manifest decadence of which Sidonius wasfully conscious-Failure of mental energy-Dreams of history which wasnever written -Why Sidonius did not write the history of the invasion ofAttila - The fifth century can only show meagre chronicles - Prosperand Idatius-Their characteristics-The poverty of imagination in poeticart vainly supplemented by mythological ornament-Examples fromSidonius -His epithalamium for the wedding of Polemius and IberiaHis prose style is as full of literary faults as his poetry - The menwhom he flatters probably had the same literary vices as himself-Thecrowd of brilliant literary people in his time-Yet they have left no trace Pages 321-376BOOK ITHE TENACITY OF PAGANISMB

CHAPTER ITHE PAGAN ARISTOCRACY AND THE CONFUSION OF PARTIESIn spite of the moral force which ensured the future to theChristian faith, its final triumph was long delayed. Religiousconservatism is, of all forms of attachment to the past, probablythe most difficult to overcome. It has its seat in the deepestand most powerful instincts of human nature, which, whenthey have once twined themselves around a sacred symbol ofdevotion, are only torn away after a long struggle. But thisform of attachment is peculiarly obstinate when it is identified,as religion has so often been, with patriotic reverence for theglory of an ancient state, which in the omens of its birth, theelection of its magistrates, the daily work of peaceful administration, or in the stress of war, and the exultation of conquest,has for many ages recognised the same divine sanction andhelp. Superstitious fancy, or the seductive charm of sacredfestivals, may keep the vulgar constant to the old faith; butthe class which in high office has been specially charged withthe safety of the State, and which, by a chain of real orimagined ancestry, is more closely identified with its career, ispenetrated with a deeper conservatism than that of the commonherd. Antiquarian and literary culture also reinforce religioussentiment, or replace it, when it has decayed. Even thesceptical epicurean, to whom all faiths are alike, will preferthat which has the refined charm of immemorial possession,and which has received an added dignity and glory from themagic touch of genius, and the reverence of heroic characters.For nearly a hundred years the emperors had intermittentlydenounced the practice of the rites of heathenism. Yet the4 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK I5edict which closes the long series of anti-pagan laws shows,by the fierceness of its tone, and the severity of the penaltieswith which it threatens the offender, that the spirit of paganismwas not yet crushed. In the very years in which Theodosiuswas issuing the laws which were to extinguish the ancientsuperstition, men were reviving a prophecy that the religionof the Cross was about to reach its final term, and themost solemn pagan rites were publicly celebrated. At theclose of the fourth century the majority of the Senatewere little touched by the Christian faith, although the wivesand daughters of some of them had adopted its most asceticform. Staunch adherents of paganism still held the Urbanor Pretorian prefecture in the reign of Honorius. They stillmet, apparently with no thought of the imminent triumph ofthe Church, to hear one of their number expound the sacerdotal lore of Rome, and another set forth the Stoic orAlexandrian interpretation of the myths, or the command ofaugural science possessed by Virgil. Their great poet, as if hewere writing in the age of Augustus, could invite the ChristianEmperor Honorius to survey the shrines of the gods," whichstill in all their old splendour surrounded the imperial palacewith a divine guardianship. Another pagan poet, who hadbeen prefect of the city, a quarter of a century after the deathof Theodosius , could pour contempt on the Christian profession ,and rejoice at the sight of the villagers of Etruria gaily celebrating the rites of Osiris in the springtime. Magic anddivination of every form had long been under the ban of theState. Yet a prefect of Honorius proposed to employ theTuscan sorcerers, who offered the aid of their arts againstAlaric, and Litorius, fighting against a successor of Alaric inGaul, consulted the pagan seers before his last battle, underthe walls of Toulouse." In the last years of the WesternEmpire, the diviners of Africa were practising their artsamong the nominal Christians of Aquitaine. '107Long after the external rites of heathenism had been supJahrbücher der Chr. Kirche, p. 119.5 Macrob. Sat. 1 Nov. Th. tit. iii.2 S. Aug. de Civ. Dei, xviii. 53.See Seeck's Symmachus, cxviii.3 C.I.L. vi. 512.Seeck's Sym. liv.; Zos. iv. 59.For the opposite view cf. Prud . c. Sym.i. 566; Ambros. Ep. 17, 10; Rauschen,6 Claudian, de Sex. Cons. Hon. 44.7 Rutil. Namat. i . 440, 375.8 Zos. v. 41.9 Prosp. Chron. 439.10 Apollin. Sidon. Ep. viii. 11.CHAP. I THE PAGAN ARISTOCRACY 5pressed, the pagan tone and spirit retained its hold on men'simaginations. The obstinate, unchanging conservatism of theRoman character never displayed itself more strikingly than inthe age when Roman institutions were tottering. That race, sotenacious of the past, yet so bold and aggressive, always stroveto disguise fundamental changes, and to retain the charm ofold associations under altered circ*mstances. In this, as in otherrespects, the Church carried on the tradition of pagan Rome.The prejudices and attachments of a thousand years, whichmight be proof against the fervid dialectic of S. Augustine,were gently trained by pious arts to turn to other objects oflove and devotion.¹ She followed the advice of the greatpontiff, to break the idols and consecrate the churches. Thecycle of the Christian year was in many points adapted to thepagan calendar. The cult of saints and martyrs was established at the very altars where incense had been burnt toMars or Bacchus.2 At Naples, lamps burning before theimage of the Virgin took the place of those before the familygods. The worship of the Virgin mother weaned the Sicilianpeasant from the worship of a goddess of less immaculatefame.Many a literary noble of Aquitaine in the fifth centurywas probably as really pagan as the peasant who bowedbefore the old altar on Mount Eryx. His grandfather in thedays of Ausonius may have conformed to Christianity; someof his friends might have sold their lands, and followed S.Paulinus to Nola or S. Jerome to Bethlehem; but he himselfwas often as little of a Christian as the men who, three generations before him, had pleaded with the Emperor to leave theAltar of Victory in the Senate- house. Like Ausonius, he mightpay a cold and perfunctory homage to Christ, and visit theneighbouring town for the Easter festival; but the whole toneof his thoughts and life was inspired by the memories of theheathen past. With no belief in the old gods, he was steepedin the literary spirit and culture of paganism. The Romanschools had moulded him far more than the teaching of theFor a specimen see S. Paulin.Nol. Carm. 27, 548-580; the principle of accommodation is stated in S. Aug.Ep. 47, § 3.2 Ozanam, La Civ. au Vme siècle, i.231.3 Maury, La Magie, p. 152.Auson. Ephem. ii. 15; Ep. 10, 17;Idyll. 11 , 88.6 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK IChurch. The unbroken academic tradition of eight hundredyears, coming down from the age of the great sophists, wasa tremendous force; and it was a force which repelled allnovelty, and all idealism which looked to the future ratherthan to the past. All the literature on which he had beennourished was created in the atmosphere of paganism, andteemed with mythological allusions. His teachers were saturated with Hellenism, which to the end maintained a cold anddistant attitude to Christian devotion. From his earliestyears his gaze was turned to the great deeds of Romanheroes who had worshipped Mars and Jupiter, ' who had readthe fate of their campaigns in the flash of lightning or theflight of birds or the entrails of the victim at the altar, whohad consulted the Chaldaean seer about their objects ofambition or their hour of death.2 If he could not rival theachievements of these great sons of Rome, he could still addhis name to the Fasti in which theirs appeared. He couldmaintain the stately forms of the past, and the literary andantiquarian tradition which he regarded as the finest essenceof the national life.In the final stand which paganism made against imperialedicts and the polemic of the Church, many different forceswere arrayed. Sensuality and gross superstition in thedegraded masses clung to the rites of magic and divination,to the excitement of the circus, and the obscenities of thetheatre. And these base influences long maintained theirhold. But it would be a grave mistake to suppose that theold faith rested only on ignorant superstition and sensuality,or on the hard formalism of the old Roman mythology.For many generations the cults of Eastern origin, the worship ofIsis, of the Great Mother, and Mithra, had satisfied devotionalfeelings which could find little nourishment in the cold abstractions of old Roman religion, or the brilliant anthropomorphismof Greece. The inscriptions of the fourth century reveal the1 S. Augustine had a genuine ad- miration for great Romans of the earlyages, e.g. Regulus, de Civ. Dei, i.C. XV. Cf. S. Jerome's Ep. 60, § 5,quid memorem Romanos duces quorum virtutibus quasi quibusdam stellis Latinae micant historiae?The grandfather of Ausonius washimself an astrologer. Parent. iv. 17:tu coeli numeros et conscia sidera fati callebas, studium dissimulanter agens.S. Aug. had consulted the books ofastrologers (libris genethliacorumdeditus) in his youth. Conf. iv. 3.3 See Réville, Rel. unter den Sev.i. c. 2 and 3, pp. 52, 59, 76.CHAP. I THE PAGAN ARISTOCRACY 7enduring power of these Syrian or Egyptian worships. Theycultivated an ecstatic devotion, and gave relief to remorse forsin. They had their mystic brotherhoods and guilds, with aninitiatory baptismal rite.2 They had their rules and periodsof fasting and abstinence from all the pleasures of sense.They had a priesthood set apart from the world with thetonsure and a peculiar habit. And, in initiation to theirmysteries, a profound impression was made on the imaginationand feelings of the novice. The baptism of blood, of whichmany a stone record remains, was the crowning rite ofthe later paganism, relieving the guilty conscience, andregarded as a new birth.³ It can hardly be doubted that,while these cults may not have supplied the moral tone anddiscipline, which was the great want in all heathen systems,they stimulated a devotional feeling which was unknown tothe native religions of Greece and Rome. There was, moreover, in this later pagan movement, penetrated as it was bysyncretism, a decided tendency to monotheistic faith. * Praetextatus held the most prominent place among the lastgeneration who openly worshipped Isis, Mithra, Hecate, andMagna Mater. Yet, in the Saturnalia, he is put forwardto explain that, under the many names of the Pantheon,it is the attributes of one Great Power which are reallyadored.65The inner monotheism of the loftier minds in paganismwas the fruit of a millennium of the freest and most disinterested philosophic movement in history. More than fivecenturies before Christ, Greek speculation had lifted men'sminds to the conception of a mysterious Unity behind thephantasmagoria of sense." In the fifth century after Christ,Macrobius, at once Pagan and Neoplatonist, holds fast tothe doctrine of the Infinite One, from whom, by a chain ofsuccessive emanations, the Universe proceeds. If this loftyconception of the Divine Nature often lent itself to the1 C.I.L. vi. 512, 749-754, 499-504.Cf. Renan, M. Aurèle, p. 579; infra,p. 64.2 Apul. Met. xi. c. 23; Tertull. deBaptismo, c. 5, nam et sacris quibus- dam per lavacrum initiantur, Isidis alicujus et Mithrae. Cf. Juv. vi. 522;Porphyr. de Abst. iv. p. 367.8Prudent. Peristeph. x. 1021 .Réville, ii . c. 10, p. 285.5 C.I.L. vi. 1779.6 Macrob. Sat. i. 17.7 Arist. Met. i. 5, Eevopávnsτὸ ἓν εἶναί φησι τὸν θεόν.12.8 Macrob. Com. in Som. Scip. i . 17,8 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK Ior act.Sun.¹support of systems which seemed to degrade and fritter awaythe central idea of pure religion, the philosophic supporter ofpaganism was ready with an explanation. He would havesaid the Infinite can neither be known nor expressed by finitepowers. Yet the human spirit instinctively turns withreverence to the Father of all spirits, and, in its helplessness,can only find utterance for its yearnings in symbolism of wordPlato sought an image of the Infinite Good in theCommon worshippers adore it under the names ofJupiter, Apollo, Isis, or Mithra.2 The Great Reality can byany human soul be only dimly conceived, and expressed onlyin a rude fragmentary way. We see the Divine Onein religious myths " as through a glass darkly. " Yet, if wepurge mythology of the gross fancies of rude ages, the mythsmay be used as a consecrated language of devotion. They areonly faint shadows of the Infinite One, from which we areseparated by an impassable gulf; yet they represent thecollective thought and feeling of the past about God.They are only symbols, but a religious symbol is doublysacred when it has ministered to the devotion of many generations. In some such way the philosopher reconciled himselfto the ancient worships. Yet although, like Longinianus,3a correspondent of S. Augustine, he might believe that theancient sacred rites had a real value, he believed also thatthe one " great, incomprehensible, and ineffable Creator " wasto be approached only by the way of piety, truth, and purityin word and deed.Philosophy and the mysticism of the East had given a newlife to the religion of Rome. But old Roman patriotic feelingwas perhaps the most powerful support of paganism in itsfinal conflict with the Church. Men like Symmachus, Flavianus, and Volusianus were often sceptics at heart. Theymay have believed vaguely in some Divine Power, and wereready to admit that He might be approached by many ways;but their real devotion was to Roma Dea,' the idealisedgenius of the Latin race, with its twelve centuries of victoriouswarfare and skilful worldwide organisation. In every stepÉcole d'Alexandrie, ii. pp. 111 , 112.3 S. Aug. Ep. 234.1 Rep. bk. vi. p. 508; cf. Hellenica,p. 176.2 Plut. de Is. c. 67; cf. Vacherot'sexposition of the creed of Porphyry,Claudian, de Bell. Gild. 46; de Bell.Get. 50; Rutil. Namat. i . 47-132.CHAP. I THE PAGAN ARISTOCRACY 9of that marvellous career, her ancient gods had been theirpartners. The forms of its ancestral religion were inextricably intertwined with the whole fabric of the State.¹Imbedded in law, language, literature, the deepest instinctsof the people, her ancient worship seemed inseparable fromthe very identity of Rome. The true Roman, even thoughhis religious faith might not be very deep or warm, inheritedthe most ancient belief of his race that the gods of a citywere sharers in all its fortunes. Apostasy from them wasidentified with a languid patriotism, and was regarded as thecause of public calamities. " The complete and literal acceptance of the Christian faith seemed to mean a refusal toperform the duties of citizen or soldier, a scornful abandonment of the old traditions of culture, even a loss of faith inthe mission of Rome.In that age, as in our own, there were widely differentconceptions of the meaning of the Christian profession. Therecan be little doubt that there was a vast mass of interestedand perfunctory conformity to the religion which had becomethe established religion of the State. The philosophicscepticism and worldly tone of the cultivated pagan were oftennot much altered when he transferred his nominal allegiancefrom his ancestral gods to Christ. There was a worldlinessand easy self-indulgence in the higher rank of nominallyChristian society, which moved alike the indignation of theascetic and the good- humoured ridicule of the pagan observer. *But a large and growing class took the claims of Christ moreseriously. To carry out to the letter the precepts of theSermon on the Mount, in the midst of a society penetratedwith individualism and easy- going sensuality, seemed a hopeless attempt.5 The aspiration after Christian perfection couldbe satisfied only by a withdrawal from the contamination ofthe world, and a complete renunciation of the duties of1 Sym. Rel. 3, ergo Romanae re- ligiones ad Romana jura non per- tinent?2 Ib. 3, sacrilegio exaruit annus.8 Auson. Ep. xxv. 44-74.Hieron. c. Johann. Hierosol. 8,miserabilis Praetextatus qui designatusconsul est mortuus, hom*o sacrilegus et idolorum cultor, solebat ludens beatopapae Damaso dicere: " facite meRomanae ecclesiae episcopum et ero protinus Christianus. ' As a comment on this mot of Praetextatus read the reflections on the conflict for thepapal seat in 367 in Amm. Marc. 27,3, 14.S. Paulin. Nol. Carm. x. 33,316; cf. Renan, M. Aurèle, p. 627.10 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK Icitizenship. This spirit has by some modern historians beenmade responsible for the resignation of the defence of theEmpire to barbarian mercenaries, for the decay of industry andwealth, for the decline of letters and art, and the darkness ofa thousand years.¹ And there is some of the religious literature of that period which gives a colour to part of thisindictment. In the very years when the great invasions weredesolating the provinces of the West, and when the hostsof Radagaesus and Alaric were threatening the heart of theEmpire, S. Paulinus wrote a remarkable letter to a soldierwho felt himself drawn to the higher Christian life. In thisepistle the ascetic ideal is expounded with a breadth andabsence of qualification which shock and amaze the modernreader. The evangelical counsels of perfection are construedin the sternest and most uncompromising fashion. Christianobedience is boldly represented as incompatible with the dutiesof citizenship and the relations of family life. The love offather or mother, of wife or child, the desire for riches orhonour, devotion to one's country, are all so many barriers tokeep the soul from Christ. There is not a word to indicatethat a Christian life, worthy of the name, could be made compatible with the performance of worldly duties. The rich arecondemned for ever, in the words of prophet or evangelist.³The soldier is a mere shedder of blood, doomed to eternaltorment. There is no possibility of serving both Christ andCaesar. This was the way in which secular life was regardedby the voluntary exiles who followed S. Jerome, in the lastyears of the fourth century, to the convents at Bethlehem, orwho retired to the Syrian or Egyptian deserts, the islands of theTuscan Sea, and the hermitages in the woods of Gaul. Such amovement might well seem to an old- fashioned Roman as arenunciation, not only of citizenship, but of all the hard- wonfruits of civilisation and social life. If this was the highestform of Christian life, as its devotees proclaimed it to be, thenChristianity was the foe, not only of the old religion, but of1 Renan, M. Aurèle, pp. 595, 603,la vie humaine est suspendue pour mille ans.2 S. Paulin. Ep. xxv.3 lb. § 2, et iterum per prophetam ait, " Exterminati sunt omnes quiexaltati fuerant auro et argento. " InEvangelio quoque clamat . . . "vae vobis divitibus, " etc.4 Ib. § 3, mortis minister est.5 Ib. § 1 , quod si maluerimus Caesari militare quam Christo . . . ad Gehen- nam transferemur.CHAP. I THE PAGAN ARISTOCRACY 11the social and political order which Rome had given to theworld. It is hardly to be wondered at that the monks wereexecrated alike by the mob and by the cultivated pagan noble.24Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that in general societythe line between the two camps was sharply drawn. As amatter of fact, there was on either side a large wavering class ,half-hearted, sceptical, or formalist. We know, on the testimonyof Libanius, that there were many sham converts to Christianity,whose conformity was due either to fear or motives of selfishambition. Such men were ready to return to their old faithas lightly as they had conformed to the new. Apostasy toheathenism became so frequent that Gratian and Theodosiusfelt bound to restrain it by severe legislation. The upper classwas for generations far more united by the old social andliterary tradition than they were divided by religious belief.There were friends of Sidonius living at the close of theWestern Empire who were at heart as pagan as Symmachuswho saw paganism finally proscribed.5 In truth, the line.between Christian and pagan was long wavering and uncertain.We find adherents of the opposing creeds side by side evenin the same family at the end of the fourth century. Mixedmarriages (imparia matrimonia) were evidently not uncommon.Any one acquainted with the life of S. Jerome will rememberPaula, the great Roman lady, who was the leader of thearistocratic exodus to the Holy Places.6 She gave up allher vast wealth to maintain the religious houses which shefounded at Bethlehem. Her whole soul was absorbed in thestudy of the Scriptures, and in the thought of the life tocome. Yet Paula was united in early youth to a noblenamed Julius Toxotius," who boasted of his descent fromAeneas, and who refused to abandon the worship of hisancestors. Their son, the younger Toxotius, who, at anyrate in his youth, was also a staunch pagan, was married81 Hieron. Ep. 39, § 5, quousquegenus detestabile non urbe pellitur?non lapidibus obruitur?2 Rutil. Namat. i. 440.3 Orat. pro Templis, ed. Reiske, p.176.C. Th. xvi. tit. 7; cf. Godefroy'snote to xvi. 7, 1; Rauschen, Jahrbücher,p. 153.5 Apollin. Sid. Ep. viii . 9; viii . 11 .6 Hieron. Ep. 108.7 Ib. § 30, testis est Jesus, ne unum quidem nummum ab ea filiae relictum.8 Ib. § 26.Ib. § 4; Thierry's S. Jérome, pp.26, 27.1212THETENACITYOFPAGANISMBOOKI1to Laeta, another devout friend of S. Jerome, to whomhe addressed a letter on the proper education for a Christianmaiden. Laeta herself was the offspring of a mixed marriage.Her mother was a Christian, and her father was one of themost distinguished chiefs of the pagan aristocracy, PubliliusCaeonius Albinus.2 The affectionate relations of this householdseem to have been quite undisturbed by the difference of creedamong its members. S. Jerome speaks of Albinus in afriendly tone as a most learned and distinguished man, andsketches a pleasant picture of the old heathen pontiff listeningto his little grand-daughter singing her infant hymns to Christ.Albinus, like many of his class in that day, was plainlytolerant in matters of religion; yet he was a colleague ofSymmachus in the pontifical college, and he figures in theSaturnalia of Macrobius as a great master of the antiquarianlore of old Rome.3In general society the cultivated sceptic or pagan appearsto have often maintained a friendly intimacy even with themost uncompromising champions of the Church.The corVolurespondence of S. Augustine reveals the singular freedom andcandour with which the great religious questions of the timewere debated between the cultivated members of the twoparties. Among the friends of the great bishop was Volusianus,brother of that Laeta to whom we have just referred. *sianus, although he is said to have been afterwards converted, was at this time, if not a decided pagan, like hisfather the pontiff, at any rate little disposed to accept thefundamental tenets of the Christian faith. He seems to havelived in a circle which debated not only the old philosophicalquestions, but those tenets of the Christian creed which presentthe greatest obstacles to the reason . At one of thesegatherings the difficulties of the miraculous conception ofChrist, and of the Incarnation of the omnipresent Ruler of theUniverse in a single human form , subject to all the changes,61 Hieron. Ep. 107, § 1.2 His restoration of a ruined Capitolat Thamugad in Numidia is com- memorated in an inscription of the time of Valentinian and Valens, C. I.L. viii. 2388; cf. C.I.L. viii. 6975,which contains the dedication by him of a chapel to Mithra; cf. Macrob.Sat. i . 2, 15; Hieron. Ep. 107 , § 1 .3 Macrob. Sat. i. iii .S. Aug. Ep. 132; cf. Seeck's Sym.clxxix.5 Baron. Annal. Eccl. v. 728 (quotedin Seeck's Sym. clxxix. ) .S. Aug. Ep. 135.CHAP. I THE PAGAN ARISTOCRACY 13wants, and limitations of humanity, were raised. And Volusianus, in a letter full of deferential admiration for Augustine'scharacter and learning, asks for some light on these puzzlingquestions. In another letter,' Marcellinus, who was a friendof both, submits, on behalf of Volusianus, some other problemsas to the apparent inconstancy of the Deity in abrogatingthe Jewish law which He had Himself given, and the possibility of obeying the precepts of the Sermon on the Mountin the government of a dominant state. On both sides thereis an urbanity and an absence of partisan heat, which showthe strength of the ancient culture in the fierce conflict ofbeliefs. The same tone is conspicuous in the letters betweenthe pagan philosopher Longinianus and Augustine.2 Theirletters seem to show that the two men were on terms offriendly intercourse, and although Longinianus cannot give asatisfactory answer to the question, " What think you of Christ? "a devout monotheism supplied some common ground withthe Christian bishop, who deals in a singularly gentle tonewith the philosopher's lingering and vaguely expressed attachment to ancient mystic rites. Augustine's letter to Lampadiuson fatalist superstitions displays even more startling tolerance.3Yet Lampadius was a devotee of the pagan belief in astrologyand divination. He was Pretorian prefect in the short- livedgovernment established in 409 by the old senatorial party, * withAttalus as emperor and Alaric as master of the forces, which wasthe last attempt of the old pagan spirit to regain the sceptre.In the circle of Symmachus, which is better known to us thanany other of that time, there is a striking intermixture of paganand Christian, with a reticent suppression of all differences onreligious questions. Q. Aurelius Symmachus was the chief of thepagan aristocracy, the most gallant defender of the old religion.in its last struggles for toleration. His ancestors had heldthe highest office since the days of Constantine, and he himselfhad added fresh lustre to the honours of his house. He wasregarded as the finest product of the literary tradition of Rome,an arbiter elegantiarum whose critical judgments were infallible ,1 S. Aug. Ep. 136.2 Ib. 233, 234, 235.3 Ib. 246.4 Zos. vi. 7.5 Seeck's Sym. xl.6 Auson. Idyll. x.; Ep. xvii.; Prudent. c. Sym. i . 632:O linguam miro verborum fonte fluentem,Romani decus eloquii , cui cedat et ipse Tullius ...Ambros. Ep. 18, 2.14 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK IHethe greatest orator of the Senate. Probably, like so manyof his class for ages, he was a sceptic whose inner creed wasa vague monotheism. But he cherished a sentimental, or astatesmanlike, attachment to the ancient forms of the Romanreligion. The fortunes and the dignity of Rome were in hiseyes inseparably linked with her guardian deities.¹ Thegrandeur and beneficence of her career were for ever associatedwith the religion of the old Fabii, Decii, and Scipios. Thereare, indeed, but few direct references to religion in his privateletters, none to Christianity or the internecine war of faithswhich was raging around him. Like Claudian and Macrobius,he seems to shut his eyes to the spiritual revolution whichin his closing years was sending the world of Western Europeon a new orbit. To the very end of the legal existence ofpaganism, he maintained the same tranquil, old- world toneabout religion. He records the meetings of the Sacred College,and the recurrence of the festival of Magna Mater.mentions in his letters terrifying prodigies, such as theconsul suffectus being thrown from his car, somewhat in themanner of the early annals. When the Vestal Virgins prayedfor leave to erect a statue to Vettius Agorius Praetextatus,the man who " possessed the deepest knowledge of sacredthings," probably the best and most devout pagan of thatage, and a dear friend of Symmachus, he resisted the proposal, partly on the ground of propriety, partly as a violationof ancient usage. Personally the most kindly and humane ofmen, he demanded of the prefect that an erring Vestal shouldbe surrendered to pontifical authority, to be punished in thecruel old Roman fashion.¹ He once or twice laments thegrowing neglect of the ancient worship, and prays the gods topardon it, although he cannot help feeling that it is sometimesdue to an unworthy subservience to the feelings of the Court.It seems as if Symmachus was incapable of imagining thatthe Roman State could ever finally disown the gods in whomthe men of her great ages had believed.58Yet the correspondence of Symmachus shows that helived on terms of friendly and even affectionate intimacy, not1 Sym. Rel. 3.2 Ep. vi. 40; i. 49; ii. 34.3 Ib. ii. 36.Ib. ix. 147.s Ib. i. 51 , nunc aris deesseRomanos genus est ambiendi.CHAP. I THE PAGAN ARISTOCRACY 15only with nominal Christians, but with determined foes of theold religion. In the list of his friends, indeed, almost everyshade of belief or of indifference is represented; and there isno better way of understanding the religious confusion of thattime than to study some of the men with whom the greatpagan noble was intimate, from Praetextatus the heathenmystic, to S. Ambrose the great champion of Catholicorthodoxy.31Praetextatus was probably the truest representative of thelast generation of paganism. The inscriptions which commemorate his virtues and distinctions are a proof of the spacehe filled in the eyes of contemporaries. He was proconsulof Achaea in the reign of Julian,2 and, after a long retirementof fifteen years, he held the Pretorian prefecture in the reignof Theodosius, and was designated for the consulship in 385,when he died in his sixtieth year. Praetextatus combined allthe qualities which then constituted the ideal of the Romannoble. He was devoted to letters, had emended MSS. , andtranslated Aristotle. His house is the scene of the learnedconversations of the Saturnalia. As a statesman, he resistedthe law of Valentinian I. against nocturnal rites, which seemedintolerable to his provincial subjects in Greece. When hewas prefect of the city he gained universal popularity, without offending any party, although he had the difficult duty ofmaintaining order when, in the furious struggle for the papalthrone, the rival factions of Damasus and Ursinus wereslaughtering one another on the pavement of the churches.sOn his death, even S. Jerome, who consigns him to outerdarkness, agrees with Marcellinus that he received the tributeof a universal mourning from the populace of Rome. Praetextatus was the most learned theologian and the most enthusiastic devotee in the ranks of the last pagan nobles. Hismonument describes him as augur, priest of Vesta, priest ofthe sun, curial of Hercules, devoted to Liber and the Eleusiniandeities, neocorus, hierophant, pater patrum, cleansed by the1 C.I.L. vi. 1779, 2145. The latter refers to a monument erected to himby the Vestals.2 Amm. Marc. xxii. 7, 6.3 Seeck's Sym. lxxxviii.Sym. Ep. i. 53; cf. Seeck, lxxxvii.5 Macrob. Sat. i. 1.6 Zos. iv. 3.7 Amm. Marc. xxvii. 9, 8.8 Ib. xxvii. 3, 12.Ep. 23, ad cujus interitum urbs universa commota est.16 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK Irite of the Taurobolium.¹ His wife, Fabia Aconia Paulina,was his partner in all sacred things, and was famous in theRoman world for her religious eminence. It is noteworthythat Praetextatus is almost the only one of his friends towhom the reticent Symmachus mentions the subject of religion,2although even the pious Praetextatus seems to have sometimesforgotten his sacerdotal duties in the repose of his country- seatin Etruria. When, as Urban prefect, Symmachus announced hisdeath to the Emperor, * he described Praetextatus, with the assentof the whole people, as a model of all private and public virtue.3Another name among the pagan friends of Symmachusdeserves special mention . Virius Nicomachus Flavianus, amember of the great Anician house, was son of a man who,after long obscurity, rose to prominence in the pagan reactionof Julian. Flavianus was a young man of twenty- seven whenJulian came to the throne, and along with Venustus his father,"and his cousin Symmachus, obtained a provincial governorship.For twelve years of the reign of Valentinian I. Flavianus wasin retirement; but in the reign of Gratian, he, along withSymmachus, shared in the extraordinary ascendency which thecircle of Ausonius enjoyed for some years. Flavianus receivedthe vicariate of Africa, Hesperius, the poet's son, beingproconsul of the province at the same time. After themanner of the pagan or indifferent governors of the age,"Flavianus showed indulgence to the heretics of his district,and incurred a rebuke from the orthodox Emperor. In thereign of Theodosius he regained the favour of the Court,and was made prefect of Italy in 383, his two sons also beingelevated to governorships of provinces. After a brief interval,he once more rose to favour and held the prefecture in 391.91 C.I.L. vi. 1779.2 Sym. Ep. i. 47, 48, 51.3 Ib. i. 45.4 lb. x. 10.The Symmachi also belonged to it;cf. Seeck, cii. , and the Stemma on p. xl.6 Amm. Marc. xxiii. 1 , 4, Venustovicariam commisit Hispaniae. This is the Venustus of Macrob. i. 5 , 13,Flavianus-mirando viro Venusto patrepraestantior.7 Cf. the efforts of the Priscillianiststo have their cause brought before afriendly governor in Spain, Sulp. Sev.Chron. ii. 49.8 S. Aug. Ep. 87, § 8, to a Donatistbishop, describes Flavianus as " partis vestrae hom*o. " Cf. C. Th. xvi. 6, 2,addressed to Flavianus in 377, orderinghim to suppress Anabaptism; andxvi. 5, 4, 378, to Hesperius, in which the continuance of heretical worship is attributed to "dissimulatio judi- cum. But the date of the law isdoubtful. Cf. Godefroy's notes andSeeck's Sym. cxiv.""9 See Seeck's note, 579; Rauschen,Jahrb. pp. 150 and 337. Rauschen controverts Seeck's view ( Prol. cxvii. )that Flavianus was praef. praet. in 389.СНАР. І THE PAGAN ARISTOCRACY 17But his career was drawing to a disastrous close. Although hewielded such power under the Emperor who finally proscribedthe heathen ritual, Flavianus was an obstinate reactionary inreligion. He became the heart and soul of the brief paganrestoration under Eugenius. He obtained the restoration ofthe altar of Victory to the Senate-house, ' and of their endowments to the sacred colleges. By lavish hospitality, andpromises of official advancement, he tempted weak- kneed orindifferent Christians to desert the cause of Theodosius andthe Church. All the arts of ancient divination were broughtinto play by the greatest living master of the science.3 Anda prophetic verse was recalled or invented which foreshadowedthe end of the Christian superstition three hundred and sixtyfive years after the Passion. * The reckoning seemed to tallyexactly with the crisis of events. But the gods proved falseto their faithful champion; the illusions of the past only ledFlavianus and his party to their doom . Amid the tempestwhich raged over the battle on the Frigidus and gave thevictory to Theodosius, Flavianus more majorum died by hisown hand. He had staked all on the success of the pagancause and lost. Yet, strange to say, his memory was respected,and even honoured, by the victors. His confiscated estateswere afterwards restored to his sons.5 The Emperor in amessage to the Senate deplored the loss to the State and tohimself. Nearly forty years after the battle on the Frigidusthe Emperors Valentinian and Theodosius did justice to thevirtues and distinction of Flavianus in a monument which isstill extant." A master of augural lore, a learned historian,and a philosopher, he was one of that band who, whenpaganism and letters were perishing, united in a single lovethe literature and the religion of the past.Several of the great German chiefs, who wielded suchpower in that age, were among the most intimate friends ofSymmachus. Of these some boldly adhered to the religiouspractices of their ancestors without any hindrance to their1 Paulin. vit. Ambros. c. viii. § 26.2 See the Carm. Paris. (a poem dis- covered at the end ofa MS. ofPrudentius)quoted by Seeck, cxviii.3 Sozom. vii. 22, τὰ μέλλονταἀκριβοῦν λογιζόμενος ἐπιστήμη παντο- δαπής μαντείας.4 De Civ. Dei, xviii . 53 , 54.5Sym. Ep. iv. 19.6 C.I.L. vi. 1783.7 Peter's Gesch. Litt. über die Röm .Kaiserzeit, ii. 32; cf. i . 137; Seeck's Sym. cxv.; Macrob. Sat. i. 5, 13.с18 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK Iadvancement. Others conformed to the Church, with more orless intensity of faith. With Stilicho, the autocrat of the earlyyears of Honorius, Symmachus was naturally on the mostfriendly footing. We can well believe that there would bestrong bonds of sympathy between the chief of the party whoclaimed toleration for paganism, and the statesman who stroveto find a modus vivendi between Roman and Goth, Catholicand Pagan, and who incurred the anathemas of the bigots ofboth parties, of Rutilius Namatianus¹ and of Orosius.2 Richomer,another friend of Symmachus, a Frank chief of the highestcharacter, who never abandoned his ancestral faith, is aremarkable example of the religious confusion of the time.He was on terms of the most friendly character with Libanius,the last of the Hellenists, and yet he rose to be consul andmagister militum under a prince engaged in extirpatingheathenism.4 He was a personal friend of Arbogastes andEugenius, the chiefs of the pagan reaction of 394; yet he wasdesignated to command the cavalry of Theodosius against themwhen he was overtaken by death. Another Frank, Bauto,whatever his own religion may have been, took care to havehis daughter, the future Empress Eudoxia, brought up a devoutCatholic.5Amongthe correspondents of Symmachus there are Christiansof many shades of conviction, from the great Bishop of Milanto the trimmers who were ready to acquiesce in a paganrestoration under the shadowy authority of Attalus. TheAmbrosius of the letters of Symmachus is almost certainlythe illustrious saint and pastor who, by the force of genius andcharacter, wielded a greater power than any other man in thelast struggle of paganism with the Christian Empire. The manwho confronted fearlessly the Arianism of Justina, and whoforced Theodosius to do penance for the massacre of Thessalonica, threw the whole energy of a powerful nature into1 Itin. ii. 41 .2 Oros. vii. 38.3 Liban.de Vita Sua, i . p. 136, iepoîs Te καὶ θεοῖς προσκείμενος. Cf. Ep. 785, 926.See the authorities collected in theProsopographia ofthe C. Th. ed. Ritter.5 Zos. iv. 55.Seeck, Sym. cxl. , makes him aChristian on the strength of a singular78participle in one of S. Ambrose's Epistles. Cf. Rauschen, Jahrb. der Christ. Kirche unter dem K. Theod.p. 204, n. 4; S. Ambros. Ep. 57.7 Seeck's Sym. cxxviii.; Ambros. de Sat. Excessu, i . 32. But cf. note inMigne's ed.8 Paulin. vita S. Ambr. c. iv. § 12.9 Ib. c. vii. § 24.CHAP. 1 THE PAGAN ARISTOCRACY 19the conflict, so long wavering and doubtful, which gave thefinal victory to the Church before he died. When Symmachus, as deputy of the Senate, appealed to the Emperorto restore to their house of assembly the altar of Victory,the most venerable symbol of the pagan Empire, S. Ambroseresisted the proposal with all the arts of a rhetoric, trained,like that of his opponent, in the ancient schools.¹ The twomen were the chosen champions of the opposing hosts, andthey fought with an equal energy of sentiment or conviction.But although they were so sharply opposed in matters ofreligion, they were connected both by blood and culture.Symmachus writes to the bishop in the tone of an assuredand unruffled friendship. In one letter he even claims hisgood offices on behalf of a man who had served under theusurpation of Eugenius. S. Ambrose on his side speaks ofSymmachus in a tone of respect for the sincerity of his paganzeal, and admiration for the skill of his rhetoric.35There are one or two other decided Christians in the list,such as that Vincentius, who, when prefect of Gaul, stroveto cultivate the friendship of S. Martin. * But most of theother so- called Christian friends of Symmachus had little incommon with the enthusiasm of S. Ambrose. Some of thembelonged to that large class of waverers and sceptics to whom areligious profession was only a means of safety or of ambition.The most distinguished friend of Symmachus in the highofficial world was Sextus Petronius Probus. Descendedfrom a long line of consuls, Probus was regarded as thegreatest glory of the Anician house. " Proconsul of Africain his twenty - second year, he held the Pretorian prefecturefour times, in one case for a term of eight years, and wascolleague of the Emperor in the consulship of 371. His rankand virtues are commemorated in many inscriptions, and in apoem of Ausonius addressed to Probus, when he wielded atSirmium a power second only to that of the Emperor. Hiswife and his sons were devoted Christians; his grand- daughter5 Seeck's Sym. xci.; C.I.L. vi.1752, 1753, 1756.1 Paulin. vita S. Ambr. c. viii . § 26;Sym. Rel. 3.2 Sym. Ep. iii. 33, 34.3 Ambros. Ep. 57, 2, functus est ille partibus suis pro studio et cultu suo.4 Sulp. Sev. Dial. i. 25, 6.86 Hieron. Ep. 130, § 3.7 C.I.L. vi. 1751-6; Auson. Ep.xvi.; cf. Amm. Marc. xxvii. 11 , 1 .8 Prudent. c. Sym. i. 551; Hieron.Ep. 130, § 3.2020THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK IYet Probus himselfAnd Ammianus MarDemetrias took the vow of virginity.was only baptized on his deathbed.¹cellinus more than hints that love of wealth and power washis strongest passion. Caecilianus, who bore a great part inthe negotiations with Alaric, was a great friend of S. Augustine as well as of Symmachus.3 But he appears to have beena rather lukewarm Christian; for the saint remonstrates withhim for being content at his age to remain a catechumen.On a lower level than Probus and Caecilianus are two men,among the familiar friends of Symmachus, who had anephemeral distinction in the years of Alaric's invasion. Theirattitude to religion represents that of many of their contemporaries. The Jovius of the letters of Symmachus is probablythe believer in chance and the superstitions of astrologywhom S. Paulinus laboured to convert from his errors. * Yethe began his public career by overturning the temples ofheathenism at Carthage. He is praised by Symmachus forhis high principle and virtue; but the account which thehistorian gives of his career seems to convict him either offickleness or treachery. He was a personal friend of Alaric,and, on the fall of Olympius, the leader of the Catholic reaction,Jovius succeeded him, and resumed the tolerant religiouspolicy of Stilicho, along with an attempt to conciliate Alaricby conceding some of his demands. Having failed to obtain theEmperor's assent to his views, he suddenly took up anattitude of determined hostility to the Gothic chiefs Yetwithin a very short time we find Jovius in the office ofPretorian prefect under Attalus," the puppet emperor whomAlaric had set up. In the breach between Attalus and hispatron, Jovius deserted Attalus, as he had deserted Honorius.10The believer in mere chance, as the ruling force in the universe,seems, on the more charitable hypothesis, to have allowed hisown life to be governed by it. There is only a faint glimmering of any higher principle in his career, when occasionallyhe showed a certain faith in the Gothic power.1 C.I.L. 1756, senior munere Christi.2 Amm. Marc. xxx. 5, 4-7.3 Aug. Ep. 151 , § 14.S. Paulin. Nol. Ep. xvi.5 Aug. de Civ. Dei, xviii. 54.donatus 6 Sym. Ep. viii . 30; ix. 59.7 Zos. v . 46, 47.8 Ib. v. 49; Sozom. ix. 7.9 Zos. vi. 8.10 Olympiod. Frag. 13.CHAP. I THE PAGAN ARISTOCRACY 214Another great figure in the events of those puzzling yearswas Priscus Attalus.¹ He was of Asiatic origin. His fatherhad a great literary reputation, was the friend and correspondentof Libanius, and rose to high office." Attalus possessed thesuperficial literary and rhetorical arts which were then invogue; he could deliver elaborate orations, write pretty verses,³and accompany them on the lyre. As to religion, he was aHellenist, with no faith either in the old system or the new,but with a sentimental attachment to the past. Yet hisbrilliant accomplishments gave him a foremost place in thesenatorial ranks, and when the city was hard pressed by Alariche was one of the envoys chosen to lay before the Emperorat Ravenna the miseries of the capital. The mission failed;but Attalus accepted the office of count of the sacredlargesses, and shortly afterwards that of prefect of the city.When Alaric, so long mocked by the mingled weakness,perfidy, and insolence of the court at Ravenna, seized themagazines at Ostia, and ordered the Senate, as the price oftheir safety, to depose Honorius and elect a new chief of theState, their choice fell on Attalus." And surely there wasnever a more curious spectacle than when the sceptical Hellenist received baptism at the hands of an Arian bishop, toplease his Gothic masters, while he gave his sanction toreactionary dreamers like Lampadius and Tertullus, whor*vived for a moment the arts of divination and the paganceremonies of the old Republic.These men, of such various shades of enthusiasm or indifference, appear to have lived together in perfect amity. Theurbane senator, in whose friendship they are united for thestudy of the historian, seems to have found no more difficultyin his relations with Ambrose and Probus than with Flavianusor Praetextatus. They were all during the life of Symmachusunited in the service of the State. Pronounced pagans heldthe prefecture or the consulship under Theodosius andHonorius, and were even their trusted counsellors. "For the authorities as to his careersee Seeck's Symmachus, clxx.Amm. Marc. xxviii. 4 , 3.3 Olympiod. Frag. 24.Sozom. ix. 9.5 Zos. v. 44.6 lb. v. 44 and 45.7 lb. vi. 7.8 Sozom. ix. 9.It wasSymmachus was consul in 391;Flavianus was prefect of Italy in 391;his son was proconsul of Asia in 383L5722 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK Inot till 416 that they were formally excluded from office.¹Many of these pagan officials had for years in their hands theenforcement of laws against superstitions or heresies withwhich they themselves sympathised. In the long trucebetween the hostile camps, the pagan, the sceptic, even theformal, lukewarm Christian, may have come to dream of amutual toleration which would leave the ancient forms undisturbed. But such men, living in a world of literary andantiquarian illusions, knew little of the inner forces of the newChristian movement. The chiefs of the Church were of avery different mould from the chiefs of the Senate.(Rauschen, p. 148 ); Richomer was consul in 384 ( Rauschen, p. 172 ) .Macrobius, author of the Saturnalia,was probably Praef. Praet. of Spain in 399, Procos. of Africa in 410, and Praepositus S. Cubiculi in 422 (C.Th. xvi. 10, 15; xi. 28 , 6; vi . 8 ) . Butthere is some doubt. Cf. Godefroyon xi.28, 6, n. 6; Jan, Prol. ad Macrob. v.vi.; Teuffel, Rom. Lit. ii. p. 453;Peter, Gesch. Litt. i. 142. RutiliusNamatianus was prefect of the City in 414 (Itin. i . 157 ) . His father, La- chanius, had been Consularis Tusciae(ib . i. 579).1. Th. xvi. 10, 21 , qui profanoPagani ritus errore seu crimine pollu- untur, nec ad militiam admittantur,nec Administratoris vel Judicis honore decorentur.CHAPTER IITHE LAST CONFLICTS OF PAGANISM WITH THECHRISTIAN EMPIRE2THE sixteenth book of the Theodosian Code contains a seriesof twenty-five edicts against the practice of pagan rites. Itbegins with a curt command that superstition shall cease and"the insanity of sacrificial rites shall be abolished. " It closes,more than eighty years afterwards, with denouncing the penaltyof death against any who still presume to take part in " thedamnable practices " so long forbidden by the State. It istrue that in the edict of 423 the Emperor seems sanguinethat heathenism is almost extinct,3 and he somewhat mitigatesthe penalties against those " who are still entangled in theaccursed worship of daemons." There is even a curious noteof toleration in the law of the same year, which imposes aheavy fine on any person offering violence to Jews or paganswho lived in quietness and outward obedience to the law.But this clemency was probably misunderstood. In countryplaces, sometimes with the connivance of indifferent officials,the old temples were still frequented, and sacrifices were stilloffered more than fifty years after the death of the great Theodosius. The fierce tone of the Novella of 439 proves thatlegislation had not yet finally conquered the obstinacy of oldsuperstition. The closing enactment in the Code, against theobstinate and hated remnant, is the most vehement of all." In1 C. Th. xvi. 10, 2, cesset superstitio; sacrificiorum aboleatur in- sania.2 lb. xvi. 10, 25.3 Ib. xvi. 10, 22 and 23, paganosqui supersunt, quanquam jam nullos esse4credamus, legum jamdudum prescriptacompescant.7b. xvi. 10, 24.5 Nov. Theod. tit. 3. The law isdirected against Jews, Samaritans,heretics, and pagans.24 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK Ithat strange rhetorical tone of the later Code, the infuriatedEmperor, after referring to the almost ostentatious contempt ofpagans for " the thousand terrors of the laws, " asks " why thespringtime has resigned its wonted charm, why the summerwith its scanty harvests mocks the hopes of the toilinghusbandman, why the rigours of winter have condemned thefruitful soil to barrenness? " It must be the vengeance ofNature for continued impiety. The violated majesty of theHeavenly Power demanded expiation and revenge. Probablythe timid devotees, who still clung to their rustic altars, foundthe explanation of these calamities in the impiety of theEmperor. But here, so far as open pagan ritual is concerned,the conflict with the Empire closes. The final triumph overthe devotional attachments of a thousand years was reservedfor the dialectic or the accommodating arts of the Church.The secret of the long conflict is not to be sought exclusively in the obstinacy of immemorial custom, and the conservatism of a race wedded to ancient usage. The truth is,that in the period of transition the laws were administered forthe most part by officials belonging to the pagan or waveringclass. But, above all, the imperial government for a longtime was only half-hearted in the war against the old religionof the State. The policy of Constantine and his successors,till the reign of Gratian, was, in spite of appearances, one ofpractical toleration to the legitimate practice of pagan worshipin the West.¹ It is true that Constantius, Valentinian I. , andValens made the practice of the arts of divination, astrology, andmagic a political crime," and strove to repress them with a ruthless determination. But from 356 to 381 there is no law in theCode directed against public heathen rites. In the intervalthey were either authorised or connived at. Symmachus andhis colleagues still hold the meetings of the pontifical college;the feasts of Magna Mater are still celebrated; the Vestalsstill guard the eternal fire. Even Gratian did not expresslyabolish the heathen worship, although on his accession, for1 Cf. Boissier, La Fin du Pag. ii.pp. 271 , 296; Rauschen, Jahrbücher der Christ. Kirche unter dem K. Theod.p. 127, die Opfer dagegen, auch die blutigen, blieben im Westreiche bis zum Gesetz des Theodosius vom 24Feb. 391 erlaubt; C. Th. xvi . 10, 10.2 There is a controversy as to the laws between 341 and 356, interdictingpagan worship. The most probable conclusion seems to be that, if theywere issued, they were not rigorously enforced . Duruy, vii. 297; cf. Maury,La Magie, pp. 110-114.CHAP. II ITS LAST CONFLICTS WITH THE EMPIRE 25the first time, he declined to accept the pontifical robes, andwithdrew from the sacred colleges their estates and endowments.¹His most serious assault on the old religion was the removalof the statue and altar of Victory from the Senate- house."The figure of Victory, originally brought from Tarentum,was regarded as the sacred symbol of Roman greatness.From the days of Augustus it had stood over the altar atwhich twelve generations of senators had seen their sittingsopened with sacrifice, and at which they had sworn allegianceto the chief of the State.³ The Senate which containedsuch attached pagans as Praetextatus, Symmachus, andFlavianus, and which almost certainly at this time had amajority opposed to the innovation, resolved to petition theEmperor to rescind the decrees. But the Christian party,through Damasus and Ambrose, succeeded in preventing thedeputation from even getting an audience." The events whichimmediately followed seemed a judgment of the gods on theirenemies. Gratian was slain in battle with Maximus, and leftno heirs; and a terrible famine fell on the provinces whichwere the granaries of Italy." The pagan party took fresh.courage, and in 384 their two greatest chiefs, Praetextatusand Symmachus, were raised, the one to the prefecture of Italy,the other to that of the city. Praetextatus signalised his tenureby obtaining a decree for the prevention of the spoliation oftemples, and to require the restitution of works of art whichhad been abstracted by private persons. Once more theSenate formally resolved to petition the Emperor to repealthe law of Gratian. And Symmachus, as the head of thedeputation, was entrusted with the task of stating their views.1 Zos. iv. 36, τῶν οὖν ποντιφίκων κατὰτὸ ξύνηθες προσαγαγόντων Γρατιανῷ τὴν στολὴν ἀπεσείσατο τὴν αἴτησιν. For doubts about this statement seeRauschen, Jahrb. der Chr. K. p. 120,n. 4.2 Sym. Ep. x. 3; cf. Seeck's Sym.liii. liv.3 Gregorovius, Rome in the Middle Ages, i . 67.Cf. Seeck, Sym. liv.; cf. the account of the Senate's opposition to Theodosius in Zosimus, iv. 59; and on the other hand the boast of Prudentius,c. Sym. i. 566. Ambros. Ep. 17 affirms that the Christians were in amajority. But, if so, why did they not prevent the appeal to the Emperor!and why were even the Christianmembers of the Consistorium in favourof yielding? Cf. Rauschen, p. 119,n. 10, who deals in a rather arbitraryway with the evidence; cf. Boissier,ii. 315; Gibbon, c. 28.·Ambros. Ep. 17, 10, misit ad me Sanctus Damasus . libellum quemChristiani senatores dederunt, etc. Sym. Rel. 3, secuta est hocfactum fames publica.7 See the references to the C. Th. inSeeck, lv.8 Sym. Rel. 21 .26 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK IThe speech which he composed for the occasion is stillextant, and is invaluable as the last formal and public protestof the proscribed faith. It is penetrated at once by the spiritof sceptical tolerance, and the spirit of old Roman conservatism." Each nation," says Symmachus, " has its own gods andpeculiar rites. The Great Mystery cannot be approached byone avenue alone.2 But use and wont count for much in givingauthority to a religion. Leave us the symbol on which ouroaths of allegiance have been sworn for so many generations.Leave us the system which has so long given prosperity to theState. A religion should be judged by its utility to the menwho hold it. Years of famine have been the punishment ofsacrilege. The treasury should not be replenished by thewealth of the sacred colleges, but by the spoils of the enemy."And the venerable form of Rome is introduced, in a piece ofpowerful rhetoric, pleading for reverence for her many centuriesof life, for leave to follow her immemorial customs and traditions, and the faith which had kept the Gauls and Hannibalat bay. According to S. Ambrose, the oratory of Symmachus.had a powerful effect even on the Christian members of theConsistory. Nor does the great bishop disguise his ownadmiration for its skill and power. But once more his artsand energy gained a victory for the Church.Yet, in spite of intervals of imperial displeasure, Symmachusand his kinsman Flavianus continued to hold high place.Flavianus was Pretorian prefect in 391 , and in the same yearSymmachus rose to the consulship. Once again Symmachus wascommissioned by the Senate to ask for the restoration of thealtar of Victory. But Theodosius was thoroughly masteredby the powerful will of S. Ambrose, and the chief of the paganparty was hurried from the imperial presence, and set down atthe hundredth milestone from Milan. " Another effort, and thelast, was made in 392. The Consistory again would haveyielded, but the young Valentinian stood firm , although thistime S. Ambrose was absent from the field .1 Sym. Rel. 3.2 Uno itinere non potest perveniriad tam grande secretum; cf. a similar liberal tone in the letter of Maximusto S. Augustine, Ep. 16, § 4.3 Roman nunc putemus adsistereatque his vobiscum agere sermonibus reveremini annos meos.Ambros. Ep. 18 , 2; de Obit.Valent. 19.5 Prosper. de Promiss. et Praedict Dei, iii. c. 38; S. Ambros. Ep. 51 .CHAP. II ITS LAST CONFLICTS WITH THE EMPIRE 27The law which definitely prohibited pagan worship in theWest was published in the year of the consulship of Symmachus.¹ Down to 391 , notwithstanding the determinedattitude of Gratian, the legitimate practice of the ancient ritesin the Western provinces was little interfered with. But thelaw of Theodosius and Valentinian II . forbids absolutely theoffering of sacrifices, and even the visiting of temples. Heavyfines are imposed on governors and officials of every degreewho shall infringe the law, or connive at its infringement.The law of 392 is addressed to a prefect of the East, but itis evidently intended for the whole Roman world.the most sweeping and uncompromising character.however highly placed in respect of birth, fortune, or office, is toThe most private worship of the houselights, or garlands, is interdicted.³presume to disobey it.It is ofNo one,hold gods, by incense, Andevery other mode of heathen worship is forbidden in a long andexhaustive enumeration. All governors, defensors, and curialsof cities are bound under heavy penalties to see to the observance of the law.Yet the victory of the Church was not so secure as theconfident tone of legislation might seem to proclaim . In thevery year when the first of these laws was published a votaryof Mithra within the walls of Rome received " the new birthto eternal life " through the cleansing rites of the Taurobolium. *Even more significant is the fact that many persons of rankand dignity were deserting the Christian fold, and lapsing intoJewish or Manichaean or pagan superstitions. There is nomore remarkable chapter in the Code than that which dealswith apostasy. Constantine and Constantius had found itnecessary to threaten severe penalties against those whoforsook Christianity to join the Jews or Manichaeans."law of the elder Theodosius in 381 is the first in the Codedirected against the tendency of nominal Christians to relapse51 C. Th. xvi. 10, 10.Ib. xvi. 10, 12, nullus omnino,ex quolibet genere, ordine hominum,dignitatum, vel in potestate positus,vel honore perfunctus, etc. 3 Vel secretiore piaculo, Larem igne,mero Genium, Penates nidore veneratus, accendat lumina, imponat tura,serta suspendat.TheC.I.L. vi. 736, arcanis perfu- sionibus in aeternum renatus taurobolium crioboliumque fecit. The names of the consuls are made out to bethose of 391 , Tatianus and Symmachus.5 C. Th. xvi . tit. 7.3.6 Ib. xvi. 8, 1 and 7; cf. xvi. 7 ,See Godefroy's Paratitlon.28 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK Iinto heathenism.¹ Between 381 and 396 the Code contains sixenactments, denouncing in tones of increasing severity thosewho have profaned their baptism and betrayed the faith ofChrist by a return to idolatry, and withdrawing from them therights of bequest or inheritance.2 Apostates of rank and dignityare to be degraded and branded with perpetual infamy, andall hope of restoration by penitence is refused to the renegade.Thirty years later, Valentinian III. thought it necessary torepeat the previous edicts, and even to add to their emphasis.*That men should abandon the religion of the State in theface of such trenchant legislation is a proof, not only of theforce of old religious associations, but also of a certain confidence that the cause of paganism was not yet hopeless. Norwas the confidence altogether unreasonable. The men who, inthe foremost place and station, still clung obstinately to thefaith of their ancestors, Symmachus, Flavianus, or Praetextatus,were born in the reign of Constantius. In their early youththey had seen the Church torn by fierce conflicts, in whichChristian charity and common humanity were forgotten in acontroversy about what to them seemed barren verbal subtleties.They had seen the bishops of rival sects anathematising oneanother, and men of lofty character driven into poverty andobscure exile for years, while the military and administrativeforce of a government, nominally Christian, lent itself to satisfythe rancour of theological hatred. They might well feel withthe honest pagan Ammianus Marcellinus that no savage beastscould equal the cruelty of Christians to one another. On theother hand, their own religion, down to 391 , had, in manyrespects, enjoyed practical toleration. Every one was still freeto worship in his own fashion. There was no interference withconscience or the expression of opinion. Seven Christianemperors had accepted the pontifical robes on their accession.1 C. Th. xvi. 7, 1. See Godefroy's note on this law. Cf. Rauschen,Jahrbücher der Chr. Kirche, p. 153 .He denies, apparently without sufficient grounds, the conclusions of Godefroy.C. Th. xvi. 7, 4, testamenti nonhabeant factionem; nulli in hereditate succedant; a nemine scribantur heredes.3 lb. xvi. 7, 5, de loco statuque dejecti perpetua urantur infamia .Notice that this is addressed to thearch- pagan prefect, Virius NicomachusFlavianus, in the consulship of his friend Symmachus.+ Ib. xvi. 7, 8.5 Amm. Marc. xxii. 5 , nullas infestas hominibus bestias ut sunt sibi feralesplerique Christianorum expertus; cf. xxi. 16, 18, for the historian's opinion of the theological disputes of the time.Ib. xvi . 10; Sym . Ep. x. 54.CHAP. II ITS LAST CONFLICTS WITH THE EMPIRE 2929In the year 356 Constantius, on his visit to Rome, hadshown extraordinary interest in the religion of old Rome. 'He had allotted priesthoods, and granted funds from thetreasury for the sacred ceremonies. Attended by theSenate, he had gone the round of the ancient temples, andshown a sympathetic curiosity in their legends and antiquities.The pagan revival of Julian, brief and illusory as it was, maywell have encouraged hopes of a more enduring restoration.When he granted universal toleration , recalled the martyrs ofthe Arian persecutions, and preached peace and goodwill to anassembly of bishops , he seemed to give paganism or Hellenismfor the moment a position of moral superiority. Yet Julianhimself discerned keenly the real weakness of paganism in theabsence of a dogmatic system and moral discipline , and hestrove to supply them. Charity and the pastorate of soulsmust no longer be a monopoly of the Galileans. The priestwas to instruct his people, instead of merely performing a partin theatrical ceremonies before the altar. The cruelties of theamphitheatre and the obscenities of the stage were no longerto be countenanced by true votaries of the Sun - god. Aman who had lived through such a period, and who had,under Christian emperors, with impunity served as pontiff andbeen consecrated publicly in the Taurobolium, might well doubtwhether the power, so often asserted and so constantly defied ,was destined finally to triumph.The murder of Valentinian II. by the hand or machinationsof Arbogastes, and the elevation of Eugenius to the purple,seemed for a moment to offer a chance of realising such dreams.Buried in his country seat, and professing to be satisfied withrural pleasures, Flavianus was really a man of great ambitions.In spite of his paganism, he was a favourite at the court,and rose to the highest offices. Yet under all his apparentepicurean indifference, or his study of imperial favour, Flavianus nursed, more than any of his contemporaries, the dreamof restoring the religion and spirit of ancient Rome. We cannothelp imagining him a man who suppressed, under a crust ofhalf melancholy, half contemptuous pessimism, the fire of an1 Sym. Rel. iii .2 Jul. Ep. 52; Fragm. Ep. in Hert- lein's ed. i . pp. 387 , 389, 391 .3 Zos. iv. 54; Socr. v. 25; Sozom.vii. 22. Cf. Rauschen, Jahrbücher derChr. Kirche, pp. 362-363, for a discus- sion of the authorities.30 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK I8energy which in earlier times might have done great service tothe State. A fascinating charm, which disarmed theologicalantipathy, united to a burning hatred of the Christian régime,commanding ability combined with hopeless illusions, are probably the secret of his strange and tragic career. He threwhimself into a movement which seemed for a moment to promisethe chance of a real pagan reaction. Eugenius, a Christian inname, was a Hellenist in culture,' and readily sanctioned therepeal of the anti- pagan laws. At the instance of Flavianus,2the altar of Victory was once more restored to its place, theexpenses of heathen rites were once more borne by the State,and all the curiosity of divination was allowed free play. Twoyears were spent in preparations for the conflict on which somuch depended. On both sides the leaders strove to fortifythe courage of their party by prophecy or oracle. Theodosiussent one of his eunuchs to consult a solitary of great age andfamous sanctity in the depths of the Thebaid. Flavianuswas no less active in securing supernatural assurance of thesuccess of his cause, and an oracle was circulated, whichseemed to predict the final overthrow of the Christian faithin the very year of the impending struggle. As consul of394, he celebrated the festivals of Isis and Magna Materunder the eyes of the usurper.5 The pagan party were fullof hope and confidence. When Arbogastes and Eugeniusquitted Milan to meet the army of Theodosius, they boastedthat they would return to stable their horses in the Christianbasilica.Within a few days these hopes were crushed inthe battle on the Frigidus. Flavianus by a voluntary deathrefused to witness the victory of the cause he hated, or toaccept the probable clemency of the conqueror. The triumphof Christianity seemed complete and final. Serena, the wife ofStilicho, one of the generals of Theodosius, in the presence ofthe last Vestal Virgin, took the necklace from the throatof the Great Mother, and placed it on her own. The sacrilegewas, to pagan minds, within a few years terribly avenged.1 Zos. iv. 54; cf. Seeck's Sym.cxviii.; Sozom. vii . 22, Eůyévios dé TIS οὐχ ὑγιῶς διακείμενος περὶ τὸ δόγμα τῶνΧριστιανῶν.2 Paulin. vit. Ambros. § 26.3 Claudian, in Eutrop. i. 312.Aug. de Civ. Dei, xviii. 53.5 Rufin. Hist. Eccl. ii . 33; Carm.Paris.; cf. Rauschen, Jahrbücher,p. 368.Paulin. vit. Ambros. § 31.7 Zos. iv. 57.8 Ib. v. 38.CHAP. 11 ITS LAST CONFLICTS WITH THE EMPIRE 31" 1Even yet the pagan cause evidently did not seem to itsadherents to be hopelessly lost. In spite of the defeat ofEugenius, the mass of the Senate were still obstinatelyattached to the faith " which had kept the city unravaged fora thousand years.' And one of the last acts of Theodosiuswas to convoke the conscript fathers and appeal to them toabandon their errors, and to accept the faith which promisedabsolution from all sin and impiety. According to Zosimus,the homily produced no effect, and the Emperor had even tolisten to arguments in favour of the ancient religion of theState.2In the year following the victory over Eugenius, Honoriusand Arcadius found it necessary to repeat their father's prohibition of all heathen rites.3 But the student may easilydiscover in this law the cause which made such constantiteration necessary. It is directed specially against governorsof provinces and their officials , who condoned offences againstprevious edicts. Neglect on the part of the inferior officersto carry out the Emperor's commands is now made a capitaloffence. Theodosius had shown a similar distrust of hissubordinates in the law of 392. And it appears again andagain in the legislation of this period . In the province ofAfrica the leaders of the Church complained of the slacknessof the provincial officers in giving effect to the penal lawsagainst paganism. We may compare the difficulties of theEmperor in securing obedience to his laws against heathen riteswith the apparently insuperable obstacles which the governmenthad to encounter for a hundred and fifty years, in its efforts topurge the corruption of the financial service.8 In both cases,the prohibitions are repeated with wearisome frequency, andpointed by threats of the severest punishment. But theEmperor was met by a dead weight of official resistance ornegligence, which apparently rendered legislation almostnugatory. The provincial governor and his staff were oftenin sympathy, or in league, with the offenders. A knowledge1 Zos. iv. 59; but cf. Rauschen, p. 299 .

• Zos. iv. 59 , μηδενὸς δὲ τῇ παρακλήσει πεισθέντος, κ.τ.λ. 3 C. Th. xvi. 10 , 13.

Ib. xvi. 10, 13, sciant autemmoderatores provinciarum nostrarumet his apparitio obsecundans, etc. 5 Ib. xvi. 10, 13, insuper capitali supplicio judicamus officia coercenda.Ib. xvi. 10, 12.7 Aug. Ep. 91 , § 8; cf. 97.8 Sec book iii. of this work.3222 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK Iof the history and opinions of the official to whom the lawis addressed will often explain the reason of the necessity forits repetition. For instance, the law of 391 ,' against theapostasy from the Christian faith of persons of high birth orofficial rank, is addressed to Flavianus, then Pretorian prefect,the man who, within three years, was to be a leader inthe great pagan reaction under Eugenius. A law of 409 2directed another Pretorian prefect, Jovius, to take the severestmeasures against those renegades who were adopting thesuperstition of the Heaven- worshippers. It may well bedoubted whether Jovius, who, if he had any serious policy orfaith, believed in the tolerant policy of Stilicho, and inastrology, was likely to display much zeal in enforcing thewill of the Emperor against such heretics.On the other hand, the pagan sentiment or the taste ofmany officials sometimes influenced the Government torestrain the fanatical Vandalism which, both in the East andthe West, was making havoc of the temples and their treasuresof art. It was probably the pagan author of the Saturnaliawho evoked the edict of 399,3 forbidding the destruction ofsuch masterpieces in Spain and Gaul. In the years whichfollowed the death of Theodosius, there is a marked effortto check the desecration of the ancient shrines by greed orfanaticism.4 S. Jerome and S. Augustine exult over theruin of the temples of the false gods. And there is no doubtthat the destructive energy of men like Theophilus ofAlexandria, S. Martin of Tours, and Marcellus in Syria, hadmany imitators. But the emperors had no wish to see thedemolition of costly and beautiful buildings. They might stillbe used as places of public meeting and resort, or consecratedto Christian worship. The tumultuous gatherings, headed bymonks, which wrought such deplorable havoc in the East, wereprohibited by Arcadius; and there is evidence that governors1 C. Th. xvi. 7, 5. diruta, partim clasa, ep.; cf. Gregor72 Ib. xvi. 8, 19. On these Coelicolae v. Godefroy's note, t . 6, p. 258.3 Ib. xv. 10, 15.Hieron. Ep. 107, § 1 , auratum squalet Capitolium . Fuligine etaranearum telis omnia Romae templacooperta sunt; Aug. Ep. 232, § 3,videtis certe simulacrorum templapartim sine reparatione collapsa, partim6ovius, pp. 58-60.Sulp. Sev. vit. S. Mart. c. 13;Sozom. vii. 15; cf. Godefroy's note to C. Th. xvi. 10, 16.6 C. Th. xvi . 10, 15, volumus publicorum operum ornamenta servari; cf. xvi. 10, 3.7 Ib. xvi. 10 , 16.CHAP. 11 ITS LAST CONFLICTS WITH THE EMPIRE 33of taste and sentiment seconded the imperial will. TheChristian poet Prudentius makes Theodosius recommend tothe Senate the preservation of the temple marbles, as monuments of national greatness and masterpieces of art. ' In thereign of the younger Theodosius nearly 300 temples of thegods were still standing, although their ornaments and platesof gold had been torn off to swell the ransom demanded byAlaric. Many works of art were buried and forgotten, in theterrors of persecution or invasion.2 But in the time ofHonorius, and even in that of Justinian, immense numbers ofthem were still preserved, both in the open spaces of the cityand in the halls of the nobles.3From the death of Theodosius till 408, although thereligious conflict was fierce, it was controlled to some extentby the moderating influence of Stilicho. It is not our purposeto disentangle the perplexed story of those puzzling anddisastrous years. On the one side were the bishops, backedby some of the great nobles and the officers, Roman orbarbarian, of the elder Theodosius, the party which had alreadywon a great, though not yet decisive victory. On the otherwas the mass of the senatorial class, with a crowd of Arians,Jews, Manichaeans, and philosophic freethinkers, who, thoughdivided in religious belief, were united by old patrioticassociations, or by the hatred of a menacing theocracy.Stilicho, who was left guardian of the young emperors, was,or gave himself out to be, the depositary of the last wishes ofTheodosius on the religious problem of the time. He interpreted his commission to be one of toleration, to hold thebalance even between the opposing factions.In the year395 an amnesty was proclaimed," and the brand of ignominy,attached to the party of Eugenius, was obliterated . Ancientpagan festivals in Africa received legal sanction. The judicialpower of the episcopate was limited, and the Senate, whichwas the s.ronghold of pagan sentiment, was accorded an1 Contra Sym. i. 501. Inscriptions Ishow that in 483 statues of Minervawere restored by the Urban prefect.C.I.L. vi. 526, 1664.2Gregorovius, i. 78, n. 3.3 In the time of Justinian, 3785statues remained in thecity. Gregorov.i . 79; cf. Notitia Occid. c. iv. The4curator statuarum was an officer underthe Praef. Urb.; see Böcking's ed. p.201.4 Ambros. de Obit. Theod. 5.5 C. Th. xv. 14, 12.6 Ib. xvi. 10, 17. Cf. Godefroy's note.7 Ib. xvi. 11, 1; cf. xvi. 2, 12, 23, 41.D34 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK Iauthority which it had not enjoyed for many ages. Yet the antipagan laws still in theory retained their force, and the crowdof pagans and heretics were, at least nominally, kept in bounds. 'Amid the fury of party feeling and fanaticism, the cool, andprobably sceptical, statesman succeeded in satisfying neitherChristian nor pagan, and was finally execrated by both alike."The ominous advent of Alaric and Radagaesus stimulated stillfurther the war of religions. Then began that melancholystrife of sophistry, as to the efficacy of the old gods or the newto protect and prosper their worshippers, which was only closedby the genius of S. Augustine. Every fluctuation of fortunewas eagerly seized upon, and skilfully used, to discredit or toglorify Jupiter or Christ. What we are chiefly concerned tonotice is the force and fervour of pagan sentiment at thistime. Never in the early days of Rome was superstitionapparently more rampant. At the first tidings of the comingof the Goths or Huns, all the old omens of the days of theSamnite and Carthaginian wars reappear. The terror of the timecan still be felt thrilling in the verses of Claudian. Men talkedof dreams, of strange flights of birds, of comets and eclipses,of showers of stones, and unearthly sounds in the silence ofthe night. They watched the settling of swarms of bees, andturned the leaves of the Sibylline books of fate.* Theyrecalled the flight of the twelve vultures which had crossed thegaze of Romulus, and, in defiance of chronology, abridged theyears portended by their flight. When Radagaesus with hishost of 200,000 Huns descended from the Alps, the oldpagan feeling defied all restraint, and the cries of its panic andregret reached the ears of the Bishop of Hippo. The mostterrible invader who had ever appeared in Italy, men said, wasa diligent votary of his strange northern gods; and the sonsof old Rome were deprived of the help of their ancientdeities, to whom they were now forbidden to offer a grain of1 C. Th. xvi. 5, 37, 38, 39.2 Rutil. Namat. ii. 41; Oros. vii.38; cf. Rauschen, Jahrbücher derChrist. Kirche, p. 558.3 Claud. de Bell. Get. 227-247.4 Ib. 231:quid carmine poscat fatidico custos Romani carbasus aevi.5 Ib. 265:tunc reputant annos, interceptoque volatu vulturis, incidunt properatis saecula metis.566 Aug. de Civ. Dei, v. 23 , nobisapud Karthaginem dicebatur, hoc credere, spargere, jactare paganos,quod ille diis amicis protegentibus et opitulantibus, quibus immolare cotidieferebatur, vinci omnino non posset ab eis, qui talia diis Romanis sacra non facerent, nec fieri a quoquam permit- terent.CHAP . II ITS LAST CONFLICTS WITH THE EMPIRE 352incense. Meanwhile the feeling of suspicion towards Stilichowas deepening into hatred on the Christian side. The clergydid not find in him the facile instrument of persecutionthat they desired. They exalted the piety and virtues ofthe weak and worthless Honorius at the expense of the manwithout whose guidance Honorius was a mere cipher. Theycirculated the myth, which was accepted also by the paganRutilius, that Stilicho had let loose the hordes of barbarism onthe Empire, with the deep purpose of re- establishing the paganreligion, and that his son Eucherius was to be the Julian ofanother religious reaction.3 The great general and statesman wascharged with slackness and perfidy in his campaigns againstAlaric. The victory at Pollentia was attributed to supernaturalaid, in spite of the sacrilegious violation of the holytime of Easter.With reckless inconsistency the men who lauded the Christianclemency and reverence of Alaric, vilified Stilicho's policy ofconciliation as treachery and weakness." On the other hand,the old Roman party still more heartily detested the manwho had borne a part in the victory over Eugenius, and whor*lied on those German captains and soldiers who were nowthe main defence of Rome. The ignoble triumph of the motleycombination which overwhelmed Stilicho has been often told,and need not be repeated here. The hypocritical Olympius,"who owed his first rise to Stilicho, attained a brief ascendancy,amid the blessings and congratulations of the dignitaries ofthe Church.8 And the Church took an ample revenge for theinterval of clemency. The last endowments of the old religionwere withdrawn, the images of the gods were pulled down,the temples were either confiscated or destroyed, the banquetsand games were prohibited. All enemies of the Catholicfaith were banished from the imperial service.10 The feigned1 Aug. Ep. 97; Hieron. Ep. 123,§17, quod non vitio principum, qui vel religiosissimi sunt, sed scelere semibarbari accidit proditoris; Oros. vii.37, 11.2 Rutil. Namat. ii. 46.3 Oros. vii . 38, § 1.4 Ib. vii. 37, 2, tacco de Alaricorege cum Gothis suis saepe victo, saepe concluso semperque dimisso.5 Ib. vii. 39; de Civ. Dei, i. 1.6 Zos. iv. 57,59; Rutil. Namat. ii . 41 .-7 Zos. v. 32, ἐν δὲ τῇ φαινομένῃτῶν Χριστιανῶν εὐλαβείᾳ πολλὴν ἀπο- κρύπτων ἐν ἑαυτῷ πονηρίαν . — Cf.Olympiod. § 2, μιαιφόνῳ καὶ ἀπανθρώπῳ σπουδῇ Ὀλυμπίου ὃν αὐτὸς τῷ βασιλεῖπροσῳκείωσε τὸν διὰ ξίφους ὑπέμεινε θάνατον.8 Aug. Ep. 96, temporali vero felicitate ad aeterna lucra te prudenter usurum minime dubitamus. Writtenin 408 to Olympius.9 C. Th. xvi. 10, 19.10 Ib. xvi. 5, 42. This mischiev-36 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK Ienthusiasm of Olympius obtained for the bishops that civiljurisdiction which had been strictly limited by Stilicho.¹ And,to ensure the victory, the bishops themselves were charged withthe congenial duty of enforcing laws, which the milder or lessconscientious lay- governor had often allowed to sleep.24Another short-lived and impotent pagan reaction occurredin 409, when Alaric, with the approval of the Senate, set upa rival emperor to Honorius in the person of the dilettanteAttalus.3 The leading members of this government belongedto the pagan party. Lampadius, the Pretorian prefect, was anavowed believer in divination and its kindred arts, and hadbeen honoured with a letter from S. Augustine on the subjectof this superstition. Marcian , the prefect of the city, had,during the brief ascendency of Eugenius, been guilty ofapostasy.5 Tertullus, the consul of 410, was a declared paganof the old school, who did not hesitate, in addressing theSenate, to express a hope that the ancient pontificate would berevived in himself. The treacherous or fickle Jovius, whomAttalus raised to the prefecture, was a free-thinker of thetype common in those days of fluid convictions. Under suchpatronage, the Chaldaean fortune-tellers and diviners, who hadbeen banished by so many emperors, renewed their activity.⁹For the first time since the days of Constantine, the Labarumdisappeared from the coins.10 Attalus, in a speech of ornaterhetoric, charmed the Senate with the picture of a reunited 11ous enactment, which deprived Rome of the services of some of her bestsoldiers, is referred to in Zos. v. 46. It was issued within three months afterthe death of Stilicho.1 C. Th. xvi. 10, 19; xvi. 2, 39.2 The African bishops in October of 408 sent a deputation to demand the enforcement of the laws against pagansand heretics, and S. Augustine backed up their demands by a private letter to Olympius ( Ep. 97) . At the sametime the pagans, on the death ofStilicho, clamoured for the repeal ofthese laws, on the ground that they had emanated from Stilicho. Thatthey were not vigorously enforcedduring Stilicho's ascendency seems im- plied in the words: omnia quae in Donatistas, Manichaeos, sive Priscil lianistas, vel in Gentiles a nobis decretasunt non solum manere decernimus,8verum in executionem plenissimameffectumque deduci ( C. Th. xvi. 5, 43) .Stilicho's death took place 10 Kal . Sep.408; the laws excluding pagans fromthe army, and enforcing penalties against heretics, are dated 18 and 17 Kal. Dec. 408. See Godefroy's note toC. Th. xvi. 10, 19.3 Zos. vi. 7.Aug. Ep. 246.He was procos. of Africa in 394.See Carm. Paris. 78, quoted bySeeck, Sym. n. 588.6 Oros. vii. 42.7 Zos. vi. S.8 Paulin. Nol. Ep. 16.9 Sozom . ix. 8, μάντεσι δέ τισιν ὑπαχθείς, οὔτε ᾿Αλαρίχῳ ἐπείσθη.10 Eckel, Doctr. Num. (quoted in Thierry's Alaric, p. 413).11 Zos. vi. 7; Sozom. ix. 8 and 9.CHAP. II ITS LAST CONFLICTS WITH THE EMPIRE 37empire of both East and West, and held out the hope of aspeedy restoration of the festivals and temple services of theirancestors. It was the last attempt of the old pagan spirit toassert itself openly in the Empire of the West. It was madewith the support of a German and Arian chief. Attalus had,in deference to Alaric, received baptism at the hands ofSighe- Sar, an Arian bishop.¹ Yet he was for the moment thehead of a party, some of whom dreamed of a return to thetolerant policy of Constantine or of Valentinian I., with thesupport of the Gothic power; while others may have evennursed the hope that the hated faith was already doomed.Attalus was a worthy representative of such illusions. Andthe great chief, who had been his sole stay, was within a fewmonths laid to rest in the secret grave in the bed of theBusentus.2With Stilicho probably fell his friend and brilliant eulogist,the poet Claudian. He had, beyond a doubt, a high place inthat society, of which he is the sole literary glory. Yet it iscurious that, about the history of the last man of letters, whohas something of the manner and inspiration of the great age,so little is known. He had, in his days of prosperity, assailedin a biting epigram³ the cupidity of an Egyptian compatriot,who rose high in the imperial service, and became Pretorianprefect after Stilicho's death.ª We can only conjecture thefate of the poet, from an epistle addressed to this dignitary,"imploring his mercy by an appeal to the examples of pityconsecrated in Grecian legend. Claudian's great crime wasthat, in the words of Orosius, he was Ia most obstinatepagan." What his religious convictions really were we cannever know. Probably his deepest religious attachment wasfor Roma dea, the " mother of arts and arms," who has gatheredthe vanquished into her bosom, who has given her citizenshipto the world, whose dominion shall have no end. Born onthe banks of the Nile, he was yet a Roman of the Romans,1 Sozom. ix. 9.2 Jordan. de Reb. Get. 30.3 Claud. Epigr. 30:insomnis Pharius sacra, profana rapit.4 C. Th. xv. 14, 13. Cf. Seeck's Sym.clxxxvi. n. 944; Teuffel, ii . 440, § 6.5 Ep. 1.6 Oros. vii . 35, 21 , poeta eximius"sed paganus pervicasissimus; Aug. de Civ. Dei, v. 26; Gesner's Prol. to Claud.v.; Rauschen, Jahrbücher der Christ.Kirche, pp. 555-9; cf. Claud. de Cons.Stil. iii. 136-160; de Bell. Get. 50sqq.7 Claud. ad Gennad. 3, et nostrocognite Nilo; cf. Ep. 1 , 56.388THETENACITYOFPAGANISMBOOKIand had a mingled hatred and contempt for the new Romeon the Bosphorus, with its mushroom and effeminate civilisation. The verve of Juvenal reappears in his bitter raillery ofthe eunuch minister of the Eastern Empire, and of the cringingservility of the Byzantine nobles. It is little wonder thatClaudian was the favourite of the Roman Senate, still paganto the core, and profoundly jealous of the Eastern capital. Hispowers were lavished on the achievements of Stilicho, whosepolicy was to humour the Senate by a politic deference to itsantiquated prerogatives. Serena, Stilicho's wife, was his greatfriend and patroness, and is said to have arranged a wealthymatch for the poet. On all this circle he expends the traditional ornament of Greek and Roman mythology. Nor doeshe hesitate to do the same for the Christian princes, Theodosiusand Honorius, who were pledged to the extirpation of Paganism.There is hardly a hint in Claudian that the Roman worldhas officially adopted a faith hostile to all his pagan dreams.He appears placidly unconscious of the great revolution, andrecalls Honorius to the Penates of the Palatine," as if Romewas still the Rome of Augustus.6A few years after the eclipse of Claudian, we have a glimpsefor a moment of another pagan man of letters , who is nowlittle known, but who is the last genuine representative of theold pagan tone in literature. Rutilius Namatianus was one ofthe Gallic aristocracy who had remained untouched by thegreat Christian enthusiasm aroused by S. Martin. His fatherhad held high imperial office, and he himself had beenUrban prefect in 414, only six years after the trenchant lawhad been published, which condemned to final ruin the temples.and images of the old gods. He had lived in intimate friendship with the greatest Roman nobles; and the fragment of hispoem which we possess comes to us as a solitary revelation oftheir deeper feelings. It is the tale of his homeward voyageto Gaul in the year 416 ," when he was reluctantly compelled,1 Claud. in Eutrop. ii . 326-341 .2 Ib. ii. 137.3 See an inscription dedicated praegloriosissimo poetarum - petente Se- natu, C.I.L. vi. 1710.Claud. Ep. 2.5 Ib. de VIto Cons. Honor. 407.6 Rutil. Namat. i. 595; cf. 575 sqq.He had been consularis Tusciae, andPraef. Urb. (C'. Th. vi . 26 , 8) .7 lb. i. 157, 473.8 Ib. i. 157-160, 473; cf. C. Th.xiii. 5 , 38, which is addressed to Albinus, Praef. Urb. in 416.9 This is inferred from Rutil. Namat.i. 135:CHAP. II ITS LAST CONFLICTS WITH THE EMPIRE 39by the ravages which his paternal estates had suffered fromthe invaders, ' to leave the city, to whose gilded fanes he looksback with religious veneration and patriotic regret.The poem has great interest from a purely literary point ofview. But we are at present concerned only with the author'sattitude to the opposing creeds. Brief and fragmentary as itis, it discloses more of the inner pagan sentiment of thearistocratic class than the much more voluminous poetry ofClaudian. Claudian's paganism is more purely literary; it hasthe air of an unchallenged supremacy. He writes as if hebelonged to the age of Virgil, as if Christianity had neverexisted. On the religious conflict of his time he shows thecalm reticence of Symmachus or Macrobius. He is either toofull of Roman pride to recognise the new faith, or too cultivated to hate it. Rutilius is a man of different mould. Helets us see plainly the working of his own mind on religioussubjects, and the feelings of his class towards those who rejected the old religion of their country. That such a poemshould have been published under the Christian empire, andthat its author should have held the highest office, is a startling proof of the persistence of the old Roman practical toleration of freedom of thought.Rutilius is faithful to the old religion, but he is not itsslave. Sometimes he will uphold the literal truth of a myth.Sometimes he will use the language of Euhemerism or Deism.He displays in fact that mixture of scepticism and credulity,of conformity and free thought, which characterised the cultivated pagan for many ages before his time. But thereis no hesitation in the tone in which he speaks of theenemies of Paganism . In some scathing lines, he gives ventto the concentrated hatred which was felt by his caste forthe memory of Stilicho. The impious traitor, who burnt theSibylline books and, for his own selfish ends, laid open thehearth and citadel of the Empire to the tribes of the North, isconsigned to the lowest depths of Tartarus. Nothing couldsurpass the almost brutal contempt which Rutilius feels forquamvis sedecies denis et mille peractis annus praeterea jam tibi nonus cat(i.c. 1169 A.U.C. ). The capture of Toulouse is mentioned in i. 496.1 Rutil. Namat. i. 25:praesentes lacrimas tectis debemus avitis.2 lb. i. 255; cf. i. 73.3 lb. ii. 41.40 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK I45" 3the Jews, with one of whom he had an encounter inhis wanderings; for their obscene rite of initiation , for thelistless sloth of their Sabbath, spent in commemoration of aGod who was weary of his work of creation. " But when hespeaks of " the conquered race that crushes its conquerors,"there can be little doubt that he has in view the religionwhich was crushing out his own. The islands of the TuscanSea, which he passed in his voyage, swarmed with monkishexiles, who had forsaken family and public duty for a life ofprayer and solitary asceticism. The monks in those days werehardly judged even by their own co-religionists. At thefuneral of Blaesilla, the daughter of a great Roman house,who had withdrawn from the world and was believed to haveshortened her life by her austerities, the mob of Rome brokeinto shouts of execration against what they regarded as aninhuman fanaticism. The aversion to the ascetic life, felt bythe cultivated man of the world, is expressed in more urbaneform by Ausonius in his letters of expostulation to S. Paulinus.But that feeling probably never found more pointed utterancethan in the lines of Rutilius on the hermits of Capraria.the eyes of the pagan noble and Roman patriot, they arewretches who wish to screen themselves from too observanteyes, who make themselves miserable to avoid misery, who,while they flee from the ills of life, are incapable of enjoyingits blessings. Rutilius had little conception of the force anddestiny of the movement which he derided.6InIn the practice of those arts which professed to controlnature and to forecast the future, in the excitement or obscenityof the theatre and the circus, the heathen spirit found a shelterlong after its public ritual had ceased.The belief in the arts of magic, divination , and astrologywas probably the most living and energetic force in the pagansentiment of the time. These practices had always been sus1 Rutil. Namat. i. 384-398:humanis animal dissociale cibis.2 lb.:septimaquaequedies turpidamnataveterno,tamquamlassatimollisimagoDei.3 Ib. v. 398:victoresque suos natio victa premit.4 Ib. i. 440:jam se Capraria tollit.squalet lucifugis insula plena viris .5 Hieron. Ep. 39, § 5, dolet ( mater)filiam jejuniis interfectam.Quousque genus detestabile Monachorum non urbe pellitur?6 Rutil. Namat. 445:quaenam perversi rabies tam stulta cerebri,dum mala formides nec bona posse pati .Cf. the reference ( 518) to a friend who has become a recluse, " perditus hic vivo funere civis erat. "CHAP. II ITS LAST CONFLICTS WITH THE EMPIRE 413pected by Roman statesmen.¹ The cultivation of them wascondemned under the severest penalties by the legislationof the fourth and fifth centuries.2 Yet it was never reallysuppressed, and, in its strange terrors and seductions, it perpetuated the power of heathenism far into the Christian ages.Its fascination, both over the cultivated class and the vulgar,was never more powerful than in the first decade of thefifth century. There is no more singular episode, in thattime of unstable beliefs and uncertain party lines, than that inthe year 408, when some Tuscan adepts in the secret artsoffered their services to Pompeianus, prefect of Rome, to savethe city from the Goths. They told the prefect how, a shorttime before, they had by their spells called down thelightning,5and driven the Goths away from the walls of a beleagueredtown. The prefect consulted the pontifical books, and wasevidently inclined to try the effect of the ancient arts. Butthe practice of them was sternly prohibited, and a recent lawhad laid a special responsibility on the higher magistrates,and on the bishops, to enforce the prohibition. Pompeianusin his difficulty sought the advice of Innocent, Bishop ofRome. This great pontiff, who was also a great patriot, didnot see fit to oppose his own opinion to the wishes of thepeople at such a crisis, but he stipulated that the magicrites should be performed secretly. The Tuscans, however,insisted that the ritual would only be efficacious if publiclyperformed on the Capitol and in the open spaces of the city,in the presence of the Senate. It has been suggested thatInnocent, foreseeing this, gave his consent under a legallyimpossible condition, to save the Christian cause from anoutburst of popular hatred. How the matter ended isuncertain. The Christian historian says that the rites wereperformed, but that they proved unavailing.The paganZosimus affirms that the aid of the Tuscans was declined.In any case, the incident reveals the persistent force of pagansuperstition.1 See Maury's La Magie, p. 70 sqq.2 C. Th. ix. tit. 16.3 Maury, pt. i. c. 7.4 Zos. v. 41.5 Ib. v. 41; Sozom. ix. 6. The nameofthe place appears variouslyas Neveia,Larnia, and, by conjecture, Narnia.86 C. Th. ix. 16, 3, 5.7 ὁ δὲ τὴν τῆς πόλεως σωτηρίαν ἔμ- προσθεν τῆς οἰκείας ποιησάμενος δόξηςλάθρᾳ ἐφῆκεν αὐτοῖς ποιεῖν ἅπερ ἴσασιν.Zos. 1.c.8 Sozom. ix. 6; cf. Zos. v. 41.42 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK I5The proposal of Pompeianus was a gross violation of manylaws, from the time of Constantine.'¹ The consultation of aseer, diviner, or any professor of the magic art, was madeby Constantius an offence punishable by death.2 A similarpenalty was denounced against the tribe of Eastern fortunetellers by Valentinian and Valens, and, in spite of thegeneral toleration of heathen worship which characterised therule of these Emperors, a ruthless war was waged with thesecret arts, which were suspected as lending themselves toconspiracy against the Emperor. One law especially of thattime, relating to offenders of the senatorial class, revealswhat was probably a real political danger. The persecutionto which philosophers and professors of Hellenism were subjected in the reign of Valens may have had some connectionwith the later Neoplatonic cultivation of magic and dark superstitions. The earlier Alexandrines condemned the magic arts."But it is well known that, in the later stages of Neoplatonism ,the power to wield the forces of nature, and to predict thefuture, was more and more openly claimed. Fasting, prayer,and mystical elation were thought to bring the votary intocommunication with the supernatural powers. The influenceof the stars on the fortunes of human life, which was denied byPlotinus, became an article of faith with many of his successors.In the hands of Maximus and Chrysanthius, and the men whosurrounded Julian, Neoplatonism lost its philosophic purityand elevation, and tended more and more to absorb the morematerialistic conceptions of paganism. The theurgic virtues,1 C. Th. ix. 16, 1 and 2. Constantine, however, permitted public sacri- fices of divination; qui vero id vobis existimatis conducere, adite aras publicas atque delubra.2 b. ix. 16, 4, sileat omnibus per- petuo divinandi curiositas. Etenimsupplicium capitis feret gladio ultore prostratus, etc. 3 lb. ix. 16, 8.4 Amm. Marc. xxvi. 3. Zos. iv. 13gives an idea of the grounds of theEmperor's suspicion of these practices.5 C. Th. ix. 16, 10, " de Senatoribus maleficii reis. "Maury, La Magic, p. 121 .7 Vacherot, L'École d'Alexandrie, ii.p. 115, where the opinions of Porphyry are set forth; cf. ii. 147.1088 Macrob. Somn. Scip. i . 19, 27, et Plotinus . pronunciat nihil vi velpotestate eorum hominibus evenire.9 Vacherot, ii. 145, where the logical development of the beliefin magic arts,etc., is traced from the fundamentalprinciples of the school; Plotinus andPorphyry recoiled from these conse- quences. But the doctrine of theuniverse, as a " sympathetic whole bound together by affinities, inevit- ably led to theurgy on the onehand and magic on the other ( Vach.ii. 147)."10 lb. ii. 148; cf. Eunap. vit. Iam- blich. p. 13 (Boissonade's ed . ) , where Iamblichus is said to have risen 10 cubits from the earth during prayer(cf. p. 15). In the life of Maximus,CHAP. II ITS LAST CONFLICTS WITH THE EMPIRE 4323miracle and magic, overshadowed the detached and loftyidealism of the earlier Alexandrines. S. Augustine,¹ withhis keen practical sense, strikes at this degraded Platonism asthe very heart of the heathen position, and particularly at itsdoctrine of daemons, which was the foundation of the belief inincantations and magic. The daemons were the powers actingas mediators between the gods, who dwell apart in the highestheaven, and mortal men. Along with certain divine qualities,the daemons have all the passions of humanity; they areirritated by neglect, or soothed and propitiated by gifts andsacrificial rites.4 From them comes the knowledge of thefuture by augury and dreams, and the power to commandthe elements, by occult arts, songs, incantations, and potions.The noteworthy thing is that, in condemning this balefulsuperstition, the Christian often showed that he had quiteas much faith in daemonic powers as the pagan had." Constantius threatens with death those who dare to disturb theelements, or to call forth the spirits of the dead by magicspells. S. Augustine regarded these beings as spirits banishedfrom heaven for unpardonable sin, who, by diabolic deceit, hadpersuaded men to give them divine honours.79The law of 409, ordering the expulsion of the Mathematicifrom Rome, and all cities of Italy, was probably suggested byPope Innocent, to prevent a repetition of that painful scene ofsuperstitious observance at which he may have had to connive.But the threats of Honorius, while they may have drivenmany of the crowd of diviners and sorcerers into remote countryplaces, utterly failed to extinguish the superstition, and meneven in high station long continued to practise the forbiddenrites with impunity. The leading members of the government,an image of Hecate breaks into smiles under the influence of incantation(p. 51).1 De Civ. Dei, viii . 14 sqq.2 Vacherot, ii . 127; Maury, LaMagic, p. 87.3 De Civ. Dei, viii . 14 , habent enim cum diis communem immortalitatem corporum, animorum autemcum hominibus passiones.4 Ib. viii. 16, dicit (Platonicus)ad eos pertinere divinationes augurum,aruspicum, vatum atque somniorum,ab his quoque esse miracula magorum.5 Maury, p. 99. The Christiandoctors were only following the Hebraic tradition on this subject.6 C. Th. ix. 16, 5, multi magicis artibus ausi elementa turbare, vitas insontium labefactare non dubitant,etc.7 De Civ. Dei, viii . 22, quia decaeli superioris sublimitate dejectimerito inregressibilis transgressionis in hoc sibi congruo velut carcere prae- damnati sunt.8 Ib. ix. 16, 12; Zos. v. 41.9 C. Th. ix. 16, 12, non solum urbe Roma, sed etiam omnibus civitatibuspelli decernimus.44 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK Iestablished by the order of Alaric, were devoted to the blackarts. Attalus, the new Emperor, was ready to accept anominal Christianity; but he belonged to the crowd of sceptics,whose only real faith was in Hellenism and astrology or magic.When Alaric wished to send troops over to Africa in order tocrush Heraclian, the adherent of Honorius, Attalus relied moreon the promises of diviners, who told him that he could becomemaster of Africa without a conflict, than on the counsels of aserious statesmanship. Lampadius, the Pretorian prefect inthis singular government, was, as we have seen, the friend andcorrespondent of S. Augustine, who laboured to convert himfrom his belief in astrology.2 The mass of the Roman aristocracy, with the illustrious exception of the great Christian houseof the Anicii,3 rejoiced in the advent to power of this strangealliance of Arian Christianity, dilettante Hellenic culture,and Chaldaean superstition. Doubtless, as we shall see in alater page, there was a purer and more respectable elementin the force of the last pagan reaction. There was a realpatriotic feeling, a real religious devotion, and a philosophictheology, which, however arid and, to our minds, uninspiring,yet enabled the nobler sort to maintain their hold on the faithof the past, while they put out of sight its grosser elements.But the baser form of ancient superstition was probablythe most tenacious and energetic. No penal legislation coulderadicate the belief, held alike by the most educated and themost ignorant, that there was a lore which could control theoperations of nature, and compel the future to unveil its secrets.In the very year when the last of the anti-pagan laws waspublished, Litorius, the lieutenant of Actius, in his conflict.with the Visigoths, was led to his destruction under the wallsof Toulouse by trusting (to use the words of the Chronicle)"in the responses of seers and the monitions of daemons."Only a year or two before the fall of the Western Empire,5Lampridius, an accomplished man of letters at Bordeaux, andone of the most admired and trusted friends of Sidonius, the1 Zos. vi. 7, ταῖς δὲ ἐπὶ τοῖς μάντεσιν ἐλπίσιν ἑαυτὸν ἐκδιδοὺς καὶ ἀμαχητὶπεριποιήσεσθαι Καρχηδόνα καὶ τὰ περὶ Λιβύην ἅπαντα πεπεισμένος, κ.τ.λ. Sozom .ix. 8.2 Aug. Ep. 146.3 Zos. vi. 7." 4Prosp. Chron. ad a. 439, dum aruspicum responsis et daemonum signifi- cationibus fidit, pugnam cum Gothisimprudenter conseruit, etc. Sid. Ep. viii . 11.CHAP. II ITS LAST CONFLICTS WITH THE EMPIRE 45bishop of Auvergne, consulted a troop of African sorcerers asto the hour of his death."9In the cruel sports of the arena and the impurities of thestage the Christian Fathers for ages recognised that paganismhad its strongest and most enduring hold on the people. S.Cyprian said that " idolatry was the mother of games.'Diana presided over the hunting scenes, the god of war wasthe patron of the gladiatorial combats.¹ When the bloodystrife had closed, a figure, representing the powers of the underworld, gave the finishing stroke to the wretches who were stilllingering. The Romans, under the most Christian EmperorsTheodosius and Honorius, were still gloating over spectacleswhich their ancestors established to do honour to the manesof departed relatives. The amphitheatre gave a sort ofconsecration to the old savage instinct for cruelty, as thetheatre gratified the pruriency of low desires. It is difficultfor us to conceive the fascination which those awful holocaustsof human life exercised, not only on characters hardened byvoluptuousness, but on the cultivated and humane.3 Aphilosophic friend of S. Augustine, who was half inclined to bea Christian, and who on principle detested such spectacles, onceallowed himself to be drawn into the fatal circle. At firsthe resolved to close his eyes to the ghastly horrors of thescene. Presently, at the applause raised by some crisis in theconflict, his eyes opened and would not be withdrawn. Thefumes of the carnage seemed to intoxicate his senses; he losthis identity; and became one of the bloodthirsty crowd. Hewent away eager to return.Men can find a justification for any established institution,and these cruel displays were defended, even by good andeminent men, as the virile amusem*nts of a warlike race,accustoming it to make light of death. No such defence waspossible in the last years of the Empire, when the Roman armywas recruited and officered by Germans; and when Romans1 Ozanam, La Civ. au cinquième siècle,i. p. 183; Tertull. de Spectaculis, 9, 10;Apol. 15, 12.2 Suet. Jul. 26; Valer. Max. ii.4, 7; Liv. Epit. 16.3 Plin. Panegyr. Traj. 33, visumest spectaculum inde non enerve necfluxum, nec quod animos virorum mol- liret et frangeret, sed quod ad pulcravolnera contemptumque mortis ac- cenderet.Aug. Conf. vi. 8.5 Plin. Traj. 33; Cic. Tusc. ii . 17,§ 41.46 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK Iwould mutilate themselves, and bury themselves in anyretreat to escape military service. " Yet this nerveless andeffeminate mob had been indulged by successive emperorswith these revolting atrocities. Even the greatest and bestprinces had to satisfy the cravings of a proletariat, whichprobably had more of " the ape and tiger " than any thatever existed. Trajan, with the approval of the humane Pliny,had, after his Dacian victories, sent down 10,000 gladiatorsinto the arena. M. Aurelius, in the performance of socialduty, gave gladiatorial shows himself, and attended them,though in a perfunctory and reluctant fashion. But the peoplewere offended when he turned away to read or pen despatchesin the amphitheatre; and when he enrolled the gladiatorsfor the Marcomannic war, men said, with35sneer, thathe had diminished the pleasures of the people in order toconvert them to philosophy. The Emperor Constantine, inthe year of the Council of Nicaea, restrained, by an ambiguous edict, this cruel amusem*nt in the Eastern Empire.But in the West it went on almost unchecked. Valentinian,indeed, forbade Christians to be condemned to the gladiatorialschool as a punishment for crime. And, in 367, members ofthe Palatine service were also exempted from this fate. Butthe elder Theodosius did not abolish the inhuman spectacle,'when he interdicted the peaceful worship of the pagan temples.In the last years of the fourth century 10 Symmachus had, at greattrouble and expense, " arranged for a gladiatorial combat at thegames which were to celebrate his son's prætorship. But theband of Saxons who had been brought from the shores of theBaltic to grace the festival, refused to gratify the mob of Romeby a public exhibition of their fighting powers, and preferreda quiet death in their cells. In the year 404, the inaugurationof the sixth consulship of Honorius was to be celebrated by1 C. Th. vii. 13, 10 , " de Murcis ";cf. Amm. Marc. xv. 12, 3.tacula in otio civili et domestica quietenon placent.7 Ib. ix. 40, 8.c. 15 , καὶ 2 C. Th. vii. tit. 18 passim.3 Dion Cass. lxviii.μονομάχοι μύριοι ηγωνίσαντο.Capitolin. M. Ant. 6; cf. Capitolin .Ant. P. c. 12; Vop. Aurel. c. 33.5 M. Ant. 23, quod populum sublatis voluptatibus vellet cogere ad philo- sophiam.6 C. Th. xv. 12, 1 , cruenta spec8 Ib. ix. 40 , 11; cf. xv. 12, 2.9 See Godefroy's refutation ofBaronius on this subject, in the note to xv. 12, 1.10 On the date, see Seeck's Sym.lxxii. The games did not take place till 401.11 Sym. Ep. ii . 46.CHAP. II ITS LAST CONFLICTS WITH THE EMPIRE 47the customary sacrifice of life. Prudentius pleaded with theEmperor to abolish the ghastly rite, ' as his father had stoppedthe sacrifice of animals at the altar. The poet's prayer wasanswered, not by the will of Honorius, but by the martyrdomof the heroic monk, who flung himself into the arena, and diedamid the curses of the mob, whose cruel pleasures he haddared to interrupt.2But even when the cruelties of the arena were abolished,the circus and the theatre maintained for a long time theirdangerous attractions. The Roman passion for these spectacleswas of marvellous intensity. The austere pagan, AmmianusMarcellinus, relates that, at a time when famine wasthreatening, and when foreigners, including the " professors ofthe liberal arts," were ordered to withdraw from the city,three thousand dancing girls were allowed to remain. Longafter the time of which Ammianus wrote, the passion for thelubricity of the stage defied all the authority and moralinfluence of the Christian Church.3 Orosius and Salvianusregarded the theatre as a more serious danger than even theinvasions of the barbarians. S. Augustine had to complainthat the African churches were often emptied by the attractionsof these spectacles. Sidonius, late in the century, describesthe doubtful exhibitions of mythological pantomime as if theywere still in full life and vigour.The whole of the imperial legislation with regard to actorsshows at once the degradation of the Roman stage and thestubborn attachment of the people to the indescribableenormities perpetrated in the name of art. The worst socialcurse of the Lower Empire, the hereditary character of nearlyall callings, had left perhaps its deepest brand on the actor'sprofession. Treated as the vilest of mankind, yet the indispensable minister to the pleasures of the people, he waschained to his calling from generation to generation. " TheChurch fought one of its noblest battles to release theseunhappy slaves of a cruel voluptuousness; and the hand of1 Contra Sym. ii. 1124:ille urbem vetuit taurorum sanguine tingi;tu mortes miserorum hominum prohibeto litari.2 Amm. Marc. xiv. 6, 19.3 Salv. de Gub. Dei, vi. § 88.4 Sid. Carm. xxiii. 264 sqq. , esp.v. 286:seu Ledam quis agit Phrygemque ephebum aptans ad cyathos facit Tonanti suco nectaris esse dulciorem.Cf. Tertull. de Spect. 10, 17.5 C. Th. xv.7, 4; v. Godefroy's Paratit- lonandnotes; cf. Wallon, L'Esclavage, iii.48 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK IS. Ambrose is distinctly seen in some of the laws issuedduring his great episcopate. The bishops of Africa, where theallurements of the theatre were most powerfully felt, neverfailed to press the claims of humanity and morality on thestolid Honorius. But their efforts seem to have been illrewarded, for, in 413, the Emperor orders the " Tribune ofPleasures " at Carthage to recall to their wretched trade theactresses who had, by " imperial kindness," been previouslyreleased. From the time of Valentinian I. (371 ) the Churchhad indeed gained a great victory. The actress who, in articulomortis, asked for, and received, the last sacraments, was not tobe dragged back again, in case of recovery, to her hateful life.But the operation of the law is guarded by careful provisionsto prevent the holy rites depriving the people of an attractiveartiste.5 Even the law, which was probably extorted by theenergy of S. Ambrose in 380, provides that actresses, who havenot professed Christianity, shall have no release. And the lawof 381 commands that if an actress, by professing Christianity,has secured her emancipation, but has relapsed into vice, sheshall be recalled to theatrical servitude for ever; and the cold,cruel, hardness of the language of this law shows an inhumancontempt for a class whom society doomed to vice, andpunished for being vicious. It would be amusing, if it werenot painful, to notice the care with which the Emperor regulates the dress of actresses, with but little care for their morals,unless they can steal into the Church by means of the sacraments. The Emperor's sense of dignity, or perhaps a lingeringconsciousness of divinity, causes him, in 394, to banish allpictures of theatrical performers from the neighbourhood of hisOwn "sacred " statues. But the theatre and the circus weretoo dear to the people to be crushed by any authority but thegrowing power of the Church. And even the Church found it71 See Godefroy's note to C. Th. xv.7, 4 .2 Salv. de Gub. Dei, vi. § 69.3 C. Th. xv. 7, 13.+ Ib. xv. 7, 1.5 See Godefroy's note, t. v. p. 412.6 C. Th. xv. 7, 4 , given at Milan;see Godefroy's note. Ib. xv. 7, 8, de- tracta in pulpitum sine spe absolutionisullius ibi eousque permaneat donec anus ridicula, senectute deformis, nec tuncquidem absolutione potiatur, cum aliud quam casta esse non possit; cf. Raus- chen, Jahrbücher der Christ. Kirche,pp. 68, 91.7 C. Th. xv. 7, 11 , his quoquevestibus noverint abstinendum quas Graeco nomine a Latino Crustas vocant,etc .; cf. xv. 7 , 12, his illud adjicimus ut mimae publico habitu earum virginum quae Deo dicatae sunt non utantur.8 Ib . xv. 7, 12.CHAP. II ITS LAST CONFLICTS WITH THE EMPIRE 491a hard task to crush them. Salvianus is rhetorical and hehas a parti pris. But on matters of notorious fact histestimony must be accepted. And he tells us that theChristians were indulging in the madness of the circusand the wantonness of the theatre, when the arms of theVandals were ringing round the walls of Carthage and Cirta;and that the applause of the spectators was mingled with thegroans of the dying and the battle- cries of the besiegers.1 De Gub. Dei, vi. §§ 69, 71 , fragor,ut ita dixerim, extra muros et intramuros praeliorum et ludicrorum, confundebatur vox morientium voxque bacchantium . . .ECHAPTER IIIS. AUGUSTINE AND OROSIUS ON THE CAPTURE OF ROMEHITHERTO We have been occupied with the efforts of legislation,often baffled for more than a hundred years, to suppress theopen practice of heathen rites. Persecution of any opinion orreligious practice, however false, by sheer force, is not a pleasantsubject of contemplation to the modern mind. And it is witha feeling of relief that we turn from the threats of exile anddeath in the anti-pagan laws, to the more potent efforts ofChristian dialectic to conquer the ingrained moral and intellectual habits of so many generations of pagan devotion. Wemay think that in this controversy rhetoric sometimes doesduty for logic, that the reasoning is often sophistical, that thefacts of history are coloured and perverted to serve a controversial purpose. Yet it is a great advance in a religiousstruggle, when the appeal is to reason rather than to mere force;and we may well believe that the City of God, and even thetreatise of Orosius, had an influence on many pagans who wereobdurate in the face of threatening edicts. The Emperormight compel a perfunctory conformity to the will of theState; S. Augustine probably won many a wavering, restlessspirit to the ideals of the Church which was to dominate thefuture.The capture of Rome by Alaric produced a profound effecton the minds both of Christian and pagan. Following so1 For its effect on Christians seeS. Jerome's Ep. 126 , § 2, Ezechielis volumen olim aggredi volui . . . sed in ipso dictandi exordio ita animus meus occidentalium provinciarum , et1maxime urbis Romae vastatione confusus est, ut, juxta vulgare proverbium,propriumquoqueignorarem vocabulum:diuque tacui, sciens esse tempus lacri- marum.CHAP. 111 CONTROVERSY ON THE CAPTURE OF ROME 51soon upon the confiscation of the temples and sacred revenuesby Honorius, it gave fresh poignancy to the feelings ofnumbers who were still attached to the old faith, who hadsuffered in fortune by the invasion, and many of whom had fledinto remote exile.¹ The bitterness of the religious conflict wasintensified, and the causes of the unexampled catastrophebecame the subject of the last great controversy between theopposing creeds. From the time of M. Aurelius, the pagancontroversialists were in the habit of attributing publiccalamities to apostasy from the national faith.2 On theoccurrence of a famine or pestilence, the mob broke intothreats and execrations against the Christians. The war ofsophistry had gone on, with ever varying subtlety, accordingto the fortunes of the Empire at the time. The true Romanwas inclined to judge a religion by its material results.³gods were expected to be of use to their worshipper, whopurchased their help and favour by sacrificial gift and observance. He could not understand the Christian theory, thatcalamity might be sent by Heaven for the good of thesufferer. Hence, he naturally attributed the growing troublesof the Empire to neglect of the ancient rites; and, whenthe last unimaginable horror came, —the sack of the city,which he fondly believed to be destined to endless dominion,the votary of the old gods found an irresistible argument againstthe pestilent superstition which had first suppressed hisworship, and so soon afterwards had, by its impiety, broughtthe imperial city to the dust.HisIt is perhaps difficult for us to conceive the impressionwhich the capture of Rome made on both the heathen andthe Christian world. Even the rude barbarian, bred on theDanube or amid the forests of Thuringia, felt a strange awe ofthat city, so distant, yet so omnipresent in its power, which tohis imagination, in her world-wide dominion and marvellousvitality, was a superhuman power. We know how Alaric, whilehe felt himself drawn on by an irresistible force to sack theEternal City, still almost trembled at the prospect of success,"Hieron. Ep. 128, § 4 , proh nefas,orbis terrarum ruit. Urbs inclytaet Romani imperii caput uno hausta est incendio. Nulla est regio quae non exules Romanos habeat.2 Tertull. Apol. 40.3 Zos. iv. 59; Sym. Rel. 3.4 De Civ. Dei, i. 8.5 Sozom. ix. 6; Socr. vii. 10; cf. Claud. de B. Gct. 507.52THETENACITYOF PAGANISMBOOKIand how, as he drew near Rome, his Goths were scattered inpanic by the lightnings that shot round the walls of Narnia.¹The barbarian was impressed chiefly by the power of Rome inimposing her laws on the world. But to the Roman, whetherChristian or pagan, she was also the heir of Greece, the seat ofculture and letters , of all humanising influences for more thanfive centuries. She was to Prudentius and Orosius, as wellas to Claudian and Rutilius," the beneficent power which hadbeen the mother of peaceful arts, which had made of so manywarring races one country, which had spread peace and orderwherever her eagles flew. And the belief in her eternity hadbecome an unquestioned article of faith. The uniformity oflaw, language, and administration, which spread with such quietpower over all geographical barriers seemed to have becomepart of the order of nature, as irresistible and as enduring asthe laws of the material world.45To the minds therefore both of Christian and pagan, thenews of the capture of Rome by Alaric came as a great moralshock. In the sack of the city Christians had fared nobetter than unbelievers. Their houses had been burnt orpillaged, their daughters violated; many of the churches hadbeen despoiled of their sacred treasures. The faith of manyChristians was rudely shaken. But far more crushing wasthe effect of the calamity on those to whom Rome was thehearth of the old religion, attachment to which was identicalwith patriotism. They had again and again warned theEmperor of the danger of forsaking the gods under whoseprotection Rome had enjoyed such long prosperity. Now theirfears and warnings had been terribly confirmed . "Rome hadperished in the Christian times." The State had forfeited theprotection of the gods, or was suffering from their anger. Thecultivated epicurean, who had little sympathy with eitherpagan or Christian enthusiasm, contributed his doubts to theside of the ancient religion. If he believed in any gods at all ,he did not believe that they interfered in the affairs of men.•1 Zos. v. 41.2 Prudent. contra Sym. ii. 640; Oros.v. 2, 1; Claud. de Cons. Stilich. iii.154; Rutil. Namat. i. 63, 83, 133; cf. S. Jerome's outburst on hearing ofthe capture of Rome, Ep. 127, § 12,capitur urbs quae totum cepit orbem.De Civ. Dei, i. 9.4 lb. i. 16.As to the precise amount of damage done see Gregorovius, Rome in the Middle Ages, i . 159.CHAP. III CONTROVERSY ON THE CAPTURE OF ROME 53But as a patriotic Roman, he may have thought the new spiritof Christian renunciation, which made men indifferent to theearthly commonwealth, and in a world of fierce passions andwild forces acted up to the ideal of the Sermon on the Mount,was responsible for the national humiliation.¹The province of Africa was still, in spite of its longChristian tradition, a stronghold of heathen superstition orcultivated scepticism,3 which not all the eloquence and energyof S. Augustine, backed by the persecuting force of theState, had been able to overpower. The invasion of Alaric andthe capture of the city drove crowds of the Roman aristocracyto seek a refuge in the towns of Africa.5 It may readily beimagined how, when they arrived with their excited talesof the desecration of the imperial city by the Goths, grief andindignation broke forth, how old hatred, terrified into silence,would be kindled once more, how sceptical acquiescence in thenew régime would have its old doubts revived. Volusianus,one of the great family of the Albini, " a son of that old heathenpontiff described by S. Jerome, and himself a pagan of thegentler sort, was in 412 in a company in which the discordsof philosophy and the claims of Christianity were canvassed.In particular Volusianus proposed the question,' whether theprecept about turning the other cheek to the smiter could bereconciled with the policy of a dominant state, whether, infact, Christianity was not the cause of the decadence ofRome. The discussion was reported to S. Augustine byMarcellinus, a friend of Volusianus, and drew from the bishopan elaborate reply.8 The letter in which Augustine strove toremove the doubts of Volusianus and his friends has a greatinterest as containing the germ of the famous work whichAugustine commenced in the following year. The Gospel, hesays in effect, is not opposed to war waged justly and mercifully.So far from its doctrines being hostile to the stability of theState, if they were practised by public servants and citizens1 Cf. the letter of Marcellinus to S.Augustine, Ep. 136, § 2.2 Aug. Ep. 232; cf. C. Th. xvi. 10, 20.3 Aug. Ep. 16, 234.4 lb. 97; cf. Ep. 93; note 2, p. 36 of this book.5 See the description of the way in which they were received by CountHeraclian in Hieron. Ep. 130, § 7.6 Seeck's Sym. clxxix; Hieron. Ep.107 , § 1.7 Aug. Ep. 136, § 2.8 Ib. 138, § 16.9 Ebert, Lit. des Mittelalters, i . 223.Its composition occupied the years 413-426; cf. Aug. Retract. ii. 43, 1.54 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK Iof every degree, they would prove the salvation of the State.The decay of the Roman commonwealth began long before thecoming of Christ in the decay of the old Roman morality, inthe spread of venality and licence, which are described inscathing terms by heathen moralists and satirists.¹ Whither,he asks, might not this tide of human depravity have borne usif there had not been planted above it all the Cross, by clingingto which we might save ourselves from being swept into theabyss? " In this morass of vice, this decay of the ancientdiscipline, there was need for authority from on high tobring home the lesson of voluntary poverty, chastity, benevolence, justice, concord , real piety, all the brightness and strengthof virtue; and that not merely for the virtuous conduct ofthis life, nor to secure complete harmony in the earthlycommonwealth, but also to obtain eternal salvation andadmission to a celestial commonwealth which shall know noend, to whose citizenship we are joined by faith, hope, andcharity. So, as long as we are strangers and sojourners , wemust endure, if we cannot amend, those who wish to establishthe state on the foundation of an impunity of vice; whereasthe early Romans founded and gave it greatness by theirvirtues. It is true they had not true devotion to the trueGod, to guide them to the Eternal City. Yet did they holdfast to a certain inbred probity, which might suffice to establishthe earthly city, and give it glory and safety. God thusdesired to show in the wealthy and glorious empire of Romehow much availed the civic virtues, even without true religion,in order to make men understand that, when that was added,men might become citizens of another state, of which the kingis truth, the law is love, and eternity the bourn."The City of God dedicated to Marcellinus, was begun in413, and not finished till 426, four years before the author'sdeath. It has some of the faults which we might expect fromwhat S. Augustine tells us of the distractions of his dailylife; but its vastness of range and conception gives us themeasure, not only of the writer's genius, but of the force of31 He quotes Sall . B. Jug. c. 35, 0urbem venalem, etc. 2 Retract. ii. 43.3 l. c. quod opus per aliquot annos me tenuit, eo quod alia multa intercurrebant, quae differre non oporteret et me prius ad solvendum occupabant; cf. Possid. vit. Aug. c. 19, andSerm. 302, n. 17, quoted in Hurter's ed.CHAP. III CONTROVERSY ON THE CAPTURE OF ROME 55the enemy to be overthrown. All that wealth of learning andsubtlety of disquisition would not have been wasted by a busyand practical man in trampling out the embers of an explodedsuperstition. So far as the work is polemical, it is an assault,in the first place, upon the political view of the Roman religion,and, in the next, on the philosophical attempt to rehabilitateit. The circ*mstances which suggested the work are describedin its opening pages, from which we can easily revive thedebates which the humiliation of the great city excited. Thefall of Rome, exclaims S. Augustine, due to Christianity? Why,the conqueror was a Christian, and respected the altars ofthe Christian basilicas; whereas your great poet describesPriam slaughtered at the shrine, which could not protect him.2Why have the Christians suffered as well as the pagans, doyou ask? 3 Because suffering is a different thing to a Christian and a pagan.* To the one it is grievous, to the other itmay be joyous, a chastisem*nt for his good. The history ofRome is full of crimes and calamities which the gods haveeither caused or permitted. How have the old gods guardedRome? 5 Do the memories of the Caudine Forks and Cannae,and many another day of calamity and despair, suggest nodoubts about their power or will to guard her? The truth isthat the old religion did not give real prosperity, for it contained elements which were fatal to character and happiness.And these conquests so much vaunted -what were they butbrigandage on a large scale? Yet here S. Augustine is guiltyof a patriotic inconsistency. He is, after all, a true Roman atheart. He is proud of the great past of Rome, and of thequalities which had given her her place in the world. Godmade choice of the Latin race to establish an empire whichshould weld the nations of the West into one people. TheLatin race chose honour and dominion for its portion, andthey had the reward which their purely civic virtue deserved.But the heathen daemons had never brought good to Rome,1 De Civ. Dei, i . 1; cf. Oros. vii . 39.2 De Civ. Dei, i. 2.3 lb. i. 9.4 lb. i. 10.5 Ib. iii. 17.6 lb. iv. 26.7 Ib. iv. 4, remota itaque justitiaquid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia?cf. iv. 3, 15; iii. 10; cf. Oros. v. 1 , 4.8 De Civ. Dei, v. 15, his omnibusartibus tamquam vera via nisi sunt ad honores imperium gloriam . . . imperiisui leges imposuerunt multis gentibus Perceperunt mercedem suam; cf. v. 21.56 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK I13as they had never warded off evil from her. They aided thecruel Marius to reach a seventh consulship; they allowed thepious Regulus to be put to the extremity of torture. If theydid not save the city from being taken by the Gauls, whenRoman virtue was at its highest point, why should we fancythat the neglect of their rites has caused the capture by theGoths? And yet S. Augustine attributes to these daemons vastpowers for evil, while he will not allow them any power forgood. They promised success to Sulla, but they never, withtheir powers of prevision, tried to avert his crimes. Theirpower or example corrupted the ancient virtue of the Romanpeople by legends," which were lessons in cruelty and lust.Their worship has created the horrors of the amphitheatreand the stage. In their name the empire of Rome has beenswelled to an unwieldy bulk by incessant wars. During thecenturies from the peaceful reign of Numa to the accession ofAugustus, a single year in which the gates of war were closedis noted as a miraculous event."9S.While Augustine was engaged in preparing this final assaulton paganism, his fifth book being completed, a young Spanishpriest arrived at Hippo about 414. His native country wasbeing devastated by the Sueves and Vandals. He escapedfrom their suares or violence, and sought a refuge in Africa,which as yet was considered safe from the invaders.Augustine was struck with his zeal, readiness, and enthusiasm,and determined to engage him in a historical compositionwhich should serve as a kind of supplement to the City ofGod. The task which was assigned to Orosius was to refute,by an examination of history, the pagan assertion that the fallof Rome was a consequence of her abandonment of her oldreligion.10 Rome has been taken by a barbarian chief, said thepagans; her prosperity has for the first time met with a disastrous check. Under her old gods she had an unbroken1 De Civ. Dei, ii . 23.2 Ib. i. 15.3 Ib. ii. 22, sed tamen haec numinum turba ubi erat, cum, longe antequam mores corrumperentur antiqui,a Gallis Roma capta et incensa est?+ Ib. ii. 24.5 lb. ii. 6; cf. iv. 27, prava docent,turpibus gaudent.Ib. ii . 25; cf. ix. 6, ix. 3.7 Ib. iii. 9.8 Ep. 169, § 13; cf. § 1 of thesame letter, and Ep. 166, § 2.9 Idat. Chron. ad a. 410, debacchantibus per Hispanias barbaris, etc.; Oros. iii. 20, 5, 6.10 See the Prol. of Orosius.CHAP. III CONTROVERSY ON THE CAPTURE OF ROME 57career of success, resulting in the establishment of equal laws,and a serene and bountiful civilisation among scores of peopleswho in former ages were degraded and desolated by continualfeuds. It is only a few years since the religion of theNazarene was made binding on all Romans; and within fifteenyears from the death of Theodosius, the destroyer of the ancientfaith, the hitherto inviolate seat of Roman government hasbeen desecrated. " Rome has perished in the Christian times."The work of Orosius had a great popularity in the MiddleAges, and from some modern critics it has received tooflattering notice as the first attempt to found a philosophy ofhistory. This description of it can only be accepted, if bythe words " philosophy of history " is meant an arbitrary anduncritical handling of the facts to suit an a priori theory, or atemporary theological purpose. Orosius himself would hardlyhave claimed for his work any such character. His researcheswere not very profound. His authorities are probably limitedto the Bible, Livy, Tacitus, Suetonius, Justin , Eutropius, andperhaps S. Jerome's version of Eusebius's Chronicle.2 He wasnot writing for a remote generation, with a theory of humanevolution which would stand the test of scientific criticism.He was a man of his own age, thoroughly convinced of histhesis before his researches began, thoroughly practical, andnot over-scrupulous. He cares nothing for the inner springsof historical movements, so far as they are merely human.The chain of natural causes has no interest for him.is fixed on the external fortunes and vicissitudes of the greatraces who have occupied the stage of history. It is fixed alsorather on their calamities and reverses than on anything whichmight mitigate the tale of " mourning, lamentation, and woe,"which has been the portion of the human race before the comingof Christ. His business was to collect in an ordered narrativefrom the annals of the past, before the final triumph of theCross, all the tales of misery from war, famine, and pestilence that the human race had suffered, all that was startlingand desolating in floods and volcanic fires, all the horrors of1 King Alfred had Orosius translated into Anglo - Saxon. The MSS. from the seventh century are numerous, v.Teuffel, ii. p. 475.2 He mentions other writers, butHiseyeprobably only at second hand. Heknew little of Greek authorities; cf.Mörner, de Oros. vita, p. 50; cf. Peter's Die Geschichtliche Litt. über die Röm. Kaiserzeit, ii . 158 , 255.58 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK Imonstrous crime. He is convinced that the carnage and ravagesof war, the stress of plague and dearth, the convulsions ofnature, were more tremendous in the pagan times.¹ Natureherself, like the temper of the Goths, has grown milder withthe advent of a purer faith among men! In the process ofproving his thesis, Orosius treats mere legend with the samerespect as authentic history. The exploits of the Amazonsare as useful for his purpose as the invasion of the Gauls ofBrennus. In the long catalogue of deadly wars he magnifiesthe numbers of the slain, and seems almost to exult in thecarnage of pre- Christian battlefields . He has seldom a word tosay of the objects for which the victims fell. The glories ofpeaceful times have no interest for his determined, historicalpessimism. There is not a word of the splendour of the ageof Pericles.¹ Demosthenes is only referred to as an oratorpurchased by Persian gold. It is difficult to conceive thatsuch a collection of the gloomiest episodes in history or myth,selected for a single controversial purpose which is everywhere apparent, should have influenced any mind in the learnedand cultivated circle of the pagan friends of Symmachus.The charge isinvasion mayThe captureOrosius constantly complains of the double exaggerationby which the pagans magnified the prosperity and glory ofpast ages, and the disasters of their own day."probably true. The immediate effects of thehave easily been painted in too sombre colours.of Rome so disordered men's imaginations, and awoke suchbitterness of party-feeling, that a calin estimate of the factswas hardly possible. Orosius, however, is guilty of the grossestexaggeration on the other side. In his retrospect he surveysthe history of the world from the creation , with a determinationto see nothing that does not lend itself to his controversialpurpose. It is characteristic of the peculiar method and fairness of this work that, in painting the bloody wars of theregal period, the name of Numa is never mentioned. Thesack of the city by Brennus was far more terrible and de1 Oros. iv. Praef. The world in 414 is as it were only nocturnis pulicibus titillatus!2 Ib. ii. 14, 3; ii . 19.3 Ib. i. 15, 4.4 Pericles is mentioned once asgeneral, along with Sophocles , i. 21 , 15;cf. a somewhat similar and amusingreference to the great age of Greece in Prosp. Chron.2605 Oros. iii. 16, 1 .6e.g. i. 21 , 17; iv. Praef.7 Ib. ii. 4; Mörn. p. 37.8 Oros. ii . 19.CHAP. III CONTROVERSY ON THE CAPTURE OF ROME 59Hardly a Roman senatorHardly one lost his lifestructive than her capture by Alaric.escaped the violence of the Gauls.at the hands of the Goths. In old times Sicily was constantlylaid waste by the convulsions of nature and the ravages of war.In the present quiet and prosperous times, even Etna, whichonce spread ruin in field and city, sends up only a column ofharmless smoke to remind the world of its former energy."Rome was founded in bloodshed, and her career has correspondedto the omens of her birth. There is hardly a break in themonotonous tale of incessant wars,3 until the universal peaceof the reign of Augustus was given to the world by the comingof Christ. In like manner, the fall of Athens, the overthrowof Spartan supremacy, the conquests of Philip and Alexander, *are described with a determined exaggeration of the slaughterand misery which they caused. The absurdity, perhaps, culminates, when Orosius inveighs against those who complainthat a cowardly brigand (it is thus that Alaric is described)has outraged a single corner of a world which is enjoyinggenerally a secure tranquillity! 5 The author occasionallyshows some flashes of insight into the position of Rome, andher relation to the barbarian races, to which we shall refer inanother chapter. But as to the main drift of his book it isdifficult to acquit him of a deliberate distortion of the facts ofhistory.These two works, of such unequal merit, are noticed herechiefly for the purpose of showing the latent force of the pagansentiment which they were intended to disarm and silence.Both S. Augustine and Orosius are fully conscious of the magnitude of their task, and of the strength of the enemy. It wasnot the ignorant superstition of the masses, blindly clinging tothe religious usages of their ancestors, which they set themselveschiefly to discredit and overthrow. The controversy began, aswe have seen, in a company of lettered men, whose smouldering1 Oros. ii. 19, 13, ibi vix quemquaminventum Senatorem, qui vel absens evaserit, hic vix quemquam require,qui forte ut latens perierit; cf. de Civ.Dei, iii. 29: Socr. Hist. Eccl. vii. 10,says that many senators were tortured and slain.2 Oros. ii. 14, Aethna ipsa, quae tunc cum excidio urbium atque agrorumcrebris eruptionibus aestuabat , nunctantum innoxia specie ad praeteritorum fidem fumat!3 Ib. iii. 8.4 Ib. iii. 14; ii. 16, 13; iii. 2, 10;iii. 13, 11.5 lb. iii. 20, 9, et nos perpetuae recordationi haesurum putamus quod plurima orbis parte secura unumangulum fugax latro violavit.60 THE TENACITY OF PAGANISM BOOK Idoubts about the policy of the religious revolution of Theodosius,flashed out and found expression on the capture of Rome in410. Both works are addressed to the educated class, who stillclung to paganism, either as the ancestral faith of Rome, underthe protection of which her great mission had been accomplished, or as enshrining the venerable and imaginativesymbols of the lofty and comprehensive theory of God andthe Universe, expounded by the school of Alexandria. TheCity of God assails the paganism both of the patriot and thephilosopher. It is addressed to a class capable of followingthe most subtle reasoning, acquainted with the history andantiquities of Rome, or saturated with the metaphysics ofPlotinus and Porphyry. The treatise of Orosius is addressedonly to the anxious patriot, and it has none of the depth andrange and subtlety of S. Augustine's great work. Yet evenOrosius could hardly have been read by any one who had notbeen trained in the higher discipline of the Roman schools.From this point of view the controversy has a profoundinterest for the historian. It is true that the voices of thechampions of paganism reach us only, as it were, by echoesfrom the pages of their assailants. Hardly a word has cometo us directly from that crowd of philosophic sceptics, conservative dreamers, or devotees, who called forth the fullstrength of the great bishop of Hippo. It is admitted thatthe City of God dealt a deathblow at the cause of paganism,and, by its learning and dialectic, completed the work of antipagan legislation. Its occasional sophistry, which may irritatethe modern reader, would probably, in the heat of conflict, beas damaging to the enemy as its sounder arguments. If itsappeals to history to show the helplessness of the gods toprotect their worshippers from evil fortune often seem to usunfair and weak, its exposure of the moral evil in the ancientcults is irresistible. The absence of the moral influence inpaganism, and the corruption of Roman character by the gamesand festivals which were sanctioned or enjoined by the oldfaith, is S. Augustine's most powerful reply to the argumentthat Rome owed her material success to her gods. Julian sawthe moral helplessness of the system, to which he gave amomentary and illusive revival in the years when S. Augustinewas an infant. But Julian's life was short, and it may beCHAP. III CONTROVERSY ON THE CAPTURE OF ROME 61doubted whether, if it had been longer, his efforts to effect amoral and philosophic renovation of paganism could have givenreal life to that which was rotten at the root.Yet, when we look merely at the narrower issue, on whichthe momentous controversy began, there is a strange feeling ofpathos in reading the often sophistical recriminations as to thesupernatural causes of a world-wide convulsion. The ancientmajesty of the imperial city had been violated, and the magicof that great name was vanishing amid agonies of regret.Some of the fairest provinces of the West had been occupiedby the German invaders. Four years after the completion ofS. Augustine's great work, the Vandals will have overrunRoman Africa, and the saint's last hours will be disturbed bythe roar of battle under the walls of Hippo.¹ The mutualrecriminations of Christian and pagan as to the religiouscauses of the great catastrophe may to some seem small andfrivolous, in comparison with the interests which were at stake;to others perhaps rather coarse and materialistic in theirconception of the office and value of religion. We have beentrained to seek for the causes of the fall of Rome in the destruction of the municipal class under fiscal burdens, in bad andcruel administration, in the decline of public spirit and courage.Some historical critics, even those bred in the traditions of theCatholic Church, are almost ready to take the pagan side in thequarrel, and to find the causes of the collapse in the ascetic spirit,which, by contemning wealth and refusing to bear the burdensof civil society, undermined its economic and political stability.The controversial part of the City of God will probably havethe fate of all polemics inspired by the needs or passions ofthe moment. But its spiritual and constructive side, whichlies beyond the scope of this work, will be a permanent possession of the race. It lifts the eye from the mundanelevel on which the relative material advantages of opposingcreeds are balanced or fiercely contrasted. Eternity is notpromised by the Christian's God to anything earthly. Thespiritual city alone does not pass away. It has no frontiers,it draws its citizens from all races and peoples, it embraces allthe faithful on either side of the river of death. Deus fundavit cam in eternum.1 Possid. vit. Aug. c. 29.CHAPTER IVSOME CAUSES OF THE VITALITY OF THE LATER PAGANISMTHE dialectic of S. Augustine is regarded as having completedthe overthrow of the pagan cause. Yet his assaults are directedagainst the old state religion of Rome, rather than againstthose cults of Egypt and Syria¹ which had, for more thantwo centuries, practically overshadowed the religion of Numa.2From a controversial point of view S. Augustine was right.Although the native gods of Latium no longer inspired muchdevotion, they were the recognised protectors of the old Romanstate. Their cults were intertwined with the whole fabric ofpublic and private life. Even the Christian emperors, till thetime of Gratian, assumed the office of Pontifex Maximus.The old sacred colleges still met for ceremonial functions inthe reign of Theodosius.3 The festival of the Lupercalia,*which was traced back to the Arcadian Evander, was, withall its coarse and savage ritual, celebrated down to the lastyears of the fifth century.In the fourth century the ancient religion of Latium, whilerevered and defended as the symbol of national greatness bythe conservative patriot, supplied no nutriment for the devotional cravings of the age. The old Roman theology was ahard, narrow, unexpansive system of abstraction and personification, which strove to represent in its Pantheon the phenomenaHe refers, however, to the cult of Mater Deum, i . c. 5.2 But the old rites and festivals, e.g.the Lupercalia and Ambarvalia, weresedulously kept up; cf. Réville, Rel.unter den Sev. p. 26.Sym. Ep. i. 51 .Gibbon, c. 36. Cf. Virg. Aen.viii. 343. It was revived by Augustus(Suet. Octav. c. 31 ) . Luperci are found in Inscriptions of Mauretania, C.I.L. viii . 9405, 9406.CHAP. IV SOURCES OF ITS VITALITY 63of nature, the relations of men in the state or the clan, everyact and feeling and incident in the life of the individual. But,unlike the mythologies of Hellas and the East, it had no nativeprinciple of growth or adaptation to altered needs of societyand the individual imagination. It was also singularly wantingin awe and mystery. The religious spirit which it cultivatedwas formal, timid, and scrupulous.¹ It was bound up withthe everyday business and practical life of society. Its sacredcolleges were not, except in the case of the vestals, set apartfrom the world; they were simply a kind of magistracy for theexact performance of certain sacred rites and functions. Whenthe ceremony was over, the celebrant returned to ordinary civiclife. The old Roman worship was businesslike and utilitarian.2The gods were partners in a contract with their worshippers,and the ritual was characterised by all the hard and literalformalism of the legal system of Rome. The worshipperperformed his part to the letter with the scrupulous exactnessrequired in pleadings before the praetor.3 To allow devotional.feeling to transgress the bounds prescribed by immemorialcustom was " superstitio. "+ Such a religion was little calculatedto satisfy generations who had come under the spell of Greekphilosophy and the mysticism and ecstatic devotion of the East.The conservative and patriotic spirit which, as in the caseof Symmachus and Flavianus, clung to the old national faith,as inseparable from the safety and dignity of Rome, wasundoubtedly a serious obstacle to the final triumph ofChristianity. But he would ill interpret the religioushistory of the time who should confine his attention to theofficial paganism. The paganism which was really living,which stirred devotion and influenced souls, was that neitherof Latium nor of Hellas. It came from the East- -fromPersia, Syria, Egypt-the homes of a conception of religionwhich was alien to the native spirit both of Greece andRome." These Oriental cults satisfied emotional cravings,which found no stimulus for devotion in the arid abstrac51 Boissier, La Rel. Rom. Introd.c. 2; Preller, Mythol. Rom. ( Dietz) ,Introd. i.2 Boissier, Rcl. Rom. i. pp. 21, 22;Mommsen, Rom. Hist. i. 182; cf. Cicero's definition of pietas (de Nat.

Deor. i. 41 ), as justitia adversum deos.3 Preller, p. 102; Boissier, i. 14 sqq.Boissier, i. p. 23.5 Ib. Rel. Rom. i. pp. 396 sqq.;Réville, Rel. zu Rom. unter den Sev.c. ii.; Duruy, Hist. Rom. v. 739.64 THE LATER PAGANISM BOOK Itions of the old Latin creed, or in the brilliant anthropomorphism of Greece. They aroused and cultivated, often toa dangerous degree, intense and ecstatic feeling. In theirmysteries, if they did not teach a higher morality, they raisedthe worshipper above the level of cold, conventional conformity,and satisfied in some way the longing for communion with thedeity, and assurance of a life beyond the grave. They hadtheir modes of appeasing the troubled conscience by expiation, by ascetic abstinence, by the baptism of blood. In thesacred corporations , such as the Isiaci and Pastophori, theyprovided, what was the great want of the times, social helpand mutual encouragement, the stimulus or the consolation ofcommon interests and enthusiasms. Whoever will cast hiseyes over the inscriptions of the closing years of the fourthcentury will be struck by a number of dedications to deities.of foreign origin-to Isis, the Sun, Magna Mater, and Attis,above all, to Mithra. He will find on these tablets some ofthe greatest names among the Roman aristocracy, a ClodiusHermogenianus, a Flavianus, a Venustus, a Volusianus," aVettius Agorius Praetextatus. If he looks into the inscriptionsof the provinces, he will discover that these worships havebeen carried by Roman travellers or soldiers to Gaul, Spain,Britain, to remote camps on the edge of the African desert, oron the Rhine and the Danube. He will notice on many ofthese monuments that the person commemorated has held sacredoffice in a great number of these cults, that he has been priestof Mithra the unconquered, priest of the Sun, priest of Isis , andthat he has performed the Taurobolium. He will observe withinterest that there is a tone of moral and devout feeling whichhe had not expected to find in a pagan epitaph. The famousmonument erected by Fabia Aconia Paulina to her husbandPraetextatus, after recording his many secular and sacredhonours, and celebrating his birth, learning, and culture, speaks¹ Renan, M. Aurèle, p. 577; Boissier,i. 417.2 C.I.L. vi. 499, a.p.C. 374 .3 Ib. vi. 501 , a.p. C. 383.4 Ib. vi. 503, a.p. C. 390.5 Ib. vi. 512, a.p. C. 390; cf. ib . 736,755.6 Ib. xii. 405, 1311(Materdeum), xii. 2706, 1535( Mithra), xii.734, 1562( Isis). TheTauroboliumappears in an immense number ofGallic inscriptions in C. I. L. xii.; cf. Renan, M. Aurèle, p. 579. See theprovincial inscriptions to Mithra col- lected in Cumont's Monuments fi- gurés relatifs aux Mystères de Mithra,PP.1. 129-171 .Cf. several of the Inscr. referredto, and particularly C.I.L. vi. 504.8 C.I.L. vi. 1778-79.CHAP. IV SOURCES OF ITS VITALITY 65of his contempt for these transient distinctions, and their hopeof a blessed reunion after death. And Paulina is ferventin her gratitude for the love and confidence with which herhusband has made her a partner in all sacred things. Praetextatus, in a companion inscription, commemorates his wife asthe sharer of his inmost secrets, devoted to the temple service,a friend of the gods, pure in mind and body, benevolent to all.These cults, which were the vital centre of the lastgeneration of paganism in the West, had found their way toRome long before the imperial period. The Eastern conquestsof the Republic made the maintenance of old Roman exclusiveness impossible. In a city which was the meeting- place of somany races, it was hopeless for the most vigilant conservatism , ¹however much inspired with a suspicion of exotic modes ofdevotion, finally to shut them out. The attempt was madeagain and again, and as often defeated. Foreign traders,foreign slaves, travellers, and soldiers returning from longcampaigns in distant regions, were constantly introducingreligious novelties which fascinated the lower class, alwaysthe most susceptible of religious excitement, and then penetratedto the classes of culture and privilege. The Great Mother ofPessinus found a home at Rome in the second Punic war.2 ThePastophori of Serapis were established as early as the days ofSulla. After repeated attempts on the part of the governmentto exclude Egyptian worships, the triumvirs, in 42 B.C. ,founded a temple of Isis and Serapis in the Campus Martius.5The worship of Mithra, the solar cult which was destined to bethe most formidable rival of Christianity in its last strugglewith heathenism, was introduced in 70 B.C. after the overthrowof the Cilician pirates by Pompey." Under the Flaviandynasty the religions of the East had special prominence."But the Eastern cults had their great triumph in the ageof the Antonines, and under the Oriental princes of the thirdcentury. A considerable number of dedications to Sol Invictus,Serapis, and Mithra belong to the reigns of M. Aurelius and31 Boissier, La Rel. Rom. i . p. 384.2 Liv. xxix. 10.3 Preller, p. 479.4 lb. p. 479. Cf. the picture of theEgyptian gods arrayed against the Roman at Actium, Virg. Aen. viii.698:46omnigenûmque deûm monstra et latrator Anubis, etc. 5 Dion Cass. xlvii. 15 .6 Plut. Pomp. c. 24, ὧν ἡ τοῦΜίθρου καὶ μέχρι δεῦρο διασώζεται καταδειχθεῖσα πρῶτον ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνων (ί.ε. τῶν πειρατῶν) .7 Suet. Vesp. c. 7.F66 THE LATER PAGANISM BOOK ICommodus.¹ Antoninus Pius erected a temple to Mithraat Ostia; 2 and Commodus had a fancy to be initiated in theIsiac mysteries, and actually took the tonsure of that worship.3Caracalla and Alexander Severus both added to the splendourof the temple service of Isis. Aurelian, whose mother wasa priestess of the Sun, attributed his victory over Zenobiato the god's favour, and built a stately temple for him atRome, enriched with the spoils of Palmyra. "The Egyptian cults, and pre- eminently that of Isis, had animmense influence on the Roman mind during the wholeimperial period. Isis was a deity with many functions andmany attractions. " She was the goddess of the springtimeand of the fruitfulness of nature. She was the guardian ofthose whose life is on the sea. She had a special care ofwomen in the troubles of motherhood. She lighted soulsinto the world beyond death. The ceremonies of her worship,which in many respects show a singular rapprochement tothose of the Catholic Church, had a powerful effect on theimagination and the feelings. There is a sacerdotal classset apart for spiritual functions and the guidance ofsouls, and distinguished by the tonsure and a peculiardress.7 There are baptismal rites of initiation, for whichascetic abstinence is a necessary preparation. In Egypt, onthe very ground which in the fourth and fifth centuries wasto be the home of Christian monks, there was long beforethem the ascetic life of the cloister devoted to the worshipof Serapis. The ritual has many traces of our modern ideas ofdevotion, and foreshadows in some respects that of the CatholicChurch. There are matins and vespers to rouse the goddess orto lay her to rest, at which white- robed priests officiate. Womenreceive a prominence which was denied them under the old81 Cf. C.I.L. vi. 723-727 , 740, 746,354, viii. 2630.2 Réville, p. 81 .3 Lamprid. Com. c. 9, sacra Isidiscoluit ut et caput raderet et Anubinportaret.4 Id. A. Sev. c. 26; Ael. Spart.Carac. c. 9.5 Flav. Vop. Aur. c. 4, 31 , 39; Zos.i. 61 .6 Preller, p. 477; Réville, Rel. unter den Sev. p. 53.7 Apul. Met. xi . c. 10, antistites sacro-...rum... candido linteamine cinctum pec- toralem adusque vestigia strictim injecticapillum derasi funditus, vertice praenitentes. Cf. Plut. de Is. et Osir.4, ἐφ' ὅτῳ τὰς τρίχας οἱ ἱερεῖς ἀποτίθενται καὶ λινᾶς ἐσθῆτας φοροῦσιν.8 Chaeremon, quoted by Porphyr.de Abstin. (Frag. Hist. Gr. iii. p. 497) ,ἀπέδοσαν ὅλον τὸν βίον τῇ τῶν θείων θεωρίᾳ καὶ θεάσει . λιτότητα δὲ ἐπετήδευσαν καὶ καταστολήν, ἐγκράτειάν τε καὶ καρτερίαν.9 Apul. Met. xi. 20.CHAP. IV SOURCES OF ITS VITALITY 67religion, and their devotion to the ritual of Syria and Egyptwas a social characteristic of the early Empire¹ as it was ofthe closing years of paganism in the West.2 There was indeedmuch in these cults calculated to have a special charm forfemale sensibility. It is a common characteristic of some ofthe most popular of them that the interest centres on a divinedeath and resurrection. There is the alternation of thepassionate sense of loss with the passionate joy of recovery,and the emotions, as in the mysteries of an earlier time, wereprobably stimulated by striking scenic effects. The cold, calm,rigidly formal religion of old Rome has given place to ecstaticdevotion, and the sense of sin and error finds relief in penitentialdiscipline and solemn cleansing.In the last struggles of paganism with the Christian Church,the cult which exercised the most powerful attraction was thatof Mithra. It gave expression to the growing tendency tomonotheism, and to the craving for moral support, purification,and comfort through religion which became more and moreimperious in the third and fourth centuries. It was at first asun-worship of Persian origin. But its early character wasgreatly altered by syncretism, by accretions from other, especially Phrygian, worships, and by natural development to meetthe devotional and moral wants of the times. The worship ofthe Sun was the central force in Julian's attempt to remedythe dogmatic and moral weakness of paganism. In the fourthcentury the ancient god of light has become the supremePower, who is all- seeing, all- pervading, who is the lord andgiver of life, the cleanser from sin, the protector of the miserable, the conqueror of evil daemons and death, who assuresto his faithful worshippers the hope of immortality. Themonuments of Mithra have been found all over the Roman1 Juv. vi. 489, 528; C.I.L. xii. 1532,3061 ( Narbonne ) , viii. 2630 ( Numidia) .Devotion to Isis in the time of Catullus and Tibullus seems to have been com- patible with very loose morals. Catull.x. 26; Tibull . i. 3, 23. Cumont, i.178, denies that women were admitted to the mysteries of Mithra.2 C.I.L. vi. 1779, 1780.3 Réville, Rel. unter den Sev. pp. 74sqq.; Preller, p. 490; Duruy, vi. p.146, vii. p. 48; Renan, M. Aurèle,P. 576.4 See the centralisation of manyworships in the temple of the Sunattempted by Elagabalus, Lamprid c. 3; cf. c. 7.5 Réville, p. 88; Cumont, Monu- ments figurés, etc. de Mithra, Textes Orientaux, i . pp. 1-6. Cf. Porphyr.quoted ib. pp. 39, 40, 41. In hisinteresting book on Neoplatonism, p. 56,Dr. Bigg says that the religion of Mithra was "the purest and mostelevated of all non- Biblical religions."68 THE LATER PAGANISM BOOK I3world, in all the regions of Italy, in Spain, Africa, and allthe provinces bordering on the Danube and the Rhine, inGaul, and in Britain. Nothing is more familiar than thegroup in which the young warrior, wearing a Phrygian cap andshort tunic, and mantle blown back by the wind, kneels on theback of a bull and buries his poniard in its throat, surrounded by the mystic beasts and the two Dadophori. Hisworship was conducted in underground grottoes , brilliantlylighted and adorned with symbolic figures. The symbolismof his ritual has exercised and puzzled the ingenuity of modernarchaeologists. Probably it conveyed many meanings to thedevotee; but the central idea in the end seems to have beenthat of a Power who conquers the spirits of darkness, leadssouls from the underworld, and gives peace by purification.The ritual was complicated and impressive. There was a kindof baptism of neophytes, confirmation, consecration of bread andwater, cleansing of the tongue with honey, and other ablutions.The great festival of the god was celebrated on the 25thofDecember. His mysteries created a powerful bond of union,and in this respect satisfied one of the most urgent needs ofsociety under the later Empire. The initiated formed a closeguild or corporation presenting many points of resemblanceto Freemasonry.5 The novice had to submit to a series ofsevere ordeals and ascetic exercises, prolonged fasting, flagellation, passing through water and flame. There were manydegrees of initiation bearing fantastic titles , and culminatingin the dignity which bore the title of Pater. Whatever thereal moral effect of initiation may have been, there can be nodoubt that it developed a warm devotion and faith in thatfuture life which it promised to the pure worshipper.The most impressive rite in Mithra - worship was thebaptism of blood, called the Taurobolium. This ceremony was1 Preller, p. 496; C.I.L. viii . 8440 (Sitifis in Mauretania) , 9256, xii. 1535(Gallia Narb. ) 2706, v. 807, 809(Aquileia) , 4283. Cf. Cumont, i. pp .87-171.2 See the representation of theVatican group in Duruy, v. p. 748; cf. Cumont, ii. iii . passim.Réville, pp. 89, 90-94; cf. thematerials accumulated in Cumont, ii.and iii.Réville, p. 95. But cf. Cumont, i.p. 68 n.5 Preller, p. 497; Réville, p. 97.On the ordeals of initiation , see Cumont,i. p. 27.Hieron. Ep. 107 , § 2 , ' ad Laetam , 'where the titles of them are given,Corax, Gryphus, Miles, Leo, Perses,Heliodromus, Pater; v. Cumont, i . 18,n. 1. See the title Pater in 504, 1778 of C.I. L. vi.CHAP. IV SOURCES OF ITS VITALITY 691Aapparently a sacramental repetition of the symbolic slaughterof the bull by the god himself. It was originally part ofthe Phrygian ritual of the Great Mother, and is connectedwith her name on many monuments; but, after the religiousfashion of the times, it had been absorbed by the cult ofthe Sun. The earliest trace of the Taurobolium in theWest is found on a Neapolitan monument of the last yearsof Hadrian's reign.2 It spread far and wide through theprovinces, and traces of it are found near Lyons as early as184 A.D.3 The ceremonial has been described in a well- knownpassage of Prudentius, and the inscriptions of his age frequently refer to it. The penitent was placed in a trenchcovered over with planks having apertures between them.bull was led on to this platform, and with due ceremonial,conducted by the priests, was slaughtered so that the bloodstreaming from its throat might bathe the votary below. Itwas esteemed a matter of great importance that not a dropshould be wasted, and the subject of the rite used all his effortsto enjoy the full benefit of the sacred flood. The ceremonywas a long and costly one, attended by great crowds, with themagistrates at their head. Its effects were supposed to last fortwenty years,' when it was often repeated. It was believed towork some sort of spiritual cleansing and reform, and the manwho had enjoyed such a blessing left the record of it on stone,often concluding with the striking phrase, in aeternum renatus.s8This religion was the focus of the real devotion of thelast age of paganism . It was supported with defiant zealby some of the greatest senatorial houses, and offered themost stubborn resistance to the anti-pagan laws. The dedications to Mithra are most numerous in the very years when¹ Réville, p. 66; C.I.L. vi. 505, 506, 5 C.I.L. vi. 499, 504, 509, 511.508, viii. 5524, xii . 357 , 1222, 4325.2 Boissier, Rel. Rom. i. p. 412.3 C.I.L. xii. 1782. This taurobolium lasted from the 20th to the 23rd ofApril. At Orange ( in Gallia Narbonensis) an inscription was found com- memorating a taurobolium pro salute Imp. M. Aurel. Commodi, C.I.L. xii.1222. A taurobolium of 245 A.D. inGall. Narb. was performed for the im- perial house on 30th Sept. xii . 1567;cf. viii. 5524, 8263 ( African Inscr. ) .Prud. Peristeph. x. 1011.See asketch of the scene in Duruy, v. 743.96 Ib. xii. 1782, 1567.7 Ib. vi. 512 (iterato viginti annis expletis) , 502.8 Ib. vi. 510.9 Ib. vi. 751 , 752, 753, 754, 1778,510, 500, 504, 511. These inscr. belongto the years 376-387; cf. Hieron. Ep.107, § 2, ante paucos annos propinquus vester Graccus cum praefec- turam gereret urbanam nonne specumMithrae ... subvertit, fregit, excussit.This refers to the year 376. But cf. note g in Migne's ed. col. 868.7070 THE LATER PAGANISM BOOK Ithe Christian Empire was destroying his grottoes. M. Renanhas declared his belief that, if the growth of Christianity hadbeen checked by some mortal weakness, Mithraism might havebecome the religion of the Western world. With a trueinstinct, the Christian controversialists, from the second century, recognised in this cult the most dangerous spiritualfoe of the Church, and ascribed its similarity to Christianritual to the malign ingenuity of daemons. In its expiation for sins by bloody baptism, its ascetic preparation forthe holy mysteries, its oblation of the consecrated bread,its symbolic teaching of the resurrection, they might well seea cunning device of the Evil One to find a false restingplace for souls who were longing for the light.modernBut theWhether such worships as we have been describing arousedor satisfied a genuine devotional feeling in oursense, is a question which it is difficult to answer.thoughtful student will probably hesitate before he answers inthe negative. The gulf which separates us from the world ofheathen imagination is so wide, the influence of custom andold association in matters of religion is so powerful, that wemay easily do injustice to the devout sentiment of paganism.Grotesque or barbarous religious symbols, even those taintedin their origin with the impurity attaching to nature- worship,3often sloughed off their baser elements, and, with the development of a more sensitive morality, and a higher conception ofthe divine, may have become the vehicles of a real religiousemotion. What the worshipper will find in a worship dependsgreatly on what he brings. The same symbol or rite will havevarious meanings and effects to different minds. To the mindto which it is strange, it may seem to have no meaning at all .The mystery of the death of a divine being, his descent to theunderworld, and his joyful restoration , was the central idea ofmany of the cults which most influenced the religious feeling1 M. Aurèle, p. 579.Prud. Peristeph . x. 1008; Tertull.de Cor. c. 15; de Praescrip. Haeret. 40,Mithra signat illic in frontibus militessuos; celebrat et panis oblationem, et imaginem resurrectionis inducit, etc.; S. Paulin. Nol. Poem. Ult. 112-117.3 The initiation of Commodus in themysteries of Isis and Mithra, and the devotion of Elagabalus to sun-worshipmake one suspicious. But there is along interval between these monsters and the apparently blameless devoteesof the reign of Gratian; cf. Lamprid.Com. c. 9; Elagab. c. 3, and C.I.L. vi. 1778, 1779.Note the horror with which theinfamies of Elagabalus were regardedby all classes, Lamprid. El. c. 17; cf. Boissier, Rel. Rom. ii. pp. 419 sqq.CHAP. IV SOURCES OF ITS VITALITY 71of antiquity. The ritual in which that feeling found expressionwould to us now appear perhaps shocking, perhaps grotesqueand absurd. The drama of the Eleusinian goddesses, if wecould witness it, would probably be a poor and tasteless show,with no spiritual contents. ' Yet there is no doubt that it produced a profound effect on the devotee, and Pindar gave voiceto the universal sentiment of Greece when he said, " Happy hewho has seen the spectacle: he knows the bourn of life, heknows its divine source." Even among those who hold thesame central truths of the Christian faith, how hard it is forthe member of one sect to join in the ritual of another. ThePuritan, accustomed to express his devotion in bare and simpleforms consecrated to him by the memories of early religiousemotion, is unable to conceive the awe and tenderness whichthe Mass excites in the devout Catholic, who has witnessed itsceremonial from infancy.It is fortunate that we have preserved to us in the pagesof Apuleius an invaluable description of an initiation into themysteries of Isis, which, though the scene is laid in the reignof Marcus Aurelius, was probably often reproduced in theclosing years of paganism.The people of Corinth are about to celebrate the springfestival of Isis , and the opening of the busy traffic on theAegean, by a religious procession to the shore, and the offeringof a consecrated vessel to the goddess who cares for the toilersof the sea. Lucius, who has been imprisoned by evil arts inthe form of an ass, is awaked by a dazzling light, and in a fitof devotion cries to the Queen of Heaven, worshipped undermany names, to deliver him from his cruel fate. In answerto his prayer, there rose from the moonlit sea a divine andawful form, which no words could shadow forth. Her longrich tresses were crowned with flowers, and with a radiantmoonlike disc upheld by arching snakes on either side. Herrobe of glistening white now changed to saffron, now flushedinto rose-like flame. Her mantle of deepest darkness wasbordered with the bickering light of stars. " Lo, I come," the1 Maury, Rel. de la Grèce, ii . p. 340;Lob. Aglamph. i. pp. 111 , 112; Gard. andJevons, Greek Antiq. p. 283.2 Pind. Frag. 137 (Christ); cf. Soph.O.C. 1051; Frag. 753:ὡς τρὶς ὄλβιοι κεῖνοι βροτῶν οἱ ταῦτα δερχθέντες τέλη μόλωσ᾽ ἐς Αιδου.3 Apul. Met. xi. cc. 3-6.72 THE LATER PAGANISM BOOK Ivision said, “ in answer to thy prayers, I Nature, mother of allthings, mistress of all the elements, the primal birth of all theages, supreme divinity, Queen of the world of shades, first ofthe inhabitants of heaven, in whom all gods have their unchanging type. .. One Power adored by all the world undermany a name and with many rites. . . . Dry thy tears andassuage thy grief: already by my providence the dawn of asaving day is breaking. Attend my solemn festival and awaitthe touch of my priest which shall set thee free.Become myservant, and live in hope by constant devotion and steadfastpurity to see my glory in the world to come."Lucius awoke with a strange gladness in the freshness ofthe morning. The birds are singing under the inspiration of thespring, hymning the mother of the stars and the ages, themistress of the universe.¹ The young foliage is rustling in thesouthern breeze. The sea is asleep, hardly disturbed by aripple. The naked splendour of heaven is not veiled by asingle cloud. A great procession is forming, a picturesquemasquerade in various character and costume. First comethe belted soldier, the hunter with short tunic and huntingspears, an effeminate figure wearing jewels and false hair, agladiator with helmet, sword, and greaves. Another follows.with the well- known mantle, beard, and sandals of the wandering philosopher. A bear is borne along in a matron'slitter. An ass, with wings fastened to its flanks, carries afeeble old man, to represent Bellerophon and Pegasus to thelaughing crowd. Women in white robes scatter flowers alongthe route. Then follows a mixed crowd of men and womenand youths in snowy vestments, bearing torches and candles,and chanting a sacred poem to the melody of flutes. Thencomes the throng of the initiated, men and women, ofevery age and rank, clad in white, and the priests withshaven heads carrying the sacred symbols.3 Last of all areborne the images of the great Egyptian gods, and the pixcontaining the holy mysteries.1 Apul. Met. xi. c. 7, matrem siderum,parentem temporum, orbisque totius dominam blando mulcentes affamine.2 lb. , caelum autem nubilosa caliginedisjecta nudo sudoque luminis proprii splendore candebat.3 Ib. , sed antistites sacrorum, proOn the approach of the chiefceres illi qui candido linteamine cinctumpectoralem adusque vestigia strictiminjecti potentissimorum deum profere- bant insignis exuvias.Ib. c. 11 , ferebatur ab alio cistasecretorum capax, penitus celans operta magnificae religionis.CHAP. IV SOURCES OF ITS VITALITY 7373priest, Lucius was restored to humanity by a magic garland ,and the miracle is made the subject of an address, in whichhe dwells on the power and the goodness of the goddess.¹Behold," he says, " ye impious doubters, and recognise yourerrors. Behold one who has by the grace of Isis been delivered from his woes." And Lucius, that his future life may beshielded from the cruelty of Fortune, is exhorted to join inthe holy warfare and put on the yoke of a willing service.2The procession, with the favoured Lucius in their midst, soonreached the margin of the sea.3 There a sacred bark, resplendent with white sails and ensigns of gold, and picturesof strange Egyptian legend, was consecrated with mystic ceremonies and solemn prayer. Fragrant odours filled the air,libations were poured upon the waves. The holy vessel,which was to win the protection of the goddess for the sailor,was launched before a gentle breeze, and the crowd watchedits voyage till it faded in the distance.54Then opens another scene in the drama. The processionreturns to the temple. The images and symbols of the godsare placed in the sanctuary. Then, standing on the steps,the scribe summons the sacred Guild of the Pastophori, vowedto the service of the deity, to a solemn meeting. He readsa prayer, for the mighty prince, the Senate, the knights,the whole people of Rome, for all upon the sea, for thewealth and prosperity of all subjects. And the congregationis dismissed with a solemn form, which in its Latin equivalentremains embedded in the name of the most solemn rite of theCatholic Church. Full of the thought of his former misery,and of the joy of deliverance, the neophyte is lost in devotion.He remains in constant attendance before the image of theloving power which has wrought his salvation. He makesher temple his home. Day and night without a pause are1 Apul. Met. xi . c. 15, videant irre- ligiosi, et errorem suum recognoscant.2 Ib. , quo tibi tamen tutior sis atque munitior, da nomen huic sanctaemilitiae ... et ministerii jugum subi voluntarium .3 Ib. c. 16, navem faberrime factam,picturis miris Egyptiorum circ*msecus variegatam summus sacerdos . . . deaenuncupavit dedicavitque.6✦ Ib. c. 16.5 Ib. c. 17, indidem de sublimi suggestu, de libro, de litteris fausta votapraefatus: Principi Magno, Senatuique et Equiti, totoque Romano Populo,nauticis, navibus, quacque sub imperio mundi nostratis reguntur, etc.6 Aaoîs apeσis. Réville, Rel. unterden Sev. p. 57. Cf. note in Hilde- brand's ed. p. 1051. The right reading has probably been restored.74 THE LATER PAGANISM BOOK Ispent in prayer before her. He is filled with longing for thesupreme joy of full communion which has been promised him,yet he cannot escape from the anxious thought that hisfeeble virtue may be unable to keep the law of this spiritualservice.¹ Another vision from the goddess quiets his distrust,and stimulates his longing. He rushes to the temple as theoffices of the early morning are beginning. The white veilsof the holy image are drawn aside. The holy water from thesecret spring is sprinkled. The litany of the dawn is performed at the altars. He is more fervent than ever, and begsthe pontiff to admit him to the crowning rite. But thevenerable man gently moderates his too eager impatience . Thegoddess holds the keys of hell and of the path of salvation,and all must wait for the signal of her will. He who willenjoy her secret communion must die a voluntary death, thather grace may recall him from the very confines of death andlife by a new birth, as it were, to run a new course ofsalvation. The votary must await in patient humility thesigns of her will, and meanwhile prepare himself for the holymysteries by long abstinence.At last the sign comes in the silence of the night. Luciusrises before the dawn and presents himself before the priestwho, having laid his hands on him, leads him into thesanctuary. After the morning sacrifice, the sacred books, containing a liturgy in an unknown tongue and covered withhieroglyphic symbols, are brought out.3 The neophyte aftersolemn prayer is bathed and baptized , and receives secretinstructions as to his further preparation. Ten days morehe spends in fasting. And then at vespers came the hourwhich was to crown his longings.in linen vestments into the holyheard could never be fully told.1 Apul. Met. xi. c. 19, tamen religiosaformidine retrahebar, quod enim sedulo percontaveram, difficile religionis obsequium, et caerimoniarum abstinentiam satis arduam, etc. Ib. c. 21 , nam et inferûm claustraet salutis tutelam in deae manu posita,ipsamque traditionem ad instar voluntariae mortis et precariae salutis celebrari: quippe quum transactis vitae temporibus jam in ipso finitae lucisThe priest leads him cladplace. What he saw andAll that he could tell thelimine constitutos . numen deaesoleat elicere et sua providentia quodam modo renatos ad novae reponere rursus salutis curricula .3 Ib. c. 22, ac matutino peracto sacri- ficio, de opertis adyti profert quosdam libros, litteris ignorabilibus praenotatos,partim figuris cujuscemodi animalium,concepti sermonis compendiosa verba suggerentes, etc.CHAP. IV SOURCES OF ITS VITALITY 75world was that he drew nigh the bounds of Death, and returned across the elemental spaces. " At midnight he sawthesun in his most dazzling splendour, and came into the presenceof the Powers who rule in Heaven and Hell."21The following morning, Lucius, dressed in gorgeous robesembroidered with dragons and griffons, was exhibited to theeyes of an admiring multitude. Yet his own humble gratitudefor the favour of the goddess was paid in prostration before heraltar and constant prayer. Nor could he tear himself fromthe scene of these sacred emotions without an agony ofregret. His feelings, as he left the scene of his second birth,are embalmed in a prayer which throws a curious light on theinner spirit of the later paganism. ' Holy one, constantsaviour of the race of men, so bountiful in cherishing them, sotender in the mother's love which thou dost bestow on thewretched. Nor day nor night, nor shortest moment passesunmarked by thy benefits, without the help of thy protection for men on sea and land, without thy succouring handoutstretched to ward off the storms of life. Powers aboveand powers below alike wait on thy will. Thou makest theworld to revolve, thou givest his light to the sun, thou artruler of the universe, thou dost tread Tartarus under thy feet.To thee are due the harmony of the spheres, the return of theseasons, the gladness of the gods, the obedience of theelements. At thy bidding the breezes blow, the clouds gather,seeds germinate and grow. Birds which pass across the sky,beasts which wander on the hills, serpents which lurk underground, the monsters which swim the deep, all tremble beforethy majesty. But I am too feeble in mind to speak thy praise,too poor in worldly goods to pay thee sacrifice; nor have Iwealth of utterance to tell all that I feel of thy grandeur. Athousand lips, a thousand tongues, an unbroken eternity ofunfailing praise would not avail. What the pious soul, thoughpoor withal, may do, that will I perform. The features of thyholy godhead will be treasured in the thoughts of my inmostsoul for ever more."This may not be the expression of a modern piety. Yet he1 Apul. Met. xi. c. 24, inexplicabili vo- luptate simulacri divini perfruebar, irre- munerabili quippe beneficio pigneratus.provolutus denique anteconspectum deae et facie mea diudetersis vestigiis ejus, lacrimis obortis singultu crebro sermonem interficiens ... et verba devorans, aio.76 THE LATER PAGANISM BOOK Imust be a hard and unsympathetic critic who does not catchin this prayer the ring of a genuine religious emotion. Whenwe read of the passionate emotion aroused in Lucius by theIsiac rites, we begin to understand the fervour with whichAconia Paulina, ' herself a priestess of Isis, speaks, in thefamous inscription on the monument of Praetextatus, of herhusband's contempt for the fleeting honours of the world incomparison with his religious privileges, and records hergratitude for his having made her a partner in his religious life.3But there is earlier evidence than Apuleius that theworship of Isis, though unfortunately often combined withvery lax morality, was the source of real devotional feelingin purer souls. Three hundred years before Aconia Paulina,the priestess of Hecate and Isis,2 breathed her last in herpalace on the Esquiline, Plutarch devoted a long essay to thediscussion of the ritual, and the physical and moral significanceof the worship of Isis and Osiris. This treatise shows thesame spiritual and monotheistic tendency, the same elasticvariety of physical and moral interpretation applied to theancient myths, the same rejection of impure tales of the godsby a higher moral intuition, which are characteristic of the lastefforts of pagan theology. Plutarch's many allegorical interpretations of the Egyptian myths may seem to a modern ratherwearisome. But in a passage towards the end the very spiritof the Phaedo seems to emerge. Men are disturbed, saysPlutarch, when they are told, in veiled priestly allegory, thatOsiris rules over the dead, by the thought that the holy andblessed God really dwells among the bodies of those who havepassed away. " But He himself is far removed from earth,pure, stainless, and unpolluted by any nature that is liable tocorruption and death. The spirits of men here below, encumbered by bodily affections, can have no intercourse withGod, save only as by philosophic thought they may faintlytouch Him as in a dream. But when they are released, andhave passed into the world of the unseen, the pure, the passionless, this God shall be their guide and king, who depend onHim, and gaze with insatiable longing on that beauty whichmay not be spoken by the lips of man."41 C.I.L. vi. 1779.2 lb. vi. 1780.3 Seeck's Sym . lxxxvi. n. 386.4 Plut. de Is. et Osir. § 78; cf. § 67.CHAP. IV SOURCES OF ITS VITALITY 77The higher devotional feeling which characterised thepaganism of the educated class from the second century was,as we can see in this passage of Plutarch, accompanied by adecided tendency to monotheism. This movement was, as weshall discover, partly due to Platonic influences, ' partly to thechaos of religions, in which a few of the more commandingand attractive absorbed or assimilated the rest, and drew men'sminds to one or two great objects of devotion. Thus in thevision seen by Lucius referred to above, Isis reveals herself asa universal Power, supreme, all- pervading, worshipped undermany names. " The Phrygians call me the Mother of theGods at Pessinus; the Athenians Cecropian Minerva; I amPaphian Venus in Cyprus; Diana Dictynna to the archersof Crete, the Stygian Proserpine to the Sicilians; I am theancient Ceres at Eleusis. To some I am Juno, to othersHecate. Only the Ethiopians and Arians, illumined by the sun'sdawning light, and Egypt powerful in her ancient lore, honourme with the ritual proper to me, and call me by my true name,Queen Isis."2In the Saturnalia of Macrobius, a purely pagan work ofthe first quarter of the fifth century, there is a passage whichapplies the same syncretism, in rather a crude form, to sunworship. " If," Praetextatus is made to say, " the sun is theruler of the other lights of the heavens, and if these orbscontrol our destiny, the sun must then be the lord and authorof all. The lesser deities are simply the various effects orpotencies of this supreme power. The names of the gods, whomwe reverence, are only descriptions of different departments ofHis government, who gives life and order to the universe. "And so one deity glides into another, as we find that his nameor attribute is only, as it were, a ray of the light whichlighteth all men. " Apollo is the great power who repelsdisease, and is hence called the " Healer. " 5 And the identityof Apollo with the sun-god is proved by the epithets Loxius,Delius, Phoebus, Lycius, Nomius, or Pythius. To take one""1 Réville, Rel. unter den Sev. p. 42.2 Apul. Met. xi. c. 5.3 Macrob. Sat. i. 17. This methodof dealing with the myths of course is a very old one; cf. Cic. de Nat. Deor.ii. 23, 24, and S. Augustine's refuta6tion, de Civ. Dei, iv. 11; cf. Lob.Aglaoph. i. p. 598.Macrob. Sat. i . 17 , 4, diversae virtutes solis nomina dis dederunt.5 Ib. i. 17, 14-16 .6 Ib. i. 17, 31 sqq.78 THE LATER PAGANISM BOOK I2example, the epithet Pythius, which carries in itself the mythof the slaughter of the Python, ' merely describes the effects ofthe sun's rays on the mists of earth. Hence too Apollo iscalled Hecebolus, the Far- darting. By the same method, he isidentified with Liber or Dionysus, who is in the nocturnalhemisphere what Apollo is in the sphere of light. Indeed thevery name Dionysus (Alòs voûs) shows his identity with thesun, who is the mens mundi. Mercury again must beanother name for the sun, if only because, in works of art,Mercury is represented with wings, which indicate the velocityof light. So Aesculapius must be identified with Apollo, *because they have an equal claim to the sign of the serpentand to the power of divination . Hercules," the glory of Here,the power of the air, is the valour of the gods who crushedthe impious race who denied their divinity. The myths ofVenus and Adonis," Cybele and Attis, Isis and Osiris, receivethe same physical interpretation. In each case the myth isthe imaginative expression for the facts of the changingseasons, the sadness of the shortening days, or the gloom ofwinter. In each case we arrive once more at the centralworship of the sun. Finally, the king of the gods, who goesto visit the blameless Ethiopians, and on the twelfth dayreturns to Olympus, is plainly the sun in his diurnal course,whilst the gods who attend him are the stars who, in theirrising and setting, follows the daily motion of the heavens.For more than three centuries syncretism and the tendencyto monotheism were in the air. It has been said of the pagantheology of the third century that it is one colossal syncretism.?Among the countless cults which found a centre in the Romeof the imperial period , there was no strife or repulsion . Theyrested on myth, the imaginative expression of men's feelingstowards nature or the mystery of life and death, not on dogma.And the myths could be interpreted in many different ways.The age when each city and district had its peculiar gods,the sectarian age of heathendom, had passed away with theabsorption of so many nationalities in a world-wide Empire.1 Macrob. Sat. i. 17 , 50 sqq.2 Ib. i. 18, 1-15.3 Ib. i. 19, 1-10.Ib. i. 20 , 1-5.5 Ib. i. 20, 10.6 Ib. i. 21 , 1.7 lb. i. 21 , 7 31.8 Ib. i. 23, 1.9 Réville, Rel. unter den Sev. p. 102.CHAP. IV SOURCES OF ITS VITALITY 792Travel or conquest had made the Romans acquainted with ahost of new divinities whose attributes seemed to fill a gap intheir own system, and whose ritual stimulated devotion oraesthetic sensibility. Men from the provinces flocked to Rome,bent on business, pleasure, or advancement, and prepared toreverence the gods of the imperial city. Julius Caesar foundthe deities of Gaul the same as those of Italy,' and the Gaulserected altars to Jupiter and Vulcan beside those of their ownEsus and Tarvus and Nemausus, or combined the names of anative and a foreign deity as in that of Apollo- Belenus. TheRoman soldiers were the great apostles of syncretism . Proneas they were to superstition, exposed to constant danger on themarch or in distant quarters, the ingrained Roman awe of theunknown divinity made them ready to invoke the help of theguardian gods of the regions where they found themselves, andinnumerable inscriptions remain to attest the liberality of theirfaith or the blindness of their devotion.3 The worship of eachnew god who attracted the Roman seemed another avenue ofapproach to that dim and awful Power, inaccessible Himselfto human voice and thought, but revealed and adored indifferent manifestations of His will and attributes (numina).In truth, the old Roman religious spirit, which combined themost rigorous formalism with the personification of abstractions,to which no myth or dogma of any kind attached, lent itselfbetter than any other to universal toleration . It invented geniifor everything, the city, for the emperor, the guild, the camp,the legion, for every act, thought, or incident of human life. *Piety consisted in a scrupulous observance of the prescribedceremonial," not in definite beliefs or elevation of feeling. Manyof its objects of devotion were mere names, and the same godcould be addressed under many names, or under any namewhich pleased him."1 De Bell. Gall. vi. 17 , deum maxime Mercurium colunt. . . . Posthunc Apollinem et Martem et Jovem et Minervam. De his eandem ferequam reliquaegentes habent opinionem.2 C.I.L. xii . 3070, Jovi et Nemauso;4316, Herculi Ilunno Andose; 3077;cf. viii . 9195, Jovi , Silvano, Mercurio,Saturno, etc. , Diis Mauris; viii. 4578,Jovi, Junoni, Minervae, Soli Mithrae,Herculi, Marti, Mercurio, Genio loci,Diis Deabusque omnibus. Jupiter andSerapis are united , viii . 2629; Jupiter,Juno, Minerva, Sol, Mithras, Hercules,Genius loci, viii . 4578.3 C.I.L. viii . 2623, 2639-2641 (DisMauris), 9195, 8435 , 8834 ( Iemsal is a god's name).Réville, p. 41; Preller, p. 387;C.I.L. viii . 2529, 6945; xii. 1282.5 Cic. de Nat. Deor. , est enim pietas justitia adversum deos.6 C.I.L. vi. 110, 111.80 THE LATER PAGANISM BOOK IThe Empire, by drawing together so many peoples withtheir peculiar worships, might seem to have produced aspiritual chaos. In reality the very multitude and variety ofthese religions, combined with the spiritual tendencies of theage, by comparison, assimilation , identification, to lead to unity.The old gods seemed to welcome alien worships, and borrowedtheir symbols and the ritual of their mysteries.many deities were gathered under one roof.¹ The worshipperwas ready to accept from any cult what satisfied devoutfeeling or taste and fancy.Altars toMen made dedications to a hostof deities of every clime. They sought initiation in all themysteries, those of the Eleusinian goddesses, of Isis, andMithra. They accumulated priesthoods in the most variouscults. If different deities had similar symbols or functions, the tendency was to identify them, or to subordinatethe less vigorous cults under one of greater popularity. Themasses, by a blind instinct, sought from any quarter satisfaction.for vague religious cravings, which become more and moreimperious in the second and third centuries, for moral supportand purification, for assurance of immortality. The cultivatedand indifferent found pleasure and excitement in the splendouror novelty of foreign ritual, as a modern sceptic may findan aesthetic pleasure in the ceremonial of the Mass. Thegeneral drift of serious minds was spiritually towards morepersonal relations with God, and intellectually towards a vaguemonotheism or pantheism. The many- coloured worships ,which offered their symbolism to devotion, were, to some,clues to the Great Mystery, to others, distant and indistinctadumbrations of it. The religious attitude of many devoutpagans in the third and fourth centuries is probably described.in a letter of Maximus, a grammarian of Madaura, to S.Augustine, about the year 390. Maximus professes his sureand certain belief in one Supreme God, the great and gloriousFather. His virtues, diffused throughout the universe, we1 Luc. de Syr. Dea, 35.2 C.I.L. viii. 4578 , 9195, 6955.3 Ib. vi. 504, 1779.Lamprid. Com. c. 9.Aug. Ep. 16, equidem unum esse deum summum, sine initio, sineprole naturae, ceu patrem magnummum.atque magnificum, quis tam demens,tam mente captus neget esse certissiHujus nos virtutes per munda- num opus diffusos, multis vocabulis invocamus. This letter seems to renderdoubtful Dr. Bigg's denial of a real monotheistic tendency in the laterpaganism (Neoplatonism , pp. 52, 53) .CHAP. IV SOURCES OF ITS VITALITY 81adore under many names, since his proper name we knownot. God belongs to all religions. And hence, while weaddress separate parts of Him in our various supplications, weare really worshipping the whole, under a thousand names ina harmonious discord. It was the task of the Neoplatonicphilosophy to crystallise in its formulae the vague fluid instinctsof the mass of men, and to try to find a secret harmony inthe discord.In the three centuries between Plutarch and Macrobius,the great aim of philosophy is to reach the intellectual groundof truth underlying the crowd of worships which gave expression to the religious instinct of humanity, and faith inthe Unseen. The father of this movement is the pious andcultivated sage of Chaeronea, ' who is probably the highest andpurest character ever produced in a heathen environment. Heis in philosophy an eclectic Platonist; but he really is far morea moralist and theologian than a philosopher. He believesemphatically in one great, central Power, who is sometimesspoken of, in Platonic language, as the Infinite Good, sometimes as the Father of all, whose wisdom and providencecontrols the universe. Plutarch has a horror of the superstition which fears the wrath of God, and of the atheism whichdenies His existence.3 The gods worshipped by the variousraces of men are to Plutarch, as they are to Celsus andMaximus of Tyre, the subordinate representatives of theSupreme Governor, called by many names, honoured in manyfashions, but all pointing the pious soul to the central objectof devotion. In his doctrine of daemons Plutarch found arefuge for polytheistic worship, and an explanation of oracularinspiration. He is a distant progenitor of the Neoplatonismof the fourth century.Neoplatonism was the great intellectual support of thepagan spirit in the last two centuries of the Empire. Thegerm of its doctrine was introduced into Rome in the time ofthe Antonines, and the force of that strange mixture of super1 Réville, p. 112; Zeller, Phil. derGr. 3rd part, pp. 141-182; cf. Bigg's Neoplatonism, pp. 88-91.2 De Is. et Osir. 67 , 78; de Sera Num. Vind. 5, 18; cf. de Pyth. Or.21; on the evil principle in the world v. de Is. 45.G3 But superstition, as degrading the character, he regards as the worse;cf. Nec Posse Suar. Vir. 20 , 21. On Plutarch's belief in genii or dae.mons v. Gréard's Morale de Plutarque,pp. 299-304; Bigg's Neoplatonism,p. 95.82 THE LATER PAGANISM BOOK Istition with lofty speculation, which characterised the laterNeoplatonism, was so enduring and intense that S. Augustinedevoted to it some of the most powerful chapters of his City ofGod. The rhetor, Apuleius, of Madaura, who had been initiatedin all the mysteries, and who posed as an apostle of Platonism,harangued great audiences both in Rome and the provinces, andfascinated them by a " Platonism half understood, mixed withfanciful Orientalism . " Plotinus, the greatest of the Alexandrians, arrived in Rome in 244.3 Crowds of senators,magistrates, and women of high rank came to listen to theobscure eloquence of the Egyptian mystic, who summonedthem, in words which moved the admiration of S. Augustine,"to flee to the dear fatherland of souls, where the Fatherdwells." 4 The success of Plotinus was so great that he had .a dream of obtaining a settlement from the Emperor Gallienusand founding a city in Campania, which should realise theideal polity of Plato.5 Porphyry, a Syrian, the greatest ofhis disciples, and a declared foe of Christianity, carried on histradition into the first years of the fourth century. WithIamblichus the Neoplatonic system underwent a great change.It abandoned the detached and disinterested mysticism of itsprime.6 The persecution of Diocletian revealed the inextinguishable force of the Christian faith, and the danger ofa religious revolution. The fate of the schools was involvedin that of the temples. Philosophy threw itself withoutreserve into the conflict. The great Alexandrines, while readyto admit a kernel of truth under the husk of mythologicalsymbols, made no profession of religious faith in them.Their successors of the age of Julian sank the philosopherin the ardent devotee,s believed in sacrifice and divination,and practised magic and the theurgic arts. The idealist mustalways contract some stains when he descends into the arenaof practical life. And Neoplatonism , while nerving paganismfor its last battle, lost much of the moral purity and1 De Civ. Dei, viii. 14 sqq.; cf. Ep.138, § 18.2 Apol. 55.3 Porph. vit. Plotin. c. 3, 7, 9.De Civ. Dei, ix. 17, ubi est illudPlotini, ubi ait: " Fugiendum estigitur ad carissimam patriam, et ibi pater, et ibi omnia."5Porph. vit. Plotin. c. 12.6 Bigg, Neoplatonism, p. 305.7 Cf. Plotin. Ennead, v. 8, 10; vi.9, 9; v. 1 , 7; iii. 6, 19; iii . 5, 8. Forhis cautious view of magic v. iv. 3, 11;cf. Porph. de Abst. ii . 41-43.8 Vacherot, l'École d'Alex. ii . p. 144.CHAP. IV 883 SOURCES OF ITS VITALITYgrandeur of Plotinus. Yet an unsympathetic critic mayeasily exaggerate the degradation; winking Madonnas andmiracles of Lourdes will not blind a candid man to thebetter side of Catholicism. And we should not forget that,if Julian deluged the altars with the blood of victims,¹ andcountenanced the superstitious absurdities of men like Maximus,he strove to correct vices in the pagan system infinitely worsethan slavish superstition. A reactionary in one sense, he wasalso a daring innovator. It was no ordinary man who dreamtof regenerating the ancient worship by borrowing a dogmatictheology from Alexandria, an ecstatic devotion from Persia,a moral ideal from Galilee. Julian exerted his pontificalauthority to raise the priestly character and make it a patternto the people. The ministers of the gods were to beregular in their devotion, pure in mind and body, tender inrelieving the poor and outcast. They are to avoid all taintedliterature; they must never be seen in taverns and theatres; andthey must exhort their flocks to be chaste, devout, and charitable. The worshippers of the sun-king are to prepare themselves for the holy mysteries by fasting and contemplation.This heroic attempt to breathe a new life into paganism wasdoomed to failure. But it is a narrow and hide-bound criticismwhich refuses to see great qualities in the defender of a badcause, and which will not admit that superstition may sometimes be united with lofty moral ideals.The effort of Neoplatonic philosophy to save polytheismin the fourth century is a curious chapter in the history ofopinion. In spite of some serious metaphysical differences,there might seem to be many affinities between Neoplatonismand Christianity in their common doctrine of the unity of God,and their moral and spiritual idealism. On the other hand,there might appear at first sight an irreconcilable oppositionbetween the Hellenic cult of nature and sense, and a systemthe centre of which was the doctrine of the Infinite and Unknowable One. The explanation lies in the sympathetic attachmentof religious and philosophic systems to their ancestry. Neoplatonism could no more forget its Hellenic origin than theChristian Church could forget its sources in the religion of1 Amm. Marc. xxii. 12, 6.2Frag. Ep. ed. Hertlein, vol. ii . p.385 sqq.; Ep. 62; Duruy, vii. 341;Vacherot, ii. 165.84 THE LATER PAGANISM BOOK IIsrael. The school of Alexandria, essentially eclectic andconservative, was bound by a continuous chain of thought andfeeling to the whole past culture of Hellas, of which the greatestglory in art and letters was derived from Greek legend. Plato,their great master, while he claimed that the moral sense mightcorrect the errors of licentious fancy, never abandoned themythology of his race. He had used it, as he used the ancientOrphic traditions, to adorn or enforce his philosophic teaching.Moreover, any system of philosophy which deserves thename must guard its freedom. Paganism had no rigid systemof dogma. Formed by the rude superstitious fancy, andendlessly varied and glorified by the genius of poetry, thelegends of Hellas belong to a totally different order of thoughtfrom the definitions of Christian councils. They were foodfor the imagination or emotions; they were never articles offaith. From the sixth century the greatest minds, Xenophanes,¹Aeschylus, Pindar,³ Plato,* had treated them with great freedomof interpretation and criticism, and Euripides had, year afteryear at a great religious festival, for more than half a centuryexerted with impunity all the subtlety of his art to lower thedignity and dim the splendour of the great figures of Greeklegend. But the Christianity of the fourth century was asystem complete, well articulated, demanding entire submissionof the reason. It would not treat with philosophy even onequal terms. Its truths must be accepted in the form in whichgenerations of controversy and the decisions of councils hadfinally left them. If its dogmas did not square with philosophy,philosophy must yield. A system like the Neoplatonic, withits roots in the old world, whose best thought it strove tofuse into a whole, could not come to terms with an aggressivereligion which claimed the monopoly of truth. In notseparating itself from paganism, while it strove to interpretthe myths in a higher sense, the Neoplatonists were merelytreading in the footsteps of their great master. Might it notbe possible to find a niche for each of these countless gods inthe temple of the inscrutable One? 5 Might not the popular1 Athen. xi. 462 , Frag. 1. 21; cf. Ritter and Preller, Hist. Phil. p. 82.2 Aesch. Agam. 55, 160. See Prof.Murray's Ancient Gk. Literature, pp. 223,224; cf. Hellenica, " Aeschylus, "p. 16.3 Pind. Ol. i. 45-85.Rep. ii. p. 378; Euthyphr. c. 6.See the exposition of the treatise "De Mysteriis" in Vacherot, ii . p. 121 sqq.CHAP. IV SOURCES OF ITS VITALITY 85religion, without any dangerous breach with the past, bereconciled with a pure theism? Might not a warm devotionand assiduous attention to the ancient ritual be found compatible with the ecstatic vision of God, who is in Himselfinaccessible to prayer or sacrifice, inconceivable by imaginationor the highest effort of reason?Neoplatonism had some advantages over Stoicism in theattempt to support or to restore the forces of paganism.Stoicism gave philosophic expression to the religious feeling ofold Rome. But under the later Empire, as we have seen, theold gods had fallen into the shade, and cults of Eastern originhad acquired an extraordinary power and fascination. Thetendency to monotheism in some of these systems was verymarked; and the ascetic preparation for their mysteries, togetherwith the ecstatic tone of devotion which they encouraged, had acertain attraction for the Pythagorean and Platonic schools. ThePlatonist Apuleius lived in an atmosphere of magic and mystery,2and in his travels sought initiation in all sorts of strange cults,which stimulated emotion, or promised glimpses of the unseenworld. The later Alexandrians of the time of Julian found insun-worship the highest symbol of their esoteric doctrine.³But the great means of acommodation lay in the principleof emanation.* It enabled the Neoplatonist to bridge overthe chasm between the one, pure abstraction," absolutely simple,not to be grasped by any act of thought nor described by anyattribute, and the worlds of spirit and sense." Each unity inthe scale gives birth from its inner essence to another morecomplex, and therefore inferior. From the purely abstract Onethere is a graduated scale of being, unity, mind, soul, theuniverse of sense, each successively engendered out of theinner essence of the higher and simpler form. Into such asystem it was not hard to fit the gods of mythology.1 Vacherot, ii. p. 148.2 Apul. Apol. 55, sacrorum initia in Graecia participavi, multijuga sacra et plurimos ritus et varias cerimoniasstudio veri et officio erga deos didici;cf. Bigg's Neoplatonism, pp. 52 sqq.3 Zeller, die Phil. der Gr. iii. 2,p. 629; Julian , Or. iv. xai gáp ciu tài βασιλέως ὀπαδὸς Ηλίου.For the sense in which PlotinusIt isheld this v. Zeller, die Phil. der Griech. iii . 2, pp. 451-453.5 lb. iii. 2, p. 454.6 lb. iii. 2, p. 549.7 Macrob. Som. Scip. i. 17, 12,gives a simple statement of the doctrine of Plotinus; cf. Zeller, iii. 2, p. 453;Ennead, vi. 5, 4.8 See the elaborate system of Sallustin Vacherot, ii . p. 124; cf. Zeller, iii.2, p. 557.86 THE LATER PAGANISM BOOK I5true that there are wide differences between the earlier andlater Neoplatonists in their attitude to the popular religion.Plotinus is much more of a philosopher than a theologian. 'and while he tries to find a hidden meaning in the myths,"in an unsystematic way, he makes no allusion to theurgy, anddeals rather ambiguously with the external forms of devotion.3So, too, Porphyry, while his system enabled him to find ametaphysical content in legend, has no sympathy with thematerialism of worship. He holds firmly that the Supremecannot be approached by any avenue of sense, by sacrifice , orformal prayer. God is honoured most by reverent silence andpurity of heart. To become like and offer ourselves to Himis the acceptable sacrifice. But the Platonists of the fourthcentury are much more theologians than pure philosophers."The whole forces of the ancient schools were gathered up andemployed to give system and a rational basis to the old religion .The fictions of mythology were justified by the example ofNature, who veils her secrets from the vulgar gaze. TheSupreme One indeed, the fountain of being, must not beprofaned by human fancy. But the lower powers may bedimly revealed to the multitude by allegory or fanciful tale.The world itself is a great myth, which at once hides andreveals the mystery of the Divine. And the philosopherproceeds to classify the myths according to the nature ofthe inner truth which they contain." Some convey the deepesttheological, or, as we should say, metaphysical truth. Forexample, Saturn devouring his children is intelligence returningupon itself.10 Others of these fictions are imaginative expressions of the facts of nature. Apollo slaying the Python is thesun drawing up the pestilential fogs of the marshes. Thenames of many deities are simply names of natural objects oronce sister and wife of Jupiter,11 powers. Juno is the air, at1 Vacherot, ii. p. 108.2 Zeller, iii . 2, p. 560; Ennead, v.1, 4, 7; v. 8, 13.3 Zeller, iii. pp. 562, 563; iii . 2,563.Vacherot, ii . pp. 112-116; Zeller,iii. 2, pp. 599-601 , where the doubts ofPorphyry are expounded.5 De Abstin. ii . 34, dià de σinsκαθαρᾶς καὶ τῶν περὶ αὐτοῦ καθαρῶν ἐννοιῶν θρησκεύομεν αὐτόν.6 Vacherot, ii. p. 119, après Porphyre8la philosophie embrasse sans réserve lepolythéisme.7 Ib. ii. p. 121 .Cf.8 Macrob. Som. Scip. i . 2, 7-19,sciunt inimicam esse naturae apertamnudamque expositionem sui, etc. the views of Proclus in the fifth century,Zeller, iii. 2, p. 744 .Zeller, iii . 2, p. 628; cf. Bigg'sNeoplatonism, p. 306.10 Vacherot, ii. p. 122.11 Ib. ii. p. 123.CHAP. IV SOURCES OF ITS VITALITY 871the lord of the upper sky. Isis is the earth , Osiris the sun, orthe moist germ which fecundates. There is a hierarchy ofgods corresponding to the hierarchy of being, and to thefaculties of the human soul. High above all is the SupremeOne, the Good, to be approached only in ecstasy, an effortof the soul far transcending any exertion of the highest reason,in which God is the object of an immediate vision or intuition,and the sense of personality is lost and swallowed up in therapture of union with the Divine. Then there are the gods.of the intelligible world, transcending the world of sense, andhaving no point of contact with it. Lower in the scalethere are the powers of the sensible universe, creating, lifegiving, and preserving. Lastly there are the daemons andheroes,3 more nearly akin to the world of sense, and actingas intermediaries between it and the sphere of pure intelligence,in which reside those powers, far above the region of thesensible, who cannot come to us, although, through the divineelement in us, we may rise to them.Between the pure mysticism of Plotinus and the fanaticismand superstition of the Neoplatonists of the fourth and fifthcenturies, who justified and practised heathen sacrifices, divination, oracles, magic, and theurgy, there might seem to be animpassable gulf. But the great system, the centre of which wasthe unapproachable One, really contained the germs of the mostthorough-going superstition that the world has probably everseen. The theory of emanations necessarily involved a beliefin secret sympathies and affinities, linking together all partsof the universe of being. Man himself, through his variousfaculties and capacities, is in touch with every link in thechain. If, by an almost superhuman effort, transcendingany effort of the reason, he can rise in ecstasy to animmediate vision of the inscrutable One, he can alsocommunicate with, and act upon, the lower powers and formsof existence. And he finds allies in the invisible world in thedaemons, who mediate between the world of pure intelligenceand the world of sense. Thus the Neoplatonists of thefourth century, having found a place in their system for the1 Vacherot, ii . p. 126; Zeller, iii. 2,p. 628.2 Ennead, vi. 7 , 34, 35.3 Aug. de Civ. Dei, viii. 14; cf.Vacherot, ii. p. 127; Zeller, iii . 2,p. 510.888THELATERPAGANISMBOOKIancient gods, found no difficulty in communicating with themby prayer, oracle, or oblation, and even believed themselvescapable of wielding the forces of nature. Committed fromits origin to the old mythology, Neoplatonism in the last ageabandoned the reserve of its youth, adopted the whole pagansystem, and, in an inevitable decline, lent even the forces.of philosophy to deepen the superstition of the age. Thereis a certain sadness in thinking that Proclus,' the last greatmember of the school, a man of high intellect and almostsaintly life, kept all the feast - days in the Egyptian calendar,and believed himself able to call down rain in a time of drought.Yet it may be doubted whether, even in the last age ofpaganism, the purer and more elevating side of Neoplatonicspeculation had lost all influence, and been completely obscured.We have seen evidence that there was an enlightened classwho, while they refused to abandon the religion of theirancestors, were penetrated with the loftier conceptions of thedivine nature, which for a thousand years Greek philosophyhad kept before the minds of its disciples. Such men, repelledby the baser element in heathenism, yet bound by loyalty andold associations to the past, might readily accept a systemwhich could reconcile a belief in the meaning and sanctity ofancient legend with a lofty moral tone and a faith in theInfinite Father. Fortunately we have preserved to us, amongthe débris of the fifth century, a book which shows that therewere pagans who still drew from the system of Plotinus a realmoral and spiritual support.The commentary of Macrobius on Cicero's Dream of Scipio 2dates probably from the end of the first quarter of the fifthcentury. It is a curious mixture of old Roman feeling, withthe best results of Neoplatonic speculation.³ It is a devotional treatise, with a certain tinge of mysticisın. Yet here andthere, in discourses of an ethical or mystical tone, we lightupon purely physical or mathematical disquisitions which havea flavour of Pythagoreanism. From a contemplation of theheavenly reward awaiting virtue, we suddenly pass to achapter on point, line, superficies, and solid , and the manifold1 Zeller, die Phil. der Gr. iii . 2, p.709; Bigg, pp. 319-321.2It is best known as having pre- served to us the Somnium Scipionisfrom bk. vi. of Cicero's Republic.On the philosophical and other sources ofthe work v. Jan, Prol. xi.Macrob. Som . Scip. i. 5, 5.CHAP. IV SOURCES OF ITS VITALITY 89meaning, in man's life and destiny, of the number seven.¹The Milky Way is the home of the blessed after death . Butit is apparently of equal interest to decide whether, accordingto Theophrastus, it is the juncture of two hemispheres, or whetherDemocritus is right in regarding it as a tract, so thickly sownwith stars that their intervals are obliterated and they presenta uniform luminous surface to the distant gazer. After astatement of the doctrine of emanation, we are launchedupon a discussion of the planetary motions and the order ofthe spheres. The question of the influence of the heavenlybodies on human destiny is mixed up with calculations as tothe relative size of the earth and the sun.5 The moon marks3the limit of air and ether, of the divine and the perishable;and in the next sentence we are reminded that our souls areof celestial origin, and that we are exiles here below.The book is a singular mixture of physics, morals, metaphysics. There is much which harmonises with the bestChristian sentiment, side by side with cold statements of whatwe should regard as scientific theory, but which the authorconceives as a theology. Yet the main purpose is to fortifyvirtuous purpose by the prospect of the reward after death ,and the contemplation of the divine origin and the divinedestiny of the human soul. The dimensions of the sunand his orbit, the periods of the planetary revolutions, theposition of the earth in the solar system, may seem to ussubjects strangely out of place in a treatise apparently intendedto stimulate devout feeling and virtuous conduct. We areconscious of a kind of chill in being asked to consider therelations of numbers, or the vast spaces between the heavenlyspheres, side by side with lofty theories of our origin, and earthlydiscipline, and our future in another world. Yet the apparentincongruity may be explained. To Macrobius and his classthe Mundus, with all its spheres, was divine, the efflux of1 Macrob. Som. Scip. i . 6, 45 , nam primo omnium hoc numero animamundana generata est sicut Timaeus Platonis edocuit. For the references ofMacrobius to this part of the Timueus v. Grote's Plato, iii . p. 252 n.2 Macrob. Som. Scip. i . 15, 1-10.3 Ib. i. 17, 12.4 lb. i. 18.5 Ib. i. 19, 19.6 Ib. i. 17; ef. i . 21 , 34 , ita animorum origo caelestis est sed lege tem- poralis hospitalitatis hic exulat.7 Ib. i . 14, 5, nunc qualiter nobis animus id est mens cum sideribus communis sit secundum theologos disse- ramus.90 THE LATER PAGANISM BOOK Ithe inscrutable Essence which, by successive stages of generation, was the source of the orbs of the sky, of the soul ofman, of the meanest creature possessed of life. It needs aneffort of sympathy and imagination to enter into the spirit ofany outworn theology. To understand that expounded byMacrobius, you must look up into the depths of the heavenson a summer night, and try to believe that your particularspark of soul has travelled down to earth through all thespheres from its source in the divine ether, and that after itsescape from the earthly prison-house it may return again toits distant birthplace.3The commentary on the Dream of Scipio enables one tounderstand how devout minds could even to the last remainattached to paganism. It presupposes rather than expoundsthe theology of Neoplatonism. Its chief motive is rathermoral or devotional than speculative. The One, supreme,unapproachable, ineffable, residing in the highest heaven, isassumed as the source of mind and life,' penetrating all things,from the star in the highest ether to the lowest form of animalexistence. The universe is God's temple, filled with Hispresence. The unseen, inconceivable Author created from Hisessence pure mind, in the likeness of Himself. In contact withmatter, mind degenerates and becomes soul. In the scale ofbeing the moon marks the limit between the eternal and theperishable, and all below the moon is mortal and evanescentexcept the higher principle in man. l'assing from the divineworld through the gate of Cancer,5 mind descends gradually, ina fall from its original blessedness, through the seven spheres,and, in its passage, the divine and universal element assumesthe various faculties which make up the composite nature ofman. In Saturn it acquires the reasoning power, in Jupiterthe practical and moral, in Mars the spirited, in Venus thesensual element. But in the process of descending into thebody, the divine part suffers a sort of intoxication and oblivionof the world from which it comes, in some cases deeper thanMacrob. Som. Scip. i. 17, 12; cf. 3 Ib. i. 14, 4-7.i. 14, 4.2 Ib. i. 14, 2. And he adds, whatmay remind us of some phrases ofS. Paul, sciatque quisquis in usum templi hujus inducitur ritu sibi vivendum sacerdotis.644 Ib. i. 14, 16.5 Ib. i. 12, 1; cf. Plotin. Ennead, iv .3, 15.6 Macrob. Som. Scip. i. 12, 8, unde et comes ebrietatis oblivio illic animisincipit jam latenter obrepere.CHAP. IV16SOURCES OF ITS VITALITY 91in others. Thus the diffusion of soul among bodily forms is akind of death; and the body is only a prison , or rather atomb, which cannot be quitted save by a second death , thedeath to sin and earthly passion. The soul must not terminateits imprisonment in the flesh by any voluntary act, but purifyitself, and await the appointed hour when its release will come.Suicide is not only rebellion against the Great Master, it isalso an act of passion, and the soul, as Plotinus teaches,which quits this mortal life with the soilure of sin upon it,falls into an abyss from which it may not rise again. Moreover, the heavenly reward is proportioned to the degree ofperfection which we attain here below, and therefore themortal term should not be cut short while our probation is stillincomplete, and so long as any improvement may be made. Itis true that the soul should always strive to remember thesource from which it sprang, and regard the body as a sort ofhell. Degraded souls who have neglected their time of probation cling to the mortal element after death, and, instead ofascending again to the divine world, are doomed to be imprisoned in brutish forms, and utterly forget their heavenlyorigin. The only hope of eternal happiness is virtue. Scipio'sdream promised eternal felicity to those who have protected , orsaved, or aggrandised the state. ' But there are higher degreesof virtue than that of the heroic and self- sacrificing citizen.While civic virtue moderates and controls the passions, thecleansing virtues may eradicate them," the saintly and mysticvirtues may attain to complete forgetfulness of their allurements,and, in a last victorious effort, 12 we may even rise to entireabsorption in the divine. Thus, though the good man will1 Macrob. Som. Scip. i . 10, 9. Cf.the Orphic phrase σῆμα τὸ σῶμα, Γ .Crat. 400 c; Phaed. 62 B. Virg. Aen.vi. 734.2 Macrob. Som. Scip. i. 13, 6, mori etiam dicitur cum anima adhuc in corpore constituta corporeas inlecebrasphilosophia docente contemnit. This,however, is an old thought. Cf. Pl.Phaed. 67», τὸ μελέτημα τῶν φιλοσόφωνλύσις καὶ χωρισμὸς ψυχῆς ἀπὸ σώματος.3 Macrob. Som. Scip. i . 13, 8.Ib. i. 13, 9; cf. i . 13, 16.5 Ib. i. 13, 15, cum constet munerationem animis illic esse tribuenre108dam pro modo perfectionis ad quam inhac vita una quaeque pervenit .6 Ib. i. 9, 3.7 Ib. i. 10, 17.8 Cf. Pl. Phacd. 81 D, E; Zeller, iii .2, 530.9 Macrob. Som. Scip. i. 8, 3, solae faciunt virtutes beatum .10 Ib. i. 4, 4.11 Ib. i. 8, 9, passiones ignorare non vincere ut nesciat irasci, cupiat nihil. How near this comes to the Christian ascetic ideal of that age.12 Ib. i. 8, 9. Cf. on the Neoplatonicecstasy, Zeller, iii . 2, pp. 549, 745.9226 THE LATER PAGANISM BOOK Iperform the duties of his earthly lot, he will realise that theearth is but a point in the infinitude of the universe, ' that itis the sphere of the mortal and the transient, and he will beready to turn an ear to any echo which recalls the eternalharmonies of the heavens. Hence he will make light of glory,³and aim only at the approval of conscience. For of this smallspot in the universe, how small a part does our race possess!The fame of Rome has not passed beyond the Ganges or theCaucasus; and the most splendid fame is but brief. For allhuman tradition shows how short is the duration of anyhistoric period. The universe may be eternal, but fire andflood, in regular alternations, prevail and sweep into oblivion.man and all his works, save in a few sheltered homes ofimmemorial culture, like Egypt, which maintain the continuityof the race. In this scene of mortality and short- lived hopes,the only wisdom is to nourish the hope of a life to come, todo one's duty to the fatherland on earth, while ever mindfulof the true fatherland of souls, which is " eternal in theheavens."8It may be said that the commentary on the Dream of Scipiorepresents the mysticism of a small circle of philosophicdreamers, and not a general state of moral feeling. Andcertainly the seeker for historical truth should not exaggeratethe influence of ideals which in every age are the guide ofonly a minority. It is, however, an even graver fault to fixone's gaze on the baser side of past ages, and to ignore whatever there is of hope and promise in the slow and painfuldevelopment of humanity. Such is not the habit of a soundand scrupulous historical spirit. Nor is it the attitude of atruly religious mind. It shows but little faith in the Fatherof all souls to believe that He consigns whole generationsof His children merely to the worship of devils, without any1 Macrob. Som. Scip. i. 16, 6, (terra)quae tota puncti locum pro caeli magni- tudine vix obtinet.2 Ib. ii. 3, 7, 11 , quia in corpus defertmemoriam musicae cujus in caelo fuit conscia. On the music of the spheres ef. Enneal, iv. 4, 8, μέλος ἂν ᾄσειαν ἐνφυσικῇ τινι ἁρμονία.3 Macrob. Som. Scip. ii . 10, 2.4 lb. ii. 10, 3.5 Ib. ii . 10, 9, res vero humanaeex parte maxima saepe occiduntmanente mundo et rursus oriuntur veleluvione vicissim vel exustione re- deunte.6 Ib. ii. 12, 1 .7 lb. ii. 17.8Aug. de Civ. Dei, ix. 17, illud Plotini ubi ait: "Fugiendum est igiturad carissimam patriam, et ibi pater,et ibi omnia. " Cf. Macrob. in Som.Scip. i. 9, 3.CHAP. IV SOURCES OF ITS VITALITY 93glimpse of Himself, and to dwell on their blind aberrations ofsuperstition in groping towards the light, and on their franticefforts to calm the terrors and the longings which are inspiredby the ineradicable faith in a world beyond the grave.Rather should we welcome indications that God never utterlyforsakes the creatures of His hands, and that in the decay ofancient heathenism there was a moral and spiritual life, whichwas to be nourished in an unending future by the divineideals of Galilee.

BOOK IISKETCHES OF WESTERN SOCIETYFROM SYMMACHUS TO SIDONIUS

CHAPTER ITHE INDICTMENT OF HEATHEN AND CHRISTIAN MORALISTSFEW inquiries should be more interesting than the attempt toform a conception of the inner tone and life of society inWestern Europe on the eve of its collapse. Was society ascorrupt and effete as it has been represented? Were its vices,as Salvianus insisted, the cause of the triumph of the barbarians? The judgment of the enthusiastic ascetic ofMarseilles has been reproduced by successive generations ofmoralists and historians. The accusers have been vehementand pitiless. And hardly a word of direct self-defence andself- exculpation from all that crowd of stately nobles, keendialecticians, and polished literateurs, has come down to us.It is easy to frame such wholesale indictments against thesilent generations of a long past age. It is not so easy toperform the more useful task of realising how they actuallylived, and what answer, could they defend themselves, theymight make to their accusers.It is never safe to trust sweeping censure of the moralsof a whole age or people. What a picture of our own timemight be drawn by some acrid or enthusiastic moralist of thethirtieth century, who should dress up all the scandals offashionable life hinted at in society journals, all the tales ofruin on the Turf, all the unsavoury revelations of our policecourts and divorce courts, and present them to his readers asa fair sample of the way in which the English people wereliving in the last years of the reign of Victoria! Yet this isthe fashion in which satirists or moralists have treated thefirst century and the last of the society of the Empire. TheH98 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK 11satirist of the reign of Domitian has left us pictures ofdepravity and extravagant self - indulgence which are morerevolting than anything in the pages of S. Jerome or Salvianus. If society at large had been half as corrupt as it isrepresented by Juvenal, it must have speedily perished ofmere rottenness. Yet when Juvenal died the Roman worldwas entering on a period of almost unexampled peace andprosperity, a period of upright and beneficent administrationand high public virtue, culminating in the reign of the saintlyMarcus Aurelius. An intensity of devotion, hitherto strangeto it, was giving a fresh life to Roman paganism. Philosophywas diffusing more spiritual conceptions of God, and a humanercharity in the relations of life. The inscriptions, the letters ofthe younger Pliny,' and even the pages of Tacitus, as severea moralist as Juvenal, reveal to us another world from thatof the satirist, a world of severe and elevated virtue, inwhich the men and women sustain one another in adherenceto high principle, in the pursuit of lofty ideals of public duty,or of literary and philosophical studies. If we shudder at theenormities of Tigellinus and Messalina, we should alwaysremember that the same age produced a Thrasea and anAgricola, a Calpurnia and a Plotina.Roman satire was perhaps the strongest and most originaldepartment of Roman literature. But its judgments must betaken with a good deal of reserve. It was frank and outspoken about deeds of darkness, over which our moretimorous delicacy is inclined to throw a veil. It was sometimesalmost puritanical in its moral tone and the fierceness of itscensures. The satirist represents the old Roman spirit, anddraws his ideal from an age of simple habits before Rome wascorrupted by the arts of Greece and the luxury of the conquered East. He is apt to forget that luxury is not a synonymfor vice, and that a softened tone need not imply effeminacy.He is still more apt to forget that a whole class should not bemade responsible for the folly and intemperance of a few.,He strikes at the monsters of vice, who will always appear solong as wealth and luxury abound, and he leaves the impression that these are not abnormal specimens, but types. He1 Duruy, Hist. Rom. v. pp. 662 sqq.; Boissier, Rel. Rom. ii. p. 195.CHAP. I ITS PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CENSORS 991ignores the mass of quiet good sense, wholesome feeling, andself- control, which in every age lies in shadow behind glaringand shameless profligacy. Above all, the very violence andbitterness with which the moralist lashes the vices of his timeis a proof that his society is not so hopelessly corrupt as hedepicts it. He is fighting for an ideal which cannot be amonopoly of his own. And when he laments the degeneracyof his contemporaries from the purer manners of a remote,and perhaps mythical, past, he is often only expressing personal contempt for the softer habits of increasing refinement,or else he is speaking as the organ of a quickened moral senseamong the very men whom he judges so hardly.The modern inquirer needs even greater caution in acceptingcontemporaneous judgments of the character of society in thefourth and fifth centuries than in the first. In the one casean age of splendid public virtue, of higher moral ideals, ofgreat material advancement, succeeded an age which we areasked to believe was a period of selfishness, frivolous extravagance, and frantic and unbridled debauchery. The Empirewas never so beneficent and so adored by its remote subjects 2in many lands as it was under the sons and grandsons ofthe men who are represented as the vilest of mankind.It was still proud and erect ten generations after Juvenal andthe objects of his loathing were in their graves. But the fifthcentury closes the career of Rome in the West. The mostspotless virtue, the most heroic energy, would have availednothing against the forces which had undermined the civilisation of twelve hundred years. There can be little doubt thatthere were in the last pagan generation men who held a morespiritual creed, and had aspirations for a higher moral life,than their ancestors who conquered Carthage and Macedonia.But they represent a failing cause; they are the rere-guard ofa retreating host, pressed hard by the victorious energy ofthe Church, which, conscious that the future belonged to it,was not always able to do justice to the régime which waspassing away. It is so easy to attribute failure and calamityto moral causes; and Christian controversialists often failed toremember the Master's saying about those on whom the Tower1 Juv. xiii. 26.See the inscriptions laboriously collected on this subject in Fustel de Coulanges, La Gaule Rom. p. 177 sqq.100 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIof Siloam fell. Moreover, even within their own ranks, thenew spirit of asceticism, which could find salvation only byfleeing from the world , and which, in the recoil from vice, setup a standard of superhuman virtue, was not always charitablein its judgments even of Christians, who, remaining in theworld to bear its burdens, did not escape its stains. Thusthat old society had not only to endure its own self- reproachfuldoubts and questionings in the face of ruin, but the fierce,intolerant criticism of the younger society, which could oftenforget all duty to the earthly commonwealth in the raptures ofa mystic devotion, or in the effort to escape from temptationswhich are as powerful in the wilderness as in the crowdedcity. And the anchoret who thundered against the vices ofhis age had been bred in the Roman schools. He had beennourished in his youth on Juvenal and Propertius and Tacitus.If he had not all their literary skill, he had within him afiercer hatred and aversion for the sins and weaknesses of menthan even Juvenal had felt. They were to him the naturaloffspring of the daemons of the old mythology,' who had, withhellish ingenuity, corrupted whatever of natural probity andgoodness there was in the old Roman character. The Christian controversialist could do justice to the great, virilequalities of his remote ancestors who worshipped Jupiter andVenus. He could hardly believe in the virtue of contemporarieswho refused to accept the faith of Christ. The Christian controversialists undoubtedly did a great service to humanity whenthey held up to loathing the obscenities of the Floralia andthe theatre, and the cruelties of the arena.3 But it shouldbe remembered that some of the better pagans looked withlittle approval on these corrupting displays. Men will oftenrise above the level of a bad religion, just as they constantly fall below the standard of a good one. The severestcensors of the morality of the fifth century are S. Jerome andSalvianus. And we shall see in the sequel that the heaviestcondemnation of both falls on populations nominally Christian ,1 Aug. de Civ. Dei, viii. 14, 16, 22,vii. 33.Ib. ii. 13, i. 15. Cf. S. Jerome'sEp. 60, 5, quid memorem Romanos duces quorum virtutes quasi quibus- dam stellis Latinae micant historiae?3 Aug. de Cie. Dei, ii. 4 , 27; Prudent.c. Sym. i . 378; cf. Tertull. de Spectac.10, Apol. 38.Juv. vi . 63; Amm. Marc. xxviii.4, 29; xiv. 6, 26, 7 , 3; Julian. Fragm.Ep. § 304 ( Hertlein's ed . ii. 389) .CHAP. I ITS PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CENSORS 101or even on classes who professed to aspire to a peculiar sanctityof life. When we read these things we ask ourselves, Canthe religion of the Cross have left men no better than it foundthem? And if we may reasonably distrust the unmeasuredinvective of a Christian writer against his co- religionists, thereare even stronger grounds for hesitating to accept the judgment of an enemy at a period of fierce controversy on themoral state of heathendom. In this chapter we shall seewhat the accusers, whether heathen or Christian, have to allege,and then proceed to lay before the reader the actual facts ofsocial life, which can be gathered from the literary remains ofthe century, extending from the reign of Gratian to the lastyears of the Western Empire.The worst that a severe pagan moralist had to say of themoral character of society at the beginning of our period, maybe gathered from Ammianus Marcellinus. He was born atAntioch, entered the army at an early age, and had seen greatcampaigns both in the East and West. He fought underJulian against the Alemanni, and he served in the expeditionagainst the Persians in which that Emperor met his end. Inhis later years he settled down at Rome to compose a historyextending from the principate of Nero to the death of Valens.¹Ammianus was an honest, high-minded man of the old school.He adhered to the old religion of Rome, but his real creedwas probably a vague monotheism with a more decidedtendency to fatalism . He could be fair to Christianity, andhe evidently disapproved of Julian's exclusion of Christianteachers from the Schools.3 Whether he is equally fair toRoman society may be questioned. He has the peculiarvirtues of the military character along with its narrownessand hardness. A life of hardship spent on the Rhine andthe Euphrates was not calculated to make a man a veryindulgent, perhaps hardly even a just critic of the splendid,but luxurious and unwarlike society among which he foundhimself on his return to Rome. Ammianus has left twoelaborate pictures of the society of the capital in his time. *What strikes a modern student most about them is that1 Peter, Die Geschichtl. Litt. überdie Röm. Kaiserzeit, ii . p. 121.2 Amm. Marc. xxiii. 5 , 5.3 Ib. xxi. 16, 18; xxv. 4, 20.4 Ib. xiv. 6, 7; xxviii. 4.102 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIthey might have been composed with equal truth in thereign of Nero or Domitian. The Roman noble has changedlittle in three hundred years. It does not surprise us to hearthat the masters of the world are possessed of vast domains.in every province, from the rising to the setting sun.Although they have no longer the political power of theirancestors, they have the vanity of a pampered caste, andthey wish to prolong an inglorious name by gilded statueswhich commemorate nothing. They ride through the streetsin lofty carriages, adorned with a vulgar splendour of dress ,which is not redeemed even by its ingenuity. In theirprogresses they are attended or preceded by an army of slaves,clients, and eunuchs. Their choicest pleasures are in swifthorses, hurrying through the streets with the speed of thepost on the great roads; or in long and elaborate banquets, atwhich the size and weight of fish or game are recorded , as inJuvenal's day, as a matter of historical interest. Their librariesare opened as seldom as their funeral vaults, but they raveabout music and theatrical performances. Hydraulic organs,and lyres as large as carriages, minister to a degraded taste inmusic. In a time of famine, when all foreigners, includingthe professors of the liberal arts, were expelled from Rome,three thousand dancing girls with their teachers were allowedto remain. If the great man visited the public baths, he wouldsalute effusively some slave of his vices, whom all decentpeople would avoid. His only friendships are those of thegaming table. If a respectable man from provincial partsventures to call on the great personage, he is received at firstwith effusive civility. If the visit is repeated in all honestconfidence, he will find that his very name and existence havebeen forgotten. The effeminate noble who takes a journey tovisit a distant estate will plume himself on the effort as if hehad performed the marches of an Alexander or a Caesar. Hewill order a slave to receive three hundred lashes for bringinghim his hot water late. These men who have not a particleof religious belief are the slaves of anile superstition. Theywill not bathe or breakfast or start on a journey till theyhave consulted the calendar to find the position of a planet.The vulgar crowd of the days of Marcellinus is the samein character that it had been for four hundred years. DuasCHAP. I ITS PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CENSORS 103There can be littlethe ranks of honesttantum res anxius optat, Panem et circenses. But it was evenmore pampered in the reign of Honorius than in the time ofJuvenal. The emperors of the third century had addedwine, oil, and pork to the dole of corn.doubt that this mass of deserters fromindustry, maintained in idleness by the State, was a hotbedof vice and corruption. All the social sewers drained into itsdepths. Magnificent baths, erected by successive emperors 2from Nero to Diocletian, offered their spacious luxury at allhours of the day to the mongrel crew who bred and festeredin the slums of the great capital of the world. The hoursthat were not spent in taverns and low haunts of debaucherywere given to idle gossip about the favourites in the gamesand races.3 The energy of the once sovereign people explodedin fierce wrangling as to the chances of rival charioteers onwhose success the fate of the commonwealth seemed to depend.Probably the mob were never so innocently excited as whenthey were backing with hoarse cries their favourites in therace. The obscenities of pantomime, in which tales ofabnormal depravity were reproduced to the life, the slaughterand sufferings of the gladiatorial combats, gratified, if theycould hardly intensify, the instincts of ape and tiger in apopulace which for centuries had been systematically corruptedby the State.The picture of the Roman aristocrat given by AmmianusMarcellinus is certainly not a pleasant one. Yet it is not so darkas the pictures of upper class life in the days of Lucullus, or inthe days of Nero. Nay, in many of its features it is hardly worsethan might be drawn of English society in the reigns of GeorgeII. and George III. Mutato nomine de te Fabula narratur. Thefaults or vices which excited the disgust of the hardy veteranare those of an old society, rendered vain and effeminate bywealth, served by an army of slaves, a society which was notsobered by any discipline of labour, nor elevated by publicinterests. We may also suspect that the description is to some1 Spart. Ser. 23; Lamprid. Alex.Sev. 26; Vop. Aurel. 48; Sym.Ep. x. 35; C. Th. xiv. 15, 3, xiv. tit.17; cf. Marquardt, Röm. Staatsver- waltung, ii. p. 132.2 Lamprid. Alex. Sev. 25; Sym.Ep. x. 14; C. Th. xiv. 5 (deMancipibus Thermarum).3 Amm. Marc. xiv. 6 , 26; xviii. 4,29-32.4 Suet. Nero , c. 12; Juv. vi. 63;Prudent. Peristeph. x. 221; Sidon.Carm. xxiii. 281.104 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIextent coloured by the temperament and habits of the oldsoldier, whose life had been passed in frontier camps. An Indianveteran, who at the present day should settle in London, afterthirty years' hard service, might not be more indulgent toour own luxurious classes. And Ammianus may have beenwounded by the haughty indifference of one of the mostexclusive castes that the world has ever seen. Worldlysociety is at no time very appreciative of unostentatiousmerit or service. And Ammianus probably knew the greatworld chiefly by the vulgarity and frivolity of its least estimable members. Had he been admitted to the circle of theSymmachi and Albini, he would hardly have accused a class,which regarded devotion to letters as the highest distinctionof their order, of never entering their libraries. A darker, ifnot truer picture of that society in the years when Ammianus.was composing his history is given by S. Jerome.S. Jerome outlived Ammianus Marcellinus probably twentyyears; but they must have been at Rome about the sametime, in the middle of the reign of Theodosius. The saintreceived his education under Donatus, probably in the reign ofJulian; and, after visiting Gaul and the deserts of Syria, hereturned to the capital at the time when the Church was onthe eve of its final victory. He was the secretary andintimate friend of Pope Damasus, ' and for a time was one ofthe most influential ecclesiastics of Rome. He saw the innerlife of the higher clergy, and of those great aristocratic houses,on which, since the visit of S. Athanasius, the ascetic ideal ofthe Christian life had cast its spell.2 Jerome became thedirector in study and devotion of a remarkable group ofwomen Paula, Lea, Asella, Marcella, and many others,who were of the very cream of the Roman nobility, but whodeliberately cut themselves off from worldly society, and inalmost conventual seclusion devoted themselves to prayer andthe study of the Scriptures. Some of them were accomplishedGreek and Hebrew scholars, and, in their minute and carefulstudy of the sacred books, they often taxed the erudition ofthe great scholar to reply to their curious questions.341 Ep. 123, § 10; cf. Collombet's S.Jer. i. p. 326.2 Hieron. Ep. 127, § 5; for theinfluence of S. Athanasius's Life ofWe hearAntony, cf. S. Aug. Conf. viii. 6.Hieron. Ep. 127, §7; cf. Ep. 24.+ Ib. 108, §§ 26, 28.5 lb. 30, 34.CHAP. I ITS PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CENSORS 105but little of their husbands and male relatives. The majorityof the Roman Senate, even so late as the reign of Theodosius,was clearly pagan in sentiment, ' if not in belief. There can belittle doubt that the husband was often a cultivated scepticor pagan, while his wife or sister was a Christian devotee.Moving in such a circle, S. Jerome must have acquired athorough knowledge of the tone and morale of the upper classin that period of religious transition which has been describedin the first chapter. His evidence as to the moral conditionof his time would be invaluable if we could trust the coolnessand fairness of his judgment as much as his knowledge. Hewas a tremendous and beneficent force in the cause of truth andpurity, and he must always be regarded with reverence alikeby the student and by the devout Christian. In his fearlessdetermination to ascertain the precise meaning of the sacredtext, he offers a splendid example of rare candour andpatient industry. In his still more fearless denunciation ofmoral evil, even in the classes with whom he was most closelyassociated, and with the risk of ruin to his own reputation, hedid a service to the cause of human progress of which thevalue can hardly be exaggerated. But S. Jerome is a Romansatirist who is sometimes carried away by the love of startlingeffect and vivid phrase. He is also the ascetic, tortured bythe consciousness of human frailty, and again almost intoxiIcated with the vision of God.The views which S. Jerome held as to the ideal of virtue,and especially of sexual virtue, are of the extreme monastictype. To him, as to so many others in that day, the world is1 The opposite view is founded on Prud. e. Sym. i. 566, and on the words in Ambros. Ep. 17, § 9, cum majorejam curia Christianorum numero sit referta.But, if so, why did they not attend and prevent the Senate from petition- ing the Emperor? If Zosimus (v. 49)is to be believed , the Senate, even after the defeat of Eugenius, were still obdurate. Cf. Seeck's Sym. liv. and,for the opposite view, Rauschen, Jahr- bücher, p. 119.2 Ep. 112, § 20; cf. Ep. 104; 57,§ 7; 53, § 7, nec scire dignantur,quid Prophetae, quid Apostoli sen- serint: sed ad sensum incongrua aptanttestimonia: quasi grande sit, et non vitiosissimum docendi genus, depravaresententias, et ad voluntatem suam Scripturam trahere repugnantem. In replying to a charge of favouring the heretical views of Origen, he announcesa principle which, in theological con- troversy, is rarely obeyed: Nec bonis adversariorum, si honestum quidhabuerint, detrahendum est, nec ami- corum laudanda sunt vitia, Ep. 83, § 2.For S. Jerome's defence of his character,v. Ep. 45, § 2. For the secret of the bitterness with which he was assailed,v. Sulp. Sev. Dial. i. 9, § 4, oderunt eum clerici, quia vitam eorum insectatur et crimina.106 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIso full of allurements, the flesh is so weak and sensual, thedevil is so cunning in laying snares for the soul, that the onlychance of escape lies in absolute renunciation. The Greekideal of moral perfection as a middle state between excessand defect of passion seems to the ascetic impracticable orunworthy. Avarice can only be conquered by selling all one'spossessions and giving to the poor. ' Luxury in dress and food.must be replaced by sackcloth and herbs, and an avoidanceof the bath. The pleasures of love, which are treated as merelysensual, must be utterly rejected as debasing to the elect soul.Honourable marriage ranks below the purity of intact virginity, and the recovered chastity of widowhood. Nothing canexceed the extravagance with which S. Jerome, who was anexperienced man of the world, celebrates the self- devotion ofDemetrias to the virgin state. Her family, like so many othersof the great Roman houses, had been ruined by the invasion ofAlaric.¹ Rome had been given up to fire and sword. Thefairest provinces were already overrun by the Sueves andGoths. The fame of a world-wide empire and civilisation , thesplendid traditions and the hopes of senatorial houses of immemorial antiquity, were vanishing amid an agony of regret,all the more pathetic, because hardly a voice from it comesdown to our ears. Yet the devotion of Demetrias to thevirgin state, according to her eulogist, exalts her family to ahigher pinnacle than its long line of consuls and prefects haveever reached; it is a consolation for a Rome in ashes; Italyputs off its mourning at the news; the villages in the farthestprovinces are beside themselves with joy. Some of this is nodoubt mere rhetoric, but it is the rhetoric of a man whoseown passions had been conquered only by flight to the Syriandesert, by incessant vigils, by fasting and prayer. And thewhole letter to Eustochium, in which that well-known passageoccurs, suggests other considerations which should be kept inview in reading the criticisms of ancient moralists on theirown times. Probably every modern reader of that letter is1 Ep. 108, § 19.2 Ib. 107, §§ 9, 10; xxiii. § 2.3 Ib. 130, §§ 3, 5. Her father isfelix morte sua qui non vidit patriam corruentem; immo felicior qui ... nobilitatem insigniorem reddidit filiae perpetua castitate; cf. 22, § 19. Thebest passage is 123, § 11, suflicittibi quod primum perdidisti virgini- tatis gradum, et per tertium venistiad secundum, id est, per officium conjugale, ad viduitatis continentiam .The letter was written circ. 414.5 Ep. 22, § 7.CHAP. I ITS PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CENSORS 107lost in astonishment that it could have been possibly addressedby any man to a young woman belonging to one of thegreatest families at Rome. It handles, without the slightestrestraint or reserve, sins and temptations of the flesh to whichwe now hardly allude. It is absolutely inconceivable thatany moralist or preacher of our times, however earnest orfanatical, should address a woman in such a style.¹ This isnot said with any intention of depreciating S. Jerome, whosecharacter emerged unstained from the fiercest ordeal ofmalignant calumny in his own time, and has borne the scrutinyof fifteen centuries. He would be a daring man who wouldcharge S. Jerome with pruriency. But we may fairly saythat the writer of the letter to Eustochium is likely to letus know the very worst of his generation, and that he willnot throw the veil of conventional ignorance over deeds ofdarkness, which our more timorous delicacy has been accustomed, at any rate until lately, to treat as non- existent.Whether unflinching candour or studied reserve is the best toneto adopt with regard to moral evil, is a question which neednot be discussed. But that difference of tone between theancients and ourselves should never be forgotten in studyingthe character of a distant past. By keeping it in mind wemay be saved alike from Pharisaism and from an ungenerousjudgment of times which have made a self- revelation ofwhich we should be incapable.When we come to examine what S. Jerome has told us ofthe moral condition of his time, we are struck with the factthat his heaviest censure falls on those who, at least inname, had separated themselves from the world, the monksand the secular clergy of Rome. It is true that he consignsPraetextatus, the votary of Isis and Mithra, to outer darkness.2But Praetextatus is not condemned on moral grounds, but as1 Ep. 22, esp. §§ 7, 13.2 Ib. 23, 3, ille quem ante paucosdies dignitatum omnium culminapraecedebant . . . ad cujus interitum urbs universa commota est, nunc desolatus et nudus, non in lacteo caelipalatio, ut uxor mentitur infelix, sed in sordentibus tenebris continetur;cf. c. Johann. Hierosol. 8, miserabilis Praetextatus hom*o sacrilegus,et idolorum cultor. The condemnation of Praetextatus is expressly on theground of his heathen superstition.The inscriptions ( C.I.L. 1779), in which he and his wife Aconia Fabia Paulina commemorate one another'svirtues, reveal a religious enthusiasm which explains S. Jerome's bitterness;cf. Seeck's Symmachus, lxxxiii. onthe whole career of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus.108 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIOn the othertolerant pagan,His unbelief isHis wife wasthe enthusiastic champion of the old gods.hand, the pontiff Albinus, a staunch thoughis treated by Jerome with marked respect.even made the subject of gentle raillery.a Christian. His daughter Laeta, who had succeeded in converting her young husband Toxotius, was a devotee after S.Jerome's heart. S. Jerome speaks of Albinus as " a candidate.for the faith," and would have hopes that his little granddaughter's hymns to Christ, as she sits on the old man's knees,might win him from his errors. Another great magnate,Cerealis, a man of the world, of great official distinction ,wished to marry one of S. Jerome's ascetic friends. Nothingis said of the religious views of Cerealis, but the very silence.on the subject probably shows that they were not verydecided. Yet S. Jerome describes him as a man of spotlesscharacter. Olybrius, another member of the noble class, wasprobably a Christian, but like his father Probus, the great prefect, was probably not a very ardent one. Along with hisbrother Probinus, he was celebrated with all the pomp ofpagan mythology by the poet Claudian. His virtues as ason, a husband, and a citizen are not less emphatically extolled in a letter of S. Jerome. The saint professed to regardRome as the mystic Babylon of the Apocalypse' , from whichthe true followers of Christ should flee to the desert, " blossoming with the flowers of Christ. " Yet when we look for details,we find little in S. Jerome to lead us to believe that the menof the great families, with whom Paula, Marcella, and Melaniaassociated, fell below the moral standard of their ancestors oreven below the level of worldly respectability in our own time.3Christian asceticism, however, like every other great movement which has disturbed the routine of life, had its raisond'être. There were serious perils to virtue in the household lifeof the fourth and fifth century which S. Jerome has laid barewith an unsparing frankness, though probably also with someexaggeration. Among these the system of domestic slaverywas the most fruitful of corruption. In the days of Salvianus,as in the days of Horace, the attractive slave-girl too often was1 Hieron. Ep. 107 , § 1.2 Ib. 127, § 2.3 lb. 130, § 3; cf. Seeck's Sym.cv.; Claud. Cons. Prob. et Olyb.5+ Ib. 46, § 11.5 lb. 54, §§ 5, 6; cf. 107, § 4; cf.Wallon, Hist. de l'Esclav. ii . pp. 325 sqq.CHAP. I ITS PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CENSORS 109the easy prey of her master's lusts; and amours of this kindwere regarded even in Christian families with a tolerancewhich astonishes modern sentiment. Perhaps even moreinsidious was the influence of female slaves on their youngmistresses. The attendants who surrounded the Roman ladyat her elaborate toilet, and decked her out in her silks andjewels, were often not the safest companions for inexperiencedinnocence. Their class had often a bitter hatred of theChristian faith, 2 and spread the most malignant rumours aboutit* professors. They flattered with the ease and familiarity ofprivileged favourites. The picture of the greed, lubricity, andspitefulness of this chattering crowd,3 who surrounded thelady of noble rank, was probably a much-needed revelation ofone of the worst cankers at the root of Roman society.S. Jerome, like Ammianus Marcellinus, was disgusted withthe display of wealth, which seems to have become more ostentatious and vulgar, as artistic skill and feeling decayed. Butin S. Jerome's pages women are the great offenders. Theirgaudy turbans and elaborate coiffures, their costly silks andliberally applied cosmetics, and blazing wealth of jewels, aredescribed with a scorn which makes the minute observation ofdetail somewhat surprising. The saint often warns his femaledisciples against the danger of appearing among the fashionable and showy crowd.5 The danger to female innocenceseemed to him so great that the only safety for a woman layin cutting herself off absolutely from the world. It is hard tobelieve that the reserve and delicacy of so many generationsof social culture should have grown so helpless in the face ofevil. And the warm imagination of S. Jerome has probablyexaggerated the peril. If we may believe him, the curled andessenced fop was almost irresistible in those days. A touchof his hand and a glance from his eye seem to have placedyoung women of rank and breeding at his mercy. There isprobably better ground for the disgust with which the appearance of the fashionable matron in the streets is described.1 Paulinus Pellaeus, Euch. 166 , con- tentus domus inlecebris famulantibusuti.2 Hieron. Ep. 54, § 5.3 Ib. 117, § 8.+ Ib. 54, § 7; 108 , § 15; 127 , § 3.5 Ib. 130, § 18; 54, § 13; 107, § 7.6 Th. 117, § 6, dabit tibi barbatulus quilibet manum, sustentabit lassam;et pressis digitis, aut tentabitur aut tentabit.7 Ib. 54, § 13.110 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIShe takes her airing in a litter surrounded by a great troop ofslaves and eunuchs, and closely attended by some foppishmajor-domo or favourite domestic, whose pampered air andeasy familiarity sometimes cast a shade of suspicion on hismistress's fair fame. But the great danger was the banquet.Difficile inter epulas servatur pudicitia. It is hard for usnow to realise that this should be true of a polished societywith an ancient tradition of dignity. Yet S. Jerome, in hisardour for the ascetic life as the only path of salvation forfrail humanity, places his ban on what we should regard asinnocent enjoyment of a hospitable table. The description ofthe effects, on the hot blood of the south, of rich wines anddelicate meats in many courses, with the accompaniments ofvoluptuous music and suggestive dancing, may represent thetone of certain circles of his age. It would be certainly trueof many in the time of Cicero. But it is difficult to believethat the high-minded, stately, and cultivated ladies, so manyof whom are known to us,2 had been exposed to the contamination of such grossness in their youth, or that they could notobserve the limit between harmless natural enjoyment and sensualindulgence. The truth is that S. Jerome is not only a monk butan artist in words; and his horror of evil, his vivid imagination,and his passion for literary effect occasionally carry him beyondthe region of sober fact. There was much to amend in the moralsof the Roman world. But we must not take the leader of a greatmoral reformation as a cool and dispassionate observer.About the time when this letter of S. Jerome was penned,Macrobius represents the leading members of the pagan aristocracy, Symmachus, Albinus, Flavianus, Praetextatus, as spending the days ofthe Saturnalia together. The mornings were givenup to learned discussions on antiquarian and literary subjects.In the evening they met for lighter and gayer conversation atdinner; and our attention is expressly drawn to the elegantmoderation of that day in food and drink, and to the banishment of the dancing girl and the buffoon from the banquet.³1 Hieron. Ep. 117, § 6; 107 , § 8.2 Paula, Hieron. Ep. 108; Serena,Claudian. Laus Serenae; Fabia Aconia Paulina, C.I.L. vi. 1779; Blaesilla,Hieron. Ep. 39; Laeta, Zos. v. 39.3 Macrob. Sat. ii . 1 , § 4; iii. 13.Compare with this S. Jerome's Ep. 117,§ 6. Although Praetextatus is one of the party in the Saturnalia, the scene is laid in some year after his death in385, as appears from the passage i.1, § 5.CHAP. I ITS PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CENSORS 111The evidence of Macrobius, who is writing without any partipris, is worth at least as much as that of S. Jerome on such apoint. And if such was the tone of the pagan aristocracy, canwe believe that the great Christian houses would be more lax?But if S. Jerome deals hardly with the vices of the worldlyclasses, he is perhaps even more merciless to those of the professedly strict and religious; and it is to the credit of hiscandour and sincerity that he lays bare with such an unsparinghand the corruption in Christian society, even in the innercircles of asceticism . In some of his descriptions of ecclesiastical worldliness and corruption the very spirit of Juvenal isupon him.¹ And his consuming zeal for a great cause probablymade him less merciful to the failings of his own class than aman of the world would have been. Yet, after all allowances,the picture is not a pleasant one.We feel that we are faraway from the simple, unworldly devotion of the freedmen andobscure toilers whose existence was hardly known to the greatworld before the age of the Antonines,2 and who lived in thespirit of the Sermon on the Mount and in constant expectationof the coming of their Lord. The triumphant Church, whichhas brought paganism to its knees, is very different from theChurch of the catacombs and the persecutions. The Bishop ofRome has become a great potentate surrounded by worldlypomp, and with a powerful voice in the councils of the State.³In the reign of Valentinian ( 367) the rival factions of Damasusand Ursinus had convulsed the city in their struggles for thissplendid prize, and in one day one hundred and thirty- sevencorpses were left on the pavement of one of the churches.*Ammianus Marcellinus, who describes the conflict, thinks itnatural that men should so contend for the chance of beingenriched by the offerings of Roman matrons, of riding in elegantapparel through the streets, and giving banquets of more thanregal splendour. The pagan Praetextatus used to say jestinglyto Pope Damasus, that he might be tempted to become aChristian by the prospect of being Bishop of Rome.51 For the satiric vein in S. Jerome,cf. the sketch of Grunnius, the impotentcritic, Ep. 125, § 18; and the great lady at S. Peter's Basilica, 22, § 32.Renan, M. Aurèle, p. 447; cf. pp.55, 56.3 Zos. v. 41.4 Amm. Marc. xxvii. 3, 12.Hieron. c. Johann. Hierosol. 8,solebat ludens beato papae Damaso dicere; facite me Romanae ecclesiaeepiscopum et ero protinus Christianus.112 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIAmong all ranks of the clergy corruption prevailed. Theevils of seduction and captation became so grave that, in anedict addressed to Pope Damasus, ' the Emperor Valentinian I.sternly prohibited monks and ecclesiastics from entering thehouses of widows or orphan wards, and made illegal both donatiointer vivos and testamentary bequests in favour of the Church.It may be doubted whether the law was strictly obeyed. Thehigher clergy generally seem to have lived in very un-evangelical worldly state and luxury. They often entertained atsumptuous feasts great magistrates and prefects. The clericalepicure, brought up in a hovel and fed on milk and blackbread in his boyhood, develops an extraordinary delicacy oftaste in his later years. He has the nicest judgment in fishand game, and the provinces are distinguished by their abilityto satisfy his palate. Holy Orders become the passport tosocial distinction and dangerous influence. The doors of greathouses opened readily to the elegant priest whose toilet wasmanaged by a skilful valet. The clerical profession, so farfrom imposing restraint, furnished facilities for intrigue. Thepriest was admitted to the intimacy of superstitious women ofthe world, which was pleasant and lucrative, but perilous tovirtue. The supple and accomplished ecclesiastic has a greatadvantage among the crowd of morning callers on the richyoung matron, who repays his flattering attentions with apresent of whatever his covetous eyes have lighted on. Thepassion for wealth invaded all ranks of the clergy. Many wereengaged in amassing fortunes in trade. They will performthe most disgusting and menial offices for some heirless ladyon her deathbed.7 Even the monk in the Nitrian desert isinfected with the universal contagion,8 and piles up a secrethoard which his brethren are sorely troubled to dispose of at hisdeath. If we believe S. Jerome, numbers of these clerical and41 C. Th. xvi. 2, 20.2 Hieron. Ep. 52, § 11; cf. Sulp.Sev. Dial. i. 21 , 3.3 Hieron. Ep. 52, § 6.• Ib. 52, § 5.5 lb. 22, § 16, clerici ipsi . . . ex- tenta manu, ut benedicere eos putesvelle, pretia accipiunt salutandi; and§ 28.6 Ib. 52, § 5; 125, § 16 , negotiatorem clericum, et ex inopi divitem,6ex ignobili gloriosum, quasi quandam pestem fuge.7 Ib. 52, § 6; ipsi apponunt matulam, obsident lectum, purulentiam stomachi .. manu propria suscipiunt.Pavent ad introitum medici trementibusque labiis an commodius habeant sciscitantur . . . simulataque laetitia mens intrinsecus avara torquetur.8 Ib. 22, § 33, centum solidos quoslino texendo acquisierat dereliquit, etc.CHAP. I ITS PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CENSORS 113monkish impostors became far richer than they could havebeen, if they had remained in the world. They go aboutasking for alms to be distributed to the poor, but secretlyenrich themselves; making a parade of their bare feet, blackcloaks, and long unkempt hair, they creep into houses and"deceive silly women laden with sins." Pretending to live inthe greatest austerity, they spent their nights in secret feastingand sensuality.The picture which S. Jerome draws of female society is sorepulsive that we would gladly believe it to be exaggerated.But if the priesthood with its enormous influence was socorrupt, it is only too probable that it debased the sex whichis always most under clerical influence. That clerical concubinage, under the pretence of the severest sanctity, wascommon, cannot be doubted by any one acquainted with thewriters of the time. S. Jerome is perfectly explicit on thesubject. Men and women, vowed to perpetual chastity, livedunder the same roof, brazening out the miserable imposture ofsuperhuman purity under impossible conditions. There is acurious letter of S. Jerome's to a young lady of position inGaul, written at the instance of her brother, which is asingular illustration of the union of superstition and licence.She makes a profession of leading a Christian life, yet she hasseparated from her mother, and has installed, as master of herhouse, a " brother " who is apparently, and is regarded by theneighbourhood, as equally master of her house and of her virtue."6On a not much higher level are those virgins of the Church,whose peculiar dress is their only title to the name whichthey disgrace, and who strut about the streets, nodding andleering. In many so-called Christian circles the gay, supple"virgin " 7 who would laugh at jests of doubtful freedom , and1 Hieron. Ep. 125, § 16, non victumet vestitum, quod Apostolus prae- cipit, sed majora quam saeculi homines emolumenta sectantes; Ep. 60, § 11 ,sint ditiores monachi quam fuerant saeculares.2 lb. 22, § 28, et quasi longa jejunia,furtivis noctium cibis protrahunt.3 Ib. 22, § 14, eadem domo, uno cubiculo, saepe uno tenentur lectulo;cf. Sulp. Sev. Dial. i. 8, 4; i. 9, 4.4 lb. 117.5 lb. 117, § 9.6 Ib. 117, § 7; xxii. 13, hae sunt quae per publicum notabiliter incedunt; et furtivis oculorum nutibusadolescentium greges post se trahunt.7 Ib. 22, § 24-29, ecce vere ancilla Christi, dicentes, ecce totasimplicitas. Non ut illa horrida,turpis, rusticana, terribilis, et quae ideo forsitan maritum non habuit,quia invenire non potuit.I114 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK 113 "who had a relish for spiteful gossip, was much more popularthan the " rough and rustic " person whose religion was not afraud. Many other sketches of female character have beenleft us by the pencil of S. Jerome, the sot who justifiesher love of wine with a profane jest,' the great ladypuffed up by the honours of her house, and surrounded bya herd of sycophants, the great lady who passes through S.Peter's, attended by a crowd of eunuchs, doling out almswith equal parsimony and ostentation, and repulsing theimportunate widow with blows. Such scenes and characters ,like those in the Sixth Satire of Juvenal, one would gladlybelieve to be brilliant and imaginative pictures of an exceptional degradation of character. If they represent anythinglike a general tone, it becomes easy to understand the exodusfrom the second Babylon, and the charm of the hermitage inthe desert from which are drawn the stones whereof isbuilded the city of the Great King." It would seem thatthe Church, in conquering the citadel of the Empire, had lostthe freshness and purity of its early days. It had vanquishedthe external power of heathenism; it had still to subdue theforces of corruption within its own pale. It is at all timeshard for mediocre character to sincerely embrace a lofty ideal ,and the spectacle of grovelling worldliness and materialismaffecting the tone of an elevated spirituality is not unknown inlater days.. But in the fourth century there was found aremnant ready to sacrifice everything at the summons of animperious faith. The members of the proudest housessold all that they had, turned their backs upon state andluxury, in order to spend the remainder of life in works ofmercy and prayer. And in reading the letters of S. Jeromewe should never forget that lie is of that elect company, thathe regards Roman society in the high light shining from theCross, and that the Cross to him is not the mere symbol of aconventional creed, but an imperious power, demanding asurrender of will and earthly passion as complete as the GreatSacrifice of all. The glory of that age is the number of those11 Ep. 22, § 13, ubi se mero in- gurgitaverint, ebrietati sacrilegium copulantes: Absit ut ego me a Christisanguine abstineam! Even worse pre- cedes.2 Ib. 22, § 32.3 lb. 14, § 10, O desertum Christi floribus vernans, O solitudo in qua illinasc*ntur lapides de quibus civitas magni regis extruitur.CHAP. I ITS PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CENSORS 115who were capable of such self- surrender; and an age shouldbe judged by its ideals, not by the mediocrity of conventionalreligion masking worldly self- indulgence. This we have alwayswith us; the other we have not always.More than fifty years have passed away. The cataclysmof barbarism has fallen on the West. Provinces have beenravaged, splendid cities have been desolated, and the imperialpower has been shaken to its base. S. Jerome, on the newsof the earliest disasters reaching him, had said, " The barbariansare strong through our vices." 1 And this is the text on whichanother great preacher calls the Roman world to recognise intheir calamities the righteous punishment for their sins.Salvianus, a presbyter of Marseilles, must have seen almostthe close of the fifth century.2 Born probably at Cologne,and educated in the School of Trèves, he had witnessed in hisearly youth the horrors of the great invasion which laidthe cities of the Rhineland in ashes. From these troubleshe sought refuge in the south of Gaul, where he lived inintimacy with some of the great bishops of the time, -S.Eucher and S. Hilarius, and the scholarly and ascetic societywhich made the Isle of Lérins its home. He is a man ofkeen sympathies and fiery temperament, full of the asceticideals of his time. He feels a burning indignation against theselfishness of the wealthy and official class, and an equallypassionate pity for the poor and oppressed, which, had helived in the nineteenth century, would certainly have madehim a Socialist of the extremest type. The thesis of thetreatise entitled de Gubernatione Dei is very simple. Theunbelieving Epicureanism of the day saw in the calamitiesof Gaul only a proof of the indifference of the Deity to the1 Ep. 60, § 17, nostris peccatis Barbari fortes sunt: nostris vitiisRomanus superatur exercitus.2 Gennad. de Scrip. Eccl . c. 67,vivit usque hodie in senectute bona.Gennadius was a contemporary of Pope Gelasius, to whom he sent the workquoted, v. c. 100. But for doubts aboutthis section cf. Ebert, p. 447, n. 4.3 Salv. Ep. 1 , adolescens quem advos misi Agrippinae captus est et de quo aliquid fortasse amplius dicerem ,nisi propinquus meus esset.See passim the four books ad Ecclesiam , against avarice; cf. especi- ally iii. 49, pauper beatitudinem emitmendacitate, dives supplicium facul- tate.The work was written after 439 ,for it mentions ( vii. 40) the defeat of Litorius at Toulouse; and probablybefore 451 , for the defeat of Attila by the Romans and Visigoths is not alluded to .116 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIfortunes of men.¹ Salvianus saw in them the clearest evidenceof His providential government, punishing sin by leaving thesinner to the appropriate consequences of his misdeeds. TheRoman world has deserved its fate by its injustice and oppression, its cupidity, its lack of hardy public spirit, its foul anduniversal licentiousness. Prefects and governors have beenvenal and cruel; the minor officials have been even more so.The curiales, the governing order of the municipalities, havebeen so many tyrants, laying on and levying taxes of whichthe heaviest burden falls on those least able to bear them.3 If,by imperial grace, these exactions are lightened , it is not thepoor, but the richest class, who feel the relief. Even thosewho have devoted themselves to a strict spiritual life aretainted by the universal contagion. They will be guilty ofthe grossest oppression, when they get the chance. " If theyhave wealth they are as ready as the most cynical worldlingto hoard their money instead of giving it to Christ's poor, andthey will actually pretend that their sacred profession exemptsthem from the duty of such a sacrifice. They, wearing thedress of an ostentatious asceticism, will plead that Christ hasno need of their gifts -Christ, who is the universal Sufferer,whose infinite pity makes Him sharer in all the sufferings ofHis servants. Christ, exclaims the preacher in a passage ofrhetorical power, is the most needy in the universe, becauseHe feels the needs of all.There can be no doubt that the hardened venality of thefinancial service, and the greed and rapacity of the great landowners, were the vices which did most to undermine the fabricof Roman society. Of this we shall furnish, in a succeedingchapter, ample proofs from the Roman Code. But Salvianus ,like some of the old Greek philosophers, regarded the love ofpleasure as inevitably linked with the love of gold. Thepopulations of the great towns, the men who were continually1 The effect of the calamities inshaking men's faith in Providence may be seen in the poem de Prov. Div.(wrongly attributed to Prosper Aq. )vv. 25-85.2 De Gub. Dei, v. 25, iv. 21 , vii . 91 .3 lb. v. 18, ubi non quot Curiales fuerint tot tyranni sunt?Ib. v. 35; cf. v. 30, decernuntpotentes quod solvant pauperes. Onthe corruption of the curiales, see C'.Th. xii. 1 , 117; Sym. Ep. ix. 10;also C. Th. xiii . 10, 1 on the shifting of fiscal burdens from potentes by collusion of the Tabularii.De Gub. Dei, v. 51-56, licita non faciunt et illicita committunt; temperant a concubitu, non temperant arapina.Salv. ad Eccles. iv. 22.CHAP. I ITS PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CENSORS 11743growing richer and more powerful by the impoverishment oftheir neighbours, were all alike sunk in the most abominablesensuality. The theatre and the circus had been for fivecenturies the great corruptors of the Roman world. But inspite of the thunders of the Church, and the calamities of thetimes, these schools of cruelty and lust retained all their oldfascination far into the fifth century. Apollinaris Sidonius,about 460, describes, as still flourishing at Narbonne,³ thatdegraded pantomime, in which the foulest tales of the oldmythology were represented in speaking gesture. The games ofthe circus were held at Arles as late as 461 , in honour ofMajorian. It is true that, owing to the growing poverty ofthe municipalities, these exhibitions had in many places ceasedto be held; and self-complacent optimism took credit for thisas a sign of a higher moral tone. But Salvianus ruthlesslyexposes the pretence. The Roman character, he maintains, isstill unaltered, but it no longer has the means of gratifyingits base tastes. Wherever, as at Rome or Ravenna, the publicamusem*nts can still be kept up, the people will flock, as inold times, to witness them. The baptismal vow to renounce" all these works of the devil " is forgotten by a nominallyChristian people. The churches are emptied, the holy mysteriesof the altar are contemptuously deserted for the feverishexcitement of the circus. Even the apparition of the invaderscould not abate the rage of the populace for its accustomedindulgence. The Christians of Cirta and Carthage werecheering rival charioteers, or revelling in the turpitudes ofthe theatre, when their walls were surrounded by theVandals. Like the plague of Athens, or the plague inthe Middle Ages, the disasters and confusion of the fifthcentury made men reckless and prone to frantic excesses.The leading citizens of Trèves, a city which bore the first andfiercest onslaught of the invaders, and was four times, within691 On the corruption of Aquitaine,v. de Gub. Dei, vii. 16.2 Пb. vi. 49.3 Carm. xxiii. 283 sqq.Fauriel, Hist. de la Gaule Rom. i .394; Chaix, Apollin. Sid. i. 135.5 Salv. de Gub. Dei, vi . 49, 50.6 lb. vi. 69.7 Thuc. ii. 53 , πρῶτόν τε ἦρξε καὶ ἐςτἄλλα τῇ πόλει ἐπὶ πλέον ἀνομίας τὸ νόσημα.8 Introd. to Boccaccio's Decameron,p. 31.9 Salv. de Gub. Dei, vi. 72. Salvianus seems to have witnessed some of thesescenes with his own eyes (vidi ego ipse,etc. ).118 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIa few years, given up to fire and sword, were revelling in afrenzy of drunken debauchery when the enemy were at theirgates. Scenes such as these Salvianus had seen in his boyhood. They had burnt themselves into his memory, and therecollection of them accounts for the almost ferocious energyand persistent iteration with which he denounces the selfindulgence of his time.But although we may believe that overwhelming disastermay have driven men here and there to drown their sorrowin wild and vicious excitement, it is difficult to credit thecharge of universal and shameless immorality which Salvianusmakes against the men of his province. That the slave- systemis dangerous to the morals of the masters is the experience of all ages. But what is dangerous to some, need not be fatal toall. Yet Salvianus makes no exception in his impeachmentof the morals of Southern Gaul. Every estate is a scene ofprostitution. Aquitaine is one vast lupanar. Conjugal faithfulness is unknown. Except in the ranks of those who hadtaken the vow of renunciation, Salvianus will not allow theexistence of a decent virtue. It is, of course, never possible tosay how a whole population has lived; but this is equally trueof the attack as of the defence of moral character. We canonly form a hesitating judgment on the scanty evidence whichhas come down to us, and on general probability based onexperience of human nature. The indictment of Salvianuscannot be reconciled with the contemporary picture of societywhich we have in the letters of Sidonius. And if Salvianusbe accurate, the Church must have utterly failed in raising themass of the Gallic people to a higher life. There must havebeen no mean between the small class who renounced fortuneand family ties at the call of Christ, and the monsters ofcruel rapacity and unbridled lust described by Salvianus.We know minutely the state of the society of Bordeaux?sixty years before the de Gubernatione Dei appeared. In thecultivated circle there, there is little trace of ardent Christian1 Salv. de Gub. Dei, vii. 16, quispotentum ac divitum non in luto libidinis vixit: paene unumlupanar omniumvita. The conquest of Spain by the "imbelles Vandali " is accounted forsolely by the immorality of the conquered (vii. 27) . The sensuality ofRoman Africa is described in evenstronger language ( vii. 70) , video quasi scaturientem vitiis civitatem ..cunctos vario luxus marcore perditos.And again, vii. 75, quis in illo numero tam innumero castus fuit?See c. 3 of this book.CHAP. I ITS PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CENSORS 1191belief. Yet there is also little trace of shameless vice. Thecontemporary society of Symmachus at Rome was severelyrespectable, in spite of its pagan sympathies. If Aquitanianmorals, in the time of Salvianus, were so thoroughly corrupt,then, in spite of the spiritual triumphs of S. Martin, in spiteof the efforts of a highly organised church, ruled by manybishops of saintly character and great popular influence, thetone of provincial society must have fallen below the level ofAusonius and his friends, and of those grave and strictprovincial senators who, ten generations before Ausonius, wereregarded by Tacitus as the salt of the Roman world. Salvianus,like S. Jerome, judged the men of his time by a standardwhich might bear hardly on the most respectable societies ofmodern Christendom. Salvianus is essentially a preacher.But the preacher, from his vocation , and in proportion to hisenthusiasm for righteousness, cannot be a dispassionate observer.His raison d'être is to edify, not to describe or analyse with historical accuracy. He will seldom refer to virtues alreadywon; he will exaggerate faults which he wishes to eradicate;he will blacken even his own past to exalt the grace that hassaved him; and he will be equally merciless to the sins ofthose whom he is striving to raise to a higher life. Thesociety of Salvianus, while nominally Christian, was as littleinclined as modern society to carry out in daily life preceptswhich interfere with material success. The men who did sothen lost caste, and were regarded by the polished and selfishworld very much as Horace Walpole 2 would have treated anaristocratic friend who had turned Methodist. On the otherhand, the man who has made the great renunciation is apt totreat the worldly class as worse than it really is. Its placidmaterialism, its bourgeois contempt for all ideal aims, irritateto madness the soul to whom death and the Great Judgmentand the life to come are the only realities. The grosser sinsof a small minority are regarded as the natural product of thatabsorption in the things of the perishing world which is the1 Ann. iii. 55, simul novi homines emunicipiis et coloniis atque etiam pro- vinciis in senatum adsumpti domesticam parsimoniam intulerunt; cf. xvi. 5. The opinion which Tacitusheld, as to the severity of morals in theprovinces, is confirmed by the picture which Ausonius gives of his family circle in the Parentalia.2 H. Walpole's Letters, vol. iii. p.191 ( to J. Chute).120 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIBut choice or the necessity of the mass of men at all times.the monsters of depravity in every age are probably as rare asthe paragons of saintly virtue. And we need not take tooliterally the mot of Salvianus that " the Roman world waslaughing when it died. "CHAPTER IITHE SOCIETY OF Q. AURELIUS SYMMACHUSIN the preceding chapter we have reviewed the adversejudgments of some contemporary moralists on the state ofsociety in the fourth and fifth centuries. But we fortunatelypossess, in the other literary remains of that age, materials forforming an estimate independent of either Christian or pagancensors. The letters of Q. Aurelius Symmachus, the poemsof Ausonius, and the Saturnalia of Macrobius reveal to usthe life of the cultivated upper class, both in the capital andthe provinces, in the years immediately preceding the firstshock of the great invasions. The poems and voluminouscorrespondence of Apollinaris Sidonius form an invaluablestorehouse of information as to the tone and habits ofGallo - Roman society, in the years when the last shadowyemperors were appearing and disappearing like puppets inrapid succession at the beck of a German master of theforces, and when a Visigothic government had been organisedin Aquitaine. Symmachus and Macrobius, although theywitnessed the final triumph of the Church, belonged to theranks of that conservative paganism which made a last standin defence of the old system of religion, and nourished theirpatriotic and aristocratic pride with the dreams of a pastthat was gone for ever. Sidonius represents a society which,though obstinately Roman in culture and sentiment, had1 Q. Aurel. Symmachus was probably born not long after 340, and diednot long after 402 ( Seeck, xliv.; cf.Peter, Geschichtl. Litt. i . 31 ) . Apol- linaris Sidonius was born about 430(he was adolescens in the year 449,Ep. viii. 6), and was alive " three olym- piads " after his consecration as bishop of Auvergne in 472 ( 1b. ix. 12).122 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIbeen nominally Christian for two generations, was living inclose contact with the German invaders, and was becomingdimly conscious that the old order was passing away.Q. Aurelius Symmachus was a member of a family whichheld a foremost place in the last quarter of the fourthcentury, but was not equal to some others in wealth andantiquity. His grandfather was consul in the reign ofConstantine.¹ His father had been prefect of the city in thereign of Valentinian I., and, after holding all the high offices ,still survived in the year 382. The line was prolongedthrough a succession of distinguished descendants. Symmachi3appear in the Fasti as consuls in 446 and 485. A femaledescendant of the orator was the wife of the great Boethius,and the mother of the two consuls of 522.2 Q. AureliusSymmachus, the author of the letters, married a daughter ofMemmius Vitrasius Orfitus, who was Urban prefect in the reignof Constantius. He was trained in speaking, as so many youngRomans of that age were, by a Gallic professor of rhetoric;and in his early youth he formed a close friendship with thepoet Ausonius at the court of Valentinian on the Rhine.*His earliest efforts in oratory were panegyrics on that Emperor,and on Gratian, delivered at Trèves during the campaignsagainst the Alemanni. The oratory of Symmachus was greatlyadmired by his contemporaries, and he was repeatedly selectedto put before the Emperor the views of the Senate onquestions of the day. His speech on the removal of theAltar of Victory is not unworthy of his fame, and has acquiredadditional interest from the replies of his kinsman Ambroseand the poet Prudentius.5The inscription dedicated by Q. Fab. Memmius Symmachus to the memory of the great senator recites a longlist of offices which he had held. He had been governorof several provinces, prefect of the city, pontiff and consul.1 Seeck's Sym. xli . For the career of L. Aur. Avianius Symmachus see C.I.L. vi. 1698.2 Rusticiana, the wife of Boethius,bears the name of her great - greatgrandmother, the wife of Q. Aurelius Symmachus; cf. the Stemma of the Symmachi in Seeck, xl.3 Sym. Ep. ix. 88.Ib. Ep. i. 32; Auson. Ep. xvii. ,dum in comitatu degimus ambo.He was entrusted with the choiceof a professor of rhetoric for Milan;the choice fell on S. Augustine . Aug.Conf. v. c. 13, § 23; cf. Macrob. v. 1 ,7; Prudent. c. Sym. i . 632.C. I. L. vi. 1699.CHAP. II THE SOCIETY OF SYMMACHUS 123He was admittedly the chief of the Senate. Yet probably nopublic man ever left behind him a collection of letters of solittle general interest. In an age of great conflicts and greatchanges, it is startling to find Symmachus complaining to hiscorrespondents of lack of matter. Either the government wasveryreticent, or Symmachus and his circle were very unobservantor careless of public affairs. The Senate was still treated bythe emperors with ceremonious respect, and possessed manyvaluable privileges. But after the great reorganisation byDiocletian, it had ceased to have any share in the government.Like the consulship, it remained as one of those dignifiedfictions by which the Roman disguised the vastness of thechange which separated him from the days of freedom. Itwas indeed part of the policy of Stilicho to consult and paydeference to the Senate, and in the troubled years of Alaric'sinvasions that body appeared more than once to exercise someindependent authority. But these were only the illusions ofa moment. Occasionally the Emperor condescended to sendit a despatch, the arrival of which, to men like Symmachus,was an event of the first importance. That not a momentmight be lost, the august body would sometimes be summonedbefore dawn to hear the formal words of some despatchwhich may have little deserved such eager haste. To bechosen to read it to the assembled nobles was a covetedhonour, and Symmachus, to whom the task often fell, is full ofgratitude at being made the interpreter of the " divine words." 4But all this was purely formal. Rome had long ceased to bethe real seat of government. Not a single rescript in the timeof Symmachus is dated from Rome. When Honorius paid histriumphal visit in 403, the palace of the Caesars at Rome hadbeen practically deserted for a hundred years. While courierswere arriving day and night at Milan or Ravenna, and theimperial council were deliberating on the latest demands ofAlaric, the Eternal City, the hearth of the Roman race, thehome of its gods, in whose name the whole vast system was1 Ep. iii . 10; cf. ii. 35 , at olimparentes etiam patriae negotia, quae nunc angustu vel nulla sunt, in famili- ares paginas conferebant.2 On this government monopoly of news v. Peter, Gesch. Litt. i. 363.33Sym. Ep. i. 13, nondum caelo al- bente concurritur.4 lb. i. 95. He asks Syagrius tothank the emperors " qui humanae voci divinas literas crediderunt. "5 Gregorovius, Rome in the MiddleAges, i. p. 117 ( Eng. Tr. ) .124 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIcarried on, had almost as little influence on the course ofgovernment as Tibur or Praeneste. Now and then a feelingof neglect and desertion breaks out, as in the appeal ofClaudian to the Emperor to return to his true home on thePalatine.¹ Occasionally the pride of the Senate is soothed ,as when it was consulted about the war with Gildo.2 Itshopes were roused for a moment when the barbarianconqueror raised Attalus to the purple. But, as a rule, adull, gray atmosphere seems to brood over the high societyof Rome, and we cannot help wondering how men like Probus,*after governing provinces larger than any kingdom of modernEurope, could be content with the frigid dignity and theemptiness of their lives in the capital.The Senate no doubt was impotent and ill - informed. Yetthe calm silence of Symmachus in the face of dangers andcalamities, which must have struck the most unobservant, isvery puzzling. It may be the proud reserve of the memberof a great race, which will not hint, even in a confidential letter,that the commonwealth is in peril. It may be also thatunshaken faith in the destiny of Rome which, only a few yearsafter her capture by Alaric, inspired the last true poet ofRome to celebrate her beneficence and clemency, and to predictfor her an unending sway. The feeling was shared to someextent even by Christian writers like S. Augustine and Orosius."There is a tendency on all sides to treat the menacing troublesof the time as only a passing cloud, as necessary incidentsin an imperial career, not worse than Rome had often surmounted in past ages. Yet, in spite of these considerations ,it is startling to read a letter from Symmachus to hisson in the year 402, the year of the great battles of Pollentia.and Verona, which makes no allusion to the invaders. Heconfines himself to the bare announcement of the fact that,owing to the unsafe state of the roads, he has had to make along detour in order to reach the Court at Milan.1 De Sexto Cons. Honor. 39, 53.2 Sym . Ep. iv. 5, ofthe year 397, consulti igitur in senatu more majorum, ingenti causae devotis sententiis satisfecimus.3 Zos. vi. 6, 7.Sex. Petr. Probus had been procons.ofAfrica, 357-58; praef. praet. of Italy,Illyria, and Africa, 368-76; of Gaul,380; of Italy again , 383-84, and 387.C.I.L. vi. 1752, 1753.5 Rutil. Namat. i . 47-140.6 Orosius, ii . 2, 6.7 Sym. Ep. vii. 13; cf. Seeck,Ixiii. The detour was made by Ticinum,which lay on the west, to avoid the enemy coming from the east.CHAP. II THE SOCIETY OF SYMMACHUS 12534There are a good many glimpses of the state of Romeduring the anxious years of the Gildonic revolt. But welearn more from Claudian than from Symmachus about themeditated transfer of the African provinces to the EasternEmpire. Symmachus is concerned chiefly with the dignity ofhis order and the condition of the capital. It was a proudday when Stilicho had to report the opinion of the Senate onthe conduct of Gildo, and when more majorum the traitorwas voted to be a public enemy. We have many illustrationsof Claudian's complaint," " pascimur arbitrio Mauri. " TheAfrican corn- ships ceased to reach Ostia with their wontedregularity, and the terror of famine spread among the mobof Rome. The masses were becoming sullen and dangerous.There were all the signs of a coming storm. Numbers ofthe higher families were flying to the safe seclusion oftheir country seats, and Symmachus prepared to send awayhis children from the capital. As the chief author of thecondemnation of Gildo, he had himself to withdraw for awhile to one of his villas.5 The distress was temporarily relievedby an oblatio of twenty days' supplies made by the Senate. "And again Symmachus describes the delight with which, fromhis villa on the Tiber, he saw the corn fleet from Macedoniaarrive.7 But there are few indications that he realised the gravesocial and economic dangers which are revealed by the Theodosian Code. He once casually mentions that he is debarredfrom the enjoyment of his country seat by the prevalence ofbrigandage . There is a slight touch of feeling in a referenceto the gloomy appearance of the country which met his eyesin one of his excursions." Yet one would never gatherfrom the passage that hundreds of thousands of acres inonce smiling districts had returned to waste. The letters ofSymmachus, if they had told us more of public events,10 mighthave been among the most precious documents in historicalliterature. As it is, their chief value lies in what they ratherstintedly reveal of the life and tone of the class to which1 Sym. Ep. iv. 5.2 De Bell. Gildon. v. 70.3 Sym. Ep. vi. 14; cf. vi. 18, ii . 6.4 lb. vi. 26, 66 , 21 .5 Ib. vi. 66.6 Ib. vi. 12, 26.7 Ib. iii. 55, 82.8 Ib. ii. 22, sed nunc intuta est latrociniis suburbanitas.9 Ib. v. 12.10 It should be said that he appearsto have appended to some of his lettersa separate bulletin , containing the news of the day.126 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK 11Symmachus belonged. Here we see it for the last timeapparently secure in the possession of enormous wealth, greatadministrative power, and exquisite social culture, apparentlywithout a thought of the storm which was about to break.ence.3The senatorial order was essentially a wealthy class. Ithad come to include nearly all the considerable proprietorsin Italy and the provinces.' And, as we shall see in anotherchapter, the wealth and social power of its members wereincreasing as what may be called the middle class (thecuriales) rapidly declined in numbers and pecuniary independOf course there were many degrees of opulence in theranks of the senators. That some were comparatively pooris evident from the fact that a certain number were relievedof the full weight of imperial imposts. But we have expresstestimony, apart from indirect evidence, that the wealth ofothers was enormous. A senatorial income of the highestclass, exclusive of what was derived from the estates in kind,sometimes reached the sum of £ 180,000 , and that at a timewhen the ordinary rate of interest was 12 per cent. Moremoderate incomes, such as that of Symmachus, amounted to£60,000 a year. Symmachus had at least three great housesin Rome or the suburbs, and fifteen country seats in variousdistricts of Italy." He had large estates in Samnium , Apulia,and Mauretania. The tenure of a great office in the provinces gavea man the chance of acquiring such domains. AmmianusMarcellinus speaks of the estates of Sex. Petron. Probus asscattered all over the Empire, and he broadly hints that thatgreat noble had not always acquired them by the fairestmeans. The elder Sallustius,' when he was vicarius of Spain1 Zos. ii. 38; cf. Duruy, vii . p. 176,and Godefroy's Paratitlon to C. Th.vi. tit. ii.

• C. Th . vi . 2, 4 , 8 .

3 Olympiod. ap. Phot. § 44 (Müll.Frag. Hist. Gr. iv. ).Marq. Röm. Alt. ii. p. 55; cf. Duruy,v. p. 598, on the fortunes of theearlier Empire. Pallas, the freedman of Claudius' reign, had 300,000,000 sesterces = £3,200,000, which, at 12per cent, would give an income of £384,000.5 For the various seats of Symmachusv. Seeck, xlvi.; some may have come to him by his wife from Orfitus, ib. 1.6 Amm. Marc. xxvii. 11 , 1 , opumamplitudine cognitus orbi Romano, per quem universum paene patrimonia sparsa possedit, juste an secus non judicioli est nostri. Pliny (H. N. xviii. 35) alleges that half of Roman Africa was owned by six persons.For a description of such an estate v.Boissier, L'Afr. Rom. p. 150.C.I.L. vi. 1729. The monumentrecords the gratitude and admiration of the Spaniards. It is dated in the consulship of Jovianus Aug. and Var- ronianus (364). Flav. Sallustius had been cons. ord. in 363, and praet . praef.361-3; cf. Amm. Marc. xxi. 8, 1 .;CHAP. II THE SOCIETY OF SYMMACHUS 127about 364, probably acquired the property in that province whichhis son enjoyed a generation later, in the time of Symmachus.The wealth of Paula, who abandoned it all to accompanyS. Jerome to Bethlehem, of S. Paulinus,' and many others ofthe Roman nobility, is known to us from Christian sources.The fervour of asceticism may have led S. Jerome to overdraw his picture of Roman luxury. But there is one department of expenditure in which the letters of Symmachus.reveal an almost reckless profusion. The praetorship, whichevery young senator of the highest class had to assume,2one of the heaviest burdens on the senatorial class , so heavythat some of them preferred to resign their order rather thanundertake it. It had, like the consulship, long ceased toconfer any power or authority. It remained as a disguisedform of taxation for the pleasures of the mob of the capital.The younger Symmachus was still a mere boy in the hands.of a tutor, when he was designated for this expensive honour ofamusing the rabble of Rome. The games which the youngpraetor had to provide cost his father a sum equal to £ 80,000of our money. So far from complaining of the expense, hisfather is eager to seize the opportunity of gaining popularitywith the crowd, and rejects with scorn any idea of parsimony.His time and energies are devoted for several years to thepreparations for the spectacle which is to usher his son intothe career of public life. Symmachus, in everything adevotee of the past, was nowhere more conservative than inhis belief in the ancient games. He had put aside the conventional tone of servility in demanding from the reluctantTheodosius the performance of what he regarded as animperious duty to the commonwealth. "4Sym. Ep. v. 56. The herds of horses referred to were on the Spanish estates,Seeck, clvi.; cf. Sym. Ep. ix. 12.1 The wealth of Paulinus is alludedto in Aus. Ep. xxiv. 115:ne sparsam raptamque domum lacerataque centum per dominos veteris Paullini regna fleamus.His wife Therasia was enormouslywealthy, v. Greg. Tur. de Glor. Conf.107. On the wealth of Paula v.Hieron. Ep. 108, § 5.2 C. Th. vi. tit. iv. with the Para- titlon.3 Seeck, xlvi. Probus, shortly afterBut when the occathe death of Honorius, in spite of the enormous losses caused by the Gothic invasion, is said to have expended £54,000 on a similar occasion. Maximus spent £180,000. Olympiod. § 44.Sym. Ep. ii. 78. Cf. ix. 126;4ii . 78.For an example of his conservatism v. ii. 36, opposing a decision of the pontifical college to allow the Vestals to erect a statue to Praetextatus.6 Ib. Rel. 6, beneficia numinis vestripopulus Romanus expectat . . . sed ea jam quasi debita repetit quae aeternitas vestra sponte promisit. Cf. Rel. 9.128 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIsion arrived he was ready to act up to his own principles.Many of his letters are full of the coming games. Heappeals to his friends in all parts of the world to assist him.Lions and crocodiles from Africa, dogs from Scotland, horsesfrom the famous studs of Spain, are all sought for, and themost anxious provision is made for their conveyance fromthese distant regions. The gladiatorial shows had not yetbeen suppressed by Christian sentiment, and Symmachus wasdetermined to have a band of Saxons, to crown the success of his games. He puts as much seriousness into thebusiness as if it affected the very existence of the State.3His anxiety is overpowering. In spite, however, of all hiscare and profusion, there were many accidents and disappointments. Some of the animals arrived half dead fromthe hardships of their long journey. Many of the splendidSpanish coursers had either perished by the way, or werehopelessly disabled. * The crocodiles would not eat and had tobe killed. Chariot- drivers and players, expected from Sicily,were, in spite of all searches along the coast, nowhere to beheard of. The most cruel blow of all was the loss of theSaxon gladiators, who, declining to make sport for the rabbleof Rome, strangled one another before the hour of theirhumiliation in the arena arrived."This is the most interesting passage in the life of Symmachus as revealed in his letters. The world he belongs towas the slave of old tradition and conventionality, and, withall its splendour, must have suffered from canui. The greatman's day, just as in Pliny's time, was filled by a round oftrivial social observances, which were as engrossing and asobligatory as serious duties. The crowd of morning callersand dependants had to be received as of old. All theanniversaries in the families of friends had to be dulyremembered and honoured. If a friend obtained from theEmperor the distinction of one of the old republican magistracies, it was an imperative social duty to attend his inaugu1 Ep. iv. 58-60, 63; ix. 12; ii . 76; ii.77; ix. 132.2 Ib. ii. 46.3 Ib. iv. 8 , 60.4 Ib. v. 56.5 Ib. vi. 42.6 lb. ii. 46.7 Two generations later than Sym- machus, Sidonius, describing high society at Rome, says , utrumquequidem, si fors Laribus egrediebantur,artabat clientum praevia pedisequa circumfusa populositas, Sid. Ep. i. 9. 3 .CHAP. II THE SOCIETY OF SYMMACHUS 129ration.¹ The service of the Sacred Colleges was another socialobligation, although Symmachus hints broadly that some ofhis colleagues in the pontifical college were inclined to flatterthe Court by absenting themselves; 3 and even Flavianus andPraetextatus, who were pagans of the pagans, sometimes excused themselves by absence at their country seats or at somepleasure resort in Campania. In nothing were the demandsof etiquette more imperious than in letter-writing. Again andagain Symmachus recalls the rule of " old-fashioned manners,"that the friend who goes from home should be the first towrite.5 It matters not whether he has anything to say.Indeed, it is hard to see why a great many of these lettersshould have been written at all. They are about as interestingas a visiting card, and seem to have had no more significancethan a polite attention. The stiffness of etiquette, which wasintroduced into official life by Diocletian, and which invadedthe legal style of the imperial rescripts, reigns in the correspondence of the period, even between near relations. Theconservatism of Symmachus, indeed, revolts against the newfangled habit of prefixing titles to a friend's name in a familiarletter. Still, his own son is amabilitas tua," 7 and hisdaughter " domina filia." That there were warm affectionsand a kindly unselfish nature behind all this artificial stiffnessin the case of Symmachus we shall see afterwards. With himand his caste the habit of social observance, however complicated and engrossing, had become a second nature, withoutalways freezing the springs of natural kindliness.<<Yet the cold dignity of the life in those palaces on theCaelian and Aventine, with its endless calls to frivolous socialduties, and its monotony of busy idleness, must have grownirksome at times. It was not, perhaps, altogether the coolnessof Praeneste, the gay abandon of Baiae, or the boar- hunting inthe woods of Laurentum, that tempted the fashionable worldaway from the attractions of Rome. Symmachus loves Rome,1 Sym . Ep. i. 101.2 Ib. i. 47, 48.3 Ib. i . 51 , nunc aris deesse Romanos genus est ambiendi.4 Ib. i. 47 , 51; ii . 53 , mihi tuummunus injungis: fruere deliciis copiosis;nos mandata curabimus.5 Ib. vi. 60.6 Ib. iv. 30, itane epistularum nostrarum simplex usus interiit, ut paginistuis lenocinia aevi praesentis anteferas?redeamus quin ergo ad infucatos nomi- num titulos.7 Ib. vii. 6, vi . 60 , 80; cf. Ruric.Ep. i. 6, 7, 10, 11 , 13.K130 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK 111with all its turbulence, even in times of scarcity and tumult,and he will linger in a suburban villa on the chance of beingsummoned to a meeting of the Senate; but even he feels theneed of repose and emancipation from the tyranny of society.At one of his country houses, he is as happy as such a statelyself- contained man will ever show himself, looking after themaking of his oil and wine, laying down a fresh mosaic ,receiving a friend or two, or drinking in the quiet freshness ofthe Laurentine woods that overhang the sea. There is no tracein his letters that nature has for him any of the romanticcharm which it had for Ausonius and Rutilius. He was notmuch of a sportsman even in his youth. He loved the countryfor its stillness and repose, for the relief it gave from themonotonous strain of social duty which was doubly oppressiveto his kind and conscientious nature. Above all, it gavehim leisure for converse with the old favourites of his library.3Among the best men of the pagan or semi- pagan aristocracyof that time the passion for literature or erudition was absorbing.With many of them it took the place of interest in publicaffairs. The company whom Macrobius brings together in hisSaturnalia were the leaders of Roman society - Praetextatus,Flavianus, two members of the great house of the Albini,Symmachus himself. They are joined by other guests oflower social rank, but equals in the literary brotherhood,Eustathius, a Greek professor of rhetoric, and Servius, theprince of Roman critics. Praetextatus, the arch-hierophant,initiated in all the cults of Syria and Egypt, is the exponent ofpriestly lore. Flavianus is the masterof that augural artwhich led him to his doom when he espoused the cause ofEugenius and paganism against the Church. The Albinienlarge on the antiquarian exactness of Virgil. There was nooriginality in the literary enthusiasm of these men.enthusiasm which spent its force in preserving and appreciatingwhat the ages of creation and inspiration had left behind.5Praetextatus, besides giving much attention to the emendation1 Ep. ii. 57, vii. 21 .2 Ib. ii . 26; iii. 23, nunc hic in otio rusticamur et multimodis autumnitatedefruimur; vii . 31; vii. 15 , 18; vi. 44.3 lb. v. 78, agri quiete delector .saepe oculos pasco culturis; cf. Auson.•4Idyl. x. 20, 155 , 189.It was anMacrob. i . 17, 1; i . 24 , 17-19.On the tastes and learned laboursof this circle cf. Peter, Gesch. Litt.über die Röm. Kaiserzeit, i. p. 137; Jan,Prol. ad Macrob. xxii. sqq.CHAP. II THE SOCIETY OF SYMMACHUS 13165of the classics, translated the Analytics of Aristotle.¹ Flavianuswas an erudite historian, and composed a volume of Annals 2dedicated to Theodosius. His translation of the Life ofApollonius of Tyana by Philostratus was in vogue in the timeof Sidonius, and fragments of his de Dogmatibus Philosophorumwere still read in the Middle Ages.3 Sallustius, another greatperson of the circle of Symmachus, is known to have emendedthe text of Apuleius. A great noble in Spain, who had afamous stud, from which Symmachus drew a contribution forhis son's games, seems to have combined in a rare fashion ataste for horse- breeding with a taste for literature, and begsthe orator for a copy of his speeches. Symmachus had manyliterary friends in Gaul, most of them mere names to us now.Among them were three brothers who had been trained inthe great school of Trèves. One of them had the honour ofreceiving the dedication of Claudian's Rape of Proserpine."Another, Protadius, affects a great taste for sport, but is reallya litterateur, with an ambition to write the history of his province. Symmachus, in his friendly way, helped him withadvice and some materials from his library. If the history ofProtadius was ever written, it shared the fate of many anotherwork of that age of which the cruelty or contempt of time hasnot left even a trace. There was no doubt much vanity andlove of mutual admiration under all this literary activity.But in our own day the apotheosis of self - advertisingmediocrity is not altogether unheard of. What literary cliquecan cast the first stone? And, after all, it is better to be vainof knowledge and literary facility than of wealth or birth.The very weakness shows a deference for ideals which riseabove the level of bourgeois self- complacency, or of the stolidpride of inherited rank.Symmachus was a good man according to his lights, but hewas not a very strong man.And one of his weaknesses was1 Sym. Ep. i. 53, remissa tempora... libris veterum ruminandis libenterexpendis; cf. C.I.L. vi. 1779, d,vel quae periti condidere carmina,vel quae solutis vocibus sunt edita,meliora reddis quam legendo sumpseras.Seeck's Sym. lxxxvii. n. 394.2 C.I.L. vi. 1783; cf. 1782, historico disertissimo.3 Sid. Ep. viii . 3; cf. Seeck, cxv.4 Cf. the note to the Laurentian MS.of Apuleius quoted in Seeck, clvi.;Hildebrand's Prol. ad Apul. lxi.5 Sym. Ep. iv. 60, 63, 64.6 Ib. iv. 18-56.7 De Raptu Proserp. ii. , praef. 50.8 Sym. Ep. iv. 18.132 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIliterary affectation. He evidently took enormous pains withthese letters. He had, as he confesses, little to say, but hesays it in the most elaborate and ingenious style of which heis capable. Yet he apologises more than once for his povertyof talent and phrase, and he is guilty of the amusing falsehood that his style is unstudied. To one of his correspondentshe appeals to keep the letter for his own reading, yet inthe same letter he admits that his " librarii," " per examinisignorantiam, " are preserving copies of what he writes. Perhaps,however, this was not all vanity and affectation. It is possibleto have a modest conception of one's native talent, alongwith the ambition that the fruits of elaborate care and cultivation should survive. The true Roman, who reverenced thegreat memories of the past, had a passionate, though often afutile, desire to live in the memory of coming ages.The literary conversations in which some of the intimatefriends of Symmachus take part in the Saturnalia of Macrobius(although the matter is often borrowed from Gellius and earlierwriters) 3 probably give a fairly correct idea of the literary toneand interests of that circle. The subject will be dealt with atlength in another chapter. For the present it is sufficient tosay that the literary criticism in Macrobius is far from contemptible. The minute antiquarianism, indeed, may seem tous sometimes rather trifling. But to a Roman, like Praetextatus, who was still loyal to the faith of his ancestors and to thepast, every scrap of the ancient lore of his race was precious.And in the minute and often delicate appreciation , not onlyof the learning, but of the literary beauties of Virgil, we arecompelled to forgive and almost to forget the blindness andperversity of a generation who admired the great masters, andyet wrote in a style which they would have thought utterlybarbarous. And it must be confessed that there is much toforgive. Equipped by the study of the great masterpieces andthe most elaborate training, they yet came to write a stylewhich is in many cases a mixture of imitation, affectation,and barbarism. Ingenuity took the place of originality,1 Ep. i. 14; iv. 27 , sum quidem pauper loquendi .2 lb. v. 85, quare velim tibi habeas quae incogitata proferimus. Cf. his advice to his son to cultivate acertain negligence of style in his letters ,a precept which Symmachus did not enforce by example, vii. 9.Peter, Gesch. Litt. i. P. 143.CHAP. II THE SOCIETY OF SYMMACHUS 1333extravagance and exaggeration of real force. Style, in fact,became a mere " jargon of experts." And the initiated werenever weary of exchanging the most fulsome flattery. In aletter to his friend Ausonius about his poem on the Moselle,Symmachus, while he gently ridicules the minute descriptionof the fishes of that river, yet has no hesitation in rankinghis friend with Virgil. ' The poet returned the complimentby attributing to the oratory of Symmachus all the force andgraces of the oratory of Isocrates, Demosthenes, and Cicero.2In the year 378 a Greek rhetorician named Palladius arrivedin Rome. The fashionable and cultivated world were carriedaway by his declamation , " his wealth of invention , his dignityand brilliance of diction. " If we are inclined to despise suchunreal displays, and such extravagant eulogy, it is well toremember that admiration for mental power, even when misapplied, is better than a Philistine contempt for things of themind. The aristocratic class in the last age of the WesternEmpire had many faults, but they treated talent and culture asat least the equals of wealth and rank; and there has seldombeen an age when talent and culture received higher rewards.Symmachus recommended the brilliant rhetor to the notice ofAusonius, who was then Pretorian prefect. Palladius wasreadily enrolled in the ranks of the imperial service, andwithin three or four years had risen to the great place ofmaster of the offices.¹ In the same years Marinianus, anotherliterary friend of Symmachus, who was a professor of law, roseto the dignity of vicar of the Spanish province. The poetAusonius is the most brilliant example in that age of therecognition of literary eminence by the State. It has been saidwith some truth that the reign of Gratian was quite as muchthe reign of Ausonius. Originally a humble grammarian in theschool of Bordeaux, he was appointed by Valentinian his son'stutor. Ausonius possessed the gifts which were then the mostadmired, infinite facility, the power of giving novelty and importance to trifles by ingenious tricks of phrase, the art of flat1 Ep. i. 14, ego hoc tuum carmen libris Maronis adjungo.52 Auson. Ep. xvii.3 Sym. i. 15, ix. 1; cf. Seeck, ccii.4 C. Th . vị. 27, 4 ( 382).Sym. Ep. iii. 23-29 . Marinianus is the governor to whom Gratian's5constitution of 383 is addressed (C. Th. ix. 1 , 14 ) . He is also probably the "vicarius " referred to in Sulp.Sev. Chron. ii. 49, 3, as being preferredby the Priscillianist heretics to Gregory the prefect. Hence it has been con- Icluded that Marinianus was a pagan.134 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IItering with literary grace. The young Emperor repaid the careand recognised the talents of his teacher by raising him to thequaestorship, ' the prefecture of the Gauls, and in 379 to theillustrious dignity of the consulship as the colleague of Olybrius,a scion of one of the proudest houses in the Roman aristocracy.The relatives and friends of Ausonius shared in his advancement. For two or three years nearly all the great prefecturesand governorships were held by members of the poet's family.2He has also left marks of his ascendency on the Code. Ausonius, at the height of his power and his renown, was faithfulto the system of culture which had moulded him. And thefamous rescript of 376,3 which provides for the payment offixed stipends to the teachers of grammar and rhetoric, wasundoubtedly suggested by the old professor of Bordeaux.There is little in the literary productions of that age whicha modern reader can admire, and they are only the wreckageof a great mass of probably even less merit. Yet the literarybrotherhood, of which Symmachus and Ausonius were leaders,did a service to humanity by their worship of an ideal whichtheir own productions seldom approach.If the letters of Symmachus are to be taken as a fairpicture of the moral tone of his class, we are bound, with somereservations, to form a far more favourable opinion of the stateof Roman society than that which is suggested by S. Jeromeor Ammianus Marcellinus. There are, it is true, glimpses inSymmachus of the old Roman cruelty, of contempt for slavesand the common people, of selfishness, and lack of public spirit.The Saxons, whom Symmachus had brought at great expensefrom the far north for his gladiatorial shows, killed one anotheror committed suicide before the day of combat in the arenaarrived. And the usually kind- hearted Symmachus narratesthe tragedy with a few words of bitter contempt. He and hisfriends fought hard to avoid the levy of recruits from their1 Auson. Grat. Act. pro Cons. ii. 11 ,te ac patre principibus quaestura com- munis et tui tantum praefectura bene- ficii , etc.; cf. SchenkÏ, Prooem. ix.2 Seeck's Sym. lxxix.; Schenkl, x.3 C. Th. xiii. 3, 11. The law is addressed to Antonius, which Scaliger thought mistake for Ausonius.Godefroy in his Commentary refutesathis conjecture. Antonius was a correspondent of Symmachus, Ep. i . 89-93.Cf. Seeck's Sym , cix.Sym. Ep. vi. 8, ut est servis familiaris improbitas. But this censure was probably deserved; cf. Salv . de Gub.Dei, iv. § 26, c. 5; Hieron. Ep. liv.5 Sym. Ib. ii . 46.CHAP. II THE SOCIETY OF SYMMACHUS 135estates at the crisis of the Gildonic war, and actually succeededin arranging for a composition in money. They also showedwhat seems an unworthy timidity in the riots caused by thefailure of the corn supplies from Africa. They removed theirfamilies to the country, and Symmachus has all preparationsmade for sending his own children away. The same selfishweakness is revealed a few years afterwards in the flight of thewealthy classes, when the troops of Alaric were closing roundthe city. There is much, too, that is revolting or contemptiblein the conduct of public men revealed in the chronicle of thosefatal years. The cruelty and greed of Heraclian in his treatment of the refugees who landed in his province of Africa wouldbe almost incredible if we had not the express testimony ofS. Jerome.¹ The party, led by Olympius, who carried out theCatholic reaction against the policy of Stilicho, seem to havebeen at once cruel, incompetent, faithless, and corrupt. It isdifficult to say whether blindness or perfidy is more conspicuousin the dealings of the Roman government with Alaric.Honorius is probably responsible for some of this basenessand stupidity. But the great officials who lent themselvesto such a policy, if they did not prompt it, cannot be acquitted.The Gothic king was as much superior to his opponents insincerity and insight as he was in material force.Yet these vices and weaknesses in the official class shouldnot make us unjust to that society as a whole. Salvianussays that his generation flattered itself on the purity of itsmorals.5 The guests in the Saturnalia of Macrobius claimthat their society is free from many of the grosser forms ofluxury and dissipation which prevailed among their ancestors."The menu of the pontiff's banquet, at which Lentulus,Lepidus, J. Caesar, and the Vestal Virgins were present, istreated as disgraceful in its costly and fantastic variety.7Peaco*cks' eggs are not now even in the market. There are nocensors and consuls, like Hortensius and Lucullus, who spend1 Ep. vi . 64 .2 lb. vi. 12, 21 , 66.3 Rutil. Namat. i. 331:haec multos lacera suscepit ab urbe fugatos.Hieron. Ep. 130, § 7. Heraclian was the assassin of Stilicho and thefriend of Olympius; cf. the splendidcontrast of the charity of Laeta,8widow of Gratian, Zos. v. 39.5 Salv. de Gub Dei, vi. § 44.6 Macrob. Sat. iii . 13; cf. iii. 17, 12.7 Ib. iii. 13, 11-13, ipsa vero eduliumgenera quam dictu turpia?8 Ib. iii. 13, 2, ova pavonum quae hodie non dicam vilius sed omnino nec veneunt.136 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK II3a fortune in stocking a fish pond, and who mourn the death ofa muraena as if it were a daughter. The insanity which ransacked land and sea for new dainties is now quite unknown.So far from buying them, we have forgotten their very names.You will never see a man now reeling drunk into the forum,2surrounded by loose companions, nor a judge on the bench soovercome by wine that he can hardly keep his eyes open. Atwhose dinner party will you now ever see the dancing girlintroduced? Still less will persons of decent breeding themselves indulge in that rage for the dance which disgraced eventhe matrons of noble houses in the times of the Punic wars.There is the same improvement in the tone about the actor'sprofession, which even Cicero did not regard as disgraceful."No one would nowadays associate on friendly terms with aRoscius, as Cicero did. It is possible that this may be thepicture only of a more fastidious and refined circle, and thatthere were great houses where the festivities were not soinnocent as those described in the Saturnalia. But the testimony of Macrobius deserves at least to be weighed against theinvective of S. Jerome.The contempt for slaves expressed by S. Jerome andSalvianus is not shared by the characters of Macrobius.Acertain Euangelus in the Saturnalia jeers at the notion thatthe gods should have any care for slaves." He is taken totask by Praetextatus, the great pagan theologian of the party.Slaves, Praetextatus says, are men like ourselves. There isnothing in the name of slavery to excite horror and contempt.We are all the slaves of God or Fortune. The greatest in earthlystate, the highest in wisdom, have had to bear the yoke. Theslave is really our fellow servant, made of the same elements,subject to the same chance and change, often with the spirit ofthe free man in his breast.8in bondage to his passions.as that which is self- imposed.1 Macrob. Sat. iii. 15, 4.2 Ib. iii. 16, 14.3 Ib. iii. 16 , 16, vix prae vino sus- tinet palpebras.4 Ib. iii. 14, 3-7; cf. ii. 1 ,5 Ib. iii. 14, 11.7.Hieron. Ep. 54, § 5; Salv. de Gub.Dei, iv. 26, praecipitantes fastigiaThe real slave is the man who isNo servitude can be so shamefulYou should treat your slavenobilium matrimoniorum in cubiliaobscena servarum; cf. iv. § 14.7 Macrob. Sat. i . 11, 1 , quasi vero curent divina de servis.8 Ib. i. 11 , 6-8.9 Ib. i. 11 , 8, certe nulla servitusturpior quam voluntaria.CHAP. II THE SOCIETY OF SYMMACHUS 1373as a man, even as a friend.¹ It is far better that he shouldlove than that he should fear you. And how often have thesedespised wretches shown the noblest devotion to their masters,in spite of all the cruelty and contempt with which theyhave been treated? 2 A slave has been known to personatehis master who was in hiding, and to submit to the stroke ofthe executioner in his place. The slave-girls of Rome oncesaved the honour of their mistresses at the peril of their own,and were commemorated for ever in the Nonae Caprotinae. Itis quite true, of course, that these ideas are not peculiar to thefourth or the fifth century. They can be traced back in someform to Seneca, to Plato, to Euripides. But they are expressed with a sincerity and good feeling in Macrobius whichleave the impression that they are the convictions of the bestand most thoughtful men of his time.There is nothing brighter and pleasanter in the Letters ofSymmachus than the tenderness of his family affections. It istrue that, with his ingrained conservatism, he clings to theold Roman idea of the womanly character. The Romanmatron from the earliest times had secured to her by familyreligion a dignified and respected position. She was to someextent the equal of her husband in the management of thehousehold. But the sentiment of ancient Rome forbade herthe lighter graces and accomplishments. She was expected tobe grave, self- contained, chiefly concerned with householdduties, and the nurture of a sturdy and intrepid race.the early years of the Empire the ideal of woman's positionand character underwent a profound change. The changegave rise to many misunderstandings which were the food ofsatire. But her status, both in law and in fact, really rose.There can be no doubt that the Roman lady of the better sort,without becoming less virtuous and respected, became far moreaccomplished and attractive.greater charm and influence.InWith fewer restraints, she hadShe became, more and more, theequal and companion of her husband, and her influence on publicaffairs became more decided.1 Macrob. Sat. i. 11 , 12. Cf. Sen. Ep.47, servi sunt, immo humiles amicis.2 Macrob. Sat. i . 11 , 13, 14.3 lb. i. 11 , 16.4 Ib. i. 11 , 36-40.The wife of the younger Pliny,"5 Pl. Leges, vi. p. 777; Eurip. Ion,854; Helen, 730; cf. Boissier, Rel.Rom. ii. p. 363; Wallon, iii. p. 22.6 Plin. iv. 19. He says of his wife,Calpurnia, accedit his studium litte-138 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIto take a typical instance, is the partner in his studies,she knows his books by heart, she shares all his thoughts.In the last age of the Western Empire there is no deteriorationin the position and influence of women. In Christian familiesthey cultivate sacred learning, and take the lead in works ofcharity and mercy. Furiola founded a hospital.¹ Laeta, thewidow of Gratian, fed the starving populace of the Capitolduring its siege by the forces of Alaric. Serena, the wife ofStilicho, was an accomplished scholar, and was regarded both byfriends and enemies as a serious force in politics.³ Placidia, themother of the younger Theodosius, after all her vicissitudes asthe wife of a Gothic chief, probably wielded greater influencein her son's councils than any statesman of the time. On thepagan side, Praetextatus has left an eternal memorial of an idealwedded union , in which the wife gives not only love, butintellectual support and sympathy to her husband.¹The old-fashioned Symmachus would probably have objectedto his female relatives taking a prominent part in any publicmovement. He stoutly resisted the proposal of the vestalsto raise a monument to his bosom-friend Praetextatus.5 Hepraises his daughter, when she sends him a present of woolwork, for her likeness to the Roman matron of the great age,who sat among her maids, directing them at the spindle or theloom. But Symmachus, for all that, is the most affectionateof fathers. He never forgets a birthday. His daughter'sillness gives him the most acute anxiety amid all his publicanxieties. He sends her advice for the care of her health.sThe nursery troubles of his little grand-daughter occupy agood many of his letters. But his solicitude and affection forhis son are even more marked . When the boy's first tutordies, Symmachus takes endless pains to obtain one of equalmerit, if possible a man who had been trained in the Gallicrarum, quod ex mei caritate concepit.Meos libellos habet, lectitat, ediscit etiam.1 Hieron. Ep. 77, § 6.2 Zos. v. 39.3 Claudian, Laus Serenae, 147, 229;Zos. v. 38 , ἐν ὑποψίᾳ ἔλαβε τὴν Σερήναν ἡ γερουσία οἷα τοὺς βαρβάρους κατὰ τῆς πόλεως ἀγαγοῦσαν.4 C.I.L. vi. 1779:Paulina nostri pectoris consortiofomes pudoris, castitatis vinculum.amorque purus et fides coelo sata arcana mentis cui reclusa credidi,munus deorum, qui maritalem torum nectunt amicis et pudicis nexibus,pietate matris, conjugali gratia,nexu sororis , filiae modestia, etc.5 Ep. ii. 36.6 Ib. vi. 67.7 lb. vi. 79, 80; i . 11; vi. 48, 49.8 lb. vi. 58; cf. vi. 4; v. 33.9 lb. vi. 32.CHAP. II THE SOCIETY OF SYMMACHUS 139schools of rhetoric.¹ He sets himself to rub up his own Greekin order to help his son in his reading, and he reluctantlydeclines an invitation to the inaugural ceremony of a friend'sconsulship, that the boy's studies may not be interrupted.³When he is on a mission from the Senate to the Court atMilan, at a time when the Goths were ravaging CisalpineGaul, Symmachus never fails on every opportunity to write tohis son at Rome. There is a pathetic interest about one ofthese letters , which was probably written when Symmachus wastrying, by a devious route, to reach Milan without encounteringthe barbarian cavalry. He was in bad health, and engaged ona perilous and anxious mission. The letter contains not a singlereference to public or private affairs, but advises the boy to correcta too solemn sententiousness in his epistolary style, by puttinginto it more life and graceful negligence. The writer diedsoon afterwards, and almost his last wish for his son was thathe might be richly endowed with that literary culture whichwas the strongest passion of Symmachus.9Symmachus may not be a very interesting character, andhis letters are certainly dull reading. Yet their polishedbrevity and their tone of conventional etiquette are apt tomake us unjust to the writer. Wedded to a past which wasgone for ever, absorbed in the cold and stately life of a classwhich was doomed to political impotence, struggling to ignorethe significance of a religious revolution which was alreadytriumphant before his death, he may appear, to a careless reader,a mere fossil, a shadowy and impotent representative of aneffete order. Yet the man's very faithfulness to that order giveshim a pathetic interest. And this faithfulness, and that of theschool to which he belonged , is the sign of a certain strength andelevation of character. So far as the imperial despotism per1 Ep. vi. 34. Symmachus had him- self a Gallic tutor; cf. Sym. Ep. ix. 88.2 lb. iv. 20, repuerascere enim nos jubet pietas. Cf. Sidonius reading Menander with his son (Ep. iv. 12) , and the advice addressed to his grandson byAusonius, Idyl. iv.3 lb. v. 5.4 lb. vii. 13; cf. v. 94-95.5 lb. vii. 10, 14.6 Ib. vii. 9.7 lb. vii. 13.8 Ib. v. 96. Symmachus was tortured with gout and renal disease (vi. 4, 16; vi. 73) , renum dolore dis- crucior.9 Secck's Sym. lxxiii. Peter (ii. 31 )puts his death about 404. I cannot understand Teuffel's calculations in § 418, n. 3. How could Symmachus have been Corrector Lucaniae in 365 if he was born in 350? Cf. Seeck,xliv.140 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK 11mitted him, he did his duty to the State. He was the mostloyal and helpful friend, always ready with influence or advice,and always mindful to " keep his friendships in repair." Hisfriends were among the leaders of Roman society, Christianor pagan, governors of great provinces, barbarian generals,lawyers, and struggling men of letters. They all regarded himas the chief ornament of the senatorial order, the greatestorator of his time, a paragon of all the virtues. Commandingsuch universal respect, and surrounded by family affection,Symmachus enjoyed a certain subdued happiness. He was thewitness indeed of great changes, which shocked and woundedold conservative and patriotic feeling. But he never lost hisplacid faith in the destiny of Rome. Although he was adevoted pagan, he would not deny that his Christian friendshad found another avenue to " the Great Mystery. " " And atrue charity will not refuse to him the same tolerant hope.He is almost the last Roman of the old school, and, as we bidhim farewell, we seem to be standing in the wan, lingeringlight of a late autumnal sunset.1 Auson. Ep. xvii. , quid enim aliud es quam ex omni bonarum artium ingenio collecta perfectio? Prudent. c.Sym. i. 632; C.I.L. vi. 1699; Apoll.Sidon. Ep. ii. 10.22 Rel. 3, uno itinere non potest perveniri ad tam grande secretum.CHAPTER IIITHE SOCIETY OF AQUITAINE IN THE TIME OF AUSONIUSIN the next view of Roman society which we have to presentto the reader the scene is changed, but hardly the time. Wepass from the society of Symmachus to the society of his friendAusonius of Bordeaux. Bordeaux was remote from the seat ofEmpire, but it had a university, which in the fourth centurywas one of the most famous in the Roman world, and it wasalso a great centre of commerce. Aquitaine must have sufferedmuch, like the rest of Gaul, in the invasions and confusions ofthe third century. But all traces of them had vanished, andmen had almost forgotten that evil time. In the poems ofAusonius Aquitaine is a land of peace and plenty, of vineyardsand yellow cornfields, and palatial country seats. The poet canbestow no higher praise on the valley of the Moselle than tocompare its charms to the richness and beauty of his nativeGaronne.2 The characteristics of the old Celtic or Iberianstocks in south- western Gaul were still strongly marked.³ Theancient language had been spoken by the grandfathers ofAusonius and his friends. * Yet the Aquitaine of Ausoniuswas thoroughly Romanised. Its Latin was the purest spokenin Gaul, Its school of rhetoric had great renown, andsometimes furnished a professor to the schools of Rome·1 Vop. Aurel. c. 6; Vop. Prob. c.13, cum (barbari) per omnesGallias securi vagarentur. The ruins of Ilerda in Spain ( Auson. Ep. xxv. 58)are thought to be results of the invasion.2 Idyll. x. 160.3 Auson. Parent. iv.4 Auson. Idyl. ii . 9, sermone impromptus Latio; cf. Sulp. Sev. Dial.i. 27 , tu vero vel Celtice aut, si mavis,Gallice loquere; cf. Fauriel, i. p. 434;F. de Coulanges, La Gaule Rom. pp.128-130; Jullian, Ausone, p. 9. Fauriel and de Coulanges differ as to the in- terpretation of the passage in Sulp.Sev.; cf. Apoll. Sid. Ep. iii, 3, sermonis Celtici squamam depositura nobilitas.142 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIand Constantinople. Its most brilliant professor had won hisway to the consulship and the great prefecture of the West.The most intimate relations were maintained between theacademic society of Bordeaux and the literary nobles of theCapital. Faith in the stability of the Empire and Roman cultureis perfectly untroubled. There is not a hint of those dimhordes, already mustering for their advance, who within twentyyears will be established on the banks of the Garonne.2The poems of Ausonius are of priceless value to one whowishes to know the tone and manner of provincial life in thelast age of the Western Empire. And the poet himself, withall his faults, is a very interesting person. He often wasteshis skill on unworthy subjects. He is vain, and will flatterextravagantly the vanity of others. Paying a cold and conventional deference to the Christian faith, he is still a literarypagan, incapable of understanding any one who yields to thehigher mystic and spiritual impulses. The charm of societyand of literature satisfies all his longings. Yet he has manyvirtues. Beginning life as a humble teacher, he rose to thehighest place which any subject of the Empire could attain.Yet he remained true to his profession and proud of it. Thereis no such gallery of academic portraits in literature as he hasleft us. The honours of the great world never for a momentshook his supreme attachment to letters. And he is also mostfaithful to the ties of blood and old friendship. He hasimmortalised a family circle who, but for him, would havenever emerged from the dim crowd of provincial coteries, whovanish and leave no trace. The portraits of his grandfather,*the last of the old Aeduan diviners, of his father, the Stoicphysician of Bordeaux, of that crowd of female relatives, wanting, perhaps, in brightness and grace, but with a strong charmof masculine force, of detachment, and seriousness, may seem.worthless to the literary trifler, but are pure gold to thestudent of the history of society. The author of the poem onthe Moselle will live as almost the only Roman poet who hastransferred to verse the subtle and secret charm which nature1 Auson. Parent. iii . 16; Prof.Burdig. i. 3; Jullian , p. 92.2 Ephemeris, Idyl. i . 16; cf. his doubts about personal immortality,Praef. Prof. Burdig. xxiii. 13; Parent.xv. 11.3 See his letters to S. Paulinus,especially Ep. xxv. 50 sqq.Parent. iv.Idyl. ii.; Parent. i.CHAP. III THE SOCIETY OF AUSONIUS 143has to modern eyes.¹ He deserves quite as much to live as thepainter of an obscure phase of social life, which in every ageis condemned to obscurity by its very virtues.The Parentalia of Ausonius have perhaps an even greaterinterest than his poems on the Professors of Bordeaux.Ausonius, like his friend Symmachus, has the virtue of loyaltyto old associations. No one who has ever loved him, helpedhim, or shared his fortunes is forgotten. The years of powerand splendour at the court of Gratian left him unspoilt andunchanged. Clever, versatile, and ambitious as he was of thehonours of the great world, yet when the prize was won,Ausonius gladly returned to the scene where he had taughtgrammar to raw boys, and to the society of his family andacademic friends. Like many of his house, he lived to agreat age. His wife had died in the early years of their union,5and most of his relatives had gone before him. With oldRoman piety, and in a strain far more pagan than Christian,he has commemorated their virtues, and saved them fromoblivion . Few of his circle were more important in theirday than the forgotten worthies who sleep in any of ourcountry churchyards. But their portraits enable us to imaginehow quiet people were living in the last years of Theodosius.4The grandfather of the poet, by his mother's side, was amember of one of the noblest Aeduan houses in the territory ofLyons. In the confusion of the reign of Tetricus he had to gointo distant exile and poverty. He was an adept in astrologyand other superstitious arts of his heathen ancestors, andamong his papers was discovered the horoscope of his grandsonpredicting the famous consulship of 379. For his father thepoet had a profound reverence. " Born to modest fortune, whichgave him a place in the municipal councils of Bazas andBordeaux, he practised as a physician for the greater part of his1 Mr. Mackail has shown his usualsure literary sense in his judgment ofthis poem, Lat. Lit. p. 266.2 Composed after his consulship in 379 ( iv. 32) , and when his wife hadbeen dead " nine Olympiads " (ix. 8);cf. Schenkl, Prooem. xvi.3 Idyl. iv. 66:multos lactentibus annis ipse alui , gremioque fovens et murmura solvens eripui tenerum blandis nutricibus aevum .4 He must have lived at least tillA.D. 390. For the Ludus Septem Sapientium is dedicated to Drepanius l'acatus,procos. of Africa in that year, C. Th.ix. 2. 4. His father lived to aboutninety years, Parent. i. 4; Idyl. ii. 61;cf. Schenkl's Ausonius, Prooem. vii.5 Parent. ix. 8.6 Ib. iv. 17-22.7 Ib. i .; Idyl. ii.144 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK 11life, till, on his son's advancement, he was suddenly raised tothe prefecture of the Illyrian province. He was probably aphilosophic pagan, a Stoic of the type of M. Aurelius, whomhe resembles in many traits. Yet he had many virtues whichwe are accustomed to regard as peculiarly Christian. Heattained the highest medical skill possible in those days,and gave his advice without fee or reward to the poor andafflicted . Careless of money, yet frugal without meanness,he neither added to nor impaired his moderate fortune. Likethe sages whom he followed, he found the true wealth inregulation of the desires, but he added to this ideal a warmthof charity, and a certain serenity and sweetness, which softenedhis Stoicism. Holding aloof from scenes of strife and rivalry,and the treacherous friendships of the great, closing his ears toall spiteful rumour, leading a life of dignified contentment andquiet beneficence, he seems an almost flawless character, one ofthose saintly souls who reach a rare moral elevation withoutsupport or impulse from religious faith.The women of the family were one and all of a masculineand almost puritanical type, reminding one, by a certain quietudeand grave purity, of what we have read of New England womentwo or three generations ago. In their untiring industry andanxious care of the household , they realise the old Roman idealof woman's office. The poet's grandmother, the wife of the oldastrologer, although venerated for her spotless character, had leftmemories of stern rebuke among her descendants.¹ His motherwas a model housewife with a mingled sweetness and gravity.2One of his aunts stands out from all the women of the circle.Ausonius remembered her love and kindness to him as a boy.But she had conceived a hatred of the ordinary female life³of her time, rejected with scorn all thoughts of marriage, anddevoted herself to the study of medicine. His sister, leftearly a widow, combined the same masculine strength withthe peculiar virtues of her own sex. Of all the circle, she isthe only one who is described as a religious devotee. * Ausonius1 Parent. v. 10:blanda sub austeris imbuit imperiis.2 Ib. ii. 6.3 Ib. vi. 7-11:foeminei sexus odium tibi semper.4 Ib. xii. 7:nosse Deum.unaque curaShewas the mother of Magnus Arborius,Praef. Urb. 379, 380; C. Th. vi. 35,9; Sulp. Sev. Dial. ii . 10; cf. Rauschen,Jahrbücher, pp. 44 , 64; Schenkl,Prooem. xiv.CHAP. III THE SOCIETY OF AUSONIUS 145lost his wife early, and the verses dedicated to her memoryare the expression of a deep and enduring affection, and a lifelong regret. The memory of pure love and sympathy, the longyears which, as they pass over the silent house, make solitudeand the pain of loss only deeper, have seldom been picturedwith greater and more real affection. When we read thesesketches, which bear all the marks of minute faithfulness andsincerity, we can understand the feeling of Tacitus about thegravity and severity of provincial character.? These peopleseem to have had little of definite Christianity. None ofthem certainly were carried away by the ascetic spirit whichwithdrew their friend Paulinus from the world. But theyare industrious and high- minded; they take life almosttoo seriously; they have a certain distinction of hereditary virtue.ButAusonius himself, although he has a genuine admiration forthe virtues of his family, and really possesses many of them,3was also the most brilliant child of that Gallic renaissanceof the fourth century which extended from Constantine toTheodosius. It was a kind of " Indian summer," a longpause of tranquillity between two periods of convulsions.it was an age of illusions. The Empire, which seemed to haveregathered its strength, was mined by incurable disease.There was a great energy of academic life, but Roman culturehad worked itself out and was living on its past accumulations.The terror of the barbarians who threatened the frontier of theRhine seemed for a time to be laid. Yet the campaigns ofJulian and Valentinian, although victorious, had revealed theunexhausted strength of the enemy. Ausonius, however, inthe remote tranquillity of Aquitaine, had no thoughts of these1 Parent. ix. 10-16:haec graviora facit vulnera longa dies.volnus alit, quod muta domus silet et torus alget,quod mala non cuiquam, non bona participo.2 Ann. iii. 55; xvi. 5.3 The personal character of Ausonius appears to have been without reproach.But he sometimes shows a lamentablepruriency, as in the " Cento nuptialis "Idyl. xiii. Ausonius lays the blame on Valentinian who ordered this miser- able desecration of a 66 sacer vates. " HeLmay well say, piget Virgiliani carminis dignitatem tam joculari dehones- tasse materia. Yet the morality of Valentinian seems to have been as irreproachable (Amm. Marc. xxx. 9, 2 ) as Ausonius asserts that his own was:lasciva est nobis pagina, vita proba.Cf. H. Nettleship, Lectures and Essays,2nd series, p. 39. Referring to the coarseness of Latin satire, Mr. Nettleship says, " I should be disposed to refer this fact not to the moral obliquity of these writers, but to the conventional traditions of their art."146 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIominous contrasts. His early years were passed in the classrooms of some of the professors to whom his pen has given animmortality of which they never dreamed. His uncle, Arborius,a professor at Toulouse, whose brilliant rhetorical accomplishments were rewarded by a high place in the capital of the East,roused his ambition and predicted for him a splendid future.¹But this ambition had for more than thirty years to be satisfiedwith the limited opportunities of a provincial university, andperhaps a seat in the Municipal Council. It is needless toimagine, as some have done, that the brilliant professor chafedat the restraints and dulness of his humble sphere. Ausoniushad the sanity and strength of a stubborn race. He had alsoearly caught that passion for Graeco- Roman culture which inreceptive spirits had all the force of religion. The worship ofthe Boeotian Muses was in men of his type a dangerous rivalto the worship of Christ.2 Ausonius was a teacher of grammarat twenty-five; he was only a teacher of rhetoric at fifty- five.³Yet it may be doubted whether he regarded the long intervalas a period of monotonous and inglorious toil. Ausonius wasnot bourgeois in his tastes and ideals. In the poem addressedto his namesake and grandson, although he shows a naturalpride in the prefecture and consulship which he has won, hewould have the boy face all the troubles of school life, and lovehis Homer and Menander, his Horace and Virgil as his grandfather had loved them. The lives of some of his professorswere humble and obscure. But he retained a high opinion ofthe dignity of the teacher, and he looks back with pride onthe hundreds of pupils to whom he had handed on the sacredfire. It should also be remembered that Ausonius, like some ofhis professors, lived on equal terms with the local aristocracy."His wife, Attusia Lucana Sabina, was the daughter of one ofthe magnates of Aquitaine, of an old senatorial stock. Hisfather, the Stoic physician, must have had weight and dignityin a society so sound and healthy as we believe that of Bordeauxto have been in his day. Even surrounded by the most ex1 Parent. iii. 16; cf. Schenkl,Prooem. viii.2 Ep. xxv. ad Paulinum, v. 73.3 See Schenkl's Prooem. viii. ix. for the dates in the career of Ausonius.He was probably appointed tutor to Gratian between 363 and 368.Idyl. iv. 46.65 Cf. the way in which Paulinus of Nola speaks of him in his Poems, xi. 8,x. 96. Paulinus was one of the greatest nobles of his province.6 Parent. ix. 5:nobilis a proavis et origine clara senatus.CHAP. 111 THE SOCIETY OF AUSONIUS 147travagant pretensions of new wealth,' Ausonius would not havebeen a mere cipher. And in the Bordeaux of Ausonius wealthwas not new; birth was respected more than wealth; andliterary eminence perhaps more than either.The life of Ausonius in his green old age, when he hadreturned from the Imperial Court, to spend his remainingyears among his friends, is very much the kind of life whichwe shall find the nobles of Aquitaine and Auvergne leadingnearly a century after his death. It has been often repeatedthat Roman society was to the last essentially urban in itstastes and character, and that the love of the country came inwith the German invaders. Nothing could be farther fromthe truth.? Down to the great invasions of the third centurythe Gauls were passionately fond of city life, in which theyseemed to find the finest essence of Roman civilisation . Butin the fourth century there are obvious signs of a change offeeling. In the age of the Antonines the towns were open,spreading capriciously with ample spaces, liberally embellishedwith theatres, temples, triumphal arches, all the buildingswhich could satisfy taste, or minister to convenience or luxury.In the reign of Gratian and Valentinian many of them hadbecome fortresses , with lofty walls built of blocks which hadbeen often quarried out of the ruins of the theatres andbasilicas of an earlier age. The space within the walls iscramped, the streets are narrow and dark. Everything issacrificed to the necessity for military strength.3Ausonius must have spent many years in Bordeaux when hewas toiling as a professor. But, when he was emancipatedand had attained distinction and wealth, he could barelyendure the life of the town during a short visit. * He is disgusted with the crowds and noises and sordid life of its narrowstreets, and longs for the spacious freedom of the countrywhere you can do what you please undisturbed. This lovefor tranquillity and case, for the fresh beauty of rural sceneryand the abundance of a great estate, breathes through his1 Yet the nouveaux riches were notunknown then; cf. Auson. Epigr. xxvi.:quidam superbus opibus et fastu tumens,tantumque verbis nobilis, etc.2 F. de Coulanges, La Gaule Rom.pp. 207, 209.8 C. Jullian, Ausone et Bordeaux, p.115.4 Idyl. iii. 30; Ep. x. 18 sqq. Thesame feeling comes out again andagain in the letters of Symmachus;Ep. i. 3, v. 78, agri quiete delector, vi.66, vii. 31.148 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIpoems. There can be little doubt that the " life of thechâteau " towards the end of the fourth century has thrownthe brilliant city life of the ancient world into the shade.The young noble may pass a few years at Lyons or Bordeauxto attend the lectures of the professors. In later years hemay visit the neighbouring city to take part in a festival ofthe Church, or to attend a meeting of the Curia. But hisheart is in the country, and there the best part of his life isspent.As the life of the towns becomes more squalid and sombre,the life of the upper class on their rural estates becomes moreattractive. There are indeed shadows on the landscape ofAusonius. Brigands are heard of now and then, and yearsof scarcity are not unknown.3 Yet in spite of an outburst ofpessimism which seems to be a reminiscence of Sophocles,*the life of Aquitaine in the poet's days was apparently brightand happy, with no foreboding of the storm which was tobreak upon it before a generation had passed away. Skilfulculture had developed the natural wealth and charm of afavoured region. Stately country seats, on which the accumulating wealth of generations had been expended in satisfyingluxurious or artistic taste, rose everywhere along the banks ofthe Garonne. The cold of winter was the great plague ofcountry life. But these houses had apartments arranged tosuit the varying temperature of the seasons. They werefurnished with luxurious baths and well - stocked libraries.Their granaries were stored with ample supplies against astinted harvest.5 The richer senators had several such estates.The names and sites of two or three belonging to Ausoniushave been ascertained by antiquarian care." The great manof course had his anxieties. His vineyard and corn -land andmeadow, which were the sources of his wealth, could notbe left entirely to the management of the procurator. We1 Ep. viii. 9:instantis revocant quia nos sollennia Paschae.cf. x. 16:nos etenim primis sanctum post Pascha die- bus avemus agrum visere.2 Ib. iv. 23.3 Ib. xxii. 21 , 42; Idyl. iii . 27.Idyl. xv. 43; cf. Soph. O. C.1225, μὴ φύναι τὸν ἅπαντα νικά λόγον κ.τ.λ.5 Idyl. iii. 27:conduntur fructus geminum mihi semper in annum.Lucaniacus, Ep. xxii. 13; Pauli- acus, Ep. v. 16 .7 Ep. xxii. gives a lively picture of one of these bailiffs.CHAP. III THE SOCIETY OF AUSONIUS 149hear now and then of a bad year when supplies had to bebrought up from near and far, ' and when the difficulties oftransport were severely felt. But the note of Ausonius isgaiety and contentment. He seems to have suffered little fromthe ennui of provincial life, after all the excitement and splendour of his years of office. The tedium of one estate could beescaped or relieved by passing on to another, or by receivingfriends and visiting in return. Travelling by river or road inAquitaine in those days was probably easier and quicker thanit was for the English squire in the last century.2 Courierspassed to and fro, carrying friendly letters, trifling presents,and as trifling poetry. Here and there the teaching of S.Martin had begun to detach an accomplished and wealthyaristocrat from the worldly life of his order. But for themost part the order remained, in spite of its Christian conformity, essentially worldly or pagan in tone and habits,enjoying wealth and the sense of irresponsible ease andfreedom which wealth can give, and expending its energy inrural sports or business, in a round of social engagements, orin studying and imitating the great classics which were thestrongest link with the past. Society in Aquitaine is verymuch the same as it was two generations afterwards, whenSidonius visited his friends at Bordeaux.4Ausonius and his circle of course represent the morerefined and cultivated section of that society. Just as in thetimes of Sidonius, there were some who fell short of thehighest standard of their order. There is , for instance, aneccentric character named Theo to whom the poet addressedsome of his epistles. Theo had an estate among the sands ofMédoc, looking out on the Atlantic. His establishment wasrather mean, and he carried on a despicable trade withthe peasants of his district.5 His cattle were sometimescarried off by brigands; but, like the lowland farmer in thedays of Rob Roy, Theo had little taste for extreme measures,and came to an amicable composition with the freebooters,on which Ausonius rallies him." Yet he is a daring sportsman, and will follow the wild boar with a reckless ardour,1 Auson. Ep. xxii.2 Ib. x. 12, citus veni remo aut rota; cf. i . viii. 5.3 Parent. viii . 8; Ep. iv. 30.+ Ep. iv. 3.5 Ib. iv. 16.6 Ib. iv. 24.150 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK 11which sometimes brings him and his friends into danger oflife or limb. At first one cannot help wondering whatsympathy there could be between this eccentric and ratherboorish character and the polished literary man and courtier.The link between them was a taste for poetry, although Theoseems to have been a sorry verse-writer, and somewhat of aplagiarist. His conversation may have been better than hisverses. At any rate, Ausonius reproaches him with not havingpaid him a visit for three months, and promises to forgivehim a debt if he will only visit Lucaniacus.4The society of Bordeaux, in the old age of Ausonius, isknown to us from another source than his poems. In theyear of the poet's consulship, his son Hesperius, who hadbeen vicar of Macedonia, proconsul of Africa, and Pretorianprefect of Italy, returned to his native place. The son ofHesperius, Paulinus Pellaeus, as he is called from the place ofhis birth, has left us a curious autobiographical poem writtenin his old age, which has a great value both as a picture of thelife of a young noble of the time, and of the first appearanceof the Visigoths in Gaul. Paulinus was trained in the usualway. He had Greek and Latin tutors, with whom he read.the great authors.5 His youth was passed in a circle whichcombined the highest official experience with the highestliterary culture. Yet no one would recognise in Paulinus thegrandson of the tutor of Gratian, or the son of the prefect ofItaly. We cannot help feeling, as we read the Eucharisticos,that, although Paulinus may be a better Christian thanAusonius, in other respects the race of the poet has degenerated fast. Paulinus may have known Greek well, from theaccident of his birth in an eastern province, but his limpinghexameters, and pointless, colourless style, would have ruffledeven the placid good - nature of his grandfather, if he hadlived to read his verses. The gloss of humane culture hasworn off, and there is revealed a rather sordid and materialisedcharacter, the product of leisure without higher interests, and1 Ep. iv. 30.2 Ib. iv. 10.3 Ib. v. 5 sqq.Theprecise relationshipof Paulinusto the poet is a matter of dispute.Seeck (lxxviii. ) maintains that he wasson of Thalassius and a daughter of Ausonius. Brandes (Prol. p. 267)holds that the father of Paulinus wasHesperius, the poet's son. Cf. Ebert,Allgem . Gesch. der Lit. des Mittel- alters, i. p. 409; Schenkl, Prooem. xiv .5 Euchar. v. 72, 117.CHAP. III THE SOCIETY OF AUSONIUS 151wealth without a sense of public duty. The descendant ofAusonius and Hesperius has hardly a word to say aboutliterature and politics.23Yet, as the revelation of the interior of a great house inthe last quarter of the fourth century, the Eucharisticos hasno mean value. It is perfectly frank and artless. Paulinusrecalls with gratitude the anxious care of his parents toprotect his youthful innocence,' but confesses that, althoughhe avoided scandalous amours, he yielded to the temptationswhich a system of household slavery always offers. Hisearly studies were interrupted by ill-health, and, by hisdoctor's orders, he devoted himself to field sports, which hisfather, who had given them up, resumed, in order to bearhim company. Henceforth his whole taste was for finehorses with splendid trappings, tall grooms, swift hawks andhounds, and the most foppish and fashionable dress. Histennis balls had to be sent for to Rome. * Some of hisamusem*nts were not quite so innocent,5 and in his twentiethyear his parents arranged for him a marriage with thedaughter of a noble house," whose estates had been impoverishedby neglect. Paulinus resigned his freedom not without regret.He industriously devoted himself to reform the managementof his wife's property, roused up the laggards, renewed theexhausted vines, improved the culture of the fields, and paidoff the fiscal debts. For the next ten years he led a life ofluxurious repose. He plumes himself on being unambitiousand fond of ease and quietness. He is completely satisfiedwith the enjoyment of his great house, with its ample andelegant rooms adapted to the varying seasons, his crowds ofyoung and handsome slaves, his artistic plate and furniture,his crowded stables and stately carriages. He was, as hedescribes himself, a " sectator deliciarum," and nothing more.This self- centred contentment with the material pleasures oflife , this rather vacant existence, gliding away in ease andluxury, and a round of trivial social engagements, not thefrantic debauchery described by Salvianus, is the real reproach1 Euchar. v. 154, 166.2 lb. v. 125.3 lb. v. 143.4 Ib. v. 146 5 Ib. v. 16696 lb. v. 180.7 Ib. v. 194.8 Ib. v. 205 sqq.9 lb. v. 216.152 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK 11against the character of the upper class of that age. Theluxurious repose of Paulinus and his kind was soon rudelydisturbed by the apparition of the Goths of Ataulphus.The society of Ausonius seem to be calmly confident ofthe permanence of their ideals of culture, and hardly consciousof the great movement which was setting towards the life ofprayer and renunciation. Ausonius is indeed disturbed by theretirement of Paulinus ,' his favourite pupil, from the world ofrefinement and social distinction; but his feeling seems to bepurely personal, that his friend, so richly endowed, with thepromise of such a brilliant life before him, should forget histraditions and his worldly hopes, and bury his gifts in thecloister. The work of S. Martin was done when these letterswere written. Yet S. Martin is never mentioned. ProbablyAusonius had as little conception of the range and force of themovement as the great senator of Nero's court had of theworld wide revolution which was to be the result of thepreaching of S. Paul.-Yet the impulse to asceticism, originally propagated fromthe Eastern deserts, and stimulated by the preaching andmagnetic influence of S. Martin in Gaul, had gained extraordinary momentum in the last years of Ausonius. The talesof wonder and miracle which rapidly clustered round the nameof the great preacher are the surest proof of the power withwhich his mission affected the popular imagination. His Life,by Sulpicius Severus, within two or three years was widelyread in Gaul, Italy, Illyria, and had found its way even to thesolitaries in the deserts of Egypt and Cyrene.³ S. Paulinus,who introduced the book to Roman readers, was one of thefirst- fruits of the great religious awakening. He gave up hiswealth and consular rank, and the charms of his great estateon the Garonne, and, after some years of retreat in Spain,finally settled at Nola. His example of renunciation created1 Auson. Ep. xxiv. -xxv.2 lb. xxv. 50.53 S. Paulin. Nol. Ep. xi. 11; Sulp.Sev. Dial. i. c. 23, ii . 17; cf. Migne,Patrol. Lat. lxi.; Prol. c. xxx.Sulp. Sev. Dial. i . c . 23, § 4.5 S. Paulinus met S. Martin once atVienne ( Ep. 18, § 9) . S. Martin cured him of some affection of the eyes4(Sulp. Sev. vit. S. Mart. c. 19, 3 ) .For the circ*mstances of his conversioncf. Prol. cc. iv. v. in Migne, t. lxi.As to the precise time of his stay at Barcelona, and the relation of hisPoems x. xi . to Auson. Ep. 23, 24,25, cf. Schenkl, Prooem. xi . sqq.; Rauschen, Jahrbücher, Exc. xxiii.;Ebert, i. p. 297.CHAP. III THE SOCIETY OF AUSONIUS 153a profound sensation all over the West. It was followedby many of his order. And from one of these, SulpiciusSeverus, an advocate and man of fortune, we have the fullestrecord of the movement. He was a dear friend of S. Paulinus,with whomfrom his retreat in Gaul he constantly corresponded.But l'aulinus, from some cause, could never succeed in drawingSulpicius to the monastery of Nola.4Sulpicius makes no concealment of the forces which werearrayed against the ascetic movement. The sceptical orindifferent scoffed at the miracles of S. Martin. The polishedman of the world, according to his temperament, mourned orridiculed the blind fanaticism which could desert the ranks.of culture and easy- going self- indulgence for the solitude andausterity of the hermitage. Even the bishops and secularclergy, who tried to ignore the great saint and missionary,looked with ill-disguised suspicion on an enthusiasm whichhad no respect for ecclesiastical routine. But nothing couldcheck the eager passion for a spirituality unattainable in theworld of culture and conventionality. Towards the end ofthe fourth century, great religious houses, for common studiesand devotion, began to be founded in Southern Gaul, and thefamous monasteries of S. Victor and Lérins date from the earlyyears of the fifth century. Numbers buried themselves insecluded hermitages among the woods and rocks, and reproduced in Gaul the austerity and the marvels of the anchoretlife of the Thebaid.The East had sent the first call to the life of renunciation ,and it was from the East that a second powerful impulse came.When S. Jerome in 386 retired to the monasteries of Bethlehem,he became famous over all the Roman world. His greatpersonality stood out as prominent and as attractive as eventhat of S. Augustine. He added to the monastic life freshlustre by his vivid intellectual force, and his contagiousenthusiasm for the studyof Holy Writ His letters onquestions of casuistry or biblical interpretation flew to the1 Aug. Ep. 31 , §5; Hieron. Ep. 118,§ 5 Sulp. Sev. Dial. iii . c. 17, § 3;Ambros. Ep. 58.2 On Sulp. Sev. and his relations with S. Paulinus, cf. Gennad. deScrip. Eccl. c. xix.; Paulin. Ep. xxiv.§ 1; xi . 6; v. §8 5, 13; i . §§ 10, 11 .Sulp. Sev. Dial. ii . c. 13, § 7;iii. c. 5, § 4; S. Paulin. Ep. xi. § 3.4 Sulp. Sev. Dial. i . c. 24, § 3, inter clericos dissidentes, inter episcopos sae- vientes; c. 26, § 3, soli illum clerici, soli nesciunt sacerdotes; cf. vit. S. Mart.c. 27.154 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIremotest parts of the Empire. The charm which his descriptions threw around the Holy Places drew numbers of pilgrims,even from the British Isles, to visit the scene of the Nativity,'where the greatest doctor of the Church was with vast labourstriving to make clear to himself and to posterity the realmeaning of the sacred text. Before the end of the fourthcentury, the resources of the monastery at Bethlehem couldhardly cope with the numbers who thronged thither from thefarthest West. And each pilgrim on his return, by the talesof what he had seen and heard, roused the ardour of others tomake the same journey. We have the description of such ascene in the Dialogues of Sulpicius Severus. In a hermitagein Southern Gaul, a monk named Postumianus gives ananimated account of his pilgrimage to the East to eagerbystanders. He had crossed the sea in five days to Carthage,3spent a week among the sands of Cyrene with a hermit whohad erected in the waste a tiny chapel roofed with boughs.In Egypt he found a conflict on the orthodoxy of Origenraging between the bishops and the monks, and the sympathiesof Postumianus seem to be with the suspected father.journey of sixteen stages brought him to the cell of Jerome atBethlehem. Postumianus has the greatest admiration for theprodigious learning and industry of the saint, but the brotherto whom he is telling his adventures has a grudge againstJerome for his attacks on the monastic character. S. Jerome'swritings had already a wide circulation in Gaul, and hispictures of monkish avarice, vanity, gluttony, not to speak ofgraver faults, have offended all the more deeply because theyseem to be true.7 Postumianus on his return visited Egypt,the land where the ascetic ideal was highest, and where solitaryperfection had worked its greatest wonders. The Nile waslined with monastic retreats; s as many as 3000 monks were61 Ep. 66, § 14; 46 , § 10, divisus ab orbe nostro Britannus . quaeritlocum fama sibi tantum et Scripturarum relatione cognitum; cf. 58, § 4.2 Sulp. Sev. Dial. i . c. 1 .3 Ib. i. c. 3.4 Ib. i. c. 5.5 lb. i. c. 6. Sulpicius himself was hardly orthodox. His sympathies in his old age were Pelagian; cf.AGennad. de Scrip. Eccl. xix. , hic in senectute sua a Pelagianis deceptus.6 Ib. i. c. 8.7 Ib. i. c. 8, 9; ii. 7, 8. Cf. S. Jerome's tale of the monk who had hoarded money; Ep. 22, § 33; cf. Ep.125, § 16; 52, § 3.8 Sulp. Sev. Dial. i. c. 10, 17 , ad Nilum flumen regressus, cujus ripas frequentibus monasteriis consertasutraque ex parte lustravi.CHAP. III THE SOCIETY OF AUSONIUS 155gathered in one community. There the natural waywardnessof the human will was crushed in a terrible novitiate, inwhich unquestioning faith was often rewarded by miracle.One novice had passed through a furnace unhurt.¹ Anotherhad been ordered for three years to bear the water of theNile two miles distant, to irrigate a dead stick till it brokeinto leaf.2 Others had tamed the beasts of the wilderness tillthey acquired the feelings and sympathies of man, includingeven remorse for sin! 3 Tales like these, falling on ears eagerfor marvels of the power of sanctity, drew many anotherwanderer from Gaul to the mysterious East.S.These pilgrimages, however, served a more useful purposethan that of satisfying a love of marvels. The traveller to orfrom the holy places was often charged with letters of inquiryor instruction on questions of Christian conduct or belief.Jerome had many correspondents in Gaul who communicatedwith him in this way, and some of his most interesting letterswere written in reply to them. In the early years of thefifth century a young priest named Apodemius was setting outto visit the Holy Places, and a Gallic lady named Hedibia *seized the opportunity of sending S. Jerome a list of questionson theological or practical difficulties. Hedibia belonged tothe same family as Euchrotia and Procula, who imperilledtheir fair fame by allowing themselves to be carried away bythe arts or the enthusiasm of the sectary Priscillian .She wasof an ancient Druidic house, which had been connected byhereditary ties with the temple of Belen at Bayeux. The Celticgod was discovered by the accommodating theology of Rome tobe the counterpart of the Phoebus Apollo of Greek legend, andthe double name Apollo- Belenus figures on many inscriptionsof the imperial times. The names Phoebicius, Delphidius,and Patera, borne by male members of the house, have ahieratic meaning or association. When the Druid superstitionswere dying away, the family devoted itself to the arts ofpoetry and eloquence connected with the name of their divine.patron. One member rose to eminence as a teacher of rhetoricat Rome in the reign of Constantine.71 Sulp. Sev. Dial. i. c. 18, § 4.2 lb. i. c. 19, § 3.3 lb. i. c. 14, § 5.4 Hieron. Ep. 1206Two others had aSulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 48, § 3.6 Auson. Prof. Burdig. iv. 9.7 Hieron. Ep. 120, praef.; Auson.Prof. iv. v.; cf. Thierry's S. Jerome , 412.156 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIprovincial reputation about the same time in the school ofBordeaux. Another, in the following generation, namedDelphidius, after a troubled career in the reigns of Constantiusand Julian, ended his life in the same university, and has aplace among the Professors of Ausonius. Hedibia had themental energy of her race, without any of that tendency toa merely emotional religion which wrecked the peace andtarnished the character of her Priscillianist relatives. Thebent of her mind was evidently towards a careful and honestexegesis of the Bible. She begins with the practical inquiry, Howcan perfection be attained, and how should a widow left childlessdevote herself to God? But the majority of Hedibia's questionsrelate to apparent discrepancies in the Gospels, especially inthe narratives of the Resurrection, and to difficulties in the interpretation of some passages in S. Paul's Epistles.Apodemius was also the bearer of a letter of the samekind from a lady named Algasia, ' who seems to have lived inthe diocese of Cahors.2 Algasia asks, Why did John the Baptistsend his disciples to ask " Art thou He which should come?when he had previously said of Jesus " Behold the Lamb ofGod "? What is the meaning of the text " If any will comeafter me, let him deny himself "? Who is the steward ofunrighteousness commended by the Lord? But in her list ofdifficulties there is one which has a pathetic human interest,because it seems to refer to the rumours, growing more andmore distinct in the year in which the letter was written, ofbarbarian movements in the north. The writer asks S. Jeromefor an interpretation of the ominous saying reported by S.Matthew, " Woe to them that are with child and to themthat give suck in those days "; and " Pray that your flight be notin the winter, nor on the Sabbath." S. Jerome of course interpretsthe words as referring to the coming of Antichrist and thecruelties of persecution. But Algasia's appeal seems to thrillwith the shuddering anxiety of a mother who had heard thetidings that the Sueves and Vandals had passed the Rhine.*1 Hieron. Ep. 121.2 lb. 121 , habes istic sanctum virum Alethium Presbyterum qui ... possetsolvere quae requiris. He is probablythe Alethius, bishop of Cahors, addressed by S. Paulin. Nol. Ep. xxxiii.; v. Greg.Tur. Hist. Franc. ii. 13.3 Ep. 121 , c. iv.3According to Prosp. Chron. the Vandals crossed the Rhine in the lastdays of 406. On the date of theletter to Algasia v. Praef. in Migne,t. lxxxvi.CHAPTER IVTHE SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUSFOR more than a generation after the period described in theEucharisticos the condition and tone of Roman society in theWest lies in obscurity. But when we reach the middle of thefifth century we suddenly emerge into daylight again, underthe guidance of Apollinaris Sidonius. There is no relic of thatage so precious to the historian of society as the works of thebishop and grand seigneur of Auvergne. He does for thesocial history of the second half of the fifth century whatSymmachus and Ausonius do for the closing years of thefourth.Caius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius was probably born atLyons in the year 431 , and belonged to one of the mostinfluential and distinguished families in Gaul. ' His ancestorsfor generations had held the highest offices in the imperialhierarchy. His grandfather, distinguished both as a juristand a soldier, had been prefect of the Gauls under the usurperConstantine.3 His father held the same office under Valentinian III.4 His mother belonged to the family of Avitus,"and Papianilla his wife was a daughter of that great nobleFor his proper name see Carm. ix.1; Fertig, i. p. 5 n. For his birthplace, Chaix, S. Sid. Apoll. i. p. 10; Sid.iv. 25 (caput civitati nostrae per sacer- dotium ); Carm. xiii. 23. See alsoGermain's Apoll. Sid. Exc. i. For thedate of his birth, v. Ep. viii . 6 , in which he was adolescens in the consulship of Asturius ( 449 Idat. Chron. ).The meaning of adolescens for that age may be inferred from Jordanes,5Get. 55, Theodoricus jam adolescentiae annos contingens ... octavumdecimum peragens annum. See Fertig,i. 6.PEp. i. 3, cui pater, socer, avus, proavus praefecturis urbanis, praetorianis- que, etc. , micuerunt.3 Ib. v. 9; iii. 12.4 Ib. viii. 6; v. 9; in the consulship of Asturius, 449.5 Ib. iii . 1.158 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK II1who was one of the last emperors of the West. Sidonius waseducated at the school of Lyons, which still in his timeretained some of its old celebrity. During his years ofacademic life , he formed a lifelong friendship with manyyoung men of the leading families of the province.2 Theelevation of his father-in-law Avitus to the imperial throne, in455, introduced Sidonius at an early age to the society of thecapital. His Panegyrics on that emperor, and on Majorianand Anthemius, gave him a great reputation as a poet and aman of letters, and for the last he was specially rewarded withthe prefecture of the city. Five years afterwards, he waschosen bishop of Auvergne, at the time when it was makinga last stand against the Visigoths. He lived probably aboutfifteen years longer, and passed away amid the passionategrief of his flock, to whom he had been a friend and protectorin all their troubles.34The letters of Sidonius were published at intervals, towardsthe close of his life. They are in all 147, divided into ninebooks, according to ancient models; but there were many morewhich he could not recover. Sidonius intended his letters tobe read by posterity, and he retouched and elaborated hisstyle, especially in the earlier letters, with a view to publication. It is hardly conceivable that, in their present form,many of them should have been addressed to private friends.They were probably given to the world between 477 and 483.In the three generations between the consulship of Ausoniusand the episcopate of Apollinaris Sidonius, we shall find thatthe upper class of Gallo- Roman society has changed but littlein its ideals and aspirations, or even, in spite of great publiccalamities, in its external fortune.1 Carm. ix. 310. Hoenius was his teacher in rhetoric and poetry,Eusebius in philosophy, Ep. iv. 1.2 Avitus the younger, Ep. iii . 1;Probus, Carm. xxiv. 90; Faustinus,Ep. iv. 4. See Chaix, Sid. Apoll. i .p. 23; Fertig, i . p. 7.3 The date of his death is doubtful.In Ep. ix. 12 he says that he had beenbishop for "three olympiads, " which would show that he was living in 482(or 484) . The other authority is Gen- nadius, de Scrip. Eccl. xcii.: floruitYet in that interval eventsea tempestate qua Leo et Zeno Romanisimperabant. But this does not give any certain clue to the year of his death . See Germ. Sid . Apoll. Exc. ii.Ep. ix. 1. Pliny left ten books,but the tenth is addressed exclusivelyto Trajan. Symmachus left nine books of private letters; another contains Relationes to the Emperors.Ib. vii. 18.6 Ib. viii. 2.7 Ib. i. 1. He also urged his friends to do the same. Cf. viii. 16; viii. 1 .8 Ib. vii. 18.CHAP. IV SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS 159of great historic moment had occurred . The fabric of theWestern Empire had been shaken to its base. Ausonius hadseen the Alemanni hurled across the Rhine by Valentinian,¹and chased into the recesses of their forests. In the poems ofhis tranquil old age the names of the barbarians are hardlyever mentioned. Before the birth of Sidonius they had sweptfrom the Rhine to the Pillars of Hercules. In his earlyyouth Visigoth and Roman had met on many a field inAquitaine, and as allies they had rolled back the horde ofAttila on the plains of Châlons. In his later manhood, theWestern provinces were practically lost to the Empire. TheFranks had occupied the lower Rhine. The Visigoths weremasters of nearly all Western Gaul south of the Loire. TheBurgundians were securely seated on the upper Rhine and theRhone. Roman dominion in Spain had been reduced by theSueve and Vandal inroads to a mere corner in the north - eastof that great province. The Vandals in North Africa hadalmost crushed the Roman administration and the Catholicfaith, had captured Rome itself, and commanded the Mediterranean with their fleets . The bishop of Auvergne lived tosee his diocese, almost the last patch of territory in Gaulleft under imperial sway, ceded to the Visigoths, and the lastemperor of the West replaced by a German king of Italy.The Theodosian Code reveals the progress of an internaldecay which was even more serious than the onslaughts ofthe invaders. Every branch of the imperial service wasbecoming disorganised. Corruption was everywhere rampant,and authority was paralysed. The weight of taxation wasgrowing heavier, while the municipal taxpayer was becomingimpoverished, and seeking any refuge from a system whichoppressed the poor and was defied by the rich. Yet, in spiteof these great changes and this collapse of authority, the similarity between the world of Ausonius and that of Sidonius isvery remarkable. Even in their material condition, the Gallicaristocracy seem to have suffered little from the general disorganisation. Within a period of thirty years Narbonne hadbeen at least twice besieged by the Goths.3 Yet in the1 Auson. Idyl. x. Mosella; v. 422;cf. Amm. Marc. xxvii. 10.3 Prosp. Chron. a. 436, 439, 451 .In 436 and 462. Prosp. Chron.and Idat.; cf. Sidon. Carm. xxiii. 60:sed per semirutas superbus arces ostendens veteris decus duelli,quassatos geris ictibus molares,laudandis pretiosior ruinis.160 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIletters of Sidonius there is no sign that the tranquil andluxurious lives of his friends there have been disturbed. Thevilla of Consentius, in the neighbourhood of the town, stillraised its elegant and lofty pile among vines and olives,¹ withequal charms for the student and the lover of nature. Itsmaster enjoyed his old wealth and luxury, and dispensedhospitality to troops of guests. Even in districts occupied bythe Germans, the wealth and status of the upper classes appearto be unimpaired. Namatius, a Gallo- Roman, who was one ofthe admirals of Euric, with the special charge of warding offthe Saxon pirates from the coast of Aquitaine, when he is noton duty, leads the placid life of the country gentleman,*occupied with building, hunting, and literature. In the territory of the Burgundians the fortunes of the upper class seemto have been as little altered. Bishop Patiens and Ecdicius,the brother-in-law of Sidonius, must have drawn the greatpart of their revenues from that district. Yet we shall seeEcdicius able to provide subsistence for 4000 starving peoplein a season of famine. And the good bishop, who was a manof private fortune, in a period of similar distress ,* organised, athis own expense, a system of wholesale relief, not only for thepopulation along the Rhone and the Saône, but also for placesfar beyond the limits of his diocese. There is no sign thatthe great Roman proprietor, so far as the material conditions.of his life were concerned, was worse off under the Germanchief than under the imperial prefect.That the lower and middle classes suffered cruelly is tolerably certain, but on their condition and feelings Sidoniushas little to tell us in his letters. As a bishop, he courageouslystood by his people in the hour of danger, defended theirrights, and was full of pity for their sufferings. His princelycharity was long a tradition in Gaul. " But as the greatnoble, composing elaborate letters to his friends, which heintended for the eyes of posterity, he is almost entirely occupied with the daily life, the peculiar tastes and ambitions of1 Sid. Carm. xxiii. 37; Ep. viii . 4,ad hoc agris aquisque, vinetis atque olivetis, vestibulo campo calle amoe- nissimus.2 Ep. viii . 6.3 Greg. Tur. Hist. Franc. ii. 24.Sid. Ep. vi. 12, post Gothicam depopulationem, post segetes incendioabsumptas, peculiari sumptu inopiae communi . . . gratuita frumenta misisti,etc.; cf. Chaix, Apoll. Sidon. i . p.319.5 Greg. Tur. ii . c. 22.CHAP. IV SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS 161his own order. Only here and there do we meet with a slightreference to the burden of the taxpayer, the flight of acolonus, the obscure hardships of the petty trader.¹ All thesuffering and reverses of fortune in the classes beneath him,which must have resulted from a great economic revolution,from the oppression of the treasury official, or from the invasions, seem to have had but little interest for one in whoseeyes the men who were descended from prefects and consuls,and who had read Homer and Menander, Virgil and Plinytogether at Lyons or Bordeaux, were the only interestingpart of the Roman world.2 This class, separated from themasses by pride of birth and privilege and riches, was evenmore cut off from them by its monopoly of culture. Anaristocrat, however long his pedigree, however broad his acres,would have hardly found himself at home in the circle ofSidonius if he could not turn off pretty vers de société, orletters fashioned in that euphuistic style which centuries ofrhetorical discipline had elaborated. The members of thatclass were bound to one another by the tradition of ancestralfriendships, by common interests and pursuits, but not leastby academic companionship, and the pursuit of that ideal ofculture which more and more came to be regarded as thetruest title to the name of Roman, the real stamp of rank.How often does Sidonius remind a friend of the days whenthey had threaded the mazes of Aristotelian dialectic, ormastered the technique of Latin rhetoric under the sameprofessor at Lyons. For the stability of the material fortunesof his order he betrays no anxiety. If he has a dim consciousness of decadence, it is of a literary decadence, a failureof industry in the noble and lettered class, a failure in devotion to the ancient models, and in the fastidiousness of theliterary sense. The crowd who had no tincture of that lore,who knew not the esoteric language of the initiated, were notperhaps despised by such a perfect gentleman, but they wereregarded with that blank uninterested gaze which sees in the31 Sid. Ep. ii. 1; v. 19; vi. 4; vi. 8.2 Symmachus speaks of the Senate as "melior pars generis humani. "3 Sid. Ep. iii. 1; v. 9.Ib. iv. 1 , tu sub Eusebio nostrointer Aristotelicas categorias artifex dialecticus atticissabas; cf. iii . 1. TheMbest illustration, perhaps, of aristo- cratic brotherhood is in the letter toAquilinus, v. 9; cf. Chaix, i . 23.Ep. viii. 8; ii . 14; iv. 17, gran.diter laetor saltim in inlustri pectoretuo vanescentium litterarum remansisse vestigia; cf. ii . 10.162 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK 11vulgar only a dim and colourless mass. Sidonius feels acertain disgust even for the best of his German neighbours.¹They are coarse in their habits, they are ignorant and brutish,and have nothing of that elasticity of mind and delicacy oftaste which, even at its worst, the training of the Romanschools imparted. We shall hardly be wrong in supposingthat his comparative silence about the lower orders of hisown countrymen covers a like repugnance. The ferociouspunishment which he dealt out to the boors, who were quiteinnocently trenching over the soil of his ancestor's grave,2displays all the contempt of the mediaeval baron for his serfs.3The letters of Sidonius describe the life and feelings ofonly a single class of Roman society, but they describe thatclass with a faithfulness which leaves little to be desired.He professed himself an imitator of Symmachus, but in hisdelineation of the men with whom he lived, and of thescenery and background of their lives, Sidonius far surpassesSymmachus in minuteness of drawing and in depth of colour.Symmachus cultivates brevity and reserve as a matter of tasteand etiquette. He seems almost determined not to be satisfying and interesting. The faults of Sidonius are all on theother side. With perhaps no great powers of reflection, withno abundant stock of ideas, he is yet a minute observer, andhas a positive delight in amplifying all the results of observation by means of an enormous, and often barbarous, vocabulary,and by all the arts of a perverted rhetoric, which often putsa strain on language that it will not bear. Let any one readthe description of the appearance and habits of Theodoric,* ofthe means by which the parvenu Paeonius raised himself tothe prefecture before the accession of Majorian, of the parasite of Lyons, of the delators who surrounded Chilperic, ofVectius the ascetic country gentleman , and, while he willfind much to offend a sensitive taste, he will not complain ofany lack of vividness and colour. If such a critic should, inother sketches of Roman society in Gaul, discover a certainEp. iv. 1 , bestialium rigidarumque nationum corda cornea fibraeque gla- ciales. Cf. vii. 14, barbaros vitas, quiamali putentur; ego etiamsi boni.2 ĺb. iii. 12.3 Ib. i. 1 , Quinti Symmachi rotun8ditatem .+ Ib. i. 2.5 Ib. i. 11.6 lb. iii. 13.7 Ib. v. 7.8 lb. iv. 9.insecuturus.CHAP. IV SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS 163sameness and lack of power to seize the imagination, it wouldbe well for him to reflect what he himself could have done.with similar materials. The life of a rich, secure, and highlyconventional society does not lend itself to descriptions whichenthral the imagination, and satisfy the love of the variousand the picturesque. When the Gallo- Roman noble had completed his brief career of imperial " honours," the years of anunruffled and stately life fleeted away in a colourless andmonotonous flow. The cold, calm dignity of those greathouses, with endless calls to frivolous social duties, and aroutine of busy idleness, must surely have made the noblerspirits sometimes long for the more strenuous and stormy lifeof their ancestors. As we turn the pages of Sidonius, weseem to feel the still, languid oppressiveness of a hot, vacantnoontide in one of those villas in Aquitaine or Auvergne.The master may be looking after his wine and oil, or layinga fresh mosaic, or reading Terence or Menander in some shadygrotto; his guests are playing tennis, or rattling the dice- box,or tracking the antiquarian lore of Virgil to its sources. Thescene is one of tranquil content, or even gaiety. But over all,to our eyes, broods the shadow which haunts the life that isnourished only by memories, and to which the future sends nocall and offers no promise.It may be doubted, however, whether Sidonius regardedhis society in any such way. He may have noticed andlamented in his later years a failure of literary energy, ¹ a lessdelicate sense for what he regarded as purity of Latin style;but for the greater part of his life the circle of nobles to whichhe belonged were enjoying undisturbed the plenty and eleganceof their country seats, and were as devoted as himself to theliterary art. And his circle was very wide. If we include hisletters to bishops and churchmen,2 it may almost be said to haveembraced the greater part of Gaul, from Soissons to Marseilles.If we confine our attention to his secular friends, it certainlycovered all Gaul south of the Loire. The energy with whichhe cultivated his friendships or acquaintanceships is truly admirable. Indeed the best thing about Sidonius is his genius1 Ep. v. 10, pauci studia nunchonorant; cf. viii. 6, ii . 10, iv. 3ad fin.2 Germ. Apoll. Sid. p. 136. Heenumerates seventeen bishops with whom Sidonius corresponded.3 The Syagrius of v. 5 lived near Soissons; cf. Greg. Tur. ii. 18, 27.164 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIfor friendship. His letters range in all directions, to Bourges,to Bordeaux, to Marseilles, to Narbonne, to Lyons, and tomany an estate or bishop's house beyond or within that circle.In the last of his poems, ' he sends the volume forth to travelalong a winding path to Narbonne, each stage being markedby some great house where he, on a similar journey, had spentpleasant days. The book on its first stage is to brave thecriticism of Domitius, the grammarian of Auvergne. Furtheron in its journey it is to visit the seat of Ferreolus, father ofTonantius Ferreolus, a great prefect of Gaul and ancestralfriend of the poet. It is next to cross the Tarn, and presentit*elf at Voroangus, the seat of Apollinaris, who had sat on thesame benches with Sidonius at the school of Lyons. Lingering awhile among the gardens and grottoes on the Gardon, itpasses on, from one friend to another, till it reaches the statelyhome of Magnus at Narbonne, whose son was linked toSidonius alike by ties of marriage and by memories ofcollege life.3It would be a wearisome and fruitless task to carry thereader in detail through the long list of the friends of Sidonius.²They are now mere shadows. The circle in Narbonne and itsneighbourhood was specially brilliant in the eyes of contemporaries. Sidonius in one of his poems has described thiscrowd of prefects, consuls, jurisconsults, adepts in everybranch of literature, even rivals of the great masters; yet nota name in the long list is known to us from other sources.But although the individual may seem insignificant anduninteresting, the class whom he represents deserves study;and the features of the senatorial class were stronglymarked.4In more than one of his letters Sidonius sums up his idealof the Roman noble, the ideal which he would like his son, ashe says, " with the help of Christ, " to attain. He should, asan almost religious duty, repay the debt of noble birth byadding to the list of family " honours " some great magistracy1 Carm. xxiv.2 The task has been piously performed by the Abbé Chaix, t. i. 1. 5 .3 Carm. xxiii. 435; cf. Ep. viii. 4;Chaix, Apoll. Sid. i. P. 241 .4 Ep. v. 16. He writes to tellPapianilla of her brother's elevationto the patriciate. Note the words:qua de re propitio deo Christo ampliatos prosapiae tuae titulos ego festinus gratatoriis apicibus inscripsi; cf. iii .6, vii. 12, viii. 7 , and Carm. vii. 158,quos quippe curules et praefecturas constat debere nepoti.CHAP. IV SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS 165in the imperial service. He should, without reducing himselfto the level of a bailiff or a money- grubber, attend to themanagement of his estates.¹ Some of his superfluous wealthmay be spent in additions to his country seat, or redecorating hisbaths and saloons with fresh frescoes and marbles. He willbe a keen sportsman, after the manner of his Celtic ancestors.But these pursuits should not absorb all his energy. Thenoble class, the salt of Roman society, is a great brotherhood,bound together by the traditions of hereditary friendship anda common culture of priceless value. The true descendant ofa great race will train his son in the same arts and accomplishments which moulded his ancestors and himself. Hewill also, by scrupulous attention to correspondence and socialduties, keep warm the feelings of friendship and interest incommon studies. Sidonius, at any rate towards the end of hislife, was a devout and pious churchman. But to the last,the ascetic ideals of men like S. Jerome and S. Paulinus seemnever in his mind to have obscured the ideal of the wealthyand studious country gentleman, with a wholesome wellbalanced nature, fond of sport and farming, proud of hisfamily, devoted to his friends, and above all penetrated with asense of the obligation to carry on the tradition of culture. To befalse to letters was to be false to family honour and to Rome.Pride of birth was one of the strongest feelings in theGallo-Roman aristocrat. Nor was this much abated by theprofession of a severe Christianity. On a remarkable occasionSidonius was asked by the people of Bourges to nominate abishop. He delivered an address to justify his choice, and inrecommending a certain Simplicius for their suffrages, he laysthe greatest stress on his high descent. So in the lives ofthe saints and great churchmen of that age, the biographer1 Ep. viii. 8.2 Ib. iii. 3, flumina natatu, venatunemora fregisti accipiter canis,equus arcus ludo fuere; cf. Carm. vii.183, where the exploits of Avitus in the chase are idealised.3 lb. iv. 12 gives a pleasant picture of the bishop reading Terence and Menander with his son: legebamus,pariter laudabamus jocabamurque; cf. the care of Ausonius for his grandson's education , Idyl. iv . , and Sym. Ep. v. 5.454 lb. vii. 9. Sidonius gives theaddress in full which he delivered on theoccasion: Parentes ipsius aut cathedris aut tribunalibus praesederunt . . . Uxorilli de Palladiorum stirpe descendit.5 Greg. Tur. S. Julian, prosapiaquidem illustris; vit. Patrum, c. 7,sanctus Gregorius ex senatoribus primis;Hist. Fr. vi. 39, est enim (Sulpicius)vir valde nobilis, de primis senatoribus Galliarum; vit. Patrum, c. 8, 16, 20.166 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK II2never fails to record the fact of their being of senatorialbirth. This class, since the time of Constantine, included allthe large landed proprietors of the provinces. It had becomein fact, though not by force of enactment, chiefly hereditary.But admission to its ranks was from time to time obtained bythe favour of the Emperor, or by the tenure of some of theoffices in the Palatine service. The rank which the founder ofa family had won by official service, his descendants stroveto dignify by attaining still higher place in the imperialhierarchy. With the mass of the senatorial class, the ambitionof office sprang rather from personal or family vanity thanfrom the desire of real power. The prefect of the Gauls wasa great potentate, wielding a far greater power than themonarch of the largest modern European state. Yet theconsulship, which had for many ages been a purely ornamentaldignity, ranked, in virtue of its ancient glories, far above thegreatest prefecture; and the son of a prefect thought that hewas at once honouring and surpassing his father, by gainingthe shadowy dignity of the consulship. *Yet it may be doubted whether the assertion is absolutelytrue that all capacity for government in the upper class had diedout.5 We know little of the actual influence on governmentexercised even by the great prefects of the fifth century.But we can form some conception of the range and nature oftheir duties from the Imperial Code. The prefect of the Gaulshad the financial and judicial administration of three greatcountries in his hands," and the control of a numerous bodyof officials. Although, from the time of Constantine, theprefect had no military command, he had to provide for the1 C. Th. vi. 2, 2, si quis sena- torium consecutus nostra largitatefastigium vel generis felicitate. Cf. Godefroy's Paratitlon to vi. 2. In vi 3, 2 and 3, the distinction is sharply drawn between senatorial and curialestates. Cf. F. de Coulanges, La GauleRom. p. 180; Duruy, vii. p. 176.2 Ep. i. 3; iii . 6.3 It should be remembered that thisprefecture included Britain and Spain as well as Gaul proper.C. Th. vi. 6, 1 , diversa culminadignitatum consulatui cedere . . . de- cernimus; cf. Auson. Act. Grat. ad fin.;Sidon. Ep. v. 16, § 4, ut sicut nosutramque familiam nostram praefec- toriam nancti etiam patriciam red- didimus, ita ipsi quam suscipiuntpatriciam faciant consularem.5 De Coulanges, L'Inv. Germ. p.220, la classe sénatoriale elle - mêmemanque de l'esprit de gouvernement.6 On the powers of the Pretorian pre- fect see Godefroy's ed . of C. Th. vol . vi.pt. ii . ad init. "Notitia Praefectorum ";cf. Notitia Dig. ed. Böcking, t. ii. 13,14, and 166 , where the Formula Praef.Praet. is given; Fauriel, Hist. de la Gaule Mérid. i. p. 351; Duruy, vii. p .157.CHAP. IV SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS 167commissariat of the legions quartered in his province. He hadalso the superintendence of the great roads and the postalservice. He had to advise subordinate magistrates on questionsof difficulty, and to hear appeals from their decisions. Aboveall he exercised enormous powers over the levying of taxes andthe whole financial service. It was his duty at once to securefull and regular collection, and to check venality or oppression.It was also his business to give due publicity to all edicts ofthe Emperor, and in the framing of these edicts there is nodoubt that the suggestions and advice of a governor had greatweight. The vast machine had to be kept running, and anydefect in its working had to be brought to the notice of theEmperor. In the fifth century the limits of the great prefecture of the West were steadily retreating from the Atlantictowards the Mediterranean. Yet the anxieties of its rulermust have increased as the times grew darker. In the career ofTonantius Ferreolus, one of the friends of Sidonius, we have anexample of a public - spirited noble, and a benevolent andvigorous governor. Along with Avitus, he bore a foremostpart in organising the united resistance of Goth and Romanto the Hun invasion in 451. And he signalised his tenureof office in 453 by lightening the burden of taxation in thosedisastrous years. The later Roman Code bears witness tothe strenuous efforts of many high-minded prefects to checkthe growing disorganisation of society.There can be little doubt, however, that in the intervalbetween Ausonius and Sidonius the love of country life hadincreased, and public spirit or ambition was declining. Manyof the highest class were becoming mere farmers on a largescale, and cared for little else than their flocks and vineyards.Sidonius, who had an almost religious faith in his order, andwho regarded himself as the guardian of Latin culture in anage of decadence, was revolted by this return to the rude andsolitary rusticity of an earlier time. He was also alarmed bythe passion for money-making which often accompanied suchtastes. Several of his letters are written to recall suchdegenerate nobles to their true life and vocation. And onein particular deserves notice from the birth and rank of the1 Ep. vii. 12; Carm. vii. 315; Fauriel, Hist. de la Gaule Mérid. i . p. 227 .2 Ep. ii. 14; vii. 15; i . 6.168 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIperson to whom it is addressed.¹ Syagrius belonged to one ofthose Gallic families in which high office was practicallyhereditary. He was great - grandson of that Syagrius whowas consul in 381 , who was a correspondent of Symmachus,3and from whose daughter Tonantius Ferreolus, the greatestof Gallic nobles, was descended. The Syagrii were connectedwith the district of Lyons, and their family estate lay somewhere near Autun, in the neighbourhood of the Burgundians.The Syagrius of the time of Sidonius had fallen away fromthe example of his ancestors, and from that ideal of aristocraticlife which we have attempted to describe. Trained in all theliterary arts of the Gallic schools, he had stooped to learn thelanguage of the conquerors, in which he had acquired a facilitywhich moves the sarcasm of Sidonius. But he had sunk evenlower than this. He had forgotten the long line of his ancestraldignities and his duty to his country, and buried himself inhis rural property, with no ambition beyond that of growingfine crops and increasing his income. Syagrius may havebeen a degenerate noble, but it is also possible that he wasa shrewd, sensible man, who saw the hollowness of the so- calledambition of his class, who rated cheap the " honours " of apower no longer able to defend its citizens, and who thoughtthat his energy might be more usefully expended in cultivatingthe friendship of his German neighbours, and in the management of a great estate, with its crowd of serfs and dependants,than in playing ball and dice, exchanging repartees, orapplauding with grotesque exaggeration a literary neighbour'sfeeble imitations of a Statius or Lucan.It would be unfair, however, to Sidonius to represent himas indifferent to the commonplace duties of a great landholder.Indeed, the villa or senatorial estate must have demandedsome attention from any prudent owner. The villicus orprocurator was often a man of servile origin, and the1 Ep. viii . 8. The estate of Taionnacusmay have been in the neighbourhood of Soissons. From v. 5 it appears that Syagrius was a master of German.2 In the Index to Luetjohann's ed.of Sidonius, the Syagrius of v. 5 is said to be father of the Syagrius inviii. 8. But Migne and Chaix ( i . 178,189) are probably right in treatingthe letters as addressed to the sameperson, the son of Egidius. On Flav.Afranius Syagrius, cos. 381 , cf. Amm.Marc. xxviii. 2, 9; Seeck's Sym .cx.; Rauschen, Jahrb. p. 85; Sid.Ep. v. 17, conditorium Syagrii con- sulis.3 Sid. Ep. i. 7, Afranii Syagrii consulis e filia nepos; ii. 9; vii . 12.CHAP. IV SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS 169Theodosian Code leaves the impression that these agents hadto be carefully watched. Although the senatorial estates inGaul were probably never equal in extent to those vastlatifundia which were the ruin of Italian husbandry, yetthey were ordinarily of considerable acreage. Ausonius hada patrimonial estate near Bazas, which he describes in modestterms as a villula or herediolum.3 Yet it consisted of morethan 1000 acres, of which 200 were arable land, 100 vineyard,50 meadow, the rest being woodland. The estates of thefriends of Sidonius were probably of far larger extent than thatof the poet of Bordeaux. The nearest approach to any indicationof their size is contained in a letter describing the domainsof Apollinaris and Ferreolus. They adjoin one another, andthe distance between the two mansions is rather long for awalk, but rather short for a ride on horseback. The greatnoble, both in Gaul and Italy, often possessed many of theseestates in different districts, or even in different provinces.The lands of S. Paulinus, which Ausonius describes as " realms, "were widely scattered, and when, on his adoption of the asceticlife, they were sold, " they would pass," according to Ausonius,"into the hands of a hundred masters."5It is characteristic of Sidonius that, while he has left usseveral pictures of great mansions, he never gives even aglimpse of the organisation of an estate. Yet the populationof these domains formed in itself a complete and almostself - sufficing community. " The great house had in itsimmediate neighbourhood villages which were occupied bydependants of various grades-slaves or freedmen, coloni andfree tenants, some of them ordinary labourers, others paying fortheir holdings both in money and a stipulated amount of labour.The buildings for the slaves, the stables, and granaries, the mill,the olive and wine- presses, with the workshops, must have formed,on an estate of any magnitude, a little town, demanding agood deal of management and careful superintendence. Thesuperfluous income of the rich man could, in those days, findinvestment only in loans on mortgage, or in the purchase of1 C. Th. ix. 30, 2; ii . 30, 2.2 F. de Coulanges, L'Alleu, p. 35.3 Auson. Idyl. iii . 10.Ep. ii. 9, praediorum his jura con- termina, domicilia vicina, quibus interjecta gestatio peditem lassat neque sufficit equitaturo.88.5 Auson. Ep. 24, 115.6 F. de Coulanges, L'Alleu, pp. 87,170 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIother properties, or in additions to the residence of the family.¹Building was one of the passions of the Roman aristocrat.2The stern, utilitarian architecture of the fortified town, its noiseand squalor, repelled him. On his own lands he gave a freerein to his taste for beauty or luxury. The sites of theseancient country houses seem to have been generally chosenfor some natural beauty, on the wooded banks of a river or alake dotted with islands, or at the foot of a sloping hill, witha prospect of forest, meadow, or rich cultivated plain. Sidonius,imitating one of his favourite models, has left us elaborateword-pictures of some of these great houses, in Auvergne, on theGardon, or at Narbonne, or in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux.His own house, which came to him by his marriage with thedaughter of the Emperor Avitus, is delineated with a minute.care which reveals in every line a passionate love of thedelights of rural life and scenery.3 Domitius, a professor inthe neighbouring college of Auvergne, is invited to leave thehot class-room and the narrow streets. Even in umbrageousAuvergne, " the world is on fire "; the ground is seamed andscarred with gaping fissures, the mud is hardening in the bedof the river, whose failing, languid stream hardly drags itselfalong. But in the retreat of Avitacum there is the spreadingcoolness which the builder's and the gardener's arts can winfrom nature even in the dog-days. The mansion has a broadfrontage both to the north and the south. A glen, flanked bytwo lines of hills, opens on the southern lawn before thevestibule. At the south-western corner are the baths closeunder a woodclad height, from which the felled timber dropsat the very mouth of the furnaces. The heated water is carriedalong the walls by leaden pipes. There are all the apartmentsfor luxurious bathing, brilliantly lighted, with walls of gleaming whiteness and domed roofs resting on graceful columns,ending in the piscina, where, through curiously- sculpturedheads of lions, the cold water from the hillside rushes tumultu1 The law discouraged trading in the senatorial class, C. Th. xiii . 1 , 5 ,cum potiorum quisque aut miscere se negotiationi non debeat, aut pensi- tationem (i.e. lustralis collatio) quod honestas postulat primus agnoscere.Cf. xiii. 1 , 8 , in which feneratores are brought under the lustralis collatio ( v.Godefroy's note, and Sid. Ep. iv. 24) .Cf. C. Th. ii. 33, 4, limiting the rate of interest which senators could exact.2 Ep. v. 11. Building with dis- cretion is one of the laudable occupations of the noble.17.3 Sid. Ep. ii. 2. Cf. Plin. Ep. ii.CHAP. IV SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS 171ously. On these walls no tale of wantonness is figured,although you may see some epigram " neither good enough tomake you read it again, nor so bad as to disgust you with thereading." Hard by are the ladies' room and the spinning-roomof the maids. After these you find yourself in a long colonnadelooking out on the lake, which lies on the eastern side, embosomed in woods. Passing through a long gallery on thesouth you would reach the winter dining-room, with a cheerfulblaze in the vaulted chimney. And from that you may entera smaller saloon, with a broad staircase leading up to averandah which overhangs the lake, where the guest, as hecools his thirst, may watch the fisherman buoying his nets. Oryou may take a siesta in a chamber screened from the southernheats, where the cicala in the hot noontide, or the nightingaleon summer evenings, will lull you to sleep, while the sheepbell and shepherd's pipe sound from the hillside . Sidonius,with all his conventionality, cannot repress a natural delightin this fairyland of woodland, lake, and bosky islet it is sogreen and cool, a paradise of idyllic tranquillity. And yet hedescribes it in a euphuism, probably the most curiouslyartificial, in which genuine feeling was ever encased. Themaster of that domain, of which he sees the inmost charm,sits in his verandah above the lake, coining phrases which heintended to excite the admiration of posterity, but which wouldhave moved the ridicule or disgust of the masters he adored.One of these country seats was very much like another.They all have apartments for summer and winter, baths,galleries, libraries. Sometimes, as in the case of the Burgusof Leontius,' they are strongly fortified with all the art of theengineer. It is clear, from the arrangement of these houses,as well as from the general tone of the literary remains of theperiod, that their owners passed their lives chiefly in thecountry. But their solitude was broken by constant correspondence, and by frequent visits. Even in the troubled1 Sid. Carm. xxii. 117:non illos machina muros,non aries , non alta strues vel proximus agger,non quae stridentes torquet catapulta molares,sed nec testudo nec vinea nec rota currensjam positis scalis unquam quassare valebunt.Pontius Paulinus, who had been Pretorian prefect in the reign of Constantine (v. Jullian's Ausone, p. 128) , was the builder. He was probably thefather of S. Paulinus of Nola, who also bore the name of Pontius; cf.Auson. Ep. 24, 103; Migne, Prol. t.lxi. c. 1, § 3; Chaix, Apoll. Sid. i. 222;Luetjohann's ed. of Sidon. Ind. Pers.S.v.172 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIyears which followed the accession of Euric, althoughthe roads were not always safe for couriers and travellers,2who were liable to be stopped and questioned, communicationamong the members of the Gallo- Roman aristocracy was nevercompletely interrupted. The great roads, which opened upthe country from the first century, could be traversed rapidlyby carriages. But the grand seigneur of the time generallypreferred to travel on horseback with a numerous suite.Starting in the cool of the morning, he would halt at noonin some shady spot beside a stream where his servants, senton in advance, had pitched his tent and prepared the mid-daymeal. The inns were probably few, and, according to Sidonius,they were bad; but the aristocratic traveller could easilyarrange, as a rule, to break his journey at nightfall at the houseof some friend. The imagined route of the bishop's poemsfrom Auvergne to Narbonne, following a wavering line ofcountry seats, probably represents many a tour of visits madeby the author. On one of these excursions Sidonius found himself once in the neighbourhood of the two great villas ofVoroangus and Prusianum on the banks of the Gardon, nearNimes. Their owners, Tonantius Ferreolus and Apollinaris,were among his dearest friends. The estates adjoined one4another, at the distance of a short ride. Apollinaris andFerreolus detained their friend for a week, and had anamicable conflict each day for his company. It was difficultto decide between the attractions of these two princely seats.The gardens of Apollinaris were of almost fabulous beauty,and might have rivalled the most delicious scenes in the worldof legend or romance." The gardener's skill had trained thefoliage into enchanting bowers, where you might dreamaway the hot hours of noon. On the other hand, the homeof Ferreolus offered powerful attractions of a higher kind.s Its1 He succeeded Theodoric II. in 466,and lived till 483, or 485. Cf. Fauriel,i. 347; Luetjohann's Sidon. p. 418.2 Ep. iii. 4; ix. 5; v. 12.3 Such a day's travelling is described Ep. iv. 8. For travelling by river seeviii . 12; cf. Auson. Ep. viii. 5.Ib. viii. 11 , ne si destituor domonegata moerens ad madidas cam taber- nas, etc.5 Carm. xxiv.6 Ep. ii. 9; Chaix, i . 210 sqq.7Ep. ii. 9, Aracynthum et Nysam,celebrata poetarum carminibus juga,censeas; Carm. xxiv. 54-74:seu ficto potius specu quiescit collis margine, qua nemus reflexum nativam dare porticum laborans non lucum arboribus facit, sed antrum.8 Ep. i . 7, Tonantius Ferreolus was Pretorian prefect in 453.CHAP. IV SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS 173owner, the descendant of the great Syagrius, and admittedly bybirth and official rank the foremost of Gallic nobles, combined remarkable political experience with wide culture. Though nowwithdrawn from the great world, he had borne a splendidpart in repelling the Hun invasion. He had earned the reputation of being a humane and enlightened prefect, and hewas chosen to represent his province at the famous prosecution of the corrupt governor Arvandus.¹ His library wasamply stocked with all the literature of pagan antiquity, alongwith the newer literature of the Church; and he was not oneof those senators, described by Ammianus, who entered theirlibraries as seldom as their family vaults.The daily life at Prusianum, as depicted by Sidonius,shows us the charm and also the weakness of aristocratic societyin the fifth century. It is very pleasant, but it seems somewhat self- indulgent and frivolous. When Sidonius arrivesin the morning, some of the guests are in the tennis- court,others are eagerly engaged in a game of dice, the moresedate are reading Horace or Varro in the library, or discussing the theology of Origen. The déjeuner at eleven o'clockwas, " after the senatorial fashion," a short but ample meal; andthe guests, as they sat over their wine, were amused by therecitation of lively tales. The hours of the afternoon werespent on horseback or in the bath. The baths of Ferreolusseem to have been then in the builder's hands, and the company extemporised a bath by the side of a rivulet.was dug along the bank and roofed over with hair - clothstretched on a framework of branches. Heated stones wereflung into the hollow, and a jet of cold water turned on theglowing heap; and the bathers, having enjoyed the vapour fora time, braced themselves by a plunge in the cool stream.The evening closed with a luxurious banquet.A trenchIn this pleasant life one hears little of the women of thehousehold, and this silence has been interpreted as a sign thatthey were ignored and had a humble place in the family. Yetit is hardly probable that, in the full light of Christianity, the1 Arvandus was Pretorian prefect ofGaul in 469 and impeached at Rome for treacherous communications withEuric. Sid. Ep. i . 7.2 Cf. the day at the villa of Consen- tius, Sid. Carm. xxii. 487.3 On libraries in the country see Sid.Ep. v. 15; viii . 11; viii . 4.174 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIposition of women was lower than it was in the days of thepagan Pliny or of the semi- pagan Ausonius.¹ The referencesto women in Sidonius are indeed scanty, but they show thatthe ideal of female virtue and culture was high. In aletter to a friend about to be married," he points out, by a longseries of ancient examples, how women may help to sustainthe literary ambition of their husbands. In the family ofMagnus of Narbonne the ladies were both pious andaccomplished, and Eulalia, a cousin of Sidonius, who wasmarried to a son of the house, is described as a very Minerva.3In the library of Prusianum there were shelves stocked withreligious literature which are intended for the women of thehousehold. In another letter Sidonius sends a friend anelegy on the virtues of a young matron of Lyons," whose earlydeath was a public event, and mourned with every demonstration of grief by the whole community.There is hardly a trace in the works of Sidonius of thatlooseness of morals with which Salvianus charges his contemporaries in that very province to which so many of the friendsof Sidonius belonged . There is indeed one letter," the tone ofwhich rather startles us in a bishop. It refers to the irregularconnection of a young noble with a slave girl. The mistressis treated with loathing and contempt, but the young man isabsolved rather easily on the score of morals, and commendedfor having thrown the girl over, and so consulted his reputation and fortune. His marriage with a lady of noble birthseems, in the eyes of the bishop, to atone for his " error. "Such rare glimpses of self- indulgence in the members of a rich,idle, and luxurious caste, with hardly any public interests, andsurrounded by crowds of slaves, do not excite much surprise.But the picture of abnormal and universal debauchery givenby Salvianus is absolutely unconfirmed by anything in thepages of Sidonius.In the description of the debauched parasite in Sidonius,71 Plin. Ep. Calpurniae, vi. 26; vii.5; Auson. Parent. xii. 5; cf. F. deCoulanges, L'Inv. Germ. p. 212.2 Sid. Ep. ii. 10.3 Carm. xxiv. 95:hic saepe Eulaliae meae legeris,cujus Cecropiae pares Minervae mores et rigidi senes et ipse quondam purpureus socer timebant.Ep. ii. 9, sic tamen quod qui inter matronarum cathedras codices erant,stilus his religiosus inveniebatur, etc. 5 Ib. ii. 8.6 lb. ix. 6; cf. the passage in the Eucharisticos, where Paulinus speaks of a similar error of his youth in the same tone, v. 165.7 Sid. Ep. iii . 13.CHAP. IV SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS 175we have indeed a specimen of physical and moral degradationwhich excites horror and disgust. If the bishop ever gave hisflock in the cathedral of Auvergne a sermon in the same style,it must have had a powerful effect. It is composed with theobject of warning a young relative of the horrors of the abyssinto which his life might plunge, if he neglected the old rulesof conduct. Yet in reading the piece, one cannot help feelingthat the literary spirit, the spirit of Juvenal and the schoolrhetoric, has possessed the writer. It is in some respects apowerful piece, but the power is that of a master of wordsand phrases, who exults in his command of them. There isno light and shade; the whole is black with the smoke of theinfernal streams.¹ There may have been, there probably were,degenerate Romans who, in an age of violent and suddenchange, lost all sense of self- respect, all feeling of Romandignity and Christian duty, and who determined to make thebest, in a sensual way, of an age of convulsion, to sell theircompatriots, to flatter their new masters, and to purchase grosspleasure with the wages of their treachery. All this is probable. Yet we may well doubt whether, even in the mostdisorganised society, such specimens of utter moral andphysical wreck were often seen as the loathsome wretch whomSidonius has described for edification and warning. The loveof word-painting is too evident; the strain and staring contrast of verbal antithesis are too marked to give one confidencein the fidelity of the portrait. The body, deformed in everyline and feature by vice, bloated with luxury, and enervatedby excess, is described with disgusting and exaggeratedemphasis as the fit dwelling of a fouler and uglier soul. Thewhispered slander, the gross innuendo, the affectation of vivacitywithout wit, of importance without dignity, the hungry eagerness for a hospitable invitation, combined with feigned shynessin accepting, the gross and bestial indulgence, the ravenousthroat and the venomous tongue-all this, with many traits wehave suppressed, is a picture which we may hope had fewcounterparts in real life.Such characters rarely meet us in the pages of Sidonius.1 Ep. iii. 13, lumina gerit .lumine carentia quae Stygiae vicepaludis volvunt lacrimas per tenebrasfacies ita pallida veluti per horas umbris maestificata larvalibus.176 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIHis world was probably quite as Christian in sentiment andconduct as our own. It inherited also, as a social and literarytradition, a profound veneration for the virtues of the oldRoman character. It was, above all, a society dominated bypride, respect for class-feeling, and imperious good taste. Ifto the pride and fastidiousness of the polished noble you addthe restraints of a collective Christian sentiment, you have asocial tone which is not likely in general to be prone to grossindulgence. There is no trace of lubricity on the walls ofthe mansions, or in the entertainments described in theseletters.¹ Like the guests in the Saturnalia of Macrobius,2Sidonius congratulates his generation on being more decentthan their ancestors. No wanton frescoes, no suggestive dancesand songs, would be tolerated. The friends of Sidonius ,Ferreolus, Ecdicius, Consentius, Lampridius, Apollinaris, anda host of others, seem to be, on the whole, as regards privatevirtue, perfectly regular and unexceptionable in their lives.It is possible that class feeling or the reticence of goodnature or good taste may have led Sidonius sometimes tocast a veil over the faults of the dear and pleasant friendsof his youth. Yet one cannot help having the impressionthat his silence about evil is due to its absence, at least inany gross form, among the people with whom he associated .The real canker at the root of that society was not grossvice, but class- pride, want of public spirit, absorption in thevanities of a sterile culture, cultivated selfishness. It isdifficult for a modern man to conceive the bounded view ofsociety taken by people like Symmachus and Sidonius, the cold,stately self- content, the absence of sympathy for the masseslying outside the charmed circle of senatorial rank, the placidfaith in the permanence of privilege and wealth, the apparentinability to conceive, even in the presence of tremendous forcesof disruption, that society should ever cease to move alongthe ancient lines. The bureaucratic system of governmentstifled all interest in public affairs in the natural governingclass. Masters of vast domains, yet excluded, as an order,from real political power, the great mass of the senatorial1 Ep. ii. 2, non hic per nudam pictorum corporum pulchritudinem turpis prostat historia, quae sicutornat artem devenustat artificem.2 Saturn. ii. 1 , 6.CHAP. IV SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS 177class were condemned to a sterile life of fantastic luxury,literary trifling, or sullen reserve. They had little care forany but their own caste and family, as the representativesof Graeco- Roman culture.¹ With what was regarded as alaudable ambition to add to the " honours " of the family,and a strenuous devotion to the study and imitation of thegreat authors, there seemed to the stately noble no reasonwhy the calm ceremonious senatorial life should not go onfor ever. The aim of all true Romans was to reproduce insuccessive generations the forms and ideas of the great past,undisturbed by any hope or ambition of ever excelling it.To such a condition of death- like repose or immobility hadthe imperial system reduced the most intelligent class inthe Roman world. Faith in Rome had killed all faith in awider future for humanity. Society had been elaboratelyand deliberately stereotyped. As a rule, whatever a man'senergy or ambition, he was doomed to work out his life onthe precise lines which his ancestors had followed. Allideas of improvement were nipped in the bud, blasted by thestifling atmosphere of a despotism which, with whatever goodintentions, received no guidance or inspiration from thethoughts or needs of the masses, and spent all its strengthin maintaining unchanged the lines of an ancient system,instead of finding openings for fresh development. Thesame immobility reigned in the education of the privilegedclass. They felt no material need to stimulate invention andpractical energy, and their academic training only deepenedand intensified the deadening conservatism of unassailable wealthand rank. Their training was exclusively literary; its soleaim was to make masters of phrase, rhetoricians, skilled andsuccessful imitators of the great masters of the literary art.Mere style, apart from real knowledge or ideas, was its greataim. It persistently kept before the pupil's gaze the mythological fancies and literary finesse of the great ages. As thematerial force of the Empire slowly waned, the loftier spiritsclung all the more tenaciously to the literary heritage fromthe past of Greece and Rome, as to a standard of unapproach1 Sidon. Ep. viii. 2, nam jam re- motis gradibus dignitatum, per quas solebat ultimo a quoque summusNquisque discerni, solum erit posthac nobilitatis indicium litteras nosse.178 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIable perfection. There was no curiosity, no love of scientificinquiry, no hope of further advance. All that was best inthe possible achievements of the human spirit lay behind,steeped in the golden haze of a heroic age. In front stretcheda gray, flat prospect of cultivated mediocrity. It is hardlytoo much to say that the despotism of the school traditionwas as stifling and fatal to progress as the bureaucraticdespotism of Diocletian.In the time of Ausonius we have caught some glimpses ofthe ascetic and the intellectual side of the Christian life inGaul, revealing a spiritual movement in striking contrast tothe polished worldly society of the senatorial order, in whichclass-pride had taken the place of high public spirit, and adilettante culture had frozen the springs of moral enthusiasmand energy. The majority of this class, two generations afterAusonius was in his grave, resembled him rather than S.Paulinus. Yet here and there in the letters of Sidonius wemeet with a man who remained in the world, yet was not ofit, who, without acting literally on the command to forsakeall things for Christ, strove to live in the spirit of the Sermonon the Mount. The character of one of these hidden saints, ¹a certain Vectius, might have been drawn by the author ofthe Serious Cull. He was a man of illustrious rank and greatfortune, but he had learnt the secret of " using the world as notabusing it." He has all the spirit of an anchoret under thesoldier's cloak, and regards his position as a trust ratherthan a property. The spirit of their master had spreadamong his serfs and clients. They are as obedient anddutiful as he is gentle and considerate. He has still all thetastes of the noble of his time; he wears the proper dress ofhis rank; he has a pride in horse and falcon and hound, andthe stately serenity of wealth. He maintains a severe butclement dignity. He joins the hunt, but he does not eat thegame. His hours are often spent in reading the Scripturesand chanting the Psalms. An only daughter, whom he tendswith a mother's tenderness, consoles him in his widowhood.Sidonius adds that, with all deference to his own order, if he1 Si . Ep. iv. 9. Cf. Law's SeriousCall, c. 8.2 Sid. Ep. iv. 9, putes eum propriam domum non possidere, sed potius ad- ministrare.CHAP. IV SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS 179could find such graces in his friends, he would prefer thepriestly character to the priest. Sidonius, although he didnot withhold his admiration from the monastic life, and wrote.an elegy on Abraham, the Eastern solitary who settled inAuvergne, was, after all, one of that class of prelates who, havingbeen trained in worldly society, believed in a Christianity whichkept in touch with the world, to renovate it and to govern it.Apollinaris Sidonius had reached his forty- second yearwhen, by the popular voice, he was called to undertake theepiscopal oversight of the diocese of Auvergne.2 He had beentill then the most typical representative of the aristocraticcaste, Christian in profession, but pagan in sentiment andtraining. He had considered it his mission to deepen thepride of rank and the pride of culture. He became suddenlyone of the most devoted pastors and spiritual governors, sharingthe dangers and miseries of his flock in the Visigothic invasion,imprisoned by Euric for his devotion, passionately lamentedby his people after his death. There is no record of the circ*mstances of this great change. Yet the contrast betweenthe life of the worldly aristocrat and the Christian bishop isvery marked. We have seen the pictures of daily life at thegreat senator's country seat. Far different was the life of thechiefs of the Church. The bishop lived in the chief town ofhis diocese, with doors always open. In the early morninghours he received all comers, heard complaints, composeddifferences, performed many of the duties of a civil magistrate. "He celebrated Mass, preached and taught the people in church.He had important functions in connection with the municipalcouncil, If his episcopal seat lay near the court of a Germanprince, the bishop had the task of conciliating the new barbarianpower, and of maintaining good relations between it and the 64The year 472 or 471 for the com- mencement of his episcopate is inferred from a passage in Ep. vi. 1 , to Lupus of Troyes; the letter, written evidently soon after the ordination of Sidonius,speaks of Lupus as having completed novem quinquennia . . . in apostolica sede. Lupus became bishop in 427.Cf. Luetjohann's ed. of Sid. Ind. Pers.;Germain's Apoll. Sid. p. 19 n.; Chaix,i. 439.2 Ep. v. 3, utpote cui indignissimo tantae professionis pondus impactumest; iii. 1; vi. 7.3 v. Fertig, Apoll. Sid. Abth. ii. 6.Guizot, Civ. en France, i . 102 .5F. de Coulanges, L'Inv. Germ. 36,38; Fauriel , i . 376; cf. Nov. Maj.tit. xii.; C. Th. xvi. 10, 19, xv. 8, 2.For multifarious business broughtbefore bishops cf. Sid. Ep. vi. 2, 4 , 9, 10.Ep. vi. 12, the Burgundian kingused to praise the dinners of Bishop Patiens; cf. Ampère, Hist. Lit. ii. 202 on the relations of S. Avitus with theBurgundians.180 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIGallo-Roman population. He had to superintend the cultivation of the lands of his see, and sometimes he even worked onthem with his own hands. The narrow space left by theseactive occupations would, if he were a scholar and a thinker,be devoted to the theological or philosophical discussions ofthe time, and he might, in that age of controversy, have todefine his position in some treatise on free- will and grace, oron the nature of the soul.¹ The real leader of the municipalcommunity in the fifth century, alike in temporal and inspiritual things, was often the great Churchman. The power ofthe senatorial class, with all their broad lands and culture, didnot extend usually beyond the serfs of their estates.There were two distinct classes of bishops in the GallicChurch of the fifth century, the monastic and the aristocratic,and the special qualities of both were needed by the circ*mstances of the time. The monasteries of Southern Gaulwere not only devoted to an ascetic religious life, but tolearning and theological inquiry. They were the real centres.of the intellectual movements of the age; and the great houseof Lérins 2 had a special fame not only for its sanctity but forits dialectic. Its atmosphere seems to have been favourableto freedom of thought on the great questions which thenagitated Western Christendom. It was the home of a Pelagianor semi- Pelagian school of thought which long repelled theextreme Augustinian views on the relation of Divine grace tohuman will. And it gave many eminent prelates to the Gallicchurch, Faustus 3 of Riez, Lupus of Troyes, Eucherius ofLyons, and Hilary of Arles.4 5But the aristocratic bishop was perhaps even more neededat that time of social and political disorganisation. He wasoften very imperfectly equipped with theological learning. Buthe had other qualifications which the people of a diocese inthe path of the invaders might naturally consider morevaluable. He had wealth for sacred or charitable objects, to1 Cf. Ep. of Faustus of Riez, printed before the de Statu An. of Claud.Mamert.2 For an account of Lérins and itsfoundation, cf. Fertig, Apoll. Sid.ii. 46, 47; Guizot, Civ. en France, i.121 , 165; Chaix, Apoll. Sid. i. 419;Fauriel, i. 403.3 Krusch. Praef. in Faustum, p. liv.;Sidon. Carm. xvi.; Gennad. de Scrip.Eccl. 85.Sid. Carm. xvi . 111; Ep. vi. 1 .5 Carm. xvi. 115; Gennad. de Scrip.Eccl. 63.6 Carm. xvi. 115; Gennad. de Scrip.Eccl. 69.CHAP. IV SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS 181build or renovate churches,' to redeem the captive among thebarbarians, to relieve the miseries of the lower classes whowere suffering from the disorder and insecurity caused by theinvasions. He had also the authority derived from rank, andthe social tact which made him able to defend his flock againstthe violence of the German chiefs, or the not less dreadedoppression of the Roman officials. Sometimes a high-mindedaristocrat might accept the office from a sense of duty to thepopulation among whom he lived. Sometimes it was forcedupon him by their clamour.2 But the correspondence ofSidonius leaves no doubt that the episcopal chair was often anobject of ambition and intrigue of the lowest kind.At anelection to the vacant see of Châlons in 470, there were threecandidates supported by rival factions.3 One was a man of nocharacter, but of ancient lineage. Another was an Apiciuswho had bought the support of a party by the skill of hiscook. A third had promised his supporters, in case of hiselection, their reward out of the estates of the see. Althoughthe election of a bishop in those days was still in theory by thepopular voice, the presiding bishops of the province exercised apreponderant influence; and in this case, to the confusion of therival partisans , Patiens and his episcopal colleagues braved allclamour, and laid their hands on the Archdeacon John, amodest man, who had no support, except from his own blameless character. At another election, to the see of Bourges,Sidonius himself presided. He found a great number of rivalcandidates, among whose claims the people were hopelesslydivided, and one of whom had actually used bribery to gainsupport. At their request he undertook to nominate a personfor the sacred office, and he justified his choice in a haranguewhich is a very valuable relic of the times. Sidonius, puttingaside all the popular candidates, gave his voice for a certainSimplicius, who was not then in Holy Orders, but a soldier,and a man of great official rank and wealth, whose characterwas highly respected, and who had proved his devotion by1 As Patiens of Lyons did , Sid. Ep.ii. 10; cf. Fertig, iii. p. 36, and Per- petuus of Tours, Sid. Ep. iv. 18; cf. Greg. Tur. ii. 14. The latter gives the dimensions of the Basilica minutely.2 Cf. Sid. Ep. iv. 24: Life of S.Ambrose by Paulinus, c. iii.3 Sid. Ep. iv. 25.Ib. vii. 9. Note the words: nequeenim valuissemus aliquid in communeconsulere, nisi judicii sui faciens plebs lenita jacturam, sacerdotali se potius judicio subdidisset.182 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IImunificence in the cause of the Church.¹ The nominee ofSidonius was accepted apparently without a murmur.The aristocratic bishop may not have been a learnedtheologian, but he often showed himself the man for the times,by great qualities of leadership and by princely generosity.Sidonius himself, as bishop of Auvergne, more than atonedby his courage and devotion for the literary vanity andfrivolity of his early life. The Gothic power had closed roundhis native district, which proudly maintained a hopelessresistance.2 Ecdicius, a son of Avitus, and brother- in-law ofthe bishop, raised and equipped an armed force at his ownexpense, and performed prodigies of valour against the Goths.But the attacks were renewed again and again. The walls ofAuvergne were crumbling, and famine was threatening thedefenders.³ While Ecdicius headed the sorties against theenemy, Sidonius by his high spirit and his eloquence sustainedand animated the courage of his flock. As a Catholic, nodoubt he was fighting to ward off the encroachments ofintolerant Arianism.¹ But the indignant tone in which heupbraids the bishop who finally surrendered the liberties ofAuvergne to Euric, reveals the passionate patriotism of the Celtand the pride of the Roman noble." His generosity was equalto his courage. Gregory of Tours had heard a tale of thegood bishop selling his silver plate to relieve the necessities ofhis flock. Another bishop, Patiens of Lyons, was famous inhis time throughout all Gaul for his princely liberality. Whenthe crops in his diocese had been burnt up in the ravages ofthe Goths, he sent supplies, at his own cost, among thefamishing population. His waggons, laden with grain, crowded61 Sid. Ep. vii. 9, hic vobis ecclesiam juvenis miles • . extruxit.2 Ib. iii. 3; the character ofEcdicius is one of the noblest of hisclass. He had not only a high militaryspirit which was rare among the noblesof the period, but he was a man of lavish generosity. Like BishopPatiens he fed the starving people ofBurgundy at his own expense; v. Greg.Tur. ii. 24.3 Ep. vii. 7, macri jejuniis prae- liatores.4 For the massacre or expulsion ofCatholic bishops by Euric see Sid. Ep.vii. 6, regem Gothorum quamquamsit ob virium merita terribilis, non tamRomanis moenibus quam legibus Chris- tianis insidiaturum pavesco; Greg.Tur. H. Fr. ii. 25.5 Ep. vii. 7, to Graecus, bishop of Marseilles. This letter shows Sidoniusat his best, both in spirit and in style;cf. Fertig, Sid. ii . p. 11 .6 Hist. Franc. ii. 22.7 Sid. Ep. vi. 12; cf. Greg. Tur.Hist. Fr. ii. 24. Fertig (ii . 25) points out that Gibbon notices the charity of Ecdicius in this famine, but makes no mention of the similar generosity of Patiens the bishop. Gregory gives alarger place to Ecdicius.CHAP. IV SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS 183all the roads, and his barges were seen everywhere along theSaône and the Rhone.¹ Arles and Riez, Avignon and Orange,Viviers and Valence, were supported by his bounty. He wasalso, like Perpetuus of Tours, a great church builder andrestorer. Sidonius has celebrated the splendour of marblesand gold which he lavished on his new basilica at Lyons.32The Gallic bishops of that day were not less distinguishedfor learning and eloquence than for munificence and power ofleadership. The pulpit in the fifth century was a greatforce, and the great prelates were generally great preachers.Not the least celebrated orator of his time was S. Remi, theapostle of the Franks, whose style Sidonius praises in languageof ingenious and alliterative exaggeration, and whose declamations were eagerly read and transcribed in Auvergne. Therhetoric of the great bishop of Rheims is known to us onlyby the words of his famous appeal to Clovis at his baptism ."A similar fate has befallen the writings of Euphronius ofAutun, who had a great reputation for theological learning,and was the author of a memoir on the prodigies of theterrible year of Attila's invasion. No prelate of that agerendered more various and splendid service than Lupus ofTroyes, in his episcopate extending over half a century. Herose to be abbot of Lérins in his early manhood. In the firstyears of his episcopate he accompanied S. Germanus on amission against the Pelagian heresy in Britain.8 It wasbelieved that his sanctity and dignity had saved Troyesfrom the fury of Attila. He was also a student with afine library, and Sidonius had a great respect for his literaryjudgment. His eloquence seemed to his contemporaries to1 Sid. Ep. vi. 12, vidimus angustas tuis frugibus vias.2 Ib. ii. 10. On Perpetuus cf. iv. 18.3 See also the verses composed by Sidonius on the new basilica at Tours,built by Perpetuus, Ep. iv. 18; and its description, Greg. Tur. ii . 14. It is uncertain to whom Patiens dedicatedhis church at Lyons. Cf. Chaix,Apoll. Sid. i . 32; Migne's note to ii. 10. Patiens built churches inmany other places, Sid. Ep. vi. 12,omitto per te plurimis locis basilicarum fundamenta consurgere.Sid. Ep. ix. 7. An Avernian ona visit to the north had managed tobring a copy of S. Remi's Declamations back from Rheims, and presented it to his bishop, who read it aloud to an admiring circle.Greg. Tur. ii. 31 , adora quod incendisti; incende quod adorasti.Gregory notices the rhetoric.ii.6 Sid. Ep. ix. 2; cf. Chaix, Sid. Ap.Idat. Chron. ad a. 451. p. 75;7 Sid. Ep. vii. 13; viii . 11 .8 Acta S. Jul. quoted in Index Pers.to Mommsen's ed. of Sidonius, p. 429;cf. Prosp. Chron. ad a. 429.184 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK II8recall the golden age of Gallic rhetoric.¹ Faustus of Riez wasthe greatest and the most daring thinker among the Churchmen of his time. Like Pelagius, he was a native of Britain.2From his early youth he was devoted to the study ofphilosophy, nor did he abandon it when he became a monkof Lérins. After being head of that community, he succeeded Maximus, his predecessor in the abbacy at Lérins, asbishop of Riez. He was a man of the most saintly life, and inhis days of fame and power he never relaxed the abstinenceand austerity of the monastic discipline. His sermon, at theconsecration of the new basilica at Lyons, carried away hisaudience. Yet he was the great heretic of the day, and therecognised leader of the powerful semi- Pelagian school inSouthern Gaul. His work on Free Grace was assailed withferocious clamour, and was condemned by Pope Gelasius. *But his aberrations from the strict line of orthodoxy wereeven more serious. He maintained, in a work published anonymously, that the soul was a corporeal substance, and that toattribute an immaterial nature to it was to invest it with aquality which belongs only to God. This heresy was indeednot a novelty. It had been expounded by Tertullian; it hadfound support from S. Jerome and Cassian , and it seemedto S. Augustine to demand a serious and elaborate refutation.9The treatise of Faustus drew forth a reply from MamertusClaudianus, which, in its subtlety and formal elaboration ofproof, has the tone and atmosphere of the scholastic theologyof the Middle Ages. Claudian's treatise de Statu Animaewas dedicated to Sidonius, and the honour was acknowledgedin a letter 10 which leaves a grave doubt whether the goodbishop understood the question at issue. He has a genuineadmiration for Mam. Claudianus, although it is expressed in1 Sid. Ep. viii. 11 , § 2.2 Ib. ix. 9, legi volumina tua quae Riochatus ... Britannis tuis pro tereportat; v. Krusch. Praef. liv.; cf.Gennad. de Scrip. Eccl. 85.3 Sid. Ep. ix. 3, cum novae dignitatis obtentu rigorem veteris disciplinae non relaxaveris.Krusch. Praef. lix. For specimensof his preaching, v. Sermones ad Monachos, Migne, t. lviii. , esp. ii .and iv.v. Ep. prefixed to Mam. Claudian.7 8de Statu An.; Ep. xx. in the collected Ep. of Faustus.Tertull. de An. c. 5, 7.7 Hieron. Com. in Libr. Job, 25.8 Cassian, Collat. vii . 13, licet enimpronuntiemus nonnullas esse spiritales naturas, ut sunt angeli etc. , ipsa quoque anima nostra vel certa aer iste subtilis,tamen incorporeae nullatenus aestiman- dae sunt.Nourrisson, La Philosophie de S.Augustin, t. i. p. 170.10 Sid. Ep. iv . 3.CHAP. IV SOCIETY OF APOLLINARIS SIDONIUS 185language of absurd extravagance. But there is not a hint inhis letters that he regarded Faustus with any feeling but thatof the greatest esteem and affection. It must be said to thehonour of Sidonius, that he chose and loved his friends fortheir character, quite apart from their opinions; and he seemsto have had an impartial regard for both the combatants inthis controversy.2The great value of Sidonius to the historical student is thathe is so broad and tolerant, and that his charity embraces somany men of various character and ideals. He has even agood word for the Jews, as men and apart from their faith.¹His own disposition would naturally incline him to admire theprince bishop, with noble ancestry and a taste for letters.But he has a profound reverence for the ascetic fervour ofthose who withdrew from the world to the monastic life, or tothe greater loneliness of the hermitage in the forest. He hadvisited Faustus at Lérins, and seen with admiration the spiritand discipline of that great society. In one of his poemshe celebrates the Iona of the Mediterranean, as we may callit, whose arid sands had been the home of Honoratus, Eucher,and Hilary, all great luminaries of the Church of Gaul in hisearly youth. He sends an account of an episcopal election toDomnulus, who had retired to one of the monasteries in theJura. In another letter he acknowledges the affectionatesympathy of an abbot named Chariobaudus,5 and sends hima cowl to protect him against the chills of the midnight service.Close to his own episcopal town of Auvergne, a solitary fromthe East had settled in a hermitage. He had suffered persecution in his native country on the Euphrates; thence he hadpassed into Egypt, and lived among the hermits of the Thebaid.He was a man of superhuman sanctity, and men believed thathe had superhuman powers.give sight to the blind, heal31 Sid. Ep. iii . 4, Gozolas natione Ju- daeus, cujus mihi quoque esset persona cordi, si non esset secta despectui.Gozolas carried his letters; cf. iv. 5.2 lb. ix. 3; v. Germain's Sid. Apoll.p. 148, n. 5.3 Carm. xvi. 91. Honoratus andHilary became bishops of Arles, and Eucher, bishop of Lyons.4 Ep. iv. 25, nunc ergo Jurensia si6He could put demons to flight,marvellously inveterate disease.te remittunt jam monasteria, in quae solitus escendere jam caelestibus super- nisque praeludis habitaculis, etc.; cf. Greg. Tur. vit. Patrum, i. For themonasteries in the Jura, cf. Chaix, ii .218.5 Ep. vii. 16.6 Ib. vii. 17; Greg. Tur. Hist.Fr. ii. 21 , and vit. Patrum, iii.186 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIHis powerful personality drew others like-minded to him.Amonastery was built which became the centre of high religiousfeeling in Auvergne. Thither came the bishop for calm andmeditation in the tempest of the Gothic invasion. WhenAuvergne had yielded to the Goth, thither came Euric'sgovernor, the Count Victorius, and on high festivals themonastery offered its modest hospitality to the great nobles.and officials of the district.¹ But the good abbot was at lengthworn out with care and austerity, and when he was on his dyingbed, Victorius the governor bent over him weeping, to close hiseyes. His bishop wrote his elegy, in which, through all thepedantry, we catch the tones of a real reverence and affectionfor a saintly life.This is not a history of the religious life of the time. Ourmain theme is rather the manners and tone of the caste whothought far more of Virgil and Statius than of S. John or S.Paul. Yet it would be a very maimed and misleading view ofthe age of Sidonius which confined itself to the gay countryhouse life of Avitacum or Prusianum, and ignored the greatspiritual movements, the fearless quest of truth, the worldforgetting piety, which, when society seemed sinking into theabyss, were the promise of a new and better time. In Sidoniusthe old and the new order meet. He thought himself aRoman of the Romans, the last champion of an immemorialculture threatened by the rising tide of barbarism.2 He endedhis life as a devoted Christian pastor who still clung to thegreat traditions of ancient Rome, but had learned to believe inthe grander mission of the Christian Church.¹ Greg. Tur. vit. Patrum, iii. Gregory narrates how, on one of these occasions,the guests were miraculously supplied with wine.2 Sid. Ep. ii . 10, tantum increbuit multitudo desidiosorum , ut, nisi velpaucissimi quique meram Latiarislinguae proprietatem de trivialiumbarbarismorum rubigine vindicaveritis,eam brevi abolitam defleamus interitamque; sic omnes nobilium sermonumpurpurae per incuriam vulgi decolo- rabuntur.BOOK IIITHE FAILURE OF ADMINISTRATION, AND THERUIN OF THE MIDDLE CLASS, AS REVEALED BY THE THEODOSIAN CODE

CHAPTER ITHE DISORGANISATION OF THE PUBLIC SERVICEWE have hitherto been occupied with the condition ofRoman society in the West as it is revealed to us in its literaryremains. But Symmachus, Ausonius, Sidonius and their classthrow little light on the condition of other classes than theirown, or on the deep-seated and inveterate diseases which forgenerations had been undermining the strength of the imperialsystem. The general tendency of modern inquiry has been todiscover in the fall of that august and magnificent organisation,not a cataclysm, precipitated by the impact of barbarous forces,but a process slowly prepared and evolved by internal andeconomic causes. It is probable that the barbarian invasionsof the fifth century were not more formidable than those of thethird, which were triumphantly repelled by the Illyrian Caesars,or than those of the fourth, which were rolled back by thegenius of Julian and the ferocious energy of Valentinian.The question why the invasions of the fifth century succeeded,while the earlier failed, is best answered by an appeal to theImperial Code. In the voluminous enactments issued fromConstantine to Majorian, the student has before him a melancholy diagnosis of the maladies which, by a slow and inevitableprocess of decay, were exhausting the strength of Romansociety. He will see municipal liberty and self-governmentdying out, the upper class cut off from the masses by sharpdistinctions of wealth and privilege, yet forbidden to bear arms,¹1 Aurel. Vict. de Caes. c. 33, Gallienus primus ipse, metu sacordiae suae, ne imperium ad optimos nobiliumtransferretur, senatum militia vetuit,etiam adire exercitum; C. Th. xv.15, 1.190 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIand deprived of all practical interest in public affairs.Hewill find that not only has an Oriental monarchy taken theplace of the principate of Augustus, but that an almostOriental system of caste has made every social grade and everyoccupation practically hereditary, from the senator to the waterman on the Tiber, or the sentinel at a frontier post; and thathuman nature is having its revenge in wholesale flight from acruel servitude and the chaos of administration. It will beseen that in a society in which poverty is almost brandedwith infamy, poverty is steadily increasing and wealth becomingmore insolent and aggressive; that the disinherited, in the faceof an omnipotent government, are carrying brigandage even upto the gates of Rome; that parents are selling their childreninto slavery; that public buildings are falling into decay; thatthe service on the great post roads is becoming disorganised.At a time when every frontier was threatened , it will be foundthat the frontier posts are being abandoned, that there is wholesale desertion from the ranks of the army; while in the failureof free recruits, the slaves have to be called to arms. But theunscientific and inefficient financial system will chiefly attractthe notice of the historical inquirer. The collection of impostsin kind opened the door to every species of corruption. Stillmore fatal to pure administration was the system which leftto the municipal class the assessment and collection ofthe revenue in their district. That doomed order are at oncebranded as the worst oppressors, and invested with themelancholy glory of being the martyrs of a ruinous systemof finance. Their lingering fate, recorded in 192 edicts,3a tragedy prolonged through more than five generations, is oneof the most curious examples of obstinate and purblind legislation, contending hopelessly with inexorable laws of societyand human nature. In that contest the middle or bourgeois.class was almost extinguished , Roman financial administrationwas paralysed, and at its close the real victors and survivors1 See M. Duruy's Memoire on Ho- nestiores and Humiliores in the laterEmpire, in Hist. Rom. vi. 643.2 Salv. de Gub. Dei, v. 18; cf. iii. 50. M. F. de Coulanges (L'Inv.Germ. p. 58, n. 1 ) says: On remar- quera que Salvien accuse moins les fonctionnaires impériaux que les magistrats municipaux. Yet cf. de Gub.Dei, iv. 21 , quid est aliud quorundam ,quos taceo, praefectura quam praeda?V. 25, quibus enim aliis rebusBacaudae facti sunt nisi . . . improbitatibus judicum, etc.3 C. Th. xii . tit. i.CHAP. 1 DISORGANISATION OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE 191were the great landholders, surrounded by their serfs anddependants. A volume might be written on the corruptionand cruel oppression of the officials of the treasury, servile tothe great, tyrannical to the poor, and calmly defying all themenaces of the emperor in their unchecked career of rapacity.The last and deepest impression which the inquirer will carrywith him, as he rises from a study of the Theodosian Code, isthat fraud and greed are everywhere triumphant, that the richare growing richer and more powerful, while the poor arebecoming poorer and more helpless, and that the imperialgovernment, inspired with the best intentions, has lost allcontrol of the vast machine.Yet amid all the perverse errors of legislation and thehopeless corruption of the financial service, the candid readerof the Code cannot help feeling that the central authority waskeenly alive to its duties, and almost overwhelmed by itsresponsibilities. It is a superficial view of the time whichdwells on the weakness of a Honorius, a Valentinian, or anAnthemius. The Emperor was, indeed, in theory omnipotent;but as a matter of fact he had to depend on his officials, bothto advise his decisions and to carry them out. He wasassisted by a council of experienced men of high official rank,¹some of whom had probably governed great provinces, and whoknew the Roman world, if any men did. Moreover, it is plain,from the very wording of many of the rescripts, 2 that theywere suggested by the prefect or governor to whom theyare addressed; and one can hardly be wrong in believing thatin many of these last efforts of Roman statesmanship, sosympathetic, so strangely rhetorical, so full at times ofhonest indignation, we may have the report of a conscientiousgovernor returned to him in the imperative form of an edict.The minute and circ*mstantial description of oppression andwrong could hardly have come from any one who had notheard the tale from the sufferers themselves.3 Occasionally,1 The Council was called consistorium, the members proceres, consili- arii, comites consistoriani. Constantine organised this body and increased its numbers; cf. Amm. Marc. xv. 5,12; xxxi. 12, 10; C. Just. xii . 10, 1;C. Th. vi. 12; cf. F. de Coulanges,L'Inv. Germ. p. 13; Duruy, vi. 574.2 Wefrequently meet such phrases as Sublimis Excellentiae tuae saluberrimam suggestionem secuti; cf. Nov. Th.45, 47.3 Cf. several of the Novellae addressed to Albinus, e.g. Nov. Th. 22, andthe description of the fraud and violence of the discussores, Nov. Valent. 7.192 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIthough seldom it is to be feared, such complaints came directlyto the ears of the Emperor. The mass of legislation for therelief of the province of Africa in the reign of Honorius wasthe result of at least two deputations commissioned to represent its grievances; and so determined was the Emperor toremedy the abuses complained of, that he appointed two of themost experienced and illustrious ex- prefects with full powersto deal with the disorders of the province.26663"The Roman world had for ages regarded the Emperor asan earthly Providence; and to the end such was the conception of their office which was entertained even by the weakestemperors. Valentinian proclaims that it is his business toprovide for the peace and tranquillity of the provinces "; ¹Anthemius says that he is called " to face the storms of overwhelming calamities. ” 5 ' It is our care," says the EmperorMartian, " to provide for the welfare of the human race."Yet there are in the later edicts many signs of conscious weakness. Their tone is frequently argumentative and rhetorical.There is an absence of the trenchant brevity with whichConstantine or the elder Valentinian were wont to declaretheir will. It is singular to find an edict against Jews,Samaritans, and pagans opening with an argument for thebeing of a God." Elsewhere we meet with philosophical reflections on the innate criminal tendencies of human nature,sthe hopeless selfishness of the rich, or on the functions ofgovernment. The Emperor Majorian in one law describes,with great vividness and passionate force, as if for posterity,the crushing weight of taxation and the hopeless position ofThe emperors Gratian and Valentinian permitted the provinces, after due deliberation, to send three dele- gates to represent their case to the government, C. Th. xii. 12, 7. The Curiales and Defensores sometimestried to prevent the appeal of the provincials, xi. 8, 3; ix. 26 , 2, withGodefroy's note. The deputation from Africa is mentioned, xii. 1 , 166. Cf.xii. 6, 27; Sym. Ep. iv. p. 46,recommending a similar deputation from Campania, in 395; C. Th. xi.28, 2.2 Ib. vii. 4, 33.See F. de Coulanges, La Gaule Rom. pp. 177 sqq.4 Nov. Valent. tit. viii. ad init.5 Leg. Anthem. tit. i.6 Nov. Mart. ii . , curae nobis estutilitati humani generis providere:nam id die ac nocte prospicimus utuniversi qui sub nostro imperio vivuntet armarum praesidio ab hostili impetu muniantur, ac in pace libero otio ac securitate potiantur.7 Nov. Th. iii . , quis enim tam mente captus, etc. 8 Nov. Valent. v. , noxiae mentescaeco semper in facinus furore rapi untur.9 Nov. Th. xxi. , domesticis tantumcompendiis obsequentes bonum com- mune destituunt.CHAP. I DISORGANISATION OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE 193the farmer. Many of these edicts betray the style of theschool rhetorician, and yet there is in many of them the ringof genuine sympathy for misery, which the imperial authormore than half confesses that he is impotent to relieve. It isimpossible to read some of these laws in which the Emperordescribes " the agitations and anxieties of his serene mind, "without a feeling that he is probably the man most to be pitiedin the Empire." 2Of all departments of administration, probably none causedthe Emperor greater anxiety than that concerned with thefood- supplies of the capital. To provide corn, pork, wine, andoil for the populace had for ages been one of the first tasksof the government. Howdangerous any failure in this department might be to the peace of the city, and the safety of theupper classes, we can see clearly in the letters of Symmachus. *While the Goths were marching through Samnium and Bruttium, or Gildo or Heraclian were stopping the corn- fleets , orthe Vandals were occupying the ports of Africa, the government had to provide the daily subsistence of a greatpopulation. An army of public servants incorporated inhereditary guilds, Navicularii, Pistores, Suarii, Pecuarii, werecharged with the duty of bringing up supplies and preparingthem for consumption. It is evident, from the legislation ofHonorius," that the stress on this department was very severein the early part of his reign, owing to the troubles of theGildonic revolt in Africa, and again from the famine of 410.But the difficulty reappears more than once in the laws ofsubsequent years. One of the hardest tasks of the government was to prevent the members of these guilds fromdeserting or evading their hereditary obligations. It is well1 Nov. Maj. tit. iv.52 Nov. Th. and Valent. 51, quae ergohis angustiis remedia providenda sunt mens nostrae Serenitatis exaestuat.3 Marq. Rom. Staatsverwaltung, ii.133. The chief authorities for the distribution of oil, wine, and flesh- meat are Aug. Hist. vit. Sep. Sev. 23,Alex. Sev. 22, 26, Aurelian. 48, C. Th.xiv. 24, 1 , with Godefroy's notes;C. Th. xiv. 4, 3.4 Sym. Ep. vi. 18, 26, 12.5 Id. Rel. 14, noverat (Aeternitas vestra) horum corporum ministeriotantae urbis onera sustineri. Hic lanatipecoris invector est, ille ad victum populi cogit armentum, hos suillaecarnis tenet functio, pars urenda lavacris ligna conportat, etc. Cf.Paratitl. of Godefroy to C. Th. xiv. tit.2 and 4; Wallon, Hist. de l'Esclavage,iii . 173.6 C. Th. xiii. 5, 34, 35; Zos. vi. 11 ,describes the effect of the closing ofthe African ports by Heraclian, Xuòsἐνέσκηψε τῇ πόλει χαλεπώτερος τοῦ προτέρου.7 Nov. Th. 39, 40.194 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIknown that the tendency of the later Empire was to stereotypesociety, by compelling men to follow the occupation of theirfathers, and preventing a free circulation among differentcallings and grades of life. The man who brought the grainof Africa to the public stores at Ostia, the baker who madeit into loaves for distribution, the butchers who brought pigsfrom Samnium, Lucania, or Bruttium , the purveyors of wineand oil, the men who fed the furnaces of the public baths, werebound to their callings from one generation to another.¹ Itwas the principle of rural serfdom applied to social functions.Every avenue of escape was closed. A man was bound tohis calling not only by his father's but by his mother'scondition. Men were not permitted to marry out of theirguild. If the daughter of one of the baker caste married aman not belonging to it, her husband was bound to herfather's calling. Not even a dispensation obtained by somemeans from the imperial chancery, not even the power ofthe Church could avail to break the chain of servitude.The corporati, it is true, had certain privileges, exemptions,and allowances, and the heads of some of the guilds mightbe raised to the rank of " Count." But their property, liketheir persons, was at the mercy of the State.s If they partedwith an estate, it remained liable for the service with whichthe vendor was charged.67To maintain such a system, and to counteract the endlessattempts at evasion and corruption to which its galling restraints.gave rise, required constant vigilance, which was as constantlydefeated. The navicularii seem to have exceeded the veryliberal allowance of time for their voyage, which was, underspecial circ*mstances, extended to two years. While the citywas on the verge of famine, or when supplies were urgently1 Wallon, iii. p. 174. C. Th. xiii.5, 35, universos quos naviculariae con- ditioni obnoxios invenit antiquitas,praedictae functioni conveniet famu- lari.2 C. Th. xiv. 4, 8, ad munus pristinum revocentur, tam qui paterno quam materno genere inveniuntur obnoxii.b. xiv. 3, 21.+ lb. xiv. 3, 14.5 lb. xiv. 3, 20, si quo casu, vel9occultis vel ambitiosis hoc precibus elicuerit, etc.; cf. 1. 21 , etiamsi nostra elicita fuerint aliqua subreptione re- scripta; cf. xiv. 3, 4.6 lb. xiv. 3, 11; cf. Nov. Th. 26.7 lb. xiv. 2; v. Paratitlon.8 lb. xiii. 6, 6; cf. 1. 9 , which recallsa navicular property to the function,even when the sale took place twenty years before.9 lb. xiii. 5 , 26; cf. 1. 21.CHAP. I DISORGANISATION OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE 195needed for the army in Gaul, the captains often lingered inport on any pretext, or made circuitous voyages in pursuitof their own profit. And the government was obliged toorder greater despatch, and to prohibit the practice of privatetrading in which captains engaged, to the disorganisation ofthe service. Sometimes the captains entered their shipsunder another name, probably that of some person of influence,in order to escape their responsibilities.3 The functionaries,whose duty it was to expedite transport, were bribed to winkat malversation or neglect. Estates liable for the functionwere withdrawn from it by fraudulent sales.¹ In the year4505 the guild of navicularii had been so reduced in numbersby the desertion of its members to other callings that theEmperor was obliged to order the restoration of all persons andestates to the function from which they had been withdrawn.Another edict of 455 orders the return to their various guildsof all corporati who have deserted their proper duties, in orderto enter the army or the church. A similar command hadbeen issued in 412 to all governors of provinces to compelthe return of all guildsmen of the city of Rome who hadmigrated from Italy. This law, however, refers not to thestealthy evasion of onerous functions, but to the wholesale flightof all ranks, which had taken place during the invasion ofAlaric, and of which we have such vivid accounts fromS. Jerome and Rutilius Namatianus.SThe effects of the Gothic invasion of Italy in the earlyyears of the fifth century have left many deep traces on theCode. We can almost hear the distant sound of the advancinghordes in some of the enactments issued during the years ofStilicho's ascendency. There are laws relating to every partof the military system, and every part is revealing weaknesses.During the period of the later Empire, landed proprietors had1 C. Th. xiii . 5, 34, a. 410 .Ib. xiii. 5, 33. The penalty was death.3 Ib. xiii. 7, 2, multi naves suasdiversorum (Potentum) nominibus et titulis tuentur.41b. xiii . 6, 1.5 Nov. Th. 38. The naviculariiamnici referred to were the boatmenwhoconveyed the supplies up the Tiber.6 lb. 26.7 C. Th. xiv. 2, 4; cf. xiv. 7, 2, ofthe same year, ordering the return of the nemesiaci, signiferi, cantabrarii,guilds connected with amusem*nts or pagan rites and processions. SeeGodefroy's note.8 Hieron. Ep. cxxviii. § 4, cxxx.§ 4; Rut. Nam. It. i . 331; Claudian.de Bell. Get. 217.196 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIto furnish recruits in proportion to the size of their estates.¹These must have been drawn from the class of coloni, sincethe strictly servile class was excluded from the Roman army.2The Code in these years shows that recruits were urgentlyneeded, not even the Emperor's own estates being exempted fromthe levy. Yet we know that, at the time of the Gildonic war,the senators exerted their whole strength as a body to resistthe call of the Emperor. And the result of their efforts isseen in the enactments of 397, which gave them the optionof paying twenty- five solidi for each recruit for whom theywere liable. The exclusion of senators from the army, andthe prohibition of ordinary citizens to carry arms, had produced their inevitable result. The military spirit had almostdied out among Romans. The army was swelled by corps ofbarbarian mercenaries, and the highest military commands wereheld by Germans. Ever since the third century the militaryprofession had been declining in the public esteem." Recruitswere branded on entering the service, as if they wereslaves in an ergastulum. The aversion to military service.appears to have been growing. Towards the end ofthe fourth century the practice of self- mutilation to escapeservice had become so common that it had to be checkedby the most cruel punishments. " In the years between396 and 412, Honorius issued nine edicts on desertion.and the concealment of deserters." The crime seems tohave prevailed in all parts of the Empire, but to have beenspecially rampant in Gaul and Africa. The agents of great1 F. de Coul. L'Inv. Germ. p. 145;C. Th. vii. 13, 7, of the year 375.2 C. Th. vii . 13 , 8. They arecoupled in this exclusion with cauponae, coqui, pistores, and persons employed in famosae tabernae.3 Ib. vii. 13, 12 , ideoque nepatrimonium quidem nostrum a praestatione (i.e. tironum) immune esse patimur.+ Sym. Ep. vi. 62, legati ordinis ex usu actis omnibus reverterunt.Nam et tironum conquievit indictio et argenti nobis facta gratia est; cf. Ep.vi. 64.5 C. Th. vii. 13, 13. In the law ofValens and Gratian of 375 the pretiumtironis was fixed at thirty- six solidi.The pretium fixed in the edict of 410 ,calling for recruits from the officialesjudicum of Africa, is thirty; C. Th.vii. 13, 20.6 Duruy, vii. p. 203.7 Godefroy's Paratitlon to C. Th.vii. t. 2, p. 254.8 C. Th. vii. 13, 4 and 5. That the proprietor from whose estate the recruitcame was sometimes a party to the crime is implied in the words, dominusejus qui non prohibet gravi condemna- tione feriatur.9 Ib. vii. 18, 9-17. For deserters in Gaul at an earlier period cf. Spart.vit. Pese. Nig. c. 3, desertores qui tunc innumeri Gallias vexabant, etc.CHAP. I DISORGANISATION OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE 197proprietors and the smaller farmers were evidently glad, evenin the face of very severe penalties, to shelter the abscondingsoldier on their estates for the sake of his labour.¹ Honoriusdoes not, like his predecessors in 382, threaten to burn theoffender alive.2 But the increasing emphasis of his laws,together with the organised search which he instituted, indicatesthe magnitude and inveteracy of the evil. Apparently proprietors or their agents were not deterred even by the danger ofconfiscation from disobeying laws so often repeated. For in440, when the growth of the Vandal power in Africa urgentlydemanded an increase of the army, Theodosius and ValentinianIII. were compelled to make the offence of concealing recruitsor deserters by agents or coloni punishable by death. Alongall the frontiers of the Empire forts and castles had forcenturies been erected , which were garrisoned by troops calledburgarii, who, like the guilds of the capital, were held ina species of hereditary servitude. Towards the end of thefourth century these frontier sentinels, especially in Gaul andSpain where their services were soon to be urgently needed,began to melt away. It is difficult to discover the influenceswhich led to their dispersion. But in the year 409 anenactment of Theodosius and Honorius discloses in a startlingway the denuded state of the frontier."In ordinary times slaves, along with tavern keepers, cooks,bakers, and persons following certain infamous callings, wereexcluded from the army.7 It must have been a dire extremitywhich forced the Emperor, contra hostiles impetus, to call theslaves to arms by the offer of a bounty and the promise ofemancipation. In the same year the free provincials everywhere are appealed to, by their pride in liberty and love ofcountry, to take arms." It was the year in which Radagaesus1. Th. vii. 18, 12, actorem conscium severo supplicio damnandum esse censemus.2 Ib. vii. 18, 6, flammis scelera puniantur.3 lb. vii. 18, 13.4 Nor. Th. 44.5 On the fortification of the limescf. vit . Hadrian, c. 12; on the defence of the Gallic frontier by Valentinian,Amm. Marc. xxviii. 2, 1; on theLimitanei Milites, with lands granted on condition of military service,vit. Alex. Sev. c. 58; C. Th. vii. 15, 1;Marq. Rom. Staatsverwaltung, ii. 591.6. Th. vii. 15, 1. 7 lb. vii. 13, 8.8 Ib. vii. 13, 16. This belongsto the year 406, as the names of the Coss. Arcadius and Probus show. Onthe date of the invasion of Radagaesuscf. Godefroy on C. Th. vii. 13, 16;Gibbon, c. 30; Prosp. Chron.; Zos. v. 26.9 C. Th. vii. 13, 17. They are pro- mised ten solidi pacatis rebus. Thebounty offered to slaves in 1. 16 is two solidi.198 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIwith his Scythian army of 200,000 men swept down fromthe Alps on Lombardy and Tuscany. Only once before hadRome been driven to put arms in the hands of her slaves, torepel the advance of Hannibal after the battle of Cannae. ' Theurgency of the crisis is also seen in a law of 404, peremptorilyrequiring all possessores to contribute their share to thepreparation and transport of supplies for the army, under apenalty of four times the amount due by them, without anyexemption even for the Emperor's own estates.3At a time when the rapid movement of troops and government officials was a matter of the first importance, the greatroads and the posting service seem to have been getting intoa bad state. There are more than ten edicts of Honorius onthis subject from 395. In another passage of the Code theEmperor says that the ruinous condition, into which the highways of the Italian prefecture have fallen, demands the exertions of all classes for their repair, and he withdraws theimmunity from this burden which former laws had conferredon the officials of " illustrious " rank. The regulations for theuse of the imperial post had received close attention fromJulian and Theodosius. " A special corps of imperial officerscalled curiosi were charged with the duty of seeing that theserules were not infringed. But successive edicts show thedifficulty of enforcing them. Honorius had once more toprohibit the abuse of the service. Even officers of illustriousrank had the privilege of using the cursus publices withdrawnfrom them, unless they were specially summoned by theEmperor. The magistri militum are warned that withoutspecial leave they will usurp the privilege at their peril."The prefect of the city who has done so is told not to repeathis offence.10 The use of imperial post-horses on cross roads is1 Liv. xxii. 57.2 C. Th. vii . 5, 2, in excoctionebucellati (soldier's bread), in translatione etiam annonae nullius excipiaturpersona, videlicet ut ne nostra quidem Domus ab his habeatur immunis; a.404.3 Yet Apollinaris Sidonius travelled easily by the public service in the year455; Ep. i. 5, publicus cursus usui fuit utpote sacris apicibus accito.C. Th. viii. 5 , 53-65.5 lb. xv. 3, 4, propter immensas vastitates viarum, certatim studiacunctorum ad reparationem publici aggeris volumus festinare; a. 399.6 Ib. viii. 5, 12-16; viii. 5 , 46 s7-7 lb. vi. tit. 29.8 lb. viii. 5, 54.9 lb. viii . 5, 56.10 Ib. viii. 5, 55. Florentinus wasone of the friends of Symmachus; Ep.iv. 50, 50; Seeck, cxli.CHAP. I DISORGANISATION OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE 1994prohibited under a heavy fine.¹ From the words of the law of401 , this was evidently becoming a grievous abuse, and a heavyburden to the provincials, who had to provide additional horses tomeet the strain. One can well imagine that, in those troubledyears, persons hurrying to remote districts, to look after theirprivate affairs, would by bribes, or by the illegitimate influenceof rank, obtain from the officials of the post facilities of travelling which were fatal to the regularity of the governmentservice, and onerous to the provincials. At the same timethere are indications that the efficiency of the service wasdeclining. An edict of 404 implies that there was a failurein the supply of servants and officials on the great roads.3 InGaul and Spain the muleteers were being stealthily withdrawn *or liberated by the higher officials from the function to whichthey were bound. The animals in the public stables werenot being properly fed, owing to the dishonesty of those incharge. Corruption had crept into every grade of the service,and in one law the heads of the department are ordered tocease from their exactions and conform to the rules of the ancientdiscipline. The body of civil servants styled curiosi, as we havesaid, had as their chief function the superintendence of theposting service on the great roads, specially with the object ofpreventing the abuse of the privilege of erectio. In addition tothis, they were expected to visit remote districts, and keep thegovernment informed of any suspicious movements among thepopulation. It is evident that a police of this kind in times ofconfusion was open to dangerous abuse. As a matter of factthese officers became so venal and oppressive that they hadto be removed at one stroke from the province of Africa in414.968The withdrawal of the curiosi from Dalmatia and the1 C. Th. viii. 5, 59.2 Ib. viii. 5, 63, quoniam multos perspeximus inlicita praesumptioneparaveredos vel parangarias postulare,etc.3 lb. viii. 5, 65. The mancipescursus publici, by a law ofGratian, couldbe absent from their station only forthirty days in the year, viii . 5, 36;cf. I. 51. They were servi publici,viii. 5 , 58.4 Ib. viii. 5, 50, 58.5 Ib. viii. 5, 58, ideoque Judex qui sibi hoc vindicaverit, ut servum publicum liberet, unam lib . auri per hominessingulos, officium quoque ejus, si legemsupprimendo consenserit, simili poena multetur.6 Ib. viii . 5 , 60.7 Ib. vi. 29, 9.8 Ib. vi. 29, 6, in which their functions are defined.9 Ib. vi. 29, 11.200 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK III2adjoining regions in 4151 throws an interesting light onthe state of the country and the public service. Duringthe stormy years of Alaric's incursions, numbers of peoplein the districts through which he passed were driven fromtheir homes. Some fled to less disturbed parts of theprovince, and put themselves under the protection of the greatproprietors, by whom they were often detained in a species.of servitude. Others took refuge in the islands which dot theupper part of the Adriatic. In the year 4103 the EmperorTheodosius, probably in pursuance of a compact with Honorius,ordered a strict watch to be kept in all the ports ofDalmatia, to prevent any person not provided with letters fromthe Roman government from entering his dominions.measure was taken expressly on account of the usurpationsof Attalus and Constantine, and the occupation of the Westernprovinces by the barbarians. To make this embargo effectual,Honorius distributed curiosi along the various points of communication between East and West, and these officers grosslyabused their power by preventing people from seeking placesof greater security, or by extorting bribes for permission todo so. The evil became so intolerable that by an order of415 the curiosi were peremptorily removed from the districtswhich were plagued with such dangerous surveillance.54ThisBrigandage had long been a menacing evil in the Westernworld. Even in the middle of the fourth century thecountry districts of Italy had become so unsafe that throughout seven provinces the use of horses was forbidden, notonly to coloni and shepherds, but to proprietors, withspecified exceptions, and their agents. At all times theshepherds of Samnium, Picenum, and Apulia were a wildand lawless race, and easily passed into the ranks of thebanditti who pillaged the remote sheep farms or infestedthe high roads leading to the capital. And the bailiffs1 C. Th. vi. 29, 12. On the import- ance of Dalmatia at this time see anexcellent note of Godefroy's on this law.2 Cf. ib. v. 5, 2.3 Ib. vii. 16, 2.4 Ib. vii. 16, 2, hoc enim ettyrannici furoris et barbaricae feritatis occasio persuadet; v. Godefroy.·5 Ib. vi. 29, 12; v. Godefroy's note.6 lb. ix. 30, 1 and 2, a. 364.Brigandage existed in Aquitaine in the time of Ausonius ( Ep. iv. 23 ) . Cf. Sym.ii. 22, sed nunc intuta est latrociniis sub- urbanitas.7 Cf. C. Th. ix. 31 , 1 , si veroquisquam nutriendos pastoribus (filios suos), societatem latronum videbitur confiteri.CHAP. I DISORGANISATION OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE 201But theof the great estates appear to have been often in leaguewith the brigands, whose spoils they shared, and to whomthey gave facilities for concealment. A law of 383 threatensthem with " flammae ultrices " for this crime.¹ In 391 theright of using arms, which by earlier laws was denied tocivilians, was granted to all persons against brigands. In aletter of Symmachus about this time, he tells a friend thathis usual migration to his country seat in Campania wasprevented by the prevalence of brigandage in the neighbourhood of Rome. In an edict of 399 Honorius refuses theright of using horses, so necessary to their occupation, to theshepherds of Valeria and Picenum. The feeling about thistemptation of the shepherd's life is curiously illustrated bya law of 409, which warns all curiales, plebeians, andpossessores against sending their sons to be nursed amongshepherds. The terms of the edict imply that shepherdand brigand had come to be almost synonymous.bands of outlaws were recruited in Italy and Gaul fromanother class, of whom something has already been said. Thecountry districts seem to have been infested by men who haddeserted from the standards, and who, in hiding from theofficers of the law, betook themselves to plunder for support.Full power to crush these dangerous criminals is given to theprovincials in a law of 403,6 which classes deserters withlatrones; and the edict of 4067 orders the Pretorian prefectto inflict capital punishment on fugitive soldiers who havebetaken themselves to this life of crime. From some later partsof the Code, which are supported by other authorities, therecan be no doubt that the barbarian invasions let loose agreat mass of desperadoes on the countries through which theinvaders passed. Poor men who had lost everything werealmost forced to join the gangs of marauders who swept overthe country. To open a way for such persons to return to an1 C. Th. ix. 29, 2.2 lb. ix. 14, 2.3 Ep. ii . 22.C. Th. ix. 30, 5; v. Godefroy on this law.5 lb. ix. 31 , 1.6 Ib. vii. 18, 14, cuncti etenim adversus latrones publicos desertoresque militiae jus sibi sciant pro quietecommuni exercendae publicae ultionisindultum. This law is a great con- fession of weakness in the government,cf. ix. 14, 2.7 Ib. vii. 18, 15.8 Cf. Salv. de Gub. Dei, v. § 24, c. 6;cf. Apoll. Sid. Ep. vi. 4, where a womanhas been carried off bythe Vargi. For brigandage in Gaul in 369 cf. Amm.Marc. xxviii. 2, 10; and Oros. vii. 25,2. On the Scamarae in Noricum cf.202 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIorderly life, the Emperor in 416¹ proclaimed a generalamnesty for all this class of offences, for which he finds anexcuse in the overwhelming calamities of the time.In general the signs of growing impoverishment becomemore and more frequent, and the tone of the later edictsshows how deeply the Roman statesmen were impressed by themisery of the lower classes. A terrible famine, which ragedthroughout Italy in 450, had actually driven many of thepoor to sell their children into slavery. An edict, issued onthe suggestion of Aetius, cancelled all such contracts, on repayment to the purchaser of the price which the parents hadaccepted, with an addition of 20 per cent. The plunder oftombs for the sake of the costly marbles they contained seems tohave become a common offence.3 The edict of Valentinian III .on this subject is full of old Roman sentiment about the dead,and strangely resembles in tone that of Julian in which he dealswith the same crime. Its enormity, and perhaps its frequency,are indicated by the heavy penalties which were imposed,torture, death, or confiscation, according to the social grade ofthe criminal. Other indications of failing resources may beseen in the laws relating to public works and buildings.5Already in the reign of Constantine, the Emperor complainsof the neglect which was allowing them in many places tofall into decay. The authorities are required by Gratian andTheodosius to repair ancient buildings before undertaking theerection of new ones. Honorius forbids the alienation , on anypretext, of municipal funds which have been long allocated tothe restoration or decoration of public edifices. In anotheredict, the repair of ancient buildings, fallen into a ruinous state,is provided for out of the income of the public lands. ItEugipp. vit. S. Scv. c. x. 2. TheBagaudaein Gaul and Spain had rather a different character and origin. The authorities are given in De Coulanges,L'Inv. Germ. p. 102, n. 1; cf. Fauriel,i. 186; Arnold , Prov. Administration, p.163; Idat. Chron. ad a. 441 , 443, 449.1 C. Th. xv. 14 , 14.2 Nov. Valent. 11, notum est obscenissimam famem per totamItaliam desaevisse coactosque homines filios et parentes vendere, ut discrimeninstantis mortis effugerent. Cf. C. Th.iii. 3, 1 .3 Nov. Valent. 5, quisquis ex hisquaelibet marmora aut saxa sustulerit paenae mox habeatur obnoxius . Theclergy were the greatest offenders; cf. Gregorovius, Hist. of City of Rome, i.226.C. Th. ix. 17, 5. There are seven enactments on this subject in the fourth century.5 Ib. xv. tit. 1.6 Ib. xv. 1 , 2.7 lb. 1. 21.8 Ib. 1. 48.9 Ib. 1. 32; cf. 34, 35.CHAP. I DISORGANISATION OF THE public seRVICE 203would appear that the municipalities found an increasingdifficulty in meeting such expenditure. The appropriationby private persons of public spaces and edifices is dealt within several laws of the same period.¹ The public officialsbecame very lax or corrupt in permitting the demolition ofstructures which were often interesting from ancient associations or artistic beauty. The Emperor Majorian, in his toobrief reign, exerted himself to check this vandalism andgreed. He denounces, with genuine indignation , the criminalnegligence which had long permitted the beauty of thevenerable city to be defaced in order to provide cheapmaterials for mean private buildings.2 Any magistrate for thefuture conniving at an infringement of this law is to bepunished by a fine of fifty pounds of gold, and any subordinateofficial similarly guilty is to be flogged and have both his handscut off. Here and there we get a glimpse of the ruin which theconfusion of the time brought suddenly on a once prosperousclass. In the reign of Valentinian III. , among the crowds whowere driven from their homes in Africa by the Vandal invasionthere were many men of rank and education who found, theirway to Italy, and some of them applied in their distress forleave to practise as advocates in the Italian courts. The Emperorgranted their request in a rescript repealing the constitution of442, which limited the number of those who were allowed toplead before the provincial magistrates. The later pages ofthe Code will often suggest similar pictures of many an obscuretragedy to the imagination of the sympathetic student. Famineand invasion took their usual tale of victims. But their worstravages are usually soon obliterated or repaired by the kindlyforces of Nature. The overwhelming tragedy of that agewas the result not of violent and sudden calamities; it wasprepared by the slow, merciless action of social and economiclaws, and deepened by the perverse energy of government,and the cupidity and cruelty of the rich and highly- placed.In the following chapter we shall try to realise its magnitudeand to discover its causes.1 C. Th. xv. ll. 40, 41.2 Nov. Maj. 6, antiquarum aedium dissipatur speciosa constructio et ut3parvum aliquid reparetur magna diruuntur.3 Nov. Th. 50; cf. 34.CHAPTER IITHE DECAY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS AND THEAGGRANDIsem*nT OF THE ARISTOCRACYTHE evidence adduced in the previous chapter as to the disorganisation of important branches of the public service, and thespread of poverty and lawlessness, is sufficiently ominous. Suchdisorders strike the eye at once and impress the imagination.Yet grave as they are, they are not so serious as other and lesspatent maladies, which had been long eating out the strength ofRoman society. In this chapter we shall try to discover the moredeep-seated causes which, far more than the violent intrusionof the German invaders, produced the collapse of society whichis known as the fall of the Empire of the West. A carefulstudy of the Code will correct many a popular and antiquatedmisconception of that great event. It will reveal the factthat, long before the invasions of the reign of Honorius, thefabric of Roman society and administration was honeycombedby moral and economic vices, which made the belief in theeternity of Rome a vain delusion. The municipal system,once the great glory of Roman organising power, had in thefourth century fallen almost into ruin . The governing classof the municipalities, called curiales, on whom the burdensof the Empire had been accumulated, were diminishing innumber, and in the ability to bear an ever- increasing loadof obligations. At the same time, the upper class were increasing in wealth and power, partly from natural economiccauses, partly from a determined effort to evade theirproper share of the imperial imposts, and to absorb andCHAP. II THE DECAY OF THe middle CLASS 205reduce to dependence their unfortunate neighbours . In thisselfish policy they were aided by the tyranny and venalityof the officials of the treasury, whose exactions, chicanery,and corrupt favouritisin seem to have become more shamelessand cruel in proportion to the weakness of their victimsand the difficulties of the times. And while the aristocraticclass were becoming more selfish, and the civil service moreoppressive and corrupt, the central government was growingfeebler. It saw the evils which were imperilling the stabilityof society, and making provincial administration a synonymfor organised brigandage. Its enactments abound with fulland accurate descriptions of these disorders, and fiercethreats of punishment against the criminals. But the endlessrepetition of commands, which were constantly disobeyed, wasthe surest sign of impotence. The decay of the middle class ,the aggrandisem*nt of the aristocracy, and the defiant tyrannyand venality of the tax-gatherer-these are the ominous factsto which almost every page of the later Code bears witness.Any one who wishes to understand the meaning of thegreat social catastrophe of the fifth century must fix his attention on the condition and distribution of landed property, andon the classes who possessed it. The fruits of agriculturalindustry were at all times the great source of Roman wealth;they were pre-eminently so in the period with which we areconcerned. It is curious to notice how small a part of theTheodosian Code is devoted to the subject of trade andcommerce, unless we comprehend under that head the lawsrelating to the many hereditary guilds which, under thesurveillance of the State, were engaged in the production anddistribution of commodities. There is indeed a section dealingwith the special tax on traders (collatio lustralis) . But thecommercial class (negotiatores ) were, in the fifth century,probably on a much lower social level than the humblestlanded proprietor. The senatorial order were forbidden toengage in trade.2 The curiales, who formed the governingbody of the municipalities, although some of their membersmay have been traders also,3 were essentially a class of landed11 C. Th. xiv. tit. 1. 6. Bk. xiii . tit.i. deals with the special tax (lustraliscollatio) imposed on traders; v. a good summary in Marquardt, Röm. Staatsverwaltung, ii. 230.2 Cf. C. Th. t. 5, p. 11 , Ritter's ed. , and xiii. 1 , 21 .3 lb. xiii. 1 , 4; v. Godefroy's note.206 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIItproprietors, whose position in the eye of the State was fixedby their acreage.¹ If fortunes were accumulated in commerce,they have left few traces in the pages of the Code. Sidonius,in the second half of the fifth century, gives an account of thetrading venture of a merchant at Narbonne. The man has,on the credit of his good character, borrowed a little moneyfrom his friends without other security, and is going to invest itin purchasing some of the cargo of a vessel which has come intoport. It appears from the description that the pursuit was notvery profitable nor respected.2 In one of the later edicts we findmerchants retiring from the greater centres of commerce toremote places, with the object of escaping the special tax ontheir calling. It follows either that the impost was veryheavy, or else that the profits of trade were very small.has often been pointed out that the wars and social confusion ofthe latter part of the third century gave a shock to commercefrom which it never recovered. In that disastrous time thevast destruction of wealth, the interruption of free circulationon the great routes, the loss of confidence, and the portentousdepreciation in the currency, must have operated with crushing effect on the trading class. Nor was the fifth century aperiod more favourable to their pursuits. The invasion of Italyby Alaric and Radagaesus, the invasion of Gaul and Spain bythe Sueves and Vandals, the inroads of the Huns under Attila,the raids of Saxon pirates on the shores of the Atlantic, andthe presence of the fleets of Genseric in the Mediterranean,must have made the trader's life one of great danger andanxiety, and probably curtailed the volume of commerce toan enormous extent. Law, sentiment, the course of events,were hostile to the development of a great commercialclass. The wealth both of the middle and of the upperclass was almost entirely in the soil and its fruits, and, inthe absence of free industrial development, there was littleC. Th. xii. 1 , 33 , ut quicumqueultra vigintiquinque jugera privato dominio possidens, etc. Curiali consortio vindicetur.Sid. Ep. vi. 8, Apicum oblator pauperem vitam sola mercandi actione sustentat. Notice the contempt forthis pursuit expressed in Nov. Th. 51 ,quos nisi indigna et pudenda armatonomini negotiatio aleret vix possent afamis periculo vindicari.3 Duruy, Hist. Rom. vi. 378; cf. v.p. 498 for the state of trade in the Antonine period. For the shock tocommerce in the third century v. DeCoulanges, L'Inv. Germ. pp. 102, 103.Duruy, vi. 381; cf. Arnold, Prov.Administration, p. 173; Marq. ii. 28.CHAP. II THE DECAY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 207capital outside the landed class available for the improvement of agriculture, or for the relief of the farmer who hadgot into difficulties.Of the three great classes into which Roman society wasdivided, the plebeian class, composed of traders, free artisans, etc.,who possessed no property in land, may, for our present purpose,be left out of consideration. The other two classes must, fromtheir ownership of the land, and from their relations to one anotherand to the treasury, engage our sole attention. Of the tone andcharacter of the highest class in the social hierarchy we haveattempted to give some account in a previous chapter. Theyhave left us literary materials which enable us to form a tolerably clear idea of their spirit and manner of life; but they seldomspeak of their material fortunes or of the classes beneath them,and on these subjects our information must be drawn chieflyfrom the Code.The senatorial class in the provinces had, since the reignof Constantine, grown to enormous dimensions, partly owingto the policy of the emperors, partly from the efforts of alarge class to gain an entrance into the official world, by whichthey secured at once rank and consideration, and exemptionfrom many onerous burdens and obligations.2 The order hadlong ceased to have any connection with the exercise ofsenatorial functions. Hosts of its members had never evenset foot in Rome.3 The title of senator became merely asocial badge, implying generally the possession of considerablelanded property, or the tenure of some office or dignity,which was often purely honorary and ornamental, The moreambitious and distinguished families valued themselves quiteas much on these official distinctions as on their wealth, andtheir sons were trained to make it a point of honour to carry1 Zosimus, ii. 38, ἀπεγράψατο δὲ τὰς τῶν λαμπροτάτων οὐσίας, τέλος ἐπιθεὶς ᾧτινι φόλλιν αὐτὸς ἐπέθηκεν ὄνομα. The peculiar charges of the senator'sposition were: ( 1 ) the follis glebalis,a land tax; (2) aurum oblatitium, agift made on certain anniversaries;(3) the expenses of the games on the young senator being nominated to thepraetorship; cf. Godefroy's Paratitlon,C. Th . vi. tit . 2.2 The special privileges of the senator were: (1 ) exemption frommunicipal taxes; ( 2) exemption from torture; (3) trial by a special court of five taken by lot, C. Th. ii. 2; ( 4)exemption from the aurum coronarium,which was an impost on the curiales;(5) exemption from the onus metati;( 6) exemption from collatio ad opera publica.3 C. Th. vi. 4, 3 and 4. Constantius ordered senators to come to Rome onthe occasion of their games when theyreceived the office of praetor; v. Duruy,vii . 179.208 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIon the tradition of official service, and to win, if possible, ahigher place than their ancestors had held. But the greatmass of the senatorial class were merely landowners on aconsiderable scale, subject to certain imposts peculiar to theirorder, but, on the other hand, enjoying certain privileges andexemptions. Of these exemptions the most important wasthat which relieved senators from municipal burdens.¹The municipality, in spite of designations which mightsuggest other conclusions, was not confined to the walls of atown; it included, besides the town, a wide area of ruraldistrict extending round it, often for many miles. From theend of the second century the municipal constitution, as it isdescribed in the Digest and many inscriptions, had undergone serious changes. In the century following the reign ofConstantine, it had fallen into irreparable decay. The centralisation of government and the multiplication of imperialfunctionaries had extinguished the free civic life, which wasin an earlier period the greatest glory of Roman administration.The popular assemblies lost their right of electing to themunicipal magistracies; the local senate, or curia, was nolonger composed of men who had held these offices," but ofthe landholders who possessed more than twenty- five jugera.7At the same time, the curia became less concerned with thelocal interests of its municipality, and more and more burdenedwith duties to the imperial government. Their responsibilities,indeed, as the governing body of their community, were heavyenough. They had the management of its finances, and fullliability for its debts and deficits. They had the charge of thepolice, and of all roads, bridges, and public buildings. They hadcertain duties in connection with the corn supply and therelief of the poor. When they rose to the higher localmagistracies, they had to bear heavy, and sometimes ruinous,expenses for the amusem*nts of the populace, prescribed by1 C. Th. vi. 3, 2, senatoriae Rom. Provincial Administration, pp.functionis curiaeque sit nulla con- 225-237.junctio; 1. 3 is even clearer acurialibus terris senatoria gleba dis- creta sit.2 F. de Coulanges, La Gaule Rom.p. 228.3 Wallon, L'Esclav. iii . 179; seeMarquardt, i . 464, on the Inscriptions of Malaga and Salpensa; cf. Arnold'sMarquardt, i . 510.5 lb. i. 468, 469.6 Ib. i. 503.7 C. Th. xii. 1 , 33.88 F. de Coulanges, La Gaule Rom.244, 251; Duruy, Hist. Rom. v. 379,n. 1; C. Th. xv. 1, 33 ( " De Op.Publ. ").CHAP. II THE DECAY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 2093opinion and custom, if not by law.¹ But far heavier andmore crushing than these were their obligations to the State.It was the practice of the Roman government to devolvethe collection, and even the apportionment of a tax, onthe class who paid it. When the imperial authoritiesissued their precept for a certain impost payable by thelandholders of a district in money or in kind , the membersof the local curia had not only to fix the assessment onthe proprietors in proportion to their holdings, but theyhad, through some of their members, the even more invidioustask of collecting the amount payable by each. In addition toall this, and it was a portentous addition in those times, thecuriales were liable personally for the whole amount, and hadto make good any deficiency in the collection. They hadalso onerous liabilities for the military commissariat, and themaintenance of the posting service on the great roads. 4 In theassessment and collection of the imperial taxes there wasroom for injustice, venality, and cruelty. And there can belittle doubt that the curiales sometimes abused their trust, sothat Salvianus 5 could ask " ubi non quot fuerint Curiales tottyranni sunt? " But fraudulent gains can have done littleto alleviate the weight of a charge which, as time went on,became more and more crushing. Moreover, the curial class.which had to bear it was chiefly hereditary," as every otherclass and calling, from the highest to the lowest, tendedto become. Men with the required minimum of landedproperty were, from time to time, compelled to enter it.But the plebeian class, composed of the various corporationsof free labourers, artisans, and petty traders, fenced in and1 C. Th.; F. de Coulanges, La GauleRom. p. 252; Fauriel, i . 372; Wallon,L'Esclav. iii . 181.C. Th. xi. 7, 12; cf. Godefroy'sParatitlon to xi. 1 (" De Annona et Tributis ") cf. xiii . 1 , 17.3 Ib. xii. 1 , 117. The principales are threatened with torture forembezzlement, fraudulent assessments,and excessive exactions; cf. 1. 54. The curia chose collectors of revenuefrom among its members, and wascollectively liable for their fraud ornegligence. Cf. xii. 6, 9; Fauriel, i .362.C. Th. viii . 5 , 26, 64.5 De Gub. Dei, v. 18.The class as a whole is describedoften in C. Th. xii. 1 as originalis,ex genere Curiali, familia Curiali orti ,sanguine C. obstricti, etc. Cf. Godefroy's Paratitlon to xii. 1 , t. 4, p.353.7 C. Th. x. 20, 15, where even female descent binds the children to a corporation. The Burgarii, or guards of the frontier forts, were practicallypublic slaves, like the muleteers, etc. ,of the cursus publicus. Cf. vii.14, 1; vii. 15, 1 , with Godefroy'snotes: Wallon, L'Esclav. iii . 176.8 C. Th. xii. 1 , 33; cf. l . 53.P210 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIhampered in all directions by imperial legislation , could notfurnish many recruits to fill the gaps in the curia. Thelater legislation seems to actually discourage the merchantfrom investing his gains in land,' and so becoming a memberof the municipal corporation. We have seen reason tobelieve that trade in the fourth and fifth centuries was notprosperous, and the ruinous condition of municipal financemight well deter any one who had been exceptionally fortunatein commerce from making an investment which entailed suchpersonal risk and such incalculable obligations.2The emperors were fully awareof the importance of a class.on which had been laid such a weight of responsibility. Nofewer than 192 enactments in the Theodosian Code, togetherwith some of the Novellae, deal with the position and dutiesof the curiales. The curiales are described by Majorian as the"nervi reipublicae ac viscera civitatum," although successiveemperors from Constantine to Majorian had to lament thatthese " sinews of the commonwealth " were daily growingweaker.3 Conventional language or policy indeed kept upthe fiction that the position of the curialis was an enviableand dignified one. The municipal body is described in termswhich were originally applied to the Senate of the capital, andwhich may have had a certain justification in the days of freemunicipal life, when a seat in the local Senate was reservedfor citizens who had filled the higher magistracies by thechoice of the burghers. When the curiales were desertingtheir functions, abandoning their ruined estates, and trying tohide themselves among serfs, they were loftily reminded by theimperial legislator of the stain which they were attaching totheir splendid origin. Doubtless the estimate of social rankis relative, and depends greatly on associations, imagination, andthe extent of a man's horizon. At one time the member of thecuria in a flourishing municipality may have found his ambitionrecte appellavit antiquitas minorem Senatum.51 C. Th. xii. 1 , 72. According toGodefroy's commentary the merchantinvesting in land became doubly liable,as negotiator and as curialis.2 Nov. Maj. 1.8 C. Th. xii . 1 , 13, quoniam Curias desolari cognovimus. This is a law of Constantine, dated 326.Nov. Maj. 1 , quorum coetum5 C. Th. xii. 1 , 6. It is a curiouscommentary on these fine phrases to find in C. Th. ix. 35, 2, that curiales,not of the highest order, could bepunished by plumbatarum ictus, i.e. blows of a whip loaded with lead .These punishments were forbidden by Theodosius, xii. 1 , SO.CHAP. II THE DECAY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 211satisfied by local distinctions, and thought he had attained anenviable place when he rose to be flamen of his native town, ¹or provided games for his fellow- citizens as aedile or duumvir.But the growth of the imperial despotism since Diocletianaltered the whole character of municipal life. It was a verydifferent thing to be a decurio in the second century and inthe fourth or the fifth. From Constantine to Honorius theemperors were vainly struggling to stop a movement whichhad begun long before Constantine, and which threatened thecurial body with utter depletion. The " flight of the curiales "was quite as menacing a danger of the later Empire as theinroads of the barbarians. The curiales fled in all directions,and sought a refuge from their perils and ruinous obligationsin every calling. Some of the more wealthy and ambitiousmanaged to get themselves enrolled on the lists of the Senateby diplomas (codicilli) surreptitiously or corruptly obtained.³Numbers procured admission to some office in the vastPalatine service. Others enlisted in the army," or took HolyOrders. Many of the humbler sort were willing to exchangetheir position for the practical servitude of corporations, suchas the corn-importers or the armourers. Many more, in sheerdespair, took refuge on some great estate in a dependencealmost amounting to serfdom, and sank even to the degradation of marriage with a woman of the servile class.6The motives which prompted men to forsake their municipality were very various, and undoubtedly ambition to rise in theworld was one frequent cause of the desertion. Although theposition of " decurio " is described by the emperors as one ofdignity " and " splendour," it was vastly inferior to that ofthe senatorial class. The difference between the two orderswas much wider than that between a member of Parliamentand a member of a provincial town- council in our days. Thesenatorial class had not only the prestige of wealth; thegreater families had also a practical monopoly of the highest1 C. Th. xii. 1, 77.2 lb. xii. 1 , 169.3 lb. xii. 1 , 180 , 183 , neminem obnoxium Curiae ad incongruam sibifortunam deinceps aspirare , elicitis codicillis clarissimatus, Magnitudo tuaepermittat.D. xii. i. 22. cum Decurionesad diversas militias confugiant; cf. 11 .31 , 38, 11 , 13, 147; cf. Arnold's Prov.Administration, p. 174 .5 C. Th. xii. 1, 50, and many others.6 Ib. xii. 1 , 149 (navicularii ) , 62(collegium fabrorum).7 Nov. Maj. i.212 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIprefectures and offices of state. They were often the descendants of men who had held such offices from time immemorial.They became almost as a matter of course governors, Pretorianprefects, and consuls. Their sons were trained to follow themin the same " career of honours," and had often completedtheir term of public life and governed provinces larger thanmost modern European kingdoms at an age when a man ofambition in our days is only getting his foot on the ladder.2The years of later life were passed in dignified tranquillity,and the enjoyment of that cultivated society, so stately and soexclusive, but so charming, which has been described in anotherchapter. It is little wonder that the ambitious bourgeois of thecurial class should have struggled at any cost, by intrigue or bybribery, to raise himself and his children even to the outskirtsof such a rank, from the rather sordid and limited ambitions andthe wearing anxieties of his original position. If he remainedin it, his highest hope could only be to reach the duumvirate,and pass into the select class of the principales, after completing the whole round of duties and charges incumbent onhis order. But before attaining that not very lofty eminence,he might find his patrimony eaten away by the claims of hisown community, and the inexorable and insatiable demands ofthe imperial treasury. The numerous constitutions dealingwith the migration of curiales into the senatorial class are theclearest proof, at once of the force of the tendency, and of thedifficulty of restraining it. In the earlier part of the fourthcentury, the emperors appear not to have opposed insuperableobstacles to such ambition, provided the finances of the municipality concerned did not suffer.¹ But in the beginning of1 Sidon. Ep. v. 9.2 Sextus Petr. Probus, born circ. 334,became proconsul of Africa in 356, andPretorian prefect of Italy, Africa and Illyricum in 368 ( act. 34); v. Seeck's Sym.cii. Symmachus, borncirc. 340, held hisfirst office in 365 ( Seeck, xliv. ) . Olybrius and Probinus were consuls when mereyouths. Cf. Hieron . Ep. 130, 3; Claud.in Cons. Olybr. et Prob. 63. Sidoniuswas prefect of Rome in his thirty- eighth year. (Mommsen, Praef. inSidon. xlviii. )The principales ( also optimates,Sym. Ep. x. 41; summi municipum proceres, Auson. Mosell. 402) werein some places ten in number, electedby the curia, after a regular ascent through all the duties and honours oftheir order, and bound to remain inthe performance of their functions forfifteen years, C. Th. xii. 1 , 75 , 171 ,189. They were exempt from cruel punishments, xii . 1 , 61. Cf. F. deCoulanges, L'Inv. Germ. p. 37.4 C. Th. xii. 1 , 57. A law ofValens (xii. 1 , 69) allows curiales who have become senators prematurely (ante expleta munera) to retain the higher position provided they perform curial duties.CHAP. 11 THE DECAY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 213the fifth century, the rapid depletion of the curiae and thecomplaints which reached him caused the Emperor to assume asterner tone. The curiales were bluntly warned not to aspire tosenatorial rank.¹ The grant of codicilli clarissimatus, often obtained, as we have seen, by underhand means, was peremptorilyprohibited; and no one, bound to municipal functions, washenceforth to be raised to senatorial rank until he had passedthrough all the grades of his original order, and performed allthe duties which were laid upon it. Honorius, in a rescriptaddressed to the prefect of the Gauls in 409,2 prohibits theprincipales, who formed the highest class of the curial body,from being released from their functions until they had completed a term of fifteen years in their grade. About the sametime all persons of curial descent in the ranks of the armyor the Palatine service 3 were ordered back to their nativecities, and any one of this class is forbidden henceforth toevade his hereditary obligations by entering either the militaryor the civil branch of the government service. It is wellto remind ourselves that, at the time when these laws werepromulgated, a considerable part of Gaul had been overrunby the Germans, and we may very well believe that theduties and burdens of the governing class of the municipalities in those regions were becoming more harassing andonerous. To be sent back to the prison - house of curialslavery from some promising career at Rome, and to seeevery opening closed to himself and to his sons for thefuture, may well have driven many a man of the doomedorder to despair.In truth, the curial's position had become one of thoseforms of hereditary servitude by which the society of theLower Empire was reduced almost to a system of castes. Introduced into the corporation at eighteen years of age, hecould not, by any effort, legally divest himself of his in1 C. Th. xii. 1 , 183, neminem obnoxium Curiae ad incongruam sibifortunam deinceps aspirare, elicitis codicillis clarissimatus, Magnitudo tuae permittat; cf. 1. 180. Still moretrenchant is Novella 8 of Theodosius:lege itaque perpetuo valitura decernimus, nullum posthac Curialem sibimet dignitatis senatoriae infulas usurpare.2 lb. xii. 1 , 171.whom it is addressed,prefect again in 413.Dardanus, to was PretorianIb. xii . 1 , 147. This law in- cludes all curiales who had entered thearmy, the Palatine civil service, thebureau of the Pretorian prefect, andall other similar occupations; cf. 11.38, 40 44.214 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIherited position until he had gone the whole round of officialduty. The law did not absolutely prohibit a curial fromrising to another grade in society, but it made his progress soslow and difficult that escape by legal means was possibleto very few. Even when a man had surmounted all barriers,and become an imperial functionary or a senator,' his children,born before his elevation, were retained in their originalrank, and his property remained liable for the municipalcharges of his class. If a man attempted to hasten his rise,or his deliverance, by overleaping some of the stages of duty,he was sent back to the original starting- point. The mostsplendid dignities conferred by the Emperor himself, whichwould in other cases raise a man to the Senate, would notavail for those of curial origin; they are to remain in thebosom of their native place, " as it were dedicated with sacredfillets and guarding the eternal mystery, which they cannotabandon without impiety." The curial's personal freedomwas curtailed on every side. If he travelled abroad, that wasan injury to his city; and if he absented himself for fiveyears, his property was confiscated. Even for a limited time,and for a public object, as for example to present himselfbefore the Emperor, he could not go from home without theformal permission of the governor of the province. He wasforbidden absolutely to reside in the country. It is almostneedless to say that he had no power to dispose of his property as he pleased, since the State regarded his property assecurity for the full discharge of all his financial obligations.He could not sell his estate without the permission of thegovernor of the province. He could not enter into any contract or business relation which might conceivably weaken thehold of the State upon his possessions. He was forbidden, forexample, to accept the agency of an estate, or to rent public1 C. Th. xii. 1 , 69.2 Ib. xii. 1 , 122, maneant in sinupatriae et veluti dicati infulis, mys- terium perenne custodiant; sit illis piaculum inde discedere.3 Ib. xii. 1 , 143, 144, ne diu in fraudem civitatum municipes eva- gentur, etc. 4 Ib. xii. 1 , 9.5 lb. xii. 18, 1 and 2. Theseaws are addressed to the Egyptian3prefect, and they may refer to themonks and hermits; cf. xii . 1 , 63,which treats them with great contempt.6 Ib. xii. 3, 1 and 2; Nov. Maj.1, nunquam sine interpositione decreti Curiales alienent.7 C. Th. xii . 1 , 92. The curial isbranded with disgrace for engaging in a servile occupation, and renders him- self liable to banishment.CHAP. II THE DECAY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 215lands, or to farm the taxes, ¹ The curial who had no childrencould dispose of only one- fourth of his estate by will , theremainder being taken by the municipal treasury.2 Themunicipality became the sole heir of an intestate curial.3 Ifhis natural heirs were not citizens of the place, or if hisdaughter or widow married a stranger, they had to resign onefourth of the property to the curia. He could not take HolyOrders without leaving his curial property in the hands ofa proper substitute, or absolutely abandoning it to the serviceof the community. We have not by any means exhausted themelancholy list of the disabilities and hardships which wereheaped upon this wretched class, but enough has been said toshow the causes of its depletion. Indeed, the emperors themselves, while they occasionally apply to it honorific terms,which to us now sound like grim mockery, had really noillusions as to its hopeless condition. It is often described inphrases (nexus, mancipatio) which seem to reduce it to a speciesof slavery. The curial in one law is denied the asylum ofthe church, along with insolvent debtors and fugitive slaves. "When he is recalled from some refuge to which he has escaped,his worst punishment for disobedience to the law is to bereplaced in his original rank. Nor could the legislator atone time find a worse fate for certain malefactors than to berelegated to the curia. The curia had in truth become anergastulum, and all the ingenuity of lawyers, all the energy ofimperial officers, were occupied for generations in tryingto prevent the escape of the slaves of the curia. But thecruelty of their position made them reckless. Many fled tothe solitude and hard fare of the hermitage.1 C. Th. xii. 1 , 97; x. 3, 2 , curia- libus omnibus conducendorum Reipublicae praediorum ac saltuum inhi- beatur facultas.2 See note 3 in Wallon, L'Esclav. iii.186.3 C. Th. v. 2, 1 , " De Bonis De- curionum .'4 Cf. Wallon, iii . 186, n. 4.C. Th. xii. 1 , 59, qui partes eccle- siae eligit, aut in propinquum bona propria conferendo eum pro se faciat Curialem aut facultatibus Curiae cedat quam reliquit ( cf. 11. 91 and 98 ).6 Ib. ix. 45, 3.Others pre7 Ib. xii. 1 , 66 and 108. These laws of Valentinian I. and Theodosiusprohibit the consignment to the curiaas a punishment, but the prohibition proves the existence of the practice.8 Ib. ix. 45, 3, vigore et sollertiajudicantum ad pristinam sortem velut manu injecta revocentur.9 lb. xii. 1 , 63, quidam ignaviae sectatores, desertis civitatum muneribus, captant solitudinem ac secreta, et specie religionis cum coetibus Monazonton congregantur. The law men- tions Egypt and the East as theregions to which it applies ( v. Gode- froy's note, iv. p. 434).216 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIferred the servitude of one of the lower corporations ofartisans to the service of the commune; they hid themselveseven among miners and lime - burners. Still more placedthemselves under the protection of a great proprietor, andwere only too glad to bury themselves among the crowd ofhis cottiers and serfs, where their children, by some slavemother, would at least be delivered by the ignominy of theirbirth from their father's hereditary curse.³3While the numbers of the curial class were thus steadilyshrinking, in spite of the cruel determination of the legislator,the burdens on those who remained were as steadily increasing in severity. The curiales were responsible for the collection of taxes on landed property, and if the assessments intheir district were not fully paid, they had to make good thedeficit to the treasury. Now there is ample evidence that thetax-bearing acreage in the end of the fourth century and thebeginning of the fifth was rapidly contracting. In Campaniaalone, once the garden of Italy, more than 500,000 jugerahad gone out of cultivation. Symmachus, who was a largelandowner, complains that agriculture was becoming a veryexpensive luxury.5 The later edicts frankly admit that overlarge areas the resources of the landed taxpayer were exhausted. And the admission is not confined to words. Forin 408, in 413, and again in 418, relief from the land-taxwas granted to large districts in Italy, in one case to as manyas seven provinces. A similar indulgence was shown to thelandholders of Africa in 410,7 in 423, and, in consequence1 C. Th. xii. 1 , 62, 149 , 162.2 Ib. xii. 1, 76; cf. 146, multos animadvertimus, ut debita praestatione patriam defraudarent, sub umbra Potentium latitare. . . . Omnes igiturquos tegunt expellant, ne Clementia Nostra ab contumacia dissimulantium in majorem indignationem exur- gat; 11. 155, 162, 179, 189, occultator detur flammis ultricibus.3 Nov. Maj. 1 ad init.4 C. Th . xi . 28, 2. The lands hadbeen first inspected by peraequatores,and ancient documents consulted (v.Godefroy's note) . Referred to in Sym.Ep. iv. 46; cf. v. 12, frustra speravi de peregrinatione solacium, cum om- nium locorum maesta facies nullasacgroSym. Ep. i. 5, namque hic usus in nostram venit aetatem, ut rus, quodsolebat alere, nunc alatur.animo praestet indutias.6 C. Th. xi. 28, 4, 7 , 12. The reliefin 408 was given immediately after Stilicho's death, and was demanded by the devastations of the armies of Radagaesus and Alaric. The senatorial follis glebalis was included in the remission.7 lb. xi. 28, 6 , 13, and Nov. Valent.7 ad fin. The remission in 410 "ob Africae devotionem " refers to the resistance of Africa under Heraclian to the attempts of Attalus, the Emperor set up by Alaric; cf. Zos.vi. 7.CHAP. II THE DECAY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 217of the Vandal invasion, in 451. In the meantime the expenseof government was probably growing. And, owing to theabsence of floating capital, the government could not, as inmodern times, throw part of its burdens on posterity bycreating a public debt.¹ It is likely that the necessities of thepublic administration, as the taxable area went on shrinking,must have caused a more and more exhausting drain onthe resources of those provinces which still remainedsolvent. Even in the absence of statistics and explicit statements on the subject, there is an overwhelming probabilityin favour of the theory that the demands of the imperialexchequer on the curial class were increasing in proportionto the failure of former sources of revenue.2 We hear moreand more of the land - inspectors 3 (peracquatores) whosefunction it was to deal with the ownership of waste lands,and the apportionment or remission of the land-tax. Theyappear to have been infected with the general venality,* andtheir peculiar duties gave them opportunities, or offered temptations, to favour the more powerful proprietors," and toenrich themselves at the same time. Nor should it be forgotten, in forming an estimate of the curial's economic position,that in the fourth and fifth centuries there was a steady andserious appreciation in gold, and that taxes had to be paidin gold, as well as in kind.the ratio of silver to gold wasThe government met cases offinancial emergency by superindictions.Cf. C. Th. xi. tit. 16, with Godefroy's Paratitlon to xi. tit. 6; cf. Paratitlonto xi. tit. 1 , and Duruy, vii . 167 n.2 F. de Coulanges, L'Inv. Germ.p. 51, disputes this; but cf. c. 17 ofthe Decline and Fall, and Apoll. Sid.Carm. xiii. 19 addressed to Majorian.For an earlier time see Zos. ii . 38.3 On the duties of peraequatores, asdefined in the Code, see Godefroy'sParatitlon to xiii. 11; cf. C. Th. xiii.11 , 14, 15, 16, with Godefroy's note on 1. 16. These laws show at once thefairness of the government, and theopportunities for fraud open to the peraequatores.C. Th. xiii . 11 , 10. The corrupt peraequatores are heavily fined in xiii. 11, 7.In the reign of Valentinian I.14 to 1.7 In the reign of5 Ib. xiii . 11 , 4, ut quid remis- sum gratia, quid interceptum fuerit fraude, convincant6 Ib. xi. 21 , 3; cf. xiii. 6, 13;Duruy, vii. 166.The calculation is based on a comparison of C. Th. xiii . 2, 1 , with viii .4, 27. In the former (A.D. 397) 1 libraof silver is equal to 5 solidi of gold; inthe latter 1 libra of silver is equal to 4 solidi. Cf. Godefroy's notes to both laws. He sums up with the remark:adeo indies auri pretium increvit.Cf. Sym. Rel. xxix. , paulatim auri enormitate crescente. The yield ofthe gold- mines seems, from the following laws, to have been diminishing:C. Th. x. 19, 3 ( 365) , for the encouragement of gold- mining; x. 19, 5, 6,7, 9 (to keep the aurileguli to theircalling). Cf. Marq. ii. 43.!1

218 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIthe younger Theodosius the proportion was 18 to 1.¹ That is,in less than a quarter of a century the value of gold had risenby more than a fifth. This appreciation involved a corresponding increase of taxes payable in gold. And while the demandsof the exchequer were increasing, the landowner was probablygetting less and less for his agricultural products. And herewe touch what was the chief economic cause of the ruin of thecuriales. He was, as we have seen, liable personally for anydeficit in the taxes payable by his district. The returnswere almost certainly diminishing; the government was inexorable. The mass of the curiales were themselves smalllandholders who were unable to compete with the owners ofgreat estates cultivated by the labour of slaves and coloni.2The land was, as a rule, their only source of income. As theland became less productive, while the burdens of their position became heavier, the weaker curialis must either fly fromhis municipality, as so many actually did, or else he mustobtain temporary relief, on whatever terms, from the onlycapitalist to whom he could apply, the neighbouring largeproprietor. This absorption of the smaller by the greaterlandowners, and the growing power of the latter, is by farthe most interesting and important feature in the transitionof society from the despotism of the Lower Empire to therégime of the feudal lords.The senatorial estate was a community by itself, supplyingits own wants, and furnishing supplies for the neighbouringmarkets or for the government service. Part of it wascultivated directly for the lord by slaves; and the buildingand carpenter work, the spinning and weaving, were alsocarried on by slaves. Another part of the estate was cultivatedby a class designated by many names, and occupyingdifferent grades of dependence. Some of them were strictlyserfs, ascripti glebae, who, on the sale of an estate, passed tothe new owner. Some were in the position of metayers,1 C. Th. viii. 4, 27.2 Cf. Arnold, Provincial Adminis tration, p. 161.3 C. Th. ix. 10, 3. Cf. the Paratitlonof Godefroy to v. 9, " De Fugitivis Colonis "; Wallon, L'Esclav. iii . p.252; De Coulanges, L'Inv. Germ.pp. 93, 139. To discuss the vexedquestion of the origin and nature of the status of the coloni is no part ofthe purpose of this chapter. For areview of some of the different theoriessee Wallon, L'Esclav. iii. , chap. on " Travail de Campagne. " Cf. Arnold,Provincial Administration, pp. 161 ,162.CHAP. II THE DECAY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 2192paying their lord a certain proportion of the produce whichthey raised. In other cases they were men who had becomeindebted to the lord and, being unable to pay their debt,had given up their land, remaining on it to cultivate it oncertain terms.¹ Sometimes they were broken men, who haddeserted their farms from various causes, poverty, oppressionof government officials or powerful neighbours, or the wish toescape the heavy burdens imposed on the curial class , andwho put themselves under the protection of some great proprietor. There is no social phenomenon of the time whichdeserves closer attention, for many reasons, than the positionof these free settlers on the great estates. It is an indicationat once of the breakdown of the middle class , and of the growingpower of the aristocracy. For nearly a hundred years theCode gives evidence of the determination of the emperors tocheck the tendency towards this form of patronage. Thosewho sheltered the fugitive curialis are threatened withpunishments of increasing severity, fines, confiscation, infamy,till the law of Honorius in 415 orders the agent or bailiffwho connives at the offence to be given to the " avengingflames. " But all the vigour of the government could notmake head against an irresistible tendency of the times.the reign of Valentinian III. and in the reign of Majorian,the authorities have to combat the evil once more. The edicts.of these emperors describe the condition of such dependants ina manner which singularly harmonises with the contemporarypicture given by Salvianus. The injustice of governors and the1 Salv. de Gub. Dei, v. 39-44 . Hedistinguishes two classes: ( 1 ) defen- soribus suis omnem fere substantiamsuam prius quam defendantur addic*nt; (2) cum agellos suos perdunt aut deserunt, fundos majorum expetunt et coloni divitum fiuntjugo se inquilinae abjectionis addic*nt.2 C. Th. xii . 1 , 76 , 146; Nov. Maj. 1. On the origin of this formof patronage v. Wallon, iii . p. 271 .C. Th. xi. 24, " De Patrociniis Vicorum. " The subject is included inthis book xi. which deals with taxa.tion, because patronage was exercised to defeat the claims of the treasury;cf. xiii. 1 , 21 , which shows that negotiatores used this influence to5Inevade the lustralis collatio. By xi.24, 2 the patronus is fined 25 pounds of gold for each case. In 399 the fine is raised to 40. In 1. 5 the offender's whole property is confiscated. On theevasion of tribute in Gaul by potentes,v. xi. 1 , 26.Ib. xii . 1 , 179.5 Nov. Valent. 9, advenae plerumque tenues abjectaeque fortunae quo- rundam se obsequiis jungunt. Nov.Maj. 1 ad init. , illud quoque sibi dedecoris addentes, ut dum uti volunt patrociniis potentum colonarum ancillarumque conjunctione polluerint.Farther on the Emperor says: vendunt defugas Curiales et obnoxios corporatos cum eos occulta depredatione concusserint.se220 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK 111venality of tax- gatherers have driven many to quit their nativecities, and, " forgetful of the splendour of their birth " (it isthus the perilous rank of the curialis is described) , to placethemselves under the protection of some powerful patron.We need not believe, as Salvianus does, that the rich proprietordeliberately set himself to reduce his clients to serfdom; butit is only too probable that such protégés would inevitablysink to the position of coloni.It was, however, through direct indebtedness to the greatproprietors that the smaller generally lost their independence.As we have seen, there was little capital in that age derivedfrom any other source than land. If a farmer got into difficulties from bad seasons, or under the pressure of taxation andmunicipal burdens, his readiest resource was to borrow fromsome rich neighbour. There were many ways by which thegreat man could lay his hands on his debtor's land, and theCode leaves no doubt that the most unblushing oppressionand chicanery were often employed to dispossess him. Theaccumulation of arrears of interest led to forced sales ordonations to escape from an intolerable burden. If a smallestate were put up for sale, the great man had few competitors,for there was little capital seeking such investment, and thegovernment actually seemed to discourage a merchant frompurchasing land by holding him liable not only for the landtax, but for the lustralis collatio, for which, as a trader, hewas liable before the purchase.3 The terms of one law ofHonorius make it probable that mere terrorism exercised bygreat nobles or officials, without any legal rights whatever,often compelled the small farmer to part with his land bypretended sale or gift. The secret sale of property by curialesflying from their municipality was also a growing practice.In spite of all the obstacles which the law interposed toprevent the alienation of such estates, there is clear evidence 51 See an example in Sid. Ep. iv. 24.The needy debtor is paying interest at arate whichwill double the capital lentin ten years; cf. Chaix, Sidon. ii. 236. Per- mission to senators to lend at 6 per cent is given in C. Th. ii. 33, 4 ( v. Godefroy).C. Th. ii. 33, 3 allowed senators who were minors to lend money at interest.2 C. Th. iii. 1 , 8 prohibits secretsales by fugitive curiales: venditiones,donationes, transactiones quae per potentiam extortae sunt, praecipimusinfirmari; cf. ii . 9, 4 , pacta quidemper vim et metum apud omnes satis constat cassata viribus, respuenda.3 Ib. xii. 1 , 72; cf. xiii . 1 , 4.Ib. iii. 1 , 8.5 Nov. Valent. 10, notum est post fatalem hostium ruinam qua Italia laboravit, etc.CHAP. II THE DECAY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 2211that, from the time of Alaric's invasion, many sales had takenplace without the formalities prescribed when a curialis partedwith his estate. The law of Valentinian III. , which dealswith such cases, shows a tenderness and consideration forthe difficulties of an unfortunate class, very unlike the spiritof earlier legislation on the subject. It maintains the validityof all such sales, when effected under the pressure of extremenecessity. But a heavy condemnation is passed on men ofofficial rank who have abused their power by violence, or byrefusing payment of the purchase money, to inflict injustice.on a needy vendor. The culprit is compelled not only to paythe full price, but to reinstate the unwilling vendor in possession. It is clear that the class of small proprietors had littlechance of holding their own in such a time as these lawsdescribe to us. The Code frankly admits the overwhelmingnature of the burdens which the State imposed upon them.Every year they sank deeper into debt, and every year theywere less and less able to meet their liabilities. They couldborrow only from the very men who were hungering for theirland, and who desired their extinction . The means of compassing their ruin lay ready to the hand of a great proprietor,who, if not in office himself, was connected by social freemasonry with the official class, who could prejudice the judgeon the bench, or bribe the meaner officers of the law.3It seems clear, then, that the smaller landed proprietorswere, from the various causes which we have described, becoming steadily poorer and less numerous. But while thischange, fraught with momentous consequences to Roman society,was in progress, another, in the opposite direction, is equallyobservable. The upper or senatorial class was growing not onlyin wealth, but in power. Its affluence can be easily estimatedfrom the letters of Symmachus, from the declamation of Salvianus, and from the picture of Gallic society which ApollinarisSidonius has left us. Its growing power is written on manya page of the Code. In spite of the vast and complicated1 Nov. Valent. 10, iniquum est, tamjustis praecedentibus causis, confectaevenditioni ob hoc solum, quia decreti interpositio defuit, adimi firmitatem .2 Ib. 10, quod si emptor officio et administratione perfunctus, etc. , venditori solidorum numerum inferatqui tabulis continetur, possessionemnihilominus perditurus, ut ad domi- num redeat cui taliter probatur ablata.3 Ib. 10, usuris in majorem cumu- lum crescentibus.222 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIImachinery which had been elaborated by successive emperorsfor the administration of the provinces, the task of governingthem with purity, economy, and fairness to all classes becamemore and more difficult. The greatest vigilance and energywere exerted by the central authority to secure the independence of the provincial governors , ' and to repress the tendencyto corruption and oppression among the collectors of taxes andthe inferior officers of the law. But the very number of edictsdirected to these ends discloses the impotence of the emperor.Heavy fines, banishment, torture, death, are all ineffectual tocheck the inevitable corruption of a bureaucratic government,operating over an area probably the widest which has everbeen ruled directly from a single centre. The distance of theseat of government was undoubtedly the greatest difficulty,and it was a difficulty fully recognised by the imperial legislator. With all the facilities of the Roman posting service, itwas in many cases only after a long interval that the complaints of the aggrieved provincials could reach the government.The sense of remoteness must have inspired corrupt and unprincipled officials with an audacity which they would not haveshown if their conduct had been liable to more instant exposure.But beyond a doubt, the most serious obstacle in the way ofpure and honest administration was the power of the provincialaristocracy. In the middle of the fourth century the patronagewhich enabled the smaller proprietors to evade their share ofthe taxes was severely dealt with by Valens.3 At the close ofthe century the threat of still heavier penalties reveals the factthat the mischief is still rampant. The patronage was probablypaid for in a fashion which still further increased the influenceof the patron The upper class or potentes, as they are called,1 C. Th. i. 8, 1. Honorati are forbidden to sit with judges on the bench; cf. the whole of tit. 7, " De Officio Rectoris Provinciae."2 Ib. ix. 26 and 27 , esp. 27 , 2, hi qui in Republica versati sinisteriussunt, perpetuo sibi omnes dignitates,vel legitimas vel honorarias, sciant esse praeclusas. Cf. i . 7, 1 , cessentjam rapaces officialium manus, cessent,inquam; nam si moniti non cessaverintpraccidentur. Note that this is a lawof Constantine, A. D. 331. The guiltyofficial was degraded to plebeian rank,became intestabilis, required to restore fourfold the amount of his illicit gains(which could be recovered from hisheirs), and prohibited from holding the same office for a second term . ( Seeix. 27, 1 , 3 , 4, and ix. 26 , 2, withGodefroy's note. )3 lb. xi. 24 , 2, abstineant patro- ciniis agricolae, etc. Cf. Amm. Marc.xxxi. 14 for the character of Valens as an administrator.C. Th. xi. 21 , 5, excellentia tuaseveriorem poenam nos addidisse cognoscat.CHAP. II THE DECAY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 223324not only engaged in trade themselves,' but secured the exemption of the regular trader from the tax imposed upon his calling.Creditors with usurious or fraudulent claims induced greatlords to give their names to the suit, with the object, nodoubt often attained, of over-awing or influencing the judge.It is needless to say that the rich were equally energetic intheir own interests. We learn, both from Salvianus and fromthe Code," that the wealthier class in Gaul contrived to shifttheir share of the land-tax on their poorer neighbours. Andin a law of the very next year we find that the practice ofdelaying payment of taxes had become so general thatHonorius was compelled to impose a fine of fourfold theamount on the morator. But, without any open defiance ofthe government, the upper class had many means of cheatingthe treasury. If, for example, an inspector came down torevise the land assessment, and to settle the liability for wastelands, it was not difficult for a great proprietor to see thatthe settlement was in his favour. If he did not himselfappear upon the scene, his agent could refuse information aboutthe rating, or otherwise impede the inquiry. And unfortunately the inspectors, like so many of the officials of thisperiod, were easily accessible to bribes or other forms ofcorrupt influence. The procuratores of the great estates, who,as a class, were very corrupt and unprincipled, doubtless didmany things of which their masters might have disapproved.They were generally men of low or even servile origin, wielding almost uncontrolled power in the absence of the proprietor.The government repeatedly shows its distrust of them. In1 C. Th. xiii. 1, 21; cf. xiii . 1 ,5 , which discouraged trading among potentes.2 Ib. ii. 13, 1; cf. xiii. 1 , 15.3 Ib. xi. 1 , 21.De Gub. Dei, v. 28, illud indig nius ac poenalius, quod omnium onus non omnes sustinent, immo quodpauperculos homines tributa divitum premunt, et infirmiores ferunt sarcinas fortiorum.C. Th. xi. 1 , 26, nullum gratiarelevet; nullum iniquae partitionis vexet incommodum sed pari omnes sorte teneantur.6 lb. xi. 1 , 27.7 Ib. xiii . 11 , 2, si Peraequatoremisso, aliquis aut Procuratorem suum retraxerit, aut colonum ad contumaciam retractationis armaverit, etc. Cf. 1. 7on the corruption of peraequatores.8 Ib. xii. 1, 92. In prohibitinga curialis to become procurator, theEmperor uses these words: ille veroqui immemor libertatis et generis in- famissimam suscipiens vilitatem, ex- istimationem suam servili obsecundatione damnaverit, deportationis incom- modo subjugetur.9 E.g. ib. i. 7, 7, moderatores Provinciae curam gerere jubemus nequid Potentium Procuratores perperam illiciteve committant.224 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIthe time of the invasions they gave shelter to fugitives withthe object of retaining them as slaves. They were in leaguewith brigands , and harboured them on the estates of whichthey had the management. So lawless had they become thatthe procurators in several provinces were specially forbidden the use of horses, and they were coupled in the prohibition with those wild herdsmen of Samnium and Apulia whoso easily passed into the ranks of professional robbers. Theyare also associated in several edicts with the crime ofconcealing deserters from the army. In fact the agent of aremote estate must have often involved his master in themeshes of the law. The procurator seems to have sometimesgone so far as to hypothecate an estate without his master'sknowledge, and more than one law deals with this practice, inorder to protect at once the owner and the bona fide mortgagee.For the procurator who engaged in such transactions was aman who was probably accumulating a fortune of his own, andthis peculium, subject to any prior claim of the master, wastmade liable for the repayment of unauthorised loans.It maybe readily believed that such a class as this, often under nocontrol or supervision, would exercise their power more unscrupulously and oppressively than even the most tyrannicalaristocrat. The most serious danger, however, to the smalllandowner from the great lords lay in the facilities which thelatter possessed for corrupting the sources of justice. Thegovernor, who had to hear a case between a wealthy man anda poor man, belonged to the senatorial class, in many caseswas a member of the aristocracy of the province in which thecase arose." The litigant of his own rank could easily bringprivate pressure to bear on him to influence his decisions.Even an upright man like Symmachus had no scruple inwriting to his official friends about cases which were to comebefore them.s It is to the credit of the emperors that they5 lb. ii. 30 , 2, " De Pignoribus. "6 Ib. ii. 32, 1.1 C. Th. v. 5, 2. The actores andprocuratores who disobeyed this law were to be sent to the mines.2 Ib. ix. 29, 2, si vero Actor sive Procurator latronem domino ignorante occultaverit . . . flammis ultricibus concremetur.3 Ib. ix. 30, 2.4 Ib. vii. 18 , 5 and 12. The offendingprocurator is to be capitally punished .7 E.g. Dardanus, Pretorian prefect ofGaul, 409, 413, the grandfather of Apoll.Sidonius (Ep. iii . 12 ) , Tonantius Ferreolus, etc. These are not mentioned, however, as instances of corrupt administration.S8 Sym. Ep. iv. 68; ii . 41; ii . 87.CHAP. II THE DECAY OF THe middle CLASS 2251took the severest measures to secure judicial purity. Theregulation against governors having a second term of office inthe same province was intended to check the growth of connections and influences which might prove too strong for thevirtue even of a well-meaning ruler. The danger is still moreclearly recognised in the rules which forbade the admission ofany one, rich or poor, to an interview with a governor after hiscourt had closed at midday, and which enjoined him in hisprogresses to refuse invitations to " the luxurious quarters "which his wealthy friends were ready to place at his disposal.³Very explicitly, in the year 408, Honorius forbids Honoratito sit on the bench with a judge; all causes are to be heardin open court with the fullest publicity. "4A volume might be written on the subject of financialcorruption in the last century of the Western Empire. Whenone wanders through the maze of enactments dealing withfiscal oppression, malversation, and evasion, one knows notwhether more to pity the weakness of the government, or towonder at the hardened cupidity and audacity of the classeswhich were leagued together in plundering both the treasuryand the taxpayer. In the early part of the fifth century, theprovince of Africa, so essential to the very existence of thecapital, yet held by so precarious a tenure, appealed by deputation to the Emperor for relief from its miseries. Thecomplaints relate almost entirely to oppression and injustice inthe collection of the various branches of the revenue. Theupper classes secured immunity from their proper burdens, orsucceeded by unfair assessment in shifting them on to theclass less able to bear them. The soldiers and officials grosslyabused the right of free quarters in moving through theprovince. The various grades of public servants whosebusiness it was to collect the revenue, or to press for1 C. Th. ix. 26, 4, si quis Procon- sularem aut Vicariam potestatem, etc.,iterare temptaverit, fisco ejus omine patrimonium sociari decernimus.2 Ib. i. 7, 6.3 Ib. i. 7, 4, non deverticula deliciosa sectetur. Any diversorium lent to ajudex in the face of this law is to be confiscated.4 Ib. i. 8, 1.5 b. i. 7, 2.86 Ib . xii. 1 , 166; xii . 6 , 27; vii. 4, 33.7 lb. vii. 8, 10.Fora goodsummaryof the sufferingsof AfricaatthistimefromcorruptofficialsseeGodefroy'snoteto vi. 29, 11 , the lawwhichordersthe curiosito be expelledfrom the province.8 Susceptores, ib . xii. tit. 6; cf. Fauriel, i. 362.Q226 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK III42payment, or to keep the revenue accounts, were all guiltyof the grossest fraud, in collusion with each other, or of outrageous terrorism and violence. Alike in Africa and Gaul,the great landowners at this time, taking advantage of theevident weakness and difficulties of the government, eitherevaded or delayed their payments.3 In many cases theiragents, living in remote independence, offered a stolid resistance to the demands of the treasury, and that at a timewhen the utmost despatch was needed to prepare for thestorm which was ready to burst both upon Gaul and Italy,and when the government had on its hands a troublesome warin Africa. Not content with this, they shielded by theirpatronage weaker men who had perhaps more excuse forfalling into arrears.5 When corn was urgently needed to savethe city from famine, or to provision the troops for Gaul, theyallowed vessels bound to the transport service to be enteredin their names. They bribed the officers of the census tomake false entries of property liable to taxation , and landinspectors to relieve them of the burden of unproductiveestates." If they purchased an estate from a man in difficulties they would often, by a surreptitious contract, shift theburden of the capitation-tax, payable on the coloni of theestate, to the shoulders of the needy vendor. By influenceor bribes they induced the book-keepers ( tabularii) to cooktheir accounts in favour of themselves or their clients. Itis difficult to conceive a powerful and wealthy class, many ofwhose members must have known the responsibilities of govern1 Compulsores, C. Th. xi. 1 , 34, with Godefroy's note; cf. Amm. Marc. xxii.6.2 Numerarii, actuarii, C. Th. viii.tit. 1. See Godefroy's Paratitlon, and cf. 1. 4, vorax et fraudulentum numerariorum propositum; 1. 6, numerarii qui publicas civitatum rationes versu- tis fraudibus lacerare dedicerunt, subjaceant tortori.3 Ib. xi. 1 , 25 , 26 , 27. These laws were issued in 398 and 399.Sym. v. 87, ix. 6, Actores absentium, quibus res longinqua committitur,tanquam soluti legibus vivunt.5 C. Th. xi. 24, 4, qui fraudandorum tributorum causa ad patrocinia solita fraude confugerint; cf. Salv. de Gub.Dei, v. 38.6 C. Th. xiii. 7, 2, multi naves suas diversorum nominibus et titulis tuentur; cf. xiii. 5, 26, 37.7 Deserta praedia added by the in- spectors to a productive estate were exempted from the senatorial land- tax by vi. 2, 13; cf. xiii. 11 , 8 and 12.The process of éπißoλý or adaequatio is explained in Godefroy's notes to these laws. Cf. xiii . 11 , 10, and Godefroy'snotes on xiii. 11 , 16.8 lb. xi . 1 , 26; cf. Salv. v. c.Marquardt, ii . 231 .79 C. Th. xiii . 10, 1 and 8, quoniamTabularii per collusionem potentiorum sarcinam ad inferiores transferunt .Tabulariis erit flamma supplicium; cf. Sym. Ep. ix. 10.

CHAP. II THE DECAY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 227ment, and all of whom might have known the overwhelmingdifficulties of the time, so lost to all sense of public duty.32If such was the public morality of the senatorial class, thetone of the lower grades of treasury officials was not likely tobe marked by greater probity or a higher sense of honour. Itwould be difficult, without writing a treatise on the subject, togive an exact idea of the various devices by which the armyof treasury officials, through all its many grades, contrived todefraud either the government or the taxpayer, or both together. It would seem that persons of the lowest originwere finding their way into the ranks of the service by surreptitious means.¹ They are plainly accused of looking toplunder for the means of buying themselves advancement tohigher places. Their character is painted in the blackestcolours. They are threatened with every mode and degree ofpenalty, heavy fines or wholesale restitution of illicit gains,degradation to plebeian rank, death by the sword, by torture,by the " avenging flames. " They are prohibited from seekingany renewal of their term of office, in language which anhonest service would have resented as an intolerable insult.Yet no expedient seems to have been of any avail to checkthe headlong cupidity of the time. The evil, so far as we canjudge from the Code, is as rampant in the reign of Majorianas in the reign of Constantine. The allurements or the protection of the great, the collusion of comrades equally bent onplunder, remoteness from the seat of empire, the dumb patienceof the rustic folk who could not defend themselves, and whosenatural protectors were often in league with their plunderersall these things produced a sense of impunity which the distantsound of imperial menaces seems to have hardly disturbed fora moment.¹ C. Th. vi. 27, 18, ad scholam Agentum in rebus passim plurimi velut ad quoddam asylum convolaverunt,quos vita culpabiles et origo habetignobiles, et ex servili faece prorupisse demonstrat; cf. vi. 27, 4 for rules of admission to the service.2 Ib. vi. 29, 11 , qui ex collecta pro- vincialium praeda ad majores militias festinant. (It need hardly be said that militia is applied to Palatine service generally. )3 Cf. Amm. Marc. xvi. 5, §11, raperenon accipere sciunt agentes in rebus.See the terms of opprobrium collected in Godefroy, Paratitlon to C. Th. viii.tit. 1 .4 C. Th. ix. 27,5 Ib. ix. 26, 2.1; xiii. 10, 8.6 Nov. Maj. 1 , compulsor nihil amplius a Curiali noverit exigendum quam quod ipse a possessore sus- ceperit omnis concussionumoccasio removeatur; cf. the law ofConstantine in 315, C. Th. viii. 10 , 1 .•!228 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK III34The susceptores, who were often taken from the curial class ,had many opportunities for fraud and oppression.¹ Theirbusiness was chiefly to receive the tribute paid in kind forthe support of the troops and government service. Sometimesthey did not give receipts at once, or they gave them ininvalid form, without the particulars prescribed by law.Sometimes they used false weights and measures, so that theunfortunate farmer had to furnish more than his proper quota.Or, again, they would lend themselves to tactics by whichthe validity of a receipt was disputed, and the paymentlevied a second time. " The accountants of the army stores(numerarii, actuarii) were audacious offenders. They areplainly charged with falsifying accounts and drawing largersupplies than the corps were entitled to. The actuariiseem to have been a particularly troublesome class, and areordered away from the capital by a law of Arcadius in 398.7But it was at the hands of the various officials charged withthe duty of enforcing payment and collecting arrears that theprovincials suffered the worst cruelties. There was apparentlyno possible means of restraining them. Their insolence isdescribed most vividly and punished most fiercely in someof the latest laws in the Code. By demanding receipts whichhad been lost, by over - exaction,10 by fraudulent meddlingwith the lists of the census, 11 by mere terrorism and brute force,they caused such misery and discontent that the Emperorhad more than once, at all costs to the revenue, to order theirremoval from a whole province. Their exactions and superexactions had reached such a point in 440 13 that Theodosiusand Valentinian issued a rescript which gave the governors ofprovinces the power of punishing them without any fear of1 v. Godefroy's Paratitlon to C. Th.xii. 6.6, 9.Susceptores specierum, C. Th. xii.3 Ib. xii. 6 , 27.4 Ib. xi. 8, 3.5 Ib. xii . 6, 26; cf. xii . 1 , 185 ,semel securitatem de refusione mu- nerum emissam ab alio Proconsule non liceat refricari.6 Ib. viii. 1 , 15. In the reignof Constantine their frauds were soenormous that the Emperor threatens them with torture for their offences.7 Ib. viii . 1 , 14.128 Nov. Valent. 7; Maj. 4; Mart.2 (cf. Amm. Marc . xxx. c. 5 ) .9 C. Th. xi . 26, 2.10 Ib. xi. 8, 2.11 Ib. xiii . 11 , 4 and 10.12 Ib. viii. 10, 4, universa compulsorumgenera ex Africanis provinciis consti- tuimus pellenda, 412; vi. 29, 11 ,curiosos praecepimus removeri, 414 .This also relates to Africa; cf. the removal of curiosi from Dalmatia.13 Nov. Th. 45 ( 1 ) and ( 2) .CHAP. 11 THE DECAY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 22966the Counts of the treasury. But the effect on the collectionof the revenue, and, not least, the slur on the illustriousofficers, whose powers were thus curtailed, or whose gainswere diminished, compelled the Emperor two years afterwardsto rescind the former law. It is only too evident that theEmperor's zeal for honest administration met with deadening opposition in the highest as well as the lowest ranks ofthe service. The " defensores " 2 of cities had, as one of theirmost important duties, to protect the taxpayers from overexaction. Yet one can see, from a law of 409,3 that theprotection was often not to be relied upon. The defraudedprovincial is directed, in the first instance, to appeal to thedefensor, the curia, and the magistrates. If they refuse toaccept his appeal, he is, as a last resort, in the presence, andwith the cognisance, of the public clerks and minor officials, topost up his complaint in the more public places of the municipality. There surely never was a more startling confessionof impotence made by the heads of a great administrativesystem.Perhaps even stronger proof of the inability of the government to control its servants is to be found in the enormitiesof the discussores, as they are described to us in some ofthe later constitutions. These officials, whose business it wasto discover, and call up, all arrears of tribute, were appointedon a regular system; and, in ordinary times, men were notvery willing to undertake a function so invidious. For thearrears were probably quite as often due by the great proprietors as by the small. But in the last years of the Empiremen seem to have thrust themselves into the office without anyregular authority. Their object, of course, was mere plunder,1 Nov. Th. 45 ( 2) , cum pietas nostra censuerat ut illustres viri sacri acprivati aerarii Comites facultatem con- demnandorum Judicum non haberent.In i. 7, 5 the provincial governors areordered to go about and exert them- selves to bring to light frauds of tax- collectors. But the counts of thelargesses in 452, on the pretext that the financial service was interferedwith, actually succeeded in terrorising the governors.2 The powers of the defensor are defined in the law of 392, C. Th. i .11, 2, plebem tantum vel Decurionesab omni improborum insolentia et te- meritate tueantur. Cf. C. Th. xii . 6,23; Nov. Maj. 5; Marquardt, i.522; De Coulanges, L'Inv. Germ. p.39. De Coulanges takes a different view of the defensor's office from most authorities. Cf. Godefroy's Paratitlonto C. Th. i. 11; Fauriel, i. 375.3 C. Th . xi. 8, 3.4 See Paratition of Godefroy to C. Th. xi. tit. 26, and the notes to Nov. Valent. 7.5 The discussores of the reign of Honorius were quite as corrupt, C.Th. xi . 26, 2230 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIand they had endless opportunities of enriching themselves.Many proprietors were deeply in debt, not only to privatecreditors, but to the treasury. Estates were frequently changing hands, and, in the confusion of a time of invasion and panic,documents would be lost or purchases would be made withoutfull knowledge of the liabilities of the vendor. The discussor,who had obtained his office by intrigue, ¹ came down with apowerful retinue, obtained doubtless in the same way, demanding old receipts, presenting a mass of cooked accounts, whichno one could check, least of all the simple farmer. Whatfollowed, as described by the Emperor, resembles the worstscenes in Turkish provincial government, outrage, torture,imprisonment, murder; and all these enormities were countenanced, and actively supported, by officers of the palace andthe praetorium, with the aid of the soldiers of the neighbouringgarrison. Who can wonder that people exposed to suchbrutality, in the name of civilised government, should welcome the rude justice of the Gothic chief? 5Yet it would be unhistorical and unfair to hold theimperial government responsible for all these horrors. Almostevery page of the Code bears witness to the indignant energywith which the Emperor and his Council strove to check theanarchy of the provincial administration. But, with a highsense of duty and the appearance of omnipotence, the centralauthority had lost control of the vast system. The government was growing weaker as the power of the aristocracyincreased, and, as we have already seen, the power of thearistocracy was being actually exerted to hamper and defeatthe imperial administration. The same paralysis is seen ineach prefecture and in each province. For generations therehad been many governors slow or negligent in executing thewill of the Emperor. Repeated edicts and a rising scale ofpenalties are a sufficient proof of this. But the prefect or thegovernor himself, however earnest and determined, was liableto be thwarted by his subordinates or by the intrigues of the1 Nov. Valent. 7, discussores adprovinciam non electi, sicut comperi- mus, sed ambientes ire dic*ntur, etc. 2 Ib. 7, securitates expetunt annorum serie et vetustate consumptas, quas servare nescit simplicitas et fiducia nihil debentis.3 lb. 7, innumerae deinde caedes,saeva custodia, suspendiorum crudelitas et universa tormenta, etc. Ib. 7, collega furtorum Palatinushortatur, instat apparitio turbulenta ,urget immitis executio militaris.Salv. de Gub. Dei, v. 36, 37, c. 8.CHAP. II THE DECAY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 231Potentes. There are few traces in the fifth century of thegrosser forms of corruption or oppression among the higherofficials, but there are many proofs of their failure to carryout the intentions of the Emperor. This was no doubt sometimes due to want of a high sense of duty, or of energy, or toillegitimate influence brought to bear upon them. But probably the most potent cause was the contumacy of the lowermembers of the service, who had their own ends to gain inmaintaining abuses. It is certainly significant that in somany laws, while the governor is to be fined for disobedience,his staff are laid under far heavier penalties, ' some of them ofa kind which we should describe as savage.The last edict which deals with the miseries inflicted bythe tax-gatherer sums up, as it were, the imperial legislationon this subject for generations, and in its candid pessimismsounds the death-knell of provincial administration in theWest. Its author was the last prince of high purpose andcapacity who addressed himself to the hopeless task of reforming a vast service which was honeycombed with corruption.The last Roman Emperor of the West from whom, as statesman or soldier, great things were expected , was foiled in hisefforts, both in war and statecraft. And he found his ownnobles and civil servants as dangerous enemies of the State asthe Vandals. Any one who wishes, at first hand, to know thesecret of the disease which was undermining the strengthof the imperial system in the West, should read the law ofMajorian issued in 458.3 The fortunes of the provincialsare still being eaten away by extortionate and repeated exactions. The municipalities are being deserted by the citizenswho have to bear their burdens, but who prefer to abandoneverything rather than endure the ingenious chicanery or truculent cruelty of the officers of the treasury. While the smallerproprietors are being bled to death, the agents of the greatlandowner, in the security of a remote estate, placidly ignorethe demands of the collector. The provincial governors seempersonally not to be distrusted by the Emperor; indeed theyare charged with the task of reforming the fiscal system ofquoque amissione truncandos. 1 Nov. Maj. 6, ut Judex qui hoc fieri statuerit 20 librarum auriillatione feriatur, apparitores vero ...fustuario supplicio subditos, manuum2 Apoll. Sidon. Carm . v. 585.3 Nov. Maj. tit. i .232 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIItheir districts . But even they are apt to be misled or cajoledby their subordinate officers, who possess a minute knowledgeof the localities, and whose audacity is stimulated by theprospect of enormous gains and the experience of longimpunity.The picture of his times left by Majorian is infinitely sad,and yet, as we said at the beginning of this chapter, it isimpossible to ignore the high sense of duty, and the almosteffusive sympathy for the suffering masses, which mark thelast utterances of the imperial jurisprudence. Just as paganismon the eve of its proscription by the State attained for amoment an elevation and purity higher than it ever reachedin the ages of its unchallenged supremacy, so the imperialgovernment was probably never so anxious to check abuses ofadministration, or so compassionate for the desolate and thesuffering, as in the years when its forces were being paralysed.It is easy for the cool economist to criticise some of thesemeasures of alleviation as more characterised by sympathythan statesmanship. It has been said that the indulgence todebtors to the imperial treasury, which was so often granted,merely threw a heavier load on those taxpayers who werestill able to meet their obligations.¹ But in one of the laterconstitutions it is expressly stated that, if the treasuryinsisted in all cases on its full rights, it would ruin the taxpayer, without benefiting the State. " Between 395 and 423,Honorius remitted the taxes over wide districts in tendifferent edicts.3 Similar measures of the most sweepingcharacter are to be found among the enactments of laterreigns. But in most of these cases, it is not difficult to finda justification for the remission in the public calamities or thecruel super-exactions of the agents of the fisc. Nor did theEmperor spare the private creditor in emergencies, any morethan his own exchequer. In 443, so desperate had the1 F. de Coulanges, L'Inv. Germ.p. 59.2 Nov. Th. 51 , si a possessoresuper alia, quae praestat has expensas,requirat, ultimas tenuesque ejus vires compulsio talis extinguet,3 C. Th. xi. 28, 2 sqq.Nov. Th. 22. The Albinus towhom this was addressed was probably grandson of the Albinus of the SaturHenalia. Cf. Seeck, Sym. clxxix. He was a son of Volusianus who corresponded with S. Augustine, and suc- ceeded Rutilius Namatianus as prefectof the city, Rutil . Namat. i . 466.was P.P. of Gaul in 440; P. P. of Italy,443-448; consul, 444; patrician, 446.TheNovellae seemto showhim the greatstatesman of the time, Nov. Valent.1 , 2, 4, 5; Nov. Th. 22, 23, 35, 50.CHAP. II THE DECAY OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 233condition of Africa become, that the government felt itnecessary to suspend for a time the right of recovery forprivate debts.¹In a number of minor measures scattered over the Codethe growing spirit of humanity may be observed. Thegovernors of provinces are called upon to exercise the utmostvigilance to check the oppression of the poor by the agents ofthe great, and to bring to light the misdeeds of the tax-gatherer.2It is their duty, along with the bishops, to visit prisons onthe Lord's Day, to receive any complaints from the prisonersas to their treatment, and to see that they are sufficientlysupplied with food.³ Stringent enactments require thatpersons charged with crime shall be brought up for trialwithin a year, and that prisoners shall not be subjected tounnecessary harshness. By a strict term of prescription, thelaw strove to restrain that noxious class who made a trade ofassailing titles to property," or the status of persons who hadsucceeded in escaping from a servile or dependent condition.The evidence of the freedman against his patron was discredited,"and also that of the accused person who, while confessing hisown guilt, attempted to incriminate another. There are three orfour other measures to which we may refer, as illustrative atonce of the misery of the times, and the humanitarian spirit ofthe central government. In the terror caused by the movements of the Goths at the beginning of the fifth century manypersons, particularly in the province of Illyricum, had fled todistricts which offered greater security. Some had beencarried into captivity and redeemed. In many cases they hadcome under obligations which were sometimes enforced in ahard and selfish spirit. Where the fugitive owes nothing butthe gift of food and clothing from his host, the Emperordismisses the claim for compensation . But where he has beenbought back from the hands of the enemy, his redemptor,whose motive was sometimes that of acquiring a useful serf,is ordered to be content with the repayment of the ransom,or, as an alternative, with five years' service. In those same1 Nov. Th. 22.2 C. Th. i. 7, 5, 7.3 lb. ix. 3, 7.4 lb. ix. 36, 1 and 2; cf. ix. 3, 1 ,sqq.5 Nov. Valent. 8; cf. Godefroy'selaborate Commentary on C. Th. iv.tit. 14.6 C. Th. iv. 11 , 2; ix. 1 , 19; ix. 6, 4.7 Ib. v. 5, 2; v. Godefroy's Com.234 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK IIIcalamitous years there was a great famine in Italy, and itappears probable that some masters were tempted to limit thenumber of mouths on their estates by exposing the infantsof their female slaves. The exposed child was sometimesfound and treated with kindly human feeling; and thelegislator interposed to prevent the cruel master from reclaiming to servitude the creature whom he had consigned todeath.¹ The flight of serfs from one estate to another wasevidently very common. The law of 419 fixes the limit ofthirty years, after which the fugitive colonus, who had foundanother master, and had probably formed family ties , couldnot be recalled to the servitude from which he had fled. Inthe case of a female serf, the limit is twenty years. And if,before that term, she has married, in order to prevent thebreak-up of a home the law enacts that her second mastershall provide a vicaria, presumably unmarried, who shall satisfythe claim of her former master.These are a few examples of the efforts of governmentto alleviate that mass of misery and social injustice whichit was impotent to cure. To a sympathetic mind, thereis no more painful reading than the Theodosian Code ofthe fifth century. The authors of these laws are generallyloaded with the double opprobrium of weakness and corruption.Les malheureux ont toujours tort. The system of bureaucratic.despotism, elaborated finally by Diocletian and Constantine,produced a tragedy in the truest sense, such as history hasseldom exhibited; in which, by an inexorable fate, the claimsof fancied omnipotence ended in a humiliating paralysis ofadministration; in which determined effort to remedy socialevils only aggravated them till they became unendurable; inwhich the best intentions of the central power were, generation.after generation, mocked and defeated alike by irresistible lawsof human nature, and by hopeless perfidy and corruption inthe servants of government.¹ C. Th. v. 7, 2. On the famine cf. Zos. vi. 11 , Olympiod . § 4, Sozom. ix . 8.2 C. Th. v. 10.BOOK IVTHE BARBARIANS AND THE FUTUREOF THE EMPIRE

CHAPTER ITHE GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE INVASIONSNo part of the inner life of the fifth century should, in themind of an intelligent student, excite greater curiosity thanthe attitude of the Romans of the West to the invaders, andtheir ideas as to the future of Rome. As he reads themeagre chronicles of the tines, he can hardly help askinghimself, What did these men think about the real meaning ofthe sack of Rome by Alaric and by Genseric; of the devastation of the provinces; of the settlement of Visigoths, Burgundians, Sueves, and Vandals in regions which, in spite oftemporary incursions, had for centuries enjoyed the Romanpeace? Was the end indeed come, the end of so much effort,of so many glories, of that great history of civil and militaryvirtue which had given uniform law and culture to therealms of Alexander as well as to the countries bordering onthe inland and the western seas? Or, were the calamities ofthe time, crushing and calamitous as they were to individualcitizens, only temporary and limited in their range, such asthe Empire had often before suffered, without serious andlasting effects on the general organisation of society?And asto the causes of the calamity, were they the decline of Romanvirtue and skill in statecraft, or were they the anger of theold gods of Rome for the desertion of their altars, or thepunishments sent by the Christian's God for luxury andoppression of the weak? Finally, what was to be therelation of the Empire, if it was to continue, to thesestrange immigrants into her territory, and how were they238 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVgoing to behave to the power which had so long kept themat bay?We propose to collect, from the literary remains of the period,various answers to these questions. But before doing so, thereare some general considerations as to the character of theinvasions of the barbarians in the fifth century, and their settlement in the provinces, which it will be well to bear in mindin the review which we propose to make. The modern, whohas only the popular conception of the events of that time, isapt to think that the Western Empire succumbed to an overpowering advance of whole tribes and peoples, animated byhatred of Rome, sweeping away the remains of an effetecivilisation, and replacing it, in a sudden and cataclysmalchange, by a spirit and by institutions of a perfectly differentorder. Yet, if such were a true account of the fall of theRoman Empire, the tone and behaviour of many of the Romansof that time would be inexplicable. Here and there there arecries of horror at the havoc and slaughter which were causedby some violent incursion. And, undoubtedly, the capture ofthe city gave for the moment a terrible shock to the ancientfaith in the strength and stability of Rome. But this wasonly a transitory feeling. Confidence soon returned. Thecities and regions, which are said to have been desolated andravaged, reappear with apparently few traces of any catastrophe.The government betrays no sign of confusion or despair.Individual observers may have their doubts and questioningsabout the course of events, but few seem absolutely dismayed,and some display a confidence and hopefulness which wouldbe quite astonishing, if the old popular conception of thebarbarian onslaughts were the true one.A very cursory glance at the history of the Empire revealsthe secret of this insouciance. The invasions of the fifthcentury were nothing new, nor was there anything verystartling in the settlement of Germans on Roman soil . Fromthe times of Marius not a century had passed without someviolent inroad of German hosts. The myriads annihilated onthe field of Aquae Sextiae were but the advance guard of amighty movement, which was always pressing on to the Westor South. Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, had all to throw backsuccessive attacks on the frontier of the Rhine. MarcusCHAP. I GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE INVASIONS 239Aurelius spent eight campaigns in a struggle with a vastconfederacy on the Danube.¹ In the third century almost everyprovince, and even Italy itself, was ravaged, and the Goths, acomparatively new horde, who had worked their way fromScandinavia to the Ukraine, swept the Euxine in thousandsof vessels, and harried the towns of Asia Minor and Greece.In the reign of Probus, the Germans captured and pillaged sixtytowns in Gaul, and overran the whole province. Anotherformidable irruption took place in the middle of the fourthcentury. Enormous numbers of Franks, Alemanni, and Saxonspassed the Rhine. A great part of Gaul was overrun, andforty towns along the Rhine were sacked. Once more theinvaders were driven back with enormous loss.6The invasions of the third and fourth centuries, in respect ofthe numbers and impetuosity of the assailants, seem to us nowto have been almost overwhelming. The Gothic host of thereign of Claudius is said to have numbered 320,000 men.The Germans who spread over the whole of Gaul in the reignof Probus must have been even more numerous, if thatemperor slaughtered 400,000 of them, as he is said to havedone. Yet it does not appear that, at crises so appalling, theRomans ever despaired of the safety of the State. The letterof Probus to the Senate, to which we have referred, ratherexpresses an almost exuberant confidence." The invaders, however numerous, are invariably driven back, and in a short timethere are few traces left of their ravages. The truth seems tobe that, however terrible the plundering bands might be to theunarmed population, yet in a regular battle the Germans wereimmensely inferior to the Roman troops. Ammianus, who hadborne a part in many of these engagements, says that, in spiteof the courage of the Germans, their impetuous fury was no1 Jul. Capitol. vit. M. Anton, c. 22,gentes omnes ab Illyrici limite usque in Galliam conspiraverant.Treb. Poll. vit . Gallien. c. 6, 13;vit. Claud. c. 6; Zos. i . 30 , 31. Cf. Pallmann, die Gesch. der Völkerwand.i. PP; 49 sqq.; Jordan. Get. 17.Ζος. i. 42, ναυπηγησάμενοι πλοίαἐξακισχίλια καὶ τούτοις ἐμβιβάσαντες δύο καὶ τριάκοντα μυριάδες: vit . Claud.c. 6, 8.Flav. Vop. Prob. c. 13, cum per omnes Gallias securi vagarentur.12.Zos. iii . 1 , 3; Amm. Marc. xvi.6 Treb. Poll. vit. Claud. c. 8; Flav.Vop. vit. Prob. c. 15. But on thecredibility of Vopiscus v. Peter, Gesch.Litt. über die Röm. Kaiserzeit, i . 150;and ii. 281 on the carelessness ofhistorians in dealing with numbers.7 Vit. Prob. c. 15, omnes penitusGalliae liberatae . . . arantur Gallicana rura barbaris bubus . nos eorumomnia possidemus.240 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IV4match for the steady discipline and coolness of troops underRoman officers.¹ The result of this moral superiority, foundedon a long tradition, was that the Roman soldier in thethird and fourth centuries was ready to face almost any odds.In 356 an immense multitude of the Alemanni inundatedEastern Gaul. Julian, the future Emperor, who was then amere youth, with no previous training in the art of war, was incommand of only 13,000 men, of whom few were veterantroops. Yet in a very short time not an enemy was left inGaul, and the victors were carrying the war far into the heartof Germany. There must undoubtedly have been much lossof life and property in some of these raids. Yet a very fewyears after the ravages which were checked by Julian, thevalley of the Moselle is described to us by Ausonius as aparadise which shows no trace of the hand of the spoiler. "Comfortable granges and luxurious villas look down from everyheight. The vineyards rise in terraces along the banks, andthe yellow corn-lands can vie even with the fertility of thepoet's native Aquitaine. The population are prosperous andhappy. There is even an air of rustic jollity and gaiety overthe scene from which all thoughts of past suffering or comingdanger seem to be banished."Of the same character were the great invasions of the opening years of the fifth century. A great army under Radagaesus,which, according to the lowest estimate, numbered 200,000men, crossed the Alps and penetrated into Etruria.8 That thegovernment regarded the danger as serious, may be inferredfrom the edict which called the slaves to arms.⁹ YetStilicho, with a force of only 30,000 regular troops, and someHun and Alan auxiliaries,10 signally defeated that great host,and the prisoners taken were so many that they were soldfor a single aureus apiece.¹¹ In the beginning of the year 111 Amm. Marc. xvi. 12, 47, Ale- manni robusti et celsiores, milites usunimio dociles; illi feri et turbidi, hi quieti et cauti.2 Zos. iii. 3, πλῆθος ἄπειρον ἐπεραιώθη βαρβάρων.3 Amm. Marc. xvi. 12, 2; Zos. l.c. 4 Zos. iii . 4, ἄχρι τῶν Ερκυνίωνδρυμῶν τοὺς φεύγοντας ὁ Καῖσαρ ἐπιδιώξας.5 Ib. iii. 1.Auson. Idyl. x. v. 156. The poemon the Moselle was composed circ. 370;v. Schenkl, Proem. xv.7 Auson. Idyl. x. v. 165.8 Oros. vii. 37 , § 13, secundum eos qui parcissime referunt, ducenta milia hominum. Cf. Zos. v. 26; Marcell.Chron.9 C. Th. vii. 13, 16.10 Zos. v. 26.11 Oros. vii. 37, § 16.CHAP. I GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE INVASIONS 2411406 a horde of Alans, Sueves, and Vandals crossed theRhine, from which the garrisons had been withdrawn to meetthe danger in Italy. The invaders caused great consternation, and undoubtedly inflicted much damage and suffering intheir passage through Gaul.3 But the districts and cities,which they are said to have plundered and destroyed, withina generation are found to be once more flourishing andprosperous.In the fragmentary annals of the fifth century there is nosign that the generals of the Empire felt any fear of an overwhelming superiority on the side of the invaders. In 426the city of Arles was attacked by a powerful force of Goths;but they were compelled by Aetius to retire with heavyloss.5 Two years later, the same great general recovered theRhineland from the Franks. " In 435 he inflicted a crushingdefeat on the Burgundians, and compelled them to sue forpeace. In the following year Litorius, the lieutenant ofAetius, by a rapid movement, relieved the town of Narbonne,when it was hard pressed by famine and the Gothic army.And although Litorius soon afterwards was taken captive by thehands of the Goths, the annalist expressly says that it wasthe result of reckless ambition and superstitious credulity, notof any inferiority of force.s The invasion of Attila in 451 wasprobably the most appalling danger, in respect to the numbersof his motley host, which the Romans had had to face forages. " Aetius had only a handful of troops under his command,10and although he was able to rally to his support Visigoths,Franks, Burgundians, and Saxons, yet the credit of defeatingthat fierce and crafty power, which had reduced all centralEurope to vassalage, must be awarded to Roman daring and1 Prosp. Chron. , Arcadio vi. et Probo Coss.; Oros. vii. 38 and 40.2 Claud. de Bell. Get. 421:tutumque remotis excubiis Rhenum solo terrore relinquunt.3 Carm. de Prov. Div. v. 25, perieretot urbes ( v. 34) , Vandalicis gladiis sternimur et Geticis . . . ultima per- tulimus; Rutil. Namat. i . 27-30;Hieron. Ep. 123, § 16.This appears to be the case in Bordeaux, Paulin. Pell . Euch. 240; cf.284. Compare the state of Rome after the sack by the Vandals, Apoll. Sid.REp. i. 5.5 Prosp. Chron. Theodos. xii . and Valent. Coss.6 Ib. Felice et Dionysio Coss.7 Ib. Theod. xv. and Valent. iv. Coss.8 Ib. ad a. 439, ut nisi inconsideranterproelians in captivitatem incidisset,dubitandum foret cui potius partivictoria ascriberetur.9 Apoll. Sid. Carm. vii. 320; cf. Prosp. Chron. ad a.10 Sid. Carm. vii. 329, tenue et rarumsine milite ducens Robur in auxiliis; cf.Fauriel, i. p. 226.242 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVorganisation. In the last days of the independence ofAuvergne and of the Western Empire, a mere handful of troopsunder the gallant Ecdicius, ' and raised by his own resources,kept the Visigothic army for months at bay, and the Romanshowed in this final struggle an almost contemptuous recklessness.3The Germans then were not superior to the Romans inmilitary skill and courage. Nor were they animated by anycommon purpose or hatred of Rome. So far from having anycommon purpose, they were hopelessly divided among themselves, and were as often found fighting for the Empire as againstit. The Franks on the Rhine were champions of Rome when theywere overwhelmed bythe invaders of 406.2 Stilicho had Alanand Hun auxiliaries in his great battle with Radagaesus. Itwas with Hun cavalry that Aetius and Litorius strove to check theadvance of the Visigoths in Southern Gaul. It was with theaid of Visigoths, Franks, Saxons, and Burgundians that Aetiusdefeated the army of Attila on the Catalaunian plains. Againand again the Visigoths of Toulouse lent their forces tosupport the Roman power in Spain against the Sueves. TheRomans of Auvergne, when they were deserted in its weaknessby the imperial government, received help and encouragementin their last struggles against Euric from the Burgundians.It is clear from these facts that the Empire was not an objectof hatred to the barbarians. Indeed they were often eager tobe taken into her service; and many of their chiefs, like Alaricor Ataulphus, had no higher ambition than to be appointedto high military command. On the other hand, there wasa corresponding readiness on the Roman side to employ barbarian forces in war. From the earliest days of the Empirethese auxiliaries appear on the army lists. Germans arefound in the bodyguard of Augustus. They fought underVitellius in the foremost ranks at the battle of Cremona.1 Sid. Ep. iii . 3, taceo deinceps collegisse te privatis viribus publici exercitus speciem, etc.; cf. Greg. Tur.Hist. Fr. ii. 24 , multitudinem Got- thorum cum decem viris fugasse per- scribitur.Oros. vii. 40, § 3, multaeque cumhis aliae (gentes) Francos proterunt.Fauriel, i . 47.3 Zos. v. 26.4 Prosp. Chron. a. 437 , 439.85 Idat. Chron. , mox Hispanias rex Gothorum Theodoricus cum ingenti exercitu, et cum voluntate et ordina- tione Aviti Imperatoris ingreditur.Sid. Ep. iii . 4. The help, however, was of doubtful value, Chaix,Sid . ii. 164.7 Suet. Octav. 49.8 Tac. Hist. i . 61.CHAP. I GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE INVASIONS 213Vespasian had special confidence in the loyalty of the Sueves,and had two of their chiefs in his service.¹ Marcus Aureliusformed some corps of Germans for his war with their countrymen on the Danube.2 In the third century, the tendencybecomes even more marked. Valerian, in a despatch toAurelian, describes an army which included troops from Ituraea,Arabia, and Mesopotamia, and officers bearing such unmistakable German names as Hariomundus, Hildomundus, andHaldagates. Claudius II. , after the great defeat which heinflicted on the Goths, enrolled a large number of them underhis standards. Probus recruited the frontier garrisons with16,000 from the wreck of the great host which had devastatedGaul. The army of Constantine, in the battle of the MilvianBridge, was chiefly composed of Germans and Celts and Britons. "Of similar composition was the army with which Theodosiusdefeated Eugenius at the Frigidus."Some of these barbarian troops took service voluntarilyunder an express agreement, stating the conditions on whichthey served. Others were compelled to join the standards asthe result of defeat in battle. Some of them received regularpay and rations; others received grants of land, which wereheld on condition of military service, and which passed totheir sons on the same condition. A page of the Notitiacontains a list of more than twenty corps of these militarycolonists, under the name Sarmatae Gentiles, who were settledat various places from Bruttium to the Alps.10 Similar Germancorps, under the name of Laeti, had lands assigned to them inalmost every part of Gaul. The Gallo- Roman population hadbeen long accustomed to the residence of these bands on theirsoil. Batavi are found at Arras; Franks at Renues; Suevesat Coutances, Mans, Bayeux, and Auvergne; Sarmatians at1 Tac. Hist. iii. 5.2 Jul. Capitol. vit. M. Anton. c. 21 ,emit et Germanorum auxilia contra Germanos.Flav. Vop. Aurel. c. 11 .+ Zos. i. 46, ὅσοι δὲ διεσώθησαν, ἢτάγμασι Ρωμαίων συνηρίθμησαν , κ.τ.λ. Cf. Treb. Poll. vit. Claud. c. 8.5 Flav. Vop. Prob. c. 14, accepit praeterea sedecim milia tyronum, quosomnes per diversas provincias sparsit,etc.6 Zos. ii. 15.7 lb. iv. 56.8v. C. Th. vii. 13, 16; Godefroy's note on the Foederati and Dedititii.9 Ib. vii. 20, 12, with Godefroy's note; xiii. 11 , 9; Amm. Marc. xx.8, 13; Pancg. Constant. c. 21; Zos. ii .54.10 Notit. Dig. ed. Böcking, p. 121 (c. xl. ) . Cf. the grants of terrae limi- taneae made to veterans and their sonson military tenure, Lamprid. Alex. Sev.c. 58, § 4; Flav. Vop. Prob. c. 14;C. Th. vii. 15, 1.244 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVParis, Poitiers, and Amiens.¹ Occasionally the Laeti provedto be dangerous neighbours. Thus we learn from AmmianusMarcellinus that a body of Laeti, in the troubled year 357,attempted to capture the city of Lyons, and plundered thesurrounding country. Here we have an anticipation in thefourth century of what happened more frequently in the fifth,when Burgundians and Visigoths had obtained a permanentsettlement in Gaul.We shall see, in a subsequent chapter, that the establishIment of the Germans in the south and east of Gaul disturbed and alarmed the Romans of the province far less thanwe should have expected. In a short time the intruderswere accepted as more or less friendly neighbours. Hereagain the past history of the Empire will be found to haveprepared men's minds for what, taken by themselves, wouldhave seemed stupendous changes. Just as there were countlessincursions for plunder before the Sueve and Vandal irruptionof 406, so there were many cases of barbarians seeking andobtaining a peaceful settlement within the frontier before theVisigoths settled on the Garonne, and the Burgundians on theUpper Rhine and the Rhone. Augustus, on receiving thesubmission of the Ubii and Sicambri, assigned them lands onthe left bank of the Rhine. Tiberius transported 40,000Germans into the same region. The Germans seem to havebeen seldom unwilling to enter the circle of the pax Romana.For instance the Batavians, driven from their own countryby civil war, crossed the frontier and settled down as subjectsof Rome, and for ages the Batavian cavalry had a brilliantreputation in the Roman army. In the third century Probusis said to have Germanised the provinces." He gave a4settlement in Thrace to 100,000 Bastarnae, who, we are told,proved themselves loyal subjects of the Empire. A similarexperiment, in the case of the Vandals and Gepidae, seems tohave been less successful. A body of Franks, who had obtainedfrom the Emperor a settlement somewhere in the eastern1 Notit. Dig. pp. 119, 120; cf. notes,pp. 1014-1080. On the Gentiles, not to be confounded with Laeti, c. pp. 1080 sq .; cf. Eum. Pancy. Const. c. 21;Amm. Mare. xvi. 11 , 4; Zos. ii. 51; F.de Conlanges, L'Inv. Germ. p. 389.2 Amm. Marc. xvi. 11 , 4.3 Sueton. Oct. c. 21.Ib. Tib. c. 9.5 Tac. Hist. i. 59, iv. 12; inn. ii. 8;Amm. Mare. xvi. 12, 45.Duruy, Hist. Rom. vi. p. 513; Flav.Vop. Prob. c. 15; Zos . i . 71 .CHAP. I GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE INVASIONS 245Mediterranean, proved even less worthy of his generosity.¹They got a fleet together, spread havoc and confusion throughthe whole of Greece, wrought great slaughter in an attack onSyracuse, and finally, having been repelled from the walls ofCarthage, returned to their home. The Salian Franks, whohad been driven from their old seats and had occupied theregion between the Scheldt and the Meuse, were, after somehard fighting, recognised as Roman subjects by Julian.² Themost striking example of the eagerness of the Germans to bereceived on Roman territory was the famous petition of theGoths to the Emperor Valens in 376,3 to be allowed to placethe broad waters of the Danube between them and the terribleHuns, who were then advancing from the East. Probablya million of men, women, and children were transported acrossthe swollen river. They came not as conquerors, but assuppliants for food and shelter, under the protection of Rome.No reader of Gibbon needs to be told the tragic tale of whatfollowed that great migration. It was a turning- point in history.Among the Gothic chiefs who are seen in the pages ofAmmianus Marcellinus making a last stand against the Hunswas one named Munderich. Some years afterwards this chiefis found in the position of duke on the frontiers of Arabia.Munderich is only one of many of his race who rose underthe Empire to high military command and office. This wasa necessary result of the policy which, from the time ofGallienus, practically excluded the senatorial order frommilitary service. We have seen German officers commandingcorps under Valerian in the third century. Magnentius, whorose to be Emperor on the murder of Constans, was of barbarianorigin, and had once belonged to a corps of Laeti in Gaul.7Arbogastes, who raised Eugenius to the throne, was a Frank,who, by military ability and commanding power," obtained thepost of master of the forces under Valentinian. Theodosius 101 Zos. i. 71.2Amm. Marc. xvii. 8, 3.3 Ib. xxxi. 3.4 Zos. iv. 20; Eunap. § 42, p. 31(Müll. Frag. Hist. iv. ); Gibbon, c. 26.5 Amm. Marc. xxxi. 3, 5.6 Flav. Vop. Aurel. c. 11.7 Zos. ii. 42; ii. 54.68 Ib. iv. 33.9 Ib. iv. 53.10 Ib. iv. 56, ἅμα τῷ παραλαβεῖντὴν βασιλείαν Θεοδόσιος βαρβάρους τινὰς εἰς φιλίαν καὶ ὁμαιχμίαν ἐδέξατο, καὶ ἐλπίσιν αὐτοὺς καὶ δωρεαῖς ἄλλαις τιμήσας,εἶχε δὲ καὶ ἐν θεραπείᾳ πάσῃ καὶ τοὺς ἑκάστης φυλῆς ἡγουμένους καὶ τραπέζης ἠξίου κοινῆς.246 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVcultivated the intimacy of many of these barbarian chiefs, andone of his principal lieutenants, Modares,' who rose to bemagister militum, was of Scythian descent. Another barbarianofficer, who bore a great part in the events of that period,was Richomer. His career, of which we possess full details,is a good illustration of the great position which men of hisnationality could attain under the later emperors. Richomerwas a Frank of high birth, and first appears as count ofthe domestics in the reign of Gratian. He was sent intoThrace during the troubles with the Goths to support theEmperor Valens, and shortly afterwards was raised to the postof magister militum. After a period of service in the East,during which he formed a close friendship with Libanius, hewas employed by Theodosius in high command in the campaign against Maximus. He had great influence in theimperial counsels, and lived on terms of intimacy withSymmachus and his circle. Another Frank chief, Bauto,³ thefather of the Empress Eudoxia, is said to have wielded analmost regal power under the younger Valentinian, and hiselevation to the consulship in the same year with the EmperorArcadius was celebrated in a panegyric by S. Augustine. *We have taken a few of the more striking examples of therise of barbarians to commanding positions. Other names, suchas Fravitta, Gainas, Merobaudes, Stilicho, will occur readily toany person moderately well read in the history of the LowerEmpire. How many more may have disguised their nationality under Roman names no one can tell. But German chiefsnot only obtained the great military commands, they alsorose to the consulship, the highest civil honour which theEmperor had to bestow. Dagelaephus and Merobaudes 7were colleagues of Gratian in this great office. In the reign ofTheodosius, Merobaudes, Richomer, and Bauto were consuls insuccessive years, and at least five more German names appear1 Zos. iv. 25.2 Amm. Marc. xxxi. 7, 4; Zos. iv.54, 55; cf. Secck's Sym. cxxxv.;Godefroy's note to C. Th. vii. 1 , 13;Rauschen, Jahrbücher, pp. 18, 22,172.3 Zos. iv. 33, 53; Ambros. Ep. i. 24.The question of his religion depends on the use of the singular participle inserviens in Ambros. Ep. i . 57 , 3;6cf. Seeck, Sym . exli.; Rauschen, pp.59, 65, 203.4Conf. vi. 6.5 Like Julius Florus and JuliusSacrovir (the latter only partially) , Tac.Ann. iii. 40, and Julius ( or Claudius)Civilis, a Batavian, Tac. Hist. i. 59.76 Amm. Marc. xxvi. 9, 1 , a . 366.a. 377. Cf. Rauschen, Jahrbüch.PP. 147 , 271 .CHAP. 1 GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE INVASIONS 247in the reigns of the last emperors of the West. When an office,which the Emperor himself was proud to hold, was given sofreely to men of barbarian origin, it is plain that the oldexclusiveness had disappeared, and that the Germans hadstolen their way into the very citadel of the Empire longbefore its distant outworks were stormed.¹Many of these German officers were men of brillianttalents, fascinating address, and noble bearing. To militaryskill they often added the charm of Roman culture and asocial tact which gave them admission even to the inner circleof the Roman aristocracy. Symmachus writes to Richomer asto one of his most valued friends. He extols his many virtues,and has only one grudge against him, that he cannot helpmonopolising all that is best in Roman society. The friendship of Bauto Symmachus regards as one of his treasures.3Men like these, great soldiers, and polished men of the world ,must naturally have had great social influence. And, indeed,there are signs that even in smaller things, such as toilet anddress, Germans, at the beginning of the fifth century, weresetting the fashion. Three edicts of Honorius, between 397and 416, forbid the wearing of trousers, long hair, and furcoats of the barbarian style within the precincts of the city.*The tone of the law of 416 leaves no doubt that the ragefor German fashions was widespread, and that the previousedicts had been disregarded.In yet another capacity crowds of Germans had been introduced into Roman territory. Synesius, bishop of Cyrene,towards the close of the fourth century complains that everywealthy household is full of Gothic or Scythian slaves, servingas stewards, butlers, bakers, and personal attendants of everygrade. We know also that from the first century enormousnumbers of Germans were planted as coloni on estates over allthe provinces. Crowds of Marcomanni were so distributedthroughout Italy by Marcus Aurelius." The great emperors ofthe third century took untold numbers of prisoners, and1 Rutil. Namat. ii. 50.2 Ep. iii. 58, ad te migravit quidquid Romae optimum fuit.3 Ib. iv. 15, 16.4 C. Th. xiv. 2, 3, 4; cf. Claud. in Ruf. ii. 78; Rutil. Namat. ii . 49.5 Quoted by De Coulanges, L'Inv.Germ. p. 377.6 Jul. Capitol. c. 22, accepitque in deditionem Marcomannos, plurimis in Italiam traductis.7 Treb. Poll. vit. Claud. c. 8, § 6.248 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IV2flooded the country districts with new tillers of the soil.¹ Inthe words of Probus, the barbarians were ploughing and sowingfor Roman masters. The victories of Julian, Gratian, Theodosius ,and Stilicho, all gained within a period of fifty years, recruitedstill further the ranks of rural labour.3It appears then that there was nothing new in the hostileraids or peaceful settlement of the barbarians on Roman territoryin the fifth century. For more than five hundred years theEmpire had been resisting the pressure of barbarism, occasionally suffering heavily for a time, but always in the end triumphantover mere force. Yet each successive victory had admitted inincreasing numbers the barbarian element into the frontierposts, the armies, or the fields and households of Rome. Thehighest military commands had for generations been held byGerman soldiers of fortune, who served the State loyally evenagainst their kinsmen. A Roman, who had in his youth seenthe Alemanni driven across the Rhine, and thousands ofGermans serving under the eagles in Italy, who had foundin Richomer, Bauto, or Stilicho his most charming and distinguished friends, and had seen Frank masters of thecavalry sharing the honours of the consulship with theEmperor, might, even after the scenes of 410, have smiledat the suggestion that the Empire was in any serious dangerfrom the Germans.Nor were the invasions of the first decade of the fifth century of such a uniform and sweeping character as to suggest,even to those who witnessed and suffered from them, a singleoverwhelming movement, animated by one spirit and advancingto one end. The numbers of the invaders do not appear to haveapproached the mighty hosts who were defeated by Claudiusand Probus in the third century. The forces of Ataulphusmay have hardly exceeded 20,000 or 30,000 men. " TheBurgundian invaders of Gaul were reckoned at 80,000.The entire Vandal horde, young and old, slaves and free, onlyamounted to the same number.71 Treb. Poll. vit. Claud. c. 9, § 4,impletae barbaris servis . . . Romanae provinciae, etc.2 Flav. Vop. Prob. c. 15.3 Oros. vii . 37, 16.4 Treb. Poll . Claud. c. 6; Flav.Vop. Prob. c. 15, quadringenta miliaThe Frank warriors, underhostium caesa sunt.De Coulanges, L'Inv. Germ. P. 437.6 Oros. vii. 32, § 11; Fauriel, i . 120,thinks this much exaggerated.7 Vict. Vitens. i. , qui reperti sunt senes, juvenes, parvuli, servi vel domini,octoginta millia numerati.CHAP. 1 GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE INVASIONS 249Clovis, did not number more than 6000 men. Moreover,as was pointed out long ago by a great authority, the socalled invasions were events essentially partial , local, temporary. We may add that there was a great variety in theirpurpose and character. Sometimes a band of no great numbers,bent wholly on plunder,2 will come down on a countryside andcarry off the cattle and peasants from the fields, or effect astealthy entrance into an unguarded town.3 Sometimes ingreater masses, swelling perhaps to tens of thousands, they willsweep across a whole province, capturing cities, and plunderingand burning the farms and country houses. Or, again, in theform of a regular army, claiming to be federated soldiers ofthe Empire, they will quarter themselves on a province, anddraw from its revenues the rations and pay which wereassigned to the regular soldiers of Rome. Or, once more, theycome with the express permission and sanction of the Emperor,as permanent settlers on Roman soil, their chief deeminghimself, at first, a military official of the Roman government, and, as the Roman administration falls to pieces, takinginto his hands also the control of the civil power, collecting thetaxes, dealing out justice, appointing officials, combining, infact, the offices of prefect and master of the military forces.To all these varieties of relation with Rome must be added thewidest differences of religious belief among the invaders. Some,like the Franks, the Saxons, or the Huns, on their firstappearance, were still pagan. A number of tribes, such asthe Vandals, the Burgundians, the Visigoths, or the Rugi, wereArians; and among these there were various degrees of bigotry,some, like the Burgundians, being comparatively tolerant,while others were inspired with a determined hostility to the1 Guizot, Civ. en France, i . 237.2 Eugipp. vit. S. Ser. c. iv.3 lb. c. xxiv. , qua nocte Heruli insperate protinus inruentes.Oros. vii. 43, § 3; Prosp. Chron.a. 419, Constantius pacem firmat cum Wallia, data ei ad habitandum secundaAquitania; Idat. Chron. a. 419, per Constantium ad Gallias revocati, sedesin Aquitanica . . . acceperunt.5 Sid. Ep. v. 6, where the Burgundian Chilperic is described as magister militum; Greg. Tur. H. Fr. ii. 20,Eurichus autem Gotthorum rex Vic6Storium ducem super septem civitates praeposuit. Cf. Sid. Ep. vii. 17.6 Salv. de Gub. Dei, iv. 67, 81.7 Eugipp. vit. S. Sev. c. iv. ad fin.8 Oros. vii. 32 ( in 418) speaks of the Burgundians as boundto the Romans inthe Catholic faith . And Bishop Patiensis said to be in favourwith Chilperic and his queen, Sid. Ep. vi. 12, § 3. But in the time of Avitus it is clear that members of the royal family were Arian ( v.Ampère, Hist. Lit. ii . 202), and the people were probably divided. Greg.Tur. ii. 32 describes the people as Arian.250 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVCatholic faith.¹ There is another, and perhaps more important,difference to be observed. Some of the invading tribes hadonly recently come into contact with Roman civilisation.They had perhaps received Roman envoys, and they knewwell by report the peace and prosperity which the provincesenjoyed under the Roman sway. But they were untouchedby its discipline and tone. Others there were whom theculture of the South had already more than half convertedinto Romans. Their chiefs may have held high commandunder the emperors, and been in friendly intercourse with theleaders of the Roman nobility. Many of the rank and filehad fought under the eagles, and acquired to some extent thediscipline and habits of the Roman army. In their moral andphysical characteristics also the tribes or bands, known underthe names of Goths, Alans, Vandals, or Alemanni, were,according to Roman writers of this period, widely different.Salvianus 2 tells us that the Vandals were the weakest andleast formidable race; the Goths chaste but faithless; theAlans were less treacherous, but licentious and rapacious; theBurgundians were of a mild and gentle disposition, and inclinedto be on friendly terms with the Romans in the territorieswhich they occupied. The Saxons, the Franks, and the Heruliretained their heathen superstitions, offered human sacrifices,and their raids were marked by acts of fierce and wantoncruelty, especially towards the Christian clergy and the inmatesof monastic houses.¹ In the picture of Noricum in the life ofS. Severinus, we may observe nearly all these various types inclose juxtaposition and startling contrast, from the Christianand half- civilised Ostrogoth, cantoned in Pannonia, in federalrelations with the Empire, to the fierce pagan Herulian. Oneof these tribes is on the point of moving on to seek a permanenthome on Italian soil . The Rugi, whose chief has come underthe magnetic spell of a monk of extraordinary saintliness andheroic energy, are curbed for a time, and seem to abate some-·1 Vict. Vitens. i . 5, 17.2 De Gub. Dei, vii. 64; cf. iv. 67.3 Thierry, Dern. Temps de l'Emp.p. 166.Eugipp. vit. S. Sev. c. xxiv. , Heruliplurimos duxere captivos, presby terum patibulo suspendentes; Carm.de Prov. Div. 45; Hieron. Ep. 123, § 16.35 Jordan. Get. lvii.; cf. Pallmann,Gesch. der Völkerwand. ii. 419.Eugipp. vit. S. Sev. c. v. , where Flaccitheus, the Rugian king, con- sults Severinus about his fears of theGoths, then in Pannonia; cf. Pallmann's scepticism about the Life, ii.390.CHAP. I GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE INVASIONS 251what of their old taste for rapine and violence, and even tooffer a fitful protection to the harassed provincials. But theprovince was constantly overrun by other bands under various.names, Alemanni, Heruli, Thoringi, scouring the country insearch of plunder, and seizing their prey more often by stratagemand surprise than by open force. Here one sees, as it were inminiature, and on a confined scene, many of those varieties oftribal character, and many of those different impulses andmodes of attack, which may be observed in the wider field ofthe whole Western world.It follows from these considerations that the period of theinvasions presents a mass of complex phenomena, to which nosingle comprehensive formula will apply. We may expectalso to find a great variety of feeling and opinion amongcontemporary observers as to the character of the invasions,the fate of the Empire, and its future relations to the barbarianintruders. The man who has lost everything in the sack ofhis town, and whose relatives have been carried into slaveryby the raiders, will take a very different view of the invasionfrom the great noble, the walls of whose castle protect himfrom wandering bands, and who lives on good terms with theneighbouring chief. The Churchman, in whom Roman prideand patriotism have been weakened by enthusiastic devotion tothe ascetic ideal, will not entertain the faith in the missionand destiny of imperial Rome which is an ineradicable instinctof the noble, saturated with the historic spirit of that greatorganisation, and still pagan in sentiment, if not in outwardprofession. We shall now make an attempt to ascertain thefeelings of some of those who witnessed the great calamitiesand changes of that time.1 Eugipp. vit. S. Ser. xxii. xxxi. Feletheus promises to protect the Romans against the raids of the Alemanni and Thoringi.2 Ib. xxiv. iv. ix. xi. xix.CHAPTER IIROMAN FEELING ABOUT THE INVASIONS AND THEFUTURE OF THE EMPIREIN the early years of the fifth century the rumours of themovements of Alaric and Radagaesus created the liveliest alarmin Italy. Even in the noble poem in which Claudian celebrates the triumph of Stilicho, full as it is of the poet's faithin Rome, we seem to feel the thrill of terror which unnervedall but the bravest in the previous year. The repair of thewalls of the city by Stilicho, commemorated in inscriptionswhich are extant, was the signal for an outbreak of superstitious terror which carries us back to the early days of theRepublic. All the old omens which portended disaster werereported 2 -dreams, eclipses, causeless conflagrations, showersof stones, a comet shooting from the eastern heavens to thequarter from which the Gothic hordes had issued. Such wasthe terror that doubts even arose whether Rome had notreached her fated term. The augural explanation of thetwelve vultures which Romulus had seen at her foundation ³was recalled, and the fears of many blinded them to thefact that, of the twelve centuries prefigured by the birds,the last had only half run its course. Many of the wealthyclass sought places of security, in Corsica, Sardinia, and theislands off the Etruscan coast. Nay, if Claudian may be1 C.I.L. vi. 1188-1190. Stilicho's name is erased from the Inser. 1190 .2 Claud. de Bell. Get. 227 sqq.3 Liv. i. 7.Claud. de Bell. Get. 265:tunc reputant annos, interceptoque volatu vulturis, incidunt properatis saecula metis.5 Ib. 217:3jam , jam conscendere puppes,Sardoosque habitare sinus, et inhospita Cyrni saxa parant, vitamque freto spumante tueri.Rutil. Namat. i. 327. S. Jerome, writing about this time ( Ep. 128, § 4 ), says,nulla est regio quae non exules Romanos habeat.CHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 2532believed, there were even thoughts of removing the seatof government from Italy to Gaul. Many an edict of theseyears confirms the testimony of the poet that the Vandaladventurer, who had risen to be captain of the Roman armies,set an example of high courage and steadfastness to the degenerate nobles, who were ready to abandon without a strugglethe venerable seat of order and civilisation at the first sign ofdanger. Yet it would appear that the panic did not last long.The behaviour of all parties in the fruitless negotiations whichpreceded the final rupture with Alaric and the sack of Romeshow a remarkable confidence either in the strength oftheEmpire,or in the moderation of the Gothic chief. On the one hand,the government at Ravenna rejected his successive offers offriendship and support.3 On the other hand, the Roman Senateacquiesced in his tenure of the office of magister militum underAttalus, the Emperor whom by his orders they created. *the scornful rejection and the easy acceptance of his claims showthat, after the first moments of alarm, Alaric was not regardedas a half-savage invader, the foe of the Roman name and ofcivilisation. He was after all a Christian." He had served.as an officer of Theodosius in the campaign against Eugenius.It is true that the marshes of Ravenna, to which in thefirst alarm the seat of government had been removed fromMilan, was a secure refuge for Honorius and his court. Andit is also true that the Senate may have felt it safer to cometo terms with the man who had the supplies of Rome at his mercy.Still, on neither side are there the signs of that paralysis ofterror which seized the upper classes on the first news of theapproach of the Goths.Both6But in 410, when, after the failure of all negotiations, thecity had at last fallen a prey to the army of Alaric, everythingwas changed. Eight hundred years had passed since Rome hadbeen violated by the Gaulsof Brennus. In spite of all troubleson the frontiers, in spite of thethe second, third, and fourth1 Claud. de Bell. Get. 296 and 315:migrantisque fugam compescuit aulae.2 C. Th. vii. 20, 12; vii. 13 , 18.3 Zos. v. 36 .4 Ib. vi. 6, 7, ἡ γερουσία . . . πᾶσιν ἐνέδωκεν οἷς ᾿Αλάριχος ἐκέλευσεν τὰς δὲ τῶν δυνάμεων στρατηγίας αὐτῷalarms of the great invasions ofcenturies, the sacred centre ofτε ᾿Αλαρίχῳ καὶ Οὐάλεντι παρέδωκεν.5 Oros. vii. 39, § 1; Aug. de Civ. Dei,i. vi.6 Zos. v. 5; Socr. vii. 10, ' Aλápixos τῷ βασιλεῖ Θεοδοσίῳ εἰς τὸν κατὰ Εὐγενίου τοῦ τυράννου πόλεμον συμμα- χήσας, κ.τ.λ.254 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVgovernment had never realised the possibility that her ownstately security would ever be disturbed.¹ Not only had alltrue sons of Rome a religious faith in her mission and destiny,but they had good reason to rely on the awe which she inspired in the barbarous races who ranged around her frontiers. "There seemed an almost infinite distance between the plunderof provinces, which was so constantly and so rapidly avenged, andthe violation of the heart and seat of Roman power. Butnow the spell was broken; the mystery and awe whichsurrounded the great city had been pierced and set at nought.The moral force, so much more important in government thanthe material, had been weakened and desecrated. The shockgiven by this great catastrophe to old Roman confidence andpride must, for the time, have been overwhelming. Yet from allthat proud aristocracy, men of letters and affairs, hardly a wordhas come down to tell us what they felt in the wreck of materialfortune and patriotic illusions.3 We can only conjecture theirfeelings on the events of the time from the words of S. Jerome,penned in his cell at Bethlehem in the year 411. Althoughhe had fled from the world, he was still a Roman at heart,steeped in her literary culture, and proud of her great history.When the rumour of the fall of Rome reached him, he brokeoff his Commentary on Ezekiel; his voice was choked withsobs as he thought of the capture of the great city " whichhad taken captive all the world." In an earlier letter, referringto the invasion of the eastern provinces," he says his soulshudders to recite the ruin of his time. For twenty years allthe lands from Constantinople to the Julian Alps are dailydrenched with Roman blood. The provinces are a prey toAlans, Huns, Vandals, and Marcomanni. Matrons, virginsdevoted to God," the noble and the priest, are made the sport1 Yet after the victory of Pollentia Claudian utters the prayer, which sounds like a prophecy:procul arceat altus Jupiter, ut delubra Numae, sedemque Quirini,barbaries oculis saltem temerare profanis possit, et arcanum tanti deprendere regni.2 Cf. the words put into the mouth of the old Gothic warrior in Claud. de Bell. Get. 508:nec numina sedem destituunt. Jactata procul dic*ntur in hostem fulmina, divinique volant pro moenibus ignes:seu coelum, seu Roma tonat.3 S. Augustine complains in one of his letters that no one had sent him a full and authentic account of the calamitiesin Italy, probably referring to Alaric's first siege; v. Ep. 99, § 1.Hieron. Ep. 126, 127 , haeret vox et singultus intercipiuntverba dictantis:Capitur urbs quae totum cepit orbem.Ib. 60; 123, § 16.6 Cf. Carm. de Prov. Div. 45:quare templa Dei licuit popularier igui?cur violata sacri vasa ininisterii?non honor innuptas devotae virginitatis,nec texit viduas religionis amor.CHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 255of these monsters. The churches are demolished, the bonesof the martyrs are dug up, horses are stabled at the altars ofChrist. " The Roman world is sinking into ruin, and still wehold our heads erect. . . . Happy Nepotianus who does not seesuch things, who does not hear of them. Miserable are wewho have to suffer them, or see our brethren suffering. Andyet we wish to live, and think that those who have been takenfrom such a scene are to be mourned rather than deemed happyin their fate. . . . It is through our sins that the barbariansare strong; it is owing to our vices that the Roman armies.are conquered." And in a letter to a Gallic lady, he speakswith horror of the countless hordes who have swept from theRhine to the Pyrenees. Great cities, like Mainz, Rheims,Nantes have been wiped out; the provinces of Aquitaine,Lyons, and Narbonne have been desolated; thousands have beenbutchered even in the churches; and famine has completedthe work of the sword. There was perhaps exaggeration inthe rumours which found their way to the distant monasteryat Bethlehem. And the warm imagination and vehementrhetoric of S. Jerome have probably deepened the colours ofthe tragic tales of massacre and sacrilege which reached him.The interest of his words for us lies in the passionate regfet feltby the true Roman, and the lesson drawn by the Christianascetic. The same lesson we shall find taught with evengreater emphasis by another Christian moralist who had himselfwitnessed the invasion of Gaul.¹S. Jerome's description of the disasters of the time mayseem exaggerated in the light of the sixty or seventy yearswhich followed. Yet there can be no doubt that the moraleffect of the capture was for the moment overwhelming.Immense numbers of the various corporations 2 who werebound to certain crafts and functions fled from the city.This must have caused a great dislocation of the social lifeof the capital. And in the year 412 an edict of theEmperor orders all governors of provinces to compel thereturn of these fugitives to their proper functions.3 There1 Salv. de Gub. Dei, vii. § 108, sola nos morum nostrorum vitia vicerunt.2 The corporati included the pistores,catabolenses, suarii, pecuarii, mancipesthermarum; v. Godefroy's Paratitlon,C. Th. xiv. 2 .3 C. Th. xiv. 2, 4; cf. xiv . 7, 2, and Nov. Th. 26.256 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVwas also a second exodus of many of the upper class, whofled to Africa and the East. One case of which we possessthe details will help us to realise the fate of these nobleexiles. The Demetrias, whose ascetic devotion drew forth theextravagant laudations of S. Jerome, was a member of oneof the noblest and wealthiest houses among the Romanaristocracy. The Anicii appear in the consular lists for manyyears. One of her ancestors was proconsul of Africa in thereign of Valerian, another was colleague of Aurelian in theconsulship, and a third held the same great office in the earlyyears of the reign of Constantine.¹ Her grandfather, Sex.Petronius Probus, had filled more important offices than anyman of his time.2 The father and uncle of Demetrias, whowere the consuls of 395, have been immortalised in a poemof Claudian. Demetrias and her grandmother, Faltonia Proba,having ransomed themselves from the Goths, and having hireda vessel at one of the Italian ports, effected their escape, amidgreat hardships, to Africa.³ But when they landed there, theyhad, in the words of S. Jerome, to encounter a monster morecruel than any in the legends of the Western seas. CountHeraclian was then governor of the province, a man with auinsatiable thirst for wine and for gold. He was the assassinof Stilicho, and the successor of Olympius in the leadership ofthe Catholic party. But his religious principles were compatible with the grossest and most heartless cruelty to womenand to fellow- Christians. He had mustered a crowd of Syrianslave-dealers in the African ports, who were ready to purchasethe hapless refugees; and many a Roman lady of noble birthwas consigned by this ruffian to the ignominy of an Easternharem. Proba and her grand- daughter were compelled topurchase their freedom, or save their honour, by an enormousransom.5 Others of their class found their way to S. Jerome's1 See Seeck's Sym. xci. , with the Stemma of the family.2 Cf. Aus. Ep. xvi. 19, Probo P. P.:dico hunc Senati praesulem,praefectum eundem et consulem,(nam consul aeternum cluet)collegam Augusti consulis ,columen curulis Romulae.See the epitaph of Probus in C.I.L. vi.1756.3 Hieron. Ep. 130 , § 7, quae de mediomari fumantem viderat patriam, etfragili cymbae salutem suam suorumque commiserat, crudeliora invenit Africae litora.+ Zos. v. 37. He was made governorof Africa as his reward for the murder of Stilicho. Cf. Oros. vii . 42, § 10.5 Proba returned to Rome, havingrecovered some part of her property.See the inscriptions to her memory in C.I.L. vi. 1751.CHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 257monastery at Bethlehem in a state of the greatest destitution.The number of these visitors was so great that the saint,although his hospitality was boundless, sometimes found hisstudious labours sadly disturbed.¹3In the meantime, the recovery of confidence and equanimityat Rome itself seems to have been rapid. It is probable thatthe slaughter and material damage inflicted by Alaric havebeen exaggerated. The ancient authorities give very differentaccounts of the matter. According to some, there waswholesale massacre, and senators were tortured and put todeath in large numbers; the city was ravaged with fire, andmost of the great works of art were destroyed . On the otherhand, Orosius, writing only a few years after the sack, statesthat, while some buildings were burnt down, Alaric gaveorders to his soldiers to content themselves with plunder andto abstain from bloodshed. Jordanes even asserts that theGoths did not set fire to any buildings, and that by Alaric'scommand they confined themselves to pillage. The probabilities of the case are all in favour of the less tragic viewof the catastrophe. The three days, during which the Gothsremained within the walls, were short enough for the collectionof the enormous spoil which Alaric carried off in his southward march. S. Augustine, who took a gloomy enough viewof the event, distinctly says that very few senators were put todeath.s It is probable that fire may have broken out here andthere, but the only great building which is positively knownto have been burnt down was the palace of Sallust, of whichthe ruins were still standing in the time of Procopius. Evenif Alaric had not been restrained by policy from a wholesaleand wanton destruction of great masterpieces of art, his Gothscould not have wrought such havoc in so short a time. Butthe most convincing argument is derived from the poem ofRutilius Namatianus, who, as he bids a reluctant farewell tothe city which he regards with a passionate love and1 Hieron. Ep. 71 , § 5; cf. Ep. 147.2 Proc. de Bell. Vand. i . 2.3 Socr. Hist. Eccl. vii. 10.Hieron. Ep. 128, urbs inclyta . . .uno hausta est incendio.5 Socr. Hist. Eccl. vii . 10 , woλλÀ Tŵν θαυμαστῶν ἐκείνων κατέκαυσαν.6 Oros. vii. 38.7 Jordan. Get. c. 30 , spoliant tantum,non autem, ut solent gentes, igne sup ponunt, etc. 8 De Civ. Dei, iii . c. 29, Gothi vero tam multis Senatoribus peperceruntut magis mirum sit quod aliquos peremerunt.9 Proc. de Bell. Vand. i . 2.S258 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVreverence,¹ sees only the crowded monuments of her glory, andhas his eyes dazzled by the radiance of her glittering fanes.²3The remains of Rutilius are of great value, because he isalmost the only man of the last pagan generation from whom wecan learn something of the feelings of his class about the futureof the Empire in the face of its perils. He was a pagan of thepagans, imbued, as we have seen, with a mingled hatred andcontempt for the new ascetic spirit which had peopled the islandsof the Tyrrhene Sea with men " who are as much afraid to enjoythe gifts of fortune as to face its reverses. " His paternal estatesin Gaul had been ravaged by the invaders.5 The ruins of hishome, the streams and groves of his desolated lands, he feels,are calling him to repair the waste. Yet he betrays no symptomof despair. Three years after the siege he had held the officeof prefect of the city. He may have actually seen the Gothswithin the walls. But there is hardly a hint that any seriousevent has occurred.7 The temples of the gods are still standingin their dazzling radiance under the serene Italian sky. Thecheers of the spectators in the circus reach his ears as hisship still lingers in the Tiber.9 He feels a passionate regretat quitting " this fair queen of the world," so mighty, so merciful,10 so bounteous, whose visible splendour is only the faintsymbol of her worldwide and godlike sway. Certainly thereis here no querulous and faint-hearted lamentation over acrushing and appalling disaster. The troubles of the time,referred to in a few vague phrases, are treated as merelyvicissitudes of fortune, such as Rome has known before, andfrom which she has always risen with renewed vitality. "enemies of Rome have always repented their success. "VictorisBrenni non distulit Allia poenam." This faith in the star ofRome, expressed with such genuine enthusiasm, seems inRutilius not to be founded on the consciousness of materialstrength. It is rather a religious feeling springing from a clear1 Rutil. Namat. i. 47.2 Ib. i. 93:confunduntque vagos delubra inicantia visus.3 Ib. i. 440.4 lb. i. 445:quaenam perversi rabies tam stulti cerebri,dum mala formides, nec bona posse pati.5 Ib. i. 25.Ib. i . 157-160; cf. Seeck's Sym.clxxx. His father Lachanius had heldTheseveral offices , among others that of consularis Tusciae, C. Th. ii . 4 , 5.7 Rutil. Namat. ii. 50:et captiva prius quam caperetur erat;cf. i. 39.8 Ib. i. 197.9 Ib. i. 201.10 lb. i. 69:mitigat armatas victrix clementia vires.11 Ib. i. 119 sqq.CHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 2595perception of the true mission of Rome and the nature of herservices to humanity: " Quod regnas minus est quam quodregnare mereris. " 1 The triumphs of Rome have been triumphsof law and equal justice for the vanquished. The child ofMars and Venus, she has united love and tenderness towarlike might; and so has she made of the earth with itsdivers peoples a single country.3 Here Orosius and Rutilius,the Christian and the pagan, join hands. " Rome," says Orosius *in effect, " has stripped exile of its terrors. Wherever I go, Ifind my fatherland, I come as a Roman among Romans. " Butthe pagan noble has a greater faith than the Christian priestin the future of the Roman sway. Rising superior to all thevicissitudes of fortune, she is to receive the submission of thetrembling Goth; the pacified nations are still to pay her tributeand pour their wealth into her bosom; she may, with no termset to her dominion, extend her laws over the coming ages,"and have no fear of the distaff of the Fates. Such werethe hopes or beliefs of one who may have seen the Goth inpossession of Rome, and who was returning to find the sameGothic host settled in his native Aquitaine. What secretmisgivings Rutilius may have had we can never know, or howhe fared when he found himself once more on his ravagedestate. His life, which is known to us only for a moment, is,like his poem, a mere fragment, a bit of wreckage as it wereappearing for an instant on the waves and then lost to sightfor ever. His is the almost solitary voice which reaches usdirectly from that generation of the high aristocracy of Rome,which, from whatever cause, pride, grief, confidence in thestability of a great civilisation , or from the cruelty of time inengulfing all record of its feelings, is now as silent as if ithad never been.In the very year in which Rutilius Namatianus wasreturning from his prefecture to Gaul, Orosius, the youngSpanish disciple of S. Augustine, was composing his historicalanswer to the pagan cry that Rome had perished in the1 Rutil. Namat. i. 91.2 lb. i. 67.3 Ib. i. 63.Oros. v. 2, 1 , ubique patria, ubique lex et religio mea est quia adChristianos et Romanos Romanus et Christianus accedo.5 Rutil. Namat. i. 142.6 lb. i. 133:porrige victuras Romana in saecula leges,solaque fatales non vereare colos.260 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVChristian times. This work has been already referred to in anaccount of the last open conflict between Christian and paganin the West. It was composed primarily to confute the openaccusations of the heathen remnant, and to quiet the uneasinessof doubters on the Christian side. Orosius employed a limitederudition and a boundless license of assertion to prove that thepre-Christian ages had been scourged with every form of calamityin a degree unknown to his contemporaries, and to deepen everyshadow in the history of the past. But worthless as his workis for its main purpose, it has a great value for the light whichit throws on the possible future attitude of the Church to thebarbarians.A necessary complement of the view which Orosius took ofpast history was his determined resolve to minimise the convulsions and the sufferings of his own time. He had sufferedpersonally in the Vandal invasion of Spain; he must havewitnessed some of the horrors described in the Chronicle ofIdatius. Yet he can speak of the capture of Rome as a singleact of brigandage in a world enjoying general tranquillity.The Goths, in their first onset, might be fierce and rapacious,but they were after all fellow- Christians. Their chief hadkept inviolate the Christian churches; the soldiers, in themidst of their pillage, had formed a singular procession toescort the sacred vessels to the basilica of S. Peter, singinghymns as they went. They had no hatred of Rome, no wish tooverthrow her empire. Rather their great chiefs, Alaric andAtaulphus, had a singular reverence for Rome.5 Theirstrongest wish was to be admitted to any settlement whichRome might assign to them, and they were ready, in returnfor the boon, to protect her and to restore her power. In hisnative country Orosius had seen the Germans turning frombrigandage and slaughter to the cultivation of the fields.They were beginning to live on terms of amity and goodfellowship with their Roman neighbours, many of whom preferred the rule of the barbarians to the crushing exactions of1 Oros. iii. 20, 5. His native regionwas probably Tarraconensis; cf. vii . 22,nos quoque in Hispania Tarraconem nostram .. ostendimus.2 Idat. Chron. , debacchantibus per Hispanias barbaris , etc.63 Oros. iii . 20, 9.4 Ib. vii . 39.Ib. vii. 43.Ib. i. 16, 3, exiguae habitationis sedem non ex sua electione sed ex nostro judicio rogant.CHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 261the Roman treasury.¹ Salvianus tells us the same thing. ButSalvianus wrote more than a generation after Orosius. Andit is creditable to the insight and candour of Orosius that heshould so soon and so clearly have perceived the more hopeful side of the barbarian invasions, and the promise of arapprochement between the Romans and their invaders. Heshows far more discernment and detachment from prejudicethan the statesmen of Ravenna who rejected the overtures ofAlaric, and compassed the death of Stilicho. In Orosius wesee the Church already adapting herself to altered conditions,and willing to come to terms with the new forces.If we ask what Orosius thinks of the condition and future.destiny of Rome, we obtain a somewhat uncertain reply. Onthe one hand, in spite of all her disasters, Rome still retainsher imperial sway intact; 2 on the other, the mighty mass ofthe once omnipotent Roman commonwealth is beginning tofeel the decrepitude of age.³ Rome will have her term, like theempires of the past, like all things human. Her power wasfounded on force, and won by bloody conquests, which causedfar greater misery over vast spaces of the world than anyinflicted by the Gothic inroads. And yet her rule has givena period of extraordinary tranquillity, order, and prosperity tothe nations whom she conquered. If you have to fly fromone province, you can find a home, a country, everywhere—“ ubique patria, ubique lex, et religio mea est.” The Romanpeace, the Roman culture, Romania, is greater than Rome andwill survive her. And along with this cosmopolitan feeling,there is here and there a curious emergence of provincialpatriotism, the faint dawn, as it were, of modern nationality.More than once, by a sort of patriotic irrelevance, Orosiusenlarges on the stubborn resistance which the Spaniards1 Oros. vii. 41 , 7, barbari execrati gladios suos ad aratra conversi sunt residuosque Romanos ut socios modo etamicos fovent ut inveniantur jam inter eos quidam Romani qui malint inter barbaros pauperem libertatem quam inter Romanos tributariam sollicitudi- nem sustinere. Compare with thisde Gub. Dei, v. 26, ac sic actum est ut latrociniis judicum strangulati homines et necati inciperent esse quasibarbari, quia non permittebantur esse Romani.2 Oros. ii. 3, opibus spoliata non regno, manet adhuc et regnat incolumis.3 Ib. ii. 6, 14, illae quondamRomanae reipublicae moles nunc magis imbecillitate propriae senectutis quam alienis concussae viribus contremesc*nt.4 Ib. v. 1, 4....5 Ib. v. 1 , 12, inquietudo bellorum qua illi attriti sunt nobis ignota est in otio nos nascimur et senescimus.An extraordinary statement to be made in the second decade ofthe fifth century!6 Ib. v. 2, 1.262 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVoffered to the Roman generals ,¹ and the sufferings from famineand slaughter endured by his countrymen during the strugglesof two hundred years. While recognising the peace andhappiness which the Roman Empire had given the world sincethe coming of Christ, he is hardly so ready as S. Augustine todo justice to the manly virtue by which the Empire was won.His sympathy is rather for the conquered races. Rome subduedthe world to gratify her love of dominion, her lust for gold andluxury. The blessings which her rule has diffused are due tothe Divine will which has guided the course of history.2Between Orosius at the beginning of the century, andSalvianus and Sidonius who wrote towards its close, we havelittle to tell us how the Romans regarded the course of events.The great lettered and noble class is absolutely silent. Thesons and grandsons of the generation of Symmachus, theimmediate ancestors of the generation of Sidonius, though theywitnessed the conquest of Roman Africa by the Vandals, theinvasion of Gaul by Attila, the settlement of the Visigoths inAquitaine, have not left even a fragment to inform us asto their fortunes, their hopes, or their fears. The only messagewe have from that generation comes in three poems, composedby Christians and ascetics who had seen with their own eyesthe great invasion of Gaul at the beginning of the century.And it is curious to contrast with the hopeful optimism ofOrosius the horror and grief of these writers at what seemsto them to be the death-agony of the Roman world.4The poems entitled Ad Uxorem and De Providentia Divina,which used to be wrongly attributed to S. Prosper, andthe Commonitorium 5 of S. Orientius are, as it were, thesolitary voices which come to us from the dim mass of the1 Oros. v. 4, the victories of Viriathus; v. 7, the war with Numantia;v. 19, Sertorius; vii. 34, Trajan and Theodosius of Spanish origin; cf.Mörner, pp. 37, 38; Ebert, Lit. des Mittelalters, p. 344.2 De Civ. Dei, ii. 2; ii . 29 , O indoles Romana laudabilis, O progenies Regulorum, Scaevolarum, Scipionum, Fab- riciorum, haec potius concupisce; cf. Ep.138, § 17, rempublicam quam primi Romani constituerunt auxeruntque vir- tutibus.3 The author of the De Prov. Div.was a native of Southern Gaul and had seen the invasion of the Vandals andGoths, v. 34. The poem was probablycomposed about 415; v. Ebert, 317,n. 4.4 It has a taint of Pelagianism (v.233, 240, 585) of which S. Prosper wasa prominent opponent; v. Migne's ed.col. 615; Ebert, i. 319.The Commonitorium was probably composed in the second decade of thefifth century, Ebert, i . 410; cf. Ellis,Pref. to his ed. ( Corp. Scrip. Eccl. ) of theCommonitorium, p. 194.CHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 26345generation who witnessed the Suevic and Vandal invasions.In phrases, often almost identical, they describe the sufferingand terror of the time. The country is smoking like onegreat funeral pyre. Its strongest and fairest cities have beengiven up to fire and sword. Nothing has escaped the violenceof the invaders, castles on apparently inaccessible rocks, thelonely hermitage buried in the woods, churches guarded bythe relics of saints and martyrs -no place, however strongor remote or sacred, was safe from their attacks. Theaged priest has been driven into slavery with his flock, themother with her child, the master with his servants. On allsides there is nothing but war, confusion, and the treachery offellow- citizens.7 Peace seems to have quitted the world forever, and the end of all things is at hand. It is probable, ashas often been pointed out, that there may be a good deal ofexaggeration in these descriptions, and a good deal of sacredrhetoric with a religious purpose. Yet we are bound to takeaccount of the impression made at the time on a certain classof minds. The trouble is not by them regarded, as Orosiusregarded it, as almost trivial compared with the slaughter andrapine and pestilence of former ages. It is not local andtemporary. The fabric of the civilised world is tottering.Men are abandoning hope in its permanence and seem to feelthemselves on the edge of the abyss. The poem on theProvidence of God dwells specially on the fact that manywere losing faith in the government of the world by a righteousGod. The spectacle of wholesale and indiscriminate ruin, ofthe virtuous and the wicked overtaken by the same doom, drovethem back to the conception of an iron fate, or of an epicureandeity sitting aloof from the world, powerless over its destiny,coldly pitiless of its woes."1 Commonit. ii. 184:uno fumavit Gallia tota rogo.Carm. de Prov. Div. 17:animum patriae subiit fumantis imago.2 Commonit. ii . 169; Carm. de Prov.Div. 35.3 Commonit. ii. 170.4 Carm. de Prov. Div. 45.5 lb. 59.6 Commonit. ii. 177.And along with the atheistic7 Ad Uxorem, 26:undique bella fremunt . . .pax abiit terris, ultima quaeque vides.Cf. Commonit. ii. 174:multis causa fuit mortis civica proditio;Hieron. Ep. 118, § 2; 123, § 4 , referring to the same events.8 Carm. de Prov. Div. 52:idem turbo bonos sustulit atque malos.9 lb. 715:scrutatis igitur stellarum motibus, hoc est artis opus, totam subvertere relligionem;dum nullum curare Deum mortalia suadet, etc.264 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IV1philosophies of the past returned also its pagan superstitions.Refusing to believe in a controlling Providence, men oncemore began to interrogate the stars as to the meaning of thesudden arrest of civilisation, or as to their own personalfortunes in the misery and chaos of the time. Many yearsafterwards we shall find that Salvianus has still to contendagainst the same spirit of unbelief.Orosius wrote to refute the cavils of the last generationof pagans, who found in the misfortunes of the Empire anargument against the adoption of Christianity as the nationalfaith. Salvianus, separated from Orosius by more than ageneration, had an equally controversial purpose; but his workis aimed at the scepticism of professed Christians," who weredisturbed by the calamities, the imminent overthrow, of asociety which had definitely placed itself under the protectionof the Cross. Orosius had to oppose the convictions of menwho thought the world was suffering from the abandonment ofan old faith, under the protection of which it had prospered.Salvianus had to deal with the doubts of the votaries of the newfaith, under which the world had suffered what were thoughtunexampled disasters. The treatise De Gubernatione Dei wasprobably written before 451 and after 439.3 It is perhapsfortunate for its controversial purpose that it was composedbefore the victory of the Roman arms at Châlons.In spite of all the faults of Orosius as a historian, itmay well be questioned whether his treatise is not of greaterhistorical value than that of Salvianus. The object of Orosiusis to show that Rome had suffered even worse calamities when1 This was forbidden by a long series of laws. In the year 409, Honorius orders the expulsion of mathematici,C. Th. ix. 16, 12. But they are foundin Rome again in 410, when Attalus consulted them ( Zos. vi. 7) . Sidonius represents the wife of Aetius as con- sulting the stars, Carm. v. 259; cf. Sid. Ep. viii. 11. Lampridius of Bor- deaux believed in astrology. Notwithout reason S. Aug. de Civ. Dei,viii. 19, attacks this superstition . Cf. Maury's La Magic, c. vi.See the opening words of the de Gub. Dei, incuriosus a quibusdam etquasi neglegens humanorum actuumdeusdicitur utpote nec bonos custodiens nec coercens malos.3 Ebert, i . 459, n. 5. He mentions the defeat of Litorius in 439 (vii. 40,Prosp. Chron. ad a. ) , and he is silent about the defeat of Attila in 451.Teuffel says the latter event was un- known to him. But the defeat ofAttila may have been ignored by awriter whose thesis is the superiority of barbarian virtue. The reference invi. 67 (obsessa est urbs ) is to Alaric's,not to Genseric's capture of Rome.Salvianus lived possibly till 495(Gennad. Scrip. Ill. 67, vivit usque hodie; v. Teuffel , § 462 n. 4; cf. Ebert,i. 448 n. ).CHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 265she worshipped her ancient gods than she did in Christiantimes. And he is probably not wrong at least when hemaintains that the invasions of the reign of Gallienus causedquite as much misery and terror as the invasions of the reignof Honorius. Only once or twice does he strike the dominantnote of Salvianus, that it was the theatre, the sensual pleasuresof the Roman world, which had drawn down the judgmentsof heaven. The great object of Salvianus is to heighten thehorror of the catastrophe that he may make the moral moreimpressive. He promises (though the promise is unfulfilled)to prove, as S. Augustine held, that the ancient Romans wonand enjoyed their rule by a manly, natural virtue. But theRomans of his day have lost their dominion, and suffered inperson and estate, because they are sunk in sensual pleasure,because they have exchanged the sober and strenuous energyof their ancestors for a soft, luxurious, and frivolous temper,without nerve to cope with danger, without even enough ofimagination to realise it. " The Roman world goes laughingto its death. " The invasions are the proper penalty for heinousguilt and thorough corruption of character. The invaders maybe Arians, they may be heathens, they have their vices; butin spite of blindness to spiritual truth, the result of faultyteaching or early association, in spite of cruelty and treachery,they are morally far superior to the Roman population. Althoughthey have been denied the full light of the Catholic faith, yetthey have never sunk to the level of the Christians of Aquitaine,where every estate is a scene of wholesale debauchery. TheVandals may be a weak and cowardly people, yet they haveoverthrown the stately Roman civilisation of Africa, and, withits power, they have swept away its abominations of nameless1 Oros. vii. 22, 7.42 Ib. iv. 21 , 5, theatra incusandanon tempora.3 Salv. de Gub. Dei, vii. 2, si deus annuit cum ad eam negotii partem ac- cesserimus, ut de veteribus Romanisaliqua dicantur, evidenterdivino munereadprobabimus tam justumtuncerga illos fuisse domini favorem quam nunc erganos justam severitatem; cf. Ebert, i. 463.De Gub. Dei, vi. 80, ita cunctos cri- mina sua presserant, ut nec metuerentpericulum suum; praenoscebatur cap- tivitas nec formidabatur; cf. vi. 72.5 Ib. iv. 61 , 62. He dividesthem into heretics and pagans, thelatter including the Saxons, Franks,Gepidae, and Huns; cf. iv. 81. On the heretic Goths and Vandals cf. v. 14.6 Ib. vii. 14 sqq.7 Ib. vii. 27, sed ideo ille infirmissimis hostibus cuncta tradidit, ut ostenderet scilicet non vires valere,sed causam, etc.; cf. Oros. vii. 38, 1,Stilico, Vandalorum imbellis, avarae,perfidae, et dolosae gentis genere editus.266 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVvice.¹ A righteous God has given them that great heritage, topunish the enormous corruption of the Christian and Romanworld. Nor does Salvianus find the contrast less markedbetween the Romans and the Germans as political rulers.The oppression and peculation of the imperial officials, andthe insolent and fraudulent devices of the upper class to evadetheir share of the public burdens and to crush their poorerneighbours, are probably better grounded accusations thanthe charge of universal sensuality. For as to the fiscal andeconomic chaos, the rhetoric of Salvianus is only too amplysupported by the repeated, but apparently disregarded, edictsof a long line of emperors. It is here that the priest ofMarseilles throws a searching light on the actual condition ofRoman society, and on the feeling of the oppressed towardsthe new barbarian powers.In the passionate declamation of Salvianus against theselfish individualism of the privileged class, and his equallypassionate sympathy with the needy and friendless, we seemto hear the tones of modern democratic statesmanship.Even the curiales, the middling proprietors, whose positionseems to a modern inquirer the most hopeless in the Romansocial system, are treated by Salvianus as cruel oppressors ofthose beneath them.2 All his pity is reserved for the poorpeasant, who, exposed to the fraudulent arts or high-handedoppression of the tax - gatherer and the rich proprietor, hasonly two courses open to him: either he must place himselfunder the patronage and protection of some wealthy neighbour,forfeiting probably both the poor remnant of his property andhis freedom; or he must leave all behind, and settle in adistrict under the sway of a Gothic chief. To many thelatter alternative seemed preferable. There is nothing in thework of Salvianus more remarkable than the frank admissionthat, in humanity and justice, the Goth far excelled the Roman, *and that many Romans of that day preferred the governmentof the Goth.We are trying to get a conception of the thoughts of the1 De Gub. Dei, vii . 63 sqq. , ita enimgenerale in eis malum impuritatis est ,ut quicumque ex eis impudicus esse desierit, Afer non esse videatur; cf. vii. 84-87.2 Ib. v. 18, quae enim sunt . . .urbes ubi non quot curiales fuerint tot tyranni sunt.3 Ib. v. 37.4 Ib. v. 15.CHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 267Romans of the fifth century about the barbarians and the fateof the Empire. Orosius and Salvianus are the men from whomwe can gather most to satisfy our curiosity. They wrote, it istrue, with a controversial or didactic purpose. They are notcalm scientific observers and reasoners; but they are the onlywriters of that century known to us who faced the problemsraised by the German invasions, and who tried to find ananswer to the questions which must have forced themselves onthoughtful minds. When we compare them with one another,it is not difficult to perceive that in the thirty years whichseparate the two works, men's ideas as to the meaning of theinvasions have undergone a change. Orosius makes light ofthe barbarian conquests, and, though with some reserve, hedoes not despair of the future of Rome. He admits that theGermans can be self - restrained in the hour of victory, andthat they are willing to come to terms with their Romanneighbours. But he does not dwell, like Salvianus, on thevirtues of the conquerors or the vices of those whom they havedefeated. After all, he seems to think, the Roman world iscivilised and Christian, and it may tame and absorb itsassailants. He feels profoundly what Rome has done forthe world, by the diffusion of peace and law and cultureover so many countries, and he thinks the barbarians maysubmit to the marvellous influence which, since the comingof Christ, had made of so many peoples one commonwealth.But Salvianus had seen many things which Orosius did notlive to see. In the interval between them, the Vandals hadshaken Roman civilisation in Africa to its base. The Gothicpower had securely established itself in Southern Gaul.Roman authority in Spain was confined to a corner in thenorth -east. The Burgundians were steadily advancing fromthe middle Rhine towards the valleys of the Rhone and Isère.¹In the meantime the imperial power was growing dailyweaker, and its administration more oppressive and corrupt.And the upper class were taking advantage of the paralysis1 From the Panegyric on Majorian by Sidonius, Carm. v. 575-76,Lugdunumque tuam, dum praeteris, aspice victor,written 458 (Mommsen, Praef. li.;cf. Carm. xiii. ) , it is clear that Lyons was not in Burgundian hands at thatThetime; but it must have become theirssoon afterwards. The arguments of De Coulanges to prove that there is no con- tinuity between the settlement of 413(Prosp. Chron. ad a. ) and later Burgundian history are perhaps more ingeniousthan convincing ( L'Inv. pp. 446 sqq. ).268 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVof the government and of the economic chaos to aggrandisethemselves, unrestrained by any public spirit or feelings ofpity for the distressed. Can we wonder, then, that to theeye of Salvianus the Empire seems almost in its last throes,while the Germans, in their victorious strength, seem to holdthe future in their grasp? Salvianus, as we have seen, hasprobably exaggerated the sensual excesses of his countrymen,as he has probably idealised the purity of German morality;but he discerned the real weaknesses of Rome, the crushingtaxation, the cruelty of the official class, the selfish rapacityof the rich, which made many Romans welcome the humanerrule of the Gothic chief. In an age of fierce intolerance, itis singular to find a Catholic extolling the superior virtue ofmen who denied the deity of Christ. He praises not onlytheir chastity, but their justice, their kindliness to one another,even their tolerance towards those who anathematised themas heretics.¹ The invasions were terrible in their inevitableslaughter and rapine. But they were not nearly so terribleas the riot of gross vice and shameless oppression of whichthey were the deserved punishment. Salvianus has no faithin the stability of Roman government, or in the future ofRoman society. The ancient Republic, he says,' was strongand wealthy because its citizens despised wealth and luxury,and were ready to sacrifice everything for the State. But inhis own time the public treasury is empty, while the richare growing daily richer and more rapacious. Christianity hasfailed to regenerate the Roman world. The future belongs tothe barbarians.The last authority to whom we shall refer on the subjectof this chapter is Apollinaris Sidonius of Auvergne. Hisworks have been already used for the light which theythrow on the life of that wealthy and noble class whichSalvianus overwhelms with his anathemas.once more to discover what were the views and feelings of agreat aristocrat, regarded also as the foremost literary man ofhis age, about the new barbarian powers, under whose shadow1 De Gub. Dei, vii . 39, cum . . . illi etiam in alienis (Catholicis) Episcopis deum honorarent .2 Ib. i. 10 sqq. , nisi forte antiquisillis priscae virtutis viris, Fabiis,We turn to themFabriciis, Cincinnatis, grave fuisse existimamus, quod pauperes erantqui divites esse nolebant, cum omnia scilicet studia . . ad communia emolumenta conferrent, etc.CHAP. II ROMAN VIEW'S OF THE INVASIONS 269his life was passed, and about that imperial power three ofwhose last holders he celebrated on their accession. Yet, inspite of his great advantages as an observer, we must notpromise ourselves too much help from Sidonius in our presentinquiry. He has not the historian's or statesman's breadthof view. He has not the detachment of men like Orosius andSalvianus.Sidonius belongs to a different world from that of Orosiusand Salvianus. He has not their consuming earnestness andseriousness of purpose. He was a good patriot, and in hislater years a devoted bishop; yet he never ceased to be thegrand seigneur, believing in his own order with implicit faith,sharing to the full all its love of stateliness and splendour,and its passion for high place and distinction. Above all,he is essentially a literary man, of the stamp which that ageof decadence most admired. He is a stylist, not a thinkeror inquirer. There is little doubt that he valued his owncompositions not for their substance, but for those characteristics of style which we now think most worthless or evenrepulsive in them, the childish conceits, the meaningless antitheses, the torture applied to language so as to give an airof interest and distinction to the trivial commonplace of acolourless and monotonous existence, the crowding reminiscences of history and mythology applied to characters andsituations remote from any world of miracle or romance.in spite of all its vices, this minute word-painting has somevalue to the historian. It enables him to revive the pictureof Gallo- Roman life in the evening light before darkness finallysettles on the West. It also gives us a vivid glimpse of thesociety of the capital in the years which followed its captureby the Vandals. Above all, though Sidonius has no very greatinsight into the real meaning of events, he has left us a seriesof pictures of the Germans, the minute faithfulness and realistictruth of which can hardly be exaggerated.Yet,The early life and associations of Sidonius gave himpeculiar advantages for the study of the barbarians. Elevenyears before his birth the Visigoths had obtained a settlementin Aquitaine. During his boyhood and youth they were1 Prosp. Chron. ad a. 419 , Constantius patricius pacem firmat cumWallia, data ei ad habitandum se- cunda Aquitania.270 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IV3making constant efforts to extend their territory to the southand east. He must have heard many a tale of the relief ofNarbonne, in 436, by Litorius with his cavalry, and of thedefeat and captivity of the same gallant, but over- adventurous,soldier in 439 at Toulouse. He probably heard from the lipsof Avitus, whose daughter he married, the story of that encounter under the walls of Auvergne, so like a tale of theMiddle Ages, in which Avitus challenged and overthrew insingle combat one of the Hun troopers of Litorius, who wereravaging in their passage the lands which they were engagedto defend. Avitus was one of the lieutenants of Aetius who,for thirty years, till he fell by the hand of Valentinian III.,was the foremost general of Rome, and the great stay of herpower in the province of Gaul. Franks and Burgundians werepressing down from the Rhine, and the Goths, with intervalsof peace, were striving to extend their power from the West.Auvergne alone was left in quiet. But her foremost noble,the future Emperor, was in all those years foremost in thestruggles and diplomacy of the time. When the Hun invasionof 451 broke on Gaul, Avitus bore a prominent part in securing the help of the Visigoths against the invader. He wasa power at the Gothic court, and he helped to give a tinctureof Roman culture to the sons of the Gothic chief who fellfighting for Rome on the plains of Châlons. " Five years afterthe great battle he was raised by the united voice of Gothsand Romans to the imperial throne. Accustomed from hisearliest youth to associate with men who, like Avitus, made ita cardinal principle of their policy to maintain friendly relationswith the Goths, Sidonius is justly regarded as a uniqueauthority on the relations of Gallo- Romans and barbarians.No one can read the many graphic sketches which Sidonius.gives of the various peoples then sweeping across the RomanEmpire, without perceiving that the author had studied themclose at hand. Salvianus is incessantly declaiming about thevirtues of the barbarians, but we could well spare some of thedeclamation for a little lifelike colouring. Sidonius, on the1 Prosp. Chron. ad a. 419, Isidoro et Senatore Coss.2 I., Litorius • dum aruspicum responsis et daemonum significationibus fidit, pugnam cum Gothisimprudenter conseruit.Apoll. Sid. Carm. vii. 246.4 I. vii. 342:et populis Geticis sola est tua gratia limes.5 Ib. vii. 497; Jordan. Get. xl. xli .CHAP. II ROMAN VIEW'S OF THE INVASIONS 2713other hand, is an artist in words, although his art is very perverseand corrupt; and he pleases himself with microscopic fidelityof detail in rendering the minutest physical traits, the dressand habits of these races towards whom he felt at once curiosity and fastidious dislike . If he did not witness the greatstruggle with the army of Attila in 451, he had probably oftenseen the Hun troopers, with whose aid Aetius and Litorius,¹in many a battle from the Rhine to the Garonne, kept thebarbarians at bay for years; and, in the Panegyric on Anthemius, we can almost hear the rush of that terrible cavalry,with their flattened noses and cavernous, yet piercing, eyes,lean- flanked and broad of chest, bestriding their horses as ifhorse and man were one. There is not a tribe which crossedthe Rhine or harried the coasts of Gaul in those years, whosefeatures or equipment is not flashed on us in some vivid phrase.The Burgundians, who established themselves in his nativeLyons, were on the whole friendly neighbours. But they hadhabits which offended the taste and senses of the Roman gentleman. They greased their hair with rancid butter, they sustained their gigantic bulk by ravenous feeding on the mostunsavoury messes, and they deafened their guest with theharshness and loudness of their voices. The fierce Herulian,unrivalled for speed in running, has his cheeks tattooed abluish green, like the colour of the waves. " You see theGothic elders trooping to the council in garments of wildbeasts' skins, falling scarcely to the knee. Fiercest and mostdaring of all is the Saxon ranging along the Breton coasts inhis coracle of hides, with his blue fearless eyes, ever appearing when least expected, vanishing as suddenly as he came, forwhom shipwreck has no terrors, to whom the sea is a familiarcompanion, who butchers his captives to gratify his gods."The Frank stands out on the canvas, with his blue-gray eyesand yellow hair, his clean- shaved face, and his tight, shorttunic. Sidonius had probably seen with his own eyes thatpicturesque wedding procession," in which the princely young1 Prosp. Chron. ad a. 425, 435, 436,437, 439.2 Sid. Carm. ii. 243 .86 Carm. vii. 455. Cf. Claud. de Bell. Get. 481.7 Sid. Carm. vii. 369; Ep. viii . 6,3 Cf. ib. v. 476; vii. 234, 320.4 Ib. xii. 6.§ 15.5Ep. viii. 9; Carm. vii . 236.8 Carm. vii. 236.9Ep. iv. 20.272 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVaxes.Sigismer strode along behind his horses glittering with jewelstudded trappings, himself ablaze with scarlet and gold; andfollowed by the young warriors of his staff in their short greentunics, edged with purple, and armed with lances and battleThe description of Theodoric II. , his person, his habits,and his court, is known to most readers of history. It is fromthe pen of a man who had sat at Theodoric's table and playedat dice with him. The smallest details of the king's personalappearance are noted, his bushy eyebrows, his sweeping eyelashes, the delicate lines of the nose and lips, the clean- shavedface, the enormous muscles of back and leg, the combination inthe whole physique of refinement and strength, of the highbred, self- contained ruler of men with the hunter and thewarrior. His religious observance is regular, but more a matterof habit and self- discipline than of devotion. His day is thatof a man who allows not a moment to idleness. In affairs ofstate he listens intently, and says little . He is a keen sportsman, like his ancestors, and seldom misses his aim. At histable the dishes are distinguished by delicate cookery ratherthan by costliness; and his plate not so much by its weight asby elegance of design. At the gaming-table he is eager towin, but he bears his losses with a smile, and he takes hislucky throws in calm silence. He lays aside for the time thedignity of the prince, encourages free and easy intercourse, andfears nothing so much as to be feared.Yet, in spite of the vividness of these sketches of barbarian.life, the student who expects to find in Sidonius clear anddefinite judgments on the relations of the Western Empire toits new guests or invaders, or forecasts of its future, will, forthe most part, be doomed to disappointment. There areindeed in the Panegyrics, as we shall see presently, occasionalflashes of political insight. But the letters are singularlybarren of reflection or information on the great perils andproblems of the time. Men like Sidonius were far moreinterested in their friendships, their social pleasures, and theirliterary pursuits, than in public affairs. They have far moreambition to win admiration for their very perverse literaryefforts than to satisfy the curiosity of the historical inquirerof a later age. Yet the letter of Sidonius on the Court of1¹ Ep. i . 2. Theodoric reigned from 453 to 466.CHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 273Theodoric, apparently written only to gratify curiosity, or toexhibit tricks of ingenious and vivid phrase, had in all probability a serious political purpose.1There is little doubt that, in his early manhood, Sidoniushad taken part in a movement, the aim of which was tofound a strong Gallic party which, with the aid of the Visigoths, should exercise a powerful influence on the Empire, orperhaps restore the quasi- independence of the days of Postumus and Victorinus. The spectacle of the weakness of thecentral government was humiliating. It could not protect itssubjects, whilst its fiscal oppression was every day growingmore cruel. We have only a glimpse of the intrigues andsecret diplomacy of this party of Gallic independence; butwe can discern that Avitus and his family were deeply involved in them. Avitus himself, who with Tonantius Ferreolus had secured the support of the first Theodoric againstAttila, was on the most friendly terms with Theodoric II.Sidonius too was received at the Gothic court, and the description of the king's character and habits, to which we have referred,was sent to Agricola, one of the sons of Avitus. The letterwas probably not intended merely for Agricola's eyes, whomust have heard often from his father the tales of his intercourse with the Gothic royal family. It is not an improbablesurmise that Sidonius knew that the letter would be handedabout, and that he wished to give a favourable impression ofTheodoric to the younger members of the party who wereworking for the Gallo- Gothic alliance. That alliance borefruit in the elevation of Avitus to the throne by the unitedvoice of the mixed Roman and Gothic assembly at the castleof Ugernum.3 And the Panegyric on his father- in-law, whichwe shall presently review, is at once the history of the movement, and the fullest and clearest exposition which Sidoniushas left of his views on the problems of the time.The hopes of Sidonius and his party were dashed for thetime by the fall of Avitus. Yet we can discover traces ofone more effort to set up an imperial representative of theunited Roman and Gothic races in opposition to Majorian.The centre of the movement was Lyons, and once more the1 Chaix, Apoll. Sidon. i. p. 79. 2 Treb. Poll. Tyr. Trig. 6.3 Apoll. Sidon. Carm. vii. 572.T274 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVGallo- Romans had Gothic, and possibly Burgundian, support.That Sidonius was deeply involved in the resistance toMajorian appears from the Panegyric on that Emperor,' inwhich, as he frankly confesses, the poet made a return forthe clemency with which he was treated by the conqueror.The traces of the struggle are faint and few. But theChronicles tell us of a peace concluded between Majorianand Theodoric after a battle in which the Goths were defeated,2and we learn from Sidonius that Lyons and the surroundingcountry suffered heavily by the exhaustion following on siegeand pillage. The blow was a crushing one, and the goodnature of the conqueror to the party which had opposed himmade the victory complete. Henceforth Sidonius abandonedall dreams of using the Goths in the interests of Gallo- Romanambition. The accession of Euric, who was at once morerapacious and more intolerant than his predecessor, cloudedall hopes of coming to terms with the invaders, at least inthe mind of a man like Sidonius. The attempt of the reckless prefect Arvandus to do so implied a severance of Gaulfrom the empire of Anthemius, and a partition of the provincebetween the Goths and Burgundians. Sidonius was, strangeto say, the personal friend of Arvandus, and, although he wasprefect of Rome, when Arvandus was tried for treason, he gavethe traitor his official countenance and support. This isundoubtedly a blot on the character of Sidonius , and it is hardto account for his conduct, especially when we remember thatTonantius Ferreolus, a close friend of Sidonius, was the leadingprosecutor of the culprit. But the theory that the poet wasinvolved in the intrigues of Arvandus is justly discredited bythose who know most of that obscure period. The later yearsof Sidonius were troubled by the repeated assaults of theVisigoths on the independence of Auvergne.1 Carm. v. 574; Praef. 1. 13:serviat ergo tibi servati lingua poetae atque meae vitae laus tua sit pretium;Ep. i. 11; cf. Chaix, Apoll. Sid. i. 104;Fertig, Sid. i. 9.2 Idat. Chron. , legati . . . veniunt ad Gallaecios nuntiantes Majorianumet Theudoricum regem firmissima inter se pacis jura saxisse, Gothis in quodam certamine superatis.3 See the description of the banquet45He was nowgiven by Majorian at Arles after the games, to which some of the leaders in the hostile movement were invited.Sid. Ep. i. 11; cf. Chaix, i . 137.Sid. Ep. i. 7, § 5, pacem cum Graeco imperatore (i.e. Anthemio) dissuadens,cum Burgundionibus Gallias dividi debere confirmans; cf. Chaix,i. 300.18.Sid. Ep. i. 7, § 5; cf. Fertig, i .CHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 275bishop of the district, and had thrown upon him the doubleduty of defending both the liberty and the faith of his people.He suffered personally for his patriotism by imprisonmentfor a time in the fortress of Livia. And his last recordedutterance on political subjects¹ is the pathetic and powerfuldenunciation of the weakness and treachery which abandonedAuvergne to the Visigoths.Yet in spite of the high official standing of Sidonius, andhis experience of the great world, his letters tell us far lessabout the general course of government and the fortunes ofthe Empire than we should have expected. This is speciallymarked in those letters, otherwise very interesting, in whichhe describes his second visit to Rome in 467.2 As soon as itwas known in Gaul that Anthemius had been raised to thethrone of the West, the leaders determined to send a deputation to lay before the new Emperor the condition of theprovince, threatened by the quiet advance of the Burgundians,and more openly harassed and assailed by the ambitious andintolerant king of the Visigoths. The maladministration ofthe Roman officials had also reached a height which hadbecome almost unendurable. Sidonius, one of the deputies,received an imperial summons to Rome, a document whichenabled him to command the facilities of the posting service onthe great roads and rivers on his journey. We see that thatservice, in spite of all the disorganisation described in theCode, was still uninterrupted between Lyons and Rome.There is not a hint in the letter of any trace of the effect ofthe invasions and troubles of the time. The writer's mindis occupied with mythological and historical reminiscences, orthe charm of stream and woodland. As he shoots on a swiftbarge down the Po, he thinks of the sisters of Phaethondropping tears of amber, or of the Tityrus of Virgil's Eclogues.He is charmed with the concert of birds, whose sounds floatto him from sedge and brake; but he seems never to havehad thought of the legions who, sixty years before, mustered1 Ep. vii. 7.62 Ib. i. 5, 6, and 7; Mommsen,Praef. xlviii.; Chaix, i . 265.3non veredorum paucitas sed amicorum multitudo faciebat.5 C. Th. viii. 5 passim; v. supra, p.199.63 Ep. i. 5, publicus cursus usuiEp. i. 5, Ticini cursoriam escendi,4 Ib. i. 5, ubi sane moram vianti etc. fuit sacris apicibus accito.276 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVon those river banks under Stilicho to oppose the hordes ofbarbarism. When he comes to Ravenna, he can describe,with the vividness of wanton antithesis, ' its bad water andendless canals, its trading monks, its burglars and sleepymagistrates, but there is not a word of Ravenna when it wasthe seat of empire and the shelter of the Emperor, not aword about the tragic death of the great statesman andwarrior, who fell a victim to the blind hatred of the racesand faiths which he wished to reconcile, and was lured tohis doom from his asylum at the altar of Christ. WhenSidonius arrived at Rome, Anthemius was about to assumethe consulship, and the marriage of his daughter with Ricimer,the German master of the army, was about to be celebrated. Itwas only twelve years since the city had been sacked by theVandals and Berbers. For fourteen days it had been given up tofire and sword. Although the actual damage to public buildings and monuments was hardly such as to justify the reproachimmortalised in the word " Vandalism," yet the loss anddestruction of movable wealth must have been enormous.Gold and silver plate from the senatorial palaces, ancientstatues of incalculable artistic value, the sacred vessels of theJewish temple, which had been undisturbed since the timeof Titus, along with crowds of noble captives, were carriedback to Africa. Yet in this letter of Sidonius there is nota hint of all this recent ruin. The social system of Romeappears to be unshaken and unchanged. The scenes ofpublic resort and amusem*nt, the theatres and markets, thetemples and forums, have the air of ancient peace. The greatcity is en fête. The law- courts have suspended their sittings, *all business is at a standstill, the whole population seem tobe bent on making holiday. Sidonius is received by anancient prefect named Paulus, who, like his guest, cared morefor elaborate verse- making and turns of phrase than for public1 Ep. i. 8, in qua palude rerum omnium lege perversa muri cadunt aquae stant, turres fluunt naves sedent, algent balnea domicilia con- flagrant, sitiunt vivi natant sepulti,etc. etc.2 Zos. v. 34.Prosp. Chron. ad a. 455; Jordan.Get. c. 45; cf. Gregorovius, Hist. of Rome in Middle Ages, i. 210.Sid. Ep. i. 5, quippe cum hoc ipso tempore vix per omnia theatra,macella, praetoria, fora, gymnasia Thalassio Fescenninus explicaretur.atque etiam nunc e contrariostudia sileant, judicia conticescant,etc.CHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 2773affairs. By him he is introduced to the senatorial world ofRome and its two great leaders, men of consular rank-Avienus,who had been one of the embassy with Leo to Attila in452,2 and Basilius, to whom, as Pretorian prefect, several of therescripts of Majorian were addressed. The influence of oneor other of these great magnates it was necessary to gain.When we read the description of the crowds of clients whothronged their morning receptions, we might fancy ourselvesback in the days of Cicero. Sidonius balanced the relativeinfluence of the two social potentates and their willingness toserve a protégé, and resolved to devote himself to Basilius.He and his patron seem to have given little thought to theserious objects of the Gallic embassy. They are rather intenton turning the young poet's literary talent to account on sucha unique occasion. Why should not the ready verse- makerattract the notice of the new imperial consul by one of thoseflorid and conventional displays of literary skill which, inthose days, received greater honour than substantial serviceto the State? Basilius backed up his friend loyally, thePanegyric on Anthemius was recited amid great applause,and " by the help of Christ," a light use of the sacred namefrom which the future bishop does not shrink, Sidonius obtainedthe prefecture of the city. When he had gained the object ofhis ambition, and was installed in his office, he had to facethat constant bugbear of the Urban prefect, the failure ofsupplies for the mob of Rome. Africa, the great granary ofthe city, was now in the hands of the Vandals, and theVandals naturally did not facilitate the passage of the cornships to Ostia. Sidonius probably exerted himself to avertthe' danger. But in his account of the crisis he seems moreanxious about his own reputation than about the sufferingsof a population threatened by famine. He dreads the curses" 51 Sid. Ep. i. 9, deus bone, quae ille positionibus aenigmata, sententiisschemata, versibus commata, digitis mechanemata facit!2 Prosp. Chron. ad a. 452, suscepit hoc negotium cum viro consulari Avienobeatissimus papa Leo auxilio Dei fretus. Avienus was cos. with Valentinian in 450.3 Nov. Maj. 1, 8; Nov. Severi, 1 .Sid. Ep. i. 9, arctabat clientiumpraevia, pedissequa, circumfusa popu- jositas .5 Ib. i . 9, igitur cum ad praefecturam, sub ope Christi, styli occa- sione pervenerim ...; cf. a likeuse of the Divine name on a similarly trivial occasion in v. 16.6 Ib. i. 10, vereor autem ne famemPopuli Romani theatralis caveae fragor insonet et infortunio meo publicadeputetur esuries.278 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVof the theatre on the unsuccessful minister. In all this gossipof high society there is little reference to the straits of Auvergne,not a hint of the dangers and weakness which were bringingthe Western Empire to the verge of the abyss.It is only in the Panegyrics of Sidonius that we findanything like a broad and comprehensive view of the positionof the Western Empire, and its relation to the barbarians andthe East. These poems are disfigured by the most extravagantand tasteless adulation, rendered even more ridiculous andoffensive by pinchbeck mythological ornament, which was inthat age the one resource of the sterile imagination. Theymark probably the utmost extreme of indurated conventionalitythat literary art has ever reached. Yet, here and there, thereis the ring of truth and sincerity in their tone. And, in spiteof all its exaggeration, the poem on the accession of Avitus isof great value to the historian. It shows a certain insightinto the real state of the Roman world, although the scepticalreader might be inclined to attribute this rather to the earlyassociations of Sidonius than to his own powers of reflection .It discloses at once a profound sense of weakness in thecentral power, and of the respect, and even awe, felt for it bythe Goths. It is also a revelation of the force of provincial ornational feeling in Gaul. A few years before its composition thearmy of the Huns had penetrated into the very heart of Gaul,and had been turned back by the energy of Aetius, with theaid of the Visigothic power. The cities of Northern Italyhad been ravaged by the same terrible invaders, and Romeitself had been threatened. Within the space of twelvemonths Aetius, the bulwark for thirty years of the Romanpower, had fallen by the treachery of Valentinian III. ,2 andthat Emperor himself by the vengeance of Maximus, whosucceeded him, and met the same violent death just beforethe Vandal fleet anchored in the Tiber. For fourteen daysthe city had been at the mercy of the army of Genseric. Itwas under the shadow of such disasters and tragedies that1 Prosp. Chron. ad a. 452. Therewere thoughts even of the Emperor abandoning Italy; cf. Idat. Chron.Hunni qui Italiam praedabantur,aliquantis etiam civitatibus irruptis,etc.; and Marcell. Chron. ad a. 452,Aquileia civitas ab Attila Hunnorum rege excisa est.2 Marcell. Chron. ad a. 455; cf. the reflections of Sidonius on the death ofMaximus after two months only ofimperial power, Ep. ii. 13, § 3.CHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 279Avitus mounted the throne, and that his son-in-law and panegyrist had to perform his difficult task.2The poem reflects the general gloom. The flight of thetwelve vultures,' which for many ages had been thought bythe Roman to fix the limits of imperial sway, has now aterribly real significance. The many triumphs of Rome, whenthe world seemed all too small for her victorious energy, cast alurid light on a frontier ever shrinking towards the centre.The old feud between Carthage and Rome is revived in theVandal invasion, but with what different issue! Rome is nowa captive, and with her the world is captive in the snares ofthe unwarlike Vandal. But before that humiliation, she, oncequeen of the world, has become the mere thrall of the Caesars.There is need for some warlike prince of the mould of Trajan,5and only Gaul, only Auvergne, the unconquered, with itsmemories of Gergovia," of resistance to the greatest Caesar, canfurnish such a captain. Yet Rome is but subject to the fateof all things lofty; she has endured as much before at thehands of a Porsenna, a Brennus, and a Hannibal; and as sherose victorious over their assaults, so may she, gathering herancient spirit, and choosing her leader aright, even now prevailover her foes. But the hope is not in the worn-out race ofRome, but in the vigour of Gaul, which is so neglected anddespised. Her foremost son," the lieutenant of Aetius, has helpedto keep the Huns, the Saxons, the Alemanni at bay for thirtyyears. He has made the Visigoths willing friends and companions in arms of the Romans,10 and trained the Gothicprinces to admire the laws and literature of Rome,¹¹ and has81 Sid. Carm. vii. 55:quid, rogo, bis seno mihi vulture Tuscus aruspex portendit?2 Ib. vii. 96:cumque prius stricti quererer de cardine mundi nec limes nunc ipsa mihi ...3 Ib. vii. 444:in bella iterum quartosque labores perfida Elisseae crudesc*nt classica Byrsae.4 Ib. vii. 102:sum tota in principe, tota principis, et fio lacerum de Caesare regnum.5 Ib. vii. 116:Trajanum nescio si quis aequiparet, ni fors iterum tu, Gallia, mittas qui vincat .6 Ib. vii. 150.7 Ib. vii. 124:11sat celsa laborant semper ...8 Ib. vii. 52 and 540:portavimus umbram imperii, generis contenti ferre vetusti et vitia ac solitam vestiri murice gentem more magis quam jure pati.9 Ib. vii. 232:nil sine te gessit, cum plurima tute sine illo.10 Ib. vii. 511:Romae sum te duce amicus principe te miles . . .(the words attributed to Theodoric) .11 Ib. vii. 497:parvumque ediscere jussit ad tua verba pater, docili quo prisca Maronis carmine molliret Scythicos mihi pagina mores.280 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVunited Goth and Gallo- Roman in a common effort to savethe Empire at once from its own weakness and from theVandal.¹ The skin- clad squadrons, under his leadership, willonce more follow the trumpets of Rome, as they did on theCatalaunian plains. There is doubtless ludicrous exaggerationin the words in which the Gothic king expresses his wish towipe out the blot on his ancestor's fame in having violatedthe sacred city.³ Yet Sidonius has, after all , only put inrhetorical form the admiration for Rome, and the wish toserve her, expressed by Ataulphus to his Roman host ofNarbonne, according to the tale narrated by Orosius.5 Inspite of all their ravages, the Goths did recognise the superiority and suzerainty of Rome. They had fought for heragainst Sueve and Vandal in Spain . They had saved Gaulfor her from Attila. Under a Gallic prince they were readyonce more to lend their swords to rescue her from the ruinwhich seemed to be impending. The chronicler is right insaying that Avitus was raised to the imperial throne by theunited voice of the Goths and the honorati of Roman Gaul. "And it is the confession of the weakness of Rome, and therevelation of this union of feeling between provincial andbarbarian, which gives its historical value to the Panegyricon Avitus.The speedy fall of Avitus, who proved so unworthy ofthe eulogies of his son- in- law, disappointed the ambitiousor patriotic hopes of Sidonius and the Gallic party. Theymade an abortive attempt, with the aid of the Goths andBurgundians, to set up another emperor in the person ofMarcellinus, a brilliant soldier, who had fought by the sideof Aetius, and on his death, like Aegidius in Northern Gaul,established an almost independent principality in Dalmatia.Lyons was the centre of the new Gallic movement, andsuffered severely in the struggle which followed the accession81 Sid. Carm. vii. 441.2 Ib. vii. 349:ibant pellitae post classica Romula turmae.3 Пb. vii. 506:sed di si vota secundant excidii veteris crimen purgare valebit ultio praesentis . . .4 Ib. vii. 501 .5 Oros. vii. 43, § 4.6 Idat. Chron. ad a. 455, ipsoanno in Galliis Avitus Gallus civis abexercitu Gallicano et ab honoratis,primumTolosae, dehincapud Arelatum,Augustus appellatus . .7 Sid. Ep. i. 11 , cumque de capessendo diademate conjuratio Marcelliana coqueretur. Cf. Fertig, i . p. 9; Chaix,i. p. 104.8 Procop. Bell . Vand. i. 6.CHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 281of Majorian.¹ That great soldier and far - sighted statesmanwas diverted for the moment from his supreme task of crushingthe Vandal power. He crossed the Alps in 458, defeated theGoths, and inflicted a heavy chastisem*nt on Lyons. Itsterritory was ravaged, and the community had to bear a heavyfine in the shape of increased tribute, which, however, theclemency of the victor afterwards remitted. Sidonius atonedfor his share in these events by a Panegyric on the newEmperor before a great concourse at Lyons, when the districthad returned to its wonted tranquillity.4The piece has not the tone of pessimism about theEmpire which characterises the Panegyric on Avitus. Rome,the warrior queen of the earth, is seated on her throne, cladin purple robes, but armed as well.3 On her helmet risesa diadem of towers; her left arm bears a shield blazonedwith the legends of her infancy, her right uplifts a lance ofivory that has drunk the blood of men. All her provincesfrom the remotest East are pouring their peculiar treasuresat her feet. Before her Africa flings herself in supplication Africa, now the prey of a brigand," the son of aslave-girl, whose violence is only softened by unaccustomedluxury. She mourns her old fated quarrel with Rome, andbegs to be delivered from her oppressor. The energy ofLatium is slumbering, but Rome has always been grandest inadversity. Her fortune keeps sleepless watch even withouta soldier.s Rome has now a warrior whom the ages summonas fittest for the task. Of a warlike stock," he has been therival of Aetius in many a dim combat on the rivers of thenorth against the chivalry of the Franks.10 He has alreadyswept the Vandals and the Moors from the shores of Campania,"1 Sid. Carm. v. 575.2 This fact proves that in 458 Lyonswas not yet occupied by the Burgundians. Cf. F. de Coulanges, L'Inv.Germ. p. 450.3 Sid. Carm. v. 13.+ Ib. v. 53.5 Line 52:famula satus olim hic praedo .Cf. Procop. Bell. Vand. i. 3, Tišépixos dè vótos: Sid. Carm . ii. 358:cum serva sit illi certa parens.6 Ib. v. 331:spoliisque potitus immensis robur luxu jam perdidit omne quo valuit, dum pauper erat.In v. 390 the Vandals remain onboard their galleys while their Moorish soldiers are ravaging Campania.7 lb. v. 85:da veniam quod bellum gessimus olim,fatis cogor tibi bella movere.8 lb. v. 84:et vigilat vestrum sine milite fatum.9 Ib. v. 108.10 Ib. v. 207; cf. 291.11 Ib. v. 385.282 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IV2and he is now preparing on both seas a fleet larger than thatwhich bore the hosts of Xerxes, or than that which fought atActium. And he is gathering to his standards the warriorsof every tribe from the Baltic to the Euxine.¹ For him "theharmonious sisters have spun the threads of gold. " ' And yetamid all the fresh hopes of revived imperial power there is anundertone of provincial discontent. If Roman Africa calls forrelief from Vandal oppression, Gaul, the country of Majorian,the scene of so many of his triumphs, has her grievances too.For the greater part of a century, ever since the accession ofGratian, she has seen nothing of the masters of the world, andhas been ignored by them.³ She has borne gladly the expenseof Majorian's great enterprise against the Vandals, but she iscrushed with the weight of the imperial tribute. *The panegyrist seems here, while paying due honour to the victoriousEmperor and deprecating his anger, to hint at the causeswhich had led the Gallic party at Lyons to set up a rival forthe succession. Provincial or national feeling is still as strongas when two years before it raised Avitus to the throne.Majorian, the " young Marcellus " of the last years ofthe Western Empire, with all his old Roman spirit and statesmanlike insight, failed in his mission, and was treacherouslyslain by Ricimer. Majorian intended to wield the full force ofthe State at once against the Vandals, and against the oppression and corruption which were eating out the heart of society.But this independence did not suit the ambition of the Suevesoldier of fortune who now practically ruled the Empire, andwho either killed or dethroned four successive emperors. Onthe fall of Majorian he set up Severus, the most obscure andshadowy of the Emperors of the West. For eighteen monthsafter the fall of Severus the throne was vacant. The "unanimity " of the two empires was broken, and Ricimer was1 Sid. Carm. v. 442, 473.2 Ib. v. 369:aurea concordes traxerunt fila sorores.3 Ib. v. 355:mea Gallia rerum ignoratur adhuc dominis ignoraque servit.4 Ib. v. 447:Gallia continuis quamquain sit lassa tributis.5 Nov. Maj. 1, addressed to Basilius. Note in particular the restraint on the use of the postingservice, and on the exactions of compulsores. Many other modes of exac- tion are condemned under severepenalties; cf. iv. " De Indulgentiis Reliquorum. " Cf. Idat. Chron. Majori- anum de Galliis redeuntem, et Romano imperio vel nomini res necessariasordinantem, Rechimer livore percitus et invidorum consilio fultus, fraude interficit circumventum.6 Sid. Carm. ii. 317.CHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 2832master of the West. But the Vandal power was sweepingRoman commerce from the seas and devastating the wholecoast of the Mediterranean, ¹ The Senate roused itself tosend a deputation to Leo imploring him to give them anemperor. Leo recommended Anthemius, a Byzantine nobleof high lineage, who had married Euphemia, the daughter ofMarcian; and Ricimer, from whatever cause, consciousness ofpower, or, more probably, dismay at the position of affairs ,accepted the choice, and the arrangement was to be crownedby his marriage with the daughter of the newly designatedEmperor. It was on the occasion of Anthemius entering onthe consulship at the opening of 468 that Sidonius, as we haveseen, through the influence of Basilius, found himself, for thethird time, charged with the task of delivering a panegyricon the new occupant of the throne.34It was a task of peculiar difficulty for several reasons, bothpublic and personal. The accession of a " Greek Emperor,"though acquiesced in by the Senate, and hailed with signs ofsuperficial enthusiasm by the people, was yet a great shock toRoman pride. More than half a century before the accession ofAnthemius, Claudian, who gave literary utterance to the deepestfeelings of the old Roman party, expressed all its hatred andscorn for the rival capital, and its servile and effeminatenobles." It is not in accordance with human nature that theancient home of the Empire should have become less sensitiveand jealous in the years which saw her losing one after anotherher richest provinces, more and more at the mercy of herbarbarian mercenaries, and at last under the heel of a barbariangeneral. But her leading spirits, whose thoughts Sidoniusprobably reflects, must have been fully conscious of the straitsto which the capital of the West had been reduced. Theappeal to Leo to give them a new chief was in itself the mostopen confession of weakness. Yet to celebrate such an occasionin the presence of the best blood of Rome, without offending1 Sid. Carm. ii. 349:hinc Vandalas hostis urget et in nostrum numerosa classe quotannis militat excidium .2 Ib. ii. 67, 194, 216.3 Sid. Ep. i. 9.4 Ib. i. 7, pacem cum Graeco im- peratore dissuadens (in the letterquoted from Arvandus to Euric) .5 See the dedication of a statue tohim in the Forum of Trajan," Senatupetente, " C.I.L. vi. 1710.Claud. in Eutrop. i. 173, 427.The contempt probably reaches its height in ii. 136, and 326-341 .284 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVRoman pride too deeply, was a trying task, and the panegyristmight well call on Apollo and the Muses to aid him in hiseffort. He does not disguise the fact that Italy is no longerwhat she was. She has still her old wealth and plenty, but, inthe mythological scenery of the poem, her limbs are palsiedwith age, and she has ceased to wear her arms. Rome, the city,on the other hand, is still the martial goddess, with glitteringspear and helmet, and her shield crowded with the tale oflegendary glories.3 But she is begged to lay aside her pride, torecognise the failure of her native princes, and to seek amore fortunate ruler in the East. Italian statesmanship, thepolicy of isolation, has failed . The Vandal is insulting withimpunity the former mistress of the world. The poem ofSidonius does not attempt to hide the fact that the greatcity of the West is suffering from the decay of age, andtottering under the burden of her destiny. He makes afrank acknowledgment that the resources of the WesternEmpire cannot cope with the craft and violence of the Vandals,who are ravaging the coasts of Italy.5The appeal of Rome to the East for help is not withoutdignity. There is the old Roman pride in the recital ofthe great captains who subjugated the vast territories from theAdriatic to the Euphrates. But there is also a mournful tonein the confession that this great inheritance has passed forever from the hands that won it . Rome has resigned, alongwith so many provinces, her old ambition and her pride ofempire. She asks no more to throw her bridges over theAraxes, or to hear her trumpets sound at the gates of Bactraand Babylon. The division of the Empire is an establishedfact.8 But the division need not mean discord. In thepresence of the menacing danger from a hostile Africa,which has done what Carthage could not do, the jealousies1 Sid. Carm. ii . 307.2 Ib. ii. 327-329:segnior incedit senio sed tamen ubertas sequitur, etc.3 lb. ii. 394.4 Ib. ii. 451:totum hunc tibi cessimus axem.Et nec sic mereor, nostram ut tueare senec- tam?5 Ib. ii. 352:praeterea invictus Ricimer, quem publica fata respiciunt, proprio solus vix Marte repellit piratam per rura vagum , qui proelia vitans victoreni fugitivus agit.6 Ib. ii. 451.7 Ib. ii. 441-448.8 lb. ii. 65:valeat divisio regni.Concordant lancis partes.CHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 285of East and West fade away. Their united counsels may yetrestore the fortunes of the Roman world.Sidonius had an even more delicate subject to deal with inthe ascendency or tyranny of Ricimer. The barbarian masterof the West had dethroned the poet's father- in- law andcrushed the hopes of Majorian. He had kept the imperialthrone vacant for many months, and his policy was to cut offItaly from the Eastern Empire. Yet it must be admittedthat the poet's skill was not unequal to the task. Ricimer'sroyal birth is adroitly used to explain why the base- bornVandal king will not come to terms with him.¹ Genseric cannot forget that the grandfather of his enemy inflicted a crushing defeat on the Vandal hordes in Spain.2 And Ricimer hasshown himself worthy of his descent from the warlike Goth.He has beaten the Vandals at Agrigentum.3 The terror of hisname holds back the Ostrogoth in Pannonia and the Frank onthe Rhine. Yet even his force and authority cannot cope withthe dangers of the time. He is not armed with the majestyof a Roman emperor, and in the call for a warrior-prince,"who will be his own general, we can without much difficultydiscern a covert censure on the overweening ambition of theman who would tolerate on the throne none but a merecreature and tool of his ambition.In this attempt to realise the feeling of different sections of the Roman world in the presence of the invaders,we have had very various answers to our questions. TheRoman world was wide, the circ*mstances of its provinceswere very different, and there was an immense variety in themanner in which the invaders behaved to the Roman population. The shock of the first great inroad was tremendous, but,on the other hand, there were many causes which reduced theforce of its impact. The moral ascendency of Rome, bothover her subjects and her assailants, was magical. It inspired confidence in the one even in the hour of the darkestcrisis; it restrained the impetuous violence of the others, even1 Sid. Carm. ii . 360:tum livet quod Ricimerem in regnum duo regna vocant . . .The mother of Ricimer wasthe daughterof Wallia, king of the Visigoths.2 Idat. Chron. , Wandali Silingi in Baetica per Walliam regem omnesexstincti; cf. Sid. Carm. ii. 362.3 Sid. Carm. ii. 367.4 Ib. ii. 377.5 Ib. ii. 382:modo principe nobis est opus armato, veterum qui more parentum non mandet sed bellagerat .286 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVwhen Rome seemed to be at their mercy. The pagan noblewas moved, both by his faith and his traditional lore, tobelieve that the gods, who had led their worshippers to such abeneficent use of a sway won by heroic effort, would not allowsuch a career to be abridged. The pagan of another ordersaw in the calamities of the Empire only the just punishmentfor the abandonment of the ancestral gods. On the Christianside there was no greater unanimity. Many, whose faith wasnot equal to such rude assaults, abandoned all belief in acontrolling Providence. Others found in the calamities ofthe time the righteous and deserved punishment of a world,nominally Christian, but really the slave of the grossest vice.Others again, comparing the present with the past, tried toconvince themselves that their own sufferings were nothingexceptional in the history of the world, and had a glimmeringprospect of a future in which Rome and barbarism, cultureand force, would be reconciled in a new and better order.Sidonius, from the circ*mstances of his career, standsapart from the rest. He united many sides of that age oftransition. He was a wealthy noble whose whole associationsand training inspired him with faith in Rome. He was also apatriotic Gaul who had aspirations for the political future ofhis native province. He had associated with emperors, andborne a great part on the stage of public life at Rome,when, in spite of all external troubles, social routine wasundisturbed, the machine of government ran smoothly, andthe majesty of the great city seemed still proud and erect.On the other hand, if he had not seen the first inroads atthe beginning of the century, he had witnessed the invasionof the Huns in 451 , the conquest of Africa by the Vandals,and the paralysis of the Roman world, both in the East andWest, caused by their command of the sea. From his earliestyouth he had also seen the Visigothic kings carrying on acomparatively civilised government at Toulouse or Bordeaux,sometimes attacking Roman cities, but as often fighting in thecause of Rome. He had led a secure and prosperous life foryears between the Visigothic and Burgundian territories. Hehimself, and many of his friends, had been in friendly intercourse with the Germans. The Panegyrics are the productionsof his earlier years, before he had a defined ecclesiasticalCHAP. II ROMAN VIEWS OF THE INVASIONS 287position; the great mass of his Letters belong to the timewhen he was the chief pastor of Auvergne. In the formerwe have rather the views of the ambitious courtier who isin touch with the governing class, and reflects their ideas; inthe latter we have the thoughts and life of the senator andchurch dignitary, whose range is rather bounded by thesocial or ecclesiastical life of his province. We have alreadyseen what the letters of Sidonius tell us of the ordinary lifeof a provincial senator in the society of his friends and theenjoyment of his estate. In what follows we shall find themnot less valuable as a picture of Roman life in a districtwhich, having been little troubled by its Gothic neighboursfor half a century, was, after a gallant resistance, compelled toaccept their rule in the closing years of Sidonius.CHAPTER IIIRELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERSIN the previous chapter an attempt has been made tocollect the views and feelings of persons, representing variouslocalities and differences of circ*mstance and character, aboutthe condition and future of the Empire in the face of theinvaders. We shall in this chapter now try to discoverwhat was the actual condition of a Roman populationin invaded territory, and what were their relations to theinvaders. On this subject the letters of Sidonius are, as wehave said, of great importance. But perhaps even more important and more vivid is the glimpse of a life passed inAquitaine, during the years when the Goths were about toestablish themselves there. The autobiography of Paulinus ofPella was composed about 460 , ' five years after Sidonius hadmade his reputation at Rome by the Panegyric on Avitus, andabout as many years before the death of Theodoric II. ButPaulinus and Sidonius belong to different generations. Theone saw the first storms of the invasion of 406; the otherlived to see the Roman power in Gaul finally submerged.The father of Paulinus, after serving as vicarius of Macedoniaand proconsul of Africa,² returned to his native Bordeaux inthe year 379, his son being then three years of age. In that1 Paulin. Pell. Euch. 12:altera ab undecima annorum currente meorum hebdomade sex aestivi flagrantia solis solstitia et totidem brumae jam frigora vidi ...On the dates in the life of Paulinuscf. Brandes, Pref. ad Euch. (Poet.Christ. Min. ) pp. 273-276; cf. Ebert, p.408, n. 2. Line 478 of the Eucharisticos,with the emendation of bis for his,tallies with 1. 12. The result of thecomparison shows that Paulinus re- ceived the Eucharist in 421 , when hewas forty- five years of age, and that his poem was composed in 459, whenhe was eighty- three.2 Seeck's Sym. lxxviii.; Ebert, Lit. des Mittelalters, i . p. 405.CH. III RELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERS 289year the boy's grandfather, Ausonius, was raised to the consulship. Paulinus, in his early youth, must have therefore enjoyed the rarest advantages for becoming either a statesman ora man of letters. His grandfather had retired from publiclife to enjoy his renown and literary ease among friends andrelatives. Ausonius had controlled the affairs of vast provinces,and lived among the men who knew the secrets of the Empire.Whatever we may think of his literary rank, he was at anyrate clever, versatile, full of literary knowledge, a thoroughman of letters, according to the ideas of his time. His grandson must have constantly heard his talk about literature andpolitics. Yet, in the poem of Paulinus, there is hardly a traceof appreciation for literature, or of insight into public affairs.2You would never conjecture that the writer had lived amongmen who had held the highest offices, and to whom literaturewas as their mothers' milk. He saw prefects and consuls ofhis own family returning from their years of office. He sawthe army of Ataulphus in possession of Bordeaux, besiegingBazas, and retreating into Spain. He was intimate with someof the German leaders.3 He lived to see the Gothic power firmlyestablished in Aquitaine, the Vandals masters of NorthernAfrica, and sweeping the coasts of the Mediterranean withtheir fleets. He must have heard many a rumour of thefailure of revenue, of the collapse of administration, of theflight of free Romans to escape the ever-growing pressure ofthe imperial treasury, of the slaughter in countless battlefields,of the wasting famine and pestilence which tracked the pathof the invaders across the Pyrenees. And yet there ia word in Paulinus which shows any political insigfeeling for the impending fall of a great imperial systefact, one of the most curious things in the poem isdifference of the writer to the progress of great evehis acquiescence in the intrusion of the strange guequartered themselves in Bordeaux for a time in 41his earlier days he is absorbed in the enjoyment1 Paulin. Pell. Euch. 48:anni ejusdem Consul, nostra trieteride prima.2 He says that his studies were interrupted by ill- health , v. 119 .Ib. 346:regis dudum mihi cari.He alludes, however, tdebita on his wife's estates.cf. 424, Romanumque nef he says has left him nothigrandfather's estate.Ib. 285.290 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVand idleness , and a well- ordered establishment, with troops ofservants, elegant banquets, and artistic plate. In his later yearshe had become devout, and regarded the events of his timerather as a personal discipline and call to the religious life. Hecombines in fact, at different periods, two types of character,which were common in the ranks of the Roman noble class;on the one hand, the man who loses all ambition for thedistinctions of the great world in farming, building, hunting,and the soporific pleasures of the country; on the other,the man who, with a different kind of self-absorption, forgetsthe world, the fortunes of his fellows, and the ties of familylove, in the effort to save his own soul.2 His poem waswritten apparently more for his own edification than for theenlightenment of posterity. He can think only of his personal fortunes and his salvation; but this very concentrationon himself makes him, for the historical inquirer, speciallyvaluable. Paulinus discloses to us, with almost startlingvividness, the effects on the fate of one great house, first ofthe violent invasions of the Sueves and Vandals in 406, andthen of the more peaceful occupation of Bordeaux by theVisigoths eight years afterwards. The first of these eventsoccurred in the thirtieth year of Paulinus,3 and disturbed hisplacid, unambitious enjoyment of the estates which had cometo him by his marriage. He mentions casually the losses.which he suffered by the ravages of the barbarians, but helays much more stress on the family troubles caused by hisfather's death about the same time. Evidently the damagefrom the invasion was not very serious, for, a few years later,at the time of the Gothic occupation, he speaks of himself asenjoying ease and luxury and manifold blessings. *1 Paulin. Pell. Euch. 200-216:propere mihi fida paravi otia, privatae post impendenda quieti.quae et mihi cara nimis semper fuit ingenioque congrua prima meo mediocria desideranti ,proxima deliciis et ob ambitione remota, etc.2 The most startling kind of spirit- ual selfishness is to be found in theletters of S. Paulinus Nol. , e.g. Ep.XXV. § 7, necessitudines nostrae carnales,quanto cariores nobis sunt, tanto nosdiscruciant et fatigant; cf. ib. , volo,inquit, vos sine sollicitudine esse, hoc est, ut nihil praeter Deum et salutemnostram cogitemus. Nam uxor et filii,quamquam et ipsa divinitus nobispignora data sint, tamen gravissima curarum onera sunt. On this principle Melania is praised for neglecting her child, Ep. xxix. § 9, nemini parvulum suum verbo, ut dici solet, alendum,erudiendum, tuendum mandare dig- nata est.3 Euch. 232:transacta aevi post trina decennia nostri ... hostibus infusis Romani in viscera regni.4 Ib. 283, 284.CH . I RELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERS 291The occupation of Bordeaux bythe Visigoths under Ataulphusis known to us only from the Eucharisticos, but it is one ofthe most interesting glimpses of the history of that age.When Ataulphus entered Gaul in 412, carrying the princessPlacidia with him in an honoured captivity, it would appear,both from the authorities and the probabilities of the case,that he came as an ally or lieutenant of Honorius.¹ But hisrelations with the imperial government were fluctuating andprecarious. On the one hand, certain promises had beenmade to him of supplies for his troops. On the other hand,his requisitions were met by demands for the restoration of theEmperor's sister, whom Constantius, the general of Honorius,claimed for his bride. Sometimes the Gothic king seems tobe acting as a faithful servant of Honorius, and again he isin open hostility to him. When he first arrived in Gaul,Ataulphus proceeded to check the ravages of the Franks andBurgundians who were pillaging the province. Then, whenJovinus was proclaimed Emperor at Mainz by Goar the Alanand the Burgundians, it is said that, at the instigation of theex- Emperor Attalus, the Goths supported the movement. 'But within a year they turned their arms against Jovinus,besieged him in Valentia, and handed him over to Honorius.5Once more Ataulphus demanded his promised supplies, andonce more the Roman officials, who were quite unable tofurnish them, renewed their demand for the surrender ofPlacidia. The Goths, probably to open communication withthe sea, attempted to surprise the great port of Marseilles; "but they were foiled by the energy of Count Boniface, whoseems to have had a personal encounter with Ataulphus, inwhich the Gothic chief was wounded. By whatever means,the Goths had established themselves at Narbonne, which was1 Jordan. de Reb. Get. c. 31 , Honoriumque augustum quamvis opibusexhaustum , tamen jam quasi cognatum gratoanimoderelinquens, Gallias tendit.Ubi cum advenisset, vicinae gentesperterritae in suis se coeperunt finibus continere; Oros. vii. 43 , 3, satis studiose sectator pacis militare fideliterHonorio imperatori ac pro defendendaRomana republica impendere vires Gothorum praeoptavit.Olympiod. Fragm. § 21 , ed . Müller,Αδάουλφος ἀπαιτούμενος Πλακιδίαν,ἀνταπῄτει τὸν ὁρισθέντα σῖτον.3 Jordan. Get. c. 31 .6Olympiod. Fragm . § 17, öri ' Ioẞî- νος ἐν Μουνδιακῷ τῆς ἑτέρας Γερμανίας κατὰ σπουδὴν Γωὰρ τοῦ ᾿Αλανοῦ καὶ Γυνταρίου, ὃς φύλαρχος ἐχρημάτιζε τῶνΒουργουντιόνων, τύραννος ἀνεγορεύθη πρὸς ὃν παραγενέσθαι ῎Ατταλος ᾿Αδάουλφον παραινεῖ.Ib. § 19.6 Ib. § 21.292 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IV4then a great port and flourishing centre of trade, ' although thechanges of nature have now cut it off from the sea. It wasthe home of a wealthy and lettered aristocracy, and again andagain, in the generation following Ataulphus, it was assailed bythe Goths. In Narbonne Ataulphus for a time seems tohave quartered himself, and there he won the hand ofPlacidia, and wedded her solemnly according to old Romanrites. The wedding took place in the house of Ingenius, theforemost citizen of Narbonne. Ataulphus, arrayed in gorgeousRoman dress, presented to his bride fifty youths laden withgold and gems, the spoils of Rome in the sack of 410.Romans and Goths united in rejoicing over the event, andAttalus, the ex- Emperor, bore a leading part in the singing ofthe epithalamium. In wedding the daughter of Theodosius.and the sister of Honorius, the Gothic king was working forpolitical ends, as well as gratifying private affection. Hismarriage was the symbol of that union of Roman and Germanin the cause of civilisation which was the dream of his life.And in those days at Narbonne probably took place thatfamous conversation between Ataulphus and his Roman host,5a report of which Orosius had heard in the cell of S. Jeromeat Bethlehem. Ataulphus said that he had once in his youthdreamed of overthrowing the power of Rome; but experiencehad taught him that the Roman rule was the rule of law andorder and peace. In maturer years, his great object was tounite the two races, and to support the civilising influence ofRome by the swords of the Goths. But Rome did not quitetrust or appreciate her champion. Constantius, who controlledthe Gallic policy of Honorius," had been the rival of Ataulphusfor the hand of Placidia, and he was not likely to grow moreaccommodating after the wedding at Narbonne. Probably,almost certainly, the dearest wish of Ataulphus was to obtaina recognised position for himself under the Roman government,1 Narbonne was then a great port ofdeparture for Africa; cf. Sulp. Sev.Dial. i. 3, 1; Auson. Nob. Urb. 13, 18.2 Cf. Sid. Carm. xxiii. 37.3 Prosp. Chron. ad a. 436.The scene is fully described inOlympiod. Fragm. § 24.Oros. vii. 43, 5.6 v. C. Th. xv. 14 , 14. Constantiuswas of Illyrian origin. He was mag.mil. in 412, consul with Constans in 414, patrician in 416. He held theconsulship twice afterwards, and was finally joint emperor in 421. Hemarried Placidia in 417 , and becameby her father of Valentinian III. Seethe personal description of him inOlympiod. § 23.CH. I RELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERS 293and a settlement for his troops on the Roman soil in Gaul. If thesethings were not freely granted him, he must take them by force.Thus it comes about that in the poem of Paulinus we findAtaulphus in possession of Bordeaux, his soldiers being quartered as " guests " on the Roman inhabitants. But he wouldnot openly break with Rome, though he might quarrel with anemperor. To make his position legitimate, he raised Attalusonce more to the purple, as Avitus forty years afterwards wasraised by the united voice of the nobles of Gaul and the Gothsof Theodoric II. It is at this point that the fortunes ofPaulinus become involved in the wanderings of the Goths.His position as a great noble saved him from the intrusionof Goths as compulsory guests. ' But it also marked himout as a fitting holder of high office under Attalus, theGothic Emperor.2 Paulinus, who had no very heroic impulses, and valued ease and tranquillity above anythingelse, quietly acquiesced in the Gothic rule, disguised by theshow of imperial legitimacy, and reluctantly accepted theshadowy office of " count of the private largesses " to aphantom emperor, an office probably as formal as it was brief.He was, as he tells us, only one of many who deemed itpolitic to accept the Gothic peace, and who found it quite asreal and effective as the Roman peace under a Roman prefectof the fifth century, like Arvandus or Seronatus.3Suddenly the Goths prepared to leave Bordeaux. Whatwere the precise influences or motives which led them for atime to abandon their attempted settlement in Gaul, and tocross the Pyrenees, must for ever remain a mystery. Accordingto one authority, Constantius compelled them to pass intoSpain by interrupting their communications with the sea.¹ Ifwe believe Jordanes, the Gothic king was moved by thesufferings of the Spaniards, and determined to relieve thecountry from the ravages of the Vandals." At any rate, he1 Paulin. Pell. Euch. 285.2 Ib. 295; Prosp. Chron. ad a. 414.3 Euch. 302.4 Oros. vii . 43, 1 , Gothos a Narbonaexpulit atque abire in Hispaniam coegit interdicto praecipue atque intercluso omni commeatu navium et peregri- norum usu commerciorum. It is noteworthy that the three towns whichAtaulphus occupied or tried to seize ,Narbonne, Marseilles, Bordeaux, were great ports and centres of trade.5 Jordan. de Reb. Get. c. 31 , confirmato ergo Gothus regno (i.e. the Roman power) in Gallis, Spanorum casu coepit dolere, etc. Cf. Idat.Chron. ad a. 409-415. Wallia, on thedeath of Ataulphus at Barcelona,waged a fierce war with the Vandals.294 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVgave the order for the evacuation of Bordeaux. But theGoths did not quit the town as peacefully and innocently asthey had entered it. It was given up to fire and pillage.¹Paulinus, in spite of his official rank, was stripped of all hispossessions. Indeed, he seems to have suffered all the morefrom the very favour which had been previously shown to him.In other cases the Gothic " guest " quartered on a family mightshield it from rapine. But Paulinus had no such protector.His only consolation was that the honour of the femalemembers of his household was severely respected. He fled withhis family to Bazas, where he probably had some property, andwhere other and even more startling adventures awaited him.3There is no more curious and instructive episode in thehistory of the invasions than the tale of the siege of Bazas asit is described by Paulinus. The Goths, compelled by thepolicy or strategy of Constantius to retire from SouthernGaul, gave the reins to old instincts, and felt themselvesentitled to plunder where they were not to be allowed tosettle peacefully. Outside the town of Bazas was a mingledhost of Goths and Alans. Within, a servile revolt had brokenout, supported by some of the free-born youth, who had made aplot to assassinate the leading nobles. Paulinus himself narrowly escaped, and his would-be murderer met his punishmentat the hands of another. But Paulinus confesses that his nerveswere shaken." He longed to be released, with his household.and friends, at once from the perils which beset him within.the walls, and from the hardships of a prolonged siege. Ascount of the largesses to Attalus, he had been on friendlyterms with the leaders of the Goths and their auxiliaries.And he particularly remembered that he had an old friend inthe chief of the Alans, who was reluctantly supporting theGoths in their assaults on the Roman towns. " This chief wasprobably the Alan Goar who, in the year in which Ataulphus1 Euch. 314.2 Ib. 323:cunctarumque tamen comitum simul et famularum,eventum fuerant nostrum quaecumque secutae,illaeso penitus nullo adtemptante pudore.3 lb. 332:His patria majorum et ipsa meorum.grandfather,the father ofAusonius, was a native of Bazas; cf. Auson. Idyl. ii . 4.Euch. 340.5 Ib. 345:sed mihi tam subiti concusso sorte pericli,quo me intra urbem percelli posse viderem subrepsit, fateor, nimium trepido novus error.6 lb. 346, 352:quod scirem imperio gentis cogente Gothorum invitum regem populis incumbere nostris.CH. III RELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERS 295entered Gaul, joined with the Burgundians in raising Jovinusto the imperial purple at Mainz.¹ In doing so, he deemedhimself to be acting in the service of Rome, at a time whenthe rest of his people were, with the Sueves and Vandals ,plundering and burning the cities of Gaul, and marching on toa final settlement in Spain. How Goar came to join theGoths we do not know; but when Jovinus and his brotherfell, Goar and his Alans may have felt constrained to join thepower which seemed likely to have a future in the greatprovince of the West. Paulinus found little difficulty inmaking his way to the quarters of the Alan king. But Goardeclared that he could neither give him protection in the besieger's lines nor a safe conduct back into the town, and thathe could only help him by being himself admitted into Bazas. *In truth, the Alan chief was eager to escape from his enforcedalliance with the Goths and Attalus, their shadowy Emperor.He had served one emperor who had fallen, he was connectedwith another who seemed likely to have the same fate; andhe probably thought it safer to take the side of Honorius.He gave the Romans his son and his wife as hostages, andspeedily the crowds upon the walls of Bazas saw themselves.fenced in bythe waggons and armed warriors of the Alans," whowere now ready to defend the place which they had just beenhelping to capture. The Goths seem to have felt the desertionof their allies as a crushing blow, and they abandoned thesiege. They marched away, to reappear shortly in the sameregions for a longer stay. But Goar and his Alans, whostand out for a moment in such vivid light in the dim andconfused annals of those years, vanish as suddenly, and wehear of them no more.The fortunes of Paulinus for the remaining forty- five yearsof his life are not particularly interesting, except as an exampleof what numbers of his class , in Italy, Gaul, and, above all, inAfrica, must have suffered in those times. On the departureof the Goths, he thought at first of betaking himself to his1 Olympiod. § 17, Fragm.2 Prosp. Chron. ad a. 406; Oros.vii. 38, § 3. Prosper and Orosiusmention Alans along with Vandals in the passage of the Rhine and in the devastation of Gaul and Spain.3 Euch. 354, ad regem intrepidus nullo obsistente tetendi.4 Ib. 358-361.5 lb. 379.6 Ib. 386.7 lb. 390.296 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVmaternal estates in Greece and Epirus, which were veryextensive.¹ But he seems to have been prevented fromdoing so by the timidity of his wife, or by her love for hernative Gaul.2 On the other hand, his property at Bordeaux,which had descended to him from Ausonius, had suffered bythe Gothic occupation, and from the unscrupulous conduct offellow- Romans, among whom he seems to include some of hisown family. At any rate he regarded a return to his oldhome as impossible. He was surrounded by a large numberof relatives, exiles like himself, and a crowd of female slaves,dependant on him. Yet he would have given up the struggle,and taken refuge in the cloister, if the holy men, whom heconsulted, had not advised him to repent of his sins andcultivate a severer life, without quitting the world. Havinggiven himself to religious study, he was for a time carriedaway by the semi - Pelagian views which at that time hadmany adherents in Southern Gaul. In his forty-fifth year, atEastertide, he definitely returned to the church of his baptismby receiving the Eucharist. " He was meanwhile sinkinginto poverty. His female relations dropped off one afteranother. His sons left him, one taking Holy Orders, anotherreturning to Bordeaux, where he succeeded in recovering someof the family property with a Goth as neighbour. For bythis time, it must be remembered, the Goths had returned tosettle permanently in Aquitaine. The fate of this second son.is obscurely told. But he appears to have been for a time.in favour with the Gothic court, and then to have sufferedfrom its displeasure. As for Paulinus, he spent his old agein cultivating a small patch of ground in the outskirts ofMarseilles, which was still under imperial rule.10 His fortuneswere at a low ebb when, to his surprise, he received one dayfrom an unknown Goth the purchase money of a portion of hisancestral estate at Bordeaux, which the conscientious Germanwould not appropriate without compensation.¹¹It is a startling and pleasant incident in the history of1 Euch. 410.3 lb. 424.5 lb. 456.7 Ib. 475:2 Ib. 494.+ Ib. 459.6 Ib. 471.ad tua, Christe Deus, altaria sacra reversus te miserante tua gaudens sacramenta recepi ante hos ter decies super et bis quattuor annos ...Brandes (p. 275) is right in referring this to the Eucharist, and not to Baptism; cf. Ebert, i . 408.Euch. 498.9 Ib. 514.10 Ib. 520.11 Ib. 575.CH. III RELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERS 297that stormy time, a time apparently so full of violence andinjustice, but really, as we believe, less unjust and violentthan a superficial glance might lead us to think. There hadbeen sweeping and desolating invasions of Gaul and Spain.But the Visigoths came not as mere lawless plunderers, butas soldiers of the Empire, and finally as permanent settlers,seeking a home after their wanderings, amid the wealth andpeace of a Roman province. In moments of irritation or uncertainty, when the great imperial power seemed to be nowhaughty or faithless, now weak and shrinking, and unworthyof its place, the Goths, forgetting the associations of yearsand their ancient awe of imperial power, would resume theirold fierceness and pride. But we can have little doubt that,when they settled in a Roman province, their strongest desirewas to have a share of the peace and prosperity which Romehad given to the world, and to maintain order and justice between man and man. The Gothic or Burgundian chiefcomes not as an enemy of the Empire; his strongest ambitionis to be its appointed champion, and if he receives his commission, he will draw his sword even against his Germancompatriots. He may, when his advances are slighted, quarrelwith an emperor; but he has no quarrel with Rome. If hedoes not obtain the recognition which he seeks, he neverdreams of imperial power for himself; he sets up, by the voiceof his army, a rival emperor, as Roman armies had often donebefore; and with such an emperor in his camp he tries tomaintain his allegiance to Rome in her own despite. This isthe clue to the puzzling narrative of the Visigothic movementsin the early part of the fifth century. Sometimes the Gothsare besieging Roman towns, sometimes they are fighting inSpain against Sueves and Vandals on behalf of Rome. Theweakness of the Empire, the faithlessness or folly of imperialfunctionaries, the pride and capricious passions of his following,the mere necessity of finding subsistence for his wanderingtribe-all these influences might often deflect the policy of aGerman chief from the line which his instinct and ambitionIwould have followed. But in the greater leaders the longingfor repose from incessant migrations and tribal blood- feuds, andthe reverence for Rome as the great source of peaceful order,fruitful industry, and culture, never died out. And just in298 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVproportion to their greatness, they realised the greatness ofRome.When Apollinaris Sidonius was born, the Visigoths werefirmly established in Aquitaine by Roman authority.¹ Buthis native Lyons was not the residence of Burgundian princesfor more than thirty years afterwards," and it was only in thevery last years of the Western Empire that Auvergne wasabandoned to the Visigoths. For the best part of his life,therefore, Sidonius knew the Germans rather as neighboursthan as masters. He saw four successive princes of theVisigoths, and between the reigns of Theodoric I. and ofEuric, the relations of the Visigothic power to Rome passedthrough many phases. Wallia, the founderof the Visigothicpower in Gaul, obtained a settlement by a definite agreementwith the Empire, although we have no information as to itsterms and conditions. The Goths were foederati, in a certainsense subjects, although, within the territory assigned to them ,their princes had extensive powers. It was no new relationthat was created by the pact with Wallia.And it wassometimes broken and interrupted, as similar ties betweenRome and her foederati had often been before. SometimesGerman auxiliaries had been known even to pillage the landsof Roman towns.3 In 422 the Goths were serving underCastinus, the Roman magister militum, against the Vandals inSpain. Three years later a strong Gothic force was defeated byAetius in an attempt to capture Arles. Then there is a time ofquiet, in which peaceful relations are restored. But once more,in 436 , the Goths made an attempt on Narbonne, which wasrelieved in a daring movement by the cavalry of Litorius.There were several battles between them and the Romangenerals in those years, in one of which eight thousand Gothicwarriors were left on the field."1 Idat. Chron. 419, per Constantium ad Gallias revocati, sedes in Aquitanicaa Tolosa usque ad Oceanum acceperunt;cf. Prosp. Chron. , data ei ( Walliae) ad habitandum secunda Aquitania.2 Lyons was evidently under the direct power of the Emperor when Sidonius delivered the Panegyric onMajorian in 459. Carm. v. 576:Lugdunumque tuam . . . aspice victor.Cf. Chaix, Apoll. Sid. i. p. 110.Then came the defeat of3 Amm. Marc. xvi. 11 , 4 , laeti barbari ad tempestiva furta sollertes invasere Lugdunum incautam, etc.Idat. Chron., Castinus Mag. Mil.cum magna manu et auxiliis Goth- orum bellum in Baetica Wandalisinfert.Prosp. Chron. ad a. 425.6 Ib. ad a. 436.7 Idat. ad a. 438.CH. III RELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERS 299Litorius at Toulouse in 439, followed by a renewal of theformer peace. For many years this calm was undisturbed,and in 451 Theodoric loyally and gallantly supported theimperial generals in the great battle of Châlons.2 The son andimmediate successor of Theodoric broke the long peace byanother attempt on Arles, which was frustrated by the personalcharm and diplomatic skill of Tonantius Ferreolus.3 The reignof Theodoric II. , with which the early manhood of Sidoniuscoincided, was on the whole friendly to the Empire. Theodoricfought in several campaigns for Rome against the Sueves andthe Bagaudae in Spain. He helped the Gallic party to raiseAvitus to the throne, and he lent the support of his armsto the party at Lyons which, on the fall of Avitus, stroveonce more to assert the power of Gaul. Yet we find himin 462 in possession of Narbonne, which had been surrenderedto him by the Count Agrippinus, to secure the aid of the Gothsin his conflict with Aegidius.WeDuring all these years, the district in which Sidonius livedsuffered nothing from any hostilities with the Goths.have seen, on the contrary, that he belonged to a circle whichcultivated friendly relations with the Gothic kings, and theaim of whose policy was to maintain an alliance with themwhich might influence the fortunes of the Empire or secure thepeace and independence of Gaul. Sidonius had been receivedat the court of Theodoric II., and had formed on the wholea very favourable opinion of his character, which he hastenedto communicate to his friends. There was probably a politicalpurpose underlying his friendly picture of Theodoric; butSidonius evidently feels also a curious interest in that strangescene, stimulating the minute and careful observation whichmakes his descriptions of the barbarian invaders of Gaulprecious to the historian. There is no trace of the disgustwhich the genial Burgundians sometimes aroused in the mind.1 Idat. and Prosp.2 Prosp. and Sid. Carm. vii. 349.3 Sid. Ep. vii. 12.4 Idat. ad a. 456; Jordan. Get. xliv.; cf. Fauriel, i. 251.5 Sidon. Carm. vii. 511:Romae sum te duce amicus,principe te miles.Cf. Fauriel, i . 244 .8Sid. Ep. i. 11; cf. Fauriel, i .258; Chaix, Apoll. Sid. i . 105.7 Idat. Chron. ad a. 462, AgrippinusGallus et comes et civis, Aegidio comiti viro insigni inimicus, ut Gothorummereretur auxilia, Narbonam tradidit Theudorico.8 Sid. Ep. i. 2.300 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVof the fastidious Roman gentleman. There is no trace of anyfear or suspicion of the Gothic power.3Sidonius had family connections with Lyons, and he visitedthat district shortly after it had been occupied, in some fashionor under some title, by the Burgundians. In the year 456the Burgundians had served in the army of Theodoric II.against the Sueves in Spain.¹ Seven years afterwards itappears from a letter of Pope Hilary 2 that one of theirleaders in that expedition, Gundioc, is installed at Vienne,with the title of magister militum, and also exercising somecontrol over episcopal elections. The Burgundian power wasfirmly established at Lyons before 474. There is no signthat they gained the territory on the Rhone by a violentconquest. The royal family were connected by marriage withRicimer. They were in federal relations with the imperialpower, and their chief was probably allowed to occupy thesenew territories as a soldier of the Empire. Just as the corpsof Bretons under Riothamus was engaged by Anthemius toguard the frontiers of Berry, so the Burgundians were to bea bulwark on the east against the advance of the Visigoths.At the time of the visit of Sidonius, Chilperic, son of Gundioc,having expelled his brother Gundobald, was governing theregion about Lyons and Vienne, with the title of magistermilitum. Chilperic and his queen seem to have abandonedthe Arianism of their family. The king endowed liberallythe monks of Lupicinus. The bishop Patiens, by his boundless charity and lofty character, commanded the admirationof the queen. The only danger to Romans seems to havebeen from the intrigue and calumny of some of their own race,who strove to poison the king's mind." But Sidonius speaksof him with the highest respect as a soldier and a man.There is nothing to show that the provincials are sufferingfrom the effects of violent conquest or oppressive rule. Theirworst foes are those of their own household.51 Jordan. Get. c. 44.2 Hil. Ep. ix. ad Leontium, epi- scopum Arelat. Gundioc had apparently appealed to Hilary against some episcopal encroachments of Mamertus.The letter is dated in the consulshipof Basilius, i.e. 463.3 Jordan. Get. xlv. , Burgundzonumgentem . . . in eo tempore foederatam.Ib. xlv. , quod conperiens AnthemiusBrittonum solacia postulavit, etc.5 Sid. Ep. v. 6. This letter belongsto the year 474, v. Momms. Praef. lii.Greg. Tur. vit. Patrum, c. i. 5.7 Sid. Ep. v. 7.CH. 111 RELATIONS OFROMANS WITH THE INVADERS 301But although Sidonius has no serious charge to makeagainst the Burgundians as rulers, his fastidious taste cannotreconcile itself to their society, especially on festive occasions.¹When a friend wrote to ask him for a wedding- song, the poetfinds composition amid such surroundings quite impossible.How could one think of a decent verse among these hirsutegiants of seven feet, whose German songs you have to applaudin the middle of coarse festivity which offends every sense?This is the worst Sidonius has to say of the Burgundians.They were a jovial, kindly people, rather fond of good fare,unrefined in their habits, but anxious to be on good terms withthe Romans, and even willing to give them material helpagainst the attacks of the Goths, although occasionally, likemore modern allies, they were not always to be trusted.Down to the accession of Euric to the chieftainship of theVisigoths in 466, the Romans of the circle of Sidonius hadsuffered but little from the presence of the Germans in Gaul.But, with the appearance of Euric on the scene, there was anominous change. This was partly due to the growing weaknessof the Empire, which could no longer make its power respected,as Aetius and Boniface had done in the earlier days of theGothic settlement in Gaul. It was also the result of theoppression and treachery of Roman governors. A prefectlike Arvandus not only plundered the people of his province,and shocked and insulted them by his excesses and caprice,but he encouraged the Gothic king to make an open rupturewith Rome.3 A governor like Seronatus, a monster and enigmaof opposite vices, at once ridiculous from his weaknesses, anddreaded for his cruelty and greed, drove numbers to the woodsto escape his clutches, and he actually established the Gothiclaw in place of the Theodosian Code in his province. Butin addition to these causes must be reckoned the personaltemperament of Euric. Although he may have conscientiouslybelieved that it was his mission to fill the void which was being4left by the collapse of the Roman administration, there is no1 Sid. Carm. xii.2 See the very favourable characterof this people given by Orosius, vii. 32,§ 13. For the fairness with which they treated the Romans in their territorysee Leg. Burgund. ( Mon. Germ. Hist. )cap. xxxi. liv.3 Sid. Ep. i. 7.Ib. ii. 1.5 lb. ii. 1 , leges Theodosianas calcansTheodoricianasque proponens. Written in Euric's reign, the word Theodorici- anas being used probably for parono- masia.302 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVdoubt that he was by nature despotic, ambitious, and, aboveall, fiercely bigoted and intolerant. He had a sincere hatredof the Catholic faith, a hatred so intense that, to use thewords of Sidonius, ' he seemed not so much the ruler of apeople as the head of a sect.Jordanes relates that Euric, perceiving the frequentchanges of Roman emperors, determined to make himselfmaster of the Gauls in his own right. The historian of theGoths seems by the words suo jure to mark a new departurein policy. And the history of Euric's reign confirms thestatement. He began by a campaign in Spain, which leftthe Empire hardly a corner of that great province . Henext turned his arms against the Breton troops underRiothamus, who guarded Berry for the Empire.3 The Bretonswere defeated, and fled into the territory of the Burgundians.Auvergne remained the solitary district left under the directsway of Rome. Its people, as Sidonius proudly recalls,claimed to be kinsmen of the Romans, and had again andagain fought stubbornly for their independence. Placedbetween the Burgundians and the Visigoths, they might nowseem to be in desperate straits. Yet it would appear thattheir leaders felt no overmastering fear of the Visigothicpower, and that they had even dreams of founding an independent state in the heart of Gaul, which, if the Empirecould no longer protect it, might protect itself. After all,the Germans were not very numerous.5 The Visigoths whooccupied Aquitaine under Wallia, after all their losses from1 Sid. Ep. vii. 6, ut ambigas ampliusne suae gentis an suae sectae teneatprincipatum.2 Jordan. Get. c. 45.3 Ib. c. 44, 45. This event isprobably referred to by Greg. Tur.ii. 18, Britanni de Biturica a Gothis expulsi sunt. There is a letter ofSidon. to Riothamus, iii . 9, in which he complains that the Bretons havecarried off a poor farmer's slaves.Sid. Ep. vii. 7, audebant sequondam fratres Latio dicere; cf. Fertig, ii. 11 .5 Fauriel, Hist. de la Gaule Méridionale, i. 114; cf. F. de Coulanges,L'Inv. Gerin. 438. Oros. vii . 32,11, puts the Burgundians at 80,000 in the fourth century. But this isprobably exaggerated, and gives no clue to their numbers in the fifth,after so many vicissitudes; cf. DeCoulanges, p. 444. The losses of the Visigoths may be estimated from suchpassages as Oros. vii . 43, 11. But any calculations on such a subject arerendered very untrustworthy by the fact that important tribes were beingconstantly swelled ( 1 ) by fragments of other small wandering bands, ( 2) byfugitive slaves, (3 ) by free Romans flying from over - taxation , etc.; cf. Salv. de Gub. Dei, v. § 36. Cf. Paulin. Pell. Euch. on a revolt ofslaves at Bazas, v. 334.CH. I RELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERS 303battle and disease, could not have been more than 30,000strong. That they were not invincible had been proved againand again by the armies of Aetius. And they did not in theend make an easy capture of Auvergne.3The order of events in the conflict with Euric is difficult todetermine. Sidonius persuaded a relative, of great hereditaryinfluence with the Goths,' to attempt by diplomatic means tocheck their advance towards the Rhone. But the effort, if it wasmade, was fruitless. The Gothic army closed round Auvergne.Ecdicius seems to have been absent at the commencement ofthe siege, being probably occupied in trying to gain the supportof the Burgundians, with whose princes he was on intimateterms.2 Suddenly he was seen by the watchers on the halfruined walls approaching with a small troop of cavalry. Hecharged and routed the enemy with great slaughter, and waswelcomed by the Avernians with extravagant demonstrationsof joy. Although he was nominally magister militum , he hadno imperial troops at his command, and, at his own expense,he raised a small force, with which he punished the enemy'sdevastations in repeated sorties. In one of these engagementsthe Goths lost so many men that they determined, when theyretreated, to decapitate the slain, so that the extent of theirloss might remain uncertain." Then in a fit of repentance atleaving so many of their comrades unburied, they returned andconsumed their remains in the flames of some burning houses.6The energy of the famishing garrison was stimulated by thegreat personal influence of the bishop, who, while Ecdicius washarassing the besiegers, used all the aids of religion to keep upthe courage of his flock. Yet it seemed a hopeless struggle.Dissensions broke out among the inhabitants; some wereready to surrender, some actually left the town, probably tojoin the Goths. Sidonius summoned to his aid Constantius, anaged priest of Lyons, who combined the influence of high birthwith a singular piety and purity of character. The old man1 Sid. Ep. iii . 1 ad fin. , vestratamen auctoritas pro dignitate senteutiae sic partem utramque moderabitur,etc. Avitus, to whom the letter waswritten, was connected through his mother with Sidonius.2 lb. iii . 3.3 Ib. iii. 3.4 Ib. iii. 3, taceo deinceps collegissete privatis viribus publici exercitus speciem .5 lb. iii. 3.6 Ib. iii. 2, cum inveneris civi- tatem non minus civica simultatequam barbarica incursione evacuatam.304 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVundertook the long journey, involving great hardships anddanger, in midwinter.¹ His presence seems to have had agreat effect in silencing cabals and divisions, and in restoring acalmer courage. Sidonius had also some hope from the arrivalfrom Rome of the quaestor, Licinianus. But, beyond bringingthe title of patrician to Ecdicius, it does not appear that themission of Licinianus had any effect.3Licinianus probably had to report demands from the Gothicking, the concession of which would have involved, not onlythe surrender of Auvergne, but of the last remaining strip ofRoman territory surrounding the seat of the prefecture at Arles. *But the bishop of Auvergne still offered a bold front to thedangers which threatened to submerge his diocese. He hadheard of the wonders which the Rogations, established byMamertus Claudianus of Vienne,5 had worked on a populationmaddened with superstitious terrors, and he determined tointroduce the solemn rites among his people. With processions and prayer he strove to fortify their spirits for a finalstruggle; while at the same time he summoned Ecdicius fromLyons once more to head the resistance. Meanwhile freshnegotiations were going on between Euric and the Emperor.The attitude of the Goths was so threatening that it wasdetermined at a council held at Milan to send Epiphanius,bishop of Pavia, to treat with the Gothic king. The taleof the bishop's journey to Toulouse is told with suspiciousrhetoric by Ennodius. Euric professed himself disarmed bythe words of the holy man, and promised to be at peacewith the Empire. But apparently he said nothing of theconditions of the peace. As the result of this embassy, thenegotiations were placed in the hands of four bishops, includingGraecus of Marseilles and Faustus of Riez. Euric was a per6secutor of the Church as well as an enemy of the imperialauthority in Gaul. We can only infer what were the influenceswhich led the bishops to agree to the cession of the valiantAuvergne. But the bitterly reproachful letter, addressed by1 Sid. Ep. iii. 2. He is theConstantius to whom Sid. dedicated the Letters,Ep. i. 1; vii. 18; viii. 16 .2 Ib. iii. 7.3 Ib. v. 16. Written at such atime, this letter is a curious illustration of the inordinate value set uponsuch distinctions by the senatorial class .Chaix, Apoll. Sid. ii . 164-173;cf. Fertig, ii. 14.5 Sid. Ep. v. 14; cf. vii . 1 .6 Ennod. vit. S. Epiphani, pp. 351sqq. (Corp. Scrip. Eccl. Vindob.).CH. I RELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERS 305Sidonius to his brother bishop of Marseilles, leaves littledoubt that personal and ecclesiastical interests had a certain influence in the arrangement which finally handed overAuvergne to the Goths.¹ Churchman as he was, Sidonius inthis letter shows that he was still quite as much the proudAvernian noble, the proud Roman senator, holding fast to thememories of his Celtic ancestors and to the privilege of Romancitizenship. In the passionate earnestness of this protest, andits tone of lofty public spirit, one forgets the literary vanityand frivolous ambition which were the only faults of Sidonius.3Patriotism was perhaps an even stronger feeling in Sidoniusthan devotion to the Church. But his efforts to save Auvergnefrom Euric were stimulated by dread for the future of Catholicism in his diocese, if it fell under the power of an Arian ruler.Ever since his accession, the Gothic king had shown a pitilesstemper to the orthodox faith. Some bishops and priests hadbeen actually put to death; others had been driven into exile.Sidonius enumerates nine sees in Aquitaine or Novempopulanawhich were kept without a chief pastor. The sacramentsceased to be regularly administered, and the churches everywhere fell into ruinous decay. The doors dropped from theirhinges, the entrance was grown up with briars, and cattlebrowsed round the very altar. * Even in the towns, meetingsof the Christian people for worship became less and lessfrequent. The bishop was deeply concerned for the effectson faith and discipline of this violent interruption of thechannels of the Divine grace. Yet he uttered no harsh oruncharitable word about the persecuting king whom he seemsto regard as a sincere bigot.Of the terms and conditions of the treaty by which, withthe assent of the four bishops , Auvergne was resigned to theGoths, we know nothing definitely. It is possible that theepiscopal negotiators, while abandoning the rights of the Empire,1 Sid. Ep. vii. 7, parum in commune consulitis; et cum in concilium con- venitis, non tam curae est publicismederi periculis quam privatis studere fortunis.2 Greg. Tur. Hist. Fr. ii. 25, sacer- dotes vero, alios dabat exsilio, aliosgladio trucidabat; Fertig, ii. 18. For similar persecution in Africa cf.XVict. Vitens. i . 5, 17; ii. 7; esp. the edict of Huneric, iv. 2, ut nullam ordinandi haberent licentiam siveepiscopos, sive presbyteros.Sid. Ep. vii. 6.4 Ib. vii. 6, videas armenta etiam herbosa viridantium altarium latera depasci.306 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVmay have secured concessions to the Church. It may be thatEuric's fanaticism was not altogether uncontrolled by policy,and that after all he set the peaceful government of a provincebefore its conversion to his own faith. At any rate his subsequent organisation of Auvergne was the work of a statesmanand not of a sectary. Leo, his Catholic minister of state,probably had a potent voice in this settlement. A CatholicGallo - Roman, Count Victorius, was appointed governor,who, if his morals are impeached by Gregory of Tours, ¹seems to have been on friendly terms with Sidonius, andthe bishop has given a much more favourable account of hischaracter than we receive from the historian of the Franks.But the resistance of Auvergne headed by its bishop had beenobstinate, and might be revived. Some of the leaders, andamong them the chivalrous Ecdicius, had to fly beyond thereach of Euric's arm . His treatment of Sidonius was not soharsh as we might have expected. The bishop indeed wasrelegated for a time to a fortress named Livia, near theSpanish frontier; but his worst hardship was having to listento the rough accent of his Gothic guards and the drunkensquabbles of two old Gothic crones who disturbed his rest.¹His correspondence was not stopped, although, from somephrases, we can see that it was watched, and that politicalreferences had to be very guarded. One of his correspondentswas Euric's secretary of state, the accomplished Leo, at whoserequest Sidonius occupied his leisure in translating, or transcribing, the Life of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus," andwho used his influence to mitigate and shorten the bishop'scaptivity. In a well-known letter, which may possibly havecome under the eyes of Euric, Sidonius flatters, in his most1 Greg. Tur. Hist. Fr. ii . 20; cf. Sid.Ep. vii. 17, giving a description of the reverence withwhich Victorius attended the death- bed of the monk Abraham.On the extent of his jurisdictionSirmond points out that in Gregory'stime, Dux, the title he gives to Vic- torius, was governor of several towns,Comes of one, Sirm. Sid. p. 79.2 Jordan. Get. xlv. , Ecdicius diucertans cum Vesegothis nec valensantestare, relicta patria . . . ad tutiora se loca collegit.3 Sid. Ep. viii. 3. Livia was probably somewhere between Narbonne and Carcassonne; v. note in Migne,and the Ind. Loc. in Momms. ed.;Sirm . p. 82.Ep. viii. 3.Ib. viii. 3; v. Sirmond's note, whichmakes it probable that Sidonius sent Leo a carefully transcribed copy of the original work; cf. Ep. v. 15, where he sends Ruric a carefully emended copy ofthe Heptateuch. Sym. Ep. ix. 13; cf. Fertig, ii. 22.6 Ep. viii. 3, cujus incommodi finem post opem Christi tibi debeo.CH. III RELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERS 307elaborate style, the literary skill of his friend Leo, and the farreaching power of the king, the terror of whose name overawesthe Franks on the Rhine and the Vandals beyond the sea.Leo had probably little difficulty in obtaining the release ofthe bishop, who soon afterwards betook himself to Bordeaux.The causes of his residence at Bordeaux are left ratherobscure. It is conjectured that it was a sort of exile, amild extension of his imprisonment at Livia.¹ Sidonius hadbeen the soul of the Avernian resistance to Euric. His influence, both as a bishop and a great noble, was formidable, andhe had close relations with the Burgundians, who had lent theirsupport to Auvergne during the siege. We can hardly wonderif Euric thought it prudent to keep Sidonius away from hisdiocese for a while. But Sidonius had also probably reasonsof his own for being at Bordeaux.² It would appear from aletter written at this time that he was trying to recover anestate, which came to him by his marriage with the daughterof Avitus.3 His friend is a lucky Tityrus who has recoveredhis lands, and can now tune his lyre among his planes andmyrtles. Probably during the bishop's confinement at Liviasome one had taken advantage of the confusion of the times toappropriate the charming woods and meadows of Avitacum.Whatever the true account may be, his stay at Bordeaux wassomewhat prolonged.While he was at Bordeaux, he used his literary facility topropitiate the Gothic court. A complimentary inscriptionfor a present which a friend of Sidonius was making to QueenRagnahilda, in those days when women were beginning toexercise the influence which culminated in the chivalrouscult of their sex, may have had its intended effect.But apoem addressed to Lampridius,5 one of the crowd of facileversifiers, whose conventional art then obtained such a strangevogue, probably did more than weightier compositions to1 Mommsen, Praef. in Sid. xlviii.2 See Fertig, ii. 23.3 Ep. viii. 9, necdum enim quicquam de hereditate socruali vel in usum tertiaesub pretio medietatis obtinui. On the appropriation of conquered lands by the Germans see Fauriel, Hist. de la Gaule Mér. i. 142; Chaix, Apoll. Sid.ii. p. 205; F. de Coulanges, L'Inv. Germ.538; cf. Leg. Burgund. cap. liv.Ep. iv. 8. The verses were com- posed to be inscribed on the edges of acup which Evadius wished to present to the queen of Euric. Evadius is bysome thought to have been the successor of Victorius in the governorship of Auvergne; cf Chaix, Apoll. Sid. ii.290.5 Ep. viii. 9.308 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVrelieve the stress on Auvergne, and to restore Sidonius tohis flock. The letter in which the poem is forwardedto the prosperous courtier has a tone of depression andmelancholy, as if this pompous and overcharged flattery ofEuric had been wrung from Sidonius by the necessities anddistresses of his position . He is an exile from his belovedAuvergne, hanging on the outskirts of the Gothic court, unableto obtain the restitution of his estate. But the poem is alsoevidently intended for the ear or eye of the Gothic king.Sidonius has only once within the space of two monthshad a sight of the monarch who is occupied with worldwidecares. The complaint of the neglected suitor is relieved bythe grossest flattery of the new barbarian power to which allthe peoples of the world, from the wild Saxon pirate to theprinces of Susa, are bending submissively and bringing theirtribute.¹ Burgundian and Ostrogoth recognise his supremacy.And even the Roman, hard pressed by the Scythian hordes,entreats the potentate of the Garonne to succour the weaknessof the Tiber. So low had sunk the pride of the great noble,who in his earlier days celebrated before the élite of Romethe triumph of imperial prestige and diplomacy over Gothicforce; so low had fallen the faith of Romans in the futureof Rome.The Panegyric on the power of Euric, however, had itsreward. The bishop was restored to his diocese, and his lateryears are not marked by any incident connected with our presentsubject.2 They belong to ecclesiastical history. Sidoniussubmitted to the inevitable triumph of Visigothic power, anddevoted himself henceforth to the duties of his see and toa diligent correspondence with his episcopal brethren. It isprobable that he was also engaged during these last years incollecting and polishing his letters for the eyes of posterity.3He has secured the immortality he longed for, but it is formerits very different from those on which he hoped to rest hisfame. His works will live for ever as a precious monumentof an obscure period, in spite of the tricks and affectations of astyle elaborated with an extraordinary perversity of art. Yet,41 Ep. viii . 9.For the pathetic story of his death cf. Greg. Tur. Hist. Fr. ii. 23.3 Germain's Apoll. Sid. pp. 73 sqq.; cf. Mommsen's Praef. 1.Ep. i. 1.CH. 111 RELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERS 309notwithstanding the pathetic failure of his efforts to charm asa master of style, the devotion of the man to a literary ideal,however false and distorted, is one of his most admirabletraits. His faith in letters in a time of decadence covers amultitude of literary sins. To the class whom Sidoniusrepresents, culture became more precious as the externalgrandeur of the Empire waned and faded; we may also saythat it became more precious as it showed signs of its decay.That it was decaying Sidonius clearly saw.¹ He praises afriend for being one of the few in whom still lingered thetraces of a vanishing literary sense. The mass even of theeducated were too sluggish to maintain the strenuous pursuitof literary purity which was the great pride of the schools ofGaul. They have not the energy to resist the incursions ofbarbarous and vulgar idiom. Yet there never was a timewhen the higher class were more bound, if only as a duty totheir order, to hold fast to their literary heritage. For, asthe career of political ambition was closed, the only brand ofnobility left was that of literary distinction. The militaryand the civil power alike were passing into the hands ofbarbarians. Sidonius may have had a real admiration for thecharacter and bearing of Theodoric II.; he may have beenoverawed by the vivid energy and commanding power of Euric;but, apart from their military and political success, theGermans were, to the lettered bishop, the representatives ofmere brute force, ignorant, cramped, and uncultivated, withnone of the polish and elasticity of intellect, which onlygenerations of social and academic discipline can give. Theywere the spreading darkness before which the borders of thelight were slowly receding.43The feelings of Sidonius for the Germans were probablythose of most of his class, and they found a vent in pungent1 Ep. iv. 17, sermonis pompa Romani, si qua adhuc uspiam est, Belgicis olim sive Rhenanis abolita terris in te resedit. There is a letter of Auspicius to Arbogastes in which the latter is styled Comes Trevirorum .2 Ib. ii. 10, tantum increbuit multitudo desidiosorum ut nisi velpaucissimi quique meram linguae La- tiaris proprietatem de trivialium bar- barismorum robigine vindicaveritis,eam brevi abolitam defleamus interemptamque.3 Ib. viii. 2, namjam remotis gradi- bus dignitatum, per quas solebat ultimo a quoque summus quisque dis- cerni, solum erit posthac nobilitatis indicium litteras nosse.4 Ib. iv. 1 , bestialium rigidarumque nationum corda cornea fibraequeglaciales.310 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVart.3satire, ' which did not spare even the court of the Burgundianking. Many of the great nobles probably held aloof from allintercourse with the Germans, and secluded themselves in thesolitude of their great estates, where they maintained among theirnumerous following a sort of independence, and were probablynot often troubled, so long as they quietly accepted the newrégime. There were others who fortified themselves instrong castles, built in lonely valleys, or on unassailable sitesamong the mountains, where the feudal life of the middle age,in its main features, had already begun. One at least ofthese strongholds, in Haute Provence, has been identified. *is situated in a deep and lonely glen fenced in by precipitousrocks, among which can still be seen the traces of the engineer'sThe place was fortified, as an inscription tells, by Dardanus, prefect of the Gauls, between 409 and 413 , the yearswhen the army of the Visigoths was seeking a home inSouthern Gaul. It is probable, too, that many of the villae inthe more open country about this time were strengthenedwith towers and fortifications which provided security withoutinterfering with the amenity and comfort of the country seat.There is such a fortress described in one of the poems ofSidonius, the Burgus of Leontius, at the confluence of the Dordogne with the Garonne. The house had the charms and conveniences of the ordinary country house, the vestibules, colonnades, the summer and winter apartments. But over all rosea lofty keep, with soaring towers, and of a fabric so solid thatno engine known to ancient warfare could shake or undermineit.6 Yet it is probable that the Gallo- Roman nobles had littleto fear from any open assault of German forces in regular war.1 Ep. v. 8, tu tamen nihilo segnius operam saltem facetis satirarum coloribus intrepidus impende, nam tua scripta nostrorum vitiis proficienti- bus tyrannopolitarum locupletabuntur.Sirmond, p. 57, refers the words to asatire of Secundinus on the Burgundianprinces.2 Ib. v. 14 ad init.F. de Coulanges, L'Inv. Germ. pp.199, 540; L'Alleu, p. 93.See the inscription in C.I.L. xii.1524; cf. Fauriel, i. 560. Dardanuswas P.P. in 409; cf. C. Th. xii . 1, 171 .He induced Ataulphus to desert Jov- inus, and slew that usurper with his ownhand. He was a friend of SS. Jeromeand Augustine; cf. Olympiod. § 19;Aug. Ep. 187; Hieron. Ep. 129.Sidon. Ep. v. 9 blackens the character of Dardanus. But this opinion may beaccounted for by the fact that Auvergnehad supported Jovinus, and that someof its magnates had been put to death for their share in the movement.Greg. Tur. ii. 9.5 Carm . xxii.6 Ib. xxii. 120:non illos machina muros non aries quassare valebunt.CH. I RELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERS 311The real danger was from irregular bands or from gangs ofbrigands, which were as often recruited from the wreck ofRoman society as from the invaders. But all the evidencegoes to show that the great Roman families suffered little inthe invasions either from violence or from confiscation.¹ Salvianus, writing at least a generation after the occupation ofAquitaine by the Visigoths, describes the life of the nobles aswealthy and luxurious even to excess.2 We have found inSidonius the picture of a society, tranquil and opulent, which hassuffered nothing, and which fears nothing. The chroniclers ofthe following age, such as Gregory of Tours, in many a genealogy, leave the clear impression that in the middle of thesixth century many of the old senatorial families were insecure possession of the lands and rank of their ancestors.But, while probably the majority of the Gallo- Romanssecluded themselves from contact with the new masters oftheir province, there were evidently a considerable numberwho, from necessity or policy, were willing to place theirservices at the disposal of the conquerors, some in honourableemployment as high officials, others in less reputable ways.Both at Lyons and Bordeaux, the assistance of the skilled administrator or diplomatist who could bring tact and knowledge of traditional methods to the tasks of government, orwho could conduct skilfully the voluminous correspondencewith Roman and barbarian powers, was in much request.Latin was, of course, the language of the civilised world.dialects of the German tribes were many and various, and provided no available and predominant medium of communication.The Visigothic princes are said to have acquired from Romancourtiers a taste for Virgil.3 But they must have needed theassistance of lawyers, learned in Roman jurisprudence, andsecretaries trained in the use of the approved and elaborateidiom in which the Romans of that day expressed themselves.Euric is said, on the doubtful authority of Ennodius, to haveneeded an interpreter in his interview with Epiphanius. "It is hard to believe that so able and energetic a prince, face1 F. de Coulanges, L'Inv. Germ. p.540.2 Salv. ad Eccles. iii . § 87; de Gub.Dei, vii. § 12, in omnibus quippe Galliis, sicut divitiis primi fuere, sicvitiis; cf. § 50.3 Sid. Carm. vii . 496.TheEnnod. vit. S. Epiphani, p. 354 (ed. Vindob. ) , taliter tamen fertur adinterpretem rex locutus.312 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVto face with the problem of governing a Roman population,should not have learned enough Latin to carry on an ordinaryconversation. But, with all the ramifications of his power andinfluence, he could not dispense with men who were able bothto advise him on matters of policy and express his views indiplomatic language. Just as Rome had for generations employed barbarian chiefs in her armies, so the barbarian kingshad to employ the knowledge and technical skill of Romanlawyers and rhetors in their chanceries. There is no morestriking figure among this class than that of Leo, the ministerof Euric, during the last years of the independence of Auvergne.He was one of the cultivated upper class of Narbonne, anddescended from the great orator Fronto. His reputation, both asa jurist and a literary man, stood very high.2 Leo appears tohave combined the fervour of a true Catholic with the oldfashioned Roman virtues. His influence with Euric was powerful, and to it we may probably attribute the restoration ofSidonius to his diocese, and the tolerant administration ofAuvergne under a Catholic and Roman governor. It is certainlya curious fact that a sincere Catholic like Leo should haveshared the counsels and influenced the policy of a bigotedArian like Euric. Another Gallo- Roman of this time, Syagrius,belonging to a consular family at Lyons, was secretary to theBurgundian king. He was occupied, according to Sidonius,in translating Latin despatches into German, and Sidonius,with much exaggeration , describes how the polished scholar,nourished on Cicero and Virgil, had so mastered the Germanidiom that the barbarians dreaded to perpetrate a barbarismin his presence. *The ascendency of such men was due to their knowledge ofaffairs, their legal learning, or their literary skill. But, if wemay judge by the case of S. Avitus, some of them did notshrink from fortifying their influence by a flattery and address1 Sid. Ep. viii. 3, suspende perorandi illud celeberrimum flumen quod intuum pectus per succiduas aetates ab atavo Frontone transfunditur.2 Sid. Carm. xxiii. 446.3 Sid. Ep. v. 5. This Syagrius wasgreat-grandson of the Flavius AfraniusSyagrius who was consul in 381 , and who was a friend of Symmachus andAusonius (Seeck's Sym. cix. ) . His tomb near Lyons was still shown in the middle of the fifth century ( Sid.Ep. v. 17). The family was probably of Gallic stock. Their estates mayhave been near Soissons ( cf. Greg. Tur.Hist. Fr. ii. 18) . Sirmond, Sid. p. 54.Ep. v. 5, quod te praesente formidet linguae suae facere barbarus barbaris- mum.CH. III RELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERS 313not always creditable to the courtier's principles. S. Avitus, aRoman of high rank, was bishop of Vienne in the reign ofGundobald, and wrote some despatches, still extant, on hisbehalf to the Eastern emperor. The Burgundian prince wasan Arian, but Avitus affects to believe that he is a soundCatholic at heart, and styles him the protector of the Catholicfaith. Gundobald had compassed the death of his twobrothers, Chilperic and Gundemar, and that of Chilperic'squeen; yet the bishop does not hesitate to say that Gundobald had shed pious tears for their fate, and congratulates himon the good fortune which had reduced the number of the royalfamily and yet preserved to the world all that sufficed for theEmpire. The probability that the object of S. Avitus was tomake a powerful convert will hardly be allowed to excusesuch a flagrant disregard of truth and decency.2But arts like these seem innocent when we turn to anotherclass of Romans who flourished at the German courts by meansof the most shameless treachery and corruption . They aredescribed in a letter to a man, whose brother Apollinaris hadbeen secretly accused to King Chilperic of striving by hisintrigues to secure the accession of Vaisons to the new Emperor,Julius Nepos. Apollinaris was thus threatened with ruin byone of those wretches of his own race, who saw the chance ofgain in the general unrest and insecurity. This tribe of delatorsare depicted by Sidonius with a grotesque elaboration ofantithesis, which might create a suspicion of his truthfulnessif it were not for the tone of genuine contempt, the saevaindignatio," which runs through the whole description. Versedin the intricacies of the law, they use their knowledge topervert the course of justice by every species of chicanery,calumny, and corruption. They are ready to attack everyright and sell every concession. Every class in the communityis made to feel that it is at the mercy of their spite or their1 Greg. Tur. Hist. Fr. ii. 32.2 Avit. Ep. v.; cf. Ampère, Hist.Lit. ii . 203.3 Sid. Ep. v. 6 and 7, namque confirmat magistro militum Chilperico, relatu venenato quorumpiam sceleratorum fuisse secreto insusurratum tuo praecipue machinatu oppidum Vasionense""" partibus novi principis applicari.Sirmond, p. 55, says " novus princeps is a Roman emperor, but, in the rapid succession of emperors, it is not clear who is referred to. In Luetjohann'sedition of Apoll. Sid. (p. 423) the reference is said to be to Julius Nepos,who succeeded Glycerius, the nominee of Gundobald.314 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVcupidity. Mere vulgar adventurers, they are " intoxicated bytheir new wealth " and filled with envy of the noble orderwhose birth and breeding overshadow them.It is verycharacteristic of the class and period to which Sidonius belongsthat the delator's ignorance of social usage and his errors indress are lashed with almost as great severity as his crimes;and it is a welcome gleam of sunshine in this scene of vulgarrapacity to learn that Sidonius' friend, Apollinaris, was savedfrom his peril by the kindly and womanly arts of the piousqueen of Chilperic.¹The German governments, which succeeded to the Romanadministration, undoubtedly were as anxious as their predecessors to prevent plunder and violence in their territories.2But in the period of transition which we are describing, boundaries were fluctuating and uncertain, social bonds were relaxed,and authority was weakened. There are indications thatthe roads were not always safe, and that couriers might havetheir despatch bags examined.3 Some of the letters of Sidoniusare written with an obvious reserve, as if they might come underthe eyes of persons who would use the contents to the prejudiceof the writer. In one written in Burgundian territory, Chilpericand his queen are veiled under the names of Lucumo andTanaquil. At another time of some anxiety, the bishopemployed a friendly Jew to convey a letter to Narbonne.5We are accustomed to think of the German kings as wieldingan overwhelming power over a crushed and conquered population. But the Roman population far outnumbered the invaders,and the Roman nobility were wealthy, powerful, and, aboveall, bound together by the closest ties of tradition and culture.That the Germans inspired fear is certain; but it is equallycertain that they were very sensitive to the good or evilopinions held about them by their Roman neighbours, andespecially to the opinion of an exclusive and fastidious caste.1 Ep. v. 7, temperat Lucumonem nostrum Tanaquil sua. She had agreat reverence for Bishop Patiens, Ep.vi. 12, omitto te tali semper ageretemperamento, sic semper humanum,sic abstemium judicari, ut constet in- desinenter regem (Chilpericum) praesentem prandia tua, reginam laudare jejunia. For her tragic end v. Greg.Tur. Hist. Fr. ii. 28.2 Leg. Burgund. (Mon. Germ. Hist. )cap. ix. xi. xxv. xxvii. xlvii.Sid. Ep. ix. 5 , apices nostri in- cipient commeare, quoniam cessant esse suspecti; cf. v. 3, iii . 4 .4 Ib. v. 7.5 Ib. iii. 4, Gozalas natione Judaeus defert literas meas quos granditer anxius exaravi....CH. III RELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERS 315Sidonius, unfortunately, does not tell as much as wecould wish of the fortunes of the " dim silent masses " whosuffer most in great social convulsions. Yet, with the somewhat bounded vision of the Roman aristocrat of the LowerEmpire, Sidonius in his later years displays a genuine Christiansympathy with suffering, which he strove to alleviate bycharity and episcopal influence.¹ The agony of grief anddesolation into which his orphaned flock were thrown by thedeath of their bishop seems still to throb in the pages ofGregory of Tours; and he has left here and there sketcheswhich reveal, as if by a sudden flash, the vicissitudes of fortuneto which the humbler class in those days had to submit.3The country districts suffered more from brigands thaneven from German bands on the warpath or from German spies.We have seen that in the last century of the Western Empirebrigandage was one of the most menacing evils of the times.The ranks of the robber class were swelled or supported bythe agents and shepherds on lonely estates, by deserters fromthe army, by bankrupt farmers and broken men, who, flyingfrom a society which had crushed and defrauded them, rose upfiercely against it, and gratified the instincts at once of greedand of revenge. The great noble in his strong house, surroundedby troops of clients and serfs, could protect himself against theattacks of these desperadoes; but the sufferings of the meanersort may be inferred from a single incident recorded in aletter of Sidonius. A poor woman of the lower class hadbeen carried off by the robber bands known in Gaul by thename of Vargi. She had been taken to Troyes and thence toother places. Her relatives for a long time followed hertraces in vain. At last they tracked her to Auvergne, whereshe had been sold in the public market, a certain Prudens ofTroyes having involved himself in the transaction by signingthe contract. She passed fortunately into the hands of anSee the tale in Gregory of Tours about his giving his plate in charity,nesciente uxore, Hist. Fr. ii . 22.2 Greg. Tur. Hist. Fr. ii . 23, cumqueilluc ( ie. in ecclesiam) illatus esset,conveniebat ad eum multitudo virorumac mulierum, simulque etiam et infantium plangentium atque dicentium:Cur nos deseris, pastor bone, vel cuinos quasi orphanos derelinquis?3 Salv. de Gub. Dei, v. §§ 24, 25, onthe Bagaudae; cf. Eugipp. vit. S. Severin. c. x. , latrones . quos vulgus scameras appellabat; Fauriel, i . 57;Zos. vi. 2; Sirmond, ed. Apoll. Sid.p. 65.• •Sid. Ep. vi. 4; cf. ed. Apoll. Sid.in Mon. Germ. Hist. p. 447.316 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVagent of Sidonius, and her friends appealed to the bishop forredress. He found that blood had been shed in effecting hercapture, and that her relatives were determined to havesatisfaction from the offenders at all costs. And he writes toLupus of Troyes to secure the help of his great authority inarranging an amicable settlement of what threatened to be adangerous feud. In another letter we have the tale of a manin deacon's orders, who, with his family, " had fled from thewhirlwind of the Gothic ravages," and had settled on somechurch lands of the diocese of Auxerre.¹ The squatter hadsown the ground hastily for the next harvest, and Sidoniuspleads with the episcopal owner that the refugee may beexcused by his poverty from paying the rent for which he wasliable. Another incident of obscure misfortune shows thatthe Romans had often as much to fear from their allies asfrom their enemies. Anthemius had engaged a corps of12,000 Bretons, who were quartered under a chief Riothamus.on the Loire, to check the advance of the Visigoths to thenorth.2 The Bretons were defeated by Euric at Déols, andfled into the territory of the Burgundians, then on friendlyterms with the Romans. But they were dangerous neighboursfor the people of Auvergne, and supplemented by raids theprecarious pay of the Empire. In one of these they carriedoff the slaves of a poor farmer, who appealed to his bishop forredress.¹ Sidonius wrote to the Breton chief explaining theman's grievance, but he seems to have had some doubt aboutthe reception which his humble client would meet with amongthese lawless warriors.Alike in Gaul and in Spain, the horrors of pestilence andfamine haunted the track of the invaders." In the invasion1 Sid. Ep. vi. 10, hic cum familia sua depraedationis Gothicae turbinem vitans in territorium tuum delatus est.2 Jordan. Get. c. xlv. The name ofthe chiefis variously spelled, Riotimus,Riothimus, Riutimud, Rotimus, but there is little doubt he is the same asthe Riothamus of Sid. Ep. iii. 9.3 Greg. Tur. Hist. Fr. ii. c. 18 ,Britanni de Biturica a Gotthis expulsisunt, multis apud Dolensem vicum peremptis. As to whether this corps were insular Britons or Armorican,v. Fauriel, i . 302; Jordan. Get. c. xlv.says they came to Berry bysea: quorum rex Riotimus cum duodecim milia ( v.l.milibus) veniens in Beturigas civitate (v.l. civitatem ) Oceano e navibus egresso susceptus est.Sid. Ep. iii. 9.5 Idat. Chron. ad a. 409, famesdira grassatur, adeo ut humanae carnesab humano genere vi famis fuerintdevoratae, etc.; Sid. Ep. vii. 7, macrijejuniis praeliatores avulsasmuralibus rimis herbas in cibumtraximus.CH. III RELATIONS OF ROMANS WITH THE INVADERS 317of Auvergne the Visigoths burnt the standing grain. ' Thecountry people whose crops were destroyed were often farfrom markets and depots of supplies, and must have beenreduced to terrible straits for food. This was the conditionin the later years of Sidonius, both of his own diocese and ofa wide stretch of country along the Rhone. Two men, whoin spite of their rank in their own age would otherwise behardly known to us, have had their names perpetuated formerciful munificence in their efforts to relieve the miseries ofa famishing population. One is Ecdicius, the son of Avitus,and the chivalrous defender of Auvergne in its last struggleswith the Visigothic power; the other is Patiens, the saintlyand princely bishop of Lyons, whose sanctity cast a spell onthe fierce temper of the Burgundian kings.Yet the student of Sidonius will find the notices of violenceand wide- spread calamity faint and infrequent.There isnothing in the fortunes of Gaul in his days to match thesocial chaos and penury and suffering of Noricum, which wererelieved for a time by the heroic efforts of S. Severinus.*There is a wide interval between the first wild cries of terroror actual suffering which rose as the Sueves and Vandalsswept over Gaul, and the more or less willing acquiescence inthe rule of the Burgundians and Visigoths. In the earlyyears of Euric's reign, while the fate of Auvergne was stillundecided, there must undoubtedly have been much suffering,especially among the lower classes of the Gallo- Roman population, and there must have been a general sense of insecurityand an interruption of intercourse and business. Yet theimpression left by the letters of Sidonius is that men of hisclass suffered more in their hopes and sentiments than intheir material fortune. Their abandonment by the Empire,their final severance from the great imperial system, causeda shock of grief and indignation which finds voice in thatpassionate letter which sounds like the epitaph on Avernianfreedom. They seemed to be losing their heritage in thelong tradition of Roman culture. It is not fear of the1 Sid. Ep. vi. 12, post segetes incendio absumptas peculiari sumptu, inopiae communi per desolatas Gallias gratuita frumenta misisti.2 Greg. Tur. Hist. Fr. ii. c. 24.3 Sid. Ep. vi. 12.4 For the distress and disorganisation in Noricum cf. Eugipp. vit. S. Severin. c. iii . iv. x.; for the measuresof relief taken by Severinus cf. c. xvii.318 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS BOOK IVGermans, nor even fastidious dislike for their rude and unpolished ways, that wrung from the Roman noble his indignantlament for the betrayal of Avernian liberties and citizenshipby brother churchmen in conclave with the ministers of theVisigothic king. He could force himself to accept the rudehospitality of the Gothic or Burgundian court; he hadproved that he did not fear to face the Germans in battle;but the illusions of his youth about the great centre of orderand culture were vanishing, and he watched with anxiousforeboding the darkness which was descending on the West.BOOK VCHARACTERISTICS OF ROMAN EDUCATIONAND CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY

CHAPTER ICHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTHCENTURIESTHE purpose of this chapter, as indeed of this book as a whole,is to describe the tone of that society which, even whennominally Christian, drew its intellectual life from paganliterature. We shall have to do with the culture of conventionality and tradition, slowly but surely fading fromlack of fresh impulse and inspiration, not with the newer andpurely Christian culture, which strove to employ the forms ofancient literature in the service of the dogma and spiritualideals which were destined to mould the future of the West.It was not, indeed, without long hesitation that theChurch brought itself to assimilate what was best, and bestfitted to her purpose, in the literary tradition of paganism.And in this long process of accommodation the West wasslower and more reluctant than the East.¹ While S. Clementof Alexandria was ready to admit that for the Greek worldphilosophy " was a schoolmaster to bring it to Christ,” Tertulliandenounced the teaching of the literature of mythology, and stroveto deepen the gulf between Athens and Jerusalem , betweenthe pagan academy and the Church.2 Nor was the suspicion ofpagan literature entertained by the great doctors of the West1 Ozanam, Civ. au Vme Siècle, i.374.2 Tertull. de Praescrip. Haeret. c.vii. , ipsaedenique haereses a philosophia subornantur ... miserum Aristotelemqui illis dialecticam instituit, artificem struendi et destruendi. . . . Quid ergo.YAthenis et Hierosolymis? Quid aca- demiae et ecclesiae. Nostra institutio de porticu Solomonis est. But Tertullian is not consistent, for he admits that much may be gained from the ancient discipline; cf. Boissier, La Fin du Pag. i. 235.322 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vwithout good grounds. In the fourth century Hellenism wasalmost synonymous with hatred of the Christian faith, andthe reaction of Julian was a combined effort of the schoolsand temples to arrest the advance of a movement which threatened both alike. It is true that the order in which Julianironically banished Christians from academic life shows thatmany of them must have been engaged in it.¹ And manyof the Christian fathers and controversialists were originallyteachers of rhetoric. Yet in the long truce between the tworeligions which ended with Gratian, the dread of the allurementswhich lurked under a pagan education was amply confirmedby wholesale apostasy which, even in the reign of Theodosius,had to be restrained by the terrors of the law.3 In thosevery years Licentius, a dear friend of S. Augustine, and oneof his companions in the retreat of Cassiciacum, was irresistiblydrawn back into the world of pagan seductions by the subtlecharm of literature.¹Yet, in spite of all these dangers and suspicions, the Churchof the West, with that practical, statesmanlike prudence whichseldom deserted it, began, in the fourth century, to come toterms with pagan culture, as it accommodated itself even insome degree to pagan superstition. The attitude of S. Paulto the educated world was no longer possible. It was nolonger true " that not many wise are called. " Although probably a majority of the Senate were either pagan or neutral evenat the end of the century, many of the noblest and most cultivated had from the time of Constantine become Christian.And above all two men, S. Jerome and S. Augustine, bornabout the middle of the century, and destined to influencemore than any others the future of the Western Church,were penetrated with the spirit of the ancient schools. Andtheir attitude to the pagan culture determined finally theattitude of the Church.1 The edict itself is not extant. Butcf. Julian's Ep. 42, didwμi dè aïpeow μὴ διδάσκειν ἃ μὴ νομίζουσι σπουδαία:Amm. Marc. xxii. 10, 7; Oros. vii . 30,§ 3; Aug. de Civ. Dei, xviii. c. 52.2 S. Cyprian ( Hieron. de Vir. Ill.67); Arnobius ( Hieron. Chron. ad a.329); Lactantius ( ib. ad a. 319; he was tutor of Crispus); S. Augustine (Conf. iv. 7, 12). Cf. Greg. Tur. Hist.Fr. ii. 31 , on the rhetorical trainingof S. Remi; Gennad. de Scrip. Eccl.c. 60.3 C. Th. xvi. tit. 7.Aug. Ep. 26; Paulin. Nol. Ep. 8.S. Paulinus tries the charm of verse tosecure the restoration of Licentius.Cf. Rauschen, Jahrbücher, p. 248. The father of Licentius was Romanianus,referred to in Aug. Conf. vi. c. 14.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 323"CIn both S. Jerome and S. Augustine the opposite tendenciesrepresented by Tertullian and by Lactantius can be clearlyseen. S. Jerome was the most brilliant pupil of the Romanschools under Donatus. He was essentially a savant. Whenhe fled to the deserts of Chalcis he took his books with him.¹The famous dream in which he was summoned before thethrone of Christ, and condemned as still a mere Ciceronian,in spite of his promise to forsake the profane studies of hisyouth, left him really impenitent and unchanged. It is truethat, in a letter to Pope Damasus, he denounces " the songsof poets, the wisdom of the world," the pomp of rhetoricalphrase, as mere food of daemons. " 3 Yet not many yearsafterwards, in a letter which is a glorification of learning,he boldly defends his constant reference to profane authorsby S. Paul's quotations from Aratus and Menander. " Hewould have the Christian maiden from her earliest yearstrained in the best Greek and Latin literature. He himselftaught the great authors to the boys of Bethlehem. S.Augustine, although he had not the erudition of S. Jerome, hadan equal admiration for what was best in the thought andexpression of the great ages. The tale of Dido could movehim to tears.6 In combating the theodicy of Varro, he neverfails to speak with admiration for his enormous learning andindustry.7 His reverence for Plato is only second to hisreverence for Holy Writ, and he would almost have forgiventhe pagans if they had erected a temple to him. The oldrhetorical training, which left its mark on everything he wrotehimself, he valued as a splendid discipline for the man whohas to move or persuade his fellows. It is true, the ancientapostles and prophets are models of the highest eloquence ordialectic.10 They obey all the rules of art unconsciously. Butthose not so close to the source of inspiration cannot dispense1 Hieron. Ep. v. § 2.2 Ib. xxii. § 30, ad Eustochium.3 Ib. xxi. § 13.4 lb. lxx. § 2.5 Ib. cvii. § 9, discat Graecorum versuum numerum. Sequatur statim Latina eruditio.6 Conf. i. c. 13, flebam Didonem extinctam ferroque extrema secutam.7 De Civ. Dei, vi. c. 2, qui tammulta legit ut aliquid ei scribere vacu5isse miremur . . . vir tantus ingeniotantusque doctrina, etc. 8 Ib. viii. c. 8.9 lb. ii. c. 7, quanto justius talibus (i.c. philosophis) divini honores decer- nerentur! Quanto melius in Platonis templolibri ejus legerentur quam, quam in templis daemonum Galli abscinde- rentur, etc. 10 De Doctr. Christ. iv. 7; cf.Hieron. Ep. xxx. § 1 .324 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vwith that training in literary technique which had beenelaborated by the skill and experience of eight hundred years.Whatever is good in the ancient tradition should be jealouslypreserved, " profani si quid bene dixerunt non aspernandum. "In leaving the scene of their heathen bondage, Christians maywith a good conscience, like the Hebrews, despoil the Egyptiansof their more precious treasures. In the treatise De Ordine,S. Augustine has sketched a system of education, in outlineresembling that of the seven liberal arts, but inspired by alofty ideal unknown to Martianus Capella.661In spite of the peril from pagan literary associations, thespoiling of the Egyptians " had begun before S. Augustinewas born. It was seen that the various forms of literary expression which the ancient world had forged with infinite painsand delicate art, in epic or lyric verse, in oratory or historicnarrative, might be made vehicles of Biblical history, of Christian truth and doctrine, of fresh views of the succession ofempire and the providential government of the world.Juvencus, a Spanish ecclesiastic of the reign of Constantine,narrated the gospel history in not altogether faultlesshexameters.2 Proba, in a cento of Virgilian verse, relatedthe story of the Creation, the Fall, and the life of the Redeemer.3 The elder Apollinaris, about the middle of thefourth century, composed an epic of Old Testament history,Christian tragedies in the style of Euripides, and Christianodes in the style of Pindar. His son turned the Gospels intodialogues after the manner of Plato. The lyric metres ofHorace were applied with a skill not unworthy of the oldmasters to the praise of the Christian martyrs by Prudentius.Orosius and Sulpicius Severus recast the history of the worldin the light of a divinely guided evolution. Such works asthese, and many a sacred oration moulded by the rules ofrhetoric, are a powerful testimony to the stubborn vitality ofthe ancient tradition. But while they wear the conventional16.1 Augustine, De Ordine, ii . cc. 8-2 Juvenc. Evang. iv. 806; Hieron.de Vir. Ill. c. 84, floruit sub Constantino principe. Cf. Ep. 70, § 5.3 Teuffel, ii. 430 , n. 15. Schenkl'sProoem ad Prob. , Corp. Scrip. Eccl.t. xvi.4 For an account of the Apollinares v. Socr. Hist. Eccl. iii . c. 16. He givesa good statement of the attitude ofliberal Christianity to ancient litera- ture. Note τὸ γὰρ καλὸν ἔνθα ἂν ᾖ,ἴδιον τῆς ἀληθείας ἐστίν. Boissier, LaFin du Pag. i. 239.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 325garb of the pagan past, they are animated by a spirit which isat deadly feud with it. They belong to the mediaeval or themodern world. Great as the merits of some of them may be,radiant as they are of the promise of the dawn, yet for thepurpose of this work we must turn our gaze rather to theliterary class, which, even within the Christian pale, still clungto the culture which dreamt only of the past.The aim of this chapter being rather to describe and accountfor the tone of a class than to appraise particular works ofliterature, we are hardly concerned with the vexed questionwhether the fifth century belongs to the history of Latinliterature at all. Certainly the literary devotees of thatdespised period would have indignantly reclaimed against anyattempt to sever them from the society of their literaryancestors. And, indeed, any attempt to draw a hard and fastline between classical and mediaeval seems to be ratherfutile and arbitrary. If, with the grammarian, you close theline of classical writers with Suetonius, the brilliant Claudian,who, so far as style goes , might have been a contemporary ofStatius, is isolated from his peers. If, on the other hand, youfix the limit at 405,' the date of Claudian's last poem, youadmit within the classical pale the bald and scrappy gossip ofthe Augustan History and the elaborate inanities of Symmachus; while comparatively correct and important writers,like Rutilius Namatianus, Orosius, and Prosper, are shut out.To fix the limit at 476 would be to make the disappearance of a shadowy emperor the sudden term of a greatnational literature, which did not spend its force for manycenturies after the age of inspiration. It is a more profitable task to try to realise, in an age of decadence, thepowerful and unchanging character of Graeco- Roman culture,which, amid all failure of originality, and all contending currents of provincial temperament and invading barbarism, neverrelaxed its hold on the educated class.It may be admitted that the culture of the fifth century isnot a fascinating study. The idolatry of mere literary formcombined with poverty of ideas, the enthusiastic worship ofgreat models without a breath of the spirit which gave themtheir enduring charm, immense literary ambition without the1 Mackail, Lat. Lit. pp. 277, 278.326 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vpower to create a single work of real artistic excellence-thisis not a subject which promises much interest; and the literaryremains of the fifth century are generally dismissed to oblivionin a few contemptuous phrases. Yet the Epigoni deserve alittle notice for the sake of the ancestry of which they were soproud, and the culture which they tried to save. They mayeven claim some attention for their own sake. History showsfew examples of an aristocracy more devoted to letters thanto war or sport or politics. And with all their vanity andliterary affectations, the great nobles of the fifth century preserve a certain distinction in their loyalty to things of themind.It would be difficult to exaggerate the force and permanenceof the literary influence exercised by the Roman schools of theWest. Style might degenerate from the great standards, butthe standards were never forgotten; and the passion for styleof some sort was as strong under Theodoric as it was in thereign of Trajan. Magnus Felix Ennodius was born just threeyears before the dethronement of the last Emperor of theWest,' and, after a chequered career, became bishop of Pavia.His boyhood was spent in Gaul, in the years when the lasttraces of Roman administration in that province were disappearing. His student life at Milan coincided with the great strugglebetween Odoacer and Theodoric in which Italy was flooded bya fresh host of invaders. Yet, born and reared as he wasamid such political confusion,3 Ennodius is as complete andartificial a product of the rhetorical discipline as Ausonius orSymmachus. His style, indeed, is as awkward and obscure asit is conventional and elaborate. But the man is penetratedwith the old school traditions. Even in addresses on sacredsubjects, he is incapable of speaking in a simple, straightforwardstyle; and his letters teem with the most incongruous paganallusions. He has thought it worth while to preserve for theeyes of posterity a long series of declamations on conventionaland unreal themes, such as the professor of rhetoric for many41 Ennod. Eucharist. p. 399 (ed .Hertel. Vindob. ) , tempore quo Italiamoptatissimus Theoderici regis resusci- tavit ingressus ferme sedecim, etc.2 Ebert, i . 433.·3 See the description in Ennod.Eucharist. pp. 398, 399.Ennod. Dictio 5, " Incipientisego annorum Episcopi. "5 For a brief account of these mostunreadable Epistles v. Ampère, Hist.Lit. ii. 214.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 327ages had been accustomed to set his pupils. They are of precisely the same kind as that which occupied the Roman youthin the days of Juvenal and Pliny: the words of Dido when shesaw Aeneas departing, or of Menelaus at the sight of burningTroy; an invective against one who demanded the hand of avestal as a reward for his achievements, or against a fatherwho claimed to be supported by his son whom he had refusedto redeem from captivity. Symmachus and Ennodius areseparated by more than three generations. In those hundredyears, so full of great social changes and disasters, the wholeframework of the Empire and of society in the West had beendislocated. The Church and the barbarians had triumphed.And yet the Christian bishop of 500 is as much weddedto the literary tradition of the past as the pagan noble of400.This persistence of academic tradition was to some extent dueto the sterility and failure of original power which characterisesRoman literature after the first century of the Empire. Theperiod of the Silver Age was distinguished by a brilliant effortto establish a purely Roman culture. But it was after all ashort-lived effort, and the barrenness of the three followingcenturies is one of the most striking facts in the history ofliterature. In spite of long periods of prosperity and goodgovernment, the higher intellect of Rome seems to have beenovertaken by a paralysis, and incapable of making any furtheradvance. During all that time no scientific discovery, no freshnative movement in Roman literature, was made. The forceseems to have been wanting to conceive and carry to completion any considerable and enduring work. Tacitus had noworthy successor in history. Statius has no rival in poetic arttill the meteor-like appearance of Claudian. The influence ofthe great Greek masterpieces to inspire fresh effort in Romanliterature seems to have been spent with the Augustan age.But Hellenism in another form reasserted itself in the reign ofHadrian, and perhaps not less vigorously in the reign of Julian.In both these movements, however, the dominant influencewas the new sophist, the itinerant lecturer. Erudition withoutcritical judgment, finesse of style without purity of taste, took1 Teuffel, Rom. Lit. ii. §§ 267, 340;Nettleship, Lectures and Essays, 2nd series, p. 115; Mackail, Rom. Lit. pp. 187, 202.328 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vthe place of originality and enthusiasm for ideas. Moreover, thegrowing centralisation and bureaucratic character of the imperialgovernment extinguished the last flickerings of interest inpolitical life, which had been failing even before the advent ofthe Empire. Civilisation became every day more stereotypedand materialised. The hardiest spirits , even to the very endof the Western Empire, could barely conceive any change in theestablished order. And the academic system partook of theuniversal stagnation. Indeed there are many reasons why inevery age the academic system should be, of all parts of thesocial organism, the most unchanging. Nothing is harder toreform or to inspire with fresh aims than an ancient schemeof education. The teachers are conservative from habit andsentiment. They know no other system than that in whichthey have been trained, and, from one generation to another,they continue to transmit the tradition which they haveinherited. The brilliant and successful pupil is apt to idealisethe studies of his youth, and to refer to their influence themental keenness and polish which may have come to him fromsociety and contact with the world. Ausonius in his later lifesaw much of courts and camps. He was one of the innercircle who surrounded the throne of Gratian; he was raised tothe prefecture and the consulship. Although he had beenfor thirty years a professor, he was for all that a versatile andambitious man of the world. Yet in his old age his thoughtsturned back to his early studies and companions, and he has leftus the portraits of nearly thirty of the professors of Bordeaux,traced with the curious minuteness of a wistful affection.Most of them lived and died obscure, and would have neverbeen heard of but for his verses. Yet he sees them all , evendown to the primus magister, who was too fond of wine, andwho was hardly equal to his humble task, surrounded by akind of reflected glory. The duty of saving their names fromoblivion is to Ausonius one of piety and gratitude to the handswhich unlocked to him and his friends the treasure - house ofthe Golden Age.2¹ Prof. Burdig. xxi. 7:ix. 2:creditus olim fervere mero;et te quem cathedram temere usurpasse lo- quuntur nomen Grammatici nec meruisse putant.2 Compare his own appeal, as his old tutor, to S. Paulinus, Ep. xxiii.33:ego sum tuus altor, et ille praeceptor primus, primus largitor honorum,primus in Aonidùm qui te collegia duxi.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 329It must also be remembered, in seeking to account for thepersistence of the Graeco- Roman training, that that system hadthe passionate support of the pagan sentiment which blazed forthin the fourth century, and which, under Christian forms, lingeredon among a large class far into the fifth. Libanius, the lastgreat sophist, used to say that religion (i.e. paganism) andculture were close friends. And he claimed that rhetoric hadrestored Julian to the worship of the gods. Nor can there beany doubt that that Emperor's attempted revival of the oldreligion was inspired by the schools. To Julian Hellenismmeant not only the literary tradition of Greece, but the oldmythology interpreted or reanimated by the philosophy ofAlexandria. Hellenism was necessarily in its origin andessential qualities the foe of Christianity, and hence Juliantreated the interpretation of Homer or Plato by a Christianteacher as a kind of contamination or profanity, very much asa good Catholic might think of the celebration of the HolyMysteries by a Protestant minister. It may be doubted3whether the Christian teachers who returned to their classrooms after the failure of Julian's reaction were less enthusiastic admirers and interpreters of the classics than the avowedpagans. Many of them were Christians only in name, hoveringin the uncertain twilight which an easy-going monotheism orpantheism cast over the frontiers of the opposing creeds. Τοsuch men the pursuit of literature was the highest end, and, assuch, incompatible with the consuming passion for a newspiritual life. They did not, indeed, believe in the old divinities,but mythical names and conceptions were so deeply workedinto the texture of the great masterpieces which they expounded,that style or literary finish seemed inconceivable without apagan colouring. And the love of letters, in the old-fashionedway, was to them the finest flower of Roman civilisation, andof that social order which seemed to the privileged class soincapable of any amendment or advance. That, and not anyideal of renunciation, was the true and highest aim of theheirs of Graeco-Roman culture. To be false to the Muses,1 Liban. iii. 43, quoted by Capes,Univ. Life in Ancient Athens, p. 121 .2 Jul. Ep. 42, ἄτοπον μὲν οἶμαιτοὺς ἐξηγουμένους τὰ τούτων ἀτιμάζειν τοὺς ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν τιμηθέντας θεούς.3 C. Th. xiii . 3, 6. This law ofValentinian, 364, practically repealed Julian's by making “ vita et facundia "the only qualifications for teaching.330 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vafter having been initiated into their mysteries, was a speciesof treachery and unfilial ingratitude, even when the renunciation was sanctified by the name of Christ.¹ It was makingchoice of barbarism in place of Romania; it was disowningone's spiritual ancestors, and separating oneself, to imitate thewords of the humanist of a later day, from the great companyof "brethren beloved in Homer, Virgil, and Plato. " Onesuch desertion has a peculiar interest, and even a certainpathos.2The conversion of Paulinus, the greatest Aquitanian nobleof his time, created an immense sensation both among theworldly class and in the ranks of serious Christians . Hisposition made him a conspicuous figure, and his desertion ofthe ideals of his caste was felt to be an event of graveimport. We are fortunate in having preserved to us someletters which passed between Paulinus and his old professor,Ausonius, and record with a singular delicacy of feeling therupture of an old friendship, and the widening of the chasmbetween pagan culture and Christian ideals.Paulinus belonged to one of the richest and noblestfamilies in the Roman world. " He had broad estates inAquitaine, and his marriage with Therasia brought him anaccession of wealth . Trained by Ausonius at the school ofBordeaux, he had an immense reputation for the kind of literaryability which was prized by that age. Before his thirtiethyear he had held the consulship and the governorship of aprovince. In all respects he was a typical Roman noble ofthe time, and seemed bound to his order by ties which1 Auson. Ep. xxiv. 118; xxv. 60.2 Ambros. Ep. 30. For the obloquyincurred by S. Paulinus see his Ep. toSulp. Severus, 1, § 2, si nos inter- dum profana vel stulta quorundam saecularium verba circumlatrent; cf.Sulp. Sev. vit. S. Mart. c. 25.3 He may have been the son of the Pontius Paulinus who owned theBurgus celebrated by Sidonius (Carm.22); cf. Ambros. Ep. 30, splendoregeneris in partibus Aquitaniae nulli secundum. His estate, Hebromagus, ismentioned by Auson. Ep. xxii . and xxiv. 126. Greg. Tur. de Glor.Conf. 107, ex nobili stirpe ortus Tarasiam similem sibi sortitus estconjugem, habens divitias multas. Cf.Rauschen, Jahrbücher, p. 352.4 Auson. Ep. xix. and xx.; cf.Hieron. Ep. 53, § 3. Paulinus, how- ever, like S. Augustine, was not a good Greek scholar, Paulin. Ep. 46, § 2, namquomodo profectum capere potero sermonis ignoti.5 See Prol . c. 3 in Migne'sed. S. Paulin.Nol.; Auson. Ep. xx. 3, and xxiii. 34.On the date of his consulship, which does not appear in the Fasti, cf. Rauschen, Jahrbücher der Christ. Kirche,p. 24, n. 7. Can he be the Paulinus,governor of Epirus, in C. Th. xvi. 2, 22?Cf. Prol. in Migne, t. lxi. c. 3.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 331nothing could sever. The circ*mstances of his conversionare rather obscure. But his temperament, as well as theinfluence of his wife, ' probably gave him an early inclinationto a mystical and ascetic Christianity. There is also atradition that he came under the influence of S. Martin, whomiraculously cured his eyes of cataract. Suddenly he disappeared from the society of Bordeaux, and buried himselfin a town of North-Western Spain. The news came with ashock to his friends, and especially to his dearest friend,Ausonius. The poet, whose great virtue was a perfect faithfulness to old ties, had a fatherly tenderness for Paulinus.He had watched his growing skill in the arts of style, andhailed his early efforts in authorship with perhaps extravagantpraise. He was scarcely able at first to believe that one sotrained, so gifted, so bound to Roman society by rank andculture and friendship, could exchange its charming freemasonry and urbanity for the loneliness and hard austerity ofthe monkish life. He wrote to Paulinus some letters inwhich he used all his art to recall him to the splendidworld he had forsaken, by appeals to affection, to the love ofglory and stately fortune, above all to the pleasures oflettered society.5 The pained feeling of desertion was intensified by a silence of three years, during which Paulinushad made his renunciation of wealth and worldly estate finaland complete. Yet the old semi-pagan man of the world isnot betrayed into any bitterness against a fanaticism whichmust have been to him as repulsive as it was unintelligible.And, on the other hand, the cultivated recluse, who was aboutto devote his culture to the glorification of S. Felix of Nola,is full of tenderness and gratitude to his old master. But wefeel, and they felt, that they were sundered by an impassablegulf. Ausonius prays to the Muses of Boeotia to give backhis friend to the poetry of Rome." The Muses, indeed, to1 Auson. Ep. xxiii. 31, Tanaquil tua nesciat istud. Cf. Greg. Tur.de Glor. Conf. 107.2 Sulp. Sev. vit. S. Martini, c. 19;cf. c. 25, praestantissimumque nobis praesentium temporum illustris viri Paulini exemplum ingerebat.3 Auson. Ep. xix. Paulinus hadcomposed a poetical epitome of Sueto- nius, de Regibus.4 Ib. xxv. 61:patriosque istic sepelibis honores?5 Ib. xxiii. 33. Is there anything in the letters of Ausonius to justify the expression " bittere VorwürfeRauschen, Jahrb. p. 428?6 Paulin. Nol. Carm. xi. 8:cura mihi semper fuit, et manet, officiis te omnibus excolere, affectu observare fideli .7 Auson. Ep. xxv. 73:Latiis vatem revocate Camoenis.in332 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK VAusonius were no more than the consecrated literary symbolfor the inspiration of the great ages. Yet he could notconceive the force of the faith which could move a scholarand a poet to forget his Virgil and Statius in preparingfor the terrors of the judgment to come. The lines in whichPaulinus, after long silence, announced that he was dead to theworld, and that the irrevocable choice had been made, are amonument of the irresistible force of the ascetic movement,and make one feel that the admiration of Ausonius for hispupil of old days was not all undeserved: "Why bid theMuses, whom I have disowned, return to claim my devotion? 2Hearts vowed to Christ have no welcome for the goddesses ofsong, they are barred to Apollo. Time was when, not withequal force, but with equal ardour, I could join with thee insummoning the deaf Phoebus from his cave at Delphi. . . .Now another force, a mightier God, subdues my soul. Heforbids me give up my time to the vanities of leisure orbusiness, and the literature of fable, that I may obey his lawsand see his light, which is darkened by the cunning skill ofthe sophist, and the figments of the poet who fills the soulwith vanity and falsehood, and only trains the tongue.Against His coming, my heart quakes and trembles to itsinmost fibres, my soul has terrible foreboding of the future,lest, bound fast by weak, fleshly cares, and loaded with theweight of worldly things, when, through the opened heaven, theawful trumpet sounds, I may not be able to lift myself onlight pinions to meet the coming of the Lord. . . . This ismy fear, my torment, that the last day may overtake meslumbering in thick darkness, and wasting my momentson empty cares. What shall I do, if, while my languid eyesare slow to open, the Christ should reveal himself in flashing splendour from His palace in the skies; and if, dazzledby the sudden radiance of the Lord, coming in the openedheavens, as the glory bursts upon me, I have to seek amournful refuge in the darkness of night? " The solemnfarewell which the monk of Nola bade to the studies ofhis youth and the great world reveals alike the force of the1 Paulin 3 lb. x. 30. . Carm. x. 304-324.2 lb. x. 22:negant Camoenis, nec patent Apollini dicata Christo pectora.+ Ib. x. 304.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 333new ascetic movement, and the enthralling influence of thepagan culture.The most powerful influence in perpetuating the literarytradition was the system of the Roman schools, supportedby imperial authority. Roman education under the Republicwas free and unregulated by the State. In the flourishingperiod of the Empire, the State undertook the control andthe support of the higher education, without curtailing theliberty of private teachers. Under the later Empire it extended its interference with the discretion of local authoritiesin the appointment and remuneration of professors , until, inthe year 425 ,' an edict of Theodosius and Valentinianasserted the sole authority of the government in education,and made penal the opening of schools by unauthorisedpersons. Already, in the time of the first Caesar, the oldRoman system of private domestic education was going out offashion, and Rome possessed twenty schools of a public character. The professors of the liberal arts, who were then forthe most part Greeks, received full civic rights. Vespasianpaid an annual stipend of 100,000 sesterces to the teachersof rhetoric, but this liberal provision was almost certainlyconfined to the teachers of the capital. Succeeding emperors,Hadrian, the Antonines,5 and Alexander Severus, continuedthe same policy in the provinces, in some instances endowingthe professorships, which they created, out of the imperial funds,but in the majority of cases making them a charge on themunicipality. Alexander Severus, a prince who had a strongtaste for school rhetoric and poetry, founded bursaries forpoor scholars, and erected class- rooms. The Emperor Constantine was not less earnest in his care for the academic31 C. Th. xiv. 9, 3.2 Sueton. Jul. Caes. c. 42, liberaliumartium doctores, quo libentius et ipsi urbem incolerent et ceteri appeterent,civitate donavit.3 Sueton. Vesp. 18, primus e fisco Latinis Graecisque rhetoribus annua centena constituit; cf. Boissier, La Fin du Pag. i. 194. It is highlyimprobable, as M. Boissier points out, that a salary of £ 800 would begiven to any but a metropolitan pro- fessor.Ael. Spart. Hadrian, 16, omnes8professores et honoravit et divites fecit; cf. c. 14.5 Jul. Capitol. Ant. Pius, c. 11 , rhetori- bus et philosophis per omnes provincias et honores et salaria detulit.Lamprid. Alex. Sev. c. 44.7 Ib. c. 35, aut orationes recitantes aut facta veterum canentes libenteraudivit; cf. c. 30, lectioni Graecae operam majorem dabat.8 Ib. c. 44, rhetoribus . . salariainstituit, et auditoria decrevit et discipulos cum annonis pauperum filios modo ingenuos dari jussit.334 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vsystem. The edicts of 321 , 326, and 333¹ reaffirm allformer enactments as to the position of public teachers;they also confer on them entire exemption from a largenumber of onerous functions and liabilities, both imperialand municipal. They relieve professors from military service,from the compulsory reception of public guests, whethersoldiers or civilians, from the heavy responsibilities of thecuria; while teachers are, notwithstanding, left free toaccept curial magistracies and honours. Their persons aremade in a fashion sacrosanct, and any insult or outrageoffered to them is heavily punished. At the same timethese privileges and exemptions are extended to their wivesand children. And the Emperor's motive for dealing soliberally with the teaching profession is explicitly stated inthe words, " quo facilius liberalibus studiis multos instituant. "These provisions are worthy of the son of Constantius.Chlorus, who, in the last years of the third century, placedthe rhetorician Eumenius at the head of the revived schoolof Autun, with a salary of 600,000 sesterces.2 The law ofJulian, issued in 362,3 for the first time asserts the rightof the Emperor to revise the appointments to professorshipsmade by the local authorities. In a few cases, such as thatof Eumenius, the Emperor had made the appointment himself; in a few others he had empowered a trusted person,*or a board, to make the selection. But, in the greatmajority of cases, the chairs had been filled by the localcuria, with, perhaps, the assistance of the neighbouringmagnates. Julian, while he required candidates in the firstinstance to submit their character and claims to thescrutiny of these authorities, expressly reserved to himself thefinal sanction of any appointment which they might make.His avowed reason for doing so is to give greater weight1 C. Th. xiii, 3, 1 , 2 and 3. Professores are coupled in these laws with Medici.2 Eumen. Or. pro Scholis instau- randis, c. 11 , salarium me liberalissimiprincipes ex hujus rei publicae ( i.e. Autun) viribus in sexcenis millibusnummum accipere jusserunt.3. Th. xiii . 3, 5.Herodes Atticus was so empowered by M. Aurelius, Philostr. vit. Soph. ii.2, 2 (quoted by Boissier, La Fin du Pag. i. 199).5 Lucian, Eun. 8, ἐν τούτοις ἦν τοῖς δικασταῖς ἡ διατριβή καὶ τὸ κεφαλαῖονἤδη τοῦ σκέμματος τοῦτο ἐτύγχανεν ὄν,εἰ δοκιμαστέος εὐνοῦχος ἐπὶ φιλοσοφίαν παρελθὼν καὶ νέων προστασίαν ἐγχειρισθῆναι ἀξιῶν .6 For the evidence on this point v.Godefroy on C. Th. xiii. 3, 5.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 335to their decision, but there can be no doubt that hisreal motive was to prevent the election of Christians tothese posts; for, although the municipal bodies might bebad or nigg*rdly paymasters, there is no reason to believethat, as a rule, they were less competent to make properappointments to academic chairs than the imperial advisersat Rome. Among the members of the local curia therewould generally be, not only a certain number who hadreceived an academic training, but also professors or exprofessors, who, though by the law of Constantine 2 notliable for the charges of the curia, were freely admittedto its ranks. Ausonius and some of his professional friendsprobably sat in the curia of Bordeaux. And they were,to say the least, as competent to select a professor as themen who surrounded the Emperor in the Consistorium.The proper remuneration of the teaching staff probablyexercised the vigilance of the emperors to a much greaterdegree than the mode of its appointment. From the beginningof the fourth century, and probably earlier, the financial pressureon the curiales was becoming more and more severe. Education is generally the first department in which the ordinaryman will begin to retrench. We might safely believe, evenif we had not the express testimony of Libanius,3 that animpoverished municipality would cut down the salaries of itsprofessors, or pay them very irregularly. The famous law ofGratian, issued in 376, is perhaps the most striking illustration of the anxiety of the emperors for the worthy maintenance of academic studies. The edict was issued just twoyears before Ausonius, who had been the Emperor's tutor, wasraised to the prefecture of the Gauls, and three years before hisconsulship. It is reasonable to suppose that the old professorof Bordeaux, who was so loyal to his colleagues and hisprofession, had suggested to the Emperor the expediency ofimproving their position. It may be inferred from the Codethat the payments to professors from the municipal funds hadbecome less liberal and less regular. Gratian, while he1 C. Th. xiii. 3, 5, hoc enim decretum (Curialium) ad me tractandumreferetur ut altiore quodam honore nostrojudicio studiis Civitatumaccedat.2 lb. xiii. 3, 1.3 Boissier, La Fin du Pag. i. 197;Sym. Ep. i. 79, v. 35, which show that professors' incomes were precarious at the end of the fourth century.336 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK V2leaves the great towns free to elect their teachers, strictlyprescribes the stipends which the various grades of professorsshall receive.¹ The rhetors are to have a salary of 24annonae; the grammarians, both Greek and Latin, are to bepaid half the salary of the rhetors. But in Trèves, whichwas the great seat of Roman power at the time, a higherscale of salaries is fixed. The teacher of rhetoric is to have30 annonae, the Latin grammarian 20, and the Greek grammarian, " if a competent person can be found," has to becontent with the salary appointed for other localities.InThe poems of Ausonius furnish indications of a greaterdifference in the incomes of professors than any establishedby this edict. Some of the grammarians of Bordeaux wereevidently living in obscure poverty.3 On the other hand,several professors of rhetoric enjoyed comparative wealth,*kept a good table, and lived on equal terms with the localaristocracy. In that day the exemption from taxes and publicburdens which they enjoyed was of great pecuniary value.addition to their regular stipends, they had also the fees paidby their pupils. There can be no doubt that the classes ofsome professors were large, although how large we can hardlypretend to say definitely. Ausonius speaks of the one or twothousand who were trained by Minervius for the bar and forsenatorial rank. A liberal education was not only a socialnecessity, a badge of rank; it was also, for the ambitiousyouth, the surest passport to a place in the imperial service. Theprofession of arms and the pursuits of commerce were alikepractically closed to Romans of the upper and middle ranks.The heir to a great estate was required, by the opinion of hisclass, to qualify himself for his position by acquiring that61 C. Th. xiii. 3, 11 , ut singulisurbibus quae Metropoleis nuncupantur nobilium Professorum electio celebretur.Metropoleis must be interpreted with Godefroy: non illae quae primae omnium erant, verum omines frequen- tissimae.2 For similar allowances by annona(i.e. diarium unius hominis) cf. Amm.Marc. xxii. 4, 9. When Julian onceasked his gorgeously dressed barber,quid haberet ex arte compendii, vicenas diurnas respondit (tonsor) annonas,etc. Lamprid. Alex. Sev. c. 42.3 Auson. Prof. Burd. vii . 10:litteris tantum titulum adsecutus,quantus exili satis est cathedrae, etc.Cf. viii. 6, x. 40.Ib. xvi. 9:nobilis et dotata uxor, domus et schola,cultae principum amicitiae contigerunt juveni.xix. 5:opulensque senectus.5 The attempt is made in Jullian's Ausone et Bordeaux, p. 72.6 Prof. Burd. i. 9:mille foro dedit haec juvenes, bis mille Seuatus adjecit numero purpureisque togis.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 337culture which had distinguished his ancestors for generations,and which marked off the Roman noble from the barbarianchief; the youth of humbler fortune might hope by means ofhis education to find a place in that great army of functionaries who surrounded the Emperor and the great provincialgovernors. A popular and successful teacher had thereforeprobably large classes, and his ordinary fees were swelled bypresents from some of his wealthier pupils.2 A rhetor wasoften a rich man, living in the best society, and married to anheiress of some wealthy family.31The aim of the imperial legislation, expressed in severaledicts, was to leave the professor of the liberal arts free andunimpeded in his studies. But the profession of letters in theLower Empire was also one of increasing worldly honour andconsideration.5 The senatorial class, as we have seen, pridedthemselves on their culture quite as much as on their birthand opulence. And they held in corresponding estimation theclass whose business it was to maintain the literary tradition.Symmachus, at the beginning of the century, and Sidoniustowards its close, were aristocrats to their finger-tips, valuingeven to excess hereditary rank. Both of them were absorbedin the interests of their order, the melior pars generis humani,as they regarded it. Yet both Symmachus and Sidoniusadmitted freely to their inner circle men who owed theirposition solely to literary skill and dexterity of the kind thenadmired. They lived on terms of fraternal intimacy withmen whose days were spent in the drudgery of the class- room.In one of his letters Sidonius describes the charms ofAvitacum to a grammarian of the school of Auvergne in order1 Cf. Seeck's Sym. cxli. for the career of Minervius, Florentinus, andProtadius, three young Gauls from Trèves. Mallius Theodorus was ofhumble origin, and began his public career as magister epistularum under Gratian (Seeck, cxlix . ) . Neoterius, who became prefect and consul, began his career as notarius in the service ofValentinian (Amm. Marc. xxv. 5 , 14) .Men of high birth also entered the service. Sex. Petronius Maximus wastribune of the Sacred Consistory and notarius in his nineteenth year. Seethe inscription to him set up by the emperors in 421 ( C.I.L. vi. 1749) .2 Herodes Atticus made a present tohis teacher of 15 talents; but this, ofcourse, was exceptional. Capes, Univ.Life in Ancient Athens, p. 60.3 Citharius, a Greek grammarian of Bordeaux,conjugium nactus cito nobilis et locu- pletis, etc. ,Prof. Burd. xiii . 9. Cf. xxiii. 5.4C. Th. xiii . 3, 3, 4, and 18.5 See the four laws of Theodosius andHonorius between 414 and 428, C. Th.xiii. 3 , 16-19 , which confirm and en- force the laws of Constantine, xiii. 3,1, 2, 3.6 Sidon. Ep. ii. 2.Z338 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vto tempt him to spend the dogdays in its shades. Symmachustook the greatest interest in the worldly advancement of hisliterary friends, ' and regarded the liberal endowment of academicstudies as a "mark of a flourishing commonwealth. " Hehailed especially the elevation of Ausonius and his family tohigh rank and office as a worthy recognition of the dignity ofletters.2 And, indeed, mere academic merit has seldom inhistory led to such power and worldly distinction. Forseveral years it may be said with truth that the governmentof the West was in the hands of the family of Ausonius, whoheld all the great prefectures.3 The poet himself added tothe prefecture of the Gauls the ancient honours of the consulship. His commanding influence can be traced in not a fewof the imperial constitutions. It has, indeed, been plausiblysuggested that the ex- professor's administrative capacity wasnot equal to his poetic art, and that during his prefecturethe government of Gaul was combined with that of Italy inthe hands of his son Hesperius. It is certainly noteworthythat the edicts relating to the Western provinces are, duringAusonius' year of office, with one exception, addressed to hisson.5 If this be so, it merely shows how determined theEmperor was, even at the cost of some disturbance of theofficial routine, to permit his old tutor to enjoy the highesthonours which the Empire had to bestow.It is not a mere empty boast, prompted by national vanity,that the tradition of Graeco-Roman culture, in the last centuryof the Western Empire, was maintained most vigorously inGaul. So far as secular literature was concerned, Italy, Spain,and Africa had spent their force. The schools of Gaul in thefifth century, although literary studies were showing unmistakable signs of decadence, were still generally prosperous; andit is from them chiefly that we must draw our conceptions1 Sym. Ep. i. 79, Priscianus fratermeus cum primis philosophorum littera- tura et honestate censendus senatuauctore salarii emolumenta consequitur.2 Ib. i. 20.3 The authorities will be found inSeeck's Sym. lxxix. lxxx. , omnessummi per Occidentem magistratus unius familiae quasi patrimonium erat.4 Secck's Sym. lxxx. , sed poetanoster grammaticus quam adminis- trator melior fuisse videtur.Itaque nova ratio excogitata est quanomen praefecti Ausonio remaneret,totum autem magistratus onus Hesperio incumberet, et Galliae cum Italia conjunctae sunt, etc. Rauschen, p. 28.5 C. Th. viii. 5, 35, de numeroveredorum quae uno die ex uno loco moveri possunt.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 339of the character of Roman culture in the last years of theEmpire of the West. There was something in the Celticnature which seemed to respond with peculiar energy to thestimulus of the rhetorical training.¹ The eloquence of theGauls was celebrated before the Roman occupation. In theancient Greek colony of Marseilles the training of the Hellenicschools had been early established,2 and Marseilles was at onetime a favourite resort of students from Italy, and, accordingto Strabo, threw even Athens into the shade. In the reignof Tiberius, the school of Autun, established soon after theRoman conquest, was thronged with the youth of the noblestfamilies.3 Marseilles lost somewhat of its former academicrenown, but the schools of the east and centre of Gaul appearto have maintained a vigorous existence even through thetroubles of the third century, and the fame of the floridGallic eloquence reached its height in the Panegyrists. * Yet itwas only in the fourth century that the Roman language andliterature were completely naturalised on Gallic soil. Traces ofthe ancient dialects still lingered even among the educated class.The father of Ausonius, who was of an old Gallic stock, spokeLatin badly. A member of the same family, Paulinus ofPella, tells us that he was much more at home in Greek thanin Latin. In the beginning of the fifth century SulpiciusSeverus represents a Gallic monk as apologising for the•1 Juv. i. 44; xv. 111 , Gallia cau- sidicos docuit facunda Britannos. M.Antonius Gnipho, a Gallic rhetor, was tutor of J. Caesar and Cicero: M. Ant.Gnipho, ingenuus in Gallia natus . .Docuit primum in Divi Julii domo,pueri adhuc .. (Suet. de Ill. Gram.c. vii. ); Domitius Afer, famous in thereigns of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero(Tac. Ann. xiv. 19) , was from Nîmes(Hieron. Chron. ad a. 46 A. D. , Domitius Afer Nemausensis clarus orator habetur). Caligula established oratoricalcontests at Lyons (Suet. Calig. c.xx. ) .2 Strabo, iv. 5 ( 181 ) , Távтes yàp olχαριέντες πρὸς τὸ λέγειν τρέπονται καὶφιλοσοφεῖν ὥσθ' ή πόλις μικρὸν μὲνπρότερον τοῖς βαρβάροις ἀνεῖτο παιδευ- τήριον . . . ἐν δὲ τῷ παρόντι καὶ τοὺς γνωριμωτάτους Ρωμαίων πέπεικεν ἀντὶτῆς εἰς ᾿Αθήνας ἀποδημίας ἐκεῖσε φοιτᾶνφιλομαθεῖς ὄντας. Cf. Tac. Ann. iv. 44,where Massilia is mentioned as theretreat of a studious exile.3 Tac. Ann. iii. 43, AugustodunumSacrovir occupaverat et nobilissimam Galliarum subolem, liberalibus studiisibi operatam, etc.Hieron. Ep. xxxvii. 3, sermo compositus et Gallicano cothurno fluens.It is worth noting that this letter is acriticism of a work by Rheticius, bishopof Autun, on the Song of Songs, ofthe value of which S. Jerome has evidentlya poor opinion.Auson. Idyl. ii . 9:sermone impromptus Latio, verum Attica lingua suffecit culti vocibus eloquii.6 Euch. 75:protinus ad libros etiam transire Maronis vix bene comperto jubeor sermone Latino.But it should be said that Paulinuswas born in a Greek- speaking province.340 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vbarbarism of his rustic idiom.¹ But the literary renaissance ofthe fourth century completed the Romanisation of the greatprovince of the West, and made it the last stronghold of Romanculture. In this movement the more ancient schools of theSouth- East failed to maintain their old prestige. The school ofMarseilles is little heard of in the fourth century. Autun,after its momentary revival under Eumenius, also sank intoobscurity. The really prosperous and vigorous seats of academiclife in this period were Trèves on the north- eastern frontier,and the schools of Aquitaine in the West. Trèves for someyears was the seat of empire and the favourite residence of theemperors, and Gratian, as we have seen, tried to attract to itsschools the foremost talent by specially high stipends. But theattempt was, from the circ*mstances of the time, foredoomedto failure. Trèves was essentially a great military position ,confronting the menacing tide of barbarian invasion. Withinlittle more than a generation from the date of the law whichwas to endow it with an academic primacy, Trèves was fourtimes given up to fire and sword by the Germans.3 Magnificent ruins still remain to attest the favour and magnificence ofthe Caesars. But the school of Trèves vanished withoutleaving a trace. It was in rich and fertile Aquitaine, farremoved from the more sudden and desolating inroads of theGermans, that academic life was destined to linger longest,and to show the most enduring vitality. There were, indeed,still a number of academic centres elsewhere, at Lyons,*Arles, Auvergne, Vienne, which still maintained a certain1 Sulp. Sev. Dial. i . 27, vereor ne offendat vestras nimium urbanas auressermo rusticior. It is absurd, however, as De Coulanges ( La Gaule Rom .p. 128) points out, to infer, from thefollowing words, Celtice aut si mavisGallice loquere, that the monk Gallus,who apologises for his rusticior sermo,spoke one of the old dialects of Gaul(cf. Fauriel, i . 434) . The passage in Sidon. Ep. iii. 3, tuaeque personae quondam debitum quod sermonisCeltici squamam depositura nobilitasnunc oratorio stylo . . . imbuebatur,need not mean that the nobles actuallyspoke Celtic in the youth of Ecdicius,i.e. circ. 430.2 See the number of constitutionsdated from Treviri between 368 and378 in the Chronologia of the C. Th. t. i.Cf. Auson. Ordo Nob. Urb. iv.:pacis ut in mediae gremio secura, quiescit,imperii vires quod alit, quod vestit et armat.3 Salv. de Gub. Dei, vi. 39, 75, expugnata est quater urbs Gallorumopulentissima.4 Lyons had still a reputation when Sidonius and his friends attended thelectures of Eusebius there, Ep. iv. 1.Cf. viii . 6; Chaix, Apollin. Sid. i.202.Arles, as the seat of the prefecture,took the place of Trèves in the fifth century, and legal studies flourished there. See the letters to the juristPetronius, Sid. Ep. ii. 5 , v. 1.Chaix, Apollin. Sid. i. 207.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 341activity in the fifth century, under teachers of some mark.But " Palladian " Toulouse,' Narbonne, and, above all, Bordeaux, had by far the greatest reputation . The city on theGaronne in the days of Ausonius was recognised as the foremost school of rhetoric in the Roman world, and its fameattracted even Italian scholars. Symmachus, the leader ofthe Senate, and the most accomplished man of letters in Italy,acknowledged the debt which he owed to the rhetorical training of Aquitaine. Minervius, of the time of Ausonius, hada brilliant career at Rome and Constantinople. Narbonne,Poitiers, and Toulouse filled their chairs with brilliant teachers.from Bordeaux. On the other hand, Bordeaux seldom needed.to import her professors. Of the twenty-five who are commemorated by Ausonius, only five were of alien origin. *3Even the most famous universities of the Empire seem, froma modern point of view, to have been only moderately equipped.A few of the greater cities, such as Rome or Constantinople,had professors of the four faculties, as we may call them, ofgrammar, rhetoric, philosophy, and jurisprudence.5 But probably only the first two of these departments were representedon the staff of most provincial schools. Even a school sofamous as Bordeaux seems to have had no professor of philosophy or jurisprudence. The great legal universities wereRome, Constantinople, and Berytus; yet we cannot supposethat young men preparing for the bar of the prefectoriancourts in Gaul had to go for their training to these distantschools. It is clear that legal studies were vigorously carriedon at Arles, Narbonne, and in Southern Gaul generally."Sidonius eulogises, with his wonted intemperance of language,the legal learning of some of his friends. One of them, the1 Sid. Carm. vii. 436; xxiii. Cf.Auson. Parent. iii . 11 .2 Sym. Ep. ix. 88, Gallicanae facun- diae haustus requiro; non quod hisseptem montibus eloquentia Latiarisexcessit, sed quia praecepta rhetoricae pectori meo senex olim Garumnae alum- nus immulsit est mihi cum scholisvestris per doctorem justa cognatio.Cf. i. 9.3 Auson. Prof. Burd. i. 4; Hieron.Chron. ad a. 358, Minervius Burdiga- lensis rhetor, Romae florentissime docet.So Arborius was called from Toulouse to8Constantinople (Auson. Parent. iii. 16) .Jullian's Ausone, p. 69.5 C. Th. vi. 21 , 1. This law confersthe title of Comes primi ordinis onthree grammarians, two sophists, and one jurist by name. Teachers ingeneral who have discharged their duties for twenty years with efficiency are to be raised to the same rank.6 Ausonius, Prof. Burd. , speaks only of grammatici and rhetores.Fauriel, i. 407.8 Sidon. Carm. xxiii. 446, 465; cf.Ep. ii. 5, v. 1.342 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vaccomplished Leo, who came to fill the difficult post ofsecretary to Euric, ¹ is described as a jurist worthy to rankwith the greatest of antiquity. In philosophy there wasprobably little real training in those days except at Athens;but even at Athens philosophy had sadly degenerated,and "the golden chain of the Platonic succession " waswithin a few years to be broken by the edict of Justinian.S. Jerome says that in his time philosophical study hadceased to form a part of a liberal education. And there arefew traces of a genuine interest in philosophy to be found inthe purely literary remains of the fifth century. It is truethat Sidonius has several friends who are devoted to Plato,³and from one passage in his letters we might even infer theexistence of a Platonic school in Southern Gaul. He remindsProbus, a member of an accomplished family at Narbonne, oftheir common Aristotelian studies in the class- room of Eusebiusat Lyons. Another friend united in a very singular way adevotion to the tenets of Plotinus with an ardent love offarming. For the wedding of another young Platonist Sidoniuswrote an epithalamium, which is probably the most curiouscomposition that was ever produced for such an occasion.keeping with the sober tastes of the bridegroom, Minerva,instead of Venus, is the leading figure in the scene. Sherepairs to the land of Erechtheus, where in a gorgeous templeare seated all the sages and philosophers of Greece, onlyEpicurus, in the interests of sound morality, being excluded.They are all characterised in some way, but with either abanality or a grotesqueness which almost excludes the possibility of any thorough or serious conception of their systems.If the philosophic bridegroom was the accomplished Platonisthe is represented to have been, he must have shudderedat the lines which sum up his great master's teaching.The climax of absurd bad taste is reached when, under thevery eyes of the virgin goddess, Lais is depicted in the act of61 Sid. Ep. iv. 22, cotidie namqueper potentissimi consilia regis totius sollicitus orbis pariter negotia et jura,foedera et bella . . . cognoscis.2 Ep. Gal. lib. iii . c. 5, quotus- quisque nunc Aristotelem legit?Quanti Platonis vel libros novere, velInnomen? Vix in angulis otiosi eossenes recolunt.3 Ep. iv. 11.4 Ib. iv. 1 , sic jam tu sub Eusebio nostro inter Aristotelicas categorias artifex dialecticus atticissabas.5 Ib. i . 6; iii . 6.6 Carm. XV.СНАР. 1 CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 343clipping the rough beard of a cynic philosopher with perfumedscissors! 1 In the eulogy on the Emperor Anthemius, amonghis many qualifications for the throne there is an enumerationof the philosophers he had studied.² It is a mere string ofnames, with here and there some purely anecdotic and externaltrait, added for literary effect. The philosophic study of thatage probably concerned itself chiefly, as Anthemius is said tohave done, with learningquidquid laudavit Scythicis Anacharsis in arvis,quidquid Pythagoras, Democritus, Heracl*tusquedeflevit, risit, tacuit; quodcunque Platonisingenium, quod in arce fuit, docet ordine terno, etc.One cannot help thinking, in reading such lines, that, in thecircle of Sidonius, Greek philosophy was only a huntingground for lively or picturesque allusion, and not a subjectof genuine scientific interest. It is probably not uncharitableto believe that most of these men had only vague and scrappynotions of Thales and Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato, caughtup from the lectures of the grammarian on some school classic.The impression as to the conventional and superficialcharacter of philosophic study in the secular schools of thefifth century will be confirmed by reference to the handbookof the liberal arts compiled by Martianus Capella, a rhetor ofAfrica.3 This book had an extraordinary popularity in theMiddle Ages.* It formed the basis of academic training forcenturies. In the eleventh century it was translated intoGerman. It is found in the catalogue of the great monasticlibraries, and was commented on by great schoolmen. It isdifficult to conceive the state of culture when this mixture ofdry traditional school learning and tasteless and extravagantmythological ornament, applied to the most incongruous1 A reminiscence of tales of theamorous propensities of Diogenes suchas are found in Lucian, Hist. Ver. ii. 18;Athen. xiii. 54 ( 588 ) , ᾖς καὶ ᾖρα καὶ Δημοσθένης ὁ ῥήτωρ, Διογένης τε όκύων.2 Sid. Carm. ii. 156.3 The date of Martianus Capella is uncertain, some placing him at the end of the fifth century, others in the middle of the third (r. Eyssenhardt'sPraef. c. 1 ) . The only thing at all certain seems to be that he must have written before the Vandal invasion ofAfrica ( Eyssenh. pp. vii. viii . ) .4 Ozanam, i . 355; Ebert, Lit. desMittelalters, i. 483. Greg. Tur. H. Fr.x. ad fin. refers to Capella as the regular handbook in the liberal arts in his age. For the great number of MSS. v. Eyssenhardt's Praef. xx.ՏՈՂ .344 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vmaterial, with an absolutely bizarre effect, could have beenapplauded as a sweetener of the toils of learning. Its fancifulsetting might seem to a modern reader a deliberate attemptto burlesque the delicate handling of myth by the author ofthe Phaedrus and the Republic. Yet there is no doubt thatCapella was a serious and practical teacher, and his bookrepresents thoroughly both the spirit and the system of theacademic discipline of his age. The first two books are givenup entirely to fable, in prose and verse. Mercury, the god ofeloquence, is to espouse Philology. The destined bride mustbe elevated to the divine estate of her lover, but she is firstcompelled to discharge, in rather disgusting fashion, her loadof erudition, in the shape of parchment rolls, blackened andmouldy with age, or covered with hieroglyphic symbols andfigures of geometry. She is borne, amid the songs of theMuses through the starry spheres and along the Milky Way,to the palace of the king of heaven. There, before an augustcouncil of gods and godlike sages, at the request of the bride'smother, her dowry is fixed; the marriage contract and the lexPapia Poppaea are formally recited. The Seven Sister Arts areassigned as her attendants.3One of these is Dialectic, but sherepresents something very different from the sublime sciencewhich Plato meant by that name." The book on Dialectic isreally a treatise on formal logic, in which we meet once moreall the old plagues of our youth, Accidens and Proprium,Aequivocum and Univocum, Substantia Prima and SubstantiaSecunda. There is hardly a reference to the great vivifyingthoughts of Greek philosophy. And when we survey theranks of the celestial Senate, although the names of illustrious philosophers are there, you feel that they are onlybrought in to swell a pageant marshalled by mere schoolrhetoric. Homer, Virgil, and Orpheus sound the lute besideArchimedes and Plato, who are turning spheres of gold.Heracl*tus is aglow, Thales is moist, Democritus is involvedin a cloud of atoms. While Pythagoras is threading thelabyrinth of certain celestial numbers, Aristotle is in anxious1 Mart. Cap. i. 40, ipsamque nup- turam deo convenire non posse nisisi per senatus consultum mortalis esse desineret.2 Ib. ii. 135, 136.3 Ib. ii. 117.+ Ib. ii. 208.5 Pl. Rep. vii. pp. 532, 535.Mart. Cap. iv. 355, 365, 347.7 Ib. ii. 212.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 345quest of Entelechia among the heights of heaven. The strainis only relieved by Epicurus coming upon the scene witha pile of roses and violets. In such feeble reminiscence andtasteless frivolity do the glories of the Lyceum and the Academyreach an ignominious close.We are dealing in this chapter with secular and semipagan culture which lived on the ancient tradition. But it iswell to remind ourselves that within the pale of the Churchthere has seldom been a freer and more vigorous intellectuallife than there was in the fifth century. We have alreadyreferred to the great semi- Pelagian school which had its homeand centre in the religious house of Lérins, and whichnumbered among its adherents some of the greatest andsaintliest of the Gallic ecclesiastics of that age. Butthere was another controversy going on at the same time,which, though conducted by churchmen and inspired bytheological motives, followed the lines, and to some extentthe spirit, of the ancient philosophy. Faustus of Riez,a former abbot of Lérins, ' had revived the theory held bysome of the early fathers, that the nature of the soul iscorporeal. We are not concerned here with the argumentsused to maintain this thesis; but it was a theory which lenta support to orthodox views of future punishment, and itappears to have been widely accepted and freely discussed.Mamertus Claudianus, the accomplished and able priest ofVienne, composed an elaborate treatise in answer to theviews of Faustus. He starts from certain theological premises;but his method of proof is essentially of the antique pattern.And in his second book he supports his argument by copiousreferences to the Greek and Roman philosophers. * In thesethe ecclesiastical attitude to philosophy stands in marked con3Gennad. de Scrip. Eccl. 85. Theletter is usually printed along with Mam. Claudianus, de Statu Animae.Cf. Engelbrecht's ed. Corp. Scrip. Eccl.Lat.2 E.g. Tertull. de Anima, c. 5, 7,dolet apud inferos anima cujusdam, et punitur in flamma, et cruciatur in lingua ... per quod punitur hoc est corpus. Cf. Überweg, Hist.Phil. i. 305, " The soul has the same form as the body, and is delicate,luminous, and aeriform in substance.If it were not material, it could not beacted upon by the body, nor would itbe capable of suffering.'3 Gennad. 83. His character isdelineated by Apoll. Sid. Ep. iv. 11.In the de Statu Animac referenceis made in detail to Thales, Pythagoras, Epicurus, Philolaus of Tarentum,Archytas, Hippo of Metapontum, Zeno,Plato, Porphyry, etc.346 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vtrast to the merely Sidonius refers traditional and academic.to but one dialogue of Plato by name, the Phaedo,¹ and thenonly to the Latin translation of it by Apuleius. Claudianusseems to know his Plato, and gives copious translations fromthe dialogues.2 The treatise has faults of method and science;but it is a serious attempt, by an acute and well equippedman, to deal with a difficult subject in a philosophic spirit.It was dedicated to the bishop of Auvergne in the most complimentary terms, and the bishop of course acknowledgedthe honour done to him. He employs every adjective in hisvocabulary, and every name in his memory of literature, todescribe the almost irreconcilable excellences of the style ofClaudianus; but he never once approaches the subject of the book, 3 There is not a hint to show that he had grappled withthe problem of Claudianus' treatise , or that he had formedany opinion as to the author's success, except as a meremanipulator of phrase.It appears, then, that in the secular academic disciplineof the fifth century nothing deserving the name of seriousphilosophic inquiry found a place. Nor was there anythingof real science, unless we dignify by that name the strangejumble of inaccurate geography, mystical mathematics , and traditional astronomy, which is to be found in the mediaeval handbook of Capella. It was on the two kindred studies of grammarand rhetoric that the energy of university teaching expendeditself, as it had done for centuries. The energy was great;the method was thorough and elaborated by ages of criticalexperience. The effect on the pupil's mind and character wasprobably more profound than any system of education hasever produced. Whether it was entirely salutary is anotherquestion. But no one can properly appreciate the literary,and even the moral, tone of that age, without a comprehension of the spirit in which the professors of rhetoric andgrammar performed their task, and the limits within whichthey moved.Even in provincial colleges there were at all times both1 Ep. ii. 9; Carm. ii. 178.2 E. g. de Statu An. ii. 7.3 Fertig, C. S. Apoll. Sid. und seineZeit, iii. p. 11 , suggests that Sidoniusdid not wish to declare himself against Faustus, who was a personal friend .But I doubt whether Sidonius had anytaste or capacity for serious philosophic thought.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 3471Greek and Latin grammarians among the professors.¹ Theschools of the West never forgot the source from which theirtradition was derived, and the revival of letters in the Westin the fourth century was also a revival of Hellenism .Eumenius, the famous professor of Autun, who was a forerunner of the movement in Gaul, was of Attic descent, andGreek studies for a time occupied a prominent place. Boysseem to have begun Greek early. The father of Ausonius knew it well, although he was a poor Latin scholar.³ Thesame is true of Paulinus of P'ella, who was made to readHomer and Plato in his fifth year.* Ausonius would havehis grandson begin his literary studies with Homer andMenander.5 Far on in the fifth century, some of the friendsof Sidonius appear to have continued their Greek studies inmature life. Lampridius declaimed with equal facility inGreek and Latin." There was a passion for Greek poetry inthe cultivated circle of Narbonne, and Sidonius does notscruple to compare their verses with those of the greatclassics. Yet, in spite of all this, we are compelled, fromvarious indications, to conclude that in the fifth century thestudy of Greek in the West was declining. It is well knownthat S. Augustine, with all his learning, was an indifferentGreek scholar.S Ausonius did not apply himself to the study inhis youth, and laments his negligence." The Latin grammariansheld a higher position and received higher pay than theGreek.10 In the famous edict of 376 for the establishment ofchairs in Gaul, provision is made for one Greek grammarian1 C. Th. xiii. 3, 11 ( at Trèves); cf. vi.21 , 1 (Constantinople) . Auson. Prof. Burd. viii. xiii . xxi.; Paulin. Pell.Euch. 117.2 Eum. pro Restaurandis Scholis, c.17, quamvis enim ante ingressum pue- ritiae meae intermissa fuerit eorumexercendis studiis frequentatio, tamenillic avum quondam meum docuisse audio, hominem Athenis ortum,Romae diu celebrem.3 Auson. Idyl. ii . 10.+ Euch. 72:nec sero exacto primi mox tempore lustri dogmata Socratis et bellica plasmata Homeri erroresque legens cognoscere cogor Ulixis.5 Idyl. iv. 45. Sidonius readsMenander with his son, Ep. iv. 12.6 Sid. Ep. ix. 13:declamans gemini pondere sub stili coram discipulis Burdigalensibus.7 Sid. Carm. xxiii. 100 sqq.8 Aug. Conf. i. c. 13, quid autem erat causae, cur Graecas litteras oderam,quibus puerulus imbuebar, ne nuncquidem mihi satis exploratum est.Teuffel, ii. 447.9 Prof. Burd. viii. 14:neque disciplinis appulit Graecis puerilis aevi noxius error.10 C. Th. xiii. 3, 11, viginti Gram- matico Latino, Graeco etiam, si quidignus reperiri potuerit, duodecim praebeantur annonae.348 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vat Trèves; but the Emperor seems to have some doubtwhether a competent professor can be found.The lectures of the grammarian were for many ages conducted on the system of reading, interpreting, and commenting on the standard works of antiquity. In the earlier stages,the teaching was not above that of a low form in one of ourgrammar schools.2 In its more ambitious efforts it would, ina very unmethodical, and perhaps superficial way, correspondin some degree to the liberal studies of our universities.Among the grammarians of Bordeaux, there were men ofslender parts and learning.3 But, taken in its highest range,the profession demanded a wide, if not a very profoundknowledge of many subjects, not at all akin to one another.Great stress was laid on good reading, with proper attention to accent and expression. As we might expect, thegrammarian very much preferred the poets to the prosewriters as a field for exposition , and great attention was givento prosody and metre with a view to imitation. After grammatical analysis came attempts at literary appreciation. Difficultpassages were discussed and paraphrased, and the pupil's attention was drawn to striking metaphors or delicacy of artisticexpression. But when all this was done, the grammarian'stask was not finished. He had then to attack the subjectmatter, and to make the text the occasion for communicatinga multifarious mass of information. This was the field ofthe higher learning of the age; and a grammarian of thefirst rank required a certain mastery of many branches ofknowledge etymology, history, jurisprudence, pontifical lore,geometry, music, astronomy. The notes of Servius on Virgil,or the Saturnalia of Macrobius, or the third book of Capella,probably give a fairly accurate notion of the lectures of thegrammarians. At one time the pupil's attention will be called

1 In C. Th. vi. 21 , 1 , the qualifications of the good professor are enumerated blameless character, skillin teaching, fluency, delicacy in in- terpretation , and copiousness of dis- quisition.2 Auson. Prof. Burd. xxi. 5:elementorum prima docebas signa novorum.3 Ib. ix. 2:nomen Grammatici nec meruisse putant.+ Quintil. Inst. Or. i. c. 8 , superest lectio; in qua puer ut sciat, ubisuspendere spiritum debeat, quo loco versum distinguere, ubi claudatursensus, unde incipiat, demonstrari nisi in opere ipso non potest. Cf. Auson. Idyl. iv. 47, "Ad Nepotem ";tu flexu et acumine vocis innumeros numeros doctis accentibus effer,affectusque impone legens, etc.Aug. De Ord. ii . 14. Cf. Idyl. v. 3, 4.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 349to the physical formation of the letter sounds or to differences of archaic usage; at another to the etymology ofAprilis, or Janus, Idus, or Artemis, consul or classis. Orthe text may call for an interpretation of the myths ofSaturn, or the epithets Lycius or Pythius given to Apollo.Or the erudition of Virgil will be illustrated by a disquisitionon pontifical law as to the washing of sheep on dies festi, oron the epithets which he applies to the Penates, or on his knowledge of the ritual of the Apolline worship at Delos. And insome of these discussions it is interesting to notice that theGreek grammarian has but a slight esteem for the competenceof his Latin colleague to track the subtle allusions of a curiouslearning."The minute antiquarianism of such books as the Saturnaliamay seem often to degenerate into trifling. The etymologiescurrent in the Roman schools are of course hopelessly arbitraryand unscientific." Yet the literary judgment and taste are notby any means so feeble as the general character of that agemight lead one to expect. The teacher who confined himself tomere superficial explanation of the text, without any attemptat a deeper appreciation of his author, was regarded as asorry master of his craft.7 A very interesting part of theSaturnalia is that which is devoted to an exhaustive criticismof Virgil. And this probably shows us the grammarian ofthe fourth century at his best. Of course he inherited muchfrom many generations of forgotten critics, like the Oxfordlecturer on Plato and Aristotle in our own day. But it ispleasant to see that these dilettanti, who were accustomed toaward every dull poetaster among their friends a place amongthe immortals, profoundly admired Virgil, and can give reasonsfor their admiration. They can see both his unapproachablebeauties and his defects. They know their Homer well, andthey see all the debt that Virgil owes to Homer. Here andthere Eustathius, who leads in this exposition, notices that1 Mart. Cap. iii . 261 , e.g. D appulsulinguae circa superiores dentes innasci- tur, P labris spiritu erumpit, R spiri- tum lingua crispante conraditur, etc. Cf. Quintil. Inst. Or. i . 4, 9; i . 7, 4 .2 Macrob. Sat. i . 12, 12; i. 8, 6; i.15, 6 i . 15, 20; cf. Quintil. Inst. Or.i. 6, 33.3 Macrob. Sat. i . 17 , 50 , 36.Ib. iii. 6, 2; iii . 4, 10; iii. 3, 11.5 Ib. v. 19, 31 , quem litteratores vestri nec obscurum putant . . . quasi Graecae lectionis expertes.6 E.g. i. 17, 7; i . 9, 9.7 lb. i. 24, 12.350 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vthe later has improved upon the older poet.¹ But it isadmitted also that Homer has a " bright speed " and sureness, which Virgil never approached. And, with all his rapidpower, Homer often gives graphic details which Virgil slursover or omits.3 In one passage of the Acneid it is pointedout that only "a lifeless corpse" remains in the Latin imitation. *It is also noted that Virgil has copied even the faults of hismodel, and that where he has not Homer's guidance he issometimes weak. But, on the other hand, ample justice isdone to Virgil's peculiar power and charm. His range oflearning is illustrated with great minuteness; especially hiscommand of sacerdotal lore 5 calls forth the admiration ofmen who have made it the study of their lives. There arereminiscences of the schools, but also some true criticism, inthe eulogy of the poet's rhetorical skill, which is so variousand yet so apparently obedient to the rules of traditional art.The critic in Macrobius shows that Virgil is as much oratoras poet, and that his dramatic sympathy has exhausted everyvariety of oratorical style." His strange pathos, which isstirred by the weakness of age or infancy, by the memory of adistant home in the warrior's death-agony, the sacredness ofancestral altars, the imagined feeling of dumb inanimatethings, the sentiment that consecrates stream or grove, istraced to its many sources with a sincerity which makes usforgive the touches of pedantry. The great poet is " an organof many stops." He has all the variety of Nature, his greatteacher. " And though he borrows freely, he always makesgood his title to the loan by an added felicity, which oftenmore than atones for the original theft.10In the schools of the fourth and fifth centuries Virgil,among Latin poets, holds the foremost place. There is hardlyany author to whom S. Augustine so frequently refers in theCity of God. He has a boundless admiration for the1 Macrob. Sat. v. 11,2 Ib. v. 13, 2.3 lb. v. 13, 17, 18.1-5.Virg. Aen. xi. 751 , 756; Macrob.Sat. v. 13, 28-30.5 Macrob. Sat. iii. 9 , 16, videturnevobis probatum sine divini et humanijuris scientia non posse profunditatem Maronis intellegi? The previous partof bk. iii. contains many proofs of this.6 Ib. v. 1 , 1.7 lb. v. 1, 7.8 lb. v. 3.9 Ib. v. 1 , 18.10 Ib. v. 3, 16, hic opportune inopus suum quae prior vates dixerat transferendo fecit ut sua esse credantur.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 351"noblest of all poets," whose charm has sunk so deep in theminds of Roman youth that nothing can efface its influence.Tully and Maro are the most dangerous rivals of the HebrewScriptures in the studies of S. Jerome.2 Virgil is one of theliterary idols of Ausonius. To Apollinaris Sidonius he is theprince of poets, worthy of a place beside Homer.3 The poets5who came next in popularity were Horace and Terence. Theimitations and reminiscences of the former in Sidonius areonly less numerous than those of Virgil. * Terence was afavourite author in Auvergne in the fifth century; Sidoniusmakes frequent reference to him, and read the Hecyra withhis son. Among the older Latin poets, Lucretius and Catullusseem to have been least studied and imitated. " The copiousness, elegance, and skilful technique of Statius made him aspecial favourite with Ausonius, Claudian, and Sidonius, andmany phrases and turns of expression in the descriptive poemsof the bishop can be traced to the Silvae and the Thebais.Not less marked is the influence of Claudian in shaping thePanegyrics of Sidonius. But the imitator has little of thegenuine power, the dignity, and chiselled classical purity of hismodel. Among Latin prose writers the influence of Cicero,which in the fourth century was very marked on writers likeLactantius, seems to have been feeble in the fifth. Theyounger Pliny was one of the most approved models in prose."Symmachus studied his style closely. Sidonius professes tofollow in the footsteps of Symmachus and Pliny.10 Pliny'scultivation of epistolary style accounts for his prominence inan age when that species of composition was so much admired1 De Civ. Dei, i. c. 3.82 Com. ad Gal. lib. iii . c. 5, nostisenim et ipsae quod plus quam quin- decim anni sunt, ex quoin manus measnumquam Tullius, numquam Maro,numquam gentilium litterarum qui- libet auctor ascendit.3 Sid. Ep. v. 13:princeps poetarum Publius Mantuanus;cf. v. 17. Geisler, de Apoll. Sidon.Studiis, has collected all the passages in which Sidonius has quoted or imitated Virgil, pp. 5-9.Geisler, pp. 11-19.5 Sid. Ep. ii. 2, iv. 12; cf. Fertig,i. 6; Geisler, p. 41.Geisler, pp. 42, 43; cf. Index Auctorum in Schenkl's ed . of Ausonius.7 The influence of Statius on Sidoniusis profusely illustrated by Bitschofsky,de C. Sollii Apoll. Sid. Stud. Statianis.8 Geisler, p. 28; cf. Fertig, iii . 15.9 Macrob. Sat. v. 1, 7. For the favourite authors of Symmachus see Seeck's Sym. xlv.10 Ep. i. 1, 1; cf. iv. 22:ego Plinio ut discipulus assurgo;iv. 3. For the extent and characterof Pliny's influence on Sidonius, cf. Geisler, pp. 55 sqq.; Fertig, iii. p.21 .352 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vas it was in the fifth century; but there are verbal tricks inPliny's style which caught the impure taste of one of the mosttasteless writers who ever lived. Down to the close of theWestern Empire, as in the time of the Antonines, Sallust wasperhaps the most generally admired writer of prose, and thegreatest favourite in the class-room. His terse brevity, hisarchaisms and philosophical reflections, above all his excessivefondness for antithesis, recommended him to writers who werealways seeking for striking effects in style.The opposition between the purely literary and the antiquarian and historical interest in the study of the classicsseems to have been as marked in that age as it has beensince the Renaissance.2 Beside the idolaters of form andphrase, there were students devoted to the worm- eaten volumeswhich few ever opened. Some of these black-letter scholarsfigure in the portraits of the Bordeaux school. One of them,a young assistant professor, had a passion for these untroddenways of obscure research in pontifical science, and the originsof Roman institutions. Another was said to be master of allthe lore in the six hundred volumes of Varro. If we may judgebythe use made of Varro by Macrobius and Martianus Capella,that great savant was the source from which most of the grammarian's learning, required for class - room purposes, was drawn.+Some of the great minds in the later times of the Republicand under the Early Empire had floating before them thevision of a liberal propaedeutic, which should embrace a1 Apoll . Sid. Carm. ii . 190, qua Crispus brevitate placet; xxiii. 152;Macrob. Sat. v. 1, 7, breve in quo Sallustius regnat. For his influenceon Sulpicius Severus v. Bernays quotedin Teuffel, Lat. Lit. ii. p. 449; cf. Ebert, i. 330; and thedefence of Sallust against his detractors in Aul. Gell. iv.15. S. Augustine refers to him very fre- quently, but chiefly for his moral reflec- tions; de Civ. Dei, vii . 3; ix . 9; ii. 18;iii. 10. Cf. Cook's Catiline, xxxi. sqq.See Mark Pattison's Casaubon, on the contrast between the Italian andthe French humanists, pp. 508-510;cf. Jebb's Bentley, p. 220.3 Auson. Prof. Burd. xxii.: ignoratis assidue in libris, nec nisi operta legens,exesas tineis , Opicasque evolvere chartas major, quam promtis cura tibi in studiis , etc.4 Ib. xx. 10:omnis doctrinae ratio tibi cognita, quantam condit sexcentis Varro voluminibus.For a similar taste in the time ofSidonius cf. Ep. viii . 16, unde enim nobis illud loquendi tetricum genus ac perantiquum? Unde illa saliariavel Sibyllina vel Sabinis abusque Curibus accita, quae magistris plerumque reticentibus, promptius fetialis aliquis aut flamen aut veternosuslegalium quaestionum aenigmatista patefecerit. Cf. Quintil. Inst. Or. i.6, 41 .5 See Eyssenhardt's Praef. ad Mart.Capella, c. 3.6 Cic. de Or. i . 6 , ii . 30; Tac. Dial.de Or. 30.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 353thorough study of history, jurisprudence, philosophy, all thesciences which are required to form the perfect orator. Sucha course of study would have corresponded to our conception.of a liberal education, aiming rather at the thorough discipline of the mind than at a narrow, special training,¹ limited bythat crass and purblind utilitarianism, which, in our own day,threatens to obscure the fundamental ideas of education .The Grammar of the Roman schools might conceivably havebeen enlarged and developed into such a bracing discipline,based on real knowledge, and inspired by an ideal ofprogress; but unfortunately it was in practice inseparablyassociated with the reading and interpretation of a certainnumber of authors, who had been canonised by the judgmentof time. Knowledge was not pursued or imparted for its ownsake, but as a means of illustrating the sacred texts. Thepupil's gaze was perpetually turned backwards to the masterpieces of ancient wisdom, to whose divine excellence all thetreasures of erudition and science were offered as a sacrificialtribute. The teacher might indulge occasionally in divagations and irrelevant disquisitions, but he was really chained tothe author whom it was his business to interpret. It canhardly be wondered at that the function of the grammarian,besides having a sterilising effect on the teacher's mind, sankin repute, and became a mere drill preparatory to the brilliantexercises of the rhetorical school.2 It is true indeed thatteachers of rhetoric had often served an apprenticeship asgrammarians; but the rise was regarded as a great improvement in their position, and that not merely in income, but insocial rank. On the day on which Ausonius introduced hisimperial pupil to the study of rhetoric, he received the honourof a Count of the Empire. Probably far more thoroughknowledge was needed to make a good grammarian than tomake a popular rhetorician. Nor can it be said that less31 Subacto mihi ingenio opus est, ut agro non semel arato, sed novato et iterato .. Subactio autem est usus,auditio, lectio, litterae; Cic. de Or.ii. 30. Cf. Quintil. Inst. Or. i.10, 7, quae ( artes) etiam cum se non ostendunt in dicendo nec proferunt,vim tamen occultam suggerunt ettacitae quoque sentiuntur.2 There are several sneers at gram2 Amatici in Macrobius; cf. Sat. v. 22, 12.But Suet. de Ill. Gram. iv. says:veteres grammatici et rhetoricam doce- bant. And in Quintilian's time thegrammarian was encroaching on the province of the rhetor; cf. Inst. Or.ii. 1, 5.3 Auson. Grat. Act. 2, 11 , tot gradusnomine comitis propter tua incrementa congesti.354 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vability is required to interpret properly a chorus of Aeschylus,or to track the delicate allusions of Virgil, than to dress upthe pompous banalities which are the stock- in-trade of thepopular speaker of all ages. It is only the Philistine whowill depreciate the sympathetic tact which is necessary toelucidate the often mysterious utterances of an original genius,belonging to an age removed from our own by time andcountless associations. Yet, in actual fact, that profession orstudy will always be better paid, and held in higher honour,which acts directly on men, and produces results which themass of men can feel and see for themselves. The poorgrammarian of Bordeaux may have often been the more giftedand learned man, but it was the rhetor who was summonedto the Court and made prefect of a province.It is difficult for an age nurtured on exact history andscience, and vividly interested in public affairs, to understandthe almost hysterical excitement which the itinerant professorof rhetoric could excite in the second or in the fourth century.If he was a man of reputation in his art, people rushed tohear him declaim, as they will do in our times to hear agreat singer, or actor, or popular preacher. ' Provincialgovernors, on a progress through their province, would relievethe tedium of official duties by commanding a display ofword-fence or declamation by such a master as Proaeresius,reward him with the most ecstatic applause, and conduct himhome in state after the performance. A man like Libaniusassociated on equal terms with the highest civic dignitaries.In the last years of the fourth century, at a time of greatevents and momentous changes, Symmachus, when writing toAusonius, finds the only interesting subject at hand to be arhetorical display which a rhetorician named Palladius hadjust given at a fashionable gathering; and words almost failto express the admiration of that ordinarily calm and dignifiedsenator for the performance. It is singular that a man, whocould himself speak with great effect on a serious occasion inthe Senate, or before the Emperor, should be so carried away byan unreal exhibition of school rhetoric. But the fact remainsEunap. Proacres. 145, 146 , Bois- sonade's ed.2 Sym. Ep. i. 15, quoniam deerantdigna memoratu . . . tempestive Pal- ladii nostri declamatio auxit paginam meam.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 355that this power of using words for mere pleasurable effect, onthe most trivial or the most extravagantly absurd themes, wasfor many ages in both West and East esteemed the highestproof of talent and cultivation. The student of rhetoric inthe fifth century could say with even more truth thanSeneca, "Non vitae sed scholae discimus. " 24The term rhetoric, as applied to the higher course ofinstruction in the Roman schools, is , for our period at least,perhaps rather misleading to a modern reader. The rhetoricaltraining of free Rome had been a necessity of public life, whenthe power of speech in law courts or popular assemblies was agreat political engine. And in the work of Martianus Capella,which was to be the text- book of the Middle Ages, rhetoricis still treated as if the student were a contemporary ofCicero.3 All through the five centuries of the Empire, duringwhich oratory had almost ceased to have any practicalpower, the Roman schools maintained the tradition which hadbeen founded by Corax and Tisias, and which had producedsuch triumphs of practical oratory at Rome in Cicero andHortensius. The old theories of the proper divisions of adiscourse, of the varieties of style adapted to the matter, ofthe figures of speech," of the rhythm and the prosody of thesentence, of the management of voice and gesture, were taughtas carefully under Romulus Augustulus as they were whenrhetoric was a practical art. And the actual training of therhetor's class-room remained the same also. The grammarianfounded his teaching on the reading of an author. The rhetorcultivated his class by debate or declamation on a prescribedthesis. The subjects set to illustrate and cultivate everyspecies of style were historical, mythological, or purely fanciful and unreal.7 As time went on, the ingenuity of themaster was more and more taxed to provide stimulating themes1 For a defence of this taste seeCapes, Univ. Life in Ancient Athens,pp. 87, 88.2 Sen. Ep. 106, 12 .3 Mart. Cap. v. 427.Tisias appears in the train of thearmed and stately goddess Rhetoric in Mart. Cap. v. 434; cf. Cic. de Or. i. 20;Quintil. iii. 1, 8; Luc. Pseudolog. 30.Mart. Cap. v. passim.6 Mommsen, iii. 443, 444 ( Eng.Trans. ); Nettleship, Essays 2ndseries, p. 88.7 Juv. vii. 150; x. 166:i, demens, et saevas curre per Alpes,ut pueris placeas, et declamatio fias.S. Jerome had gone through the exercise, Com. ad Gal. lib. i. c. 2,aliquoties cum adolescentulus Romae controversias declamarem, et ad vera certamina fictis me litibus exercerer,currebam ad tribunalia judicum .356 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vfor his class. More and more the world of reality was left behind;master and pupil ceased to be guided by the necessities ofactual life, by the force which controls all genuine and livingrhetoric, the wish to persuade the wills of men who have toact. The audience whom the rhetor had in view was nolonger the jury or the public assembly, but a gathering ofcultivated, and perhaps rather blasés people, who came, not tolearn what they ought to do, but to be pleased by a displayof mental agility, or pomp and ingenuity of style. The moretrivial or fanciful the subject, the greater the opportunityfor the aspirant to rhetorical fame. To speak with equalskill and force for or against any proposition, to put a singlehackneyed thought in many different lights, to invest commonplace situations with an air of novelty by new and ingeniousturns of phrase, these were the objects of the rhetoricaltraining. The school of rhetoric had become a place wherethe art of style, of writing and speaking well according tothe prevailing taste, on any subject, was communicated.Rhetoric came to represent quite as much a habit of mindas the rules of a definite art. And as a mental tendency,although it harmonised well with the social system of theLower Empire, it had disastrous effects on intellectual progress. Indeed, it made progress impossible. Under such asystem of education, any true conception of science, as adomain at once limited and capable of indefinite expansion,was lost. The pupil's gaze was fixed on a few models of unsurpassable excellence. The memory was exercised from theearliest youth on mythological fancies which had long ceasedto be believed, and brilliancies of figure and phrase, whichwere the peculiar expression of individual genius or of themental attitude of a long past age. The secrets of naturemoved no curiosity, the great events of the most momentousperiod in history excited only a languid interest. The trueson of Rome was the man who believed in her past, who wasan adept in the mysteries of a discipline which bound togethercultivated men of all races under her sway, who had a tranquilfaith that to-morrow would be as yesterday, and that thehuman spirit could subsist for ever on the stores of ancientwisdom and industry. Such an atmosphere, untroubled or1 Boissier, La Fin du Pag. i. p. 221 .CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 357unrefreshed by any current blowing from the future, is indeedthe congenial air of despotism and caste; it is fatal to anygerms of the love of truth or of freedom.""If a man wished to characterise in a single word the badside of education and literature in the fifth century, servility 'would probably be the most apt and truthful. The wholetendency of its school training was to make writers slavishimitators of inimitable models, to load the memory instead ofstimulating the reason and imagination. When an author1was praised, he was praised as having rivalled or distancedHomer or Pindar, Horace or Virgil; he was never praised forhaving opened new vistas to thought, or for having revealednew powers of expression in language. And the servileimitation of ancient genius harmonised well with the Orientalprostration which had so long prevailed before the person ofthe Emperor.2 The intellectual training of the Roman schoolsconspired with the imperial despotism to produce a habit ofabject submission to authority, which was fatal to originalityand progress. The finished product of these two combinedinfluences is seen in the literature of panegyric, a departmentin which the facile and exuberant rhetoric of Gaul attained abad pre- eminence. The great masters of this degraded art inthe last age of the Western Empire were, with the exceptionof Claudian, the products of the Gallic schools. The province,which was the last refuge of Graeco- Roman culture, furnishedalso the most glaring examples of its debasem*nt. Ausoniusand Sidonius Apollinaris stand, the one at the beginning, theother at the end of the period with which this work is chieflyoccupied. Both men owed their elevation to their literaryskill and facility, and both have left us striking examples ofthe abuse of that power in fulsome adulation of the chiefs ofthe State.In his Actio Gratiarum for his elevation by Gratian to the1 For specimens of this r. Auson.Ep. xvii.; Sym. Ep. i. 14 , hoc tuumcarmen libris Maronis adjungo; Apoll.Sid. Carm. xxiii. 452; Ep. viii. 11 ,subtilis, aptus, instructus, quaquemeus stilum ferret eloquentissimus,prorsus ut eum jure censeres post Horatianos et Pindaricos cygnos gloriae pennis evolaturum. The climax isreached in the Ep. ( iv. 3) to Mam.Claudianus, §§ 6, 7, in which everypeculiar gift of Greek or Roman genius,pagan or Christian, is attributed to Claudianus, from Pythagoras to S. Ambrose.2 Réville, Rel. zu Rom. unter denSev. p. 31; Merivale, vi . p. 43.358 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK V¹consulship, Ausonius has probably surpassed all rivals in theart of self-abasem*nt. He exhausts his sufficiently copiousvocabulary in the attempt to find epithets for Gratian's virtues.Ausonius no longer wonders at the poetic license which describes the universe as " full of God." Bythe unmerited favourof the Emperor he has attained a distinction which the lessfortunate statesmen of old days had to win by humiliatingthemselves before the sovereign people. Ausonius is thankful,beyond words to express, that for him the Roman people, theknights, the Senate, the whole machinery of free election, aresummed up in the single word of an Emperor. Even in hisown domain of letters he must acknowledge the overwhelmingsuperiority of his pupil. The brief and conventional phrasesin which Gratian designated him for the consulship are, to thetaste of his tutor, a masterpiece of eloquence, transcendingall models of the past.3 Every word of the imperial utteranceis turned over with rapturous admiration, and the ancientpedagogue actually confesses that his pupil's Latinity is farbeyond his own powers! It would be difficult to match theeager baseness of this self-humiliation.It would probably be also hard to produce anything moreabsurd than the pomp of conventional mythology, of victorieswithout fruit and prophecies without fulfilment, with which,three generations later, Sidonius seemed to mock the impotenceof phantom emperors. We have seen that these poems whensifted furnish some grains of fact to the historian . But whata mass of rubbish and insincerity has to be dug away beforethe fact is reached! The poet has a genuine feeling of admiration for his father- in - law Avitus, and a genuine love ofAuvergne; but the country gentlemau of Auvergne, evenwhen raised to the purple by the support of the Visigoths, ismade somewhat ridiculous by the pedantic exaggeration of hispanegyrist. Rome, staggering under the weight of her destiny,"1 Auson. Grat. Act. i. 5, aedes enim locis omnibus; nec jam miramurlicentiam poetarum qui omnia Deo plena dixerunt.2 Ib. iii. 13, Romanus populus, Mar- tius Campus, equester ordo, rostra,ovilia, senatus, curia, unus mihi omnia Gratianus; cf. ix. 44 , valetemodo classes populi et urbanarum tribuum praerogativae, et centuriaejure vocatae.3 [b. iv. 19.Ib. x. 49, quis haec verba docuit?Ego tam propria et tam Latina nescivi.The words referred to are the simple"te Consulem designavi et declaravi etpriorem nuncupavi. ' 5 Apoll. Sid. Carm. vii. 53:summo satis obruta fato invideo abjectis.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 359appears before the throne of Olympus to beg for a championin her troubles. Cannot Gaul furnish a chief to rival theglory of Trajan? ¹ Avitus, the choice of the heavenly powers, ispainted as the real victor in the Catalaunian plains, withoutwhom Aetius would have been helpless, the diplomatistendowed with a magical power over the triumphant Gothicchiefs of Bordeaux. His influence is the only barrier againsttheir advance.³ When Avitus comes as envoy, Theodoricprofesses that his mere wishes are law to the Goths, and lamentsthe one blot on his great ancestor's fame, his capture of Rome.¹The old warrior from the Danube, on the news of his approach,drops the sword he has been whetting for fresh bloodyraids, and bitterly laments that he must now return to theploughshare. The poem ends with a glowing prophecy ofRome renewing her youth under the leadership of Avitus.Within a year Avitus, disgraced by his vices, and flung off bya German master of the Empire, was fleeing for shelter to theshrine of S. Julian of Auvergne.5The Panegyric on Anthemius displays perhaps less sincerityand more extravagance than that on Avitus. Avitus after allrepresented the national feeling of Gaul and the military forceof the Visigothic kings. Anthemius owed his position tothe fact that he was son- in- law of Marcian and nominee ofLeo. It was not a very dignified position, even if we forgetthe fact that it was held on sufferance at the will of Ricimer.But the poet uses alike the splendours of mythology and thevery weakness of Rome to exalt the Emperor. The goddessRome, at the entreaty of Italy and the god of the Tiber,betakes herself to the glittering palace of the Dawn to askfor Anthemius as the protector of her feeble age.³ The gloriesof his ancestors in Eastern diplomacy and war are celebratedas if they had dominated the realms of Alexander.The omens1 Apoll. Sid. Carm. vii. 116 .2 b. vii. 328-350.3 Ib. vii. 342:et populis Geticis sola est limes.4 Ib. vii. 505:tua gratiaabolere quae noster peccavit avus, quem fuscat id unum ,quod te, Roma, capit . . .5 lb. vii. 411.6 lb. vii. 597:8en princeps faciet juvenescere major,quam pueri fecere senem.7 Greg. Tur. Hist. Fr. ii. 11 , basili- cam sancti Juliani Arverni martyriscum multis muneribus expetivit: sedimpleto in itinere vitae cursu, obiit,delatusque ad Brivatensem vicum(Brioude) , ad pedes antedicti martyris est sepultus. Cf. Greg. Tur. de Mirac.S. Jul. c. i.8 Apoll. Sid. Carm. ii . 406 .360 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vwhich heralded his birth were even more marvellous than thosewhich ushered a Cyrus, an Alexander, or a Julius Caesar intothe world. The order of nature forsook its fixed course inhonour of such an event. Honey and oil flowed in rivers. Thefields waved with unsown harvests. Lilies and roses defied theNot less wonderfulHe had a completeThales to Aristotle,rigours of winter. As a boy Anthemius performed miracles ofstrength or valour in war or the chase.were his attainments as a young student. 'mastery of every Greek philosopher fromand of the whole range of Latin literature from Plautus toQuintilian. The Dawn goddess yields to the prayer of Rome,and reminds her that she had sent Memnon to help her Trojanancestors. It is an unfortunate reminiscence. Neither Troynor Rome owed much to their champions from the East, andboth had a tragic end. "But panegyric was not offered to the emperors only. Themembers of every literary clique burnt incense to one another,and both secular and Christian literature are tainted withthe vice of gross and insincere adulation.³ It is difficult tounderstand how men, often of great talent, and always widelyread in the really great authors of Greece and Rome, couldlavish on some versifying friend, whom the great judge hascondemned to oblivion, epithets of admiration which a sobercriticism would hardly apply to Virgil or Pindar. *We areaccustomed to regard as provincial the habit of reckless andextravagant eulogy of commonplace performance. But thegreatest offenders in the fourth and fifth centuries were menof the world as well as trained scholars. Yet neither theirknowledge of men nor of books had given them the sanity, thesense of proportion, the discriminating tact of genuine criticism .That a crowd of clever men, carefully trained in literature, andmany of them devoting a great deal of their time to its cultivation, should be so wanting either in sincerity or in literary1 Apoll. Sid. Carm. ii . 156 sqq.2 Ib. ii. 521:prior hinc ego Memnona misi.Cf. Pind. Ol. ii. 150.3 In the letters of Sidonius probablythe grossest specimens of this sort of flattery are iv. 3; viii . 10, 11 , 13; ix.3; ix. 7, non extat ad praesens vivi hominis oratio, quam peritia tua non sine labore transgredi queat ac supervadere (addressed to S. Remi). Cf.Faust. Ep. viii. xvi.; Ruric, Ep. i . 1 ,3, 4, 16.As a The examples of this flattery are too frequent to be quoted.specimen cf. the extravagant eulogy of Lampridius of Bordeaux ( Apoll. Sid.Ep. viii. 11 ), or the glorification of the literary circle at Narbonne ( Carm.xxiii. ).CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 361sense, is a most startling phenomenon. The causes of it areto be sought partly in the want of a career for energy andambition, and partly in the exaggerated importance attachedto mere style, apart from ideas and matter. The ambitioussenator, conscious of great powers, had no field for their displayexcept that of literary composition. He could not win fameas a soldier or as a statesman; and he tried to satisfy hiscraving for it by imitations of Virgil or Statius, or by curiouslyelaborated epistles, to win the applause of posterity.¹ Hemight have little real knowledge, and less fertility and originalityof thought; but his early training had given him a facility ofexpression or imitation which seemed to triumph over themeagreness of any subject. Living in close intimacy with menmoulded by the same powerful tradition and condemned to thesame sterile life as himself, the man, who might in other dayshave commanded armies or composed a great history, fritteredaway his talents on fugitive pieces cast in the conventionalmould, and was led by the applause of a clique into imagininghimself one of the immortals. Occasionally you may finda man like Symmachus who has formed a true estimate ofhis own poverty of intellect; 3 yet this makes him all the moreearnest in the cultivation of mere style; and, however modestabout his own powers he may be, he will be capable of placingthe Moselle of Ausonius in the same rank as the poems ofVirgil. To judge by the letters of Sidonius, the crowd ofliterary people in Southern Gaul must have been enormous,and of all their productions hardly a fragment has come downto us. Yet among these obscure and forgotten poetasters anddeclaimers a considerable number are represented not only asequal or even superior to some great master, but as actually, bya miracle of versatility, combining the varied genius of themApoll . Sid. Ep. i. 1 , 1 , praecipis ... ut si quae epistolae paulo politiores varia occasione fluxerunt, omnes retractatis exemplaribus enucleatisque uno volumine includam; cf. viii. 16.2 This is expressed frankly by Si- donius (Ep. viii. 10) , nam moris est eloquentibus viris ingeniorum facul- tatem negotiorum probare difficulta- tibus, et illic stilum peritum quasiquendam fecundi pectoris vomerem figere, ubi materiae sterilis argumentum velut arida caespitis macri glaebajejunat; cf. the same idea in Ruric,Ep. i . 4. sicuti in jejuno atque otioso caespite magis strenuitas cultoris ap- paret, etc.3 Sym. Ep. iv. 27, 28.4 Ib. i. 14, ita dii me probabilem praestent ut ego hoc tuum carmen librisMaronis adjungo. Ausonius morethan returns the compliment in Ep. xvii. ,quis ita ad enthymemata Demosthenis,aut opulentiam Tullianam, aut proprie- tatem nostri Maronis accedat? cf. Ep.xix. Paulino.362 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vall. There is a poem of Sidonius addressed to Consentius,'a cultivated magnate of Narbonne, which, for sheer lawlessrecklessness of flattery, could probably not be matched.Magnus, the father of Consentius, is compared with everygreat name in Greek or Roman literature. Thales, we aretold, and the wise men of Greece, might have listened tothe wisdom of Magnus with amazement.2 In geometry Euclidwould have had difficulty in following in his track. Inmusic the bard of Thrace, or Phoebus himself, would haveto yield him the palm. In dramatic competition Sophocles,Euripides, and Menander would vainly contend with him.Homer and Herodotus against such a rival would hardly keeptheir pride of place. The long line of Latin authors fromPlautus to Martial would fare no better than the Greeks.3Oneis almost ashamed to transcribe these absurdities. Hardly lessoutrageous is the adulation addressed to Mamertus Claudianus ,who had dedicated his work De Statu Animae to Sidonius.It is difficult to believe that the writer of such a letter couldhave read or understood the treatise. Certainly, were suchcompliments offered to a philosophic writer of our time,they would be regarded as an insult or a bad joke. Not aword is said of the theory of the soul developed by Claudianus.But he is praised in the most hyperbolical and absurdfashion for his endless beauties of style, and for an absolutelyirreconcilable diversity of gifts. In a severe and heavy disquisition, on a highly abstract subject, Sidonius finds all the variedpower or peculiar charm of Orpheus and Archimedes, of Platoand Vitruvius, of Pythagoras and Demosthenes, of Hortensiusand Fabius Cunctator, Cato and Caesar, and all the special giftsin controversy of the Christian fathers. It is as difficult toconceive the vanity which could accept such flattery, as thepedantic bad taste which could offer it. The truth seems tobe that all the great names familiar in the schools were, bya depraved mannerism, employed, just as the machinery ofexploded mythology was employed, on all occasions to givefalse dignity to a commonplace theme. The names of gods andthe names of great poets or philosophers were stage- properties1 Apoll. Sid. Carm. xxiii.2 lb. xxiii. 101.3 Ib. xxiii. 134:primos vix poterant locos tueri torrens Herodotus tonans Homerus.Apoll. Sid. Ep. iv. 3.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 363handed on through the school tradition from one generation toanother. If you wanted to express admiration for anything oranybody, the schoolmaster had provided the correct conventionalforms in which the eulogium should be delivered. The godswere no longer believed in; probably some of the authorsreferred to were no longer, or not often read. But culture wasa worship of the models of the pagan past, a conventional discipline, weighing on the human mind with the overwhelmingauthority of a thousand years of unbroken tradition. Theclassical inspiration was so divine that all its forms of expression, the mere names of its great adepts, were consecrated forever as the symbols of an unapproachable perfection. Sidonius,by reason of his unconscious barbarisms, and perverse contortions and ingenuities, is removed toto coelo from Cicero, fromPliny, even from Symmachus. Yet Sidonius is praised byMamertus Claudianus as the " restorer of ancient eloquence," ¹and he regarded himself as writing in an unadorned and simplestyle. It is this worship of past excellence, and uncriticaljudgment of what has been formed by inept imitation of thepast, which is the most curious characteristic of fifth centuryliterature. There never was an age which was at once sodevoted to the cultivation of mere style, and which fell so farshort of the ideals.2The faith in the power of mere words, skilfully used,according to the rules of ancient experience, was the literaryfaith of that age. And the ambition to survive the wreck oftime as a master of studied and telling phrase is probably itshighest ambition. Even a great saint and ascetic like S.Jerome, penetrated, if any man ever was, with the thoughtof the nothingness of all earthly glory in the view of thesolemn realities of the life to come, cannot shake off thepassion, inspired by memories of the class-room of Donatus,to live in the admiration of coming ages. He concludes hisfamous consolation to Paula, 3 on the death of her daughter1 Veteris reparator eloquentiae. See the dedication of the treatise de Statu Animae.2 Ep. viii . 16, nos opuscula sermone condidimus arido, exili, certe maximaex parte vulgato (cf. Sym. Ep. v. 85).He contrasts his simplicity with afashionable taste for -verba Saliariavel Sibyllina vel Sabinis abusque Curi- bus accita ( Ep. viii . 16 ); cf. Auson.Prof. Burd. xxii. for a similar taste.3 Hieron. Ep. 39, § 7, quocunque sermonis nostri monumenta pervenerint,illa cum meis opusculis peregrinabitur.Brevis vitae spatium aeterna memoria compensabit.364 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK VBlaesilla, with words which show how little the isolation andself-discipline of the cell at Bethlehem had prevailed toextinguish the passion for literary fame. The name ofBlaesilla, he says, will travel everywhere with the works ofJerome, and will have an immortality like theirs . On thedeath of Paula, Jerome wrote a long and enthusiastic narrativeof a life which was, even in that age, remarkable for absoluteself- renunciation and abandonment of worldly rank and wealth. 'The passionate sincerity of S. Jerome is evident in every lineof a piece which is full of the romance of asceticism . Yet hecannot, at the close, refrain from recording the fact that hecomposed it in two short sittings, without any attempt atelegance of style, while he has a perfect confidence that hehas left a monument of Paula which no length of time willever efface.³ We should be guilty of no injustice to Sidoniusin thinking that he rated his own compositions quite as highas he did those of Mamertus Claudianus or Lampridius. Hecertainly makes no secret of the fact that his letters werereally intended for the future, and that he is anxious abouthis fate on what he calls the " sea of fame." And that hethinks his fate depends entirely on his style is clear from theletter addressed to Constantius, to whom the work was entrusted.He describes it as marked by " pagana simplicitas," so differentfrom the affected archaic style, modelled on Saliarian orSibylline verses, which would need some priest of the ancientdays to interpret. Yet Sidonius is nothing if he is not astylist. We know that he carefully revised his letters beforepublishing them, and that he asked his friends to help him ingiving them the final polish.5It is difficult indeed for us, with our severer ideas of truth ,to understand the encomiums which were lavished by hiscontemporaries on the poems and letters of Sidonius. It is1 Hieron. Ep. 108, § 30, testis estJesus, ne unum quidem nummum ab ea filiae derelictum.2 Ib. § 32, hunc tibi librum ad duas lucubratiunculas dictavi unde et inculta oratio . . .3 Ib. § 32, quod nulla destruere possit vetustas.Apoll. Sid. Ep. i. 1; cf. viii . 1.Ib. i. 1 , omnibus retractatis exemplaribus enucleatisque. The letterswere published in four relays: ( 1 ) bk.i. at the instance of Constantius; ( 2)bks. ii. vii. dedicated to the samefriend; ( 3) bk. viii. at the request ofPetronius of Arles; ( 4) bk. ix. at therequest of Firminus; Sid. Ep. i. 1;iv. 10; vii. 18; viii . 1; ix. 1 . Cf.Germain's Apoll. Sid. p. 72.See these collected in Germain'sApoll. Sid. p. 112.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 365hard to believe that these well- read people really regarded himas worthy of a place beside Horace and Virgil. Yet it iscertain that from the day when he won, by his Panegyric onAvitus, a statue in the forum, he was, except by a few snarlingcritics, admitted to be the foremost man of letters in Gaul,the best and greatest representative of the old classicaltradition.2 His reputation lasted unobscured all throughthe Middle Ages, and, to judge by the number of editionsof him, continued long after the invention of printing. Themodern scholar, whose taste has been formed on classicalmodels, is revolted by his affectations, his perverse andbarbarous ingenuity, his tasteless fondness for extravagantverbal effects. Yet we should remember that this is onlythe final and natural result of the idolatry of mere style inan age without ideas or any healthy intellectual movement;an age in which all the stress of discipline was laid on thememory and the imitative powers; an age in which men,expecting nothing new in matter or thought, had a morbidcraving for fresh sensations in style, and would tolerate andeven applaud any surprise of exaggeration or ingenuity withinthe conventional limits set by the schools. And the criticinclined to be severe to Sidonius should remember that henot only represents a debased form of culture which grewinevitably out of the past, but that he was with all his forcestemming a rapid movement of decline.However he mayflatter his literary friends, it is clear that many of his classwere falling away from the ideal of the lettered noble whichSidonius was constantly holding up to his contemporaries.3Some were becoming absorbed in farming and hunting; otherswere having their Latinity corrupted by association with theGermans. A still larger number probably succumbed to meresloth.5 There must have been many living in the seclusion ofa great estate, surrounded by luxury, with no stimulus of publicand unselfish interests, and cut off for long intervals from1 Apoll. Sid. Ep. v. 17, mihi assignas quae vix Maroni aut Homero com- petenter accommodarentur.2 Ib. ix. 16. Cf. viii. 1 .3 lb. v. 11 , viii. 2, solum erit post- hac nobilitatis indicium litteras nosse.4 Ib. viii. 8.5 Ib. ii. 10, 1 , tantum increbuit4multitudo desidiosorum, ut nisi velpaucissimi quique meram linguae Latia- ris proprietatem de trivialium bar- baris morum robigine vindicaveritis,eam brevi abolitam defleamus interemptamque; sic omnes nobilium sermonum purpurae per incuriam vulgi decolorabuntur.366 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vfriends and equals by the roving bands of invaders, who losttheir taste for literature and sank into something like themental torpor of the mediaeval baron.This failure of mental energy which overwhelmed a sectionof the educated class, affected to a certain extent even thosemembers of it who retained some energy and literary ambition.The want of sustained power is a marked feature in the secularwriters of that age. If we put aside the greater theologicalwritings, there is no evidence of the spirit to conceive, or theenergy to execute, any literary work on a great scale. It doesnot indeed surprise us that in an age of starched conventionalitythe notes of the higher poetry should be silent; but that no considerable historical work should have been produced causessome astonishment. There was surely much in the convulsionsof the third century, in the conflicts of religion in the fourth,in the ominous appearance of the Northern peoples upon thescene, and the startling calamities of the fifth century, to rousesome one among the host of literary devotees to emulate thework of Tacitus, or even of Ammianus. Once or twice we hearof some one who had a faint idea of writing a history;Symmachus, for instance, had among his friends a group ofthree brothers, belonging to a literary circle at Trèves, one ofwhom seems to have thought of composing a history of Gaul.¹But the history was probably never written. Sidonius had,at the suggestion of Prosper,2 bishop of Orleans, begun anarrative of the war with Attila and the siege of Orleans, forwhich, through his connection with Avitus and the greatleaders of that time, he must have had the most authenticmaterials. But he soon gave up the project. In a letterto Leo, the Secretary of State to the Visigothic king, he giveshis reasons at some length for not undertaking the compositionof a historical work. Leo, with his eloquence, his vast practicalknowledge of public affairs , and a great position which raisedhim above the fear of criticism, might fairly hope for fameas a writer of history; but Sidonius feels himself shut out1 Sym. Ep. iv. 18.32 Apoll. Sid. Ep. viii. 15.3 Ib. iv. 22.4Ib. iv. 22, tu cui praeter eloquentiam singularem , scientiae ingentismagna opportunitas. . . . Quique praestanti positus in culmine non necesse habet vel supprimere verum vel con- cinnare mendacium. On the Romanconception of history even in the best times cf. H. Nettleship, Lectures and Essays, 2nd series, p. 67.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 367from this field, partly by his clerical profession , vowed tohumility, and concerned with the future rather than thepresent, partly by his want of health and vigour; but,evidently in the main, from a fear of publishing the truthabout persons of power and influence.2 Sidonius may refereither to influential Roman nobles or to the German chiefs,who were kept well informed of what was said about them,and who were evidently sensitive to Roman opinion. Thenearest approach to historical composition which Sidonius evermade was in his Panegyrics. And in his treatment of therelations of the Goths to the Empire in the eulogy of Avitus,and of the relations of East and West in the poem onAnthemius, he shows that he keenly realised the delicate taskwhich awaited any contemporary historian of that stormy time.To these considerations we may add the reticence as to theprospects of the Empire which patriotic pride seemed to imposeon Romans. Enthusiastic Christians like Orosius or Salvianus,from different points of view, and with varying objects, discussed the import of the great changes which were passingbefore their eyes. But the man who belonged more to the oldRoman world than to the detached society of the Church shrankfrom examining them with an open-eyed scrutiny. His faithin the destiny of Rome, in the stability of the ancient orderand culture, had all the force of a religion, and he instinctivelyturned away from the spectacle of illusions which seemed to bevanishing in gloom. The conception of history as a truthfulrecord of fact had for ages been progressively depraved by theinfluence of the rhetorical school, and the events of the fifthcentury did not offer a tempting field even for the mostaudacious rhetoric.Whatever the causes may have been, there is no work of1 Apoll. Sid. Ep. iv. 22, postremo languor impedimento, etc.2 Ib. iv. 22, turpiter falsa, periculose vera dic*ntur. Est enim hujusmodi thema, in quo bonorum si faciasmentionem, modica gratia paratur, si notabilium, maxuma offensa. Cf. Hieron. Chron. Praef. ad fin. , quo fine (i.e. 378) contentus reliquum temporis Gratiani et Theodosii latioris historiaestilo reservavi, non quo de viventibustimuerim libera et vere scribere ... salquoniam, dibacchantibus adhuc in terra nostra barbaris, incerta sunt omnia;Plin. Ep. v. 8, 12, vetera et scripta aliis? parata inquisitio sed onerosa collatio. Intacta et nova? Gravisoffensa, levis gratia. (Quoted by Peter,Geschichtl. Litt. über die Röm . Kaiserzeit, ii. 191. ) Peter has a good chapter on the influence of rhetoric on history,ii. 179 sqq.; cf. H. Nettleship, Lectures and Essays, 2nd series, p. 67.368 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vthe fifth century which, either in matter or in form, can pretend to the name of history. Instead of it we inherit onlysome jejune chronicles, arid in style, and often ludicrouslycapricious in their selection of events deemed worthy of narration, occasionally rousing a curiosity which they never satisfy.The Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine, ' which, down to the year378, is founded on S. Jerome's version of Eusebius, professes togive the history of the world from the birth of Seth to thetaking of Rome by the Vandals in 455. It is difficult toconceive the attitude of the writer's mind, the method onwhich he conducted his studies, or the principle which guidedhim in his selection of events. In the first part of the workthere is the strangest jumble of detached and often uninteresting facts, taken at random from the annals of Persia, Palestine,Greece, and Rome, without any sense of proportion or relativeimportance. The most momentous periods or crises are omitted,or dismissed in a single perfunctory phrase. The reign of Xerxes,for example, is casually, and rather inaccurately, mentioned ascontemporaneous with the lives of Sophocles and Euripides.2The Persian invasion is not alluded to; the age of Pericles isan utter blank. Not a single event of the Peloponnesian waris recorded. With a lordly disregard of chronology and thepractical side of human affairs, Empedocles, Zeno, Parmenides,Heracl*tus, Hippocrates, and Socrates are allowed to have thatgreat age to themselves. The reign of Alexander and thecampaigns of J. Caesar in Gaul are only honoured by a coupleof lines,³ while many lines are given to obscure Hebrew pontiffs ,and to the vicissitudes of the chosen people. When we cometo the period in which Prosper must have been personallyinterested, and for which he is solely responsible, the disproportion becomes even more startling. The great incursionsof Alaric and Radagaesus, the capture of Rome, and the Vandaloccupation of Africa, are recorded with rather less emphasisthan the apparition of a dove- shaped meteor which blazed for1 Gennad. de Scrip. Eccl. c. 84;Ebert, Lit. des Mittelalt. i . 441. In some MSS. the chronicle comes downonly to 445 , or even 435; Peter,Geschichtl. Litt. ii. 381.2 Xerxes regnat annis XX. quotempore Sophocles et Euripides clarihabebantur.3 Caesar Rhenum transiens Germanosvastat, Gallias subigit.4 Prosp. Chron. pt. ii . ad init. , nos quae consecuta sunt adjicere curavi- mus.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 369thirty days, or the incredible abstinence of an Egyptian monk,or the feuds of John Chrysostom and Theophilus of Alexandria.It is only fair, however, to say that the interest of Prosperin his own province sheds here and there a ray of light onthat dim period in which the Visigoths were making themselvesmasters of Southern Gaul. The same provincial patriotismis even more strongly marked in the Chronicle of the Gallicianbishop Idatius. Although Idatius had made a pilgrimageto the Holy Places in his youth, ³ and represented his provinceas an envoy to Aetius, he shows less interest in the generalhistory of the Empire than his brother chronicler. Yet, inspite of its provoking brevity, the work of Idatius gives somewelcome glimpses of the career of the Visigoths in Gaul, ofthe ravages of the Vandal fleets, of the campaigns of Theodoricagainst the Sueves in Spain, and of the sufferings of thatunfortunate province from the hordes who swept across it.The mind of Idatius is full of the horrors of famine andslaughter which he must have often witnessed. There is astrange pathos in his brief record of the misery which hasfound no other voice.Prosper and Idatius, however, do not belong to the circle,the literary tone of which we have been trying to describe.We should have been thankful if any of the friends ofSymmachus or Sidonius had left us even such scrappy andunconnected jottings on the great events through which theylived. Whatever faults of style and execution the earnestChristian writers of that time may offer to criticism, it isalways to be remembered to their credit that they wereoccupied with living interests and ideas, while the semi- paganmen of the world were toying with mythological fancies, andfeeding one another's vanity with tricks and surprises of style.The defects of secular literature can nearly all be traced tobarrenness of thought and absence of sincerity and love oftruth; and these again were the direct result of a school training,the whole aim of which was to turn out imitators and masters1 It might have been thought equally interesting to an ecclesiastic that in thisvery year was issued the great edict of Theodosius against pagan sacrifices,C. Th. xvi. 10, 12.2 Cf. Prosp. Chron. ad a. 412, 419 ,426, 436, 439.2 B3 Idat. Chron. Praef. He remem.bered having seen S. Jerome: quem(Hieronymum) quodam tempore pro- priae peregrinationis in supradictis regionibus adhuc infantulus vidisse me certus sum. The pilgrimage was probably about 407; cf. Ebert, i . p. 443.370 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vof striking phrase. Symmachus and Sidonius were often quiteconscious that they had nothing to say, or that the subjectwas slight and trivial; but the man who had been trainedto find arguments for or against the marriage of a Vestal,' orto describe the feelings of Thetis as she gazed on the corpse ofAchilles, cared for his subject only as a stimulus to ingenuity,a field for exhibiting his skill in phrase-making. The poorerand more commonplace the theme, the more tempting thechance for rhetorical display.4In poetry the poverty of imagination was to some extentconcealed, or supplemented, by the lavish employment ofmythological scenery. Claudian, it is true, had real poeticgifts; yet from taste or policy he does not shrink from thestartling incongruity of enthroning Theodosius, the championof the Church, among the Olympian gods, or of invitingSerena, who was execrated by all true pagans for appropriating the necklace on the holy image of the great goddess, topreside as another Juno at the nuptials of another Orpheus.5But his Christian contemporaries or later imitators are as paganin their imagery, without his pagan attachments. S. Paulinushad torn himself from thesemi-pagan society of Aquitaine,to lead a life of austerity and prayer. And his shocked andafflicted friend Ausonius reproaches him with his faithlessnessto old ties by an appeal to the mythical types of loyal friendship, Theseus and Pirithous, Pylades and Orestes, Nisus andEuryalus. The Christian Sidonius did not scruple to use tothe uttermost the wealth of ancient pagan imagination to aidhis own rather barren fancy. The machinery of his Panegyricson Christian emperors is all borrowed from the pagan past.The cradles of Anthemius and Avitus are surrounded withomens of their future greatness of the antique kind." The1 Ennod. Dict. xvi. (Corp. Scrip.Eccl. p. 471).2 Ib. xxv. There is a more curioussubject in Dict. xx. , " in eum qui in lupanari statuam Minervae locavit. "For the effect of declamatio on fictitiousthemes v. H. Nettleship, Lectures and Essays, 2nd series, pp. 112, 113; cf. Peter, Geschichtl. Litt. ii. 206.3 Orosius, vii. 35, styles him poetaquidem eximius sed paganus pervica- cissimus. Cf. Rauschen, Jahrbücher,p. 555, on the question of Claudian'sattitude to Christianity; Claudian.Carm. Pasch. and Epigr. in Jacobum;Ozanam, Civ. au Vme Siècle, i. 300.4 De Sext. Cons. Honor. 101:felix ille parens qui te securus Olympum succedente petit.Claud. Ep. ii . 34:sed quod Threicio Juno placabilis Orpheo,hoc poteris votis esse, Serena, meis.6 Auson. Ep. xxiv. 34.7 Apoll. Sid. Carm. vii . 165; ii . 105.CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 371Rome which receives or claims them as her rulers seemsfor the moment to be the Rome of the early Caesars, still trueto her ancient gods. One would never gather from suchpieces that the religion of Jupiter and Mars and Venus hadbeen for generations lying crushed under penal edicts, and thatto offer a grain of incense on the old altars, or to screen thesuperstitious votary, might be punished with confiscation, exile,or even with death.¹ Yet there is a showy insincerity aboutthe mythological ornament of Sidonius which to the criticaleye saves him from any imputation of believing in the godswhom he uses for poetic effect. Claudian after all is a realpoet; he is a posthumous child of the great age, and has something of its fire and manner; but the mythological pomp ofSidonius belongs to the same order of taste as the sham Gothicof Strawberry Hill, or the Daphnis and Chloe, the Damon andCupid, of Gay or Prior. It is lavished with a frenzy ofpedantry on subjects which by contrast render it only ridiculous.Pontius Paulinus had built himself a sumptuous country seat onthe banks of the Garonne, fortified with impregnable walls, andarranged with all that could minister to luxurious or fastidioustaste. Sidonius is not satisfied with describing it simplyas he had seen it. Its splendour must be made the subjectof prophecy.2 Ages before the Burgus of Leontius was built,Bacchus is described as returning from his conquest of theEast, seated on his car drawn by tigers, and escorted by faunsand satyrs. He was travelling through the air in triumph toThebes, when he was met by Phoebus, and urged to turn hiscourse from the city, where his godhead had been flouted byPentheus, to that spot in the distant West where the vision ofthe god of prophecy saw the stately towers of Paulinus alreadyrising in the future.Down to the end of the century, marriages in Christianfamilies were still celebrated by an epithalamium in the oldpagan manner. Sidonius has left two of these pieces, in whichhis taste is probably seen at its worst. In one of these, Venusis summoned by her son to visit the home of the bride in theWest.3 On the shores of Corinth the goddess is found asleepin her temple, gorgeous with many- coloured marbles, and all¹ C. Th. xvi. 10, 12 and 13. 2 Apoll. Sid. Carm. xxii . 101 sqq.3 Carm. xi.372 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vthe precious stones known to the ancients. Venus, after aeulogy on the beauty of Iberia, which the goddess confessesmight have won the prize in the famous contest on MountIda, obeys the call of her son. She makes her journey inthe orthodox fashion, sailing through air on a car of crystaland gold, drawn by her swans, while her train is swelled bythe Graces, Flora, Pomona, the Egyptian Osiris, and the noisyrout of Bacchus. The bridegroom, in whose honour this belated pagan song was composed, was that Ruric who, descendedfrom the great Anician house,¹ some years afterwards tookthe vow of renunciation, and became bishop of Limoges. Heprobably lived to see the great battle in the plains of Poitiers,in which a son of his friend Sidonius fell at the head of thenobles of Auvergne, who were fighting in the Visigothic causeagainst the victorious Franks.2Not less incongruous is the epithalamium composed forthe wedding of Polemius.3 In this poem the bridegroom is aphilosopher, and the patron goddess is no longer Venus butMinerva, who is seen hastening to Attica, clad in all her traditional armour, her shield covered with scenes from the warwith the Giants. The poet carries us to a stately temple inAttica, in which are gathered all the sages and philosophersknown, by name at least, in the Gallic schools. The youngPlatonist is found seated among this august company, receivingthe compliments of the Academy. On another side are displayed the works of embroidery which are dear to the virgingoddess; among them a robe in whose texture are figured ahost of legendary monsters, which are enumerated like the beastsin a menagerie. And the bride is discovered working into amantle of victory for her father, a veteran of the Spanish wars,"the tales of Penelope's web, of Orpheus and Eurydice, and,strange subject for Christian maiden's thoughts, the legends ofthe many amours of the king of the gods. Minerva, with the1 See the epitaph by Fortunatus,quoted in Krusch's Praef. Ruric. Ep.p. lxii.2 Greg. Tur. Hist. Fr. ii. c. 37,maximus ibi (in campo Vogladense) tunc Arvernorum populus, qui cum Apollinare venerat, et primi (plurimi?) qui erant ex senatoribus corruerunt. Forthe site of this battle v. Jacobs, Géo8graphie de Grégoire de Tours, pp. 142 sqq.3 Carm. XV.4 Ib. v. 36 sqq.5 Ib. v. 121.6 Ib. v. 141.7 lb. v. 155.8 lb. xv. 175.7CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 373help of Plato, overcomes the philosophic indifference ofPolemius to wedlock, and the pair are united in the hope that,favoured by the harmonious sisters, the marriage may give theworld another Plato! Sidonius, soon after the composition ofthis piece, became a bishop, and resolved to abandon the cultivation of pagan poetry as inconsistent with his sacred profession.2 One could have wished that the renunciation hadbeen made a little sooner.54The abuse of mythological ornament was only one resultof a depravation of literary feeling which is quite as markedin the prose as in the poetry of the age. Indeed, in mere styleand structure, it might be maintained that the prose is moretasteless and corrupt than the poetry. Sidonius recognisedin theory that prose style should be less luxuriant, and hewas under the delusion that he wrote a prose of severe simplicity. Yet nearly every form of exaggerated and misplacedartifice which criticism has observed in his verse can be discovered in the letters of Sidonius, and of many of his contemporaries. Alliteration and assonance, pompous periphrasistaking the place of simple expression of ordinary fact, antithesiswithout real contrast, similarity of sound with no similarity ofsense, outrageous hyperbole, and the most excruciating puns7-all these vices were cultivated by Sidonius, with a melancholywaste of effort. The curious student must read Sidoniushimself to appreciate the perverse elaboration of his style. Itstares at us from every page. No translation could give eventhe faintest conception of the ingenious torture to which theLatin language has been subjected by this devotee of the past.Nor was Sidonius peculiar in these faults of style. It is truethat in him the combined literary vanity and search forpiquant phrase at any cost, which characterised his class, wereseconded by a talent and facility which were then unrivalled,61 Carm. v. 191:incipies iterum parvum mihi ferre Platona.2 Ep. ix. 12, 1; Germain's Apoll. Sid.pp. 39 and 69. He wrote, however,some verses after he became bishop;cf. Ep. ix. 13; ix. 15; vii. 17;iv. 11.3 Ep. viii. 16, 3, in hoc stilo cui non urbanus lepos inest, sed pagana simplicitas . Nos opuscula sermonecondidimus arido, exili certe maximaex parte vulgato.Fertig, Apoll. Sid. und seine Zeit,iii. p. 17.5 For the worst specimens cf. Ep.viii. 7, § 2; i. 5, § 6; Carm. xxiii. 44;Ep. i. 8, § 2; viii. 3, 4.6 Carm. xxiii. 480:sedulitas sodalitasque.7 Ep. iv. 18, 5, perpetuo durent culmina Perpetui.374 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vand almost universally admired.¹ But we may be sure thatthe shadowy crowd of poets and orators, whom he has savedfrom oblivion by his extravagant eulogies, pleased him by thevery faults which he cultivated so assiduously in himself. Andin imitators of his style, such as Ruric of Limoges, we findin degenerate form the same ill-aimed literary ambition, andvicious elaboration of the commonplace, which are at the rootof the faults of Sidonius.Sidonius as a stylist is not a solitary eccentric; he is themost complete and elaborate product of a worn- out system ofeducation, and of a society which had spent its force and wasliving in a world of ghosts and illusions. The very titles of"magnanimitas," " sublimitas, " " celsitudo tua," given by friendsto one another in ordinary intercourse, reveal an age which caredfor forms and words rather than for the sincerity of fact.Trained to believe that delicate manipulation of language forthe purpose of striking effect was the great end of education ,and that the very poverty of matter offered a finer opportunityfor display of rhetorical art, men came to care nothing aboutfact and truth, or even the solid thoughts of the great writerswhom they devotedly studied. Condemned to a sterile andmonotonous existence, with no wholesome ambition or savingpractical interests, the clever man of the world found his onlyintellectual stimulus in surprises and sensational effects ofstyle, and the morbid appetite for novelty and piquancystimulated fresh efforts of perverted ingenuity, and drew tastefarther and farther from the beaten path of simple expression.By an inevitable Nemesis, these idolaters of mere style endedin writing a barbarous jargon, which even some of the adeptscould hardly interpret.*The adepts in the precious style in the latter half of thefifth century were countless. The Visigoth and Vandal didnot much disturb their futile enthusiasm. In cities whichwere again and again beleaguered by Gothic armies, men calmlyamused themselves with their imitations of Pindar and Virgiland Statius, their declamatory displays, their childish sport1 Mamert. Claud. Praef. de Statu Animae; Gennad. de Scrip. Eccl. c. 92;cf. Germain, p. 112.2 Cf. the affected modesty of stylein Ruric, Ep. i. 4; ii . 18, § 5.3 Ib. i. 3, § 1; i. 6, § 1; i. 10, § 1.4 Ib. ii. 26, § 3, ita prae obscuri- tate dictorum non accendit ingen- ium. So Petrarch found Sidoniushard reading (Germain, p. 79) .CHAP. I CULTURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 375664" 1with versus echoici et recurrentes." The poems and lettersof Sidonius are often extolled as a storehouse of information asto the literary history of his time; and for the spirit of it theyare invaluable. But the modern can only scan the long arrayof forgotten names and ephemeral reputations with a languidinterest or a pathetic sense of the vanity of provincial fame.The brilliant clique at Narbonne, jurists, poets, philosophers,were doubtless very pleasant and interesting to one another.They had the pride of thinking that a Leo combined anunrivalled legal lore with a lyric power which might havechallenged Horace or Pindar,3 that a Magnus possessed all thedepth and acumen of the greatest Greek thinkers, and couldcontend on equal terms in their separate fields with Sophoclesand Menander, with Homer and Virgil, with Herodotus andSallust; that the lyrics of Consentius were destined to charmposterity.5 Vienne boasted to have in Supaudus a rhetorician who had the genius of the great age of Gallic rhetoric,the copiousness of Delphidius, the art of Agroecius, the energyof Alcimus. Secundinus, equally ready in celebrating in versea wedding or an exploit of the chase, was famed for theskill and veiled severity with which he avenged the murder ofChilperic and his queen by Gundobald. Bordeaux had stilla worthy successor to the generation of Ausonius in thebrilliant yet melancholy figure of Lampridius. There wasnone of his literary friends to whom Sidonius was moredevoted, or of whom perhaps he has left so vivid a portrait.Lampridius was hot-headed, imprudent, and the slave of superstition. He was perhaps not unkindly, but he was a difficultfriend, who showed his better side to the gentle and tolerantbishop of Auvergne. Sidonius exhausts even his repertory ofeulogy in the effort to do justice to the boundless range ofLampridius' accomplishments. He was an accomplished orator;he could compose with equal readiness on any subject, in anyspecies of verse, from the most weighty to the most frivolous.Epic or elegiac, tragic, bucolic or fescennine, were all alike tohis miraculous facility. He was probably the last pagan man1 Apoll. Sid. Ep. viii. 11 , § 5. Seean example of the versus recurrens, i.e. which can be read either backwards orforwards, in Ep. ix. 14, § 4:Roma tibi subito mutibus ibit amor.2 Carm. xxiii.3 Ib. v. 446.4 lb. v. 97. 5 Ep. viii. 4.6 Ib. v. 10, § 3; v. 8; cf. Sirmond,P. 57.376 SOCIETY IN THE WEST BOOK Vof letters in the West. A troop of African diviners came toBordeaux, and, on a study of his constellation, foretold thevery day and hour of his death. On the fated day the paragonof Gallic culture perished ignominiously by the hands of hisslaves.Many another orator or poet, who then enjoyed a shortlived fame, we must leave to slumber on in the pages ofSidonius. We are now wandering in a land of pale, silentshades. Only one of all that company has in a fashion livedon to tell us what manner of men they were. It is perhapsungrateful to him to part from our guide with only a recollection of the faults of the society which he has so faithfullydescribed to us. Like many another obscure generation, theyperformed their allotted part in shaping or guarding the futureof humanity. To preserve the tradition of its hard- wonculture may be at times as necessary a task, though one notso striking to the imagination, as to be the pioneers in freshconquests. And these now forgotten pedants, in a period ofpolitical convulsion and literary decadence, softened theimpact of barbarism, and kept open for coming ages theaccess to the distant sources of our intellectual life.INDEXAetius, his campaigns against Franks,Burgundians, and Goths, 241 , 270;his death, 278 Albinus, Publilius Caeonius, a pagan pontiff, father of Lacta, S. Jerome's reference to, 12, 108 Algasia, of Cahors, writes to S. Jerome about Biblical difficulties, 156Ambrose, S. , a friend of Symmachus,opposes the restoration of the altar of Victory, 19; his influence with Theo- dosius, 26 Ammianus Marcellinus, his career andreligious opinions, 101; his severe judgment of Roman character in his time, 102 sqq.Anthemius, his connections and accession,283; Panegyric of Sidonius on, 283,284Apollinares, the, literary efforts of, 324 n. 4Apostasy, frequent in the reign of Gratian,11; laws against, from 381 to 396,28Apuleius, his description of the worship of Isis, 71 sqq.; exponent of Platonism,82; his works emended by Sallustius,131Army, difficulty of recruiting, 196;desertion frequent, 196, 197; slaves enrolled, 197; barbarian corps and officers , 243, 245 sqq.; superiorityof Roman troops to the invaders,240Arvandus, a corrupt governor, intrigues with the Visigoths, and is tried at Rome, 274 Asceticism, made men indifferent tocivil duty, 10; its severe judgments of contemporary morality, 100; impulse given to, by S. Martin, 152;Sidonius' reverence for, 185; paganasceticism, 66, 68, 70, 74; Christianasceticism stimulated by S. Athanasius,104 n. 2; ascetic ideal of S. Jerome,106Attalus, Priscus, his origin, character,and accomplishments, a friend of Libanius, his elevation to the purple,21; baptized by an Arian bishop, 37; ·relies on divination, 44Augustine, S., his correspondence with Volusianus, 12; with Longinianusthe pagan philosopher, with Lampadius on fatalism , 13; attacks the doctrineof daemons, 43; the commencementof the City of God, 54; how it deals with doubts as to the capture of Rome,55; devoted to astrology in his youth,6 n. 2; his attitude to ancient culture,323Ausonius, his attitude to Christianity, 5;a friend of Probus, 19; his flatteryof Symmachus, 133; his elevation inthe reign of Gratian, 133, 134; in- fluences the Emperor to improve theposition of professors, 134, 335; his personal character and career, 142,145 n. 3; his grandfather and father,143, 144; his female relatives, 144,145; his social position, 146; his dislike oftown life, 147; country lifein his time, 148, 149; the extent of his estate at Bazas, 169; his wife,Attusia Lucana Sabina, died early, 145,146; his description of the Moselle,240; his correspondence with S. Paulinus of Nola, 331; his flattery of Gratian, 358 Avitus, Sidonius marries his daughter,157; his services against Attila, 167,270; description of Avitacum, 170;his military experience under Aetius,270; raised to the throne by a Gallo- Gothic alliance, 273; Panegyric on,by Sidonius, 279 sqq.378 ROMAN SOCIETYBauto, a friend of Symmachus, father of the Empress Eudoxia, 18 , 247 Bishops, power curtailed by Stilicho,33; occupations of, in the fifthcentury, 179; two classes of bishops,the monastic and aristocratic, 180;episcopal elections in Gaul, 181;learning and eloquence of Gallic bishops, S. Remi, Lupus of Troyes,Faustus of Riez, 183, 184;kept vacant by the Arian Euric,305Boethius, Anicius Manlius Torquatus,married to a great- great- granddaughter of Q. Aur. Symmachus, 122 n. 2Bordeaux, its prosperity and academicseesfame in the fourth century, 141;occupied for a time in 414 by the Visigoths, 293; fame of its university,341Brigandage, in the neighbourhood of Rome in the fourth century, 125; in Aquitaine in the time of Ausonius,149; growth of, illustrated from theCode, 200 sqq.; in the time of the invasions, the Vargi, 315Burgundians, their manners, 301; theirrelation to Rome, 300; their kings,179 n. 6, 300Carthage, rage for the theatre at, 49 Church, the, her policy of accommodationtowards pagan practices, 5; church life in Gaul in the fifth century, 152,178, 185; lowered moral tone of, at Rome, 111Claudian, he disappears on the fall ofStilicho, his religious position, his faith in Rome, 37; his contempt for the Byzantine nobles, his devotion toStilicho and Honorius, 38; dedicates the De Raptu Proserp. to Florentinus,131Code, rhetorical character of the later,24, 193; summary of its picture of society, 190; what it reveals of thespirit of the government and theEmperor's conception of his office, 192,230, 231; reveals the decay of the curiales, 204; and the impotence of the government, 222; humanemeasures of, 233 Constantius, his visit to Rome in 356,interest in the temples, 29 Corporations, sacred, the Isiaci andPastophori, 64, 65, 73; corporations of the City of Rome, their hereditary character, 193 sqq.; they desert theirfunctions, 195Cults, Eastern, their characteristics, 6, 7,64; their wide diffusion, 64; theirhistory at Rome from the Punic wars,65, 66; had they any real spiritual influence? 70, 75 Curiales, their character as described bySalvianus, 116; 192 laws relating to them in the Theod. Code, 190; theirmunicipal and imperial burdens, 208,209; their importance in the eyes of the Emperor, 210; try to escape from their burdens, 211; their attempt to enter the senatorial class is checked,212, 213; their position strictly heredi- tary, 213; their disabilities, 214, 215Curiosi, their functions, 198; theircorruption, 199, 200Cursus publicus, legislation on the subject of its abuse and disorganisation, 198,199; still uninterrupted between Gauland Italy in 467, 275Daemons, the belief in, attacked by S. Augustine, 43; his belief in their powers for evil, 56 Damasus, Pope, his conflict with Ursinusfor the papal throne, 15; opposes the restoration of the Ara Victoriae, 25 Defensor, his powers , 229 n. 2Delators, described by Sidonius, 313 Demetrias, granddaughter of Sext. Petr.Probus, her misfortunes, 256 Desertion, prevalence of, 196; deserters classed with brigands, 201; sheltered by procurators, 224 Divination, in Gaul, 4; Lampadius devoted to, 13; revival of, under the government of Attalus, 36; Tuscandiviners offer their services to Pompei- anus, against Alaric, 41Ecdicius, son of Avitus, and brother- inlaw of Sidonius, his charity, 160; hisgallant defence of Auvergne against the Goths, 182, 303 Education, its unchanging character, 326 sqq.; provision for, under the Empire,333 sqq.; privileges of teachers, 334;their payment, 335, 336; their social position, 336 sqq.; the great schoolsof Gaul, 339 sqq.; favourite authors in the fifth century, 351 Ennodius, an account of, his Dictiones, 326 Epiphanius of Pavia, his mission toEuric, 304 Eugenius, his character and support of the pagan reaction, 30 Euric, his character and aggressive policy,302; attacks Auvergne, 303; his per- secution of Catholics, 305; yet usesCatholic administrators, 306Famine, after the death of Gratian, 25;fear of, in the Gildonic war, 125;in Gaul relieved by Ecdicius and BishopINDEX 379Patiens, 160 , 182, 317; fears of,at Rome in the end of the fourthcentury, 125Faustus, bishop of Riez, a semi- Pelagian,184; his controversy with Mam.Claudianus, 184, 345Flavianus, Virius Nicomachus, his career and character, 16; takes part in thepagan reaction under Eugenius, 17, 30;his estates restored, 17; Pretorian prefect in 391 , 26; one ofthe characters in the Saturnalia of Macrobius, hislearning, 130, 131Gladiatorial shows, attraction of, even for the refined, 45; defended by good men, and exhibited by the best emperors, 46; not finally abolished till 404, 46; Symmachus procuresSaxon gladiators for his son's games,but they kill one another, 134 Gold, appreciation of, in the later Empire, 217 n. 7, 218 Governors, fail to execute the orders ofthe Emperor, 31; favour heretics, 16 n. 8; slackness of, in enforcing anti- pagan laws, 31; liable to be tampered with, 224; rules for their conductlaid down, 225; intrigue with the barbarians, 274, 301Grammar, the meaning of, 348 sqq.; defects of the study in the Roman schools, 353Greek, the study of, in Gaul, its decline,347Hedibia, a correspondent of S. Jerome,connection of her family with the worship of Belen, 155Hellenism , its attitude to Christianity, 6,329Heraclian, his cruelty, 135; the murderer of Stilicho, his treatment of therefugees in 410, 256 History, Protadius, a friend of Sym- machus, proposes to write a history of Gaul, 131; Sidonius urged to write a history of the wars of Attila, 366;history in the fifth century, why not written on an extended scale, 367Innocent, bishop of Rome, permits the Tuscan diviners to perform their rites,41Inns, few and bad, 172 Invasions, of the third and fourth centuries, 239, 240; of the fifth century,240; invaders not dreaded by Roman troops, 241; had no common purpose nor hatred of Rome, 242; numbers of,in the third century, 239; in the fifth, 248; varieties of character andreligion among, 249, 250; horrors of the invasion of Gaul, 263Isis, temple of, 42 B.C. , at Rome, 65;her functions, her ritual, and priest- hood, 66; her rites publicly celebrated at Rome in 394 , 30Jerome, S. , his feeling to the paganAlbinus, 12; to Praetextatus, 9n. 4 , 15; his life at Rome, his friendship with women of the aristo- cracy, 104; a satirist as well as anascetic, 105; his pictures of female ex- travagance and vanity, 109; of female licence, 113, 114; of clerical impostors,112; his immense influence, 153,154; his letters on Biblical interpre- tation to Hedibia and Algasia, 155 ,156; his admiration for Romanheroes, 100 n. 2; his feelings about the capture of Rome and the invasions,254, 255; his attitude to ancient culture, 323; his love of fame, 363 Jovius, a friend of Symmachus and S. Paulinus, his career, he deserts both Attalus and Honorius, 20; he is directed to suppress the Coelicolae,32; prefect under Attalus, 36Julian, attempts to give a higher moral tone to paganism, 29, 83; defeats the Alemanni, 240; banishes Christiaus from academic life, 322 n. 1, 329;claims to control academic appoint- ments, 334Juvenal, his pictures of vice probably exaggerated, 98Laeti, German corps with lands in Gaul,243Lampadius, a pagan devoted to astrology, 13, 44; Pretorian prefect under Attalus, 36 Lampridius of Bordeaux, consultsAfrican diviners, 45; poem on Euric's power addressed to, by Sidonius, 308;his accomplishments, 375 Land, becomes waste, its posses .sion an expensive luxury, 216; land- inspectors, 217; small landholdersabsorbed by the large, 218 sqq.; how the small landholder succumbed, 220 ,221Leo, secretary of Euric, 306, 312;befriends Sidonius, 307Lérins, monastery of, 153; many Gallic bishops come from, 180 Litorius, his superstition, 4, 44; relieves Narbonne in 436, 241 , 270Lupercalia, celebrated in the fifth cen- tury, 62 n. 4Luxury, 110, 135 sq7.; less gross in the time of Macrobius, 135 sqq.380 ROMAN SOCIETYMacrobius, the author of the Saturnalia,ordered in 399 to preserve ancientmonuments, 32; an account of hiscommentary on the Dream of Scipio,88 sqq.; claims that the moral toneof society has improved, 110, 176;syncretism of the theology of the Saturnalia, 77; characters of the Saturnalia, 130Magic, made a political crime, 24; the Tuscan sorcerers offer their aid againstAlaric, 41; legislation against magic,42; Neoplatonism countenances magic,42, 43Magna Mater, her worship introduced in second Punic war, 65; her ritescelebrated by Flavianus in 394 , 30;inscriptions referring to, 64, 65; the Taurobolium originally connected with her worship, 69 n. 1Majorian, his description of the failure of administration, 231; suppresses aGallic movement at Lyons, 274,280; Panegyric on, 281; his policy,282Marriages, mixed, frequent in the fourth century, 11 Martianus Capella, character of his work,343 sqq.Martin, S., his life and miracles,starts a great movement, 152; is slighted even by the clergy, 153; he meets S. Paulinus, 331 Maximus ofMadaura, a pagan monotheist,80Mithra, first heard of at Rome in 70 B.C.,65; his attributes, ritual, mysteries,67, 68; the Taurobolium described ,69; Christian dread of Mithraism,70Monks, hated by the mob, sneers of Rutilius Namatianus against, 40;monastic houses in Gaul, S. Victorand Lérins, 153; the monks and S.Jerome, 154; the monastic life in theThebaid, 155; in Gaul, 185; history of the monk Abraham, 185, 186Monotheism, reconciled with devotion topaganism, 8; Plutarch's monotheism,76, 81; aided by syncretism, 77, 78;Neoplatonic monotheism, 87Morality, doubtful in some Christian circles, 113; gross profligacy in Aqui- taine, described by Salvianus, 118;few signs of loose morals in the writ- ings of Sidonius, 174 , 176; descriptionof the parasite, 175 Municipalities, how they had declined in the fourth century, 208Mythology, Neoplatonic support of, 84 sqq.; abuse of, for literary ornament,370 sqq.Narbonne, twice besieged by the Goths,159; the literary circle of Magnus,164; relieved by Litorius in 436, 270 Navicularii, legislation as to, 195 Neoplatonism, its introduction intoRome, 82; its attitude to mythology,82, 83; why it defended paganism , 84;its system of emanation, 85; supersti- tion of the later Neoplatonists, 87, 88;Neoplatonism of Macrobius, 88 sqq.Officials, of the treasury, their greed and corruption, 227 sqq.; the susceptores,228; the discussores, their enormities,230; minor officials frustrate the law,230, 231 Olympius, the head of the Catholic reaction on the death of Stilicho, his measures, 35, 36Orientius, his Commonitorium, on the invasions, 262Orosius, a Spanish priest, arrives in Hippo, is engaged to supplement theCity of God, 56; his sources, his pur- pose and method, 57; examples of his treatment of history, 58, 59; his ideas about the destiny of Rome, 261;his provincial patriotism, 261 , 262Paganism, series of laws against, 23 , 27;supported by Neoplatonism, 82, 84;pagans in high office at the end ofthe fourth century, 21 n. 9; pagandevotion, 75 , 76Patiens, bishop of Lyons, his charity,160, 182Patriotism, a support of paganism, 8, 9Patronage, growth of, 2, 19, 222 , 226,266Paula, a friend of S. Jerome, married to Julius Toxotius, 11; her great wealth,127; S. Jerome's eulogy on, 364 Paulina, Fabia Aconia, wife of Praetextatus, her devout paganism, 16; her monument to her husband, 64 Paulinus of Nola, S. , his letter to asoldier on the military life , 10; tries to convert Jovius from fatalism, 20;introduces the Life of S. Martin by Sulpicius Severus at Rome, 152; hiswealth, and that of his wife Therasia,127 n. 1; his conversion, and rela- tions with Ausonius , 330 sqq.Paulinus of Pella, a grandson of Au- sonius, his youth and education, 150;his amusem*nts, his marriage, hisluxurious life, 151; dates in his lifefixed, 288 n. 1; has no public in- terests, 289; character of, 290; made Count of the Largesses under Attalusin 414, 293; flies to Bazas, inter-INDEX 381view with the Alan king, 294; the misfortunes of his later life, 296Pericles, age of, not referred to by Orosius, 58; or by Prosper, 368 Philosophy, decay of, in the fifth century,342 sqq.Placidia, her influence on public life, 138;her captivity among the Goths and marriage with Ataulphus at Narbonne,292Plotinus, comes to Rome in 244, 82;attitude of, to paganism, 86; on suicide,91Plutarch, his monotheism, 81Poverty, signs of its growth, 202 sq7.;Salvianus on poverty in Gaul, 266 Praetextatus, Vettius Agorius, his career and character, a devoted pagan and learned theologian, 15; when prefectof Italy tries to prevent the spoliation of temples, 25; one of the charactersin the Saturnalia of Macrobius, hislearning, 130, 131 Prefect, duties of the P.P. of Gaul, 167Probus, Sext. Petron. , his high descent,long official career, probably a luke- warm Christian, 19, 20; his great estates, 126 n. 6Procurators, of servile origin and doubtful character, 168, 169; shelterdeserters, 197; shelter fugitive curi- ales, 219; often thoroughly cor- rupt, 223, 224; forbidden the useof horses, secretly mortgage estates,224Prosper, the character of his Chronicle,368Prudentius, on the preservation of ancient monuments, 33; pleads for the abolition of the gladiatorial shows,47Rhetoric, the study of, 354; its character and effects, 356 sqq.Richomer, a Frank, friend of Symmachus,his paganism, 18 Rome, awe of, felt by the barbarians,51; belief in her eternity, 52; ancient religion of, its character, 63, 79;seldom visited by the emperors in thefourth century, 123; Claudian's faith in, 37; the mob of Rome, its vices,103; disturbed state of, during the Gildonic war, 125; its hereditary corporations, 193, 194; the corn- supply,195; faith in, shaken by Alaric's capture, 254; damage done by Alaricprobably exaggerated, 257; faith of Rutilius Namatianus in, 258, 259;aspect of, in 467, 276 Rutilius Namatianus, his official career,his return to Gaul in 416, 38; thepaganism of, and his attitude to Christianity and the Jews, 39, 40; his hatred of Stilicho, 39; his faith in Rome, 258Sallustius, son of Flav. Sall. , Cos. 363,his estates in Spain, 127; emended the text of Apuleius, 131 Salvianus, on the attractions of thecircus and the theatre, 49; his lifeand career, 115; the subject of the De Gubernatione Dei, 115 sqq.; hishatred of avarice and theatrical displays,116, 117; his picture of universalimmorality in Aquitaine, 118; doubts as to its accuracy, 119; on the invasions,265; onthe miseries of the poor, 266;despairs of the Empire, 268 Saxons, sent for by Symmachus to fightas gladiators, 128; feeling of Sym- machus about their fate, 134; pirates,271Senate, the majority of, pagan in thereign of Theodosius, 2, 25, 31; theposition of, under the later emperors,123; part of Stilicho's policy to consult the Senate, 33 , 123; consulted on the war with Gildo, 125; thesenatorial class of the later Empire,their burdens and privileges, 207n. 1 and 2; the senatorial estate arefuge for broken men, 219; low public morality of the senatorial class,226; their relations with the barbarians, 310, 311; the wealth of thesenatorial class, 126; extent andorganisation of estates in Gaul, 169;country house life described, 148,172 sqq.; general character of thesenatorial class, 177; devotion to letters, 132, 374 Serena, takes the necklace from the image of Magna Mater in the presence of the last Vestal, 30; her accomplish- ments and influence, 138Sidonius, Caius Sollius Apollinaris, date of his birth, 157 n. 1; his ancestors; married a daughter of Avitus,157; publication of his letters, 158;concerned chiefly with his own order,161; his style, 162, 269, 364; date of his episcopate, 179 n. 1; range of his friendships, 163; his ideal of the Roman noble, 164 sqq.; his fear of literary decadence, 167; his reverence for the ascetic life, 185; his friend- ship with the monk Abraham, 186;his knowledge of the times, 270; his pictures of the barbarians, 271 sqq.; knows the court of Theodoric II. , 272,273; takes part in Gallic movements,273; his journey to Rome in 467,382 ROMAN SOCIETY275 sqq.; relations with Arvandus,274; his Panegyric on Anthemius,277; his Panegyric on Avitus, 279; his defence of Auvergne, 303; his imprisonment, 306; his stay at Bordeaux,his flattery of the Visigothic court,307; restoration to his diocese, 308 Slavery, feeling towards, expressed in the Saturnalia of Macrobius, 136 , 137;dangerous influence of slaves, 109;German slaves in every household,247Stilicho, left guardian of the sons of Theodosius, his supposed commission,33, 35; suspected by both Christiansand pagans, calumnies against, 35;revives the importance of the Senate,123; repairs the walls of Rome, 252;his courage, 253Style, in the fifth century a mere " jargon of experts, " 133; aristocracy of Gauldevoted to, 177, 374Sulpicius Severus, his Life of S. Martin,152 Superstition, outbreak of, in Rome ontheappearance of Alaric and Radagaesus,34, 252; in Gaul during the invasions,264Syagrius, his family, 168 n. 2; devoted to farming, 168; friendly relations with the Germans, 312 Symmachus, Q. Aurelius, his character,his devotion to the pagan cause,examples from his letters, 14; his speech in favour of restoring the Ara Victoriae, he is driven from theimperial presence, 26; history of hisfamily, his fame as an orator, 122;tells us little of the events of thetime, 124, 125; his income, 126;his preparations for his son's games,127 , 128; the conventionality of his life, 128, 129; his love of thecountry, 130; his literary affectation ,132; his Saxon gladiators, 134; his ideas about women and family affection,138, 139Taurobolium, celebrated in Rome in 391,27; description of the rite in Pruden- tius, 69; frequently mentioned ininscriptions, 64 n. 6; performed pro salute Imperatoris, 69 n. 3Tertullian, on games, 45 . 1; his attitude to ancient culture, 321 Tertullus, a pagan of the old school,consul in 410, 36Theatre, its attractions, the actor's ahereditary calling, 47; legislation about actresses, 48; Salvianus' attackson, 117Theodoric II . , description of his habits,272Tonantius Ferreolus, a friend of Sidonius,164; his public spirit, 167; descendedfrom Syagrius, consul in 381 , his estate of Prusianum described, 173Trade, its comparatively slight import- ance under the later Empire, 205,206; its decay in the third and fifth centuries, 206Trèves, taken by the barbarians four times, 117; scene of debauchery during the invasions, 118Vandals, their character in Salvianus,250; their sack of Rome, 276; refer- ences to, in the Panegyrics of Sidonius,279, 281 , 282, 284, 285Vectius, the ascetic country gentleman,his character described, 178 Victory, altar of, S. Ambrose opposesthe restoration of, 19; its history, 25;repeated attempts of the Senate to obtain its restoration, 25 , 26; re- stored for a time in the reaction ofEugenius, 30 Vincentius, prefect of Gaul, a friend ofSymmachus and admirer of S. Martin,19Virgil, the study of, in the fifth century,350Visigoths, enter Gaul in 412, 291; their relations to the Empire, 291 , 298;wedding of Ataulphus and Placidia,292; occupy Bordeaux in 414, 293;abandon it, and besiege Bazas, 294;general view of Gothic policy, 297;numbers of, they attack Auvergne,303Volusianus, one of the Albini, a friend of S. Augustine, 12, 53; he suggests the doubts which caused S. Augustineto write the City of God, 53, 54Women, change in their position under the Empire, 137; prominent women,the ideas of Symmachus about women,138; position of, in the time of Sidonius, 174; their luxury and immor- ality described by S. Jerome, 109,113Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.MACMILLAN AND CO.'SWORKS ON ANCIENT HISTORYWORKS BY DR. THEODOR MOMMSENTHE HISTORY OF ROME, from the Earliest Times to thePeriod of its Decline. By Professor THEODOR MOMMSEN. Translated byWILLIAM PURDIE DICKSON, D.D. , LL.D. , formerly Professor of Divinityin the University of Glasgow. A new and cheaper edition, revised , andembodying all the most recent alterations and additions made by Dr.Mommsen. In five vols. Crown 8vo. Price 37s. 6d . (Each sold separately,price 7s. 6d. ) Also an Abridged Edition for the use of Schools and Colleges.By C. BRYANS and J. R. HENDY. One vol. Crown 8vo. Price 7s. 6d.THE TIMES.- " Dr. Mommsen's History increases in interest as he approaches the term of the memorable period he has illustrated with such felicity and genius. 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ROMAN SOCIETYIN THELAST CENTURY OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE

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ROMAN SOCIETYIN THELAST CENTURY OF THE WESTERNEMPIREBYSAMUEL DILL, M.A.PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN QUEEN'S COLLEGE, BELFASTSOMETIME FELLOW AND TUTOR OF CORPUSCHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORDLondonMACMILLAN AND CO. , LIMITEDNEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY1898All rights reservedDG319D518789