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A.D. 411-416.

JOVINUS, SEBASTIAN, AND ATTALUS.

123

154

band of heroes deserved the esteem, without exciting the compassion, of their enemies; and the lion was no sooner taken in the toils' than he was instantly despatched. The death of Sarus dissolved the loose alliance which Adolphus still maintained with the usurpers of Gaul. He again listened to the dictates of love and prudence; and soon satisfied the brother of Placidia, by the assurance that he would immediately transmit to the palace of Ravenna the heads of the two tyrants, Jovinus and Sebastian. The king of the Goths executed his promise without difficulty or delay: the helpless brothers, unsupported by any personal merit, were abandoned by their barbarian auxiliaries; and the short opposition of Valentia was expiated by the ruin of one of the noblest cities of Gaul. The emperor chosen by the Roman senate, who had been promoted, degraded, insulted, restored, again degraded, and again insulted, was finally abandoned to his fate; but when the Gothic king withdrew his protection, he was restrained, by pity or contempt, from offering any violence to the person of Attalus. The unfortunate Attalus, who was left without subjects or allies, embarked in one of the ports of Spain, in search of some secure and solitary retreat; but he was intercepted at sea, conducted to the presence of Honorius, led in triumph through the streets of Rome or Ravenna, and publicly exposed to the gazing multitude, on the second step of the throne of his invincible conqueror. The same measure of

punishment with which, in the days of his prosperity, he was accused of menacing his rival, was inflicted on Attalus himself: he was condemned, after the amputation of two fingers, to a perpetual exile in the isle of Lipari, where he was supplied with the decent necessaries of life. The remainder of the reign of Honorius was undisturbed by rebellion; and it may be observed that in the space of five years seven usurpers had yielded to the fortune of a prince who was himself incapable either of counsel or of action.

Invasion

of

the Suevi,

The situation of Spain, separated, on all sides, from the enemies of Rome, by the sea, by the mountains, and by intermediate provinces, had secured the long tranquillity of that remote and sequestered country; and we may observe, as a sure symptom of domestic happiness, that, in a period of four hundred years, Spain furnished very few materials to the

a

Spain by Vandals, A.D. 409,

Alani, &c.,

Oct. 13.

154 The expression may be understood almost literally: Olympiodorus says, pois cánxos ilágenoav. Záxxo; (or váxos) may signify a sack or a loose garment; and this method of entangling and catching an enemy, laciniis contortis, was much practised by the Huns (Ammian. xxxi. 2). Il fut pris vif avec des filets, is the translation of Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 608.

a Bekker in his Photius reads roxx, but in the new edition of the Byzantines he retains annos, which is translated

Scutis, as if they protected him with their shields in order to take him alive. Photius, ed. Bekker, p. 58.-M.

history of the Roman empire. The footsteps of the barbarians, who, in the reign of Gallienus, had penetrated beyond the Pyrenees, were soon obliterated by the return of peace; and in the fourth century of the Christian æra, the cities of Emerita or Merida, of Corduba, Seville, Bracara, and Tarragona, were numbered with the most illustrious of the Roman world. The various plenty of the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms, was improved and manufactured by the skill of an industrious people; and the peculiar advantages of naval stores contributed to support an extensive and profitable trade.155 The arts and sciences flourished under the protection of the emperors; and if the character of the Spaniards was enfeebled by peace and servitude, the hostile approach of the Germans, who had spread terror and desolation from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, seemed to rekindle some sparks of military ardour. As long as the defence of the mountains was intrusted to the hardy and faithful militia of the country, they successfully repelled the frequent attempts of the barbarians. But no sooner had the national troops been compelled to resign their post to the Honorian bands in the service of Constantine, than the gates of Spain were treacherously betrayed to the public enemy, about ten months before the sack of Rome by the Goths. 156 The consciousness of guilt, and the thirst of rapine, prompted the mercenary guards of the Pyrenees to desert their station; to invite the arms of the Suevi, the Vandals, and the Alani; and to swell the torrent which was poured with irresistible violence from the frontiers of Gaul to the sea of Africa. The misfortunes of Spain may be described in the language of its most eloquent historian, who has concisely expressed the passionate, and perhaps exaggerated, declamations of contemporary writers.157 "The irruption of these "nations was followed by the most dreadful calamities: as the "barbarians exercised their indiscriminate cruelty on the fortunes of "the Romans and the Spaniards, and ravaged with equal fury the "cities and the open country. The progress of famine reduced the "miserable inhabitants to feed on the flesh of their fellow-creatures;

135 Without recurring to the more ancient writers, I shall quote three respectable testimonies which belong to the fourth and seventh centuries: the Expositio totius Mundi (p. 16, in the third volume of Hudson's Minor Geographers), Ausonius (de Claris Urbibus, p. 242, edit. Toll.), and Isidore of Seville (Præfat. ad Chron. ap. Grotium, Hist. Goth. p. 707). Many particulars relative to the fertility and trade of Spain may be found in Nonnius, Hispania Illustrata; and in Huet, Hist. du Commerce des Anciens, c. 40, p. 228-234.

156 The date is accurately fixed in the Fasti and the Chronicle of Idatius. Orosius (1. vii. c. 40, p. 578) imputes the loss of Spain to the treachery of the Honorians; while Sozomen (1. ix. c. 12) accuses only their negligence.

157 Idatius wishes to apply the prophecies of Daniel to these national calamities, and is therefore obliged to accommodate the circumstances of the event to the terms of the prediction.

A.D. 414.

66

66

ADOLPHUS MARCHES INTO SPAIN.

125

"and even the wild beasts, who multiplied, without control, in the "desert, were exasperated by the taste of blood and the impatience "of hunger boldly to attack and devour their human prey. Pesti"lence soon appeared, the inseparable companion of famine; a large proportion of the people was swept away; and the groans of the dying excited only the envy of their surviving friends. At length "the barbarians, satiated with carnage and rapine, and afflicted by "the contagious evils which they themselves had introduced, fixed "their permanent seats in the depopulated country. The ancient "Gallicia, whose limits included the kingdom of Old Castille, was "divided between the Suevi and the Vandals; the Alani were "scattered over the provinces of Carthagena and Lusitania, from the "Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean; and the fruitful territory of "Bætica was allotted to the Silingi, another branch of the Vandalic "nation. After regulating this partition, the conquerors contracted "with their new subjects some reciprocal engagements of protection "and obedience: the lands were again cultivated; and the towns. "and villages were again occupied by a captive people. The greatest part of the Spaniards was even disposed to prefer this new condition. "of poverty and barbarism to the severe oppressions of the Roman "government; yet there were many who still asserted their native "freedom, and who refused, more especially in the mountains of "Gallicia, to submit to the barbarian yoke.” 158

Goths,

marches A.D. 414.

into Spain,

The important present of the heads of Jovinus and Sebastian had approved the friendship of Adolphus, and restored Gaul to Adolphus, the obedience of his brother Honorius. Peace was incom- king of the patible with the situation and temper of the king of the Goths. He readily accepted the proposal of turning his victorious arms against the barbarians of Spain; the troops of Constantius intercepted his communication with the seaports of Gaul, and gently pressed his march towards the Pyrenees: 159 he passed the mountains, and surprised, in the name of the emperor, the city of Barcelona. The fondness of Adolphus for his Roman bride was not abated by time or possession; and the birth of a son, surnamed, from

158 Mariana de Rebus Hispanicis, l. v. c. 1, tom. i. p. 148. Hag. Comit. 1733. He had read in Orosius (1. vii. c. 41, p. 579) that the barbarians had turned their swords into ploughshares; and that many of the provincials preferred inter Barbaros pauperem libertatem, quam inter Romanos tributariam solicitudinem, sustinere.

159 This mixture of force and persuasion may be fairly inferred from comparing Orosius and Jornandes, the Roman and the Gothic historian."

■ Orosius (1. vii. c. 43) expressly says that the Goths were expelled from Nar bonne by the arms of Constantius, and then proceeded into Spain; and Idatius agrees with Orosius (Chronic. ad ann.

Honorii xxii.). Against these authorities,
that of Jornandes, the panegyrist of the
Goths, is of no avail. See Aschbach,
Gesch. der Westgothen, p. 103, note 138.
-S.

his illustrious grandsire, Theodosius, appeared to fix him for ever in the interest of the republic. The loss of that infant, whose remains were deposited in a silver coffin in one of the churches near Barcelona, afflicted his parents; but the grief of the Gothic king was suspended by the labours of the field; and the course of his victories was soon interrupted by domestic treason. He had imprudently received into his service one of the followers of Sarus, a barbarian of a daring spirit, but of a diminutive stature, whose secret desire of revenging the death of his beloved patron was continually irritated by the

His death,
A.D. 415,
August.

sarcasms of his insolent master. Adolphus was assassinated in the palace of Barcelona; the laws of the succession were violated by a tumultuous faction; 160 and a stranger to the royal race, Singeric, the brother of Sarus himself, was seated on the Gothic throne. The first act of his reign was the inhuman murder of the six children of Adolphus, the issue of a former marriage, whom he tore, without pity, from the feeble arms of a venerable bishop.161 The unfortunate Placidia, instead of the respectful compassion which she might have excited in the most savage breasts, was treated with cruel and wanton insult. The daughter of the emperor Theodosius, confounded among a crowd of vulgar captives, was compelled to march on foot above twelve miles, before the horse of a barbarian, the assassin of an husband whom Placidia loved and lamented." 162 But Placidia soon obtained the pleasure of revenge; and the view of her ignominious sufferings might rouse an indignant people against the tyrant, who was assassinated on the seventh day of his usurpation. After the death of Singeric, the free choice of the nation bestowed the Gothic sceptre on Wallia, whose warlike and ambitious temper appeared, in the beginning of his reign, extremely hostile to the republic. He marched in arms from Barcelona to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, which the ancients revered and dreaded as the boundary of the world. But when he reached the southern promontory of Spain,163 and, from the

The Goths conquer and restore Spain,

A.D. 415-418.

160 According to the system of Jornandes (c. 33, p. 659 [ed. Grot.]), the true hereditary right to the Gothic sceptre was vested in the Amali; but those princes, who were the vassals of the Huns, commanded the tribes of the Ostrogoths in some distant parts of Germany or Scythia.

161 The murder is related by Olympiodorus; but the number of the children is taken from an epitaph of suspected authority.

162 The death of Adolphus was celebrated at Constantinople with illuminations and Circensian games. (See Chron. Alexandrin.) It may seem doubtful whether the Greeks were actuated on this occasion by their hatred of the barbarians or of the Latins.

163 Quòd Tartessiacis avus hujus Vallia terris

Vandalicas turmas, et juncti Martis Alanos
Stravit, et occiduam texêre cadavera Calpen.

Sidon. Apollinar. in Panegyr. Anthem. 363,
p. 300, edit. Sirmond.

A.D. 415-418.

THE GOTHS CONQUER AND RESTORE SPAIN.

127

rock now covered by the fortress of Gibraltar, contemplated the neighbouring and fertile coast of Africa, Wallia resumed the designs of conquest which had been interrupted by the death of Alaric. The winds and waves again disappointed the enterprise of the Goths; and the minds of a superstitious people were deeply affected by the repeated disasters of storms and shipwrecks. In this disposition, the successor of Adolphus no longer refused to listen to a Roman ambassador, whose proposals were enforced by the real, or supposed, approach of a numerous army, under the conduct of the brave Constantius. A solemn treaty was stipulated and observed: Placidia was honourably restored to her brother; six hundred thousand measures of wheat were delivered to the hungry Goths; 164 and Wallia engaged to draw his sword in the service of the empire. A bloody war was instantly excited among the barbarians of Spain; and the contending princes are said to have addressed their letters, their ambassadors, and their hostages, to the throne of the Western emperor, exhorting him to remain a tranquil spectator of their contest, the events of which must be favourable to the Romans by the mutual slaughter of their common enemies.165 The Spanish war was obstinately supported, during three campaigns, with desperate valour and various success; and the martial achievements of Wallia diffused through the empire the superior renown of the Gothic hero. He exterminated the Silingi, who had irretrievably ruined the elegant plenty of the province of Bætica. He slew, in battle, the king of the Alani; and the remains of those Scythian wanderers who escaped from the field, instead of choosing a new leader, humbly sought a refuge under the standard of the Vandals, with whom they were ever afterwards confounded. The Vandals themselves, and the Suevi, yielded to the efforts of the invincible Goths. The promiscuous multitude of barbarians, whose retreat had been intercepted, were driven into the mountains of Gallicia; where they still continued, in a narrow compass and on a barren soil, to exercise their domestic and implacable hostilities. In the pride of victory, Wallia was faithful to his engagements: he restored his Spanish conquests to the obedience of Honorius; and the tyranny of the Imperial officers soon reduced an oppressed people to regret the time of their barbarian servitude,

164 This supply was very acceptable: the Goths were insulted by the Vandals of Spain with the epithet of Truli, because in their extreme distress they had given a piece of gold for a trula, or about half a pound of flour. Olympiod. apud Phot. p. 189 [p. 60, ed. Bekk.].

165 Orosius inserts a copy of these pretended letters. Tu cum omnibus pacem habe, omniumque obsides accipe; nos nobis confligimus, nobis perimus, tibi vincimus; immortalis vero quæstus erit Reipublicæ tuæ, si utrique pereamus [p. 586]. The idea is just; but I cannot persuade myself that it was entertained or expressed by the barbarians.

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