tended design of placing the diadem on the head of his son Eucherius could not have been conducted without preparations or accomplices; and the ambitious father would not surely have left the future emperor, till the twentieth year of his age, in the humble station of tribune of the notaries. Even the religion of Stilicho was arraigned by the malice of his rival. The seasonable, and almost miraculous, deliverance was devoutly celebrated by the applause of the clergy, who asserted that the restoration of idols and the persecution of the church would have been the first measure of the reign of Eucherius. The son of Stilicho, however, was educated in the bosom of Christianity, which his father had uniformly professed and zealously supported.11a Serena had borrowed her magnificent necklace from the statue of Vesta;112 and the Pagans execrated the memory of the sacrilegious minister, by whose order the Sibylline books, the oracles of Rome, had been committed to the flames.113 The pride and power of Stilicho constituted his real guilt. An honourable reluctance to shed the blood of his countrymen appears to have contributed to the success of his unworthy rival; and it is the last humiliation of the character of Honorius, that posterity has not condescended to reproach him with his base ingratitude to the guardian of his youth and the support of his empire. Among the train of dependents whose wealth and dignity attracted the notice of their own times, our curiosity is excited by the The poet celebrated name of the poet Claudian, who enjoyed the Claudian. favour of Stilicho, and was overwhelmed in the ruin of his patron. The titular offices of tribune and notary fixed his rank in the Imperial court he was indebted to the powerful intercession of Serena for his marriage with a rich heiress of the province of Africa;114 and 11 Augustin himself is satisfied with the effectual laws which Stilicho had enacted against heretics and idolaters, and which are still extant in the Code. He only applies to Olympius for their confirmation (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 408, No. 19). 112 Zosimus, 1. v. [c. 38] p. 351. We may observe the bad taste of the age, in dressing their statues with such awkward finery. 113 See Rutilius Numatianus (Itinerar. 1. ii. 41-60), to whom religious enthusiasm has dictated some elegant and forcible lines. Stilicho likewise stripped the gold plates from the doors of the Capitol, and read a prophetic sentence which was engraven under them (Zosimus, 1. v. [c. 38] p. 352). These are foolish stories; yet the charge of impiety adds weight and credit to the praise, which Zosimus reluctantly bestows, of his virtues. 114 At the nuptials of Orpheus (a modest comparison!) all the parts of animated nature contributed their various gifts, and the gods themselves enriched their favourite. Claudian had neither flocks, nor herds, nor vines, nor olives. His wealthy bride was heiress to them all. But he carried to Africa a recommendatory letter from Serena, his Juno, and was made happy (Epist. ii. ad Serenam). Hence, perhaps, the accusation of treachery is countenanced by Rutilius:Quo magis est facinus diri Stilichonis iniquum Proditor arcani quod fuit imperii. Romano generi dum nititur esse superstes, Crudelis summis miscuit ima furor. Rutil. Itin. ii. 41.— M. the statue of Claudian, erected in the forum of Trajan, was a monument of the taste and liberality of the Roman senate.115 After the praises of Stilicho became offensive and criminal, Claudian was exposed to the enmity of a powerful and unforgiving courtier whom he had provoked by the insolence of wit. He had compared, in a lively epigram, the opposite characters of two Prætorian præfects of Italy; he contrasts the innocent repose of a philosopher, who sometimes resigned the hours of business to slumber, perhaps to study, with the interested diligence of a rapacious minister, indefatigable in the pursuit of unjust or sacrilegious gain. "How happy," continues Claudian," how happy might it be for the people of Italy if Mallius could "be constantly awake, and if Hadrian would always sleep!"116 The repose of Mallius was not disturbed by this friendly and gentle admonition; but the cruel vigilance of Hadrian watched the opportunity of revenge, and easily obtained from the enemies of Stilicho the trifling sacrifice of an obnoxious poet. The poet concealed himself, however, during the tumult of the revolution, and, consulting the dictates of prudence rather than of honour, he addressed, in the form of an epistle, a suppliant and humble recantation to the offended præfect. He deplores, in mournful strains, the fatal indiscretion into which he had been hurried by passion and folly; submits to the imitation of his adversary the generous examples of the clemency of gods, of heroes, and of lions; and expresses his hope that the magnanimity of Hadrian will not trample on a defenceless and contemptible foe, already humbled by disgrace and poverty, and deeply wounded by the exile, the tortures, and the death of his dearest friends. Whatever might be the success of his prayer or the acci 117 115 Claudian feels the honour like a man who deserved it (in præfat. Bell. Get.). The original inscription, on marble, was found at Rome, in the fifteenth century, in the house of Pomponius Lætus. The statue of a poet, far superior to Claudian, should have been erected, during his lifetime, by the men of letters, his countrymen and contemporaries. It was a noble design. 116 See Epigram xxx. :— Mallius indulget somno noctesque diesque: Hadrian was a Pharian (of Alexandria). See his public life in Godefroy, Cod. Theodos. tom. vi. p. 364. Mallius did not always sleep. He composed some elegant dialogues on the Greek systems of natural philosophy (Claud. in Mall. Theodor. Cons. 61-112). 117 See Claudian's first Epistle. Yet in some places an air of irony and indignation betrays his secret reluctance." " M. Beugnot has pointed out one remarkable characteristic of Claudian's poetry, and of the times-his extraordinary religious indifference. Here is a poet writing at the actual crisis of the complete triumph of the new religion, the visible extinction of the old; if we may so speak, a strictly historical poet, dents of his future life, the period of a few years levelled in the grave the minister and the poet: but the name of Hadrian is almost sunk in oblivion, while Claudian is read with pleasure in every country which has retained or acquired the knowledge of the Latin language. If we fairly balance his merits and his defects, we shall acknowledge that Claudian does not either satisfy or silence our reason. It would not be easy to produce a passage that deserves the epithet of sublime or pathetic; to select a verse that melts the heart or enlarges the imagination. We should vainly seek in the poems of Claudian the happy invention and artificial conduct of an interesting fable, or the just and lively representation of the characters and situations of real life. For the service of his patron he published occasional panegyrics and invectives, and the design of these slavish compositions encouraged his propensity to exceed the limits of truth and nature. These imperfections, however, are compensated in some degree by the poetical virtues of Claudian. He was endowed with the rare and precious talent of raising the meanest, of adorning the most barren, and of diversifying the most similar topics; his colouring, more especially in descriptive poetry, is soft and splendid; and he seldom fails to display, and even to abuse, the advantages of a cultivated understanding, a copious fancy, an easy and sometimes forcible expression, and a perpetual flow of harmonious versification. To these commendations, independent of any accidents of time and place, we must add the peculiar merit which Claudian derived from the unfavourable circum whose works, excepting his mythological poem on the rape of Proserpine, are confined to temporary subjects, and to the politics of his own eventful day; yet, excepting in one or two small and indifferent pieces, manifestly written by a Christian, and interpolated among his poems, there is no allusion whatever to the great religious strife. No one would know the existence of Christianity at that period of the world by reading the works of Claudian. His panegyric and his satire preserve the same religious impartiality award their most lavish praise or their bitterest invective on Christian or Pagan; he insults the fall of Eugenius, and glories in the victories of Theodosius. Under the child-and Honorius never became more than a child-Christianity continued to inflict wounds more and more deadly on expiring Paganism. Are the gods of Olympus agitated with apprehension at the birth of this new enemy? They are introduced as rejoicing at his appearance, and promising long years of glory. The whole prophetic choir of Paganism, all the oracles throughout the VOL. IV. world, are summoned to predict the felicity of his reign. His birth is compared to that of Apollo, but the narrow limits of an island must not confine the new deity- Non littora nostro Quæ tunc documenta futuri? Claud. iv. Cons. Hon. 141. From the Quarterly Review of Beugnot, Hist. de la Destruction du Paganisme en Occident, Q. R. vol. lvii. p. 61.-M. F stances of his birth. In the decline of arts and of empire, a native of Egypt, 118 who had received the education of a Greek, assumed in a mature age the familiar use and absolute command of the Latin language; 119 soared above the heads of his feeble contemporaries; and placed himself, after an interval of three hundred years, among the poets of ancient Rome.120 118 National vanity has made him a Florentine, or a Spaniard. But the first Epistle of Claudian proves him a native of Alexandria (Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin. tom. iii. p. 191-202, edit. Ernest.). 119 His first Latin verses were composed during the consulship of Probinus, a.d. 395: Romanos bibimus primum, te consule, fontes, Et Latiæ cessit Graia Thalia toga. Besides some Greek epigrams, which are still extant, the Latin poet had composed, in Greek, the Antiquities of Tarsus, Anazarbus, Berytus, Nice, &c. It is more easy to supply the loss of good poetry than of authentic history. 120 Strada (Prolusion v. vi.) allows him to contend with the five heroic poets, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Statius. His patron is the accomplished courtier Balthazar Castiglione. His admirers are numerous and passionate. Yet the rigid critics reproach the exotic weeds or flowers which spring too luxuriantly in his Latian soil. CHAPTER XXXI. INVASION OF ITALY BY ALARIC. - MANNERS OF THE ROMAN SENATE AND PEOPLE. ROME IS THRICE BESIEGED, AND AT LENGTH PILLAGED, BY THE GOTHS.-DEATH OF ALARIC. THE GOTHS EVACUATE ITALY. FALL OF CONSTANTINE. GAUL AND SPAIN ARE OCCUPIED BY THE BARBARIANS. INDEPENDENCE OF BRITAIN. THE incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often assume the appearance and produce the effects of a treason- Weakness of the court of Ravenna, .D. 408, September. able correspondence with the public enemy. If Alaric himself had been introduced into the council of Ravenna, he would probably have advised the same measures which were actually pursued by the ministers of Honorius.' The king of the Goths would have conspired, perhaps with some reluctance, to destroy the formidable adversary by whose arms, in Italy as well as in Greece, he had been twice overthrown. Their active and interested hatred laboriously accomplished the disgrace and ruin of the great Stilicho. The valour of Sarus, his fame in arms, and his personal or hereditary influence over the confederate barbarians, could recommend him only to the friends of their country who despised or detested the worthless characters of Turpilio, Varanes, and Vigilantius. By the pressing instances of the new favourites, these generals, unworthy as they had shown themselves of the name of soldiers, were promoted to the command of the cavalry, of the infantry, and of the domestic troops. The Gothic prince would have subscribed with pleasure the edict which the fanaticism of Olympius dictated to the simple and devout emperor. Honorius excluded all persons who were adverse to the catholic church from holding any office in the state; obstinately rejected the service of all those who dissented from his religion; and rashly disqualified many of his bravest and most skilful officers who adhered to the Pagan worship or who had imbibed the opinions of Arianism.3 These measures, so advantageous to an 2 The series of events, from the death of Stilicho to the arrival of Alaric before Rome, can only be found in Zosimus, l. v. [c. 35-37] p. 347-350. 2 The expression of Zosimus is strong and lively, καταφρόνησιν ἐμποιῆσαι τοῖς πολεpías denoūvras, sufficient to excite the contempt of the enemy. 3 Eos qui catholicæ sectæ sunt inimici, intra palatium militare prohibemus. Nullus nobis sit aliquâ ratione conjunctus, qui a nobis fide et religione discordat. Cod. Theodos. 1. xvi. tit. v. leg. 42, and Godefroy's Commentary, tom. vi. p. 164. This law was applied in the utmost latitude and rigorously executed. Zosimus, 1. v. [c. 46] P. 364. |
