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The emperor had taken up his residence in his palace at Milan, where he thought himself secured by the rivers of Italy, which lay between him and the Gothic chief. But the season happened to be remarkably dry, which enabled the Goths to traverse, without impediment, the wide and stony beds, whose centre was faintly marked by the course of a shallow stream; and as Alaric approached the walls, or rather the suburbs of Milan, he enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing the emperor of the Romans flying before him. The danger to which the latter had been exposed, now urged him to seek a retreat in some inaccessible fortress of Italy, where he might securely remain, while the open country was covered by a deluge of barbarians; and in the twentieth year of his age, anxious only for his personal safety, Honorius retired to the perpetual confinement of the walls and morasses of RAVENNA. His example was imitated by his feeble successors, the Gothic kings, and afterwards the Exarchs, who occupied the throne and palace of the emperors; and, till the middle of the eighth century, Ravenna was considered as the seat of government and the capital of Italy.

During a period of six hundred and nineteen years, the city of Rome, the seat of government, had never been violated by the presence of a foreign enemy; but in the year 408, Alaric commenced the blockade of this proud metropolis.* By a skilful disposition of his numerous forces, he

* We seem in general to entertain a very inadequate idea in the present day of what was the extent and magnificence of the city of Rome, at the period of which we are now treating. The subject is somewhat foreign to the object of this work; yet I flatter myself a few hints may be pardoned by the reader, were it merely on the score of exciting attention to a subject of considerable curiosity. When the capital of the empire was besieged by the Goths, the circuit of the walls was accurately measured by Ammonius the mathematician, who found it equal to twenty-one miles. The form of the city was almost that of a circle. It probably covered a less space of ground than the metropolis of Great Britain; but it contained about one fifth more inhabitants; for we may fairly estimate the number of inhabitants," says Mr. Gibbon, referring to this period, "at twelve hundred thousand." The

encompassed the walls, commanded the twelve principal gates, intercepted all communication with the adjacent country, and vigilantly guarded the navigation of the river Tiber, from which the Romans derived the surest and most plentiful supply of provisions. The first emotions of the nobles, and of the people, were those of surprise and indignation, that a vile barbarian should dare to insult the capital of the world; but their arrogance was soon humbled by misfortune. The unfortunate city gradually experienced the distress of scarcity, and at length the horrid calamities of famine. The daily allowance of three pounds of bread, was reduced to one half-to one third-to nothing; and

total number of houses, in the fourteen regions of the city, amounted to forty-eight thousand three hundred and eighty-two;-a number inferior to those of the British capital: but that is accounted for from the loftiness of the buildings, which were carried to such an enormous elevation, that it was repeatedly enacted, by Augustus, as well as by Nero, in consequence of the frequent and fatal accidents which happened through the hastiness of their erection, and the insufficiency of their materials, that the height of private edifices, within the walls of Rome, should not exceed the measure of seventy feet from the ground! House rent was immoderately dear-the rich acquired, at an enormous expense, the ground which they covered with palaces and gardens; but the bulk of the common people was crowded into a narrow space, and the different floors and apartments of the same house were divided among several families. There were seventeen hundred and eighty superb mansions, the residence of wealthy and honourable citizens. No doubt the language of one of their own poets (Claudius Rutilius,) who lived at the time of the Gothic invasion, is to be understood as indulging in poetic license, when it describes “each palace as equal to a city, since it included within its own precincts, every thing which could be subservient either to use or luxury; markets, race-courses, temples, fountains, baths, porticoes, shady groves, and artificial aviaries." Of the riches and luxury of these nobles, we may form an estimate from this circumstance, that several examples are recorded in the age of Honorius, of persons who celebrated the year of their prætorship by a festival which lasted seven days, and cost above one hundred thousand pounds sterling. Before the Dioclesian persecution, which commenced A. D. 303, the places of Christian worship in Rome were augmented to more than forty in number; and the pastors and teachers to uwards of a hundred and fifty.-Gibbon's Rome, vol. vi. c. 31. and Optatus de Schism. Donat. lib. ii. p. 40.

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the price of corn still continued to rise in a rapid and extravagant proportion. The poorer citizens unable to procure the necessaries of life, solicited the precarious charity of the rich; but private and occasional donations were insufficient to appease the hunger of a numerous people. The food the most repugnant to sense or imagination, the aliments the most unwholesome and pernicious to the constitution, were eagerly devoured, and fiercely disputed by the rage of hunger. A dark suspicion was entertained that some wretches fed on the bodies of their fellow creatures, whom they had secretly murdered, and even mothers are said to have tasted the flesh of their slaughtered infants! Many thousands of the inhabitants of Rome expired in their own houses, or in the streets, for want of sustenance; and as the public sepulchres without the walls were in the power of the enemy, the stench which arose from so many putrid and unburied carcasses, infected the air; and the miseries of famine were succeeded and augmented by the contagion of a pestilential disease, and the proud and insolent Romans were at length compelled to seek relief in the clemency or at least in the moderation of the king of the Goths.

The senate appointed two ambassadors to negociate with the enemy. When introduced into his presence, they declared, perhaps in a more lofty style than became their abject condition, that the Romans were resolved to maintain their dignity either in peace or war; and that if Alaric refused them a fair and honourable capitulation, he might sound his trumpets and prepare for battle with an innumerable people, exercised in arms and animated by despair. "The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed," was the concise reply of the Barbarian, accompanied by a loud and insulting laugh, expressive of his contempt for the threats of an unwarlike populace, enervated by luxury, before they were emaciated by famine. He then condescended to fix the ransom which he would receive as the price of his retreat from the walls of Rome. It was ALL the gold and silver in the city, whether it were the property of the state Vor. I.

or of individuals; ALL the rich and precious moveables; and ALL the slaves that could prove their title to the name of Barbarians. "If such, O king, are your demands," said they, "what do you intend to leave us?" "Your lives," replied the haughty conqueror! They trembled and retired.

The stern features of Alaric, however, became insensibly relaxed, and he abated much of the rigour of his terms; for he at length consented to raise the siege on the immediate payment of five thousand pounds of gold-of thirty thousand pounds of silver-of four thousand robes of silkof three thousand pieces of fine scarlet cloth—and of three thousand pounds weight of pepper. But the public treasury was exhausted; the annual rents of the nobles were intercepted by the calamities of war; the gold and gems had been exchanged, during the famine, for the vilest sustenance. Recourse was, therefore, obliged to be had to the hordes of secret wealth which had been concealed by the obstinacy of avarice, and some remains of consecrated spoils, which afforded the only means of averting the impending ruin of the city. As soon as the Romans had satisfied the rapacious demands of Alaric, they were restored, in some measure, to the enjoyment of peace and plenty.*

Before he withdrew his army from the gates of Rome, Alaric had stipulated for the payment of an annual subsidy of corn and money, which the treacherous Romans now sought to evade, and in the following year (409) the Gothic chief, resolving to punish their perfidy, a second time laid siege to their city. On this occasion, however, instead of assaulting the capital, he directed his efforts against the port of Ostia, one of the boldest and most stupendous works of Roman magnificence. This port or harbour, which was undertaken by Julius Cæsar, and finished in the reign of Claudian, where the corn of Africa was deposited in

* Gibbon's Rome, vol. vi. ch. 31.

spacious granaries for the use of the capital, had, by this time, insensibly swelled to the size of an episcopal city. As soon as Alaric was in possession of that important place, he summoned the city to surrender, declaring that a refusal, or even a delay, should be instantly followed by the destruction of the magazines, on which the lives of the Roman people depended. The clamours of the people, and the terror of famine, subdued the pride of the senate-they listened without reluctance to the proposal, which Alaric made them, of placing a new emperor on the throne of the Cæsars in place of the unworthy Honorius, and the suffrage of the Gothic conqueror bestowed the purple on Attalus, præfect of the city.

Attalus, however, was not long in evincing his incompetency for the duties of the high station to which he had been raised; and in the following year Alaric publicly despoiled him of the ensigns of royalty, and sent them, as the pledge of peace and friendship, to Honorius at Ravenna. Some favourable occurrence, however, happening to turn up in the fortunes of this latter prince, just at that moment, the insolence of his ministers returned with it; and, instead of accepting the friendly overture of Alaric, a body of three hundred soldiers was ordered to sally out of the gates of Ravenna, who surprised and cut in pieces a considerable party of Goths, after which they re-entered the city in triumph. The crime and folly of the court of Ravenna was expiated a third time by the calamities of Rome. Alaric, who now no longer dissembled his appetite for plunder and revenge, appeared in arms under the walls of the capital, and the trembling senate, without any hopes of relief, prepared, by a desperate resistance, to delay the ruin of their country. But they were unable to guard against the secret conspiracy of their slaves and domestics, who, either from birth or interest, were attached to the cause of the enemy. At the hour of midnight, the Salarian gate was silently opened, and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremen

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