XXXIX. of the Italians. 29 CHAP. privilege of being subject only to the laws of his country. Fashion, and even convenience, soon persuaded the conquerors to assume the more elegant dress of the natives, but they still persisted in the use of their mother-tongue; and their contempt for the Latin schools was applauded by Theodoric himself, who gratified their prejudices, or his own, by declaring, that the child who had trembled at a rod, would never dare to look upon a sword.30 Distress might sometimes provoke the indigent Roman to assume the ferocious manners which were insensibly relinquished by the rich and luxurious Barbarian :31 but these mutual conversions were not encouraged by the policy of a moSeparation narch who perpetuated the separation of the Italians and Goths and Goths; reserving the former for the arts of peace, and the latter for the service of war. To accomplish this design, he studied to protect his industrious subjects, and to moderate the violence without enervating the valour of his soldiers, who were maintained for the public defence..... They held their lands and benefices as a military stipend: at the sound of the trumpet, they were prepared to march under the conduct of their provincial officers; and the whole extent of Italy was distributed into the several quarters of a well-regulated camp. The service of the palace and of the frontiers was performed by choice or by rotation; and each extraordinary fatigue was recompensed by an increase of pay and occasional donatives. Theodoric had convinced his brave companions, that empire must be acquired and defended by the same arts. After his example, they strove to excel in the use, not only of the lance and sword, the instruments of their victories, but of the missile weapons, which they were too much inclined to neglect; and the lively image of war was displayed in 29 See the acknowledgment of Gothic liberty, Var. v. 30. 30 Procopius, Goth. 1. i. c. 2. The Roman boys learnt the language (Var. viii. 21.) of the Goths. Their general ignorance is not destroyed by the exceptions of Amalasuntha, a female, who might study without shame, or of Theodatus, whose learning provoked the indignation and contempt of his countrymen. 31 A saying of Theodoric was founded on experience: "Romanus "miser imitatur Gothum; et utilis (dives) Gothus imitatur Romanum.” See the Fragment and Notes of Valesius, p. 719. the daily exercise and annual reviews of the Gothic cavalry. A firm though gentle discipline imposed the habits of modesty, obedience, and temperance; and the Goths were instructed to spare the people, to reverence the laws, to understand the duties of civil society, and to disclaim the barbarous license of judicial combat and private revenge. 32 CHAP. XXXIX. Among the Barbarians of the West, the victory of Foreign Theodoric had spread a general alarm. But as soon as Theodopolicy of it appeared that he was satisfied with conquest and desir- ric. ous of peace, terror was changed into respect, and they submitted to a powerful mediation, which was uniformly employed for the best purposes of reconciling their quarrels and civilizing their manners.33 The ambassadors who resorted to Ravenna from the most distant countries of Europe, admired his wisdom, magnificence,34 and courtesy; and if he sometimes accepted either slaves or arms, white horses or strange animals, the gift of a sun-dial, a water-clock, or a musician, admonished eventhe princes of Gaul, of the superior art and industry of This Italian subjects. His domestic alliances,35 a wife, two daughters, a sister, and a niece, united the family of Theodoric with the kings of the Franks, the Burgundians, the Visigoths, the Vandals, and the Thuringians; and contributed to maintain the harmony, or at least the balance, of the great republic of the West.36 It is difficult in the dark forests of Germany and Poland to pursue the emi 32 The view of the military establishment of the Goths in Italy, is collected from the Epistles of Cassic Jorius (Var. i. 24. 40. iii. 3. 24. 48. iv. 13, 14. v. 26, 27. viii. 3, 4. 25). They are illustrated by the learned Mascou (Hist. of the Germans, 1. xi. 40...44. Annotation xiv). 33 See the clearness and vigour of his negociations in Ennodius (p. 1607.) and Cassiodorius (Var. iii. 1, 2, 3, 4. iv. 13. v. 43, 44.) who gives the different styles of friendship, counsel, expostulation, &c. 34 Even of his table (Var. vi. 9.) and palace (vii. 5). The admiration of strangers is represented as the most rational motive to justify these vain expenses, and to stimulate the diligence of the officers to whom those provinces were entrusted. 35 See the public and private alliances of the Gothic monarch, with the Burgundians (Var. i. 45, 46.) with the Franks (ii. 40.) with the Thuringians (iv. 1.) and with the Vandals (v. i). Each of these epis les affords some curious knowledge of the policy and manners of the Barbarians. 36 His political system may be observed in Cassiodorius (Var. iv. 1. ix. 1.) Jornandes (c. 58. p. 698, 699.) and the Valesian Fragment (p. 720, 721). Peace, honourable peace, was the constant aim of Theodoric. XXXIX. CHAP. gration of the Heruli, a fierce people who disdained the use of armour, and who condemned their widows and aged parents not to survive the loss of their husbands, or the decay of their strength.37 The king of these savage warriors solicited the friendship of Theodoric, and was elevated to the rank of his son, according to the Barbaric rites of a military adoption.38 From the shores of the Baltic, the Estians or Livonians laid their offerings of native amber 39 at the feet of a prince, whose fame had excited them to undertake an unknown and dangerous journey of fifteen hundred miles. With the country 40 from whence the Gothic nation derived their origin, he maintained a frequent and friendly correspondence; the Italians were clothed in the rich sables41 of Sweden: and one of its sovereigns, after a voluntary or reluctant abdication, found an hospitable retreat in the palace of Ravenna. He had reigned over one of the thirteen populous tribes who cultivated a small portion of the great island or peninsula of Scandinavia, to which the vague appellation of Thule has been sometimes applied. That northern region was peopled, or had been explored, as high as the sixty-eighth degree of latitude, where the natives of the polar circle enjoy and lose the presence of the sun at each summer and winter solstice during an equal 37 The curious reader may contemplate the Heruli of Procopius (Goth. 1. ii. c. 14.) and the patient reader may plunge into the dark and minute researches of M. de Buat (Hist des Peuples Anciens, tom ix. P, 548.... 396). 38 Variarum, iv. 2. The spirit and forms of this martial institution are noticed by Cassiodorius; but he seems to have only translated the sentiments of the Gothic king into the language of Roman eloquence. 39 Cassiodorius, who quotes Tacitus to the Estians, the unlettered savages of the Baltic (Var. v. 2.) describes the amber for which their shores have ever been famous, as the gum of a tree, hardened by the sun, and purified and wasted by the waves. When that singular substance is analysed by the chemists, it yields a vegetable oil and a mineral acid. 40 Scanzia, or Thule, is described by Jornandes (c. 3. p. 610...613.) and Procopius (Goth. 1. ii. c. 15). Neither the Goth nor the Greek had visited the country: both had conversed with the natives in their exile at Ravenna or Constantinople. 41 Sapherinas pelles. In the time of Jornandes, they inhabited Suethans, the proper Sweden; but that beautiful race of animals has gradually been driven into the eastern parts of Siberia. See Buffon (Hist. Nat. tom. xiii. p. 309...313. quarto edition); Pennant (System of Quadrupeds, vol. i. p. 322...328); Gmelin (Hist. Gen. des Voyages, tom. xviii. p. 257,258); and Levésque (Hist. de Russie, tom. v. p. 165, 166. 514, 515). period of forty days.42 The long night of his absence or death was the mournful season of distress and anxiety, till the messengers who had been sent to the mountain tops, descried the first rays of returning light, and proclaimed to the plain below the festival of his resurrection.43 CHAP. XXXIX. The life of Theodoric represents the rare and merito- His defenrious example of a Barbarian, who sheathed his sword sive wars. in the pride of victory and the vigour of his age. A reign of three and thirty years was consecrated to the duties of civil government, and the hostilities in which he was sometimes involved, were speedily terminated by the conduct of his lieutenants, the discipline of his troops, the arms of his allies, and even by the terror of his name. He reduced, under a strong and regular government, the unprofitable countries of Rhætia, Noricum, Dalmatia, and Pannonia, from the source of the Danube and the territory of the Bavarians," to the petty kingdom erected by the Gepida on the ruins of Sirmium. His prudence could not safely entrust the bulwark of Italy to such feeble and turbulent neighbours; and his justice might claim the lands which they oppressed, either as a part of his kingdom, or as the inheritance of his father. The greatness of a servant, who was named perfidious because he was successful, awakened the jealousy of the emperor Anastasius; and a war was kindled on the Dacian frontier, by the protection which the Gothic king, in 42 In the system or romance of M. Bailly (Letters sur les Sciences et sur l'Atlantide, tom. i. p. 249...256. tom. ii. p. 114...139.) the phonix of the Edda, and the annual death and revival of Adonis and Osiris, are the allegorical symbols of the absence and return of the sun in the Arctic regions. This ingenious writer is a worthy disciple of the great Buffon: nor is it easy for the coldest reason to withstand the magic of their philosophy. 43 ‘Αυτη τε Θυλιταις η μεγίση των εορτων εσί, says Procopius. At present a rude Manicheism (generous enough) prevails among the Samoyedes in Greenland and in Lapland (Hist. des Voyages, tom. xviii. p. 508, 509. tom. xix. p. 105, 106. 527, 528); yet, according to Grotius, Samojutæ cœlum atque astra adorant, nunina haud aliis iniquiora (de Rebus Belgicis, 1. iv. p. 338. folio edition): a sentence which Tacitus would not have disowned. 44 See the Hist. des Peuples Anciens, &c. tom. ix. p. 255...273. 396 ..501. The Count de Buat was French minister at the court of Bavaria : a liberal curiosity prompted his inquiries into the antiquities of the country, and that curiosity was the germ of twelve respectable volumes. CHAP. XXXIX. His naval armament A. D. 509, the vicissitude of human affairs, had granted to one of the descendants of Attila. Sabinian, a general illustrious by his own and father's merit, advanced at the head of ten thousand Romans; and the provisions and arms, which filled a long train of waggons, were distributed to the fiercest of the Bulgarian tribes. But, in the fields of Margus, the eastern powers were defeated by the inferior forces of the Goths and Huns; the flower and even the hope of the Roman armies was irretrievably destroyed: and such was the temperance with which Theodoric had inspired his victorious troops, that as their leader had not given the signal of pillage, the rich spoils of the enemy lay untouched at their feet." Exasperated by this disgrace, the Byzantine court dispatched two hundred ships and eight thousand men to plunder the sea-coast of Calabria and Apulia; they assaulted the ancient city of Tarentum, interrupted the trade and agriculture of an happy country, and sailed back to the Hellespont, proud of their piratical victory over a people whom they still presumed to consider as their Roman brethren.46 Their retreat was possibly hastened by the activity of Theodoric; Italy was covered by a fleet of a thousand light vessels, which he constructed with incredible dispatch; and his firm moderation was soon rewarded by a solid and honourable peace. He maintained with a powerful hand the balance of the West, till it was at length overthrown by the ambition of Clovis; and although unable to assist his rash and unfortunate kinsman the king of the Visigoths, he saved the remains of his family and people, 45 See the Gothic transactions on the Danube and in Illyricum, in Jornandes (c. 58. p. 699.) Ennodius (p. 1607...1610.) Marcellinus (in Chron. p. 44, 47, 48.) and Cassiodorius (in Chron. and Var. iii. 23. 50. iv. 13. vii. 4. 24. viii. 9, 10, 11. 21. ix. 8, 9). 46 I cannot forbear transcribing the liberal and classic style of Count Marcellinus: Romanus comes domesticorum, et Rusticus comes scholariorum cum centum armatis navibus, totidemque dromonibus, octo millia militum armatorum secum ferentibus, ad devastanda Italiæ littora proces-. serunt, et usque ad Tarentum antiquissiman civitatem aggressi sunt; remensoque mari inhonestam victoriam quam piratico ausa Romani ex Romanis rapuerunt, Anastasio Cæsari reportarunt (in Chron, p. 48). See Variar. i. 16. ii. 38. 47 See the royal orders and instructions (Var. iv. 15. v. 16...20): These armed boats should be still smaller than the thousand vessels of Agamemnon at the siege of Troy. |