The greatest story in the world, period 2 (of 3)

by Horace G. Hutchinson

In Diocletian's time we find that any claim of power by the people, the democracy, was entirely given up. The government was an autocracy; though there might be more than one autocrat. There was no longer any value in being a citizen of Rome. Rome and Italy had no privileges above the rest of the Empire. They were administered and taxed in the same way as all the provinces.

Constantine the Great

This formal division of authority under Diocletian did not long answer the purpose for which he designed it, and he and his fellow "Augustus" abdicated in 305, and for nearly twenty years there was continual fighting between rival "Emperors" elected by the different armies. For a time, but for a time only, peace within the Empire was gained under Constantine I.—Constantine the Great, as he was deservedly called. He deserves that distinguishing title if only for two acts of his reign which made a very great impression on the story of the world: he accepted the Christian religion as the recognised religion of the Empire, and he built the City of Constantine—Constantinople—to be the new capital of the Empire, the new centre.

He died, however, in 337, and immediately the fighting between rival Emperors was resumed. It was nearly thirty years before the world had any peace from these rivalries. At length Valentinian is proclaimed Emperor by his soldiers, and he appoints, as his colleague and fellow "Augustus," his own brother Valens. To Valens he gives the title of Emperor of the East, with the capital of that Eastern Empire at Constantinople. For himself he takes the Empire of the West, with its capital still at Rome. It appears that the independence of the two Empires is complete. Their boundaries are defined, the limit of the Eastern Empire being drawn so far to the west as to include Macedonia and Greece.

Of all the Indo-European tribes or nations the most powerful, the most numerous and that which occupied the largest territory, was the great nation of the Goths. They may have come down from Scandinavia—from Norway and Sweden. There are some evidences which make that likely, but the evidence is not very clear. They owned the country along the boundary of the Roman Empire from the Danube to the Vistula.

The Huns

And behind all these tribes of Indo-Europeans settled for the most part in what we now call Germany and Austria—behind them, that is to say to the north and east, in the region of that great hive or nursery of mankind which seems to have been somewhere in the north of Asia—there was another nation, not belonging to the Indo-European family, not speaking a language that resembled theirs, not made up of persons at all like these Indo-Europeans in appearance. The Indo-Europeans, whom it will perhaps be more convenient to call Germans, because they lived in the countries now occupied by Germans and Austrians—these German tribesmen were tall and fair. This other nation, to the eastward, was of small dark men. They were called Huns.

You may remember that antiquaries—men learned in ancient history—tell us that man, in his progress to civilisation, has passed through two rather distinct stages—the hunting stage and the pastoral stage—and through them came to a third stage, the agricultural, when he settled down to grow crops. The German tribes were already in this third stage, at the point which our story has reached, but the Huns were in the second stage only; they wandered, with their flocks and herds.

This nation of little dark men seems, by their language and by other evidences, as if it must have been related to the Finns, of Finland. The evidences, however, are not very clear; but what is tolerably clear is that they were a numerous and a warlike race of little dark men, and that they kept up a constant pressure, from the north and east, upon the Goths and other German tribes; especially on the more eastern Goths, called Ostrogoths.

And very often it seems to have been that pressure of the Huns from the North and East that made the Germans try and try again to break through the boundary of the Roman Empire and work their way towards the west. The first of these breaks through, however, which had any success, was in a southward, rather than a westward direction. It was a break through of the Goths towards Constantinople, and it was very formidable indeed.