History for ready reference, Volume 4, Nicæa to Tunis

by J. N. Larned

appeared to him from heaven, the account of which it might
have been difficult to receive with credit, had it been
related by any other person. But since the victorious emperor
himself long afterwards declared it to the writer of this
history, when he was honoured with his acquaintance and
society, and confirmed his statement by an oath, who could
hesitate to credit the relation, especially since the
testimony of after time has established its truth? He said
that at mid-day, when the sun was beginning to decline, he
saw, with his own eyes, the trophy of a cross of light in the
heavens, above the sun, and bearing the inscription, "Conquer
by this." At this sight he himself was struck with amazement,
and his whole army also, which happened to be following him on
some expedition, and witnessed the miracle. He said, moreover,
that he doubted within himself what the import of this
apparition could be. And while he continued to ponder and
reason on its meaning, night imperceptibly drew on; and in his
sleep the Christ of God appeared to him with the same sign
which he had seen in the heavens, and commanded him to procure
a standard made in the likeness of that sign, and to use it as
a safeguard in all engagements with his enemies.'" The
standard which is said to have had this origin was the famous
Labarum.
E. L. Cutts,
Constantine the Great,
chapter 11.
"He [Constantine] was not lacking in susceptibility to certain
religious impressions; he acknowledged the peculiar providence
of God in the manner in which he had been delivered from
dangers, made victorious over all his pagan adversaries, and
finally rendered master of the Roman world. It flattered his
vanity to be considered the favourite of God, and his destined
instrument to destroy the empire of the evil spirits (the
heathen deities). The Christians belonging to court were
certainly not wanting on their part to confirm him in this
persuasion. … Constantine must indeed have been conscious that
he was striving not so much for the cause of God as for the
gratification of his own ambition and love of power; and that
such acts of perfidy, mean revenge, or despotic jealousy, as
occurred in his political course, did not well befit an
instrument and servant of God, such as he claimed to be
considered. … Even Eusebius, one of the best among the bishops
at his court, is so dazzled by what the emperor had achieved
for the outward extension and splendour of the church, as to
be capable of tracing to the purest motives of a servant of
God all the acts which a love of power that would not brook a
rival had, at the expense of truth and humanity, put into the
heart of the emperor in the war against Licinius. … Bishops in
immediate attendance on the emperor so far forgot indeed to
what master they belonged, that, at the celebration of the
third decennium of his reign (the tricennalia), one of them
congratulated him as constituted by God the ruler over all in
the present world, and destined to reign with the Son of God
in the world to come, The feelings of Constantine himself were
shocked at such a parallel."
A. Neander,
General History of the Christian Religion and Church,
period 2, section. 1, A.
"As he approached the East, he [Constantine] adopted oriental
manners; he affected the gorgeous purple of the monarchs of
Persia; he decorated his head with false hair of different
colours, and with a diadem covered with pearls and gems. He
substituted flowing silken robes, embroidered with flowers,
for the austere garb of Rome, or the unadorned purple of the
first Roman emperors. He filled his palace with eunuchs, and
lent an ear to their perfidious calumnies; he became the
instrument of their base intrigues, their cupidity, and their
jealousy. He multiplied spies, and subjected the palace and
the empire, alike, to a suspicious police. He lavished the
wealth of Rome on the sterile pomp of stately buildings. … He
poured out the best and noblest blood in torrents, more
especially of those nearly connected with himself. The most
illustrious victim of his tyranny was Crispus, his son by his
first wife, whom he had made the partner of his empire, and
the commander of his armies. … In a palace which he had made a
desert, the murderer of his father-in-law, his
brothers-in-law, his sister, his wife, his son, and his
nephew, must have felt the stings of remorse, if hypocritical
priests and courtier bishops had not lulled his conscience to
rest. We still possess the panegyric in which they represent
him as a favourite of Heaven, a saint worthy of our highest
veneration; we have also several laws by which Constantine
atoned for all his crimes, in the eyes of the priests, by
heaping boundless favours on the church. The gifts he bestowed
on it, the immunities he granted to persons and to property
connected with it, soon directed ambition entirely to
ecclesiastical dignities. The men who had so lately been
candidates for the honours of martyrdom, now found themselves
depositaries of the greatest wealth and the highest power. How
was it possible that their characters should not undergo a
total change?"
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
History of the Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 4 (volume 1).
See, also,
CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 312-337.
ROME: A. D. 330.
Transference of the capital of the Empire to
Byzantium (Constantinople).
See CONSTANTINOPLE A. D. 330.
ROME: A. D. 337-361.
Redivision of the Empire.
Civil wars between the sons of Constantine
and their successors.
Elevation of Julian to the throne.
Before the death of Constantine, "his three sons, Constantine,
Constantius, and Constans, had already been successively
raised to the rank of Cæsar about the tenth, twentieth, and
thirtieth years of his reign. The royal family contained also
two other young princes, sons of Dalmatius, one of the
half-brothers of Constantine; the elder of these nephews of
the Emperor was called Dalmatius, after his father, the other
Hanniballianus. … Constantine shared—not the Empire, but—the
imperial power among his three sons. The eldest, Constantine,
was to hold the first rank among the three Augusti, and to
take the western Gallic provinces under his especial
administration; Constantius was to take the east, viz., Asia,
Syria, and Egypt; Constans was to take the central portion of
the Empire, Italy, Africa, and Western Illyricum."
E. L. Cutts,
Constantine the Great,
chapter 33.
{2722}
The father of these three princes was no sooner dead (A. D.
337) than they made haste to rid themselves of all the
possible rivals in a family which seemed too numerous for
peace. Two uncles and seven cousins—including Dalmatius and
Hannibalianus—with other connections by marriage and
otherwise, were quickly put out of the way under one and
another pretence and with more or less mockery of legal forms.
The three brothers then divided the provinces between them on
much the same plan as before; but Constantine, the eldest, now
reigned in the new capital of his father, which bore his name.
There was peace between them for three years. It was broken by
Constantine, who demanded the surrender to him of a part of
the dominions of Constans. War ensued and Constantine was
killed in one of the earliest engagements of it. Constans took
possession of his dominions, refusing any share of them to
Constantius, and reigned ten years longer, when he was
destroyed, A. D. 350, by a conspiracy in Gaul, which raised to
his throne one Magnentius, a soldier of barbarian extraction.
Magnentius was acknowledged in Gaul and Italy; but the troops
in Illyricum invested their own general, Vetranio, with the
purple. Constantius, in the East, now roused himself to oppose
these rebellions, and did so with success. Vetranio, an aged
man, was intimidated by artful measures and driven to
surrender his unfamiliar crown. Magnentius advanced boldly to
meet an enemy whom he despised, and was defeated in a great
battle fought September 21, A. D. 351, at Mursa (Essek, in
modern Hungary, on the Drave). Retreating to Italy, and from
Italy to Gaul, he maintained the war for another year, but
slew himself finally in despair and the empire had a single
ruler, once more. The sole emperor, Constantius, now found his
burden of power too great, and sought to share it. Two young
nephews had been permitted to live, when the massacre of the
house of Constantine occurred, and he turned to these. He
raised the elder, Gallus, to the rank of Cæsar, and gave him
the government of the præfecture of the East. But Gallus
conducted himself like a Nero and was disgraced and executed
in little more than three years. The younger nephew, Julian,
escaped his brother's fate by great prudence of behavior and
by the friendship of the Empress Eusebia. In 355, he, in turn,
was made Cæsar and sent into Gaul. Distinguishing himself
there in several campaigns against the Germans (see GAUL: A.
D. 355-361), he provoked the jealousy of Constantius and of
the eunuchs who ruled the imperial court. To strip him of
troops, four Gallic legions were ordered to the East, for the
Persian war. They rose in revolt, at Paris, proclaimed Julian
emperor and forced him to assume the dangerous title. He
promptly sent an embassy to Constantius asking the recognition
and confirmation of this procedure; but his overtures were
rejected with disdain. He then declared war, and conducted an
extraordinary expedition into Illyricum, through the Black
Forest and down the Danube, occupying Sirmium and seizing the
Balkan passes before he was known to have left Gaul. But the
civil war so vigorously opened was suddenly arrested at this
stage by the death of Constantius (A. D. 361), and Julian
became sole emperor without more dispute. He renounced
Christianity and is known in history as Julian the Apostate.
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapters 18-22.
ROME: A. D. 338-359.
Wars of Constantius with the Persians.
See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627.
ROME: A. D. 350-361.
Extensive abandonment of Gaul to the Germans.
Its recovery by Julian.
See GAUL: A. D. 355-361.
ROME: A. D. 361-363.
Julian and the Pagan revival.
"Heathenism still possessed a latent power greater than those
supposed who persuaded the Emperors that now it could be
easily extirpated. The state of affairs in the West differed
from that in the East. In the West it was principally the
Roman aristocracy, who with few exceptions still adhered to
their ancient religion, and with them the great mass of the
people. In the East, on the contrary, Christianity had made
much more progress among the masses, and a real aristocracy
could scarcely be said to exist. In its stead there was an
aristocracy of learning, whose hostility was far more
dangerous to Christianity than the aversion of the Roman
nobility. The youth still thronged to the ancient and
illustrious schools of Miletus, Ephesus, Nicomedia, Antioch,
and above all Athens, and the teachers in these schools were
almost without exception heathen. … There the ancient heathen
spirit was imbibed, and with it a contempt for barbarian
Christianity. The doctrinal strife in the Christian Church was
held up to ridicule, and, alas! with too much reason. For,
according to the Emperor's favor and caprice, one doctrine
stood for orthodoxy to-day and another to-morrow. To-day it
was decreed that Christ was of the same essence with the
Father, and all who refused to acknowledge this were deposed
and exiled. Tomorrow the court theology had swung round, it
was decreed that Christ was a created being, and now it was
the turn of the other party to go into banishment. The
educated heathen thought themselves elevated far above all
this in their classic culture. With what secret anger they
beheld the way in which the temples were laid waste, the works
of art broken to pieces, the memorials of an age of greatness
destroyed, and all in favor of a barbarian religion destitute
of culture. The old rude forms of Heathenism, indeed, they
themselves did not desire, but the refined Heathenism of the
Neoplatonic school seemed to them not merely the equal but the
superior of Christianity. … These were the sources of the
re-action against Christianity. Their spirit was embodied in
Julian. In him it ascended for the last time the imperial
throne, and made the final attempt to stop the triumphal
progress of Christianity. But it succeeded only in giving to
the world irresistible evidence that the sceptre of the spirit
of Antiquity was forever broken. … What influenced Julian was
chiefly enthusiasm for Greek culture. Even in a religious
aspect Polytheism seemed to him superior to Monotheism,
because more philosophic. Neoplatonism filled the whole soul
of the young enthusiast, and seemed to him to comprehend all
the culture of the ancient world in a unified system. But of
course his vanity had a great share in the matter, for he
naturally received the most devoted homage among the
Hellenists, and his rhetorical friends did not stint their
flattery. … He made his entry … [into Constantinople) as a
declared heathen. Although at the beginning of his campaign he
had secretly sacrificed to Bellona, yet he had attended the
church in Vienne.
{2723}
But on the march he put an end to all ambiguity, and publicly
offered sacrifices to the ancient gods. The Roman Empire once
more had a heathen Emperor. At first all was joy; for as
universally as Constantius was hated, Julian was welcomed as a
deliverer. Even the Christians joined in this rejoicing. They
too had found the arbitrary government of the last few years
hard enough to bear. And if some who looked deeper began to
feel anxiety, they consoled themselves by the reflection that
even a heathen Emperor could not injure the Church so much as
a Christian Emperor who used his power in promoting whatever
seemed to him at the time to be orthodoxy in the dogmatic
controversies of the age. And Julian proclaimed, not the
suppression of Christianity, but only complete religious
liberty. He himself intended to be a heathen, but no Christian
should be disturbed in his faith. Julian was certainly
thoroughly in earnest in this. To be a persecutor of the
Church, was the last thing he would have thought of. Besides,
he was much too fully persuaded of the untruth of Christianity
and the truth of Heathenism to persecute. Julian was an
enthusiast, like all the rhetoricians and philosophers who
surrounded him. He regarded himself as called by a divine
voice to the great work of restoring Heathenism, and this was
from the beginning avowedly his object. And he was no less
firmly convinced that this restoration would work itself out
without any use of force; as soon as free scope was given to
Heathenism it would, by its own powers, overcome Christianity.
… The Emperor himself was evidently in all respects a heathen
from sincere conviction. In this regard at least he was honest
and no hypocrite. The flagrant voluptuousness, which had
corrupted the court, was banished, and a large number of
useless officials dismissed. The life of the court was to be
simple, austere, and pure. Men had never before seen an
Emperor who conducted himself with such simplicity, whose
table was so economically supplied, and who knew no other
employments than hard work, and devoted worship of the gods. A
temple was built in the palace, and there Julian offered a
daily sacrifice. Often he might be seen serving at the
sacrifice himself, carrying the wood and plunging the knife
into the victim with his own hand. He remembered every
festival which should be celebrated, and knew how to observe
the whole half-forgotten ritual most punctiliously. He was
equally zealous in performing the duties of his office as
Pontifex Maximus. Everywhere he revived the ancient worship
which had fallen into neglect. Here a closed temple was
re-opened, there a ruined shrine restored, images of the gods
were set up again, and festivals which had ceased to be
celebrated, were restored. … Soon conversions became
plentiful; governors, officials, soldiers, made themselves
proficient in the ancient cultus; and even a bishop, Pegasius
of New Ilium, whom Julian had previously learned to know as a
secret friend of the gods, when he had heen the Emperor's
guide to the classic sites of Troy, changed his religion, and
from a Christian bishop became a heathen high-priest. … The
dream of a restoration of Heathenism nevertheless soon began
to prove itself a dream. Though now surrounded by heathen
only, Julian could not help feeling that he was really
isolated in their midst. He himself was naturally a mystic,
and lived in his ideals. His Heathenism was one purified by
poetic feeling. But there was little or nothing of this to be
found actually existing. His heathen friends were courtiers,
who agreed with him without inward conviction. … He was far
too serious and severely moral for their tastes. They
preferred the theatre to the temple, they liked amusement
best, and found the daily attendance at worship and the
monotonous ceremonies and sacrifices very dull. A measurably
tolerant Christian Emperor would doubtless have suited them
better than this enthusiastically pious heathen. Blinded as
Julian was by his ideal views, he soon could not escape the
knowledge that things were not going well. If Heathenism was
to revive, it must receive new life within. The restoration
must be also a reformation. Strangely enough Julian felt
compelled to borrow from Christianity the ways and means for
such a reformation. The heathen priests, like the Christian,
were to instruct the people, and exhort them to holy living.
The heathen, like the Christians, were to care for the poor. …
While new strength was thus to be infused into Heathenism,
other measures were adopted to weaken Christianity. An
imperial edict, June 17, A. D. 362, forbade the Christians to
act as teachers of the national literature, the ancient
classics. It was, the Emperor explained, a contradiction for
Christians to expound Homer, Thucydides, or Demosthenes, when
they regarded them as godless men and aliens. He would not
compel them to change their convictions, but also he could not
permit the ancient writers to be expounded by those who took
them to task for impiety. … This, of course, was not a
persecution, if the use of force alone makes a persecution,
yet it was a persecution, and in a sense a worse one than any
which went before. Julian tried to deprive the Christians of
that which should be common to all men,—education. …
Nevertheless he had to confess to himself that the restoration
of Heathenism was making no progress worth speaking of. … He
spent his whole strength, he sacrificed himself, he lived only
for the Empire over which Providence had made him lord, and
yet found himself alone in his endeavor. Even his heathen
friends, the philosophers and rhetoricians, kept at a
distance. … With such thoughts as these, Julian journeyed to
Antioch, in Syria, in order to make preparations there for the
great campaign he purposed to make against the Persians. There
new disappointments awaited him. He found the shrines of his
gods forsaken and desolate. … The temple of Apollo was
restored with the greatest splendor. Julian went there to
offer a sacrifice to the god. He expected to find a multitude
of worshippers, but no one even brought oil for a lamp or
incense to burn in honor of the deity. Only an old man
approached to sacrifice a goose. … Shortly afterwards, the
newly restored temple burned down in the night. Now the
Emperor's wrath knew no bounds. He ascribed the guilt to the
Christians; and although the temple, as is probable, caught
fire through the fault of a heathen philosopher, who carried a
dedicatory lamp about in it without due precautions, many
Christians were arrested and tortured. The Church had its
martyrs once more; and Julian, discontented with himself and
the whole world besides, advanced to new measures.
{2724}
The cathedral of Antioch was closed and its property
confiscated. Julian decreed that the Christians, whose God had
forbidden them to kill, should not be intrusted with any
office with which judicial functions were connected. … Julian
himself became more and more restless. He hurried from temple
to temple, brought sacrifice after sacrifice; he knelt for
hours before his gods and covered their statues with kisses.
Then at night he sat in the silence at his writing-table, and
gave vent to his bitterness and disgust with every thing. Then
he wrote his works full of brilliant wit, thought out and
expressed with Greek refinement, but full of bitterest hatred
especially against the Galileans and their Carpenter's Son. …
Finally, his immense preparations for the campaign against the
Persians were finished. Julian started, after finally setting
over the Antiochians a wretch as governor, with the remark
that the man did not deserve to be a governor, but they
deserved to be governed by such a one."
G. Uhlhorn,
The Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism,
book 3, chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
G. H. Rendall.
Julian the Emperor.
B. L. Gildersleeve,
The Emperor Julian
(Essays and Studies, pages 355-400).
Gregory Nazianzen,
Invectives against Julian, and Libanius,
Funeral Oration upon Julian,
translated by C. W. King.
ROME: A. D. 363.
The Persian expedition of Julian.
His death.
Jovian made Emperor by the retreating army.
See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627.
ROME: A. D. 363-379.
Christianity reascendant.
Secret hostility of Paganism.
Reign of Valentinian and Valens.
Approach of the Huns.
The struggle with the Goths.
Elevation of Theodosius to the throne.
When Julian's successor, Jovian, "who did not reign long
enough to lead back to Constantinople the army which he had
marched from the banks of the Tigris, made public profession
of Christianity, he, at the same time, displaced a great
number of brave officers and able functionaries, whom Julian
had promoted in proportion to their zeal for paganism. From
that period, up to the fall of the empire, a hostile sect,
which regarded itself as unjustly stripped of its ancient
honours, invoked the vengeance of the gods on the heads of the
government, exulted in the public calamities, and probably
hastened them by its intrigues, though inextricably involved
in the common ruin. The pagan faith, which was not attached to
a body of doctrine, nor supported by a corporation of priests,
nor heightened by the fervour of novelty, scarcely ever
displayed itself in open revolt, or dared the perils of
martyrdom; but pagans still occupied the foremost rank in
letters:—the orators, the philosophers (or, as they were
otherwise called, sophists), the historians, belonged, almost
without an exception, to the ancient religion. It still kept
possession of the most illustrious schools, especially those
of Athens and Alexandria; the majority of the Roman senate
were still attached to it; and in the breasts of the common
people, particularly the rural population, it maintained its
power for several centuries, branded, however, with the name
of magic. … Less than eight months after his elevation to the
throne, on the 17th of February, 364, Jovian died in a small
town of Galatia. After the expiration of ten days, the army
which he was leading home from Persia, at a solemn assembly
held at Nice, in Bithynia, chose as his successor the son of a
captain from a little village of Pannonia, the count
Valentinian, whom his valour and bodily prowess had raised to
one of the highest posts of the army. … Spite of his savage
rudeness, and the furious violence of his temper, the Roman
empire found in him an able chief at the moment of its
greatest need. Unhappily, the extent of the empire required,
at least, two rulers. The army felt this, and demanded a
second. … Valentinian … chose his brother. Valens, with whom
he shared his power, had the weak, timid, and cruel character
which ordinarily distinguishes cowards. Valentinian, born in
the West, … reserved the government of it to himself. He ceded
to his brother a part of Illyricum on the Danube, and the
whole of the East. He established universal toleration by law,
and took no part in the sectarian controversies which divided
Christendom. Valens adopted the Arian faith, and persecuted
the orthodox party. The finances of the empire demanded a
reform, which neither of the emperors was in a condition to
undertake. They wanted money, and they were ignorant where to
seek the long exhausted sources of public wealth. … Vast
provinces in the interior were deserted; enlistments daily
became more scanty and difficult; the magistrates of the
'curiæ' or municipalities, who were responsible both for the
contributions and the levies of their respective towns, sought
by a thousand subterfuges to escape the perilous honour of the
magistrature. …
See CURIA, MUNICIPAL, OF THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE.
During the twelve years that Valentinian reigned over the West
(A. D. 364-376), he redeemed his cruelties by several
brilliant victories. …
See ALEMANNI: A. D. 365-367.
Valentinian had undertaken the defence of Gaul in person, and
generally resided at Treves, then the capital of that vast
prefecture; but at the time he was thus occupied, invasions
not less formidable had devastated the other provinces of the
West. …
See BRITAIN. A. D. 367-370.
At this period Valens reigned over the Greeks, whose language
he did not understand (A. D. 364-378). His eastern frontier
was menaced by the Persians, his northern by the Goths. …
Armenia and Iberia became subject to Persia; but as the people
of both these countries were Christian, they remained faithful
to the interests of Rome, though conquered by her enemy. … The
dominion of the Goths extended along the shores of the Danube
and the Black Sea, and thirty years had elapsed since they had
made any incursion into the Roman territory. But during that
period they had gone on increasing in greatness and in power.
… Spite of the formidable neighbourhood of the Goths and the
Persians—spite of the cowardice and the incapacity of
Valens—the East had remained at peace, protected by the mere
name of Valentinian, whose military talents, promptitude, and
severity were known to all the barbarian tribes. But the
career of this remarkable man, so dreaded by his enemies and
by his subjects, had now reached its term." He died in a fit
of rage, from the bursting of a blood-vessel in his chest,
November 17, A. D. 375. "His two sons,—Gratian, who was
scarcely come to manhood, and Valentinian, still a
child,—shared the West between them. …
{2725}
Never, however, was the empire in greater need of an able and
vigorous head. The entire nation of the Huns, abandoning to
the Sienpi its ancient pastures bordering on China, had
traversed the whole north of Asia by a march of 1,300
leagues." The Goths, overwhelmed and flying before them,
begged permission to cross the Danube and take refuge in Mœsia
and Thrace. They were permitted to do so; but such extortions
and outrages were practiced on them, at the same time, that
they were exasperated to a passionate hatred. This bore fruit
in a general rising in 377. Two years of war ensued, marked by
two great battles, that of Ad Salices, or The Willows, which
neither side could fully claim, and that of Adrianople, August
9, 378, in which Valens perished, and more than 60,000 of his
soldiers fell.
See GOTHS: A. D. 376, and 378.
"The forces of the East were nearly annihilated at the
terrible battle of Adrianople. … The Goths … advanced,
ravaging all around them, to the foot of the walls of
Constantinople; and, after some unimportant skirmishes,
returned westward through Macedonia, Epirus, and Dalmatia.
From the Danube to the Adriatic, their passage was marked by
conflagration and blood. … No general in the East attempted to
take advantage of the anarchy in favour of his own ambition;
no army offered the purple to its chief; all dreaded the
responsibility of command at so tremendous a crisis. All eyes
were turned on the court of Treves, the only point whence help
was hoped for. But Gratian, eldest son of Valentinian, and
emperor of the West, was only 19. He … marched upon Illyricum
with his army, when he learned the event of the battle of
Adrianople, and the death of Valens, who had been so eager to
secure the undivided honours of victory, that he would not
wait for his arrival. Incapable of confronting such a tempest,
he retreated to Sirmium. The news of an invasion of the
Allemans into Gaul recalled him to the defence of his own
territory. Danger started up on every hand at once. The empire
stood in need of a new chief, and one of approved valour.
Gratian had the singular generosity to choose from among his
enemies, and from a sense of merit alone. Theodosius, the
Spaniard, his father's general, who had successively
vanquished the Scots and afterwards the Moors, and who had
been unjustly condemned to the scaffold at the beginning of
Gratian's reign, had left a son 33 years of age, who bore his
name. The younger Theodosius had distinguished himself in the
command he held in Mœsia, but was living in retirement and
disgrace on his estates in Spain, when, with, the confidence
of a noble mind, Gratian chose him out, presented him to the
army on the 19th of January, 379, and declared him his
colleague, and emperor of the East."
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
The Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 5 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
introduction, and book 1, chapter 1.
ROME: A. D. 378.
Gratian's overthrow of the Alemanni in Gaul.
See ALEMANNI: A. D. 378.
ROME: A. D. 379-395.
Theodosius and the Goths.
His Trinitarian Edict.
Revolt of Maximus.
Death of Gratian.
Overthrow of Maximus by Theodosius.
Usurpation of Eugenius, and his fall.
Death of Theodosius.
"The first duty that Theodosius had to undertake was to
restore the self-confidence and trust in victory of the Roman
army, terribly shaken as these qualities had been by the
disastrous rout of Hadrianople. This he accomplished by waging
a successful guerilla war with the Gothic marauders. Valens
had played into the hands of the barbarians by risking
everything on one great pitched battle. Theodosius adopted the
very opposite policy. He outmanoeuvred the isolated and
straggling bands of the Goths, defeated them in one skirmish
after another that did not deserve the name of a battle, and
thus restored the courage and confidence of the Imperial
troops. By the end of 379 he seems to have succeeded in
clearing the territory south of the Balkan range of the
harassing swarms of the barbarians. In February, 380, he fell
sick at Thessalonica (which was his chief basis of operations
throughout this period), and this sickness, from which he did
not fully recover for some months, was productive of two
important results, (1) his baptism as a Trinitarian Christian,
(2) a renewal of the war against fresh swarms of barbarians.
(1) Theodosius appears up to this point of his career not to
have definitively ranged himself on either side of the great
Arian controversy, though he had a hereditary inclination
towards the Creed of Nicaea. Like his father, however, he had
postponed baptism in accordance with the prevalent usage of
his day: but now upon a bed of sickness which seemed likely to
be one of death, he delayed no longer, but received the rite
at the hands of Ascholius, the Catholic Bishop of
Thessalonica. Before he was able to resume his post at the
head of the legions, he published his celebrated Edict: 'To
the people of Constantinople.—We desire that all the nations
who are governed by the rule of our Clemency shall practise
that religion which the Apostle Peter himself delivered to the
Romans, and which it is manifest that the pontiff Damasus, and
Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of Apostolic sanctity, do
now follow: that according to the discipline of the Apostles
and the teaching of the Evangelists they believe in the one
Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in equal Majesty, and
in the holy Trinity. We order all who follow this law to
assume the name of Catholic Christians, decreeing that all
others, being mad and foolish persons, shall bear the infamy
of their heretical dogmas, and that their Conventicles shall
not receive the name of Churches: to be punished first by
Divine vengeance, and afterwards by that exertion of our power
to chastise which we have received from the decree of heaven.'
Thus then at length the Caesar of the East was ranged on the
side of Trinitarian orthodoxy. Constantine in the latter part
of his reign, Constantius, Valens, had all been Arians or
semi-Arians, some of them bitter in their heterodoxy. Julian
had been a worshipper of the gods of Olympus. Thus for nearly
two generations the influence of the Court of Constantinople
had been thrown into the scale against the teaching of
Athanasius, which was generally accepted throughout the
Western realm. Now by the accession of Theodosius to the
Trinitarian side, religious unity was restored to the Empire:
but at the same time a chasm, an impassable chasm, was opened
between the Empire itself and its new Teutonic guests, nearly
all of whom held fast to the Arian teaching of their great
Apostle Ulfilas. (2) The other consequence of the sickness of
Theodosius was, as I have said, a fresh incursion of barbarian
hordes, swarming across the Danube and climbing all the high
passes of the Balkans.
{2726}
The work of clearing the country of these marauders had to be
all done over again. … At length, in the closing months of
380, the provinces south of the Balkans (Macedonia and Thrace)
were once more cleared of their barbarian intruders. Peace, in
which Gratian concurred, was concluded with the Goths who
still doubtless abounded in Moesia. …
See GOTHS: A. D. 379-382.
The insurrection at Antioch [A. D. 387] displayed the
character of Theodosius in a favourable light, as a strong but
merciful and magnanimous ruler of men. Very different was the
effect on his fame of the insurrection which broke out three
years later (390) in the Macedonian city of Thessalonica. …
See THESSALONICA: A. D. 390.
In the year 383 a military revolt broke out in Britain against
the young Emperor Gratian. … The army revolted and proclaimed
Magnus Clemens Maximus, Emperor. He was, like Theodosius, a
native of Spain, and though harsh and perhaps rapacious, a man
of ability and experience, not unworthy of the purple if he
had come to it by lawful means. Gratian on his side had
evidently given some real cause for dissatisfaction to his
subjects. … Hence it was that when Maximus with the army of
Britain landed in Gaul, he shook down the fabric of his power
without difficulty. Gratian, finding himself deserted by his
troops, escaped from the battle-field, but was overtaken and
killed at Lyons. For more than four years, Maximus, satisfied
with ruling over the three great Western provinces which had
fallen to the share of Gratian, maintained at any rate the
appearance of harmony with his two colleagues. … At length, in
the autumn of 387, Maximus deemed that the time had come for
grasping the whole Empire of the West. Lulling to sleep the
suspicions of Valentinian and his mother by embassies and
protestations of friendship, he crossed the Alps with an army
and marched towards Aquileia, where the young Emperor was then
dwelling in order to be as near as possible to the dominions
of his friendly colleague and protector. Valentinian did not
await the approach of his rival, but going down to the port of
Grado, took ship and sailed for Thessalonica, his mother and
sisters accompanying him. The Emperor and the Senate of
Constantinople met the Imperial fugitives at Thessalonica, and
discussed the present position of affairs. … What the
entreaties of the mother might have failed to effect, the
tears of the daughter [Galla] accomplished. Theodosius, whose
wife Flaccilla had died two years before (385), took Galla for
his second wife, and vowed to avenge her wrongs and replace
her brother on the throne. He was some time in preparing for
the campaign, but, when it was opened, he conducted it with
vigour and decision. His troops pressed up the Save valley,
defeated those of Maximus in two engagements, entered Aemona
(Laybach) in triumph, and soon stood before the walls of
Aquileia [July, 388], behind which Maximus was sheltering
himself. … A mutiny among the troops of Maximus did away with
the necessity for a siege," and the usurper, betrayed and
delivered to Theodosius, was speedily put to death. Theodosius
"handed over to Valentinian II. the whole of the Western
Empire, both his own especial share and that which had
formerly been held by his brother Gratian. The young Emperor
was now 17 years of age; his mother, Justina, had died
apparently on the eve of Theodosius's victory, and he
governed, or tried to govern alone." But one of his Frankish
generals, named Arbogast, gathered all the power of the
government into his hands, reduced Valentinian to helpless
insignificance, and finally, in May, 392, caused him to be
strangled. "The Frankish general, who durst not shock the
prejudices of the Roman world by himself assuming the purple,
hung that dishonoured robe upon the shoulders of a
rhetorician, a confidant, and almost a dependent of his own,
named Eugenius. This man, like most of the scholars and
rhetoricians of the day, had not abjured the old faith of
Hellas. As Arbogast also was a heathen, though worshipping
Teutonic rather than Olympian gods, this last revolution
looked like a recurrence to the days of Julian, and threatened
the hardly-won supremacy of Christianity." Again Theodosius
was summoned to the rescue of the West, and, after two years
of careful preparation, marched against Eugenius by the same
route that he had taken before. The two armies met at a place
"half-way between Aemona and Aquileia, where the Julian Alps
are crossed, and where a little stream called the Frigidus
(now the Wipbach) burst suddenly from a limestone hill." The
battle was won by Theodosius after a terrible struggle,
lasting two days (September 5-6, A. D. 394). Eugenius was
taken prisoner and put to death; Arbogast fell by his own
hand. "Theodosius, who was still in the prime of life, had now
indeed 'the rule of the world,' without a rival or a colleague
except his own boyish sons. … Had his life been prolonged, as
it well might have been for twenty or thirty years longer,
many things might have gone differently in the history of the
world. But, little more than four months after the victory of
the Frigidus, Theodosius died [January 17, A. D. 395] of
dropsy, at Milan."
T. Hodgkin,
The Dynasty of Theodosius,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
F. W. Farrar,
Lives of the Fathers,
chapter 15: Ambrose and Theodosius (volume 2).
R. Thornton,
St. Ambrose,
chapters 6-14.
ROME: A. D. 388.
Formal establishment of Christianity.
Until the year 384, "paganism was still the constitutional
religion of the [Roman] senate. The hall or temple in which
they assembled was adorned by the statue and altar of Victory.
… The senators were sworn on the altar of the goddess to
observe the laws of the emperor and of the empire; and a
solemn offering of wine and incense was the ordinary prelude
of their public deliberations. The removal of this ancient
monument was the only injury which Constantius had offered to
the superstition of the Romans. The altar of Victory was again
restored by Julian, tolerated by Valentinian, and once more
banished from the senate by the zeal of Gratian. But the
emperor yet spared the statues of the gods which were exposed
to the public veneration: four hundred and twenty-four temples
or chapels still remained to satisfy the devotion of the
people, and in every quarter of Rome the delicacy of the
Christians was offended by the fumes of idolatrous sacrifice.
But the Christians formed the least numerous party in the
senate of Rome." The senate addressed several petitions to
Gratian, to the young Valentinian, and to Theodosius for the
restoration of the altar of Victory.
{2727}
They were supported by the eloquence of the orator Symmachus,
and opposed by the energy of Ambrose, the powerful Archbishop
of Milan. The question is said to have been, in the end,
submitted to the senate, itself, by the Emperor Theodosius (A.
D. 388)—he being present in person—"Whether the worship of
Jupiter or that of Christ should be the religion of the
Romans? The liberty of suffrages, which he affected to allow,
was destroyed by the hopes and fears that his presence
inspired. … On a regular division of the senate, Jupiter was
condemned and degraded by the sense of a very large majority."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 28.
ROME: A. D. 391-395.
Suppression of Paganism.
"The religious liberty of the Pagans, though considerably
abridged by Gratian, was yet greater than had been allowed by
the laws of Constantine and his immediate successors. The
priests and vestals were deprived of their immunities; the
revenues of the temples were confiscated for the service of
the State; but the heathen rites of their forefathers were
still allowed to those who were conscientiously attached to
them, provided they abstained from nocturnal sacrifices and
magical incantations. But when Theodosius, in the early part
of his reign, prohibited the immolation of victims, their
superstition was attacked in its most vital part, and, in the
course of a few years, the success of his measures against
heresy, and his triumph over Maximus, emboldened him to
proceed to steps of a still more decisive kind, and to attempt
the entire subversion of the already tottering fabric of
paganism. A commission was issued to the præfect of the East,
directing him to close all heathen temples within his
jurisdiction; and while the imperial officers were engaged in
this task, assisted by the clergy, and especially by the
monks, with a vigour not always strictly legal, Theodosius
gradually increased the rigour of his legislative
prohibitions. A law was passed in the year 391, declaring that
to enter a heathen temple, with a religious purpose, was an
offence liable to a fine of fifteen pounds of gold; and in the
following year, not only all public, but even all private and
domestic, exercise of heathen rites was interdicted under the
severest penalties. In some few instances, the intemperate and
tumultous proceedings of the monks in destroying the temples,
excited the opposition of the fanatical heathen peasantry, and
at Alexandria a serious commotion, fatal to many Christians,
was occasioned by the injudicious measures of the patriarch
Theophilus. But, generally speaking, the pagans showed little
disposition to incur the rigorous penalties of the laws, still
less to become martyrs for a religion so little calculated to
inspire real faith or fortitude. Some show of zeal in the
cause of paganism was made at Rome, where the votaries of the
ancient superstition still had a strong party, both among the
senate and populace. But the eloquent exertions of Symmachus,
the champion of heathenism, were easily baffled by Ambrose,
who encountered him with equal ability, better argument, and a
confident reliance on the support of his sovereign; and not
long after, a more important victory was gained, in an
enactment by the senate, carried, through the influence of
Theodosius, by an overwhelming majority, that Christianity
should for the future be the sole religion of the Roman State.
This decisive measure sealed the ruin of paganism in Rome and
its dependencies. The senators and nobles hastened to conform,
nominally at least, to the dominant religion; the inferior
citizens followed their example, and St. Jerome was in a
little while able to boast that every heathen altar in Rome
was forsaken, and every temple had become a place of
desolation."
J. B. S. Carwithen and A. Lyall,
History of the Christian Church,
page 63-65.
ALSO IN:
P. Schaff,
History of the Christian Church,
period 3, chapter 1, section 7 (volume 2).
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 28.
ROME: A. D. 394-395.
Final division of the Empire between the sons of Theodosius.
Arcadius in the East, Honorius in the West.
Ministries of Rufinus and Stilicho.
Advent of Alaric the Visigoth.
"The division of the Empire between East and West on the
accession of the sons of Theodosius [A. D. 395], though it was
possibly meant to be less complete than some preceding
partitions, proved to be the final one. It is worth while to
indicate the line of division, which is sufficiently
accurately traced for us in the Notitia. In Africa it was the
well-known frontier marked by 'the Altars of the Philaeni,'.
which separated Libya (or Cyrenaica) on the East from Africa
Tripolitana on the West. Modern geographers draw exactly the
same line (about 19° E. of Greenwich) as the boundary of Barca
and Tripoli. On the Northern shore of the Mediterranean the
matter is a little more complicated. Noricum, Pannonia, Savia,
and Dalmatia belonged to the West, and Dacia—not the original
but the later province of Dacia—to the East. This gives us for
the frontier of the Western Empire the Danube as far as
Belgrade, and on the Adriatic the modern town of Lissa. The
inland frontier is traced by geographers some 60 miles up the
Save from Belgrade, then southwards by the Drina to its
source, and so across the mountains to Lissa. Thus Sclavonia,
Croatia, and Dalmatia in the Austrian Empire, and Croatia,
most of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro in the state which
was lately called Turkey in Europe, belonged to the Western
Empire. The later province of Dacia, which fell to the Eastern
share, included Servia (Old and New), the south-east corner of
Bosnia, the north of Albania, and the west of Bulgaria. By
this partition the Prefecture of Illyricum, as constituted by
Diocletian, was divided into two nearly equal parts. … What
makes the subject somewhat perplexing to the student is the
tendency to confuse Illyricum the 'province' and Illyricum the
'prefecture,'" the latter of which embraced, in modern
geographical terms, Servia, Western Bulgaria, Macedon, Epirus
and Greece.
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 1, chapter 4, note C,
and chapter 3 (volume 1).
"This decree for a partition, published by Theodosius shortly
before his death, appears to have been generally expected and
approved. The incapacity of Arcadius and Honorius, of whom the
former had only attained his 18th and the latter his 11th
year, had not then been discovered. These princes showed more
and more clearly, as time went on, that they inherited no
share of their father's abilities, their weakness being such
as to render their sovereignty little more than nominal. … It
was never intended that the two jurisdictions should be
independent of each other, but rather that the Emperors should
be colleagues and coadjutors, the defenders of one
commonwealth. …
{2728}
At the time of the decree, belief in the unity and immortality
of the 'Sancta Respublica Romana' was universal. … Enactments
were invariably made in the names of both Emperors; and, so
often as a vacancy of either throne occurred, the title of the
Caesar elect remained incomplete until his elevation had been
approved and confirmed by the occupant of the other. …
Theodosius left the Roman world in peace, and provided with a
disciplined army sufficient, if rightly directed, for its
defence; but his choice of the men to whom he confided the
guidance of his sons was unfortunate. Rufinus, to whom the
guardianship of Arcadius was entrusted, by birth a Gascon,
owed his advancement to his eloquence as an advocate, and his
plausible duplicity had so far imposed on the confiding nature
of Theodosius as to obtain for him the prefecture of the East.
Stilicho, the guardian of Honorius, was by descent a Vandal,
and is styled by St. Jerome a semi-barbarian. … His military
abilities, combined with a prepossessing exterior, induced
Theodosius to confer upon him the chief command of the
imperial forces, and the hand of his niece, Serena."
R. H. Wrightson,
The Sancta Respublica Romana,
chapter 1.
"Stilicho … was popular with the army, and for the present the
great bulk of the forces of the Empire was at his disposal;
for the regiments united to suppress Eugenius had not yet been
sent back to their various stations. Thus a struggle was
imminent between the ambitious minister who had the ear of
Arcadius, and the strong general who held the command and
enjoyed the favour of the army. … It was the cherished project
of Rufinus to unite Arcadius with his only daughter. … But he
imprudently made a journey to Antioch, in order to execute
vengeance personally on the count of the East, who had
offended him; and during his absence from Byzantium an
adversary stole a march on him. This adversary was the eunuch
Eutropius, the lord chamberlain. … Determining that the future
Empress should be bound to himself and not to Rufinus, he
chose Eudoxia, a girl of singular beauty, the daughter of a
distinguished Frank, but herself of Roman education. …
Eutropius showed a picture of the Frank maiden to the Emperor,
and engaged his affections for her; the nuptials were arranged
by the time Rufinus returned to Constantinople, and were
speedily celebrated (27th April 395). This was a blow to
Rufinus, but he was still the most powerful man in the East.
The event which at length brought him into contact with
Stilicho was the rising of the Visigoths, who had been settled
by Theodosius in Moesia and Thrace. … Under the leadership of
Alaric they raised the ensign of revolt, and spread desolation
in the fields and homesteads of Macedonia, Moesia, and Thrace,
even advancing close to the walls of Constantinople. …
See GOTHS: A. D. 395.
It was impossible to take the field against the Goths, because
there were no forces available, as the eastern armies were
still with Stilicho in the West. Arcadius therefore was
obliged to summon Stilicho to send or bring them back
immediately, to protect his throne. This summons gave that
general the desired opportunity to interfere in the politics
of Constantinople; and having, with energetic celerity,
arranged matters on the Gallic frontier, he marched overland
through Illyricum, and confronted Alaric in Thessaly, whither
the Goth had traced his devastating path from the Propontis. …
It seems that before Stilicho arrived, Alaric had experienced
a defeat at the hands of garrison soldiers in Thessaly; at all
events he shut himself up in a fortified camp and declined to
engage with the Roman general. In the meantime Rufinus induced
Arcadius to send a peremptory order to Stilicho to despatch
the eastern troops to Constantinople and depart himself whence
he had come; the Emperor resented, or pretended to resent, the
presence of his cousin as an officious interference. Stilicho
yielded so readily that his willingness seems almost
suspicious. … He consigned the eastern soldiers to the command
of a Gothic captain, Gainas, and himself departed to Salona,
allowing Alaric to proceed on his wasting way into the lands
of Hellas." When Gainas and his army arrived at the gates of
Constantinople, the Emperor came out to meet them, with
Rufinus by his side. The troops suddenly closed round the
latter and murdered him. "We can hardly suppose that the
lynching of Rufinus was the fatal inspiration of a moment, but
whether it was proposed or approved of by Stilicho, or was a
plan hatched among the soldiers on their way to
Constantinople, is uncertain."
J. B. Bury,
History of the Later Roman Empire,
book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).
ROME: A. D. 396-398.
Commission of Alaric under the Eastern Empire.
Suppression of the revolt of Gildo in Africa.
Commanding position of Stilicho.
"For the next five or six years the chief power over the
feeble soul of Arcadius was divided between three persons, his
fair Frankish Empress Eudoxia, Eutropius, the haggard old
eunuch who had placed her on the throne, and Gainas the Goth,
commander of the Eastern army. Again, in the year 306, did
Stilicho, now commanding only the Western forces, volunteer to
deliver Greece from the Visigoths. The outset of the campaign
was successful. The greater part of Peloponnesus was cleared
of the invader, who was shut up in the rugged mountain country
on the confines of Elis and Arcadia. The Roman army was
expecting soon to behold him forced by famine to an
ignominious surrender, when they discovered that he had
pierced the lines of circumvallation at an unguarded point,
and marched with all his plunder northwards to Epirus. What
was the cause of this unlooked-for issue of the struggle? …
The most probable explanation … is that Fabian caution
co-operated with the instinct of the Condottiere against
pushing his foe too hard. There was always danger for Rome in
driving Alaric to desperation: there was danger privately for
Stilicho if the dead Alaric should render him no longer
indispensable. Whatever might be the cause, by the end of 396
Alaric was back again in his Illyrian eyrie, and thenceforward
whatever threats might be directed towards the East the actual
weight of his arms was felt only by the West. Partly, at
least, this is to be accounted for by the almost sublime
cowardice of the ministers of Arcadius, who rewarded his
Grecian raids by clothing him with the sacred character of an
officer of the Empire in their portion of Illyricum.
See GOTHS: A. D. 395.
{2729}
The precise title under which he exercised jurisdiction is not
stated. … During an interval of quiescence, which lasted
apparently about four years, the Visigothic King was using the
forms of Roman law, the machinery of Roman taxation, the almost
unbounded authority of a Roman provincial governor, to prepare
the weapon which was one day to pierce the heart of Rome

herself. The Imperial City, during the first portion of this
interval, was suffering the pang's of famine. … Since the
foundation of Constantinople … Egypt had ceased to nourish the
elder Rome. … Rome was thus reduced to an almost exclusive
dependence on the harvests of Africa proper (that province of
which Carthage was the capital), of Numidia, and of
Mauretania. … But this supply … in the year 397 was entirely
stopped by the orders of Gildo, who had made himself virtual
master of these three provinces." The elder Theodosius had
suppressed in 374 a revolt in Mauretania headed by one Firmus.
"The son of a great sheep-farmer, Nabal, he [Firmus] had left
behind him several brothers, one of whom, Gildo, had in the
year 386 gathered up again some portion of his brother's
broken power. We find him, seven years later (in 393), holding
the rank of Count of Africa in the Roman official hierarchy. …
He turned to his own account the perennial jealousy existing
between the ministers of the Eastern and Western Courts,
renounced his allegiance to Rome, and preferred to transfer it
to Constantinople. What brought matters to a crisis was his
refusal to allow the grain crops of 397 to be conveyed to
Rome. … The Roman Senate declared war in the early winter
months of 398 against Gildo. Stilicho, who, of course,
undertook the fitting out of the expedition, found a suitable
instrument for Rome's chastisement in one who had had cruel
wrongs of his own to avenge upon Gildo. This was yet another
son of Nabal, Mascezel." Mascezel, at the head of nearly
40,000 men, accomplished the overthrow of his brother, who
slew himself, or was slain, when he fell into Roman hands.
"Thus the provinces of Africa were for the time won back again
for the Empire of the West, and Rome had her corn again. … The
glory and power of Stilicho were now nearly at their highest
point. Shortly before the expedition against Gildo he had
given his daughter Maria in marriage to Honorius, and the
father-in-law of the Emperor might rightly be deemed to hold
power with a securer grasp than his mere chief minister."
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and her Invaders,
book 1, chapter 4 (volume 1).
ROME: A. D. 400-403.
First Gothic invasion of Italy under Alaric.
Stilicho's repulse of the invaders.
See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 400-403.
ROME: A. D. 400-518.
The Eastern Empire.
Expulsion of Gothic soldiery from Constantinople.
Conflict of John Chrysostom and the Empress Eudoxia.
Reigns of Theodosius II., Pulcheria, Marcianus,
Leo I., Zeno, and Anastasius.
Persistent vitality of the Byzantine government.
"While Alaric's eyes were turned on Italy, but before he had
actually come into conflict with Stilicho, the Court of
Constantinople had been the seat of grave troubles. Gainas,
the Gothic 'Magister militum' of the East, and his creature,
the eunuch Eutropius, had fallen out, and the man of war had
no difficulty in disposing of the wretched harem-bred Grand
Chamberlain. … The Magister militum now brought his army over
to Constantinople, and quartered it there to overawe the
emperor. It appeared quite likely that ere long the Germans
would sack the city; but the fate that befell Rome ten years
later was not destined for Constantinople. A mere chance brawl
put the domination of Gainas to a sudden end [July, A. D.
400]. … The whole population turned out with extemporized arms
and attacked the German soldiery. … Isolated bodies of the
Germans were cut off one by one, and at last their barracks
were surrounded and set on fire. The rioters had the upper
hand; 7,000 soldiers fell, and the remnant thought themselves
lucky to escape. Gainas at once declared open war on the
empire, but … he was beaten in the field and forced to fly
across the Danube, where he was caught and beheaded by Uldes,
king of the Huns. … The departure of Alaric and the death of
Gainas freed the Eastern Romans from the double danger that
[had] impended over them. … The weak Arcadius was enabled to
spend the remaining seven years of his life in comparative
peace and quiet. His court was only troubled by an open war
between his spouse, the Empress Ælia Eudoxia, and John
Chrysostom, the Patriarch of Constantinople. John was a man of
saintly life and apostolic fervour, but rash and inconsiderate
alike in speech and action. … The patriarch's enemies were
secretly supported by the empress, who had taken offence at
the outspoken way in which John habitually denounced the
luxury and insolence of her court. She favoured the intrigues
of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, against his brother
prelate, backed the Asiatic clergy in their complaints about
John's oppression of them, and at last induced the Emperor to
allow the saintly patriarch to be deposed by a
hastily-summoned council, the 'Synod of the Oak,' held outside
the city. The populace rose at once to defend their pastor;
riots broke out, Theodosius was chased back to Egypt, and the
Emperor, terrified by an earthquake which seemed to manifest
the wrath of heaven, restored John to his place. Next year,
however, the war between the empress and the patriarch broke
out again. … The Emperor, at his wife's demand, summoned
another council, which condemned Chrysostom, and on Easter
Day, A. D. 404, seized the patriarch in his cathedral by armed
force, and banished him to Asia. That night a fire, probably
kindled by the angry adherents of Chrysostom, broke out in St.
Sophia, which was burnt to the ground. From thence it spread
to the neighbouring buildings, and finally to the
Senate-house, which was consumed with all the treasures of
ancient Greek art of which Constantine had made it the
repository. Meanwhile the exiled John was banished to a dreary
mountain fastness in Cappadocia, and afterwards condemned to a
still more remote prison at Pityus on the Euxine. He died on
his way thither. … The feeble and inert Arcadius died in A. D.
408, at the early age of thirty-one; his imperious consort had
preceded him to the grave, and the empire of the East was left
to Theodosius II., a child of seven years, their only son. …
The little emperor was duly crowned, and the administration of
the East undertaken in his name by the able Anthemius, who
held the office of Praetorian Praefect. History relates
nothing but good of this minister; he made a wise commercial
treaty with the king of Persia; he repelled with ease a
Hunnish invasion of Moesia; he built a flotilla on the Danube,
where Roman war-ships had not been seen since the death of
Valens, forty years before; he reorganized the corn supply of
Constantinople; and did much to get back into order and
cultivation the desolated north-western lands of the Balkan
Peninsula. …
{2730}
The empire was still more indebted to him for bringing up the
young Theodosius as an honest and god-fearing man. The palace
under Anthemius' rule was the school of the virtues; the lives
of the emperor and his three sisters, Pulcheria, Arcadia, and
Marina, were the model and the marvel of their subjects.
Theodosius inherited the piety and honesty of his grandfather
and namesake, but was a youth of slender capacity, though he
took some interest in literature, and was renowned for his
beautiful penmanship. His eldest sister, Pulcheria, was the
ruling spirit of the family, and possessed unlimited influence
over him, though she was but two years his senior. When
Anthemius died in A. D. 414, she took the title of Augusta,
and assumed the regency of the East. Pulcheria was an
extraordinary woman: on gathering up the reins of power she
took a vow of chastity, and lived as a crowned nun for
thirty-six years; her fear had been that, if she married, her
husband might cherish ambitious schemes against her brother's
crown; she therefore kept single herself and persuaded her
sisters to make a similar vow. Austere, indefatigable, and
unselfish, she proved equal to ruling the realms of the East
with success, though no woman had ever made the attempt
before. When Theodosius came of age he refused to remove his
sister from power, and treated her as his colleague and equal.
By her advice he married in A. D. 421, the year that he came
of age, the beautiful and accomplished Athenaïs, daughter of
the philosopher Leontius. … Theodosius' long reign passed by
in comparative quiet. Its only serious troubles were a short
war with the Persians, and a longer one with Attila, the great
king of the Huns, whose empire now stretched over all the
lands north of the Black Sea and Danube, where the Goths had
once dwelt. In this struggle the Roman armies were almost
invariably unfortunate. The Huns ravaged the country as far as
Adrianople and Philippopolis, and had to be bought off by the
annual payment of 700 lbs. of gold [£31,000]. … The
reconstruction of the Roman military forces was reserved for
the successors of Theodosius II. He himself was killed by a
fall from his horse in 450 A. D., leaving an only daughter,
who was married to her cousin Valentinian III., Emperor of the
West. Theodosius, with great wisdom, had designated as his
successor, not his young son-in-law, a cruel and profligate
prince, but his sister Pulcheria, who at the same time ended
her vow of celibacy and married Marcianus, a veteran soldier
and a prominent member of the Senate. The marriage was but
formal, for both were now well advanced in years: as a
political expedient it was all that could be desired. The
empire had peace and prosperity under their rule, and freed
itself from the ignominious tribute to the Huns. Before Attila
died in 452, he had met and been checked by the succours which
Marcianus sent to the distressed Romans of the West. When
Marcianus and Pulcheria passed away, the empire came into the
hands of a series of three men of ability. They were all bred
as high civil officials, not as generals; all ascended the
throne at a ripe age; not one of them won his crown by arms,
all were peaceably designated either by their predecessors, or
by the Senate and army. These princes were Leo I. (457-474),
Zeno (474-491), Anastasius (491-(18). Their chief merit was
that they guided the Roman Empire in the East safely through
the stormy times which saw its extinction in the West. While,
beyond the Adriatic, province after province was being lopped
off and formed into a new Germanic kingdom, the emperors who
reigned at Constantinople kept a tight grip on the Balkan
Peninsula and on Asia, and succeeded in maintaining their
realm absolutely intact. Both East and West were equally
exposed to the barbarian in the fifth century, and the
difference of their fate came from the character of their
rulers, not from the diversity of their political conditions."
C. W. C. Oman,
Story of the Byzantine Empire,
chapters 4-5.
"In spite of the dissimilarity of their personal conduct, the
general policy of their government [i. e. of the six emperors
between Arcadius and Justinian] is characterised by strong
features of resemblance. … The Western Empire crumbled into
ruins, while the Eastern was saved, in consequence of these
emperors having organised the system of administration which
has been most unjustly calumniated, under the name of
Byzantine. The highest officers, and the proudest military
commanders, were rendered completely dependent on ministerial
departments and were no longer able to conspire or rebel with
impunity. The sovereign was no longer exposed to personal
danger, nor the treasury to open peculation. But,
unfortunately, the central executive power could not protect
the people from fraud with the same ease as it guarded the
treasury; and the emperors never perceived the necessity of
intrusting the people with the power of defending themselves
from the financial oppression of the subaltern
administration."
G. Finlay,
Greece under the Romans,
chapter 2, section 11.
ROME: A. D. 404-408.
The Western Empire: The last gladiatorial show.
Retreat of Honorius and the imperial court to Ravenna.
Invasion of Radagaisus.
Alliance with Alaric the Goth.
Fall and death of Stilicho.
"After the retreat of the barbarians, Honorius was directed to
accept the dutiful invitation of the senate, and to celebrate
in the imperial city the auspicious era of the Gothic victory
and of his sixth consulship. The suburbs and the streets, from
the Milvian bridge to the Palatine mount, were filled by the
Roman people, who, in the space of a hundred years, had only
thrice been honoured with the presence of their sovereigns
[whose residence had been at Constantinople, at Treves, or at
Milan]. … The emperor resided several months in the capital. …
The people were repeatedly gratified by the attention and
courtesy of Honorius in the public games. … In these games of
Honorius, the inhuman combats of gladiators polluted for the
last time the amphitheatre of Rome. … The recent danger to
which the person of the emperor had been exposed in the
defenceless palace of Milan 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 20th year of his age the Emperor of
the West, anxious only for his personal safety, retired to the
perpetual confinement of the walls and morasses of Ravenna.
{2731}
The example of Honorius 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
8th century Ravenna was considered as the seat of government
and the capital of Italy. The fears of Honorius were not
without foundation, nor were his precautions without effect.
While Italy rejoiced in her deliverance from the Goths, a
furious tempest was excited among the nations of Germany, who
yielded to the irresistible impulse that appears to have been
gradually communicated from the eastern extremity of the
continent of Asia [by the invasion of the Huns, which Gibbon
considers to have been the impelling cause of the great
avalanche of barbarians from the north that swept down upon
Italy under Radagaisus in 406. …
See RADAGAISUS.
Many cities of Italy were pillaged or destroyed; and the siege
of Florence by Radagaisus is one of the earliest events in the
history of that celebrated republic, whose firmness checked
and delayed the unskilful fury of the barbarians." Stilicho
came to the relief of the distressed city, "and the famished
host of Radagaisus was in its turn besieged." The barbarians,
surrounded by well guarded entrenchments, were forced to
surrender, after many had perished from want of food. The
chief was beheaded; his surviving followers were sold as
slaves. Meantime, Alaric, the Gothic king, had been taken into
the pay of the Empire. "Renouncing the service of the Emperor
of the East, Alaric concluded with the Court of Ravenna a
treaty of peace and alliance, by which he was declared
master-general of the Roman armies throughout the præfecture
of Illyricum; as it was claimed, according to the true and
ancient limits, by the minister of Honorius." This arrangement
with Alaric caused great dissatisfaction in the army and among
the people, and was a potent cause of the fall and death of
Stilicho, which occurred A. D. 408. He was arrested and
summarily executed, at Ravenna, on the mandate of his
ungrateful and worthless young master, whose trembling throne
he had upheld for thirteen years.
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 30 (volume 3).
ROME: A. D. 406-500.
The breaking of the Rhine barrier.
The great Teutonic invasion and occupation
of the Western Empire.
"Up to the year 406 the Rhine was maintained as the frontier
of the Roman Empire against the numerous barbarian races and
tribes that swarmed uneasily in central Europe. From the
Flavian Emperors until the time of Probus (282), the great
military line from Coblenz to Kehlheim on the Danube had been
really defended, though often overstepped and always a strain
on the Romans, and thus a tract of territory (including Baden
and Würtemberg) on the east shore of the Upper Rhine, the
titheland as it was called, belonged to the Empire. But in the
fourth century it was as much as could be done to keep off the
Alemanni and Franks who were threatening the provinces of
Gaul. The victories of Julian and Valentinian produced only
temporary effects. On the last day of December 406 a vast
company of Vandals, Suevians, and Alans crossed the Rhine. The
frontier was not really defended; a handful of Franks who
professed to guard it for the Romans were easily swept aside,
and the invaders desolated Gaul at pleasure for the three
following years. Such is the bare fact which the chroniclers
tell us, but this migration seems to have been preceded by
considerable movements on a large scale along the whole Rhine
frontier, and these movements may have agitated the
inhabitants of Britain and excited apprehensions there of
approaching danger. Three tyrants had been recently elected by
the legions in rapid succession; the first two, Marcus and
Gratian, were slain, but the third Augustus, who bore the
auspicious name of Constantine, was destined to play a
considerable part for a year or two on the stage of the
western world.
See BRITAIN: A. D. 407.
It seems almost certain that these two movements, the passage
of the Germans across the Rhine and the rise of the tyrants in
Britain, were not without causal connection; and it also seems
certain that both events were connected with the general
Stilicho. The tyrants were elevated in the course of the year
406, and it was at the end of the same year that the Vandals
crossed the Rhine. Now the revolt of the legions in Britain
was evidently aimed against Stilicho. … There is direct
contemporary evidence … that it was by Stilicho's invitation
that the barbarians invaded Gaul; he thought that when they
had done the work for which he designed them he would find no
difficulty in crushing them or otherwise disposing of them. We
can hardly avoid supposing that the work which he wished them
to perform was to oppose the tyrant of Britain—Constantine, or
Gratian, or Marcus, whoever was tyrant then; for it is quite
certain that, like Maximus, he would pass into Gaul, where
numerous Gallo-Roman adherents would flock to his standards.
Stilicho died before Constantine was crushed, and the
barbarians whom he had so lightly summoned were still in the
land, harrying Gaul, destined soon to harry and occupy Spain
and seize Africa. From a Roman point of view Stilicho had much
to answer for in the dismemberment of the Empire; from a
Teutonic point of view, he contributed largely to preparing
the way for the foundation of the German kingdoms."
J. B. Bury,
A History of the Later Roman Empire,
book 2, chapter 6 (volume 1).
"If modern history must have a definite beginning, the most
convenient beginning for it is the great Teutonic invasion of
Gaul in the year 407. Yet the nations of modern Europe do not
spring from the nations which then crossed the Rhine, or from
any intermixture between them and the Romans into whose land
they made their way. The nations which then crossed the Rhine
were the Vandals, Suevians, and Alans. … None of these nations
made any real settlements in Gaul; Gaul was to them simply the
high road to Spain. There they did settle, though the Vandals
soon forsook their settlement, and the Alans were soon rooted
out of theirs. The Suevian kept his ground for a far longer
time; we may, if we please, look on him as the Teutonic
forefather of Leon, while we look on the Goth as the Teutonic
forefather of Castile. Here we have touched one of the great
national names of history; the Goth, like the Frank, plays
quite another part in Western Europe from the Alan, the
Suevian, and the Vandal. … Now both Franks and Goths had
passed into the Empire long before the invasion of 407. One
branch of the Franks … was actually settled on Roman lands,
and, as Roman subjects, did their best to withstand the great
invasion.
{2732}
What then makes that invasion so marked an epoch? … The answer
is that the invasion of 407 not only brought in new elements,
but put the existing elements into new relations to one
another. Franks and Goths put on a new character and begin a
new life. The Burgundians pass into Gaul, not as a road to
Spain, but as a land in which to find many homes. They press
down to the south-eastern corner of the land, while the Frank
no longer keeps himself in his north-eastern corner, while in
the south-west the Goth is settled as for a while the liegeman
of Cæsar, and in the north-west a continental Britain springs
into being. Here in truth are some of the chiefest elements of
the modern world, and though none of them are among the
nations that crossed the Rhine in 407, yet the new position
taken by all of them is the direct consequence of that
crossing. In this way, in Gaul and Spain at least, the joint
Vandal, Alan, and Suevian invasion is the beginning of the
formation of the modern nations, though the invading nations
themselves form no element in the later life of Gaul and only
a secondary element in the later life of Spain. The later life
of these lands, and that of Italy also, has sprung of the
settlement of Teutonic nations in a Roman land, and of the
mutual influences which Roman and Teuton have had on one
another. Roman and Teuton lived side by side, and out of their
living side by side has gradually sprung up a third thing
different from either, a thing which we cannot call either
Roman or Teutonic, or more truly a thing which we may call
Roman and Teutonic and some other things as well, according to
the side of it which we look at. This third thing is the
Romance element in modern Europe, the Romance nations and
their Romance tongues."
E. A. Freeman,
The Chief Periods of European History,
pages 87-90.
"The true Germanic people who occupied Gaul were the
Burgundians, the Visigoths, and the Franks. Many other people,
many other single bands of Vandals, Alani, Suevi, Saxons, &c.,
wandered over its territory; but of these, some only passed
over it, and the others were rapidly absorbed by it; these are
partial incursions which are without any historical
importance. The Burgundians, the Visigoths, and the Franks,
alone deserve to be counted among our ancestors. The
Burgundians definitively established themselves in Gaul
between the years 406 and 413; they occupied the country
between the Jura, the Saone, and the Duranee; Lyons was the
centre of their dominion. The Visigoths, between the years 412
and 450, spread themselves over the provinces bounded by the
Rhone, and even over the left bank of the Rhone to the south
of the Durance, the Loire, and the Pyrenees: their king
resided at Toulouse. The Franks, between the years 481 and
500, advanced in the north of Gaul, and established themselves
between the Rhine, the Scheldt, and the Loire, without
including Brittany and the western portions of Normandy;
Clovis had Soissons and Paris for his capitals. Thus, at the
end of the fifth century, was accomplished the definitive
occupation of the territory of Gaul by the three great German
tribes. The condition of Gaul was not exactly the same in its
various parts, and under the dominion of these three nations.
There were remarkable differences between them. The Franks
were far more foreign, German, and barbarous, than the
Burgundians and the Goths. Before their entrance into Gaul,
these last had had ancient relations with the Romans; they had
lived in the eastern empire, in Italy; they were familiar with
the Roman manners and population. We may say almost as much
for the Burgundians. Moreover, the two nations had long been
Christians. The Franks, on the contrary, arrived from Germany
in the condition of pagans and enemies. Those portions of Gaul
which they occupied became deeply sensible of this difference,
which is described with truth and vivacity in the seventh of
the 'Lectures upon the History of France,' of M. Augustin
Thierry. I am inclined, however, to believe that it was less
important than has been commonly supposed. If I do not err,
the Roman provinces differed more among themselves than did
the nations which had conquered them. You have already seen
how much more civilized was southern than northern Gaul, how
much more thickly covered with population, towns, monuments,
and roads. Had the Visigoths arrived in as barbarous a
condition as that of the Franks, their barbarism would yet
have been far less visible and less powerful in Gallia
Narbonensis and in Aquitania; Roman civilization would much
sooner have absorbed and altered them. This, I believe, is
what happened; and the different effects which accompanied the
three conquests resulted rather from the differences of the
conquered than from that of the conquerors."
F. Guizot,
History of Civilization,
volume 2, lecture 8.
"The invasion of the barbarians was not like the torrent which
overwhelms, but rather like a slow, persistent force which
undermines, disintegrates, and crumbles. The Germans were not
strangers to the Roman Empire when they began their conquests.
… It is well known that many of the Roman Emperors were
barbarians who had been successful soldiers in the Imperial
army; that military colonies were established on the frontiers
composed of men of various races under the control of Roman
discipline; that the Goths, before they revolted against the
authority of the Emperor, were his chosen troops; that the
great Alaric was a Roman general; that the shores of the
Danube and the Rhine, which marked the limits of the Empire,
were lined with cities which were at the same time Roman
colonies and peopled with men of the Teutonic races. When the
barbarians did actually occupy the territory their movement
seems at first to have been characterized by a strange mixture
of force with a sentiment of awe and reverence for the Roman
name. In Italy and in Gaul they appropriated to themselves
two-thirds of the lands, but they sought to govern their
conquests by means of the Roman law and administration, a
machine which proved in their hands, by the way, a rather
clumsy means of government. They robbed the provincials of all
the movable property they possessed, but the suffering they
inflicted is said not to have been as great as that caused by
the exactions of the Roman taxgatherer. The number of armed
invaders has doubtless been exaggerated. The whole force of
the Burgundian tribe, whose territory, in the southeast of
modern France, extended to the Rhone at Avignon, did not, it
is said, exceed sixty thousand in all, while the armed bands
of Clovis, who changed the destinies not only of Gaul but of
Europe, were not greater than one-tenth of that number.
{2733}
The great change in their life was, as I have said, that they
ceased to be wanderers; they became, in a measure at least,
fixed to the soil; and in contrast with the Romans, they
preferred to live in the country and not in the towns. In this
they followed their Teutonic habits, little knowing what a
mighty change this new distribution of population was to cause
in the social condition of Europe. They retained, too, their
old military organization, and, after attempts more or less
successful to use the Roman administration for the ordinary
purposes of government, they abandoned it, and ruled the
countries they conquered by simple military force, under their
Dukes and Counts, the Romans generally being allowed in their
private relations to govern themselves by the forms of the
Roman law."
C. J. Stillé,
Studies in Mediæval History,
chapter 2.
"The coming in of the Germans brought face to face the four
chief elements of our civilization: the Greek with its art and
science, much of it for the time forgotten; the Roman with its
political institutions and legal ideas, and furnishing the
empire as the common ground upon which all stood; the
Christian with its religious and moral ideas; and the German
with other political and legal ideas, and with a reinforcement
of fresh blood and life. By the end of the sixth century these
all existed side by side in the nominal Roman empire. It was
the work of the remaining centuries of the middle ages to
unite them into a single organic whole—the groundwork of
modern civilization. But the introduction of the last element,
the Germans, was a conquest—a conquest rendered possible by
the inability of the old civilization any longer to defend
itself against their attack. It is one of the miracles of
history that such a conquest should have occurred, the violent
occupation of the empire by the invasion of an inferior race,
with so little destruction of civilization, with so complete
an absorption, in the end, of the conqueror by the conquered.
It must be possible to point out some reasons why the conquest
of the ancient world by the Germans was so little what was to
be expected. In a single word, the reason is to be found in
the impression which the world they had conquered made upon
the Germans. They conquered it, and they treated it as a
conquered world. They destroyed and plundered what they
pleased, and it was not a little. They took possession of the
land and they set up their own tribal governments in place of
the Roman. And yet they recognized, in a way, even the worst
of them, their inferiority to the people they had overcome.
They found upon every side of them evidences of a command over
nature such as they had never acquired: cities, buildings,
roads, bridges, and ships; wealth and art, skill in mechanics
and skill in government, the like of which they had never
known; ideas firmly held that the Roman system of things was
divinely ordained and eternal; a church strongly organized and
with an imposing ceremonial, officered by venerable and
saintly men, and speaking with an overpowering positiveness
and an awful authority that did not yield before the strongest
barbarian king. The impression which these things made upon
the mind of the German must have been profound. In no other
way can the result be accounted for. Their conquest was a
physical conquest, and as a physical conquest it was complete,
but it scarcely went farther. In government and law there was
little change for the Roman; in religion and language, none at
all. Other things, schools and commercial arrangements for
instance, the Germans would have been glad to maintain at the
Roman level if they had known how. Half unconsciously they
adopted the belief in the divinely founded and eternal empire,
and in a vague way recognized its continuance after they had
overthrown it."
G. B. Adams,
Civilization During the Middle Ages,
chapter 5.
See, also,
GAUL: A. D. 406-409, 5-8TH CENTURIES,
and 5-10TH CENTURIES.
ROME: A. D. 408-410.
The three sieges and
the sacking of the Imperial city by Alaric.
Death of the Gothic chieftain.
Having rid himself of the great minister and general whose
brain and arm were the only hope of his dissolving empire,
Honorius proceeded to purge his army and the state of
barbarians and heretics. He "removed all who professed
religious opinions different from his own, from every public
office; … and, to complete the purification of his army,
ordered a general massacre of all the women and children of
the barbarians, whom the soldiers in his service had delivered
up as hostages. In one day and hour these innocent victims
were given up to slaughter and their property to pillage.
These hostages had been left in all the Italian cities by the
barbarian confederates, as a guarantee for their fidelity to
Rome; when they learned that the whole had perished, in the
midst of peace, in contempt of all oaths, one furious and
terrific cry of vengeance arose, and 30,000 soldiers, who had
been the faithful servants of the empire, at once passed over
to the camp of Alaric [then in Illyria], and urged him to lead
them on to Rome. Alaric, in language the moderation of which
Honorius and his ministers ascribed to fear, demanded
reparation for the insults offered him, and strict observance
of the treaties concluded with him. The only answer he
obtained was couched in terms of fresh insult, and contained
an order to evacuate all the provinces of the empire." On this
provocation, Alaric crossed the Alps, in October, A. D. 408,
meeting no resistance till he reached Ravenna. He threatened
that city, at first, but the contemptible Emperor of the West
was safe in his fen-fastness, and the Goth marched on to Rome.
He "arrived before Rome [in the autumn of A. D. 408] 619 years
after that city had been threatened by Hannibal. During that
long interval her citizens had never looked down from her
walls upon the banner of an enemy in their plains. … Alaric did not attempt to take Rome by
assault: he blockaded the gates, stopped the navigation of the
Tiber, and soon famine took possession of a city which was
eighteen miles in circumference and contained above a million
of inhabitants. … At length, the Romans had recourse to the
clemency of Alaric; and, by means of a ransom of five thousand
pounds of gold and a great quantity of precious effects, the
army was induced to retire into Tuscany." The standard of
Alaric was now joined by 40,000 barbarian slaves, who escaped
from their Italian masters, and by a large reinforcement of
Goths from the Danube, led by the brother-in-law of Alaric,
Ataulphus, or Athaulphus (Adolphus, in its modern form) by
name. The Visigothic king offered peace to the empire if it
would relinquish to him a kingdom in Noricum, Dalmatia and
Venetia, with a yearly payment of gold; in the end his demands
fell until they extended to Noricum, only.
{2734}
But the fatuous court at Ravenna refused all terms, and Alaric
marched back to Rome. Once more, however, he spared the
venerable capital, and sought to attain his ends by requiring
the senate to renounce allegiance to Honorius and to choose a
new emperor. He was obeyed and Priscus Attalus, the præfect of
the city, was formally invested with the purple. This new
Augustus made Alaric and Ataulphus his chief military
officers, and there was peace for a little time. But Attalus,
unhappily, took his elevation with seriousness and did not
recognize the commands that were hidden in the advice which he
got from his Gothic patron. Alaric found him to be a fool and
stripped his purple robe from his shoulders within less than a
year. Then, failing once more to negotiate terms of peace with
the worthless emperor shut up in Ravenna, he laid siege to
Rome for the third time—and the last. "On the 24th of April,
410, the year 1163 from the foundation of the august city, the
Salarian gate was opened to him in the night, and the capital
of the world, the queen of nations, was abandoned to the fury
of the Goths. Yet this fury was not without some tinge of
pity; Alaric granted a peculiar protection to the churches,
which were preserved from all insult, together with their
sacred treasures, and all those who had sought refuge within
their walls. While he abandoned the property of the Romans to
pillage, he took their lives under his protection; and it is
affirmed that only a single senator perished by the sword of
the barbarians. The number of plebeians who were sacrificed
appears not to have been thought a matter of sufficient
importance even to be mentioned. At the entrance of the Goths,
a small part of the city was given up to the flames; but
Alaric soon took precautions for the preservation of the rest
of the edifices. Above all, he had the generosity to withdraw
his army from Rome on the sixth day, and to march it into
Campania, loaded, however, with an immense booty. Eleven
centuries later, the army of the Constable de Bourbon showed
less veneration." Alaric survived the sack of Rome but a few
months, dying suddenly in the midst of preparations that he
made for invading Sicily. He was buried in the bed of the
little river Bisentium, which flows past the town of Cozenza,
the stream being diverted for the purpose and then turned back
to its course.
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 31.
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 1, chapter 7.
ROME: A. D. 409-414.
Invasion of Spain by the Vandals, Sueves and Alans.
See SPAIN: A. D. 409-414.
ROME: A. D. 410.
Abandonment of Britain.
See BRITAIN: A. D. 410.
ROME: A. D. 410-419.
Treaty with the Visigoths.
Their settlement in Aquitaine.
Founding of their kingdom of Toulouse.
See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 410-419.
ROME: A. D. 410-420.
The barbarian attack on Gaul joined by the Franks.
See FRANKS: A. D. 410-420.
ROME: A. D. 412-453.
Mixed Roman and barbarian administration in Gaul.
See GAUL: A. D. 412-453.
ROME: A. D. 423-450.
Death of Honorius.
Reign of Valentinian III. and his mother Placidia.
Legal separation of the Eastern and Western Empires.
The disastrous reign of Honorius, emperor of the West, was
ended by his death in 423. The nearest heir to the throne was
his infant nephew, Valentinian, son of his sister Placidia.
The latter, after being a captive in the hands of the Goths
and after sharing the Visigothic throne for some months, as
wife of king Ataulphus, had been restored to her brother on
her Gothic husband's death. Honorius forced her, then, to
marry his favorite, the successful general, Constantius, whom
he raised to the rank of Augustus and associated with himself
on the throne of the West. But Constantius soon died, leaving
his widow with two children—a daughter and a son. Presently,
on some quarrel with Honorius, Placidia withdrew from Ravenna
and took refuge at Constantinople, where her nephew Theodosius
occupied the Eastern throne. She and her children were there
when Honorius died, and in their absence the Western throne
was usurped by a rebel named John, or Joannes, the Notary, who
reigned nearly two years. With the aid of forces from the
Eastern Empire he was unseated and beheaded and the child
Valentinian was invested with the imperial purple, A. D. 425.
For the succeeding twenty-five years his mother, Placidia,
reigned in his name. As compensation to the court at
Constantinople for the material aid received from it, the rich
province of Dalmatia and the troubled provinces of Pannonia
and Noricum, were now severed from the West and ceded to the
Empire of the East. At the same time, the unity of the Roman
government was formally and finally dissolved. "By a positive
declaration, the validity of all future laws was limited to
the dominions of their peculiar author; unless he should think
proper to communicate them, subscribed with his own hand, for
the approbation of his independent colleague."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 33.
ALSO IN:
J. B. Bury,
History of the Later Roman Empire,
chapters 6-8.
ROME: A. D. 428-439.
Conquests of the Vandals in Spain and Africa.
See VANDALS: A. D. 428; and 429-439.
ROME: A. D. 441-446.
Destructive invasion of the Eastern Empire by the Huns.
Cession of territory and payment of tribute to Attila.
See HUNS: A. D. 441-446.
ROME: A. D. 446.
The last appeal from Britain.
See BRITAIN: A. D. 446.
ROME: A. D. 451.
Great invasion of Gaul by the Huns.
Their defeat at Chalons.
See HUNS: A. D. 451.
ROME: A. D. 452.
Attila's invasion of Italy.
The frightful devastation of his hordes.
Origin of Venice.
See HUNS: A. D. 452;
and VENICE: A. D. 452.
ROME: A. D. 455.
Pillage of the city by the Vandals.
"The sufferings and the ignominy of the Roman empire were
increased by a new calamity which happened in the year of
Valentinian's death [murdered by an usurper, Petronius Maximus
A. D. 455]. Eudoxia, the widow of that emperor, who had
afterwards become [through compulsion] the wife of Maximus,
avenged the murder of her first husband by plotting against
her second; reckless how far she involved her country in the
ruin. She invited to Rome Genseric, king of the Vandals, who,
not content with having conquered and devastated Africa, made
every effort to give a new direction to the rapacity of his
subjects, by accustoming them to maritime warfare, or, more
properly speaking, piracy.
{2735}
His armed bands, who, issuing from the shores of the Baltic,
had marched over the half of Europe, conquering wherever they
went, embarked in vessels which they procured at Carthage, and
spread desolation over the coasts of Sicily and Italy. On the
12th of June, 455, they landed at Ostia. Maximus was killed in
a seditious tumult excited by his wife. Defence was
impossible; and, from the 15th to the 29th of June, the
ancient capital of the world was pillaged by the Vandals with
a degree of rapacity and cruelty to which Alaric and the Goths
had made no approach. The ships of the pirates were moored
along the quays of the Tiber, and were loaded with a booty
which it would have been impossible for the soldiers to carry
off by land."
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 8 (volume 1).
"On the whole, it is clear from the accounts of all the
chroniclers that Gaiseric's [or Genseric's] pillage of Rome,
though insulting and impoverishing to the last degree, was in
no sense destructive to the Queen of cities. Whatever he may
have done in Africa, in Rome he waged no war on architecture,
being far too well employed in storing away gold and silver
and precious stones, and all manner of costly merchandise in
those insatiable hulks which were riding at anchor by Ostia.
Therefore, when you stand in the Forum of Rome or look upon
the grass-grown hill which was once the glorious Palatine,
blame if you like the Ostrogoth, the Byzantine, the Lombard,
above all, the Norman, and the Roman baron of the Middle Ages,
for the heart-breaking ruin that you see there, but leave the
Vandal uncensured, for, notwithstanding the stigma conveyed in
the word 'vandalism,' he is not guilty here."
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 3, chapter 2 (volume 2).
ROME: A. D. 455-476.
Barbarian masters and imperial puppets.
From Count Ricimer to Odoacer.
The ending of the line of Roman Emperors in the West,
called commonly the Fall of the Western Empire.
"After the death of Valentinian III., the unworthy grandson of
the great Theodosius [March 16, A. D. 455], the first thought
of the barbarian chiefs was, not to destroy or usurp the
Imperial name, but to secure to themselves the nomination of
the emperor. Avitus, chosen in Gaul under the influence of the
West Gothic King of Toulouse, Theoderic II., was accepted for
a time as the western emperor, by the Roman Senate and by the
Court of Constantinople. But another barbarian, Ricimer the
Sueve, ambitious, successful, and popular, had succeeded to
the command of the 'federated' foreign bands which formed the
strength of the imperial army in Italy. Ricimer would not be a
king, but he adopted as a settled policy the expedient, or the
insulting jest, of Alaric. … He deposed Avitus, and probably
murdered him. Under his direction, the Senate chose Majorian.
Majorian was too able, too public-spirited, perhaps too
independent, for the barbarian Patrician; Majorian, at a
moment of ill-fortune was deposed and got rid of." After
Majorian, one Severus (A. D. 461-467), and after Severus a
Greek, Anthemius (A. D. 467-472), nominated at Constantinople,
wore the purple at the command of Count Ricimer. When, after
five years of sovereignty, Anthemius quarreled with his
barbarian master, the latter chose a new emperor—the senator
Olybrius—and conducted him with an army to the gates of Rome,
in which the imperial court had once more settled itself.
Anthemius, supported by the majority of the senate and people,
resisted, and Rome sustained a siege of three months. It was
taken by storm, on the 11th of July, A. D. 472, and suffered
every outrage at the hands of the merciless victors. Anthemius
was slain and his enemy, Ricimer, died a few weeks later.
Olybrius followed the latter to the grave in October.
Ricimer's place was filled by his nephew, a refugee Burgundian
king, Gundobad, who chose for emperor an unfortunate officer
of the imperial guard, named Glycerius. Glycerius allowed
himself to be deposed the next year by Julius Nepos and
accepted a bishopric in place of the throne; but later
circumstances gave the emperor-bishop an opportunity to
assassinate his supplanter and he did not hesitate to do so.
By this time, the real power had passed to another barbarian
"patrician" and general, Orestes, former secretary of Attila,
and Orestes proclaimed his own son emperor. To this son "by a
strange chance, as if in mockery of his fortune, had been
given the names of the first king and the first emperor of
Rome, Romulus Augustus, soon turned in derision into the
diminutive 'Augustulus.' But Orestes failed to play the part
of Ricimer. A younger and more daring barbarian adventurer,
Odoacer the Herule, or Rugian, bid higher for the allegiance
of the army. Orestes was slain, and the young emperor was left
to the mercy of Odoacer. In singular and significant contrast
to the common usage when a pretender fell, Romulus Augustulus
was spared. He was made to abdicate in legal form; and the
Roman Senate, at the dictation of Odoacer, officially
signified to the Eastern emperor, Zeno, their resolution that
the separate Western Empire should cease, and their
recognition of the one emperor at Constantinople, who should
be supreme over West and East. Amid the ruin of the empire and
the state, the dethroned emperor passed his days, in such
luxurious ease as the times allowed, at the Villa of Lucullus
at Misenum; and Odoacer, taking the Teutonic title of king,
sent to the emperor at Constantinople the imperial crown and
robe which were to be worn no more at Rome or Ravenna for more
than three hundred years. Thus in the year 476 ended the Roman
empire, or rather, the line of Roman emperors, in the West."
R. W. Church,
Beginning of the Middle Ages,
chapter 1.
"When, at Odoacer's bidding, Romulus Augustulus, the boy whom
a whim of fate had chosen to be the last native Cæsar of Rome,
had formally announced his resignation to the senate, a
deputation from that body proceeded to the Eastern court to
lay the insignia of royalty at the feet of the Eastern Emperor
Zeno. The West, they declared, no longer required an Emperor
of its own; one monarch sufficed for the world; Odoacer was
qualified by his wisdom and courage to be the protector of
their state, and upon him Zeno was entreated to confer the
title of patrician and the administration of the Italian
provinces. The Emperor granted what he could not refuse, and
Odoacer, taking the title of King ['not king of Italy, as is
often said'—foot-note], continued the consular office,
respected the civil and ecclesiastical institutions of his
subjects, and ruled for fourteen years as the nominal vicar of
the Eastern Emperor.
{2736}
There was thus legally no extinction of the Western Empire at
all, but only a reunion of East and West. In form, and to some
extent also in the belief of men, things now reverted to their
state during the first two centuries of the Empire, save that
Byzantium instead of Rome was the centre of the civil
government. The joint tenancy which had been conceived by
Diocletian, carried further by Constantine, renewed under
Valentinian I. and again at the death of Theodosius, had come
to an end; once more did a single Emperor sway the sceptre of
the world, and head an undivided Catholic Church."
J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 3, chapters 4-8.
J. B. Bury,
History of the Later Roman Empire,
preface and book 3, chapter 5 (volume 1).
ROME: A. D. 476.
Causes of the decay of the Empire
and the significance of its fall in the West.
"Thus in the year 476 ended the Roman empire, or rather, the
line of Roman emperors, in the West. Thus it had become clear
that the foundations of human life and society, which had
seemed under the first emperors eternal, had given way. The
Roman empire was not the 'last word' in the history of the
world; but either the world was in danger of falling into
chaos, or else new forms of life were yet to appear, new ideas
of government and national existence were to struggle with the
old for the mastery. The world was not falling into chaos.
Europe, which seemed to have lost its guidance and its hope of
civilization in losing the empire, was on the threshold of a
history far grander than that of Rome, and was about to start
in a career of civilization to which that of Rome was rude and
unprogressive. In the great break-up of the empire in the
West, some parts of its system lasted, others disappeared.
What lasted was the idea of municipal government, the
Christian Church, the obstinate evil of slavery. What
disappeared was the central power, the imperial and universal
Roman citizenship, the exclusive rule of the Roman law, the
old Roman paganism, the Roman administration, the Roman
schools of literature. Part of these revived; the idea of
central power under Charles the Great, and Otto his great
successor; the appreciation of law, though not exclusively
Roman law; the schools of learning. And under these conditions
the new nations—some of mixed races, as in France, Spain, and
Italy; others simple and homogeneous, as in Germany, England,
and the Scandinavian peninsula —begin their apprenticeship of
civilization."
R. W. Church,
The Beginning of the Middle Ages,
chapter 1.
"The simple facts of the fall of the Empire are these. The
Imperial system had been established … to protect the
frontier. This it did for two centuries with eminent success.
But in the reign of Marcus Aurelius … there occurred an
invasion of the Marcomanni, which was not repulsed without
great difficulty, and which excited a deep alarm and
foreboding throughout the Empire. In the third century the
hostile powers on every frontier began to appear more
formidable. The German tribes, in whose discord Tacitus saw
the safety of the Empire, present themselves now no longer in
separate feebleness, but in powerful confederations. We hear
no more the insignificant names of Chatti and Chauci; the
history of the third century is full of Alemanni, Franks, and
Goths. On the eastern frontier, the long decayed power of the
Parthians now gives place to a revived and vigorous Persian
Empire. The forces of the Empire are more and more taxed to
defend it from these powerful enemies. … It is evident that
the Roman world would not have steadily receded through
centuries before the barbaric, had it not been decidedly
inferior in force. To explain, then, the fall of the Empire,
it is necessary to explain the inferiority in force of the
Romans to the barbarians. This inferiority of the Romans, it
is to be remembered, was a new thing. At an earlier time they
had been manifestly superior. When the region of barbarism was
much larger; when it included warlike and aggressive nations
now lost to it, such as the Gauls; and when, on the other
hand, the Romans drew their armies from a much smaller area,
and organized them much less elaborately, the balance had
inclined decidedly the other way. In those times the Roman
world, in spite of occasional reverses, had on the whole
steadily encroached on the barbaric. … Either, therefore, a
vast increase of power must have taken place in the barbaric
world, or a vast internal decay in the Roman. Now the barbaric
world had actually received two considerable accessions of
force. It had gained considerably, through what influences we
can only conjecture, in the power and habit of co-operation.
As I have said before, in the third century we meet with large
confederations of Germans, whereas before we read only of
isolated tribes. Together with this capacity of confederation
we can easily believe that the Germans had acquired new
intelligence, civilization, and military skill. Moreover, it
is practically to be considered as a great increase of
aggressive force, that in the middle of the fourth century
they were threatened in their original settlements by the
Huns. The impulse of desperation which drove them against the
Roman frontier was felt by the Romans as a new force acquired
by the enemy. But we shall soon see that other and more
considerable momenta must have been required to turn the
scale. … We are forced, … to the conclusion that the Roman
Empire, in the midst of its greatness and civilization, must
have been in a stationary and unprogressive, if not a decaying
condition. Now what can have been the cause of this
unproductiveness or decay? It has been common to suppose a
moral degeneration in the Romans, caused by luxury and
excessive good fortune. To support this it is easy to quote
the satirists and cynics of the imperial time, and to refer to
such accounts as Ammianus gives of the mingled effeminacy and
brutality of the aristocracy of the capital in the fourth
century. But the history of the wars between Rome and the
barbaric world does not show us the proofs we might expect of
this decay of spirit. We do not find the Romans ceasing to be
victorious in the field, and beginning to show themselves
inferior in valor to their enemies. The luxury of the capital
could not affect the army. … Nor can it be said that luxury
corrupted the generals, and through them the army. On the
contrary, the Empire produced a remarkable series of capable
generals. … Whatever the remote and ultimate cause may have
been, the immediate cause to which the fall of the Empire can
be traced is a physical, not a moral, decay.
{2737}
In valor, discipline, and science, the Roman armies remained
what they had always been, and the peasant emperors of
Illyricum were worthy successors of Cincinnatus and Caius
Marius. But the problem was how to replenish those armies. Men

were wanting; the Empire perished for want of men. The proof
of this is in the fact that the contest with barbarism was
carried on by the help of barbarian soldiers. … It must have
been because the Empire could not furnish soldiers for its own
defence, that it was driven to the strange expedient of
turning its enemies and plunderers into its defenders. … Nor
was it only in the army that the Empire was compelled to
borrow men from barbarism. To cultivate the fields whole
tribes were borrowed. From the time of Marcus Aurelius, it was
a practice to grant lands within the Empire, sometimes to
prisoners of war, sometimes to tribes applying for admission.
… The want of any principle of increase in the Roman
population is attested at a much earlier time. In the second
century before Christ, Polybius bears witness to it; and the
returns of the census from the Second Punic War to the time of
Augustus show no steady increase in the number of citizens
that cannot be accounted for by the extension of citizenship
to new classes. … Precisely as we think of marriage, the Roman
of Imperial times thought of celibacy,—that is, as the most
comfortable but the most expensive condition of life. Marriage
with us is a pleasure for which a man must be content to pay;
with the Romans it was an excellent pecuniary investment, but
an intolerably disagreeable one. Here lay, at least in the
judgment of Augustus, the root of the evil. To inquire into
the causes of this aversion to marriage in this place would
lead me too far. We must be content to assume that, owing
partly to this cause and partly to the prudential check of
infanticide, the Roman population seems to have been in
ordinary times almost stationary. The same phenomenon had
shown itself in Greece before its conquest by the Romans.
There the population had even greatly declined; and the shrewd
Polybius explains that it was not owing to war or plague, but
mainly to a general repugnance to marriage, and reluctance to
rear large families, caused by an extravagantly high standard
of comfort. … Perhaps enough has now been said to explain that
great enigma, which so much bewilders the reader of Gibbon;
namely, the sharp contrast between the age of the Autonines
and the age which followed it. A century of unparalleled
tranquillity and virtuous government is followed immediately
by a period of hopeless ruin and dissolution. A century of
rest is followed, not by renewed vigor, but by incurable
exhaustion. Some principle of decay must clearly have been at
work, but what principle? We answer: it was a period of
sterility or barrenness in human beings; the human harvest was
bad. And among the causes of this barrenness we find, in the
more barbarous nations, the enfeeblement produced by the
too-abrupt introduction of civilization, and universally the
absence of industrial habits, and the disposition to
listlessness which belongs to the military character."
J. R. Seeley,
Roman Imperialism,
pages 47-61.
"At no period within the sphere of historic records was the
commonwealth of Rome anything but an oligarchy of warriors and
slave-owners, who indemnified themselves for the restraint
imposed on them by their equals in the forum by aggression
abroad and tyranny in their households. The causes of its
decline seem to have little connexion with the form of
government established in the first and second centuries. They
were in full operation before the fall of the Republic, though
their baneful effects were disguised and perhaps retarded by
outward successes, by extended conquests, and increasing
supplies of tribute or plunder. The general decline of
population throughout the ancient world may be dated even from
the second century before our era. The last age of the
Republic was perhaps the period of the most rapid exhaustion
of the human race; but its dissolution was arrested under
Augustus, when the population recovered for a time in some
quarters of the empire, and remained at least stationary in
others. The curse of slavery could not but make itself felt
again, and demanded the destined catastrophe. Whatever evil we
ascribe to the despotism of the Cæsars, we must remark that it
was Slavery that rendered political freedom and constitutional
government impossible. Slavery fostered in Rome, as previously
at Athens, the spirit of selfishness and sensuality, of
lawlessness and insolence, which cannot consist with political
equality, with political justice, with political moderation.
The tyranny of the emperors was … only the tyranny of every
noble extended and intensified. The empire became no more than
an ergastulum or barracoon [slave prison] on a vast scale,
commensurate with the dominions of the greatest of Roman
slaveholders. … We have noticed already the pestilence which
befell Italy and many of the provinces in the reign of
Aurelius. There is reason to believe that this scourge was no
common disorder, that it was of a type new at least in the
West, and that, as a new morbific agent, its ravages were more
lasting, as well as more severe, than those of an ordinary
sickness. … At another time, when the stamina of ancient life
were healthier and stronger, such a visitation might possibly
have come and gone, and, however fatal at the moment, have
left no lasting traces; but periods seem to occur in national
existence when there is no constitutional power of rallying
under casual disorders. The sickness which in the youth of the
commonwealth would have dispelled its morbid humours and
fortified its system, may have proved fatal to its advancing
years, and precipitated a hale old age into palsied
decrepitude. The vital powers of the empire possessed no
elasticity; every blow now told upon it with increasing force;
the blows it slowly or impatiently returned were given by the
hands of hired barbarians, not by the strength of its own
right arm. Not sickness alone, but famines, earthquakes, and
conflagrations, fell in rapid succession upon the capital and
the provinces. Such casualties may have occurred at other
periods not less frequently or disastrously; but these were
observed, while the others passed unnoticed, because the
courage of the nation was now broken no less than its physical
vigour, and, distressed and terrified, it beheld in every
natural disorder the stroke of fate, the token of its destined
dissolution. Nor indeed was the alarm unfounded. These
transient faintings and sicknesses were too truly the symptoms
of approaching collapse. The long line of northern frontier,
from Odessus to the island of the Batavi, was skirted by a
fringe of fire, and through the lurid glare loomed the
wrathful faces of myriads, Germans, Scythians, and Sarmatians,
all armed for the onslaught in sympathy or concert."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans under the Empire,
chapter 18 (volume 7).
{2738}
"Under the humane pretext of gratifying the world with a
flattering title, an Antoninus, in one of his edicts, called
by the name of Roman citizens the tributaries of the Roman
empire, those men whom a proconsul might legally torture, flog
with rods, or crush with labour and taxes. Thus the power of
that formerly inviolable title, before which the most
shameless tyranny stopped short, was contradicted; thus
perished that ancient safety-cry which made the executioners
fall back; I am a Roman citizen. From that period Rome no
longer existed; there was a court and provinces: we do not
understand by that word what it now signifies in the vulgar
languages, but what it signified primitively in the Roman
language, a country conquered by arms; we mean to say, that
the primitive distinction between conquering Rome and those it
had conquered, then became established between the men in the
palace and those out of the palace; that Rome itself lived
only for one family, and a handful of courtiers, as formerly
the nations it had conquered had only lived by it. It was then
that the name of subjugated, subjecti, which our language has
corrupted into that of subjects, was transported from the
conquered inhabitants of the East or Gaul, to the victorious
inhabitants of Italy, attached in future to the yoke of a
small number of men, as these had been attached to their yoke;
the property of those men, as well as the others, had been
their property, worthy, in a word, of the degrading title of
subjects, subjecti, which must be taken literally. Such was
the order of things which had been gradually forming since the
time of Augustus; each emperor gloried in hastening the moment
of its perfection; Constantine gave it the finishing stroke.
He effaced the name of Rome from the Roman standards, and put
in its place the symbol of the religion which the empire had
just embraced. He degraded the revered name of the civil
magistrature below the domestic offices of his house. An
inspector of the wardrobe took precedence of the consuls. The
aspect of Rome importuned him; he thought he saw the image of
liberty still engraved on its old walls; fear drove him
thence; he fled to the coasts of Byzantia, and there built
Constantinople, placing the sea as a barrier between the new
city of the Cæsars and the ancient city of the Brutus. If Rome
had been the home of independence, Constantinople was the home
of slavery; from thence issued the dogmas of passive obedience
to the Church and throne; there was but one right—that of the
empire; but one duty—that of obedience. The general name of
citizen, which was equivalent, in language, to men living
under the same law, was replaced by epithets graduated
according to the credit of the powerful or the cowardice of
the weak. The qualifications of Eminence, Royal Highness, and
Reverence, were bestowed on what was lowest and most
despicable in the world. The empire, like a private domain,
was transmitted to children, wives, and sons-in-law; it was
given, bequeathed, substituted; the universe was exhausting
itself for the establishment of the family; taxes increased
immoderately; Constantinople alone was exempted; that
privilege of Roman liberty was the price of its infamy. The
rest of the cities and nations were treated like beasts of
burden, which are used without scruple, flogged when they are
restive, and killed when there is cause to fear them. Witness
the population of Antioch, condemned to death by the pious
Theodosius; and that of Thessalonica, entirely massacred by
him for a tax refused, and an unfortunate creature secured
from the justice of his provosts. Meanwhile savage and free
nations armed against the enslaved world, as if to chastise it
for its baseness. Italy, oppressed by the empire, soon found
pitiless revengers in its heart. Rome was menaced by the
Goths. The people, weary of the imperial yoke, did not defend
themselves. The men of the country, still imbued with the old
Roman manners and religion, those men, the only ones whose
arms were still robust and souls capable of pride, rejoiced to
see among them free men and gods resembling the ancient gods
of Italy. Stilico, the general to whom the empire entrusted
its defence, appeared at the foot of the Alps; he called to
arms, and no one arose; he promised liberty to the slaves, he
lavished the treasures of the fisc; and out of the immense
extent of the empire, he only assembled 40,000 men, the fifth
part of the warriors that Hannibal had encountered at the
gates of free Rome."
A. Thierry,
Narratives of the Merovingian Era
and Historical Essays, essay 13.
"It was not the division into two empires, nor merely the
power of external enemies, that destroyed the domination of
Rome. Republican Rome had ended in monarchy by the decadence
of her institutions and customs, by the very effect of her
victories and conquests, by the necessity of giving to this
immense dominion a dominus. But after she had begun to submit
to the reality of a monarchy, she retained the worship of
republican forms. The Empire was for a long time a piece of
hypocrisy; for it did not dare to give to its rulers the first
condition of stability, a law of succession. The death of
every emperor was followed by troubles, and the choice of a
master of the world was often left to chance. At length the
monarchy had to be organized, but thenceforth it was absolute,
without restraint or opposition. Its proposed aim was to
exploit the world, an aim which in practice was carried to an
extreme. Hence it exhausted the orbis romanus."
E. Lavisse,
General View of the Political History of Europe,
chapter 1.
ROME: A. D. 486.
The last Roman sovereignty in Gaul.
See GAUL: A. D. 457-486.
ROME: A. D. 488.
Theodoric the king of the Ostrogoths authorized and
commissioned by the Emperor Zeno to conquer a kingdom in Italy.
See GOTHS (OSTROGOTHS): A. D. 473-488.
ROME: A. D. 488-526.
The Ostrogothic kingdom of Theodoric.
It was in the autumn of the year 488 that Theodoric,
commissioned by the Eastern Emperor, Zeno, to wrest Italy from
Odoacer (or Odovacar), broke up his camp or settlement on the
Danube, in the neighborhood of Sistova, and moved towards the
west. The movement was a national migration—of wives and
children as well as of warriors—and the total number is
estimated at not less than 200,000. Following the course of
the Danube, the Gothic host met with no opposition until it
came to Singidunum, near the junction of the Save. There, on
the banks of a stream called the Ulca, they fought a great
battle with the Gepidæ, who held possession of Pannonia, and
who disputed their advance.
{2739}
Victorious in this encounter, Theodoric pushed on, along the
course of the Save; but the movement of his cumbrous train was
so slow and the hardships of the march so great, that nearly a
year passed before he had surmounted the passes of the Julian
Alps and entered Italy. He found Odoacer waiting to give him
battle on the Isonzo; but the forces of the latter were not
courageous enough or not faithful enough for their duty, and
the invading Goths forced the passage of the stream on the
28th of August, 489. Odoacer retreated to Verona, followed by
Theodoric, and there, on the 30th of September, a great and
terrible battle was fought, from which not many of the Rugian
and Herulian troops of Odoacer escaped. Odoacer, himself, with
some followers, got clear of the rout and made their way to
the safe stronghold of Ravenna. For a time, Odoacer's cause
seemed abandoned by all who had supported him; but it was a
treacherous show of submission to the victor. Theodoric, ere
long, found reactions at work which recruited the forces of
his opponent and diminished his own. He was driven to retreat
to Ticinum (Pavia) for the winter. But having solicited and
received aid from the Visigoths of southern Gaul, he regained,
in the summer of 490 (August 11) in a battle on the Adda, not
far from Milan, all the ground that he had lost, and more.
Odoacer was now driven again into Ravenna, and shut up within
its walls by a blockade which was endured until February in
the third year afterwards (493), when famine compelled a
surrender. Theodoric promised life to his rival and respect to
his royal dignity; but he no sooner had the old self-crowned
king Odoacer in his power than he slew him with his own hand.
Notwithstanding this savagery in the inauguration of it, the
reign of the Ostrogothic king in Italy appears to have been,
on the whole, wise and just, with more approximation to the
chivalric half-civilization of later mediæval times than
appears in the government of any of his Gothic or German
neighbors. "Although Theoderic did not care to run the risk of
offending both his Goths and the Court of Constantinople by
calling himself Cæsar or Emperor, yet those titles would have
exactly expressed the character of his rule—so far at least as
his Roman subjects were concerned. When the Emperor Anastasius
in 497 acknowledged him as ruler of Italy, he sent him the
purple cloak and the diadem of the Western emperors; and the
act showed that Anastasius quite understood the difference
between Theodoric's government and that of Odovacar. In fact,
though not in name, the Western empire had been restored with
much the same institutions it had under the best of the
Cæsars." The reign of Theodoric, dating it, as he did, from
his first victory on Italian soil, was thirty-seven years in
duration. When he died, August 30, A. D. 526, he left to his
grandson, Athalaric, a kingdom which extended, beyond Italy,
over Rhætia, Noricum, Pannonia and Illyricum (the modern
Austrian empire south and west of the Danube), together with
Provence in southern Gaul and a district north of it embracing
much of modern Dauphiné. His government extended, likewise,
over the Visigothic kingdom, as guardian of its young king,
his grandson. But this great kingdom of the heroic Ostrogoth
was not destined to endure. One who lived the common measure
of life might have seen the beginning of it and the end. It
vanished in one quarter of a century after he who founded it
was laid away in his great tomb at Ravenna, leaving nothing to
later history which can be counted as a survival of it,—not
even a known remnant of the Ostrogothic race.
H. Bradley,
Story of the Goths,
chapters 16-20.
"Theodoric professed a great reverence for the Roman
civilization. He had asked for and obtained from the Emperor
Anastasius the imperial insignia that Odovakar had
disdainfully sent back to Constantinople, and he gave up the
dress of the barbarians for the Roman purple. Although he
lived at Ravenna he was accustomed to consult the Roman
senate, to whom he wrote: 'We desire, conscript fathers, that
the genius of liberty may look with favor upon your assembly.'
He established a consul of the West, three prætorian prefects,
and three dioceses,—that of northern Italy, that of Rome, and
that of Gaul. He retained the municipal government, but
appointed the decurions himself. He reduced the severity of
the taxes, and his palace was always open to those who wished
to complain of the iniquities of the judges. … Thus a
barbarian gave back to Italy the prosperity which she had lost
under the emperors. The public buildings, aqueducts, theatres,
and baths were repaired, and palaces and churches were built.
The uncultivated lands were cleared and companies were formed
to drain the Pontine marshes and the marshes of Spoleto. The
iron mines of Dalmatia and a gold mine in Bruttii were worked.
The coasts were protected from pirates by numerous flotillas.
The population increased greatly. Theodoric, though he did not
know how to write, gathered around him the best literary merit
of the time,—Boethius, the bishop Ennodius, and Cassiodorus.
The latter, whom he made his minister, has left us twelve
books of letters. Theodoric seems in many ways like a first
sketch of Charlemagne. Though himself an Arian, he respected
the rights of the Catholics from the first. … When, however,
the Emperor Justin I. persecuted the Arians in the East, he
threatened to retaliate, and as a great commotion was observed
among his Italian subjects, he believed that a conspiracy was
being formed against himself. … The prefect Symmachus and his
son-in-law, Boethius, were implicated. Theodoric confined them
in the tower of Pavia, and it was there that Boethius wrote
his great work, The Consolations of Philosophy. They were both
executed in 525. Theodoric, however, finally recognized their
innocence, and felt such great regret that his reason is said
to have been unbalanced and that remorse hastened his end."
V. Duruy,
History of the Middle Ages,
book 1, chapter 3.
"The personal greatness of Theodoric overshadowed Emperor and
Empire; from his palace at Ravenna, by one title or another,
by direct dominion, as guardian, as elder kinsman, as
representative of the Roman power, as head by natural
selection of the whole Teutonic world, he ruled over all the
western lands save one; and even to the conquering Frank he
could say, Thus far shalt thou come and no further. In true
majesty such a position was more than Imperial; moreover there
was nothing in the rule of Theodoric which touched the Roman
life of Italy. … As far as we can see, it was the very
greatness of Theodoric which kept his power from being
lasting.
{2740}
Like so many others of the very greatest of men, he set on
foot a system which he himself could work, but which none but
himself could work. He sought to set up a kingdom of Goths and
Romans, under which the two nations should live side by side,
distinct but friendly, each keeping its own law and doing its
own work. And for one life-time the thing was done. Theodoric
could keep the whole fabric of Roman life untouched, with the
Goth standing by as an armed protector. He could as he said,
leave to the Roman consul the honours of government and take
for the Gothic king only the toils. Smaller men neither could
nor would do this. … It was the necessary result of his
position that he gave Italy one generation of peace and
prosperity such as has no fellow for ages on either side of
it, but that, when he was gone, a fabric which had no
foundation but his personal qualities broke down with a
crash."
E. A. Freeman,
Chief Periods of European History,
lecture 3.
ALSO IN:
E. A. Freeman,
The Goths at Ravenna
(Historical Essays, volume 3, chapter 4).
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 4, chapters 6-13 (volume 3).
Cassiodorus,
Letters,
translated and edited by T. Hodgkin.
H. F. Stewart,
Boethius,
chapter 2.
ROME: A. D. 527-565.
The reign of Justinian.
"In the year after the great Theoderic died (526), the most
famous in the time of Eastern emperors, since Constantine,
began his long and eventful reign (527-567). Justinian was
born a Slavonian peasant, near what was then Sardica, and is
now Sofia; his original Slave name, Uprawda, was latinized
into Justinian, when he became an officer in the imperial
guard. Since the death of the second Theodosius (450), the
Eastern emperors had been, as they were continually to be, men
not of Roman or Greek, but of barbarian or half barbarian
origin, whom the imperial city and service attracted,
naturalized, and clothed with civilized names and Roman
character. Justinian's reign, so great and so unhappy, was
marked by magnificent works, the administrative organization
of the empire, the great buildings at Constantinople, the last
and grandest codification of Roman law.
See CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS.
But it was also marked by domestic shame, by sanguinary
factions, by all the vices and crimes of a rapacious and
ungrateful despotism.
See CIRCUS, FACTIONS OF THE ROMAN.
Yet it seemed for a while like the revival of the power and
fortune of Rome. Justinian rose to the highest ideas of
imperial ambition; and he was served by two great masters of
war, foreigners in origin like himself, Belisarius the
Thracian, and Narses the Armenian, who were able to turn to
full account the resources, still enormous, of the empire, its
immense riches, its technical and mechanical skill, its
supplies of troops, its military traditions, its command of
the sea. Africa was wrested from the Vandals;
See VANDALS: A. D. 533-534;
Italy from the successors of Theoderic [see below]; much of
Spain from the West Goths."
R. W. Church,
The Beginning of the Middle Ages,
chapter 6.
"In spite of the brilliant events which have given the reign
of Justinian a prominent place in the annals of mankind, it is
presented to us in a series of isolated and incongruous facts.
Its chief interest is derived from the biographical memorials
of Belisarius, Theodora, and Justinian; and its most
instructive lesson has been drawn from the influence which its
legislation has exercised on foreign nations. The unerring
instinct of mankind has however fixed on this period as one of
the greatest eras in man's annals. The actors may have been
men of ordinary merit, but the events of which they were the
agents effected the mightiest revolutions in society. The
frame of the ancient world was broken to pieces, and men long
looked back with wonder and admiration at the fragments which
remained, to prove the existence of a nobler race than their
own. The Eastern Empire, though too powerful to fear any
external enemy, was withering away from the rapidity with
which the State devoured the resources of the people. … The
life of Belisarius, either in its reality or its romantic
form, has typified his age. In his early youth, the world was
populous and wealthy, the empire rich and powerful. He
conquered extensive realms and mighty nations and led kings
captive to the footstool of Justinian, the lawgiver of
civilisation. Old age arrived; Belisarius sank into the grave
suspected and impoverished by his feeble and ungrateful
master; and the world, from the banks of the Euphrates to
those of the Tagus, presented the awful spectacle of famine
and plague, of ruined cities, and of nations on the brink of
extermination. The impression on the hearts of men was
profound."
G. Finlay,
Greece under the Romans,
chapter 3, section 1.
See PLAGUE: A. D. 542-594.
ALSO IN:
Lord Mahon,
Life of Belisarius.
ROME: A. D. 528-556.
The Persian Wars and the Lazic War of Justinian.
See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627;
also, LAZICA.
ROME: A. D. 535-553.
Fall of the Gothic kingdom of Theodoric.
Recovery of Italy by the Emperor Justinian.
The long Gothic siege of Rome.
The siege, capture and pillage by Totila.
The forty days of lifeless desolation in the great city.
On the death of the great Theodoric, the Ostrogothic crown
passed, not to his daughter, Amalasuntha, but to her son,
Athalaric, a child of eight or ten years. The boy-king died at
the age of sixteen, and Amalasuntha assumed the regal power
and title, calling one of her cousins, named Theodatus, or
Theodahad, to the throne, to share it with her. She had
powerful enemies in the Gothic court and the ungrateful
Theodatus was soon in conspiracy with them. Amalasuntha and
her partisans were overcome, and the unhappy queen, after a
short imprisonment on a little island in the lake of Bolsena,
was put to death. These dissensions in the Gothic kingdom gave
encouragement to the Eastern emperor, the ambitious Justinian,
to undertake the reconquest of Italy. His great general,
Belisarius, had just vanquished the Vandals and restored
Carthaginian Africa to the imperial domain.
See VANDALS: A. D. 533-534.
With far smaller forces than that achievement demanded,
Belisarius was now sent against the Goths. He landed, first,
in Sicily (A. D. 535), and the whole island was surrendered to
him, almost without a blow. The following spring (having
crossed to Carthage meantime and quelled a formidable revolt),
he passed the straits from Messina and landed his small army
in Italy. Marching northwards, he encountered his first
opposition at Neapolis—modern Naples—where he was detained
for twenty days by the stout resistance of the city.
{2741}
It was surprised, at length, by a storming party which crept
through one of the aqueducts of the town, and it suffered
fearfully from the barbarians of the Roman army before
Belisarius could recover control of his savage troops. Pausing
for a few months to organize his easy conquest of southern
Italy, he received, before he marched to Rome, the practical
surrender of the capital. On the 9th of December, 536, he
entered the city and the Gothic garrison marched out. The
Goths, meantime, had deposed the cowardly Theodatus and raised
to the throne their most trusty warrior, Witigis. They
employed the winter of 537 in gathering all their available
forces at Ravenna, and in the spring they returned to Rome,
150,000 strong, to expel the Byzantine invader. Belisarius had
busily improved the intervening months, and the long-neglected
fortifications of the city were wonderfully restored and
improved. At the beginning of March, the Goths were thundering
at the gates of Rome; and then began the long siege, which
endured for a year and nine days, and which ended in the
discomfiture of the huge army of the besiegers. Their retreat
was a flight and great numbers were slain by the pursuing
Romans. "The numbers and prowess of the Goths were rendered
useless by the utter incapacity of their commander. Ignorant
how to assault, ignorant how to blockade, he allowed even the
sword of Hunger to be wrested from him and used against his
army by Belisarius. He suffered the flower of the Gothic
nation to perish, not so much by the weapons of the Romans as
by the deadly dews of the Campagna." After the retreat of the
Goths from Rome, the conquest of Italy would have been quickly
completed, no doubt, if the jealousy of Justinian had not
hampered Belisarius, by sending the eunuch Narses—who proved
to be a remarkable soldier, in the end—to divide the command
with him. As it was, the surrender to Belisarius of the Gothic
capital, Ravenna, by the Gothic king, Witigis, in the spring
of 540, seemed to make the conquest an accomplished fact. The
unconquered Gothic warriors then held but two important
cities—Verona and Pavia. Milan they had retaken after losing
it, and had practically destroyed, massacring the inhabitants.
See MILAN: A. D. 539.
But now they chose a new king, Ildibad, who reigned
promisingly for a year and was slain; then another, who wore
the crown but five months; and, lastly, they found a true
royal chief in the knightly young warrior Baduila, or Totila,
by whose energy and valor the Gothic cause was revived.
Belisarius had been recalled by his jealous master, and the
quarrels of eleven generals who divided his authority gave
every opportunity to the youthful king. Defeating the Roman
armies in two battles, at Faenza and in the valley of Mugello,
near Florence, he crossed the Apennines, passed by Rome,
besieged and took Naples and Cumæ and overran all the southern
provinces of Italy, in 542 and 543, finding everywhere much
friendliness among the people, whom the tax-gatherers of
Justinian had alienated by their merciless rapacity. In 544,
Belisarius, restored to favor and command only because of the
desperate need of his services, came back to Italy to recover
what his successors had lost; but he came almost alone.
Without adequate troops, he could only watch, from Ravenna,
and circumscribe a little, the successes of his enterprising
antagonist. The latter, having strengthened his position well,
in central as well as in southern Italy, applied himself to
the capture of Rome. In May, 546, the Gothic lines were drawn
around the city and a blockade established which soon produced
famine and despair. An attempt by Belisarius to break the
leaguer came to naught, and Rome was betrayed to Totila on the
17th of December following. He stayed the swords of his
followers when they began to slay, but gave them full license
to plunder. When the great city had been stripped and most of
its inhabitants had fled, he resolved to destroy it utterly;
but he was dissuaded from that most barbarous design by a
letter of remonstrance from Belisarius. Contenting himself,
then, with throwing down a great part of the walls, he
withdrew his whole army—having no troops to spare for an
adequate garrison—and took with him every single surviving
inhabitant (so the historians of the time declare), so that
Rome, for the space of six weeks or more (January and
February, 547), was a totally deserted and silent city. At the
end of that time, Belisarius threw his army inside of the
broken walls, and repaired them with such celerity that Totila
was baffled when he hastened back to expel the intruders.
Three times the Goths attacked and were repulsed; the best of
their warriors were slain; the prestige of their leader was
lost. But, once more, jealousies and enmities at
Constantinople recalled Belisarius and the Goths recovered
ground. In 549 they again invested Rome and it was betrayed to
them, as before, by a part of the garrison. Totila now made
the great city—great even in its ruins—his capital, and
exerted himself to restore its former glories. His arms for a
time were everywhere successful. Sicily was invaded and
stripped of its portable wealth. Sardinia and Corsica were
occupied; the shores of Greece were threatened. But in 552 the
tide of fortune was turned once more in favor of
Justinian,—this time by his second great general, the eunuch
Narses. In one decisive battle fought that year, in July, at a
point on the Flaminian Way where it crosses the Apennines, the
army of the Goths was broken and their king was slain. The
remnant which survived crowned another king, Teias; but, he,
too, perished, the following March, in a battle fought at the
foot of Mount Vesuvius, and the Ostrogothic kingdom was at an
end. Rome was already recovered—the fifth change of masters it
had undergone during the war—and one by one, all the strong
places in the hands of the Goths were given up. The
restoration of Italy to the Empire was complete.
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 4, chapter 16;
book 5, chapters 1-24.
"Of all ages in history the sixth is the one in which the
doctrine that the Roman Empire came to an end at some time in
the fifth sounds most grotesque. Again the Roman armies march
to victory, to more than victory, to conquest, to conquests
more precious than the conquests of Cæsar or of Trajan, to
conquests which gave back Rome herself to her own Augustus. We
may again be met with the argument that we have ourselves used
so often; that the Empire had to win back its lost provinces
does indeed prove that it had lost them; but no one seeks to
prove that the provinces had not been lost; what the world is
loth to understand is that there was still life enough in the
Roman power to win them back again.
{2742}
I say the Roman power; what if I said the Roman commonwealth?
It may startle some to hear that in the sixth century, nay in
the seventh, the most common name for the Empire of Rome is
still 'respublica.' No epithet is needed; there is no Deed to
say that the 'respublica' spoken of is 'respublica Romano.' It
is the Republic which wins back Italy, Africa, and Southern
Spain from their Teutonic masters. … The point of the
employment of the word lies in this, that it marks the
unbroken being of the Roman state; in the eyes of the men of
the sixth century the power which won back the African
province in their own day was the same power which had first
won it well-nigh seven hundred years before. The consul
Belisarius was the true successor of the consul Scipio."
E. A. Freeman,
The Chief Periods of European History,
lecture 4.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapters 41 and 43.
J. B. Bury,
History of the Later Roman Empire,
book 4, chapters 5-7 (volume 1).
R. H. Wrightson,
The Sancta Respublica Romana,
chapters 5-7.
Lord Mahon,
Life of Belisarius.
ROME: A. D. 541.
Extinction of the office of Consul.
See CONSUL, ROMAN.
ROME: A. D. 554-800.
The Exarchate of Ravenna.
On the final overthrow and annihilation of the Gothic monarchy
in Italy by the decisive victories of the eunuch Narses, its
throne at Ravenna was occupied by a line of vice-royal rulers,
named exarchs, who represented the Eastern Roman emperor,
being appointed by him and exercising authority in his name.
"Their jurisdiction was soon reduced to the limits of a narrow
province; but Narses himself, the first and most powerful of
the exarchs, administered above fifteen years the entire
kingdom of Italy. … A duke was stationed for the defence and
military command of each of the principal cities; and the eye
of Narses pervaded the ample prospect from Calabria to the
Alps. The remains of the Gothic nation evacuated the country
or mingled with the people. … The civil state of Italy, after
the agitation of a long tempest, was fixed by a pragmatic
sanction, which the emperor promulgated at the request of the
pope. Justinian introduced his own jurisprudence into the
schools and tribunals of the West. … Under the exarchs of
Ravenna, Rome was degraded to the second rank. Yet the
senators were gratified by the permission of visiting their
estates in Italy, and of approaching without obstacle the
throne of Constantinople: the regulation of weights and
measures was delegated to the pope and senate; and the
salaries of lawyers and physicians, of orators and
grammarians, were destined to preserve or rekindle the light
of science in the ancient capital. … During a period of 200
years Italy was unequally divided between the kingdom of the
Lombards and the exarchate of Ravenna. … Eighteen successive
exarchs were invested, in the decline of the empire, with the
full remains of civil, of military and even of ecclesiastical
power. Their immediate jurisdiction, which was afterwards
consecrated as the patrimony of St. Peter, extended over the
modern Romagna, the marshes or valleys of Ferrara and
Commachio, five maritime cities from Rimini to Ancona, and a
second inland Pentapolis, between the Adriatic coast and the
hills of the Apennine. Three subordinate provinces—of Rome, of
Venice, and of Naples—which were divided by hostile lands from
the palace of Ravenna, acknowledged, both in peace and war,
the supremacy of the exarch. The duchy of Rome appears to have
included the Tuscan, Sabine, and Latin conquests of the first
400 years of the city, and the limits may be distinctly traced
along the coast, from Civita Vecchio, to Terracina, and with
the course of the Tiber from Ameria and Narni to the port of
Ostia. The numerous islands from Grado to Chiozza composed the
infant dominion of Venice; but the more accessible towns on
the continent were overthrown by the Lombards, who beheld with
impotent fury a new capital rising from the waves. The power
of the dukes of Naples was circumscribed by the bay and the
adjacent isles, by the hostile territory of Capua, and by the
Roman colony of Amalphi. … The three islands of Sardinia,
Corsica, and Sicily still adhered to the empire. … Rome was
oppressed by the iron sceptre of the exarchs, and a Greek,
perhaps a eunuch, insulted with impunity the ruins of the
Capitol. But Naples soon acquired the privilege of electing
her own dukes; the independence of Amalphi was the fruit of
commerce; and the voluntary attachment of Venice was finally
ennobled by an equal alliance with the Eastern empire."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapters 43 and 45.
{2742a}
{2742b}

EUROPE AT THE DEATH OF THE EMPEROR JUSTINIAN 565 A. D.
EAST ROMAN EMPIRE
RACE DIVISIONS
CELTIC PEOPLES.
SLAVIC PEOPLES.
LITHUANIAN PEOPLES.
URAL ALTAIC PEOPLES.
SCANDINAVIANS.
ANGLES, SAXONS, JUTES ETC.
THE GERMANIC STATES AND PEOPLES ALL APPEAR
IN DIFFERENT SHADES OF PINK.
ROME: A. D. 565-628.
Decline of the Eastern Empire.
Thickening calamities.
Reigns of Justinus II., Tiberius Constantinus, Maurice,
and Phocas.
Brief brightening of events by Heraclius.
His campaigns against the Persians.
"The thirty years which followed the death of Justinian are
covered by three reigns, those of Justinus II. (565-578),
Tiberius Constantinus (578-582), and Maurice (582-602). These
three emperors were men of much the same character as the
predecessors of Justinian; each of them was an experienced
official of mature age, who was selected by the reigning
emperor as his most worthy successor. … Yet under them the
empire was steadily going down hill: the exhausting effects of
the reign of Justinian were making themselves felt more and
more, and at the end of the reign of Maurice a time of chaos
and disaster was impending, which came to a head under his
successor. … The misfortunes of the Avaric and Slavonic war
[see AVARS] were the cause of the fall of the Emperor Maurice.
… Maurice sealed his fate when, in 602, he issued orders for
the discontented army of the Danube to winter north of the
river, in the waste marshes of the Slavs. The troops refused
to obey the order, and chased away their generals. Then
electing as their captain an obscure centurion, named Phocas,
they marched on Constantinople. Maurice armed the city
factions, the 'Blues' and 'Greens,' and strove to defend
himself. But when he saw that no one would fight for him, he
fled across the Bosphorus with his wife and children, to seck
refuge in the Asiatic provinces, where he was less unpopular
than in Europe. Soon he was pursued by orders of Phocas, whom
the army had now saluted as emperor, and caught at Chalcedon.
The cruel usurper had him executed, along with all his five
sons, the youngest a child of only three years of age. … For
the first time since Constantinople had become the seat of
empire the throne had been won by armed rebellion and the
murder of the legitimate ruler. …
{2743}
Phocas was a mere brutal soldier—cruel, ignorant, suspicious,
and reckless, and in his incapable hands the empire began to
fall to pieces with alarming rapidity. He opened his reign
with a series of cruel executions of his predecessor's
friends, and from that moment his deeds of bloodshed never
ceased. … The moment that Phocas had mounted the throne,
Chosroës of Persia declared war on him, using the hypocritical
pretext that he wished to revenge Maurice, for whom he
professed a warm personal friendship. This war was far
different from the indecisive contests in the reigns of
Justinian and Justin II. In two successive years the Persians
burst into North Syria and ravaged it as far as the sea; but
in the third they turned north and swept over the hitherto
untouched provinces of Asia Minor. In 608 their main army
penetrated across Cappadocia and Galatia right up to the gates
of Chalcedon. The inhabitants of Constantinople could see the
blazing villages across the water on the Asiatic shore. … Plot
after plot was formed in the capital against Phocas, but he
succeeded in putting them all down, and slew the conspirators
with fearful tortures. For eight years his reign continued. …
Africa was the only portion of the Roman Empire which in the
reign of Phocas was suffering neither from civil strife nor
foreign invasion. It was well governed by the aged exarch
Heraclius, who was so well liked in the province that the
emperor had not dared to depose him. Urged by desperate
entreaties from all parties in Constantinople to strike a blow
against the tyrant, and deliver the empire from the yoke of a
monster, Heraclius at last consented." He sent his son—who
bore the same name, Heraclius—with a fleet, to Constantinople.
Phocas was at once abandoned by his troops and was given up to
Heraclius, whose sailors slew him. "Next day the patriarch and
the senate hailed Heraclius [the younger] as emperor, and he
was duly crowned in St. Sophia on October 5, A. D. 610. … Save
Africa and Egypt and the district immediately around the
capital, all the provinces were overrun by the Persian, the
Avar and the Slav. The treasury was empty, and the army had
almost disappeared, owing to repeated and bloody defeats in
Asia Minor. Heraclius seems at first to have almost despaired.
… For the first twelve years of his reign he remained at
Constantinople, endeavouring to reorganize the empire, and to
defend at any rate the frontiers of Thrace and Asia Minor. The
more distant provinces he hardly seems to have hoped to save,
and the chronicle of his early years is filled with the
catalogue of the losses of the empire. … In 614 the Persian
army appeared before the holy city of Jerusalem, took it after
a short resistance and occupied it with a garrison. But the
populace rose and slaughtered the Persian troops, when
Shahrbarz had departed with his main army. This brought him
back in wrath: he stormed the city and put 90,000 Christians
to the sword, only sparing the Jewish inhabitants. Zacharias,
Patriarch of Jerusalem, was carried into captivity, and with
him went what all Christians then regarded as the most
precious thing in the world—the wood of the 'True Cross'. …
See JERUSALEM: A. D. 615.
The horror and rage roused by the loss of the 'True Cross' and
the blasphemies of King Chosroës brought about the first real
outburst of national feeling that we meet in the history of
the Eastern Empire. … Heraclius made no less than six
campaigns (A. D. 622-627) in his gallant and successful
attempt to save the half-ruined empire. He won great and
well-deserved fame, and his name would be reckoned among the
foremost of the world's warrior-kings if it had not been for
the misfortunes which afterwards fell on him in his old age.
His first campaign cleared Asia Minor of the Persian hosts,
not by a direct attack, but by skilful strategy. … In his next
campaigns Heraclius endeavoured to liberate the rest of the
Roman Empire by a similar plan: he resolved to assail Chosroës
at home, and force him to recall the armies he kept in Syria
and Egypt to defend his own Persian provinces. In 623-4 the
Emperor advanced across the Armenian mountains and threw
himself into Media. … Chosroës … fought two desperate battles
to cover Ctesiphon. His generals were defeated in both, but
the Roman army suffered severely. Winter was at hand, and
Heraclius fell back on Armenia. In his next campaign he
recovered Roman Mesopotamia. … But 626 was the decisive year
of the war. The obstinate Chosroës determined on one final
effort to crush Heraclius, by concerting a joint plan of
operations with the Chagan of the Avars. While the main
Persian army watched the emperor in Armenia, a great body
under Shahrbarz slipped south of him into Asia Minor and
marched on the Bosphorus. At the same moment the Chagan of the
Avars, with the whole force of his tribe and of his Slavonic
dependents, burst over the Balkans and beset Constantinople on
the European side. The two barbarian hosts could see each
other across the water, and even contrived to exchange
messages, but the Roman fleet, sailing incessantly up and down
the strait, kept them from joining forces. … In the end of
July 80,000 Avars and Slavs, with all sorts of siege
implements, delivered simultaneous assaults along the land
front of the city, but they were beaten back with great
slaughter." They suffered even more on trying to encounter the
Roman galleys with rafts. "Then the Chagan gave up the siege
in disgust and retired across the Danube." Meantime Heraclius
was wasting Media and Mesopotamia, and next year he ended the
war by a decisive victory near Nineveh, as the result of which
he took the palace of Dastagerd, "and divided among his troops
such a plunder as had never been seen since Alexander the
Great captured Susa. … In March, 628, a glorious peace ended
the 26 years of the Persian war. Heraclius returned to
Constantinople in the summer of the same year with his spoils,
his victorious army, and his great trophy, the 'Holy Wood.' …
The quiet for which he yearned was to be denied him, and the
end of his reign was to be almost as disastrous as the
commencement. The great Saracen invasion was at hand, and it
was at the very moment of Heraclius' triumph that Mahomet sent
out his famous circular letter to the kings of the earth,
inviting them to embrace Islam."
C. W. C. Oman,
The Story of the Byzantine Empire,
chapters 9-10.
ALSO IN:
J. B. Bury,
History of the Later Roman Empire,
book 4, part 2, and book 5, chapters 1-3 (volume 2).
See, also, PERSIA: A. D. 226-627.
ROME: A. D. 568-573.
Invasion of the Lombards.
Their conquest of northern Italy.
Their kingdom.
See LOMBARDS: A. D. 568-573; and 573-754.
{2744}
ROME: A. D. 590-640.
Increasing influence and importance of the Bishop of Rome.
Circumstances under which his temporal authority grew.
"The fall of the shadowy Empire of the West, and the union of
the Imperial power in the person of the ruler of
Constantinople, brought a fresh accession of dignity and
importance to the Bishop of Rome. The distant Emperor could
exercise no real power over the West. The Ostrogothic kingdom
in Italy scarcely lasted beyond the lifetime of its great
founder Theodoric. The wars of Justinian only served to show
how scanty were the benefits of the Imperial rule. The
invasion of the Lombards united all dwellers in Italy in an
endeavour to escape the lot of servitude and save their land
from barbarism. In this crisis it was found that the Imperial
system had crumbled away, and that the Church alone possessed
a strong organisation. In the decay of the old municipal
aristocracy the people of the towns gathered round their
bishops, whose sacred character inspired some respect in the
barbarians, and whose active charity lightened the calamities
of their flocks. In such a state of things Pope Gregory the
Great raised the Papacy [A. D. 590] to a position of decisive
eminence, and marked out the course of its future policy. The
piety of emperors and nobles had conferred lands on the Roman
Church, not only in Italy, but in Sicily, Corsica, Gaul, and
even in Asia and Africa, until the Bishop of Rome had become
the largest landholder in Italy. To defend his Italian lands
against the incursions of the Lombards was a course suggested
to Gregory by self-interest; to use the resources which came
to him from abroad as a means of relieving the distress of the
suffering people in Rome and Southern Italy was a natural
prompting of his charity. In contrast to this, the distant
Emperor was too feeble to send any effective help against the
Lombards, while the fiscal oppression of his representatives
added to the miseries of the starving people. The practical
wisdom, administrative capacity, and Christian zeal of Gregory
I. led the people of Rome and the neighbouring regions to look
upon the Pope as their head in temporal as well as in
spiritual matters. The Papacy became a national centre to the
Italians, and the attitude of the Popes towards the Emperor
showed a spirit of independence which rapidly passed into
antagonism and revolt. Gregory I. was not daunted by the
difficulties nor absorbed by the cares of his position at
home. When he saw Christianity threatened in Italy by the
heathen Lombards, he boldly pursued a system of religious
colonisation. While dangers were rife at Rome, a band of Roman
missionaries carried Christianity to the distant English, and
in England first was founded a Church which owed its existence
to the zeal of the Roman bishop. Success beyond all that he
could have hoped for attended Gregory's pious enterprise. The
English Church spread and flourished, a dutiful daughter of
her mother-church of Rome. England sent forth missionaries in
her turn, and before the preaching of Willibrod and Winifred
heathenism died away in Friesland, Franconia, and Thuringia.
Under the new name of Boniface, given him by Pope Gregory II.,
Winifred, as Archbishop of Mainz, organised a German Church,
subject to the successor of S. Peter. The course of events in
the East also tended to increase the importance of the See of
Rome. The Mohammedan conquests destroyed the Patriarchates of
Antioch and Jerusalem, which alone could boast of an
apostolical foundation. Constantinople alone remained as a
rival to Rome; but under the shadow of the Imperial despotism
it was impossible for the Patriarch of Constantinople to lay
claim to spiritual independence. The settlement of Islam in
its eastern provinces involved the Empire in a desperate
struggle for its existence. Henceforth its object no longer
was to reassert its supremacy over the West, but to hold its
ground against watchful foes in the East. Italy could hope for
no help from the Emperor, and the Pope saw that a breach with
the Empire would give greater independence to his own
position, and enable him to seek new allies elsewhere."
M. Creighton,
History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation,
introduction, chapter 1 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
T. W. Allies,
The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations,
chapter 5.
See, also,
CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 553-800;
and PAPACY: A. D. 461-604, and after.
ROME: A. D. 632-709.
The Eastern Empire.
Its first conflicts with Islam.
Loss of Syria, Egypt, and Africa.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-639, to 647-709.
ROME: A. D. 641-717.
The Eastern Empire.
The period between the death of Heraclius and the advent of
Leo III. (the Isaurian) is covered, in the Eastern Empire, by
the following reigns:
Constantine III. and Heracleonas (641);
Constans II. (641-668);
Constantine IV. (668-685);
Justinian II. (685-711);
Leontius and Absimarus (usurpers, who interrupted the reign
of Justinian II. from 695 to 698 and from 698 to 704);
Philippicus (711-713);
Anastasius II. (713-716);
Theodosius III. (716-717).
ROME: A. D. 717-800.
The Eastern Roman Empire: should it take
the name of the Byzantine Empire?—and when?
"The precise date at which the eastern Roman empire ceased to
exist has been variously fixed. Gibbon remarks, 'that Tiberius
[A. D. 578-582] by the Arabs, and Maurice [A. D. 582-602] by
the Italians, are distinguished as the first of the Greek
Cæsars, as the founders of a new dynasty and empire.' But if
manners, language, and religion are to decide concerning the
commencement of the Byzantine empire, the preceding pages have
shown that its origin must be carried back to an earlier
period; while, if the administrative peculiarities in the form
of government be taken as the ground of decision, the Roman
empire may be considered as indefinitely prolonged with the
existence of the title of Roman emperor, which the sovereigns
of Constantinople continued to retain as long as
Constantinople was ruled by Christian princes. … The period …
at which the Roman empire of the East terminated is decided by
the events which confined the authority of the imperial
government to those provinces where the Greeks formed the
majority of the population; and it is marked by the adoption
of Greek as the language of the government, by the prevalence
of Greek civilisation, and by the identification of the
nationality of the people, and the policy of the emperors with
the Greek church. For, when the Saracen conquests had severed
from the empire all those provinces which possessed a native
population distinct from the Greeks, by language, literature,
and religion, the central government of Constantinople was
gradually compelled to fall back on the interests and passions
of the remaining inhabitants, who were chiefly Greeks. …
{2745}
Yet, as it was by no means identified with the interests and
feelings of the native inhabitants of Hellas, it ought
correctly to be termed Byzantine, and the empire is,
consequently, justly called the Byzantine empire. … Even the
final loss of Egypt, Syria, and Africa only reveals the
transformation of the Roman empire, when the consequences of
the change begin to produce visible effects on the internal
government. The Roman empire seems, therefore, really to have
terminated with the anarchy which followed the murder of
Justinian II. [A. D. 711], the last sovereign of the family of
Heraclius; and Leo III., or the Isaurian [A. D. 717-741], who
identified the imperial administration with ecclesiastical
forms and questions, must be ranked as the first of the
Byzantine monarchs, though neither the emperor, the clergy,
nor the people perceived at the time the moral change in their
position, which makes the establishment of this new era
historically correct. Under the sway of the Heraclian family
[A. D. 610-711], the extent of the empire was circumscribed
nearly within the bounds which it continued to occupy during
many subsequent centuries. … The geographical extent of the
empire at the time of its transition from the Roman to the
Byzantine empire affords evidence of the influence which the
territorial changes produced by the Saracen conquests
exercised in conferring political importance on the Greek
race. The frontier towards the Saracens of Syria commenced at
Mopsuestia in Cilicia, the last fortress of the Arab power. It
ran along the chains of Mounts Amanus and Taurus to the
mountainous district to the north of Edessa and Nisibis,
called, after the time of Justinian, the Fourth Armenia, of
which Martyropolis was the capital. It then followed nearly
the ancient limits of the empire until it reached the Black
Sea, a short distance to the east of Trebizond. … In Europe,
Mount Hæmus [the Balkans] formed the barrier against the
Bulgarians, while the mountainous ranges which bound Macedonia
to the north-west, and encircle the territory of Dyrrachium,
were regarded as the limits of the free Sclavonian states. …
Istria, Venice, and the cities on the Dalmatian coast, still
acknowledged the supremacy of the empire. … In the centre of
Italy, the exarchate of Ravenna still held Rome in subjection,
but the people of Italy were entirely alienated. … The cities
of Gaëta, Naples, Amalfi, and Sorento, the district of
Otranto, and the peninsula to the south of the ancient
Sybaris, now called Calabria, were the only parts [of southern
Italy] which remained under the Byzantine government. Sicily,
though it had begun to suffer from the incursions of the
Saracens, was still populous and wealthy."
G. Finlay,
Greece under the Romans,
chapter 5, sections 1 and 7.
Dissenting from the view presented above, Professor Freeman
says: "There is no kind of visible break, such as is suggested
by the change of name, between the Empire before Leo and the
Empire after him. The Emperor of the Romans reigned over the
land of Romania after him as well as before him. … Down to the
fall of Constantinople in the East, down to the abdication of
Francis II. in the West, there was no change of title; the
Emperor of the Romans remained Emperor of the Romans, however
shifting might be the extent of his dominions. But from 800 to
1453 there were commonly two, sometimes more, claimants of the
title. The two Empires must be distinguished in some way; and,
from 800 to 1204, 'Eastern' and 'Western' seem the simplest
forms of distinction. But for 'Eastern' it is just as easy,
and sometimes more expressive, to say 'Byzantine'; only it is
well not to begin the use of either name as long as the Empire
keeps even its nominal unity. With the coronation of Charles
the Great [800] that nominal unity comes to an end. The Old
Rome passes away from even the nominal dominion of the prince
who reigns in the New."
E. A. Freeman,
Historical Essays, series 3,
page 244.
See BYZANTINE EMPIRE.
ROME: A. D. 728-733.
Beginnings of Papal Sovereignty.
The Iconoclastic controversy.
Rupture with the Byzantine Emperor.
Practical independence assumed by the Pope.
See PAPACY: A. D. 728-774;
and ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY.
ROME: A. D. 751.
Fall of the Exarchate of Ravenna.
See PAPACY: A. D. 728-774.
ROME: A. D. 754-774.
Struggle of the Popes against the Lombards.
Their deliverance by Pippin and Charlemagne.
Fall of the Lombard kingdom.
See LOMBARDS: A. D. 754-774;
also, PAPACY: A. D. 728-774, and 755-774.
ROME: A. D. 800.
Coronation of Charlemagne.
The Empire revived.
See FRANKS: A. D. 768-814;
and GERMANY: A. D. 800.
ROME: A. D. 843-951.
The breaking up of Charlemagne's Empire
and founding of the Holy Roman Empire.
See ITALY: A. D. 843-951;
FRANKS: A. D. 814-962;
and GERMANY: A. D. 814-843, to 936-973.
ROME: A. D. 846-849.
Attack by the Saracens.
"A fleet of Saracens from the African coast presumed to enter
the mouth of the Tiber, and to approach a city which even yet,
in her fallen state, was revered as the metropolis of the
Christian world. The gates and ramparts were guarded by a
trembling people; but the tombs and temples of St. Peter and
St. Paul were left exposed in the suburbs of the Vatican and
of the Ostian Way. Their invisible sanctity had protected them
against the Goths, the Vandals, and the Lombards; but the
Arabs disdained both the Gospel and the legend; and their
rapacious spirit was approved and animated by the precepts of
the Koran. The Christian idols were stripped of their costly
offerings. … In their course along the Appian Way, they
pillaged Fundi and besieged Gaeta." The diversion produced by
the siege of Gaeta gave Rome a fortunate respite. In the
interval, a vacancy occurred on the papal throne, and Pope Leo
IV. by unanimous election, was raised to the place. His energy
as a temporal prince saved the great city. He repaired its
walls, constructed new towers and barred the Tiber by an iron
chain. He formed an alliance with the cities of Gaeta, Naples,
and Amalfi, still vassals of the Greek empire, and brought
their galleys to his aid. When, therefore, in 849, the
Saracens from Africa returned to the attack, they met with a
terrible repulse. An opportune storm assisted the Christians
in the destruction of their fleet, and most of the small
number who escaped death remained captives in the hands of the
Romans and their allies.
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 52.
{2746}
ROME: A. D. 903-964.
The reign of the courtesans and their brood.
Interference of Otho the Great.
His revival of the Empire.
"During these changes [in the breaking up of the empire of
Charlemagne], Rome became a sort of theocratic democracy,
governed by women and priests; a state of things which, in the
barbarism of the middle ages, was only possible at Rome.
Theodora, a woman of patrician descent, equally celebrated for
her beauty and her daring, obtained great power in Rome, which
she prolonged by the charms of her two daughters. The city of
Saint Peter was ruled by this trio of courtesans. The mother,
Theodora, by her familiar commerce with several of the Roman
barons, had obtained possession of the castle of Saint Angelo,
at the entrance of Rome, on one of the principal bridges over
the Tiber; and she had made it an abode of pleasure and a
fortress, whence she corrupted and oppressed the Church. Her
daughters, Marozia and Theodora, disposed of the pontificate
by their own arts, or through their lovers, and occasionally
bestowed it on the lovers themselves. Sergius III., after a
contested election and seven years' exile, was recalled to the
see of Rome by the interest of Marozia, by whom he had had a
son, who afterwards became Pope. The younger Theodora was no
less ambitious and influential than her sister. She loved a
young clerk of the Roman Church, for whom she had first
obtained the bishopric of Bologna, and then the archbishopric
of Ravenna. Finding it irksome to be separated from him by a
distance of 200 miles, she procured his nomination to the
papacy, in order to have him near her; and he was elected Pope
in 912, under the title of John X. … After a pontificate of
fourteen years, John was displaced by the same means to which
he owed his elevation." Marozia, who had married Guy, Duke of
Tuscany, conspired with her husband against the Pope and he
was put out of the way. That accomplished, "Marozia allowed
the election of two Popes successively, whose pontificate was
obscure and short; and then she raised to the papal see a
natural son of hers, it is said, by Pope Sergius III., her
former lover. This young man took the name of John XI., and
Marozia, his mother, having soon after lost her husband, Guy,
was sought in marriage by Hugh, King of Italy, and his brother
by the mother's side. But it would appear that the people of
Rome were growing weary of the tyranny of this shameless and
cruel woman." King Hugh was driven from Rome by a revolt, in
which another son of Marozia, named Alberic, took the lead.
"Alberic, the leader of this popular rising, was proclaimed
consul by the Romans, who still clung to the traditions of the
republic; he threw his mother, Marozia, into prison, and set a
guard over his brother, Pope John; and thus, invested with the
popular power, he prepared to defend the independence of Rome
against the pretensions of Hugh and the forces of Lombardy.
Alberic, master of Rome under the title of patrice and
senator, exercised, during twenty-three years, all the rights
of sovereignty. The money was coined with his image, with two
sceptres across; he made war and peace, appointed magistrates
and disposed of the election and of the power of the Popes,
who, in that interval, filled the See of Rome, John XI., Leo
VII., Stephen IX., Martin III., and Agapetus II. The name of
this subject and imprisoned papacy was none the less revered
beyond the limits of Rome. … Alberic died lord of Rome, and
had bequeathed his power to his son Octavian; who, two years
afterwards, on the death of Agapetus II., caused himself,
young as he was, to be named Pope by those who already
acknowledged him as patrice."
A. F. Villemain,
Life of Gregory VII.,
introduction, period 6.
"He [Octavian] was elected Pope on the 23d of March, A. D.
956. His promotion was a disgraceful calamity. He brought to
the chair of St. Peter only the vices and dissolute morals of
a young debauchee; and though Luitprand must have exaggerated
the disorders of this Pope, yet there remains enough of truth
in the account to have brought down the scandal of the
pontificate through succeeding ages, like a loud blasphemy,
which makes angels weep and hell exult. Octavian assumed the
name of John XII. This first example of a change of name on
ascending the pontifical chair has since passed into a custom
with all the Sovereign Pontiffs."
Abbé J. E. Darras,
General History of the Catholic Church,
period 4, chapter 7.
Finding it hard to defend his independence against the king of
Italy, Pope John XII. made the mistake, fatal to himself, of
soliciting help from the German king Otho the Great. Otho
came, made himself master of Italy, revived the empire of
Charlemagne, was crowned with the imperial crown of Rome, by
the Pope, and then purged the Roman See by causing the bestial
young pope who crowned him to be deposed.
See ROMAN EMPIRE, THE HOLY;
and GERMANY; A. D. 936-973.
John was subsequently reinstated by the Romans, but died soon
after, A. D. 964.
H. H. Milman,
History of Latin Christianity,
book 5, chapter 12.
The state of things at Rome described in the above has been
fitly styled by some writers "a pornocracy."
ROME: A. D. 962-1057.
Futile attempts of the German Emperors to reform the Papacy.
Chronic disorganization of the city.
"It had not been within the power of the Emperor Otto I. to
establish a permanent reformation in Rome. … The previous
scandalous scenes were renewed, and a slight amelioration of
things under the Popes Gregory V. and Silvester II., whom Otto
III. placed on the papal throne [A. D. 997-1003], was but
transitory. … For the third time it became necessary for an
emperor, in this instance Henry III., to constitute himself
the preserver and purifier of the papacy, first at Sutri and
afterwards at Rome. At that period the papal chair was
occupied within twelve years by five German popes [Clement II.
to Victor II.—A. D. 1046-1057], since amongst the Roman clergy
no fitting candidate could be found. These popes, with one
exception, died almost immediately, poisoned by the unhealthy
atmosphere of Rome; one only, Leo IX., under Hildebrand's
guidance, left any lasting trace of his pontificate, and laid
the foundation of that Gregorian system which resulted in
papal supremacy. … Rome was assuming more and more the
character of a sacerdotal city; the old wealthy patrician
families had either disappeared or migrated to Constantinople;
and as the seat of government was either at Constantinople or
Ravenna, there was no class of state officials in Rome. But
the clergy had become rich upon the revenues of the vast
possessions of St. Peter. … Without manufactures, trade, or
industry of their own, the people of Rome were induced to rely
upon exactions levied upon the foreigner, and upon profits
derived from ecclesiastical institutions. … Hence the
unvarying sameness in the political history of Rome from the
5th to the 15th century."
J. I. von Döllinger,
Studies in European History,
chapter. 3.
See PAPACY: A. D. 887-1046.
{2746a}
NINTH CENTURY.
CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.
A.D.
801. Conquest of Barcelona from the Moors by the Franks.
805. Charlemagne's subjugation of the Avars.
Creation of the Austrian march.
806. Division of the Empire by Charlemagne
between his sons formally planned.
809. Death of the Caliph Haroun al Raschid.
812. Civil war between the sons of the Caliph Haroun al Raschid;
siege of Bagdad.
814. Death of Charlemagne, and accession of Louis the Pious,
his only surviving son.
816. Death of Pope Leo III.;
election of Stephen IV.
817. Partition of the Empire of the Franks by Louis the Pious.
826. Grant of a county between the Rhine and Moselle
to Harold of Jutland, by the Emperor.
821. Beginning of Moslem conquest of Sicily.
830. First rebellion of the sons of the Emperor Louis the Pious.
833. Second rebellion of the Emperor's sons;
the "Field of Lies";
deposition of the Emperor Louis the Pious.
Death of the Caliph Mamun, son of Haroun al Raschid.
834. Restoration of Louis the Pious.
835. Invasion of the Netherlands and sacking of Utrecht
by the Northmen.
836. Burning of Antwerp and ravaging of Flanders by the Northmen.
Death of Ecgberht, the first king of all the English.
837. First expedition of the Northmen up the Rhine.
838. Asia Minor invaded by the Caliph Motassem;
the Amorian War.
840. Third rebellion of the sons of the Frankish Emperor
Louis the Pious; his death; civil war.
841. Expedition of the Northmen up the Seine;
their capture of Rouen.
842. The Oath of Strasburg.
843. Conquest by the Mahometans of Messina in Sicily.
Partition Treaty of Verdun between the sons of the
Emperor Louis the Pious; formation of the realms of
Louis the German and Charles the Bald,
which grew into the kingdoms of Germany and France.
845. First attack of the Northmen on Paris;
their destruction of Hamburg.
846. Rome attacked by the Moslems.
847. Siege and capture of Bordeaux by the Northmen.
849. Birth of Alfred the Great (d. 901).
852. Revolt against the Moslems in Armenia.
854. Ravages of the Northmen on the Loire checked at Orleans.
855. Death of Lothaire, Emperor of the Franks, and civil war
between his sons.
First footing of the Danes established in England.
851. Deposition of Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople,
and elevation of Photius.
860. Discovery of Iceland by the Northmen. [Uncertain date.]
861. Formation of the Duchy of France;
origin of the House of Capet.
Paris surprised by the Northmen.
863. Papal decree against the Eastern Patriarch, Photius.
Creation of the County of Flanders by Charles the Bald.
864. Mission of Cyril and Methodius to the Slavonians.
865. First Varangian or Russian attack on Constantinople.
866. Beginning of the permanent conquests of the Danes in England.
871. Moslem fortress of Bari, in southern Italy,
surrendered to the Franks and Greeks.
Accession of Alfred the Great to the throne of Wessex.
815. Death of Louis II., Emperor of the Franks and king of Italy;
imperial coronation of Charles the Bald.
876. The Seine entered by the Northmen under Rollo.
817. Death of the Emperor, Charles the Bald,
and accession of Louis the Stammerer.
Founding of the kingdom of Provence by Count Boso.
878. Capture by the Moslems of Syracuse in Sicily.
880. Ravages of the Northmen in Germany;
battles of the Ardennes and Ebbsdorf.
Defeat of the Danes by the English King Alfred at Ethandun;
Peace of Wedmore. [Uncertain date.]
881. Accession of Charles the Fat, king of Germany and Italy.
884. Temporary reunion of the Empire of the Franks
under Charles the Fat.
885. Siege of Paris by the Northmen under Rollo.
881. Deposition of the Emperor, Charles the Fat.
888. Death of Charles the Fat and final disruption of the
Empire of the Franks;
founding of the kingdom of Transjurane Burgundy.
The crown of France in dispute between Eudes, Count of
Paris, and the Caroling heir, Charles the Simple.
889. Second siege of Paris by Rollo.
890. Third siege of Paris and siege of Bayeux by Rollo.
891. Defeat of the Danes at Louvain by King Arnulf.
894. Arnulf of Germany made Emperor.
890. Rome taken by the Emperor Arnulf.
898. Death of Eudes, leaving Charles the Simple sole
king of France.
899. Death of the Emperor Arnulf;
accession of Louis the Child to the German throne.
900. Italy ravaged in the north by the Hungarians.
{2746b}
TENTH CENTURY.
CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.
A.D.
901. Death of the English king, Alfred the Great, and accession
of his son, Edward the Elder.
Founding of the Samanide dynasty in Khorassan.
904. Sergius III. made Pope;
beginning of the rule of the courtesans at Rome.
909. Founding of the Fatimite caliphate in Africa.
910. Founding of the monastery of Clugny in France.
911. Death of the Emperor Louis the Child, extinguishing
the Carolingian dynasty in Germany, and election of
Conrad the Franconian.
Defeat of the Northmen at Chartres in France;
cession of Normandy to Rollo.
912. Baptism of the Norman Duke Rollo.
914. Elevation of John X. to the papal throne by the courtesan,
Theodora. [Uncertain date.]
916. Imperial coronation in Italy of Berengar.
919. Election of the Saxon Duke, Henry the Fowler,
to the kingship of Germany.
Establishment of the Danish kingdom of Dublin.
923. The crown of France disputed with Charles the Simple
by Rudolph, of Burgundy.
924. Devastation of Germany by the Hungarians;
truce agreed upon for nine years.
Lapse of the imperial title on the death of Berengar.
Commendation of Scotland to the West Saxon King.
925. Death of the English king, Edward the Elder,
and accession of his son Ethelstan.
928. Overthrow and imprisonment of Pope John X.
by the courtesan Marozia. [Uncertain date.]
929. Death of Charles the Simple in France.
931. John XI., son of the courtesan Marozia,
made Pope. [Uncertain date.]
932. Domination of Rome by the Pope's brother, Alberic.
936. Election of Otho, called the Great,
to the throne of Germany.
Death of Rudolph of Burgundy and restoration of
the Carolingians to the French throne.
937. Ethelstan's defeat of Danes, Britons and Scots
at the battle of Brunnaburgh.
Invasion of France by the Hungarians.
940. Death of the English king, Ethelstan,
and accession of his brother Edmund.
946. Death of the English king, Edmund,
and accession of his brother Edred.
951. First expedition of Otho the Great into Italy;
founding of the Holy Roman Empire (afterwards so called).
954. Death of Alberic, tyrant of Rome, his son, Octavian,
succeeding him.
Death of the Carolingian king of France, Louis IV.,
called "d'Outremer";
accession of Lothaire.
955. Germany invaded by the Hungarians;
their decisive defeat on the Lech.
Death of the English king, Edred,
and accession of his nephew, Edwig.
956. Assumption of the Papal throne by Octavian, as John XII.
957. Revolt against the English king Edwig;
division of the kingdom with his brother Edgar.
[Uncertain date.]
959. Death of Edwig and accession of Edgar;
Abbot Dunstan made Archbishop of Canterbury.
961. The crown of Italy taken by Otho the Great, of Germany.
962. Imperial coronation of Otho the Great at Rome;
revival of the Western Empire.
963. Expulsion and deposition of Pope John XII.;
election of Leo VIII.
964. Expulsion of Pope Leo VIII.;
return and death of John XII.;
siege and capture of Rome by the Emperor.
965. Death of Pope Leo VIII.;
election, expulsion, and forcible restoration of John XIII.
967. Conquest of Egypt by the Fatimite caliph. [Uncertain date.]
969. Murder of the Eastern Emperor Nicephorus Phocas
by John Zimisces, his successor.
972. Marriage of Otho, the Western Emperor's son,
to the Byzantine princess, Theophano.
Death of Pope John XIII., and election of Pope Benedict VI.
973. Death of the Emperor Otho the Great;
accession of Otho II.
974. Murder of Pope Benedict VI.
975. Election of Pope Benedict VII.
Death of the English king Edgar;
accession of his son Edward the Martyr.
979. Death of Edward the Martyr;
accession of Ethelred the Unready. [Uncertain date.]
983. Death of the Emperor Otho II.;
accession of Otho III. to the German throne, under the
regency of his mother, Theophano.
First visit of Erik the Red to Greenland.
984. Election of Pope John XIV.
985. Murder of Pope John XIV.;
election of Pope John XV.
986. Death of Lothaire, king of France;
accession of his son Louis V.
987. Death of Louis V., the last of the Carolingian kings;
election of Hugh Capet.
988. Death of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Cherson acquired by the Romans.
991. Invasion of England by Vikings from Norway;
battle of Maldon.
996. Death of Hugh Capet, king of France;
accession of his son, Robert II.
Death of Pope John XV.;
election of Gregory V.
Imperial coronation of Otho III.
997. Insurrection of peasants in Normandy.
Rebellion of Crescentius in Rome;
expulsion of the Pope.
998. Overthrow of Crescentius at Rome.
Excommunication of King Robert of France.
999. Gerbert raised by the Emperor to the Papal chair,
as Sylvester II.
1000. Expectations of the end of the world.
Pilgrimages of the Emperor Otho.
Royal title conferred on Duke Stephen of Hungary,
by the Pope.
Christianity formally adopted in Iceland.
{2747}
ROME: A. D. 1077-1102.
Donation of the Countess Matilda to the Holy See.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1077-1102.
ROME: A. D. 1081-1084.
Surrender to Henry IV.
Terrible Norman visitation.
Four years after his humiliation of himself before the pope at
Canossa (see CANOSSA), Henry IV. ("King of the Romans" and
claiming the imperial coronation, which the pope refused him),
entered Italy with an army to enforce his demands. He had
recovered his authority in Germany; the rival set up against
him was slain; northern Italy was strong in his support. For
three successive years Henry marched his army to the walls of
Rome and made attempts to enter, by force, or intrigue, or by
stress of blockade, and every year, when the heats of summer
came, he found himself compelled to withdraw. At last, the
Romans, who had stood firm by Gregory VII., tired of the
siege, or the gold which purchased their fidelity (some say)
gave out, and they opened their gates. Pope Gregory took
refuge in his impregnable Castle of St. Angelo, and Henry,
bringing with him the anti-pope whom his partisans had set up,
was crowned by the latter in the Church of St. Peter. But the
coveted imperial crown was little more than settled upon his
head when news came of the rapid approach of Robert Guiscard,
the Norman conqueror of southern Italy, with a large army, to
defend the legitimate pope. Henry withdrew from Rome in haste
and three days afterwards Robert Guiscard's army was under its
walls. The Romans feared to admit these terrible champions of
their pope; but the vigilance and valor of the Normans
surprised a gate, and the great city was in their power. They
made haste to conduct Gregory to his Lateran Palace and to
receive his blessing; then they "spread through the city,
treating it with an the cruelty of a captured town, pillaging,
violating, murdering, wherever they met with opposition. The
Romans had been surprised, not subdued. For two days and
nights they brooded over their vengeance; on the third day
they broke out in general insurrection. … The Romans fought at
advantage, from their possession of the houses and their
knowledge of the ground. They were gaining the superiority;
the Normans saw their peril. The remorseless Guiscard gave the
word to fire the houses. … The distracted inhabitants dashed
wildly into the streets, no longer endeavouring to defend
themselves, but to save their families. They were hewn down by
hundreds. … Nuns were defiled, matrons forced, the rings cut
from their living fingers. Gregory exerted himself, not
without success, in saving the principal churches. It is
probable, however, that neither Goth nor Vandal, neither Greek
nor German, brought such desolation on the city as this
capture by the Normans. From this period dates the desertion
of the older part of the city, and its gradual extension over
the site of the modern city, the Campus Martius. … Many
thousand Romans were sold publicly as slaves; many carried
into the remotest parts of Calabria." When Guiscard withdrew
his destroying army from the ruins of Rome, Gregory went with
him and never returned. He died not long after at Salerno.
H. H. Milman,
History of Latin Christianity,
book 7, chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
A. F. Villemain,
Life of Gregory VII.,
book 9.
See, also,
GERMANY: A. D. 973-1122,
and PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122.
ROME: A. D. 1122-1250.
Conflict of the Popes with the Hohenstaufen Emperors.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1122-1250;
and GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268.
ROME: A. D. 1145-1155.
The Republic of Arnold of Brescia.
Arnold of Brescia—so-called from his native city in
Lombardy—was a disciple of Abelard, and not so much a
religious as a political reformer. "On all the high mysterious
doctrines of the Church, the orthodoxy of Arnold was
unimpeachable; his personal life was that of the sternest
monk; he had the most earnest sympathy with the popular
religion. … He would reduce the clergy to their primitive and
apostolic poverty; confiscate all their wealth, escheat all
their temporal power. … His Utopia was a great Christian
republic, exactly the reverse of that of Gregory VII." In
1145, Arnold was at Rome, where his doctrines had gone before
him, and where the citizens had already risen in rebellion
against the rule of the pope. "His eloquence brought over the
larger part of the nobles to the popular side; even some of
the clergy were infected by his doctrines. The re~public,
under his influence, affected to resume the constitution of
elder Rome. … The Capitol was rebuilt and fortified; even the
church of St. Peter was sacrilegiously turned into a castle.
The Patrician took possession of the Vatican, imposed taxes,
and exacted tribute by violence from the pilgrims. Rome began
again to speak of her sovereignty of the world." The republic
maintained itself until 1155, when a bolder pope —the
Englishman, Adrian or Hadrian IV.—had mounted the chair of St.
Peter, and confronted Arnold with unflinching hostility. The
death of one of his Cardinals, killed in a street tumult, gave
the pope an opportunity to place the whole city under an
interdict. "Religion triumphed over liberty. The clergy and
the people compelled the senate to yield. Hadrian would admit
of no lower terms than the abrogation of the republican
institutions; the banishment of Arnold and his adherents. The
republic was at an end, Arnold an exile; the Pope again master
in Rome." A few months later, Arnold of Brescia, a prisoner in
the hands of Frederick Barbarossa, then coming to Rome for the
imperial crown, was given up to the Pope and was executed in
some summary way, the particulars of which are in considerable
dispute.
H. H. Milman,
History of Latin Christianity,
book 8. chapters 6-7.
ALSO IN:
J. Miley,
History of the Papal States,
book 6.
ROME: A. D. 1155.
Tumult at the coronation of Frederick Barbarossa.
See ITALY: A. D. 1154-1162.
ROME: A. D. 1167.
The taking of the city by Frederick Barbarossa.
See ITALY: A. D. 1166-1167.
ROME: A. D. 1198-1216.
The establishing of Papal Sovereignty
in the States of the Church.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1198-1216.
ROME: A. D. 1215.
The beginning in Italy of the strife of
the Guelphs and Ghibellines.
See ITALY: A. D. 1215.
{2748}
ROME: 13-14th Centuries.
The turbulence of the Roman nobles.
The strife of the Colonna and the Ursini.
"In the beginning of the 11th century Italy was exposed to the
feudal tyranny, alike oppressive to the sovereign and the
people. The rights of human nature were vindicated by her
numerous republics, who soon extended their liberty and
dominion from the city to the adjacent country. The sword of
the nobles was broken; their slaves were enfranchised; their
castles were demolished; they assumed the habits of society
and obedience. … But the feeble and disorderly government of
Rome was unequal to the task of curbing her rebellious sons,
who scorned the authority of the magistrate within and without
the walls. It was no longer a civil contention between the
nobles and plebeians for the government of the state. The
barons asserted in arms their personal independence; their
palaces and castles were fortified against a siege; and their
private quarrels were maintained by the numbers of their
vassals and retainers. In origin and affection they were
aliens to their country; and a genuine Roman, could such have
been produced, might have renounced these haughty strangers,
who disdained the appellation of citizens, and proudly styled
themselves the princes of Rome. After a dark series of
revolutions, all records of pedigree were lost; the
distinction of surnames was abolished; the blood of the
nations was mingled in a thousand channels; and the Goths and
Lombards, the Greeks and Franks, the Germans and Normans, had
obtained the fairest possessions by royal bounty or the
prerogative of valour. … It is not my design to enumerate the
Roman families which have failed at different periods, or
those which are continued in different degrees of splendour to
the present time. The old consular line of the Frangipani
discover their name in the generous act of breaking or
dividing bread in a time of famine; and such benevolence is
more truly glorious than to have enclosed, with their allies
the Corsi, a spacious quarter of the city in the chains of
their fortifications. The Savelli, as it should seem a Sabine
race, have maintained their original dignity; the obsolete
surname of the Capizucchi is inscribed on the coins of the
first senators; the Conti preserve the honour, without the
estate, of the counts of Signia; and the Annibaldi must have
been very ignorant, or very modest, if they had not descended
from the Carthaginian hero. But among, perhaps above, the
peers and princes of the city, I distinguish the rival houses
of Colonna and Ursini [or Orsini]. … About the end of the
thirteenth century the most powerful branch [of the Colonna]
was composed of an uncle and six brothers, all conspicuous in
arms or in the honours of the Church. Of these Peter was
elected senator of Rome, introduced to the Capitol in a
triumphant car, and hailed in some vain acclamations with the
title of Cæsar; while John and Stephen were declared Marquis
of Ancona and Count of Romagna by Nicholas IV., a patron so
partial to their family that he has been delineated in
satirical portraits, imprisoned, as it were, in a hollow
pillar. After his decease their haughty behaviour provoked the
displeasure of the most implacable of mankind. The two
cardinals, the uncle and the nephew, denied the election of
Boniface VIII.; and the Colonna were oppressed for a moment by
his temporal and spiritual arms. He proclaimed a crusade
against his personal enemies; their estates were confiscated;
their fortresses on either side of the Tiber were besieged by
the troops of St. Peter and those of the rival nobles; and
after the ruin of Palestrina, or Præneste, their principal
seat, the ground was marked with a ploughshare, the emblem of
perpetual desolation. …
See PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348].
Some estimate may be formed of their wealth by their losses,
of their losses by the damages of 100,000 gold florins which
were granted them against the accomplices and heirs of the
deceased pope. All the spiritual censures and

disqualifications were abolished by his prudent successors;
and the fortune of the house was more firmly established by
this transient hurricane. … But the first of the family in
fame and merit was the elder Stephen, whom Petrarch loved and
esteemed as a hero superior to his own times and not unworthy
of ancient Rome. … Till the ruin of his declining age, the
ancestors, the character, and the children of Stephen Colonna
exalted his dignity in the Roman republic and at the Court of
Avignon. The Ursini migrated from Spoleto; the sons of Ursus,
as they are styled in the twelfth century, from some eminent
person who is only known as the father of their race. But they
were soon distinguished among the nobles of Rome by the number
and bravery of their kinsmen, the strength of their towers,
the honours of the senate and sacred college, and the
elevation of two popes, Celestin III. and Nicholas III., of
their name and lineage. … The Colonna embraced the name of
Ghibellines and the party of the empire; the Ursini espoused
the title of Guelphs and the cause of the Church. The eagle
and the keys were displayed in their adverse banners; and the
two factions of Italy most furiously raged when the origin and
nature of the dispute were long since forgotten. After the
retreat of the popes to Avignon they disputed in arms the
vacant republic; and the mischiefs of discord were perpetuated
by the wretched compromise of electing each year two rival
senators. By their private hostilities the city and country
were desolated."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 69.
"Had things been left to take their natural course, one of
these families, the Colonna, for instance, or the Orsini,
would probably have ended by overcoming its rivals, and have
established, as was the case in the republics of Romagna and
Tuscany, a 'signoria,' or local tyranny, like those which had
once prevailed in the cities of Greece. But the presence of
the sacerdotal power, as it had hindered the growth of
feudalism, so also it stood in the way of such a development
as this, and in so far aggravated the confusion of the city."
J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapter 16.
ROME: A. D. 1300.
The Jubilee.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348.
ROME: A. D. 1305-1377.
Withdrawal of the Papal court from Rome
and settlement at Avignon.
The "Babylonish Captivity."
See PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348, to 1352-1378.
ROME: A. D. 1312.
Resistance to the entry and coronation of Henry VII.
See ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313.
ROME: A. D. 1328.
Imperial coronation of Louis IV. of Bavaria.
See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.
{2749}
ROME: A. D. 1347-1354.
The revolution of Rienzi, the last Tribune.
"The Holy City had no government. She was no longer the
Imperial Rome, nor the Pontifical Rome. The Teutonic Cæsars
had abandoned her. The Popes had also fled from the sacred
hill of the Vatican to the slimy Gallic city, Avignon. … The
real masters of the city were the princes or barons, who dwelt
in their fortified castles in the environs, or their strong
palaces within. The principal among them were masters of
different parts of the city. The celebrated old family of the
Colonnas reigned, it may be said, over the north of the city,
towards the Quirinal. … The new family of the Orsini extended
their sway along the Tiber from the Campo-di-Fiore, to the
Church of St. Peter, comprising the castle of St. Angelo. The
Savelli, less powerful, possessed a part of the Aventine, with
the theatre of Marcellus, and the Conti, the huge tower which
bears their name, on Cæsar's Forum. Other members of the
nobility, in the country, were possessors of small fortified
cities, or castles. … Rome, subjected to such a domination,
had become almost deserted. The population of the seven-hilled
city had come down to about 30,000 souls. When the barons were
at peace with each other, which, however, was a rare
occurrence, they combined to exercise their tyranny over the
citizens and the serfs, to rob and plunder the farmers,
travellers, and pilgrims. Petrarch wrote to the Pope at this
period, that Rome had become the abode of demons, the
receptacle of all crimes, a hell for the living. … Rienzi was
then 28 years old. … His function of notary (assessore) to the
Roman tribunals, would seem to infer that he was considered a
peaceful, rational citizen. It appears, however, that he
brought in the exercise of his official duties, the excited
imagination and generosity of heart which characterized his
nature. He gloried in being surnamed the Consul of orphans, of
widows, and of the poor. His love for the humble soon became
blended with an intense hatred for the great: one of his
brothers was killed accidentally by a Roman baron, without his
being able to obtain any satisfaction. … Rienzi had always
been noted for his literary and poetical taste; he was
considered as deeply versed in the knowledge of antiquity, and
as the most skilful in deciphering and explaining the numerous
inscriptions with which Rome abounded. … The least remains of
antiquity became for him a theme of declamatory addresses to
the people, on the present state of Rome, on the iniquities
that surrounded him. Followed by groups that augmented daily,
and which listened to him with breathless interest, he led
them from ruin to ruin, to the Forum, to the tombs of the
Christian martyrs, thus associating every glory, and made the
hearts of the people throb by his mystical eloquence. … No
remedy being brought to the popular grievances, an
insurrection broke out. The senator was expelled; thirteen
good men (buoni uomini) were installed in the Capitol and
invested with dictatorial powers. It was a Guelfic movement;
Rienzi was mixed with it; but without any preeminent
participation. This new government resolved to send an embassy
to the Pope, at Avignon, and Rienzi formed part of it. Such
was the first real public act in the life of Cola di Rienzi.
The embassy was joined by Petrarch. … The Pope would not hear
of leaving his new splendid palace, and the gentle population
of Avignon, for the heap of ruins and the human turbulence of
Rome." But "Cardinal Aymeric was named to represent the Pope
at Rome, as Legate, and a Colonna and an Orsini invested with
the senatorial dignity, in order to restore order in the
Eternal City, in the name of the Pontiff. Rienzi indulged in
the most extravagant exultation. He wrote a highly
enthusiastic address to the Roman people. But his illusion was
not of long duration. The new Legate only attended to the
filling of the Papal Treasury. The nobility, protected by the
new senators, continued their course of tyranny. Rienzi
protested warmly against such a course of iniquities, in the
council. One day he spoke with a still greater vehemence of
indignation, when one of the members of the council struck him
in the face, others hissed out at him sneeringly, calling him
the Consul of orphans and widows. From that day he never
appeared at any of its meetings; his hatred had swollen, and
must explode. … He went straight to the people (popolo
minuto), and prepared a revolution. To render his exhortations
to the people more impressive, he made use of large
allegorical pictures, hastily drawn, and which form a curious
testimony of his mystical imagination, as well as of his
forensic eloquence. … Finally, he convoked the people at the
Capitol for the 20th of May, 1347, the day of Pentecost,
namely, under the invocation of the Holy Ghost. Rienzi had
heard, with fervour, thirty masses during the preceding night.
On that day he came out at 12 o'clock armed, with his head
uncovered, followed by 25 partisans; three unfurled standards
were carried before him, bearing allegorical pictures. This
time his address was very brief—merely stating, that from his
love for the Pope and the salvation of the people, he was
ready to encounter any danger. He then read the laws which
were to insure the happiness of Rome. They were, properly
speaking, a summary of reforms, destined to relieve the people
from their sufferings, and intended to realize, what he
proclaimed, must become the good state [or Good Estate], il
buono stato. … By this outline of a new constitution, the
people were invested, with the property and government of the
city as well as of its environs; the Pontifical See, bereft of
the power it had exercised during several centuries; and the
nobility deprived of what they considered as their property,
to assist the public poverty. The revolution could not be more
complete; and it is needless to add, that Rienzi was
clamorously applauded, and immediately invested with full
powers to realize and organize the buono stato, of which he
had given the programme. He declined the title of Rector, and
preferred the more popular name of Tribune. Nothing was fixed
as to the duration of this extraordinary popular magistracy.
The new government was installed at the Capitol, the Senators
expelled, and the whole revolution executed with such
rapidity, that the new Tribune might well be strengthened in
his belief that he was acting under the protection of the Holy
Ghost. He was careful, nevertheless, not to estrange the
Pontifical authority, and requested that the apostolical vicar
should be offered to be adjoined to him, which the prelate
accepted, however uncertain and perilous the honour appeared
to be.
{2750}
During the popular enthusiasm, old Stephen Colonna, with the
more formidable of the barons, who had been away, returned to
Rome in haste; he expressed publicly his scorn, and when the
order came from Rienzi for him to quit the city, he replied
that he would soon come and throw that madman out of one of
the windows of the Capitol. Rienzi ordered the bells to be
rung, the people instantly assembled in arms, and that
proudest of the barons was obliged to fly to Palestrina. The
next day it was proclaimed that all the nobles were to come,
to swear fealty to the Roman people, and afterwards withdraw
to their castles, and protect the public roads. John, the son
of old Colonna, was the first who presented himself at the
Capitol, but it was with the intention of braving and
insulting the Tribune. When he beheld the popular masses in
close array, he felt awed, and took the oath to protect the
people—protect the roads—succour the widows and orphans, and
obey the summons of the Tribune. The Orsini, Savelli, Gaetani,
and many others, came after him and followed his example.
Rienzi, now sole master, without opponents, gave a free course
to the allurements of authority. … The tolls, taxes, and
imposts which pressed upon the people were abolished by
Rienzi, in the first instance, and afterwards, the taxes on
the bridges, wine, and bread; but he endeavoured to compensate
such an enormous deficit by augmenting the tax on salt, which
was not yet unpopular, besides an impost on funded property.
He was thus making hasty, serious, even dangerous engagements
with the people, which it might not be in his power to keep. …
For the present, calmness and security were reigning in the
city. … The Tribune received the congratulations of all the
ambassadors; the changes he had effected appeared miraculous.
… He believed implicitly that he was the founder of a new era.
The homage profusely lavished upon him by all the Italian
Republics, and even by despotic sovereigns confirmed him in
his conviction. … One nobleman alone, the Prefect of Vico,
secretly supported by the agent of the Pontifical patrimony,
refused to submit and to surrender the three or four little
cities in his jurisdiction. Rienzi led rapidly against him an
army of 8,000 men, and attacked the rebellious Prefect so
suddenly and skilfully, that the latter surrendered
unconditionally. This success inflamed the head and
imagination of Rienzi, and with it commenced the mystical
extravagances and follies which could not fail to cause his
ruin."
Prof. De Vericour,
Rienzi, the last of the Tribunes
Dublin University Magazine, 1860.
Eclectic Magazine,
September, 1860.
"Rienzi's head was turned by his success. He assumed the pomp
of a sovereign. He distributed titles, surrounded himself with
ceremonies, and multiplied feasts and processions. … He
desired to be ennobled, and to have the title of Knight, as
well as Tribune. To celebrate his installation as Knight, a
splendid series of ceremonies was arranged," at the end of
which he "made an address, in which he cited the Pope, and
Lewis of Bavaria, and Charles of Bohemia, to give reasons for
any claims they had on Rome; and pointing his sword to three
points of the compass, he exclaimed, 'This is mine, and this
is mine, and this is mine.' … Folly had quite got the better
of him now, and his vanity was leading him swiftly to ruin. …
Shortly afterwards he issued a proclamation that he had
discovered a conspiracy against the people and himself, and
declared that he would cut off the heads of all those
concerned in it. The conspirators were seized and brought
forward, and among them were seen the chief of the princely
families of Rome. Solemn preparations were made for their
execution, when Rienzi, suddenly and without reason, not only
pardoned them all, but conferred upon them some of the most
important charges and offices of the state. No sooner were
these nobles and princes free out of Rome than they began
seriously to conspire to overthrow Rienzi and his government.
They assembled their soldiers, and, after devastating the
country, threatened to march upon Rome itself. The Tribune,
who was no soldier, attempted to intimidate his enemies by
threats; but finding that the people grew clamorous for
action, he at last took up arms, and made a show of advancing
against them. But after a few days, during which he did
nothing except to destroy still more of the Campagna, he
returned to Rome, clothed himself in the Imperial robes,. and
received a legate from the Pope. … His power soon began to
crumble away under him; and when, shortly afterwards, he
endeavoured to prevail upon the people to rise and drive out
the Count of Minorbino, who had set his authority at defiance,
he found that his day was past. … He then ordered the trumpets
of silver to sound, and, clothed in all his pomp, he marched
through Rome, accompanied by his small band of soldiers, and
on the 15th October, 1347, intrenched himself in the Castle
St. Angelo. Still the influence of his name and his power was
so great, that it was not till three days after that the
nobles ventured to return to Rome, and then they found that
Cola's power had vanished. It faded away like a carnival
pageant, as that gay procession entered the Castle St. Angelo.
There he remained until the beginning of March, and then fled,
and found his way to Civita Vecchia, where he stayed with a
nephew of his for a short time. But his nephew having been
arrested, he again returned to Rome secretly, and was
concealed in Castle St. Angelo by one of the Orsini who was
friendly to him and his party. … Cola soon after fled to
Naples, fearing lest he should be betrayed into the hands of
the Cardinals. Rome now fell into a state of anarchy and
confusion even worse than when he assumed the reins of power.
Revolutions occurred. Brigandage was renewed. … In 1353 Rienzi
returned with Cardinal Albornos, the legate of the Pope. He
was received with enthusiasm, and again installed in power.
But he was embarrassed in all his actions by the Cardinal, who
sought only to make use of him, while he himself exercised all
the power. The title of Senator of Rome was conferred on him,
and the people forgave him. … But Rienzi had lost the secret
of his power in losing his enthusiasm. … At last, in October
1353, a sedition broke out, and the mob rushed to the Capitol
with cries of 'Death to the traitor Rienzi!' … He appeared on
the balcony clothed in his armour as Knight, and, with the
standard of the people in his hand, demanded to be heard. But
the populace refused to listen to him. … At last he decided to
fly. Tearing off his robes, he put on the miserable dress of
the porter, rushed down the flaming stairs and through the
burning chambers, … and at last reached the third floor. … At
this very moment his arm was seized, and a voice said, 'Where
are you going?' He saw that all was lost.
{2751}
But, at bay, he did nothing mean. Again there was a flash of
heroic courage, not unworthy of him. He threw off his
disguise, and disdaining all subterfuges, said, 'I am the
Tribune!' He was then led out through the door … to the base
of the basalt lions, where he had made his first great call
upon the people. Standing there, undaunted by its tumultuous
cries, he stood for an hour with folded arms, and looked
around upon the raging crowd. At last, profiting by a lull of
silence, he lifted his voice to address them, when suddenly an
artisan at his side, fearing perhaps the result of his
eloquence, and perhaps prompted by revenge, plunged his pike
in his breast, and he fell. The wild mob rushed upon his
corpse."
W. W. Story,
Castle St. Angelo,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
H. H. Milman,
History of Latin Christianity,
book 12, chapters 10-11 (volume 5).
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 70.
ROME: A. D. 1367-1369.
Temporary return of Urban V. from Avignon.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1352-1378.
ROME: A. D. 1377-1379.
Return of the Papal court.
Election of Urban VI. and the Great Schism.
Battles in the city.
Siege and partial destruction of Castle St. Angelo.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1377-1417.
ROME: A. D. 1405-1414.
Rising in the city and flight of Pope Innocent VII.
Sacking of the Vatican.
Surrender of the city to Ladislas, king of Naples.
Expulsion of the Neapolitans and their return.
See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1386-1414.
ROME: A. D. 1447-1455.
The pontificate of Nicolas V.
Building of the Vatican Palace and
founding of the Vatican Library.
The Porcaro revolt.
See ITALY: A. D. 1447-1480.
ROME: A. D. 1492-1503.
Under the Borgias.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1471-1513.
ROME: A. D. 1494.
Charles VIII. and the French army in the city.
See ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496.
ROME: A. D. 1526.
The city taken and the Vatican plundered
by the Colonnas and the Spaniards.
See ITALY: A. D. 1523-1527.
ROME: A. D. 1527.
The capture and the sacking of the city
by the army of Constable Bourbon.
Captivity of the Pope.
See ITALY: A. D. 1523-1527; 1527; and 1527-1529.
ROME: A. D. 1537-1563.
Inclinations towards the Reformation.
Catholic reaction.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1537-1563.
ROME: A. D. 1600-1656.
The great families and the Roman population.
"A numerous, powerful, and wealthy aristocracy surrounded the
papal throne; the families already established imposed
restraints ou those that were but newly rising; from the
self-reliance and authoritative boldness of monarchy, the
ecclesiastical sovereignty was passing to the deliberation,
sobriety, and measured calmness of aristocratic government. …
There still flourished those old and long-renowned Roman
races, the Savelli, Conti, Orsini, Colonna, and Gaetani. … The
Colonna and Orsini made it their boast, that for centuries no
peace had been concluded between the princes of Christendom,
in which they had not been included by name. But however
powerful these houses may have been in earlier times, they
certainly owed their importance in those now before us to
their connection with the Curia and the popes. … Under
Innocent X., there existed for a considerable time, as it
were, two great factions, or associations of families. The
Orsini, Cesarini, Borghesi, Aldobrandini, Ludovisi, and
Giustiniani were with the Pamfili; while opposed to them, was
the house of Colonna and the Barberini. … In the middle of the
seventeenth century there were computed to be fifty noble
families in Rome of three hundred years standing, thirty-five
of two hundred, and sixteen of one hundred years. None were
permitted to claim a more ancient descent, or were generally
traced to an obscure, or even a low origin. … But by the side
of the old families there rose up various new ones. All the
cardinals and prelates of the Curia proceeded according to the
pope's example, and each in proportion to his means employed
the surplus of his ecclesiastical revenue for the
aggrandizement of his kindred, the foundation of a new family.
There were others which had attained to eminence by judicial
appointments, and many were indebted for their elevation to
being employed as bankers in the affairs of the Dataria.
Fifteen families of Florence, eleven from Genoa, nine
Portuguese, and four French, are enumerated as having risen to
more or less consideration by these means, according to their
good fortune or talents; some of them, whose reputation no
longer depended on the affairs of the day, became monarchs of
gold; as for example, the Guicciardini and Doni, who connected
themselves, under Urban VIII., with the Giustiniani, Primi,
and Pallavicini. But even, without affairs of this kind,
families of consideration were constantly repairing to Rome,
not only from Urbino, Rieti, and Bologna, but also from Parma
and Florence. … Returns of the Roman population are still
extant, and by a comparison of the different years, we find a
most remarkable result exhibited, as regards the manner in
which that population was formed. Not that its increase was
upon the whole particularly rapid, this we are not authorized
to assert. In the year 1600 the inhabitants were about
110,000; fifty-six years afterwards they were somewhat above
120,000, an advance by no means extraordinary; but another
circumstance here presents itself which deserves attention. At
an earlier period, the population of Rome had been constantly
fluctuating. Under Paul IV. it had decreased from 80,000 to
50,000; in a score or two of years it had again advanced to
more than 100,000. And this resulted from the fact that the
court was then formed principally of unmarried men, who had no
permanent abode there. But, at the time we are considering,
the population became fixed into settled families. This began
to be the case towards the end of the sixteenth century, but
took place more particularly during the first half of the
seventeenth. … After the return of the popes from Avignon, and
on the close of the schism, the city, which had seemed on the
point of sinking into a mere village, extended itself around
the Curia. But it was not until the papal families had risen
to power and riches—until neither internal discords nor
external enemies were any longer to be feared, and the incomes
drawn from the revenues of the church or state secured a life
of enjoyment without the necessity for labour, that a numerous
permanent population arose in the city."
L. Ranke.
History of the Popes,
book 8, section 7 (volume 2).
ROME: A. D. 1797-1798.
French intrigues and occupation of the city.
Formation of the Roman Republic.
Expulsion of the Pope.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1797-1798 (DECEMBER-MAY).
{2752}
ROME: A. D. 1798 (November).
Brief expulsion of the French by the Neapolitans.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL).
ROME: A. D. 1799.
Overthrow of the Roman Republic.
Expulsion of the French.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).
ROME: A. D. 1800.
The Papal government re-established by Napoleon.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (JUNE-FEBRUARY).
ROME: A. D. 1808-1809.
Napoleon's quarrel with the Pope.
Captivity of Pius VII.
French occupation.
Declared to be a free and imperial city.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.
ROME: A. D. 1810.
The title of King of Rome given to Napoleon's son.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.
ROME: A. D. 1813.
Papal Concordat with Napoleon.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.
ROME: A. D. 1814.
Occupation by Murat for the Allies.
Return of the Pope.
See ITALY: A. D. 1814:
and PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.
ROME: A. D. 1815.
Restoration of the works of art taken by Napoleon.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (JULY-NOVEMBER).
ROME: A. D. 1831-1832.
Revolt of the Papal States, suppressed by Austrian troops.
See ITALY: A. D. 1830-1832.
ROME: A. D. 1846-1849.
Liberal reforms of Pope Pius IX.
His breach with the extremists.
Revolution, and flight of the Pope.
Intervention of France.
Garibaldi's defense of the city.
Its capture and occupation by the French.
Overthrow of the Roman Republic.
See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.
ROME: A. D. 1859-1861.
First consequences of the Austro-Italian war.
Absorption of the Papal States in the new kingdom of Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1859-1861.
ROME: A. D. 1867-1870.
Garibaldi's attempt.
His defeat at Mentana.
Italian troops in the city.
The king of Italy takes possession of his capital.
See ITALY: A. D. 1867-1870.
ROME: A. D. 1869-1870.
The (Ecumenical Council of the Vatican.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1869-1870.
ROME: A. D. 1870-1871.
End of Papal Sovereignty.
Occupation of the city as the capital of the kingdom of Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1867-1870;
and PAPACY: A. D. 1870.
----------ROME: End--------
ROMERS-WAALE, Naval battle of (1574).
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1573-1574.
ROMMANY.
See GYPSIES.
ROMULUS, Legendary founder of Rome.
See ROME: B. C. 753-510.
ROMULUS AUGUSTULUS,
The last Roman Emperor of the old line,
in the West, A. D. 475-476.
RONCAGLIA, The Diets of.
See ITALY: A. D. 961-1039.
RONCESVALLES, The ambuscade of.
See SPAIN: A. D. 778.
ROOD, Holy (or Black Rood) of Scotland.
See HOLY ROOD OF SCOTLAND.
ROOF OF THE WORLD.
The Pamir high plateau, which is a continuation of the Bolor
range, is called by the natives "Bamiduniya," or the Roof of
the World.
T. E. Gordon,
The Roof of the World,
chapter 9.
ROOSEBECK OR ROSEBECQUE, Battle of (1382).
See FLANDERS: A. D. 1382.
ROOT AND BRANCH BILL, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1641 (MARCH-MAY).
RORKE'S DRIFT, Defense of (1879).
See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1877-1879.
ROSAS, OR ROSES: A. D. 1645-1652.
Siege and capture by the French.
Recovery by the Spaniards.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1644-1646; and 1648-1652.
ROSAS, OR ROSES: A. D. 1808.
Siege and capture by the French.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808-1809 (DECEMBER-MARCH).
ROSBACH, OR ROSSBACH, Battle of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER).
ROSECRANS, General W. S.:
Command in West Virginia.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (JULY-NOVEMBER);
and 1861 (AUGUST-DECEMBER: WEST VIRGINIA).
Command of the Army of the Mississippi.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JUNE-OCTOBER: TENNESSEE-KENTUCKY).
Battle of Stone River.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862-1863 (DECEMBER-JANUARY: TENNESSEE).
The Tullahoma campaign.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (JUNE-JULY: TENNESSEE).
Chickamauga.
Chattanooga campaign.
Displacement.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER: TENNESSEE)
ROSECRANS'S ADVANCE;
and (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER: TENNESSEE)
Command in Missouri.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1864 (MARCH-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).
ROSES, Wars of the.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.
ROSETTA STONE.
"The Rosetta Stone is a fragment of a stela discovered in the
year 1799 by M. Boussard, a French artillery officer, while
digging entrenchments round the town of that name. It contains
a copy of a decree made by the priests of Egypt, assembled at
Memphis, in honour of Ptolemy Epiphanes. This decree is
engraved on the stone in three languages, or rather in three
different writings. The first is the hieroglyphic, the grand
old writing of the monuments; the second is the demotic
character as used by the people; and the third is the Greek.
But the text in Greek character is the translation of the two
former. Up to this time, hieroglyphs had remained an
impenetrable mystery even for science. But a corner of the
veil was about to be lifted: in proceeding from the known to
the unknown, the sense at all events was at length to be
arrived at of that mysterious writing which had so long defied
all the efforts of science. Many erudite scholars tried to
solve the mystery, and Young, among others, very nearly
brought his researches to a satisfactory issue. But it was
Champollion's happy lot to succeed in entirely tearing a way
the veil. Such is the Rosetta Stone, which thus became the
instrument of one of the greatest discoveries which do honour
to the nineteenth century."
A. Mariette-Bey,
Monuments of Upper Egypt (Itinéraire)
page 29.
See, also, HIEROGLYPHICS.
ROSICRUCIANS.
ILLUMINATI.
"About the year 1610, there appeared anonymously a little
book, which excited great sensation throughout Germany. It was
entitled, The Discovery of the Brotherhood of the Honourable
Order of the Rosy Cross, and dedicated to all the scholars and
magnates of Europe. It commenced with an imaginary dialogue
between the Seven Sages of Greece, and other worthies of
antiquity, on the best method of accomplishing a general
reform in those evil times.
{2753}
The suggestion of Seneca is adopted, as most feasible, namely
a secret confederacy of wise philanthropists, who shall labour
everywhere in unison for this desirable end. The book then
announces the actual existence of such an association. One
Christian Rosen Kreuz, whose travels in the East had enriched
him with the highest treasures of occult lore, is said to have
communicated his wisdom, under a vow of secrecy, to eight
disciples, for whom he erected a mysterious dwelling-place
called The Temple of the Holy Ghost. It is stated further,
that this long-hidden edifice had been at last discovered, and
within it the body of Rosen Kreuz, untouched by corruption,
though, since his death, 120 years had passed away. The
surviving disciples of the institute call on the learned and
devout, who desire to co-operate in their projects of reform,
to advertise their names. They themselves indicate neither
name nor place of rendezvous. They describe themselves as true
Protestants. They expressly assert that they contemplate no
political movement in hostility to the reigning powers. Their
sole aim is the diminution of the fearful sum of human
suffering, the spread of education, the advancement of
learning, science, universal enlightenment, and love.
Traditions and manuscripts in their possession have given them
the power of gold-making, with other potent secrets; but by
their wealth they set little store. They have arcana, in
comparison with which the secret of the alchemist is a trifle.
But all is subordinate, with them, to their one high purpose
of benefiting their fellows both in body and soul. … I could
give you conclusive reasons, if it would not tire you to hear
them, for the belief that this far-famed book was written by a
young Lutheran divine named Valentine Andreä. He was one of
the very few who understood the age, and had the heart to try
and mend it. … This Andreä writes the Discovery of the
Rosicrucian Brotherhood, a jeu-d'esprit with a serious
purpose, just as an experiment to see whether something cannot
be done by combined effort to remedy the defect and
abuses—social, educational, and religious, so lamented by all
good men. He thought there were many Andreäs scattered
throughout Europe—how powerful would be their united
systematic action! … Many a laugh, you may be sure, he enjoyed
in his parsonage with his few friends who were in the secret,
when they found their fable everywhere swallowed greedily as
unquestionable fact. On all sides they heard of search
instituted to discover the Temple of the Holy Ghost. Printed
letters appeared continually, addressed to the imaginary
brotherhood, giving generally the initials of the candidate,
where the invisibles might hear of him, stating his motives
and qualifications for entrance into their number, and
sometimes furnishing samples of his cabbalistic acquirements.
Still, no answer. Not a trace of the Temple. Profound darkness
and silence, after the brilliant flash which had awakened so
many hopes. Soon the mirth grew serious. Andreä saw with
concern that shrewd heads of the wrong sort began to scent his
artifice, while quacks reaped a rogue's harvest from it. … A
swarm of impostors pretended to belong to the Fraternity, and
found a readier sale than ever for their nostrums. Andreä
dared not reveal himself. All he could do was to write book
after book to expose the folly of those whom his handiwork had
so befooled, and still to labour on, by pen and speech, in
earnest aid of that reform which his unhappy stratagem had
less helped than hindered. … Confederacies of pretenders
appear to have been organized in various places; but Descartes
says he sought in vain for a Rosicrucian lodge in Germany. The
name Rosicrucian became by degrees a generic term, embracing
every species of occult pretension,—arcana, elixirs, the
philosopher's stone, theurgic ritual, symbols, initiations. In
general usage the term is associated more especially with that
branch of the secret art which has to do with the creatures of
the elements. … And from this deposit of current mystical
tradition sprang, in great measure, the Freemasonry and
Rosicrucianism of the 18th century,—that golden age of secret
societies. Then flourished associations of every imaginable
kind, suited to every taste. … Some lodges belonged to
Protestant societies, others were the implements of the
Jesuits. Some were aristocratic, like the Strict Observance;
others democratic, seeking in vain to escape an Argus-eyed
police. Some—like the Illuminati under Weishaupt Knigge, and
Von Zwackh, numbering (among many knaves) not a few names of
rank, probity, and learning—were the professed enemies of
mysticism and superstition. Others existed only for the
profitable juggle of incantations and fortune-telling. … The
best perished at the hands of the Jesuits, the worst at the
hands of the police."
R. A. Vaughan,
Hours with the Mystics,
book 8, chapter 9 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
F. C. Schlosser,
History of the 18th Century,
volume 4, pages 483-504.
T. Frost,
The Secret Societies of the European Revolution,
volume 1, chapter 1.
A. P. Marras,
Secret Fraternities of the Middle Ages,
chapter 8.
ROSLIN, Battle of.
One of the minor battles fought in the Scottish "war of
independence," with success to the Scots, A. D. 1302.
ROSSBACH,
ROSBACH, Battle of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER).
ROSSBRUNN, Battle of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.
ROSTOCK:
The founding of the city.
See HANSA TOWNS.
ROSY CROSS, The Honourable Order of the.
See ROSICRUCIANS.
ROTENNU,
RUTENNU,
RETENNU, The.
"The Syrian populations, who, to the north of the Canaanites
[17th century B. C.], occupied the provinces called in the
Bible by the general name of Aram, as far as the river
Euphrates, belonged to the confederation of the Rotennu, or
Retennu, extending beyond the river and embracing all
Mesopotamia ( Naharaina). … The Rotennu had no well-defined
territory, nor even a decided unity of race. They already
possessed powerful cities, such as Nineveh and Babylon, but
there were still many nomadic tribes within the ill-defined
limits of the confederacy. Their name was taken from the city
of Resen, apparently the most ancient, and originally the most
important, city of Assyria. The germ of the Rotennu
confederation was formed by the Semitic Assyro-Chaldæan
people, who were not yet welded into a compact monarchy."
F. Lenormant,
Manual of the Ancient History of the East,
book 3, chapter 3.
ROTHIERE, Battle of La.
See FRANCE A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).
{2754}
ROTOMAGUS.
Modern Rouen.
See BELGÆ.
RÖTTELN: Capture by Duke Bernhard (1638).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.
ROTTEN BOROUGHS.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1830; and 1830-1832.
ROTTWEIL: Siege and capture by the French (1643).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1643-1644.
----------ROUEN: Start--------
ROUEN:
Origin of the city and name.
See BELGÆ.
ROUEN: A. D. 841.
First destructive visit of the Northmen.
See NORMANS: A. D. 841.
ROUEN: A. D. 845.
Second capture by the Northmen.
See PARIS: A. D.845.
ROUEN: A. D. 876-91 I.
Rollo's settlement.
See NORMANS: A. D. 876-911.
ROUEN: A. D. 1418-1419.
Siege and capture by Henry V. of England.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1417-1422.
ROUEN: A. D. 1431.
The burning of the Maid of Orleans.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1429-1431.
ROUEN: A. D. 1449.
Recovery from the English.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1431-1453.
ROUEN: A. D. 1562.
Occupied by the Huguenots and retaken by the Catholics.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1560-1563.
ROUEN: A. D. 1591-1592.
Siege by Henry IV., raised by the Duke of Parma.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1591-1593.
ROUEN: A. D. 1870.
Taken by the Germans.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1870-1871.
----------ROUEN: End--------
ROUM,
ICONIUM,
NICÆA, The Sultans of.
See TURKS (THE SELJUKS): A. D. 1073-1092.
ROUMANI,
ROMÚNI, The.
See DACCA: A. D. 102-106.
ROUMANIA.
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 14-18TH CENTURIES.
ROUMELIA, Eastern.
See TURKS: A. D. 1878,
TREATIES OF SAN STEFANO AND MADRID;
and BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1878, to 1878-1886.
ROUND TABLE, Knights of the.
See ARTHUR, KING.
ROUND TOWERS OF IRELAND.
"At various periods between the sixth and twelfth centuries
(some of them still later, but the greater number, perhaps, in
the ninth and tenth centuries), were erected those singular
buildings, the round towers, which have been so enveloped in
mystery by the arguments and conjectures of modern
antiquaries. … The real uses of the Irish round towers, both
as belfries and as ecclesiastical keeps or castles, have been
satisfactorily established by Dr. Petrie, in his important and
erudite work on the ecclesiastical architecture of Ireland. …
These buildings were well contrived to supply the clergy with
a place of safety for themselves, the sacred vessels, and
other objects of value, during the incursions of the Danes,
and other foes; and the upper stories, in which there were
four windows, were perfectly well adapted for the ringing of
the largest bells then used in Ireland."
M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
page 115.
ALSO IN:
S. Bryant,
Celtic Ireland,
chapter 7.
ROUNDHEADS.
The Parliamentary or popular party in the great English civil
war were called Roundheads because they generally wore their
hair cut short, while the Cavaliers of the king's party held
to the fashion of flowing locks. According to the
Parliamentary clerk Rushworth, the first person who applied
the name was one David Hyde, who threatened a mob of citizens
which surrounded the Houses of Parliament on the 27th of
December, 1641, crying "No Bishops," that he would "cut the
throats of these round-headed dogs."
D. Masson,
Life of John Milton,
volume 2, book 2, chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
Mrs. Hutchinson,
Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson (1642).
See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1641 (OCTOBER).
ROUSSEAU, and educational reform.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: REFORMS, &c.: A. D. 1762.
ROUSSILLON: A. D. 1639.
Situation of the county.
Invasion by the French.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1037-1640.
ROUSSILLON: A. D. 1642.
French conquest.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1640-1642.
ROUSSILLON: A. D. 1659.
Ceded to France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661.
ROUTIERS The.
See WHITE HOODS OF FRANCE.
ROXOLANI, The.
A people, counted among the Sarmatians, who occupied anciently
the region between the Don and the Dnieper, —afterwards
encroaching on Dacian territory. They were among the
barbarians who troubled the Roman frontier earliest, and were
prominent in the wars which disturbed the reign of Marcus
Aurelius. Later, they disappeared in the flood of Gothic and
Hunnish invasion, partly by absorption, it is supposed, and
partly by extermination.
ROYAL ROAD OF ANCIENT PERSIA, The.
"Herodotus describes the great road of the Persian period from
Ephesos by the Cilician Gates to Susa. It was called the
'Royal Road,' because the service of the Great King passed
along it; and it was, therefore, the direct path of
communication for all government business. … It is an accepted
fact that in several other cases roads of the Persian Empire
were used by the Assyrian kings long before the Persian time,
and, in particular, that the eastern part of the 'Royal Road,'
from Cilicia to Susa, is much older than the beginning of the
Persian power. … Herodotus represents it as known to
Aristagoras, and therefore, existing during the 6th century,
B. C., and the Persians had had no time to organise a great
road like this before 500; they only used the previously
existing road. Moreover, the Lydian kings seem to have paid
some attention to their roads, and perhaps even to have
measured them, as we may gather from Herodotus's account of
the roads in the Lycus valley, and of the boundary pillar
erected by Crœsus at Kydrara."
W. M. Ramsay,
Historical Geography of Asia Minor,
part 1, chapter 2.
ROYAL TOUCH, The.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 12-17TH CENTURIES.
RUBICON, Cæsar's passage of the.
See ROME: B. C. 50-49.
RUCANAS, The.
See PERU: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.
RUDOLPH,
King of France, A. D. 923-936.
Rudolph I., King of Germany-called Emperor
(the first of the House of Hapsburg), 1273-1291.
Rudolph II., Archduke of Austria and King of Hungary, 1576-1606;
King of Bohemia and Germanic Emperor, 1576-1612.
{2755}
RUGBY SCHOOL.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.—ENGLAND.
RUGII, The.
A coast tribe in ancient Germany who seem to have occupied the
extreme north of Pomerania and who probably gave their name to
the Isle of Rugen.
Church and Brodribb,
Geographical Notes to the Germany of Tacitus.
In the fifth century, after the breaking up of the empire of
Attila, the Hun, a people called the Rugii, and supposed to be
the same, were occupying a region embraced in modern Austria.
There were many Rugians among the barbarian auxiliaries in the
Roman army, and some of the annalists place among the number
Odoacer, who gave the extinguishing blow to the empire.
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 3, chapter 8.
RULE OF ST. BENEDICT.
See BENEDICTINE ORDERS.
RUMP, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).
RUNJIT SINGH,
RANJIT SINGH,
The conquests of.
See SIKHS.
RUNNYMEDE.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1215.
RUPERT, OR ROBERT (of the Palatine).
King of Germany, A. D. 1400-1410.
RUPERT'S LAND.
See CANADA: A. D. 1869-1873.
RUSCINO.
The ancient name of modern Roussillon.
RUSSELL, Lord John, Ministries of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1846; 1851-1852; 1865-1868.
RUSSELL, Lord William, Execution of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1681-1683.
----------RUSSIA: Start--------
RUSSIA: A. D. 862.
Scandinavian Origin of the name and the National Organization.
"'In the year 859,' says Nestor [the oldest Russian
chronicler, a monk of Kiev, who wrote early in the 12th
century] 'came the Varangians from beyond the sea and demanded
tribute from the Chud and from the Slavonians, the Meria, the
Ves, and the Krivichi; but the Khazars took tribute of the
Polians, the Severians and of the Viatichi.' Then he
continues: 'In the year 862 they drove the Varangians over the
sea, and paid them no tribute, and they began to govern
themselves, and there was no justice among them, and clan rose
against clan, and there was internal strife between them, and
they begun to make war upon each other. And they said to each
other: Let us seek for a prince who can reign over us and
judge what is right. And they went over the sea to the
Varangians, to Rus, for so were these Varangians called: they
were called Rus as others are called Svie (Swedes), others
Nurmane (Northmen, Norwegians), others Angliane (English, or
Angles of Sleswick?), others Gote (probably the inhabitants
of the island of Gothland). The Chud, the Slavonians, the
Krivichi, and the Ves said to Rus: Our land is large and rich,
but there is no order in it; come ye and rule and reign over
us. And three brothers were chosen with their whole clan, and
they took with them all the Rus, and they came. And the
eldest, Rurik, settled in Novgorod, and the second, Sineus,
near Bielo-ozero, and the third, Truvor, in Izborsk. And the
Russian land, Novgorod, was called after these Varangians;
they are the Novgorodians of Varangian descent; previously the
Novgorodians were Slavonians. But after the lapse of two years
Sineus and his brother Truvor died and Rurik assumed the
government and divided the towns among his men, to one
Polotsk, to another Rostov, to another Bielo-ozero.' Such is
Nestor's naive description of the foundation of the Russian
state. If it be read without prejudice or sophistical comment,
it cannot be doubted that the word Varangians is used here as
a common term for the inhabitants of Scandinavia, and that Rus
was meant to be the name of a particular Scandinavian tribe;
this tribe, headed by Rurik and his brothers, is said to have
crossed the sea and founded a state whose capital, for a time,
was Novgorod, and this state was the nucleus of the present
Russian empire. Next, Nestor tells us that in the same year
two of Rurik's men, 'who were not of his family,' Askold and
Dir, separated themselves from him with the intention to go to
Constantinople. They went down the Dnieper; but when they
arrived at Kiev, the capital of the Polians, who at that time
were tributary to the Khazars, they preferred to stay there,
and founded in that town an independent principality. Twenty
years after, in 882, this principality was incorporated by
Rurik's successor, Oleg: by a stratagem he made himself master
of the town and killed Askold and Dir, and from this time
Kiev, 'the mother of all Russian towns,' as it was called,
remained the capital of the Russian state and the centre of
the Russian name. … From the time historical critics first
became acquainted with Nestor's account, that is to say from
the beginning of the last century, until about fifteen or
twenty years ago [written in 1877], scarcely anyone ventured
to doubt the accuracy of his statement. Plenty of evidence was
even gradually produced from other sources to corroborate in
the most striking manner the tradition of the Russian
chronicles."
V. Thomsen,
Relations between Ancient Russia and Scandinavia,
lecture 1.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 55.
R. G. Latham,
The Germany of Tacitus; Epilegomena,
section 18.
RUSSIA: A. D. 865.
First attack of the Russians on Constantinople.
See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 865.
RUSSIA: A. D. 865-900.
Early relations with the Byzantine Empire.
"The first Russian naval expedition against Constantinople in
865 would probably have been followed by a series of

plundering excursions, like those carried on by the Danes and
Normans on the coasts of England and France, had not the
Turkish tribe called the Patzinaks rendered themselves masters
of the lower course of the Dnieper, and become instruments in
the hands of the emperors to arrest the activity of the bold
Varangians. The northern rulers of Kief were the same rude
warriors that infested England and France, but the Russian
people was then in a more advanced state of society than the
mass of the population in Britain and Gaul. The majority of
the Russians were freemen; the majority of the inhabitants of
Britain and Gaul were serfs.
{2756}
The commerce of the Russians was already so extensive as to
influence the conduct of their government, and to modify the
military ardour of their Varangian masters. … After the defeat
in 865, the Russians induced their rulers to send envoys to
Constantinople to renew commercial intercourse, and invite
Christian missionaries to visit their country; and no
inconsiderable portion of the people embraced Christianity,
though the Christian religion continued long after better
known to the Russian merchants than to the Varangian warriors.
The commercial relations of the Russians with Cherson and
Constantinople were now carried on directly, and numbers of
Russian traders took up their residence in these cities. The
first commercial treaty between the Russians of Kief and the
Byzantine empire was concluded in the reign of Basil I. The
intercourse increased from that time."
G. Finlay,
History of the Byzantine Empire, from 716 to 1057,
book 2, chapter 2, section 1.
RUSSIA: A. D. 907-1043.
Wars, commerce and church connection with the Byzantines.
See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 907-1043.
RUSSIA: 10TH Century.
The introduction of Christianity.
See CHRISTIANITY: 10TH CENTURY.
RUSSIA: A. D. 980-1054.
Family divisions and their consequence.
"Under Wladimir I. (980-1015), and under Jaroslaf I.
(1019-1054), the power of the grand-duchy of Kiew was
respectable. But Jaroslaf having divided it between his sons
conduced to enfeeble it. In the 12th century, the supremacy
passed from the grand-duchy of Kiew to the grand-duchy of
Wladimir, without extricating Russia from division and
impotence. The law of primogeniture not existing in Russia,
where it was not introduced into the Czarean family until the
14th century, the principalities were incessantly divided."
S. Menzies,
History of Europe,
chapter. 36.
RUSSIA: A. D. 988.
Acquisition of Cherson.
See CHERSON: A. D. 988.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1054-1237.
The early Russian territory and its divisions.
"It must not be forgotten that the oldest Russia was formed
mainly of lands which afterwards passed under the rule of
Poland and Lithuania. … The Dnieper, from which Russia was
afterwards cut off, was the great central river of the elder
Russia; of the Don and the Volga she held only the upper
course. The northern frontier barely passed the great lakes of
Ladoga and Onega, and the Gulf of Finland itself. It seems not
to have reached what was to be the Gulf of Riga, but some of
the Russian princes held a certain supremacy over the Finnish
and Lettish tribes of that region. In the course of the 11th
century, the Russian state, like that of Poland, was divided
among princes of the reigning family, acknowledging the
superiority of the great prince of Kief. In the next century
the chief power passed from Kief to the northern Vladimir on
the Kiasma. Thus the former Finnish land of Susdal on the
upper tributaries of the Volga became the cradle of the second
Russian power. Novgorod the Great, meanwhile, under elective
princes, claimed, like its neighbour Pskof, to rank among
commonwealths. Its dominion was spread far over the Finnish
tribes to the north and east; the White Sea, and, far more
precious, the Finnish Gulf, had now a Russian seaboard. It was
out of Vladimir and Novgorod that the Russia of the future was
to grow. Meanwhile a crowd of principalities, Polotsk,
Smolensk, the Severian Novgorod, Tchernigof, and others, arose
on the Duna and Dnieper. Far to the east arose the
commonwealth of Viatka, and on the frontiers of Poland and
Hungary arose the principality of Halicz or Galicia, which
afterwards grew for a while into a powerful kingdom. Meanwhile
in the lands on the Euxine the old enemies, Patzinaks and
Chazars, gave way to the Cumans, known in Russian history as
Polovtzi and Parthi. They spread themselves from the Ural
river to the borders of Servia and Danubian Bulgaria, cutting
off Russia from the Caspian. In the next century Russians and
Cumans—momentary allies—fell before the advance of the
Mongols, commonly known in European history as Tartars. Known
only as ravagers in the lands more to the west, over Russia
they become overlords for 250 years. All that escaped
absorption by the Lithuanian became tributary to the Mongol.
Still the relation was only a tributary one; Russia was never
incorporated in the Mongol dominion, as Servia and Bulgaria
were incorporated in the Ottoman dominion. But Kief was
overthrown; Vladimir became dependent; Novgorod remained the
true representative of free Russia in the Baltic lands."
E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
chapter 11, section 2.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1235.
Formation of the grand-duchy of Lithuania,
embracing a large area of Russian territory.
See LITHUANIA: A. D. 1235.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1239.
Mongol conquest.
See MONGOLS: A. D. 1229-1294.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480.
Prosperity and greatness of Novgorod as a commercial republic.
Two centuries of Tartar domination.
Growing power of Lithuania and Poland.
Rise of the Duchy of Moscow,
the nucleus of the future Russian Empire.
"Alone among the cities the ancient Novgorod has boasted its
exemption from plunder [at the hands of the Tartars]. The
great city, though fallen since the days of Rurik from being
the capital of an Empire, had risen to the dignity of a
Republic. It had found wealth in trade; and at successive
epochs had introduced the riches of Constantinople to the
North, the merchandise of the great Hanse Towns to the South.
It had profited by the example, and had emulated the
prosperity, of the rich cities of Germany. It had striven also
to attain their freedom; and, though still continuing to
acknowledge a vague allegiance to the Russian Princes, it had
been able, by its wealth and its remoteness from control, to
win or to assume privileges, until it had resembled Bremen or
Lubeck in the sovereignty of its assemblies, and had surpassed
those cities by the assumption of a style declaratory of its
independence. It boasted further of a prince, St. Alexander
Nevsky, to whom a glorious victory over the Swedes had already
given a name, and whose virtues were hereafter to enrol him
among the Saints; and it had a defence in the marshes and
forests which surrounded it and which had already once
deterred the invaders. But even the great city could not
continue to defy the Tartar horde, and its submission is at
once the last and most conclusive proof of the supremacy of
their power. Thenceforth the nation felt the bitterness of
servitude. The Tartars did not occupy the country they had
conquered; they retired to establish their settlements upon
the Volga, where they became known as the Golden Horde: but
they exacted the tribute and the homage of the Russian
Princes. …
{2757}
Five centuries have been unable to obliterate the traces which
this period has imprinted upon the national character. The
Tartars oppressed and extorted tribute from the Russian
princes; the princes in their turn became the oppressors and
extortioners of their people. Deceit and lying, the refuge of
the weak, became habitual. Increasing crime and increasing
punishments combined to brutalise the people. The vice of
drunkenness was universal. Trade indeed was not extinguished;
and religion prospered so abundantly that of all the many
monasteries of Russia there are but few that do not owe their
origin to this time. … Meanwhile the provinces of the West
were falling into the hands of other enemies. The Tartar wave
had swept as far as Poland, but it had then recoiled, and had
left the countries westward of the Dnieper to their fate. All
links of the connection that had bound these regions to the
Princes of Vladimir, were now broken. Vitepsk, Polotsk,
Smolensk, and even provinces still nearer Moscow, were
gradually absorbed by the growing power of Lithuania, which,
starting from narrow limits between the Dwina and the Niemen,
was destined to overshadow Russia.
See LITHUANIA: A. D. 1235.
The provinces of the South for a time maintained a certain
unity and independence under the name of the Duchy of Halicz
or Kief; but these also, through claims of inheritance or
feudal right, became eventually merged in the dominions of
their neighbours. Poland obtained Black Russia, which has
never since returned to its earlier masters. Lithuania
acquired Volhynia and Red Russia, and thus extended her wide
empire from the Baltic as far as the Red Sea. Then came the
union of these powers by the acceptance in 1383 of the Grand
Duke Jagellon as King of Poland; and all hopes for the Russian
princes of recovering their possessions seemed lost. The
ancient empire of Yaroslaf was thus ended; and its history is
parted from that of mediæval Russia by the dark curtain of two
centuries in which the Russian people were a race but not a
nation. The obscure descendants of Rurik still occupied his
throne, and ruled with some appearance of hereditary
succession. They even chose this period of their weakness to
solace their vanity by the adoption of the style of Sovereigns
of All the Russias. But they were the mere vassals of the
Golden Horde. … It was not until the reign of Dimitry IV.,
that any sign was shown of reviving independence. Time, by
weakening the Tartars, had then brought freedom nearer to the
Russians. The Horde, which had been united under Bati, when it
had first precipitated itself upon Europe, had become divided
by the ambition of rebellious Khans, who had aspired to
establish their independent power; and the Russians had at
length a prince who was able to profit by the weakness of his
enemies. Dimitry, who reigned from 1362 to 1389, is celebrated
as having checked the divisions which civil strife and
appanages had inflicted upon his country, and as having also
gloriously repulsed the Lithuanians from the walls of Moscow,
now rising to be his capital. But his greatest deed, and that
by which he lives in the remembrance of every Russian, is his
victory upon the Don, which gave to him thenceforth the name
of Donskoi. The Tartars, indignant at his prominence, had
united with the Lithuanians. For the first time the Russians
turned against their tyrants, and found upon the field of
Khoulikof [1383] that their freedom was still possible. They
did not achieve indeed for many years what they now began to
hope. Their strength was crippled by renewed attacks of
Tartars from the south and of Lithuanians from the west; and
they could not dare to brave the revengeful enmity of the
Horde. For a hundred years they still paid tribute, and the
successors of Dimitry still renewed their homage at the camp
upon the Volga. But progress gradually was made. The Grand
Prince Vassili Dimitrievitch [1389-1425] was able to extend
his rule over a territory that occupied the space of six or
seven of the modern governments round Moscow; and though the
country, under Vassili Vassilievitch [1425-1462], became
enfeebled by a renewal of civil strife, the increasing
weakness of the Tartar power continued to prepare the way for
the final independence that was accomplished by the close of
the 15th century. The reign of Ivan III. became the opening of
a new epoch in Russian history. He restored his people, long
sunk out of the gaze of Europe, to a place among its nations,
and recalled them in some degree from the barbarism of the
East to the intercourse and civilization of the West. The
Russia of old time was now no more; but the Grand Prince, or
Duke of Moscow, as he was called, was still the heir of Rurik
and of Yaroslaf, and in the growth of his Duchy their Empire
reappeared. … Without the fame of a warrior, but with the
wisdom of a statesman, with a strong hand and by the help of a
long reign, he built up out of the fragments that surrounded
Him an Empire that exceeded vastly that of his immediate
predecessor. … The fall of the republic of Novgorod [1478] and
the final extinction of the Golden Horde, are the events which
are most prominent. Riches had been the bane of the great
city. They had fostered insolence, but they had given a
distaste for war. The citizens had often rebelled; they had
accepted the protection of Lithuania, and had later meditated,
and even for a time accomplished, a union with Poland. But
they had had no strength to defend the liberty to which they
had aspired. … When Ivan advanced, determined, as he said, to
reign at Novgorod as he reigned at Moscow, they were unable to
repel or to endure a siege, and they surrendered themselves
into his hand. Once he had pardoned them; now their
independence was taken from them. Their assembly was
dissolved; their great bell, the emblem of their freedom, was
carried to Moscow. The extinction of the Golden Horde was due
to time and policy, rather than to any deeds which have
brought glory to the Russian people.
See MONGOLS: A. D. 1238-1391.
Released in this manner from the most dangerous both of
domestic and of foreign foes the power of Ivan rapidly
advanced. The broad province of Penn, that had begun to boast
a half accomplished independence, had been early forced to
acknowledge her subjection. The Khan of Kazan was now made
tributary; and the rule of Ivan was extended from the Oural to
the Neva. Provinces, as important, though less extensive, were
acquired in the south. The Russian princes and cities that had
preserved their independence were all, with the one exception of
Riazan, compelled to acknowledge the sovereignty of Moscow. …
{2758}
At the same time the Lithuanians were thrust back. Their
greatness had gone by; and the territories of Tula, Kalouga,
and Orel now ceasing to own allegiance to a declining power,
were incorporated with the rising Empire. That Empire had
already reached the Dnieper, and was already scheming to
recover the ancient capital of its princes."
C. F. Johnstone,
Historical Abstracts,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
A. Rambaud,
History of Russia,
chapters 8-14 (volume 1).
RUSSIA: 15th Century.
Effects of the Tartar domination.
Sources of autocracy.
"The invasion of the Mongols, in the beginning of the 13th
century, snapped the thread of Russia's destinies. … Nature,
after preparing the invasion, herself marked its bounds. The
Tatars, now masters of the steppes in the southeast, which
felt to them very much like home, grew ill at ease as soon as
they began to lose themselves in the forests of the north.
They did not settle there. These regions were too European to
suit their half-nomadic habits, and they cared more for
tribute-payers than for subjects. So the 'kniazes' received
their principalities back from the hands of the Mongols—as
fiefs. They had to submit to the presence near their person of
a sort of Tatar 'residents,'—the 'baskàks,' whose duty it was
to take the census and to collect the taxes. They were
compelled to take the long, long journey to the 'Horde,' often
encamped in the heart of Asia, in order to receive their
investiture from the successors of Djinghiz, and ended by
becoming the vassals of a vassal of the 'Great-Khan.' At this
price Russia retained her religion, her dynasties, and—thanks
to her clergy and her princes—her nationality. Never yet was
nation put through such a school of patience and abject
submission. … Under this humiliating and impoverishing
domination the germs of culture laid in the old principalities
withered up. … The Tatar domination developed in the Russians
faults and faculties of which their intercourse with Byzance
had already brought them the germs, and which, tempered by
time, have since contributed to develop their diplomatic
gifts. … The oppression by man, added to the oppression by the
climate, deepened certain traits already sketched in by nature
in the Great-Russian's soul. Nature inclined him to
submission, to endurance, to resignation; history confirmed
these inclinations. Hardened by nature, he was steeled by
history. One of the chief effects of the Tatar domination and
all that makes up Russian history, is the importance given to
the national worship. … The domination of an enemy who was a
stranger to Christianity fortified the sufferers' attachment
to their worship. Religion and native land were merged into
one faith, took the place of nationality and kept it alive. It
was then that the conception sprang up which still links the
quality of Russian to the profession of Greek orthodoxy, and
makes of the latter the chief pledge of patriotism. … Upon
Russia's political sovereignty the Tatar domination had two
parallel effects: it hastened national unity and it
strengthened autocracy. The country which, under the appanage
system, was falling to pieces, was bound together by foreign
oppression as by a chain of iron. Having constituted himself
suzerain of the 'Grand-Kniazes,' whom he appointed and
dethroned at will, the Khan conferred on them his authority.
The Asiatic tyranny of which they were the delegates empowered
them to govern tyrannically. Their despotism over the Russians
was derived from their servitude under the Tatars. … Every
germ of free government, whether aristocratic or democratic,
was stifled. Nothing remained but one power, the
'Velíki-Kniaz,' the autocrat,—and such now, after more than
500 years, still is the basis of the state."
A. Leroy-Beaulieu,
The Empire of the Tsars and the Russians,
part 1, book 4, chapter 3.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1533-1682.
From Ivan the Terrible to Peter the Great.
The Poles at Moscow.
Origin of the dynasty of the Romanoffs.
"Apart from the striking and appalling character of Ivan
himself, whom Mickiewicz, the Polish poet, calls, in his
lectures on the Slavonians, 'the most finished tyrant known in
history—frivolous and debauched like Nero, stupid and
ferocious like Caligula, full of dissimulation like Tiberius
or Louis XI.,' the reign of Ivan the Terrible is interesting
as marking the beginning of the intercourse between Russia and
Western Europe, and especially between Russia and England. The
natural approach to Russia from the west was, of course,
through Poland; but the Poles impeded systematically, and for
political reasons, the introduction of arts and artificers
into Russia, and Sigismund wrote a letter to Elizabeth,
warning her against the Muscovite power as a danger to
civilization, only not formidable for the moment because it
was still semi-barbarous. Ivan the Terrible was the third of
the independent Tsars; and already under Ivan, sometimes
called the 'Great'—to whom indeed belongs the honour of having
finally liberated Russia from the Tartar yoke—endeavours had
been made to enter into relations with various European
nations. Foreigners, too, were encouraged to visit Russia and
settle there. The movement of foreigners towards Russia
increased with each succeeding reign; and beginning with the
first Tsar of Muscovy it became much more marked under the
third, that Ivan the Terrible, under whose reign the mariners
in the service of the English company of 'merchant
adventurers' entered the White Sea, and, in their own
language, 'discovered' Russia. Russia was, indeed, until that
time, so far as Western Europe was concerned, an unknown land,
cut off from Western civilization for political and warlike
reasons by the Poles, and for religious reasons by the
Catholic Church. On the 18th of March, 1584, Ivan was sitting
half dressed, after his bath, 'solacing himself and making
merie with pleasant songs, as he used to doe.' He called for
his chess-board, had placed the men, and was just setting up
the king, when he fell back in a swoon and died. … The death
of Ivan was followed by strong dislike against the English at
Moscow; and the English diplomatist and match-maker, Sir
Jerome Bowes, after being ironically informed that 'the
English king was dead,' found himself seized and thrown into
prison. He was liberated through the representations of
another envoy, who pointed out that it would be imprudent to
excite Elizabeth's wrath; and though for a time intercourse
between Russia and Western Europe was threatened, through the
national hatred of foreigners as manifested by the councillors
of the Tsar, yet when the weak-minded Feodor fell beneath the
influence of his brother-in-law Boris Godounoff, the previous
policy, soon to become traditional, of cultivating relations
with Western Europe, was resumed. …
{2759}
Nineteen years have yet to pass before the election of the
first of the Romanoffs to the throne; for strange as it may
seem, the first member of the dynasty of the Romanoffs was
chosen and appointed to the imperial rule by an assembly
representing the various estates. Meanwhile the order of
succession had been broken. Several pretenders to the throne
had appeared, one of whom, Demetrius, distinctively known as
the 'Imposter,' attained for a time supreme power. Demetrius,
married to a Polish lady, Marina Mniszek, was aided by her
powerful family to maintain his position in Moscow; for the
Mniszeks assembled and sent to the Russian capital a body of
4,000 men. Then Ladislas [son of the king] of Poland
interfered, and after a time [1610] Moscow fell beneath the
power of the Poles.
See POLAND: A. D. 1590-1648.
Soon, however, the national feeling of Russia was aroused. A
butcher, or cattle dealer of Nijni Novgorod, named Minin,
whose patriotism has made him one of the most popular figures
in Russian history, got together the nucleus of a national
army, and called upon the patriotic nobleman, Prince Pojarski,
to place himself at its head. Pojarski and Minin marched
together to Moscow, and their success in clearing the capital
of the foreign invaders [1612] is commemorated by a group of
statuary which stands in the principal square of Moscow. …
Among the tombs of the metropolitans buried in … [the
cathedral of the Assumption at Moscow] are those of Philaret
and Hermogenes, who were thrown into prison by the Poles for
refusing to consent to the accession of Ladislas, the Polish
prince, to the Russian throne. Hermogenes died soon after his
arrest. Philaret, at the expulsion of the Poles, was carried
away captive by them in their retreat from Moscow (1612), and
was kept nine years a prisoner in Poland. On his return to
Russia, he found his son, Michael Feodorovitch, elected to the
throne. The belief, then, of the Russian people in Michael's
patriotism, seems to have been founded on a knowledge of the
patriotism of his father. The surname of the metropolitan who
had defied the Polish power and had suffered nine years'
imprisonment in Poland was Romanoff; Philaret was the name he
had adopted on becoming a monk. His baptismal name was Feodor,
and hence the patronymic Feodorovitch attached to the name of
Michael, the first of the Romanoffs. There is little to say
about the reign of Michael Feodorovitch, the circumstances
having once been set forth under which he was elected to the
vacant throne; and his son and successor, Alexis
Michailovitch, is chiefly remembered as father of Peter the
Great."
H. S. Edwards,
The Romanoffs,
chapters 1-2.
ALSO IN:
W. K. Kelly,
History of Russia,
chapters 13-19 (volume 1).
P. Mérimée,
Demetrius the Imposter.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1547.
Assumption of the title, Czar, or Tzar,
by the Grand Prince of Moscow.
"In January 1547, Ivan [IV., known as Ivan the Terrible]
ordered the Metropolitan Macarius to proceed with his
coronation. He assumed at the ceremony not only the title of
Grand Prince, but that of Tzar. The first title no longer
answered to the new power of the sovereign of Moscow, who
counted among his domestics, princes and even Grand Princes.
The name of Tzar is that which the books in the Slavonic
language, ordinarily read by Ivan, give to the kings of Judæa,
Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, and to the emperors of Rome and
Constantinople. Now, was not Ivan in some sort the heir of the
Tzar Nebuchadnezzar, the Tzar Pharaoh, the Tzar Ahasuerus, and
the Tzar David, since Russia was the sixth empire spoken of in
the Apocalypse? Through his grandmother Sophia Palæologus, he
was connected with the family of the Tzars of Byzantium;
through his ancestor Vladimir Monomachus, he belonged to the
Porphyrogeniti; and through Constantine the Great, to Cæsar. …
We may imagine what prestige was added to the dignity of the
Russian sovereign by this dazzling title, borrowed from
Biblical antiquity, from Roman majesty, from the orthodox
sovereigns of Byzantium."
A. Rambaud,
History of Russia,
volume 1, chapter 15.
"This title [Czar] … is not a corruption of the word 'Cæsar,'
as many have supposed [see CÆSAR, THE TITLE], but is an old
Oriental word which the Russians acquired through the Slavonic
translation of the Bible, and which they bestowed at first on
the Greek emperors, and afterwards on the Tartar Khans. In
Persia it signifies throne, supreme authority; and we find it
in the termination of the names of the kings of Assyria and
Babylon, such as Phalassar, Nabonasser, &c.—Karamsin."
W. K. Kelly,
History of Russia,
volume 1, page 125, foot-note.
"Von Hammer, in his last note to his 31st book, says, 'The
title Czar or Tzar is an ancient title of Asiatic sovereigns.
We find an instance of it in the title 'The Schar,' of the
sovereign of Gurdistan; and in that of Tzarina … of the
Scythians.'"
Sir E. S. Creasy,
History of the Ottoman Turks,
page 213, foot-note.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1569-1571.
First collision with the Turks.
Their repulse from Astrakhan.-
Moscow stormed and sacked by the Crim Tartars.
Peace with the Porte.
At the time (1566) of the accession of Selim II. to the
Ottoman throne, the Russians "had been involved in fierce and
frequent wars with the Sultan's vassals, the Crim Tartars; but
the Porte had taken no part in these contests. But the bold
genius of the Vizier Sokolli now attempted the realisation of
a project, which, if successful, would have barred the
southern progress of Russia, by firmly planting the Ottoman
power on the banks of the Don and the Volga, and along the
shores of the Caspian Sea. … Sokclli proposed to unite the
rivers Don and Volga by a canal, and then send a Turkish
armament up the sea of Azoph and the Don, thence across by the
intended channel to the Volga, and then down the latter river
into the Caspian; from the southern shores of which sea the
Ottomans might strike at Tabriz and the heart of the Persian
power. … Azoph already belonged to the Turks, but in order to
realise the great project entertained it was necessary to
occupy Astrakhan also. Accordingly, 3,000 Janissaries and
20,000 horse were sent [1569] to besiege Astrakhan, and a
cooperative force of 30,000 Tartars was ordered to join them,
and to aid in making the canal. 5,000 Janissaries and 3,000
pioneers were at the same time sent to Azoph to commence and
secure the great work at its western extremity. But the
generals of Ivan the Terrible did their duty to their stern
master ably in this emergency. The Russian garrison of
Astrakhan sallied on its besiegers, and repulsed them with
considerable loss.
{2760}
And a Russian army, 15,000 strong, under Prince Serebinoff,
came suddenly on the workmen and Janissaries near Azoph, and
put them to head-long flight. It was upon this occasion that
the first trophies won from the Turks came into Russian hands.
An army of Tartars, which marched to succour the Turks, was
also entirely defeated by Ivan's forces; and the Ottomans,
dispirited by their losses and reverses, withdrew altogether
from the enterprise. … Russia was yet far too weak to enter on
a war of retaliation with the Turks. She had subdued the
Tartar Khanates of Kasan and Astrakhan; but their kinsmen of
the Crimea were still formidable enemies to the Russians, even
without Turkish aid. It was only two years after the Ottoman
expedition to the Don and Volga that the Khan of the Crimea
made a victorious inroad into Russia, took Moscow by storm,
and sacked the city (1571). The Czar Ivan had, in 1570, sent
an ambassador, named Nossolitof, to Constantinople, to
complain of the Turkish attack on Astrakhan, and to propose
that there should be peace, friendship, and alliance between
the two empires. … The Russian ambassador was favourably
received at the Sublime Porte, and no further hostilities
between the Turks and Russians took place for nearly a
century."
Sir E. S. Creasy,
History of the Ottoman Turks,
chapter 11.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1577-1580.
Conquests by the Poles.
See POLAND: A. D. 1574-1590.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1578-1579.
Yermac's conquest of Siberia.
See SIBERIA.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1613-1617.
War with Sweden.
Cession of territory, including the site of St. Petersburg.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1611-1629.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1652.
Allegiance of the Cossacks of the Ukraine transferred from the
King of Poland to the Czar.
See POLAND: A. D. 1648-1654.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1655-1659.
The great schism, known as the Rascol.
"In the reign of Alexis took place the great revision of the
Bible, carried out by the energy of Nicon, the Patriarch, who,
finding that the church-books were full of ridiculous blunders
caused by ignorant copyists, procured a quantity of the best
Greek manuscripts from Mount Athos, and other places. In 1655,
and the following year, he summoned two councils of the
church, at which the newly translated service-books were
promulgated and the old ones called in. In consequence of this
change, a great schism took place in the Russian Church, a
number of people attaching a superstitious veneration to the
old books, errors and all. Thus was formed the large sect of
the Staro-obriadtsi or Raskolniks, still existing in Russia,
who have suffered great persecutions at many periods of her
history."
W. R. Morfill,
The Story of Russia,
chapter 6.
"The most important innovation, which afterwards became the
symbol and the war-cry of the religious rebellion, referred to
the position of the fingers in making the sign of the cross.
The Russians of Nicon's time when they crossed themselves held
two fingers together, while the Oriental churches and the
Greeks enjoined their adherents to cross themselves with three
fingers united into one point. The two-fingered cross of the
Muscovites was used in the Orient only for giving the priestly
benediction. … Patriarch Nicon was anxious to return to
ancient traditions. Reserving the two-fingered cross for
priestly benedictions only, he re-established the
three-fingered Greek cross, or, as his opponents called it,
'the pinch-of-snuff cross,' for the private act of devotion.
Then, too, in certain cases, for instance in stamping the
round wafers, he introduced the use of the equilateral,
four-sided cross. … The Russians celebrated the mass on seven
wafers, while the Greeks and Orientals used only five. In the
processions of the Church the Russians were in the habit of
first turning their steps westward—going with the sun; the
Greeks marched eastward—against the sun. In all these points
Patriarch Nicon conformed to the traditions of the Greek
mother-church. In conformity with this rule, moreover, he
directed that the hallelujahs should be 'trebled,' or sung
thrice, as with the Greeks, the Russians having up till then
only 'doubled' it—singing, instead of the third hallelujah,
its Russian equivalent, 'God be praised.' Finally, or we
should rather say above all, Nicon introduced a fresh spelling
of the name of Jesus. The fact is that, probably in
consequence of the Russian habit of abbreviating some of the
commonest scriptural names, the second letter in the name
Jesus had been dropped altogether; it was simply spelt Jsus,
without any sign of abbreviation. Patriarch Nicon corrected
this orthographical error, replacing the missing letter. Was
this all? Yes, this was all. As far as doctrinal matters were
concerned, nothing more serious was at stake in the great
religious schism of the 17th century, known by the name of the
Rascol. And yet it was for these trifles—a letter less in a
name, a finger more in a cross, the doubling instead of the
trebling of a word—that thousands of people, both men and
women, encountered death on the scaffold or at the stake. It
was for these things that other scores of thousands underwent
the horrible tortures of the knout, the strappado, the rack,
or had their bodies mutilated, their tongues cut, their hands
chopped off."
Stepniak,
The Russian Peasantry
(American edition),
pages 237-239.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1686-1696.
War of the Holy League against the Turks.
Capture of Azov.
First foothold on the Black Sea acquired.
See TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1689.
Accession of Peter the Great.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1697-1704.
Peter the Great: his travels in pursuit of knowledge;
his apprenticeship to the useful arts;
his civilizing work in Muscovy.
"Many princes before [Peter the Great] had renounced crowns,
wearied out with the intolerable load of public affairs; but
no man had ever divested himself of the royal character, in
order to learn the art of governing better: this was a stretch
of heroism which was reserved for Peter the Great alone. He
left Russia in [1697], having reigned as yet but years, and went to Holland disguised under a common name, as
if he had been a menial servant of that same Lefort, whom he
sent in quality of ambassador-extraordinary to the
States-General. As soon as he arrived at Amsterdam, he
enrolled his name among the shipwrights of the admiralty of
the Indies, and wrought in the yard like the other mechanics.
At his leisure hours he learned such parts of the mathematics
as are useful to a prince,—fortification, navigation, and the
art of drawing plans. He went into the workmen's shops, and
examined all their manufactures: nothing could escape his
observation.
{2761}
From thence he passed over into England, where having
perfected himself in the art of ship-building, he returned to
Holland, carefully observing every thing that might turn to
the advantage of his country. At last, after two years of
travel and labor, to which no man but himself would have
willingly submitted, he again made his appearance in Russia,
with all the arts of Europe in his train. Artists of every
kind followed him in abundance. Then were seen, for the first
time, large Russian ships in the Baltic, and on the Black Sea
and the ocean. Stately buildings, of a regular architecture,
were raised among the Russian huts. He founded colleges;
academies, printing-houses, and libraries. The cities were
brought under a regular police. The dress and customs of the
people were gradually changed, though not without some
difficulty; and the Muscovites learned by degrees the true
nature of a social state. Even their superstitious rites were
abolished; the dignity of the patriarch was suppressed; and
the czar declared himself the head of the Church. This last
enterprise, which would have cost a prince less absolute than
Peter both his throne and his life, succeeded almost without
opposition, and insured to him the success of all his other
innovations. After having humbled an ignorant and a barbarous
clergy, he ventured to make a trial of instructing them,
though, by that means, he ran the risk of rendering them
formidable. … The czar not only subjected the Church to the
State, after the example of the Turkish emperors, but, what
was a more masterly stroke of policy, he dissolved a militia
of much the same nature with that of the janizaries: and what
the sultans had attempted in vain, he accomplished in a short
time: he disbanded the Russian janizaries, who were called
Strelitz, and who kept the czars in subjection. These troops,
more formidable to their masters than to their neighbors,
consisted of about 30,000 foot, one half of which remained at
Moscow, while the other was stationed upon the frontiers. The
pay of a Strelitz was no more than four roubles a year; but
this deficiency was amply compensated by privileges and
extortions. Peter at first formed a company of foreigners,
among whom he enrolled his own name, and did not think it
below him to begin the service in the character of a drummer,
and to perform the duties of that mean office; so much did the
nation stand in need of examples! By degrees he became an
officer. He gradually raised new regiments; and, at last,
finding himself master of a well-disciplined army, he broke
the Strelitz, who durst not disobey. The cavalry were nearly
the same with that of Poland, or France, when this last
kingdom was no more than an assemblage of fiefs. The Russian
gentlemen were mounted at their own expense, and fought
without discipline, and sometimes without any other arms than
a sabre or a bow, incapable of obeying, and consequently of
conquering. Peter the Great taught them to obey, both by the
example he set them and by the punishments he inflicted; for
he served in the quality of a soldier and subaltern officer,
and as czar he severely punished the Boyards, that is, the
gentlemen, who pretended that it was the privilege of their
order not to serve but by their own consent. He established a
regular body to serve the artillery, and took 500 bells from
the churches to found cannon. … He was himself a good
engineer; but his chief excellence lay in his knowledge of
naval affairs: he was an able sea-captain, a skilful pilot, a
good sailor, an expert shipwright, and his knowledge of these
arts was the more meritorious, as he was born with a great
dread of the water. In his youth he could not pass over a
bridge without trembling. … He caused a beautiful harbor to be
built at the mouth of the Don, near Azof, in which he proposed
to keep a number of galleys; and some time after, thinking
that these vessels, so long, light, and flat, would probably
succeed in the Baltic, he had upwards of 300 of them built at
his favorite city of Petersburg. He showed his subjects the
method of building ships with fir only, and taught them the
art of navigation. He had even learned surgery, and, in a case
of necessity, has been known to tap a dropsical person. He was
well versed in mechanics, and instructed the artists. … He was
always travelling up and down his dominions, as much as his
wars would allow him; but he travelled like a legislator and
natural philosopher, examining nature everywhere, endeavoring
to correct or perfect her; sounding with his own hands the
depths of seas and rivers, repairing sluices, visiting docks,
causing mines to be searched for, assaying metals, ordering
accurate plans to be drawn, in the execution of which he
himself assisted. He built, upon a wild and uncultivated spot,
the imperial city of Petersburg. … He built the harbor of
Cronstadt, on the Neva, and Sainte-Croix, on the frontiers of
Persia; erected forts in the Ukraine and Siberia; established
offices of admiralty at Archangel, Petersburg, Astrakhan, and
Azof; founded arsenals, and built and endowed hospitals. All
his own houses were mean, and executed in a bad taste; but he
spared no expenses in rendering the public buildings grand and
magnificent. The sciences, which in other countries have been
the slow product of so many ages, were, by his care and
industry, imported into Russia in full perfection. He
established an academy on the plan of the famous societies of
Paris and London. … Thus it was that a single man changed the
face of the greatest empire in the universe. It is however a
shocking reflection, that this reformer of mankind should have
been deficient in that first of all virtues, the virtue of
humanity. Brutality in his pleasures, ferocity in his manners,
and cruelty in his punishments, sullied the lustre of so many
virtues. He civilized his subjects, and yet remained himself a
barbarian. He would sometimes with his own hands execute
sentences of death upon the unhappy criminals; and, in the
midst of a revel, would show his dexterity in cutting off
heads."
Voltaire,
History of Charles XII., King of Sweden,
book 1.
ALSO IN:
J. L. Motley,
Peter the Great.
E. Schuyler,
Peter the Great,
volume 1.
A. Leroy-Beaulieu,
The Empire of the Tsars,
part 1, book 4, chapter 4.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1699.
The Peace of Carlowitz with the Sultan.
Possession of Azov confirmed.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1699.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1700.
Aggressive league with Poland and Denmark
against Charles XII. of Sweden.
Defeat at Narva.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1697-1700.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1701-1706.
War with Charles XII. of Sweden in Poland and Livonia.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1701-1707.
{2762}
RUSSIA: A. D. 1703-1718.
The founding of St. Petersburg.
"Immediately after the capture of Nyenskanz [1703], a council
of war was convened to consider the question of defending and
utilising the mouth of the Neva, and whether it would be
better to strengthen the little fort which had just been
taken, or to seek a fit site for a commercial town nearer the
sea. The latter course was decided upon. Near its mouth the
Neva takes a sharp turn and divides into three or four
branches, which by subsequent redivision form a number of
islands, large and small. These marshy islands, overgrown with
forests and thickets, and liable to be covered with water
during the westerly winds, were inhabited by a few Finnish
fishermen, who were accustomed to abandon their mud huts at
the approach of high water, and seek a refuge on the higher
ground beyond. It was on the first of these islands, called by
the Finns Yanni-Saari, or Hare Island, where the river was
still broad and deep, that Peter laid the foundation of a
fortress and a city, named St. Petersburg, after his patron
saint. … For this work many carpenters and masons were sent
from the district of Novgorod, who were aided by the soldiers.
Wheelbarrows were unknown (they are still little used in
Russia), and in default of better implements the men scraped
up the earth with their hands, and carried it to the ramparts
on pieces of matting or in their shirts. Peter wrote to
Ramodanofsky, asking him to send the next summer at least
2,000 thieves and criminals destined for Siberia, to do the
heavy work under the direction of the Novgorod carpenters. At
the same time with the construction of the bastions, a church
was built in the fortress and dedicated to St. Peter and St.
Paul. … Just outside of the fortress Peter built for himself a
small hut, which he called his palace. It was about fifty-five
feet long by twenty wide, built of logs roofed with shingles,
and contained only three rooms, lighted by little windows set
in leaden frames. In respect for this, his earliest residence
in St. Petersburg, Peter subsequently had another building
erected outside of it to preserve it from the weather, and in
this state it still remains, an object of pilgrimage to the
curious and devout. … In spite of disease and mortality among
the men, in spite of the floods, which even in the first year
covered nearly the whole place and drowned some who were too
ill to move, the work went on. But in its infancy St.
Petersburg was constantly in danger from the Swedes, both by
sea and land. … St. Petersburg was the apple of Peter's eye.
It was his 'paradise,' as he often calls it in his letters. It
was always an obstacle, and sometimes the sole obstacle, to
the conclusion of peace. Peter was willing to give up all he
had conquered in Livonia and Esthonia, and even Narva, but he
would not yield the mouth of the Neva. Nevertheless, until the
war with Sweden had been practically decided by the battle of
Poltava, and the position of St. Petersburg had been thus
secured, although it had a certain importance as a commercial
port, and as the fortress which commanded the mouth of the
Neva, it remained but a village. The walls of the fortress
were finally laid with stone, but the houses were built of
logs at the best, and for many years, in spite of the marshy
soil, the streets remained unpaved. If fate had compelled the
surrender of the city, there would not have been much to
regret. Gradually the idea came to Peter to make it his
capital. In 1714 the Senate was transported thither from
Moscow, but wars and foreign enterprises occupied the Tsar's
attention, and it was not until 1718 that the colleges or
ministries were fully installed there, and St. Petersburg
became in fact the capital of the Empire."
E. Schuyler,
Peter the Great,
chapter 46 (volume 2).
RUSSIA: A. D. 1707-1718.
Invasion by Charles XII. of Sweden.
His ruinous defeat at Pultowa.
His intrigues with the Turks.
Unlucky expedition of the Czar into Moldavia.
Russian conquests in the north.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1707-1718.
RUSSIA: A. D. 1721.
The Peace of Nystad with Sweden.
Livonia and other conquests of Peter the Great secured.
Finland given up.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1719-1721.

CENTRAL EUROPE IN 1715
AFTER THE TREATIES OF UTRECHT AND RASTADT.
FRANCE.[IN 1643]
ACQUIRED BY FRANCE UNDER LOUIS XIV.
HABSBURG POSSESSIONS.
HOHENZOLLERN POSSESSIONS.
DANISH POSSESSIONS.
HOUSE OF HOLSTEEN-GOTTORP.
ECCLESIASTICAL STATES OF THE EMPIRE.
STATES OF THE CHURCH.
THE BOUNDARY OF THE EMPIRE IS SHOWN BY THE HEAVY RED LINE.