Adolphus, brother-in-law of Alaric, succeeded, by the vote of the Gothic army, to the supreme command. He was also aremarkable man. His intelligence and moral worth may be inferred from the following remarks which he made to a citizen of Narbonne. The conversation was related by this citizen to St. Jerome, in the presence of the historian Orosius.
“In the full confidence of valor and victory,” said Adolphus, “I once aspired to change the face of the universe; to obliterate the name of Rome; to erect on its ruins the dominion of the Goths; and to acquire, like Augustus, the immortal fame of the founder of a new empire. By repeated experiments, I was gradually convinced that laws are essentially necessary to maintain and regulate a well-constituted State, and that the fierce, intractable humor of the Goths was incapable of bearing the salutary yoke of laws and civil government. From that moment I proposed to myself a different object of glory and ambition; and it is now my sincere wish that the gratitude of future ages should acknowledge the merit of a stranger who employed the sword of the Goth, not to subvert, but to restore and maintain, the prosperity of the Roman empire.”
In accordance with these views, Adolphus opened negotiations with Honorius, the Roman emperor, who was besieged at Ravenna. He entered into an alliance with him to assist in driving out the barbarians who were on the other side of the Alps. He even sought and obtained in marriage Placidia, a Christian lady, the daughter of Theodosius, and sister of Honorius. This illustrious woman, whose adventurous life we cannot here record, had been highly educated at Constantinople. The bride was young and lovely: the bridegroom was also remarkable for dignity of bearing and manly beauty. Thus the daughter of the decaying house of Rome was wedded to the chieftain of a new dynasty just emerging into fame and power.
The nuptials were conducted with great splendor at Narbonne, in Gaul. Fifty beautiful boys in silken robes presented the bride each two vases,—one filled with golden coin, and the other with precious gems. Even these treasures formed but a very inconsiderable portion of the gifts which werelavished upon Placidia. Adolphus, assuming the character of a Roman general, marched from Italy into Gaul. Driving out the barbarians there, he took possession of the whole country, from the ocean to the Mediterranean. Here Adolphus ere long died, and Placidia returned to her brother Honorius at Ravenna. After an inglorious reign of twenty-eight years, the timid and imbecile Honorius died at Ravenna. His secretary, John, seized the falling sceptre. Another party advocated the claims of the son of the emperor’s widowed sister Placidia, a child of but six years. John was beheaded. The boy, as Valentinian III., was declared emperor. Placidia was appointed regent.
Attila the Hun, whose devastations have procured for him the designation of “the Scourge of God,” now appears prominent upon the scene. At the head of half a million of men, he swept over Gaul and Italy, creating misery which no tongue can adequately tell: it would seem that humanity could scarcely have survived such billows of unutterable woe. All Venetia was ravaged with unsparing slaughter. A portion of the wretched inhabitants, flying in terror before Attila, escaped to a number of marshy islands, but a few feet above the water, at the extremity of the Adriatic Sea. Here they laid the foundations of Venice, the “Queen of the Adriatic,”—that city of the sea, which subsequently almost outvied Rome in opulence, power, and splendor, and whose magnificence, even in decay, attracts tourists from all parts of the world. “The grass never grows,” said this demoniac warrior, “where my horse has once placed his hoof.”
Valentinian III., having attained early manhood, developed an exceedingly profligate character. The Eastern and Western empires were now permanently divided, never again to be united. Arcadius was emperor at Constantinople. Kings generally contrive to live in splendor, whatever may be the poverty of their subjects. St. Chrysostom, in one of his sermons, speaks reproachfully of the splendor in which Arcadius indulged.
“The emperor,” says he, “wears on his head either a diademor a crown of gold, decorated with precious stones of inestimable value. These ornaments and his purple garments are reserved for his sacred person alone. His robes of silk are embroidered with the figures of golden dragons. His throne is of massive gold. Whenever he appears in public, he is surrounded by his courtiers, his guards, and his attendants. Their spears, their shields, their cuirasses, the bridles and trappings of their horses, have either the substance or the appearance of gold.
“The two mules that draw the chariot of the monarch are perfectly white, and shining all over with gold. The chariot, itself of pure and solid gold, attracts the admiration of the spectators, who contemplate the purple curtains, the snowy carpet, the size of the precious stones, and the resplendent plates of gold, which glitter as they are agitated by the motion of the carriage.”
St. Chrysostom, from whose works the above extracts are taken, was one of the most distinguished ecclesiastics and preachers of that day. He had been pastor of the church in Antioch, where, in substitution of his true name of John, he had by his eloquence acquired the epithet of Chrysostom, or “the Golden Mouth.” His renown secured for him the unanimous call of the court, the clergy, and the people, to the archbishopric of Constantinople.
Chrysostom was of noble birth, of ardent piety, highly educated, and was one of the most attractive and powerful of pulpit orators. He had been educated for the law. Becoming a Christian, he devoted himself to the gospel ministry. He lived humbly, devoting the revenues of the bishopric to objects of benevolence. His eloquent discourses, couched in copious and elegant language, and enlivened by an inexhaustible fund of illustrations, drew crowds even from the theatre and the circus. Nearly a thousand of his sermons are preserved. They witness to his“happy art of engaging the passions in the service of virtue, and of exposing the folly as well as the turpitude of vice almost with the truth and spirit of dramatic representation.”[191]