Italian Yesterdays, vol. 1

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

It is difficult to understand how the grandson of “Gratian the rope-maker”—that rough country lad who wandered into the Roman camp at Cibalæ in Pannonia to sell his wares, and so pleased the soldiers by his strength and audacity that they kept him with them—should have come to be the very model and ideal of a gentle knight, both in heart and person. He seems far more nearly allied to the noble Constantine, of whom he speaks indeed as a parent, but only on the ground of having married his granddaughter Constantia. It was an age when the unending ramifications of the various Imperial families furnished more occupants for thrones than there were thrones to occupy, and in which a successful claimant could almost always find a royal bride with whose name to strengthen his own hold on power. Add to this multiplicity of true heirs the numberless usurpers who struck but for themselves, or those whom the different Legions raised to the purple for their own ends (“barrack Emperors” as our own great historian, Thomas Hodgkin, called them), and you have such a bewildering crowd of Emperors and sham Emperors, of usurpers and rival usurpers, that one can scarcely remember their names, and their histories only awake a passing thrill of pity for the violent ends to which most of them came.

One of the usurpers indeed (Magnentius by name) left an important, if disturbing, legacy to the world in the person of his widow Justina, a beautiful but not over-wise Sicilian woman whom his conqueror, Valentinian, already the father of Gratian, took to wife. The story of her triumphs and misfortunes, of the obstinate championship of the Arian heresy which brought her into such a series of battles with St. Ambrose, would fill volumes, and one gathers that she was a great thorn in the side of her stepson Gratian, who, while obliged to restrain her as far as possible, nevertheless treated her with unvarying kindness and deference. One of the most touching incidents in the life of the boy Emperor is the fear and depression expressed in the letter in which he beseeches St. Ambrose to send him some good book from which he can draw faith and courage in the struggle lying before him, the subjugation of the Goths, who had rebelled against his Arian uncle, Valens, still the reigning Emperor in the East. St. Ambrose responds by writing and sending his treatise “Of Faith,” and from that time forth it is said that Gratian carried the little book about with him, studying it even in his chariot when on his travels.

These were never-ending, his vigilance driving him hither and thither, to settle disputes, subdue rebellions, to pacify his still barbarous allies or correct the misdemeanours of iniquitous governors of provinces. His actual reign only lasted seven or eight years, but very little even of that time can have been passed at the nominal seat of government, Augusta Treverorum, the modern Treves, at that time the finest and best fortified city in the Empire, and showing, even now, magnificent blocks of fortress long put to base uses, but in these days restored to the original ones by the energetic militarism of Prussia.

If Gratian was fortunate in having the holy Ambrose and the wise Ausonius to instruct him in the Faith and in the humanities, he was hardly less so in the military adviser who taught him the arts of war. The old Frankish general, Merobaudes, is one of the people I always feel I should have liked to know. He was as loyal as he was valiant and experienced, and the young Emperor reposed implicit and well-merited trust in him. But even his craft and courage could not save Gratian from falling a victim to treachery at last.

In spite of his elevated and attractive character, his prudence, his zeal, his clemency, there were two parties in the Empire of whom one remained and the other became irreconcilable to Gratian’s policy. The first, though not the most powerful, consisted of the large number of Senators and nobles in Rome who adhered to the old pagan worship with the tenacity of despair. It had never been proscribed, but its outward ceremonies were discouraged when they were not actually forbidden; idols had been removed from the public places where it was customary to burn incense before them, and in some instances revenues pertaining to the discredited faith had been diverted to other uses. The partisans of paganism, counting on Gratian’s youth and inexperience, made repeated efforts to obtain from him some official recognition of the ancient religion, particularly in the matter of replacing the Altar of Victory, which Constantius, a zealous though Arian Christian, had removed from the Senate hall in the Capitol where it had stood for four hundred years. They also attempted to persuade him to take on the state and robes of “Pontifex Maximus,” the head and high priest of the cult of the Olympian deities. Some of Gratian’s immediate predecessors had been either indulgent or indifferent about such matters, and had now and then yielded a point to the old traditions, but the young and ardent Gratian looked upon these weaknesses with horror and met such demands with stern and uncompromising denial. When the hierophants who had besought him to assume the robe of the chief of their order withdrew, in sullen mortification, from the audience, their leader uttered a prediction which proved to be a threat: “The Emperor may refuse this honour, but in spite of him there will soon be another Pontifex Maximus.” This was later construed into a prophecy, pointing to the usurper Maximus who, for the sorrow of the Empire, snatched the purple and held it for a while after Gratian’s death.

This Maximus, a Spaniard of low extraction, was both the mouthpiece and the tool of the other and far more powerful party in the Empire which had some show of reason for being discontented with Gratian’s rule, the Roman Legionaries whose jealousy was aroused by his frank preference for his Gothic and Teutonic fighting men. The preference was fully justified; the “Barbarians,” as the Romans still affected to call them, were brave, clean-living loyal soldiers, great fair-haired fellows rejoicing in feats of strength and in the display of rich ornaments on their handsome persons; they were far more sympathetic to Gratian than the decadent Romans, many of whom, as Hodgkin points out, were themselves the effeminate descendants of quite recently Romanised aliens. The parvenu is always the most zealous defender of the privileges of the class to which he has been undeservedly promoted; they made no secret of their discontent when the Emperor chose some big, genial Alani for his bodyguard and for many positions of honour and sent a couple of Roman Legions to improve their health and mend their ways in the sad isle of Britain.

It is amusing to read the wailing complaints of the exiled sybarites, condemned to what they considered a kind of convict station and quite the most miserable spot in the world. What, they, the flower of the aristocracy and the army, were to pass their precious time in dreary solitudes where the sun never shone, where grapes did not grow, and where the pay of an officer did not permit him even a decent glass of wine? Live under grey skies, on a soggy island cut off from the real world by most uncomfortably rough seas (the Latin is a wretched sailor to this day), where there was no music, no fun, and scarcely any pretty women—and, for their sole occupation, to have to keep the savage inhabitants from exterminating one another? No, it was not to be borne! And, after the usual time had passed in ever more angry grumbling, the Legions revolted, deposed the absent and unconscious Gratian, and named Maximus Emperor in his stead.

Had the garrison of Great Britain alone been in question, we should most likely never have heard of their mutiny, but that was unfortunately not the case. The jealousy and discontent in Gaul and other portions of the realm had spread and smouldered till but a single touch was needed to make it burst out in a blaze. That was applied by Maximus, who now, with a large body of troops, abandoned Britain and appeared in Gaul at the mouth of the Rhine. Gratian, who had been subduing some hostile tribes, hastened back to his camp to find that a large proportion of his men had deserted him to join his rival. He could still count, however, on sufficient numbers to give him hopes of success, and one is glad to read that the good veteran Merobaudes was with him and that another brave captain, one Vallio, clung to him loyally in this great emergency. They found Maximus encamped near Paris, but all their efforts failed to draw him to do battle. The crafty adventurer kept the commanders busy with feints of attack and cleverly planned skirmishes, and utilised the time thus gained to draw the Emperor’s men to desert, by lavish bribes and promises. At the end of a few days Gratian, who had no money wherewith to buy fidelity, found himself forsaken by all but his two old friends and some three hundred horsemen, and, in bitter humiliation and anger, turned to flee, hoping to reach Milan, the first point where he would have been able to pause in safety. The journey was a terrible one; the news of his disaster travelled faster than he did, every door was closed to him, and he could scarcely procure food enough to sustain life. Meanwhile the pursuers, led by one Andragathius, his bitterest enemy, raced at his heels, and every day that passed diminished his chances of escape. But the faith and courage of which he had given so many proofs before did not leave him now. A hunted fugitive, forsaken and starving, he never wavered or repined. “My soul waiteth upon God,” he said. “My foes can slay my body, but they cannot quench the life of my soul.”

He was taken by treachery at last. As he drew near the city of Lyons, he perceived, on the opposite bank of the Rhone, a litter hurrying along escorted only by a few servants. Some one told him that the traveller was Læta, the beautiful girl he had just married, Constantia having died some little time before. He insisted on crossing the river—rushed to the litter—and was instantly caught in the arms of Andragathius, triumphant at the success of the snare he had prepared. Gratian was conducted, with some show of respect, to Lyons, where, with every appearance of sincere deference, he was invited to wear the Imperial Purple and to take his place at a magnificent banquet. He was not wholly deceived by these specious attentions, and asked his entertainers to give their oath that no harm was intended. This they did, most solemnly; Gratian, incapable of believing in their deliberate perjury, consented to their request, and a few moments later fell, stabbed to the heart, calling on Ambrose with his last breath.

The great Bishop had suffered agonies of suspense about his beloved pupil from the moment he had received the news of his discomfiture. He followed him in spirit on his flight, saw in mind all his suffering and danger, and was utterly broken-hearted when he learnt of his cruel and untimely death at the hands of the usurper Maximus. But the bitterest moment in the Saint’s whole life must have come, when, a little later, Justina, wild with anxiety as to the fate meditated for her own young son Valentinian (he had been associated with Gratian as Emperor, dethroned by Maximus, and was now twelve years old), twice prevailed upon him to travel to Treves and intercede with the murderer for the boy’s life and for peace. The studied insults inflicted upon Ambrose by Maximus on that occasion were hard to bear, but we have it from his own lips that the internal trial of holding intercourse with the slayer of his beloved pupil was a furnace of tribulation, which at times threatened to overcome every consideration of policy and necessity, and for which the partial success of his missions in no way consoled him. For Maximus, after being foiled in his attempts to get possession of the person of Valentinian, decided that he had gone far enough in extermination and, being firmly seated on the throne, consented to let the boy appear to share it with him for a time. Of Gratian’s two friends, Merobaudes and Vallio—the former, seeing a disgraceful death awaiting him, took his own life; the latter, apparently by the orders of Maximus, was privately hanged, and it was given out that he had killed himself in this cowardly manner because he—the staunch fighting man—was afraid of cold steel! The incident reminds one of the recent murder of the French Freemason, who, on his conversion to Christianity, became the victim of a similar fate and a similar calumny, inflicted by former associates. Even the Devil makes very stupid mistakes sometimes.