General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

The barbarians laying siege to the city, famine soon forced the Romans to sue for terms of surrender. The ambassadors of the Senate, when they came before Alaric, began, in lofty language, to warn him not to render the Romans desperate by hard or dishonorable terms: their fury when driven to despair, they represented, was terrible, and their number enormous. "The thicker the grass, the easier to mow it," was Alaric's derisive reply. The barbarian chieftain at length named the ransom that he would accept, and spare the city. Small as it comparatively was, the Romans were able to raise it only by the most extraordinary measures. The images of the gods were stripped of their ornaments of gold and precious stones, and even the statues themselves were melted down.

SACK OF ROME BY ALARIC (A.D. 410).—Upon retiring from Rome, Alaric established his camp in Etruria. Here he was joined by great numbers of fugitive slaves, and by fresh accessions of barbarians from beyond the Alps. The Gallic king now demanded for his followers lands of Honorius, but the emperor treated all the proposals of the barbarian with foolish insolence. Rome paid the penalty. Alaric turned upon the devoted city, determined upon its sack and plunder. The barbarians broke into the capital by night, "and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet." Precisely eight hundred years had passed since its sack by the Gauls. During that time the Imperial City had carried its victorious standards over three continents, and had gathered within the temples of its gods and the palaces of its nobles the plunder of the world. Now it was given over for a spoil to the fierce tribes from beyond the Danube.

Alaric commanded his soldiers to respect the lives of the people, and to leave untouched the treasures of the Christian temples; but the wealth of the citizens he encouraged them to make their own. For six days and nights the rough barbarians trooped through the streets of the city on their mission of pillage. Their wagons were heaped with the costly furniture, the rich plate, and the silken garments stripped from the palaces of the wealthy patricians and the temples of the gods. Amidst the license of the sack, the barbarian instincts of the robbers broke loose from all restraint, and the city was everywhere wet with blood, while the nights were lighted with burning buildings.

EFFECTS OF THE DISASTER UPON PAGANISM.—The overwhelming disaster that had befallen the Imperial City produced a profound impression upon both Pagans and Christians throughout the Roman world. The former asserted that these unutterable calamities had fallen upon the Roman state because of the abandonment by the people of the worship of the gods of their forefathers, under whose protection and favor Rome had become the mistress of the world. The Christians, on the other hand, saw in the fall of the Eternal City the fulfilment of the prophecies against the Babylon of the Apocalypse. The latter interpretation of the appalling calamity gained credit amidst the panic and despair of the times. The temples of the once popular deities were deserted by their worshippers, who had lost faith in gods that could neither save themselves nor protect their shrines from spoliation. "Henceforth," says Merivale, "the power of paganism was entirely broken, and the indications which occasionally meet us of its continued existence are rare and trifling. Christianity stepped into its deserted inheritance. The Christians occupied the temples, transforming them into churches."

THE DEATH OF ALARIC.—After withdrawing his warriors from Rome, Alaric led them southward. As they moved slowly on, they piled still higher the wagons of their long trains with the rich spoils of the cities and villas of Campania and other districts of Southern Italy. In the villas of the Roman nobles the rough barbarians spread rare banquets from the stores of their well-filled cellars, and drank from jewelled cups the famed Falernian wine.

Alaric led his soldiers to the extreme southern point of Italy, intending to cross the Straits of Messina into Sicily, and, after subduing that island, to carry his conquests into the provinces of Africa. His designs were frustrated by his death, which occurred A.D. 412. With religious care his followers secured the body of their hero against violation by his enemies. The little river Busentinus, in Northern Bruttium, was turned from its course with great labor, and in the bed of the stream was constructed a tomb, in which was placed the body of the king, with his jewels and trophies. The river was then restored to its old channel, and, that the exact spot might never be known, the prisoners who had been forced to do the work were all put to death.

THE BARBARIANS SEIZE THE WESTERN PROVINCES.—We must now turn our eyes from Rome and Italy to observe the movement of events in the provinces. In his efforts to defend Italy, Stilicho had withdrawn the last legion from Britain, and had drained the camps and fortresses of Gaul. The Wall of Antoninus was left unmanned; the passages of the Rhine were left unguarded; and the agitated multitudes of barbarians beyond these defences were free to pour their innumerable hosts into all the fair provinces of the empire. Hordes of Suevi, Alani, Vandals, and Burgundians overspread all the plains and valleys of Gaul. The Vandals pushed on into the south of Spain, and there occupied a large tract of country, which, in its present name of Andalusia, preserves the memory of its barbarian settlers. From these regions they crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, overran the Roman provinces of Northern Africa, captured Carthage (A.D. 439), and made that city the seat of the dread empire of the Vandals. The Goths, with Italy pillaged, recrossed the Alps, and establishing their camps in the south of Gaul and the north of Spain, set up in those regions what is known as the Kingdom of the Visigoths.

In Britain, upon the withdrawal of the Roman legions, the Picts breaking over the Wall of Antoninus, descended upon and pillaged the cities of the South. The half-Romanized and effeminate provincials—no match for their hardy kinsmen who had never bowed their necks to the yoke of Rome—were driven to despair by the ravages of their relentless enemies, and, in their helplessness, invited to their aid the Angles and Saxons from the shores of the North Sea. These people came in their rude boats, drove back the invaders, and, being pleased with the soil and climate of the island, took possession of the country for themselves, and became the ancestors of the English people.

INVASION OF THE HUNS: BATTLE OF CHALONS.—The barbarians that were thus overrunning and parcelling out the inheritance of the dying empire were now, in turn, pressed upon and terrified by a foe more hideous and dreadful in their eyes than were they in the sight of the peoples among whom they had thrust themselves. These were the non-Aryan Huns, of whom we have already caught a glimpse as they drove the panic-stricken Goths across the Danube. At this time their leader was Attila, whom the affrighted inhabitants of Europe called the "Scourge of God." It was declared that the grass never grew again where once the hoof of Attila's horse had trod.

Attila defeated the armies of the Eastern emperor, and exacted tribute from the court of Constantinople. Finally he turned westward, and, at the head of a host numbering, it is asserted, 700,000 warriors, crossed the Rhine into Gaul, purposing first to ravage that province, and then to traverse Italy with fire and sword, in order to destroy the last vestige of the Roman power.