History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce, Volume 1 (of 4)

by W. S. Lindsay

Siege of Rome by Alaric and the Goths, A.D. 408.

Such was the state of the western capital of the once proud and powerful Roman empire, when the Gothic army first appeared before it. The barbarian Goths had greatly improved in discipline since they made their first invasion of Italy; they were well organised, and under the absolute control of Alaric, a commander in whom they had a confidence approaching to devotion. Their first action against the city itself was rather in the nature of a blockade, for they cut off all communication with it by land, while they held the mouths of the Tiber; hence, in spite of their rage and humiliation, the Romans saw at once that they had no alternative but submission, and it is to the credit of the victorious leader of the Goths that the terms he imposed were neither severe nor extravagant.

From Rome Alaric continued his march into Tuscany, where vast numbers of enslaved barbarians flocked to his standard; so that with the reinforcement of a large body of Goths and Huns, who had fought their way from the banks of the Danube, he had now, under his command, an army sufficient to overawe the whole of Italy. By this time the prestige of Rome had gone for ever; she was now destined to become the frequent prey of the barbarians of the north, till the tribes of Germany and Scythia, who had so long coveted her wealth, at length accomplished her destruction.

A.D. 409.

A.D. 413.

A.D. 427-439.

A.D. 409-426.

The first half of the century which saw Rome blockaded was full of events, all tending towards her final overthrow. Spain, separated from the enemies of Rome by her insular position and the Pyrenean mountains, had been almost undisturbed for four hundred years by foreign invaders or civil wars. It was her turn now. Ten months after Alaric’s attack on the capital, the Vandals and other barbarous tribes found their way thither, and plundered her rich and prosperous cities, her valuable mines, and her fruitful plains. Soon afterwards Africa revolted; the consul, Heraclian, assumed the title of emperor, and prepared a vast fleet for the invasion of Italy; but though he failed in his designs, Carthage and the whole of Africa were prepared, by this outbreak, for subjugation by the Vandals under Genseric, their able and energetic leader. Revolutions arose in Gaul. Its most opulent provinces became the prey of the barbarians, and its fairest and most fertile lands fell into the hands of rapacious strangers, and were assigned for the use of their families, their slaves, and their cattle. About the same time the regular forces were withdrawn from Britain, and the defenceless islanders abandoned to the Welsh and Scotch semi-savages and to the Saxon invaders. We cannot, therefore, be surprised that, reduced as she was by constant wars and invasions, distracted by the folly and weakness of her own people, and despoiled of her best provinces, the Imperial City itself fell an easy prey to the Vandal hosts of Genseric.

Genseric.

Having made himself master of Carthage, and having confiscated all the estates belonging to the Roman nobles and senators, Genseric at once resolved to build a fleet for the blockade of the Tiber, and to treat the Imperial City as she had treated Carthage. His bold resolve was executed with steady and active perseverance. The woods on Mount Atlas afforded an inexhaustible supply of timber suitable for his purpose, while the Moors and Africans, alike skilled in the arts of ship-building and navigation, were ready to execute commands which held out the hope of unlimited plunder. Nor, indeed, was Genseric without other and certain inducements to act at once on the plan he had proposed to himself. In the first place, he could hardly have failed to know that since the invasion of Alaric, the nobles and senators of Rome had sunk into their former state of apathy and indolence; that they were giving no heed to the dangers besetting their capital, while they had taken no warning from the losses they had sustained by the frequent invasions of the barbarians. “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof” had become their maxim and that of the Emperor Maximus, who, however incapable of administering an empire, might at least have ascertained the extent and the object of the naval preparations on the opposite shore of Africa. Yet, like his nobles, he was content to await in luxurious ease the approach of the enemy, careless alike of any means of defence, of negotiation, or of retreat.[344]