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

by W. S. Lindsay

His capture of Rome.

Within three days of a popular tumult which closed in ignominy the life of another feeble emperor, Genseric advanced from the port of Ostia to the gates of the defenceless city. An unarmed procession, headed by the bishop and clergy, met him and implored his mercy. But, though the barbarian conqueror promised to spare the unresisting multitude, to protect the buildings from fire, and to exempt the captives from torture, Rome and its inhabitants were given over to the licentious mercies of his army—a tardy but terrible revenge for the Roman sack of Carthage. During fourteen days and nights there was one almost uninterrupted scene of plunder and sacrilege, and all that remained of public or private wealth, of sacred or profane treasure, was transported to the vessels of the Vandal king. The “gold table” and “the golden candlestick with seven branches,” which, three and a half centuries before, Titus had carried away from Jerusalem, were now transferred, by a barbarian conqueror, from Rome to Africa. The gorgeous decorations of the Christian churches, and of the Pagan temples, constituted a rich prize to the host of Genseric. Having time to collect and ships to transport any removable article of value in the capital, the conqueror spared neither church nor temple, dwelling-house, nor palace. The magnificent furniture and massive plate with which the palace of the emperor was furnished, were gathered up with disorderly rapine; even brass and copper were not beneath the notice of the Vandals, and were, whenever found, as carefully removed as articles of gold and silver. The Empress Eudoxia herself, at whose instigation, it is said, Genseric had been led to undertake his expedition, was compelled, with her daughters, to follow as a captive in the train of the conqueror, and to expiate, during a seven years’ exile in Africa, a treason of which her subjects alone had any ground of complaint.[345]

Rise of Constantinople.

When Rome fell, the sovereign of the eastern empire claimed, and long maintained, the fictitious title of Emperor of the Romans, adopting the hereditary names of Cæsar and Augustus, and declaring himself the legitimate successor of the imperial rulers of Rome; and, indeed, if mere splendour was enough to support such a claim, the emperors of Constantinople were well justified in all their assertions. The palaces of Constantinople rivalled, if they did not surpass, the gorgeousness of Rome in her proudest days; while in barbaric “pomp and circumstance,” and in their Oriental and tawdry magnificence, they unquestionably stood alone. Moreover, the emperor at Constantinople was inaccessible alike to the complaints of his own people and to the menaces of his enemies, the peninsular position of the city rendering it during many centuries impregnable against the attack of foes from without, so that the barbarian armies which had swept Europe and Africa from end to end, turned aside from a fortress no military knowledge or skill then available could have reduced.

For some time it would seem that Genseric remained undisturbed, for Leo, the eastern emperor, was little disposed to avenge his brother of the west. At length, however, he was obliged, or persuaded, to join Egypt and Italy in an attempt to deliver the Mediterranean from the sway of the Vandals, Genseric having become as oppressive on land as he was formidable at sea. By extraordinary exertions a vast fleet was collected, chiefly, as the historians inform us, at the cost of the emperor himself; but it was feebly commanded, and its destruction inevitable as soon as it should come into collision with so veteran a general as Genseric. Though it would seem that, at the first landing near Carthage, the attack on the Vandals was successful, their wily leader, obtaining from the commander of the Greeks a hollow truce, and watching the opportunity of a favourable change of the wind, suddenly launched his fire-ships on his unsuspecting foes. More than half their fleet was destroyed, and Genseric was again ready to complete the final destruction of Rome.[346] “Leave the determination to the winds,” was the favourite reply of the Vandal king when asked whither he meant to steer; “they will transport us to the guilty coast whose inhabitants have provoked Divine justice.”

During the fifty years that intervened between the fall of the Roman empire of the West, and the memorable reign of Justinian, Italy revived and flourished under the good and wise government of a Gothic king, who, with abilities equal to those of Genseric, had few of his vices and none of his predatory habits. During that period, also, the vast changes which had taken place in the ancient provinces of Rome had become consolidated, and out of these had arisen various independent nations destined to occupy a conspicuous position in the maritime commerce of the world. The rude tribes of the North had, to some extent at least, been blended with the more civilized and refined inhabitants of the South; and an admixture of races had taken place, which, though adverse for a while to the cause of learning, was of solid advantage to the people, tending, on the one hand, to save from entire annihilation the little refinement still preserved, and, on the other, softening and materially improving the hardier and ruder tribes. Constantinople, undisturbed by foreign invaders, reaped the advantages of a prosperous commerce, and when Justinian ascended the throne, was one of the most important commercial cities in the world.

A.D. 537.

A.D. 547.

A.D. 553.

A.D. 728.