A Smaller History of Rome / from the Earliest Times to the Establishment of the Empire

by William Smith; Eugene Lawrence

The wealth of the capital was such as might well attract the barbarous invader. The palaces of the Senators were filled with gold and silver ornaments, and the churches had been enriched by the contributions of pious worshipers. Many of the nobles possessed estates which produced several hundred thousand dollars a year, and the wealth of the world was gathered within the walls of its capital.

We have no means of estimating accurately the population of Rome. Its walls embraced a circuit of twenty-one miles, and it is probable that nearly a million of people were contained within the walls and the suburbs.

Such was the condition of Rome when it was about to fall before the arms of the barbarians. August 24th, A.D. 410, Alaric approached the city, and the gates being opened to him by some Gothic slaves, his troops began at night a fearful scene of pillage and destruction. Men, women, and children were involved in a general massacre; nobles and plebeians suffered under a common fate. The Goths, as they entered, set fire to the houses in order to light their path, and the flames consumed a large part of the city. Great numbers of the citizens were driven away in hordes to be sold as slaves; others escaped to Africa, or to the islands on the coast of Italy, where the Goths, having no ships, were unable to follow them. But Alaric, who was an Arian, spared the churches of Rome, and was anxious to save the city from destruction. From this time, however, A.D. 410, began that rapid decay which soon converted Rome into a heap of ruins.

Alaric, after six days given to plunder, marched out of the city, to the southern part of Italy, where he died. His body was buried under the waters of a rivulet, which was turned from its course in order to prepare his tomb; and, the waters being once more led back to their channel, the captives who had performed the labor were put to death, that the Romans might never discover the remains of their Gothic scourge.

The brother of Alaric, Adolphus, who succeeded him, was married to the Princess Placidia, and now became the chief ally of Honorius. He restored Gaul to the empire, but was murdered while upon an expedition into Spain. Wallia, the next Gothic king, reduced all Spain and the eastern part of Gaul under the yoke of the Visigoths. The empire of the West was now rapidly dismembered. The Franks and Burgundians took possession of Gaul. Britain, too, was from this time abandoned by the Romans, and was afterward, in A.D. 448, overrun and conquered by the Angles and the Saxons, and thus the two great races, the English and the French, began.

Arcadius, the Eastern emperor, governed by his minister, the eunuch Eutropius, and by the Empress Eudoxia, was led into many cruelties; and St. Chrysostom, the famous bishop and orator, was one of the illustrious victims of their persecutions. Arcadius died in A.D. 408, and was succeeded by the young Theodosius, who was controlled in all his measures by his sister Pulcheria, and for forty years Pulcheria ruled the East with uncommon ability. Honorius died in A.D. 423, when Valentinian III., son of Placidia, his sister, was made Emperor of the West. He was wholly governed by his mother, and thus Placidia and Pulcheria ruled over the civilized world.

The Vandals, who had settled in the province of Andalusia, in Spain, were invited into Africa by Count Boniface, who had been led into this act of treachery by the intrigues of his rival Ætius. Genseric, the Vandal king, conquered Africa, although Boniface, repenting of his conduct, endeavored to recover the province; and thus Italy was now threatened on the south by the Vandal power in Africa.

The Huns, meantime, who had been detained upon the upper side of the Danube, now crossed that river, being united under the control of Attila, and became the terror of the civilized world. Attila first threatened an attack upon the Eastern empire, but at length turned his arms against the West. He was defeated by Ætius and the Visigoths in A.D. 451, but the next year he invaded Italy, demanded the Princess Honoria in marriage, and destroyed many of the Italian cities. He spared the city of Rome, however, and finally died in A.D. 453. His death alone saved the empire from complete ruin.

Valentinian III., who had put to death the brave commander Ætius, was murdered by the patrician Maximus in A.D. 455. The Vandals now besieged and plundered Rome, and sold many thousands of the citizens as slaves. Avitus, a Gaul, next became emperor by the influence of Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, but was soon deposed by Count Ricimer, and was followed by Majorian, a man of merit, who endeavored to reform the nation. He died in A.D. 461. Count Ricimer then declared Severus emperor, but was forced to apply for aid against the Vandals to the court of Constantinople, where Leo was now emperor. Leo appointed Anthemius to the throne of the West, and sent an army against the Vandals in Africa, which was totally defeated. Ricimer then deposed Anthemius, and declared Olybrius emperor; but both Ricimer and Olybrius died in A.D. 472. Leo next appointed Julius Nepos his colleague. Glycerius, an obscure soldier, made an effort to obtain the throne, but yielded to Nepos, and became Bishop of Salona. Orestes, who had succeeded Count Ricimer as commander of the barbarian mercenaries, deprived Nepos of his throne; and Nepos, having fled into Dalmatia, was executed by his old rival Glycerius.

Orestes gave the throne to his son Romulus, to whom he also gave the title of Augustus, which was afterward changed by common consent to Augustulus. But Odoacer, the leader of the German tribes, put Orestes to death, sent Augustulus into banishment, with a pension for his support, and, having abolished the title of emperor, in A.D. 476 declared himself King of Italy.