The Roman law.
As there was one government, so there was one law for all the civilized world. Local differences were not considered; the same principles of reason, justice, and humanity were believed to hold whether the Roman citizen lived upon the Euphrates or the Thames. The law of the Roman Empire is its chief legacy to posterity. Its provisions are still in force in many of the states of Europe to-day, and it is one of the subjects of study in our American universities. It exhibited a humanity unknown to the earlier legal codes. The wife, mother, and infant were protected from the arbitrary power of the head of the house, who, in earlier centuries, had been privileged to treat the members of his family as slaves. It held that it was better that a guilty person should escape than that an innocent person should be condemned. It conceived humanity, not as a group of nations and tribes, each with its peculiar institutions and legal customs, but as one people included in one great empire and subject to a single system of law based upon reason and equity.
A Fortified Roman Gateway at TrevesA Fortified Roman Gateway at Treves
Roads and public works.
Magnificent roads were constructed, which enabled the messengers of the government and its armies to reach every part of the Empire with incredible speed. These highways made commerce easy and encouraged merchants and travelers to visit the most distant portions of the realm. Everywhere they found the same coins and the same system of weights and measures. Colonies were sent out to the confines of the Empire, and the remains of great public buildings, of theaters and bridges, of sumptuous villas and baths at places like Treves, Cologne, Bath, and Salzburg indicate how thoroughly the influence and civilization of Rome penetrated to the utmost parts of the territory subject to her rule.
The same culture throughout the Roman Empire.
The government encouraged education by supporting at least three teachers in every town of any considerable importance. They taught rhetoric and oratory and explained the works of the great writers. The Romans, who had no marked literary or artistic ability, had adopted the culture of the Greeks. This was spread abroad by the government teachers so that an educated man was pretty sure to find, even in the outlying parts of the great Empire, other educated men with much the same interests and ideas as his own. Everywhere men felt themselves to be not mere natives of this or that land but citizens of the world.
Loyalty to the Empire and conviction that it was eternal.
During the four centuries from the first emperor, Augustus, to the barbarian invasions we hear of no attempt on the part of its subjects to overthrow the Empire or to secede from it. The Roman state, it was universally believed, was to endure forever. Had a rebellious nation succeeded in throwing off the rule of the emperor and establishing its independence, it would only have found itself outside the civilized world.
Reasons why the Empire lost its power to defend itself against the Germans.
5.Just why the Roman government, once so powerful and so universally respected, finally became unable longer to defend its borders and gave way before the scattered attacks of the German peoples, who never combined in any general allianceagainst it, is a very difficult question to answer satisfactorily. The inhabitants of the Empire appear gradually to have lost their energy and self-reliance and to have become less and less prosperous. This may be explained partially at least by the following considerations: (1) the terrible system of taxation, which discouraged and not infrequently ruined the members of the wealthier classes; (2) the existence of slavery, which served to discredit honest labor and demoralized the free workingmen; (3) the steady decrease of population; (4) the infiltration of barbarians, who prepared the way for the conquest of the western portion of the Empire by their fellow-barbarians.
Oppressive taxation.
It required a great deal of money to support the luxurious court of the emperors and their innumerable officials and servants, and to supply "bread and circuses" for the populace of the towns. All sorts of taxes and exactions were consequently devised by ingenious officials to make up the necessary revenue. The crushing burden of the great land tax, the emperor's chief source of income, was greatly increased by the pernicious way in which it was collected. The government made a group of the richer citizens in each of the towns permanently responsible for the whole amount due from all the landowners within their district. It was their business to collect the taxes and make up any deficiency, it mattered not from what cause. This responsibility and the weight of the taxes themselves ruined so many landowners that the government was forced to decree that no one should desert his estates in order to escape the exactions. Only the very rich could stand the drain on their resources. The middle class sank into poverty and despair, and in this way the Empire lost just that prosperous class of citizens who should have been the leaders in business enterprises.
Slavery.
The sad plight of the poorer laboring classes was largely due to the terrible institution of slavery which prevailedeverywhere in ancient times. So soon as the Romans had begun to conquer distant provinces the number of slaves greatly increased. For six or seven centuries before the barbarian invasions every kind of labor fell largely into their hands in both country and town. There were millions of them. A single rich landholder might own hundreds and even thousands, and it was a poor man that did not have several at least.
The villa.
Land was the only highly esteemed form of wealth in the Roman Empire, in spite of the heavy taxes imposed upon it. Without large holdings of land no one could hope to enjoy a high social position or an honorable office under the government. Consequently the land came gradually into the hands of the rich and ambitious, and the small landed proprietor disappeared. Great estates calledvillascovered Italy, Gaul, and Britain. These were cultivated and managed by armies of slaves, who not only tilled the land, but supplied their master, his household, and themselves with all that was needed on the plantation. The artisans among them made the tools, garments, and other manufactured articles necessary for the whole community, or "family," as it was called. Slaves cooked the food, waited on the proprietor, wrote his letters, and read to him. To a head slave the whole management of the villa was intrusted. A villa might be as extensive as a large village, but all its members were under the absolute control of the proprietor of the estate. A well-organized villa could supply itself with everything that it needed, and found little or no reason for buying from any outsider.
Slavery brings labor into disrepute.
Quite naturally, freemen came to scorn all manual labor and even trade, for these occupations were associated in their minds with the despised slave. Seneca, the philosopher, angrily rejects the suggestion that the practical arts were invented by a philosopher; they were, he declares, "thought out by the meanest bondman."
Competition of slaves fatal to the freeman.
Slavery did more than bring manual labor into disrepute; it largely monopolized the market. Each great household where articles of luxury were in demand relied upon its own host of dexterous and efficient slaves to produce them. Moreover, the owners of slaves frequently hired them out to those who needed workmen, or permitted them to work for wages, and in this way brought them into a competition with the free workman which was fatal to him.
Improved condition of the slaves and their emancipation.
It cannot be denied that a notable improvement in the condition of the slaves took place during the centuries immediately preceding the barbarian invasions. Their owners abandoned the horrible subterranean prisons in which the farm hands were once miserably huddled at night. The law, moreover, protected the slave from some of the worst forms of abuse; first and foremost, it deprived his master of the right to kill him. Slaves began to decrease in numbers before the German invasions. In the first place, the supply had been cut off after the Roman armies ceased to conquer new territory. In the second place, masters had for various reasons begun to emancipate their slaves on a large scale.
The freedman.
The freed slave was called afreedman, and was by no means in the position of one who was born free. It is true that he was no longer a chattel, a mere thing, but he had still to serve his former master,—who had now become his patron,—for a certain number of days in the year. He was obliged to pay him a part of his earnings and could not marry without his patron's consent.
The coloni.
Resemblance between the coloni and the later serfs.
Yet, as the condition of the slaves improved, and many of them became freedmen, the state of the poor freeman only became worse. In the towns, if he tried to earn his living, he was forced to mingle with those slaves who were permitted to work for wages and with the freedmen, and he naturally tended to sink to their level. In the country the free agricultural laborers becamecoloni, a curious intermediate class, neither slave nor really free. They were bound to the particular bitof land which some great proprietor permitted them to cultivate and were sold with it if it changed hands. Like the mediævalserf, they could not be deprived of their fields so long as they paid the owner a certain part of their crop and worked for him during a period fixed by the customs of the domain upon which they lived. This system made it impossible for the farmer to become independent, or for his son to be better off than he. The coloni and the more fortunate slaves tended to fuse into a single class; for the law provided that, like the coloni, certain classes of country slaves were not to be taken from the field which they had been accustomed to cultivate but were to go with it if it was sold.[1]
Moreover, it often happened that the Roman proprietor had a number of dependents among the less fortunate landowners in his neighborhood. These, in order to escape the taxes and gain his protection as the times became more disorderly, surrendered their land to their powerful neighbor with the understanding that he should defend them and permit them to continue during their lifetime to cultivate the fields, the title to which had passed to him. On their death their children became coloni. This arrangement, as we shall find, serves in a measure to explain the feudalism of later times.
Depopulation.
When a country is prosperous the population tends to increase. In the Roman Empire, even as early as Augustus, a falling off in numbers was apparent, which was bound to sap the vitality of the state. War, plague, the evil results of slavery, and the outrageous taxation all combined to hasten the depopulation; for when it is hard to make a living, men are deterred from marrying and find it difficult to bring up large families.
Infiltration of Germans into the Empire.
In order to replenish the population great numbers of the Germans were encouraged to settle within the Empire, where they became coloni. Constantine is said to have called inthree hundred thousand of a single people. Barbarians were enlisted in the Roman legions to keep out their fellow-Germans. Julius Cæsar was the first to give them a place among his soldiers. The expedient became more and more common, until, finally, whole armies were German, entire tribes being enlisted under their own chiefs. Some of the Germans rose to be distinguished generals; others attained important positions among the officials of the government. In this way it came about that a great many of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire were Germans before the great invasions. The line dividing the Roman and the barbarian was growing indistinct. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the influx of barbarians smoothed the way for the break-up of the western part of the Empire. Although they had a great respect for the Roman state, they must have kept some of their German love of individual liberty and could have had little sympathy for the despotism under which they lived.
Decline of literature and art.
6.As the Empire declined in strength and prosperity and was gradually permeated by the barbarians, its art and literature fell far below the standard of the great writers and artists of the golden age of Augustus. The sculpture of Constantine's time was far inferior to that of Trajan's. Cicero's exquisitely finished style lost its charm for the readers of the fourth and fifth centuries, and a florid, inferior species of oratory took its place. Tacitus, who died aboutA.D.120, is perhaps the latest of the Latin authors whose works may be ranked among the classics. No more great men of letters arose. Few of those who understand and enjoy Latin literature to-day would think of reading any of the poetry or prose written after the beginning of the second century.
Reliance upon mere compendiums.
During the three hundred years before the invasions those who read at all did not ordinarily take the trouble to study the classics, but relied upon mere collections of quotations; and for what they called science, upon compendiums and manuals.These the Middle Ages inherited, and it was not until the time of Petrarch, in the fourteenth century, that Europe once more reached a degree of cultivation which enabled the more discriminating scholars to appreciate the best productions of the great authors of antiquity, both Greek and Latin.[2]
Preparation for Christianity.
In spite of the general decline of which we have been speaking, the Roman world appeared to be making progress in one important respect. During the first and second centuries a sort of moral revival took place and a growing religious enthusiasm showed itself, which prepared the way for the astonishingly rapid introduction of the new Christian religion. Some of the pagan philosophers had quite given up the old idea which we find in Homer and Virgil, that there were many gods, and had reached an elevated conception of the one God and of our duty toward Him. "Our duty," writes the philosopher Epictetus at the end of the first century, "is to follow God, ... to be of one mind with Him, to devote ourselves to the performance of His commands." The emperor Marcus Aurelius (d. 180) expresses similar sentiments in hisMeditations,[3]the notes which he wrote for his own guidance. There was a growing abhorrence for the notorious vices of the great cities, and an ever-increasing demand for pure and upright conduct. The pagan religions taught that the souls of the dead continued to exist in Hades; but the life to come was believed to be a dreary existence at best.
Promises of Christianity.
Christianity brought with it a new hope for all those who would escape from the bondage of sin, of which the serious-minded were becoming more and more conscious. It promised, moreover, eternal happiness after death to all who would consistently strive to do right. It appealed to the desires and needs of all kinds of men and women. For every one whoaccepted the Gospel might look forward in the next world to such joy as he could never hope to experience in this.
Christianity and paganism tend to merge into one another.
Boethius.
The new religion, as it spread from Palestine among the Gentiles, was much modified by the religious ideas of those who accepted it. A group of Christian philosophers, who are known as the early fathers, strove to show that the Gospel was in accord with the aspirations of the best of the pagans. In certain ceremonies the former modes of worship were accepted by the new religion. From simple beginnings the church developed a distinct priesthood and an elaborate service. In this way Christianity and the higher forms of paganism tended to come nearer and nearer to each other as time went on. In one sense, it is true, they met like two armies in mortal conflict; but at the same time they tended to merge into one another like two streams which had been following converging courses. At the confluence of the streams stands Boethius (d. about 524), the most gifted of the later Roman writers. His beautiful book,The Consolation of Philosophy, was one of the most popular works during the Middle Ages, when every one believed that its author was a Christian.[4]Yet there is nothing in the book to indicate that he was more than a religious pagan, and some scholars doubt if he ever fully accepted the new religion.
The primitive, or apostolic, church.
7.We learn from the letters of St. Paul that the earliest Christian communities found it necessary to have some organization. They chose certain officers, the bishops—that is to say, overseers—and the presbyters or elders, but St. Paul does not tell us exactly what were the duties of these officers. There were also the deacons, who appear to have had the care of the poor of the community. The first Christians looked for the speedy coming of Christ before their own generation should pass away. Since all were filled with enthusiasm for the Gospel and eagerly awaited the last day, they did not feel the need of an elaborate constitution. But as time went onthe Christian communities greatly increased in size, and many joined them who had little or none of the original fervor and spirituality. It became necessary to develop a regular system of church government in order to control the erring and expel those who brought disgrace upon their religion by notoriously bad conduct.
The 'catholic', or universal, church.
A famous little book,The Unity of the Church, by Bishop Cyprian (d. 258) gives us a pretty good idea of the Church a few decades before the Christian religion was legalized by Constantine. This and other sources indicate that the followers of Christ had already come to believe in a "Catholic"—i.e., a universal—Church which embraced all the communities of true believers wherever they might be. To this one universal Church all must belong who hoped to be saved.[5]
Organization of the church before Constantine.
A sharp distinction was already made between the officers of the Church, who were called theclergy, and the people, orlaity. To the clergy was committed the government of the Church as well as the instruction of its members. In each of the Roman cities was a bishop, and at the head of the country communities, a priest (Latin,presbyter), who had succeeded to the original elders (presbyters) mentioned in the New Testament. Below the bishop and the priest were the lower orders of the clergy,—the deacon and sub-deacon,—and below these the so called minor orders—the acolyte, exorcist, reader, and doorkeeper. The bishop exercised a certain control over the priests within his territory. It was not unnatural that the bishops in the chief towns of the Roman provinces should be especially influential in church affairs. They came to becalledarchbishops, and might summon the bishops of the province to a council to decide important matters.
The first general council, 325. Position of the Bishop of Rome during this period.
In 311 the emperor Galerius issued a decree placing the Christian religion upon the same legal footing as paganism. Constantine, the first Christian emperor, carefully enforced this edict. In 325 the first general council of Christendom was called together under his auspices at Nicæa. It is clear from the decrees of this famous assembly that the Catholic Church had already assumed the form that it was to retain down to the present moment, except that there is no explicit recognition of the Bishop of Rome as the head of the whole church. Nevertheless, there were a number of reasons—to be discussed later—why the Bishop of Rome should sometime become the acknowledged ruler of western Christendom. The first of the Roman bishops to play a really important part in authentic history was Leo the Great, who did not take office until 440.[6]
The Church in the Theodosian Code.
Constantine's successors soon forbade pagan practices and began to issue laws which gave the Christian clergy important privileges. In the last book of the Theodosian Code, a great collection of the laws of the Empire, which was completed in 438, all the imperial decrees are to be found which relate to the Christian Church and the clergy. We find that the clergy, in view of their holy duties, were exempted from certain onerous offices and from some of the taxes which the laity had to pay. They were also permitted to receive bequests. The emperors themselves richly endowed the Church. Their example was followed by rulers and private individuals all through the Middle Ages, so that the Church became incredibly wealthy and enjoyed a far greater income than any state of Europe. The clergy were permitted to try certain cases at law, and they themselves had the privilege of being tried in their own church courts for minor criminal offenses. Thislast book of the Code begins with a definition of the Trinity; and much space is given to a description of the different kinds of unbelievers and the penalties attached to a refusal to accept the religion of the government.[7]
The Church survives the Empire.
In these provisions of the Theodosian Code the later mediæval Church is clearly foreshadowed. The imperial government in the West was soon overthrown by the barbarian conquerors, but the Catholic Church conquered and absorbed the conquerors. When the officers of the Empire deserted their posts the bishops stayed to meet the on-coming invader. They continued to represent the old civilization and ideas of order. It was the Church that kept the Latin language alive among those who knew only a rude German dialect. It was the Church that maintained some little education in even the darkest period of confusion, for without the ability to read Latin its services could not have been performed and its officers could not have carried on their correspondence with one another.
The Eastern Empire.
8.Although the Roman Empire remained one in law, government, and culture until the Germans came in sufficient force to conquer the western portions of it, a tendency may nevertheless be noticed some time before the conquest for the eastern and western portions to drift apart. Constantine, who established his supremacy only after a long struggle with his rivals, hoped to strengthen the vast state by establishing a second capital, which should lie far to the east and dominate a region very remote from Rome. Constantinople was accordingly founded in 330 on the confines of Europe and Asia.[8]This was by no means supposed to destroy the unity of the Empire. Even when Theodosius the Great arranged (395) that both his sons should succeed him, and that one shouldrule in the West and one in the East, he did not intend to divide the Empire. It is true that there continued to be thereafter two emperors, each in his own capital, but they were supposed to govern one empire conjointly and in "unanimity." New laws were to be accepted by both. The writers of the time do not speak of two states but continue to refer to "the Empire," as if the administration were still in the hands of one ruler. Indeed the idea of one government for all civilized mankind did not pass away but continued to influence men during the whole of the Middle Ages.
Although it was in the eastern part of the Empire that the barbarians first got a permanent foothold, the emperors at Constantinople were able to keep a portion of the old possessions of the Empire under their rule for centuries after the Germans had completely conquered the West. When at last the eastern capital of the Empire fell, it was not into the hands of the Germans, but into those of the Turks, who have held it since 1453.
There will be no room in this volume to follow the history of the Eastern Empire, although it cannot be entirely ignored in studying western Europe. Its language and civilization had always been Greek, and owing to this and the influence of the Orient, its culture offers a marked contrast to that of the Latin West, which was adopted by the Germans. Learning never died out in the East as it did in the West, nor did art reach so low an ebb.
Constantinople the most wealthy and populous city of Europe during the early Middle Ages.
For some centuries after the disruption of the Roman Empire in the West, the capital of the Eastern Empire enjoyed the distinction of being the largest and most wealthy city of Europe. Within its walls could be found the indications of a refinement and civilization which had almost disappeared in the Occident. Its beautiful buildings, its parks and paved streets, filled the traveler from the West with astonishment. When, during the Crusades, the westernpeoples were brought into contact with the learning and culture of Constantinople they were greatly and permanently impressed by them.
General Reading.—For an outline of the history of the Roman Empire during the centuries immediately preceding the barbarian invasions, seeBotsford,History of Rome,West,Ancient History to the Death of Charlemagne,Myers,Rome: Its Rise and Fall, orMorey,Outlines of Roman History,—all with plenty of references to larger works on the subject. The best work in English on the conditions in the Empire upon the eve of the invasions isDill,Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire(Macmillan, $2.00).Hatch,The Influence of Greek Thought upon the Christian Church(Williams & Norgate, $1.00), andRenan,The Influence of Rome on the Development of the Catholic Church(Williams & Norgate, $1.00), are very important for the advanced student. The best of the numerous editions of Gibbon's great work,The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which covers the whole history of the Middle Ages, is that edited by Bury (The Macmillan Company, 7 vols., $14.00).
General Reading.—For an outline of the history of the Roman Empire during the centuries immediately preceding the barbarian invasions, seeBotsford,History of Rome,West,Ancient History to the Death of Charlemagne,Myers,Rome: Its Rise and Fall, orMorey,Outlines of Roman History,—all with plenty of references to larger works on the subject. The best work in English on the conditions in the Empire upon the eve of the invasions isDill,Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire(Macmillan, $2.00).Hatch,The Influence of Greek Thought upon the Christian Church(Williams & Norgate, $1.00), andRenan,The Influence of Rome on the Development of the Catholic Church(Williams & Norgate, $1.00), are very important for the advanced student. The best of the numerous editions of Gibbon's great work,The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which covers the whole history of the Middle Ages, is that edited by Bury (The Macmillan Company, 7 vols., $14.00).
The Huns force the Goths into the Empire. Battle of Adrianople, 378.
9.Previous to the year 375 the attempts of the Germans to penetrate into the Empire appear to have been due to their love of adventure, their hope of enjoying some of the advantages of their civilized neighbors, or the need of new lands for their increasing numbers. And the Romans, by means of their armies, their walls, and their guards, had up to this time succeeded in preventing the barbarians from violently occupying their territory. But suddenly a new force appeared which thrust the Germans out upon the weakened Empire. The Huns, a Mongolian folk from central Asia, swept down upon the Goths, who were a German tribe settled upon the Danube, and forced a part of them to seek shelter across the river, within the boundaries of the Empire. Here they soon fell out with the imperial officials, and a great battle was fought at Adrianople in 378 in which the Goths defeated and slew the emperor, Valens. The Germans had now not only broken through the boundaries of the Empire, but they had also learned that they could defeat the Roman legions. The battle of Adrianople may, therefore, be said to mark the beginning of the conquest of the western part of the Empire by the Germans. For some years, however, after the battle of Adrianople the various bands of West Goths—or Visigoths, as they are often called—were induced to accept the terms offered by the emperor's officials and some of the Goths agreed to serve as soldiers in the Roman armies.
The Barbarian InroadsTHE BARBARIAN INROADS
Alaric takes Rome, 410.
Before long one of the German chieftains, Alaric, became dissatisfied with the treatment that he received. He collected an army, of which the nucleus consisted of West Goths, and set out for Italy. Rome fell into his hands in 410 and was plundered by his followers. Alaric appears to have been deeply impressed by the sight of the civilization about him. He did not destroy the city, hardly even did serious damage to it, and he gave especial orders to his soldiers not to injure the churches or take their property.[9]
West Goths settle in southern Gaul and Spain.
Alaric died before he could find a satisfactory spot for his people to settle upon permanently. After his death the West Goths wandered into Gaul, and then into Spain, which had already been occupied by other barbarian tribes,—the Vandals and Suevi. These had crossed the Rhine into Gaul four years before Alaric took Rome; for three years they devastated the country and then proceeded across the Pyrenees. When the West Goths reached Spain they quickly concluded peace with the Roman government. They then set to work to fight the Vandals, with such success that the emperor granted them a considerable district (419) in southern Gaul, where they established a West Gothic kingdom. Ten years after, the Vandals moved on into Africa, where they founded a kingdom and extended their control over the western Mediterranean. Their place in Spain was taken by the West Goths who, under their king, Euric (466–484), conquered a great part of the peninsula,so that their kingdom extended from the Loire to the Straits of Gibraltar.[10]
General dismemberment of the Empire in fifth century.
It is quite unnecessary to follow the confused history of the movements of the innumerable bands of restless barbarians who wandered about Europe during the fifth century. Scarcely any part of western Europe was left unmolested; even Britain was conquered by German tribes, the Angles and Saxons.
Attila and the Huns.
Battle of Châlons, 451.
Founding of Venice.
To add to the universal confusion caused by the influx of the German tribes, the Huns, the Mongolian people who had first pushed the West Goths into the Empire, now began to fill western Europe with terror. Under their chief, Attila,—"the scourge of God," as the trembling Romans called him,—the savage Huns invaded Gaul. But the Roman inhabitants and the Germans joined against the invaders and defeated them in the battle of Châlons, in 451. After this rebuff Attila turned to Italy. But the impending danger was averted. Attila was induced by an embassy, headed by Pope Leo the Great, to give up his plan of marching upon Rome. Within a year he died and with him perished the power of the Huns, who never troubled Europe again. Their threatened invasion of Italy produced one permanent result however; for it was then that fugitives from the cities of northeastern Italy fled to the sandy islets just off the Adriatic shore and founded the town which was to grow into the beautiful and powerful city of Venice.[11]
The 'fall' of the Empire in the West, 476.
Odoacer.
10.The year 476 has commonly been taken as the date of the "fall" of the Western Empire and of the beginning of the Middle Ages. What happened in that year was this. Since Theodosius the Great, in 395, had provided that his two sons should divide the administration of the Empire between them, most of the emperors of the West had proved weak and indolent rulers. The barbarians wandered hither and thitherpretty much at their pleasure, and the German troops in the service of the Empire amused themselves setting up and throwing down puppet emperors. In 476 the German mercenaries in the Roman army demanded that a third part of Italy be given to them. On the refusal of this demand, Odoacer, their leader, banished the last of the western emperors (whose name was, by the irony of fate, Romulus Augustus the Little) to a villa near Naples. Then Odoacer sent the insignia of empire to the eastern emperor with the request that he be permitted to rule Italy as the emperor's delegate, thus putting an end to the line of the western emperors.[12]
Theodoric conquers Odoacer and establishes the kingdom of the East Goths in Italy.
It was not, however, given to Odoacer to establish an enduring German kingdom on Italian soil, for he was conquered by the great Theodoric, the king of the East Goths (or Ostrogoths). Theodoric had spent ten years of his early youth in Constantinople and had thus become familiar with Roman life. Since his return to his people he had been alternately a dangerous enemy and an embarrassing friend to the eastern emperor. The East Goths, under his leadership, had harassed and devastated various parts of the Eastern Empire, and had once threatened the capital itself. The emperor had repeatedly conciliated him by conferring upon him various honors and titles and by making large grants of money and land to his people. It must have been a great relief to the government when Theodoric determined to lead his people to Italy against Odoacer. "If I fail," Theodoric said to the emperor, "you will be relieved of an expensive and troublesome friend; if, with the divine permission, I succeed, I shall govern in your name and to your glory, the Roman Senate and that part of the Empire delivered from slavery by my victorious arms."
The struggle between Theodoric and Odoacer lasted for several years, but Odoacer was finally shut up in Ravenna andsurrendered, only to be treacherously slain a few days later by Theodoric's own hand (493).[13]
The East Goths in Italy.
The attitude of the East Goths toward the people already in possession of the land and toward the Roman culture is significant. Theodoric put the name of the eastern emperor on the coins that he issued and did everything in his power to insure the emperor's approval of the new German kingdom. Nevertheless, although he desired that the emperor should sanction his usurpation, Theodoric had no idea of being really subordinate to Constantinople.
Interior of a Church at Ravenna, built in Theodoric's TimeInterior of a Church at Ravenna, built in Theodoric's Time
The invaders appropriated one third of the land for themselves, but this was done with discretion and no disorder appears to have resulted. Theodoric maintained the Roman laws and institutions, which he greatly admired. The old offices and titles were retained, and Goth and Roman livedunder the same Roman law. Order was restored and learning encouraged. In Ravenna, which Theodoric chose for his capital, beautiful buildings that date from his reign still exist.
The East Goths were Arian heretics.
On his death in 526, Theodoric left behind him an admirably organized state, but it had one conspicuous weakness. The Goths, although Christians, were unorthodox according to the standard of the Italian Christians. They had been converted by eastern missionaries, who taught them the Arian heresy earlier prevalent at Constantinople. This doctrine, which derived its name from Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria (d. 336), had been condemned by the Council of Nicæa. The followers of Arius did not have the same conception of Christ's nature and of the relations of the three members of the Trinity as that sanctioned at Rome. The East Goths were, therefore, not only barbarians,—which might have been forgiven them,—but were guilty, in the eyes of the orthodox Italians, of the unpardonable offense of heresy. Theodoric himself was exceptionally tolerant for his times. His conviction that "we cannot command in matters of religion because no one can be compelled to believe against his will," showed a spirit alien to the traditions of the Roman Empire and the Roman Church, which represented the orthodox belief.
The German kingdoms of Theodoric's time.
11.While Theodoric had been establishing his kingdom in Italy with such enlightenment and moderation, what is now France was coming under the control of the most powerful of the barbarian peoples, the Franks, who were to play a more important rôle in the formation of modern Europe than any of the other German races. Besides the kingdoms of the East Goths and the Franks, the West Goths had their kingdom in Spain, the Burgundians had established themselves on the Rhone, and the Vandals in Africa. Royal alliances were concluded between the reigning houses of these nations, and for the first time in the history of Europe we see something like a family of nations, living each within its own boundaries anddealing with one another as independent powers. It seemed for a few years as if the process of assimilation between Germans and Romans was going to make rapid progress without involving any considerable period of disorder and retrogression.
Map of Europe in the Time of TheodoricMap of Europe in the Time of Theodoric
Extinction of Latin literature.
Boethius.
But no such good fortune was in store for Europe, which was now only at the beginning of the turmoil from which it was to emerge almost completely barbarized. Science, art, and literature could find no foothold in the shifting political sands of the following centuries. Boethius,[14]whom Theodoric put to death (in 524 or 525) for alleged treasonable correspondencewith the emperor, was the last Latin writer who can be compared in any way with the classical authors in his style and mastery of the language. He was a scholar as well as a poet, and his treatises on logic, music, etc., were highly esteemed by following generations.
Cassiodorus and his manuals.
Theodoric's distinguished Roman counselor, Cassiodorus (d. 575), to whose letters we owe a great part of our knowledge of the period, busied himself in his old age in preparing text-books of the liberal arts and sciences,—grammar, arithmetic, logic, geometry, rhetoric, music, and astronomy. His manuals were intended to give the uninstructed priests a sufficient preparation for the study of the Bible and of the doctrines of the Church. His absurdly inadequate and, to us, silly treatment of these seven important subjects, to which he devotes a few pages each, enables us to estimate the low plane to which learning had fallen in Italy in the sixth century. Yet his books were regarded as standard treatises in these great fields of knowledge all through the Middle Ages. So mediæval Europe owed these, and other text-books upon which she was dependent for her knowledge, to the period when Latin culture was coming to an end.
Scarcely any writers in western Europe during the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries.
A long period of gloom now begins. Between the time of Theodoric and that of Charlemagne three hundred years elapsed, during which scarcely a writer was to be found who could compose, even in the worst of Latin, a chronicle of the events of his day.[15]Everything conspired to discourage education. The great centers of learning—Carthage, Rome, Alexandria, Milan—were partially destroyed by the barbarians or the Arabs. The libraries which had been kept in the temples of the gods were often annihilated, along with the pagan shrines, by Christian enthusiasts, who were not sorry to see the heathen literature disappear with the heathen religion. Shortly after Theodoric's death the eastern emperor withdrew the supportwhich the government had hitherto granted to public teachers and closed the great school at Athens. The only important historian of the sixth century was the half-illiterate Gregory, Bishop of Tours (d. 594), whose whole work is unimpeachable evidence of the sad state of intellectual affairs. He at least heartily appreciated his own ignorance and exclaims, in incorrect Latin, "Woe to our time, for the study of letters has perished from among us."
Justinian destroys the kingdoms of the Vandals and the East Goths.
12.The year after Theodoric's death one of the greatest of the emperors of the East, Justinian (527–565), came to the throne at Constantinople.[16]He undertook to regain for the Empire the provinces in Africa and Italy that had been occupied by the Vandals and East Goths. His general, Belisarius, overthrew the Vandal kingdom in northern Africa in 534, but it was a more difficult task to destroy the Gothic rule in Italy. However, in spite of a brave defense, the Goths were so completely defeated in 553 that they agreed to leave Italy with all their movable possessions. What became of the remnants of the race we do not know. They had been too few to maintain their control over the mass of the Italians, who were ready, with a religious zeal which cost them dear, to open their gates to the hostile armies of Justinian.