Our knowledge of Roman painting is almost wholly confined to the wall paintings found at Rome, Herculaneum, and Pompeii. What has survived is apparently the work of ordinary craftsmen, who, if not Greeks, were deeply affected by the Greek spirit. Most of the scenes they depict are taken from classical mythology. The coloring is very rich; and the peculiar shade of red used is known to-day by the name of "Pompeian red." The practice of mural painting passed over from the Romans to European artists, who have employed it in the frescoes of medieval and modern churches.
Athens and Rome were the artistic centers of the classical world. Architects, sculptors, and painters lavished their finest efforts on the adornment of these two capitals. Here there are still to be seen some of the most beautiful and impressive monuments of antiquity.
Athens lies in the center of the Attic plain, about four miles from the sea. [42] The city commands a magnificent view of purple-hued mountains and the shining waters of the Aegean. Roads approached the ancient city from all parts of Attica. Among these were the highway from Piraeus, running between the Long Walls, [43] and the Sacred Way from Eleusis, where the famous mysteries were yearly celebrated. [44] The suburbs of Athens included the Outer Ceramicus, part of which was used as a national cemetery, and a pleasure ground and gymnasium on the banks of the Cephissus, called the Academy. Another resort, known as the Lyceum, bordered the little stream of the Ilissus.
The traveler who passed through these suburbs came at length to the great wall, nearly five miles in circumference, raised by Themistocles to surround the settlement at the foot of the Acropolis. [45] The area included within this wall made up Old Athens. About six centuries after Themistocles the Roman emperor Hadrian, by building additional fortifications on the east, brought an extensive quarter, called New Athens, inside the city limits.
The region within the walls was broken up by a number of rocky eminences which have a prominent place in the topography of Athens. Near the center the Acropolis rises more than two hundred feet above the plain, its summit crowned with monuments of the Periclean Age. Not far away is the hill called the Areopagus. Here the Council of the Areopagus, a court of justice in trials for murder, held its deliberations in the open air. Beyond this height is the hill of the Pnyx. This was the meeting place of the Athenian Assembly until the fourth century B.C., when the sessions were transferred to the theater of Dionysus.
[Illustration: Map, ATHENS]
The business and social center of an ancient city was the agora or market place. The Athenian Agora lay in the hollow north of the Areopagus and Acropolis. The square was shaded by rows of plane trees and lined with covered colonnades. In the great days of the city, when the Agora was filled with countless altars and shrines, it presented a most varied and attractive scene.
Not all the splendid structures in Athens were confined to the Agora and the Acropolis. On a slight eminence not far from the Agora, rose the so- called "Theseum," [46] a marble temple in the Doric order. Another famous temple, the colossal edifice known as the Olympieum, lay at some distance from the Acropolis on the southeast. Fifteen of the lofty columns with their Corinthian capitals are still standing. The theater of Dionysus [47] is in a fair state of preservation. Beyond this are the remains of the Odeum, or "Hall of Song," used for musical contests and declamations. The original building was raised by Pericles, in imitation, it is said, of the tent of Xerxes. The present ruins are those of the structure erected in the second century A.D. by a public-spirited benefactor of Athens.
The adornment of the Acropolis formed perhaps the most memorable achievement of Pericles. [48] This rocky mount was approached on the western side by a flight of sixty marble steps. To the right of the stairway rose a small but very beautiful Ionic temple dedicated to Athena. Having mounted the steps, the visitor passed through the superb entrance gate, or Propylaea, which was constructed to resemble the front of a temple with columns and pediment. Just beyond the Propylaea stood a great bronze statue of the Guardian Athena, a masterpiece of the sculptor Phidias.
[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS (RESTORATION)]
[Illustration: ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS FROM THE SOUTHWEST]
The Erechtheum, a temple which occupies part of the Acropolis, is in the Ionic style. It may be regarded as the best existing example of this light and graceful order. Perhaps the most interesting feature is the porch of the Caryatides, with a marble roof supported by six pillars carved in the semblance of maidens. [49] This curious but striking device has been often copied by modern architects.
The other temple on the Acropolis is the world-famed edifice known as the Parthenon, the shrine of the Virgin of the Athena. [50] The Parthenon illustrates the extreme simplicity of a Greek temple. It had no great size or height and included only two chambers. The rear room stored sacred vessels and furniture used in worship, state treasure, and the more valuable offerings intrusted to the goddess for safekeeping. The second and larger room contained a colossal gold and ivory statue of Athena, the work of Phidias. It faced the eastern entrance so that it might be bathed in the rays of the rising sun. Apart from the large doors a certain amount of light reached the interior through the semi-transparent marble tiles of the roof. The Doric columns surrounding the building are marvels of fine workmanship. The Parthenon, because of its perfection of construction and admirable proportions, is justly regarded as a masterpiece of architecture.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE PARTHENONThe larger room (cella) measured exactly one hundred feet in length.]
The Parthenon was also remarkable for its sculptures [51] executed under the superintendence of Phidias. The subjects of the pediment sculptures are taken from the mythic history of Athena. The frieze of the Parthenon consists of a series of sculptured slabs, over five hundred feet in length. The subject was the procession of the Great Panathenaea, [52] the principal festival in honor of Athena. At this time the sacred robe of the goddess, woven anew for each occasion, was brought to adorn her statue. The procession is thought of as starting from the western front, where Athenian youths dash forward on their spirited steeds. Then comes a brilliant array of maidens, matrons, soldiers, and luteplayers. Near the center of the eastern front they meet a group of divinities, who are represented as spectators of the imposing scene. This part of the frieze is still in excellent condition.
It was, indeed, a splendid group of buildings that rose on the Acropolis height. If to-day they have lost much of their glory, we can still understand how they were the precious possession of the Athenians and the wonder of all the ancient world. "O shining, violet-crowned city of song, great Athens, bulwark of Hellas, walls divine!" The words are those of an old Greek poet, [53] but they are reëchoed by all who have come under the magic spell of the literature and art of the Athenian city.
The monuments of Rome, unlike those of Athens, cannot lay claim to great antiquity. The destruction wrought by the Gauls in 390 B.C. and the great fire under Nero in 64 A.D. removed nearly all traces of the regal and republican city. Many buildings erected in the imperial age have also disappeared, because in medieval and modern times the inhabitants of Rome used the ancient edifices as quarries. The existing monuments give only a faint idea of the former magnificence of the capital city.
The city of Rome lies on the Tiber. Where the river approaches Rome it makes two sharp turns, first to the west and then to the east. On the western, or Etruscan, bank stood the two hills called Vatican and Janiculum. They were higher than the famous seven which rose on the eastern side, where the ancient city was built. Two of these seven hills possess particular interest. The earliest settlement, as we have seen, [54] probably occupied the Palatine. It became in later days the favorite site for the town houses of Roman nobles. In the imperial age the splendid palaces of the Caesars were located here. The Capitoline, steepest of the seven hills, was divided into two peaks. On one of these rose the most famous of all Roman temples, dedicated to Jupiter and his companion deities, Juno and Minerva. The other peak was occupied by a large temple of Juno Moneta ("the Adviser"), which served as the mint. The altars, shrines, and statues which once covered this height were so numerous that the Capitoline, like the Athenian Acropolis, became a museum of art.
[Illustration: Map, ROME]
Rome in early times was surrounded by a wall which bore the name of its legendary builder, Servius Tullius. The present fortifications were not constructed until the reign of the emperor Aurelian. [55] The ancient city was closely built up, with only two great open spaces, in addition to the Forum. These were the Circus Maximus, in the hollow between the Palatine Mount and the Aventine, and the Campus Martius, stretching along the Tiber to the northwest of the Capitoline Hill.
Following the map of ancient Rome under the empire we may note the more important monuments which still exist in something like their original condition. Across the Tiber and beyond the Campus Martius stands the mausoleum of Hadrian. [56] The most notable structure in the Campus Martius is the Pantheon. [57] It is the one ancient building in the entire Roman world which still survives, inside and out, in a fair state of preservation. The depression between the Caelian and Esquiline hills contains the Flavian Amphitheater, better known as the Colosseum. [58] It was begun by Vespasian and probably completed by Titus. No less than eighty entrances admitted the forty-five thousand spectators who could be accommodated in this huge structure. Despite the enormous mass of the present ruins probably two-thirds of the original materials have been carried away to be used in other buildings. Close to the Colosseum stands the arch [59] erected by the Senate in honor of the victory of Constantine over his rival Maxentius. From this event is dated the triumph of Christianity in the Roman state. The ruins of the huge baths of Caracalla lie about half a mile from the Colosseum. Near the center of the city are the remains of the Forum added by Trajan to the accommodations of the original Forum. It contains the column of Trajan [60] under which that emperor was buried.
The Forum lies in the valley north of the Palatine Hill. It was the business and social center of the Roman city. During the Middle Ages the site was buried in ruins and rubbish, in some places to a depth of forty feet or more. Recent excavations have restored the ancient level and uncovered the remains of the ancient structures.
[Illustration: THE ROMAN FORUM AND THE SURROUNDING BUILDINGS (RESTORED)]
[Illustration: THE ROMAN FORUM AT THE PRESENT TIME]
The Forum could be approached from the east by one of the most famous streets in the world, the Roman Sacred Way. The illustration of the Forum at the present time gives a view, looking eastward from the Capitoline Mount, and shows several of the buildings on or near the Sacred Way. At the left are seen the ruins of the basilica of Constantine. Farther in the distance the Colosseum looms up. Directly ahead is the arch of Titus, which commemorates the capture of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. [61] The ruins of the palaces of the Caesars occupy the slopes of the Palatine.
The only well-preserved monument in the Forum is the beautiful arch erected by the emperor Septimius Severus. Beyond it are three columns which once formed part of the temple of Castor. They date from the time of Tiberius. In front are the foundations of the Basilica Julia, built by Augustus. Next come eight Ionic columns, all that remain of the temple of Saturn. Near it and in the foreground are several columns in the Corinthian style, belonging to a temple built by Vespasian.
These ruined monuments, these empty foundations and lonely pillars, afford little idea of all the wealth of architecture that once adorned this spot. Here stood the circular shrine of Vesta, [62] guarding the altar and its ever-blazing fire. Here was the temple of Concord, famous in Roman history. [63] The Senate-house was here, and just before it, the Rostra, a platform adorned with the beaks (rostra) of captured ships. From this place Roman orators addressed their assembled fellow-citizens.
How splendid a scene must have greeted an observer in ancient times who, from the height of the Capitol, gazed at the city before him. The Forum was then one radiant avenue of temples, triumphal arches, columns, and shrines. And beyond the Forum stretched a magnificent array of theaters and amphitheaters, enormous baths, colossal sepulchers, and statues in stone and bronze. So prodigious an accumulation of objects beautiful, costly, and rare has never before or since been found on earth.
1. What is the origin of our wordspedagogue,symposium,circus, andacademy?
2. Make a list of such Roman names as you have met in your reading.
3. Write a letter describing an imaginary visit to the theater of Dionysus during the performance of a tragedy.
4. What did civic patriotism mean to the Greek and to the Roman?
5. Have we anything to learn from the Greeks about the importance of training in music?
6. What were the schoolbooks of Greek boys?
7. What features of Athenian education are noted in the illustration, page 254?
8. How did the position of women at Athens differ from their position in Homeric Greece?
9. Why does classical literature contain almost no "love stories," or novels?
10. What contrasts exist between the ancient and the modern house?
11. Describe a Roman litter (illustration, page 263).
12. What differences exist between an ancient and a modern theatre?
13. What features of our "circus" recall the proceedings at the Roman games?
14. How many holidays (including Sundays) are there in your state? How do they compare in number with those at Rome in the reign of Marcus Aurelius?
15. Describe the theater of Dionysus (illustration, page 264).
16. What is the "Socratic method" of teaching?
17. How did the Greeks manage to build solidly without the use of mortar?
18. Discuss the appropriateness of the terms:severeDoric;gracefulIonic;ornateCorinthian.
19. Can you find examples of any of the Greek orders in public buildings familiar to you?
20. How do you explain the almost total loss of original Greek sculptures?
21. By reference to the illustrations, page 279, explain the following terms:shaft;capital;architrave;frieze;andcornice.
22. Explain the "Greek profile" seen in the Aphrodite of Cnidus and the Apollo of the Belvedere (plate facing page 76).
23. Name five famous works of Greek sculpture which exist to-day only in Roman copies.
24. What is your favorite Greek statue? Why do you like it?
25. "The dome, with the round arch out of which it sprang, is the most fertile conception in the whole history of building." Justify this statement.
26. What famous examples of domed churches and public buildings are familiar to you?
27. What artistic objections to the use of "engaged columns" can you mention?
28. Discuss the revival of cement construction in modern times. What are its special advantages?
29. What examples of triumphal arches in the United States and France are known to you?
30. Do you know of any modern columns of victory?
31. Why is it likely that the bust of Nerva (illustration, page 200) is a more faithful likeness than that of Pericles (illustration, page 103)?
32. Write a brief essay describing an imaginary walk on the Athenian Acropolis in the Age of Pericles.
33. Enumerate the most important contributions to civilization made in classical antiquity.
[1] Webster,Readings in Ancient History, chapter xxi, "Roman Life as Seen in Pliny's Letters"; chapter xxii, "A Satirist of Roman Society."
[2] Euripides,Iphigenia in Tauris, 57.
[3] See page 237.
[4] In "Marcus Tullius Cicero," "Marcus," thepraenomen, corresponds to our "given" name; "Tullius," thenomen, marks the clan, orgens;"Cicero," thecognomen, indicates the family.
[5] See pages 151, 206.
[6] See page 218.
[7] See page 148.
[8] See page 144.
[9] See the illustrations, pages 117, 271.
[10] The corresponding names of women's garments werestolaandpallet.
[11] See page 199.
[12] See the illustration, page 145.
[13] See page 288.
[14] See page 285.
[15] Panathenaic means 'belonging to all the Athenians.' See page 292.
[16] See page 234.
[17] See page 200.
[18]Panem et circenses(Juvenal x, 80-81).
[19] See page 215.
[20] See pages 436, 463.
[21] See page 73.
[22] See page 80.
[23] See page 120.
[24] See page 265.
[25] See page 121.
[26] See page 117.
[27] See page 261.
[28] See page 226.
[29] See page 142.
[30] The so-called Corinthian order differs from the Ionic only in its capital.
[31] For illustrations of Greek temples, see pages 89, 101.
[32] For illustrations of Greek statues see pages 80, 81, 103, 117, 119, 129, 271 and the plates facing pages 76, 77, 80, 130, 131.
[33] See pages 61, 138.
[34] See the illustration, page 215.
[35] See the illustration, page 202.
[36] See the illustrations, pages 157, 285.
[37] See page 263.
[38] See the illustration, page 236.
[39] See the illustrations, pages 163, 201.
[40] See the illustration, page 266.
[41] See the illustration, page 339.
[42] See the map, page 107.
[43] See page 108.
[44] See page 227.
[45] See page 100.
[46] See the illustration, page 101.
[47] See the illustration, page 264.
[48] See page 108.
[49] See the plate facing page 281.
[50] See the plate facing page 280.
[51] See the plate facing page 281.
[52] See page 264.
[53] Pindar,Fragments, 76.
[54] See page 140.
[55] See the illustration, page 220.
[56] See the illustration, page 203.
[57] See the illustration, page 202.
[58] See the illustration, page 286.
[59] See the illustration, page 236.
[60] See the illustration, page 201.
[61] See the plate facing page 198.
[62] See page 146.
[63] See page 177.
We are not to suppose that the settlement of Germans within the Roman Empire ended with the deposition of Romulus Augustulus, near the close of the fifth century. The following centuries witnessed fresh invasions and the establishment of new Germanic states. The study of these troubled times leads us from the classical world to the world of medieval Europe, from the history of antiquity to the history of the Middle Ages.
The kingdom which Odoacer established on Italian soil did not long endure. It was soon overthrown by the Ostrogoths. At the time of the "fall" of Rome in 476 A.D. they occupied a district south of the middle Danube, which the government at Constantinople had hired them to defend. The Ostrogoths proved to be expensive and dangerous allies. When, therefore, their chieftain, Theodoric, offered to lead his people into Italy and against Odoacer, the Roman emperor gladly sanctioned the undertaking.
Theodoric led the Ostrogoths—women and children as well as warriors— across the Alps and came down to meet Odoacer and his soldiers in battle. After suffering several defeats, Odoacer shut himself up in the strong fortress of Ravenna. Theodoric could not capture the place and at last agreed to share with Odoacer the government of Italy, if the latter would surrender. The agreement was never carried into effect. When Theodoric entered Ravenna, he invited Odoacer to a great feast and at its conclusion slew him in cold blood. Theodoric had now no rival in Italy.
Though Theodoric gained the throne by violence and treachery, he soon showed himself to be, as a ruler, wise, broad-minded, and humane. He had lived as a youth in the imperial court at Constantinople and there had become well acquainted with Roman ideas of law and order. Roman civilization impressed him; and he wished not to destroy but to preserve it. Theodoric reigned in Italy for thirty-three years, and during this time the country enjoyed unbroken peace and prosperity.
[Illustration: TOMB OF THEODORIC AT RAVENNA A two storied marble building erected by Theodoric in imitation of a Roman tomb. The roof is a single block of marble 33 feet in diameter and weighing more than 300 tons. Theodoric's body was subsequently removed from its resting place, and the mausoleum was converted into a church.]
The enlightened policy of Theodoric was exhibited in many ways. He governed Ostrogoths and Romans with equal consideration. He kept all the old offices, such as the senatorship and the consulate, and by preference filled them with men of Roman birth. His chief counselors were Romans. A legal code, which he drew up for the use of Ostrogoths and Romans alike, contained only selections from Roman law. He was remarkably tolerant and, in spite of the fact that the Ostrogoths were Arians, [2] was always ready to extend protection to Catholic Christians. Theodoric patronized literature and gave high positions to Roman writers. He restored the cities of Italy, had the roads and aqueducts repaired, and so improved the condition of agriculture that Italy, from a wheat-importing, became a wheat-exporting, country. At Ravenna, the Ostrogothic capital, Theodoric erected many notable buildings, including a palace, a mausoleum, and several churches. The remains of these structures are still to be seen.
The influence of Theodoric reached far beyond Italy. He allied himself by marriage with most of the Germanic rulers of the West. His second wife was a Frankish foreign princess, his sister was the wife of a Vandal chieftain, one of his daughters married a king of the Visigoths, and another daughter wedded a Burgundian king. Theodoric by these alliances brought about friendly relations between the various barbarian peoples. It seemed, in fact, as if the Roman dominions in the West might again be united under a single ruler; as if the Ostrogoths might be the Germanic people to carry on the civilizing work of Rome. But no such good fortune was in store for Europe.
Theodoric died in 526 A.D. The year after his death, a great emperor, Justinian, came to the throne at Constantinople. Justinian had no intention of abandoning to the Ostrogothic Germans the rich provinces of Sicily and Italy. Although the Ostrogoths made a stubborn resistance to his armies, in the end they were so completely overcome that they agreed to withdraw from the Italian peninsula. The feeble remnant of their nation filed sadly through the passes of the Alps and, mingling with other barbarian tribes, disappeared from history.
The destruction of the Ostrogothic kingdom did not free Italy of the Germans. Soon after Justinian's death the country was again overrun, this time by the Lombards. The name of these invaders (in Latin,Langobardi) may have been derived from the long beards that gave them such a ferocious aspect. The Lombards were the last of the Germanic peoples to quit their northern wilderness and seek new homes in sunny Italy. They seized the territory north of the river Po—a region ever since known as Lombardy— and established their capital at Pavia. The Lombards afterwards made many settlements in central and southern Italy, but never succeeded in subduing the entire peninsula.
[Illustration: Map, EUROPE IN THE SIXTH CENTURY]
The rule of the Lombards at first bore hardly on Italy, which they treated as a conquered land. In character they seem to been far less attractive than their predecessors the Visigoths and Ostrogoths. Many of them were still heathen when they entered Italy and others were converts to the Arian [3] form of Christianity. In course of time, however, the Lombards accepted Roman Catholicism and adopted the customs of their subjects. They even forgot their Germanic language and learned to speak Latin. The Lombard kingdom lasted over two centuries, until it was overthrown by the Franks. [4]
The failure of the Lombards to conquer all Italy had important results in later history. Sicily and the extreme southern part of the Italian peninsula, besides large districts containing the cities of Naples, Rome, Genoa, Venice, and Ravenna, continued to belong to the Roman Empire in the East. The rulers at Constantinople could not exercise effective control over their Italian possessions, now that these were separated from one another by the Lombard territories. The consequence was that Italy broke up into a number of small and practically independent states, which never combined into one kingdom until our own time. The ideal of a united Italy waited thirteen hundred years for its realization. [5]
We have already met the Franks in their home on the lower Rhine, from which they pushed gradually into Roman territory. [6] In 486 A.D., just ten years after the deposition of Romulus Augustulus, the Franks went forth to conquer under Clovis, [7] one of their chieftains. By overcoming the governor of Roman Gaul, in a battle near Soissons, Clovis destroyed the last vestige of imperial rule in the West and extended the Frankish dominions to the river Loire. Clovis then turned against his German neighbors. East of the Franks, in the region now known as Alsace, lived the Alamanni, a people whose name still survives in the French name of Germany. [8] The Alamanni were defeated in a great battle near Strassburg (496 A.D.), and much of their territory was added to that of the Franks. Clovis subsequently conquered the Visigothic possessions between the Loire and the Pyrenees, and compelled the Burgundians to pay tribute. Thus Clovis made himself supreme over nearly the whole of Gaul and even extended his authority to the other side of the Rhine. This great work entitles him to be called the founder of the French nation.
Clovis reigned in western Europe as an independent king, but he acknowledged a sort of allegiance to the Roman emperor by accepting the title of honorary consul. Henceforth to the Gallo-Romans he represented the distant ruler at Constantinople. The Roman inhabitants of Gaul were not oppressed; their cities were preserved; and their language and laws were undisturbed. Clovis, as a statesman, may be compared with his eminent contemporary, Theodoric the Ostrogoth.
The Franks were still a heathen people, when they began their career of conquest. Clovis, however, had married a Burgundian princess, Clotilda, who was a devout Catholic and an ardent advocate of Christianity. The story is told how, when Clovis was hard-pressed by the Alamanni at the battle of Strassburg, he vowed that if Clotilda's God gave him victory he would become a Christian. The Franks won, and Clovis, faithful to his vow, had himself baptized by St. Remi, bishop of Reims. "Bow down thy head," spoke the bishop, as the Frankish king approached the font, "adore what thou hast burned, burn what thou has adored." [9] With Clovis were baptized on that same day three thousand of his warriors.
[Illustration: Map, GROWTH OF THE FRANKISH DOMINIONS, 481-768 A.D.]
The conversion of Clovis was an event of the first importance. He and his Franks naturally embraced the orthodox Catholic faith, which was that of his wife, instead of the Arian form of Christianity, which had been accepted by almost all the other Germanic invaders. Thus, by what seems the merest accident, Catholicism, instead of Arianism, became the religion of a large part of western Europe. More than this, the conversion of Clovis gained for the Frankish king and his successors the support of conversion the Roman Church. The friendship between the popes and the Franks afterwards ripened into a close alliance which greatly influenced European history.
The descendants of Clovis are called Merovingians. [10] They occupied the throne of the Franks for nearly two hundred and fifty years. The annals of their reigns form an unpleasant catalogue of bloody wars, horrible murders, and deeds of treachery without number. Nevertheless, the earlier Merovingians were strong men, under whose direction the Frankish territory continued to expand, until it included nearly all of what is now France, Belgium, and Holland, besides a considerable part of Germany.
The Frankish conquests differed in two important respects from those of the other Germanic peoples. In the first place, the Franks did not cut themselves off completely from their original homes. They kept permanently their territory in Germany, drawing from it continual reinforcements of fresh German blood. In the second place, the Franks steadily added new German lands to their possessions. They built up in this way what was the largest and the most permanent of all the barbarian states founded on the ruins of the Roman Empire.
After the middle of the seventh century the Frankish rulers, worn out by violence and excesses, degenerated into weaklings, who reigned but did not rule. The actual management of the state passed into the hands of officers, called "mayors of the palace." They left to the kings little more than their title, their long hair,—the badge of royalty among the Franks,—and a scanty allowance for their support. The later Merovingians, accordingly, are often known as the "do-nothing kings."
The most illustrious of these mayors was Charles, surnamed Martel, "the Hammer," from the terrible defeat which he administered to the Mohammedans near Tours, in central France. [11] Charles Martel was virtually a king, but he never ventured to set aside the Merovingian ruler and himself ascend the throne. This step was taken, however, by Charles's son, Pepin the Short.
Before dethroning the last feeble "do-nothing," Pepin sought the approval of the bishop of Rome. The pope, without hesitation, declared that it was only right that the man who had the real authority in the state should have the royal title also. Pepin, accordingly, caused himself to be crowned king of the Franks, thus founding the Carolingian [12] dynasty. (751 A.D.). Three years later Pope Stephen II came to Pepin's court and solemnly anointed the new ruler with holy oil, in accordance with ancient Jewish custom. The rite of anointing, something unknown to the Germans, gave to Pepin's coronation the sanction of the Roman Church. Henceforth the Frankish sovereigns called themselves "kings by the grade of God."
Pepin was soon able to repay his great obligation to the Roman Church by becoming its protector against the Lombards. These barbarians, who were trying to extend their rule in Italy, threatened to capture Rome and the territory in the vicinity of that city, then under the control of the pope. Pepin twice entered Italy with his army, defeated the Lombards, and forced them to cede to Pope Stephen an extensive district lying between Rome and Ravenna. Pepin might have returned this district to the emperor at Constantinople, to whom it belonged, but the Frankish king declared that he had not fought for the advantage of any man but for the welfare of his own soul. He decided, therefore, to bestow his conquests on St. Peter's representative, the pope. Before this time the bishops of Rome had owned much land in Italy and had acted as virtual sovereigns in Rome and its neighborhood. Pepin's gift, known as the "Donation of Pepin," greatly increased their possessions, which came to be called the States of the Church. They remained in the hands of the popes until late in the nineteenth century. [13]
Pepin was succeeded in 768 A.D. by his two sons, one of whom, Charlemagne, three years later became sole king of the Franks. Charlemagne reigned for nearly half a century, and during this time he set his stamp on all later European history. His character and personality are familiar to us from a brief biography, written by his secretary, Einhard. Charlemagne, we learn, was a tall, square-shouldered, strongly built man, with bright, keen eyes, and an expression at once cheerful and dignified. Riding, hunting, and swimming were his favorite sports. He was simple in his tastes and very temperate in both food and drink. Except when in Rome, he wore the old Frankish costume, with high-laced boots, linen tunic, blue cloak, and sword girt at his side. He was a clear, fluent speaker, used Latin as readily as his native tongue, and understood Greek when it was spoken. "He also tried to learn to write and often kept his tablets and writing book under the pillow of his couch, that, when he had leisure, he might practice his hand in forming letters; but he made little progress in this task, too long deferred and begun too late in life." [14] For the times, however, Charlemagne was a well-educated man—by no means a barbarian.
[Illustration: CHARLEMAGNE (Lateran Museum, Rome) A mosaic picture, made during the lifetime of Charlemagne and probably a fair likeness of him.]
Much of Charlemagne's long life, almost to its close, was filled with warfare. He fought chiefly against the still-heathen peoples on the frontiers of the Frankish realm. The subjugation of the Saxons, who lived in the forests and marshes of northwestern Germany, took many years. Charlemagne at the head of a great army would invade their territory, beat them in battle, and receive their submission, only to find his work undone by a sudden rising of the liberty-loving natives, after the withdrawal of the Franks. Once when Charlemagne was exasperated by a fresh revolt, he ordered forty-five hundred prisoners to be executed. This savage massacre was followed by equally severe laws, which threatened with death all Saxons who refused baptism or observed the old heathen rites. By such harsh means Charlemagne at length broke down the spirit of resistance among the people. All Saxony, from the Rhine to the Elbe, became a Christian land and a permanent part of the Frankish realm.
[Illustration: THE IRON CROWN OF LOMBARDYA fillet of iron, which, according to pious legend, had been beaten out ofone of the nails of the True Cross. It came to the Lombards as a gift fromPope Gregory I. as a reward for their conversion to Roman Catholicism.During the Middle Ages it was used to crown the German emperors kings ofItaly. This precious relic is now kept in a church at Monza in northernItaly.]
Shortly after the beginning of the Saxon wars the king of the Franks received an urgent summons from the pope, who was again being threatened by his old enemies, the Lombards. Charlemagne led a mighty host across the Alps, captured Pavia, where the Lombard ruler had taken refuge, and added his possessions to those of the Franks. Thus passed away one more of the Germanic states which had arisen on the ruins of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne now placed on his own head the famous "Iron Crown," and assumed the title of "King of the Franks and Lombards, and Patrician of the Romans."
Charlemagne's conquests were not confined to Germanic peoples. He forced the wild Avars, who had advanced from the Caspian into the Danube valley, to acknowledge his supremacy. He compelled various Slavic tribes, including the Bohemians, to pay tribute. He also invaded Spain and wrested from the Moslems the district between the Ebro River and the Pyrenees. By this last conquest Charlemagne may be said to have begun the recovery of the Spanish peninsula from Mohammedan rule. [15]
[Illustration: Map, EUROPE In the Age of Charlemagne, 800 A.D.]
Charlemagne was a statesman, as well as a warrior. He divided his wide dominions into counties, each one ruled by a count, who was expected to keep order and administer justice. The border districts, which lay exposed to invasion, were organized into "marks," under the military supervision of counts of the mark, or margraves (marquises). These officials had so much power and lived so far from the royal court that it was necessary for Charlemagne to appoint special agents, calledmissi dominici("the lord's messengers"), to maintain control over them. Themissiwere usually sent out in pairs, a layman and a bishop or abbot, in order that the one might serve as a check upon the other. They traveled from county to county, bearing the orders of their royal master and making sure that these orders were promptly obeyed. In this way Charlemagne kept well informed as to the condition of affairs throughout his kingdom.
Charlemagne made a serious effort to revive classical culture in the West from the low state into which it had fallen during the period of the invasions. We still possess a number of laws issued by this Frankish king for the promotion of education. He founded schools in the monasteries and cathedrals, where not only the clergy but also the common people might receive some training. He formed his whole court into a palace school, in which learned men from Italy, Spain, and England gave instruction to his own children and those of his nobles. The king himself often studied with them, under the direction of his good friend, Alcuin, an Englishman and the foremost scholar in western Europe. He had the manuscripts of Latin authors collected and copied, so that the knowledge preserved in books should not be forgotten. All this civilizing work, together with the peace and order which he maintained throughout a wide territory, made his reign the most brilliant period of the early Middle Ages.
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL AT AIX-LA-CHAPELLE Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) was the capital city and favorite residence of Charlemagne. The church which he built here was almost entirely destroyed by the Northmen in the tenth century. The octagonal building surmounted by a dome which forms the central part of the present cathedral is a restoration of the original structure. The marble columns pavements and mosaics of Charlemagne's church were brought by him from Ravenna.]
Charlemagne, the champion of Christendom and the foremost ruler in Europe, seemed to the men of his day the rightful successor of the Roman emperors. He had their power, and now he was to have their name. In the year 800 A.D. the Frankish king visited Rome to investigate certain accusations made against the pope, Leo III, by his enemies in the city. Charlemagne absolved Leo of all wrong-doing and restored him to his office. Afterwards, on Christmas Day Charlemagne went to old St. Peter's Church, where the pope was saying Mass. As the king, dressed in the rich robes of a Roman patrician, knelt in prayer before the high altar, the pope suddenly placed on his head a golden crown, while all the people cried out with one voice, "Long life and victory to Charles Augustus, the great and pacific emperor of the Romans, crowned by God!"
Although Charlemagne appears to have been surprised by the pope's act, we know that he wished to become emperor. The imperial title would confer upon him greater dignity and honor, though not greater power, than he possessed as king of the Franks and of the Lombards. The pope, in turn, was glad to reward the man who had protected the Church and had done so much to spread the Catholic faith among the heathen. The Roman people also welcomed the coronation, because they felt that the time had come for Rome to assume her old place as the capital of the world. To reject the eastern ruler, in favor of the great Frankish king, was an emphatic method of asserting Rome's independence of Constantinople.
The coronation of Charlemagne was one of the most important events in medieval history. It might be thought a small matter that he should take the imperial title, when he already exercised imperial sway throughout western Europe. But Charlemagne's contemporaries believed that the old Roman Empire had now been revived, and a German king now sat on the throne once occupied by Augustus and Constantine. Henceforth there was established in the West a line of Roman emperors which lasted until the opening of the nineteenth century. [16]
Charlemagne's empire was not in any true sense a continuation of the Roman Empire. It did not include the dominions over which the emperors at Constantinople were to reign for centuries. Moreover, Charlemagne and his successors on the throne had little in common with the old rulers of Rome, who spoke Latin, administered Roman law, and regarded the Germans as among their most dangerous enemies. Charlemagne's empire was, in fact, largely a new creation.
The empire of Charlemagne did not long remain intact. So vast was its extent and so unlike were its inhabitants in race, language, and customs that it could be managed only by a ruler of the greatest energy and strength of will. Unfortunately, the successors of Charlemagne proved to be too weak for the task of maintaining peace and order. Western Europe now entered on a long period of confusion and violence, during which Charlemagne's possessions broke up into separate and warring kingdoms.
Charlemagne's son, Louis the Pious, who became emperor in 814 A.D., was a well-meaning but feeble ruler, better fitted for the quiet life of a monastery than for the throne. He could not control his rebellious sons, who, even during his lifetime, fought bitterly over their inheritance. The unnatural strife, which continued after his death, was temporarily settled by a treaty concluded at the city of Verdun. According to its terms Lothair, the eldest brother, received Italy and the imperial title, together with a narrow stretch of land along the valleys of the Rhine and the Rhone, between the North Sea and the Mediterranean. Louis and Charles, the other brothers, received kingdoms lying to the east and west, respectively, of Lothair's territory. The Treaty of Verdun may be said to mark the first stage in the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire.
A second treaty, made at Mersen in Holland, was entered into by Louis and Charles, after the death of their brother Lothair. They divided between themselves Lothair's kingdom north of the Alps, leaving to his young son the possession of Italy and the empty title of "emperor." The Treaty of Mersen may be said to mark the second stage in the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire. That empire, as such, had now ceased to exist.
[Illustration: Map, THE FRANKISH DOMINIONS AS DIVIDED BY THE TREATIES OFVERDUN (843 A.D.) AND MERSEN (870 A.D.)]
The territorial arrangements made by the treaties of Verdun and Mersen foreshadowed the future map of western Europe. The East Frankish kingdom of Louis, inhabited almost entirely by Germanic peoples, was to develop into modern Germany. The West Frankish kingdom of Charles, inhabited mainly by descendants of Romanized Gauls, was to become modern France. Lothair's kingdom, separated into two parts by the Alps, never became a national state. Italy, indeed, might be united under one government, but the long, narrow strip north of the Alps had no unity of race, no common language, and no national boundaries. It was fated to be broken into fragments and to be fought over for centuries by its stronger neighbors. Part of this territory now forms the small countries of Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland, and another part, known as Alsace and Lorraine, [17] still remains a bone of contention between France and Germany.
Even had Charlemagne been followed by strong and able rulers, it would have been a difficult matter to hold the empire together in the face of the fresh series of barbarian inroads which began immediately after his death. The Mohammedans, though checked by the Franks at the battle of Tours, [18] continued to be dangerous enemies. They ravaged southern France, Sicily, and parts of Italy. The piratical Northmen from Denmark and Norway harried the coast of France and made inroads far beyond Paris. They also penetrated into western Germany, sailing up the Rhine in their black ships and destroying such important towns as Cologne and Aix-la- Chapelle. Meanwhile, eastern Germany lay exposed to the attacks of the Slavs, whom Charlemagne had defeated but not subdued. The Magyars, or Hungarians, were also dreaded foes. Their wild horsemen entered Europe from the plains of Asia and, like the Huns and Avars to whom they were probably related, spread devastation far and wide. A great part of Europe thus suffered from invasions almost as destructive as those which had brought ruin to the old Roman world.
The tenth century saw another movement toward the restoration of law and order. The civilizing work of Charlemagne was taken up by German kings, not of the old Prankish stock, but belonging to that Saxon people which had opposed Charlemagne so long and bitterly. Saxony was one of the five great territorial states, or stem-duchies, as they are usually called, into which Germany was then divided. [19] Germany at that time extended only as far east as the river Elbe, beyond which lay the territory occupied by half-civilized Slavic tribes.
The rulers of the stem-duchies enjoyed practical independence, though they had recognized some king of Germany ever since the Treaty of Verdun. Early in the tenth century the Carolingian dynasty died out in Germany, and the German nobles then proceeded to elect their own kings. Their choice fell first upon Conrad, duke of Franconia, but he had little authority outside his own duchy. A stronger man was required to keep the peace among the turbulent nobles and to repel the invaders of Germany. Such a man appeared in the person of Henry, duke of Saxony, who, after Conrad's death, was chosen king.
Henry I, called the Fowler, because he was fond of hunting birds, spent the greater part of his reign in wars against the Slavs, Magyars, and other invaders. He conquered from the Slavs the territory afterwards known as Brandenburg. This country was to furnish Germany, in later centuries, with its present dynasty—the Hohenzollerns. [20] He occupied the southern part of Denmark (Schleswig) and Christianized it. He also recovered for Germany Lorraine, a district which remained in German hands until the eighteenth century.
Henry the Fowler was succeeded by his son, Otto I, whom history knows as Otto the Great. He well deserved the title. Like Charlemagne, Otto presented the aspect of a born ruler. He is described as being tall and commanding in presence, strong and vigorous of body, and gifted with great charm of manner. In his bronzed face shone clear and sparkling eyes, and down his breast hung a long, thick beard. Though subject to violent outbursts of temper, he was liberal to his friends and just to his foes. Otto was a man of immense energy and ambition, with a high conception of his duties as a sovereign. His reign forms one of the most notable epochs in German history.
[Illustration: RING SEAL OF OTTO THE GREATThe inscription readsOddo Rex.]
Otto continued Henry's work of defending Germany from the foes which threatened to overrun that country. He won his most conspicuous success against the Magyars, who suffered a crushing defeat on the banks of the river Lech in Bavaria (955 A.D.). These barbarians now ceased their raids and retired to the lands on the middle Danube which they had seized from the Slavs. Here they settled down, accepted Christianity from the Roman Church, and laid the foundations of the kingdom of Hungary. [21] As a protection against future Magyar inroads Otto established the East Mark. This region afterwards rose to great importance under the name of Austria.
Otto was an excellent ruler of Germany. He made it his business to strengthen the royal authority by weakening that of the stem-dukes. He had to fight against them on more than one occasion, for they regarded themselves almost as independent kings. Otto was able to keep them in check, but the rulers who followed him were less successful in this respect. The struggle between the kings and their powerful nobles formed a constant feature of the medieval history of Germany.
Otto the Great is not to be remembered only as a German king. His reign was also noteworthy in the history of Italy. The country at this time was hopelessly divided between rival and contending peoples. The emperor at Constantinople controlled the southern extremity of the peninsula. The Mohammedans held Sicily and some cities on the mainland. The pope ruled at Rome and in the States of the Church. A so-called king of Italy still reigned in Lombardy, but he could not manage the powerful counts, dukes, and marquises, who were virtually independent within their own domains. Even the imperial title died out, and now there was no longer a Roman emperor in the West.
The deplorable condition of Italy invited interference from abroad. Following in the footsteps of Charlemagne, Otto the Great led two expeditions across the Alps, assumed the "Iron Crown" [22] of Lombardy, and then proceeded to Rome, where he secured the pope (John XII) against the latter's enemies in that city. Otto's reward was the same as Charlemagne's. On Candlemas Day, (February 2d) 962 A.D., the grateful pope crowned him Roman emperor.
The coronation of Otto the Great seemed to his contemporaries a necessary and beneficial act. They still believed that the Roman Empire was suspended, not extinct; and that now, one hundred and fifty years after Charlemagne, the occasion was opportune to revive the name and power associated with the golden age of the first Frankish emperor. Otto's ardent spirit, one may well believe, was fired with this vision of imperial sway and the renewal of a title around which clustered so many memories of success and glory.
[Illustration: Map, EUROPE IN THE AGE OF OTTO THE GREAT, 962 A.D.]
But the outcome of Otto's restoration of the Roman Empire was good neither for Italy nor for Germany. It became the rule, henceforth, that the man whom the German nobles chose as their king had a claim, also, to the Italian crown and the imperial title. The efforts of the German kings to make good this claim led to their constant interference in the affairs of Italy. They treated that country as a conquered province which had no right to a national life and an independent government under its own rulers. At the same time they neglected Germany and failed to keep their powerful territorial lords in subjection. Neither Italy nor Germany, in consequence, could become a unified, centralized state, such as was formed in France and England during the later Middle Ages.
The empire of Charlemagne, restored by Otto the Great, came to be called in later centuries the "Holy Roman Empire." The title points to the idea of a world monarchy—the Roman Empire—and a world religion—Roman Christianity—united in one institution. This magnificent idea was never fully realized. The popes and emperors, instead of being bound to each other by the closest ties, were more generally enemies than friends. A large part of medieval history was to turn on this conflict between the Empire and the Papacy. [23]
From the history of Continental Europe we now turn to the history of Britain. That island had been overrun by the Germanic barbarians after the middle of the fifth century. [24] They are commonly known as Anglo-Saxons, from the names of their two principal peoples, the Angles and Saxons. The Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain was a slow process, which lasted at least one hundred and fifty years. The invaders followed the rivers into the interior and gradually subdued more than a half of what is now England, comprising the fertile plain district in the southern and eastern parts of the island.
Though the Anglo-Saxons probably destroyed many flourishing cities and towns of the Romanized Britons, it seems likely that the conquerors spared the women, with whom they intermarried, and the agricultural laborers, whom they made slaves. Other natives took refuge in the hill regions of western and northern Britain, and here their descendants still keep up the Celtic language and traditions. The Anglo-Saxons regarded the Britons with contempt, naming them Welsh, a word which means one who talks gibberish. The antagonism between the two peoples died out in the course of centuries, conquerors and conquered intermingled, and an English nation, partly Celtic and partly Germanic, came into being.
[Illustration: ANGLO-SAXON DRINKING HORN Horn of Ulphus (Wulf) in the cathedral of York. The old English were heavy drinkers chiefly of ale and mead. The evening meal usually ended with a drinking bout.]
The Anglo-Saxons started to fight one another before they ceased fighting their common enemy, the Britons. Throughout the seventh and eighth centuries, the Anglo-Saxon states were engaged in almost constant struggles, either for increase of territory or for supremacy. The kingdoms farthest east—Kent, Sussex, Essex, and East Anglia—found their expansion checked by other kingdoms—Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex—which grew up in the interior of the island. Each of these three stronger states gained in turn the leading place.
The beginning of the supremacy of Wessex dates from the reign of Egbert. He had lived for some years as an exile at the court of Charlemagne, from whom he must have learned valuable lessons of war and statesmanship. After returning from the Continent, Egbert became king of Wessex and gradually forced the rulers of the other states to acknowledge him as overlord. Though Egbert was never directly king of all England, he began the work of uniting the Anglo-Saxons under one government. His descendants have occupied the English throne to the present day.
When the Germans along the Rhine and the Danube crossed the frontiers and entered the western provinces, they had already been partially Romanized. They understood enough of Roman civilization to appreciate it and to desire to preserve it. The situation was quite different with the Anglo- Saxons. Their original home lay in a part of Germany far beyond the borders of the Roman Empire and remote from the cultural influences of Rome. Coming to Britain as barbarians, they naturally introduced their own language, laws, and customs wherever they settled. Much of what the Anglo- Saxons brought with them still lives in England, and from that country has spread to the United States and the vast English colonies beyond the seas. The English language is less indebted to Latin than any of the Romance languages, [25] and the Common law of England owes much less to Roman law than do the legal systems of Continental Europe. England, indeed, looks to the Anglo-Saxons for some of the most characteristic and important elements of her civilization.
[Illustration: Map, ANGLO-SAXON BRITAIN]
The Anglo-Saxons also brought to Britain their heathen faith. Christianity did not come to them until the close the sixth century. At this time more or less intercourse had sprung up between the people of Kent, lying nearest to the Continent, and the Franks in Gaul. Ethelbert, the king of Kent, had even married the Frankish princess, Bertha. He allowed his Christian wife to bring a bishop to her new home and gave her the deserted church of St. Martin at Canterbury as a place of worship. Queen Bertha's fervent desire for the conversion of her husband and his people prepared the way for an event of first importance in English history—the mission of Augustine.
The pope at this time was Gregory I, better known, from his services to the Roman Church, as Gregory the Great. [26] The kingdom of Kent, with its Christian queen, must have seemed to him a promising field for missionary enterprise. Gregory, accordingly, sent out the monk Augustine with forty companions to carry the Gospel to the heathen English. The king of Kent, already well disposed toward the Christian faith, greeted the missionaries kindly and told them that they were free to convert whom they would. Before long he and his court embraced Christianity, and the people of Kent soon followed the royal example. The monks were assigned a residence in Canterbury, a city which has ever since remained the religious capital of England. From Kent Christianity in its Roman form gradually spread into the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
[Illustration: ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH, CANTERBURY The present church, dating from the thirteenth century occupies the site of a chapel built before the arrival of Augustine, The walls still contain some of the Roman bricks used in the original structure. St Martin's Church was the scene of the earliest work of Augustine in Canterbury.]
Augustine and his monks were not the first missionaries to Britain. Roman soldiers, merchants, and officials had introduced Christianity among the Britons as early as second century. During the fifth century the famous St. Patrick had carried Christianity to the heathen Irish. The Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain drove many Christians to Ireland, and that island in the sixth and seventh centuries became a center from which devoted monks went forth to labor in western Scotland and northern Britain [27] Here they came in contact with the Roman missionaries.
The Celtic Christians followed some customs which differed from those observed by Roman Christians. They computed the date on which Easter fell according to a system unlike that of the Romans. They permitted their priests to marry; the Romans forbade the practice. Their monks shaved the front of the head from ear to ear as a tonsure, while Roman monks shaved the top of the head, leaving a "crown of thorns." These differences may not seem very important, but they were enough to prevent the cooperation of Celtic and Roman missionaries for the conversion of the heathen.
[Illustration: CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL The choir dates from the twelfth century, the nave, transepts, and central tower, from the fifteenth century. One of the two towers at the west front was built in 1834-1840 A.D. The beautiful stained glass in the windows of the choir belongs to the thirteenth century.]
The rivalry between Celtic and Roman Christians was finally settled at a church gathering, or synod, called by the king of Northumbria at Whitby. The main controversy at this synod concerned the proper date for Easter. In the course of the debate it was asserted that the Roman custom had the sanction of St. Peter, to whom Christ had intrusted the keys of heaven. This statement was enough for the Northumbrian king, who thereupon decided in favor of the Roman claim, declaring that he would not oppose St. Peter, "lest when I come before the gates of the kingdom of heaven, he who holds the keys should not open to me." [28] The representatives of the Celtic Church then withdrew from England, leaving the field clear for Roman missionaries.
The decision of the Synod of Whitby in favor of Rome meant that all England henceforth would recognize the pope's authority in religious matters. It remained a Roman Catholic country until the time of the Reformation, nearly nine hundred years later. [29] The Celtic Christians in Ireland and Scotland also in the course of time became the devoted children of the Roman Church.
We have now followed the fortunes of the Germans for five centuries from the end of the Roman Empire in the West. Most of their kingdoms, it has been seen, were not permanent. The Visigothic and Burgundian dominions in Gaul yielded to the Franks, and those of the Visigoths in Spain, to the Mohammedan Arabs. [30] The Vandal possessions in North Africa were regained by the emperors at Constantinople. [31] The rule of the Ostrogoths in Italy endured for only sixty years and that of the Lombards passed away after two centuries. The kingdoms established by the Franks and the Anglo-Saxons alone developed into lasting states.
But even where the Germans did not found permanent kingdoms, they mingled with the subject provincials and adopted much of the old Roman civilization. The fusion of the two peoples naturally required a long time, being scarcely completed before the middle of the tenth century. It was hindered, in the first place, by the desire of the Germans to secure the lands of the Romans. Wherever the barbarians settled, they appropriated a large part of the agricultural soil. How much they took varied in different countries. The Ostrogoths seem to have seized one- third of the land in Italy; the Visigoths, two-thirds of that in Gaul and Spain; the Anglo-Saxons, perhaps all the tillable soil of Britain. It could not but be galling to the Romans to surrender their farms to the barbarians. In the second place, the Germans often assessed heavy taxes on the Romans, which they themselves refused to pay. Tax-paying seemed to the Germans a mark of servitude. In the third place, a barrier between the two peoples arose from the circumstance that each had its particular law. For several centuries following the invasions there was one law for the Romans—that which they had enjoyed under the empire—and another law for the Germans—their old tribal customs. After the Germans had lived for some time in contact with the Romans they wrote out their laws in the Latin language. These "Laws of the Barbarians" still survive and throw much light on their early beliefs and manners.