Читать книгу The Dark Ages Collection - David Hume, Эдвард Гиббон - Страница 14

THE existence of the State Church made a profound difference in the political and social development of the Empire. The old State religion of Rome was often used as an instrument of policy, but perhaps its main political value was symbolic. It involved no theory of the universe, no body of dogma to divide the minds of men and engender disputes. The gods were not jealous, and it was compatible with the utmost variety of other cults and faiths. For the Christian Church, on the contrary, a right belief in theological dogmas was the breath of its life, and, as such questions are abstruse and metaphysical, it was impossible to define a uniform doctrine which all minds would accept. As the necessity of ecclesiastical unity was an axiom, the government had to deal with a new problem, and a very arduous and embarrassing one, such as had not confronted it in the days before Constantine. Doctrine had to be defined, and heretics suppressed. Again, the Church, which once had claimed freedom for itself, denied freedom to others when it was victorious, and would not suffer rival cults. Hence a systematic policy of religious intolerance, such as the Greek and Roman world had never known, was introduced. Another consequence of the Christianising of the State was the rise to power and importance of the institution of monasticism, which was not only influential economically and socially, but was also, as we shall see, a political force. The theological controversies, the religious persecution, and the growth of monasticism, in the fifth century, will be reviewed briefly in this chapter.

§ 1. The Controversies on the Incarnation

The great theological controversy which rent Christendom in twain in the fourth century had been finally closed through the energy and determination of Theodosius the Great, and unity was for a short time restored to the Church. Theodosius had been baptized in Thessalonica in A.D. 380, and immediately afterwards he issued an edict, commanding his subjects to accept the orthodox faith of the Council of Nicaea.1 He described it as the doctrine professed by the bishop of Rome and the bishop of Alexandria. Then he proceeded to hand over to the orthodox all the Arian churches in Constantinople, and to prohibit heretics from holding public worship in the city. In the meantime he had come to see that the best prospect of terminating discussion in the East would be by a Council which was not controlled either from Alexandria or from Rome. The Council which met at his summons in A.D. 381 at Constantinople was entirely eastern, and Meletius, the bishop of Antioch, presided. Seventy years later it came to be called an Ecumenical Council; in the West it was not recognised as such till the end of the fifth century. This assembly of eastern bishops ratified the doctrine of the Council of Nicaea, and declared that the Son is of the same substance with the Father. Theodosius, after a vain attempt to win over the Arians by a Council which he summoned two years later, proceeded to measures of suppression,2 and Arianism gradually declined.

But, while the Arian heresy in itself led to no permanent schism in the Church,3 new and closely related controversies soon agitated the eastern world and were destined to issue in lasting divisions. Once the divinity of Christ in the fullest sense was universally admitted, the question ensued how the union of his divine substance with his human nature is to be conceived. Was the Godhead mixed with humanity, or only conjoined? Did Mary bear the flesh only or the Logos along with the flesh? Did Christ’s human nature survive the Resurrection? In the fourth century, there was no definite doctrine, but the problem was disturbing the minds of some metaphysical theologians.

Apollinaris of Laodicea argued that the union of a perfect God into a perfect man was out of the question. For the result of such a union would be a monster, not a uniform being. He concluded that Christ was not a perfect man, and that he adopted human nature, determining it in such a way that it did not involve free will, which would be inconsistent with his Godhead. His flesh was taken up into the nature of the Logos and was thus divine, and the Logos shared in the sufferings of the flesh. Further, Christ’s mind was not human; for, if he had had a human mind, he would have had a duplicate personality.

It has been said that this theory of Apollinaris expressed the belief entertained at heart by all pious Greeks.4 But it was clear that it did not do justice to the humanity of Christ as depicted in the Gospels, and other theologians, who like Apollinaris himself belonged to the school of Antioch, sought to render intelligible the union of a perfect God with a perfect man. According to Theodore of Mopsuestia, the union of the two natures was a contact which became more intimate at each stage of human growth, and the indwelling of the Logos in the man was not substantial, but of the same order as the indwelling of God, by grace, in any human being. Each nature was itself a person, and the Logos did not become man. It was the man only who suffered. And Mary was not, in the strict sense, the mother of God.

In the reign of Theodosius II this insoluble problem raised a bitter controversy, which agitated the eastern world. When Sisinnius, Patriarch of Constantinople, died at the end of A.D. 427, the bishops, the clergy, and the monks could not agree on the appointment of a successor, and the nomination was committed to the Emperor; who, seeing that no possible candidate among the ecclesiastics of Constantinople would be generally acceptable, chose Nestorius,5 a monk of a convent at Antioch, who had a high reputation as a preacher. The eloquence of Nestorius was matched by his intolerance, and no sooner was he seated on the Patriarchal throne6 than he began an energetic campaign against heresies. But his forcible language in condemning Apollinarian views, which he discovered to be rife among the local clergy, soon gave the Patriarch of Alexandria, who was the natural enemy of any Patriarch of Constantinople, a welcome opportunity of accusing him of heresy himself. The rivalry between these great sees, bitter since the Council of A.D. 381, when precedence over all sees except Rome had been granted to New Rome,7 had been aggravated by the struggle between Theophilus and Chrysostom.

The Patriarch Cyril and the Alexandrines held that the two natures of Christ were joined in an indissoluble, “hypostatic” or personal union, yet remained distinct, but that the human nature had no substance independently of the divine; that the Logos suffered without suffering, and that Mary is the mother of God inasmuch as she bare flesh which was united indissolubly with the Logos. Cyril’s doctrine approached that of Apollinaris in so far as it denied the existence of an individual man in Christ, but was sharply opposed to it by its maintenance of the distinction of the two natures.

Nestorius leaned to the doctrine of Theodore of Mopsuestia, which was popular in Syria. He characterised as fables the statements that a God was wrapped in swaddling clothes and was nailed upon the cross, and he protested against the use of the designation “Mother of God” (Theotokos).

It is to be observed that in this controversy both parties agreed in condemning the theory of Apollinaris and in holding that there were two natures in Christ. The main difference between them concerned the formula by which the union of the two natures was to be expressed — Cyril maintaining a “natural union”8 and Nestorius a less intimate “contact.”9 The truth may be that the view of Nestorius was not so very different from that of Cyril as Cyril thought. It seems probable that the doctrine of two Persons, somehow joined together, which is commonly imputed to Nestorius, would have been repudiated by him.10 Cyril wrote to Theodosius, to Eudocia, to Pulcheria and her sisters, censuring the heretical opinion of Nestorius,11 and stirred up the Egyptian monks, who were ever ready for a theological fray. A heated correspondence ensued between the two Patriarchs, and both invoked the support of Celestine, the bishop of Rome. Pope Celestine was no theologian. He was guided by the political expediency of supporting Alexandria against Constantinople, and he evaded the real issue by bringing into the forefront of the controversy a minor point, namely the question whether Mary might properly be called the Mother of God. On this particular point Nestorius was ready to yield, but he would not recant his doctrine at the bidding of a Roman synod.12 Anathemas and counter-anathemas flew between Alexandria and Constantinople, and then the Emperor, by the advice of Nestorius, summoned a Council on the neutral ground of Ephesus for Whitsuntide A.D. 431. The two antagonists arrived in good time, but John the Patriarch of Antioch was three weeks late. Cyril, who was accompanied by fifty bishops, would not wait for him; and the supporters of the Alexandrian party met and decreed the deposition of Nestorius, who refused to attend the assembly. When John and the Syrian contingent arrived, a rival but far less numerous Council was opened; the commissioner Candidian, Count of the Domestics, who represented the Emperor, presided; and Cyril was condemned and deposed. Then the Roman legates appeared upon the scene, attended the assembly of Cyril, and signed the decree against Nestorius.

The shameless proceedings of the satellites of Cyril and the rabble whom they are collected are graphically described by Nestorius, whose house was guarded by soldiers to protect him from violence. “They acted in everything as if it was a war they were conducting, and the followers of the Egyptian and of Memnon (the bishop of Ephesus), who were abetting them, went about in the city girt and armed with clubs, men with high necks, performing strange antics with the yells of barbarians, snorting fiercely with horrible and unwonted noises, raging with extravagant doings, carrying bells about the city, and lighting fires in many places and casting into them all kinds of writings. Everything they did was a cause of amazement and fear; they blocked up the streets so that every one was obliged to flee and hide while they acted as masters of the situation, lying about drunk and besotted and shouting obscenities.”13 Such were the circumstances of the Third Ecumenical Council, which had gathered to pronounce on the true doctrine of the natures of Christ.

The Emperor had at first resolved to reject the decree against Nestorius, but afterwards he decided to carry out the rulings of both assemblies. The two Patriarchs were deposed; Nestorius retreated to his old convent at Antioch. But at Constantinople there was a strong ecclesiastical opposition to Nestorius; the clergy addressed a petition to the Emperor demanding justice for Cyril, and the monks, under the leadership of Dalmatius, excited the people.14 The popular demonstrations were aided by Cyril’s intrigues and a lavish distribution of bribes;15 Pulcheria doubtless threw her influence into the scale; and the Emperor was compelled to yield and to permit Cyril to resume his Patriarchal seat. Cyril then sought to come to terms with Antioch, and a new formula was invented — “the unconfused union of two natures” — which could be accepted both by the Alexandrines and by moderate men of the Antiochian school. Cyril subscribed to this creed in A.D. 433. Good Nestorians retreated to Edessa, and here their theology was in the ascendant until the Emperor Zeno (A.D. 489) took measures to extirpate Nestorianism and succeeded in driving it beyond the frontier. The subsequent fortunes of the sect are connected with Persian and Saracen history.

It is clear that throughout the whole controversy personal dislike of Nestorius, who was not an amiable or courteous man, played a considerable part. He was permitted to remain peacefully in his monastery for a few years, notwithstanding the urgent request of Pope Celestine that such a firebrand should be removed from all contact with men. But at length the Emperor adopted harsh measures against him (A.D. 435).16 He was denounced in an edict as sacrilegious, his books were condemned to the flames,17 and he was banished at first to Petra and then to Oasis in Upper Egypt (A.D. 435). He seems to have died in A.D. 451.18

The compromise of A.D. 433 was not final. The question was opened again by Dioscorus, who had succeeded Cyril (A.D. 444) in the see of Alexandria, and was jealous of the prestige of the theologians of Antioch. He set himself the task of destroying the Antiochian formula of “two natures or hypostaseis and one Christ.” His views found a warm supporter at Constantinople in a certain Eutyches, the archimandrite of a monastery, who had been prominent in the agitation against Nestorius, and enjoyed the favour of the eunuch Chrysaphius.19 Eutyches was charged with heresy; the Patriarch Flavian20 took up the matter and procured his condemnation at a local synod (A.D. 448). Eutyches appealed to Leo, the bishop of Rome; and Dioscorus urged the Emperor to summon a general Council. Theodosius, guided by the counsels of Chrysaphius who hated Flavian, yielded to the wishes of Alexandria, and the Council met at Ephesus in August A.D. 449.

In the meantime Leo had come to the conclusion that the views of Eutyches were heretical, and he wrote in this sense to the Emperor and the Patriarch. He claimed that he was himself the person who should decide and define the dogma by virtue of the authority residing in the see of St. Peter; there was no necessity for a General Council.21 But the Council was called, and Leo sent three delegates, committing to them a Dogmatic Epistle or Tome addressed to Flavian in which he formulated the true doctrine: the unity of two hypostatic natures in one person, wherein the properties of both natures were preserved.22 It was not explained how this union was possible, and a distinguished historian of dogma observes23 that Leo left off at the point where the speculation of Cyril began.

Dioscorus presided at the Council. The letter of Leo was not read, and the Roman representative did not vote. Eutyches was declared orthodox, and Flavian was deposed as having gone beyond the doctrine of the creed of Nicaea.24 Other more distinguished adherents of the Antiochian doctrine, including Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, a notable theologian, were also deposed. The result of the proceedings was to annul the compromise of A.D. 433 and to reinstate the Cyrillian doctrine of the one incarnate nature of the God-Logos. The voting of many of the 115 bishops who signed the Acts was not free; they were overawed by the Imperial authorities and by the violence of a noisy crowd of monks from Syria. Yet it has been said, perhaps with truth, that this Council more than any other expressed the general religious feeling of the time, and would have permanently settled the controversy in the East if extraneous interests had not been involved.

The bishop of Rome denounced the “Robber Council,” as he called it, and prompted Valentinian III to propose to his cousin Theodosius the convention of a new Council in Italy. Theodosius replied that the recent Council had simply defended the rulings of Nicaea and Ephesus against the innovations of Flavian; no further action was called for; the Church was at peace. If the question had been simply doctrinal and no political considerations had intervened, the decision of the “Robber Council” might have been the last word in Eastern Christendom. But that Council had been a triumph for Alexandria, and the prestige which Dioscorus acquired was a menace not only to Old Rome — he promptly excommunicated Leo — but also to New Rome. This danger could not long be ignored, and the death of Theodosius was followed by a change of policy at Constantinople.

Marcian resolved to terminate the ecclesiastical despotism which the Alexandrian bishops sought to impose upon the East, and Anatolius, who through the influence of Dioscorus had succeeded Flavian as Patriarch, did not scruple to lend himself to a new policy and to subscribe the Dogmatic Epistle of Leo. Marcian wrote to Leo agreeing to his request for a new Council, but insisting that it should meet in the East. Then the Pope changed his tactic. He claimed, as before, that his own Epistle was sufficient to settle the whole matter, and did all he could to prevent the meeting of a Council.25 But Marcian knew that, however wonderful Leo’s Epistle might be, a Council would be indispensable to satisfy public opinion in the Eastern Churches, and he summoned a Council for the autumn (A.D. 451). Leo rather sulkily yielded.26 In October an unusually large assembly of ecclesiastics27 met at Chalcedon, and the presidency, which meant the right of first recording his vote, was given to the legate of the Pope.

It was the common object of Leo and of Marcian to procure the deposition of Dioscorus, and in this they succeeded, but not without exercising moral violence. Most of the bishops, including Anatolius who really agreed with Dioscorus, voted against their consciences and relinquished the formula in which they believed. But, while Leo desired that his epistle should be accepted as it stood, Marcian saw that a new formula, which should indeed take account of the Pope’s statement, would be less unacceptable in the East. Accordingly the Council decreed that the true doctrine was contained in certain writings of Cyril28 as well as in Leo’s epistle; and described Jesus Christ as complete in his humanity as well as in his divinity; one and the same Christ in two natures, without confusion or change, division or separation;29 each nature concurring30 into one person and one hypostasis.

The doctrine of the Fourth Ecumenical Council is still accepted as authoritative in the Churches of Christendom. It is interesting to learn the judgment of one of the most learned living theologians. The Council of Chalcedon, “which we might call the Robber and the Traitor Council, betrayed the secret of the Greek faith.” “The disgrace attaching to this Council consists in the fact that the great majority of the bishops who held the same views as Cyril and Dioscorus finally allowed a formula to be forced upon them, which was that of strangers, of the Emperor and the Pope, and which did not correspond to their belief.”31 But the truth is that the definition of Chalcedon might be interpreted in different ways. To Leo and the Western Church it meant one thing; to the followers of Cyril another; to Antiochians and Theodoret, something different which Nestorius himself could have accepted.32

Politically, the Council was a decisive triumph for Constantinople and a final blow to the pretensions of the see of Alexandria. Marcian completed what Theodosius the Great had begun. Three successive Patriarchs, Theophilus, Cyril, and Dioscorus, had aimed at attaining to the supreme position in Eastern Christendom and at ruling Egypt like kings. Alexandria could never again claim to lead the Church in theology. But the defeat of Alexandria was accompanied by an exaltation of Byzantium which was far from acceptable to Rome. By the twenty-eighth Canon equal privileges with Rome were granted to the see of Constantinople, all the episcopal sees of the Dioceses of Thrace, Asia, and Pontus were assigned to the jurisdiction of the Patriarch. The Roman legates protested against this Canon, and Leo refused to confirm it.33

Dioscorus was deposed by the Council, and was banished to Gangra. Feeling ran so high at Alexandria that the aid of soldiers was required to establish his successor Proterius.

In Egypt and Syria there was a solid mass of opinion loyal to the doctrine of one nature, and firmly opposed to the formula of Chalcedon. These Monophysites, as they were called, were far too numerous and earnest to be stamped out; they ultimately created the national Coptic Church of Egypt. Throughout the reign of Leo I the dispute over the meaning of the Incarnation led to scenes of the utmost violence in Alexandria and to occurrences hardly less scandalous in Antioch.

At Jerusalem the Monophysites obtained the upper hand after the Council of Chalcedon, and a reign of terror prevailed for some time. The episode derives interest from the association of the Empress Eudocia, who was living there in retirement, with the Monophysitic cause.34 A monk named Theodosius, who was a zealous supporter of Dioscorus, gained the ear of the people, and the bishop of Jerusalem, Juvenal, when he returned from the Council, was forced to flee for his life, because he refused to renounce the doctrine which he had subscribed. Theodosius was ordained bishop, and methods of the utmost violence were adopted to coerce those who refused to communicate with him. He was supported by Eudocia, who had been a devoted admirer of Cyril and was led to believe that Cyril’s doctrine was identical with that of Dioscorus and had been condemned at Chalcedon. The Emperor Marcian at length took strong measures; Theodosius fled to Mount Sinai, and Juvenal was restored to his see.35 Eudocia after some years began to feel doubts about her theology and she consulted the pillar saint, Simeon, who recommended her to seek the advice of Euthymius, abbot of the convent of Sahel, a few miles east of Jerusalem. An interview with the monk showed the Empress the error of her ways, and she died in the faith of Chalcedon.

The Christian religion, with its theology which opened such a wide field for differences of opinion, had introduced into the Empire dangerous discords which were a sore perplexity to the government. In some ways it augmented, in others it weakened, the power of the State to resist its external enemies. It cannot be maintained — as we have already seen — that it was one of the causes which contributed to the dismemberment of the Empire in the West by the Teutonic peoples; and subsequently, the religious communion, which was preserved throughout political separation, helped the Empire to recover some of the territory it had lost. In the East, bitter theological divisions, consequent on the Council of Chalcedon,36 facilitated the Saracen conquest of the provinces of Syria and Egypt, but afterwards, in the diminished Empire, the State religion formed a strong bond and fostered the growth of a national spirit which enabled the Imperial power to hold out for centuries against surrounding foes.

§ 2. The Controversy on Predestination, and the Growth of the Papal Power

The subtle questions on the nature of the Incarnation, which were so hotly disputed by the Greeks and Orientals, created little or no disturbance in western Europe. But in the early years of the fifth century the western provinces were agitated by a heresy of their own, on a subject which had more obviously practical bearings, but involved no less difficult theological metaphysics. The Pelagian controversy concerned free will and original sin. Pelagius, probably a Briton of Irish extraction,37 propagated the views that man possesses the power of choosing between good and evil, and that there is no sin where there is not a voluntary choice of evil; that sin is not inherited; that man can live, and some men actually have lived, sinless; and that unbaptized infants attain to eternal life.38 The controversy is memorable because these doctrines found their chief antagonist in Augustine and led him gradually to develop the predestinarian theories which had such a powerful influence on subsequent theology. He maintained that sin was transmitted to all men from Adam; that man, by the mere gift of free will, cannot choose aright without the constant operation of grace; that no man has ever lived a sinless life; that infants dying unbaptized are condemned, as a just punishment for the sin which they inherited. As time went on, Augustine developed his theory, which raised the whole question of the origin of evil into a system which, while it professed to admit the freedom of the will, really annulled it. God, he said, decided from eternity to save some members of the human race from the consequence of sin; he fixed the number of the saved, which can be neither increased nor diminished, and on these favoured few he bestows the gifts of grace which are necessary for their salvation. The rest perish eternally, if not through their own transgressions, through the effects of original sin. This is not unjust, because there is no reason why God should give grace to any man; by refusing to bestow it, he affirms the truth that none deserve it. Augustine allowed that in the eternal punishment which awaits all but the few there may be different degrees of pain.

Pelagius, along with his friend Caelestius whom he had converted to his views, went from Rome to Africa (A.D. 409). Leaving Caelestius there, he proceeded himself to Palestine. Caelestius stated his views before a council of African bishops at Carthage and was excommunicated (A.D. 412). Three years later a synod was held at Jerusalem, at which Pelagius was present, the question was discussed, and it was decided that it should be referred to Pope Innocent I (A.D. 415), but some months later another synod at Diospolis acquitted Pelagius of heterodoxy. In the meantime Augustine was writing on the subject,39 and the African bishops condemned the Pelagian doctrine and asked Innocent to express his approval.40 A decision on the matter devolved upon Innocent’s successor Zosimus, who was elected on March 17, A.D. 417, and the ear of this Pope was gained by Caelestius, who had come to Rome. Zosimus censured the African bishops for condemning Caelestius, and intimated that he would decide, if the accusers came and appeared before him. Then he received a letter from Pelagius, which convinced him that Pelagius was a perfectly orthodox Catholic.41 But the African bishops were not convinced, and in defiance of the Pope’s opinion, they condemned Pelagius and his teaching in a synod at Carthage (May 1, A.D. 418). Zosimus at last became aware that the doctrines of Pelagius were really heretical; he was obliged to execute a retreat,42 and he confirmed the findings of the African synod. Honorius issued a decree banishing Pelagius and Caelestius from Rome and inflicting the penalty of confiscation on their followers.43 Although the views of the British heretic were crushed by the arguments and authority of Augustine, they led to the formation of an influential school of opinion in Gaul44 which, though condemning Pelagianism, did not accept the extreme predestinarian doctrines of the great African divine.

In the list of Roman pontiffs the name of Zosimus is not one which the Catholic Church holds in high esteem. His brief pontificate fell at a critical period, when the Roman see was laying the foundations of the supremacy which it was destined to gain by astute policy, and propitious circumstances, over the churches of western Europe. Zosimus, through his rashness and indiscretion, did as much as could be done in two years to thwart the purposes which he was himself anxious to promote. In the matter of Pelagius he committed himself to a judgment which shows that he was either unpardonably ignorant of the doctrine which had been challenged, or that he considered orthodox in A.D. 417 what he condemned as heterodox in A.D. 418; and he exposed himself to a smart rebuff from the bishops of Africa.45 But his indiscretion in this affair was of less importance than the ill-considered policy on which he embarked on a question of administration in the Gallic Church, and which proved highly embarrassing to his successors.

The authority which the Roman see exercised in western Europe at this time, beyond its prestige and acknowledged primacy in Christendom, was twofold. Decrees of Valentinian I and Gratian had recognised it as a court to which clergy condemned by provincial synods might appeal.46 In the second place it was looked up to as a model, and when doubtful questions arose about discipline it was consulted by provincial bishops. The answers of the Popes to such questions were known as Decretals. They did not bind the bishops; they were responses, not ordinances. Appellate jurisdiction and the moral weight of the Decretals were the principal bases on which the power of the Roman see was gradually to be built up.47

Zosimus entertained an idea of his authority which transcended these rights and anticipated the claims of his successors. Immediately after his election his ear was gained by Patroclus, the bishop of Arles, who desired to make his see an ecclesiastical metropolis of the first rank. In the three provinces of Viennensis, Narbonensis Prima, and Narbonensis Secunda, the bishops of Vienne, Narbonne, and Marseilles48 were the metropolitans; Arles was merely a bishopric in Narbonensis Prima. The idea of Patroclus was naturally enough suggested by the translation of the residence of the Praetorian Prefect of Gaul from Trier to Arles.49 Zosimus determined to deprive the bishops of Vienne, Narbonne, and Marseilles of their metropolitan rights, and to invest the bishop of Arles with jurisdiction over the three provinces. He also proposed to establish a new Metropolitan of Arles as a sort of Roman vicar, apparently over the whole of Gaul.50

The bishop of Narbonne yielded with a protest to this revolutionary assumption of sovranty. But the bishops of Marseilles and Vienne defied Zosimus and brought the question before a council of the Milanese diocese which met at Turin (Sept. 22, A.D. 417).51 The council at first decided against the pretensions of Arles, but finally compromised by dividing the Viennese province into two parts, of which the southern was to depend on Arles. Zosimus was not pleased, but deemed it prudent to concur. The bishop of Marseilles, who declined to yield, was excommunicated by a Roman synod, but remained quietly in his see. Thus a part of the Pope’s plan was actually carried out, but the facts remained that the council of Turin had refused to recognise the supreme authority of Rome, and that Marseilles had resisted with impunity.

The indiscretions of Zosimus were a lesson for his successors.52 Moreover, they recognised that the establishment of such a large and powerful see as that which Zosimus called into being was likely to be a rival rather than a vassal of Rome. Their aim was to undo what Zosimus had done, and in accomplishing this they acted with greater circumspection and increased the authority of their see. Both Boniface and Celestine53 did what they could to restrict the powers of the bishop of Arles. The first Narbonensis was withdrawn from his jurisdiction and restored to Narbonne.54 But the situation was more difficult for Rome, because the monks of Lérins, whose influence was strong in southern Gaul, threw the weight of their interest into the scale of Arles. Their founder, Honoratus, had been elected to succeed Patroclus, and he was followed by his disciple Hilary, whose authority threatened to usurp that of Rome in the Gallic Church.55 The conflict between Hilary and Leo I, who was elected in A.D. 440, is not edifying. An appeal to Rome (A.D. 444) gave the Pope a welcome opportunity of striking his opponent. He did not venture to excommunicate him, but he deprived him of the remnant of the province which Zosimus had created. This sentence could not be executed without the aid of the secular power. He had much influence with the Emperor and Galla Placidia, and he procured an edict, which was issued (July 8, A.D. 445) at the same time as his own decree.56 Arles was deprived of its metropolitan dignity.57

But that edict of Valentinian III did much more than settle in Rome’s favour this particular question. It assigned to the Roman see that supremacy over the provincial churches which the Popes had been endeavouring to establish, but which the African synods and the council of Turin had refused to acknowledge.58 It ordained that “the bishops of Gaul or any other province should take no decision contrary to the ancient rules of discipline without the consent and authority of the venerable Pope of the eternal city. They must conform to all the decrees of the Apostolic see. Bishops summoned before the tribunal of Rome must be compelled to appear by the civil authorities.”

It is the political bearing of this law that interests us here. When many of the western provinces had wholly or partly passed out of the Emperor’s control, it was a matter of importance to strive to keep alive the idea of the Empire and the old attachment to Rome in the minds of the provincials who were now subject to German masters. The day might come when it would be possible to recover some of these lost lands, which the Imperial government never acknowledged to be really lost, and in the meantime a close ecclesiastical unity presented itself as a powerful means for preserving the bonds of sentiment, which would then prove an indispensable help. To accustom the churches in Gaul and Britain, Spain and Africa to look up to Rome and refer their disputes and difficulties to the Roman bishop was a wise policy from the secular point of view, and it was doubtless principally by urging considerations of this nature that Leo was able to induce the government to establish the supremacy of his see.

It is important to bear in mind that the administrative authority of the Pope, at this time, extended into the dominions of the eastern Emperors. The lands included in the Prefecture of Illyricum belonged to the Patriarchate of Rome, and constituted the Vicariate of Thessalonica, where the Pope’s vicar, who was entrusted with the administration, resided. Theodosius II wished to place this ecclesiastical province under Constantinople and published an edict with this intent, but the remonstrances of Honorius induced him to retract it;59 and Greece, Macedonia, and Dacia remained under the see of St. Peter till the eighth century.

§ 3. Persecution of Paganism

Persecution was an unavoidable consequence of Constantine’s act in adopting Christianity. Two of the chief points in which this faith differed from the Roman State religion were its exclusiveness and the vital importance which it assigned to dogma. The first logically led to intolerance of pagan religions, the second to intolerance of heresies, and these consequences could not be averted when Christianity became the religion of the State. It might be suggested that Constantine would have done better if, when he decided to embrace it and favour its propagation, he had been content to deprive pagan cults of their official status and to allow Christianity to compete in a free field with its rivals, aided by the prestige which it would derive from the Emperor’s personal adhesion and favour. But such a policy would have been an anachronism. A state, at that time, was unthinkable without a State cult, and if an Emperor became a Christian a logical result was that Christianity should be adopted as the official religion of the Empire, and a second that the old Roman policy of toleration should be thrown overboard. In an age of superstition this was demanded not only in the interest of the Church but in the interest of the State itself. The purpose of the official cults in the pagan State was to secure the protection of the deities; these were liberal and tolerant lords who raised no objection to other forms of worship; and toleration was therefore a principle of the State. But the god of the new official religion was a jealous master; he had said, “thou shalt have none other gods before me,” and idolatry was an offence to him; how could his protection and favour be expected in a state in which idolatry was permitted? Intolerance was a duty, and the first business of a patriotic ruler was to take measures to extirpate the errors of paganism.

But these consequences were not drawn immediately. It must never be forgotten that Constantine’s revolution was perhaps the most audacious act ever committed by an autocrat in disregard and defiance of the vast majority of his subjects. For at least four-fifths of the population of the Empire were still outside the Christian Church.60 The army and all the leading men in the administration were devoted to paganism. It is not, therefore, surprising that Constantine, who was a statesman as well as a convert, made no attempt to force the pace. His policy did little more than indicate and prepare the way for the gradual conversion of the Empire, and was so mild and cautious that it has been maintained by some that his aim was to establish a parity between the two religions.

He retained the title of Pontifex Maximus, and thereby the constitutional right of the Emperor to supervise the religious institutions. He withdrew the support of state funds from pagan rites, but made an exception in favour of the official cults at Rome. His most important repressive measure was the prohibition of the sacrifice of victims in the temples.61 One reason for this measure was the dangerous practice of divination by entrails, often employed by persons who contemplated a rebellion and desired to learn from the higher powers their chances of success.

In some particular places cults were suppressed, but a pagan could still worship freely in the temples, could offer incense and make libations of wine, and might even perform sacrificial rites in a private house. The sons of Constantine62 were indeed inclined to adopt a stringent policy, and their laws might lead us to suppose that there was something like a severe persecution. Constantius, in reaffirming the prohibition of sacrifices, menaced transgressors with the avenging sword.63 But the death penalty was never inflicted, and there was a vast difference between the letter of the law and the practice. In the same edict was ordained the closing of temples “in all places and cities,” but this order can only have been carried out here and there. Its execution depended on local circumstances, and on the sentiments of the provincial governors. In some places Christian fanatics took advantage of the Imperial decree to demolish heathen shrines, and the pagans were naturally very apprehensive. When Julian visited Ilion, he inspected the antiquities under the guidance of Pegasius, who was “nominally a bishop of the Galilaeans,” but really worshipped the Sun god.64 He had taken orders and succeeded in becoming a bishop in order that he might have the means of protecting the heathen sanctuaries from Christian destruction.

When paganism was restored by Julian, it is probable that any temples which had been closed under the edict of Constantius were again reopened, and after his fall it would seem that they were allowed to remain open for worship, though sacrifices were regarded as unlawful.

The Emperors Valentinian I65 and Valens were consistently tolerant. The mysteries of Eleusis were expressly permitted, for the proconsul of Achaia told Valentinian that if they were suppressed the Greeks would find life not worth living.66 But a new religious policy was inaugurated by Gratian and Theodosius the Great. Gratian abandoned the title of Pontifex Maximus; he withdrew the public money which was devoted to the cults of Rome, and he ordered the altar of Victory to be removed from the Senate-house, to the deep chagrin of the senators. The fathers appealed to Valentinian II to revoke this order, and to restore the public maintenance of the religious institutions of the capital; but the moving petition of Symmachus, who was their spokesman, was overruled by the influence of Ambrose, the archbishop of Milan, who possessed the ear of Valentinian and of Theodosius.67

It remained for Theodosius to inflict a far heavier blow on the ancient cults of Greece and Rome. In the earlier years of his reign the extirpation of pagan worship does not seem to have been an aim of his policy. He was only concerned to enforce obedience to the laws prohibiting sacrifices, which had evidently been widely evaded. He decided on the closing of all sanctuaries in which the law had been broken. He entrusted to Cynegius, Praetorian Prefect of the East, a pious Christian, the congenial task of executing this order in Asia and Egypt. But otherwise temples were still legally open to worshippers.68 It is to be particularly noted that the Emperor did not desire to destroy but only to secularise such buildings as were condemned, and the cases of barbarous demolition of splendid buildings which occurred in these years were due to the fanatical zeal of monks and ecclesiastics. Monks wrought the destruction of the great temple of Edessa, and the Serapeum at Alexandria, which gave that city “the semblance of a sacred world,”69 was demolished under the direction of the archbishop Theophilus (A.D. 389),70 who thereby dealt an effective blow to the paganism of Alexandria.

But Theodosius and his ecclesiastical advisers thought that the time was now ripe to make a clean sweep of idolatry, and in A.D. 391 and 392 laws were issued which carried to its logical conclusion the act of Constantine. We may conjecture that this drastic legislation was principally due to the influence of the archbishop of Milan. To sacrifice, whether in public or in private, was henceforward to be punished as an act of treason. Fines were imposed on any who should frequent temples or shrines; and for worshipping images with incense, for hanging sacred fillets on trees, for building altars of turf, the penalty was confiscation of the house or property where such acts were performed.71

In the insurrection of A.D. 392 the restoration of paganism was a capital feature in the programme of the general Arbogastes and Eugenius the creature whom he crowned, and the lure attracted some distinguished adherents. For a short time the altar of Victory was set up in the Roman Senate-house. After the suppression of the revolt Theodosius visited Rome, attended a meeting of the Senate, and though his tone was conciliatory, his firmness compelled that body to decree the abolition of the ancient religious institutions of Rome.72 Some of the pagan senators had Christian families,73 and domestic influence may have reinforced the imperial will.

The last years of the fourth century mark an epoch in the decay of paganism. While the gods were irrevocably driven from Rome itself, time-honoured institutions of Greece also came to an end. The old oracles seem to have been silenced at a much earlier date. The “last oracle” of the Delphic god, said to have been delivered to Julian, is a sad and moving expression of the passing away of the old order of things.

Tell the king on earth has fallen the glorious dwelling,

And the water springs that spake are quenched and dead, Not a cell is left the god, no roof, no cover;

In his hand the prophet laurel flowers no more.74 The Olympian games were celebrated for the last time in A.D. 393, and the chryselephantine statue of Zeus, the greatest monument of the genius of Pheidias, was removed soon afterwards from Olympia to Constantinople.75 The Eleusinian mysteries ceased three years later in consequence of the injuries wrought to the sanctuaries by the invasion of Alaric.76 The legend that Athens was saved from the rapacity of the Goths by the appearance of Athene Promachos and the hero Achilles illustrates the vitality of pagan superstition. Athens had fared better than many other towns at the hands of the Emperors.77 Constantine, who ransacked Hellenic shrines for works of art in order to adorn his new capital, spared Athens; and in the reign of Theodosius, when the Samian Hera of Lysippus, the Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles, the Athene of Lindos were carried off, the Parthenon was not compelled to surrender the ivory and gold Athene of Pheidias. Soon after A.D. 429 this precious work was ravished from the Acropolis,78 but we do not know its fate. Nor do we know at what date the Parthenon was converted into a church of the Virgin.79

The ordinances of Theodosius did not, of course, avail immediately to stamp out everywhere the forbidden cults. Pagan practices still went on secretly, and in some places openly, and the government, generally perhaps yielding to ecclesiastical pressure, issued from time to time new laws to enforce the execution of the old or to supplement them.80 Arcadius, under the influence of Chrysostom, issued an edict to destroy, not merely to close, temples in the country and to use the material for public buildings.81 Chrysostom sent monks to Phoenicia to carry out the work of destruction there, but the money required was provided not by the state but by pious Christians, especially women.82 We have seen how bishop Porphyrius of Gaza secured with the help of the Empress Eudoxia the demolition of the temple of Marnas. As a rule the Emperors desired that the ancient sanctuaries should be preserved and turned to other uses, and we find them interfering to prevent destruction.83 In many country districts Christianity was only beginning to penetrate, and for the eradication of heathenism there was much missionary teaching to be done, such as was carried on by Martin in western Gaul, by Victricius, archbishop of Rouen, in the Belgic provinces, and by Nicetas of Remesiana in the Balkan highlands.84

Theodosius II at one time professed to believe that no pagans survived in his dominions,85 but this sanguine view, if it was seriously held, was premature, for in a later year he repeated the prohibition of sacrifices and ordered anew the conversion of temples into churches;86 and Leo I legislated severely against heathen practices.87 It is to be observed that this persecution differed in one important respect from the ecclesiastical persecutions of later ages in western Europe. Only pagan acts were forbidden; opinion as such was tolerated, and no restrictions were placed on the diffusion of pagan literature. Perhaps the only exception was the edict of Theodosius II shortly before his death,88 ordering the books of Porphyry, whose dangerous treatise Against the Christians had apparently shocked the Emperor or some of his advisers, to be burned. The same monarch had enacted that no Christian shall disturb or provoke Jews or pagans “living peaceably.”89 Indeed pagans could not be dispensed with in the civil service, and in the sixth century we still find them in prominent positions.90 Hellenism largely prevailed in the law schools, and was no bar to promotion, though it might be made a pretext for removing an official who had fallen out of favour. An able pagan, Tatian, enjoyed the confidence of the fanatical Theodosius the Great, and was appointed Praetorian Prefect of the East; and the same Emperor showed friendly regard towards spokesmen of the old religion like Libanius and Symmachus. The headquarters of unchristian doctrine, the university of Athens, was held in high esteem by Constantine and Constans,91 and it continued throughout the fifth century unmolested as the home of a philosophy which was the most dangerous rival of Christian theology. Pagans also received appointments in the university of Constantinople.

In a hundred years the Empire had been transformed from a state in which the immense majority of the inhabitants were devoted to pagan religions, into one in which an Emperor could say, with gross exaggeration, but without manifest absurdity, that not a pagan survived. Such a change was not brought to pass by mere prohibition and suppression. It is not too much to say that the success of the Church in converting the gentile world in the fourth and fifth centuries was due to a process which may be described as a pagan transmutation of Christianity itself. If Christian beliefs and worship had been retained unaltered in the early simplicity of their spirit and form, it may well be doubted whether a much longer period would have sufficed to christianize the Roman Empire. But the Church permitted a compromise. All the religions of the age had common ground in crude superstition, and the Church found no difficulty in proffering to converts beliefs and cults similar to those to which they had been accustomed. It was a comparatively small matter that incense, lights, and flowers, the accessories of various pagan ceremonials, had been introduced into Christian worship. It was a momentous and happy stroke to encourage the introduction of a disguised polytheism. A legion of saints and martyrs replaced the old legion of gods and heroes, and the hesitating pagan could gradually reconcile himself to a religion, which, if it robbed him of his tutelary deity, whom it stigmatized as a demon, allowed him in compensation the cult of a tutelary saint. A new and banal mythology was created, of saints and martyrs, many of them fictitious; their bodies and relics, capable of working miracles like those which used to be wrought at the tombs of heroes, were constantly being discovered. The devotee of Athene or Isis could transfer his homage to the Virgin Mother. The Greek sailor or fisherman, who used to pray to Poseidon, could call upon St. Nicolas. Those who worshipped at stone altars of Apollo on hill-tops could pay the same allegiance to St. Elias. The calendar of Christian anniversaries corresponded at many points to the calendars of Greek and Roman festivals. Men could more easily acquiesce in the loss of the heathen celebrations connected with the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, when they found the joyous celebrations of the Nativity and the resurrection associated with those seasons, and they could transfer some of their old customs to the new feasts. The date of the Nativity was fixed to coincide with the birthday of Mithras (natalis Invicti, December 25), whose religion had many affinities with the Christian. This process was not the result, in the first instance, of a deliberate policy. It was a natural development, for Christianity could not escape the influence of the ideas which were current in its environment. But it was promoted by the men of light and leading in the Church.92

A particular form of miraculous healing illustrates the way in which Christianity appropriated pagan superstitions. The same dream-cures which used to be performed by Aesculapius or the Dioscuri for those who slept a night in the temple courts were still available; only the patient must resort to a sanctuary of Saints Cosmas and Damian,93 the new Castor and Pollux, or of the archangel Michael94 or some other Christian substitute. We have an interesting example of the method employed by ecclesiastical magnates in an incident which occurred in Egypt. Near Canopus there was a temple of Isis where such nocturnal cures were dispensed, and professing Christians continued to have recourse to this unhallowed aid. The Patriarch Cyril found a remedy. He discovered the bodies of two martyrs, Cyrus and John, in the church of St. Mark at Alexandria, and dislodging Isis he interred them, and dedicated a church to them, in the same place, where they freely exhibited the same mysterious medical powers which had been displayed by the great goddess.95

The more highly educated pagans offered a longer and more obdurate resistance to the appeals of Christianity than the vulgar crowd. Throughout the fourth and fifth centuries they retained higher education in their hands. The schools of rhetoric, philosophy, law, and science maintained the ancient traditions and the pagan atmosphere. In their writings, some pagans frankly showed their hostility to Christianity, others affected to ignore it. We saw how they threw upon this religion the responsibility for the invasion of the barbarians. But in general their attitude was one of resignation, and they found no difficulty in serving Christian Emperors and working with Christian colleagues.96 This spirit of resignation is expressed in the most interesting piece we have of the poet Palladas of Alexandria, occasioned by the sight of a Hermes lying in the roadway.

At a meeting of ways I was ware of a bronze god prone at my feet,

And I knew him the offspring of Zeus, whom we prayed to of old, as was meet.

“Lord of the triple moon,” I cried, “averter of woe,

Ever a lord hast thou been, and behold, in the dust thou art low.”

But at night with a smile on his lips the god stood by me sublime,

And said, “A god though I be, I serve, and my master is Time.”97

Throughout the fifth century Athens was the headquarters of what may be called higher paganism. The Stoic and Epicurean schools had died out in the third century, and in the fourth the most distinguished savants of the university like Proaeresius and Himerius were sophists, not philosophers. But the Platonic Academy continued to exist, independent of State grants, for it had its own private property producing a revenue of more than £600 a year.98 Its scholarchs, however, were not men of much talent or distinction, until the office was filled by Priscus,99 a Neoplatonist and a friend of Julian, after that Emperor’s death. Priscus inaugurated the reign of Neoplatonism at Athens; with him the revival of the university, as a centre of philosophic study, began, and vastly increased under his successor Plutarch. Towards the end of the fourth century, Synesius had spoken in disparaging words of Athens and her teachers: her fame, he said, rests with her bee-keepers. He was jealous for the reputation of Alexandria, and with good reason, for under Plutarch and his successors Syrianus and Proclus Athens was to eclipse the Egyptian city. These Platonists attracted students from all parts of the East, and some who had begun their studies, like Proclus himself, at Alexandria, completed them at Athens.100

The Athenian professors had always regarded themselves as the champions of Hellenism, but when the Neoplatonic philosophy became ascendant, the Hellenism of Athens was a more serious danger. At this time Neoplatonism was the most formidable rival of Christian theology among educated men of a speculative turn of mind. Augustine recognised this; we know how it attracted him.101 The Neoplatonists taught a system fundamentally differing from the current Christian theology as to the position which was assigned to the creator of the world. According to Plotinus, Nous or Reason, the creator, emanated from and was subordinate to the absolute One, and Soul again emanated from Nous. His successors developed his principles by multiplying and dividing the emanations, and the growth of the philosophy culminated in the system which Proclus constructed by means of a dialectic which Hegel himself has described as “extremely tiring.”102 In all these phases, the Demiurge or Creator is subordinated to the One of which no divine attributes could be predicted, and thus an apparently impassable gulf was fixed between the later Platonic philosophers and Christian theologians. There was, indeed, at Alexander another school of Platonism, which held closer here and there to the teaching of Plato himself, and men who were trained in this school found the transition to Christian doctrine comparatively easy. We know something of the system of Hierocles, a leading Platonist at Alexandria in the fifth century.103 In his system there was no One or any other higher principle above God the creator and legislator, who was above, and in no sense co-ordinate with, the company of sidereal gods; and he, like the Christian Deity, created the world out of nothing. Some of the pupils of Hierocles became Christians. It is a curious circumstance that Hierocles should have been condemned to exile at Constantinople on grounds which are unknown to us.104 It can hardly have been for his teaching, seeing that far more anti-Christian Platonists, who had their stronghold at Athens, were tolerated.

But the danger and offence of the later Neoplatonists did not lie in their mystical metaphysics, but in the theurgy and pagan practices to which they were almost always addicted. Proclus in his public lectures as scholarch confined himself, doubtless, to the interpretation of Plato in the Neoplatonic sense, and to problems of dialectic, but he reserved for his chosen disciples esoteric teaching in theurgy, and venerated the gods as beneficent beings worthy of worship, though occupying a subordinate place in the hierarchy of existences. He believed that by fasting and purifications on certain days it was possible to get into communication with supernatural beings, and he recognised the gods of other nations as well as those of Greece. He said that the philosopher should not confine himself to the religious rites of one city or people, but should be “a hierophant of the whole world.” He was more scrupulous in observing the fasts of the Egyptians than the Egyptians themselves.105 He had been initiated in the Eleusinian secrets by his friend Asclepigenia, the daughter of Plutarch,106 who had learned them from the last priest of Eleusis, and in one of his writings he told how he had seen Hecate herself. Athens believed in his magical powers; he was said to have constructed an instrument by which he could bring down rain.

The Hellenists, even in the days of Proclus, had not abandoned all hope of winning toleration for pagan worship. At any time some one might ascend the throne with Hellenic sympathies. The elevation of Anthemius in the West was a proof that this was not impossible, though Anthemius was able to do little to help the pagan interest. Proclus died in A.D. 485, and at that very time a former pupil of his was prominently associated with a rebellion107 which, if it had been successful, might have been followed by some temporary relaxation of the severe laws against polytheism and pagan worship. This was to be the last flutter of a dying cause.

§ 4. Persecution of Heresy

The persecution of heretics was more resolute and severe than the persecution of pagans. Those who stood outside of the Church altogether were less dangerous than those members of it who threatened to corrupt it by false doctrine, and the unity of the Catholic faith in matters of dogma was considered of supreme importance. “Truth, which is simple and one,” wrote Pope Leo I, “does not admit of variety.”108 A modern inquirer is accustomed to regard the growth of heresies as a note of vitality, but in old times it was a sign of the active operation of the enemy of mankind.

The heresy which was looked upon as the most dangerous and abominable of all was that of the Manichees, which it would be truer to regard as a rival religion than as a form of Christianity.109 It was based on a mixture of Zoroastrian and Christian ideas, along with elements derived from Buddhism, but the Zoroastrian principles were preponderant. This religion was founded by Manes in Persia in the third century, and in the course of the fourth it spread throughout the Empire, in the West as well as in the East. Augustine in his youth came under its influence. The fundamental doctrine was that of Zoroaster, the existence of a good and an evil principle, God and Matter, independent of each other. The Old Testament was the work of the Evil Being. Matter being thoroughly evil, Jesus Christ could not have invested himself with it, and therefore his human body was a mere appearance. The story of his life in the Gospels was interpreted mystically. The Manichees had no churches, no altars, no incense; their worship consisted in prayers and hymns; they did not celebrate Christmas, and their chief festival was the Bêma, in March, kept in memory of the death of their founder, who was said to have been flayed alive or crucified by Varahran I. They condemned marriage, and practised rigorous austerities.110

The laws against the Manichees, which were frequent and drastic, began in the reign of Theodosius I. The heresy was insidious, because the heretics were difficult to discover; they often took part in Christian ceremonies and passed for orthodox, and they disguised their views under other names. Theodosius deprived them of civil rights and banished them from towns. Those who sheltered themselves under harmless names were liable to the penalty of death; and he ordered the Praetorian Prefect of the East to institute “inquisitors” for the purpose of discovering them.111 This is a very early instance of the application of this word, which in later ages was to become so offensive, to the uses of religious persecution. When the government of Theodosius II, under the influence of Nestorius, made a vigorous effort to sweep heresy from the world, the Manichaeans were stigmatised as men who had “descended to the lowest depths of wickedness,” and were condemned anew to be expelled from towns, and perhaps to be put to death112 (A.D. 428). Later legislation inflicted death unreservedly; they were the only heretics whose opinions exposed them to the supreme penalty.

Arcadius, at the beginning of his reign, reaffirmed all the pains and prohibitions which his predecessors had enacted against heretics.113 In most cases, this meant the suppression of their services and assemblies and ordinations. The Eunomians, an extreme branch of the Arians, who held that the Son was unlike the Father, were singled out for more severe treatment and deprived of the right of executing testaments. This disability, however, was afterwards withdrawn, and it was finally enacted that a Eunomian could not bequeath property to a fellow-heretic.114 Thus there was a certain vacillation in the policy of the government, caused by circumstances and influences which we cannot trace.

The combined efforts of Church and State were successful in virtually stamping out Arianism, which after the end of the fourth century ceased to be a danger to ecclesiastical unity. They were also successful ultimately in driving Nestorianism out of the Empire. The same policy, applied to the Monophysitic heresy, failed. Marcian’s law of A.D. 455 against the Eutychians was severe enough.115 They were excluded from the service of the State; they were forbidden to publish books criticising the Council of Chalcedon; and their literature, like that of the Nestorians, was condemned to be burned. But in Syria, where anti-Greek feelings were strong, and in Egypt, where national sentiment was beginning to associate itself with a religious symbol, all attempts to impose uniformity were to break down.

The severe measures taken by the State against the Donatists in Africa were chiefly due to their own fanaticism. Donatism was not properly a heresy, it was a schism, which had grown out of a double election to the see of Carthage in A.D. 311, and the question at issue between the Catholics and the Donatists was one of church discipline. We need not follow the attempts of Constantine and Constans to restore unity to the African church by military force. The cause of the Donatists was not recommended by their association with the violent madmen known as Circumcellions, who disdained death themselves, and inflicted the most cruel deaths on their opponents. The schismatics survived the persecution. At the death of Theodosius I the greater number of the African churches seem to have been in their hands, and during the usurpation of Gildo they persecuted the Catholics. When Augustine became bishop of Hippo, where the Donatists were in a great majority, he set himself the task of restoring ecclesiastical unity in Africa by conciliation.116 He and the Catholic clergy had some success in making converts, but the fanatics were so infuriated by these desertions that with their old allies the Circumcellions they committed barbarous outrages upon the Catholic clergy and churches; Augustine himself barely escaped from being waylaid. Such disorders demanded the intervention of the secular power. Some injured bishops presented themselves at Ravenna, and in A.D. 405 Honorius condemned the Donatists to severe penalties by several laws intended “to extirpate the adversaries of the Catholic faith.”117

The Donatists rejoiced at the death of Stilicho whom they regarded as the author of these laws, and disorders broke out afresh.118 When Alaric was in south Italy threatening Rome, the Emperor revoked his decrees and soon afterwards, at the request of the Catholics, he convoked a conference of the bishops of the two parties which met at Carthage (A.D. 411) under the presidency of Marcellinus, one of the “tribunes and notaries” whom the Emperors employed for special services. Marcellinus was empowered not only to act as chairman but to judge between the rival claims. The appointment of a secular official to adjudicate did not mean that the civil power claimed to settle questions of doctrine. The controversy, which originally turned on a dispute about facts, had throughout concerned the government not in its ecclesiastical aspect but as a cause of grave disorders and disturbances. But the commission entrusted to Marcellinus shows that the bishop of Rome was not yet recognised as possessing the jurisdiction which in later times resided in his see. At the end of the discussions, Marcellinus decided against the Donatists; they were allowed a certain time to come into the Church.119 Some were convinced, but others appealed to the Emperor, who confirmed the decision of his deputy and enacted a new law against the schismatics, imposing heavy fines on the recalcitrants, and banishing the clergy.120 Two years later they were deprived of civil rights.121 These strong measures, which Augustine defended, alleging the text “Compel them to come in,”122 broke the strength of the schismatics, and though the Donatist sect continued to exist and was tolerated under the Vandals, it ceased to be of importance.

It must be allowed that if the government had been perfectly indifferent and impartial in matters of religion, it would have had ample excuse for adopting severe measures of repression against the fanatical sect who disturbed the peace of the African provinces and persecuted their opponents. The penalties were severe but they stopped short of death. It should be remembered to the credit of the Emperors that, in contrast with the Christian princes of later ages, they never proposed, in pursuing their policy of the suppression of heresy, to inflict the capital penalty, except in the case of the Manichaeans, who were regarded as almost outside the pale of humanity.123 The same may be said for the leading and representative ecclesiastics, all of whom would have recoiled with horror if they could have foreseen the system of judicial murder which was one day to be established under the auspices of the Roman see.124 Martin of Tours did all he could to stay the persecution of the Spanish bishop Priscillian, who, rightly or wrongly, was accused of heresies akin to Manichaeanism. Priscillian was put to death by the Emperor Maximus (A.D. 385), but he was tried before a civil tribunal for a secular offence.125 It may well have been a miscarriage of justice, but, formally at least, he was not executed as a heretic.

Under the Christian Empire the Jews remained for the most part in possession of the privileges which they had before enjoyed.126 The Church was unable to persuade the State to introduce measures to suppress their worship or banish them from the Empire. They were forbidden to possess Christian slaves,127 and a law of Theodosius II excluded them from civil offices and dignities.128 But the legislator was perhaps more often concerned to protect them than to impinge upon their freedom.129

§ 5. Monasticism130

The same period, in which the Christian religion gradually won the upper hand in the Empire, witnessed a movement which was at first independent of the Church but was destined soon to become an important part of the ecclesiastical system. The germs of asceticism had been implanted in the Christianity from the very beginning, and the tendencies to a rigorous life of self-abnegation may have been stimulated by the example of the austerities of the Essenes, the Therapeutae, the monks of Serapis, and later by the influence of the semi-Christian Zoroastrian religion of the Manichees. Ascetic practices seem to have been a strong temptation to all men of an ardently religious temperament in these ages, whatever doctrines they might hold concerning the universe; Julian the Apostate is an eminent example. For the Christian Church and State the consequences were far-reaching and could not have been anticipated. In the course of the fourth and fifth centuries a large and ever-growing number of men and women withdrew themselves from society, severed themselves from family ties, and embraced, whether in cells in the desert or in recluse communities in town or country, a life of celibacy, prayer, and fasting. Gradually regularised and organised by disciplines of varying degrees of rigour, monasticism established itself firmly as one of the most influential institutions of the Christian world, thoroughly consonant with the spirit of the time and richly endowed by the liberality of the pious.

We have not to follow the history of its growth, but the reader may be reminded that Christian monasticism originated circa A.D. 300 under the auspices of St. Anthony in Lower Egypt. At first it took the form of a solitary life in the desert, where ascetics lived independently of one another in neighbouring cells and devoted themselves to an otherwise idle existence of religious contemplation.131 Another variety of monasticism was soon afterwards founded in Upper Egypt by Pachomius. In his monasteries near Tentyra (Denderah) and Panopolis (Akhmim) the brethren lived in common and performed all kinds of work. The Antonian ideal was approved by Athanasius, and his influence went far to spread it in the West. It was introduced into Palestine by Hilarion, and into Syria, where the rigours of the hermit assumed their most extreme and repulsive shape. There was originated the grotesque idea of living for years on the top of a high pillar. Simeon, the first of these pillar-saints (stylitae),132 had many followers, and such was the temper of the times that these abnormal self-tormentors, who could not have been more healthy in mind than in body, were universally revered and consulted as oracles.

The monastic movement engaged the attention of St. Basil, and awoke his enthusiasm. He came to the conclusion that monastic institutions, framed on right lines, would be useful to the Church, and he established a coenobitic community at Neocaesarea (about A.D. 360), and drew up minute regulations. The brethren were not required to take vows; the asceticism of their life was not immoderate; and they were expected to perform work in the fields. St. Basil’s idea had an immediate success and he became the founder of Greek monasticism. Cloisters adopting his Rule133 sprang up throughout Asia Minor, and in the following century in Palestine. But here there flourished also the lauras, or enclosures in which the monks lived an almost eremitical life in separate cells, and these institutions were numerous in the plain of the Jordan.134 The most famous of the ascetics of Palestine were Euthymius, Sabas, and Theodosius.135 Euthymius founded the laura of Sahel, to the east of Jerusalem, in A.D. 428;136 Sabas founded in A.D. 483 the Great Laura on the Cedron, with a grotto which nature had moulded into the form of a church, and many others; and Theodosius his coenobitic monastery at the grotto of the Magi near Bethlehem in A.D. 476. Sabas was appointed archimandrite of all the lauras, and Theodosius of all the coenobia, in the diocese of Jerusalem by the Patriarch Sallust (A.D. 494). It would seem that the monks of the lauras were considered to have attained to a higher grade of spiritual life than those who lived in convents, which were regarded as a preparation in ascetic discipline.137 As Sabas and one of his disciples walked one day from Jericho to the Jordan, they met a young and comely girl. “Did you remark that girl?” said the saint, “she is one-eyed.” “No, Father,” said the disciple, “she had both her eyes.” “How do you know?” “I looked at her intently.” “What about the commandment, ‘Fix not your eyes on her, neither let her take thee with her eyelids’?”138 And the saint sent the youth to a convent till he had learned better to control his eyes and his thoughts.

The history of monasticism at Constantinople begins with the abbot139 Isaac, a Syrian, who in the reign of Theodosius I founded a convent in the quarter of Psamathia outside the Constantinian Wall. He was a typical fanatical ascetic and was buried with great pomp when he died.140 He was succeeded by Dalmatius, an active organiser, who founded new houses under his own authority. The community of the Akoimetoi or Sleepless was established at Gomon, near the northern entrance to the Bosphorus, by one Alexander in the reign of Theodosius II, but his successor John transported the monks to a new cloister at Chibukli, on the Asiatic side of the straits opposite to Sosthenion,141 where it became famous under the next abbot Marcellus, who presided for about forty years. Two other foundations deserve notice. The monastery of Drys, a suburb of Chalcedon, was established by Hypatius, who enforced a very strict discipline, about A.D. 400. Hypatius enjoyed considerable influence. Theodosius II used to visit him, and he was constantly consulted by the nobles and ladies of the capital.142 The most famous of the monastic communities of Constantinople was founded by Studius, an ex-consul who had come from Rome,143 in the reign of Leo I. He dedicated a small basilica to St. John the Baptist, which is still preserved as a mosque,144 not far from the Golden Gate, and subsequently attached to it a monastery, in which he established some of the Sleepless brethren, who had belonged to the convent of Marcellus.145 The Studite community was to become the largest and most influential in Constantinople.

Of the countries of western Europe, early monasticism spread most widely in Gaul. Martin of Tours was the pioneer; he founded a monastery at Poictiers about A.D. 362. Some forty years later Cassian inaugurated monastic life at Marseilles, and Honoratus in the islands of Lérins off the coast of Provence. Both Cassian and Honoratus were under the direct influence of the theories of ascetic life which were practised by the Antonian monks of northern Egypt.146 In the same period, monasteries both for men and for women — women already took their full share in the ascetic movement — were established at Rome and in Italian towns, and Augustine introduced monastic life in Africa. Spain, so far as our evidence goes, seems to have been little affected by the fashion before the sixth century.

We have no information that would enable us to conjecture the total number of the voluntary exiles from social life, who in the fifth century, whether in communities or lonely cells, mortified their bodies and their natural affections in order to assure themselves of eternal happiness. Ascetic enthusiasm was infectious, and the leading authorities of the church, such as Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysostom, all held up the monastic life as the highest spiritual ideal, and outdid each other in their praises of celibacy and virginity. But the Church and the State soon found it necessary, in the interests of public order, to exercise control over the ascetics, who in the early period of the movement were each his own master and acknowledged no superior. The towns were often troubled by the invasion of vagrant monks, genuine or spurious, who formed a highly undesirable addition to the idle and mendicant portion of the populace.147 We have seen again and again the turbulence of the monks, who, in their religious zeal, were ready to commit any excess of violence and transgression of decency. Their fanaticism was responsible for the useless destruction of pagan temples. They played a leading part in the disturbances at Alexandria which ended in the murder of Hypatia. They were the chief offenders in the scandalous disorders which disgraced the Council of Ephesus. During the first half of the fifth century, the bishops seem to have been gradually acquiring some control over the cloisters, but the prevailing anarchy was definitely ended by the Council of Chalcedon.148 This assembly deplored the turbulence of the monks, and forbade them to abandon their holy life. It ordained that no one could found a monastery without a licence from the bishop of the diocese, and that no monk could leave his convent without the bishop’s permission. Monastic communities were thus brought under ecclesiastical control.

The estates of the monasteries gradually increased through the donations of the rich and pious, and at the beginning of the sixth century a pagan historian writes thus of the “so-called monks”:149 “They renounce legal marriages and fill their populous institutions in cities and villages with celibate people, useless either for war or for any service to the State; but gradually growing from the time of Arcadius to the present day they have appropriated the greater part of the earth, and on the pretext of sharing all with the poor they have, so to speak, reduced all to poverty.” This is the exaggerated statement of a hostile observer, who had been an official of the treasury; but it testifies to the growing popularity, wealth, and power of monastic institutions.

The ascetic spirit, which expressed itself in monasticism, affected the secular clergy also. The strict austerity of the Manichaean heretics was a certain challenge to the Church,150 and in their extravagant praises of virginity some of the Christian fathers were barely able to stop short of the condemnation of marriage which was a tenet of the Manichees. The view that matrimony is a necessary evil naturally involved the question of the celibacy of the clergy. In this matter ecclesiastics were left free to follow the dictates of their own conscience, and no legislation was attempted, till a Roman council (about A.D. 384) summoned by Pope Siricius, forbade bishops, priests, and deacons to marry. “Celibacy,” it has been said, “was but one of the many shapes in which the rapidly progressing sacerdotalism of Rome was overlaying religion with a multitude of formal observances.”151 Against the encroachments of this sacerdotalism, a protestant movement was led in Gaul by Vigilantius, who denounced celibacy, fasting, prayers for the dead, relics, and the use of incense; but it did not survive his death. By degrees, the celibacy of the clergy became the rule in the west. In the eastern provinces, where Roman influence was not preponderant, it was otherwise. Marriage after ordination was forbidden, but compulsory separation of clergy who were already married was not imposed except in the case of bishops.152

CHAPTER XII: THE REIGN OF ZENO, AND THE GERMAN VICEROYALTY IN ITALY

§ 1. The Usurpation of Basiliscus (A.D. 475-476)

THE new Emperor, Leo II, was a child of seven years, and the regency naturally devolved on his father Zeno. But with the consent of the Senate and the concurrence of the Empress Verina, the child conferred the Imperial dignity on his father, in the Hippodrome (February 9, A.D. 474) and died in the same year, leaving to Zeno nominally as well as actually the sole power (November 17).1

Zeno was not beloved.2 He was unpopular both with the Byzantine populace and in senatorial circles.3 He was hated as an Isaurian. If we remember the depredations of the Isaurians in the reign of Arcadius, it is not surprising that they had an evil name, and it is more than probable that the soldiers introduced into the capital by Leo had not belied their reputation for rudeness and violence. Zeno’s accession meant Isaurian ascendancy, high places for the Emperor’s fellow-countrymen, and more rude mountaineers in the capital. Historians of the time vent their feelings by describing him as physically horrible and morally abominable,4 and he was said to be a coward.5 His most trusted counsellor was the Isaurian Illus, who was, however, to prove a thorn in his side, and Trocundes, the brother of Illus, also rose into prominence.

The first year of the reign was crowded with anxieties. Vandals, Ostrogoths, Huns, and Arabs were all in arms against the Empire. King Gaiseric must have been deeply displeased by the murder of the Arian Aspar, with whom he is said to have been on friendly terms. After Leo’s death, the Vandals descended on the western shores of Greece and captured Nicopolis. Zeno was not prepared for war. He sent to Carthage Severus, a man of high repute, who made a favourable impression on Gaiseric by refusing all his gifts. The king made him a present of all the captives who had fallen to the share of the royal family and allowed him to redeem others from any Vandals who willing to sell. A perpetual peace was then concluded between the two powers (A.D. 474),6 and was maintained for nearly sixty years. Meanwhile Zeno’s coronation had provoked Aspar’s Ostrogothic relative Theoderic Strabo to new hostilities in Thrace. The Master of Soldiers in the Thracian provinces was captured and slain; but Illus took the field and terminated the war.

If the Emperor was able to cope with foreign foes by negotiation or arms, his position amid a hostile court and people was highly precarious. A formidable conspiracy was formed against him, of which the leading spirit was his mother-in-law, the Augusta Verina.7 She had concurred in Zeno’s elevation, but she did not like him, and being a woman of energy and ambition she found it distasteful to fall into the background, overshadowed by her daughter, the Augusta Ariadne. Her scheme was to raise to the throne and marry her paramour Patricius, who had formerly held the post of Master of Offices. She engaged the co-operation of her brother Basiliscus, who had been living in retirement at Heraclea on the Propontis, and Basiliscus succeeded in seducing the Isaurian brothers Illus and Trocundes to abandon their loyalty to Zeno.8 When all the preparations were complete, the queen-mother, with consummate skill, persuaded Zeno that his life was in danger and that his only safety was in flight. Taking with him a large company of Isaurians, and supplying himself with treasure, he crossed over to Chalcedon (January 9, A.D. 475) and fled to Isauria.9 Those who accompanied him were fortunate, for, when the Emperor’s flight was known, the populace indulged in their inveterate hatred of the Isaurians by a colossal massacre. Verina now hoped to reign as mistress of the palace, but she was outwitted by her brother, who was himself ambitious of the purple. The choice of the ministers and Senate fell not on Patricius but on Basiliscus, who was proclaimed and crowned Emperor at the Hebdomon palace. He immediately crowned his wife Zenonis as Augusta, and conferred the rank of Caesar upon his youthful son Marcus, whom he afterwards crowned Augustus.10 The circumstances of his elevation naturally led to a breach with Verina, and, having good reason to fear her capacity for intrigue, he took the precaution of putting Patricius to death.11

Basiliscus reigned for twenty months and in that time he made himself extremely unpopular, chiefly by his ecclesiastical policy. He favoured the heresy of Monophysitism and issued a decree against the Council of Chalcedon. He and his wife had fallen under the influence of Timothy Aelurus, the bishop of Alexandria, who had come to Constantinople, and he went so far as to withdraw the Asiatic sees from the control of the bishop of Constantinople.12 Acacius, the Patriarch, was roused by this injury to the rights of his see. He draped St. Sophia in black and appeared in mourning before a large sympathetic congregation. Basiliscus left the city.

The Emperor had made another enemy in the Ostrogothic Theoderic Strabo, who, as the enemy of Zeno, had supported his elevation, by bestowing a Mastership of Soldiers13 on his relation Armatus, a young fop, who was the lover of the Empress Zenonis. Their love is described by a historian in a passage worthy of a romance.14

Basiliscus permitted Armatus, inasmuch as he was a kinsman, to associate freely with the Empress Zenonis. Their intercourse became intimate, and as they were both persons of no ordinary beauty they became extravagantly enamoured of each other. They used to exchange glances of the eyes, they used constantly to turn their faces and smile at each other; and the passion which they were obliged to conceal was the cause of dule and teen. They confided their trouble to Daniel a eunuch and to Maria a midwife, who hardly healed their malady by the remedy of bringing them together. Then Zenonis coaxed Basiliscus to grant her lover the highest office in the city. The preferment which Armatus received from his uncle elated him beyond measure. He was naturally effeminate and cruel. Theoderic Strabo despised him as a dandy who only care for his toilet and the care of his body; and it was said that in the days of Leo he had punished a number of Thracian rebels by cutting off their hands. When he was exalted by his mistress’s husband, he imagined that he was a man of valour, and dressed himself as Achilles, in which guise he used to ride about and astonish or amuse the people in the Hippodrome. The populace nicknamed him Pyrrhus, on account of his pink cheeks, but he took it as a compliment to his valour, and became still more inflated with vanity. “He did not,” says the historian, “slay heroes like Pyrrhus, but he was a chamberer and wanton like Paris.”

Basiliscus, perhaps soon after his elevation, had despatched Illus and Trocundes against Zeno, who, now in his native fortresses,15 had resumed the life of an Isaurian chieftain. Basiliscus, however, failed to fulfil what he had promised to the two generals; and they received letters from some of the leading ministers at the court, urging them to secure the return of Zeno. For the city was now prepared to welcome the restoration of the Isaurian, to replace the Monophysite, whose unpopularity was increased by the fiscal rapacity of his ministers.16 Illus decided to change sides, and his resolution may have been reinforced by the fact that he had a certain hold over Zeno, having got into his power Longinus, Zeno’s brother, whom he kept a prisoner in an Isaurian fortress. Accordingly, Zeno and Illus joined forces and started for Constantinople. When Basiliscus received news of this danger, he hastened to recall his ecclesiastical edicts and to conciliate the Patriarch and the people.17 But it was too late. Armatus, the Master of Soldiers, was sent with all available forces to oppose the advancing army of the Isaurians, but secret messages from Zeno, who promised to give him the Mastership of Soldiers for life and to confer the rank of Caesar on his son, induced him to betray his master. He avoided the road by which Zeno was advancing and marched into Isauria by another way. This betrayal decided the fate of Basiliscus. Zeno entered the capital without resistance in August 476. Basiliscus was sent to Cucusus in Cappadocia and there beheaded; his wife and children shared his fate. The promise which had been made to Armatus was kept to the letter. His son was created Caesar at Nicaea. But immediately afterwards the Emperor, by the advice of Illus, caused him to be assassinated, and the Caesar was stripped of his rank and compelled to take orders.18

A deplorable misfortune, which occurred in the reign of Basiliscus, is said to have helped, as accidents in superstitious ages always help, to render his government unpopular. This was an immense conflagration,19 which, beginning in the quarter of Chalkoprateia, spread far and wide, reducing to ashes the adjacent colonnades and houses. But more serious was the destruction of the Basilica, the library founded by Julian, which contained no fewer than 120,000 books. Among these rolls, the intestine of a serpent, 120 feet long, on which the Iliad and Odyssey were written in golden characters, is specially mentioned. The fire spread along Middle Street and destroyed the palace of Lausus, which contained among its splendours some of the most beautiful works of Greek plastic art, the Cnidian Aphrodite, the Lindian Athene, and the Samian Here.

§ 2. The Revolts of Marcian and Illus (A.D. 479-488)

For the first few years after the restoration of Zeno, Illus was all-powerful. He was consul in A.D. 478; he was appointed Master of Offices, and created a patrician. But he was bitterly detested by the two Empresses, Verina and Ariadne, who resented his influence with Zeno. Attempts on his life were made at Verina’s instigation. Her favourite, the Prefect Epinicus, suborned a barbarian to assassinate him. The attempt failed; the criminal confessed that the prefect had inspired his act; and Zeno, having deprived Epinicus of his office, handed him over to Illus who sent him to a castle in Isauria.20 Some time elapsed, and then, leaving the capital on a pretext, Illus visited Epinicus in his prison and elicited a confession that he had been instigated by the queen-mother. He then refused (towards the end of A.D. 479) to return to Constantinople unless Verina were surrendered to him. Zeno, to whom Illus was indispensable, complied; she was sent to Tarsus where she was forced to become a nun and was confined by Illus in the castle of Dalisandus.21 The presence of Illus was sorely needed, on account of Ostrogothic hostilities in Illyricum and Thrace,22 and there was still a Gothic faction in the city. In his absence, Zeno had talked of taking the field himself, and there was much dissatisfaction at his failing to do so. He was accused of cowardice, but the true reason probably was that he feared not the enemy but his own army.23

The treatment of Verina supplied a pretext to her son-in-law, Marcian, to attempt to overthrow Zeno (end of A.D. 479).24 Marcian, who was son of Anthemius, the western Emperor, had married Leontia, Leo’s younger daughter, and claimed that he had a better right to the throne than Zeno, because his wife had been born in the purple. This claim, according to the theory of the Imperial succession, was entirely futile, but it illustrates how the idea that children born in the purple had a natural title to the throne was beginning to grow. The barbarians in the city rallied round Marcian and his brother Procopius,25 and the citizens were on their side. The brothers united their forces near the house of Caesarius, to the south of the Forum of Theodosius;26 and then one of them marched upon the palace, while the other attacked the house of Illus.27 The Emperor nearly fell into their hands,28 and during the day the rebels were victorious against the Imperial soldiers, on whose heads the citizens showered missiles from the roofs. But under the cover of night, Illus introduced into the city an Isaurian force from Chalcedon, and the next day Marcian’s party was defeated. Marcian was ordained a priest and banished to Cappadocia; Leontia fled to a convent.29 Theoderic Strabo was in league with Marcian, but did not reach the city in time to help him.

It was perhaps not long after this that the Empress Ariadne entreated Zeno to recall her mother. Zeno told her to ask Illus. The Empress sent for Illus and implored him with tears to release her mother. And Illus said, “Why do you want her? Is it that she may set up another Emperor against your husband” Then Ariadne said to Zeno, “Is Illus to be in the Palace or I?” and he replied, “Do what you can. I prefer you.” She suborned Sporacius, one of the Scholarian guards, to assassinate Illus, and the attempt was made, on the occasion of a spectacle in the Hippodrome, as Illus was walking through The Pulpita behind the Kathisma. The assassin’s sword, aimed at the head, cut off the minister’s right ear, and he was hewn to pieces on the spot.30 Illus did not believe Zeno’s asseverations that he was ignorant of the plot, and when the wound was healed he requested the Emperor to allow him to go to the East for change of air. Zeno relieved him of the duties of Master of Offices and appointed him Master of Soldiers in the East. Illus proceeded to Antioch, taking with him a considerable number of friends and adherents (481-482), including Marsus and the pagan quaestor Pamprepius.31 Soon afterwards the patrician Leontius seems to have been sent to Antioch demanding the release of Verina, but Illus won him over to his interests and he did not return to Constantinople.32 The estrangement of the Emperor from his general was now complete, and a contest between the two Isaurians was inevitable. Illus and his party hoped to secure Egypt for their cause, and attempted, but without success, to take advantage of the ecclesiastical disputes which were at this time dividing Alexandria.33 The hostilities of the Ostrogoths prevented Zeno from taking any measures before the end of A.D. 483, or the spring of 484. When his hands were at last free, he commanded Illus to surrender Longinus (Zeno’s brother) who had been a prisoner for many years. Illus refused, and Zeno deposed him from his command of the eastern army and appointed John the Scythian in his stead. At the same time he expelled the friends of Illus from Constantinople, confiscated their property, and bestowed it upon the cities of Isauria. War ensued and lasted for about four years.

Illus had employed the two years which he spent at Antioch (482-484) in making himself popular and gaining friends. He counted, for the coming struggle, on the support of the orthodox adherents of the Council of Chalcedon, who had been displeased be an ecclesiastical decree (the Henotikon) in which Zeno had expressly declined to maintain the dogmas of that assembly (A.D. 481). He may also have hoped for some help from pagans. He was very intimate with the pagan philosopher Pamprepius, who had been appointed Quaestor through his influence, and had accompanied him to Antioch. Deciding not to assume the purple himself, Illus drew from his Isaurian prison the ex-tyrant Marcian, and proclaimed him Emperor. He had sought the assistance of the Patrician and king Odovacar in Italy; he had written to the Persian monarch Piroz and to some of the satraps of Roman Armenia. Odovacar refused; the Persians and Armenians promised help when the time came. A great defeat which the Persians suffered at the hands of the Ephthalites (January, A.D. 484; Piroz was slain) rendered it impossible for them to fulfill their promise.

Zeno sent an Isaurian force against the rebels.34 About the same time Illus changed his plans, and entered into an alliance with his old enemy the Emperor Verina who was still languishing in an Isaurian fortress.35 He brought her to Tarsus, arrayed her in imperial robes; and it was decided to set aside Marcian,36 and to proclaim as Emperor the patrician Leontius. Verina crowned him Emperor, and a proclamation in her name was sent through the provinces of the East and Egypt. In this document she claims that the Empire belongs to her, that it was she who conferred it upon Zeno, and that now, since his avarice is ruining the state, she has determined to transfer it to the pious Leontius.37 The new Emperor was received at Antioch,38 and the rebellion spread. The Isaurian troops which Zeno had sent were obviously unable to cope with it, and Zeno sought the hope of Theoderic the Amal and his Ostrogoths. Theoderic, as Master of Soldiers in praesenti, joined the army of John the Scythian, and though he was recalled almost immediately, his followers seem to have remained and taken part in the campaign.39 Rugian auxiliaries were also sent under the command of Aspar’s son Ermenric. A battle was fought, the forces of Zeno were victorious, and Illus, Leontius, and Verina, with all their chief partisans, fled to the strong fortress of Cherris40 in the Isaurian mountains (autumn, A.D. 484). The Empress died in a few days. The cause of Illus was now hopeless, but the fortress held out for nearly four years. It was taken by treachery (488), and Illus and Leontius were beheaded.41

The struggle between Illus and Zeno derives particular interest from the association of Illus with the prominent pagans who still flourished at Athens, Constantinople, and Alexandria. These men seem to have hoped that Illus, if victorious, would be able to secure public toleration for paganism.42 It was impossible, of course, to stamp the movement with a pagan character. If Illus had come forward as a new Julian, he would have had no following. But there is little doubt that he was personally in sympathy with the “Hellenes”; he was a man with intellectual interests and was inclined to the Neoplatonic philosophy. His close intimacy with the pagan savant, Pamprepius of Panopolis, who shared his fortunes, proves this. Pamprepius, who is described as swarthy and ugly, went in his youth from Egypt to the university of Athens, where he studied under the philosopher Proclus and was appointed professor of grammar (literature and philology). A quarrel with a magistrate forced him to leave Athens, and he betook himself to Constantinople, where pagans of talent, if they behaved discreetly, could still find a place.43 At the request of Illus he delivered a lecture, probably explaining the doctrines of Neoplatonism, and Illus procured his appointment as professor of grammar at the university. He established himself in the favour of Illus by public recitation of a poem,44 in reward for which he received a pension. But when Illus was absent in Isauria (A.D. 478), his enemies seized the opportunity to attack Pamprepius as a pagan and a sorcerer. He was banished from the city and retired to Pergamum; but Illus summoned him to Isauria, and then brought him back in triumph, and procured his appointment to the high post of Quaestorship. Henceforward his fortunes were bound up with those of Illus, to whom he acted as confidant and adviser throughout the struggle for the throne. The pagans blamed Pamprepius for the failure of the movement, and represented him as a traitor to the cause of his chief. But we may take it as certain that this charge was false, and that he was slain not because he was suspected of treachery, but because his prophecies had not come true and he had proved himself a blind guide.45

The greater part of Zeno’s reign had been troubled on the one hand by the hostile risings of the Ostrogoths, which have still to be described, and on the other by rebellion. In 488 both these troubles were terminated by the departure of the Goths from Italy and by the final suppression of Illus. The Emperor persisted in his policy of firmly establishing Isaurian predominance. His brother Longinus, who had managed to escape from his prison,46 was consul twice and princeps of the Senate.47 Kottomenes had been appointed Master of Soldiers in praesenti, instead of Theoderic, in 484, and Longinus of Kardala at the same time became Master of Offices; both these men were Isaurians.48

A modern historian who was perhaps the first to say a good word for Zeno, observes that “the great work of his reign was the formation of an army of native troops to serve as a counterpoise to the barbarian mercenaries”; and goes on to remark that the man who successfully resisted the schemes and forces of the great Theoderic cannot have been contemptible.49 And even from the pages of a hostile contemporary writer50 we can see that he was not so bad as he was painted. He is said to have been in some respects superior to Leo, less relentless and less greedy. He was not popular,51 for his ecclesiastical policy of conciliation did not find general favour, and he was an Isaurian. But he was inclined to be mild; he desired to abstain from employing capital punishment. In the first year of his reign, Erythrius was Praetorian Prefect, a very humane man, who, when he saw that sufficient revenue could not be raised without severe oppression, resigned his office.52 In fiscal administration Zeno was less successful than his predecessors and his successor Anastasius. We are told that he wasted all that Leo left in the treasury by donatives to his friends and inaccuracy in checking his accounts. In A.D. 477 the funds were very low, hardly sufficient to supply pay for the army. But the blame of this may rather rest with Basiliscus, who, reigning precariously for twenty months, must have been obliged to incur large expenses, to supply which he was driven to extortion, and in the following years the Ostrogoths were an incubus on the exchequer; while we must further remember that since the enormous outlay incurred by Leo’s naval expedition the treasury had been in financial difficulties, which only a ruler of strict economy and business habits, like the succeeding Emperor Anastasius, could have remedied. Zeno was not a man of business, he was indolent and in many respects weak. Yet it is said that his reign would have been a good one but for the influence of the Praetorian Prefect Sebastian, who succeeded Erythrius, and introduced a system of selling offices.53 Of Sebastian we otherwise hear very little.

By his first wife Arcadia, Zeno had a son,54 of the same name, whose brief and strangely disreputable career must have been one of the chief scandals at the court. His father desired that he should be carefully trained in manly exercises, but unscrupulous young courtiers, who wished to profit by the abundant supplies of money which the boy could command, instructed him in all the vulgar excesses of luxury and voluptuousness. They introduced him to boys of his own age, who did not refuse to satisfy his desires, while their adulation flattered his vanity to such a degree that he treated all who came in contact with him as if they were servants. His excesses brought on an internal disease, and he died prematurely, after lying for many days in a senseless condition. After his death, Zeno seems to have intended to devolve the succession upon his brother Longinus, who enjoyed a vile reputation for debauchery.55 We have already seen how he was advanced to high posts of dignity. It is related that Zeno consulted a certain Maurianus, skilled in occult learning, who informed him that a silentiarius would be the next Emperor and would marry Ariadne. This prophecy was unfortunate for a distinguished patrician of high fame named Pelagius, who had once belonged to the silentiarii, for Zeno, seized with alarm and suspicion, put him to death.56 The Emperor’s unpopularity naturally made him suspicious, and he was in bad health. An attack of epilepsy carried him off on April 9, A.D. 491.

§ 3. The Henotikon (A.D. 481)

The doctrinal decrees of Chalcedon were the beginning of many evils for the eastern provinces of the Empire. Theological discord, often accompanied by violence, rent the Church, and the Emperors found it utterly impossible to suppress the Monophysite, as they had suppressed the Arian, faith. In Alexandria, the monks and the majority of the population were devoted to the doctrine of One Nature, and on the death of Marcian the smouldering fire of dissatisfaction burst into flame. Timothy Aelurus,57 an energetic Monophysite, was set up as rival Patriarch; Proterius was murdered in the baptistery (A.D. 457, Easter) and his corpse was dragged through the city. Timothy sent a memorial to the Emperor Leo demanding a new Council, and Leo formally asked for the opinion of the bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem, and other leading dignitaries of the Church.58 They condemned the conduct of Timothy and he was banished to the Chersonese.59 At Antioch, the part of Timothy was played by Peter the Fuller, who during the reign of Leo was twice raised to the Patriarchal throne and twice ejected.60

When Basiliscus ascended the throne, the Monophysite cause looked bright for a few months. Peter and Timothy were reinstated, and Basiliscus issued an Encyclical letter61 in which he condemned the Council of Chalcedon and the Tome of Leo. But this declaration raised a storm in Constantinople which he was unable to resist. The monks were up in arms, and the Patriarch Acacius,62 who was not a man of extreme views, found himself forced to oppose the Emperor’s policy. Basiliscus hastened to retract, and he issued another letter, which was known as the anti-encyclical. But the settlement of the ecclesiastical struggle did not lie with him. Zeno returned, and a new policy was devised for restoring peace to the Church. His chief advisers here were Acacius and Peter Mongus, who had been the right-hand man of Timothy Aelurus. The policy was to ignore the Council of Chalcedon, but not to affirm anything contrary to its doctrine; and the hope was that the Monophysites and their antagonists would agree to differ, and would recognise that a common recognition of the great Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople was a sufficient bond of communion.

The Henotikon, a letter addressed by the Emperor to the Church of Egypt, embodied this policy (A.D. 481). It anathematises both Nestorius and Eutyches; declares the truth, and asserts the sufficiency, of the doctrine of Nicaea and Constantinople; and anathematises any who teach divergent doctrine “at Chalcedon or elsewhere.” As the document was intended to conciliate all parties, it was a blunder to mention Chalcedon; for this betrayed that the theological leanings of those who framed it were not favourable to the Chalcedonian dogma. The Monophysites gladly accepted it;63 interpreting it as giving them full liberty to denounce Chalcedon and the Tome of Pope Leo.

It is to be noted that Basiliscus by his Encyclical and Zeno by his Henotikon asserted the right of the Emperor to dictate to the Church and pronounce on questions of theological doctrine. They virtually assumed the functions of an Ecumenical Council. This was a claim which the see of Rome was not ready to admit except for itself. After the interchange of angry letters between Pope Simplicius and Acacius, a synod was held at Rome,64 and Acacius and Peter Mongus, who was now Patriarch of Alexandria, were excommunicated.65

The general result of the Henotikon was to reconcile moderate Monophysites in Egypt and Syria, and to secure a certain measure of ecclesiastical peace in the East for thirty years66 at the cost of a schism with the West. But the extreme Monophysites were not reconciled to the policy of Acacius and Peter.

§ 4. The Rise of Odovacar and his Rule in Italy (A.D. 473-489)

After the death of Olybrius, Leo was sole Roman Emperor for more than four months, and the Burgundian Gundobad, who had succeeded his uncle Ricimer as Master of Soldiers, directed the conduct of affairs in Italy. On March 5, A.D. 473, Glycerius, Count of the Domestics, was proclaimed Emperor at Ravenna “by the advice of Gundobad,”67 just as Severus had been proclaimed in the same city by the advice of Ricimer. Of this Augustus, whose reign was to be brief, one important public act is recorded. Italy was threatened by an invasion of Ostrogoths who, under the leadership of Widemir, began to move from Pannonia, but the diplomacy of Glycerius averted the storm, so that it fell on Gaul.

The election of Glycerius was not approved at Constantinople, and Leo selected another as the successor of Anthemius.68 His choice was Julius Nepos, husband of the niece of the Empress, and military governor of Dalmatia, where he had succeeded his uncle, count Marcellinus.69 We do not hear that any resistance was offered to Nepos, who arrived in Italy, probably escorted by eastern troops; and it was not long before Gundobad, whether perforce or voluntarily, retired to Burgundy where, in the following year, he succeeded his father as one of the Burgundian kings.70 Glycerius was deposed, and at Portus, the town at the mouth of the Tiber, he was ordained bishop of Salona.71 Nepos was proclaimed Emperor and ruled at Rome (June 24, A.D. 474). Once more two Augusti reigned in unison.

To the vacant post of Master of Soldiers, which carried with it almost as a matter of course the title of Patrician, Orestes was appointed. This was that Orestes who had been the secretary of Attila, and he had married the daughter of a certain count Romulus. Possessing the confidence of the German troops he determined to raise his son to the Imperial throne.

We are told that Nepos, driven from Rome, went to Ravenna and, fearing the coming of Orestes, crossed over to Salona. This was on August 28, A.D. 475. The same year that saw the flight of Zeno from Constantinople saw the flight of Nepos from Ravenna. At Salona he lived for five years, and his Imperial authority was still recognised in the East and in Gaul. But in Italy the Caesar Julius was succeeded by the Caesar Augustulus, for so the young Romulus was mockingly nicknamed, whom his father Orestes invested with the Imperial insignia on October 31. These names, Julius, Augustulus, Romulus, in the pages of the chroniclers, meet us like ghosts re-arisen from past days of Roman history.72

It is important to remember that the position of Romulus was not constitutional inasmuch as he had not been recognised by the Emperor at Constantinople, in whose eyes Nepos was still the Augustus of the West. For twelve months Orestes ruled Italy in the name of his son. His fall was brought about by a mutiny of the troops. The army, which the Master of Soldiers commanded, seems to have consisted under Ricimer and his successors almost exclusively of East Germans, chiefly Heruls, also Rugians and Scirians. According to the usual custom,73 they were quartered on the Italians. But they were weary of this life. They desired to have roof-trees and lands of their own, and they petitioned Orestes to reward them for their services, by granting them lands and settling them permanently in Italy on the same principle on which various German peoples had been settled in other provinces. They did not demand the exceptionally large concession of two-thirds of the soil which had been granted by Honorius to the Visigoths; they asked for the only grant of one-third which had been assigned, for instance, to the Burgundians. But such a settlement in Italy was a very different thing from settlement in Gaul or Spain, and Orestes, notwithstanding his long association with Germans and Huns, was sufficiently Roman to be determined to keep the soil of Italy inviolate. He rejected the demand. The discontented soldiers found a leader in the Scirian Odovacar, one of the chief officers of Orestes.74 Ticinum to which Orestes retired was easily taken, and the Patrician was slain at Placentia (August 28, A.D. 476). “Entering Ravenna, Odovacar deposed Augustulus but granted him his life, pitying his infancy and because he was comely, and he gave him an income of six thousand solidi and sent him to live in Campania with his relatives.”75

The soldiers had proclaimed Odovacar king.76 But it was not as king over a mixed host of various German nationalities that Odovacar thought he could maintain his position in Italy. The movement which had raised him had no national significance, and if he retained the royal title of an East German potentate, it was as a successor of Ricimer, Gundobar, and Orestes that he hoped to govern the Italians. In other words, he had no idea of detaching Italy from the Empire, as Africa and much of Gaul and Spain had come to be detached. The legal position was to continue as before.77 But the system of Ricimer was to be abandoned. There were be no more puppet Emperors in the West; Italy was to be under the sovranty of the Emperor at Constantinople, and its actual government was to be in the hands of Odovacar, who as Master of Soldiers was to be a minister of the Emperor, while he happened at the same time to be king of the East Germans who formed the army.

With this purpose in view Odovacar made the deposition of Romulus take the form of an abdication, and induced the Roman Senate to endorse formally the permanent institution of a state of things which had repeatedly existed in the days of Ricimer. A deputation of senators, in the name of Romulus, was sent to the Augustus at Constantinople to announce the new order of things. Zeno had already recovered the throne, from which Basiliscus had driven him, when the ambassadors arrived and informed him that they no longer needed a separate Emperor but that his sole supremacy would be sufficient; that they had selected Odovacar as a man capable of protecting Italy, being both a tried soldier and endowed with political intelligence. They asked Zeno to confer upon him the rank of Patrician and entrust him with the administration of Italy. They bore with them the Imperial insignia which Romulus had worn (A.D. 477).78

At the same time messengers arrived from Nepos to congratulate Zeno on his restoration, to ask for his sympathy with one who had suffered the same misfortune as he, and to crave his aid in men and money to recover the throne. But for the existence of Nepos, the situation would have been simple. Zeno could not ignore his legal right, but was not prepared to support it with an army. He told the representatives of the Senate that of the two Emperors they had received from the East, they had slain Anthemius and banished Nepos; let them now take Nepos back. But he granted the other request. He sent to Odovacar a diploma conferring the Patriciate, and wrote to him, praising the respect for Rome and the observance of order which had marked his conduct, and bidding him crown his goodness by acknowledging the exiled Emperor. The fact that Verina was the aunt of the wife of Nepos was a consideration which helped to hinder Zeno from disowning him. Odovacar did not acknowledge the claim of Nepos, and Zeno cannot have expected that he would.

The events of A.D. 476 have been habitually designated as the “Fall of the Western Empire.” The phrase is inaccurate and unfortunate, and sets the changes which befell in a false light. No Empire fell in A.D. 476; there was no “West Empire” to fall. There was only one Roman Empire, which sometimes was governed by two or more Augusti. If it is replied that expression is merely a convenient one to signify what contemporary writers sometimes called the Hesperian realm (Hesperium regnum), the provinces which had been, since the death of Theodosius I, generally under the separate government of an Emperor residing in Italy, and that all that is meant is the termination of this line of western Emperors, it may be pointed out that A.D. 480 is in that case the significant date. For Julius Nepos, who died in that year, was the last legitimate Emperor in the West; Romulus Augustulus was only a usurper. The important point to seize is that, from the constitutional point of view, Odovacar was the successor of Ricimer, and that the situation created by the events of A.D. 476 was in this respect similar to the situation in the intervals between the reigns of the Emperors set up by Ricimer. If, on the death of Honorius, there had been no Valentinian to succeed him, and if Theodosius II had exercised the sovranty over the western provinces, and if no second Augustus had been created again before the western provinces had passed under the sway of Teutonic rulers, no one would have spoken of the “Fall of the Western Empire.” Yet this hypothetical case would be formally the same as the actual event of A.D. 476 or rather of A.D. 480. The West came finally, as it had more than once temporarily, under the sole sovranty of the Emperor reigning at East Rome.

The Italian revolution of A.D. 476 was, however, a most memorable event, though it has been wrongly described. It stands out prominently as an important stage in the process of the dismemberment of the Empire. It belongs to the same catalogue of chronological dates which includes A.D. 418, when Honorius settled the Goths in Aquitaine, and A.D. 435, when Valentinian ceded African lands to the Vandals. In A.D. 476 the same principle of disintegration was first applied to Italy. The settlement of Odovacar’s East Germans, with Zeno’s acquiescence, began the process by which Italian soil was to pass into the hands of Ostrogoths and Lombards, Franks and Normans. And Odovacar’s title of king emphasised the significance of the change.

It is highly important to observe that Odovacar established his political power with the co-operation of the Roman Senate, and this body seems to have given him their loyal support throughout his reign, so far as our meagre sources permit us to draw inferences. At this time the senators who counted politically belonged to a few old and distinguished clans, possessing large estates and great wealth, particularly the Decii and the Anicii.79 The leading men of these families received high honours and posts under Odovacar. Basilius, Decius, Venantius, and Manlius Boethius held the consulship and were either Prefects of Rome or Praetorian Prefects;80 Symmachus and Sividius were consuls and Prefects of Rome;81 another senator of old family, Cassiodorus, was appointed a minister of finance.82 The evidence indicates that while it was Odovacar’s policy to appoint only men of Roman families to the Prefecture of the City, he allowed the Prefect to hold office only for a year, so that no man might win a dangerous political importance.83

Yet the Roman nobility were now compelled to contribute more largely to the maintenance of the military forces which defended Italy. The greater part of the land belonged to them, and by the new settlement one-third of their estates was taken from the proprietors, and Odovacar’s barbarian soldiers and their families were settled on them. It is not probable that the number of these soldiers exceeded 20,000 at the most, and it has been reasonably doubted whether this measure was actually carried out throughout the length and breadth of the peninsula.84 We may suspect that the needs of the army were satisfied without a drastic application of the principle of partition. If the illustrious landowners had been mulcted on a large scale, it is hardly credible that they would have co-operated with the king as loyally as they seem to have done.

Soon after the government of Italy had passed into his hands, Odovacar’s diplomacy achieved a solid success by inducing Gaiseric, who died in January, A.D. 477, to cede to him the island of Sicily. He undertook indeed to pay for it a yearly tribute, and the Vandal king reserved a foothold in the island, doubtless the western fortress of Lilybaeum.85 The death of Julius Nepos has been mentioned. He was murdered by two of his retainers in his country house near Salona in May, A.D. 480. Odovacar assumed the duty of pursuing and executing the assassins, and at the same time established his own rule in Dalmatia.86 The claims of Nepos, so long as he lived, had embarrassed the relations between Zeno and Odovacar; Zeno’s acquiescence in Odovacar’s position and the wishes of the Senate had been ambiguous and reserved. The death of Nepos relieved the situation, and there was no longer any difficulty at Constantinople about acknowledging the western consuls whom Odovacar chose. But the relations between the Emperor and his Master of Soldiers in Italy were always strained, and in A.D. 486 there was an open breach.87 Though Odovacar did not help the rebel Illus in his revolt, there were negotiations, and Zeno may have been suspicious and alarmed. Odovacar prepared an expedition into the Illyrian provinces, then pressed hard by the Ostrogoths, and Zeno averted it by instigating the Rugians to invade Italy.88 Odovacar anticipated their attack by marching through Noricum and surprising them in the winter season (end of A.D. 487) in their territory beyond the Danube. Their king Feletheus and his queen were taken to Italy and beheaded, and with the death of his son, against whom a second expedition was sent, the Rugian power was destroyed.89

Of the internal government we know little. The Church was unaffected by his rule;90 as an Arian he held aloof from ecclesiastical affairs. As to the working of the Roman administration under a German ruler, acting as an independent viceroy, and the limitations imposed on his power, we have abundant evidence regarding Odovacar’s successor, Theoderic, and when we come to his reign the details will claim our attention.

§ 5. The Ostrogoths in Illyricum and Thrace (A.D. 477-488)

In the reign of Arcadius the Visigoths had seemed likely to form a kingdom within the Illyrian peninsula, before they invaded Italy and established their home in the west. We shall now see how history repeated itself in the case of the Ostrogoths, how they too almost settled in the lands of the Balkans before they went westward to found a kingdom in Italy.91

It will be remembered that after the collapse of the Hunnic power in A.D. 454 the Ostrogoths, over whom three brothers ruled, Walamir, Theodemir, and Widemir, were allowed by the Emperor Marcian to occupy northern Pannonia, as foederati.92 After some years they were provoked by the Emperor Leo, who refused to pay an annual sum of 100 pounds of gold which Marcian had granted them; and they ravaged the Illyrian provinces and seized Dyrrhachium. Peace was made in A.D. 461, the money grant was continued, and Theoderic,93 the son of Theodemir, was sent as a hostage to Constantinople where he had the advantage of a Roman training. His education, however, in letters appears not to have advanced very fast, for it is said that he was never able to write. During those years his nation was engaged in wars with neighboring German peoples.94 They won a decisive victory over the Scirians which cost Walamir his life. His section of the Goths passed then under the rule of Theodemir, who had soon to resist a large combination of Scirians, Rugians, Gepids, and others. Both parties applied to the Emperor for support, and Leo, acting against the advice of Aspar who was friendly to the Ostrogoths, sent troops to help the Scirian league. In a sanguinary battle the Goths were victors (A.D. 469), and their predominance on the Middle Danube was established.95 Leo then considered it politic to cultivate their friendship and he allowed Theoderic to return to his people. The young prince at once distinguished himself in a campaign against the Sarmatians who had recently occupied Singidunum, and the Goths appropriated the city.

The last act of Theodemir seems to have been an invasion of the provinces of Dacia and Dardania, in which his army advanced as far as Naissus.96 Death befell him soon afterwards and Theoderic was elected as his successor in 471.97 Soon after his accession (before 475) he seems to have led his people from their Pannonian homes to a new settlement in Lower Moesia, the same regions which had once been occupied by the Visigoths of Alaric.98 There is no evidence that this change of habitation was sanctioned by the Roman Emperor; but it does not seem to have been opposed at the time.

After the collapse of the Hunnic empire a large number of Ostrogoths had taken service in the Roman army, and formed the most important part of the German forces on whose support Aspar had maintained his power. We have already met their commander Theoderic (son of Triarius), called Strabo, “squinter,” who was not of very distinguished descent but was related through marriage to the family of Theodemir.99 We may call him Strabo to distinguish him from his more famous namesake. We saw the hostile attitude which he assumed towards Leo after the death of Aspar. The German troops gathered round him and proclaimed him king. He then sent an embassy to Leo, demanding for himself the post of Master of Soldiers in praesenti which Aspar had held, and the inheritance of Aspar, and for his troops grants of land in Thrace. The Emperor was willing to appoint him to the generalship, but refused the other demands. Then Strabo ravaged the territory of Philippopolis and reduced Arcadiopolis by starvation. These energetic proceedings extorted concessions from Leo; he agreed to pay a yearly stipend of 2000 lbs. in gold (= £90,000) to the Goths and to allot them a district in Thrace, and he conferred the post of Master of Soldiers in praesenti on Strabo, who was to fight for the Emperor against all enemies except the Vandals, and “enemies” doubtless included the Goths of Theoderic.100 He was, moreover, to be recognised as king of the Goths.101

In the troubles that followed Leo’s death, Strabo naturally took the part of Basiliscus against his old foe, while Zeno was supported by Theoderic. After his restoration Zeno deprived Strabo of his military post and bestowed it on Theoderic, whom he also created a Patrician, confirming him in possession of the lands which his people had seized in Lower Moesia and promising him an annual stipend. He even adopted him as a son, according to the German right of adoption.

But there were no sincere feelings behind this favour and friendliness. The policy of the Emperor was to play off one Goth against the other. In the three following years (A.D. 477-479) the relations between him and the two rivals shifted rapidly through all the stages of possible combinations. In the first stage Zeno and Theoderic are combined against Strabo; in the second the two Theoderics join forces against Zeno; in the third Strabo and Zeno co-operate against Theoderic.

The drama began with an embassy from Strabo desiring reconciliation. The ambassadors reminded Zeno of the injuries which Theoderic had inflicted on the Empire, though he was called a Roman “general” and a friend. Zeno convoked the Senate, and it was concluded to be impossible to support the two generals and their armies, for the public resources were hardly sufficient to pay the Roman troops. The exchequer, it must not be forgotten, had not yet recovered from the failure of the Vandal expedition of the previous reign. As Strabo had always shown himself hostile at heart, was unpopular on account of his cruelty, and had assisted Basiliscus “the tyrant,” it was determined to reject his offer. Yet, as Zeno for a time withheld a reply, three friends of Strabo in Constantinople, Anthimus a physician, and two others, wrote him an account of the course which matters were taking; but the letters were discovered, the affair was examined by a senatorial commission of three persons, in the presence of the Master of Soldiers, and the three friends of the Goths were punished by flogging and exile.

Soon after this, probably in A.D. 478, the Emperor, perceiving that Strabo was becoming stronger and consolidating forces, and that Theoderic was hardly in a position to cope with him, deemed it wise to come to terms. He therefore sent an embassy proposing that the son of the chief should be sent to Byzantium as a hostage, and that Strabo himself should live as a private individual in Thrace, retaining what he had already secured by plunder, but binding himself to plunder no more. The chief refused, representing that it was impossible for him to withdraw now without paying the troops whom he had collected. Accordingly Zeno decided on war; troops were summoned from the dioceses of Pontus, Asia, and the East, and it was expected that Illus would assume the command. It seems, however, that Illus did not take the field, for we find Martinianus, his brother-in-law, conducting a campaign against the Goths in the same year, and proving himself incompetent to maintain discipline in his own army. Then Zeno sent an embassy to Theoderic calling upon him to fulfil the duties of a Roman general and advance against the enemy. He replied that the Emperor and Senate must first swear that they will never make terms with the other Ostrogothic king. The senators took an oath that they would not do so unless the Emperor wished it, and the Emperor swore that he would not break the contract if it were not first violated by Theoderic himself.

Theoderic then moved southwards. The Master of Soldiers of Thrace was to meet him with two thousand cavalry and ten thousand hoplites at a pass of Mount Haemus; when he had crossed into Thrace another force was to join him at Hadrianople, consisting of twenty thousand foot and six thousand horse; and, if necessary, Heraclea (on the Propontis) and the cities in the neighbourhood were prepared to send additional troops. But the Master of Soldiers was not at the pass of Mount Sondis, and the Goths when they advanced farther fell in with the army of Strabo, and the antagonists plundered one another’s flocks and horses. Then Strabo, riding near his rival’s camp, reviled him as a traitor to desert his own countrymen, and as a fool not to see through the plan of the Romans, who wished to rid themselves of the Goths, without trouble on their own part, by instigating them to mutual destruction, and were quite indifferent which party won. These arguments produced a powerful effect upon Theoderic’s followers, and the two leaders made peace (478). This is the second stage of alliance, which we noted above. It was not to last long.

The reconciled Ostrogothic chieftains then sent ambassadors to Byzantium. Theoderic, upbraiding Zeno for have deceived him with false promises, demanded the concession of territory to his people, a supply of corn to support his army till harvest time, and urged that if these demands were not satisfied, he would be unable to restrain his soldiers from plundering, in order to support themselves. Strabo demanded that the arrangements he had made with Leo (in A.D. 473) should be carried out, that the payment he had been accustomed to receive in former years should be continued, and that certain kinsmen of his, who had been committed to the care of Illus and the Isaurians, should be restored. We are not informed what answer Zeno made to the elder Theoderic, or whether he made any; to the son of Theodemir he replied, that if he consented to break with his namesake and make war upon him he would give him 2000 lbs. of gold and 10,000 lbs. of silver immediately, besides a yearly revenue of 10,000 nomismata, and the hand of a daughter of Placidia and Olybrius102 or of some other noble lady. But his promises did not avail, and Zeno prepared for war, notifying his intention to accompany the army in person. This intention created great enthusiasm among the soldiers, but at the last moment Zeno drew back, and they threatened a revolt, to prevent which the army was broken up and the regiments sent to their winter quarters.

When the army was disbanded, Zeno’s only resort was to make peace on any terms with Strabo. In the meantime Theoderic, the son of Theodemir, was engaged in ravaging the fairest parts of Thrace in the neighbourhood of Mount Rhodope, which divides Thrace from Macedonia; he not only ruined the crops, but oppressed the farmers or slew them. Strabo, when he received Zeno’s message,— remarking that he was sorry that the innocent husbandmen, for whose welfare Zeno103 did not care in the least, suffered from the ravages of his rival — concluded a peace on the conditions that Zeno was to supply a yearly payment sufficient to support thirteen thousand men; that he was to be appointed to the command of two scholae and to the post of Master of Soldiers in praesenti, and receive all the dignities which Basiliscus had bestowed upon him; that his kinsmen were to inhabit a city assigned by Zeno. The Emperor did not delay to execute this agreement; Theoderic was deposed from the office of Master of Soldiers, and Strabo appointed in his stead (before end of 478). This marks the third stage in these changeful relations.

Theoderic, now threatened by the superior forces of Strabo, was in a difficult position. But he managed to escape across Mount Rhodope into Macedonia (perhaps with the Emperor’s collusion), and the town of Stobi felt the full brunt of his wrath. Thence he turned his steps toward Thessalonica, and the inhabitants felt so little confidence in Zeno that they actually believed that the Emperor wished to hand their city over to the barbarians. A sedition broke out which ended in the transference of the keys of the city from the Praetorian Prefect of Illyricum to the archbishop, a remarkable evidence of the fact that the people looked on the ministers of the Church as defenders against Imperial oppression. These suspicions of the Emperor’s intentions were undoubtedly unjust. Zeno sent Artemidorus and Phocas to Theoderic, who was persuaded by their representations to stay his army and send an embassy to Byzantium. Theoderic demanded that a plenipotentiary envoy should be sent to treat with him. Zeno sent Adamantius, directing him to offer the Goths land in Pautalia (about Küstendil), and 200 lbs. of gold to supply food for that year, as no corn had been sown in the designated region. The motive of Zeno in choosing Pautalia was that if the Goths accepted it they would occupy a position between the Illyrian and Thracian armies, in which they might be more easily controlled.

Meanwhile Theoderic had proceeded by the Egnatian Way to Heraclea (Monastir), and had sent a message to one Sidimund,104 an Ostrogoth who had been in the service of Leo and had inherited an estate near Dyrrhachium, where he was living peaceably. Theoderic induced him to make an attempt to take possession of that important city of New Epirus, and for this purpose Sidismund employed an ingenious device. He visited the citizens individually, informing each that the Ostrogoths were coming with Zeno’s consent to take possession of the city, and advising him to move his property with all haste to some other secure town or to one of the coast islands. The fact that his representations were listened to and that he effected the removal of a garrison of two thousand men proves that he possessed considerable influence. Theoderic was at Heraclea105 when the messenger of Sidimund arrived with the news that the plan had been successfully carried out; and having burnt a large portion of the town because its inhabitants could not supply him with provisions, he set out for Epirus. He proceeded along the Egnatian Way, crossing the range of the Scardus mountains, and arrived at Lychnidus, which is now Ochrida. Built in a strong situation on the shore of Lake Ochrida, and well provided with water and victuals, Lychnidus defied the assault of the barbarians, who, unwilling to delay, hastened onwards, and having seized Scampae, the most important town between Lychnidus and Dyrrhachium, arrived at the goal of their journey.

It may be wondered whether at Dyrrhachium it entered the mind of Theoderic to ship his people across to the western peninsula and attack the Italian kingdom of Odovacar in the south. Adamantius, the ambassador who had been sent by Zeno to treat with him, seems to have thought it more likely that the Ostrogoths would employ vessels for the purpose of plundering the Epeirot or Dalmatian coasts, for he sent a post messenger to Dyrrhachium, to blame Theoderic for his hostile advance while negotiations were pending, and to exhort him to remain quiet and not to seize ships until he arrived himself.

Starting from Thessalonica, and passing Pella on the Via Egnatia, Adamantius came to Edessa, the modern Vodena, where he found Sabinian Magnus, and informed him that he had been appointed Master of Soldiers in Illyricum. The messenger, who had been sent to Dyrrhachium, returned in the company of a priest, to assure Adamantius that he might proceed confidently to the camp of Theoderic; and, having issued a mandate to collect all the troops available, the general and the ambassador moved forward to Lychnidus. Here Sabinian106 made difficulties about binding himself by oath to restore the hostages whom Theoderic was willing to deliver as a gage for the personal safety of Adamantius. This produced a deadlock; Theoderic naturally refused to give the hostages. Adamantius naturally refused to visit Theoderic.

Adamantius invented a simple solution of the difficulty, which led to a striking scene. Taking with him a body of two hundred soldiers he climbed by an obscure and narrow path, where horses had never set hoof before, and reached by a circuitous route an impregnable fort, built on a high cliff, close to the city of Dyrrhachium. At the foot of the cliff yawned a deep ravine, through which a river flowed. A messenger was sent to inform Theoderic that the Roman ambassador awaited him, and, attended by a few horse-soldiers, the Ostrogoth rode to the bank of the river. The physical features, the cliff, the chasm, and the river, are sufficiently simple and definite to enable us to call up vividly this strange scene. The attendants of both Adamantius and Theoderic had retired beyond range of earshot; and standing on the edges of the ravine the Ostrogothic king and the ambassador of the Roman Empire conversed together.

“I elected to live,” complained Theoderic, “beyond the borders of Thrace, far away Scythia-ward, deeming that if I abode there I should trouble no man, and should be able to obey all the behests of the Emperor. But ye summoned me as to war against Theoderic, and promised, firstly, that the Master of Soldiers in Thrace would meet me with his army, yet he never appeared; secondly, ye promised that Claudius, the steward of the Gothic contingent, would come with the pay for my troops (ξενικῷ), yet I never saw him; thirdly, ye gave me guides who, leaving the better roads that would have taken me to the quarters of the foe, led me by steep and precipitous rocky paths, where I wellnigh perished with all my train, advancing as I was with cavalry, waggons, and all the furniture of camp, and exposed to the attacks of the enemy. I was therefore constrained to come to terms with them, and owe them a debt of gratitude that they did not annihilate me, betrayed as I was by you and in their power.”

“The Emperor,” replied Adamantius, “bestowed upon you the title of Patrician, and created you a Master of Soldiers. These are the highest honours that crown the labours of the most deserving Roman officers, and nothing should induce you to cherish towards their bestower other than filial sentiments.” Having endeavoured to defend or extenuate the treatment of which Theoderic complained, the envoy proceeded thus: “You are acting intolerably in seizing Roman cities, while you are expecting an embassy; and remember that the Romans held you at their mercy, a prisoner, surrounded by their armies, amid the mountains and rivers of Thrace, whence you could never have extricated yourself, if they had not permitted you to withdraw, not even were your forces tenfold as great as they are. Allow me to counsel you to assume a more moderate attitude towards the Emperor, for you cannot in the end overcome the Romans when they press on you from all sides. Leave Epirus and the cities of this region — we cannot allow such great cities to be occupied by you and their inhabitants to be expelled — and go to Dardania, where there is an extensive territory of rich soil, uninhabited, and sufficient to support your host in plenty.”

To this proposal Theoderic replied that he would readily consent, but that his followers, who had recently endured many hardships, would be unwilling to leave their quarters in Epirus, where they had fully expected to pass the winter. He proposed a compromise, and engaged that if he were permitted to winter at Dyrrhachium he would migrate to Dardania in the ensuing spring. He added that he was quite ready to leave the unwarlike mass of his Ostrogoths in any city named by Zeno, and giving up his mother and sister as hostages, to take the field against Strabo with six thousand of his most martial followers, in company with the Illyrian army; when he had conquered his rival he expected to succeed to the post of Master of Soldiers and to be received in New Rome as a Roman.107 He also observed that he was prepared, if the Emperor wished, “to go to Dalmatia and restore Julius Nepos.” Adamantius was unable to promise so much; it was necessary to send a messenger to Byzantium to consult the Emperor. And thus the interview terminated.

Meanwhile the military forces, stationed in the Illyrian cities, had assembled at Lychnidus, around the standard of Sabinian. It was announced to the general that a band of the Ostrogoths led by Theodimund, the brother of Theoderic, was descending in secure negligence from Mount Candaira, which separates the valley of the Genusus (Skumbi) from that of the Drilo. This band had formed the rear of the Ostrogothic line of march, and had not yet reached Dyrrhachium. Sabinian sent a few infantry soldiers by a circuitous mountain route, with minute directions as to the hour and place at which they were to appear; and himself with the rest of the army proceeded thither, after the evening meal, by a more direct way. Marching during the night he assailed the company of Theodimund at dawn of day. Theodimund and his mother, who was with him, fled with all speed into the plain, and, having crossed a deep gully, destroyed the bridge which spanned it to cut off pursuit. This act, while it saved them, sacrificed their followers, who turned at bay upon the Romans. Two thousand waggons and more than five thousand captives were taken, and a great booty (A.D. 479).

After this the Emperor received two messages, one from Adamantius announcing the proposals of Theoderic, the other from Sabinian exaggerating his victory and dissuading him from the conclusion of peace. War seemed more honourable to Zeno and the pacific offers were rejected, Sabinian was permitted to continue the war, and for about a year and a half he held the Gauls in check in Epirus. But the active general was murdered by an ungrateful master,108 and John the Scythian and Moschian were sent to succeed him.

The revolt of Marcian towards the end of A.D. 479 had given Strabo a pretext for approaching Constantinople to assist the government. Having extorted money from Zeno, he received two of the conspirators in his camp and refused to surrender them. He was then once more deprived of his dignities and declared an enemy of the republic. He entered again into alliance with Theoderic and devastated Thrace. Zeno invoked the aid of the Bulgarians of the Lower Danube, but they were defeated by Strabo, who then advanced on Constantinople (A.D. 481).

It was a surprise, and we are told that he would easily have captured the city if Illus had not set guards at the gates just in time. He attempted to cross over to Bithynia, but was defeated in a battle on the water, and departed to Thrace. Thence he set forth for Greece, with his son Recitach, his wife, and about 30,000 followers. At a place called the Stable of Diomede, on the Egnatian Road, his horse threw him one morning on a spear which was standing point upwards, close to his tent. The accident was fatal (A.D. 481). Recitach succeeded him, and ruled in Thrace, “performing more outrageous acts than his father had performed.”109 Three years later Recitach was slain by Theoderic, son of Theodemir, whom Zeno instigated to the deed.110

In 482 we find Theoderic — the name is no longer ambiguous — ravaging the provinces of Macedonia, and Thessaly, and capturing the town of Larissa. He was no longer held in check by the able general Sabinian who had been murdered the year before. The Emperor decided to make a new agreement. Parts of Moesia and Dacia Ripensis were conceded to the Ostrogoths, and Theoderic was appointed Master of Soldiers (A.D. 483).111 In A.D. 484 he enjoyed the coveted distinction of giving his name to the year as consul, and he assisted Zeno against the rebel Illus. But a new breach soon followed. He devastated Thrace (A.D. 486) and marched on Constantinople (A.D. 487). Rhegium was occupied, Melantias was taken, and the capital once more threatened. But the intervention of his sister,112 who was at Zeno’s court, induced him to retire to his headquarters in Moesia, which he was soon to abandon for ever. The days of the Thracian period of Theoderic’s career were numbered.

§ 6. Theoderic’s Conquest of Italy (A.D. 489-493)

We have seen that there had been friction between the Emperor and his Viceroy in Italy, and that Odovacar had thoroughly defeated the Rugians whom Zeno had stirred up against him. The thought now occurred to Zeno or his advisers that he might at once punish Odovacar and deliver the Illyrian provinces from the menacing presence of the Ostrogoths by giving Theoderic a commission to supersede the ruler of Italy. Theoderic accepted the charge. A compact was made that (in the words of the chronicler) “in case Odovacar were conquered, Theoderic should, as a reward of his labours, rule in place of Odovacar, until Zeno came himself.”113 The last condition is simply a way of saying that Zeno reserved all the Imperial rights of sovranty.

At the head of his people, numbering perhaps about 100,000,114 Theoderic set forth from Moesia in the autumn of A.D. 488. Following the direct road to Italy, past Viminacium and Singidunum, he approached Sirmium, and here he was confronted by a formidable obstacle. This town was in the possession of the Gepids, who now blocked Theoderic’s path. The place was taken after fierce fighting, but the Goths passed on with their booty and the Gepids reoccupied it. The winter, spring, and summer of the following year were spent somewhere between Sirmium and the Italian borders, and the causes of this delay are unknown.

It was not till the end of August (A.D. 489) that, having crossed the Julian Alps, the Ostrogoths reached the river Sontius (Isonzo) and the struggle for Italy began. Of this memorable war we have only the most meagre outline. The result was decided within twelve months, but three and a half years were to elapse before the last resistance of Odovacar was broken down and Theoderic was completely master of Italy.115

It was perhaps where the Sontius and the Frigidus meet that Theoderic found Odovacar in a carefully fortified camp, prepared to oppose his entry into Venetia. He had considerable forces, for besides his own army he had succeeded in enlisting foreign help.116 We are not told who his allies were; we can only guess that among them may have been the Burgundians, who, as we know, helped him at a later stage. The battle was fought on August 28; Odovacar was defeated and compelled to retreat. His next line of defence was on the Athesis (Adige), and he fortified himself in a camp close to Verona, with the river behind him.117 Here the second battle of the war was fought a month later (about Sept. 29)118 and resulted in a decisive victory for Theoderic. The carnage of Odovacar’s men is said to have been immense; but they fought desperately and the Ostrogothic losses were severe;119 the river was fed with corpses. The king himself fled to Ravenna. The greater part of the army, with Tufa who held the highest command, surrendered to Theoderic, who immediately proceeded to Milan.120

Northern Italy was now at the feet of the Goth; Rome and Sicily were prepared to submit, and it looked as if nothing remained to complete the conquest but the capture of Ravenna. But the treachery of Tufa changed the situation. Theoderic imprudently trusted him, and sent him with his own troops and a few distinguished Ostrogoths against Odovacar. At Faventia (Faenza) he espoused again the cause of his old master and handed over to him the Goths, who were put in irons.

Theoderic made Ticinum (Pavia) his headquarters during the winter, and it is said that one of his motives for choosing this city was to cultivate the friendship of the old bishop Epiphanius, who had great influence with Odovacar. In the following year Odovacar was able to take the field again, to seize Cremona and Milan, and to blockade his adversary in Ticinum. At this juncture the Visigoths came to the help of the Ostrogoths and sent an army into Italy. The siege was raised and the decisive battle of the war was fought on the river Addua (Adda), in which Odovacar was utterly defeated (Aug. 11, A.D. 490). He fled for the second time to Ravenna. It was probably this victory that decided the Roman Senate to abandon the cause of Odovacar, and accept Theoderic. It made him master of Rome, southern Italy, and Sicily.

The agreement that Zeno made with Theoderic had been secret and unofficial. The Emperor did nothing directly to break off his relations with Odovacar.121 But Odovacar seems some time before the battle of the Addua to have courted a formal rupture. He created his son Thela a Caesar, and this was equivalent to denouncing his subordination to the Emperor and declaring Italy independent.122 He probably calculated that in the strained relations which then existed between the Italian Catholics and the East, on account of the ecclesiastical schism, the policy of cutting the rope which bound Italy to Constantinople would be welcomed at Rome and throughout the provinces. The senators may have been divided on this issue, but the battle of the Addua decided them as a body to “betray” Odovacar,123 and before the end of the year Festus, the princeps of the Senate, went to Constantinople to announce the success of Theoderic, and to arrange the conditions of the new Italian government.

Theoderic confidently believed that his task was now virtually finished. But the cause of his thrice-defeated enemy was not yet hopelessly lost. Tufa was still at large with troops at his command; and other unexpected difficulties beset the conqueror. The Burgundian king Gundobad sent an army into North Italy and laid waste the country.124 Theoderic had not only to drive the invaders out, but he had also to protect Sicily against the Vandals, who seized the opportunity of the war to attempt to recover it. Their attempt was frustrated and they were forced to surrender the fortress of Lilybaeum as well as all their claims to the island.125

It seems to have been in the same year that Theoderic resorted to a terrible measure for destroying the military garrisons which held Italian towns for Odovacar. The Italian population was generally favourable to the cause of Theoderic, and secret orders were given to the citizens to slaughter the soldiers on a pre-arranged day. The pious panegyrist, who exultantly, but briefly, describes this measure and claims Providence as an accomplice, designates it as a sacrificial massacre”;126 and Theoderic doubtless considered that the treachery of his enemy’s army in surrendering and then deserting justified an unusual act of vengeance. The secret of the plot was well kept, and it seems to have been punctually executed. The result was equivalent to another victory in the field; and nothing now remained for Theoderic but to capture the last stronghold of his adversary, the marsh city of Honorius.

The siege of Ravenna lasted for two years and a half. The Gothic forces entrenched themselves in a camp in the Pine-woods east of the city, but were not able entirely to prevent provisions from reaching the city by sea. Yet the blockade was not ineffective, for corn rose to a famine price. One attempt was made by Odovacar to disperse the besiegers. He made a sortie at night (July 10, A.D. 491) with a band of Herul warriors and attacked the Gothic trenches. The conflict was obstinate, but he was defeated.127 Another year wore on, and it appeared that the siege might last for ever unless the food of the garrison could be completely cut off. Theoderic managed to procure a fleet of warships — we are not told whether they were built for the occasion,— and, making the Portus Leonis, about six miles from Ravenna, his naval base, he was able to blockade the two harbours of the city (August, A.D. 492).128 Odovacar held out for six months longer, but early in A.D. 493 negotiations, conducted by the bishop of Ravenna, issued in a compact between the two antagonists (February 25) that they should rule Italy jointly.129 Theoderic entered the city a week later (March 5).

The only way in which the compact could have been carried out would have been by a territorial division. But Theoderic had no mind to share the peninsula with another king, and there can hardly be a doubt that, when he swore to the treaty, he had the full intention of breaking his oath. Odovacar’s days were numbered. Theoderic, a few days after his entry into Ravenna, slew him with his own hand in the palace of Lauretum (March 15). He alleged that his defeated rival was plotting against him, but this probably was a mere pretext.130 “On the same day,” adds the chronicler, “all Odovacar’s soldiers were slain wherever they could be found, and all his kin.”131

In three years and a half Theoderic had accomplished his task. The reduction of Italy cost him four battles, a massacre, and a long siege. His capital blunder had been to trust Tufa after the victory of Verona. We may be sure that throughout the struggle he spared no pains to ingratiate himself in the confidence of the Italian population. But when his rival had fallen, and when he was at last securely established, Theoderic’s first measure was to issue an edict depriving of their civil rights all those Italians who had not adhered to his cause. This harsh and stupid policy, however, was not carried out, for the bishop Epiphanius persuaded the king to revoke it and to promise that there would be no executions.132

Two more services would be rendered to his country by Epiphanius before his death. The war had a disastrous effect on Italian agriculture.133 Liguria had been devastated by the Burgundians; King Gundobad had carried thousands into captivity, and no husbandmen were left to till the soil and tend the vineyards. Theoderic was prepared to ransom the captives, and he charged Epiphanius with the office of persuading the Burgundian king to release them. The bishop, notwithstanding his infirm age, undertook the cold and difficult journey over the Alps in March (A.D. 494), and was received by Gundobad at Lyons. To the arguments and prayers of the envoy, Gundobad, who was an excellent speaker, replied with the frank and cynical assertion that war permits and justifies everything which is unlawful in peace. “War ignores the bridle of moderation which you, as a Christian luminary, teach. It is a fixed principle with belligerents that whatever is not lawful is lawful when they are fighting. The object of war is to cut up your opponent’s strength at the roots.” He went on to say that a peace had now been concluded — it had been sealed by the betrothal of a daughter of Theoderic to Gundobad’s son Sigismund,— and that if the bishop and his companions would return to their homes he would consider what it were best to do in the interests of his soul and his kingdom. Epiphanius had gained his cause. Gundobad set free all prisoners who were in his own hands, without charge, and those who were the slaves of private persons were ransomed. More than six thousand were restored to Italy.134

The last public act of Epiphanius was to induce Theoderic to grant a reduction of the taxation of Liguria. “The wealth,” he urged, “ of a landed proprietor is the wealth of a good ruler.”135 Theoderic remitted two-thirds of the taxes for A.D. 497. Epiphanius caught a chill in the cold marsh air of Ravenna and died on his return home.136 He had played a considerable and beneficent part in Italian politics for nearly thirty years.