History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0164/01643.txt

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$Unique_ID{how01643}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
Part III.}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Gibbon, Edward}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{footnote
attila
de
roman
valentinian
huns
italy
aetius
aquileia
part}
$Date{1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)}
$Log{}
Title:       History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
Book:        Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.
Author:      Gibbon, Edward
Date:        1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)

Part III.

     Neither the spirit, nor the forces, nor the reputation, of Attila, were
impaired by the failure of the Gallic expedition In the ensuing spring he
repeated his demand of the princess Honoria, and her patrimonial treasures.
The demand was again rejected, or eluded; and the indignant lover immediately
took the field, passed the Alps, invaded Italy, and besieged Aquileia with an
innumerable host of Barbarians.  Those Barbarians were unskilled in the
methods of conducting a regular siege, which, even among the ancients,
required some knowledge, or at least some practice, of the mechanic arts.  But
the labor of many thousand provincials and captives, whose lives were
sacrificed without pity, might execute the most painful and dangerous work.
The skill of the Roman artists might be corrupted to the destruction of their
country. The walls of Aquileia were assaulted by a formidable train of
battering rams, movable turrets, and engines, that threw stones, darts, and
fire; ^48 and the monarch of the Huns employed the forcible impulse of hope,
fear, emulation, and interest, to subvert the only barrier which delayed the
conquest of Italy.  Aquileia was at that period one of the richest, the most
populous, and the strongest of the maritime cities of the Adriatic coast.  The
Gothic auxiliaries, who appeared to have served under their native princes,
Alaric and Antala, communicated their intrepid spirit; and the citizens still
remembered the glorious and successful resistance which their ancestors had
opposed to a fierce, inexorable Barbarian, who disgraced the majesty of the
Roman purple.  Three months were consumed without effect in the siege of the
Aquileia; till the want of provisions, and the clamors of his army, compelled
Attila to relinquish the enterprise; and reluctantly to issue his orders, that
the troops should strike their tents the next morning, and begin their
retreat.  But as he rode round the walls, pensive, angry, and disappointed, he
observed a stork preparing to leave her nest, in one of the towers, and to fly
with her infant family towards the country.  He seized, with the ready
penetration of a statesman, this trifling incident, which chance had offered
to superstition; and exclaimed, in a loud and cheerful tone, that such a
domestic bird, so constantly attached to human society, would never have
abandoned her ancient seats, unless those towers had been devoted to impending
ruin and solitude. ^49 The favorable omen inspired an assurance of victory;
the siege was renewed and prosecuted with fresh vigor; a large breach was made
in the part of the wall from whence the stork had taken her flight; the Huns
mounted to the assault with irresistible fury; and the succeeding generation
could scarcely discover the ruins of Aquileia. ^50 After this dreadful
chastisement, Attila pursued his march; and as he passed, the cities of
Altinum, Concordia, and Padua, were reduced into heaps of stones and ashes.
The inland towns, Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo, were exposed to the rapacious
cruelty of the Huns. Milan and Pavia submitted, without resistance, to the
loss of their wealth; and applauded the unusual clemency which preserved from
the flames the public, as well as private, buildings, and spared the lives of
the captive multitude.  The popular traditions of Comum, Turin, or Modena, may
justly be suspected; yet they concur with more authentic evidence to prove,
that Attila spread his ravages over the rich plains of modern Lombardy; which
are divided by the Po, and bounded by the Alps and Apennine. ^51 When he took
possession of the royal palace of Milan, he was surprised and offended at the
sight of a picture which represented the Caesars seated on their throne, and
the princes of Scythia prostrate at their feet.  The revenge which Attila
inflicted on this monument of Roman vanity, was harmless and ingenious.  He
commanded a painter to reverse the figures and the attitudes; and the emperors
were delineated on the same canvas, approaching in a suppliant posture to
empty their bags of tributary gold before the throne of the Scythian monarch.
^52 The spectators must have confessed the truth and propriety of the
alteration; and were perhaps tempted to apply, on this singular occasion, the
well-known fable of the dispute between the lion and the man. ^53

[Footnote 48: Machinis constructis, omnibusque tormentorum generibus
adhibitis.  Jornandes, c. 42, p. 673.  In the thirteenth century, the Moguls
battered the cities of China with large engines, constructed by the Mahometans
or Christians in their service, which threw stones from 150 to 300 pounds
weight.  In the defence of their country, the Chinese used gunpowder, and even
bombs, above a hundred years before they were known in Europe; yet even those
celestial, or infernal, arms were insufficient to protect a pusillanimous
nation.  See Gaubil. Hist. des Mongous, p. 70, 71, 155, 157, &c.]

[Footnote 49: The same story is told by Jornandes, and by Procopius, (de Bell
Vandal. l. i. c. 4, p. 187, 188:) nor is it easy to decide which is the
original.  But the Greek historian is guilty of an inexcusable mistake, in
placing the siege of Aquileia after the death of Aetius.]

[Footnote 50: Jornandes, about a hundred years afterwards, affirms, that
Aquileia was so completely ruined, ita ut vix ejus vestigia, ut appareant,
reliquerint.  See Jornandes de Reb. Geticis, c. 42, p. 673.  Paul. Diacon. l.
ii. c. 14, p. 785.  Liutprand, Hist. l. iii. c. 2.  The name of Aquileia was
sometimes applied to Forum Julii, (Cividad del Friuli,) the more recent
capital of the Venetian province.

     Note: Compare the curious Latin poems on the destruction of Aquileia,
published by M. Endlicher in his valuable catalogue of Latin Mss. in the
library of Vienna, p. 298, &c.

     Repleta quondam domibus sublimibus, ornatis mire, niveis, marmorels,
     Nune ferax frugum metiris funiculo ruricolarum.

     The monkish poet has his consolation in Attila's sufferings in soul and
body.

     Vindictam tamen non evasit impius destructor tuus Attila sevissimus,
     Nunc igni simul gehennae et vermibus excruciatur - P. 290. - M.]

[Footnote 51: In describing this war of Attila, a war so famous, but so
imperfectly known, I have taken for my guides two learned Italians, who
considered the subject with some peculiar advantages; Sigonius, de Imperio
Occidentali, l. xiii. in his works, tom. i. p. 495 - 502; and Muratori, Annali
d'Italia, tom. iv. p. 229 - 236, 8vo. edition.]

[Footnote 52: This anecdote may be found under two different articles of the
miscellaneous compilation of Suidas.]

[Footnote 53:  Leo respondit, humana, hoc pictum manu:
               Videres hominem dejectum, si pingere
               Leones scirent.

               Appendix ad Phaedrum, Fab. xxv.

The lion in Phaedrus very foolishly appeals from pictures to the amphitheatre;
and I am glad to observe, that the native taste of La Fontaine (l. iii. fable
x.) has omitted this most lame and impotent conclusion.]

     It is a saying worthy of the ferocious pride of Attila, that the grass
never grew on the spot where his horse had trod.  Yet the savage destroyer
undesignedly laid the foundation of a republic, which revived, in the feudal
state of Europe, the art and spirit of commercial industry.  The celebrated
name of Venice, or Venetia, ^54 was formerly diffused over a large and fertile
province of Italy, from the confines of Pannonia to the River Addua, and from
the Po to the Rhaetian and Julian Alps.  Before the irruption of the
Barbarians, fifty Venetian cities flourished in peace and prosperity: Aquileia
was placed in the most conspicuous station: but the ancient dignity of Padua
was supported by agriculture and manufactures; and the property of five
hundred citizens, who were entitled to the equestrian rank, must have
amounted, at the strictest computation, to one million seven hundred thousand
pounds.  Many families of Aquileia, Padua, and the adjacent towns, who fled
from the sword of the Huns, found a safe, though obscure, refuge in the
neighboring islands. ^55 At the extremity of the Gulf, where the Adriatic
feebly imitates the tides of the ocean, near a hundred small islands are
separated by shallow water from the continent, and protected from the waves by
several long slips of land, which admit the entrance of vessels through some
secret and narrow channels. ^56 Till the middle of the fifth century, these
remote and sequestered spots remained without cultivation, with few
inhabitants, and almost without a name.  But the manners of the Venetian
fugitives, their arts and their government, were gradually formed by their new
situation; and one of the epistles of Cassiodorus, ^57 which describes their
condition about seventy years afterwards, may be considered as the primitive
monument of the republic. ^* The minister of Theodoric compares them, in his
quaint declamatory style, to water-fowl, who had fixed their nests on the
bosom of the waves; and though he allows, that the Venetian provinces had
formerly contained many noble families, he insinuates, that they were now
reduced by misfortune to the same level of humble poverty.  Fish was the
common, and almost the universal, food of every rank: their only treasure
consisted in the plenty of salt, which they extracted from the sea: and the
exchange of that commodity, so essential to human life, was substituted in the
neighboring markets to the currency of gold and silver.  A people, whose
habitations might be doubtfully assigned to the earth or water, soon became
alike familiar with the two elements; and the demands of avarice succeeded to
those of necessity.  The islanders, who, from Grado to Chiozza, were
intimately connected with each other, penetrated into the heart of Italy, by
the secure, though laborious, navigation of the rivers and inland canals.
Their vessels, which were continually increasing in size and number, visited
all the harbors of the Gulf; and the marriage which Venice annually celebrates
with the Adriatic, was contracted in her early infancy. The epistle of
Cassiodorus, the Praetorian praefect, is addressed to the maritime tribunes;
and he exhorts them, in a mild tone of authority, to animate the zeal of their
countrymen for the public service, which required their assistance to
transport the magazines of wine and oil from the province of Istria to the
royal city of Ravenna.  The ambiguous office of these magistrates is explained
by the tradition, that, in the twelve principal islands, twelve tribunes, or
judges, were created by an annual and popular election.  The existence of the
Venetian republic under the Gothic kingdom of Italy, is attested by the same
authentic record, which annihilates their lofty claim of original and
perpetual independence. ^58

[Footnote 54: Paul the Deacon (de Gestis Langobard. l. ii. c. 14, p. 784)
describes the provinces of Italy about the end of the eighth century Venetia
non solum in paucis insulis quas nunc Venetias dicimus, constat; sed ejus
terminus a Pannoniae finibus usque Adduam fluvium protelatur.  The history of
that province till the age of Charlemagne forms the first and most interesting
part of the Verona Illustrata, p. 1 - 388,) in which the marquis Scipio Maffei
has shown himself equally capable of enlarged views and minute disquisitions.]

[Footnote 55: This emigration is not attested by any contemporary evidence;
but the fact is proved by the event, and the circumstances might be preserved
by tradition.  The citizens of Aquileia retired to the Isle of Gradus, those
of Padua to Rivus Altus, or Rialto, where the city of Venice was afterwards
built, &c.]

[Footnote 56: The topography and antiquities of the Venetian islands, from
Gradus to Clodia, or Chioggia, are accurately stated in the Dissertatio
Chorographica de Italia Medii Aevi. p. 151 - 155.]

[Footnote 57: Cassiodor. Variar. l. xii. epist. 24.  Maffei (Verona
Illustrata, part i. p. 240 - 254) has translated and explained this curious
letter, in the spirit of a learned antiquarian and a faithful subject, who
considered Venice as the only legitimate offspring of the Roman republic. He
fixes the date of the epistle, and consequently the praefecture, of
Cassiodorus, A.D. 523; and the marquis's authority has the more weight, as he
prepared an edition of his works, and actually published a dissertation on the
true orthography of his name.  See Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. ii. p. 290 -
339.]

[Footnote *: The learned count Figliasi has proved, in his memoirs upon the
Veneti (Memorie de' Veneti primi e secondi del conte Figliasi, t. vi.
Veneziai, 796,) that from the most remote period, this nation, which occupied
the country which has since been called the Venetian States or Terra Firma,
likewise inhabited the islands scattered upon the coast, and that from thence
arose the names of Venetia prima and secunda, of which the first applied to
the main land and the second to the islands and lagunes. From the time of the
Pelasgi and of the Etrurians, the first Veneti, inhabiting a fertile and
pleasant country, devoted themselves to agriculture: the second, placed in the
midst of canals, at the mouth of several rivers, conveniently situated with
regard to the islands of Greece, as well as the fertile plains of Italy,
applied themselves to navigation and commerce.  Both submitted to the Romans a
short time before the second Punic war; yet it was not till after the victory
of Marius over the Cimbri, that their country was reduced to a Roman province.
Under the emperors, Venetia Prima obtained more than once, by its calamities,
a place in history. * * But the maritime province was occupied in salt works,
fisheries, and commerce.  The Romans have considered the inhabitants of this
part as beneath the dignity of history, and have left them in obscurity. * * *
They dwelt there until the period when their islands afforded a retreat to
their ruined and fugitive compatriots.  Sismondi. Hist. des Rep. Italiens, v.
i. p. 313. -G.

     Compare, on the origin of Venice, Daru, Hist. de Venise, vol. i. c. l. -
M.]

[Footnote 58: See, in the second volume of Amelot de la Houssaie, Histoire du
Gouvernement de Venise, a translation of the famous Squittinio.  This book,
which has been exalted far above its merits, is stained, in every line, with
the disingenuous malevolence of party: but the principal evidence, genuine and
apocryphal, is brought together and the reader will easily choose the fair
medium.]

     The Italians, who had long since renounced the exercise of arms, were
surprised, after forty years' peace, by the approach of a formidable
Barbarian, whom they abhorred, as the enemy of their religion, as well as of
their republic.  Amidst the general consternation, Aetius alone was incapable
of fear; but it was impossible that he should achieve, alone and unassisted,
any military exploits worthy of his former renown.  The Barbarians who had
defended Gaul, refused to march to the relief of Italy; and the succors
promised by the Eastern emperor were distant and doubtful. Since Aetius, at
the head of his domestic troops, still maintained the field, and harassed or
retarded the march of Attila, he never showed himself more truly great, than
at the time when his conduct was blamed by an ignorant and ungrateful people.
^59 If the mind of Valentinian had been susceptible of any generous
sentiments, he would have chosen such a general for his example and his guide.
But the timid grandson of Theodosius, instead of sharing the dangers, escaped
from the sound of war; and his hasty retreat from Ravenna to Rome, from an
impregnable fortress to an open capital, betrayed his secret intention of
abandoning Italy, as soon as the danger should approach his Imperial person.
This shameful abdication was suspended, however, by the spirit of doubt and
delay, which commonly adheres to pusillanimous counsels, and sometimes
corrects their pernicious tendency.  The Western emperor, with the senate and
people of Rome, embraced the more salutary resolution of deprecating, by a
solemn and suppliant embassy, the wrath of Attila.  This important commission
was accepted by Avienus, who, from his birth and riches, his consular dignity,
the numerous train of his clients, and his personal abilities, held the first
rank in the Roman senate.  The specious and artful character of Avienus ^60
was admirably qualified to conduct a negotiation either of public or private
interest: his colleague Trigetius had exercised the Praetorian praefecture of
Italy; and Leo, bishop of Rome, consented to expose his life for the safety of
his flock.  The genius of Leo ^61 was exercised and displayed in the public
misfortunes; and he has deserved the appellation of Great, by the successful
zeal with which he labored to establish his opinions and his authority, under
the venerable names of orthodox faith and ecclesiastical discipline.  The
Roman ambassadors were introduced to the tent of Attila, as he lay encamped at
the place where the slow-winding Mincius is lost in the foaming waves of the
Lake Benacus, ^62 and trampled, with his Scythian cavalry, the farms of
Catullus and Virgil. ^63 The Barbarian monarch listened with favorable, and
even respectful, attention; and the deliverance of Italy was purchased by the
immense ransom, or dowry, of the princess Honoria.  The state of his army
might facilitate the treaty, and hasten his retreat.  Their martial spirit was
relaxed by the wealth and idolence of a warm climate.  The shepherds of the
North, whose ordinary food consisted of milk and raw flesh, indulged
themselves too freely in the use of bread, of wine, and of meat, prepared and
seasoned by the arts of cookery; and the progress of disease revenged in some
measure the injuries of the Italians. ^64 When Attila declared his resolution
of carrying his victorious arms to the gates of Rome, he was admonished by his
friends, as well as by his enemies, that Alaric had not long survived the
conquest of the eternal city.  His mind, superior to real danger, was
assaulted by imaginary terrors; nor could he escape the influence of
superstition, which had so often been subservient to his designs. ^65 The
pressing eloquence of Leo, his majestic aspect and sacerdotal robes, excited
the veneration of Attila for the spiritual father of the Christians.  The
apparition of the two apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, who menaced the
Barbarian with instant death, if he rejected the prayer of their successor, is
one of the noblest legends of ecclesiastical tradition.  The safety of Rome
might deserve the interposition of celestial beings; and some indulgence is
due to a fable, which has been represented by the pencil of Raphael, and the
chisel of Algardi. ^66

[Footnote 59: Sirmond (Not. ad Sidon. Apollin. p. 19) has published a curious
passage from the Chronicle of Prosper.  Attila, redintegratis viribus, quas in
Gallia amiserat, Italiam ingredi per Pannonias intendit; nihil duce nostro
Aetio secundum prioris belli opera prospiciente, &c.  He reproaches Aetius
with neglecting to guard the Alps, and with a design to abandon Italy; but
this rash censure may at least be counterbalanced by the favorable testimonies
of Idatius and Isidore.]

[Footnote 60: See the original portraits of Avienus and his rival Basilius,
delineated and contrasted in the epistles (i. 9. p. 22) of Sidonius.  He had
studied the characters of the two chiefs of the senate; but he attached
himself to Basilius, as the more solid and disinterested friend.]

[Footnote 61: The character and principles of Leo may be traced in one hundred
and forty-one original epistles, which illustrate the ecclesiastical history
of his long and busy pontificate, from A.D. 440 to 461.  See Dupin,
Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. iii. part ii p. 120 - 165.]

[Footnote 62: -     tardis ingens ubi flexibus errat
                    Mincius, et tenera praetexit arundine ripas
                    - - - -
                    Anne lacus tantos, te Lari maxime, teque
                    Fluctibus, et fremitu assurgens Benace marino.]

[Footnote 63: The marquis Maffei (Verona Illustrata, part i. p. 95, 129, 221,
part ii. p. 2, 6) has illustrated with taste and learning this interesting
topography.  He places the interview of Attila and St. Leo near Ariolica, or
Ardelica, now Peschiera, at the conflux of the lake and river; ascertains the
villa of Catullus, in the delightful peninsula of Sirmio, and discovers the
Andes of Virgil, in the village of Bandes, precisely situate, qua se subducere
colles incipiunt, where the Veronese hills imperceptibly slope down into the
plain of Mantua.

     Note: Gibbon has made a singular mistake: the Mincius flows out of the
Bonacus at Peschiera, not into it.  The interview is likewise placed at Ponte
Molino. and at Governolo, at the conflux of the Mincio and the Gonzaga. bishop
of Mantua, erected a tablet in the year 1616, in the church of the latter
place, commemorative of the event.  Descrizione di Verona a de la sua
provincia. C. 11, p. 126. - M.]

[Footnote 64: Si statim infesto agmine urbem petiissent, grande discrimen
esset: sed in Venetia quo fere tractu Italia mollissima est, ipsa soli
coelique clementia robur elanquit.  Ad hoc panis usu carnisque coctae, et
dulcedine vini mitigatos, &c.  This passage of Florus (iii. 3) is still more
applicable to the Huns than to the Cimbri, and it may serve as a commentary on
the celestial plague, with which Idatius and Isidore have afflicted the troops
of Attila.]

[Footnote 65: The historian Priscus had positively mentioned the effect which
this example produced on the mind of Attila.  Jornandes, c. 42, p. 673]

[Footnote 66: The picture of Raphael is in the Vatican; the basso (or perhaps
the alto) relievo of Algardi, on one of the altars of St. Peter, (see Dubos,
Reflexions sur la Poesie et sur la Peinture, tom. i. p. 519, 520.) Baronius
(Annal. Eccles. A.D. 452, No. 57, 58) bravely sustains the truth of the
apparition; which is rejected, however, by the most learned and pious
Catholics.]

     Before the king of the Huns evacuated Italy, he threatened to return more
dreadful, and more implacable, if his bride, the princess Honoria, were not
delivered to his ambassadors within the term stipulated by the treaty.  Yet,
in the mean while, Attila relieved his tender anxiety, by adding a beautiful
maid, whose name was Ildico, to the list of his innumerable wives. ^67 Their
marriage was celebrated with barbaric pomp and festivity, at his wooden palace
beyond the Danube; and the monarch, oppressed with wine and sleep, retired at
a late hour from the banquet to the nuptial bed.  His attendants continued to
respect his pleasures, or his repose, the greatest part of the ensuing day,
till the unusual silence alarmed their fears and suspicions; and, after
attempting to awaken Attila by loud and repeated cries, they at length broke
into the royal apartment. They found the trembling bride sitting by the
bedside, hiding her face with her veil, and lamenting her own danger, as well
as the death of the king, who had expired during the night. ^68 An artery had
suddenly burst: and as Attila lay in a supine posture, he was suffocated by a
torrent of blood, which, instead of finding a passage through the nostrils,
regurgitated into the lungs and stomach.  His body was solemnly exposed in the
midst of the plain, under a silken pavilion; and the chosen squadrons of the
Huns, wheeling round in measured evolutions, chanted a funeral song to the
memory of a hero, glorious in his life, invincible in his death, the father of
his people, the scourge of his enemies, and the terror of the world. According
to their national custom, the Barbarians cut off a part of their hair, gashed
their faces with unseemly wounds, and bewailed their valiant leader as he
deserved, not with the tears of women, but with the blood of warriors.  The
remains of Attila were enclosed within three coffins, of gold, of silver, and
of iron, and privately buried in the night: the spoils of nations were thrown
into his grave; the captives who had opened the ground were inhumanly
massacred; and the same Huns, who had indulged such excessive grief, feasted,
with dissolute and intemperate mirth, about the recent sepulchre of their
king.  It was reported at Constantinople, that on the fortunate night on which
he expired, Marcian beheld in a dream the bow of Attila broken asunder: and
the report may be allowed to prove, how seldom the image of that formidable
Barbarian was absent from the mind of a Roman emperor. ^69 [Footnote 67:
Attila, ut Priscus historicus refert, extinctionis suae tempore, puellam
Ildico nomine, decoram, valde, sibi matrimonium post innumerabiles uxores ...
socians.  Jornandes, c. 49, p. 683, 684.  He afterwards adds, (c. 50, p. 686,)
Filii Attilae, quorum per licentiam libidinis poene populus fuit.  Polygamy
has been established among the Tartars of every age.  The rank of plebeian
wives is regulated only by their personal charms; and the faded matron
prepares, without a murmur, the bed which is destined for her blooming rival.
But in royal families, the daughters of Khans communicate to their sons a
prior right.  See Genealogical History, p. 406, 407, 408.]

[Footnote 68: The report of her guilt reached Constantinople, where it
obtained a very different name; and Marcellinus observes, that the tyrant of
Europe was slain in the night by the hand, and the knife, of a woman
Corneille, who has adapted the genuine account to his tragedy, describes the
irruption of blood in forty bombast lines, and Attila exclaims, with
ridiculous fury,

      - S'il ne veut s'arreter, (his blood.)
     (Dit-il) on me payera ce qui m'en va couter.]

[Footnote 69: The curious circumstances of the death and funeral of Attila are
related by Jornandes, (c. 49, p. 683, 684, 685,) and were probably transcribed
from Priscus.]

     The revolution which subverted the empire of the Huns, established the
fame of Attila, whose genius alone had sustained the huge and disjointed
fabric.  After his death, the boldest chieftains aspired to the rank of kings;
the most powerful kings refused to acknowledge a superior; and the numerous
sons, whom so many various mothers bore to the deceased monarch, divided and
disputed, like a private inheritance, the sovereign command of the nations of
Germany and Scythia.  The bold Ardaric felt and represented the disgrace of
this servile partition; and his subjects, the warlike Gepidae, with the
Ostrogoths, under the conduct of three valiant brothers, encouraged their
allies to vindicate the rights of freedom and royalty.  In a bloody and
decisive conflict on the banks of the River Netad, in Pannonia, the lance of
the Gepidae, the sword of the Goths, the arrows of the Huns, the Suevic
infantry, the light arms of the Heruli, and the heavy weapons of the Alani,
encountered or supported each other; and the victory of the Ardaric was
accompanied with the slaughter of thirty thousand of his enemies.  Ellac, the
eldest son of Attila, lost his life and crown in the memorable battle of
Netad: his early valor had raised him to the throne of the Acatzires, a
Scythian people, whom he subdued; and his father, who loved the superior
merit, would have envied the death of Ellac. ^70 His brother, Dengisich, with
an army of Huns, still formidable in their flight and ruin, maintained his
ground above fifteen years on the banks of the Danube.  The palace of Attila,
with the old country of Dacia, from the Carpathian hills to the Euxine, became
the seat of a new power, which was erected by Ardaric, king of the Gepidae.
The Pannonian conquests from Vienna to Sirmium, were occupied by the
Ostrogoths; and the settlements of the tribes, who had so bravely asserted
their native freedom, were irregularly distributed, according to the measure
of their respective strength.  Surrounded and oppressed by the multitude of
his father's slaves, the kingdom of Dengisich was confined to the circle of
his wagons; his desperate courage urged him to invade the Eastern empire: he
fell in battle; and his head ignominiously exposed in the Hippodrome,
exhibited a grateful spectacle to the people of Constantinople.  Attila had
fondly or superstitiously believed, that Irnac, the youngest of his sons, was
destined to perpetuate the glories of his race.  The character of that prince,
who attempted to moderate the rashness of his brother Dengisich, was more
suitable to the declining condition of the Huns; and Irnac, with his subject
hordes, retired into the heart of the Lesser Scythia.  They were soon
overwhelmed by a torrent of new Barbarians, who followed the same road which
their own ancestors had formerly discovered.  The Geougen, or Avares, whose
residence is assigned by the Greek writers to the shores of the ocean,
impelled the adjacent tribes; till at length the Igours of the North, issuing
from the cold Siberian regions, which produce the most valuable furs, spread
themselves over the desert, as far as the Borysthenes and the Caspian gates;
and finally extinguished the empire of the Huns. ^71

[Footnote 70: See Jornandes, de Rebus Geticis, c. 50, p. 685, 686, 687, 688.
His distinction of the national arms is curious and important.  Nan ibi
admirandum reor fuisse spectaculum, ubi cernere erat cunctis, pugnantem Gothum
ense furentem, Gepidam in vulnere suorum cuncta tela frangentem, Suevum pede,
Hunnum sagitta praesumere, Alanum gravi Herulum levi, armatura, aciem
instruere.  I am not precisely informed of the situation of the River Netad.]

[Footnote 71: Two modern historians have thrown much new light on the ruin and
division of the empire of Attila; M. de Buat, by his laborious and minute
diligence, (tom. viii. p. 3 - 31, 68 - 94,) and M. de Guignes, by his
extraordinary knowledge of the Chinese language and writers.  See Hist. des
Huns, tom. ii. p. 315 - 319.]

     Such an event might contribute to the safety of the Eastern empire, under
the reign of a prince who conciliated the friendship, without forfeiting the
esteem, of the Barbarians.  But the emperor of the West, the feeble and
dissolute Valentinian, who had reached his thirty-fifth year without attaining
the age of reason or courage, abused this apparent security, to undermine the
foundations of his own throne, by the murder of the patrician Aetius.  From
the instinct of a base and jealous mind, he hated the man who was universally
celebrated as the terror of the Barbarians, and the support of the republic;
^* and his new favorite, the eunuch Heraclius, awakened the emperor from the
supine lethargy, which might be disguised, during the life of Placidia, ^72 by
the excuse of filial piety.  The fame of Aetius, his wealth and dignity, the
numerous and martial train of Barbarian followers, his powerful dependants,
who filled the civil offices of the state, and the hopes of his son
Gaudentius, who was already contracted to Eudoxia, the emperor's daughter, had
raised him above the rank of a subject.  The ambitious designs, of which he
was secretly accused, excited the fears, as well as the resentment, of
Valentinian.  Aetius himself, supported by the consciousness of his merit, his
services, and perhaps his innocence, seems to have maintained a haughty and
indiscreet behavior.  The patrician offended his sovereign by a hostile
declaration; he aggravated the offence, by compelling him to ratify, with a
solemn oath, a treaty of reconciliation and alliance; he proclaimed his
suspicions, he neglected his safety; and from a vain confidence that the
enemy, whom he despised, was incapable even of a manly crime, he rashly
ventured his person in the palace of Rome.  Whilst he urged, perhaps with
intemperate vehemence, the marriage of his son; Valentinian, drawing his
sword, the first sword he had ever drawn, plunged it in the breast of a
general who had saved his empire: his courtiers and eunuchs ambitiously
struggled to imitate their master; and Aetius, pierced with a hundred wounds,
fell dead in the royal presence.  Boethius, the Praetorian praefect, was
killed at the same moment, and before the event could be divulged, the
principal friends of the patrician were summoned to the palace, and separately
murdered.  The horrid deed, palliated by the specious names of justice and
necessity, was immediately communicated by the emperor to his soldiers, his
subjects, and his allies.  The nations, who were strangers or enemies to
Aetius, generously deplored the unworthy fate of a hero: the Barbarians, who
had been attached to his service, dissembled their grief and resentment: and
the public contempt, which had been so long entertained for Valentinian, was
at once converted into deep and universal abhorrence.  Such sentiments seldom
pervade the walls of a palace; yet the emperor was confounded by the honest
reply of a Roman, whose approbation he had not disdained to solicit.  "I am
ignorant, sir, of your motives or provocations; I only know, that you have
acted like a man who cuts off his right hand with his left." ^73

[Footnote *: The praises awarded by Gibbon to the character of Aetius have
been animadverted upon with great severity.  (See Mr. Herbert's Attila. p.
321.) I am not aware that Gibbon has dissembled or palliated any of the crimes
or treasons of Aetius: but his position at the time of his murder was
certainly that of the preserver of the empire, the conqueror of the most
dangerous of the barbarians: it is by no means clear that he was not
"innocent" of any treasonable designs against Valentinian.  If the early acts
of his life, the introduction of the Huns into Italy, and of the Vandals into
Africa, were among the proximate causes of the ruin of the empire, his murder
was the signal for its almost immediate downfall. - M.]

[Footnote 72: Placidia died at Rome, November 27, A.D. 450.  She was buried at
Ravenna, where her sepulchre, and even her corpse, seated in a chair of
cypress wood, were preserved for ages.  The empress received many compliments
from the orthodox clergy; and St. Peter Chrysologus assured her, that her zeal
for the Trinity had been recompensed by an august trinity of children.  See
Tillemont, Uist. Jer Emp. tom. vi. p. 240.]

[Footnote 73: Aetium Placidus mactavit semivir amens, is the expression of
Sidonius, (Panegyr. Avit. 359.) The poet knew the world, and was not inclined
to flatter a minister who had injured or disgraced Avitus and Majorian, the
successive heroes of his song.]

     The luxury of Rome seems to have attracted the long and frequent visits
of Valentinian; who was consequently more despised at Rome than in any other
part of his dominions.  A republican spirit was insensibly revived in the
senate, as their authority, and even their supplies, became necessary for the
support of his feeble government.  The stately demeano of an hereditary
monarch offended their pride; and the pleasures of Valentinian were injurious
to the peace and honor of noble families.  The birth of the empress Eudoxia
was equal to his own, and her charms and tender affection deserved those
testimonies of love which her inconstant husband dissipated in vague and
unlawful amours.  Petronius Maximus, a wealthy senator of the Anician family,
who had been twice consul, was possessed of a chaste and beautiful wife: her
obstinate resistance served only to irritate the desires of Valentinian; and
he resolved to accomplish them, either by stratagem or force.  Deep gaming was
one of the vices of the court: the emperor, who, by chance or contrivance, had
gained from Maximus a considerable sum, uncourteously exacted his ring as a
security for the debt; and sent it by a trusty messenger to his wife, with an
order, in her husband's name, that she should immediately attend the empress
Eudoxia.  The unsuspecting wife of Maximus was conveyed in her litter to the
Imperial palace; the emissaries of her impatient lover conducted her to a
remote and silent bed-chamber; and Valentinian violated, without remorse, the
laws of hospitality.  Her tears, when she returned home, her deep affliction,
and her bitter reproaches against a husband whom she considered as the
accomplice of his own shame, excited Maximus to a just revenge; the desire of
revenge was stimulated by ambition; and he might reasonably aspire, by the
free suffrage of the Roman senate, to the throne of a detested and despicable
rival.  Valentinian, who supposed that every human breast was devoid, like his
own, of friendship and gratitude, had imprudently admitted among his guards
several domestics and followers of Aetius.  Two of these, of Barbarian race
were persuaded to execute a sacred and honorable duty, by punishing with death
the assassin of their patron; and their intrepid courage did not long expect a
favorable moment.  Whilst Valentinian amused himself, in the field of Mars,
with the spectacle of some military sports, they suddenly rushed upon him with
drawn weapons, despatched the guilty Heraclius, and stabbed the emperor to the
heart, without the least opposition from his numerous train, who seemed to
rejoice in the tyrant's death.  Such was the fate of Valentinian the Third,
^74 the last Roman emperor of the family of Theodosius.  He faithfully
imitated the hereditary weakness of his cousin and his two uncles, without
inheriting the gentleness, the purity, the innocence, which alleviate, in
their characters, the want of spirit and ability.  Valentinian was less
excusable, since he had passions, without virtues: even his religion was
questionable; and though he never deviated into the paths of heresy, he
scandalized the pious Christians by his attachment to the profane arts of
magic and divination.

[Footnote 74: With regard to the cause and circumstances of the deaths of
Aetius and Valentinian, our information is dark and imperfect.  Procopius (de
Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4, p. 186, 187, 188) is a fabulous writer for the
events which precede his own memory.  His narrative must therefore be supplied
and corrected by five or six Chronicles, none of which were composed in Rome
or Italy; and which can only express, in broken sentences, the popular rumors,
as they were conveyed to Gaul, Spain, Africa, Constantinople, or Alexandria.]

     As early as the time of Cicero and Varro, it was the opinion of the Roman
augurs, that the twelve vultures which Romulus had seen, represented the
twelve centuries, assigned for the fatal period of his city. ^75 This
prophecy, disregarded perhaps in the season of health and prosperity, inspired
the people with gloomy apprehensions, when the twelfth century, clouded with
disgrace and misfortune, was almost elapsed; ^76 and even posterity must
acknowledge with some surprise, that the arbitrary interpretation of an
accidental or fabulous circumstance has been seriously verified in the
downfall of the Western empire.  But its fall was announced by a clearer omen
than the flight of vultures: the Roman government appeared every day less
formidable to its enemies, more odious and oppressive to its subjects. ^77 The
taxes were multiplied with the public distress; economy was neglected in
proportion as it became necessary; and the injustice of the rich shifted the
unequal burden from themselves to the people, whom they defrauded of the
indulgences that might sometimes have alleviated their misery.  The severe
inquisition which confiscated their goods, and tortured their persons,
compelled the subjects of Valentinian to prefer the more simple tyranny of the
Barbarians, to fly to the woods and mountains, or to embrace the vile and
abject condition of mercenary servants.  They abjured and abhorred the name of
Roman citizens, which had formerly excited the ambition of mankind.  The
Armorican provinces of Gaul, and the greatest part of Spain, were-thrown into
a state of disorderly independence, by the confederations of the Bagaudae; and
the Imperial ministers pursued with proscriptive laws, and ineffectual arms,
the rebels whom they had made. ^78 If all the Barbarian conquerors had been
annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored
the empire of the West: and if Rome still survived, she survived the loss of
freedom, of virtue, and of honor.

[Footnote 75: This interpretation of Vettius, a celebrated augur, was quoted
by Varro, in the xviiith book of his Antiquities.  Censorinus, de Die Natali,
c. 17, p. 90, 91, edit. Havercamp.]

[Footnote 76: According to Varro, the twelfth century would expire A.D. 447,
but the uncertainty of the true aera of Rome might allow some latitude of
anticipation or delay.  The poets of the age, Claudian (de Bell Getico, 265)
and Sidonius, (in Panegyr. Avit. 357,) may be admitted as fair witnesses of
the popular opinion.

     Jam reputant annos, interceptoque volatu
     Vulturis, incidunt properatis saecula metis.
     .......
     Jam prope fata tui bissenas Vulturis alas
     Implebant; seis namque tuos, scis, Roma, labores.

     See Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 340 - 346.]

[Footnote 77: The fifth book of Salvian is filled with pathetic lamentations
and vehement invectives.  His immoderate freedom serves to prove the weakness,
as well as the corruption, of the Roman government. His book was published
after the loss of Africa, (A.D. 439,) and before Attila's war, (A.D. 451.)]

[Footnote 78: The Bagaudae of Spain, who fought pitched battles with the Roman
troops, are repeatedly mentioned in the Chronicle of Idatius. Salvian has
described their distress and rebellion in very forcible language.  Itaque
nomen civium Romanorum ... nunc ultro repudiatur ac fugitur, nec vile tamen
sed etiam abominabile poene habetur ... Et hinc est ut etiam hi quid ad
Barbaros non confugiunt, Barbari tamen esse coguntur, scilicet ut est pars
magna Hispanorum, et non minima Gallorum .... De Bagaudis nunc mihi sermo est,
qui per malos judices et cruentos spoliati, afflicti, necati postquam jus
Romanae libertatis amiserant, etiam honorem Romani nominis perdiderunt ....
Vocamus rabelles, vocamus perditos quos esse compulimua criminosos.  De
Gubernat. Dei, l. v. p. 158, 159.]