G. A. Henty - "Saint Bartholomew's Eve"

John Masefield - "The Old Front Line"

Charles King - "Marion's Faith."

Jean de La Fontaine - "The Fables of La Fontaine"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

A General History for Colleges and High Schools

P >> P. V. N. Myers >> A General History for Colleges and High Schools




But the Christian fathers denounced the combats as absolutely immoral, and
labored in every possible way to create a public opinion against them. The
members of their own body who attended the spectacles were excommunicated.
At length, in A.D. 325, the first imperial edict against them was issued
by Constantine. This decree appears to have been very little regarded;
nevertheless, from this time forward the exhibitions were under something
of a ban, until their final abolition was brought about by an incident of
the games that closed the triumph of Honorius. In the midst of the
exhibition a Christian monk, named Telemachus, descending into the arena,
rushed between the combatants, but was instantly killed by a shower of
missiles thrown by the people, who were angered by this interruption of
their sports. But the people soon repented of their act; and Honorius
himself, who was present, was moved by the scene. Christianity had
awakened the conscience and touched the heart of Rome. The martyrdom of
the monk led to an imperial edict "which abolished forever the human
sacrifices of the amphitheatre."

INVASION OF ITALY BY VARIOUS GERMAN TRIBES.--While Italy was celebrating
her triumph over the Goths, another and more formidable invasion was
preparing in the North. The tribes beyond the Rhine--the Vandals, the
Suevi, the Burgundians, and other peoples--driven onward by some unknown
cause, poured in impetuous streams from the forests and morasses of
Germany, and bursting the barriers of the Alps, overspread the devoted
plains of Italy. The alarm caused by them among the Italians was even
greater than that inspired by the Gothic invasion; for Alaric was a
Christian, while Radagaisus, the leader of the new hordes, was a
superstitious savage, who paid worship to gods that required the bloody
sacrifice of captive enemies.

By such efforts as Rome put forth in the younger and more vigorous days of
the republic, when Hannibal was at her gates, an army was now equipped and
placed under the command of Stilicho. Meanwhile the barbarians had
advanced as far as Florence, and were now besieging that place. Stilicho
here surrounded the vast host--variously estimated from 200,000 to 400,000
men--and starved them into a surrender. Their chief, Radagaisus, was put
to death, and great multitudes of the barbarians that the sword and famine
had spared were sold as slaves (A.D. 406).

THE RANSOM OF ROME (A.D. 409).--Shortly after the victory of Stilicho over
the German barbarians, he came under the suspicion of the weak and jealous
Honorius, and was executed. Thus fell the great general whose sword and
counsel had twice saved Rome from the barbarians, and who might again have
averted similar dangers that were now at hand. Listening to the rash
counsels of his unworthy advisers, Honorius provoked to revolt the 30,000
Gothic mercenaries in the Roman legions by a massacre of their wives and
children, who were held as hostages in the different cities of Italy. The
Goths beyond the Alps joined with their kinsmen to avenge the perfidious
act. Alaric again crossed the mountains, and pillaging the cities in his
way, led his hosts to the very gates of Rome. Not since the time of the
dread Hannibal (see p. 263)--more than six hundred years before--had Rome
been insulted by the presence of a foreign foe beneath her walls.

The barbarians laying siege to the city, famine soon forced the Romans to
sue for terms of surrender. The ambassadors of the Senate, when they came
before Alaric, began, in lofty language, to warn him not to render the
Romans desperate by hard or dishonorable terms: their fury when driven to
despair, they represented, was terrible, and their number enormous. "The
thicker the grass, the easier to mow it," was Alaric's derisive reply. The
barbarian chieftain at length named the ransom that he would accept, and
spare the city. Small as it comparatively was, the Romans were able to
raise it only by the most extraordinary measures. The images of the gods
were stripped of their ornaments of gold and precious stones, and even the
statues themselves were melted down.

SACK OF ROME BY ALARIC (A.D. 410).--Upon retiring from Rome, Alaric
established his camp in Etruria. Here he was joined by great numbers of
fugitive slaves, and by fresh accessions of barbarians from beyond the
Alps. The Gallic king now demanded for his followers lands of Honorius,
but the emperor treated all the proposals of the barbarian with foolish
insolence. Rome paid the penalty. Alaric turned upon the devoted city,
determined upon its sack and plunder. The barbarians broke into the
capital by night, "and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous
sound of the Gothic trumpet." Precisely eight hundred years had passed
since its sack by the Gauls. During that time the Imperial City had
carried its victorious standards over three continents, and had gathered
within the temples of its gods and the palaces of its nobles the plunder
of the world. Now it was given over for a spoil to the fierce tribes from
beyond the Danube.

Alaric commanded his soldiers to respect the lives of the people, and to
leave untouched the treasures of the Christian temples; but the wealth of
the citizens he encouraged them to make their own. For six days and nights
the rough barbarians trooped through the streets of the city on their
mission of pillage. Their wagons were heaped with the costly furniture,
the rich plate, and the silken garments stripped from the palaces of the
wealthy patricians and the temples of the gods. Amidst the license of the
sack, the barbarian instincts of the robbers broke loose from all
restraint, and the city was everywhere wet with blood, while the nights
were lighted with burning buildings.

EFFECTS OF THE DISASTER UPON PAGANISM.--The overwhelming disaster that had
befallen the Imperial City produced a profound impression upon both Pagans
and Christians throughout the Roman world. The former asserted that these
unutterable calamities had fallen upon the Roman state because of the
abandonment by the people of the worship of the gods of their forefathers,
under whose protection and favor Rome had become the mistress of the
world. The Christians, on the other hand, saw in the fall of the Eternal
City the fulfilment of the prophecies against the Babylon of the
Apocalypse. The latter interpretation of the appalling calamity gained
credit amidst the panic and despair of the times. The temples of the once
popular deities were deserted by their worshippers, who had lost faith in
gods that could neither save themselves nor protect their shrines from
spoliation. "Henceforth," says Merivale, "the power of paganism was
entirely broken, and the indications which occasionally meet us of its
continued existence are rare and trifling. Christianity stepped into its
deserted inheritance. The Christians occupied the temples, transforming
them into churches."

THE DEATH OF ALARIC.--After withdrawing his warriors from Rome, Alaric led
them southward. As they moved slowly on, they piled still higher the
wagons of their long trains with the rich spoils of the cities and villas
of Campania and other districts of Southern Italy. In the villas of the
Roman nobles the rough barbarians spread rare banquets from the stores of
their well-filled cellars, and drank from jewelled cups the famed
Falernian wine.

Alaric led his soldiers to the extreme southern point of Italy, intending
to cross the Straits of Messina into Sicily, and, after subduing that
island, to carry his conquests into the provinces of Africa. His designs
were frustrated by his death, which occurred A.D. 412. With religious care
his followers secured the body of their hero against violation by his
enemies. The little river Busentinus, in Northern Bruttium, was turned
from its course with great labor, and in the bed of the stream was
constructed a tomb, in which was placed the body of the king, with his
jewels and trophies. The river was then restored to its old channel, and,
that the exact spot might never be known, the prisoners who had been
forced to do the work were all put to death.

THE BARBARIANS SEIZE THE WESTERN PROVINCES.--We must now turn our eyes
from Rome and Italy to observe the movement of events in the provinces. In
his efforts to defend Italy, Stilicho had withdrawn the last legion from
Britain, and had drained the camps and fortresses of Gaul. The Wall of
Antoninus was left unmanned; the passages of the Rhine were left
unguarded; and the agitated multitudes of barbarians beyond these defences
were free to pour their innumerable hosts into all the fair provinces of
the empire. Hordes of Suevi, Alani, Vandals, and Burgundians overspread
all the plains and valleys of Gaul. The Vandals pushed on into the south
of Spain, and there occupied a large tract of country, which, in its
present name of Andalusia, preserves the memory of its barbarian settlers.
From these regions they crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, overran the
Roman provinces of Northern Africa, captured Carthage (A.D. 439), and made
that city the seat of the dread empire of the Vandals. The Goths, with
Italy pillaged, recrossed the Alps, and establishing their camps in the
south of Gaul and the north of Spain, set up in those regions what is
known as the Kingdom of the Visigoths.

In Britain, upon the withdrawal of the Roman legions, the Picts breaking
over the Wall of Antoninus, descended upon and pillaged the cities of the
South. The half-Romanized and effeminate provincials--no match for their
hardy kinsmen who had never bowed their necks to the yoke of Rome--were
driven to despair by the ravages of their relentless enemies, and, in
their helplessness, invited to their aid the Angles and Saxons from the
shores of the North Sea. These people came in their rude boats, drove back
the invaders, and, being pleased with the soil and climate of the island,
took possession of the country for themselves, and became the ancestors of
the English people.

INVASION OF THE HUNS: BATTLE OF CHALONS.--The barbarians that were thus
overrunning and parcelling out the inheritance of the dying empire were
now, in turn, pressed upon and terrified by a foe more hideous and
dreadful in their eyes than were they in the sight of the peoples among
whom they had thrust themselves. These were the non-Aryan Huns, of whom we
have already caught a glimpse as they drove the panic-stricken Goths
across the Danube. At this time their leader was Attila, whom the
affrighted inhabitants of Europe called the "Scourge of God." It was
declared that the grass never grew again where once the hoof of Attila's
horse had trod.

Attila defeated the armies of the Eastern emperor, and exacted tribute
from the court of Constantinople. Finally he turned westward, and, at the
head of a host numbering, it is asserted, 700,000 warriors, crossed the
Rhine into Gaul, purposing first to ravage that province, and then to
traverse Italy with fire and sword, in order to destroy the last vestige
of the Roman power.

The Romans and their Gothic conquerors laid aside their animosities, and
made common cause against the common enemy. The Visigoths were rallied by
their king, Theodoric; the Italians, the Franks, the Burgundians, flocked
to the standard of the Roman general AEtius. Attila drew up his mighty
hosts upon the plain of Chalons, in the north of Gaul, and there awaited
the onset of the Romans and their allies. The conflict was long and
terrible. Theodoric was slain; but at last fortune turned against the
barbarians. The loss of the Huns is variously estimated at from 100,000 to
300,000 warriors. Attila succeeded in escaping from the field, and
retreated with his shattered hosts across the Rhine (A.D. 451).

This great victory is placed among the significant events of history; for
it decided that the Christian Germanic races, and not the pagan Scythic
Huns, should inherit the dominions of the expiring Roman Empire, and
control the destinies of Europe.

THE DEATH OF ATTILA.--The year after his defeat at Chalons, Attila again
crossed the Alps, and burned or plundered all the important cities of
Northern Italy. The Veneti fled for safety to the morasses at the head of
the Adriatic (A.D. 452). Upon the islets where they built their rude
dwellings, there grew up in time the city of Venice, the "eldest daughter
of the Roman Empire," the "Carthage of the Middle Ages."

The conqueror threatened Rome; but Leo the Great, bishop of the capital,
went with an embassy to the camp of Attila, and pleaded for the city. He
recalled to the mind of Attila the fact that death had overtaken the
impious Alaric soon after he had given the Imperial City to be sacked, and
warned him not to call down upon himself the like judgment of heaven. To
these admonitions of the Christian bishop was added the persuasion of a
golden bribe from the Emperor Valentinian; and Attila was induced to spare
Southern Italy, and to lead his warriors back beyond the Alps. Shortly
after he had crossed the Danube, he died suddenly in his camp. His
followers gradually withdrew from Europe into the wilds of their native
Scythia, or were absorbed by the peoples they had conquered.

SACK OF ROME BY THE VANDALS (A.D. 455).--Rome had been saved a visitation
from the spoiler of the North, but a new destruction was about to burst
upon it by way of the sea from the South. Africa sent out another enemy
whose greed for plunder proved more fatal to Rome than the eternal hate of
Hannibal. The kings of the Vandal Empire in Northern Africa had acquired
as perfect a supremacy in the Western Mediterranean as Carthage ever
enjoyed in the days of her commercial pride. Vandal corsairs swept the
seas and harassed the coasts of Sicily and Italy, and even plundered the
maritime towns of the Eastern provinces. In the year 455 a Vandal fleet,
led by the dread Genseric, sailed up the Tiber.

Panic seized the people; for the name of Vandal was pronounced with terror
throughout the world. Again the great Leo, who had once before saved his
flock from the fury of an Attila, went forth to intercede in the name of
Christ for the Imperial City. Genseric granted to the pious bishop the
lives of the citizens, but said that the plunder of the capital belonged
to his warriors. For fourteen days and nights the city was given over to
the ruthless barbarians. The ships of the Vandals, which almost hid with
their number the waters of the Tiber, were piled, as had been the wagons
of the Goths before them, with the rich and weighty spoils of the capital.
Palaces were stripped of their ornaments and furniture, and the walls of
the temples denuded of their statues and of the trophies of a hundred
Roman victories. From the Capitoline sanctuary were borne off the golden
candlestick and other sacred articles that Titus had stolen from the
Temple at Jerusalem.

The greed of the barbarians was sated at last, and they were ready to
withdraw. The Vandal fleet sailed for Carthage, bearing, besides the
plunder of the city, more than 30,000 of the inhabitants as slaves.
[Footnote: The fleet was overtaken by a storm and suffered some damage,
but the most precious of the relics it bore escaped harm. "The golden
candlestick reached the African capital, was recovered a century later,
and lodged in Constantinople by Justinian, and by him replaced, from
superstitious motives, in Jerusalem. From that time its history is lost."
--Merivale.] Carthage, through her own barbarian conquerors, was at last
avenged upon her hated rival. The mournful presentiment of Scipio had
fallen true (see p. 271). The cruel fate of Carthage might have been read
again in the pillaged city that the Vandals left behind them.

FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST (A.D. 476).--Only the shadow of the
Empire in the West now remained. All the provinces--Illyricum, Gaul,
Britain, Spain, and Africa--were in the hands of the Goths, the Vandals,
the Franks, the Burgundians, the Angles and Saxons, and various other
intruding tribes. Italy, as well as Rome herself, had become again and
again the spoil of the insatiable barbarians. The story of the twenty
years following the sack of the capital by Genseric affords only a
repetition of the events we have been narrating. During these years
several puppet emperors were set up by the different leaders of the
invading tribes. A final seditious movement placed upon the shadow-throne
a child of six years, named Romulus Augustus. Chiefly because of the
imperial farce he was forced to play, this child-emperor became known as
Augustulus, "the little Augustus." He had reigned only a year, when
Odoacer, the leader of a tribe of German mercenaries, dethroned him, and
abolishing the title of emperor, took upon himself the government of
Italy.

The Roman Senate now sent an embassy to Constantinople, with the royal
vestments and the insignia of the imperial office, to represent to the
Emperor Zeno that the West was willing to give up its claims to an emperor
of its own, and to request that the German chief, with the title of
"Patrician," might rule Italy as his viceroy. This was granted; and Italy
now became in effect a province of the Empire in the East (A.D. 476). The
Roman Empire in the West had come to an end, after an existence from the
founding of Rome of 1229 years.

[Illustration: THE APPIAN WAY. (From a photograph).]


ROMAN EMPERORS FROM COMMODUS TO ROMULUS AUGUSTUS.
(A.D. 180-476.)
A.D.
Commodus . . . . . . . . . . 180-192
Pertinax . . . . . . . . . . 193
Didius Julianus . . . . . . . 193
Septimius Severus . . . . . . 193-211
/ Caracalla . . . . . . . . . 211-217
\ Geta . . . . . . . . . . . 211-213
Macrinus . . . . . . . . . . 2l7-218
Elagabalus . . . . . . . . . 218-222
Alexander Severus . . . . . . 222-235
Maximin . . . . . . . . . . . 235-238
Gordian III . . . . . . . . . 238-244
Philip . . . . . . . . . . . 244-249
Decius . . . . . . . . . . . 249-251
Period of the Thirty Tyrants. 251-268
Claudius . . . . . . . . . . 268-270
Aurelian . . . . . . . . . . 270-275
Tacitus . . . . . . . . . . . 275-276
Probus . . . . . . . . . . . 276-282
Carus . . . . . . . . . . . . 282-283
/ Carinus . . . . . . . . . . 283-284
\ Numerian . . . . . . . . . 283-284
/ Diocletian . . . . . . . . 284-305
\ Maximian . . . . . . . . . 286-305
/ Constantius I . . . . . . . 305-306
\ Galerius . . . . . . . . . 305-311
Constantine the Great . . . . 306-337
Reigns as sole ruler .. . . 323-337
Constantine II . . . . .. . . 337-340
Constans I . . . . . . .. . . 337-350
Constantius II . . . . .. . . 337-361
Reigns as sole ruler .. . . 350-361
Julian the Apostate . . . . . 361-363
Jovian . . . . . . . . . . . 363-364
/ Valentinian I . . . . . . . 364-375
\ Valens (in the East). . . . 364-378
Gratian . . . . . . . . . . . 375-383
Maximus . . . . . . . . . . . 383-388
Valentinian II . . . . .. . . 375-392
Eugenius . . . . . . . .. . . 392-394
Theodosius the Great . .. . . 379-395
Reigns as sole emperor. . . 394-395


FINAL PARTITION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. (A.D. 395.)

EMPERORS IN THE EAST.
(From A.D. 395 to Fall of Rome.)
A.D.
Arcadius . . . . . . . . . . 395-408
Theodosius II. . . . . . . . 408-450
Marcian . . . . . . . . . . 450-457
Leo I . . . . . . . . . . . 457-474
Zeno . . . . . . . . . . . . 474-491

EMPERORS IN THE WEST.
A.D.
Honorius . . . . . . . . . . 395-423
Valentinian III. . . . . . . 425-455
Maximus . . . . . . . . . . 455
Avitus . . . . . . . . . . . 455-456
Count Ricimer creates and
deposes emperors . . . . . 456-472
Romulus Augustus . . . . . . 475-476




CHAPTER XXXI.

ARCHITECTURE, LITERATURE, LAW, AND SOCIAL LIFE AMONG THE ROMANS.


1. ARCHITECTURE.

GREEK ORIGIN OF ROMAN ARCHITECTURE: THE ARCH.--The architecture of the
Romans was, in the main, an imitation of Greek models. But the Romans were
not mere servile imitators. They not only modified the architectural forms
they borrowed, but they gave their structures a distinct character by the
prominent use of the arch, which the Greek and Oriental builders seldom
employed, though they were acquainted with its properties. By means of it
the Roman builders vaulted the roofs of the largest buildings, carried
stupendous aqueducts across the deepest valleys, and spanned the broadest
streams with bridges that have resisted all the assaults of time and flood
to the present day.

SACRED EDIFICES.--The temples of the Romans were in general so like those
of the Greeks that we need not here take time and space to enter into a
particular description of them. Mention, however, should be made of their
circular vaulted temples, as this was a style of building almost
exclusively Italian. The best representative of this style of sacred
edifices is the Pantheon at Rome, which has come down to our own times in
a state of wonderful preservation. This structure is about 140 feet in
diameter. The great concrete dome which vaults the building, is one of the
boldest pieces of masonry executed by the master-builders of the world.

CIRCUSES, THEATRES, AND AMPHITHEATRES.--The circuses of the Romans were
what we should call race-courses. There were several at Rome, the most
celebrated being the Circus Maximus, which was first laid out in the time
of the Tarquins, and afterwards enlarged as the population of the capital
increased, until it was capable of holding two or three hundred thousand
spectators.

[Illustration: THE ROMAN FORUM IN 1885]

The Romans borrowed the plan of their theatres from the Greeks; their
amphitheatres, however, were original with them. The Flavian Amphitheatre,
known as the Colosseum, has already come under our notice (see p. 316).
The edifice was 574 feet in its greatest diameter, and was capable of
seating eighty-seven thousand spectators. The ruins of this immense
structure stand to-day as "the embodiment of the power and splendor of the
Roman Empire."

AQUEDUCTS.--The aqueducts of ancient Rome were among the most important of
the utilitarian works of the Romans. The water-system of the capital was
commenced by Appius Claudius (about 313 B.C.), who secured the building of
an aqueduct which led water into the city from the Sabine hills. During
the republic four aqueducts in all were completed; under the emperors the
number was increased to fourteen. [Footnote: Several of these are still in
use.] The longest of these was about fifty-five miles in length. The
aqueducts usually ran beneath the surface, but when a depression was to be
crossed, they were lifted on arches, which sometimes were over one hundred
feet high. These lofty arches running in long broken lines over the plains
beyond the walls of Rome, are the most striking feature of the Campagna at
the present time.

THERMAE, OR BATHS.--The greatest demand upon the streams of water poured
into Rome by the aqueducts was made by the Thermae, or baths. Among the
ancients Romans, bathing, regarded at first simply as a troublesome
necessity, became in time a luxurious art. Under the republic, bathing-
houses were erected in considerable numbers. But it was during the
imperial period that those magnificent structures to which the name of
Thermae properly attaches, were erected. These edifices were among the most
elaborate and expensive of the imperial works. They contained chambers for
cold, hot, tepid, sudatory, and swimming baths; dressing-rooms and
gymnasia; museums and libraries; covered colonnades for lounging and
conversation, extensive grounds filled with statues and traversed by
pleasant walks; and every other adjunct that could add to the sense of
luxury and relaxation. Being intended to exhibit the liberality of their
builders, they were thrown open to the public free of charge.

MEMORIAL ARCHITECTURE.--Among the memorial structures of the Romans, their
triumphal arches are especially characteristic. These were modelled after
the city gates, being constructed with single and with triple archways.
Two of the most noted monuments of this character, and the most
interesting because of their historic connections, are the Arch of Titus
(see p. 315) and the Arch of Constantine, both of which are still
standing. The Arch of Constantine was intended to commemorate the victory
of that emperor over his rival Maxentius, which event established
Christianity as the imperial and favored religion of the empire.

[Illustration: ARCH OF CONSTANTINE.]


2. LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY, AND LAW.

RELATION OF ROMAN TO GREEK LITERATURE: THE POETS OF THE REPUBLICAN ERA.--
Latin literature was almost wholly imitative or borrowed, being a
reproduction of Greek models; still it performed a most important service
for civilization: it was the medium for the dissemination throughout the
world of the rich literary treasures of Greece.

It was the dramatic productions of the Greeks which were first studied and
copied at Rome. Livius Andronicus, Naevius, Ennius, Plautus, and Terence,
all of whom wrote under the republic, are the most noted of the Roman
dramatists. Most of their plays were simply adaptations or translations of
Greek masterpieces.

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