Theodoric the Goth

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[Footnote 33: The best known of these towns are Pella, Pydna, and
Bercea.]

Thus ingloriously, thus unprofitably ended the expedition into Romania,
which had been proposed amid such enthusiastic applause at the great
Council of the nation, and pressed with such loud acclamations and such
brandishing of defiant spears upon the perhaps reluctant Theudemir. The
Ostrogoths in 472 were an independent people, practically supreme in
Pannonia. Those broad lands on the south and west of the Danube, rich in
corn and wine, the very kernel of the Austrian monarchy of to-day, were
theirs in absolute possession. Any tie of nominal dependence which
attached Pannonia to the Empire was so merely theoretical, now that the
Hun had ruled and ravaged it for a good part of a century, that it was
not worth taking into consideration; it was in fact rather an excuse for
claiming _stipendia_ from the Emperor than a bond of real vassalage. But
now in 474 this great and proud nation, crowded into a few cities of
Macedonia, with obedient subjects of the Empire all round them, had
practically no choice between the life of peaceful provincials on the
one hand and that of freebooters on the other. If they accepted the
first, they would lose year by year something of their old national
character. The Teutonic speech, the Teutonic customs would gradually
disappear, and in one or two generations they would be scarcely
distinguishable from any of the other oppressed, patient, tax-exhausted
populations of the great and weary Empire. On the other hand, if they
accepted (which in fact they seem to have done) the other alternative,
and became a mere horde of plunderers wandering up and down through the
Empire, seeking what they might destroy, they abandoned the hope of
forming a settled and stable monarchy, and, doing injustice to the high
qualities and capacities for civilisation which were in them, they would
sink lower into the depths of barbarism, and becoming like the Hun, like
the Hun they would one day perish. Certainly, so far, the tumultuous
decision of the Parliament on the shores of Lake Pelso was a false step
in the nation's history.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER V.

STORM AND STRESS.

Death of Theudemir, and accession of Theodoric--Leo the Butcher--The
Emperor Zeno--The march of Theodoric against the son of Trianus--His
invasion of Macedonia--Defeat of his rear guard--His compact with the
Emperor.

The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man
is healthy, but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is
in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the
ambition thick-sighted.--(KEATS, Preface to "Endymion".)

The sentence thus written by the sensitive young poet, a child of London
of the nineteenth century, was eminently exemplified in the history of
the martial chief of the Ostrogoths. The next fourteen years in the life
of Theodoric, which will be described in this chapter, were years of
much useless endeavour, of marches and countermarches, of alliances
formed and broken, of vain animosities and vainer reconciliations, years
in which Theodoric himself seems never to understand his own purpose,
whether it shall be under the shadow of the Empire or upon the ruins of
the Empire, that he will build up his throne. Take the map of what is
now often called "the Balkan peninsula", the region in which these
fourteen years were passed; look at the apparently purpose, less way in
which the mountain ranges of Haemus, Rhodope, and Scardus cross,
intersect, run parallel, approach, avoid one another; look at the
strange entanglement of passes and watersheds and table-lands which
their systems display to us. Even such as the ranges among which he was
manoeuvring--perplexed, purposeless, and sterile--was the early manhood
of Theodoric.

About 474, soon after the great Southward migration, Theudemir died at
Cyrrhus in Macedonia, one of the new settlements of the Ostrogoths. When
he was attacked by his fatal sickness he called his people together and
pointed to Theodoric as the heir of his royal dignity. Kingship at this
time among the Germanic nations was not purely hereditary, the consent
of the people being required even in the most ordinary and natural cases
of succession, such as that of a first-born son, full grown and a tried
soldier succeeding to an aged father. In such cases, however, that
consent was almost invariably given. Theodoric, at any rate, succeeded
without disputes to the doubtful and precarious position of king of the
Ostrogoths.

Almost at the same time a change was being made by death in the wearer
of the Imperial diadem. In order to illustrate the widely different
character of the Roman and the Gothic monarchies it will be well to
cease for a little time to follow the fortunes of Theodoric and to
sketch the history of Leo, the dying Emperor, and of Zeno, who succeeded
him.

Leo I., who reigned at Constantinople from 457 to 474, and who was
therefore Emperor during the whole time that Theodoric dwelt there as
hostage, was not, as far as we can ascertain, a man of any great
abilities in peace or war, or originally of very exalted station. But he
was "curator" or steward in the household of Aspar, the successful
barbarian adventurer who has been already alluded to.[34] As an Arian by
religion, and a barbarian, or the son of a barbarian, by birth, Aspar
could not himself assume the diadem, but he could give it to whom he
would, and Leo the steward was the second of his dependants whom he had
thus honoured. Once placed upon the throne, however, Leo showed himself
less obsequious to his old master than was expected. The post of Prefect
of the City became vacant; Aspar suggested for the office a man who,
like himself, was tainted with the heresy of Arius. At the moment Leo
promised acquiescence, but immediately repented, and in the dead of
night privately conferred the important office on a Senator who
professed the orthodox faith. Aspar in a rage laid a rough hand on the
Imperial purple, saying to Leo: "Emperor! it is not fitting that one who
wears this robe should tell lies". Leo answered with some spirit:
"Neither is it fitting that an Emperor should be bound to do the bidding
of any of his subjects, and so injure the State".

[Footnote 34: See p. 36.]

After this encounter there were thirteen years of feud between
King-maker and King, between Aspar and Leo. At length in 471 Aspar and
his three valiant sons fell by the swords of the Eunuchs of the Palace.
The foul and cowardly deed was perhaps marked by some circumstances of
especial cruelty, which earned for Leo the title by which he was long
after remembered in Constantinople, "The Butcher".[35]

[Footnote 35: Leo Macellus.]

In order to strengthen himself against the adherents of Aspar, Leo
cultivated the friendship of a set of wild, uncouth mountaineers, who at
this time played the same part in Constantinople which the Swiss of the
Middle Ages played in Italy. These were the Isaurians, men from the
rugged highlands of Pisidia, whose lives had hitherto been chiefly spent
either in robbing or in defending themselves from robbery. At their head
was a man named Tarasicodissa,--probably well born, if a chieftain from
the Isaurian highlands could be deemed to be well born by the
contemptuous citizens of Constantinople, no soldier, for we are told
that even the picture of a battle frightened him, but a man whom the
other Isaurians seem to have followed with clannish loyalty, like that
which the Scottish Camerons showed even to the wily and unwarlike Master
of Lovat.

With Tarasicodissa therefore the Emperor Leo entered into a compact of
mutual defence. The Isaurian dropped his uncouth name and assumed the
classical and philosophical-sounding name of Zeno; he received the hand
of Ariadne, daughter of the Emperor, in marriage, and as Leo had no male
offspring, the little Leo, offspring of this marriage and therefore
grandson of the aged Emperor, was, in this monarchy which from elective
was ever becoming more strictly hereditary, generally accepted as his
probable successor.

As it had been planned so it came to pass. Leo the Butcher died (3d Feb.
474); the younger Leo, a child of seven years old, was hailed by Senate
and People as his successor: Zeno came at the head of a brilliant train
of senators, soldiers, and magistrates, to "adore" the new Emperor, and
the child, carefully instructed by his mother in the part which he had
to play, placed on the bowed head of his father the Imperial diadem.
This act of "association" as it was called, generally practised upon a
son or nephew by a veteran Emperor anxious to be relieved from some of
the cares of reigning, required to be ratified by the acclamations of
the soldiery; but no doubt these acclamations, which could generally be
purchased by a sufficiently liberal donative, were not wanting on this
occasion. Zeno, otherwise called Tarasicodissa the Isaurian, was now
Emperor, and nine months after, when his child-partner died, he became
sole ruler of the Roman world, except in so far as his dignity might be
considered to be shared by the phantom Emperors of the West, who at this
time were dethroning and being dethroned with fatal rapidity at Rome
and Ravenna.

Thus mean and devious were the paths by which an adventurer could climb
in the fifth century to that which was still looked upon as the pinnacle
of earthly greatness. For however unworthy a man might feel himself to
be, and however unworthy all his subjects might know him to be of the
highest place in the Empire, when once he had obtained it his power was
absolute and the honours rendered to him were little less than divine.
All laws were passed by his "sacred providence"; all officers, military
and civil, received their authority from him. In the edicts which he put
forth to the world he spoke of himself as "My Eternity", "My Mildness",
"My Magnificence", and of course these expressions, or, if it were
possible, expressions more adulatory than these, were used by his
subjects when they laid their petitions at the footstool of "the sacred
throne". He lived, withdrawn from vulgar eyes, in the innermost recesses
of the palace, a sort of Holy of Holies behind the first and the second
veil. A band of pages, in splendid dress, waited upon his bidding;
thirty stately _silentiarii_, with helmets and brightly burnished
cuirasses, marched backwards and forwards before the second veil, to see
that no importunate petitioner disturbed the silence of "the sacred
cubicle". On the comparatively rare occasions when he showed himself to
his subjects, he wore upon his head the diadem, a band of white linen,
in which blazed the most precious jewels of the Empire. Hung round his
shoulders and reaching down to his feet was that precious purple robe,
for the sake of which so many crimes were committed, and which often
proved itself a very "garment of Nessus" to him who dared to assume it
without force sufficient to render his usurpation legitimate. On the
feet of the Emperor were buskins which, like the diadem, were studded
with precious stones, and like the robe were dyed with the Imperial
purple. Thus gorgeously arrayed he took his place in the _podium,_ the
royal box in the Amphitheatre, and from thence, while gazed upon by his
subjects, gazed himself upon the savage beast-fight, or in the
Hippodrome, with difficulty restraining his eagerness for the success of
the Blue or the Green faction, gave the sign for the chariot races to
begin. Or he sat surrounded by his court in the purple presence-chamber
to consult upon public affairs with his Consistory, a sort of Privy
Council, composed of the great ministers of state. Conspicuous among
these were the fifteen officers of highest rank, Generals, Judges, Grand
Chamberlains, Finance Ministers, who had each the right to be addressed
as "Illustrious". When any subject of the Emperor, were it one of these
Illustrious ones himself, were it the son or brother of his predecessor,
were it even a former patron, like Aspar, by whose favour he had been
selected to wear the purple, was admitted to an audience of "Augustus"
(that great name went as of right with the diadem), the etiquette of the
court required that he should not merely bow nor kneel, but absolutely
prostrate himself before the Sacred Majesty of the Emperor, who, if in a
gracious mood, then with outstretched hand raised him from the earth
and permitted him to kiss his knee or the fringe of his Imperial mantle.

To this dizzy height of greatness--for such, however small Marcian or
Leo or Zeno may now seem to us by the lapse of centuries, it was felt to
be by the contemporary generations--it was possible under the singular
combination of election and inheritance which regulated the succession
to the throne, for almost any citizen of the Empire, if not of barbarian
blood or heretical creed, to aspire. Diocletian, the second founder of
the Empire, was the son of a slave; Justinian--an even greater name--was
the nephew of a Macedonian peasant, who with a sheepskin bag containing
a week's store of biscuit, his only property, tramped down from his
native highlands to seek his fortune in the capital Zeno, as we have
seen, though perhaps better born than either Diocletian or Justinian,
was only a little Isaurian chieftain. Thus the possibilities open to
aspiring ambition were great in the Empire of the Caesars. As any male
citizen of the United States, born between the St. Lawrence and the Rio
Grande, may one day be installed in the White House as President, so any
"Roman" and orthodox inhabitant of the Empire, whether noble, citizen,
or peasant, might flatter himself with the hope that he too should one
day wear the purple of Diocletian, be saluted as Augustus, and see
Prefects and Masters of the Soldiery prostrating themselves before "His
Eternity". This was, in a sense, the better, the democratic side of the
Roman monarchy. Power which was supposed to be conveyed by the will of
the people (as expressed by the acclamations of the army) might be
wielded by the arm of any member of that people. On the other hand there
was an evil in the habit thus engendered in men's minds, of humbling
themselves before mere power without regard to the manner of its
acquirement. When we compare the polity of Rome or Constantinople, where
a century was a long time for the duration of a dynasty, with the far
simpler polities of the Teutonic tribes which invaded the Empire, almost
all of whom had their royal houses, reaching back into and even beyond
the dawn of national history, supposed to be sprung from the loins of
the gods, and rendered illustrious by countless deeds of valour recorded
in song or saga, we see at once that in these ruder states we are in
presence of a principle which the Empire knew not, but which Mediaeval
Europe knew and glorified, the principle of _Loyalty._ This principle,
the same that bound Bayard to the Valois, and Montrose to the Stuart,
has been, with all the follies and even crimes which it may have caused,
an element of strength and cohesion in the states which have arisen on
the ruins of the Roman Empire. The self-respecting but loving loyalty,
with which the Englishman of to-day cherishes the name of the descendant
of Cerdic, of Alfred, and of Edward Plantagenet, who wields the sceptre
of his country, is utterly unlike the slavish homage offered by the
adoring courtiers of Byzantium to the pinchbeck divinity of Zeno
Tarasicodissa.

Raised as Zeno had been to the throne by a mere palace intrigue, and
destitute as he was of any of the qualities of a great statesman or
general, it is no wonder that his reign, which lasted for seventeen
years, was continually disturbed by conspiracies and rebellions. In most
of these rebellions his mother-in-law, Verina, widow of Leo, an
ambitious and turbulent woman, played an important part.

It was only a year after Zeno's accession to sole power by the death of
his son (Nov., 475) when he was surprised by the outbreak of a
conspiracy, hatched by his mother-in-law, the object of which was to
place her brother Basiliscus on the throne. Zeno fled by night, still
wearing the Imperial robes which he had worn, sitting in the Hippodrome,
when the tidings reached him, and crossing the Bosphorus was soon in the
heart of Asia Minor, safe sheltered in his native Isauria.

From thence,(July, 477) after nearly two years of exile, he was by a
strange turn of the wheel of Fortune restored to his throne. Religious
bigotry (for Basiliscus did not belong to the party of strict orthodoxy)
and domestic jealousies and perfidies all contributed to this result.
Zeno, who had fled twenty months before from the Hippodrome, returned to
the Amphitheatre, and there, having commanded that the linen curtain
should be drawn over the circus to exclude the too piercing rays of the
July sun, gave the signal for the games to begin, while the populace
shouted in Latin the regular official congratulations on his elevation
and prayers for his continued triumph.[36]

[Footnote 36: "Zeno Imperator Tu Vincas", would be, as we know from
other similar instances, the most frequently uttered acclamation. It is
a curious instance of "survival" that this was always shouted in Latin,
though Greek was the vernacular tongue of the vast majority of the
inhabitants of Constantinople.]

Meanwhile his fallen rival, less fortunate than Zeno himself in planning
an escape, was crouching in the baptistery of the great Church of Saint
Sophia, whither with his wife and children he had fled for refuge. After
all the emblems of Imperial dignity had been rudely stripped from them,
Basiliscus was induced, by a promise from Zeno, "that their heads should
be safe", to come forth with his family from the sacred asylum. The
Emperor "kept the word of promise to the ear", since no executioner with
drawn sword entered the chamber of his rival. Basiliscus and they that
were with him were sent away to a remote fortress in Cappadocia. The
gate of the fortress was built up, a band of wild Isaurians guarded the
enclosure, suffering no man to enter or to leave it, and in that bleak
stronghold before long the fallen Emperor and Empress with their
children perished miserably of cold and hunger.

Theodoric, who was at this time settled with his people, not on the
shores of the AEgean, but in the region which we now call the Dobrudscha,
between the mouths of the Danube and the Black Sea, had zealously
espoused the cause of the banished Zeno, and lent an effectual hand in
the counter-revolution which restored him to the throne (478). For his
services in this crisis he was rewarded with the dignities of Patrician
and Master of the Soldiery, high honours for a barbarian of twenty-four;
and probably about this time he was also adopted as "_filius in arma_"
by the Emperor. What the precise nature of this adopted
"sonship-in-arms" may have been we are not able to say. It reminds us of
the barbarian customs which in the course of centuries ripened into the
mediaeval ceremony of knighthood, and the whole transaction certainly
sounds more Ostrogothic than Imperial. Zeno's own son and namesake (the
offspring of a first marriage before his union with Ariadne) was
apparently dead before this time; and possibly therefore the title of
son thus conferred upon Theodoric may have raised in his heart wild
hopes that he too might one day be saluted as Roman Emperor. Any such
hopes were probably doomed to inevitable disappointment. Any other
dignity in the State, the "Roman Republic", as it still called itself,
was practically within reach of a powerful barbarian, but the diadem, as
has been already said, could in this age of the world, only be worn by
one of pure Roman, that is, non-barbarian, blood.

At this time, and for the next three years, the position of our
Theodoric, both towards the Emperor and towards his own people, was
sorely embarrassed by the position and the claims of the other, the
squinting Theodoric (son of Triarius), whom we met with seventeen years
ago, and whose receipt of _stipendia_ from the court of Constantinople,
at the very time when their own were withheld, raised the wrath of
Walamir and Theudemir. This Theodoric, it will be remembered, was of
unkingly, perhaps of quite ignoble, birth, had risen to greatness by
clinging to the skirts of Aspar, and had, so far as the Emperor's favour
was concerned, fallen with his fall. Shortly before the death of Leo he
had appeared in arms against the Empire, taking one city and besieging
another, and had forced the Emperor to concede to him high rank in the
army (that of General of the Household Troops,[37]) a subsidy of;
L80,000 a year for himself and his people, and lastly a remarkable
stipulation, "that he should be absolute ruler[38] of the Goths, and
that the Emperor should not receive any of them who were minded to
revolt from him". This strange article of the treaty shows us, on the
one hand, how thoroughly fictitious and illegitimate was _this_
Theodoric's claim to kinship; since assuredly neither Alaric, nor
Ataulfus, nor Theudemir, nor any of the genuine kings of the Goths, ever
needed to bolster up their authority over their subjects by any such
figment of an Imperial concession; and on the other hand, as it
coincides in date with the time of Theudemir's and _his_ Theodoric's
entrance into the Empire, it shows us the distracting influences to
which the large number of Gothic settlers south of the Danube, settled
there before Theudemir's migration, were exposed by that event. There
can be little doubt that the Goths who were minded to revolt from the
son of Triarius and who were not to be received into favour by the
Emperor, were Ostrogoths, still dimly conscious of the old tie which
bound them to the glorious house of Amala, and more than half disposed
to forsake the service of their squinting upstart chief in order to
follow the banners of the young hero, son of Theudemir.

[Footnote 37: Magister Equitum et Peditum Praesentalis.]

[Footnote 38: (Greek: autocrator.)]

Then came the death of Leo (478), Zeno's accession and the insurrection
of Basiliscus, in which the son of Triarius took part against the
Isaurian Emperor. Soon after this insurrection was ended and Zeno was
restored to his precarious throne, there came an embassy from the
_foederati_ (as they called themselves) that is, from the unattached
Goths who followed the Triarian standard, begging Zeno to be reconciled
to their lord, and hinting that he was a truer friend to the Empire than
the petted and pampered son of Theudemir. After a consultation with "the
Senate and People of Rome", in other words, with the nobles of
Constantinople and the troops of the household, Zeno decided that to
take _both_ the Theodorics into his pay would be too heavy a charge on
the treasury; that there was no reason for breaking with the young Amal,
his ally, and therefore that the request of his rival must be refused.
Open war followed, consisting chiefly of devastating raids by the son of
Triarius into the valleys of Moesia and Thrace. A message was sent to
Theodoric the Amal, who was dwelling quietly with his people by the
Danube. "Why are you lingering in your home? Come forth and do great
deeds worthy of a Master of Roman Soldiery". "But if I take the field
against the son of Triarius", was the answer, "I fear that you will make
peace with him behind my back". The Emperor and Senate bound themselves
by solemn oaths that he should never be received back into favour, and
an elaborate plan of campaign was arranged, according to which the Amal
marching with his host from Marcianople, (_Shumla_) was to be met by one
general with twelve thousand troops, on the southern side of the
Balkans, and by another with thirty thousand in the valley of the Hebrus
(_Maritza_).

But the Roman Empire, in its feeble and flaccid old age, seemed to have
lost all capacity for making war. Theodoric the Amal performed his share
of the compact; but when with his weary army, encumbered with many women
and children, he emerged from the passes of the Balkans he found no
Imperial generals there to meet him, but, instead, Theodoric the
Squinter with a large army of Goths encamped on an inaccessible hill.
Neither chief gave the signal for combat; perhaps both were restrained
by a reluctance to urge the fratricidal strife; but there were daily
skirmishes between the light-armed horsemen at the foraging grounds and
places for watering. Every day, too, the son of Triarius rode round the
hostile camp, shouting forth reproaches against his rival, calling him
"a perjured boy, a madman, a traitor to his race, a fool who could not
see whither the Imperial plans were tending. The Romans would stand by
and look quietly on while Goth wore out Goth in deadly strife". Murmurs
from the Amal's troops showed that these words struck home. Next day the
son of Triarius climbed a hill overlooking the camp, and again raised
his voice in bitter defiance. "Scoundrel! why are you leading so many of
my kinsmen to destruction? why have you made so many Gothic wives
widows? What has become of that wealth and plenty which they had when
they first took service with you? Then they had two or three horses
apiece; now without horses and in the guise of slaves, they are
wandering on foot through Thrace. But they are free-born men surely,
aye, as free-born as you are, and they once measured out the gold coins
of Byzantium with a bushel". When the host heard these words, all, both
men and women, went to their leader Theodoric the Amal, and claimed from
him with tumultuous cries that he should come to an accommodation with
the son of Tnarius. The proposal must have been hateful to the Amal. To
throw away the laboriously earned favour of the Emperor, to denude
himself of the splendid dignity of Master of the Soldiery, to leave the
comfortable home-like fabric of Imperial civilisation and go out again
into the barbarian wilderness with this insolent namesake who had just
been denouncing him as a perjured boy: all this was gall and wormwood to
the spirit of Theodoric. But he knew the conditions under which he held
his sovereignty--"king", as a recent French monarch expressed it, "by
the grace of God and the will of the people", and he did not attempt to
strive against the decision of his tumultuary parliament. He met his
elderly competitor, each standing on the opposite bank of a disparting
stream, and after speech had, they agreed that they would wage no more
war on one another but would make common cause against Byzantium.

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