Theodoric the Goth

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The now confederated Theodorics sent an embassy to Zeno, bearing their
common demands for territory, _stipendia_ and rations for their
followers, and, in the case of Theodoric the Amal, charged with bitter
complaints of the desertion which had exposed him to such dangers. The
Emperor replied with an accusation (which appears to have been wholly
unfounded) that Theodoric himself had meditated treachery, and that
this was the reason why the Roman generals had feared to join their
forces to his. Still the Emperor was willing to receive him again into
favour if he would relinquish his alliance with the son of Triarius, and
in order to lure him back the ambassadors were to offer him 1,000
pounds' weight of gold (L40,000), 10,000 of silver (L35,000), a yearly
revenue of 10,000 _aurei_ (L6,000), and the daughter of Olybrius, one of
the noblest-born damsels of Byzantium, for his wife. But the Amal king,
having stooped so low as to make an alliance with the son of Triarius,
was not going to stoop lower by breaking it. The ambassadors returned to
Constantinople with their purpose unaccomplished, and Zeno began
seriously to prepare for the apparently inevitable war with all the
Gothic _foederati_ in his land, commanded by both the Theodorics. He
summoned to the capital all the troops whom he could muster, and
delivered to them a spirited oration, in which he exhorted them to be of
good courage, declaring that he himself would go forth with them to war,
and would share all their hardships and dangers. For nearly a hundred
years, ever since the time of the great Theodosius, no Eastern Emperor
apparently had conducted a campaign in person; and the announcement that
this inactivity was to be ended and that a Roman Imperator was again,
like the Imperators of old time, to march with the legions and to
withstand the shock of battle, roused the soldiers to extraordinary
enthusiasm. The very men who, a little while before, had been bribing
the officers to procure exemption from service, now offered larger sums
of money in order to obtain an opportunity of distinguishing themselves
under the eyes of the Emperor. They pressed forward past the long wall
which at about sixty miles from Constantinople crossed the narrow
peninsula and defended the capital of the Empire; they caught some of
the forerunners of the Gothic host, the Uhlans, if we may call them so,
of Theodoric: everything foreboded an encounter, more serious and
perhaps more triumphant than any that had been seen since the days of
Theodosius. Then, as in a moment, all was changed. Zeno's old spirit of
sloth and cowardice returned. He would not undergo the fatigue of the
long marches through Thrace, he would not look upon the battle-field,
the very pictures of which he found so terrible; it was publicly
announced that the Emperor would not go forth to war. The soldiers,
enraged, began to gather in angry groups, rebuking one another for their
over-patience in submitting to be ruled by such a coward. "How? Are we
men, and have we swords in our hands, and shall we any longer bear with
such disgraceful effeminacy, by which the might of this great Empire is
sapped, so that every barbarian who chooses may carve out a slice from
it?"

These clamours were rapidly growing seditious, and in a few days an
anti-Emperor would probably have been proclaimed; but Zeno, more afraid
of his soldiers than even of the Goths, adroitly moved them into their
widely-scattered winter-quarters, leaving the invaded provinces to take
care of themselves for a little time, while he tried by his own natural
weapons of bribery and intrigue to detach the _other_ and older
Theodoric from the new confederacy.

On this path he met with unmerited success. The son of Triarius, who had
lately been uttering such noble sentiments about Gothic kinship, and the
folly of Gothic warriors playing into the hands of their hereditary
enemies, the crafty courtiers of Constantinople, soon came to terms with
the Emperor, and on receiving the command of two brigades of household
troops,(Scholse) his restoration to all the dignities which he had held
under Basiliscus, the military office which his rival had forfeited, and
rations and allowances for 13,000 of his followers, broke his alliance
with Theodoric the Amal, and entered the service of the Emperor of New
Rome.

Theodoric the Amal, who was now in his own despite (479) an outlaw from
the Roman State, burst in fierce wrath into Macedonia, into the region
where he and his people had been first quartered five years before.
Again he marched down the valley of the Vardar, he took Stobi, putting
its garrison to the sword, and threatened the great city of
Thessalonica. The citizens, fearing that Zeno would abandon them to the
barbarians, broke out into open sedition, threw down the statues of the
Emperor, took the keys of the city from the Prefect and entrusted them
to the safer keeping of their Bishop. Zeno sent ambassadors reproaching
the Amal for his ungrateful requital of the unexampled favours and
dignities which had been conferred upon him, and inviting him to return
to his old fidelity. Theodoric showed himself not unwilling to treat,
sent ambassadors to Constantinople, and ordered his troops to refrain
from murder and conflagration, and to take only the absolute necessaries
of life from the provincials. He then quitted the precincts of
Thessalonica and moved westwards to the city of Heraclea _(Monastir)_,
which lies at the foot of the great mountain range that separates
Macedonia from Epirus. While talking of peace he was already meditating
a new and brilliant stroke of strategy, but he was for some time
hindered from accomplishing it by the illness of his sister, who,
perhaps fatigued by the hardships of the march, had fallen sick in the
camp before Heraclea. This time of enforced delay was occupied by
negotiations with the Emperor. But the Emperor had really nothing to
offer worth the Ostrogoth's acceptance. A settlement on the Pantalian
plain, a bleak upland among the Balkans, about forty miles south of
Sardica _(Sofia)_, and a payment of two hundred pounds' weight of gold
(L8,000) as subsistence-money for the people till they should have had
time to till the land and reap their first harvest, this was all that
Zeno offered to the chief, who already in imagination saw the rich
cities of the Adriatic lying defenceless at his feet. For during this
time of inaction the Amal had opened communications with a Gothic
landowner, named Sigismund, who dwelt near Dyrrhachium _(Durazzo)_, and
was a man of influence in the province of Epirus; and Sigismund, though
nominally a loyal subject of the Emperor, was doing his best to sow
fear and discouragement in the hearts of the citizens of Dyrrhachium
and to prepare the way for the advent of his countrymen.

At length the Gothic princess died, and her brother, the Amal, having
vainly sought to put Heraclea to ransom (the citizens had retired to a
strong fortress which commanded it), burned the deserted city, a deed
more worthy of a barbarian than of one bred up in the Roman
Commonwealth. Then with all his nation-army he started off upon the
great Egnatian Way, which, threading the rough passes of Mount Scardus,
leads from Macedonia to Epirus, from the shores of the AEgean to the
shores of the Adriatic. His light horsemen went first to reconnoitre the
path; then followed Theodoric himself with the first division of his
army. Soas, his second in command, ordered the movements of the middle
host; last of all came the rear-guard, commanded by Theodoric's brother,
Theudimund, and protecting the march of the women, the cattle, and the
waggons. It was a striking proof both of their leader's audacity and of
his knowledge of the decay of martial spirit among the various garrisons
that lined the Egnatian Way, that he should have ventured with such a
train into such a perilous country, where at every turn were narrow
defiles which a few brave men might have held against an army.

The Amal and his host passed safely through the defiles of Scardus and
reached the fortress of Lychnidus overlooking a lake now known as Lake
Ochrida. Here Theodoric met with his first repulse. The fortress was
immensely strong by nature, was well stored with corn, and had
springing fountains of its own, and the garrison were therefore not to
be frightened into surrender. Accordingly, leaving the fortress untaken,
Theodoric with his two first divisions pushed rapidly across the second
and lower range, the Candavian Mountains, leaving Theudimund with the
waggons and the women to follow more slowly. In this arrangement there
was probably an error of judgment which Theodoric had occasion bitterly
to regret. For the moment, however, he was completely successful.
Descending into the plain he took the towns of Scampae (_Elbassan_) and
Dyrrhachium (_Durazzo_), both of which, probably owing to the
discouraging counsels of Sigismund, seem to have been abandoned by their
inhabitants.

Great was the consternation at Edessa (a town about thirty miles west of
Thessalonica and the headquarters of the Imperial troops) when the news
of this unexpected march of Theodoric across the mountains was brought
into the camp. Not only the general-in-chief, Sabinianus, was quartered
there, but also a certain Adamantius, an official of the highest rank,
who had been charged by Zeno with the conduct of the negotiations with
Theodoric, and whose whole soul seems to have been set on the success of
his mission. He contrived to communicate with Theodoric, and advanced
with Sabinianus through the mountains as far as Lychnidus in order to
conduct the discussion at closer quarters. Propositions passed backwards
and forwards as to the terms upon which a meeting could be arranged.
Theodoric sent a Gothic priest; Adamantius in reply offered to come in
person to Dyrrhachium if Soas and another Gothic noble were sent as
hostages for his safe return. Theodoric was willing to send the hostages
if Sabinianus would swear that they should return in safety. This,
however, for some reason or other, the general surlily and stubbornly
refused to do, and Adamantius saw the earnestly desired interview fading
away into impossibility. At length, with courageous self-devotion, he
succeeded in finding a by-path across the mountains, which brought him
to a fort, situated on a hill and strengthened by a deep ditch, in sight
of Dyrrhachium. From thence he sent messengers to Theodoric earnestly
soliciting a conference; and the Amal, leaving his army in the plain,
rode with a few horsemen to the banks of the stream which separated him
from Adamantius' stronghold. Adamantius, too, to guard against a
surprise, placed his little band of soldiers in a circle round the hill,
and then descended to the stream, and with none to listen to their
speech, commenced the long-desired colloquy. How Adamantius may have
opened his case we are not informed, but the Ostrogoth's reply is worth
quoting word for word: "It was my choice to live altogether out of
Thrace, far away towards Scythia, where I should disturb no one by my
presence, and yet should be ready to go forth thence to do the Emperor's
bidding. But you having called me forth, as if for war against the son
of Tnarius, first of all promised that the General of Thrace should
immediately join me with his forces (he never appeared); and then that
Claudius, the Steward of the Goth-money,[39] should meet me with the
pay of the mercenaries (him I never saw); and thirdly, you gave me
guides for my journey, but what sort of guides? Men who, leaving
untrodden all the easier roads into the enemy's country, led me by a
steep path and along the sharp edges of cliffs, where, had the enemy
attacked us, travelling as we were bound to do with horsemen and waggons
and all the lumber of our camp, it had been a marvel if I and all my
folk had not been utterly destroyed. Hence I was forced to make such
terms as I could with the foes, and in fact I owe them many thanks that,
when you had betrayed and they might have consumed me, they nevertheless
spared my life".

[Footnote 39: (Greek: Ton tou Gothicu tamian.) Probably the _Gothicum_
was a fund set apart for subsidising the Goths]

Adamantius went over the old story about the great benefits which the
Emperor had bestowed on Theodoric, the Patriciate, the Mastership, the
rich presents, and all the other evidences of his fatherly regard. He
attempted to answer the charges brought by Theodoric, but in this even
the Greek historian[40] who records the dialogue thinks that he failed.
With more show of reason he complained of the march across the mountains
and the dash into Epirus, while negotiations were proceeding with
Constantinople. He recommended him to make peace with the Empire while
it was in his power, and assuring him that he would never be allowed to
lord it over the great cities of Epirus nor to banish their citizens
from thence to make room for his people, again pressed him to accept the
Emperor's offer of "Dardania" (the Pantalian plain), "where there was
abundance of land, beside that which was already inhabited, a fair and
fertile territory lacking cultivators, which his people could till, so
providing themselves in abundance with all the necessaries of life".

[Footnote 40: Malchus of Philadelphia.]

Theodoric refused with an oath to take his toil-worn people who had
served him so faithfully, at that time of year (it was now perhaps
autumn) into Dardania. No! they must all remain in Epirus for the
winter; then if they could agree upon the rest of the terms he might be
willing in spring to follow a guide sent by the Emperor to lead them to
their new abode. But more than this, he was ready to deposit his baggage
and all his unwarlike folk in any city which the Emperor might appoint,
to give his mother and his sister as hostages for his entire fidelity,
and then to advance at once with ten thousand of his bravest warriors
into Thrace, as the Emperor's ally. With these men and the Imperial
armies now stationed in the Illyrian provinces, he would undertake to
sweep Thrace clear of all the Goths who followed the son of Triarius.
Only he stipulated that in that case he should be clothed with his old
dignity of Master of the Soldiery, which had been taken from him and
bestowed on his rival, and that he should be received into the
Commonwealth and allowed to live--as he evidently yearned to live--as a
Roman citizen.

Adamantius replied that he was not empowered to treat on such terms
while Theodoric remained in Epirus, but he would refer his proposal to
the Emperor, and with this understanding they parted one from the
other.

Meanwhile, important, and for the Goths disastrous, events had been
taking place in the Candavian mountains. Over these the rear-guard of
Theodoric's army, with the waggons and the baggage, had been slowly
making its way, in a security which was no doubt chiefly caused by the
facility of the previous marches, but to which the knowledge of the
negotiations going forward between King and Emperor may partly have
contributed. In any case, security was certainly insecure with such a
fort as Lychnidus untaken in their rear. The garrison of that fort had
been reinforced by many cohorts of the regular army who had flocked
thither at the general's signal, and with these Sabinianus prepared a
formidable ambuscade. He sent a considerable number of infantry round by
unfrequented paths over the mountains, and ordered them to take up a
commanding but concealed position, and to rush forth from thence at a
given signal. He himself started with his cavalry from Lychnidus at
nightfall, and rode rapidly along the Egnatian Way. At dawn the pursuing
horsemen attacked the Goths, who were just descending the last mountain
slopes into the plain. Theudimund, with his mother, was riding near the
head of the long line of march. Too anxious perhaps for her safety, and
fearing to meet the reproachful looks of Theodoric if aught of harm
happened to her, he hurried her across the last bridge, spanning a deep
defile, which intervened between the mountains and the plain, and then
broke down the bridge behind him to prevent pursuit. Pursuit was indeed
rendered impossible, and the mother of Theodoric was saved, but at what
a cost! The Goths turned back to fight, with the courage of despair, the
pursuing cavalry. At that moment the infantry in ambush, having received
the signal, began to attack them from the rocks above. The position was
a terrible one, and many brave men fell in the hopeless battle. Quarter,
however, was given by the Imperial soldiers, for we are told that more
than five thousand of the Goths were taken prisoners. The booty was
large; and all the waggons of the barbarians, two thousand in number,
were of course captured, but the soldiers, misliking the toil of
dragging them back over all those jagged passes to Lychnidus, burned
them there as they stood upon the Candavian mountains.

I have copied with some minuteness the account given us by the Greek
historian of this mountain march of Theodoric, because it brings before
us with more than usual vividness the conditions under which the
campaigns of the barbarians were conducted. It will have been noticed
that the Gothic army is not only an army but a nation, and that the
campaign is also a migration. The mother and the sister of Theodoric are
accompanying him. There is evidently a long train of non-combatants, old
men, women, and children, following the army in those two thousand
Gothic waggons. The character attributed by Horace to the

Campestres Scythae,
Quorum plaustra vagas rite trahunt domos

still survives.

"The waggon holds the Scythian's wandering home".

The Goth, a terrible enemy to those outside the pale of his kinship, is
a home-lover at heart, and even in war will not separate himself from
his wife and children. This makes his impact slow, his campaigns
unscientific. It prepares for him frequent defeats, such as that of the
Candavian mountains, which a celibate army would have avoided. But it
makes his conquests, when he does conquer, more enduring, while it
explains those perpetual demands for land, for a settlement within the
Empire, almost on any terms, with which, as was before shown, the
barbarian inroads so often close. We need not follow the tedious story
of the negotiations with Adamantius, which were interrupted by this
sudden success of the Imperial arms. In fact at this point our best
authority,[41] who has been unusually full and graphic for the events of
478 and 479, suddenly fails us, and we have scarcely anything but dry
and scanty annalistic notices for the next nine years of the life of
Theodoric. He seems not to have maintained his footing in Epirus, but to
have returned to the neighbourhood of the Danube, where he fought and
conquered the king of the Bulgarians, a fresh horde of barbarians who at
this time made their first appearance in "the Balkan peninsula" Whether
the much desired reconciliation with the Empire took place we know not.
It seems probable that this may have been the case, as in the year 481
we find his rival, the other Theodoric, in opposition, and planning an
invasion of Greece. But the career of the son of Triarius was about to
come to an untimely close. Marching westwards, he had reached a station
on the Egnatian Way, near the frontiers of Thrace and Macedonia, called
"The Stables of Diomed", and there pitched his camp. One morning he
would fain mount his horse for a gallop across the plain, but before he
was securely seated in the saddle the horse reared. The rider, afraid to
grasp the bridle firmly lest he should pull the creature over upon him,
clung tightly to his seat, but could not guide the horse, which, in its
dancing and prancing, came sidling past the door of the tent. There was
hanging, in barbarian fashion, a spear fastened by a thong. The horse
shied up against the spear, whose point gored his master's side. He was
not killed on the spot, but died soon after of the wound. After some
domestic dissensions and bloodshed, the leadership of his band passed to
his son Recitach, apparently a hot-tempered and tyrannical youth.

[Footnote 41: Malchus of Philadelphia, from whose history certain
"Extracts concerning Embassies" were made by order of the Emperor
Constantine Porphyrogemtus.]

Three years after his father's death (484), Recitach, now an enemy of
the Empire, was put to death by Theodoric the Amal, acting under the
orders of Zeno. The band of Triarian Goths, thirty thousand fighting men
in number, was joined to the army of Theodoric, an important addition to
his power, but also to his cares, to the ever-present difficulty of
finding food for his followers.

(481-487) Backwards and forwards between peace and war with the Empire,
Theodoric wavered during the six years which followed his rival's death.
The settlement of his people at this time seems to have been on the
southern shore of the Danube, in part of the countries now known as
Servia and Wallachia, with Novae _(Sistova)_ for his headquarters. One
year (482) he is making a raid into Macedonia and Thessaly and
plundering Larissa. The next (483) he is again clothed with his old
dignity of Master of the Soldiery and keeps his Goths rigidly within
their allotted limits. The next (484) he is actually raised to the
Consulate, an office which, though devoid of power, is still so radiant
with the glory of the illustrious men who have held it for near a
thousand years, from the days of Brutus and Collatinus, that Emperors
covet the possession of it and the mightiest barbarian chiefs in their
service long for no higher reward.

Two years after this (486) he is again in rebellion, ravaging Thrace;
the next year (487) he has broken through the Long Walls and penetrates
within fourteen miles of Constantinople. In all this wearisome period of
Theodoric's life his action seems to be merely destructive; there is
nothing constructive, no fruitful or fertilising thought to be found in
it. Had this been a fair sample of his life, there could be no reason
why he should not sink into the oblivion which covers so many forgotten
freebooters. But in 488 a change came over the spirit of his dream. A
plan was agreed upon between him and the Emperor (by which of them it
was first suggested we cannot now say) for the employment of all this
wasted and destructive force in another field, where its energies might
accomplish some result beneficent and enduring.

That new field was Italy, and in order to understand the conditions of
the problem which there awaited Theodoric, we must briefly recount the
chief events which had happened in that peninsula since Attila departed
from untaken Rome in compliance with the petition of Pope Leo.

[Illustration: GOLDEN SOLIDUS.
(LEO II ZENO)]

[Illustration:]

CHAPTER VI.

ITALY UNDER ODOVACAR.

Condition of Italy--End of the line of Theodosius--Ricimer the
Patrician--Struggles with the Vandals--Orestes the Patrician makes his
son Emperor, who is called Augustulus--The fall of the Western Empire
and elevation of Odovacar--Embassies to Constantinople.

[Illustration: I]

In former chapters I have very briefly sketched the
fortunes of the Italian peninsula during two great barbarian
invasions--that of Alaric (407-410) and that of Attila (452). The
monarch who ruled the Western Empire at the date of the last invasion
was Valentinian III., grandson of the great Theodosius. He dwelt
sometimes at Rome, sometimes at Ravenna, which latter city, protected by
the waves of the Adriatic and by the innumerable canals and pools
through which the waters of two rivers [42] flowed lazily to the sea,
was all but impregnable by the barbarians. A selfish and indolent
voluptuary, Valentinian III. made no valuable contribution to the
defence of the menaced Empire, some stones of which were being shaken
down every year by the tremendous blows of the Teutonic invaders. Any
wisdom that might be shown in the councils of the State was due to his
mother, Galla Placidia, who, till her death in 451, was the real ruler
of the Empire. Any strength and valour that was displayed in its defence
was due to the great minister and general, Aetius, a man who had
himself, probably, many drops of barbarian blood in his veins, though he
has been not unfitly styled "the last of the Romans". It was Aetius who,
as we have seen, in concert with the Visigothic king, fought the fight
of civilisation against Hunnish barbarism on the Catalaunian
battle-plain. It was to "Aetius, thrice Consul", that "the groans of the
Britons" were addressed when "the Barbarians drove them to the sea, and
the sea drove them back on the Barbarians".

[Footnote 42: The Ronco and the Montone.]

When Attila was dead, the weak and worthless Emperor seems to have
thought that he might safely dispense with the services of this too
powerful subject. Inviting Aetius to his palace, he debated with him a
scheme for the marriage of their children (the son of the general was to
wed the daughter of the Emperor), and when the debate grew warm, with
calculated passion he snatched a sword from one of his guardsmen, and
with it pierced the body of Aetius. The bloody work was finished by the
courtiers standing by, and the most eminent of the friends and
counsellors of the deceased statesman were murdered at the same time.

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