The benevolence of their friends or the charity of strangers.113 captives, who were regularly sold, either in open market or by private contract, would have legally regained their native freedom, which it was impossible for a citizen to lose or to alienate. But, as it was soon discovered that the vindication of their liberty would endanger their lives, and that the Goths, unless they were tempted to sell, might be provoked to murder, their useless prisoners, the civil jurisprudence had been already qualified by a wise regulation that they should be obliged to serve the moderate term of five years, till they had discharged by their labour the price of their redemption.115 The nations who invaded the Roman empire had driven before them, into Italy, whole troops of hungry and affrighted provincials, less apprehensive of servitude than of famine. The calamities of Rome and Italy dispersed the inhabitants to the most lonely, the most secure, the most distant places of refuge. While the Gothic cavalry spread terror and desolation along the sea-coast of Campania and Tuscany, the little Island of Igilium, separated by a narrow channel from the Argentarian promontory, repulsed, or eluded, their hostile attempts; and, at so small a distance from Rome, great numbers of citizens were securely concealed in the thick woods of that sequestered spot. 116 The ample patrimonies, which many senatorian families possessed in Africa, invited them, if they had time and prudence, to escape from the ruin of their country, to embrace the shelter of that hospitable province. The most illustrious of these fugitives was the noble 113 Multi... Christiani in captivitatem ducti sunt, Augustin, de Civ. Dei, l. i. c. 14; and the Christians experienced no peculiar hardships. 114 See Heineccius, Antiquitat. Juris Roman. tom. i. p. 96. 115 Appendix Cod. Theodos. xvi. in Sirmond. Opera, tom. i. p. 735. This edict was published the 11th December, A.D. 408, and is more reasonable than properly belonged to the ministers of Honorius. 116 Eminus Igilii silvosa cacumina miror; Quem fraudare nefas laudis honore suæ. Contra naturam classe timendus eques Rutilius, in Itinerar. l. i. 325. The island is now called Giglio. See Cluver. Ital. Antiq. 1. ii. p. 502. Sack of and pious Proba,117 the widow of the præfect Petronius. After the death of her husband, the most powerful subject of Rome, she had remained at the head of the Anician family, and successively supplied, from her private fortune, the expense of the consulships of her three sons. When the city was besieged and taken by the Goths, Proba supported, with Christian resignation, the loss of immense riches; embarked in a small vessel, from whence she beheld, at sea, the flames of her burning palace; and fled with her daughter Læta, and her granddaughter, the celebrated virgin Demetrias, to the coast of Africa. The benevolent profusion with which the matron distributed the fruits, or the price, of her estates contributed to alleviate the misfortunes of exile and captivity. But even the family of Proba herself was not exempt from the rapacious oppression of Count Heraclian, who basely sold, in matrimonial prostitution, the noblest maidens of Rome to the lust or avarice of the Syrian merchants. The Italian fugitives were dispersed through the provinces, along the coast of Egypt and Asia, as far as Constantinople and Jerusalem; and the village of Bethlem, the solitary residence of St. Jerom and his female converts, was crowded with illustrious beggars of either sex and every age, who excited the public compassion by the remembrance of their past fortune.118 This awful catastrophe of Rome filled the astonished empire with grief and terror. So interesting a contrast of greatness and ruin disposed the fond credulity of the people to deplore, and even to exaggerate, the afflictions of the queen of cities. The clergy, who applied to recent events the lofty metaphors of Oriental prophecy, were sometimes tempted to confound the destruction of the capital and the dissolution of the globe. There exists in human nature a strong propensity to deprecithe troops ate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times. of Charles V. 117 As the adventures of Proba and her family are connected with the life of St. Augustin, they are diligently illustrated by Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xiii. p. 620-635. Some time after their arrival in Africa, Demetrias took the veil, and made a vow of virginity: an event which was considered as of the highest importance to Rome and to the world. All the Saints wrote congratulatory letters to her; that of Jerom is still extant (tom. i. p. 62-73, ad Demetriad. de servanda Virginitat.) and contains a mixture of absurd reasoning, spirited declamation, and curious facts, some of which relate to the siege and sack of Rome [ep. 130; Migne, i. 1107]. 118 See the pathetic complaint of Jerom (tom. v. p. 400), in his preface to the second book of his Commentaries on the prophet Ezekiel. Yet, when the first emotions had subsided, and a fair estimate was made of the real damage, the more learned and judicious contemporaries were forced to confess that infant Rome had formerly received more essential injury from the Gauls than she had now sustained from the Goths in her declining age.119 The experience of eleven centuries has enabled posterity to produce a much more singular parallel; and to affirm with confidence that the ravages of the Barbarians, whom Alaric had led from the banks of the Danube, were less destructive than the hostilities exercised by the troops of Charles the Fifth, a Catholic prince, who styled himself Emperor of the Romans.120 The Goths evacuated the city at the end of six days, but Rome remained above nine months in the possession of the Imperialists; and every hour was stained by some atrocious act of cruelty, lust, and rapine. The authority of Alaric preserved some order and moderation among the ferocious multitude, which acknowledged him for their leader and king; but the constable of Bourbon had gloriously fallen in the attack of the walls; and the death of the general removed every restraint of discipline from an army which consisted of three independent nations, the Italians, the Spaniards, and the Germans. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the manners of Italy exhibited a remarkable scene of the depravity of mankind. They united the sanguinary crimes that prevail in an unsettled state of society, with the polished vices that spring from the abuse of art and luxury; and the loose adventurers, who had violated every prejudice of patriotism and superstition to assault the palace of the Roman pontiff, must deserve to be considered as the most profligate of the Italians. At the same æra, the Spaniards were the terror both of the Old and New World; but their high-spirited 119 Orosius, though with some theological partiality, states this comparison, l. ii. c. 19, p. 142, 1. vii. c. 39, p. 575. But in the history of the taking of Rome by the Gauls everything is uncertain, and perhaps fabulous. See Beaufort sur l'Incertitude, &c., de l'Histoire Romaine, p. 356; and Melot, in the Mém. de l'Académie des Inscript. tom. xv. p. 1-21. 120 The reader who wishes to inform himself of the circumstances of this famous event may peruse an admirable narrative in Dr. Robertson's History of Charles V. vol. ii. p. 283; or consult the Annali d'Italia of the learned Muratori, tom. xiv. p. 230-244, octavo edition. If he is desirous of examining the originals, he may have recourse to the eighteenth book of the great but unfinished history of Guicciardini. But the account which most truly deserves the name of authentic and original is a little book, entitled, Il Sacco di Roma, composed, within less than a month after the assault of the city, by the brother of the historian Guicciardini, who appears to have been an able magistrate and a dispassionate writer. Alaric evacuates ravages Italy. valour was disgraced by gloomy pride, rapacious avarice, and unrelenting cruelty. Indefatigable in the pursuit of fame and riches, they had improved, by repeated practice, the most exquisite and effectual methods of torturing their prisoners; many of the Castillans, who pillaged Rome, were familiars of the holy inquisition; and some volunteers, perhaps, were lately returned from the conquest of Mexico. The Germans were less corrupt than the Italians, less cruel than the Spaniards; and the rustic, or even savage, aspect of those Tramontane warriors often disguised a simple and merciful disposition. But they had imbibed, in the first fervour of the reformation, the spirit, as well as the principles, of Luther. It was their favourite amusement to insult or destroy the consecrated objects of Catholic superstition; they indulged, without pity or remorse, a devout hatred against the clergy of every denomination and degree, who form so considerable a part of the inhabitants of modern Rome; and their fanatic zeal might aspire to subvert the throne of Antichrist, to purify, with blood and fire, the abominations of the spiritual Babylon.121 The retreat of the victorious Goths, who evacuated Rome on Rome and the sixth day,122 might be the result of prudence, but it was not surely the effect of fear. 123 At the head of an army, encumbered August 29 with rich and weighty spoils, their intrepid leader advanced along the Appian way into the southern provinces of Italy, destroying whatever dared to oppose his passage, and contenting himself with the plunder of the unresisting country. The fate of Capua, the proud and luxurious metropolis of Campania, and which was respected, even in its decay, as the eighth city of the empire,124 is buried in oblivion; whilst the adjacent town of Nola 125 has been illustrated, on this occasion, by the sanctity of 121 The furious spirit of Luther, the effect of temper and enthusiasm, has been forcibly attacked (Bossuet, Hist. des Variations des Eglises Protestantes, livre i. p. 20-36), and feebly defended (Seckendorf, Comment. de Lutheranismo, especially I. i. No. 78, p. 120, and l. iii. No. 122, p. 556). 122 Marcellinus in Chron. Orosius (1. vii. c. 39, p. 575) asserts that he left Rome on the third day; but this difference is easily reconciled by the successive motions of great bodies of troops. 123 Socrates (1. vii. c. 10) pretends, without any colour of truth or reason, that Alaric fled on the report that the armies of the Eastern empire were in full march to attack him. 124 Ausonius de Claris Urbibus, p. 233, edit. Toll. The luxury of Capua had formerly surpassed that of Sybaris itself. See Athenæus, Deipnosophist. 1. xii. p. 528, edit. Casaubon. 125 Forty-eight years before the foundation of Rome (about 800 before the Christian æra), the Tuscans built Capua and Nola, at the distance of twenty-three Paulinus,126 who was successively a consul, a monk, and a bishop. At the age of forty, he renounced the enjoyment of wealth and honour, of society and literature, to embrace a life of solitude and penance; and the loud applause of the clergy encouraged him to despise the reproaches of his worldly friends, who ascribed this desperate act to some disorder of the mind or body.127 An early and passionate attachment determined him to fix his humble dwelling in one of the suburbs of Nola, near the miraculous tomb of St. Felix, which the public devotion had already surrounded with five large and populous churches. The remains of his fortune, and of his understanding, were dedicated to the service of the glorious martyr; whose praise, on the day of his festival, Paulinus never failed to celebrate by a solemn hymn; and in whose name he erected a sixth church, of superior elegance and beauty, which was decorated with many curious pictures, from the history of the Old and New Testament. Such assiduous zeal secured the favour of the saint,128 or at least of the people; and, after fifteen years' retirement, the Roman consul was compelled to accept the bishopric of Nola, a few months before the city was invested by the Goths. During the siege, some religious persons were satisfied that they had seen, either in dreams or visions, the divine form of their tutelar patron; yet it soon appeared by the event that Felix wanted power, or inclination, to preserve the flock of which he had formerly been the shepherd. Nola was not saved from the general devastation; 129 and the captive bishop was protected only by the general opinion of his innocence and poverty. Above four years elapsed from the successful invasion of Italy by the arms of Alaric to the voluntary retreat of the Goths under miles from each other; but the latter of the two cities never emerged from a state of mediocrity. 123 Tillemont (Mém. Ecclés. tom. xiv. p. 1-146) has compiled, with his usual diligence, all that relates to the life and writings of Paulinus, whose retreat is celebrated by his own pen, and by the praises of St. Ambrose, St. Jerom, St. Augustin, Sulpicius Severus, &c., his Christian friends and contemporaries. 127 See the affectionate letters of Ausonius (epist. xix.-xxv. p. 650-698, edit. Toll.) to his colleague, his friend, and his disciple Paulinus. The religion of Ausonius is still a problem (see Mém. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xv. p. 123-138). I believe that it was such in his own time, and, consequently, that in his heart he was a Pagan. [Cp. Appendix 1.] 128 The humble Paulinus once presumed to say that he believed St. Felix did love him; at least, as a master loves his little dog. 129 See Jornandes, de Reb. Get. c. 30, p. 653. Philostorgius, 1. xii. c. 3. Augustin, de Civ. Dei, l. i. c. 10. Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 410, No. 45, 46. |