An introduction to the sources relating to the Germanic invasions

STUDIES IN HISTORY, EGONOMIGS AND PUBUG LAW

EDITED BY THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Volume XXXIII]

[Number 3

AN INTRODUCTION

TO THE

SOURCES RELATING TO THE
GERMANIC INVASIONS

BY

CARLTON HUNTLEY HAYES, Ph.D.,

Lecturer in History in Columbia ^niversiiy

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., AGENTS

London : P. S. King & Son

1909

Copyright, 1909

BY

CARLTON HUNTLEY HAYES

PREFACE

The following pages are an outgrowth of a course on the
dissolution of the Roman Empire which the author pursued
at Columbia University during the academic year 1905- 1906
under the direction of Professor James Harvey Robinson.
The study centered chiefly about what was evidently the
most fateful factor in the process of the disruption of the
empire, — the entrance of the Germans; and it occurred to
the writer that the story of barbarian immigration might
be conveniently culled from the sources, done into English,
and presented frankly with full confession of the obscurity,
the frequent contradictions, and the fragmentary character
of the narratives, and without imaginative reconstructions
or interpretations. But after two years' study of the long
list of sources, it became apparent that the complete fruition
of such an undertaking would be the result only of a labor
of many years. Accordingly it has been thought expedient
at this time to publish a review of precisely what are the
most important sources relating to the Germans from
Caesar's " Commentaries " and Plutarch's " Life of
Marius " down to Paul the Deacon's " History of the Lom-
bards," together with extracts, translated into English,
illustrative of their general character and relative merit.

" Germanic Invasions " has been selected as a convenient
term to designate all the movements by which Germans and
other northern peoples came within the borders of the
Roman commonwealth: it includes peaceful immigration,
whether individual or tribal, marauding expeditions, settle-
ments fixed by treaty, armed invasions, even entrance as
411] 5

6 PREFACE [412

soldiers or slaves of the empire, — in a word, every manner
by which a barbarian of the north came into immediate
contact with Roman institutions and Roman civilization.
Thus it embraces the armed invasion and attempted settle-
ment of northern tribes over a hundred years before Christ
and all the subsequent Germanic movements down through
the fifth and sixth centuries, which witnessed migrations of
entire peoples, repeated sacks of Rome, and the establish-
ment of practically independent " kingdoms " on the soil of
the empire. The principal sources for the eighth century,
when the barbarians were extensively and permanently
settled in their new homes, provide a suitable stopping-point
for the review, although the expeditions of the Northmen,
Slavs, and Hungarians in the tenth and eleventh centuries
might almost be reckoned among the '' Germanic In-
vasions."

The sources under review are exclusively Latin or Greek.
The early Germans themselves left no records, not a book,
not an inscription, not a monument. The epic poems, the
sagas and the songs, of Scandinavia and Germany, were
mediaeval, not ancient. Their old traditions and customs
were recorded solely by natives of the Mediterranean region,
foreigners to them. And, as Fustel de Coulanges has said.
What should we know of the Egyptians if we derived every-
thing from Greek sources?

Then too, the sources for the period are mainly narrative.
The documentary sources, which should accompany and
check personal impressions, are difficult to understand and
in the past have been a subject of special investigation by
lawyers rather than by historians: it is hardly possible in
a summary of this kind to give them the prominence they
deserve. Further, the limits of the present work have ex-
cluded altogether the scant monumental sources relating to
the Germanic invasions.

413]

PREFACE

The apology for this slender review, which the writer
presents with considerable diffidence, is its uniqueness. His-
tories of classical literature treat usually of but a small
part of the field here covered, and their comments on the
historical are almost invariably choked by their apprecia-
tions of the purely literary. On the other hand, the great
guides to the general sources of the middle age — Potthast,
Molinier, Wattenbach, Ebert, Gross — hardly go back of
the reign of Theodosius the Great. If the present work
prove in any way useful or suggestive as a brief outline of
our chief sources of information about the Germanic In-
vasions, and an introdtiction to a more careful and pains-
taking study on specific points, it will have accomplished
every desired end.

The author is under obligations in one way or another to
those mentioned in the footnotes or in the final bibliography,
and he has made use of the indicated translations while
often assuming the liberty to amend them. To Professor
James Harvey Robinson of Columbia University, the writer
owes the greatest debt: Professor Robinson has been his
guide throughout his graduate work as well as the father
and designer of this work and has repeatedly suggested
many helpful ideas, the poor expression of which is the
writer's. To Professor James Thomson Shotwell of
Columbia University, who also has given valuable and help-
ful counsel and has sacrificed many hours to the tiresome
task of reading copy and proof, the author is under special

obligations.

C. H. H.
Columbia University, New York, May, 1909.

CONTENTS

PACE

CHAPTER I
Introduction 13

CHAPTER II
Plutarch 19

r

I CHAPTER III

I C^SAR 30

CHAPTER IV

Historians and Geographers of the Early Principate.

Velleius Paterculus 36

Florus 39

Appian 40

Suetonius 40

Strabo 41

Pliny 44

Pomponius Mela 44

CHAPTER V
Tacitus 46

CHAPTER VI

Narrative Sources of the Second, Third and Fourth Cen-
turies.

Die Cassius 54

Herodian 56

Augustan Historians 56

Eutropius 59

Aurelius Victor 59

Ammianus Marcellinus 60

415] 9

lO CONTENTS [416

PAGE

CHAPTER VII

Relations of the Germans to the Empire from Julius Cmsar
TO Theodosius the Great 64

CHAPTER VIII
vXjEneral Character of the Germanic Invasions 82

CHAPTER IX

Sources from Theodosius the Great to Justinian.

Zosimus 88

Greek Fragments 98

CHAPTER X

Sources from Theodosius the Great to Justinian (Con-
tinued) : The Ecclesiastical Historians.

Augustine 104

Orosius 106

Eusebius and his Continuators 118

Sulpicius Severus 120

CHAPTER XI

Sources from Theodosius the Great to Justinian (Con-
tinued): Other Christian Writers.
Jerome 121

.•Salvian 124

Victor Vitensis 127

Saints' Lives 127

CHAPTER XII

Sources from Theodosius the Great to Justinian (Con-
tinued) : Poets and Panegyrists i34

CHAPTER XIII
Sources from Theodosius the Great to Justinian (Con-
tinued) : The Chroniclers i45

CHAPTER XIV
Sources from Theodosius the Great to Justinian (Con-
tinued) :

Cassiodorus ^55

Jordanes ^5°

Procopius ^ ^^

417] CONTENTS II

PAGB

CHAPTER XV

Sources from Justinian to Pippin. ^

Gildas 178

Gregory the Great 182

Gregory of Tours 184

Venantius Fortunatus 189

Isidore of Seville 191

Venerable Bede 192

Pseudo-Fredegarius 192

Gesta regum Francorum 194

Paul the Deacon 195

CHAPTER XVI

Documentary Sources.

/^oman and Barbarian Codes 199

Ecclesiastical Legislation 218

Bibliography 224

Index of Sources 227

CHAPTER I

Introduction

Who the Germans were and whence they came no one
knows. One theory, advanced and supported by eminent
scholars and writers of the nineteenth century, was based
largely on the comparative study of languages resulting from
the discovery of Sanscrit. This presupposed the existence
in primitive times of a distinct white or Aryan race, which
migrated in great troops from its original home in the
valley of Mesopotamia or in the Hindu Kush through Asia
into Europe. These various troops brought with them a
common patrimony of language and civil and religious in-
stitutions, though variously developed by reason of differ-
ent local conditions; and they entered Europe at various
successive times: the Italo-Greeks, the Celts, the Germans,
and finally the Slavs. It was generally held that the Aryans
invaded Europe from east to west, and then from north to
south, subjugating the primitive and savage peoples with
whom they came in contact. Each invading troop sought
to displace the preceding one, and it was thus that in his-
toric times the Germans fought and at last overcame the
people of the Roman empire.

Present-day anthropologists, however, tend to modify, if
not to destroy, this theory of an Aryan race : they make clear
that race, as used to denote peculiar variations of physical
characters — especially head-form, color and stature, — is
quite independent of language or nationality. The same
language may be spoken and the same general customs fol-
lowed by peoples of different physical characteristics and
419] 13

14 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [420

by different nations. A language and certain customs, de-
veloped by a given population in a definite region, may
spread beyond their original area among neighboring popu-
lations, or they may shrink until they are used by a mere
fragment of the people that gave them birth. The boun-
daries of a nation or the political organization of a tribe
may be changed by a single battle, irrespective of the lan-
guages spoken or the social customs prevailing or the races
represented in the affected region.

With these facts in mind, the anthropologists have set out
to study the physical characteristics of peoples, but the statis-
tics gathered so far are at best relatively scanty and admit
of wide differences of interpretation as to the classification
and origin of races. A few scholars still adhere to the
Asiatic origin of Europe's dominant peoples, but many
others now affirm that the northern, or Teutonic, peoples as
well as most of those of the Mediterranean region emigrated
originally from Africa,^ while still others trace racial differ-

1 William Z. Ripley (The Races of Europe, New York, 1899) con-
cludes that there are three race-types in Europe. The first has a long
head, long face, dark-brown or black hair, dark eyes, a rather broad
nose, and a slender frame of medium stature. The second has a broad
or round head, a broad face, light-chestnut hair, hazel-gray eyes, a
variable nose — though rather broad and heavy — a stocky build and
medium stature. The third has a long head, a long face, light hair,
blue eyes, a narrow aquiline nose, and tall stature. Mr. Ripley desig-
nates these types as Mediterranean, Alpine and Teutonic respectively,
his Alpine type being the Celtic of many other writers. He states his
opinion regarding the origin of the three race-types that the long-
headed brunette Mediterranean is an African tjrpe, showing some ap-
proach to the negro; that the Teutonic is an offshoot from the Medi-
terranean, locally developed amid peculiar physiographic surround-
ings; and that the broad-headed Alpine t3rpe is Asiatic and has moved
in like a wedge between the two European populations before the dawn
of recorded history. Mr. Ripley finds nowhere absolute purity of race ;
almost everywhere two, or all three, of the fundamental races come
into contact and influence one another. See also G. Sergi, The Medi-

42 1 ] INTRODUCTION 1 5

ences almost entirely to environment or lapse into skepticism
about the whole matter.

It is sufficient for our purposes to point out that there is
no conclusive proof as to the exact origin of the Germans.
In prehistoric times they may have been black men living
under the cocoanut trees of central Africa or they may have
had yellow skins and tended flocks on the slopes of the
Himalayas, or perhaps, as Tacitus intimates with an ignor-
ance as colossal as our own, they may simply have sprung
from the soil in northern Europe, blue-eyed and yellow-
haired. Nor have we conclusive proof that the "Germanic"
invasions of historic times were effected by a homogeneous
people of Tacitean type; on the contrary, there is evidence
to show that there were notable differences among the
invaders.

These differences did not appeal to the ancient writers as
much as on first thought we might anticipate. Very few
writers visited the Germans in their own settlements. And
we should not expect the Romans to make any clean-cut
racial distinction between themselves and the Germans when
we remember what " Roman " meant. The Roman com-
monwealth grew gradually and fortuitously from a city-
state on the Tiber into an empire completely encircling
the Mediterranean, and including in itself a vast number of
peoples profoundly differing from each other in language
and characteristics. The word " Roman " followed the
territorial and political expansion of the commonwealth,
until, in accordance with the famous edict of Caracalla in

terranean Race (London, 1901). J. Deniker, Races of Man (London,
1900), distinguishes ten race-types in Europe. Ripley states in a
criticism of Deniker's work : " The eye has been blurred by the vision
of anthropometric divergences, so that it has failed to notice simil-
arities." Ripley has been similarly criticized by Professor F. Boas for
refusing to recognize a single white race, of which there are branches
due to local environmental conditions.

1 6 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [422

A. D. 212, a Roman citizen might be a Briton at York or a
Spaniard at New Carthage or a Greek at Corinth or a
Syrian at Damascus. Everyone within the community of
law was a " Roman;" everyone outside was a "barbarian."
Thus " barbarian " meant simply a foreigner, an alien, and
was applied alike to Parthian, German, Nubian and Hun.
Citizenship, not language or custom or race, was the su-
preme test with the Roman ; and the babel of peoples which
composed the Roman commonwealth was not concerned
with nice distinctions between foreign tribes.

The ancient writers, in fact, hardly had the anthro-
pological idea of race at all, for their gradual discrimina-
tion between barbarians was founded chiefly on differences
of language or customs. Pytheas of Marseilles had recog-
nized a people distinct from the Celts whom he called
Scythians, but it was much later before we hear about Ger-
man characteristics. The names Germani and Germania
do not seem to have been appellations applied by any people
to themselves ; and it is probable that the Romans borrowed
the words from Gallic peoples to designate at first specific
tribes across the Rhine and later all the vague and varied
populations who lived beyond the northern frontier.
Tacitus wrote about a hundred years after Christ :

The name " Germania," they say, is modem and of recent ap-
plication, since those who first crossed the Rhine and expelled
the Gauls, and who are now called " Tungri," were then named
" Germani ;" thus what had been a tribal name, not a national
name, spread little by Httle, so that later they all adopted the
newly-coined appellation that was first employed by the con-
querors to inspire fear and called themselves " Germani "}

1 Germania, 2. " Wachter and Grimm suggest that the root in " Ger-
mani" is identical with that in the old Irish battle-cry, gairm.

423] INTRODUCTION 1 7

That the names Deutsch and Teuton, as generic designa-
tions, do not belong to antiquity, is generally conceded ; ^
the latter was used by Roman writers to designate only a
specific tribe of northern invaders, and the former is not
met with until the ninth century after Christ. Most mod-
ern scholars agree, however, that the two words were de-
rived from a common root, thiod, meaning " people," which
appears in Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, and other comparatively
early German languages.

The earliest historical source of information about these
peoples is the few extant fragments of Pytheas of Mar-
seilles. His native city had been established about six hun-
dred years before Christ as a Greek colony and had early
taken much of the northern trade out of the hands of the
rival Phoenicians and Etruscans. Marseilles may or may
not have had intercourse in that early period with peoples
north of the Rhine. Pytheas himself was an astronomer
and a traveler who resided at Marseilles, probably about
the time of Alexander the Great or shortly afterwards, and
wrote accounts of his travels in Greek. The original is
lost but a few fragments are preserved, chiefly in the geo-
graphy of Strabo,^ in the natural history of the Elder
Pliny, ^ and in the dry lexicographical work of Stephanus

1 G. Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, 3rd ed. (Berlin, 1880),
vol. i, p. 11; F. Dahn, Urgeschichte der germanischen und romanischen
Volker (Berlin, 1881), vol. i, p. 18. The Old High German adjective,
diutisk — " pertaining to the people," — which was written theodiscus in
the Latin of the ninth century, became the diutsch or tiutsch of Middle
High German, and the deutsch of Modern German.

2 Strabo was a contemporary of Augustus (see infra, p. 41). He dis-
trusted Pytheas, even going so far as to dub him a liar (av^p V-'y
6iaTaT0(:). The moderns, however, have usually taken Pytheas quife
seriously. See R. Pallmann, Die Cimbern und Teutonen, ein Beitrag
zur altdeutschen Geschichte und zur deutschen Alterthumskunde (Ber-
lin, 1870).

8 Died 79 A. D. See infra, p. 44.

l8 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [424

of Byzantium.^ From what we have,^ we judge that
Pytheas took two voyages, one to Britain and to a land six
days' sail from thence which he calls Thule, where the day
and the night were each six months long, and another along
the coast of Europe from Gadira ^ to the Tanais river/
His references to the peoples whom he saw are so scanty
as to be practically negligible.

1 Stephanus lived after the time of Arcadius and before that of
Justinian II. The best edition of his extant writings is by A. Meineke
(Berlin, 1849). See J, Geffcken, De Stephana Byzantio (Gottingen,
1886). A few other quotations from Pytheas are to be found in the
fragments of Eratosthenes (276-196 B, C), a member of the Alexan-
drian school, who acquired fame as an astronomer and is credited with
having been one of the first to produce a systematic treatise on geog-
raphy. For the fragments of the writings of Eratosthenes see H.
Berger, Die geographischen Fragmente des Eratosthenes (Leipzig,
1880).

2 The extant fragments of Pytheas's work, Ilepi Qx^^'vov, have been
collected and edited by Schmekel, Pytheae Massiliensis quae super-
sunt fragmenta (Merseburg, 1848).

3 Cadiz.

* Some contend that this is the Don ; others favor the Elbe. But
whether Pytheas described the Mediterranean coast or that of the
Atlantic matters little to us; his description is lost.

CHAPTER II

Plutarch

It is commonly alleged that the Cimbri and Teutones,
who appeared in Gaul in 114 B. C, plundered that country
and Spain likewise, who defeated in turn five Roman armies
sent against them, and were at length annihilated by Marius
in 1 01 B. C, were the first Germans to come into conflict
with Rome/ If we rely exclusively on the sources,^ how-
ever, we cannot be certain that they were Germans. Most
of our information on the matter is contained in the bio-
graphy of Marius by Plutarch, who wrote approximately
two hundred years after the events he narrates.

Plutarch was born at the town of Chaeronea in Boeotia
probably between A. D. 45 and 50. He studied at Athens
and at Alexandria, and for a time lectured at Rome on
philosophy and rhetoric. He taught the future emperor
Hadrian and was admitted to consular rank by Trajan. In
his old age he was appointed procurator of Greece, and died
about A. D. 120 in his native town where he had long been
an archon and a priest of the Pythian Apollo. Plutarch
wrote his charming and justly- famed parallel biographies
of distinguished Greeks and Latins ^ for edification rather

^ Cf. G. Blooh, La Gaule independante et la Gaule romaine in E.
Lavisse, ed. Histoire de France, vol. i (Paris, 1900).

2 The sources on the Cimbri and Teutones are in general frag-
mentary and scattered through various writers. Johann Miiller, Bel-
lum Cimbricum ( Schaffhausen, 1772) brought together two hundred
and fourteen references of the ancients to the Cimbri, and twenty
others were added in a revision (1805).

3 Probably begun at Rome during the reign of Trajan, and com-

425] 19

20 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [426

than for historical truth; his main object was to present
distinct character sketches. It has been conceded that he
showed little critical insight in the use of his authorities and
that his work abounds in manifold inaccuracies and mis-
takes, yet in the absence of other material we are tempted
to accept the moralizings of this Greek rhetorician as au-
thentic, if not inspired, historical data.

Plutarch spoke and wrote in Greek, and lamented a
limited knowledge of Latin, which may account for some
of the inaccuracies in the Lives. He mentions incidentally
that he had seen the bust or statue of Marius at Ravenna,
but that is all we know about his travel in Italy, and there
is no mention whatsoever of his having been in Gaul. In
one way or another, however, he used several earlier works ^
in writing the biography of Marius. It has been suggested
that his unfavorable criticisms of the old general were quite
possibly taken from Sulla's memoirs ^ and the apology of
Catulus,^ both of which are now unfortunately lost. On
the general conditions of the times, Plutarch had Sallust,*

pleted and published late in life at Chaeronea. The best text of the
Bioi HapalTiTjloL is that of C. Sintenis in the Teubner series, 5 vols.
(Leipzig, 1875-84). There is an English translation in the Bohn Clas-
sical Library by A. Stewart and G. Long, 4 vols. (London, 1900). See
R. C. Trench, A Popular Introduction to Plutarch (London, 1873).

1 See H. Peter, Die geschichtliche Literatur Uber die romische Kaiser-
zeit bis Theodosius I und ihre Quellen, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1897).

2 Lucius Sulla (138-78 B. C), the aristocratic dictator and life-long
rival of Marius, wrote a history of his own life and times in twenty-
two books, which he called the Memorabilia. See A. H. Beesly, The
Gracchi, Marius and Sulla (New York, 1892).

3 Catulus was proconsul and joint commander with Marius in the
battle against the Cimbri.

* Sallust (86-34 B. C.) wrote an account of the expedition of Marius
against Jugurtha, and from fragments we gather that he wrote five
books on the civil wars between Marius and Sulla, the introduction to
which may have dealt with the Gallic campaign of Marius. Judging

427] PLUTARCH 21

Livy ^ and Posidonius. The last named was the most im-
portant. A celebrated astronomer and Stoic philosopher
at Rhodes, an instructor of Pompey and of Cicero, he con-
tinued the history of Polybius from the point where that
work broke off (146 B. C.) down to his own times. Al-
though his history is lost, we know that Posidonius ^ not
only had, as an envoy from Rhodes, interviewed Marius but
had also been in Gaul and knew the Celts.

Thus a Greek moralist who knew Latin imperfectly and
had probably never traveled in Gaul, prepared an edifying
character sketch of a Roman general who incidentally had
fought some peoples in Gaul two centuries previously, rely-

from what we know of Salkist as an historian, we cannot believe that
if he did write about the troubles in Gaul, his observations would
have been precise or profound. The fragments are edited by B. Maur-
enbrecher, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1891-3). There is a good English trans-
lation by Pollard (1882).

1 Livy (59 B. C.-17 A. D.), who undertook to write not a critical
history but a lively narrative to rekindle a patriotic spirit among his
countrymen, may best be regarded as a remarkable story-teller with
excellent diction but with slight attention to fact. Practically the
whole history after 167 B. C. is lost. There is a translation into Eliza-
bethan English by Philemon Holland (London, 1600), and of books
xxi-xxv into modern English by Church & Brodribb (2nd ed., London,
1890).

2 Strabo and Appian likewise used Posidonius. Important frag-
ments of the work are preserved by Athenaeus (170-230 A. D.), a
Greek scholar of Alexandria and Rome, in a curious miscellany called
AenTvoao<j)iaTai or The Banquet of the Learned, edited by G. Kaibel in
the Teubner series (Leipzig, 1887). There is a literal English trans-
lation by C. D. Yonge in the Bohn Classical Library, 3 vols. (London,
1854). The extant fragments of Posidonius were collected and edited
by Bake (Leyden, 1810). Posidonius was used by Justin, a Latin his-
torian who is generally supposed to have flourished in the age of the
Antonines and who epitomized the general history of Trogus Pompeius ;
Justin is edited by J. Jeep in the Teubner texts (Leipzig, 1886) and
translated into English by J. S. Watson in the Bohn Classical Library
(London, 1876).

22 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [428

ing for the truth of his adventitious remarks on works the
most of which, — the reminiscences of our general's politi-
cal and military rivals, the histories of a Roman politician,
and of a Roman story-teller, and last but not least the
statements of a man of Rhodes who had actually had a
look at Gaul, — are now lost and are consequently beyond
our power to verify. These adventitious remarks on the
Gallic campaign of Marius comprise almost all we know
about the Cimbri and Teutones! This is what Plutarch
says of them : ^

. . . It happened that the Romans had just received intel-
ligence of the capture of Jugurtha when the reports about the
Cimbri and Teutones surprised them, and though the rumors
as to the numbers and strength of the invaders were at first
disbelieved, it afterwards appeared that they fell short of the
truth. Three hundred thousand armed fighting men were
advancing, bringing with them a much larger number of women
and children, in quest of land to support so mighty a multitude
and of cities to dwell in, after the example of the Celtae before
them,* who took the best part of Italy from the Tyrrheni and
kept it.

As these invaders had no intercourse with other nations, and
had traversed an extensive tract of country, it could not be
ascertained who they were or where they issued from to de-
scend upon Gaul and Italy like a cloud. The most probable
conjecture was that they were Germanic nations belonging to
those who extended as far as the northern ocean; and this
opinion was founded on their great stature, their blue eyes,
and on the fact that the Germans designate robbers by the
name of Cimbri.

1 English translation by A. Stewart & G. Long in the Bohn Qassical
Library (London, 1900).

2 The invasion of northern Italy by the Celtae is mentioned by Livy
(Bk. V, ch. 34) and referred by him to the reign of Tarquinius Priscus.

429] PLUTARCH 23

Others thought that Celtica extended in a wide and exten-
sive tract from the external sea and the subarctic regions to
the rising sun and the Lake Maeotis ^ where it bordered on
Pontic Scythia ; and it was from this region, as they supposed,
where the tribes are mingled, that these invaders came, and
that they did not advance in one expedition nor yet uninter-
ruptedly, but that every spring they moved forwards, fighting
their way, till in the course of time they traversed the whole
continent. Accordingly while the barbarians had several names
according to their respective tribes, they designated the whole
body by the name of Celtoscythians.

But others say that the Cimmerians, with whom the ancient
Greeks were first acquainted, were no portion of the whole
nation, but merely a tribe or faction that was driven out by the
Scythians and passed into Asia from the Lake Maeotis, under
the command of Lygdamis : they further say that the chief part
of the Scythian nation and the most warlike part lived at the
very verge of the continent, on the coast of the external sea, in
a tract shaded, woody, and totally sunless, owing to the extent
and closeness of the forests, which reach into the interior as
far as the Hercynii; and with respect to the heavens, their
position was in that region where the pole, having a great eleva-
tion owing to the inclination of the parallels, appears to be only
a short distance from the spectator's zenith, and the days and
nights are of equal length and share the year between them,
which furnished Homer with the occasion for his story of
Ulysses visiting the ghosts.^ From these parts then some sup-
posed that these barbarians came against Italy, who were
originally Cimmerii, but then not inappropriately called Cimbri.
But all this is rather founded on conjecture than on sure
historical evidence.^

The importance of identifying the Cimbri and Teutones

1 Sea of Azov. * Odyssey, bk. xi, v, 14 et seq.

3Ch. II.

24 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [430

with the Germans was not so clear to the Romans as to cer-
tain modern German scholars. Plutarch himself was not
a man of conviction in the matter. Tliese peoples might be
Germans — they had great stature and blue eyes ! But again
they might be Celts, for Celtica could extend, so far as the
Greek philosopher was concerned, from Gaul throughout
northern Europe and well into Asia " where the tribes are
mingled." And peradventure, they were neither Germans
nor Celts, but a lost tribe of the Cimmerians, the ancient
enemies of the Hellenes.

It is doubtful whether the very words " Cimbri " and
" Teutones " ^ are German ; they may be merely Gallic.
Various Greek authors, whom Diodorus of Sicily ^ quotes
without naming them, thought the Cimbri were Cimmerians,
the people at that time living north of the Black Sea,
whose name has been preserved in the Crimea. Cicero in
55 B. C. thought the Cimbri were Gauls. ^ This identifica-

■ ■ ! !

^ The word "Teutones," as we have already seen, may have been
derived from some popular Germanic appellation such as thiod,
meaning "people." If so, it may be reasoned that this particular
tribe spoke a Germanic language and came perhaps from far-away
Scandinavia; but, on the other hand, it may also be reasoned that a
Gallic tribe was designated by a colloquialism borrowed from their
neighbors across the Rhine which Roman writers heard of and used.
The Roman name of the tribe would hardly be in itself convincing
proof of the tribe's origin. The tribe might be Teutonic or it might
be Gallic.

2 A contemporary of JuHus Caesar and of Augustus, who published
a general history in thirty books from earliest times to the end of
Caesar's Gallic war. The extant fragments are edited by L. Dindorf,
5 vols. (Leipzig, 1867-8).

3 " Even that great man, Caius Marius, whose amazing divine valor
came to the assistance of the Roman people in many of its distresses
and disasters, was content to check the enormous multitudes of Gauls
who were forcing their way into Italy, without endeavoring himself to
penetrate into their cities and homes." — Oration on the Consular Pro-
vinces, ch. 13.

43 1 ] PLUTARCH 25

tion of the Cimbri with the Cimmerians and likewise with
the Gauls produced a curious result in the Jewish Antiqui-
ties of Josephus/ a work completed as late as 93 A. D.,
after Caesar and others had popularized the distinction
between Gauls and Germans. Josephus says that Japhet,
son of Noah, had seven sons, one of whom was Gomares,
the progenitor of the Gomareis whom the Greeks called
Galates and who were otherwise variously known as Gauls
and as Cimmerians.^ In view of these facts, we shall do
well to accept as inspired the illuminating remark with which
Plutarch concludes his three theories of the origin of the
invaders, " all this is rather founded on conjecture than on
sure historical evidence."

Plutarch has little to say of the institutions and customs of
the Cimbri and Teutones which can help us in a study of
the Germanic invasions. The military events absorb his
interest, although his accounts of the barbarian movements
are most confusing. The invaders do not appear to have
been very different from many others with whom the Ro-
mans fought:

As to their numbers, they are stated by many authorities as
above rather than below what has been mentioned. But their
courage and daring made them irresistible, and in battle they
rushed forward with the rapidity and violence of fire, so that
no nations could stand their attack, but all the people that
came in their way became their prey and booty, and many
powerful Roman armies with their commanders, which were

1 Bk. i, ch. 6. The works of Josephus have been edited by B, Niese,
5 vols. (Berlin, 1885-95) and translated into English by W. Whiston.

2 The theory of Josephus received the strong condemnation of
Jerome, In Ezechielem. It seems, however, that no statement of an
ancient is too preposterous for a modern to believe. Amedee Thierry
in his Histoire des Gaulois (loth ed., Paris, 1881) has approved the
supposition of Josephus!

26 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS

[432

stationed to protect Gaul north of the Alps, perished inglor-
iously ; ^ and indeed these armies by their unsuccessful resist-
ance mainly contributed to direct the course of the enemy
against Rome. For when they had defeated those who opposed
them and got an abundance of booty, they determined not to
settle themselves permanently anywhere till they had destroyed
Rome and ravaged Italy. ^

. . . [Marius led an army into Gaul against the Teutones,
who] made their appearance in numbers countless, hideous in
aspect, and in language and the cries they uttered unlike any
other people.^ . . . The daily sight of them not only took
away somewhat of the first alarm, but the threats of the
barbarians and their intolerable arrogance roused the courage
of the Roman soldiers and inflamed their passions, for the
enemy plundered and devastated all the country around*
. . . [In battle] though full of food and excited with wine,
they did not advance in disorderly or frantic haste, nor utter
confused shouts, but striking their arms to a certain measure,
and advancing all in regular line, they often called out their
name, Ambrones,'' either to encourage one another or to terrify
the Romans by this announcement ® . . .

In the pursuit [of the Teutones after the first battle], the

^ Cn. Papirius Carbo, one of the consuls for the year 113 B. C, was
defeated by the Cimbri and Teutones in Illyricum; in 109 B. C. the
consul M. Junius Silanus was defeated by the Cimbri, who in vain de-
manded settlements of the Roman senate; in 107 B. C, while Marius
was fighting Jugurtha, the consul L. Cassius Longinus was killed in
battle with the Gallic Tigurini and his army surrendered; two years
later the consul Cn. Manlius Maximus and the proconsul Q. Servilius
Caepio were defeated by the Cimbri with great loss.

2Ch. II. 3Ch. 15. *Ch. 16.

^ Plutarch mentions Ligurians in the army of Marius who were
called Ambrones. The Ligurians were not Germans, and if these Am-
brones among the barbarians were of the same people as the Ligurian
Ambrones with Marius, then it is certain that at least a part of the
invaders were non-Germans.

«Ch. 19.

433] PLUTARCH 27

Romans took prisoners and killed to the number of about
100,000; they also took their tents, wagons and property, all
which, with the exception of what was pilfered, was given to
Marius, by the unanimous voice of the soldiers. . . . Some
authorities do not agree with the statement as to the gift of
the spoil, nor yet about the number of the slain.^ However,
they say that the people of Marseilles made fences round their
vineyards with the bones, and that the soil, after the bodies
had rotted and the winter rains had fallen, was so fertilized
and saturated with the putrified matter which sank down into
it, that it produced a most unusual crop in the next season, and
so confirmed the opinion of Archilochus ^ that the land is fat-
tened by human bodies.^ . . . [Marius held the kings of the
Teutones] in chains, for they were taken in the Alps in their
flight by the Sequani.* . . .

[Meanwhile, the Cimbri crossed the Alps and] attacked and
took the fort on the farther side of the Adige, though the
Roman soldiers defended it with the utmost bravery and in a
manner worthy of their country. Admiring their courage, the
barbarians let them go on conditions which were sworn to
upon the brazen bull, which was taken after the battle, and, it
is said, was conveyed to the house of Catulus as the first spoils
of the victory.^ . . . They sent to Marius to demand land
for themselves and their brethren, and a sufficient number of
cities for their abode. On Marius asking the ambassadors of
the Cimbri whom they meant by their brethren, and being told
they were the Teutones, all the Romans who were present
burst out into a laugh, but Marius, with a sneer, replied,
" Don't trouble yourselves about your brethren : they have
land, and they shall have it forever, for we have given it
to them." «...

^Velleius Paterculus (ii, 12) makes the number of barbarians who
fell in the two battles over 150,000.

2 A Greek lyric poet who lived in the seventh century B. C.

8 Ch. 21. * Ch. 24. « Ch. 2Z. • Ch. 24.

28 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [434

[The Cimbri then prepared to join battle with the combined
armies of Marius and Catulus.] Their infantry marched
slowly from their fortified posts in a square, each side of
which was thirty stadia; the cavalry, 15,000 in number, ad-
vanced in splendid style, wearing helmets which resembled
in form the open mouths of frightful beasts and strange shaped
heads surmounted by lofty crests of feathers, which made
them appear taller; they had also breastplates of iron and
glittering white shields. Their practice was to discharge two
darts, and then closing with the enemy, to use their large heavy
swords.^ ... It happened that the barbarians closed with
Catulus, and the struggle was with him and his soldiers chiefly,
among whom Sulla says that he himself fought: he adds
that the heat aided the Romans, and the sun, which shone full
in the face of the Cimbri. For the barbarians were well
inured to cold, having been brought up in forests, as already
observed, and a cool country, but they were unnerved with
the heat, which made them sweat violently and breathe hard,
and put their shields before their faces, for the battle took
place after the summer solstice, and, according to the Roman
reckoning, three days before the new moon of the month now
called August but then Sextilis.^ . . . Now the greater
part of the enemy and their best soldiers were cut to pieces
in their ranks, for in order to prevent the line from being
broken the soldiers of the first rank were fastened together
by long chains which were passed through their belts. The
fugitives were driven back to their encampments, when a most
tragic scene was exhibited. The women standing on the
wagons clothed in black massacred the fugitives, some their
husbands, and others their brothers and fathers, and then
strangling their infants they threw them under the wheels and
the feet of the beasts of burden, and killed themselves. . . .
But though so many perished in this manner, above 60,000
were taken prisoners, and the number of those who fell was
said to be twice as many . . .*

1 Ch. 25. 2 ch. 26. » Ch. 27.

435] PLUTARCH 29

This is most of what we know about the Cimbri and Teu-
tones. The fate of the survivors is neglected; Plutarch
must decide the dispute as to whether Marius or Catulus
deserved the credit for the victory. He was not writing
an account of barbarian invasions; he was preparing an
edifying biography of Marius.

i ;; m v E R S I T Y
or

CHAPTER III
Caesar

No evidence has come down to us that prior to the open-
ing of the first century before Christ the Romans had any
clear ideas about the Germans or about the peoples in Gaul/
It was, in fact, at least fifty years after the appearance of
the Cimbri and Teutones, before any source distinguished
Germans from Gauls.

The man who did the most in all probability to vulgarize
this distinction was Julius Caesar, who, as political and
military head of Gaul for several years, knew the country
and the people at first hand, saw Germans and heard some-
thing about their customs, and about 51 B. C. committed to
writing an account of his experiences and observations.^
As Cicero says :

Caesar thought it his duty not only to war against those men
whom he saw already in arms against the Roman people but
to reduce the whole of Gaul under our dominion. He ac-
cordingly fought with the greatest success against most
vaHant and powerful tribes, Germans and Helvetians; and

^ See J. Cramer, Die Verfassungsgeschichte der Germanen und
Kelten (Berlin, 1906), and M. H. d'Arbois de Jubainville, Les Celtes
depuis les temps les plies anciens jusqu'en 100 avant notre dre (Paris,
1904).

2 Seven Books of Commentaries on the Gallic War. The edition in
the Teubner series is by B. Dinter (Leipzig, 1890). There is an Eng-
lish translation, needlessly involved in style, by W. A. McDevitte in
the Bohn Classical Library. See T. R. Holmes, Caesar's Conquest of
Gaul (London, 1899).

30 [436

437] ^^^^^ 31

other tribes he alarmed and drove back and defeated and ac-
customed to acknowledge the supremacy of the Roman people ;
so that those districts and those tribes which were previously
unknown to us by anyone's letters or through a personal ac-
count of anyone, or even by vague report, have now been
traversed by our own general, by our own army, and by the
arms of the Roman people.^

Caesar was certainly in a position to know a good deal
about Gaul and he has been generally credited with insight
into Celtic institutions and customs.^ He, moreover, dis-
tinguished them from the Germanic:

. . . It does not appear to be foreign to our subject to lay
before the reader an account of the customs of Gaul and of
Germany, and wherein these tribes differ from each other. [In
Gaul there is bitter factional feeling; the mass of the people
are serfs and have no part in poHtics; the privileged classes
are the Druid priests and the free knights; the Celts are
especially superstitious, though they have a rather well-de-
veloped legal system].^ The customs of the Germans differ
much from the Gauls, for neither have they Druids to preside
over religious services nor do they care much for sacrifices.
They count among the number of the gods those alone whom
they behold, and by whose instrumentality' they are obviously
benefited: namely, the Sun, Vulcan, and the Moon; of the
other deities they have never even heard. Their whole life
is occupied in hunting and in military pursuits; from child-
hood they devote themselves to hardships and fatigue. Those
who have remained chaste for the longest time, receive the
greatest commendation among their people. . . They do
not pay much attention to agriculture, and a large part of their

1 Cicero, Oration on the Consular Provinces, ch. 13, delivered 55
B. C

2 See C. Julian, Histoire de la Gaule, vol. ii, La Gaule independante
(Paris, 1908).

3 Summary of chapters 11-20 of bk. vi.

3^ SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [438

food consists of milk, cheese and flesh; nor does anyone
possess a fixed piece of land as his own property, with fixed
boundaries, but the magistrates and chiefs assign every year
to the tribes and families, who have assembled together, as
much land as they please in any locality they see fit, and on
the following year compel them to move elsewhere. . . .
It is the greatest glory to the several tribes to lay waste the
borders of their territory as great a distance as possible and
make them uninhabitable. . . . Both in defensive and in
offensive war, leaders are chosen and given even power of
life and death. In peace there is no common ruler, but the
chiefs of the districts and cantons administer justice and settle
controversies among their own people. Robbery committed
beyond the boundaries of a tribe bears no infamy, and they
avow that it is committed for the purpose of disciplining their
youth and of preventing sloth. And when any of their chiefs
has said in an assembly that he will be their leader in a
foray, let those who are willing to follow him present them-
selves; they who approve of both the raid and the man
arise and promise their assistance, and are applauded by the
masses; such of them as do not then follow him are con-
sidered deserters and traitors, and thereafter no faith what-
ever is placed in them. To injure guests they hold to be a
crime ; they defend from wrong those who have come to them
for any reason whatever, and esteem them inviolable ; to them
the houses of all are open and they are furnished with food.

And there was formerly a time when the Gauls excelled the
Germans in prowess, and waged war on them offensively, and,
on account of the great number of their people and the in-
sufficiency of their land, sent colonies over the Rhine . . ^

Such are the salient points in Caesar's account of the Ger-
mans. They have been taken very seriously by many
scholars and have supplied the first foundation for the
construction of monumental works on the economic and
political institutions of the Teutonic peoples.

lyi, 21-24.

439] CJESAR '%'%

The question immediately arises, how did Caesar know
the Germans ? We learn that he had some Germans in his
own army: he would be likely to hear something about
other Germans from them. We know too that he had
many Germans in arms against him, for various bands were
hired by this or that faction of the Gauls to fight him, and
his troubles were not minimized by Ariovistus or by the
Suevi. As commander-in-chief of the Roman forces,
Caesar felt the necessity of studying and knowing the op-
posing forces, these troublesome tribesmen whose chronic
instability was a menace to the commonwealth. He talked
with their envoys and questioned the Celts about them. He
twice crossed the Rhine, but the longer trip lasted but eigh-
teen days, and his first-hand knowledge of the Germans in
their own home must have been very limited. It may be
said, in fact, that Caesar learned almost everything he
knew about the Germans not in their country but in his
own territory, and then too, chiefly from their enemies.
Practically everything he had to accept on hearsay :

Ambassadors who came from the Aedui said in complaint that
the Harudes, who had lately been brought over into Gaul, were
ravaging their territories, and that they were unable to buy
peace from Ariovistus even through hostages; and from the
Treviri, that a hundred cantons of the Suevi had encamped on
the banks of the Rhine and were attempting to cross it.^

The tribe of the Suevi is by far the largest and the most
warlike tribe of all the Germans. They are said to possess
a hundred cantons, from each of which they yearly send from
their territories for the purpose of war a thousand armed
men: the others who remain at home maintain both them-
selves and those engaged in the expedition. The latter again,
in their turn, are in arms next year: the former remain at
home. Thus neither husbandry nor the art and practice of

' i, 37.

34 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [440

war are neglected. But among them there exists no private
and separate land ; nor are they permitted to remain more than
one year in one place for the purpose of residence. They
do not Hve much on corn, but subsist for the most part on
milk and flesh and are much given to hunting.^ . . .

They [the Suevi] esteem it their greatest praise as a tribe
that the lands about their territories lie unoccupied to a very
great extent inasmuch as it indicates that a great many tribes
cannot withstand their power; and thus on one side of the
Suevi the lands are said to lie desolate for about six hundred
miles 2 . . . The Ubii also, who alone, out of all the tribes
lying beyond the Rhine, had sent ambassadors to Caesar and
formed an alliance and given hostages, earnestly entreated
that he would bring them assistance because they were
grievously oppressed by the Suevi ; or, if he was prevented
from doing so by the business of the commonwealth, he would
at least transport his army over the Rhine ; that that would be
sufficient for their present assistance and their hope for the
future ; that so great was the name and reputation of his army,
even among the most remote tribes of the Germans, arising
from the defeat of Ariovistus and this last battle which was
fought, that they might be safe under the fame and friend-
ship of the Roman people. They promised a large number
of boats for transporting the army.^

[After crossing the Rhine the first time, Caesar] learned
from the Ubii these particulars, that the Suevi, after they had
found through their scouts that the bridge was being built, had
called the usual council and issued general orders to remove
the women, children, and property from the towns into the
woods and to assemble in one place all who were capable of
bearing arms . . .*

Caesar undoubtedly made it a point to obtain the most trust-

1 iv, I. - iv, 3. 3 iv, 16.

■* iv, 19. Another example is furnished in vi, 10 : Caesar is informed
by the Ubii concerning the movements of the Suevi, and has the
former send spies among the latter to report to him about them.

441] C^SAR 35

worthy information, but he got it from Treviri and Ubii,
who were being threatened by the Suevi and who would
naturally stretch the truth if necessary in securing Roman
protection against their northern and eastern enemies. The
conditions under which Caesar's authorities gave him in-
formation are not conducive to our faith in its objectivity.
Nor is it probable from Caesar's own statement that the
Treviri and the Ubii themselves knew a great deal about
the Suevi. A few merchants passed between them/ and
armed bands appeared now and then. Caesar writes of the
Germans only incidentally and always vaguely: he says
nothing of their geography and little of their political or-
ganization. Tacitus, who cites him about the Gauls, does
not seem to take him seriously about the Germans, and often
contradicts him. Whatever may have been the develop-
ment in Germany in the century and a half which inter-
vened between Caesar and Tacitus, and no matter how little
we esteem Tacitus, we must express the conviction that
Caesar's Commentaries are neither obviously authoritative
nor even fully reliable as a source on the Germans.

In a passage quoted above, Caesar states that the lands
on one side of the Suevi " are said to lie desolate for about
six hundred miles." That would be as far as from Brus-
sels to Berlin ! Caesar also tells ^ about bisons, unicorns
and other strange beasts in the Hercynian forest. Those
scholars who suspect that Caesar was misinformed on these
points should remember that he might have been misin-
formed on others, and they should not make haste to build
political and economic systems on his frankly hearsay testi-
mony.

1 That merchants were few may be inferred from the account of
the Suevi : " Merchants have access to them more because they want
to sell what they have taken in war than because they need the im-
portation of any commodity." iv, 2.

2 vi, 25-28.

CHAPTER IV

Historians and Geographers of the Early Principate

The wars of Augustus and Tiberius against the Germans
undoubtedly stimulated the interest of the Romans in the
northern barbarians. We know at least of two works on
the German wars : Quintilian speaks ^ of the libri belli Ger-
manici of a certain Aufidius Bassus, whom scholars have
arbitrarily assigned to the time of Tiberius; and the Elder
Pliny (23-79 A. D.) wrote a history of the Germanic wars
in twenty books. We know nothing of the life of Aufidius
Bassus, of his qualifications as an historian, of his accuracy
or of his importance.^ In the case of Pliny we know ^ that
he was commander of a troop of cavalry in Germany in the
time of Claudius and was high in political favor with Ves-
pasian, being a provincial governor and superintendent of
finances in Italy, and we would conclude therefore that
Pliny had unusual opportunity for knowing the Germans
and that his position in Roman official society would give
his statements added authority. But both works are lost
and there are few direct allusions to either by later writers.

The general history of Livy might be expected to supply

1 Inst. Orator., x, i, 103.

2 Quotations from Aufidius Bassus are given by Seneca Rhetor,
Suasoriae, vi, 18, 23 ; and it has been repeatedly affirmed that his work
was used by Dio Cassius and Suetonius.

8 We are indebted for an account of Pliny's literary labors to his
nephew, the Younger Pliny (Epist., iii, 5; vi, 16). That Pliny had seen
the Germans in their own homes, we gather from the Natural History,
xvi, I, 2.

36 [442

443] HISTORIANS AND GEOGRAPHERS 37

some interesting if unreliable anecdotes about the Germans,
but his books relating to that subject are lost.

Almost our only available contemporary account of the
Germanic wars of this early period of the principate is that
of Velleius Paterculus {cca. 19 B. C.-A. D. 31). Velleius
was an army officer, at first in the east under Gaius Caesar,
the grandson of Augustus, and afterwards in Germany
under Tiberius. For his enthusiastic support of the latter,
he was rewarded by receiving several military and political
promotions. About A. D. 30, he prepared a succinct com-
pendium of universal history^ with special reference to Rome,
beginning with the settlement of Magna Graecia. Velleius
was quite obsessed by the idea of "essentials in history" and
selected only those events in the past which had a particular
fascination for himself and which he thought had had. a
paramount influence in shaping the affairs of the common-
wealth, so that his book assumed the method and the pur-
pose of the " Beacon Lights of History." The selection
is naturally arbitrary, and there are few signs of critical
insight. On his own times Velleius becomes more diffuse,
but his fulsome praise of Tiberius has detracted from his
reputation as an impartial historian: he is hardly more
than a partisan memoir writer. His own account of his
enlistment with Tiberius is suggestive:

That year made me a soldier in the camp of Tiberius Caesar,
having previously held the office of tribune. Shortly after-

^ Historiae Romanae ad M. Vinicium Consulem Lihri Duo, edited
by R. Ellis (Oxford, 1898), translated into English by J. S. Watson
in the Bohn Classical Library. The Teubner edition is by C. Halm
(Leipzig, 1876). The text is in an especially unsatisfactory condition;
the only manuscript which survived the middle ages was lost in the
seventeenth century and we are dependent on very imperfect copies.
A large collection of the historical blunders of Velleius is given by
H. Sauppe, Ausgewahlte Schriften (Berlin, 1896), pp. 39-72- See P.
Kaiser, De fontibus Velleii (Berlin, 1884).

38 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [444

wards, being sent with him into Germany in the post of
commander of cavalry, succeeding my father in that office, I
was, for nine successive years, either as prefect, or lieutenant-
general, a spectator, and, as far as the mediocrity of my
ability allowed, an assistant in his glorious achievements. Nor
do I think that any human being can have an opportunity of
enjoying another spectacle like that which I enjoyed, when,
throughout the most populous part of Italy, and the whole
length of the Gallic provinces, the people, on seeing again their
former commander, who was a Caesar in merit and power
before he was so in name, congratulated themselves even more
warmly than they congratulated him. At the very sight of
him, tears of joy sprang from the eyes of the soldiers, and
there appeared in their salutation an unusual degree of spirit,
a kind of exultation, and an eager wish to touch his hand.
Nor could they restrain themselves from adding, " General,
we welcome you ;" or again, " General, I was with you in
Armenia," " I in Rhaetia," " I was rewarded by you in Vin-
delicia," " I in Pannonia," " I in Germany ;" all this cannot
be described in words, and perhaps will scarcely gain belief.^

Velleius is sorely disappointing as a source for the Ger-
mans. He neglects the splendid opportunity of recording
for us the habits and customs passing daily under his very
eyes. In the few pages which he devotes to the subject, he
tells only of military operations and personal anecdotes,
and everything is subordinated to the one great purpose of
praising Tiberius :

I cannot forbear inserting the following incident, whatever
may be thought of it, among affairs of so much greater magni-
tude. While we were encamped on the hither bank of this
river [the Elbe], and while the farther bank glittered with the
armor of the enemy's troops, who always drew back at the
least movement of our ships, one of the barbarians, far ad-
vanced in years, of extraordinary stature, and, as his dress

1 ii, 104.

445] HISTORIANS AND GEOGRAPHERS 3q

indicated, of the highest dignity, embarked in a canoe formed
of a tree hollowed out, such as is common among those tribes ;
and, managing this vessel alone, he advanced as far as the
middle of the stream, requesting to be allowed, without danger
to himself, to land on the bank which we occupied with our
army, and to see Caesar. This request was granted. Having
then brought his canoe to shore, and contemplated Caesar a
long time in silence, he said, " Our young men are certainly
mad ; they worship your divinity in your absence ; yet, in your
presence, they choose rather to dread your arms than to trust
your faith. For my part, Caesar, I have this day, by your
permission and favor, seen the gods, of whom I had before
only heard, and I never in my life either wished for or ex-
perienced a day of greater happiness." Then, having obtained
leave to touch his hand, he re-embarked in his little vessel,
and continually looking back at Caesar, sailed away to the bank
occupied by his countrymen . . .^

Velleius gives hasty sketches of the campaigns in Ger-
many and in Pannonia, but he is not interested in geo-
graphy, ethnology or race characteristics. He has appar-
ently no settled conviction as to what a German is :

The whole extent of Germany was traversed by our army;
nations were conquered that were almost unknown to us even
in name. The tribes of the Chauki were reduced to submis-
sion. . . . The Langobardi, a nation exceeding even the
Germans in fierceness, were crushed . . .^

In the absence of other contemporary accounts of the
early principate, we are forced to rely on such later his-
torians as Florus, Appian, Suetonius, and Tacitus.^

Florus, a native according to some of Spain and to others
of Gaul, wrote in the reign of Trajan an abridgment of
Roman history* from earliest times to Augustus. It was

1 ii, 107. 2 ii^ 106. 3 See infra, p. 46 et seq.

* Epitome de gestis Romanorum, or Bellorum omnium annorum

40 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [446

based on Livy and other works now lost, and is less a his-
tory than a panegyric. Oratorical, affected, obscure, filled
with geographical and chronological errors, the epitome
enjoyed popularity in the middle ages but is not important
for our purposes.

Appian was a Greek historian who lived at Alexandria
about the middle of the second century. For a time he was
a lawyer at Rome, but later obtained from Antoninus Pius
the office of imperial procurator in Egypt. He wrote a
work ^ on the development of the Roman empire, extending
to the time of Trajan, consisting of a number of special
histories of the several periods and the several lands and
peoples which fell under Roman control. It originally
comprised twenty-four books but only eleven are preserved
complete besides the preface. The most important are
books thirteen to seventeen on the civil wars. The work
is obviously a dry compilation and is disfigured by numer-
ous blunders.

Suetonius, a lawyer at Rome in the reign of Trajan and
afterwards private secretary to Hadrian until his familiarity
with the emperor's wife drove him from court in disgrace,
was in an excellent position to know the scandals and gossip
of the time, and his celebrated biographies of the twelve
Caesars from Julius to Domitian ^ have conspicuously con-
firmed his fame as a scandal monger. * His history has the

DCC lihri duo, usually divided into two books, though sometimes into
four. The best edition is that of C. Halm (Leipzig, 1879). There is
an English translation by J. S. Watson in the Bohn Classical Library
(London, 1898).

iThe best text is that in the Teubner edition by L. Mendelssohn,
2 vols. (Leipzig, 1878-81). There is an English translation by H.
White, 2 vols. (New York, 1899).

2 Vitae Duodecim Caesarum. The standard text is that of C. L.
Roth (Leipzig, 1886). There is an English translation by Thomson
& Forester in the Bohn Qassical Library (London, 1881).

447] HISTORIANS AND GEOGRAPHERS 41

form and the relative importance of memoirs; it may be
truthful, it certainly is personal and anecdotal. His first
care is to picture the personal conduct and habits of the
Caesars ; only indirectly does he record the military events ;
the peoples of the empire receive slight attention and the
tribes outside the empire even less. The critical reader is
impressed with the feeling that Suetonius affords more
amusement than information.

Three descriptions of Germany have come down to us
from the early period of the principate : ^ the geographies
of Strabo and Pomponius Mela, and the natural history of
the Elder Pliny.

Strabo, a Greek, was born in Pontus and studied in var-
ious eastern cities. He lived some years at Rome, traveled
extensively in various countries, and in the reign of Tiber-
ius published in Greek a general geography in seventeen
books. ^ The seventh describes that part of Europe north
of the Rhine and Danube; roughly speaking, seven pages
are given to Germany, three to the Cimbri, fifteen to the
Getae, seven to the tribes living at the mouths of the Dan-
ube and Dniester, and seven to those in the Crimea. Strabo

1 In this connection should be mentioned the poetical epistles of
Ovid, who was banished by Augustus about A. D. 8 to Tomi (mod-
ern Kustindje), a little town on the Black Sea near the mouths of
the Danube. There he lived among Getae and Sarmatians and other
tribes until his death in A. D. 17 or 18 and composed nine books of
letters in verse, which mention the dress and manners, the arms and
marauding expeditions, of the barbarian peoples. Ovid's descriptions
are colored by his personal grief and by the requirements of his
muse. The Teubner text of Ovid is edited by A. Reise (Leipzig,
1871-89).

2 The best edition is that of A. Meineke, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1866-77).
A French translation, undertaken by command of Napoleon (Paris,
1805-19), has valuable notes. There is an English translation by H. C.
Hamilton and W. Falconer in the Bohn Classical Library, 3 vols.
(London, 1854-57).

42 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [448

did not visit Germany himself and his statements about it
are chiefly taken from Caesar and Posidonius.

Strabo had very vague ideas about the German race :

Next after the Celtic tribes come the Germans, who inhabit
the country to the east beyond the Rhine; and these differ
but Httle from the Celtic race, except in their being more
fierce, of a larger stature, and more ruddy in countenance;
but in every other respect, their figure, their customs and
manners of hfe, are such as we have related of the Celts.
The Romans, therefore, I think, have very appositely applied
to them the name " Germani," as signifying genuine ; for in
the Latin language Germani signifies genuine.^

It is apparent that Strabo will not accept every foolish
statement of Pytheas or of Posidonius or of Eratosthenes
or of anyone else; if he himself does not know the truth of
the given statement, he will at least test it by common sense :

Some of the accounts which we receive of the Cimbri are not
worthy of credit, while others seem likely enough : for instance,
no one could accept the reason given for their wandering life
and piracy, that, dwelling on a peninsula, they were driven out
of their settlements by a very high tide; for they still to this
day possess the country which they had in former times, and
have sent as a present to Augustus the caldron held most
sacred by them, supplicating his friendship, and an amnesty
for past offences ; and having obtained their request they have
returned home. Indeed, it would have been ridiculous for
them to have departed from their country in a pet on account
of a natural and constant phenomenon which occurs twice
every day. . . . Clitarchus is not to be trusted when he
says that their cavalry, on seeing the sea flow in, rode off at
full speed, and yet scarcely escaped by flight from being over-
taken by the flood; for we know by experience that the tide

1 vii, I, 2.

449] HISTORIANS AND GEOGRAPHERS 43

does not come in with such impetuosity, but that the sea
advances stealthily by slow degrees . . .^

These tribes dwelling along the coast beyond the Elbe are
entirely unknown to us ; for no one of the ancients with whom
I am acquainted has prosecuted this voyage towards the east
as far as the mouths of the Caspian Sea, neither have the
Romans as yet sailed coastwise beyond the Elbe, nor has any-
one traveling on foot penetrated farther into this country.
. . . Nor can we say whether these tribes extend as far
as the [Northern] Ocean, along the whole distance, or whether
[between them and the ocean] there are countries rendered
unfit for habitation by the cold or by any other cause; or
whether men of a different race are situated between the sea
and the most eastern of the Germans . . .^

In Strabo we find a distinct trace of that edifying moral-
izing in contrasting barbarians with Romans which Tacitus
was to further, which early Christian writers were to em-
phasize as a branch of their own apologetics and as an
incentive to the growth of a spiritual life, and which finally
was to stir modern German patriotism and English pride
to the very point of Charles Kingsley's highly idealized
parallel between Roman and Teuton. Strabo quotes Aes-
chylus on the Scythians " governed by good laws and feed-
ing on cheese of mares' milk '' and adds :

And this is still the opinion entertained of them by the Greeks ;
for we esteem them the most sincere, the least deceitful of any
people, and much more frugal and self -relying than ourselves.
And yet the manner of life customary among us has spread
almost everywhere and brought about a change for the worst,
effeminacy, luxury and over-great refinement, inducing ex-
tortion in ten thousand different ways ; and doubtless much
of this corruption has penetrated even into the countries of the
nomads as well as those of the other barbarians; for having
* vii, 2, I. 2 vij, 2, 4.

44 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [450

once learned to navigate the sea, they have become depraved,
committing piracy and murdering strangers; and holding in-
tercourse with many different nations, they have imitated both
their extravagance and their dishonest traffic, which may
indeed appear to promote civility of manners, but do doubtless
corrupt the morals and lead to dissimulation in place of the
genuine sincerity we have before noticed.^

Pomponius Mela, a native of Spain, wrote about the
time of Caligula or Claudius a very concise Latin work on
geography,^ perhaps an epitome of larger works then in
existence. It is clear, simple and forceful, but the author
gives no sign of having visited Germany himself, and his
unquestioning repetition of earlier stories makes his book
less important than Strabo^s.

Pliny, whose lost history of the Germanic wars is men-
tioned above, has left a few statements about the Germans
in his curious encyclopedic work, the Natural History.*
He frankly admits that he cannot tell the dimensions of the
respective territories of the German tribes, " so immensely
do the authorities differ." He distinguishes five races in
Germany: the Vandals, including the Burgundians and
Goths ; the Ingaevones, including the Cimbri, Teutones and
Chauki ; the Istaevones, including here likewise the trouble-
some Cimbri ; the Hermiones, including the Suevi ; and the

^ vii, 3, 7.

2 De situ orbis libri tres. The best edition is by C. Frick (Leipzig,
1880).

» The Natural History in thirty-seven books was dedicated to Titus
and published in A. D. 77, two years before Pliny lost his life in the
eruption of Vesuvius. The introduction states that it was compiled
from twenty thousand notices extracted from over two thousand
writings. The section on the Germans is in bk. iv, ch. 28. The
Teubner edition is by V. Rose (Leipzig, 1875). There in an English
translation of the entire work by J. Bostock and H. J. Riley in 6 vols,
in the Bohn Qassical Library.

45 1 ] HISTORIANS AND GEOGRAPHERS 45

Peucini who are also called Bastarnae. It is needless to
remark that this distinction is not confirmed by later writers.
Pliny makes no effort to describe the customs of the Ger-
mans or to go into their history.

The geographers — Strabo, Pomponius Mela, and Pliny
— ^are supplemented by the later work of Ptolemy ^ and the
Table of Peutinger,^ which afford us names of peoples and
places and some explanatory notes.

1 Ptolemy, the famous Greek mathematician, astronomer and geog-
rapher, lived at Alexandria in the second century A. D. One of our
chief sources for ancient geography is his Teuypa<piKT} 'T^vyjymc, books
ii-vii of which contain names of places in the maps described, ar-
ranged according to degrees and their subdivisions. It has been edited
by C. Miiller (Paris, 1883). The Teubner edition of Ptolemy's works
is by J. L. Heiberg, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1898, 1907).

2 The Peutinger map, which is now in Vienna, was painted in 1265
from an original map of about the middle of the third century. It
consists of twelve broad strips of parchment on which are repre-
sented the parts of the world known to the Romans, except Spain
and most of Britain, which are lost. An excellent fac-simile has been
published by O. Maier (Ravensburg, 1888), and the map appears on a
gmall scale in J. G. J. Perthes, Atlas Antiquus (Gotha, 1893).

CHAPTER V

Tacitus

A PROMINENT figure in the charming- literary circle of
the Younger Pliny and Suetonius was Tacitus. Little is
known of this writer who has played so unique a role in
the historiography of the early Germans. He was slightly
older than the Younger Pliny, and received various favors
from Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, and in the reign of
Nerva (A. D. 97) was appointed consul suffectus. He ap-
pears to have survived Trajan, who died in A. D. 117. His
historical writings,^ on which he worked so indefatigably
and for which he has been so highly esteemed in modern
times, include a biography of his father-in-law Agricola,
the Roman general in Britain; the Historiae, or contem-
porary narrative, a detailed account of Roman history from
the second consulship of Galba (68) to the death of Dom-
itian (96), of which we have only the first four books in
complete form, comprehending the events of barely one
year, and part of the fifth book treating of the beginning
of the siege of Jerusalem by Titus and the war of Civilis in
Germany; and the Annales, based on other authorities, and
covering in 16 books the period from the death of Augustus
(14) to the death of Nero (68). Considerable portions of
the Annales are lost, notably the narrative of Caligula's
reign, of the first fifteen years of Claudius and of the last

1 The best English translation of Tacitus is that of Church & Brod-
ribb (London, 1876-77). See C. Baier, Tacitus und Plutarch (Frank-
furt, 1893).

46 [452

453] TACITUS 47

two of Nero. The Annales and Historiae are of notable
importance in dealing- with the barbarian wars of the first
century along the Rhine and Danube, but social conditions
of the people receive far less attention than the chief actors,
emperors or generals, and there is no evidence that Tacitus
himself visited those regions. The style of Tacitus often
interferes with his historical accuracy : like Sallust, his dis-
play of conscious rhetoric occasionally produces obscurity;
he is often intensely epigrammatic; his sketches, usually
rapid and brief, become sometimes too minute when he
works up a dramatic situation. Then too it must be remem-
bered that the political convictions of Tacitus colored his
writings. He was an ardent supporter of the senatorial
and aristocratic reaction against the tendency of the times
to increase the personal power of the prince. His thor-
oughly pessimistic view of the condition of Roman society
led him into undoubted exaggeration. At any rate, his
testimony and opinions in the matter are not confirmed by
his genial friend and contemporary, the Younger Pliny,^
who writes quite pleasantly and hopefully of imperial con-
ditions.

Of greater importance for our purposes than the Annales
and Historiae of Tacitus in his little treatise on the customs
and peoples of Germany, commonly called the Ger mania. '^
If we knew more about Tacitus, we might know how ser-
iously to take this twenty-five-page article. In our ignor-

1 The Letters of the Younger Pliny are translated into English by
J. B. Firth, 2 vols. (London, 1900).

2 An excellent edition is that of H. Furneaux (Oxford, 1894). There
is an especially good English translation in the Translations and Re-
prints of the University of Pennsylvania, vol. vi, number 3, and a fairly
literal translation in the Bohn Classical Library. An excellent recent
translation of the Germania and the Agricola is by W. H. Fyfe (Ox-
ford, 1908).

48 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [454

ance, we have been prone to take it very seriously. It pur-
ports to describe the geography of Germany, the common
religious, social and political customs of the land, and then
the respective characteristics of the foremost tribes. Its very
uniqueness, its tickling of national vanity through praise
of German virtues,^ the mystery surrounding its composi-
tion, the problem of its relative authority, and the im-
possibility of verifying or controlling many of its state-
ments have conspired to exalt it as the synoptical gospel of
German politics and of German economics.

The geography of the Ger mania is as vague and unsatis-
factory as that of Strabo and of Pliny, but the descrip-
tion is more detailed in other respects. The country is rude
and unattractive in appearance with an inclement atmos-
phere. The inhabitants are sprung from the soil and are
divided into three races: the Ingaevones, those bordering
on the ocean; the Herminones, those inhabiting the central
parts ; and the rest, the Istaevones.

I myself subscribe to the opinion of those who hold that the
German tribes hav^ never been contaminated by intermarriage
with other nations, but have remained peculiar and unmixed
and wholly unlike other people. Hence the bodily type is the
same among them all notwithstanding the extent of their num-
bers : piercing blue eyes, reddish hair, and gigantic stature, fit
only for sudden exertion, impatient of labor and toil, and
altogether incapable of sustaining heat or thirst.

The Germans celebrate their past in barbarous verse
and also sing to stimulate each other to deeds of heroism.
Their kings and generals are elective; the power of the
former is not absolute, and the latter command more by

1 Horace had already represented Scythians and Getae in an ideal
light in order to bring into relief the corruption of Rome (carm. 3,
24, 9).

455] TACITUS 49

force of example than from any other kind of authority,
on minor concerns of state only their chiefs and princes
consult together, but those of greater importance the whole
nation determine, and this great council decides judicial
matters, fines being paid to the king or to the relatives of
the injured party. In battle they put more dependence on
infantry than on cavalry, and their columns are not formed
by chance but of families, and their women often accom-
pany and incite them. The German youth is equipped with
arms as the toga of manhood and attaches himself to some
general. The Germans pass the intervals of peace more
in sloth than in the chase; the women and the old men do
the work. There are no cities, but the tribesmen live sep-
arated and in various places, as a spring or a meadow or
a grove strikes their fancy. They lay out their settlements
not in connected or closely-joined houses, but everyone sur-
rounds his rude hut with an open space, either as a pro-
tection against fire or because of ignorance of the art of
building. Their land is owned in common and parceled
out and worked in turn. Cattle constitute the chief wealth
of the Germans, gold and silver not being esteemed more
than clay, and iron is not plentiful with them. A long
flowing cloak and skins of wild beasts constitute the only
clothing. The matrimonial bond is extremely severe and
polygamy is seldom practiced. They hate slavery, especially
for their women, and the Romans have been more success-
ful in pacifying the Germans by taking women hostages
than men. The Germans are very hospitable but are ad-
dicted to the evils of drunkenness ^ and gambling. In re-
ligion,^ they worship Mercury most, but also Hercules and

1 Appian (Civil Wars, ii, 64) tells us that the Germans in Caesar's
army were especially ridiculous under the influence of liquor and im-
periled his chances against Pompey.

2 In flat contradiction to Caesar. Cf. supra, p. 31.

50 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [456

Mars, to whom they consecrate woods and groves. Some
of the Suevi also perform sacred rites to Isis. The Ger-
mans are superstitious and carefully observe omens and
lots. Their funeral rites are not so grand as those of the
Romans, it being the province of women, they think, to weep
over their friends but of men to remember them.

Whence did Tacitus obtain this information ? We gather
from his constant use of hearsay and from his few admis-
sions of ignorance that he never visited Germany or knew
many Germans at Rome. Tacitus was obviously a scholar
and an important figure in the cultured circle of his time.
He was interested in history and likewise in current poli-
tics. It was natural that he, an authority on the Germanic
wars, should be appealed to by his friends to write an essay
on the Germans. It was natural, likewise, that the essay
should, in the main, take the form of an appreciation.
Quite likely, he had talked with Romans who had ac-
companied the armies into Germany and read little articles
and letters about the people; he had very likely seen Ger-
mans on the street and heard them talk in their outlandish
tongue. It is fair to suppose that he knew as much
about Germany as an American historian of the Spanish-
American war who had never visited Manila would
know about the Philippines. If he were painstaking
and conscientious and had no political axe to grind,
he might be able to write as authoritatively on the
conditions of the Germans and the nice distinctions between
tribes as the American could do in describing the social,
political and religious customs of the archipelago and in
distinguishing the various peoples on the island of Luzon.
And if the work of the American historian of the Spanish-
American War should alone of all present accounts sur-
vive two thousand years hence, our descendants would
doubtless pin the same pathetic blind faith to each and

457] TACITUS 51

every statement therein contained as we have attached to
the slender essay of Tacitus.

We have in fact been painfully victimized by many critics
of the Ger mania in the nineteenth century. These scholars
have used it as a text for the construction of bulky com-
mentaries until they have credited to the primitive Ger-
mans a curious Utopian government and a marvellous
agrarian socialism. The opinion almost universally ac-
cepted before Fustel de Coulanges and Seebohm was based
on the interpretations of the Germans, Von Maurer and
Waitz, and of the Englishmen, Maine and Stubbs,^ and
was in effect that the German barbarians, when they came
into the Roman empire, comprised a stalwart host of blue-
eyed, yellow-haired free men, who governed themselves by
popular national councils, administered justice by popular
local assemblies, and lived together in little village groups
of independent yeomen. It was, indeed, recognized that
there were gradations of rank and that some individuals
were unfortunate enough to be slaves, but these and simi-
lar facts were not supposed to affect the general outline of
the picture; and even those writers who expressed them-
selves most guardedly as to this " primitive Teutonic polity "
proceeded by the subsequent course of their narrative to
assume it as their starting point. And practically the whole
theory was formulated from this one little text of Tacitus.
The Germania created the " primitive Teutonic polity " ;

1 The " Germanist " contention is stated by Von Maurer, Einleitung
sur Geschichte der Mark-, Hof-, Dorf-, und Stadt-Verfassung (1854) ;
G. Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte (1844) ; Sir Henry Maine,
Village Communities in East and West (1871) ; W. Stubbs, Constitu-
tional History of England, vol. i (1873). The opposing, or "Roman-
ist," contention is stated by Fustel de Coulanges, Histoire des Institu-
tions politiques de I'ancienne France (1875-1892); Seebohm, English
Village Communities (1883); Ashley, Surveys historic and economic
(1891).

52 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [458

the devotees of the " primitive Teutonic polity " adored and
magnified the Germania. Thus much depended on the
reliable information, the unbiased intent and the truth-
fulness of Tacitus. Of the extent to which he possessed
these qualifications, no final positive estimate can be made.
After Tacitus there is nothing on the social order or the
institutions of the Germans except a few casual remarks
and the much later barbarian codes. On these matters,
therefore, we are almost wholly dependent on Caesar,
Strabo, and Tacitus; and very few German characteristics
stand out certainly, clearly, and uncontradicted by any of
the three. It is agreed that the Germans were a primitive
race, large of stature and strong, fond of out-door life and
license; the men loved perils and piracy, warfare and the
chase; the women were held in high repute and did most
of the work; towns and cities were seemingly regarded
with aversion; work was mainly agricultural, cattle con-
stituting the chief wealth, and the people making common
use of the fields and woods surrounding them; Germanic
political organization was tribal and each head of a family
had absolute power over his household; the king or chief-
tain of the tribe was usually chosen from among the nobles,
but his power was limited, and government seems to have
been aristocratic rather than monarchical; the Germans
were hospitable but addicted to laziness, gambling and in-
temperance. These points of agreement in the sources are
small and unsatisfactory, and admit of wide differences of
interpretation. Any more definite or detailed statement,
moreover, is sure to find contradiction by ancients and
create learned dissension among moderns.^ The same

iThus the Gefolge, which has been generally received as an institu-
tion peculiarly Germanic and has supplied a topic for endless discussion,
is treated by Tacitus more specifically than by the earlier writers. This
fact has led even the cautious Fustel de Coulanges into making elab-

459] TACirus 53

general statements could with propriety be applied to the
customs of almost any primitive people, even the early
Greeks or Romans. We do know from the sources at hand
that the customs of the early Germans were more primitive
and less developed than those of the contemporary subjects
of the empire.

In reading Caesar or Tacitus, it should be remembered
that the Germans they knew may have been quite different
from the Germans with Clovis or Theodoric. The customs
of the early Germans could not well be stereotyped or uni-
form. Various contemporary tribes probably differed con-
siderably in habits and mode of life ; and it is beyond doubt
that during the four centuries which elapsed from Caesar's
Suevic campaign to the migrations of the Visigoths, inter-
necine strife, contact with Roman civilization, and natural
development altered the German customs, yet never to such
a degree that during that time the German in Germany at-
tained to anywhere near the civilization of the Roman
even in Gaul. The most obvious feature of the Germanic
invasions is the conflict between a higher and a lower order
of development and civilization.

orate speculations on the development of the Gefolge among the Ger-
mans between the time of Caesar and that of Tacitus, which may or
may not have been the case.

CHAPTER VI

Narrative Sources of the Second, Third and Fourth

Centuries

The historians of the second, third, and fourth centuries,
Dio Cassius, Herodian, the writers of the so-called Augus-
tan Histories, Eutropius, Aurelius Victor and Ammianus
Marcellinus, discuss, in some cases at considerable length,
various campaigns against German armies and marauders
along the Danube and the Rhine; they occasionally and in-
cidentally mention Germans within the empire and acquaint
us indirectly with the wholesale peaceful immigration of
barbarians into Roman territory; they give but few hints
of German customs.

Dio Cassius^ was born about 155 at Nicaea in Bithynia.
His father was a Roman senator and had been governor
of Dalmatia and Cilicia, and he himself entered public ser-
vice at Rome in 180 and thenceforth steadily advanced until
his retirement in 229. He was made senator under Com-
modus, prefect of Pergamum and Smyrna under Macrinus,
and governor in turn of Africa, Dalmatia and Upper Pan-
nonia under Alexander Severus. His history ^ in eighty

1 Sometimes written Cassius Dio. The historian belonged to the
gens Cassia (his father was Cassius Apronianus) and he took Dio as
cognomen from his maternal grandfather, Dio Chrysostom.

2 The best text of Dio Cassius is edited by U. P. Boissevain, 3 vols.
(Berlin, 1895-1901). The text of L. Dindorf, revised by J. Melber,
2 vols. (Leipzig, 1890- 1894) is much used and good. There is an ad-
mirable English translation by H. B. Foster (Troy, N. Y., 1905-1906).
On Dio Cassius, Herodian, and contemporaries, see A. Schafer, Quel-
lenkunde d. gr.-rdm. Gesch. (Leipzig, 1885).

54 I460

46l ] NARRATIVE SOURCES OF EARLY CENTURIES 55

books, covering Roman affairs from the arrival of Aeneas
in Italy to his own day, was undertaken on the suggestion
of Septimius Severus and completed after the author's re-
tirement in 229. One of the extant fragments ^ suggests
its scope and some of its characteristics:

I am anxious to write a history of everything worth remem-
bering which the Romans have done whether at peace or in
war, so as to omit nothing essential of these matters or of
others. . . . But I have been forced to make selections in
my history. Do not entertain suspicions, nevertheless, as in
the case of certain other writers, regarding the truth of my
history merely because I have used elaborate diction wherever
the subject matter permitted, for I have been anxious to be
equally perfect in both respects, so far as in me lies. I will
begin at the point where I have obtained the clearest accounts
of what is reported to have taken place in this land which we
inhabit.

The work presented only a summary of events to the time
of Julius Caesar, but then expanded, especially from the
time of Commodus. Books thirty-six to sixty, covering
the period from 68 B. C. to A. D. 60, survive in complete
form, except for a gap in book fifty-five. The earlier books
were largely used by Zonaras, a Greek monk of the twelfth
century, whose epitome we possess, and there are also
fragments in the compilations made for Constantine VII
in the tenth century.^ Of the last twenty books we have only
fragments and the meager abridgment which Xiphilinus,
a monk of the eleventh century, prepared at the order of
Michael VII, Parapinaces. Dio Cassius had a wide knowl-

iprag. i.

^ Excerpta de znrtutibus et vitiis, and the Excerpta de legationibus.
See infra, p. 99.

56 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [462

edge of contemporary events and spoke with authority. He
wrote in Greek and expressed himself clearly and, so far as
we can judge, accurately in the main. His references to
the barbarians are not as numerous as we might anticipate ;
he subordinated other events to the relations of the emperor
with the senate.

Of the life of Herodian, we know practically nothing.
He says that he was a contemporary of the events he
narrates in the eight small books written in Greek and
covering the period from the death of Marcus Aurelius to
the reign of Gordian HI (180-238).^ Herodian's re-
marks are soporific and his work is not highly esteemed.
His importance rests in the conviction that he was an honest-
intentioned contemporary.

The Augustan Histories ^ seem to have been a com-
pilation from a number of different and originally independ-
ent histories written in the reigns of Diocletian and Con-
stantine. They comprise imperial biographies from Hadrian
to Numerianus (117-284), and supply many details not
mentioned elsewhere. The authorship of some of the his-
tories has been disputed, but Mr. Bury ^ gives the follow-
ing convenient tabulated view of the contributions now
generally ascribed to the various biographers :

1 Edited by L. Mendelssohn (Leipzig, 1883). See J. Kreutzer's dis-
sertation, De Herodiano rerum Romanorum scriptore (Bonn, 1881).

2 Augustae Historiae Script ores. The best text is that of H. Peter,
2 vols. (Leipzig, 1884). The only English translation is by J. Bernard
(London, 1740).

3 See his edition of Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
Appendix, vol. i, pp. 445-7. Some critics, including O. Seeck, have as-
signed the collection to the fifth century, but the greater number agree
with Mr. Bury. Mommsen pointed out that the original edition must
have been revised and added to after the time of Diocletian and Con-
stantine.

463]

NARRATIVE SOURCES OF EARLY CENTURIES

57

r Hadrian

. I T

Aelius Verus ....

.11

ius

Didius Julianus . . .

.IX

Date:

Spartianus .

Severus

.X

before May, 305.

Pescennius Niger . .

. XI

. Caracallus

. XIII J

[cacius

1

1 Date:

Gallicanus . .

Avidius Cassius . . .

. VI / before May, 305.

Julius

Capitolinus.

Aelius

Lampridius

Trebellius Pollio -

Uncertain

r Antoninus Pius .... Ill
Marcus Antoninus ... IV

Verus V

Pertinax VIII

Clodius Albinus . . . .XII

Maximini duo XIX

Gordiani tres XX

Maximus et Balbinus. .XXI

Commodus VII

Diadumenus XVI

Heliogabalus XVII

Alexander Severus . . . XVIII
Valeriani duo . . . . XXII

Gallieni duo XXIII

Tyranni triginta . . • XXIV

Claudius XXV

XXVI

to
XXX
XIV
XV

Flavius Vopiscus . Aurelian to Carinus

f XXVI ^

.] to [

I XXX f

{

Date : reign of
Constantine.

Date : reign of
Constantine.

Date:
before May, 305,

Date: after May,
305, and begun
before July, 306.

Geta

Opilius Macrinus

The principal source * for the earlier lives was Marius
Maximus (cca. 170-230), who had continued the work of
Suetonius without pretension to higher criticism. That
the writers likewise had access to the imperial archives we

1 It has been claimed by certain recent critics that the writers of
the Augustan Histories drew considerably from an anonymous, hypo-
thetical biographer who flourished in the age of the Severi. See E.
Kornemann, Kaiser Hadrian und der letzte grosse Historiker von
Rom (Leipzig, 1905), and O. T. Schulz, Das Kaiserhaus der Antonine
und der letzte Historiker Roms (Leipzig, 1907).

58 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [464

gather from the introduction to the life of Aurelian by
Vopiscus :

The rites had been celebrated with great rejoicing, which, we
know, ought to accompany every festival, when the prefect of
the city, Junius Tiberianus, an eminent gentleman, whom I
mention with great respect, had me get into his state litter. Then,
while his mind rested from cases and public business, he chatted
with me from the palace as far as the Valerian gardens, and the
conversation turned on the life of the princes. When we came
to the Temple of the Sun, dedicated by Aurelian, whence he
himself was descended, he asked me who had written that
emperor's life. " I have never read one in Latin," I repHed,
" but I have read several in Greek." Whereat the good man
expressed his regret in these words: "Thus Thersites, Sinon
and other like prodigies of antiquity we know perfectly and
posterity will also know; but the deified Aurelian, a most
famous prince, a most austere emperor, by whom the whole
world has been restored to the Roman name, posterity will not
know ! Heaven avert such stupidity ! If I mistake not, how-
ever, we have the written diary of this man and also the
authentic notes on his wars: I wish you would take them,
arrange them in order and add details of his life. They are in
the official annals which have to be recorded every day and
which you will be able to study carefully. I shall also put at
your disposal the annals of the Ulpian library. Thus you can
compose a life of Aurelian, which I wish you would do." I as-
sented. I received Greek books and surrounded myself with
all necessary documents. From these sources whatever was
worthy of relation I have brought together in one little book.
Please accept my present, and if you are not satisfied, read the
original Greeks and order the official manuscripts which the
Ulpian library will send you whenever you desire.

Would that we might now read the original Greeks and re-
ceive those manuscripts from the Ulpian library! The
Augustan Histories are full of personal anecdotes and trivial

465] NARRATIVE SOURCES OF EARLY CENTURIES 59

details/ but are seldom interesting and never profound.
They are important because they are almost the only con-
siderable source for a part of the period they cover. The
very paucity of extant contemporary accounts makes it im-
possible to determine their accuracy. It has been estab-
lished with tolerable certainty ^ that all the original docu-
ments inserted by Trebellius Pollio, whether letters,
speeches or laws, are forgeries.

Eutropius, who served in the expedition of Julian against
the Parthians, wrote, among other works, a Latin abridg-
ment in ten books of Roman history from the foundation
of the city to the death of Jovian in 364.' It is a brief,
bald outline with a few details relating to third and fourth
century history which are not to be found in other extant
works.

Aurelius Victor flourished in the middle of the fourth
century, was governor of Pannonia under Julian and city
prefect under Theodosius the Great, and prepared a series
of short biographies of emperors from Augustus to Con-
stantius.* Three other little treatises are sometimes as-
cribed to Aurelius Victor, but apparently without founda-
tion : a legendary account of the beginnings of the Roman
people before Romulus; lives of illustrious persons from
Romulus and Remus to Cleopatra; and an epitome of im-
perial biographies from Augustus to Theodosius. The first
mentioned work is founded on Suetonius and his continu-
ators and is very slender.

1 The authors frequently mention as a source for the pettiest details,
especially of the less known emperors, the work of Aelius Junius
Cordus.

2 See A. Gemoll, Die Scriptores Historiae Augustae (Leipzig, 1886).

* The best edition is that of H. Droysen in the Monumenta Ger-
maniae historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, vol. ii (Berlin, 1879). There
is an English translation by J. S. Watson in the Bohn Classical Library.

* Edited by F. Pichlmayr (Munich, 1892).

6o SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [466

By far the best and most important historical contribu-
tion of the period is the Latin work of Ammianus Marcel-
linus. The work tells all we know about the author: he
was a native of Antioch and a soldier, a member of the
imperial body-guard, served under JuHan against the Par-
thians, and composed his history at Rome toward the end
of the fourth century. The history ^ is divided into thirty-
one books and originally began with the accession of Nerva
(A. D. 96), where Tacitus and. Suetonius end, and was
continued to the death of Valens (378), a period of 282
years. The first thirteen books, however, are lost, so that
the extant work embraces only twenty-five years prior to the
death of Valens.

Ammianus was a soldier first and foremost and was chiefly
concerned with deeds of war. Nearly all his statements
about military matters appear to be founded on his own ob-
servations or upon information derived from trustworthy
eye-witnesses, and he is the best guide to the Germanic cam-
paigns of Constantius II, Julian, Valentinian, Gratian and
Valens. The following extract may illustrate the grasp of
Ammianus on his subject and his clarity and sanity of de-
scription. It relates to the efforts of Constantius to repress
the Sarmatians and Quadi : ^

While the emperor was passing the winter quietly at Sirmium,*
he received frequent and grave tidings that the Sarmatians
and the Quadi, two tribes contiguous to each other, and similar
in manners and mode of warfare, were conjointly raiding Pan-
nonia and the second Moesia, in straggling detachments.

1 The Teubner text of Ammianus is edited by V. Gardthausen
(Leipzig, 1874). There is an English translation in the Bohn Classical
Library by C D. Yonge (London, 1862).

2 A. D. 358. Ammianus, xvii, 12.

3 In Lower Pannonia. Modern Widdin?

467] NARRATIVE SOURCES OF EARLY CENTURIES 61

These tribes are more suited to robbery than to regular
war; they carry long spears, and wear breastplates made of
scraped and polished horn, tucked into linen jackets, so that
the layers of horn are like the feathers of a bird. They ride
over vast spaces whether in pursuit or in retreat, their horses
being swift and manageable; and they take with them one or
sometimes two spare chargers apiece, in order that the change
may keep up the strength of the beasts and their vigor be
preserved by alternations of rest.

The Sarmatians were pronounced independent of any other
power, as having been always vassals of the Romans ; and they
willingly embraced the proposal of giving hostages as a pledge
of the maintenance of peace. . . . There were formerly
natives of this kingdom, of noble birth and powerful, but a
secret conspiracy armed their slaves against them; and as
among barbarians all right consists in might, they, being equal
to their masters in ferocity, and superior in-number, completely
overcame them. The nobles losing all their prudence in their
fear, fled to the Victohali [a tribe of Goths], afar off, thinking
it better in the choice of evils to become subject to their pro-
tectors than slaves to their own servants. But after they had
obtained pardon from us, and been received as faithful allies,
they sorrowfully besought our direct protection. Moved by
the undeserved hardships of their lot, the emperor, in the
presence of the army, addressed them assembled before him
with kind words and commanded them to own no masters save
himself and the Roman generals. And that the restoration of
their liberty might carry with it additional dignity, he made
Zizais their king, a man, as the event proved, deserving the
rewards of eminent fortune and faithful. After these glorious
deeds no one was allowed to depart till all our prisoners had
returned, as we had before insisted ...

Ammianus, in the midst of his military chronicle, intro-
duces from time to time highly interesting and valuable
digressions. Such are his notices of the institutions and
customs of the Scythians and Sarmatians (XVII, 12), of

62 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [468

the Huns and Alani (XXXI, 2), and his geographical dis-
cussions upon Gaul (XV, 9), Pontus(XXII, 8) and Thrace
(XXVII, 4). His description of the Alani is as follows :

They are a people who, though widely separated, wander like
nomads over enormous districts, and who, united in the course
of time under one name, are collectively called Alani. . . .
They have no huts, and never use the plough, but live on
meat and plenty of milk, and mounted on wagons, which are
covered with curved-bark awnings, they drive through bound-
less deserts. And when they come to pasture-land, they pitch
their wagons in a circle, and live like a herd of beasts, eating
up all the forage — carrying their cities, as it were, on wagons.
In them the husbands sleep with their wives — in them their
children are born and reared ; they are in short their perpetual
habitation, and wherever they go, that place they look upon as
their true home. They feed their flocks and herds as they
go ; and they are especially careful of their horses. The fields
there are always green, and are interspersed with patches of
fruit trees, so that, wherever they go, there is no dearth of
food or fodder. This is caused by the moisture of the soil
and the numerous rivers which flow through these districts.
All their old people, and especially all the weaker sex, keep
close to the wagons, and occupy themselves with light work.
But the young men, who from earliest childhood are trained
to the use of horses, think it beneath them to walk. They are
also all trained by varied discipline to become skilful warriors.
And this is the reason why the Persians, who were originally
of Scythian extraction, are very skilful in war.

Nearly all the Alani are tall and handsome; their hair is
somewhat yellow, their eyes are terribly fierce; the lightness
of their armor renders them quick; and they are in every
respect almost equal to the Huns, being even more civilized in
their food and manners. They plunder and hunt as far as the
Sea of Azov and the Cimmerian Bosphorus, ravaging also
Armenia and Media. And as ease is a delightful thing to men
of a quiet and placid disposition, so danger and war are a

469] NARRATIVE SOURCES OF EARLY CENTURIES 63

pleasure to the Alani, and that man among them is judged
happy who has lost his life in battle. For those who grow old,
or who go out of the world by accidental death, they pursue
with bitter reproaches as degenerate and cowardly. Nor is
there anything of which they boast with more pride than of
having killed a man: and as glorious spoils they esteem the
scalps which they have torn from the heads of the slain, and
with which they adorn their war-horses. Nor is there any
temple or shrine seen in their country, nor even any cabin
thatched with straw, but a naked sword is plunged into the
ground with barbaric ceremonies, and that they worship with
great respect, as Mars, the presiding deity of the regions over
which they wander. They foretell the future in a remarkable
manner ; for collecting a number of straight twigs of osier, and
separating them with certain secret incantations at an ap-
pointed time, they learn clearly what is about to happen. They
have no idea of slavery, inasmuch as they themselves are all
born of noble families ; and the " judges " they even now
elect are men of proved experience in war . . .^

Ammianus appears to have no particular bias. Though
probably a pagan, he never speaks disrespectfully of Chris-
tianity; though a warm admirer of Julian, he is frank in
criticizing the shortcomings of that prince ; ^ though a Latin
writer, he admires the Greeks; and though a soldier in the
east, he writes well of the expeditions in the west. He
is interested, though not always judiciously, in geological
speculations upon earthquakes, in astronomical inquiries
into eclipses and comets, in zoological theories on the de-
struction of lions by mosquitos, in medical researches into
the origin of epidemics. Above all, Ammianus has a liberal
share of common sense.

^ xxxi, 2, 17-25-

2 " His forbidding masters of rhetoric and grammar to instruct
Christians was a cruel action and one deserving to be buried in ever-
lasting silence." — xxii, 10.

CHAPTER VII

Relations of the Germans to the Empire from Julius
Caesar to Theodosius the Great

The sources so far treated tell a very imperfect story of
the Germans and their contact with the empire during four
centuries. In some cases, the deficiencies of the story can
be supplied by later sources, — always a dangerous practice.
A rapid survey in this chapter of the relations between the
Romans and their northern neighbors from the time of
Julius Caesar to the close of the history of Ammianus Mar-
cellinus may suffice to give some idea of how a great
variety of sources ^ have to be patched together in order to
admit of anything like a connected narrative.

Caesar himself, as we have seen, made two short expedi-
tions across the Rhine, and it is interesting to note that he
used Germans in some of the hardest fights of the Gallic
war - as well as at Pharsalus, Alexandria and Philippi.^
Ravages along the Rhine occurred in 30 or 29 B. C* and
Augustus undertook not only to safeguard the Rhine bound-
ary but to erect a Roman province on the other side. His
generals, Agrippa, Lollius Paulinus, Drusus, and Tiberius,^
contended with varying success against the Germans, but

1 Some of the sources mentioned in the foot-notes of this chapter
are treated in following chapters.

2 Commentaries on the Gallic War, vii, 67, 70, 80.

8 Appian, ii, 64. * Dio Cassius, li, 21.

^ The principal sources for these campaigns are Dio Cassius, Tacitus,
Velleius Paterculus and Florus.

64 [470

471] RELATIONS OF GERMANS TO THE EMPIRE 65

the defeat of Varus by the Roman-educated Arminius broke
down the headship of Augustus in Germany. The efforts
of Augustus, however, were far from fruitless, for two
Roman provinces, the Upper and Lower Germany, wer-e
formed on the right bank of the Rhine, and there arose im-
portant trading towns.

Under Tiberius, the defeat of Varus was completely
avenged by Germanicus, but thenceforth the emperor aimed
merely to keep the Germans at home in peace and to prevent
hostile incursions into the empire. During the reigns of
Claudius and Nero, we read of constant unrest, of broils
among the Germans, and of appeals for grants of land
within the empire. Germans took an active part in the
civil wars which followed the death of Nero. Vitellius had
German auxiliaries in his army,^ and Vespasian took into
his service two kings of the Suevi " whose old obedience to
Rome he knew." ^ The Suevi, in fact, fought in the first
ranks at the battle of Cremona.^ At the same time, the
Batavian Civilis caused a defection of eight cohorts, brought
a German army into Gaul, and occupied Trier and Langres,
but was finally glad to return to the islands in the Rhine as
an ally of the commonwealth.*

Even in this earlier period of the principate we find Ger-
man settlements within the empire and German troops
serving beside the legions. Tiberius from one of his ex-
peditions led back forty thousand Germans, to whom he
" assigned lands to cultivate on the left bank of the Rhine." ''
Tacitus mentions the Batavians and Mattiaci who entered
the empire as subjects.® There were also German cohorts

1 Tacitus, History, i, 61. 2 /^f^?.. Hi, 5. ^ Jijid^ {{{^ 21.

* The account of this enterprise fills a great part of the fourth and
fifth books of the History of Tacitus.

5 Suetonius, Tiberius, 9. ^ Tacitus, Germania, 29.

66 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [472

in Italy and even at Rome. There were some in the im-
perial guards bivouacked in the palace who were always
faithful.^

A wall against the Germans had been built by Drusus
along the Rhine. Domitian went further and planned to
join the Rhine with the Danube. This wall Trajan con-
tinued and Hadrian seems to have completed. From
Domitian until Marcus Aurelius the Germans were fairly
quiet, although we find immigrations and ravages of
Chauki in Belgium, Chatti in Gaul, and Marcomanni
crossing the Rhine, to the last of whom Trajan granted
lands in Dacia.^

Pressure against the Roman frontiers was renewed to-
wards the middle of the second century. Marcus Aurelius
struggled twenty j^ears against the barbarians. Many peo-
ples " pressed by other barbarians, asked to be received into
the empire," ^ and marched to Aquileia, but they retreated
on the approach of a Roman army, and, in order to obtain
peace, massacred such of their chieftains as were hostile to
the empire. The Quadi promised to submit the election of

1 Tacitus, Annals, i, 24; xiii, 18; xv, 58; Suetonius, Augustus, 49,
Caligula, 55, Nero, 34, Galba, 12; Dio Cassius, Ivi, 23; Herodian, iv,
13. 6; Julius Capitolinus, Maximus and Balhinus, 14.

2 Trajan made several expeditions across the Danube and erected
the province of Dacia north of that river. Trajan's Dacia must be
distinguished from " Dacia ripensis " south of the Danube, a province
formed at a much later date. H. Schiller emphasizes the importance
of the Dacian War in transferring the military center of the empire
from the Rhine to the Danube (H. Schiller, Geschichte der romischen
Kaizerseii, vol. i, p. 554). Trajan wrote a vfork on his expeditions,
which unfortunately is' lost, and our only contemporary sources are
monumental, such as the column of Trajan, the scenes on which have
been published in fine photographic reproductions by G. Arosa & C.
E. L. W. Froehner (Paris, 1872-74).

3 Julius Capitolinus, Marcus, 14, 17, 22, 72; Dio Cassius, Ixxi, 11, I9»

473] RELATIONS OF GERMANS TO THE EMPIRE 6/

their king to the emperor's confirmation. An extensive
struggle against the Germans, generally called the Mar-
comannic War, lasted with short intervals of peace from 167
until the accession of Commodus in 180/ Many peoples
were engaged: Marcomanni, Quadi, Narisci, Victohali,
Hermunduri, Buri, Vandals and the Sarmatian lazyges.
Marcus Aurelius was generally successful and settled large
numbers of conquered barbarians within the limits of
the empire.^ Of eight thousand lazyges whom he enrolled
in his army, he sent a large part to Britain.^ He admitted
the Astinges to Roman soil with the title of subjects on
condition that they should always fight the enemies of
Rome.* He received the title of Germanicus, for the Ro-
mans applied " the name Germans to all those who dwell in
the northern regions." ^ Marcus Aurelius habitually em-
ployed German mercenaries,^ and Commodus followed his
example.^ It was later a German in the imperial body-
guard who struck the first blow at Pertinax.®

During the third century, the barbarian inroads grew
both in frequency and in damage inflicted. The Germans
moved into the empire in increasing numbers. From the
time of Commodus to that of Diocletian, we find in the west
all the territory north of the Rhine abandoned by the

1 On the war, see Julius Capitolinus, Marcus; Dio Cassius, Ixxi, 3,
5, 7, 11-21, 2Z) Ammianus, xxxi, 5.

2 They were settled mainly as coloni, for an admirable account of
which, see B. Heisterbergk, Die Entstehung des Kolonats (Leipzig,
1876).

3 Dio Cassius, Ixxi, 11, 16. * Dio Cassius, Ixxi, 12.
^Dio Cassius, Ixxi, 3.

^ Julius Capitolinus, Marcus, 21.

^ Dio Cassius, Ixxiii, 2.

s Julius Capitolinus, Pertinax, 11. i

68 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [474

emperors, and in the east the Goths and their allies gradu-
ally victorious along the Danube.

Caracalla administered a check to the Alamanni in 213/
Under Alexander Severus (222-235), Gaul was pillaged by
German raiders,^ but death prevented the emperor from
going to the rescue of his provincials. His successor,
Maximin (235-238), however, continued his project, pene-
trated into Germany, " burned the villages, carried off the
flocks, killed many enemies, led away innumerable cap-
tives." ^ A little later, the Carpi plundered the country
about the Ister but were defeated by Philip (241-249).*

The reign of Decius (249-251) was marked by war
with the Goths, the first considerable occasion on which
that people appear in history.^ There were various in-
cursions and attacks, notably the sieges of Marcianopolis,
the capital of the Second Moesia, and of Philippopolis in
Thrace, and finally in 251 the battle of Forum Trebonii in
Scythia, in which the emperor and his son lost their lives.
Gallus made peace with the Goths, permitting them to
carry off all the plunder and the noblest captives, besides
engaging to pay them annually a large sum of money.®

1 Dio Cassius, Ixxvii, 12. The identification of the Suevi and Ala-
manni is very uncertain; cf. Gibbon, vol. i, p. 258 (Bury's edition),
and Bury's note.

2 Aelius Lampridius, Alexander Severus, 59.

8 Julius Capitolinus, Maximini, 12 ; Herodian, vii, 2.

4 Zosimus, i, 20.

5 It has been accepted that the Goths were identical with the Gut-
tones whom Pliny mentions {Natural History, iv, 14), and with the
Gotones of Tacitus {Germania, 43).

6 The main authority for the Gothic wars of Decius and Gallus is
Dexippus, who held office in Athens at the time and commanded a
Roman army, and who, according to Trebellius Pollio {Gallienus,
13), was a "writer as well as a general." Photius, patriarch of Con-
stantinople in the ninth century, says that Dexippus wrote a history of

475] RELATIONS OF GERMANS TO THE EMPIRE 69

Inroads were constant throughout the troubled reigns
of Valerian (253-260) and Gallienus, both in the east and
in the west. The Franks invaded Gaul about 256/ and
the provincials could not prevent them " from traversing
the whole of Gaul and pillaging it and penetrating into
Spain." They ravaged Spain for twelve years, the greater
part of the reign of Gallienus, and sacked Tarragona, the
capital of the province.^ Postumus at the head of the
armies in Gaul at length endeavored to repress the invaders
and drive them beyond the Rhine, but his death was the
signal for new incursions. The barbarians took and burned
several cities until checked by Lollianus. Then came Vic-
torinus and Tetricus, of whom it is said, " they were given
by Providence to prevent the Germans from seizing the
soil of the empire." ^ Meanwhile {cca. 256-7) the Ala-
manni entered Italy and after advancing as far as Ravenna
were defeated by Gallienus. Somewhat later {cca. 259-260),
they were repulsed from Rome by the senate and people,
and, being attacked by the emperor on their retreat, suf-

Macedonia from the time of Alexander the Great, a chronicle from
earliest times to A. D. 268, and an account of the wars with the Goths
in which Dexippus had himself fought. Fragments of these works,
which are fairly numerous, have appeared in the Bonn edition and
liave also been edited by C. Miiller in Fragmenta Historicorum Graec-
orum, vol. iii. Frag. 18 in the latter describes at length the siege of
Marcianopolis, and frag. 20 an ineffectual siege of Philippopolis. For
the battle of Forum Trebonii (modern Dobrudza), see frag. 16,
besides Zosimus, i, 23; Jordanes, 18; and Zonaras, xii, 20. The chron-
icle of Dexippus was continued to the year 404 by Eunapius (see infra,
p. 89).

1 The first time that we hear of this celebrated confederacy,
although most of the individual tribes which composed it are heard
of as early as the time of Augustus.

2 Eutropius, ix, 6 ; Orosius, vii, 22, 8.

« Trebellius PoUio, Gallienus, 4 ; Tyranni triginta, S ; Eusebius,
Chronicon, a. 260.

70 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [476

fered great loss/ At the same time the eastern provinces
were similarly troubled. Goths destroyed Pityus on the coast
of Circassia (cca. 258), and, crossing the Black Sea in boats,
plundered various cities of Bithynia. Later they made
other naval expeditions through the Bosphorus and the
Aegean Sea, and ravaged Greece. They seem to have
spared the Greek monuments,^ but their fierce attack on
Thessalonica thoroughly aroused Illyricum and was prob-
ably the immediate cause of the restoration of the walls of
Athens. The barbarians were at length scattered by Gal-
lienus, and a chieftain of the Heruli entered the service of
Rome with a large body of his countrymen, and was in-
vested with the ornaments of consular rank.^

Under Claudius II (268-270) the eastern provinces suf-
fered most at the hands of the Germans. A multitude of
Goths and other tribes again embarked on ships, and, sail-

1 " Alamanni," according to Gibbon, was a collective term for sev-
eral different tribes, to denote at once their various lineage arxd their
common bravery, from an etymology preserved by Asinius Quadratus,
an original historian, quoted by Agathias (i, 5). Mr. Bury suggests
the derivation Alah-mannen, " men of the sanctuary," referring to
the wood of the Semnones. On these invasions of Italy, see Flavius
Vopiscus, Aurelianus, 18, 21; Dexippus, Fragmenta, vol. iii, p. 682;
Orosius, vii, 22; Zosimus, i, 37; Zonaras, xii, 24; Eutropius, ix, 8.

2 S3mcellus mentions the presence of barbarians at Athens (a. 267),
and Zonaras (xii, 26) seems to be the author of the story that the
libraries were spared by the Goths so that the Greeks in the future as
in the past might waste their manhood in poring over wearisome vol-
umes and thus fall an easy prey to the strong unlettered sons of the
north. Cf. Dexippus, Fragmenta, 5, 6. The chronicle of the Byzantine
monk and physician, Georgius Syncellus (f. e., Private Secretary), ex-
tending from Adam to Diocletian, was prepared as late as the end of
the eighth century. Zonaras wrote in the twelfth century.

3 Trebellius Pollio, Gallienus, 13 ; Zosimus, i, 35-9 ; Orosius, vii, 22 ;
Dexippus, Fragment 21; Zonaras, xii, 26; Syncellus, vol. i, p. 7'^7
(Bonn edition). On the invasion of Greece, cf. Gregorovius, Geschichte
der Stadt Athen im Mittelalter (1889), vol. i, p. 16 et seq.

477] RELATIONS OF GERMANS TO THE EMPIRE 71

ing through the Black and Aegean Seas, attempted an ir-
ruption into the empire on a larger scale than before; but
many perished in shipwrecks, many were overwhelmed in
the mountains near Thessalonica, and the rest, after ravag-
ing Macedonia for some time, were conquered by the im-
perial troops. "All who survived were either admitted
into the Roman legions or had lands assigned them to
cultivate and so became husbandmen." In 268 Claudius
had to face a coalition of Alamanni, Grethungi, Tervingi
and other nations ; but he met and defeated them near Lake
Garda. After the victories of the emperor and his lieu-
tenants we are told that " the provinces were filled with
slaves and German cultivators, and that there was no
country where Gothic slaves were not to be seen." ^

Aurelian (270-275) stopped an irruption of Alamanni,
and defeated the Marcomanni who had crossed the Alps
and reached Milan, and are thenceforth heard of no more.^
He likewise checked expeditions of Goths and of Vandals,
with the latter of whom he concluded a treaty by which the
barbarians engaged to supply the Roman armies with two
thousand cavalry, and in return were guaranteed a safe
retreat and a regular market at the Danube provided by
the emperor but supported at their own expense.* It was
in all probability Aurelian who finally abandoned the
Dacian province north of the Danube : " the emperor with-
drew his army and left Dacia to the provincials, despairing
of being able to retain it, and the peoples led forth from
thence he settled in Moesia, and made there a province

iZosimus (i, 40-6) deals chiefly with the maritime invaders; Tre-
bellius Pollio {Claudius) with those who came by land. Cf. Eutropius,
ix, 11; Eusebius, Chronic on; Zonaras, xii, 26.

2 Vopiscus, Probus, 12; Aurelian, 18; Ammianus, xxxi, 5, 17; Zosi-
mus, i, 49.

3 Vopiscus, Aurel, 14, 15; Dexippus, p. 19, Bonn ed.; Zosimus, i, 48.

J2 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [478

which he called his own Dacia, and which now divides the
two Moesias." ^

While Tacitus (275-276) was repulsing the Goths in
Asia/ Gaul was incessantly ravaged and sixty towns were
occupied by Germans. But Probus (276-282) delivered the
hard-pressed province (277), and in turn invaded the coun-
try of the Germans, obtaining so many coloni that he could
write to the senate : "Now the barbarians labor for you, sow
for you." " Probus," says his biographer, "took as much
booty in Germany as Germans had seized in the empire." ^
Probus made an alliance with the Gothic peoples (278).*
During his reign, an adventurous expedition of Franks
who had been settled on the seacoast of Pontus, made an
all-water trip to their native Frisian shores, plundering as
they went.^ Probus transported considerable numbers of
Vandals into Britain ; ® and a hundred thousand Bastarnae
cheerfully accepted an establishment in Thrace, and lived
in accordance with Roman laws and Roman customs."^

Diocletian (284-305) received the title of " Germanicus
Maximus " ^ in consequence of his successes against the
Germans in the Danubian provinces, and his colleagues were
constantly engaged with the barbarians. Maximian checked
ravages in Gaul (286-7) ^^^ ^^en regained some foothold
beyond the Rhine,® but the Franks continued to pillage

^Vopiscus, Aurelian, 39.

2 Vopiscus, Tacitus, 13 ; Zosimus, i, 63 ; Zonaras, xii, 28.

« Vopiscus, Probus, 13, 14, 15, 18; Eutropius, ix, 25; Zosimus, i, 67-8.

* Vopiscus, Probus, 16.

5 Panegyr. Vet., ed. E. Bahrens, p. 145 ; Zosimus, i, 71.

^ Zosimus, i, 68.

^Vopiscus, Probus, 18; Zosimus, i, 71.

8 Cf. Corp. Insc. Lat., vi, 11 16.

9 Mamertinus, Pan. Max., 5, 6, 10; Genethl. Max., 17.

479] RELATIONS OF GERMANS TO THE EMPIRE 73

Rhenish cities/ Constantius Chlorus rebuilt the ruined
towns of Autun and Trier, settled many Prankish coloni
in Gaul, and defeated (298) a large expedition of Ala-
manni who had penetrated as far as Langres.^ The king
of the Alamanni, Crocus, with an independent body of his
own subjects, later became an- ally of Constantius.^

Constantine's administration of Gaul (306-312) was
marked by a signal victory over the Franks and Alamanni,
several of whose princes were exposed by his order to the
wild beasts of the amphitheatre/ The civil wars which
filled the early years of the fourth century between Con-
stantine and Maxentius and Constantine and Licinius con-
tributed in no small measure to the numbers and power
of the barbarians within the empire. The army of Con-
stantine at the battle of the Milvian Bridge was composed
in great part of Germans. Constantine is reproached ^
for having changed and weakened the military system
of the empire by withdrawing troops from the forts which
Diocletian had established on the frontiers, in order to sup-
ply small garrisons for the cities of the interior.

In 331 Constantine was asked by Sarmatians ^ to inter-

1 Incert. Pan. Constant. Caesar, 21 ; Mamertinus, Genethl. Max., 7.

2 Mamertinus, Pan. Max., 5 ; Incert. Pan. Constantio Caes., 2, 3 ;
Eusebius, Chronicon, a. 297.

3 Victor Junior, Epitome, 41. *
* Eutropius, X, 3 ; Panegyr. Vet., vii, 1012.

^ By Zosimus (ii, 51), who is deemed decidedly unfair to Constan-
tine.

^ It used to be supposed that " Sarmatian " was a generic name for
Slavonic peoples, but it is more than doubtful whether the Roman
writers felt or expressed such nice distinctions. The work of Safarik
{Slawische Alterthumer, ed. Wuttke, vol. i, pp. 333 et seq.) has settled
almost beyond a doubt that the chief Sarmatian peoples were not Sla-
vonic. That some Slavonic tribes were included in the barbarian set-
tlements made in the Illyrian peninsula by Roman emperors of the

74 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [480

vene in a feud existing between them and the Goths; and
the emperor defeated the Gothic king who had ventured
to enter Moesia the following year, and compelled him to
agree to supply the imperial armies with forty thousand
soldiers/ Constantine later had trouble with the Sar-
matians, accounts of which are confused and conflicting,^
although it is clear that numbers were settled within the
empire and that the emperor himself was called " Sar-
maticus."

Immigration increased under Constantius II (337-361).
Franks, Alamanni and Saxons, perceiving the fords of
the Rhine unprotected, penetrated into Gaul and took forty
towns near the river. Sarmatians and Quadi plundered
Pannonia and Upper Moesia without opposition.* The em-
peror undertook an expedition against the Alamanni in
354 but made peace on easy terms because " his fortune was
propitious only in civil troubles and when foreign wars
were undertaken it often proved disastrous." *

Constantius was agitated by frequent intelligence that the
Gallic provinces were in a lamentable condition since no ade-
quate resistance could be made to the barbarians who were now
laying waste the whole country. And after deliberating a long
time, in great anxiety, by what force he might repel these
dangers (himself remaining in Italy, as he thought it very
-dangerous to go into so remote a country), he at last deter-
mined on the wise plan of associating with himself in the cares

third and fourth centuries, is an hypothesis to account for the appear-
ance of Slavonic names in the Illyrian provinces. See Jirecek, Gt-
schichte der Bulgaren.

1 Zosimus, ii, 21 ; Jordanes, ch. 21.

2 Ammianus, xvii, 12 ; Eutropius, x, 7 ; Eusebius, Vita Constantini, iv,
6; Anonymus Valesianus, i; Sextus Rufus, De Provinciis, 26; Jerome^
Chronicon; and the historians of the Church.

» Zosimus, iii, i. * Ammianus, xiv, 10.

48l] RELATIONS OF GERMANS TO THE EMPIRE 75

of the empire his cousin JuHan, whom he had some time
before summoned to court, and who still retained the robe
he had worn in the Greek schools.^

Thus Julian was sent into Gaul with the authority of a
Caesar ... at a time when the barbarians had stormed
many towns and were besieging others, when there was every-
where direful devastation, and when the Roman empire was
tottering. With but a moderate force he cut off vast numbers
of Alamanni at Strasburg,^ a Gallic city, took prisoner their
famous king and relieved Gaul. Many other honorable achieve-
ments were afterwards performed by Julian against the bar-
barians, the Germans being driven beyond the Rhine and the
Roman empire extended to its former limits.'*

[Meanwhile Constantius suppressed the raids of the Quadi
and Sarmatians in Moesia and Pannonia and prescribed that
they should] own no masters save himself and the Roman
generals. And that the restoration of their liberty might carry
with it additional dignity, he made Zizais their king, a man,
as developments proved, deserving the rewards of eminent
fortune and faithful.*

The short reign of Julian after the death of Constantius
and the shorter reign of Jovian (363-4) were occupied
with Persian wars; and Valentinian (364-375), on assum-
ing imperial power, found plenty to do in pacifying the
northern barbarians. One of his first acts was to associate

1 Ammianus, xv, 8. A. D. 355.

2 This battle is described by Ammianus in great detail, xvi, 12. For
the other exploits of Julian in Gaul, see ibid., xvi-xxi. Conditions in
Gaul are pictured by Julian himself, Oratio ad S. P. Q. Athen., ed. F.
C. Hertlein (Leipzig, 1875-6); and also by Libanius, Orat, x; Sozo-
men, iii, i ; and Zosimus, iii, 3. See G. Negri, JuHan the Apostate,
trans, from Italian by Duchess Litta-Visconti-Arese (New York,
1905).

* Eutropius, X, 14.

♦Ammianus, xvii, 12. Constantius, like his father, assumed the
honorary appellation of Sarmaticus.

76 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [482

his brother Valens in the government, giving him special
control of the eastern provinces while he himself admin-
istered the western.

Valentinian straightway visited the camps and cities which
were situated near the rivers, and repaired to Gaul, then ex-
posed to the inroads of the Alamanni, who had begun to pluck
up their courage after hearing of the death of Julian. Valen-
tinian was deservedly dreaded because he took care to re-
inforce his army and fortified both banks of the Rhine with
lofty fortresses and castles, to prevent the enemy from ever
passing unperceived into our territory. We may pass over many
things he did with the authority of a fully established governor,
and the reforms which he effected, either himself or through
his active lieutenants. After he had raised his son Gratian to
a partnership in the government,^ he secretly (since he could
not do it openly) struck down Vithigabius, the king of the
Alamanni and son of Vadomarius,^ a young man in the first
bloom of youth, who was actively stirring up the tribes to
tumults and arms. He also fought against the Alamanni near
Solicinium, where he was nearly circumvented and slain in an
ambuscade, but was at last able to destroy their whole army
with the exception of a few who in the darkness saved them-
selves by flight. Amid all these prudent actions Valentinian
also turned his attention to the Saxons who had lately broken
out with extreme ferocity, making unexpected attacks in every

^ 367. Gratian was then in his ninth year.

2 The chieftain Vadomarius affords an excellent example of the
indifference with which the Germans seem to have fought for, or
against, Rome. In the first mention of him (Ammianus, xiv, 10), we
find him leading incursions of Alamanni into Gaul. A few years later
he is again ravaging the Roman frontier until seized by Julian's
stratagem (ibid., xxi, 3, 4). We next hear of him as an imperial
officer sent by Valens in 365 with a body of troops to suppress the
revolt of Procopius and besiege Nicaea (xxvi, 8) arid again in 371 as
duke of Phoenicia fighting valiantly against the Persians (xxix, i).

483] RELATIONS OF GERMANS TO THE EMPIRE 77

direction, and had now penetrated into the inland districts,,
from which they were returning enriched by booty. He de-
stroyed them utterly by a device, treacherous indeed, but ad-
vantageous; and he recovered by force all the plunder which
the robbers were carrying off. He also revived the hopes of the
Britons, who had not been hitherto successful against the hosts
of enemies overrunning their country; and he reestablished
liberty and lasting peace among them, so that scarcely any of
the invaders could even return to their own country. . . .
Although these achievements, which we have here recorded^
were consummated by the assistance of his admirable generals,^
yet it is well understood that he himself also performed many
exploits, being a man fertile in resources, and of long ex-
perience and great skill in military affairs; and certainly it
would have shone the brighter among his deeds if he had been
able to take King Macrianus alive, at that time very formidable ;
nevertheless he exerted great energy in attempting to do so,
after he learned with sorrow and indignation that he had es-
caped from the Burgundians, whom he himself had led against
the Alamanni.^

While Valentinian was engaged in checking barbarian
inroads in the western provinces of the empire, his brother
Valens was concerned with the Goths. A hundred years
earlier Aurelian had allowed the Goths, who had been ravag-
ing the east by land and sea, to occupy Dacia north of the

1 Prominent among these generals was the father of the later em-
peror Theodosius, commonly called Count Theodosius, for whose
campaigns in Britain and against the Alamanni, see Ammianus, xxviii,

z, 5.

2 Ammianus, xxx, 7. The same authority gives detailed accounts
of Valentinian's work in fortifying the Rhine (xxviii, 2), in repulsing
Alamanni and Burgundians (xxvii, 10; xxx, 3), and in fighting Saxons
(xxviii, 2, 5). The emperor's relations with the Alaman king, Macri-
anus, and the incursions of Sarmatians and Quadi are also described
(xxix, 4, 6; xxx, 3, 5, 6).

yS SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [484

Danube and thenceforth they had lived under their own
chieftains in nominal subjection to the commonwealth and
in comparative peace. Now the Goths had been so un-
fortunate as to favor a certain Procopius, an unsuccessful
aspirant for the purple, and Valens resolved to punish
them. " To excuse their conduct by a valid defence they
produced letters from this Procopius which alleged that he
had assumed the sovereignty as his due as the nearest rela-
tive of Constantine." ^ The excuse was not accepted, but
after three years' intermittent campaigns (367-9) a peace
was negotiated.^ Peace for the Goths was shortlived, how-
ever, for hardly had they concluded the treaty with Valens
when they were attacked by the Huns, who came from the
northeast. " This latter active and indomitable race, ex-
cited by an unrestrained desire of plundering the posses-
sions of others, went on ravaging and slaughtering all the
tribes in their neighborhood until they reached the Alani
. . . with whom they finally made a treaty of friendship
and alliance." ^ The allies then attacked the German peo-
ples to the west, and the Goths, filled with fear, entreated
Valens to be received by him as subjects, promising to live
quietly and to furnish a body of auxiliary troops if neces-
sary. The emperor dispatched officers

to bring this ferocious people and their carts into our country.
And such great pains were taken to gratify this nation which
was destined to overthrow the Roman state that not one was

1 Ammianus, xxvii, 5.

2 Shortly after the treaty, Athanaric, a Gothic chieftain who had
formerly stated "that he was bound by a most dreadful oath and by
his father's commands never to set foot on Roman soil," went to Con-
stantinople, " being driven from his native land by a faction among
his kinsmen, and he died there and was buried with splendid cere-
mony according to our rites." Ammianus, xxvii, 5.

3 Ammianus, xxxi, 2.

485] RELATIONS OF GERMANS TO THE EMPIRE 79

left behind, not even of those who were stricken with mortal
disease. Moreover, so soon as they had obtained permission
of the emperor to cross the Danube and to cultivate some dis-
tricts of Thrace, they poured across the stream day and night,
without ceasing, embarking in troops on board ships and rafts
and on canoes made of the hollow trunks of trees. ^

The immanence of our danger manifestly called for generals
already illustrious for their past achievements in war; but
nevertheless, as if some unpropitious deity had made the selec-
tion, the men who were sought out for the chief military ap-
pointments were of tainted character. The chief among them
were Lupicinus and Maximus, — the one being count of Thrace,
the other a leader notoriously wicked, — both men of great
ignorance and rashness. Their treacherous covetousness was
the cause of all our disasters, . . . for when the bar-
barians who had been conducted across the river were in
great distress from want of provisions, those detested generals
conceived the idea of a most disgraceful traffic; and having
collected dogs from all quarters with the most insatiable
rapacity, they exchanged them for an equal number of slaves,
among whom were several sons of men of noble birth.^

These and like corrupt practices on the part of the gov-
ernment officials at length aroused the Gothic chieftain
Fritigern to revolt:

The standards of war were raised according to custom and the
trumpets poured forth sounds of evil omen, while predatory
bands collected, plundering and burning villas and alarming
everyone by their dreadful devastations. [Lupicinus, who
rashly attacked them, was defeated and] the enemies, clothing
themselves in Roman armor, pushed on their raid without
hindrance.^

Here the historian pauses to refute those who affirm that

1 Ammianus, xxxi, 4. A. D. 376.

2 Ibid., xxxi, 4. ' Ibid.

8o SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [486

the commonwealth was never before so overwhelmed by
adverse fortune and to remind them of the Teutones and
Cimbri, of the incursions during the reign of Marcus
Aurelius and of many other similar calamities.

While Fritigern was in revolt, certain Goths at Adria-
nople, who were ill-treated by the Romans, joined him, and
the united forces made an ineffectual attempt to take that
city by siege/ They turned then to ravage Thrace, being

greatly encouraged by this circumstance, that a multitude of
their nation came in daily who had formerly been sold as
slaves by the merchants, with many others who at the first
passage of the river, when they were suffering from severe
want, had been bartered for a little bad wine or a few morsels
of bread. To these were added no small number of men
skilled in tracing out veins of gold, but who were unable to
endure the heavy burden of their taxes ; and who, having been
received with the cheerful consent of all, were of great use to
them while traversing strange districts — showing them the
secret stores of grain, the retreats of men, and other hiding-
places of divers kinds. Under their guidance, nothing re-
mained untouched except what was inaccessible or wholly out
of the way; for without any distinction of age or sex they
went forward destroying everything in one vast slaughter and
conflagration: tearing infants even from their mother's breast
and slaying them; ravishing the mothers; slaughtering
women's husbands before the eyes of those whom they thus
made widows; while boys of tender and of adult age were
dragged over the corpses of their parents. Numbers of old
men, finally, crying out that they had lived long enough, having
lost all their wealth, together with beautiful women, had their
hands bound behind their backs, and were driven into banish-
ment, bewailing the ashes of their native homes.^

This was the motley throng against whom Valens prepared
1 Ammianus, xxxi, 6. ^ Ibid.

487] RELATIONS OF GERMANS TO THE EMPIRE gl

to lead his army/ His lieutenants were unable to expel
the Goths from Thrace in 377 and in the following year,
without waiting the arrival of Gratian ^ from the west, he
engaged the barbarians outside the walls of Adrianople and
lost his life.

Except the battle of Cannae, no such slaughter is recorded in
our annals, though even in the times of prosperity, the Romans
have sometimes had to deplore the uncertainty of war, and
temporary evils, while well-known dirges of the Greeks have
bewailed many disastrous battles.^

The battle of Adrianople was not decisive, however,
in immediate results, and the death of Valens does not seem
to be more significant than the death of Decius over a cen-
tury previously. The Goths followed up their victory
but failed to take Adrianople by siege; their subsequent
effort to capture Constantinople was likewise a failure.

Then having sustained greater losses than they had inflicted
they roamed at random over the northern provinces, which
they traversed without restraint as far as the foot of the Julian
Alps, which the ancients used to call the Venetian Alps.

At this time the efficiency of Julius, Master of the Soldiery
on the other side of Mount Taurus, was particularly prompt
and salutary; for when he learned what had happened in
Thrace, he sent secret letters to all the governors of the dif-
ferent cities and forts, who were all Romans — which at this
time is rare, — requesting them, on one and the same day, at a
concerted signal, to put to death all the Goths who had pre-
viously been admitted into the places under their charge, first
luring them into the suburbs in the expectation of receiving
promised pay. This wise plan was carried out without any
disturbance or delay, and the eastern provinces were delivered
from great dangers.*

^ The events which led up to the battle of Adrianople and a vivid
description of the battle itself are given by Ammianus in Book xxxi.
- Gratian had recently defeated the Alamanni. Ammianus, xxxi, 10.
^ Ammianus, xxxi, 13. * Ibid., xxxi, 16.

• CHAPTER VIII

General Character of the Germanic Invasions

Although the battle of Adrianople and the death of
Valens are not epochal in the history of the relations between
Romans and barbarians, they mark a distinct transition in
the quality of the sources. That is probably why Gibbon,
and following him, many writers of text books have seen
fit to emphasize out of all proportion the events of the year
378. The sources from Julius Caesar to Ammianus, frag-
mentary and poor as they often are, are infinitely better
than the sources for the great Germanic movements of the
fifth and sixth centuries by which the western provinces
were gradually to dissolve. Gibbon felt this especially in
the case of Ammianus, to whom he pays the often quoted
tribute :

It is not without the most sincere regret that I must now take
leave of an accurate and faithful guide, who has composed the
history of his own times without indulging the prejudices and
passions which usually affect the mind of a contemporary. Am-
mianus Marcellinus, who terminates his useful work with the
defeat and death of Valens, recommends the more glorious sub-
ject of the ensuing reign to the youthful vigor and eloquence of
the rising generation. The rising generation was not disposed to
accept his advice or to imitate his example; and, in the study
of the reign of Theodosius, we are reduced to illustrate the
partial narrative of Zosimus by the obscure hints of fragments
and chronicles, by the figurative style of poetry or panegyric,
and by the precarious assistance of the ecclesiastical writers
82 [488

489] GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE INVASIONS 83

who, in the heat of religious faction, are apt to despise the
profane virtues of sincerity and moderation. Conscious of
these disadvantages, which will continue to involve a consider-
able portion of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, I
shall proceed with doubtful and timorous steps.^

The sources which treat of the Germanic movements from
the time of Julius Caesar to that of Theodosius the Great
consider them in the main as purely incidental. The his-
torians are not absorbed in study of the blue-eyed, yellow-
haired northerners : their prime interest is imperial achieve-
ment, civil war, home affairs; and they would no more
think of giving the fateful barbarians first place in the his-
tory of the empire than an English historian would center
his country's development about British military exploits
on the frontier of India, or than an American writer would
make the immigration of Italians and Hungarians the para-
mount factor in the history of the United States. Nor do
these historians find it necessary to deal at length with the
causes of Germanic immigration. It was the usual thing to
have barbarians, German or other, living within the em-
pire, and the causes were doubtless too familiar and too
obvious to the Roman citizens to merit explanation. Mod-
ern scholars have therefore had to read between the lines
in explaining the motives of the immigration. Sometimes
they have read there too much. For example, it has been
contended that race hatred existed between Romans and
Germans ; but '' Roman " was hardly a racial designation
and the barbarians seem to have been fully as zealous to
fight one another as to engage the imperial citizens. It has
likewise been contended that the main cause was excess of

1 Bury's edition, vol. iii, p. 122. Hodgkin is more sweeping but also
within the bounds of truth in his condemnation of the sources for the
period of the invasions, Italy and her Invaders, vol. ii, pp. 299-303.

84 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [490

population among the Germans, but sociologists have de-
monstrated that fecundity is not a trait of peoples in like
stage of development.

The causes of the migrations were diverse and complex.
Desire to improve material conditions was doubtless the
chief. With this in view, warrior bands plundered the pro-
vincials, and at the same time whole tribes sought peace and
plenty in the southern lands under protection of the com-
monwealth. No doubt the love of adventure and fond-
ness for brigandage animated the Germanic peoples to a
great extent, but there was also a glamor for the barbarians
about the empire and its institutions: desire to live
under them and profit by them. We are prone to
make the problem of the Germanic migrations too diffi-
cult. We must remember that peoples of primitive civili-
zation bordered on peoples who were more highly developed,
who inhabited fertile lands, and who lived in comparative
prosperity and peace. The result was inevitable. It was
unstable life arrayed in all the forms of instability against
sedentary life and settled conditions.

Armed invasion was, however, but one of the forms of
Germanic immigration. To supply the great need of
farm hands consequent on the decrease of rural popula-
tion in the empire, many captive Germans, led back
into the empire in the space of the four centuries during
which Roman armies penetrated into Germany, were either
made slaves outright or attached to the soil as coloni.
Moreover, there was at all times a commerce in slaves be-
tween the provinces and Germany, by means of which
many barbarians were forced to move within the empire.'

* Ammianus mentions in several passages the merchants who sup-
plied Gaul and Thrace with German slaves (xxii, 7, 8; xxix, 4, 4;
xxxi, 6, 5). Tacitus had already noted the German custom of selling

491] GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE INVASIONS 85

Germans entered the empire, too, to serve in the Roman
army, sometimes forced ^ and sometimes of their own ac-
cord.^ The sources often intimate that barbarian troops
were disliked by the population and that the imperial gov-
ernment was reproached for being too favorable to these
foreigners.^ From the end of the fourth century the bar-
barian troops became increasingly troublesome and took
active part in the chronic civil wars, but they were to be
found, like the Romans themselves, fighting this or that
aspirant to the imperial purple, not fighting the empire itself.

Thus the entrance of the Germans into the empire, ac-
cording to the sources, was not a single event under a
single form and from a single motive. It was, on the con-
trary, a very complex series of events, accomplished only after
the lapse of several centuries. The Germans entered the em-
pire from a variety of motives and in a multiplicity of ways.
They came as pirates and ravagers; they came in warrior
bands because they found pleasure in fighting ; they came as
immigrants and settlers ; they came to take military or civil

slaves to foreigners {Germania, 24), and in the Life of Agricola (28)
there is the case of Usipians sold by Suevi. The sources give few
instances of barbarian slaves joining their invading countrymen, such
as the Goths in Thrace (Ammianus, xxxi, 6, 5) and Alaric at Rome
(Zosimus, v, 42).

1 The idea of forcibly incorporating barbarians in the army was as
old as the empire. See Tacitus, Annales, iv, 46; Agricola, 13, 28, 31;
Germania, 29; Hist., i, 59; iv, 18.

2 The Notitia Dignitatum shows that the Roman army in the early
part of the fifth century included many Germans: Heruli, Marcomanni
and Alani were in barracks in Italy; Salii in Spain, Gaul and even in
Africa; many of them, serving as fcederati, must have had permanent
establishments.

3 " The true patriot emperor will find this to be his first task, cau-
tiously but firmly to weed out the barbarians from his army and make
that army what it once was, Roman." Synesius, Oration on King-
ship.

86 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [492

office within the empire; they came by force to serve the
Romans; they came now singly, now in troops, now with
their household and all their movable belongings ; they came
as friends of the state, as enemies of the state, as allies or
partisans of some general or emperor; and often they
came simply in quest of greater prosperity with all respect
and honor for the ancient commonwealth of Rome.

How did the Romans regard this Germanic immigration ?
Their point of view was different from ours, for the imme-
diate contact and the events passing daily before their eyes
prevented anything like the cold analytical treatment which
we employ. The Romans before engaging the Germans
had contended with settled peoples. Even the Gallic popu-
lations were attached to the soil and had cities. And when
the Romans found foes in unsettled Germans, they despised
them and exaggerated their weakness as we exaggerate their
strength. The Romans believed firmly in the eternity of
Rome and the empire; they could foresee no ultimate dan-
ger to the commonwealth ; they give no hint of any suspicion
that the Germans would one day overturn the state and
plant rival kingdoms in its stead. The emperors were glad
to use Germans in the army, and the landowners found
them very serviceable on the estates. As time went on,
the Germans were more and more identified with the popu-
lar issues, political and religious. It was a time when the
Roman world was divided between Christians and pagans,
and the contest was between religions rather than races:
probably each party hoped to secure the balance of power
from barbarian proselytes ; ^ at any rate, each party ac-

lUlfilas (d. 381) had preached to the Goths while they were still
living north of the Danube, and his translation of most of the Bible
into Gothic, using Greek letters to represent the sounds, is the only-
example of writing in any German language before Charlemagne's
time. The orthodox Orosius saw only the finger of God in the battle

493] GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE INVASIONS 87

cused the other of responsibility for the ills which existed
or were imagined to exist in the commonwealth. It was a
time, likewise, when rival generals contended with each
other for the purple, and each contestant for political su-
premacy sought barbarian support. The strife of emperors
eclipsed the strife of races.

It is not necessary to look to a decline of Roman organi-
zation and prowess in order to explain the ultimate success
of the Germans. The Germanic immigration was so
gradual, so many-sided, and so adaptive to conditions exis-
tent within the commonwealth, that not until the lapse of
centuries thereafter could the true meaning and import of
the transition be determined.

of Adrianople: "The Goths had previously asked through ambas-
sadors that bishops be sent them, by whom they might learn the rule
of the Christian faith. Emperor Valens sent those learned in the base
and fatal Arian dogma. The Goths held to the basis of the first faith
they received. Accordingly by just judgment of God did the very
ones burn him on whose account they are consumed in the curse of
mortal error." — vii, 33.

CHAPTER IX

Sources from Theodosius the Great to Justinian

One hundred and fifty years elapsed from the time
when Ammianus Marcellinus closed his admirable history
until Procopius, another soldier-writer, narrated in similar
vein the story of Justinian's wars against Vandals, Goths
and Persians. The gap, remarkable for the paucity of
reliable sources, is in itself an eloquent source for the mag-
nitude of the Germanic invasions during the period. It,
indeed, witnessed the wanderings of Goths through Greece
and lUyricum and southern Gaul and their final settlement
in Spain; it observed Vandal settlements in Africa; it be-
held the bursting into Italy and Gaul of the Hunnish horde
and their expulsion; it saw Angles and Saxons contending
in Britain, and Franks and Burgundians living in Gaul, and
more Goths — Ostrogoths — located in Italy. It was the
century and the half of closest contact between Germans
and Roman citizens, of gradual deliquescence of the west-
ern provinces into semi-barbarian states, and of the conver-
sion of the immigrants to Arianism and later to Catholicism.
It knew xAilaric and Attila and Genseric and Odovacar and
Clovis and Theodoric. But its contemporary sources of
information are biased, fragmentary and dismal. They
comprise the diffuse, inconsequential history of Zosimus; a
very few fragments of other, and possibly better, Greek
historians; Christian apologies like those of Augustine,
Orosius and Salvian; ecclesiastical histories: a few meager
88 [494

495] SOURCES FROM THEODOSIUS TO JUSTINIAN 89

chronicles; biographies of wonder-working saints; and
poems and panegyrics, which, unimportant in the fourth
century, become invakiable in the fifth/ They bear wit-
ness to a decline in culture as impressive as the increasing
political broils.

The chief of these disappointing sources for thirty years
or more after the battle of Adrianople is Zosimus, who
lived in the east, wrote in Greek and had a strong pagan
bias. Of his life we know practically nothing. Photius '
says he was comes et exadvocatus at Constantinople, and it
has been generally assumed that he flourished about the
middle of the fifth century. His history ^ consists of six
books: the first contains a brief sketch of the emperors
from Augustus to Diocletian (305) ; the second, third and
fourth deal more copiously with the period from the ac-
cession of Constantius and Galerius to the death of Theo-
dosius; and the fifth and sixth treat of the period from
395 to 409. It was probably left unfinished. The main sources
for the work seem to have been Eunapius of Sardis,* who
had continued the slender chronicle of Dexippus from 268
to 404, and the history of Olympiodorus.^ Of the other

1 It is interesting to note how seldom before 378 and how often
afterwards Gibbon quotes panegyrists and poets.

2 See infra, p. 98-

» There are editions of Zosimus by I. Bekker (Bonn, 1837) and by
L. Mendelssohn (Leipzig, 1887). An English translation was published
at London in 1814. There is a German translation by D. C. Seybold
and K. C. Heyler (Frankfurt-a.-M., 1802). See C von Hoefler,
Kritische Bemerkungen uber den Zosimus und den Grad seiner Glaub-
wiirdigkeit (Vienna, 1880).

* A Greek rhetorician, born 347. His twenty-three superficial biog-
raphies of older and contemporary philosophers are our authority for
Neo-Platonism in the fourth century. See K. Krumbacher, Die Ge-
schichte der bysantinischen Literatur (Munich, 1891).

* See supra, p. 69, note, and infra, p. 99.

90 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [496

sources we know practically nothing/ and it is questionable
whether Zosimus was himself an eye-witness of any of the
events he narrates.

Zosimus is important for the period from the death of
Valens to the eve of the sack of Rome in 410; he treats,
with particular attention to the eastern provinces, of the
wars and character of Theodosius the Great, of Gratian and
Valentinian II, of Arcadius and Honorius, of the bar-
barian " bosses " Gainas, Stilicho and Alaric. He tells of
deeds of war, of miracles and prodigies, of princes and pil-
lagers. The wanderings of the Goths through Greece, their
temporary settlements in Illyricum and Thrace and their
raids in Italy are interspersed with indications of barbarian
unrest in Asia and far-off echoes of tumult in Gaul, even in
Spain. Every page mentions the Germans, sometimes as
slaves, more often as imperial soldiers or daring marauders,
but the monotony of barbarian broils is occasionally broken
by other kinds of civil war, as the rebellion of a Gildo or
the usurpation of a Constantine; and our writer, if he un-
derstands the Germanic invasions a little better than his
predecessors, acquaints us not with the social conditions
or the political organization of the invaders.

Zosimus has a decided tendenz. He feels instinctively
a decline in imperial fortune and he knows where to fix the
blame ; he is a pious pagan : he fixes it on Christianity. He
seeks ever by damaging innuendo and clever sarcasm to
raise a laugh at the expense of the Christians. A good
example of this tendency is his account of Constantine's
conversion, especially his incidental and slighting observa-
tion on the Christian method of forgiving sins :

When Constantine came to Rome, he was filled with pride and

1 See R. C. Martin, De fontibus Zosimi (Berlin, 1866).

497] SOURCES FROM THEODOSIUS TO JUSTINIAN 91

arrogance. Resolved to begin his impious actions at home,
he put to death his son Crispus, who was a Caesar, on the
charge of debauching his mother-in-law Fausta, without any
regard to the ties of nature. And when his own mother,
Helena, expressed much sorrow for this atrocity, lamenting
the young man's death with great bitterness, Constantine,
under pretence of comforting her, applied a remedy worse than
the disease. For causing a bath to be heated to an extraor-
dinary degree, he shut up Fausta in it, and a short time after
took her out dead. His conscience troubled him for this, as
also for violating his oath, and he went to the [pagan] priests
to be purified from his sins. They told him, however, that
no kind of lustration would suffice to clear him of such enor-
mities. A Spaniard, named Aegyptius, who was at Rome,
being very familiar with the court ladies [!], happened to
engage in conversation with Constantine and assured him that
the Christian doctrine would teach him how to cleanse him-
self from all the offences and that they who received it were
immediately absolved from all their sins. Constantine had no
sooner heard this than he readily believed what was told him,
and forsaking the rites of his country, received those which
Aegyptius offered him . . .^

The religious bias of Zosimus is apparent in many other
places :

Theodosius the Great before his departure from Rome con-
vened the senate, which firmly adhered to the ancient rites
and customs of the country and could not be induced to join
those who were inclined to contempt for the gods. In a speech
he exhorted the senators to relinquish their errors, as he
termed them, and to embrace the Christian faith, which
promises absolution from all sins and impieties. But not a
single one of them would be persuaded to this, nor recede

1 ii, 29. This is one of the earliest references to what was later ex-
panded into the legend of the Vita Sylvestri.

92 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [498

from the ancient ceremonies which had been handed down
to them from the building of their city, and prefer to them
an unreasoning assent, having, as they said, Uved in the observ-
ance of them almost twelve hundred years, in the whole space
of which their city had never been conquered; wherefore
should they change them for others, they could not foresee
what might ensue. Theodosius then told them that the treas-
ury was too much exhausted by the expense of sacred rites
and sacrifices, and that he should consequently abolish them,
since he neither thought them commendable nor could the
needs of the army spare so much money. The senate in reply
observed that the sacrifices were not duly performed unless
the charges were defrayed from the public funds. Yet the
laws for the performance of sacred rites and sacrifices were
repealed, besides other institutions and ceremonies which had
been received from their ancestors. By these means, the
Roman empire, having been devastated by degrees, is become
the habitation of barbarians, or rather, having lost all its inhabi-
tants, is reduced to such a form that no person can distinguish
where its cities formerly stood.^ ...

[The barbarian Fraiutus] returned to the emperor [Ar-
cadius] proud of his victory [over Gainas], which he openly
and boldly ascribed to the favor of the gods whom he wor-
shiped, for he was not ashamed even in the presence of the
emperor to profess that he honored and worshiped the gods
after the ancient custom of his forefathers and would not in
that respect follow the vulgar people.^ . . .

The Romans resolved to supply the deficiency [in the in-
demnity due Alaric] from the ornaments on the statues of the
gods. Not only this, but they melted down some of the gold
and silver statues, among which was that of Valor or Forti-
tude. This being destroyed, all that remained of Roman
bravery and valor was totally extinguished according to the
opinion of persons skilled in sacred rites and observances.^ . . .

1 iv, 59- " V, 21. 3 V, 41.

499] SOURCES FROM THEODOSIUS TO JUSTINIAN 93

The tremendous influence exercised by German leaders
in the military and political affairs of the later Roman em-
pire stands out clearly in the narrative of Zosimus. Gratian,
who sent an army to the assistance of Theodosius, entrusted
the command to two Prankish chieftains/ One of these,
Arbogastes by name,^ later acquired such control over
Valentinian II

that he would speak without reserve to the emperor and con-
demn any measure which he thought improper. This gave
great umbrage to Valentinian who ventured to oppose him on
several occasions and would have done him injury if he could.
. . . He sent frequent letters to Theodosius, acquainting
him with the arrogant behavior of Arbogastes toward the
majesty of an emperor and requesting his intervention.

The Prankish chieftain at length assassinated Valentinian
at Vienne and picked out a puppet emperor in the person of
the learned Eugenius, whose recognition he sought from
Theodosius. But Theodosius himself held in high favor the
Vandal, Stilicho,^ who was more than a match for the
Prank, and Zosimus becomes the chief source for the over-
throw of the puppet Eugenius and the other steps by which
Stilicho became the guardian of Honorius and the " boss "
of the western provinces. In order that he might also be
" boss " in the east, Stilicho, according to Zosimus, sent
the German Gainas * with an army against his co-regent
Rufinus '' ostensibly to assist Arcadius." Having arrived
in the east, however, Gainas used his might and consequent
political influence not altogether in behalf of his barbarian
patron, but rather, to control in his own interest the weak-
kneed Arcadius. He made short shrift of Rufinus and of

^ iv, 32. - iv, 53-59.

3 Stilicho had married the emperor's niece. * v, 8-22.

94 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [500

another court favorite, a certain Eutropius, and might
have continued to exercise an influence as paramount in the
east as that of Stilicho in the west had not another German,
this time a certain Fraiutus " who was a Greek to most in-
tents and purposes even in reHgion," surpassed him in
prowess and supplanted him in favor. Arcadius gave
Fraiutus command of the army, with the unanimous consent
of the senate, and appointed him consul. Zosimus, however,
sheds no tear over the fate of poor Gainas, who retired
from the politics and the territory of the ungrateful empire,
was killed in battle with the Huns, and whose head was sent
to grace Arcadius's court. ^

Zosimus views the movements of the Goths as the result
of the relations between Stilicho, who was " boss," and
Alaric, who wanted the emoluments of "boss" government.^
He states that Alaric received an imperial ofifice in Illyri-
cum, besides an appropriation from the senate,^ and was
promised command of the army of Honorius against the
usurper Constantine while Stilicho should head the regency
for the young Theodosius H.* He hints at vague and dark
intrigues in court and in the army which brought about the
death of Stilicho '^ and drove Alaric * to employ force in
order to secure his coveted oiffices and honors. There are
two successful sieges of Rome, the second because " the em-
peror declared that no office or command should ever be

^Two epic poems treat of the Gainas episode: one recited by Am-
monius cca. 437; and the other the Gainea of Eusebius, the pupil of
Troilus. For an excellent account of the political relations between
these barbarian courtiers and their armies in the field, see A. Gulden-
penning, Geschichte des ostromischen Reichs unter den Kaisern Arca-
dius und Theodosius II (Halle, 1885).

2 V, 26. The estimate of Stilicho by Zosimus should be compared
with Claudian's and with that of Orosius.

3 V, 29. * V, 31. '^ V, 34. « V, 37-51 ; vi, 6-13.

50l] SOURCES FROM THEODOSIUS TO JUSTINIAN 95

conferred on him or any of his family." ^ Zosimus does
not suggest that Alaric sought the destruction of Rome,
much less the overthrow of the commonwealth; in fact,
he conveys the impression that Alaric was not even pillag-
ing Rome, as many other German chieftains had pillaged
other towns of the empire, primarily for the purpose of
plunder, but rather that he might be permitted to manage
the politics of the state. Failing in his attempt to bring
Honorius to terms, the Gothic politician determined to have
an emperor whom he could control:

Alaric, finding that he could not procure a peace on the con-
ditions which he proposed and not having received any
hostages, once more threatened to attack Rome if the citizens
refused to join him against emperor Honorius. They deferred
their answer until he besieged the city and occupied Portus
after a resistance of several days. He threatened to distribute
among his men the supplies which he seized at Portus unless
the Romans should accede to his demands. The senate as-
sembled and on due deliberation complied with all that Alaric
required, for it would have been impossible to avoid death
inasmuch as no provisions could be brought to the city from
Portus. They accordingly received the embassy of Alaric, in-
vited him to their city, and, as he commanded, placed Attains,
the prefect of the city, on the imperial throne and gave the
command to Alaric and Valens, who had formerly commanded
the Dalmatian legions, distributing the other offices in proper
order. Alaric then occupied the palace, attended by an im-
perial guard, although many ill omens occurred on his way.
The following day he entered the senate and made an arro-
gant speech, saying with great ostentation that he would
subdue the whole world to the Romans and even perform
greater things than that. For this the gods perhaps were
angry and decreed soon afterwards his removal. . . . None

' V, 49.

96 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [502

was displeased with these occurrences except the family of the
Anicii/ who had got into their hands almost all the money
in the city and were now grieved at the prosperous state of
affairs. Alaric prudently advised Attains to send a competent
force into Africa and to Carthage . . . but Attains would
not listen to his admonitions. . . . Honorius was so terri-
fied and perplexed that he sent out ambassadors to propose
that the empire should be divided between them. . . .
[Honorius prepared to flee but the arrival of aid from the
east enabled him to await the outcome of the African cam-
paign. Alaric meanwhile became more and more disgusted
with Attains.] . . .

Now Attains went to Rome and convened the senate. After
some debate, most of the senators were of the opinion that
barbarians and Roman soldiers ought to be sent to Africa
together, and that Drumas should be their commander, he
being a person who had already given proofs of his fidelity
and good will. Only Attains and a few more dissented from
the majority of the senate, he being unwilling to send out a
barbarian as commander of a Roman army. This was the
first time that Alaric formed a design against Attains to
depose him or deprive him of life, although Jovius had pre-
viously instigated him to it by incessant calumnies and false
accusations. In order therefore to put his design in execution,
he led Attains out before the city of Rimini, where he
then resided, and stripped off his diadem and purple robe,
which he sent to emperor Honorius. But although he reduced
Attains to the condition of a private individual before all the
people, he kept him and his son Ampelius at his own house
until he had made peace with Honorius, when he procured
their pardon.^

1 One of the leading Christian families at Rome. See H. Grisar,
Histoire de Rome et des papes, trans, from German (Paris, 1906),
vol. i, p. 53. This passage in Zosimus is an illustration of his re-
sourcefulness in casting discredit on those who differed from him in
belief.

2 vi, 6-12. Orosius remarks with diverting contradictions (vii, 42) :

503] SOURCES FROM THEODOSIUS TO JUSTINIAN 97

Zosimus devotes little attention to what we now suppose
were momentous events west of the Alps during those early
years of the fifth century. The Germanic invasions and
settlements in Gaul, Britain and Spain are dismissed in a
few lines:

Arcadius being in his sixth consulship and Probus his col-
league, the Vandals united with the Alani and Suevi and
crossed the Alps, plundering the country beyond. They oc-
casioned so great slaughter that the armies in Britain, fearing
lest they might extend their ravages into those regions, chose
several usurpers, such as Marcus, Gratian, and especially Con-
stantine.^ A furious engagement ensued in which the Romans
gained the victory and killed most of the barbarians, but
neglected to pursue the fugitives, who might have been put
to death to a man. This gave the barbarians an opportunity
to rally, to collect additional forces, and once more to assume
the offensive. Constantine posted garrisons to keep them out
of Gaul and likewise secured the Rhine which had been
neglected since the time of emperor Julian. . . .

"* What shall I say of most wretched Attalus, whose distinction was
to be slain as a usurper and whose gain was death? Alaric watched
the play of empire and laughed at the farce of this emperor made,
unmade, remade, and demade, almost in less time than it takes to tell;
nor is it to be wondered at that the unhappy man was rightfully de-
ceived by the same kind of pomp with which that retired consul Ter-
tullus ventured to say in court, * I shall address you, conscript fathers,
as consul and pontifex, the one of which I am, the other I hope to be,*
since he was deriving hope from him who had no hope, and was
accursed besides because he put his confidence in man. Thus did
Attalus with the Goths carry the lifeless form of empire as far as
Spain. He departed thence in an unseaworthy vessel, was captured
at sea and brought before count Constantius; then he was exhibited
by emperor Honorius and suffered the loss of a hand though his life
was spared."

1 This is the usurper Constantine who was proclaimed emperor in
Britain in 407 but was forced to abdicate at Aries in 411.

98 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [504

While the greater part of Constantine's army was in Spain,
the barbarians from beyond the Rhine made such unrestrained
incursions into every province as to compel not only the
Britons but also some of the Celtic tribes to secede from the
empire, and live no longer under Roman law but as they
themselves pleased. Thus the Britons took up arms and en-
countered many dangers for their own protection, until they
had freed their towns of the barbarians who besieged them.
Similarly, the whole of Armorica, together with other Gallic
provinces, was delivered, expelling the Roman officers and
magistrates and erecting whatever government was required..
In this way, Britain and the Celtic tribes revolted when Con-
stantine usurped the empire, by whose negligent government
the barbarians were emboldened to commit such devastation.^

It is possible that the fifth century possessed better his-
torians than Zosimus, but if so, their works have perished.
We know next to nothing about a certain Sulpicius Alex-^
ander, who, as well as Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus, is
mentioned by Gregory of Tours, or about Ablavius, whose
history of the Goths is cited by Jordanes. Then too, the
few fragments of the Greek historians of the fifth century
which have survived,^ are too meager to enable us to pass
a decisive opinion on their relative merit and authority.
What we have of them is due largely to two Greek scholars
of later centuries, the patriarch Photius (d. 891) and the
emperor Constantine VII, Porphyrogenitus (d. 959).

Photius prepared for his brother, who was absent in the
east, brief critical analyses of the books which had been read
and discussed in the literary circle at Constantinople, of which

^ vi, 3-6.

2 These Greek fragments, with a rather unreliable Latin transla-
tion, are collected in C. Miiller's Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum^
vol. iv.

505] SOURCES FROM THEODOSIUS TO JUSTINIAN gg

he was a prominent figure/ In this fashion, outlines of
some two hundred and eighty works, with valuable extracts,
were preserved. Among the number are the chronicle of
Eunapius of Sardis which dealt particularly with the period
immediately following the death of Theodosius the Great;
the history of Olympiodorus extending from 407 to 425;
the work of Malchus, a native of Philadelphia in Syria,
which covered the period from 474 to 480 ; ^ and the account
of the reigns. of Leo I and Zeno (457-491) by Candidus,
who was " secretary to influential Isaurians."

As for the erudite emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus,
he directed the compilation of a great source-book, the
material for which was grouped under fifty-three head-
ings. Much of this is now lost, but the two extant sec-
tions on state missions and embassies have saved for us
some important details, which inject a little life into the few
dull chronicles ^ that are our main guides to events from
the point where Zosimus deserts us (409) down to the
establishment of Theodoric's power in Italy {cca. 490).

The best written and most helpful of all these fragments *
are the excerpts from the account of Priscus of the mission
which he undertook for Theodosius II in 448 to the court

1 The Bibliotheca of Photius is edited by Migne, Patrol. Graec, vols,
ci-civ. See J. Card. Hergenrother, Photius, Patriarch von Konstan-
tinopel, sein Leben, seine Schriften, und das griechische Schisma (Re-
gensburg, 1867). Most of the Greek historians of the empire are to
be found in two collections : that of Bonn, Corpus historiae Byzantinae,
commenced by Niebuhr in 1826 and continued by Bekker, and that of
C. Miiller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum.

2 Suidas, the Greek lexicographer who flourished in the latter part
of the tenth century, asserts that the history of Malchus extended from
the time of Constantine the Great to that of Anastasius.

3 See infra, p. 145 et seq.

* For a useful guide to these and other Greek sources, see K. Krum-
bacher, Geschichte der hyzantinischen Literatur (Munich, 1891).

lOO SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [506

of the Huns. The account is enriched by digressions on
the life of Attila and the customs of his people. Priscus
appears to have had the qualities of fairness and keen ob-
servation. It is regrettable that we have not more informa-
tion like the following:

A man whom, from his Scythian dress, I took for a barbarian,
came up [while I was waiting for the audience with Attila]
and addressed me in Greek, with the word " Hail !" I was sur-
prised at a Scythian speaking Greek. For the subjects of the
Huns, swept together from various lands, speak beside their
own barbarous tongue, either Hunnic or Gothic, or — ^as many
as have commercial dealing with the western Romans — Latin ;
but none of them speak Greek readily, except captives from
the Thracian or Illyrian seacoast; and these last are easily
known to any stranger by their torn garments and the squalor
of their head, as men who have met with a reverse. This
man, on the contrary, resembled a well-to-do Scythian, being
well dressed, and having his hair cut in a circle after Scythian
fashion.

Having returned his salutation, I asked him who he was and
whence he had come into a foreign land and adopted Scythian
Hfe. When he asked me why I wanted to know, I told him
that his Hellenic speech had prompted my curiosity. Then
he smiled and said that he was born a Greek and had gone
as a merchant to Viminacium, on the Danube, where he had
stayed a long time, and married a very rich wife. But the city
fell a prey to the barbarians, and he was stripped of his
prosperity, and on account of his riches was allotted to One-
gesius [a Hunnish leader] in the division of the spoil, as it
was the custom among the Scythians for the chiefs to reserve
for themselves the rich prisoners. Having fought bravely
against the Romans and the Acatiri, he had paid the spoils he
won to his master, and so obtained freedom. He then married
a barbarian wife and had children, and had the privilege of
partaking at the table of Onegesius.

He considered his new life among the Scythians better than

507] SOURCES FROM THEODOSIUS TO JUSTINIAN iqi

his old life among the Romans, and the reasons he urged were
as follows : " After war the Scythians live at leisure, enjoying
what they have got, and not at all, or very little, disturbed.
The Romans, on the other hand, are in the first place very
liable to be killed, if there are any hostilities, since they have
to rest their hopes of protection on others, and are not allowed,
by their tyrants, to use arms. And those who do use them are
injured by the cowardice of their generals, who cannot
properly conduct war.

" But the condition of Roman subjects in time of peace is
far more grievous than the evils of war, for the exaction of
the taxes is very severe, and unprincipled men inflict injuries
on others, because the laws are practically not valid against
all classes. A transgressor who belongs to the wealthy classes
is not punished for his injustice, while a poor man, who does
not understand business, undergoes the legal penalty, — that is,
if he does not depart this life before the trial, so long is the
course of lawsuits protracted, and so much money is expended
on them. The climax of misery is to have to pay in order to
obtain justice. For no one will give a hearing to the injured
man except he pay a sum of money to the judge and the
judge's clerks."

In reply to this attack on the empire, I asked him to be
good enough to listen with patience to the other side of the
question. " The creators of the Roman republic," I said,
" who were wise and good men, in order to prevent things
from being done at haphazard, made one class of men guar-
dians of the laws, and appointed another class to the profes-
sion of arms, who were to have no other object than to be
always ready for battle, and to go forth to war without dread,
as though to their ordinary exercise, having by practice ex-
hausted all their fear beforehand. Others again were as-
signed to attend to the cultivation of the ground, to support
themselves and those who fight in their defence by contributing
the military corn supply. ... To those who protect the
interests of the litigants a sum of money is paid by the latter,

I02 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [508

just as a payment is made by the farmers to the soldiers.
Is it not fair to support him who assists and requite him for
his kindness? . . .

" Those who spend money on a suit and lose it in the end
cannot fairly put it down to anything but the injustice of
their case. And as to the long time spent on lawsuits, that is
due to anxiety for justice, that judges may not fail in passing
judgments by having to give sentence offhand ; it is better that
they should reflect, and conclude the case more tardily, than
that by judging in a hurry they should both injure the
man and transgress against the Deity, the institutor of
justice. . . .

" The Romans treat their slaves better than the king of the
Scythians treats his subjects. They deal with them as fathers
or teachers, admonishing them to abstain from evil or follow
the lines of conduct which they have esteemed honorable;
they reprove them for their errors like their own children.
They are not allowed, like the Scythians, to inflict death on
their slaves. They have numerous ways of conferring free-
dom; they can manumit not only during life, but also by their
wills, and the testamentary wishes of a Roman in regard to
his property are law."

My interlocutor shed tears, and confessed that the laws and
constitution of the Romans were fair, but deplored that the
officials, not possessing the spirit of former generations, were
ruining the state. ^

Another interesting fragment is the account which
Malchus gives of the embassy that Odovacar, the German
'' boss," dispatched to Constantinople after little Romulus
Augustulus had been sent away to a chateau in the country
(476). It is important for the relations between the Ger-
man " boss " and Emperor Zeno, and also the emperor,
Nepos, who had been previously driven out of Rome ; and,

iProm J. B. Bury, Later Roman Empire (London, 1889), vol. i, pp.
218-219.

509] SOURCES FROM THEODOSIUS TO JUSTINIAN 103

in order to illustrate further the style of these excerpts
relating to embassies, it is here inserted :

Odovacar compelled the senate to dispatch an embassy to
Emperor Zeno to inform him that they no longer needed an
emperor of their own ; a common emperor would be sufficient
who alone should be supreme ruler of both boundaries [of the
empire] ; that they had, .moreover, chosen Odovacar to guard
their interests, since he had an understanding of both political
and military affairs. They therefore begged Zeno to honor
him with the title of patrician and to commit to him the
diocese of the Italians. The men from the Roman senate ar-
rived bringing this message to Byzantium.

During these days there came also messengers from Nepos,
who were to congratulate Zeno on what had taken place
[namely, the overthrow of the usurper Basiliscus] and ask him
at the same time zealously to aid Nepos, who had been suffer-
ing in the same way as he, to regain his power by supplying
money and an army and all things necessary to effect his
restoration. Those who were to say these things were accord-
ingly dispatched by Nepos.

But Zeno made the following reply to the men from the
senate, namely, that of the two emperors they had received
from the east, one they had driven out, while Anthemius
they had killed. What should be done under the circumstances
they must surely perceive. So long as an emperor still lived,
there was no other policy possible except that they should
receive him when he returned.

To the men from the barbarian [i. e. Odovacar] he replied
that it would be wise for Odovacar to accept the dignity of
patrician from Emperor Nepos; and that he himself would
send it, should Nepos not anticipate him; and he praised
Odovacar because he had shown a tendency to preserve the
order established by the Romans, and trusted therefore that
Odovacar, if he wished to do the fair thing, would receive
the emperor who had paid him these honors. And sending a
royal letter to Odovacar, expressing his wishes, he addressed
him as patrician.

OF TM£ \

CHAPTER X

Sources from Theodosius the Great to Justinian
(Continued) : The Ecclesiastical Historians

ZosiMUS was distinctly inferior to several of his prede-
cessors as an historical writer, and the Greek fragments
which reinforce and continue his work are vague and de-
sultory. The decline in quantity and quality of sources was
contemporaneous with a generally admitted weakening of
government, at least in the western provinces. Conditions
within the commonwealth were maniiestly growing worse;
there was less order and more bloodshed, increasing rob-
bery and decreasing security. The " good old days " lay
behind, not ahead. The decline was also attended bv the
rise of a new religion, which was obviously growing in
numbers and influence at the expense of the old state re-
ligion. The pagans very naturally connected the two ideas
and ascribed to Christianity the cause of imperial weakness.
Such a charge threatened serious danger to the new faith,
and the Christian apologists, who were developing a new
kind of historical philosophy, looked about for a final con-
vincing answer.

The taunts of Zosimus, or of people like him, on the sack
of Rome by Alaric and the Goths, were a leading factor in
inciting no less a man than Saint Augustine ^ to write his
celebrated City of God to show that thai disaster could not

1 Born in 354 and became bishop of Hippo in 395. He died in 430,
while his city was besieged by the Vandals.

104 [510

51 1] THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORIANS 105

be reasonably attributed to the anger of the heathen gods
who had been deserted for the God of the Christians :

. . . Wherefore, touching the temporal city (which long-
ing after domination, though it hold all the other nations under
it, yet in itself is overruled by the one lust after sovereignty)
we may not omit to speak whatsoever the quality of our pro-
posed subject shall require or permit, for out of this arise the
foes against whom God's city is to be guarded. Yet some of
these reclaiming their impious errors have become good citizens
therein; but others burning with an extreme violence of hate
against it, are so thankless to the Redeemer of it for so mani-
fest benefits of His, that at this day they would not speak a
word against it, but that in the holy places thereof, flying
thither from the sword of the foe, they found that life and
safety wherein they now glory. x\re not these Romans become
persecutors of Christ, whom the very barbarians saved for
Christ's sake? Yes, the churches of the Apostles and the
Martyrs can testify this, which in that great sack were free
both to their own and to strangers. Even thither came the rage
of the bloody enemy ; even there the murderer's fury stopped ;
even thither were the distressed led by their pitiful foes (who
had spared them, though finding them out of those sanctuaries )
lest they should light upon some that should not extend the like
pity. And even they that elsewhere raged in slaughters, coming
but to those places, that forbade what law of war elsewhere
allowed, all their headlong fury curbed itself, and all their
desire of conquest was conquered. And so escaped many then,
that since have detracted all they can from Christianity: they
can impute their city's other calamities wholly unto Christ, but
that good which was bestowed on them only for Christ's honor
— namely, the sparing of their lives — that they impute not
unto our Christ, but unto their own fate ; whereas if they had
any judgment, they would rather attribute these calamities and
miseries of mortality, all unto the providence of God, which
useth to reform the corruptions of men's manners, by war and
oppressions, and laudably to exercise the righteous in such

I06 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [512

afflictions, and having so tried them, either to transport them
to a more excellent estate or to keep them longer in the world
for other ends and uses. . . }

The learned bishop of Hippo, finding that he would not
have time himself to review the salient points in profane
and sacred history with a view to the proper illustration of
his elaborate contrast of Christian society and of heathen-
dom, entrusted that part of the apology to his friend and
pupil, Orosius. That introduced on a large scale a new
kind of historical source, which was greatly to influence the
fifth and subsequent centuries.

Orosius had studied in northern Africa, had seen Saint
Jerome in Palestine, and when he wrote his history {cca.
417) was a priest in Spain. He adopted with enthusiasm
the curious Christian theory of the historical development of
Rome from Adam through a long line of Hebrew judges,
kings, and prophets, and not inappropriately labeled his
work " Seven Books of Histories against the Pagans." ^
Several Christian writers before him, notably Sextus Julius
Africanus, Eusebius, and Jerome, had made the connection
and prepared the chronology.* Jerome's work was at any
rate available to Orosius. Of the pagan writers, Orosius
made use chiefly of Justin and somewhat of Livy, Tacitus,
Suetonius, Eutropius, and others, although it is question-
able whether he quoted all his authorities directly or merely
copied quotations from some one else's work.

1 De civitate Dei, i, i.

I 2 The best edition of Orosius is that by C. Zangemeister (Vienna,
I 1882), The work, which was extremely popular in the middle ages,
( was rewritten in Anglo-Saxon by order of Alfred the Great. There
J is an English translation of Alfred's version by H. Sweet (London,
1883).

[ ^ See infra, p. 146.

513] THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORIANS 107

Orosius wrote his "books of histories^ to demonstrate
that evils and calamities were no novelty in the world, and
that the God of the Christians was in fact not so unkind as
the gods of the pagans/ This thesis dominates the selec-
tion and presentation of all the facts and thus destroys, or
at least fatally weakens, what we would nowadays term
fair historical accuracy. Only the last few pages of the
seventh book, which closes with the year 417, have any value
for our purposes, for they relate to the writer's own time,
about which, especially in Gaul and Spain, little is known.
Orosius was on the ground ; he witnessed barbarians every-
where about him ; he saw them settling permanently in the
western provinces and must have known a good deal about
their organization and society, how they fused with the
Roman citizens and what was the effect of Germanic in-
vasions on Roman institutions and customs. These things,
however, hardly concerned his thesis, and he left them
therefore to be guessed by modern scholars. Even his re-
marks on military events and on the Gothic kings are al-
most invariably vague and desultory and end in obscurant-
ism or pious ejaculation. The ineffable judgment of God
infinitely outweighs in his eyes the specific conduct of Van-
dals, Goths and Roman citizens.

But with respect to the barbarians Orosius answered the
pagans to his own satisfaction, and the contradictions in
the reply were not allowed to impair its finality. In the
first place, it was the will of God that had brought the Ger-
mans into the empire to be converted to Christianity ; in the

1 Something of the same kind is to be found in the De mortibus per-
secutorum, usually ascribed to Lactantius (d. cca. 340), a Greek rhetor-
ician of Nicomedia in Bithynia and tutor to Constantine's son. The
treatise endeavors to show what violent and awful deaths overtook all
persecutors of Christians. Best edition by G. Laubmann and S. Brandt
(Vienna, 1893). An English translation by W. Fletcher in Ante-Nicene
Fathers, vol. vii (New York, 1896).

I08 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [514

second place, it was the vengeance of God that had visited
on the inhabitants of the empire the horrors of barbarian
war, just punishment for sin; and finally, the injuries suf-
fered at the hands of the Germans were not very great any-
way, quite insignificant compared with the calamities which
had befallen pagan Rome:

Now the care and instruction of the two young princes [Ar-
cadius and Honorius] had been entrusted by the emperor
Theodosius I to very capable men, to Rufinus in the east and
to Stilicho in the west. What each did or aimed to do, the
outcome proved, for one affected the royal dignity for himself
and the other for his son, so that in the suddenly disturbed
conditions their criminal ambition concealed the real needs of
the commonwealth. Rufinus received barbarian peoples and
Stilicho favored them. I am silent how king Alaric with his
Goths was often conquered, often surrounded, but always
allowed to escape. I am silent concerning those wretched
doings at PoUenzo when the chief command was given to that
barbarian and pagan duke Saul, by whose depravity the
holiest days and sacred Easter even were profaned/ and an
enemy yielding for the sake of religion was made to fight,
with the result that, God showing in rapid judgment both
what His favor avails and what His vengeance requires, we
conquered fighting but in our victory were vanquished. I am
silent concerning the numerous destructive feuds among the
barbarians themselves, how two parties of the Goths opposed
each other and how also the numbers of Alani and Goths were
decreased by all sorts of slaughter.

Radagaisus, by far the most savage of all ancient and pres-
ent-day enemies, by sudden attack inundated the whole of
Italy. They say there were more than two hundred thousand
Goths among his people. Besides leading this incredible multi-
tude and displaying indomitable bravery, he was a pagan and
a Scythian, who, in accordance with the custom of those

1 April, 402.

515] THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORIANS 109

barbarous tribes, vowed to drink to his gods all the blood of
the Roman race. On his threatening the fortifications of
Rome, all the pagans in the city met together, saying that the
enemy was strong not only in his human forces but most of
all in the aid of the gods, and that the city on the other
hand was destitute and would soon perish because it had
abandoned the gods and pagan rites. They raised great com-
plaints everywhere and discussed the immediate revival and
celebration of those rites: blasphemy raged throughout the
city, and the name of Christ was publicly assailed like
any pestilence of modern times. And since in a people, part
good and part bad, grace was due the pious and punishment
the impious, the ineffable judgment of God ordained on the
one hand that enemies should assail the obstinate and refractory
city with scourges more than usually severe, and on the other
hand that those should not be tolerated who in excessive
slaughter destroyed all without distinction.

Two Gothic peoples were then raging throughout the Roman
provinces under their two powerful kings, of whom one was
a Christian and more like a Roman and mild in slaughter
through fear of God, as the event proved, while the other was a
pagan barbarian and a Scythian in the bargain, who in his
insatiable cruelty loved fame and plunder less than slaughter.
The latter was now received in the lap of Italy and terrified
Rome still trembling from the last danger. If power of
revenge had been granted him [Radagaisus], whom the
Romans thought was to be especially feared because he in-
voked the favor of the gods by offering sacrifices, and if
greater slaughter had broken forth without consequent refor-
mation, and error had anew grown worse than formerly, then
since they had fallen into the hands of a pagan and idolater,
the remaining pagans would have been persuaded to restore
the worship of idols, and they would have perilously confused
the Christians. The latter would have been frightened and
the former confirmed by such a lesson. Wherefore God, the
just director of the human race, willed that the pagan enemy

no SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [516

should perish and suffered the Christian to prevail, so that
the Roman pagans and blasphemers might be confounded by
the destruction of the one and punished by the admission of
the other, especially since the admirable royal restraint and
most holy faith of emperor Honorius merited not less divine
compassion.

The minds and armies of other enemies are turned to aid
against this most horrible Radagaisus. Uldin and Sarus,.
leaders of Huns and Goths, assist the Romans, but God
does not permit the bravery of men, especially of enemies,
to seem the cause of His power. The divine Will forces the
terrified Radagaisus into the mountains of Faesulae and cuts
oflf (to state the minimum estimate) two hundred thousand
men, in need of counsel and provision and hard pressed by
fear, on the rough and arid mountain ridge, and drives the
lines for whom Italy had seemed too narrow, now anxious for
concealment, to one small peak. Why should I tarry with
elaborate details ? A line of battle was not stationed ; the fury
and uncertain fear of a fight did not prevail ; there was no
slaughter; blood was not shed; and finally — what is usually
distributed under fortunate circumstances — the spoils of battle
were not weighed after the victory: ours ate, drank, and
played, in direct proportion as the savage enemies were de-
stroyed by hunger, thirst, and inactivity. These things are not
enough unless the Romans know that the one whom they fear
is captured and imprisoned, and unless they despise that
idolater himself, whose sacrifices they feigned to fear more
than his arms, now overcome without an engagement and a
prisoner in chains. Accordingly king Radagaisus, placing his
only hope in flight, secretly deserted his followers and fell
among ours. He was captured and after being held in custody
a little while was put to death.

There is said to have been so great a multitude of Gothic
captives, moreover, that they were sold in droves for single
gold pieces like the meanest cattle. God, however, permitted
nothing to remain of this people, for all died who were pur-

517] THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORIANS 1 1 1

chased and the dishonest buyers mercifully spent for burials
what they had disgracefully saved in purchase prices. And
just as ungrateful Rome now feels the indirect mercy of God's
judgment not merely in decreasing but in suppressing pre-
sumptuous idolatry, so on account of the pious remembrance
of the saints, living and dead, will she not always suffer the
full wrath of God, if perchance she repents her disorders and
learns faith by experience. Wherefore is she now troubled a
little while by the incursion of king Alaric, an enemy but a
Christian.^

Orosius is very hostile to Stilicho, " who was sprung from
the unwarlike, covetous, perfidious and grievous race of
Vandals," ^ and accuses him of a desire to " substitute his
son for his cousin " in imperial power. ^ " For this reason
he spared Alaric and the whole Gothic people, who were
begging simply and sincerely for a favorable peace and any
possible settlements, and in order to tread down and terrify
the commonwealth, he secretly favored them with an alliance
while publicly refusing supplies for peace or war." It was
for the same reason that he invited various tribes into Gaul
and Spain and incited them to arms. That was why
'' Stilicho was killed by the army." *

Orosius gives the following account of Alaric's raid on
Rome in 410, which many later writers have made of
epochal importance:

Alaric it is who besieges, alarms and finally sacks anxious
Rome, only after giving commands, however, that refugees in

' vii, Z7'

2 Saint Jerome {Ep. ad Gerontiam) calls Stilicho a " semi-barbar-
ian." Cf. the praises of Claudian, infra, p. 138.

3 Stilicho had married Serena, the cousin of Honorius. Serena was
the daughter of the elder Honorius and a niece of Theodosius the
Great.

* vii, 38.

112 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [518

the holy places and especially in the basilica of the holy
apostles Peter and Paul are to be left quite secure and invio-
late, and further that those who desire to pillage shall refrain
as far as possible from bloodshed. It also befell (which
proves that this sack of the city was caused by the wrath of
God rather than by the enemy's bravery) that blessed Innocent,
bishop of the Roman city, who had departed like virtuous Lot
from Sodom by God's hidden providence and was then at
Ravenna, did not behold the destruction of the sinful people.
While the barbarians were scurrying through the city, by
chance one of the Goths, of powerful physique and a Chris-
tian withal, found in a certain church house a consecrated
virgin well along in years, of whom he respectfully demanded
gold and silver. She replied with confidence that there was
much in her house and that she would fetch it at once. She
did fetch it, and when on uncovering the articles she perceived
the amazement of the barbarian at the size, weight, and
beauty, as well as at the unknown nature of the utensils, the
maid of Christ said to him : " These are the sacred vessels of
the apostle Peter. Presume if thou darest; thou shalt have
the deed on thy conscience. For my part, what I am unable
to defend I dare not keep." The barbarian, struck with re-
verential awe by the fear of God and the maid's faith, re-
ported the matter by messenger to Alaric, who ordered all the
vessels to be promptly returned just as they were to the
basilica of the Apostle, and the virgin together with all Chris-
tians who might join her to be conducted under the same es-
cort. Her house, they say, was a long distance from the holy
places and from the center of the city. The gold and silver
vessels are thereupon distributed in regular order in full view
of everyone and are carried aloft on the people's heads ; the
pious procession is protected on all sides by drawn swords,
and a hymn is publicly intoned to God by mingled Romans and
barbarians and in the midst of the city's destruction the trum-
pet of salvation resounds far and wide, inviting and drawing
forth everyone from concealment to accompany as vessels of

519] THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORIANS 113

Christ these vessels of Peter. To them are added many
pagans who escape until the time when they are to be worse
confounded. The more numerous the Roman refugees col-
lect, the more eagerly do they surround the barbarian guards.
O holy and ineffable discernment of divine judgment! O that
holy and salutary stream, which taking its rise from the little
house and flowing in its blessed channel to the seats of the
saints, carried imperiled and weary souls in irresistible piety
on its waves of safety! O that admirable trumpet of the
Christian army, which, inviting in sweetest tone all without
distinction to life, aroused not the disobedient to salvation and
left the inexcusable to death ! This wonderful event of trans-
porting vessels, chanting hymns, and popular procession, was
methinks like a great sieve, through the openings of which the
live kernels from the aggregate of the Roman people as from
a large quantity of grain, shaken by chance or truth, issued
forth from their hiding places throughout the whole extent
of the city. All their faith in present safety was derived from
the storehouse of the Lord's disposals, and the rest of the
people were left by their incredulity or premeditated dis-
obedience, like dung or chaff, to be destroyed and burned.
Who can weigh these complete miracles with deliberation;
who can declare them with worthy praise?

The barbarians left the city of their own accord on the third
day after their entrance. There was of course considerable
burning of buildings, but less indeed than happened by acci-
dent 700 A. U. C.,^ and if I review the conflagration set by
emperor Nero for spectacular purposes, there will doubtless
be no comparison between that which a mad prince incited
and this which a conqueror's wrath inflicted. Nor need I
for like purposes of comparison call to mind the Gauls who
for almost a year were masters of the ashes of the burned and
desolate city. And lest anyone might doubt perchance whether
the enemy were suffered in order to correct the pride, licen-
tiousness, and blasphemy of the city, it happened at the same

1 After the funeral of Clodius, 52 B. C.

/

114 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [520

time that the most famous places in the city which escaped
burning by the enemy were destroyed by Hghtning.

Thus in 1164 A. U. C, the city was sacked by Alaric. Al-
though this event is of recent occurrence, nevertheless if you
should see and hear the crowd of people at Rome, you would
think, as they themselves declare, that nothing had happened,
unless you should chance to be shown the ruins of the fire,
which are still standing. Placidia, the daughter of emperor
Theodosius and sister of emperors Arcadius and Honorius,
was captured in this raid by Ataulf, Alaric's kinsman, and
taken to wife, just as if Rome by a kind of divine judgment
had deHvered her as a special pledge and hostage ; and she was
thus joined to the most powerful relative of the barbarian
king and one who was very friendly to the commonwealth/

The writer makes passing mention of several tyrants or
usurpers during the reign of Honorius and blames them for
most of the barbarian broils. It was one of these, Con-
stantine, who sent into Spain " those barbarians who had
previously been received as foederati ^ and were now en-
rolled in the army and called Honoriaci," who, " being in-
spired by booty and allured by plenty, abandoned the de-
fenses of the Pyrenees and admitted through the open passes
into the Spanish provinces all those tribes who were ravag-
ing Gaul and who now united with themselves." Precisely
what happened is obscured in these words :

Spain is invaded; slaughter and devastation are endured; yet
what is borne at the hands of the barbarians during these two
years while the hostile sword is unsheathed presents nothing
new as compared to what the Romans have suffered for two
hundred years, or even to the destruction wrought by Germans

^ vii, 39, 40.

2 By Theodosius. Zosimus (iv, 40) and Jordanes (20) mention the
Gothic foederati. The earliest extant application of the term to the
Goths is in the Theodosian Code, vii, 13, 16 (A. D. 406).

52 1 ] THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORIANS n^

for upwards of twelve years under emperor Gallienus. What
man, moreover, who fears God's judgments on his thoughts and
deeds or on those of his household, will not acknowledge that
he justly suffers every ill and that he is even now sustaining
little punishment? Or how does he who knows not self or
fears not God, bear this small punishment unjustly? Where-
fore, God's mercy brought this to pass with the same good-
ness with which it had been prophesied, so that in accordance
with his enduring admonition in the gospel : " When they shall
persecute you in one city, flee into another," ^ whoever wished
to enter or leave could employ barbarian mercenaries, ser-
vants, and guards. The latter offered their services, more-
over; and those who were able to take away everything after
the general destruction demanded a small fee in payment for
their service and the burden of conveyance. This was ob-
tained by many. On the other hand, those stubborn ones
who believed not the gospel of God, being doubly stubborn
if they would not hear, and who would not surrender a
place condemned by God's wrath, were justly overtaken and
oppressed by an unexpected wrath.

The detestable barbarians are now, however, continually
converting their swords into ploughshares and favoring the
remaining Romans as real friends and allies, so that among
them are to be found even Romans who prefer to endure
poor liberty among barbarians than tributary anxiety among
the Romans. If the barbarians are admitted to Roman terri-
tory for this reason alone that the churches of Christ in east
and west may be filled with Huns, Suevi, Vandals, Burgun-
dians, and countless nations of believers, God's mercy must
obviously be praised and extolled, because in spite of ma-
terial injury to ourselves, so many tribes receive a knowledge
of the truth which they could learn by no other means. For
what punishment is it to the Christian who longs for eternal
life to be taken out of this world at any time or in any way?
And what gain is it, moreover, to the pagan who in the midst

1 Matth. X, 23.

Il6 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [522

of Christians is obdurate against the faith to prolong his
days a little if finally on his deathbed his conversion be still
despaired of?

And although the judgments of God are ineffable, and we
are unable to know them all or to account for what we do
know, I would briefly venture the suggestion that, by the work-
ing out of the same law, both those who know and those who
do not know, incur with justice the correction of God's judg-
ment.^

Orosius lauds the achievements of count Constantius in
destroying the whole catalogue of open usurpers and re-
bellious dukes, for by his efforts and the initiative of pious
Honorius " peace and unity have been restored to the Catho-
lic Church throughout Africa . . . and the body of Christ,
which we are, is healed of destructive schism." ^

In 1 168 A. U. C.^ count Constantius established himself at
Aries, a city of Gaul, and with great activity in the conduct
of affairs, expelled the Goths from Narbonne * and forced
them to withdraw into Spain, the passage of ships and traders
being wholly forbidden and stopped. King Ataulf then ruled
the Gothic peoples.^ He had married Placidia, the emperor's
sister, who was captured, as I have said, and succeeded Alaric
in the kingdom after the sack of the city and the death of
Alaric. He was an eager partisan of peace, as was often
rumored and eventually demonstrated, who chose to fight
loyally in behalf of emperor Honorius and to spend the
strength of the Goths in defence of the Roman commonwealth.
When I was at Bethlehem, a town of Palestine, I heard a
citizen of Narbonne, who had served wnth distinction under
Theodosius, and who was besides a wise and religious person,
tell most blessed Jerome, the priest, that he had been on very
familiar terms with Ataulf at Narbonne and had frequently

1 vii, 41. 2 vii^ 42. 3 A. D. 414.

4 The province of that name. ° A. D. 410-415.

523] ^^^ ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORIANS ny

heard him affirm that, in the first exuberance of his strength
and spirits, he had ardently desired to obliterate the Roman
name and make the Roman empire entirely and solely Gothic :
in fact, to use vulgar speech, to turn *' Romania " into
'' Gothia," ^ and to make himself, Ataulf, all that Caesar
Augustus had once been. But when he had learned by long
experience that the Goths would obey no laws on account of
their unrestrained barbarism, yet that it was wrong to de-
prive the commonwealth of laws, without which the common-
wealth is not the commonwealth, he at least for his part had
chosen to have the glory of restoring entire and of magnifying
the Roman name by Gothic vigor, and he wished to be looked
upon by posterity as the author of the Roman restoration,
since he could not be its transformer. Wherefore, being es-
pecially influenced in every good provision by the advice and
counsel of his wife, Placidia, a woman of very acute judgment
and sincere piety, he strove to refrain from war and to stand
open to peace. And when he persisted most earnestly in
seeking and granting peace, he was slain at Barcelona by
treachery, they say, of his own people.

After him, Segericus was made king of the Goths, and
would likewise have been, by God's judgment, favorably in-
clined to peace, but he was killed by his people.

Then Vallia succeeded to the kingdom. He was chosen
by the Goths to break the peace, but he was ordained by God
to confirm peace. He was severely frightened by God's judg-
ment, because in a former year a Gothic expedition, well-
equipped with arms and ships, in trying to cross to Africa
had been overtaken by a storm within twelve miles of the
strait of Gibraltar, and perished wretchedly; and also because
he still remembered the fleet which had been prepared under

1 These colloquialisms are suggestive. See Bury's edition of Gibbon,
vol. i, p. 148, note. The word " Romania " seems to have been put
chiefly in the mouths of persons without the empire, or used by
writers when they are looking at the empire from an enemy's point of
view.

Il8 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [524

Alaric's direction, and how the Goths had attempted to cross
to Sicily, but had been shipwrecked in full view of their own
people and drowned. Wherefore he gave most excellent
hostages and concluded a highly favorable peace with em-
peror Honorius; he moreover returned the emperor's sister,
Placidia, whom he honorably and sincerely esteemed. His
own danger he sacrificed to Roman security, inasmuch as
he himself fought against the other tribes who were settled
throughout Spain, and conquered them for the Romans.

On their side, the kings of the Alani, Vandals, and Suevi,
might, with pleasure to us, be represented as bidding emperor
Honorius, " Keep peace with all of us and accept hostages
from all; we fight and destroy one another; we conquer to
your advantage and to that of your eternal commonwealth if
we destroy each other." Who could believe this if he did not
see it? Thus we hear now every day frequent and reliable
news in Spain of conflicts and defeats sustained by this or
that barbarian tribe, and especially of the maintenance of
peace by Vallia, king of the Goths. If history shows any-
thing of like felicity from the creation of the world up to the
present time, I would concede that Christian times are really
reprehensible . . . ^

Orosius concludes his history at this point with a re-
statement of his thesis and a reverent tribute to Saint
Augustine.

A very few facts about the Germanic invasions which
might otherwise have escaped us are supplied by the more
formal and perhaps more reliable Greek and Latin historians
of the Christian Church. Eusebius of Caesarea wrote an
Ecclesiastical History in ten books, extending from the
origin of Christianity to A. D. 324. The guiding idea of
Eusebius in this work, as in his Panegyric on Constantine

^ vii, 43.

525] THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORIANS ng

and his Life of Constantine, was the establishment of a
Christian empire, for which Constantine was the chosen
instrument. The Ecclesiastical History was translated from
Greek into Latin by Rufinus, a priest at Aquileia in the late
fourth century, who made alterations and added a supple-
ment in two books extending to the death of Theodosius the
Great (395).^ Three independent Greek continuators of
Eusebius — Sozomen^^Socrates,' and Theodoret * — covered
the first third of the fifth centuryT Extracts from these"
histories were selected and translated from Greek into
Latin by Epiphanius and edited by Cassiodorus, the prime
minister of king Theodoric. The compilation was called

iThe history of Eusebius is edited by G. Dindorf (Leipzig, 1871)
and by F. A. Heinichen (Leipzig, 1868-70). The version of Rufinus
is in Migne, Patrol. Lat., vol. xxi, pp. 461-540. There is an English
translation with excellent notes by A. C. McGiffert in Nicene and Post-
Nicene Fathers, vol. i (New York, 1890). The writings of Rufinus
are translated by W. H. Fremantle in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
vol. iii (New York, 1892).

2 Hermias Sozomenus Salaminius (d. cca. 450 at Constantinople).
His history, covering the years 323 to 439, is in Migne, Patrol. Graec.,
vol. XXV, and has been separately edited by R. Hussey, 3 vols. (Ox-
ford, 1859-60). English translation by C. D. Hartranft in Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. ii (New York, 1890). See J. Rosenstein,
*' Kritische Untersuchungen iiber d. Verhaltniss zwischen Olympiodor,
Zosimus u. Sozomenus" in Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte,
vol. i, pp. 167-204.

3 The work of Socrates, embracing the years 306 to 439, is in Migne,
Patrol. Graec, vol. xxv, and is also edited by R. Hussey, 3 vols. (Ox-
ford, 1853). English translation by A. C. Zenos in Nicene and Post-
l^icene Fathers, vol. ii (New York, 1890).

* Theodoretus, bishop of Cyrrhus in Syria (d. 457), deals with the
period 325-427. Edited by Migne, Patrol. Graec, vols. Ixxx-lxxxiv.
English translation by B. Jackson in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
vol. iii (New York, 1892). See A. Guldenpenning, Die Kirchenge-
schichte des Theodoret von Kyrrhos, eine Untersuchung ihrer Quellen
(Halle, 1889).

I20 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [526

the Historia tripartita, and was widely used throughout the
middle age as the leading manual of ecclesiastical history.
Full of contradictions and often incoherent, poorly arranged
in slavishly chronological order, it has small value for our
purposes. All these ecclesiastical histories devote slightly
less attention to miracles and monks than do the apologies
and saints' lives, but their exhaustive treatment of the
heresies of the age leaves little space for political or social
record.

In the same class belongs the Historia sacra ^ of Sulpi-
cius Severus (d. cca. 410), a native of Aquitaine. It is
divided into two books, the first extending from the creation
of the world to the Babylonian captivity of the Jews, and the
second to A. D. 397. It is the earliest sacred history written
in Latin, and from the standpoint of language and style is
an excellent piece of work: it indicates that ancient culture
still influenced men in Gaul. Sulpicius Severus never men-
tions his non-biblical authorities. He neither intended nor
furnished a scientific history, but compiled rather a good
and pleasant book for general reading.

1 Edited by C. Halm (Vienna, 1866). There is an English transla-
tion by A. Roberts in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. xi (New
York, 1893), and an especially good French translation by A. Laver-
tujon, 2 vols. (Paris, 1896-1899). Sulpicius's biography of Saint
Martin of Tours (d. 397) is a pious romance attesting the author's
veneration of his hero and full of miraculous adventures. Like other
saints' lives, it portrays the general conditions of the time, and is an
excellent source if considered in that way.

CHAPTER XI

Sources from Theodosius the Great to Justinian
(Continued) : Other Christian Writers

The disorders and general unrest of the fifth centui-y
made a deep impression on many Christian writers, who
saw in them a punishment for the grievous sins of the Ro-
man world. These writers were only preaching sermons,
in which they very naturally exaggerated the punishment as
they exaggerated the sins. Their gloomy picture could
be expected to enhance the awfulness of the foreshadowed
end of all things and the advantage of a speedy transfer of
affection from mundane affairs to the life of the world to
come. The rising asceticism in Christianity was especially
potent in fostering this feeling about the Germans.

Saint Jerome ^ himself embraced the monastic life, and
his letters written from Bethlehem make frequent mention
of the barbarians. The following extract from a letter
written in 395 ^ is an example :

Behold, suddenly messengers rush hither and thither, and the

1 Born in Dalmatia cca. 340, lived a while in Gaul, then in the desert
of Chalcis, became a priest at Antioch in 379, a secretary to Pope
Damasus in 382, for whom he began his work on the Vulgate, and in
386 fixed his residence in Bethlehem, where he died in 420. His edition
and continuation of the chronicle of Eusebius has already been noted
(see supra, p. 97). Jerome, despite his erudition and travel, gives an
impression in many of his epistles and minor works of possessing
some journalistic characteristics which we would now style "yellow".

2 Epistle Ixxvii, 8. Translation in J. B. Bury, Later Roman Empire^
vol. i, p. 69.

527] 121

122 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [528

whole East trembles with the news that from the far Maeotis,
from the land of the ice-bound Don and the savage Massa-
getae, where the strong works of Alexander on the Caucasian
cliffs keep back the wild nations, swarms of Huns burst forth,
and flying hither and thither scatter slaughter and terror
everywhere, the Roman army being absent in consequence of
the civil wars in Italy . . .

May Jesus protect the Roman world in future from such
beasts! They were everywhere, when they were least ex-
pected, and their speed outstripped the rumor of their ap-
proach; they spared neither religion nor dignity nor age; they
showed no pity to the cry of infancy. Babes, who had not
yet begun to live, were forced to die; and ignorant of the
evils that were upon them, as they were held in the hands and
threatened by the swords of the enemy, there was a smile
upon their lips. There was a consistent and universal report
that Jerusalem was the goal of the foes, and that on account
of their insatiable lust for gold they were hastening to this
city. The walls, neglected by the carelessness of peace, were
repaired. Antioch was enduring a blockade. Tyre, fain to
break off from the dry land, sought its ancient island. Then
we too were constrained to provide ships, to stay on the sea-
shore, to take precautions against the arrival of the enemy,
and, though the winds were wild, to fear a shipwreck less
than the barbarians — making provision not for our own safety
so much as for the chastity of our virgins.

In another letter,^ Jerome dwells on the wretchedness and
misery of human society, which he also illustrates by the
raids of Alaric and the fate of Rufinus and Timasius.
Speaking of the " wolves of the north," he asks:

How many monasteries were captured? The waters of how
many rivers were stained with human gore? Antioch was
besieged and the other cities, past which the Halys, the Cydnus,

1 396. Epistle Ix, 16. From J. B. Bury, Later Roman Empire.

529] OTHER CHRISTIAN WRITERS 123

the Orontes, and the Euphrates flow. Herds of captives were
dragged away; Arabia, Phoenicia, Palestine, Egypt were lead
captive by fear.

Jerome indulges in similar hysterical writing about the
fate of the entire empire:

O wretched state ! . . . For a long time, from the Black
Sea to the Julian Alps, those things which are ours have not
been ours; and for thirty years, since the Danube boundary
was broken, war has been waged in the very midst of the
Roman empire. Our tears are dried by old age. Except a
few old men, all were born in captivity and siege, and do not
desire the liberty they never knew. Who could beheve this?
How could the whole tale be worthily told? How Rome
has fought within her own bosom not for glory, but for pre-
servation— nay, how she has not even fought, but with gold
and all her precious things has ransomed her life ... ^

Yet the consecration of a single woman to a life of perpetual
virginity calls forth a letter in very different strain :

Italy changed her garments of mourning, and the ruined walls
of Rome almost resumed their former glory. This signal in-
stance of Divine favor made the Romans feel as if the Gothic
army, that off-scouring of all things, made up of slaves and
deserters, were already cut to pieces. It made them rejoice
more than their ancestors had done over the first victory which
succeeded the terrible disaster of Cannae.^

Such effusions, if taken together, might furnish us with
data for a study of the character and style of Saint Jerome,
but not with a trustworthy setting for a history of the Ger-
manic invasions. The personality, the aims, the method,
of this monk of Bethlehem are all opposed to accuracy

1 Ep. ad Ageruchiam, Migne, Patrol. Lot., xxii, cols. 1057 et seq.

2 Epistle to Demetrias.

V-

124 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [530

of general statement. But incrusted in his writings, as
in others of the period, are many incidental remarks of
real historical value, and we must carefully sift facts from
metaphors, prose from poetry, reason from imagination.
The obviously oratorical exaggeration in such passages as
that quoted above, — " How many monasteries were cap-
tured? The waters of how many rivers were stained with
human gore?" — does not disprove that Antioch was be--
sieged by barbarians; nor have we reason to reject the im-
plication that some Roman citizens were taken prisoners,
for the chances are that fact afforded the opportunity
for Jerome's outpouring of words, — "Arabia, Phoenicia,
Palestine, Egypt were led captive by fear."

\Much the same criticism can be made of Salvian,ja native
of Cologne, who was a priest at Marseilles in the first half
of the fifth century, and who wrote, in addition to several
strictly religious treatises, a work entitled Eight Books on
the Government of God} If Salvian is slightly freer from
journalistic rhetoric than Jerome and perhaps a little less
touched by the horrors of the situation, he is certainly not
more trustworthy as an impartial historian or observer. He
finds in the barbarians not only the agent of God's vengeance
but also an uplifting example, an incentive to holier living.
The reader feels instinctively that Salvian in his sermon-
izing and moralizing efforts makes the Roman citizens too
bad and the German immigrants too good :

In what respects can our customs be preferred to those of the
Goths and Vandals, or even compared with them? And first,
to speak of affection and mutual charity (which, our Lord
teaches, is the chief virtue, saying, " By this shall all men
know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to an-
other"), almost all barbarians, at least those who are of one

^De gubernatione Dei. Edited by F. Paully (Vienna, 1883).

53l] OTHER CHRISTIAN WRITERS 125

race and kin, love each other, while the Romans persecute
each other. For what citizen does not envy his fellow-
citizen ? What citizen shows to his neighbor full charity ?

[The Romans oppress each other with exactions] nay, not
each other: it would be quite tolerable, if each suffered what
he inflicted. It is worse than that; for the many are op-
pressed by the few, who regard public exactions as their own
peculiar right, who carry on private traffic under the guise of
collecting the taxes. And this is done not only by nobles, but
by men of the lowest rank; not by judges only but by judges'
subordinates. For where is the city — even the town or vil-
lage— which has not as many tyrants as it has curials? . . .
What place is there, therefore, as I have said, where the sub-
stance of widows and orphans, nay even of the saints, is not
devoured by the chief citizens ? . . . None but the great
is secure from the devastations of these plundering brigands,
except those who are themselves robbers . . .

[Nay, the state has fallen upon such evil days that a man
cannot be safe unless he is wicked]. Even those in a posi-
tion to protest against the iniquity which they see about them
dare not speak lest they make matters worse than before.
So the poor are despoiled, the widows sigh, the orphans are
oppressed, until many of them, born of families not obscure,
and liberally educated, flee to our enemies that they may no
longer suffer the oppression of public persecution. They
doubtless seek Roman humanity among the barbarians, be-
cause they cannot bear barbarian inhumanity among the Ro-
mans. And although they differ from the people to whom
they flee in manner and in language ; although they are unlike
as regards the fetid odor of the barbarians' bodies and gar-
ments, yet they would rather endure a foreign civilization
among the barbarians than cruel injustice among the Romans.

So they migrate to the Goths, or to the Bagaudes, or to
some other tribe of the barbarians who are ruling everywhere,
and do not regret their exile. For they would rather live free
under an appearance of slavery than live as captives under

126 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [532

an appearance of liberty. The name of Roman citizen, once
so highly esteemed and so dearly bought, is now a thing that
men repudiate and flee from . . .

It is urged that if we Romans are wicked and corrupt, that
the barbarians commit the same sins, and are not so miserable
as we. There is, however, this difference, that if the bar-
barians commit the same crimes as we, yet we sin more griev-
ously . . . All the barbarians, as we have already said, are
pagans or heretics. The Saxon race is cruel, the Franks are
faithless, the Gepidae are inhuman, the Huns are unchaste, —
in short, there is vice in the life of all the barbarian peoples.
But are their offenses as serious as ours? Is the unchastity
of the Hun so criminal as ours? Is the faithlessness of the
Frank so blameworthy as ours? Is the intemperance of the
Alamanni so base as the intemperance of the Christians ? Does
the greed of the Alani so merit condemnation as the greed
of the Christians? If the Hun or the Gepid cheat, what is
there to wonder at, since he does not know that cheating is
a crime? If a Frank perjures himself, does he do anything
strange, he who regards perjury as a way of speaking, not
as a crime ? ^

The nation of the Goths is perfidious but modest, that of
the Alani immodest but less perfidious; the Franks are liars
but hospitable, the Saxons wild with cruelty, but to be ad-
mired for their chastity. All these nations, in short, have
their especial good qualities as well as their peculiar vices.^

/x Salvian sums up his main contention as follows :

You, Romans and Christians and Catholics, are defrauding
your brethren, are grinding the faces of the poor, are fritter-
ing away your lives over the impure and heathenish spectacles
of the amphitheatre, you are wallowing in licentiousness. The
barbarians, meanwhile, heathen or heretics though they may

1 iv, 14. From J. H. Robinson, Readings in European History, vol.
i, pp. 28-30.

533] OTHER CHRISTIAN WRITERS 12/

be, and however fierce towards us, are just and fair in their
dealings with one another. The men of the same clan, and
following the same king, love one another with true affection.
The impurities of the theatre are unknown among them.
Many of their tribes are free from the taint of drunkenness,,
and among all, except the Alani and the Huns, chastity is
the rule.^

Written in somewhat similar spirit is the history of the
persecution of the Catholics by the Arian Vandal kings,
Genseric and Huniric (427-484), in three books ^ by an ar-
dent bishop, Victor Vitensis or Uticensis. This dreary
chronicle is an important source for the Germanic settle-
ments in Africa in the fifth century, not because of special
intrinsic worth but because of the scarcity of other and better
sources. According to its author, heresy, not German
blood, is the vice and crime of the Vandal kings.

Victor, Salvian, Jerome and Orosius, with others of their
class, ^ found the qualities of Christian piety and of histori-
cal or descriptive objectivity rather incompatible. They
are most disappointing as sources relating to the Germanic
invasions. Nor do the numerous lives of the saints of the
fifth and sixth centuries help us greatly, for they consist
chiefly of miracles and prodigies, obscure and uncritical.

1 From T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vol. i, p. 920.

2 Historia persecutionis Vandalicae or Africanae ecclesiae sub Geiser-
ico et Huniric 0 Vandalorum re gibus, edited by C. Halm in Monumenta
Germaniae historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, vol. iii (Berlin, 1879) and
by M. Petschenig in Corpus scriptorum ecclesiast., vol. vii (Vienna,
1881). German trans, by A. Mally (Vienna, 1884).

3 Suggestions are occasionally supplied by Vincent of Lerins, the
writer on theology; by Eucherius, a preacher at Lyons from 434 to
450; by Paulinus (353-431), bishop of Nola, whose works are now well
edited by W. Hartel, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1894) ; and by acts of church
councils. Then too, there are the Christian poets and panegyrists men-
tioned below.

128 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [534

Occasionally such a biography gives a little glimpse into the
life of the time or some detail of interest to the historical
student. Such are the life of Bishop Epiphanius of Pavia,
written by his successor, Ennodius/ about the year 504, and
the better known life of Saint Severinus, who labored in
Noricum as a missionary to the Germans on the Danube
and died in 482. The latter was prepared in 511 by a cer-
tain Eugippius, who had been with the saint but was then
an abbot near Naples.^ A few extracts from the biography
of Severinus will serve to illustrate saints' lives at their
best as historical sources : ^

On the death of the Hunnish king Attila, great uneasiness pre-
vailed in both the Pannonias and in the other border provinces.
It was then that Severinus, a holy servant of God, came from
the East to the region where Upper Noricum and the two
Pannonias meet, and settled in a little town called Asturis.*
Here he dwelt in accordance with the gospel and apostolic pre-
cepts in piety and in purity of heart and fulfilled his sacred
vows by good works in knowledge of the Catholic Faith.
Strengthened by these works, he strove zealously for the palm
of the heavenly calling.

1 Ennodius (474-521) also wrote a panegyric on Theodoric and many
letters. The best edition of his works is by F. Vogel in the Monumenta
German. Hist., Auctores Antiquissimi, vol. vii (Berlin, 1885). See M.
Fertig, Magnus Felix Ennodius und seine Zeit (1855-1860) ; and M.
Dumoulin, " Le gouvernement de Theodoric et la domination des
Ostrogoths en Italie d'apres les oeuvres d'Ennodius " in Revue histor-
ique (1901-2).

2 The best editions are by P. Knoell in Corpus Scriptorum Eccle-
siasticorum Latinorum, vol. ix (Vienna, 1886) ; and by T. Mommsen in
Scriptores rer. Germ, in usum schol. (Berlin, 1898). There is a German
translation by K. Rodenberg in the Geschichtschreiher.

3 See also the admirable life of Saint Martin of Tours by Sulpicins
Severus.

* Probably on the site of modern Klosterneuburg, near Vienna.

535] OTHER CHRISTIAN WRITERS I29

One day he went into the church as was his wont and
there began with humility to predict the future to the assem-
bled priests, clergy and people, and to urge them to prayers,
fasts and works of mercy in view of an impending attack of
the enemy. But their minds were choked and defiled by lusts
of the flesh, and they judged the preacher's prophecies by the
measure of their unbelief. When the servant of God returned
to his host's, who was a dignitary in the church, he foretold
the day and hour of the approaching destruction, adding, " I
am about to leave this stiff-necked city which will soon perish."
He thereupon betook himself to the next town, which is
called Comagenis.^

Comagenis was strongly guarded by its barbarian inhabi-
tants who had become allies of the Romans, and permission
to enter or leave was not readily granted. The servant of
God, however, was not questioned or refused, although he
was absolutely unknown to them. He hastened to the church
and admonished all who were despairing of deliverance to
arm themselves with fasts, prayers, and good works, and re-
viewed instances of deliverance in earlier times, how the Lord
had protected his people and, contrary to expectation, had
miraculously freed them. They were still hesitating to put
faith in one who promised safety to all in the presence of
gravest danger, when an old man arrived who had recently
sheltered such a man in Asturis, and who, upon being ques-
tioned by the warders, indicated by his looks and words the
ruin of his town, stating that it had been plundered and
totally destroyed by barbarians on the very day which a
certain man of God had prophesied. Hearing this, they asked
in astonishment, " Thinkest thou that it is the same man who
promises us in our doubt the help of God?" As soon as the
old man perceived the servant of God in the church, he threw
himself at his feet and gave thanks to him that he himself
was free and had not fallen with his fellow townsmen. When
the citizens heard this they sought pardon for their unbelief

1 Modern Tulln. It lay in Noricum.

130 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [536

and followed up the admonition of the man of God with
holy works; they fasted and did penance for their past sins
three entire days in church with sighs and lamentations. On
the evening of the third day during the celebration of the
Sacrifice, the barbarian inhabitants were so frightened at
a sudden earthquake that they forced the Romans to open the
gates quickly. They pressed out and fled hastily in all di-
rections for they thought themselves encompassed and hemmed
in by their hostile neighbors; and being filled by the Lord
with fear and confused in the darkness of the night, they
struck each other with their swords. Such was the destruc-
tion of the enemy, and the people, delivered by God's help,,
learned through the holy man to contend with heavenly
arms . . .^

Severinus went from one town to another, preaching and
encouraging the people and performing many miracles. He
built a cloister, whither came " numerous youths whom he
instructed in holy duties, accomplishing more by example
than by word,'' but the troubles of the time did not allow
him the life of isolation which he most desired.

The Rugian kingdom was tottering when Flaccitheus suc-
ceeded to the throne, for he was on bad terms with the Goths
in Lower Pannonia and their great numbers terrified him. He
constantly sought advice in his necessity of Saint Severinus as
of a divine oracle. On one occasion when he was hard pressed,
he came in tears to Severinus and said that he had been asked
by the Gothic princes about the pass into Italy, and as he had
declined to answer he would doubtless be killed by them. The
man of God thereupon advised him : " It is meet that thou
seekest my advice about eternal life because the one Catholic
faith unites us; and now, because thou art solicitous for thy
earthly welfare and asketh me about the life which is com-
mon to us all, give ear to my instruction. Fear not the num-

1 1, 2.

537] OTHER CHRISTIAN WRITERS 131

bers or enmity of the Goths, for they will soon depart hence
and thou shalt rule peacefully and with good fortune. Forget
not, I pray thee, what I have admonished thee. Despise
not to make peace with the least and rely not on thine own
might. Cursed be the man, saith Scripture, that trusteth in
man and maketh flesh his arm and whose heart departeth from
the Lord.^ Wherefore, seek to avoid snares, deceive not, and
thou shalt die a peaceful death in thine own camp ... *

. . . Some barbarians on their way to Italy stopped to
see him and entreat his blessing, among whom was Odovacar,
later king of Italy, then a tall youth in mean clothes. He had
to bow his head as it touched the low ceiling of the cell, and
the man of God knew he would sometime be famous. For
when he had given him his blessing, he said : " Go to Italy,
go, thou who art now clad in poorest skins, shalt then give
many rich gifts." ^

King Feletheus, surnamed Feva, the son of the above-
mentioned Flaccitheus, imitated his father's zeal and at the
beginning of his reign sought likewise the advice of the holy
man. But his wild and evil wife, Giso by name, was always
anxious to draw him from the wholesome pursuits of peace.
She even tried with other abominable crimes to rebaptize
Catholic Christians, but she soon left off because her hus-
band, from fear of holy Severinus, would not concur. Never-
theless, she oppressed Romans with a heavy hand and even
commanded that some should be brought to her across the
Danube. While she was stopping one day in a village near
Favianis, she caused several Romans to be taken across the
river and condemned to most wretched slavery. The man of
God at once demanded their freedom, but she, inflamed by
the fire of womanly wrath, answered spitefully, " Pray for
yourself, servant of God, immured in your cell; it is our
business to treat with our servants as we will." When the
man of God heard this, he said : " I trust in the Lord Jesus
that she will be compelled to realize what in her evil desire

1 Jeremias, xvii, 5. 2 ch. 5. s Ch. 7.

132 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [538

she hath disdained." And there speedily followed a blow
which struck her haughty spirit to the ground . . . -

While the most distant towns of Upper Noricum were
still standing, although no fort was safe from barbarian at-
tacks, the fame of Saint Severinus shone so brightly that
every garrison competed with every other for his protection,
believing that in his presence no misfortune could befall.
And it was not without the favor of divine grace that every-
one feared his admonitions as divine utterances and followed
his example with good works. . . . ^

So long as Roman rule was maintained, soldiers were kept
in many cities at public expense for the protection of the
border wall, but when it was no longer used, the garrisons dis-
solved and the border wall fell. The Batavinian guard alone
remained intact. Some of these soldiers were sent to Italy
to obtain the last pay for their comrades, but they were at-
tacked by barbarians on the way, no one knows where. One
day Saint Severinus suddenly shut the book which he was
reading in his cell, and began to groan and weep, and bade
his companions hurry to the river, which they would find at
that moment red with human blood. And as a matter of
fact it was straightway announced to him that the corpses
of those soldiers had been washed ashore by the river
current.^ . . .

At the close of the hard strife and the long battle, when
Saint Severinus, enlightened by God, perceived that he was
about to pass out of this world, he asked the often mentioned
Rugian king, Feva, to come to him with his evil wife, Giso.
He charged him with wholesome words that in dealing with his
subjects he should always think of the account he would have
to render the Lord of the condition of his kingdom, and
he boldly added other admonitions. Then he stretched out
his hand, and pointing to the king's breast asked the queen
reproachfully : " Lovest thou, Giso, this soul more than silver
and gold?" When she said she preferred her husband above

iCh. 8. 2Ch. II. 3Ch. 20.

539] OTHER CHRISTIAN WRITERS 133

all riches, the wise man of God continued : " Cease then to
oppress the innocent lest their affliction break thy rule; for
oftentimes thou makest the king's mildness of no avail." But
she replied : " Why receivest thou us in this manner, servant
of God?" He answered: ''I beseech ye, I, a most humble
servant, who will soon appear before the Lord, that ye refrain
from evil deeds and attend to works of piety. Thus far hath
your kingdom thrived by God's grace; henceforth look ye
well to it." When the king and his consort were fittingly
admonished by these words, they took their departure and
went thence.

Thereafter the saint ceased not to speak to his disciples in
all kindliness and love about his approaching separation, and
what they were to do. " Know, dear Brothers," he said, " as
^t is written that the children of Israel escaped from the
land of Egypt, so is it also determined that all the people of
this land shall be freed from the wicked rule of the bar-
barians. Then shall they all go forth with their possessions
from the cities and proceed into the Roman province and no
one will rob them of anything. But heed the command of
the holy patriarch Joseph, with whose words, I, an unworthy
and bad servant, beseech you : God will visit you and you will
carry my bones with you out of this land.^ This will not be
of use to me but to you. These places, now still inhabited,
will be changed into such a waste solitude that the enemy in
quest of wealth will dig up the graves of the dead." And the
present condition of things confirms the truth of his pro-
phecy. The saintly father, with pious forethought, ordered
his body removed so that when the time of the general migra-
tion should come, the community of Brothers whom he had
collected, might move together and thus continue bound to-
gether in unity and communion of spirit.^

1 Genesis, 1, 24. 2 Ch. 40.

CHAPTER XII

Sources from Theodosius the Great to Justinian
(Continued) : Poets and Panegyrists

Panegyrists and poets should be treated in the fifth as
in every other century merely as panegyrists and poets.
Political bias is as destructive of historical accuracy as reli-
gious prejudice; slavish devotion to emperor, commander,
or senate is little different in essence from blind devotion
to God or Church. Poetry, moreover, if really poetry, isV
apt to be ideal or mystical or at least to represent events as
they ought to be rather than as they are. Bad poetry —
and much of the poetry of the fourth and fifth centuries was
bad,— is only artificial, and the bad poet discovers that fonn
is inexorable, that everything must be subordinated to the
needs of rhythm. The poet should be put with the furious
friend in the category of the undesirable members of the so-
ciety of trustworthy historians.

It happens, however, in the case of the panegyrics and of
the poems as in that of the edifying religious tracts that an
interesting or suggestive statement may be discovered in the
midst of the rhetoric or the verse, perhaps an important
observation on the conditions of the time. Several ex-
amples might be cited.

Eumenius, a native of Autun in Gaul who flourished in
the latter part of the third century, addressed flattering
speeches to Constantius Chlorus,^ in one of which he said :

1 The panegyrics of Eumenius may be found in the Panegyrici
veteres, ed. b*y E. Bahrens (Leipzig, 1874), together with several
134 [540

541 ] POETS AND PANEGYRISTS I35

We have seen and we shall still see in the streets of our cities
and under our porches long files of captive barbarians, whom
the emperor's orders distribute among the inhabitants of the
province, waiting to be conducted to the fields which lack
laborers and which they must cultivate. Here is then a
Chamave and a Prison working for me; the old pillager is
changed to a worker and brings his crops to our markets
. . . The territories of Beauvais, Troyes, Langres, which
lacked coloni, today prosper by the labor of the barbarian
coloni.

Themistiiis, perhaps the most important of the group,
a Greek rhetorician, taught at Constantinople in the second
half of the fourth century and enjoyed the favor of several
;mperors. Constantius made him a senator; Julian called
lim the foremost philosopher of the age; Theodosius selected
him as tutor for Arcadius and in 384 nominated him to a
prefecture. Thirty- four of his speeches ^ survive. They
are partially philosophical but mainly eulogistic of the em-
perors he served, and are filled with political and historical
allusions. They are surprisingly clear. The defects of
panegyrics in general and the particular merits of Themis-
tius are illustrated in the following extract from a tribute
paid to Theodosius in 383 :

It was considered a great thing when Corbulo induced Tiri-
dates, king of Armenia, to submit to Nero, but the knowledge
of the vile character of his master must have saddened even
that success to Corbulo. How much greater the happiness of
Saturninus who serves such a master as Theodosius! And
the Armenians are a race easily lifted up with pride and soon

anonymous panegyrics which came from Gaul. Oratory seems to
have prospered in Gaul, even in the Rhenish cities, in the fourth and
early fifth centuries.

1 Edited by L. Dindorf (Leipzig, 1832).

136 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [542

cast down again, a race whose very liberty differs not much
from slavery; whereas these barbarians with whom we have
to deal are men of most inflexible souls, men to whom the
thought of humbling themselves ever so little is far more
bitter than death. Yet this is the nation whose chiefs we have
seen offering, not some tattered flag, but their very swords,
their victorious swords, as a tribute to the emperor; yea, and
humbling themselves before him and clasping his knees as
Thetis clasped the knees of The Thunderer, that they might
hear from his lips the word, the irrevocable word of recon-
ciliation and peace.

Now that name Scythian [Goth], which was so hateful in
our ears, how pleasant, how friendly it sounds! Now the
Goths celebrate together with us the festival of our prince,
which is in truth one of rejoicing for the victories gained i
over themselves. Do you complain that their race has not"
been exterminated ? I will not ask, " Could they have been
exterminated?" I will concede that they might have been
easily destroyed without loss to ourselves though certainly the
history of the Gothic war makes that concession an improb-
able one. Still, I say, which of the two is better, that Thrace
should be filled with corpses or with cultivators of the fields ;
that we should walk through ghastly desolation or through
well-tilled corn-lands? that we should count up the dead men
lying there or the ploughers ploughing? Is it better that we
should bring Phrygians and Bithynians to settle in the waste
lands, or that we should dwell there in peace with the men
whom we have subdued? Already I hear from those who
have visited those parts that the Goths are working up the
iron of their swords and breastplates into mattocks and prun-
ing-hooks, and, bidding a long good-bye to Mars, are paying
all their devotions to Ceres and to Bacchus.

The course now pursued by Theodosius is not without a
precedent in the history of the republic. Masinissa, once
the ally of Carthage, taken prisoner by the Romans and not
put to death, became their steadfast friend and a strong de-

543] POETS AND PANEGYRISTS I37

fence against the enemies who afterwards attacked them.
In our case the State, which Hke some mighty merchantman
strained by wind and wave, was leaking at every seam, is
brought into dock and is once more made seaworthy. The
roads are again open. The mountains are no longer terrible
to the traveler. The plains are now bringing forth their
fruits. No longer is the shore of the Danube a stage for the
bloody dance of war, but seeds are being hidden in it and
ploughs do furrow it. Villas and farm-buildings are again
raising their heads. A delightful atmosphere of rest per-
vades the land ; and the empire, like some great Hving creature,,
feeling no more the laceration of its wounded members, draws
one deep breath of delight for ended sorrow.^

Contemporaneous with Themistius was Libanjiis^^ who
taught at Nicomedia in Bithynia, at Constantinople, and
finally at Antioch. He was a warm admirer of Julian, and,
though a pagan, numbered among his pupils such men as
Basil the Great and John Chrysostom. He left sixty-seven
speeches, containing many references to the events of his
time, fifty declamations, and two thousand letters ^ addressed
to friends and pupils which give us interesting glimpses into
the life of a scholar in the eastern provinces during the
fourth century.

SymmachuB, consul and prefect of the city of Rome in the
latter part of the fourth century, was an earnest champion
of the pagan religion and of the senate's honor and integ-
rity. Of his writings * which have come down to us and

1 Oration 16, On the choice of Saturninus for the consulship. From
T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vol. i, pp. 318-320.

2 See G. R. Sievers, Aus dent Lehen des Libanius (Hamburg, 1863)
and O. Seeck, Die Briefe des Libanius zeitlich geordnet (Leipzig, 1906).

3 A fourth of these are extant only in Latin translations, and some
are of doubtful authenticity.

* Edited by O. Seeck in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Auctores
Antiquissimij vol. vi (Berlin, 1883).

138 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [544

are of some interest for our purposes, we should mention
ten books of letters, three panegyrics on Valentinian I and
Gratian, a number of official reports to the emperor, and
fragments of six senatorial orations.

The chief poets of the time ^ who are occasionally help-
ful are Ausonius - (d. 390), a native of Bordeaux, a tutor
of Gratian and a convert to Christianity, who wrote ex-
tremely artificial verses; Prudentius ^ (H. cca. 390), a Span-
ish lawyer and judge, who held imperial office under Theo-
dosius or Honorius and wrote poems with some skill and
with tremendous Christian fervor; and Claudian,* a pagan,
w^ho came to Rome from Alexandria in 395, and won the
favor of the influential Stilicho, whose praise he sang in
tiresomely rhetorical style and whom he does not seem to
have survived. Mr. Hodgkin ** has freely rendered into
English some of Claudian's fulsome verses :

" Through scenes like these, in winter's thickest snow
Upon his dauntless course, pressed Stilicho.
No genial juice to Bacchus there is born,
And Ceres reaps a niggard store of corn.

1 See T. R. Glover, Life and Letters in the Fourth Century (Cam-
bridge, 1901).

2 Poems edited by C. Schenkl in Monumenta Germaniae historica,
Auctores Antiquissimi, vol. v (Berlin, 1883) ; by R. Peiper (Leipzig,
1886) ; and, with useful notes and an excellent French translation, by
H. de La Ville de Mirmont (Bordeaux, 1889). See C. Jullian, Ausone
et Bordeaux, etude sur les derniers temps de la Gaule romaine (Bor-
deaux, 1893).

3 Poems edited by A. Dressel (Leipzig, i860). There is an English
translation of selections by F. St. J. Thackeray with good notes (Lon-
don, 1890) and also by E. G. Smith (London, 1898). See P. A. J.
Puech, Prudence, etude sur la poesie latine chretienne au IV^ siecle
(Paris, 1888).

4 Edited by J. Koch (Leipzig, 1893). See T. Hodgkin, Claudianus
the Last of the Roman Poets (Newcastle, 1875) ; J. H. E. Crees,
Claudian as an historical authority (Cambridge, 1908).

•'' Italy and her Invaders, vol. i, pp. 715-6.

545] POETS AND PANEGYRISTS 139

But he, — his armor never laid aside —
Tasted the hurried meal, well satisfied;
And, still encumbered with his dripping vest,
Into his frozen steed the rowel pressed.
On no soft couch his wearied members lay,
But when dark night cut short his arduous way
He sought such shelter as some wild beast's cave,
Or mountain-shepherd's hut to slumber gave,
The shield his only pillow. Pale with fear
Surveyed his mighty guest the mountaineer.
And the rude housewife bade her squalid race
Gaze on the unknown stranger's glorious face.
These couches hard the horrent woods below,
Those slumbers under canopies of snow.
Those wakeful toils of his, that ceaseless care
Gave to the world this respite, did prepare
For us unhoped-for rest. From dreadful doom
He, in those Alpine huts, redeemed thee, Rome." ^

Claudian suggests a different estimate of Stilicho's character
from that of Orosius or even that of Zosimus ; and although
we may naturally distrust the general tenor of Claudian's
plainly partisan praises, we cannot justly deny the truth of
many of his incidental statements. In fact, we must dis-
tinguish carefully in the case of Claudian as in that of all
the panegyrists and poets between what is reckless generali-
zation and what is particular historical fact. Thus the
above verses, while they indicate that Stilicho fought pub-
lic enemies somewhere in the mountainous regions of the
Italian frontier, may quite possibly convey an extravagant
notion of Stilicho's bravery, perseverance and patriotism.
For historical purposes, incidental remarks and allusions
should be preferred in this kind of source to general theses
or interpretations of motives.

Another pagan poet, Rutilius Namatianus, wrote an
elegy ^ in several books, describing his return from Rome

1 De hello Getico, w. 348-362.

^ De reditu or Itinerarium. Edited by L. Miiller (Leipzig, 1870).

I40 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [546

to Gaul about the year 415, of which the first book (644
lines) and a fragment of the second are extant. The poem
pays glorious compliment to the beauty, the grandeur, the
greatness of Rome and to the universality and eternity of
her empire. There is no sigh or lament. And the poem
was written only five years after Alaric's raid. The very
silence of such a source can be an impressive witness to
conditions of the time.

Synesius ^ of Cyrene wrote hymns and a large number
of amusing and instructive letters. He was born about 378
of a distinguished family, studied at Alexandria, and be-
came bishop of Ptolemais in Cyrenaica in 410. He wit-
nessed the Vandal invasion of Africa and died about 430.

The warmest admirer of literature who lived in the west-
ern provinces in the fifth century was probably Sidonius
Apollinaris (430-cca. 489). A native of Lyons, he received
a good education, married the daughter of the emperor
Avitus, was made a senator, prefect of the city and finally
bishop of Clermont in Auvergne. He left to posterity
poems and a great number of letters ^ which are well
written and give us quite a different idea about Gaul in the
fifth century from that of Salvian, his pessimistic contem-
porary. Mr. Hodgkin, who has been interested also in
Sidonius and has done the most of his writings into English,
says : " Sometimes we carry back into the fifth century the
thick darkness which hung over the intellectual life of

1 Partial edition by J. Flach (Leipzig, 1875). French translation by
H. Druon (Paris, 1878). See W. S. Crawford, Synesius the Hellene
(London, 1901).

2 Edited by B. Krusch (Berlin, 1887), and in the Teubner texts by
P. Mohr (Leipzig, 1895). A French translation, F. Didot (Paris, 1888).
See three articles by P. Allard in the Revue des questions historiques:
"La jeunesse de Sidoine Apollinaris" (Jan., 1908); " Sidoine Apolli-
naris sous les regnes d' Avitus et de Majorien" (April, 1908); and
"Sidoine Apollinaris, prefet de Rome" (Oct., 1908).

547] POETS AND PANEGYRISTS I41

Merovingian France or Lombard Italy. In both these esti-
mates we are mistaken. A careful perusal of the three
volumes of the letters and poems of Sidonius reveals to
us that in Gaul, at any rate, the air still teemed with in-
tellectual life, that authors were still writing, amanuenses
transcribing, friends complimenting or criticizing, and
all the cares and pleasures of literature filling the minds
of large classes of men just as though no empires were sink-
ing and no strange nationalities were suddenly rising around
them. We need not believe, upon the authority of the
highly-wrought panegyrics of Sidonius, that he had a score
of friends all more eloquent than Cicero, more subtle than
Plato, and diviner poets than Homer or Virgil; but the
interesting fact for us is that such forgotten philosophers
and poets did exist in that age, and that their works, pro-
duced in lavish abundance, seem to have had no lack of
eager students." ^ Sidonius speaks often of the Germans
but he treats their immigration and marauding expeditions
as merely episodical or as an excuse for trying his epistolary
powers :

Sidonius wishes health to his friend Syagrius.

As you are grandson of a consul, and that on the paternal
side, as you are sprung (which is more to our present pur-
pose) from a poetic stock, descended from men who would
have earned statues by their poems if they had not earned
them by their services to the state, all which is shown by those

1 Italy and her Invaders, vol. ii, p. 305. In the pages of Sidonius,
we find the names of numerous writers, orators and poets, e. g., Con-
sentius, Lampridius, Leo, Petrus, Sapaudus, Secundinus, Tonantius
Ferreolus, Thaumastus, etc. Another interesting source similar to
Sidonius is Paulinus of Fella, a rich Aquitanian, who wrote of his
life among the Visigoths: edited by W. Brandes in Corpus script,
eccl. Lat. (Vienna, 1888) ; see J. Rocafort, Un type gallo-romain,
Paulin de Pella, sa vie, son poeme (Paris, 1896), and C Caeymaex,
" Paulin de Pelle" in Le vmsee beige, vol. i (1897). For Sulpicius
Severus, see supra, p. 120.

142 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [548

verses of your ancestors which the present generation studies
with unimpaired interest, — as these are your antecedents, I
cannot describe my astonishment at the ease with which you
have mastered the German tongue. I remember that in your
boyhood you were well trained in liberal studies, and I am in-
formed that you often declaimed before a professional orator
with force and eloquence. But since this is the case, pray tell
me whence your soul has suddenly imbibed the oratory of an
alien race, so that you who had the phraseology of Virgil
flogged into you at school, you who sweated over the long
and stately sentences of Cicero, now swoop down upon us like
a young falcon from the German language as though that
were your old eyrie.

You cannot imagine how I and all your other friends laugh
when we hear that even the barbarian is afraid to talk his own
language before you lest he should make a slip in his grammar.
When you are interpreting their letters, the old men of Ger-
many, bent with age, stand in open-mouthed wonder, and in
their transactions with one another they voluntarily choose
you for arbitrator and judge. A new Solon when you have
to discuss the laws of the Burgundians, a new Amphion when
you have to wake music from their three stringed lyre,
you are loved and courted, you please, you decree, you are
obeyed. And though the barbarians are equally stiff and
lumpish in body and mind, yet in you they learn and love the
speech of their fathers, the disposition of a Roman.

It now only remains for you, oh most brilliant of wits, to
bestow any spare time which may still be yours on reading
[Latin], and so to retain that elegance of style which you
now possess. Thus while you preserve your Latin that we
may not laugh at you, you will practise your German that you
may be able to laugh at us. Farewell.^

Poets and panegyrists flourished even in Africa during

1 Epistle V, 5. T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vol. ii, pp. 358-
360.

549] POETS AND PANEGYRISTS I43

the fifth and sixth centuries. Their very existence offers
interesting suggestions as to conditions among the Vandals.
Their writings should be treated as a healthful antidote to
Victor's gloomy pictures, his review of religious horrors
and his diatribes against heresy.^ A miscellaneous collec-
tion of verse, which was made at Carthage about the year
534, has come down to us filling nearly two hundred pages
of manuscript.- Creditable poems are preserved of Flavins
Felix; of Florentinus, who wrote hexameters in praise of
king Thrasamund ^ (496-523) ; and of Luxorius, the most
prolific of them all, who imitated Martial with some success.

Corippus, who lived in Africa about the middle of the
sixth century, wrote epic poems on historical subjects with
paneg}^ric tendency, of which the Johannis is the best. It
was written in 549 or 550 and describes in eight books the
campaign against the Mauretanians which had just been
brought to a successful close by John, master of the soldiery
for Africa. It is useful for the topography and history of
the country, and though extremely dull it tells the story
in a straightforward way. Corippus also wrote a poetical
panegyric in four books on Emperor Justin (565-578).*

Fabius Fulgentius {cca. 480-550), likewise a native of
Africa, wrote in addition to many religious treatises a kind
of universal history,^ the fantastic character of which groups

1 See supra, p. 127.

- Mainly in the Codex Salmasianus, so-called from its former owner,
Claude de Saumaise.

' Florentinus observes in one place : " Carthage is graced with
studies, Carthage is adorned with teachers." Cf. Salvian's tribute to
Carthage : " illic artium liberalium scholae, illic philosophorum offi-
cinae," etc. (vii, 16).

*The works of Corippus are edited by M. Petschenig (Berlin, 1886).
See P. Ewald, " Zu Corippus in laudem Justini " in Neues Archiv fiir
a. deutsch. Geschichte, vol. vi (1881).

'^ De aetatibus mundi.

144 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [550

it naturally with poetry. It appears to have been written
in twenty-three books, but only fourteen have come down to
us : the first nine books treat of Old Testament events, the
tenth of Alexander the Great, the eleventh of Rome from
its foundation to the time of Julius Caesar, the twelfth of
the Gospel narrative, the thirteenth of the Acts of the
Apostles, and the fourteenth of the Roman Empire. Ful-
gentius states that it is based in part on the books of the
poet [ !] Xenophon; it is filled with mystical moralizings;
and its arrangement is absurd. One letter of the alphabet
in succession remains unemployed in the respective books :
in book one, letter A ; in book two, letter B ; etc. The style
is thoroughly bombastic and the subject matter unimportant.
It is a particularly impressive monument to literary decay.

CHAPTER XIII

Sources from Theodosius the Great to Justinian
(Continued) : The Chroniclers

The chronicles appear in the fifth and sixth centuries
as practically a new kind of source, and aid us in patching
together the disjointed statements of Zosimus and the other
Greeks, of the ecclesiastical historians, apologists and saint-
biographers, of the poets, panegyrists and letter-writers.
The chronicles, appearing at first as a subsidiary source, in-
crease in importance with the lapse of time until in the
middle age they come finally to dominate the presentation
of history.

The chronicles of the fifth century grew out of the fasti
and annales of earlier times. It had anciently been a cus-
tom for the pontifex maximus to preserve a list of court
days {dies fasti) on which the praetor could hand down de-
cisions. The list was published by Gnaeus Flavins in 304
B. C. These fasti gradually expanded into systematic
calendars, of which several, composed after the reforms of
Julius Caesar, are preserved, at least in part.^ Two com-
plete Roman calendars are in existence, — an official list
written by a certain Furius Dionysius Philocalus in A. D.
354, and a Christian version of the official calendar, pre-
pared by Polemius Silvius in A. D. 448.

Supplementary to the fasti were the annales. From
ancient times, the pontifex maximus was accustomed every

1 Ovid's Fasti is a poetical explanation of the Roman festivals of
the first six months.

551I ^45

146 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [552

year to record at the top of a white tablet (album), which
was exhibited in an open place at his house, the names of
the consuls and magistrates, and then below to add a few
memorable events. Cicero states ^ that the annals were so
kept down to the pontificate of Publius Mucins Scaevola
(cca. 131 B. C), after which independent compilations
were carried on by various unofficial writers, of whom he
names Cato, Pictor and Piso. Annals had also been
anciently preserved in the Greek temples, and their con-
tinuations gradually merged with the Roman annals in im-
perial times. Lists of consuls were kept by imperial officers,
mainly at Rome and Constantinople, until the reign of Jus-
tinian (541), and entries were supplied from time to time
by various anonymous persons.

With the growth of Christianity, annals were kept more
and more by bishops and monks. A certain Sextus Julius
Africanus,^ who flourished in the early part of the third
century, had paved the way in his " Chronographies " by
combining pagan and Christian chronology. His system
rested on the Jewish idea of a world-epoch of six thousand
years, and he was concerned to prove that the Incarnation
had taken place in the year 5500, after which there would
be five hundred years of waiting till the end of the world
and the beginning of the millenium or world-Sabbath.
Sextus was followed by Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea
and biographer of Constantine, who prepared a chronicle
in Greek ^ relating the origin and history of all nations
and kingdoms that he had heard of, from the creation down

^ De Oratore, ii, 12.

2 See H. Gelzer, Sextus Julius Africanus und die hyzantinische
Chronographie (Leipzig, 1880).

3 Eusebius {cca. 264-340). The text is lost. On his ecclesiastical
history, see supra, p. 118.

553] ^^^ CHRONICLERS I .^

to A. D. 325, and indicating in convenient tables of ten-
year periods the names of sovereigns and the principal
events from Abraham^ to Constantine. Then Jerome,"^
the versatile scholar and pamphleteer, edited a Latin version
of Eusebius's work and continued it to the year 379.

These annals and chronicles, brief and insignificant be-
fore the time of Theodosius the Great, became during the
next century slightly larger in bulk and enormously more
important. Writers who were too thoughtless or too lazy
to prepare histories on the older and grander scale, could
at least jot down the dates with accompanying notices of
such highly momentous events as earthquakes, and pesti-
lences, and accessions of emperors, and dedications of
churches, and shipwrecks, and consecrations of bishops.
And our lack of the grander histories has made very preci-
ous the few jejune entries of the chroniclers.

The extant annals ^ of the centuries following Theo-
dosius the Great present many difficult problems of author-
ship and of the sources on which they are based.

Prosper of xA^quitaine,* a theological writer who flour-
ished about the middle of the fifth century, is credited with
a Chronicon Consulare,^ which extends from the point where
Jerome stops to the year 455. It has the usual short notices
of Roman emperors, Roman bishops and general public oc-

1 Eusebius held that all Hebrew events before Abraham were " pre-
historic," and so he dated events by the years of Abraham, whom he
places in 2017 B. C.

2 Cca. 340-420. See supra, pp. 121-4.

3 All these annals have now been brought together by T. Mommsen
in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, vols.
ix, xi, xiii.

*See L. Valentin, Saint Prosper d'Aquitaine (Paris, 1900).

** Sometimes called Epitoma chronicon ah a. 379-455-

148 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [554

currences, but dwells more particularly on the troubles of
the church, especially the Pelagian heresy. It is arranged
according to the years of the Roman consuls. Another
chronicle, a Chronicon Imperiale, which bases its computa-
tions on the reigns of the emperors instead of on the consuls,
comprehends the same period (379-455) and agrees with
the former in its general information, although it speaks
curtly of the Pelagian heresy. The latter chronicle is now
generally ascribed to a certain Prosper Tiro, who, it is
imagined, flourished in the sixth century. A third con-
tinuation of Jerome's annals, which is particularly useful
for the history of Spain to the year 468, was made by
Idatius, a bishop in that country. Still another continua-
tor of Jerome was Count Marcellinus, an Illyrian, who was
chancellor to Justinian and died probably about 534. Mar-
cellinus gives ^ some interesting notices of events in Illy-
ricum, and for the reigns of Anastasius, Justin and Jus-
tinian, his statements, always provokingly brief, have a
very high value.

A chronicle, which continues Eutropius from 354 and is
of some value for the reigns of Leo and Zeno and the
first years of Anastasius, is preserved in a Vienna manu-
script in two recensions. The prior comes down to 493
and the posterior to 539, but both are mutilated, the prior
having lost that portion relating to the years 404-454. The
compilation was first edited, along with some excerpts from
a Saint Gall manuscript {Excerpta Sangallensia) , by Johann
Cuspinian in 1553, and hence was long called the Anonymus
Cuspiniani. It passes now under various names, Fasti

1 The chronicle proper covered the years 379-5 18, but apparently
contemporary writers, whose names are unknown, continued it to 534
and to 548, respectively. The whole work is entitled, Chronicon quod
rerunt orientalium historiam Eusebii et Hieronymi usque ad Justin-
iani tempora prosequitur.

555] ^^^ CHRONICLERS j^C)

VindobonenseSj Fasti Ravennates, Chronicon Cuspiniani,
Consularia Ravennatia, etc/

Cassiodorus, the influential minister of Theodoric, pre-
pared a brief chronicle to the year 519, which has some
importance for the history of the Ostrogothic kingdom.

A French scholar, Henry Valois, published in 1636 two
fragments, which have since passed under the name Anony-
mus Valesianus, and which Mommsen has contended be-
long to distinct writings. Anonymus A (Origo Constan-
tini imperatoris) antedates the fifth century, while Anony-
mus B (Chronica Theodericiana) covers the period 474 to
526 and appears to have been written shortly after the
death of Theodoric.- The unknown author writes from an
imperialistic point of view, speaks most loyally of Zeno, and
usually describes Theodoric by the title " patrician." The
chronicle is very useful for the history of the Ostrogothic
kingdom in Italy, although it is written in a style border-
ing on illiteracy.

Annals from 464 to 543 are preserved in a Vatican manu-
script as a part of the register of Victor of Aquitaine.
They usually pass under the name Paschale Campanum,

Victor Tonnennensis,^ an African bishop who opposed
Justinian in the religious controversy of the time * and
was banished first to the Balearic islands, then to Egypt,

1 Pallman rather arbitrarily ascribed this work to Maximian, arch-
bishop of Ravenna.

2 Bethmann, Pertz, Waitz and Holder-Egger ascribe the chronicle
to Maximian of Ravenna (cca. 498-556), but Bury, Mommsen and
Cipolla are skeptical. The best criticism of the work is by C. Cipolla,
Ricerche intorno all' Anonymus Valesianus 2 in Bullettino dell' Isti-
tuto stork 0 Italiano, number 11 (Rome, 1892). For an extract from
the Valesian Fragment, see infra, p. 164, note.

3 Or Tunnunensis.

* The Three Chapter Controversy.

150 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [556

and finally to Constantinople, wrote in exile a chronicle
from the creation to the year 566. The part from 444 is
extant. Victor made use principally of western sources
for the statements from 444 to 457 and from 501 to 563,
and of eastern sources for the others.

A bishop of Avenches in the latter part of the sixth cen-
tury, Marius by name/ continued Prosper Tiro's chronicle,
with extremely brief notices, from 455 to 581.

A single manuscript of another continuation of Prosper
from 455 to 641 was discovered by Waitz at Copenhagen
in 1836 and edited as the Continuatio Havniensis Prosperi.
It was probably compiled in Italy in the seventh century
towards the end of the reign of Heraclius. The extant
manuscript presents three parallel versions, an Ordo prior,
an Ordo posterior^ and marginal notes or Ordinis posterioris
margo. It is called the "Lombard Chronicle" by Bethmann
and the " Chronicle of 641 " by Holder-Egger.

Striking similarities between some of these chronicles
and fragments of others which have come down to us, have
led modern scholars to assert that most of them were drawn
from a common source which is now lost. According to
the theory of Mommsen, it was a chronicle based on the
fasti of Constantinople, first published in 387 and after-
wards brought up to date from time to time by the care of
booksellers. In the sixth century after the overthrow of
the Gothic kingdom, it was probably re-edited and carried
on by Maximian, archbishop of Ravenna, whose chron-
icle is cited by the later annalist Agnellus. It would thus
be the main source for the two Prospers, Count Marcellinus,
Marius Aventicensis, Cassiodorus, and for the later chron-
iclers, Isidore of Seville, Paul the Deacon, Theophanes,
etc. It must be remembered, however, that this work, to

1 Marius Aventicensis.

557] ^^^ CHRONICLERS I^I

which Mommsen gave the name Chronica Italica,^ is purely
hypothetical.

In order to illustrate the brevity and vagueness of
this kind of source, we have chosen the year 476,
which was marked by a little revolution in Italian politics
that has been most preposterously exaggerated into the
fall of the western empire — as if there were a western
empire to fall ^— and which, judged by the average entries
in the various chronicles, is neither more nor less important
than any other year. We give the notice from each of the
chronicles which have been mentioned above:

1 O. Holder-Egger edited a theoretical reconstruction of the work in
Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft fiir dltere deutschen Geschichte, vol.
J. PP- 347-368 (1876), under the title Annates Ravennatenses 379-572.
<j. Waitz had previously used this title, but Mommsen preferred the
title Chronica Italica on the ground that it had been begun before
Ravenna became an important imperial city.

2 It is, of course, as preposterous to maintain the existence of two
Roman empires because the sources speak of an eastern and of a west-
ern empire, as to reason from our usual expressions about Western
Europe and Eastern Europe that there are two Europes. It had
long been customary for two, three or even four emperors to exercise
common control over the state, though with separate capitals; and the
laws of the empire were issued in the name and with the consent of
all the emperors who happened to be reigning. A single emperor
might exercise particular administrative power over a definite portion
of the empire, subject to special agreement with his colleague or col-
leagues. But the commonwealth (respublica) and the imperial power
(imperium) were each indivisible and one. Professor J. H. Robinson
in an address on "The -Fall of Rome" (Boston, 1907, printed pri-
vately) has pointed this out clearly in correcting some current popular
misapprehensions in regard to the process of dissolution of the Roman
empire.

152 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [558

PROSPER OF AQUITAINE

[closes in 455.]

PROSPER TIRO

[closes in 455.]

IDATIUS

[closes in 468.]

COUNT MARCELLINUS:

Consulship of Basiliscus and Armatus. The tyrant BasiHscus
had his son Marcus named Caesar, and, being puffed up with
pride, attempted to support the Nestorian heresy against the
Catholic faith, but his fall followed. For Zeno, being restored
to imperial power, banished Basiliscus with his son and wife
Zenonida to a little town called Leminis in the province of
Cappadocia. Rumor says he was killed. Odovacar, king of
the Goths, occupied Rome. Odovacar slew Orestes on the
spot. Odovacar condemned Augustulus, the son of Orestes,
to banishment to the Lucullan villa in Campania. The im-
perial power of the Roman people in the west, which Octavian
Augustus, the first of the Augusti, commenced to exercise in
the 709th year of the city, perished with this Augustulus in the
522nd year of the empire, and thenceforth Gothic kings held
Rome.

ANONYMUS CUSPINIANI, PRIOR RECENSION:

Second consulship of Basiliscus and first of Armatus. In this
consulship Odovacar was raised king on August 23rd. This
year the patrician Orestes was killed at Piacenza, August 28th.
This year his brother Paul was killed in the pines near Ra-
venna, September fourth.

ANONYMUS CUSPINIANI, POSTERIOR RECENSION :

[no entry.]

CASSIODORUS :

Second consulship of Basiliscus and first of Armatus. During
this consulship Orestes and his brother Paul were killed by

559] ^^^ CHRONICLERS 153

Odovacar, who assumed the title of king but did not use the

purple or royal insignia.

ANONYMUS VALESIANUS:

While Zeno Augustus was reigning at Constantinople, Pa-
trician Nepos, coming suddenly to Portus, deprived Glycerins
of imperial power. Glycerins was made a bishop and Nepos
emperor at Rome. Nepos came presently to Ravenna, but,
fearing Patrician Orestes who was following him with an
army, took ship and fled to Salona. There he remained five
years and was assassinated by his own followers.

Soon after his departure Augustulus was made emperor and
reigned ten years [ !]. Augustulus, who before his reign had
been called Romulus by his parents, was made emperor by his
father, Patrician Orestes. Odovacar, however, with the peo-
ple of the Scyri, coming suddenly on Patrician Orestes, killed
him at Piacenza, and afterwards his brother Paul in the pine
woods outside Classis [the port of Ravenna]. He took Ra-
venna, m.oreover, and deposed Augustulus, but had com-
passion on his youth and beauty, and spared his life besides
paying him a sum of six thousand solidi. He sent him into
Campania, where he lived undisturbed with his relatives. His
father, Orestes, was a Pannonian, who had attached himself
to Attila when the latter came into Italy and had been made
his secretary, whence he had been advanced until he had
reached the dignity of patrician.

PASCHALE CAMPANUM :

Basiliscus Augustus for second time and Armatus, consuls.
Odovacar is elevated August twenty-third.

VICTOR TONNENNENSIS :

[no entry under 476, but the following under 473:]
Leo for the sixth time and Probinus, consuls. . . . During
this consulship, Olybrius comes to Rome and takes the im-
perial power from Anthemius who has been reigning through
the influence of the faction of Patrician Ricimir. The former
being recognized, Anthemius flees and is killed. And after

154 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [560

several days, Herculanus, son of Orestes, usurps the imperial
power and is killed with his father, and Nepos takes his king-
dom [!].

MARIUS AVENTICENSIS :

Basiliscus and Armatus, consuls. Odovacar was raised to the
kingship.

CONTINUATIO HAVNIENSIS PROSPERI, ORDO PRIORI

Basilius and Armatus, consuls. In Italy, the EruH, who were
subject to Roman law, created a king, Odovacar by name,
August twenty-third, a worthy man in age and wisdom and
versed in military affairs. He fell upon Patrician Orestes
who was stopping at Piacenza and defeated him, and killed
his brother, Paul by name, near Ravenna. The ills of the
commonwealth increase from all sides; pressed by the peoples
everywhere, it loses provinces and dominion.

CONTINUATIO HAVNIENSIS PROSPERI, ORDO POSTERIOR:

Basiliscus for the second time and Armatus, consuls. Odo-
vacar was elevated king by his army, August twenty-third. Pa-
trician Orestes was killed at Piacenza and his brother Paul
at Ravenna.

CONTINUATIO HAVNIENSIS PROSPERl, MARGINAL NOTE I

Amid the ills and unexpected shipwreck of the commonwealth,
while the Romans were wasting their strength within, foreign
tribes which had submitted to the Roman law with feigned
friendship, rose against the state. Thus the Heruli, who dwelt
in Italy, created a king, Odovacar by name, an able man in
skill and knowledge and versed in military affairs. He fell
upon Patrician Orestes, who was stopping with his army at
Piacenza, and overthrew him. The latter's brother, Paul by
name, who lived at Ravenna, was surprised by Odovacar's
army and perished in the pines, August thirty-first, . . .

CHAPTER XIV {

Other Sources from Theodosius the Great to
Justinian (Continued)

Three writers of the sixth century deserve special men-
tion: Cassiodorus, the prime minister of Theodoric; Jor-
danes, the Gothic historian of his own people; and Pro-
copius, who served in the wars of Justinian.

Cassiodorus ^ was the son of an official of Odovacar who
subsequently embraced the cause of Theodoric. He was
born about 480, performed various public services, becom-
ing master of the offices sometime before 526, and died
about 570. Among his voluminous writings were the
chronicle already noted, theological works, text-books on
the liberal arts, twelve books of official letters, and a
history of the Goths.

The letters (Variae), which were published about 537\
constitute a very valuable mine for the history of the Ostroi
gothic kingdom." The first five books contain letters
written by Cassiodorus as quaestor or as master of the \
offices in the name of King Theodoric; the sixth and
seventh, the formulas of appointment to various dignities;
the eighth and ninth, letters written in the name of Atha-

1 Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator. He was not commonly
called Cassiodorus until in the eighth century, by Paul the Deacon,
Historia Langobardorum, i, 25.

2 The best edition is by T. Mommsen in Monumenta Germaniac
historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, vol. xii (Berlin, 1894). See T. Hodg-
kin, The Letters of Cassiodorus, being a condensed Translation of the
Variae (London, 1886).

561] 155

156 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [562

laric; the tenth in the names of Amalasuentha, Theodohad
and his wife, and Witigis. The eleventh and twelfth are
composed entirely of letters written by Cassiodorus in his
own name as pretorian prefect. The Variae " are State
papers put into the hands of an improvisatore to throw into
form, and composed with his luxuriant verbiage, and also
with his coarse taste. The shortest instructions begin with
an aphorism or an epigram. If they are more important
or lengthy, they sparkle and flash with conceits or anti-
theses, and every scrap of learning, every bit of science or
natural history, every far-fetched coincidence which may
start up in the writer's memory, however remote in its bear-
ing on the subject, is dragged in to exalt or illustrate it,
though the subject itself may be of the plainest and most
matter-of-fact kind. You read through a number of ela-
borate sentences, often tumid and pompous, sometimes feli-
citous and pointed, but all of the most general and abstract
sort; and nestling in the thick of them, towards the end of
the letter or paper, you come upon the order, or instruction,
or notification, for which the letter or paper is written,
almost smothered and lost in the abundance of ornament
round it." ^

Cassiodorus was a Roman citizen politically dependent
on Theodoric, and it was therefore natural that he should
seek by every means to exalt the Gothic chieftain's rule
and to ensure the firm loyalty of all Roman citizens in
Italy. That purpose is evident in the letters from start to
finish. It was doubtless also the controlling motive in the
preparation of a work in twelve books on the history of the

^ Dean Church in The Church Quarterly Review (July, 1880). Con-
temporary with the Variae of Cassiodorus were the important and in-
teresting letters of Bishop Ennodius (473-521) of Pavia, edited by F.
Vogel in the Monutnenta Germaniae historica, Auctores Antiquissimi,
vol. vii (Berlin, 1885).

563] OTHER SOURCES TO JUSTINIAN i^^

Goths, which is preserved to us only through a hasty epi-
tome by an illiterate monk.

We should like to think that Cassiodorus, being in a
position of great influence and with every possible oppor-
tunity to know the barbarians, had composed his Gothic
history in a strictly scientific spirit, that he had mastered
the tribal traditions and legends, that he had diligently
investigated every Germanic source, that he had presented
the facts calmly and with critical insight. But all we know
about the work tends to prove the opposite. A laudatory
letter in the Variae, purporting to have been written by
king Athalaric, affirmed that

he carried his researches up to the very cradle of the race,
gathering from the stores of his learning what the Goths had
forgotten. He drew forth the Gothic kings from the dim lurk-
ing place of ages, restoring to the Amal line the splendor that
truly belonged to it, and clearly proving that for seventeen
generations our ancestors had been kings. Thus did he assign
a Roman origin to Gothic history, weaving as it were into one
chaplet the flowers which he had culled from the pages of
widely-scattered authors.^

Cassiodorus seems to have done more than a scientific his-
torian could do, for he remembered what had been for-
gotten, and constructed for the reigning family a fine genea-
logy of seventeen kings, and, if we may presume to inter-
pret the " Roman origin " of Gothic history, discovered the
ancestors of the Goths in company with the ancestors of
Romulus and Remus in the great city of Troy! The
Gothic history of Cassiodorus was apparently a panegyric,
and its author was rewarded with the title of pretorian
prefect.

The illiterate monk who epitomized this lost work of

1 Variae, ix, 25.

158 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [564

Cassiodorus and added statements of his own was Jordanes/
a native of Lower Moesia. He lived in the reign of Jus-
tinian, and his grandfather had been the secretary of
Candac, a chieftain of Scyri, Sadagarii and Alani, who had
adopted the Gothic name. Jordanes himself was the secre-
tary of Candac's nephew until he entered the church. The
passages in which he speaks of his family ^ lead us to think
that he was a Goth.

It may seem fortunate on first thought that we have a
history written by a Goth. All the sources we have thus
far examined have been the work of Roman citizens. But
second thought will show that Jordanes was rather a
Roman than a barbarian. His family was separated from
the Goths. His grandfather was secretary of an Alan king
in close alliance with the emperor. He himself was a
Catholic while his people were Arians. He became a monk
within the empire. His education and language were Latin,
not Gothic. His patriotism was Roman, not German. He
believed Rome would remain mistress of the tribes. He
spoke of the emperors only with respect and pronounced
himself a loyal subject of Justinian.^

Jordanes states in his preface that his chief source was
Cassiodorus :

You have persuaded me to condense in my own words in this
single slight book the twelve books of Senator [i. e., Cassio-
dorus] on the origin and deeds of the Getae from earliest times
down to the present through succession of kings and genera-
tions. . . . The task has been too heavy for me because

1 Spelled Jornandes by Grimm and Gibbon, and lordanis by Waitz
and Wattenbach. The spelling Jordanes, used by Muratori and Momm-
sen, is now preferred. The oldest manuscripts have Jordanes and
Jordanis, never Jornandes.

2 50, 60. *'» These facts are gathered from chapters 25, 50, 60.

565] OTHER SOURCES TO JUSTINIAN i^g

the use of these books has not been granted me to such an ex-
tent that I might follow them closely, but, that I may not speak
falsely, I have recently reread these books, thanks to the cus-
todian, during three days. Although I do not reproduce the
words literally, I believe, however, that I have preserved in their
integrity the thoughts and deeds. I have joined thereto details
from certain Greek and Latin histories, adding myself the
beginning, the end and considerable in the body of the
work. . . .^

The statement of our illiterate monk that he had used this
principal source three days may signify either that he had
superhuman energy in reading, reflecting and composing,
or that he was a modest liar. Several other statements of
Jordanes would incline us to accept the latter estimate.

Among the " certain Greek and Latin histories " men-
tioned throughout the work as additional sources are the
writings of Tacitus and Dio Cassius on the ancient Germans,
Ptolemy on the island of Scanzia, and, in general, Trogus
Pompeius, Orosius, Priscus and Ablavius.^ Jordanes alleges
that the Goths had ancient traditions and poetry, but
whether he knew them himself or used them he does not
say. Perhaps the lost Ablavius was sole authority for their
existence. We know that Jordanes used Roman sources;
we do not know whether he used German sources.

The Gothic history by this alleged Goth is divided into
sixty short sections.^ The first thirteen, treating of the early

* Dedicatory preface to a certain Castalius.

2 Jordanes mentions (c. 15) a Roman history by S3mimachus, which
has not come down to us.

3 De rebus Geticis, or Historia de Gothorum or Getarum origine ef
rebus gestis or De origine actibusque Getarum. The best editions are
by T. Mommsen in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Auctores Anti-
quissimi, vol. v (Berlin, 1882), and by A. Holder (Freiburg i. B., 1882).
There is an English translation by C. C. Mierow (Princeton, 1908) ;

l6o SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [566

wanderings of the Goths, are thoroughly unreHable and are
generally rejected. The reconstruction of an ancient history
for that people by mistakenly identifying them with the Getae
and with the Scythians might have some justification in the
former case in the confusion resulting from the resemblance
of names, and in the latter case in the geographical compre-
hensiveness of the term Scythia as applied by earlier writers
to all the northern and eastern peoples before they ap-
peared in large numbers within the empire, but it is none
the less fanciful and without fact. The fourteenth section
of the history distinguishes Ostrogoths from Visigoths.^

a German translation by W. Martens in the Geschichtschreiber der
deutschen Vorzeit (Leipzig, 1884) ; and a French translation by A.
Savagner, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1883). To Jordanes is ascribed a very brief
abridgment of universal history derived mainly from Florus: De
summa temporum vel origine actibusque gentis Romanorum, or De
regnorum et temporum successione, or Liber de origine mundi et
actibus Romanorum cetarumque gentium, or De gestis Romanorum.
Edited by T. Mommsen in Monumenta, ibid.

^ It is impossible to say definitely when or how the Goths were
divided into two distinct groups, the East and the West Goths. The
life of Claudius in the Augustan Histories, which was written early
in the fourth century, mentions (ch, 6) " Austrogothi," and near the
close of the same century the poet Claudian (contra Eutropium, ii,
153) speaks of " Ostrogothis." The Visigothic name first appears
considerably later. In the middle of the fifth century, Sidonius
Apollinaris speaks of " Vesi " in two places ( Panegyric to Avitus, an.
456; Panegyric to Majorian, an. 458). The Variae of Cassiodorus make
frequent mention of the Visigoths but do not use the term Ostrogoth.
According to Jordanes, the word Ostrogoth came from a certain King
Ostrogotha, who was a contemporary of Emperor Philip (224-229).
It has been suggested that at first {cca. 300-400) the distinction was
between Ostrogoths and Goths, and that the name Visigoth was a
later appellation. Hodgkin, after confessing serious difficulties, ac-
cepts as probable the identification of the Greuthungi and Thervingi,
distinctions made by Ammianus Marcellinus, with the Ostrogoths and
Visigoths respectively, but Bury rejects that view emphatically, Cf.
Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vol. i, pp. 100-102, note; Bury's edi-
tion of Gibbon, Appendix 16, vol. i, p. 459.

567] OTHER SOURCES TO JUSTINIAN 161

The fifteenth gives an account of Emperor Maximin, who
may have been of Gothic origin, and the sixteenth opens
v^ith the reign of Phihp. From this point onwards, the
narrative runs side by side with the authentic history of
the empire.

Jordanes is explicit on the devotion of his people to the
commonwealth :

. . . After the death of Athanaric, his whole army re-
mained in the service of emperor Theodosius, submitting to the
Roman rule and making of the soldiery but one body, as it
were; and these reviving the thousands of foederati whom
emperor Constantine had formerly had, were themselves called
foederati. The emperor, perceiving their fidelity and friend-
ship towards himself, led more than twenty thousand of them
against the tyrant Eugenius, who had siezed Gaul after the
murder of Gratian. He conquered this usurper and obtained
his revenge.^

His account of Alaric is far less detailed than that of
Zosimus, and probably conveys a less truthful impression:

After Theodosius, that friend of peace and of the Gothic
nation, had quitted this life, and when his sons, living in
luxury, began to annihilate both parts of the commonwealth
and to filch from their foederati, the Goths, their accustomed
gifts, the Goths soon conceived an increasing contempt for
those princes; and fearing lest their own valor should be re-
laxed by a long peace, they ordained over themselves a king,
named Alaric, who in point of nobility was second only to the
Amals, his marvelous origin being derived from the family
of the Balthes, who for their bravery had formerly received
that name, meaning brave. Presently then, the aforesaid
Alaric, being made king and entering into deliberation with
his people, persuaded them to seek a kingdom for themselves
by their own labors rather than to serve others in idleness, and,

1 Ch. 28.

l62 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [568

having gathered an army together, he crossed the Pannonias
and Sirmium during the consulship of StiHcho and Aurelian^
and entered Italy. . . .^

The narrative of Alaric's campaigns and of the subsequent
movements of the Visigoths in Italy is chaotic; in points it
flatly contradicts Zosimus and Orosius and in others it is
itself most confusing.^ It is prima facie evidence in sup-
port of the author's contention that he had studied his chief
source but three days.

Greater reliance is placed on the statements concerning
the Gothic settlements in Gaul, the invasions of the Huns
and the defeat of Attila in the battle of the Catalaunian
Plains, commonly called the battle of Chalons, not because
Jordanes suddenly becomes inherently more trustworthy but
because there is no longer a Zosimus or even an Orosius to
contradict him. Jordanes is the great and practically the
only source relating to the battle of Chalons ! "

Jordanes traces the history of the Visigoths in sections
forty-three to forty-seven from the battle of Chalons (451)
to the accession of Alaric II in 485. Then he takes up
the story of the Ostrogoths from their conquest by the
Huns through their various settlements in the empire until
the occupation of Italy by Theodoric (sections 48-57).
The last three sections deal with the reign of Theodoric,
the Goths in Spain and the conquest of Justinian. The
narrative becomes more meager but doubtless more reliable

1 Ch. 29.

- Yet Jordanes is the sole authority for that oft-repeated tale of the
strange burial of Alaric.

3 Chs. 37-41. Jordanes says it was " a battle obstinate, furious, hor-
rible, such as was never seen in memory of man ; a little stream

flowing through the middle of the plain was so swollen by the blood
shed that it became a roaring torrent."

569] OTHER SOURCES TO JUSTINIAN 153

as it becomes more contemporary. Its imperial bias, how-
ever, does not prevent a plain, straightforward account of
the relations between Theodoric and the Roman empire,
perhaps as illuminating as any that we have:

Emperor Zeno, well satisfied to learn that Theodoric was es-
tablished king of his nation, sent him an invitation to visit
Constantinople and received him with suitable honor, rank-
ing him among the noble courtiers. Afterwards, in order to
bestow on him a greater honor, he adopted him as a son in
arms, and accorded him a triumph in the capital. Theodoric
was made consul, which is conceded to be the greatest honor
in the world. Nay more; Zeno had an equestrian statue
erected opposite the imperial palace in his honor.

Meanwhile Theodoric, allied to the empire of Zeno, hearing
that his nation, abiding as we have said in Illyricum, was not
too well supplied with the necessities of life while he was en-
joying all the good things of the capital, and choosing rather,
after the usage of his people, to seek food by labor than to
enjoy in idleness the favors of the Roman realm while his
people were living in poverty, made up his mind and spoke
thus to the prince : " Though nothing is wanting to me for
my service to your empire, nevertheless, if your Piety think
fit, I pray you to hear freely the desire of my heart." Then,
as was wont, leave was granted him to speak without re-
serve. " Why," he asked, " is the western country, which has
long been governed under the sceptre of your predecessors,
and that city, the head and sovereign of the world, now shaken
by the usurped authority of a king of the Turcilingi and
Rugians? Send me thither, if it please you, with my people,
that you may be relieved from the expense which we cause
you here, and that there, if by the Lord's help I conquer, the
fame of your Piety may spread its rays. For it is fitting that
I, your son and servant, if victorious, should hold that king-
dom as your gift ; but it is not fitting that he [Odovacar], whom
you do not recognize, should press his tyrannical yoke upon

l64 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [570

your senate, and that a part of the commonwealth should lan-
guish in bondage. In brief, if I conquer, I shall possess those
lands through your gift and by your generosity : if I am con-
quered your Piety will lose nothing, but rather, as before
said, will save the heavy charges which we now entail." On
hearing this speech, the emperor, though sorry to part with
Theodoric, yet not wishing to sadden him by a refusal, granted
what he desired; and after overwhelming him with rich pres-
ents, dismissed him, commending to his protection the Senate
and the People of Rome.

[Theodoric then led his people into Italy and besieged Odo-
vacar for three years in Ravenna.] All Italy proclaimed Theo-
doric its sovereign and thus the commonwealth obeyed his
nod . . . Odovacar, perceiving no means of escape, sent
an embassy to ask pardon. Theodoric at first granted his re-
quest but later took his life. It was finally, as we have said,
in the third year after his entrance into Italy that Theodoric,
by advice of Emperor Zeno, laid aside the costume of his na-
tion and assumed the mantle, the insignia of royalty, as king
thenceforth of Goths and Romans.^

Theodoric sent an embassy to Clovis, king of the Franks, to
ask for the hand of his daughter Audefleda. Clovis was

1 Cf. the statements in the Valesian Fragment : " Zeno rewarded
Theodoric with favors, making him patrician and consul, giving him
many gifts and even sending him to Italy. Theodoric stipulated that
if he should conquer Odovacar, he should rule in his stead as a reward
for his labors until the emperor should arrive

" Odovacar fled to Ravenna, whither Patrician Theodoric followed
him as far as the Pine-woods and besieged Odovacar three years in
Ravenna, until wheat brought six solidi a measure. Theodoric sent
Faustus, the president of the senate, on an embassy to Emperor Zeno
in the hope of obtaining the purple but as the news of that em-
peror's death and of the succession of Anastasius arrived before the
embassy returned, the Goths confirmed Theodoric as their king with-
out waiting for an order from the new emperor

" Later, he made an agreement with Anastasius through the media-
tion of Festus, for a formal assumption of control, and the emperor
returned all the ornaments of the palace which Odovacar had sent to
Constantinople." (Chapters 49, 53, 57, 64)

571] OTHER SOURCES TO JUSTINIAN 165

pleased to further the suit, for he thought that such an alliance
would unite his sons . . . with the Goths. The two peoples,
nevertheless, continued their mutual hostility on account of
the lands in Gaul, although, so long as Theodoric lived, the
Goths never yielded to the Franks . . . Theodoric gave his
two daughters in marriage to neighboring kings, one to Alaric
[II], king of the Visigoths, the other to Sigismund, king of
the Burgundians .... Upon learning that Eutharic, a des-
cendant of the Amals, a young man distinguished for his wis-
dom and valor as well as for his strength, was living in Spain,
he summoned him to Italy and married him to his own daugh-
ter, Amalasuentha. And in order to extend the influence of
his family as far as possible, he sent as wife to Trasemund,
king of the Vandals, his sister, Amalafreda, the mother of
Theodahad, who succeeded to the kingship. To Hermenfred,
king of the Thuringians, moreover, he gave his niece, Amala-
berga. . . .

[Theodoric, by means of his counts, reduced Sirmium, and
defeated the Franks in Gaul.] The latter left more than thirty
thousand on the battlefield. After the death of his son-in-law,
Alaric [II], he appointed Thiodis, his armor-bearer, regent
for his grandson Amalaric in the Spanish kingdom. Amalaric
fell into the snares of the Franks while still a youth, and lost
his crown and his life. Then the regent Thiodis usurped the
throne, delivered Spain from the base pretensions of the
Franks, and ruled the Visigoths until his death. Thiodigis-
glossa succeeded him in power, but was assassinated before he
had really exercised his authority. He was followed by Hac-
tenusagil, who holds the kingdom to the present day. Athana-
gilda has rebelled against him and is even now provoking the
forces of the Roman empire; Patrician Liberius is on the
way with an army to oppose him.

Throughout the life-time of Theodoric, there was not a
single tribe in the west which did not serve him either as
friend or as subject.

When, in his old age, he felt that his end was nigh, he con-

l66 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [572

vened the Gothic counts and leaders, and designated Athalaric
as his successor, a child of barely ten years, the son of his
recently widowed daughter, Amalasuentha. He urged them
as his last wishes to respect their king, to love the Roman
senate and people, and to live always under the protection
and favor of the eastern prince, as next after God. And to
his injunctions they were faithful so long as king Athalaric
lived, about eight years. During that time, however, the
Franks, who scorned the child, seized what his father and
grandfather had taken in Gaul. Athalaric continued to hold
the other states in peace, and entrusted the protection of his
youth and of his mother's widowhood to the eastern prince.
But in a short time the ill-fated boy was carried off by an
untimely death and departed from earthly affairs.

Amalasuentha, not wishing to expose herself to the scorn
of the Goths on account of the weakness of her sex, sum-
moned to the throne a cousin, Theodahad, her next of kin, who
had been living in private life in Tuscany. Theodahad for-
got the ties of blood and exiled Amalasuentha from the palace
at Ravenna to an island in Lake Bolsena. There she lived a
brief time stricken with sorrow, and was at length strangled
in the bath by his hirelings.

Justinian, the emperor in the east, was stirred by the news
of this infamous crime as by a personal affront. His faith-
ful patrician, Belisarius, had just triumphed over the Vandals
in Africa, and without loss of time and while his arms were
still wet with Vandal blood, he directed this general to lead
an expedition against the Goths.

[Belisarius first occupied Sicily and then southern Italy.
One of the Gothic leaders deserted to him] and testified his
desire to serve the princes of the Roman empire. The Gothic
army, suspecting Theodahad of complicity in this treason, clam-
ored for his deposition and the elevation of Witigis, his armor-
bearer. This was done immediately, and Witigis, being pro-
claimed in the barbarian camps, occupied Rome and caused
Theodahad to be put to death ...

573] OTHER SOURCES TO JUSTINIAN 167

The Roman army, which had meanwhile crossed the strait,
now marched through Campania, took Naples, and entered
Rome a few days after the departure of King Witigis, who
went to Ravenna and married Mathasuenta, a daughter of
Amalasuentha and grand-daughter of King Theodoric. The
Roman army occupied all the strongholds of Tuscany while
the marriage festivities were in progress. When Witigis
learned what had happened, he sent an armed force to take
Perugia, but Roman troops raised the siege and destroyed the
besiegers. Whereupon, Witigis, like a roaring lion, collected
the whole Gothic army, quitted Ravenna, and began a long
siege of Rome. His boldness, however, was of no avail, for
at the end of fourteen months he abandoned the siege and
moved against Rimini. There likewise he failed, and, be
ing put to flight, retreated to Ravenna. Immediately sur-
rounded in this city, he voluntarily surrendered himself to-
gether with his wife Mathasuenta and the royal treasury.

Thus in the year 1300 from the founding of the city,
through the efforts of the faithful consul Belisarius, Emperor
Justinian, who had then long been reigning, conquered a
famous kingdom and a warlike nation. The prince honored
Witigis with the title patrician and took him to Constantinople.
There Witigis died after a sojourn of two years, during which
he lived in high favor with the emperor. Justinian caused
Mathasuenta, the widow of the Gothic king, to marry his
brother. Patrician Germanus. A posthumous son was born
after the death of Germanus. In his person the mingled blood
of the Anicii and of the Amals gives us the hope of seeing
preserved, by God's grace, the virtues of both families.

Thus we have recited the origin of the Getae and the nobility
of the Amals and the exploits of brave men. This glorious
race has yielded to a prince far more glorious, and to a most
valiant general, whose fame will not be dimmed in any coming
century or generation. That is why Emperor Justinian, vic-
torious and triumphant, and Consul Belisarius are each sur-
named Vandalicus, Africanus, and Geticus.

l68 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [574

That is practically all of the Gothic history of Jordanes
which can be called contemporary. On the reign of Theo-
doric it presents fewer facts than the Valesian fragment.
On the social relations of the two peoples — Roman and
Gothic — it has hardly a suggestion, and is therefore, in that
respect, greatly inferior to the Letters of Cassiodorus. The
few statements about the Gothic kingdom immediately fol-
lowing the death of Theodoric are the most authentic and
the most valuable. The expedition of Belisarius against
the Goths is much better detailed by Procopius, who was
not a monk but a soldier.

Procopius, a native of Caesarea, was born about 490 and
probably belonged to the official aristocracy. He was in
any event a warm admirer of Justinian's celebrated general,
Belisarius, whom he accompanied in an official capacity on
the campaigns against the Persians, the Vandals, and the
Ostrogoths. He served thus in the East from 527 to 531,
in Africa from 533 to 536, and then three years in Italy.
This experience gave him an acquaintance with military
affairs such as no writer had had since Ammianus Marcel-
linus and likewise an excellent opportunity to study the
peoples with whom he came in contact. Procopius, more-
over, had little in common with the illiterate Jordanes, for
he was an educated man, well versed in ancient literature
and able to write Greek in a style tolerably comparable
with that of the masters.

The important work of Procopius for our purposes is the
History of his Own Time'^ in eight books, published be-

1 There is a complete edition by G. Dindorf (Bonn, 1833) with a
faulty Latin translation. The best edition on the Gothic war is now
that of D. Comparetti in Le fonti per la storia d' Italia (Rome, 1895
et seq.), with an Italian translation. There is a German translation
of the Gothic War by D. Coste in the Geschichtschreiher (Leipzig,
1885).

Other works are attributed to Procopius: a panegyric on Emperor

575] OTHER SOURCES TO JUSTINIAN 169

tween 550 and 560. The first two books treat of the wars
with the Persians, the third and fourth of the campaigns
in Africa ( 395-545 )» the fifth, sixth and seventh of the
Gothic War (487-553), while the eighth book presents a
brief summary of general events to the year 554.

Our pleasure at finding in the middle of the sixth cen-
tury a writer who writes well and who seems capable of
rising above the political and religious passions of the time
after a whole century and a half of dreary chronicle and
vulgar bombast, must not blind our eyes to several serious
drawbacks in the histories of Procopius. In the first place,
he is careless and uncritical in the use of sources, and has
been convicted of numerous errors. He contradicts too
many other authorities to guarantee his trustworthiness for
the history of events previous to his own time/ In the
second place, he has a strong imperial bias : he is the de-
voted friend of Justinian and Belisarius; he is captivated
by the civilizing and cultural mission of the Roman empire
to the barbarian world; he defends valiantly the imperial
laws and customs and distrusts innovation; and his class
sympathies are with the aristocracy of wealth. And
finally, his very literary virtues at times become vices, on
account of his servile imitation of Herodotus and Thucy-

Anastasius; an account of the buildings restored under Justinian's
auspices ; and notably a " Secret History " which seems to have been
an anonymous political pamphlet and is often called the ninth book of
the History of his Own Time. The Secret History is to be found in
the Bonn edition.

The history of Procopius was continued by Agathias, whose work
covering in five books the years 552-558 is especially useful for Italian
affairs; and in turn by Menander from 558 to 582. The history of
Agathias and the extant fragments of the work of Menander are in
the Bonn edition.

1 The charming story of Emperor Honorius and his pet hen, Roma,
is only an unreliable anecdote; Procopius is the sole authority.

I70 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [576

dides. As Bury says, when we find incidents at the siege of
Amida reproduced from the siege of Plataea, we have rea-
son to doubt whether Procopius confined himself to adapt-
ing merely the words of his models.

A few extracts taken at random may serve to illustrate
at once some merits and some defects of Procopius/ The
first is his account of how Orestes, the barbarian who was
*' boss " in Italy during the reign of his son, Romulus
Augustulus, was overthrown in 476 by another barbarian
" boss," the Rugian, Odovacar, who in turn was later to
succumb to the Ostrogoths under Theodoric; and it should
be remembered that Procopius wrote this seventy years after
the events had happened :

While Zeno was reigning at Byzantium, the power in the west
was held by the Augustus whom the Romans nicknamed
Augustulus because he succeeded to the empire in early youth ;
his father, Orestes, a very prudent man, was regent. Some
time previously the Romans had received as allies the Skyri
and Alani and other Gothic [German] tribes, after the de-
feats they had suflfered from Alaric and Attila, of whom I
have written in former books. The fame of the Roman sol-
diers decreased in proportion as that of the barbarians in-
creased, and under the specious name of '* alliance " they fell
under the tyrannical sway of the intruders. The impudence
of the latter grew to such an extent that after many conces-
sions had willingly been made to their needs, they at length
wanted to divide the entire arable land of Italy among them-
selves. Of this they demanded a third part from Orestes, and
when he refused them they straightway slew him. Among
the barbarians was a certain imperial guardsman, Odovacar
by name, who then promised them the fulfilment of their de-
sires if they would appoint him to the command. After he

1 The translations follow closely those of Hodgkin (in Italy and
her Invaders), who has preserved much of the charm of the author's
style with small sacrifice of literal meaning.

577] OTHER SOURCES TO JUSTINIAN 171

had thus usurped the rule, he did no other injury to the em-
peror but allowed him to live as a private citizen. To the
barbarians he handed over the third of all arable land, by
which act he assured their devotion to himself; and he held
his usurped power ten years.

Procopius gives the following account of how Theodoric
was sent into Italy, which differs in certain respects from
the accoimt by Jordanes :

Emperor Zeno, a man skilful in expedient of a temperate
kind, exhorted Theodoric to march into Italy, and entering
the lists against Odovacar, to win the western rule for him-
self and the Goths. He showed him that it was better for
him, now especially that he had attained the dignity of Sena-
tor, by the overthrow of a tyrant to obtain the rule over all
the Romans and Italians than, by continuing the struggle
with the emperor, to run so many risks as he must do. Theo-
doric then, being pleased with the bargain, departed for
Italy. ...

The differences between the emperor and the Goths after
the death of Theodoric are summed up in reports of the
negotiations of Gothic envoys with Belisarius :

The Gothic envoys to Belisarius : " We complain of you, O
Romans, that you have taken up arms without cause against
an allied and friendly people, and we shall prove our com-
plaint by facts which no man can gainsay. The Goths came
into possession of this land not by violently wresting it from
the Romans, but by taking it from Odovacar, who having over-
turned the emperor of that day, changed the polity which
existed here into a tyranny. Now Zeno who was then em-
peror in the east was desirous to avenge his colleague on the
usurper and to free the country, but was not strong enough
to cope with the forces of Odovacar. He therefore persuaded
our ruler Theodoric, who was at that very time meditating

172 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [578

the siege of Byzantium, to forego his hostility to the empire
in remembrance of the dignities which he had already received
in the Roman state, those namely of Patrician and Consul,
to avenge upon Odovacar his injustice to Augustulus, and to
confer upon this country and his own people the blessings of a
just and stable government. Thus then did our nation come
to be guardians of this land of Italy. The settled order of
things which we found here we preserved, nor can any man
point to any new law, written or unwritten, and say ' That was
introduced by Theodoric' As for religious affairs, so anxi-
ously have we guarded the liberty of the Romans that there
is no instance of one of them having voluntarily or under com-
pulsion adopted our creed, while there are many instances of
Goths who have gone over to yours, not one of whom has
suffered any punishment. The holy places of the Romans
have received the highest honor from us, and their right of
sanctuary has been uniformly respected. The high offices of
the state have always been held by Romans, not once by a
Goth. We challenge contradiction if any of our statements
are incorrect. Then too, the Romans have been permitted
to receive a Consul every year, on the nomination of the
emperor in the east.

" To sum up. You did nothing to help Italy when, not for
a few months but for ten long years, she was groaning under
the oppression of Odovacar and his barbarians ; but now you
are putting forth all your strength upon no valid pretext
against her rightful occupants. We call upon you therefore
to depart hence, to enjoy in quiet your own possessions and
the plunder which during this war you have collected in our
country."

Belisarius to the Gothic envoys : " You promised that you
would speak briefly and with moderation, but you have given
us a long harangue, full of something very like bragging. Em-
peror Zeno sent Theodoric to make war upon Odovacar, not
in order that he himself should obtain the kingship of Italy
(for what would have been the advantage of replacing one

579] OTHER SOURCES TO JUSTINIAN 173

tyrant by another?), but that the country might be restored
to freedom and its obedience to the emperor. Now all that
Theodoric did against the usurper was well done, but his later
behavior, in refusing to restore the country to its rightful lord,
was outrageously ungrateful; nor can I see any difference be-
tween the conduct of a man who originally lays hands on an-
other's property, and his who, when such a stolen treasure
comes into his possession, refuses to restore it to its true
owner. Never, therefore, will I surrender the emperor's land
to any other lord. But if you have any other request to make,
speak on." ^

Procopius displays marked impartiality toward the Goths,
for whom he often expresses sincere admiration. His esti-
mate of Theodoric does him particular credit :

Theodoric was an extraordinary lover of justice, and adhered
rigorously to the laws. He guarded the country from bar-
barian invasion, and displayed both intelligence and prudence
in the highest degree. Of injustice towards his subjects there
was hardly a trace in his government, nor would he allow
any of his subordinates to attempt anything of the kind, save
only that the Goths divided among themselves the same pro-
portion of the land of Italy which Odovacar had given to his
partisans. So then Theodoric was in name a tyrant, but in
deed a true king, not inferior to the best of his predecessors,
and his popularity grew greatly, contrary to the ordinary fash-
ion of human affairs, both among Goths and Italians. For
generally, as different classes in the state want different things,
the government which pleases one party, has to incur the
odium of those who do not belong to it.

After a reign of thirty-seven years he died, having been a
terror to all his enemies, and left a deep regret for his loss in
the hearts of his subjects.^

' vi. 6. 2 V, I.

174 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [580

On Belisarius and the differences between his army and
that of the Goths :

In public the Romans naturally expressed their wonder at the
genius of Belisarius which had achieved such a victory, but in
private life his friends inquired of him what was the token
which, in the first day of successful engagement with the
enemy, had led him to conclude that in this war he should
be uniformly victorious. Then he told them that, at the be-
ginning, when the engagement had been limited to a few men
on each side, he had studied what were the characteristic dif-
ferences of each army, in order that when the battles com-
menced on a larger scale he might not see his small army
overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers. The chief differ-
ence which he noted was that all the Romans and their Hun-
nish allies were good archers on horseback. The Goths, on
the other hand, had none of them practised this art. Their
cavalry fought only with javelins and swords, and their arch-
ers were drawn up for battle as infantry, and covered by the
cavalry. Thus the horsemen, unless the battle became a
hand-to-hand encounter, having no means of replying to a
discharge of weapons from a distance, were easily thrown into
confusion and cut to pieces, while the foot-soldiers, though
able to reply to a volley of arrows from a distance, could not
stand against sudden charges of horse. For this reason Beli-
sarius maintained that the Goths in their encounters would
always be worsted by the Romans.

Procopius supplies many suggestive facts about the Van-
dal kingdom in Africa. He says of Genseric :

If he saw any man among the provincials of Africa flourish-
ing in reputation and wealth, he gave him, with his lands and
other possessions, to his sons Huneric and Genzo, as servile
property. From the other Africans he took away the largest

58l] OTHER SOURCES TO JUSTINIAN jyc^

and best part of their lands, and distributed them among the
nation of the Vandals; and from that time these lands are
called the Vandal Allotments unto this day. The former pos-
sessors of these lands were for the most part left poor and
free — at liberty, that is, to take themselves off whither they
would. Now all these estates which Genseric had bestowed
upon his sons and the other Vandals were, according to his
orders, free from the payment of all taxes. But all the land
which seemed to him to be of poorer quality, he left in the
hands of the former owners, so burdened however with taxes
and public charges that nothing beyond a bare subsistence
could be reaped by the nominal possessors. Many of these
tried to flee, but were arrested and put to death; for sundry
grievous crimes were laid to their charge, the greatest of all,
according to his estimate, being the attempted concealment of
treasure. Thus did the African provincials fall into every
kind of misery.

Genseric arranged the Vandals and Alani into regiments
over whom he set no fewer than eighty colonels, whom he
called Chiliarchs (captains of thousands), so creating the be-
lief that his forces amounted to eighty thousand men. Never-
theless the number of the Vandals and Alani was said in time
before the invasion not to amount to more than fifty thousand ;
but the natural increase of the population, together with their
practice of admitting other barbarians into their confedera-
tion, had enormously added to their numbers. The names,
however, of the Alani, and of every other barbarian tribe in
the confederacy except the Moors, were all merged in the
one designation of Vandals.^

The Germans seem to have retained their physical char-
acteristics of earlier centuries:

The greatest names of this confraternity of nations are Goth
and Vandal and Visigoth and Gepid. They all have fair skins

^ iii, 5-

176 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [582

and yellow hair; they are tall of stature and goodly to look
upon. They all possess the same laws, the same faith, Arian
Christianity ; and the same language, the Gothic. To me they
appear all to have formed part of one nation in old time, and
afterwards to have been distinguished from each other by the
names of their leaders.

In the midst of the narrative of the Vandal and Gothic
campaigns, Procopius inserts interesting and often valuable
digressions on other barbarian affairs :

' The Franks, seeing the mischief which Goths and Romans
were inflicting on one another, and the length to which the
war was being protracted, began to take it very ill that they
should obtain no advantage from the calamities of a country
of which they were such near neighbors. Forgetting, there-
fore, the oaths which they had sworn and the covenants which
they had ratified only a short time before with both kingdoms
— for this nation is the most slippery of all mankind in its
observance of its plighted word — ^they marched into Italy to
the number of one hundred thousand men under the guid-
ance of their king, Theudebert. A few horsemen armed with
spears surrounded the person of their king: all the rest
fought on foot, having neither bow nor spear, but each with
a sword and shield and one axe. The iron of this axe is
stout, sharp, and two-edged; the handle, made of wood, is ex-
ceedingly short. At a given signal they all throw these axes,
and thus at the first onset are wont to break the shields of the
enemy and slay his men.

Another good example of his useful insertions is the ad-
dress of the Gepidae to Justinian :

We admit. Sire, that he who proposes to a neighbor that he
should form an alliance with him, is bound to show that
such an alliance is just and expedient. That we shall have
no difficulty in proving in the present instance. The alliance

^S^] OTHER SOURCES TO JUSTINIAN , lyy

is a just one, for we have been of old the foederati of the Ro-
mans, while the Lombards have only of late become friendly
to the empire. Moreover, we have constantly endeavored to
settle our differences with them by arbitration; but this, in
their braggart insolence, they have always refused till now,
when perceiving that we are in earnest and recognizing their
weakness they come whining to you for succor. And the alli-
ance with us will be an expedient one, for any one who is
acquainted with the subject knows that in numbers and mar-
tial spirit the Gepidae far surpass the Lombards. If you
choose our alliance on this occasion, grateful for your pres-
ent succor, we shall follow your standard against every other
foe, and the abundance of our strength will insure you victory.

But then these robbers pretend that Sirmium and certain
other parts of Dacia are a sufficient cause of war between us
and you. On the contrary, there is such a superabundance of
cities and territory in your great empire, that you have rather
to look out for men on whom to bestow a portion of them. To
the Franks, to the Heruli, and even to these very Lombards,
you have given such store of cities and fields as no man can
number. Relying in full confidence on your friendship, we
anticipated your intentions. When a man has made up his
mind to part with a certain possession, how much more highly
does he value the friend who reads his thought and helps
himself to the intended gift (always supposing there is noth-
ing insulting in his way of doing it), than him who passively
receives his favor. Now the former is exactly the position
which the Gepidae have occupied towards the Romans.

Lay these things to heart we entreat you. If it be possible,
which we earnestly desire, join us with your whole force
against the Lombards. But if that be not possible, stand
aside and leave us to fight out our own quarrels.^

^vii, 34.

CHAPTER XV
Sources from Justinian to Pippin

The sources for the period from 400 to 550 narrate,
with numerous contradictions and few details, the gradual
sloughing-off of the western provinces of the Roman em-
pire and the beginnings of barbarian " kingdoms." Yet
on careful study of these sources it is difficult to see just
how the invasions of the century and a half differed from
earlier ones which had left the Roman administration and
law quite intact. We still read of German fighting Ger-
man, of the barbarian " boss," of the empire and its ma-
jesty, of marauding expeditions, of coloni and foederati, and
if not of conflicts between Christian and pagan, at least of
the strife of Arian and Catholic. But somehow the Ger-
manic invasions have increased greatly during this period
in numbers, in extent, in staying power, and in political
influence.

The sources which treat of the period from 550 to 750
are probably as great in bulk as those of the two preced-
ing centuries, but they are less satisfactory. They dealt with
a time when Germans had become commonplace, — the bar-
barians were then settling extensively and permanently in the
western provinces, — and doubtless the writers considered
unnecessary any detailed description of the German states
or of the fusion of the newcomers with the Roman citizens.
By far the most numerous of these sources, moreover, are
saints* lives, which were certainly prepared to supply other
needs than the comparative study of politics or agrarian re-
178 [584

585] SOURCES FROM JUSTINIAN TO PIPPIN lyg

search. The mass of saints' lives are suggestive of the
times and are useful, but their number excludes them from
consideration in a review of this kind. Even the few best
known narratives of the late sixth, seventh, and early eighth
centuries, which can be specifically mentioned,^ are mainly
concerned with religion, with petty gossip of the courts
of the German " kings," and with earthquakes ; they give
only occasional indirect hints as to the social, economic and
intellectual life of the time, and even military events, to be
recorded, must be accompanied by miracle or portent. All
these sources are partisan in the direction of great Catholic
piety. Written almost without exception by churchmen,
they reflect religious zeal and glow with fervor. Pagan-
ism dies, and there are no more pagan sources. Arianism
is killed, and we have no Arian sources. What learning
lives on, is a monopoly of Catholic clergy, and we must re-
member that as a rule one class can hardly convey an accur-
ate impression of all the people who go to make up complex
society. If no one at the present time could write English
except lawyers, what picture would our descendants have
of our shoemakers, janitors, sisters of charity, railroad men,
surveyors, hewers of stone, diggers of ditch, clerks and
errand boys? The writers of the period from Justinian to
Pippin are of one mind: love of God, hatred of heretics,
veneration of saints, praise of rulers who favored the
church or themselves, curses on those who opposed holy
church, wonder at the marvellous interventions of God, in-
difference toward mere man. They make the catholic
Roman church of far greater importance than the universal

1 Practically every source of the period becomes a source for the
Germans, and the great modern guides— Potthast, Ebert, Wattenbach,
Gross and Molinier— are available. The last-named gives especially
detailed lists of saints' lives relating to the history of Gaul and the
Franks (vol. i).

l8o SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [586

Roman empire, although in that respect as in others they
may bespeak but an exaggerated opinion of their own call-
ing and their own position. We should be on our guard
against overestimating what they plainly overestimated.
Possibly if other classes of men had left their records, we
should not view the period as one of unparalleled faith.

The period was more plausibly one of unparalleled ignor-
ance. The sources of the seventh and eighth centuries, con-
sidered as a whole, reach the lowest degradation. Scanty,
obscure, illiterate, and often anonymous, they reflect the
intellectual poverty of the age. They are impressive wit-
nesses to a change which Germanic immigration and in-
vasion had effected, more momentous than the lapse of
political institutions or even the transition of social condi-
tions. That change was a marked decline in culture and
civilization.

The most destructive Germans are said to have been the
Angles and Saxons in Britain and the Lombards in Italy.
It appears that the Roman military organization in Britain
was weakened by numerous civil wars resulting from at-
tempts of provincial governors to usurp imperial power ^
and by ravages of Picts and Scots from the north. The
Roman legions were permanently withdrawn from Britain
early in the fifth century, and the civil government may
have vanished with the military occupation. Then came
the Angles and Saxons, and a conflict seems to have been
inaugurated about the middle of the fifth century which
lasted more than a hundred years and resulted in the estab-
lishment of several Germanic kingdoms. It is alleged that

1 See E. A. Freeman, Western Europe in the Fifth Century (London,
1904), which includes the substance of two articles published in the
English Historical Review in 1886 and 1887. The most recent account
of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain is that of H. M. Chadwick,
The Origin of the English Nation (Cambridge, 1907).

587] SOURCES FROM JUSTINIAN TO PIPPIN jgj

in the British provinces there was more strictly speaking
a war of conquest waged by the Germans, attended by a
more complete breakdown of Roman customs and institu-
tions, than was the case in other provinces. But the sources
relating to the loss of Britain are exceedingly scanty.

Practically the only contemporary narrative about the
invasions of the Angles and Saxons is the curious collec-
tion of the monk Gildas (cca. 516-573), who pictures in ex-
travagant colors the sufferings of his native country sub-
sequent to the landing of the Germans. His work, en-
titled Liber querolus de calamitate, excidio et conquestu
Britanniae,^ is divided into two parts: the first (Historia)
contains in twenty-six chapters not a straightforward his-
torical narrative but merely rhetorical declamations on sup-
posedly historical episodes ; the second part (Epistola) con-
sists of bombastic reproaches directed against clergy and
the " kings " of the country, — Constantine, Aurelius Con-
anus, Vortigern, Cuneglassus, Maglocunus, ,etc. The tone
is violent throughout, and the diction is sometimes almost
unintelligible, owing to the long and entangled sentences.

In Italy, barbarian incursions recommenced shortly after
the final destruction of Ostrogothic rule in 553. The Lom-
bards who had settled in Pannonia after the Goths left and
had repeatedly served the Roman emperor, were now able
on the death of Justinian in 568 to establish themselves
firmly in northern Italy and extend their influence through-
out the interior of the peninsula to Beneventum. The Lom-

^ Or De excidio et conquestu Britanniae ac Hehili castigatione in
reges, principes et sacerdotes epistola. Edited by Petrie in Monumenta
hist erica britannica, vol. i (London, 1848) ; by A. W. Haddan and W.
Stubbs in Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great
Britain, vol. i (Oxford, 1869) ; and by T, Mommsen in Monumenta
Germaniae historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, vol. xiii (Berlin, 1898).
English translation by J. A. Giles in the Bohn Antiquarian Library,
vol. iv (London, 1848).

l82 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [588

bard kingdom lasted throughout the seventh century and
the first half of the eighth, and seems to have been quite
different from earlier barbarian settlements in Italy. As
nearly as we can gather from the sources, its kings were not
eager for office under the empire, as Alaric, Odovacar and
Theodoric had been ; they conquered the country as did the
Angles and Saxons in Britain; they destroyed Roman ad-
ministration and substituted their own law for that of the
commonwealth. But the sources relating to the Lombards
are fragmentar}^ and unsatisfactory. They are chiefly
papal letters, especially those of Gregory the Great (cca.
540-604), the Lombard laws (cca. 643), and, considerably
later, the Lombard history of Paul the Deacon.^

The damning heresy of the Lombards and their ambition
to possess all Italy evoked the tears and protests of the
pontiffs.^ A letter of Pelagius II to the bishop of Auxerre,
which was probably written in 581, is typical:

Not without some great purpose has it been ordained by Divine
Providence that your [Prankish] kings should share with the

1 On the Lombard laws, see infra, pp. 214-8. About the year 670 an
unknown writer prefixed to the code a prologue on the origin of the
Lombards, which is purely legendary. This Origo Langohardorum is
edited by G, Waitz in the Monumenta Germaniae hisiorica. Script ores
rerum Langohardicarum et Italicarum, pp. 1-6 (Hanover, 1878). On
Paul the Deacon, see infra, p. 193.

2 The letters of Gregory the Great and other popes up to Innocent III,
published in part in the Patrologia latina of Migne, have been an-
alyzed by Ph. Jaffe, Regesta pontiUcum romanorum, new edition much
enlarged by Wattenbach, Kaltenbrunner and Ewald, 2 vols. (Leipzig,
1885-1888). For Gregory's writings, see A. Ebert, Allgemeine Ge-
schichte der Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande, also translated
into French (Paris, 1884) ; and F. H. Dudden, Gregory the Great, his
place in History and Thought, 2 vols. (London, 1905). The Liber
pontiUcalis of the Roman bishops furnishes a few details on the Ger-
manic movements, edited by L. Duchesne, 2 vols. (Paris, 1884, 1893).
A new edition of the Liber PontiUcalis was begun by T. Mommsen in
the Monumenta Gernianiae historica (Berlin, 1898).

589] SOURCES FROM JUSTINIAN TO PIPPIN 183

Roman empire in the confession of the orthodox faith. As-
suredly this was brought to pass in order that they might be,
so-to-speak, neighbors and helpers of this city of Rome, whence
that confession took its birth, and of the whole of Italy. Be-
ware, then, dearest brother, lest through levity of purpose your
kings should fail in their high mission. . . . Persuade them
as earnestly as you can to keep themselves from all friendship
and alliance with our most unspeakable enemies, the Lom-
bards, lest when the day of vengeance dawns (which we trust
in the Divine mercy it will do speedily), your kings should
share in the Lombards^ punishment . . .^

Gregory's letters are an especially important historical
source if used critically.^ Some of his saints' lives have
interesting details, but in the main they are mere collections
of quaint, fantastic tales. ^ His most recent biographer
says * of him :

^ Ad Aunacharium, ed, Migne, Patrol, lat., vol. Ixxii, p. 706.

2 Gregory the Great (d. 604). His 844 letters, divided into 12
books, are edited by Migne, Patrol, lat., vol. Ixxvii, pp. 441-1328. There
is an old German translation by M. Feyerabend (Kempten, 1807-9).
See P. Ewald, Studien sur Ausgabe des Registers Gregors I (Han-
over, 1878). A new edition of Gregory's Letters was begun by P.
Ewald, Monumenta Germaniae historica, Epistolae, vol. i (Berlin, 1887)
and carried on by L. M. Hartmann, ibid., vol. ii (Berlin, 1893).

3 The weird tale of casting Theodoric into the crater of Lipari is
related in the Dialogues, iv, 30. Gregory saw the barbarians less than
God's judgment. He writes in his biography of Benedict of a con-
versation between the saint and a certain visiting priest (ch. 15) :
" When they were talking concerning the entry of King Totila and the
destruction of the city of Rome, the priest said, ' The city will be de-
stroyed by that king so that it shall be inhabited no more.' To whom
the man of God made answer, 'Rome shall not be overthrown by
the tribes, but, wearied with tempests, lightnings, whirlwinds and earth-
ijuakes, it shall consume away by itself.' The meaning of the prophecy
is now made clearer than daylight to us, who see in the city, walls
shattered, houses thrown down, churches destroyed by the whirlwind,
and great edifices, loosened by long old age, falling around us in
abounding ruin." Ed. Migne, Patrol, lat., vol. bcvi, p. 162.

■* F. H. Dudden, op. cit., vol. i, p. 356.

l84 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [590

It is certainly astonishing that the clear-headed man who
managed the papal estates and governed the Church with
such admirable skill, should have contributed to the propa-
gation of these wild tales of demons and wizards and haunted
houses, of souls made visible, of rivers obedient to written
orders, of corpses that scream and walk. And yet such was
the fact. The landlord of the Papal Patrimonies and the
author of the Dialogues are one and the same person. And
in him we have, perhaps, the first genuine Italian example of
the mediaeval intellect.

About the time of Gregory's death, Secundus, bishop of
Trent, wrote a history of the Lombards which seems to
have been valuable, but is now lost to us save a few ex-
tracts preserved by Paul the Deacon.

The principal source relating to the Franks in the sixth
century is the history of Gregory of Tours. He was
born at Clermont in Auvergne between 539 and 543, the
son of a provincial senator. What education he had, he
secured under an uncle who was bishop of Clermont. Gre-
gory took holy orders and was received at the Austrasian
court. His reputation for piety and wisdom secured him
in 573 the bishopric of Tours. He continued to take an
active interest in Prankish politics, although he incurred
the bitter enmity of Queen Fredegond. He died at Tours
in November, 594. He left a treatise on miracles, which,
except for a few statements about Martin of Tours, has no
historical interest ; and the celebrated Historia Francorum ^
in ten books.

1 Edited by W. Arndt in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores
rerum Merovingicarum, vol, i (Hanover, 1885) ; and by H. Omont and
G. Collon in Collection de textes pour servir a I'etude et a I'enseigne-
ment de I'histoire, vols, ii, xvii (Paris, 1887, 1894). There is a French
translation by Guizot, revised by A. Jacobs (Paris, 1863), and a Ger-
man translation by W. Giesebrecht in the Geschiclitschreiber. See G.
Kurth, Clovis, 2 vols. (Paris, 1901).

59 1 ] SOURCES FROM JUSTINIAN TO PIPPIN 185

The first book, concluding with the death of Martin of
Tours in 397, is an absurd and confused resume of ancient
history, which would be as lacking in interest as in chrono-
logical exactness did it not contain some details about the
establishment of Christianity in Gaul, details of little value
as historical events but which picture naively, and some-
times with charm, the condition of mind and manners in
his own day; few anecdotes are more poetic or touching
than the legend of the Two Lovers. The second book ex-
tends from 397 to the death of Clovis (511); the third to
the death of Theodebert, king of Austrasia (547) ; the
fourth to the death of Sigebert (575) ; the fifth book com-
prises the first five years of the reign of Childebert of
Austrasia (575-580); the sixth comes down to the death
of Chilperic in 584 ; the seventh treats of the year 585 ;
the eighth extends to the death of Leuvigild, king of Spain,
in 586; the ninth to 589; the tenth stops in August, 591.
Thus the work covers from the death of Saint Martin a
period of one hundred and seventy-four years, of the last
fifty of which the writer was a contemporary.

The history is written in very bad Latin. ^ Gregory's
prefatory apology is not too modest:

The culture of letters and of the liberal arts departing, perish-
ing even in the cities of Gaul, in the midst of good and evil
acts committed here while the barbarians surrendered them-
selves to their ferocity and the kings to their fury; while the
churches were attacked by heretics and defended by Catholics :
while the Christian faith, fervent in many hearts, was cold
in others; while the churches were in turn enriched by pious
men and despoiled by infidels, no grammarian skilled in the

iBut see M. A. Bonnet, Le Latin de Gregoire de Tours (Paris,
1890), and B. Krusch, " Zu M. Bonnets Untersuchungen iiber Gregor
von Tours " in Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft fiir iiltere deutsche
Geschichte, vol. xvi (1891).

l86 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [592

art of dialectic has undertaken to write down these things in
prose or in verse. Thus many men groan and say " Woe
to our days! the study of letters perishes among us, and no
one is found who can recount in his writings the deeds of
the present." Seeing which, I have judged it meet to preserve,
albeit in rustic language, the memory of past things so that
they may be known to posterity.

I have been unable to pass in silence the broils of evildoers
or the life of good people. I have above all been stimulated
by what I have often heard told my contemporaries, that few
men understand a philosophical rhetorician, although the word
of a simple unpretentious man is understood by a great
number. . . ,

And now, on the point of writing about the conflict of kings
with hostile nations, of martyrs with pagans, and of the
churches with heretics, I first want to profess my faith, that
he who reads may not doubt me to be a Catholic.

Another reason, the opinion of those who are troubled about
the approaching end of the world, determines me to collect
from the chronicles and histories the number of years already
passed in order that we may know clearly how many have
gone by since the beginning of the world. But first I shall
beg the indulgence of readers if either in style or in words
I violate grammatical rules in which I am not very well in-
structed. I have applied myself solely to absorbing with
simplicity and without questioning the faith which the Church
teaches, for I know that man, subject to sins, can through
simple faith obtain pardon from God.

In spite of the very bad Latin, the history is very useful.
Gregory's prominent place at court and his episcopal office
at Tours, whither thousands of pilgrims flocked to revere
the shrine of Saint Martin, afforded him excellent oppor-
tunities to talk with prominent men and familiarize himself
with public affairs. Moreover, he must have had personal
knowledge of many things which he narrates, for the last
eight books are really a history of his own time.

593] SOURCES FROM JUSTINIAN TO PIPPIN 187

The major portion of the narrative treats of ecclesiasti-
cal squabbles, dogma and heresy. The minor part relates
court deeds and gossip. The narrative is not continuous
throughout, but is interrupted by frequent digressions,
anecdotes, sermons and occasionally an illuminating de-
scription. The whole is presented, however, with such
manifest candor and frankness and directness as to convince
the reader of the author's sincerity of purpose. It is ob-
vious that Gregory tried to be truthful.

The work suggests many ideas to us about the manner in
which the barbarians adapted Roman customs and civiliza-
tion. This Gregory of Tours, who writes nearly a century
after Clovis, is himself of a noble Gallo-Roman family;
speaks always respectfully of the empire; talks glibly of
senators, patricians and tribunes; seldom seems aware that
social or political institutions have undergone any change
whatsoever since the advent of the barbarians. On the
other hand, Gregory is a zealous Christian bishop: in his
work, there is to be found an intense interest in miracles and
a fondness for allegory; there is confusion of ecclesiastical
and political interests, with symptoms of friction and ulti-
mately of ecclesiastical triumph; there are evidences of
feudal society; there is the growth of ascetic ideals and
monasticism; there is the ultra-devotion to Catholicism,
horror of heresy, prejudice against the Jews, crusades in
the interest of religion, respect for the Roman see. Gre-
gory is an interesting product of his time, at once a Roman
and a mediaeval churchman.

In every book there are four or five sections devoted to
earthquakes, pestilences, floods and prodigies. Miracles
and prophecies and the casting-out of devils are recorded
as everyday occurrences. The following is an example of
Gregory's taste and of his familiar style :

l88 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [594

After the synod of which I have spoken, I had already bade
the king farewell and was preparing to return home; but not
wanting to go without having said goodby to Salvius [bishop
of Albi] and embraced him, I went to look for him, and
found him at the house of Brinnacius ; I told him I was going
home, and walking aside to chat a bit, he said to me, " Do you
not see above this roof what I perceive ?" " I see," I replied,
" a second little structure which the king has lately built
there." And he said, " Don't you see something else ?" " I see
nothing else," said I ; and thinking that he spoke thus in jest, I
added, " If you see something else, tell me." And he, heaving
a deep sigh, said to me " I see the sword of divine anger drawn
and suspended over this house." And the words of the
bishop were true, for twenty days afterwards, the king, as
we have said, lost his two sons.^

There are more references in the Historia Francormn to
social conditions than in most of the sources which we
have reviewed. Two bishops are mentioned who came
out to fight the Lombards, " armed not with the heavenly
cross but with secular armor, and they killed many with
their own hands." ^ The taxes of Chilperic were so heavy
that many people had to leave the country; riots resulted,
and in Limousin the tax-rolls were burned.^ "... One
day the bishop assembled his laborers in a field which they
were to work for him ..." * A Gallo-Roman, nephew
of the bishop of Langres, was held in serfdom as a hostage
by a barbarian who lived near Trier." King Gontram
inflicted the death penalty on one of his officials who killed
a buffalo in the forest preserves, but Gregory remarks that
it was really a little offence and that the king regretted the
severity of the punishment.^ There is a charming picture
of the town of Dijon : "'

1 V, 50. 2 iv, 42. 3 V, 28. •* vi, 36.

6 iii, 15. « X, 10. 7 iii, I9-

595] SOURCES FROM JUSTINIAN TO PIPPIN igo

It is a town hemmed in by very solid walls, in the middle of
a smiling plain whose land is so fertile that sowing can be
done without ploughing; to the south is the river Ouche, full
of fish ; there comes from the north another little stream which
enters through a gate, passes under a bridge, goes out by
another gate, and surrounds the ramparts with its quiet flow.
Before the gate it turns several mills with great rapidity.
Dijon has four gates, located at the four cardinal points; the
entire structure is adorned with twenty-three towers, and the
walls are built of block stone to a height of twenty feet
and of small stones higher still. In all they are thirty feet
high and fifteen feet thick. I do not know why this place is
not called a city; it has in its territory abundant resources; to
the west are very fertile hills, covered with vines which supply
the inhabitants such noble Falernian that they despise the wine
of Chalons. The ancients say this town was built by Emperor
Aurelian.

A suggestion of the education of the time is furnished by a
statement ^ concerning the servant of a senator, who

went with his master to serve him and applying himself to the
study of letters he became celebrated on account of his educa-
tion, for he was perfectly instructed in the works of Virgil,
in the laws of the Theodosian Code, and in the science of
mathematics.

Sidelights on Gallic history of the sixth century are sup-
plied by a genial abbe, who loved song and the society of
fair women. Venantius Fortunatus (/?. 535-6oo) was a
native of Treviso in northeastern Italy and studied at
Ravenna, but spent the major portion of his life in travel.
He toured the Alpine region and southern Germany, tra-
versed Gaul as far as the Pyrenees, and even wrote songs

1 iv, 46.

190 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [596

from Britain. He visited Tours, thanks, as he says him-
self, to the miraculous guidance of Saint Martin, and there
was graciously received by Bishop Gregory. His long
wanderings were at length brought to a close by the charm-
ing widow of the Frankish king, Clotaire I (d. 561), who
was presiding over a convent which she had founded at
Poitiers. To her Fortunatus addressed passionate poems;
and after her death he wrote her biography and continued
to send passionate poems to her daughter. He became a
priest and Paul the Deacon affirms ^ that he was bishop
of Poitiers. Fortunatus was a worldly man, a parlor par-
son, quite as much concerned with dainty dishes prepared
for him by the sisters ^ as with the salvation of souls ; and
he was doubtless a social lion at Poitiers. His saints' lives
are rather happily written; they suggest the times perhaps
better than lives written by churchmen who were more
obviously pious and austere. His eleven books of poems ^
are of some historical interest because they often treat of
historical subjects. The first three relate to ecclesiastical
matters and persons; the fourth comprises epitaphs on
some men and many ladies ; the fifth is addressed to bishops ;
the sixth to kings, queens, and princesses; the seventh to
courtiers; the last four to various people. Fortunatus
had a decided talent for writing verses. The Germans had
not blotted out all learning and all cleverness.

The intellectual life of the west in the seventh century
seems to have been greatest in Ireland and in Spain. The
former was not greatly affected by the Germanic invasions,

^ Historia Langohardorum, ii, 13.

2 xi, 9, 10.

' His complete works are in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Auc-
tores Antiquissimi, vol. iv, the poems edited by F. Leo and the prose
works by B. Krusch (Berlin, 1881, 1885). French translation by C.
Nisard (Paris, 1887). See C. Nisard, Le poete Fortunat (Paris, 1890).

597] SOURCES FROM JUSTINIAN TO PIPPIN iqi

but the latter, as the seat of the Visigothic kingdom, is
important for our purposes. Several names indicate that
culture was not dead in Spain: the bisliops Eugenius and
Julian^ of Toledo, and Marcus Maximus ' and Brauho =*
of Saragossa. The Visigothic king Sisebutus (612-621)
left sixty-one correct hexameters on eclipses of the sun and
moon, in addition to interesting and useful letters.* But
the greatest of the Spanish writers was Isidore of Seville
(cca. 570-636), not because he was very learned or pos-
sessed remarkable acumen, but because he wrote very ex-
tensively and became one of the most influential teachers of
the middle age. In addition to his fantastic pseudo-scien-
tific Etymologies and De natura rerum, he prepared a slight
chronicle, which continued those of Eusebius, Jerome, and
Victor Tonnennensis down to 615. It is divided, in imita-
tion of Saint Augustine, according to the six ages of the
world symbolized by the six days of creation, and contains
invaluable notes for the history of Spain subsequent to
Orosius.''* Isidore completed probably in the year of the
death of King Sisebutus a short history of Goths, Vandals,
and Sueves, which is more important than the chronicle^

1 Julian's history of the expedition of King Wamba against a re-
bellious duke of Narbonne is in Migne, Patrol, lat., vol. xcvi, pp. 763-
808. For the writings of Eugenius, see Migne, Patrol, lat., vol. Ixxxvii.

2 Marcus Maximus (d. 619) wrote part of a chronicle extending
from 468 to 644. Edited in Migne, Patrol, lat., vol. Ixxx.

3 Forty-four letters of Braulio (d. 651) are edited by M. Risco in
Florez, Espana sagrada, vol. xxx. See P. B. Gams, Kirchengeschichte
Spaniens, vol. ii, pp. 146-149 (Regensburg, 1874).

*The letters of Sisebutus are in Florez, Espana sagrada, vol. vii;
and in Migne, Patrol, lat., vol. Ixxx.

5 See A. Ebert, Allgemeine Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters
im Abendlande (Leipzig, 1889), vol. i, pp. 518-542. The chronicle is
extant in two versions, varying slightly in length and detail. The
complete works of Isidore are in Migne, Patrol, lat., vols. Ixxxi-lxxxiv.

192 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [598

and about five years later issued a second revised edition,
enlarged by the addition of Biblical quotations and ortho-
dox outpourings/ Isidore's continuation of Gennadius's
" Lives of Illustrious Men '' was itself continued by his
pupil Ildefonsus (d. 667), bishop of Toledo.^

The best known sources of the late seventh and early
eighth centuries, relating to the Germans, are the Vener-
able Bede for Britain, the pseudo-Fredegarius and the
Gesta regum Franconnn for Gaul, and for Italy Paul the
Deacon.

The Venerable Bede was born in Northumberland in
674, became a priest in 704 and died in 735. He contrib-
uted the usual services to saints; prepared a short treatise
on chronology, reckoning dates from the birth of Christ;
and wrote two works of special interest to us: a chronicle
from creation to the year .726, and the highly prized and
unique Ecclesiastical History of the English People, in
five books, extending down to 731.^

The best contemporary account of Prankish history in
the seventh and eighth centuries is a compilation ascribed
since the end of the sixteenth century to a certain Frede-
garius Scholasticus without any indication in any manu-
script or elsewhere to justify such an assumption.* Ac-

1 Both versions of the Historia Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum
are extant.

2 In Migne, Patrol, lat., vol. Ixxx. St. Jerome had prepared brief
biographical sketches of prominent churchmen, which were brought up
to date by the additions and amendments of Gennadius, a priest at
Marseilles (cca. 495).

3 The complete works of the Venerable Bede are in Migne, Patrol,
lat., vols, xc-xcv. The Ecclesiastical History is edited separately by
A. Holder (Freiburg-i-B., 1882). The best edition of the latter is
now that of C Plummer, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1896). There is an Eng-
lish translation with accompanying text by T. Miller (London, 1890).

* The first editor who, to our knowledge, used the name Frede-
garius was CI. Fauchet (1579) in the Antiquites gauloises.

599] SOURCES FROM JUSTINIAN TO PIPPIN 1Q3

cording to Krusch— the editor of the standard edition of
the compilation/ — it was begun in 613 by an author who
lived in Switzerland and who joined together the annals
of Hippolytus,^ Jerome and Idatius, and wrote the first
forty-two chapters of the new work; a second author added
in 642 an abridgment of Gregory of Tours and continued
I the chronicle to the year 642 (sections 43-90) ; finally, a
' third author about 660 interpolated several sections. This

hypothesis is rejected by Schniirer/ who attributes the in-
dependent chronicle to obscure royal secretaries in Bur-
gundy and the rest of the compilation to a certain Agrestius,
a friend and later an opponent of St. Eustasius of Luxeuil.
Be that as it may, the chronicle of the pseudo-Frede-
garius has value. For the years 554 to 593, it supplements
Gregory of Tours; from the end of 593, it is practically our

1 The Paris MS., the oldest and most complete, dating as it seems
; from the beginning of the eighth century, contains (i) the Liber gen-

erationis of Saint Hippolytus; (2) the Chronicle of Saint Jerome;
(3) the Chronicle of Idatius (378-468) with some legendary state-
ments about Theodoric, Justinian, etc.; (4) the abridgment of the
. first six books of the Historia Francorum of Gregory of Tours, known
as the Historia epitoma; (5) an original chronicle extending from
584 to 642, but containing allusions to events between 652 and 664;
(6) the Chronicle of Isidore of Seville from 176 to 628. This Paris
MS. was published by G. Monod in part thirty-six of the Bihliotheque
de I'ecole pratique des hautes etudes (Paris, 1885). B, Krusch pre-
pared a critical edition of the compilation together with its continua-
tions in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores rerum Merovin-
gicarum, vol. ii (Hanover, 1888). There is a German translation by
O. Abel in the Geschichtschreiher, and a French translation by M.
Guizot, revised by A. Jacobs, 2 vols. (Paris, i860).

2 The Liber generationis, bearing the name of Saint Hippolytus,
schismatic bishop of Rome (222-235), is an enumeration of names in
sacred and profane history and in geography from early times to the
reign of Alexander Severus, to which are joined slight chronological
data, a list of popes to Adrian I {772), and a short chronicle to the
time of Heraclius (610-641) translated from the Greek. It appears as
bk. i of the pseudo-Fredegarius in the Krusch edition.

3 G. Schniirer, Die Verfasser des sog. Fredegar-Chronik (Frei-
burg-i-S., 1900).

194 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [6oD

only source, together with contemporary biographies of
saints, because the continuation of Marius Aventicensis ^
contains only very brief and very dry notes, and the Gesta
regum Francorum, written in the eighth century, has for
the first half of the seventh a character purely legendary.
The pseudo-Fredegarius is good on Childebert II and his
son ; in those passages it is very readable. Two whole chap-
ters from Jonas's life of Saint Columban are transcribed.
From 614 to 631, the story is more vague and fragmentary,
but from 631 to 642, we have an ample and precise narra-
tive which seems to come from an eye-witness. The au-
thor is interested chiefly in the affairs of Austrasia and
Burgundy and shows a pronounced hatred of Neustria; he
is of mediocre intelligence, writes in the most corrupt Latin
imaginable, but inspires confidence by his apparent sincerity.

The chronicle of the pseudo-Fredegarius was continued
to the year 768, probably by three different authors. The
first, who lived in Austrasia and was a staunch supporter of
Pippin's family, carried the work to 736. The second, who
gave us the history of the years 737 to 751, wrote by order
of Count Childebrand, an uncle of King Pippin. The third
continuator, author of the narrative from 752 to 768, be-
longed to the house of Count Nibelung, son of Childe-
brand. Thus the anonymous continuations of the pseudo-
Fredegarius have the advantages and the defects of official
writings: the authors were in an excellent position to be
well-informed, but their testimony was bound to be partisan
and biased.

The compilation attributed to Fredegarius and its con-
tinuations are most useful for Austrasian affairs; the cor-
responding Neustrian authority is the Gesta regum Fran-

^ See supra, p. 150.

6oi] SOURCES FROM JUSTINIAN TO PIPPIN jgr

corum,"- written about 725 by a monk of Rouen or of Paris.
The Gesta include an abridgment of books II-VI of Gre-
gory of Tours, and an independent history of the years
642' to 700. The work was taken into Austrasia very soon
after its composition, and another anonymous writer there
completed it by adding some notes from Gregory of Tours ^
and Isidore of Seville ; it thus supplied the elements for the
first continuation of the pseudo-Fredegarius. The Latin
is slightly better than that of pseudo-Fredegarius, but the
author had practically no sources at his disposal and his
narrative, filled with prejudice and preposterous legends,
is quite worthless for the period with which its writer is
not a contemporary. It is in the Gesta regum Francorum
that the legend of the Trojan origin of the Franks received
its final development; barely outlined by pseudo-Frede-
garius, it thenceforth served as a model for many other
fanciful reconstructions of antiquity by mediaeval chron-
iclers.

The facts in the biography of Paul the Deacon are taken
from his works. * He was a Lombard, called Paulus Warne-

^ Or Liber historiae Francorum. Edited by B. Krusch in Monu-
menta Germaniae historica, Script ores rerum Merovingicarum, vol. ii
(Hanover, 1888). See G. Kurth, "Etude critique sur le Gesta regum
Francorum" in Bulletin de I'academie royale de Belgique, series iii,
vol. xviii (1889).

2 The whole work sometimes passes under Gregory's name.

3 The works of Paul the Deacon are edited in the Monumenta Ger-
maniae historica: the Historia Langobardorum by Bethmann and
Waitz in Scrip tores rer. Langob. et Ital. (Hanover, 1878) and also in
the octavo; the review of Eutropius, or Historia miscella, by Droysen
in Auctores Antiquissimi, vol ii, pp. 227-374; the Gesta episcoporum
Mettensium by Pertz in Scriptores, vol. ii, pp. 260-268; and the Letters
by Diimmler in Epistolae, vol. iv, pp. 505-516. There is an English
translation of the Historia Langobardorum by W. D. Foulke, published
by the Department of History of the University of Pennsylvania
(Philadelphia, 1907). There is also a German translation of part of

196 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [602

fridus, and was born about 720. He received a fair edu-
cation, knew Greek, and lived at court. He wrote a poem
in 763 on the six ages of the world, the verses of which
form an acrostic on the name of Adelperga Pia, the daugh-
ter of the Lombard king, Desiderius. It was for her, also,
that Paul enlarged and continued the Roman history of
Eutropius. He probably entered the cloister of Monte-
cassino after the fall of the Lombard kingdom. He later
crossed the Alps to seek assurance from Charlemagne of
his brother's safety. There he was honorably received,
and gave instruction in Greek besides writing several homi-
lies and his history of the bishopric of Metz. He wrote
subsequently at Montecassino a commentary on the rule of
Saint Benedict and his famous History of the Lombards.
The last named is the standard authority for Lombard af-
fairs. The sources which he used were the Origo Lango-
bardorum, the histories of Secundus of Trent, Gregory of
Tours, and the Venerable Bede, the writings of Gregory
the Great, and various episcopal lives. In spite of the gen-
eral clarity and manifest sincerity of the work, it is ob-
viously uncritical. Paul is unable to separate fact from
fiction, history from legend, and his account of earlier
times is very unreliable.

Paul the Deacon has great respect for the legendary
past of the Lombards. He discovers and dwells on the
" good old times : "

But when the Lombards had been for ten years under the
power of their dukes, at length by common consent they ap-
pointed to themselves as king, Anthari, the son of the above-
Paul's works in the Geschtchtschreiber. The critical studies of Paul
the Deacon by Bethmann, Dahn, Mommsen, etc., are analyzed by
W. Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter, 6th ed.
(Berlin, 1893).

6o3] SOURCES FROM JUSTINIAN TO PIPPIN igy

mentioned Cleph. On account of his dignity they called him
Flavins, a forename which all the succeeding Lombards used
auspiciously. In his day, on account of the restoration of
the kingdom, the then ruling dukes contributed half of all
their possessions to the royal exchequer that there might be a
fund for the maintenance of the king himself, and of those
who were attached to him by the liability to perform the
various offices of his household. The subject populations who
had been assigned to their several Lombard guests were also
included. In truth this was a marvelous fact in the kingdom
of the Lombards : there was no evidence, no plots were de- »
vised, no one oppressed another by unjust exactions, none
despoiled his neighbor ; there were no thefts, no robberies with
violence; every man went about his business as he pleased, in
fearless security.^

One other quotation may illustrate Paul's history. It is
his interesting mention of the celebrated legal code of King
Rothari :

The kingship of the Lombards was assumed by Rothari, by
birth an arodus. He was a man of strong character and one •
who followed the path of justice, though he adhered not to
the orthodox Christian faith, being stained by the infidelity of
the Arian heresy. For in truth the Arians assert to their own
great harm and loss that the Son is inferior to the Father and
the Holy Ghost inferior to the Father and the Son; but we
Catholics confess the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost
to be one true God in three persons with equal power and the
same glory. At that time in almost all the cities of the realm
there were two bishops, one a Catholic, and the other an
Arian. In the city of Pavia the place is still shown where the
Arian bishop had his baptistery, residing near the basilica of
St. Eusebius, while another bishop resided at the Catholic
Church. However, the Arian bishop who was in that city,

1 Bk. iii, ch. i6.

198 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [604

Anastasius by name, being converted to the Catholic faith,
afterwards ruled the Church of Christ. This King Rothari
arranged in a series of writings the laws of the Lombards,
which they were retaining only in memory and by custom,
and ordered that the code should be called an Edict. But it
was now the seventy-seventh year since the Lombards had
come into Italy [really the seventy-sixth], as the same king
has testified in the prologue to his Edict. ^

1 Bk. iv, ch. 42. From T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vol. v,
pp. 232, 233, and vol. vi, pp. 167, 168.

CHAPTER XVI
Documentary Sources

The sources so far treated have been unofficial personal
narratives. Such sources would nowadays be deemed in-
adequate. They would be considered as only of secondary
value, compared with contemporary documents which would
officially state accomplished facts. Their statements, in
short, would be tested and interpreted by official documents.

The main documentary sources relating to the Germanic
invasions are legal. They are contained in the bulk of both
the civil and the canon law which has come down to us from
the centuries under review. There are several reasons, how-
ever, why the official testimony of state or church has not
played so conspicuous a part in the histories of that period
as corresponding legal documents would do today. In the
first place, the documentary sources of the Roman empire
have been studied chiefly by lawyers or by historians of law,
rather than by students of the Germanic invasions. In
the second place, this kind of source was not so well re-
corded or so diligently preserved in ancient times as it is
now; legal literature of any age is not apt to be popular
literature in style or subject-matter, — it is not found in
many private libraries; and in Roman days there were no
printing-presses and no public-spirited representatives of
the people to distribute stout volumes of statutes and gov-
ernmental reports to their agricultural constituents. And
finally, the ancient legal sources which have survived, af-
ford the greatest difficulties of interpretation, for they are
605] 199

200 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [606

burdened with technical words and phrases, padded in many-
instances with bland piety and platitudes, and they often
stand alone, without commentary or explanation of any
kind, monuments to us of mystery and doubt.

The proper treatment of the documentary sources relat-
ing to the Germanic invasions would require an elaborate,
special study, which is beyond the purpose of the present
work ; we shall here content ourselves with furnishing a bald
outline of the principal groups of the law, passing in review
the imperial law and its adaptations by the Germans, the
barbarian codes, and finally the canon law.

Roman law of the empire ^ was naturally of two kinds :
the edicts and rescripts of the supreme legislators, or " statu-
tory law;" and the opinions of famous jurists on those acts,
or " common law." The issuance of laws was coetaneovis
with the commonwealth. And the most celebrated juris-
consults— Salvius Julianus and Pomponius and Gains and
Papinian, the prince of them all, and Paulus and Ulpian and
Modestinus — lived during the first three centuries of the
Christian era. The Comitia had been deemed unfit for the
work of legislation by the time of Tiberius, and by the time
of Diocletian (284-305), the senate had lost its functions
of law-making. Thus the emperor had eventually be-
come supreme legislator. Under Diocletian was com-
piled perhaps the first important code of the enact-
ments then in force. It seems to have been a private ven-
ture on the part of a certain Gregorius or Gregorianus
and to have embraced various imperial constitutions from

^ Among the guides to the Roman law, see J. Muirhead, Law
of Rome, 2nd ed. (London, 1899) ; P. F. Girard, Manuel elementaire
de droit romain, 3rd ed. (Paris, 1901), trans, in part as Short History
of Roman Law by A. H. F. Lefroy and J. H. Cameron (Toronto,
1906) ; and M. Con rat, Geschichfe der Quellen und Literatur des rom-
ischen Rechts im friiheren Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1891).

6o7J DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 20I

Hadrian to the year 294, divided probably into fifteen or
sixteen books and each book into titles. This Codex Gre-
gorianus was supplemented in the fourth century by a simi-
lar collection of a certain Hermogenianus or Hermogenes,
which covered by three different editions, the years 291 to
365. Of these two compilations, only fragments in later
codes are extant/

The relation of jurisprudence to the statutory law was
finally determined by the '' Law of Citations," "" which
V^alentinian III promulgated in 426 :

We accord our approval to all the writings of Papinian, Paul,
Gaius, Ulpian, and Modestinus, conceding to Gaius the same
authority that is enjoyed by Paul, Ulpian, and the rest, and
sanctioning the citation of all his works. We ratify also the
opinions (scientiam) of those earlier writers whose treatises
and statements of the law any of the aforesaid five have made
use of in their own works, — ^Scaevola, for example, and
Sabinus, and Julian, and Marcellus, — and of all others whom
they have been in the habit of quoting as authoritative; pro-
vided always, as their antiquity makes them uncertain, that the
texts of those earlier jurists are verified by collation of manu-

^There are excerpts in the Lex Romana Visigothorum (see infra) ;
in the Collatio legum Mosaicarum et Romanorum, a long fragment of
the first book of a work in which a Christian author about the end of
the fourth century endeavored to harmonize the laws of Moses and of
the Romans; in the Vatican fragments of a practice book which Car-
dinal Angelo Mai discovered in 1820; and in the Consultatio veteris
cuiusdam iurisconsulti, part of a collection of answers upon questions
of law submitted for opinion of counsel. Many laws in the code of
Justinian were probably taken from the Gregorian and Hermogenian
without acknowledgment. The extant fragments were edited by G.
Haenel, Corpus iuris Romani anteiustiniani (Bonn, 1837). The best
text is now that of Kriiger, Mommsen, and Stundemund, Collectio
librorum iuris anteiustiniani, vol. iii (Berlin, 1890). Fragments of
juristic writings before Hadrian are edited in the Teubner texts by
F. P. Bremer, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1896-1901).

* In Theodosian Code, i, 4, 3.

202 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [608

scripts. If divergent dicta be adduced, that party shall prevail
who has the greatest number of authorities on his side ; if the
number on each side be the same, that one shall prevail which
has the support of Papinian; but while he, most excellent of
them all, is to be preferred to any other single authority, he
must yield to any two. Paul's and Ulpian's notes on his writ-
ings, however, as already enacted, are to be disregarded. Where
opinions are equal and none entitled to preference, we leave it
to the discretion of the judge which he shall adopt. We also
order that Paul's sentences shall always be held authoritative.

Three years after the publication of the " Law of Cita-
tions," Theodosius II appointed a commission of nine mem-
bers to supervise a complete and official codification of the
law, but for some unknown reason the work was not ac-
complished by them. A new committee of sixteen mem-
bers, which was named in 435, was not more successful with
the codification of the opinions of the jurists, but their
statutory code was ratified and published in 438 by Theo-
dosius II and Valentinian III :

The felicity of the eternal emperors proceeds so far as to
adorn with the ornaments of peace those whom it defends by
warfare. Last year when we loyally attended the celebration
of the most fortunate of all ceremonies and when the marriage
[between Valentinian and Eudoxia] had been happily con-
cluded, the most sacred prince, our lord Theodosius, was fain
to add this dignity also to his world, and ordered the precepts
of the law to be collected and drawn up in a compendious form
of sixteen books, which he wished to be consecrated by his
most sacred name. Which thing the eternal prince, our lord
Valentinian, approved with the loyalty of a colleague and the
affection of a son.

Each of the sixteen books of this Theodosian Code ^ is

^The edition of J. Godefroy (ed. Ritter, 7 vols., folio, 1736-1745),
imperfect as to text, is still useful by reason of the valuable commen-
tary. The standard text is now that of T. Mommsen and P. M. Meyer
(Berlin, 1905).

.609] DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 203

divided into titles, and each title presents the imperial con-
stitutions in chronological order. The first five books,
which were known up to the nineteenth century only by ex-
tracts in the Lex Romana Visigothorum,^ contain the pri-
vate law ; books six to eight, the new law on the adminis-
tration of the state; the ninth book, criminal law; the tenth
and eleventh, fiscal law; the twelfth to fifteenth inclusive,
treat of the organization and administration of communi-
ties; and the sixteenth, of the Catholic faith and the uni-
versal church.

Imperial edicts subsequent to the promulgation of the
Theodosian Code were called " novels " (Novellae leges or
constitutiones) . They were issued by various emperors, —
Theodosius II, Marcian, Leo, Anthimus, Maximus, Ma-
jor] an, Severus, and others.^

Justinian resolved on his accession to power (527) to
carry out fully what Theodosius II had originally planned
and to codify not only all the imperial enactments {leges)
but also the scattered legal opinions and official decisions of
binding force {iiis). He at once appointed a commission,
of which the chief member was the celebrated Tribonian.
Work was begun with the leges in 528, and in 529 the Code
was completed. The task was more difficult in the case of
the iuSy and Justinian had to bridge gaps and settle many
disputes before a harmonious digest of legal decisions
could be arranged. '' The Digesta. or Pandects, as they

1 See infra. The first five books of the Theodosian Code are still
incomplete.

- The extant Novellae issued after the code of Theodosius and prior
to that of Justinian are to be found in the latter or in the Lex Romana
Visigothorum or in separate manuscripts. They have been collected
and published as an appendix to the edition of the Theodosian Code
of G. Haenel (Bonn, 1842).

3 These decisions of Justinian were handed down between 529 and
532, and are usually called the Quinquaginta Decisiones. " Nostras
constitutiones, per quas, suggerente nobis Triboniano, . . . antiqui iuris
altercationes placavimus " (Institutes^ i, 5, 3).

204 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [6io

are often called, were at length finished toward the close
of 533 and went into force the following year, along with
a second revised edition of the Code/ which had been
issued in order to bring it into accord with Justinian's re-
cent decisions incorporated in the Digest.

The Code and the Digest, together with the later supple-
mentary edicts of Justinian — the Novels — and the admir-
able introductory text-books — the Institutes — comprise the
Corpus iuris civilis,^ or bulk of Roman civil law which has
come down to us and which can be of interest in our present
study. The Novels, of which about one hundred and
seventy are extant, were probably never collected officially;
they are mainly in Greek ; the greater number relate to pub-
lic and ecclesiastical affairs, and some of them are as long
as a modern act of parliament. The Digest is divided into
fifty books, treating of subjects roughly in the order of the
Code, and all divided into several titles, except books 30-32 ;
the titles, supplied with rubrics, are subdivided into state-
ments of law or excerpts from the jurisconsults adapted to
changed times and conditions.

The Code is the most important part of the Corpus as a
source relating to the Germans. It consists of twelve books
divided into titles, each with a rubric. Under each title
are grouped in chronological order the edicts or con-
stitutions from Hadrian to the year 534, but with many sup-

1 This second revised edition of the Code is the only one that has
come down to us.

2 The best edition is that published at Berlin, 3 vols. ( 1877- 1899) :
vol. i contains the Institutiones, ed. by P. Kruger, and the Digesta, ed.
by T. Mommsen; vol. ii consists of the Codex, ed. by P. Kriiger; and
vol. iii, the Novellae, ed. by R. Schoell and W. Kroll. There is a Ger-
man translation of the entire Corpus by K. E. Otto, B. Schilling, and
K. F. F. Sintenis, 7 vols. (Leipzig, 1831-9) ; and an English transla-
tion of the Digesta by C. H. Monro (vol. i, Cambridge, 1904), and of
the Institutiones by J. B. Moyle (Oxford, 1883).

6ll] DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 205

pressions and amendments intended to bring them up to
date. Most of the laws of the Theodosian Code were in-
corporated into the code of Justinian, and the sixteenth book
of the former — on the CathoHc church — ^became the first of
the latter, so that Justinian's compilation opens most im-
pressively with definitions of dogma and penalties for
heresy. Of the whole mass of statutes in the Code, twenty-
three are prior to Septimius Severus; nearly two hundred
were issued by him and Caracalla jointly; two hundred and
fifty by Caracalla alone; about four hundred and fifty by
Alexander Severus ; over two hundred and seventy by Gor-
dian III ; over twelve hundred by Diocletian and Maximian
jointly; two hundred by Constantine; about the same num-
ber jointly by Valentinian II, Theodosius the Great and
Arcadius; nearly one hundred and seventy by Valentinian
II alone ; about one hundred and eighty by Arcadius ; about
one hundred and ninety by Theodosius II ; and nearly four
hundred by Justinian himself.

These codes, whether the Theodosian or that of Justinian,
may be viewed in two different ways as sources relating to
the Germans. They may be considered either as an official
kaleidoscopic picture of the shifting imperial fortunes in-
cident to the immigration and invasions, or as a mine of
specific facts about the Germans, their rights and duties and
relations with other peoples. In spite of the high-sounding,
pompous style and the difficulty of interpreting the laws,
they often offer suggestions of an attitude toward the Ger-
manic invasions which cannot be so well secured elsewhere.
Thus a law of 409 reads :

We have subjected to our empire the barbarian nation of the
Scyri, now that the Huns with whom they were allied have
been overwhelmed. Wherefore, we permit landed proprietors to
take men of this nation in order to increase the number of

2o6 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [612

laborers on their estates, provided that such men shall not be
denied any of the rights which pertain to coloni. It shall not
be permitted to take anyone of them from the estate to which
he shall have been attached or to entice such a one away, on
pain of punishment ; let every fugitive be pursued and returned
to his master. They shall work, moreover, as freemen under
order and to the profit of the proprietor, but it is not permitted
to condemn them to slavery or sell them . . }

Imperial laws afford us nearly all the clews we have ta
the condition of German soldiers in the imperial armies.
They seem to distinguish two classes : ^ the foederati, a
body of troops who served voluntarily or by contract, and
the dediticii or laeti, who had been taken by force and were
considered of inferior condition. The former usually re-
ceived pay in money or in kind, while the latter received
lands to cultivate and their military service was normally
hereditary.^

The laws are particularly concerned wath military affairs,
and there are several defensive measures against warring
barbarians.* In this connection may be mentioned one of
the Novels of Valentinian III (440) which announces the
departure of " Genseric's by no means small fleet from
Carthage and its sudden coming and threatened plunder-
ing all along the shore," and states at the same time that
" the army of our father, the unconquered Theodosius [II],
is drawing nigh ;" that " we believe the most excellent

1 Theodosian Code, v, 6, 3. The victory over the Scyri is mentioned
by Zosimus (iv, 34); and Sozomen, speaking of their fate, adds: "I
have seen many of them in Bithynia, living scattered over estates and
tilling the hills and dales" (ix, 5).

2 Theodosian Code, vii, 13, 16.

3 Ihid., vii, 20, 12.

^ Ibid., vii, I, i; xii, i, 177; xv, i, 51; etc.

6l3] DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 207

patrician Aetius to be near at hand with a large force;" and
that " the most illustrious master of the soldiery, Sigisvuld,
is active in arraying both milites and foederati for the de-
fense of the cities and the coasts."

Among the laws are such widely different references to
the barbarians as the fate of Stilicho ; ^ the prohibition, un-
der penalty of forfeiture and perpetual banishment, of the
assumption of Gothic clothing within the city of Rome ; -
and marriage relations between Romans and Germans.^
These are but few and paltry evidences of the possibilities
of a special study of the great Roman codes.

The code of Justinian was never widely used in the west-
ern provinces of the empire. During the century which
separated his work from that of Theodosius II, Germans
had settled extensively, and in most cases permanently, in
the west. The various tribes had brought with them
from their old homes across the Rhine and the Danube their
own customary law, and in their new homes they found in
force the elaborate provisions of the Theodosian code.

1 Theodosian Code, ix, 42, 21-22.

2 Ibid., xiv, 10, 1-4.

3 A law of the year 370 (Theodosian Code, iii, 14, i) forbade mar-
riage between provinciales and gentiles. It used to be supposed that
this law aimed to prevent the union of Romans and Germans, but
Fustel de Coulanges has made some clever explanations to the con-
trary. After calling attention to a large number of marriages which
did take place, according to the narrative sources, between Germans
and Romans, he sums up his contention : " The law of 370 was only
the application of the old principle which invalidated marriage between
persons of different civil status; it had no bearing on racial differ-
ences. Now a German could become a Roman citizen ; he could cer-
tainly, if he had served in the armies of Rome, obtain at the end of
a certain time a kind of partial citizenship which would assure him the
rights of connubium and also of commercium ..." (L'invasion ger-
manique et la fin de I'empire, pp. 399-400, note).

2o8 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [614

The unlettered sons of the northern forests must have been
greatly impressed by the solemn majesty of Roman law, its
codes and digests, its edicts and rescripts and titles and
rubrics and opinions of Papinian, its order and pomposity.
Perhaps they admired Roman law because it was too com-
plicated for their comprehension and too elaborate for their
operation. At any rate, the chieftains or clergy of several dif-
ferent tribes worked over the Theodosian Code very soon
after their settlement, and simplified and adapted its provis-
ions to the needs of their people.^ And under the same in-
fluence, if not from the same motives, the barbarians gradu-
ally committed to writing their own customary law, in bar-
barous Latin, it is true, but they could hardly be expected to
evolve expressions with grace and elegance. It is really
impossible to estimate to what extent within a given " king-
dom " the barbarian adaptations of Roman law were used,
and to what extent the tribal law. It is probable from na-
tural and obvious deductions, although hypothetical, that
versions of Roman law survived for the old-time Roman
citizens and their descendants while the barbarians them-
selves observed their customary law.

The earliest revision of Roman law with a view to changed
conditions in the west, of which we know, is the Edictum
of Theodoric, king of the - Ostrogoths. It was prepared,
perhaps by Cassiodorus, about the year 500 and was based
on previous codes and " novels " and on the writings of
the jurists, especially the Sentences of Paul. It contained
one hundred and fifty-four articles arranged at random and
touching all branches of law, particularly criminal law and

1 In addition to the adaptations of the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and
Burgundians, mentioned below, see the Lex Romana Raetica Curiensis,
edited by K. Zeumer in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Leges, vol.
V (Hanover, i{

6l5] DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 209

procedure. That it was intended for all of Theodoric's
subjects, we gather from the epilogue:

These things, as far as our occupations would allow of our
attending to them, or as they occurred at the moment to our
mind, we have ordered for the common benefit of all, whether
barbarians or Romans, and do desire that the devotion of all,
whether barbarians or Romans, will keep them inviolate. Those
cases which either the brevity of the Edictum or our public
cares have not allowed us to comprehend in the foregoing, must
be terminated when they arise, by the regular course of the
laws. Nor let any person, of whatsoever dignity or wealth or
power or military rank or honor he may be, think that he may
in any manner infringe any one of these provisions, which we
have collected chiefly out of the Novellae and the sanctions of
the old law. And let all commissioners (cognitores) and all
framers of decisions know that if in anything they shall violate
these edicts, they will be deservedly struck with the penalty
of proscription and banishment. But if perchance any in-
fluential personage or his procurator or agent or any farmer of
the revenue, whether he be a barbarian or a Roman, shall in any
manner of cause not allow these edicts to be observed, and if
the judge who is trying the case shall not be able to hinder and
block them, nor to vindicate the law as here laid down, if he
has any care for his own safety let him lay aside every sugges-
tion of timidity and at once bring before our notice a full report
of the whole case. Only in this way will he himself be ab-
solved from blame: inasmuch as the provisions made for the
security of all the provincials ought to be carefully guarded by
the zeal of the whole community.^

This is confirmed by a passage from the Variae of
Cassiodorus :

By God's help, knowing that the Goths live side by side with

1 From T. Hodgkin, Ifaly and her Invaders, vol. iii, p. 311-

2IO SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [6i6

the Italians, we have judged it necessary in order to avoid
possible disorders among peoples who have mutual interests, to
appoint as count for you this person whose good character is
known to us and who, conformably to our edicts, is to decide
every suit between two Goths. If any suit is brought between
a Goth and a Roman, he will be joined by a Roman legal expert
in order to decide the case justly. A dispute involving two
Romans will be taken before the Roman judges whom we have
appointed in the provinces.

Thus everyone will observe his own laws, and despite the
diversity of judges, there will be the same justice for every one.
Thus with God's assistance, both nations will enjoy the ad-
vantage of security. Know ye that we have an equal good will
for all, and those will recommend themselves more particularly
to our affection who are careful to observe the laws.

We hate all disorder ; high crimes we deplore together with
their authors. Our piety detests violence. It is not might but
right which should decide disputes. Why use force when you
have courts ? We give salaries to judges and our treasury sup-
ports so many offices not in order to multiply suits which will
engender hatred between our subjects, for, submitted to the
same power, all must be united in affection. We appeal to
both peoples whom we love equally. The Goths, whose prop-
erty adjoins that of the Romans, should be united to them by
good will; the Romans should have great love for the Goths,
who, in time of peace, gain for their benefit a marked increase
in population, and who, in time of war, protect the whole com-
monwealth. Let the Goths obey therefore the judge established
by us; let them submit to his legal decisions. Our aim is to
satisfy their interests and the interests of our empire.^

More ambitious and important than the Edictum Theo-
derici was the Lex Romana Visigothorum,^ compiled by

ivii, 3.

2 Edited by G. Haenel (Bonn, 1849). For an excellent rearrange-
ment and German translation, see M. Conrat, Breviarium Alaricianum,

6l7] DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 211

commissioners appointed by Alaric II, king of the Visigoths,
with the approval of his bishops and nobles, and published
in southern Gaul in the year 506. The compilation was
designated in the sixteenth century the hreviariwn Alarici,
or Aniani (from the secretary, Anianus, who certified the
copies). Haenel has estimated that the compilers used for
the leges, three hundred and ninety-eight edicts of the
thirty-four hundred in the Theodosian Code, thirty-three of
the hundred and forty post-Theodosian Novels, twenty-two
of the Gregorian Code, and two of the Hermogenian; and
for the ius, excerpts from the Institutes of Gains and from
the Sentences of Paul, and a single quotation from Papinian.
The Roman law of the Visigoths exerted considerable in-
fluence in the west, even in the Salic law and in the capitu-
laries of the Carolingians ; and until the rise of the school
at Bologna in the twelfth century, it was used in western
Europe more than Justinian's code.

Another abridgment of Roman law was promulgated by
Gundobad, king of the Burgundians, about the year 516 for
his Roman subjects.^ It is divided into forty-seven titles,
deals with private and criminal law and with judicial pro-
cedure, and is based on the same sources as the Breviary
of Alaric. It is half code and half text-book, extremely
simple in outline and scope, with only occasional quotation
of authorities, such as secundum legum novellam, or secun-
dum Gaimn.

The customary or " Germanic " laws of the invaders
were gradually committed to writing in different places

rbmisches Recht im frdnkischen Reich, in systematischer Darstcllung
(Leipzig, 1903). Cf. also C. Lecrivain, " Remarques sur I'interpreta-
tion de la Lex Romana Visigothorum " in Annales du Midi, vol. i,
pp. 145-182 (1891).

1 Edited by L. R. De Salis in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Legum
sectio J, vol. ii (Hanover, 1893).

212 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [6i8

between the middle of the fifth and the middle of the ninth
centuries/ Burgundians,^ Visigoths,^ and Lombards pos-
sessed written tribal laws probably fifty to a hundred years
after their settlement on Roman territory. Compilations
were made by Salian and Ripuarian Franks, Alamanni,*
and Swabians during the Merovingian period ; by Bavarians
near the close of that period; and in Carolingian times,
codes were drawn up by peoples who had been in slight
contact with Rome, — Frisians, Saxons, Angles, and Thur-
ingians.

All these German codes are written in Latin, except the
Anglo-Saxon laws, which belong to a period posterior to
our present review. It is extremely doubtful whether they
are even Latin translations of German texts. On this
point, especially with regard to the Salic law, many battles
have been fought and many lances have been broken. The

1 See H. Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1887- 1892) ;
J. F. Schulte, Lehrhuch der deutschen Reichs- und Rechtsgeschichte,
6th ed. (Stuttgart, 1892); and R. Schroder, Lehrhuch der deutschen
Rechtsgeschichte, 3rd ed. (Leipzig, 1898).

2 The Burgundian compilation bears the name of Gundobad, who
likewise directed the above-noted adaptation of Roman law. The Lex
Gundobada is edited by L. R. De Salis in Monumenta Gertnaniae his-
torica. Leges, vol. ii (Hanover, 1893). There is a French translation
by J. F. A. Peyre (Lyons, 1855). See K. Binding, Das burgundisch-
rotnanische Konigreich (Leipzig, 1868).

3 The Visigothic code, which was issued probably in the second half
of the sixth century by King Reccessvindus, is edited by K. Zeumer in
Pontes iuris Germanici antiqui in usum scholarum (Hanover, 1894).
There is a French translation by L. Beauchet (Paris, 1889). See F.
Dahn, Westgothische Studien (Wiirzburg, 1874).

*The laws of the Alamanni were gradually brought together; per-
haps the first codification was made under Clotaire H (613-628). They
are edited by C. Lehmann in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Leges,
Tol. V (Hanover, il

6l9] DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 213

net result seems to be a general confession of ignorance as
to whether there was an original prankish law-book V)r not,
and if there was, it is not known when or where a Latin
translation was prepared. We can only say that the Latin
version, as we have it, was not made before Clpvis had
extended his power to the Loire/ ^

The Salic law ^ has a prologue of much later date than
the Lex itself, which places its composition at a time when
the Franks were governed by proceres; but from the fact
that the law bears no trace either of paganism or of Chris-
tianity, it is reasoned that it must have been drawn up
while the people were still divided over religion, that is,
toward the close of the reign of Clovis. It is contended,
however, that our redaction is subsequent to the year 657.*
The older manuscripts, moreover, contain the so-called
" Malberg Gloss," interpolated Prankish words and phrases,
which serve in some cases to explain the Latin words and
in any case to complicate further the questions involved in
the origin and dates of the Salic compilation. This and
much new material, inserted by private copyists, render the
reconstruction of the original text more or less problem-
atical.

The Salic law is very homely. In scope and arrange-
ment it is not to be compared with the great imperial codes
of Theodosius and Justinian, or even with the adapted
codes of Theodoric and Alaric. It consists largely of
stated fines or " compositions " to be paid for various com-
monplace injuries, such as assault or pig-stealing, and it

1 See Lex Salica, tit. 47.

2 Edited by J. H. Hessels with very valuable notes by H. Kern (Lon-
don, 1880). There is a French translation in I. Fave, V empire des
Francs (Paris, 1888). See M. Krammer, " Kritische Untersuchungen
zur Lex Salica" in Neues Archiv fiir iiltere deutsche Geschichte (1905).

3 See H. Brunner, op. cit.

:2i4 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [620

deals almost entirely with what we should call the law of
torts and crimes and the law of procedure. Of its original
sixty-five titles, only six or seven are devoted to the law
of family, property and inheritance. In spite (^f the un-
certainty surrounding its origin, the sSalic law fh a very
vital source of information about the Germans. It reflects
the every-day life of the Franks of the Merovingian days
in a singularly naive fashion, and suggests the hypothesis
that some of its features which are not found in Roman
law, such as the exclusion of daughters from inheritance,
the " composition " for crime, and the usage of holding a
whole family responsible for the misdeeds of one of its
members, had had an historical evolution in Germany be-
iore the barbarians came into contact with the empire.

More detailed than the Salic law, and consequently es-
pecially useful for a study of Germanic law, is the Lombard
code,^ which consists of the Edictum of Rothari, published
in 643, and of additions made by succeeding kings. The
Edictum itself contains three hundred and seventy-eight
titles, relating to a great variety of subjects but chiefly to
crimes and judicial procedure. The epilogue to the edict
is interesting:

We now confirm this edict, which by God's grace we have com-
posed after earnest study and long vigils. By the Divine favor
we have persevered in our task, inquiring into and calling to
remembrance the ancient laws of our fathers. Those which
were not written we have nevertheless learned; and we have
added to them those things which seemed to be expedient for

1 Edited by F. Bluhme in Monumenta Germaniae hi^torica. Leges,
vol. iv (Hanover, 1868). It is also in Pontes iuris Germanici antiqui
in usum scholarum (Hanover, 1869). There is a helpful summary of
the Lombard laws, from which most of the following quotations are
taken, in T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vol. vi, pp. 174-238.

62l] DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 215

the common welfare of all, and of our own race ; acting herein
with the advice and by the consent of the nobles, the judges,
and all our most successful army ; and we now order them to be
written down on this parchment, with this one reservation, that
all things which by the Divine clemency have been ascertained
by our own accurate inquiry, or which old men have been able
to remember concerning the ancient laws of the Lombards, are
to be subjoined to this edict. We add, moreover, hereto our
confirmation by gairethinx, that this law may be firm and en-
during, and that both in our own most prosperous times and
in all time to come it may be kept inviolably by all our
successors.

\
Some idea of the peculiarities of Lombard law j^ay be

obtained from the following partial list of " compositions,"

or fines for damages :

FOR BODILY INJURIES TO A FREE PERSON.^

Blows Struck in sudden quarrel causing a wound or bruise

3 solidi apiece up to 12 solidi *

(If more blows are inflicted they are not to be counted, but let the
wounded man rest content with himself.)
Blow with the fist 3 solidi

" " " palm of the hand 6

Blows on the head, only breaking the skin 6 solidi up to 18

" " " breaking bones (per bone) 12

(No count to be taken above 36 solidi; and the broken bones are to
be counted on this principle that one bone shall be found large enough
to make an audible sound when thrown against a shield at twelve feet
distance on the road, the said feet to be measured from the foot of a
man of moderate stature, not the hand.)

The deprivation of an eye is to be atoned for by the payment of half
the fine due for actual homicide, according to the quality of the per-
son injured.

iTit. 43-75.

2 A solidus may be taken as equivalent to twelve shillings or three
dollars.

2i6 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [622

Cutting off the nose half the fine for homicide

Cutting a lip 13 solidi

If so cut that I, 2, or 3 teeth appear 20 "

Knocking out the front teeth (per tooth) 16 "

" " grinders (per tooth) 8 "

Cutting off an ear quarter the fine for homicide

Wound on the face 16 solidi

" " " nose, causing a scar 16 "

" " ear, " " " 16 " ,;

" " arm, without a fracture 8 "

Blow on the chest 20 "

Piercing a rib 8 "

Cutting off a hand half the fine for homicide

If so stricken as to cause paralysis, but not cut off quarter the fine

for homicide

Cutting off a thumb a sixth of the fine for homicide

" second finger 17 solidi

" 6

" 8

" 16

toe 6

" 6

" 3

" 3

" 2

foot half the fine for homicide

For all the wounds and blows above mentioned, which may
pass between free men, we have purposely ordained a larger
composition than was in use among our ancestors, in order that
the faida (feud), which is enmity, may be postponed after the
receipt of the above-mentioned composition, and that more
may not be required, nor any thought of guile be harbored in
the heart; but let the case be heard between the parties, and
friendship remain. And should it happen that within the space
of a year he who was wounded dies of the wounds themselves,
then let the striker pay in angargathungi, that is the fine for
homicide, according to the quality of the person injured, what
he was worth.

u

" second
" third

« «

" fourth

« «

" fifth

« l(

" great

" w

" second

"

" third

« «

" fourth

« «

" fifth

« «

" fr^^^

623] DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 217

The position of women among the Lombards does not
appear to have been very high :

It shall not be lawful for any free woman living according to
the laws of the Lombards under our sway, to live under the
power of her own free will, or as it is called to be selpmundia,
but she must always remain under the power of men, if not a
husband or relative, under that of the king's court, nor shall
she have the power of giving or alienating any property, mov-
able or immovable, without the consent of him in whose mun-
dium she is living.^

From the later supplements of king Liutprand we hear a
good deal about the divine right of kings. The prologue
states :

He [Liutprand] has conceived the idea of framing these laws,
not by his own foresight, but by the will and inspiration of
God; because the king's heart is in the hands of God, as is
witnessed by the wisdom of Solomon, who said, " As the rush
of water, so is the heart of the king in God's hand, — if He
shall keep it back, everything will be dried up, but if He in
His mercy gives it free course, everything is watered and filled
with healthfulness." So too the apostle James in his epistle
says, " Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above
and Cometh down from the Father of lights." . . .

Liutprand's laws show noteworthy traces of Roman and
Christian influence. One, with reference to the restriction
of wager of battle, is illustrative : ^

We have now ordained that the punishment for the murder of
a free man shall be the loss of the whole of the murderer's
property : but certain men, perhaps through hardness of heart,
have accused the relations of a man who has died in his bed of
having poisoned him, and have therefore, according to the old

1 xit. 204. ^ Laws of Liutprand, cxviii.

2i8 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [624

custom, challenged them to single combat. It seems to us a
serious matter that the loss of a man's whole property should
be caused by the weakness of a single shield ; and we therefore
ordain that in case any accusation of this kind should be brought
in future, the accuser shall swear on the gospels that he does
not bring it in malice, but has good grounds for his suspicion.
Then he may proceed to battle according to the old custom, but
if the accused person or his hired champion is defeated, let him
pay, not his whole fortune, but a composition, as under the
whole law, according to the rank of the murdered man. — For
we are uncertain about the judgment of God, and we have
heard of many persons unjustly losing their cause by wager
of battle. But on account of the custom of our nation of the
Lombards we cannot change the law itself.

The canon, or ecclesiastical, law constitutes the second
great group of documentary sources which should be of
use in studying the Germanic invasions.^

The Catholic Church increased greatly in importance as
a political institution during the period of the most extensive
barbarian settlements in the west, and its laws not only
present a picture of general conditions but also in many
instances refer directly to the newcomers. The extant laws
are mainly the acts of general and local meetings of the
clergy, for few of the early papal rescripts and letters have
survived. That archives were kept at Rome comparatively
early, we gather from a statement in the acts of a council
held under pope Damasus cca. 370 ; and the lost register of
Gregory the Great has been an object of painstaking study
and fanciful reconstruction.^ Not until we reach the time

1 For guides to the study of canon law, see J. B. Sagmiiller, Lehr-
buch des katholischen Kirchenrechti (Freiburg-i-B., 1900-1904) ; and
A. Tardif, Histoire des sources du droit canonique (Paris, 1887).

2 See P. Ewald, " Studien zur Ausgabe des Register Gregors I," in
Neues Archiv fur a. deutsch. Geschichte (1878), pp. 433-625.

625] DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 219

of John VIII (d. 882), do we have an extensive fragment
of a papal register/

Our chief concern, then, is with the canons and decrees of
church councils. It was only in the fourth century, when
peace was assured to the Christians, that their bishops and
doctors could publicly meet together and promulgate laws.
These meetings were at first called synodes, and later con-
cilia, a term now prevailing in the canon law of the west,
the word synod being usually reserved to designate an as-
sembly of clergy of a single diocese assembled under the
presidency of their bishop. The so-called general or ecu-
menical councils — Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381),
Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), Second of Constantinople
(553), Third of Constantinople (680), Second of Nicaea
(787), and Fourth of Constantinople (869) — ^were con-
cerned almost entirely with definitions of faith and regula-
tion of ecclesiastical discipline, and their canons are not
very helpful for our purposes. It is the special local coun-
cils after the great general council of Nicaea, whose canons
should be investigated.

In Spain, councils were held at Saragossa, Seville and
Barcelona in the fourth century, and the acts of seventeen
councils convened at Toledo between the years 400 and
694 are an excellent source of information about the reli-
gious, political and social conditions in the peninsula, about

1 A collection of papal letters for the years 461-523 was published by
A. Thiel (Braunsburg, 1868). S. Loewenfeld published a collection
of over four hundred, extending from Gelasius I to Celestine III
(Leipzig, 188s) ; and others are in the collection of J. v. Pflugk-Hart-
ung, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1880-6). The Turin collection of papal bulls, ed.
A. Tomasetti, is faulty and incomplete. Cf. also P. Jaffe, Regesta
pontiiicum Romanorum ab condita ecclesia ad an. post Christum nat.
J198, second ed. revised by G. Wattenbach, S. Loewenfeld, F. Kalten-
brunner, and P. Ewald, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1885-8).

220 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [626

the Visigothic kingdom, and the relations between the Arian
king and his Catholic subjects. Particularly important was
the council of Toledo of 587, the year in which king Rec-
cared was converted to Catholicism/

The seven councils of Carthage, which were held between
the years 348 and 424, are similarly useful for the history
of the African provinces and for the rise of the Vandal
power.

In Italy, the first canon source is a decretal of pope
Siricius (384-398). Then there are the records of papal
councils in 465 and in 499, and increasingly important ones
under Symmachus, Gregory the Great (in 595 and in 601),
Boniface III (in 606), Martin I (in 649), and Agatho
(in 680).

Councils were held in Gaul as early as the year 314 (first
of Aries), and thenceforth their canons run parallel as
sources for the time with the narratives of Gregory of
Tours, Fortunatus, the pseudo-Fredegarius, the Gesta
regum Francorum, and the multitude of saints' lives. Every
episcopal city of Gaul had its councils, meeting with greater
or less regularity, — Aries, Tours, Orleans, Paris, Lyons,
Vienne, Auxerre, Macon, and others.^

Christianity had early been spread in Britain, appearing
in Ireland and Scotland about the middle of the fifth cen-

^The acts of the Spanish councils are in the collection of Cardinal
J. Saenz de Aguirre, 6 vols. (Rome, 1753-5). See P. B. Gams, Kirch-
engeschichte Spaniens (Regensburg, 1874).

2 The acts of the Gallic councils were collected and edited by P. Sir-
mond, 3 vols. (Paris, 1629), and two supplementary volumes were
issued respectively by P. de la Lande and L. Odespun. A new edition
is now being brought out in the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Con-
cilia: vol. i is edited by F. Maassen (Hanover, 1893), and contains
acts of councils from 511 to 695; vol. ii is edited by A. Werminghoff
(Hanover and Leipzig, 1906), and contains acts of Gallic councils from
742 to 817.

627] DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 221 '

tury, but no collection of canon law is known for that early
period. Under the Anglo-Saxon rulers, the discipline of
the English church was regulated by the provincial coun-
cils/ of which the one at Hertford in 673, presided over
by Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, was especially im-
portant. A collection of canon law in dialogue form was
prepared by Egbert of York (d. 767). A large and valu-
able collection in sixty-four or sixty-nine books was made
in Ireland at the beginning of the eighth century, styled the
Synodids Patritii or Hihernensis.^

The councils held by Saint Boniface in Germany in the
eighth century are almost too late for our review, but their
proceedings are certainly suggestive.

The Catholic Church has never issued an official code of
canon law, but has left that work to private initiative.
Several such compilations were made comparatively early,
but they were replaced, at least in the west, by the celebrated
collection of Denis the Less ^ {U. 525). Denis was
'' a Scythian by race but otherwise quite a Roman," accord-
ing to Cassiodorus, his friend and associate.* He was a
monk and spent most of his life at Rome. Versed in Greek
and in the study of chronology, he introduced the usage of
counting years from the birth of Christ. His collection of
canon law was made, probably under pope Symmachus

1 The acts of the British councils are best edited by A. W. Haddan
and W. Stubbs, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1869).

2 Edited by F. W. H. Wasserschleben, Die irische Kanonensamtn-
lung ( Giessen, 1874) . See P. Fournier, " De I'influence de la collec-
tion irlandaise sur la formation des collections canoniques " in Nou-
velle Revue historique de droit frangais et etranger (1899),

3 The title Exiguus, which Denis gave himself, was only a term of
humility.

* De institutione divinarum litterarum, eh. 23, in Mignc, Patrol. Lat,
Tol. Ixx, col. 1 137.

222 SOURCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS [628

(498-514), at the request of a certain Stephen, bishop of
Salona in Dalmatia, and embraced the fifty "Apostolic Con-
stitutions," and one hundred and ninety-two canons of Greek
councils, translated into Latin, together with twenty-one
canons of the council of Sardica, one hundred and thirty-
eight of the council of Carthage of 419, and thirty-eight
papal decretals from Siricius to Anastasius II (384-498)/
Before bringing to a close these suggestions of possible
documentary sources relating to the Germanic invasions, at-
tention should be called to the penitentials, which have been
the subject of considerable study in the last fifty years. ^
The penitentials are collections of rules prescribing penances
for sins. Sometimes they contain the canons of the coun-
cils which enacted the penalties, but more often they simply
enumerate the offenses and the penances analogous to the
fines in the German laws. The oldest extant penitentials
are probably of the sixth century. They afford glimpses
of the social life of the times and acquaint us with what
was deemed moral and what was deemed immoral. Per-
haps the indications in the penitentials that the barbarians
had vices as well as virtues might be helpful to anyone who
is bent on forming an opinion concerning Germanic con-
tributions to civilization and culture.

A complete history of the relations between Romans and

1 The classical editions of these general councils and of many of the
local synods by Labbe, Baluze, and Hardouin are incorporated in the
standard edition of Coleti and Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et
amplissima collectio (Florence and Venice, I759-I798).

2 See especially two books by H. J, Schmitz, Die Bussbiicher und die
Bussdisciplin der Kirche (Mainz, 1883), and Die Bussbiicher und das
kanonische Bussverfahren (Diisseldorf, 1898) ; E. Goller, Die pdpsi-
liche Ponitentiare von ihrem Ursprung bis zu ihrer Umgestaltung unter
Pius V (Rome, 1907) ; F. W. H. Wasserschleben, Die Bussordnungen
der abendldndischen Kirche (Halle, 1851).

629] DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 223

Germans would cover a period of seven or eight centuries.
It would begin with the northern expansion of the Roman
state, and would thenceforth parallel the growth and de-
velopment of the commonwealth as well as its decline and
disruption. It may seem as if our rapid survey of the
principal narrative and documentary sources from Plutarch's
" Life of Marius " and Caesar's " Commentaries " to Paul
the Deacon's " History of the Lombards " and Liutprand's
laws has indicated the existence of full and adequate ma-
terial for such a history. Nothing could be further from
the truth. In the whole range of extant sources which we
have been reviewing, — biographies of famous generals, em-
perors, martyrs, and saints; occasional vague geographical
notices; encomiums upon rulers; religious treatises and
tracts; three or four military histories; scant and tire-
some chronicles ; poems, orations and rhetorical letters ; and
a few laws of state and church, — it will be remembered that
not a single one was written purposely to acquaint posterity
with the nature or method of the fusing of barbarians and
imperial subjects or with the process of the dissolution of
the western provinces of the Roman empire. Nor has it
been possible, moreover, to convey an accurate notion of
the fragmentary character, the irrelevancy, the lack of criti-
cal insight, the hopeless inadequacy, which distinguish al-
most all the existing material.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

In addition to the writings mentioned in the text or foot-notes, the
following general guides and secondary works have been found most
helpful.

GUIDES TO THE SOURCES.

Dahlmann — Waitz. Quellenkunde der deutschen Geschichte, 7th ed. by
E. Brandenburg (Leipzig, 1906).

Ebert, A. Allgemeine Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters im
Abendlande, vols, i, ii (Leipzig, 1880) ; trans, into French by J.
Aymeric and J. Condamin (Paris, 1884).

Gross, C. Sources and Literature of English History from the earliest
times to about 1485 (New York, 1900).

Hardy, T. D. Descriptive Catalogue of materials relating to the his-
tory of Great Britain and Ireland to the end of the reign of Henry
VH, in "Rolls Series," vol. xxvi, part i (London, 1862).

Krumbacher, K, Die Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur (Munich,

1891).
Molinier, A. Les sources de I'histoire de France; vol. i, Bpoque prim-
itive, merovingiens et carolingiens (Paris, 1901).
Monod, G. Etudes critiques sur les sources de I'histoire merovingienne

(Paris, 1872).
Peter, H. Die geschichtliche Literatur Uber die romische Kaiserzeit

bis Theodositis I und ihre Quellen, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1897).
Potthast, A. Bibliotheca historica medii aevi, — Wegweiser durch die

Geschichtswerke des europdischen Mittelalters bis 1500, 2nd ed.,

2 vols. (Berlin, 1896).
Schafer, A. Quellenkunde der griechischen und romischen Geschichte

(Leipzig, 1885).
Teuffel, W. S., and Schwabe, L. Geschichte der romischen Literatur,

trans, into English by G. C. W. Warr, 2 vols. (London, 1891-2).
Wattenbach, W. Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter, 2 vols.

(Berlin, 1893-4).
224 f^30

631] BIBLIOGRAPHY 22^

GENERAL SECONDARY WORKS.

Bury, J. B. History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to
Irene, 2 vols. (London, 1889-92).

Chadwick, H. M. The Origin of the English Nation (Cambridge,
1907).

Cramer, J. Die Verfassungsgeschichte der Germanen und Keltcn
(Berlin, 1906).

Dahn, F. Die Konige der Germanen, 11 vols. (Leipzig, 1897-1908).

Dahn, F. Urgeschichte der germanischen und romanischen Volker,
4 vols. (Berlin, 1881-9).

Diehl, M. C. Justinien et la civilisation byzantine au VI^ Steele (Paris,
1901).

Dill, S. Roman Society in the last century of the Western Empire
(London, 1898).

Elton, C. L Origins of English History, 2nd ed. (London, 1890).

Freeman, E. A. Western Europe in the Fifth Century (London, 1904).

Fustel de Coulanges, N. D. Histoire des institutions politiques de
I'ancienne France, 6 vols., completed by C. Jullian (Paris, 1875-
1892) ; especially La Gaule romaine, L'invasion germanique et la
fin de Tempire, and La monarchic franque.

Gams, P. B. Die Kirchengeschichte Spaniens, 3 vols. (Regens-
burg, 1862-74).

Gebhardt, B, Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte, 2nd ed., vol. i
(Stuttgart, 1901).

Gibbon, E. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Em-
pire, ed. by J. B. Bury, 7 vols. (London, 1900-1902).

Glover, T. R. Life and Letters in the Fourth Century (Cambridge,
1901).

Giildenpenning, A. Geschichte des ostromischen Reiches unter den
Kaisern Arcadius und Theodosius II (Halle, 1885).

Hartmann, L. M. Geschichte Italiens im Mittelalter, 2 vols. (Leipzig,
1898- 1903).

Hodgkin, T. Italy and her Invaders, 8 vols. (London, 1880-1900) :
vol. i. The Visigothic Invasion; ii, The Hunnish and Vandal In-
vasions; iii. The Ostrogothic Invasion; iv, The Imperial Restora-
tion; V, The Lombard Invasion; vi, The Lombard Kingdom; vii.
The Prankish Invasion; viii. The Prankish Empire.

Kaufmann, G. Deutsche Geschichte bis auf Karl den Grossen (Leip-
zig, 1880).

Kurth, G. Clovis, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Paris, 1901).

Lavisse, E. Ed. Histoire de France (Paris, 1900 et sea.) : vol. i, Les
origines. La Gaule independante et La Gaule romaine, by G. Bloch ;

226 BIBLIOGRAPHY [632

ii, Le Christianisme, les barbares, merovingiens et carolingiens, tv
C. Bayet, C. Pfister and A. Kleinclausz.

Martroye, F. Genseric, la conquete vcndale en Afrique et la destruc-
tion de V empire d' Occident (Paris, 1907).

Martroye, F. L'occident a I'epoque byzantine, Goths et Vandales
(Paris, 1903).

Mommsen, T. History of Rome, and The Provinces of the Roman Em-
pire, trans, into English by W. P. Dickson, 5 vols. (New York,

1903-S).
Mullenhoff, K. Deutsche Altertumskunde, revised by M. Roediger and

others, 5 vols. (Berlin, 1883-1900).
Schiller, H. Geschichte der romischen Kaiserzeit, 2 vols, (Gotha,

1883-7).
Schmidt, L. Geschichte der deutschen Stdmme bis sum Ausgange

der V olkerwanderung (Berlin, 1904).
Seeck, O. Geschichte des Unter gangs der antiken Welt, 2 vols. (Ber-
lin, 1895- 1901).
Villari, F Le invasioni barbariche in Italia (Milan, 1901), trans, into

Engiish by L. Villari, 2 vols. (New York, 1902).
Viollet, P. Droit public, histoire des institutions politiques et admin-

istratives de la France, 3 vols. (Paris, 1890-1903).
Waitz, G. Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, 3rd ed., 5 vols. (Berlin,

1880).
Wietersheim, K. A. W. E. von. Geschichte der V olkerwanderung, ed.

by F. Dahn, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1880-1).
Zippel, G. Deutsche Volkerbewegungen in der Romerseit (Konigs-

berg, 1895).

INDEX OF SOURCES

Ablavius, 98, 159.

Aelius Junius Cordus, 59 note.

Aelius Lampridius. See Augustan

Histories.
Aelius Spartianus. See Augustan

Histories.
Agathias, 70 note, 169 note.
Ammianus Marcellinus, 54, 60 sqq.,

74 sqq.
Ammonius, 94 note.
Annales, 145 sqq.
Anonymns Cuspiniani, 148 sq., 152.
Anonymus Valesianus, 149, 153, 164

note, 168.
Apollinaris Sidonius. See Sidonius

Apollinaris.
Appian, 21 note, 39, 40.
Asinius Quadratus, 70 note.
Athenaeus, 21 note.
Aufidius Bassus, 2t^.
Augustan Histories, 54 sqq.
Augustine, 88, 104 sqq.
Aurelius Victor, 54, 59.
Ausonius, 138.

Barbarian Codes, 52, 211 sqq.
Bede, 192, 196.
Braulio of Saragossa, 191.
Breviarium Alarici. See Lex Ro-
mana Visigothorum.

Caesar, 30 sqq., 52 sq.
Candidus, 99.
Canon Law, 218 sqq.
Cassiodorus, 119, 149, 152 sqq., 168,
208 sqq.
633]

Cassius Dio. See Dio Cassius.

Catulus, 20.

Chronica Italica, 150 sq.

Chronicles, 145 sq.

Cicero, 24, 31, 142.

Claudian, 138 sq.

Code, Gregorian, 200.

Code, Hermogenian, 201,

Code of Justinian, 203 sqq.

Code, Theodosian, 114 note, 202 sqq.

Constantine VII, Porphyrogenitus,
9S>sq.

Continuatio Havniensis Prosperi,
150, 154.

Corippus, 143.

Corpus iuris civilis. See Code of
Justinian.

Count Marcellinus. See Marcel-
linus Comes.

Denis Exiguus, 221 sq.
Dexippus, 68 note, 89.
Dio Cassius, 54 sqq., IS9-
Diodorus of Sicily, 24.

Edictum Theoderici, 208 sqq.

Ennodius, 128, 156 note.

Epiphanius, 119.

Eratosthenes, 18 note.

Eucherius, 127 note.

Eugenius of Toledo, 191.

Eugippius, 128 sqq.

Eumenius, 13 < sq.

Eunapius of Sardis, 69 note, 89, 99-

Eusebius of Caesarea, 106, 118 sq.,

146 sq.

227

228

INDEX OF SOURCES

[634

Eutropius, 54, 59, 75, 196.
Excerpta de legationihus, 98 sqq.

Fasti, 145 sqq.

Flavius Felix, 143.

Flavius Vopiscus. See Augustan

Histories.
Florentinus, 143.
Florus, 39, 160 note.
Fortunatus, 189 sq.
Fredegarius Scholasticus. See

/>j^M(/o-Fredegarius.
Fulgentius, 143 sq.

Gainea, 94 note.

Gennadius, 192.

Georgius Syncellus. See Syncellus.

Gesta regum Francorum, 194 sq.

Gildas, 181.

Gregory of Tours, 98, 184 sqq.

Gregory the Great, 182 sqq.

Herodian, 54, 56.
Hippolytus, 193.
Horace, 48 note.

Idatius, 193.

Ildefonsus of Toledo, 192.

Isidore of Seville, 150, 191 sq.

Jerome, 106, 116, 121 sqq., 147, 192

note, 193.
Jordanes, 98, 155, I57 sqq.
Josephus, 25.
Julian of Toledo, 191.
Julius Capitolinus. See Augustan

Histories.
Justin, 21 note, 106.
Justinian, 203 sqq.

Lactantius, 107 note.

Lex Gundobada, 212.

Lex Romana Burgundionum, 211.

Lex Romana Raetica Curiensis, 208

note.
Lex Romana Visigothorum, 201,

210 sq.

Libanius, 137.

Liber pontiUcalis, 182 note.

Liutprand. See Lombard Laws.

Livy, 21, 36, 40.

Lombard Laws, 182, 214 sqq.

Luxorius, 143.

Malchus, 99, 102 sq.

Marcellinus. See Ammianus Mar-

cellinus.
Marcellinus Comes, 148, 152.
Marcus Maximus, 191.
Marius Aventicensis, 150, 154, 194.
Marius Maximus, 57.
Menander, 169 note.

Namatianus, See Rutilins Nama-

tianus.
Notitia Dignitatum, 85 note.
Novellae, 203 sq.

Olympiodorus, 89, 99.

Origo Langobardorum, 182 note,.

196.
Orosius, 86 note, 88, 96 note, rod

sqq., 159, 162.
Ovid, 41 note, 145 note.

Panegyrici, 134 sqq.

Paschale Campanum, 149, 153.

Paterculus. See Velleius.

Paulinus of Nola, 127 note.

Paulinus of Pella, 141 note.

Paul the Deacon, 150, 182, 184,.

195 sqq.
Pelagius H, 182 sq.
Penitentials, 222.
Peutinger, Table of, 45.
Photius, 89, 98 sq.
Pliny, Elder, 17, 36, 41, 44.
Pliny, Younger, 36 note, 46 sq.
Plutarch, 19 sqq.
Pompeius Trogus. See Tn.g is

Pompeius.
Poraponius Mela, 41, 44.

-635]

INDEX OF SOURCES

229

Posidonius, 21.
Priscus, 99 sqq., I59-
Procopius, 88, 155, 168 sqq.
Prosper of Aquitaine, 147.
Prosper Tiro, 148.
Priidentius, 138.
Pseudo-FrtdegSLrius, 192 sqq.
Ptolemy, 45, I59-
Pytheas, 16 sqq.

•Quintilian, 36.

Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus, 98.

Roman Law, 199 sqq.

Rothari. See Lombard Laws.

Rufinus, 119.

Rutilius Namatiamis, 139 sq.

Salic Law, 212 sqq.

Sallust, 20.

Salvian, 88, 124 sqq.

Secundus, 184, 196.

Seneca Rhetor, 36 note.

Sextus Julius Africanus, 106, 146.

Sidonius Apollinaris, 140 sqq.

Sisebutus, 191.

Socrates, 119.

Sozomen, 119.

Stephanus of Byzantium, 17.

Strabo, 17, 21 note, 41 sqq., 52.

Suetonius, 39 sq., 46, 57, 60.

Suidas, 99 note.

Sulla, 20.

Sulpicius Alexander, 98.

Sulpicius Severus, 120, 128 note.

Symmachus, 137, 159.
Syncellus, 70 note.
Synesius, 140.

Table of Peutinger. See Peutinger,

Table of.
Tacitus, 35, 39, 46 sqq., 60, 159.
Themistius, 135 sqq.
Theodoret, 119.
Theodosian Code. See Code, Theo-

dosian.
Trebellius Pollio. See Augustan

Histories.
Trogus Pompeius, 21 note, 159.

Ulfilas, 86 note.

Valesian Fragment. See Anony-

mus Valesianus.
Velleius Paterculus, 27 note, 37 sqq.
Venantius Fortunatus. See For-

tunatus.
Venerable Bede. See Bede.
Victor of Aquitaine, 149.
Victor Aurelius. 5"^^ Aurelius

Victor.
Victor Tonnennensis, 149 sq., iSSsq.
Victor Vitensis, 127, 143.
Vincent of Lerins, 127 note.
Vopiscus. See Augustan Histories.
Vulcacius Gallicanus. See Arrrus-

tan Histories.

Xiphilinus, 55.

Zonaras, 55, 70 note.
Zosimus, 88 sqq., 104, 161 sq.

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