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IT was the opinion of Marcian, that war should be avoided as
long as it is possible to preserve a secure and honourable
peace; but it was likewise his opinion that peace cannot be
honourable or secure, if the sovereign betrays a
pusillanimous aversion to war. This temperate courage
dictated his reply to the demands of Attila, who insolently
pressed the payment of the annual tribute. The emperor
signified to the barbarians that they must no longer insult
the majesty of Rome by the mention of a tribute; that he was
disposed to reward, with becoming liberality, the faithful
friendship of his allies; but that, if they presumed to
violate the public peace, they should feel that he possessed
troops, and arms, and resolution, to repel their attacks.
The same language, even in the camp of the Huns, was used by
his ambassador Apollonius, whose bold refusal to deliver the
presents, till he had been admitted to a personal interview,
displayed a sense of dignity, and a contempt of danger,
which Attila was not prepared to expect from the degenerate
Romans.(1) He threatened to chastise the rash successor of
Theodosius; but he hesitated, whether he should first direct
his invincible arms against the Eastern or the Western
empire. While mankind awaited his decision with awful
suspense, he sent an equal defiance to the courts of Ravenna
and Constantinople; and his ministers saluted the two
emperors with the same haughty declaration. "Attila, my
lord, and thy lord, commands thee to provide a palace for
his immediate reception." (2) But as the barbarian despised,
or affected to despise, the Romans of the East, whom he had
so often vanquished, he soon declared his resolution of
suspending the easy conquest till he had achieved a more
glorious and important enterprise. In the memorable
invasions of Gaul and Italy, the Huns were naturally
attracted by the wealth and fertility of those provinces;
but the particular motives and provocations of Attila can
only be explained by the state of the Western empire under
the reign of Valentinian, or, to speak more correctly, under
the administration of Aetius.(3)
After the death of his rival Boniface, Aetius had prudently
retired to the tents of the Huns; and he was indebted to
their alliance for his safety and his restoration. Instead
of the suppliant language of a guilty exile, he solicited
his pardon at the head of sixty thousand barbarians; and the
empress Placidia confessed, by a feeble resistance, that the
condescension which might have been ascribed to clemency was
the effect of weakness or fear. She delivered herself, her
son Valentinian, and the Western empire, into the hands of
an insolent subject; nor could Placidia protect the
son-in-law of Boniface, the virtuous and faithful Sebastian,
(4) from the implacable persecution which urged him from one
kingdom to another, till he miserably perished in the
service of the Vandals. The fortunate Aetius, who was
immediately promoted to the rank of patrician, and thrice
invested with the honours of the consulship, assumed, with
the title of master of the cavalry and infantry, the whole
military power of the state; and he is sometimes styled, by
contemporary writers, the duke, or general, of the Romans of
the West. His prudence, rather than his virtue, engaged him
to leave the grandson of Theodosius in the possession of the
purple; and Valentinian was permitted to enjoy the peace and
luxury of Italy, while the patrician appeared in the
glorious light of a hero and a patriot, who supported near
twenty years the ruins of the Western empire. The Gothic
historian ingenuously confesses that Aetius was born for the
salvation of the Roman republic; (5) and the following
portrait, though it is drawn in the fairest colours, must be
allowed to contain a much larger proportion of truth than of
flattery. "His mother was a wealthy and noble Italian, and
his father Gaudentius,: who held a distinguished rank in the
province of Scythia, gradually rose from the station of a
military domestic to the dignity of master of the cavalry.
Their son, who was enrolled almost in his infancy in the
guards, was given as a hostage, first to Alaric, and
afterwards to the Huns; and he successively obtained the
civil and military honours of the palace; for which he was
equally qualified by superior merit. The graceful figure of
Aetius was not above the middle stature; but his manly limbs
were admirably formed for strength, beauty, and agility; and
he excelled in the martial exercises of managing a horse,
drawing a bow, and darting the javelin. He could patiently
endure the want of food or of sleep; and his mind and body
were alike capable of the most laborious efforts. He
possessed the genuine courage that can despise not only
dangers, but injuries: and it was impossible either to
corrupt, or deceive, or intimidate the firm integrity of his
soul."(6) The barbarians, who had seated themselves in the
Western provinces, were insensibly taught to respect the
faith and valour of the patrician Aetius. He soothed their
passions, consulted their prejudices, balanced their
interest, and checked their ambition. A seasonable treaty
which he concluded with Genseric protected Italy from the
depredations of the Vandals; the independent Britons
implored and acknowledged his salutary aid; the Imperial
authority was restored and maintained in Gaul and Spain; and
he compelled the Franks and the Suevi, whom he had
vanquished in the field, to become the useful confederates
of the republic.
From a principle of interest, as well as gratitude, Aetius
assiduously cultivated the alliance of the Huns. While he
resided in their tents as an hostage or an exile, he had
familiarly conversed with Attila himself, the nephew of his
benefactor; and the two famous antagonists appear to have
been connected by a personal and military friendship, which
they afterwards confirmed by mutual gifts, frequent
embassies, and the education of Carpilio, the son of Aetius,
in the camp of Attila. By the specious professions of
gratitude and voluntary attachment, the patrician might
disguise his apprehensions of the Scythian conqueror, who
pressed the two empires with his innumerable armies. His
demands were obeyed or eluded. When he claimed the spoils of
a vanquished city, some vases of gold, which had been
fraudulently embezzled, the civil and military governors of
Noricum were immediately despatched to satisfy his
complaints:(7) and it is evident, from their conversation
with Maximin and Priscus in the royal village, that the
valour and prudence of Aetius had not saved the Western
Romans from the common ignominy of tribute. Yet his
dexterous policy prolonged the advantages of a salutary
peace; and a numerous army of Huns and Alani, whom he had
attached to his person, was employed in the defence of Gaul.
Two colonies of these barbarians were judiciously fixed in
the territories of Valence and Orleans;(8) and their active
cavalry secured the important passages of the Rhine and of
the Loire. These savage allies were not indeed less
formidable to the subjects than to the enemies of Rome.
Their original settlement was enforced with the licentious
violence of conquest; and the province through which they
marched was exposed to all the calamities of an hostile
invasion.(9) Strangers to the emperor or the republic, the
Alani of Gaul were devoted to the ambition of Aetius; and
though he might suspect that, in a contest with Attila
himself, they would revolt to the standard of their national
king, the patrician laboured to restrain, rather than to
excite, their zeal and resentment against the Goths, the
Burgundians, and the Franks.
The kingdom established by the Visigoths in the southern
provinces of Gaul had gradually acquired strength and
maturity; and the conduct of those ambitious barbarians,
either in peace or war, engaged the perpetual vigilance of
Aetius. After the death of Wallia, the Gothic sceptre
devolved to Theodoric, the son of the great Alaric;(10) and
his prosperous reign of more than thirty years over a
turbulent people may be allowed to prove that his prudence
was supported by uncommon vigour, both of mind and body.
Impatient of his narrow limits, Theodoric aspired to the
possession of Arles, the wealthy seat of government and
commerce; but the city was saved by the timely approach of
Aetius; and the Gothic king, who had raised the siege with
some loss and disgrace, was persuaded, for an adequate
subsidy, to divert the martial valour of his subjects in a
Spanish war. Yet Theodoric still watched, and eagerly
seized, the favourable moment of renewing his hostile
attempts. The Goths besieged Narbonne, while the Belgic
provinces were invaded by the Burgundians; and the public
safety was threatened on every side by the apparent union of
the enemies of Rome. On every side, the activity of Aetius
and his Scythian cavalry opposed a firm and successful
resistance. Twenty thousand Burgundians were slain in
battle, and the remains of the nation humbly accepted a
dependent seat in the mountains of Savoy.(11) The walls of
Narbonne had been shaken by the battering engines, and the
inhabitants had endured the last extremities of famine, when
Count Litorius, approaching in silence, and directing each
horseman to carry behind him two sacks of flour, cut his way
through the entrenchments of the besiegers. The siege was
immediately raised; and the more decisive victory, which is
ascribed to the personal conduct of Aetius himself, was
marked with the blood of eight thousand Goths. But in the
absence of the patrician, who was hastily summoned to Italy
by some public or private interest, Count Litorius succeeded
to the command; and his presumption soon discovered that far
different talents are required to lead a wing of cavalry, or
to direct the operations of an important war. At the head of
an army of Huns, he rashly advanced to the gates of
Toulouse, full of careless contempt for an enemy whom his
misfortunes had rendered prudent, and his situation made
desperate. The predictions of the augurs had inspired
Litorius with the profane confidence that he should enter
the Gothic capital in triumph; and the trust which he
reposed in his Pagan allies encouraged him to reject the
fair conditions of peace which were repeatedly proposed by
the bishops in the name of Theodoric. The king of the Goths
exhibited in his distress the edifying contrast of Christian
piety and moderation; nor did he lay aside his sackcloth and
ashes till he was prepared to arm for the combat. His
soldiers, animated with martial and religious enthusiasm,
assaulted the camp of Litorius. The conflict was obstinate;
the slaughter was mutual. The Roman general, after a total
defeat, which could be imputed only to his unskilful
rashness, was actually led through the streets of Toulouse,
not in his own, but in an hostile triumph; and the misery
which he experienced, in a long and ignominious captivity,
excited the compassion of the barbarians themselves.(12) Such
a loss, in a country whose spirit and finances were long
since exhausted, could not easily be repaired; and the
Goths, assuming, in their turn, the sentiments of ambition
and revenge, would have planted their victorious standards
on the banks of the Rhone, if the presence of Aetius had not
restored strength and discipline to the Romans.(13) The two
armies expected the signal of a decisive action; but the
generals, who were conscious of each other's force, and
doubtful of their own superiority, prudently sheathed their
swords in the field of battle; and their reconciliation was
permanent and sincere. Theodoric; king of the Visigoths,
appears to have deserved the love of his subjects, the
confidence of his allies, and the esteem of mankind. His
throne was surrounded by six valiant sons, who were educated
with equal care in the exercises of the barbarian camp, and
in those of the Gallic schools: from the study of the Roman
jurisprudence they acquired the theory, at least, of law and
justice; and the harmonious sense of Virgil contributed to
soften the asperity of their native manners. (14) The two
daughters of the Gothic king were given in marriage to the
eldest sons of the kings of the Suevi and of the Vandals,
who reigned in Spain and Africa; but these illustrious
alliances were pregnant with guilt and discord. The queen of
the Suevi bewailed the death of an husband, inhumanly
massacred by her brother. The princess of the Vandals was
the victim of a jealous tyrant, whom she called her father.
The cruel Genseric suspected that his son's wife had
conspired to poison him; the supposed crime was punished by
the amputation of her nose and ears; and the unhappy
daughter of Theodoric was ignominiously returned to the
court of Toulouse in that deformed and mutilated condition.
This horrid act, which must seem incredible to a civilised
age, drew tears from every spectator; but Theodoric was
urged, by the feelings of a parent and a king, to revenge
such irreparable injuries. The Imperial ministers, who
always cherished the discord of the barbarians, would have
supplied the Goths with arms, and ships, and treasures, for
the African war; and the cruelty of Genseric might have been
fatal to himself, if the artful Vandal had not armed, in his
cause, the formidable power of the Huns. His rich gifts and
pressing solicitations inflamed the ambition of Attila; and
the designs of Aetius and Theodoric were prevented by the
invasion of Gaul.(15)
The Franks, whose monarchy was still confined to the
neighbourhood of the Lower Rhine, had wisely established the
right of hereditary succession in the noble family of the
Merovingians.(16) These princes were elevated on a buckler,
the symbol of military command;(17) and the royal fashion of
long hair was the ensign of their birth and dignity. Their
flaxen locks, which they combed and dressed with singular
care, hung down in flowing ringlets on their back and
shoulders; while the rest of the nation were obliged, either
by law or custom, to shave the hinder part of their head, to
comb their hair over the forehead, and to content themselves
with the ornament of two small whiskers. (18) The lofty
stature of the Franks and their blue eyes denoted a Germanic
origin; their close apparel accurately expressed the figure
of their limbs; a weighty sword was suspended from a broad
belt; their bodies were protected by a large shield: and
these warlike barbarians were trained from their earliest
youth to run, to leap, to swim; to dart the javelin or
battle-axe with unerring aim; to advance without hesitation
against a superior enemy; and to maintain, either in life or
death, the invincible reputation of their ancestors. (19)
Clodion, the first of their long-haired kings whose name and
actions are mentioned in authentic history, held his
residence at Dispargum, (20) a village or fortress, whose
place may be assigned between Louvain and Brussels. From the
report of his spies the king of the Franks was informed that
the defenceless state of the second Belgic must yield, on
the slightest attack, to the valour of his subjects. He
boldly penetrated through the thickets and morasses of the
Carbonarian forest,(21) occupied Tournay and Cambray, the
only cities which existed in the fifth century; and extended
his conquests as far as the river Somme, over a desolate
country whose cultivation and populousness are the effects
of more recent industry. (22) While Clodion lay encamped in
the plains of Artois, (23) and celebrated with vain and
ostentatious security the marriage perhaps of his son, the
nuptial feast was interrupted by the unexpected and
unwelcome presence of Aetius, who had passed the Somme at
the head of his light cavalry. The tables, which had been
spread under the shelter of a hill along the banks of a
pleasant stream, were rudely overturned; the Franks were
oppressed before they could recover their arms or their
ranks, and their unavailing valour was fatal only to
themselves. The loaded waggons which had followed their
march afforded a rich booty; and the virgin-bride with her
female attendants submitted to the new lovers who were
imposed on them by the chance of war. This advantage, which
had been obtained by the skill and activity of Aetius, might
reflect some disgrace on the military prudence of Clodion;
but the king of the Franks soon regained his strength and
reputation, and still maintained the possession of his
Gallic kingdom from the Rhine to the Somme.(24) Under his
reign, and most probably from the enterprising spirit of his
subjects, the three Capitals, Mentzs Treves, and Cologne,
experienced the effects of hostile cruelty and avarice. The
distress of Cologne was prolonged by the perpetual dominion
of the same barbarians who evacuated the ruins of Treves,
and Treves, which in the space of forty years had been four
times besieged and pillaged, was disposed to lose the memory
of her afflictions in the vain amusements of the circus.(25)
The death of Clodion, after a reign of twenty years, exposed
his kingdom to the discord and ambition of his two sons.
Meroveus, the younger, (26) was persuaded to implore the
protection of Rome; he was received at the Imperial court as
the ally of Valentinian and the adopted son of the patrician
Aetius, and dismissed to his native country with splendid
gifts and the strongest assurances of friendship and
support. During his absence his elder brother had solicited
with equal ardour the formidable aid of Attila; and the king
of the Huns embraced an alliance which facilitated the
passage of the Rhine, and justified by a specious and
honourable pretence the invasion of Gaul.(27)
When Attila declared his resolution of supporting the cause
of his allies the Vandals and the Franks, at the same time,
and almost in the spirit of romantic chivalry, the savage
monarch professed himself the lover and the champion of the
princess Honoria. The sister of Valentinian was educated in
the palace of Ravenna; and as her marriage might be
productive of some danger to the state, she was raised, by
the title of 'Augusta', (28) above the hopes of the most
presumptuous subject. But the fair Honoria had no sooner
attained the sixteenth year of her age than she detested the
importunate greatness which must for ever exclude her from
the comforts of honourable love: in the midst of vain and
unsatisfactory pomp Honoria sighed, yielded to the impulse
of nature, and threw herself into the arms of her
chamberlain Eugenius. Her guilt and shame (such is the
absurd language of imperious man) were soon betrayed by the
appearances of pregnancy: but the disgrace of the royal
family was published to the world by the imprudence of the
empress Placidia, who dismissed her daughter, after a strict
and shameful confinement, to a remote exile at
Constantinople. The unhappy princess passed twelve or
fourteen years in the irksome society of the sisters of
Theodosius and their chosen virgins, to whose 'crown'
Honoria could no longer aspire, and whose monastic assiduity
of prayer, fasting, and vigils she reluctantly imitated. Her
impatience of long and hopeless celibacy urged her to
embrace a strange and desperate resolution. The name of
Attila was familiar and formidable at Constantinople, and
his frequent embassies entertained a perpetual intercourse
between his camp and the Imperial palace. In the pursuit of
love, or rather of revenge, the daughter of Placidia
sacrificed every duty and every prejudice, and offered to
deliver her person into the arms of a barbarian of whose
language she was ignorant, whose figure was scarcely human,
and whose religion and manners she abhorred. By the ministry
of a faithful eunuch she transmitted to Attila a ring, the
pledge of her affection, and earnestly conjured him to claim
her as a lawful spouse to whom he had been secretly
betrothed. These indecent advances were received, however,
with coldness and disdain; and the king of the Huns
continued to multiply the number of his wives till his love
was awakened by the more forcible passions of ambition and
avarice. The invasion of Gaul was preceded and justified by
a formal demand of the princess Honoria, with a just and
equal share of the Imperial patrimony. His predecessors, the
ancient Tanjous, had often addressed in the same hostile and
peremptory manner the daughters of China; and the
pretensions of Attila were not less offensive to the majesty
of Rome. A firm but temperate refusal was communicated to
his ambassadors. The right of female succession, though it
might derive a specious argument from the recent examples of
Placidia and Pulcheria, was strenuously denied, and the
indissoluble engagements of Honoria were opposed to the
claims of her Scythian lover. (29) On the discovery of her
connection with the king of the Huns, the guilty princess
had been sent away, as an object of horror, from
Constantinople to Italy: her life was spared, but the
ceremony of her marriage was performed with some obscure and
nominal husband before she was immured in a perpetual
prison, to bewail those crimes and misfortunes which Honoria
might have escaped had she not been born the daughter of an
emperor.(30)
A native of Gaul and a contemporary, the learned and
eloquent Sidonius, who was afterwards bishop of Clermont,
had made a promise to one of his friends that he would
compose a regular history of the war of Attila. If the
modesty of Sidonius had not discouraged him from the
prosecution of this interesting work,(31) the historian could
have related with the simplicity of truth those memorable
events to which the poet, in vague and doubtful metaphors,
has concisely alluded. (32) The kings and nations of Germany
and Scythia, from the Volga perhaps to the Danube, obeyed
the warlike summons of Attila. From the royal village in the
plains of Hungary his standard moved towards the West and
after a march of seven or eight hundred miles he reached the
conflux of the Rhine and the Neckar, where he was joined by
the Franks who adhered to his ally, the elder of the sons of
Clodion. A troop of light barbarians who roamed in quest of
plunder might choose the winter for the convenience of
passing the river on the ice, but the innumerable cavalry of
the Huns required such plenty of forage and provisions as
could be procured only in a milder season; the Hercynian
forest supplied materials for a bridge of boats, and the
hostile myriads were poured with resistless violence into
the Belgic provinces. (33) The consternation of Gaul was
universal, and the various fortunes of its cities have been
adorned by tradition with martyrdoms and miracles.(34) Troyes
was saved by the merits of St. Lupus; St. Servatius was
removed from the world that he might not behold the ruin of
Tongres; and the prayers of St. Genevieve diverted the march
of Attila from the neighbourhood of Paris. But as the
greatest part of the Gallic cities were alike destitute of
saints and soldiers, they were besieged and stormed by the
Huns, who practised, in the example of Metz, (35) their
customary maxims of war. They involved in a promiscuous
massacre the priests who served at the altar and the infants
who, in the hour of danger, had been providently baptised by
the bishop; the flourishing city was delivered to the
flames, and a solitary chapel of St. Stephen marked the
place where it formerly stood. From the Rhine and the
Moselle, Attila advanced into the heart of Gaul, crossed the
Seine at Auxerre, and after a long and laborious march fixed
his camp under the walls of Orleans. He was desirous of
securing his conquests by the possession of an advantageous
post which commanded the passage of the Loire; and he
depended on the secret invitation of Sangiban, king of the
Alani, who had promised to betray the city and to revolt
from the service of the empire. But this treacherous
conspiracy was detected and disappointed: Orleans had been
strengthened with recent fortifications, and the assaults of
the Huns were vigorously repelled by the faithful valour of
the soldiers or citizens who defended the place. The
pastoral diligence of Anianus, a bishop of primitive
sanctity and consummate prudence, exhausted every art of
religious policy to support their courage till the arrival
of the expected succours. After an obstinate siege the walls
were shaken by the battering rams; the Huns had already
occupied the suburbs, and the people who were incapable of
bearing arms lay prostrate in prayer. Anianus, who anxiously
counted the days and hours! despatched a trusty messenger to
observe from the rampart the face of the distant country. He
returned twice without any intelligence that could inspire
hope or comfort; but in his third report he mentioned a
small cloud which he had faintly descried at the extremity
of the horizon "It is the aid of God!" exclaimed the bishop
in a tone of pious confidence; and the whole multitude
repeated after him "It is the aid of God." The remote
object, on which every eye was fixed, became each moment
larger and more distinct; the Roman and Gothic banners were
gradually perceived; and a favourable wind, blowing aside
the dust, discovered. in deep array, the impatient squadrons
of Aetius and Theodoric, who pressed forwards to the relief
of Orleans.
The facility with which Attila had penetrated into the heart
of Gaul may be ascribed to his insidious policy as well as
to the terror of his arms. His public declarations were
skilfully mitigated by his private assurances; he
alternately soothed and threatened the Romans and the Goths;
and the courts of Ravenna and Toulouse, mutually suspicious
of each other's intentions, beheld with supine indifference
the approach of their common enemy. Aetius was the sole
guardian of the public safety; but his wisest measures were
embarrassed by a faction which, since the death of Placidia,
infested the Imperial palace: the youth of Italy trembled at
the sound of the trumpet; and the barbarians, who from fear
or affection were inclined to the cause of Attila, awaited
with doubtful and venal faith the event of the war. The
patrician passed the Alps at the head of some troops whose
strength and numbers scarcely deserved the name of an army.
(36) But on his arrival at Arles or Lyons he was confounded by
the intelligence that the Visigoths, refusing to embrace the
defence of Gaul, had determined to expect within their own
territories the formidable invader whom they professed to
despise. The senator Avitus, who after the honourable
exercise of the Praetorian praefecture had retired to his
estate in Auvergne, was persuaded to accept the important
embassy, which he executed with ability and success. He
represented to Theodoric that an ambitious conqueror who
aspired to the dominion of the earth could be resisted only
by the firm and unanimous alliance of the powers whom he
laboured to oppress. The lively eloquence of Avitus inflamed
the Gothic warriors by the description of the injuries which
their ancestors had suffered from the Huns, whose implacable
fury still pursued them from the Dawe to the foot of the
Pyrenees. He strenuously urged that it was the duty of every
Christian to save from sacrilegious violation the churches
of God and the relics of the saints; that it was the
interest of every barbarian who had acquired a settlement in
Gaul to defend the fields and vineyards, which were
cultivated for his use, against the desolation of the
Scythian shepherds. Theodoric yielded to the evidence of
truth, adopted the measure at once the most prudent and the
most honourable, and declared that as the faithful ally of
Aetius and the Romans he was ready to expose his life and
kingdom for the common safety of Gaul.(37) The Visigoths, who
at that time were in the mature vigour of their fame and
power, obeyed with alacrity the signal of war, prepared
their arms and horses, and assembled under the standard of
their aged king, who was resolved, with his two eldest sons,
Torismond and Theodoric, to command in person his numerous
and valiant people. The example of the Goths determined
several tribes or nations that seemed to fluctuate between
the Huns and the Romans. The indefatigable diligence of the
patrician gradually collected the troops of Gaul and
Germany, who had formerly acknowledged themselves the
subjects or soldiers of the republic, but who now claimed
the rewards of voluntary service and the rank of independent
allies; the Laeti, the Armoricans, the Breones, the Saxons,
the Burgundians, the Sarmatians or Alani, the Ripuarians,
and the Franks who followed Meroveus as their lawful prince.
Such was the various army which, under the conduct of Aetius
and Theodoric, advanced by rapid marches to relieve Orleans,
and to give battle to the innumerable host of Attila.(38)
On their approach the king of the Huns immediately raised
the siege, and sounded a retreat to recall the foremost of
his troops from the pillage of a city which they had already
entered.(39) The valour of Attila was always guided by his
prudence; and as he foresaw the fatal consequences of a
defeat in the heart of Gaul, he repassed the Seine, and
expected the enemy in the plains of Chalons, whose smooth
and level surface was adapted to the operations of his
Scythian cavalry. But in this tumultuary retreat the
vanguard of the Romans and their allies continually pressed,
and sometimes engaged, the troops whom Attila had posted in
the rear; the hostile columns, in the darkness of the night
and the perplexity of the roads, might
encounter each other without design; and the bloody conflict
of the Franks and Gepidae, in which fifteen thousand(40)
barbarians were slain, was a prelude to a more general and
decisive action. The Catalaunian fields(41) spread themselves
round Chalons, and extend, according to the vague
measurement of Jornandes, to the length of one hundred and
fifty, and the breadth of one hundred miles, over the whole
province, which is entitled to the appellation of a
'champaign' country. (42) This spacious plain was
distinguished, however, by some inequalities of ground; and
the importance of an height which commanded the camp of
Attila was understood and disputed by the two generals. The
young and valiant Torismond first occupied the summit; the
Goths rushed with irresistible weight on the Huns, who
laboured to ascend from the opposite side: and the
possession of this advantageous post inspired both the
troops and their leaders with a fair assurance of victory.
The anxiety of Attila prompted him to consult his priests
and haruspices. It was reported that, after scrutinising the
entrails of victims and scraping their bones, they revealed,
in mysterious language, his own defeat, with the death of
his principal adversary; and that the barbarian, by
accepting the equivalent, expressed his involuntary esteem
for the superior merit of Aetius. But the unusual
despondency which seemed to prevail among the Huns engaged
Attila to use the expedient, so familiar to the generals of
antiquity, of animating his troops by a military oration;
and his language was that of a king who had often fought and
conquered at their head. (43) He pressed them to consider
their past glory, their actual danger, and their future
hopes. The same fortune which opened the deserts and
morasses of Scythia to their unarmed valour, which had laid
so many warlike nations prostrate at their feet, had
reserved the joys of this memorable field for the
consummation of their victories. The cautious steps of their
enemies, their strict alliance, and their advantageous
posts, he artfully represented as the effects, not of
prudence, but of fear. The Visigoths alone were the strength
and nerves of the opposite army, and the Huns might securely
trample on the degenerate Romans, whose close and compact
order betrayed their apprehensions, and who were equally
incapable of supporting the dangers or the fatigues of a day
of battle. The doctrine of predestination, so favourable to
martial virtue, was carefully inculcated by the king of the
Huns; who assured his subjects that the warriors, protected
by Heaven, were safe and invulnerable amidst the darts of
the enemy; but that the unerring Fates would strike their
victims in the bosom of inglorious peace. "I myself,"
continued Attila, "will throw the first javelin, and the
wretch who refuses to imitate the example of his sovereign
is devoted to inevitable death." The spirit of the
barbarians was rekindled by the presence, the voice and the
example of their intrepid leader and Attila, yielding to
their impatience, immediately formed his order of battle. At
the head of his brave and faithful Huns, he occupied in
person the centre of the line. The nations subject to his
empire, the Rugians, the Heruli, the Thuringians, the
Franks, the Burgundians, were extended, on either hand, over
the ample space of the Catalaunian fields; the right wing
was commanded by Ardaric, king of the Gepidae; and the three
valiant brothers who reigned over the Ostrogoths were posted
on the left to oppose the kindred tribes of the Visigoths.
The disposition of the allies was regulated by a different
principle. Sangiban, the faithless king of the Alani, was
placed in the centre: where his motions might be strictly
watched, and his treachery might be instantly punished.
Aetius assumed the command of the left, and Theodoric of the
right wing; while Torismond still continued to occupy the
heights which appear to have stretched on the flank, and
perhaps the rear, of the Scythian army. The nations from the
Volga to the Atlantic were assembled on the plain of
Chalons; but many of these nations had been divided by
faction, or conquest, or emigration; and the appearance of
similar arms and ensigns, which threatened each other,
presented the image of a civil war.
The discipline and tactics of the Greeks and Romans form an
interesting part of their national manners. The attentive
study of the military operations of Xenophon, or Caesar, or
Frederic, when they are described by the same genius which
conceived and executed them, may tend to improve (if such
improvement can be wished) the art of destroying the human
species. But the battle of Chalons can only excite our
curiosity by the magnitude of the object; since it was
decided by the blind impetuosity of barbarians, and has been
related by partial writers, whose civil and ecclesiastical
profession secluded them from the knowledge of military
affairs. Cassiodorus, however, had familiarly conversed with
many Gothic warriors who served in that memorable
engagement; "a conflict," as they informed him, "fierce,
various, obstinate, and bloody; such as could not be
paralleled either in the present or in past ages." The
number of the slain amounted to one hundred and sixty-two
thousand, or, according to another account, three hundred
thousand persons;(44) and these incredible exaggerations
suppose a real and effective loss, sufficient to justify the
historian's remark that whole generations may be swept away
by the madness of kings in the space of a single hour. After
the mutual and repeated discharge of missile weapons, in
which the archers of Scythia might signalise their superior
dexterity, the cavalry and infantry of the two armies were
furiously mingled in closer combat. The Huns, who fought
under the eyes of their king, pierced through the feeble and
doubtful centre of the allies, separated their wings from
each other, and wheeling, with a rapid effort, to the left,
directed their whole force against the Visigoths. As
Theodoric rode along the ranks to animate his troops, he
received a mortal stroke from the javelin of Andaires, a
noble Ostrogoth, and immediately fell from his horse. The
wounded king was oppressed in the general disorder and
trampled under the feet of his own cavalry; and this
important death served to explain the ambiguous prophecy of
the haruspices. Attila already exulted in the confidence of
victory, when the valiant Torismond descended from the
hills, and verified the remainder of the prediction. The
Visigoths, who had been thrown into confusion by the flight,
or defection, of the Alani, gradually restored their order
of battle; and the Huns were undoubtedly vanquished, since
Attila was compelled to retreat. He had exposed his person
with the rashness of a private soldier, but the intrepid
troops of the centre had pushed forwards beyond the rest of
the line; their attack was faintly supported; their flanks
were unguarded; and the conquerors of Scythia and Germany
were saved by the approach of the night from a total defeat.
They retired within the circle of waggons that fortified
their camp; and the dismounted squadrons prepared themselves
for a defence to which neither their arms or their temper
were adapted. The event was doubtful but Attila had secured
a last and honourable resource. The saddles and rich
furniture of the cavalry were collected by his order into a
funeral pile; and the magnanimous barbarian had resolved, if
his entrenchments should be forced, to rush headlong into
the flames, and deprive his enemies of the glory which they
might have acquired by the death or captivity of Attila.(45)
But his enemies had passed the night in equal disorder and
anxiety. The inconsiderate courage of Torismond was tempted
to urge the pursuit, till he unexpectedly found himself,
with a few followers, in the midst of the Scythian waggons.
In the confusion of a nocturnal combat he was thrown from
his horse; and the Gothic prince must have perished like his
father, if his youthful strength and the intrepid zeal of
his companions had not rescued him from this dangerous
situation. In the same manner, but on the left of the line,
Aetius himself, separated from his allies, ignorant of their
victory, and anxious for their fate, encountered and escaped
the hostile troops that were scattered over the plains of
Chalons; and at length reached the camp of the Goths, which
he could only fortify with a slight rampart of shields till
the dawn of day. The Imperial general was soon satisfied of
the defeat of Attila, who still remained inactive within his
entrenchments; and when he contemplated the bloody scene, he
observed, with secret satisfaction, that the loss had
principally fallen on the barbarians. The body of Theodoric,
pierced with honourable wounds, was discovered under a heap
of the slain: his subjects bewailed the death of their king
and father; but their tears were mingled with songs and
acclamations, and his funeral rites were performed in the
face of a vanquished enemy. The Goths, clashing their arms,
elevated on a buckler his eldest son Torismond, to whom they
justly ascribed the glory of their success; and the new king
accepted the obligation of revenge as a sacred portion of
his paternal inheritance. Yet the Goths themselves were
astonished by the fierce and undaunted aspect of their
formidable antagonist; and their historian has compared
Attila to a lion encompassed in his den and threatening his
hunters with redoubled fury. The kings and nations who might
have deserted his standard in the hour of distress were made
sensible that the displeasure of their monarch was the most
imminent and inevitable danger. All his instruments of
martial music incessantly sounded a loud and animating
strain of defiance; and the foremost troops, who advanced to
the assault, were checked or destroyed by showers of arrows
from every side of the entrenchments. It was determined in a
general council of war to besiege the king of the Huns in
his camp, to intercept his provisions, and to reduce him to
the alternative of a disgraceful treaty or an unequal
combat. But the impatience of the barbarians soon disdained
these cautious and dilatory measures: and the mature policy
of Aetius was apprehensive that, after the extirpation of
the Huns, the republic would be oppressed by the pride and
power of the Gothic nation. The patrician exerted the
superior ascendant of authority and reason to calm the
passions which the son of Theodoric considered as a duty;
represented, with seeming affection and real truth, the
dangers of absence and delay; and persuaded Torismond to
disappoint, by his speedy return, the ambitious designs of
his brothers, who might occupy the throne and treasures of
Toulouse.(46) After the departure of the Goths, and the
separation of the allied army, Attila was surprised at the
vast silence that reigned over the plains of Chalons: the
suspicion of some hostile stratagem detained him several
days within the circle of his waggons, and his retreat
beyond the Rhine confessed the last victory which was
achieved in the name of the Western empire. Meroveus and his
Franks, observing a prudent distance, and magnifying the
opinion of their strength by the numerous fires which they
kindled every night, continued to follow the rear of the
Huns till they reached the confines of Thuringia. The
Thuringians served in the army of Attila: they traversed,
both in their march and in their return, the territories of
the Franks; and it was perhaps in this war that they
exercised the cruelties which, about four-score years
afterwards, were revenged by the son of Clovis. They
massacred their hostages, as well as their captives: two
hundred young maidens were tortured with exquisite and
unrelenting rage; their bodies were torn asunder by wild
horses, or their bones were crushed under the weight of
rolling waggons; and their unburied limbs were abandoned on
the public roads as a prey to dogs and vultures. Such were
those savage ancestors whose imaginary virtues have
sometimes excited the praise and envy of civilised ages !(47)
Neither the spirit, nor the forces, nor the reputation of
Attila were impaired by the failure of the Gallic
expedition. In the ensuing spring he repeated his demand of
the princess Honoria and her patrimonial treasures. The
demand was again rejected or eluded; and the indignant lover
immediately took the field, passed the Alps, invaded Italy,
and besieged Aquileia with an innumerable host of
barbarians. Those barbarians were unskilled in the methods
of conducting a regular siege, which, even among the
ancients, required some knowledge, or at least some
practice, of the mechanic arts. But the labour of many
thousand provincials and captives, whose lives were
sacrificed without pity, might execute the most painful and
dangerous work. The skill of the Roman artists might be
corrupted to the destruction of their country. The walls of
Aquileia were assaulted by a formidable train of battering
rams, movable turrets, and engines that threw stones, darts,
and fire;(48) and the monarch of the Huns employed the
forcible impulse of hope, fear, emulation and interest, to
subvert the only barrier which delayed the conquest of
Italy. Aquileia was at that period one of the richest, the
most Populous, and the strongest of the maritime cities of
the Hadriatic coast. The Gothic auxiliaries, who appear to
have served under their native princes, Alaric and Antala,
communicated their intrepid spirit; and the citizens still
remembered the glorious and successful resistance which
their ancestors had opposed to a fierce, inexorable
barbarian, who disgraced the majesty of the Roman purple.
Three months were consumed without effect in the siege of
Aquileia; till the want of provisions and the clamours of
his army compelled Attila to relinquish the enterprise, and
reluctantly to issue his orders that the troops should
strike their tents the next morning, and begin their
retreat. But as he rode round the walls, pensive, angry, and
disappointed, he observed a stork preparing to leave her
nest in one of the towers, and to fly with her infant family
towards the country. He seized, with the ready penetration
of a statesman, this trifling incident which chance had
offered to superstition; and exclaimed, in a loud and
cheerful tone, that such a domestic bird, so constantly
attached to human society, would never have abandoned her
ancient seats unless those towers had been devoted to
impending ruin and solitude.(49) The favourable omen inspired
an assurance of victory; the siege was renewed, and
prosecuted with fresh vigour; a large breach was made in the
part of the wall from whence the stork had taken her flight;
the Huns mounted to the assault with irresistible fury; and
the succeeding generation could scarcely discover the ruins
of Aquileia.(50) After this dreadful chastisement, Attila
pursued his march; and as he passed, the cities of Altinumn
Concordia, and Padua were reduced into heaps of stones and
ashes. The inland towns, Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo, were
exposed to the rapacious cruelty of the Huns. Milan and
Pavia submitted, without resistance, to the loss of their
wealth; and applauded the unusual clemency which preserved
from the flames the public as well as private buildings, and
spared the lives of the captive multitude. The popular
traditions of Comum, Turin, or Modena may justly be
respected; yet they concur with more authentic evidence to
prove that Attila spread his ravages over the rich plains of
modern Lombardy, which are divided by the Po, and bounded by
the Alps and Apennine. (51) When he took possession of the
royal palace of Milan, he was surprised and offended at the
sight of a picture which represented the Caesars seated on
their throne, and the princes of Scythia prostrate at their
feet. The revenge which Attila inflicted on this monument of
Roman vanity was harmless and ingenious. He commanded a
painter to reverse the figures and the attitudes; and the
emperors were delineated on the same canvas approaching in a
suppliant posture to empty their bags of tributary gold
before the throne of the Scythian monarch.(52) The spectators
must have confessed the truth and propriety of the
alteration; and were perhaps tempted to apply, on this
singular occasion, the well-known fable of the dispute
between the lion and the man.(53)
It is a saying worthy of the ferocious pride of Attila, that
the grass never grew on the spot where his horse had trod.
Yet the savage destroyer undesignedly laid the foundations
of a republic which revived, in the feudal state of Europe,
the art and spirit of a commercial industry. The celebrated
name of Venice, or Venetia,(54) was formerly diffused over a
larger and fertile province of Italy, from the confines of
Pannonia to the river Addua, and from the Po to the Rhaetian
and the Julian Alps. Before the irruption of the barbarians,
fifty Venetian cities flourished in peace and prosperity:
Aquileia was placed in the most conspicuous station: but the
ancient dignity of Padua was supported by agriculture and
manufactures; and the property of five hundred citizens, who
were entitled to the equestrian rank, must have amounted, at
the strictest computation, to one million seven hundred
thousand pounds. Many families of .Aquileia, Padua, and the
adjacent towns, who fled from the sword of the Huns, found a
safe, though obscure, refuge in the neighbouring islands.(55)
At the extremity of the Gulf, where the Hadriatic feebly
imitates the tides of the ocean, near an hundred small
islands are separated by shallow water from the continent,
and protected from the waves by several long slips of land,
which admit the entrance of vessels through some secret and
narrow channels.(56) Till the middle of the fifth century
these remote and sequestered spots remained without
cultivation, with few inhabitants, and almost without a
name. But the manners of the Venetian fugitives, their arts
and their government, were
gradually formed by their new situation; and one of the
epistles of Cassiodorus, (57) which describes their condition
about seventy years afterwards, may be considered as the
primitive monument of the republic. The minister of
Theodoric compares them, in his quaint declamatory style, to
waterfowl, who had fixed their nests on the bosom of the
waves; and though he allows that the Venetian provinces had
formerly contained many noble families, he insinuates that
they were now reduced by misfortune to the same level of
humble poverty. Fish was the common, and almost the
universal, food of every rank: their only treasure consisted
in the plenty of salt which they extracted from the sea: and
the exchange of that commodity, so essential to human life,
was substituted in the neighbouring markets to the currency
of gold and silver. A people whose habitations might be
doubtfully assigned to the earth or water soon became alike
familiar with the two elements; and the demands of avarice
succeeded to those of necessity. The islanders, who, from
Grado to Chiozza, were intimately connected with each other,
penetrated into the heart of Italy, by the secure, though
laborious, navigation of the rivers and inland canals. Their
vessels, which were continually increasing in size and
number, visited all the harbours of the Gulf; and the
marriage which Venice annually celebrates with the Hadriatic
was contracted in her early infancy. The epistle of
Cassiodorus, the Praetorian praefect, is addressed to the
maritime tribunes; and he exhorts them, in a mild tone of
authority, to animate the zeal of their countrymen for the
public service, which required their assistance to transport
the magazines of wine and oil from the province of Istria to
the royal city of Ravenna. The ambiguous office of these
magistrates is explained by the tradition, that, in the
twelve principal islands, twelve tribunes, or judges, were
created by an annual and popular election. The existence of
the Venetian republic under the Gothic kingdom of Italy is
attested by the same authentic record which annihilates
their lofty claim of original and perpetual independence.(58)
The Italians, who had long since renounced the exercise of
arms, were surprised, after forty years' peace, by the
approach of a formidable barbarian, whom they abhorred as
the enemy of their religion as well as of their republic.
Amidst the general consternation, Aetius alone was incapable
of fear; but it was impossible that he should achieve alone
and unassisted any military exploits worthy of his former
renown.
The barbarians who had defended Gaul refused to march to the
relief of Italy; and the succours promised by the Eastern
emperor were distant and doubtful. Since Aetius, at the head
of his domestic troops, still maintained the field, and
harassed or retarded the march of Attila, he never showed
himself more truly great than at the time when his conduct
was blamed by an ignorant and ungrateful people.(59) If the
mind of Valentinian had been susceptible of any generous
sentiments, he would have chosen such a general for his
example and his guide. But the timid grandson of Theodosius,
instead of sharing the dangers, escaped from the sound, of
war; and his hasty retreat from Ravenna to Rome, from an
impregnable fortress to an open capital, betrayed his secret
intention of abandoning Italy as soon as the danger should
approach his Imperial person. This shameful abdication was
suspended, however, by the spirit of doubt and delay which
commonly adheres to pusillanimous counsels, and sometimes
corrects their pernicious tendency. The Western emperor,
with the senate and people of Rome, embraced the more
salutary resolution of deprecating, by a solemn and
suppliant embassy, the wrath of Attila. This important
commission was accepted by Avienus, who, from his birth and
riches, his consular dignity, the numerous train of his
clients, and his personal abilities, held the first rank in
the Roman senate. The specious and artful character of
Avienus(60) was admirably qualified to conduct a negotiation
either of public or private interest: his colleague
Trigetius had exercised the Praetorian praefecture of Italy;
and Leo, bishop of Rome, consented to expose his life for
the safety of his flock. The genius of Leo(61) was exercised
and displayed in the public misfortunes; and he has deserved
the appellation of Great by the successful zeal with which
he laboured to establish his opinions and his authority,
under the venerable names of orthodox faith and
ecclesiastical discipline. The Roman ambassadors were
introduced to the tent of Attila, as he lay encamped at the
place where the slow-winding Mincius is lost in the foaming
waves of the lake Benacus, (62) and trampled, with his
Scythian cavalry, the farms of Catullus and Virgil.(63) The
barbarian monarch listened with favourable, and even
respectful, attention; and the deliverance of Italy was
purchased by the immense ransom or dowry of the princess
Honoria. The state of his army might facilitate the treaty
and hasten his retreat. Their martial spirit was relaxed by
the wealth and indolence of a warm climate. The shepherds of
the North, whose ordinary food consisted of milk and raw
flesh, indulged themselves too freely in the use of bread,
of wine, and of meat prepared and seasoned by the arts of
cookery; and the progress of disease revenged in some
measure the injuries of the Italians. (64) When Attila
declared his resolution of carrying his victorious arms to
the gates of Rome, he was admonished by his friends, as well
as by his enemies, that Alaric had not long survived the
conquest of the eternal city. His mind, superior to real
danger, was assaulted by imaginary terrors; nor could he
escape the influence of superstition, which had so often
been subservient to his designs.(65) The pressing eloquence
of Leo, his majestic aspect and sacerdotal robes, excited
the veneration of Attila for the spiritual father of the
Christians. The apparition of the two apostles of St. Peter
and St. Paul, who menaced the barbarian with instant death
if he rejected the prayer of their successor, is one of the
noblest legends of ecclesiastical tradition. The safety of
Rome might deserve the interposition of celestial beings;
and some indulgence is due to a fable which has been
represented by the pencil of Raphael and the chisel of
Algardi.(66)
Before the king of the Huns evacuated Italy, he threatened
to return more dreadful, and more implacable, if his bride,
the princess Honoria, were not delivered to his ambassadors
within the term stipulated by the treaty. Yet, in the
meanwhile, Attila relieved his tender anxiety, by adding a
beautiful maid, whose name was Ildico, to the list of his
innumerable wives.(67) Their marriage was celebrated with
barbaric pomp and festivity, at his wooden palace beyond the
Danube; and the monarch, oppressed with wine and sleep,
retired at a late hour from the banquet to the nuptial bed.
His attendants continued to respect his pleasures or his
repose the greatest part of the ensuing day, till the
unusual silence alarmed their fears and suspicions; and,
after attempting to awaken Attila by loud and repeated
cries, they at length broke into the royal apartment. They
found the trembling bride sitting by the bedside, hiding her
face with her veil, and lamenting her own danger, as well as
the death of the king, who had expired during the night.(68)
An artery had suddenly burst: and as Attila lay in a supine
posture, he was suffocated by a torrent of blood, which,
instead of finding a passage through the nostrils,
regurgitated into the lungs and stomach. His body was
solemnly exposed in the midst of the plain, under a silken
pavilion; and the chosen squadrons of the Huns, wheeling
round in measured evolutions, chanted a funeral song to the
memory of a hero, glorious in his life, invincible in his
death, the father of his people, the scourge of his enemies,
and the terror of the world. According to their national
custom, the barbarians cut off a part of their hair, gashed
their faces with unseemly wounds, and bewailed their valiant
leader as he deserved, not with the tears of women, but with
the blood of warriors. The remains of Attila were enclosed
within three coffins of gold, of silver, and of iron, and
privately buried in the night: the spoils of nations were
thrown into his grave; the captives who had opened the
ground were inhumanly massacred; and the same Huns, who had
indulged such excessive grief, feasted, with dissolute and
intemperate mirth, about the recent sepulchre of their king.
It was reported at Constantinople that, on the fortunate
night in which he expired, Marcian beheld in a dream the bow
of Attila broken asunder: and the report may be allowed to
prove how seldom the image of that formidable barbarian was
absent from the mind of a Roman emperor.(69)
The revolution which subverted the empire of the Huns
established the fame of Attila, whose genius alone had
sustained the huge and disjointed fabric. After his death
the boldest chieftains aspired to the rank of kings; the
most powerful kings refused to acknowledge a superior; and
the numerous sons whom so many various mothers bore to the
deceased monarch divided and disputed like a private
inheritance the sovereign command of the nations of Germany
and Scythia. The bold Ardaric felt and represented the
disgrace of this servile partition and his subjects, the
warlike Gepidae, with the Ostrogoths, under the conduct of
three valiant brothers, encouraged their allies to vindicate
the rights of freedom and royalty. In a bloody and decisive
conflict on the banks of the river Netad in Pannonia, the
lance of the Gepidae, the sword of the Goths, the arrows of
the Huns, the Suevic infantry, the light arms of the Heruli,
and the heavy weapons of the Alani, encountered or supported
each other; and the victory of Ardaric was accompanied with
the slaughter of thirty thousand of his enemies. Ellac, the
eldest on of Attila, lost his life and crown in the
memorable battle of Netad; his early valour had raised him
to the throne of the Acatzires, a Scyhlan people, whom he
subdued; and his father, who loved the superior merit, would
have envied the death, of Ellac.(70) His brother Dengisich,
with an army of Huns still formidable in their flight and
ruin, maintained his ground above fifteen years on the banks
of the Danube. The palace of Attila, with the old country of
Daciab from the Carpathian hills to the Euxine, became the
seat of a new power which was erected by Ardaric, king of
the Gepidae. The Pannonian conquests, from Vienna to
Sirmium, were occupied by the Ostrogoths; and the
settlements of the tribes who had so bravely asserted their
native freedom were irregularly distributed according to the
measure of their respective strength. Surrounded and
oppressed by the multitude of his father's slaves, the
kingdom of Dengisich was confined to the circle of his
waggons; his desperate courage urged him to invade the
Eastern empire: he fell in battle, and his head,
ignominiously exposed in the Hippodrome, exhibited a
grateful spectacle to the people of Constantinople. Attila
had fondly or superstitiously believed that Irnac, the
youngest of his sons, was destined to perpetuate the glories
of his race. The character of that prince, who attempted to
moderate the rashness of his brother Dengisich, was more
suitable to the declining condition of the Huns; and Irnac,
with his subject hordes, retired into the heart of the
Lesser Scythia. They were soon overwhelmed by a torrent of
new barbarians, who followed the same road which their own
ancestors had formerly discovered. The Geougen, or Avares,
whose residence is assigned by the Greek writers to the
shores of the ocean, impelled the adjacent tribes; till at
length the Igours of the North, issuing from the cold
Siberian regions which produce the most valuable furs,
spread themselves over the desert as far as the Borysthenes
and the Caspian gates, and finally extinguished the empire
of the Huns.(71)
Such an event might contribute to the safety of the Eastern
empire under the reign of a prince who conciliated the
friendship, without forfeiting the esteem, of the
barbarians. But the emperor of the West, the feeble and
dissolute Valentinian, who had reached his thirty-fifth year
without attaining the age of reason or courage, abused this
apparent security to undermine the foundations of his own
throne by the murder of the patrician Aetius. From the
instinct of a base and jealous mind, he hated the man who
was universally celebrated as the terror of the barbarians
and the support of the republic; and his new favourite, the
eunuch Heraclius, awakened the emperor from the supine
lethargy which might be disguised during the life of
Placidia(72) by the excuse of filial piety. The fame of
Aetius, his wealth and dignity, the numerous and martial
train of barbarian followers, his powerful dependents who
filled the civil offices of the state, and the hopes of his
son Gaudentius, who was already contracted to Eudoxia, the
emperor's daughter, had raised him above the rank of a
subject. The ambitious designs, of which he was secretly
accused, excited the fears as well as the resentment of
Valentinian. Aetius himself, supported by the consciousness
of his merit, his services, and perhaps his innocence, seems
to have maintained a haughty and indiscreet behaviour. The
patrician offended his sovereign by an hostile declaration;
he aggravated the offence by compelling him to ratify with a
solemn oath a treaty of reconciliation and alliance; he
proclaimed his suspicions, he neglected his safety; and from
a vain confidence that the enemy whom he despised was
incapable even of a manly crime, he rashly ventured his
person in the palace of Rome. Whilst he urged, perhaps with
intemperate vehemence, the marriage of his son, Valentinian,
drawing his sword - the first sword he had ever drawn -
plunged it in the breast of a general who had saved his
empire: his courtiers and eunuchs ambitiously struggled to
imitate their master; and Aetius, pierced with an hundred
wounds, fell dead in the royal presence. Boethius, the
Praetorian praefect, was killed at the same moment; and
before the event could be divulged, the principal friends of
the patrician were summoned to the palace and separately
murdered. The horrid deed, palliated by the specious names
of justice and necessity, was immediately communicated by
the emperor to his soldiers, his subjects, and his allies.
The nations who were strangers or enemies to Aetius
generously deplored the unworthy fate of a hero; the
barbarians who had been attached to his service dissembled
their grief and resentment; and the public contempt which
had been so long entertained for Valentinian was at once
converted into deep and universal abhorrence. Such
sentiments seldom pervade the walls of a palace; yet the
emperor was confounded by the honest reply of a Roman whose
approbation he had not disdained to solicit. "I am ignorant,
sir, of your motives or provocations; I only know that you
have acted like a man who cuts off his right hand with his
left."(73)
The luxury of Rome seems to have attracted the long and
frequent visits of Valentinian, who was consequently more
despised at Rome than in any other part of his dominions. A
republican spirit was insensibly revived in the senate, as
their authority, and even their supplies, became necessary
for the support of his feeble government. The stately
demeanour of an hereditary monarch offended their pride, and
the pleasures of Valentinian were injurious to the peace and
honour of noble families. The birth of the empress Eudoxia
was equal to his own, and her charms and tender affection
deserved those testimonies of love which her inconstant
husband dissipated in vague and unlawful amours. Petronius
Maximus, a wealthy senator of the Anician family, who had
been twice consul was possessed of a chaste and beautiful
wife; her obstinate resistance served only to irritate the
desires of Valentinian, and he resolved to accomplish them
either by stratagem or force. Deep gaming was one of the
vices of the court; the emperor, who, by chance or
contrivance, had gained from Maximus a considerable sum,
uncourteously exacted his ring as a security for the debt,
and sent it by a trusty messenger to his wife, with an order
in her husband's name that she should immediately attend the
empress Eudoxia. The unsuspecting wife of Maximus was
conveyed in her litter to the Imperial palace; the
emissaries of her impatient lover conducted her to a remote
and silent bedchamber; and Valentinian violated, without
remorse, the laws of hospitality. Her tears when she
returned home, her deep affliction, and the bitter
reproaches against a husband whom she considered as the
accomplice of his own shame, excited Maximus to a just
revenge; the desire of revenge was stimulated by ambition;
and he might reasonably aspire, by the free suffrage of the
Roman senate, to the throne of a detested and despicable
rival. Valentinian, who supposed that every human breast was
devoid like his own of friendship and gratitude, had
imprudently admitted among his guards several domestics and
followers of Aetius. Two of these, of barbarian race, were
persuaded to execute a sacred and honourable duty by
punishing with death the assassin of their patron, and their
intrepid courage did not long expect a favourable moment.
Whilst Valentinian amused himself in the field of Mars with
the spectacle of some military sports, they suddenly rushed
upon him with drawn weapons, despatched the guilty
Heraclius, and stabbed the emperor to the heart, without the
least opposition from his numerous train, who seemed to
rejoice in the tyrant's death. Such was the fate of
Valentinian the Third, (74) the last Roman emperor of the
family of Theodosius. He faithfully imitated the hereditary
weakness of his cousin and his two uncles, without
inheriting the gentleness, the purity, the innocence, which
alleviate in their characters the want of spirit and
ability. Valentinian was less excusable, since he had
passions without virtues: even his religion was
questionable; and though he never deviated into the paths of
heresy, he scandalised the pious Christians by his
attachment to the profane arts of magic and divination.
As early as the time of Cicero and Varro it was the opinion
of the Roman augurs that the 'twelve' vultures which Romulus
had seen, represented the 'twelve centuries' assigned for
the fatal period of his city(75) This prophecy, disregarded
perhaps in the season of health and prosperity, inspired the
people with gloomy. apprehensions when the twelfth century,
clouded with disgrace and misfortune, was almost elapsed;(76)
and even posterity must acknowledge with some surprise that
the arbitrary interpretation of an accidental or fabulous
circumstance has been seriously verified in the downfall of
the Western empire. But its fall was announced by a clearer
omen than the flight of vultures: the Roman government
appeared every day less formidable to its enemies, more
odious and oppressive to its subjects. (77) The taxes were
multiplied with the public distress; economy was neglected
in proportion as it became necessary; and the injustice of
the rich shifted the unequal burden from themselves to the
people, whom they defrauded of the indulgences that might
sometimes have alleviated their misery. The severe
inquisition, which confiscated their goods and tortured
their persons, compelled the subjects of Valentinian to
prefer the more simple tyranny of the barbarians, to fly to
the woods and mountains, or to embrace the vile and abject
condition of mercenary servants. They abjured and abhorred
the name of Roman citizens, which had formerly excited the
ambition of mankind. The Armorican provinces of Gaul and the
greatest part of Spain were thrown into a state of
disorderly independence by the confederations of the
Bagaudae, and the Imperial ministers pursued with
proscriptive laws and ineffectual arms the rebels whom they
had made.(78) If all the barbarian conquerors had been
annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would
not have restored the empire of the West: and if Rome still
survived, she survived the loss of freedom, of virtue, and
of honour.