them. And it broke, once for all, the Danube barrier. Swarms of fighting men, Ostrogoths as well as Visigoths, Results of overran the provinces south of the Danube. The the battle great ruler, Theodosius,' saved the empire for a time by granting lands to the Germans and by enrolling them in the army under the high-sounding title of "allies." Until his death the Goths remained quiet but it was only the lull before the storm. Theodosius, "the friend of the Goths," died in 395 A.D., leaving the defense of the Roman world to his weakling sons, Arcadius and Honorius. In the same year Alaric the the Visigoths raised one of their young nobles, Visigoth named Alaric, upon a shield and with joyful shouts acclaimed him as their king. The Visigothic leader despised the service of Rome. His people, he thought, should be masters, not serAlaric determined to lead them into the very heart of the empire, where they might find fertile lands and settle once for all. vants. Alaric at first fixed his attention on Constantinople. Realizing, at length, how hopeless would be the siege of that great city, he turned toward the west and descended Alaric in upon Greece. The Germans marched unopposed Greece and through the pass of Thermopyla and devastated Italy central Greece, as the Persians had done nearly nine centuries before. Then the barbarians entered the Peloponnesus, but were soon driven out by Stilicho, a German chieftain who had risen to the command of the army of Honorius. Alaric gave up Greece only to invade Italy. Before long the Goths crossed the Julian Alps and entered the rich and defenseless valley of the Po. To meet the crisis the legions were hastily called in, even from the distant frontiers. Stilicho formed them into a powerful army, beat back the enemy, and captured the Visigothic camp, filled with the spoil of Greek cities. In the eyes of the Romans Stilicho seemed a second Marius, who had arisen in an hour of peril to save Italy from its barbarian foes.3 1 See page 223. 2 See page 98. See page 178. Alaric and his Goths had been repulsed; they had not been destroyed. Beyond the Alps they were regaining their shatThe Visigoths tered strength and biding their time. Their before Rome opportunity came soon enough, when Honorius caused Stilicho to be put to death on a charge of plotting to seize the throne. The accusation may have been true, but in killing Stilicho the emperor had cut off his right hand with his left. Now that Stilicho was out of the way, Alaric no longer feared to descend again on Italy. The Goths advanced rapidly southward past Ravenna, where Honorius had shut himself up in terror, and made straight for Rome. In 410 A.D., just eight hundred years after the sack of the city by the Gauls,1 Rome found the Germans within her gates. by the Visigoths, 410 A.D. The city for three days and nights was given up to pillage. Alaric, who was a Christian, ordered his followers to respect the Sack of Rome churches and their property and to refrain from bloodshed. Though the city did not greatly suffer, the moral effect of the disaster was immense. Rome the eternal, the unconquerable, she who had taken captive all the world, was now herself a captive. The pagans saw in this calamity the vengeance of the ancient deities, who had been dishonored and driven from their shrines. The Christians believed that God had sent a judgment on the Romans to punish them for their sins. In either case the spell of Rome was forever broken. From Rome Alaric led his hosts, laden with plunder, into southern Italy. He may have intended to cross the Mediterranean and bring Africa under his rule. The plan Kingdom of the Visigoths, was never carried out, for the youthful chieftain 415-711 A.D. died suddenly, a victim to the Italian fever. After Alaric's death, the barbarians made their way northward through Italy and settled in southern Gaul and Spain. In these lands they founded an independent Visigothic kingdom, the first to be created on Roman soil. The possessions of the Visigoths in Gaul were seized by their neighbors, the Franks, in less than a century; 2 but the Gothic 1 See page 153. 2 See page 303. Romaniza kingdom in Spain had three hundred years of prosperous life.1 The barbarian rulers sought to preserve the institutions of Rome and to respect the rights of their tion of the Visigoths Roman subjects. Conquerors and conquered gradually blended into one people, out of whom have grown the Spaniards of modern times. 84. Breaking of the Rhine Barrier The Germans cross the Rhine, 406 A.D. After the departure of the Visigoths Rome and Italy remained undisturbed for nearly forty years. The western provinces were not so fortunate. At the time of Alaric's first attack on Italy the legions along the Rhine had been withdrawn to meet him, leaving the frontier unguarded. In 406 A.D., four years before Alaric's sack of Rome, a vast company of Germans crossed the Rhine and swept almost unopposed through Gaul. Some of these peoples succeeded in establishing kingdoms for themselves on the ruins of the empire. Kingdom of The Burgundians settled on the upper Rhine and in the fertile valley of the Rhone, in southeastern Gaul. After less than a century of independence they the Burgunwere conquered by the Franks.2 Their name, dians, 443however, survives in modern Burgundy. 534 A.D. The Vandals settled first in Spain. The territory now called Andalusia still preserves the memory of these barbarians. After the Visigothic invasion of Spain the Vandals passed over to North Africa. They made themselves masters of Carthage and soon conquered all the Roman province of Africa. Their kingdom here lasted about one hundred years.3 Vandal kingdom in North Africa, 429 534 A.D. While the Visigoths were finding a home in the districts north and south of the Pyrenees, the Burgundians in the Rhone valley, and the Vandals in Africa, still another The Franks Germanic people began to spread over northern in northern Gaul. They were the Franks, who had long held Gaul lands on both sides of the lower Rhine. The Franks, unlike the 3 See page 330. 1 See page 378. 2 See page 303. |