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During the last years of Justinian, his infirm mind was
devoted to heavenly contemplation, and he neglected the
business of the lower world. His subjects were impatient of
the long continuance of his life and reign: yet all who were
capable of reflection apprehended the moment of his death,
which might involve the capital in tumult, and the empire in
civil war. Seven nephews (1) of the childless monarch, the
sons or grandsons of his brother and sister, had been
educated in the splendor of a princely fortune; they had
been shown in high commands to the provinces and armies;
their characters were known, their followers were zealous,
and, as the jealousy of age postponed the declaration of a
successor, they might expect with equal hopes the
inheritance of their uncle. He expired in his palace, after
a reign of thirty-eight years; and the decisive opportunity
was embraced by the friends of Justin, the son of
Vigilantia. (2) At the hour of midnight, his domestics were
awakened by an importunate crowd, who thundered at his door,
and obtained admittance by revealing themselves to be the
principal members of the senate. These welcome deputies
announced the recent and momentous secret of the emperor's
decease; reported, or perhaps invented, his dying choice of
the best beloved and most deserving of his nephews, and
conjured Justin to prevent the disorders of the multitude,
if they should perceive, with the return of light, that they
were left without a master. After composing his countenance
to surprise, sorrow, and decent modesty, Justin, by the
advice of his wife Sophia, submitted to the authority of the
senate. He was conducted with speed and silence to the
palace; the guards saluted their new sovereign; and the
martial and religious rites of his coronation were
diligently accomplished. By the hands of the proper officers
he was invested with the Imperial garments, the red buskins,
white tunic, and purple robe. A fortunate soldier, whom he
instantly promoted to the rank of tribune, encircled his
neck with a military collar; four robust youths exalted him
on a shield; he stood firm and erect to receive the
adoration of his subjects; and their choice was sanctified
by the benediction of the patriarch, who imposed the diadem
on the head of an orthodox prince. The hippodrome was
already filled with innumerable multitudes; and no sooner
did the emperor appear on his throne, than the voices of the
blue and the green factions were confounded in the same
loyal acclamations. In the speeches which Justin addressed
to the senate and people, he promised to correct the abuses
which had disgraced the age of his predecessor, displayed
the maxims of a just and beneficent government, and declared
that, on the approaching calends of January, (3) he would
revive in his own person the name and liberty of a Roman
consul. The immediate discharge of his uncle's debts
exhibited a solid pledge of his faith and generosity: a
train of porters, laden with bags of gold, advanced into the
midst of the hippodrome, and the hopeless creditors of
Justinian accepted this equitable payment as a voluntary
gift. Before the end of three years, his example was
imitated and surpassed by the empress Sophia, who delivered
many indigent citizens from the weight of debt and usury: an
act of benevolence the best entitled to gratitude, since it
relieves the most intolerable distress; but in which the
bounty of a prince is the most liable to be abused by the
claims of prodigality and fraud. (4)
On the seventh day of his reign, Justin gave audience to the
ambassadors of the Avars, and the scene was decorated to
impress the Barbarians with astonishment, veneration, and
terror. From the palace gate, the spacious courts and long
porticos were lined with the lofty crests and gilt bucklers
of the guards, who presented their spears and axes with more
confidence than they would have shown in a field of battle.
The officers who exercised the power, or attended the
person, of the prince, were attired in their richest habits,
and arranged according to the military and civil order of
the hierarchy. When the veil of the sanctuary was
withdrawn, the ambassadors beheld the emperor of the East on
his throne, beneath a canopy, or dome, which was supported
by four columns, and crowned with a winged figure of
Victory. In the first emotions of surprise, they submitted
to the servile adoration of the Byzantine court; but as soon
as they rose from the ground, Targetius, the chief of the
embassy, expressed the freedom and pride of a Barbarian. He
extolled, by the tongue of his interpreter, the greatness of
the chagan, by whose clemency the kingdoms of the South were
permitted to exist, whose victorious subjects had traversed
the frozen rivers of Scythia, and who now covered the banks
of the Danube with innumerable tents. The late emperor had
cultivated, with annual and costly gifts, the friendship of
a grateful monarch, and the enemies of Rome had respected
the allies of the Avars. The same prudence would instruct
the nephew of Justinian to imitate the liberality of his
uncle, and to purchase the blessings of peace from an
invincible people, who delighted and excelled in the
exercise of war. The reply of the emperor was delivered in
the same strain of haughty defiance, and he derived his
confidence from the God of the Christians, the ancient glory
of Rome, and the recent triumphs of Justinian. "The empire,"
said he, "abounds with men and horses, and arms sufficient
to defend our frontiers, and to chastise the Barbarians.
You offer aid, you threaten hostilities: we despise your
enmity and your aid. The conquerors of the Avars solicit
our alliance; shall we dread their fugitives and exiles? (5)
The bounty of our uncle was granted to your misery, to your
humble prayers. From us you shall receive a more important
obligation, the knowledge of your own weakness. Retire from
our presence; the lives of ambassadors are safe; and, if you
return to implore our pardon, perhaps you will taste of our
benevolence." (6) On the report of his ambassadors, the
chagan was awed by the apparent firmness of a Roman emperor
of whose character and resources he was ignorant. Instead of
executing his threats against the Eastern empire, he marched
into the poor and savage countries of Germany, which were
subject to the dominion of the Franks. After two doubtful
battles, he consented to retire, and the Austrasian king
relieve the distress of his camp with an immediate supply of
corn and cattle. (7) Such repeated disappointments had
chilled the spirit of the Avars, and their power would have
dissolved away in the Sarmatian desert, if the alliance of
Alboin, king of the Lombards, had not given a new object to
their arms, and a lasting settlement to their wearied
fortunes.
While Alboin served under his father's standard, he
encountered in battle, and transpierced with his lance, the
rival prince of the Gepidae. The Lombards, who applauded
such early prowess, requested his father, with unanimous
acclamations, that the heroic youth, who had shared the
dangers of the field, might be admitted to the feast of
victory. "You are not unmindful," replied the inflexible
Audoin, "of the wise customs of our ancestors. Whatever may
be his merit, a prince is incapable of sitting at table with
his father till he has received his arms from a foreign and
royal hand." Alboin bowed with reverence to the institutions
of his country, selected forty companions, and boldly
visited the court of Turisund, king of the Gepidae, who
embraced and entertained, according to the laws of
hospitality, the murderer of his son. At the banquet,
whilst Alboin occupied the seat of the youth whom he had
slain, a tender remembrance arose in the mind of Turisund.
"How dear is that place! how hateful is that person!" were
the words that escaped, with a sigh, from the indignant
father. His grief exasperated the national resentment of
the Gepidae; and Cunimund, his surviving son, was provoked
by wine, or fraternal affection, to the desire of vengeance.
"The Lombards," said the rude Barbarian, "resemble, in
figure and in smell, the mares of our Sarmatian plains." And
this insult was a coarse allusion to the white bands which
enveloped their legs. "Add another resemblance," replied an
audacious Lombard; "you have felt how strongly they kick.
Visit the plain of Asfield, and seek for the bones of thy
brother: they are mingled with those of the vilest animals."
The Gepidae, a nation of warriors, started from their seats,
and the fearless Alboin, with his forty companions, laid
their hands on their swords. The tumult was appeased by the
venerable interposition of Turisund. He saved his own
honor, and the life of his guest; and, after the solemn
rites of investiture, dismissed the stranger in the bloody
arms of his son; the gift of a weeping parent. Alboin
returned in triumph; and the Lombards, who celebrated his
matchless intrepidity, were compelled to praise the virtues
of an enemy. (8) In this extraordinary visit he had probably
seen the daughter of Cunimund, who soon after ascended the
throne of the Gepidae. Her name was Rosamond, an
appellation expressive of female beauty, and which our own
history or romance has consecrated to amorous tales. The
king of the Lombards (the father of Alboin no longer lived)
was contracted to the granddaughter of Clovis; but the
restraints of faith and policy soon yielded to the hope of
possessing the fair Rosamond, and of insulting her family
and nation. The arts of persuasion were tried without
success; and the impatient lover, by force and stratagem,
obtained the object of his desires. War was the consequence
which he foresaw and solicited; but the Lombards could not
long withstand the furious assault of the Gepidae, who were
sustained by a Roman army. And, as the offer of marriage
was rejected with contempt, Alboin was compelled to
relinquish his prey, and to partake of the disgrace which he
had inflicted on the house of Cunimund. (9)
When a public quarrel is envenomed by private injuries, a
blow that is not mortal or decisive can be productive only
of a short truce, which allows the unsuccessful combatant to
sharpen his arms for a new encounter. The strength of
Alboin had been found unequal to the gratification of his
love, ambition, and revenge: he condescended to implore the
formidable aid of the chagan; and the arguments that he
employed are expressive of the art and policy of the
Barbarians. In the attack of the Gepidae, he had been
prompted by the just desire of extirpating a people whom
their alliance with the Roman empire had rendered the common
enemies of the nations, and the personal adversaries of the
chagan. If the forces of the Avars and the Lombards should
unite in this glorious quarrel, the victory was secure, and
the reward inestimable: the Danube, the Hebrus, Italy, and
Constantinople, would be exposed, without a barrier, to
their invincible arms. But, if they hesitated or delayed to
prevent the malice of the Romans, the same spirit which had
insulted would pursue the Avars to the extremity of the
earth. These specious reasons were heard by the chagan with
coldness and disdain: he detained the Lombard ambassadors in
his camp, protracted the negotiation, and by turns alleged
his want of inclination, or his want of ability, to
undertake this important enterprise. At length he signified
the ultimate price of his alliance, that the Lombards should
immediately present him with a tithe of their cattle; that
the spoils and captives should be equally divided; but that
the lands of the Gepidae should become the sole patrimony of
the Avars. Such hard conditions were eagerly accepted by the
passions of Alboin; and, as the Romans were dissatisfied
with the ingratitude and perfidy of the Gepidae, Justin
abandoned that incorrigible people to their fate, and
remained the tranquil spectator of this unequal conflict.
The despair of Cunimund was active and dangerous. He was
informed that the Avars had entered his confines; but, on
the strong assurance that, after the defeat of the Lombards,
these foreign invaders would easily be repelled, he rushed
forwards to encounter the implacable enemy of his name and
family. But the courage of the Gepidae could secure them no
more than an honorable death. The bravest of the nation fell
in the field of battle; the king of the Lombards
contemplated with delight the head of Cunimund; and his
skull was fashioned into a cup to satiate the hatred of the
conqueror, or, perhaps, to comply with the savage custom of
his country. (10) After this victory, no further obstacle
could impede the progress of the confederates, and they
faithfully executed the terms of their agreement. (11) The
fair countries of Walachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, and the
other parts of Hungary beyond the Danube, were occupied,
without resistance, by a new colony of Scythians; and the
Dacian empire of the chagans subsisted with splendor above
two hundred and thirty years. The nation of the Gepidae was
dissolved; but, in the distribution of the captives, the
slaves of the Avars were less fortunate than the companions
of the Lombards, whose generosity adopted a valiant foe, and
whose freedom was incompatible with cool and deliberate
tyranny. One moiety of the spoil introduced into the camp
of Alboin more wealth than a Barbarian could readily
compute. The fair Rosamond was persuaded, or compelled, to
acknowledge the rights of her victorious lover; and the
daughter of Cunimund appeared to forgive those crimes which
might be imputed to her own irresistible charms.
The destruction of a mighty kingdom established the fame of
Alboin. In the days of Charlemagne, the Bavarians, the
Saxons, and the other tribes of the Teutonic language, still
repeated the songs which described the heroic virtues, the
valor, liberality, and fortune of the king of the Lombards.
(12) But his ambition was yet unsatisfied; and the conqueror
of the Gepidae turned his eyes from the Danube to the richer
banks of the Po, and the Tyber. Fifteen years had not
elapsed, since his subjects, the confederates of Narses, had
visited the pleasant climate of Italy: the mountains, the
rivers, the highways, were familiar to their memory: the
report of their success, perhaps the view of their spoils,
had kindled in the rising generation the flame of emulation
and enterprise. Their hopes were encouraged by the spirit
and eloquence of Alboin: and it is affirmed, that he spoke
to their senses, by producing at the royal feast, the
fairest and most exquisite fruits that grew spontaneously in
the garden of the world. No sooner had he erected his
standard, than the native strength of the Lombard was
multiplied by the adventurous youth of Germany and Scythia.
The robust peasantry of Noricum and Pannonia had resumed the
manners of Barbarians; and the names of the Gepidae,
Bulgarians, Sarmatians, and Bavarians, may be distinctly
traced in the provinces of Italy. (13) Of the Saxons, the old
allies of the Lombards, twenty thousand warriors, with their
wives and children, accepted the invitation of Alboin. Their
bravery contributed to his success; but the accession or the
absence of their numbers was not sensibly felt in the
magnitude of his host. Every mode of religion was freely
practised by its respective votaries. The king of the
Lombards had been educated in the Arian heresy; but the
Catholics, in their public worship, were allowed to pray for
his conversion; while the more stubborn Barbarians
sacrificed a she-goat, or perhaps a captive, to the gods of
their fathers. (14) The Lombards, and their confederates,
were united by their common attachment to a chief, who
excelled in all the virtues and vices of a savage hero; and
the vigilance of Alboin provided an ample magazine of
offensive and defensive arms for the use of the expedition.
The portable wealth of the Lombards attended the march:
their lands they cheerfully relinquished to the Avars, on
the solemn promise, which was made and accepted without a
smile, that if they failed in the conquest of Italy, these
voluntary exiles should be reinstated in their former
possessions.
They might have failed, if Narses had been the antagonist of
the Lombards; and the veteran warriors, the associates of
his Gothic victory, would have encountered with reluctance
an enemy whom they dreaded and esteemed. But the weakness
of the Byzantine court was subservient to the Barbarian
cause; and it was for the ruin of Italy, that the emperor
once listened to the complaints of his subjects. The
virtues of Narses were stained with avarice; and, in his
provincial reign of fifteen years, he accumulated a treasure
of gold and silver which surpassed the modesty of a private
fortune. His government was oppressive or unpopular, and
the general discontent was expressed with freedom by the
deputies of Rome. Before the throne of Justinian they
boldly declared, that their Gothic servitude had been more
tolerable than the despotism of a Greek eunuch; and that,
unless their tyrant were instantly removed, they would
consult their own happiness in the choice of a master. The
apprehension of a revolt was urged by the voice of envy and
detraction, which had so recently triumphed over the merit
of Belisarius. A new exarch, Longinus, was appointed to
supersede the conqueror of Italy, and the base motives of
his recall were revealed in the insulting mandate of the
empress Sophia, "that he should leave to men the exercise of
arms, and return to his proper station among the maidens of
the palace, where a distaff should be again placed in the
hand of the eunuch." "I will spin her such a thread as she
shall not easily unravel!" is said to have been the reply
which indignation and conscious virtue extorted from the
hero. Instead of attending, a slave and a victim, at the
gate of the Byzantine palace, he retired to Naples, from
whence (if any credit is due to the belief of the times)
Narses invited the Lombards to chastise the ingratitude of
the prince and people. (15) But the passions of the people
are furious and changeable, and the Romans soon recollected
the merits, or dreaded the resentment, of their victorious
general. By the mediation of the pope, who undertook a
special pilgrimage to Naples, their repentance was accepted;
and Narses, assuming a milder aspect and a more dutiful
language, consented to fix his residence in the Capitol.
His death, (16) though in the extreme period of old age, was
unseasonable and premature, since his genius alone could
have repaired the last and fatal error of his life. The
reality, or the suspicion, of a conspiracy disarmed and
disunited the Italians. The soldiers resented the disgrace,
and bewailed the loss, of their general. They were ignorant
of their new exarch; and Longinus was himself ignorant of
the state of the army and the province. In the preceding
years Italy had been desolated by pestilence and famine, and
a disaffected people ascribed the calamities of nature to
the guilt or folly of their rulers. (17)
Whatever might be the grounds of his security, Alboin
neither expected nor encountered a Roman army in the field.
He ascended the Julian Alps, and looked down with contempt
and desire on the fruitful plains to which his victory
communicated the perpetual appellation of Lombardy. A
faithful chieftain, and a select band, were stationed at
Forum Julii, the modern Friuli, to guard the passes of the
mountains. The Lombards respected the strength of Pavia,
and listened to the prayers of the Trevisans: their slow and
heavy multitudes proceeded to occupy the palace and city of
Verona; and Milan, now rising from her ashes, was invested
by the powers of Alboin five months after his departure from
Pannonia. Terror preceded his march: he found every where,
or he left, a dreary solitude; and the pusillanimous
Italians presumed, without a trial, that the stranger was
invincible. Escaping to lakes, or rocks, or morasses, the
affrighted crowds concealed some fragments of their wealth,
and delayed the moment of their servitude. Paulinus, the
patriarch of Aquileia, removed his treasures, sacred and
profane, to the Isle of Grado, (18) and his successors were
adopted by the infant republic of Venice, which was
continually enriched by the public calamities. Honoratus,
who filled the chair of St. Ambrose, had credulously
accepted the faithless offers of a capitulation; and the
archbishop, with the clergy and nobles of Milan, were driven
by the perfidy of Alboin to seek a refuge in the less
accessible ramparts of Genoa. Along the maritime coast, the
courage of the inhabitants was supported by the facility of
supply, the hopes of relief, and the power of escape; but
from the Trentine hills to the gates of Ravenna and Rome the
inland regions of Italy became, without a battle or a siege,
the lasting patrimony of the Lombards. The submission of
the people invited the Barbarian to assume the character of
a lawful sovereign, and the helpless exarch was confined to
the office of announcing to the emperor Justin the rapid and
irretrievable loss of his provinces and cities. (19) One
city, which had been diligently fortified by the Goths,
resisted the arms of a new invader; and while Italy was
subdued by the flying detachments of the Lombards, the royal
camp was fixed above three years before the western gate of
Ticinum, or Pavia. The same courage which obtains the
esteem of a civilized enemy provokes the fury of a savage,
and the impatient besieger had bound himself by a tremendous
oath, that age, and sex, and dignity, should be confounded
in a general massacre. The aid of famine at length enabled
him to execute his bloody vow; but, as Alboin entered the
gate, his horse stumbled, fell, and could not be raised from
the ground. One of his attendants was prompted by
compassion, or piety, to interpret this miraculous sign of
the wrath of Heaven: the conqueror paused and relented; he
sheathed his sword, and peacefully reposing himself in the
palace of Theodoric, proclaimed to the trembling multitude
that they should live and obey. Delighted with the
situation of a city which was endeared to his pride by the
difficulty of the purchase, the prince of the Lombards
disdained the ancient glories of Milan; and Pavia, during
some ages, was respected as the capital of the kingdom of
Italy. (20)
The reign of the founder was splendid and transient; and,
before he could regulate his new conquests, Alboin fell a
sacrifice to domestic treason and female revenge. In a
palace near Verona, which had not been erected for the
Barbarians, he feasted the companions of his arms;
intoxication was the reward of valor, and the king himself
was tempted by appetite, or vanity, to exceed the ordinary
measure of his intemperance. After draining many capacious
bowls of Rhaetian or Falernian wine, he called for the skull
of Cunimund, the noblest and most precious ornament of his
sideboard. The cup of victory was accepted with horrid
applause by the circle of the Lombard chiefs. "Fill it
again with wine," exclaimed the inhuman conqueror, "fill it
to the brim: carry this goblet to the queen, and request in
my name that she would rejoice with her father." In an agony
of grief and rage, Rosamond had strength to utter, "Let the
will of my lord be obeyed!" and, touching it with her lips,
pronounced a silent imprecation, that the insult should be
washed away in the blood of Alboin. Some indulgence might
be due to the resentment of a daughter, if she had not
already violated the duties of a wife. Implacable in her
enmity, or inconstant in her love, the queen of Italy had
stooped from the throne to the arms of a subject, and
Helmichis, the king's armor-bearer, was the secret minister
of her pleasure and revenge. Against the proposal of the
murder, he could no longer urge the scruples of fidelity or
gratitude; but Helmichis trembled when he revolved the
danger as well as the guilt, when he recollected the
matchless strength and intrepidity of a warrior whom he had
so often attended in the field of battle. He pressed and
obtained, that one of the bravest champions of the Lombards
should be associated to the enterprise; but no more than a
promise of secrecy could be drawn from the gallant Peredeus,
and the mode of seduction employed by Rosamond betrays her
shameless insensibility both to honor and love. She
supplied the place of one of her female attendants who was
beloved by Peredeus, and contrived some excuse for darkness
and silence, till she could inform her companion that he had
enjoyed the queen of the Lombards, and that his own death,
or the death of Alboin, must be the consequence of such
treasonable adultery. In this alternative he chose rather
to be the accomplice than the victim of Rosamond, (21) whose
undaunted spirit was incapable of fear or remorse. She
expected and soon found a favorable moment, when the king,
oppressed with wine, had retired from the table to his
afternoon slumbers. His faithless spouse was anxious for
his health and repose: the gates of the palace were shut,
the arms removed, the attendants dismissed, and Rosamond,
after lulling him to rest by her tender caresses, unbolted
the chamber door, and urged the reluctant conspirators to
the instant execution of the deed. On the first alarm, the
warrior started from his couch: his sword, which he
attempted to draw, had been fastened to the scabbard by the
hand of Rosamond; and a small stool, his only weapon, could
not long protect him from the spears of the assassins. The
daughter of Cunimund smiled in his fall: his body was buried
under the staircase of the palace; and the grateful
posterity of the Lombards revered the tomb and the memory of
their victorious leader.
The ambitious Rosamond aspired to reign in the name of her
lover; the city and palace of Verona were awed by her power;
and a faithful band of her native Gepidae was prepared to
applaud the revenge, and to second the wishes, of their
sovereign. But the Lombard chiefs, who fled in the first
moments of consternation and disorder, had resumed their
courage and collected their powers; and the nation, instead
of submitting to her reign, demanded, with unanimous cries,
that justice should be executed on the guilty spouse and the
murderers of their king. She sought a refuge among the
enemies of her country; and a criminal who deserved the
abhorrence of mankind was protected by the selfish policy of
the exarch. With her daughter, the heiress of the Lombard
throne, her two lovers, her trusty Gepidae, and the spoils
of the palace of Verona, Rosamond descended the Adige and
the Po, and was transported by a Greek vessel to the safe
harbor of Ravenna. Longinus beheld with delight the charms
and the treasures of the widow of Alboin: her situation and
her past conduct might justify the most licentious
proposals; and she readily listened to the passion of a
minister, who, even in the decline of the empire, was
respected as the equal of kings. The death of a jealous
lover was an easy and grateful sacrifice; and, as Helmichis
issued from the bath, he received the deadly potion from the
hand of his mistress. The taste of the liquor, its speedy
operation, and his experience of the character of Rosamond,
convinced him that he was poisoned: he pointed his dagger to
her breast, compelled her to drain the remainder of the cup,
and expired in a few minutes, with the consolation that she
could not survive to enjoy the fruits of her wickedness. The
daughter of Alboin and Rosamond, with the richest spoils of
the Lombards, was embarked for Constantinople: the
surprising strength of Peredeus amused and terrified the
Imperial court: (A) his blindness and revenge exhibited an
imperfect copy of the adventures of Samson. By the free
suffrage of the nation, in the assembly of Pavia, Clepho,
one of their noblest chiefs, was elected as the successor of
Alboin. Before the end of eighteen months, the throne was
polluted by a second murder: Clepho was stabbed by the hand
of a domestic; the regal office was suspended above ten
years during the minority of his son Autharis; and Italy was
divided and oppressed by a ducal aristocracy of thirty
tyrants. (22)
When the nephew of Justinian ascended the throne, he
proclaimed a new aera of happiness and glory. The annals of
the second Justin (23) are marked with disgrace abroad and
misery at home. In the West, the Roman empire was afflicted
by the loss of Italy, the desolation of Africa, and the
conquests of the Persians. Injustice prevailed both in the
capital and the provinces: the rich trembled for their
property, the poor for their safety, the ordinary
magistrates were ignorant or venal, the occasional remedies
appear to have been arbitrary and violent, and the
complaints of the people could no longer be silenced by the
splendid names of a legislator and a conqueror. The opinion
which imputes to the prince all the calamities of his times
may be countenanced by the historian as a serious truth or a
salutary prejudice. Yet a candid suspicion will arise, that
the sentiments of Justin were pure and benevolent, and that
he might have filled his station without reproach, if the
faculties of his mind had not been impaired by disease,
which deprived the emperor of the use of his feet, and
confined him to the palace, a stranger to the complaints of
the people and the vices of the government. The tardy
knowledge of his own impotence determined him to lay down
the weight of the diadem; and, in the choice of a worthy
substitute, he showed some symptoms of a discerning and even
magnanimous spirit. The only son of Justin and Sophia died
in his infancy; their daughter Arabia was the wife of
Baduarius, (24) superintendent of the palace, and afterwards
commander of the Italian armies, who vainly aspired to
confirm the rights of marriage by those of adoption. While
the empire appeared an object of desire, Justin was
accustomed to behold with jealousy and hatred his brothers
and cousins, the rivals of his hopes; nor could he depend on
the gratitude of those who would accept the purple as a
restitution, rather than a gift. Of these competitors, one
had been removed by exile, and afterwards by death; and the
emperor himself had inflicted such cruel insults on another,
that he must either dread his resentment or despise his
patience. This domestic animosity was refined into a
generous resolution of seeking a successor, not in his
family, but in the republic; and the artful Sophia
recommended Tiberius, (25) his faithful captain of the
guards, whose virtues and fortune the emperor might cherish
as the fruit of his judicious choice. The ceremony of his
elevation to the rank of Caesar, or Augustus, was performed
in the portico of the palace, in the presence of the
patriarch and the senate. Justin collected the remaining
strength of his mind and body; but the popular belief that
his speech was inspired by the Deity betrays a very humble
opinion both of the man and of the times. (26) "You behold,"
said the emperor, "the ensigns of supreme power. You are
about to receive them, not from my hand, but from the hand
of God. Honor them, and from them you will derive honor.
Respect the empress your mother: you are now her son;
before, you were her servant. Delight not in blood; abstain
from revenge; avoid those actions by which I have incurred
the public hatred; and consult the experience, rather than
the example, of your predecessor. As a man, I have sinned;
as a sinner, even in this life, I have been severely
punished: but these servants, (and we pointed to his
ministers,) who have abused my confidence, and inflamed my
passions, will appear with me before the tribunal of Christ.
I have been dazzled by the splendor of the diadem: be thou
wise and modest; remember what you have been, remember what
you are. You see around us your slaves, and your children:
with the authority, assume the tenderness, of a parent.
Love your people like yourself; cultivate the affections,
maintain the discipline, of the army; protect the fortunes
of the rich, relieve the necessities of the poor." (27) The
assembly, in silence and in tears, applauded the counsels,
and sympathized with the repentance, of their prince the
patriarch rehearsed the prayers of the church; Tiberius
received the diadem on his knees; and Justin, who in his
abdication appeared most worthy to reign, addressed the new
monarch in the following words: "If you consent, I live; if
you command, I die: may the God of heaven and earth infuse
into your heart whatever I have neglected or forgotten." The
four last years of the emperor Justin were passed in
tranquil obscurity: his conscience was no longer tormented
by the remembrance of those duties which he was incapable of
discharging; and his choice was justified by the filial
reverence and gratitude of Tiberius.
Among the virtues of Tiberius, (28) his beauty (he was one of
the tallest and most comely of the Romans) might introduce
him to the favor of Sophia; and the widow of Justin was
persuaded, that she should preserve her station and
influence under the reign of a second and more youthful
husband. But, if the ambitious candidate had been tempted
to flatter and dissemble, it was no longer in his power to
fulfil her expectations, or his own promise. The factions
of the hippodrome demanded, with some impatience, the name
of their new empress: both the people and Sophia were
astonished by the proclamation of Anastasia, the secret,
though lawful, wife of the emperor Tiberius. Whatever could
alleviate the disappointment of Sophia, Imperial honors, a
stately palace, a numerous household, was liberally bestowed
by the piety of her adopted son; on solemn occasions he
attended and consulted the widow of his benefactor; but her
ambition disdained the vain semblance of royalty, and the
respectful appellation of mother served to exasperate,
rather than appease, the rage of an injured woman. While
she accepted, and repaid with a courtly smile, the fair
expressions of regard and confidence, a secret alliance was
concluded between the dowager empress and her ancient
enemies; and Justinian, the son of Germanus, was employed as
the instrument of her revenge. The pride of the reigning
house supported, with reluctance, the dominion of a
stranger: the youth was deservedly popular; his name, after
the death of Justin, had been mentioned by a tumultuous
faction; and his own submissive offer of his head with a
treasure of sixty thousand pounds, might be interpreted as
an evidence of guilt, or at least of fear. Justinian
received a free pardon, and the command of the eastern army.
The Persian monarch fled before his arms; and the
acclamations which accompanied his triumph declared him
worthy of the purple. His artful patroness had chosen the
month of the vintage, while the emperor, in a rural
solitude, was permitted to enjoy the pleasures of a subject.
On the first intelligence of her designs, he returned to
Constantinople, and the conspiracy was suppressed by his
presence and firmness. From the pomp and honors which she
had abused, Sophia was reduced to a modest allowance:
Tiberius dismissed her train, intercepted her
correspondence, and committed to a faithful guard the
custody of her person. But the services of Justinian were
not considered by that excellent prince as an aggravation of
his offences: after a mild reproof, his treason and
ingratitude were forgiven; and it was commonly believed,
that the emperor entertained some thoughts of contracting a
double alliance with the rival of his throne. The voice of
an angel (such a fable was propagated) might reveal to the
emperor, that he should always triumph over his domestic
foes; but Tiberius derived a firmer assurance from the
innocence and generosity of his own mind.
With the odious name of Tiberius, he assumed the more
popular appellation of Constantine, and imitated the purer
virtues of the Antonines. After recording the vice or folly
of so many Roman princes, it is pleasing to repose, for a
moment, on a character conspicuous by the qualities of
humanity, justice, temperance, and fortitude; to contemplate
a sovereign affable in his palace, pious in the church,
impartial on the seat of judgment, and victorious, at least
by his generals, in the Persian war. The most glorious
trophy of his victory consisted in a multitude of captives,
whom Tiberius entertained, redeemed, and dismissed to their
native homes with the charitable spirit of a Christian hero.
The merit or misfortunes of his own subjects had a dearer
claim to his beneficence, and he measured his bounty not so
much by their expectations as by his own dignity. This
maxim, however dangerous in a trustee of the public wealth,
was balanced by a principle of humanity and justice, which
taught him to abhor, as of the basest alloy, the gold that
was extracted from the tears of the people. For their
relief, as often as they had suffered by natural or hostile
calamities, he was impatient to remit the arrears of the
past, or the demands of future taxes: he sternly rejected
the servile offerings of his ministers, which were
compensated by tenfold oppression; and the wise and
equitable laws of Tiberius excited the praise and regret of
succeeding times. Constantinople believed that the emperor
had discovered a treasure: but his genuine treasure
consisted in the practice of liberal economy, and the
contempt of all vain and superfluous expense. The Romans of
the East would have been happy, if the best gift of Heaven,
a patriot king, had been confirmed as a proper and permanent
blessing. But in less than four years after the death of
Justin, his worthy successor sunk into a mortal disease,
which left him only sufficient time to restore the diadem,
according to the tenure by which he held it, to the most
deserving of his fellow-citizens. He selected Maurice from
the crowd, a judgment more precious than the purple itself:
the patriarch and senate were summoned to the bed of the
dying prince: he bestowed his daughter and the empire; and
his last advice was solemnly delivered by the voice of the
quaestor. Tiberius expressed his hope that the virtues of
his son and successor would erect the noblest mausoleum to
his memory. His memory was embalmed by the public
affliction; but the most sincere grief evaporates in the
tumult of a new reign, and the eyes and acclamations of
mankind were speedily directed to the rising sun. The
emperor Maurice derived his origin from ancient Rome; (29)
but his immediate parents were settled at Arabissus in
Cappadocia, and their singular felicity preserved them alive
to behold and partake the fortune of their august son. The
youth of Maurice was spent in the profession of arms:
Tiberius promoted him to the command of a new and favorite
legion of twelve thousand confederates; his valor and
conduct were signalized in the Persian war; and he returned
to Constantinople to accept, as his just reward, the
inheritance of the empire. Maurice ascended the throne at
the mature age of forty-three years; and he reigned above
twenty years over the East and over himself; (30) expelling
from his mind the wild democracy of passions, and
establishing (according to the quaint expression of
Evagrius) a perfect aristocracy of reason and virtue. Some
suspicion will degrade the testimony of a subject, though he
protests that his secret praise should never reach the ear
of his sovereign, (31) and some failings seem to place the
character of Maurice below the purer merit of his
predecessor. His cold and reserved demeanor might be
imputed to arrogance; his justice was not always exempt from
cruelty, nor his clemency from weakness; and his rigid
economy too often exposed him to the reproach of avarice.
But the rational wishes of an absolute monarch must tend to
the happiness of his people. Maurice was endowed with sense
and courage to promote that happiness, and his
administration was directed by the principles and example of
Tiberius. The pusillanimity of the Greeks had introduced so
complete a separation between the offices of king and of
general, that a private soldier, who had deserved and
obtained the purple, seldom or never appeared at the head of
his armies. Yet the emperor Maurice enjoyed the glory of
restoring the Persian monarch to his throne; his lieutenants
waged a doubtful war against the Avars of the Danube; and he
cast an eye of pity, of ineffectual pity, on the abject and
distressful state of his Italian provinces.
From Italy the emperors were incessantly tormented by tales
of misery and demands of succor, which extorted the
humiliating confession of their own weakness. The expiring
dignity of Rome was only marked by the freedom and energy of
her complaints: "If you are incapable," she said, "of
delivering us from the sword of the Lombards, save us at
least from the calamity of famine." Tiberius forgave the
reproach, and relieved the distress: a supply of corn was
transported from Egypt to the Tyber; and the Roman people,
invoking the name, not of Camillus, but of St. Peter
repulsed the Barbarians from their walls. But the relief was
accidental, the danger was perpetual and pressing; and the
clergy and senate, collecting the remains of their ancient
opulence, a sum of three thousand pounds of gold, despatched
the patrician Pamphronius to lay their gifts and their
complaints at the foot of the Byzantine throne. The
attention of the court, and the forces of the East, were
diverted by the Persian war: but the justice of Tiberius
applied the subsidy to the defence of the city; and he
dismissed the patrician with his best advice, either to
bribe the Lombard chiefs, or to purchase the aid of the
kings of France. Notwithstanding this weak invention, Italy
was still afflicted, Rome was again besieged, and the suburb
of Classe, only three miles from Ravenna, was pillaged and
occupied by the troops of a simple duke of Spoleto. Maurice
gave audience to a second deputation of priests and
senators: the duties and the menaces of religion were
forcibly urged in the letters of the Roman pontiff; and his
nuncio, the deacon Gregory, was alike qualified to solicit
the powers either of heaven or of the earth. The emperor
adopted, with stronger effect, the measures of his
predecessor: some formidable chiefs were persuaded to
embrace the friendship of the Romans; and one of them, a
mild and faithful Barbarian, lived and died in the service
of the exarchs: the passes of the Alps were delivered to the
Franks; and the pope encouraged them to violate, without
scruple, their oaths and engagements to the misbelievers.
Childebert, the great-grandson of Clovis, was persuaded to
invade Italy by the payment of fifty thousand pieces; but,
as he had viewed with delight some Byzantine coin of the
weight of one pound of gold, the king of Austrasia might
stipulate, that the gift should be rendered more worthy of
his acceptance, by a proper mixture of these respectable
medals. The dukes of the Lombards had provoked by frequent
inroads their powerful neighbors of Gaul. As soon as they
were apprehensive of a just retaliation, they renounced
their feeble and disorderly independence: the advantages of
real government, union, secrecy, and vigor, were unanimously
confessed; and Autharis, the son of Clepho, had already
attained the strength and reputation of a warrior. Under
the standard of their new king, the conquerors of Italy
withstood three successive invasions, one of which was led
by Childebert himself, the last of the Merovingian race who
descended from the Alps. The first expedition was defeated
by the jealous animosity of the Franks and Alemanni. In the
second they were vanquished in a bloody battle, with more
loss and dishonor than they had sustained since the
foundation of their monarchy. Impatient for revenge, they
returned a third time with accumulated force, and Autharis
yielded to the fury of the torrent. The troops and treasures
of the Lombards were distributed in the walled towns between
the Alps and the Apennine. A nation, less sensible of
danger than of fatigue and delay, soon murmured against the
folly of their twenty commanders; and the hot vapors of an
Italian sun infected with disease those tramontane bodies
which had already suffered the vicissitudes of intemperance
and famine. The powers that were inadequate to the conquest,
were more than sufficient for the desolation, of the
country; nor could the trembling natives distinguish between
their enemies and their deliverers. If the junction of the
Merovingian and Imperial forces had been effected in the
neighborhood of Milan, perhaps they might have subverted the
throne of the Lombards; but the Franks expected six days the
signal of a flaming village, and the arms of the Greeks were
idly employed in the reduction of Modena and Parma, which
were torn from them after the retreat of their transalpine
allies. The victorious Autharis asserted his claim to the
dominion of Italy. At the foot of the Rhaetian Alps, he
subdued the resistance, and rifled the hidden treasures, of
a sequestered island in the Lake of Comum. At the extreme
point of the Calabria, he touched with his spear a column on
the sea-shore of Rhegium, (32) proclaiming that ancient
landmark to stand the immovable boundary of his kingdom. (33)
During a period of two hundred years, Italy was unequally
divided between the kingdom of the Lombards and the
exarchate of Ravenna. The offices and professions, which
the jealousy of Constantine had separated, were united by
the indulgence of Justinian; and eighteen successive exarchs
were invested, in the decline of the empire, with the full
remains of civil, of military, and even of ecclesiastical,
power. Their immediate jurisdiction, which was afterwards
consecrated as the patrimony of St. Peter, extended over the
modern Romagna, the marshes or valleys of Ferrara and
Commachio, (34) five maritime cities from Rimini to Ancona,
and a second inland Pentapolis, between the Adriatic coast
and the hills of the Apennine. Three subordinate provinces,
of Rome, of Venice, and of Naples, which were divided by
hostile lands from the palace of Ravenna, acknowledged, both
in peace and war, the supremacy of the exarch. The duchy of
Rome appears to have included the Tuscan, Sabine, and Latin
conquests, of the first four hundred years of the city, and
the limits may be distinctly traced along the coast, from
Civita Vecchia to Terracina, and with the course of the
Tyber from Ameria and Narni to the port of Ostia. The
numerous islands from Grado to Chiozza composed the infant
dominion of Venice: but the more accessible towns on the
Continent were overthrown by the Lombards, who beheld with
impotent fury a new capital rising from the waves. The power
of the dukes of Naples was circumscribed by the bay and the
adjacent isles, by the hostile territory of Capua, and by
the Roman colony of Amalphi, (35) whose industrious citizens,
by the invention of the mariner's compass, have unveiled the
face of the globe. The three islands of Sardinia, Corsica,
and Sicily, still adhered to the empire; and the acquisition
of the farther Calabria removed the landmark of Autharis
from the shore of Rhegium to the Isthmus of Consentia. In
Sardinia, the savage mountaineers preserved the liberty and
religion of their ancestors; and the husbandmen of Sicily
were chained to their rich and cultivated soil. Rome was
oppressed by the iron sceptre of the exarchs, and a Greek,
perhaps a eunuch, insulted with impunity the ruins of the
Capitol. But Naples soon acquired the privilege of electing
her own dukes: (36) the independence of Amalphi was the fruit
of commerce; and the voluntary attachment of Venice was
finally ennobled by an equal alliance with the Eastern
empire. On the map of Italy, the measure of the exarchate
occupies a very inadequate space, but it included an ample
proportion of wealth, industry, and population. The most
faithful and valuable subjects escaped from the Barbarian
yoke; and the banners of Pavia and Verona, of Milan and
Padua, were displayed in their respective quarters by the
new inhabitants of Ravenna. The remainder of Italy was
possessed by the Lombards; and from Pavia, the royal seat,
their kingdom was extended to the east, the north, and the
west, as far as the confines of the Avars, the Bavarians,
and the Franks of Austrasia and Burgundy. In the language of
modern geography, it is now represented by the Terra Firma
of the Venetian republic, Tyrol, the Milanese, Piedmont, the
coast of Genoa, Mantua, Parma, and Modena, the grand duchy
of Tuscany, and a large portion of the ecclesiastical state
from Perugia to the Adriatic. The dukes, and at length the
princes, of Beneventum, survived the monarchy, and
propagated the name of the Lombards. From Capua to
Tarentum, they reigned near five hundred years over the
greatest part of the present kingdom of Naples. (37)
In comparing the proportion of the victorious and the
vanquished people, the change of language will afford the
most probably inference. According to this standard, it
will appear, that the Lombards of Italy, and the Visigoths
of Spain, were less numerous than the Franks or Burgundians;
and the conquerors of Gaul must yield, in their turn, to the
multitude of Saxons and Angles who almost eradicated the
idioms of Britain. The modern Italian has been insensibly
formed by the mixture of nations: the awkwardness of the
Barbarians in the nice management of declensions and
conjugations reduced them to the use of articles and
auxiliary verbs; and many new ideas have been expressed by
Teutonic appellations. Yet the principal stock of technical
and familiar words is found to be of Latin derivation; (38)
and, if we were sufficiently conversant with the obsolete,
the rustic, and the municipal dialects of ancient Italy, we
should trace the origin of many terms which might, perhaps,
be rejected by the classic purity of Rome. A numerous army
constitutes but a small nation, and the powers of the
Lombards were soon diminished by the retreat of twenty
thousand Saxons, who scorned a dependent situation, and
returned, after many bold and perilous adventures, to their
native country. (39) The camp of Alboin was of formidable
extent, but the extent of a camp would be easily
circumscribed within the limits of a city; and its martial
in habitants must be thinly scattered over the face of a
large country. When Alboin descended from the Alps, he
invested his nephew, the first duke of Friuli, with the
command of the province and the people: but the prudent
Gisulf would have declined the dangerous office, unless he
had been permitted to choose, among the nobles of the
Lombards, a sufficient number of families (40) to form a
perpetual colony of soldiers and subjects. In the progress
of conquest, the same option could not be granted to the
dukes of Brescia or Bergamo, ot Pavia or Turin, of Spoleto
or Beneventum; but each of these, and each of their
colleagues, settled in his appointed district with a band of
followers who resorted to his standard in war and his
tribunal in peace. Their attachment was free and honorable:
resigning the gifts and benefits which they had accepted,
they might emigrate with their families into the
jurisdiction of another duke; but their absence from the
kingdom was punished with death, as a crime of military
desertion. (41) The posterity of the first conquerors struck
a deeper root into the soil, which, by every motive of
interest and honor, they were bound to defend. A Lombard
was born the soldier of his king and his duke; and the civil
assemblies of the nation displayed the banners, and assumed
the appellation, of a regular army. Of this army, the pay
and the rewards were drawn from the conquered provinces; and
the distribution, which was not effected till after the
death of Alboin, is disgraced by the foul marks of injustice
and rapine. Many of the most wealthy Italians were slain or
banished; the remainder were divided among the strangers,
and a tributary obligation was imposed (under the name of
hospitality) of paying to the Lombards a third part of the
fruits of the earth. Within less than seventy years, this
artificial system was abolished by a more simple and solid
tenure. (42) Either the Roman landlord was expelled by his
strong and insolent guest, or the annual payment, a third of
the produce, was exchanged by a more equitable transaction
for an adequate proportion of landed property. Under these
foreign masters, the business of agriculture, in the
cultivation of corn, wines, and olives, was exercised with
degenerate skill and industry by the labor of the slaves and
natives. But the occupations of a pastoral life were more
pleasing to the idleness of the Barbarian. In the rich
meadows of Venetia, they restored and improved the breed of
horses, for which that province had once been illustrious;
(43) and the Italians beheld with astonishment a foreign race
of oxen or buffaloes. (44) The depopulation of Lombardy, and
the increase of forests, afforded an ample range for the
pleasures of the chase. (45) That marvellous art which
teaches the birds of the air to acknowledge the voice, and
execute the commands, of their master, had been unknown to
the ingenuity of the Greeks and Romans. (46) Scandinavia and
Scythia produce the boldest and most tractable falcons: (47)
they were tamed and educated by the roving inhabitants,
always on horseback and in the field. This favorite
amusement of our ancestors was introduced by the Barbarians
into the Roman provinces; and the laws of Italy esteemed the
sword and the hawk as of equal dignity and importance in the
hands of a noble Lombard. (48)
So rapid was the influence of climate and example, that the
Lombards of the fourth generation surveyed with curiosity
and affright the portraits of their savage forefathers. (49)
Their heads were shaven behind, but the shaggy locks hung
over their eyes and mouth, and a long beard represented the
name and character of the nation. Their dress consisted of
loose linen garments, after the fashion of the Anglo-Saxons,
which were decorated, in their opinion, with broad stripes
or variegated colors. The legs and feet were clothed in
long hose, and open sandals; and even in the security of
peace a trusty sword was constantly girt to their side. Yet
this strange apparel, and horrid aspect, often concealed a
gentle and generous disposition; and as soon as the rage of
battle had subsided, the captives and subjects were
sometimes surprised by the humanity of the victor. The vices
of the Lombards were the effect of passion, of ignorance, of
intoxication; their virtues are the more laudable, as they
were not affected by the hypocrisy of social manners, nor
imposed by the rigid constraint of laws and education. I
should not be apprehensive of deviating from my subject, if
it were in my power to delineate the private life of the
conquerors of Italy; and I shall relate with pleasure the
adventurous gallantry of Autharis, which breathes the true
spirit of chivalry and romance. (50) After the loss of his
promised bride, a Merovingian princess, he sought in
marriage the daughter of the king of Bavaria; and Garribald
accepted the alliance of the Italian monarch. Impatient of
the slow progress of negotiation, the ardent lover escaped
from his palace, and visited the court of Bavaria in the
train of his own embassy. At the public audience, the
unknown stranger advanced to the throne, and informed
Garribald that the ambassador was indeed the minister of
state, but that he alone was the friend of Autharis, who had
trusted him with the delicate commission of making a
faithful report of the charms of his spouse. Theudelinda was
summoned to undergo this important examination; and, after a
pause of silent rapture, he hailed her as the queen of
Italy, and humbly requested that, according to the custom of
the nation, she would present a cup of wine to the first of
her new subjects. By the command of her father she obeyed:
Autharis received the cup in his turn, and, in restoring it
to the princess, he secretly touched her hand, and drew his
own finger over his face and lips. In the evening,
Theudelinda imparted to her nurse the indiscreet familiarity
of the stranger, and was comforted by the assurance, that
such boldness could proceed only from the king her husband,
who, by his beauty and courage, appeared worthy of her love.
The ambassadors were dismissed: no sooner did they reach the
confines of Italy than Autharis, raising himself on his
horse, darted his battle-axe against a tree with
incomparable strength and dexterity. "Such," said he to the
astonished Bavarians, "such are the strokes of the king of
the Lombards." On the approach of a French army, Garribald
and his daughter took refuge in the dominions of their ally;
and the marriage was consummated in the palace of Verona.
At the end of one year, it was dissolved by the death of
Autharis: but the virtues of Theudelinda (51) had endeared
her to the nation, and she was permitted to bestow, with her
hand, the sceptre of the Italian kingdom.
From this fact, as well as from similar events, (52) it is
certain that the Lombards possessed freedom to elect their
sovereign, and sense to decline the frequent use of that
dangerous privilege. The public revenue arose from the
produce of land and the profits of justice. When the
independent dukes agreed that Autharis should ascend the
throne of his father, they endowed the regal office with a
fair moiety of their respective domains. The proudest
nobles aspired to the honors of servitude near the person of
their prince: he rewarded the fidelity of his vassals by the
precarious gift of pensions and benefices; and atoned for
the injuries of war by the rich foundation of monasteries
and churches. In peace a judge, a leader in war, he never
usurped the powers of a sole and absolute legislator. The
king of Italy convened the national assemblies in the
palace, or more probably in the fields, of Pavia: his great
council was composed of the persons most eminent by their
birth and dignities; but the validity, as well as the
execution, of their decrees depended on the approbation of
the faithful people, the fortunate army of the Lombards.
About fourscore years after the conquest of Italy, their
traditional customs were transcribed in Teutonic Latin, (53)
and ratified by the consent of the prince and people: some
new regulations were introduced, more suitable to their
present condition; the example of Rotharis was imitated by
the wisest of his successors; and the laws of the Lombards
have been esteemed the least imperfect of the Barbaric
codes. (54) Secure by their courage in the possession of
liberty, these rude and hasty legislators were incapable of
balancing the powers of the constitution, or of discussing
the nice theory of political government. Such crimes as
threatened the life of the sovereign, or the safety of the
state, were adjudged worthy of death; but their attention
was principally confined to the defence of the person and
property of the subject. According to the strange
jurisprudence of the times, the guilt of blood might be
redeemed by a fine; yet the high price of nine hundred
pieces of gold declares a just sense of the value of a
simple citizen. Less atrocious injuries, a wound, a
fracture, a blow, an opprobrious word, were measured with
scrupulous and almost ridiculous diligence; and the prudence
of the legislator encouraged the ignoble practice of
bartering honor and revenge for a pecuniary compensation.
The ignorance of the Lombards in the state of Paganism or
Christianity gave implicit credit to the malice and mischief
of witchcraft, but the judges of the seventeenth century
might have been instructed and confounded by the wisdom of
Rotharis, who derides the absurd superstition, and protects
the wretched victims of popular or judicial cruelty. (55) The
same spirit of a legislator, superior to his age and
country, may be ascribed to Luitprand, who condemns, while
he tolerates, the impious and inveterate abuse of duels, (56)
observing, from his own experience, that the juster cause
had often been oppressed by successful violence. Whatever
merit may be discovered in the laws of the Lombards, they
are the genuine fruit of the reason of the Barbarians, who
never admitted the bishops of Italy to a seat in their
legislative councils. But the succession of their kings is
marked with virtue and ability; the troubled series of their
annals is adorned with fair intervals of peace, order, and
domestic happiness; and the Italians enjoyed a milder and
more equitable government, than any of the other kingdoms
which had been founded on the ruins of the Western empire.
(57)
Amidst the arms of the Lombards, and under the despotism of
the Greeks, we again inquire into the fate of Rome, (58)
which had reached, about the close of the sixth century, the
lowest period of her depression. By the removal of the seat
of empire, and the successive loss of the provinces, the
sources of public and private opulence were exhausted: the
lofty tree, under whose shade the nations of the earth had
reposed, was deprived of its leaves and branches, and the
sapless trunk was left to wither on the ground. The
ministers of command, and the messengers of victory, no
longer met on the Appian or Flaminian way; and the hostile
approach of the Lombards was often felt, and continually
feared. The inhabitants of a potent and peaceful capital,
who visit without an anxious thought the garden of the
adjacent country, will faintly picture in their fancy the
distress of the Romans: they shut or opened their gates with
a trembling hand, beheld from the walls the flames of their
houses, and heard the lamentations of their brethren, who
were coupled together like dogs, and dragged away into
distant slavery beyond the sea and the mountains. Such
incessant alarms must annihilate the pleasures and interrupt
the labors of a rural life; and the Campagna of Rome was
speedily reduced to the state of a dreary wilderness, in
which the land is barren, the waters are impure, and the air
is infectious. Curiosity and ambition no longer attracted
the nations to the capital of the world: but, if chance or
necessity directed the steps of a wandering stranger, he
contemplated with horror the vacancy and solitude of the
city, and might be tempted to ask, Where is the senate, and
where are the people? In a season of excessive rains, the
Tyber swelled above its banks, and rushed with irresistible
violence into the valleys of the seven hills. A
pestilential disease arose from the stagnation of the
deluge, and so rapid was the contagion, that fourscore
persons expired in an hour in the midst of a solemn
procession, which implored the mercy of Heaven. (59) A
society in which marriage is encouraged and industry
prevails soon repairs the accidental losses of pestilence
and war: but, as the far greater part of the Romans was
condemned to hopeless indigence and celibacy, the
depopulation was constant and visible, and the gloomy
enthusiasts might expect the approaching failure of the
human race. (60) Yet the number of citizens still exceeded
the measure of subsistence: their precarious food was
supplied from the harvests of Sicily or Egypt; and the
frequent repetition of famine betrays the inattention of the
emperor to a distant province. The edifices of Rome were
exposed to the same ruin and decay: the mouldering fabrics
were easily overthrown by inundations, tempests, and
earthquakes: and the monks, who had occupied the most
advantageous stations, exulted in their base triumph over
the ruins of antiquity. (61) It is commonly believed, that
Pope Gregory the First attacked the temples and mutilated
the statues of the city; that, by the command of the
Barbarian, the Palatine library was reduced to ashes, and
that the history of Livy was the peculiar mark of his absurd
and mischievous fanaticism. The writings of Gregory himself
reveal his implacable aversion to the monuments of classic
genius; and he points his severest censure against the
profane learning of a bishop, who taught the art of grammar,
studied the Latin poets, and pronounced with the same voice
the praises of Jupiter and those of Christ. But the evidence
of his destructive rage is doubtful and recent: the Temple
of Peace, or the theatre of Marcellus, have been demolished
by the slow operation of ages, and a formal proscription
would have multiplied the copies of Virgil and Livy in the
countries which were not subject to the ecclesiastical
dictator. (62)
Like Thebes, or Babylon, or Carthage, the names of Rome
might have been erased from the earth, if the city had not
been animated by a vital principle, which again restored her
to honor and dominion. A vague tradition was embraced, that
two Jewish teachers, a tent-maker and a fisherman, had
formerly been executed in the circus of Nero, and at the end
of five hundred years, their genuine or fictitious relics
were adored as the Palladium of Christian Rome. The
pilgrims of the East and West resorted to the holy
threshold; but the shrines of the apostles were guarded by
miracles and invisible terrors; and it was not without fear
that the pious Catholic approached the object of his
worship. It was fatal to touch, it was dangerous to behold,
the bodies of the saints; and those who, from the purest
motives, presumed to disturb the repose of the sanctuary,
were affrighted by visions, or punished with sudden death.
The unreasonable request of an empress, who wished to
deprive the Romans of their sacred treasure, the head of St.
Paul, was rejected with the deepest abhorrence; and the pope
asserted, most probably with truth, that a linen which had
been sanctified in the neighborhood of his body, or the
filings of his chain, which it was sometimes easy and
sometimes impossible to obtain, possessed an equal degree of
miraculous virtue. (63) But the power as well as virtue of
the apostles resided with living energy in the breast of
their successors; and the chair of St. Peter was filled
under the reign of Maurice by the first and greatest of the
name of Gregory. (64) His grandfather Felix had himself been
pope, and as the bishops were already bound by the laws of
celibacy, his consecration must have been preceded by the
death of his wife. The parents of Gregory, Sylvia, and
Gordian, were the noblest of the senate, and the most pious
of the church of Rome; his female relations were numbered
among the saints and virgins; and his own figure, with those
of his father and mother, were represented near three
hundred years in a family portrait, (65) which he offered to
the monastery of St. Andrew. The design and coloring of
this picture afford an honorable testimony that the art of
painting was cultivated by the Italians of the sixth
century; but the most abject ideas must be entertained of
their taste and learning, since the epistles of Gregory, his
sermons, and his dialogues, are the work of a man who was
second in erudition to none of his contemporaries: (66) his
birth and abilities had raised him to the office of praefect
of the city, and he enjoyed the merit of renouncing the
pomps and vanities of this world. His ample patrimony was
dedicated to the foundation of seven monasteries, (67) one in
Rome, (68) and six in Sicily; and it was the wish of Gregory
that he might be unknown in this life, and glorious only in
the next. Yet his devotion (and it might be sincere)
pursued the path which would have been chosen by a crafty
and ambitious statesman. The talents of Gregory, and the
splendor which accompanied his retreat, rendered him dear
and useful to the church; and implicit obedience has always
been inculcated as the first duty of a monk. As soon as he
had received the character of deacon, Gregory was sent to
reside at the Byzantine court, the nuncio or minister of the
apostolic see; and he boldly assumed, in the name of St.
Peter, a tone of independent dignity, which would have been
criminal and dangerous in the most illustrious layman of the
empire. He returned to Rome with a just increase of
reputation, and, after a short exercise of the monastic
virtues, he was dragged from the cloister to the papal
throne, by the unanimous voice of the clergy, the senate,
and the people. He alone resisted, or seemed to resist, his
own elevation; and his humble petition, that Maurice would
be pleased to reject the choice of the Romans, could only
serve to exalt his character in the eyes of the emperor and
the public. When the fatal mandate was proclaimed, Gregory
solicited the aid of some friendly merchants to convey him
in a basket beyond the gates of Rome, and modestly concealed
himself some days among the woods and mountains, till his
retreat was discovered, as it is said, by a celestial light.
The pontificate of Gregory the Great, which lasted thirteen
years, six months, and ten days, is one of the most edifying
periods of the history of the church. His virtues, and even
his faults, a singular mixture of simplicity and cunning, of
pride and humility, of sense and superstition, were happily
suited to his station and to the temper of the times. In
his rival, the patriarch of Constantinople, he condemned the
anti-Christian title of universal bishop, which the
successor of St. Peter was too haughty to concede, and too
feeble to assume; and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of
Gregory was confined to the triple character of Bishop of
Rome, Primate of Italy, and Apostle of the West. He
frequently ascended the pulpit, and kindled, by his rude,
though pathetic, eloquence, the congenial passions of his
audience: the language of the Jewish prophets was
interpreted and applied; and the minds of a people,
depressed by their present calamities, were directed to the
hopes and fears of the invisible world. His precepts and
example defined the model of the Roman liturgy; (69) the
distribution of the parishes, the calendar of the festivals,
the order of processions, the service of the priests and
deacons, the variety and change of sacerdotal garments.
Till the last days of his life, he officiated in the canon
of the mass, which continued above three hours: the
Gregorian chant (70) has preserved the vocal and instrumental
music of the theatre, and the rough voices of the Barbarians
attempted to imitate the melody of the Roman school. (71)
Experience had shown him the efficacy of these solemn and
pompous rites, to soothe the distress, to confirm the faith,
to mitigate the fierceness, and to dispel the dark
enthusiasm of the vulgar, and he readily forgave their
tendency to promote the reign of priesthood and
superstition. The bishops of Italy and the adjacent islands
acknowledged the Roman pontiff as their special
metropolitan. Even the existence, the union, or the
translation of episcopal seats was decided by his absolute
discretion: and his successful inroads into the provinces of
Greece, of Spain, and of Gaul, might countenance the more
lofty pretensions of succeeding popes. He interposed to
prevent the abuses of popular elections; his jealous care
maintained the purity of faith and discipline; and the
apostolic shepherd assiduously watched over the faith and
discipline of the subordinate pastors. Under his reign, the
Arians of Italy and Spain were reconciled to the Catholic
church, and the conquest of Britain reflects less glory on
the name of Caesar, than on that of Gregory the First.
Instead of six legions, forty monks were embarked for that
distant island, and the pontiff lamented the austere duties
which forbade him to partake the perils of their spiritual
warfare. In less than two years, he could announce to the
archbishop of Alexandria, that they had baptized the king of
Kent with ten thousand of his Anglo-Saxons, and that the
Roman missionaries, like those of the primitive church, were
armed only with spiritual and supernatural powers. The
credulity or the prudence of Gregory was always disposed to
confirm the truths of religion by the evidence of ghosts,
miracles, and resurrections; (72) and posterity has paid to
his memory the same tribute which he freely granted to the
virtue of his own or the preceding generation. The celestial
honors have been liberally bestowed by the authority of the
popes, but Gregory is the last of their own order whom they
have presumed to inscribe in the calendar of saints.
Their temporal power insensibly arose from the calamities of
the times: and the Roman bishops, who have deluged Europe
and Asia with blood, were compelled to reign as the
ministers of charity and peace. I. The church of Rome, as
it has been formerly observed, was endowed with ample
possessions in Italy, Sicily, and the more distant
provinces; and her agents, who were commonly sub-deacons,
had acquired a civil, and even criminal, jurisdiction over
their tenants and husbandmen. The successor of St. Peter
administered his patrimony with the temper of a vigilant and
moderate landlord; (73) and the epistles of Gregory are
filled with salutary instructions to abstain from doubtful
or vexatious lawsuits; to preserve the integrity of weights
and measures; to grant every reasonable delay; and to reduce
the capitation of the slaves of the glebe, who purchased the
right of marriage by the payment of an arbitrary fine. (74)
The rent or the produce of these estates was transported to
the mouth of the Tyber, at the risk and expense of the pope:
in the use of wealth he acted like a faithful steward of the
church and the poor, and liberally applied to their wants
the inexhaustible resources of abstinence and order. The
voluminous account of his receipts and disbursements was
kept above three hundred years in the Lateran, as the model
of Christian economy. On the four great festivals, he
divided their quarterly allowance to the clergy, to his
domestics, to the monasteries, the churches, the places of
burial, the almshouses, and the hospitals of Rome, and the
rest of the diocese. On the first day of every month, he
distributed to the poor, according to the season, their
stated portion of corn, wine, cheese, vegetables, oil, fish,
fresh provisions, clothes, and money; and his treasurers
were continually summoned to satisfy, in his name, the
extraordinary demands of indigence and merit. The instant
distress of the sick and helpless, of strangers and
pilgrims, was relieved by the bounty of each day, and of
every hour; nor would the pontiff indulge himself in a
frugal repast, till he had sent the dishes from his own
table to some objects deserving of his compassion. The
misery of the times had reduced the nobles and matrons of
Rome to accept, without a blush, the benevolence of the
church: three thousand virgins received their food and
raiment from the hand of their benefactor; and many bishops
of Italy escaped from the Barbarians to the hospitable
threshold of the Vatican. Gregory might justly be styled
the Father of his Country; and such was the extreme
sensibility of his conscience, that, for the death of a
beggar who had perished in the streets, he interdicted
himself during several days from the exercise of sacerdotal
functions. II. The misfortunes of Rome involved the
apostolical pastor in the business of peace and war; and it
might be doubtful to himself, whether piety or ambition
prompted him to supply the place of his absent sovereign.
Gregory awakened the emperor from a long slumber; exposed
the guilt or incapacity of the exarch and his inferior
ministers; complained that the veterans were withdrawn from
Rome for the defence of Spoleto; encouraged the Italians to
guard their cities and altars; and condescended, in the
crisis of danger, to name the tribunes, and to direct the
operations, of the provincial troops. But the martial
spirit of the pope was checked by the scruples of humanity
and religion: the imposition of tribute, though it was
employed in the Italian war, he freely condemned as odious
and oppressive; whilst he protected, against the Imperial
edicts, the pious cowardice of the soldiers who deserted a
military for a monastic life If we may credit his own
declarations, it would have been easy for Gregory to
exterminate the Lombards by their domestic factions, without
leaving a king, a duke, or a count, to save that unfortunate
nation from the vengeance of their foes As a Christian
bishop, he preferred the salutary offices of peace; his
mediation appeased the tumult of arms: but he was too
conscious of the arts of the Greeks, and the passions of the
Lombards, to engage his sacred promise for the observance of
the truce. Disappointed in the hope of a general and
lasting treaty, he presumed to save his country without the
consent of the emperor or the exarch. The sword of the enemy
was suspended over Rome; it was averted by the mild
eloquence and seasonable gifts of the pontiff, who commanded
the respect of heretics and Barbarians. The merits of
Gregory were treated by the Byzantine court with reproach
and insult; but in the attachment of a grateful people, he
found the purest reward of a citizen, and the best right of
a sovereign. (75)