GREGORY THE GREAT

II

THE WORLD OF GREGORY'S CHILDHOOD

OF Gregory's early life no details are recorded in the "Lives," and, in order to get a notion of its general outline, and of the circumstances and scenes amid which it was passed, we are compelled to fall back on secular and ecclesiastical histories like those of Procopius and the Papal Biographer, on antiquarian information supplied by writers such as Cassiodorus, and on the discoveries of recent archaeological research. In this way we are able to reconstruct in some degree the history of the first fifteen years of Gregory's life; we can estimate at least the extent to which he was affected by the stirring events in Italy, can picture his surroundings and society in Rome, and indicate the general course of his education and the nature of his interests and pursuits. The question of Gregory's education will be reserved for treatment in the following chapter. In the present I shall attempt to describe the world of Gregory's childhood—not, indeed, the greater world of the Roman Empire, which concerned the boy only indirectly, but his own immediate world of Italy and the Eternal City. I shall endeavour to represent the state of Italy and its fortunes during the Second Gothic War, the condition of Rome and Roman society, and the situation of the Church, and particularly of the Papacy. But first it will be necessary to give a brief account of a man and a woman, whose faces indeed our saint was never destined to behold, but whose counsels and ambitions were, under Providence, most instrumental in shaping the life and fortunes of him and all his countrymen. I refer, of course, to the rulers of the Roman world, Justinian and Theodora.

(a)  The Rulers of the Roman World.

On that dimly lighted stage of the sixth century two actors play a foremost part. They are the leading characters, in whom the tragedy and the comedy of it centre, and around whose plans and passions the whole world-play is built up. It is difficult for us, looking back across the centuries, clearly to realize their personalities, to strip them of the garb with which tradition and the prejudice of historians have invested them, and see the true Justinian and Theodora as they appeared to their contemporaries in the shining city on the Bosphorus. The character of the man is particularly indistinct. He seems, as it were, to hide himself away deep in the shadow of his own great works, and when we try to grasp his personality, he persistently eludes our hold, and, instead of the flesh-and-blood Justinian, we see before us only the airy domes of St. Sophia or the ponderous volumes of the Roman law. The woman, on the other hand, has been more plainly delineated, but the artist who sketched the portrait was an enemy; hence the colouring of the picture is the darkest, and loathsome details are inserted, the accuracy of which cannot be relied upon. In the case of either, then, it is hard to discern the truth, yet we must endeavour, if we can, to arrive at some idea of the character and work of these two potentates, who governed and oppressed the Roman world when Gregory was a boy.

First, then, Justinian. A fair, fierce-looking, red-checked man, with long nose and shaven chin, and curly grizzled hair, rather thin about the crown, carrying his shapely figure with a fine air of distinction, and, although now somewhat past the prime of life, still consciously vigorous with the strength of an iron constitution inherited from a hardy stock of Dacian peasants;—such is our first superficial impression of the Roman Emperor. His virtue attracted notice in a not over-virtuous age. Men remarked upon his chastity, his temperance, his habitual self-restraint, and admired a prince who was satisfied with an abstemious diet, and who cut short the hours allotted to sleep in order the longer to pursue his studies. Procopius, indeed, accuses him of deliberate, calculating cruelty; but this charge cannot be substantiated. On the contrary, Justinian appears to have been mild and clement, save in some few cases when his suspicions were aroused or his fears excited; although it may be admitted that he never hesitated to sacrifice the well-being of whole masses of his subjects when by doing so he could serve his own ends or the general interests of the State. The man possessed astonishing force of intellect. A musician, a poet, an architect, a student of philosophy, theology, and law, he was acquainted with every branch of the culture of his day. He prided himself on the universality of his knowledge, and on his capacity for taking a prominent personal part in all kinds of various transactions. Yet in practical matters his judgment was oftentimes at fault, and he appears to have been deficient in decision of character. He was a cold, crafty, unbending kind of man; a trifle inhuman, perhaps, in his severely logical way of dealing with problems, yet human in his numerous mistakes, human in his love of magnificence and pompous show, and, above all, human in his passion for Theodora.

Justinian was pre-eminently the autocrat of the Roman Empire. "Of all the princes who reigned at Constantinople," writes Agathias, "he was the first to show himself absolute sovereign of the Romans in fact as well as in name." And certainly no previous Emperor had ever enjoyed a despotism so unfettered. Augustus shared his government with the Senate, Constantine was compelled to reckon with the Church; but Justinian dominated both. Politically he was absolute over a servile aristocracy; ecclesiastically he was absolute over cringing bishops, who suffered him to lecture them and dictate their theological opinions. "Remember," said Caracalla once to his grandmother, Antonia, "that I have power to do everything and over every one." It was just this power that Justinian not only claimed but also exercised. He gathered all the wires into his hands, and his puppets had to dance as he directed. Nor would he ever tolerate the least infraction of obedience, for he himself was perfectly persuaded that "nothing was greater, nothing more sacred, than the Imperial majesty." Like another great autocrat, Justinian might have cried, "The world—it is I."

Absolute Justinian was, and he possessed to the full the absolute sovereign's passion for reshaping and subduing, for moulding his environment in accordance with his will. He was wonderfully successful. His great juristic works have modified the law of every civilized nation. His victories in Italy, Africa, and Spain altered for a time the geography of the Roman world, and determined the course of history. His splendid architectural works connect his name for ever with the perfect culmination of the new forms of Christian art. He tampered with theology, and the decisions which he promulgated were sanctioned by the Church. In the history of industry, of learning, of institutions, of manners, his reign is a landmark—in the history of industry, by reason of the introduction of the silk manufacture into Europe; in the history of learning, by reason of the abolition of the schools at Athens, a measure which dealt a final blow to pagan thought and philosophy, and made education definitely Christian; in the history of institutions, through the extinction in this period of that venerable relic of the past, the consulship; in the history of manners, by reason of the great elaboration of social etiquette and court ceremonial which Justinian instigated and encouraged. Few princes have been associated with so many diverse interests and undertakings, and few have made their influence so widely felt, not only by the men of their own age, but by many succeeding generations. Justinian certainly was not of those whose names are writ in water.

Justinian aimed at unity. He wished for unity in the Empire, East and West being reunited as in the days of Constantine, and welded together under a single government. Hence came the Vandalic and Gothic wars of reconquest. He wished for unity of government, authority being distributed through a carefully graded official hierarchy, but depending ultimately on himself alone. He wished, again, for unity of thought, and this he endeavoured to secure by the suppression of non-Christian speculation through the closing of the Athenian University. Finally, he wished for a religious unity, in which Monophysites might be reconciled with the Orthodox, and the reunited Church of the East with the Catholics of the West. From this last passion resulted the Fifth General Council and the persecution of the unhappy Pope Vigilius.

Justinian was a man of great ideas, but as a practical administrator he must be pronounced a failure. During his reign the Empire fell into a most deplorable and ruinous condition. Externally it was girt about with implacable enemies, who were only waiting for a favourable moment to attack. In the East the Persian wars exhausted the resources of the State; in the West the reduction of the Goths only prepared the way for the incursion of the Lombards. On the north an ever-increasing swarm of Huns and Slaves and Germans gathered about the frontiers and devastated the Balkan provinces: Justinian tried to check the inroads of these barbarians, partly by constructing extensive lines of fortification from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, partly by a shallow, hand-to-mouth diplomacy, which aimed at weakening his enemies by pitting each against the other. Such measures, however, could not establish a lasting security. They only availed for a time to delay, to some extent, an evil which was destined to burst upon the Roman world directly the too-ingenious Emperor was withdrawn from the scene.

Internally the condition of the Empire was not less grave. Justinian was always in need of money, and in order to procure a plentiful supply he encouraged an abominable system of fiscal oppression which converted all classes of his subjects into mere miserable slaves of the Imperial Treasury. Provinces were bled to death, flourishing cities were impoverished, and millions of human beings were reduced to destitution. To save expense, even the State post was partially abolished. The farmers and small proprietors were made desperate by grinding taxes and forced labour. Many surrendered their estates to escape the terrible exactions, many destroyed their oliveyards and vineyards and demolished their houses. Agriculture was ruined. The merchants were harassed by heavy customs and monopolies. The grants made to the professors of the liberal arts were withdrawn. The wretched curiales were made to drain the cup of bitterness to the very dregs. Even the soldiers were cheated of pay, rations, and promotion. But meanwhile the supplies came in, and with the money scraped together with blood and tears, Justinian was enabled to indulge to the full his lust for building, and to send general after general to win back the allegiance of the revolted West. It is scarcely wonderful, however, that the people, whose interests were remorselessly sacrificed to the Emperor's vanity and avarice, should have loaded Justinian's name with execrations, and have told one another tremblingly that this pitiless despot was in very truth a "demon."

A dull, grey atmosphere envelops, as in a shroud, the concluding years of Justinian's reign. From the banks of the Euphrates to those of the Tagus, the world presented a dreadful spectacle of ruin and decay. A profound gloom settled on the minds of men, and Justinian himself became infected with the unnamed, brooding melancholy. Since he took the plague in 542, he was never quite the same. He grew weary, morose, spiritless. Trivial matters occupied his thoughts, and he seems to have become indifferent even to the great schemes which once so absorbed him, and to which he owed his fame. This was the period of his studies in theology, and of the Fifth General Council. And Procopius preserves for us a touching picture of this once-brilliant Emperor, sitting up far into the night in the company of a few very aged priests, poring over the sacred rolls, and laboriously constructing arguments concerning the ultimate damnation of dead men. Thus the master of a thousand cities shut himself up within his palace library and left the world to its fate. Like the little Gregory in the ruinous city on the Tiber, so the tired old Justinian in his fine new Rome on the Bosphorus learnt the sad lesson of the vanity of things, and moodily sank beneath the oppression of the Middle Ages.

Let us turn now to Theodora, the beautiful, beguiling creature whom Justinian loved, and whose strange elevation to the throne "cannot," as Gibbon caustically remarks, "be applauded as the triumph of female virtue." The daughter of a Cypriot named Acacius, who had been a keeper of the wild beasts belonging to the Green faction in the Byzantine Circus, Theodora commenced life as a pantomimist and ballet-dancer. An account of her public performances would not be edifying, still less would be the story of her private amours, which became a byword in Constantinople, Alexandria, and all the cities of the East. I am inclined to believe, however, that in this matter Procopius has exaggerated the scandal. That Theodora united the profession of actress with that of a courtesan is pretty evident. But her record was probably no worse than that of modern ladies who have acquired an unenviable notoriety on the London or Paris music-hall stage.

The woman was undoubtedly beautiful. Even her bitter enemy acknowledges that it would be impossible for any mortal to express her loveliness either in words or work of art. She was of medium height, with a figure faultless in its proportions. Her complexion was marble-pale,—dead white, but not sickly; her features were delicate and regular, her expression keen and alert. A pair of magnificent brilliant eyes lit up her face and gave to it a sparkling animation. A portrait of her may still be seen in the famous contemporary mosaic in the Church of San Vitale at Ravenna. But this queenly Theodora, bedecked with her favourite pearls, and surrounded by the ladies of her court, has certainly less of comeliness than might have been expected after the enthusiastic praises of Procopius. Perhaps, however, the unnamed artist of the sixth century was not well skilled in the delineation of feminine beauty.

Theodora's powers of fascination must have been exceptional.

Yet even so it is amazing that the prudent, middle-aged Justinian should have fallen a victim to her witchlike spells. Certainly this woman acted with consummate cleverness. To win Justinian's respect she retired from the public gaze, adopted a comparatively decent mode of life, and affected an honourable poverty. Then, with her charm, her wit, her alluring graces and attractions, she laid siege to the heart of the austere and solemn student. Justinian was completely captivated. He lavished upon his mistress his uncle's treasure and his own. He caused her to be ennobled with the title of Patrician, and at last he went so far as to form a project of uniting to himself, by the tie of legal marriage, the most infamous woman in all Constantinople. Of course there were difficulties. The Empress Euphemia, a highly respectable lady, would not hear of such a match, and she persuaded her husband to refuse his sanction. But after a while the Empress died, Justin was cajoled, the few remaining obstacles were disposed of, and Theodora the Ballet-dancer became the wedded wife of the most prominent and powerful personage of the age.

In 527 Justinian was elevated to the purple, and a diadem was placed upon the head of Theodora as his independent colleague in the sovereignty of the Empire. Never surely did actress rise to such a station. She, whose business had been to provide amusement for the obscene, pestiferous rabble, was now the acknowledged "mistress" of the Roman world, the arbitress of the destinies of nations. The mob that once had shrieked with laughter over her immodest antics, now hailed her with respectful acclamations as she passed in state procession through the streets. The great people who formerly had scorned her—the senators, bishops, generals, the proud officials of the Empire—now vied with one another in paying her their court, and abased themselves to implore her all-powerful intercession. The Emperor himself was entirely her thrall, and remained throughout her lifetime the very model of an indulgent husband. It was Theodora's golden hour; and we cannot wonder if we see her sometimes rapt beyond all bounds in the exultation of her triumph.

The faults imputed to the Empress are those which might naturally be looked for in a person whose moral principles were feeble, and who was suddenly transplanted from a station of insignificance to one of almost unlimited power. Theodora was luxurious and pleasure-loving. She slept much, rising late and prolonging her midday siesta till the evening. She appreciated the enjoyments of the bath, and spent many hours of every day in the cultivation of her beauty. Her magnificent gilded apartments were filled with a profusion of priceless treasures, and the whole world was ransacked to furnish her table with rare or unseasonable delicacies. In her behaviour towards the magnates of the capital she was slighting and capricious. The trembling senators who came to do her homage were kept for hours confined in stuffy ante-rooms, and when at last they were admitted to the presence, their Imperial mistress, lolling on her cushions, received them with every mark of insult and contempt, and made them the laughing-stock of eunuchs and serving-women. It cannot be denied that she was vindictive and by nature cruel. Those who had really injured her she never forgot or forgave. Beneath her glittering palace was a "Tartarus" of dungeons, and here her wretched victims were scourged and tortured, and, buried for years in the abysmal darkness, frequently lost their sanity and eyesight.

It would be a mistake, however, to think that Theodora was all bad. She was certainly no Messalina. Whatever may have been the scandals of her girlhood, her married life at least was without reproach, and not even her worst enemy could accuse her of infidelity to Justinian. She was religious, too, after her fashion—a Monophysite, yet genuinely, it seems, devout. Nor was she incapable of kindly emotions and even of virtuous acts. Her charities were widespread, and towards women in distress she showed peculiar kindness. We see her restoring to one a husband, to another a lost lover. And in remembrance, perhaps, of former days, she did everything in her power to ameliorate the lot of actresses and fallen women. Five hundred of the latter she rescued from the streets and placed in safe keeping in a monastery. And we cannot doubt that Justinian's legislation against disorderly houses, and the measure which rendered it illegal to force a woman on to the stage against her will, were alike inspired by the counsels of an Empress who had once been an actress and a prostitute herself. Moreover, Theodora was gifted with a courage, intelligence and political sagacity not unworthy of her station. She proved herself a true helpmeet for Justinian. She could enter fully into his projects, and give him real assistance by her sound advice. And, above all, when in 532 the Nika sedition broke out, and the Emperor himself new frightened and his ministers were panic-stricken, Theodora restored confidence and steadied a tottering throne by her intrepid words: "Empire is a fair shroud." This woman, clearly, was not devoid of noble qualities. Had the circumstances of her youth been other than they were, she might have left behind her a fragrant memory and an honoured name. But she could never entirely overcome the disabilities of her up­bringing. Hence, by most people in the present day, Theodora, when remembered at all, is vaguely thought of merely as a type of the nameless infamies and outrageous passions of an absolutism that has long since gone to dust. Critical research, however, pronounces a more charitable verdict.

Such were the rulers of the world in the year 540. It remains to consider the condition of Italy, and to remark the way in which the ambitious plans of the Byzantine despots affected the life and fortunes of Roman Gregory.