VIII

CIVILITAS

Thus far we have followed the fortunes of a Teutonic warrior of the fifth century of our era, marking his strange vacillations between friendship and enmity to the great civilised Empire under the shattered fabric whereof he and his people were dwelling, and neither concealing nor extenuating any of his lawless deeds, least of all that deed of treachery and violence by which he finally climbed to the pinnacle of supreme power in Italy. Now, for the next thirty years, we shall have to watch the career of this same man, ruling Italy with unquestioned justice and wise forethought, making the welfare of every class of his subjects the end of all his endeavours, and cherishing civilization (or, as it was called in the language of his chosen counselors, civilitas) with a love and devotion almost equal to that which religious zeal kindles in the hearts of its surrendered votaries.

The transformation is a marvelous one. Success and unquestioned dominion far more often deprave and distort than ennoble and purify the moral nature of man. But something like this transformation was seen when Octavian, the crafty and selfish intriguer, ripened into the wise and statesmanlike Augustus. Nor have our own days been quite ignorant of a similar phenomenon, when the stern soldier-politician of Germany, the man who once seemed to delight in war and whose favorite motto had till then been "blood and iron" having secured for his master the hegemony of Europe, strove (or seems to have striven), during twenty difficult years, to maintain peace among European nations, like one convinced in his heart that War is the supreme calamity for mankind.

It is a threadbare saying, "Happy is the nation that has no annals", and the miserable historians of the time tell us far too little about the thirty years of peace which Italy enjoyed under the wise rule of Theodoric; still we are told enough to enable us in some degree to understand both what he accomplished and how he accomplished it. And one thing which makes us accept the statements of these historians with unquestioning belief is that they have no motive for the praises which they so freely bestow on the great Ostrogoth. They are not his countrymen, nor his fellow-religionists. Our chief authorities are Roman and Orthodox, and bitterly condemn Theodoric for the persecution of the Catholics, into which, as we shall see, he was provoked in the last two years of his reign. Still, over the grave of this dead barbarian and heretic, when they have nothing to gain by speaking well of him, they cannot forbear to praise the noble impartiality and anxious care for the welfare of his people, which, for the space of one whole generation, gave happiness to Italy. It will be well to quote here one or two of these testimonies, borne by impartial witnesses.

Our chief authority, who is believed to have been a Catholic Bishop of Ravenna (probably Bishop Maximian), says:

"He was an illustrious man, and full of good-will towards all. He reigned thirty-three (really thirty-two) years, and during thirty of these years so great was the happiness of Italy that even the wayfarers were at peace. For he did nothing wrong. So did he govern the two nations, the Goths and Romans, as if they were one people, belonging himself to the Arian sect, yet he ordained that the civil administration should remain for the Romans as it had been under their Emperors. He gave presents and rations to the people, yet, though he found the Treasury ruined, he brought it round, by his own hard work, into a flourishing state. He attempted nothing (during these first thirty years) against the Catholic faith. Exhibiting games in the circus and amphitheatre, he received from the Romans the names of Trajan and Valentinian (the happy days of which most prosperous Emperors he did in truth seek to restore), and, at the same time, the Goths rendered true obedience to their valiant King, according to the Edict which he had promulgated for them.

"He gave one of his daughters in marriage to the King of the Visigoths in Gaul, another to the son of the Burgundian King; his sister to the King of the Vandals, and his niece to the King of the Thuringians. Thus he pleased all the nations round him, for he was a lover of manufactures and a great restorer of cities. He restored the aqueduct of Ravenna, which Trajan had built; and again, after a long interval, brought water into the city. He completed, but did not dedicate, the palace, and finished the porticoes round it. At Verona he erected baths and a palace, and constructed a portico from the gate to the palace. The aqueduct, which had been long destroyed, he renewed, and brought in water through it. He also surrounded the city with new walls. At Ticinum (Pavia) too he built a palace, baths, and an amphitheatre, and erected walls round the city. On many other cities also he bestowed similar benefits.

"Thus he so charmed the nations near him that they entered into a league with him, hoping that he would be their King. The merchants, too, from divers provinces, flocked to his dominions, for so great was the order which he maintained, that if any one wished to leave gold or silver on his land (in his country house) it was as safe as in a walled city. A proof of this was the fact that he never made gates for any-city of Italy, and the gates already existing were not closed. Anyone who had business to transact could do it as safely by night as by day.

"In his time men bought wheat at 60 pecks for a solidus (12 shillings a quarter), and 30 amphoræ of wine for the same price (2s. 4d. a gallon)".

So far the supposed Bishop of Ravenna. Now let us hear Procopius, an official in the Imperial army which brought the Ostrogothic kingdom to ruin:

"Theodoric was an extraordinary lover of justice, and adhered rigorously to the laws. He guarded the country from barbarian invasions, and displayed the greatest intelligence and prudence. There was in his government scarcely a trace of injustice towards his subjects, nor would he permit any of those under him to attempt anything of the kind, except that the Goths divided among themselves the same proportion of the land of Italy which Odovacar had allotted to his partisans. Thus then Theodoric was in name a tyrant (that is, an irregular, because barbarian, ruler), but indeed a true King (or Emperor), not inferior to the best of his predecessors, and his popularity grew greatly, both among Goths and Italians, and this fact (that he was popular with both nations) was contrary to the ordinary fashion of human affairs. For generally, as different classes in the State want different things, the government which pleases one party has to incur the odium of those who do not belong to it.

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

So much for the general aspect of Theodoric's rule in Italy. Now let us consider rather more in detail what was his precise position in that country. And first as to the title by which he was known. It is singularly difficult to say what this title was. It is quite clear that Theodoric never claimed to be Emperor of the West, the successor of Honorius and Augustulus. But there are grave reasons for doubting whether he called himself, as has been often stated, "King of Italy". In the fifth century territorial titles of this kind were, if not absolutely unknown, at least very uncommon. The various Teutonic rulers generally took their titles from the nations whom they led to battle, Gaiseric being "King of the Vandals and Alans", Gundobad, "King of the Burgundians", Clovis, "King of the Franks", and so forth. Upon the whole, it seems most probable that Theodoric's full title was "King of the Goths and Romans in Italy" and that the allusion to "Romans" in his title explains some of the conflict of testimony as to the source from whence he derived his title of King. It is quite true that a Teutonic sovereign like Theodoric, sprung from a long line of royal ancestors, and chosen by the voice of his people to succeed their king, his father, would not need, and except under circumstances of great national humiliation would not accept, any grant of the kingly title, as ruler over his own nation, from the Augustus at New Rome. But when it came to claiming by the same title the obedience of Romans as well as Goths, especially in that country which had once been the heart of the Empire,--Theodoric, King of the Goths, might well be anxious to strain all the resources of diplomacy in order to obtain from the legitimate head of the Roman world the confirmation of those important words "and Romans", which appeared in his regal title.

In the year 490, probably soon after the battle of the Adda, Theodoric sent Faustus, an eminent Roman noble and "Chief of the Senate", on an embassy to Zeno, "hoping that he might receive from that Emperor permission to clothe himself with the royal mantle". It will be remembered that in the compact between Roman and Teuton, which preceded Theodoric's invasion of Italy, words had been used which implied that he was only to rule as "locum tenens" of the Emperor till he himself should arrive to claim the supremacy. Now, with that conquest apparently almost completed, and with his rival fast sealed up in Ravenna, Theodoric sends a report of his success of the enterprise undertaken "on joint account", and desires to legalise his position by a formal grant of the mantle of royalty from the Autocrat of the World.

The time of the arrival of Theodoric's embassy at Constantinople was unpropitious, as the Emperor Zeno was already stricken by mortal illness. On the 9th of April, 491, he died, and was succeeded by the handsome but elderly life-guardsman, Anastasius, to whom Ariadne, widow of Zeno, gave her hand in marriage. The rights and duties which pertained to the compact between Theodoric and Zeno were perhaps considered as of only personal obligation. It might plausibly be contended by the Emperor's successor that he was not bound to recognise the new royalty of his predecessor's, "filius in arma", and by Theodoric that the conditional estate in Italy granted to him to hold "till Zeno should himself arrive" became absolute, now that by the death of Zeno that event was rendered impossible. However this may be, we hear no more of negotiations between the Gothic camp and the Court of Constantinople till the death of Odovacar(493). Then the Goths, apparently in some great assembly of the nation, "confirmed Theodoric to themselves as King", without waiting for the orders of the new Emperor. Whatever this ceremony may have imported, it must have in some way conferred on Theodoric a fuller kingship, perhaps more of a territorial and less of a tribal sovereignty than he had possessed when he was wandering with his followers over the passes of the Balkans.

Though Theodoric had not consulted the Emperor before taking this step, he sent an ambassador, again Faustus, who now held the important post of "Master of the Offices", to Constantinople, probably in order to give a formal notification of his self-assumed accession of dignity. (The Magister Officiorum, who was at the head of the civil service of the Empire or Kingdom, combined some of the duties of our Home Secretary with some of those of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs) .

No messages or embassies, however, could yet soothe the wounded pride of Anastasius. There was deep resentment at the Eastern Court, and for three or four years there seems to have been a rupture of diplomatic relations between Constantinople and Ravenna. At length, in the year 497, Theodoric sent another ambassador, Festus, (also an eminent Roman noble and Chief of the Senate,) to Anastasius. This messenger, more successful than his predecessor, "made peace with Anastasius concerning Theodoric's premature assumption of royalty, and brought back all the ornaments of the palace which Odovacar had transmitted to Constantinople".

(497) This final ratification of the Ostrogoth's sovereignty in Italy is so vaguely described to us that it is difficult to see how much it may have implied. Probably it was to a certain extent convenient to both parties that it should be left vague. The Emperor would not abandon any hope, however shadowy, of one day winning back full possession of "the Hesperian kingdom". The King might hope that, in the course of years or generations, he himself, or his descendants, might sever the last link of dependence on Constantinople, perhaps might one day establish themselves as full-blown Emperors of Rome. The claims thus left in vagueness were the seeds of future difficulties, and bore fruit forty years later in a bloody and desolating war, but meanwhile the position, as far as we can ascertain it, seems to have been something like this. Theodoric, "King of the Goths and Romans in Italy", was absolute ruler of the country de facto, except in so far as the Gothic nation, assembled under arms at its periodical parades, may have exercised some check on his full autocracy. He made peace and war, he nominated the high officers of state, even one of the two Consuls, who still kept alive the fiction of the Roman Republic; he probably regulated the admissions to the Senate; he was even in the last resort arbiter of the fortunes of the Roman Church.

On the other hand, he did not himself coin gold or silver money with his effigy; but in this he was not singular, for it was not till a generation or two had elapsed that any of the new barbarian royalties thought it worthwhile to claim this attribute of sovereignty. Though dressed in the purple of royalty, by assuming the title of King only, he accepted a position somewhat lower than that of the Emperor of the New Rome. He sent the names of the Consuls whom he had appointed to Constantinople, an act which might be represented as a mere piece of formal courtesy, or as a request for their ratification, according to the point of view of the narrator. With a similar show of courtesy, or submission, the accession of Theodoric's descendants to the throne was, when the occasion arose, notified to the then reigning Emperor. And there were many limitations which the good sense and statesmanlike feeling of the Ostrogothic king imposed on his exercise of the royal power, but which might be, perhaps were, represented as part of the fundamental compact between him and the Emperor of Rome. Such were the employment of men of Roman birth by preference, in all the great offices of the state; absolute impartiality between the rival creeds, Catholic and Arian (to the latter of which Theodoric himself was an adherent); and a determination to abstain as much as possible from all fresh legislation which might modify the rights and duties of the Roman inhabitants of Italy, the legislative power being chiefly exercised in order to provide for those new cases which arose out of the settlement of so large a number of new-comers of alien blood within the borders of the land.

After all the attempts which have been made to explain and to systematise the relation between the new barbarian royalties and the old and tottering Empire, much remains which is absolutely incapable of definition, but perhaps an historical parallel, though not strictly accurate, may somewhat aid our comprehension of the subject. It is well-known how for the first hundred years of the English Raj in India the power which actually resided in an association of traders, the old East India Company, and which was wielded under their orders by a Clive, a Hastings, or a Wellesley, was theoretically vested in an Emperor, the descendant of "the Great Mogul", who lived in seclusion in his palace at Delhi, and who, though nominally all-powerful, had really, as Macaulay has said, "less power to help or to hurt than the youngest civil servant of the Company". Now assuredly Anastasius and Justin, the Imperial contemporaries of Theodoric, were no mere phantoms of royalty, like the last Mogul Emperors of Delhi, but as far as actual efficacious share in the government of Italy went, the parallel holds good. Such deference as was paid to their name and authority was a mere courteous form; the whole power of the State--subject, as has been said, to the limitations still imposed by the popular institutions of the Goths--was gathered up in the hands of Theodoric.

What then, it may be said, was gained by keeping up the fiction that Italy still formed part of the Roman Empire, and that Theodoric ruled in any sense as the delegate of the Emperor? For the present, much (though at the cost of future entanglements and complications), since it facilitated that union of "Romania" and "Barbaricum", which was the next piece of work obviously necessary for Europe. If the reader will recur to that noble sentence of Ataulfus, which was quoted in the introduction to this book, he will see that the reasoning of that great chieftain took this shape: "A Commonwealth must have laws. The Goths, accustomed for generations to their tameless freedom, have not acquired the habit of obedience to the laws. Till they acquire that habit, the administration of the State must be left in Roman hands, and all the authority of the King must be used in defence of Roman organisation".

These principles, though he may never have read the passage of Orosius which expounded them, were essentially the principles of Theodoric. So long as he remained in antagonism to the Empire, he could not reckon on the hearty co-operation of Roman officials in the task of government. The brave, through patriotism, and the cowardly, through fear of coming retribution, would decline to be known as his adherents, and would stand aloof from his work of re-organization. But when it was known that even the great Augustus at Constantinople, "Our Lord Anastasius, Father of his Country" (as the coins styled him), recognized the royalty of Theodoric, and had in some sort confided to him the government of Italy, all the great army of civil servants, who performed the functions of that highly specialized organism, the Roman State, could, without fear and without reproach, accept office under the new-comer, and could look forward again, as they had done before, to a fortunate official career, to the honors and emoluments which were the recognized reward of the successful civil servant.

In the next chapter, I shall describe with a little more detail the character and the duties of some of these Roman officials. For the present we will rather consider the nature of the work which Theodoric accomplished through their instrumentality. We have already heard from a nearly contemporary chronicler, the story of some of the great civilizing works which he wrought in the wasted land, the aqueducts of Ravenna and Verona, the walls of Verona and Pavia, the baths, the palace, and the amphitheatre. More important for the great mass of his subjects was the perfect security which he gave to the merchant for his commerce, to the husbandman for the fruit of his toil. Corn, as we have seen, sank to the extraordinarily low price of twelve shillings a quarter. But this low price did not mean, as it might in our country, the depression of the agricultural interest, through the rivalry of the foreign producer. On the contrary, the great economic symptom of Theodoric's reign--and under the circumstances a most healthy symptom--was that Italy, from a corn-importing became a corn-exporting country. Under the old emperors, whose rule was a most singular blending of autocracy and demagogy, in fact a kind of crowned socialism, every nerve had been strained to bring from Alexandria and Carthage the corn which was distributed gratuitously to the idle population of Rome. Under such hopeless competition as this, together with the demoralizing influence of slave labour, large tracts of Italy had actually gone out of cultivation. Now, by political changes, the merit of which must not be claimed for the Ostrogothic government, both Egypt and Africa had become unavailable for the supply of the necessities of Rome. Theodoric and his ministers may however be praised for that prevalence of order and good government, which enabled the long prostrate agriculture of Italy to spring up like grass after a summer shower. The conditions of prosperity were there, and only needed the removal of adverse influences and mistaken benevolence to bring forth their natural fruit. The grain-largesses to the people of Rome were indeed still continued in a modified form, but the stores thus dispensed seemed to have been brought almost entirely from Italy. When Gaul was visited with famine, the ship-masters along the whole western coast of Italy were permitted and encouraged to take the surplus of the Italian crops to the suffering province. Even in a time of dearth and after war had begun, corn was sold by the State to the impoverished inhabitants of Liguria at sixteen shillings a quarter. Altogether we seem justified in asserting that the economic condition of Italy, both as to the producers and the consumers of its food-supplies, was more prosperous under Theodoric than it had been for centuries before, or than it was to be for centuries afterwards.

I have already made some reference to Aqueducts, which were among the noblest and most beneficial works that any ruler of Italy could accomplish. Ravenna, situated in an unhealthy swamp where water fit for drinking was proverbially dearer than wine was pre-eminently dependent on such supplies of the precious fluid as could be brought fresh and sparkling from the distant Apennines. Theodoric issued an order to all the farmers dwelling along the course of the Aqueduct to eradicate the shrubs growing by its side, which would otherwise fix their roots in the bed of the stream, loosen the masonry, and cause many a dangerous leak. "This being done", said the Secretary of State, "we shall again have baths that we may look upon with pleasure, water which will cleanse, not stain, water after using which we shall not require again to wash ourselves: drinking-water, the mere sight of which will not take away our appetite". Similar care was needed to preserve the great Aqueducts which were the glory of Imperial Rome, as even now their giant arches, striding for miles over the desolate Campagna, are her most impressive monument. At Rome also the officer who was specially charged with the maintenance of these noble works, the "Count of the Aqueducts", was exhorted to show his zeal by rooting up hurtful trees, and by at once repairing any part of the masonry that seemed to be falling into decay through age. He was warned against peculation and against connivance at the frauds which often marked the distribution of the water supply, and he was assured that the strengthening of the Aqueducts would constitute his best claim on the favour of his sovereign.

But while in most parts of Italy water is a boon eagerly craved for, in some places it is a superabundance and a curse. At Terracina on the Latian coast there still stands in the piazza a slab of marble with a long inscription, setting forth that "The most illustrious lord and renowed king, Theodoric, triumphant conqueror, ever Augustus, born for the good of the Commonwealth, guardian of liberty and propagator of the Roman name, subduer of the nations", ordered that nineteen miles of the Appian Way, being the portion extending from Three-bridges (Tripontium) to Terracina should be cleared of the waters which had flowed together upon it from the marshes on either side. A nobleman of the very highest rank, Consul, Patrician, and Prefect of the City, Cæcina Maurus Basilius Decius, successfully accomplished this work under the orders of his sovereign, and for the safety thus afforded to travellers, was rewarded by a large grant of the newly-drained lands.

We have seen that Theodoric's anonymous panegyrist calls him "a lover of manufactures and a great restorer of cities". Of the manufactures encouraged by the Ostrogothic king, we should have been glad to receive a fuller account. All that I have been able to discover in the published state-papers of himself and his successors at all bearing on this subject is some instructions with reference to the opening of gold mines in Bruttii (the modern Calabria), and iron mines in Dalmatia, a concession of potteries to three senators, who are promised the royal protection if they will prosecute the work diligently, and permission to another nobleman to erect a row of workshops or manufactories overlooking the Roman Forum. The whole tenour of these State papers, however, shows that public works were being diligently pushed on in every quarter of Italy, and is entirely consistent with the praise awarded to Theodoric "as a lover of manufactures".

His zeal for the restoration of cities is by the same documents abundantly manifested. At one time we find him giving orders for the transport of marble slabs and columns to Ravenna, at another, directing the repair of the walls of Catana, now rebuilding the walls and towers of Arles, and now relieving the distress of Naples and Nola, which have been half ruined by an eruption of Vesuvius. His care for the adornment of the cities of Italy with works of art is manifest, as well as his zeal for their material enrichment. He hears with great disgust that a brazen statue has been stolen from the city of Como. "It is vexatious" says his Secretary, "that while we are labouring to increase the ornaments of our cities, those which Antiquity has bequeathed to us should be diminished by such deeds as this". A reward of 100 aurei (£60), and a free pardon is offered to any accomplice who will assist in the discovery of the chief offender.

But it is above all for Rome, for the glory and magnificence of Rome, that this Ostrogothic king, in a certain sense the kinsman and successor of her first ravager, Alaric, shows a tender solicitude. Her Aqueducts, as we have seen, are to be repaired, her Cloacæ, those still existing memorials of the civilization of the earliest, the regal, Rome, are to be carefully upheld; the thefts of brass and lead from the public buildings, which have become frequent during the disorders of the past century, are to be sternly repressed; a spirited patrician who has restored the mighty theatre of Pompeius is encouraged and rewarded, the Prefect of the City is stimulated to greater activity in the repair of all the ruined buildings therein. "In Rome, praised beyond all other cities by the world's mouth, it is not right that anything should be found either sordid or mediocre".

In all these counsels for the material well-being of Italy, and for the repair of the ravages of anarchy and war, Theodoric was undoubtedly much assisted by his ministers of Roman extraction, some of whom I shall endeavour to portray in a later chapter. Still, though the details of the work may have been theirs, it cannot be denied that the initiative was his. A barbarian, thinking only barbarous thoughts, looking upon war and the chase as the only employments worthy of a free man, would not have chosen such counselors, and, if he had found them in his service, would not have kept them. Therefore, remembering those years of boyhood, which he passed at Constantinople, at a time when the character is most susceptible of strong and lasting impressions, I cannot doubt that notwithstanding the frequent relapses into barbarism which marked his early manhood, he was at heart a convert to civilization, that his desire was to obtain for "the Hesperian land" all that he had seen best and greatest in the social condition of the city by the Bosphorus, and that his Secretary truly expressed his deepest and inmost thoughts when he made him speak of himself as one "whose whole care was to change everything for the better.

I shall close this chapter with a few anecdotes--far too few have been preserved to us--which serve to show what manner of man he appeared to his contemporaries. Again I borrow from the anonymous author, the supposed Bishop of Ravenna.

He was, we are told, unlettered, though fond of the converse of learned men, and so clumsy with his pen that after ten years of reigning he was still unable to form without assistance the four letters (THEO) which were affixed as his sign-manual to documents issued in his name. In order to overcome this difficulty he had a golden plate prepared with the necessary letters perforated in it, and drew his pen through the holes. But, though he was unlettered, his shrewdness and mother-wit caused both his sayings and doings to be much noted and remembered by his subjects. In one difficult case which came before him, he discovered the truth by a sudden device which probably reminded the bystanders of the Judgment of Solomon, A young man who as a child had been brought up by a friend of his deceased father, returned to his home and claimed a share of his inheritance from his mother. She, however, was on the point of marriage with a second husband, and under her suitor's influence she disowned the son whom she had at first welcomed with joy and had entertained for a month in her house. As the suitor persisted in his demand that the son should be turned out of doors, and the son refused to leave his paternal abode, the case came before the King's Court, where the widow still persisted in her assertion that the young man was not her son, but a stranger whom she had entertained merely out of motives of hospitality. Suddenly the king turned round upon her and said: "This young man is to be thy husband, I command thee to marry him". The horror-stricken mother then confessed that he was indeed her son.

Some of Theodoric's sayings passed into proverbs among the common people. One was: "He who has gold and he who has a devil can neither of them hide what he has got" Another: "The Roman when in misery imitates the Goth and the Goth in comfort imitates the Roman".

We have unfortunately no description of the great Ostrogoth's outward appearance, though the indications in his history would lead us to suppose that he was a man of stalwart form and soldierly bearing. Nor is this deficiency adequately made up to us by his coins, since, as has been already said, the gold and silver pieces which were circulated in his reign bore the impress of the Eastern Emperor, and the miserable little copper coins which bear his effigy do not pretend to portraiture.