David Hume - The Dark Ages

§ 3. The Rebellion of Gildo (A.D. 397-398)

Eighteen years before an attempt had been made by the Moor Firmus to create a kingdom for himself in the African provinces (A.D. 379), and had been quelled by the armies of Theodosius, who had received valuable aid from Gildo, the brother and enemy of Firmus. Gildo was duly rewarded. He was finally appointed Count of Africa with the exceptional title of Master of Soldiers, and his daughter Salvina was united in marriage to a nephew of the Empress Aelia Flaccilla. 46But the faith of the Moors was as the faith of the Carthaginians. Gildo refused to send troops to Theodosius in his expedition against Eugenius, and after the Emperor’s death he prepared to assume a more decided attitude of independence and engaged many African tribes to support him in a revolt. The strained relations between the two Imperial courts suggested to him that the rebellion might assume the form of a transference of Africa from the sovranty of Honorius to that of Arcadius; and he entered into communication with Constantinople, where his overtures were welcomed. A transference of the diocese of Africa to Arcadius seemed quite an appropriate answer to the proposal of transferring the Prefecture of Illyricum to Honorius. But the Eastern government rendered no active assistance to the rebel. 47

For Rome and the Italians a revolt in Africa was more serious than rebellions elsewhere, since the African provinces were their granary. In the summer of A.D. 397 Gildo did not allow corn ships to sail to the Tiber; this was the declaration of war. The prompt and efficient action of Stilicho prevented a calamity; corn supplies were obtained from Gaul and Spain sufficient to feed Rome during the winter months. Preparations were made to suppress Gildo, and Stilicho sought to ingratiate himself with the Senate by reverting to the ancient usage of obtaining its formal authority. 48The Senate declared Gildo a public enemy, and during the winter a fleet of transports was collected at Pisa. In the early spring an army of perhaps 10,000 embarked. 49Stilicho remained in Italy, and the command was entrusted to Mascezel, a brother of Gildo who had come to the court of Honorius to betray Gildo as Gildo had betrayed Firmus. The war was decided, the rebel subdued, almost without bloodshed, in the Byzacene province on the little river Ardalio between Tebessa and Haïdra. The forces of Gildo are said to have been 70,000 strong, but they offered no resistance. We may suspect that some of his Moorish allies had been corrupted by Mascezel, but Gildo himself was probably an unpopular leader. He tried to escape by ship, but was driven ashore again at Thabraca and put to death. 50

Returning to Italy, Mascezel was welcomed as a victor, and might reasonably hope for promotion to some high post. But his swift and complete success was not pleasing to Stilicho, who desired to appropriate the whole credit for the deliverance of Italy from a grave danger; perhaps he saw in Mascezel a possible rival. Whether by accident or design, the Moor was removed from his path. The only writer who distinctly records the event, states that while he was crossing a bridge he was thrown into a river by Stilicho’s bodyguards and that Stilicho gave the sign for the act. 51The evidence is not good enough to justify us in bringing in a verdict of murder against Stilicho; Mascezel may have been accidentally drowned and the story of foul play may have been circulated by Stilicho’s enemies. But if the ruler of Italy was innocent, he assuredly did not regret the capable executor of his plans. The order seems to have gone out that the commander of the expedition against Gildo was to have no share in the glory, 52and the incomplete poem of Claudian on the Gildonic War tells the same tale.

This poem, which will serve as an example of Claudian’s art, begins with an announcement of the victory and was probably composed when the first news of the success arrived in Italy. Redditus imperiis Auster , “the South has been restored to our Empire; the twin sphere, Europe and Libya, are reunited; and the concord of the brethren is again complete.” Iam domitus Gildo , the tyrant as already been vanquished, and we can hardly believe that this has been accomplished so quickly.

Having announced the glad tidings, Claudian goes back to the autumn and imagines Rome, the goddess of the city, in fear of famine and disaster, presenting herself in pitiable guise before the throne of Jupiter and supplicating him to save her from hunger. Are the labours and triumphs of her glorious history to be all in vain? Is the amplitude of her Empire to be her doom? Ipsa nocet moles . “I am excluded from my granaries, Libya and Egypt; I am abandoned in my old age.”

Nunc quid agam? Libyam Gildo tenet, altera 53Nilum

ast ego, quae terras umeris pontumque subegi,

deseror; emeritae iam praemia nulla senectae.

The supplications of Rome are reinforced by the sudden appearance of Africa, who burst into the divine assembly with torn raiment, and in wild words demands that Neptune should submerge her continent rather than it should have to submit to the pollution of Gildo’s rule.

Si mihi Gildonem nequeunt abducere fata,

me rape Gildoni.

Jupiter dismisses the suppliants, assuring them that “Honorius will lay low the common enemy,” and he sends Theodosius the Great and his father, who are both deities in Olympus, to appear to the two reigning Emperors in the night. Arcadius is reproached by his father for the estrangement from his brother, for his suspicions of Stilicho, for entertaining the proposals of Gildo; and he promises to do nothing to aid Gildo. Honorius is stimulated by his grandfather to rise without delay and smite the rebel. He summons Stilicho and proposes to lead an expedition himself. Stilicho persuades him that it would be unsuitable to his dignity to take the field against such a foe, and suggests that the enterprise should be committed to Mascezel. This is the only passage in which Mascezel is mentioned, and Claudian does not bestow any praise on him further than the admission that he does not resemble his brother in character ( sed non et moribus isdem ), but dwells on the wrongs he had suffered, and argues that to be crushed by his injured brother, the suppliant of the Emperor, will be the heaviest blow that could be inflicted on the rebel.

The military preparations are then described, and an inspiriting address to the troops, about to embark, is put into the mouth of Honorius, who tells them that the fate of Rome depends on their valour:

caput insuperabile rerum aut ruet in vestris aut stabit Roma lacertis.

The fleet sails and safely reaches the African ports, and the first canto of the poem ends. 54

It is all we have: a second canto was never written. Claudian evidently intended to sing the whole story of the campaign as soon as the story was known. The overthrow of “the third tyrant,” whom he represents as the successor of Maximus and Eugenius, deserved an exhaustive song of triumph. But it would have surpassed even the skill of Claudian to have told the tale without giving a meed of praise to the commander who carried the enterprise through to its victorious end. We need have little hesitation in believing that the motive which hindered the poet from completing the Gildonic War was the knowledge that to celebrate the achievements of Mascezel would be no service to his patron. 55

While the issue of the war was still uncertain, in the spring of A.D. 398, 56Stilicho’s position as master of the west was strengthened by the marriage of his daughter Maria with the youthful Emperor. Claudian wrote an epithalamium for the occasion, duly extolling anew the virtues of his incomparable patron. We may perhaps wonder that, secured by this new bond with the Imperial house, and his prestige enhanced by the suppression of Gildo, 57Stilicho did not now make some attempt to carry out his project of annexing the Prefecture of Illyricum. The truth is that he had not abandoned it, but he was waiting for a favourable opportunity of intervention in the affairs of the east. It seems safe to infer his attitude from the drift of Claudian’s poems, for Claudian, if he did not receive express instructions, had sufficient penetration to divine the note which Stilicho would have wished him to strike. In the Gildonic War he had announced the restoration of concord between east and west: concordia fratrum plena redit ; it was the right thing to say at the moment, but the strain in the relations between the two courts had only relaxed a little. The discord broke out again, with more fury than ever, in the two poems in which he overwhelmed Eutropius with rhetoric no less savage than his fulminations against Rufinus four years before. The first was written at the beginning of A.D. 399, protesting against the disgrace of the Empire by the elevation of Eutropius to the consulate, the second in the summer, after the eunuch’s fall. The significant point is that in both poems the intervention of Stilicho in eastern affairs is proposed. 58Stilicho did not overtly intervene; but it seems probable that he had an understanding with Gaïnas, the German commander in the east, who had been his instrument in the assassination of Rufinus. It is a suggestive fact that in describing the drama which was enacted in the east Claudian brings the minor characters on the stage but does not even pronounce the name of Gaïnas, who was the principal actor, or betray that he was aware of his existence. We must now pass to the east and follow the events of that drama.