David Hume - The Dark Ages

It may be wondered why Constantius having suppressed Constantine did not return to Gaul to deal with Jovinus. The explanation probably is that his presence in Italy was required to prepare measures for dealing with another tyrant who had arisen in Africa. The revolt of the count Heraclian, the slayer of Stilicho, was instigated, we are told, by the examples of tyranny which he had observed in Gaul. 58So infectious was “tyranny” that the man who three years before resisted the proposals of Attalus and the menaces of Alaric, loyally standing by the throne of Honorius, and who had been rewarded by the consulship, 59now threatened his sovran without provocation. He did not wait to be attacked in Africa. With a large fleet, of which the size was grossly exaggerated at the time, 60he landed in Italy, intending to march on Rome, but was almost immediately defeated, 61and fled back to Africa in a single ship to find that the African provinces would have none of him. He was beheaded in the Temple of Memory at Carthage (summer, A.D. 413). 62His consulship was declared invalid, and his large fortune was made over to Constantius, who was designated consul for the following year.

This revolt affected the course of events in Gaul. Honorius, whose mind did not travel far beyond his family and his poultry-yard, was bent on recovering his sister Placidia from the hands of the Visigoth, and this desire was ardently shared by Constantius, who aspired to the hand of this princess. Athaulf had agreed to restore her when the bargain had been made that in return for his services in crushing Jovinus he and his people should be supplied with corn and receive a Gallic province as Federates of Empire. But Africa was the corn-chamber of Italy, and when Heraclian stopped the transport of supplies 63it became impossible to fulfil the engagement with Athaulf. There was hunger in the Gothic camp. Athaulf therefore refused to carry out his part of the compact and surrender Placidia. He made an attempt to take Marseilles, which he hoped might fall by treachery, but it was defended by “the most noble” Boniface, an officer who with afterwards to play a more conspicuous and ambiguous part in Africa. Athaulf himself was severely wounded by a stroke which the Roman dealt him. But he was more fortunate at Narbonne. He captured this town and made it his headquarters, and he also seized the important cities of Bordeaux and Toulouse. 64

Having established himself in Narbonensis and Aquitaine, Athaulf determined to give himself a new status by allying himself in marriage to the Theodosian house. Negotiations with Ravenna were doubtless carried on during his military operations, but he now persuaded Placidia, against the will of her brother, to give him her hand. The nuptials were celebrated in Roman form (in January, A.D. 414) 65at Narbonne, in the house of Ingenius, a leading citizen, and the pride of Constantius, who had just entered upon his first consulship, was spoiled by the news that the lady whom he loved was the bride of a barbarian. We are told that, arrayed in Roman dress, Placidia sat in the place of honour, the Gothic king at her side, he too dressed as a Roman. With other nuptial gifts Athaulf gave his queen fifty comely youths, apparelled in silk, each bearing two large chargers in his hands, filled one with gold, the other with priceless gems — the spoils of Rome. They had an ex-Emperor, Attalus, to conduct an epithalamium. The marriage festivities were celebrated with common hilarity by barbarians and Romans alike.

A contemporary writer 66has recorded words said to have been spoken by Athaulf, which show that, perhaps under the influence of Placidia, he had come to adopt a new attitude to the Empire. “At first,” he said, “I ardently desired that the Roman name should be obliterated, and that all Roman soil should be converted into an empire of the Goths; I longed that Romania should become Gothia 67and Athaulf be what Caesar Augustus was. But I have been taught by much experience that the unbridled licence of the Goths will never admit of their obeying laws , and without laws a republic is not a republic. I have therefore chosen the safer course of aspiring to the glory of restoring and increasing the Roman name by Gothic vigour; and I hope to be handed down to posterity as the initiator of a Roman restoration, as it is impossible for me to change the form of the Empire.”

We can hardly be wrong in ascribing this change in the spirit and policy of Athaulf to the influence of Placidia, and conjecturing that his conversion to Rome was the condition of her consent to the marriage. We know too little of the personality of this lady who was to play a considerable part in history for thirty years. She was now perhaps in her twenty-sixth year, and she may have been younger. 68Her personal attractiveness is shown by the passion she inspired in Constantius, and the strength of her character by the incidents of her life. She can have been barely twenty years of age when she approved of the execution of her cousin Serena at Rome, and in defiance of her brother’s wishes in uniting herself to the Goth she displayed her independence. She was in later years to become the ruler of the West.

The friendly advances which were now made to Honorius by the barbarian, who had been forced upon him as a brother-in-law, were rejected. Athaulf then resorted to the policy of Alaric. He caused the old tyrant Attalus to be again invested with the purple. Constantius, the Master of Soldiers, went forth for a second time to Arles to suppress the usurper and settle accounts with the Goths. He prevented all ships from reaching the coast of Septimania, as the territory of Narbonensis was now commonly called. The Goths were deprived of the provisions which reached Narbonne by sea, and their position became difficult. Athaulf led them southward to Barcelona, probably hoping to establish himself in the province of Tarraconensis (early in A.D. 415). But before they left Gaul, the Goths laid waste southern Aquitaine and set Bordeaux on fire. 69Attalus was left behind and abandoned to his fate, as he was no longer of any use to the Goths. Indeed his elevation had been a mistake. He had no adherents in Gaul, no money, no army, no one to support him except the barbarians themselves. 70He escaped from Gaul in a ship, but was captured and delivered alive to Constantius. 71In A.D. 417, the eleventh consulship of Honorius and the second of Constantius, the Emperor entered Rome in triumph with Attalus at the wheels of his chariot. He punished the inveterate tyrant by maiming him of a finger and thumb, and condemning him to the fate which Attalus had once been advised to inflict upon himself. He had not forgotten how the friend of Alaric had demanded with an air of patronising clemency that the son of Theodosius should retire to some small island, and he banished his prisoner to Lipara.

At Barcelona a son was born to Athaulf and Placidia. They named him Theodosius after his grandfather, and the philo-Roman feelings of Athaulf were confirmed. The death of the child soon after birth was a heavy blow; the body was buried, in a silver coffin, near the city. 72Athaulf did not long survive him. He had been so unwise as to take into his service a certain Dubius, one of the followers of Sarus, who avenged his first by slaying his second master. The king had gone to the stable, as was his custom, to look after his own horses, and the servant, who had long waited for a favourable opportunity, stabbed him (September, A.D. 415). 73He did not die till he had time to recommend his brother, who he expected would succeed to the kingship, to send Placidia back to Italy. But his brother did not succeed him. Singeric, the brother of Sarus — who probably had been privy to the deed of Dubius — seized the royalty and put to death the children of the dead king by his first wife, tearing them from the arms of the bishop Sigesar to whose protection they had fled for refuge. Placidia he treated with indignity and cruelty, compelling her to walk on foot for twelve miles in the company of captives. But the reign of the usurper (for he had seized the power by violence without any legal election) endured only for seven days; he was slain, and Wallia was elected king.