One good thing came of the Gothic conquest—the pagans were put to silence for
ever. The temples had been razed, the idols broken, and no one set them up
again; but the whole people of Rome were Christian, at least in name, from that
time forth; and the temples and halls of justice began to be turned into
churches.
Honorius still lived his idle life at Ravenna, and the Bishop—or, as the
Romans called him, Papa, father, or Pope—came back and helped them to put
matters into order again. Alaric had left no son, but his wife's brother Ataulf
became leader of the Goths. At Rome he had made prisoner Theodosius' daughter
Placidia, and he married her; but he did not choose to rule at Rome, because, as
he said, his Goths would never bear a quiet life in a city. So he promised to
protect the empire for Honorius, and led his tribe away from Italy to Spain,
which they conquered, and began a kingdom there. They were therefore known as
the Visigoths, or Western Goths.
Arcadius, in the meantime, reigned quietly at Constantinople, where St. John
Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed preacher of Antioch, was made Patriarch, or
father-bishop. The games and races in the circus at Constantinople were as madly
run after as they had ever been at Rome or Thessalonica; there were not indeed
shows of gladiators, but people set themselves with foolish vehemence to back up
one driver against another, wearing their colors and calling themselves by their
names, and the two factions of the Greens and the Blues were ready to tear each
other to pieces. The Empress Eudoxia, Arcadius' wife, was one of the most
vehement of all, and was, besides, a vain, silly woman, who encouraged all kinds
of pomp and expense. St. Chrysostom preached against all the mischiefs that thus
arose, so that she was offended, and contrived to raise up an accusation against
him and have him driven out of the city. The people of Constantinople still
showed so much love for him that she insisted on his being sent further off to
the bleak shores of the Black Sea, and on the journey he died, his last words
being, "Glory be to God in all things."
ROMAN CLOCK.
Arcadius died in 408, leaving a young son, called Theodosius II., in the care
of his elder sister Pulcheria, under whom the Eastern Empire lay at peace, while
the miseries of the Western went on increasing. New Emperors were set up by the
legions in the distant provinces, but were soon overthrown, while Honorius only
remained at Ravenna by the support of the kings of the Teuton tribes; and as he
never trusted them or kept faith with them, he was always offending them and
being punished by fresh attacks on some part of his empire, for which he did not
greatly care so long as they let him alone.
Ataulf died in Spain, and Placidia came back to Ravenna, where Honorius gave
her in marriage to a Roman general named Constantius, and she had a son named
Valentinian, who, when his uncle died after thirty-seven years of a wretched
reign, became Emperor in his stead, under his mother's guardianship, in 423.
Two great generals who were really able men were her chief
supporters—Boniface, Count or Commander of Africa; and Aëtius, who is sometimes
called the last of the Romans, though he was not by birth a Roman at all, but a
Scythian. He gained the ear of the Empress Placidia, and persuaded her that
Boniface wanted to set himself up in Africa as Emperor, so that she sent to
recall him, and evil friends assured him that she meant to put him to death as
soon as he arrived. He was very much enraged, and though St. Augustine, now an
old man, who had long been Bishop of Hippo, advised him to restrain his anger,
he called on Genseric, the chief of the Vandals, to come and help him to defend
his province.
SPANISH COAST.
The Vandals were another tribe of Teutons—tall, strong, fair-haired, and much
like the Goths, and, like them, they were Arians. They had marauded in Italy,
and then had followed the Goths to Spain, where they had established themselves
in the South, in the country called from them Vandalusia, or Andalusia. Their
chief was only too glad to obey the summons of Boniface, but before he came the
Roman had found out his mistake; Placidia had apologized to him, and all was
right between them. But it was now too late; Genseric and his Vandals were on
the way, and there was nothing for it but to fight his best against them.
He could not save Carthage, and, though he made the bravest defence in his
power, he was driven into Hippo, which was so strongly fortified that he was
able to hold it out a whole year, during which time St. Augustine died, after a
long illness. He had caused the seven penitential Psalms to be written out on
the walls of his room, and was constantly musing on them. He died, and was
buried in peace before the city was taken. Boniface held out for five years
altogether before Africa was entirely taken by the Vandals, and a miserable time
began for the Church, for Genseric was an Arian, and set himself to crush out
the Catholic Church by taking away her buildings and grievously persecuting her
faithful bishops.
Valentinian III, made a treaty with him, and even yielded up to him all right
to the old Roman province of Africa; but Genseric had a strong fleet of ships,
and went on attacking and plundering Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Italy and the
coasts of Greece.
Britain, at the same time, was being so tormented by the attacks of the
Saxons by sea, and the Caledonians from the north, that her chiefs sent a
piteous letter to Aëtius in Gaul, beginning with "The groans of the Britons;"
but Aëtius could send no help, and Gaul itself was being overrun by the Goths in
the south, the Burgundians in the middle, and the Franks in the north, so that
scarcely more than Italy itself remained to Valentinian.
VANDALS PLUNDERING
The Eastern half of the Empire was better off, though it was tormented by the
Persians in the East, on the northern border by the Eastern Goths or Ostrogoths,
who had stayed on the banks of the Danube instead of coming to Italy, and to the
south by the Vandals from Africa. But Pulcheria was so wise and good that, when
her young brother Theodosius II. died without children, the people begged her to
choose a husband who might be an Emperor for them. She chose a wise old senator
named Marcian, and when he died, she again chose another good and wise man named
Zeno; and thus the Eastern Empire stood while the West was fast crumbling away.
The nobles were almost all vain, weak cowards, who only thought of themselves,
and left strangers to fight their battles; and every one was cowed with fear,
for a more terrible foe than any was now coming on them.
PYRAMIDS AND SPHINX IN EGYPT.
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