The Historians' History of the World 06

A decent and respectful attention was paid to the restoration of the capital; the citizens were encouraged to rebuild the edifices which had been destroyed or damaged by hostile fire; and extraordinary supplies of corn were imported from the coast of Africa. The crowds that so lately fled before the sword of the barbarians, were soon recalled by the hopes of plenty and pleasure; and Albinus, prefect of Rome, informed the court that in a single day he had taken an account of the arrival of fourteen thousand strangers. In less than seven years, the vestiges of the Gothic invasion were almost obliterated; and the city appeared to resume its former splendour and tranquillity.

This apparent tranquillity was soon disturbed by the approach of a hostile armament from the country which afforded the daily subsistence of the Roman people. Heraclian, count of Africa, who, under the most difficult and distressful circumstances, had supported with active loyalty the cause of Honorius, was tempted, in the year of his consulship, to assume the character of a rebel and the title of emperor. The ports of Africa were immediately filled with the naval forces at the head of which he prepared to invade Italy; and his fleet, when it cast anchor at the mouth of the Tiber, indeed surpassed the fleets of Xerxes and Alexander, if all the vessels, including the royal galley and the smallest boat, did actually amount to the incredible number of thirty-two hundred.

Yet with such an armament, which might have subverted or restored the greatest empire of the earth, the African usurper made a very faint and feeble impression on the provinces of his rival. As he marched from the port, along the road which leads to the gates of Rome, he was encountered, terrified, and routed, by one of the imperial captains; and the lord of this mighty host, deserting his fortune and his friends, ignominiously fled with a single ship. When Heraclian landed in the harbour of Carthage, he found that the whole province, disdaining such an unworthy ruler, had returned to their allegiance. The rebel was beheaded in the ancient temple of Memory; his consulship was abolished, and the remains of his private fortune, not exceeding the moderate sum of four thousand pounds of gold, were granted to the brave Constantius, who had already defended the throne which he afterwards shared with his feeble sovereign. Honorius viewed with supine indifference the calamities of Rome and Italy, but the rebellious attempts of Attalus and Heraclian against his personal safety awakened for a moment the torpid instinct of his nature. He was probably ignorant of the causes and events which preserved him from these impending dangers; and as Italy was no longer invaded by any foreign or domestic enemies, he peaceably existed in the palace of Ravenna, while the tyrants beyond the Alps were repeatedly vanquished in the name, and by the lieutenants, of the son of Theodosius.

CONSTANTINE AND GERONTIUS; CONSTANTIUS

[411-413 A.D.]

The usurpation of Constantine, who received the purple from the legions of Britain, had been successful; and seemed to be secure. His title was acknowledged from the wall of Antoninus to the columns of Hercules; and, in the midst of the public disorder, he shared the dominion and the plunder of Gaul and Spain with the tribes of barbarians, whose destructive progress was no longer checked by the Rhine or Pyrenees. Stained with the blood of the kinsmen of Honorius, he extorted from the court of Ravenna, with which he secretly corresponded, the ratification of his rebellious claims. Constantine engaged himself, by a solemn promise, to deliver Italy from the Goths; advanced as far as the banks of the Po; and after alarming, rather than assisting, his pusillanimous ally, hastily returned to the palace of Arles, to celebrate, with intemperate luxury, his vain and ostentatious triumph. But this transient prosperity was soon interrupted and destroyed by the revolt of Count Gerontius, the bravest of his generals, who, during the absence of his son Constans, a prince already invested with the imperial purple, had been left to command in the provinces of Spain.

For some reason, of which we are ignorant, Gerontius, instead of assuming the diadem, placed it on the head of his friend Maximus, who fixed his residence at Tarraco (Tarragona), while the active count pressed forwards through the Pyrenees, to surprise the two emperors, Constantine and Constans, before they could prepare for their defence. The son was made prisoner at Vienna, and immediately put to death; and the unfortunate youth had scarcely leisure to deplore the elevation of his family, which had tempted or compelled him sacrilegiously to desert the peaceful obscurity of the monastic life. The father maintained a siege within the walls of Arelate (Arles); but those walls must have yielded to the assailants, had not the city been unexpectedly relieved by the approach of an Italian army.