Chapter V. The Goths and Vandals

The great Germanic races were restless. Having no real purpose in their lives, only to fight and oppose one another, they became tired of home and needed adventure. Also, although the land was large, yet a few people occupied a big space, so that as the population grew there was not room.

Therefore from the dim lands of the northern seas, and from those vast regions far beyond the Elbe, from time to time came sudden overflowings of blue-eyed people pouring towards the Mediterranean like floods from a melting winter. The first hosts crossed the Rhine into Gaul. As early as 105 B.C. the Romans were startled and terrified by the appearance of hosts of fair-skinned barbarians, warriors with shields and spears, with clumsy wagons drawn by oxen, and accompanied by women and children. This was the first host of emigrants. They must have come from Germany. They threatened Italy, inflicted a terrible defeat on the Roman armies, then turned aside and wandered across France to Spain, then back again to the Rhone, slowly and uneasily migrating for several years before they were finally defeated and destroyed by the Roman Marius. These were the famous Cimbri.

After this Rome had only to repel invasions from Gaul, and when Gaul was finally conquered in 51 B.C., the Romans effectively barred the incursion of the Germans by placing a line of invincible forts along the Rhine, and keeping a great army there stationed. This outlet therefore was closed up to the Teutons. But behind the marshes and forests the nations were stirring. Out of the Baltic and from the northern sea-board sailed the long sharp ships of the first Northmen, rowing away to the Mediterranean to plunder, to fight. Some of these blue-eyed Northmen stayed in the Mediterranean lands.

But away in the North the Teutons were seething restlessly. They could not take ship in any great numbers. Yet they must burst out. The Rhine and the Rhine frontiers were held fast. The sea lay to the west, northwards lay ice. The only way they could move was eastwards, behind Germany, as it were, traversing South Russia and approaching that other, opposite water, the Black Sea.

We do not know exactly what happened. We only know that in the middle of the second century great peoples or tribes called the Goths and Vandals were living in North Germany. The Goths were established to the east, about the mouth of the Vistula and the Gulf of Danzig, and eastward of them again, still on the Baltic, lay the Sclavonic or Celtic tribe of the Venedi or Wends. More westward in Germany, about the mouth of the Oder and south of the peninsula of Jutland, lay the Vandals, a nation of many tribes. West of these again lay the Lango- bardi, a famous tribe living on the lower Elbe, on the North Sea.

Some great impulse must have started these nations moving slowly eastwards, to Russia, then to the Black Sea, then southwards towards Constantinople and southeast towards Rome; for each of the nations successively broke across the Danube into Roman territory, and came down to Italy. First came the Goths, then the Vandals, and lastly, the Langobardi.

First, we must consider the first-comers, the Goths. We know that in the year 150 or thereabouts they were still living in Germany. About the year 220 A.D. they appear by the Black Sea, harassing the Roman frontier- province of Dacia. Dacia lay between the Danube and the Dniester, where Roumania is now.

In the seventy years intervening between these two dates, the Gothic nations must have moved across South Russia and Poland, following the course of the rivers, travelling very slowly in migration, and carrying with them great numbers of men from tribes that lay in their way, such as the Venedi. The Ukraine was a rich fertile land supporting fine cattle and abounding in honey: for these were the wealth of a barbarous land, cattle and bees — milk and honey — and later, corn. This land the Goths must have enjoyed: yet they scorned the pastoral life; they moved on in their wild poverty in search of adventure and war and plunder. So they came to the rich Roman colony of Dacia. There they turned south, crossed the Dniester, and plundered south to the Danube.

After a time they crossed the Danube into the peaceful Roman provinces, plundering and laying waste the land. They took and sacked the great city of Philippo- polis, massacring the inhabitants. In this fatal year of 251 A.D. the Roman Emperor Decius marched against them with the flower of the Roman armies. In the great fight the Goths were victorious, Decius was killed, and his body must have been trampled down in the bog, for it was never recovered.

After this the Romans gave the barbarians great gifts, persuading them to retreat beyond the Danube. Then the Danube was fortified as the Rhine was fortified, and the Goths found themselves checked. They settled in the lands we now call Roumania and South Russia. But they must have adventure. They made themselves great flat-bottomed boats and sailed off on the Black Sea wildly southwards, through the Bosphorus into the Mediterranean. There they plundered and burned. On one expedition they sacked Athens. But in 269 the plundering  hosts were terribly defeated. The fleet, was destroyed, there was great slaughter. Then pestilence fell on the Gothic hosts and wiped them out. Of those that remained the women were sold into slavery, the young men were enrolled into the Roman army. The rest of the barbaric nation agreed to remain beyond the Danube.

They remained quiet for fifty years. When they broke out again it was in the great Constantine’s reign. He marched against them and punished them severely, in 322. After this the Goths turned against their savage neighbours in the west. These were the Sarmatians, whom we now call Cossacks. The Sarmatians were big, fair like the Teutons, but they had the manners of Asiatic Tartars. They wore loose robes of skins, lived in tents, spent their lives on horseback, and fought with long lances. A fierce wild tribe, with their shaggy beards and their skin dresses, and their strange speech, they were barbarians even to the Goths, and horrible to the Romans.

The Sarmatians lived in the plains of Hungary. They appealed to Constantine. Constantine came with his army and gave the Goths such a severe lesson, and yet such a just peace, that the Gothic nation held the name of Constantine in great reverence, respecting for his sake even the noble emperor’s weak descendants in the years to come.

Constantine, as we know, shifted the capital of the empire from Rome to Constantinople. The empire had now two centres. Soon it had two separate emperors, an emperor of the East, and an emperor of the West. And then there was a ruinous division between the two halves.

Just as Rome was destroying herself internally, a sinister event took place outside. The year 375 is marked as an epoch in the world’s history, for it was the year in which the Huns, coming out of the vast unknown Asia, crossed the Volga on their way to Europe.

The Gothic nation was more or less settled to the north of the Danube. It comprised two great tribes, the Ostrogoths or East Goths, and the Visigoths or West Goths. The ancient king of all the Goths, Hermanric, was an Ostrogoth. He was a famous king, and the Gothic nation was developing and becoming civilised.

Suddenly, as a volcano bursts and the lava pours down on a doomed people, the Huns burst out of Asia and came down in their black myriads upon the Goths. The Huns were hideous little people on horseback, savage, terribly fierce, and numerous like clouds of locusts. Hermanric tried to oppose them. He was killed, and the defeated Ostrogoths submitted to their hideous little enemies. The bulk of the Gothic nation, however, including nearly all the Visigoths, fled in supreme terror to the Danube, to escape the diabolic myriads, of the enemy, who seemed to them more like baboons than men.

At the Danube the Romans were on the watch. The terrified Goths stretched out their hands and cried and implored to be allowed to cross. But the officers must wait for the imperial permission. At last came the fatal mandate: the Goths were to be brought over.

The river was a mile wide at the place where the Goths encamped, opposite a Roman camp, and it was rushing rapidly in flood. The large boats came over, but as they returned heavily laden they became unmanageable. Many were swept away, and great numbers of unfortunate families of Goths perished shrieking in the water. As the boatmen became more skilled, however, vessel after vessel crossed and returned with its load of human life. The Goths left on shore clamoured and cried. Sentries were posted to keep a watch to the north, the fires were kept burning at night. And meanwhile the great boats came and went without interruption, all through the day, and through the night, lighted over the black dark river in the night-time by great fires on opposite shores, by torches and fire-baskets fixed to the ships. The Goths, with women and children, stood packed in a solid mass, motionless in fear as the boat rocked and swung over the flood. Then they landed in safety on the southern shore. Day after day, night after night the transport continued, and still a crowd surged at the landing-place on the north shore. At last, however, it was nearly over. The warriors came down, the Gothic sentries left their posts, to be rowed across. The left bank seemed clear.

And now the Romans found themselves with vast hosts of refugees, covering the countryside in a thick, helpless encampment. There was no food, or not enough, and no shelter. The Goths began to starve, for the country could not support such a terrific influx. Starvation was worse than fear of the Huns, loud murmurs arose, then fights; the Roman garrison and populace were in danger of being overwhelmed.

At this juncture appeared on the left bank the king of the Ostrogoths, with the remainder of his people, imploring to be allowed to cross. The Romans were obdurate. They would not add to the danger and confusion of their own awful condition, overwhelmed as they were in a sea of homeless, ravenous refugees, great, powerful,’ wild people. The Ostrogoths in terror searched along the banks, and at last found a place where they could contrive to cross without Roman help.

Then terrible times followed. Famine came, women and children died of starvation, men like great gaunt wolves roamed seeking food. Romans were massacred for their supplies. The Goths spread out, hungrily devouring the land. The Romans tried to prevent them. And then war began.

The Goths united under the brave Fritigern. In 377 a great but indecisive battle left the plain of Salices white with the big bones of the Goths, the smaller, finer bones of the Romans. In 378 the Goths swept down the Balkan Peninsula to Hadrianople, not far from Constantinople itself. They were met by the Roman armies under the brave Emperor Valens. But the huge Goths in the frenzy of desperation swept yelling on the Roman ranks, the legions broke, the Emperor was wounded. He escaped, but whilst his wounds were being dressed in a cottage the shouting Goths surrounded the house. Unable to burst in the door, they shot burning arrows into the thatched roof: the house was soon in flames, consuming its inmates. Only one soldier dropped from a window to carry the awful news to Constantinople. Two-thirds of the Roman army was destroyed, and the empire received the first of her death-blows.

The Goths retreated from Hadrianople. Their hosts rolled slowly towards Constantinople, and from the hills of the suburbs the barbarians from the north looked in wonder on the lovely shining city girdled by the blue sea beyond them. Then they turned north, laden with plunder.

Terror and hatred of the Gothic name now filled all Roman hearts. Since Constantine there had been some friendliness between the two nations; the Goths had been rapidly learning some of the arts of civilisation from the Romans, the Romans had been pleased to teach the great northern strangers. Consequently in the cities of Asia were very many Gothic youths, being brought up by the Romans and taught the Roman way of life. Now, in their terror and horror of the Goths, the Romans of the east made a plan. On a certain day, in all the eastern cities the Gothic youths of fourteen, sixteen, twenty years of age, tall, beautiful young men, educated, speaking Greek or Latin, and looking upon their Roman friends as brothers, were gathered together in the market-places as if for some game or show. Suddenly they were all slaughtered, every one, all in one day.

This made the breach between the two nations irreparable. But the Goths were never capable of long, disciplined efforts. They became weary, and then they abandoned all their plans. So, after the death of Fritigern, the armies crumbled away. Then the wise Emperor Theo- dosius made friends with the Gothic leaders, and persuaded the nation to settle in peace in the Balkan Peninsula. And in Constantinople, and in the Emperor’s wonderful palace the barbarian chiefs were received and entertained as friends, till they became used to splendours and to civilisation, and lost some of their warlike passion.

But peace was only temporary. In 395, a few weeks after Theodosius was dead, the Gothic nations were again in arms. Seeking fresh fields of plunder, the chieftain Alaric led his bands into Greece and ruined the land. During this successful expedition he was raised on a shield in front of the ranks and hailed by the warriors ‘ Alaric, King of the Visigoths.’ Thus the nation again united under one leader, and this one of the boldest and most artful of men.

Rome was now in a state of weak, helpless terror. Alaric saw that it was time to strike. In his panic the emperor of the west, Honorius, gave orders for the calling home of the frontier legions, from Britain, from the Rhine. The fortresses of the Rhine, that had been held fast for hundreds of years, were abandoned to the natives and to decay, whilst the legions marched across Gaul to Italy. On the great wall from the Forth to the Clyde the Roman sentries took their last look at the misty Highland hills to the north, then descended the towers to mount no more. The wall was left to the fury of the Caledonians. And slowly, not very surely, the legions converged towards Rome.

In the year 400 Alaric invaded Italy. With his swift army, which was becoming accustomed to Roman lands, he swept past Verona towards Milan, where the Emperor Honorius lay terror-stricken. Honorius fled, pursued by Gothic cavalry. He would have been taken but for the advance of the Roman armies from the south, led by the great general Stilicho.

Stilicho himself was a Vandal by birth. But he had been brought up by the Romans, and was faithful to them. He was a splendid general. He wished to take the enemy at a disadvantage. Since their contact with the Romans of the east, the Goths had become Christians. The barbarian army under Alaric rested near Turin, piously to observe the most sacred days of Easter. Though a Christian himself, leading Christian armies, yet Stilicho decided to take advantage of this circumstance. He fell on the Goths whilst they were celebrating their most holy festival. The Goths were taken by surprise, though they soon recovered. They fought bravely, but were terribly defeated. This battle of Pollentia is famous as the great defeat of the Goths, the saving of Italy.

Alaric managed to escape into the Alps. He came down with another army, and was again defeated by Stilicho, and with difficulty extricated himself and retreated beyond the Adriatic. Italy breathed free again.

But now it seemed as if all Germany was breaking loose and pouring down on Italy. Clouds of Germans had been moving from the Baltic to the upper Danube, whence they were urged forward by the pressure of the Huns from behind. In 405 they broke through the Alps into Italy. Stilicho marched north and again won a great victory. Twelve thousand of the defeated Germans, who were of the tribes of Vandals, Burgundians, Suevi, took service with Rome, and Stilicho was again hailed ‘ Deliverer of Italy.’ The rest of the barbarians were driven back into Gaul.

In 407, on the last dark day of the year, hosts of Germans marched over the Rhine, on the ice, into Gaul. They were never driven back again — the Roman frontier was broken for ever. The barriers between savage and civilised Europe were destroyed. The Roman frontiers along the Rhine had enjoyed a long peace. The land was beautiful with villas and gardens and exquisite Roman cities; a fair, cultivated landscape stretched away into Gaul.

Suddenly, the peaceful inhabitants, who had been used to ride and hunt in Germany, safe even in the Hercynian woods, and who were accustomed to see the tall Germans in the market-places and circuses of the Roman frontier towns, peaceful purchasers and sightseers, now, without warning, saw flames arise and spears flashing. The colonists were massacred, the land was blackened, the barbarians overran Gaul. It was in this year that the legions still in Britain revolted against the Roman rule, and declared themselves independent.

The Romans were not satisfied with trouble. In 408, for mere reasons of court jealousy and intrigue, they basely beheaded their great general Stilicho. The Roman court had established itself among the impassable marshes of Ravenna, on the Adriatic. There they felt secure in themselves, so they did not care what became of Italy. Honorius trembled and exulted. He agreed to the execution of Stilicho.

Alaric heard of the shameful death of his great rival. Then cunningly, smiling to himself, he began to negotiate with the foolish Honorius, thus keeping Ravenna quiet, whilst with his Gothic armies he marched past, down the Flaminian Way, straight to Rome. On he went, till he passed the stately arches, and pitched his camp under the walls of the great city. This was in 408. For six hundred and nineteen years, since the invasion of the Cimbri and Teutons, barbarians from the same lands the Goths came from, Rome had been inviolate. Now it was reduced by famine. But Alaric was a Christian, and declared himself no enemy of the sacred city. He demanded a ransom of all the gold and silver and costly furniture in Rome, and a surrender of all the German slaves. ‘ What have you left us? ‘ asked the trembling Romans. ‘ Your lives,’ said the contemptuous Visigoth. And he marched quietly away.

In 409 Alaric again besieged Rome. The Emperor Honorius and his court were still enjoying themselves in safety behind the marshes of Ravenna. Alaric sent bishops of the Italian towns into Rome, offering peace. But Rome would not accept Alaric as an ally. Still he did not attack the town, but marched down to the Port of Rome, and held up the food ships till Rome herself submitted.

Yet still the stupid Honorius would not come to terms with Alaric. Instead he actually sent a rival barbarian chieftain with an army against the great Goth. The third time, Rome paid for the cowardice of Ravenna. In the year 410 Alaric appeared in wrath before the city. At the hour of midnight the Salarian Gate was treacherously opened, and the fury of the tribes of Germany and Russia and Asia, Teutons and Celts and Slavs and Tartars, poured through the ancient, inviolate streets. Alaric, a Christian himself, exhorted his Christian Goths to spare life, but to seize treasure. This they no doubt did. But there was no controlling the fierce Slavonic Alani and Sarmatians, the bloodthirsty Huns, the still heathen Germans who found themselves in the vast, medley army. Terrible slaughter took place in the streets, in the houses, even in the churches. Rome had fallen, her pride was gone for ever.

For six days the barbarian armies occupied Rome. Then they proceeded to ravage Italy. After this they scattered, to enjoy their spoil. The rich Romans were dead. In their lovely villas by the sea the Germans sprawled their huge limbs, lying drinking, gambling, singing, feasting, as at home. But now they lay on warm, marble terraces, stretched on silken cushions, looking out past the orange and almond trees to the blue waves of the Mediterranean. Beautiful delicate slaves attended the huge warriors, bringing wine cooled with snow, and rare food, and exquisite sweetmeats made of honey, and apricots, and oranges, and raisins, also beautiful bunches of grapes, and peaches each one laid sweet and downy on its own leaf. There the savage heroes shouted and sang, telling stories of the far-off grey Baltic, or of the bleak steppes of Russia.

But Alaric died in 410, when he was preparing to cross to Sicily. He was only 34 years of age. It is said that the river Busento was turned aside by the Goths, and that Alaric with all his arms and treasure was buried in the river bed. The river was then brought back to its own course, so that it rolled its waves above the great Visigoth. And then the workmen and slaves were all killed, the secret kept for ever.

The Goths began to sicken with diseases in Italy. Ataulf, their new chief, made peace with Honorius and later married Placidia, the Emperor’s sister. Then he led his hosts out of Italy, leaving the land at peace. He moved into Gaul, and then he decided to cross the Pyrenees.

The legions of Spain, like the legions of Britain, had revolted from their Roman allegiance, and in 407 they had invited into their lands the wild barbarians who had crossed the Rhine into Gaul. Of these the Vandals were the chief tribe. They were a much more ferocious, destructive race than the Goths, so that we still speak of an act of wilful destruction as an act of vandalism. Spain, a lovely and highly civilised Roman province, was lost when her treacherous legions invited the Vandals over the Pyrenees.

In 415, however, Ataulf, the successor of Alaric, being now friendly to Rome, determined to march with his Visigoths over the Pyrenees and dispossess the destructive Vandals. This he did, defeated the barbarians, and established his kingdom in North Spain, his capital in Barcelona. And thus began the Visigoth rule in Spain. The Visigoths in Spain became the nobility and freemen of Spain, as did the Normans in England, the natives forming the lower classes. Later the Moors came and overthrew the Visigoth rule, but after some hundreds of years the Moors were driven out, and the proud Spaniards, in whose veins runs the Gothic blood of Alaric, resumed their sway over the Peninsula.

Whilst the Visigoths settled themselves in North Spain, the Vandals still held the south. In 428 the Roman governor of North Africa rebelled against Rome. He sent across the Straits of Gibraltar and asked the fierce Vandals to come to his help. The Vandals, who were ready shipbuilders, saw their chance. Under their king, Genseric, they sailed across to the lovely and rich North African provinces, once the granary of Rome. Genseric was a terrible, inhuman leader. The Vandals fell upon the sunny African cities like a cloud of death. Soon they had dispossessed the Romans, and then was established a powerful, sea-faring kingdom of Vandals in the lands we now call Tripoli, having the capital in Carthage, one of the ancient great cities of the world. This Vandal empire in Africa was not destroyed till 534.

Meanwhile Europe was in chaos. African Vandals ravaged the sea, Vandals landed in Italy and again sacked Rome, in 455. In Gaul the Visigoths under Theodoric had established a kingdom in the south of France, in the fair land known as Aquitaine. There they settled down to peace and prosperity, spreading their kingdom over Northern Spain, and ruling a splendid Visigoth realm. They were already Christians.

The Burgundians, another German tribe, settled down peacefully in the fertile fields on the Rhone, the Jura, and by the upper waters of the Rhine. They too became Christians. The Franks, also German, settled in the north of Gaul, around the Scheldt and Somme and the Moselle.

In 490 another Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, founded the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy, and the Roman empire in the West disappeared. The empire in the East still persisted, governed from Constantinople. But it was hopelessly weak. About 510 the emperor of Constantinople invited the help of the Langobardi. This brought down the ferocious tribe of Lombards into Southern Europe, where their descendants still remain.

These are the real Dark Ages, when Europe was a welter of fighting barbarians. The splendour and peace of the Roman Empire utterly disappeared, Italy was almost depopulated by war and pestilence. The earth fell back into its wild state; a traveller in the once smiling, wonderful Italian country might have imagined himself in a savage land, save for the ruins and presence of Roman buildings, Roman roads.

Still the tide of barbarians flowed over the Danube. But it was no longer German, but Slavonic or Asiatic. The warlike Bulgarians came down upon the Balkan Peninsula, followed by Slavonic tribes, tall, fair, like Germans, but having Asiatic dress and manners, and a Slavonic speech.

So, as the great empire dwindled to the confines of Constantinople, the rest of Europe was flooded with barbarians from Germany, Russia, and Asia. These barbarians settled down at last, and, mingling or not mingling with the natives of the lands they occupied, formed the base of the great modern nations: English, French, Spanish, Lombard, Swiss, Bulgarian, and so on. All these are formed from a wild mixture of races, in which, except perhaps in the case of the Slavs, the Germanic element was dominant during the Dark Ages.