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H. B. Cotterill
Medieval Italy

p27 CHAPTER II
THE BARBARIANS

The invaders of Italy have been many. In the course of this volume we shall meet, as well as less important tribes, the Visigoths, Huns, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Lombards, Franks, Saracens, Normans, French and Spaniards, besides the Byzantines of the so‑called Holy Roman Empire. In the first Part, however, we shall be limited to the first three of these invaders, and in the present chapter I shall give some information about them, after having cast a glance backward for a few moments into the past.

In very early ages Central Europe was occupied by Aryan and perhaps other races, who are said to have come originally from the East — from Northern India and from lands beyond the Volga and the Ural Mountains. Some 1500 years before the Christian era the Achaeans (fair-haired leaders perhaps of darker Eastern tribes) poured down from the north into Greece. They were followed by the Dorians, another Central European Aryan people, and about three centuries later we hear of all Asia Minor being deluged by the Cimmerians, a people of Eastern origin, who have bequeathed their name to the Crimea and were perhaps of the same great family of the Celts, or Gauls, who captured Rome in 390 B.C., and who from an early age occupied the north of Italy (the Gallia Cisalpina or Togata of the Romans). These Celts, or Gauls, were also closely related to the Cimbrians (Cymry?), whose mighty hordes overwhelmed Gaul and Spain early in the second century before our era and were finally vanquished by Marius in a great battle fought near Vercelli (101 B.C.). p28Allied to the Cimbrians were the Teutons, a Germanic people,1 who were conquered also by Marius at Aquae Sextiae (Aix), in Gaul. The south of Gaul was then formed into a Roman province (whence the name Provence), and Julius Caesar subdued the rest of the Gallic land, which together with Britain formed one of the four vast "Prefectures" of the later Roman Empire.

Caesar also routed the Germani, led by Ariovistus, and chased them across the Rhine; but he prudently desisted from attempting the conquest of Germany, and made the Rhine the east boundary of the Roman territory. Drusus, the stepson of Augustus, carried war into the heart of Germany, and advanced as far as the Elbe; but some eighteen years later (A.D. 9) a Roman army of three legions under Varus was annihilated by the Germans under Arminius (i.e. Hermann, 'Army-man') at the battle in the Teutoburger Wald, a wooded tract some hundred miles north-east of Cologne; and although another imperial prince, Germanicus, succeeded in restoring the Roman prestige by reoccupying most of the country, he was recalled by the jealousy of his uncle Tiberius, and no further attempt was made to incorporate Germany in the Empire. Except for the temporary annexation of Dacia, which has been mentioned, the policy adopted by Augustus after the defeat of Varus was continued by his successors, and the well-fortified2 frontiers afforded by the Rhine and the Danube proved an impregnable bulwark during about two hundred and fifty years — until that fatal permission given to great multitudes of Visigoths to cross the Danube, which ended in the disaster of Hadrianople in 378. p29When this disaster was mentioned before (pp. 7 and 22) it was explained that the Goths were forced across the Danube by the advancing hosts of the Huns. I shall now briefly explain who these Goths were, and how they and the Vandals and several other peoples who had settled in Central Europe were driven southwards and westwards by the wild hordes of this Tartar race, the Huns, and hurled against the frontiers of the Western Empire — a movement of such magnitude and such consequence that it is known as the Migration of Nations — the Völkerwanderung. Then, in later chapters, we shall follow in fuller detail the three great barbarian invasions of Italy which were the result of this movement — that of the Visigoths under Alaric, that of the Huns themselves under Attila, and that (from Africa) of Gaiseric and his Vandals.

The Goths were a Germanic race which is believed to have come to Central Europe from Scandinavia,3 where the name Gothland still exists. If this be so, and if it is true that every nation speaking a language belonging to the great Aryan family came originally from the regions beyond the Caspian, it would follow that the ancestors of the Goths, at some distant epoch in the past, made their way through Russia to Scandinavia. But, however that may be, in the age of the Antonines, when we first have trustworthy mention of them,4 they are in the country of the Vistula, south of the Baltic, and about seventy years later (c. 250) we find that they have migrated to the region of the Borysthenes (Dnieper) and the north-west shores of the Euxine, and are proving so troublesome to Roman Dacia that the Emperor Decius heads a campaign against them and is slain, together with his son, in battle.

At this time the Gothic nation consisted of East Goths, West Goths, and those Gepidae5 whom we shall find in later times p30occupying the regions of Dacia and Pannonia vacated by the Ostrogoths and Visigoths on their migrations further south and west. It was of course the West Goths who first came into collision with the Romans in Dacia. After the defeat and death of Decius a determined assault was made on these Visigoths by the Emperor Claudius II, whose 'litera laureata' to the Roman Senate affirmed that he had routed 320,000 of them and had destroyed 2000 of their ships; and he received from the Senate the title 'Gothicus'; but nevertheless about two years later (272) his successor, Aurelian, deemed it necessary to surrender the province to the barbarians, who founded there a very remarkable Gothic empire — a complex of the three great Gothic kingdoms. In the north (now Hungary) were the Gepidae, to the east (Moldavia and Bessarabia) were the Ostrogoths, and in Southern Dacia (now Rumania) were the Visigoths.

The Ostrogoths, who rose to power and formed a kind of Pan-Gothic supremacy under their celebrated king Hermanric,6 remained for a long time pagans, uninfluenced by Roman civilization, as also did the Gepidae in Northern Dacia; but the Visigoths, being in closer touch with the Empire, became rapidly Romanized and Christianized — of which fact evidence still exists, for the modern Rumanians are to a large extent descendants of the Visigoths who remained behind here in Dacia (c. 378) when many of their fellows crossed the Danube and marched with Alaric down into Italy and eventually found their way to Gaul; and these modern Rumanians, in spite of all deutsch influence and all Turkish oppression, though hemmed in on all sides by Magyars and Slavs (or Slavicized Scythians, to give the Bulgars their real lineage), p31have preserved till the present day much of the Roman character in their language, literature, customs, and sympathies.

Among the civilizing influences brought to bear on these Visigoths was that of a great missionary — the Apostle of the Goths — Bishop Ulfilas (Vulfila). He was himself of Gothic origin, but he received a Greek and Roman education at Constantinople and devoted the rest of his life (from about 335 to 380) to converting his countrymen and to translating the Bible into Gothic. About 177 pages of a magnificent fifth-century manuscript of what is almost certainly his translation is still to be seen at Upsala. It is written in letters of silver and gold on purple parchment, and contains more than half the Gospels.  Other Gothic manuscripts exist which give what are possibly portions of his translation of St. Paul's Epistles and of the Old Testament.7

For this version of the Bible he used partly letters of his own invention, partly Greek and Latin, and partly Runic script. This script had existed already for many centuries among the Goths, probably introduced into northern lands by river-traders from the Greek colonies on the Euxine, or by Phoenician navigators, or possibly brought by the ancestors of these northern Aryan peoples from their original home in the far East.

When Ulfilas was still a young man and was being educated at Constantinople he had doubtless come under the personal influence of Arius, whose doctrines were strongly favoured by Constantine during the latter years of his reign. Hence it came about that from the teachings of the Apostle of the Goths and other missionaries all the barbarian nations of Central Europe except the Franks were first converted from their northern or eastern paganism to Arianism; and it was not until considerably later that Catholicism prevailed over this widespread form of heterodoxy. But, whatever may be thought of the merits of Ulfilas as a Christian missionary and p32a disseminator of the knowledge of the Bible, there can be no doubt as to the value of his work from a literary point of view. 'When we examine these precious relics of the fourth century which bear the name of Ulfilas, we often meet the very words with which we are so familiar in our English Bible, but linked together by a flexional structure that finds no parallel short of Sanscrit. This is the oldest book we can go back to written in a language like our own. It has therefore a national interest for us. . . . It is one of the finest specimens of ancient language.'8

We must now turn from the Goths to another nation, possibly also of Germanic stock, but more probably Slavonic — the Vandals. During the existence of the great Gothic kingdom or empire, from about 250 to 400, they seem to have lived in the upper regions of the Elbe and the Oder, in which countries their descendants (the Wenden) and relics of their language (Wendisch) perhaps still exist.

At the coming of the Huns (who, as we have seen and shall see, brought the whole of Central Europe into violent commotion, causing the Goths to invade the Roman Empire and also probably the Angles and the Saxons to invade Britain) the Vandals seem to have fled from their homes in what is now Saxony and Silesia and together with the Suevi (Swabians), the Alans,9 and the Burgundians to have joined Alaric and his Visigoths in their first, unsuccessful invasions of Italy. Here, near Florence, the leader of this confederate army, Radegast, was captured and slain by the Roman general Stilicho (405). However, as we have seen, Stilicho had considered it necessary to withdraw the Roman legions not only from Britain but also from the Rhineland, and the great host of pagan10 Vandals and their allies, being repulsed from Italy, passed over the Rhine (406) and devastated (says p33Gibbon) the greater part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. Many flourishing cities were sacked, thousands of Christians were massacred in the churches, 'the rich and extensive country, as far as the ocean and the Pyrenees, was delivered to the barbarians, who drove before them in a promiscuous crowd the bishop, the senator, and the virgin, laden with the spoil of their homes and altars.'

From these regions the Vandals and Suevi were not long afterwards ejected by the Visigoths, who, as we shall see later, after their sack of Rome in 410, made their way to the south of Gaul and founded a great Visigoth kingdom, whose capitals were Arles and Toulouse. In Spain, whither they were driven, the Vandals11 settled for some time (the name Vandalusia, or Andalusia, being a relic of this sojourn), until the Visigoths followed them over the Pyrenees and harassed them for some years (c. 415‑20). Then they seem to have been reorganized by the famous Gaiseric, who, perhaps on the invitation of the Roman general Boniface, crossed with the whole of his people to Africa. Thence, perhaps on the invitation of the Dowager-Empress Eudoxia, Gaiseric, who had built a powerful fleet, sailed across to South Italy and sacked Rome (455). But this is anticipating — for in another chapter I shall have to treat fully the subject of the Vandals in Africa and at Rome.

We have now to hear about the Huns — who they were and whence they came. Their invasions of Gaul and of Italy under Attila will be described later. Here we will follow their history, as far as it is known, from early times down to 445, when Attila, the 'Scourge of God,' came into power.

Except the Basques and a few other strange ingredients, such as relics of Saracen domination and the Jews, the population of Europe consists of two great families. To the Aryan (or Indo-European) belong the Celtic, the Greek, the Latin, the Germanic, and the Slavonic races. To the Turanian (or Mongolian) belong the Turks, Hungarians (Magyars), Finns, and Bulgarians — the last being Slavicized Sarmatians or p34Scythians, who were originally Mongols and, to judge from the description given by the great physician Hippocrates, were evidently like the Huns in appearance and in habits.

The following Table shows what is believed to be the lineage and the relationships of the Hunnish race:

According to old Chinese records, the 'Hiong-nu' were a great and restless nation that had existed in Central Asia from some 2000 years before our era — say, before the days of Abraham. It was to keep them out of China that the Great Wall was built. In a later age, after many severe conflicts, the Chinese crushed them (c. A.D. 90) and many of them migrated westwards. For some 300 years they lived between the Ural and the Volga, probably kept back by the Alans of the Don, a Turkish race already mentioned. These finally they conquered, and with them they marched again westward. The terror inspired by the approach of these Asiatic savages is reflected vividly in the chronicles of Jordanes, who likens them to beasts walking on their hind legs and to the hideous, misshapen wooden images erected on bridges. Nations, he says, whom they would never have conquered in fair fight fled horrified from them. 'They are more savage than savagery itself. They use no condiments, nor do they cook p35their food with fire, but eat raw flesh, after having kept it some time beneath their legs on the backs of their horses; for they are ever on horseback. They are small, agile, and strong. Their faces — though one can scarce call them human faces — are shapeless collops of flesh with two black sparkling points instead of eyes. They have very little beard, for they gash the faces of their infants with knives to accustom them to wounds even before they taste their mother's milk, and flatten their noses with irons to make them appear more terrible to their enemies. They derived their origin from the commerce of evil spirits and the witches expelled from the forests of the Goths, for whose overthrow they were generated and born. These same evil spirits showed them the road they should take in order to attack the Goths; and it happened in this way. Some Huns when hunting came upon a deer which kept turning back and seeming to invite them to follow. They did so, and when the deer, as it went forward, had shown them how to cross over the Maeotic swamp, [Sea of Azof], it suddenly disappeared — which was a manifest proof that it was truly one of those evil spirits that were hostile to the Goths.'

The onset of the innumerable host of the Huns was irresistible. The aged Ostrogoth king Hermanric was slain — or slew himself — and his warriors were enrolled in the Hun army. Then the Dniester was crossed and the Visigoths were attacked. Some escaped northward to the Carpathians; others fled southward, communicating such panic to their fellow-countrymen in Lower Dacia that a vast multitude of perhaps a million, amongst whom were 200,000 armed men under their Captain or 'Judge,' Fritigern, flocked in terror across the Danube. The Romans — that is, the military powers of the Eastern Empire — after attempting vainly to stem the torrent, finding it impossible ever to number and disarm them, allowed the Visigoths to settle in Moesia and Thrace. A terrible famine then broke out, of which the Roman officials took advantage. They bought from the starving fugitives not only costly objects but also thousands of slaves by means p36of putrefying or repulsive meat, such as the flesh of dogs and vermin and sick cattle. Driven to despair, the Visigoths, in spite of the efforts of Fritigern, turn to plundering the country for the sake of food, and soon a fight takes place between the barbarians and the imperial troops while their generals are banqueting together — much in the same way as in the Nibelungenlied the men of Gunther and of Attila begin the quarrel which ends in the terrible catastrophe. Then follows, as we already know, a great battle not far from Hadrianople. The Emperor Valens disappears and the imperial army is routed with great carnage (378).

But to return to the Huns — they seem to have found Northern Dacia suited to their needs, for during the next fifty years or so they remained quietly there, possibly however harrying, annexing, or driving northwards and westwards various nations of Germany, such as the Saxons and the Franks. With the Eastern Empire they cultivated friendly relations. Hunnish soldiers at times fought as allies of the imperial legions, and they also improved the occasion by learning and importing into their home army Roman weapons, discipline, and tactics, and doubtless also Roman officers.

The sudden and threatening expansion and aggressiveness of the Hunnish empire when Attila became the sole king, in 445, will be described in a later chapter, when I undertake to relate his invasion of Gaul and of Italy.

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The Author's Notes:

1 The words 'Germanic' and 'German' are often of uncertain meaning in English. The Goths, Franks, Angles, and other tribes were of 'Germanic' stock, but the word 'Germans' should properly be used only of the 'Germani,' i.e. the inhabitants of the 'Germania' of classical times, about whom we learn so much from Caesar and Tacitus.

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2 One of the most interesting of these forts is at Kaiseraugst (Colonia Augusta), some twelve miles upstream from Basel, built in 27 B.C. — the year in which the first Emperor received his title 'Augustus.' It was provided with a spacious and massive theatre, lately fully excavated and restored.

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3 The old northern mythology of Valhalla is certainly far grander in its Scandinavian than in its Germanic form and would seem to point to Scandinavia as its home. But this may be due to the fact that paganism lasted far longer in Scandinavia and developed a fine literature in the Eddas.

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4 Many older legends were given by the historians of the Goths, Cassiodorus and Jordanes (see Index), who describe how they crossed the Baltic.

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5 Jordanes asserts that 'Gepidae' means 'Loiterers,' and that the ship carrying this part of the nation across the Baltic 'lagged behind.'

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6 Hermanric = 'Army-man-prince.' The word ric [rik, rich], found in Alaric, Theoderic, etc., meant 'mighty'; e.g. Gott der riche, 'God the Mighty.' The Nibelungenlied word Recke, a prince or hero (nowadays a 'giant'), is evidently connected with it, and also possibly the Latin rex. Hermanric's dominions, says Gibbon, 'extended from the Baltic to the Euxine.' He lived over 100 years, and he was the ancestor, through the Amala family (see Index), of Theoderic the Great. He seems to have been a kind of emperor of all the Goths, the Visigoth rulers having at that time only the title of 'Judge.'

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7 It is said that he would not translate the books of Samuel and the Kings lest they should encourage war! As he lived till 380 he was probably among the fugitives who crossed the Danube in 378.

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8 The Philology of the English Tongue, by J. Earle (Oxford Press). Quoted by Count Balzani.

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9 A mysterious people, perhaps of Turkish stock, driven westward by the Huns.

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10 Radegast, when on one campaign he nearly reached Rome, vowed to sacrifice the Roman senators to some northern gods — Thor and Woden perhaps.

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11 The Suevi founded a kingdom in what is now Portugal.

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12 'Tartar' is an incorrect form of the word 'Tatar,' due to the Greek and Latin word 'Tartarus' (Hell). For the general adoption of 'Tartar,' with its infernal associations, we are indebted, it is said, to St. Louis.

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13 The modern Hungarians, who falsely assert their descent from the Huns, are Magyars who about A.D. 900 drove out the older inhabitants of Hungary — probably the Avars. The name Hungar, or Ongar, given by the Slavs to the newcomer, has probably nothing to do with 'Hun,' but means of Ugrian, or Ogrian, race.