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II.1

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II.3

H. B. Cotterill
Medieval Italy

CHAPTER II
WRITERS OF THE AGE

From time to time I have mentioned some of the principal writers, both Latin and Greek, to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of much that has been hitherto recorded.

It will be remembered that some of these writers were ecclesiastics, or even Fathers of the Church, while others were pagans or were for other reasons strongly biassed (Susan note), so that it is often impossible to feel quite sure of their facts or of their estimates of character. Those writers who relate contemporary events are naturally the most graphic and the most interesting and might be expected to furnish the most accurate details; but it is just such writers who were most swayed by personal and political influences. On the other hand, those who compiled historical and biographical accounts of days long past were wont to interweave a considerable amount of legendary matter, which they sometimes evolved from their own inner consciousness, as was the case with Agnellus of Ravenna, who, as we have seen, when facts failed him, in order that there should be no lacuna in his Lives of the Pontiffs, relied on God and the prayers of the brethren to inspire his imagination. For the first third of the fourth century we have Lactantius, and Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, who gives us, besides various works on ecclesiastical history, a Life of Constantine. He ingenuously intimates that he has related or suppressed facts according as they appeared to be favourable or not to the interests of religion. Then we have the Emperor Julian, and his admirer Libanius, the rhetorician and teacher of the Greek Fathers Basil (329‑79) and Chrysostom (347‑407), both of whom were copious writers and contemporaries of St. Jerome, the Latin Father to whom we owe the Vulgate, and of St. Gregory Nazianzen, the fierce opponent of the apostate Emperor. Then we have the poet Ausonius (c. 350), tutor to Gratian, and Ammianus Marcellinus, another admirer of Julian, who begins his valuable work before the accession of that Emperor and takes us as far as the disappearance of Valens (378). He, although a native of Syrian Antioch, was, as Gibbon says, 'the last subject of Rome who composed a profane history in the Latin language.' Next comes the Greek pagan Zosimus, a vehement assailant of Theodosius the Catholic. His narrative extends for a considerable period after the reign of this Emperor. Parts of the next period are covered by the Epistles of St. Ambrose, the Confessions and De Civitate Dei and other works of St. Augustine (354‑431), and the writings of his disciple Orosius. Also Jordanes and Procopius, of whom we shall hear more shortly, now begin to be useful, giving us information about Alaric and Galla Placidia and the Vandals and the period between Gaiseric's sack of Rome and the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476. For the episode of Attila we are greatly indebted to the writings (Excerpta, etc.) of Priscus, about whom see pp. 96‑97. Lastly may be mentioned Sidonius of Lyon, who married the daughter of Avitus and wrote Panegyrics on him and others of the 'puppet-Emperors.' His writings gained him the bishopric of Clermont, but for our purposes they are of small value.

After the fall of the Western Empire in 476 Latin literature, as was natural, for a time disappeared; but under the Romanizing patronage of Theoderic it experienced a brilliant, though short-lived, revival in the famous De Consolatione Philosophiae of Boëthius and the works of Cassiodorus, especially his History of the Goths, or rather the brilliant résumé of this work by the Ostrogoth Jordanes. Another very notable historian of this period is the Greek writer Procopius, who, as we have already seen, accompanied Belisarius on his Persian, African, and Italian campaigns and wrote a graphic account of the Gothic War up to the death of Theia.

Anicius Manlius Severinus BOËTHIUS,whose names testify to a very distinguished lineage, was born about 470. In early life he studied at Athens, and was a zealous Greek scholar. In 510 he was consul, as had been his father before him, and later Magister officiorum. His learning, his wealth, and high office gained him very great influence. We hear that his palace was 'decorated with ivory and marble,' and there still exist letters (evidently composed by Cassiodorus) in which Theoderic addresses him with much friendliness, begging his advice and aid about such things as the state of the coinage, and about musical instruments, clocks moved by running water, sun-dials, planetary spheres, and other mechanical devices, which he wishes to send to the Burgundian king and hopes will cause the barbarians much astonishment and teach them 'not to fancy themselves equal to us.' In 522 both his sons, whose mother was the daughter of one of the chief senators, Symmachus by name, were made consuls, though they must have been still rather young for the office. Thus the life of Boëthius might seem to have been very happy unless we were compelled to recognize the truth of Solon's 'ancient saying,' as Sophocles calls it, that we should 'look to the end' — compelled also still more to remember the words of Boëthius himself: 'In every adversity the most unhappy kind of misfortune is to have been happy.'

It will be remembered that towards the end of his reign Theoderic was much embittered by the hostility that his well-meant efforts had met with, especially in Rome, where a very strong patriotic and anti-Goth feeling prevailed. Doubtless some of these patriots were in correspondence with Constantinople, and there was no lack of informers ready to excite suspicion against Romans of distinction. A Goth partisan, a certain official named Cyprian, came forward to accuse the senator Albinus. Hereupon Boëthius, with a courage — or a recklessness — inspired by innocence, hastened from Rome to interview Theoderic in his Verona palace. 'If Albinus is guilty, then I am guilty — and the whole Senate is guilty,' he is said to have exclaimed.1 But instead of rightly interpreting these courageous words Theoderic turned furiously upon him, accusing him, as Boëthius himself tells us, of having in certain letters expressed hopes that Rome might recover her freedom (libertatem sperasse Romanam). He was sent to Pavia and there imprisoned. The charges were referred to the Senate, or perhaps a commission sent by the Senate, which (doubtless overawed) adjudged him guilty. To what punishment he was at first condemned is not known. It is known that he composed a Defence, but it was not heard, and, unlike the Apology of Socrates, it has not survived. His place of imprisonment is not known for certain. Some speak of a 'Rocca' (fortress) near Pavia, others of a building near the former church of S. Zeno, others of the baptistery of the then cathedral — possibly S. Zeno, which, like most of Pavia's 165 once existing churches, has disappeared.

During several months of terrible suspense he occupied his mind by composing his Apologia and his De consolatione Philosophiae. Finally, Theoderic, perhaps incensed by the discovery of some plot, and furious at the sympathy which the Romans showed for the condemned senator and his family, and perhaps at the openly expressed grief of his wife's father, Symmachus, determined to put Boëthius to death. The sentence was carried out with the most barbarous inhumanity. A cord was tied round his head and tightened until his eyes almost started from their sockets; then his life was beaten out of him with clubs. This took place, it is said, in the Agro Calvenzano, on the road between Milan and Pavia, and he was probably buried there, for about the year 1000 the Emperor Otto III — the same who opened and probably pillaged Charles the Great's tomb at Aachen — caused his body to be carried to the Lombardic church S. Pietro in Ciel d'oro in Pavia,2 where his tomb, not far from that of S. Augustine, was to be seen for more than eight centuries. It seems to have disappeared when S. Pietro was dismantled and for a time abandoned (1844‑75), for it is no longer to be seen in the restored church (see Figs. 13 and 52).

A few months after the death of Boëthius his father-in‑law, Symmachus, was accused, loaded with chains, taken to Ravenna, and there put to death, probably with torture, and certainly without any trial.

Thus, in spite of his edicts and his professed admiration for Roman law, the ferocious military despotism of the Gothic king overrode all equity; for all old writers agree in rejecting as false the charges brought against Boëthius. That he appealed to the laws and demanded an open trial both for Albinus and for himself is known, and that Symmachus did so — however hopeless of success — we may feel sure. It seems evident that Athaulf was right when he said that the Goths were incapable of constitutional self-government — an art that their descendants have yet to learn.

The work that Boëthius composed in prison is not only, to use Gibbon's elegant phrase, 'worthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully,' not merely a literary composition of very high merit, but, from the circumstances under which it was written, one of the most real and pathetic books in the world. It stands apart from all works of fictitious pathos, together even the Apology of Socrates or the Phaedo itself can scarcely claim a place. Its external form is to some extent dramatic. Philosophy, a lady of august presence, such as Athene herself, appears to Boëthius in prison, where he has been writing verses with the help of the Muses and is silently pondering on what he has written. She somewhat sternly dismisses the siren daughters of Memory and questions him. He describes his woes and defends his conduct: he will leave a record of his unjust treatment; he denounces Fortune, and, like Job, appeals to the tribunal of God. Philosophy begins to console him, at times (in spite of her dismissal of the Muses) breaking forth into song. She then bids him make profession of his beliefs, and on this subject they hold a long dialogue both in prose and in verse — the verse, which is full of noble thoughts and is sometimes of great beauty, being Horatian in language and also in form, but introducing as many as twenty-six variations of such metres as the Anacreontic, Sapphic, Asclepiadic, etc. Philosophy finds that Boëthius is ignorant of himself (an illusion to the Delphic maxim 'Know thyself') and urges him not to trouble himself about the wench Fortune. 'Ah,' he exclaims, 'these are fine words, but misery is real.' She then reminds him of his former happiness — of his wife, his sons, his honours, his wealth. To this he answers: 'In adversity the worst kind of unhappiness is to have been happy' — a sentiment which has been echoed by many a writer, and has been harmonized in immortal verse by Dante.3. But Philosophy points out that he still possessed the love of his family and much else that should make him happy, and inveighs against ambition and pours disdain on fame. He replies that it was not any ordinary ambition that made him take part in public affairs, but the wish to make use of his powers for the good of his fellow-men. She approves, but again dwells on the sovereign power of Love, singing its praises in a fine lyric as that which binds the universe together in harmony; 'and well, too, were the race of men if the same love that governeth the heaven governed your minds also,' for there is no law so high as that which love makes for itself:
Quis legem dat amantibus ?
Major lex amor est sibi.

He then begs her tell the nature of true felicity. This she does by describing the false happiness and bidding him imagine the converse — the felicity that consists in the contempt of all earthly things and in looking to God as the summum bonum. This leads to a long discussion (still in verse and in prose) on the nature of God and of the soul and of animals and of plants. Then Boëthius starts the old difficulty about the existence of evil, and when this is solved as well as one can expect, he leads on to the mysteries of human free-will and God's prescience, of predestination and chance, of prayer, of thought and sensation and volition, and other abstruse questions. Philosophy does not undertake to solve all these problems but insists that 'hope and prayer are not vain delusions and when sincere cannot but be effectual.' Thus the Consolation of Boëthius ends. The rest is silence; but Philosophy remains by his side till all is over.

It has been hotly asserted by some modern writers, chiefly German, that Boëthius was a pagan and that various doctrinal works against Arians and other heretics with which he is sometimes credited are forgeries. Certainly it seems strange that his chief work makes no allusion to Christianity. And yet in earlier times he was always regarded as a Christian and as a Christian martyr, and not only was his body buried in 'Cieldauro' beside that of the great Christian Father, but his 'sainted spirit' has been imagined in Paradise4 by the great Italian poet whose poem holds up a mirror to the beliefs of the Middle Ages and, as Carlyle says, 'renders them for ever rhythmically visible.'

There is a version of the De Consolatione by King Alfred — who, by the way, also translated writings of the elder Augustine, of Orosius, of Gregory the Great, and of Bede, as well as composing a version of the Psalms. His translation (c. 897) is very fine, and here and there he introduces a good deal of his own; indeed, Book V is almost rewritten by him, and gains thus an additional interest as the spontaneous expression of a great king's contempt for worldly greatness. Even a verse translation of the Metra, the verses of Boëthius, is attributed to Alfred. Chaucer also translated the Consolation. His English is rough and unmusical in comparison with the original, and of the Metra he gives nothing but a rather bald prose version. In his own poems he now and then translates or imitates passages from the work of Boëthius, but never with much success. How strongly the book appealed to former generations is evident from the fact that almost every great writer during the Middle Ages mentions, quotes, or imitates Boëthius.

The name ofCASSIODORUS(5) has been already frequently mentioned. He was born about 480. Introduced by his father, who was a high official, he entered as a young man the service of Theoderic. For many years he was Secretary and Minister of State to the Gothic king, and afterwards to Athalaric, Amalasuntha, Theodahad, and even Vitiges. But he was now about sixty years of age, and his long experience had convinced him that the idea, which he had shared with Theoderic, of welding together into one the Gothic and the Italian nations was unrealizable. He therefore withdrew from public life, and near his native town Squillace, in Calabria, he founded (c. 539) a hermitage and a monastery — the latter somewhat on the model of the world-famed monastery of Monte Cassino, over which St. Benedict had already been ruling for some ten years. Here he passed the rest of his long life, devoting his time to contemplation and intellectual work. It is probable that he lived until the Lombard invasion of 568, and by some he is believed to have survived till 575. In his ninety-third year he is said to have written an educational tractate for his monks, and during the thirty preceding years he composed his great work, the Historia Getarum, as well as various Biblical commentaries and other theological works, and edited a Church History, which was compiled by his disciple Epiphanius from Greek authors, and which remained for centuries a popular text-book. I have already had occasion, and shall again have occasion, to mention several of the many letters that he wrote in the name of Theoderic and other Ostrogoth sovereigns. They are exceedingly interesting and valuable, and at times natural and amusing; but their florid and pompous style is often wearisome.

The Historia Getarum, in twelve books, was written to magnify the ancestors of Theoderic. Cassiodorus wrongly believed the Goths to be the same race as the ancient Thracian Getae. He traced the lineage of the Amali back to the sky-god of the Getae, Zalmoxis or Zamolxis, of whom Herodotus tells,6 and claimed the Amazons as ancient Gothic heroines. This History has not survived, but we possess a résumé of it written by a Goth,JORDANES or Jornandes, who is said to have belonged to the royal family of the Amali. It seems to have been written at Constantinople about the year of 551 — that is long before the death of Cassiodorus — and, if we are to believe Jordanes himself, its composition was a very remarkable feat of memory, or must have been the product of a very fertile imagination, for he tells us that he had not had the original work (twelve volumes, be it remembered) in his hands for more than three days. In this Getica (from which I have cited passages about the origin of the Goths, and about Attila, etc.) Jordanes, as is but natural, shows great admiration for the Gothic race, but he shared fully in the enthusiasm of Cassiodorus and his royal master for Roman civilization and in the hope of seeing the two nations fused into one — a hope that probably he, as they, outlived. In his later days he, like Cassiodorus, took to a religious life.

As a literary performance the historical work7 ofPROCOPIUSstands on a far higher level than the Getica. It certainly gives evidence of the late age in which it was written, but it shows a wonderful gift for stylistic imitation. In reading the narrative — a description, maybe, of a battle, or of the horrors of a siege or a pestilence — one might often imagine that it was a page out of the Peloponnesian War, or a very successful academic exercise in Thucydidean Greek prose with a soupçon of Herodotean naïveté. Indeed, one is at times rather apt to suspect that in his literary ardour and imitative zeal the writer may have subordinated fact to style. But besides its scholarly characteristics the work of Procopius possesses a considerable element of original thought and much descriptive power. Moreover its value as a chronicle is inestimable, for it is almost the only contemporary record that we possess of the campaigns of Belisarius and of Narses.

Procopius was a native of Caesarea, in Palestine. As a young man he came to Constantinople in the reign of Anastasius. He seems to have risen quickly into notice, for about 528 he was chosen by Justinian to accompany Belisarius on his Persian campaign, probably in the position of secretary and political adviser. Like Polybius, the Greek historian of the later Punic Wars, who accompanied Scipio to Africa and was present at the destruction of Carthage, Procopius followed Belisarius also to Africa, and here beheld Carthage captured. After the overthrow of the Vandal empire in Africa he joined the Byzantine leader in Italy, and, as we have seen, proved his gifts as a man of action during the siege of Rome and on other occasions. His Gothic War ends with the battle on Vesuvius and the death of Theia. Its final sentence is strongly reminiscent of Thucydides: 'Thus terminated the eighteenth year of the Gothic war, the history of which was written by Procopius.'

Soon after this he returned to Constantinople, where his hero Belisarius was living somewhat under a cloud, and he probably accompanied him on the campaign against the Avars in 559, which was terminated by the jealously of Justinian (p. 149). A year or two later he was made City Prefect. It is not known when he died.

Very possibly his somewhat adulatory narrative of the campaigns of Belisarius won him and his book a cold reception at the court of Justinian. It is surmised that in order to propitiate the Emperor he composed a book (De Aedificiis Justiniani) describing the chief buildings erected under Justinian's auspices — a work that is of great interest to the student of architecture. Another book that was probably written by him, or inspired by him, is the Anecdota, which by its Latin translator is called the Historia Arcana ('Secret History'). It professes to give revelations of a scandalous state of things existing behind the scenes at the imperial court, and pours floods of the bitterest satire on Justinian as well as on his consort Theodora — the ci-devant circus-girl. If this book is by Procopius, he probably wrote it late in life, when even his De Aedificiis had failed to obtain him favour at court, or when his indignation at the treatment meted out to Belisarius had at last caused the cup of his long-suffering to overflow. The satire was not published until after Justinian's death in 565.

The description by Procopius of the terrible famine of 538 has already been given (p. 144), and also that of the battle on Vesuvius (p.152). Here I shall add a brief abstract of his account8 of the great plague which visited Constantinople about 544, and which continued its ravages intermittently during twenty years,9 reaching Gaul (as we learn from Gregory of Tours) and probably Britain. The close imitation of Thucydides, both in general form and in particular expressions, will be interesting to scholars; I shall therefore here and there quote the original Greek where the language in the two writers is notably similar.

He begins by saying that 'men of presuming intellect' may perhaps attempt to discover the source of such things, which fall like lightning from heaven on the human race (Susan note — Greek), but only God knows whence they come. No circumstance of country or climate or season or race of men affected its course; it went its way, destroying or sparing as it willed. 'Therefore let everyone, whether savant or astrologer, speak on the subject according to his views, but I will record in what land it first appeared and will proceed to describe how it killed people . . . .' (Susan note — Greek) Procopius believed that it first appeared in Egypt, and found its way through Palestine in two years to Constantinople, where he himself was at that time (viz.  543‑44). At first people had curious experiences of meeting spectral shapes and being wounded by them, and were immediately afterwards attacked by the pestilence. They try exorcism and prayer, but fall dead in the churches. Others shut themselves up in their houses in dread of being 'called' by demons. But even in dreams the horrid apparitions come and call them. The first symptom was sudden fever, though externally (as also Thucydides says) the body was not hot to the touch. In a day or two a bubo formed in the groin or axilla, causing the sufferers to roll in agony on the ground or cast themselves into the sea or into wells. On dissection terrible carbuncles (Susan note-Greek) were found inside the glandular swellings. The whole body, moreover, was covered with an eruption of black pustules as big, as a lentil (Susan note-Greek). Thucydides has (Susan note-Greek). If the bubo burst recovery sometimes followed, but many who survived were attacked by paralysis, especially of the tongue. 'Now when all the sepulchres that already existed were full, and all the men who had been employed to bury the dead in the open country had disappeared, then those whose duty it was to undertake the burial of corpses, being no longer able to keep pace with the number of those who died, ascended the towers of the city-wall in the Sycaean ward, and having removed the roofs threw the dead bodies pell-mell down into the towers; and when they had stuffed them all, so to speak, brim-full, they put the roofs on again. And the evil stench that thence reached the city increased the distress of the inhabitants, especially if a wind happened to be blowing from that quarter.'


The Author's Notes:

1 Gibbon (followed by Villari) says that he also exclaimed: 'And if I had known anything I would not have told you.' (Si ego scissem tu nescisses). This, according to Gregorovius, is incorrect. Boëthius himself says he would have used these words of Julius Cassus, whose death is related by Seneca, if there had been anything to be gained by so doing.

2 'The body from which this sacred soul was chased lieth, down on earth in Cieldauro' (Dante, Par. x, 127)

3 Inf. v. 121. For the echoes in Chaucer and other writers perhaps I may refer to my edition of annotated selections from Dante's Inferno published by the Oxford University Press. In Dante's case it is no mere echo. The words of Francesca are fraught with as deep a pathos as the words of Boëthius himself.

4 Par. x, 125, where St. Thomas Aquinas points out to Dante the star-like spirit of Boëthius and describes him as one who 'proves the world fallacious to him who listens well.' In the Convito Dante calls Cicero and Boëthius his 'guides to the gentle lady Philosophy.' In Inf. v Francesca, speaking to Dante, calls Boëthius (or possibly Virgil) il tuo dottore.

5 Some German writers prefer the form Cassiodorius, but Hodgkin (Letters of Cassiodorus) is probably right in retaining the ordinary form. The full name is Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus. His father held high office under Odovacar and Theoderic, and his grandfather was a friend of Aëtius and visited Attila as envoy.

6 See IV.94‑96. Herodotus does not feel quite sure whether Zalmoxis was a great man or 'nothing but a native god of the Getae.'

7 The whole work on the Persian, Vandalic, and Gothic wars of Belisarius is in eight books, and the history is continued (after 553) in five books by Agathias.

8 Persian War, ii, 22. The passage has connexion, not with the first Persian campaign of Belisarius, but with the short and unsuccessful campaign of 542‑43 (p. 144). It has the impress of personal experience, though on account of its plagiarisms it reads more like sensational 'copy' than the similar accounts by Thucydides, Lucretius, Boccaccio, and Defoe. Procopius returned to Constantinople in 540 with Belisarius, and evidently accompanied him on his Persian campaign and came back with him c. 543. Late in 544 they returned to Italy.

9 It broke out again with great violence in 564. Justinian himself was attacked, but recovered.

Page updated: 3 Sep 06