Part 7 (1/2)
These principles, though he may never have read the pa.s.sage of Orosius which expounded them, were essentially the principles of Theodoric. So long as he remained in antagonism to the Empire, he could not reckon on the hearty co-operation of Roman officials in the task of government.
The brave, through patriotism, and the cowardly, through fear of coming retribution, would decline to be known as his adherents, and would stand aloof from his work of re-organization. But when it was known that even the great Augustus at Constantinople, ”Our Lord Anastasius, Father of his Country” (as the coins styled him), recognised the royalty of Theodoric, and had in some sort confided to him the government of Italy, all the great army of civil servants, who performed the functions of that highly specialised organism, the Roman State, could, without fear and without reproach, accept office under the new-comer, and could look forward again, as they had done before, to a fortunate official career, to the honours and emoluments which were the recognised reward of the successful civil servant.
In the next chapter, I shall describe with a little more detail the character and the duties of some of these Roman officials. For the present we will rather consider the nature of the work which Theodoric accomplished through their instrumentality. We have already heard from a nearly contemporary chronicler, the story of some of the great civilising works which he wrought in the wasted land, the aqueducts of Ravenna and Verona, the walls of Verona and Pavia, the baths, the palace, and the amphitheatre. More important for the great ma.s.s of his subjects was the perfect security which he gave to the merchant for his commerce, to the husbandman for the fruit of his toil. Corn, as we have seen, sank to the extraordinarily low price of twelve s.h.i.+llings a quarter. But this low price did not mean, as it might in our country, the depression of the agricultural interest, through the rivalry of the foreign producer. On the contrary, the great economic symptom of Theodoric's reign--and under the circ.u.mstances a most healthy symptom--was that Italy, from a corn-importing became a corn-exporting country. Under the old emperors, whose rule was a most singular blending of autocracy and demagogy, in fact a kind of crowned socialism, every nerve had been strained to bring from Alexandria and Carthage the corn which was distributed gratuitously to the idle population of Rome. Under such hopeless compet.i.tion as this, together with the demoralising influence of slave labour, large tracts of Italy had actually gone out of cultivation. Now, by political changes, the merit of which must not be claimed for the Ostrogothic government, both Egypt and Africa had become unavailable for the supply of the necessities of Rome. Theodoric and his ministers may however be praised for that prevalence of order and good government, which enabled the long prostrate agriculture of Italy to spring up like gra.s.s after a summer shower. The conditions of prosperity were there, and only needed the removal of adverse influences and mistaken benevolence to bring forth their natural fruit. The grain-largesses to the people of Rome were indeed still continued in a modified form, but the stores thus dispensed seemed to have been brought almost entirely from Italy.[67] When Gaul was visited with famine, the s.h.i.+p-masters along the whole western coast of Italy were permitted and encouraged to take the surplus of the Italian crops to the suffering province. Even in a time of dearth and after war had begun, corn was sold by the State to the impoverished inhabitants of Liguria at sixteen s.h.i.+llings a quarter.[68] Altogether we seem justified in a.s.serting that the economic condition of Italy, both as to the producers and the consumers of its food-supplies, was more prosperous under Theodoric than it had been for centuries before, or than it was to be for centuries afterwards.
[Footnote 67: Once they are mentioned as coming from Spain (Ca.s.siodorus, Var., v., 35), but this seems to be an exception.]
[Footnote 68: Ca.s.s. Var., x., 27. This is some years after the death of Theodoric.]
I have already made some reference to Aqueducts, which were among the n.o.blest and most beneficial works that any ruler of Italy could accomplish. Ravenna, situated in an unhealthy swamp where water fit for drinking was proverbially dearer than wine[69] was pre-eminently dependent on such supplies of the precious fluid as could be brought fresh and sparkling from the distant Apennines. Theodoric issued an order to all the farmers dwelling along the course of the Aqueduct to eradicate the shrubs growing by its side, which would otherwise fix their roots in the bed of the stream, loosen the masonry, and cause many a dangerous leak. ”This being done”, said the Secretary of State, ”we shall again have baths that we may look upon with pleasure, water which will cleanse, not stain, water after using which we shall not require again to wash ourselves: drinking-water, the mere sight of which will not take away our appet.i.te”.[70] Similar care was needed to preserve the great Aqueducts which were the glory of Imperial Rome, as even now their giant arches, striding for miles over the desolate Campagna, are her most impressive monument. At Rome also the officer who was specially charged with the maintenance of these n.o.ble works, the ”Count of the Aqueducts”, was exhorted to show his zeal by rooting up hurtful trees, and by at once repairing any part of the masonry that seemed to be falling into decay through age. He was warned against peculation and against connivance at the frauds which often marked the distribution of the water supply, and he was a.s.sured that the strengthening of the Aqueducts would const.i.tute his best claim on the favour of his sovereign.[71]
[Footnote 69: There is a well known epigram of Martial, in which he complains of an inn-keeper of Ravenna for diluting his water with wine, when the poet had paid for pure water.]
[Footnote 70: Ca.s.s. Var., v., 38.]
[Footnote 71: Ibid., vii., 6.]
But while in most parts of Italy water is a boon eagerly craved for, in some places it is a superabundance and a curse. At Terracina on the Latian coast there still stands in the piazza a slab of marble with a long inscription, setting forth that ”The most ill.u.s.trious lord and renowed king, Theodoric, triumphant conqueror, ever Augustus, born for the good of the Commonwealth, guardian of liberty and propagator of the Roman name, subduer of the nations”, ordered that nineteen miles of the Appian Way, being the portion extending from Three-bridges _(Tripontium)_ to Terracina should be cleared of the waters which had flowed together upon it from the marshes on either side. A n.o.bleman of the very highest rank, Consul, Patrician, and Prefect of the City, Ccina Maurus Basilius Decius, successfully accomplished this work under the orders of his sovereign, and for the safety thus afforded to travellers, was rewarded by a large grant of the newly-drained lands.[72]
[Footnote 72: Ca.s.s., Var., ii., 32, 33.]
We have seen that Theodoric's anonymous panegyrist calls him ”a lover of manufactures and a great restorer of cities”. Of the manufactures encouraged by the Ostrogothic king, we should have been glad to receive a fuller account. All that I have been able to discover in the published state-papers of himself and his successors at all bearing on this subject is some instructions with reference to the opening of gold mines in Bruttii (the modern Calabria), and iron mines in Dalmatia, a concession of potteries to three senators, who are promised the royal protection if they will prosecute the work diligently, and permission to another n.o.bleman to erect a row of workshops or manufactories overlooking the Roman Forum.[73] The whole tenour of these State papers, however, shows that public works were being diligently pushed on in every quarter of Italy, and is entirely consistent with the praise awarded to Theodoric ”as a lover of manufactures”.
[Footnote 73: Ca.s.s., Var., ix., 3; iv., 30; iii., 25; ii., 23.]
His zeal for the restoration of cities is by the same doc.u.ments abundantly manifested. At one time we find him giving orders for the transport of marble slabs and columns to Ravenna, at another, directing the repair of the walls of Catana, now rebuilding the walls and towers of Arles, and now relieving the distress of Naples and Nola, which have been half ruined by an eruption of Vesuvius.[74] His care for the adornment of the cities of Italy with works of art is manifest, as well as his zeal for their material enrichment. He hears with great disgust that a brazen statue has been stolen from the city of Como. ”It is vexatious” says his Secretary, ”that while we are labouring to increase the ornaments of our cities, those which Antiquity has bequeathed to us should be diminished by such deeds as this”. A reward of 100 aurei (60), and a free pardon is offered to any accomplice who will a.s.sist in the discovery of the chief offender.[75]
[Footnote 74: _Ibid_., iii., 9, 10, 49, 44; iv., 50.]
[Footnote 75: _Ibid_., ii., 35.]
But it is above all for Rome, for the glory and magnificence of Rome, that this Ostrogothic king, in a certain sense the kinsman and successor of her first ravager, Alaric, shows a tender solicitude. Her Aqueducts, as we have seen, are to be repaired, her Cloac, those still existing memorials of the civilisation of the earliest, the regal, Rome, are to be carefully upheld; the thefts of bra.s.s and lead from the public buildings, which have become frequent during the disorders of the past century, are to be sternly repressed[76]; a spirited patrician[77] who has restored the mighty theatre of Pompeius is encouraged and rewarded, the Prefect of the City is stimulated to greater activity in the repair of all the ruined buildings therein. ”In Rome, praised beyond all other cities by the world's mouth, it is not right that anything should be found either sordid or mediocre”.
[Footnote 76: Ca.s.s., Var., iii., 30, 31]
[Footnote 77: Symmachus.]
In all these counsels for the material well-being of Italy, and for the repair of the ravages of anarchy and war, Theodoric was undoubtedly much a.s.sisted by his ministers of Roman extraction, some of whom I shall endeavour to portray in a later chapter. Still, though the details of the work may have been theirs, it cannot be denied that the initiative was his. A barbarian, thinking only barbarous thoughts, looking upon war and the chase as the only employments worthy of a free man, would not have chosen such counsellors, and, if he had found them in his service, would not have kept them. Therefore, remembering those years of boyhood, which he pa.s.sed at Constantinople, at a time when the character is most susceptible of strong and lasting impressions, I cannot doubt that notwithstanding the frequent relapses into barbarism which marked his early manhood, he was at heart a convert to civilisation, that his desire was to obtain for ”the Hesperian land” all that he had seen best and greatest in the social condition of the city by the Bosphorus, and that his Secretary truly expressed his deepest and inmost thoughts when he made him speak of himself as one ”whose whole care was to change everything for the better”.[78]
[Footnote 78: Nos quibus cordi est in melius cuncta mutare.--Ca.s.s., Var., ii., 21.]
I shall close this chapter with a few anecdotes--far too few have been preserved to us--which serve to show what manner of man he appeared to his contemporaries. Again I borrow from the anonymous author, the supposed Bishop of Ravenna.
He was, we are told, unlettered,[79] though fond of the converse of learned men, and so clumsy with his pen that after ten years of reigning he was still unable to form without a.s.sistance the four letters (THEO) which were affixed as his sign-manual to doc.u.ments issued in his name.
In order to overcome this difficulty he had a golden plate prepared with the necessary letters perforated in it, and drew his pen through the holes.[80] But, though he was unlettered, his shrewdness and mother-wit caused both his sayings and doings to be much noted and remembered by his subjects. In one difficult case which came before him, he discovered the truth by a sudden device which probably reminded the bystanders of the Judgment of Solomon, A young man who as a child had been brought up by a friend of his deceased father, returned to his home and claimed a share of his inheritance from his mother. She, however, was on the point of marriage with a second husband, and under her suitor's influence she disowned the son whom she had at first welcomed with joy and had entertained for a month in her house. As the suitor persisted in his demand that the son should be turned out of doors, and the son refused to leave his paternal abode, the case came before the King's Court,[81]
where the widow still persisted in her a.s.sertion that the young man was not her son, but a stranger whom she had entertained merely out of motives of hospitality. Suddenly the king turned round upon her and said: ”This young man is to be thy husband, I command thee to marry him”. The horror-stricken mother then confessed that he was indeed her son.
[Footnote 79: Agrammatus.]
[Footnote 80: I have a slight distrust of this story, because it is told in almost the same words of the contemporary Justin I., Emperor of the East.]