Mrs. Hugh Fraser

Pursuit of the Ideal—Alaric, the Friend of Theodosius—Theodosius’ Dream—The Victory at the Birnbaumer Wald—Defection of Alaric—Pictures of the Plundering of Rome—Marcella and Principia—St. Peter’s Treasures—Plans Against Africa—Alaric’s Death and Last Resting-place.

When Edmond Rostand, the truest poet of our latter day, wrote his “Princesse Lointaine,” he embodied the most ideal passion of the human heart, the desire of beauty unseen. The Eternal City has again and again inspired a like overmastering longing; it has been called by other names—ambition, revenge, desire of conquest—but the primal sentiment, in the most notable cases at least, reveals itself as an imperative craving to behold and possess the highest. In the saints the aspiration leaps from earth to Heaven, for their eyes are opened to the reality and the shadow; but even among mortals denied the Divine Spark, this hunger for the best takes on something of the sublime and translates itself in actions not to be altogether accounted for by merely human motives. Such a mortal was Alaric, the Visigoth, whose name still sounds to us across the ages with compelling power. Driven by the spirit, earth-bound, yet ever straining at his bonds, fiercely ambitious yet ready to renounce the fruits of conquest when the Voice, unheard of others, bade him renounce, his career remains an unexplained mystery, unless we are willing to reckon with the supernatural to which he rendered such prompt obedience when its commands penetrated the din of clamorous necessity and reached the ear of his soul.

His very advent has all the emblems of a portentous allegory. Over the last eastern spur of the Julian Alps the old Roman roadmakers had cut one of their splendid roads to connect the seat of Empire with the North. They worked along the lines of least resistance, thinking only of facilitating the movements of Roman troops, and not at all of possible invaders who might march down to Rome. On the crest of the pass they looked for a commanding spot to serve as the site for a garrison station; the season was early summer and their glance at once fell on an enormous pear tree, a dome of snowy blossoms visible for many a mile around. That decided the question, and they built their military hamlet beside it, and called it “At the Pear Tree,” “Ad Pirum,” a name which was afterwards bestowed on the whole district, which is known to us now as the “Birnbaumer Wald.” To this station came, in the first days of September, 394 A.D., Theodosius the Great, to meet and subdue the “little Graunnarian Emperor,” Eugenius, and his terrible dictator, Arbogast, in the “Battle of the Frigidus,” which turned the course of European history and left the world—as Constantine had hoped to leave it—Christian and not pagan.

With Theodosius came a young Visigothic chieftain of noble birth, Alaric by name, commanding a company of his countrymen, the valiant warriors with whom Theodosius strove to surround himself when there was real fighting to be done. They called their young leader not “Alaric,” but “Balthe,” “the Bold,” revered him as sprung from a line that had for its founders the gods of Walhalla, and were prepared to follow him to Heaven or Hell. Whither they were to follow him in the end, I fancy, was decided on that September day when, having secured a spot for their camp and seen that all things were in order, he went and stood under the big pear tree and looked down on the beautiful vale of Carniola, flushing to harvest, rioting in fruit, sheltered on the north and east by the vigilant Alps, and cooled by the mighty rush of the Frigidus, which we call the Wipbach, and which bursts full-grown, ice-fed, from the foot of the hills, and dashes along under banks so teeming with fruit and grain, at that time of the year, as to be almost hidden from sight. Tearing down from the caves of Adelsberg, it follows the lie of the land till it enters Italy, changes name and nationality, becomes the Isonzo, and finally, joining the other streams flowing down from the north, empties itself into the Adriatic at Aquileia.

This is Alaric’s first appearance in history, and we can hardly doubt that with his first view of the paradise that lay south of the Alps came also the first faint echo of the call that haunted him all his life, “Penetrabis ad Urbem”—“Thou shalt penetrate to the city”—the city towards which every northerner looked with covetous longing and superstitious fear, but which its own rulers, at least in Alaric’s time, regarded rather as a venerable part of the insignia of the Empire than as an active agent in its affairs. Alaric, when he first looked towards Italy, was a loyal ally of Theodosius, and would have hotly resented the assertion that a day would come when he should sweep the country as an invader and a declared foe of the great man’s son. But (how true is the Japanese proverb, “Great generals have no sons!”) the feeble-minded Honorius again and again refused the honest alliance and friendship proffered by the Goth, and was thus alone responsible for those terrible six days of sack and pillage which desolated Rome sixteen years (almost day for day) after Alaric had fought so whole-heartedly for Theodosius in the Battle of the Frigidus.

That was indeed a hard-fought fight; Arbogast knew every inch of the country, his troops outnumbered those of Theodosius, and the cunning old soldier had so disposed them that, unknown to the Emperor, they cut off every line of march save the narrow one by which he had come. The first day’s fighting resulted in a practical defeat for the loyalists, and as the night came down and hostilities were necessarily suspended, Theodosius realised with anguish that the next day’s sun would probably see paganism triumphant and the Cross of his standards trampled underfoot. He had lost great numbers of men; those who remained were deeply discouraged, and he doubted whether they could be persuaded to meet the enemy again. From the adversary’s camp came shouts of triumph and sounds of feasting; he was passing the night in celebrating what he reckoned as a conclusive victory. Theodosius wandered away alone into the hills and remained all night in fervent prayer that God would help the right and vindicate His own cause. As the dawn came up behind the eastern hills the Emperor fell asleep and had a wonderful dream. In his dream he saw two radiant knights, clothed in white and mounted on white horses, come towards him. They told him that they were John and Philip, the Apostles of the Lord, and that he should be of good courage, for God had heard his prayers. Theodosius awoke, but only to begin praying again; nor did he cease until, just as the sun leapt up behind the Nanosberg, an officer came running to tell him of a wonderful dream that one of his soldiers had had—and described the same vision that had visited and comforted the Emperor.

Then indeed Theodosius knew that he should prevail, but he neglected no smallest point that could aid him to victory. When all was ready he made the sign of the Cross, the preconcerted signal of attack, and hurled his men on the foe, who was somewhat dazed and disorganised after the night’s excesses. Still Arbogast’s men fought so fiercely that the issue seemed once more wavering in the balance, and then the great Emperor, like another David, rising in his saddle, shouted, “Where is the Lord God of Theodosius?” and dashed into the thickest of the fray. Like those other valiant ones, who carried no weapons, his soldiers said, “Let us perish with him!” and flew to follow; and then the Lord God of Theodosius let loose His servant, the terrible “Bora,” the wind that science cannot account for, that blows once in a century or once in a decade, as the case may be, and always carries death on its wings. From behind the spurs of the Alps it roared down that day, as if placed under the Emperor’s orders, and in its fury the very darts of Arbogast’s men were turned back and buried in the bowmen’s flesh.

It was a great victory, one of the decisive battles of the world, and Alaric had helped to win it, but from that day his enthusiasm for the Emperor waned. Theodosius had given him to understand that, if Eugenius and Arbogast were subdued, he should be promoted to high military office and, in time, be entrusted with the command of Roman troops in the very centre of any future line of battle; but Theodosius forgot, or trusted that Alaric had forgotten the hopes thus held out, and the proud young chief found himself still in the second rank, a leader of auxiliaries, while the foremost honours of conflict remained with men whom his soul disdained and his intelligence discredited. There was no open rupture till after the death of Theodosius on the 17th of January, 395, little over four months after the battle of the Frigidus. The Goths had long been murmuring that they were weary of fighting the Romans’ battles for them and would prefer to fight for themselves; Alaric’s allegiance to the Emperor had been in great part a personal matter; the feeble boys, Arcadius and Honorius, who were now hailed as the Emperors of the East and West, had inherited none of the great attributes which the young Goth had admired and respected in their father, and were mere tools in the hands of their ministers, whose policy did not lead them to encourage or highly recompense their Barbarian allies; and so it came about that soon after St. Ambrose had pronounced his immortal funeral oration over the body of Theodosius, the Goths, camped on the fair Illyrian plain, took Alaric, placed him on a shield, and, raising it high on their shoulders, broke forth into a mighty shout echoed by all their comrades: “Theodosius! Theodosius!” “A King, a King!”

And he was a born king who stood there, smiling down on them as his graceful young figure balanced itself so lightly and easily on the upraised shield—and not only a king, but a king-maker and the first of a long line of Kings, ruling over that which was destined to be for ages the richest and most Catholic realm in Europe, the Kingdom of Spain—the true Fatherland of dead Theodosius. But Alaric’s thoughts travelled not thither; when his spirit freed itself at a leap from all the practical surroundings of his life, when the veil of the present was drawn aside in dreams, and the future, vague yet glorious, revealed itself for a fleeting moment to his eyes, it was Rome that they saw, insolent and mighty even in her decay, pagan at heart still, and it was he, Alaric, who was to chastise her for her sins and cleanse her from her corruption. His Arian impiety, shared with almost all his countrymen, in no way diminished his zeal for Christianity as he apprehended it, though it is hard for us to reckon as Christians the Arian detractors from the divinity of Christ. Even in our own day the Unitarians are indignant when we refuse the appellation to them—so coveted are the virtues of Christianity by those who make of Christ, the Son of God, a liar and a fraud!

So the spring of 395 saw Alaric start on a conquering career for himself, an enterprise great enough to suit his soaring ambition, and aided, all unconsciously, by the Huns, who chose the same moment for their first descent on Europe. The enfeebled empires of the East and West were appalled at the flood of devastation thus let loose and scarcely knew which foe to meet first—Alaric in Greece (whither he first turned his steps) or the Huns, who were pouring over the Caucasus and terrifying Central Europe with their hideous faces and savage war-cries. It seemed as if the last days of the world had come, and black despair breathes out of every page of the chronicles of the time. But Alaric at least had no idea of continuous fighting for mere fighting’s sake; and although he did, when it suited him, permit orgies of plunder to his followers, he showed again and again the most unexpected and, as we should call it, capricious moderation, renouncing suddenly, and without apparent motive, the entire fruits of a hard-won victory. Thus, when Athens with all its riches lay, a tamed captive, to his hand, one of those strange revulsions of feeling came over him and he made peace with its rulers, entered the city as their guest, and left it without having touched any of its treasures. Twice he stood before the Gates of Rome and twice, in obedience to the Inner Voice that had sent him there, halted at the sacred threshold and withdrew, exacting, however, a heavy indemnity to pacify his troops.

But when, in just rage at the folly of Honorius, he stood for the third time before Rome’s gates, neither the promptings of the “Voice” nor the entreaties of the holy monk who had attempted to stay him and had prophesied his doom should he persist, could turn him from his resolve to take the city. And it is for the sake of my city that I have told these few scanty details of the story of Alaric. His invasion was to be the prototype of many another, but this is the first picture thrown out by the magic lantern of history showing a self-styled Christian and his horde robbing, destroying, dishonouring in the very streets of the Capital of Christianity. The Goths were given but six days (some writers say only three) in which to sate the thirst for riches and treasures which the intercourse with Rome and Constantinople had long ago aroused in their hearts. On Alaric’s former visit a great part of the tribute exacted had been stipulated for in costly garments, and—of all things!—pepper, a luxury already highly prized by the Barbarians, perhaps as stimulating to their naturally noble thirst for strong drinks; this time every man helped himself, the only prohibitions proclaimed extending to holy vessels pertaining to the great sanctuaries. It is claimed for Alaric that he forbade bloodshed, but, if he did, the command was disregarded, as the contemporary lamentations of St. Jerome and St. Augustine show us there was terrible slaughter, the citizens probably attempting, at all risks, to defend their goods and their women. St. Jerome’s quiet retreat at Bethlehem was crowded with refugees, the cream of Roman aristocracy, who gave him such terrible descriptions of the downfall of the city that he was, as he tells us himself, utterly overcome with sorrow and despair. It was on learning of the ruin of the Mistress of the World that St. Augustine, once more convinced of the passing nature of earthly things, conceived the idea of writing his great work, “De Civitate Dei,” showing the indestructibility of God’s City of the Soul, the marvellous spiritual edifice not made with hands, of which every true Christian is co-builder and co-heir.

Alaric prided himself on his Christianity, but the sectarian hatred of many things that Catholicism reveres was so irrepressible that, as I have already related, the tombs of the martyrs were sacked whenever they were discovered, and the traces of their blessed footsteps all but obliterated in many of the Catacombs. There were, too, some of the fairest virtues of Christianity in which the Arian conquerors simply refused to believe; charity, self-denial, voluntary poverty for Christ’s sake—these were such unbelievable folly in the eyes of those baptised Barbarians that they laughed at and punished them as various forms of fraud. One pitiful picture stands out from the red reek of those awful six days—that of the saintly Lady Marcella, living in her old age in her palace on the Aventine, whence every object of value had long vanished—to feed the orphan and the widow. Her only earthly treasure is one sweet girl, her adopted daughter, Principia, who repays her love with all the devotion of a young heart, and follows her example, asking nothing from life but the honour of serving Christ in His suffering poor. No slaves surround the two noble women; their garments are mean and threadbare in the eyes of men, though they look marvellously rich to their Guardian Angels. Alone in their empty palace they two pray and weep while the roar of the sack and the shrieks of the dying sound up from the streets below. Then the invaders have sighted the fair palace on the hill; there is a rush for the entrance—every man would be the first to pick his loot from the treasures it must contain. Marcella drags Principia to a remote hiding-place—those fierce eyes only rest on youth and beauty to destroy—and returns to face the robbers, alone. The great fair-haired fellows, drunk with license, crowd round her, shouting in their uncouth tongue that she must bring forth her treasures. In vain the delicate old lady assures them that she has none, that the threadbare garments she points to are the only ones she possesses, and that the only vessels she uses are those common earthenware cups and jars in the corner, that all the rest has gone to the poor.

“It is a lie!” they cry. “A lie! You have buried your gold and silver—show us where it is!”

She calls on Heaven to witness that she has nothing, nothing but what they see, but the lust of gold has driven them mad. They seize her, throw her to the ground, and beat her with their heavy clubs till she is all but dead. Yet her heart lives. She has been praying for one thing in her torture and now she asks it of them as, weary of her obstinacy, they turn to search the dwelling for themselves:

“One thing I ask of you, and I freely forgive you all your cruelty. Leave me my daughter Principia—let me live for her sake. She is young—timid—if we are separated—if she is left desolate of my protection—she will die of despair!”

Then they believed, and they went out quietly, murmuring to one another: “The poor old creature is mad—who ever heard of voluntary poverty?” But they molested her no more. And she recovered from the effect of their blows, and soon after left Rome, taking her dear Principia with her, and they went to a far country, where they served God according to the counsels of perfection, and, when their time came, died in peace.

One other picture from those memorable days stands out—not sadly, but in an almost humorous light. Alaric, with all his Arian fierceness, had a great veneration for the Shrine of St. Peter and for the other great Churches; any one who took sanctuary in them was to be safe, and he forbade his men to touch any of the vessels pertaining to sacred worship. Now, St. Peter’s was surrounded by a number of convents and other buildings connected with its service, and one morning a big Goth, unaware that he was treading on forbidden ground, walked into one of these buildings to see what he could find. He was immediately confronted by a very old nun, who boldly asked him what he was doing there? He replied that he was in search of gold and silver, that he was certain she had treasures concealed in the house, and that she must produce them at once.

“Yes,” she replied meekly, “I have much silver and gold. I will show it to you.” And, to the Goth’s huge delight, she brought out of various hiding-places such an array of precious objects as he had never yet beheld. Silently she spread them all before him—chalices and patens of pure gold, lamps and candlesticks of bronze and silver—till he could scarcely believe his eyes and began to wonder how he could carry them all away.

Then the nun spoke. “This is all,” she said. “Behold these great treasures! There is no one in the house but myself, and I am an old woman, too feeble to guard them. But—they belong to St. Peter, and, if you lay so much as a finger on one of them, the wrath of Heaven will strike you dead!”

That was enough. The terrified warrior fled, and, rushing to Alaric, told him what he had seen. “St. Peter’s treasures?” cried the chief. “They shall indeed be taken care of!” And he commanded one of his officers to lead a great body of men to the deserted house and see that the old nun and the holy vessels were deposited inside the Basilica. So that quarter of the city showed a strange sight to its inhabitants—a hundred or so of sturdy Goths, tricked out in stolen silks and gems, each carrying a bit of St. Peter’s property in devout fear, as if expecting that it would blow him up; and in their midst, blinking at the sunlight, a shabby old nun, who directed their steps and issued her orders as to where everything should be placed when the frightened procession finally defiled into the great, dark Church, and halted as far as possible from the High Altar and the Tomb of the Apostle.

But St. Peter did not save Alaric. Doom was waiting for him and to doom he marched unknowingly, though I believe he would not have swerved from the path had he seen with his eyes its unsheathed sword. He had taken Rome—but Rome, devastated, famine-stricken, plague-scourged, as she was then, would have been a mere empty flare of glory in his crown, without Rome’s storehouse and granary, Africa. Like England to-day, she had long outgrown any possibility of dependence on her own supplies and she had to be fed from abroad. When the African grain ships were delayed on their way, Rome and many of her provinces went hungry; so Alaric’s next move was towards Africa. He went down through the “Regno,” pausing not except at Nola, the place destined long centuries after to be glorified by St. Alphonsus’ pastorate. Thence he hurried, past all the riches and beauty of that teeming garden country, towards Reggio in Calabria, meaning apparently to take ship from Sicily for the opposite coast.

But he never reached Reggio; death was waiting for him at Cosenza. All we know is that it was quick, if not sudden. And then came that funeral which the world can never forget. Where two rivers meet, the greater one, the Busento, was dammed up and turned aside into its sister stream, the Crati, and in the bed thus laid bare Alaric’s last bed was made. There they buried him who was born on an island at the mouth of the Danube, so that the music of rushing waters might soothe his last sleep as it had soothed his first. Great treasure they laid with him in his deep grave, and horses and weapons, that he might ride in state to meet his peers in Valhalla—for Valhalla was still Paradise for them. And they sang their great old war songs for his farewell, sounding his triumphs in his ears to the end, while the captives who had raised the dam dug it down, each man with the sweat of death on his brow, for the war songs were to be their requiem, too. When the Busento roared back to its bed and took its own old way to the sea, it carried their corpses with it, and the warriors turned away satisfied, because none could point out and none could disturb Alaric’s last resting-place.