A Short History of Italy (476-1900). Henry Dwight Sedgwick
to precedence, which they soon put to good use. Their city was the cradle and home of Roman dominion. St. Paul had lived and died there. Above all, as was universally acknowledged, the apostle Peter had founded their bishopric. Theirs, in an especial sense, was the Church to which Christ referred when He said to the apostle, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The bishops of Rome also derived immense advantage from the absence of a temporal prince; whereas their chief rivals, the patriarchs of Constantinople, were wholly eclipsed by the presence of the Emperor. The removal of the great offices of government to Constantinople and the absence of any real civil life, had left Rome even then a mere ecclesiastical city, and the head of the Church became the most important personage there. It was so generally acknowledged that Roman bishops were entitled to that precedence in rank over other bishops, which Rome enjoyed over other cities, that in 344 an Ecumenical Council submitted a most important question to the decision of the Roman See. One hundred years later the great pope, Leo I, merely gave utterance to the general opinion when he said: "St. Peter and St. Paul are the Romulus and Remus of the new Rome, as much superior to the old as truth is to error. If ancient Rome was at the head of the pagan world, St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, came to teach in the new Rome, so that from her the light of Christianity should be shed over the world."
The Roman Church gathered to herself whatever remained of the administrative ability of ancient Rome. With acute practical sense she condemned those subtle doctrines that kept springing up in the East, late flashes of Greek metaphysics; and though she may have cut herself off from certain spiritual Neoplatonic thought, and have set her heart too much upon domination, yet by her very adherence to dogma, by her very insistence upon uniform law and obedience, by steadfastly maintaining the purity and the unity of the Faith, she became the great cohesive force in Europe, and by creating Christendom contributed immensely to the cause of European civilization. Partly by good fortune, partly by her success in making her cause prevail, Rome was always orthodox. She remained staunchly Trinitarian. She fought the Arians, who believed that the Son, created by the Father, could not be identical with Him and could not have existed from the beginning. She fought the Nestorians, who alleged that the Virgin was the mother of Christ only in so far as He was man. She fought the Monophysites, who denied that Christ had two distinct natures, human and divine. She fought always gallantly, and always, or almost always, in the end triumphantly. In those days ecclesiastical affairs were inseparable from political affairs; no man dreamed of severing them either in fact or in theory; the State and the Church were one fabric under a double aspect. The idea of the State apart from the Church, or the Church apart from the State, was no more imagined than the Darwinian theory.
If we now go back to Odoacer, and to his Barbarian successors, we shall find that in their endeavours to establish an Italian kingdom they were confronted by a threefold task—to blend the Barbarian conquerors and the subject Latins, to establish friendly relations with the Empire, and to win the confidence and support of the Orthodox Church. In all the long period of Barbarian dominion, each Barbarian chief in turn had to face the imminent danger that these three political powers, the subject people, the Church, and the Empire, should make common cause against him. The Barbarians, in fact, were always unsuccessful. They never were able to make Italy into one kingdom. These three enemies were too strong for them. The inherent difficulties of the situation appear at once on the deposition of Romulus Augustulus, and give whatever interest there is to Odoacer's brief career. Over that career, which bridges the years 476 to 489, we need not pause, for Odoacer's attempt to establish a permanent government over all Italy was so ephemeral, and also so similar in all essential features to that of the Ostrogoths, his successors, that an account of their attempt may serve for his as well.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Rome in the Middle Ages, Gregorovius, vol. i, pp. 167, 168.
CHAPTER II
THE OSTROGOTHS (489–553)
The Ostrogoths were a fine people; and historians have speculated sadly on the immense advantage, the vast saving of ills, that would have accrued to Italy had they succeeded in their attempt to establish a kingdom. Such a union of strength and vigour with the gifted Italian nature might well have produced a happy result. But my business is merely to indicate why and how the attempt failed.
The Ostrogoths (East Goths), one branch of the great Gothic nation, of which the Visigoths (West Goths) were the other, immediately prior to their invasion of Italy inhabited Pannonia (now Austria) on the south side of the Danube. They were a warlike people, and had given much trouble to the Eastern Emperors, who had been obliged not only to bestow upon them territory, but also to pay tribute. The reigning Emperor eagerly seized the first opportunity to rid himself of them. He suggested to their king, Theodoric—hunter, soldier, statesman, a big-limbed, heroic man, passionate but just—that he should lead his people into Italy, conquer Odoacer, and rule as Imperial lieutenant. As Italy was far pleasanter than Pannonia, Theodoric gladly accepted the suggestion.
The Goths, not more than two or three hundred thousand persons all told, effected their tedious emigration in 488–489. It was an easy matter to defeat the unstable Odoacer, and the Latins made no resistance. Theodoric, now master of Italy, both by right of conquest and by Imperial commission, set himself, in his turn, to the task of uniting Barbarians and Romans throughout the peninsula under one stable government. His difficulties were great. In the first place the immigrating people whom he led, though mainly Goths, were a medley of various tribes, and constituted an alien army of occupation in the midst of an unfriendly population, perhaps ten times their number. This Roman population, which had completely given up the use of arms, and never took part in any fight more formidable than a riot, was largely urban and lived in the cities which were scattered over Italy, almost the same that exist to this day. In the north were Turin, Pavia, Ferrara, Milan, Bergamo, Verona, Aquileia; on the east coast, Ravenna, Rimini, Ancona; on the west coast and in the centre, Genoa, Pisa, Lucca, Perugia, Spoleto, Rome, Benevento, Naples, Salerno, Amalfi; and in the south, the old Greek cities. All the ordinary business of life was in Roman hands; lawyers, physicians, weavers, spinners, carpenters, masons, cobblers, were Roman. Many of the workmen on great estates were also Roman. The Goths were primarily men-at-arms, and only exercised such rude crafts as were required in village communities. The leaders became military landowners. Naturally each race looked upon the other with suspicion, dislike, and contempt. It is obvious that there was need of both time and statesmanship before the two races would understand each other, share occupations, inter-marry, and feel themselves countrymen.
Theodoric's policy falls under three heads—relations with the subject population, with the Emperor, and with the Church. With the Romans Theodoric was just and considerate; he limited the division of lands among his followers, so far as he could, to those lands which Odoacer's followers had had; he left civil administration chiefly in Roman hands; he let Romans live under Roman law and Goths under Gothic law. He employed as his chief counsellor Cassiodorus, a great Roman noble of wealth and learning; he issued a code compiled from the Imperial codes; he reduced the taxation. Following the custom of the late Western Emperors, he dwelt in Ravenna, where S. Apollinare Nuovo, S. Spirito, a baptistery, and a mausoleum still testify to his presence. When the State had been put in order, Theodoric made a royal progress to Rome (500), where he was welcomed with Imperial honours. He promised to uphold all the institutions established by Roman Emperors, and showed himself as much interested in the city as if he had been a Roman. He provided carefully for the preservation of all the monuments of antiquity, repaired the walls, the aqueducts, the cloacae, and drained the Pontine Marshes. He spoke of Rome as "the city which is indifferent to none, since she is foreign to none; the fruitful mother of eloquence, the