BOOKS.
ITALY AND HER INVADERS.*
WE are glad to welcome a second edition of Mr. Hodgkin's book, in which a great subject is worthily treated. No period of history better repays study than this, in which the organi- sation of the Old World was crumbling to pieces, while beneath its fragments the forms that were to replace it were being gradually moulded. To the men of the fourth century, the Roman Empire represented peace, law, and order. The peace might be often broken, the order imperfect, the law badly administered; but in spite of all defects, it seemed that only the pervading might of the Empire could provide for the first needs of society. This was not the conviction only of the governing classes, who are always apt to look upon the order they administer as a law of Nature, but it was shared by all citizens of the Republic, and even by the barbarians who dwelt about its borders. Yet the causes that were to destroy it were actively at work, and its disintegration had begun. The highly developed bureaucracy was still complete, and was an excellently devised machine for the purpose of collecting taxes and enforcing the Emperor's commands. Socially, how- ever, the Constitution was utterly bad. At one end of the scale were the great officers, whose immense wealth was exempted from contribution to the public wants, except in the random way of confiscation when they incurred disgrace. At the other end, was the proletariat of the great citiee, kept in idle- ness and provided with amusement by the State. Between these upper and nether millstones the makers of wealth were crushed. In the cities, the comparatively well-to-do had to bear all public expenses, including the allowances for the mob ; while in the country, the rapacity of the tax-farmer reduced the husbandman from the state of free ownership to slavery. Men could not be bred under such conditions, and the class that had filled the conquering legions of Rome almost died out, while the slaves who ousted could not replace it. As the population dwindled, the barbarians who swarmed on the frontier pressed in to take their place. Sometimes they straggled singly across the border to enlist in the imperial army ; sometimes the hostility of a dangerous band of warriors was averted by engaging them as irregular troops, or even by assigning to their tribe a province in which they might settle and hold the land by a sort of military tenure. As has often been seen in modern armies, irregular troops have a tendency to model themselves on the regulars with whom they serve, and it was not long before the barbarians took their place in the legion. Of caws°, in this process the Teuton became partially Roman- 'Eel He was bound to the State not only by the fidelity of the soldier to his flag, but by his reverence for the established order, which impressed him all the more from its contrast with the loose ties and unchecked self-will of his own people. Many a tribesman, like Atanlphus, must have begun with the ambition of overthrowing the Roman State and ended with that of restoring it. Yet even his desire State, its good was dangerous, since he understood too little of the complex fabric to know what parts of it were essential, still less to share I. * 1tas, and her invaders. By Thomas Hodgkin. Soeoz.d Edition. Vols. and II. Oxford at the Clarendon Press 1892.
the instinct that often warns us to respect familiar social or political institutions which we should be puzzled to jus- tify. Thus it came about that every ruler of the Roman State was between two dangers. If he decided on a policy of sturdy resistance to barbarian intrusion, he soon found he had undertaken an impossible task, and was fatally exhausting the diminished strength of the Empire. If, on the contrary, he attempted to maintain friendly relations with the tribes and bring them under Roman influences, he was weakening the traditional instinct which bound the various provinces together. The usual result was a series of shifts and compromises adapted only to the necessities of the moment. Yet one emperor, Theodosius the Great, seems to have recognised the needs of the time, and to have combined firmness with conciliation. Mr. Hodgkin sums up his method in a few words. " he says, "he dealt severely with those barbarians whose only thought was plunder, he was determined to enlist all that was noblest, and in the best sense of the word most Teutonic, among them in the service of Rome." The work was one that could not be carried out by weaker bands, and his successors found it easier to enlarge his concessions than to maintain his military predominance. Mr. Hodgkin seems to think that with a longer life Theodosius might have attained his objects. He says :—
"Such, viewed on its intellectual sido, was the policy of Theodosius towards the barbarians ; and though it was a policy which led to complete and utter failure, it is not therefore to be condemned as necessarily unsound, for had his own life been prolonged to the ordinary period, or had his sons possessed half his own courage and capacity, it is likely enough that his policy would have proved not a failure but a success."
What might have been is always doubtful, but we should judge that not even the miracle of a series of able rulers could have preserved the decaying Empire. Public spirit was dead, and with it military energy. Once, indeed, Mr. Hodgkin has to record an act of unselfish patriotism, when Valentinian stayed to fight the Allemanni instead of marching to aid Valens against the usurper, Procopius, because, he said, " Procopius is the enemy only of me and of my brother, while the Alemanni are the enemies of the whole Roman world." But this is early in the story, and as we advance we find no trace of such a spirit, while alike in East and West, everything is subordinated to persona/ aims. Mr. Hodgkin takes a favourable view of Stilicho, and thinks that the great soldier served the State faithfully, but his contemporaries accused him of sacrificing everything to his ambition for his son, and the reward of his services was death at the hands of the executioner. A similar fate befell Aetius, the last Roman with any pretence to greatness. Whichever way we read the character of these men, the result is the same as far as the Republic is concerned. Either they were half-hearted in her service, or they were hampered and at last destroyed by the jealousy and spite of their rivals. In either case, their careers show that the Empire could no longer turn to profit the powers of its ablest servants One is sometimes inclined to doubt whether, after all, the fall of the Western Empire was a matter of vast importance. To the inhabitants of Italy it can have made little difference whether they were ruled by Count Ricimer in the name of a puppet emperor, or by King Odovacar, who was content with a doubtful commission from New Rome. Moreover, formally speaking, the Empire endured ; the only change was that the authority which bad been shared between two rulers was con- centrated in the hands of one, who, as Justinian was soon to show, might assert it in the West as well as in the East. Tech- nically, this is true; and practically it was not in Italy that the effect of the new order was felt. For more than a thousand years Italy was yet to suffer the malign influence of the ghost of the Empire, to have all chances of a national life destroyed by the vain ideal of apex Romano. But for the more distant provinces, the deposition of Romulus Augustulus marks an
epoch. When there ceased to be an Emperor in Italy, there ceased also to be any effective assertion of the imperial power beyond the Alps, and henceforth the nations of the West were left to grow in their own way. The change was even more important in its results upon the Papacy. As Mr. Hodgkin puts it :—
"The event of 476 was, in its indirect consequences, a Revolu- tion, which affected most powerfully the life of every inhabitant of Mediesval and ,,en of Modern Europe. For by it the political centre of gravity was changed from the Palatine to the Lateran,
and the Bishop of Rome, now beyond comparison the most im- portant personage of Roman descent left in Italy, was irresistibly invited to ascend the throne, and to wrap himself in the purple of the vanished Augustus."
In dealing with a book like this, of established reputation, it is needless to attempt any critical appreciation of its merits ; but, for the benefit of those who are not acquainted with it, we may add that it belongs to the small class of readable histories, Many voluminous works are justly esteemed by specialists and serious students, but can never win more than distant respect from the many. Mr. Hodgkin is not only
master of his subject, he has the gift of lucid narrative and of a style that carries the reader along pleasantly, and occa-
sionally rises into eloquence. In this new edition he has not contented himself with revising his work in accordance with the newest knowledge, but has almost rewritten the first volume, which now appears in two parts, bound separately. We may wish this rather clumsy arrangement could have been avoided, but we can only be grateful to Mr. Hodgkin for
his labour in giving to the first part of his work the full benefit of his ripened knowledge and experience.
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