The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Эдвард Гиббон

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СКАЧАТЬ corrected and illustrated by Gregory of Tours, l. 2, c. 5, 6, 7, and the Chronicles of Idatius, Isidore, and the two Prospers. All the ancient testimonies are collected and inserted in the Historians of France; but the reader should be cautioned against a supposed extract from the Chronicle of Idatius (among the fragments of Fredegarius, tom. ii. p. 462), which often contradicts the genuine text of the Gallician bishop.

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      The ancient legendaries deserve some regard, as they are obliged to connect their fables with the real history of their own times. See the lives of St. Lupus, St. Anianus, the bishops of Metz, St. Genevieve, &c., in the Historians of France, tom. i. p. 644, 645, 649, tom. iii. p. 369. [Mr. Hodgkin places the visit of the Huns to Troyes on their retreat eastward after the relief of Orleans (ii. 122). It is impossible to base any certainty on the vague narrative of our authority (Life of St. Lupus), but he thinks that the words “Rheni etiam fluenta visurum” look “as if Attila’s face was now set Rhinewards.”]

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      The scepticism of the Count de Buat (Hist. des Peuples, tom. vii. p. 539, 540) cannot be reconciled with any principles of reason or criticism. Is not Gregory of Tours precise and positive in his account of the destruction of Metz? At the distance of no more than 100 years, could he be ignorant, could the people be ignorant, of the fate of a city, the actual residence of his sovereigns, the kings of Austrasia? The learned Count, who seems to have undertaken the apology of Attila and the Barbarians, appeals to the false Idatius, parcens civitatibus Germaniæ et Galliæ, and forgets that the true Idatius had explicitly affirmed, plurimæ civitates effractæ, among which he enumerates Metz. [See Mommsen’s edition, Chron. Min. ii. p. 26. Rheims (Remi) also endured a Hunnic occupation.]

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      [See Life of St. Anianus in Duchesne, Hist. Fr. Scr., vol. i.]

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      —— Vix liquerat Alpes

      Aetius, tenue et rarum sine milite ducens

      Robur in auxiliis, Geticum male credulus agmen

      Incassum propriis præsumiens adfore castris.

      — Pangyr. Avit. 328, &c.

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      The policy of Attila, of Aetius, and of the Visigoths is imperfectly described in the Panegyric of Avitus and the thirty-sixth chapter of Jornandes. The poet and the historian were both biassed by personal or national prejudices. The former exalts the merit and importance of Avitus; orbis, Avite, salus, &c.! The latter is anxious to show the Goths in the most favourable light. Yet their agreement, when they are fairly interpreted, is a proof of their veracity.

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      The review of the army of Aetius is made by Jornandes, c. 36, p. 664, edit. Grot. tom. ii. p. 23, of the Historians of France, with the notes of the Benedictine Editor. The Læti were a promiscuous race of Barbarians, born or naturalised in Gaul; and the Riparii, or Ripuarii, derived their name from their posts on the three rivers, the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Moselle; the Armoricans possessed the independent cities between the Seine and the Loire. A colony of Saxons had been planted in the diocese of Bayeux; the Burgundians were settled in Savoy; and the Breones were a warlike tribe of Rhætians, to the east of the lake of Constance. [The list in Jordanes is: “Franci, Sarmatæ, Armoriciani, Liticiani, Burgundiones, Saxones, Ripari, Olibriones, aliæque nonnulli Celticæ vel Germaniæ nationes.” The Sarmatæ are probably the Alans who were settled round Valence; the Liticiani may be the Læti; the Ripari the Ripuarian Franks. The Olibriones are quite uncertain.]

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      Aurelianensis urbis obsidio, oppugnatio, irruptio, nec direptio, l. v. Sidon. Apollin. l. viii. epist. 15, p. 246. The preservation of Orleans might be easily turned into a miracle, obtained and foretold by the holy bishop.

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      The common editions read xcm.; but there is some authority of manuscripts (and almost any authority is sufficient) for the more reasonable number of xvm.

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      Châlons or Duro-Catalaunum, afterwards Catalauni, had formerly made a part of the territory of Rheims, from whence it is distant only twenty-seven miles. See Vales. Notit. Gall. p. 136. D’Anville, Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 212, 279. [See Appendix 1.]

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      The name of Campania, or Champagne, is frequently mentioned by Gregory of Tours; and that great province, of which Rheims was the capital, obeyed the command of a duke. Vales. Notit. p. 120-123.

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      I am sensible that these military orations are usually composed by the historian; yet the old Ostrogoths, who had served under Attila, might repeat his discourse to Cassiodorius: the ideas, and even the expressions, have an original Scythian cast; and I doubt whether an Italian of the sixth century would have thought of the hujus certaminis gaudia.

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      The expressions of Jornandes, or rather of Cassiodorius [Mommsen, Pref. to ed. of Jordanes, p. xxxvi., regards Priscus as the source], are extremely strong. Bellum atrox, multiplex, immane, pertinax, cui simili nulla usquam narrat antiquitas: ubi talia gesta referuntur, ut nihil esset quod in vitâ suâ conspicere potuisset egregius, qui hujus miraculi privaretur aspectu. Dubos (Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 392, 393) attempts to reconcile the 162,000 of Jornandes with the 300,000 of Idatius and Isidore, by supposing that the larger number included the total destruction of the war, the effects of disease, the slaughter of the unarmed people, &c.

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      The Count de Buat (Hist. des Peuples, &c. tom. vii. p. 554-573), still depending on the false, and again rejecting the true, Idatius, has divided the defeat of Attila into two great battles: the former near Orleans, the latter in Champagne: in the one, Theodoric was slain; in the other, he was revenged.

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      Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 41, p. 671. The policy of Aetius and the behaviour of Torismond are extremely natural; and the patrician, according to Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. 7, p. 163), dismissed the prince of the Franks, by suggesting to him a similar apprehension. The false Idatius ridiculously pretends that Aetius paid a clandestine nocturnal visit to the kings of the Huns and of the Visigoths; from each of whom he obtained a bribe of ten thousand pieces of gold as the price of an undisturbed retreat.

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      These cruelties, which are passionately deplored by Theodoric, the son of Clovis (Gregory of Tours, l. iii. c. 10, p. 190), suit the time and circumstances of the invasion of Attila. His residence in Thuringia was long attested by popular tradition; and he is supposed to have assembled a couroultai, or diet, in the territory of Eisenach. See Mascou, ix. 30, who settles with nice accuracy the extent of ancient Thuringia, and derives its name from the Gothic tribe of the Thervingi.

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      [There seems to be no authority for this statement.]

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