Chapter 6
Section 6 of History of Rome and the Popes in the Middle Ages, Volume 3, by Hartman Grisar. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 4. Pope Pelagius I and Rome after the Three Chapters Controversy and the Gothic War. Part 2. Italy and Rome after the Gothic War. Many pages of the correspondence of Pelagius with Archbishop Sapaudus of Arles contained vivid
reminders of the long Gothic struggle and of the wars which afterward ravaged Italy, and for which the Franks were largely responsible. Such is Rome's poverty and want, he laments, that it is painful to behold, people of high rank are reduced to beggary, the estates of the Roman church in Italy are almost all laid to waste, or else have been lost to us by alienation. As the Holy See held estates in southern Gaul, of which the steward was Placidius the Patrician,
the father of Sapaudus, the Pope begged that the revenues therefrom might be exchanged for useful things and sent by a safe way to Rome. For instance, he proposes that with the money, clothing should be bought. White tunics, cowls, or colobia, or whatever else was produced in Provence. After the fall of the Gothic kingdom, innumerable hordes of barbarians from the north had poured into defenseless Italy. They were mostly alimani and franks, under the leadership
of Luthorus and Butalin. This was no war, but an inundation, which in its wild course, destroyed all it could, and carried away whatever had remained over after the fearful struggle between Byzantine and Goth. Pestilence, too, followed close on the heels of these nations in migration. The plague struck down Lutharis and many of his people as they were returning from Italy in the autumn of 554. Butelin's bands were cut to pieces by Narsus in the plains of
Capua. Such was the fury of this last encounter with barbarians laden with spoils of southern Italy that few indeed escaped death by the sword or arrow. The historian Agathius even opined that Narcissus had gained a victory to be compared with those of Marathon and Salamis. We are not told that the city of Rome was actually attacked during this invasion, but we can well understand how the author of the contemporary biographies in the Liber Pontificalis,
writing in Rome, could say of the victory that All Italy was jubilant over it. Another writer gives expression to the same feeling of gladsome relief as follows, The patrician Narsus has given the country back to the Roman Empire, he has restored the ravaged cities,
and after driving out the Goths, has brought back Italy to her former joy. It is, however, difficult to perceive what joy there was in merely seeing the bare and desolate plains of Italy once more change owners without any sure pledge for a better future. In spite of the safety of the country and of its fresh annexation to the Roman Empire, its state remained one of misery. Prokofius professes to be unable to estimate the number of human lives which the whole war had caused. He even speaks of millions, though of course he exaggerates.
Lack of cultivation, an evil from which Italy had suffered even previously, must now have made itself felt even more, and such places as were still inhabited mourned amidst the accumulating ruins. Very many fortified cities and castles, whether the defenseless population had fled for refuge, showed in their walls the experience they had undergone at the hands of the Goths, or the traces of the siege engines of the Byzantines. The piles of ruins left behind them
by both armies throughout the whole country remain long after to attest to the ferocity of the war. It was at that period that the Campania in the neighborhood of Rome took on that solemn garb of mourning, of which to this day it has not divested itself. The whole tract seems still to weep over the downfall of that ancient civilization which once covered it with life and bloom. Ever since, these hills and plains have lacked settlers, though the Campania, more than any other
region, always required the sturdy hands of colonists in great number. The thin crust of earth spread over volcanic rock or sand, and the unfavorable climate demanded far more labor here than elsewhere, in order to win from the soil the fruits of husbandry. Irrigation, too, now came to an end, for the ancient aqueducts had, almost all, been broken down, and who can think of restoring them amid the universal distress? The water which ceaselessly flowed from them sought out fresh
channels for itself, working havoc among the former gardens and pastures, to say nothing of the fever-laden air produced by the stagnant pools. The population of Rome must by that time have been reduced to exiguous proportions, at least in comparison with the Quondam multitude of citizens and patricians who composed the people of the Queerites and the huge crowd of slaves by whom they were served. No other period of stress had ever brought the inhabitants so low, in point both
of number and of wealth. What irony to see the Senatus Populosque Romanus, established in stint and shame amidst the still-standing monumental splendors of the Willem Mistress of Nations. The forums and thermae, the mansions and porticos, retained in their neglect their colossal grandeur, but they were now the dwelling of a famished crowd, among which were vast numbers of gentry, now reduced to beggary and forced to seek consolation, hope, and even their daily bread
at the deaconries, the basilicas, and the monasteries. But sparse mention of senatorial families henceforth occurs among the inscriptions of Rome and in historical notices. Numbers of families not yet entirely extinct were either with the court at Constantinople or living on their ancestral estates in Sicily. The Roman Senate continued a nominal existence for a little while longer under the presidency of the Praefectus Irbe, yet in 579 it is never once alluded to in
historical sources. In that year, an embassy went in the name of the Senate to seek help at Constantinople. It is very significant that this was, at the same time, an embassy from the Pope. quite evidently the power of the Senate was gradually being merged in that of the Church. Agnellus, the writer of the history of the bishops of Ravenna, looked on the end of the Senate as the consummation of the downfall of the ancient grandeur of Rome. Speaking of the
calamity of the Gothic War, he says, The Senate of the Romans gradually disappeared and then the freedom of Rome was abolished. Did we seek a turning point? When ancient life expired in Rome, none better could be found than the second half of the sixth century, with the distress which ensued after the Gothic War. In all the customs and habits of life, both private and public, so profound were the alterations that took place that Roman civilization received its death blow.
Moreover, a general political convulsion was impending in Italy through the Lombard invasion. A new world, so to speak, was about to come into being in Italy. The olden civilization was collapsing. Learning and art were face-to-face with ruin. In this extremity, the bishops and the popes took the human race under their protection,
and in the midst of the flood of barbarism, the monasteries became the last shelters for study. Holmes' worst strength could be sought for the struggle against the universal decay. In his plaint over the sad fate of the Senate, Agnelas lamented that an end was made of the freedom of Rome. Though Agnelas can scarcely have meant his words to be taken so literally, it is a fact that what the Byzantines set up in place of Gothic rule was no freedom,
but rather the reverse. Byzantine government tended to curtail free individual action and to introduce the system of serfdom. We should not be far from the truth in saying that, on the contrary, true freedom had its home among the Goths. That the Goths had to yield to the Byzantines was not because their political institutions were devoid of freedom and freshness, for in this respect they far excelled the Byzantines. The real reason why their rising kingdom was crushed so
promptly was due to the estrangement of the Latin population in Italy. The Goths failed to take any root in the country, and their kingdom remained a warrior state, composed of aliens. Principally on account of their difference in faith, the natives refused to be on friendly terms with the Goths, and thus it came about that this strong, free nation was isolated and deprived of all support. It was because of their heresy that they fell, and it was a blessing for Italy that
Arianism disappeared with them. Unhappily, however, the advent of the Byzantines brought despotism instead of Arianism, and in place of an outworn religion, the bureaucracy of a state, already in many respects rotten, became the object of aversion for the Latin population. In the Byzantine state system of that day, the lead was taken by a few privileged individuals, who ruled everything at the expense of private initiative, and at the same time claimed every benefit for themselves.
They enriched themselves and oppressed the weak. Although, under Justinian, law was much studied, the actual administration of justice was often very lax. Nor were legislators successful in making the necessary allowances. For instance, they failed to adapt their laws to the requirements of the Germanic states conquered by Byzantium. In spite of all this, some gratifying changes may be noted in Rome and Italy during the reaction which followed the Gothic Wars. Many towns were
rebuilt, and the roads once again were thrown open to travelers. What is more, the new laws embodied in the pragmatic sanction prepared fresh openings for the church, making it possible for her to help in healing moral, social, and political evils. Finally, in the more exclusive domain of the church, as we shall see, a cheering progress is observable at headquarters, affecting even the liturgy. It was due to the foresight of Narcissus, the Byzantine commander-in-chief, that in the days
of peace, many ruined strongholds and castles were again rebuilt. He also restored the walls and gates of Rome, so far as this was necessary. The Greek cross, which, as already stated, is still visible upon the keystone of certain Roman gateways. Also shows that Rome was then reincorporated in an Orthodox empire whose hope was in the cross. Beneath this sign of the cross, the ancient city wall will sustain the shock of the Lombards. Obedient to the cross, the Byzantine power will
rule over the city for yet 200 years, though its sway will become more and more merely nominal. Only then will its rule pass away when the time comes for it, to take the side of the iconoclasts against the true religion of the cross. Such a Greek cross, as those spoken of above, was also placed upon the bridge over the anio on the Salarian Way. This was a fine structure which Narsus rebuilt in 565 after it had been destroyed by Totila. The bridge displays this cross upon the
corner pilasters of the parapet. A couple of these stones with their crosses still exist, though the ancient bridge itself has passed away and been replaced by a new one. From old copies we also know the wording of the two Latin inscriptions which Narciss set up in the center of the bridge on the inner side of either parapet. Both are at present buried in the riverbed, where they live on under the turbulent waters of the Onio, like the brave
deeds of Narcissus in history. One of them, headed by the monogram of Christ, told how Narcissus had routed the kings of the Goths with wonderful promptitude and restored freedom to the city of Rome and the whole of Italy, and how he had restored the structure of the bridge destroyed by the tyrant Totilla to greater beauty than before. In the inscription he is styled, On the parapet on the opposite side, a passerby could have read the other inscription,
a well-turned and for the period gracefully composed poem of four districts. Above the murmuring stream, says the poet, Narciss has once more re-established the stone roadway. he who bent the stiff neck of the Goths also made the mighty river pass under the yoke of the bridge. End of section six.
