Attila:The Scourge of God

by Ross Laidlaw

  ‘I see,’ sneered Valentinian. ‘To save a few tremisses, you would have us serve distinguished guests sausage from Bononia1 garnished with prime Ravenna cabbage, and washed down with that Mantuan vinegar they call wine. Cato the Censor would have approved, I’m sure.’ He turned to the other count, a thickset florid man. ‘If the Privy Purse is too mean to let us celebrate our victories, perhaps the state will prove more generous.’

  ‘Your Serenity, forget this folly,’ declared the Count of the Public Purse brusquely. ‘The Treasury needs every nummus it can wring in taxes, just to pay the army in Gaul.’

  ‘You dare address your Emperor thus!’ shrieked Valentinian, spittle flying from his lips. ‘I’ll have you dismissed, banished. A life among the goats of Cephalonia might cure you of your insolence.’

  ‘Aside from the fact that Cephalonia now falls within the jurisdiction of the East,’ rejoined the count smoothly, quite unperturbed by the emperor’s outburst, ‘what would that achieve?’ The count was secure in the knowledge that, without the backing of Placidia and Aetius, Valentinian’s threat was an empty one. Even mighty emperors like the first Valentinian or Theodosius the Great, had been unable to bully or manipulate (beyond a limited extent) a bureaucracy grown all-embracing, powerful, and quasi-independent, since its virtual creation under Diocletian. Nor, despite sustained efforts, had they been able to rid the system of its greatest evil: endemic corruption. This, combined with the disbursement of salaries for the army of tax and administrative officials, accounted for a serious erosion of funds reaching the Treasury.

  ‘Perhaps Your Serenity does not fully appreciate just how parlous the situation has become,’ the count continued. ‘Apart from Italia, Provence, and central Gaul, there’s nowhere left to tax. Africa and Britain are both gone. Hispania’s in turmoil from encroachments by the Visigoths, the Suebes’ occupation of Gallaecia, and Bagaudian resurgence. The federates are exempt from levies, and it’ll be years before Aremorica recovers sufficiently to-’

  ‘But Uncle Honorius had his arch,’ said Valentinian, cutting short the minister and turning to his mother.

  ‘Yes; finished just in time for the sack of Rome as I recall,’ chuckled the Public Purse. ‘The Goths — any who could read, that is — must have been amused by the inscription: “Subdued for all time — the Goth nation.” To build another might be tempting Providence.’

  ‘My royal half-brother perhaps could not really afford such an expensive monument,’ said Placidia soothingly to Valentinian. She turned to the Count of the Public Purse. ‘Could we not settle for a compromise: triumphal games in a refurbished Colosseum? That wouldn’t empty the coffers, surely?’

  The ministers exchanged glances, a reciprocal nod confirming mutual acceptance of this olive branch. ‘Well, I suppose it might be managed,’ said the Count of the Patrimony grudgingly. ‘It’ll mean economies,’ and he glanced meaningfully towards Valentinian.

  ‘And an overhaul of the tax net,’ took up the other minister, ‘to ensure that no one who can pay slips through the meshes.’

  ‘Who, pray, is escaping their fiscal obligations?’ demanded Valentinian.

  ‘Apart from mass desertions by decurions and coloni to the great estates and, until their revolt was crushed, to the Bagaudae of Aremorica,’ the count replied, ‘we have these monks — a huge and growing class of parasites, whose priority is not to save the empire but to save their souls. Also, quite apart from the fact that they make no contribution to the state in dues or labour, their vow of celibacy is causing the population to diminish, thus further reducing the tax base and eroding recruitment for the army.’

  ‘Then we must stop the rot!’ exclaimed Valentinian, pleased to have found a target on which to vent his disappointment. ‘I’ll have the Senate ratify an edict forbidding anyone to enter the monastic life without permission.’ He looked at Placidia, seeking her approval. ‘A good idea, Mother?’

  ‘A splendid one,’ confirmed the Empress warmly, casting an indulgent glance towards her son.

  ‘I would remind Your Serenities that such legislation has already been enacted,’ put in the Public Purse tartly. ‘It states that no one can leave the land on which they work, to become a monk, without their lord’s permission — which is to be granted only in the most exceptional of circumstances.’

  ‘Then the edict isn’t working!’ shouted Valentinian, stamping his foot. ‘It must be renewed, extended, with the harshest penalties for non-compliance.’2 He glared at the others. ‘Who would be an Emperor?’ he cried. ‘My subjects disobey me, my ministers defy me, even the Augusta fobs me off with honeyed words. Sycophants, traitors — get out, the lot of you! Out! Out!’

  Alone at last in the chamber, Valentinian, his features convulsed with fury and frustration, hurled the model from its plinth, to shatter on the marble floor.

  1 Bologna.

  2 The frequency with which imperial legislation in the late Western Empire was re-enacted, with increasingly dire threats of punishment, shows how weak the central government was becoming.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The proud Litorius directed the Scythian horsemen against the ranks of the Goths

  Sidonius Apollinaris, The Panegyric of Avitus, 458

  Praetorium of the Master of Soldiers, Ravenna, Province of Flaminia and Picenum, Diocese of Italy [Titus wrote in the Liber Rufinorum], in the consulships of Flavius Placidius Valentinianus, Augustus (his fifth), and of Anatolius, Ides Nov.1

  Aetius came close — so very close — to achieving what he had set his heart and mind on: the re-establishing of Roman ascendancy in Gaul. Then the joint Prefectures of Gaul and Italy would have become the base for launching the recon-quest of the lost dioceses in Spain and Africa, and even perhaps the recovery of Britain. With Roman rule firmly restored, the burden of taxation redistributed on a fair basis, corruption rooted out, and revenue efficiently utilized, an era of stability could have been ushered in. Then, following the pattern of client kingdoms in the past, the federate tribes would, in a generation or two, have become absorbed into the life and culture of the Roman Empire, and become loyal Romans: as Hispani, Gauls, Britons, Illyrians, et alii had done before them. Alas, it was not to be.

  Yet even as recently as the summer of last year it all looked so promising. The Burgundians, after rebelling a second time, were crushed so completely (their King, Gundohar, was killed) as to pose no further threat to Rome. The Bagaudae had been put down with appalling but effective severity, thus securing the return of Aremorica to the Roman fold. The Visigoths had been hurled back from Narbo Martius with heavy loss and were now licking their wounds, with a commander of proven skill and experience, Litorius, keeping watch to make sure they stayed within their bounds. And, at least to my mind, something even more important than any of these had begun to take place, something intangible yet vital: a feeling of common purpose among the Roman troops. They had faced fearful odds — and won; and that experience had forged them into something like a band of brothers, united under a charismatic and inspiring leader. Wishful thinking? To some extent, perhaps. But a spark was there, and, if circumstances had not conspired to extinguish it, might have rekindled a flame of patriotism, not only in the army but among ordinary citizens. It is not impossible that Narbo could have become another Zama, where Scipio finally crushed Rome’s arch-enemy, Hannibal.

  That summer, the only cloud on the horizon was the non-arrival of pay for the troops, Huns, as well as the Roman field army. Hence Aetius’ visit to Italia to find out the cause of the delay. At the time of his departure (with myself in tow), he was not seriously concerned; it seemed to be just another example of the inefficient administration of Valentinian — now an obnoxious youth of twenty — or rather of his mother, Galla Placidia. Aetius had submitted his returns, all scrupulously itemized and costed, to the Praetorian prefect, and had no reason to suspect that they would not be met in full.

  By this time I had fully recovered from my injuries. Marcus I had entrusted to the care of a ma
rried couple, coloni on the family estate, good people unblessed with children of their own. As for me, I had returned to my old position on Aetius’ staff of agens in rebus, a flexible term officially meaning a courier, but which could be extended to cover roles in diplomatic missions, investigative work, or even spying. It felt good to be back in uniform — pillbox cap, military belt, and long-sleeved tunic with indigo government roundels sewn on the hips and shoulders. (Owing to government cut-backs, the tunic was of undyed linen instead of scarlet wool.)

  Once in Ravenna, Aetius entrusted me with the task of locating the missing funds. In my innocence I imagined this would be a reasonably straightforward matter. I was in for a shock. Investigating the Sacrae largitiones, the imperial finance ministry, would have made threading the Cretan labyrinth seem like child’s play. I was passed from one department to another, interviewing a series of numerarii, or financial officials, and in turn their assistants, accountants, and paymasters; then separately scrutinizing the records of the various carae epistolarum, the officials in charge of financial correspondence. However, armed with a writ from Aetius, I was permitted to follow up my chain of investigation without obstruction, and, after ten days of the most mind-numbingly tedious and complex work I’ve ever undertaken, at last discovered what had happened to the missing funds.

  And a sorry tale it was. The money had been ‘diverted’ (id est, peculated) along with other revenue, towards implementing a scheme of monstrous folly on the part of Valentinian: the refurbishment on a massive scale of the Colosseum,2 followed by the most lavish games (wild-beast hunts et cetera, but of course no gladiatorial combats) to be staged in the Flavian Amphitheatre for a generation. And the reason? To celebrate the triumph of Valentinian for the victories in Gaul! As if the credit for those hard-won campaigns somehow belonged to the Emperor rather than his Master of Soldiers. (Shades of Claudius and the conquest of Britain.) The vanity, jealousy, and self-delusion of Valentinian and his scheming mother, which this act of insane extravagance illustrates, simply beggars belief. But the Emperor, I hear you cry, wouldn’t wittingly jeopardize the security of the empire just to gratify his envy and resentment of the man who ruled it in his name. Well, if you think that, all I can say is, you don’t know your Valentinian.

  That this was a major setback for Aetius, there was no denying. Still, the money to pay the army could have been found somehow: if necessary by raiding the res privata, the Emperor’s private income, derived from royal estates, bequests, confiscation of common land and pagan temple property, et cetera. As Patrician and Master of Soldiers, Aetius certainly had the power (if not the authorization) to do this. But then all such considerations were pushed into the background as the thunderbolts started falling.

  First came the shocking news that Gaiseric had captured Carthage, the capital of Roman Africa, and seized the remaining grain-producing areas. Four years earlier, when the crisis in Gaul erupted, Aetius had — in order to avoid trouble breaking out in his rear — agreed a deal with Gaiseric by which the Vandals accepted federate status. Now, with the taking of Carthage and the adjacent territories, any hope of accommodation between Rome and the Vandals evaporated. Gaiseric went on to declare himself monarch of an independent kingdom, dating his regnal years from this event. Africa was torn away from the empire altogether, and the last of its grain supplies to Rome cut off.

  But worse was to follow. No sooner had we learnt of the final fall of Africa, than a letter arrived for Aetius from Avitus in Gaul, containing terrible news.

  Titus sighed as he searched through the jumble of papers in Aetius’ office at his headquarters near Ravenna. Promotion within the courier service to the rank of curiosus, or inspector for the imperial post, meant that one of Titus’ tasks was to check the warrants of those using it. Locating the documents in the chaos to which the Master of Soldiers regularly reduced the tablinum could be a time-consuming business. Presiding over the clutter were bronze busts, one at either end of the office, of Valentinian and Placidia. They had replaced an earlier bust, of Boniface, and had been installed for the same reason: ‘Know thy enemy’. Typically, Aetius was marching up and down the room, consulting then discarding papers, while dictating to the unfortunate scribe who was trying to keep pace with him and simultaneously take down the message.

  A slave entered and announced that a courier had arrived from Gaul with a letter requiring the general’s immediate attention.

  ‘Tell him to wait,’ replied Aetius, then, ‘Gaul, did you say? No, better send him in.’

  Idly, Titus broke off his search to watch, while Aetius unfurled the scroll the dusty messenger handed to him, and began to peruse it. Suddenly, the general’s face blanched and he swayed on his feet. ‘Tell Avitus I’ll make all speed to join him!’ he cried hoarsely. Dismissing the courier, also the scribe, he stood in the middle of the room staring at the letter and muttered, ‘I should have seen that this might happen.’

  ‘Bad news, sir?’ ventured Titus.

  ‘What’s that?’ said the general distractedly, looking up. Seeing Titus, he exclaimed, ‘Disaster! It seems Litorius may have lost us Provincia. Listen to what Avitus says.

  ‘“I felt that the man had become dangerously unstable, — perhaps some of the things he had to do in Aremorica had affected him. You’ll have heard, of course, about the incident on my estate. That in itself wouldn’t have indicated that the count was unbalanced, only that he had difficulty controlling the Huns — admittedly, not an easy task. But when Quintus, his second-in-command, came to me privately and confided his doubts regarding Litorius (not from disloyalty — Quintus is the most faithful of subordinates — but out of genuine concern), I became seriously worried. Then came his brilliant relief of Narbo Martius. We were all tremendously impressed, and I began to think that I had judged the man too hastily. (Although in hindsight, there was, I think, an element of reckless bravado about the operation; it could so easily have gone badly wrong.) All things considered, when you appointed him commander-in-chief during your absence in Italia, I allowed my fears to become lulled. After all, the task you entrusted to Litorius was scarcely a demanding one. The Visigoths had been badly mauled and wanted nothing more than to be left to lick their wounds. Litorius, as I distinctly recall you making clear to him, was to be a vigilant policeman, nothing more.

  ‘“So when the count announced that he intended to invade the Goths’ homeland, granted them under treaty by Constantius, and invest their capital, Tolosa, I was thunderstruck. I tried to reason with him, pointing out that it was folly to pick an unnecessary quarrel with a tribe who appeared to have learnt their lesson, but who, if provoked, might still prove dangerous. But he wouldn’t listen, declared that the only thing barbarians understood was force, and that he was going to treat the Goths as you had treated the Burgundians. He ignored the fact that you destroyed that tribe only when they broke out a second time. I think that his success at Narbo may have gone to his head, creating the delusion that he was invincible.

  ‘“Anyway, he marched with the Huns to Tolosa. (Fortunately, I managed to persuade him to leave the bulk of the Roman field army behind, with myself, as a rearguard.) When he got to Tolosa — you won’t believe this, he conducted a full-scale pagan sacrifice,3 complete with augurs examining the entrails and predicting victory! What the Huns made of it I can’t imagine, and any Romans present must have thought he’d taken leave of his senses. Did you know the man was a closet pagan? I certainly had no inkling. When I heard about it, I became convinced that the man’s mind had become unhinged. I added my voice to that of King Theoderic’s emissaries — bishops, no less — pleading with Litorius that he accept their peace proposals. But he rejected them, with the predictable result that the Goths became desperate.

  ‘“With nothing to lose, they launched a night attack on the count’s camp, which in his rashness and over-confidence he’d neglected to fortify or appoint sentries to guard. Prepare yourself my dear friend, for what I must now tell you. Litorius has proved a second V
arus, who led his legions into an ambush, resulting in their annihilation. The Huns were wiped out almost to a man, and Litorius himself taken; whether he is still alive, I have no means of knowing. The situation here is critical. The Goths, now full of confidence and clamouring for revenge, are preparing to invade Provincia. Whatever business you have in Italy, I urge you to abandon it. Collect what troops you can, and march for Gaul immediately. I am strengthening the walls of Arelate and, with the field army, will try to hold the line until you join me.”’

  Rolling up the letter, Aetius stared at Titus bleakly. ‘Sixty thousand Huns — lost,’ he whispered, and Titus saw in his eyes a flash of something he had never seen before: despair. Suddenly, the general looked shrunken, old.

  But only for a moment. Squaring his shoulders, Aetius announced crisply, ‘I must prepare to leave for Gaul. Meanwhile, you, Titus, will go to Attila as my emissary. Travel by imperial post to the frontier, then buy the fastest horse you can. Explain to Attila exactly what has happened, sparing no details — he’d see through any excuses or cover-ups straight away. Tell him that I’ll do all in my power to repay in full the debt I owe him, and assure him that I’ll come in person as soon as I have settled things in Gaul. Perhaps we can still save something from the wreck. If it is to survive, the West must continue to have Hun help. All right?’