It was an august and epic journey up the river, great hardship in travel and extreme beauty in landscape, some bloodshed and death in involvements with both settled and unsettled peoples, and the gathering thunderheads of the building Gothic storm. There were portents, as there are at the inception of every great undertaking. Ravens cried out to them in human voice at Corabia and at Severia, near the cataracts, stones fell on them from the moon. It was Gothic country, and here the Goths were not uncouth.
Singerich, the Goth-turned-Greek, sometimes felt that he was the one who had missed the significance. He came once on Alaric praying at sundown, kneeling and facing his saddle atop its saddle bags on the ground, as the pious in more settled places had now adopted the practice of praying kneeling and facing a household chair. Singerich wished, for a moment, that he had not left off being a Goth.
This was not empty country. There were skirmishes with the settled peoples of Dacia and Dalmatia and Pannonia; and with the unsettled peoples of Noricum. It was at the junction of the Savo and the Danube rivers that Alaric and Athaulf parted company for that time. Athaulf still would not enter the Empire. He would not actively support the Roman thing, and his friendship for Alaric prevented his opposing it. He was waiting for a special sort of call and would brew his own brand of Gothic thunder beyond the precincts of the Empire; when the time came he would add his own forces to the building storm. Nevertheless, he was never entirely out of contact with Alaric. There would be runners and emissaries between Alaric on the Savo and his cousin Athaulf on the Danube.
Stairnon had joined the party briefly at some point, coming with the Gothic farmer warriors from Little Moesia, their harvest now completed. She was sometimes near the forces of her brother Athaulf, sometimes with those of her brother Singerich and her betrothed (at this time it seemed to be accepted by some at least) Alaric. Many of the runners and contacts between the two forces were of her personal party. But a few days after her arrival with the Gothic farmers, and the separation of the groups of Alaric and Athaulf, she returned to Little Moesia.
From here on one could smell the coming battle, one of the turning points of the world. Alaric, naïve though he might seem to his cousin Singerich, was militarily sophisticated. Several hundred miles before reaching their destination, he felt one force strongly, the compelling force of the enemy he would face. This influence was leading him and guiding him, and he knew that it was also channeling the main army of the Emperor Theodosius to follow a preset route. They must follow a certain set of paths, and not others. It seemed as though it was the nature of the country that was guiding them, but there was another nature involved. There were mountains showing themselves forbidding, and mountains showing themselves hospitable. There were streams and trails beckoning to Alaric, and others that refused all passage.
Alaric knew, by signs just beyond the direct apprehension of the senses, which passes would be guarded by fanatical fighters and which passes would be left open to him. He was sure that Theodosius and Stilicho and Timasius were being similarly guided and would be unable to resist taking the selected ways. They were being led into a trap, and they could go no other way.
Alaric was in admiration of the Frankish Count Arbogast, the man who had devised this, their coming antagonist whom he had never seen. The rebel was orchestrating the natural setting of the entire Empire with scattered hundreds of men here and there. He would fight his battle in one place and no other; and at his own time; and under his own conditions. He forced the very mountains and rivers into his own plan, and arranged it that his enemies could come at him by only one way. He would draw the advancing forces towards him at the pace he would set and by the passes he wished, and there would be no other way whatsoever by which they could attack him. There would be only one battlefield possible—the environs of Aquileia—on which an army coming from the east could not win.
How had the Frankish Count Arbogast become so powerful? And why was it of the highest moment that he should be crushed? And why was it maintained that the entire future turned on this one civil conflict, when there had been such conflicts beyond number in the history of the Republic and the Empire?
Arbogast and his Emperor Eugenius were not destroyers of the Empire. They were Empire men as fervid as were the Emperor Theodosius and his master generals. The paganism of Arbogast and Eugenius was not the old paganism of the classic times. It was a new cult paganism, and the Empire was the very center of the cult. It was to this that the deified Emperors had led. It was against this that the idea of the divinely constituted Christian Empire, as understood by Ambrose and Theodosius and Stilicho, had arisen as counterpoise.
The Empire following the victory of Arbogast would not be at all the same sort as the Empire following the victory of Theodosius. The Arbogastian Empire might not have fallen, but it would have frozen. It would have made a China of Europe. For better or worse, we today would not be the same men we are, nor live the same lives, had Arbogast been the victor—as it seemed he must be. That the battle was crucial for all the future was realized at the time.
It was believed by the Emperor Theodosius, by his mentor the Archbishop Ambrose, by the master generals and by the lesser generals that, should the pagan forces of Arbogast and Eugenius be victorious, it would mean the reign of Hell over the Empire; and that the reign would endure for a thousand years. Whether it was truly Hell is a matter of viewpoint. Many moderns have welcomed the Arbogastian thing on its reappearance in our own time.
But to Arbogast and to Eugenius, and to their opponents Theodosius and Stilicho and Timasius and others, this was not an ordinary civil war.
The strength of Arbogast was that he had fought the battle of the narrow plains of Aquileia before and now had with him commanders who had taken part, on both sides, in that previous peculiar battle. He had fought with and against every sort of soldier who would be involved. He had been assistant to the Emperor Theodosius in the campaign for the containment of the Goths, and he believed that he still knew how to contain them. He had had a large part in the struggle against the Western barbarians and the forces of the Western Empire as led by the usurper Magnus Maximus.
Now he commanded those same Western forces—greatly increased in number and resources—and opposed his old Eastern army—greatly diminished. Arbogast had the advantage of every mistake that Magnus Maximus had made, though Magnus had been in the way of winning the battle when he lost his life. Arbogast would be very careful with his own life, and he would fight a narrow battle where Magnus had fought a broad one.
Arbogast was supreme on the Adriatic. He had more ships than Theodosius, better fitted, better situated. He had finer harbors, particularly that of the great fortress city of Ravenna; the richer Italian Adriatic coast with the better provisioned country behind it. He held the interceptors' angle over any sea force that Theodosius could send against him.
But Arbogast did not intend that there should be any sea action; and there would not be. His whole marine tactic was to preclude any action there by a clear show of supremacy. Arbogast would keep the battle narrow and set it in the place and under the terms of his own choosing.
Arbogast concentrated his great forces in north Italy, except for certain harrowing and guarding details that would guide his enemy by one way only into north Italy. The resistance of the force of Arbogast to that of Theodosius was very selective. He let Theodosius and his auxiliaries occupy all of Pannoma and Noricum as far as the Julian Alps. In the Julians he blocked some passes with picked troops who were sworn to stand and die and not be moved. Other passes he left open, the token resistance that he had set in them melting away at the first contact with the troops of the Eastern Emperor, melting away according to previous plan.
Theodosius, his great Master Generals Stilicho and Timasius, the commanders of the special detachments, as Alaric of the Gothic group and Bacurius of the Spanish Horse, the tribunes, the centurions, the soldiers down to the basics, all knew that they were being led into a trap and exactly what so
rt of trap it was. They knew it, but they had to enter. There was no choice.
Arbogast had studied in a school for generals under Theodosius in a more true sense than had Alaric and his fellow cadets. Now his treachery turned all his resources against his old master. It was a battle that Arbogast, under no conceivable circumstances, could lose.
Here a footnote must be intruded into the middle of the text. The topographical key to the action is not to be found in the old sources. We are told what happened, but are left dumbfounded as to why such a sequence was possible. What froze the Goths where they stood and let them be slaughtered? Why did Stilicho attack on such a hopelessly narrow front? Why could not the Eastern reserves be used through the long first day of the battle? And what was the meaning of the mad cavalry charges led by Sarus and others far upstream from the main field of battle? Expert military analysis of the compulsion of the topography on the action is needed, and it is not to be found in the ancient accounts.
Fortunately—for the purposes of this study but not for those involved, for it was a bloody affair—the battle was fought all over again fifteen hundred years later on the exact site; and in this modern connection there exists voluminous expert military analysis of the relation of topography to battle action. Many of the anomalies of the great struggle between the forces of Theodosius and Arbogast are explained by comparison with the Italian-Austrian engagement on exactly the same site on August 12, 1916 and the several days following.
For this reason many of the features of that landscape have been given modern names only. We will confess it: we do not, in many cases, know the ancient names, nor have we been able to find them out.
8. As Good a Graveyard as Any
We come soon to our main action. There are men to be killed and Principalities to be demolished. We are now at the time and place of the battle of the River Frigidus—the third battle of Aquileia—the battle that did make a difference. In earlier centuries, it might not have mattered so much whether Rome or Carthage had conquered. In the same fourth century, it did not matter too much whether the Romans or the “barbarians” conquered, for the “barbarians” were also Romans. But it did make a difference whether Theodosius or Arbogast conquered. The issue either way would have produced a different world for the future. Had it gone with Arbogast, it would have been the end of the Church in the world, for better or worse.
But we have divine sanction and assurance that the Church will endure to the end of the world, it is said. No, we do not have assurance that it will endure in effective external form, nor in popularly recognized identity, nor by name or ritual, nor openly at all. The reassurance that the Church will endure does not apply to the furniture of the Church in this world.
Stilicho tried to impress the importance of the event upon his army. He addressed his tribunes and commanders and the commanders of the federated forces, probably the day before the battle. The point is obscured, coming to us through the verse of Claudian, but Stilicho speaks of the time as being memorable, as being the end of the first century. But saeculum, the word he employed, means more than century. It has a special meaning that is related to the word sacred, a meaning more like millennium. He also used an involved phrase—“years of the days of the years.” It is known that there were Adventists who expected the second coming of Christ at the end of the Greater Century, the years of the days, the three hundred and sixty-five years after the Crucifixion. There were others who expected the coming of Antichrist and the battle of Armageddon. To Stilicho and to his Emperor, Arbogast and Eugenius were the two faces of Antichrist, and this was Armageddon.
Stilicho was neither an Adventist nor a Mystic, but he was a soldier and an orator who would employ what devices he could discover for the exhortation of his men. He told them that this was the end of the Greater Century and that this was the most dread of all battles. The year 394 being taken as the end of the Grand Century would have placed the Crucifixion in the year 29—but this does not do extreme violence to the records. It is known that there is an error of from two to five years at the beginning of the era.
To the site of the battle then, where the secondary results will be more important than the immediate and intended.
Gibbon writes: “He [Theodosius] descended from the hills, and beheld, with some astonishment, the formidable camp of the Gauls and Germans [the army of Eugenius and Arbogast] that covered with arms and tents the open country which extended to the walls of Aquileia and the banks of the Frigidus, or Cold River.” But Gibbon, who was never wrong, had to be wrong here.
It is thirteen miles from Aquileia to the nearest point of the Frigidus—where it flows into the Sontius. But it is not now, and could not have been then, open country. The only open country is immediately around Aquileia, and the distance to Frigidus covers some of the most forbidding terrain in the world.
A short sketch of the battle site is required to understand why the fighting was so straited; why the forces of Arbogast and Eugenius were able to maneuver, and those of Theodosius and his master generals were not; and why those forces, coming from the East, had to enter that narrow trap.
The uneven south face of the battle site is the Adriatic Sea and the Gulf of Trieste. The vertical axis is the Sontius River—later called the Isonzo and today the Sonzo—flowing generally from the north and into the Trieste Gulf about four miles east of Aquileia. The horizontal axis is the Frigidus River—later called the Wippach and the Vipao and today the Vipacco—flowing generally out of the east and into the Sontius River about ten miles north of the Trieste Gulf.
It was by the pass of the Frigidus River that the armies of Theodosius came down from the Julian Alps, to find the armies of Arbogast occupying the west bank of the Sontius upstream, and both banks of that river downstream, below the juncture of the Frigidus.
The Frigidus is a narrow river, descending rapidly from the high Alps and deserving its name of “cold.” The river and the valley of it pass between the peaks of Mount St. Gabriel on the north, and Mount St. Michael on the south. The mountain of St. Michael, at the south bank of the Frigidus and very near the Sontius juncture, was the cork in the bottle that imprisoned the Eastern armies. They would have to fight their way through the narrow passage between the shoulder of the mountain and the rivers, before they could come out onto the plains and into Italy at all.
North of the River Frigidus were the mountains, including the St. Gabriel peak, and extending even to the western side of the Sontius River—the shore held by the forces of Arbogast.
South of the Frigidus was the forbidding Carso Plateau, with only two breaks in its impenetrable shield. There was a deep dry valley, the Vallone, cutting through south to the Adriatic between heights on either side; and there was the narrow way along the east bank of the Sontius, between that river and the abrupt west face of the Plateau.
The portion of the Carso that is to the west of the Vallone is called the Doberdò Plateau, but it is only a continuation of the Carso.
The forces of Theodosius must drive against those of Arbogast through the narrow valley between the Sontius River and the Doberdò Plateau; or they must drive against them down the Vallone, between the Doberdò Plateau and the Carso. There was no other possible way to go. Actually, it was necessary that they proceed on both ways. Abandoning either would allow them to be outflanked and taken.
There was this pass of the Frigidus River that the forces of Theodosius used—the pass of modern Gorizia. And there was the fine Roman Road coming up along the Adriatic from the southeast—and controlled by the forces of Arbogast—which entered by way of modern Trieste. There was not, and is not, any other practical way for an army to come into Italy from the east.
The army of Arbogast held what open country there was—around Aquileia, on both shores of the Sontius for its final few miles, and a fair open corner between the Sontius, the Doberdò, and the Trieste Gulf. The Eastern armies could come into these open areas only by forcing one or the other of the narrow ways. The way between the Dob
erdò and the Sontius would leave them strung out in narrow file and in range of broadsides of missiles shot by expert archers arrayed in depth on the west bank of the Sontius—the river was a narrow one. There were exceptionally narrow ways where the men of the East must pass in absolute single file, and the attrition on their forces would be terrible before they ever came to immediate conflict.
The only other way by which the Eastern armies could come down was through the Vallone, which had never been forced. It had been known for centuries as a graveyard.
Arbogast had the walled city of Aquileia for a final refuge, and a number of walled camps. Arbogast had waited and provisioned for the six weeks during which the Eastern armies had come by forced marches. He had, in fact, been dug in and waiting for several years. It was impossible that anyone should have prepared more thoroughly than did Arbogast.
He could make the battle as narrow or as wide as he wished by meeting the Eastern forces higher or lower in the space between the Doberdò Plateau and the Carso. He could let the Easterners come through in a trickle, and then shut off that trickle when he had gathered enough of them in the pocket to swallow at one time. The choosing of the type of battle was up to Arbogast, and he could alter his choice at any time he wished.
All the commanders concerned, on both sides, except the very young ones such as Alaric, had fought this same battle before. It was known to all of them that, except for the intervention of Fate, the army attacking from the east could not win. This advantage of defense had helped keep Italy secure for centuries.
Of the Carso Plateau—all these high places are actually a part of the Julian Alps—there is a local legend of its beginning. God, after He had finished making the world, gathered up all the stones that were left over, and was going to dump them into the sea. But the Devil, catching up with Him there, slit open the bag that held the stones, and they spilled out. This made the Carso: and it made it a Devil's area; the stones, the boulders, were really worthless and should have been cast into the sea. They remain an abomination on the earth. The story is told of other high places, one in Mexico and one in New Guinea, so it must be assumed that the Devil played the trick more than once.
Summa Risus: Collected Non-Fiction Page 26