Summa Risus: Collected Non-Fiction

by R. A. Lafferty

  But that is all surmise. So on with the account.

  Very early in the year 408 Alaric marshaled his forces and came up to the western extent of his territory, to the gates of Italy. Another force passed him on the way, going east and south. The two forces stopped for consultation, and then parted peacefully. The other force was composed of Uldin and his Huns. Whatever was the agreement between Alaric and Uldin cannot be known, but they seemed to be moving by agreement, and were likely obeying the orders of the same man or group.

  The forces of Uldin would set down in Thrace, to the consternation of the Eastern Empire. They did not ravage. They did not forage. They bought what they needed and paid in gold. The Huns always had a store of gold. The Huns camped silently, and a wave of terror went through the peoples of the cities of the East; much like the fright that had seized the cities of the West at the coming of Radagais. Uldin had been assigned to the guarding of part of the giant province of Illyricum. Alaric had been summoned, it is not known by whom, to stand by for other possible need.

  This Uldin is usually spoken of as the King of the Huns. He was the Hun who moved in and out of the Empire and who was trusted by Stilicho, who, in fact, was a general of the Roman Empire as well as a King of the Huns. But he was only one of a dozen Kings of the Huns. They were not to raise a high King again until Attila should come to that honor, and he was still a small boy.

  Alaric is generally represented as coming at this time to threaten Italy once more; to demand, to extort, and then to invade. This view is connected with the organized defamation of the time, and it still prevails. It was necessary to attribute aggressive motives to Alaric in building up the treason charges against Stilicho; to prove that Stilicho had connived with an outlaw for the destruction of the Empire.

  But Alaric did not come as an outlaw, though neither did he come at the orders of Stilicho, who was the man entitled to give orders. He did not come into Italy at all, though he did come to the very border of the province of which he was Master General.

  He came and waited; and communicated with Stilicho and others.

  Alaric came up to the border because he was sent for by a council of the German-Roman generals in the service of the Empire, which summons was secret from Stilicho. Most explicitly Alaric came because he was sent for by his brother-in-law Sarus who was high in the generals' council.

  This group advised Alaric that the Empire was in mortal danger, and that they wanted his force near at hand. All was not right with the regency, they advised; and it might be that all was not right with Stilicho. The generals, whose training was military, correctly appraised a non-military threat. They knew that the Empire had never been in such danger as from that amorphous gray seventh wave that now rose and curled.

  16. Of the Death of an Oak

  Stilicho had stood to the young Emperor Honorius as a rather stern German father; and there is something in the Mediterranean mind that will finally revolt against this dictation even when (as was the case) it is well-intentioned and largely necessary.

  Honorius was his ward; Stilicho was guardian. He put the cap on it when he became the boy's father-in-law. He pushed it beyond the breaking point by his insistence that Honorius have offspring for the continuance of the Empire. The boy who never grew up was incapable of having offspring, either physically or out of some malfunction of the spirit. Stilicho believed that anything in the world is possible if only one has the will. Honorius, apparently, did not have the will.

  The young Empress Maria, the daughter of Stilicho, died right at the beginning of the eventful year 408. She had been married ten years, had married Honorius when he was fourteen years old, and she died a virgin. Stilicho, with the continuance of the Empire always in mind, immediately married his younger daughter, Thermandia, to the Emperor Honorius. The correct military procedure is always to insert a second force into a required position when the initial force, through unforeseen event, has failed. A vulnerable position must be occupied. But even Serena, the wise wife of Stilicho, was against it.

  Thermandia was more aggressive than had been her sister Maria, more aware of her duty to the Empire in this respect. The young Emperor was actually terrified of the insistent approaches of his new wife, and he fled Rome permanently; going first to the old military capital of Milan, and then to his new fortress capital of Ravenna. He never lived with his new wife, after that first night when Stilicho had locked him in.

  Stilicho understood the workings of the most intricate world, but he did not understand the small people who made up that world. However close to him he had been, Stilicho did not understand the Emperor Honorius who would always have the mind of an eleven-year-old boy—a mind now tortured by its inability to cross the gap. Honorius was easy with most men, and especially with soldiers of the common sort when they themselves were on the simple side. But in the presence of any woman he could hardly speak.

  There was one man, however, who did understand Honorius; a peculiar sort of man who understood and used the furtive side of everything. He saw how he might turn the weakness of the Emperor to his own final strength. This man was Olympius.

  It was Olympius who had brought down the Imperial eunuch Eutropius at the Eastern Court, in a campaign that was a masterpiece of its kind. And for his assistant in a new but kindred project he now took one Solinas, who had been in the service of the Frankish Count Arbogast and the pretender Emperor Eugenius. Olympius intended, with the help of Solinas and others, to fell the strongest man of them all, and to take his place.

  If a man have a special art, he is impelled to express it no matter what the circumstances. Olympius had a special art for defamation and vilification, as had Solinas for infiltration and intrusion. They would have done their work for love of it if nothing had been offered; but what was offered was control of the richest realm in history.

  The battle field on which Olympius launched his effort was the mind of the Emperor Honorius, an eleven-year-old mind in a twenty-four-year-old body. Olympius would defame the great Stilicho in that mind and substitute himself as the trusted advisor. He had brought down Eutropius in a shrewd campaign, and he had had to blacken him to an entire Court and a whole Empire. Here, due to the peculiar concentration of invested power that Stilicho had himself set up, Olympius had to blacken Stilicho to only one man, a defective and impressionable man. And this did Olympius, in his new office of Master of the Court, proceed to do.

  For his own phase of the campaign Solinas had a little broader field. His talent for infiltration and intrusion was well known. Moreover he had available broken pieces of a machinery that had once before been used. In his service of Arbogast and Eugenius, Solinas had worked groups of Frankish subverters into positions of authority around the Emperor Valentinian. Solinas had the gift for bringing men into his own party, for moving them into positions of importance around his victim, and for pulling the string before the design was even suspected.

  Stilicho remained ignorant of the disastrous orientation of the many new men of talent who suddenly came to the fore in the various services. Some of these were Frankish men who had been used before; some of them were dissatisfied Romans. But Solinas did not scatter his shots. He concentrated them in two restricted areas, areas to which Stilicho seldom paid attention.

  The city of Rome was ignored by Olympius and Solinas, except for the half dozen men in the Senate whom they had made their own. These were not enough to have important effect on any voting, but the voting of the Senate itself was no longer of real importance. The half dozen men were sufficient to create a diversion, to raise a turmoil wherever desired. It would also happen that several honest men, Lampadius and others, would give unwitting help to the campaign of the subverters through misunderstanding.

  But the main area of Solinas' campaign was among the military of two cities. In North Italy, where were always the stand-by legions for the defense of the interior Empire, were three military centers: Ravenna, the new capital and a great fortress; and the two great staging tow
ns now called Pavia and Bologna.

  Solinas left Bologna, the central of these three points. It was Stilicho's own base, and it was unassailable to his type of campaign.

  Its soldiers were German of their several sorts, and were completely loyal to Stilicho.

  But Ravenna and Pavia might be different matters.

  The Court City of Ravenna was filled with Imperial Guards, not with campaigning soldiers. In their own way they were superb, and nobody ever thought seriously of attempting the city garrisoned by them. They were a cosmopolitan force, not particularly German. They were from the provinces of Africa and Mauretania, from Tarraconensis and Baetica in Spain, from Aquitania and Lugdunensis in Gaul, from Britain and from Sicily and Italy—as well as from the German groups. Such of the great families of the Empire who still set their sons to soldiering had managed that they be sent to the Imperial Fortress City. Such Germans as were among them were often of the peoples opposed to Stilicho and envious of the Vandals and Goths. They were a mixed and highborn soldiery and subject to factions. And Solinas was a man who knew how to use factions.

  Such strong Stilicho adherents as were among them now found themselves the recipients of sudden Imperial promotions which tended to take them out of Ravenna. Solinas was a master at kicking a man upstairs. Stilicho's men were sent on high-sounding missions all over the Empire; and into Ravenna came new men who were not close to him.

  Stilicho had never concerned himself greatly over Ravenna. He knew that by its location, surrounded by swamps and on the Adriatic, it was hard to come to. He knew that its garrison was militarily competent, and that its masters were possessed of one phase of military knowledge—fortress defense—to a greater degree than himself. Stilicho had settled in his own mind that the Emperor Honorius was absolutely safe in Ravenna from any exterior attack—and so he was. He could not be threatened as he had been threatened by Alaric at Milan. But the very secure Ravenna had passed out of Stilicho's hands without his noticing it.

  The soldiers of Pavia were much less German than those of Bologna. They contained the only large concentration of Old Roman soldiers still left in the Empire, and a great number of other non-Germans. It was a lesser center than Bologna, but Stilicho still kept close control of it and had his own strong men strategically placed. It became the business of Solinas to surround those strong men quietly. In the end, however, it would have to be a bloody business. Stilicho would not lose Pavia by default.

  A new trend was in the air through the Western Empire, and Olympius and Solinas took advantage of it. The same trend had appeared in Constantinople several years before, in the movement which we have called the Roman Supremacy Party. It had not now coalesced in the Roman West, but there were signs of the feeling.

  The curlew senses a change in the wind before any other bird, and cries out sharply at it. Olympius and Solinas were peculiarly sensitive to the cry of the curlews over Italy, and were quick to take advantage of the change in the wind.

  There was resentment of the people of Italy against the Germans. It was a thing that came and went, and ordinarily the waves of it passed without serious disturbance. The people felt themselves of no consequence in their own house. But they were unwilling themselves to maintain the onerous burden of Empire, and someone must assume it. In the end they had always resigned themselves and left it to the Germans. The conspirators, however, were resolved that this wave of feeling would not pass without serious disturbance.

  It was then that the coming of Alaric gave them a great opportunity.

  Alaric had come to the approaches of Italy at the solicitation of his brother-in-law Sarus, and of the other generals. They had informed him that Stilicho himself had shown signs of weakness and indecision, and that the Empire was in danger. Stilicho was now an old man, fifty or slightly above, and he still rode and spoke with his accustomed vigor; but the generals had sensed that something was wrong. They were looking for his possible successor, should something go amiss, and they had tentatively settled on Alaric.

  Sarus had taken himself out of consideration. He knew himself and his own failings. He knew that Alaric, who seemed still an unfinished boy to him, was capable of tremendous growth and development; and that he himself was not. There was at this time no thought of setting a general up as Emperor; but rather of selecting a master general who could rule competently through the Emperor, should something happen to Stilicho. It is likely that Stilicho had shown some oddities of conduct that had given the generals unease, but which have not been related down to us.

  Alaric came because he was sent for. He also came for his money. This part was a nervous business. Illyricum still held publicly from the Eastern Empire, and was subject to tax to the East. The military recompense to Alaric and his forces should also come from the Eastern Court, for all ordinary military service. So it did; but very modestly, and for very ordinary service.

  But the Goths for some years had undertaken military obligations all out of proportion to the wealth of their province. They had served both the Eastern and Western Empires in a variety of actions, and maintained the frontier all the way from Decumates and Raetia in the high Alps to the Black Sea. They had sent detachments to the provinces of Asia and Syria and had undertaken punitive expeditions far beyond the Danube. They had maintained the frontiers so well that while five invasions had broken into the Empire of the West none at all had broken through the frontier assigned to the Goths. The Goths had also sent detachments on loan to the West for service against the usurper Emperor Constantine in Gaul, and against the Celts and Burgundians.

  The Goths were not numerous. Less than half a million people among the seventy-five million people of the Empire; but they had been responsible for the defense of one half of that Empire. And many of their actions were unknown to the Court of the East with which they were publicly affiliated.

  Some provinces, like Sicily and Africa, produced grain for the Empire. Some, like Greece, produced wine and honey and olive oil. Illyricum of the Goths produced military service.

  Alaric sent ambassadors to Stilicho, from Virunum in Noricum, to inform him that it was time to pick up the tab, four thousand pounds of gold. It was not an unreasonable fee for the years of service, and it was probably the fee previously agreed upon. And Rome was gold-rich.

  Stilicho sent the word that he would attend to it. And then the outcry arose. Olympius and Solinas got hold of it, and raised a tumult. Their surprise and outrage was feigned. They knew the state of affairs, but the public had not known of it. The Master General Stilicho had effectively ruled both the Eastern and Western Empires without the full knowledge of either of the incompetent Emperors. The populace of neither Rome nor Constantinople knew of this dual role, though the leading men of affairs of both realms would naturally have known of it.

  Alaric held concurrent commissions from both the Eastern and Western Empire. His ordinary pay was from Constantinople, but his extraordinary pay must be from Rome. Alaric himself had been out of pocket a tremendous fortune. It takes bribes of gold, as well as a show of great military force, to maintain the restive frontiers; and Alaric had paid off dozens of wandering tribes.

  Stilicho, in his management of the Empire, had accounted to no one. But now the outcry was to call him to account. The outcry was, at first, synthetic; and was so understood by all men of moment. The protests made it seem that there was duplicity, even treason, in Stilicho. But he had always acted in the interest of the Empire.

  To quiet the protests, and because he felt secure in his position, Stilicho agreed to put the matter to the Senate of Rome. To do this he had to awaken that body from a sleep of nearly four hundred years; for it had handled only minor matters, mostly of the City itself, in all that time. Stilicho caused the Senate to assemble in the old Flavian palace of the Caesars.

  But the Senate no longer had any strict organization or leadership. It found its new leadership supplied by the half dozen expert men who had been intruded by Olympius and Solinas into that body; and these
began a campaign of great invective against Stilicho and opposed any motion to pay tribute to the barbarian Gothic invader who threatened Italy.

  Several honest men of the Senate, misunderstanding the affair, were caught up in the violent opposition. Lampadius, a good man, orated strongly against the “tribute,” urging the Romans to reaffirm their old liberty, and to fight rather than be dishonored. The Roman people followed the debates with lively interest, and began to shout death to all the Germans. Stilicho felt his prestige slipping away, and knew that he had suffered a defeat more serious than any he had ever met on a battle field.

  At the same time Stilicho suffered a personal treachery out of his own household. Galla Placidia, fifteen years old and perverse as a young shoat, claimed royal privilege—as the sister of the Emperor and the only one of the family in the City—to address the Senate. She discovered that she was a Roman, or affected to; nobody could ever be certain when Placidia was sincere. She had been salty-tongued from the cradle, and she now harangued the Senate with an incendiary, anti-German, all-for-Rome, drive-out- the-barbarians speech. She brought the Senate to its feet and gave it a thrill it would not forget. Placidia was of fantastic talent, and a great actress was lost in her.

  This wounded Stilicho deeply. He thought of Galla Placidia as his own child, and she still lived in his house. He believed that he had made of her a strong convert to the cause. In a way he had, for she would be the last Roman of them all; but she had her own way about it. Her humor had always been cruel, but this was shocking to the Master General.

  But it had to be carried through, so Stilicho put an end to the show. He took the floor of the Senate; explained all the damaging circumstances in all their ramifications; told the Romans that they were no longer defended by Romans, and in reality had not been in the lifetimes of any of them; stated that the fee was a just one, that it had been so contracted for, and that it must be paid. He pointed out also, and in great anger, that there were individual Senators present with annual incomes in excess of the amount of the fee, which was true. He deflated them brutally and said that they were children defended by men; that their affairs were being taken out of their hands as they were not competent to deal with them. He swore that the fee would be paid, or any other fee that he ordered, and that there would be no more interference or foolishness. He was impolitic, and realized it; but he had suddenly become weary of the thankless service.