In the first division, which took in the east points of the neck of land washed by the Golden Horn and the Bosporus, was the great imperial palace, which included, besides the private residence of the emperor, with the throne room and the apartment made entirely of porphyry in which the princes and princesses were born, the houses of all the chief people in office at court, extensive laundries, and a host of most beautiful halls, courts, and gardens. Other palaces were attached, as the one inhabited by Theodosius’ daughter Placidia, and there were also fifteen private baths supplied by the warm springs of Arcadia; and through the chalœ, with its surrounding piazza and gilded roofed entrance, the way led to the second division, in which stood the “great church” built by Constantine and rebuilt later by Justinian as St. Sophia, and the residences of the senators, all carried out in the best style with the costliest marble. The inartistic Constantine had had the statues of the Rhodian Zeus and the Athene of Lindos taken from their original standing places and put in front of these buildings. Lastly came the Baths of Zeuxippus in the Grove of Zeus, sufficiently immense to enable two thousand men to bathe there daily.b
THE EAST AND THE WEST
The number and importance of the Gothic forces in the Roman armies during the reign of Theodosius had enabled several of their commanders to attain the highest rank; and among these officers, Alaric was the most distinguished by his future greatness.
The death of Theodosius threw the administration of the Eastern Empire into the hands of Rufinus, the minister of Arcadius; and that of the Western, into those of Stilicho, the guardian of Honorius. The discordant elements which composed the Roman Empire began to reveal all their incongruities under these two ministers. Rufinus was a civilian from Gaul; and, from his Roman habits and feelings and western prejudices, disagreeable to the Greeks. Stilicho was of barbarian descent, and consequently equally unacceptable to the aristocracy of Rome; but he was an able and popular soldier, and had served with distinction both in the East and in the West. As Stilicho was the husband of Serena, the niece and adopted daughter of Theodosius the Great, his alliance with the imperial family gave him an unusual influence in the administration. The two ministers hated one another with all the violence of aspiring ambition; and, unrestrained by any feeling of patriotism, each was more intent on ruining his rival than on serving the state. The greater number of the officers in the Roman service, both civil and military, were equally inclined to sacrifice every public duty for the gratification of their avarice or ambition.
ALARIC’S REVOLT
At this time Alaric, partly from disgust at not receiving all the preferment which he expected, and partly in the hope of compelling the government of the Eastern Empire to agree to his terms, quitted the imperial service and retired towards the frontiers, where he assembled a force sufficiently large to enable him to act independently of all authority. Availing himself of the disputes between the ministers of the two emperors, and perhaps instigated by Rufinus or Stilicho to aid their intrigues, he established himself in the provinces to the south of the Danube. In the year 395 he advanced to the walls of Constantinople; but the movement was evidently a feint, as he must have known his inability to attack a large and populous city defended by a powerful garrison, and which even in ordinary times received the greater part of its supplies by sea. After this demonstration, Alaric marched into Thrace and Macedonia, and extended his ravages into Thessaly. Rufinus has been accused of assisting Alaric’s invasion, and his negotiations with him while in the vicinity of Constantinople authorise the suspicion. When the Goth found the northern provinces exhausted, he resolved to invade Greece and Peloponnesus, which had long enjoyed profound tranquillity. The cowardly behaviour of Antiochus the proconsul of Achaia, and of Gerontius the commander of the Roman troops, both friends of Rufinus, was considered a confirmation of his treachery. Thermopylæ was left unguarded, and Alaric entered Greece without encountering any resistance.
The ravages committed by Alaric’s army have been described in fearful terms; villages and towns were burned, the men were murdered, and the women and children carried away to be sold as slaves by the Goths. But even this invasion affords proofs that Greece had recovered from the desolate condition in which it had been seen by Pausanias. The walls of Thebes had been rebuilt, and it was in such a state of defence that Alaric could not venture to besiege it, but hurried forward to Athens. He concluded a treaty with the civil and military authorities, which enabled him to enter that city without opposition; his success was probably assisted by treacherous arrangements with Rufinus, and by the treaty with the municipal authorities, which secured the town from being plundered by the Gothic soldiers; for he appears to have really occupied Athens rather as a federate leader than as a foreign conqueror.
The tale recorded by Zosimuse of the Christian Alaric having been induced by the apparition of the goddess Minerva to spare Athens, is refuted by the direct testimony of other writers, who mention the capitulation of the city. The fact that the depredations of Alaric hardly exceeded the ordinary license of a rebellious general, is, at the same time, perfectly established. The public buildings and monuments of ancient splendour suffered no wanton destruction from his visit; but there can be no doubt that Alaric and his troops levied heavy contributions on the city and its inhabitants. Athens evidently owed its good treatment to the condition of its population, and perhaps to the strength of its walls, which imposed some respect on the Goths; for the rest of Attica did not escape the usual fate of the districts through which the barbarians marched. The town of Eleusis, and the great temple of Ceres, were plundered and then destroyed. Whether this work of devastation was caused by the Christian monks who attended the Gothic host, and excited their bigoted Arian votaries to avenge the cause of religion on the temples of the pagans at Eleusis, because they had been compelled to spare the shrines at Athens, or whether it was the accidental effect of the eager desire of plunder or of the wanton love of destruction among a disorderly body of troops, is not very material. Bigoted monks, avaricious officers, and disorderly soldiers were numerous in Alaric’s band.
Gerontius, who had abandoned the pass of Thermopylæ, took no measures to defend the Isthmus of Corinth, or the difficult passes of Mount Geranion, so that Alaric marched unopposed into the Peloponnesus, and, in a short time, captured every city in it without meeting with any resistance. Corinth, Argos, and Sparta, were all plundered by the Goths. The security in which Greece had long remained, and the policy of the government, which discouraged their independent institutions, had conspired to leave the province without protection, and the people without arms. The facility which Alaric met with in effecting his conquest, and his views, which were directed to obtain an establishment in the empire as an imperial officer or feudatory governor, rendered the conduct of his army not that of avowed enemies. Yet it often happened that they laid waste everything in the line of their march, burned villages, and massacred the inhabitants.
Alaric passed the winter in the Peloponnesus without encountering any opposition from the people; yet many of the Greek cities still kept a body of municipal police, which might surely have taken the field, had the imperial officers performed their duty and endeavoured to organise a regular resistance in the country districts. The moderation of the Goth, and the treason of the Roman governor, seem both attested by this circumstance. The government of the Eastern Empire had fallen into such disorder at the commencement of the reign of Arcadius, that even after Rufinus had been assassinated by the army the new ministers of the empire gave themselves very little concern about the fate of Greece.