HISTORY OF THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE

FROM THE DEATH OF THEODOSIUS I TO THE DEATH OF JUSTINIAN

BY

J. B. BURY

The first of these two volumes might be entitled the German Conquest of Western Europe, and the second the Age of Justinian. The first covers more than one hundred and twenty years, the second somewhat less than fifty. This disparity is a striking illustration of the fact that perspective and proportion are unavoidably lost in an attempt to tell the story of any considerable period of ancient or early medieval history as fully as our sources allow. Perspective can be preserved only in an outline. The fifth century was one of the most critical periods in the history of Europe. It was crammed with events of great moment, and the changes which it witnessed transformed Europe more radically than any set of political events that have happened since. At that time hundreds of people were writing abundantly on all kinds of subjects, and many of their writings have survived; but among these there is no history of contemporary events, and the story has had to be pieced together from fragments, jejune chronicles, incidental references in poets, rhetoricians, and theologians. Inscribed stones which supply so much information for the first four centuries of the Roman Empire are rare. Nowhere, since the time of Alexander the Great, do we feel so strongly that the meagerness of the sources flouts the magnitude of the events.

Battles, for instance, were being fought continually, but no full account of a single battle is extant. We know much more of the Syrian campaigns of Thothmes III in the fifteenth century BC than we know of the campaigns of Stilicho or Aetius or Theoderic. The Roman emperors, statesmen, and generals are dim figures, some of them mere names. And as to the barbarian leaders who were forging the destinies of Europe—Alaric, Athaulf, Wallia, Gaiseric, Attila, and the rest—we can form little or no idea of their personalities. Historians of the Church are somewhat better off. The personalities of Augustine and Jerome, for instance, do emerge. Yet here, too, there is much obscurity. To understand the history of the Ecumenical Councils, we want much more than the official Acts. We want the background, and of it we can only see enough to know that these Councils resembled modern political conventions, that the arts of lobbying were practiced, and that intimidation and bribery were employed to reinforce theological arguments.

Although we know little of the details of the process by which the western provinces of the Empire became German kingdoms, one fact stands out. The change of masters was not the result of anything that could be called a cataclysm. The German peoples, who were much fewer in numbers than is often imagined, at first settled in the provinces as dependents, and a change which meant virtually conquest was disguised for a shorter or longer time by their recognition of the nominal rights of the Emperor. Britain, of which we know less than of any other part of the Empire at this period, seems to have been the only exception to this rule. The consequence was that the immense revolution was accomplished with far less violence and upheaval than might have been expected. This is the leading fact which it is the chief duty of the historian to make clear.

When we come to the age of Justinian we know better how and why things happened, because we have the guidance of a gifted contemporary historian whose works we possess in their entirety, and we have a large collection of the Emperor’s laws. The story of Justinian’s Italian wars was fully related by my friend the late Mr. Hodgkin in his attractive volume on the Imperial Restoration; and, more recently, Justinian and the Byzantine Civilization of the Sixth Century have been the subject of a richly illustrated book by my friend M. Charles Diehl. I do not compete with them; but I believe that in my second volume the reader will find a fuller account of the events of the reign than in any other single work. I have endeavored to supply the material which will enable him to form his own judgment on Justinian, and to have an opinion on the ‘question’ of Theodora, of whom perhaps the utmost that we can safely say is that she was, in the words used by Swinburne of Mary Stuart, “something better than innocent”.

The present work does not cover quite half the period which was the subject of my Later Roman Empire, published in 1889 and long out of print, as it is written on a much larger scale. Western affairs have been treated as fully as Eastern, and the exciting story of Justinian’s reconquest of Italy has been told at length.

I have to thank my wife for help of various kinds; Mr. Ashby, the Director of the British School at Rome, for reading the proof-sheets of Vol. I; and Mr. Norman Baynes for reading those of some chapters of Vol. II. I must also record my obligations, not for the first time, to the readers of Messrs. R. and R. Clark, whose care and learning have sensibly facilitated the progress of the book through the press.  

J. B. BURY.