/>
Theodosius II: born 401, Emperor 408-450.





Marcianus: Emperor 450-457; husband of Pulcheria (born 399, died

453), daughter of Arcadius.





The greatest event in the first half of the fifth century, the period in

which the degenerate descendants of Theodosius still retained the imperial

title, was the Barbarian Invasion, a truly epoch-making event. In 405 the

Vandals, Alans, and Suevi crossed the Rhine, followed later by the

Burgundians. August 24, 410, Alarich, the king of the West Goths, captured

Rome. In 419 the West Gothic kingdom was established with Toulouse as a

capital. In 429 the Vandals began to establish themselves in North Africa,

and about 450 the Saxons began to invade Britain, abandoned by the Romans

about 409. Although the West was thus falling to pieces, the theory of the

unity of the Empire was maintained and is expressed in the provision of

the new Theodosian Code of 439 for the uniformity of law throughout the

two parts of the Empire. This theory of unity was not lost for centuries

and was influential even into the eighth century.





(a) Jerome, Ep. 123, ad Ageruchiam. (MSL, 22:1057.)





The Barbarian Invasions in the opening years of the fifth century.





Jerome's letters are not to be considered a primary source for the

barbarian invasion, but they are an admirable source for the way

the invasion appeared to a man of culture and some patriotic

feeling. With this passage should be compared his Ep. 60, ad

Heliodorum, § 16, written in 396, in which he expresses his

belief that Rome was falling and describes the barbarian invaders.

The following letter was written 409.





§ 16. Innumerable savage tribes have overrun all parts of Gaul. The whole

country between the Alps and the Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the

ocean, have been laid waste by Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepidi,

Herules,(160) Saxons, Bergundians, Allemans and, alas for the common

weal--even the hordes of the Pannonians. For Asshur is joined with them

(Psalm 83:8). The once noble city of Mainz has been captured and

destroyed. In its church many thousands have been massacred. The people of

Worms have been extirpated after a long siege. The powerful city of

Rheims, the Ambiani [a tribe near Amiens], the Altrabtae [a tribe near

Arras], the Belgians on the outskirts of the world, Tournay, Speyer, and

Strassburg have fallen to Germany. The provinces of Aquitaine and of the

Nine Nations, of Lyons and Narbonne, with the exception of a few cities,

all have been laid waste. Those whom the sword spares without, famine

ravages within. I cannot speak of Toulouse without tears; it has been kept

hitherto from falling by the merits of its revered bishop, Exuperius. Even

the Spains are about to perish and tremble daily as they recall the

invasion of the Cymri; and what others have suffered once they suffer

continually in fear.



§ 17. I am silent about other places, that I may not seem to despair of

God's mercy. From the Pontic Sea to the Julian Alps, what was once ours is

ours no longer. When for thirty years the barrier of the Danube had been

broken there was war in the central provinces of the Roman Empire. Long

use dried our tears. For all, except a few old people, had been born

either in captivity or during a blockade, and they did not long for a

liberty which they had never known. Who will believe it? What histories

will seriously discuss it, that Rome has to fight within her borders, not

for glory but for bare life; and that she does not fight even, but buys

the right to exist by giving gold and sacrificing all her substance? This

humiliation has been brought upon her, not by the fault of her emperors,

both of them most religious men [Arcadius and Honorius], but by the crime

of a half-barbarian traitor,(161)





(b) Jerome, Prefaces to Commentary on Ezekiel. (MSL, 25, 15:75.)





The fall of Rome.





Jerome's account of the capture of Rome by Alarich is greatly

exaggerated (see his Ep. 127, ad Principiam). By his very

exaggeration, however, one gains some impression of the shock the

event must have occasioned in the Roman world.





Preface to Book I. Intelligence has suddenly been brought to me of the

death of Pammachus and Marcella, the siege of Rome [A. D. 408], and the

falling asleep of many of my brethren and sisters. I was so stupefied and

dismayed that day and night I could think of nothing but the welfare of

all. But when the bright light of all the world was put out,(162) or,

rather, when the Roman Empire was decapitated, and, to speak more

correctly, the whole world perished in one city, "I became dumb and

humbled myself, and kept silence from good words, but my grief broke out

afresh, my heart was hot within me, and while I was musing the fire was

kindled" [Psalm 39:3, 4].



Preface to Book III. Who would believe that Rome, built up by the conquest

of the whole world, had collapsed; that she had become both the mother of

nations and their tomb; that all the shores of the East, of Egypt, of

Africa, which had once belonged to the imperial city should be filled with

the hosts of her men-servants and maid-servants; that every day holy

Bethlehem should be receiving as mendicants men and women who were once

noble and abounding in every kind of wealth?





(c) Theodosius II, Novella I, de Theodosiani Codicis Auctoritate; Feb.

15, 439.





The Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, Augusti, to Florentius, Praetorian

Prefect of the East.



Our clemency has often been at a loss to understand the cause of the fact

that, although so many rewards are held out for the maintenance of arts

and studies, so few and rare are they who are fully endowed with a

knowledge of the civil law, and that although so many have grown pale from

late studies, scarcely one or two have gained a sound and complete

learning. When we consider the enormous multitude of books, the diversity

in the forms of process, and the difficulty of legal cases, and, further,

the huge mass of imperial constitutions which, hidden as it were under a

veil of gross mist and darkness, precludes man's intellect from gaining a

knowledge of them, we have performed a task needful for our age, and, the

darkness having been dispelled, we have given light to the laws by a brief

compendium. Noble men of approved faithfulness were selected, men of

well-known learning, to whom the matter was intrusted. We have published

the constitutions of former princes, cleared by interpretation of

difficulties so that men may no longer have to wait formidable responses

from expert lawyers as from a shrine, since it is quite plain what is the

value of a donation, by what action an inheritance is to be sued for, with

what words a contract is to be made. Thus having wiped out the cloud of

volumes, on which many wasted their lives and explained nothing in the

end, we establish a compendious knowledge of the imperial constitutions

since the time of the divine Constantine, and permit no one after the

first day of next January to use in courts and daily practice of law the

imperial law, or to draw up pleadings except from these books which bear

our name and are kept in the sacred archives.



To this we add that henceforward no constitution can be passed in the West

or in any other place by the unconquerable Emperor, the son of our

clemency, the everlasting Augustus Valentinian, or possess any legal

validity, except the same by a divine pragmatica be communicated to us.

The same rule is to be observed in the acts which are promulgated by us in

the East; and those are to be condemned as spurious which are not recorded

in the Theodosian Code [certain documents excepted which were kept in the

registers of bureaux].