The Dark Ages. David Hume
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a nephew of the Emperor. This army, said to have been 80,000 strong, gained an inconsiderable victory (autumn, A.D. 513), which was soon followed by serious reverses.91 Hypatius then fortified himself behind a rampart of wagons at Acris, on the Black Sea, near Odessus. In this entrenchment the barbarians attacked him, and, assisted by a sudden darkness, which a superstitious historian attributed to magic arts, gained a signal victory. The Romans, driven over precipices and into ravines, are said to have lost about 60,000 men. Hypatius himself ran into the sea, if perchance he might conceal himself in the waves, but his head betrayed him. Vitalian preserved him alive as a valuable hostage.92 This victory enabled him to pay his barbarian allies richly, and placed him in possession of all the cities and fortresses in Moesia and Scythia. The Emperor sent ambassadors with ten pounds of gold to ransom his nephew, but they were captured at Sozopolis (Sizeboli), which at the same time fell into the rebels’ hands.
In the meantime a tumult, attended with loss of life, occurred at Constantinople, because Anastasius forbade the celebration of festivities in the evening on account of disorders in the Hippodrome. Among others the Prefect of the Watch was slain. This disturbance may have helped to dispose the Emperor to consider a compromise, when shortly afterwards (A.D. 514) Vitalian, flushed with victory, appeared in the neighbourhood of the capital. He had collected in the Thracian ports a fleet of 200 vessels. These he sent to the Bosphorus, and marching himself along the coast occupied the European shores of the Straits. A certain John,93 who seems to have been Master of Soldiers in praesenti, was sent to Sosthenion (Stenia) to treat with him. Conditions were arranged. Vitalian was appointed to the post of Master of Soldiers in Thrace, and Hypatius was liberated for a ransom of 9000 pounds of gold.
But the most important provision of the contract was that measures should be taken to establish peace in the Church by the convocation of a general Council, and it was agreed that a Council should be held at Heraclea in the following year.94 Vitalian expressly insisted that Rome should be represented, and it was arranged that both he and the Emperor should communicate with Pope Hormisdas.95 The date of the Council was fixed for July 1, A.D. 515, but it never met. Delegates indeed were sent from Rome and arrived at Constantinople late in the year, but as the Pope adopted an uncompromising attitude in regard to the condemnation of the memory of Acacius, and as the Emperor held that it was unjust that living persons should be excluded from the Church on account of the dead,96 no conciliation could be effected. A fruitless correspondence between Hormisdas and Anastasius ensued.
The Emperor appears to have also promised Vitalian that the bishops who had been driven from their sees should be restored,97 but it is not clear whether this measure was intended to depend on the decisions of the Council. As the Council did not meet, and as the bishops were not restored, Vitalian was convinced that the Emperor had no intention of fulfilling his part of the bargain, and it was probably in the later months of the same year that he assembled his fleet anew, and reappeared with his army on the banks of the Bosphorus,98 whence he occupied Sycae, the region of the city, on the north side of the Golden Horn, which was in later times called Galata. It is surprising to find that the command of the Imperial forces was committed to Marinus, the Emperor’s influential adviser, who had hitherto been employed only in civil affairs. This exceptional arrangement was due to the attitude of the two Masters of Soldiers in praesenti, Patricius and John, who were personal friends of Vitalian and his father. They hesitated to take command on the ground that if they were defeated they would be suspected of treason. The great financier, however, was equal to the crisis. The issue was decided by a naval battle at the mouth of the Golden Horn, in which the ships of the rebel were completely routed.99 It is related that this victory was achieved by the use of a chemical compound, similar to the Greek fire of later days, which, projected upon the enemy’s ships, set them on fire.100 Marinus then landed his forces at Sycae, slew the rebels whom he found there, and in the evening took up a position on the shores of the Bosphorus.101 In the night Vitalian fled with all the troops that were left to him and reached Anchialus, where he seems to have remained undisturbed during the next three years. The Emperor made a solemn procession to Sosthenion, which Vitalian had made his headquarters, and in the church of St. Michael, for which that place was noted, offered thanks to the archangel for the deliverance. All the rebels did not escape as easily as Vitalian. Tarrach, one of his henchmen, whom he had employed to assassinate Cyril, was burned at Chalcedon, and two others who happened to be taken were put to death.
The Empress Ariadne died in this year.102 Anastasius survived her by three years. He died at the age of eighty on the night of July 8-9, A.D. 518.103 He had no children and made no provision for the succession, though it was probably his intention to designate one of his three nephews, Probus, Pompeius, or Hypatius.104 His last months seem to have been troubled by new hostilities on the part of Vitalian, but the details are unknown to us.105
§ 5. Italy under Theoderic
The rule of the Patrician Theoderic in Italy, if we date it from the battle of the Adda in A.D. 490, lasted thirty-six years. In its general constitutional and administrative principles it was a continuation of the rule of Odovacar. One of the first things Theoderic had to do was to settle his own people in the land, and this settlement was exactly similar to that which had been carried out by his predecessor. The Ostrogoths for the most part replaced Odovacar’s Germans, who had been largely killed or driven out, though some of them who had submitted were permitted to retain their lands. The general principle was the assignment of one-third of the Roman estates to the Goths;106 but the commission which carried out the division was under the presidency of a senator, Liberius, so that we may be sure the senatorial domains were spared so far as possible.
For six years the Emperor Anastasius hesitated to define his attitude to Theoderic,107 but Theoderic carefully refrained from taking any measures that were incompatible with the position of a viceroy or that would render subsequent recognition difficult. At length they came to terms (A.D. 497), and a definite arrangement was made which determined the position of Italy and the status of the Ostrogothic kingdom. Theoderic still held the office of Master of Soldiers which Zeno had conferred upon him. Anastasius confirmed him in this office and recognised him as Governor of Italy under certain conditions, which in their general scope must have corresponded to the arrangement which Zeno had made with Odovacar. These conditions determined the constitutional position of Theoderic.
Under this arrangement Italy remained part of the Empire, and was regarded as such officially both at Rome and at Constantinople. In one sense Theoderic was an independent ruler, but there were a number of limitations to his power, which implied the sovranty of the Emperor and which he loyally observed.108
The position of the Ostrogothic king as a deputy comes out in the fact that he never used the years of his reign for the purpose of dating official documents. It comes out in the fact that he did not claim the right of coining money except in subordination to the Emperor.109 It comes out, above all, in the fact that he did not make laws.110 To make laws, leges in the full sense of the term, was reserved as the supreme prerogative of the Emperor. Ordinances of Theoderic exist, but they are not leges, they are only edicta; and various high officials, especially the Praetorian Prefect, could issue an edictum. Nor was this difference between law and edict, in Theoderic’s case, a mere difference in name. Theoderic did promulgate general edicts, that is, laws which did not apply only to special cases, but were of a general kind permanently valid, and which if they had been enacted by the Emperor would have been called laws. But the Praetorian Prefect had the right of issuing a general edict, provided it did not run counter to any existing law. This meant that he could modify existing laws in particular points, whether in the direction of mildness or of severity, but could not originate any new principle or institution. The ordinances of Theoderic, which are collected in his code known as the Edictum Theoderici, exhibit conformity to this rule. They introduce no novelties, they alter no established principle. We are told that, when Theoderic first appeared in Rome, he addressed the people and promised that he would preserve inviolate all the ordinances of the Emperors in the past.111 Thus in legislation, Theoderic is neither