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The Historians' History of the World 07 [The History of the Later Roman Empire]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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Risiulf was murdered in his flight. Hildichis fled to the Gepids at a time when the discord between them and the Lombards had already reached a high point, and, it seems, by his presence precipitated the outbreak of war. His hope that the Gepids would help him to regain his rights was not fulfilled.
As the Lombards did not feel themselves a match for the Gepids, they had sent ambassadors to Justinian to beg for help which was granted, not in consideration of former agreements which the emperor seldom observed, but because the Byzantine principle was to stand by the weaker side that the stronger might be the more completely destroyed. The Gepids who demanded support or, at least, neutrality, on the grounds of a former treaty promising them Roman help in case of war, were refused, and a Roman army consisting of some ten thousand horsemen and fifteen hundred Herulian warriors advanced against them. Before they met, the imperial troops destroyed a division of three thousand Herulians, who were allies of the Gepids, and compelled them to conclude a separate peace with the Lombards. As a security for the newly formed friendly relations Audoin summoned the king of the Gepids, Thorisind, to surrender Hildichis; meanwhile the latter had escaped and for a long time wandered as an adventurer through various lands.
The first war of the Lombards and Gepids was soon followed by another (549), which also found a speedy ending without any decision being arrived at.
According to Procopius a panic seems to have seized both armies before the battle and put them to disorderly flight. The kings, therefore, again met and concluded a two years’ armistice; at the close of that time hostilities began again. This time also Justinian placed himself on the side of the Lombards—he broke the treaty formed shortly before with the Gepids and sent troops to the field, a division of which was under the command of Amalafrid; only the latter and his soldiers reached the Lombards; the other troops remained in Ulpiana at the imperial command, evidently for the purpose of quelling disturbances there. Nevertheless the Lombards succeeded in invading the Gepidean territory and in completely beating their adversaries; the seat of war was probably Sirmium. Procopius places this battle in the seventeenth year of the war, probably July, 551. It is very probably the same which Paulusp describes and during which Alboin, Audoin’s son, unhorsed the son of the Gepidean king, Torismond, in single combat. The terrible defeat compelled the Gepids to seek peace, which was granted them through the mediation of Justinian.
As conditions the Lombards and the emperor demanded the surrender of Hildichis; for after his flight from the Gepids in 548,—after he had first wandered about Italy with Byzantine troops, had then lived amongst a Slav people, and as leader of a troop had served in the imperial palace guard in Constantinople,—he had lately returned to them that he might again assert his claims to the Lombard throne. But as the Gepids were determined not to violate the laws of hospitality and for the same reason the Lombards would not surrender Ostrogothus who had sought refuge with them, after Thorisind had expelled him from his rightful throne, and whose surrender was now demanded in return, Hildichis was not given up; soon after the two princes, not without the connivance of the king, were assassinated (552), that there might be no more occasion for the rupture of the peace just concluded.
Before the outbreak of the war, Audoin at the request of Justinian sent twenty-five hundred picked Lombard warriors as well as three thousand troops to Italy to the army of Narses; with them they went through the famous campaign against Totila, but, owing to their licentiousness after the decisive battle at Taginæ (autumn, 552), they were richly rewarded and sent home under an escort.
The peace concluded with the Gepids lasted as long as Audoin and Thorisind lived; but when they both died and Alboin was ruler of the Lombards (555), while Cunimund had become king of the Gepids, the enmity restrained with difficulty burst out again with redoubled violence.
ALBOIN ANNIHILATES THE GEPID POWER
[555-567 A.D.]
According to the tradition, the Origin relates that after the battle in which he had become so famous, Alboin went directly into the hostile country to King Thorisind, to fetch the arms according to ancient custom; on this visit he for the first time saw the lovely Rosamund, the youngest daughter of the late king Cunimund, with whom he fell passionately in love (551).
But political considerations now obliged him to take Clotosuinda, daughter of the Frank king Clotaire I, to wife; when she died his thoughts turned once more to the love of his youth, and as she would not follow him voluntarily he had her brought to his kingdom by force.
Cunimund demanded his daughter back as he did not approve of the union with the hated Lombard: finally war broke out. At first the Lombards had the advantage, but were defeated in the end, when the Gepids succeeded in winning over the emperor Justinus II (Nov. 14, 565); the result was the release of Rosamund. To avenge the defeat and to free himself from oppression, Alboin now sought allies on all sides; he found them at last in the powerful and universally dreaded Avars (settled east of the Pruth on the Black Sea), who only consented to help after long pleading and on very heavy conditions; the Lombards were to give the tenth part of their cattle, and to promise after the victory was obtained to give up half the booty and renounce the whole district of the Gepids. That these demands were granted shows better than any direct proofs in what need the Lombards then were. When Cunimund heard of this formidable alliance, he turned to the emperor Justinus to ask the latter to send him auxiliary troops in accordance with the treaty; he also promised to yield Sirmium, and the land this side of the Drave to the Eastern Roman Empire. Justinus did not at once directly refuse the request, but he wilfully made every kind of delay in sending the troops and finally kept them back, not only for the reason given by Menander, but probably because he did not wish to compromise himself and allow the formidable power of the Avars and Lombards, which was superior to that of the Byzantines and Gepids together, to rule his empire. Therefore, he remained a neutral and idle spectator of the unequal strife; he seems to have taken advantage of a favourable opportunity to win possession of the town of Sirmium, as at the fall of the kingdom of the Gepids it appears as already among the Byzantine possessions. The war was opened by the simultaneous invasion of the kingdom of the Gepids by the allies from two sides.
Cunimund first marched against the Lombards to prevent their union with the Avars; but he was beaten by his adversaries in a bloody battle and his army almost completely destroyed. He himself fell in the battle by Alboin’s hand, as his brother Torismond had done many years before; his daughter Rosamund with many others fell as prisoners into the power of the Lombards, and their king now made her his wife without any fear of the paternal opposition.