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 meagreness 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 B.C. 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; toi\ de\ skiai\
a)i/ssousin. 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 practised, and that intimidation and bribery were
employed to force theological arguments.
Volume 1 of classic history. One of the world's foremost historians chronicles the major forces and events in the history of the Western and Byzantine Empires from the death of Theodosius (A.D. 395) to the death of Justinian (A.D. 565).