[468-473 A.D.] Basiliscus saved himself by an early flight. On arriving at Constantinople, he took refuge in the church of St. Sophia, until he obtained a reprieve from capital punishment through the intercession of his sister. Such was the disastrous ending of the combined effort made for the recovery of Africa. Its success would have consolidated the power of the two emperors; by its failure, Ricimer and Aspar were relieved from their fears, and their arrogance became greater than ever. Leo found it necessary to pacify Aspar by investing his son Patricius with the dignity of cæsar, a title which conferred on its bearer a prospective claim to the throne.

To Aspar and his family, whose unpopularity was already great, the acquisition of this dangerous honour brought no advantage, but only an increase of hostility; for to the orthodox East Romans the idea of an Arian emperor was insufferable. Owing to the losses incurred during the late disastrous expedition the forces on which Aspar formerly relied were no longer at his beck; and, rightly or wrongly, he and his son were charged with treasonable designs against the government, over which they had long domineered, and against the life of the emperor.

The circumstances preceding and attending their assassination are variously and obscurely related; but no plea of state necessity can relieve the memory of Leo from the stain of participation in the death of his benefactor. In Italy, the reckless energy of Ricimer led to a very different result. Having resolved to break up the alliances of the emperors, he fixed his headquarters at Mediolanum, enlisted forces, while Anthemius, relying on the cordial support of the senate and the bulk of the people, remained inactive at Rome.

The Mediolanians, wishing to prevent a civil war, employed Epiphanius, bishop of Ticinum (Pavia), as negotiator; and from the account given by Ennodius of the bishop's embassy, some estimate may be formed of the difficulties that stood in the way of any attempt on the part of the West Romans to reconstruct their dilapidated empire.

The pacific exhortations of the bishop resulted in a truce, which gave time for Ricimer to engage the requisite number of Suevi and Burgundiones. Having done this he threw off the mask, and making the death of Aspar his plea, refused to acknowledge either Leo or Anthemius, proclaimed Olybrius, an enemy of his father-in-law, emperor, and commenced his march to Rome.

When the Roman governor of Gaul brought an army to support Anthemius, he was defeated and slain. Rome nevertheless held out bravely until reduced by famine when, with the exception of a few streets, occupied by his own adherents, Ricimer condemned it to be sacked. He then added to the list of emperors whom he had put to death the name of his own fatherin-law, and died the same year (472).d

Whilst the vacant throne of Italy was abandoned to lawless barbarians, the election of a new colleague was seriously agitated in the council of Leo. The empress Verina, studious to promote the greatness of her own family, had married one of her nieces to Julius Nepos, who succeeded his uncle Marcellinus in the sovereignty of Dalmatia, a more solid possession than the title, which he was persuaded to accept, of emperor of the West.

But the measures of the Byzantine court were so languid and irresolute that many months elapsed after the death of Anthemius, and even of Olybrius, before their destined successor could show himself, with a respectable force, to his Italian subjects. During that interval, Glycerius, an obscure soldier, was invested with the purple by his patron Gundobald; but the Burgundionian prince was unable, or unwilling, to support his

[473-475 A.D.]

nomination by a civil war; the pursuits of domestic ambition recalled him beyond the Alps, and his client was permitted to exchange the Roman sceptre for the bishopric of Salona. After extinguishing such a competitor, the emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the senate, by the Italians, and by the provincials of Gaul; his moral virtues, and military talents, were loudly celebrated, and those who derived any private benefit from his government announced, in prophetic strains, the restoration of the public felicity. Their hopes (if such hopes had been entertained) were confounded within the term of a single year; and the treaty of peace, which ceded Auvergne to the Visigoths, is the only event of his short and inglorious reign.

The most faithful subjects of Gaul were sacrificed by the Italian emperor to the hope of domestic security; but his repose was soon invaded by a furious sedition of the barbarian confederates, who, under the command. of Orestes, their general, were in full march from Rome to Ravenna. Nepos trembled at their approach; and, instead of placing a just confidence in the strength of Ravenna, he hastily escaped to his ships and retired to his Dalmatian principality, on the opposite coast of the Adriatic. By this shameful abdication he protracted his life about five years, in a very ambiguous state between an emperor and an exile, till he was assassinated at Salona by the ungrateful Glycerius, who was translated, perhaps as the reward of his crime, to the archbishopric of Milan.

The nations who had asserted their independence after the death of Attila were established, by the right of possession or conquest, in the boundless countries to the north of the Danube, or in the Roman provinces between the river and the Alps. But the bravest of their youth enlisted in the army of confederates, who formed the defence and the terror of Italy; and in this promiscuous multitude the names of the Heruli, the Scyrri, the Alani, the Turcilingi, and the Rugi appear to have predominated.

The example of these warriors was imitated by Orestes, the son of Tatullus, and the father of the last Roman emperor of the West. Orestes, who has been already mentioned in this history, had never deserted his country. His birth and fortunes rendered him one of the most illustrious subjects of Pannonia. When that province was ceded to the Huns, he entered into the service of Attila, his lawful sovereign, obtained the office of his secretary, and was repeatedly sent ambassador to Constantinople, to represent the person and signify the commands of the imperious monarch. The death of that conqueror restored him to his freedom, and Orestes might honourably refuse either to follow the sons of Attila into the Scythian desert, or to obey the Ostrogoths, who had usurped the dominion of Pannonia. He preferred the service of the Italian princes, the successors of Valentinian; and as he possessed the qualifications of courage, industry, and experience, he advanced with rapid steps in the military profession, till he was elevated, by the favour of Nepos himself, to the dignities of patrician and master-general of the troops.

These troops had been long accustomed to reverence the character and authority of Orestes, who affected their manners, conversed with them in their own language, and was intimately connected with their national chieftains by long habits of familiarity and friendship. At his solicitation they rose in arms against the obscure Greek who presumed to claim their obedience; and when Orestes, from some secret motive, declined the purple, they consented, with the same facility, to acknowledge his son Augustulus as the emperor of the West. By the abdication of Nepos, Orestes had now attained the summit of his ambitious hopes; but he soon discovered, before the end

[475-476 A.D.] of the first year, that the lessons of perjury and ingratitude which a rebel must inculcate will be retorted against himself; and that the precarious sovereign of Italy was only permitted to choose whether he would be the slave, or the victim, of his barbarian mercenaries. The dangerous alliance of these strangers had oppressed and insulted the last remains of Roman freedom and dignity. At each revolution, their pay and privileges were augmented; but their insolence increased in a still more extravagant degree. They envied the fortune of their brethren in Gaul, Spain, and Africa, whose victorious arms had acquired an independent and perpetual inheritance; and they insisted on their peremptory demand that a third part of the lands of Italy should be immediately divided among them.

Orestes, with a spirit which, in another situation, might be entitled to our esteem, chose rather to encounter the rage of an armed multitude than to subscribe the ruin of an innocent people. He rejected the audacious demand; and his refusal was favourable to the ambition of Odoacer, a bold barbarian, who assured his fellow-soldiers that, if they dared to associate under his command, they might soon extort the justice which had been denied to their dutiful petitions. From all the camps and garrisons of Italy the confederates, actuated by the same resentment and the same hopes, impatiently flocked to the standard of this popular leader; and the unfortu

ROMAN PINS AND BRACELET

nate patrician, overwhelmed by the torrent, hastily retreated to the strong city of Ticinum, the episcopal seat of the holy Epiphanius. Ticinum was immediately besieged, the fortifications were stormed, the town was pillaged; and although the bishop might labour with much zeal and some success to save the property of the church and the chastity of female captives, the tumult could only be appeased by the execution of Orestes. His brother Paul was slain in an action near Ravenna; and the helpless Augustulus, who could no longer command the respect was reduced to implore the clemency of Odoacer. That successful barbarian was the son of Edecon; who, in some remarkable transactions, had been the colleague of Orestes himself.

The honour of an ambassador should be exempt from suspicion; and Edecon had listened to a conspiracy against the life of his sovereign. But this apparent guilt was expiated by his merit or repentance; his rank was eminent and conspicuous, he enjoyed the favour of Attila; and the troops under his command, who guarded in their turn the royal village, consisted of a tribe of Scyrri, his immediate and hereditary subjects. In the revolt of the nations, they still adhered to the Huns; and more than twelve years afterwards the name of Edecon is honourably mentioned, in their unequal contest with the Ostrogoths; which was terminated, after two bloody battles, by the defeat and dispersion of the Scyrri. Their gallant leader, who did not

[476 A.D.]

survive this national calamity, left two sons, Onulf and Odoacer, to struggle with adversity, and to maintain as they might, by rapine or service, the faithful followers of their exile.

Onulf directed his steps towards Constantinople, where he sullied, by the assassination of a generous benefactor, the fame which he had acquired in arms. His brother Odoacer led a wandering life among the barbarians of Noricum, with a mind and a fortune suited to the most desperate adventures; and when he had fixed his choice, he piously visited the cell of Severinus, the popular saint of the country, to solicit his approbation and blessing. The lowness of the door would not admit the lofty stature of Odoacer. He was obliged to stoop, but in that humble attitude the saint could discern the symptoms of his future greatness; and addressing him in a prophetic tone, "Pursue," said he, "your design; proceed to Italy; you will soon cast away this coarse garment of skins; and your wealth will be adequate to the liberality of your mind." The barbarian, whose daring spirit accepted and ratified the prediction, was admitted into the service of the Western Empire, and soon obtained an honourable rank in the guards. His manners were gradually polished, his military skill was improved, and the confederates of Italy would not have elected him for their general unless the exploits of Odoacer had established a high opinion of his courage and capacity. Their military acclamations saluted him with the title of king: but he abstained, during his whole reign, from the use of the purple and diadem, lest he should offend those princes whose subjects, by their accidental mixture, had formed the victorious army which time and policy might insensibly unite into a great

nation.

Royalty was familiar to the barbarians, and the submissive people of Italy was prepared to obey, without a murmur, the authority which he should condescend to exercise as the vicegerent of the emperor of the West. But Odoacer had resolved to abolish that useless and expensive office; and such is the weight of ancient prejudice that it required some boldness and penetration to discover the extreme facility of the enterprise. The unfortunate Augustulus was made the instrument of his own disgrace; he signified his resignation to the senate; and that assembly, in their last act of obedience to a Roman prince, still affected the spirit of freedom and the forms of the constitution. An epistle was addressed, by their unanimous decree, to the emperor Zeno, the son-in-law and successor of Leo; who had lately been restored, after a short rebellion, to the Byzantine throne. They solemnly disclaim the necessity, or even the wish, of continuing any longer the imperial succession in Italy; since, in their opinion, the majesty of a sole monarch is sufficient to pervade and protect, at the same time, both the East and the West. In their own name, and in the name of the people, they consent that the seat of universal empire shall be transferred from Rome to Constantinople; and they basely renounce the right of choosing their master, the only vestige that yet remained of the authority which had given laws to the world. The republic- they repeat that name without a blush- might safely confide in the civil and military virtues of Odoacer; and they humbly request that the emperor would invest him with the title of patrician and the administration of the diocese of Italy.

The deputies of the senate were received at Constantinople with some marks of displeasure and indignation; and when they were admitted to the audience of Zeno, he sternly reproached them with their treatment of the two emperors, Anthemius and Nepos, whom the East had successively granted to the prayers of Italy. "The first," continued he, "you have

[476 A.D.] murdered, the second you have expelled; but the second is still alive, and whilst he lives he is your lawful sovereign." But the prudent Zeno soon deserted the hopeless cause of his abdicated colleague. His vanity was gratified by the title of sole emperor, and by the statues erected to his honour in the several quarters of Rome; he entertained a friendly, though ambiguous, correspondence with the patrician Odoacer; and he gratefully accepted the imperial ensigns, the sacred ornaments of the throne and palace, which the barbarian was not unwilling to remove from the sight of the people.

In the space of twenty years since the death of Valentinian nine emperors had successively disappeared; and the son of Orestes, a youth recommended only by his beauty, would be the least entitled to the notice of posterity if his reign, which was marked by the extinction of the Roman Empire in the West, did not leave a memorable era in the history of mankind. The patrician Orestes had married the daughter of Count Romulus, of Petovio in Noricum. The name of Augustus, notwithstanding the jealousy of power, was known at Aquileia as a familiar surname; and the appellations of the two great founders of the city and of the monarchy were thus strangely united in the last of their successors. The son of Orestes assumed and disgraced the names of Romulus Augustus; but the first was corrupted into Momylus by the Greeks, and the second has been changed by the Latins into the contemptible diminutive Augustulus. The life of this inoffensive youth was spared by the generous clemency of Odoacer, who fixed his annual allowance at six thousand pieces of gold, and assigned the castle of Lucullus, in Campania, for the place of his exile or retirement.c

A REVIEW OF THE BARBARIAN ADVANCE

There were two ways to Europe for the Indo-Germanic tribes, south and north of the Black Sea. First the Hellenic and Italic tribes came over the sea and settled in the two countries lying near them and connected by islands, which form the southeastern limits of one continent - Greece and Italy. The peoples in these beautiful countries quickly attained to a wonderful state of civilisation, isolated for more than a thousand years from northern Europe. This was the period of classical antiquity which, for its art and literature, its statecraft and military system, unrivalled almost up to the present day, has become the best school of later mankind.

The second way from Asia to Europe lay north of the Pontus, and was far longer and more fraught with weariness and danger than the first; thus it was all the more adapted to the strengthening both of body and spirit. At the northwest corner of the Black Sea it divided into a south and a north road. Along the former, by the Danube between the Alps and the Carpathians, the Celts migrated; later, along the second, north of the Carpathians, the Germanic tribes entered western Europe, and were soon followed by the Slavonic. Rome was already at the height of its empire over the world when the first conflict took place between the Romans and the Germanic tribes. The contact of the two races was of course that of a rude primitive people with the members of a civilised state. Rome at first tried the system of gradual repulse by the attack and subjection of the Germans. When this policy was defeated by the battle fought by Varus, she adopted the system of frontier protection, which lasted nearly two centuries.

[1 There is great uncertainty as to these prehistoric migrations.]