Death of August 20; the subject, not of glory, but of guilt, Italy was delivered, by a painful disease, from the tyrant Ricimer, who bequeathed the command of his army to his nephew Gundobald, one of the princes of the Burgundians. In the same year all the principal actors in this great revolution were removed from the stage; and the whole reign of Olybrius, whose death does not betray any symptoms of violence, is included within the term of seven months. He left one daughter, the offspring of his marriage with Placidia; and the family of the great Theodosius, transplanted from Spain to Constantinople, was propagated in the female line as far as the eighth generation.111 and of Olybrius, Oct. 23. Julius Nepos and Glycerius emperors of the West, Whilst the vacant throne of Italy was abandoned to lawless barbarians, 112 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 A.D. 472-475. 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 Burgundian prince was unable or unwilling to support his nomination by a civil war: the pursuits of domestic ambition recalled him beyond the Alps,113 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 and stormed by the troops of Vespasian (see Tacit. Hist. iii. 82, 83); and every cause of mischief had since acquired much additional energy. The revolution of ages may bring round the same calamities; but ages may revolve without producing a Tacitus to describe them. See Ducange, Familiæ Byzantin. p. 74, 75. Areobindus, who appears to have married the niece of the emperor Justinian, was the eighth descendant of the elder Theodosius. 112 The last revolutions of the Western empire are faintly marked in Theophanes (p. 102 [tom. i. p. 184, ed. Bonn]), Jornandes (c. 45, p. 679), the Chronicle of Marcellinus, and the Fragments of an anonymous writer, published by Valesius at the end of Ammianus (p. 716, 717 [tom. ii. p. 303 sq., ed. Bipon.]). If Photius had not been so wretchedly concise, we should derive much information from the contemporary histories of Malchus and Candidus. See his Extracts, p. 172-179 [p. 54-56, ed. Bekk.]. 113 See Greg. Turon. 1. ii. c. 28, in tom. ii. p. 175. Dubos, Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 613. By the murder or death of his two brothers, Gundobald acquired the sole possession of the kingdom of Burgundy, whose ruin was hastened by their discord. A.D. 475. THE PATRICIAN ORESTES. 295 his government announced in prophetic strains the restoration of the public felicity.114 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;115 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.116 A.D. 475. The nations who had asserted their independence after the death of Attila were established, by the right of possession or The patrician conquest, in the boundless countries to the north of the Orestes, 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;117 and in this promiscuous multitude, the names of the Heruli, the Sciri, the Alani, the Turcilingi, and the Rugians, appear to have pre a 114 Julius Nepos armis pariter summus Augustus ac moribus. Sidonius, 1. v. Ep. 16, p. 146. Nepos had given to Ecdicius the title of Patrician, which Anthemius had promised, decessoris Anthemii fidem absolvit. See 1. viii. Ep. 7, p. 224 [1. v. Ep. 16, p. 146]. 115 Epiphanius was sent ambassador from Nepos to the Visigoths for the purpose of ascertaining the fines Imperii Italici (Ennodius in Sirmond, tom. i. p. 1665–1669). His pathetic discourse concealed the disgraceful secret which soon excited the just and bitter complaints of the bishop of Clermont. 116 Malchus, apud Phot. p. 172 [p. 54 b, ed. Bekk.]. Ennod. Epigram. lxxxii. in Sirmond Oper. tom. i. p. 1879. Some doubt may however be raised on the identity of the emperor and the archbishop. 117 Our knowledge of these mercenaries who subverted the Western empire is derived from Procopius (de Bell. Gothico, 1. i. c. i. p. 308 [tom. ii. p. 6, ed. Bonn]). The popular opinion and the recent historians represent Odoacer in the false light of a stranger and a king, who invaded Italy with an army of foreigners, his native subjects. a With the exception of the Alani, who were probably Turks (see note, vol. iii. p. 315), all these people originally dwelt upon the Baltic. Of the Heruli some account is given in c. xxxix. note 37. The Turcilingi are probably the same people who occur in Ptolemy (ii. 11, § 14) under the corrupt form of 'Povrizaso, and who are described as dwelling on the Vistula. The Sciri or Scirri are placed by Pliny (iv. 13) on the eastern side of the Vistula. The Rugii are first mentioned by Tacitus (Germ. c. 43), who places them upon the Baltic; they are perhaps the people of the gulf of Riga. See Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstämme, pp. 154 seq., 484 seq.; Latham, The Germania of Tacitus, Epilegomena, p. xcii. seq.-S. dominated. The example of these warriors was imitated by Orestes,118 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 His son Augustulus, the last emperor of the West, A.D. 476. 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 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 118 Orestes, qui eo tempore quando Attila ad Italiam venit, se illi junxit, et ejus notarius factus fuerat. Anonym. Vales. p. 716 [Amm. Marc. tom. ii. p. 303, ed. Bipon.] He is mistaken in the date; but we may credit his assertion that the secre tary of Attila was the father of Augustulus. A.D. 476-490. EXECUTION OF ORESTES. 297 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 unfortunate patrician, overwhelmed by the torrent, hastily retreated to the strong city of Pavia, the episcopal seat of the holy Epiphanites. Pavia 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.119 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. Italy, A.D. 476-490. That successful barbarian was the son of Edecon; who, in some remarkable transactions, particularly described in a pre- Odoacer ceding chapter, had been the colleague of Orestes himself. king of The honour of an ambassador should be from susexempt picion; 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 Sciri, 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 Sciri.120 Their gallant leader, who did not survive this national calamity, left two sons, 119 See Ennodius (in Vit. Epiphan. Sirmond, tom. i. p. 1669, 1670). He adds weight to the narrative of Procopius, though we may doubt whether the devil actually contrived the siege of Pavia to distress the bishop and his flock. 120 Jornandes, c. 53, 54, p. 692-695. M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. viii. p. 221-228) has clearly explained the origin and adventures of Odoacer. I am almost inclined to believe that he was the same who pillaged Angers, and com. manded a fleet of Saxon pirates on the ocean. Greg. Turon. I. ii. c. 18, in tom. ii. p. 170.a a According to St. Martin there is no foundation for this conjecture, vii. 75.-M. 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 66 soon cast away this coarse garment of skins; and your wealth will "be adequate to the liberality of your mind." 121 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.122 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,123 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. Extinction of the 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 Western A.D. 476, or 121 Vade ad Italiam, vade vilissimis nunc pellibus coopertus: sed multis cito plurima largiturus. Anonym. Vales. p. 717 [Amm. Marc. ii. p. 305, ed. Bipon.]. He quotes the Life of St. Severinus, which is extant, and contains much unknown and valuable history; it was composed by his disciple Eugippius (A.D. 511), thirty years after his death. See Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xvi. p. 168-181. 122 Theophanes, who calls him a Goth, affirms that he was educated, nursed (Teάpers), in Italy (p. 102 [tom. i. p. 184, ed. Bonn]); and as this strong expression will not bear a literal interpretation, it must be explained by long service in the Imperial guards. 123 Nomen regis Odoacer assumpsit, cum tamen neque purpurâ nec regalibus uteretur insignibus. Cassiodor. in Chron. A.D. 476. He seems to have assumed the abstract title of a king without applying it to any particular nation or country.a a Manso observes that Odoacer never called himself king of Italy, did not assume the purple, and no coins are extant with his name. Geschichte Ost-Goth. Reiches, p. 36.-M. |