[£3600] The patrician Orestes had married the daughter of Count Romu- authentic chronicles. But the two dates assigned by Jornandes (c. 46, p. 680) would delay that great event to the year 479; and, though M. de Buat has overlooked his evidence, he produces (tom. viii. p. 261-288) many collateral circumstances in support of the same opinion. [There is no doubt about the date, A.D. 476.] 133 See his medals in Ducange (Fam. Byzantin. p. 81), [see Eckhel, Doct. Num., 8, p. 203], Priscus (Excerpt. Legat. p. 56 [F.H.G., 4, p. 84]), Maffei (Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. ii. p. 314). We may allege a famous and similar The meanest subjects of the Roman empire assumed the illustrious name of Patricius, which, by the conversion of Ireland, has been communicated to a whole nation. case. 134 Ingrediens autem Ravennam deposuit Augustulum de regno, cujus infantiam misertus concessit ei sanguine m; et quia pulcher erat, tamen donavit ei reditum sex millia solidos, et misit eum intra Campaniam cum parentibus suis libere vivere. Anonym. Vales. p. 716 [8, § 38]. Jornandes says (c. 46, p. 680) in Lucullano Campaniæ castello exilii pœna damnavit. 135 See the eloquent Declamation of Seneca (epist. lxxxvi.). The philosopher might have recollected that all luxury is relative; and that the elder Scipio, whose manners were polished by study and conversation, was himself accused of that vice by his ruder contemporaries (Livy, xxix. 19). 136 Sylla, in the language of a soldier, praised his peritia castrametandi (Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 7). Phædrus, who makes its shady walks (laeta viridia) the scene of an insipid fable (ii. 5), has thus described the situation : Cæsar Tiberius quum petens Neapolim In Misenensem villam venisset suam Quæ monte summo posita Luculli manu Prospectat Siculum et prospicit [leg. despicit] Tuscum mare. within a few years, by Lucullus, and the price had increased from two thousand five hundred to more than fourscore thousand pounds sterling. 137 It was adorned by the new proprietor with Grecian arts, and Asiatic treasures; and the houses and gardens of Lucullus obtained a distinguished rank in the list of Imperial palaces, 188 When the Vandals became formidable to the seacoast, the Lucullan villa, on the promontory of Misenum, gradually assumed the strength and appellation of a strong castle, the obscure retreat of the last emperor of the West. About twenty years after that great revolution it was converted into a church and monastery, to receive the bones of St. Severinus. They securely reposed, amidst the broken trophies of Cimbric and Armenian victories, till the beginning of the tenth century; when the fortifications, which might afford a dangerous shelter to the Saracens, were demolished by the people of Naples.139 Odoacer was the first Barbarian who reigned in Italy, over a Decay of the people who had once asserted their just superiority above the rest of mankind. The disgrace of the Romans still excites our respectful compassion, and we fondly sympathize with the imaginary grief and indignation of their degenerate posterity. But the calamities of Italy had gradually subdued the proud consciousness of freedom and glory. In the age of Roman virtue, the provinces were subject to the arms, and the citizens to the laws, of the republic; till those laws were subverted by civil discord, and both the city and the provinces became the servile property of a tyrant. The forms of the constitution, which alleviated or disguised their abject slavery, were abolished by time and violence; the Italians alternately lamented the presence or the absence of the sovereigns, whom they detested or despised; and the succession of five centuries inflicted the various evils of military licence, capricious despotism, and 137 From seven myriads and a half to two hundred and fifty myriads of drachmæ. Yet even in the possession of Marius, it was a luxurious retirement. The Romans derided his indolence: they soon bewailed his activity. See Plutarch, in Mario, tom. ii. p. 524 [c. 34]. 133 Lucullus had other villas of equal, though various, magnificence, at Baiæ, Naples, Tusculum, &c. He boasted that he changed his climate with the storks and cranes. Plutarch, in Lucull. tom. iii. p. 193 [39]. 139 Severinus died in Noricum, A. D. 482. Six years afterwards, his body, which scattered miracles as it passed, was transported by his disciples into Italy. The devotion of a Neapolitan lady invited the saint to the Lucullan villa, in the place of Augustulus, who was probably no more. See Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 496, No. 50, 51) and Tillemont (Mém. Ecclés. tom. xvi. p. 178-181) from the original life by Eugippius. The narrative of the last migration of Severinus to Naples is likewise an authentic piece. [It has been conjectured by Mr. Hodgkin (Italy and her Invaders, iii. 2, p. 172) that the Neapolitan lady (Barbaria) was the mother of Augustulus.] Roman spirit Character and reign of Odoacer. A.D. 476-490 elaborate oppression. During the same period, the Barbarians had emerged from obscurity and contempt, and the warriors of Germany and Scythia were introduced into the provinces, as the servants, the allies, and at length the masters, of the Romans, whom they insulted or protected. The hatred of the people was suppressed by fear; they respected the spirit and splendour of the martial chiefs who were invested with the honours of the empire; and the fate of Rome had long depended on the sword of those formidable strangers. The stern Ricimer, who trampled on the ruins of Italy, had exercised the power, without assuming the title, of a king; and the patient Romans were insensibly prepared to acknowledge the royalty of Odoacer and his Barbaric successors. The King of Italy was not unworthy of the high station to which his valour and fortune had exalted him; his savage manners were polished by the habits of conversation; and he respected, though a conqueror and a Barbarian, the institutions, and even the prejudices, of his subjects. After an interval of seven years, Odoacer restored the consulship of the West. For himself, he modestly, or proudly, declined an honour which was still accepted by the emperors of the East; but the curule chair was successively filled by eleven of the most illustrious senators; 140 and the list is adorned by the respectable name of Basilius, whose virtues claimed the friendship and grateful applause of Sidonius, his client, 141 The laws of the emperors were strictly enforced, and the civil administration of Italy was still exercised by the Prætorian præfect and his subordinate officers. Odoacer devolved on the Roman magistrates the odious and oppressive task of collecting the public revenue; but he reserved for himself the merit of seasonable and popular indulgence. 142 Like the rest of the Barbarians, he had been instructed in the Arian heresy; but he revered the monastic and episcopal characters; and the silence of the Catholics attests the toleration which they enjoyed. The peace of the 140 The consular Fasti may be found in Pagi or Muratori. The consuls named by Odoacer, or perhaps by the Roman senate, appear to have been acknowledged in the Eastern empire. 141 Sidonius Apollinaris (1. i. epist. 9, p. 22, edit. Sirmond) has compared the two leading senators of his time (A.D. 468), Gennadius Avienus and Cæcina Basilius. To the former he assigns the specious, to the latter the solid, virtues of public and private life. A Basilius junior, possibly his son, was consul in the year 480. 142 Epiphanius interceded for the people of Pavia; and the king first granted an indulgence of five years, and afterwards relieved them from the oppression of Pelagius, the Prætorian præfect (Ennodius, in Vit. St. Epiphan. in Sirmond. Oper. tom. i. p. 1670, 1672 [p. 97, ed. Vogel]). city required the interposition of his præfect Basilius in the choice of a Roman pontiff; the decree which restrained the clergy from alienating the lands was ultimately designed for the benefit of the people, whose devotion would have been taxed to repair the dilapidations of the church.148 Italy was protected by the arms of its conqueror; and its frontiers were respected by the Barbarians of Gaul and Germany, who had so long insulted the feeble race of Theodosius. Odoacer passed the Hadriatic, to chastise the assassins of the emperor Nepos, and to acquire the maritime province of Dalmatia. He [A.D. 481] passed the Alps, to rescue the remains of Noricum from Fava, or Feletheus, king of the Rugians, who held his residence beyond [A.D. 487] the Danube. The king was vanquished in battle, and led away prisoner; a numerous colony of captives and subjects was transplanted into Italy; and Rome, after a long period of defeat and disgrace, might claim the triumph of her Barbarian master,144 state of Italy Notwithstanding the prudence and success of Odoacer, his Miserable kingdom exhibited the sad prospect of misery and desolation. Since the age of Tiberius, the decay of agriculture had been felt in Italy; and it was a subject of complaint that the life of the Roman people depended on the accidents of the winds and waves, 145 In the division and the decline of the empire, the tributary harvests of Egypt and Africa were withdrawn; the numbers of the inhabitants continually diminished with the means of subsistence; and the country was exhausted by the irretrievable losses of war, famine,146 and pestilence. St. Ambrose has deplored the ruin of a populous district, which had been once adorned with the flourishing cities of Bologna, Modena, Regium, and Placentia. 147 Pope Gelasius was a subject 143 See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 483, No. 10-15. Sixteen years afterwards, the irregular proceedings of Basilius were condemned by pope Symmachus in a Roman synod. 144 The wars of Odoacer are concisely mentioned by Paul the Deacon (de Gest. Langobard. 1. i. c. 19, p. 757, edit. Grot.) and in the two Chronicles of Cassiodorius and Cuspinian [for which see App. 1]. The life of St. Severinus, by Eugippius, which the Count de Buat (Hist. des Peuples, &c. tom. viii. c. 1, 4, 8, 9) has diligently studied, illustrates the ruin of Noricum and the Bavarian antiquities. 145 Tacit. Annal. iii. 53. The Recherches sur l'Administration des Terres chez les Romains (p. 351-361) clearly state the progress of internal decay. 146 A famine which afflicted Italy at the time of the irruption of Odoacer, king of the Heruli, is eloquently described in prose and verse by a French poet (Les Mois, tom. ii. p. 174, 206, edit. in 12mo). I am ignorant from whence he derives his information; but I am well assured that he relates some facts incompatible with the truth of history. 147 See the xxxixth epistle of St. Ambrose, as it is quoted by Muratori, sopra le Antichità Italiane, tom. i. Dissert. xxi. p. 354. of Odoacer, and he affirms, with strong exaggeration, that in Æmilia, Tuscany, and the adjacent provinces, the human species was almost extirpated. 148 The plebeians of Rome, who were fed by the hand of their master, perished or disappeared, as soon as his liberality was suppressed; the decline of the arts reduced the industrious mechanic to idleness and want; and the senators, who might support with patience the ruin of their country, bewailed their private loss of wealth and luxury. One third of those ample estates, to which the ruin of Italy is originally imputed,149 was extorted for the use of the conquerors. Injuries were aggravated by insults; the sense of actual sufferings was embittered by the fear of more dreadful evils; and, as new lands were allotted to new swarms of Barbarians, each senator was apprehensive lest the arbitrary surveyors should approach his favourite villa or his most profitable farm. The least unfortunate were those who submitted without a murmur to the power which it was impossible to resist. Since they desired to live, they owed some gratitude to the tyrant who had spared their lives; and, since he was the absolute master of their fortunes, the portion which he left must be accepted as his pure and voluntary gift.150 The distress of Italy was mitigated by the prudence and humanity of Odoacer, who had bound himself, as the price of his elevation, to satisfy the demands of a licentious and turbulent multitude. The kings of the Barbarians were frequently resisted, deposed, or murdered, by their native subjects; and the various bands of Italian mercenaries, who associated under the standard of an elective general, claimed a larger privilege of freedom and rapine. A monarchy destitute of national union, and hereditary right, hastened to its dissolution. After a reign of fourteen years, Odoacer was oppressed by the superior genius of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, a hero alike excellent in the arts of war and of government, who restored an age of peace and prosperity, and whose name still excites and deserves the attention of mankind. 148 Emilia, Tuscia, ceteræque provinciæ in quibus hominum prope nullus exsistit. Gelasius, Epist. ad Andromachum, ap. Baronium, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 496, No. 36. 149 Verumque confitentibus, latifundia perdidere Italiam. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 7. [For a document recording a grant of estates by Odovacar, see Appendix 2.] 150 Such are the topics of consolation, or rather of patience, which Cicero (ad Familiares, 1. ix. epist. 17) suggests to his friend Papirius Pætus, under the military despotism of Cæsar. The argument, however, of "vivere pulcherrimum duxi," is more forcibly addressed to a Roman philosopher, who possessed the free alternative of life or death. |