Yet the Hunns were not so ejected, but that they had further contests with the Romans, till the head of Denfix the son of Attila, was carried to Constantinople, A.C. 469, in the Consulship of Zeno and Marcian, as Marcellinus relates. Nor were they yet totally ejected the Empire: for besides their reliques in Pannonia, Sigonius tells us, that when the Emperors Marcian and Valentinian granted Pannonia to the Goths, which was in the year 454, they granted part of Illyricum to some of the Hunns and Sarmatians. And in the year 526, when the Lombards removing into Pannonia made war there with the Gepides, the Avares, a part of the Hunns, who had taken the name of Avares from one of their Kings, assisted the Lombards in that war; and the Lombards afterwards, when they went into Italy, left their seats in Pannonia to the Avares in recompence of their friendship. From that time the Hunns grew again very powerful; their Kings, whom they called Chagan, troubling the Empire much in the reigns of the Emperors Mauritius, Phocas, and Heraclius: and this is the original of the present kingdom of Hungary, which from these Avares and other Hunns mixed together, took the name of Hun-Avaria, and by contraction Hungary.
[9]. The Lombards, before they came over the Danube, were commanded by two captains, Ibor and Ayon: after whose death they had Kings, Agilmund, Lamisso, Lechu, Hildehoc, Gudehoc, Classo, Tato, Wacho, Walter, Audoin, Alboin, Cleophis, &c. Agilmund was the son of Ayon, who became their King, according to Prosper, in the Consulship of Honorius and Theodosius A.C. 389, reigned thirty three years, according to Paulus Warnefridus, and was slain in battle by the Bulgarians. Prosper places his death in the Consulship of Marinianus and Asclepiodorus, A.C. 413. Lamisso routed the Bulgarians, and reigned three years, and Lechu almost forty. Gudehoc was contemporary to Odoacer King of the Heruli in Italy, and led his people from Pannonia into Rugia, a country on the north side of Noricum next beyond the Danube; from whence Odoacer then carried his people into Italy. Tato overthrew the kingdom of the Heruli beyond the Danube. Wacho conquered the Suevians, a kingdom then bounded on the east by Bavaria, on the west by France, and on the south by the Burgundians. Audoin returned into Pannonia A.C. 526, and there overcame the Gepides. Alboin A.C. 551 overthrew the kingdom of the Gepides, and slew their King Chunnimund: A.C. 563 he assisted the Greek Emperor against Totila King of the Ostrogoths in Italy; and A.C. 568 led his people out of Pannonia into Lombardy, where they reigned till the year 774.
According to Paulus Diaconus, the Lombards with many other Gothic nations came into the Empire from beyond the Danube in the reign of Arcadius and Honorius, that is, between the years 395 and 408. But they might come in a little earlier: for we are told that the Lombards, under their captains Ibor and Ayon, beat the Vandals in battle; and Prosper placeth this victory in the Consulship of Ausonius and Olybrius, that is, A.C. 379. Before this war the Vandals had remained quiet forty years in the seats granted them in Pannonia by Constantine the great. And therefore if these were the same Vandals, this war must have been in Pannonia; and might be occasioned by the coming of the Lombards over the Danube into Pannonia, a year or two before the battle; and so have put an end to that quiet which had lasted forty years. After Gratian and Theodosius had quieted the Barbarians, they might either retire over the Danube, or continue quiet under the Romans till the death of Theodosius; and then either invade the Empire anew, or throw off all subjection to it. By their wars, first with the Vandals, and then with the Bulgarians, a Scythian nation so called from the river Volga whence they came; it appears that even in those days they were a kingdom not contemptible.
[10]. These nine kingdoms being rent away, we are next to consider the residue of the Western Empire. While this Empire continued entire, it was the Beast itself: but the residue thereof is only a part of it. Now if this part be considered as a horn, the reign of this horn may be dated from the translation of the imperial seat from Rome to Ravenna, which was in October A.C. 408. For then the Emperor Honorius, fearing that Alaric would besiege him in Rome, if he staid there, retired to Millain, and thence to Ravenna: and the ensuing siege and sacking of Rome confirmed his residence there, so that he and his successors ever after made it their home. Accordingly Macchiavel in his Florentine history writes, that Valentinian having left Rome, translated the seat of the Empire to Ravenna.
Rhætia belonged to the Western Emperors, so long as that Empire stood; and then it descended, with Italy and the Roman Senate, to Odoacer King of the Heruli in Italy, and after him to Theoderic King of the Ostrogoths and his successors, by the grant of the Greek Emperors. Upon the death of Valentinian the second, the Alemans and Suevians invaded Rhætia A.C. 455. But I do not find they erected any settled kingdom there: for in the year 457, while they were yet depopulating Rhætia, they were attacked and beaten by Burto Master of the horse to the Emperor Majoranus; and I hear nothing more of their invading Rhætia. Clodovæus King of France, in or about the year 496, conquered a kingdom of the Alemans, and slew their last King Ermeric. But this kingdom was seated in Germany, and only bordered upon Rhætia: for its people fled from Clodovæus into the neighbouring kingdom of the Ostrogoths under Theoderic, who received them as friends, and wrote a friendly letter to Clodovæus in their behalf: and by this means they became inhabitants of Rhætia, as subjects under the dominion of the Ostrogoths.
When the Greek Emperor conquered the Ostrogoths, he succeeded them in the kingdom of Ravenna, not only by right of conquest but also by right of inheritance, the Roman Senate still going along with this kingdom. Therefore we may reckon that this kingdom continued in the Exarchate of Ravenna and Senate of Rome: for the remainder of the Western Empire went along with the Senate of Rome, by reason of the right which this Senate still retained, and at length exerted, of chusing a new Western Emperor.
I have now enumerated the ten kingdoms, into which the Western Empire became divided at its first breaking, that is, at the time of Rome's being besieged and taken by the Goths. Some of these kingdoms at length fell, and new ones arose: but whatever was their number afterwards, they are still called the Ten Kings from their first number.
Notes to Chap. VI.
[1] Apud Bucherum, l. 14. c. 9. n. 8.
[2] Rolevinc's Antiqua Saxon. l. 1. c. 6.