The discomfited king of the Huns led back his forces to the Rhine, ravaging the country through which he passed. The following year he invaded Italy.
Attila in Italy.
Aetius had won one of the greatest victories of ancient times, and alone remained to stem the barbaric hosts. But he was mistrusted by the emperor at Ravenna, whose daughter he had solicited in marriage for his son, and was left without sufficient force. Aquileia, the most important city in Northern Italy, fell into the hands of Attila. He then resolved to cross the Apennines and give a last blow to Rome. Leo, the intrepid bishop, sought his camp, as he had once before entreated Genseric. The Hun consented to leave Italy for an annual tribute, and the hand of the princess Honoria, sister of the Emperor Valentinian. He retired to the Danube by the passes of the Alps, and spent the winter in bacchanalian orgies, but was cut off in his career by the poisoned dagger of a Burgundian princess, whose relations he had slain.
Retreat of the Huns. The last emperors.
The retreat of the Huns did not deliver the wasted provinces of a now fallen empire from renewed ravages. For twenty years longer, Italy was subject to incessant depredations. Valentinian, the last emperor of the family of Theodosius, was assassinated A.D. 455, at the instigation of Maximus—a senator of the Anician family, whose wife had been violated by the emperor. The successive reigns of Maximus, Avitus, Majorian, Severus, Anthemius, Olybrius, Glycerins, Nepos,and Augustulus—nine [pg 643] emperors in twenty-one years, suggest nothing but ignominy and misfortune. They were shut up in their palaces, within the walls of Ravenna, and were unable to arrest the ruin. Again, during this period, was Rome sacked by the Vandals. The great men of the period were Theodoric—king of the Ostrogoths, who ruled both sides of the Alps, and supported the crumbling empire, and Count Ricimer, a Sueve, and generalissimo of the Roman armies. It was at this disastrous epoch that fugitives from the Venetian territory sought a refuge among the islands which skirt the northern coast of the Adriatic—the haunts of fishermen and sea-birds. There Venice was born—to revive the glory of the West, and write her history upon the waves for one thousand years.
Odoacer. Theodoric.
The last emperor was the son of Orestes—a Pannonian, who was christened Romulus. When elevated by the soldiers upon a shield and saluted Augustus, he was too small to wear the purple robe, and they called him Augustulus!—a bitter mockery, recalling the foundation and the imperial greatness of Rome. This prince, feeble and powerless, was dethroned by Odoacer—chief of the Heruli, and one of the unscrupulous mercenaries whose aid the last emperor had invoked. The throne of the Cæsars was now hopelessly subverted, and Odoacer portioned out the lands of Italy among his greedy followers, but allowed Augustulus to live as a pensioner in a Campanian villa, which had once belonged to Sulla, A.D. 476. Odoacer, however, reigned but fourteen years, and was supplanted by Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, A.D. 490. The barbarians were now fairly settled in the lands they had invaded, and the Western empire was completely dismembered.
Gothic kingdom of Italy. Division of the empire among barbarians.
In Italy were the Ostrogoths, who established a powerful kingdom, afterward assailed by Belisarius and Narses, the generals of Justinian, the Eastern emperor, and also by the Lombards, under Alboin, who secured a footing in the north of Italy. Gaul was divided among [pg 644] the Franks, Burgundians, and Visigoths, among whom were perpetual wars. Britain was possessed by the Saxons. Spain became the inheritance of Vandals, Suevi, and Visigoths. The Vandals retained Africa. The Eastern empire, with the exception of Constantinople, finally fell into the hands of the Saracens.
Reflections on the fall of the empire.