[112] [Hodgkin[c] thinks the name Leuthar should not be regarded as equivalent to Lothair as Gibbon made it. Butilin is often spelt Buccelin.]
[113] Agathias[m] has produced a Greek epigram of six lines on this victory of Narses, which is favourably compared to the battles of Marathon and Platæa. The chief difference is indeed in their consequences—so trivial in the former instance—so permanent and glorious in the latter.
CHAPTER II
LOMBARD INVASION TO LIUTPRAND’S DEATH
[568-744 A.D.]
EARLY HISTORY OF THE LOMBARDS
The four invading nations, whose history has been already related, left no enduring memorial of their presence in Italy. The Visigoth, the Hun, the Vandal, the Ostrogoth, failed to connect their names with even a single province or a single city of the Imperial land. What these mighty nations had failed to effect, an obscure and savage horde from Pannonia successfully accomplished. Coming last of all across the ridge of the Alps, the Lombards found the venerable Mother of empires exhausted by all her previous conflicts, and unable to offer any longer even the passive resistance of despair. Hence it came to pass that where others had but come in like a devouring flood and then vanished away, the Lombard remained. Hence it has arisen that he has written his name for ever on that marvel of the munificence of nature “the waveless plain of Lombardy.”[b]
[5-400 A.D.]