But political considerations now obliged him to take Clotosuinda, daughter of the Frank king Clotaire I, to wife; when she died his thoughts turned once more to the love of his youth, and as she would not follow him voluntarily he had her brought to his kingdom by force.
Cunimund demanded his daughter back as he did not approve of the union with the hated Lombard: finally war broke out. At first the Lombards had the advantage, but were defeated in the end, when the Gepids succeeded in winning over the emperor Justinus II (Nov. 14, 565); the result was the release of Rosamund. To avenge the defeat and to free himself from oppression, Alboin now sought allies on all sides; he found them at last in the powerful and universally dreaded Avars (settled east of the Pruth on the Black Sea), who only consented to help after long pleading and on very heavy conditions; the Lombards were to give the tenth part of their cattle, and to promise after the victory was obtained to give up half the booty and renounce the whole district of the Gepids. That these demands were granted shows better than any direct proofs in what need the Lombards then were. When Cunimund heard of this formidable alliance, he turned to the emperor Justinus to ask the latter to send him auxiliary troops in accordance with the treaty; he also promised to yield Sirmium, and the land this side of the Drave to the Eastern Roman Empire. Justinus did not at once directly refuse the request, but he wilfully made every kind of delay in sending the troops and finally kept them back, not only for the reason given by Menander, but probably because he did not wish to compromise himself and allow the formidable power of the Avars and Lombards, which was superior to that of the Byzantines and Gepids together, to rule his empire. Therefore, he remained a neutral and idle spectator of the unequal strife; he seems to have taken advantage of a favourable opportunity to win possession of the town of Sirmium, as at the fall of the kingdom of the Gepids it appears as already among the Byzantine possessions. The war was opened by the simultaneous invasion of the kingdom of the Gepids by the allies from two sides.
Cunimund first marched against the Lombards to prevent their union with the Avars; but he was beaten by his adversaries in a bloody battle and his army almost completely destroyed. He himself fell in the battle by Alboin’s hand, as his brother Torismond had done many years before; his daughter Rosamund with many others fell as prisoners into the power of the Lombards, and their king now made her his wife without any fear of the paternal opposition.
The booty was immeasurable; nevertheless, the bishop Trasaric and the grandson of the fallen king Reptila succeeded in bringing the royal treasure to Constantinople in safety.
But by this defeat the kingdom of the Gepids was completely destroyed; for what the Lombards did not bring under their sway, fell beneath the harsh yoke of the Avars; and in presumptuous tones the Byzantines rejoiced over the quick destruction of their dangerous foes.[u]
ALBOIN PLANS TO INVADE ITALY
[565-569 A.D.]
The destruction of a mighty kingdom established the fame of Alboin. In the days of Charlemagne, the Bavarians, the Saxons, and the other tribes of the Teutonic language, still repeated the songs which described the heroic virtues, the valour, liberality, and fortune of the king of the Lombards. But his ambition was yet unsatisfied; and the conqueror of the Gepids turned his eyes from the Danube to the richer banks of the Po and the Tiber. Fifteen years had not elapsed since his subjects, the confederates of Narses, had visited the pleasant climate of Italy; the mountains, the rivers, the highways, were familiar to their memory; the report of their success, perhaps the view of their spoils, had kindled in the rising generation the flame of emulation and enterprise. Their hopes were encouraged by the spirit and eloquence of Alboin; and it is affirmed that he spoke to their senses, by producing at the royal feast the fairest and most exquisite fruits that grew spontaneously in the garden of the world.
No sooner had he erected his standard, than the native strength of the Lombards was multiplied by the adventurous youth of Germany and Scythia. The robust peasantry of Noricum and Pannonia had resumed the manners of barbarians; and the names of the Gepids, Bulgarians, Sarmatians (or Slavs), and Bavarians, may be distinctly traced in the provinces of Italy. Of the Saxons, the old allies of the Lombards, twenty thousand warriors, with their wives and children, accepted the invitation of Alboin. Their bravery contributed to his success; but the accession or the absence of their numbers was not sensibly felt in the magnitude of his host. Every mode of religion was freely practised by its respective votaries. The king of the Lombards had been educated in the Arian heresy; but the Catholics, in their public worship, were allowed to pray for his conversion; while the more stubborn barbarians sacrificed a she-goat, or perhaps a captive, to the gods of their fathers. The Lombards and their confederates were united by their common attachment to a chief, who excelled in all the virtues and vices of a savage hero; and the vigilance of Alboin provided an ample magazine of offensive and defensive arms for the use of the expedition. The portable wealth of the Lombards attended the march (April 2nd, 568); their lands they cheerfully relinquished to the Avars, on the solemn promise, which was made and accepted without a smile, that if they failed in the conquest of Italy, these voluntary exiles should be reinstated in their former possessions.