One city which had been diligently fortified by the Goths, resisted the arms of a new invader; and while Italy was subdued by the flying detachments of the Lombards, the royal camp was fixed above three years before the western gate of Ticinum, or Pavia. The same courage which obtains the esteem of a civilised enemy, provokes the fury of a savage, and the impatient besieger had bound himself by a tremendous oath, that age, and sex, and dignity, should be confounded in a general massacre. The aid of famine at length enabled him to execute his bloody vow; but as Alboin entered the gate, his horse stumbled, fell, and could not be raised from the ground. One of his attendants was prompted by compassion, or piety, to interpret this miraculous sign as the wrath of heaven: the conqueror paused and relented; he sheathed his sword, and, peacefully reposing himself in the palace of Theodoric, proclaimed to the trembling multitude, that they should live and obey. Delighted with the situation of a city, which was endeared to his pride by the difficulty of the purchase, the prince of the Lombards disdained the ancient glories of Milan; and Pavia, during some ages, was respected as the capital of the kingdom of Italy.
THE END OF ALBOIN (573 A.D.)
[573 A.D.]
The reign of the founder was splendid and transient; and before he could regulate his new conquests, Alboin fell a sacrifice to domestic treason and female revenge. In a palace near Verona, which had not been erected for the barbarians, he feasted the companions of his arms; intoxication was the reward of valour, and the king himself was tempted by appetite, or vanity, to exceed the ordinary measure of his intemperance. After draining many capacious bowls of Rætian or Falernian wine, he called for the skull of Cunimund [the late Gepid king, his wife’s father], the noblest and most precious ornament of his sideboard. This cup of victory[118] was accepted with horrid applause by the circle of the Lombard chiefs.
“Fill it again with wine,” exclaimed the inhuman conqueror, “fill it to the brim; carry this goblet to the queen, and request in my name that she would rejoice with her father.” In an agony of grief and rage, Rosamund had strength to utter, “Let the will of my lord be obeyed,” and, touching it with her lips, pronounced a silent imprecation, that the insult should be washed away in the blood of Alboin.
Some indulgence might be due to the resentment of a daughter, if she had not already violated the duties of a wife. Implacable in her enmity, or inconstant in her love, the queen of Italy had stooped from the throne to the arms of a subject; and Helmichis, the king’s armour-bearer, was the secret minister of her pleasure and revenge. Against the proposal of the murder he could no longer urge the scruples of fidelity or gratitude; but Helmichis trembled when he revolved the danger, as well as the guilt, when he recollected the matchless strength and intrepidity of a warrior whom he had so often attended in the field of battle. He pressed and obtained that one of the bravest champions of the Lombards should be associated to the enterprise; but no more than a promise of secrecy could be drawn from the gallant Peredeo; and the mode of seduction employed by Rosamund betrays her shameless insensibility both to honour and love. She supplied the place of one of her female attendants, who was beloved by Peredeo, and contrived some excuse for darkness and silence, till she could inform her companion that he had enjoyed the queen of the Lombards, and that his own death, or the death of Alboin, must be the consequence of such treasonable adultery. In this alternative, he chose rather to be the accomplice than the victim of Rosamund, whose undaunted spirit was incapable of fear or remorse. She expected, and soon found, a favourable moment, when the king, oppressed with wine, had retired from the table to his afternoon slumbers. His faithless spouse was anxious for his health and repose; the gates of the palace were shut, the arms removed, the attendants dismissed, and Rosamund, after lulling him to rest by her tender caresses, unbolted the chamber door and urged the reluctant conspirators to the deed.
On the first alarm the warrior started from his couch. His sword, which he attempted to draw, had been fastened to the scabbard by the hand of Rosamund; and a small stool, his only weapon, could not long protect him from the spears of the assassins. The daughter of Cunimund smiled in his fall; his body was buried under the staircase of the palace, and the grateful posterity of the Lombards revered the tomb and the memory of their victorious leader.
The ambitious Rosamund aspired to reign in the name of her lover. The city and palace of Verona were awed by her power, and a faithful band of her native Gepids was prepared to applaud the revenge and to second the wishes of their sovereign. But the Lombard chiefs, who fled in the first moments of consternation and disorder, had resumed their courage and collected their powers; and the nation, instead of submitting to her reign, demanded, with unanimous cries, that justice should be executed on the guilty spouse and the murderers of their king. She sought a refuge among the enemies of her country, and a criminal who deserved the abhorrence of mankind was protected by the selfish policy of the exarch. With her daughter, the heiress of the Lombard throne, her two lovers, her trusty Gepids, and the spoils of the palace of Verona, Rosamund descended the Adige and the Po, and was transported by a Greek vessel to the safe harbour of Ravenna. Longinus beheld with delight the charms and the treasures of the widow of Alboin: her situation and her past conduct might justify the most licentious proposals; and she readily listened to the passion of a minister who, even in the decline of the empire, was respected as the equal of kings. The death of a jealous lover was an easy and grateful sacrifice; and as Helmichis issued from the bath, he received the deadly potion from the hand of his mistress. The taste of the liquor, its speedy operation, and his experience of the character of Rosamund convinced him that he was poisoned. He pointed his dagger to her breast, compelled her to drain the remainder of the cup, and expired in a few minutes, with the consolation that she could not survive to enjoy the fruits of her wickedness. The daughter of Alboin and Rosamund, with the richest spoils of the Lombards, was embarked for Constantinople. The surprising strength of Peredeo amused and terrified the imperial court; his blindness and revenge exhibited an imperfect copy of the adventures of Samson. By the free suffrage of the nation, in the assembly of Pavia, Cleph, one of their noblest chiefs, was elected as the successor of Alboin. Before the end of eighteen months the throne was polluted by a second murder,—Cleph was stabbed by the hand of a domestic. The regal office was suspended above ten years, during the minority of his son Authari, and Italy was divided and oppressed by a ducal aristocracy of thirty tyrants.[w]
[573-590 A.D.]