The Dynasty Of The Goths

( Originally Published Early 1900's )

FROM A.D. 375 TO A.D, 1085

WHILE Valentinian, on the banks of the Rhine, was strug. gling against the hordes of the north, crowding down in numbers which seemed inexhaustible, upon the plains of the south, Valens, in the remote east, was engaged in a conflict still more hopeless against the Huns, a branch of the great Mongolian race, who emerged, in locust legions, from the plains of Tartary. These savages were as fierce and implaG. able as wolves. Even the Goths fled in terror before them, and implored of Valens permission to take refuge in the waste lands of Thrace. Valens consented, hoping to obtain aid from them in resisting the Huns. But the Goths commenced ravaging the province, where they had been so hospi' tally received, and, in the pride of their strength, commenced the sege both of Adrianople and Constantinople, and ravaged .he whole country to the shores of the Adriatic, menacing even Italy itself, with their arms. In a battle before the walls-of Adrianople, the victorious Goths cut the army of Valens to pieces, and the emperor himself perished on the bloody field.

Gratian, the son of Valentinian, a youth of but seventeen years, who had succeeded his father on the throne of the western empire, was on the march to assist Valens, when he was informed of his defeat and death. The prospects of the whole empire were now gloomy in the extreme, and Gratian, after very anxious deliberation with his best advisers, nominated Theodosius, a Christian general of great renown, to occupy the post vacated by the death of Valens. For sixteen years this heroic man maintained his position against an incessant flood of assailants, but the empire was so exhausted by these interminable wars, that he was compelled to recruit his legions by enlisting under his banners tribes of barbarians, who were ready to fight in any cause where there was a prospect of pay and plunder. During his administration not a province of his realms was lost.

Gratian, more fond of pleasure than of the toils of battle, retired to Paris, where he ingloriously surrendered himself to voluptuous indulgence. Such general discontent, was excited that Maximus, governor of Britain, raised the standard of revolt, and with an army crossed the channel. Gratian abandoned by his troops fled. He was overtaken near Lyons and put to death. But collision immediately ensued between Theodosius and Maximus, and the emperor of the east, with wonderful celerity, marched upon the usurper, defeated him near Aquileia, at the head of the Adriatic, and taking him captive, handed him over to the executioner.

Theodosius then foolishly placed upon the throne of the western empire, Valentinian, a mere boy, brother of Gratian. So soon as Theodosius had crossed the Bosphorus, having been recalled by the necessities of war, the child emperor was assassinated, and Eugenius, a stern and veteran warrior, assumed the purple. Theodosius instantly returned, burning with rage, defeated Eugenius in a long drawn battle, and mercilessly cut off his head. He then assumed the government of the whole empire, eastern and western, but the hand of death was already upon him, and in less than four months he breathed his last, at Milan. Theodosius was an energetic, Christian bigot. He issued severe edicts against heretics ; prohibited the assembling of those for worship who differed from the established faith ; demolished or closed all the temples of heathenism, and instituted that office of Inquisitors of the Faith, which has been the subsequent cause of so much wrong and cruelty. Still, notwithstanding his faults, history has pronounced him one of the purest and noblest monarchs who ever occupied a throne.

The two sons of Theodosius now acceded to the empire; Arcadius to that of the east, and Honorius to that of the west. The one dominion included Thrace, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. The other Italy, Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Britain, with the Danubian provinces of Noricum, Pannonia, and Dalmatia. The vast prefecture of Illyricum was divided equally between the two. The western empire was now by far the weakest, and was fast crumbling to decay. The Moors threatened Africa, the Scots menaced Britain; and all along the banks of the Rhine and the Danube, Gothic tribes were making their encroachments. Rome had ceased to be the metropolis, and possessed at this time only the renown of its former greatness.

Alaric now appears in the tumultuous arena, at the head of his fierce legions. He swept through Greece, entered Italy, and even besieged Milan. Though by a temporary check he was driven back, the timid Honorius was so alarmed by this bold invasion, that he abandoned Milan as his capital, and retired to Ravenna. But immediately another cloud of barbarians appeared, under the leadership of Radagaisus, and battering down all opposition, passed the Alps, the Po, and the Apennines. Defeated before the walls of Florence, where Radagaisus was slain, the savage bands scattered over the defenseless plains of Gaul, plundering, burning, and destroying. Honorius was utterly impotent, and but for the energy of his minister, Stilicho, no headway whatever would have been made against the barbarians.

Honorius was now seeking ignominious shelter behind the walls of Ravenna, and the Goths, contemptuously passing by him, were menacing even the walls of Rome. For six hundred years the imperial city had not been insulted by the presence of a foreign foe. The arms of the citizens were paralyzed by degeneracy. The walls alone stood in their native, massive strength. Alaric, at the head of one hundred thousand men, subjected the city to blockade; and famine soon compelled the enervated Romans to purchase a temporary peace, at the price of the payment of a vast sum of money, and the surrender of the sons of the principal citizens as hostages ; and Honorius entered into nominally friendly alliance with the barbaric chieftain.

Such a peace, of course, could be but transient. The hosts of Alaric were soon again encamped before the walls of the imperial city. The slaves in the city sagaciously conspired with the foe. At midnight, by a servile insurrection, one of the gates was thrown open, and the shout and clangor of the rushing barbarians resounded through the streets. It is not in the power of mortal imagination to conceive the horrors of a city sacked at midnight. Thousands of cities, at the hands of Rome, had experienced this woe. It was now, in divine retribution, the turn of Rome to drink that bitter cup to its dregs.

There were in the city forty thousand slaves. It was to them a glad hour in which to avenge their wrongs. Rome bad instructed them in all the arts of cruelty and lust; and Roman virgins shrieked, and Roman backs were lacerated, as the slaves, in that one horrible night, attempted to avenge the oppression of ages. All that was venerable and costly was surrendered to pillage or destruction, and wanton conflagration consumed important portions of the city. The Goths remained in the city but six days. The army, intoxicated with success and encumbered with spoil, rioted along the Appian way, and ravaged southern Italy,, giving loose to every depraved desire. For four years the whole of southern Italy was subject to their sway. The Romans were compelled to serve them as slaves. Burly barbarians would stretch their naked limbs beneath the shade of palm-trees, and compel the daughters of Roman senators to present them Falerman wine in golden goblets, and in docile subjection, to minister to their brutality.

Alaric, having reached the extremity of Italy, looked wistfully across the waters to the beautiful island of Sicily, separated from the main land by a narrow strait, but two miles wide. He was preparing his barges for the transportation of his troops, when death summoned him to the tribunal of his final Judge. Adolphus, the brother-in-law of Alaric, succeeded him in the dominion over the Goths. The character and policy of this illustrious man may be best inferred from the following remarks which he made to a citizen of Narbonne :

"I once aspired," said Adolphus, "in the full confidence of valor and victory, to change the face of the universe ; to obliterate the name of Rome ; to erect on its ruins, the dominion of the Goths, and to acquire, like Augustus, the immortal fame of the founder of a new empire. By repeated experiments, I was gradually convinced, that laws are essentially necessary to maintain and regulate a well constituted state ; and that the fierce, intractable humor of the Goths, was incapable of bearing the salutary yoke of laws and civil government. From that moment I proposed to myself a different object of glory and ambition ; and it is now my sincere wish that the gratitude of future ages should acknowledge the merit of a stranger, who employed the sword of the Goths, not to subvert, but to restore and maintain the prosperity of the Roman empire."

Adolphus opened negotiations with the imperial court, said entered into a treaty of peace which was cemented by his marriage with Placidia, a sister of Honorius. In this new relation, and assuming the character of a Roman general, he marched from Italy, and entering southern Gaul, took possession of the country from the ocean to the Mediterranean. Here Adolphus soon died, and Placidia returned to her brother's court. The eastern empire was now inseparably separated from the western. Spain dropped off. Britain and Gaul, though not openly in revolt, had silently passed into virtual independence. And Honorius, ignobly sheltered be-hind the walls of Ravenna, had no power with which to wield the scepter over distant Africa. The east was also now severed from the west, never to be effectually reunited. Thus the Roman empire had virtually dwindled down to the region of Italy alone. After a disgraceful reign of twenty-eight years, Honorius died, of dropsy, in his palace at Ravenna.

The crown which fell from that ignoble brow, seemed to belong, by right, to any one who had sufficient skill to grasp it. John, the principal secretary of Honorius, clutched at the falling diadem, and threw over his shoulders the imperial purple. Italy accepted him. The court of Constantinople, advocating the claims of Valentinian, the son of Placidia, a child but six years of age, sent an army against John, took him captive at Ravenna, beheaded him, and declared Valentinian III. emperor, with his mother Placidia as regent. In the impotence of this reign, the Vandals passed over from Spain, which they had subjugated, and took possession of Africa.

The Huns, who had established themselves in the country from which they had driven the Goths, having compelled the eastern empire to purchase peace with them by the payment of an annual subsidy, commenced their march toward the west. They were led by Attila, whose devastations have pro-cured for him the designation of " The scourge of God." The glory and dignity of Rome had vanished for ever. There were no resources of effectual resistance, and the court as Ravenna was so thoroughly debased, as to purchase peace with the invader, by offering him, in marriage, the emperor's sister Honoria, with an immense dowry.

Our space will not allow us to trace out the ravages of Attila, at the head of half a million of the fiercest warriors earth has ever known, through Gaul and Italy. He utterly destroyed the renowned Aquileia, and devastated with fearful slaughter, all Venetia. The wretched inhabitants, flying in terror before him, escaped to the marshy islands, which in great numbers are found, but slightly elevated above the waves, at the extremity of the Adriatic. These morasses were then uninhabited, and almost without a name. Here the fugitives established themselves, and laid the foundations of Venice, that city of the sea, which subsequently almost out-vied Rome itself in opulence, power, and splendor. " The grass never grows," said this demoniac warrior, " where my horse has placed his hoof."

Before Attila left Italy, he threatened to return and take terrible vengeance, unless his promised bride were sent to him within the time promised in the treaty. The trembling princess was transported to his palace beyond the Danube, where the nuptials were solemnized with great barbaric festivity and pomp. The burly savage, inflamed with wine, retired to his apartment with his bride. The morning dawned, but he did not appear. Hour after hour glided away, and still the attend. ants, respecting the bridal chamber, ventured no interruption. At length, their suspicions being excited, they entered the room, and found the monarch dead in his bed, and his bride sitting at the bedside, veiled, and trembling.

Attila had burst an artery, and was suffocated in his own blood. His body was exposed upon the plain, beneath a silk-en pavilion, and his soldiers, in the clangor and pageantry of war, wheeled in military evolutions around the corpse of their chieftain, singing funeral songs to his memory, gashing their faces with hideous wounds, thus bemoaning him, "not with the tears of women, but with the blood of warriors."

The emperor Valentinian had now attained manhood, but a manhood stained with every vice. He artfully inveigled a noble lady, alike illustrious for beauty and piety, and the wife of an eminent senator, to his palace, where he brutally violated her person. The outraged husband conspired with his friends, and slew Valentinian in the midst of his guards. The soldiers placed the diadem upon the brow of the senator Maximus, who had thus avenged his wrongs. His wife soon died, and he endeavored to compel Eudoxia, the widow of Valentinian, whom he had murdered, to become his spouse. Indignantly she repelled him, and threw herself upon the protection of Genseric, king of those powerful Vandals who had wrested Africa from the Roman empire. Genseric joyfully espoused her cause. With a large fleet he entered the Tiber, advanced to Rome; captured the city, Maximus being slain in the tumult ; and miserable Rome was surrendered, for fourteen days, to be pillaged by the Moors and the Vandals. Eudoxia her. self, with her two daughters, and many thousand Romans, were carried off as slaves into Africa, to serve those African tribes as hewers of wood and drawers of water, while the proud matrons and maidens of Rome were doomed to the ignominy of barbarian harems.

The dismembered empire, in its fragmentary state, without a capital, almost without a local existence, was again without a head. The army in Gaul chose their general, Avitus, emperor. The senate in Rome opposed his nomination, and placed upon the throne Julian Majorean. Another civil war would have ravaged the unhappy country, but for the fortunate death of Avitus. Julian struggled unavailingly against the Moorish and Vandal pirates. They even captured his fleet, and burned it. Julian was deposed, and in five days died of chagrin. Of his successor, Severus, we can only say, he was crowned, and died. Italy was now so utterly disorganized, that the court of Constantinople, in the vain attempt to save the wreck, assumed to appoint an emperor for the west, and sent Anthemius to Rome, robed in the imperial purple. To this indignity, Rome, impoverished and impotent as it was, would not submit. A tumult was excited, and Anthemius was slain.

Ricimier, a bold, bad demagogue, the idol of the mob, and the one who had led the tumult in which Anthemius was assassinated, now, by the success of bloody insurrection, and in the chaos of anarchy, found the tangled reins of power in his own hands. For forty days, he was supreme in Rome, and they were days of havoc, plunder, debauchery, and every species of crime. Rioting in the intemperance to which this power gave him sudden access, he was seized with disease, and the tomb claimed the tyrant. The court of Constantinople despairingly sent another emperor, Olibrius, to endeavor to rescue Rome from ruin. After a powerless reign of seven months, he also died. Again the throne was vacant, and again Leo, emperor of the east, assembled his court at Constantinople, to place another sovereign in the dilapidated palaces of Rome. It was manifest, an emperor thus enthroned, could be sustained only by the energies of foreign armies, and it was needful to move with caution.

Many months passed in these deliberations. At length Nepos, accompanied by a body guard from Constantinople, presented himself before the decayed senate of Rome, as the sovereign which the eastern empire had sent to them. They accepted him, and Rome, and Italy generally, in weariness, exhaustion, and shame, decorated him with the diadem and the purple, and placed the scepter in his hands, hoping that he might be able to wield it for the rescue of their ruined country. He established himself at Ravenna, where he could more easily receive aid from Constantinople; and he purchased peace with the barbarians by relinquishing all claim to portions of the empire which they had already wrested from him But fragments of German tribes were now scattered every where throughout Italy, living in a state of semi-lawlessness, at times in peace, and again bidding defiance to all the power of the magistracy.

Nepos was one day informed that a numerous band of these barbarians, under their leader Orestes, was marching upon Ravenna. The timid monarch, conscious that the arm of Italian strength was paralyzed, took to his ships, and escaped across the Adriatic to the coast of Illyricum. Here he remained five years, nominally emperor of a country which he dared not enter. At length he was assassinated, and we may mention, in illustration of the corruption which had already seized upon the church, that his assassin was immediately rewarded with the bishopric of Milan.

Orestes, the barbaric chieftain who had driven Nepos from Italy, for some unknown reason refused the purple for himself, but placed the imperial robes upon his son Augustulus. These barbarian bands had been introduced to Italy as allies—mercenary troops, to aid in repelling the inroads of other tribes of barbarians. They now became the masters, cruel and domineering masters, of those whom they once had served. In Spain, in Gaul, in Africa their brethren had become dominant, in the realms which they had severally overrun and detached from Rome. Envying the fortune of their brethren, they now demanded that one-third of Italy should be surrendered to them, as their exclusive patrimony. But Orestes, who had just placed his own son upon the throne, did not wish to see the realms of that son thus dismembered, and he opposed the claim.

Odoacer, a bold, barbarian warrior, whose ferocity had given him much renown, bade defiance to his chieftain, raised the banners of revolt, and from all the camps and garrisons of Italy, the Germanic troops rushed around him. The sudden movement was so formidable, that Orestes fled to Pavia, hoping to find shelter behind its strong intrenchments. But the place was taken by storm, the town pillaged, and Orastes slain. Augustulus, now helpless, was constrained to implore the clemency of Odoacer.

The troops of Odoacer saluted him with the title of king. The degenerate Italians were submissive to his sway. Angustulus was compelled to send in his abdication to the senate. Odoacer, a stern warrior, familiar only with camps, hardship, and blood, did not wish to assume the imperial purple, and the imperial dignity, but wished to rule Italy, as a military chieftain merely, with his own sharp sword. He, therefore, compelled the senate, by a formal decree, to abolish the imperial succession; and he commenced his military reign with the new title of king of Italy. Thus, after the decay of ages, the ancient Roman empire fell to rise no more, A. D. 476.

Odoacei spared the life of Augustulus, but imprisoned him in the castle of Lucullus, near Naples, supplying his wants with even sumptuous prodigality. Italy had indeed fallen, and the barbaric leader of a barbarian band, by the might of con-quest, was now its enthroned monarch. With much sagacity he respected the old institutions of his realms, governing through those instrumentalities which time had created and nurtured. He conferred upon his captains the titles of dukes and counts, and thus extended the feudal system. It is hardly possible to conceive a more melancholy spectacle of national debasement than Italy now presented. The Roman nobles had fallen, beyond redemption, into the slough of slothful and voluptuous indulgence. The plebeians, still more degraded and base, had left behind them scarcely any vestige of their existence, which history can discern. The army was composed almost exclusively of barbarians ; and the country was cultivated only by slaves. The Cæsars had departed forever, and the dynasty of the Goths had commenced its reign.

The barbarians, as they were called, now masters of Italy, blended so rapidly with the people among whom they dwelt, that soon no traces of distinct nationality could be perceived, During a reign of fourteen years, foreigners from the wild wastes of the north were flocking into sunny Italy, where they were gladly received by Odoacer, as adding strength to his military arm. But Italy was too rich a prize, in the eyes of northern barbarians, to be left long undisputed in the hands of Odoacer. North of the Euxine there was a powerful nation called the Ostrogoths. Their king, Theodoric, had been well educated in Constantinople.

Theodoric commenced a march upon Italy, accompanied by his entire people. For three years a fierce warfare swept all those plains, as Goth struggled against Ostrogoth in savage war. At length Theodoric was victorious, and having annihilated the armies of the Goths, and plunged his own sword into the bosom of Odoacer, he entered upon the undisputed sovereignty of the whole peninsula, dispersing his followers every where throughout the rich and luxurious valleys of this most beautiful of realms.

Theodoric governed his conquered kingdom with so much energy, wisdom, and humanity, that he is justly entitled to the designation of Great, which history has conferred upon him. Most of the civil offices he confided to native Italians, and carefully preserved the ancient laws and customs. With a strong arm he secured peace ; and agriculture and the arts, under his sway, flourished with vigor unknown for ages. He endeavored to maintain a distinction between his Gothic and Italian subjects, by conferring civil employments only upon the one, and military only upon the other. One-third of the soil of Italy was given to his Gothic soldiers, in remuneration for which, they owed him feudal service, and were to rush to his banner whenever his bugle-blast was heard. Almost in an hour he could call two hundred thousand warriors into the field.

For thirty-three years Theodoric reigned over Italy, and few sovereigns are equally entitled to be regarded as benefactors of mankind. Still, with all his virtues, he developed some vices sufficient to condemn any ordinary man to infamy. In the seventy-fourth year of his age, tortured by suspicion, oppressed with melancholy and partially insane, the old monarch sadly died, the gloms of remorse darkening around his dying bed. He left the diadem to his grandson, Atalaric, a boy but ten years of age, under the regency of his daughter, Amalasunta, the widowed mother of the child. The boy, heir to wealth and a throne, grew up, almost as a matter of course, an unmitigated profligate. He soon died through the excesses of inebriation and debauchery. Theodotus, who had become the husband of the regent, seized the scepter, after strangling his spouse.

The emperor Justinian; at Constantinople, having reconquered Africa, turned his eyes to Italy, resolved to rescue that beautiful country from the Goths, and annex it to the eastern empire. With a chosen troop of about five thousand cavalry and three thousand infantry, the intrepid general Belisarius, who was intrusted with the command, landed at Catana, in Sicily, where they were cordially received by the inhabitants. With but little difficulty they effected the con-quest of the island. Palermo made a short resistance. But Belisarius anchored his fleet in the harbor., raised his boats with ropes and pulleys to the heads of the masts, and from that elevated position commanded the ramparts of the city. The reduction of the island cost but one summer's campaign. In the autumn he entered Syracuse in triumph, and spent the winter, the undisputed master of Sicily, occupying the palaces of the ancient kings.

In the spring, embarking his troops at Messina, he landed them at Rhegium, in Italy, without opposition. He marched along the coast to Naples, followed by the fleet near the shore. Naples, was then a beautiful rural city, to which the lovers of literature and philosophy had retired from the confusion of Rome. The barbarians here were strong, and the siege was fiercely contested. At length, by stratagem, through the dry channel of an aqueduct, an entrance was effected into the city.

The strife was short, and Naples surrendered to the conqueror; and the Gothic garrison there with alacrity enlisted in the service of Belisarius.

Theodotus, appalled by the ruin thus suddenly overwhelming him, gathered all his available force, to make a desperate stand behind the ramparts of Rome. But the Goths, dissatisfied with his want of energy and success, in a tumultuous military gathering, declared him unworthy of the throne; and raising upon their bucklers, their general Vitiges, pronounced him king. Theodotus endeavored to escape, but was pursued along the Flaminian way, and slaughtered while crying for mercy. Vitiges, conscious of his inability to cope with Belisarius, ordered a retreat. The conquerors now marched rapidly, by way of Cumæ and Capua to Rome, and entered the city in triumph.

During the winter Vitiges at Ravenna, and Belisarius at Rome, were preparing with great vigor, for the campaign of the ensuing spring. With one hundred and fifty thousand men Vitiges commenced his march, and traversing the Flamminian way, arrived at the Milvian bridge, within two miles of Rome. For a year Belisarius was besieged, within the walls of Rome, by this overpowering host. With but five thousand veteran troops he defended a circle of twelve miles against the legions of Vitiges. In one desperate assault, the Goths lost thirty thousand of their number in slain, and an equal number wounded. Hardly an arrow was thrown from the Roman ramparts which did not accomplish its mission.

But the genius of Belisarius prevailed. The whole military force of the Ostrogoths had been rallied around Rome, and m the long and bloody siege nearly the whole force had perished, After an almost incessant battle, of one year and nine days, the Goths burnt their tents, and precipitately re-treated, pursued by their indomitable foes. Vitiges found shelter within the walls of Ravenna. Belisarius, receiving recruits from Constantinople, pitched his tents around the walls, and, in his turn, commenced the siege of Vitiges. At length the city surrendered, and Belisarius, in triumph, entered its streets ; and Vitiges was sent a captive, in chains, to Constantinople.

But while these final scenes were being enacted, Justinian, jealous of the renown which Belisarius was acquiring, for the Goths were actually in treaty with him, offering him the crown of Italy,—entered into a hasty treaty of peace with the Goths and recalled Belisarius. Embarking at Ravenna, the obedient general returned to Constantinople, taking with him his illustrious captive Vitiges. The departure of Belisarius revived the courage of the Goths. They chose Totila, a nephew of Vitiges, to the supreme command, and he, collecting five thousand troops at Pavia, commenced the reconquest of Italy from the dominion of Justinian. Belisarius had left garrisons in Italy, under eleven generals, to hold command of the country as a province under the eastern empire.

The Romans soon found themselves imprisoned in their fortresses, while the Goths, who had invited other foreign tribes to their assistance, under Totila marched defiantly through the kingdom and laid siege to Naples. Naples, Cum, and all the southern provinces were speedily subjugated. The Goths were now nominal Christians, and earnest advocates of the Catholic church, in antagonism to what was called the Arian heresy. Totila, the new king, possessed many Christian virtues. He was chaste, temperate, and his moral integrity no one questioned. At this time every clergyman in the east was called in Greek papa, father. The bishop of of Rome, then called papa, and subsequently pope, had been banished by Belisarius. The sympathies of the church were consequently with the Goths, rather than with the Greeks from Constantinople. Totila liberated the slaves, and thus secured their enthusiastic support. In the progress of the war he inexorably punished with death, the violation of female chastity. In earnest harangues to the troops he urged upon them that national vice was the sure precursor of national decay.

From the conquest of southern Italy, Totila proceeded to the siege of Rome. The inhabitants conspired against the garrison, threw open the gates, and at midnight the Goths marched in and took possession of the city. The Gothic king, in the morning, devoutly went to church to return thanks for his victory. Totila demolished a large portion of the walls of Rome, dragged the senators away as captives in the train of his army, exiled most of the citizens, men and women, and left Rome comparatively a solitude.

Justinian, alarmed, had again sent Belisarius to take command of his troops in Italy. But Belisarius found himself without an army, and could never face Totila on the field of battle. New armies were sent from Constantinople to south-ern Italy, and Totila entered into alliance with Theodebert, king of the Franks, to strengthen him in northern Italy. Belisarius was again recalled, and the renowned eunuch, Narses, with a strong force entered Italy and offered battle to Totila. The hostile armies met in the vicinity of Rome. The Goths were vanquished, and Totila himself fell pierced through the body by a lance. The victory of Narses was obtained mainly by his barbarian allies, whom he had enticed to his camp. Unrelentingly he ravaged the conquered land.

But the Goths, though vanquished, were not subdued. They retired north of the Po, and chose one of their heroes, Teias, to be their king. Selecting Pavia for his head-quarters, and gathering around him his allies the Franks, in a rapid march he advanced from the Alps to Mt. Vesuvius, and there in as savage a fight as time has witnessed, he fell. Still his troops, avenging his death, fought still more fiercely, till, in the darkness of the night, friends could not be distinguished from foes. But with the early dawn the battle was renewed, and was continued until again the sun had disappeared in the west. The Gothic army was then effectually destroyed. Most of the survivors capitulated, though a small but determined band out their way through their foes and retreated to the walls of Pavia. With the death of Teias, in March, A. D. 553, the Gothic kingdom in Italy passed away forever.

The fragments of the old Roman empire were gradually being organized into new and independent kingdoms. Britain, abandoned by the Romans and overrun by the Angles, became Anglia, or England. The Franks took possession of Gaul, and it was called France. Spain, subjugated by the Suabians and Vandals, retained its ancient name. Pannonia, occupied by the Huns, became Hungary. In all these kingdoms the native inhabitants and their conquerors rapidly blended into a homogeneous race.

While Narses was endeavoring to consolidate his conquest, seventy-five thousand Franks came rushing down through the defiles of the Rhaetian Alps into the plains of Milan. Like an inundation they swept through northern Italy. These Franks were nominal Christians, imbued with many of the superstitions of the church, though with but little of the spirit of Christ. A protracted war ensued, in which the majority of these bands perished through pestilence, famine, and the sword. Italy was thus again left, a war-scathed province, attached to the eastern empire of Justinian. But the renowned emperor Justinian died, and Narses died, and the feeble Justinian II. ascended the throne of Constantinople.

There was a powerful nation called Lombards dwelling in Hungary. Their king, Alboin, a ferocious warrior, cast wistful looks toward Italy, and resolved to attempt its conquest. Leading his army across the Julian Alps he speedily overran the territory, and nearly the whole country, with the exception of Rome and Ravenna, was soon in his hands. Assuming the title of king of Italy, Alboin assigned the conquered province to his captains, who under various titles of nobility such as counts and dukes were bound to render him feudal service, by paving him tribute, and obeying his summons to the field of battle, But Alboin was a true savage, drinking in revelry from the skulls of his enemies. He was at length murdered, at the instigation of his queen in revenge for an outrage he had inflicted upon her.

Clevis, one of his captains, who had the title of a duke, succeeded him. But he was a miserable despot, and after a reign of seventeen months, he was assassinated by one of his servants while he slept. There were now thirty-six of these Lombard warrior chieftains, with the title of dukes, scattered over Italy. Each had his allotted territory, more or less distinctly defined, over which he had undisputed domain, subject only to feudal service to the sovereign. So long as war raged, a sovereign was necessary, around whom they might rally against a common foe. But Italy was now supine at the feet of its conquerors, and the eastern empire crumbling also to decay, had relinquished all attempts at the reconquest of the Italian peninsula. The dukes, under these circumstances, were not disposed to choose a master, each wishing to retain his independence. They, therefore, formed a federal aristocracy, each one being supreme over his own territory.

For ten years Italy continued in this state, when, upon some indications of an attack both from Greece and Gaul, the dukes judged it necessary to be better prepared for war, and they, therefore, chose one of their number, Autharis, who was most highly distinguished for valor and abilities, as their king. The wisdom of this measure was immediately apparent; for in three successive waves of invasion the Gauls rushed down upon the plains of Italy, where they were arrested and driven back by the energy of Autharis.

At this time Pavia was the recognized capital of the kingdom, and Gregory the Great was bishop, or papa, at Rome. He was an ambitious ecclesiastic, and was as ambitious and successful in gathering into his hands the reins of spiritual power as Autharis proved to be in grasping secular dominion. This renowned clergyman was nobly born. He had been both senator and governor of Rome. From inheritance and lucrative office he had acquired enormous wealth. John, another very distinguished ecclesiastic, was at that time bishop or papa at Constantinople. There was a very stern struggle between them as to which should have the supremacy, and hence commenced the schism between the Greek and Latin churches, which continues to the present day. The bishop of Constantinople, with the title of Patriarch, is the head of the eastern church ; and the bishop of Rome, with the title of Pope, is recognized as the sovereign of the church in the west. Many are the anathemas which, during the last thou sand years, these patriarchs have hurled against each other. Under Gregory, the idolatrous Britons were converted to nominal Christianity ; and not a few became the sincere and humble followers of Jesus Christ in both heart and life. The forty missionaries sent to England, in less than two years reported the baptism of the king of Sent, and of ten thou. sand of the Anglo-Saxons.

The dukedoms now began to assume importance, and to, take their position in the procession of events, as individual dukes, by their achievements, arrest the observation of history. After a short but energetic reign, Autharis died„ probably of poison, and his beautiful widow, Theodelinda, married Agilulph, the Lombard duke of Turin. With her hand Agilulph, though then a pagan, succeeded in obtaining the crown and scepter of Italy. Ile soon, however, embraced Christianity, and engaged very zealously in his endeavors to promote the welfare of the church. Several of the dukes of Turin succeeded him in brief, uneventful reigns. Some were tolerably good, and others were intolerably bad. Each one of these undistinguished sovereigns was eager to add to the prerogatives of the crown, while the rival dukes were combining to resist every encroachment upon their power and independence. In the course of sixty years nineteen sovereigns occupied the throne. Their names even are not worth recording.

The Lombards were established mainly in Northern Italy, and the emperor, in Constantinople, still held a shadowy authority over southern Italy. The Grecian power was, how-ever, rapidly vanishing before the encroachments of the Lombard kings. During the eighth century, Italy was frequently invaded by the Franks. Toward the close of the eighth century, their renowned sovereign, Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, swept over Italy and completed the destruction of the Lombard monarchy, which had governed Italy for two hundred years. Then forming an alliance with Pope Leo III., who had attained vast temporal as well as spiritual power, he organized anew a western empire. In the cathedral church erected by Constantine, he crowned himself emperor of the west. This memorable event took place on Christmas day, A. D. 800. For forty years this illustrious monarch, as king and emperor, governed Italy, in connection with his other vast realms, and perhaps better than it had ever been governed before. Eight kings of the family of Charlemagne ruled over Italy. The great empire which the military genius of Charlemagne created, and his great statesman-like qualities so long held together, consisted of France, a part of Spain, Italy, Germany, and Hungary. He was a powerful sovereign, but a licentious, ferocious, cruel man. This dynasty was closed in Italy by the indignant deposition of Charles the Fat.

For the sixty years then ensuing, wretched Italy was torn by internal wars, and by the incursions of foreign foes. The Lombard duchies, by family alliances, and conquests of the weak by the strong, were reduced to but five or six. Among these the beautiful duchy of Tuscany, separated by a chain of mountains from the rest of Italy, was perhaps the most prominent and prosperous. The dukes of Adalbert administered this province for a century and a half, and their court was renowned as one of the most brilliant and sumptuous among the great feudatories. The other great dukedoms were those of Friuli, Spoleto, Ivrea, and Susa. The strife between these dukes for the supremacy was bitter and interminable. Berenger, duke of Friuli, at length obtained the election, and was crowned at Pavia by the Archbishop of Milan. The diadem he wore proved to be truly one of thorns.

The reader would but be wearied with the narrative of the petty intrigues, and incessant conflicts between these rival dukes, for the nominal sovereignty of Italy. Passing over the dreary record of treachery, wars, poisonings, and assassinations, in which but little can be found, either to interest or instruct, we find, in the year 961, a foreign prince, Otho, king of Saxony, invading Italy. He conquers the realm, dethrones Berenger IL, and sends him to end his days in a German prison, and Otho is crowned sovereign with the title of emperor. Thus Italy, after having been annexed as a subjugated kingdom to Greece, and then to France, is now grasped by Germany. The country was now covered with castles. Each duke was a petty sovereign over his domains, which he divided into smaller portions administered by vassal counts who paid him tribute, took the oath of fealty, and obediently followed his liege lord in his wars. The dukes owed the emperor of Germany feudal service, and took the oath of allegiance to him. The counts, in their turn, divided the land apportioned to them among their captains. The condition of the people, robbed at every point, was depressed and miserable in the extreme.