No More Learning

Heraclius hurried to
his aid, and the two together cut him down. Thus he fell, atque cum
ipso Hesperium cecidit regnum. Of his character and real magnitude
we know little. Gregory of Tours preserves a colourless eulogy from
the pages of a contemporary prose-writer ; and the panegyrics of
Merobaudes are equally colourless. That he was the one prop and stay
of the Western Empire during his life is the unanimous verdict of his
contemporaries ; but whether or no he was really great as a general or a
statesman we cannot tell. He was beaten by Boniface ; and it was not
he, but the Goths and their king, who really triumphed on the Mauriac
plain ; yet he recovered Gaul in a series of campaigns, and he kept the
Visigoths in check. As a statesman he may be blamed for neglect of


## p. 419 (#449) ############################################

454—455]
The assassination of Valentinian III
419
Africa, and a too ready acquiescence in its occupation by Gaiseric;
yet it may be doubted whether the Roman hold on the allegiance of
Africa was not too weak to be maintained, and in any case he kept Italy
comparatively free from the ravages of the Vandals so long as he lived.
If he was less Roman than his predecessor Constantius, he was far more
Roman than his successor Ricimer; and if he had occasionally used
the arms of the Huns for his own ends, he had also used them to
maintain the Empire. One merit he had which must count for much-
the merit of recognising and encouraging men of ability. Majorian
and Marcellinus, two of the finest figures in the history of the falling
Empire, were men of his training.
A wit at Court, when asked by Valentinian III what he thought of
the death of Aëtius, replied—“Sir, you have used your left hand to cut
off your right. ” In truth, Valentinian signed his own death warrant,
when he joined in the murder of his minister. He had hastened,
immediately after the murder, to send explanations to the barbarian
foederati, with whom Aëtius had been allied; but vengeance was to
come upon him within his own Court. Maximus, the senator who had
joined with Heraclius in compassing the ruin of Aëtius, had hoped to
succeed to the position and office of his victim. Disappointed in his
hopes, he resolved to procure the assassination of Valentinian, and to
seize for himself the vacant throne! Two of Aëtius' followers, whose
names, Optila and Thraustila, suggest a Hunnish origin, were induced
to revenge their master; and in March 455 Valentinian was assassinated
on the Campus Martii, in the sight of his army, while he stood watching
the games. Heraclius fell with him; but not a hand was raised to
punish the assassins. With Valentinian III the Theodosian house was
extinguished in the West, as it had already come to an end in the East
on the death of Theodosius II in 450. Though he had ruled for thirty
years, Valentinian had influenced the destinies of his Empire even less
than his uncle Honorius. Procopius, it his evidence is worth considera-
tion, tells us that Valentinian had received an effeminate education from
his mother Placidia, and that, when he became a man, he consorted with
quacks and astrologers, and practised immorality. He only once flashed
into action, when, piqued by the presumption of Aëtius in aspiring to
connect himself with the imperial family, he struck him down. He
thought he had slain his master; he found that he had slain his
pro-
tector; and he fell a helpless victim to the first conspiracy which was
hatched against his throne.
The twenty-one years which precede the utter extinction of the
Roman Empire in the West are distinguished in several respects from
the preceding thirty years in which Aëtius had ruled and Valentinian III
1 I have dismissed, as a Byzantine invention based on the erotic motive, the story
that Valentinian was murdered in revenge for his seduction of the wife of Maximus.
CH. XIV.
27--2


## p. 420 (#450) ############################################

420
The Rugi, Heruli and Sciri
[455–476
a
ence.
had reigned. The “master of the troops” is still the virtual ruler of the
Empire; and after a short interval Ricimer proves himself the destined
successor of Aëtius. But the new master of the troops, in the absence
of any legitimate representative of the Theodosian house, shews his
power more openly: he becomes a king-maker instead of a prime
minister, and ushers on and off the stage a rapid succession of puppet
emperors. And while Aëtius had rested on the support of the Huns,
Ricimer uses instead the support of new German tribes. The death of
Attila in 453 had been followed by a great struggle between the
Huns and the various Germanic tribes whom they had subdued-the
Ostrogoths and the Gepidae, the Rugii, the Heruli and the Sciri. At
the battle of Nedâo the Huns had been vanquished, and the German
tribes had settled down in the Danubian provinces either as independent
powers, or as foederati of the Western Empire. It was from these
tribes, and particularly from the Rugii, Heruli and Sciri that the army
of the Western Empire was drawn for the last twenty years of its exist-
The Rugii were settled to the north of the Danube, in what is
now Lower Austria: they appear in the history of the time now as
sending troops to Italy (for instance in 458), and now as vexing with
their inroads the parts of Noricum which lay immediately south of the
river. The Life of St Severinus, one of the most trustworthy and valu-
able authorities which we possess, describes their depredations, and the
activity of the Saint in protecting the harassed provincials. The Sciri
had settled after 453 in the north-west corner of modern Hungary;
but shattered in a struggle with the Ostrogoths in 469, they had either
merged themselves with the Heruli, or passed into Italy to serve under
the Roman standards. The Heruli had also settled in Hungary, close
to the Sciri : they were a numerous people, and they supplied the bulk
of the German mercenaries who served in the legions. Herulian troops
were the leaders in the revolt of 476, which overthrew the last emperor;
and Odovacar is styled rex Herulorum. It was the steady influx of these
tribes which led to their demand for a regular settlement in Italy in 476;
and when that settlement took place, it involved the disappearance of the
Empire from Italy, and the erection in its place of a barbarian kingdom,
similar to the kingdoms established by the Vandals and Visigoths, except
that it was a kingdom resting not on one people, but on a number of
different if cognate tribes.
Apart from these new factors, the play of forces remains in many
ways much the same. The Gallo-Romans still form the loyalist core of
the Empire ; but the advance of the Visigoths threatens, and finally
breaks, their connexion with Rome. There is still an intermittent
connexion with the East; and the policy of Gaiseric still contributes
to determine the course of events. It was Gaiseric who, after the
catastrophe of 455, first struck at the derelict Empire. The assassination
of Valentinian had been followed by the accession of Maximus. The
head of the great family of the Anicii, Maximus was the leader of the


## p. 421 (#451) ############################################

455–456]
Maximus and Avitus
421
:
senatorial and Roman party ; and his accession would seem to indicate
an attempt by that party to institute a new government, independent
at once of the magister militiae at home and of the Eastern Emperor at
Constantinople. But it was an age of force; and in such an age such a
government had no root. Gaiseric saw his opportunity, and with no
Aëtius to check his progress, he launched his fleet at Rome. Byzantine
tradition ascribes the attack once more to the influence of a woman;
Eudoxia, the wife of the murdered Valentinian, whom Maximus had
married to support his title, is said to have invited Gaiseric to Rome,
as Honoria is said to have invited Attila, in order to gain her revenge.
In reality Gaiseric simply came because the riches of Rome were to
be had for the coming. As his ships put into the Tiber, the defenceless
Maximus fled from the city, and was killed by the mob in his flight,
after a brief reign of 70 days. The Vandals entered Rome unopposed,
in the month of June. Once more, as in the days of Attila, the Church
shewed itself the only power which, in the absence of an army, could
protect the falling Empire, and at the instance of Pope Leo Gaiseric
confined himself to a peaceful sack of the city. For a fortnight the
.
Vandals plundered at their leisure, secura et libera scrutatione : they
stripped the roof of the Temple of Jupiter of its gilded bronze, and
laid their hands on the sacred vessels of the Temple, which Titus
had brought to Rome nearly four hundred years before. Then they
sailed for Africa with their spoils, and with valuable hostages, destined
for the future to be pawns in the policy of Gaiseric-Gaudentius the son
of Aëtius, and Eudoxia the widow of Valentinian, with her two daughters,
Eudoxia and Placidia.
The next Emperor, Avitus, came from Gaul. Here Thorismud,
the new king of the Visigoths, who had succeeded to his crown on the
Mauriac plain, had been killed by his brothers in 453, for pursuing a
policy “contrary to Roman peace. ” Theodoric II, his successor, owing
his succession to a Roman party, was naturally friendly to Rome.
He had learned Latin from Avitus, a Gallo-Roman noble, and he shewed
his Latin sympathies by renewing the old foedus of the Visigoths with
Rome, and by sending an army to Spain to repress the Bagaudae in the
interest and under the authority of the Empire. Avitus, who had been
despatched to Gaul during the brief reign of Maximus as master of the
troops of the diocese, came to Toulouse in the course of his mission,
during the summer of 455; and here, on the death of Maximus, he was
induced to assume the imperial title. The new Emperor represented
an alliance of the Gallo-Roman nobility with the Visigothic kingdom;
and the fruits of his accession rapidly appeared, when Theodoric, in the
course of 456, acting under an imperial commission, invaded and con-
quered the Suevic kingdom in Spain, which had shewn itself of late
inimical to the Empire, and had taken advantage of the troubles of
455 to pursue a policy of expansion into the Roman territory in the
north-east of the peninsula.
CH. XIV.


## p. 422 (#452) ############################################

422
Ricimer
[455–456
But Avitus, strong as was his position in Gaul and Spain, failed to
conciliate the support of Rome. He was indeed recognised by the
Senate, when first he came to Rome, at the end of 455; and he was
adopted by the Eastern Emperor, Marcian, as his colleague in the
government of the Empire. But difficulties soon arose. One of his
first acts had been the despatch of an embassy to Gaiseric, who seems
to have annexed the province of Tripolitana and reoccupied the
Mauretanias during the course of 455. Avitus demanded the observance
of the treaty of 435, and sent into Sicily an army under Ricimer the
Sueve to support his demand. Gaiseric at once replied by launching
his fleet against Italy; but Ricimer, in 456, was able to win a consider-
able victory over the Vandal fleet near Corsica. The victory might
seem to consolidate the position of Avitus; but Ricimer determined
to use his newly won influence against his master, and he found a body
of discontent in Rome to support his plans. Avitus had come to Rome
with a body of Gothic troops ; but famine had compelled him to dismiss
his allies, and in order to provide them with pay before they departed
he had been forced to strip the bronze from the roofs of public buildings.
In this way he succeeded at once in finally alienating the Romans, who
had always disliked an emperor imposed upon them by Gaul, and in
leaving himself defenceless; and when Ricimer revolted, and the Senate,
in conjunction with Ricimer, passed upon him the sentence of deposition,
he was forced to fly to Gaul. Returning with an insufficient army, in
.
the autumn of 456, he was defeated by Ricimer near Piacenza; and his
short reign was ended by his compulsory consecration to the office of
bishop, and shortly afterwards by his death. It is curious to notice
that the two things which seemed most in his favour had proved his
undoing. The Gothic invasion of Spain, successful as it was, had left
him without the aid of the Gothic king at the critical moment; while
Ricimer's victory over the Vandals had only impelled the victor to
attempt the destruction of his master.
Ricimer, now virtual ruler of the West, was a man of pure German
blood—the son of a Suevic noble by a Visigothic mother, the sister of
Wallia. Magister militum, he is the successor of Stilicho and Aëtius ;
but unlike his predecessors, he has nothing Roman in his composition
and little that is Roman in his policy. Stilicho and Aëtius had wished
to be first in the State, but they had also wished to serve the Theodosian
house ; Ricimer was a jealous barbarian, erecting puppet after puppet,
but unable to tolerate even the rule of his puppets.
His
power
rested
nakedly on the sword and the barbarian mercenaries of his race; and
one only wonders why he tolerated the survival of an emperor in Italy
throughout his life, and did not anticipate Odovacar in making a king-
dom of his own instead. It may be that his early training among the
Visigoths, and his subsequent service under Aëtius, had given him the
Roman tincture which Odovacar lacked ; in any case his policy towards
the Vandals and the Visigoths shews something of a Roman motive.


## p. 423 (#453) ############################################

457–460]
Majorian
423
a
For some months after the disappearance of Avitus there was an
interregnum. Ricimer apparently took no steps to fill the vacancy;
and Marcian, the Eastern Emperor, was on his death-bed. At last Leo,
who had eventually succeeded to Marcian by the grace of Aspar, the
master of the troops” in the East, elevated Ricimer to the dignity of
patricius (457), and named Majorian, who had fought by Ricimer's side
in the struggle of 456, as magister militum in his stead. A few months
afterwards the election of the Senate and the consent of the army
united
to make Majorian emperor. Majorian belonged to an old Roman family
with administrative traditions. His grandfather had been magister pedi-
tum et equitum on the Danube under Theodosius the Great: his father
had been a fiscal officer under Aëtius; and under Aëtius he had himself
served with distinction. If we can trust the evidence of his constitutions
and the testimony of Procopius, Majorian has every title to be considered
one of the greatest of the later Roman Emperors. Not only is the
rescript in which he notifies his accession to the senate full of pledges
of good government; he sought in the course of his reign to redeem his
pledges, and by strengthening, for instance, the office of defensor civitatis
to repeople and reinvigorate the declining municipia of the Empire. The
constitution by which he sought to protect the ancient monuments of
Rome is in marked contrast with the vandalism to which Avitus had been
forced, and bears witness to the conservative and Roman policy which he
sought to pursue. In his foreign policy he addressed himself manfully
to the problems which faced him in Africa, in Gaul, and in Spain.
His first problem lay naturally in Gaul. The party which had
stood for Avitus, and the Visigoths who had been its allies, were both
inevitably opposed to the man who had joined in Avitus' deposition ;
and the reconciliation of Gaul to the new régime was thus of primary
importance. After issuing a number of constitutions for the reform of
the Empire in the course of 458, Majorian crossed the Alps at the end
of the year, with a motley army of Rugians, Sueves and Ostrogoths.
The Gallo-Roman party received him without a struggle, and the
littérateur of the party, Sidonius Apollinaris, pronounced a eulogy on
the Emperor at Lyons. With the Visigoths, who had been attacking
Arles, there was a short but apparently decisive struggle : Theodoric II
was beaten, and renewed his alliance with Rome. It remained for
Majorian to regulate the affairs of Spain, and, using it as a base, to
equip a fleet in its ports for a final attack on Gaiseric. In 460 he
moved into the province. His victory over the Visigoths, themselves in
occupation of much of Spain since 457, had made his path easy; and a
fleet of 300 vessels, which had long been under preparation, was assembled
at the port of Alicante for the expedition against the Vandals. But
Gaiseric, aided by treachery, surprised the fleet and captured a number
of ships: the projected expedition collapsed, like every expedition
against Gaiseric, and Majorian had to acknowledge defeat. He seems
CH. XIV.


## p. 424 (#454) ############################################

424
The reign of Libius Severus
[460–464
to have made a treaty with Gaiseric, recognising the new acquisitions
which Gaiseric had made since 455; but the failure of the expedition
proved nevertheless his ruin. Ricimer was jealous of an emperor who
shewed himself too vigorous ; and though Majorian had sought to con-
ciliate him, as the language of his constitutions shews, he had failed
to appease his jealousy. When he moved into Italy, in the summer of
461, perhaps to forestall an attack by Ricimer, he only came to meet
with defeat and death in a battle near Tortona. With him indeed died
the “Roman name," and in his fall the barbarian party triumphed. His
reign had been filled by a manly attempt at the renovatio imperii, both
by administrative reforms within, and a vigorous policy without; but
his reforms had aroused the opposition of a corrupt bureaucracy; his
foreign policy had been defeated by the cunning of Gaiseric; and he
fell before the jealousy of the barbarian whom he overshadowed.
The death of Majorian advanced the dissolution of the Western
Empire a step further. The Visigoths and the Vandals both regarded
themselves as absolved from the treaties which they had made with
Majorian; and Gaiseric, hating Ricimer as the nephew of Wallia, the
destroyer of part of his people, directed his piratical attacks once more
against Sicily and Italy. Not only so, but when Ricimer raised to the
imperial throne Severus (a puppet-emperor, on the reverse of whose
coins he significantly placed his own monogram), two of the provincial
governors of the Empire refused him allegiance, and ruled as independent
sovereigns within their spheres—Aegidius in central Gaul, and Mar-
cellinus in Dalmatia. Ricimer was almost powerless : he could only
attempt an alliance with the Visigoths against Aegidius, and send his
petitions to the Eastern Emperor Leo to keep Marcellinus and the
Vandals in check. The policy had some success : Aegidius and Theo-
doric checked each other, until the death of the former in 464; and
Marcellinus was induced by the Eastern Emperor to keep the peace.
But Gaiseric, though he consented to restore Eudoxia and one of her
daughters to Leo, refused to cease from his raids upon Italy, until he
had received the inheritances of Aëtius and Valentinian III, which he
claimed in the name of his captives—Gaudentius, the son of Aëtius, and
Eudoxia, the elder daughter of Valentinian, now married to his son
Huneric. To these claims he soon added another. Placidia, the younger
daughter of Valentinian, was married at Constantinople to a Roman
senator, Olybrius; and Gaiseric demanded that Olybrius, now the
brother-in-law of his own son, and therefore likely to be a friend of
the Vandals, should be acknowledged as Emperor of the West. As
Attila had demanded the church plate of Sirmium and the hand of
Honoria, so Gaiseric now demanded the two inheritances and the
succession of Olybrius; and it was to give weight to these demands
that he continued to direct his annual raids against Italy.
It is perhaps the positions held by Aegidius and Marcellinus in Gaul
and Dalmatia which shew most clearly the ruin of the Empire. The


## p. 425 (#455) ############################################

463–465]
Marcellinus, Aegidius and St Severinus
425
flagging brain ceases to control the limbs and members of the State ; the
Roman scheme of an organised world-community falls into fragments.
Marcellinus, one of the young men trained by Aëtius, had been promoted
to the office of magister militiae in Dalmatia. On the murder of Aëtius,
he had refused obedience to Valentinian III ; but on the succession of
Majorian, who was also one of Aëtius' men, he resumed his allegiance to
the Empire, and was given the task of defending Sicily. The fall of
Majorian drove him once more into rebellion, and though he was forced
to leave Sicily, owing to the intrigues of Ricimer among his troops, he
maintained himself as the independent ruler of Dalmatia. In the great
expedition of 468 he joined with the Eastern and Western Emperors as
a practically independent sovereign, and though he was assassinated in
the course of the expedition, possibly at the instigation of Ricimer, he
seems to have left his nephew, Nepos, the future Emperor, to succeed to
his position. A pagan, and a friend of philosophers, with whom he held
high converse in his Dalmatian palace, Marcellinus stands, alike in his
character and in his political position, as one of the most interesting
figures of his age. His contemporary, Aegidius, is a man of more ordinary
type. A lieutenant of Majorian, he had been created magister militum per
Gallias ; and on the death of his master, he had assumed an independent
position in central Gaul, with the aid of the Salian Franks, who, in
revolt against their own king, had, if Gregory of Tours may be trusted,
accepted him for their chief. In 463 he had defeated the Visigoths in
a battle near Orleans, and put himself into touch with Gaiseric for a
combined attack on Italy; but in 464 he died. His power descended to
his son Syagrius, who maintained his independence as “Roman King of
Soissons” until he was overthrown by Clovis in 486. Parallel in some
ways to the position of Marcellinus and Aegidius is the beneficent
theocracy which St Severinus established about the same time in
Noricum, a masterless province unprotected by Rome, and harassed
by the raids of the Rugii from the north of the river. The Saint
mediated for his people with the Rugian kings Flaccitheus and his
successor Feletheus; he used his influence among the provincials of
Noricum to secure the regular payment of tithes for the use of the
poor; in famine and flood he helped his flock, and kept the lamp of
Christianity alight in a dark land.
The death of the nominal Emperor, Severus, in 465, made little
difference in the history of the West. For two years after his death
the West had no emperor of its own, and the whole Empire was nomin-
ally united under Leo I. Ricimer was content to prolong an interregnum,
which left him sole ruler ; Gaiseric was still pressing for the succession
of Olybrius; and Leo was at once unwilling to create an emperor who
was likely to be a vassal of Gaiseric, and anxious to maintain the peace
which existed between the Vandals and the Eastern Empire. Accord-
ingly he delayed the creation of a successor to Severus until Gaiseric, in
CH, XIV.


## p. 426 (#456) ############################################

426
The great armada of 468
[
467-468
F
467, impatient of the delay, delivered an attack on the Peloponnesus.
Leo now felt himself free to act: he listened to the prayers of the Roman
Senate, and appointed as Emperor Anthemius, à son-in-law of the
Emperor Marcian, and a man of large experience, who had held the
highest offices of the Eastern Empire. The gift of Anthemius' daughter
in marriage was intended to conciliate the support of Ricimer; and East
and West, thus united together on a firm basis, were to deliver a final
and crushing attack on the Vandals, and to punish Gaiseric for the reign
of terror he had exercised in the West ever since 461. '
In April 467, Anthemius came to Italy, escorted by Count Mar-
cellinus and an army. By 468 a great armada had been collected, to
be launched against Carthage. The expenses were enormous: one office
supplied 47,000 pounds of gold, another 17,000 pounds of gold and
700,000 pounds of silver; and this vast sum, which seems incredibly
large, was furnished partly from the proceeds of confiscations, and partly
by the Emperor Anthemius. A triple attack was projected. On the
side of the East Basiliscus was to command the armada, and to deliver
an attack on Carthage, while Heraclius marched by land through Tripoli
to deliver a simultaneous attack on the flank of the Vandals. On the side of
the West Marcellinus (conciliated by the Eastern Emperor, who was not
unwilling to see Dalmatia in the hands of a ruler practically independent
of the West) commanded a force which was destined to operate in
Sardinia and Sicily. Once more, however, Gaiseric defeated his foes, as
in 442 and 461, and once more treachery, perhaps instigated by the
subtle Vandal, proved the ruin of an expedition against Carthage. The
Alan Aspar, magister militum per Orientem, frowned on an expedition
which might render his master independent of his support; and already
dubious of his ascendancy, he seems to have procured the nomination of
Basiliscus, an incapable procrastinator, in order to ruin the success of the
expedition. Ricimer, generalissimo of the West, was in a very similar
position: he feared the success of the expedition, because it might con-
solidate the power of Anthemius, and he hated with a personal hatred
the Count Marcellinus, who commanded the Western forces. The
inevitable result followed. Basiliscus was amused by Gaiseric with
negotiations, and not unwillingly delayed, until Gaiseric sent fire-ships
among his armada, and destroyed the bulk of his ships; while Mar-
cellinus, after recovering Sardinia, was killed in Sicily by an assassin,
in whom it is impossible not to suspect an agent of Ricimer. The success
gained by Heraclius, who had won Tripoli and was marching on Carthage,
was neutralised; the destruction of Basiliscus' fleet and the assassination
of Marcellinus involved the complete failure of the expedition. When
one remembers that Aspar, Ricimer and Gaiseric were all Arians, one
almost wonders if the whole story does not indicate an Arian conspiracy
against the Catholic Empire; but political exigencies are sufficient to
explain the issue, and the real fact would appear to be, that the two
:


## p. 427 (#457) ############################################

468–471]
The reign of Anthemius
427
generalissimos of East and West were content to purchase their own
security at the cost of the Empire they served.
Aspar indeed failed in the event to buy security, even at the price
he had been willing to pay. In 471 Leo attempted a coup d'état :
Aspar fell, and the victorious Emperor, who had already been recruiting
Isaurians within his own Empire, in order to counteract and eventually
supersede the dangerous influence of the German mercenaries, was able
to continue his policy, and thus to preserve the independent existence of
the Eastern Empire. With the West it was different. Here there was
no substitute for Ricimer and his Germans: here there was no elasticity
which would enable the Empire to recover, as it did in the East, from
the loss of prestige and of resources involved by the disastrous failure of
468. For a time, indeed, Anthemius, with the support of the Senate
which had called him to the throne, and of the Roman party which
hated barbarian domination, struggled to make head against Ricimer.
The struggle partly turned on the course of events in Gaul. Here Euric,
in 466, had assassinated his brother Theodoric II, as Theodoric had
before assassinated his brother Thorismud. A vigorous and enterprising
king, the most successful of all the Visigothic rulers of Toulouse, Euric
immediately began, after the failure of the expedition of 468, to take
advantage of the condition of the Western Empire in order to make
himself ruler of the whole of Gaul. He may have hoped to gain the
aid of the Gallo-Roman nobility, who were by no means friendly to the
ascendancy of Ricimer; and there were certainly Roman officials in
Gaul, like Arvandus, the Praefectus Praetorio, who lent themselves to his
plans. But Anthemius and the Senate saw the danger by which they
were threatened. Arvandus was brought to Rome in 469, tried by the
Senate, and sentenced to death-a striking instance of the activity which
the Senate could still display; and Anthemius attempted to gain the
support of the nobility of Gaul, by giving the title of patricius to
Ecdicius, the son of Avitus, and the office of praefect of Rome to Sidonius
Apollinaris. In spite of these measures, however, he failed to save Gaul
from the Visigoths. In 470 Euric took the field, and, defeating a Roman
army, gained possession of Arles and other towns as the prize of his
victory. Much of Auvergne also fell into his hands, but he failed to
take its chief city, Clermont, where the valour of Ecdicius and the
exhortations of Sidonius, newly consecrated bishop of the city, inspired
a stout resistance. Yet Gaul was none the less really lost; and failure
in Gaul meant for Anthemius ruin in Italy. Already in 471 civil war
was imminent. Ricimer, seeing his chance, had gathered his forces at
Milan, while Anthemius was stationed at Rome. Round the one was
collected the army of Teutonic mercenaries ; round the other, though he
was not popular in Catholic Italy, being reputed to be “ Hellenic” and a
lover of philosophy, there rallied the officials, the Senate, and the people
of Rome. Once more the old struggle of the Roman and barbarian
CH, XIV.


## p. 428 (#458) ############################################

428
The accession of Olybrius
[ 472–473
parties was destined to be rehearsed. For a moment the mediation of
Epiphanius, the saintly bishop of Pavia, procured (if we may trust the
account of his biographer Ennodius) a temporary peace; but in 472 war
came. Early in the year Ricimer marched on Rome, and besieged the
city with an army, in which the Scirian Odovacar was one of the
commanders. For five months the city suffered from siege and from
famine. At last an army which had marched from Gaul to the relief of
Anthemius, under the command of Bilimer, the master of troops of that
province, was defeated by Ricimer, and treachery completed the fall of
the beleaguered city. In July Ricimer marched into Rome, now under
the heel of a conqueror for the third time in the course of the century;
and Anthemius, seeking in vain to save his life by mingling in disguise
with the beggars round the door of one of the Roman churches, was
detected and beheaded by Ricimer's nephew, Gundobad. Once more the
Empire seemed destroyed : civil war, said Pope Gelasius, had overturned
the city and the feeble remnants of the Roman Empire.
The death of Anthemius had already been preceded by the accession
of Olybrius, the husband of Valentinian's daughter, and the relative
by marriage of Gaiseric. The circumstances of the accession of Olybrius
are obscure. A curious story in a late Byzantine writer makes him
appear in Italy during the struggle between Anthemius and Ricimer,
with public instructions from Leo to mediate in the struggle, but with
a sealed letter to Anthemius, in which it was suggested that the bearer
should be instantly executed. The letter is said to have fallen into the
hands of Ricimer, who replied by elevating Olybrius to the imperial
throne. We can only say that Olybrius came to Italy in the spring of
472, whether sent by Leo, or (as is perhaps more likely) invited by
Ricimer, and that he was proclaimed emperor by Ricimer before the fall
of Rome and the death of Anthemius. The reign of Olybrius, connected
as he was with the old Theodosian house and with the Vandal rulers of
Africa, seemed to promise well for the future of the West; but it only
lasted for a few months. Short as it was, it saw the death of Ricimer,
at the end of August 472, and the elevation in his place of his nephew
Gundobad, a Burgundian. But though a nominal successor took his
place, the death of Ricimer left a gap that could not be filled. If he
was a barbarian, he had yet in his way venerated the Roman name and
preserved the tradition of the Roman Empire; he had sought to be
emperor-maker rather than King of Italy, and for sixteen years he had
kept the Empire alive in the West. Within four years of his death the
last shadow of an emperor had disappeared ; and a barbarian kingdom
had been established in Italy.
Olybrius died at the end of October 472. The throne remained
vacant through the winter; and it was not until March of 473 that
Gundobad proclaimed Glycerius emperor at Ravenna. But Gundobad
soon left Italy, having affairs in Gaul; and Glycerius, deprived of his
1


## p. 429 (#459) ############################################

473–475]
Nepos and Orestes
429
support, was unable to maintain his position. He succeeded, indeed, in
averting one danger, when he induced a body of Ostrogoths, who had
entered Italy from the north-east under their king Widimir, to join
their kinsmen, the Visigoths of Gaul. His position, however, had never
been confirmed by the Eastern Emperor; and at the end of 473 Leo
appointed Julius Nepos, the nephew of Marcellinus of Dalmatia, to be
emperor in his place.
In the spring of 474 Nepos arrived in Italy with
an army: Glycerius could offer no resistance; and in the middle of June
he was captured at Portus, near the mouth of the Tiber, and forcibly
consecrated bishop of Salona in Dalmatia'. The accession of Nepos
seemed a triumph for the Roman cause, and a defeat for the barbarian
party. Once more, as in the days of Anthemius, an emperor ruled at
Rome who was the real colleague and ally of the Emperor of Constanti-
nople; and Nepos, unlike Anthemius, had the advantage of having no
master of troops at his side. With the aid of the Eastern Empire, and
in the absence of any successor to Ricimer, Nepos might possibly hope
to secure the permanent triumph of the Roman cause in the West.
But the aid of the Eastern Empire was destined to prove a broken
reed, and Ricimer was fated to find his successor. In 475 a revolt,
headed by Basiliscus, drove Zeno, who had succeeded to Leo in 474,
from Constantinople, and disturbed the East until 477. The West was
thus left to its own resources during the crisis of its fate; and taking
their opportunity the barbarian mercenaries found themselves new
leaders, and under their guidance settled its fate at their will. For the
first few months of his reign Nepos was left undisturbed; but even so he
was compelled to make a heavy sacrifice, and to buy peace with Euric at
the price of the formal surrender of Auvergne, to the great grief of its
bishop Sidonius? In 475, however, there appeared a new leader of the
.
barbarian mercenaries. This was Orestes, a Roman of Pannonia, who
had served Attila as secretary, and had been entrusted by his master
with the conduct of negotiations with the Roman Empire. On the
death of Attila, he had come to Italy, and having married a daughter
of Romulus, an Italian of the rank of comes, who had served under
Aëtius as ambassador to the Huns, he had had a successful career in
the imperial service. He had risen high enough by 475 to be created
magister militiae by Nepos ; and in virtue both of his official position and
of a natural sympathy which his previous career must have inspired he
became the leader of the barbarian party. Once at the head of the
army he instantly marched upon Rome. Nepos, powerless before his
adversary, fled to Ravenna, and unable to maintain himself there,
· Perhaps the first instance of this method of political extinction.
2 Schmidt (Geschichte der deutschen Stämme, p. 265) believes that the treaty
meant the cession to Euric in full sovereignty of all the territories between the
Loire on the north, the Atlantic on the west, the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean
on the south, and the Rhone on the east.
CH. XIV.


## p. 430 (#460) ############################################

430
The mutiny of 476
[475–476
son,
:
escaped at the end of August 475 to his native Dalmatia, where he
survived as an emperor in exile until he was assassinated by his followers
in 480. At the end of October Orestes proclaimed as emperor his
a boy named Romulus after his maternal grandfather, and surnamed
(perhaps only in derision, and after his fall) Augustulus. Thus was
restored the old régime of the nominal emperor controlled by the
military dictator, and for nearly a year this régime continued.
But the barbarian mercenaries—the Rugii, Sciri and Heruli-were
by no means contented with the old condition of things. Since the fall
of Attila, they had emigrated so steadily into Italy from the north-east,
that they had become a numerous people; and they desired to find for
themselves, in the country of their adoption, what other Germanic tribes
had found in Gaul and Spain and Africa—a regular settlement on the
soil in the position of hospites. They would no longer be cantoned in
barracks in the Roman fashion: they desired to be free farmers settled on
the soil after the German manner, ready to attend the levy in time of need
for the defence of Italy, but not bound to serve continually in foreign
expeditions as a professional army. They accordingly asked of Orestes
a third of the soil of Italy: they demanded that every Roman possessor
should cede a third of his estate to some German hospes. It appears
a modest demand, when one reflects that the Visigoths settled by
Constantius in south-western Gaul in 418 had been allowed two-thirds
of the soil and its appurtenant cattle and cultivators. But the cession
of 418 had been a matter of free grant: the demand of 476 was the
demand of a mutinous soldiery. The grant of south-western Gaul had
been the grant of one corner of the Empire, made with the design of
protecting the rest : the surrender of Italy would mean the surrender
of the home and hearth of the Empire. Orestes accordingly rejected
the demand of the troops. They replied by creating Odovacar their
king, and under his banner they took for themselves what Orestes
refused to give.
Odovacar, perhaps a Scirian by birth, and possibly the son of a
certain Edeco who had once served with Orestes as one of the envoys
of Attila, had passed through Noricum, where St Severinus had predicted
his future greatness, and come to Italy somewhere about 470. He had
served under Ricimer in 472 against Anthemius; and by 476 he had
evidently distinguished himself sufficiently to be readily chosen as their
king by the congeries of Germanic tribes which were cantoned in Italy.
His action was prompt and decisive. He became king on 23 August :
by the 28th Orestes had been captured and beheaded at Piacenza, and on
4 September Paulus, the brother of Orestes, was killed in attempting to
defend Ravenna. The Emperor Romulus Augustulus became the captive
of the new king, who, however, spared the life of the handsome boy, and
sent him to live on a pension in a Campanian villa. While Odovacar
was annexing Italy, Euric was spreading his conquests in Gaul; and
when he occupied Marseilles, Gaul, like Italy, was lost.


## p. 431 (#461) ############################################

476]
The position of Odovacur
431
The success of Odovacar did not, however, mean the erection of an
absolutely independent Teutonic kingdom in Italy, or the total extinc-
tion of the Roman Empire in the West; and it does not therefore
indicate the beginning of a new era, in anything like the same sense
as the coronation of Charlemagne in 800. It is indeed a new and
important fact, that after 476 there was no Western Emperor until the
year 800, and it must be admitted that the absence of any separate
Emperor of the West vitally affected both the history of the Teutonic
tribes and the development of the Papacy, during those three centuries.
But the absence of a separate emperor did not mean the abeyance of the
Empire itself in the West. The Empire had always been, and always
continued in theory to be, one and indivisible. There might be two
representatives at the head of the imperial scheme; but the disappear-
ance of one of the two did not mean the disappearance of half of the
scheme; it only meant that for the future one representative would
stand at the head of the whole scheme, and that this scheme would be
represented somewhat less effectively in that part of the Empire which
had now lost its separate head. The scheme itself continued in the
West, and its continued existence was acknowledged by Odovacar him-
self. Zeno now became the one ruler of the Empire; and to him
Odovacar sent the imperial insignia of Romulus Augustulus, while he
demanded in return the traditional title of patricius, to legalise his
position in the imperial order. The old Roman administration persisted
in Italy: there was still a Praefectus Praetorio Italiae ; and the Roman
Senate still nominated a consul for the West. Odovacar is thus not so
much an independent German king, as a second Ricimer—a patricius,
holding the reins of power in his own hands, but acknowledging a
nominal emperor, with the one difference that the emperor is now the
ruler of the East, and not a puppet living at Rome or Ravenna. Yet
after all Odovacar bore the title of rex: he had been lifted to power on
the shields of German warriors. De facto, he ruled in Italy as its king;
and while his legal position looks backwards to Ricimer, we cannot but
admit that his actual position looks forward to Alboin and the later
Lombard kings. He is a Janus-like figure; and while we remember
that he looks towards the past, we must not forget that he also faces the
future. We may insist that the Empire remained in the West after 476;
we must also insist that every vestige of a Western Emperor had passed
away. We may speak of Odovacar as patricius ; we must also allow that
he spoke of himself as rex. He is of the fellowship of Euric and
Gaiseric; and when we remember that these three were ruling in
Gaul and Africa and Italy in 476, we shall not quarrel greatly with the
words of Count Marcellinus: Hesperium Romanae gentis imperium. . .
cum hoc Augustulo periit. . . Gothorum dehinc regibus Romam tenentibus.
OH. XIV.


## p. 432 (#462) ############################################

432
CHAPTER XV.
THE KINGDOM OF ITALY UNDER ODOVACAR
AND THEODORIC.
The time between the years 476 and 526 is a period of transition
from the system of twin Empires which existed from the time of Arcadius
and Honorius to the separation of Italy from the rest of the Empire.
It is for this reason an interesting period. It marks the surrender by
Constantinople of a certain measure of autonomy to that portion of
the Empire which, finding that government under the faction set up
after the death of Theodosius was impossible, had ended by submission
to rulers nominated from Byzantium; it marks too, the progress achieved
by the barbarians, who far from wishing to destroy a state of things
which had formerly been hostile, adapted themselves to it readily when
they had once risen to power, and shewed themselves as careful of its
traditions as their predecessors; it marks further, the preponderant
part played in the affairs of the time by a growing power—the Church-
and the adaptability shewn by her in dealing with kings who were
heretics and avowed followers of Arius.
The attempt to found an Italian kingdom was destined to speedy
failure. There were too many obstacles in the way of its permanent
establishment; Justinian it is true was to shew himself capable of
giving effectual support to the claims of Byzantium and of making an
end of the Ostrogothic kingdom, but even his authority was powerless
to bring about the union of the two portions of the Roman Empire.
Another barbarian race, the Lombards, shared with the Papacy-
the one authority which emerged victorious from these struggles—the
possession of a country which, owing to the irreconcilable nature of
the lay and religious elements, was destined to recover only in modern
times unity, peace and that consciousness of a national existence which
is the sole guarantee of
permanence.
1
Cassiodorus writes in his chronicle: “ In the Consulate of Basiliscus
and Armatus, Orestes and his brother Paulus were slain by Odovacar ;


## p. 433 (#463) ############################################

474–476]
Orestes
433
the latter took the title of king, albeit he wore not the purple, nor
assumed the insignia of royalty. ” We have here in the concise language
of an annalist intent on telling much in a few words, the history of a
revolution which appears to us, at this distance of time, to have been
pregnant with consequences. The Emperor--that Romulus Augustulus
whose associated names have so often served to point a moral—is not
mentioned. It was left to Jordanes alone, a century later, to make
any reference to him. The seizure of the supreme power by military
leaders of barbarian origin, had become since the time of Ricimer a
recognised process; it is moreover Orestes who is attacked by Odovacar,
and Orestes was a simple patrician and in no sense clothed with the
imperial dignity. The Empire itself suffered no change, it was merely
that one more barbarian had come to the front. It was only when
Odovacar was to set up pretensions to independent and sovereign
authority that annalists and chroniclers were to accord him special
mention on the ground that his claim was without precedent. Up to
that point his intervention was only one among many similar events
which occurred at this period.
Orestes was of Pannonian origin ; he had acted as secretary to Attila,
and with Edeco had taken a chief part in frustrating the conspiracy
organised by Theodosius II against the life of the king of the Huns.
After the death of the barbarian king, he entered the service of
Anthemius, who appointed him commander of the household troops.
He took part—under what circumstances we are ignorant-in the
struggles which brought about the fall and the murder of Anthemius,
an emperor imposed from Constantinople, the elevation and death of
Olybrius, the short-lived rule of the Burgundian Gundobad and the
elevation of Glycerius. For the second time the East imposed an
Augustus on the West, and Leo appointed Julius Nepos to bear rule at
Rome. Under his reign Orestes, who had been promoted to the rank
of commander-in-chief, was charged with the task of transferring
Auvergne to the Visigoth king Euric, to whom it had been ceded by
the Roman government.
How it came about that Orestes, instead of leading his army to
Gaul, led it against Ravenna and who induced him to attack Nepos, we
have no documentary evidence to shew. Nepos fled and retired to
Salona where he found his predecessor Glycerius, whom he had appointed
to be bishop of that place. Having achieved this success Orestes
proclaimed as the new Emperor Romulus Augustulus, his son by the
daughter of Count Romulus, a Roman noble (475). Even as Orestes
had driven out Nepos, another barbarian_Odovacar-was before long
to drive out Orestes and his son, and once more the contemporary
documents afford no plausible explanation of this fresh revolution.
Odovacar was a Rugian, the son of that Edeco, Attila's general and
minister. Odovacar had followed his father's colleague into Italy where
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. XV.
28


## p. 434 (#464) ############################################

434
Odovacar
[476
he occupied the humble position of spearman in the household troop,
from which he gradually rose to higher rank. Whether the ambition
which fired him was provoked by the spectacle of the internal conflicts
in which he took part, or whether by the prediction of St Severinus the
Apostle of Noricum, it is impossible to say. It is, however, certain
that in the Lives of the Saints there is a record to the effect that
Severinus in his hermitage of Favianum was visited one day by certain
barbarians who asked for his benediction before going to seek their
fortunes in Italy, and one of them, scantily clad in the skins of beasts,
was of so lofty a stature that he was compelled to stoop in order to pass
through the low doorway of the cell. The monk observed the movement
and exclaimed : “Go, go forward into Italy. To-day thou art clothed
in sorry skins but ere long thou shalt distribute great rewards to many
people. ” The man whom Severinus thus designated for supreme rule
was Odovacar the son of Edeco. He appears to have enjoyed great
popularity among the mercenary troops, and profiting by their discontent
at the failure of Orestes to reward their devotion, he induced them to
take active measures, and gained to his side the barbarians of Liguria and
the Trentino. Orestes declined the combat offered by Odovacar in the
plains of Lodi, retreated behind the Lambro with the object of
covering Pavia and shortly afterwards shut himself up in that city.
Odovacar laid siege to him there, and Pavia, which, as Ennodius tells us,
had been pillaged by the soldiers of Orestes, was sacked by the troops
of Odovacar; Orestes was delivered up to Odovacar who had him put to
death 28 August 476. Odovacar next marched on Ravenna which
was defended by Paulus the brother of Orestes and where Romulus had
taken refuge. In a chance encounter which took place in a pine forest
close to the city Paulus was killed and Odovacar occupied Ravenna,
which had taken the place of Rome as the favourite residence of the
Caesars of the West.
Romulus who had hidden himself and cast off the fatal purple was
brought before him. Odovacar taking pity on his youth and moved by
his beauty consented to spare his life. He moreover granted him a
revenue of 6000 gold solidi and assigned him as his residence the
Lucullanum, a villa in Campania near Cape Misenum which had been
built by Marius and decorated by Lucullus.
In succession to three Emperors of the West who still survived —
Glycerius and Nepos in Dalmatia and Romulus in Campania-Odovacar,
styled by Jordanes King of the Rugians, by the Anonymus Valesii
King of the Turcilingi and by other authorities Prince of the Sciri,
now wielded supreme power.
At this point certain questions arise as to the nature of the
authority which he exercised and to his relations with Byzantium and
the established powers in Italy. The documents which supply an


## p. 435 (#465) ############################################

476–480]
Odovacar and Zeno
435
answer are scanty. The passages devoted to Odovacar give no details
except such as relate to the beginning and end of his reign; it is plain
too, that the Latin writers of the time were more intent on pleasing
Theodoric than on recording the facts of history.
Cassiodorus has been careful to point out that Odovacar refused
altogether to assume the imperial insignia and the purple robe and
was content with the “ title of king. ” These events took place when
Basiliscus having driven Zeno from power was reigning as Emperor of
the East, that is, at a moment of dynastic trouble in the other half
of the Empire. The possession of Ravenna, the exile of Romulus and
the death of Orestes did not suffice to secure to Odovacar the lordship
of Italy; it was only after his formal entry into Rome and his tacit
recognition by the Senate, that he could look upon his authority as
finally established.
He was not however satisfied with this, but desired a formal
appointment by the Emperor and the recognition of his authority by
Constantinople. A palace conspiracy which broke out in 477 having
replaced Zeno on the throne of Byzantium, the ex-sovereign Romulus
Augustulus, in spite of the fact that never having been formally
recognised by the Emperor, he had no legal claim to take such a step,
sent certain Senators as an embassy to Zeno'. The representatives of
the Senate were instructed to inform the Emperor that Italy had no
need of a separate ruler and that the autocrat of the two divisions
of the Empire sufficed as Emperor for both, that Odovacar moreover, in
virtue of his political capacity and military strength, was fully competent
to protect the interests of the Italian diocese, and under these circum-
stances they prayed that Zeno would recognise the high qualities of
Odovacar by conferring on him the title of Patrician and by entrusting
him with the government of Italy.
The Emperor's reply was truly diplomatic. After severely censuring
the Senate for the culpable indifference they had shewn with respect to
the murder of Anthemius and the expulsion of Nepos, two sovereigns
who had been sent by the East to rule in Italy, he declared to the
ambassadors that it was their business to decide on the course to be
pursued. Certain members of the legation represented more especially the
interests of Odovacar, and to them the Emperor declared that he fully
approved of the conduct of the barbarian in adopting Roman manners,
and that he would forthwith bestow on him the well-merited title of
Patrician if Nepos had not already done so', and he gave them a letter
1 Malchus gives the history of this embassy. Excerpt. de leg. gent. ap. Müller,
Fragm. Hist. Graec. iv. 119. Müller quite gratuitously emends the text on the
supposition that the embassy was sent by Odovacar and not, as the Byzantine writer
states, by Augustulus. The original reading is far more convincing.
2 This is the first allusion to the promotion of Odovacar to the important office
which during the reign of Nepos had been filled by Orestes.
CH. XV.
28—2


## p. 436 (#466) ############################################

436
Odovacar's Government
[480-490
for Odovacar in which he granted him the dignity in question. Zeno
in short had to recognise the fait accompli, the more so as the
ambassadors from Rome to Byzantium had there found themselves in
the presence of another mission sent from Dalmatia by Nepos to beg
for the deposed sovereign the assistance of the newly restored Emperor.
He however could only condole with him on his lot and point out its
similarity to that from which he himself had just escaped.
There is yet another proof of the tacit recognition of Odovacar's
authority. In 480 Nepos was assassinated by the Counts Victor and
Ovida (or Odiva) and in 481, as if he had been the legitimate heir
of a predecessor whose death it was his duty to avenge, Odovacar led
an expedition against the murderers, defeated and slew Ovida and
restored Dalmatia to the Italian diocese. More than this, Odovacar
looked upon himself as the formally appointed representative of Zeno,
for at the time of the revolt of Illus, he refused to aid the latter, who
had applied to him as well as to the kings of Persia and Armenia for
assistance against the Emperor. He had already exercised sovereign
power in the cession of Narbonne to the Visigoths of Euric and
in the conclusion of a treaty with Gaiseric in 477, by the terms of
which the king of the Vandals restored Sicily to the Italians, subject
to the payment of a tribute and retaining possession of a castle which
he had built in the island.
This is all we know, till Theodoric appears upon the scene, of the
,
achievements of Odovacar ; with respect to his relations with the in-
habitants of Italy we are better informed. In and after 482 the regular
record of consuls, interrupted since 477, was resumed. The Roman
administration continued to work as in the past; there was a praetorian
praefect Pelagius who, like so many of his predecessors, contrived to
exact contributions on his own behalf as well as on behalf of the State.
The relations between Odovacar and the Senate were so intimate that
together and in their joint names they set up statues to Zeno in the
city of Rome. Between the Church and Odovacar, albeit he was an
Arian, no difficulties arose, the Pope Simplicius (468-483) recognised
the authority of Odovacar, and the king preserved excellent relations with
Epiphanius, bishop of Pavia, and with St Severinus, whose requests he
was accustomed to treat with marked deference and respect. On the
death of Simplicius in March 483, a meeting of the Senate and clergy
took place and on the proposition of the praetorian praefect and patrician
Basilius, it was resolved that the election of a new pope should not
take place without previous consultation with the representative of
King Odovacar, as he is styled without addition in the report of the
proceedings. Further, future popes were bidden in the name of
the king and under threat of anathema to refrain from alienating
the possessions of the Church.
The picture of Italy under the government of Odovacar is difficult


## p. 437 (#467) ############################################

476–487]
Reign of Odovacar. Theodoric
437
to trace. We have no Cassiodorus to preserve for us the terms of
the decrees which he signed. Our only source of information, the works
of Ennodius, is by no means free from suspicion. If we are to believe
the bishop of Pavia, it was the evil one in person who inspired
Odovacar with the ambition to reign, that he was a destroyer-populator
intestinus—that his fall was a veritable relief and that Theodoric was
a deliverer ; in short that Odovacar was a tyrant in the full sense of
the word.
It must be remembered that it is the panegyrist of Theodoric who
speaks in these terms. The word tyrant which he employs must be
understood, as the Byzantine historians understood it, in its Greek
sense, that is, in the sense of an authority set up out of the ordinary
course. The specific charges of tyranny which are made against Odovacar
are unconvincing, especially the accusation that he distributed amongst
his soldiers a third of the land of Italy. We will deal later with the
part played by Theodoric.
It is not among these events that we must look for the cause of
the fall of Odovacar; the only possible explanation lies in the fact that
the Italians obeyed with alacrity, so soon as they were made clear, the
orders of Constantinople on domestic affairs—holding themselves free
to disobey them later on—and it was by the formal and specific
authority of the Emperor that Theodoric was sent into Italy.
Theodoric, an Amal by birth, was the son of Theodemir king of
the Goths and his wife Erelieva. His father had discharged the duties
of a paid warden of the marches on the northern frontiers of the
Empire of the East. Theodoric having been sent to Constantinople
as a hostage spent his childhood and youth in that city; he stood high
in the favour of the Emperor Leo and became deeply imbued with
Greek civilisation ; his education cannot however have advanced very
far, as when he reigned in Italy he was unable to sign his name and
was compelled therefore to trace with his pen the first four letters
cut out for the purpose in a sheet of gold.
On the death of his father, having in his turn become king,
Theodoric established his headquarters in Moesia and found himself
involved in a chronic struggle with a Gothic chief Theodoric “the
Squinter” (Theodoric Strabo), who aspired to the kingly dignity.
To accomplish this purpose Theodoric Strabo relied on the good will
of the Eastern Emperors. Having thrown in his lot with Basiliscus,
he helped him to drive Zeno from the throne and received rewards
in the shape of money and military rank; but when Zeno returned
to power it was Theodoric the Amal who in virtue of his fidelity stood
highest in the imperial favour. Adopted by the Emperor, loaded with
wealth and raised to patrician dignity, he enjoyed from 475 to 479
great influence at the Byzantine Court. He was given the command
CH. XV.


## p. 438 (#468) ############################################

438
Theodoric
[481–488
of an expedition sent to chastise Strabo who had risen in revolt, and
found his rival encamped in the Haemus; the men of each army were
of kindred race and Theodoric the Amal was compelled by his soldiers
to form a coalition with the enemy. Till the death of Strabo, which
occurred in 481, the two Theodorics intrigued together against the
Emperor and with the Emperor against each other and there followed
a series of reconciliations and mutual betrayals. From that time
forward Theodoric the Amal became a formidable power, he held
Dacia and Moesia and it was necessary to treat him with respect. Zeno
nominated him for Consul in 483 and in 484 he filled that office; it
was in this capacity that he subdued the rebels Illus and Leontius, and
on this ground he was granted in 486 the honour of a triumph and
an equestrian statue in one of the squares of Byzantium.
This accumulation of dignities conferred by Zeno concealed the
distrust which he felt, and which before long he made manifest by
sending Theodoric into Italy.
Jordanes maintains that it was Theodoric himself who conceived the
plan of the conquest of Italy and that in a long speech addressed to
the Emperor, he depicted the sufferings of his own nation which was
then quartered in Illyria and the advantages which would accrue to
Zeno in having as his vicegerent a son instead of a usurper, and a ruler
who would hold his kingdom by the imperial bounty. Certain authors
such as the Anonymus Valesii and Paulus Diaconus have transformed
this permission granted by the Emperor into a formal treaty giving
to Theodoric the assurance, says the former, that he should “reign
in the place of Odovacar, and recommending him, says the latter-
after formally investing him with the purple—to the good graces of
the Senate. The explanation given by Procopius and adopted by
Jordanes in another passage is, however, more plausible. Zeno, better
pleased that Theodoric should go into Italy than that he should remain
close at hand and in the neighbourhood of Byzantium, sent him to
attack Odovacar; a similar method had been pursued with Widimir and
Ataulf in order to remove them to a distance from Rome. In any
case it was in the name of the Emperor that Theodoric acted, and he
held his power by grant from him.
The title which he bore when he started from Constantinople, that
of Patrician, sufficed in his own opinion and that of Zeno to legalise
his power and to clothe him with the necessary authority: it was the
same rank as that borne by Odovacar. Later, like Odovacar, he aspired
to something higher and like him he was to fail in his attempts to
obtain it. Ženo had no intention of yielding up his rights over Italy,
and recognised no one other than himself as the lawful heir of
Theodosius.
In 488 Theodoric crossed the frontier at the head of his Goths ;
it was the first step in the conquest which took five years to complete.
9


## p. 439 (#469) ############################################

488—493 ]
Theodoric and Odovacar
439
Odovacar opposed him at the head of an army not less formidable but less
homogeneous than that of his adversary. He was defeated on the Isonzo;
he retreated on Verona, was once more beaten and fled to Ravenna.
Theodoric profited by this error of tactics to make himself master
of Lombardy, and Tufa, Odovacar's lieutenant in that district, came over
to his side. This was merely a stratagem, as when Tufa was sent with
a picked body of Goths to attack Odovacar, he rejoined him with his
Ostrogoths at Faventia. In 490 Odovacar again took the offensive;
he sallied from Cremona, retook Milan and shut up Theodoric in Pavia.
The latter would have been destroyed if the arrival of the Visigoths
of Widimir and a diversion made by the Burgundians in Liguria, had
not left him free to rout Odovacar in a second battle on the Adda
and to pursue him up to the walls of Ravenna. In August 490
Theodoric camped in the pine forest which Odovacar had occupied in
his campaign against Orestes and a siege began which was to last three
years. In 491 Odovacar made a sortie in which, after a first success,
he was finally defeated and the siege became a blockade.
Theodoric, while keeping the enemy under observation, proceeded
to capture other towns and to form various alliances. He seized
Rimini and so destroyed the means of provisioning Ravenna, after
which he opened negotiations with the Italians.