455. GEISERICH TAKES ROME.
The alliance between Aëtius and the Visigoths ceased immediately after the great battle. Valentinian III., suspicious of the fame of Aëtius, recalled him to Rome, the year after Attila's death, and assassinated him with his own hand. The treacherous Emperor was himself slain, shortly afterwards, by Maximus, who succeeded him, and forced his widow, the Empress Eudoxia, to accept him as her husband. Out of revenge, Eudoxia sent a messenger to Geiserich, the old king of the Vandals, at Carthage, summoning him to Rome. The Vandals had already built a large fleet and pillaged the shores of Sicily and other Mediterranean islands. In 455, Geiserich landed at the mouth of the Tiber with a powerful force, and marched upon Rome. The city was not strong enough to offer any resistance: it was taken, and during two weeks surrendered to such devastation and outrage that the word vandalism has ever since been used to express savage and wanton destruction. The churches were plundered of all their vessels and ornaments, the old Palace of the Cæsars was laid waste, priceless works of art destroyed, and those of the inhabitants who escaped with their lives were left almost as beggars.
When "the old king of the sea," as Geiserich was called, returned to Africa, he not only left Rome ruined, but the Western Empire practically overthrown. For seventeen years afterwards, Ricimer, a chief of the Suevi, who had been commander of the Roman auxiliaries in Gaul, was the real ruler of its crumbling fragments. He set up, set aside or slew five or six so-called Emperors, at his own will, and finally died in 472, only four years before the boy, Romulus Augustulus, was compelled to throw off the purple and retire into obscurity as "the last Emperor of Rome."
In 455, the year when Geiserich and his Vandals plundered Rome, the Germanic tribes along the Danube took advantage of the dissensions following Attila's death, and threw off their allegiance to the Huns. They all united under a king named Ardaric, gave battle, and were so successful that the whole tribe of the Huns was forced to retreat eastward into Southern Russia. From this time they do not appear again in history, although it is probable that the Magyars, who came later into the same region from which they were driven, brought the remnants of the tribe with them.
450.
During the fourth and fifth centuries, the great historic achievements of the German race, as we have now traced them, were performed outside of the German territory. While from Thrace to the Atlantic Ocean, from the Scottish Highlands to Africa, the new nationalities overran the decayed Roman Empire, constantly changing their seats of power, we have no intelligence of what was happening within Germany itself. Both branches of the Goths, the Vandals and a part of the Franks had become Christians, but the Alemanni, Saxons and Thuringians were still heathens, although they had by this time adopted many of the arts of civilized life. They had no educated class, corresponding to the Christian priesthood in the East, Italy and Gaul, and even in Britain; and thus no chronicle of their history has survived.
Either before or immediately after Attila's invasion of Gaul, the Marcomanni crossed the Danube, and took possession of the plains between that river and the Alps. They were called the Boiarii, from their former home of four centuries in Bohemia, and from this name is derived the German Baiern, Bavaria. They kept possession of the new territory, adapted themselves to the forms of Roman civilization which they found there, and soon organized themselves into a small but distinct and tolerably independent nation.
But the period of the Migration of the Races was not yet finished. The shadow of the old Roman Empire still remained, and stirred the ambition of each successive king, so that he was not content with territory sufficient for the needs of his own people, but must also try to conquer his neighbors and extend his rule. The bases of the modern states of Europe were already laid, but not securely enough for the building thereof to be commenced. Two more important movements were yet to be made before this bewildering period of change and struggle came to an end.
CHAPTER VII.
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE OSTROGOTHS.
(472—570.)
Odoaker conquers Italy.
—Theodoric leads the Ostrogoths to Italy.
—He defeats and slays Odoaker.
—He becomes King of Italy.
—Chlodwig, king of the Franks, puts an End to the Roman Rule.
—War between the Franks and Visigoths.
—Character of Theodoric's Rule.
—His Death.
—His Mausoleum.
—End of the Burgundian Kingdom.
—Plans of Justinian.
—Belisarius destroys the Vandal Power in Africa.
—He conquers Vitiges, and overruns Italy.
—Narses defeats Totila and Teias.
—End of the Ostrogoths.
—Narses summons the Longobards.
—They conquer Italy.
—The Exarchy and Rome.
—End of the Migrations of the Races.
476. ODOAKER, KING OF ITALY.
After the death of Ricimer, in 472, Italy, weakened by invasion and internal dissension, was an easy prey to the first strong hand which might claim possession. Such a hand was soon found in a Chief named Odoaker, said to have been a native of the island of Rügen, in the Baltic. He commanded a large force, composed of the smaller German tribes from the banks of the Danube, who had thrown off the yoke of the Huns. Many of these troops had served the last half-dozen Roman Emperors whom Ricimer set up or threw down, and they now claimed one-third of the Italian territory for themselves and their families. When this was refused, Odoaker, at their head, took the boy Romulus Augustulus prisoner, banished him, and proclaimed himself king of Italy, in 476, making Ravenna his capital.
The dynasty at Constantinople still called its dominion "The Roman Empire," and claimed authority over all the West. But it had not the means to make its claim acknowledged, and in this emergency the Emperor Zeno turned to Theodoric, the young king of the Ostrogoths, who had been brought up at his court, in Constantinople. He was the successor of three brothers, who, after the dispersion of the Huns, had united some of the smaller German tribes with the Ostrogoths, and restored the former power and influence of the race.
489.
Theodoric (who must not be confounded with his namesake, the Visigoth king, who fell in conquering Attila) was a man of great natural ability, which had been well developed by his education in Constantinople. He accepted the appointment of General and Governor from the Emperor, yet the preparations he made for the expedition to Italy show that he intended to remain and establish his own kingdom there. It was not a military march, but the migration of a people, which he headed. The Ostrogoths and their allies took with them their wives and children, their herds and household goods: they moved so slowly up the Danube and across the Alps, now halting to rest and recruit, now fighting a passage through some hostile tribe, that several years elapsed before they reached Italy.
Odoaker had reigned fourteen years, with more justice and discretion than was common in those times, and was able to raise a large force, in 489, to meet the advance of Theodoric. After three severe battles had been fought, he was forced to take shelter within the strong walls of Ravenna; but he again sallied forth and attacked the Ostrogoths with such bravery that he came near defeating them. Finally, in 493, after a siege of three years, he capitulated, and was soon afterwards treacherously murdered, by order of Theodoric, at a banquet to which the latter had invited him.
Having the power in