Avitus was a good man, but the Romans grew weary of him, and in the year 457
they engaged Ricimer, a chief of the Teutonic tribe called Suevi, to drive him
out, when he went back to Gaul, where he had a beautiful palace and garden.
After ten months Ricimer chose another Sueve to be Emperor. He had been a
captain under Aëtius, and had the Roman name of Majorian. He showed himself
brave and spirited; led an army into Spain and attacked Genseric; but he was
beaten, and came back disappointed. Ricimer was, however, jealous of him, forced
him to resign, and soon after poisoned him.
After this, Ricimer really ruled Italy, but he seemed to have a sort of awe
of the title of Cæsar Augustus, the Emperor, for he forbore to use it himself,
and gave it to one poor weak wretch after another until his death in 472. His
nephew went on in the same course; but at last a soldier named Orestes, of Roman
birth, gained the chief power, and set up as Emperor his own little son, whose
Christian name was Romulus Augustus, making him wear the purple and the crown,
and calling him by all the titles; but the Romans made his name into Augustulus,
or Little Augustus. At the end of a year, a Teutonic chief named Odoacer crossed
the Alps at the head of a great mixture of different German tribes, and Orestes
could make no stand against him, but was taken and put to death. His little boy
was spared, and was placed at Sorrento; but Odoacer sent the crown and robes of
the West to Zeno, the Eastern Emperor, saying that one Emperor was enough. So
fell the Roman power in 476, exactly twelve centuries after the date of the
founding of Rome. It was thought that this was meant by the twelve vultures seen
by Romulus, and that the seven which Remus saw denoted the seven centuries that
the Republic stood. It was curious, too, that it should be with the two names of
Romulus and Augustus that Rome and her empire fell.
Odoacer called himself king, and, indeed, the Western Empire had been nearly
all seized by different kings—the Vandal kings in Africa, the Gothic kings in
Spain and Southern Gaul, the Burgundian kings and Frank kings in Northern Gaul,
the Saxon kings in Britain. The Ostro or Eastern Goths, who had since the time
of Valens dwelt on the banks of the Danube, had been subdued by Attila, but
recovered their freedom after his death. One of their young chiefs, named
Theodoric, was sent as a hostage to Constantinople, and there learned much. He
became king of the Eastern Goths in 470, and showed himself such a dangerous
neighbor to the Eastern Empire that, to be rid of him the Emperor Zeno advised
him to go and attack Odoacer in Italy. The Ostrogoths marched seven hundred
miles, and came over the Alps into the plains of Northern Italy, where Odoacer
fought with them bravely, but was beaten. They besieged him even in Ravenna,
till after three years he was obliged to surrender and was put to death.
ROMULUS AUGUSTUS RESIGNS THE CROWN.
Rome could make no defence, and fell into Theodoric's hands with the rest of
Italy; but he was by far the best of the conquerors—he did not hurt or misuse
them, and only wished his Goths to learn of them and become peaceful farmers. He
gave them the lands which had lost their owners; about thirty or forty thousand
families were settled there by him on the waste lands, and the Romans who were
left took courage and worked too. He did not live at Rome, though he came
thither and was complimented by the Senate, and he set a sum by every year for
repairing the old buildings; but he chiefly lived at Verona, where he reigned
over both the Eastern and Western Goths in Gaul and Italy.
He was an Arian, but he did not persecute the Catholics, and to such persons
as changed their profession of faith to please him he showed no more favor,
saying that those who were not faithful to their God would never be faithful to
their earthly master. He reigned thirty-three years, but did not end as well as
he began, for he grew irritable and distrustful with age; and the Romans, on the
other hand, forgot that they were not the free, prosperous nation of old, and
displeased him. Two of their very best men, Boëthius and Symmachus, were by him
kept for a long time prisoners at Rome and then put to death. While Boëthius was
in prison at Pavia, he wrote a book called The Consolations of
Philosophy, so beautiful that the English king Alfred translated it into
Saxon four centuries later. Theodoric kept up a correspondence with the other
Gothic kings wherever a tribe of his people dwelt, even as far as Sweden and
Denmark; but as even he could not write, and only had a seal with the letters
[Greek: THEOD] with which to make his signature, the whole was conducted in
Latin by Roman slaves on either side, who interpreted to their masters. An
immense number of letters from Theodoric's secretary are preserved, and show
what an able man his master was, and how well he deserved his name of "The
Great." He died in 526, leaving only two daughters. Their two sons, Amalric and
Athalaric, divided the Eastern and Western Goths between them again.
Seven Gothic kings reigned over Northern Italy after Theodoric. They were
fierce and restless, but had nothing like his strength and spirit, and they
chiefly lived in the more northern cities—Milan, Verona, and Ravenna, leaving
Rome to be a tributary city to them, where there still remained the old names of
Senate and Consuls, but the person who was generally most looked up to and
trusted was the Pope. All this time Rome was leavening the nations who had
conquered her. When they tried to learn civilized ways, it was from her; they
learned to speak her tongue, never wrote but in Latin, and worshipped with Latin
prayers and services. Far above all, these conquerors learned Christianity from
the Romans. When everything else was ruined, the Bishop and clergy remained, and
became the chief counsellors and advisers of many of these kings.
It was just at this time that there was living at Monte Casino, in the South
of Italy, St. Benedict, an Italian hermit, who was there joined by a number of
others who, like him, longed to pray for the sinful world apart rather than
fight and struggle with bad men. He formed them into a great band of monks, all
wearing a plain dark dress with a hood, and following a strict rule of plain
living, hard work, and prayers at seven regular hours in the course of the day
and night. His rule was called the Benedictine, and houses of monks arose in
many places, and were safe shelters in these fierce times.
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