perfidy of the Gepida, Justin abandoned that incorri gible people to their fate, and remained the tranquil spectator of this unequal conflict. The despair of Cunimund was active and dangerous. He was informed that the Avars had entered his confines; but on the strong assurance, that, after the defeat of the Lombards, these foreign invaders would easily be repelled, he rushed forward to encounter the implacable enemy of his name and family. But the courage of the Gepida could secure them no more than an honourable death. The bravest of the nation, fell in the field of battle; the king of the Lombards contemplated with delight the head of Cunimund; and his skull was fashioned into a cup, to satiate the hatred of the conqueror, or, perhaps to comply with the savage custom of his country.* After this victory, no farther obstacle could impede the progress of the confederates, and they faithfully executed the terms of their agreement.† The fair countries of Walachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, and the parts of Hungary beyond the Danube, were occupied without resistance, by a new colony of Scythians: and the Dacian empire of the chagans subsisted with splendour above two hundred and thirty years. The nation of the Gepida was dissolved; but, in the distribution of the captives, the slaves of the Avars were less fortunate than the companions of the Lombards, whose generosity adopted a valiant foe, and whose freedom was incompatible with cool and deliberate tyranny. One moiety of the spoil introduced into the camp of Alboin more wealth than a barbarian could readily compute. The fair Rosamond was persuaded, or compelled, to acknowledge the rights of her victorious lover; and the daughter of Cunimund appeared to forgive those crimes which might be imputed to her own irresistible charms.

The destruction of a mighty kingdom established the fame of Alboin. In the days of Charlemagne, the Bavarians, the Saxons, and the other tribes of the Teutonic language, rious facts. It appears from Strabo, Pliny, and Ammianus Marcellinus, that the same practice was common among the Scythian tribes (Muratori, Scriptores Rer. Italic. tom. i, p. 424). The scalps of North America are likewise trophies of valour. The skull of Cunimund was preserved above two hundred years among the Lombards; and Paul himself was one of the guests to whom duke Ratchis exhibited this cup on a high festival (1. 2, c. 28).

+ Paul 1. 1, c. 27. Menander, in Excerpt. Legat. p. 110, 111.

still repeated the songs which described the heroic virtues, the valour, liberality, and fortune of the king of the Lombards.* But his ambition was yet unsatisfied: and the conqueror of the Gepidæ turned his eyes from the Danube to the richer banks of the Po and the Tiber. Fifteen years had not elapsed since his subjects, the confederates of Narses, had visited the pleasant climate of Italy: the mountains, the rivers, the highways, were familiar to their memory: the report of their success, perhaps the view of their spoils, had kindled in the rising generation the flame of emulation and enterprise. Their hopes were encouraged by the spirit and eloquence of Alboin; and it is affirmed, that he spoke to their senses, by producing at the royal feast, the fairest and most exquisite fruits that grew spontaneously in the garden of the world. No sooner had he erected his standard, than the native strength of the Lombards was multiplied by the adventurous youth of Germany and Scythia. The robust peasantry of Noricum and Pannonia had resumed the manners of barbarians; and the names of the Gepida, Bulgarians, Sarmatians, and Bavarians, may be distinctly traced in the provinces of Italy. Of the Saxons, the old allies of the Lombards, twenty thousand warriors, with their wives and children, accepted the invitation of Alboin. Their bravery contributed to his success; but the accession or the absence of their numbers was not sensibly felt in the magnitude of his host. Every mode of religion was freely practised by its respective votaries. The king of the Lombards had been educated in the Arian heresy; but the Catholics, in their public worship, were allowed to pray for his conversion; while the more stubborn barbarians sacrificed a she-goat, or perhaps a captive, to the gods

* Ut hactenus etiam tam apud Bajoariorum gentem, quam et Saxonum, sed et alios ejusdem linguæ homines . in eorum carminibus celebretur. Paul. 1. 1, c. 27. He died A.D. 799. (Muratori, in Præfat. tom. i, p. 397.) These German songs, some of which might be as old as Tacitus (de Moribus Germ. c. 2,) were compiled and transcribed by Charlemagne. Barbara et antiquissima carmina, quibus veterum regum actus et bella canebantur, scripsit, memoriæque mandavit. (Eginard, in Vit. Carol. Magn. c. 29, p. 130, 131.) The poems, which Goldast commends (Animadvers. ad Eginard. p. 207,) appear to be recent and contemptible romances. The other nations are rehearsed by Paul (1. 2, c. 6. 26). Muratori (Antichitá Italiane, tom. i, dissertat. 1, p. 4,) has discovered the village of the Bava

of their fathers.* The Lombards, and their confederates, were united by their common attachment to a chief, who excelled in all the virtues and vices of a savage hero; and the vigilance of Alboin provided an ample magazine of offensive and defensive arms for the use of the expedition. The portable wealth of the Lombards attended the march; their lands they cheerfully relinquished to the Avars, on the solemn promise, which was made and accepted without a smile, that if they failed in the conquest of Italy, these voluntary exiles should be reinstated in their former possessions. They might have failed, if Narses had been the antagonist of the Lombards; and the veteran warriors, the associates of his Gothic victory, would have encountered with reluctance an enemy whom they dreaded and esteemed. But the weakness of the Byzantine court was subservient to the barbarian cause; and it was for the ruin of Italy, that the emperor once listened to the complaints of his subjects. The virtues of Narses were stained with avarice; and in his provincial reign of fifteen years he accumulated & treasure of gold and silver which surpassed the modesty of a private fortune. His government was oppressive or unpopular, and the general discontent was expressed with freedom by the deputies of Rome. Before the throne of Justin they boldly declared, that their Gothic servitude had been more tolerable than the despotism of a Greek eunuch; and that, unless their tyrant were instantly removed, they would consult their own happiness in the choice of a master. The apprehension of a revolt was urged by the voice of envy and detraction, which had so recently triumphed over the merit of Belisarius. A new exarch, Longinus, was appointed to supersede the conqueror of Italy; and the base motives of his recall were revealed in the insulting mandate of the enpress Sophia, "that he should leave to MEN the exercise of arms, and return to his proper station among the maidens of the palace, where a distaff should be again placed in the hand of the eunuch."-"I will spin her such a thread as she shall not easily unravel!" is said to have been the reply which indignation and conscious virtue ex

rians, three miles from Modena.

* Gregory the Roman (Dialog. 1. 3, c. 27, 28, apud Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 579, No. 10,) supposes that they likewise adored this she-goat. I know but of one religion in which the god and the victim are the same.

*

torted from the hero. Instead of attending, a slave and a victim, at the gate of the Byzantine palace, he retired to Naples, from whence (if any credit is due to the belief of the times) Narses invited the Lombards to chastise the ingratitude of the prince and people. But the passions of the people are furious and changeable; and the Romans soon recollected the merits, or dreaded the resentment, of their victorious general. By the mediation of the pope, who undertook a special pilgrimage to Naples, their repentance was accepted; and Narses, assuming a milder aspect and a more dutiful language, consented to fix his residence in the Capitol. His death,† though in the extreme period of old age, was unseasonable and premature, since his genius alone could have repaired the last and fatal error of his life. The reality, or the suspicion of a conspiracy, disarmed and disunited the Italians. The soldiers resented the disgrace, and bewailed the loss, of their general. They were ignorant of their new exarch; and Longinus was himself ignorant of the state of the army and the province. In the preceding years, Italy had been desolated by pestilence and famine; and a disaffected people ascribed the calamities of nature to the guilt or folly of their rulers.

Whatever might be the grounds of his security, Alboin neither expected nor encountered a Roman army in the field. He ascended the Julian Alps, and looked down with contempt and desire on the fruitful plains to which his victory communicated the perpetual appellation of LoмBARDY. A faithful chieftain, and a select band, were

*The charge of the deacon against Narses (1. 2, c. 5,) may be groundless; but the weak apology of the cardinal (Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 567, No. 8-12,) is rejected by the best critics-Pagi (tom. ii, p. 639, 640), Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. v, p. 160-163), and the last editors, Horatius Blancus (Script. Rerum Italic. tom. i, p. 427, 428), and Philip Argelatus (Sigon. Opera, tom. ii, p. 11, 12). The Narses who assisted at the coronation of Justin (Corippus, 1. 3. 221), is clearly understood to be a different person.

The death of Narses is mentioned by Paul, 1. 2, c. 11; Anastas. în Vit. Johan. 3, p. 43; Agnellus, Liber Pontifical. Raven. in Script. Rer. Italicarum, tom. ii, part 1, p. 114. 124. Yet I cannot believe with Agnellus that Narses was ninety-five years of age. Is it probable that all his exploits were performed at fourscore?

The designs of Narses and of the Lombards for the invasion of Italy, are exposed in the last chapter of the first book, and the seven first chapters of the second book, of Paul the deacon.

stationed at Forum Julii, the modern Friuli, to guard the passes of the mountains. The Lombards respected the strength of Pavia, and listened to the prayers of the Trevisans: their slow and heavy multitudes proceeded to occupy the palace and city of Verona; and Milan, now rising from her ashes, was invested by the powers of Alboin five months after his departure from Pannonia. Terror preceded his march; he found everywhere, or he left, a dreary solitude; and the pusillanimous Italians presumed, without a trial, that the stranger was invincible. Escaping to lakes, or rocks, or morasses, the affrighted crowds concealed some fragments of their wealth, and delayed the moment of their servitude. Paulinus, the patriarch of Aquileia, removed his treasures, sacred and profane, to the isle of Grado,* and his successors were adopted by the infant republic of Venice, which was continually enriched by the public calamities. Honoratus, who filled the chair of St. Ambrose, had credulously accepted the faithless offers of a capitulation; and the archbishop, with the clergy and nobles of Milan, were driven by the perfidy of Alboin to seek a refuge in the less accessible ramparts of Genoa. Along the maritime coast, the courage of the inhabitants was supported by the facility of supply, the hopes of relief, and the power of escape; from the Trentine hills to the gates of Ravenna and Rome, the inland regions of Italy became, without a battle or a siege, the lasting patrimony of the Lombards. The submission of the people invited the barbarian to assume the character of a lawful sovereign, and the helpless exarch was confined to the office of announcing to the emperor Justin, the rapid and irretrievable loss of his provinces and cities.†

but

* Which from this translation was called New Aquileia (Chron. Venet. p. 3). The patriarch of Grado soon became the first citizen of the republic (p. 9, &c.,) but his seat was not removed to Venice till the year 1450. He is now decorated with titles and honours; but the genius of the church has bowed to that of the State, and the government of a Catholic city is strictly presbyterian. Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i, p. 156, 157. 161-165. Amelot de la Houssaye, Gouvernement de Venise, tom. 1, p. 256-261. [The citizens of Aquileia were said (ch. 35, vol. iv, p. 29) to have sought the refuge in these islands in 451, at which time they did not exist. In the course of a hundred and twenty years, two of them, Grado and Malamocco, had risen sufficiently out of the waters, to receive the fugitives. ED.]

Paul has given a description of Italy, as it was then divided into eighteen regions. (1. 2, c. 14—24.) The Dissertatio Chorographica de