Aetius had won one of the greatest victories of ancient times, and alone remained to stem the barbaric hosts. But he was mistrusted by the emperor at Ravenna, whose daughter he had solicited in marriage for his son, and was left without sufficient force. Aquileia, the most important city in Northern Italy, fell into the hands of Attila. He then resolved to cross the Apennines and give a last blow to Rome. Leo, the intrepid bishop, sought his camp, as he had once before entreated Genseric. The Hun consented to leave Italy for an annual tribute, and the hand of the princess Honoria, sister of the Emperor Valentinian. He retired to the Danube by the passes of the Alps, and spent the winter in bacchanalian orgies, but was cut off in his career by the poisoned dagger of a Burgundian princess, whose relations he had slain.

Retreat of the Huns. The last emperors.

The retreat of the Huns did not deliver the wasted provinces of a now fallen empire from renewed ravages. For twenty years longer, Italy was subject to incessant depredations. Valentinian, the last emperor of the family of Theodosius, was assassinated A.D. 455, at the instigation of Maximus—a senator of the Anician family, whose wife had been violated by the emperor. The successive reigns of Maximus, Avitus, Majorian, Severus, Anthemius, Olybrius, Glycerins, Nepos,and Augustulus—nine emperors in twenty-one years, suggest nothing but ignominy and misfortune. They were shut up in their palaces, within the walls of Ravenna, and were unable to arrest the ruin. Again, during this period, was Rome sacked by the Vandals. The great men of the period were Theodoric—king of the Ostrogoths, who ruled both sides of the Alps, and supported the crumbling empire, and Count Ricimer, a Sueve, and generalissimo of the Roman armies. It was at this disastrous epoch that fugitives from the Venetian territory sought a refuge among the islands which skirt the northern coast of the Adriatic—the haunts of fishermen and sea-birds. There Venice was born—to revive the glory of the West, and write her history upon the waves for one thousand years.

Odoacer. Theodoric.

The last emperor was the son of Orestes—a Pannonian, who was christened Romulus. When elevated by the soldiers upon a shield and saluted Augustus, he was too small to wear the purple robe, and they called him Augustulus!—a bitter mockery, recalling the foundation and the imperial greatness of Rome. This prince, feeble and powerless, was dethroned by Odoacer—chief of the Heruli, and one of the unscrupulous mercenaries whose aid the last emperor had invoked. The throne of the Cæsars was now hopelessly subverted, and Odoacer portioned out the lands of Italy among his greedy followers, but allowed Augustulus to live as a pensioner in a Campanian villa, which had once belonged to Sulla, A.D. 476. Odoacer, however, reigned but fourteen years, and was supplanted by Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, A.D. 490. The barbarians were now fairly settled in the lands they had invaded, and the Western empire was completely dismembered.

Gothic kingdom of Italy. Division of the empire among barbarians.

In Italy were the Ostrogoths, who established a powerful kingdom, afterward assailed by Belisarius and Narses, the generals of Justinian, the Eastern emperor, and also by the Lombards, under Alboin, who secured a footing in the north of Italy. Gaul was divided among the Franks, Burgundians, and Visigoths, among whom were perpetual wars. Britain was possessed by the Saxons. Spain became the inheritance of Vandals, Suevi, and Visigoths. The Vandals retained Africa. The Eastern empire, with the exception of Constantinople, finally fell into the hands of the Saracens.

Reflections on the fall of the empire.

It would be interesting to trace the various fortunes of the Teutonic nations in their new settlements, but this belongs to mediæval history. The real drama of the fall of Rome was ended when Alaric gained possession of the imperial city. “The empire fell,” says Guizot, “because no one would belong to it.” At the period of barbaric invasion it had lost all real vigor, and was kept together by mechanism—the mechanism of government which had been one thousand years perfecting. It was energy, patriotism, patience, and a genius for government which built up the empire. But prosperity led to luxury, self-exaggeration, and enervating vices. Society was steeped in sensuality, frivolity, and selfishness. The empire was rotten to the core, and must become the prey of barbarians, who had courage and vitality. Three centuries earlier, the empire might have withstood the shock of external enemies, and the barbarians might have been annihilated. But they invaded the provinces when central power was weak, when public virtue had fled, when the middle classes were extinct, when slavery, demoralizing pleasures, and disproportionate fortunes destroyed elevation of sentiment, and all manly energies. A noble line of martial emperors for a time arrested ruin, but ruin was inevitable. Natural law asserted its dignity. The penalty of sin must be paid. Nothing could save the empire. No conservative influences were sufficiently strong—neither literature, nor art, nor science, nor philosophy, nor even Christianity. Society retrograded as the new religion triumphed, a mysterious fact, but easily understood when we remember that vices were universal before a remedy could be applied. The victories of Christianity came not too late for the human race, but too late for the salvation of a worn-out empire.

The barbarians were advancing when Constantine was converted. The salvation of the race was through these barbarians themselves, for, though they desolated, they reconstructed; and, when converted to the new faith, established new institutions on a better basis. The glimmering life-sparks of a declining and miserable world disappeared, but new ideas, new passions, new interests arose, and on the ruins of the pagan civilization new Christian empires were founded, which have been gaining power for one thousand five hundred years, and which may not pass away till civilization itself shall be pronounced a failure in the present dispensations of the Moral Governor of the World.

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