favorable moment, when the king, oppressed with wine, had
retired from the table to his afternoon slumbers. His faithless spouse
was anxious for his health and repose: the gates of the palace were
shut, the arms removed, the attendants dismissed, and Rosamond, after
lulling him to rest by her tender caresses, unbolted the chamber door,
and urged the reluctant conspirators to the instant execution of the
deed. On the first alarm, the warrior started from his couch: his sword,
which he attempted to draw, had been fastened to the scabbard by the
hand of Rosamond; and a small stool, his only weapon, could not long
protect him from the spears of the assassins. The daughter of Cunimund
smiled in his fall: his body was buried under the staircase of the
palace; and the grateful posterity of the Lombards revered the tomb and
the memory of their victorious leader.

[Footnote 21: The classical reader will recollect the wife and murder of
Candaules, so agreeably told in the first book of Herodotus. The choice
of Gyges, may serve as the excuse of Peredeus; and this soft insinuation
of an odious idea has been imitated by the best writers of antiquity,
(Graevius, ad Ciceron. Orat. pro Miloue c. 10)]

Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.--Part II.

The ambitious Rosamond aspired to reign in the name of her lover; the
city and palace of Verona were awed by her power; and a faithful band
of her native Gepidae was prepared to applaud the revenge, and to second
the wishes, of their sovereign. But the Lombard chiefs, who fled in the
first moments of consternation and disorder, had resumed their courage
and collected their powers; and the nation, instead of submitting to her
reign, demanded, with unanimous cries, that justice should be executed
on the guilty spouse and the murderers of their king. She sought a
refuge among the enemies of her country; and a criminal who deserved the
abhorrence of mankind was protected by the selfish policy of the exarch.
With her daughter, the heiress of the Lombard throne, her two lovers,
her trusty Gepidae, and the spoils of the palace of Verona, Rosamond
descended the Adige and the Po, and was transported by a Greek vessel to
the safe harbor of Ravenna. Longinus beheld with delight the charms and
the treasures of the widow of Alboin: her situation and her past conduct
might justify the most licentious proposals; and she readily listened to
the passion of a minister, who, even in the dec