d 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.

(M1182) 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.

(M1183) 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
Caesars 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 sett