ccessor. After this, several important events occurred both in Italy
and in the countries beyond; and after the deaths of many emperors
the empire of Constantinople devolved upon Zeno, and that of Rome upon
Orestes and Augustulus his son, who obtained the sovereignty by fraud.
While they were designing to hold by force what they had obtained by
treachery, the Eruli and the Turingi, who, after the death of Attila, as
before remarked, had established themselves upon the farther bank of
the Danube, united in a league and invaded Italy under Odoacer their
general. Into the districts which they left unoccupied, the Longobardi
or Lombards, also a northern people, entered, led by Godogo their king.
Odoacer conquered and slew Orestes near Pavia, but Augustulus escaped.
After this victory, that Rome might, with her change of power, also
change her title, Odoacer, instead of using the imperial name, caused
himself to be declared king of Rome. He was the first of those leaders
who at this period overran the world and thought of settling in Italy;
for the others, either from fear that they should not be able to hold
the country, knowing that it might easily be relieved by the eastern
emperors, or from some unknown cause, after plundering her, sought other
countries wherein to establish themselves.

CHAPTER II

State of the Roman empire under Zeno--Theodoric king of the
Ostrogoths--Character of Theodoric--Changes in the Roman empire--New
languages--New names--Theodoric dies--Belisarius in Italy--Totila takes
Rome--Narses destroys the Goths--New form of Government in Italy--Narses
invites the Lombards into Italy--The Lombards change the form of
government.

At this time the ancient Roman empire was governed by the following
princes: Zeno, reigning in Constantinople, commanded the whole of the
eastern empire; the Ostrogoths ruled Mesia and Pannonia; the Visigoths,
Suavi, and Alans, held Gascony and Spain; the Vandals, Africa; the
Franks and Burgundians, France; and the Eruli and Turingi, Italy. The
kingdom of the Ostrogoths had descended to Theodoric, nephew of Velamir,
who, being on terms of friendship with Zeno the eastern emperor, wrote
to him that his Ostrogoths thought it an injustice that they, being
superior in valor to the people thereabout, should be inferior to them
in dominion, and that it was impossible for him to restrain them within
the limits of Pannonia. So, seeing himself under the necessity of
allowing them to