tenth century; when the fortifications, which might afford a dangerous
shelter to the Saracens, were demolished by the people of Naples.

Odoacer was the first Barbarian who reigned in Italy, over a people who
had once asserted their just superiority above the rest of mankind. The
disgrace of the Romans still excites our respectful compassion, and
we fondly sympathize with the imaginary grief and indignation of their
degenerate posterity. But the calamities of Italy had gradually subdued
the proud consciousness of freedom and glory. In the age of Roman virtue
the provinces were subject to the arms, and the citizens to the laws, of
the republic; till those laws were subverted by civil discord, and both
the city and the province became the servile property of a tyrant. The
forms of the constitution, which alleviated or disguised their abject
slavery, were abolished by time and violence; the Italians alternately
lamented the presence or the absence of the sovereign, whom they
detested or despised; and the succession of five centuries inflicted the
various evils of military license, capricious despotism, and elaborate
oppression. During the same period, the Barbarians had emerged from
obscurity and contempt, and the warriors of Germany and Scythia were
introduced into the provinces, as the servants, the allies, and at
length the masters, of the Romans, whom they insulted or protected. The
hatred of the people was suppressed by fear; they respected the spirit
and splendor of the martial chiefs who were invested with the honors of
the empire; and the fate of Rome had long depended on the sword of those
formidable strangers. The stern Ricimer, who trampled on the ruins of
Italy, had exercised the power, without assuming the title, of a king;
and the patient Romans were insensibly prepared to acknowledge the
royalty of Odoacer and his Barbaric successors.

The king of Italy was not unworthy of the high station to which his
valor and fortune had exalted him: his savage manners were polished by
the habits of conversation; and he respected, though a conqueror and a
Barbarian, the institutions, and even the prejudices, of his subjects.
After an interval of seven years, Odoacer restored the consulship of the
West. For himself, he modestly, or proudly, declined an honor which was
still accepted by the emperors of the East; but the curule chair was
successively filled by eleven of the most illustrious senators; and
the list is adorne