ratori conveniens decus nullum ipsi
abesset: Justitiae magnus ei cultus, legumque diligens custodia: terras a
vicinis barbaris servavit intactas_, &c. Whence I do not reckon the reign
of this King, amongst the plagues of the four winds.

The plague of the northern wind, at the sounding of the fourth trumpet, was
to cause _the Sun, Moon and Stars_, that is, the King, kingdom and Princes
of the _Western_ Empire, _to be darkned_, and to continue some time in
darkness. Accordingly _Belisarius_, having conquered the _Vandals_, invaded
_Italy_ A.C. 535, and made war upon the _Ostrogoths_ in _Dalmatia_,
_Liburnia_, _Venetia_, _Lombardy_, _Tuscany_, and other regions northward
from _Rome_, twenty years together. In this war many cities were taken and
retaken. In retaking _Millain_ from the _Romans_, the _Ostrogoths_ slew all
the males young and old, amounting, as _Procopius_ reckons, to three
hundred thousand, and sent the women captives to their allies the
_Burgundians_. _Rome_ itself was taken and retaken several times, and
thereby the people were thinned; the old government by a Senate ceased, the
nobles were ruined, and all the glory of the city was extinguish'd: and
A.C. 552, after a war of seventeen years, the kingdom of the _Ostrogoths_
fell; yet the remainder of the _Ostrogoths_, and an army of _Germans_
called in to their assistance, continued the war three or four years
longer. Then ensued the war of the _Heruli_, who, as _Anastasius_ tells us,
_perimebant cunctam Italiam_, slew all _Italy_. This was followed by the
war of the _Lombards_, the fiercest of all the _Barbarians_, which began
A.C. 568, and lasted for thirty eight years together; _facta tali clade_,
saith _Anastasius_, _qualem a saeculo nullus meminit_; ending at last in the
Papacy of _Sabinian_, A.C. 605, by a peace then made with the _Lombards_.
Three years before this war ended, _Gregory_ the great, then Bishop of
_Rome_, thus speaks of it: _Qualiter enim & quotidianis gladiis & quantis
Longobardorum incursionibus, ecce jam per triginta quinque annorum
longitudinem premimur, nullis explere vocibus suggestionis valemus_: and in
one of his Sermons to the people, he thus expresses the great consumption
of the _Romans_ by these wars: _Ex illa plebe innumerabili quanti
remanseritis aspicitis, & tamen adhuc quotidie flagella urgent, repentini
casus opprimunt, novae res & improvisae clades affligunt_. In another Sermon
he thus describes the desolations: _Destruct