recarious
sovereign of Italy was only permitted to choose, whether he would be
the slave, or the victim, of his Barbarian mercenaries. The dangerous
alliance of these strangers had oppressed and insulted the last
remains of Roman freedom and dignity. At each revolution, their pay and
privileges were augmented; but their insolence increased in a still more
extravagant degree; they envied the fortune of their brethren in Gaul,
Spain, and Africa, whose victorious arms had acquired an independent
and perpetual inheritance; and they insisted on their peremptory demand,
that a third part of the lands of Italy should be immediately divided
among them. Orestes, with a spirit, which, in another situation, might
be entitled to our esteem, chose rather to encounter the rage of an
armed multitude, than to subscribe the ruin of an innocent people. He
rejected the audacious demand; and his refusal was favorable to the
ambition of Odoacer; a bold Barbarian, who assured his fellow-soldiers,
that, if they dared to associate under his command, they might soon
extort the justice which had been denied to their dutiful petitions.
From all the camps and garrisons of Italy, the confederates, actuated
by the same resentment and the same hopes, impatiently flocked to
the standard of this popular leader; and the unfortunate patrician,
overwhelmed by the torrent, hastily retreated to the strong city of
Pavia, the episcopal seat of the holy Epiphanites. Pavia was immediately
besieged, the fortifications were stormed, the town was pillaged; and
although the bishop might labor, with much zeal and some success, to
save the property of the church, and the chastity of female captives,
the tumult could only be appeased by the execution of Orestes. [119]
His brother Paul was slain in an action near Ravenna; and the helpless
Augustulus, who could no longer command the respect, was reduced to
implore the clemency, of Odoacer.

[Footnote 117: Our knowledge of these mercenaries, who subverted the
Western empire, is derived from Procopius, (de Bell. Gothico, l. i. c.
i. p. 308.) The popular opinion, and the recent historians, represent
Odoacer in the false light of a stranger, and a king, who invaded Italy
with an army of foreigners, his native subjects.]

[Footnote 118: Orestes, qui eo tempore quando Attila ad Italiam venit,
se illi unxit, ejus notarius factus fuerat. Anonym. Vales. p. 716. He
is mistaken in the date; but we may credit his assertion, that t