e 124: Malchus, whose loss excites our regret, has preserved
(in Excerpt. Legat. p. 93) this extraordinary embassy from the senate to
Zeno. The anonymous fragment, (p. 717,) and the extract from Candidus,
(apud Phot. p. 176,) are likewise of some use.]

In the space of twenty years since the death of Valentinian, nine
emperors had successively disappeared; and the son of Orestes, a youth
recommended only by his beauty, would be the least entitled to the
notice of posterity, if his reign, which was marked by the extinction
of the Roman empire in the West, did not leave a memorable era in the
history of mankind. [125] The patrician Orestes had married the
daughter of Count Romulus, of Petovio in Noricum: the name of Augustus,
notwithstanding the jealousy of power, was known at Aquileia as a
familiar surname; and the appellations of the two great founders, of
the city and of the monarchy, were thus strangely united in the last
of their successors. [126] The son of Orestes assumed and disgraced the
names of Romulus Augustus; but the first was corrupted into Momyllus,
by the Greeks, and the second has been changed by the Latins into the
contemptible diminutive Augustulus. The life of this inoffensive youth
was spared by the generous clemency of Odoacer; who dismissed him, with
his whole family, from the Imperial palace, fixed his annual allowance
at six thousand pieces of gold, and assigned the castle of Lucullus, in
Campania, for the place of his exile or retirement. [127] As soon as the
Romans breathed from the toils of the Punic war, they were attracted by
the beauties and the pleasures of Campania; and the country-house of
the elder Scipio at Liternum exhibited a lasting model of their rustic
simplicity. [128] The delicious shores of the Bay of Naples were crowded
with villas; and Sylla applauded the masterly skill of his rival, who
had seated himself on the lofty promontory of Misenum, that commands, on
every side, the sea and land, as far as the boundaries of the horizon.
[129] The villa of Marius was purchased, within a few years, by
Lucullus, and the price had increased from two thousand five hundred, to
more than fourscore thousand, pounds sterling. [130] It was adorned
by the new proprietor with Grecian arts and Asiatic treasures; and the
houses and gardens of Lucullus obtained a distinguished rank in the list
of Imperial palaces. [131] When the Vandals became formidable to the
sea-coast, the Lucullan villa, on the