urst into
the Aurelian gate at the head of troops all of German blood and Arian
belief, massacring and plundering all but two of the fourteen regions. But
the city escaped burning.

Then Anicius Olybrius entered Rome, consumed at once by famine, pestilence,
and the sword. With the consent of Leo, and at the request of Genseric, he
had been already named emperor. He took possession of the imperial palace,
and made the senate acknowledge him. Anthemius had been cut in pieces, but
forty days after his death Ricimer died of the plague, and thus had not
been able to put to death more than four Roman emperors, of whom his
father-in-law, Anthemius, was the last. The Arian Condottiere, who had
inflicted on Rome a third plundering, said to be worse than that of
Genseric, was buried in the Church of St. Agatha in Suburra,[15] which had
been ceded to the Arians, and which he had adorned.

Olybrius made the Burgundian prince Gundebald commander of the forces, but
died himself in October of that same year, 472, and left the throne to be
the gift of barbarian adventurers. Three more shadows of emperors passed.
Gundebald gave that dignity at Ravenna, in March, 473, to Glycerius, a man
of unknown antecedents. In 474, Glycerius was deposed by Nepos, a
Dalmatian, whom the empress Verina, widow of Leo I., had sent with an army
from Byzantium to Ravenna. Nepos compelled his predecessor to abdicate, and
to become bishop of Salona. He himself was proclaimed emperor at Rome on
the 24th June, 474, after which he returned to Ravenna. While he was here
treating with Euric, the Visigoth king, at Toulouse, Orestes, whom he had
made Patricius and commander of the barbaric troops for Gaul, rose against
him. Nepos fled by sea from Ravenna in August, 475, and betook himself to
Salona, whither he had banished Glycerius.

Orestes was a Pannonian; had been Attila's secretary; then commander of
German troops in service of the emperors. Thus he came to lead the troops
which had been under Ricimer. This heap of Germans and Sarmatians without
a country were in wild excitement, demanding a cession of Italian lands,
instead of a march into Gaul. They offered their general the crown of
Italy. Orestes thought it better to invest therewith his young son, and so,
on the 31st October, 475, the boy Romulus Augustus, by the supremest
mockery of what is called fortune, sat for a moment on the seat of the
first king and the first emperor of Rome.

Italy could no lon