encouraged by the spirit and eloquence of Alboin: and it
is affirmed, that he spoke to their senses, by producing at the royal
feast, the fairest and most exquisite fruits that grew spontaneously in
the garden of the world. No sooner had he erected his standard, than the
native strength of the Lombard was multiplied by the adventurous youth
of Germany and Scythia. The robust peasantry of Noricum and Pannonia
had resumed the manners of Barbarians; and the names of the Gepidae,
Bulgarians, Sarmatians, and Bavarians, may be distinctly traced in
the provinces of Italy. Of the Saxons, the old allies of the Lombards,
twenty thousand warriors, with their wives and children, accepted the
invitation of Alboin. Their bravery contributed to his success; but the
accession or the absence of their numbers was not sensibly felt in the
magnitude of his host. Every mode of religion was freely practised by
its respective votaries. The king of the Lombards had been educated
in the Arian heresy; but the Catholics, in their public worship, were
allowed to pray for his conversion; while the more stubborn Barbarians
sacrificed a she-goat, or perhaps a captive, to the gods of their
fathers. The Lombards, and their confederates, were united by their
common attachment to a chief, who excelled in all the virtues and vices
of a savage hero; and the vigilance of Alboin provided an ample magazine
of offensive and defensive arms for the use of the expedition. The
portable wealth of the Lombards attended the march: their lands they
cheerfully relinquished to the Avars, on the solemn promise, which was
made and accepted without a smile, that if they failed in the conquest
of Italy, these voluntary exiles should be reinstated in their former
possessions.

They might have failed, if Narses had been the antagonist of the
Lombards; and the veteran warriors, the associates of his Gothic
victory, would have encountered with reluctance an enemy whom they
dreaded and esteemed. But the weakness of the Byzantine court was
subservient to the Barbarian cause; and it was for the ruin of Italy,
that the emperor once listened to the complaints of his subjects. The
virtues of Narses were stained with avarice; and, in his provincial
reign of fifteen years, he accumulated a treasure of gold and silver
which surpassed the modesty of a private fortune. His government was
oppressive or unpopular, and the general discontent was expressed with
freedom by the deputies of Rome