n, and a select band, were stationed at Forum Julii,
the modern Friuli, to guard the passes of the mountains. The Lombards
respected the strength of Pavia, and listened to the prayers of the
Trevisans: their slow and heavy multitudes proceeded to occupy the
palace and city of Verona; and Milan, now rising from her ashes, was
invested by the powers of Alboin five months after his departure from
Pannonia. Terror preceded his march: he found every where, or he left,
a dreary solitude; and the pusillanimous Italians presumed, without a
trial, that the stranger was invincible. Escaping to lakes, or rocks,
or morasses, the affrighted crowds concealed some fragments of their
wealth, and delayed the moment of their servitude. Paulinus, the
patriarch of Aquileia, removed his treasures, sacred and profane, to the
Isle of Grado, and his successors were adopted by the infant republic
of Venice, which was continually enriched by the public calamities.
Honoratus, who filled the chair of St. Ambrose, had credulously accepted
the faithless offers of a capitulation; and the archbishop, with the
clergy and nobles of Milan, were driven by the perfidy of Alboin to seek
a refuge in the less accessible ramparts of Genoa. Along the maritime
coast, the courage of the inhabitants was supported by the facility
of supply, the hopes of relief, and the power of escape; but from the
Trentine hills to the gates of Ravenna and Rome the inland regions of
Italy became, without a battle or a siege, the lasting patrimony of the
Lombards. The submission of the people invited the Barbarian to assume
the character of a lawful sovereign, and the helpless exarch was
confined to the office of announcing to the emperor Justin the rapid and
irretrievable loss of his provinces and cities. One city, which had been
diligently fortified by the Goths, resisted the arms of a new invader;
and while Italy was subdued by the flying detachments of the Lombards,
the royal camp was fixed above three years before the western gate
of Ticinum, or Pavia. The same courage which obtains the esteem of
a civilized enemy provokes the fury of a savage, and the impatient
besieger had bound himself by a tremendous oath, that age, and sex, and
dignity, should be confounded in a general massacre. The aid of famine
at length enabled him to execute his bloody vow; but, as Alboin entered
the gate, his horse stumbled, fell, and could not be raised from the
ground. One of his attendants was prom