Page:1909historyofdec04gibbuoft.djvu/75

 chap, xxxvi] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 51 their general, were in full march from Rome to Ravenna. Nepos trembled at their approach ; and, instead of placing a just confidence in the strength of Ravenna, he hastily escaped [ad. 475, to his ships, and retired to his Dalmatian principality, on the opposite coast of the Hadriatic. By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life about five years, in a very ambiguous state, between an emperor and an exile, till he was assassinated at Salona by the ungrateful Glycerius, who was translated, perhaps as the reward of his crime, to the archbishopric of Milan. 126 The nations who had asserted their independence after the The . patrician death of Attila were established, by the right of possession ororestes. conquest, in the boundless countries to the north of the Danube, or in the Roman provinces between the river and the Alps. But the bravest of their youth enlisted in the army of confeder- ates, who formed the defence and the terror of Italy ; 126 and in this promiscuous multitude, the names of the Heruli, the Scyrri, the Alani, the Turcilingi, and the Rugians, appear to have predominated. The example of these warriors was imitated by Orestes, 127 the son of Tatullus, and the father of the last Roman emperor of the West. Orestes, who has been already mentioned in this history, had never deserted his country. His birth and fortunes rendered him one of the most illustrious subjects of Pannonia. When that province was ceded to the Huns, he entered into the service of Attila, his lawful sovereign, obtained the office of his secretary, and was repeatedly sent ambassador to Constantinople, to represent the person, and signify the commands, of the imperious monarch. The death of that conqueror restored him to his freedom; and Orestes might honourably refuse either to follow the sons of Attila into the Scythian desert or to obey the Ostrogoths, who had usurped 125 Malchus, apud Phot. p. 172. [Miiller, F. H. G. iv. p. 111. Cp. John of Antioch, fr. 209, ib. 618.] Ennod. Epigram. 1. lxxxii. in SJrmond, Oper. torn. ii. p. 1879. [Cc, p. 164, ed. Vogel.] Some doubt may however be raised on the identity of the emperor and the archbishop. 126 Our knowledge of these mercenaries, who subverted the Western empire, is derived from Procopius (de Bell. Gothico, 1. 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 subjeots. 127 Orestes, qui eo tempore quando Attila ad Italiam venit se illi junxit, et ejus notarius factus fuerat. Anonym. Vales, p. 716 [8, § 38]. He is mistaken in the date ; but we may credit his assertion that the secretary of Attila was the father of Augustulus.