Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/30

 8 THE DECLINE AND FALL valour, liberality, and fortune of the king of the Lombards. ^'^ But his ambition was yet unsatisfied, and the conqueror of the Ge})idae turned his eyes from the Danube to the richer banks of the Po and the Tiber. Fifteen years had not elapsed since his subjects, the confederates of Narses, had visited the pleasant climate of Italy ; the mountains, the rivers, the highways, were familiar to their memory ; the rej)ort of their success, perhaps the view of their spoils, had kindled in the rising generation the flame of emulation and enterprise. Their ho])es were en- couraged by the spirit and eloquence of Alboin ; and it is affirmed that he spoke to their senses by jiroducing, 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 Lombards was multiplied by the adventurous youth of (Germany and Scythia. The robust ))easantry of Noricum and Pannonia had resumed the manners of barbarians ; and the names of the Gepida?, Bulgarians, Sarmatians, and Bavarians, may be dis- tinctly traced in the jirovinces of Italy. i'^ 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. F^very mode of religion was freely ])ractiscd 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. i** The Lombards and their confederates were united by their common ;»ttachmi;nt 1" Ut hactcnus etiam tarn apud Bajoarioruni genteni, quam et .Saxonum sed et alioo ejusdein linguae homines ... in eoruni carminibus celebretur. Paul. 1. i. c. 27. He died A.D. 799 (Muraiori, in Praefat. torn. i. p. 397). Those German songs, some of which might be as old as Tacitus (dc Moribus (}erm. C.I2), were compiled and transcribed by Charlemagne. Barbara et antiquissima carniina, quibus veterum regum actus et bella canebantur scripsit memoriitque mandavit (Eginhard, in Vit. Carol. Magn. c. 29, p. 130, 131). The poems, which Goldast commends (Animadvers. ad Eginhard. p. 207), appear to be recent and con- temptible romances. '" The other nations are rehearsed by Paul (1. ii. c. 6, 26). Muratori (Antichita I'aliane, torn. i. dissert, i. p. 4) has discovered the village of the Bavarians, three miles from Modena. 's Gregory the Roman (Dialog. 1. iii. c. 27, 28, apud Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 579, No. 10) supposes that they likewise adored this she-goat. I know but of one religion in which the god and the victim are the same.