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Rh Eleven years later (451) Attila invaded Gaul, but this Hunnish movement was in a variety of ways different from those of the

Visigoths and Vandals. Nearly a century had passed since the Huns first appeared in Europe, and drove the Goths to seek shelter within the Roman lines. Attila was now the ruler of a great empire in central and northern Europe and, in addition to his own Huns, the German tribes along the Rhine and Danube and far away to the north owned him as king. He confronted the Roman power as an equal; and, unlike the Gothic and Vandal chieftains, he treated with the emperors of east and west as an independent sovereign. His advance on Gaul and Italy threatened, not the establishment of one more barbaric chieftain on Roman soil, but the subjugation of the civilized and Christian West to the rule of a heathen and semi-barbarous conqueror. But the Visigoths in Gaul, Christian and already half Romanized, rallied to the

aid of the empire against a common foe. Attila, defeated at Châlons by Aëtius, withdrew into Pannonia (451). In the next year he overran Lombardy, but penetrated no farther south, and in 453 he died. With the murder of Valentinian III. (455) the western branch of the house of Theodosius came to an end, and the next twenty years witnessed the accession and deposition of nine emperors.

Under the three-months' rule of Maximus, the Vandals under Gaiseric invaded Italy and sacked Rome. From 456-72 the actual

ruler of Italy was Ricimer, the Suebe. Of the four emperors whom he placed on the throne, Majorian (457-61) alone played any imperial part outside Italy. Ricimer died in 472, and two years later a Pannonian, Orestes, attempted to fill his place. He deposed Julius Nepos and proclaimed as Augustus his own son Romulus. But the barbarian mercenaries in Italy determined to secure for themselves a position there such as that which their kinsfolk had won in Gaul and Spain and Africa. Their demand for a third of the lands of Italy was refused by Orestes, and they instantly rose in revolt. On the defeat and death of Orestes they proclaimed their leader, Odoacer the Rugian, king of Italy.

Romulus Augustulus laid down his imperial dignity, and the court at Constantinople was informed that there was no longer an emperor of the West.

The installation of a barbarian king in Italy was the natural climax of the changes which had been taking place in the West throughout the 5th century. In Spain, Gaul and Africa barbarian chieftains were already established as kings. In Italy, for the last twenty years, the real power had been wielded by a barbarian officer. Odoacer, when he decided to dispense with the nominal authority of an emperor of the West, placed Italy on the same level of independence with the neighbouring provinces. But the old ties with Rome were not severed. The new king of Italy formally recognized the supremacy of the one Roman emperor at Constantinople, and was invested in return with the rank of “patrician,” which had been held before him by Aëtius and Ricimer. In Italy too, as in Spain and Gaul, the laws, the administrative system and the language remained Roman. But the emancipation of Italy and the Western provinces from direct imperial control, which is signalized by Odoacer's accession, has rightly been regarded as marking the opening of a new epoch. It made possible in the West the development of a Romano-German civilization; it facilitated the growth of new and distinct states and nationalities; it gave a new impulse

to the influence of the Christian church, and laid the foundations of the power of the bishops of Rome.


 * (H. F. P.; H. S. J.)

.—I. : Ancient Sources.—The writing of history, like other branches of literature, was a late growth amongst the Romans, and it is very difficult to determine how far authentic records were preserved of the earlier republican period. It seems that the calendars issued yearly by the pontifices and posted on the walls of the Regia were inscribed with brief notices of important events (“digna memoratu . . . domi militiaeque terra marique gesta per singulos dies,” Serv. Ad Aen. i. 373); these tabulae were preserved and edited in 80 books by P. Mucius Scaevola (pontifex maximus, 130-?114 ) under the name of Annales Maximi. The Commentarii preserved in the archives of the various priestly colleges and official boards (e.g. consuls and censors), which appear to have consisted mainly of instructions as to official procedure, doubtless furnished historical material in the shape of precedents and decisions. It is hard to say how much of this documentary evidence survived the burning of Rome by the Gauls; the fact that the earliest solar eclipse mentioned in the Annales Maximi was that of the 5th of June, 351, casts doubt on the completeness of the earlier records.

Many modern scholars have supposed that these meagre official records were supplemented by—(a) popular poetry, more or less legendary in content; (b) family chronicles, the substance of which was worked up into the funeral orations (laudationes funebres) pronounced at the grave of distinguished Romans. The existence of the former class of documents is, however, quite unsupported by evidence; as to family tradition, we cannot say more than that it has probably left a deposit in the accounts of republican history handed down to us, and caused the exploits of the members of illustrious houses to be exaggerated in importance.

Setting aside the works of Greek historians who incidentally touched on Roman affairs, such as Hieronymus of Cardia, who wrote of the wars of Pyrrhus as a contemporary, and Timaeus of Tauromenium (c. 345-250 ), who treated of the history of Sicily and the West down to 272, the earliest writers on Roman history