XXX. CHAP. Odoacer devolved on the Roman magistrates the odious and oppressive task of collecting the public revenue; but he reserved for himself the merit of seasonable and popular indulgence. Like the rest of the Barbarians, he had been instructed in the Arian heresy; but he revered the monastic and episcopal characters; and the silence of the Catholics attests the toleration which they enjoyed. The peace of the city required the interposition of his præfect Basilius in the choice of a Roman pontiff: the decree which restrained the clergy from alienating their lands was ultimately designed for the benefit of the people, whose devotion would have been taxed to repair the dilapidations of the church. Italy was protected by the arms of its conqueror; and its frontiers were respected by the Barbarians of Gaul and Germany, who had so long insulted the feeble race of Theodosius. Odoacer passed the Hadriatic, to chastise the assassins of the emperor Nepos, and to acquire the maritime province of Dalmatia. He passed the Alps, to rescue the remains of Noricum from Fava, or Feletheus, king of the Rugians, who held his residence beyond the Danube. The king was vanquished in battle, and led away prisoner; a numerous colony of captives and subjects was transplanted into Italy; and Rome, after a long period of defeat and disgrace, might claim the triumph of her Barbarian Miserable state of Italy. master. Notwithstanding the prudence and success of Odoacer, his kingdom exhibited the sad prospect of misery and desolation. Since the age of Tiberius, the decay of agriculture had been felt in Italy; and it was a just subject of complaint that the life of the Roman people depended on the accidents of the winds and waves. In the division and decline of the empire, the tributary harvests of Egypt and Africa were withdrawn ; the numbers of the inhabitants continually diminished XXX. with the means of subsistence; and the country was CHAP. exhausted by the irretrievable losses of war, famine, and pestilence. St. Ambrose has deplored the ruin of a populous district, which had been once adorned with the flourishing cities of Bologna, Modena, Regium, and Placentia. Pope Gelasius was a subject of Odoacer, and he affirms, with strong exaggeration, that in Æmilia, Tuscany, and the adjacent provinces, the human species was almost extirpated. The plebeians of Rome, who were fed by the hand of their master, perished or disappeared, as soon as his liberality was suppressed; the decline of the arts reduced the industrious mechanic to idleness and want; and the senators, who might support with patience the ruin of their country, bewailed their private loss of wealth and luxury. One-third of those ample estates, to which the ruin of Italy is originally imputed, was extorted for the use of the conquerors. Injuries were aggravated by insults; the sense of actual sufferings was embittered by the fear of more dreadful evils; and as new lands were allotted to new swarms of Barbarians, each senator was apprehensive lest the arbitrary surveyors should approach his favourite villa, or his most profitable farm. The least unfortunate were those who submitted without a murmur to the power which it was impossible to resist. Since they desired to live, they owed some gratitude to the tyrant who had spared their lives; and since he was the absolute master of their fortunes, the portion which he left must be accepted as his pure and voluntary gift. The distress of Italy was mitigated by the prudence and humanity of Odoacer, who had bound himself, at the price of his elevation, to satisfy the demands of a licentious and turbulent multitude. The kings of the Barbarians were frequently resisted, deposed, or murdered, by their native subjects; and the various bands of Italian mercenaries, who as XXX. CHAP. sociated under the standard of an elective general, claimed a larger privilege of freedom and rapine. A monarchy destitute of national union, and hereditary right, hastened to its dissolution. After a reign of fourteen years, Odoacer was oppressed by the superior genius of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, a hero alike excellent in the arts of war and of government, who restored an age of peace and prosperity, and whose name still excites and deserves the attention of mankind. NOTE. In the original publication the narrative is here interrupted by the 37th chapter, which contains a minute account of the origin, progress, and effects, of the monastic life; with various examples of the wild absurdities to which it gave occasion in Egypt, and in other countries. The same chapter contains a very long dissertation on the introduction and the suppression of the Arian heresy among the Barbarians. The historical narrative is resumed in the 38th chapter, with which Mr. Gibbon finished his work, in the year 1781.-In the present publication, the 37th chapter of the original is entirely omitted, and the history is continued without any interruption. THE EDITOR. CHAP. XXXI. State of Gaul, and Establishment of the French Monarchy by Clovis.-State of Spain under the Dominion of the Visigoths.—State of Britain, and Establishment of the Saxon Heptarchy.—General Reflections on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West. 66 XXXI. tion of Gaul. THE Gauls, who impatiently supported the Ro- CHAP. man yoke, received a memorable lesson from one of the lieutenants of Vespasian, whose weighty sense The revoluhas been refined and expressed by the genius of Tacitus. "The protection of the republic has delivered "Gaul from internal discord and foreign invasions. By the loss of national independence, you have acquired the name and privileges of Roman citizens. "You enjoy, in common with ourselves, the perma"nent benefits of civil government; and your remote "situation is less exposed to the accidental mischiefs "of tyranny. Instead of exercising the rights of conquest, we have been contented to impose such "tributes as are requisite for your own preservation. "Peace cannot be secured without armies; and "armies must be supported at the expense of the 66 people. It is for your sake, not for our own, that "we guard the barrier of the Rhine against the fe"rocious Germans, who have so often attempted, "and who will always desire, to exchange the solitude of their woods and morasses for the wealth "and fertility of Gaul. The fall of Rome would be "fatal to the provinces; and you would be buried "in the ruins of that mighty fabric, which has been "raised by the valour and wisdom of eight hundred 66 years. Your imaginary freedom would be insulted CHAP. Euric, king of the Visigoths, "and oppressed by a savage master; and the expul"sion of the Romans would be succeeded by the "eternal hostilities of the Barbarian conquerors.' This salutary advice was accepted, and this strange prediction was accomplished. In the space of four hundred years, the hardy Gauls, who had encountered the arms of Cæsar, were imperceptibly melted into the general mass of citizens and subjects: the Western empire was dissolved; and the Germans, who had passed the Rhine, fiercely contended for the possession of Gaul, and excited the contempt, or abhorrence, of its peaceful and polished inhabitants. With that conscious pride which the pre-eminence of knowledge and luxury seldom fails to inspire, they derided the hairy and gigantic savages of the North; their rustic manners, dissonant joy, voracious appetite, and their horrid appearance, equally disgusting to the sight and to the smell. The liberal studies were still cultivated in the schools of Autun and Bordeaux; and the language of Cicero and Virgil was familiar to the Gallic youth. Their ears were astonished by the harsh and unknown sounds of the Germanic dialect, and they ingeniously lamented that the trembling muses fled from the harmony of a Burgundian lyre. The Gauls were endowed with all the advantages of art and nature; but as they wanted courage to defend them, they were justly condemned to obey, and even to flatter, the victorious Barbarians, by whose clemency they held their precarious fortunes and their lives. As soon as Odoacer had extinguished the Western empire, he sought the friendship of the most powerful A. D. 476 of the Barbarians. The new sovereign of Italy re -485. signed to Euric, king of the Visigoths, all the Roman conquests beyond the Alps, as far as the Rhine and the Ocean: and the senate might confirm this liberal gift with some ostentation of power, and with |