The Western Empire. R O 
through the powerful intercession of his sister. Hera cl ius 
with difficulty effected his retreat through the desert 5 Mar- 
cellinus retired to Sicily, where he was soon after assassinated; 
and the coasts both of the East and the West were again 
exposed to the ravages of the Vandals. 
The death of Majorian had dissolved the alliance between 
the Goths and the Romans. Theodoric having obtained 
possession of the territory of Narbonne, by the selfish policy 
of Ricimer, was invited to invade the provinces which ac¬ 
knowledged the authority of Aegidius; the barbarians were 
checked near Orleans; but their ambition was accomplished 
under Euric, the brother and successor of Theodoric, who 
passing the Pyrenees, carried their arms into the heart of 
Lusitania, and allowed the Suevi to hold Gallicia as a depen¬ 
dent sovereignty on the Gothic monarchy of Spain. In 
Gaul they were no less successful; for from the Pyrenees 
to the Rhine and the Loire, very few places resisted the 
victorious arms of Euric. The public confidence became 
lost; the resources of the state were exhausted; and the in¬ 
habitants of. Gaul found it vain to expect protection from 
the now feeble emperor of the West. 
To increase these calamities, a discord broke out between 
Anthemius, and the still powerful Ricimer. That haughty 
barbarian, impatient of a superior, retired from Rome; and 
fixing his residence at Milan, menaced Italy with a civil 
war. At last, he was prevailed on to negociate, and Epi- 
phanius, bishop of Pavia, was charged with the commission. 
Anthemius, after recapitulating' the favours conferred on 
Ricimer, and the natural duty he owed him by being the 
husband of his daughter, exclaimed, “ Shall I now accept 
his perfidious friendship ? Can I hope that he will respect 
the engagements of a treaty, who was already violated the 
duties of a son?” But the resentment of the emperor 
evaporated in these passionate expressions; and Epiphanius 
returned with the flattering hope, that he had restored the 
peace of Italy. Ricimer, however, only changed his mode 
of attack, and resolved secretly to subvert the throne of 
Anthemius. For this purpose he augmented bis barbarian 
troops, and advancing to the banks of the Anio, there ex¬ 
pected the arrival of the senator Olybrius, whom he resolved 
to invest with the imperial purple. 
The object of the present favour of Ricimer was descended 
from the Anician family, and having married Placidia, the 
youngest daughter of Valentinian, had some pretensions to 
the throne. When the haughty disposer of Roman power, 
therefore, meditated the ruin of Anthemius, he tempted 
Olybrius with the offer of a diadem; which flattering his 
■vanity at the expence of his happiness, he set out from 
Constantinople, with the approbation of the emperor of 
the East, and landed at Ravenna, where he was received in 
the camp of Ricimer as the sovereign of the western world. 
A. D. 472. 
The patrician had already extended his posts from the 
Anio to the Milvian bridge, and possessed the two quarters 
of Rome that were separated by the Tiber; but the remainder 
of the city, with the great majority of the senate and people, 
adhered to the cause of Anthemius, who, with the assistance 
of a Gothic army, was enabled to protract his own life, and 
the public distress, by a resistance of three months. At 
length the victorious troops of Ricimer penetrated to the 
heart of the city, and Anthemius, dragged from his 
concealment, was massacred by the command of his son- 
in-law. 
About six weeks after, however, Italy was delivered from 
the tyranny of Ricimer, by a painful disease. He bequeathed 
the command of his army to his nephew Gundobald, a prince 
of the Burgundians; and Olybrius himself, whose death 
does not bear any marks of violence, scarcely filled the 
throne of the West for the short period of seven months. 
Leo, the emperor of the East, was persuaded to invest 
with the purple of the West, Julius Nepos, the nephew of 
Marcellinus, and who had married one of the nieces of the 
empress Varina: but in consequence of the indecision of the 
Byzantine court, Gundobald found leisure to raise to the 
same dignity an obscure soldier, named Glycerius; but the 
latter soon exchanged the Roman sceptre for the bishopric 
M E. The Western Empire. 811 
of Salona; and the Burgundian prince having retired 
beyond the Alps, Nepos was acknowledged by the Italians 
and the provincials of Gaul. 
The favourable omens which attended the beginning of 
his reign, were soon changed by his cession of Auvergne to 
the Visigoths; and his repose was speedily disturbed by a 
furious sedition of the barbarian confederates, who, under 
the command of Orestes, advanced from Rome to Ravenna. 
Nepos, instead of having recourse to arms, fled to his 
principality of Dalmatia, where, after an equivocal reign of 
five years, he was assassinated by Glycerius, who, as a 
reward for his crime, obtained the archbishopric of Milan. 
After the death of Attila, the bravest youths of the nations 
who had recovered their independence, enlisted themselves 
in the army of the confederates, who formed the defence and 
terror of Italy, Among these was Orestes, descended from 
an illustrious family in Pannonia, who, disdaining to obey 
the Ostrogoths, to whom his native country was ceded, 
enlisted in the armies of Rome. By the successors of Valen¬ 
tinian he was rapidly advanced in the military profession, 
and by Nepos himself was elevated to the dignities of 
patrician and master-general of the troops. These, when 
Orestes declined the purple, readily consented to acknowledge 
his son Augustulus, a child, as emperor of the West; but it 
was soon discovered that the precarious sovereign of Italy 
was only permitted to choose between being the slave and 
the victim of his barbarian mercenaries. These demanded 
that a third part of Italy should be divided among them; 
and Orestes, with a virtuous fortitude that deserved a better 
fate, determined to encounter the rage of an armed multitude, 
rather than subscribe the rain of an innocent people. He 
retired to Pavia for security; but the fortifications of the city 
being stonned by the soldiers, led on by Odoacer, a bold 
barbarian, the rage of the confederates was not appeased till 
Orestes was put to death. 
Odoacer, was the son of Edeeon, once in high favour 
with Attila. The father had listened to a conspiracy against 
the life of his sovereign, but his apparent guilt was expiated 
by his merit, and his name is honourably mentioned as the 
leader of the Scyrri, in the unequal contest of the Huns with 
the Ostrogoths. Edeeon did not survive this defeat, and left 
two sons, Anulf and Odoacer: the former retired to Con¬ 
stantinople, where he sullied the fame he had acquired in 
arms by the assassination of a generous benefactor; the 
latter led a wandering life among the barbarians of Noricum, 
till he was encouraged by a favourable prediction to return 
to Italy. He was admitted, and soon gained an honourable 
rank among the guards of the western empire; his manners 
were gradually polished, his military skill improved; and on 
the execution of Orestes, the confederates saluted him with 
the title of king; but he was too polite to assume the purple 
and diadem, and had too much pride to be a nominal em¬ 
peror, like many of his predecessors. 
The feeble and youthful Augustus, or Augustulus as he 
was called, was directed to signify his resignation to the 
senate; and that assembly in an epistle to Zeno, now em¬ 
peror of the East, disclaimed the necessity of continuing the 
imperial succession in Italy, since, as they flatteringly 
observed, the majesty of the monarch of Constantinople 
was sufficient to protect both the east and the west. 
They further added, “ that the republic might safely 
confide in the civil and military virtues of Odoacer: 
and they humbly requested that the emperor would 
invest him with the title of patrician and the admi¬ 
nistration of the diocese of Italy.” Zeno, after due 
deliberation, found it prudent to comply with their requi¬ 
sition; he gratefully accepted the imperial ensigns, and 
entertained a friendly correspondence with the patrician 
Odoacer, who shewed his clemency to Augustulus, and 
assigned him a splendid income to support him in a private 
station, at a villa in Campania. 
Odoacer, to gratify the prejudices of his subjects, restored 
the consulship of the west, and successively filled the curdle 
chair with eleven of the most illustrious senators. The civil 
administration of Italy was still exercised by the praetorian 
praefect; the revenues were collected by the Roman magis¬ 
trates. 
