XLV. heavy multitudes proceeded to occupy the palace CHAP. and city of Verona; and Milan, now rising from her ashes, was invested by the powers of Alboin five months after his departure from Pannonia. Terror preceded his march; he found every where, or he left, a dreary solitude; and the pusillanimous Italians presumed, without a trial, that the stranger was invincible. Escaping to lakes, or rocks, or morasses, the affrighted crowds concealed some fragments of their wealth, and delayed the moment of their servitude. Paulinus, the patriarch of Aquileia, removed his treasures, sacred and profane, to the Isle of Grado 18, and his successors wore adopted by the infant republic of Venice, which was continually enriched by the public calamities. Honoratus, who filled the chair of St. Ambrose, had credulously accepted the faithless offers of a capitulation; and the archbishop with the clergy and nobles of Milan, were driven by the perfidy of Alboin to seek a refuge in the less accessible ramparts of Genoa. Along the maritime coast, the courage of the inhabitants was supported by the facility of supply, the hopes of relief, and the power of escape; but from the Trentine hills to the gates of Ravenna and Rome, the inland regions of Italy became, without a bat 18 Which from this translation was called New Aquileia (Chron. Venet. p. 3.). The patriarch of Grado soon became the first citizen of the republic (p. 9, &c.), but his seat was not removed to Venice till the year 1450. He is now decorated with titles and honours; but the genius of the church has bowed to that of the state, and the government of a Catholic city is strictly presbyterian. Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 156, 157. 161–165. Amelot de la Houssaye, Gouvernement de Venise, tom. i. p. 256— CHAP. tle or a siege, the lasting patrimony of the Lom XLV. bards. The submission of the people invited the Barbarian to assume the character of a lawful sovereign, and the helpless exarch was confined to the office of announcing to the emperor Justin, the rapid and irretrievable loss of his provinces and cities 1. One city, which had been diligently fortified by the Goths, resisted the arms of a new invader; and while Italy was subdued by the fly. ing detachments of the Lombards, the royal camp was fixed above three years before the western gate of Ticinum, or Pavia. The same courage which obtains the esteem of a civilized enemy, provokes the fury of a savage, and the impatient besieger had bound himself by a tremendous oath, that age, and sex, and dignity, should be confounded in a general massacre. The aid of famine at length enabled him to execute his bloody vow; but as Alboin entered the gate, his horse stumbled, fell, and could not be raised from the ground. One of his attendants was prompted by compassion, or piety, to interpret this miraculous sign of the wrath of Heaven; the conqueror paused and relented; he sheathed his sword, and, peacefully reposing himself in the palace of Theodoric, proclaimed to the trembling multitude, that they should live and obey. Delighted with the situation of a city, which was endeared to his pride by the difficulty of the purchase, the prince of the Lombards disdained the ancient glories of Milan; 19 Paul has given a description of Italy, as it was then divided, into eighteen regions (l. ii. c. 14-24.). The Dissertatio Chorographica de Italiâ Medii Ævi, by Father Beretti, a Benedictine monk, and regius professor at Pavia, has been usefully consulted. and Pavia, during some ages, was respected as the CHAP. capital of the kingdom of Italy 20. XLV. murdered A. D. 573. June 28. The reign of the founder was splendid and Alboin is transient; and before he could regulate his new by his wife conquests, Alboin fell a sacrifice to domestic trea- Rosamond, son and female revenge. In a palace near Verona, which had not been erected for the Barbarians, he feasted the companions of his arms; intoxication was the reward of valour, and the king himself was tempted by appetite, or vanity, to exceed the ordinary measure of his intemperance. After draining many capacious bowls of Rhætian or Falernian wine, he called for the skull of Cunimund, the noblest and most precious ornament of his sideboard. The cup of victory was accepted with horrid applause by the circle of the Lombard chiefs. "Fill it again with wine," exclaimed the inhuman conqueror, "fill it to the brim; carry this goblet "to the queen, and request in my name that she "would rejoice with her father." In an agony of grief and rage, Rosamond had strength to utter, 66 Let the will of my lord be obeyed !” and touching it with her lips, pronounced a silent imprecation, that the insult should be washed away in the blood of Alboin. Some indulgence might be due to the resentment of a daughter, if she had not already violated the duties of a wife. Implacable 20 For the conquest of Italy, see the original materials of Paul (l. ii. c. 7—10. 12. 14. 25, 26, 27.), the eloquent narrative of Sigonius (tom. ii. de Regno Italiæ, 1. i. p. 13—19.), and the correct and critical review of Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. v. p. 164180.). XLV. CHAP. in her enmity, or inconstant in her love, the queen of Italy had stooped from the throne to the arms of a subject, and Helmichis, the king's armourbearer, was the secret minister of her pleasure and revenge. Against the proposal of the murder, he could no longer urge the scruples of fidelity or gratitude; but Helmichis trembled, when he revolved the danger as well as the guilt, when he recollected the matchless strength and intrepidity of a warrior, whom he had so often attended in the field of battle. He pressed, and obtained, that one of the bravest champions of the Lombards should be associated to the enterprise, but no more than a promise of secrecy could be drawn from the gallant Peredeus; and the mode of seduction employed by Rosamond betrays her shameless insensibility both to honour and love. She supplied the place of one of her female attendants who was beloved by Peredeus, and contrived some excuse for darkness and silence, till she could inform her companion that he had enjoyed the queen of the Lombards, and that his own death, or the death of Alboin, must be the consequence of such treasonable adultery. In this alternative, he chose rather to be the accomplice than the victim of Rosamond 2, whose undaunted spirit was incapable of fear or remorse. She expected, and soon found a favourable 21 21 The classical reader will recollect the wife and murder of Candaules, so agreeably told in the first book of Herodotus. The choice of Gyges, αipɛɛtaι autos Tegia, may serve as the excuse of Peredeus ; and this soft insinuation of an odious idea has been imitated by the best writers of antiquity (Grævius, ad Ciceron. Orat. pro Milone, c. 10.). XLV. moment, when the king, oppressed with wine, had CHAP. retired from the table to his afternoon slumbers. His faithless spouse was anxious for his health and repose the gates of the palace were shut, the arms removed, the attendants dismissed, and Rosamond, after lulling him to rest by her tender caresses, unbolted the chamber-door, and urged the reluctant conspirators to the instant execution of the deed. On the first alarm, the warrior started from his couch his sword, which he attempted to draw, had been fastened to the scabbard by the hand of Rosamond; and a small stool, his only weapon, could not long protect him from the spears of the assassins. The daughter of Cunimund smiled in his fall; his body was buried under the staircase of the palace, and the grateful posterity of the Lombards revered the tomb and the memory of their victorious leader... The ambitious Rosamond aspired to reign in the name of her lover; the city and palace of Ve- and death. rona were awed by her power, and a faithful band of her native Gepida was prepared to applaud the revenge, and to second the wishes, of their sovereign. But the Lombard chiefs, who fled in the first moments of consternation and disorder, had resumed their courage and collected their powers; and the nation, instead of submitting to her reign, demanded, with unanimous cries, that justice should be executed on the guilty spouse and the murderers of their king. She sought a refuge among the enemies' of her country, and a criminal who deserved the abhorrence of mankind was pro |