60 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap.xxxvi into Italy ; and Borne, after a long period of defeat and dis- grace, might claim the triumph of her Barbarian master. 146 Miserable Notwithstanding the prudence and success of Odoacer, his itaiy° 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 subject of complaint that the life of the Eoman people depended on the accidents of the winds and waves. 147 In the division and the decline of the empire, the tributary harvests of Egypt and Africa were withdrawn; the numbers of the inhabitants continually diminished with the means of subsistence ; and the country was exhausted by the irretrievable losses of war, famine, 148 and pestilence. St. Ambrose has deplored the ruin of a populous district, which had been once adorned with the flourishing cities of Bologna, Modena, Eegium, and Placentia. 149 Pope Gelasius was a subject of Odoacer, and he affirms, with strong exaggeration, that in TRmilia, Tuscany, and the adjacent provinces, the human species was almost extirpated. 150 The plebeians of Eome, 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, 151 was extorted for the use of the conquerors. Injuries were aggravated by insults ; the sense of actual suffer- 146 The wars of Odoacer are concisely mentioned by Paul the Deacon (de Gest. Langobard. 1. i. c. 19, p. 757, edit. Grot.) and in the two Chronicles of Cassiodorius and Cuspinian [for which see Appendix 1]. The life of St. Severinus, by Eugippius, which the Count de Buat (Hist, des Peuples, &c. torn. viii. c. 1, 4, 8, 9) has dili- gently studied, illustrates the ruin of Noricum and the Bavarian antiquities. 147 Tacit. Annal. iii. 53. The Eecherches sur 1' Administration des Terres chez les Romains (p. 351-361) clearly state the progress of internal decay. 148 A famine which afflicted Italy at the time of the irruption of Odoacer, king of the Heruli, is eloquently described in prose and verse by a Frenoh poet (Les Mois, torn. ii. p. 174, 206, edit, in 12mo). I am ignorant from whence he derives his in- formation ; but I am well assured that he relates some facts incompatible with the truth of history. 149 See the xxxixth epistle of St. Ambrose, as it is quoted by Muratori, sopra le Antiohita Italiane, torn. i. Dissert, xxi. p. 354. 160 ^Emilia, Tuscia, ceteraaque provinciae in quibus hominum prope nullus exsistit. Gelasius, Epist. ad Andromachum, ap. Baronium, Annal. Eccles. a.d. 496, No. 36. 151 Verumque confitentibus, latifundia perdidere Italians. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 7. [For a document recording a grant of estates by Odovacar, see Appen- dix 2.]
