OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 469 the unusual clemency, which preserved fi*om the flames the public, as well as private, buildings ; and spared the lives of the captive multitude. The popular traditions of Comum, Turin, or Modena, may justly be suspected; yet they concur [Taurini, with more authentic evidence to prove that Attila spread his ravages over the rich plains of modern Lombardy : which are divided by the Po, and bounded by the Alps and Apennine.^^ When he took possession of the royal palace of Milan, he was surprised, and offended, at the sight of a picture, which re- presented the Csesars seated on their throne and the princes of Scythia prostrate at their feet. The revf nge which Attila inflicted on this monument of Roman vanity was harmless and ingenious. He commanded a painter to reverse the figures and the attitudes ; and the emperors were delineated on the same canvas, approaching in a suppliant posture to empty their bags of tributary gold before the throne of the Scythian monai'ch.^^ The spectators must have confessed the truth and propriety of the alteration ; and were perhaps tempted to apply, on this singular occasion, the well-known fable of the dispute between the lion and the man.^^ It is a saying worthy of the ferocious pride of Attila, that the Riundation of grass never grew on the spot where his horse had trod. Yet Venice the savage destroyer undesignedly laid the foundations of a republic which revived, in the feudal state of Europe, the art and spirit of commercial industry. The celebrated name of Venice, or Venetia,^^ was formerly diffused over a large and fertile province of Italy, from the confines of Pannonia to the 5- In describing this war of Attila, a war so famous, but so imperfectly known, I have taken for my guides two learned Italians, who considered the subject with some peculiar advantages ; Sigonius, de Imperio Occidentali, 1. xiii. in his works, torn. i. p. 495-502 ; and Muratori, Annali d'ltalia, tom. iv. p. 229-236, 8vo edition. 53 This anecdote may be found under two different articles (fxeStoAarov and KopuKos) of the miscellaneous compilation of Suidas. •'^ Leo respondit, humana hoc pictum manu : Videres hominem dejectum, si pingere Leones scirent. Appendix ad Phaedrum, Fab. xxv. The lion in Phfedrus very foolishly appeals from pictures to the amphitheatre ; and I am glad to observe that the native taste of La Fontaine (1. iii. fable x.) has omitted this most lame and impotent conclusion.
- " Paul the Deacon (de Gestis Langobard, 1. ii. c. 14, p. 784) describes the
provinces of Italy about the end of the eighth century. Venetia non solum in paucis insulis quas nunc Venetias dicimus constat ; sed ejus terminus a Pannonise finibus usque Adduam tiuvium protelatur. The history of that province till the age of Charlemagne forms the first and most interesting part of the Verona Illustrata (p. 1-3S8), in which the marquis Scipio Maffei has shewn himself equally capable of enlarged views and minute disquisitions,
