Sueve, the king-maker and king-murderer; even good Majorian, who as
puppet Emperor set up by Ricimer, tries to pass a few respectable
laws, and is only murdered all the sooner. None of these need detain
us. They mean nothing, they represent no idea, they are simply kites
and crows quarrelling over the carcase, and cannot possibly teach us
anything, but the terrible lesson, that in all revolutions the worst
men are certain to rise to the top.

But only for a while, gentlemen, only for a while. Villany is by its
very essence self-destructive, and if rogues have their day, the time
comes when rogues fall out, and honest men come by their own.

That day, however, was not come for wretched Rome. A third time she
was sacked by Ricimer her own general; and then more villains ruled
her; and more kites and crows plundered her. The last of them only
need keep us a while. He is Odoacer, the giant Herule, Houd-y-
wacker, as some say his name really is, a soubriquet perhaps from his
war-cry, 'Hold ye stoutly,' 'Stand you steady.' His father was
AEdecon, Attila's secretary, chief of the little Turkling tribe, who,
though Teutonic, had clung faithfully to Attila's sons, and after the
battle of Netad, came to ruin. There are strange stories of Odoacer.
One from the Lives of St. Severinus, how Odoacer and his brothers
started over the Alps, knapsacks at back, to seek their fortunes in
Italy, and take service with the Romans; and how they came to St.
Severinus' cell near Vienna, and went in, heathens as they probably
were, to get a blessing from the holy hermit; and how Odoacer had to
stoop, and stand stooping, so huge he was. And how the saint saw
that he was no common lad, and said, 'Go into Italy, clothed in thy
ragged sheep-skins: thou shalt soon give greater gifts to thy
friends.' So he went, and his brother with him. One of them at