and nature, still sustained a siege of almost three years; and
the daring sallies of Odoacer carried slaughter and dismay into
the Gothic camp. At length, destitute of provisions and hopeless
of relief, that unfortunate monarch yielded to the groans of his
subjects and the clamors of his soldiers. A treaty of peace was
negotiated by the bishop of Ravenna; the Ostrogoths were admitted
into the city, and the hostile kings consented, under the
sanction of an oath, to rule with equal and undivided authority
the provinces of Italy. The event of such an agreement may be
easily foreseen. After some days had been devoted to the
semblance of joy and friendship, Odoacer, in the midst of a
solemn banquet, was stabbed by the hand, or at least by the
command, of his rival. Secret and effectual orders had been
previously despatched; the faithless and rapacious mercenaries,
at the same moment, and without resistance, were universally
massacred; and the royalty of Theodoric was proclaimed by the
Goths, with the tardy, reluctant, ambiguous consent of the
emperor of the East. The design of a conspiracy was imputed,
according to the usual forms, to the prostrate tyrant; but his
innocence, and the guilt of his conqueror, ^22 are sufficiently
proved by the advantageous treaty which force would not sincerely
have granted, nor weakness have rashly infringed. The jealousy
of power, and the mischiefs of discord, may suggest a more decent
apology, and a sentence less rigorous may be pronounced against a
crime which was necessary to introduce into Italy a generation of
public felicity. The living author of this felicity was
audaciously praised in his own presence by sacred and profane
orators; ^23 but history (in his time she was mute and
inglorious) has not left any just representation of the events
which displayed, or of the defects which clouded, the virtues of