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Or was the hatred against his men more than himself, contempt especially of the low-caste Herules, a question of race, springing out of those miserable tribe-feuds, which kept the Teutons always divided and weak? Be that as it may, Odoacer had done a deed which raised this hatred to open fury. They had plundered, it is said, the cell of his old friend St.
When Zeno died he left the empire a prey to every misery. In Italy, Herules and Ostrogoths were desperately contending for the possession of the country. Barbarians beyond the Danube incessantly threatened the north-eastern frontiers. There was no truce with them but at the cost of incessant payments and every sort of degradation. Egypt and Syria were torn to pieces by the Eutychean heresy.
He comes upon them with a mighty host: but not of Romans alone. He has gathered the Teuton tribes; Herules, the descendants probably of Odoacer's confederates; Gepids, who have a long blood-feud against the Goths; and most terrible of all, Alboin with his five thousand more Burgundians, of whom you will hear enough hereafter.
Buccelin, entrenched among his plunder-waggons by the Volturno stream in the far south, had waited in vain for that dead brother and his dead host, till Narses came on him, with his army of trained Herules and Goths; the Francisc axe and barbed pike had proved useless before the arrows and the cavalry of the Romans; and no more than five Allmen, says one, remained of all that mighty host.
He says, 'There will be no need to talk henceforth. This day will end the war. They are not to fear these hired Huns, Herules, Lombards, fighting for money. Let them hold together like desperate men. So they fight it out. The Goths depending entirely on the lance, the Romans on a due use of every kind of weapon.
Gaul, in which several Roman commanders assumed the imperial title, was overrun in the years from 406 to 416 by various peoples, whom the two opposing sides called in: by Burgundians, Franks, Alemans, Vandals, Quades, Alans, Gepids, Herules. The Alans, Sueves, Vandals, and Visigoths, at the same time, went to Spain. Their leaders endeavoured to set up kingdoms of their own all over Gaul and Spain.
The Goths, as they go down, murder every Roman they meet. The day of grace which Totila had given them is over. The Teutons in Narses' army do much the same. What matter to Burgunds and Herules who was who, provided they had any thing to be plundered of? Totila has allowed many Roman senators to live in Campania. They hear that Narses has taken Rome, they begin to flock to the ghastly ruin.
Whether or not Narses called the Lombards into Italy, their king Alboin came from Pannonia over the Carnian Alps into the plain which has ever since borne their name; and this was in the next year 568 to the recal of Narses. The Goth and the Herules had worked much woe and wrought great destruction; but the Goths compared to the Lombards were as knights compared to villains.
To the Romans he was Patricius, a title of honour lasting for life, which from Constantine's time, without being connected with any particular office, surpassed all other dignities. To his own people he was king of the Ruges, Herules, and Turcilings, or king of the nations.
Rodulf their king, too certain of victory, sat playing at tables, and sent a man up a tree to see how the fight went, telling him that he would cut his head off if he said that the Herules fled; and then, touched by some secret anxiety as to the end, spoke the fatal words himself; and a madness from God came on the Herules; and when they came to a field of flax, they took the blue flowers for water, and spread out their arms to swim through, and were all slaughtered defencelessly.
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