| Plan of Walls and Gates of Rome | facing 185 |
Such, then, were the fortunes of the Romans in Libya. I shall nowproceed to the Gothic War, first telling all that befell the Goths andItalians before this war.
474-491 a.d.During the reign of Zeno Byzantiumthe power in the West was held by Augustus, whom the Romans used to callby the diminutive name Augustulus because he took over the empire whilestill a lad,July 31, 475 a.d. his father Orestes,a man of the greatest discretion, administering it as regent for him.Now it happened that the Romans a short time before had induced theSciri and Alani and certain other Gothic nations to form an alliancewith them; and from that time on it was their fortune to suffer at thehand of Alaric and Attila those things which have been told in theprevious narrative.[1] And in proportion as the barbarian element amongthem became strong, just so did the prestige of the Roman soldiersforthwith decline, and under the fair name of alliance [5]they were moreand more tyrannized over by the intruders and oppressed by them; so thatthe barbarians ruthlessly forced many other measures upon the Romansmuch against their will and finally demanded that they should dividewith them the entire land of Italy. And indeed they commanded Orestes togive them the third part of this, and when he would by no means agree todo so, they killed him immediately. July 28, 476...