[Footnote 1:  Cf.  Anon.  Valesii, “Missus ab imperatore Zenone de partibus orientis ad defendendam sibi Italiam....”]

Theodoric, another unlettered barbarian and heretic, but a man of a great and noble character, set out for Italy from Nova on the southern bank of the Danube, where he had been a constant danger to the Eastern provinces, in the autumn of 488.  His purpose, set forth in his own words to the Emperor Zeno, was as follows:  “Although your servant is maintained in affluence by your liberality, graciously listen to the wishes of my heart.  Italy, the inheritance of your predecessors, and Rome itself, the head and mistress of the world, now fluctuate under the violence and oppression of Odoacer the mercenary.  Direct me with my national troops to march against this tyrant.  If I fall, you will be delivered from an expensive and troublesome friend; if, with the Divine permission, I succeed, I shall govern, in your name and to your glory, the Roman senate and the part of the republic delivered from slavery by my victorious arms.”

That march was an exodus.  Procopius tells us that, “with Theodoric went the people of the Goths, putting their wives and children and as much of their furniture as they could take with them into their waggons,” and as Ennodius, bishop of Ticinum, asserts, it was “a world that migrated” with Theodoric into Italy, “a world of which every member is nevertheless your kinsman.”  “Waggons,” says he, “are made to do duty as houses, and into these wandering habitations all things that can minister to the needs of the occupants are poured.  Then were the tools of Ceres, and the stones with which the corn is ground, dragged along by the labouring oxen.  Pregnant mothers, forgetful of their sex and of the burden which they bore, undertook the toil of providing food for the families of thy people.  Followed the reign of winter in thy camp.  Over the hair of thy men the long frost threw a veil of snowy white; the icicles hung in a tangle from their beards.  So hard was the frost that the garment which the matron’s persevering toil had woven had to be broken before a man might fit it to his body.  Food for thy marching armies was forced from the grasp of the hostile nations around, or procured by the cunning of the hunter."[1] It has been supposed by Mr. Hodgkin that not less than 40,000 fighting men and some 200,000 souls in all thus entered Italy.  To us it might seem that no such number of people could have lived without commissariat during that tremendous march of seven hundred miles through some of the poorest land of Europe in the depth of winter.  However that may be, Theodoric after many an encounter with barbarians wilder than his own descended from the Julian Alps into Venetia in August 489, after a march of not less than ten months.

[Footnote 1:  Ennodius, Panegyricus, p. 173.  Trs. by Hodgkin, op. cit. iii. 179-80.]

Odoacer was waiting for him.  He met him near the site of the old fortress of Aquileia, which Attila had annihilated, that once held the passage of the Sontius (Isonzo).  He was defeated and all Venetia fell into the hands of the Ostrogoth.  Odoacer retreated to Verona, that red fortress on the Adige; once more and more certainly he was beaten.  He retreated to Ravenna,[2] while Theodoric advanced to Milan, to Milan which now led nowhere.