The damage inflicted in these devastating attacks was incalculable. Rome was nearly depopulated; within forty-five years she lost through slaughter, flight and slavery some 150,000 inhabitants. Many ancient families entirely disappeared, others only survived to lead a miserable existence, falling, like the deserted temples, rapidly into decay. Huge palaces stood forsaken and empty, and the people stalked like spectres through the silent and nearly deserted streets of the desolate city. Rome recovered slowly, but the Western Empire was surely dying; feeble emperors reigned like shadows, and at length the throne fell to an adventurous barbarian soldier, Odoacer, a king of mercenaries, who ruled wisely and gave Rome thirteen years of tranquillity and peaceful progress. He was nevertheless a usurper, a foreign soldier hated and feared by the people, to be set aside as soon as a stronger man appeared. This was Theodoric, leader of the war-like Austro-Goths, a heroic people who had assimilated the civilising processes of East and West. Theodoric invaded Italy and made himself king; but he did not interfere with existing institutions and ere long won the respect, if not the affection, of the Roman people. He was not a Christian but he esteemed the Catholic faith; he knelt at the great basilica of St. Peter, approaching it in a triumphal procession across Hadrian’s bridge. He fed the populace with free food, amused them with games and spectacles in the Amphitheatre and Circus Maximus, and was deeply anxious to restore and care for the ancient monuments and buildings of the city. He was the noblest barbarian that ever ruled Italy, and his memory still lingers in the great cities he founded or restored. He endowed the capital with many great works, such as the restoration of the Appian Way and the drainage of the Pontine marshes. It is sufficient for my purpose to record that he made the mausoleum of Hadrian the model for his own tomb, which he erected at Ravenna and was at great pains to strengthen. The Roman castle was known for centuries as the house or prison of Theodoric, owing the second title no doubt to the security its walls afforded. Rome was undoubtedly a strong place of arms when the Goths under Vitiges, after the death of Theodoric, again attacked it. They were met and repelled by Belisarius, the great general appointed by the emperor Justinian, who had already won fame in Persian wars and who made very strenuous preparations to meet the attack, repairing the walls of Rome, which in spite of Theodoric’s restorations were still damaged and in parts ruinous. He added trenches and provided flank defence by a projecting guard house; above all, he filled the public granaries and fully victualled the place.