Now Gundobald, the king of the Burgundians, who had taken Ricimer’s place, in his capacity of Patrician appointed a Roman of the name of Glycerius, emperor. Against him, however, the court of Constantinople sent Julius Nepos, another Roman of rank, who with some assistance from Constantinople got possession of Rome and Ravenna. Glycerius abdicated; but Nepos was refused obedience by Orestes, a Roman from Noricum, who had been great even in the days of Attila. At this time, after Gundobald had left Italy, Orestes was Patrician, that is to say, commander-in-chief. Although a Roman by birth, he had been brought up among barbarians, and had adopted their language, manners, dress, and way of living: from reasons which we cannot account for, he conferred the imperial dignity upon his son Romulus, who had received his strange name from the father of his mother, a count Romulus in Noricum. Nepos, that he might be acknowledged by the Visigoths, had already given up the Roman lands in Gaul, even more than those barbarians were able to occupy: the people of Auvergne abandoned the hopeless idea of resistance; but in the north of Gaul, between Burgundy and the settlements of the Franks, a considerable part of the country was still Roman, though separated from the bulk of the empire ever since the death of Ægidius. That territory was now subject to Syagrius, and it yet lasted ten years longer than the western empire, until it was likewise broken up by Clovis. Romulus, who was not called Augustus, but Augustulus, was the last emperor. Against him the barbarian tribes, stirred up by Odoachar, a German prince, arose in rebellion: they demanded, over and above their exorbitant pay, no less than a third of all the lands, like the Visigoths and Burgundians, to be allotted on a tenure of military service. As Orestes would not grant this, they revolted, and, wanting to have a ruler who was one of themselves, proclaimed Odoachar king. He defeated Orestes and his brother in two battles, and they both of them lost their lives. Odoachar marched to Ravenna, and Romulus surrendered to him: he was treated with humanity, as he received a liberal maintenance, and the _Lucullianum_ in Campania was assigned to him as his residence. Whether he died there of a natural death, is more than we know. Thus ended the Roman empire. FINE ARTS AND LITERATURE. Of the fifth century some buildings are still preserved. The noble church of St. Paul, although built up by the robbery of other fabrics, was yet in a grand style, and put together with much taste: the robbery is described in a statute of the emperor Majorian who forbade it. A hundred and fifty years ago, there still existed, in the church of S. Agata di Goti, a mosaic from which it appeared that this church was built and dedicated by Ricimer.