But the war was destined to endure for three years more: Ravenna was impregnable and Theodoric was thrice diverted from its siege by disturbances from outside. First Tufa, with the remnant of the _Foederati_, broke faith and rejoined his old master Odoacer. Then, in the next year, Gundobad, king of the Burgundians, came over the Alps and had to be turned back. Last Frederic, king of the Rugians, the first of the many Frederics of German history, took arms in favour of Odoacer, though Theodoric had sheltered him three years before, when he had fled from the armies of the king of Italy. [Sidenote: Siege of Ravenna. 491-93.] It was not till July 491 that Odoacer was for the last time driven back within the shelter of the marshes of Ravenna. For twenty months more he maintained himself within its impregnable walls, till sheer famine drove him to ask for peace in February 493. Theodoric proffered his vanquished enemy far better terms than he could have expected—that he should retain his kingly title and a share in the rule of Italy. But, when Odoacer had laid down his arms and came to his conqueror’s camp, he was treacherously slain at a banquet, only ten days after Ravenna fell. This was almost the only base and mean crime in Theodoric’s long and otherwise glorious career: his whole conduct at the time of the surrender seems to prove that he deliberately lured his rival to visit him, with the fixed intention of putting him to death. (March, 493.) So died Odoacer in the sixtieth year of his age; seventeen years after he had slain Orestes, he met the same fate that he had inflicted on his predecessor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER II THEODORIC KING OF ITALY 493-526 The Ostrogothic race—Character of Theodoric—His Administration of Italy—Theodoric in Rome—Foreign Policy of Theodoric—His wars with the Franks and Burgundians—His supremacy in Western Europe—Misfortunes of his later years—Death of Boethius—Failure of Theodoric’s great schemes.