The Gothic conquest, however, was not only permanent, but it was the first of three from the same stock. Themselves, probably, of mixed blood, having taken it up during their various settlements on the Lower and Middle Danube, from the Slavonians and Turks of the countries with which they came in contact, the Ostrogoths, to the amount of not less than two hundred thousand, settled in the most favoured parts of the country, and, dominant as they were amongst a population of serfs, must have played much the same part in Italy as the Normans did in England. And when Italy is recovered by Narses and Belisarius, more than one hundred and fifty years after, they are only ejected from power--not bodily put out of the land. As has been stated already, they were only the first of three--we may say of four--hordes of invaders, each of which was more or less Germanic; for the Lombard dominion rapidly succeeded the Ostrogoth, and, besides this, partial invasions of Bavarians, Suabians, and Alemanni were, for a time, successful. But the Lombards ruled over all Italy with the exception of the Exarchate of Ravenna, till the conquest by Charlemagne, and over the present kingdom of Naples, under the name of the Duchy of Beneventum, until the Norman Conquest. Of all the Germanic elements, the Lombard is possibly the greatest. But it was no pure strain. [Sidenote: A.D. 774.] The infusion of Slavonic and Turk blood amongst the followers of Alboin was considerable. For Calabrian and Apulian Italy the history is nearly the same as that of Sicily. Now, if after the sketch of these numerous elements of intermixture we ask which part of Italy is most Roman, the answer gives but a small proportion of that illustrious blood. Taking the narrowest view of the question, and distinguishing the Latin area from the Oscan, Umbrian, and Etruscan, the amount is inordinately insignificant--and Rome itself was but a mixture. By generalizing, however, our language, and making _Roman_ identical with _Italian_, we gain a larger area, coinciding pretty closely, though not exactly, with the States of the Church. This is the least mixed part of Italy, as well as the most Italian; the least mixed because it is south of the pre-eminently German, and north of the pre-eminently Arab area of invasion, and the most Italian, because the original basis was Umbrian, and Sabine rather than Etruscan, Gallic, Ligurian, or Œnotrian. Piedmont, perhaps, is the next in order of comparative purity; at least, as far as modern intermixture is concerned: the oldest basis being Ligurian. In Lombardy the elements are Umbrian, Etruscan, Gallic, Roman, Ostrogoth, and Lombard; in the Venetian territory, Umbrian, Etruscan, Gallic, Roman, Ostrogoth, Lombard, and _Slavonic_ (_Liburnian_); in the kingdom of Naples, Ausonian and Œnotrian, with Greek, Arab, and Norman superadditions. CHAPTER V.