As against the "Teutonic" theory of Italian regeneration, a hearing may reasonably be claimed for the "Etruscan," thus set forth:--"The Etruscans were undoubtedly one of the most remarkable nations of antiquity--the great civilisers of Italy--and their influence not only extended over the whole of the ancient world but has affected every subsequent age.... That portion of the Peninsula where civilisation earliest flourished, whence infant Rome drew her first lessons, has in subsequent ages maintained its pre-eminence.... It was Etruria which produced Giotto, Brunelleschi, Fra Angelico, Luca Signorelli, Fra Bartolomeo, Michael Angelo, Hildebrand, 'the starry Galileo,' and such a noble band of painters, sculptors and architects as no other country of modern Europe can boast. Certainly no other region of Italy has produced such a galaxy of brilliant intellects.... Much may be owing to the natural superiority of the race, which, in spite of the revolutions of ages, remains essentially the same, and preserves a distinctive character." (G. Dennis, _The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_, 3rd ed. 1883, Introd. vol. i, pp. cii-iv.) Assumption for assumption, this is as defensible as the others. What happened in Italy after Odoaker was that, for sheer lack of unitary government on the part of the invaders, the cities, which preserved the seeds and norms of the old civilisation, gradually grew into new organic life. Under the early Empire they had been disarmed and unwalled, to make them incapable of revolt. Aurelian, stemming the barbarian tide, began to wall them afresh; but, as we have seen, the withdrawal of the seat of empire left Italy economically incapable of action on an imperial scale; and the personal imbecility of such emperors as Honorius filled up the cup of the humiliation of what once was Rome. But the invaders on the whole did little better; and the material they brought was more hopeless than what they found. The passage from full barbarism to order and civilisation cannot conceivably be made in one generation or one age. Athaulf, the able successor of Alaric, passed his competent judgment on the matter in words which outweigh all the rhetoric of modern romanticism: "He was wont to say that his warmest wish had at first been to obliterate the Roman name, and to make one sole Gothic empire, so that all that which had been Romania should be called Gothia, and that he, Athaulf, should play the same part as did Cæsar Augustus. But when by much experience he was convinced that the Goths were incapable of obedience to laws, because of their unbridled barbarism, and that the State without laws would cease to be a State, he had chosen to seek glory in rebuilding its integrity and increasing the Roman power by Gothic forces, so that posterity should at least regard him as the restorer of the empire which he was unable to replace. Therefore he