The advantages that accrued to Verona from her geographical position have already been dwelt on. The disadvantages must equally be noted, chief among them being the facility with which her territory could be overrun by the wild and undaunted tribes of the North, who looked upon Italy--the garden of Europe--as the lawful reward for their labours, and who considered the trained cohorts of the Roman legions as foes worthy of their mettle. Odoacer was the first of these invaders. He bore down upon Italy at the head of a large force of warriors, possessed himself of Rome, where he deposed Augustolo, the last Emperor of the West, and after he had imprisoned him at Ravenna, he caused himself to be proclaimed King of Italy. This was in 476, and there can be little doubt that he held sway in Verona, from whence however he was driven out in a pitched battle by Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths. Odoacer lost heavily in the fight (489), his soldiers were carried away in the rushing, swirling waters of the Adige, when according to Eunodius “their corpses choked that grandest of rivers.” Odoacer himself withdrew to Ravenna, where he was murdered in 493. Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, is a name and personality associated with song and legend. His love for Verona was great, and though his official residence, so to speak, was at Ravenna, it was at the city beside the Adige that he preferred to dwell. Its strong fortifications, the convenience of its position for repelling any attack from Germany, added no doubt to the attraction felt for Verona by “Dietrich von Bern,” as Theodoric was called in German ballads. Theodoric’s love for Verona took shape in the several buildings which either for beauty or utility he raised in it. Baths, palaces, strongholds, and external walls were built in turn by him, and to him too is due the restoration of the aqueduct. The remains of the great palace that he built for himself on the hill of S. Pietro are still to be seen, and point to a style of architecture that had its origin in Rome. The later years of Theodoric’s life are dimmed (from a Veronese point of view) by the hatred he is said to have shewn towards the Catholics. To this is ascribed among other things his destruction of the oratory of S. Stefano, at that time the Cathedral church of Verona. This deed which coincided with the German legends which easily spread to Verona confirmed the story of the demoniacal chase which was circulated about Theodoric, and which is to be found engraved among the bas-reliefs carved on the façade of S. Zeno. The legend runs as follows: Theodoric on leaving the bath mounts his horse, and followed by his hounds gives chase to a stag. The stag however always manages to escape. The hunter pursues in reckless haste and eagerness, till he finds himself brought to the gates of hell. An allegorical lesson that might have a warning not only for the king of the Ostrogoths, but for all of every class and nation who choose to heed it!