The Occupation of the Land by the Germans in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries

THE events of 476 and especially the so-called “fall” of the western Roman Empire were the natural consequence of its penetration by the Germans, as described in the preceding chapter. In Italy, too, for centuries past, barbarians had been settled again and again, for example the Marcomanni by Marcus Aurelius, the Alemanni, and Taifali during the years 370–7, and many others. In the middle of the fifth century a Fiscus barbaricus is mentioned, a fund from which the foreign soldiers were given their pay and maintenance allowances. ¹ The mercenaries now demanded definite grants of land, as they had often done in other places, and, following a much practised custom, chose as king their leader, the Scirian Odoacer, who was serving in the Emperor’s bodyguard. A third of the Roman soil, corresponding to the Roman billeting-system, was given by him to his people in perpetuity. ²