HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE. 181

that the Romans themselves should remove from the world his most formidableantagonists.

“ After the failure of this great expedition, Genseric again became the tyrantof the sea ; the coasts of Italy, Greece, and Asia, were again exposed to hisrevenge and avarice ; Tripoli and Sardinia returned to his obedience ; he addedSicily to the number of his provinces ; and before he died, in the fulness ofyears and glory, he beheld the final extinction of the empire of the west.”

Such was the fate of the navy of that empire which had once kept in awe thewhole of the universe then known, and such was the luckless expenditure ofa treasure which, had it been properly applied, or the armament which it wouldhave produced been ably conducted, might not only have proved the preserva-tion of the imperial dignity, but effected its restoration to that state of grandeurand power with which it had, a few centuries preced-ng, astonished the wholeworld. As it was, it resembled the last and short, though spirited emanationsof a taper, immediately previous to its final extinction. After this time, theemperor of the west dragged on a precarious existence, not only in respect topower, but the bare title itself, till a final period was put to it a few yearsafterwards by the deposition of Augustulus, and the modest assumption byOdoacer, his conqueror, of the title of king of Italy. Never was the extraor-dinary fluctuation of human affairs more conspicuous than in the fate of thatgreat, but unfortunate man. After having raised himself from the humbleststate to the rank of a monarch, merely by his own intrinsic merit; afterhaving exercised the functions of royalty with a dignity, a philanthropy, andbenevolence, which in those distant ages were very uncommon ; after havingsubdued Italy, and defended his conquest with a gallantry that merited a longand undisturbed reign; he fell a victim to the better fortune of Theodoric theGoth. The success of this enterprising chief, who had commenced his fortu-nate career under the immediate protection and patronage of the eastern em-peror, at length excited no inconsiderable degree of alarm in the heart of hisemployer. After having ineffectually attempted the subversion of the Gothicpower, and lost the flower of his troops in the rash undertaking, the scene ofwarfare became suddenly transferred to the sea, and a fleet, consisting of twohundred vessels, sailed from Constantinople, for the petty purpose of making adesultory descent on the coasts of Calabria and Apulia, where the enormitiesof Genseric, the Vandal, still continued to be remembered with horror. Theextent of the armament was better suited to the condition of a corsair, than to

the