To Vitiges (about A. D. 540) must be ascribed the destruction of the aqueducts, which rendered the thermæ useless; and as these appear never to have been frequented afterwards, their dilapidation must be partially, but only partially, ascribed to the Goths.
Vitiges burned every thing without the walls, and commenced the desolation of the Campagna.
The last emperor of Rome was Augustulus. Odoacer, king of the Heruli, entered Italy with a vast multitude of barbarians, and having ravaged it, at length approached Rome itself. The city made no resistance; he therefore deposed Augustulus, and took the dignity of empire on himself. From this period the Romans lost all command in Italy.
A. D. 479. Five centuries elapsed from the age of Trajan and the Antonines, to the total extinction of the Roman empire in the west. At that unhappy period, the Saxons fiercely struggled with the natives for the possession of Britain. Gaul and Spain were divided between the powerful monarchies of the Franks and Visigoths; and the dependent kingdoms of the Suevi and Burgundians in Africa were exposed to the cruel persecution of the Vandals, and the savage insults of the Moors. Rome and Italy, as far as the banks of the Danube, were afflicted by an army of barbarian mercenaries, whose lawless tyranny was succeeded by the reign of Theodoric, the Ostrogoth. All the subjects of the empire, who, by the use of the Latin language, more particularly deserved the name and privileges of Romans, were oppressed by the disgrace and calamities of foreign conquest; and the victorious nations of Germany established a new system of manners and government in the western countries of Europe.
That Rome, however, did not always suffer from the Goths, is evident from a passage in one of the letters written by Cassiodorus, at one time minister to Theodoric:--"The care of the Roman city is a subject to which our thoughts are ever awake. For what is there which it behoves us to provide for, more worthy than the keeping up the repair of a city which, it is evident, contains the ornaments of our republic? therefore, let your illustrious highness know, that we have appointed a notable person, on account of its splendid Cloacæ, which are productive of so much astonishment to beholders, that they may well be said to surpass the wonders of other cities. There thou mayest see flowing rivers, inclosed, as it were, in hollow mountains. There thou mayest see the rapid waters navigated by vessels, not without some anxiety lest they should suffer shipwreck in the precipitate torrent. Hence, O matchless Rome! it may be inferred what greatness is in thee. For what city may dare to contend with thy lofty superstructures, when even thy lowest recesses can find no parallel?"