Historical Tales, Vol 5 | Page 6

In
his visit to the court of Turisend, Alboin had seen and fallen in love

with Rosamond, the beautiful daughter of Cunimund. He now
demanded her hand in marriage, and as it was scornfully refused him,
he revenged himself by winning her honor through force and stratagem.
War broke out in consequence, and the Gepidæ were conquered,
Rosamond falling to Alboin as part of the trophies of victory.
We are told that in this war Alboin sought the aid of Bacan, chagan of
the Avars, promising him half the spoil and all the land of the Gepidæ
in case of victory. He added to this a promise of the realm of the
Longobardi, in case he should succeed in winning for them a new home
in Italy, which country he proposed to invade.
About fifteen years before, some of his subjects had made a warlike
expedition to Italy. Their report of its beauty and fertility had kindled a
spirit of emulation in the new generation, and inspired the young and
warlike king with ambitious hopes. His eloquence added to their desire.
He not only described to them in glowing words the land of promise
which he hoped to win, but spoke to their senses as well, by producing
at the royal banquets the fairest fruits that grew in that garden land of
Europe. His efforts were successful. No sooner was his standard
erected, and word sent abroad that Italy was his goal, than the
Longobardi found their strength augmented by hosts of adventurous
youths from the surrounding peoples. Germans, Bulgarians, Scythians,
and others joined in ranks, and twenty thousand Saxon warriors, with
their wives and children, added to the great host which had flocked to
the banners of the already renowned warrior.
It was in the year 568 that Alboin, followed by the great multitude of
adventurers he had gathered, and by the whole nation of the
Longobardi, ascended the Julian Alps, and looked down from their
summits on the smiling plains of northern Italy to which his success
was thenceforward to give the name of Lombardy, the land of the
Longobardi.
Four years were spent in war with the Romans, city after city, district
after district, falling into the hands of the invaders. The resistance was
but feeble, and at length the whole country watered by the Po, with the
strong city of Pavia, fell into the hands of Alboin, who divided the

conquered lands among his followers, and reduced their former holders
to servitude. Alboin made Pavia his capital, and erected strong
fortifications to keep out the Burgundians, Franks, and other nations
which were troubling his new-gained dominions. This done, he settled
down to the enjoyment of the conquest which he had so ably made and
so skilfully defended.
History tells us that the Longobardi cultivated their new lands so
skilfully that all traces of devastation soon vanished, and the realm
grew rich in its productions. Their freemen distinguished themselves
from the other German conquerors by laboring to turn the waste and
desert tracts into arable soil, while their king, though unceasingly
watchful against his enemies, lived among his people with patriarchal
simplicity, procuring his supplies from the produce of his farms, and
making regular rounds of inspection from one to another. It is a picture
fitted for a more peaceful and primitive age than that turbulent period
in which it is set.
But now we have to do with Alboin in another aspect,--his domestic
relations, his dealings with his wife Rosamond, and the tragic end of all
the actors in the drama of real life which we have set out to tell. The
Longobardi were barbarians, and Alboin was no better than his people;
a strong evidence of which is the fact that he had the skull of Cunimund,
his defeated enemy and the father of his wife, set in gold, and used it as
a drinking cup at his banquets.
Doubtless this brutality stirred revengeful sentiments in the mind of
Rosamond. An added instance of barbarian insult converted her
outraged feelings into a passion for revenge. Alboin had erected a
palace near Verona, one of the cities of his new dominion, and here he
celebrated his victories with a grand feast to his companions in arms.
Wine flowed freely at the banquet, the king emulating, or exceeding,
his guests in the art of imbibing. Heated with his potations, in which he
had drained many cups of Rhætian or Falernian wine, he called for the
choicest ornament of his sideboard, the gold-mounted skull of
Cunimund, and drank its full measure of wine amid the loud plaudits of
his drunken guests.

"Fill it again with wine," he cried; "fill it to the brim; carry this goblet
to the queen, and tell her that it is my desire and command that she