History
seems to have proved that tradition has maligned the Vandal; the Goth
can boast a ruler raised at the centre of Eastern civilization and
refinement; but the Lombard of the invasion can never appear as other
than the rude barbarian rushing from his wild northern home, and
forcing on a defenseless people the laws and the customs suited to his
own rugged nature and the unformed state of society in which he lived.
Such being the case, there is little cause for wonder that the
invading Lombard directed his fury with particular violence against
the corporate towns, whose strength was not sufficient to resist the
attacks of his invading host. Like all other Teutonic tribes the
Lombards were entirely unskilled in the art of attacking fortified
towns; hence the only mode of siege with which they were acquainted
was that of starving out the inhabitants, by cutting off all source of
supply by ravaging and destroying the surrounding country. This fact,
unimportant as it may seem at the first glance, materially affected
the whole course of the later history of some of the Italian cities.
By this means we are enabled, even at this early epoch, to divide them
into two classes. First, those cities which, after a more or less
short resistance, yielded to the rude tactics of the barbarians and
were made subject by them, for example Milan and Pavia.
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