of Odovacar who had apparently with
enthusiasm accepted the leadership of his younger and more brilliant
rival, was a certain Tufa, Master of the Soldiery among the _foederati_
Either he had extraordinary powers of deception, or Theodoric, short of
generals, accepted his professions of loyalty with most unwise facility;
for so it was that the Ostrogothic king entrusted to Tufa's generalship
the army which assuredly he ought to have led himself to the siege of
Ravenna. When Tufa arrived at Faventia, about eighteen miles from
Ravenna, his old master came forth to meet him; the instinct of loyalty
to Odovacar revived (if indeed he had not all along been playing a part
in his alleged desertion), and Tufa carried over, apparently, the larger
part of the army under his command to the service of Theodoric's rival.
Worst of all, he surrendered to his late master the chief members of
his staff the so-called _comites (henchmen)_ of Theodoric some of whom
had probably helped him in his early adventure against Singidunum, and
had shared his hardships in many a weary march through Thrace and
Macedonia. These men were all basely murdered by Odovacar, a deed which
Theodoric inwardly determined should never be forgiven (492).

Such an event as the defection of Tufa, carrying with him a considerable
portion of his troops, was a great blow to the Ostrogothic cause. Some
time later another and similar event took place. Frederic the Rugian,
whose father had been dethroned, and who had been himself driven into
exile by the armies of Odovacar, for some unexplained and most
mysterious reason, quitted the service of Theodoric and entered that of
his own deadliest enemy. The sympathy of scoundrels seems to have drawn
him into a special intimacy with Tufa, with whom he probably wandered up
and down through Lombardy (as we now call it) and Venetia, robbing and
slaying in the name of Odovacar, but not caring to share his hardships
in blockaded and famine-stricken Ravenna. Fortunately, the Nemesis which
so often waits on the friendship of bad men was not wanting in this
case. The two traitors quarrelled about the division of the spoil and a
battle took place between them, in the valley of the Adige above Verona,
in which Tufa was slain. Frederic, with his Rugian countrymen, occupied
the strong city of Ticinum _(Pavia)_, where they spent two dreadful
years, "Their minds", says an eye-witness,[55] in after-time the Bishop
of that city, "were full of