money to maintain peace, by the Roman Senate, at Stilicho's instigation. From there he directed his operations against Italy, demanding Noricum among another territory, finally sacking Rome in 410 but dying on the route home that year. The Visigoths eventually moved on, allowing a short period of stability apart from domestic disturbances in 431. (Alföldy p. 214). 451 saw the Huns pour through the land, and in 433, Pannonia had had to be evacuated under the Hun attacks. The death of Attila in 453 allowed the Ostrogoths to scatter his Hunnish empire. Many tribes, formerly under the Huns now started to settle along the Danube basin and assert their independence. Among these were the Rugii, who formed their own lands (Rugiland) across the Danube and started to impose their will on Noricum. From 472 Ostrogoths and Alamanni invaded the area but did not subdue it. Even after Odoacer had overthrown the last Western Roman Emperor in 476, there remained remnants of the Roman administration in the provinces before the final collapse of Late Antiquity in this area (see Severinus of Noricum and Flaccitheus). Noricum was eventually abandoned in 488, while Raetia was abandoned by the Romans to the Alamanni. Abandoned and devastated towns and buildings slowly fell into disarray during the 4th and 5th centuries. By 493 the area was part of the lands of the Ostrogoth king Theodoric and there were no remaining Roman influences. The collapse of the Ostrogothic empire began with his death in 526. Second phase: Slavs and Bavarii, 500–700 AD During the second phase of the Migration Period (500–700 AD) the Langobardii (Lombards) made a brief appearance in the northern and eastern regions around 500 AD, but had been driven south into northern Italy by the Avars by 567. The Avars and their vassal Slavs had established themselves from the Baltic Sea to the Balkans. After the Avars suffered setbacks in the east in 626, the Slavs rebelled, establishing their own territories. The Alpine Slavs (Carantanii) elected a Bavarian, Odilo, as their count and successfully resisted further Avar subjugation. The Slavic tribe of the Carantanians migrated westward along the Drava into the Eastern Alps in the wake of the expansion of their Avar overlords during the 7th century, mixed with the Celto-Romanic population, and established the realm of Carantania (later Carinthia), which covered much of eastern and central Austrian territory and was the first independent