name to the Venetian lagoon which was called laguna opitergina and to the mountains of Cansiglio which were called montes opitergini. A number of Roman authors mention the city, among whom are Claudius Ptolomeus, Strabo, Pliny the Elder, Lucan, Tacitus, Livy and Quintilian. Unfortunately, prosperity made Oderzo a target. During the Marcomannic Wars in 167 AD, Oderzo was sacked and destroyed by a force of Marcomanni and Quadi, who then went on to besiege Aquileia. By the 5th century, Oderzo shared the fate of the rest of Venetia and had to deal with attacks in 403 by the Visigoths led by Alaric, in 452 by the Huns whose leader, Attila, according to a local legend hid a treasure in a town's pit, in 465 during a revolt of Visigothic and Roman soldiers who objected to the rule of Severus and in 473 by the Ostrogoths who took control of Rome and all of Italy after 476. Late Antiquity By 554, the town was restored to the Empire by Justinian's devastating Gothic War in Italy. Under the Byzantine Empire, Oderzo became the a major center within the Exarchate of Ravenna with a dux as its chief official. It would be held by the Byzantines, even after much of northern Italy was conquered by the Lombard in 568, until its destruction by the Lombard king Grimoald in 667/8. Paul the Deacon attributes the Lombard hatred for the city to the perfidy of a certain citizen of Oderzo, a "patricius Romanorum" named Gregory, who in 641 while under the promise of a truce beheaded Taso and Cacco, sons of Gisulf, the Lombard duke of Forum Iulium. The Lombard king, Rothari, subsequently led a war of vendetta and, having breached Oderzo's defenses, inflicted upon it severe devastation. However, the Lombards apparently withdrew, since in 667, Oderzo was again in the hands of the Byzantines. In that year, Lombard king, Grimoald I, still holding a grudge for the murder of Taso and Cacco, laid siege to Oderzo. Much of its population fled to the nearby cities of Heraclea and Equilium still under Byzantine control. According to Venetian tradition, one of the refugees from Oderzo was the first Doge of Venice, Paolo Lucio Anafesto. After his victory, Grimoald destroyed the city and divided its territory between the dukes of Tarvisium, Forum Iulii, and Ceneta, with the bulk going to Ceneta. Middle Ages It was not until