Alboin, king of the Lombards, succeeded his father in Pannonia about 560, and died in 574. After aiding Narses against the Ostrogoths, and defeating and slaying Cunimond, king of the Gepidse, he invaded Italy in 568, overran the peninsula as far as the Tiber, and fixed the Lombard capital at Pavia, which he captured after a three years' siege. He had married his prisoner Rosamond, daughter of Cunimond, and at a feast in Verona forced her to drink out of her father's skull; in revenge for which she caused her paramour Helmichis to assassinate him. The guilty pair then fled to Ravenna, where Rosamond poisoned Helmichis in order that she might marry the exarch Longinus. Her victim discovered the treachery and compelled her to die with him. Alboin, in spite of his barbarity, was a beneficent ruler, and is a favorite hero of German poetry.