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After the fall of the Roman empire in the West, an interval
of fifty years, till the memorable reign of Justinian, is
faintly marked by the obscure names and imperfect annals of
Zeno, Anastasius, and Justin, who successively ascended to
the throne of Constantinople. During the same period, Italy
revived and flourished under the government of a Gothic
king, who might have deserved a statue among the best and
bravest of the ancient Romans.
Theodoric the Ostrogoth, the fourteenth in lineal descent of
the royal line of the Amali, (1) was born in the neighborhood
of Vienna (2) two years after the death of Attila. (A) A
recent victory had restored the independence of the
Ostrogoths; and the three brothers, Walamir, Theodemir, and
Widimir, who ruled that warlike nation with united counsels,
had separately pitched their habitations in the fertile
though desolate province of Pannonia. The Huns still
threatened their revolted subjects, but their hasty attack
was repelled by the single forces of Walamir, and the news
of his victory reached the distant camp of his brother in
the same auspicious moment that the favorite concubine of
Theodemir was delivered of a son and heir. In the eighth
year of his age, Theodoric was reluctantly yielded by his
father to the public interest, as the pledge of an alliance
which Leo, emperor of the East, had consented to purchase by
an annual subsidy of three hundred pounds of gold. The
royal hostage was educated at Constantinople with care and
tenderness. His body was formed to all the exercises of
war, his mind was expanded by the habits of liberal
conversation; he frequented the schools of the most skilful
masters; but he disdained or neglected the arts of Greece,
and so ignorant did he always remain of the first elements
of science, that a rude mark was contrived to represent the
signature of the illiterate king of Italy. (3) As soon as he
had attained the age of eighteen, he was restored to the
wishes of the Ostrogoths, whom the emperor aspired to gain
by liberality and confidence. Walamir had fallen in battle;
the youngest of the brothers, Widimir, had led away into
Italy and Gaul an army of Barbarians, and the whole nation
acknowledged for their king the father of Theodoric. His
ferocious subjects admired the strength and stature of their
young prince; (4) and he soon convinced them that he had not
degenerated from the valor of his ancestors. At the head of
six thousand volunteers, he secretly left the camp in quest
of adventures, descended the Danube as far as Singidunum, or
Belgrade, and soon returned to his father with the spoils of
a Sarmatian king whom he had vanquished and slain. Such
triumphs, however, were productive only of fame, and the
invincible Ostrogoths were reduced to extreme distress by
the want of clothing and food. They unanimously resolved to
desert their Pannonian encampments, and boldly to advance
into the warm and wealthy neighborhood of the Byzantine
court, which already maintained in pride and luxury so many
bands of confederate Goths. After proving, by some acts of
hostility, that they could be dangerous, or at least
troublesome, enemies, the Ostrogoths sold at a high price
their reconciliation and fidelity, accepted a donative of
lands and money, and were intrusted with the defence of the
Lower Danube, under the command of Theodoric, who succeeded
after his father's death to the hereditary throne of the
Amali. (5)
A hero, descended from a race of kings, must have despised
the base Isaurian who was invested with the Roman purple,
without any endowment of mind or body, without any
advantages of royal birth, or superior qualifications. After
the failure of the Theodosian life, the choice of Pulcheria
and of the senate might be justified in some measure by the
characters of Martin and Leo, but the latter of these
princes confirmed and dishonored his reign by the perfidious
murder of Aspar and his sons, who too rigorously exacted the
debt of gratitude and obedience. The inheritance of Leo and
of the East was peaceably devolved on his infant grandson,
the son of his daughter Ariadne; and her Isaurian husband,
the fortunate Trascalisseus, exchanged that barbarous sound
for the Grecian appellation of Zeno. After the decease of
the elder Leo, he approached with unnatural respect the
throne of his son, humbly received, as a gift, the second
rank in the empire, and soon excited the public suspicion on
the sudden and premature death of his young colleague, whose
life could no longer promote the success of his ambition.
But the palace of Constantinople was ruled by female
influence, and agitated by female passions: and Verina, the
widow of Leo, claiming his empire as her own, pronounced a
sentence of deposition against the worthless and ungrateful
servant on whom she alone had bestowed the sceptre of the
East. (6) As soon as she sounded a revolt in the ears of
Zeno, he fled with precipitation into the mountains of
Isauria, and her brother Basiliscus, already infamous by his
African expedition, (7) was unanimously proclaimed by the
servile senate. But the reign of the usurper was short and
turbulent. Basiliscus presumed to assassinate the lover of
his sister; he dared to offend the lover of his wife, the
vain and insolent Harmatius, who, in the midst of Asiatic
luxury, affected the dress, the demeanor, and the surname of
Achilles. (8) By the conspiracy of the malecontents, Zeno was
recalled from exile; the armies, the capital, the person, of
Basiliscus, were betrayed; and his whole family was
condemned to the long agony of cold and hunger by the
inhuman conqueror, who wanted courage to encounter or to
forgive his enemies. (B) The haughty spirit of Verina was
still incapable of submission or repose. She provoked the
enmity of a favorite general, embraced his cause as soon as
he was disgraced, created a new emperor in Syria and Egypt,
(C) raised an army of seventy thousand men, and persisted to
the last moment of her life in a fruitless rebellion, which,
according to the fashion of the age, had been predicted by
Christian hermits and Pagan magicians. While the East was
afflicted by the passions of Verina, her daughter Ariadne
was distinguished by the female virtues of mildness and
fidelity; she followed her husband in his exile, and after
his restoration, she implored his clemency in favor of her
mother. On the decease of Zeno, Ariadne, the daughter, the
mother, and the widow of an emperor, gave her hand and the
Imperial title to Anastasius, an aged domestic of the
palace, who survived his elevation above twenty-seven years,
and whose character is attested by the acclamation of the
people, "Reign as you have lived!" (9) (D)
Whatever fear of affection could bestow, was profusely
lavished by Zeno on the king of the Ostrogoths; the rank of
patrician and consul, the command of the Palatine troops, an
equestrian statue, a treasure in gold and silver of many
thousand pounds, the name of son, and the promise of a rich
and honorable wife. As long as Theodoric condescended to
serve, he supported with courage and fidelity the cause of
his benefactor; his rapid march contributed to the
restoration of Zeno; and in the second revolt, the Walamirs,
as they were called, pursued and pressed the Asiatic rebels,
till they left an easy victory to the Imperial troops. (10)
But the faithful servant was suddenly converted into a
formidable enemy, who spread the flames of war from
Constantinople to the Adriatic; many flourishing cities were
reduced to ashes, and the agriculture of Thrace was almost
extirpated by the wanton cruelty of the Goths, who deprived
their captive peasants of the right hand that guided the
plough. (11) On such occasions, Theodoric sustained the loud
and specious reproach of disloyalty, of ingratitude, and of
insatiate avarice, which could be only excused by the hard
necessity of his situation. He reigned, not as the monarch,
but as the minister of a ferocious people, whose spirit was
unbroken by slavery, and impatient of real or imaginary
insults. Their poverty was incurable; since the most
liberal donatives were soon dissipated in wasteful luxury,
and the most fertile estates became barren in their hands;
they despised, but they envied, the laborious provincials;
and when their subsistence had failed, the Ostrogoths
embraced the familiar resources of war and rapine. It had
been the wish of Theodoric (such at least was his
declaration) to lead a peaceful, obscure, obedient life on
the confines of Scythia, till the Byzantine court, by
splendid and fallacious promises, seduced him to attack a
confederate tribe of Goths, who had been engaged in the
party of Basiliscus. He marched from his station in Maesia,
on the solemn assurance that before he reached Adrianople,
he should meet a plentiful convoy of provisions, and a
reenforcement of eight thousand horse and thirty thousand
foot, while the legions of Asia were encamped at Heraclea to
second his operations. These measures were disappointed by
mutual jealousy. As he advanced into Thrace, the son of
Theodemir found an inhospitable solitude, and his Gothic
followers, with a heavy train of horses, of mules, and of
wagons, were betrayed by their guides among the rocks and
precipices of Mount Sondis, where he was assaulted by the
arms and invectives of Theodoric the son of Triarius. From
a neighboring height, his artful rival harangued the camp of
the Walamirs, and branded their leader with the opprobrious
names of child, of madman, of perjured traitor, the enemy of
his blood and nation. "Are you ignorant," exclaimed the son
of Triarius, "that it is the constant policy of the Romans
to destroy the Goths by each other's swords? Are you
insensible that the victor in this unnatural contest will be
exposed, and justly exposed, to their implacable revenge?
Where are those warriors, my kinsmen and thy own, whose
widows now lament that their lives were sacrificed to thy
rash ambition? Where is the wealth which thy soldiers
possessed when they were first allured from their native
homes to enlist under thy standard? Each of them was then
master of three or four horses; they now follow thee on
foot, like slaves, through the deserts of Thrace; those men
who were tempted by the hope of measuring gold with a
bushel, those brave men who are as free and as noble as
thyself." A language so well suited to the temper of the
Goths excited clamor and discontent; and the son of
Theodemir, apprehensive of being left alone, was compelled
to embrace his brethren, and to imitate the example of Roman
perfidy. (12) (E)
In every state of his fortune, the prudence and firmness of
Theodoric were equally conspicuous; whether he threatened
Constantinople at the head of the confederate Goths, or
retreated with a faithful band to the mountains and
sea-coast of Epirus. At length the accidental death of the
son of Triarius (13) destroyed the balance which the Romans
had been so anxious to preserve, the whole nation
acknowledged the supremacy of the Amali, and the Byzantine
court subscribed an ignominious and oppressive treaty. (14)
The senate had already declared, that it was necessary to
choose a party among the Goths, since the public was unequal
to the support of their united forces; a subsidy of two
thousand pounds of gold, with the ample pay of thirteen
thousand men, were required for the least considerable of
their armies; (15) and the Isaurians, who guarded not the
empire but the emperor, enjoyed, besides the privilege of
rapine, an annual pension of five thousand pounds. The
sagacious mind of Theodoric soon perceived that he was
odious to the Romans, and suspected by the Barbarians: he
understood the popular murmur, that his subjects were
exposed in their frozen huts to intolerable hardships, while
their king was dissolved in the luxury of Greece, and he
prevented the painful alternative of encountering the Goths,
as the champion, or of leading them to the field, as the
enemy, of Zeno. Embracing an enterprise worthy of his
courage and ambition, Theodoric addressed the emperor in the
following words: "Although your servant is maintained in
affluence by your liberality, graciously listen to the
wishes of my heart! Italy, the inheritance of your
predecessors, and Rome itself, the head and mistress of the
world, now fluctuate under the violence and oppression of
Odoacer the mercenary. Direct me, with my national troops,
to march against the tyrant. If I fall, you will be
relieved from an expensive and troublesome friend: if, with
the divine permission, I succeed, I shall govern in your
name, and to your glory, the Roman senate, and the part of
the republic delivered from slavery by my victorious arms."
The proposal of Theodoric was accepted, and perhaps had been
suggested, by the Byzantine court. But the forms of the
commission, or grant, appear to have been expressed with a
prudent ambiguity, which might be explained by the event;
and it was left doubtful, whether the conqueror of Italy
should reign as the lieutenant, the vassal, or the ally, of
the emperor of the East. (16)
The reputation both of the leader and of the war diffused a
universal ardor; the Walamirs were multiplied by the Gothic
swarms already engaged in the service, or seated in the
provinces, of the empire; and each bold Barbarian, who had
heard of the wealth and beauty of Italy, was impatient to
seek, through the most perilous adventures, the possession
of such enchanting objects. The march of Theodoric must be
considered as the emigration of an entire people; the wives
and children of the Goths, their aged parents, and most
precious effects, were carefully transported; and some idea
may be formed of the heavy baggage that now followed the
camp, by the loss of two thousand wagons, which had been
sustained in a single action in the war of Epirus. For
their subsistence, the Goths depended on the magazines of
corn which was ground in portable mills by the hands of
their women; on the milk and flesh of their flocks and
herds; on the casual produce of the chase, and upon the
contributions which they might impose on all who should
presume to dispute the passage, or to refuse their friendly
assistance. Notwithstanding these precautions, they were
exposed to the danger, and almost to the distress, of
famine, in a march of seven hundred miles, which had been
undertaken in the depth of a rigorous winter. Since the
fall of the Roman power, Dacia and Pannonia no longer
exhibited the rich prospect of populous cities,
well-cultivated fields, and convenient highways: the reign
of barbarism and desolation was restored, and the tribes of
Bulgarians, Gepidae, and Sarmatians, who had occupied the
vacant province, were prompted by their native fierceness,
or the solicitations of Odoacer, to resist the progress of
his enemy. In many obscure though bloody battles, Theodoric
fought and vanquished; till at length, surmounting every
obstacle by skilful conduct and persevering courage, he
descended from the Julian Alps, and displayed his invincible
banners on the confines of Italy. (17)
Odoacer, a rival not unworthy of his arms, had already
occupied the advantageous and well-known post of the River
Sontius, near the ruins of Aquileia, at the head of a
powerful host, whose independent kings (18) or leaders
disdained the duties of subordination and the prudence of
delays. No sooner had Theodoric gained a short repose and
refreshment to his wearied cavalry, than he boldly attacked
the fortifications of the enemy; the Ostrogoths showed more
ardor to acquire, than the mercenaries to defend, the lands
of Italy; and the reward of the first victory was the
possession of the Venetian province as far as the walls of
Verona. In the neighborhood of that city, on the steep banks
of the rapid Adige, he was opposed by a new army, reenforced
in its numbers, and not impaired in its courage: the contest
was more obstinate, but the event was still more decisive;
Odoacer fled to Ravenna, Theodoric advanced to Milan, and
the vanquished troops saluted their conqueror with loud
acclamations of respect and fidelity. But their want either
of constancy or of faith soon exposed him to the most
imminent danger; his vanguard, with several Gothic counts,
which had been rashly intrusted to a deserter, was betrayed
and destroyed near Faenza by his double treachery; Odoacer
again appeared master of the field, and the invader,
strongly intrenched in his camp of Pavia, was reduced to
solicit the aid of a kindred nation, the Visigoths of Gaul.
In the course of this History, the most voracious appetite
for war will be abundantly satiated; nor can I much lament
that our dark and imperfect materials do not afford a more
ample narrative of the distress of Italy, and of the fierce
conflict, which was finally decided by the abilities,
experience, and valor of the Gothic king. Immediately
before the battle of Verona, he visited the tent of his
mother (19) and sister, and requested, that on a day, the
most illustrious festival of his life, they would adorn him
with the rich garments which they had worked with their own
hands. "Our glory," said he, "is mutual and inseparable.
You are known to the world as the mother of Theodoric; and
it becomes me to prove, that I am the genuine offspring of
those heroes from whom I claim my descent." The wife or
concubine of Theodemir was inspired with the spirit of the
German matrons, who esteemed their sons' honor far above
their safety; and it is reported, that in a desperate
action, when Theodoric himself was hurried along by the
torrent of a flying crowd, she boldly met them at the
entrance of the camp, and, by her generous reproaches, drove
them back on the swords of the enemy. (20)
From the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, Theodoric
reigned by the right of conquest; the Vandal ambassadors
surrendered the Island of Sicily, as a lawful appendage of
his kingdom; and he was accepted as the deliverer of Rome by
the senate and people, who had shut their gates against the
flying usurper. (21) Ravenna alone, secure in the
fortifications of art and nature, still sustained a siege of
almost three years; and the daring sallies of Odoacer
carried slaughter and dismay into the Gothic camp. At
length, destitute of provisions and hopeless of relief, that
unfortunate monarch yielded to the groans of his subjects
and the clamors of his soldiers. A treaty of peace was
negotiated by the bishop of Ravenna; the Ostrogoths were
admitted into the city, and the hostile kings consented,
under the sanction of an oath, to rule with equal and
undivided authority the provinces of Italy. The event of
such an agreement may be easily foreseen. After some days
had been devoted to the semblance of joy and friendship,
Odoacer, in the midst of a solemn banquet, was stabbed by
the hand, or at least by the command, of his rival. Secret
and effectual orders had been previously despatched; the
faithless and rapacious mercenaries, at the same moment, and
without resistance, were universally massacred; and the
royalty of Theodoric was proclaimed by the Goths, with the
tardy, reluctant, ambiguous consent of the emperor of the
East. The design of a conspiracy was imputed, according to
the usual forms, to the prostrate tyrant; but his innocence,
and the guilt of his conqueror, (22) are sufficiently proved
by the advantageous treaty which force would not sincerely
have granted, nor weakness have rashly infringed. The
jealousy of power, and the mischiefs of discord, may suggest
a more decent apology, and a sentence less rigorous may be
pronounced against a crime which was necessary to introduce
into Italy a generation of public felicity. The living
author of this felicity was audaciously praised in his own
presence by sacred and profane orators; (23) but history (in
his time she was mute and inglorious) has not left any just
representation of the events which displayed, or of the
defects which clouded, the virtues of Theodoric. (24) One
record of his fame, the volume of public epistles composed
by Cassiodorus in the royal name, is still extant, and has
obtained more implicit credit than it seems to deserve. (25)
They exhibit the forms, rather than the substance, of his
government; and we should vainly search for the pure and
spontaneous sentiments of the Barbarian amidst the
declamation and learning of a sophist, the wishes of a Roman
senator, the precedents of office, and the vague
professions, which, in every court, and on every occasion,
compose the language of discreet ministers. The reputation
of Theodoric may repose with more confidence on the visible
peace and prosperity of a reign of thirty-three years; the
unanimous esteem of his own times, and the memory of his
wisdom and courage, his justice and humanity, which was
deeply impressed on the minds of the Goths and Italians.
The partition of the lands of Italy, of which Theodoric
assigned the third part to his soldiers, is honorably
arraigned as the sole injustice of his life. (F) And even
this act may be fairly justified by the example of Odoacer,
the rights of conquest, the true interest of the Italians,
and the sacred duty of subsisting a whole people, who, on
the faith of his promises, had transported themselves into a
distant land. (26) Under the reign of Theodoric, and in the
happy climate of Italy, the Goths soon multiplied to a
formidable host of two hundred thousand men, (27) and the
whole amount of their families may be computed by the
ordinary addition of women and children. Their invasion of
property, a part of which must have been already vacant, was
disguised by the generous but improper name of hospitality;
these unwelcome guests were irregularly dispersed over the
face of Italy, and the lot of each Barbarian was adequate to
his birth and office, the number of his followers, and the
rustic wealth which he possessed in slaves and cattle. The
distinction of noble and plebeian were acknowledged; (28) but
the lands of every freeman were exempt from taxes, (G) and he
enjoyed the inestimable privilege of being subject only to
the laws of his country. (29) Fashion, and even convenience,
soon persuaded the conquerors to assume the more elegant
dress of the natives, but they still persisted in the use of
their mother- tongue; and their contempt for the Latin
schools was applauded by Theodoric himself, who gratified
their prejudices, or his own, by declaring, that the child
who had trembled at a rod, would never dare to look upon a
sword. (30) Distress might sometimes provoke the indigent
Roman to assume the ferocious manners which were insensibly
relinquished by the rich and luxurious Barbarian; (31) but
these mutual conversions were not encouraged by the policy
of a monarch who perpetuated the separation of the Italians
and Goths; reserving the former for the arts of peace, and
the latter for the service of war. To accomplish this
design, he studied to protect his industrious subjects, and
to moderate the violence, without enervating the valor, of
his soldiers, who were maintained for the public defence.
They held their lands and benefices as a military stipend:
at the sound of the trumpet, they were prepared to march
under the conduct of their provincial officers; and the
whole extent of Italy was distributed into the several
quarters of a well- regulated camp. The service of the
palace and of the frontiers was performed by choice or by
rotation; and each extraordinary fatigue was recompensed by
an increase of pay and occasional donatives. Theodoric had
convinced his brave companions, that empire must be acquired
and defended by the same arts. After his example, they
strove to excel in the use, not only of the lance and sword,
the instruments of their victories, but of the missile
weapons, which they were too much inclined to neglect; and
the lively image of war was displayed in the daily exercise
and annual reviews of the Gothic cavalry. A firm though
gentle discipline imposed the habits of modesty, obedience,
and temperance; and the Goths were instructed to spare the
people, to reverence the laws, to understand the duties of
civil society, and to disclaim the barbarous license of
judicial combat and private revenge. (32)
Among the Barbarians of the West, the victory of Theodoric
had spread a general alarm. But as soon as it appeared that
he was satisfied with conquest and desirous of peace, terror
was changed into respect, and they submitted to a powerful
mediation, which was uniformly employed for the best
purposes of reconciling their quarrels and civilizing their
manners. (33) The ambassadors who resorted to Ravenna from
the most distant countries of Europe, admired his wisdom,
magnificence, (34) and courtesy; and if he sometimes accepted
either slaves or arms, white horses or strange animals, the
gift of a sun-dial, a water-clock, or a musician, admonished
even the princes of Gaul of the superior art and industry of
his Italian subjects. His domestic alliances, (35) a wife,
two daughters, a sister, and a niece, united the family of
Theodoric with the kings of the Franks, the Burgundians, the
Visigoths, the Vandals, and the Thuringians, and contributed
to maintain the harmony, or at least the balance, of the
great republic of the West. (36) It is difficult in the dark
forests of Germany and Poland to pursue the emigrations of
the Heruli, a fierce people who disdained the use of armor,
and who condemned their widows and aged parents not to
survive the loss of their husbands, or the decay of their
strength. (37) The king of these savage warriors solicited
the friendship of Theodoric, and was elevated to the rank of
his son, according to the barbaric rites of a military
adoption. (38) From the shores of the Baltic, the Aestians or
Livonians laid their offerings of native amber (39) at the
feet of a prince, whose fame had excited them to undertake
an unknown and dangerous journey of fifteen hundred miles.
With the country (40) from whence the Gothic nation derived
their origin, he maintained a frequent and friendly
correspondence: the Italians were clothed in the rich sables
(41) of Sweden; and one of its sovereigns, after a voluntary
or reluctant abdication, found a hospitable retreat in the
palace of Ravenna. He had reigned over one of the thirteen
populous tribes who cultivated a small portion of the great
island or peninsula of Scandinavia, to which the vague
appellation of Thule has been sometimes applied. That
northern region was peopled, or had been explored, as high
as the sixty- eighth degree of latitude, where the natives
of the polar circle enjoy and lose the presence of the sun
at each summer and winter solstice during an equal period of
forty days. (42) The long night of his absence or death was
the mournful season of distress and anxiety, till the
messengers, who had been sent to the mountain tops, descried
the first rays of returning light, and proclaimed to the
plain below the festival of his resurrection. (43)
The life of Theodoric represents the rare and meritorious
example of a Barbarian, who sheathed his sword in the pride
of victory and the vigor of his age. A reign of three and
thirty years was consecrated to the duties of civil
government, and the hostilities, in which he was sometimes
involved, were speedily terminated by the conduct of his
lieutenants, the discipline of his troops, the arms of his
allies, and even by the terror of his name. He reduced,
under a strong and regular government, the unprofitable
countries of Rhaetia, Noricum, Dalmatia, and Pannonia, from
the source of the Danube and the territory of the Bavarians,
(44) to the petty kingdom erected by the Gepidae on the ruins
of Sirmium. His prudence could not safely intrust the
bulwark of Italy to such feeble and turbulent neighbors; and
his justice might claim the lands which they oppressed,
either as a part of his kingdom, or as the inheritance of
his father. The greatness of a servant, who was named
perfidious because he was successful, awakened the jealousy
of the emperor Anastasius; and a war was kindled on the
Dacian frontier, by the protection which the Gothic king, in
the vicissitude of human affairs, had granted to one of the
descendants of Attila. Sabinian, a general illustrious by
his own and father's merit, advanced at the head of ten
thousand Romans; and the provisions and arms, which filled a
long train of wagons, were distributed to the fiercest of
the Bulgarian tribes. But in the fields of Margus, the
eastern powers were defeated by the inferior forces of the
Goths and Huns; the flower and even the hope of the Roman
armies was irretrievably destroyed; and such was the
temperance with which Theodoric had inspired his victorious
troops, that, as their leader had not given the signal of
pillage, the rich spoils of the enemy lay untouched at their
feet. (45) Exasperated by this disgrace, the Byzantine court
despatched two hundred ships and eight thousand men to
plunder the sea-coast of Calabria and Apulia: they assaulted
the ancient city of Tarentum, interrupted the trade and
agriculture of a happy country, and sailed back to the
Hellespont, proud of their piratical victory over a people
whom they still presumed to consider as their Roman
brethren. (46) Their retreat was possibly hastened by the
activity of Theodoric; Italy was covered by a fleet of a
thousand light vessels, (47) which he constructed with
incredible despatch; and his firm moderation was soon
rewarded by a solid and honorable peace. He maintained,
with a powerful hand, the balance of the West, till it was
at length overthrown by the ambition of Clovis; and although
unable to assist his rash and unfortunate kinsman, the king
of the Visigoths, he saved the remains of his family and
people, and checked the Franks in the midst of their
victorious career. I am not desirous to prolong or repeat
(48) this narrative of military events, the least interesting
of the reign of Theodoric; and shall be content to add, that
the Alemanni were protected, (49) that an inroad of the
Burgundians was severely chastised, and that the conquest of
Arles and Marseilles opened a free communication with the
Visigoths, who revered him as their national protector, and
as the guardian of his grandchild, the infant son of Alaric.
Under this respectable character, the king of Italy restored
the praetorian praefecture of the Gauls, reformed some
abuses in the civil government of Spain, and accepted the
annual tribute and apparent submission of its military
governor, who wisely refused to trust his person in the
palace of Ravenna. (50) The Gothic sovereignty was
established from Sicily to the Danube, from Sirmium or
Belgrade to the Atlantic Ocean; and the Greeks themselves
have acknowledged that Theodoric reigned over the fairest
portion of the Western empire. (51)
The union of the Goths and Romans might have fixed for ages
the transient happiness of Italy; and the first of nations,
a new people of free subjects and enlightened soldiers,
might have gradually arisen from the mutual emulation of
their respective virtues. But the sublime merit of guiding
or seconding such a revolution was not reserved for the
reign of Theodoric: he wanted either the genius or the
opportunities of a legislator; (52) and while he indulged the
Goths in the enjoyment of rude liberty, he servilely copied
the institutions, and even the abuses, of the political
system which had been framed by Constantine and his
successors. From a tender regard to the expiring prejudices
of Rome, the Barbarian declined the name, the purple, and
the diadem, of the emperors; but he assumed, under the
hereditary title of king, the whole substance and plenitude
of Imperial prerogative. (53) His addresses to the eastern
throne were respectful and ambiguous: he celebrated, in
pompous style, the harmony of the two republics, applauded
his own government as the perfect similitude of a sole and
undivided empire, and claimed above the kings of the earth
the same preeminence which he modestly allowed to the person
or rank of Anastasius. The alliance of the East and West was
annually declared by the unanimous choice of two consuls;
but it should seem that the Italian candidate who was named
by Theodoric accepted a formal confirmation from the
sovereign of Constantinople. (54) The Gothic palace of
Ravenna reflected the image of the court of Theodosius or
Valentinian. The Praetorian praefect, the praefect of Rome,
the quaestor, the master of the offices, with the public and
patrimonial treasurers, (H) whose functions are painted in
gaudy colors by the rhetoric of Cassiodorus, still continued
to act as the ministers of state. And the subordinate care
of justice and the revenue was delegated to seven consulars,
three correctors, and five presidents, who governed the
fifteen regions of Italy according to the principles, and
even the forms, of Roman jurisprudence. (55) The violence of
the conquerors was abated or eluded by the slow artifice of
judicial proceedings; the civil administration, with its
honors and emoluments, was confined to the Italians; and the
people still preserved their dress and language, their laws
and customs, their personal freedom, and two thirds of their
landed property. (I) It had been the object of Augustus to
conceal the introduction of monarchy; it was the policy of
Theodoric to disguise the reign of a Barbarian. (56) If his
subjects were sometimes awakened from this pleasing vision
of a Roman government, they derived more substantial comfort
from the character of a Gothic prince, who had penetration
to discern, and firmness to pursue, his own and the public
interest. Theodoric loved the virtues which he possessed,
and the talents of which he was destitute. Liberius was
promoted to the office of Praetorian praefect for his
unshaken fidelity to the unfortunate cause of Odoacer. The
ministers of Theodoric, Cassiodorus, (57) and Boethius, have
reflected on his reign the lustre of their genius and
learning. More prudent or more fortunate than his
colleague, Cassiodorus preserved his own esteem without
forfeiting the royal favor; and after passing thirty years
in the honors of the world, he was blessed with an equal
term of repose in the devout and studious solitude of
Squillace. (J)
As the patron of the republic, it was the interest and duty
of the Gothic king to cultivate the affections of the senate
(58) and people. The nobles of Rome were flattered by
sonorous epithets and formal professions of respect, which
had been more justly applied to the merit and authority of
their ancestors. The people enjoyed, without fear or danger,
the three blessings of a capital, order, plenty, and public
amusements. A visible diminution of their numbers may be
found even in the measure of liberality; (59) yet Apulia,
Calabria, and Sicily, poured their tribute of corn into the
granaries of Rome an allowance of bread and meat was
distributed to the indigent citizens; and every office was
deemed honorable which was consecrated to the care of their
health and happiness. The public games, such as the Greek
ambassador might politely applaud, exhibited a faint and
feeble copy of the magnificence of the Caesars: yet the
musical, the gymnastic, and the pantomime arts, had not
totally sunk in oblivion; the wild beasts of Africa still
exercised in the amphitheatre the courage and dexterity of
the hunters; and the indulgent Goth either patiently
tolerated or gently restrained the blue and green factions,
whose contests so often filled the circus with clamor and
even with blood. (60) In the seventh year of his peaceful
reign, Theodoric visited the old capital of the world; the
senate and people advanced in solemn procession to salute a
second Trajan, a new Valentinian; and he nobly supported
that character by the assurance of a just and legal
government, (61) in a discourse which he was not afraid to
pronounce in public, and to inscribe on a tablet of brass.
Rome, in this august ceremony, shot a last ray of declining
glory; and a saint, the spectator of this pompous scene,
could only hope, in his pious fancy, that it was excelled by
the celestial splendor of the new Jerusalem. (62) During a
residence of six months, the fame, the person, and the
courteous demeanor of the Gothic king, excited the
admiration of the Romans, and he contemplated, with equal
curiosity and surprise, the monuments that remained of their
ancient greatness. He imprinted the footsteps of a
conqueror on the Capitoline hill, and frankly confessed that
each day he viewed with fresh wonder the forum of Trajan and
his lofty column. The theatre of Pompey appeared, even in
its decay, as a huge mountain artificially hollowed, and
polished, and adorned by human industry; and he vaguely
computed, that a river of gold must have been drained to
erect the colossal amphitheatre of Titus. (63) From the
mouths of fourteen aqueducts, a pure and copious stream was
diffused into every part of the city; among these the
Claudian water, which arose at the distance of thirty-eight
miles in the Sabine mountains, was conveyed along a gentle
though constant declivity of solid arches, till it descended
on the summit of the Aventine hill. The long and spacious
vaults which had been constructed for the purpose of common
sewers, subsisted, after twelve centuries, in their pristine
strength; and these subterraneous channels have been
preferred to all the visible wonders of Rome. (64) The Gothic
kings, so injuriously accused of the ruin of antiquity, were
anxious to preserve the monuments of the nation whom they
had subdued. (65) The royal edicts were framed to prevent the
abuses, the neglect, or the depredations of the citizens
themselves; and a professed architect, the annual sum of two
hundred pounds of gold, twenty-five thousand tiles, and the
receipt of customs from the Lucrine port, were assigned for
the ordinary repairs of the walls and public edifices. A
similar care was extended to the statues of metal or marble
of men or animals. The spirit of the horses, which have
given a modern name to the Quirinal, was applauded by the
Barbarians; (66) the brazen elephants of the Via sacra were
diligently restored; (67) the famous heifer of Myron deceived
the cattle, as they were driven through the forum of peace;
(68) and an officer was created to protect those works of
rat, which Theodoric considered as the noblest ornament of
his kingdom.
After the example of the last emperors, Theodoric preferred
the residence of Ravenna, where he cultivated an orchard
with his own hands. (69) As often as the peace of his kingdom
was threatened (for it was never invaded) by the Barbarians,
he removed his court to Verona (70) on the northern frontier,
and the image of his palace, still extant on a coin,
represents the oldest and most authentic model of Gothic
architecture. These two capitals, as well as Pavia,
Spoleto, Naples, and the rest of the Italian cities,
acquired under his reign the useful or splendid decorations
of churches, aqueducts, baths, porticos, and palaces. (71)
But the happiness of the subject was more truly conspicuous
in the busy scene of labor and luxury, in the rapid increase
and bold enjoyment of national wealth. From the shades of
Tibur and Praeneste, the Roman senators still retired in the
winter season to the warm sun, and salubrious springs of
Baiae; and their villas, which advanced on solid moles into
the Bay of Naples, commanded the various prospect of the
sky, the earth, and the water. On the eastern side of the
Adriatic, a new Campania was formed in the fair and fruitful
province of Istria, which communicated with the palace of
Ravenna by an easy navigation of one hundred miles. The
rich productions of Lucania and the adjacent provinces were
exchanged at the Marcilian fountain, in a populous fair
annually dedicated to trade, intemperance, and superstition.
In the solitude of Comum, which had once been animated by
the mild genius of Pliny, a transparent basin above sixty
miles in length still reflected the rural seats which
encompassed the margin of the Larian lake; and the gradual
ascent of the hills was covered by a triple plantation of
olives, of vines, and of chestnut trees. (72) Agriculture
revived under the shadow of peace, and the number of
husbandmen was multiplied by the redemption of captives. (73)
The iron mines of Dalmatia, a gold mine in Bruttium, were
carefully explored, and the Pomptine marshes, as well as
those of Spoleto, were drained and cultivated by private
undertakers, whose distant reward must depend on the
continuance of the public prosperity. (74) Whenever the
seasons were less propitious, the doubtful precautions of
forming magazines of corn, fixing the price, and prohibiting
the exportation, attested at least the benevolence of the
state; but such was the extraordinary plenty which an
industrious people produced from a grateful soil, that a
gallon of wine was sometimes sold in Italy for less than
three farthings, and a quarter of wheat at about five
shillings and sixpence. (75) A country possessed of so many
valuable objects of exchange soon attracted the merchants of
the world, whose beneficial traffic was encouraged and
protected by the liberal spirit of Theodoric. The free
intercourse of the provinces by land and water was restored
and extended; the city gates were never shut either by day
or by night; and the common saying, that a purse of gold
might be safely left in the fields, was expressive of the
conscious security of the inhabitants.
A difference of religion is always pernicious, and often
fatal, to the harmony of the prince and people: the Gothic
conqueror had been educated in the profession of Arianism,
and Italy was devoutly attached to the Nicene faith. But
the persuasion of Theodoric was not infected by zeal; and he
piously adhered to the heresy of his fathers, without
condescending to balance the subtile arguments of
theological metaphysics. Satisfied with the private
toleration of his Arian sectaries, he justly conceived
himself to be the guardian of the public worship, and his
external reverence for a superstition which he despised, may
have nourished in his mind the salutary indifference of a
statesman or philosopher. The Catholics of his dominions
acknowledged, perhaps with reluctance, the peace of the
church; their clergy, according to the degrees of rank or
merit, were honorably entertained in the palace of
Theodoric; he esteemed the living sanctity of Caesarius (76)
and Epiphanius, (77) the orthodox bishops of Arles and Pavia;
and presented a decent offering on the tomb of St. Peter,
without any scrupulous inquiry into the creed of the
apostle. (78) His favorite Goths, and even his mother, were
permitted to retain or embrace the Athanasian faith, and his
long reign could not afford the example of an Italian
Catholic, who, either from choice or compulsion, had
deviated into the religion of the conqueror. (79) The people,
and the Barbarians themselves, were edified by the pomp and
order of religious worship; the magistrates were instructed
to defend the just immunities of ecclesiastical persons and
possessions; the bishops held their synods, the
metropolitans exercised their jurisdiction, and the
privileges of sanctuary were maintained or moderated
according to the spirit of the Roman jurisprudence. (80) With
the protection, Theodoric assumed the legal supremacy, of
the church; and his firm administration restored or extended
some useful prerogatives which had been neglected by the
feeble emperors of the West. He was not ignorant of the
dignity and importance of the Roman pontiff, to whom the
venerable name of Pope was now appropriated. The peace or
the revolt of Italy might depend on the character of a
wealthy and popular bishop, who claimed such ample dominion
both in heaven and earth; who had been declared in a
numerous synod to be pure from all sin, and exempt from all
judgment. (81) When the chair of St. Peter was disputed by
Symmachus and Laurence, they appeared at his summons before
the tribunal of an Arian monarch, and he confirmed the
election of the most worthy or the most obsequious
candidate. At the end of his life, in a moment of jealousy
and resentment, he prevented the choice of the Romans, by
nominating a pope in the palace of Ravenna. The danger and
furious contests of a schism were mildly restrained, and the
last decree of the senate was enacted to extinguish, if it
were possible, the scandalous venality of the papal
elections. (82)
I have descanted with pleasure on the fortunate condition of
Italy; but our fancy must not hastily conceive that the
golden age of the poets, a race of men without vice or
misery, was realized under the Gothic conquest. The fair
prospect was sometimes overcast with clouds; the wisdom of
Theodoric might be deceived, his power might be resisted and
the declining age of the monarch was sullied with popular
hatred and patrician blood. In the first insolence of
victory, he had been tempted to deprive the whole party of
Odoacer of the civil and even the natural rights of society;
(83) a tax unseasonably imposed after the calamities of war,
would have crushed the rising agriculture of Liguria; a
rigid preemption of corn, which was intended for the public
relief, must have aggravated the distress of Campania. These
dangerous projects were defeated by the virtue and eloquence
of Epiphanius and Boethius, who, in the presence of
Theodoric himself, successfully pleaded the cause of the
people: (84) but if the royal ear was open to the voice of
truth, a saint and a philosopher are not always to be found
at the ear of kings. The privileges of rank, or office, or
favor, were too frequently abused by Italian fraud and
Gothic violence, and the avarice of the king's nephew was
publicly exposed, at first by the usurpation, and afterwards
by the restitution of the estates which he had unjustly
extorted from his Tuscan neighbors. Two hundred thousand
Barbarians, formidable even to their master, were seated in
the heart of Italy; they indignantly supported the
restraints of peace and discipline; the disorders of their
march were always felt and sometimes compensated; and where
it was dangerous to punish, it might be prudent to
dissemble, the sallies of their native fierceness. When the
indulgence of Theodoric had remitted two thirds of the
Ligurian tribute, he condescended to explain the
difficulties of his situation, and to lament the heavy
though inevitable burdens which he imposed on his subjects
for their own defence. (85) These ungrateful subjects could
never be cordially reconciled to the origin, the religion,
or even the virtues of the Gothic conqueror; past calamities
were forgotten, and the sense or suspicion of injuries was
rendered still more exquisite by the present felicity of the
times.
Even the religious toleration which Theodoric had the glory
of introducing into the Christian world, was painful and
offensive to the orthodox zeal of the Italians. They
respected the armed heresy of the Goths; but their pious
rage was safely pointed against the rich and defenceless
Jews, who had formed their establishments at Naples, Rome,
Ravenna, Milan, and Genoa, for the benefit of trade, and
under the sanction of the laws. (86) Their persons were
insulted, their effects were pillaged, and their synagogues
were burned by the mad populace of Ravenna and Rome,
inflamed, as it should seem, by the most frivolous or
extravagant pretences. The government which could neglect,
would have deserved such an outrage. A legal inquiry was
instantly directed; and as the authors of the tumult had
escaped in the crowd, the whole community was condemned to
repair the damage; and the obstinate bigots, who refused
their contributions, were whipped through the streets by the
hand of the executioner. (K) This simple act of justice
exasperated the discontent of the Catholics, who applauded
the merit and patience of these holy confessors. Three
hundred pulpits deplored the persecution of the church; and
if the chapel of St. Stephen at Verona was demolished by the
command of Theodoric, it is probable that some miracle
hostile to his name and dignity had been performed on that
sacred theatre. At the close of a glorious life, the king of
Italy discovered that he had excited the hatred of a people
whose happiness he had so assiduously labored to promote;
and his mind was soured by indignation, jealousy, and the
bitterness of unrequited love. The Gothic conqueror
condescended to disarm the unwarlike natives of Italy,
interdicting all weapons of offence, and excepting only a
small knife for domestic use. The deliverer of Rome was
accused of conspiring with the vilest informers against the
lives of senators whom he suspected of a secret and
treasonable correspondence with the Byzantine court. (87)
After the death of Anastasius, the diadem had been placed on
the head of a feeble old man; but the powers of government
were assumed by his nephew Justinian, who already meditated
the extirpation of heresy, and the conquest of Italy and
Africa. A rigorous law, which was published at
Constantinople, to reduce the Arians by the dread of
punishment within the pale of the church, awakened the just
resentment of Theodoric, who claimed for his distressed
brethren of the East the same indulgence which he had so
long granted to the Catholics of his dominions. (L) At his
stern command, the Roman pontiff, with four illustrious
senators, embarked on an embassy, of which he must have
alike dreaded the failure or the success. The singular
veneration shown to the first pope who had visited
Constantinople was punished as a crime by his jealous
monarch; the artful or peremptory refusal of the Byzantine
court might excuse an equal, and would provoke a larger,
measure of retaliation; and a mandate was prepared in Italy,
to prohibit, after a stated day, the exercise of the
Catholic worship. By the bigotry of his subjects and
enemies, the most tolerant of princes was driven to the
brink of persecution; and the life of Theodoric was too
long, since he lived to condemn the virtue of Boethius and
Symmachus. (88)
The senator Boethius (89) is the last of the Romans whom Cato
or Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman. As a
wealthy orphan, he inherited the patrimony and honors of the
Anician family, a name ambitiously assumed by the kings and
emperors of the age; and the appellation of Manlius asserted
his genuine or fabulous descent from a race of consuls and
dictators, who had repulsed the Gauls from the Capitol, and
sacrificed their sons to the discipline of the republic. In
the youth of Boethius the studies of Rome were not totally
abandoned; a Virgil (90) is now extant, corrected by the hand
of a consul; and the professors of grammar, rhetoric, and
jurisprudence, were maintained in their privileges and
pensions by the liberality of the Goths. But the erudition
of the Latin language was insufficient to satiate his ardent
curiosity: and Boethius is said to have employed eighteen
laborious years in the schools of Athens, (91) which were
supported by the zeal, the learning, and the diligence of
Proclus and his disciples. The reason and piety of their
Roman pupil were fortunately saved from the contagion of
mystery and magic, which polluted the groves of the academy;
but he imbibed the spirit, and imitated the method, of his
dead and living masters, who attempted to reconcile the
strong and subtile sense of Aristotle with the devout
contemplation and sublime fancy of Plato. After his return
to Rome, and his marriage with the daughter of his friend,
the patrician Symmachus, Boethius still continued, in a
palace of ivory and marble, to prosecute the same studies.
(92) The church was edified by his profound defence of the
orthodox creed against the Arian, the Eutychian, and the
Nestorian heresies; and the Catholic unity was explained or
exposed in a formal treatise by the indifference of three
distinct though consubstantial persons. For the benefit of
his Latin readers, his genius submitted to teach the first
elements of the arts and sciences of Greece. The geometry
of Euclid, the music of Pythagoras, the arithmetic of
Nicomachus, the mechanics of Archimedes, the astronomy of
Ptolemy, the theology of Plato, and the logic of Aristotle,
with the commentary of Porphyry, were translated and
illustrated by the indefatigable pen of the Roman senator.
And he alone was esteemed capable of describing the wonders
of art, a sun-dial, a water-clock, or a sphere which
represented the motions of the planets. From these abstruse
speculations, Boethius stooped, or, to speak more truly, he
rose to the social duties of public and private life: the
indigent were relieved by his liberality; and his eloquence,
which flattery might compare to the voice of Demosthenes or
Cicero, was uniformly exerted in the cause of innocence and
humanity. Such conspicuous merit was felt and rewarded by a
discerning prince: the dignity of Boethius was adorned with
the titles of consul and patrician, and his talents were
usefully employed in the important station of master of the
offices. Notwithstanding the equal claims of the East and
West, his two sons were created, in their tender youth, the
consuls of the same year. (93) On the memorable day of their
inauguration, they proceeded in solemn pomp from their
palace to the forum amidst the applause of the senate and
people; and their joyful father, the true consul of Rome,
after pronouncing an oration in the praise of his royal
benefactor, distributed a triumphal largess in the games of
the circus. Prosperous in his fame and fortunes, in his
public honors and private alliances, in the cultivation of
science and the consciousness of virtue, Boethius might have
been styled happy, if that precarious epithet could be
safely applied before the last term of the life of man.
A philosopher, liberal of his wealth and parsimonious of his
time, might be insensible to the common allurements of
ambition, the thirst of gold and employment. And some
credit may be due to the asseveration of Boethius, that he
had reluctantly obeyed the divine Plato, who enjoins every
virtuous citizen to rescue the state from the usurpation of
vice and ignorance. For the integrity of his public conduct
he appeals to the memory of his country. His authority had
restrained the pride and oppression of the royal officers,
and his eloquence had delivered Paulianus from the dogs of
the palace. He had always pitied, and often relieved, the
distress of the provincials, whose fortunes were exhausted
by public and private rapine; and Boethius alone had courage
to oppose the tyranny of the Barbarians, elated by conquest,
excited by avarice, and, as he complains, encouraged by
impunity. In these honorable contests his spirit soared
above the consideration of danger, and perhaps of prudence;
and we may learn from the example of Cato, that a character
of pure and inflexible virtue is the most apt to be misled
by prejudice, to be heated by enthusiasm, and to confound
private enmities with public justice. The disciple of Plato
might exaggerate the infirmities of nature, and the
imperfections of society; and the mildest form of a Gothic kingdom, even the weight of allegiance and gratitude, must
be insupportable to the free spirit of a Roman patriot. But
the favor and fidelity of Boethius declined in just
proportion with the public happiness; and an unworthy
colleague was imposed to divide and control the power of the
master of the offices. In the last gloomy season of
Theodoric, he indignantly felt that he was a slave; but as
his master had only power over his life, he stood without
arms and without fear against the face of an angry
Barbarian, who had been provoked to believe that the safety
of the senate was incompatible with his own. The senator
Albinus was accused and already convicted on the presumption
of hoping, as it was said, the liberty of Rome. "If Albinus
be criminal," exclaimed the orator, "the senate and myself
are all guilty of the same crime. If we are innocent,
Albinus is equally entitled to the protection of the laws."
These laws might not have punished the simple and barren
wish of an unattainable blessing; but they would have shown
less indulgence to the rash confession of Boethius, that,
had he known of a conspiracy, the tyrant never should. (94)
The advocate of Albinus was soon involved in the danger and
perhaps the guilt of his client; their signature (which they
denied as a forgery) was affixed to the original address,
inviting the emperor to deliver Italy from the Goths; and
three witnesses of honorable rank, perhaps of infamous
reputation, attested the treasonable designs of the Roman
patrician. (95) Yet his innocence must be presumed, since he
was deprived by Theodoric of the means of justification, and
rigorously confined in the tower of Pavia, while the senate,
at the distance of five hundred miles, pronounced a sentence
of confiscation and death against the most illustrious of
its members. At the command of the Barbarians, the occult
science of a philosopher was stigmatized with the names of
sacrilege and magic. (96) A devout and dutiful attachment to
the senate was condemned as criminal by the trembling voices
of the senators themselves; and their ingratitude deserved
the wish or prediction of Boethius, that, after him, none
should be found guilty of the same offence. (97)
While Boethius, oppressed with fetters, expected each moment
the sentence or the stroke of death, he composed, in the
tower of Pavia, the Consolation of Philosophy; a golden
volume not unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but
which claims incomparable merit from the barbarism of the
times and the situation of the author. The celestial guide,
whom he had so long invoked at Rome and Athens, now
condescended to illumine his dungeon, to revive his courage,
and to pour into his wounds her salutary balm. She taught
him to compare his long prosperity and his recent distress,
and to conceive new hopes from the inconstancy of fortune.
Reason had informed him of the precarious condition of her
gifts; experience had satisfied him of their real value; he
had enjoyed them without guilt; he might resign them without
a sigh, and calmly disdain the impotent malice of his
enemies, who had left him happiness, since they had left him
virtue. From the earth, Boethius ascended to heaven in
search of the Supreme Good; explored the metaphysical
labyrinth of chance and destiny, of prescience and free
will, of time and eternity; and generously attempted to
reconcile the perfect attributes of the Deity with the
apparent disorders of his moral and physical government.
Such topics of consolation so obvious, so vague, or so
abstruse, are ineffectual to subdue the feelings of human
nature. Yet the sense of misfortune may be diverted by the
labor of thought; and the sage who could artfully combine in
the same work the various riches of philosophy, poetry, and
eloquence, must already have possessed the intrepid calmness
which he affected to seek. Suspense, the worst of evils,
was at length determined by the ministers of death, who
executed, and perhaps exceeded, the inhuman mandate of
Theodoric. A strong cord was fastened round the head of
Boethius, and forcibly tightened, till his eyes almost
started from their sockets; and some mercy may be discovered
in the milder torture of beating him with clubs till he
expired. (98) But his genius survived to diffuse a ray of
knowledge over the darkest ages of the Latin world; the
writings of the philosopher were translated by the most
glorious of the English kings, (99) and the third emperor of
the name of Otho removed to a more honorable tomb the bones
of a Catholic saint, who, from his Arian persecutors, had
acquired the honors of martyrdom, and the fame of miracles.
(100) In the last hours of Boethius, he derived some comfort
from the safety of his two sons, of his wife, and of his
father-in-law, the venerable Symmachus. But the grief of
Symmachus was indiscreet, and perhaps disrespectful: he had
presumed to lament, he might dare to revenge, the death of
an injured friend. He was dragged in chains from Rome to
the palace of Ravenna; and the suspicions of Theodoric could
only be appeased by the blood of an innocent and aged
senator. (101)
Humanity will be disposed to encourage any report which
testifies the jurisdiction of conscience and the remorse of
kings; and philosophy is not ignorant that the most horrid
spectres are sometimes created by the powers of a disordered
fancy, and the weakness of a distempered body. After a life
of virtue and glory, Theodoric was now descending with shame
and guilt into the grave; his mind was humbled by the
contrast of the past, and justly alarmed by the invisible
terrors of futurity. One evening, as it is related, when the
head of a large fish was served on the royal table, (102) he
suddenly exclaimed, that he beheld the angry countenance of
Symmachus, his eyes glaring fury and revenge, and his mouth
armed with long sharp teeth, which threatened to devour him.
The monarch instantly retired to his chamber, and, as he
lay, trembling with aguish cold, under a weight of
bed-clothes, he expressed, in broken murmurs to his
physician Elpidius, his deep repentance for the murders of
Boethius and Symmachus. (103) His malady increased, and after
a dysentery which continued three days, he expired in the
palace of Ravenna, in the thirty-third, or, if we compute
from the invasion of Italy, in the thirty-seventh year of
his reign. Conscious of his approaching end, he divided his
treasures and provinces between his two grandsons, and fixed
the Rhone as their common boundary. (104) Amalaric was
restored to the throne of Spain. Italy, with all the
conquests of the Ostrogoths, was bequeathed to Athalaric;
whose age did not exceed ten years, but who was cherished as
the last male offspring of the line of Amali, by the
short-lived marriage of his mother Amalasuntha with a royal
fugitive of the same blood. (105) In the presence of the
dying monarch, the Gothic chiefs and Italian magistrates
mutually engaged their faith and loyalty to the young
prince, and to his guardian mother; and received, in the
same awful moment, his last salutary advice, to maintain the
laws, to love the senate and people of Rome, and to
cultivate with decent reverence the friendship of the
emperor. (106) The monument of Theodoric was erected by his
daughter Amalasuntha, in a conspicuous situation, which
commanded the city of Ravenna, the harbor, and the adjacent
coast. A chapel of a circular form, thirty feet in
diameter, is crowned by a dome of one entire piece of
granite: from the centre of the dome four columns arose,
which supported, in a vase of porphyry, the remains of the
Gothic king, surrounded by the brazen statues of the twelve
apostles. (107) His spirit, after some previous expiation,
might have been permitted to mingle with the benefactors of
mankind, if an Italian hermit had not been witness, in a
vision, to the damnation of Theodoric, (108) whose soul was
plunged, by the ministers of divine vengeance, into the
volcano of Lipari, one of the flaming mouths of the infernal
world. (109)