



Produced by David Reed and Dale R. Fredrickson





HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Edward Gibbon

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman

Vol. 4

1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)




Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.--Part I.

     Zeno And Anastasius, Emperors Of The East.--Birth,
     Education, And First Exploits Of Theodoric The Ostrogoth.--
     His Invasion And Conquest Of Italy.--The Gothic Kingdom Of
     Italy.--State Of The West.--Military And Civil Government.--
     The Senator Boethius.--Last Acts And Death Of Theodoric.

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, was born in the neighborhood of Vienna two
years after the death of Attila. 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. 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; 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.

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
