XXXIX.

k

CHAP. people who disdained the use of armour, and who condemned their widows and aged parents not to survive the loss of their husbands, or the decay of their strength. 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. From the shores of the Baltic, the Estians or Livonians laid their offerings of native amber" 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" from whence the Gothic nation derived their origin he maintained a frequent and friendly correspondence; the Italians were clothed in the rich sables of Sweden; and one of its sovereigns, after a voluntary or reluctant abdication, found an 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,

* The curious reader may contemplate the Heruli of Procopius (Goth. 1. ii. c. 14), and the patient reader may plunge into the dark and minute researches of M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples Anciens, tom. ix. p. 348–396).

1 Variarum, iv. 2. The spirit and forms of this martial institution are noticed by Cassiodorius; but he seems to have only translated the sentiments of the Gothic king into the language of Roman eloquence.

m Cassiodorius, who quotes Tacitus to the Estians, the unlettered savages of the Baltic (Var. v. 2), describes the amber for which their shores have ever been famous, as the gum of a tree hardened by the sun, and purified and wafted by the waves. When that singular substance is analysed by the chemists, it yields a vegetable oil and a mineral acid.

n Scanzia, or Thule, is described by Jornandes (c. 3. p. 610-613) and Procopius (Goth. 1. ii. c. 15). Neither the Goth nor the Greek had visited the country both had conversed with the natives in their exile at Ravenna or Constantinople.

• Sapherinas pelles. In the time of Jornandes, they inhabited Suethans, the proper Sweden; but that beautiful race of animals has gradually been driven into the eastern parts of Siberia. See Buffon (Hist. Nat. tom. xiii. p. 309–313. quarto edition); Pennant (System of Quadrupeds, vol. i. p. 322-328); Gmelin (Hist. Gen. des Voyages, tom. xviii. p. 257, 258); and Levesque (Hist. de Russie, tom. v. p. 165, 166. 514, 515).

P

XXXIX.

as high as the sixty-eighth degree of latitude, where CHAP. 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. 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."

The life of Theodoric represents the rare and me- His defenritorious example of a barbarian, who sheathed his sive wars. sword in the pride of victory and the vigour 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 Rhætia, Noricum, Dalmatia, and Pannonia, from the source of the Danube and the territory of the Bavarians,' to the petty kingdom erected by the Gepida on the ruins of Sirmium. His prudence could not safely intrust the bulwark of Italy to such feeble and turbulent neighbours; and his justice might claim the lands which they oppressed,

P In the system or romance of M. Bailly (Lettres sur les Sciences et sur l'Atlantide, tom. i. p. 249–256. tom. ii. p. 114-139), the phoenix of the Edda, and the annual death and revival of Adonis and Osiris, are the allegorical symbols of the absence and return of the sun in the Arctic regions. This ingenious writer is a worthy disciple of the great Buffon; nor is it easy for the coldest reason to withstand the magic of their philosophy.

9 Αύτη τε Θυλιταις ἡ μεγίστη των ἑορτων εστι, says Procopius. At present a rude Manicheism (generous enough) prevails among the Samoyedes in Greenland and in Lapland (Hist. des Voyages, tom. xviii. p. 508, 509. tom. xix. p. 105, 106. 527, 528); yet, according to Grotius, Samojutæ cœlum atque astra adorant, numina haud aliis iniquiora (de Rebus Belgicis, 1. iv. p.338. folio edition): a sentence which Tacitus would not have disowned.

* See the Hist. des Peuples Anciens, &c. tom. ix. p. 255–273. 396–501. The count de Buat was French minister at the court of Bavaria: a liberal curiosity prompted his inquiries into the antiquities of the country, and that curiosity was the germ of twelve respectable volumes.

CHAP. either as a part of his kingdom, or as the inheritance XXXIX. of his father. The greatness of a servant, who was

His naval

armament,

A.D. 509.

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 waggons, 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. 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. Their retreat was possibly hastened by the activity of Theodoric; Italy was covered by a fleet

t

S

s See the Gothic transactions on the Danube and in Illyricum, in Jornandes (c. 58. p. 699), Ennodius (p. 1607-1610), Marcellinus (in Chron. p. 44. 47, 48), and Cassiodorius (in Chron. and Var. iii. 23. 50. iv. 13. vii. 4. 24. viii. 9, 10, 11. 21. ix. 8, 9).

t I cannot forbear transcribing the liberal and classic style of Count Marcellinus Romanus comes domesticorum, et Rusticus comes scholariorum cum centum armatis navibus, totidemque dromonibus, octo millia militum armatorum secum ferentibus, ad devastanda Italiæ littora processerunt, et usque ad Tarentum antiquissimam civitatem aggressi sunt; remensoque mari inhonestam victoriam quam piratico ausu Romani ex Romanis rapuerunt, Anastasio Cæsari reportarunt (in Chron. p. 48). See Variar. i. 16. ii. 38.

V

of a thousand light vessels," which he constructed CHAP. with incredible despatch; and his firm moderation XXXIX. was soon rewarded by a solid and honourable 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 this narrative of military events, the least interesting of the reign of Theodoric; and shall be content to add, that the Alemanni were protected," 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 both as their national protector, and as the guardian of his grand-child, the infant son of Alaric. Under this respectable character, the king of Italy restored the prætorian præfecture 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.* 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. "

y

u See the royal orders and instructions (Var. iv. 15. v. 16-20). These armed boats should be still smaller than the thousand vessels of Agamemnon at the siege of Troy. ▾ Vide ante, chap. xxxviii. w Ennodius (p. 1610) and Cassiodorius, in the royal name (Var. ii. 41), record his salutary protection of the Alemanni.

* The Gothic transactions in Gaul and Spain are represented with some perplexity in Cassiodorius (Var. iii. 32. 38. 41. 43, 44. v. 39), Jornandes (c. 58. p. 698, 699), and Procopius (Goth. 1. i. c. 12). I will neither hear nor reconcile the long and contradictory arguments of the Abbé Dubos and the Count de Buat, about the wars of Burgundy.、 y Theophanes, p. 113.

CHAP. XXXIX.

Civil go

vernment

of Italy according to

laws.

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 the Roman 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; "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. 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 pre-eminence 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. The Gothic palace of Ravenna reflected the

Procopius affirms that no laws whatsoever were promulgated by Theodoric and the succeeding kings of Italy (Goth. 1. ii. c. 6). He must mean in the Gothic language. A Latin edict of Theodoric is still extant, in one hundred and fifty-four articles.

The image of Theodoric is engraved on his coins: his modest successors were satisfied with adding their own name to the head of the reigning emperor (Muratori Antiquitat. Italiæ Medii Ævi, tom. ii. dissert. xxvii. p. 577-579. Giannone Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. i. p. 166).

b The alliance of the emperor and the king of Italy are represented by Cas