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ZENO AND ANASTASIUS, EMPERORS OF THE EAST. BIRTH,
EDUCATION, AND FIRST EXPLOITS OF THEODORIC THE OS-
TROGOTH. -HIS INVASION AND CONQUEST OF ITALY.
THE GOTHIC KINGDOM OF ITALY. STATE OF THE WEST.
MILITARY AND CIVIL GOVERNMENT. THE SENATOR BOE-
• THIUS.

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,1 was born in the neighborhood of

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Vienna 2 two years after the death of Attila. A recent vic tory 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 soù 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

x. 2, xi. 1,) reckons the grandson of Theodoric as the xviith in descent. Peringsciold (the Swedish commentator of Cochlous, Vit. Theodoric. p. 271, &c., Stockholm, 1699) labors to connect this genealogy with the legends or traditions of his native country.*

2 More correctly on the banks of the Lake Pelso, (Nieusiedler-see,) near Carnuntum, almost on the same spot where Marcus Antoninus composed his meditations, (Jornandes, c. 52, p. 659. Severin. Pannonia Illustrata. p. 22. Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. i. p. 350.)

3 The four first letters of his name (OE04) were inscribed on a gold plate, and when it was fixed on the paper, the king drew his pen though the intervals (Anonym. Valesian. ad calcem Amm. Marcellin. p. 722.) This authentic fact, with the testimony of Procopius, or at

* Amala was a name of hereditary sanctity and honor among the Ostrogoths. It enters into the names of Amalaberga, Amala suintha, (swinthei means strength,) Amalafred, Amalarich. In the poem of the Nibelungen, written three hundred years later, the Ostrogoths are called the Amilungen. According to Watchter it means, unstained, from the privative a, and malo, a stain. It is pure Sanscrit, Amala, immaculatus. Schlegel, Indische Bibliothek, 1, p. 233.-M.

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The date of Theodoric's birth is not accurately determined. We can hardly efr, observes Manso, in placing it between the years 453 and 456. Manso, Geschichte des Ost Gothischen Reichs, p. 14.-M.

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