Part II.
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
[Footnote 33: See the clearness and vigor of his negotiations in
Ennodius, (p. 1607,) and Cassiodorus, (Var. iii. 1, 2, 3, 4; iv.
13; v. 43, 44,) who gives the different styles of friendship,
counsel expostulation, &c.]
[Footnote 34: Even of his table (Var. vi. 9) and palace, (vii.
[Footnote 35: See the public and private alliances of the Gothic monarch, with the Burgundians, (Var. i. 45, 46,) with the Franks,
Note: Compare Manso, Ost Gothische Reich. Beylage, vi.
Malte- Brun brings them from Scandinavia: their names, the only remains of their language, are Gothic. "They fought almost naked, like the Icelandic Berserkirs their bravery was like madness: few in number, they were mostly of royal blood. What ferocity, what unrestrained license, sullied their victories! The Goth respects the church, the priests, the senate; the Heruli mangle all in a general massacre: there is no pity for age, no refuge for chastity. Among themselves there is the same ferocity: the sick and the aged are put to death. at their own request, during a solemn festival; the widow ends her days by hanging herself upon the tree which shadows her husband's tomb. All these circumstances, so striking to a mind familiar with Scandinavian history, lead us to discover among the Heruli not so much a nation as a confederacy of princes and nobles, bound by an oath to live and die together with their arms in their hands. Their name, sometimes written Heruli or Eruli. sometimes Aeruli, signified, according to an ancient author, (Isid. Hispal. in gloss. p. 24, ad calc. Lex. Philolog. Martini, ll,) nobles, and appears to correspond better with the Scandinavian word iarl or earl, than with any of those numerous derivations proposed by etymologists." Malte- Brun, vol. i. p. 400, (edit. 1831.) Of all the Barbarians who threw themselves on the ruins of the Roman empire, it is most difficult to trace the origin of the Heruli. They seem never to have been very powerful as a nation, and branches of them are found in countries very remote from each other. In my opinion they belong to the Gothic race, and have a close affinity with the Scyrri or Hirri. They were, possibly, a division of that nation. They are often mingled and confounded with the Alani. Though brave and formidable. they were never numerous. nor did they found any state. - St. Martin, vol. vi. p. 375. - M. Schafarck considers them descendants of the Hirri. of which Heruli is a diminutive, - Slawische Alter thinner - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 38: Variarum, iv. 2. The spirit and forms of this
martial institution are noticed by Cassiodorus; but he seems to
have only translated the sentiments of the Gothic king into the
language of Roman eloquence.]
[Footnote 39: Cassiodorus, who quotes Tacitus to the Aestians,
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 analyzed by the chemists,
it yields a vegetable oil and a mineral acid.]
[Footnote 40: Scanzia, or Thule, is described by Jornandes (c. 3,
[Footnote 41: 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.)] [Footnote 42: In the system or romance of Mr. Bailly, (Lettres sur les Sciences et sur l'Atlantide, tom. i. p. 249 - 256, tom.
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
[Footnote 44: See the Hist. des Peuples Anciens, &c., tom. ix. p.