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odoric himself, who gratified their prejudices, or CHAP. his own, by declaring, that the child who had xxxix. trembled at a rod, would never dare to look upon a sword * Distress might sometimes provoke the indigent Roman to assume the ferocious manners which were insensibly relinquished by the rich and luxurious Barbariant: but these mutual conversions were not encouraged by the policy of a monarch who perpetuated the separation of the Ita - Separation lians and Goths; reserving the former for the arts Goths and of peace, and the latter for the service of war. To Italians. accomplish this design, he studied to protect his industrious subjects, and to moderate the violence without enervating the valour 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

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* Procopius, Goth. 1. i. c. 2. The Roman boys learnt the language (Var, viii. 21.) of the Goths. Their general ignorance is not destroyed by the exceptions of Amalasuntha, a female, who might study without shame, or of Theodatus, whose learning provoked the indignation and contempt of his country

men.

+ A saying of Theodoric was founded on experience : “Ro6

manus miser imitatur Gothum; et utilis (divis) Gothus imi

tatur Romanum." (See the Fragment and Notes of Valesius, p. 719.)

CHÀ P, same arts. After his example, they strove to excel XXXIX. 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 law's, to understand the duties of civil society, and to disclaim the barbarous licence of judicial combat and prin

vate revenge *. Foreign po- Among the Barbarians of the West, the victory licy of The odoric. 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 inannerst. The ambassadors who resorted to Ravenna from the most distant countries of Europe, admired his wisdom, magnificence f, and

courtesy ;

* The view of the military establishment of the Goths in Italy, is collected from the Epistles of Cassiodorius (Var. i. 24. 40. iii

. 3. 24. 48. iv. 13, 14. v. 26, 27. viii. 3, 4. 25.) They are illustrated by the learned Mascou (Hist. of the Germans, 1. xi. 40-44. Annotation xiv.)

+ See the cleatness and vigour of his negociations in Ennodius (p. 1607.) and Cassiodorius (Var. iii. 1, 2, 3, 4. iv, 13. V. 43, 44), who gives the different styles of friendship, coun. sel, expostulation, &c.

| Even of his table (Var. vi. 9.) and palace (vii.s.). The admiration of strangers is represented as the most rational motive to justify these vain expences, and to stimulate the dili. gence of the officers to whom those provinces were entrusted.

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courtesy; and if he sometimes accepted either CHA P. slaves or arms, white horses or strange animals, XXXIX. 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 *, 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 †. 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 armour, and who condemned their widows and aged parents not to survive the loss of their husbands or the decay of their strength t. 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 C 3

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* See the public and private alliances of the Gothic monarch, with the Burgundians (Var. i. 45, 46.), with the Franks (ii. 40.), with the Thuringians (iv. i.), and with the Vandals (v. i.). Each of these epistles affords some curious knowledge of the policy and manners of the Barbarians.

His political system may be observed in Cassiodorius (Var. iv. I. ix. 1.), Jornandes (c. 58. p. 698, 699.), and the Valesian Fragment (p. 720, 721.). Peace, honourable peace, was the constant aim of Theodoric.

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.).

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.

CHAP. the shores of the Baltic, the Estians or Livonians XXXIX. 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, 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

stians, the un

* Cassiodorius, who quotes Tacitus to the lettered 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 subsance is annalysed by the chemists, it yields a vegetable oil and a mineral acid.

+ 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.

Sapborinas 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 Levésque (Hist. de Russie, tom. v. p. 165, 166. 514, 515.).

solstice during an equal period of forty days *. CHA P. The long night of his absence or death was the XXXIX. 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 f.

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sive wars.

The life of Theodoric represents the rare and His defenmeritorious example of a Barbarian, who sheathed his 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 ‡,

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* 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.

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† Αυτη τε Θυλίταις ή μεγιση των εορτών εσι, 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. 255273.396-501. The count de Buat was French minister at

the

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