Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 4 (1897).djvu/190

CHAPTER XXXIX

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

A.D. 476-527 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 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.

Birth and education of Theodoric. A.D. 455-475 Theodoric the Ostrogoth, the fourteenth in lineal descent of the royal line of the Amali,^[1] was born in the neighbourhood of Vienna^[2] 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.^[3]

1. Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 13, 14, p. 629, 630, edit. Grot.) has drawn the pedigree of Theodoric from Gapt, one of the Anses or Demi-gods who lived about the time of Domitian. Cassiodorius, the first who celebrates the royal race of the Amali (Variar. viii. 5, ix. 25, x. 2, xi. 1), reckons the grandson of Theodoric as the xviith in descent. Peringsciold (the Swedish commentator of Cochlœus, Vit. Theodoric. p. 271, &c. Stockholm, 1699) labours to connect this genealogy with the legends or traditions of his native country.
2. More correctly, on the banks of the lake Pelso (Neusiedler-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. 550). [Date of Theodoric's birth, c. 454 (not earlier); he was sent to Constantinople in A.D. 461.]
3. [This division of the kingdom, which we find so often among the Franks, meets us here first among the Goths. Walamir's part seems to have been between the rivers Save and Drave, Widimir's between the Save and the Plattensee, Theodemir's between the Plattensee and the Danube. Cp. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, iii. p. 14.]