Theodoric the Goth | Page 3

recovery of Italy--His character--His semi-barbarous army--Enters Italy--Battle of the Apennines--Totila slain--End of the Gothic dominion in Italy.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE THEODORIC OF SAGA 370
The fame of Theodoric attested by the Saga dealing with his name, utterly devoid as they are of historic truth--The Wilkina Saga--Story of Theodoric's ancestors--His own boyhood--His companions, Master Hildebrand, Heime, and Witig--Death of his father and his succession to the throne--Herbart wooes King Arthur's daughter, first for Theodoric and then for himself--Hermanric, his uncle, attacks Theodoric--Flight and exile at the Court of Attila--Attempt to return--Attila's sons slain in battle--The tragedy of the Nibelungs--Theodoric returns to his kingdom--His mysterious end.
INDEX
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[Illustration]

ILLUSTRATIONS.
STATUE OF THEODORIC IN THE CHURCH OF THE FRANCISCANS AT INNSBRUCK--TOMB OF MAXIMILIAN Frontispiece.
[1]MAP OF EUROPE A.D. 493
THE BURNT COLUMN, CONSTANTINOPLE
OBELISK OF THEODOSIUS IN THE HIPPODROME AT CONSTANTINOPLE
PEDESTAL OF THE OBELISK OF THEODOSIUS
[1]MAP OF THRACIA, DACIA, AND MACEDONIA IN THE 5TH CENTURY
GOLDEN SOLIDUS, LEO II., ZENO
HALF-SILIQUA OF SILVER, ODOVACAR
[1]MAP OF ITALY UNDER THE OSTROGOTHS
THE ARENA OF VERONA, PRESENT CONDITION
HALF-SILIQUA OF THEODORIC (SILVER), BEARING THE HEAD OF ANASTASIUS
[2] A PAGE OF THE GOTHIC GOSPELS (CODEX ARGENTEUS), MARK VII., 3-7
[1] MAP OF GAUL A.D. 500-523
COIN OF THE GOTHIC KINGDOM IN ITALY
COPPER COIN OF ANASTASIUS (FORTY NUMMI)
PINE FOREST, RAVENNA
INTERIOR OF BASILICA, IN RAVENNA
MOSAIC IN THE CHURCH OF ST. APOLLINARE NUOVO AT RAVENNA, SHOWING THE PORT OF CLASSIS
PROCESSION OF MARTYRS, MOSAIC FROM ST. APOLLINARE NUOVO IN RAVENNA
PALACE OF THEODORIC, SIDE VIEW
COIN OF THE GOTHIC KINGDOM IN ITALY
VIEW OF MODERN CONSTANTINOPLE
COPPER PIECE OF ATHALARIC, TEN NUMMI (HEAD OF JUSTINIAN?)
[3]THE TOMB OF THEODORIC, RAVENNA
CUIRASS OF THEODORIC (?) IN THE MUSEUM AT RAVENNA
[3]JUSTINIAN AND HIS NOBLES, FROM THE MOSAICS AT RAVENNA
PIECE OF FORTY NUMMI OF THEODAHAD
COPPER SOLIDUS, JUSTIN I. AND JUSTINIAN
COIN OF BADUILA (TOTILA)
COIN OF TEIAS, SUCCESSOR OF TOTILA
VERONA, FROM PONTE VECCHIO, SITE OF PALACE OF THEODORIC IN THE DISTANCE
COIN OF WITIGIS, WITH HEAD OF ANASTASIUS
[Footnote 1: Based upon map from Hodgkin's Italy and Her Invaders.]
[Footnote 2: Bradley's Story of the Goths.]
[Footnote 3: Bradley's Story of the Goths.]
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THEODORIC THE GOTH.

INTRODUCTION.
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Theodoric the Ostrogoth is one of those men who did great deeds and filled a large space in the eyes of their contemporaries, but who, not through their own fault, but from the fact that the stage of the world was not yet ready for their appearance, have failed to occupy the very first rank among the founders of empires and the moulders of the fortunes of the human race.
He was born into the world at the time when the Roman Empire in the West was staggering blindly to ruin, under the crushing blows inflicted upon it by two generations of barbarian conquerors. That Empire had been for more than six centuries indisputably the strongest power in Europe, and had gathered into its bosom all that was best in the civilisation of the nations that were settled round the Mediterranean Sea. Rome had given her laws to all these peoples, had, at any rate in the West, made their roads, fostered the growth of their cities, taught them her language, administered justice, kept back the barbarians of the frontier, and for great spaces of time preserved "the Roman peace" throughout their habitations. Doubtless there was another side to this picture: heavy taxation, corrupt judges, national aspirations repressed, free peasants sinking down into hopeless bondage. Still it cannot be denied that during a considerable part of its existence the Roman Empire brought, at least to the western half of Europe, material prosperity and enjoyment of life which it had not known before, and which it often looked back to with vain regrets when the great Empire had fallen into ruins. But now, in the middle of the fifth century, when Theodoric was born amid the rude splendour of an Ostrogothic palace, the unquestioned ascendancy of Rome over the nations of Europe was a thing of the past. There were still two men, one at the Old Rome by the Tiber, and the other at the New Rome by the Bosphorus, who called themselves August, Pious, and Happy, who wore the diadem and the purple shoes of Diocletian, and professed to be joint lords of the universe. Before the Eastern Augustus and his successors there did in truth lie a long future of dominion, and once or twice they were to recover no inconsiderable portion of the broad lands which had formerly been the heritage of the Roman people. But the Roman Empire at Rome was stricken with an incurable malady. The three sieges and the final sack of Rome by Alaric (410) revealed to the world that she was no longer "Roma Invicta", and from that time forward every chief of Teutonic or Sclavonic barbarians who wandered with his tribe over the wasted plains between the Danube and the Adriatic, might cherish the secret hope that he, too, would one day be drawn in triumph up the Capitolian Hill,