Theodoric the Goth | Page 5

persistent ill-luck
if we did not believe in an overruling Providence, blighted and blasted
his infant state before it had time to root itself firmly in the soil. None
the less, however, does Theodoric deserve credit for having seen what
was the need of Europe, and pre-eminently of Italy, and for having
done his best to supply that need. The great work in which he failed
was accomplished three centuries later by Charles the Frank, who has
won for himself that place in the first rank of world-moulders which
Theodoric has missed. But we may fairly say that Theodoric's designs
were as noble and as statesmanlike as those of the great Emperor

Charles, and that if they had been crowned with the success which they
deserved, three centuries of needless barbarism and misery would have
been spared to Europe.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
THEODORIC'S ANCESTORS.
Ostrogoths and Visigoths--Nations forming the Gothic
Confederacy--Royal family of the Amals--Gothic invasion in the
Second Century--Hermanric the Ostrogoth--Inroad of the Huns--Defeat
of the Ostrogoths--Defeat of the Visigoths--The Visigoths within the
Empire--Battle of Adrianople--Alaric in Rome.
[Illustration]
Towards the end of the second century of the Christian Era a great
confederacy of Teutonic nations occupied those vast plains in the south
of Russia which are now, and have been for more than a thousand years,
the homes of Sclavonic peoples. These nations were the Ostrogoths, the
Visigoths, and the Gepidæ. Approximately we may say that the
Ostrogoths (or East Goths) dwelt from the Don to the Dnieper, the
Visigoths (or West Goths) from the Dnieper to the Pruth, and the
Gepidæ to the north of both, in the district which has since been known
as Little Russia. These three nations were, as has been said, Teutons,
and they belonged to that division of the Teutonic race which is called
Low-German, man; that is to say, that they were more nearly allied to
the Frisians, the Dutch, and to our own Saxon forefathers than they
were to the ancestors of the modern Swabian, Bavarian, and Austrian.
They worshipped Odin and Thunnor; they wrote the scanty records of
their race in Runic characters; they were probably chiefly a pastoral
folk, but may have begun to practise agriculture in the rich cornlands of
the Ukraine. They were essentially a monarchic people, following their
kings, whom they believed to be sprung from the seed of gods, loyally

to the field, and shedding their blood with readiness at their command;
but their monarchy was of the early Teutonic type, always more or less
limited by the deliberations of the great armed assembly of the nation,
which (in some tribes at least) was called the Folc-mote or the
Folc-thing; and there were no strict rules of hereditary succession, the
crown being elective but limited in practice to the members of one
ruling and heaven-descended family.
This family, sprung from the seed of gods, but ruling by the popular
will over the Ostrogothic people, was known as the family of the
Amals. It is true that the divine and exclusive prerogatives of the family
have been somewhat magnified by the minstrels who sang in the courts
of their descendants, for there are manifest traces of kings ruling over
the Ostrogothic people, who are not included in the Amal genealogy.
Still, as far as we can peer through the obscurity of the early history of
the people, we may safely say that there was no other family of higher
position than the Amals, and that gradually all that consciousness of
national life and determination to cherish national unity, which among
the Germanic peoples was inseparably connected with the institution of
royalty, centred round the race of the divine Amala.
The following is the pedigree of this royal clan, as given by the
historian of the Goths,[5] and with those epithets which the secretary of
Theodoric[6] attached to the names of some of the ancestors of his lord.
(The names of those who wore the crown are marked in italics.)
Gapt (possibly=Gaut, the eponymous | hero of the Gothic nation)
Hulmul | Augis | Amal ("the fortunate") | Hisarna (=the man of iron) |
OSTROGOTHA ("the patient") | Hunuil | Athal ("the mild")
|_______________________________ | | Achiulf Odwulf |
____________________________|_____________________________
_| | | | Ansila Ediulf Vultwulf Hermanric | | Walaravans Hunimund |
("the beautiful") | | Winithar ("the just") Thorismund | ("the chaste")
Wideric | Wandalar
_________________________|________________________ | | |
Walamir Theudemir Widemir ("the faithful") ("the affectionate") |
THEODORIC.

[Footnote 5: Jordanes.]
[Footnote 6: Cassiodorus.]
These fifteen generations, which should carry back the Amal ancestry
four hundred and fifty years, or almost precisely to the Christian Era,
seem to have marked the utmost limit to which the memory of the
Gothic heralds, aided by the songs of the Gothic minstrels, could reach.
The forms of many of the