Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.—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

33 (return) [ 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.]

34 (return) [ Even of his table (Var. vi. 9) and palace, (vii.
5.) The admiration of strangers is represented as the most
rational motive to justify these vain expenses, and to stimulate
the diligence of the officers to whom these provinces were
intrusted.]

35 (return) [ 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. 1,) and with the Vandals,
(v. 1;) each of these epistles affords some curious knowledge of
the policy and manners of the Barbarians.]

36 (return) [ His political system may be observed in
Cassiodorus, (Var. iv. l ix. l,) Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 698, 699,)
and the Valesian Fragment, (p. 720, 721.) Peace, honorable peace,
was the constant aim of Theodoric.]

37 (return) [ The curious reader may contemplate the Heruli of
Procopius, (Goth. l. 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. * 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.]

38 (return) [ 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.]

39 (return) [ 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.]

40 (return) [ Scanzia, or Thule, is described by Jornandes (c. 3,
p. 610—613) and Procopius, (Goth. l. 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.]

41 (return) [ 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.)]

42 (return) [ In the system or romance of Mr. 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.]

43 (return) [ 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 Orotius Samojutae
coelum atque astra adorant, numina haud aliis iniquiora, (de
Rebus Belgicis, l. iv. p. 338, folio edition) a sentence which
Tacitus would not have disowned.]

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 præfecture 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

44 (return) [ See the Hist. des Peuples Anciens, &c., tom. ix. p.
255—273, 396—501. The count de Buat was French minister at the
court of Bavaria: a liberal curiosity prompted his inquiries into
the antiquities of the country, and that curiosity was the germ
of twelve respectable volumes.]

45 (return) [ See the Gothic transactions on the Danube and the
Illyricum, in Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 699;) Ennodius, (p.
1607-1610;) Marcellmus (in Chron. p. 44, 47, 48;) and
Cassiodorus, in (in Chron and Var. iii. 29 50, iv. 13, vii. 4 24,
viii. 9, 10, 11, 21, ix. 8, 9.)]

46 (return) [ I cannot forbear transcribing the liberal and
classic style of Count Marcellinus: Romanus comes domesticorum,
et Rusticus comes scholariorum cum centum armatis navibus,
totidemque dromonibus, octo millia militum armatorum secum
ferentibus, ad devastanda Italiae littora processerunt, ut usque
ad Tarentum antiquissimam civitatem aggressi sunt; remensoque
mari in honestam victoriam quam piratico ausu Romani ex Romanis
rapuerunt, Anastasio Caesari reportarunt, (in Chron. p. 48.) See
Variar. i. 16, ii. 38.]

47 (return) [ See the royal orders and instructions, (Var. iv.
15, v. 16—20.) These armed boats should be still smaller than the
thousand vessels of Agamemnon at the siege of Troy. (Manso, p.
121.)]

48 (return) [ Vol. iii. p. 581—585.]

49 (return) [ Ennodius (p. 1610) and Cassiodorus, in the royal
name, (Var. ii 41,) record his salutary protection of the
Alemanni.]

50 (return) [ The Gothic transactions in Gaul and Spain are
represented with some perplexity in Cassiodorus, (Var. iii. 32,
38, 41, 43, 44, v. 39.) Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 698, 699,) and
Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 12.) I will neither hear nor reconcile
the long and contradictory arguments of the Abbe Dubos and the
Count de Buat, about the wars of Burgundy.]

51 (return) [ Theophanes, p. 113.]

The union of the Goths and Romans might have fixed for ages the
transient happiness of Italy; and the first of nations, a new
people of free subjects and enlightened soldiers, might have
gradually arisen from the mutual emulation of their respective
virtues. But the sublime merit of guiding or seconding such a
revolution was not reserved for the reign of Theodoric: he wanted
either the genius or the opportunities of a legislator; 52 and
while he indulged the Goths in the enjoyment of rude liberty, he
servilely copied the institutions, and even the abuses, of the
political system which had been framed by Constantine and his
successors. From a tender regard to the expiring prejudices of
Rome, the Barbarian declined the name, the purple, and the
diadem, of the emperors; but he assumed, under the hereditary
title of king, the whole substance and plenitude of Imperial
prerogative. 53 His addresses to the eastern throne were
respectful and ambiguous: he celebrated, in pompous style, the
harmony of the two republics, applauded his own government as the
perfect similitude of a sole and undivided empire, and claimed
above the kings of the earth the same preeminence which he
modestly allowed to the person or rank of Anastasius. The
alliance of the East and West was annually declared by the
unanimous choice of two consuls; but it should seem that the
Italian candidate who was named by Theodoric accepted a formal
confirmation from the sovereign of Constantinople. 54 The Gothic
palace of Ravenna reflected the image of the court of Theodosius
or Valentinian. The Praetorian præfect, the præfect of Rome, the
quaestor, the master of the offices, with the public and
patrimonial treasurers, 5411 whose functions are painted in gaudy
colors by the rhetoric of Cassiodorus, still continued to act as
the ministers of state. And the subordinate care of justice and
the revenue was delegated to seven consulars, three correctors,
and five presidents, who governed the fifteen regions of Italy
according to the principles, and even the forms, of Roman
jurisprudence. 55 The violence of the conquerors was abated or
eluded by the slow artifice of judicial proceedings; the civil
administration, with its honors and emoluments, was confined to
the Italians; and the people still preserved their dress and
language, their laws and customs, their personal freedom, and two
thirds of their landed property. 5511 It had been the object of
Augustus to conceal the introduction of monarchy; it was the
policy of Theodoric to disguise the reign of a Barbarian. 56 If
his subjects were sometimes awakened from this pleasing vision of
a Roman government, they derived more substantial comfort from
the character of a Gothic prince, who had penetration to discern,
and firmness to pursue, his own and the public interest.
Theodoric loved the virtues which he possessed, and the talents
of which he was destitute. Liberius was promoted to the office of
Praetorian præfect for his unshaken fidelity to the unfortunate
cause of Odoacer. The ministers of Theodoric, Cassiodorus, 57 and
Boethius, have reflected on his reign the lustre of their genius
and learning. More prudent or more fortunate than his colleague,
Cassiodorus preserved his own esteem without forfeiting the royal
favor; and after passing thirty years in the honors of the world,
he was blessed with an equal term of repose in the devout and
studious solitude of Squillace. 5711

52 (return) [ Procopius affirms that no laws whatsoever were
promulgated by Theodoric and the succeeding kings of Italy,
(Goth. l. ii. c. 6.) He must mean in the Gothic language. A Latin
edict of Theodoric is still extant, in one hundred and fifty-four
articles. * Note: See Manso, 92. Savigny, vol. ii. p. 164, et
seq.—M.]

53 (return) [ The image of Theodoric is engraved on his coins:
his modest successors were satisfied with adding their own name
to the head of the reigning emperor, (Muratori, Antiquitat.
Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. ii. dissert. xxvii. p. 577—579.
Giannone, Istoria Civile di Napoli tom. i. p. 166.)]

54 (return) [ The alliance of the emperor and the king of Italy
are represented by Cassiodorus (Var. i. l, ii. 1, 2, 3, vi. l)
and Procopius, (Goth. l. ii. c. 6, l. iii. c. 21,) who celebrate
the friendship of Anastasius and Theodoric; but the figurative
style of compliment was interpreted in a very different sense at
Constantinople and Ravenna.]

5411 (return) [ All causes between Roman and Roman were judged by
the old Roman courts. The comes Gothorum judged between Goth and
Goth; between Goths and Romans, (without considering which was
the plaintiff.) the comes Gothorum, with a Roman jurist as his
assessor, making a kind of mixed jurisdiction, but with a natural
predominance to the side of the Goth Savigny, vol. i. p. 290.—M.]

55 (return) [ To the xvii. provinces of the Notitia, Paul
Warnefrid the deacon (De Reb. Longobard. l. ii. c. 14—22) has
subjoined an xviiith, the Apennine, (Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. i. p. 431—443.) But of these Sardinia and
Corsica were possessed by the Vandals, and the two Rhaetias, as
well as the Cottian Alps, seem to have been abandoned to a
military government. The state of the four provinces that now
form the kingdom of Naples is labored by Giannone (tom. i. p.
172, 178) with patriotic diligence.]

5511 (return) [ Manso enumerates and develops at some length the
following sources of the royal revenue of Theodoric: 1. A domain,
either by succession to that of Odoacer, or a part of the third
of the lands was reserved for the royal patrimony. 1. Regalia,
including mines, unclaimed estates, treasure-trove, and
confiscations. 3. Land tax. 4. Aurarium, like the Chrysargyrum, a
tax on certain branches of trade. 5. Grant of Monopolies. 6.
Siliquaticum, a small tax on the sale of all kinds of
commodities. 7. Portoria, customs Manso, 96, 111. Savigny (i.
285) supposes that in many cases the property remained in the
original owner, who paid his tertia, a third of the produce to
the crown, vol. i. p. 285.—M.]

56 (return) [ See the Gothic history of Procopius, (l. i. c. 1,
l. ii. c. 6,) the Epistles of Cassiodorus, passim, but especially
the vth and vith books, which contain the formulae, or patents of
offices,) and the Civil History of Giannone, (tom. i. l. ii.
iii.) The Gothic counts, which he places in every Italian city,
are annihilated, however, by Maffei, (Verona Illustrata, P. i. l.
viii. p. 227; for those of Syracuse and Naples (Var vi. 22, 23)
were special and temporary commissions.]

57 (return) [ Two Italians of the name of Cassiodorus, the father
(Var. i. 24, 40) and the son, (ix. 24, 25,) were successively
employed in the administration of Theodoric. The son was born in
the year 479: his various epistles as quaestor, master of the
offices, and Praetorian præfect, extend from 509 to 539, and he
lived as a monk about thirty years, (Tiraboschi Storia della
Letteratura Italiana, tom. iii. p. 7—24. Fabricius, Bibliot. Lat.
Med. Aevi, tom. i. p. 357, 358, edit. Mansi.)]

5711 (return) [ Cassiodorus was of an ancient and honorable
family; his grandfather had distinguished himself in the defence
of Sicily against the ravages of Genseric; his father held a high
rank at the court of Valentinian III., enjoyed the friendship of
Aetius, and was one of the ambassadors sent to arrest the
progress of Attila. Cassiodorus himself was first the treasurer
of the private expenditure to Odoacer, afterwards “count of the
sacred largesses.” Yielding with the rest of the Romans to the
dominion of Theodoric, he was instrumental in the peaceable
submission of Sicily; was successively governor of his native
provinces of Bruttium and Lucania, quaestor, magister, palatii,
Praetorian præfect, patrician, consul, and private secretary,
and, in fact, first minister of the king. He was five times
Praetorian præfect under different sovereigns, the last time in
the reign of Vitiges. This is the theory of Manso, which is not
unencumbered with difficulties. M. Buat had supposed that it was
the father of Cassiodorus who held the office first named.
Compare Manso, p. 85, &c., and Beylage, vii. It certainly appears
improbable that Cassiodorus should have been count of the sacred
largesses at twenty years old.—M.]

As the patron of the republic, it was the interest and duty of
the Gothic king to cultivate the affections of the senate 58 and
people. The nobles of Rome were flattered by sonorous epithets
and formal professions of respect, which had been more justly
applied to the merit and authority of their ancestors. The people
enjoyed, without fear or danger, the three blessings of a
capital, order, plenty, and public amusements. A visible
diminution of their numbers may be found even in the measure of
liberality; 59 yet Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, poured their
tribute of corn into the granaries of Rome; an allowance of bread
and meat was distributed to the indigent citizens; and every
office was deemed honorable which was consecrated to the care of
their health and happiness. The public games, such as the Greek
ambassador might politely applaud, exhibited a faint and feeble
copy of the magnificence of the Caesars: yet the musical, the
gymnastic, and the pantomime arts, had not totally sunk in
oblivion; the wild beasts of Africa still exercised in the
amphitheatre the courage and dexterity of the hunters; and the
indulgent Goth either patiently tolerated or gently restrained
the blue and green factions, whose contests so often filled the
circus with clamor and even with blood. 60 In the seventh year of
his peaceful reign, Theodoric visited the old capital of the
world; the senate and people advanced in solemn procession to
salute a second Trajan, a new Valentinian; and he nobly supported
that character by the assurance of a just and legal government,
61 in a discourse which he was not afraid to pronounce in public,
and to inscribe on a tablet of brass. Rome, in this august
ceremony, shot a last ray of declining glory; and a saint, the
spectator of this pompous scene, could only hope, in his pious
fancy, that it was excelled by the celestial splendor of the new
Jerusalem. 62 During a residence of six months, the fame, the
person, and the courteous demeanor of the Gothic king, excited
the admiration of the Romans, and he contemplated, with equal
curiosity and surprise, the monuments that remained of their
ancient greatness. He imprinted the footsteps of a conqueror on
the Capitoline hill, and frankly confessed that each day he
viewed with fresh wonder the forum of Trajan and his lofty
column. The theatre of Pompey appeared, even in its decay, as a
huge mountain artificially hollowed, and polished, and adorned by
human industry; and he vaguely computed, that a river of gold
must have been drained to erect the colossal amphitheatre of
Titus. 63 From the mouths of fourteen aqueducts, a pure and
copious stream was diffused into every part of the city; among
these the Claudian water, which arose at the distance of
thirty-eight miles in the Sabine mountains, was conveyed along a
gentle though constant declivity of solid arches, till it
descended on the summit of the Aventine hill. The long and
spacious vaults which had been constructed for the purpose of
common sewers, subsisted, after twelve centuries, in their
pristine strength; and these subterraneous channels have been
preferred to all the visible wonders of Rome. 64 The Gothic
kings, so injuriously accused of the ruin of antiquity, were
anxious to preserve the monuments of the nation whom they had
subdued. 65 The royal edicts were framed to prevent the abuses,
the neglect, or the depredations of the citizens themselves; and
a professed architect, the annual sum of two hundred pounds of
gold, twenty-five thousand tiles, and the receipt of customs from
the Lucrine port, were assigned for the ordinary repairs of the
walls and public edifices. A similar care was extended to the
statues of metal or marble of men or animals. The spirit of the
horses, which have given a modern name to the Quirinal, was
applauded by the Barbarians; 66 the brazen elephants of the Via
sacra were diligently restored; 67 the famous heifer of Myron
deceived the cattle, as they were driven through the forum of
peace; 68 and an officer was created to protect those works of
art, which Theodoric considered as the noblest ornament of his
kingdom.

58 (return) [ See his regard for the senate in Cochlaeus, (Vit.
Theod. viii. p. 72—80.)]

59 (return) [ No more than 120,000 modii, or four thousand
quarters, (Anonym. Valesian. p. 721, and Var. i. 35, vi. 18, xi.
5, 39.)]

60 (return) [ See his regard and indulgence for the spectacles of
the circus, the amphitheatre, and the theatre, in the Chronicle
and Epistles of Cassiodorus, (Var. i. 20, 27, 30, 31, 32, iii.
51, iv. 51, illustrated by the xivth Annotation of Mascou’s
History), who has contrived to sprinkle the subject with
ostentatious, though agreeable, learning.]

61 (return) [ Anonym. Vales. p. 721. Marius Aventicensis in
Chron. In the scale of public and personal merit, the Gothic
conqueror is at least as much above Valentinian, as he may seem
inferior to Trajan.]

62 (return) [ Vit. Fulgentii in Baron. Annal. Eccles. A.D. 500,
No. 10.]

63 (return) [ Cassiodorus describes in his pompous style the
Forum of Trajan (Var. vii. 6,) the theatre of Marcellus, (iv.
51,) and the amphitheatre of Titus, (v. 42;) and his descriptions
are not unworthy of the reader’s perusal. According to the modern
prices, the Abbe Barthelemy computes that the brick work and
masonry of the Coliseum would now cost twenty millions of French
livres, (Mem. de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p.
585, 586.) How small a part of that stupendous fabric!]

64 (return) [ For the aqueducts and cloacae, see Strabo, (l. v.
p. 360;) Pliny, (Hist. Natur. xxxvi. 24; Cassiodorus, Var. iii.
30, 31, vi. 6;) Procopius, (Goth. l. i. c. 19;) and Nardini,
(Roma Antica, p. 514—522.) How such works could be executed by a
king of Rome, is yet a problem. Note: See Niebuhr, vol. i. p.
402. These stupendous works are among the most striking
confirmations of Niebuhr’s views of the early Roman history; at
least they appear to justify his strong sentence—“These works and
the building of the Capitol attest with unquestionable evidence
that this Rome of the later kings was the chief city of a great
state.”—Page 110—M.]

65 (return) [ For the Gothic care of the buildings and statues,
see Cassiodorus (Var. i. 21, 25, ii. 34, iv. 30, vii. 6, 13, 15)
and the Valesian Fragment, (p. 721.)]

66 (return) [ Var. vii. 15. These horses of Monte Cavallo had
been transported from Alexandria to the baths of Constantine,
(Nardini, p. 188.) Their sculpture is disdained by the Abbe
Dubos, (Reflexions sur la Poesie et sur la Peinture, tom. i.
section 39,) and admired by Winkelman, (Hist. de l’Art, tom. ii.
p. 159.)]

67 (return) [ Var. x. 10. They were probably a fragment of some
triumphal car, (Cuper de Elephantis, ii. 10.)]

68 (return) [ Procopius (Goth. l. iv. c. 21) relates a foolish
story of Myron’s cow, which is celebrated by the false wit of
thirty-six Greek epigrams, (Antholog. l. iv. p. 302—306, edit.
Hen. Steph.; Auson. Epigram. xiii.—lxviii.)]