Theodoric the Goth | Page 3

captures Ravenna.
CHAPTER XVII.
TOTILA
Misgovernment of Italy by Justinian's officers--The Gothic cause
revives--Accession of Ildibad--Of Eraric--Of Totila--Totila's character
and policy--His victorious progress--Belisarius sent again to Italy to
oppose him--Siege and capture of Rome by the Goths--The
fortifications of the City dismantled--Belisarius reoccupies it and Totila
besieges it in vain--General success of the Gothic arms--Belisarius
returns to Constantinople--His later fortunes--Never reduced to
beggary.
CHAPTER XVIII.
NARSES
Totila again takes Rome--High-water mark of the success of the Gothic
arms--Narses, the Emperor's chamberlain, appointed to command
another expedition for the 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
[Illustration]
[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.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]

THEODORIC THE GOTH.

INTRODUCTION.
[Illustration]

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