e language of
discreet ministers. The reputation of Theodoric may repose with
more confidence on the visible peace and prosperity of a reign of
thirty-three years; the unanimous esteem of his own times, and the
memory of his wisdom and courage, his justice and humanity, which was
deeply impressed on the minds of the Goths and Italians.

[Footnote 21: Hist. Miscell. l. xv., a Roman history from Janus to the
ixth century, an Epitome of Eutropius, Paulus Diaconus, and Theophanes
which Muratori has published from a Ms. in the Ambrosian library,
(Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. i. p. 100.)]

[Footnote 22: Procopius (Gothic. l. i. c. i.) approves himself an
impartial sceptic. Cassiodorus (in Chron.) and Ennodius (p. 1604) are
loyal and credulous, and the testimony of the Valesian Fragment (p.
718) may justify their belief. Marcellinus spits the venom of a Greek
subject--perjuriis illectus, interfectusque est, (in Chron.)]

[Footnote 23: The sonorous and servile oration of Ennodius was
pronounced at Milan or Ravenna in the years 507 or 508, (Sirmond, tom.
i. p. 615.) Two or three years afterwards, the orator was rewarded with
the bishopric of Pavia, which he held till his death in the year 521.
(Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. v. p. 11-14. See Saxii Onomasticon, tom.
ii. p. 12.)]

[Footnote 24: Our best materials are occasional hints from Procopius and
the Valesian Fragment, which was discovered by Sirmond, and is published
at the end of Ammianus Marcellinus. The author's name is unknown,
and his style is barbarous; but in his various facts he exhibits the
knowledge, without the passions, of a contemporary. The president
Montesquieu had formed the plan of a history of Theodoric, which at a
distance might appear a rich and interesting subject.]

[Footnote 25: The best edition of the Variarum Libri xii. is that of
Joh. Garretius, (Rotomagi, 1679, in Opp. Cassiodor. 2 vols. in fol.;)
but they deserved and required such an editor as the Marquis Scipio
Maffei, who thought of publishing them at Verona. The Barbara Eleganza
(as it is ingeniously named by Tiraboschi) is never simple, and seldom
perspicuous]

The partition of the lands of Italy, of which Theodoric assigned the
third part to his soldiers, is honorably arraigned as the sole injustice
of his life. [2511] And even this act may be fairly justified by the
example of Odoacer, the rights of conquest, the true interest of the
Italians, and the sacred duty of subsisting a who