tant 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]

[Footnote 33: 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.]

[Footnote 34: 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.]

[Footnote 35: 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.]

[Footnote 36: 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.]

[Footnote 37: 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