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.]

[Footnote 38: 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.]

[Footnote 39: 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.]

[Footnote 40: 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 R