avenna or Constantinople.]

[Footnote 41: 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.)]

[Footnote 42: 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.]

[Footnote 43: 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