palace of Ravenna. [50] The Gothic sovereignty
was established from Sicily to the Danube, from Sirmium or Belgrade to
the Atlantic Ocean; and the Greeks themselves have acknowledged that
Theodoric reigned over the fairest portion of the Western empire. [51]

[Footnote 44: See the Hist. des Peuples Anciens, &c., tom. ix. p.
255--273, 396--501. The count de Buat was French minister at the
court of Bavaria: a liberal curiosity prompted his inquiries into the
antiquities of the country, and that curiosity was the germ of twelve
respectable volumes.]

[Footnote 45: See the Gothic transactions on the Danube and the
Illyricum, in Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 699;) Ennodius, (p. 1607-1610;)
Marcellmus (in Chron. p. 44, 47, 48;) and Cassiodorus, in (in Chron and
Var. iii. 29 50, iv. 13, vii. 4 24, viii. 9, 10, 11, 21, ix. 8, 9.)]

[Footnote 46: I cannot forbear transcribing the liberal and classic
style of Count Marcellinus: Romanus comes domesticorum, et Rusticus
comes scholariorum cum centum armatis navibus, totidemque dromonibus,
octo millia militum armatorum secum ferentibus, ad devastanda Italiae
littora processerunt, ut usque ad Tarentum antiquissimam civitatem
aggressi sunt; remensoque mari in honestam victoriam quam piratico ausu
Romani ex Romanis rapuerunt, Anastasio Caesari reportarunt, (in Chron.
p. 48.) See Variar. i. 16, ii. 38.]

[Footnote 47: See the royal orders and instructions, (Var. iv. 15, v.
16--20.) These armed boats should be still smaller than the thousand
vessels of Agamemnon at the siege of Troy. (Manso, p. 121.)]

[Footnote 48: Vol. iii. p. 581--585.]

[Footnote 49: Ennodius (p. 1610) and Cassiodorus, in the royal name,
(Var. ii 41,) record his salutary protection of the Alemanni.]

[Footnote 50: The Gothic transactions in Gaul and Spain are represented
with some perplexity in Cassiodorus, (Var. iii. 32, 38, 41, 43, 44, v.
39.) Jornandes, (c. 58, p. 698, 699,) and Procopius, (Goth. l. i.
c. 12.) I will neither hear nor reconcile the long and contradictory
arguments of the Abbe Dubos and the Count de Buat, about the wars of
Burgundy.]

[Footnote 51: Theophanes, p. 113.]

The union of the Goths and Romans might have fixed for ages the
transient happiness of Italy; and the first of nations, a new people of
free subjects and enlightened soldiers, might have gradually arisen from
the mutual emulation of their respective virtues. But the sublime merit
of guiding or seconding such a revolution was not res