r of the Valesian Fragment, who considers Dietrich damned as an
Arian, and the murderer of Boethius and Symmachus, says plainly that
Odoacer plotted against his life. But it was a dark business at best.

Be that as it may, Dietrich the Amal found himself in one day king of all
Italy, without a peer. And now followed a three and thirty years' reign
of wisdom, justice, and prosperity, unexampled in the history of those
centuries. Between the days of the Antonines and those of Charlemagne, I
know no such bright spot in the dark history of Europe.

As for his transferring the third of the lands of Italy, which had been
held by Odoacer's men, to his own Goths,--that was just or unjust (even
putting out of the question the rights of conquest), according to what
manner of men Odoacer's mercenaries were, and what right they had to the
lands. At least it was done so, says Cassiodorus, that it notoriously
gave satisfaction to the Romans themselves. One can well conceive it.
Odoacer's men had been lawless adventurers; and now law was installed as
supreme. Dietrich, in his long sojourn at the Emperor's court, had
discovered the true secret of Roman power, which made the Empire terrible
even in her fallen fortunes; and that was Law. Law, which tells every
man what to expect, and what is expected of him; and so gives, if not
content, still confidence, energy, industry. The Goths were to live by
the Gothic law, the Romans by the Roman. To amalgamate the two races
would have been as impossible as to amalgamate English and Hindoos. The
parallel is really tolerably exact. The Goth was very English; and the
over-civilized, learned, false, profligate Roman was the very counterpart
of the modern Brahmin. But there was to be equal justice between man and
man. If the Goths were the masters of much of the Roman soil, still
spoliation and oppression were forbidden; and the remarkable edict or
code of Theodoric, shews how deeply into his great mind had sunk the idea
of the divineness of Law. It is short, and of Draconic severity,
especially against spoliation, cheating, false informers, abuse by the
clergy of the rights of sanctuary, and all offences against the honour of
women. I advise you all to study it, as an example of what an early
Teutonic king thought men ought to do, and could be made to do.

The Romans were left to their luxury and laziness; and their country
villas (long deserted) were filled again by the owners. The