craft by which, as a
patent fact, the Kaisers of Rome had been for centuries, even in their
decay and degradation, the rulers of the nations. Yet beneath that there
must have been a perpetual under-current of contempt for it and for
Rome--the 'colluvies gentium'--the sink of the nations, with its conceit,
its pomposity, its beggary, its profligacy, its superstition, its
pretence of preserving the Roman law and rights, while practically it
cared for no law nor right at all. Dietrich had had to write letter upon
letter, to prevent the green and blue factions cutting each other's
throats at the public spectacles; letters to the tribunus voluptatum, who
had to look after the pantomimes and loose women, telling him to keep the
poor wretches in some decent order, and to set them and the city an
example of a better life, by being a chaste and respectable man himself.
Letter upon letter of Cassiodorus', written in Dietrich's name, disclose
a state of things in Rome on which a Goth could look only with disgust
and contempt.

And what if he discovered (or thought that he discovered) that these
prating coxcombs--who were actually living on government bounty, and had
their daily bread, daily bath, daily oil, daily pork, daily wine, found
for them at government expense, while they lounged from the theatre to
the church, and the church to the theatre--were plotting with Justin the
scoundrel and upstart Emperor at Constantinople, to restore forsooth the
liberties of Rome? And that that was their answer to his three and
thirty years of good government, respect, indulgence, which had raised
them up again out of all the miseries of domestic anarchy and foreign
invasion?

And what if he discovered (or thought that he discovered) that the
Catholic Clergy, with Pope John at their head, were in the very same plot
for bringing in the Emperor of Constantinople, on the grounds of
religion; because he was persecuting the Arian Goths at Constantinople,
and therefore would help them to persecute them in Italy? And that that
was their answer to his three and thirty years of unexampled religious
liberty? Would not those two facts (even the belief that they were
facts) have been enough to drive many a wise man mad?

How far they were facts, we never shall exactly know. Almost all our
information comes from Catholic historians--and he would be a rash man
who would pin his faith on any statement of theirs concerning the actions
of a heretic.