ould not have seen such men as
Symmachus and Boethius the confidants and counsellors of the Amal,
without longing for their downfall; and if, as Boethius and the Catholic
historians say, the whole tragedy arose out of a Gothic plot to destroy
the Roman party, such things have happened but too often in the world's
history. The only facts which make against the story are, that Cyprianus
the accuser was a Roman, and that Cassiodorus, who must have belonged to
the Roman party, not only is never mentioned during the whole tragedy,
but was high in power under Theodatus and Athalaric afterwards.

Add to this, that there were vague but wide-spread reports that the Goths
were in danger; that Dietrich at least could not be ignorant of the
ambition and the talents of that terrible Justinian, Justin's nephew, who
was soon to alter, for a generation, the fortunes of the whole Empire,
and to sweep the Goths from Italy; that men's minds must have been
perplexed with fear of change, when they recollected that Dietrich was
seventy years old, without a son to succeed him, and that a woman and a
child would soon rule that great people in a crisis, which they could not
but foresee. We know that the ruin came; is it unreasonable to suppose
that the Goths foresaw it, and made a desperate, it may be a treacherous,
effort to crush once and for all, the proud and not less treacherous
senators of Rome?

So, maddened with the fancied discovery that the man whom he had
honoured, trusted, loved, was conspiring against him, Dietrich sent
Boethius to prison. He seems, however, not to have been eager for his
death; for Boethius remained there long enough to write his noble book.

However, whether fresh proofs of his supposed guilt were discovered or
not, the day came when he must die. A cord was twisted round his head
(probably to extort confession), till his eyes burst from their sockets,
and then he was put out of his misery by a club; and so ended the last
Roman philosopher. Symmachus, his father-in-law, was beheaded; and Pope
John, as we have heard, was thrown into prison on his return, and died
after a few months. These are the tragedies which have stained for ever
the name of 'Theodoric the Great.'

Pope John seems to have fairly earned his imprisonment. For the two
others, we can only, I fear, join in the sacred pity in which their
memories have been embalmed to all succeeding generations. But we must
recollect, that after all, we kn