n considered as
belonging _de jure_ to the Caesar of Rome rather than to him of
Constantinople.]

[Sidenote: Relations with the East.]

'But under this Lady, who can count as many Kings as ancestors in her
pedigree, our army by Divine help is a terror to foreign nations.
Being kept in a prudent equipoise it is neither worn away by continual
fighting nor enervated by unbroken peace. In the very beginnings of
the reign, when a new ruler's precarious power is apt to be most
assailed, contrary to the wish of the Eastern Emperor she made the
Danube a Roman stream. Well known is all that the invaders suffered,
of which I therefore omit further mention, that the shame of defeat
may not be too closely associated with the thought of the Emperor, our
ally. Still, what he thought of your part of the Empire is clear from
this, that he conceded to our attack that peace which he has refused
to the abject entreaties of others. Add this fact, that though we have
rarely sought him he has honoured us with so many embassies, and that
thus his unique majesty has bowed down the stately head of the Orient
to exalt the lords of Italy[718].

[Footnote 718: 'Et singularis illa potentia, ut _Italicos Dominos_,
erigeret, reverentiam Eoi culminis ordinavit.' This somewhat favours
the notion that Theodoric and his successors called themselves Kings
of Italy.]

[Sidenote: Expedition against the Franks.]

'The Franks also, overmighty by their victories over so many barbarous
tribes--by what a great expedition were they harassed! Attacked, they
dreaded a contest with our soldiers; they who had leaped unawares upon
so many nations and forced them into battle. But though that haughty
race declined the offered conflict, they could not prevent the death
of their own King. For Theodoric[719], he who had so often availed
himself of the name of our glorious King as an occasion for triumph,
now fell vanquished in the struggle with disease--a stroke of Divine
Providence surely, to prevent us from staining ourselves with the
blood of our kindred, and yet to grant some revenge to the army which
had been justly called out to war. Hail! thou Gothic array, happy
above all other happiness, who strikest at the life of a Royal foe,
yet leavest us not the poorer by the life of one of the least of our
soldiers[720].

[Footnote 719: Theodoric I, son of Clovis, King of the Franks,
reigning at Metz, died, as before stated, in 534.]

[Footnote 720: 'Et nobis nec u