nius ultimi facta subducis (?).']

[Sidenote: League with the Burgundians.]

'The Burgundian too, in order to receive his own again, crouched in
devotion, giving up his whole self that he might receive a trifle. For
he chose to obey with unimpaired territories, rather than to resist
with these cut short; and thus, by laying aside his arms, he most
effectually defended his kingdom, recovering by his prayers what he
had lost by the sword[721].

[Footnote 721: 'Burgundio quinetiam, ut sua reciperet, devotus
effectus est: reddens se totum dum accepisset exiguum. Elegit quippe
integer obedire, quam imminutus obsistere: tutius tunc defendit regnum
quando arma deposuit. Recuperavit enim prece, quod amisit in acie.'
The meaning of these mysterious words, as interpreted by Binding
(268-270) and Jahn (ii. 252), is that Godomar, King of the
Burgundians, received back from Amalasuentha (probably about 530, or a
little later) the territory between the Durance and the Isere, which
Theodoric had wrested from his brother in 523. The occasion of this
cession was probably some league of mutual defence against the Franks,
which Cassiodorus could without dishonesty represent as a kind of
vassalage of Burgundy to Ostrogothia. If so, it availed Godomar
little, as his territories were overrun by the Frankish Kings in 532,
and the conquest of them was apparently completed by 534 (Jahn ii.
68-78).]

'Happy Princess, whose enemies either fall by the hand of God, or else
by your bounty are united with your Empire! Rejoice, Goths and Romans
alike, and hail this marvel, a being who unites the excellences of
both the sexes! As woman she has given birth to your illustrious King,
while with manly fortitude of mind she has maintained the bounds of
your Empire.

'And now, if leaving the realm of war we enter the inner courts of her
moral goodness, a hundred tongues will not suffice to sound forth all
her praises. Her justice is as great as her goodwill, but even greater
is her kindness than her power. You, Senators, know the heavenly
goodness which she has shown to your order, restoring those who had
met with affliction to a higher state than that from which they had
fallen[722], and exalting to honour those who were still uninjured.

[Footnote 722: 'Afflictos statu meliore restituit.' An allusion,
probably, to her kindness to the families of Boethius and Symmachus.]

'Look at the case of the Patrician Liberius[723], Praefect of the
Gauls--a ma