d, his character was not heroic; he was, perhaps, inclined
to humble himself unduly before mere power and rank, and he had the
fault, common to most rhetoricians, of over-estimating the power of
words and thinking that a few fluent platitudes would heal inveterate
discords and hide disastrous blunders. But when we have said this we
have said the worst. He was, as far as we have any means of judging, a
loyal subject, a faithful friend, a strenuous and successful
administrator, and an exceptionally far-sighted statesman. His right
to this last designation rests upon the part which he bore in the
establishment of the Italian Kingdom 'of the Goths and Romans,'
founded by the great Theodoric.

[Sidenote: His work in seconding the policy of Theodoric.]

Theodoric, it must always be remembered, had entered Italy not
ostensibly as an invader but as a deliverer. He came in pursuance of a
compact with the legitimate Emperor of the New Rome, to deliver the
Elder Rome and the land of Italy from the dominion of 'the upstart
King of Rugians and Turcilingians[28],' Odovacar. The compact, it is
true, was loose and indefinite, and contained within itself the germs
of that misunderstanding which, forty-seven years later, was developed
into a terrible war. Still, for the present, Theodoric, King of the
Ostrogoths, was also in some undefined way legitimate representative
of the Old Roman Empire within the borders of Italy. This double
aspect of his rule was illustrated by that which (rather than the
doubtful Rex Italiae) seems to have been his favourite title,
'Gothorum Romanorumque Rex.'

[Footnote 28: Jordanes, De Rebus Geticis, lvii.]

[Sidenote: Theodoric's love of _Civilitas_.]

The great need of Italy was peace. After a century of wars and rumours
of wars; after Alaric, Attila, and Gaiseric had wasted her fields or
sacked her capital; after she had been exhausting her strength in
hopeless efforts to preserve the dominion of Gaul, Spain, and Africa;
after she had groaned under the exactions of the insolent _foederati_,
Roman soldiers only in name, who followed the standards of Ricimer or
Odovacar, she needed peace and to be governed with a strong hand, in
order to recover some small part of her old material prosperity. These
two blessings, peace and a strong government, Theodoric's rule ensured
to her. The theory of his government was this, that the two nations
should dwell side by side, not fused into one, not subject either to