orses ought to be. Their chests and thighs are
adorned in a becoming manner with spheres of flesh. Their ribs are
expanded to a certain breadth; their bellies are short and narrow. Their
heads have a likeness to the stag's, and they imitate the swiftness of
that animal. These horses are gentle from their extreme plumpness; very
swift, for all their bigness, pleasant to look upon, yet more pleasant
to ride. For they have gentle paces and do not fatigue their riders with
insane curvetings. To ride them is rest rather than labour; and being
broken in to a delightfully steady pace, they have great staying power
and lasting activity". These sleek and easy-paced cobs are not at all
the ideal present from a rough barbarian of the North to his "father in
arms".]

The later fortunes of the Ostrogothic princess who thus migrated from
Ravenna to the banks of the Elbe were not happy. A proud and ambitious
woman, she is said to have stimulated her husband to make himself, by
fratricide and civil war, sole king of the Thuringians. The help of one
of the sons of Clovis had been unwisely invoked for this operation. So
long as the Ostrogothic hero lived, Thuringia was safe under his
protection, but soon after his death dissensions arose between Franks
and Thuringians; a claim of payment was made for the ill-requited
services of the former. Thuringia was invaded, (531) her king defeated,
and after a while treacherously slain. Amalaberga took refuge with her
kindred at Ravenna, and after the collapse of their fortunes retired to
Constantinople, where her son entered the Imperial service. In after
years that son, "Amalafrid the Goth", was not the least famous of the
generals of Justinian. The broad lands between the Elbe and the Danube,
over which the Thuringians had wandered, were added to the dominions of
the Franks and became part of the mighty kingdom of Austrasia.

I have had occasion many times in the preceding pages to write the name
of Ravenna, the residence of most of the sovereigns of the sinking
Empire, and now the home of Theodoric. Let me attempt in a few
paragraphs to give some faint idea of the impression which this city, a
boulder-stone left by the icedrift of the dissolving Empire amid the
green fields of modern civilisation, produces on the mind of a
traveller.

Ravenna stands in a great alluvial plain between the Apennines, the
Adriatic, and the Po. The fine mud, which has been for centuries poured
over the land by th