d six cubits high.
Horse and rider were both of brass, "covered with yellow gold", and the
king here too had his buckler on his left arm, while the right,
extended, pointed a lance at an invisible foe.

[Footnote 123: Gally Knight ("Ecclesiastical Architecture of Italy", i.,
7) seems to accept it without hesitation as belonging to the age of
Theodoric. Freeman ("Historical, etc., Sketches", p. 47) expresses
considerable doubt: "The works of Theodoric are Roman; this palace is
not Roman but Romanesque, though undoubtedly a very early form of
Romanesque".]

[Footnote 124: Agnellus and others, as quoted by Corrado Ricci, "Ravenna
ei suoi Dintorni", p. 139. I cannot verify all Ricci's quotations, but
take the result of them on his authority.]

[Footnote 125: An inscription quoted by Ricci tells us this:

REX THEODORICUVS FAVENTE
DEO ET BELLO GLORIOSVS ET OTIO.
FABRICIIS SVIS AMoeNA CONIVINGENS
STERILI PALVDE SICCATA
HOS HORTOS SVAVI POMORVM
FoeCVNDITATE DITAVIT.]

This statue was carried off from Ravenna, probably by the Frankish
Emperor Charles, to adorn his capital at Aachen, and it was still to be
seen there when Agnellus wrote his ecclesiastical history of Ravenna,
three hundred years after the death of Theodoric.

[Illustration: COIN OF THE GOTHIC KINGDOM IN ITALY.]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIII.

BOETHIUS,

Clouds in the horizon--Anxiety as to the succession--Death of Eutharic,
son-in-law of Theodoric--His son Athalaric proclaimed as Theodoric's
heir--Pope and Emperor reconciled--Anti-Jewish riot at Ravenna--Strained
relations of Theodoric and his Catholic subjects--Leaders of the Roman
party--Boethius and Symmachus--Break-down of the Arian leagues--Cyprian
accuses Albinus of treason--Boethius, interposing, is included in the
charge--His trial, condemnation, and death--The "Consolation of
Philosophy".

Hithero the career of Theodoric has been one of almost unbroken
prosperity, and the reader who has followed his history has perhaps
grown somewhat weary of the monotonous repetition of the praises of his
mildness and his equity. Unfortunately he will be thus wearied no
longer. The sun of the great Ostrogoth set in sorrow, and what was worse
than in sorrow, in deeds of hasty wrath and cruel injustice, which lost
him the hearts of the majority of his subjects and which have dimmed his
fair fame with posterity.

M