any causes combined to sadden and depress the king's heart, as he felt
old age creeping upon him. Providence had not blessed him with a son;
and while his younger rival, Clovis, left four martial sons to defend
(and also to partition) his newly formed kingdom, Theodoric's daughter
Amalasuentha was the only child born of his marriage with Clovis'
sister.

In order to provide himself with a male heir (for the customs of the
Goths did not favour, if they did not actually exclude, female
sovereignty), Theodoric summoned to his court a distant relative, a
young man named Eutharic, descended from the mighty Hermanric, who was
at the time living in Spain. Eutharic, who was well reported of for
bodily vigour and for statesmanlike ability, came to the Ostrogothic
court, married Amalasuentha (515), four years afterwards received the
honour of a consulship, which he held along with the Emperor Justin, and
exhibited games and combats of wild beasts to the populace of Rome and
Ravenna on a scale of unsurpassed magnificence. But he died, probably
soon after his consulship, leaving two children--a boy and a girl,--and
thus Theodoric's hope of bequeathing his crown to a mature and masculine
heir was disappointed. Still, however, he would not propose a female
ruler to his old Gothic comrades; and the little grandson, Athalaric,
though under ten years of age, was solemnly presented by him to an
assembly of Gothic counts and the nobles of the nation as their king.

The proclamation of Athalaric was made when the king felt that he should
shortly depart this life, probably in the summer of 526. I have
mentioned it here in order to complete my statement as to the succession
to the throne, but we will now return to an earlier period-to the events
which immediately followed Eutharic's consulship. Coming as he did from
Spain, the Visigothic lords of which were still an aristocracy of bitter
Arians in the midst of a cowed but Catholic Roman population, Eutharic,
who, as we are expressly told, "was too harsh and hostile to the
Catholic faith", may have to some extent swayed the mind of his
father-in-law away from its calm balance of even-handed justice between
the rival Churches. But the state of affairs at Constantinople exercised
a yet more powerful influence. Anastasius, who, though no Arian, had
during his long reign been always in an attitude of hostility towards
the Papal See, was now dead, and had been succeeded by Justin. This man,
a sol