f that land. Yet after a long siege
they departed, upon receiving money from the inhabitants.

[Sidenote: MARCIANOPLE]

[Sidenote: THE GEPIDAE AND THEIR DEFEAT BY OSTROGOTHA]

Now since we have mentioned Marcianople, we may 93
briefly relate a few matters in connection with its founding.
They say that the Emperor Trajan built this city
for the following reason. While his sister's daughter
Marcia was bathing in the stream called Potamus--a
river of great clearness and purity that rises in the midst
of the city--she wished to draw some water from it and
by chance dropped into its depths the golden pitcher she
was carrying. Yet though very heavy from its weight
of metal, it emerged from the waves a long time afterwards.
It surely is not a usual thing for an empty vessel
to sink; much less that, when once swallowed up, it should
be cast up by the waves and float again. Trajan marvelled
at hearing this and believed there was some divinity
in the stream. So he built a city and called it Marcianople
after the name of his sister.

XVII From this city, then, as we were saying, the 94
Getae returned after a long siege to their own land, enriched
by the ransom they had received. Now the race
of the Gepidae was moved with envy when they saw them
laden with booty and so suddenly victorious everywhere,
and made war on their kinsmen. Should you ask how
the Getae and Gepidae are kinsmen, I can tell you in a
few words. You surely remember that in the beginning
I said the Goths went forth from the bosom of the island
of Scandza with Berig, their king, sailing in only three
ships toward the hither shore of Ocean, namely to
Gothiscandza. One of these three ships proved to be 95
slower than the others, as is usually the case, and thus is
said to have given the tribe their name, for in their
language _gepanta_ means slow. Hence it came to pass
that gradually and by corruption the name Gepidae was
coined for them by way of reproach. For undoubtedly
they too trace their origin from the stock of the Goths,
but because, as I have said, _gepanta_ means something
slow and stolid, the word Gepidae arose as a gratuitous
name of reproach. I do not believe this is very far
wrong, for they are slow of thought and too sluggish for
quick movement of their bodies.

These Gepidae were then smitten by envy while they 96
dwelt in the province of Spesis on an island surrounded
by the shallow waters of the Vistula. This island they