ed his brave
companions, that empire must be acquired and defended by the same arts.
After his example, they strove to excel in the use, not only of the
lance and sword, the instruments of their victories, but of the missile
weapons, which they were too much inclined to neglect; and the lively
image of war was displayed in the daily exercise and annual reviews of
the Gothic cavalry. A firm though gentle discipline imposed the habits
of modesty, obedience, and temperance; and the Goths were instructed
to spare the people, to reverence the laws, to understand the duties of
civil society, and to disclaim the barbarous license of judicial combat
and private revenge.

Chapter XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.--Part II.

Among the Barbarians of the West, the victory of Theodoric had spread
a general alarm. But as soon as it appeared that he was satisfied with
conquest and desirous of peace, terror was changed into respect, and
they submitted to a powerful mediation, which was uniformly employed
for the best purposes of reconciling their quarrels and civilizing their
manners. The ambassadors who resorted to Ravenna from the most distant
countries of Europe, admired his wisdom, magnificence, and courtesy; and
if he sometimes accepted either slaves or arms, white horses or
strange animals, the gift of a sun-dial, a water-clock, or a musician,
admonished even the princes of Gaul of the superior art and industry of
his Italian subjects. His domestic alliances, a wife, two daughters, a
sister, and a niece, united the family of Theodoric with the kings
of the Franks, the Burgundians, the Visigoths, the Vandals, and the
Thuringians, and contributed to maintain the harmony, or at least the
balance, of the great republic of the West. It is difficult in the dark
forests of Germany and Poland to pursue the emigrations of the Heruli,
a fierce people who disdained the use of armor, and who condemned their
widows and aged parents not to survive the loss of their husbands, or
the decay of their strength. The king of these savage warriors solicited
the friendship of Theodoric, and was elevated to the rank of his son,
according to the barbaric rites of a military adoption. From the shores
of the Baltic, the AEstians or Livonians laid their offerings of native
amber at the feet of a prince, whose fame had excited them to undertake
an unknown and dangerous journey of fifteen hundred miles. With
the country from whence the Gothic nation deri