he key to Italy and the plain and
the very gate of the West, that not to possess it was to lose
everything. Its surrender was necessary and Theodoric offered
extraordinary terms to obtain it. Odoacer was not only to keep his
life but his power. He was to rule as the equal of Theodoric. This
mighty concession shows us at once what Ravenna really was, what part
she played in the government of Italy, and how unique was her position
in the military scheme of that country.

Theodoric had certainly no intention of carrying out the terms of his
treaty. In the very month in which he signed it, he invited Odoacer to
a feast at the Palace "in Lauro" to the south-east of Ravenna. When
the patrician arrived two petitioners knelt before him each clasping
one of his hands, and two of Theodoric's men stepped from hiding to
kill him. Perhaps they were not barbarians: at any rate, they lacked
the courage and the contempt alike of law and of honour necessary to
commit so cold a murder. It was Theodoric himself who lifted his sword
and hewed his enemy in twain from the shoulder to the loins. "Where is
God?" Odoacer, expecting the stroke, had demanded. And Theodoric
answered, "Thus didst thou to my friends." And after he said, "I think
the wretch had no bones in his body."

The barbarian it might seem had certainly nothing to learn from the
worst of the emperors in treachery and dishonour.

Theodoric set up his seat in the city he had so perfidiously won, and
for the next thirty years appears as the governour of Italy. He had
set out, it will be remembered, as the soldier of Constantinople, had
asked for leave to make his expedition, and had protested his
willingness to govern in the name of the emperor and for his glory. It
is not perhaps surprising that a barbarian, and especially Theodoric
who knew so well how to win by treachery what he could not otherwise
obtain, should after his victory forget the promise he had made to his
master. After the battle of the Adda he had the audacity to send an
embassy to the emperor to request that he might be allowed to clothe
himself in the royal mantle. This was of course refused. Nevertheless
the Goths "confirmed Theodoric to themselves as king without waiting
for the order of the new emperor Anastasius."[1] This "confirmation,"
whatever it may have meant to the Goths, meant nothing to the Romans
or to the empire. For some years Constantinople refused all
acknowledgment to Theodoric, till in 497