1

great battle, and then besieged him in the impregnable fortress of Ravenna. Odovaker finally surrendered on terms of friend

ship, but soon after was murdered at a banquet, on some suspicion, by Theodoric's own hand- -the one sad blot on the great Goth's fame.

1 Where Theodoric earned his name Dietrich (Theodoric) of Bern (Verona).

577. "Theodoric the Civilizer," 493-526 A.D.-Then began a Gothic kingdom in Italy, like the Teutonic states in Spain and Burgundy, and one that deserved a better fate than was to befall it. The Ostrogoths had come in as a nation, with women and children. They took a third of the lands of Italy (which had been held by the mercenaries of Odovaker), but all the rights of the Roman population were respected scrupulously. Goth and Roman lived in harmony side by side, each under his own law. Cities were rebuilt and new ones founded,

with a new period of architectural glory. Public works were restored. The subdivision of the land into small estates led to a revival of agriculture. Theodoric's long reign was peaceful, prosperous, and happy, and Italy began to recover something of her former greatness.

578. The "Empire" of Theodoric the Great. Theodoric, too, was the center of an informal alliance extending over all the Teutonic west. His wife was a Frankish princess; the Burgundian and Visigothic kings were his sons-in-law; his sister was married to the king of the Vandals. All these states recognized a certain preeminence in Theodoric, and it seemed

as though he were about to reunite the West into a great Teutonic empire, and so anticipate Charles the Great (§§ 636–649) by three centuries.

579. Elements of Weakness in the Gothic State. After all, however, the Goths were strangers ruling a vastly larger Roman population. More serious still, they were Arians. Theodoric had shown a perfect toleration for the orthodox Christians (Catholics), but it was unbearable to the more zealous of these to be ruled by a heretic race. Theodoric's last years were shadowed by plots among the Romans to bring in the orthodox eastern power; and the night after his death, so it was told, a holy hermit saw his soul flung down the crater of Stromboli. A strong successor perhaps could yet have maintained the state; but Theodoric left only a daughter, and the Goths at once fell into factions among themselves.

D. REVIVAL OF THE EMPIRE.

580. The "Greek" or Byzantine Empire. The parts of the empire peculiarly Latin had now fallen in pieces. There was left the empire east of the Adriatic. This part had always been essentially Greek in culture (§§ 391, 491, 492); and though it called itself Roman for the next ten centuries down to its fall, we commonly speak of it as the Greek Empire. Separated now from the west, it rapidly grew more and more Oriental in character. It preserved Greek learning, and warded off Persian and Arabian conquest, but it did not otherwise influence Western Europe greatly after the first few centuries.

581. Slav Invasions in the East. When Theodoric led his Goths into Italy, he left the line of the Danube open to the more savage Slavs (§ 569). That people had been filtering into the East, as the Teutons had done in the West, as slaves, coloni, and mercenaries; and now, in 493 A.D., came their first real invasion. Then, for a generation, successive hordes poured in, penetrating as far as Greece, until Eastern Europe also seemed