And after these things it came to pass that old King Attila died, being enticed by Aldrian, the son of Hagen, into the cave where the great Nibelung hoard lay hidden. And when he was in the recesses of the mountain, gloating over the wondrous treasure, Aldrian passed swiftly forth and closed the doors of the cave and left him to perish of hunger in the midst of the greatest treasure that was in the world. Thus Aldrian avenged the death of his father and of all the Nibelungs. But Theodoric was made king over Hun-land by the help of his friends in that realm, and thus he became the mightiest king in the world.
Of all his old warriors only Heime was left, and Heime had buried himself in a convent, where he sang psalms every day with the monks, and did penance for his sins. Theodoric, hearing that he was there, sought him out, but long time Heime denied that he was Heime. "Much snow has fallen", said Theodoric, "on my head and on thine since our steeds drank the stream dry in Friesland. Our hair was then yellow as gold, and fell in curls over our shoulders; now is it white as a dove". And then he plied him with one memory after another of the joyous old times of the battle and the banquet, till at length Heime confessed, and said: "Good lord Theodoric, I do remember all of which thou hast spoken, and now will I go forth with thee from this place". And with that he fetched his armour from the convent-chest, and his good old steed Rispa from the convent-stable, and once more rode gladly after his lord. After doing many more brave deeds, he fell in battle with a giant, the biggest and clumsiest of his tribe. Theodoric, riding forth alone, sought out the giant's lair, and with his good sword Ecke-sax avenged the death of his friend; and that was the last battle that the son of Dietmar fought with mortal foe.
The years of Theodoric's old age were given to the chase of the beasts of the forest, for he was still a mighty hunter when his other strength was gone. 181
Footnote 181: (return) It is probably the following legend that is commemorated on the façade of the church of S. Zenone of Verona, where Theodoric is represented as chasing a stag and met by the Devil.
One day as he was bathing at the place which is still called "Theodoric's Bath", a groom called out to him: "My lord! a stag has just rushed past, the greatest and the finest that ever I saw in my life". With that Theodoric wrapped a bathing-cloak round him, and calling for his horse, prepared to set off in chase of the stag. The horse was long in coming, and meanwhile a mighty steed, coal-black, suddenly appeared before him. Theodoric sprang upon the strange charger's back, and it flew off with him as swiftly as a bird. His best groom on his best horse followed vainly behind. "My lord", cried he, "when wilt thou come back, that thou ridest so fast and far". But Theodoric knew by this time that it was no earthly steed that he was bestriding, and from which he vainly tried to unclasp his legs. "I am ill-mounted", cried he to the groom. "This must be the foul fiend on which I ride. Yet will I return, if God wills and Holy Mary". With that he vanished from his servant's sight, and since then no man has seen and no man ever will see Theodoric of Verona. Yet some German minstrels say that it has been opened to them in dreams that he has found grace at last, because in his death-ride he called on the names of God and the Virgin Mary. 182
Footnote 182: (return) Another version of the "Wilkina-Saga" gives a different account of the death of Theodoric. According to this, Witig, after he sank in the lake, was received by his mermaid ancestress and borne away to Zealand. Here he abode a long time, till he heard of the return and recovered might of Theodoric. Then, fearing his resentment, he betook himself to a certain island, and having made an image of Theodoric, laid a strict charge upon the boatman who ferried passengers across that he should carry over none who was like that image. Theodoric, hearing that Witig yet lived in Denmark, went thither, and, having disfigured himself so that the boatman did not recognise him, found Witig (whose sword Mimung he had hidden away), and challenged him to single combat. The battle of the boys was thus renewed between the two snow-bearded men, and was fatal to both. Witig fell down dead by his own bedside; and Theodoric, stricken with incurable wounds, journeyed through Holstem and Saxony to Swabia. Here he went to the border of a lake, and drawing the sword Mimung out of its sheath, hurled it afar into the waters, so that it should never again come into the hands of man. He then went into a little Swabian town, and the next day died there of his wounds. He strictly forbade his servants to make mention of his name or rank, and was buried in that town as a merchant. It is needless to remark on the resemblance of one part of this story to the "Passing of Arthur".
I have thus endeavoured to bring before the reader (I hope not with undue prolixity) the chief events in the life of the mythical Theodoric of the Middle Ages. Still, as late as the sixteenth century the common people loved to talk of this mighty hero. The Bavarian "Chronicle" (translated and continued about 1580) says: "Our people sing and talk much about 'Dietrich von Bern.' You would not soon find an ancient king who is so well known to the common people amongst us, or about whom they have so much to say". 183 What they had to say was, as the reader will have observed, strangely removed from the truth of history. How all this elaborate superstructure of romance could be reared on the mere name of Theodoric of Verona is almost inconceivable to us, till we call to mind that the minstrels were in truth the novelists of the Middle Ages, not pretending or desiring to instruct, but only to amuse and interest their hearers, and to beguile the tedium of existence in dull baronial castles.
Footnote 183: (return) See Grimm's "Deutsche Heldensage", 341.
Of the thousand and one details contained in the foregoing narrative, there are not more than three or four which correspond with the life of the real Theodoric, He was, as the Saga says, of Amal lineage. His father's name, Theudemir, is fairly enough represented by Dietmar. He was for some years of his life (but not his middle or later life) a wanderer more or less dependent on the favour of a powerful sovereign. His life during this period did get entangled with that of another Theodoric, even as the life of the hero of Saga becomes entangled with the life of Theodoric of Russia. After subduing all his enemies, he did eventually rule in Rome, and erect statues to himself there and at Verona. Ravenna and Verona were the places of his most frequent residence. In his mature years, when his whole soul was set on the maintenance of civilitas, he might very fitly have spoken such words as he is said to have used to Witig in his boyhood, "I will establish such peace in my father's realm and mine, that it shall not be in the power of every wandering adventurer to challenge me to single combat". Moreover, throughout all the wild vagaries of the narrative, character, that mysterious and indestructible essence, is not wholly lost. No two books can be more absolutely unlike one another than the "Wilkina-Saga" and the "Various Letters of Cassiodorus", yet the same hot-tempered, impulsive, generous man is pourtrayed to us by both.
As for the other names introduced, they are, of course, brought in at the cost of the strangest anachronisms. The cruel uncle, Hermanric, is really a remote collateral ancestor who died nearly eighty years before Theodoric was born. The generous host and ally, Attila, died two years before his birth, and the especial gladness of that birth was that it occurred at the same time with a signal victory of the Amal kings over the sons of Attila. To take an illustration from modern history, the general framework of the "Wilkina-Saga" is about as accurate as a romance would be which should represent Queen Victoria as driven from her throne by the Old Pretender, remaining for thirty years an exile at the court of Napoleon, and at length recovering her kingdom on the Old Pretender's death. 184
Footnote 184: (return) Possibly we have in the career of Witig, the craftsman's son, successively the sworn friend and the deadly foe of Theodoric and his house, some remembrance of the life of the low-born Witigis, in his youth a valiant soldier of Theodoric, in his old age the slayer of Theodahad, and the hated husband of Amalasuentha.
But, as has been often and well pointed out, the most marvellous thing in these old German Sagas is the utter disappearance from them of that Roman Empire which at the cost of such giant labour the Teutonic nations had overthrown. The Roman Imperator, the Roman legions, even the Catholic priests with their pious zeal against Arianism, count for nothing in the story. Just as the knightly warriors prick to and fro on their fiery steeds to the court of Arthur of Britain, with no mention of the intervening sea, so these German bards link together the days of Chivalry and the old barbarian life which Tacitus paints for us in the "Germania", without apparently any consciousness of the momentous deed which the German warriors had in the meanwhile performed, full of significance for all succeeding generations of men, the overthrow of the Empire of Rome.
COIN OF WITIGIS WITH HEAD OF ANASTASIUS (?).
Adamantius, official under Zeno, 83 et seq.
Ad Decimum, battle of, 300.
Ad Ensem, battle of (Scheggia), 364.
Adda, battle of, 122.
Adige, Odovacar xn the valley of the, 260.
Adnanople, battle of, 15.
Aëtius, the last of the Romans, 94.
Africa, recovery of, 298; conquest complete, 302; Belisarius in, 321.
Agapetus, Senator, 282.
Agnellus, Bishop of Ravenna, (ninth century) 123, 249, 289.
Agrammatus, 145.
Agriculture, state of, among the Germans, 54.
Alamanni, conflict with Clovis, 189 et seq.
Alaric, descendant of Balthæ, sack of Rome, 410 A.D., 393; made King of Visigoths, 15 et seq..
Alaric II., son of Euric, King of Visigoths, 490 A.D., 121; an Anan, 177; canal of, 184 et seq; letter of Theodoric to, 198; stress of, 200; defeat of and death, 201; sons of, 204; slayer of, honoured, 222.
Alban mountains, 355.
Albinus, Roman patrician, accused of disloyalty, 267 et seq., 293 fate unknown, 281.
Alexander the Logothete, 342.
Alfred, King, translator of Boëthius, 276.
Alpris, 376.
Alps, passes across, 203, 212.
Amal family, pedigree of, 8, 9; insult to, 36; extinction of one branch, 58; in Saga literature, 167.
Amalaberga, niece of Theodoric, 242 et seq..
Amalafrid the Goth, son of above, 243.
Amalafrida, sister of Theodoric, 118, 266, 298_.
Amalaric, grandson of Theodoric, 204, 305.
Amalasuentha, daughter of Theodoric, 189; marriage of, 257; character of, 292; guardian of her son Athalaric, 293 et seq,; education of Athalaric by, 295; negotiations with Justinian, 306 et seq., interview with Alexander, 311; message to Justinian, 312; summons Theodahad, 313; death of, 315.
Amalungs, (see Amal).
Amboise, meeting of kings near, 1977.
Ammatas, attack on Carthage, 300.
Ammianus Marcellinus quoted, 13.
Arnmiasr brother of Swanhilda, 13.
Anastasius, successor to Zeno, as Eastern Emperor, 133; recognises royalty of Theodoric, 138; character of, 207; marries Ariadne, 208; suspected of heresy, 210; excommunicated, 211; makes Clovis consul, 221; death of, 228, 258.
Ancona, 362.
Anderida, 356.
Anecdoton Holderi, 277.
Angoulème, 202.
Anician gens, 263.
Anonymus Valesii (probably Bishop Maximilian), quoted, 112, 128, 260, 285, 288.
Anthemus, Emperor, 41.
Antonina, wife of Belisarius, 348.
Anzalas, 365 et seq.
Apennines, battle of the, 365.
Appian Way, 142.
Aqueducts in Italy, 141.
Aquileia, siege of, 26.
Aquitania taken by Clovis, 203.
Archbishop John, 123.
Ardaric, King of the Gepidæ, 24, 29.
Arevagni marries King of Toulouse, 185.
Ariadne, widow of Leo I. and wife of Zeno, 66.
Arian, creed, 117; league, 175, 194, 266, 305; churches at Ravenna, 251 et seq..
Arians, in Spain, 258; persecution of, 259, 281 et seq; measures in behalf of, 284.
Arles, walls rebuilt at, 143, 202 et seq.
Armies, supplies, 113; size of, 317.
Arthur, King of Bertangenland (Saga), 379; daughter of, 393.
Asbad, 367.
Aspar, barbarian in Imperial service, 36; an Arian, 64.
Assemblies, deliberative, among Goths, 57.
Ataulfus, scheme of, 4, 17, 25; quoted, 137.
Athalaric, grandson to Theodoric, proclaimed heir, 162, 257; succeeds Theodoric, 293; ruled by his mother, 295; death of, 313.
Athanaric, Judge of the Visigoths, 13, 38, 202.
Athanasians, creed of the, 177; persecution of, 181.
Attila, the might of, 18; accession of, 19 et seq.; progress of, 22; crosses the Alps, 26; directions to Milanese artist, 27; death of, 28; invasion of, 93; sons of (Saga), 403 et seq; and Theodoric (Saga), 411.
Augofleda, wife of Theodoric, 188.
Augustulus excluded from Empire, 108.
Augustus, title of, 95; calls for popular general as, 210.
Austrasia, 242.
Austria (Pannonia), 213.
Austrians in Italy, 369; military frontier of the, 216.
Auvergne, 202.
Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, 191.
Babai, Sclavonic chief, 50.
Baduila, form of name "Totila", 343.
Balamber, King of the Huns, 13.
Balan, horse of Belisarius, 329.
Balaton, Lake, home of Theodoric, 38, 46.
Balder the beautiful, 178.
Balistæ, 332.
Balkan peninsula, 182.
Balthæ, descendants of, 15.
Barcelona, Gesalic appears in, 205.
Basiliscus, rebellion against Zeno, 71 et seq.; bad generalship of, 98.
Bavarian "Chronicle", 424.
Bayard, loyalty of, 70.
Belgium desolated, 22.
Belisarius, occupation of Rome, 104; general of Justinian, 299 et seq. pre-eminent, 317 et seq. in Rome, 327; at Ravenna, 337; stratagem of, 338; returns East to conduct Persian war, 341; disliked by Emperor, 347; retakes Rome, 358.
Bercea, 59.
Berserker folly, 125.
Bessarabia, 202.
Bessas, commander at Rome, 350.
Bishop Peter, letter of Theodoric to, 261.
Bleda, brother of Attila, 19.
Boccaccio, story of, 245.
Boëthius, 195, 256; translation of Aristotle, 263; "Consolation of Philosophy", 265, 276; defends Albinus, 271; defends himself, 271; trial of, 275; death of, 276, 281; Christianity of, 277; poem of, 279.
Bolsena, Lake of, 314.
Bosphorus fleet leaves for Africa, 299.
Breviarum Alaricianum (also Aniam), 184.
Briancon, Cottian Alps crossed near, 203.
Britain, civilisation in, 26; complaints from, 94; ceded to Goths, 336.
Brussels, entry of Burgundian Duke into, 241.
Brutti (Calabria), gold mines in, 172, 321.
Brutus, 91.
Bulgarians first appearance in Balkan peninsula, 89.
Bulla, 302.
Burgundy, ancient kingdom of, 185; approach of war in, 197; monarchy, fall of, 304.
Byzantine Emperor, 369.
Cabinet of the Emperor, 152.
Cadiz, 297.
Cæsar, army of, 317.
Cæsena, faithful to Odovacar, 122.
Calabria, corn from, 169; Romans in, 346.
Cambray, 226.
Camp of March, 199.
Campus Vogladensis (Vouillé), 297.
Canale Corsini, 290.
Candavian mountains, 83.
Cannæ, defeat of, 15.
Cannius, story of, 272.
Cappadocia, fortress in, 72.
Capræ, 368.
Caput-Vada, 300.
Capys' address to Romulus, 319.
Carcassonne, fortress of, 202.
Carinthia, 99.
Carthage, held by Gaiseric, 96 et seq. Belisarius in, 300; mutiny at, 321.
Cassiodorus, letters of (Variæ), quoted, 103, 140-144, 148, 160, 161, 166, 195-214, 218, 239, career of, 160 et seq. Gothic history of, destroyed, 166; Variæ of, 167; state papers for Theodoric, 172; opinion of Jews, 261; writes speech for child-king, 293; censures Theodahad, 310; remains in service, dies, 340.
Castorius, 158 et seq.
Catalaunian Plains, 13 et seq.
Catana, walls of, 143.
Catholic, persecutions, 128; Church protected by Theodoric, 182; churches to be delivered to Arians, 285.
Ceolfrid, Abbot of Jarrow, 340.
Cerdic, 70.
Châlons, battle of, 25.
Chararic, last of Salian kings, 225.
Charlemagne restores Western Empire, 104.
Charles V., 205.
Chaucer, translation of Boëthius, 276.
Childeric, King of the Franks, 186.
China, court of, 152.
Chosroes Nushirvan, 296.
Christianity modified, 176.
Chronology, invention of, 230.
Churches, Sophia, 42, 72; St. Genovefa, 193; Holy Apostles, 227; St. Maria Maggiore, 231; Santa Croce, 241; St. Vitale, 246; St. Apollinare Dentro, (formerly St. Martin), 246, 248 et seq. Ecclesia Ursiana (Catholic), 251; San Spirito, 251; St. Maria in Cosmedia, 252; St. Stephen, 262; St. Theodore, 251.
Circus Maximus, 237.
City life, advantages of, 46.
Classis, naval emporium, 123; port of Ravenna, 244; representation of, 249.
Claudius, Emperor, 10; steward of Gothic money, 85.
Clepsydra, invented by Boëthius, 196.
Cloderic, son of Sigebert, 223.
Clovis, title of, 131; conversion of, 186; meets Alanc, 197; letter to, 198; saluted as Consul, 221; destruction of rivals, 222; proclaimed King of the Ripuarians, 225; death of, 227; died at enmity with Pope, 228.
Cocas, deserter from Imperial army, 365.
Code of Justinian, 297.
Codex, Argenteus, 179; Amiatinus, 340.
Collatinus, 91.
Colonia, 224.
Colossæus, appointed governor of Pannonia Sermiensis, 214, 236, et seq.
Como, brazen statue stolen at, 143.
"Consolation of Philosophy", English translations of, 276; style of, 280; Constantine, contact with Visigoths, 11.
Constantinople, Emperors at, 11; weak rulers at, 21; Theodoric sent to, 37; in 380 A.D., 38; gates of, 41; monuments at, 43; life in, 46; wall of, 79; Theodonc at, 111; embassy to, 132; riots in, 209; displeased at Theodoric, 215; races at, 239; reconciliation between Pope and Emperor at, 259.
Constantius, visits Rome, 230; army of, 317.
Consulate, Theodoric raised to the, 91.
Consuls appointed by Theodoric, 135.
Consulship, 153; codicils of, 221.
Corrado Ricci, quoted, 289.
Corsica, naval engagement at, 98.
Cromwell, treatment of body of, 291.
Crotona, 362.
Cunigast, Gothic minister, 265.
Cyprian, accuser in King's Court, 267; charges others of treason, 271.
Cyrrhus, new settlement of Ostrogoths, 63.