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Chap, xxxix] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 211 who already meditated the extirpation of heresy, and the con- quest of Italy and Africa. A rigorous law which was published at Constantinople, to reduce the Arians by the dread of punish- ment within the pale of the church, awakened the just resent- ment of Theodoric, who claimed for his distressed brethren of the East the same indulgence which he had so long granted to the Catholics of his dominions. At his stern command, the Roman pontiff, with four illustrious senators, embarked on an [Pope John embassy, of which he must have alike dreaded the failure or co S nstan°i- the success. The singular veneration shewn to the first popeA°D.525] who had visited Constantinople was punished as a crime by his jealous monarch ; the artful or peremptory refusal of the Byzantine court might excuse an equal, and would provoke a larger, measure of retaliation ; and a mandate was prepared in Italy, to prohibit, after a stated day, the exercise of the Catholic worship. By the bigotry of his subjects and enemies, the most tolerant of princes was driven to the brink of perse- cution ; and the life of Theodoric was too long, since he lived to condemn the virtue of Boethius and Symmachus.-"-' The senator Boethius 10 ° is the last of the Romans whom character. Cato or Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman. an U d ies As a wealthy orphan, he inherited the patrimony and honours Boethius of the Anician family, a name ambitiously assumed by the kings and emperors of the age ; and the appellation of Manlius asserted his genuine or fabulous descent from a race of con- suls and dictators, who had repulsed the Gauls from the Capitol and sacrificed their sons to the discipline of the republic. In the youth of Boethius, the studies of Rome were not totally abandoned ; a Virgil 101 is now extant, corrected by the hand of 99 I have laboured to extract a rational narrative from the dark, concise, and various hints of the Valesian Fragment (p. 722, 723, 724), Theophanes (p. 145), Anastasius (in Johanne, p. 35), and the Hist. Miseella (p. 103, edit. Muratori). A gentle pressure and paraphrase of their words is no violence. Consult likewise Muratori (Annali d'ltalia, torn. iv. p. 471-478), with the Annals and Breviary (torn, i. 259-263) of the two Pagis, the uncle and the nephew. 100 Le Clerc has composed a critical and philosophical life of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (Bibliot. Choisie, torn. xvi. p. 168-275) ; and both Tiraboschi (torn, iii.) and Fabricius (Bibliot. Latin.) may be usefully consulted. The date of his birth may be placed about the year 470 [rather 480], and his death in 524, in a premature old age (Consol. Phil. Metrica, i. p. 5). [Some new light on Boethius and Symmachus has been gained by a fragment discovered in a 10th century Ms. at Carlsruhe. It is known as the Anecdoton Holderi and has been edited by Usener (1877). Cp. Schepps's paper in the Neues Archiv, xi., 1886.] 101 For the age and value of this Ms. now in the Medicean library at Florence, see the Cenotaphia Pisana (p. 430-447) of Cardinal Noris.