Page:1909historyofdec04gibbuoft.djvu/630

562 APPENDIX consisting of twenty-four signs. Ulfilas based his alphabet on the Greek, adopting the Greek order ; and adapted it to the requirements of Gothic speech. But his alphabet has twenty-five letters ; five of them are derived from the Runic, one from the Latin (S), and one is of uncertain origin. This uncertain letter has the value of Q, and corresponds, in position in the alphabet, to the Greek numeral for 6 (be- tween E and Z). It is remarkable that the letters and ¥ are interchanged. ¥ is adopted to repx-esent th, and occupies ninth place, corresponding to 0, while is used for the sound W and holds the place corresponding to ¥. Thus the two additional symbols which Gibbon selects for special mention are Greek, but applied to a different use. The English equivalents of the Gothic letters are as follows, in alphabetical order : — A, B, G, D, E, Q, Z, H, Th, I, K, L, M, N, J (runic), U (runic), P, R (runic), S, T, V, F (runic), Ch, W, O (runic). The fragmentary remains of the work of Auxentius, bishop of Silistria, De TJlphila episcopo gothorum, were published first by Waitz, Ueber das Leben und die Lehren des Ulfila (Hanover, 1840). It has been re-edited by F. Kaufmann, Texte und Untersuchungen zur altgermanischen Religionsgeschichte, I. (Strassburg, 1899). See also G. Kaufmann, Kritische TJntersuchung der Quellen zur Geschichte Ulfilas, in Haupts Zeitschrift fur deutsches Alterthum, 27, 193 sqq., 1883 ; and H. Achelis, Zeitschrift fur neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, I. (1900). There is an English monograph on Ulfilas by C. A. Scott, Ulfilas, Apostle of the Goths (Cambridge), 1885. 5. GIBBON ON THE HOUSE OF BOURBON— (P. 178) " A Julian or Semiramis may reign in the North, while Arcadius and Honorius again slumber on the thrones of the House of Bourbon." Thus the passage appeared in the first quarto edition (1781). In his Autobio- graphy (Memoir E, in Mr. Murray's edition, 1896, p. 324) Gibbon makes the follow- ing statement in a footnote : — " It may not be generally known that Louis XVI. is a great reader, and a reader of English books. On the perusal of a passage of my History (vol. iii. p. 636), which seems to compare him with Arcadius or Honorius, he expressed his resentment to the Prince of B , from whom the intelligence was conveyed to me. I shall neither disclaim the allusion nor examine the likeness ; but the situation of the late King of France excludes all suspicion of flattery, and I am ready to declare that the con- cluding observations of my third Volume were written before his accession to his throne." Gibbon, however, altered the words " House of Bourbon " to " South " in his later edition, thus making the allusion ambiguous. 7. THE RELATION OF THE OSTROGOTHIC KINGDOM TO THE ROMAN EMPIRE— (P. 201) The administration of Italy under the Ostrogoths and the constitutional position of the Ostrogothic kingdom as part of the Roman Empire and subjeot to the Roman Emperor have been elucidated by Mommsen in his Ostgotische Studien (published in Neues Archiv, xiv.), on which the following account is based. The formal relation of Italy to the Empire, both under Odovacar and under Theodoric, was much closer and clearer than that of any other of the states ruled by Germans. Practically independent, it was regarded officially both at Rome and at Constantinople as part of the Empire in the fullest sense. Two circumstances ex- hibit this theory very clearly. Odovacar and Theodoric never used the years of their own reigns for the purposes of dating, as the kings of the Visigoths did. Secondly, the right of naming one of the consuls of the year which had belonged to the Em- peror reigning in the West was transferred by the consent of the Emperors Zeno and Anastasius to Odovacar and Theodoric. A word of explanation as to the system of consular nomination in the fifth century may be useful. The rule was that the Eastern and the Western Emperors should each nominate one of the two men who were to be consuls for the one and undivided Empire. But as a rule the two names