This page needs to be proofread.
172
THE DECLINE AND FALL
advance into the warm and wealthy neighbourhood of the Byzantine court, which already maintained in pride and luxury so many bands of confederate Goths. After proving by some [A.D. 473] acts of hostility that they could be dangerous, or at least troublesome, enemies, the Ostrogoths sold at a high price their reconciliation and fidelity, accepted a donative of lands[1] and money, [c. 474 A.D. ?] and were entrusted with the defence of the lower Danube, under the command of Theodoric, who succeeded after his father's death to the hereditary throne of the Amali.[2]
The reign of Zeno. A.D. 474-491, Feb., Apr. 9 An hero, descended from a race of kings, must have despised the base Isaurian who was invested with the Roman purple, without any endowments of mind or body, without any advantages of royal birth or superior qualifications. After the failure of the Theodosian line, the choice of Pulcheria and of the senate might be justified in some measure by the characters of Marcian and Leo, but the latter of these princes confirmed and dishonoured his reign by the perfidious murder of Aspar and his sons, who too rigorously exacted the debt of gratitude and obedience. The inheritance of Leo and of the East was peaceably devolved on his infant grandson, the son of his daughter Ariadne; and her Isaurian husband, the fortunate Trascalisseus, exchanged that barbarous sound for the Grecian appellation of Zeno. After the decease of the elder Leo, he approached with unnatural respect the throne of his son, humbly received, as a gift, the second rank in the empire, and soon excited the public suspicion on the sudden and premature death of his young colleague, whose life could no longer promote the success of his ambition. But the palace of Constantinople was ruled by female influence, and agitated by female passions; and Verina, the widow of Leo, claiming his empire as her own, pronounced a sentence of deposition against the worthless and ungrateful servant on whom she alone had bestowed the sceptre of the East.[3] As soon as she- ↑ [Namely, certain cities in Macedonia Prima: — Pella, Cyrrhus, Europus, Methone, Pydna, Berœa, and (?) Dius. Cp. Mommsen's Jordanes, p. 132.]
- ↑ The state of the Ostrogoths, and the first years of Theodoric, are found in Jornandes (c. 52-56, p. 689-696) and Malchus (Excerpt. Legat. p. 78-80), who erroneously style him the son of Walamir. [Mr. Hodgkin (p. 27) suggests that Theodoric's triumphal entry into Rome in 500 A.D. , described by Anon. Vales. (67) as a triennial celebration, may have commemorated his reception of the title king in 471 A.D. in subordination to his father.]
- ↑ Theophanes (p. 111) inserts a copy of her sacred letters to the provinces: ἴστε ὄτι βασἱλειον ὴμέτερόν ὲστι … καὶ ὄτι προεχειρησάμεθα βασιλέα Τρασκαλλισαɩ̂ον, &c. Such female pretensions would have astonished the slaves of the first Cæsars. [This notice of Theophanes comes from Malalas; see the fragment in Hermes, vi. 371 (publ. by Mommsen).]
