7,) betrays his prejudice and passion: in
Graeciam debacchantem ...Zenonis munificentia pene pacatus...beneficiis
nunquam satiatus, &c.]

[Footnote 1211: Gibbon has omitted much of the complicated intrigues of
the Byzantine court with the two Theodorics. The weak emperor attempted
to play them one against the other, and was himself in turn insulted,
and the empire ravaged, by both. The details of the successive
alliance and revolt, of hostility and of union, between the two
Gothic chieftains, to dictate terms to the emperor, may be found in
Malchus.--M.]

In every state of his fortune, the prudence and firmness of Theodoric
were equally conspicuous; whether he threatened Constantinople at the
head of the confederate Goths, or retreated with a faithful band to the
mountains and sea-coast of Epirus. At length the accidental death of the
son of Triarius [13] destroyed the balance which the Romans had been so
anxious to preserve, the whole nation acknowledged the supremacy of the
Amali, and the Byzantine court subscribed an ignominious and oppressive
treaty. [14] The senate had already declared, that it was necessary
to choose a party among the Goths, since the public was unequal to the
support of their united forces; a subsidy of two thousand pounds of
gold, with the ample pay of thirteen thousand men, were required for the
least considerable of their armies; [15] and the Isaurians, who guarded
not the empire but the emperor, enjoyed, besides the privilege of
rapine, an annual pension of five thousand pounds. The sagacious mind of
Theodoric soon perceived that he was odious to the Romans, and suspected
by the Barbarians: he understood the popular murmur, that his subjects
were exposed in their frozen huts to intolerable hardships, while their
king was dissolved in the luxury of Greece, and he prevented the painful
alternative of encountering the Goths, as the champion, or of leading
them to the field, as the enemy, of Zeno. Embracing an enterprise worthy
of his courage and ambition, Theodoric addressed the emperor in the
following words: "Although your servant is maintained in affluence by
your liberality, graciously listen to the wishes of my heart! Italy, the
inheritance of your predecessors, and Rome itself, the head and mistress
of the world, now fluctuate under the violence and oppression of Odoacer
the mercenary. Direct me, with my national troops, to march against
the tyrant. If I fall, you will be relieved from an