the cause of
the people: [84] but if the royal ear was open to the voice of truth, a
saint and a philosopher are not always to be found at the ear of kings.

The privileges of rank, or office, or favor, were too frequently abused
by Italian fraud and Gothic violence, and the avarice of the king's
nephew was publicly exposed, at first by the usurpation, and afterwards
by the restitution of the estates which he had unjustly extorted from
his Tuscan neighbors. Two hundred thousand Barbarians, formidable even
to their master, were seated in the heart of Italy; they indignantly
supported the restraints of peace and discipline; the disorders of
their march were always felt and sometimes compensated; and where it was
dangerous to punish, it might be prudent to dissemble, the sallies of
their native fierceness. When the indulgence of Theodoric had remitted
two thirds of the Ligurian tribute, he condescended to explain the
difficulties of his situation, and to lament the heavy though inevitable
burdens which he imposed on his subjects for their own defence. [85]
These ungrateful subjects could never be cordially reconciled to the
origin, the religion, or even the virtues of the Gothic conqueror; past
calamities were forgotten, and the sense or suspicion of injuries was
rendered still more exquisite by the present felicity of the times.

[Footnote 83: He disabled them--alicentia testandi; and all Italy
mourned--lamentabili justitio. I wish to believe, that these penalties
were enacted against the rebels who had violated their oath of
allegiance; but the testimony of Ennodius (p. 1675-1678) is the more
weighty, as he lived and died under the reign of Theodoric.]

[Footnote 84: Ennodius, in Vit. Epiphan. p. 1589, 1690. Boethius de
Consolatione Philosphiae, l. i. pros. iv. p. 45, 46, 47. Respect,
but weigh the passions of the saint and the senator; and fortify and
alleviate their complaints by the various hints of Cassiodorus, (ii. 8,
iv. 36, viii. 5.)]

[Footnote 85: Immanium expensarum pondus...pro ipsorum salute, &c.; yet
these are no more than words.]

Even the religious toleration which Theodoric had the glory of
introducing into the Christian world, was painful and offensive to the
orthodox zeal of the Italians. They respected the armed heresy of the
Goths; but their pious rage was safely pointed against the rich and
defenceless Jews, who had formed their establishments at Naples, Rome,
Ravenna, Milan, and Genoa, for the