that place; for there are extensive plains there which furnish
pasture for horses. And a river also flows by the place, which the
inhabitants call Decennovium[41] in the Latin tongue, because it flows
past nineteen milestones, a distance which amounts to one hundred and
thirteen stades, before it empties into the sea near the city of
Taracina; and very near that place is Mt. Circaeum, where they say
Odysseus met Circe, though the story seems to me untrustworthy, for
Homer declares that the habitation of Circe was on an island. This,
however, I am able to say, that this Mt. Circaeum, extending as it does
far into the sea, resembles an island, so that both to those who sail
close to it and to those who walk to the shore in the neighbourhood it
has every appearance of being an island. And only when a man gets on it
does he realize that he was deceived in his former opinion. And for this
reason Homer perhaps called the place an island. But I shall return to
the previous narrative.

The Goths, after gathering at Regata, chose as king over them and the
Italians Vittigis, a man who, though not of a conspicuous house, had
previously won great renown in the battles about Sirmium, when Theoderic
was carrying on the war against the Gepaedes.[42] Theodatus, therefore,
upon hearing this, rushed off in flight and took the road to Ravenna.
But Vittigis quickly sent Optaris, a Goth, instructing him to bring
Theodatus alive or dead. Now it happened that this Optaris was hostile
to Theodatus for the following cause. Optaris was wooing a certain young
woman who was an heiress and also exceedingly beautiful to look upon.
But Theodatus, being bribed to do so, took the woman he was wooing from
him, and betrothed her to another. And so, since he was not only
satisfying his own rage, but rendering a service to Vittigis as well, he
pursued Theodatus with great eagerness and enthusiasm, stopping neither
day nor night. And he overtook him while still on his way, laid him on
his back on the ground, and slew him like a victim for sacrifice. Such
was the end of Theodatus' life and of his rule, which had reached the
third year.[M]

DATE:
[M]Dec. 536 A.D.

And Vittigis, together with the Goths who were with him, marched to
Rome. And when he learned what had befallen Theodatus, he was pleased
and put Theodatus' son Theodegisclus under guard. But it seemed to him
that the preparations of the Goths were by no means complete, and