ten heard tell, and never believed. The Kaiser is a God on earth,
and he who shall lift his hand against him, is guilty of his own blood.'
The old hero died in Constantinople, and the really good-natured Emperor
gave him a grand funeral, and a statue, and so delighted the simple
Goths, that the whole nation entered his service bodily, and became the
Emperor's men.

The famous massacre of Thessalonica, and the penance of Theodosius,
immortalized by the pencil of Vandyke, is another significant example of
the relation between Goth and Roman. One Botheric (a Vandal or other
Teuton by his name) was military commandant of that important post. He
put in prison a popular charioteer of the circus, for a crime for which
the Teutonic language had to borrow a foreign name, and which the
Teutons, like ourselves, punished with death, though it was committed
with impunity in any Roman city. At the public games, the base mob
clamoured, but in vain, for the release of their favourite; and not
getting him, rose on Botheric, murdered him and his officers, and dragged
their corpses through the streets.

This was indeed [Greek text]; and Theodosius, partly in honest
indignation, partly perhaps in fear of the consequences, issued orders
from Milan which seem to have amounted to a permission to the Goths to
avenge themselves. The populace were invited as usual to the games of
the circus, and crowded in, forgetful of their crime, heedless of danger,
absorbed in the one greed of frivolous, if not sinful pleasure. The
Gothic troops concealed around entered, and then began a 'murder grim and
great.' For three hours it lasted. Every age and sex, innocent or
guilty, native or foreigner, to the number of at least 7,000, perished,
or are said to have perished; and the soul of Botheric had 'good company
on its way to Valhalla.'

The Goths, doubtless, considered that they were performing an act of
public justice upon villains: but the Bishops of the Church looked at the
matter in another light. The circumstances of treachery, the confusion
of the innocent with the guilty, the want of any judicial examination and
sentence, aroused their sense of humanity and justice. The offence was
aggravated by the thought that the victims were Roman and orthodox, the
murderers barbarians and Arians; St. Ambrose, with a noble courage,
stopped the Emperor at the door of the Basilica of Milan, and forbad him
to enter, till he had atoned for the fatal order