rich--Dietrich the One-eyed, son of Triar, a low-
born adventurer, who had got together the remnants of some low-caste
tribes, who were called the Goths of Thrace, and was swaggering about the
court of Constantinople, as, when the East Goths first met him, what we
call Warden of the Marches, with some annual pay for his Goths. He was
insolent to Theodemir and his family, and they retaliated by bitter
hatred. It was intolerable for them, Amals, sons of Odin, to be insulted
by this upstart. So they went on for years, till the miserable religious
squabble fell out--you may read it in Gibbon--which ended in the Emperor
Zeno, a low-born and cunning man, suspected of the murder of his own son
by the princess Ariadne, being driven out of Constantinople by
Basiliscus. We need not enter into such matters, except as far as they
bear on the history of Dietrich the Amal. Dietrich the One-eyed helped
Basiliscus--and then Zeno seems to have sent for Dietrich the Amal to
help him. He came, but too late. Basiliscus' party had already broken
up; Basiliscus and his family had taken refuge in a church, from whence
Zeno enticed him, on the promise of shedding no blood, which he did not:
but instead, put him, his wife and children, in a dry cistern, walled it
up and left them.

Dietrich the Amal rose into power and great glory, and became 'son-in-
arms' to the Emperor. But the young Amal longed for adventures. He
offered to take his Ostrogoths into Italy, drive out Odoacer, and seat on
the throne of the West, Nepos, one of the many puppets who had been
hurled off it a few years before. Zeno had need of the young hero nearer
home, and persuaded him to stay in Constantinople, eat, drink, and be
merry.

Whereon Odoacer made Romulus Agustulus and the Roman Senate write to Zeno
that they wanted no Emperor save him at Constantinople; that they were
very happy under the excellent Odoacer, and that they therefore sent to
Zeno, as the rightful owner, all the Imperial insignia and ornaments;
things which may have been worn, some of them, by Augustus himself. And
so ended, even in name, the Empire of Rome. All which the Amal saw, and,
as will appear, did not forget.

Zeno gave the Amal all that the One-eyed had had before him, and paid the
Ostrogoths yearly as he had paid the One-eye's men. The One-eyed was
banished to his cantonments, and of course revolted. Zeno wanted to buy
him off, but the Amal would not hear of it; he would not h