lamen, a square of purple, signifying in
Constantinople things wonderful, august, imperial--if they could only be
made to come to pass. And he made them come to pass. He gathered all
Teutonic heroes of every tribe, as well as his own; and through Roumelia,
and through the Alps, a long and dangerous journey, went Dietrich and his
Goths, with their wives and children, and all they had, packed on
waggons; living on their flocks and herds, grinding their corn in hand-
mills, and hunting as they went, for seven hundred miles of march;
fighting as they went with Bulgars and Sarmatians, who had swarmed into
the waste marches of Hungary and Carniola, once populous, cultivated, and
full of noble cities; fighting a desperate battle with the Gepidae, up to
their knees in a morass; till over the passes of the Julian Alps, where
icicles hung upon their beards, and their clothes cracked with frost,
they poured into the Venetian plains. It was a daring deed; and needed a
spirit like Dietrich's to carry it through.

Odoacer awaited him near the ruins of Aquileia. On the morning of the
fight, as he was arming, Dietrich asked his noble mother to bring him
some specially fine mantle, which she had embroidered for him, and put it
over his armour, 'that all men may see how he goes gayer into the fight
than ever he did into feast. For this day she shall see whether she have
brought a man-child into the world, or no.'

And in front of Verona (where the plain was long white with human bones),
he beat Odoacer, and after a short and sharp campaign, drove him to
Ravenna. But there, Roman fortifications, and Roman artillery, stopped,
as usual, the Goth; and Odoacer fulfilled his name so well, and stood so
stout, that he could only be reduced by famine; and at last surrendered
on terms, difficult now to discover.

Gibbon says, that there was a regular compact that they should enjoy
equal authority, and refers to Procopius: but Procopius only says, that
they should live together peaceably 'in that city.' Be that as it may,
Odoacer and his party were detected, after awhile, conspiring against
Dietrich, and put to death in some dark fashion. Gibbon, as advocatus
diaboli, of course gives the doubt against Dietrich, by his usual
enthymeme--All men are likely to be rogues, ergo, Dietrich was one.
Rather hard measure, when one remembers that the very men who tell the
story are Dietrich's own enemies. By far the most important of them, the
autho