heodoric[420]?

[Footnote 420: 'Talibus igitur institutis edoctus, Eoae sumpsisti
legationis officium, missus ad summae quidem peritiae viros: sed nulla
inter eos confusus es trepidatione _quia nihil tibi post nos potuit
esse mirabile_. Instructus enim trifariis linguis, non tibi Graecia
quod novum ostentaret invenit; nec ipsa qua nimium praevalet, te
transcendit argutia.']

In addition to all these other gifts he possesses _faith_, that anchor
of the soul amidst the waves of a stormy world.

He is therefore called upon to assume at the third Indiction [524-525]
the office of Count of the Sacred Largesses, and exhorted to bear
himself therein worthily of his parentage and his past career, that
the King may afterwards promote him to yet higher honour.

[For further remarks on this letter--a very important one, as bearing
on the trial of Boethius--see viii. 16. The third Indiction might mean
either 509-510 or 524-525; but the statement of 'Anomymus Valesii,'
that Cyprian was still only Referendarius at the time of his
accusation of Albinus, warrants us in fixing on the later date. This
makes the encomiums conferred in this letter more significant, since
they must have been bestowed _after_ the delation against Albinus and
Boethius. Probably it was during Cyprian's embassy to Constantinople
(described in this letter) that he discovered these intrigues of the
Senators with the Byzantine Court, which he denounced on his return.]

42. KING THEODORIC TO MAXIMUS, VIR ILLUSTRIS, CONSUL.

[Flavius Anicius Maximus was Consul A.D. 523.]

[Sidenote: Rewards to performers in the Amphitheatre.]

'If singers and dancers are to be rewarded by the generosity of the
Consul, _a fortiori_ should the _Venator_, the fighter with wild
beasts in the amphitheatre, be rewarded for _his_ endeavours to please
the people, who after all are secretly hoping to see him killed. And
what a horrible death he dies--denied even the rites of burial,
disappearing before he has yet become a corpse into the maw of the
hungry animal which he has failed to kill. These spectacles were first
introduced as part of the worship of the Scythian Diana, who was
feigned to gloat on human gore. The ancients called her the triple
deity, Proserpina-Luna-Diana. They were right in one point; the
goddess who invented these games certainly reigned _in hell_.'

The Colosseum (the Amphitheatre of Titus) is described.

The combats with wild beasts are pourtrayed in a s