was so merely theoretical, now that the
Hun had ruled and ravaged it for a good part of a century, that it was
not worth taking into consideration; it was in fact rather an excuse for
claiming _stipendia_ from the Emperor than a bond of real vassalage. But
now in 474 this great and proud nation, crowded into a few cities of
Macedonia, with obedient subjects of the Empire all round them, had
practically no choice between the life of peaceful provincials on the
one hand and that of freebooters on the other. If they accepted the
first, they would lose year by year something of their old national
character. The Teutonic speech, the Teutonic customs would gradually
disappear, and in one or two generations they would be scarcely
distinguishable from any of the other oppressed, patient, tax-exhausted
populations of the great and weary Empire. On the other hand, if they
accepted (which in fact they seem to have done) the other alternative,
and became a mere horde of plunderers wandering up and down through the
Empire, seeking what they might destroy, they abandoned the hope of
forming a settled and stable monarchy, and, doing injustice to the high
qualities and capacities for civilisation which were in them, they would
sink lower into the depths of barbarism, and becoming like the Hun, like
the Hun they would one day perish. Certainly, so far, the tumultuous
decision of the Parliament on the shores of Lake Pelso was a false step
in the nation's history.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER V.

STORM AND STRESS.

Death of Theudemir, and accession of Theodoric--Leo the Butcher--The
Emperor Zeno--The march of Theodoric against the son of Trianus--His
invasion of Macedonia--Defeat of his rear guard--His compact with the
Emperor.

The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man
is healthy, but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is
in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the
ambition thick-sighted.--(KEATS, Preface to "Endymion".)

The sentence thus written by the sensitive young poet, a child of London
of the nineteenth century, was eminently exemplified in the history of
the martial chief of the Ostrogoths. The next fourteen years in the life
of Theodoric, which will be described in this chapter, were years of
much useless endeavour, of marches and countermarches, of alliances
formed and br