ved from the heavy charges of their _stipendia_ which he was
now bound to furnish, while Theodoric would hold the land as of the free
gift of the Emperor, and would reign there as king, only till Zeno
himself should arrive to claim the supremacy[51].

[Footnote 51: The account of this important interview is combined from
two sources: Jordanes, the Gothic historian, who naturally magnifies
Theodoric's share in the inception of the enterprise; and a chronicler
known as "Anonymus Valesii", who evidently writes in the interest of
Zeno. It is from the latter only that we have any hint of an intended
visit of Zeno to Italy, a visit which certainly never took place.
Procopius, who also writes from the Byzantine point of view, attributes
the conception of the design to Zeno.]

In the autumn of the year 488, Theodoric with all his host set forth
from Sistova on the Danube on his march to Italy. His road was the same
taken by Alaric and by most of the barbarian invaders; along the Danube
as far as Belgrade, then between the rivers Drave and Save or along the
banks of one of them till he reached the Julian Alps (not far from the
modern city of Laibach), then down upon Aquileia and the Venetian plain.
As in the Macedonian campaign, so now, he was accompanied by all the
members of his nation, old men and children, mothers and maidens, and
doubtless by a long train of waggons. We have no accurate information
whatever as to the number of his army, but various indications, both in
earlier and later history, seem to justify us in assuming that the
soldiers must have numbered fully 40,000; and if this was the case, the
whole nation cannot have been less than 200,000. The difficulty of
finding food for so great a multitude in the often desolated plains of
Pannonia and Noricum must have been enormous, and was no doubt the
reason of the slowness of Theodoric's progress. Very probably he divided
his army into several portions, moving on parallel lines; foragers would
scour the country far and wide, stores of provisions would be
accumulated in the great Gothic waggons, which would be laboriously
driven over the rough mountain passes. Then all the divisions of the
army which had scattered in search of food would have to concentrate
again when they came into the neighbourhood of an enemy, whether
Odovacar or one of the barbarian kings who sought to bar their progress.
All these operations consumed much time, and hence it was that though
the Go