[Footnote 58: "Anonymus Valesii" (probably Bishop Maximian).]

"He gave one of his daughters in marriage to the King of the Visigoths
in Gaul, another to the son of the Burgundian King; his sister to the
King of the Vandals, and his niece to the King of the Thuringians. Thus
he pleased all the nations round him, for he was a lover of manufactures
and a great restorer of cities. He restored the aqueduct of Ravenna,
which Trajan had built; and again, after a long interval, brought water
into the city. He completed, but did not dedicate, the palace, and
finished the porticoes round it. At Verona he erected baths and a
palace, and constructed a portico from the gate to the palace. The
aqueduct, which had been long destroyed, he renewed, and brought in
water through it. He also surrounded the city with new walls. At Ticinum
(_Pavia_) too he built a palace, baths, and an amphitheatre, and erected
walls round the city. On many other cities also he bestowed similar
benefits.

"Thus he so charmed the nations near him that they entered into a league
with him, hoping that he would be their King. The merchants, too, from
divers provinces, flocked to his dominions, for so great was the order
which he maintained, that if any one wished to leave gold or silver on
his land (in his country house) it was as safe as in a walled city. A
proof of this was the fact that he never made gates for any-city of
Italy, and the gates already existing were not closed. Any one who had
business to transact could do it as safely by night as by day.

"In his time men bought wheat at 60 pecks for a _solidus_ (12 shillings
a quarter), and 30 amphorae of wine for the same price (2_s_. 4_d_. a
gallon)".

So far the supposed Bishop of Ravenna. Now let us hear Procopius, an
official in the Imperial army which brought the Ostrogothic kingdom to
ruin:

"Theodoric was an extraordinary lover of justice, and adhered rigorously
to the laws. He guarded the country from barbarian invasions, and
displayed the greatest intelligence and prudence. There was in his
government scarcely a trace of injustice towards his subjects, nor would
he permit any of those under him to attempt anything of the kind, except
that the Goths divided among themselves the same proportion of the land
of Italy which Odovacar had allotted to his partisans. Thus then
Theodoric was in name a tyrant (that is, an irregular, because
barbarian, ruler), but in deed a true King (or Emperor), not in