d, and under her suitor's influence she
disowned the son whom she had at first welcomed with joy and had
entertained for a month in her house. As the suitor persisted in his
demand that the son should be turned out of doors, and the son refused
to leave his paternal abode, the case came before the King's Court,[81]
where the widow still persisted in her assertion that the young man was
not her son, but a stranger whom she had entertained merely out of
motives of hospitality. Suddenly the king turned round upon her and
said: "This young man is to be thy husband, I command thee to marry
him". The horror-stricken mother then confessed that he was indeed her
son.

[Footnote 79: Agrammatus.]

[Footnote 80: I have a slight distrust of this story, because it is told
in almost the same words of the contemporary Justin I., Emperor of the
East.]

[Footnote 81: I conjecture that the mother and son in this case were
Goths, possibly the suitor a Roman, and that this may have been the
reason why the case came to the King's Court instead of going before the
Praetorian Prefect.]

Some of Theodoric's sayings passed into proverbs among the common
people. One was: "He who has gold and he who has a devil can neither of
them hide what he has got" Another: "The Roman when in misery imitates
the Goth and the Goth in comfort imitates the Roman".

We have unfortunately no description of the great Ostrogoth's outward
appearance, though the indications in his history would lead us to
suppose that he was a man of stalwart form and soldierly bearing. Nor is
this deficiency adequately made up to us by his coins, since, as has
been already said, the gold and silver pieces which were circulated in
his reign bore the impress of the Eastern Emperor, and the miserable
little copper coins which bear his effigy do not pretend to portraiture.

[Illustration: HALF-SILIQUA OF THEODORIC (SILVER) BEARING THE HEAD OF
ANASTASIUS.]

[Illustration: Design]

CHAPTER IX.

ROMAN OFFICIALS--CASSIODORUS.

The government of Italy still carried on according to Roman
precedent--Classification of the officials--The Consulship and the
Senate--Cassiodorus, his character and his work--His history of the
Goths--His letters and state papers.

I have said that one of the most important characteristics of
Theodoric's government of Italy was that it was conducted in accordance
with the traditions of the Empire a