s by: part of the people is in despair. The Blue
gets a lead: a larger part of the City is in misery. The populace cheer
frantically when they have gained nothing; they are cut to the heart
when they have received no loss; and they plunge with as much eagerness
into these empty contests as if the whole welfare of their imperilled
country depended upon them". In two other letters Theodoric is obliged
seriously to chide the Roman Senate for its irascible temper in dealing
with one of the factions of the Circus. A Patrician and a Consul, so it
was alleged, had truculently assaulted the Green party, and one man had
lost his life in the fray. The king ordered that the matter should be
enquired into by two officials of "Illustrious" rank, who had special
jurisdiction in cases wherein nobles of high position were concerned. He
then replied to a counter-accusation which had been brought by the
Senators against the mob for assailing them with rude clamours in the
Hippodrome. "You must distinguish", says the king, "between deliberate
insolence and the festive impertinences of a place of public amusement.
It is not exactly a congregation of Catos that comes together at the
Circus. The place excuses some excesses. And moreover you must remember
that these insulting cries generally proceed from the beaten party: and
therefore you need not complain of clamour which is the result of a
victory that you earnestly desired". Again the king had to warn the
Senators not to bring disgrace on their good name and do violence to
public order by allowing their menials to embroil themselves with the
mob of the Hippodrome. Any slave accused of having shed the blood of a
free-born citizen was to be at once given up to justice; or else his
master was to pay a fine of L400, and to incur the severe displeasure of
the king. "And do not you, O Senators, be too strict in marking every
idle word which the mob may utter in the midst of the general rejoicing.
If any insult which requires special notice should be offered you,
bring it before the Prefect of the City. This is far wiser and safer
than taking the law into your own hands".

The festivities which celebrated Theodoric's visit to the Eternal City
were perhaps somewhat discordantly interrupted by the discovery of a
conspiracy against him, set on foot by a certain Count Odoin, about whom
we have no other information, but the form of whose name at once
suggests that he was of Gothic, not Roman, extracti