ged by you;
and I hope you will not find me ungrateful."

He explains his project more at large in a long letter to Oxenstiern,
Aug. 28, 1636[473]. "Your Sublimity, he writes to him, shews me so much
favour, and you interest yourself so much in what concerns me, that I
think it my duty to give you an account, not only of my negotiations,
but of my leisure hours. As I intend to devote the time that is not
employed in the affairs with which I am charged, to the honour of a
kingdom which has loaded me with honours, I had begun to read all that
has been written on the great Gustavus in Latin, Italian, German, and
French: but soon perceiving that these writers did not know the
intentions of the ministry, were unacquainted with the places of which
they speak, and were ignorant of the art of war, I concluded that it was
impossible, with such materials, to complete a work that might deserve
the approbation of posterity. This has made me turn again to
antiquities. Of all the Ancients Procopius has best handled the History
of the Goths and Vandals: he was an able man, was Secretary to
Belisarius, had been on the spot, and speaks not only of what happened
in his own time, but also of the facts which happened before his time.
The Latin version is very faulty, imperfect, and inelegant: I have made
a new translation from the Greek Edition of Heschelius; with the
assistance of two manuscripts in the King's library, which enabled me to
make several corrections in the text; others I made by conjecture. I
intend to extract all that has relation to this subject from the Secret
History of Procopius, printed by Alemannus at Rome, and from Agathias.
Being informed, that the manuscript of the History of the Goths and
Vandals, in the Vatican library, was more complete than what Heschelius
followed, I have asked my friends at Rome to fill up the gaps in the
printed copies: which I hope they will do. That nothing may be omitted,
which has a relation to the antiquities of Scandinavia, I intend to add
what is contained in Strabo, Pliny, Tacitus, Ptolemaeus, and those who
have written since, as Helmoldus, Eginhart, Adam of Bremen, and others.
I shall farther add the Gothics of Jornandes, the Epistle of Sidonius
Apollinaris on the manners of Theodoric King of the Wisigoths; the
Panegyric of Ennodius of Pavia in honour of Theodoric King of the
Ostrogoths and Italy; the Laws of the Ostrogoths, Westrogoths, and
Lombards, with the Book of Paulus Diaconu