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2 THE DECLINE AND FALL

[left margin] CHAP. XXXIX. Birth and education of Theodoric. A D. 455-475.

deserved a statue among the best and bravest of
the ancient Romans.

Theodoric the Ostrogoth, the fourteenth in
lineal descent of the royal line of the Amali [superscript 1],
was born in the neighbourhood of Vienna [superscrit 2] two
years after the death of Attila. A recent victory
had restored the independence of the Ostrogorhs;
and the three brothers, Walamir, Theodemir,
and Widimir, who ruled that warlike nation with
united counsels, had separately pitched their habitations
in the fertile though desolate province
of Pannonia. The Huns still threatened their
revolted subjects, but their hasty attack was
repelled by the single forces of Walamir, and
the news of his victory reached the distant camp
of his brother in the same auspicious moment
that the favourite concubine of Theodemir was
delivered of a son and heir. In the eighth year of
his age, Theodoric was reluctantly yielded by his
father to the public interest, as the pledge of an
alliance which Leo, emperor of the East, had
consented to urchase by an annual subsidy of
three hundred pounds of gold. The royal hostage
was educated at Constantinople with care and
tenderness. His body was formed to all the exercises
of war, his mind was expanded by the
habits of liberal conversationl he frequented the
schools of the most skilful masters; but he disdained
or neglected the arts of Greece, and so ignorant
did he always remain of the first elements of
science, that a rude mark was contrived to
represent the signature of the illiterate king of