Theodoric set up his seat in the city he had so perfidiously won, and for the next thirty years appears as the governour of Italy.  He had set out, it will be remembered, as the soldier of Constantinople, had asked for leave to make his expedition, and had protested his willingness to govern in the name of the emperor and for his glory.  It is not perhaps surprising that a barbarian, and especially Theodoric who knew so well how to win by treachery what he could not otherwise obtain, should after his victory forget the promise he had made to his master.  After the battle of the Adda he had the audacity to send an embassy to the emperor to request that he might be allowed to clothe himself in the royal mantle.  This was of course refused.  Nevertheless the Goths “confirmed Theodoric to themselves as king without waiting for the order of the new emperor Anastasius."[1] This “confirmation,” whatever it may have meant to the Goths, meant nothing to the Romans or to the empire.  For some years Constantinople refused all acknowledgment to Theodoric, till in 497 peace was made and Theodoric obtained recognition, much it may be thought as Odoacer had done, from Constantinople; but the ornaments of the palace at Ravenna, which Odoacer had sent to New Rome, were brought back, and therefore it would seem that the royalty of Theodoric was acknowledged by the empire; but we have no authority to see in this more than an acknowledgment of the king of the Goths, the vicegerent perhaps of the emperor in Italy.  What Theodoric’s title may have been we have no means of knowing:  de jure he was the representative of the emperor in Italy:  de facto he was the absolute ruler, the tyrannus, as Odoacer had been, of the country; but he never ventured to coin money bearing his effigy and superscription and he invariably sent the names of the consuls, whom he appointed, to Constantinople for confirmation.  He ruled too, as Odoacer had done, by Roman law, and the Arian heresy, which he and his barbarians professed as their religion, was not till the very end of his reign permitted precedence over the Catholic Faith.  For the most part too he governed by means of Roman officials, and to this must be ascribed the enormous success of his long government.

[Footnote 1:  Anon.  Valesu, 57.]

[Illustration:  CAPITAL FROM THE COLONNADE IN PIAZZA MAGGIORE]

For that he was successful, that he gave Italy peace during a whole generation, is undeniable.  In all the chronicles there is little but praise of him.  The chief of them[1] says of him:  “He was an illustrious man and full of good-will towards all.  He reigned thirty-three years[2] and during thirty of these years so great was the happiness of Italy that even the wayfarers were at peace.  For he did nothing evil.  He governed the two nations, the Goths and the Romans, as though they were one people.  Belonging himself to the Arian sect, he yet ordained that the civil administration should