So Theodoric entered Ravenna, and after several days Odoacar laid a snare for him: but Theodoric discovered him in the palace and forestalled him, then caught him off his guard and with his own hand slew him with a sword as he was coming into the Laurel Grove.Apparently in, or near, Ravenna; cf. , and see § 57, below, which implies that Theodoric killed Odoacar in Ravenna. According to A. Sleumer, (1926), s.v., Lauretum was a city near Ancona, but he does not cite this passage.

On the same day, all of Odoacar’s army who could be found anywhere were killed by order of Theodoric, as well as all of his family. This same year the emperor Zeno died at Constantinople, and Anastasius was made emperor.

Now Theodoric had sent Faustus Niger as an envoy to Zeno. But when the news of the latter’s death came, before the envoy returned, but after Theodoric had entered Ravenna and killed Odoacar, the Goths, without waiting for the command of the new emperor, made Theodoric their king.

For he was a most brave and warlike man, whose father, Walamir, was called King of the Goths; but Theodoric was his natural son; his mother was called in Gothic Ereriliva,Jordanes calls her Erelieva. With Gothica sc. lingua. but being a Catholic received at her baptism the name Eusebia.

Hence Theodoric was a man of great distinction and of good-will towards all men, and he ruled for thirty-three years. In his times Italy for thirty years enjoyed such good fortune that his successors also inherited peace.

For whatever he did was good. He so governed two races at the same time, Romans and Goths, that although he himself was of the ArianSee note on § 94 (p. 569), and for spelling, on § 48. sect, he nevertheless made no assault on the Catholic religion; he gave games in the circus and the amphitheatre, so that even by the Romans he was called a Trajan or a Valentinian, whose times he took as a model; and by the Goths, because of his edict, in which he established justice, he was judged to be in all respects their best king. Military service for the Romans he kept on the same footing as under the emperors. He was generous with gifts and the distribution of grain, and although he had found the public treasury nothing but a haystack,Literally, consisting of hay; i.e. he found nothing there but hay; cf. Catull. 13, 7 f., Catulli plenus sacculus est aranearum. by his efforts it was restored and made rich.