Res Gestae

Now Theodoric had sent Faustus Niger as an envoy to Zeno. But when the news of the latter’s

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 Arian[*](See 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.