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 200 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xxxix Civil govern- ment of Italy according to the Roman laws apparent submission of its military governor, who wisely refused to trust his person in the palace of Eavenna. 59 The Gothic sovereignty was established from Sicily to the Danube, from Sirmium or Belgrade 60 to the Atlantic Ocean ; and the Greeks themselves have acknowledged that Theodoric reigned over the fairest portion of the western empire. 61 The union of the Goths and Eomans might have fixed for ages the transient happiness of Italy ; and the first of nations, a new people of free subjects and enlightened soldiers, might have gradually arisen from the mutual emulation of their re- spective virtues. But the sublime merit of guiding or seconding such a revolution was not reserved for the reign of Theodoric ; he wanted either the genius or the opportunities of a legislator ; m and, while he indulged the Goths in the enjoyment of rude liberty, he servilely copied the institutions, and even the abuses, of the political system which had been framed by Constantine and his successors. From a tender regard to the expiring pre- judices of Eome, the Barbarian declined the name, the purple, and the diadem of the emperors ; 63 but he assumed, under the hereditary title of king, the whole substance and plenitude of 59 The Gothic transactions in Gaul and Spain are represented with some per- plexity in Cassiodorius (Var. iii. 32, 38, 41, 43, 44 ; v. 39), Jornandes (c. 58, p. 698, 699), and Prooopius (Goth. 1. i. c. 12). I will neither hear nor reconcile the long and contradictory arguments of the Abbe Dubos and the Count de Buat about the wars of Burgundy. 60 [" Or Belgrade " seems to convey that Belgrade corresponds to the ancient Sirmium. This is a mistake. Belgrade (as the author knew) corresponds to Singidunum ; Sirmium to Mitrovitz. The expedition against Sirmium took place in a.d. 504.] 61 Theophanes, p. 113. 62 Procopius affirms that no laws whatsoever were promulgated by Theodoric and the succeeding kings of Italy (Goth. 1. ii. c. 6). He must mean in the Gothic language. A Latin edict of Theodoric is still extant, in one hundred and fifty-four articles. [The edictum Theodorici was only intended for cases in which (a) Bomans or (b) Goths and Bomans were concerned. The Goths had their own law, and their disputes were decided by an official entitled the Comes Gothorum (cp. Cass. Var. vii. 3) acting alone. In disputes between Goth and Boman, a Boman jurisconsult acted as assessor to the Comes Gothorum. For the text of the Edictum see part iv. of Dahn's Konige der Germanen ; an analysis in Hodgkin, iii. 345 sqq. The peculiar Ostrogothic institution of the saiones, a sort of royal messengers, may be mentioned here. We find a saio sent to call the Goths to arm against the Franks, or to rebuke a Praetorian Prsefect. One remarkable duty which devolved on a saio was the so-called tuitio regii nominis, Hodgkin, ib. 282. When a rich unwarlike Boman, " unable to protect himself against the rude assaults of sturdy Gothic neighbours, appealed to the King for protection," the King took him under his tuitio, and a saio was quartered in his house as a guarantee of the royal protection. Naturally, the institution was sometimes abused.] 6i [Hodgkin (Italy and her Invaders, iii. p. 273) makes a statement exactly the reverse.]