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500-507] known as Alsace, but pursued the Alemans up the right bank of the Rhine and drove them to take refuge in the valley of the upper Rhine (Rhaetia). At this point Theodoric the Great, the king of the Ostrogoths, intervened in favour of the vanquished. Theodoric desired to exercise a kind of hegemony over the barbarian kings and with that view to maintain the balance of power among them. He wrote an eloquent letter to Clovis, in which, while sending him a player on the cither, he begged him to spare the remnant of the Alemans, and declared that he took them under his protection. The Alemans, who were now occupying the high valleys of the Alps, thus passed under the dominion of Theodoric, and paid tribute to him. They formed a kind of buffer-State between the kingdoms of the Franks and the Ostrogoths. We shall see how Witigis, a successor of Theodoric, gave up these remnants of the Alemans to the Franks (536).

As early as 507 Clovis was bending all his energies to the project of wresting from the Visigoths the part of Gaul which they held. The orthodox bishops were now tired of being subject to Arian rulers, and besought the aid of the king of the Franks. Alaric II, who had succeeded Euric in 486, was undoubtedly a tolerant ruler. He gave to the Romans of his dominions an important code of law which is known by the name of the Breviarium Alarici; and he allowed the bishops more than once to meet in councils. But being obliged to take severe measures against certain bishops, he was counted a persecutor. Thus, two successive bishops of Tours, Volusianus and Verus, were driven from that see, Ruricius of Limoges was obliged to live in exile at Bordeaux; and all these bickerings made the bishops long for an orthodox ruler. Causes of contention between Franks and Visigoths were not lacking. One difficulty after another arose between the two neighbouring kingdoms. In vain the kings endeavoured to remove them, meeting for this purpose on an island in the Loire near Amboise; in vain Theodoric the Great wrote urging the adversaries to compose their quarrel. He advised Alaric to be prudent and not to stake the fate of his kingdom upon a throw of the dice. He reminded Clovis that the issue of a battle was always uncertain, and threatened to intervene himself if the king of the Franks proceeded to extremities. He invited Gundobad the king of the Burgundians to co-operate with him in maintaining peace. He warned three kings who held the right bank of the Rhine — the kings of the Herulians, the Warnians, and the Thuringians — of the ambitions of Clovis. It was too late; the war could not be averted. Beyond question, Clovis was the aggressor. He mustered his troops and made a vigorous speech to them. "It grieves me that these Arians should hold a part of Gaul. Let us march, with the help of God, and reduce their country to subjection." He had with him Chloderic, son of Sigebert, king of the Ripuarian Franks, while Gundobad king of the Burgundians co-operated by advancing upon the