Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/65



N THE days when the Goths out of the land of Scythia had raised way against the Roman empire and under the kinds Rædgod and Alaric had stormed Rome, and won all the realm of Italy from the mountains even to the island of Sicily, then, after those kings, did Theodoric hold the same empire in sway. Theodoric was an Arruling and a Christian, though he held fast to the Arian heresy. To the Romans he promised his friendship, and that they should keep their old rights; but he kept that promise very basely, and his end was grievous and full of sin, in that his countless crimes were increased by the murder of Pope John. At that time there lived a consul, a chief we should now call him, whose name was Boethius, a man of book-learning and in worldly life most truly wise. He, perceiving the manifold wrongs wrought by Theodoric upon the Christian faith and upon the chief man of the Romans, began to recall the glad times and immemorial rights they had once