Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/24

6 Meanwhile, the West Goths were torn by internal dissensions. A patriotic and apparently conservative party under Athana-ric was opposed to the Christian and Arian party under Frithigern, with whom Wulfila sympathised. The latter, to avoid persecution, led a colony through the Balkan passes and settled within the Empire in what is now Bulgaria. This peaceful movement was, however, thwarted by cruel treatment that resulted in a rising in which the Emperor Valens was slain at Adrianople in 378. His successor, Theodosius, made terms with the Goths, and many of them joined the legions. In subsequent Gothic history great names appear;—Alaric, the hero of national independence and unity, strong enough to sack Rome itself; Ataulf, the loyal ally and son-in-law of the Emperor Theodoric, who fell in battle with Attila, the Hun, on the Frankish plain of Chalons; and, finally, Theodoric the Great, the protector of the peaceful Roman against the Gaulish Odoacer, and Emperor of the once more united Western Empire. Therefore it is that in the Italy of the fifth century we find the last reliable traces of the Goths—the Codex Argenteus, other fragments of the Wulfilic translation discovered as late as 1817 and preserved at Milan, a Gothic calendar, and a business document, the owner of which lived at Arezzo, near Naples. In Italy, however, the Goth was but a temporary invader; in Gaul and Spain he held his own for long, ultimately succumbing to the Frank and the Moor.

On what is known as the Bucharest ring is a Runic inscription consisting of three genuine Gothic words—Gut annôm hailig—dedicated to the Goths' treasures. Each of these words occurs in the Wulfilic Gospels. From this we learn that the Goths called themselves Gut-os, in the singular Guts; to the classical writers they were the Gothones. There seems to be a real confusion between the sounds of ū and ō. Wulfila speaks of the Epistle Du Rumonim to the Romans, and calls Rome Ruma. Shakspere, too, rhymes Rome with doom and groom, and in "Julius Cæsar" Cassius says,—

The Wulfilic form survives to this day in the name Roumania. The fuller name for the Gothic people is Gut-tiuda. The