The barbarian it might seem had certainly nothing to learn from the
worst of the emperors in treachery and dishonour.

Theodoric set up his seat in the city he had so perfidiously won, and
for the next thirty years appears as the governour of Italy. He had
set out, it will be remembered, as the soldier of Constantinople, had
asked for leave to make his expedition, and had protested his
willingness to govern in the name of the emperor and for his glory. It
is not perhaps surprising that a barbarian, and especially Theodoric
who knew so well how to win by treachery what he could not otherwise
obtain, should after his victory forget the promise he had made to his
master. After the battle of the Adda he had the audacity to send an
embassy to the emperor to request that he might be allowed to clothe
himself in the royal mantle. This was of course refused. Nevertheless
the Goths "confirmed Theodoric to themselves as king without waiting
for the order of the new emperor Anastasius."[1] This "confirmation,"
whatever it may have meant to the Goths, meant nothing to the Romans
or to the empire. For some years Constantinople refused all
acknowledgment to Theodoric, till in 497 peace was made and Theodoric
obtained recognition, much it may be thought as Odoacer had done, from
Constantinople; but the ornaments of the palace at Ravenna, which
Odoacer had sent to New Rome, were brought back, and therefore it
would seem that the royalty of Theodoric was acknowledged by the
empire; but we have no authority to see in this more than an
acknowledgment of the king of the Goths, the vicegerent perhaps of the
emperor in Italy. What Theodoric's title may have been we have no
means of knowing: _de jure_ he was the representative of the emperor
in Italy: _de facto_ he was the absolute ruler, the _tyrannus_, as
Odoacer had been, of the country; but he never ventured to coin money
bearing his effigy and superscription and he invariably sent the names