Dietrich no scholar himself, but he had a contempt for the very
scholarship which he employed, and forbade the Goths to learn it--as
the event proved, a foolish and fatal prejudice. But it was
connected in his mind with chicanery, effeminacy, and with the cruel
and degrading punishments of children. Perhaps the ferula had been
applied to him at Constantinople in old days. If so, no wonder that
he never learnt to write. 'The boy who trembles at a cane,' he used
to say, 'will never face a lance.' His mother wit, meanwhile, was so
shrewd that 'many of his sayings (says the unknown author of the
invaluable Valesian Fragment) remain among us to this day.' Two
only, as far as I know, have been preserved, quaint enough:


'He that hath gold, or a devil, cannot hide it.'


And


'The Roman, when poor, apes the Goth: the Goth,
when rich, apes the Roman.'


There is a sort of Solomon's judgment, too, told of him, in the case
of a woman who refused to acknowledge her own son, which was
effectual enough; but somewhat too homely to repeat.

As for his personal appearance, it was given in a saga; but I have
not consulted it myself, and am no judge of its authenticity. The
traditional description of him is that of a man almost beardless--a