tell, and never believed. The Kaiser is a God on earth, and he who
shall lift his hand against him, is guilty of his own blood.' The
old hero died in Constantinople, and the really good-natured Emperor
gave him a grand funeral, and a statue, and so delighted the simple
Goths, that the whole nation entered his service bodily, and became
the Emperor's men.

The famous massacre of Thessalonica, and the penance of Theodosius,
immortalized by the pencil of Vandyke, is another significant example
of the relation between Goth and Roman. One Botheric (a Vandal or
other Teuton by his name) was military commandant of that important
post. He put in prison a popular charioteer of the circus, for a
crime for which the Teutonic language had to borrow a foreign name,
and which the Teutons, like ourselves, punished with death, though it
was committed with impunity in any Roman city. At the public games,
the base mob clamoured, but in vain, for the release of their
favourite; and not getting him, rose on Botheric, murdered him and
his officers, and dragged their corpses through the streets.

This was indeed [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]; and
Theodosius, partly in honest indignation, partly perhaps in fear of
the consequences, issued orders from Milan which seem to have
amounted to a permission to the Goths to avenge themselves. The
populace were invited as usual to the games of the circus, and
crowded in, forgetful of their crime, heedless of danger, absorbed in
the one greed of frivolous, if not sinful pleasure. The Gothic
troops concealed around entered, and then began a 'murder grim and
great.' For three hours it lasted. Every age and sex, innocent or
guilty, native or foreigner, to the number of at least 7,000,
perished, or are said to have perished; and the soul of Botheric had