[Footnote 15: Malchus, p. 85. In a single action, which was
decided by the skill and discipline of Sabinian, Theodoric could
lose 5000 men.]
[Footnote 16: Jornandes (c. 57, p. 696, 697) has abridged the
great history of Cassiodorus. See, compare, and reconcile
Procopius, (Gothic. l. i. c. i.,) the Valesian Fragment, (p.
718,) Theophanes, (p. 113,) and Marcellinus, (in Chron.)]

The reputation both of the leader and of the war diffused a
universal ardor; the Walamirs were multiplied by the Gothic
swarms already engaged in the service, or seated in the
provinces, of the empire; and each bold Barbarian, who had heard
of the wealth and beauty of Italy, was impatient to seek, through
the most perilous adventures, the possession of such enchanting
objects. The march of Theodoric must be considered as the
emigration of an entire people; the wives and children of the
Goths, their aged parents, and most precious effects, were
carefully transported; and some idea may be formed of the heavy
baggage that now followed the camp, by the loss of two thousand
wagons, which had been sustained in a single action in the war of
Epirus. For their subsistence, the Goths depended on the
magazines of corn which was ground in portable mills by the hands
of their women; on the milk and flesh of their flocks and herds;
on the casual produce of the chase, and upon the contributions
which they might impose on all who should presume to dispute the
passage, or to refuse their friendly assistance. Notwithstanding
these precautions, they were exposed to the danger, and almost to
the distress, of famine, in a march of seven hundred miles, which
had been undertaken in the depth of a rigorous winter. Since the
fall of the Roman power, Dacia and Pannonia no longer exhibited