the royal line of the Amali, ^1 was born in the neighborhood of
Vienna ^2 two years after the death of Attila. ^! A recent
victory had restored the independence of the Ostrogoths; and the
three brothers, Walamir, Theodemir, and Widimir, who ruled that
warlike nation with united counsels, had separately pitched their
habitations in the fertile though desolate province of Pannonia.
The Huns still threatened their revolted subjects, but their
hasty attack was repelled by the single forces of Walamir, and
the news of his victory reached the distant camp of his brother
in the same auspicious moment that the favorite concubine of
Theodemir was delivered of a son and heir. In the eighth year of
his age, Theodoric was reluctantly yielded by his father to the
public interest, as the pledge of an alliance which Leo, emperor
of the East, had consented to purchase by an annual subsidy of
three hundred pounds of gold. The royal hostage was educated at
Constantinople with care and tenderness. His body was formed to
all the exercises of war, his mind was expanded by the habits of
liberal conversation; he frequented the schools of the most
skilful masters; but he disdained or neglected the arts of
Greece, and so ignorant did he always remain of the first
elements of science, that a rude mark was contrived to represent
the signature of the illiterate king of Italy. ^3 As soon as he
had attained the age of eighteen, he was restored to the wishes
of the Ostrogoths, whom the emperor aspired to gain by liberality
and confidence. Walamir had fallen in battle; the youngest of
the brothers, Widimir, had led away into Italy and Gaul an army
of Barbarians, and the whole nation acknowledged for their king
the father of Theodoric. His ferocious subjects admired the
strength and stature of their young prince; ^4 and he soon
convinced them that he had not degenerated from the valor of his