in wasteful luxury, and the most fertile estates became barren in
their hands; they despised, but they envied, the laborious
provincials; and when their subsistence had failed, the
Ostrogoths embraced the familiar resources of war and rapine. It
had been the wish of Theodoric (such at least was his
declaration) to lead a peaceful, obscure, obedient life on the
confines of Scythia, till the Byzantine court, by splendid and
fallacious promises, seduced him to attack a confederate tribe of
Goths, who had been engaged in the party of Basiliscus. He
marched from his station in Maesia, on the solemn assurance that
before he reached Adrianople, he should meet a plentiful convoy
of provisions, and a reenforcement of eight thousand horse and
thirty thousand foot, while the legions of Asia were encamped at
Heraclea to second his operations. These measures were
disappointed by mutual jealousy. As he advanced into Thrace, the
son of Theodemir found an inhospitable solitude, and his Gothic
followers, with a heavy train of horses, of mules, and of wagons,
were betrayed by their guides among the rocks and precipices of
Mount Sondis, where he was assaulted by the arms and invectives
of Theodoric the son of Triarius. From a neighboring height, his
artful rival harangued the camp of the Walamirs, and branded
their leader with the opprobrious names of child, of madman, of
perjured traitor, the enemy of his blood and nation. "Are you
ignorant," exclaimed the son of Triarius, "that it is the
constant policy of the Romans to destroy the Goths by each
other's swords? Are you insensible that the victor in this
unnatural contest will be exposed, and justly exposed, to their
implacable revenge? Where are those warriors, my kinsmen and thy
own, whose widows now lament that their lives were sacrificed to
thy rash ambition? Where is the wealth which thy soldiers