[The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon]@TWC D-Link bookThe History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire CHAPTER XXXIX: Gothic Kingdom Of Italy 33/40
Garretius, (Rotomagi, 1679, in Opp.Cassiodor.2 vols.
in fol.;) but they deserved and required such an editor as the Marquis Scipio Maffei, who thought of publishing them at Verona.
The Barbara Eleganza (as it is ingeniously named by Tiraboschi) is never simple, and seldom perspicuous] The partition of the lands of Italy, of which Theodoric assigned the third part to his soldiers, is honorably arraigned as the sole injustice of his life.
[2511] And even this act may be fairly justified by the example of Odoacer, the rights of conquest, the true interest of the Italians, and the sacred duty of subsisting a whole people, who, on the faith of his promises, had transported themselves into a distant land. [26] Under the reign of Theodoric, and in the happy climate of Italy, the Goths soon multiplied to a formidable host of two hundred thousand men, [27] and the whole amount of their families may be computed by the ordinary addition of women and children.
Their invasion of property, a part of which must have been already vacant, was disguised by the generous but improper name of hospitality; these unwelcome guests were irregularly dispersed over the face of Italy, and the lot of each Barbarian was adequate to his birth and office, the number of his followers, and the rustic wealth which he possessed in slaves and cattle.
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