Whereon Odoacer made Romulus Agustulus and the Roman Senate write to Zeno that they wanted no Emperor save him at Constantinople; that they were very happy under the excellent Odoacer, and that they therefore sent to Zeno, as the rightful owner, all the Imperial insignia and ornaments; things which may have been worn, some of them, by Augustus himself. And so ended, even in name, the Empire of Rome. All which the Amal saw, and, as will appear, did not forget.
Zeno gave the Amal all that the One-eyed had had before him, and paid the Ostrogoths yearly as he had paid the One-eye’s men. The One-eyed was banished to his cantonments, and of course revolted. Zeno wanted to buy him off, but the Amal would not hear of it; he would not help the Romans against his rival, unless they swore perpetual enmity against him.
They did so, and he marched to the assistance of the wretched Empire. He was to be met by Roman reinforcements at the Hæmus. They never came; and the Amal, disgusted and disheartened, found himself entangled in the defiles of the Hæmus, starving and worn out; with the One-eyed entrenched on an inaccessible rock, where he dared not attack him.
Then followed an extraordinary scene. The One-eyed came down again and again from his rock, and rode round the Amal’s camp, shouting to him words so true, that one must believe them to have been really spoken.
‘Perjured boy, madman, betrayer of your race—do you not see that the Roman plan is as always to destroy Goths by Goths? Whichever of us falls, they, not we, will be the stronger. They never met you as they promised, at the cities, nor here. They have sent you out here to perish in the desert.’
Then the East Goths raised a cry. ‘The One-eyed is right. The Amal cares not that these men are Goths like ourselves.’
Then the One-eyed appeals to the Goths themselves, as he curses the Amal.
‘Why are you killing your kinsmen? Why have you made so many widows? Where is all their wealth gone, they who set out to fight for you? Each of them had two or three horses: but now they are walking on foot behind you like slaves,—free-men as well-born as yourself:—and you promised to measure them out gold by the bushel.’
Was it not true? If young Dietrich had in him (and he shewed that he had in after years) a Teuton’s heart, may not that strange interview have opened his eyes to his own folly, and taught him that the Teuton must be his own master, and not the mercenary of the Romans?
The men cried out that it was true. He must make peace with the One-eyed, or they would do it themselves; and peace was made. They both sent ambassadors to Zeno; the Amal complaining of treachery; the One-eyed demanding indemnity for all his losses. The Emperor was furious. He tried to buy off the Amal by marrying him to a princess of the blood royal, and making him a Cæsar. Dietrich would not consent; he felt that it was a snare. Zeno proclaimed the One-eyed an enemy to the Empire; and ended by reinstating him in his old honours, and taking them from the Amal. The Amal became furious, burnt villages, slaughtered the peasants, even (the Greeks say) cut off the hands of his captives. He had broken with the Romans at last. The Roman was astride of him, and of all Teutons, like Sindbad’s old man of the sea. The only question, as with Sindbad, was whether he should get drunk, and give them a chance of throwing the perfidious tyrant. And now the time was come. He was compelled to ask himself, not—what shall I be in relation to myself: but what shall I be in relation to the Kaiser of the Romans—a mercenary, a slave, or a conqueror—for one of the three I must be?