[504] 'Quoniam quaevis claritas generis Amalis cedit.'
[505] 'Justitiam nos et aequabilem clementiam, quae populos nutrit, juvante domino, custodire et Gothis Romanisque apud nos jus esse commune, nec aliud inter vos esse divisum, nisi quod illi labores bellicos pro communi utilitate subeunt, vos autem civitatis Romanae habitatio quieta multiplicat.' I do not consider that the words in Italics, taken with the context, are irreconcilable with Dahn's view that the Goths were still, to a certain extent, under Gothic law.
[506] 'Amalorum regalem prosapiem, Baltheum germen.' I know not how Athalaric had any blood of the Balths in his veins. The other reading, 'blatteum,' gives the same idea as the following clause, 'infantiam purpuratam.'
[507] 'Inter tam prolixum ordinem Regum susceperunt semper augmenta.' Perhaps we should translate 'by such a long line of (Amal) kings obtained advancement for their nation;' but the meaning is not very clear.
[508] Baronius says (vii. 121): 'Cujusnam Ecclesiae Antistes fuerit Victorinus ignoratur.' From the tone of the letter one may conjecture that Victorinus was a Bishop in Gaul.
[509] Probably Tulum had gone on some embassy to Constantinople.
[510] 'Hac igitur honoris remuneratione contentus, pro exteris partibus indefessa devotione laboravit: et praestare com suis parentibus principi dignabatur obsequium, qui tantorum regum fuerat stirpe procreatus.' This sentence is full of difficulties. What can he mean by the labour 'pro exteris partibus?' Who is the 'Princeps' whom Tulum deigns to serve: the Eastern Emperor or Theodoric? Above all, who is 'tantorum regum stirpe procreatus?' I think the turn of the sentence requires that it should be Tulum; but Dahn has evidently not so understood it, for in his Könige der Germanen (iii. 29, 30) he makes Tulum a conspicuous example of a man not of noble birth raised to high dignity, and says that the two long letters about him in the Variae contain no allusion to illustrious descent.
[511] 'Exstat gentis Gothicae hujus probitatis exemplum: Gensemundus ille toto orbe cantabilis, solum armis filius factus, tanta se Amalis devotione conjunxit ut haeredibus eorum curiosum exhibuerit famulatum, quamvis ipse peteretur ad regnum.' Dahn (ii. 61 and iii. 309) and Köpke (p. 142) refer this mysterious affair of Gensemund's renunciation to the interval after the death of Thorismund (a.d. 416). But this is mere conjecture. See Italy and her Invaders iii. 8-10.
[512] 'Primum, quod inter nationes eximium est, Gothorum nobilissima stirpe gloriatur.'
[513] 'Statim rudes annos ad sacri cubiculi secreta portavit.'