[102] [This story is told in the Dialogues of Pope Gregory. On the legend Hodgkin[c] comments, “For that noble heart Hell itself could scarcely reserve any sorer punishment than the consciousness of a life’s labour wasted by one fierce outbreak of Berseker rage.” Procopius[j] calls his treatment of Boethius and Symmachus “the first and last act of injustice which he had committed against any of his subjects; and the cause was his failure to look deeply enough into the evidence before he gave his verdict.”]
[103] [“My conjecture,” says Hodgkin,[c] “is that there was some formality of a popular election after the death of Athalaric in compliance with which his mother and her colleague ascended the throne.”]
[104] [Hodgkin, regretting her misfortunes, calls Amalasuntha “a kind of Gothic Minerva sprung from the Gothic Jove.”]
[105] [Bury[b] says,“Witiges put Theodatus to death,” Hodgkin[c] says that he sent Optaris, from whom Theodatus had taken his bride, to assassinate the fallen monarch.]
[106] [Henry Bradley[n] declares that this barbarian’s epithet should rather be “the bison,” Gibbon’s translation as “standard-bearer” being “linguistically impossible.”]
[107] [This king, Eraric, reigned only five months.]
[108] [It is quoted by Procopius.[j]]
[109] [Hodgkin[l] thinks that there is no necessity for doubting the statement that only five hundred people remained.]
[110] [According to Hodgkin[c] he was seventy-five years old at this time.]
[111] [Hodgkin,[c] discrediting Procopius here for many reasons, places the battle near Scheggia.]