drew back, and they threatened a revolt, to prevent which the army was broken up and the regiments sent to their winter quarters.
When the army was disbanded, Zeno’s only resort was to make peace on any terms with Strabo. In the meantime Theoderic, the son of Theodemir, was engaged in ravaging the fairest parts of Thrace in the neighbourhood of Mount Rhodope, which divides Thrace from Macedonia; he not only ruined the crops, but oppressed the farmers or slew them. Strabo, when he received Zeno’s message,— remarking that he was sorry that the innocent husbandmen, for whose welfare Zeno103 did not care in the least, suffered from the ravages of his rival — concluded a peace on the conditions that Zeno was to supply a yearly payment sufficient to support thirteen thousand men; that he was to be appointed to the command of two scholae and to the post of Master of Soldiers in praesenti, and receive all the dignities which Basiliscus had bestowed upon him; that his kinsmen were to inhabit a city assigned by Zeno. The Emperor did not delay to execute this agreement; Theoderic was deposed from the office of Master of Soldiers, and Strabo appointed in his stead (before end of 478). This marks the third stage in these changeful relations.
Theoderic, now threatened by the superior forces of Strabo, was in a difficult position. But he managed to escape across Mount Rhodope into Macedonia (perhaps with the Emperor’s collusion), and the town of Stobi felt the full brunt of his wrath. Thence he turned his steps toward Thessalonica, and the inhabitants felt so little confidence in Zeno that they actually believed that the Emperor wished to hand their city over to the barbarians. A sedition broke out which ended in the transference of the keys of the city from the Praetorian Prefect of Illyricum to the archbishop, a remarkable evidence of the fact that the people looked on the ministers of the Church as defenders against Imperial oppression. These suspicions of the Emperor’s intentions were undoubtedly unjust. Zeno sent Artemidorus and Phocas to Theoderic, who was persuaded by their representations to stay his army and send an embassy to Byzantium. Theoderic demanded that a plenipotentiary envoy should be sent to treat with him. Zeno sent Adamantius, directing him to offer the Goths land in Pautalia (about Küstendil), and 200 lbs. of gold to supply food for that year, as no corn had been sown in the designated region. The motive of Zeno in choosing Pautalia was that if the Goths accepted it they would occupy a position between the Illyrian and Thracian armies, in which they might be more easily controlled.
Meanwhile Theoderic had proceeded by the Egnatian Way to Heraclea (Monastir), and had sent a message to one Sidimund,104 an Ostrogoth who had been in the service of Leo and had inherited an estate near Dyrrhachium, where he was living peaceably. Theoderic induced him to make an attempt to take possession of that important city of New Epirus, and for this purpose Sidismund employed an ingenious device. He visited the citizens individually, informing each that the Ostrogoths were coming with Zeno’s consent to take possession of the city, and advising him to move his property with all haste to some other secure town or to one of the coast islands. The fact that his representations were listened to and that he effected the removal of a garrison of two thousand men proves that he possessed considerable influence. Theoderic was at Heraclea105 when the messenger of Sidimund arrived with the news that the plan had been successfully carried out; and having burnt a large portion of the town because its inhabitants could not supply him with provisions, he set out for Epirus. He proceeded along the Egnatian Way, crossing the range of the Scardus mountains, and arrived at Lychnidus, which is now Ochrida. Built in a strong situation on the shore of Lake Ochrida, and well provided with water and victuals, Lychnidus defied the assault of the barbarians, who, unwilling to delay, hastened onwards, and having seized Scampae, the most important town between Lychnidus and Dyrrhachium, arrived at the goal of their journey.
It may be wondered whether at Dyrrhachium it entered the mind of Theoderic to ship his people across to the western peninsula and attack the Italian kingdom of Odovacar in the south. Adamantius, the ambassador who had been sent by Zeno to treat with him, seems to have thought it more likely that the Ostrogoths would employ vessels for the purpose of plundering the Epeirot or Dalmatian coasts, for he sent a post messenger to Dyrrhachium, to blame Theoderic for his hostile advance while negotiations were pending, and to exhort him to remain quiet and not to seize ships until he arrived himself.
Starting from Thessalonica, and passing Pella on the Via Egnatia, Adamantius came to Edessa, the modern Vodena, where he found Sabinian Magnus, and informed him that he had been appointed Master of Soldiers in Illyricum. The messenger, who had been sent to Dyrrhachium, returned in the company of a priest, to assure Adamantius that he might proceed confidently to the camp of Theoderic; and, having issued a mandate to collect all the troops available, the general and the ambassador moved forward to Lychnidus. Here Sabinian106 made difficulties about binding himself by oath to restore the hostages whom Theoderic was willing to deliver as a gage for the personal safety of Adamantius. This produced a deadlock; Theoderic naturally refused to give the hostages. Adamantius naturally refused to visit Theoderic.
Adamantius invented a simple solution of the difficulty, which led to a striking scene. Taking with him a body of two hundred soldiers he climbed by an obscure and narrow path, where horses had never set hoof before, and reached by a circuitous route an impregnable fort, built on a high cliff, close to the city of Dyrrhachium. At the foot of the cliff yawned a deep ravine, through which a river flowed. A messenger was sent to inform Theoderic that the Roman ambassador awaited him, and, attended by a few horse-soldiers, the Ostrogoth rode to the bank of the river. The physical features, the cliff, the chasm, and the river, are sufficiently simple and definite to enable us to call up vividly this strange scene. The attendants of both Adamantius and Theoderic had retired beyond range of earshot; and standing on the edges of the ravine the Ostrogothic king and the ambassador of the Roman Empire conversed together.
“I elected to live,” complained Theoderic, “beyond the borders of Thrace, far away Scythia-ward, deeming that if I abode there I should trouble no man, and should be able to obey all the behests of the Emperor. But ye summoned me as to war against Theoderic, and promised, firstly, that the Master of Soldiers in Thrace would meet me with his army, yet he never appeared; secondly, ye promised that Claudius, the steward of the Gothic contingent, would come with the pay for my troops (ξενικῷ), yet I never saw him; thirdly, ye gave me guides who, leaving the better roads that would have taken me to the quarters of the foe, led me by steep and precipitous rocky paths, where I wellnigh perished with all my train, advancing as I was with cavalry, waggons, and all the furniture of camp, and exposed to the attacks of the enemy. I was therefore constrained to come to terms with them, and owe them a debt of gratitude that they did not annihilate me, betrayed as I was by you and in their power.”
“The Emperor,” replied Adamantius, “bestowed upon you the title of Patrician, and created you a Master of Soldiers. These are the highest honours that crown the labours of the most deserving Roman officers, and nothing should induce you to cherish towards their bestower other than filial sentiments.” Having endeavoured to defend or extenuate the treatment of which Theoderic complained, the envoy proceeded thus: “You are acting intolerably in seizing Roman cities, while you are expecting an embassy; and remember that the Romans held you at their mercy, a prisoner, surrounded by their armies, amid the mountains and rivers of Thrace, whence you could never have extricated yourself, if they had not permitted you to withdraw, not even were your forces tenfold as great as they are. Allow me to counsel you to assume a more moderate attitude towards the Emperor, for you cannot in the end overcome the Romans when they press on you from all sides. Leave Epirus and the cities of this region — we cannot allow such great cities to be occupied by you and their inhabitants to be expelled — and go to Dardania, where there is an extensive territory of rich soil, uninhabited, and sufficient to support your host in plenty.”
To this proposal Theoderic replied that he would readily consent, but that his followers, who had recently endured many hardships, would be unwilling to leave their quarters in Epirus, where they had fully expected to pass the winter. He proposed a compromise, and engaged that if he were permitted to winter at Dyrrhachium he would migrate to Dardania in the ensuing spring. He added that he was quite ready to leave the unwarlike mass of his Ostrogoths in any city
