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stoutfellowI suspect that most people would find Thomas Burns' A History of the Ostrogoths rather dry, and I confess that some parts of it seemed that way to me, too. However, there was one anecdote that I want to reproduce, about the Ostrogothic King Theodoric of Italy (and adjoining territories as far away as Marseille and Dubrovnik).
History knows him as "Theodoric the Great". I have a longstanding problem with that epithet, since a) it doesn't really convey anything specific and b) most of the "Greats" don't even qualify as "good", in my judgment. "The Just" strikes me as a far higher compliment for a ruler. From what Burns writes, Theodoric might have merited that epithet; both his Ostrogothic and Roman subjects were impressed with his passion for justice and his impatience with lawyerly obstruction.
It seems that a certain Roman matron had been pursuing a lawsuit against a patrician for some thirty years. At last, fed up with the delays, she appealed directly to Theodoric. The king responded by issuing an ultimatum to the involved lawyers, giving them two more days to settle. They did so; the matron then came again to Theodoric to thank him for his intervention. After seeing her out, he summoned the lawyers to his presence and asked: "Why were you able to achieve in two days what had been impossible for thirty years?" Finding their response unsatisfactory, Theodoric had them put to death.
I believe the phrase is "pour encourager les autres"....
History knows him as "Theodoric the Great". I have a longstanding problem with that epithet, since a) it doesn't really convey anything specific and b) most of the "Greats" don't even qualify as "good", in my judgment. "The Just" strikes me as a far higher compliment for a ruler. From what Burns writes, Theodoric might have merited that epithet; both his Ostrogothic and Roman subjects were impressed with his passion for justice and his impatience with lawyerly obstruction.
It seems that a certain Roman matron had been pursuing a lawsuit against a patrician for some thirty years. At last, fed up with the delays, she appealed directly to Theodoric. The king responded by issuing an ultimatum to the involved lawyers, giving them two more days to settle. They did so; the matron then came again to Theodoric to thank him for his intervention. After seeing her out, he summoned the lawyers to his presence and asked: "Why were you able to achieve in two days what had been impossible for thirty years?" Finding their response unsatisfactory, Theodoric had them put to death.
I believe the phrase is "pour encourager les autres"....
