Panegyricus Theodorico Regi Dictus

I. A Panegyric Delivered to the Most Clement King Theoderic. Let that man, venerable prince, write of your praises by profession; let that man be excluded from the proclamation of your purpose by consideration, whom some failure of duty has withdrawn from your defense. Let the generality, bound to you by benefits, repay you with speech, while an unequal reciprocity compensates with praises what it has obtained through toil. Your arms have made liberty indebted; what alone it can do, it has learned to announce cheerfulness in proclamations. It is yours, renowned one, to give a price to devotion, which you understand cannot exceed the strength of your subjects: it will be for your sacred dispensation to judge from your servants what you should demand, in whom you recognize that everything they can do serves you. Let your majesty deign to accept this literary offering at your altars, because, lest the brilliance of your deeds grow old, the exercises of tongues must be summoned. Lest antiquity claim for itself what you have done, let the chain of those who recount bind it: for you will grant the peace of the disciplines, through which eternity will fall to your lot. The celestial dispenser of the secret asks nothing more from human intellects than that they understand by whose agency they know what they know. To have recognized among those nearest to God who has granted a benefit is to have repaid it: what descends from the heavens may be valued only by the reward of hymns; the maker of the world is invited to greater gifts by modulated eloquence. Say whether I do not flatter the craftsman with my tongue in place of a reward. It is added that praise of the prince should flow from the sanctuary of a pure heart.

nor does the commemoration of your divinity, to be set forth with good conscience, demand only the brilliance of language. In divine services, even with a silent mouth, a serene mind performs the sacrifice: fortified by the clarity of his deeds, even a mute man obeys in heavenly worship. Therefore, the title which was thought to hinder me now invites me: would that a purer profession might be in harmony with secrets, and that the splendor of the heart might not disagree with the body. Hail now, greatest of kings, in whose dominion the vigor of nobility has recognized its own flavor. Hail, bulwark of the republic: for it is wrong to recount separately the things conferred by you at one time and to divide the goods of a single moment by a verbal distinction. If I count the wars of my king, I find as many as the triumphs: no enemy met your engagement except one who would add to your praises; he who resisted your will served your trophies: for the subject always either bore glory to your piety, or he who presumed to take up arms did so for your valor. Whoever saw you in battle was conquered; whoever saw you in peace feared nothing. Neither did your venerable promise falter amid prosperity, nor did your vigor suffer delay in battles. Your path, hedged about with many obstacles, saw daily victories and suffered no losses on the march; it was so blocked by enemy columns that it denied access, yet so opened by your assault that the enemy's foresight did no harm. If these things are to be ascribed to your good fortune, that is the full endowment of a prince, more august than any honor; if to your labor,

first, taking up battles against nature with favorable omens, so that no hope of resistance would be left to your enemies, you subjected to yourself, as a leader in your position, the diverse laws of the sky, the fortifications of the lands, the impassable rivers. I lie if ever heat or cold presented an obstacle to your plans, if you were constrained by the swelling of floods, by the need to drink, if the ridges of the Alps, joined with the sublimity of the pole, brought delay to your marches. Those whom you found after conquering the defenses of places did not know how to resist, because those whom broken barriers protect are made secure, and they live with minds relaxed in leisure who have occupied safer positions. Against you, neither the habitation of the plains produced equals, nor did those whom the impassable regions embraced, unless they became suppliants, remove themselves from plunder in your possession. A man without fear revealed his wealth, nor did he invite rebellion if he became known as poor: no one was removed from your anger except by humility, and he who asked advanced into the number of allies. The cold of Scythia is not unknown to you, nor do you, as another possessor of the world, ignore Meroë or the Cancer burning with heat: you learned, by subduing everything, what has scarcely become known to us by hearing. These things are indeed greater than man: but he who is prepared for the governance of the world must necessarily come instructed in all its regions. I have seized upon the time of mature praise too swiftly, and as if the river of even a torrential genius does not fail in its beginnings, so through a hunger for narrative I have invaded the fruits of a perfected age.

He seeks the ranks of laurels who is both surpassed by their speed and by their number. More quickly, most invincible one, were the insignia which we have recounted fulfilled by you than they can be spoken. Who could endure sluggishness in the narration of his deeds, which he did not endure in action? Greece, prescient of the future, educated you in the bosom of civility: it instructed you as you entered the threshold of life in such a way that, while it still had cheerfulness from the boy, soon security from the guardian followed it. You were still in the white bloom of adolescence, and the milky stalk before experience had not yet brought forth the harvest of virtues; still the image of youth was pleasing, and the down did not clothe your face: when the purple of your age and the little flower of the coming empire promised terror to the anxious about a change of favor, at the moment when, for the testing of your strength and clemency, fury burst forth, having broken its chains, and subjugated minds long lacerated by quiet with the fodder of opportunity. Reverence was immediately driven from the principal city, and a tyrant, summoned by no blood, yielded into empty possession, who, having seized the court, defined that, after he had conquered his enemies by fear, nothing remained for him to do: the light of nature impelled your spirit, without the support of years, so that neither would the better cause lie prostrate with you present, nor would you fail to return in time of necessity the benefit which you had received in peace. At the very gates of your encounter, the invader yielded, when the scepter was restored through you to the fugitive who was doubtful of his safety.

Let us sift through histories, let the annals be questioned: with whom did it stand that a throne, bought by the blood of a born king, was poured back to an exile? The glory of the camp is dispersed by the participation of the squadrons and cannot be attributed to one man when it has come from the contribution of many. The fruit of a singular good is the restraint of ambition, especially at that time when you can retain what you have acquired without damage to your reputation. By you, illustrious lord, praise looks upon a diadem both given and defended. If the ruler of those parts did not love you, he was a defeated man who presided over the republic; if he loved you, he was beholden. You made use of a purple-clad witness to the merits of your loyalty. Even then the palaces themselves had transferred into your right: no one believed that you could not transfer to whomever you wished what you had restored. But sparing in demanding rewards, as if they sufficed for the requital of your deeds, you accepted the fasces, not so that genius might come to you from the curule chair, but so that the palmata might earn its price from you. Who would believe that this civility lives among your intimates with the full execution of virtue? That year had a consul who protected the republic not so much by anxiety as by reputation, when, placed in the striped robe, the arms that had been taken from the enemy trembled. When did such a man fall to the lot of the elector, as the examined brilliance of kings from the very infancy of the world has given? I do not wish to wander through the vicissitudes of dominions: in your lineage those who were found have been proven.

Serranus was produced for the Scipios by plows, who, while entrusting great seeds to the furrows, had a harvest of honors spring up for him. But I care less for successes that take their beginning from desperation: it has scarcely befallen a few to degenerate nobly, whereas you owe it to your family to preserve the deeds of your lineage nobly. Why, antiquity, do you throw in my face rustic limbs adorned with military cloaks? I, in turn, set against you—something that surpasses wonder—my prince, born in such a way that he cannot be disapproved, and acting as if he were still seeking to be joined among emperors. But what am I to do, when the fertile crop of your deeds meets me, where all things surpass one who chooses? I do not know which ears of grain I should bring to the granaries, which I should leave behind. Before my eyes stands the leader of the Bulgars, laid low by your right hand asserting freedom, neither killed, lest he perish as a monument, nor untouched, lest he live for arrogance, in an untamed people a domestic witness destined to survive as a proof of your strength: if he had received a wound sufficient for death, you would have conquered the man; because he remained in the light, he subdued his origin. This is the nation before which, before you, everything it wished was its own, in which a man gained titles who bought rank with the blood of enemies, among whom the field is the revealer of birth (for the one whose weapons reddened more in battle is without doubt considered the more noble), which before your battle had never known a resisting foe, which for long ages completed wars with a single charge.

These are not held in check by mountain barriers, by the interposition of rivers, by the denial of the means of subsistence reduced to the straits of necessity by law, while they believe it is enough to drink the milk of a horse's herd as a delicacy. For why should one bear an adversary who runs and feeds by the benefit of a swift beast? What of the fact that they impose upon those animals a patience for studied hunger, through which they have learned to avoid hunger? How does it happen that the rider of a fasting steed extracts food from its entrails, which it, by the instruction of diligence, foresaw it would not store? Before this, the world was believed to be open to them: now they consider only that part of the world closed to them which you protect. I pass over many things in my hunger, lest, by the fault of a slower style, you arrive late, and the Roman torch of the curia, long forced into shadow, shine forth too tardily. Between the first campaigns of life and the maturity of triumphs, celestial favor poured into the sacred breast our affection. Already the powerful land had grown old through the cost of prolonged peace, due to the worthlessness of its rulers: already unbroken peace had brought a decline to public wealth, when among us, the increase of daily plunder, with successes, produced an internal despoiler who, prodigal of his own, demanded that the treasury's growth arise not so much from taxes as from robberies: while the poor master raged in ambition, he had contracted hatred by his outpouring, but neither was the strength that diminished opulence joined to the affection of wealth.

Then the narrowness of the court pressed private affairs into a tight space, and the extinguished tyrant's tinder had allowed no sparks of servitude to glimmer anywhere. The armies feared the parents whom another's honor reminded of their own origin: for he commanded legions to come at his nod and to return, chilled with fear. For obedience that serves the unworthy is suspect, and whenever the consciousness of the lowest lineage overtakes those set in authority, they fear what they themselves cause to be feared. A cause for discord arose happily among you, when Roman prosperity invited rebellious spirits to the slaughter of your relatives; a reason for fighting was generated by the weak, and so that no confidence might come even from a perishing enterprise, a part of the fugitives stirred up battles. Then, with forces mustered far and wide by your warning, a single nation, scattered among countless peoples, is drawn together, as the whole world migrates with you to Ausonia: no one except a parent undertook the journey; wagons were taken in place of roofs, and all that would serve necessity flowed together into unstable homes. Then the arms of Ceres and stones that loosen grain for oxen were dragged along; mothers burdened with offspring, forgetful of their sex and weight, labored among your households under the care of procuring sustenance. Then, in the field, winter and the hair veiled with the whiteness of constant frosts entangled the beard with icicles, possessing the locks. For the garment the matron had more carefully woven, as the frost endured, was broken so that it adhered to the body. Your columns were fed either by undevoted nations or by wild beasts raised in lairs.

Amid these things, which yielded to you whether with ice or heat, it pleases me to touch briefly upon one line of your struggle. The Ulca is a river, the protection of the Gepids, which, in place of ramparts, fortifies the bold and, like mountain ridges, embraces a broad expanse of the province with certain walls that no battering ram can shatter. To this river the rigor of your path led you, where, in place of ambassadors and a request for favor, a people long unconquered hastened with a spirit of resistance, even as the necessity of famine almost besieged your cohorts before the enemy. Tell me, most clement lord, what hope, besides you, remained in a people comparable to sand or stars? With the Gepids pressing and the river a pestilential path, which a fleeing man would have avoided, you crossed over swords drawn from their scabbards: no one's unaware footsteps stuck in the mire; no one, prodigal of life, rushed into danger unknowingly. The authority of the human mind is overcome by foresight of danger; the courage of the brave falters whenever terrors are thrust before their eyes. Before your unconquered youth stood a certain choice of deaths, while no security regarding safety seemed to exist. Why have you extolled Cato, ancient records, because he led an army through the Libyan Syrtes, making a mockery of human deaths by serpents, or when he experienced the cold of poison from the vapors of the sky, a chill bred without the price of virtue? No one ever saw a water-snake before destruction, while through the prodigious stream, as souls are wont from the body's fabric, it would fly forth into the breezes.

not with the praise of a brave man does he perish who knows not from whence his downfall comes. Nor is the courage of that soldier to be compared with your ranks, nor is the wisdom equal in a leader. The madness of civil war drove him; you were demanded by Rome, the mistress of the world, for the restoration of her own state. But why do I delay what favorable outcome has presented to you? They yielded, those whom the farther bank had received, to the densest throngs of your enemies. Those whom the abyss or the onslaught did not hold were pressed by weapons: the lance, driven by stronger arms, pierced the hungry wickerwork of their chests, when, amid shipwrecks on land and waves of blood, the most invincible leader appeared, fortifying those present with such a speech: "Whoever desires a path in the enemy line, follow me: let no one look to another who seeks an example of fighting. Courage does not require a multitude: wars go to few, the fruits of wars to many. The army will be judged by me, and in what I accomplish, the nation triumphs. Raise the standards, through which it is provided that I not be hidden: let them know whom to attack or at whose throats to rest. Those who encounter my attack shall be ennobled by their destruction." With these words, the cup demanded a drink for the auspice, and with reins loosened for battle, he poured forth. As a torrent devastates crops, as a lion devastates herds, you laid waste, and no one who met you stood firm, nor could anyone escape the pursuer. You were borne through all, with weapons now failing, yet anger still growing. Immediately the condition of the Gepids was changed: they appeared scattered, the victors with their fortune reversed.

For you, venerable one, who had seized the taste of battle unattended, advanced surrounded by thousands. The enemy multitude was cut down, until the approaching night snatched away a few, while the troops came to the scattered granaries filled with the cities' supplies, which not only satisfied necessity but also relieved the surfeit of delights. Thus adversity served your successes, and the enemy's raid fought against the hunger of your men: hostile engagement conquered famine, and you would not have returned to health, if contests had been lacking. Let these matters, set in order from countless deeds, suffice. I pass over the Sarmatians migrating with their encampments, and I pass over in silence the numbered populace of conflicts from your trophies. I encounter you with my ruler, Odovacar, who had roused all nations against him as if a shaker of the world. So many kings had gathered with you for war as the general populace could scarcely sustain as soldiers: it was discovered that the minds of a heaped-up multitude are diverse, and that hope of victory does not come from numbers. Still, the right hands of your men were trembling from the previous slaughter, and the weakness of limbs did not accomplish the desired onslaught: yet one will suffices for strength, and undivided counsel brought vengeance from the enemy's position of strength. Not camps long fortified, not deep rivers held you back: it was granted to your enemies to build a rampart, not to defend it.

Suddenly the flight of the fugitives shrouded the plains, through which you imposed upon the departing ones that the domestic storm was to be overcome; meanwhile, your ranks completed the battle by their very appearance, not by effort. There, fortune unlocked the doors for you, openly revealing that those who had yielded in the first position would not remain in the second struggle, but their wandering mind, in its self-deception, again prepared a conflict, while at your Verona he set the place for war: with slack hands, battle was being prepared at great expense. Nothing was stronger than your adversaries before the line, but when the war trumpets sounded, nothing was weaker: the greatest valor in the promise of combat, and if their tongue sufficed for their right hands, there was an abundance of words. A site was chosen for the location, not so much useful for engagement as for terror, ensuring that the first defection of the deserters would not be attributed to chance. And yet the bright fortune of the republic pressed on, lest you abandon what you had begun. Having measured the intervals of your journey, you saw the enemy fires gleaming like stars, so that if fear had ever been known to you, you would have learned to hang on the brink. Never was the state of your mind either swollen with the pride of success or resigned in uncertainty. The day of battle was at hand, which would bring darkness to many. When first the dawn, with its saffron chariot, announced the rising of the sun, when the sun's flame rose from the waters of the ocean, the hoarse trumpet was already sounding, and the army, forgetful of itself, was seeking you.

While you were enclosing your chest with steel defenses, while you were arming your greaves, while the sword, the avenger of liberty, was being fitted to your side—your holy mother and venerable sister, who had come to you out of devotion, while feminine anxiety hung between hope and fear, while, astonished at the outcome, they fed upon the star of your face—you strengthened them with such words: "You know, mother, that by the honor of your offspring you are known to all nations, that at the time of my birth you bore a man in your fertility: this is the day on which the sex of your son shall be proclaimed by the field. It must be done with weapons, lest the glories of my ancestors perish through me. We strive in vain for the titles of our parents unless we are aided by our own deeds. Before my eyes stands my father, of whom fortune never made a mockery in battle, who, when his health demanded it, himself produced favorable outcomes. One must contend under a leader who did not fear uncertain omens, but himself summoned favorable ones. Yet you, bring the elaborate garments and the torments of the looms; let the battle line receive me more polished than festivals are accustomed to: let him who has not known me by my onslaught judge me by my splendor; let the honor of my attire invite the eyes of the eager; let a more precious appearance display the one about to strike; let there be solace for the labor to whom, Fortune, you have granted my throat; let those who have not chanced to see me fighting gape at the splendor of the fallen." With these words, the war-horse, restless with the desires of the trumpets, received you on its back. But while you indulged in speeches, the enemy legions were pressing upon your troops.

You gave confidence to the inactive while you delayed, and I believe this was by the providence of the heavenly ones, lest the credit for your victory be owed to the multitude. Immediately your arrival was announced to the enemies by the crowd of the slain: the enormity of the slaughter betrayed the avenger. But they were not without their usual remedies. At once they took to the wings that fear grants, choosing a swift death over the fear of death in their headlong flight. Let him who does not know me to be obedient to the truth look upon the waves of the Atesis, which were made rich by your slaughter with corpses, and while you were swelling the torrents with blood, on another side the rush of the waters was halted. Thus, lest you not suffice for the swords, the water fought for you as well. Hail, most splendid of rivers, which washed away the filth of Italy for the greater part, receiving the dregs of the world without loss of purity. Behold, that field covered with armed men shone forth, most noble in the whiteness of human bones: we have something to protect whenever we are pressed by the memory of an old grief. Let the earth preserve this most beautiful spectacle. Let what they suffered remain sublime as long as oblivion erases what they did. O would that it were not permitted for ravenous beasts to snatch something away; the spectacle, which the thefts of wild beasts have acquired, perishes from the desirable sight.

There I would wish that you, Rome, forgetful of your age, might come. If you came, trembling on faltering steps, your years would exchange joys. Why are you always shut up, immersed in your temples? This has been done so that you have more consuls than you formerly saw candidates. Acknowledge the clemency of your master: he wished you to taste the savor of triumphs, and chose that you be ignorant of the doubtful outcomes of battles. Behold again, the portion of the enemy destined for death ran to a surrender already known to them, and although the falling exceeded the number, yet the gleaming armed bands came together for servitude. Your mind, always inclined to mercy, was bent: you believed that they would become accustomed to good faith through the compulsion of necessity, which they had never shown through a conciliating zeal to princes. It preserved you, especially among kings, that you cast aside the security of a pledge in reliance on a promise. We hung in anxiety, lest those whom you had received from among your enemies not deserve to perish. Thanks be to you, God, arbiter of the world, who drove consciences possessed by ancient error to avenging swords. I would be ashamed to recount your innate gentleness, did I not see it compliant with your praises. Why do I dissemble in pursuing the deeds? It pleased them, as you stretched out an unarmed right hand, to promise again the kingdoms of Odoacer. The error of the hostile minds became known at once, the matters having been brought to light. You summoned providence, the companion of your deeds, and lest the license of the roving ones go unpunished, shaking the banners of vengeance, you made the already proven people participants in your secret plans.

It happened that you recognized no adversary, because the greater part of the world was arranging itself with you. A bond of desire was established through the most separated regions. Who, besides divine will, brought it about that the long-standing calamity of the Roman name, gathered by the wickedness of ages, was poured out in a single moment of time? Here I do not know where to turn. Shall I give thanks, I who have undertaken the office of a panegyrist, or shall I enter upon the path of your praises already seized? The matter is finished by a prosperous and fated war: Odovacer's presumption was cut down, after it happened that he was not helped by his deceit. Why should I mention the scattered bands of the Heruli? They were led against you so that here they might recognize whom they should fear even in their own lands: another's madness drove the causes of your long peace. I am silent about where a lasting peace was imposed upon you, Burgundian, when you obeyed the treaties so that it is reckoned that you live at leisure from constancy, not from fear—also that which one who suffers, skilled in knowledge, might endure: that we saw the weapons of the faithless and hostile battle lines, concurring with each other by the good of your fortune, fall in a pious conflict while you were occupied with other matters? How often did he who had taken up vows to fight against you conquer for you? Let Frideric speak, who, after he violated his faith, accompanied your enemies in their destruction, shaking arms against those with whom he had been joined in error, when discord arose among the wicked over this: that they understood they wanted one thing.

Let divinity be present and extend its benefits into eternity, by whose arrangement the desired disputes occurred among the guilty. For Fridericus, after he had completed his triumph over your adversaries, offered from himself... A great portion of venerable merits draws me to another part. I see that an unexpected beauty has come to the ashes of cities and that, under the fullness of civility, palace roofs gleam everywhere. I see buildings completed before I could have known they were planned. That very mother of cities, Rome, grows young by cutting away the withered limbs of old age. Pardon me, sacred rites of the Lupercal genius: it is greater to conquer decline than to have given beginnings. To this is added that you have veiled the crown of the curia with an innumerable flower. No one whom a good conscience has aided in supplication has been touched by despair over honors: he who, splendid in merits though poor, has not begged knows no doubt about the outcome of his request. Either we are good by our own resolve or we are shaped by your example. The resources of the republic have grown along with the gains of private citizens: nowhere in your court is there ambition, and everywhere there is a diffusion of wealth; no one departs ungifted, and no one laments the hardships of proscription. Your embassies possess immortal vigor: you arrange the order of instructions before you see the ambassadors, and no contraries are found in your replies, nor does an easy resolution occur for objections.

The opinion of a prince stands guard for his years: the care of a great king protects our leisure, yet you do not cease to extend your concerns far and wide, building fortresses. In you there is neither lacking the security of a brave man nor the caution of one who fears. O twin fullness of virtues in a single prince, which reveals God as the author, because it has no one among men from whom it seems to have taken what it displays. But behold, after solid peace we again call our words back to battle lines: again the trumpet summons eloquence. The city of Sirmium was once the frontier of Italy, where the elder lords kept watch, lest the accumulated wounds of neighboring peoples from there rush into the Roman body. Later, through the neglect of its rulers, it passed into the rights of the Gepids, from whence daily insult and disorderly frequency of embassies were sent. The deceitful flatteries of a contrived scheme burned the prince’s spirit, and the untimely familiarity of Trasericus with the other Gepids, whose leader is Gunderith. You believed that you were perishing in your own injury, because it was long permitted that the possession of Italy be retained while you ruled, and the consolation was not sufficient that you had not lost it, when the grief was immense as to why the retainer had not returned it at the beginning of your dominion. You consider that what does not increase the empire diminishes it.

After the schemes of Trasericus were clearly revealed, however, you dispatched the most noble Goths, Pitzia and Herduic, along with a youth not yet dedicated to any battles, so that, if he should acquiesce to the terms offered, he might once and for all take possession of the invaded territory by his own decision. But the habit of inconstancy served your good fortune: he fled of his own accord, without any pressure from your army, abandoning what he ought to have held. Immediately Pitzia, who had both derived useful outcomes from you and weighed the import of your counsels, believed that the land was not acquired but restored, and he did not plunder it with raids as if for profit, but preserved it through careful administration as if his own. While they were establishing order there, through the meddling of the federate Mundo, Greece professed discord, bringing along with him his Bulgars under his protection, with whom, in the clashes of Mars, she threatens, using them as a fortress. Then Mundo, believing it sufficient for his defense if your cohorts should learn what he was suffering, entrusted the credibility of his peril to swift messengers, who saw the defenders enter the contests on his behalf before they had learned to prepare. Yet when Pitzia from a distance observed the untamed youth of the Bulgars, he armed the burning onsets of the young men with the greater fires of his words: "Remember, comrades, under whose command you have traveled to these places: let no one believe that our king's eyes are absent, for whose renown we must fight: even if a rain of spears should cover the sky, he who hurls a weapon more bravely would not remain hidden.

Plunge your breasts into the iron, so that from the horror of life a manifest hope of victory may come. I believe that a witness of royal strength is already dead, and that no one survives who was accustomed to point out to them what master we have. Or perhaps they disdain to judge our people from the prince; let them understand that what we bear has flowed from him, and that it is not permitted for them to owe to only one person what our ruler has transmitted to our origin." These words changed the trumpets: immediately, as a black cloud is wont to roar with the crackling rush of storms over roofs, so the war-host threw itself headlong into the fray. For a long time the balance of the conflict wavered uncertainly, while equal harshness of fighting arose from both sides. Two nations clashed, for whom flight had never come to their aid among swords: they marveled to find each other similar and to see in the human race either Goths resisting or Bulgars. Meanwhile, while the fortune of the battle was doubtful and winged deaths claimed the heavens for themselves, the memory of our prince prevailed, as they acted so that the field might assert the merits of each man before him. The nation was turned to flight, punished more severely because it escaped: the earth, stirred, trembled with the concussion of horses; they hastened with great lamentation, after they saw that they were not in doubt about their safety. God, arbiter of the heavens, multiply the gifts conferred.

those who were never doubtful of triumphs, those whom the whole world looked up to, depart with their war standards lost and struck by the enemy's safety, shouting three and four times blessed those whom it befell to die. Why should I recount the slaughter of soldiers and the most shameful retreat of the general Sabinianus, since it is contrary to reason to unfold what happened to the defenseless after the loss of their protectors? Then—lest he be divided from the celebration of the ages—Pitzia served not so much for glory as for greed; he left the toil of the field to wild beasts and birds, when he ordered the hungry soldier to strip nothing from the rich corpses. But with what tongues can these things be sufficiently explained? By what endowment of eloquence can they be unlocked? For a long time you conquered in all your engagements; now you begin to have victors in your service. Meanwhile, the Roman realms have returned to their frontier: commands were given to the Sirmians in the ancient manner. Through your proximity, those who until now held our possessions are uncertain about their own. Why should I recount the chastised plunderings of the Vandals, whose parent winds are such that your friendship suffices as an annual tribute? Under the guidance of wisdom, they do not know how to stray beyond their capacity: they have deserved to be neighbors because they do not refuse to obey.

I have set forth these things from the heap of your deeds, more by wish than by eloquence, touching upon them briefly, leaving untouched better things. I shall see who may surpass me in eloquence: no one will be able to surpass you in affection. You have this gentleness, inspired by God, that you believe yourself able to achieve more through love than through fear. Excellent qualities are embedded in the monuments of your glory, so that, while kings fear you, your servants love you: for whatever you command to be given from the strength of your subjects, you believe can be denied. O king composed in all tranquility, who charges to our devotion what we expend in servitude! What of the fact that the whole of Alamannia has been enclosed by you within the borders of Italy without detriment to Roman possession, to which it has happened to have a king after it deserved to have lost one? The Latin guardian of the empire, always raging with the plundering of our people, has become such that it happily yielded to have fled its own homeland: for thus it has gained the opulence of our soil. You have acquired lands which know how to rest under the plow. Although it has not happened to be ignorant of losses, under you we have seen the best outcomes arise from adversity and the mother of opportunity become the occasion of danger. The liberated land rejoices, dwelling in a territory which until now emerged from gaping dwellings by the benefit of a more solid rush.

It was also fitting that you should spur eloquence with the rewards of praise, lest we lose your triumphs through silence. The industry of no art ceases: the skilled craftsman, wherever he may hide, is sought out; the magistrate, even if he has lived far away, will be demanded by the one who deserves him; the man whom innocence has betrayed is never concealed, since, as a subtle judge, you are not appeased by voice but by deeds. The good deeds of our parents who have fallen in your service are preserved: to whomever your mercy’s trust has become known, you will soon refund to the offspring, by right of inheritance, what you owed to the originator. We reap the fruit of our ancestors’ services, and yet we do not fear punishment for their transgressions. Moderate indignation ends with the man, while your piety seeks a successor for the sake of recompense. Many things still remain that I might say, but among the many heralds of your deeds it is fitting that something untouched be reserved. The venerable studies owe it to you that they speak. Your predecessors loved ignorance, because they never did anything praiseworthy; the most eloquent man was of no account among the ploughs, and what skill had given, force denied; the tribunals mourned in silence for a speechless advocate, and no palm was granted to the speaker. The outcome of affairs wavered by chance, when genius was not granted to letters; everywhere a single grief had crushed talents, because leisure was wearing away the resources of the eloquent; neglectful idleness possessed the pomp of the elders, and the recruit was not kindled by the emulation to be pursued. Behold the riches of your age: then the courts scarcely had perfect speakers; now the church directs the panegyrist.

Now let antiquity boast with its buskined tales of Alexander, to whom the abundance of fame was born from the endowment of speakers, so that through the aid of eloquence mendicant praise might seem to grow beyond the facts. Our king’s merits do not require the solace of a proclaimer: they are less than his true deeds, even though the deeds of the ancients have been augmented by lies. You poets have feigned great things, but it befits you to confess that the present lord has accomplished greater. The Pellaean commander wished the sum of his own praises to rest on the favor of Choerilus, lest the multitude detect his desire to deceive and the one summoned to attest his victory become a witness to his shamelessness. I detract nothing from our elders, whom antiquity would have held as preeminent, had not the raising of the Roman name given us you. That man, ignorant of true religion, was held by the mother of error, ignorance; you, a worshiper of the highest God, were instructed by life-giving teaching from the very threshold of light. You never attribute to your own labors what favorable outcome has offered; you know that care lies in you, but the substance of perfection rests with God; you act so that you may deserve to obtain success, but when you have gained everything, you ascribe it to the Author; you display a prince in strength, vigilance, and prosperity, a priest in gentleness. Why did our ancestors vainly call divine and pontiffs those to whom scepters were granted? It is unique to fulfill the most holy through deeds and not to bear the venerable names.

Let my king be rightly called Alamannicus, but let him be called so by others: let him live a life divine from the fruit of his conscience and not seek the bare titles of boastful ostentation, in whose character the flatteries of ancestors serve truth. I confess I would wish, at the end of my speech, to descend, overcome by the enormity of your deeds, and to pass over new triumphs, dulled by the light of the ancients. Just as, if I had wished to reduce the ornaments of the celestial axis to number and, having grasped the splendor of the constellations, to describe the beauty of the sky with an incapable tongue, mortal darkness would yield to divine brightness, the humble spark of words would not suffice for the lamp of the sun: this condition declares me unequal, which has testified to me as obedient. For with what mouth is that to be celebrated, that you guard the instruments of Gothic strength, while you provide that our leisure not be interrupted, and you cause the untamed youth under your eyes amid the goods of tranquility to practice wars? The victorious troops still remain in the solidity of their strength, and others have already grown: their arms are hardened by missiles and they fulfill the action of the brave while they play: it is conducted as a spectacle which in time to come will be able to suffice for valor. While boyish minds twist pliant shafts, while bows direct the daily deaths of heads farther, the whole city boundary is worn down by the image of conflict: the pretense of battles is carried on, so that real ones may not arise with danger.

Who would believe that one breast could suffice for this: to conquer in untamed campaigns through battles and to act with counsel, so that no cause for fighting arises? We find that Rutilius and Manlius, by their provident governance, brought about a gladiatorial contest for the people, so that the populace, long possessed of peace within the theater’s curved seats, might learn what happens on the battle line. But then, with hands idle, allied deaths were vainly thrust before the eyes. Those institutions born of cruelty are never good: to arm minds against enemies, they first saw the destruction of their own. Meanwhile, that contest—as the outcome taught—did not so much produce increases in strength as in fear: amid successes, the unwarlike spirit learned what to dread. Observe the differences in inventions, running on a full course far apart: for them, a real outpouring of blood removed spirits from fighting; here, the vigor of youths blazed up from the image of a feigned contest—youths whom an early age taught to have as many enemy deaths stored up as they had arrows, not accustomed through foreign excursions to waste quivers carelessly nor to hurl manifest destruction into the winds, but to exact as many lives as the spears they brandish.

But among your martial successes, by which you instruct everyone and secure favorable omens for victory, you reserve nothing for the sweetness of civility. Who would believe that your heroes do not reject foreign fear, while they are calm? For among battle lines, an untamed law restrains their natures: they bow their necks to commands after laurels, and once the enemy ranks are trampled, the decrees to which their arms yielded hold sway. You alone are composed by merit and nature, whose magnanimous commands they follow. Origin indeed made you a lord, but virtue asserted the scepter; the splendor of your lineage won it for you, but if its insignia were lacking, your mind would have chosen you as prince. Nor is the beauty of your form to be counted among the least things, when the purple of a royal face radiates the dignity of office. Display, Seres, your garments, which you dye with precious murex, and extend coverings that drink nobility from more than one vat: let a garland be woven from multicolored gems, and let the stone which a more violent viper guards come forth—whatever ornaments the world, in obeisance, has sent, they will shine more brightly, adorned by the genius of a venerable body. Your stature is such that it reveals a ruler by its length: the snow of your cheeks harmonizes with a blush: your eyes flourish with constant serenity: your hands are worthy to bestow destruction upon rebels and the fulfillment of honors upon subjects. Let no one boast of a misplaced attribute, because what diadems do in other lords, in my king nature, with God as craftsman, has accomplished.

They make those who are conspicuous by so many resources of wealth, but this one, produced by a simple and immutable form, is better. Why do those who desire to obtain a foreign beauty labor with cultivation? The ruler of Italy gathers into friendship two most diverse things, so that he may be, in anger, incomparably lightning-like, in joy, cloudlessly beautiful. With a face at rest, he either promises peace with a gentle expression to the envoys of nations, or war with a terrible one. You are composed of such great distinctions as, if distributed individually, would make men perfect. But would that the golden age's goodness might amplify the purple-clad offspring from you! Would that the heir to the kingdom might play in your bosom! So that these offerings of words which we present to you, a sacred little one might demand from us with the testimony of similar joys! Behold, fulfilling my debt and having obeyed my duty, I have concluded my speech with a prayer.