The Goths were right when they asked what had
ever come out of Greece save mimes and pirates; land-thieves they
might have added, for what else were the generals of Justinian with
their pillaging hordes? They dared to speak of the Goths as
barbarians--these Herules, Isaurians, Huns, Armenians, and
Teutons!--of the Goths, whose pride it had so long been to defend
Roman civilisation, and even to restore the Roman edifices. What
commander among them could compare with Totila, brave, just,
generous?
'By the Holy Mother!' he cried, with a great gesture, 'if I were not
wedded to a wife I love, who has borne me already three boys as
healthy as wolf cubs, I would follow your example, O Basil, and take
to myself a blue-eyed daughter of that noble race. They are
heretics, why yes, but as far as I can make out they pray much as I
do, and by heaven's grace may yet be brought to hold the truth as to
the Three-in-One. When they had the power, did they meddle with our
worship? Let every man believe as he list, say I, so that he believe
sincerely, and trust God against the devil.
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