[Footnote 87: Rex avidus communis exitii, &c., (Boethius, l. i.
p. 59:) rex colum Romanis tendebat, (Anonym. Vales. p. 723.)
These are hard words: they speak the passions of the Italians and
those (I fear) of Theodoric himself.]
[Footnote !: Gibbon should not have omitted the golden words of
Theodoric in a letter which he addressed to Justin: That to
pretend to a dominion over the conscience is to usurp the
prerogative of God; that by the nature of things the power of
sovereigns is confined to external government; that they have no
right of punishment but over those who disturb the public peace,
of which they are the guardians; that the most dangerous heresy
is that of a sovereign who separates from himself a part of his
subjects because they believe not according to his belief.
Compare Le Beau, vol viii. p. 68. - M]
[Footnote 88: I have labored to extract a rational narrative from
the dark, concise, and various hints of the Valesian Fragment,
(p. 722, 723, 724,) Theophanes, (p. 145,) Anastasius, (in
Johanne, p. 35,) and the Hist Miscella, (p. 103, edit. Muratori.)
A gentle pressure and paraphrase of their words is no violence.
Consult likewise Muratori (Annali d' Italia, tom. iv. p. 471 -
478,) with the Annals and Breviary (tom. i. p. 259 - 263) of the
two Pagis, the uncle and the nephew.]

The senator Boethius ^89 is the last of the Romans whom Cato
or Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman. As a
wealthy orphan, he inherited the patrimony and honors of the
Anician family, a name ambitiously assumed by the kings and
emperors of the age; and the appellation of Manlius asserted his
genuine or fabulous descent from a race of consuls and dictators,
who had repulsed the Gauls from the Capitol, and sacrificed their