Volume Ii Part 4 (1/2)
She heard Theodahad hastily descend the staircase, and call for his litter.
”Fly, fly! thou miserable coward!” she cried, ”I will remain here!”
CHAPTER XII.
Splendidly rose the sun out of the sea the next morning. Its beams glittered upon the s.h.i.+ning weapons of many thousand Gothic warriors, who crowded the wide levels of Regeta.
From all the provinces of the kingdom they had hastened by groups, in families, often with wife and child, to be present at the great muster which took place every autumn.
Such an a.s.sembly was at once a splendid feast, and the highest national solemnity. Originally, in heathen times, its immediate intention had been the grand feast of sacrifice, which, twice a year, at the winter and the summer solstice, had united all branches of the nation in honour of their common G.o.ds; to this were added a market and exchange of goods, exercises of arms, and the review of the army. The a.s.sembly had the power of the highest jurisdiction, and the final decision as to peace, war, and political relations with other states.
And even now, in the Christian time, when the King had acquired many a right which once belonged to the people, the National a.s.sembly possessed a high solemnity, although its ancient heathen significance was forgotten.
The remains of the old liberties of the people, which even the powerful Theodoric had not contested, revived under his weak descendants.
A majority of free Goths had still to p.r.o.nounce sentence, and to award punishment, even though the King's Earl conducted the proceedings in his name, and fulfilled the sentence.
Often already had Germanic nations themselves accused, judged, and executed their kings, on account of treachery, murder, or other heavy crimes, before a Free a.s.sembly of the people.
In the proud consciousness that he was his own master, and served none, not even the King, beyond the limit of freedom, the German went in full armour to the ”Ting,” where he felt himself safe and strong in union with his fellows, and saw the liberties, strength, and honour of himself and his countrymen represented in living pictures before his eyes.
To the a.s.sembly of which we now speak, the Goths had been attracted by peculiarly strong reasons. When the summons to meet at Regeta was published, the war with Byzantium was expected or already declared; the nation rejoiced at the coming struggle with their hated enemy, and were glad to muster their forces beforehand. This time the a.s.sembly was to be, more than ever, a grand review.
Besides this, most of the Goths in the adjacent places knew that judgment was to be pa.s.sed on the murderers of the daughter of Theodoric, and the great excitement caused by this treacherous act had also contributed to draw the people to Regeta.
While a portion of those a.s.sembled had been received by friends and relatives in the nearest villages, great numbers had--already some days before the formal opening of the a.s.sembly--encamped in light tents and huts upon the wide plain, two hundred and eighty stadii distant from Rome.
At the earliest dawn of day these groups were already in noisy movement, and employed the time during which they were yet masters of the place, in various games and pastimes.
Some swam and bathed in the clear waters of the rapid river Ufen (or ”Decemnovius,” thus named because it flowed into the sea at Terracina, nineteen miles off), which crossed the plain. Others displayed their skill in leaping over whole rows of outstretched spears, or, almost naked, in dancing amid brandished swords, while others again--and these the fleetest-footed--clinging to the manes of their horses, kept step with their swiftest gallop, and when arrived at the goal, securely swung themselves upon their unsaddled backs.
”What a pity,” cried young Gudila, who was the first to arrive at the goal in one of these races, and now stroked his yellow locks out of his eyes, ”what a pity that Totila is not present! He is the best rider in the nation, and has always beaten me. But now, with this horse, I would try again with him.”
”I am glad that he is not here,” said Gunthamund, who had arrived second, ”else I had scarcely won the first prize in hurling the lance yesterday.”
”Yes,” said Hilderich, a stately young warrior in a jingling suit of mail, ”Totila is clever at the lance. But black Teja throws still better; he can tell you beforehand which rib he will hit.”
”Pshaw!” grumbled Hunibad, an elderly man, who had looked critically at the performance of the youths, ”all that is only play. In b.l.o.o.d.y earnest the sword is the only weapon that serves a man at the last, when death so presses on him from all sides that he has no s.p.a.ce for throwing. And for that I praise Earl Witichis, of Faesulae! He is _my_ man! What a breaking of skulls was there in the war with the Gepidae!
The man cleaved through steel and leather as if it were dry straw! He is still more valiant than my own duke, Guntharis the Wolfung, in Florentia. But what do you youngsters know about it?--Look! the first arrivals are coming down the hill. Up! let us go to meet them!”
And now people came streaming in on all the roads; on foot, on horseback, and in wagons. A noisy and turbulent crowd filled all the plain.
On the sh.o.r.es of the river, where stood most of the tents, the horses were unharnessed, and the wagons pushed together to form a barricade.
Through the lanes of the camp the ever-increasing crowd now streamed.
There friends and acquaintances, who had not met for years, sought and greeted each other.
It was a gay and chequered scene, for the old Germanic equality had long since disappeared from the kingdom.
There stood near the aristocratic n.o.ble, who had settled in one of the rich Italian towns, who lived in the palaces of senatorial families, and had adopted the more luxuriant and polite customs of the Italians; near the duke or earl from Mediolanum or Ticinum, who wore a shoulder-belt of purple silk across his richly-gilt armour; near such a dainty lord towered some rough, gigantic Gothic peasant, who lived in the thick oak-forests on the Margus in M[oe]sia, or who had fought the wolf in the forests by the rus.h.i.+ng [OE]nus for the ragged skin which he carried over his bear-like shoulders, and whose harsh-sounding speech struck strangely on the ear of his half-Romanised companion.