Note 512 — Chapter XV · THE COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF TEUTONIC AND GREEK HEROIC POETRY.

As illustrations of the barbarities associated with warfare of this type we may refer to the speech of Theodric, king of the Franks, given by Gregory, III 7, and to the behaviour of Theodberht's army in Italy, recorded by Procopius (Goth. II 25). At such a time the atrocities which Greek tradition relates in connection with the fall of Troy would have caused little comment. Yet the early heroic poems give less evidence even than the Homeric poems for cruelty of this kind.