Note 675 — BOOK X.

'Ut per eum disceremus acceptum vobis esse quod in hac republicâ constat evenisse.' At first sight this seems to refer to the death of Amalasuentha or to the accession of Theodahad. Dahn thinks that those events have been disposed of in previous letters. Perhaps it is a general expression for 'the whole course of recent events in Italy.' Though upon the whole rejecting the story of Theodora's complicity in the death of Amalasuentha, I am bound to admit that this passage lends a certain amount of probability to the charge. At the same time, the words in the next sentence, 'per divinam providentiam omni suspicione detersâ,' are susceptible of an honourable meaning, even if the death of Amalasuentha be alluded to. 'You and your husband accused us of that crime. Now by God's providence we have been able to show that we were guiltless of it [that it was done without our privity by the relations of the three Gothic nobles whom she had put to death]. Nothing therefore remains to hinder peace between us.'