Note (return) — Chapter XIII

More important than these old wives' fables was the changed attitude and the wavering loyalty of the Roman Senate. From the remarks made in an earlier chapter, 128 it will be clear that a conscientious Roman citizen might truly feel that he owed a divided allegiance to the Ostrogoth, his ruler de facto, and to the Augustus at Constantinople, his sovereign de jure. Through the years of religious schism this conflict of duties had slumbered, but now, with the enthusiastic reconciliation between the see of Rome and the throne of Constantinople, it awoke; and in that age when, as has been already said, religion was nationality, an orthodox Eastern emperor seemed a much more fitting object of homage than an Arian Italian king.