The Heroic Saga-Cycle of Dietrich of Bern

Thanks to the ancient historians, we are tolerably well informed about Theodoric's life, a short outline of which must form the basis for any study of the Dietrich cycle.

On the collapse of the Hunnish Empire after Attila's death in 453 A.D., the Ostrogoths, under their king Walamer, of the royal Amelung race, became once more independent. Dwelling in Pannonia, between the Danube and the Drave, their territory bordered that of the Eastern Empire, and the Emperor Marcian found it advisable to conclude a treaty, by the terms of which Walamer and his two brothers, Theodemer and Widemer, undertook to protect the frontier in return for a money subsidy. Marcian's successor Leo, however, stopped the payment of this subsidy, and in 462 Walamer invaded Illyria. As a result the treaty was renewed, and Walamer handed over, as a hostage for the fulfillment of his part of the bargain, his nephew Theoderic, then eight years of age.

For ten years Theoderic remained at the Byzantine court, where he received a Roman education and learned to appreciate the advantages of civilisation; but in 472 he returned to his own country, where his father Theodemer had
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succeeded Walamer. Two years later the Ostrogoths left Pannonia and settled in Macedonia under the Eastern Emperor's protection, and in the same year Theodemer died and was succeeded by his son.

The opening years of Theoderic's reign gave little promise of its final splendour, and were spent, for the most part, in migration from province to province and continual fighting, now on one side, now on the other, in the series of civil wars that followed the accession of the Emperor Zeno. At last, however, with Theoderic's help, Zeno made his position finally secure and was able to turn his attention to the Western Empire. Since the sack of Rome by the Vandals under Genseric the Western Emperors had been mere puppets in the hands of their Germanic generals, and the last of them, Romulus Augustulus, had been deposed in 480 by Odoacer, who had from that time ruled in Italy as an independent king. He had, indeed, recognised the justice of Zeno's claim to the Western throne, and had assumed the title of Patrician of the Eastern Empire, but more than this nominal recognition of suzerainty Zeno had not yet been able to extort.

In 488, therefore, he commissioned Theoderic to wrest Italy from the usurper. Much reduced in numbers, but still formidable, the Ostrogoths set out, some quarter of a million men, women,
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and children, on their long and difficult march from Moesia to Italy. Frequently delayed by sickness and by the hostility of the tribes through whose countries they had to pass, it was not until the summer of the next year that they crossed the Alps and arrived at the Isonzo, Odoacer's frontier. In August 489 they forced the passage of the river, and a month later inflicted on Odoacer a second defeat in the battle of Verona.

Odoacer now took refuge in the fortress of Ravenna, while large numbers of his followers deserted to Theoderic. Among these was Tufa, who, having succeeded in winning the victor's confidence, offered to lead a strong force against his former master. By his own desire he was accompanied by several of Theoderic's principal officers, but on meeting Odoacer at Favenzia he returned to his old allegiance and sent the Ostrogoth officers in chains to Ravenna. The other deserters from Odoacer's army now flocked back to their former standard, and Theoderic's situation became desperate. Odoacer had, indeed, succeeded in shutting him in Pavia when an army of Visigoths from southern Gaul came to his assistance. The siege was raised, and Odoacer, defeated in a battle on the banks of the Adda, was forced to take refuge once more in Ravenna. For two years the fortress held out, but it finally capitulated in 493. By the terms
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of surrender, the lives of the defenders were to be spared, but Theoderic, suspecting, it is said, a plot against his life, had Odoacer and all his kinsmen put to death.

Theoderic was now master of Italy, which once more, under his wise and just government, enjoyed the blessings of peace and order, and regained some measure of its former prosperity. In spite of the nominal allegiance he owed to the Eastern Emperor, he was looked up to by all Germanic tribes as the greatest and most powerful of their kings, and his advice and protection were constantly in request. On his death in 526, he was buried in a magnificent marble tomb at Ravenna. This may still be seen, but Theoderic's remains have disappeared, unless, indeed, the skeleton in golden armour found some fifty years ago, in a rough grave not far away, is that of the great Gothic king. Himself an Arian, like all his race, he was hated as a heretic by the Roman Church, and some generations after his death his tomb was violated under cover of night. Though his porphyry coffin was found next morning at the door of a neighbouring monastery, no traces of his body could be discovered, and it seems possible that the riflers of his tomb were sectarian fanatics, who, having no desire to rob the corpse, hastily interred it in the grave in which the armour-clad skeleton was found.
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Such is, in brief, the history of Theoderic the Great¹, so far as it concerns us here. To his own people he was deservedly a national hero, and no doubt his exploits, especially those belonging to the thirty or more years of exile and wandering between his departure for the Byzantine court and his final victory at Ravenna, formed the themes of epic songs. But popular tradition never remains long in strict accord with history. The popular imagination is ever ready to see its heroes in the most favourable light; it has no accurate memory for details; it removes remembered characters and events from their forgotten historical setting, and forms new and historically impossible connections. In the case of our saga these tendencies were accentuated by the subsequent course of history. Within less than thirty years from Theoderic's death the Eastern Emperor Justinian had reconquered Italy. The great majority o f Ostragoths perished in the course of the war, and the remainder were either absorbed in the Italian population or took refuge in neighbouring Germanic kingdoms. From this time on, therefore, the saga owed its development to tribes to whom it no longer represented the
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¹ A fuller account will be found in E. Gibbon's classical History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in which the chief authorities are quoted; in H. Bradley, The Goths ("Story of the Nations" Series); and in T. Hodgkin, Theodoric the Goth ("Heroes of the Nations" Series).

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national history, with the result that in course of time the actual facts were distorted almost beyond recognition.

The oldest version of the saga of which we have any evidence is that which forms the background to the fragmentary Hildebrandslied, the one remnant we possess of the once rich store of ancient German hero-songs. The rest, including even Charlemagne's collection of Frankish ballads, were ruthlessly destroyed by the zealous Christian clergy; no doubt we owe the almost miraculous preservation of this one fragment to the fortunate chance that, early in the ninth century, two Fuldese monks made a copy of it on the inside cover of a prayer-book. Who they were is not known, but it is a curious coincidence that there were at Fulda at that time two monks named Hiltibrant and Haduprant. Possibly they felt a special interest in their namesakes in the poem and deserve the credit for its preservation.

The Hildebrandslied, like the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf, is a remnant of the ancient Germanic alliterative poetry, and has for its theme, like the Persian story of Sohrab and Rustem, the meeting of father and son in mortal combat. This story, which appears to have been known to all the Indo-European nations, and which is therefore probably older than their separation
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from the parent stock, was originally independent, but was, in Germany, attached to the saga of Theoderic.

It is thirty years, the poem tells us, since Dietrich (the High German equivalent of Theoderic) was driven from his own kingdom by Otacher(Odoacer) and , accompanied by his faithful vassal Hildebrand, took refuge at Attila's court. Now, at last, he returns at the head of a powerful army to win back his possessions; his forces meet those of Otacher, and Hildebrand finds himself face to face with his son Hadubrant, who had been left behind in his mother's care. Hadubrant refuses to believe that the aged warrior is indeed his father, news of whose death he has heard from seafarers. In vain does Hildebrand attempt to convince his son of the truth; even the offer of golden armlets excites in the youth's mind only a suspicion of treachery, and the older man sees that a tragedy can no longer be averted. The combat begins. With levelled lances they crash together, then dismount and fight with sword and shield; they hew great pieces from each other's bucklers--and there the fragment ends.

Conflicting views have been held as to the outcome of the fight. But though in