288
CHAP,
LXIX.
“ stantine; and the remains of your strength“ and freedom have long since been exhausted“ by the Greeks and Franks. Are you desir-“ ons of beholding the ancient glory of Rome,“ the gravity of the senate, the spirit of the“ knights, the discipline of the camp, the valour“ of the legions? you will find them in the Ger -“ man republic. It is not empire, naked and“ alone; the ornaments and virtues of empire“ have likewise migrated beyond the Alps to a“ more deserving people.' They will be em-“ ployed in your defence, but they claim your“ obedience. ’You pretend that myself or my“ predecessors have been invited by the Ro-“ mans: you mistake the word; they were not“ invited ; they were implored. From its fo-“ reign and domestic tyrants, the city was re-“ scued by Charlemagne and Otho, whose ashes“ repose in our country; and their dominion was“ the price of your deliverance. Under that do-“ minion your ancestors lived and died. 1 claim“ by the right of inheritance and possession, and“ who shall dare to extort you from my hands?“ Is the hand of the Franks'” and Germans en-“ feebled by age? Am I vanquished? Am I“ a captive? Am I not encompassed with the“ banners of a potent and invincible army? You
* Non cessit nobis nudum imperium, virtue sua amictum venit,ornamenta sua serum traxit. Penes nos sunt eonsules tut, &c. Cicero or Livy uould not have rejected these images, the eloquence of a bar-barian, born aud educated in the Hercvnian forest.
m Otho of Fvisingen, who surely understood the language of the courtand diet of Germany , speaks of the Franks in the twelfth century asthe reigning nation (Proceres Franci, equites Franci, rnaaus Franco-rum); he adds, however, the epithet of Tautonici.