And, lastly, the whole nation was divided into two parties, one of which, long discontented with the clemency shown to the Italians by Theodoric and his daughter, would gladly have retrieved the mistake which, as they thought, had been made when the country was conquered, and punished the Italians for their secret hate with open violence. The number of those who held milder and nobler opinions--who, like Theodoric himself, were more susceptible to the higher culture of the subjected Italians, and desirous to raise themselves and their people to the same level--was naturally much smaller. At the head of this party stood the Queen. This woman Cethegus now sought to uphold in the possession of power; for her feminine, weak, and divided government was calculated to undermine the strength of the nation, to excite party spirit and discontent, and to exclude all augmentation of national feeling. Cethegus trembled at the thought that he might see an energetic man unite the strength of the whole nation. And often the traits of sublimity which occasionally were to be seen in Amalaswintha, and, still more, the fiery sparks of repressed feeling which sometimes blazed out in Athalaric's soul, caused him serious uneasiness. Should mother and son betray such feelings more frequently, then, certainly, he would be compelled to overthrow their government as zealously as he had hitherto upheld it. Meanwhile he rejoiced in the unlimited command which he possessed over the mind of Amalaswintha. It had been easy for him to gain it; not only because he, with great subtlety, took advantage of her predilection for learned discussions--in which he was so often vanquished by the seemingly superior knowledge of the Princess that Cassiodorus, who was a witness of their arguments, could not refrain from regretting that the genius of Cethegus, once so brilliant, had rusted for want of practice--but he had touched the proud woman on a much more sensitive subject.