First of all is the domination, not of barbarians only, but of heretical barbarians, as Pope Gelasius termed Odoacer.(195) In that passage of his letter the Pope says that when “Odoacer occupied the realm of Italy he had enjoined things to be done which were not lawful, but to which we, by the help of God, would, as is well known, not submit”. He speaks in the name of his see, but what the acts alluded to were we do not know. The domination of Odoacer and of Theodorich after him was Arian. It lasted at least sixty years, from 476 to 536. It was the policy of Theodorich to treat Rome well, in its civil aspect. He fostered the Senate, keeping it in quiet subjection to himself. He professed to treat Italian and Goth on equal terms. As long as the Acacian schism lasted, which effectually prevented unity of action between the emperors Zeno and Anastasius and the Popes who had ceased to be their subjects, but who regarded the Roman emperor with all the consideration required by Roman loyalty to the head of the Roman name, the Gothic king observed this conduct of neutrality; but when a new emperor, Justin I., had acknowledged all the demands of Pope Hormisdas and began to act as a Catholic emperor, Theodorich dropped the mask and appeared as he was, the head and bond of the whole Arian league in the West. Pope Symmachus died in 514. The Acacian schism at that time was in full force; the emperor Anastasius full of enmity and deceit against the Pope. Theodorich allowed Hormisdas to be elected Pope after a vacancy of the see for one single day. Hormisdas died in 523, and a vacancy of six days only ensued, when Pope John I. was allowed to be freely elected. In the meantime the acts of the emperor Justin I. roused the full Arian spirit in Theodorich. He allowed Pope John I. to be freely elected, which did not prevent him from compelling that Pope to go as his ambassador to Constantinople in order to gain indulgence for the eastern Arians. And he uttered the threat that he would fill Italy with blood if his demands were not complied with. And when Pope John I. came back crowned with honours rendered to him as the first Pope who had ever visited the eastern capital, Theodorich threw the Pope into prison, and he never came out alive from the royal dungeon at Ravenna. This fact throws back a full and disastrous light upon the whole Arian domination in Italy. A poet of our day has put in the mouth of the doomed Gothic princess, the royal-hearted Amalasunta, words of her father:— “I never loved that Apostolic Throne!”(196)