But beside his Teutonic court—‘the hounds of the royal hall,’ as Boethius called them—Theodoric kept up a full establishment of Roman officials, bearing the old titles that had been used under the empire—praetorian praefects, masters of the offices, quaestors, and notaries. He showed great skill and discretion in choosing the most honest among his Italian subjects for these posts, so that his courtiers never became an oppressive official clique, as had habitually been the case under the later emperors. He even chose as his praetorian praefect Liberius, who had adhered to Odoacer to the last, and told him that he esteemed him all the more for his fidelity to his first master. The best men in Italy were undoubtedly set to administer the central government; but it was Theodoric’s misfortune that the better the man the more likely he was to indulge in vain dreams of old Roman glory, and to resent in his heart the wise rule of the Ostrogoth. Boethius, the last of the Romans as he may be called, served Theodoric all his life without learning true loyalty to him. We have not space to notice half of Theodoric’s reforms in the administration of Italy. Most wise among them was the careful restoration of the old roads, aqueducts, and drainage canals, which had been the glory of the early empire. He was himself a great builder, and erected royal palaces at Verona and Ravenna, of which, alas! only the smallest fragments survive. But he spent even greater care in keeping up ancient edifices. In Rome he set apart every year two hundred pounds weight of gold pieces for the repair of palaces and public buildings. He took under his protection even statues and monuments, and added representations of himself to the crowd of effigies which adorned Rome. So thoroughly did he put himself in the place of the Caesars that he even took care to celebrate games in the circus, and harangued the assembled people in the Forum. [Sidenote: Theodoric in Rome.] He attended and took part in the debates of the Senate, and endeavoured to strengthen it by the appointment of a few Gothic senators. If he showed some unwisdom in arranging for the resumption of the bread-dole, which had been such a curse to Rome, he atoned for it by a liberal scheme for the rearrangement of taxes, which at once relieved the people and filled the treasury. At his death the royal hoard at Ravenna amounted to no less than 40,000 pounds weight of gold, £1,600,000 in hard cash.