Theodoric’s wise administration at home was accompanied by an equally firm and able foreign policy. His first care was to establish friendly relations with the Eastern Empire. Even before Odoacer had met his death, he despatched an embassy to report to Zeno that he had carried out his commission of conquering Italy, and claimed an imperial confirmation of his title. But the embassy found Zeno just dead, and his successor, Anastasius, engrossed in the suppression of riots and rebellions. It was not till 497 that the emperor recognised the king of the Goths as ruler in Italy. Then, however, Anastasius made up for his tardy recognition by sending to Theodoric the regalia which Odoacer had forwarded to Zeno twenty years before, the robes and palace ornaments, which had last been used by the boy Romulus Augustulus. During the thirty-three years of the Amal’s reign in Italy he had only one dispute with the emperor: this was a frontier quarrel in 505, caused by troubles in Illyricum. Theodoric had taken in hand the restoration of the bounds of the Western Empire towards the East, and his generals, having subdued Pannonia as far as Sirmium and Singidunum, trespassed on to Moesian soil, and came into contact with the East-Roman armies. There was some trouble for three years, but no great war, though in 508 two of Anastasius’ generals made a destructive raid on Apulia. But peace was ultimately made on the terms that the boundary should be drawn, as in the days of the Western Empire, at the Save and Danube. Much more important were Theodoric’s dealings with his neighbours to west and north. He took over the task of Odoacer in guarding the old Roman districts beyond the Alps, which had once composed the provinces of Rhaetia and Noricum. Both were now becoming Teutonic rather than Latin-speaking lands. Into Rhaetia had fled many of the Alamanni, or Suabians, when Chlodovech the Frank in 496 drove them out of their lands on the Main and Neckar. This people gladly acknowledged Theodoric as over-lord, in return for his protection against the pursuing Franks, whom the Ostrogoth bade halt at the line of the upper Rhine, between Basel and Constanz. Farther east, in Noricum, the place of the emigrant Roman provincials had now been taken by a mixed Teutonic population, the remnant of the broken clans of the Rugians, Scyrri, and Turcilingi, who were just beginning to call themselves by the common name of Bavarians, under which we know them so well a few years later. They, too, like the Alamanni, were glad to acknowledge Theodoric as suzerain, and pay him tribute.