At first the Germans made a brilliant start in taking over Roman civilisation. The Goths had been Christianised and civilised at an early period. While it is true that the Visigoths under Alaric captured Rome and did not refrain from plundering it, the behaviour of the Vandals under Gaiseric was even worse, so that for all time to come their name is connected with the most brutal pillage. But the noble tribe of the Ostrogoths under their celebrated king Theodoric--called Dietrich von Bern in the German songs--tried another plan; they adopted Roman civilisation as far as possible and endeavoured to combine both nations under one dominion. Theodoric had as his minister or secretary of state a member of the Roman nobility, the most cultivated man of letters of the time, Cassiodorus. We have his collection of reports and letters, and we may infer from them how much, aside from his training in the Roman law school, he was influenced by his Christian belief and Biblical reading. Later on, when he retired into the monastery which he had founded on his estates at Vivarium, all his devotion was given to the study of the Bible. He is the man who inculcated on Western monasticism that love for scholarship which has been ever since a characteristic of the Order of Saint Benedict. Cassiodorus was a Roman, of course, but we have ample evidence that even among the Goths the Bible was read and studied. There was a Gothic translation of the Bible, which is supposed to have been made in the fourth century by Ulfilas. In order not to encourage the warlike spirit in his people he is said to have omitted the books of the Kings, wherein so many wars and battles are described. The educational aspect of the Bible as teaching the German nations comes out here distinctly. We are able to trace the history of the Goths by their Bible, which, having been translated in the East from Greek manuscripts, shows traces of a Latin influence, evidently introduced when the Goths settled in Italy. There still exist some copies, among them the famous Codex Argenteus, now at Upsala, which in its silver writing on purple ground, is a wonderful specimen of luxurious calligraphy, giving testimony to the degree of civilisation which these Ostrogoths had taken over from Rome (Plate VIII).