In his glorification of the Amal line, Cassiodorus follows more closely these genuine national traditions than in his history of the Gothic people. References to Herodotus and Trogus would have been here obviously out of place, and he accordingly puts before us a pedigree fashioned on the same model as those which we find in the Saxon Chronicle, and therefore probably genuine. By genuine of course is meant a pedigree which was really current and accepted among the people over whom Theodoric ruled. How many of the links which form it represent real historical personages is a matter about which we may almost be said neither to know nor care. We see that it begins in the approved fashion with 'Non puri homines sed semidei id est Anses[44],' and that the first of these half-divine ancestors is named _Gaut_, evidently the eponymous hero of the Gothic people. Some of the later links--Amal, Ostrogotha, Athal--have the same appearance of names coined to embody facts of the national consciousness. At the end of the genealogy appear the undoubtedly historical names of the immediate ancestors of Theodoric. It is noteworthy that several, in fact the majority of the names of Kings who figure in early Gothic history, are not included in this genealogy. While this fact permits us to doubt whether Cassiodorus has not exaggerated the pre-eminence of the Amal race in early days, it must be admitted to be also an evidence of the good faith with which he preserved the national tradition on these points. Had he been merely inventing, it would have been easy to include every name of a distinguished Gothic King among the progenitors of his Sovereign. [Footnote 44: Jordanes, De Reb. Get. xiii.] [Sidenote: Abstract by Jordanes.]