To no Roman would he tell what was in his mind. Five leagues from Constantinople he paused. Some say that he had compassion on the city where he had been brought up. Who can tell? He demanded to speak to Zeno alone, and the father in arms and his wild son met once more. There was still strong in him the old Teutonic feudal instinct. He was 'Zeno's man,' in spite of all. He asked (says Jornandes) Zeno's leave to march against Odoacer, and conquer Italy. Procopius and the Valesian Fragment say that Zeno sent him, and that in case of success, he was to reign there till Zeno came. Zeno was, no doubt, glad to get rid of him at any price. As Ennodius well says, 'Another's honour made him remember his own origin, and fear the very legions which obeyed him--for that obedience is suspected which serves the unworthy.' Rome was only nominally under Zeno's dominion; and it mattered little to him whether Herule or Gothic adventurer called himself his representative. Then was held a grand function. Dietrich, solemnly appointed 'Patrician,' had Italy ceded to him by a 'Pragmatic' sanction, and Zeno placed on his head the sacrum velamen, a square of purple, signifying in Constantinople things wonderful, august, imperial--if they could only be made to come to pass. And he made them come to pass. He gathered all Teutonic heroes of every tribe, as well as his own; and through Roumelia, and through the Alps, a long and dangerous journey, went Dietrich and his Goths, with their wives and children, and all they had, packed on waggons; living on their flocks and herds, grinding their corn in hand- mills, and hunting as they went, for seven hundred miles of march; fighting as they went with Bulgars and Sarmatians, who had swarmed into the waste marches of Hungary and Carniola, once populous, cultivated, and full of noble cities; fighting a desperate battle with the Gepidae, up to their knees in a morass; till over the passes of the Julian Alps, where icicles hung upon their beards, and their clothes cracked with frost, they poured into the Venetian plains. It was a daring deed; and needed a spirit like Dietrich's to carry it through. Odoacer awaited him near the ruins of Aquileia. On the morning of the fight, as he was arming, Dietrich asked his noble mother to bring him some specially fine mantle, which she had embroidered for him, and put it over his armour, 'that all men may see how he goes gayer into the fight than ever he did into feast. For this day she shall see whether she have brought a man-child into the world, or no.' And in front of Verona (where the plain was long white with human bones), he beat Odoacer, and after a short and sharp campaign, drove him to Ravenna. But there, Roman fortifications, and Roman artillery, stopped, as usual, the Goth; and Odoacer fulfilled his name so well, and stood so stout, that he could only be reduced by famine; and at last surrendered on terms, difficult now to discover.