[Footnote 41: Malchus of Philadelphia, from whose history certain "Extracts concerning Embassies" were made by order of the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogemtus.]
Three years after his father's death (484), Recitach, now an enemy of the Empire, was put to death by Theodoric the Amal, acting under the orders of Zeno. The band of Triarian Goths, thirty thousand fighting men in number, was joined to the army of Theodoric, an important addition to his power, but also to his cares, to the ever-present difficulty of finding food for his followers.
(481-487) Backwards and forwards between peace and war with the Empire, Theodoric wavered during the six years which followed his rival's death. The settlement of his people at this time seems to have been on the southern shore of the Danube, in part of the countries now known as Servia and Wallachia, with Novæ _(Sistova)_ for his headquarters. One year (482) he is making a raid into Macedonia and Thessaly and plundering Larissa. The next (483) he is again clothed with his old dignity of Master of the Soldiery and keeps his Goths rigidly within their allotted limits. The next (484) he is actually raised to the Consulate, an office which, though devoid of power, is still so radiant with the glory of the illustrious men who have held it for near a thousand years, from the days of Brutus and Collatinus, that Emperors covet the possession of it and the mightiest barbarian chiefs in their service long for no higher reward.
Two years after this (486) he is again in rebellion, ravaging Thrace; the next year (487) he has broken through the Long Walls and penetrates within fourteen miles of Constantinople. In all this wearisome period of Theodoric's life his action seems to be merely destructive; there is nothing constructive, no fruitful or fertilising thought to be found in it. Had this been a fair sample of his life, there could be no reason why he should not sink into the oblivion which covers so many forgotten freebooters. But in 488 a change came over the spirit of his dream. A plan was agreed upon between him and the Emperor (by which of them it was first suggested we cannot now say) for the employment of all this wasted and destructive force in another field, where its energies might accomplish some result beneficent and enduring.