"If they mislike his sentiments they express their contempt for them by groans, if they approve, they clash their spears together. Applause thus expressed by arms is the greatest tribute that can be paid to a speaker".
Before such an assembly of the nation in arms, the question, not of Peace or War? but of War with whom? was debated. It was decided that the Empire should be the victim, and that East and West alike should feel the heavy hand of the Ostrogoths. The lot was cast (so said the national legend),[32] and it assigned to Theudemir the harder but, as it seemed, more profitable task of warring against Constantinople, while his younger brother Widemir was to attack Rome.
Of Widemir's movements there is little to tell. He died in Italy, not having apparently achieved any brilliant exploits, and his son and namesake was easily persuaded to turn aside into Gaul, where he joined his forces to those of the kindred Visigoths, and became absorbed in their flourishing kingdom. This branch of Amal royalty henceforward bears no fruit in history.
More important, at any rate in its ultimate consequences, was the march of Theudemir and his people into the dominions of the Eastern Cæsar. They crossed the Save, and by their warlike array terrified into acquiescence the Sclavonic tribes which were settled in the neighbourhood of Belgrade.
[Footnote 32: Kopke "Anfange des Konigthums", (p. 146) throws doubt on this story of the decision by lot, and there seems something to be said on his side.]
Having pushed up the valley of the Morava, they captured the important city of Naissus (now Nisch), "the first city of Illyricum". Here Theudemir tarried for a space, sending on his son with a large and eager _comitatus_ farther up the valley of the Morava. They reached the head of that valley, they crossed the watershed and the plain of Kossova, and descended the valley of the Vardar. Monastir in Macedonia, Larissa in Thessaly were taken and sacked; and a way having thus been made by these bold invaders into the heart of the Empire, a message was sent to Theudemir, inviting him to undertake the siege of Thessalonica. Leaving a few guards in Naissus, the old king moved southward with the bulk of his army, and was soon standing with his men before the walls of the Macedonian capital. The Patrician Hilarianus held that city with a strong force, but when he saw it regularly invested by the Goths and an earthen rampart drawn all round it, he lost heart, and, despairing of a successful resistance, opened negotiations with the besiegers. The result of these negotiations (accompanied by handsome presents to the king) was that Theudemir abandoned the siege, resumed the often adopted, perhaps never wholly abandoned, position of a _foederatus_ or sworn auxiliary of the Empire, and received for himself and his people the unquestioned possession of six towns[33] and the surrounding country by the north-east corner of the Ægean, where the Vardar discharges itself into the Thermaic Gulf.