Theodoric the Ostrogoth conquers Italy with the agreement of the Eastern Empire and consent of the local Romans; he co-opts two remarkable Latin statesmen, Boethius and Cassiodorus, to his regime but the former is executed. It’s a well-written chapter – frankly a bit better structured than the somewhat rambling end to the original third volume – though the accounts are of a dull set of Eastern successions and then a competent but unexciting consolidation of power in Italy and points west by Theodoric. If anything I think Gibbon could have made more of the remarkable circumstance of Theodoric appointing two of the leading scholars of the day as his chief ministers. I expand on this point further.