ABSTRACT
COMING of age among the Goths depends on manly courage, inas-much as the man who can stab an enemy is already under obligation to avenge himself for any offence.'1 Paul the Deacon, in Bk I, asserts this of the Lombards who, to increase the number of their warriors, remove many men from the yoke of slavery and transfer them to a free status; and, in order to secure their standing as free men, they establish it in their accustomed way by giving them an arrow, at the same time, however, in order to validate the contract, murmuring certain words, handed down from their forbears, which sound something like, 'May the gods ennoble you by this arrow, and destroy you by it when you are faithless to your country and prince.'2
