 This corpse belongs to their late and last king Teia who, throughout the story, symbolises the tragedy of his people's downfall from the moment of Theodoric the Great's death.During the reign of German emperor William II the book was interpreted as criticism on decadence and after World War I it was interpreted, in retrospect, as a prediction for the fall of the German Empire.Besides a plot that is both colourful and rich of intrigue, the novel focuses on the actual struggle for control over Ancient Rome and specifically on the acts of heroism and heroic deaths therein.