 For this fact it was quickly considered a "novel for boys" in the German Empire, newly founded in 1871; the book was continuously handed over from the previous generation of adolescents to the next until the 1940s.Dahn was a trained historian and – prior to the novel – had published a first scientific monography about Procopius of Caesarea (in 1865), the main source of the Gothic War (535–552), describing the history of Theoderic's realm and people and their future fates.Dahn incorporated many historical details into the story.