Justinian

would look even better than your excuse for taking over Africa — restoring Hilderic.’

‘It’s monstrous! I won’t hear another word, John — I absolutely forbid it. Do I make myself clear?’

‘As glass, Serenity,’ the prefect murmured with an enigmatic smile. ‘As glass.’

Waylaying Peter the Patrician as (en route to Salonae on the Adriatic, for the crossing to Ravenna) he emerged from Justinian’s tablinum, Theodora pressed into the ambassador’s hand a missive bearing her seal. ‘Give this to King Theodahad,’ she requested. ‘Personally — that’s very important. Also, no one, not even the emperor, must know I’ve given it to you.’ She smiled, and patted his hand. ‘I know I can trust you, Peter.’

‘My lips are sealed, Domina,’ replied the other, slipping the letter into his satchel to join Justinian’s own message to the Ostrogothic king. Like all servants of the imperial court, he was totally in thrall to the empress’s charm and charisma.

The previous day had seen Theodora, in an agony of mind, pacing the little garden where she and Justinian had first met. She recalled the horrified indignation with which the emperor had recounted the Cappadocian’s suggestion that Theodahad be given carte blanche to do away with Amalasuntha.

Although her husband had dismissed the idea, Theodora had found herself unable to. Till far into the night, she had wrestled with her conscience. She knew how vitally important the realization of his Grand Plan had become to Justinian. Africa had been a glorious start. But Italy — the very fons et origo of Rome’s imperial saga — was the prize above all others. Although she cared passionately about the rights of her own sex, was not the sacrifice of a single woman’s life justifiable in the great scheme of things? Theodora (despite that snake, Procopius, hinting that Amalasuntha’s overtures to Justinian had provoked the empress’s jealousy) felt no ill-will towards the Gothic queen; rather, Amalasuntha’s courage and resolution in holding out against the chauvinism of the leading Goths had aroused Theodora’s admiration and sympathy. But such feelings were disembodied, abstract. She had never met Theoderic’s daughter, therefore any guilt she might feel would be impersonal. She was reminded of a conundrum once posed by some philosopher. If, simply by nodding, you would acquire great riches, but at the same time bring about the death of an unknown mandarin in distant China — would you nod?

With a shock of self-disgust, Theodora realized that she had somehow crossed a moral boundary, and was already actively considering how the prefect’s sly proposal might be implemented. The steel in her character coming to the fore, Theodora made her decision. Her husband’s interests must take precedence. She dismissed the thought that she might be damning her immortal soul; such a consideration would cause Justinian concern, but not herself. Her interest in religious matters was strictly academic, its main solicitude the social penalties of non-conformity. Repairing to her private chamber, she began to draft a letter. .

‘Was the use of Socrates as a character merely a literary device for presenting a philosophical argument?’ pondered Theodahad, pen in hand, ‘or did it represent Plato’s personal views?’ Dressed in a Roman dalmatic, and seated at a desk in his tablinum (festooned with busts of Greek philosophers and Roman poets) in Ravenna’s royal palace, the Gothic monarch was working on a treatise, which he hoped would at last cause others to take him seriously as a scholar and a man of letters. This opus (about the differences between Plato’s early dialogues and the middle and late ones) was to be entitled Crito versus Gorgias, or perhaps The Avoidance of Hiatus. When published, it would, he hoped, impress Cassiodorus to the extent that his eminent Scriba Concilii* would spread the word, and thus increase his — Theodahad’s — status among his Roman subjects. Useless, of course, to expect any Goths to read it; even the few who were literate were hardly likely to have heard of Plato.

He was interrupted by a silentiarius (a Goth, the Roman silentiarii having been phased out under Theoderic) ushering in, ‘The ambassador from Constantinople.’

‘Ah — Petrus Patricius,’ the king greeted the travel-stained figure who entered. ‘Back so soon? Fresh tidings from the emperor, I take it.’

‘And from the empress, Your Majesty,’ said Peter, removing from his satchel two despatches which he handed to the king.

Theodahad’s face paled as he read the first letter, then cleared as he perused the second.

‘You may tell His Serenity, Justinianus Augustus, that all is well with Amalasuntha Regina,’ he informed the ambassador. ‘Far from being under house arrest, she is presently recuperating at a pleasant spot in one of my. . our estates in Umbria. Her health, you see, has suffered in consequence of her son’s untimely death.’

Pacing the study after Peter the Patrician had departed, Theodahad — his markedly Teutonic features furrowed in thought, contemplated his next course of action. Justinian’s letter had been unequivocal — return Amalasuntha immediately to Ravenna as queen, or expect the Empire to invade and reinstate her. But against that, the tenor of Theodora’s message could hardly have been more different: if Amalasuntha were to be got rid of, Theodahad could rest assured that the emperor would do nothing. The king knew that Theodora’s influence over her husband was total; it was well known that he could refuse her nothing. Were she to veto an Italian expedition, then it would be most unlikely to take place. So, on balance, Theodahad felt confident that he could proceed with impunity to do away with Amalasuntha and consolidate his position as sole monarch.

But what was Theodora’s motive in sending him the letter? Theodahad decided it was probably jealousy. Suppose a conspiracy of Gothic nobles were to force the queen to come to Constantinople in order to make a personal appeal to Justinian? Amalasuntha was younger than Theodora, and beautiful to boot — probably more so than the empress. Thus, Theodahad reasoned, to Theodora the queen would appear a potential rival, and as such, a target for elimination.

After several hours of swithering, the king at last made up his mind. Murmuring an aphorism of Epicurus, ‘Nil igitur mors est ad nos — Therefore death is nothing to us’, he sent for two of his undercover henchmen. When the men arrived — two burly Gepids, a tribe noted for its savagery as well as for its dullness of mind — he proceeded to issue them with instructions, along with a purse of solidi. Soon the pair were posting east then south along the Via Aemilia and the Via Cassia — bound for Lacus Volsiniensis. .

In the fortified villa on the island of Martana assigned by her consors regni for her ‘recovery’, Amalasuntha prepared to take her bath. In the calm of that spring morning,* walking the short distance from the main building to the bath-house, she paused to admire the scenery on the far side of the lake: a shoreline of white rocks making a dramatic contrast to the dark green of pines and cypresses beyond. A flight of ducks planed down onto the tranquil sheet of water, shimmering in the sun’s early rays. The sight, as usual, helped to calm her troubled mind, tortured with uncertainty since her arrest and confinement in this place, in December of the previous year.

The ritual of bathing was one of the few things to give her pleasure in her present existence — a welcome break in the boredom mingled with anxiety which filled her days. First, after depositing her clothes in the apodyterium or changing room, a bracing immersion in the plunge pool. Then, a session in the sudatorium or steam room to sweat the dirt from every pore, followed by the transit of three cubicles — the laconium, caldarium, and tepidarium, the air in each progressively less hot. Finally, after scraping off the dirt and loosened outer skin with a strigil, a period of repose wrapped in a soft dry sheet in the frigidarium, when a delicious sensation of perfect well-being would steal over her.

Seated on the wooden bench surrounding the inside of the sudatorium, Amalasuntha felt the first prickles of discomfort. The steam was becoming hotter than usual, causing her skin to redden as well as freely to perspire. Clearly, the slaves had miscalculated the amount of fuel to heat the external boiler. She must have a word with the major-domo. For the present, she couldn’t bear to remain in the steam room a moment longer; the heat was now intolerable. She tried to push back the sliding door into the laconium, but it seemed to be stuck. Fighting down a surge of panic, she pushed harder — still no movement. The door back to the plunge pool she found was likewise jammed. Shouting for the slaves to come to her assistance, she continued to wrestle with the doors — to no avail. Meanwhile, the steam grew hotter and hotter; gushing through the inlets in scalding jets, it caused crops of blisters to erupt all over her skin. Now the vapour was as hot as boiling water: she screamed in mortal agony as the blood began to seethe and bubble in her veins. .

When the news of the queen’s murder broke in Constantinople, Justinian felt simultaneously indignant and