Theodoric

dead.

* Not to be confused with Eusebius the City Prefect of Rome.

† 6 a.m., 27 August 526.

* Bologna, Modena, Piacenza.

AFTERWORD

The true measure of Theoderic’s stature lies, perhaps, not so much in his transmutation from semi-nomadic warlord to the enlightened ruler of Italy, as in his feat of successfully balancing and controlling two diametrically opposed social systems. He had, on the one hand, to govern his own people — a shame-and-honour Iron Age society based on personal allegiance to a warrior-leader — and, on the other, to rule what in some ways was almost a modern capitalist state, held together by a complex web of laws, bureaucratic institutions and property rights, geared to the acquisition of wealth. Two such differing regimes could never be synthesized, and Theoderic did not try. But the fact that he succeeded throughout most of his long reign (despite allowing himself to be distracted by imperialist dreams) in maintaining a benevolent apartheid between these powerful centrifugal forces, was a very great — indeed, a unique — achievement. As Robert Browning (in Justinian and Theodora) says, quoting an unnamed scholar, ‘he was certainly one of the greatest statesmen the German race has ever produced, and perhaps the one who has deserved best of the human race’.

In the end, however, the experiment was a failure, though a noble one. His feeble successors, with the possible exception of Totila, could never hope to emulate his example, and the ‘Ostrogothic century’ (from the emergence of the tribe into the light of history as allies of Attila at the Catalaunian Fields in 451 to its political extinction by Justinian’s generals in 554) ended in the Amals’ defeat and their disintegration as a people.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

For anyone attempting to write a story based on the life of Theoderic, it is extraordinarily fortunate that his lifespan covers a period rich in contemporary or near-contemporary sources. Cassiodorus, quaestor and Theoderic’s Master of Offices after Boethius, provides the most significant material, a vast collection of official correspondence on behalf of the Gothic administration, which was published under the title Variae. Another, less-known author is Ennodius, a bishop, whose numerous letters, mainly to clergy, throw considerable light on Theoderic’s reign. Perhaps the most interesting writer, from a human and dramatic point of view, is the splendidly named Anonymous Valesianus. The sonorous appellation is not, alas, that of some distinguished scholar of late antiquity, but was coined to designate an unknown Roman author whose work (the second part of an anonymous document) was edited by Henri de Valois in 1636. Another useful source touching on Theoderic is Gothic History, an abridged version of a lost work by Cassiodorus, written in the mid sixth century by Jordanes, a Romanized Goth living in Constantinople. Procopius, a Greek writer who accompanied Justinian’s general Belisarius on part of his Italian campaign, provides an account of Theoderic in the opening pages of his Gothic War.

Regarding modern sources, I am greatly indebted to my publisher Hugh Andrew for kindly lending me the following: Theoderic in Italy by John Moorhead, The Goths by Peter Heather, A History of the Ostrogoths by Thomas Burns, History of the Goths by Herwig Wolfram, and Robert Browning’s Justinian and Theodora. Other sources I found useful were Gibbon’s matchless Decline and Fall, Peter Heather’s The Fall of the Roman Empire, Richard Rudgley’s Barbarians and Theoderic the Goth: The Barbarian Champion of Civilization by Thomas Hodgkin, a Victorian scholar who wrote about his subject with insightful empathy. Details about chariot-racing and beast-hunts in the arena were quarried from a racily written but absorbing little book, Daniel P. Mannix’s Those About to Die, crammed with fascinating facts and colourful vignettes.

In the interests of drama and clarity, I have (as mentioned in the relevant sections in the Notes) gone in for some telescoping and abridging of events, hopefully without distorting essential historical truth. Anyone who has ever wrestled with the arcane complexities of the Laurentian Schism, or the Ostrogoths’ tangled Volkerwanderung throughout the Balkans, will understand my reasons for doing so.

Bar some minor characters and the obvious example of Timothy, the Dramatis Personae are based on real people. Many — such as Rufius Cethegus, who features as an arch-schemer — needed considerable fleshing-out to make them come alive. This hardly applied in the case of Theoderic, whose richly complex character was able to speak for itself in almost every situation. The tension between his natural tendency to furor Teutonicus and desire to achieve Roman dignitas and civilitas generated much of whatever claim to drama the story possesses.

APPENDIX I

The War Between Theoderic and Odovacar, 489-93

Suspecting that a detailed resume of the campaign would test the patience of most readers if encountered in the text, I append here a summary of the main events.

Advancing from Isonzo Bridge in the summer of 489, Theoderic defeated Odovacar’s forces at Verona, causing the Scirian king to retreat to Ravenna, which, being surrounded by marshes, was notoriously difficult to attack. When Tufa, one of Odovacar’s chief generals, deserted to Theoderic, the game seemed up for Odovacar. However, on being despatched by Theoderic to attack his old commander, Tufa again switched sides, enabling Odovacar to sally forth from Ravenna.

Now on the defensive, Theoderic took shelter in the heavily fortified redoubt of Pavia, from which precarious position he was rescued by the fortuitous arrival of a force of Visigothic allies. Now strong enough to take the field again, Theoderic was able to defeat Odovacar at the River Adde on 11 August 490, forcing him to return to Ravenna, which Theoderic then besieged. (Tufa, meanwhile, had split from Odovacar — again! — and was operating independently in the Adige valley region; he was finally brought to bay and killed in 493.)

Theoderic’s capture of Rimini in 492, enabling him to tighten the blockade of Ravenna, spelt the beginning of the end for Odovacar. In February 493 he was forced, under pressure from the effects of famine, to make terms with Theoderic, Bishop John of Ravenna acting as intermediary.

His subsequent murder by Theoderic, condemned by some as treacherous and barbaric, was in truth an act of political necessity, forced on the Amal king in the interests of his own survival. In the ancient world, power-sharing was always fraught with hazard for the parties involved. Even Diocletian’s radical experiment, the Tetrarchy, designed to ensure the smooth functioning of the machinery of rule and succession, can hardly be accounted a success story. Once that emperor’s cold and powerful personality ceased to control the system he had devised, its inherent strains began to show, soon to result in the old cycle of murderous rivalries and usurpations starting up anew.

APPENDIX II

The Laurentian Schism