Brill’s Companions
to European History
VOLUME 9
A Companion to
Ostrogothic Italy
Edited byJonathan J. Arnold
M. Shane Bjornlie
Kristina Sessa
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Foreword vii List of Figures viii List of Contributors ix 1 Introduction 1
Jonathan J. Arnold, M. Shane Bjornlie, and Kristina Sessa
part 1
The State
2 The Ostrogothic Kingdom: Ideologies and Transitions 17 Gerda Heydemann
3 Governmental Administration 47 M. Shane Bjornlie
4 Ostrogothic Provinces: Administration and Ideology 73 Jonathan J. Arnold
5 Ostrogothic Cities 98 Federico Marazzi
6 The Senate at Rome in Ostrogothic Italy 121 Christine Radtki
7 The Law 147 Sean Lafferty
8 The Ostrogothic Military 173 Guy Halsall
part 2
Culture and Society
9 Goths and Gothic Identity in the Ostrogothic Kingdom 203 Brian Swain
10 Urban Life and Culture 234 Deborah M. Deliyannis
11 Landowning and Labour in the Rural Economy 263 Cam Grey
12 The Heroine and the Historian: Procopius of Caesarea on the Troubled Reign of Queen Amalasuentha 296
Kate Cooper
13 Intellectual Culture and Literary Practices 316 Natalia Lozovsky
14 Art and Architecture 350 Mark J. Johnson
15 Barbarizing the Bel Paese: Environmental History in Ostrogothic Italy 390
Paolo Squatriti
part 3
Religion
16 The Roman Church and its Bishops 425 Kristina Sessa
17 Bishops, Ecclesiastical Institutions, and the Ostrogothic Regime 451 Rita Lizzi Testa
18 Mapping the Church and Asceticism in Ostrogothic Italy 480 Rita Lizzi Testa
19 Religious Diversity 503 Samuel Cohen
Glossary of Select Sources 533 Index 542
The genesis and completion of this volume is indebted to the avid interest of a great many people who realized that a comprehensive and systematic treat-ment of Ostrogothic Italy was lacking in English scholarship. For all the dili-gent and careful attention given to the Ostrogoths in recent decades, and in as much as so many debates about the end of the western Roman Empire and the emergence of early medieval Europe are contingent upon an understanding of the Ostrogothic kingdom, it is something of a surprise that scholarship has not produced a more recent comprehensive collection of essays representing the many perspectives and approaches present in the field of Ostrogothic stud-ies. The opportunity to seriously discuss this lacuna with interested colleagues arose on the occasion of the 47th meeting of the International Congress on Medieval Studies at the University of Western Michigan (Kalamazoo), where Deborah Deliyannis organized three panels dedicated to Ostrogothic Italy. For her good instincts and her role in facilitating that meeting, we owe Deborah a cheerful debt of gratitude. We would also like to thank the series editors at Brill with whom it has been a constant pleasure to work. Julian Deahl initially shep-herded this volume through its various growing pains until his retirement from Brill in 2015. We would like to thank Julian for answering the endless queries from the volume’s editors with both good humour and good advice. Similarly, we very much want to thank Kate Hammond and Marcella Mulder for see-ing the project through to production and publication after Julian’s retirement. Their task was equally weighty. Finally, this volume would not have been possi-ble but for the many fine scholars who contributed their patience, dedication, and expertise in the form of the chapters contained within it. Although the volume editors are deeply gratified by the quality of the published book, we are more appreciative of the friendships that have grown out of this collaboration. Ennodius, Boethius, and Cassiodorus would have envied such an opportunity.
Jon Arnold, M. Shane Bjornlie, and Tina Sessa December 2015
1.1 Map of Europe and the Mediterranean, ca. 500 2 1.2 Map of Ostrogothic provinces, ca. 525 4
1.3 Map of 6th-century Rome 11 1.4 Map of 6th-century Ravenna 12
8.1 Map of supposed Ostrogothic burial sites in Italy and Dalmatia 190 12.1 Genealogical chart of the Ostrogothic Amal family 298
14.1 Jewellery from a female burial at Domagnano in San Marino, ca. late 5th or early 6th century 351
14.2 Marble female portrait, possibly the eastern Empress Ariadne or Amalasuentha 354
14.3 Ivory portraits of Athalaric and Amalasuentha, upper leafs of the Diptych of Orestes (consul 530) 355
14.4 Senigallia Medallion, portrait of Theoderic 356 14.5 Bronze nummus of Theodahad, ca. 534 356
14.6 Map of eastern half of Ravenna, early 6th century 360 14.7 Marble column capital with monogram of Theoderic 361 14.8 Santo Spirito, basilica and baptistery, Ravenna 362 14.9 Plan of Santo Spirito, Ravenna 363
14.10 Mosaic, baptistery of Santo Spirito, Ravenna 364 14.11 Plan of Theoderic’s palace, Ravenna 366
14.12 Mosaic fragment, possible paving from Theoderic’s palace, Ravenna 369
14.13 Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, basilica interior, Ravenna 371
14.14 Mosaic of the Palatium and the city scape of Ravenna, basilica interior, Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna 374
14.15 Fragmentary mosaic, possibly of Theoderic, basilica interior, Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna 377
14.16 Mausoleum of Theoderic, exterior, Ravenna 379 14.17 Plan of the Mausoleum of Theoderic, Ravenna 380
14.18 Mausoleum of Theoderic, reconstruction of De Angelis d’Ossat 381 14.19 Apse mosaic, church of SS Cosmas and Damian, Rome 385
Jonathan J. Arnold
is Associate Professor of History and Director of Classics at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma. His research focuses on the late antique and early medieval West, particularly the disintegration of the western Roman Empire and ques-tions of identity at this time. He is currently translating works from Ennodius of Pavia for the series Translated Texts for Historians, in addition to publishing Theoderic and the Roman Imperial Restoration (Cambridge 2014).
M. Shane Bjornlie
is Associate Professor of Roman and Late Antique History at Claremont McKenna College in Los Angeles. His research focuses on intersections of rhetorical representation and historical reality from the 4th through the 7th century. He has published Politics and Tradition between Rome, Ravenna and Constantinople: A Study of Cassiodorus and the Variae, 527–554 (Cambridge 2013) and he is currently working on a study of the memory of Roman Empire in the early Middle Ages.
Samuel Cohen
is an Assistant Professor of History at Sonoma State University, California. His interests focus on late and post-Roman Italy, with particular attention to social and religious deviance and its reconciliation. His current research considers the problem of Ostrogothic ‘Arianism’, the language of heresy, and the devel-opment of the institutional authority of the early medieval bishops of Rome.
Kate Cooper
is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Manchester. She writes and teaches about the world of the Mediterranean in the Roman period, with a special interest in daily life and the family, religion and gender, social identity, and the fall of the Roman Empire. Her previous publications include The Fall of the Roman Household (Cambridge 2007) and Band of Angels: The Forgotten World of Early Christian Women (Atlantic Press 2013).
Deborah M. Deliyannis
is Associate Professor of History at Indiana University, Bloomington. She has published an edition and translation of Agnellus of Ravenna’s Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, and also authored Ravenna in Late Antiquity (Cambridge 2010).
Cam Grey
is Associate Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in the social history of rural communities in Late Antiquity. Recently, he has focused upon the intersection of social history, environmental science, and disaster studies in approaching the transforma-tions that this world experienced. He is the author of Constructing Communities in the Late Roman Countryside (Cambridge 2011).
Guy Halsall
is Professor of History at York University. He has published on subjects includ-ing gender and age, death and burial, ethnicity, and warfare and violence in the early Middle Ages. His current research focuses on western Europe in the period around AD 600 and on the application of contemporary philosophy to history. Past publications include Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568 (Cambridge 2007) and Worlds of Arthur: Facts and Fictions of the Dark Ages (Oxford 2013).
Gerda Heydemann
is a researcher at the Institute for Medieval Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Her dissertation (University of Vienna 2013) examines Cassiodorus’ commentary on the Psalms in relation to 6th-century political and theological debates. She is the co-editor (with Walter Pohl) of Strategies of Identification: Religion and Ethnicity in Early Medieval Europe (Turnhout 2013) and Post-Roman Transitions: Christian and Barbarian Identities in the Early Medieval West (Turnhout 2013). She currently holds a fellowship at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Freie Universität Berlin, where she works on the impact of biblical exegesis on the development of Carolingian legal culture.
Mark J. Johnson
is Professor of Art History at Brigham Young University. He specializes in the history of architecture and monumental decoration of Late Antiquity and his recent publications include The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity (Cambridge 2009) and The Byzantine Churches of Sardinia (Wiesbaden 2013).
Sean Lafferty
is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. His research includes law, social, and religious history in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. His previous publications include Law and Society in the Age of Theoderic the Great: A Study of the Edictum Theoderici (Cambridge 2013).
Natalia Lozovsky
is a Research Associate at the Office for the History of Science and Technology at the University of California at Berkeley. Her publications include ‘The Earth is Our Book’: Geographical Knowledge in the Latin West, 400–1000 (Ann Arbor 2000) and over fifteen articles and book chapters.
Federico Marazzi
is Professor of Archaeology and History at Università degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa in Naples. His research interests have included the church of Rome, the excavations of San Vincenzo al Volturno, and monastic settlements in southern Italy. His publications include The Ostrogoths from the Migration Period to the Sixth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective, co-edited with Samuel Barnish (Boydell 2007) and Le città dei monaci: Storia degli spazi che avvicinano a Dio (Jaca 2015).
Christine Radtki
is an historian and researcher at the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Her previous research has focused on the imperial representation of Ostrogothic rulers (Ein Herrscher und seine Schreiben—die Variae Cassiodors im Rahmen der Herrschaftsdarstellung Theoderichs des Großen, PhD diss.), while her current project aims to develop an historical and philological commentary for the chronicle of John Malalas.
Kristina Sessa
is Associate Professor of History at The Ohio State University. Her research focuses on the history of late antique religions and society, with particu-lar emphasis on the intersection between classical Roman culture and early Christianity in the late Roman West. Her current project examines the effects of war and crisis on the formation of ecclesiastical institutions and ideals in the West. Her publications include The Formation of Papal Authority in Late Antique Italy: Roman Bishops and the Domestic Sphere (Cambridge 2012).
Paolo Squatriti
is Associate Professor of History and Italian at the University of Michigan. His current research attempts to understand the transition from a Roman hege-mony to early medieval Europe using a rural perspective that reconstructs the role of landscapes in sustaining communities. His previous publications include Landscape and Change in Early Medieval Italy: Chestnuts, Economy, and Culture (Cambridge 2013) and “The Floods of 589 and Climate Change at the Beginning of the Middle Ages: An Italian Microhistory”, Speculum 85 (2010).
Brian Swain
is an Assistant Professor of History at Kennesaw State University. He studies the barbarians and late Roman historiography, and is the author of “Jordanes and Virgil: A Case Study of Intertextuality in the Getica”, Classical Quarterly 61.1 (2010). He is currently writing a monograph entitled Empire of Hope and Tragedy: Jordanes and the Invention of Roman-Gothic History.
Rita Lizzi Testa
is Professor of Roman History at the Università di Perugia. Her research includes the conversion and Christianization of the Roman Empire, the function of political rhetoric in late antique literature, and the transformation of political institutions from Constantine to Theodosius I. Her many publications include Le Trasformazioni delle élites in età tardoantica (L’Erma di Bretschneider 2006).
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Introduction
Jonathan J. Arnold, M. Shane Bjornlie, and Kristina Sessa
The transformation of the ancient world has long been associated with the geopolitical fragmentation of the late Roman Empire and the rise of barbarian kingdoms in the West. Among the most successful was the Ostrogothic king-dom, a regime that lasted for more than sixty years and encompassed at its height the whole of the Italian peninsula, the island of Sicily as well as sections of southern Gaul, Hispania, and the Balkans (see Figure 1.1). By all accounts, Ostrogothic Italy was a multi-cultural state comprised of Romans and barbar-ians, Latin, Greek, and Gothic speakers, Nicene Catholics and Arbarbar-ians, pagans and Jews. The Ostrogoths ruled Italy during a period marked by economic contraction, demographic decline, urban violence, and war. Yet they also oversaw considerable social and religious stability as well as some remark-able achievements, especially in the areas of literary and intellectual culture and church building. While the rise and fall of Ostrogothic Italy has long been recognized as a significant chapter in late antique and early medieval history, recent research has dramatically revised and reshaped our understanding of this polity and period. Thanks to archaeological discoveries and new method-ological approaches to the sources, we now have more nuanced and complex understandings of Ostrogothic ethnicity and identity, social and political rela-tions among Romans and non-Romans, administrative structures and military cultures, ecclesiastical figures and modes of religious authority, material land-scapes, economic trajectories, and the environment.
Ostrogothic Italy has long played a central role in the framing of Late Antiquity as a historical epoch. Was it a period marked by continuity or discon-tinuity? Was it a time of transformation or an era of crisis and catastrophe?1 For some scholars, the Ostrogothic regime functions as a peaceful interlude or buffer between the breakdown of imperial military and administrative author-ity in the West during the 5th century and the permanent fragmentation of Italy into Byzantine and Lombard polities in the late 6th century, when many
1 For a general discussion of the ‘continuist’ and ‘catastrophist’ narratives of Late Antiquity: Ward-Perkins, “Continuists, Catastrophists” and Marcone, “A Long Late Antiquity?”
Roman structures and ideas endured.2 Alternatively, other scholars underline the essential ‘barbarism’ of Ostrogothic Italy as a warlord society lying beneath a thin veneer of classical Roman civilization, and as a state whose emergence marks the beginning of the early Middle Ages.3 Both the ‘continuist’ and the ‘catastrophist’ schools have their shortcomings. For one, they inevitably cast the Ostrogothic period as either a long Indian summer of classical civilization or an abrupt rupture that heralded the ‘Dark Ages’. Moreover, neither approach fully acknowledges the important structural changes to society that Ostrogothic Italy inherited from the 4th and 5th centuries. Consequently, these studies sometimes obscure the ways in which various continuities and discontinuities may have been normative well before the arrival of the Ostrogoths in 489.
One reason for such polarized treatments of the same period is the abun-dance of rich contemporary evidence, which in some cases supports both
2 See e.g. Moorhead, Theoderic and O’Donnell, Ruin of the Roman Empire.
3 Gibbon, Decline and Fall is perhaps the most infamous example of this perspective, but see more recently Heather, Empires and Barbarians; Kaylor’s introduction to Companion to
Boethius; and Ward-Perkins, Fall of Rome.
Figure 1.1 Map of Europe and the Mediterranean, ca. 500 Map by Ian Mladjov
sides of the debate. By all accounts, the history of the Ostrogothic regime is messy with contradictions; but it is also central to a better understanding of Late Antiquity’s longue durée. Indeed the disparate manners in which later sources of the early Middle Ages filtered Ostrogothic Italy speak to many of the same issues of interpretation. For example, Gregory of Tours, an inhabit-ant of Frankish Gaul born during the early years of the Gothic War (ca. 538/9), preferred to see the period in terms of the political ascendancy of barbarism and heretical (Arian) Christian belief. Conversely, in the 8th and early 9th cen-turies, the Frankish king and emperor Charlemagne cultivated the memory of Ostrogothic Italy as a means of appropriating the imperial past. For inter-locutors with Ostrogothic history then and now, understanding 5th- and 6th- century Italy requires grappling with a chimaera of various personalities. This volume seeks to make accessible the range of these historical interpretations, both modern and pre-modern, to non-specialists and to offer specialists new topics as well as new analyses of traditional questions. As readers will see, con-sensus and consistency are not features of either the late ancient evidentiary or the modern scholarly record.
A ‘Long’ and ‘Wide’ Ostrogothic Italy
Many of the chapters in this volume approach the Ostrogothic era expansively in both time and space. Rather than focus solely on Theoderic’s reign in Italy (489/93–526), they examine a longer period, beginning with Odovacer, the first non-Roman ruler of Italy, who deposed the last Roman emperor of the West in 476, and ending with the ‘official’ conclusion of the Gothic War in 554, when Justinian issued the Pragmatic Sanction. In truth both of these chrono-logical parameters invite criticism. Arguably, Julius Nepos was the last west-ern emperor and his death in 480 marks the true end of the westwest-ern Roman Empire as a political entity. Likewise, even after the Pragmatic Sanction, hos-tilities continued between Gothic and eastern Roman forces in regions north of the Po for several more years, with substantial Ostrogothic resistance to the eastern Roman presence in Italy not ending until the capture of Verona in 562. But they nevertheless provide generally acceptable termini, which expand the inquiry beyond the regnal dates of the Amal dynasty. Geographically, the chap-ters examine not only the Italian regions of the Ostrogothic kingdom (i.e. the peninsula and Sicily) but also the southern Gallic, eastern Spanish, and Illyrian provinces (see Figure 1.2). Theoderic fought and negotiated to control these extra-Italian regions, making their inclusion in this volume not simply relevant but required.
A broad approach is especially warranted given recent scholarly emphasis on the deep foundations of barbarian regimes within the late Roman Empire.4 Moreover, although not every chapter in this volume takes a ‘continuist’ posi-tion on classical antiquity’s durability in the later 5th and 6th centuries, they collectively endeavour to move away from the binaries of rise and fall that often accompany rigid chronological and geographical parameters and unnu-anced histories of the period. This is not to suggest that previous scholarship has not contributed significantly to our understanding of the Ostrogoths, or that they are all oriented around the binary of rise and fall. On the con-trary, the work represented in the present volume rests on numerous key contributions from a wide range of international scholars. For instance, the specialist essays in several collected volumes, such as Teoderico il Grande e i Goti d’Italia (1993), Teoderico e i Goti tra Oriente e Occidente (1995), and The 4 See especially Goffart, Barbarians and Romans; id., Barbarian Tides; Whittaker, Frontiers of
the Roman Empire; Barnwell, Emperor, Prefects and Kings; Mathisen/Shanzer (eds.), Romans, Barbarians; and Pohl (ed.), Kingdoms of the Empire.
Figure 1.2 Map of Ostrogothic provinces, ca. 525 Map by Ian Mladjov
Ostrogoths: From the Migration Period to the Sixth Century (2007), offer impor-tant insights into specific debates and topics, including the economy and settlement archaeology of Ostrogothic Italy. Moreover, there are a number of excellent monographs on the period, which provide what our volume does not: the complete social, religious, and political narrative. Broad studies of Ostrogothic political and military history include H. Wolfram, History of the Goths (1979), T. Burns, History of the Ostrogoths (1984), P. Heather, The Goths (1996), and most recently G. Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West (2007). Additionally, readers may turn to more focused studies on these topics, such as J. Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy (1992). Important work has also been done on the period’s Christian ecclesiastical and cultural developments, from the relevant chapters in J. Richards, Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages (1979) to T. Sardella, Società, chiesa, e stata nell’età di Teodorico (1996), and J.J. O’Donnell, Cassiodorus (1979), which also offers extensive treatment of the period’s intellectual history. P. Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy (1997) is a sophisticated treatment of Ostrogothic social history, which further engages with the thorny issues of ethnicity and identity. And finally, for a nar-rative of the Gothic War (535–54), one may still fruitfully consult volume 4 of T. Hodgkin’s Italy and Her Invaders (1880–99) and the more abridged account in J. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire (1923).
In contrast to these foundational specialist studies and comprehensive nar-rative histories, the present volume offers a broader range of topics than pre-vious collected editions. It also extends consideration of these topics beyond many of the previously mentioned specialized studies. The following contribu-tions present entirely new approaches to Ostrogothic history (e.g. Squatriti’s chapter on Ostrogothic environmental developments and Cohen’s chapter on religious diversity), dedicated analyses of underexplored topics (e.g. Arnold’s chapter on Ostrogothic provinces), and revisionist responses to traditional questions, many of which continue to vex historians (e.g. Bjornlie’s and Sessa’s respective discussions of the civil administration and Roman church). Most significantly, many call for a shift in approach to the period of ca. 476–554, from one oriented around a narrative of rise and fall to one that views the Ostrogothic kingdom not as a discreet and well-defined historical period but as a continuation and/or consequence of the policies, developments, and crises of the late Roman Empire.
Readers, however, will not find complete consensus among the authors on certain key matters of interpretation, particularly on the question of the Ostrogothic kingdom’s historical connections with earlier practices and insti-tutions. Given the discordant nature of Ostrogothic studies in general, such
heuristic divergence is not only unavoidable but also more accurately reflects the current state of the field. Additionally, the volume presents a variety of approaches to the ‘handbook’ format. Whereas many of the authors offer nuanced syntheses of the most recent scholarship on a particular topic (e.g. Heydemann, Arnold, Marazzi, Halsall, and Sessa), a few use the platform to advance original readings of the evidence (e.g. Bjornlie, Squatriti, Cooper, and Lizzi Testa). Because of this variation, the volume speaks to an exceptionally wide range of readers, both specialists in the field and students new to the Ostrogothic era.
The chapters in this volume describe and evaluate many fundamental developments in virtually every area of life in the Ostrogothic kingdom. To help orient readers unfamiliar with the period, this brief introductory section outlines major developments in the realms of politics and the army, ethnicity and social relations, the environment, cities, the economy, religion, and cul-ture. It also alerts readers to the relevant chapters in the volume to which they may turn for further reading.
Politics and the Army
Odovacer’s deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476 marked the temporary end of direct Roman imperial rule in Italy and the beginning of a seventy-five-year experiment in non-Roman (or perhaps quasi-Roman) regional gov-ernment. During this period, a series of barbarian leaders, many of whom hailed from a single dynasty (the Amals), oversaw the armies and adminis-tration of Italy, and at times even undertook imperial projects of their own (e.g. Theoderic’s successful expansion into regions of Gaul and Western Illyricum—a topic explored by Arnold in this volume). As studies have shown, Odovacer (who was a barbarian, but not a Goth) and the Ostrogothic kings did not simply replace Roman soldiers and administrators with ethnically distinct barbarians, nor did they demolish all of the many still-functioning Roman institutions and structures that had been used to govern Italy for centuries. On the contrary, they improvised on changes already taking place. For example, a division between the army and civil militia had its origins in the Diocletianic reforms of the late 3rd century and had become increasingly significant in Italy during the 5th century, when direct control of the Italian military became a crucial component of regional political power. Theoderic, like earlier gen-eralissimos (e.g. Aetius or Ricimer), independently controlled his army, com-prised mainly of non-Roman troops personally loyal to him, and delegated
significant non-military administrative posts to local Roman elites. As recent work has shown, this trend in the administrative and military history of Italy may be traced to policies of emperors from the dynasties of Valentinian I and Theodosius I, and hence pre-dates the Ostrogothic regime by over a century.5
Of course a neat distinction between Gothic soldiers and Roman civil administrators in Italy belies a more complicated reality. Key administrative posts awarded by the Ostrogothic court often involved both military and civil authority, while many Romans found opportunities in the Ostrogothic mili-tary. For instance, after the first victory of the Gothic king Totila against the Byzantine army in 541, he seems to have focused on the recruitment of slaves and peasants, many of whom were likely ethnically Roman.6 Consequently, while a theoretical division of Goths and Romans into military and civil posts existed in Late Antiquity, it fails to describe the more fluid situation on the ground. Readers interested in further examining the complex relationship between Roman and Ostrogothic military and political cultures can turn to the contributions of Radtki on the Senate, Halsall on the army, Bjornlie on civil administration, and Heydemann on political ideology, as well as Lafferty’s related chapter on law and legal practice.
Ethnicity and Social Relations
Just as it is problematic to oversimplify the ethnic compositions of the Ostrogothic army and administration, so it is troubling to maintain easy dis-tinctions between ‘Goth’ and ‘Roman’ as ethnic and social categories. As is well known, the army that Theoderic led into Italy in 489 was not an ethnically ‘pure’ corps of Ostrogoths, but a hodgepodge mix of barbarian soldiers, most of whom had been fighting on behalf of the empire for some time. It is pos-sible to imagine Theoderic and his ‘Ostrogoths’ as a natural extension of the kind of class described by Alexander Demandt, as a highly fluid social stratum in which military membership mattered more than ethnicity.7 Moreover, the very concept of ethnogenesis (the idea that ethnicity is never an essential or static category of identity, but a fluid and constructed set of characteristics that are acquired by a people through both passive and active developments) calls attention to the relative nature of barbarian identity. What it meant to 5 McEvoy, Child Emperor Rule.
6 Moorhead, “Totila” and Noyé, “Social Relations”. 7 Demandt, “Osmosis”.
self-identify as ‘Goth’ and/or ‘Roman’ probably shifted from generation to generation, region to region, and perhaps even from individual to individual. As the contributions of Swain and Halsall show in this volume, ethnicity in Ostrogothic Italy was an extraordinarily complex matter that continues to pro-voke heated debate among modern scholars.
Social relations, too, were in flux during this period, and again, we must look to the 4th and 5th centuries for insight into patterns that were arguably inten-sified under the Ostrogoths. The expansion of the imperial administration and the addition of a second Senate in Constantinople under Constantine mas-sively expanded the numbers of salaried official posts and hence the number of wealthy men who qualified for aristocratic status. Changes in how sena-torial status was achieved soon followed under Valentinian I, which directly rewarded men who had served in the government with higher senatorial hon-ors and which subsequently demoted birth or marriage as the primary means of acquiring elite status. Barbarians, we know, were among the beneficiaries of these changes to the Roman system of social ranking and honour acquisition. Landowning, always the chief medium of wealth in the ancient world, also con-tinued to structure Ostrogothic society, as Grey’s discussion of property owner-ship and peasant labour in this volume shows. However, the influx of men with money from lucrative civil careers or from highly remunerable positions in the army allowed for a new generation of landowners to emerge in Italy, whose elite status was no longer tied to a purely Roman aristocratic lineage. Again, some of these new landed elites were barbarians. One well-known example is Flavius Valila, vir illustris and magister utriusque militae, who founded and endowed a private church on his extensive properties outside of Rome.8
This is not to say that traditional Roman senatorial aristocrats—the Anicii, the Decii, and so on—disappeared during the Ostrogothic period. On the con-trary, many found advantageous positions in the Ostrogothic regime based in Ravenna.9 Moreover, the Roman Senate continued to function as a powerful local governing centre, as Radtki’s chapter demonstrates. However, these fami-lies now had to compete with a range of new elites, including the wives, sisters, and daughters of barbarian leaders. Cooper’s contribution argues that some royal barbarian women, such as Theoderic’s daughter Amalasuentha, exer-cised agency in political affairs through marriage alliances and their influence as regents for young barbarian kings. As she notes, however, female regency
8 For Flavius Valila see Martindale, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (cited as PLRE hereafter) 2, p. 1147 and Pietri/Pietri (eds.), Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire (cited as
PCBE hereafter) 2.2, pp. 2247–8.
and the diplomatic significance of marriage alliances were hardly Ostrogothic inventions; rather, they were central features of several 4th- and 5th-century imperial courts.10
Demography, the Environment, and the Economy
The barbarian kings and queens of Italy rose to power in an age marked by demographic decline and the narrowing of economic horizons, especially with respect to interregional trade. The remarkable downward trajectory of the city of Rome’s population, from ca. 500,000 in 400 to less than 50,000 after the Gothic War (535–54) is perhaps an extreme example. As Squatriti argues here, in what is the first study of Ostrogothic environmental history, a population like classical Rome’s was “ecologically unsustainable” without dramatic forms of state intervention, which it received through the first half of the 5th century, when African grain and oil poured into the city without difficulty. However, its loss of people is part of a less dramatic demographic decline that occurred throughout the peninsula (and beyond), in both urban and (somewhat less clearly) rural locations.11 These population changes were well underway by the late 5th century, when Theoderic entered Rome, and continued apace into the 7th century long after the Ostrogoths had ceased to rule Italy. Studies have also shown that the climates of Europe and the Mediterranean became colder and wetter during the 5th and 6th centuries, though responses to and outcomes of these environmental changes varied enormously from region to region within the Ostrogothic kingdom. Nevertheless, a colder, wetter, and less populated Italy was also one whose material needs were shifting. The Ostrogothic period witnessed the gradual abandonment and/or repurposing of Italy’s once exten-sive and, in some cases, luxurious villas (with notable exceptions such as San Giovanni in Ruoti) as well as shifts toward more extensive forms of agricul-ture, woodland crops (e.g. chestnuts), and animal husbandry. And as ceramic evidence shows, while a few coastal Italian cities such as Rome, Ravenna, and Naples still received oil, wine, and other products from North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean, inland areas were slowly cut off from such commodi-ties and became increasingly reliant on local production centres. Whether people were actually healthier living a more narrowly circumscribed material
10 McEvoy, Child Emperor Rule.
11 African food imports dwindled substantially after 439 by which time the Vandals con-trolled Carthage and the North African fleet and deliveries of the annona became increas-ingly irregular and dependent upon troubled diplomacy between Italy and Africa.
life is an important question explored by Squatriti in this volume. These overall patterns of change in the countryside are linked causally to the demography and, ultimately, to the conditions and culture of urban settings. In their respec-tive contributions Deliyannis and Marazzi discuss Italian urban history during the 5th and 6th centuries, paying close attention to the Ostrogothic regime’s contributions to, and rhetorical use of, cities’ physical condition, past tradi-tions, and beauty.
Religious and Cultural Trends
As in many other post-Roman barbarian kingdoms (e.g. the Vandal and the Visigothic), the Amal dynasty and presumably most Ostrogoths were Arian Christians. On a certain level, therefore, Theoderic’s formation of a govern-ment in Italy represents the creation of an Arian state, though precisely what this meant and how it impacted religious relations remains difficult to know. Generally speaking, our sources give little notice to theological, and presum-ably liturgical, differences (though evidence on Arian rites is utterly lacking for Italy) that supposedly divided Arian from Nicene Christians in Ostrogothic Italy, and even the most devoted Nicene sources remained silent on Theoderic’s ‘heretical’ spiritual status, at least until the end of his reign when criticisms of this nature first appear. In fact, as Lizzi Testa shows in Chapter 16, Theoderic deliberately privileged Nicene churches in Italy and southern Gaul as a means both to garner political support and to access their extensive patronage net-works. The relative tranquility of both rhetoric and practice (as Cohen notes in his chapter on religious diversity in Ostrogothic Italy, we have no evidence for anti-Nicene actions taken by the state, nor for Nicene Christian persecu-tions of Arians) has given rise to a scholarly model of the Ostrogothic regime as a polity that embraced ‘religious tolerance’, wherein Nicene and Arian Christians, along with Jews and others, were permitted to worship in peaceful independence. To what extent this paradigm accurately describes the histori-cal situation is a question addressed by both Cohen and Sessa in their chap-ters. Finally, the Ostrogothic period also witnessed the emergence of the first monastic rules in Italy (e.g. the Regula Magistri and the Regula S. Benedicti) as well as certain ecclesiastical institutions and practices, such as the regula-tion of private villa or estate churches and the shaping of diocesan and met-ropolitan boundaries, issues explored by Sessa and Lizzi Testa (in Chapter 17), respectively.
Finally, the age’s artistic and intellectual achievements have always been central to the study of the Ostrogoths, in large part because of the prominence of Cassiodorus and Boethius—the two ‘giants’ of Ostrogothic intellectual and literary history—in western medieval thought. Lozovsky’s chapter offers a synopsis of their work as well as the contributions of other intellectual figures, such as Ennodius of Pavia, while Heydemann’s chapter on Ostrogothic ideol-ogy and the state surveys important developments in political thought by fig-ures like Cassiodorus. In terms of the visual culture of the Ostrogothic regime, the ruins of Theoderic’s palace and mausoleum in Ravenna, and the numerous churches there and in Rome built and/or renovated during the Ostrogothic period have long fascinated scholars interested in questions about the conti-nuity of classical artistic forms and techniques, and the emergence of a ‘bar-barian aesthetic’, the existence of which most scholars (including those in this volume) tend to question (see Figures 1.3 and 1.4). The chapters by Johnson and Deliyannis offer foundational syntheses of the period’s major works of art and architecture along with insights into their relationship to the Ostrogothic’s regime role as a purveyor of Roman culture.
Figure 1.3 Map of 6th-century Rome Map by Ian Mladjov
Bibliography
Secondary Literature
Amory, P., People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought), Cambridge 1997.
Barnish, S., “Transformation and Survival in the Western Senatorial Aristocracy”,
Papers of the British School at Rome 56 (1988), 120–55.
Barnish, S./Marazzi, F. (eds.), The Ostrogoths: From the Migration Period to the Sixth
Century, An Ethnographic Perspective, Woodbridge, MA 2007.
Barnwell, P.S., Emperor, Prefects and Kings: The Roman West, 395–565, Chapel Hill, NC 1993.
Burns, T., A History of the Ostrogoths, Bloomington, IN 1984. Bury, J., History of the Late Roman Empire, 2 vols., New York 1958. Carile, A. (ed.), Teoderico e i Goti tra Oriente e Occidente, Ravenna 1995.
Demandt, A., “The Osmosis of Late Roman and Germanic Aristocracies”, in E. Chrysos/ A. Schwarcz (eds.), Das Reich und die Barbaren, Vienna 1989, pp. 75–88.
Gibbon, E., The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. J.B. Bury, 3 vols., New York 1946; first published as The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 6 vols., London 1776–88.
Figure 1.4 Map of 6th-century Ravenna Map by Ian Mladjov
Goffart, W., Barbarians and Romans: Techniques of Accommodation, Princeton 1980. ———, Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Middle Ages, Philadelphia
2009.
Halsall, P., Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568, Cambridge 2007. Heather, P., The Goths, London 1998.
———, Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe, Oxford 2012. Hodgkin, T., Italy and Her Invaders, vol. 4: The Imperial Restoration, 2nd ed., Oxford
1896.
Kaylor, N./Phillips, P. (eds.), A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages, Leiden 2012. McEvoy, M., Child Emperor Rule in the Late Roman West, AD 367–455, Oxford 2013. Marcone, A., “A Long Late Antiquity? Considerations on a Controversial Periodization”,
Journal of Late Antiquity 1.1 (1998), 4–19.
Martindale, J.R., The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol. 2: AD 395–527, Cambridge 1980.
Mathisen, R./Shanzer, D. (eds.), Romans, Barbarians, and the Transformation of the
Roman World, Surrey 2011.
Moorhead, J., Theoderic in Italy, Oxford 1992.
———, “Totila the Revolutionary”, Historia 49 (2000), 382–6.
Noyé, G., “Social Relations in Southern Italy”, in S. Barnish/F. Marazzi (eds.), The
Ostrogoths: From the Migration Period to the Sixth Century, An Ethnographic Perspective, Woodbridge, MA 2007, pp. 186–91.
O’Donnell, J.J., Cassiodorus, Berkeley 1979.
———, The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History, New York 2009.
Pietri, C./Pietri, L. (eds.), Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, 2 vols.:
Prosopographie de l’Italie chrétienne (313–604), Rome 1999–2000.
Pohl, W. (ed.), Kingdoms of the Empire: The Integration of Barbarians in Late Antiquity (Transformations of the Roman World 1), Leiden 1997.
Richards, J., Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages, London 1979. Sardella, T., Società, chiesa, e stata nell’età di Teodorico, Messina 1996.
Teoderico il Grande e i Goti d’Italia (Atti del XIII Congresso internazionale di studi
sull’Alto. Medioevo), 2 vols., Spoleto 1993.
Ward-Perkins, W., “Continuists, Catastrophists and the Towns of Post-Roman Northern Italy”, Papers of the British School at Rome 65 (1997), 157–76.
Ward-Perkins, W., The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization, Oxford 2005.
Whittaker, C.R., Frontiers of the Roman Empire: A Social and Economic Study, Baltimore 1994.
The State
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The Ostrogothic Kingdom: Ideologies
and Transitions
Gerda Heydemann Introduction
The history of Ostrogothic Italy has complicated beginnings, reaching back well before the year 493, when Theoderic the Great established himself as a ruler over the peninsula. In 476, the general Odovacer overthrew Orestes as the leader of the army in Italy and deposed the emperor Romulus Augustulus, the latter’s son, an event which serves as one of the conventional dates for the end of Antiquity and the transition to the Middle Ages. There was nothing new in the seizure of power by a barbarian military commander, which had occurred many times before during the 5th century. In contrast to his predecessors, however, Odovacer did not attempt to install an emperor of his own choice, but instead sent the imperial insignia to the emperor Zeno in Constantinople, henceforth ruling over Italy as a rex.1
Roman authors of a later generation retrospectively interpreted these events as the end of the empire in the West and cast Odovacer as a barbar-ian usurper—yet the empire persisted as a framework for Italbarbar-ian politics well after 476.2 The last western emperor to be recognized as such by his east-ern colleague Zeno, Julius Nepos, died only in 481 in exile in Dalmatia, and Odovacer acknowledged both Nepos’ nominal authority and the suzerainty of the emperor in Constantinople. Theoderic in turn seized power over Italy by mandate of the eastern emperor, and it seems that for him and many of his subjects Ostrogothic rule over Italy was perceived as perfectly compatible with the imperial order.
By 488, tensions between Zeno and Odovacer had mounted to such an extent that the emperor decided to send Theoderic and his army to Italy to
1 For the events Stein, Bas-Empire, vol. 2, pp. 39–58; Jones, Later Roman Empire, pp. 238–47; Moorhead, Theoderic, pp. 6–11; Henning, Periclitans, pp. 57–70 (with bibliography).
2 Marcellinus Comes, Chronicle, a. 476, ed. Croke; Jordanes, Romana 344, ed. Mommsen. See Croke, “AD 476”, with the comments in Halsall, Barbarian Migrations, pp. 281–2. Fanning, “Odovacer”, stresses Odovacer’s Roman and imperial profile.
remove Odovacer from power. Theoderic, who had emerged successfully from a power struggle between various competing groups of Goths and their lead-ers in the Balkans in the course of the 470s and 480s, had recently plundered Thrace and was at the time threatening Constantinople. For Zeno, dispatching Theoderic to fight Odovacer in Italy provided a way to deal with two problems at once.3 Theoderic entered Italy in 489 and prevailed over Odovacer after a period of intense warfare. In 493, following a protracted siege of the capital Ravenna whence Odovacer had retreated, the two generals agreed to share rule over Italy. Theoderic, however, murdered Odovacer shortly after entering the city (allegedly with his own hands) and had many of his followers killed. Thereafter, Theoderic’s army, the exercitus Gothorum, proclaimed him king.4 Theoderic had been king of the Goths already since 474, and the renewed proc-lamation in 493 was probably meant to underline his claim to power over Italy and all of its inhabitants.
Theoderic ruled until his death in 526, but the Italian realm outlasted him by only two decades, being decisively destroyed in 552 by the emperor Justinian’s army. Although it existed for little more than half a century in total, it has profoundly influenced our understanding of the transition from the Roman Empire to a post-imperial world in western Europe. By the end of the 5th century, barbarian kings had come to rule Roman provinces all over the West, in North Africa, Spain, and Gaul. Ostrogothic Italy, the former heart-land of the empire, is usually seen as the most ‘Roman’ (and most ‘imperial’) of these western ‘successor states’. At the same time it has been a paradigmatic case in the study of barbarian ethnicity, settlement, and political integration. This has resulted in quite diverse, and only partially overlapping, narratives for framing Ostrogothic history, which continue to elicit lively debates among historians. Did the emergence of Ostrogothic rule mark the end of the Roman Empire in the West, and its replacement by a barbarian kingdom the transition to a different early medieval world? Or was it rather the short-lived renaissance of the western empire? How was the position of the Ostrogothic state defined in relation to the empire in the East? Should we stress the continuity with the political and cultural traditions of the Roman Empire or the barbarian alterity of this polity, its ‘Romanness’ or its ‘Gothicness’? The main aim of this chapter
3 For the agreement between Zeno and Theoderic see Moorhead, Theoderic, pp. 17–19; Haarer,
Anastasius, pp. 76–9; Arnold, Theoderic, pp. 63–71.
is to present a brief outline of the political history of the Ostrogothic kingdom between 493 and 554, but also to address some of these issues.5
One important problem should be addressed from the outset: very often, the questions posed by modern historians (and the answers they provide) are informed by a set of underlying dichotomies, which also characterize broader debates on the period: continuity vs. change, decline vs. transformation, peace-ful integration vs. violent conquest, Romans vs. barbarians. As many of the tra-ditional views associated with the ‘fall of Rome’ and the barbarian migrations (Völkerwanderung) have effectively been criticized in recent decades, it has become clear that we need to move beyond such dichotomies and analyse the Roman continuities of the barbarian kingdoms, and the processes of social, political, and economic change in a world for which the Roman Empire contin-ued to function as a point of reference.6 This is especially important regarding the most pervasive of these dichotomies: that between ‘Romans’ and ‘barbar-ians’, which continues to shape the selection and interpretation of the late antique evidence in often problematic ways.7 Recent work has demonstrated that the barbarian peoples who established power in the Roman West were not the stable and coherent entities imagined by previous generations of national-ist hnational-istorians, and has emphasized the Roman (and Chrnational-istian) foundations of the emerging barbarian polities.8 On the other hand, the multiple levels and changing conceptions of Roman identity have come into sharper view. There were eastern and western, military and civil, central and regional interpreta-tions of Romanness and political legitimacy, only some of which overlapped.9 Instead of finding a verdict on the Roman or barbarian nature of Ostrogothic society and its rulers, it is more interesting to look at 6th-century conceptions of empire and Roman and Gothic identity, and to study the ways in which
5 Fundamental works include: Wolfram, Goths, pp. 247–362; Heather, Goths, pp. 216–76; Amory,
People; Barnish/Marazzi (eds.), Ostrogoths. Important aspects regarding the practice of
gov-ernment and administration in the Ostrogothic regnum are discussed in later chapters in this volume: see Bjornlie, Lafferty, Halsall.
6 Pohl, Völkerwanderung; Halsall, Barbarian Migrations; Brown, Rise; see the series The
Transformation of the Roman World (1997–2004), published by Brill. The paradigm of decline
and fall has been forcefully revived by Ward-Perkins, Fall of Rome; Heather, Fall. For comment see Pohl, “Rome”.
7 Pohl, “Rome”, p. 99; for the archaeological evidence, von Rummel, “Fading Power”.
8 Pohl, “Strategies of Identification”; Halsall, Barbarian Migrations, pp. 35–45; and the some-times polemical contributions in Gillett (ed.), On Barbarian Identity. For a critique of nation-alist paradigms, Geary, Myth of Nations, pp. 15–40; Wood, Modern Origins.
9 Brown, Through the Eye, pp. 392–4; Halsall, Barbarian Migrations, pp. 470–82; Heather, Fall, pp. 432–43; Arnold, Theoderic, pp. 74–6 for Ostrogothic Italy.
contemporary actors interpreted, negotiated, and legitimized the political and ideological shifts and transitions. Indeed many of the issues at stake in modern debates were already discussed in similar terms by the authors of our sources.
Another closely related problem concerns certain narratives that have become almost canonical in modern accounts of Ostrogothic history. For example, the history of the Ostrogothic kingdom is usually told in two parts: first a period of consolidation and prosperity under a strong and emperor-like Theoderic, and second, from the 520s onwards, a time of mounting tensions and crises in the latter part of his reign, eventually leading into further decline and the outbreak of war under his successors. This of course reflects the nature of the available (written) sources, the specific perspectives of their authors, and the interpretations which they seek to promote. These were texts writ-ten to explain, legitimize, or criticize, but also influence, the social and politi-cal developments of their time. It is therefore important to bear in mind the extent to which our understanding of the Ostrogothic state is conditioned by narratives and ideologies of transition created in the 6th century.
Theoderic’s Imperial Kingdom
For Theoderic, as for Odovacer before him, recognition by the emperor in the East was crucial. Embassies seeking confirmation of his position had been sent to Constantinople even before Theoderic had achieved undisputed con-trol over Italy. However, Zeno died in 491 and his successor Anastasius was reluctant to acknowledge Theoderic’s rule. The elevation as king over Italy therefore happened without imperial consent, and it was only in 498, after pro-tracted negotiations, that Anastasius finally recognized Theoderic’s rule.10 The Anonymus Valesianus reports that Theoderic “made peace with the emperor Anastasius with regard to the presumption of the rule (presumptio regni) and Anastasius sent back to him all the ornaments of the palace, which Odovacer had transferred to Constantinople [in 476]”.11 This symbolic act of returning the ornamenta palatii in 498 signalled the acceptance of Theoderic’s indepen-dent rule in the Italian provinces.12
10 See Moorhead, Theoderic, pp. 35–9; Haarer, Anastasius, pp. 80–2. 11 Anonymus Valesianus (12) 64, ed. Rolfe.
12 Anonymus Valesianus (12) 64, ed. Rolfe; see Kohlhas-Müller, Rechtsstellung, pp. 143–6. Börm, “Kaisertum”, p. 54 interprets this as an invitation to Theoderic to nominate a new western emperor.
If the conditions for this agreement were laid down in a formal treaty, no written record has survived. This has caused vigorous debate among scholars about Theoderic’s constitutional position and the precise definition of the Ostrogothic kingdom as a political entity in relation to the empire.13 What kind of legitimate authority could Theoderic and his successors claim for their exer-cise of power over Goths and Romans in Italy? Was his role that of a ‘barbarian king’ similar to other rulers in the West, or did he fulfil a properly imperial function on a par with his senior colleague in the East?
Theoderic, who was a Roman citizen and had received the consulate and the title of patrician, came to Italy as a representative of the emperor and as a royal leader of his Gothic army. He would go on to exercise his rule over all the inhabitants of Italy as a king, based on the election by the exercitus and, eventually, the recognition by the emperor. While in older research Theoderic’s kingship was seen as part of a supposedly ‘Germanic’ tradition of kingship, this view has meanwhile justly been discarded.14 More recent approaches instead emphasize the Roman traditions underlying political rule not only in Ostrogothic Italy, but in all the kingdoms established in the former prov-inces, for which the models were imperial rather than non-Roman.15 Many elements associated with barbarian kingship which scholars used to interpret as ‘Germanic’ traditions are now seen as being derived from imperial prece-dents. It is therefore more appropriate to speak of ‘post-imperial’ kingship.16 Moreover, as Walter Pohl has observed, kingdom and people (regnum and gens) were two distinct social spaces in the post-Roman kingdoms.17 In Ostrogothic Italy the gens was roughly equivalent to the Gothic army, or more specifically to those members of the Gothic military elite who elected the king and gave their consent to military expeditions. It deserves emphasis that this was by no means a homogeneous group in terms of ethnic identification.18 The reg-num, by contrast, comprised the inhabitants of all of Italy and its provinces, including the Roman population. Accordingly, Theoderic used as an official title simply rex (without any ethnic or territorial specification), complemented
13 Jones, “Constitutional Position”; Wolfram, Gotische Studien, pp. 139–44, 159–70; Prostko-Proskýnski, Utraeque res publicae; Arnold, Theoderic, especially pp. 72–91.
14 Notably (but not exclusively) in the works of German-speaking scholars such as Ensslin,
Theoderich; Dahn, Die Könige der Germanen. For a critique see Dick, Der Mythos.
15 Pohl, “Regnum”; Wolfram, Gotische Studien, pp. 139–73; Esders, Römische Rechtstradition; Halsall, Barbarian Migrations, pp. 488–94.
16 Halsall, Barbarian Migrations, pp. 488–90. 17 Pohl, “Regnum”, p. 443.
by the gentilicium Flavius, which conveyed a distinctly Roman (and perhaps imperial) flavour.19 To assume kingship would have provided a way to exert independent rule over a Roman region without openly challenging the posi-tion of the emperor or continuity with the empire and its instituposi-tions.20
Imperial legitimation and kingship were thus closely intertwined aspects of Theoderic’s authority. Our various sources are mostly of a later date and trans-mit selective and sometimes conflicting accounts, thus giving rise to vigorous debates among modern historians; we should therefore perhaps resist the urge to harmonize them.21 Theoderic’s strategies of representation suggest that he was deliberately exploiting the ambiguity of his position as king.22 While he abstained from using the imperial title (imperator or Augustus), official docu-ments such as those contained in the Variae, often describe Theoderic as a princeps with the full range of imperial attributes.23 Theoderic also seems to have respected certain ceremonial prerogatives, such as the right to issue coins with the ruler’s portrait. The fact that he legislated by means of edicts (edicta) rather than through laws (leges) is usually interpreted in this sense as well, but his legislative activity clearly followed imperial models.24 The anniversary of his reign in 500 was celebrated in Rome in truly imperial fashion, including games, a speech in front of the Senate, and a visit to St Peter’s.25 Theoderic also stepped into the role of a Christian emperor, quite irrespective of his non-Nicene (‘homoean’) creed.26 He sponsored the building of churches and acted as a mediator in doctrinal debates and conflicts of succession within the
19 Wolfram, Goths, pp. 286–8; idem, Intitulatio, pp. 61–2, 67–70; Prostko-Proskýnski, Utraeque
res publicae, pp. 63–74. The use of an ‘ethnic’ title (such as rex Gothorum) by barbarian
kings was the exception rather than the rule in the 5th and 6th centuries: Gillett, “Was Ethnicity”; Pohl, “Regnum”, pp. 440–1.
20 Pohl, Völkerwanderung, p. 136; Barnish, “Cuncta Italiae Membra”, p. 319.
21 Moorhead, Theoderic, pp. 39–51 provides a helpful discussion of the different viewpoints in the sources.
22 Arnold, Theoderic, pp. 27–28 and pp. 88–91 who emphasizes the overlap between royal and imperial language and titles; Fanning, “Odovacer”, pp. 47–51. For a general overview: McCormick, Eternal Victory, pp. 267–84.
23 Reydellet, La royauté, pp. 214–22; Giardina, Cassiodoro, pp. 146–8; Kohlhas-Müller,
Rechtsstellung, pp. 88–99, 107–37.
24 Lafferty, Law and Society, pp. 28–9 and passim; Kohlhas-Müller, Rechtsstellung, pp. 235–45. 25 Anonymus Valesianus 65–7 (12), ed. Rolfe; Vitiello, “Teoderico”; McCormick, Eternal
Victory, p. 273.
Catholic Church. The acts of a Roman synod held in 499 show the assembled Catholic bishops extending acclamations to Theoderic as if to an emperor.27
A famous inscription set up by a distinguished Roman senator celebrated Theoderic as “illustrious king” and “perpetual Augustus”, showing that even if he did not openly style himself an emperor, his subjects certainly could imag-ine him in this role.28 Theoderic and his courtiers in Ravenna used both the language of kingship and the language of empire to articulate the legitimacy of the Ostrogothic government. In Cassiodorus’ Variae the terms regnum and imperium are used interchangeably for both the Italian realm and the east-ern Empire, sometimes differentiating “our realm” from the “easteast-ern realm”, but never with an ‘ethnic’ qualification such as ‘kingdom of the Ostrogoths’. Continuity with the Roman Empire is also conveyed by the frequent use of res publica, a term which could express both claims to distinctiveness vis-à-vis other barbarian kingdoms and claims to shared traditions and equality vis-à-vis the eastern Empire.29 The works of Ennodius likewise display a sense of impe-rial self-assurance on the part of the senatoimpe-rial and clerical elite.30
Eastern emperors clearly acknowledged Theoderic as a ruler with legiti-mate authority over the Italian realm. In his correspondence with the Senate in Rome Anastasius referred to Theoderic as the “exalted king (excelsus rex)”, who is entrusted with the “power and solicitude of governing you”.31 Similarly, Justin I referred to him as “preeminent king”.32 Eastern observers were also well aware of the ambivalence of Theoderic’s status. The Latin historian Jordanes, who composed a Gothic History and a brief Roman History in Constantinople in the early 550s, carefully weighed the language of barbarian kingship against that of the Roman imperial tradition when he characterized the beginning of Theoderic’s rule in Italy.33 His writings also alert to the contrast between the imperial legitimation of Theoderic’s takeover and the idea, which he borrowed from the chronicler Marcellinus Comes, that the western empire had ended 27 Acta synhodorum, Synod of 499, ed. Mommsen, p. 405; Moorhead, Theoderic, p. 54. See
Sessa in this volume.
28 Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (hereafter CIL) X, 6850–52; Moorhead, Theoderic, pp. 47–48; Giardina, Cassiodoro, pp. 73–99, who suggests a connection with Cassiodorus and the court.
29 Suerbaum, Staatsbegriff, pp. 247–67; Giardina, Cassiodoro, pp. 124–31; Prostko-Postkynski,
Utraeque res publicae, pp. 75–101.
30 Ennodius, Theoderich-Panegyricus, ed. Rohr; Näf, “Zeitbewusstsein”; Amory, People, pp. 112–20.
31 Collectio Avellana 113, ed. Günther, p. 507.
32 Collectio Avellana 199, ed. Günther, p. 658; Wolfram, Intitulatio, pp. 54 n. 103. 33 Jordanes, Romana 348–49; Jordanes, Getica 289–95, ed. Mommsen.
in 476.34 Procopius, writing in Greek, carefully exploited the tensions between king and emperor, tyranny and imperial authority, when he noted in his Wars that Theoderic, like a barbarian ruler, used the title ρήξ (rex/rhix), but that he showed himself to be a true emperor over Goths and Romans through his deeds—even if he had been a tyrant in name.35 Both Jordanes and Procopius of course wrote with hindsight: their accounts of the beginning of Theoderic’s reign and his rule were shaped by the climate of the 550s, when the legitimacy of Ostrogothic rule over Italy had become an explosive issue against the back-ground of Justinian’s attempt to restore direct imperial control over the West. Procopius’ account of war-time negotiations between Gothic ambassadors and the eastern general Belisarius demonstrates that the question to which extent Theoderic’s assumption of power had been authorized by the emperor (and could therefore be seen as conforming to imperial traditions and preroga-tives) was a crucial argument for delegitimizing the Gothic war.36
Already in the 6th century, there were thus diverse vocabularies of power available to characterize the rule of Theoderic and his successors. The balance between kingship and empire, between military leadership and Roman civil power, was constantly renegotiated by different political players throughout Theoderic’s reign and that of his successors. So was the shifting status of the Ostrogothic state between barbarian kingdom and empire restored, and the definition of its relationship with the eastern Empire.
Organization of Power and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy
The Gothic envoys who made the case for the legitimacy of Ostrogothic rule of Italy in Procopius’ account made their point by underlining continuity with imperial traditions of government, most of all with regard to the careful preser-vation of Roman law and of the institutions of the civil administration, which continued to be in the hands of Roman officials.37 Modern historians tend to concur. The Ostrogothic kingdom is often singled out among the ‘barbarian successor states’ of the 6th century for its remarkably Roman profile. The poli-cies and ideologies promoted by Theoderic point to his strong commitment to
34 Jordanes, Romana 345; Getica, 243, ed. Mommsen.
35 Procopius, Wars 5.1.26–30, ed. Dewing; Wolfram, Intitulatio, pp. 40–1, suggested a trans-literation of either a Gothic or a Latin term, but see now idem, Gotische Studien, p. 140; Reydellet, La royauté, pp. 202–5.
36 Procopius, Wars 6.6, ed. Dewing. 37 Procopius, Wars 6.6.17–20, ed. Dewing.
the idea of the integration of the Goths into the existing political framework and of consensual rule over Goths and Romans along the lines of Roman impe-rial traditions.
As a ruler of Italy, Theoderic inherited two centres of government: Ravenna, where the imperial administration was located, and Rome, the seat of the Senate.38 The balance of power and influence between these centres required careful attention from the king, as had been the case for his predecessors.39 Given the enormous influence of the senatorial elite in terms of wealth and patronage, Theoderic needed to carefully ensure their support by showing respect for their privileges and for the political traditions connected with the care of the res publica. They continued to enjoy nominations to the consulate and the associated social prestige, and the Senate was left with its traditional political prerogatives.40 Appointment to offices within the palatine bureau-cracy was generally bestowed upon members of the Roman aristobureau-cracy, which meant that traditional structures of patronage and career options remained largely intact. Although some Roman aristocrats seem to have kept a certain distance from the Ostrogothic court, many others, such as Liberius or Boethius, were involved in government through the assumption of high offices as prae-torian prefect or magister officiorum. The distinctiveness of the political tradi-tions of the senatorial elite in Rome and that of the court-centred aristocracy in Ravenna thus persisted.41 The great families seem to have been particularly important during the early phase of Theoderic’s reign, but he also promoted persons of less exalted origins, many of them from northern Italy, a policy that seems to have caused tensions among the senatorial elite.42
The civil administration continued to function largely along late impe-rial models, although there were also significant modifications in response to the changed economic and military situation in Italy.43 This was essen-tial, since taxes needed to be collected and public order upheld. Cassiodorus’ Variae provide exceptionally rich information about the administration under Ostrogothic rule. The picture they present is one of continuity—the Ostrogothic
38 In addition, other Italian cities functioned as royal residences, most notably Pavia and Verona, see Bjornlie in this volume.
39 Bjornlie, Politics, 127–34; Wickham, Italy, pp. 15–19.
40 Barnish, “Senatorial aristocracy”; Schäfer, Senat; Moorhead, Theoderic, pp. 140–72; Radtki in this volume.
41 Schäfer, Senat, pp. 149–69; Matthews, “Boethius”, pp. 26–31. 42 Schäfer, Senat, pp. 170–211; Moorhead, Theoderic, pp. 147–58.
43 For details, see Bjornlie in this volume. Barnwell, Emperor, pp. 140–69 puts greater empha-sis on change underlying a façade of continuity.
