Seventy years after Galla Placidia’s assumption of the regency, and over forty years after Valentinian III’s disastrous decision to leave Ravenna, Theoderic took control of the city that continued to embody its imperial inheritance. To consolidate the process of fusing the Roman and non-Roman populations begun by Odoacer, the Ostrogothic king drew up a new law code. This is the Edict, a short legal text probably issued in Rome in 500.
After the two sacks of Rome by Goths and Vandals (in 410 and 455), ravages caused by Ricimer’s troops in 472, and the loss of the African wheat supply after 439, the ancient city’s population and extent had been considerably reduced. By the end of the fifth century it was down to about 500,000, which was still larger than the populations of other Italian cities, but constantly declining.1 When Theoderic and the Goths arrived Ravenna possibly had 10,000 inhabitants and this number expanded rapidly as the king set up his new government. The city attracted local ‘Italo-Romans’ as well as non-Roman peoples, who sought work in the centre dominated by this figure with the elevated title of patricius, who brought personal knowledge of the eastern court to Ravenna. In contrast, the underlying population trend in Rome was downwards, out of the city, as some of the oldest aristocratic families left to join the new Senate in Constantinople and ascetic, celibate patterns of life disrupted the ancient emphasis on family continuity. Despite the loss of their estates in provinces of the western Roman empire, especially North Africa, senators were still the wealthiest individuals, but Christian dominance contributed to a reduction in their resources as Roman bishops, who were regularly drawn from aristocratic circles, donated much of their wealth to the church.
‘Rome’ still implied much more than just the city, despite the fact that for over two centuries the working capital had been moved first to Milan and then Ravenna. It was a term as well as a place. Rome remained the site of a great imperial legacy, especially from the pre-Christian era, and emperors continued to celebrate triumphs in their ceremonial visits to Rome. What remained of the Senate of Rome continued to meet in its Curia in the Forum and maintained the calendar of associated festivities, such as the anniversary of the city’s foundation. Apart from the appointment of an urban prefect to run the city, the senators’ formal role was to propose the names of the consuls nominated by the king and confirmed in Constantinople, which were still used as a system of dating. At the same time, bishops of the city began to elaborate a novel ecclesiastical attribute to the term ‘Roman’. As the heirs of St Peter, these leaders of the church of Rome claimed a superior status and authority over all western bishops, which they exercised by settling appeals, resolving quarrels and holding councils that issued legally binding resolutions in the form of decretals or ecclesiastical canons. Their definitions of theological doctrine were applied with the force of law against opponents, who were branded as schismatics and heretics. In this way, ‘correct’ Catholic belief became identified as Roman.2
In his relations with the ancient capital Theoderic had to attend to these two different constituencies: Senate and church. He was aware of the power of the leading families and set out to win their support, urging senators to continue their traditional funding of popular entertainment (chariot races, theatrical performances and wild beast displays, if not actual fights), which bankrupted at least one of them – Asterius in 494:
I provided banners in the circus and erected a temporary stage on the spina [the middle of the hippodrome] so that Rome might rejoice and hold games, races and different sorts of wild beast shows . . . Thus do the games preserve the expenditure of my riches and the single day that saw three spectacles will last, and hand on Asterius to a lively future, Asterius who spent the wealth he had won on his consulship.3
In connection with the traditional chariot races, however, church leaders like St John Chrysostomos and St Augustine had expressed their strong disapproval, linking circus entertainments with the frenzied enthusiasm and immoral behaviour generated by such crowds of men and women.4 Theoderic was perfectly aware of this attitude and was careful in his correspondence with Roman church leaders. He also recognized the high educational standards maintained in Rome and encouraged senators to support this tradition too. For their part, the senators of Rome needed Theoderic’s protection as he reestablished control over the disintegrating imperial structure in the West. Without him they could not defend or maintain the extended circuit of the city’s walls, aqueducts and mills.
Although the earlysixth-century sections of the Roman Book of the Pontiffs were written in about 535, after Theoderic’s death, they make no reference to his Arian beliefs until the last year of his reign (525–6).5 In the Lives of the seven bishops of Rome between 492 and 530 events are dated in a neutral fashion: ‘in the time of King Theoderic and the Emperor Zeno [or Anastasios]’. Theoderic does not appear to have been seen primarily as a heretic and was not denounced by these bishops. Yet the identification of the Goths as a separate people, with a version of Christian scripture written in their own language, meant that Theoderic was an Arian leader. He did not wish to abandon such a fundamental identification of his people, but his ambition to create a Gothic kingdom within the empire involved a subordination of religious differences to the larger sphere of Roman civilization. While remaining loyal to Arian definitions of the faith, Theoderic was able to use his position outside the Catholic community to exercise an unexpected authority in theological issues, and as the supreme secular power in the region he was invited to act as arbiter in disputed ecclesiastical elections.
Theoderic’s reputation for fairness was confirmed in 498 when he received an appeal to arbitrate in a papal quarrel. It arose when two candidates were elected to the bishopric of Rome on the same day, causing a deep division among both the clergy and the Senate. The rival parties sought to resolve the dispute by going to Ravenna for the king’s judgment. The decision to appeal to a ruler known to be an Arian Christian must reflect confidence in his capacity to adjudicate equitably in what was a purely Catholic matter. And Theoderic seems to have provided a solution: ‘he made the fair decision’, according to the papal record, namely that the first candidate elected and by the largest party should become bishop.6 This was Symmachus, a deacon of the Roman church, whose opponent, Laurentius, was persuaded to accept the see of Nuceria (Nocera).7 Symmachus then called a synod to draw up rules for papal elections – an instance of the inventiveness of this period of early Christendom.
As a result of this successful intervention, Theoderic made an official visit to Rome in 500, his only lengthy stay in the ancient capital. The Anonymous Valesianus identifies this as a celebration of his tricennalia, the thirtieth anniversary of his assumption of regal power (and possibly an imitation of Constantine the Great’s tricennalia of 335). It could also have been taken as marking the tenth anniversary of his rule in Italy, decennalia, a suitable moment to make an extravagant display of imperialstyle largesse – chariot races and games in the Circus Maximus, and distributions of food and wine. Before his official entry to the city, Theoderic went to venerate St Peter ‘as if he were a Catholic’, probably at the basilica which lay outside the north-western walls of the city.8 Then there was an official ceremony of welcome involving Symmachus, so recently confirmed as bishop, the entire Senate and the populus, who escorted him into Rome. There he visited the Senate and addressed the people at the Palm, a point in the Forum between the Senate house and the arch of Septimius Severus. ‘He entered the Palace in a triumphal procession for the entertainment of the people and exhibited games in the Circus for the Romans.’9 All this was typical of an adventus, an imperial visit to the ancient heart of empire, such as Constantius II made in 357. Very few emperors had been seen in Rome since that year.
Theoderic’s familiarity with imperial tradition was immediately displayed in his actions. From the emperors’ former residence on the Palatine Theoderic announced that he would make an annual distribution of grain for the people (a function normally performed by the Senate) and committed tax funds for a muchneeded restoration of the city walls and for the repair of public buildings, including some parts of the vast palace.10 Like all emperors, he distributed honours to the senators and promoted officials to new posts. He also concluded an important alliance with the Vandal kingdom of North Africa by betrothing his sister Amalafrida to King Thrasamund. Amalafrida’s departure for Carthage must have occasioned another grandiose celebration; she was escorted by a ceremonial guard of a thousand noble Goths and a troop of five hundred warriors. In addition, Theoderic gave her the north-west promontory of Sicily, Lilybaeum, as her dowry, so she became a queen in her own right, with her own financial resources.
Theoderic never presumed to issue laws, as only an emperor could do that, but he wrote many edicts and regulations which drew heavily on Roman precedent and, from the very first years of his rule, he adopted a Roman style of legal administration that took account of Gothic traditions. When he received appeals, such as one from a Roman widow dispossessed by a high official, his harsh punishment of the man responsible and his insistence that the law be observed set the tenor of his administration: corruption of any kind would not be tolerated; and the purchase of office, abuse of privilege or misuse of public funds were all outlawed. This attitude is clear in a letter Cassiodorus wrote in the king’s name in about 510 to two officials (one Roman, one Gothic) who had been appointed to resolve disputes about the barbarian occupation of Roman estates by force: ‘You who have taken up the work of proclaiming law to the people should observe and cultivate justice. For a man who is supposed to restrain others under the rule of law must do no wrong . . .’11 The ideals later recorded by Cassiodorus were clearly deeply held, whether his administration always lived up to them or not. As we will see from his law code, the king demonstrated a strenuous effort to make the administration of justice available and effective.
Theoderic also knew that it was traditional for emperors to pronounce their legal regulations at Rome and to inscribe them on stone. So, during the six months that Theoderic spent there in 500, celebrating his role as princeps, ruler over the Goths and Romans, he promulgated a short legal code, the Edictum Theoderici. This very important text unites the two traditions – Gothic and Roman – in a joint legal administration that had been prepared in Ravenna, was taken to Rome for its formal promulgation, and then inscribed on stone to be displayed in public places.12 It was designed to ensure peace and order within the new state that Theoderic ruled by establishing one law for all – a ius commune for both Goths and Romans.
We, taking into consideration the [desired] peace of the state and having before Our eyes the irregularities that can often occur . . . command that the present edicts be posted for ending matters of this sort, so that both barbarians and Romans (barbari et romani), while maintaining the respect due to the public laws and dutifully preserving in their entirety the rights of everyone, may clearly know what they are obligated to follow concerning the items specified in the present edicts.13
If judges were unable to enforce the regulations that followed, drawn from recent laws and previous Roman codes, they were to report immediately to the king. In this way Theoderic aimed to prevent the influence over, and corruption of, judges by powerful landowners (both Roman and Gothic) and perhaps military leaders.
The first ten regulations are devoted to the activity of judges, who at that time were drawn from all those in authority and often had no legal expertise. They were not a professional class.14 To improve this situation Theoderic appointed Gothic counts to preside in courts when Goths brought legal disputes, and Roman judges to oversee cases brought by the local Italo-Romans, and ordered the correct implementation of the law according to Roman precedent. In problematic circumstances that brought representatives of the two communities into conflict across ethnic boundaries, the two authorities were to work together to resolve them. He insisted that circuit judges were to be a benefit not a burden to provincials, and they were not to claim more than three days’ maintenance when they visited.15 In his own resolution of disputes, Theoderic emphasized the ideals of common justice and appropriate treatment that the Edict intended to inculcate. Concerning a man who had struck and hurt his brother very badly, Theoderic recommended that for such fratricidal hatred the perpetrator should be exiled from the province, as one undeserving of the company of fellow citizens.16
Like all the ‘barbarian’ law codes, the Edictum draws particularly on the Codex Theodosianus, a key source, and addresses a wide range of conflicts that often arose over the treatment of slaves, the arrangement and dissolution of marriages, the enforcement of wills, the punishment of cattle rustlers, thieves, illegal occupation of property and the use of torture and oaths. In 154 short regulations it underlines the importance of officials behaving appropriately, whether they are in charge of public weights and measures or tax receipts. The text of Theoderic’s Edictum employs a clear, unembroidered language normally used by jurists, lawyers and legal experts such as the quaestores, who must have been responsible for the selection and adaptation of Roman precedent to suit the new code.17 The Edict preserved the privileges of Jews, whose disputes should be resolved by ‘teachers of their own observance’ (title 143), and set out penalties for those who burried corpses within the city of Rome (title 111) – both of these titles repetitions of Roman law – or those who committed fraud through forgery, including clipping gold coins (title 90). ‘If a condemned curial should leave behind children, they shall take possession of everything which he forfeits; if he has no children, his assets shall be conferred on the municipal council’, with the exception of cases of high treason when the children get nothing (title 113). Regarding the protection of women from rape, titles 17–22 repeat the Codex Theodosianus, including the provision that if a slave discovers that a complaint of abduction (raptus) has been concealed through the connivance of his owners and he reports this to the court, he shall be freed. Title 23 is an innovation concerning those who die intestate: the closest in degree and title among the agnates and cognates of the deceased inherit, though the rights of the children and grandchildren must be preserved. Such concerns are paralleled in other legal collections, even the short Ecloga (Selections) issued by Leo III and his son Constantine V in 741 in the eastern half of the empire.18
In assuming this imperial role, Theoderic used the historic standing and religious authority of Rome to augment the impact and legitimacy of his legal code. He then left the city for Ravenna, never to return, imposing its regulations from his own capital for another quarter of a century. His solution to the disputed papal election of 498 did not last long. In 502 two senators, Festus and Probinus, accused Pope Symmachus of numerous crimes, recalled his rival Laurentius and asked Theoderic to appoint a neutral figure with authority, a visitor, to the church of Rome to investigate. There were clear precedents for this procedure; Emperor Honorius had used the same method to resolve a quarrel in 419.19 But Pope Symmachus refused to recognize the visitor (Bishop Peter of Altinum) and the dispute provoked so much violence on the streets of Rome that Theoderic had to send three Gothic saiones, Gudila, Bedeulphus and Arigern, to impose order. The king insisted that the bishops should themselves decide who should be their leader, and Symmachus was finally confirmed in his position by a synod held in 502 (with the help of the two consuls). It was signed by 103 bishops, led by Laurentius of Milan and Peter of Ravenna.20
Long before Theoderic arrived in Italy a breach had developed between the sees of Constantinople and Rome, which complicated his relations with them both. It was related to the persistent problem of Christ’s human and divine qualities, debated at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which Emperor Zeno had attempted to resolve in a compromise drawn up by Patriarch Akakios in the Henotikon (Edict of Union) in 482. But this edict was condemned as too close to the miaphysite belief in the union of the human and divine in one nature, and two years later Pope Felix III, with the support of a synod at Rome, condemned it as a betrayal of the Chalcedonian duophysite definition of two distinct natures that shared the same essence. As a result, Roman popes refused to name the Constantinopolitan patriarchs in their daily prayers or to take communion together, and the easterners responded in kind. Peter, Catholic bishop of Ravenna, was one of the most prominent church leaders who supported Pope Felix and maintained the schism with the East, which continued long after the death of Akakios in 489.21
When Hormisdas was elected to the see of Rome in 514, he renewed efforts to end the schism with Constantinople, and took Theoderic’s advice on three separate occasions. The first time, the king recommended Bishop Ennodius of Pavia as a negotiator, and Ennodius then led two missions to Constantinople. Both were rebuffed. It was only after the death of Emperor Anastasios and the accession of Justin I in 518 that the new emperor could revoke the Henotikon (on 28 March 519). The Roman Book of the Pontiffs records that Pope Hormisdas again took King Theoderic’s advice about the delegation that would travel to Constantinople to celebrate this event. Later, he went to Ravenna to consult the king about reinstating those bishops who had resisted the schism, realizing that restoring them would mean removing others who had approved of it. With Theoderic’s agreement Hormisdas then drew up a document ordering the withdrawal of the Henotikon and the pardon and reinstatement of all its opponents, which he sent with his warrant, seal and signature to Emperor Justin.22 This reestablished the unity of the Catholic church and endorsed the authority of the Council of Chalcedon. While the Arian Gothic ruler had not been a party to the dispute, his stature as a political leader again allowed him to rise above doctrinal divisions: his Catholic Christian subjects consulted him and followed his advice.
Theoderic’s visit to Rome in 500 had confirmed his respectful appreciation of the Catholic Church and Senate, to which many responded by supporting the Gothic government in its diplomatic initiatives. But it seems that officials attached to the court in Ravenna, such as Cassiodorus, developed a distinct attitude at variance with some of the older senatorial aristocracies based in Rome. Theoderic’s tendency to turn away from those families with the closest connections to Rome became apparent in the 510s, as he began to appoint new men (novi homines) to his court, often senators from Liguria and northern Italy.23 This split between the older and less prominent Roman aristocrats may have contributed to the accusations that led to the arrest and death of Boethius and his father-in-law, Symmachus, a very distinguished Roman senator, although the real and immediate provocation was the threat to Arian worship in Constantinople.
In 522–3 the eastern Emperor Justin began to curtail the celebrations of Arian Christians in Constantinople, a symptom of the much greater intolerance that would later result in outright persecution of minorities. The closure or takeover of Arian churches in the East obviously attacked Theoderic’s Arian coreligionists and damaged his generally cordial political relations with the imperial court. The Roman Book of the Pontiffs gives a clear account of this development:
the orthodox emperor Justin . . . wanted to drive heretics out: in the deep fervour of his Christianity he adopted a plan to consecrate the churches of the Arians as catholic ones. That was why when the heretic king Theoderic heard of it, he was incensed and wanted to put the whole of Italy to the sword.24
From Theoderic’s point of view, Justin and his young nephew, Justinian, who was already preparing to assume greater imperial control, were breaking the arrangement with emperors Zeno and Anastasios by which the king had assumed Gothic leadership of the Roman empire in the West and which involved a respect for the differences between Catholic and Arian Christians. The king’s sharp reaction was therefore immediate and was doubtless exacerbated by rumours that certain Roman senators were plotting with forces in Constantinople to replace his government by direct rule from the eastern capital. Rome’s support for measures against heretical Arian practice was being exploited by opponents of Gothic rule for political reasons. Theoderic therefore sent an embassy to investigate, forcing Pope John, Bishop Ecclesius of Ravenna and several senators to participate.
At the king’s court Cyprian, a referendarius (judicial official), publicly accused Albinus, the senator and Theoderic’s consul and ambassador, of communicating with allies in the eastern capital in a treacherous plot to impose a ruler in the West nominated in Constantinople. When Boethius heard this, he immediately protested. ‘Cyprian’s charge is false, but if Albinus did it, both I and the entire senate have done it acting together. The business is false, lord king.’25 This declaration that Boethius and all the Roman Senate would stand by Albinus did not reassure Theoderic, who pressed Cyprian to provide proof of his claim. Forged letters were then concocted that implied Albinus and his allies were intending to restore Roman freedom (libertas Romana), that is, to overthrow the Gothic kingdom. Any suggestion that Constantinople might reimpose direct rule in Ravenna was, naturally, anathema to Theoderic, who arrested Albinus and Boethius. The tensions were heightened by the failure of the embassy he had sent to the East, which did not secure freedom of worship for the Arian Christians in Constantinople. On its return Theoderic imprisoned the Roman participants and Pope John died in prison in Ravenna.26 Since Boethius had dedicated some parts of his Opuscula Sacra to John, a Roman deacon before his election as pope, this may have added to Theoderic’s hostility to the scholar whom he had so warmly patronized.27
While Boethius was awaiting trial, he composed his famous text, The Consolation of Philosophy, which was to have an extraordinary influence in later centuries. He describes the inspiration of philosophy, personified as a lady who encouraged his analysis of what makes a good life. Plato had advised that good men should rule in order to prevent the wicked from having authority, and Boethius cites this as his reason for accepting a governmental position at Theoderic’s court. He stresses his love of justice, which prompted him to defend those who were already suffering hardship from higher taxation, and justifies his own role in the defence of Albinus. He details the love of philosophy already expressed in his intention to translate all the works of Plato and Aristotle into Latin. Although Theoderic seems to have appreciated the amazing range of Boethius’ scholarship, which made available in Latin so many critical texts of Greek science, mathematics, philosophy and music, he considered treasonable activity (even if unproven) too dangerous not to be punished. The king ordered that the philosopher should be tried in absentia and summoned the urban prefect of Rome to Pavia to adjudicate. Boethius was condemned to death without any appeal, even though all senators, if accused of serious crimes, had the right to be tried by their peers. In addition, the witnesses brought to support Cyprian’s charge were not investigated and may well have been bribed.
Shortly after Boethius’ arrest, his father-in-law Symmachus, a distinguished elderly senator who had spoken out in his defence, was also charged with treason and later killed. This additional insult to the Symmachii suggests that Theoderic was convinced by Cyprian of a plot launched by high-ranking Romans to undermine his own authority. Knowing that Emperor Justin was ready to close Arian churches in Constantinople, or to rededicate them to Catholic use, Theoderic reacted in such a way as to impose comparable punishment on adherents of ‘the other religion’ under his control. It was a Gothic interpretation of a Roman and Catholic threat, carried out with a ruthlessness typical of imperial rule that Theoderic had observed as a teenager.
In a forceful reaction to the murder, Boethius’ widow, Rusticiana, ordered the destruction of statues of Theoderic in Rome, which nearly provoked her own death later.28 Among courtiers in Ravenna there was little if any critical response. Since Cassiodorus apparently did nothing to defend Boethius and Symmachus and fails to report the arbitrary nature of the murders, he has been associated with Theoderic in the same guilt. Loyalty to the king overrode any qualms Cassiodorus may have felt as he succeeded to Boethius’ job as magister officiorum and maintained it beyond Theoderic’s death for a further fourteen years. Whether his attitude was shared by all Theoderic’s officials or not, it seems that no one defended Boethius and Symmachus when they were threatened with death. Later, many commentators insisted on the unjust and unjustified deaths, emphasizing the trope of the ‘barbarian’ ruler, uncivilized and violent.29
Theoderic’s responsibility for the death of Boethius has preoccupied many modern historians seeking to elucidate the balance between ‘barbarian’ (Gothic) and ‘civilized’ (Roman) features of Theoderic’s rule, and of the whole history of the western half of the Roman empire as it was occupied by non-Roman forces. One recent interpretation presents the scenario as an unusual type of rebellion: Boethius wished to replace Theoderic as ruler, to reassert the Platonic ideal of a philosopherking. Another, more convincingly, argues that the death of the king’s son-in-law Eutharic had created a succession crisis that Theoderic was unable to resolve.30 Above all, as we have seen, the persecution of Arian Christians in Constantinople threatened Theoderic and provoked the process that led to Boethius’ death. Nonetheless, the arrest and murder of Boethius and Symmachus makes an unavoidable contrast with Theoderic’s emphasis on law. Had the king’s treatment of the two senators conformed to Roman precedent, his reputation as a lawgiver might have been salvaged. Instead, it coloured his entire reign and continues to obscure appreciation of his Edictum, which set up a legal framework for the peaceful cohabitation of Italo-Roman and Gothic populations in sixth-century Italy.