Amalasuntha

Queen of the Ostrogoths (r. 534-535)

• Born: c. 495
• Birthplace: Probably in Ravenna, Kingdom of the Ostrogoths (now in Italy)
• Died: April 30, 0535
• Place of death: On an island in lake Bolsena, Tuscany Kingdom of the Ostrogoths (now in Italy)

Amalasuntha ruled the Ostrogothic realm with success. She issued legislation protecting women’s marriages while still regent for her young son, after whose death she asserted her own right to the throne.

Early Life

Amalasuntha (ah-mahl-ah-SUHN-thah) was the youngest daughter of Theodoric the Great, king of the Germanic tribe of the Ostrogoths (East Goths), who, with the approval of the East Roman (Byzantine) emperor Zeno in Constantinople, established Ostrogothic rule in Italy. In 493, Theodoric entered Ravenna, the city at the mouth of the River Po in northeastern Italy, which became his capital. Theodoric swiftly arranged a series of political marriages to strengthen his ties to the other Germanic tribes, who were likewise establishing kingdoms in the former western Roman provinces. His two daughters, the fruit of a youthful relationship, were married to the rulers of the Visigoths (West Goths) and the Burgundians, while Theodoric himself took to wife Audefleda, the sister of King Clovis of the Franks, who during those years was establishing his rule over France. Amalasuntha was the only child of this marriage.

A mosaic still to be seen on the walls of the church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna depicts the city as it looked in the days when Amalasuntha was growing up. The palace of Theodoric had a vast arcaded courtyard with marble columns that undoubtedly were the spoils from some pagan temple, for the Ostrogoths had been converted to the Arian form of Christianity in the fourth century. As Arians they held that Christ was lesser in majesty than God the Father, a creed that differentiated them sharply from the Orthodox Italians over whom they had established their hegemony. Behind the palace, the mosaicist shows two round domes, belonging to the baptistries, one for the Arians, one for the Orthodox, which still stand, and a sturdy crenellated wall surrounding the town.

Amalasuntha, whom Theodoric chose to carry on his line, was given an education fit for a queen. Cassiodorus, the Italian who was to become her secretary, waxes eloquent in a letter to the Roman senators on her linguistic ability. Not only does she speak her native Gothic, he says, but also she is fluent in both Greek and Latin, conversing easily in those tongues with envoys. Her knowledge of literature, which Cassiodorus extols, would have included Greek and Latin classics, and probably some saints’ lives. Italy was prosperous under the wise and just rule of Theodoric, and no discrimination was allowed against the Orthodox, Jews, or Samaritans. One of the mosaics of Sant’Apollinare, which contains the earliest extended sequence of depictions of the life of Christ, shows him at the well with the Samaritan woman, who is dressed in a colorful striped robe. The picture would have reminded Amalasuntha to practice tolerance.

Bishop Gregory of Tours tells a story, best discounted as slanderous rumor against the Arian sect, in his Historia Francorum (late sixth century; The History of the Franks, 1927), that Amalasuntha had poisoned her own mother with the wine of communion. God, asserts Gregory, would not have permitted such crimes in an Orthodox church. The reason he gives for the quarrel of the princess with her mother may, however, have some truth in it. He says Audefleda interrupted the elopement of Amalasuntha with the low-born Traguilla, who was punished with death. Amalasuntha’s family belonged to the royal clan of the Amals, from whom Gothic rulers were chosen. Her father discovered a portionless Amal named Eutharic living in Visigothic Spain and arranged for him to marry Amalasuntha in 515.

Eutharic was ceremonially adopted by the Byzantine emperor Justin I (uncle of Justinian I) to strengthen the rights of the couple. They had two children, a girl, Matesuntha, and a son, Athalaric, whom Theodoric hoped would someday rule his kingdom. The mosaics of Sant’Apollinare show Christ enthroned on one side of the altar, his mother, Mary, on the other, seated on a Byzantine-style throne and robed in royal purple, her infant son on her lap. Mary’s prominent position in the mosaics may reflect the showcasing of Amalasuntha and her son at the court of Theodoric, and Amalasuntha herself could well have been shown leading a procession of court ladies with gifts for the Virgin, for the train of women saints that now graces the wall is an Orthodox replacement for earlier mosaics of Theodoric’s time.

Life’s Work

Amalasuntha’s husband Eutharic predeceased King Theodoric, who died in 526. As was customary in both Gothic and Roman tradition, Amalasuntha, as a woman, was passed over as heir in favor of her son Athalaric, a boy of about eight. Amalasuntha, then about thirty, became regent and directed the government. It was a century of powerful queen mothers, such as the Frankish Fredegunde and her rival Brunhilde.

Two independent contemporary accounts exist of the rise and fall of Amalasuntha, one by Jordanes, Getica (551; The Gothic History Jordanes, 1908, revised 1915), who was a Goth residing in Italy, and the other, more circumstantial narrative, by the Greek Procopius, Polemon (552; The History of the Wars of the Emperor Justinian, 1653). Procopius praises Amalasuntha for her intelligence and zeal for justice but disparages her personality as too masculine. A stone-portrait head of the queen shows her with a mild, round face and soulful eyes, but Procopius judges her determination to rule as unfeminine.

It is from the letter collection of her secretary Cassiodorus, Variae (537; The Variae of Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator, 1886; better known as the Variae), that one can best understand the policies of Amalasuntha during her son’s regency and her own short period of independent rule. In his encomium addressed to the Roman senate, Cassiodorus praises not only her learning but also her military preparedness, reporting that the troops under her generals have campaigned on the Danube and stood firm against the Franks. At the same time, Cassiodorus attempts to show her modestly feminine demeanor by characterizing her as quiet, judging legal cases in a few words.

Cassiodorus’s letter collection includes additions to the laws of Theodoric issued during the regency of Amalasuntha. Her edicts show that one of her concerns was to repress expropriation of land by the Goths from the Italians; all were to have their rights under her government. She wished one law to apply to both Goths and Romans, and she sought to protect the status of married women . If a man attempted to seduce the wife of another, he would be severely punished. His own marriage would be dissolved, or, if a bachelor, he would be forbidden to marry. Bigamy was outlawed, and if a married man established an extramarital relationship his concubine and her children would become the slaves of his wife.

A letter to the Roman senate insisting that teachers not have their salaries curtailed reflects Amalasuntha’s concern for education . How much more important it is to reward teachers of ethics and rhetoric, the letter points out, than the actors whom the government maintains for the enjoyment of the populace. Her interest in art and the adornment of her city is shown in a letter to the Byzantine emperor Justinian I requesting that he facilitate the shipping of marble statues collected in his realm by her agents.

The cultivated education Amalasuntha was giving her son, however, met with opposition from a faction of the Goths who insisted that Athalaric be brought up in their native tradition. Amalasuntha was forced to give way and lost all influence with the young king. The hardy warrior upbringing of his ancestors was not substituted for Greek and Latin. Instead, Athalaric was encouraged to run wild with a group of slightly older Ostrogothic boys and, Procopius reports, he fell into drunkenness and promiscuity while still a young teen.

Amalasuntha realized her situation was precarious. In her world a boy was considered an adult at the age of fourteen. Athalaric was now of age but was unfit to rule and was estranged from his mother. She therefore negotiated with the emperor Justinian, who promised her a place of refuge should it become necessary. At the same time, she moved boldly to have assassinated three leading members of the Gothic opposition, whom she considered traitors to her government. In the midst of these dangers, in 534, Athalaric died at age sixteen. According to Procopius, his debaucheries killed him.

Gothic custom decreed an Amal should wear the crown, but the rule of a woman in her own right was unprecedented. Women had, indeed, ruled the Roman Empire in the previous century, but always with a male colleague. The daughter of Emperor Theodosius, Galla Placidia, had ruled the west from Ravenna in the name of her lackluster brother and then her son. Pulcheria, the granddaughter of Theodosius, had ruled the east with her brother. After his death, despite her early vow of virginity, she entered into a nominal marriage with Marcian in order to have a male associate on the throne.

For Amalasuntha, her co-ruler must be a man and an Amal. The only candidate was her cousin Theodahad, the son of Theodoric’s sister. He had fallen foul of Amalasuntha’s decree forbidding Goths to despoil the property of Italians and she had forced him to give up some of his vast Tuscan estates. Some historians have therefore deemed it folly for Amalasuntha to share the rule of Ostrogothic Italy with her cousin, but in fact she had no other choice. They became joint rulers, as Pulcheria had shared rule with her brother Theodosius II.

Theodahad speedily showed himself a villain. He had Amalasuntha confined to an island in Lake Bolsena in Tuscany. Soon thereafter she was murdered in the steam bath. We know the killers were relatives of the three Ostrogoths whose assassination she had earlier arranged, but it is less clear who was behind their deed. In The History of the Wars of the Emperor Justinian, Procopius blames Theodahad, and it is indeed unlikely that her cousin was ignorant of the conspiracy, although he protested his innocence. Procopius, however, also wrote a secret version of the history of his times, Anecdota (c. 550; Secret History of the Court of the Emperor Justinian, 1674), published after the death of Justinian. In this work, Procopius alleges that it was Justinian’s envoy to Italy, Peter, who urged Theodahad to have Amalasuntha killed. The emperor was innocent of the deed, but his wife, Theodora, fearful lest the beautiful Amalasuntha be given refuge in the east and steal the heart of Justinian, engineered her death.

So writes Procopius, but his hatred of Theodora was by no means rational. There is, however, some independent confirmation of his charges. Cassiodorus continued in his post as royal secretary and preserved in his letter collection a missive from Theodahad to Theodora darkly hinting that the king had carried out the wishes of the empress. Likewise a letter from his wife Queen Gudeliva to Theodora alludes mysteriously to a favor done the empress. Whether or not Theodora ordered the death of Amalasuntha, it seems likely that Theodahad and Gudeliva knew it would not be unwelcome to her. Amalasuntha was about forty at the time of the death. Her daughter Matesuntha survived her and was married first to a Goth and then to Germanus, the nephew of Justinian I.

Significance

In a century of strong queens, such as Theodora, Brunhilde, and Fredegunde, Amalasuntha stands out as a woman of pure life and high ideals. She believed in justice for Goth and Italian alike, she advocated education for youth, and she worked to eliminate corruption. Amalasuntha courageously attempted to maintain her right to the throne as the daughter of Theodoric after her son’s death. Other women could learn from Amalasuntha’s career, despite her tragic end. Her people mourned their loss and swiftly spurned Theodahad. Italy, prosperous under her rule, was subjected to incessant war as the troops of Justinian invaded, proclaiming vengeance for her death. These forces were at length replaced by the Germanic Lombards, and at the end of the sixth century Italy again found a great Germanic queen in Theodelinda.

Kings of the Ostrogoths, 474-774

Reign

• Ruler

474-526

• Theodoric the Great

526-534

• Athalaric

534-536

• Theodahad (with Amalasuntha)

536-540

• Vitiges (Witiges)

540

• Theodobald (Heldebadus)

541

• Eraric

541-552

• Totila (Baduila)

552-553

• Teias

553-568

• Roman domination (Byzantine emperor Justinian I)

568-774

• Lombard domination

774

• Frankish conquest

Bibliography

Browning, Robert. Justinian and Theodora. New York: Praeger, 1971. Browning includes coverage of the career of Amalasuntha and photographs of her stone portrait head and the mosaics of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo. This is a good introduction to the age of Justinian.

Duckett, Eleanor Shipley. The Gateway to the Middle Ages. New York: Macmillan, 1938. This well-written study of the sixth century and its writers has never been bettered. There is extensive coverage of Cassiodorus, and in the process Duckett recounts much of the story of his patrons, Theodoric and Amalasuntha.

Frankforter, A. Daniel. “Amalasuntha, Procopius, and a Woman’s Place.” Journal of Women’s History 8, no. 2 (Summer, 1996): 41ff. Considers Procopius’s writings on Amalsuntha and the reasons for her murder.

Thiebaux, Marcelle, ed. The Writings of Medieval Women. 2d ed. New York: Garland, 1994. Thiebaux has a good chapter on Amalasuntha, including a translation of the four letters in Cassiodorus’s collection issued in her own name rather than that of her son.

Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. The Barbarian West, A.D. 400-1000. New York: Harper, 1962. A compact and reliable account of early medieval times, including the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy.