Theodoric the Great

Hungarian-born king of the Ostrogoths (r. 474-526)

• Born: c. 454
• Birthplace: Pannonia (now primarily in Hungary)
• Died: August 30, 0526
• Place of death: Ravenna (now in Italy)

For a third of a century, Theodoric gave Italy strong, stable governance and its longest period of peace and prosperity in more than a century. His promotion of Roman ideals of justice and civic virtue led to the preservation of Roman law, administration, learning, and urban life. These formed the groundwork for the structure of medieval Italian society.

Early Life

Theodoric the Great (thee-oh-DOHR-ihk) was the eldest son of Theodemir, a warrior king of the Ostrogoths. The family traced its ancestry back to a legendary Ostrogothic king, Amal, who lived around the year 200. In the late fifth century, the Amal kingship was shared by three brothers Valamir, Vidimir, and Theodemir but the Ostrogoths lived under the domination of the Hunnish king Attila (r. 434-453). After Attila died, the Amal kings revolted, defeating the Huns in 454. News of the victory supposedly reached Theodemir’s home on the day of Theodoric’s birth, considered an auspicious sign for the new prince. The Ostrogoths then moved westward into the Roman province of Pannonia (now western Hungary, eastern Austria, and Slovenia). They entered into a treaty with the Eastern Roman emperor Leo I (r. 457-474), pledging to defend the Roman frontiers in return for financial subsidies.

When Theodoric was about seven years old, the subsidies failed to arrive. After the Ostrogoths raided a nearby Roman province, the alliance was renewed, the subsidies paid, and peace restored. Yet young Theodoric was taken to Constantinople as a hostage to assure the future good behavior of the Ostrogoths. For ten years, he lived in the imperial palace under the protection of Emperor Leo I. Not much is known of Theodoric’s life or education during this decade. He almost certainly learned to speak Latin, still the official language of the government, and possibly some Greek. He must have observed the dynamics of imperial court politics and the character of late Roman society.

In 471, Leo sent the young prince home to his royal father with rich presents. Theodoric immediately won fame by leading a war party to seize the city of Singidunum (now Belgrade) from the Sarmatians, who had recently taken it from the Romans. The victorious general was hailed as a true Amal king, and the conquered city was kept under Ostrogothic control.

In 473, famine forced the Ostrogoths to abandon Pannonia. Theodemir and his son marched south from Singidunum, eventually laying siege to Thessalonica, one of the most important cities in the Greek world. The Roman government was forced to renew the peace with the Goths and to agree to their resettlement in Roman territory. In return, the Goths undertook the defense of the lower Danube frontier as federates of the Roman Empire. Shortly after, Theodemir died, and Theodoric assumed sole rule at about age twenty.

During the next fourteen years, Theodoric was a key player in the game of Roman Balkan politics. Residing in the fortress city of Novae on the lower Danube, he supervised defense of the nearby Roman frontier. When Emperor Zeno (r. 474-491) was temporarily overthrown by a rival, Theodoric intervened to restore him to power. Later, Theodoric had to contend with treachery from Zeno, as well as opposition from a rival Ostrogothic army not related to his own royal tribesmen. After much fighting, diplomacy, and shifting of loyalties, Theodoric triumphed, and peace with the emperor was restored. He again resumed military defense of the Roman frontier.

In 483, Theodoric was named master of soldiers, and in 484, he was appointed consul, the most prestigious office in the empire. Yet the peace was frequently broken, as the Ostrogoths continued plundering the provinces whenever supplies were short. While Theodoric continued to live at Novae, his warriors sought adventure and loot where they could. In these circumstances, it is likely that Theodoric developed his plan to invade Italy to ensure his people a permanent home.

Life’s Work

The main achievement of Theodoric was to create a Romano-Gothic regime that brought more than thirty years of peace, prosperity, cultural revival, and some justice to the peoples of Italy.

In 488, Theodoric was elevated to the rank of patrician and commanded by Emperor Zeno to march into Italy and overthrow Odoacer, the German general who had overthrown the last Western Roman emperor in 476 and then ruled Italy. Theodoric, with his tribal army, was to rule in Italy until Zeno’s arrival. The emperor may have thought that the Goths were less dangerous to him in Italy than in the Eastern Empire. Both Theodoric and Zeno recognized Italy to be a Roman province and Theodoric to be a military subordinate of the Roman emperor. Yet the Gothic general was essentially the hereditary king of a warrior nation. He is sometimes called “king” in Byzantine sources, but that seems to have been a courtesy title for any Germanic war leader who signed a formal contract with the Romans to provide military services for pay.

Invading Italy in 489, Theodoric won a series of hard-fought battles against Odoacer’s armies. A central factor in the 476 coup had been the demand of Odoacer’s soldiers that they be given landed estates in Italy as recompense for their defense of the country. When the demand was refused by the Roman government, Odoacer had seized power and distributed tertia (thirds) of large Roman estates among his followers.

Following Odoacer’s surrender in 493, Theodoric murdered him at a banquet in his palace in the old imperial capital at Ravenna. Theodoric then distributed the tertia of the estates previously held by Odoacer’s soldiers to his own faithful troops. Those whose lands were not seized paid a special tax to the Gothic treasury. While the military affairs of the new regime were the exclusive province of the Ostrogoths, the civil affairs of Italy continued to be directed by Roman administrators. The senate continued to govern in Rome, and local Roman councils governed in the cities. Roman law prevailed in all cases in which both litigants were Romans; a Gothic court heard cases if one litigant was non-Roman. Among themselves, the Goths maintained their own national legal customs.

Theodoric maintained the capital in Ravenna, although he also kept royal palaces in Pavia and Verona, areas where many Goths had settled, whence they could be mobilized quickly to defend the frontiers of Italy. Other groups were settled thinly throughout the Italian peninsula, where they provided local garrisons for police and defense purposes. The number of Goths under Theodoric’s command in 490 has been variously estimated at 40,000 to 100,000, of whom one-quarter were full-time soldiers. Because Italy had a population of several million, the Goths did not constitute an overwhelming addition to its total population and yet were enough to give it adequate order and defense.

One problem for Theodoric was that he and the Goths were considered heretics by orthodox Christians. As Arians, they denied the orthodox Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Theodoric’s solution was to practice religious toleration. He was particularly insistent on protecting Jews from religiously inspired violence. When a schism arose as a result of a disputed papal election, he refused at first to decide the case, ultimately granting legal recognition to the candidate elected first and with the most votes. At a later time, he refused to sit in judgment on a pope accused by his enemies of adultery. He insisted that the matter be decided by a council of bishops. Yet he was frequently persuaded to change his policies through the influence of saintly bishops acting as defenders of the weak or persecuted.

Under the Ostrogothic regime, new buildings were constructed and older monuments and public works restored. The king and the bishops took the lead in this work and were helped to some extent by senatorial aristocrats. In 500, Theodoric celebrated the tenth year of his rule in the city of Rome with traditional games, ceremonies, and distribution of gifts. The walls of the imperial city were repaired, as was the principal road leading south, the Appian Way. The old imperial palace on the Palatine Hill was renovated. At his capital in Ravenna, he restored the broken aqueduct and repaired the imperial palace. He also built a new church, now called St. Appollinare Nuovo, richly decorated with brilliant mosaics on its walls and inlaid gold plates on its roof. Other palaces and baths were built in Pavia and Verona.

Public offices were still the goal of ambitious Romans seeking power and social prestige. The Gothic king occasionally reached out beyond the local Roman aristocracy to Romans from the Eastern Empire or even to fellow Goths for appointees to high civil offices, but mostly he relied on the local elites. The king also intervened in the traditional imperial task of organizing relief during local famines and promoted reclamation work in the Pontine Marshes south of Rome and in the plain north of Spoleto.

Theodoric’s foreign policy was successful in defending Italy from invasions and in expanding Ostrogothic control over the strategic approaches to Italy from beyond the mountains to the north, west, and east. Through prudent diplomacy, limited military interventions, and Amal dynastic marriages with the ruling Visigothic, Frankish, Burgundian, Vandal, and Thuringian royal families, Theodoric sought peace and unity among the Germanic peoples ruling the former Western Roman Empire. He expanded the areas of his direct rule from Italy eastward to the Danube River and westward to the lower Rhone River. Theodoric’s de facto rulership in Italy was recognized by successive Eastern Roman emperors: Zeno, Anastasius I (r. 491-518), and Justin I (r. 518-527). Theodoric, in turn, recognized the right of Roman imperial sovereignty over Italy by nominating consuls each year and notifying the Eastern emperor for his approval.

Only in the last three years of his life were Theodoric’s political relations with Emperor Justin and the neighboring Germanic kings suddenly shaken by events beyond his control. In 522, his son-in-law and heir Eutharic died, leaving an infant son as heir to Theodoric’s realm. An older grandson, Sigeric, heir as well to the Burgundian kingship, was murdered the same year. Theodoric’s alliances with both Vandals and Thuringians also broke down because of dynastic changes. When the Roman emperor Justin began a systematic persecution of Arians within his realm, it seemed a calculated challenge to Theodoric, who responded with threats against the Catholics of Italy. In the midst of this crisis, Theodoric was persuaded that two of the highest Roman officials in his regime, Symmachus and Boethius, were plotting against him with the Eastern Roman emperor. In 525, both were executed, probably without a fair trial. Theodoric, aged and seeing his life’s work unraveling around him, died the following year.

He designated his ten-year-old grandson, Athalaric (r. 526-534), as his heir, under the regency of the boy’s mother, Amalasuntha (r. 534-535). Within a decade, Athalaric was dead and his mother forced to open negotiations with Justin, bringing about the Gothic-Byzantine war that ravaged Italy in the mid-sixth century and ultimately led to the destruction of the Ostrogothic nations.

Significance

The principal policies Theodoric the Great used in governing Italy were already in place during the rule of his predecessor Odoacer: religious toleration, cooperation with the local Roman aristocracy, Germanic control of all military power, respect for the existing Roman law and political institutions, and efforts to seek legitimacy from the Eastern Roman emperor.

Like most Goths, Theodoric was an Arian Christian , a heretic in the eyes of his Catholic Roman subjects. Following a policy of religious toleration and avoiding interference in the religious quarrels that beset the orthodox Christian church in his time, Theodoric managed to defuse the religious disputes in Italy. He won the cooperation of the Roman aristocracy by allowing it to govern the city of Rome and hold the higher civil offices. He also sustained the customary operations of Roman law. Theodoric believed that the best way to govern the two peoples under his control was by respecting their cultural distinctiveness and leaving to each as wide an area of autonomy as seemed compatible with Gothic military supremacy. Theodoric’s sense of justice was famous in a society in which litigation was frequently used as a weapon of oppression by the powerful. The king used Gothic special agents called {I}saiones{/I} to investigate injustices, supervise special projects, and exercise the royal will against recalcitrant bureaucrats. Taxes were collected with efficiency and greater fairness than before. Commerce, manufacturing, and reconstruction were encouraged, and famine relief was effectively organized.

Theodoric also demonstrated the greatest respect for Roman culture and encouraged the efforts of such Roman intellectuals as Boethius, Symmachus, and Cassiodorus to preserve and promote the Greek scientific and philosophical learning among the Latin-speaking population of Italy. Cassiodorus wrote a history of the Goths, now lost, which served as the principal source of a later history of the Goths by Jordanes. Boethius’s textbooks on Greek arithmetic, geometry, music, and Aristotelian logic became the basis for the curriculum of the medieval Latin schools. Boethius’s father-in-law, Symmachus, supported a revival of Neoplatonic philosophy, and Boethius’s last work, De consolatione philosophiae (523; The Consolation of Philosophy, late ninth century), is considered the finest expression of Greek humanistic philosophy of late classical civilization and was very influential in the early medieval schools. Symmachus also patronized many poets, rhetoricians, and the Latin grammarian Priscian, whose works were authoritative for medieval Latin scholars. This intellectual revival, so important for the future direction of European culture, would have been impossible without the personal patronage and atmosphere of peace and stability provided by the great Ostrogothic ruler.

Although Theodoric’s heretical Arian religious views and his brutal execution of both Symmachus and Boethius have tempered the enthusiasm of some historians for his judgment and moral excellence, even the hostile Byzantine historian Procopius treated the king with respect.

When the armies of Justin invaded Italy after Theodoric’s death, the Goths put up stiff resistance and received considerable support from their Roman subjects. The Gothic-Byzantine wars devastated Italy and ended what most Italians later looked back on as the last good times their country would see for the next two centuries. Nevertheless, the reign of Theodoric allowed the structure of Roman society to survive the fall of the empire and become the foundation for the new, vibrant, and creative Italy of the Middle Ages.

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

Amory, Patrick. People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489-554. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. A well-researched and well-argued examination of Italian Gothic culture of the fifth and sixth centuries. Argues for a new understanding of the racial and cultural makeup of the so-called barbarians, as well as a new understanding of their role in the fall of Rome.

Bark, William. “The Legend of Boethius’ Martyrdom.” Speculum 21 (1946): 312-317. The author argues that Boethius and Symmachus should not be viewed as Catholics martyred for their faith, victims of Theodoric’s alleged sudden outburst of religious prejudice. He believes it much more plausible that both were guilty of treasonable acts designed to undermine the Ostrogothic regime.

Burns, Thomas S. A History of the Ostrogoths. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. An extensive synthesis of the history and culture of the Ostrogoths, using original documentary and archaeological and modern monographic sources. The focus is the Ostrogoths’ culture and achievements from their first mention in Roman records of the third century to their extinction as a nation in the sixth century. The author uses a mixed chronological and topical approach. References to Theodoric are scattered throughout the text. Illustrations, bibliography, index, maps, and dynastic tables.

Chadwick, Henry. Boethius: The Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology, and Philosophy. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1981. A masterful study of the career and literary works of the greatest intellectual of the court of Theodoric. The first chapter describes the revival of Greek classical learning in the West stimulated by the Roman statesman Symmachus, his son-in-law Boethius, and others under the patronage of Theodoric. Later chapters deal with Boethius’s literary and philosophical works. Examining the causes that led to Theodoric’s brutal execution of both men, the author finds religious as well as political reasons for the sudden reversal of favor. Bibliography, index.

Duckett, Eleanor S. The Gateway to the Middle Ages: Italy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961. A rich portrait of the cultural life of the leading intellectuals of Theodoric’s Gothic-Roman Italy. After an introduction to broader historical events, the author offers two chapters on Boethius and Cassiodorus and another chapter on two historians, Ennodius and Jordanes. The interaction of each with Theodoric is emphasized throughout the text. Bibliography, index.

Jones, A. H. M. “The Constitutional Position of Odovacar and Theodoric.” Journal of Roman Studies 52 (1962): 126-130. Lack of clear evidence has made the exact constitutional relationship between Theodoric and the Eastern Roman emperors a matter of controversy among historians. Argues that both Odoacer and Theodoric were no more than typical Germanic kings without formal status under Roman law.

La Rocca, Cristina, ed. Italy in the Early Middle Ages, 476-1000. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Ten chapters by historians and archaeologists integrate new archaeological findings to examine medieval Italy’s regional diversities, rural and urban landscapes, organization of public and private power, ecclesiastical institutions, manuscript production, and more. Illustrations, maps, bibliography, index.

Moorhead, John. Theodoric in Italy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. This study of Theodoric’s reign focuses on the relationship between the Goths and the Romans. It details both the difficulties and the consequences of their partial unification within Theodoric’s empire.

O’Donnell, James J. Cassiodorus. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. A top official in the government of Theodoric, Cassiodorus collected a book of official letters, Variae, which are a principal source for the history of the Ostrogothic ruler. His history of the Goths, now lost, was the basic source used by the later historian of the Goths, Jordanes. The author has made a detailed study of Cassiodorus’s life and works; chapters 2 and 3 focus on Cassiodorus’s role as a courtier of Theodoric the Great.

Schutz, Herbert. The Germanic Realms in Pre-Carolingian Central Europe, 400-750. New York: P. Lang, 2000. An important complement to the other texts on this list, this work examines the Italian Goths from the point of view of Germanic history, rather than from a Roman historical perspective.

Thompson, E. A. Romans and Barbarians: The Decline of the Western Empire. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. In chapter 4, the author discusses the Ostrogothic conquest of Italy and its consequences, the popularity of the government of Theodoric, and the constitutional character of the regime with respect to the Roman imperial government in Constantinople. He also compares the Ostrogothic regime with its predecessor, headed by Odoacer.