TEODORICO the Great, king of the OSTROGOTHS. — Son of Theodohmir, of the ruling dynasty of the Amali, born c. 454. His father, chief of the Ostrogoths as foederati within the borders of the Empire in Pannonia and Noricum, was obliged to send him while still a child as a hostage to the court of Byzantium, where he remained for ten years. At the age of twenty he was designated by his dying father to succeed him and was recognized by the people as their leader.
Interpreting the duties of a federate in his own way, he now aided, now blackmailed the imperial government, always managing, even when he laid waste to one of its provinces, to improve his own position. The support he gave the emperor Zeno against the usurper Basiliscus earned him the title of patrician, the honor of the consulship (in 484), and the office of magister utriusque militiae. Thereafter he succeeded in having the weak Zeno assign him the task of restoring Italy, occupied by Odoacer, to more direct dependence upon the Empire, while at the same time preparing new settlements for his Goths in better lands. Zeno, moreover, must have found attractive the idea, if not of recovering Italy, at least of keeping the turbulent magister at some distance. The expedition was not simply military in character, but took the familiar form of a mass migration which, behind the soldiers, brought along groups of noncombatants—women, old men, and children. Odoacer’s resistance was unsuccessful, and he was defeated in two successive engagements on the Isonzo and near Verona. Odoacer had shut himself up in Ravenna, but then fortune seemed to change, and T. found himself in serious difficulties near Pavia, until contingents of Visigoths from Gaul came to his aid. He resumed the offensive and, after winning a new victory on the Adda, began the siege of Ravenna, which lasted nearly three years, during which T. had time to complete the conquest of the entire peninsula. Finally, through the intervention of the bishop of Ravenna, peace was concluded, under which Odoacer and T. were to share the government of Italy, nominally still connected with the Empire of Byzantium. But a few days later, during a banquet, Odoacer was put to death by T., along with many of his followers. It was declared that Odoacer had been plotting treachery, and T., confirmed as king by his Goths, acted as sovereign over both Goths and Romans. For this reason he was for several years at odds with the court of Byzantium, which, powerless, eventually yielded, sending T. the imperial insignia that the Roman Senate, consenting to the deposition of Romulus Augustulus, had returned to Constantinople. In some sense, however, the moral supremacy of the Empire of Byzantium was still acknowledged.
At first T.’s government was moderate and wise; the distribution to his Goths of one third of the Italian lands was perhaps accomplished without excessive difficulty, given the depopulation of the peninsula and the fact that it was possible to make use of lands that had already belonged to Odoacer and his people. For the rest, T. preserved the ancient Roman institutions, assigning civil magistracies to the Italians and entrusting arms and military commands to the Goths. He worked diligently to prevent dissension or intolerance from arising between the two peoples, sought to encourage the agricultural recovery that the preceding events had so gravely damaged, showed that he held Roman culture in high esteem, and wished to have its most illustrious representatives near him: Cassiodorus, Boethius, and Ennodius, bishop of Pavia. He devoted great care to the preservation of monumental buildings, especially in Rome and Ravenna, where he also erected new ones.
T. generally succeeded in maintaining peace with the rulers of the barbarian states of the West, from whom he was also able to obtain something approaching recognition of his primacy, both through the prestige of a Roman patrician and general of the Empire and by contracting family alliances with several of them. He secured Italy’s frontiers, annexing Istria, Raetia, and Noricum without awaiting the Emperor’s approval, which provoked Byzantine reactions in the form of futile raids by imperial fleets along the Italian Adriatic coast. More important was T.’s intervention in the struggle between his brother-in-law Clovis, king of the Franks, and his son-in-law Alaric II, king of the Visigoths. When the latter was defeated and killed in 507, T. sent an army that defeated the Franks near Arles. The consequence of the victory was the annexation of Provence to Italy and, shortly afterward, the assumption of the government of Visigothic Spain, as guardian of the son of Alaric II. T.’s authority thus came to extend from Illyricum to the Atlantic. In religious matters too, T. displayed tact and impartiality. An Arian and king of an Arian people, he respected the religion of the Italians and preserved the privileges of the Catholic Church.
Nevertheless, it was nearly impossible for a barbarian sovereign to win the complete devotion and loyalty of the Italians, and impossible to satisfy the appetites of his Goths at all times. These failures, as well as his growing old without an heir, embittered the King. He became suspicious, irascible, and unjust, while on the throne of Constantinople weak rulers were succeeded by a harsh Macedonian soldier, Justin, who immediately kept his nephew Justinian very close to him. A fervent Orthodox, Justin exerted pressure on the heretics of his Empire, especially the Arians. T. required Pope John I to go to Constantinople to dissuade the Emperor from the persecution of the Arians. The embassy naturally achieved no success, and on his return the Pope was thrown into prison, where he died. Boethius and his father-in-law Symmachus were also victims of these troubled relations. As he was dying, T. recommended that his Goths recognize as their king the young Athalaric, son of his daughter Amalasuntha; that they observe the laws, respect the Emperor, and live in good accord with the Senate and the Roman people. - Vedi tav. CXXXVIII.