THEODORIC THE GREAT, King of the Ostrogoths. — Son of Theodemir, of the sovereign dynasty of the Amali, born c. 454. His father, leader of the Ostrogoths serving as foederati within the borders of the Empire in Pannonia and Noricum, was obliged to send him as a hostage to the court of Byzantium while still a child, where he remained for ten years. At the age of twenty, upon his father’s death, he was designated to succeed him and was acknowledged by the people as their leader.
Interpreting his duties as a foederatus in his own way, he alternately aided and blackmailed the imperial government, always managing to advance his own position even when devastating some of its provinces. His support for 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 obtaining from the weak Zeno the assignment to restore Italy, then occupied by Odoacer, to more direct imperial dependence, while at the same time preparing new lands for his Goths in better territories. Zeno, for his part, may well have welcomed the idea—if not of regaining Italy, then at least of keeping the turbulent magister at a distance. The expedition was not merely a military campaign but, as had occurred before, a mass migration in which non-combatants—women, the elderly, and children—followed behind the soldiers. Odoacer’s resistance was unsuccessful, and he was defeated in two successive battles on the Isonzo and near Verona. Odoacer had taken refuge in Ravenna, but then fortune seemed to turn, and Theodoric found himself in grave difficulties near Pavia until reinforcements arrived in the form of Visigothic troops from Gaul. Resuming the offensive, he won a new victory on the Adda and then laid siege to Ravenna, which lasted nearly three years, during which Theodoric acted to complete the conquest of the entire peninsula. Finally, through the mediation of the Bishop of Ravenna, peace was concluded, under which Odoacer and Theodoric were to share the government of Italy, nominally subject to the Empire of Byzantium. But a few days later, during a banquet, Odoacer was killed by Theodoric, along with many of his followers. It was claimed that Odoacer had been plotting treachery, and Theodoric, confirmed as king by his Goths, ruled as sovereign over both Goths and Romans. For this he was in conflict with the court of Byzantium for several years, which, unable to do otherwise, eventually yielded by sending back to Theodoric the imperial insignia that the Roman Senate, in consenting to the deposition of Romulus Augustulus, had returned to Constantinople. In some way, however, a moral supremacy of the Byzantine Empire was still acknowledged.
Theodoric’s rule at first was moderate and wise. The distribution of a third of the Italian lands to his Goths was perhaps accomplished without too much difficulty, given the depopulation of the peninsula and the fact that lands already belonging to Odoacer and his followers could be seized. For the rest, Theodoric preserved the ancient Roman institutions, entrusting the civil magistracies to the Italians and the military commands and arms to the Goths. He worked hard to prevent discord or intolerance between the two peoples, strove to promote agricultural recovery—so badly damaged by previous events—and showed great esteem for Roman culture, keeping its most illustrious representatives close to him: Cassiodorus, Boethius, and the Bishop of Pavia, Ennodius. He devoted great care to the preservation of monumental buildings, especially in Rome and Ravenna, where he also erected new ones.
Theodoric generally managed to maintain peace with the rulers of the barbarian states of the West, over whom he also obtained a certain recognition of primacy, both through the prestige of his Roman patrician rank and imperial generalship and through marital alliances with several of them. He secured Italy’s borders by annexing Raetia and Noricum without awaiting the Emperor’s approval, which provoked Byzantine reactions in the form of futile imperial naval raids along the Adriatic coasts of Italy. More significant was Theodoric’s intervention in the conflict 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, Theodoric sent an army that defeated the Franks near Arles. A consequence of this victory was the annexation of Provence to Italy and, shortly afterward, the assumption of the government of the Visigothic part of Spain as guardian of Alaric II’s son. Theodoric’s authority thus extended from Illyricum to the Atlantic. In religious matters, too, he showed great equanimity. An Arian and king of an Arian people, he respected the religion of the Italians and preserved the privileges of the Catholic Church.
Yet despite this, it was almost impossible for a barbarian ruler to win the devotion and loyalty of the Italians in all respects, and it was impossible to satisfy the greed of his Goths at all times. These failures, along with his advancing age and lack of an heir, embittered the King. He became suspicious, irascible, and unjust, while on the throne of Constantinople weak rulers were succeeded by the hard soldier Justin, who soon drew close to his nephew Justinian. A zealous orthodox, Justin pressed for the persecution of heretics within his empire, particularly the Arians. Theodoric insisted that Pope John I travel to Constantinople to dissuade the Emperor from anti-Arian persecution. The embassy naturally failed, and upon his return the Pope was imprisoned and died there. Boethius and his father-in-law Symmachus also fell victim to these troubled relations. On his deathbed, Theodoric urged his Goths to recognize as their king his grandson Athalaric, son of his daughter Amalasuntha, to observe the laws, to respect the Emperor, and to live in good accord with the Senate and the Roman people. — See pl. CXXXVIII.