Through the use of the participial regens, which is found almost nowhere else in both the Getica and the Romana, Jordanes expresses the strong control that the royal mother exercised in de facto managing the government. Cassiodorus never applies this participle to Amalasuintha, but he states that the mother’s affection rules (matris regnat affectio).83 To indicate the legal guardianship of one of Theoderic’s grandchildren, Jordanes uses the juridical term “tutor” (tutela), as according to the Roman law.84 The use of regens as a substantive for “ruler regent” came into use in late medieval Latin.85 The Greek lexicon expressed the tutorship with the noun “ἐπίτροπος,” which was used to refer to those who took care of the children of the Theodosian dynasty. This word is also used by Procopius.86 Like Jordanes, Procopius describes Amalasuintha as the mother (μήτηρ) who “as guardian (ἐπίτροπος οὖσα) of her child administered the government.”87 Our sources make clear that Amalasuintha was ruling in the name of her son. But the critical point here is that the “regency” itself had never been an institutionalized position. It was not a title used in the empire, though there were numerous examples of strong female figures in the Julio-Claudian and Severan dynasties and also women who held power directly, like Pulcheria, or regent mothers, such as Justina and Galla Placidia. Nor did the position hold an institutional meaning in the post-Roman kingdoms, where regents did not have juridical rights but ruled de facto in an array of situations so diverse that it is often difficult to distinguish between “regency,” “guardianship” and “co-ruling.”88
We may also wonder whether, in dealing with the Gothic aristocracy at the palace, Amalasuintha used the corresponding Gothic term for regens and ἐπίτροπος to express her position as regent. As we saw in the introduction to this chapter, the word ragineis translates as “guardian” or “tutor,” and can also be used for “adviser”; and advising was one of the main functions of queens in this period.89 Fluent in Latin, Greek, and her native tongue,90 Amalasuintha was aware of the significance of these words for the two peoples of the kingdom.
But it was when her son died and her regency ended that Amalasuintha turned to her most radical experiment, the appointment of her cousin Theodahad as coregent. On what basis could the mother of a dead king create a new political structure if she were not already a queen? In fact, it is in the descriptions of this crucial moment that we find some clues about her status. As soon as Athalaric died, his mother associated Theodahad to her kingdom: participem regni sui faciens. This phrase acknowledges Amalasuintha’s royal status that she already held as regent for her son, on the basis of which she could claim the kingdom at the very moment that her son died. And in the Getica we read that it was Amalasuintha herself who made the decision to raise Theodahad to the throne.91 Cassiodorus’s letters contain the same terminology that Jordanes uses: Amalasuintha had chosen Theodahad as supporter of her regia dignitas, she had taken good care of her kingdom (propria regna), she had made him a partner in her government (consors regni sui), and Theodahad participated in her power (potestatis suae particeps).92 The Book of the Popes confirms that Amalasuintha elected her cousin while she was in possession of the royal title, as does the Eastern author Count Marcellinus when he refers to Amalasuintha as the regina creatrix of Theodahad.93
There is still more evidence that Amalasuintha was regina before the death of her son. In a Cassiodoran letter dating to the beginning of 537, King Witiges reminded Emperor Justinian about the protection that he had granted to “Queen Amalasuintha of divine memory”: divae memoriae Amalasuinthae reginae.94 This is the only time that we find in the text of the Variae the word “regina” applied to an Amal lady. But here this attribution has a specific political meaning. For Cassiodorus claimed that the former queen was entrusted to Justinian’s protection, referring here to a diplomatic event that took place around 532/3, which I discuss in Chapter 3. That Amalasuintha was “entrusted” to Justinian as regina is confirmed by the Book of the Popes, while Justinian never acknowledged the co-regency.95 Cassiodorus’s intentional use of the royal title for Amalasuintha in a letter to the emperor almost two years after her death seems rather to indicate that Justinian was aware that her royal title preceded Athalaric’s death.
Procopius finally provides us with some insight. In the Gothic War he refers to Amalasuintha as the mother and the guardian of her child. At another point in the narrative, however, he specifies that in a time of difficulties she did not succumb to desperation but rather displayed royal stature (τὸ βασιλικὸν ἀξίωμα);96 and sometime later she raised Theodahad to royal dignity.97 In the Secret History the historian implies that Amalasuintha considered herself a queen before Athalaric’s death, and that this was known at the imperial palace.98 He writes that Theodora was jealous of Amalasuintha because of her beauty and her noble ancestry, and also because she was a “woman” (γυνή) and a “queen” (βασιλίς).99 Once again, the commonly accepted narrative that Amalasuintha won full power and royal title through usurpation on the day of Athalaric’s death seems inaccurate. Procopius’s political lexicon parallels the Latin sources (a point I return to in Chapter 5, where I discuss the representation of Amalasuintha as a Roman empress). For now it is enough to state that Amalasuintha enjoyed a position of power that was groundbreaking for a woman in the Gothic world and also among other post-Roman kingdoms, while it was not so unusual in the empire.
Domina Amalasuintha: A Woman in Power in the Gothic World
While Amalasuintha’s position as royal regent mother was unusual in the Gothic world, her rulership over a highly Romanized territory and her dwelling in Ravenna—which had been the residence of the last emperors—facilitated the development of her royal status. Because the “regency” had always entailed a de facto status, not an institutionalized position, and considering the inherent difficulties for a woman to rule over the Goths, Amalasuintha needed the royal title to exercise her government over Italy and to enter into diplomacy with the empire and the other kingdoms. Queenship was the only way for Theoderic to leave to his daughter the power to rule for her son, and the need for a “queen” must have been strong under these circumstances. Theoderic’s authority was strong enough to make this solution acceptable to even the most reluctant Goths.
Amalasuintha’s position as a woman in power was unique in the post-Roman courts of her generation, and we have to wait until the late sixth century to find cases in the West that are even partially similar (see the Epilogue). It was not remarkable, however, in the context of the history of the empire, which not long before had known two Augustae, Pulcheria and Aelia Eudocia, respectively the sister and the wife of Theodosius II. Recent cases of virgins and widows active in government on behalf of children included Pulcheria and Galla Placidia. Pulcheria proclaimed herself Augusta on 4 July 414; she was not married and exercised the function of tutor for her younger brother, Theodosius II. Galla Placidia, who is the case par excellence in the Roman West, was Augusta (by virtue of her marriage to Constantius III) when she started to rule for her son.
Italy was technically under the jurisdiction of the Theodosian Code; but it is unlikely that Amalasuintha could base her authority over Athalaric and the Goths on imperial laws, like that issued in 390, which empowered a widow to be the legal guardian of her children so long as she did not remarry.100 While this law, referring to the Roman concept of tutela, had a legacy in the Bugundian and Visigothic laws, it is hard to imagine that it was applicable to royal succession at the Gothic court of Amalasuintha—and still less in later cases of regents in the post-Roman kingdoms. Still, with Roman models before her eyes, Amalasuintha created for herself a political role so strong that she was in a position, first after the death of her father and then after the premature loss of her son, to develop new solutions of power, including the exercise