Amalasuintha belonged to the very first generation of Goths born and raised on Italic soil, and her lifestyle was one that Gothic rulers of previous generations could never have imagined. Unlike her ancestors, she never had to endure the continuous displacements, wandering, and wars that characterized the life of the Goths before they moved to Italy. In earlier times the group led by Theoderic wandered through the Balkans and Thrace, eventually settling in the provinces of Dacia Ripensis and Moesia Inferior, where they made the city of Novae their headquarters.9 When Theoderic finally came to Italy, according to Procopius, “he was followed by the Gothic army, who placed the women and children in their wagons and as many movable goods as they were allowed to take.” The Amal women would follow the convoy except for at the siege of Ravenna, when they remained in Ticinum.10 Ennodius with lofty words describes how the king comforted his frightened mother and sister in the rear guard before the battle of Verona.11 Unlike the older women of the family, such as her grandmother Erelieva and her aunt Amalafrida, Amalasuintha never witnessed clashes between bands of warriors, hiding with women and children in the wagons of the Gothic rear guard, aware of the terrible consequences a defeat would signify.12 She never experienced such a life of peril.
Some of the women of Amalasuintha’s family (like Amalafrida, Ostrogotho Areagni, and Amalaberga) encountered Roman culture only as hostages at the court of Constantinople or during Theoderic’s first decade in Ravenna. But this was not the case for Amalasuintha, whose father never had to send her as a hostage to the emperor or to other kings.13 She was the youngest child of the family, and perhaps the most privileged. Born and raised in the felicitas Italiae, she was protected under the umbrella of the civilitas, and unlike all her ancestors, she led a life distant from war. At the time of her youth, Theoderic was occupied with diplomacy, and his days were spent developing alliances with other gentes and promoting peace from his palace. His armies were led by his counts, who achieved important victories in the East at Sirmium and at Horreum Margi (504–505), and in the West, where they took Provence from the Burgundians (508).
The peaceful atmosphere of Ravenna shaped the early life of Amalasuintha and set her apart from her female ancestors. Her lifestyle at the palace resembled that of a Roman imperial woman, perhaps especially her education. This was the will of her father, on whom Roman culture had a strong impact. The ten years Theoderic spent at the Eastern court in Constantinople strongly influenced his views on government. At the age of seven or eight, his father, Theudimer, had sent him to Leo as a hostage, where he soon distinguished himself and gained the sympathy of the emperor.14 At the palace, he benefited from a literary education provided by the best masters;15 this experience turned out to be crucial in his future kingship. Later he would be granted the most important offices of the Romans: the title of master of the soldiers, the consulship, and the patriciate. Emperor Zeno, with whom he built a strong relationship, eventually gave him his blessing to remove Odovacer and administer Italy on his behalf. Years later, Ennodius would claim that Theoderic’s early time in Constantinople, the womb of civilitas, predicted his brilliant future.16 And Theoderic would remind Emperor Anastasius how his previous experience in Constantinople had been beneficial for the government of Italy. He claimed that the time he had spent at the imperial court was formative, for there he learned how to rule over the Romans with justice, and how, by imitating the empire, he could raise his kingdom above others.17
Strengthened by his experience in Constantinople, as king of Italy Theoderic ensured that grammarians and orators in Rome received their traditional tributes, and Ennodius praised him for having promoted eloquentia and veneranda studia in an obvious contrast to the treacherous times of Odovacer.18 Theoderic’s program of civilitas included the support of Roman culture. A later source reports that the king used to say: “a poor Roman plays the Goth, a rich Goth the Roman” (Romanus miser imitatur Gothum et utilis Gothus imitatur Romanum).19 Whether this is true or not, the fact is that some in his close entourage received an education in Roman style. One of these was his nephew Theodahad, who could afford the privilege of a life far from the wars. Theodahad dedicated himself to philosophy and to the study of literature and the Holy Scriptures.20 And Theoderic did not deny this kind of education to the women of his household. His sister Amalaberga and some other princesses of the family, who were raised at the palace and later married to other kings, received an education in literature and manners.21
But it was Amalasuintha who spent about thirty years beside her father at the court of Ravenna, and it was she who benefited from an education in Roman style and experience in many ways reminiscent of Theoderic’s childhood in Constantinople.
An Education in the Roman Style
Grammatica and rhetorica stood as the foundation of the traditional education that Theoderic encouraged in his kingdom. Around the year 510, in his pamphlet known as Paraenesis Didascalica, Ennodius celebrated these two disciplines as complementary to the virtues of modesty, chastity, and faith: verecundia, castitas, fides. Intellectuals such as Augustine and Jerome had recommended the cultivation of these virtues to elite Roman ladies, considering them fundamental for the Christian education of women.22
Ennodius’s work was intended for two of his male pupils, Ambrosius and Beatus, who asked him for advice before moving to Rome to complete their studies. Toward the end of the pamphlet, Ennodius recommended teachers for them to follow, providing a list of names: Faustus and Avienus, Festus and Symmachus, Probinus, Cethegus, Boethius, Agapitus, and Probus.23 These were the senators of old distinguished families, who were among the most powerful politicians in Rome at the time; in his efforts to stay connected to the elite and to the cultural circles of the old capital, Ennodius corresponded with many of them. Festus, Cethegus, and Symmachus held the position of head of the Roman Senate (caput senatus). Ennodius dedicated his pamphlet to Symmachus and sent a copy to him.24 The Roman aristocracy was still a vital organ for the administration of Italy and the palace of Ravenna, and Ennodius urged his students: “May the heavenly Providence join you to the obedience of all those whom I have just mentioned.”25
Ennodius recommended men who were not simply teachers of literature and oratory: they were also potential patrons who could introduce their pupils to the world of the Roman aristocracy. At the same time, they were highly esteemed at the royal palace, where some of them had or would hold important offices. They could open the gates to a promising political career in both Rome and Ravenna for their protégés. This was also true of Ambrosius, who became the quaestor of Athalaric in 526/7 and the vicarius of Cassiodorus, the Praetorian prefect, in 533.26
Roman aristocratic women mostly operated behind the scenes in the political world, but they were important for the cultural life of the kingdom, and some were recognized for their learning. Ennodius recommended that his students seek out the most renowned of these women and learn from them. One of them was Barbara, who hosted Beatus as well as other pupils of Ennodius in her Roman house.27 Another was the woman Stephania:
Or if it pleases you to go to noble women, you will have the lady Barbara, the flower of Roman genius, who by the evidence of her face reveals the brightness of her blood and her discrimination. In her you will find the modest confidence and the confident modesty that come from good action; a speech so spiced with natural and artificial simplicity that neither does the charm of her