Promising Unions: Amalasuintha’s Marriage and Theoderic’s Dreams
By the time Amalasuintha was nearing the age of twenty, she was the only legitimate child of Theoderic living in Italy, and also the only daughter who had not yet been given in marriage. In order to guarantee succession to his throne, Theoderic could not let her leave Italy to marry another king. He needed to keep her close to him. Theoretically, he could have arranged a marriage with a scion of one of the Gothic aristocratic families in Ravenna, or perhaps with his own nephew Theodahad, who was an Amal. But for a series of dynastic and expansionistic reasons, Theoderic never embraced these options, nor did he seriously consider Theodahad.60 Rather, he searched for Amalasuintha’s husband outside his palace and even outside Italy.
While evaluating the various options, he “discovered” a branch of the Amal family in Visigothic Spain. We read in Jordanes that Theoderic learned that Eutharic Cilliga was living in the kingdom of Amalaric. Apparently an Amal of Spain, he was the son of Veteric, the grandson of the Amal Beremud and the great-grandson of Thorismuth.61 No matter whether this suspicious Amal ancestry was real, or whether it was made up by Theoderic for dynastic reasons, this kinship could guarantee the continuation of the Amal dynasty in Italy, while facilitating acceptance of an external heir by the emperor and also by the Goths. The propaganda on this ancestry was strong to the point that Cassiodorus would celebrate Thorismuth and his father Hunimund as Amalasuintha’s direct ancestors in his letter-panegyric—probably drawing on his Gothic History.62
The arrangements Theoderic made for Amalasuintha’s betrothal were very unlike those he had made previously for his other daughters. Instead of sending Amalasuintha to Spain, in 515 Theoderic invited her chosen spouse to come to Italy: “[Theoderic] sent for him and gave him his daughter Amalasuintha in marriage,” writes Jordanes.63 Cassiodorus listed this event in his Chronicle,64 and he eulogized Eutharic in his lost History as an Amal descendant in possession of the qualities necessary for a military leader and a Gothic king. Jordanes relied upon this History when he wrote of these needed qualities in his Getica: “a descendant of the race of the Amals (Amalorum) … a young man strong (pollentem) in wisdom (prudentia) and valor (virtute) and health of body.”65 Cassiodorus would later use this same combination of qualities to celebrate Theodahad as the ideal ruler for both Romans and Goths: “I have had many wise men (prudentes viros), but none of such might (pollentem) in learning and piety. I love the Amal (Hamalum) … the brave man (virum fortem) … dear to the Romans for his wisdom (prudentia), revered for his valor (gentibus virtute) by the tribes.”66 According to this (Cassiodoran) representation, Amal heritage combined with prudentia et virtus was the formula for rule over the Romans and Goths. This was an important aspect of the propaganda of the kingdom, and in a letter in Theoderic’s name dating years earlier we read about the Goths: “They have always maintained a praiseworthy mean, since they have acquired the wisdom of the Romans (Romanorum prudentia), and have inherited the valor of the peoples (virtutem gentium).”67
Because of the lineage of both Amalaric and Eutharic, Theoderic’s relationship with Visigothic Spain had become stronger. Jordanes, revealing once again the perspective of Cassiodorus’s lost work, makes clear how great Theoderic’s expectations were of this marriage: “Eutharic married Amalasuintha, the daughter of Theoderic, thus uniting again the stock of the Amals which had divided long ago.”68 Theoderic was probably planning to put an end to the generational division of the two Gothic peoples, Ostrogoths and Visigoths. Indeed, Amalaric, the son of Theudigotha and orphan of his father Alaric II since 507, was too young to rule when in 511 he succeeded to the Visigothic throne.
The political scenario behind this event is particularly complex. The battle of Vouillé (near Poitiers) in the late summer of 507 brought the death of Alaric II, and his throne was seized by his illegitimate son, Gesalic. In addition, the Visigothic kingdom lost the regions of Toulouse and Aquitaine, which became part of Clovis’s territory. One year later Theoderic took Provence from the Burgundians. The king was concerned at the increasing power of the Franks,69 and he was also worried about the support that Anastasius was giving to this Catholic tribe. In fact, in 507/8 the emperor attempted to damage the Ostrogothic kingdom by raiding the southern Italian coast with his fleet, and in 508 he granted extraordinary honors to Clovis.70 Theoderic’s reaction was resolute: he strengthened his friendship with the Thuringians, who were enemies of the Franks, by marrying his niece Amalaberga to their king, Herminafrid (510/11). In addition, in 511 he intervened in Spain, where he overthrew Gesalic in favor of his grandchild Amalaric.71 This action proved to be fundamental, and Theoderic counted this year as the beginning of his rule over Spain as tutor for Amalaric.72
Theoderic had created an opening for a reunification under the Amal crown of the two Gothic peoples, who had been divided for almost a century and a half; it is not a coincidence that in his lost History Cassiodorus counted 511 as the two-thousandth year of Gothic history.73 Amalasuintha’s marriage to a highly ranked member of the Gothic nobility in Spain facilitated the process for the reunification of the two Gothic peoples. Importantly, this happened in Italy and under the Amal name; and it is not a coincidence that in sections of the Getica deriving from Cassiodorus, the nobility of the Balths is secondary to that of the Amals.74
In the meantime, to facilitate his control over Spain, Theoderic had entrusted Amalaric to the guardianship of Theudis, who was his armiger. It does not seem coincidental that Theudis was sent to Spain at the same time as Eutharic came to Italy, and it is possible that among Theudis’s duties was to keep Amalaric under control.75 The examples of the Ostrogoth Theudis in Spain and the Amal Eutharic in Italy suggest that Theoderic had planned the reunification in the interest of his people, in particular of the Amal family. Had his plan worked, the result could have been the control of the entire northwestern Mediterranean world under the same ruler, with its center in Italy: Spain and southern Gaul, Raetia, Noricum, and the western part of Illyricum, including Dalmatia and Pannonia. A reunification of Ostrogoths and Visigoths could further develop into an expansion over the former Western Roman Empire, including the territories of the Vandals and the Burgundians, and also the area between the Rhine and the Danube.76 And the Franks as well as the empire would feel the pressure of this strong Gothic coalition. Simply said, the marriage of Eutharic and Amalasuintha offered far more than a guarantee of succession; it laid the foundation for a glorious political scenario in which the Amal family’s power would be dramatically extended.
Jordanes claimed that Eutharic was young, but Cassiodorus’s remark that Eutharic was “almost equal in age” to Justin means that he was the same age as both the emperor and Theoderic (both were born in the 450s).77 I wonder, together with Wood, whether Eutharic was really meant to be Theoderic’s heir, or just the father of a Gothic successor.78 Perhaps Theoderic hoped at that time to live long enough to leave his realm to his yet-unborn grandson, as Emperor Leo, his former friend in the East, had tried unsuccessfully to do with his little grandchild Leo II (the son of his daughter Ariadne and Zeno, the emperor who would later support Theoderic).
The long-awaited heir finally came the year after the wedding. In 516 Athalaric—(aþal + *rika) “the noble king” or “the one who had power over the nobles”—was born as the first child of the new royal couple, to the great joy of Theoderic. The appropriate name for the son of Amalasuintha and Eutharic would have probably been Amalaric: the “powerful Amal.” But this name had already been given, probably for strategic reasons, to Theoderic’s Visigothic grandson, born in 502 but not yet king and still under Theoderic’s tutorship.79 Shortly afterward, around 518, followed the birth of a girl, Matasuintha.80 By this point Theoderic had two more royal grandsons in Amalaric and Sigeric, the children of his two daughters Theudigotha and Ostrogotho Areagni.81 Both of them were heirs to the thrones in their countries, respectively Visigothic Spain and the Burgundian kingdom. Theoderic’s farsighted matrimonial policy was bearing fruit, insofar as his alliances had generated heirs with roots in the Amal family. And even if, paradoxically, his