The lack of experience Eutharic had in ruling over such a complex world was clear from the beginning. His representation as a man embodying wisdom, his expensive games and the triumphal ceremonies for his entrance in the consulship, his granting of honours to Roman senators: all these were strategic moves devised by Theoderic to endear him to the Romans, and Cassiodorus had praised them accordingly. But this was not enough to allow Eutharic to conquer the hearts of the Romans. His image would soon be compromised in that same year, 519, or early in 520,105 when he was involved in ending a riot in Ravenna. Our only account of this episode comes from a later anonymous author, who, describing the events of the 520s, expresses a hostile view of Theoderic, representing him as a tyrant and a persecutor of the Catholics.106 The Catholics of the capital had attacked the Jewish community, accusing them of disrespecting Catholic rituals, and had burned the synagogues.107 Situations like these were not unusual in Italy, but they required a degree of experience and refined political skill.108 On this particular occasion, the angry Roman Catholics of Ravenna did not show any respect for the king, or Eutharic, or Peter, the bishop of the capital.109 Theoderic was in Verona at the time, dealing with threats of an external attack, probably by the Franks.110 A group of Jews came to him as a delegation to report the events in Ravenna. They met Triwila, Theoderic’s “provost of the sacred bedchamber” (praepositus sacri cubiculi), who soon brought word of the Jews’ plight to the king’s attention.111 Theoderic ordered Eutharic to intervene, proclaiming “the whole Roman population should furnish money for the rebuilding of the synagogues of Ravenna which had been burned; and that those who did not have anything to give should be whipped through the streets of the city while a herald made a proclamation of their offence.”112 Theoderic’s order was followed, and the punishments prescribed by his Edict concerning arson were duly applied.113
Though Eutharic’s actions were ordered by Theoderic, the events in Ravenna were enough to compromise his image as prince and heir to the throne in the eyes of the Romans and the clergy. Although he had been at the palace for only a brief time, Eutharic was already labelled as “an excessively rough man, and an enemy to the Catholic faith.”114 We may wonder whether a few years later, when Cassiodorus introduced Athalaric as king, his words recalled the previous misunderstandings between the Romans and his father, who was intended to be a “foreign heir”: “If a foreign heir of the kingdom had overtaken you, you could perhaps doubt whether the follower out of jealousy would not love those people whom the previous [king] had loved.”115 Of course, this statement may also apply to the other potential heirs among Theoderic’s grandchildren, such as Amalaric.
The effect of these events on the image of the Amal house may have had their legacy in the representation of Amalasuintha by Gregory of Tours. His fabricated account can hardly be considered historical evidence: Amalasuintha did not disobey Theoderic when he (rather than Audefleda) arranged her marriage with a person “of equal rank with herself from a royal family.”116 It is interesting, however, that Gregory describes the daughter of Theoderic as an Arian heretic who escaped to another town with her lover, a servus named Traguila. This person should likely be identified with the above-mentioned Triwila, the king’s provost of the sacred bedchamber, who followed him to Verona; his position allowed him an intimacy with the royal family that could have prompted Gregory’s accusation of an affair with the king’s daughter.117 Since both Triwila, Amalasuintha’s alleged lover, and Eutharic, her husband, played the most important roles in the punishment of the Christians of Ravenna, we may wonder whether this story cemented the image of Amalasuintha as an anti-Catholic par excellence in the tradition of Gregory of Tours.118
Shortly after the events at Ravenna, sometime between 522 and 523, Eutharic died of causes that are unknown to us. Strangely, none of our authors thought that the event was worthy of report; Jordanes and Procopius briefly mention his death, but only in retrospect and while referring to later events. Cassiodorus in the History of the Goths, which he completed about a decade later, may even have been silent on this event, whose impact on the Amal family was bad.119 Eutharic’s death may have been a relief to many Roman Catholics, but it plunged the Gothic court into chaos. The ambitious plans Theoderic cherished for his son-in-law had collapsed, and his goal of integrating the two Gothic peoples was lost.120 The king was by now almost seventy years old, and once again without an adult heir. His thirty years of planning to ensure a successor to the throne had resulted in a widow with a five-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl.
Theoderic now had to change his strategy again. He decided to rely once more, and this time in an even stronger way, on his daughter Amalasuintha. Whether or not she already held the title of regina formally, he now opened the gates of royal power to her. Over the years Amalasuintha had gained political experience and developed the capacity to rule. Living beside her father in the stimulating court environment of Ravenna, and through her seven-year marriage to the designated heir of the kingdom, she had silently entered the world of politics and diplomacy. Her enviable level of education and her experience at the palace had made her a bicultural figure: she was both Gothic and Roman in her way of thought and action. The combination of these elements made her, though a woman, a candidate uniquely suited to a position of power that was new to the Gothic world.
Tragedies and Tension at the Palace
In the three or four years that separate the death of Eutharic from that of Theoderic, Ostrogothic Italy experienced a dramatic decline after thirty years of political and diplomatic success.121 Most of the matrimonial alliances and diplomacy which Theoderic had built since the late 480s/early 490s, and which had made his kingdom a protagonist in continental Europe and in the western Mediterranean world, were compromised within a short period. The disappearance at the moment of Eutharic’s death (ca. 522) of Theoderic’s long-held plans to unify the two Gothic peoples was only the beginning.
In 522, Theoderic’s grandson Sigeric was assassinated by order of his own father, Sigismund, as Gregory of Tours and Marius of Avenches relate.122 The Catholic Burgundian king was trying to establish an alliance with Justin against the Goths and the Franks. His Amal wife, Theoderic’s daughter Ostrogotho Areagni, had died some time earlier, and he was now remarried with two children.123 According to Gregory of Tours, it was Sigismund’s new wife who encouraged him to murder his own child by claiming that Sigeric was planning to remove him and ultimately to expand his kingdom into Italy.124 Of course, Gregory’s tales are often fantastical, and it is difficult if not sometimes impossible to separate fact from fiction in his account. But if any thread of truth runs through the lines of this story, we may wonder whether Sigeric was at this point Theoderic’s backup plan for succession, and whether in 523, when the Amal king sent his army with the Goth Tuluin on an expedition against the Burgundians, one of Theoderic’s intentions was vengeance for the murder of his grandson.125 Tuluin seems to have fought against Sigismund on the side of the Franks of Chlodomer in order to protect the interest of the Gothic kingdom. However, Chlodomer’s expedition ended with its defeat in 524 at Vézeronce, where the king died.
On 6 May 523 the Vandal king Thrasamund also died. His successor, Hilderic, who was none other than the son of Eudocia and grandson of Valentinian III, restored Catholicism in Africa, which until then had been persecuted. After the death in 511 of Gesalic, who had sought help from the Vandals, the increasing power of Theoderic over Visigothic Spain may have started a process of deterioration of the relationships between the Vandal and the Ostrogothic kingdoms.126 As soon as Thrasamund died, Amalafrida was no longer a guarantee of good relationships between Italy and Africa. The queen escaped to Capsa, where she tried to get help from the Moors, enemies of the Vandals who in previous years had defeated Thrasamund.127