Amalasuintha. Massimiliano Vitiello
(4) After the death of Athalaric in October 534, Amalasuintha attempted to secure her own throne by nominating Theodahad as coregent (534–535).52
This comprehensive sketch depicts the main phases of Amalasuintha’s political activity at court. No source speaks to all four periods, but fortunately the periods covered by Procopius sometimes overlap with those covered by Cassiodorus, allowing us to view specific phases through the lens of more than one witness (unlike, for example, the sources for the life of Theodahad).53 It is necessary to use the account of Gregory of Tours only with great caution, and Cassiodorus and Procopius remain our central sources. Procopius’s account of Amalasuintha’s regency is primarily limited to three introductory chapters of the Gothic War,54 while Cassiodorus’s letters shed some light on the years 526–528 and 533–535. Very little evidence speaks to the period 528–532, during which Amalasuintha was experiencing strong pressure from the Gothic aristocracy at the palace.
The surviving evidence makes it difficult to further define the contours of the first two phases. We cannot determine whether, in that first year of her regency, Amalasuintha was willing or able to break with her father’s anti-Roman policy of his final years—especially given the fact that it was very likely Theoderic and not Amalasuintha who decided the appointments for the year 527;55 and we should not overestimate the influence of Cassiodorus on Amalasuintha’s political activity. The fact that he held the most significant offices at the palace, as well as the fact that his collection of letters survives, do not necessarily make him the primary political mind behind Amalasuintha’s decisions, nor a real protagonist at the court—especially considering that he was officially unemployed in the years 528–533.
Cassiodorus’s evidence on Amalasuintha is far more limited than that which he offers for the other Amals. Only part of the letters reveal, with a margin of certainty, Amalasuintha’s mind and political hand; it would be hazardous to envision the Gothic queen behind all the letters in Athalaric’s name that are included in books 8 and 9 of the Variae. Only occasionally does Procopius’s narrative of the Ostrogothic kingdom in those years find direct correspondence in the Variae. In addition, Procopius’s chronology, when compared with other evidence, often generates more questions than solutions. This is especially true for the dark period between the deposition and death of Amalasuintha, about which Procopius may not have been well informed. Most of the information provided by Cassiodorus and Procopius on Amalasuintha refers to the very first phase of her regency, between late 526 and 527, and to the very last years of her life, between 532 and 535. The hypothesis that Procopius’s informer was someone close to the Gothic queen could explain not only his knowledge of Amalasuintha’s life at the palace but also his general lack of information concerning later events, such as the activities of Theodahad in Ravenna and in Rome.
The works of Procopius and Cassiodorus are differently structured and have different chronological limits and intentions, though they agree in their representation of Amalasuintha and in the way they portray her as a woman in power. Nonetheless, these two authors are of fundamental importance, for our understanding of the sixth century is largely founded upon their evidence. A reconstruction of the portrait of Amalasuintha therefore requires a most careful analysis of their work. A close reading of all our evidence discloses important elements about Amalasuintha’s life and self-presentation. These sources have often been studied or interpreted independently, but bringing them in conversation with each other opens a window onto the wider world in which they were produced. Amalasuintha’s historical significance in the Mediterranean world emerges when the results of these analyses are contextualized with other authors writing in other kingdoms and in the empire during the fifth and the sixth centuries.
Chapter 1
Mother, Regent, and Queen
Amalasuintha and the Institutions of Power
In the complex and turbulent world of the sixth century, what exactly did queenship mean? The power of ruling women as it emerged in the post-Roman world had very different features from that found in the empire, which over the centuries had experienced many influential women at the imperial palaces. We have no clear understanding of how female power was understood at the barbarian courts, nor do we have a good understanding of the terminology that described women’s positions at court. After the gentes settled in kingdoms, and after their kings, ruling over both their own people and the Romans, became an integral part of the Latin world, the term þiudans—or whatever word originally indicated the king as the leader of his people, in the sense of the Greek βασιλεύς—was abandoned. The Latin titles of dominus and rex came into common use in the Roman-barbarian kingdoms, where the rulers bore royal titles that distinguished them from the emperor. This change may have been facilitated by the fact that the Latin word “rex” was very similar to reiks, a Celtic loan-word used by the Goths to indicate the “ruler” of the single groups of Gothic soldiers—perhaps similar in idea to the Greek ἄρχων with respect to the supreme ruler, the βασιλεύς, whose corresponding Gothic word, þiudans, could even apply to the emperor.1 Many names, including those of kings, ended in -rix.2 At about the same time, we begin to find the words “domina” and “regina” used to address royal women. However, the real significance of the title and status of regina in the barbarian courts of the fifth and sometimes even the early sixth century is difficult to determine on the basis of our sources. Concubinage, polygamy, remarriage, and legitimacy are just part of the question.
Much of our knowledge of Gothic vocabulary is based on the surviving parts of the Wulfila Bible, which frustratingly is missing all the events involving queens, from which we might have learned a Gothic term for a royal woman ruler. We have to wait until the second half of the eighth century to find the term kuningin in Old German documents.3 But we know that the Gothic word qens—which in the other Germanic languages was spelled with minor variations—signified both “woman” and “legitimate wife.”4 Qens could easily apply to a royal woman such as Amalasuintha as the equivalent of the Greek γυνή, which Procopius uses when referring to her. But this term probably did not originally express the sense of the Latin domina, as intended for a female ruler. We do not know the Gothic word for regina. We do find in the Wulfila Bible the term “ragineis,” meaning “adviser” (βουλευτής), and the verb “raginon”—which is not far from the Latin rego, regens.5 And while it is unlikely that there was a connection between this word and the Latin regina, it is remarkable that the primary function that the sources unanimously recognize in the queens of this period is their role as advisers to their husbands. They are widely acknowledged as providers of consilium.6 But in the world of the tribes, queens were generally not rulers in their own right, and they did not display public political power.
An understanding of Amalasuintha’s political agency is a necessary first step for constructing a biography of the queen, because it provides an important key for interpreting the sources, as well as a cornerstone for the reconstruction of her life at the court of Ravenna. Amalasuintha’s ruling activity and her political ambitions shaped the depiction of her in our sources, including the attribution of masculine characteristics that became an integral part of her image as a woman in power in the Gothic kingdom. An exploration of her political agency necessarily begins with an examination of the status quaestionis on Amalasuintha’s juridical status, and with a careful look at juridical lexicon of our primary sources, including the terminology of mater regens, domina and regina. To what extent was the daughter of Theoderic entitled to rule over Italy?
The “Strong Amal”: A Masculine Woman
The personality of Amalasuintha (or Amalaswintha/Amalasuentha), the daughter of Theoderic, “ruler of the people” (*þeudō + *rika), seems to be reflected in her Gothic name: *amala- “Amalo” (strenuus, industrius) + *swinþō “strong.”7 If this etymology of her name is correct, we may wonder whether the name reflected Theoderic’s wishes for his daughter, and also whether our authors were aware