Amalasuintha. Massimiliano Vitiello
When referring to her political achievements at the palace, Cassiodorus noted her determination and strong temperament, in particular firmitas animi and fortitudo animi.8 Even Gregory of Tours’s admittedly dubious description of Amalasuintha’s rebellious nature rested on an idea of a strong female character.
“Masculinity” is probably the main characteristic that Procopius and Cassiodorus attribute to Amalasuintha when describing her activity as regent. In one of several anecdotes in his narrative, Procopius tells an ominous story of a progressively collapsing mosaic of Theoderic, located in the marketplace of the city of Naples. According to his account, the disintegration of this image predicted the deaths of the Amal rulers, and ultimately forecast the end of the Ostrogothic kingdom:
At this time it so happened that the following event took place in Naples. There was in the marketplace an image of Theoderic, the ruler of the Goths, made of mosaic stones that were exceedingly small and tinted with nearly every colour. At one time during the life of Theoderic it happened that the head in this image broke apart, the arrangement of the stones being spontaneously disrupted, and it came to pass that Theoderic then immediately finished his life. Eight years later the stones forming the belly of the picture fell apart suddenly, and Athalaric, the grandson of Theoderic, immediately died. After the passage of a short time, the stones about the genitals fell to the ground, and Amalasuintha, the child of Theoderic, passed from the world. Now these things had already happened as described. But when the Goths began the siege of Rome, as chance would have it the part of the picture from the thighs to the tips of the feet were ruined, and so the whole image disappeared from the wall.9
In this process of deterioration, which symbolizes the progressive disintegration of the Ostrogothic kingdom, Amalasuintha’s fate is associated with the “male side” of her father, who is iconographically and symbolically the caput. While the disintegration of the head and body of the mosaic of Theoderic foretold, respectively, his own death and that of his grandson Athalaric, Amalasuintha’s demise was predicted by the falling to the ground of the mosaic stones “about the genitals” or the groin (αἱ περὶ τὰ αἰδοῖα ψηφῖδες).10 And it is remarkable that the name of Theodahad is not even included in this story, as though he were not a member of the family and the coregent of the queen, and as if his death had not affected Gothic power. The reader does not need to lend credibility to this anecdote to see the relationship between the “sexual” element of this image and several other references made by the same author about Amalasuintha’s masculinity.
From the very beginning of his work, Procopius attributed to Amalasuintha the best Roman virtues and highlighted her masculine nature, particularly when describing the tough, decisive action she had to take in the difficult environment of the palace of Ravenna. His wording is intriguing: on those occasions when Amalasuintha shows her strength, Procopius describes her as (acting like) a man; when she shows fear or loses heart, she is a woman. Recent studies have shown that in the Gothic War Procopius makes purposeful use of the virtue of valor (ἀνδρεία) in eulogizing or in diminishing the kings.11 Of the members of the Amal family, Procopius shows us the virtue of valor recognized in Theoderic and Amalasuintha, sought after in Athalaric, and fully denied to Theodahad, who is ἄνανδρος “by nature.” When summing up her activity as regent, he writes: “Amalasuintha, as guardian of her child, administered the government, and she proved to be endowed with wisdom and regard for justice (ξυνέσεως καὶ δικαιοσύνης) in the highest degree, displaying to a great extent the masculine temperament (τῆς δὲ φύσεως ἐς ἄγαν τὸ ἀρρενωπὸν ἐνδεικνυμένη).”12 Procopius credits Amalasuintha with Platonic and canonical virtues that he had previously attributed to Theoderic (δικαιοσύνη, ξυνέσις, and ἀνδρεία)13 and even writes that “the woman (ἡ γυνή) had the strictest regard for every kind of virtue.”14 When describing the attempts of the Goths to remove Amalasuintha from her palace, Procopius considers her a female man (ἡ ἄνθρωπος), and he also specifies that she “neither became frightened at the plotting of the Goths nor did she, as a woman (οἷα γυνὴ), weakly give way.”15 Yet later, when Amalasuintha realized the ineffectiveness of her strategy and began to lose hope, Procopius refers to her as a woman (ἡ γυνή) who, “being unable to endure these things any longer,” devised the plan to leave Italy for Constantinople.16 The only exception to this masculine-strength/feminine-weakness rhetoric occurs in an episode in which Amalasuintha, the woman, called her cousin Theodahad to answer for his scandalous appropriation of property. When he was proven guilty, she ordered the restitution of the properties to the Tuscan landowners. A careful reading of the text, however, makes clear that Procopius’s word choice is intentional. Theodahad is referenced not by name but only as the man (ὁ ἄνθρωπος), who felt that he had been outraged by the woman (ἡ γυνή).17 Procopius purposely offers this contrast of genders to further underscore the reasons for Theodahad’s grudge against Amalasuintha—a grudge that would shortly afterward have disastrous consequences for the queen.
In the Secret History, Procopius uses precisely the same wording when praising Amalasuintha for possessing those qualities that he believed Theodora lacked: “Theodora considered that the woman (ἡ γυνὴ) [i.e., Amalasuintha] was of noble ancestry and a queen, very impressive to look upon, and swift at devising plans to get what she wanted; also, she felt threatened by the woman’s magnificence and exceptionally manly bearing (διαφερόντως ἀρρενωπόν).”18 This time the gendered lexicon is blended in a striking combination synthesizing all the statements that Procopius had made in the Gothic War. Theodora, Procopius suggests, simply could not tolerate this mix of qualities; she “aims to destroy all masculine virtues, even when they appear in women,” writes Kaldellis.19 Both directly and indirectly, Procopius’s account incorporated rhetorical flourishes and praise common to the panegyrical genre, including the four canonical virtues (these were also employed in the mid-fourth-century Julian’s oration to Empress Eusebia).20 Cassiodorus used these same motifs in a panegyric that unfortunately survives only in fragments. Here he writes of his queen, very likely Amalasuintha (the first part of the sentence is lost): “… surpasses all the kingdoms, you are known to be in command of yourself (dinosceris potens tui). Now, if you are compared with your own customs (propriis moribus), then you are easily surpassed by the noble part of [your] soul (ab insigni animae parte superaris), you who by the beauty of your body (pulchritudine corporis) transcend all mortal things.”21
While Procopius offered an image of Amalasuintha as a male character whose ambitious personality eventually roused the jealousy of Theodora, Cassiodorus eulogized the queen in a similar way, with the same combination of Roman virtues and a masculine temperament, in the letters Variae 11.1 and 10.4.22 The letter-panegyric Variae 11.1, also discussed above, is written in Cassiodorus’s name, and Variae 10.4 contains the newly elected Theodahad’s praises of his coregent. In both cases, the eulogies of Amalasuintha mostly concern her regency for Athalaric. Cassiodorus attributed to her the most significant political virtues that could be claimed for a Roman ruler: aequitas, pietas, benignitas, fortitudo, animi firmitas, sapientia, prudentia, constantia. The letter-panegyric itself is structured on the four canonical virtues,23 the same ones that Procopius attributed to Amalasuintha, along with political virtues and wisdom in government (the same virtues he previously attributed to Theoderic). Once again, Cassiodorus’s representation is similar to Procopius’s. Toward the conclusion of his letter-panegyric, Cassiodorus recognized in Amalasuintha the entire list of virtues, especially the sapiential and the moral ones, which were rhetorically attributed to her ancestors: felicitas, patientia, mansuetudo, aequitas, forma, castitas, fides, and sapientia:
The form of the declamation demands that I should compare the parade of past empresses with her recent case. But how could these feminine examples suffice for one who surpasses all the praise given to men? If the royal band of her ancestors were to look on this woman, they would soon see their glory reflected, as in