Theoderic

Статья посвящена проблеме взаимодействия варварских королевств Италии и Византии во второй половине V — первой половине VI в. Автор статьи рассматривает роль римской сенаторской аристократии в дипломатическом общении западных правителей с византийским императором, вызванном как политической необходимостью, так и религиозными разногласиями в христианской церкви. Инициатива отправки в Константинополь сенаторских посольств исходила от светских и церковных властей. Используя компаративный и историко-антропологический подходы, автор статьи анализирует цели и результаты пребывания римских сенаторов в Константинополе, а также причины, побудившие королей Одоакра и Теодориха привлекать аристократов к участию в посольствах. Исследование опирается на сообщения Прокопия Кесарийского, Liber Pontificalis, Anonymus Valesianus, а также письма римских пап. Делается вывод о том, что сенаторские поездки на Восток в изучаемый период приобрели особое значение в связи с обострением церковных противоречий. Обсуждение на дипломатическом уровне религиозных вопросов заставляло проводить более тщательный отбор претендентов на роль представителей Запада на переговорах с императором. Послы времени правления королей Одоакра и Теодориха обладали высоким социальным статусом (титулами патриция, caput senatus и рангом vir inlusrtis), который признавался и на международной арене. Автор высказывает мнение, что решающими факторами при назначении сенаторов в качестве посланников Запада были, наряду с происхождением, их дипломатические способности, образованность и риторическая подготовка, которые давали им преимущество перед незнатными государственными и церковными служащими. Дополнительным аргументом для варварских королей выступала принадлежность римских нобилей к христианству в католическом исповедании.
This article concerns the interaction of the barbarian kingdoms of Italy and Constantinople between the second half of the 5th and first half of the 6th centuries. The author of the article considers the role of the Roman senatorial aristocracy in the diplomatic communication of Western rulers with the Byzantine emperor caused by both political necessity and religious differences in the Christian Church. The initiative to send senatorial embassies to Constantinople came from the secular and ecclesiastical authorities. Using the comparative and historical and anthropological approaches, the author of the article analyses the goals and results of the Roman senators’ stay in Constantinople, as well as the reasons that prompted the reges Odoacer and Theodoric to involve aristocrats in embassies. The study is based on reports by Procopius of Caesarea, Liber Pontificalis, Anonymus Valesianus, as well as letters from the Popes. The author concludes that senatorial trips to the East during the period in question acquired special significance in connection with the aggravation of church contradictions. Discussion at the diplomatic level of religious issues led to a more thorough selection of applicants for the role of representatives of the West in negotiations with the emperor. The ambassadors under kings Odoacer and Theodorich had a high social status (titles of patricius, caput senatus, and rank of vir inlustris), which was also recognized on the international stage. The author puts forward an idea that the decisive factors in the appointment of senators as envoys of the West were, along with their origin, their diplomatic abilities, education, and rhetorical training, which gave them an advantage over the non-noble officeholders and church officials. An additional argument for the barbarian kings was the fact that Roman nobles were Catholics.

Libertas was an ideological cornerstone of the Ostrogothic Kingdom. Theoderic portrayed himself as the only defender of both the Senate’s and Italy’s freedom in Cassiodorus’ Variae, while South Gaul, which had been occupied by the Ostrogoths after the War of Provence, was restored by the Ostrogothic sovereign to its ‘antiqua libertas’, that is to the freedom that existed at the time of the Roman Empire. Libertas therefore played a fundamental role in the ‘imitatio Imperii’ pursued by Theoderic, who called himself ‘custos libertatis’ in an inscription. During the Gothic War libertas was also claimed by Byzantium, who accused the Goths of having enslaved the Italians. Cassiodorus and Procopius of Caesarea attest that the concept of libertas was at the center of the ideological confrontation that opposed Ravenna and Constantinople during those years. Justinian’s victory resulted in the adoption, by later writers, such as Paul the Deacon, of the imperial meaning of freedom, but the most important consequence of the conflict was another. While Italy was ravaged by the war, many people, such as Cassiodorus, Jordanes and Arator, chose to devote their lives to a third form of freedom, the one achievable by a religious life. From the sixth century onwards, the true defenders of libertas were not kings and generals, but monks and pontiffs.

Literary patronage was a widespread social practice in Ostrogothic Italy, as the works of Ennodius, Boethius, Cassiodorus and Arator show. Ennodius sought for a long time a dives patronus who could help him winning fame, while Boethius, thanks to Symmachus' support, quickly gained a reputation so great that Theoderic tried to bring him to his court. Cassiodorus is the clearest example of Ostrogothic royal patronage, while Arator reveals that also clergymen could be important patrons. These authors allow us to understand both the reasons why sixth century Italian writers sought a patron and the main features of senatorial, royal and ecclesiastical patronage. They indicate as well the importance of studia litterarum in late antique Italy and the strategies adopted by Ostrogothic kings in order to be accepted by the Roman population.

Concordia plays an important role in Cassiodorus’ and Ennodius’ vocabulary. It is used in order to embellish letters sent to illustrious friends, to condemn the clashes between senatorial factions, to promote the collaboration between the Senate and the Goths, to describe the consequences of the Laurentian Schism and to strengthen the ties of alliance between different peoples. Concordia and discordia were especially referred to men belonging to the senatorial class, kings and above all East Roman emperors. In Cassiodorus, concordia between sovereigns, which is often semantically close to the concepts of pax and amicitia, is a mirror of the (desired) cooperation and friendship between their kingdoms, whereas in Ennodius concordia is frequently referred to kings, not to their peoples, and it also encompasses the concept of fides, which becomes perfidia if we analyse the occurrences of discordia.
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Concordia inter verba maximi momenti est, quae operibus Cassiodori et Ennodi insunt, qui ea usi sunt, ut commercia epistularum cum amicis illustribus, lites inter senatores, consensum inter Gothos et patres conscriptos, controversiam Laurentianam de electione summi pontificis et praecipue rationes inter Amalos reges et imperatores vel dominos gentium significarent. Consideratis auctorum sententiis, quibus concordiae vel discordiae mentio adsit, intellegi potest verba haec plerumque ad viros genere vel auctoritate eminentes pertinere et magnopere valere ad societatis vincula inter nationes firmanda. In Cassiodori scriptis concordia singulorum principum, paci et amicitiae significatione similis, est saepe speculum concordiae regnorum, in illis contra Ennodi concordia ad reges et non ad eorum gentes spectat atque ei notio quoque fidei vel, si de discordia est sermo, perfidiae inest.

In 500 Amalafrida, Theoderic the Greatʼs sister, went to Africa in order to marry Thrasamund, king of the Vandals. According to Procopius of Caesarea, she was escorted by six thousand armed men. This is one of the few existing numerical clues about Ostrogothic army and it has thus been widely cited by scholars who dealt with the Goths or with Theoderic. A closer examination of the evidence we have about the Ostrogoths and the Vandals, however, clearly indicates that Procopiusʼ passage cannot be trusted.

A fragment of an inscription of the ostrogothic period from the Antiquarium of  Celio in Rome seems to remember the restoration work in the publica loca, financed by the specific chapter of expenditure set by the king, to complete the work. They could be realized by the prefect of the city Artemidorus (509/510 AD).
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Theodoric the Great’s Arianism
It is common knowledge that in the Theodoric’s kingdom, there was exemplary religious tolerance. Having arrived in Italy under their king’s rule, the Ostrogoths changed the religious situation there to a great extent. Everybody (or almost everybody) was Arian, they had their own clergymen, their Bible and their own structures.
The aim of the present paper is to present the circumstances in which this denomination became – for a certain period of time – predominant among all the Goths and finding the answer to the question of what the Arianism of Theodoric the Great in practice could boil down to.

Analisi del carme 2,111 di Ennodio dedicato all'esaltazione dell'attività del re Teoderico come giardiniere. Il testo è un'evidente metafora del buon governo e come tale rappresenta una sorta di parafrasi poetica in stile prezioso del Panegirico del re.

Cassiod. Var. 5.2, a letter which Theoderic sent to the remote Hesti, depicts the Ostrogothic king as a new Augustus, drawing a parallelism with the Indian embassy of 20 BC. Both Theoderic and Augustus welcomed legates coming from the end of the earth, so they could both claim that their fame had reached the frontier of the known world.

This paper discusses a particular case of Early Christian literacy and Gothic text production in the age of Germanic kleptocracy, that is the 5th and 6th centuries AD.  Its analytical framework is a form of comparative historical sociolinguistics. It will focus on the Ostrogothic king Theoderic the Great of Italy (493-526 AD) and his relationship to the Gothic Codex Argenteus. During the late 5th and early 6th centuries, there were four different active writing systems available to Germanic language speakers in Europe: Greek, Latin, runes and Gothic. This paper will position Theoderic within his contemporary discourse of literacy by evaluating historical sources in the various writing systems and inscribed material objects such as grave goods and coinage.  It will seek to explain what kind of alternative was available to Theoderic rather than full-scale text production.

Much of the recent work on gender constructions in the writings of the sixth-century Byzantine writer Procopius have focused on his Secret History. Yet, the crucial role that gender constructions play in his other writings has garnered far less notice. This essay concentrates on one theater of war, Italy, and examines how in the Gothic Wars Procopius used the field of battle as a means to comment on the role that courage and manliness played in determining the outcome of the war. The conflict, in Procopius’ telling, offered the Byzantines the opportunity not only to regain Italy, but also to test their military and manly virtues against a worthy enemy, the Goths.
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Review of Robert Rollinger, ed., Die Sicht auf die Welt zwischen Ost und West 750 v. Chr.–550 n. Chr./Looking at the World, from the East and the West 750 BCE–550 CE. Classica et Orientalia, 12. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2017. Pp. 351. Hardback,
€79.00. ISBN 978-3-447-10370-1.

The aim of the present article is the present the Byzantine emperors’ stand towards the rule of Theodoric the Great in the West. Those contacts depended on the situation in Italy and Byzantium at that time. The Theodoric’s actions connected with holding the official power over Italy and obtaining the crown were related to adhering to a certain policy towards Zeno and Anastasius. Next, the contacts of the emperor with Theodoric exacerbated when the king sent the army to Illyria in 504. Several years later, the Goth in a letter to Anastasium wrote that he cared very much about peace and agreement with the emperor. What also play a significant role here was the Laurentian schism and the Acacian schism (if the then religious situation is taken into consideration). Along with the election of Pope Hormisdas in 514, and then with the new emperor Justin, the contacts of Italy with the emperor entered a new phase.