THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 230
The Assassination of Odovacar, First King of Italy
15-4. The Assassination of Odovacar, First King of Italy
The title which Theodoric bore when he started from Constantinople, that of Patrician, sufficed in his own opinion and that of Zeno to legalise his power and to clothe him with the necessary authority: it was the same rank as that borne by Odovacar, Later, like Odovacar, he aspired to something higher and like him he was to fail in his attempts to obtain it. Zeno had no intention of yielding up his rights over Italy, and recognised no one other than himself as the lawful heir of Theodosius.
In 488 Theodoric crossed the frontier at the head of his Goths; it was the first step in the conquest which took five years to complete. Odovacar opposed him at the head of an army not less formidable but less homogeneous than that of his adversary. He was defeated on the Isonzo; he retreated on Verona, was once more beaten and fled to Ravenna. Theodoric profited by this error of tactics to make himself master of Lombardy, and Tufa, Odovacar 's lieutenant in that district, came over to his side. This was merely a stratagem, as when Tufa was sent with a picked body of Goths to attack Odovacar, he rejoined him with his Ostrogoths at Faventia. In 490 Odovacar again took the offensive; he sallied from Cremona, retook Milan and shut up Theodoric in Pavia.
The latter would have been destroyed if the arrival of the Visigoths of Widimir, and a diversion made by the Burgundians in Liguria, had not left him free to rout Odovacar in a second battle on the Adda and to pursue him up to the walls of Ravenna. In August 490 Theodoric camped in the pine forest which Odovacar had occupied in his campaign against Orestes and a siege began which was to last three years. In 491 Odovacar made a sortie in which, after a first success, he was finally defeated and the siege became a blockade. Theodoric, while keeping the enemy under observation, proceeded to capture other towns and to form various alliances. He seized Rimini and so destroyed the means of provisioning Ravenna, after which he opened negotiations with the Italians.
Without asserting that Theodoric owed all his success to the Church, the facts shew pretty clearly that she afforded him — Arian though he was, like Odovacar — valuable assistance. It was Bishop Laurentius who opened for him the gates of Milan and it was he who, after the treason of Tufa, held for him that important city; Epiphanius bishop of Pavia acted in. similar fashion. In a letter written in 492, Pope Gelasius takes credit to himself for having resisted the orders of Odovacar, and finally it was another bishop, John of Ravenna, who induced Odovacar to treat.
Theodoric like Clovis understood to the full the advantages which would accrue to him from the good offices of the Church. From his first arrival in Italy he shewed in his attitude towards her the greatest consideration and tact. He was lavish in promises, he took pains to conciliate and he did not despise the use of flattery. Thus when he saw Epiphanius for the first time he is said to have exclaimed: "Behold a man who has not his peer in the East. To look upon him is a prize, to live beside him security." Again, he entrusts his mother and his sister to the care of the bishop of Pavia, an act of high policy by which he added to the friendly feelings already exhibited towards him. The conquest of Italy was practically achieved between 490 and 493, and the various members of the nobility such as Festus and Faustus Niger and the chief senators rallied to his cause; with the capitulation of Odovacar, which took place at this latter date, the victory of Theodoric was complete.
On £7 February 493, through the good offices of John bishop of Ravenna who acted as official intermediary and negotiated the terms of the treaty, an agreement was concluded between Odovacar and Theodoric. It was arranged that the two kings should share the government of Italy and should dwell together as brothers and consuls in the same palace at Ravenna. Odovacar as a pledge of good faith banded over his son Thela to Theodonc, and on 5 March the latter made his state entry into Ravenna.
Theodoric broke the agreement by an act of the basest treachery. A few days later he invited Odovacar, his son and his chief officers to a banquet in that part of the palace known as the Lauretum. At the end of the feast Theodoric rose, threw himself on Odovacar and slew him together with his son. The chief officers of Theodoric's army followed his example and massacred the Rugian leaders in the banqueting hall, while in the interior of the palace and as far as the outskirts of Ravenna the Gothic soldiery attacked the soldiery of Odovacar. It was clear that all acted on orders from headquarters.
Theodoric had now no rival in Italy: he was not however equally successful in his attempts to obtain recognition as king by the Emperor.
He had already, during the first year of the siege of Ravenna, despatched Festus to Constantinople, hoping that his position as chief of the Senate would favour the success of his mission. On the completion of his conquest, Festus having in the meantime failed, Theodoric sent a fresh envoy, Faustus Niger; the second enterprise was however no less abortive than the first. The Anonymus Valesii tells us, indeed, that "peace having been made" (had Theodoric then in the eyes of the Emperor been guilty of disobedience?), "Anastasius sent back the royal insignia which Odovacar had forwarded to Constantinople"; nowhere, however, do we find it stated that the Emperor had authorised Theodoric to assume them. In a letter written to Justinian to beg for his friendship, Athalaric records the benefits conferred by the Court of Byzantium on his ancestors, he mentions adoption and the consulate and in referring to the question of government he merely recalls that his grandfather had been invested in Italy with the toga palmata, the ceremonial robe of clarissimi of consuls who triumphed. However that may be, Theodoric took that which was not conferred upon him.
He abandoned military dress and assumed the royal mantle in his capacity of "governor of the Goths and the Romans"; but officially he was not, any more than Odovacar had been, king of Italy. Even his panegyrist Ennodius who styles him "our lord the king," refers to the Italians as "his subjects," accepts him as "lord of Italy'* and de facto "Imperator" and speaks of him as clothed with the imperialis auctoritas, nowhere calls him king of Italy or king of the Romans. He was at once a Gothic king and a Roman official: Jordanes has called him quasi Gothorum Romanorumque gubernator.
We have proof of this double position in the two letters which he wrote to Anastasius and which are quoted by Cassiodorus. In the first Theodoric expresses to the Emperor the respect which he feels for the latter's counsels and especially for the advice which he had given him to shew favour to the Senate. If he uses the word regnum (a word which may also mean nothing more than government) it is to tell the Emperor that his object is to imitate the latter's system of governing. In the second letter, his tone is that of a lieutenant who begs his superior officer to approve the choice of a consul. It is the tone neither of a rebel on the one hand, nor of an independent sovereign on the other.
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