THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 237
The Transience of Prudence and Valor
15-11. The Transience of Prudence and Valor
While these events were in progress, in the year 523, the Emperor Justin proscribed Arianism throughout the Empire. Such an action was a direct menace to the Goths, and Theodoric felt it very acutely. The painful impression which it produced on him was probably much increased by the fact that Symmachus's successors in the papal chair had not been as tolerant as their predecessor; while one of them in particular, John I, had shewn a most bitter enmity towards heresy.
Wo have no certain knowledge as to whether the Senate was in sympathy with Theodoric on this occasion, or whether it approved of Justin's measure, but the most probable theory seems to be that the Curia was on Justin's side, and that Theodoric moreover was aware that this was the case. At any rate, when the Senator Albinus was denounced by Cyprian for carrying on intrigues with Byzantium the accusation found ready credence at Court. The Anonymus declares, besides, that the king was angry with the Romans; and it is difficult to see why he should have been thus angry unless the Romans had been approving of Justin's religious decrees. On the other hand, if any plot had existed in the real sense of the term, it is not probable that such a man as Boethius, the master of the offices, that is to say one of the chief officers of the Crown, would have endeavoured to shield Albinus by saying, “Cyprian's accusation is false, but if Albinus has written to Constantinople he has done so with my consent and that of the whole Senate.” He might perhaps have spoken in such a manner for the purpose of expressing his own and his colleagues' approval of a religious decree promulgated by a sovereign to whom they owed allegiance.
Boethius indeed had himself just published a work against Arianism, entitled De Trinitate, but it does not seem likely that he would have talked in this fashion had a conspiracy really been brewing. In any case, he was at once thrown into prison; and is said to have composed his work De Consolatione while in captivity. In the end, after a brief trial, he was put to death with every refinement of cruelty, while not long afterwards his father-in-law, Symmachus, met with a similar fate.
Theodoric, indeed, understood very well that his whole life-work was likely to be compromised by this readiness on the part of his subjects to accept Justin's edict. For what would become of his authority if it became the fashion to criticise him on account of his faith? It was in the hope of finding some remedy for this situation that he summoned Pope John to Ravenna, and from thence despatched him, accompanied by five bishops and four senators, on an embassy to Constantinople.
The king charged this mission, among other things, with the task of requiring the Emperor to reinstate the outcast Arians within the pale of the Church. But the Emperor, though willing enough to make concessions on any other subject, would concede nothing to the Arians, and the mission was forced to leave Constantinople without obtaining any redress on this point. As for Pope John, he died almost immediately after his return to Italy, and as his biographers tell us that he worked numerous miracles after his death, we may conclude that this sectarian quarrel must have been very acute. The failure of this embassy made Theodoric so furious that he allowed an edict to be published during the consulship of Olybrius by Symmachus, the chief official in the Scholae, which stated that all Catholics were to be ejected from their churches, on the seventh day of the Kalends of September, But on the very day fixed upon by his minister for the execution of this act of banishment, the king died, apparently from an attack of dysentery, in the year 526.
The Byzantine historian Procopius — though he was himself an opponent of the king's — has summed up Theodoric and his work in the following verdict, which remains true in spite of the errors committed by him during the latter years of his reign. "His manner of ruling over his subjects was worthy of a great Emperor; for he maintained justice, made good laws, protected his country from invasion, and gave proof of extraordinary prudence and valour."
Theodoric's work was not destined to survive his death. He left a daughter, Amalasuntha, the widow of Eutharic, who was not unlike him; and who now became guardian to her son Athalaric, to whom his grandfather had bequeathed the crown on his death-bed. She had been educated entirely on Roman lines, and understood the value of her father's work; but she had to reckon with the Goths. During Theodoric's lifetime this people had done nothing to excite attention, and had lived side by side with the Romans without shewing any desire to obtain the upper hand; but under the regency of a woman we find that they soon aspired to play a more important part. Their first step was to take Athalaric from the guardianship of his mother.
He died, however, in 534. Amalasuntha was now confronted once again with her former difficulties; and in the hope of overcoming them, she attempted to share the crown with Theodoric's nephew Theodahad, a man of weak and evil character. The new king's first care was to get rid of Amalasuntha, and he had her shut up on an island, in the lake of Bolsena. From her prison, she appealed to Justinian for assistance. When this came to Theodahad's ears, he had her strangled.
But her cry for help had not been unheeded. By the death of Anastasius the situation at Constantinople had been completely changed; it was no longer the imperial policy to allow Italy to be governed by a vassal, more especially if that vassal were an Arian; and political and religious motives alike urged Justinian to intervene. A struggle began accordingly which was to last from 536 to 553, which was to devastate Italy with fire and bloodshed, and which ultimately opened the door for a new invasion by the Lombards.
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