M.E. STEWART (UNEDITED DRAFT: April, 2014)

Three Views of Theoderic: Review of Sean Lafferty, Law and Society in the Age of

Theoderic the Great: A study of the Edictum Theoderici (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2013); and Jonathan Arnold, Theoderic and the Roman Imperial

Restoration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Peter Heather, The

Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes & Imperial Pretenders (London: MacMillan,

2013).

The Gothic King—or is that Western Roman emperor—Theoderic (ruled 489/93-526)

has recently received a great deal of scholarly attention. In The Restoration of Rome:

Barbarian Popes & Imperial Pretenders, Peter Heather devotes several chapters to the

Amal rex. Cambridge University Press has published two major studies on Theoderic

in the past year alone: Sean Lafferty’s Law and Society in the Age of Theoderic the

Great: A study of the Edictum Theoderici (2013) and Jonathan Arnold’s Theoderic and

the Roman Restoration. Though all three of these works have done much to advance

Theoderican studies their bipolar presentations of Theoderic will probably leave

graduate students assigned these works confused.

On the one hand, Lafferty (from now on L) provides his reader with a traditional vision

of Theoderican Italy as one of several post-Roman worlds. His Theoderic is a barbarian

rex dressed in Roman clothing. L sees Theoderic’s as bit of a magician’s trick, heavy

on rhetoric, but based on a much more humble and depressing reality found in L’s

impressive fleshing out of the primary themes found in the Edictum Theoderici issued

by Theoderic around 500. L argues persuasively that this legal text based on Roman

law provides an apt corrective to the overly-optimistic rhetoric displayed in

Cassiodorus and Ennodius. Despite the ancient rhetoric’s claims to the contrary, in L’s

(20) mind, Theoderic was unable to solve most of Italy’s structural problems. L points

out rightly that our major source for the reign, Cassiodorus’ Variae, “do not necessarily

reflect conditions as they were”. Under the Goths, Italy was becoming increasingly

militarized, which culminated with a merging of the civilian and military branches of

the Italo-Roman government (101-102). L does find that in “Ostrogothic” Italy that “the

integrity of the judicial system” was basically the same as in the Later Roman Empire.

He concludes, however, that the Ostrogoths offered Italo-Romans and Goths a watered

down version of Roman law and justice. Ultimately, in L’s mind, Theoderic was a bit

of a charlatan. While recognising Theoderic’s ability “to mask these problems behind a

rhetoric of Roman renewal that stressed continuity between his reign and those of other

great Emperors like Trajan or Valentinian.” L contends that “the ordinary citizen was

worse off, unable to overcome the inherent biases that favoured the rich, the well-

connected,” and the militarized Gothic elite. While on paper things may not have

changed much from when the Roman emperors wore the purple, L concludes that

Theoderican Italy was hindered by a failure of “judges who were unable or unwilling to

enforce the King’s laws”(155).

On the other hand, Jonathan Arnold is more inclined to take Italo-Roman writers like

Ennodius and Cassiodorus more seriously. A (90) goes so far to say “Theoderic’s

reign…constituted much more than simply that of a king along the same lines as

Odovacer or other ‘barbarian’ kings of the West. He was a princeps Romanus, or

Roman emperor, acknowledged as such by his own subjects and presented as such,

though in a deferential and conciliatory manner, to the East.” The “glorious” opening

decades of Theoderic’s rule were nothing less than the rebirth of the Western Roman

Empire.i

A, in my mind rightly, places much value on the martial reputation and military record

of the Goths as a key factor in their acceptance as “new” Romans in the enfeebled

West. He writes: “what separated the Goths from these (other Romanised peoples) was

the fact that they remained proudly, perhaps even defiantly, unconquered by Rome”.

Instead of being ruled by unmanly Greek emperors from the East like Anthemius (ruled

467-72), the effeminized fifth-century Italo-Romans had been both rescued and

reinvigorated by the manly Goths, cast by men like Ennodius and Cassiodorus as

“new” Romans draped in traditional Roman martial virtues. A explains,

“Contemporary western propaganda sought to paint the Gothic Ricimer as a noble

Roman protector" whilst casting Easterners like the Western Roman Emperor

Anthemius "as an enraged Galatian and Greekling rather than the Roman he claimed to

be.” (153). “Goths and Gothicness”, he continues, “represented martialism, the old

Roman virtue of virtus (the very source of the term virtue), which meant “manliness” or

“courage.” Virtus was an ideal that the Romans had seemingly lost, becoming overly

effeminate (perhaps even overly Greek), yet which until recently had been most Roman

indeed”.

I would agree, that one can easily find this familiar trope concerning the unmanly and

Greek identity of Eastern Romans in both Eastern and Western writers. A makes it

clear that this view of enervated Greeks and Western Romans are not his own views,

but the ones found in the Italo-Roman sources. The mid sixth-century Byzantine writer

Procopius indeed spends much of his Gothic Wars trying to rebut this gendered

propaganda. This does not necessarily mean that most Italo-Romans saw East Romans

like Anthemius as unmanly, only that they thought that men like Ricimer and

Theoderic might want to hear such traditional tropes. As Procopius’ shows his readers

throughout Wars the Italo-Romans often had mixed loyalties.ii Yet, A is surely correct

to remind us that Western Romans often looked upon the Eastern Romans as unmanly

Greeks, not fellow Romans

In chapters 5 and 6 expand on the idea found in chapters 1-4 that Theoderic “had

literally become a new Augustus”. A is certainly correct when he suggests that Roman

“soldier-emperors were often unable to earn their more aristocratic subject’s respect or

loyalty (142).” A discusses how Romanitas (imperfectly translated as “Romanness” in

English) had long consisted of a combination of martial and intellectual virtues. The

Goth’s imperial virtues were not based solely on Theoderic’s ability to garb himself in

martial virtues, but by his ability to demonstrate that during his service in the East he

had mastered the more civilised qualities of an idealised Roman from the upper-

classes.

The reality that the Goths remained the primary soldiers in Gothic Italy raises an

interesting point.iii When describing Theoderic’s Italy, one point that both Goths and

Byzantines seem to agree on is that notion that the Italo-Romans lacked the manly

courage and martial virtues to protect their native land.iv As the Goths become more

attuned to Roman masculine ideals, the Italo-Romans become more effeminized.

Roman aristocrats who had long been able to forego their martial roles for more

intellectual forms of male self-fashioning had a more difficult time being seen as “true”

men in the increasingly militarized world of the late fifth and early sixth-

centuries.vMartial virtues, power, and masculine gender were deeply intertwined in

Roman culture. I would suggest that just as martial virtues were not enough to make

Romans out of Goths, in writers like Procopius, intellectual virtues were no longer

enough to make Romans out what he saw as enervated Italians.vi

Moreover, Procopius’ views of Italy and the major characters Gothic and Roman were

not in as much dissonance with Western Sources as A posits (e.g. 73). Procopius’

character sketches of leading figures in the Gothic leadership such as Amalasuintha,

Theodahad, Athalaric, and Totila appear similar to accounts given in the Western

sources.vii Indeed, much of what Procopius tells his readers about the Gothic Wars after

540 most likely came from his contacts within the Italian Senate.viiiSo too does there

appear to be a continuing divide between Goths and Italo/Romans in the generation

after Theoderic. If the Goths were truly “new” Romans more juxtaposition should be

seen. A does not address adequately the notion found in Wars that the Goths continued

to live mostly amongst themselves in Northern Italy and that at least some within the

Gothic hierarchy after Theoderic’s death resisted the inevitable decline of Gothic

cultural values that resulted from them being gradually absorbed by the Italo-Romans.ix

Moreover, abandoning Arianism would have been an easy step in gaining acceptance

as true Romans. In the East, the Alan generalissimo Aspar— albeit grudgingly—

coaxed his son convert to orthodoxy in order to marry the Emperor Leo’s daughter in

470. So why not Theoderic? Religious conviction seems unlikely, indeed, as one

scholar on Theoderic’s reign notes, “that there was a steady flow from Arianism to

Catholicism among the Ostrogoths in Italy.”x Gothic identity and the need to maintain

the continuing loyalty of the Gothic warriors that truly kept him in power seems the

most likely reason that Theoderic never took this step.xi

A’s contention that years of service by the Goths within the armies of Rome and

subsequent integration into Roman society would have made it difficult for one to

distinguish the fifth and sixth-century Roman from the non-Roman certainly makes

sense. The question that might be asked, and in my view A never tackles satisfactorily,

is why did these men in some cases seem to hang on to their Gothic and/ or Alan

identities so vigorously. Was this perhaps, not a sign of non-acceptance by Romans,

but a personal choice? Put more simply, why would you keep calling yourself a Goth

and/or Alan, if you truly wanted to be seen as Roman? For example, when A discusses

(146) Aspar’s son Patricius’ Romanised name as an indication of the generalissimo’s

hopes to integrate him more firmly into Eastern Roman society, he also mentions that

the generalissimo’s two other sons had been given un-Roman names of Ardabur and

Hermineric since they were expected to “follow in his footsteps” as military men. His

assumption behind these names is likely correct, but what A does not explore here, or

indeed in his account of Theoderic, is why non-Romans like Aspar and Theoderic,

even after years under the umbrella of Roman culture, appear to have wanted to

maintain their non-Roman identity and culture.xii Though hinted at, A does not

consider deeply enough the ramifications that such dedication to their sense of

Gothicness might have on his larger arguments.

A’s tactic instead, is to focus on the diverse cultural traits that individual peoples like

the “Gauls” had preserved during their long tenure under Roman rule. Chapter five

offers an adjustment to his previous story of a largely gentle merging between two

martial peoples:

The very nature of the Empire aided in the acceptability of such diversity, its existence an inevitable consequence of the assimilation process that radiated outward from the Roman core to its periphery (and back again). The Roman world was a heterogeneous composition of numerous ethnic and subethnic groups all of which had adopted various Roman cultural aspects to differing degrees and over different amounts of time thus becoming “Roman”, but with diverse manifestations that were constantly in flux (122).

He resumes by suggesting that many Romans, and by this he means Italian elites, never

fully accepted peoples like the Gauls as “true” Romans and, indeed, continued to view

them in some cases as barbarians.

Fine so far, his next assertion and analogy, however, is more problematic. A continues,

“Gallo-Roman culture was still in flux….Gallo-Roman culture was still readily

identifiable to outsiders as different or even bizarre, and to some degree Gallic society

really did retain certain Celtic attributes (122)”. Okay, this is true to a degree, indeed, in

his writings, the fourth-century Emperor Julian described the Celts and Germans as

“fierce and warlike”, but “unruly”, “easterners” like the Syrians as “intelligent and

effeminate”, North Africans as “argumentative”, and Greeks and Romans as “warlike

and intelligent”, all of which may seem a bit strange for some modern readers since

almost all of these peoples were now Romans.xiii Anthony Kaldellis, I believe correctly,

sees these not so much as ethnic, but as regional stereotypes: a bit like some Americans

seeing southerners as a bit dim-witted.xiv

A concludes that these regional stereotypes help to explain why the Goths could “retain

certain native characteristics, and still become Roman” (123). While I agree with this

conclusion, the analogy he makes between Gauls and Goths is not apt. The Gauls had

been part of the Empire for over five hundred years, and indeed, as A later mentions,

were a people from a non-Roman homeland who had been conquered by the Romans,

whilst the Goths were recent arrivals, who had never been subjugated and were busy

carving out territories within the Empire. This to me is a major difference.

The ethnic tropes discussed above are old standbys in Roman literature, but one needs

to be careful to accept them as accurately reflecting contemporary views. Much

opposing evidence could be gathered to prove that the Gauls were seen as primarily

Roman.

A knows this, and he does a fine job of warning his audience once again, but he still

makes the tenuous claim. Why? I would suggest that it is because he needs to explain

away evidence that is rife in fifth and sixth-century literature depicting the Goths as

typical barbarians.xv My hesitance to accept his methods does not mean that I do not

accept his main argument that the Goths—or at least certain peoples and individuals

who called themselves Goths— were gradually being amalgamated into the Empire in

the fifth century, and could be seen as Roman in the sixth century. What remains less

clear, however, is how much of the Goths’ Romanization was voluntary or the

inevitable result of a relatively small social group being gradually absorbed by the

dominant culture.xvi

Despite my concerns with some of A’s and L’s more sweeping statements, their studies

offer much for scholars to ponder. It is a bit strange given the two scholars’ familiarity

and similar topic that they do not engage one another’s disparate views of Theoderic’s

Italy.

Peter Heather's new book Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes & Imperial

Pretenders is the sequel to his popular Fall of Rome (2005). While aimed at a broad

audience, Heather also has many titbits and, indeed, sometimes controversial

conclusions for academics. Heather engages with many on-going disputes in the field

of Late Antique history. The study, however, would have benefitted with further

engagement with recent scholarship that contradicts many of his main points. His

bibliography is missing many important articles and recent works that are fundamental

if one hopes to put together a narrative on the poorly covered fifth century. While

sections of this book are interesting, particularly his chapters on the two Theoderics

and Justinian's "reconquest" of the "lost" western provinces in the sixth-century, this is

the weakest of Heather's stimulating trilogy. Indeed, as he moves away from his area of

expertise the quality declines dramatically. His chapters on Carolingians and the rise of

the papacy are convoluted and often unrelated to his main thesis. I will, however, limit

my comments to his opening chapters on Theoderic’s rise and Justinian’s wars of

reconquest.

While recognizing that he was aiming at a larger audience, his Theoderic offers a

portrait of a stereotypical barbarian rex that could have been found in something

published a century earlier. With some exceptions, H’s narrative falls back on the old

ethnic divide of “Romans versus barbarians” as an explanation to the political turmoil

that beset Leo’s and Zeno’s regimes (though H claims that he follows the newer

consensus that depicts these divisions as largely factional disputes). Moreover, he

makes no mention of Croke and Wood’s recent articles arguing that Leo and Zeno,

indeed, may have been very similar to men like Ricimer, and the two Theoderics. His

Theoderic educated in Constantinople had two choices once free from Leo’s captivity:

mildly submit to Roman cultural superiority, or “smash” for himself and his people a

place in this world; certainly, this is a vision of Theoderic and the Goths that our

Byzantine sources would have wanted us to believe. Arnold suggests plausibly that

Theoderic had been shaped by those early years in Constantinople. He was, indeed,

probably much more of a typical upper-class Eastern Roman than the Eastern Emperor,

Zeno, who sent him to overthrow Odovacer. His study represents a very bipolar world

of Romans against barbarians, a paradigm that many scholars in the past twenty years

have rightfully demolished. H does, however, offer a lucid and fast-flowing narrative

on the scheming that marked late fifth-century Eastern Roman politics. Following

Jonathan Arnold, I would just argue that Theoderic and Leo would have shared many

values and hopes for the Empire. Certainly, the politics Theoderics move into Italy and

subsequent reign is much more nuanced than H’s work suggests.

H’s views on Cassiodorus and other Italo-Romans having “to justify to the New

Eastern Roman ruler of Italy why they had continued to serve Gothic kings despite

their arrival on Italian soil” (55) is puzzling since he showed throughout his study that

such propaganda had begun as soon as Theoderic arrived in Italy. Based heavily on the

work of M. Shane Bjornlie, H suggests that because of an Eastern Roman victory,

Cassiodorus gave his writings a quick rewrite and culling of his letters to ingratiate

himself to Justinian and his inner-circle is unconvincing.xvii Indeed, Cassiodorus was

only one of many Italo-Roman writers who composed works dedicated to depicting

Theoderic and his Goths as the manly saviours of Italy.

Ethnic identity in Late Antiquity was also much more fluid than H frequently

suggests.xviii I found some of his comments on Gothic identity incongruent. He posits,

plausibly enough, that “the lower-status (Gothic) warriors and even more the slaves had

much less of a stake in their group’s existence, so that the strength of individual

affiliation to the group’s identity fell off dramatically as you moved down the scale.”

He uses Theoderic’s famous “Romanus miser” quote to back up this suggestion. This

example suggests the opposite. Rich Goths—one would think including many high-

ranking warriors—in this passage imitate rich Romans. H rightly highlights as

anachronistic the notion found in later sources that due to a dispute with the Eastern

emperor and empress the Byzantine commander Narses invited the Lombards to invade

Italy in 568. Yet he strangely attributes this claim as having its origins in the political

environment “two-hundred years later” in the ninth-century history of Paul the Deacon.

However this gossip is found first in the chronicle of Isidore composed in 616 and

repeated in the Liber Pontificalis (63.3) composed sometime in the 620s or 630s.

The emperor Justinian (ruled 527-565) has received a great deal bad press in the past

two decades. Where the older historiographical tradition mostly praised him for his

reconquest of the lost provinces in the West, law code, and his example as an engaged

Christian emperor, revisionist scholars have lately condemned him as a megalomaniac

Christian despot.xix H’s work reflects this more negative view; though thankfully he

does not blame the rise of the Arabs in the seventh century on Justinian’s failed

policies. H (203) goes so far as to describe the emperor as an “autocratic bastard of the

worst kind.” H compares Justinian to the twentieth century’s most infamous murders

Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot. Even Procopius, who composed his Secret History in

attempt to undermine Justinian’s legacy, might be surprised that such a negative

description of an emperor has largely taken hold in modern scholarship. While I

recognise that H’s emotive prose is designed to appeal to a less academic audience, this

is only one instance of many where H’s hyperbole undermines his duty as a historian. I

also doubt that Procopius merely hoped for the Secret History to be comical.

So, if you only have time to read one new book on Theoderic this year, make it Roman

Restoration. I would, however, keep John Moorhead’s less sensational—but in places

more sound and thorough— 1992 tome on Theoderic (Theoderic in Italy) by my side to

check and compare some of the more sweeping assertions. Heather’s chapters on

Theoderic and Procopius can also provide the usually accepted alternative views to be

found largely in A's extensive footnotes. Indeed, Arnold’s footnotes are detailed and

packed with interesting information that engages with much current scholarship. Here

he also ably translates and interacts with the difficult Latin texts of Ennodius and other

Italo-Roman sources. Therefore his interpretations remain mostly his own and are not

reliant on other scholars’ viewpoints.

As R.I. Moore rightly comments, studies on a big subject are always prone to

oversimplification.xx Every chapter in Arnold’s investigation gave me new insights—

even where I disagreed. His reanalysis and fresh readings of the evidence surrounding

Theoderic is thorough and engaging. It is the best and ultimately most important of the

three books reviewed above.

In closing, Arnold makes the wise point that our view of the period is often crafted by

both ancient and modern historians who knew that Theoderic’s bold experiment had

failed. As he points out both mid-sixth century historians Procopius and Jordanes offer

us an Eastern viewpoint after Justinian’s reconquest had driven the Goths to near

extinction. Seen from the vantage of 511 Rome, Theoderic’s regime may have offered

much hope for Italo-Romans seeking to restore the military prowess and renown of

ancient Rome.

i Other scholars have accepted that some Italo-Romans saw Theoderic as a new Western emperor, but suggest

that Theoderic remained wary of taking such a step. See e.g. John Moorhead (Theoderic in Italy [Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1992, 49]) who writes: “Despite the degrees to which some of his subjects were prepared to

assimilate Theoderic into the category of emperor, for official purposes he remained cautious.”

ii A discussion of these mixed loyalties is found in Maria Kouroumali, “The Justianic Reconquest of Italy:

Imperial Campaigns and Local Responses,” in War and Warfare in Late Antiquity, 2 vols (Brill, 2013), 970-71.

Cf. with John Moorhead’s assertion (Theoderic in Italy, 111) that during Justinian’s reconquest most Italo-

Romans “supported the armies of the Byzantines.”

iii On the primary role that the Goths played within Theoderic’s armies, and a discussion of the limited

participation of Italians in these forces, see Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy, 71-75.

iv Procopius, Wars 3.3.10-13, 7.11.12-14.

v The increased militarization of Romanitas from the fourth century is discussed in Andy Merrills and Richard

Miles, The Vandals (Oxford: Blackwell, 2014), 88-93.

vi For the increased militarization of sixth-century Byzantine culture as represented in writers like Procopius, see

Conor Whately, “Militarization, or the Rise of a Distinct Military Culture? The East Roman Elite in the 6th

Century AD”, in: Stephen O’Brien and Daniel Boatright, eds. Warfare and Society in the Ancient

Mediterranean: Papers arising from a colloquium held at the University of Liverpool, 13th June 2008. (Oxford,

2013), 49-57.

vii E.g. the similar descriptions of Amalasuintha’s adulation of classical learning found in Cassiodorus, Variae

10.3.4; Procopius, Wars 5.2.11-17. Her “manliness” is extolled by both authors as well; Athalaric’s alcoholism

discussed by Procopius is hinted at by Cassiodorus. The Goths seizures of Italian lands is discussed by Cass.

Variae 8.29 and Proc. Wars 5.3.1. Totila’s restraint and “fatherly” treatment of the citizens of Rome: 7.8.12-25,

7.20.29.31 and the Liber Pontificalis 61.7. In fact the entire episode found in Cassiodorus and discussed by

Arnold (50-51) concerning the Western Emperor Valentinian III’s unmanly education at the hands of his mother

Placida as a primary cause for the fifth-century Western Empire’s troubles is found in Procopius Wars 3.3.9-14.

There are many more congruencies that could be added. viii J.A.S. Evans, Procopius (New York: Twayne, 1972), 31-36.

ixProcopius, Wars 5.2.11-17. For a discussion of the creation of separate Gothic communities outside of Rome

and Ravenna, see Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy, 112. On the other hand, Moorhead (84-87) also discusses the

inevitable Romanization of some Goths through intermarriage primarily with wealthy Italo-Roman women.

x Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy, 95.

xi I do recognise, however, that there did not appear to be too much friction between Arians and Catholics in

Theoderic’s Italy.

xii Aspar’s father had served in the Roman army and Aspar was the senior senator in East Roman at the time of

his assassination in 471, having served the Roman state for nearly fifty years.

xiii Julian, Against the Galileans (trans. Wilmer C. Wright, Loeb Classical Library, 3 vols. [Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, 1923, reprint 2003]) 116 A. On the Celts’ fierceness in comparison to the Romans, see Julian,

Misopogon 359 B. Julian amalgamated both environmental and social reasoning for the Eastern and Southern

barbarians’ propensity to have effeminate and unwarlike natures. In 138 B He maintained that all nations “who

possess and are contented with despotic governments” tended to be by nature “mild” (ός) and

“submissive” (ής).

xiv Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium, 82-84.

xv For some Italo-Romans’ continuing perceptions of the Goths as barbarians in Theoderic’s Italy, see

Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy, 83.

xvi Full discussion in Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy, 100-104.

xvii M. Shane Bjornlie, Politics and Tradition Between Rome, Ravenna and Constantinople [Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2013] that the Variae had been composed in the 540s, not in 537/8 as commonly

believed. Bjornlie contends, in contrast, that they were aimed at Roman aristocrats opposed to Justinian’s

regime.

xviii A good summary of these disputes and Heather stand on these issues is found in Andrew Gillett,

"Ethnogenesis: A Contested Model of Early Medieval Europe,” History Compass 4 (2006): 1-20. For a more

emotive (and indeed unabashedly hostile) synopsis of the main issues surrounding the dispute between these two

schools may be found in the preface of Walter Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History A.D. 550-800:

Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988, reprint

2005), xii-xvi.

xix See e.g., Anthony Kaldellis, Procopius of Caesarea: Tyranny, History and Philosophy at the End of Antiquity

(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004; James O’Donnell, The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A

New History (New York: Harper, 2008); Peter Bell, Social Conflict in the Age of Justinian (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2013). For a lucid discussion of some of the problems surrounding these over-the-top hostile

portraits of Justinian see, Geoffrey Greatrex, “Perceptions of Procopius in Recent Scholarship,” Histos 8 (2014):

82-85

xx R.I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society, 2nd ed (London: Blackwell 2007), 196