In fact, in 507/8 the emperor attempted to damage the Ostrogothic kingdom by raiding the southern Italian coast with his fleet, and in 508 he granted extraordinary honors to Clovis.70 Theoderic’s reaction was resolute: he strengthened his friendship with the Thuringians, who were enemies of the Franks, by marrying his niece Amalaberga to their king, Herminafrid (510/11). In addition, in 511 he intervened in Spain, where he overthrew Gesalic in favor of his grandchild Amalaric.71 This action proved to be fundamental, and Theoderic counted this year as the beginning of his rule over Spain as tutor for Amalaric.72
Theoderic had created an opening for a reunification under the Amal crown of the two Gothic peoples, who had been divided for almost a century and a half; it is not a coincidence that in his lost History Cassiodorus counted 511 as the two-thousandth year of Gothic history.73 Amalasuintha’s marriage to a highly ranked member of the Gothic nobility in Spain facilitated the process for the reunification of the two Gothic peoples. Importantly, this happened in Italy and under the Amal name; and it is not a coincidence that in sections of the Getica deriving from Cassiodorus, the nobility of the Balths is secondary to that of the Amals.74
In the meantime, to facilitate his control over Spain, Theoderic had entrusted Amalaric to the guardianship of Theudis, who was his armiger. It does not seem coincidental that Theudis was sent to Spain at the same time as Eutharic came to Italy, and it is possible that among Theudis’s duties was to keep Amalaric under control.75 The examples of the Ostrogoth Theudis in Spain and the Amal Eutharic in Italy suggest that Theoderic had planned the reunification in the interest of his people, in particular of the Amal family. Had his plan worked, the result could have been the control of the entire northwestern Mediterranean world under the same ruler, with its center in Italy: Spain and southern Gaul, Raetia, Noricum, and the western part of Illyricum, including Dalmatia and Pannonia. A reunification of Ostrogoths and Visigoths could further develop into an expansion over the former Western Roman Empire, including the territories of the Vandals and the Burgundians, and also the area between the Rhine and the Danube.76 And the Franks as well as the empire would feel the pressure of this strong Gothic coalition. Simply said, the marriage of Eutharic and Amalasuintha offered far more than a guarantee of succession; it laid the foundation for a glorious political scenario in which the Amal family’s power would be dramatically extended.
Jordanes claimed that Eutharic was young, but Cassiodorus’s remark that Eutharic was “almost equal in age” to Justin means that he was the same age as both the emperor and Theoderic (both were born in the 450s).77 I wonder, together with Wood, whether Eutharic was really meant to be Theoderic’s heir, or just the father of a Gothic successor.78 Perhaps Theoderic hoped at that time to live long enough to leave his realm to his yet-unborn grandson, as Emperor Leo, his former friend in the East, had tried unsuccessfully to do with his little grandchild Leo II (the son of his daughter Ariadne and Zeno, the emperor who would later support Theoderic).
The long-awaited heir finally came the year after the wedding. In 516 Athalaric—(aþal + *rika) “the noble king” or “the one who had power over the nobles”—was born as the first child of the new royal couple, to the great joy of Theoderic. The appropriate name for the son of Amalasuintha and Eutharic would have probably been Amalaric: the “powerful Amal.” But this name had already been given, probably for strategic reasons, to Theoderic’s Visigothic grandson, born in 502 but not yet king and still under Theoderic’s tutorship.79 Shortly afterward, around 518, followed the birth of a girl, Matasuintha.80 By this point Theoderic had two more royal grandsons in Amalaric and Sigeric, the children of his two daughters Theudigotha and Ostrogotho Areagni.81 Both of them were heirs to the thrones in their countries, respectively Visigothic Spain and the Burgundian kingdom. Theoderic’s farsighted matrimonial policy was bearing fruit, insofar as his alliances had generated heirs with roots in the Amal family. And even if, paradoxically, his own kingdom was still lacking an adult descendant, things seemed finally to have taken the desired turn in Italy too.
As the wife of the Amal of Spain and as the mother of Theoderic’s long-awaited Italic heir, Amalasuintha had fully stepped into her father’s succession plan as the future queen of Italy—and perhaps even of an Ostrogothic-Visigothic unified kingdom.
The Collapse of Theoderic’s Best-Laid Plans
Theoderic was striving to endear his Spanish son-in-law to both the Gothic aristocracy and the Romans, in an effort to prepare him for eventual succession or guardianship in the event that Theoderic died before Athalaric reached the age of majority. He began pushing Justin for an acknowledgment of the heir, and he succeeded in having Eutharic adopted per arma by the emperor. This was the honor that Theoderic himself had received from Zeno forty years earlier. The adoption of Eutharic satisfied a common “desire for concord”82 at the same time as the thirty-five-year religious conflict between Italy and the empire, the Acacian Schism, was coming to an end. Eutharic was also granted Roman citizenship, the title of vir clarissimus, and the name of Flavius, the royal honors of the Amal family to which he belonged.83 In 518 Justin gave his consent to the most prestigious honor of the consulship,84 and he himself stood as consul together with Eutharic, so that both their names were permanently tied in the Fasti Consulares as the Eastern and Western consuls of the year 519.85 All these were important privileges, considering that the consulship previously granted by Anastasius to King Clovis was only an honorary one.
Here we encounter an interesting but obscure area that is worthy of a short digression. We know that Emperor Anastasius had granted the patrician title to Clovis as well in 508, soon after the battle of Vouillé.86 Ten years later, shortly before he died, the emperor also raised the Burgundian Sigismund to patrician rank, and this king may have held the place of master of the soldiers per Gallias in the name of the emperor.87 These were not isolated cases. Previous emperors had granted the patriciate to barbarian kings in their wish to consolidate alliances: Anthemius to the Burgundian king Chilperic II in 468, Olybrius to Gundobad in 472–474, Zeno to Theoderic; even Odovacer may have obtained the patriciate from Zeno.88 But now that Anastasius had passed away and Justin was on the throne, the Burgundian king, who felt squeezed between the two Gothic kingdoms and the Franks, was probably unhappy with the events unfolding between Italy and Spain, and Ravenna and Constantinople. An inscription from this kingdom dating to 519 does not include Eutharic’s consulship.89 “In a world where Roman title counted,” writes Wood, “one might wonder whether Eutharic’s consulship was specifically intended by Theoderic to trump Sigismund’s position as magister militum, granted by the emperor three years earlier.”90 The subsequent murder in 522 by Sigismund of his own son, who was no less than Theoderic’s grandson, could be a symptom of this tension.91
Eutharic’s consulship was such an extraordinary event that it was celebrated in great style in both capitals of the kingdom. To honor the special occasion, Eutharic commissioned Cassiodorus to write the Chronicle. Cassiodorus did so, chronicling Roman history from the foundation of the city to Eutharic’s consulship and the royal marriage, and he dedicated this work to the new prince.92 In addition, on the same occasion he proclaimed a panegyric before the senators. Only a few fragments remain of this work, which the author called to mind years later in a letter addressed to the Roman Senate for his promotion to the Praetorian prefecture: “Furthermore, with what loyal eloquence did he proclaim the father of my clemency [Eutharic] in the very Senate-House of Liberty! You remember how that noble orator extolled his deeds, showing his virtues to be more wonderful than his honors. I can prove my words to the hilt.”93 In this letter of 533, Cassiodorus, writing in the name of Athalaric, praises his own accomplishments at the court. But it was Amalasuintha who had elevated him to Praetorian prefect, and Cassiodorus acknowledged this in his letter-panegyric of the same year.94 It is not unlikely that Amalasuintha was part of the audience that witnessed Cassiodorus’s eulogies in the Senate House. Athalaric at that time was barely three years old, and Amalasuintha may well have accompanied her husband to Rome,
