often paid the ultimate price: of the five royal women of the Vandal kingdom whose fates we know, three were murdered, another was sent back to her country mutilated, and one was able to escape from the kingdom years later.160
Gaul too had recently experienced similar tragedies. Queen Clotilde had intervened on behalf of her sons with Theoderic about the division of the kingdom. She also made efforts to protect her grandchildren, but these proved futile in face of the jealousy of her sons. When in 524 King Chlodomer died, she could not save her grandsons from their uncles, Chlothar and Childebert, who had them murdered. The third grandson would have been killed as well, had viri fortes (likely the aristocrats closest to Chlodomer) not intervened and helped him retire to a monastery.161
Last but not least, the Roman Empire itself had a rich history of usurpations, including recent examples in the East with which Theoderic was familiar, like Basiliscus and Zeno.
In Ravenna, Theoderic wanted to prevent any risk of a coup d’état and to protect his grandson and daughter’s lives from situations of violence like these, which had taken the lives, in his family, of Amalafrida in Africa as well as Sigeric in the Burgundian kingdom. His desire for his crown to become dynastic was not unusual in the larger context of the post-Roman kingdoms. Italy, however, had the opposite problem from the other kingdoms. In Spain, Africa, and Gaul, too many potential heirs led to fratricide and sometimes to war, but in Italy there was simply no appropriate heir of an age to rule. Athalaric was far too young to govern over the Goths and the Romans, and Theoderic needed to build a general consent around his grandson and ensure that his family would be protected. Knowing very well that the acceptance of his heir rested with the Gothic aristocracy, and that things would go badly without the support of the nobility,162 he tried to stabilize the succession by winning to his cause the aristocratic Goths, his comites (probably similar to the viri fortes close to Chlodomer in Gaul), as Jordanes states in abridging Cassiodorus: “When he had reached old age and knew that he should soon depart this life, he called together the Gothic counts and chieftains of his people (Gothos comites gentisque suae primates) and appointed Athalaric as king. He was a boy scarcely ten years old, the son of his daughter Amalasuintha, and he had lost his father Eutharic. As though uttering his last will and testament Theoderic adjured and commanded them (in mandatis ac si testamentali voce denuntians) to honor their king.”163
Jordanes’s account is confirmed by the Cassiodoran letters, in which we read that on his deathbed Theoderic asked the Goths who were closest to him for an official oath to recognize his grandson as his legitimate successor, and that the Romans were also asked to support this choice. The whole thing happened very quickly. Gothic nobles (proceres) followed this last order (even if we have doubts about the enthusiasm that Cassiodorus claims), and little Athalaric was raised to the throne of Italy.164 Theoderic, the greatest hero of Gothic history, passed away on Sunday, 30 August 526, after a fifty-two-year reign.165
The counts whom Theoderic hoped would support his grandchild were his old friends, and they were also commanders of the Gothic army in important cities and in the provinces of the kingdom; people like Tuluin, Osuin, and Sigismer, who had distinguished themselves on the battlefield, or at the palace, or in the administration of the provinces.166 In addition there was the vir illustris Wiliarius, who from 523 to 527 held the office of count of the patrimony (comitiva patrimonii). This was an isolated case in Ostrogothic Italy, as this position was normally entrusted to Romans.167
It is reasonable to assume, however, that as he lay dying, the king’s strongest hopes were placed in Amalasuintha, who by now was thirty. She was Theoderic’s only daughter still alive, and the widow of the man who had been designated heir to the throne. Of the entire Amal family, she was the only one left who had an education and deep experience at the palace, and the time to exercise the experience in politics and diplomacy that she had gained over the years on the side of her father had arrived. Amalasuintha inherited a monumental task. She was entrusted with the guardianship of her son, the rex puer. She was to provide him with maternal love and educate him to be the king of Goths and Romans, all the while keeping the situation at the court under control. Her role as tutor compelled her to take care of the affairs of the kingdom in Athalaric’s name, and to manage foreign diplomacy.
Theoderic gave specific directions about his daughter’s position in his will in order to maintain stability in the kingdom. His solution would have been unimaginable among the other tribes, including in the Frankish kingdom of the heirs of Clovis, when Queen Clotilde was still alive. But the Gothic court had been influenced by the recent past of Italy and of the empire. Galla Placidia’s regency for Valentinian III in Ravenna could have served as a model for the transmission of power, but perhaps the most likely exemplar would have been Ariadne with her child Leo II at the court of Constantinople, where Theoderic had spent part of his life.168 A functioning regent, and the sole representative of the Amal family for the remaining years of the king’s minority, Amalasuintha was by now regina in her actions, and probably also in her title.169
A Widow and a Rex Puer: The Beginning of the Regency
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