authors.
In the first chapters of the Gothic War (especially book 1, sections 2–4) Procopius provides us with a colorful portrait of Amalasuintha, particularly her personal and political vicissitudes; the historian occasionally also refers to these in the Vandalic War. Years later, in his invective against Theodora he would clarify in the Secret History (or Anecdota) “the truth”—or rather his own understanding of the truth—behind the Amalasuintha affair.35 The letters and speeches he attributes to Amalasuintha are rhetorical, following the Thucydidean model. Some historical and juridical elements contained within them, however, are confirmed by other sources.
Procopius’s narrative intent does not undermine the reliability of his account. His representation of Amalasuintha’s reign is consistent with the internal problems of the Gothic kingdom, and it finds some confirmation in the Cassiodoran letters. His chronology of events, however, even if it is often detailed, is not always accurate, as we see when we compare his account of the events of the years 533–535 with the evidence of other authors, especially Jordanes and Cassiodorus. Some of the differences are due to the complexity of the “state secret” around the affair of Amalasuintha—the authors had different sources and different levels of access to intrigues at that high level. For Procopius, as for all these authors, modern historians have the difficult task of evaluating the historical and diplomatic context of the sources.
Gregory of Tours
In addition to Cassiodorus and Procopius, we have the voice of Merovingian propaganda, represented by Gregory of Tours (538–594).36 This Frankish source, which postdates Amalasuintha by several decades, presents its own interpretative issues, and it merits a separate discussion. Gregory’s Ten Books of Histories (Decem Libri Historiarum, also known as History of the Franks) is based upon various classical and Christian literary models. His historical vision is both biblical and Roman: for example, Gregory considers King Chilperic Nero nostri temporis et Herodis.37 He also blends oral traditions with a biblical vision of history. The result is a kind of source very different from those produced by late antique historians. Gregory’s models for representing male and female royalty generally derived from the Old Testament. Gregory’s story of the life of Amalasuintha, especially her vicissitudes at court, strongly differs from all our other sources. Immoral, rebellious, and even the murderer of her own mother, Gregory’s Amalasuintha deserved the punishment inflicted upon her by Theodahad. Gregory may have known of Amalasuintha’s eight-year regency, but he does not expend a single word on this period of the queen’s life; rather, he relates an otherwise unknown (and unlikely) story of her life. In his flawed chronology, Amalasuintha lost her father when she was little and grew up with her mother, Audefleda. Her mother wished to find a royal husband for her daughter, but Amalasuintha disobeyed her and instead “took her slave named Traguila (servum suum Traguilanem nomen accepit), and fled with him to a city where she hoped to defend herself.”38 Her mother’s pleas to protect her family’s honor with a suitable marriage fell on deaf ears, and Amalasuintha remained obdurate until an army came, killed Traguila, and brought her home.39
Amalasuintha’s evil nature is fantastically revealed in her plot to murder her mother by poisoning her with the wine of Communion during Arian Mass: “Now they belonged to the Arian sect, and as it is their custom that of those going to the altar the kings receive one cup and the lesser people another, she put poison in the cup from which her mother was going to receive the communion. And she drank it and died forthwith. There is no doubt that such harm is from the devil. What shall the wretched heretics answer to this charge that the enemy dwells in their holy place?”40 Gregory’s anti-Arian stance no doubt fueled this account; about the murder, he claims: “For us who confess the Trinity in one similar equality and omnipotence, even if we should drink a deadly draught in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the true and incorruptible God, it would not do us any harm.”41 Gregory tells us that the Italians were “indignant” that this woman was to reign, and so they invited Theodahad to take the throne. Theodahad, in vengeance for her crimes, ordered her death: “When he learned what the harlot had been guilty of, how she had slain her mother on account of a slave whom she had taken, he gave orders that a bath be raised to a great heat, and that she be shut in the same with one maid. And when she entered the hot vapors she fell at once on the pavement, and died, and was consumed.”42
The sins Gregory ascribes to Amalasuintha are many and horrendous: she is a harlot, a murderer, and the lover of a slave. Not only does she commit the most unspeakable crime of matricide, she does so at the very altar of the church, polluting the holy wine of Communion with poison. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gregory’s account finds no confirmation in any other early source. One century later, Pseudo-Fredegar, who acknowledged Gregory of Tours as one of his sources, followed the same tradition.43 The many inaccuracies that Gregory’s account contains are mixed with a few elements of historical value. Some scholars have even considered the possibility of replacing some of the names of the protagonists of this story in order to produce an account slightly closer to the historicity of the events; that is, understanding Amalasuintha and Athalaric as the characters in the story instead of Audefleda and Amalasuintha.44 Gregory’s work, however, is the product of a different milieu. It reflects the views of an author hostile to Arianism who (like Eugippius with the Rugian queen Giso) was often critical toward queens who were not Catholic, and to women who interfered in the politics of their kingdoms.45
Gregory’s depictions of royal women show a sharp contrast between Arian and Catholic, particularly with respect to pious figures, such as Basina, Clotilde, and Radegund. The contrast also applies to good and bad widows.46 Catholic princesses and queens, some of whom spent the final part of their lives in monasteries and supporting the church, greatly contributed to the triumph of the Catholic faith and, as a consequence, to the historical success of the Merovingians, and they fare well in Gregory’s history (with the exception of some Merovingian royal women, such as Fredegund, Deoteria, Marcatrude, and Austrechild Bobila). In contrast, all Gregory’s Arian women are wicked queens, as are most of the wives of the Franks’ enemies.47 For Gregory, Arianism was the primary source of the other kingdoms’ disgrace, and defeating it was the basis for the success of the Catholic Merovingian Franks. In his work there is no evidence of any Merovingian royal woman abandoning Catholicism when marrying kings of other faiths. But his Arian queens and princesses caused the ruin of their kingdoms, both by their own actions and by the bad advice they gave their husbands and their children.48
Amalasuintha became the murderer of her mother, Clovis’s sister, whom the author also scorned for her Arianism. Other stories explaining the misfortunes of kingdoms that were eventually defeated or conquered by the Christian Merovingians were often similarly fabricated or altered, reflecting the same theme of the triumph of Catholicism over Arianism. Gregory’s History recounts the bleak fate not only of the Ostrogoths but also of the Visigoths and of the Burgundian and Thuringian kings, most of them married to Arian women. Clovis attacked the Visigothic kingdom, and at the battle of Vouillé (507) he killed Alaric II, Amalaric’s father, who was married to Theoderic’s daughter. Later, Amalaric was killed because he disrespected the Catholic faith of his wife. The Thuringian Herminafrid conquered his brother at the instigation of Amalaberga; later, he would be conquered by the Franks. The Burgundian Sigismund—who converted to Catholicism between circa 500 and 50749—murdered his own child under the evil influence of his second wife.50
Unlike the other regna, which fell victim to the Frankish expansion, the Ostrogothic kingdom was barely touched by the Franks. Therefore, in Gregory’s account the Arian sinner Amalasuintha was punished by her own cousin Theodahad; the (Catholic) Italians had appealed to him for help, and Gregory interestingly omits to specify that this king was also of the Arian creed. But the Franks too play a role in this story: Gregory reports the otherwise unattested news that Theodahad had to pay Wergild to the Frankish kings for murdering their cousin.
We cannot exclude the possibility
