The Letters of Cassiodorus
of the death of Athalaric. Notwithstanding the obscurity of many of
the allusions in it, this document is one of our best authorities for
the history of Amalasuentha's regency, and is therefore translated
almost verbatim.]
[Sidenote: Cassiodorus on his promotion to the Praefecture.]
'If I can only be sure that my advancement is acceptable to you,
Conscript Fathers, I shall not doubt of its being approved by God and
popular with all good men.
'It is in the nature of things to love a colleague, and you are in
fact exalting your own honour when you approve of a dignity given to a
_Senator_[713].
[Footnote 713: Partly a pun on his name, partly an allusion to his
rank.]
'After our Sovereigns there is none to whom I so much desire to
commend myself as you. To me honour will ever be the sole test of
advantage. Justice, like a handmaid, will wait upon my actions; and
the power, which I have not myself bought from our virtuous Sovereign,
I in my turn shall sell to no man. You have heard, noble Sirs, the
panegyrics[714] passed upon me at my entrance into office. These
praises I will not dare to call false, but I will say that they lay
upon me a heavy responsibility to show that they are not unmerited.
[Footnote 714: The letter written by Cassiodorus himself, in the name
of Athalaric, to announce his elevation to the Praefecture (Var. ix.
25).]
'Happy fortune of our time in which, while the Sovereign himself takes
holiday, the love of his mother rules and covers us all with the robe
of her universal charity! Happy for the young Ruler, who in this
difficult position learns first to triumph over his impetuous
impulses, and attains in the springtime of his life that self-control
which hoary age with difficulty acquires!
[Sidenote: Praises of Amalasuentha.]
'As for the Mother whom he so dutifully obeys, her most fittingly do
all kingdoms venerate, whom to behold is to adore, to listen to is to
witness a miracle. Of what language is she not a perfect mistress? She
is skilled in the niceties of Attic eloquence; she shines in the
majesty of Roman speech; she glories in the wealth of the language of
her fathers. She is equally marvellous in all these, and in each the
orator in his own especial tongue feels himself surpassed by her. A
great safeguard and a great excellence is this in the ruler of so many
nationalities. None needs an interpreter with his accomplished
mistress. No ambassador need wait, or hear his words slowly filtered
through the mind of a go-between. Everyone feels that his own words
are listened to, and receives his answer from her lips in the language
of his forefathers.
'To these accomplishments, as a splendid diadem, is added that
priceless knowledge of Literature, by which the treasures of ancient
learning are appropriated, and the dignity of the throne is ever
enhanced.
'Yet, while she rejoices in such perfect mastery of language, on
public occasions she is so taciturn that she might be supposed to be
indolent. With a few words she unties the knots of entangled
litigations, she calmly arranges hot disputes, she silently promotes
the public welfare. You do not hear her announce beforehand what will
be her course of action in public; but with marvellous skill she
attains, by feigning, those points which she knows require to be
rapidly gained[715].
[Footnote 715: 'Et temperamento mirabili dissimulando peragit quod
accelerandum esse cognoscit.']
[Sidenote: Comparison to Placidia.]
'What case like this can be produced from the annals of revered
Antiquity? Placidia's care for her purple-clad son has often been
celebrated; but by Placidia's lax administration of the Empire its
boundaries were unbecomingly retrenched. She gained for him a wife and
for herself a daughter-in-law[716] by the loss of Illyricum; and thus
the union of Sovereigns was bought by a lamentable division of the
Provinces[717]. The discipline of the soldiers was relaxed by too long
peace; and, in short, Valentinian, under the guardianship of his
mother, lost more than he could have done if he had been a helpless
orphan.
[Footnote 716: 'Eudoxia.']
[Footnote 717: 'Nurum denique sibi amissione Illyrici comparavit:
factaque est conjunctio Regnantis, divisio dolenda provinciis.' On
this alleged loss of Illyricum by the Western Empire, see Gibbon, cap.
xxxiii. note 6. One may doubt, however, whether Cassiodorus has been
correctly informed concerning it. Noricum and Pannonia at the time of
Valentinian's marriage must have been entirely in the possession of
the Huns; and on the dissolution of their monarchy Noricum at any rate
seems to be connected with the Western rather than the Eastern Empire.
As for Dalmatia, or the _Province_ (as distinct from the
_Praefecture_) of Illyricum, the retirement thither of the Emperor
Nepos in 475, and the previous history of his uncle Marcellinus, point
towards the conclusion that this Province was then considered as
belonging _de jure_ to the Caesar of Rome rather than to him of
Constantinople.]
[Sidenote: Relations with the East.]
'But under this Lady, who can count as many Kings as ancestors in her
pedigree, our army by Divine help is a terror to foreign nations.
Being kept in a prudent equipoise it is neither worn away by continual
fighting nor enervated by unbroken peace. In the very beginnings of
the reign, when a new ruler's precarious power is apt to be most
assailed, contrary to the wish of the Eastern Emperor she made the
Danube a Roman stream. Well known is all that the invaders suffered,
of which I therefore omit further mention, that the shame of defeat
may not be too closely associated with the thought of the Emperor, our
ally. Still, what he thought of your part of the Empire is clear from
this, that he conceded to our attack that peace which he has refused
to the abject entreaties of others. Add this fact, that though we have
rarely sought him he has honoured us with so many embassies, and that
thus his unique majesty has bowed down the stately head of the Orient
to exalt the lords of Italy[718].
[Footnote 718: 'Et singularis illa potentia, ut _Italicos Dominos_,
erigeret, reverentiam Eoi culminis ordinavit.' This somewhat favours
the notion that Theodoric and his successors called themselves Kings
of Italy.]
[Sidenote: Expedition against the Franks.]
'The Franks also, overmighty by their victories over so many barbarous
tribes--by what a great expedition were they harassed! Attacked, they
dreaded a contest with our soldiers; they who had leaped unawares upon
so many nations and forced them into battle. But though that haughty
race declined the offered conflict, they could not prevent the death
of their own King. For Theodoric[719], he who had so often availed
himself of the name of our glorious King as an occasion for triumph,
now fell vanquished in the struggle with disease--a stroke of Divine
Providence surely, to prevent us from staining ourselves with the
blood of our kindred, and yet to grant some revenge to the army which
had been justly called out to war. Hail! thou Gothic array, happy
above all other happiness, who strikest at the life of a Royal foe,
yet leavest us not the poorer by the life of one of the least of our
soldiers[720].
[Footnote 719: Theodoric I, son of Clovis, King of the Franks,
reigning at Metz, died, as before stated, in 534.]
[Footnote 720: 'Et nobis nec unius ultimi facta subducis (?).']
[Sidenote: League with the Burgundians.]
'The Burgundian too, in order to receive his own again, crouched in
devotion, giving up his whole self that he might receive a trifle. For
he chose to obey with unimpaired territories, rather than to resist
with these cut short; and thus, by laying aside his arms, he most
effectually defended his kingdom, recovering by his prayers what he
had lost by the sword[721].
[Footnote 721: 'Burgundio quinetiam, ut sua reciperet, devotus
effectus est: reddens se totum dum accepisset exiguum. Elegit quippe
integer obedire, quam imminutus obsistere: tutius tunc defendit regnum
quando arma deposuit. Recuperavit enim prece, quod amisit in acie.'
The meaning of these mysterious words, as interpreted by Binding
(268-270) and Jahn (ii. 252), is that Godomar, King of the
Burgundians, received back from Amalasuentha (probably about 530, or a
little later) the territory between the Durance and the Isere, which
Theodoric had wrested from his brother in 523. The occasion of this
cession was probably some league of mutual defence against the Franks,
which Cassiodorus could without dishonesty represent as a kind of
vassalage of Burgundy to Ostrogothia. If so, it availed Godomar
little, as his territories were overrun by the Frankish Kings in 532,
and the conquest of them was apparently completed by 534 (Jahn ii.
68-78).]
'Happy Princess, whose enemies either fall by the hand of God, or else
by your bounty are united with your Empire! Rejoice, Goths and Romans
alike, and hail this marvel, a being who unites the excellences of
both the sexes! As woman she has given birth to your illustrious King,
while with manly fortitude of mind she has maintained the bounds of
your Empire.
'And now, if leaving the realm of war we enter the inner courts of her
moral goodness, a hundred tongues will not suffice to sound forth all
her praises. Her justice is as great as her goodwill, but even greater
is her kindness than her power. You, Senators, know the heavenly
goodness which she has shown to your order, restoring those who had
met with affliction to a higher state than that from which they had
fallen[722], and exalting to honour those who were still uninjured.
[Footnote 722: 'Afflictos statu meliore restituit.' An allusion,
probably, to her kindness to the families of Boethius and Symmachus.]
'Look at the case of the Patrician Liberius[723], Praefect of the
Gauls--a man of charming manners, of distinguished merit, a soldier
with honourable scars--who even while absent in his Praefecture has
received the _fasces_ and a patrimony from her.
[Footnote 723: No doubt the same Liberius who nobly defended the
character of Amalasuentha at the Court of Justinian (Procopius, De
Bello Gotthico i. 4). Apparently he was made Consul, but his name does
not appear in the Fasti at this time.]
'What can I say of her strength of mind and tenacity of purpose, in
which she excels even philosophers? I speak of this from my own
experience. You know, oh Conscript Fathers, what influences were
arrayed against me[724]. Neither gold nor the prayers of great men
availed: all things were tried, and tried in vain, to prove the
glorious constancy of that wisest Lady.
[Footnote 724: Probably to prevent his obtaining the Praefecture.]
[Sidenote: Virtues of the Amal Kings.]
'And here the rules of rhetoric would require me to compare her with a
long line of Empresses in the past. But if men cannot vie with her
glory, what is the use of adducing female examples? If we look at the
Royal Cohort of her ancestors, we shall see that she, like a pure
mirror, reflects all their excellences. For Amal[725] was conspicuous
for his good fortune, Ostrogotha for his patience, Athal for mildness,
Munitarius [Winithar] for justice, Unimund for beauty, Thorismuth for
chastity, Unalamer [Walamir] for faith, Theudimer for warmth of
heart[726], and Theodoric, the renowned father of Amalasuentha, as ye
have all seen, for patience. Each of these would recognise in her his
own special attribute, but all would acknowledge that in these very
attributes they are excelled by her.
[Footnote 725: This and the following names belong to the ancestors of
Amalasuentha, and are found with slight variations in the treatise of
Jordanes on the History of the Goths, which was founded on a similar
treatise by Cassiodorus.]
[Footnote 726: 'Pietate Theudimer.']