THEODORIC THE GREAT

Ostrogothic king, "the Amal" (475–526) and ruler of Italy; b. c. 455; d. Aug. 30, 526, in Ravenna. While a hostage in Constantinople (462–471), he conceived an admiration for Greco-Roman culture, and this, together with his gifts of leadership and his barbarian power, made him the greatest of the first Germanic kings. As ruler of the Ostrogoths in Pannonia, he found himself in a struggle with Emperor Zeno and with Theodoric Strabo, a fellow Ostrogothic chieftain who died in 481. When Theodoric made peace with Zeno in 483, he received new lands and the titles Master of Troops and Patrician. In 488 Zeno commissioned him to occupy Italy and to drive out Odoacer, then dominating the peninsula. Theodoric won a decisive battle at the Adda River in 490, but only in 493 did he capture Ravenna and murder Odoacer.

As king of the Ostrogoths, in control of military power, he governed Italy as the emperor's viceroy and, with the support of the senatorial aristocracy, maintained the traditional Roman government. From Ravenna Theodoric governed wisely, restored prosperity, and encouraged arts and letters. Distrustful of the emperors in Constantinople, he strove to form a confederation of the western Germanic kingdoms. Matrimonial alliances with rulers of the Franks, Visigoths, Vandals, Burgundians, Heruls, and Thuringians contributed to this policy, but the rapid rise of Clovis upset his plan and led him to extend his own power into Provence and to assume control of the Visigothic monarchy.

Theodoric's religious policy was to preserve the separation of the Arian Ostrogoths and the Catholic Italo-Romans. cassiodorus considered this toleration a farsighted policy, but it may have sprung from expediency as much as from principle. Theodoric allowed the Church greater liberty than did most Germanic kings and was reluctant to intervene in Church matters. Invited by the Catholics to mediate the dispute between Pope sym machus and the antipope Lawrence (498–506), Theodoric, himself an Arian, vacillated but then supported Symmachus. He protected Catholics from the efforts of Zeno and Anastasius to promote monophysitism. The acacian schism (482–519) worked to his advantage, but he raised no obstacles when Pope Hormisdas carried on negotiations that ended it. After 523, Theodoric's program broke down as a result of the measures of the Emperor justin i against eastern Arians. Theodoric, with reason, saw in them an attempt to undermine his position in Italy. When certain prominent Romans endorsed Justin's measures, Theodoric suspected treason. In these circumstances he executed boethius and the senator Symmachus on political charges. Late in 525 Theodoric sent Pope John I to Constantinople to secure an amelioration of Justin's decrees, but John returned without all the desired concessions and died of natural causes soon after being imprisoned by Theodoric. Before his own death Theodoric procured the election of his own candidate, felix iv, as pope.

Bibliography: Decrees, edicts in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Auctores Antiquissimi 12:393–455; Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Leges 5:145–179. a. nagl, Paulys Realenzyklopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. g. wissowa et al. (Stuttgart 1893) 5.2:1745–71. w. ensslin, Theoderich der Grosse (2d ed. Munich 1959). e. stein, Histoire du Bas-Empire, tr. j. r. palanque (Paris 1949–59) v.2.

[r. h. schmandt]