Theodoric the Goth

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[Footnote 76: Cass., Var., iii., 30, 31]

[Footnote 77: Symmachus.]

In all these counsels for the material well-being of Italy, and for the
repair of the ravages of anarchy and war, Theodoric was undoubtedly much
assisted by his ministers of Roman extraction, some of whom I shall
endeavour to portray in a later chapter. Still, though the details of
the work may have been theirs, it cannot be denied that the initiative
was his. A barbarian, thinking only barbarous thoughts, looking upon war
and the chase as the only employments worthy of a free man, would not
have chosen such counsellors, and, if he had found them in his service,
would not have kept them. Therefore, remembering those years of boyhood,
which he passed at Constantinople, at a time when the character is most
susceptible of strong and lasting impressions, I cannot doubt that
notwithstanding the frequent relapses into barbarism which marked his
early manhood, he was at heart a convert to civilisation, that his
desire was to obtain for "the Hesperian land" all that he had seen best
and greatest in the social condition of the city by the Bosphorus, and
that his Secretary truly expressed his deepest and inmost thoughts when
he made him speak of himself as one "whose whole care was to change
everything for the better".[78]

[Footnote 78: Nos quibus cordi est in melius cuncta mutare.--Cass.,
Var., ii., 21.]

I shall close this chapter with a few anecdotes--far too few have been
preserved to us--which serve to show what manner of man he appeared to
his contemporaries. Again I borrow from the anonymous author, the
supposed Bishop of Ravenna.

He was, we are told, unlettered,[79] though fond of the converse of
learned men, and so clumsy with his pen that after ten years of reigning
he was still unable to form without assistance the four letters (THEO)
which were affixed as his sign-manual to documents issued in his name.
In order to overcome this difficulty he had a golden plate prepared with
the necessary letters perforated in it, and drew his pen through the
holes.[80] But, though he was unlettered, his shrewdness and mother-wit
caused both his sayings and doings to be much noted and remembered by
his subjects. In one difficult case which came before him, he discovered
the truth by a sudden device which probably reminded the bystanders of
the Judgment of Solomon, A young man who as a child had been brought up
by a friend of his deceased father, returned to his home and claimed a
share of his inheritance from his mother. She, however, was on the point
of marriage with a second husband, and under her suitor's influence she
disowned the son whom she had at first welcomed with joy and had
entertained for a month in her house. As the suitor persisted in his
demand that the son should be turned out of doors, and the son refused
to leave his paternal abode, the case came before the King's Court,[81]
where the widow still persisted in her assertion that the young man was
not her son, but a stranger whom she had entertained merely out of
motives of hospitality. Suddenly the king turned round upon her and
said: "This young man is to be thy husband, I command thee to marry
him". The horror-stricken mother then confessed that he was indeed her
son.

[Footnote 79: Agrammatus.]

[Footnote 80: I have a slight distrust of this story, because it is told
in almost the same words of the contemporary Justin I., Emperor of the
East.]

[Footnote 81: I conjecture that the mother and son in this case were
Goths, possibly the suitor a Roman, and that this may have been the
reason why the case came to the King's Court instead of going before the
Praetorian Prefect.]

Some of Theodoric's sayings passed into proverbs among the common
people. One was: "He who has gold and he who has a devil can neither of
them hide what he has got" Another: "The Roman when in misery imitates
the Goth and the Goth in comfort imitates the Roman".

We have unfortunately no description of the great Ostrogoth's outward
appearance, though the indications in his history would lead us to
suppose that he was a man of stalwart form and soldierly bearing. Nor is
this deficiency adequately made up to us by his coins, since, as has
been already said, the gold and silver pieces which were circulated in
his reign bore the impress of the Eastern Emperor, and the miserable
little copper coins which bear his effigy do not pretend to portraiture.

[Illustration: HALF-SILIQUA OF THEODORIC (SILVER) BEARING THE HEAD OF
ANASTASIUS.]

[Illustration: Design]

CHAPTER IX.

ROMAN OFFICIALS--CASSIODORUS.

The government of Italy still carried on according to Roman
precedent--Classification of the officials--The Consulship and the
Senate--Cassiodorus, his character and his work--His history of the
Goths--His letters and state papers.

I have said that one of the most important characteristics of
Theodoric's government of Italy was that it was conducted in accordance
with the traditions of the Empire and administered mainly by officials
trained in the Imperial school. To a certain extent the same thing is
true of all the Teutonic monarchies which arose in the fifth century on
the ruins of the Empire. In dealing with the needs and settling the
disputes of the large, highly-organised communities, into whose midst
they had poured themselves, it was not possible, if it had been
desirable, for the rulers to remain satisfied with the simple, sometimes
barbarous, principles of law and administration which had sufficed for
the rude farmer-folk who dwelt in isolated villages beyond the Rhine and
the Danube. Nor was this necessity disliked by the rulers themselves.
They soon perceived that the Roman law, with its tendency to derive all
power from the Imperial head of the State, and the Roman official staff,
an elaborate and well-organised hierarchy, every member of which
received orders from one above him and transmitted orders to those
below, were far more favourable to their own prerogative and gave them a
far higher position over against their followers and comrades in war,
than the institutions which had prevailed in the forests of Germany.
Hence, as I have said, all the new barbarian royalties, even that of the
Vandals in Africa (in some respects more anti-Roman than any other),
preserved much of the laws and machinery of the Roman Empire; but
Theodoric's Italian kingdom preserved the most of all. It might in fact
almost be looked upon as a mere continuation of the old Imperial system,
only with a strong, laborious, martial Goth at the head of affairs, able
and willing to keep all the members of the official hierarchy sternly to
their work, instead of the ruler whom the last three generations had
been accustomed to behold, a man decked with the purple and diadem, but
too weak, too indolent, too nervously afraid of irritating some powerful
captain of _foederati_, or some wealthy Roman noble, to be able to do
justice to all classes of his subjects.

The composition of the official hierarchy of the Empire is, from various
sources,[82] almost as fully known to us as that of any state of modern
Europe.

[Footnote 82: Chiefly the "Notitia Utriusque Imperii" (a sort of
official Red-book of the time of Honorius,) but also the "Various
Letters" of Cassiodorus, to be described below.]

Pre-eminent in dignity over all the rest rose the "Illustrious"
_Praetorian Prefect_, the vicegerent of the sovereign, a man who held
towards Emperor or King nearly the same position which a Grand Vizier
holds towards a Turkish Sultan. Like his sovereign he wore a purple robe
(which reached however only to his knees, not to his feet), and he drove
through the streets in a lofty official chariot. It was for him to
promulgate the Imperial laws, sometimes to put forth edicts of his own.
He proclaimed what taxes were to be imposed each year, and their produce
came into his "Praetorian chest". He suggested to his sovereign the names
of the governors of the provinces, paid them their salaries, and
exercised a general superintendence over them, having even power to
depose them from their offices. And lastly, he was the highest Judge of
Appeal in the land, even the Emperor himself having generally no power
to reverse his sentences.

There was another "Illustrious" minister, who, during this century both
in the Eastern and Western Empire, was always treading on the heels of
the Praetorian Prefect, and trying to rob him of some portion of his
power. This was the _Master of the Offices_ the intermediary between the
sovereign and the great mass of the civil servants, to whom the
execution of his orders was entrusted. _A swarm of Agentes in Rebus_
(King's messengers, bailiffs, sheriff's officers; we may call them by
all these designations) roved through the provinces, carrying into
effect the orders of the sovereign, always magnifying their "master's"
dignity, (whence they derived their epithet of "Magistriani",) and
seeking to depress the Praetorian Cohorts, who discharged somewhat
similar duties under the Praetorian Prefect. The Master of the Offices,
besides sharing the counsels of his sovereign in relation to foreign
states, had also the arsenals under his charge, and there was
transferred to him from his rival, the Prefect, the superintendence of
the _cursus publicus_, the great postal service of the Empire.

Again, somewhat overlapping, as it seems to us, the functions of the
Master of the Offices, came the "Illustrious" _Quaestor_, the
head-rhetorician of the State, the official whose business it was to put
the thoughts of the sovereign into fitting and eloquent words, either
when he was replying to the ambassadors of foreign powers, or when he
was issuing laws and proclamations to his own subjects. As his duties
and qualifications were of a more personal kind than those of his two
brother-ministers already described, he had not like them a large
official staff waiting upon his orders.

There were two great financial ministers, _the Count of Sacred
Largesses_ ("sacred", of course, is equivalent to "Imperial"), and the
_Count of Private Domains,_ whose duties practically related in the
former case to the personal, in the latter to the real, estate of the
sovereign. Or perhaps, for it is difficult exactly to define the nature
of their various duties, it would be better to think of the Count of
Sacred Largesses as the Imperial Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the
Count of Private Domains as the Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests.

The _Superintendent of the Sacred Dormitory_ was the Grand Chamberlain
of the Empire, and commanding, as he did, the army of pages, grooms of
the bed-chamber, vestiaries, and life-guardsmen, who ministered to the
myriad wants of an Arcadius or a Honorius, he was not the least
important among the chief officers of the State.

These great civil ministers, eight in number under the Western Emperors
(for there were three Praetorian Prefects, one for the Gauls, one for
Italy, and one for the City of Rome), formed, with the military officers
of highest rank (generally five in number), the innermost circle of
"Illustres", who may be likened to the Cabinet of the Emperor. At this
time the Cabinet of Illustres may have been smaller by one or two
members, on account of the separation of the Gaulish provinces from
Rome, but we are not able to speak positively on this point.

Nearly every one of these great ministers of state had under him a
large, ambitious, and often highly-paid staff of subordinates, who were
called his _Officium._ The civil service was at least as regular and
highly specialised a profession under the Emperors and under Theodoric
as it is in any modern State. It is possible that we should have to go
to the Celestial Empire of China to find its fitting representative. A
large number of _singularii, rationalii, clavicularii,_ and the like
(whom we should call policemen, subordinate clerks, and gaolers) formed
the "Unlettered Staff" _(Militia Illiterata),_ who stood on the lowest
stage of the bureaucratic pyramid. Above these was the lettered staff,
beginning with the humble chancellor _(Cancellarius),_ who sat by the
_cancelli_ (latticework), at the bottom of the Court (to prevent
importunate suitors from venturing too far), and rising to the dignified
_Princeps or Cornicularius,_ who was looked upon as equal in rank to a
Count, and who expected to make an income of not less than L600 a year,
equivalent to two or three times that amount in our day.

All this great hierarchy of officials wielded powers derived, mediately
or immediately, from the Emperor (or in the Ostrogothic monarchy from
the King), and great as was their brilliancy in the eyes of the dazzled
multitudes who crouched before them, it was all reflected from him, who
was the central sun of their universe. But there were still two
institutions which were in theory independent of Emperor or King, which
were yet held venerable by men, and which had come down from the days of
the great world-conquering republic, or the yet earlier days of Romulus
and Numa. These two institutions were the Consulship and the Senate.

The _Consuls,_ as was said in an earlier chapter, still appeared to
preside over the Roman Republic, as they had in truth presided, wielding
between them the full power of a king, when Brutus and Collatinus, a
thousand years before Theodoric's commencement of the siege of Ravenna,
took their seat upon the curule chairs, and donned the _trabea_ of the
Consul. Still, though utterly shorn of its power, the glamour of the
venerable office remained. The Emperor himself seemed to add to his
dignity when he allowed himself to be nominated as Consul, and in
nothing was the cupidity of the tyrant Emperors and the moderation of
the patriot Emperors better displayed than in the number of Consulships
which they claimed or forbore from claiming. Ever since the virtual
division of the Empire into an Eastern and Western portion, it had been
usual, though not absolutely obligatory, for one Consul to be chosen out
of each half of the _Orbis Romanus,_ and in reading the contemporary
chronicles we can almost invariably tell to which portion the author
belongs by observing to which Consul's name he gives the priority. As
has been already stated, after the resumption of friendly relations
between Ravenna and Constantinople, Theodoric, while naming the Western
Consul, sent a courteous notification of the fact to the Emperor, by
whom his nomination seems to have been always accepted without question.
The great Ostrogoth, having once worn the Consular robes and distributed
largess to "the Roman People" in the streets of Constantinople, does not
seem to have cared a second time to assume that ancient dignity, but in
the year 519, towards the end of his reign, he named his son-in-law,
Eutharic, Consul, and the splendour of Eutharic's year of office was
enhanced by the fact that he had the then reigning Emperor, Justin, for
his colleague. As for the _Senate,_ it too was still in appearance what
it had ever been,--the highest Council in the State, the assembly of
kings which overawed the ambassador of Pyrrhus, the main-spring, or, if
not the main-spring, at any rate the balance-wheel, of the
administrative machine. This it was in theory, for there had never been
any formal abolition of its existence or abrogation of its powers. In
practice it was just what the sovereign, whether called Emperor or King,
allowed it to be. A self-willed and arbitrary monarch, like Caligula or
Domitian, would reduce its functions to a nullity. A wise and moderate
Emperor, like Trajan or Marcus Aurelius, would consult it on all
important state-affairs, and, while reserving to himself both the power
of initiation and that of final control, would make of it a real Council
of State, a valuable member of the governing body of the Empire. The
latter seems to have been the policy of Theodoric. Probably the very
fact of his holding a somewhat doubtful position towards the Emperor at
Constantinople made him more willing to accept all the moral support
that could be given him by the body which was in a certain sense older
and more august than any Emperor, the venerable Senate of Rome. At any
rate, the letters in which he announces to the Senate the various acts,
especially the nomination of the great officials of his kingdom, in
which he desires their concurrence, are couched in such extremely
courteous terms, that sometimes civility almost borders on servility.
Notwithstanding this, however, it is quite plain that it was always
thoroughly understood who was master in Italy, and that any attempt on
the part of the Senate to wrest any portion of real power from Theodoric
would have been instantly and summarily suppressed.

I have said that it was only by the aid of officials, trained in the
service of the Empire that Theodoric, or indeed any of the new barbarian
sovereigns, could hope to keep the machine of civil government in
working order. We have, fortunately, a little information as to some of
these officials, and an elaborate self-drawn picture of one of them.

_Liberius_ had been a faithful servant of Odovacar; and had to the last
remained by the sinking vessel of his fortunes. This fidelity did not
injure him in the estimation of the conqueror. When all was over, he
came, with no eagerness, and with unconcealed sorrow for the death of
his former master, to offer his services to Theodoric, who gladly
accepted them, and gave him at once the pre-eminent dignity of Praetorian
Prefect. His wise and economical management of the finances filled the
royal exchequer without increasing the burdens of the tax-payer, and it
is probable that the early return of prosperity to Italy, which was
described in the last chapter, was, in great measure, due to the just
and statesmanlike administration of Liberius. In the delicate business
of allotting to the Gothic warriors the third part of the soil of Italy,
which seems to have been their recognised dividend on Theodoric's
Italian speculation, he so acquitted himself as to win the approbation
of all. It is difficult for us to understand how such a change of
ownership can have brought with it anything but heart-burning and
resentment. But (1) there are not wanting indications that, owing to
evil influences both economic and political, there was actually a large
quantity of good land lying unoccupied in Italy in the fifth century;
and (2) there had already been one expropriation of the same kind for
the benefit of the soldiers of Odovacar. In so far as this allotment of
Thirds[83] merely followed the lines of that earlier redistribution, but
little of a grievance was caused to the Italian owner. An Ostrogoth, the
follower of Theodoric, stepped into the position of a slain Scyrian or
Turcilingian, the follower of Odovacar, and the Italian owner suffered
no further detriment. Still there must have been some loss to the
provincials and some cases of hardship which would be long and bitterly
remembered, before every family which crossed the Alps in the Gothic
waggons was safely settled in its Italian home. It is therefore not
without some qualification that we can accept the statement of the
official panegyrist[84] of the Gothic _regime_, who declares that in
this business of the allotment of the Thirds "Liberius joined both the
hearts and the properties of the two nations, Gothic and Roman. For
whereas neighbourhood often proves a cause of enmity, with these men
communion of farms proved a cause of concord.[85] Thus the division of
the soil promoted the concord of the owners; friendship grew out of the
loss of the provincials, and the land gained a defender, whose
possession of part guaranteed the quiet enjoyment of the remainder". It
is possible that there was some foundation of truth for the last
statement. After the fearful convulsions through which the whole Western
Empire had passed, and with the strange paralysis of the power of
self-defence which had overtaken the once brave and hardy population of
Italy, it is possible that the presence, near to each considerable
Italian landowner, of a Goth whose duty to his king obliged him to
defend the land from foreign invasion, and to suppress with a strong
hand all robbery and brigandage, may have been felt in some cases as a
compensation even for whatever share of the soil of Italy was
transferred to Goth from Roman by the Chief Commissioner, Liberius.

[Footnote 83: Deputatio Tertiarum.]

[Footnote 84: Cassiodorus, Var., ii., 16.]

[Footnote 85: Nam cum se homines soleant de vicinitate collidere, istis
praediorum communio causam noscitur praestitisse concordiae. Sic enim
contigit ut utraque natio, dum commumater vivit ad unum velle
convenerit.]

Two eminent Romans, whom in the early years of his reign Theodoric
placed in high offices of state, were the two successive ambassadors to
Constantinople, _Faustus_ and _Festus_. Both seem to have held the high
dignity of Praetorian Prefect. We do not, however, hear much as to the
career of Festus, and what we hear of Faustus is not altogether to his
credit. He had been for several years practically the Prime Minister of
Theodoric, when in an evil hour for his reputation he coveted the estate
of a certain Castorius, whose land adjoined his own. Deprived of his
patrimony, Castorius appealed, not in vain, to the justice of Theodoric,
whose ears were not closed, as an Emperor's would probably have been, to
the cry of a private citizen against a powerful official. "We are
determined", says Theodoric, in his reply to the petition of Castorius,
"to assist the humble and to repress the violence of the proud. If the
petition of Castorius prove to be well-founded, let the spoiler restore
to Castorius his property and hand over besides another estate of equal
value. If the Magnificent Faustus have employed any subordinate in this
act of injustice, bring him to us bound with chains that he may pay for
the outrage in person, if he cannot do so in purse. If on any future
occasion that now known craftsman of evil (Faustus) shall attempt to
injure the aforesaid Castorius, let him be at once fined fifty pounds of
gold (L2,000). Greatest of all punishments will be the necessity of
beholding the untroubled estate of the man whom he sought to ruin.
Behold herein a deed which may well chasten and subdue the hearts of all
our great dignitaries when they see that not even a Praetorian Prefect is
permitted to trample on the lowly, and that when we put forth our arm to
help, such an one's power of injuring the wretched fails him. From this
may all men learn how great is our love of justice, since we are willing
to diminish even the power of our judges, that we may increase the
contentment of our own conscience". This edict was followed by a letter
to the Illustrious Faustus himself, in which that grasping governor was
reminded that human nature frequently requires a change, and permission
was graciously given him to withdraw for four months into the country.
At the end of that time he was without fail to return to the capital,
since no Roman Senator ought to be happy if permanently settled
anywhere but at Rome. It is tolerably plain that the four months'
_villeggiatura_ was really a sentence of temporary banishment, and we
may probably conclude that the Magnificent Faustus never afterwards held
any high position under Theodoric.

The letters announcing the King's judgment in this matter, like all the
other extant state-papers of Theodoric, were written by a man who was
probably by the fall of Faustus raised a step in the official hierarchy,
and who was certainly for the last twenty years of the reign of
Theodoric one of the most conspicuous of his Roman officials. This was
Cassiodorus, or, to give him his full name, _Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus
Senator_, a man, whose life and character require to be described in
some detail.

Cassiodorus was sprung from a noble Roman family, which had already
given three of its members in lineal succession (all bearing the name
Cassiodorus) to the service of the State. His great-grandfather, of
"Illustrious" rank, defended Sicily and Calabria from the incursions of
the Vandals. His grandsire, a Tribune in the army, was sent by the
Emperor Valentinian III. on an important embassy to Attila. His father
filled first one and then the other of the two highest financial offices
in the State under Odovacar. On the overthrow of that chieftain, he,
like Liberius, transferred his services to Theodoric, who employed him
as governor first of Sicily, then of Calabria, and finally, about the
year 500, conferred upon him the highest dignity of all, that of
Praetorian Prefect. The ancestral possessions of the Cassiodori were
situated m that southernmost province, sometimes likened to the toe of
Italy, which was then called Bruttii, and is now called Calabria. It was
a land rich in cattle, renowned for its cheese and for its aromatic,
white Palmatian wine; and veins of gold were said to be in its
mountains. Here, in the old Greek city of Scyllacium _(Sguillace)_, "a
city perched upon a high hill overlooking the sea, sunny yet fanned by
cool Mediterranean breezes, and looking peacefully on the cornfields,
the vineyards, and the olive-groves around her",[86] Cassiodorus was
born, about the year 480. He was therefore probably some twelve or
thirteen years of age when the long strife between Odovacar and
Theodoric was ended by the murder scene in the palace at Ravenna.

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