Eutharic
Eutharic Cilliga (
During his year of consulship in 519 relations with the
Some time after the death of Eutharic, his son Athalaric briefly held the Ostrogothic throne but died at the age of 18. After Athalaric's death, Eutharic's widow remained in Italy until her death at the hands of her cousin Theodahad in 535.[3]
Early life
Eutharic was born around AD 480 to a noble Ostrogoth family of the
Eutharic's status in both the Gothic and Roman world was elevated by the attentions of
By the late 5th century Theodoric was king of the
More recent studies, however, suggest that Eutharic's Amali ancestry may have been a deliberate invention on the part of Theodoric to aid his ambitions of establishing dynastic credibility.[15] According to Gesta Theoderici Eutharic belonged to the Gothic house of Alan rather than the house of Amal.[16] Whilst Jordanes, in his history of the Goths, does make reference to Eutharic's prudentia et virtus, or pride and valour, this too may have been a fabrication on the part of Theodoric.[17] Those qualities were recognised as requirements of Gothic ethnographic ideology, expressed in their code of civilitas. It would have been highly beneficial for Theodoric's chosen son-in-law to possess them.[17]
At the court of Theodoric
In AD 515 Eutharic answered a summons by Theodoric the Great and moved to the Ostrogothic court at Ravenna. Here he was given Amalasuintha in marriage.[18] It was Theodoric's intention that this union would create a long-lasting dynastic connection between the previously sundered Ostrogoths and Visigoths. Theodoric also named Eutharic his presumptive heir.[4]
Whilst in Italy, Eutharic played an important political role within Theodoric's kingdom. With a court background he had the ability to serve in government and he was respected by the Romans, who admired his liberality and magnificence.[19] Catholic writers of the time, however, indicate that, whilst his father-in-law was renowned for policies of toleration, Eutharic acted more like a "bigoted Arian".[19]
Consulship
In 498, as the Empire's nominal vice-regent in Italy, Theodoric had been granted the right to nominate the Western candidate for each year's consular pair. He was, however, bounded by a restriction: to select only a Roman citizen for the position. To advance Eutharic's standing in the world, Theodoric wished him to be made consul for the year 519. To get around the restriction, and as a favour to Theodoric, Justin himself nominated Eutharic.[20]
The nomination was successful, and in January 519 Eutharic took up the position of Western Consul. By granting him Roman citizenship, accepting him as co-consul and calling him a "son in arms", Emperor Justin I sought to restore ties with Theodoric, strained during the reign of
During this period Eutharic was eulogised by Cassiodorus in the Senate.[25] In it he compared Eutharic to great consuls of the past. The short Chronicle, which Cassiodorus wrote to congratulate Eutharic on his consulship, is noted for focusing on Eutharic's accession to a position of high civilian honour, rather than any military victories, as had been more common for past Gothic nobility.[26] Eutharic's time as consul is portrayed largely as a time of prosperity for the western Roman empire with the code of civilitas being promoted. In March 519, the Acacian schism which had separated the Eastern and Western Christian churches for the previous 35 years was ended and the churches reconciled.[4][26] In addition to the prosperity felt by the peoples of the Roman empire, Eutharic's year of consulship has also been described as seeming like "[a year] of bright promise for the Ostrogothic kingdom".[27]
The contemporary Catholic chronicle of the
Death and legacy
Eutharic died in 522 at the age of 42, less than three years after his consulship.
Notes
- ^ "The Italian Catholic clergy had a tradition of intolerance towards the Jewish people that stretched back to Ambrose; the Arians, as represented by the king, probably supported general tolerance because it was in their own interests as a minority religion," observes Patrick Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489-554, p. 216.
- Anonymous Valesianuscovered the period 474—526 essentially from a Catholic-exarchate point of view and was probably written near Ravenna ca 527." (Thomas S. Burns, The Ostrogoths: kingship and society, 1980:66).
- ^ Jordanes, LIX, p. 51, and Herwig Wolfram (1998), p. 338
- ^ a b c Burns, A History of the Ostrogoths, p. 92
- ^ Jones, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire
- ^ a b c Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, p. 151.
- ^ Jordanes, Getica, p. 298
- ^ Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554, p. 65
- ^ Goetz, Regna and Gentes, p. 93
- ^ O'Donnell, Cassiodorus, Ch. 2
- ^ "Ancestors of King Theodoric". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 5 Nov 2009.
- ^ Mitchell, "A history of the later Roman Empire, AD 284–641", p. 120
- ^ Barker, Justinian and the Later Roman Empire, p. 148
- ^ Gibbon, The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire p. 155
- ^ Wolfram, History of the Goths, p. 328
- ^ Bachrach, A history of the Alans, p. 97
- ^ a b Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554, p. 58 & p. 451
- ^ Hodgkins, Theoderic the Great, ch. 13.
- ^ a b Bradley, The Goths from the Earliest Times to the End of the Gothic Dominion in Spain, p. 176
- ^ Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire, AD 284–641, p. 118; Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, Vol. 1, Ch. 13, p. 455
- ^ Heather, The Goths, p. 253; Wolfram, History of the Goths, p. 328
- ^ Cassiodorus, Chron., ib., sub a., 1364
- ^ Martindale 1980, p. 1043
- ^ Cassiodorus, Chron., 1364
- ^ The eulogy was recorded in an oration of which a fragment is preserved, Var. ix.25
- ^ a b Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554, p. 66
- ^ a b Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554, p. 67
- ^ a b Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554, p. 215
- ^ Barker, Justinian and the Later Roman Empire, p. 269
- ^ Heather, The Goths, p. 253
- ^ Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, p. 152.
- ^ a b c Heather, The Goths, p. 262
References
- Primary Sources
- ISBN 0-85323-436-1.
- Secondary Sources
- Amory, Patrick (1997). People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-57151-0.
- Bachrach, Bernard S. (1973). A History of the Alans in the West from Their First Appearance in the Sources of Classical Antiquity through the Early Middle Ages. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Barker, John W. (1975). Justinian and the Later Roman Empire. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-03944-7.
- Bradley, Henry (2005). The Goths from the Earliest Times to the End of the Gothic Dominion in Spain (4th ed.). Kessinger. ISBN 1-4179-7084-7.
- Burns, Thomas S. (1984). A history of the Ostrogoths. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-32831-4.
- Bury, John Bagnell (1958). History of the later Roman Empire from the death of Theodosius I to the death of Justinian. Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-20398-0.
- Cristini, Marco (2018). "Eutarico Cillica successore di Teoderico". Aevum. 92 (2): 297–307.
- Evans, J.A.S. (2000). The age of Justinian: the circumstances of imperial power. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-23726-2.
- Gibbon, Edward (1827). The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 1-4191-2419-6.
- ISBN 0-521-81349-2.
- Goetz, Werner; Jarnut, Jorg; Pohl, Walter, eds. (2003). Regna and Gentes: The Relationship Between Late Antique and Early Medieval Peoples and Kingdoms in the Transformation of the Roman World. Brill Academic. ISBN 90-04-12524-8.
- Goffart, Walter (2006). Barbarian tides: the migration age and the later Roman Empire. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-3939-3.
- Heather, Peter (1996). The Goths. Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-16536-3.
- Hodgkin, Thomas (1891). Theodoric the Great. New York: AMS Press. ISBN 0-404-58267-2.
- ISBN 978-1-4065-4667-5.
- O'Donnell, James J. (1979). Cassiodorus. University of California Press.
- Theuws, Frans; Nelson, Janet L., eds. (2000). Rituals of power: from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages. Leiden. ISBN 90-04-10902-1.
- Wolfram, Herwig (1988). History of the Goths. tr. Thomas J. Dunlap. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06983-8.