Theodoric (46 page)

Theoderic's power ultimately resided in his ability to
persuade
his Ostrogothic fellow tribesmen to accept his authority; unlike Roman emperors, German kings ruled by consent. Gothic nobles (
comites
, or counts) saw themselves as a warrior élite, the risk of them becoming ‘overmighty subjects' always present, as men like Theodahad and Tuluin graphically demonstrated in Theoderic's closing years. Between the nobles and the mass of the Ostrogothic people were the
saiones
. The term's meaning is hard to define exactly; perhaps the English ‘sheriff' (in the mediaeval sense) comes closest. Intermediaries, and enforcers of the king's writ, representing the
personal
leadership invested in the royal power, they eschewed lofty ranks and titles. Burns (in his scholarly and highly readable
A History of the Ostrogoths
) is most enlightening: ‘the actual royal ‘firefighters' were the
saiones
. . . the king's men [taking] charge for the king himself, wherever they went. Unless the king retained their loyalty and obedience and the respect they inspired, he could not rule.'

Son of a consul (Basilius in 480) and himself a consul (in 493), Albinus was a scion of the very powerful and distinguished family of the Decii, had been connected with the negotiations to end the Acacian Schism, and was a leading member of the Senate. That he had been engaged in correspondence with Constantinople is not in doubt, though whether this was treasonable cannot be confirmed.

He charged Albinus with having sent Justin a letter hostile to Theoderic's kingdom. Unfortunately, we have no details about what precisely this implied. Cyprian was an interesting character and, as far as we can tell, an honest official. He had served in Theoderic's army – one of the few Romans to have done so – and, almost uniquely among
Romans, could speak Gothic. A riding-companion of Theoderic, he was, according to Cassiodorus, a man of action rather than reading. Burns asserts that in charging Boethius Cyprian ‘was just doing his job', and cites his subsequent promotion to
Comes Sacrarum Largitionum
and
Magister Officiorum
as evidence of his probity. Given this, it is at least open to question whether Boethius was telling the truth when he claimed that the letter written supposedly by him that contained the damning words ‘
libertas Romana
' was a forgery. However, as Gibbon – with the splendours of the English justice system in mind – said, ‘his innocence must be presumed, since he was deprived by Theoderic of the means of justification'.

Coming hot on the heels of the political catastrophes that afflicted the late years of Theoderic's reign – the urban riots, defection of allies, Constantinople's anti-Arian laws, etc. – the apparent treachery of Albinus and Boethius (just the presumed tip of a senatorial iceberg) must have been particularly cruel hammer-blows. I have taken advantage of the uncertainty regarding dates for this period to present the events covered by the chapter (which have a real sense of nemesis following hubris, befitting Greek tragedy) as occurring in rapid sequence, in order to heighten the dramatic tempo. As Moorhead says, ‘The timetable of these events is not as clear as we would like, especially as there are problems in the chronology of Anonymous Valesianus'.

As the tower of Pavia no longer exists (it was demolished in 1584), we can only speculate as to its appearance and function. Gibbon mentions a Pavian tradition that it was a baptistery.

Although written by a committed Christian, this celebrated work (which takes the form of a dialogue between the author and a personified Philosophy) contains not a single reference to Christianity, its tone throughout reflecting a Neo-Platonist cast of mind. Its theme is that all earthly fortune is mutable, and everything save virtue insecure. Of impeccable Latinity, its style imitates the best models of the Augustan
age. It was translated into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred, and translated into various languages throughout the Middle Ages, when it achieved something of the status of a ‘best-seller'.

The death of Boethius (and thus the termination of his last work) is usually dated to 524. Moorhead, however, argues convincingly for a date of 526. As he says, ‘the later we date the execution of Boethius the easier it is to account for the perfection of the work he wrote in prison'.

Suggestions as to the exact location of the scene of Boethius' execution vary: ‘the distant estate of Calventia' (Burns); ‘Agro Calventiano . . . between Marignano and Pavia' (Gibbon); and ‘agro Calventiano, almost certainly a part of Pavia' (Moorhead). These differences, I felt, gave me the freedom to make the place the Pavian equivalent of ‘Tower Green'. The method of despatch is given in ancient sources as either by cord and club (Anonymous Valesianus), or alternatively by sword (
Liber pontificalis
). Most modern scholars go for the cord-and-club version. Gibbon gives a gruesomely graphic description of Boethius' death by this latter method, also of the scene where Theoderic sees in the head of a fish the avenging spectre of Symmachus – which I've taken the liberty of changing to that of Boethius, for obvious dramatic reasons.

But not if the story of ‘Swift Nick' Nevison (on which the Dick Turpin myth is based) is true. In 1676, he established an apparent cast-iron alibi for a robbery he committed at Gadshill near Gravesend, at four in the morning. Taking the ferry from Gravesend to Tilbury, he then rode to York via Chelmsford, Cambridge and Huntingdon, and ‘then holding on the [Great] North Road, and keeping a full larger gallop most of the way, he came to York the same afternoon' (Daniel Defoe,
A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain
).

The distance from Gravesend to York is almost exactly two hundred miles, the same as that from Ravenna to Pavia. Given that the Via Aemilia in 526 would have been in far better condition than the Great North Road in 1676, that the terrain of the Po valley is even flatter than that of eastern
England, and that Fridibad had the advantage of changes of mount, the
saio
could well have completed the journey within twelve hours. As Roman dinners started considerably earlier than ours, Theoderic could have taken to his bed by 5 p.m., and Fridibad been on the road by 6 p.m.

He died on 30 August 526 (shortly after the execution of Boethius, Moorhead suggests), the very day on which his anti-Catholic legislation, which included the surrender of churches to Arians, was due to come into force.