THE EMPIRE AND THE BARBARIANSOstrogothic Italy retained many continuities with the Roman past,^26 among
them the survival of many of the immensely rich and aristocratic Roman fami-
lies who continued to hold office under the new regime. It is a remarkable
fact that the Roman senate survived during the fifth century, through all the
political changes, and its members continued to be appointed to traditional
offices and to hold the western consulship even under the Ostrogoths; the
consulship was in fact ended by Justinian himself in 541.^27 Many of these
Roman families were extremely wealthy, and Procopius, who describes the
Gothic wars in detail from the eastern point of view, particularly identifies
with this class, most of whom lost their land and position, and many of whom
were reduced to a pitiable state by the Justinianic war, unless they were able
to flee to the east where they often also possessed estates.^28 Like many oth-
ers of this class, Cassiodorus, whose highly rhetorical and bureaucratic Latin
letters (Variae), many written as Theodoric’s quaestor, are another of our main
sources for the period, was one of the prominent Italians who left for Con-
stantinople.^29 Before that, he had written a Gothic History, used by Jordanes in
his Getica,^30 and after the wars ended and he had returned to Italy, the Institutes,
a set of precepts on Christian learning, and other theological works. Cassi-
odorus founded the monastery of Vivarium on his family estate near Squil-
lace, which was to become one of the most important medieval centres for the
copying and preservation of classical texts. A traumatic event had taken place
in relations between the Ostrogoths and the Roman upper class in Italy in AD
523–4, when Theodoric had unexpectedly turned on and eventually executed
two of its most prominent members, Symmachus and Boethius, author of the
Latin classic, the Consolation of Philosophy. The case was sensational – Symma-
chus held one of the most prestigious names among the late Roman aristoc-
racy, while Boethius’ two sons had both been given the consulship and he had
been consul himself in 510 and was Theodoric’s magister officiorum. Boethius’
Consolation was written in prison as he mused on his fate; he imagines himself
Figure 2.3 Coin of Theodoric the Ostrogoth (d. 526). Trustees of the British Museum