The Senate at Rome in Ostrogothic Italy 131
public buildings in Rome; and 4.43, when it was commanded to investigate
an attack on a synagogue.56 An evaluation of these letters needs care, as the
Variae comprise a collection of selected letters without an easily determined
purpose behind their publication. Nevertheless, the letters collectively suggest
that the Senate, as a corporate body, contributed little to Ostrogothic govern-
ment, and its actual participation in state affairs seems to have been very much
reduced. Even the respect Theoderic declared for the Senate cannot obfuscate
the institution’s lack of real power.
Indeed for the Amal kings what mattered most was not the Senate as a
body, but rather certain holders of senatorial rank, who were involved in all
aspects of political, ecclesiastical, and diplomatic interaction.57 Members of
the Senate occupied themselves with ecclesiastical politics, for example, when
they became involved in the disorder attending the elevation of Symmachus
to the bishopric of Rome in 502, against the priest Laurentius and his support-
ers. The evidence suggests that the rival pope Laurentius had been supported
mainly by members of the senatorial elite in the city, who had invested much
in the churches under Laurentius’ guardianship.58 Symmachus, on the other
hand, was supported by families and single persons with estates based in
the north of the peninsula.59 Members of the Senate also played important
roles in diplomatic missions, such as the negotiations between Theoderic and
Zeno. They were also heavily involved in lobbying the Emperor Anastasius
to acknowledge the Amal king’s official status as the emperor’s substitute in
the West.60 Already at a very early stage in his campaign against Odovacer
in the year 490, Theoderic sent an embassy led by the famous and influential
Flavius Rufius Postumius Festus,61 at that time caput senatus, to Constantinople.
This mission was followed by another embassy in 497, led by Flavius Anicius
Probus Faustus Iunior Niger,62 a man of no less political importance.63 Certain
members of the Senate became highly important for Ostrogothic rule through
56 Barnwell, Emperor, p. 157, note 8.
57 Bulgarella, “Il senato”, p. 134.
58 Schäfer, Der weströmische Senat, pp. 212ff. For an alternative treatment of partisan com-
munities in the Laurentian schism, see Sessa in this volume.
59 The conflict between the two parties is manifest in three persons that can be identified
as being supporters of the two popes: Flavius Anicius Probus Faustus Niger, who led the
party of Symmachus, was opposed by Flavius Rufius Postumius Festus and Petronius
Probinus, who supported Laurentius.
60 See Sundwall, Abhandlungen, pp. 200ff., Ausbüttel, Theoderich, pp. 68ff.
61 PLRE II, pp. 467ff.
62 PLRE II, pp. 454ff.
63 Anonymus Valesianus. 53 and 57, ed. König.