The Heroine and the Historian 299
History in the early 550s,7 and in it he covers the whole period from the death
of Theoderic to that of Amalasuentha in a few lines. In this, conflict between
Amalasuentha and her Gothic subjects is not a theme; instead, Jordanes’ brief
treatment merely indicates that the queen co-opted her cousin out of femi-
nine modesty and respect for their kinship.8
This is not to say that we should dismiss the Greek historian’s account as
pure invention. Procopius participated in Justinian’s Italian invasion as legal
advisor and secretary to the general Belisarius,9 so his access to information
was as good as anyone’s. But if Procopius is a well-informed witness, he is
not necessarily a reliable one. A number of scholars have commented on his
tendency to resort to recurrent ethnic and gender patterns10 to style his own
view of events as natural and even inevitable. There is every reason to suspect
that this is the case where the Gothic Wars are concerned. His account may
reflect historical reality in the sense of the propaganda broadcast at the time
of Justinian’s invasion, but it is certainly a stylized account of Amalasuentha’s
situation, and of her eventual fate.
Amalasuentha’s Position After the Death of Theoderic (526–34)
At the time of her father’s death in 526, Amalasuentha’s position was dangerous
but not without precedent. As in her father’s reign, the civil administration at
Ravenna faced the difficult task of balancing its own concerns with the claims
of the Senate in Rome and those of the allied government in Constantinople,
and Amalasuentha quickly reconsidered her father’s strategy. In 523 Theoderic
had imprisoned and executed his magister officiorum Boethius on a treason
charge and Boethius had been replaced by Cassiodorus, whose letter-book, the
Variae, survives. On her father’s death Amalasuentha seems to have restored
relations with the Senate.11
But why was Amalasuentha not more successful in cultivating her own
coalition of generals? Here Procopius is less helpful, since it is a question
7 On the date of and context of Jordanes, the classic studies are O’Donnell, “Aims of
Jordanes”, pp. 223–40, and Goffart, Narrators of Barbarian History; for discussion of more
recent contributions see Gillett, “Mirror of Jordanes”, pp. 392–408.
8 Jordanes, Getica 59, ed. Mommsen.
9 Cameron, Procopius and the Sixth Century, p. 8.
10 Brubaker, “Sex, Lies, and Textuality”, pp. 83–101, with Kaldellis, Secret History, pp. lii–lv,
and Ziche, “Abusing Theodora”, pp. 311–23.
11 Moorhead, “Culture and Power”, pp. 112–22, at pp. 116–17.