306 Cooper
To be sure, this vision of Justina as a master manipulator is a character sketch
rather than a source of unbiased information. As Zosimus tells the story, the
episode is meant to highlight the moral weakness of Theodosius in contrast
to the cunning of Justina.44 And it is not clear how accurately the historian
reflects the account of his source, Justina’s contemporary Eunapius. What is
certain is that the narrative reflects Greek attitudes in Amalasuentha’s life-
time, since Zosimus was writing in Constantinople during the middle years of
Theoderic’s reign. Zosimus offers us an idea of what Amalasuentha’s contem-
poraries thought was plausible, their sense of the kind of intervention a royal
woman might reasonably aim at under the right circumstances.
Justina probably had more than one reason for offering her daughter Galla
to Theodosius rather than seeking to marry him herself. Age may have played
a part. Zosimus mentions the mother’s extraordinary beauty, but she seems
to have been older than Theodosius (b. 347). She was married to her first hus-
band Magnentius in 350 or 351 so she must have been twelve (the legal age for
Roman marriage) by then, though the 7th-century chronicler John of Antioch
says that she was too young to bear children at the time of the marriage.45 In
the summer of 387 she was probably in her late forties, while Theodosius
turned forty in January of that year. Galla, by contrast, was born some time
between 360 and 375, so in the summer of 387 she was in her teens or twen-
ties, at the peak of marriageability. But age was not necessarily a barrier: we
have already seen that the empress Pulcheria was fifty-one when she married
the general Marcian. Justina’s proposal of Galla as a bride for Theodosius may
also have reflected a preference. The position of behind-the-scenes broker and
negotiator was in all likelihood more powerful than that of bride; it was cer-
tainly less exposed.
Like Justina, Amalasuentha had another valuable asset to work with in
her daughter Matasuentha. Her age is not known, but she must have been
born between 517 (her brother Athalaric having been born the year before)
and 523 (the year after her father’s death). So at her brother’s death in 534 she
was between eleven and seventeen, the peak age of marriageability. In 537
Matasuentha married the powerful general Witigis, who was crowned king of
the Ostrogoths following the death in 536 of Amalasuentha’s consort and mur-
derer Theodahad. Witigis was a well-known figure in the royal entourage: he
44 On the motif of womanly influence see Cooper, “Insinuations of Womanly Influence”,
pp. 150–64, with Joshel, “Female Desire and the Discourse of Empire”, pp. 50–82.
45 J. Ant. Frag. 187.