510 Cohen
Bonus, who is described as a vir laudabilis.39 The Anonymus Valesianus also
mentions a Symmachus Scholasticus who was a Jewish advisor to Theoderic’s
court, although Symmachus’ role is unclear.40
Burial practices in the late imperial and Ostrogothic periods also suggest
that expected boundaries between religious communities were not absolute.
Jews and Christians (and even pagans) in Italy and across the empire were
often buried side by side well into the early medieval period.41 It was precisely
the fact that Jews and Christians intermingled so much—even in death!—that
so vexed Christian commentators, prompting them to endeavour to enforce
stricter separation between the two faiths and to vilify Judaism in heresiologi-
cal and anti-Jewish polemical writings.42
‘Arians’ and ‘Arianism’
The most obvious religious minority in Italy was of course the Ostrogoths
themselves. Theoderic and many of his followers were non-Nicene Christians,
generally described as adherents of Arianism, the 4th-century heresy named
for the Alexandrine presbyter Arius who preached that Christ was created by
and thus subordinate to God the Father. This understanding of Ostrogothic
religion is problematic. First, religion in Late Antiquity was not necessarily tied
to ethnic identity, an interpretation that ignores the complex mechanisms of
conversion and the often regional nature of religious belief and practice. The
example of Theoderic’s own mother Ereleuva, a convert to Catholicism (pos-
sibly from some form of paganism) is a clear indication that Theoderic’s own
heterodoxy (from the perspective of the Roman Church) was not necessarily
39 Noy, Jewish Inscriptions, vol. 1, no. 107, pp. 137–8 and commentary on pp. 138–40. On
this inscription see also Volpe, Contadini, pastori e mercanti, pp.112–13; Colafemmina,
“Insediamenti e condizione degli Ebrei”, p. 206.
40 Anon. Val. 94. Scholasticus likely designates a man of learning, but not necessarily a legal
advocate. See Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, eds. Jones/Martindale/Morris
(hereafter PLRE), vol. 2, Scholasticus 5.
41 Rutgers, “Archaeological Evidence”, pp. 109–15; Rutgers, “Interaction and Its Limits”,
p. 255 for his conclusions on the Sicilian evidence. The latest find is a cemetery south
of Jerusalem, active between the 4th and 8th centuries that contain both Christian and
Jewish burials. Earlier Italian examples include somewhat ambiguous evidence from
Rome and its environs, Ostia, and Sicily (the latest dating from 597). See also Rebillard,
“Conversion and Burial”, p. 65.
42 Boyarin/Burrus, “Hybridity”, p. 432.