520 Cohen
520s and 530s and after it became increasingly common for authors to equate
Arriani and Gothi.
The growing tendency to view Theoderic’s regime as both politically and
religiously problematic during this period helps explain the discrepant depic-
tions of Ostrogothic Arianism in our later sources. For instance the vitae of ear-
lier Roman bishops in the Liber Pontificalis such as Felix III (483–92), Gelasius
(492–6), Anastasius II (496–8), Symmachus (498–514), and Hormisdas (514–
23) refer to Theoderic merely as rex.90 But an increasingly critical tone can be
detected after the biography of Hormisdas, the Roman bishop who negotiated
the end of the Acacian schism. In the biography of John I (523–6) Theoderic
is described as the “heretic king” who wished to put “all of Italy to the sword”.
Moreover, the Liber Pontificalis suggested Theoderic was responsible for John’s
death—a fact which contributed to the Gothic king’s own death shortly
thereafter.91 But the most obvious contrast in the depiction of the Ostrogothic
religion can be seen in the Anonymus Valesianus. The source is problematic, not
least because it presents two radically different views of Theoderic’s regime.92
On the one hand, this source famously states that Theoderic “so governed
two peoples at the same time (duas gentes in uno), Romans and Goths, that
although he himself was of the Arian sect, he nevertheless made no assault
against the Catholic religion”.93 The Anonymus also states that during his visit
to Rome in 500 the king worshiped at St Peter’s ac si catholicus.94 However,
later in the same text Theoderic is said to have ordered the takeover of all
Catholic churches by the “Arriani” (with the help of the Jew Symmachus)—an
act which seems to have prompted a divine intervention with the result that
Theoderic died ignominiously on the privy in the same way as Arius himself.95
These sources represent an obvious change in the way Theoderic and his
faith were perceived—no longer as an alter communio but as Arriani. In the
end it was not the Catholic churches of Italy that were seized by heretical bar-
barians, it was the Homoian churches that were appropriated by the Catholics.
90 Theoderic is also called a heretic in the epitomes of the vita Symmachi.
91 LP, ed. Duchesne, vol. I. p. 275. “Pro hanc causam hereticus rex Theodericus audiens hoc
exarsit et uoluit totam Italiam ad gladium extinguere.”
92 The two perspectives are so different that some scholars have proposed that the work was
in fact a compilation of two different texts: one in support of Theoderic and the other
deeply opposed to the Ostrogothic king. On the debates surrounding the Anonymus and
its authorship, see Arnold, Theoderic and the Roman Imperial Restoration, pp. 65–6 and
notes 22–3.
93 Anon. Val. 60.
94 Anon. Val. 65.
95 Anon. Val. 94–5. See also Barnish, “Anonymus Valesianus II”.