Ostrogothic Provinces 81
restore a former Roman province and imperial residence.37 “Sirmium was once
the boundary of Italy,” Ennodius explained, “where earlier emperors used to
keep watch, lest the wounds of neighbouring peoples amassed there extended
into the Roman body”.38 Through imperial neglect, the city had been lost, but
now Theoderic, as the heir of these emperors, was impelled to reclaim it: “Since
your empire grew not”, Ennodius claimed, “you reckoned it diminished.”39
The invasion began in 504 and was led by two Gothic comites, Pitzia and
Herduic, who captured Sirmium (and presumably its associated province) with
ease. In keeping with his motif of imperial restoration Ennodius celebrated the
fact that Pitzia had returned this land to Italy, rather than conquered it, and
that he chose to preserve it under his watchful guidance, rather than ravage it
as a spoil of war.40 Cassiodorus later recorded a similar act of restoration in his
chronicle, writing that “Italy regained Sirmium through the valor of our lord
King Theoderic, after the Bulgars had been defeated.”41 His laconic account,
typical of the genre, however, conflated the seizure of Sirmium with events
that transpired the following year, when Pitzia came to the assistance of a
nearby Gepid prince and warlord named Mundo, an ally of Theoderic who had
been attacked by an eastern Roman army augmented with Bulgars.42 The ensu-
ing battle in Moesia Superior was celebrated in epic proportions in Ennodius’
panegyric, as a test of Gothic virtus that resulted in the Bulgars’ slaughter and
a disgraceful Byzantine retreat.43 Yet Pitzia’s victory immediately led to a state
of hostility between Ravenna and Constantinople that was not resolved until
510 or 511, and at the cost of a portion of Theoderic’s new Pannonian province,
specifically the city of Bassianae, which was yielded to the emperor.44
37 Cf. Wolfram, Goths, p. 321; Wozniak, “Illyricum”, pp. 368–70; Pohl, “Gepiden”, p. 294;
Schwarcz, “Westbalkanraum”, pp. 62–3; Prostko-Prostyński, Utraeque res publicae,
pp. 220–2.
38 Pan. 60: “Sermiensium civitas olim limes Italiae fuit, in qua seniores domini excubabant,
ne coacervata illinc finitimarum vulnera gentium in Romanum corpus excurrerent.”
39 Pan. 60–1: “Haec postea per regentium neglectum in Gepidarum iura concessit.... Minui
aestimas quod non crescit imperium.”
40 See Pan. 62, with Schwarcz, “Westbalkanraum”, p. 63; and Pohl, “Gepiden”, p. 294.
41 Cassiodorus, Chronica, a. 504, ed. Mommsen: “virtute dn. regis Theoderici victis Vulgaribus
Sirmium recepit Italia.”
42 For reconstructions and commentary: Prostko-Prostyński, Utraeque res publicae, pp. 223–
36; Wozniak, “Illyricum”, pp. 371–3; Wolfram, Goths, p. 322; and Croke, “Mundo”, pp. 129–31.
43 Pan. 64–9. Cf. Jordanes, Getica 300–1, ed. Mommsen; and Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon,
a. 505, ed. Mommsen.
44 See Stein, Bas-Empire 2, p. 156; Wolfram, Goths, pp. 322–3; and Prostko-Prostyński,
Utraeque res publicae, pp. 241–4.