The Senate at Rome in Ostrogothic Italy 127
For example, the senatorial embassy of 476 was entitled to act autonomously,
not simply as Odovacer’s delegation. He also avoided emphasizing his power
too strongly when it came to his self-representation. He did not wear impe-
rial vestments, he forewent certain imperial reminiscences within his title,
and he used a building project in Rome more to court the Senate than to pro-
mote himself.32 Odovacer’s official and ostentatious respect for the traditional
assembly must have granted him sympathy, of which we can possibly get a
glimpse in the Anonymus Valesianus, which describes Odovacer as praised
by nobiles.33 Additionally, he strengthened the Senate’s position by partially
depriving the praefectus urbi of his power. Under the emperors, the prefect of
Rome had possessed many competences and functioned as the president of
the Senate. The prefect’s dependency on the single emperor by whom he was
elected and for whom he functioned as a kind of point man had brought the
possessor of this office discredit. Through depriving the office of the praefectus
urbi and establishing the office of the caput senatus, to whom he gave some of
the former’s competences, Odovacer supported the Senate in its wish to act
more independently. This new office was given according to the principle of
seniority to the eldest living senator and was therefore out of the emperor’s
reach and influence. Furthermore, Odovacer bestowed the Senate with the
right to mint coins and to lobby the church (although possibly only theoreti-
cally and as part of a royal campaign, respectively).34 Finally, he secured Sicily
from the Vandals, an island full of senatorial estates, and made it accessible
to the senators once again.35 As a consequence, with the continuation of the
western line of consulship in the year 479—if not earlier—the Senate at Rome
was on Odovacer’s side.36
Senatorial Composition and Membership in the Ostrogothic Period
To analyse the Senate’s position under the reign of the Ostrogothic kings it is
necessary to define the circle of aristocrats sitting in the curia, because not all
32 Henning, Periclitans, p. 179; Chastagnol, Le Sénat Romain, pp. 24ff.; Näf, Senatorisches
Standesbewusstsein, p. 195.
33 Anonymus Valesianus 48, ed. König; additionally see Eugippius, Vita Sancti Severini 32,
ed. Sauppe.
34 Jones, Later Roman Empire, pp. 253f.
35 Henning, Periclitans, pp. 178f and 274; Chastagnol, La préfecture urbaine à Rome, pp. 66–8.
36 For a chronological analysis of the list of office holders showing distinct phases in
Odovacer’s relationship with aristocratic families see Henning, Periclitans, pp. 178f. and
Sundwall, Abhandlungen, pp. 180ff.