218 Swain
justice should be judged “in common”.85 Rather than erecting social and legal
divisions, then, Theoderic sought to break down barriers between Goths and
Romans by applying the same laws to all subjects. It is also argued that the legal
arrangements seen in the Variae were not a Gothic innovation, but bespeak
the well-established late Roman practice of maintaining separate courts for the
old Roman army.86 Countering this, though, is the argument that Gothic cases
were judged by Gothic officials, regardless of whether those involved were in
the military. This entails, at least legalistically, that one’s status as a Goth was
not determined merely by military service, but was a marker independent of
social role.87
Roman-Gothic Integration
Even those who hold that Goths lived largely among each other in regional
clusters, monopolized the military, and maintained their own cultural and
political identity still recognize that Gothic and Roman societies were in the
process of merging in Italy. The mixed marriages of Brandila and Procula
and Patza and Regina have already been mentioned.88 Various inscriptions and
papyri also attest to other unions between partners with barbarian and Roman
names.89 Certain individuals seem to have been known by both Roman and
Gothic names, and there are instances of parents with Gothic names giving
their children Roman ones.90 Classical learning was adopted by some of the
Gothic elite. Gothic geographers are attested in the Ravenna Cosmography.91
Theoderic’s nephew Theodahad was versed in Latin literature, Platonic phi-
losophy, and ecclesiastical writings, and the king’s daughter Amalasuentha
was fluent in Greek, Latin, and Gothic, and sought to provide her son Athalaric
with a similar Roman education.92 Acculturative exchange went the other way,
too. Cyprian, the Italo-Roman who served in the Gothic army, had his sons
85 Cassiodorus, Variae 3.13.2; Arnold, Theoderic and the Roman Imperial Restoration,
pp. 128–9.
86 Amory, People and Identity, pp. 51 n. 24, 151–65.
87 Heather, “Gens and Regnum”, p. 122; Cassiodorus, Variae 5.29.
88 See n. 42.
89 Moorhead, Theoderic, p. 85.
90 Ibid., p. 86.
91 Staab, “Ostrogothic Geographers”.
92 Theodahad: Procopius, Wars, 5.3.1, 5.6.19, 16; Cassiodorus, Variae 10.3.4f.; Amalasuentha’s
languages: Variae 11.1.6; Athalaric: Wars 5.2.6. For recent work on Theodahad see Vitiello,
Theodahad: A Platonic King.