442 Sessa
and followed an ecclesiastical ‘policy’. Cassiodorus did not preserve a single
letter from the king to the Roman church or its bishops, thereby raising the
question of how critical Theoderic’s relationship to the pope actually was.80 In
fact the most accurate characterization of Theoderic’s relationship to Rome
is that he remained uninvolved in its church affairs until there was a press-
ing political reason to intervene. For example, during the Laurentian schism
Theoderic repeatedly took action: just after the initial double election in 498,
when he selected Symmachus as the legitimate pope, and in 500, when he met
Symmachus at St Peter’s to conclude his adventus; in 501, when he investigated
charges levelled against Symmachus and called the pope to Ravenna for ques-
tioning; and on multiple occasions from 502 to 506/7, when he installed a visit-
ing bishop (Peter of Altinum) to conduct Rome’s liturgical services, convened a
synod in Rome of Italian clerics to adjudicate the charges against Symmachus,
and ordered Laurentius and his supporters to return all of Rome’s churches to
Symmachus’ control after Symmachus’ exoneration. These interventions were
instigated by a number of factors. In initially weighing in on the double ordina-
tion of Symmachus and Laurentius in 498, Theoderic followed imperial prec-
edent, wherein western emperors customarily cast the final vote in disputed
Roman elections.81 His continual involvement in the synod of 502, wherein he
convened the council and repeatedly hounded the bishops to make a decision,
was probably prompted by a spate of violence in the city related to the schism
the year before. Theoderic, like any good leader, was looking to settle a major
conflict that created disorder in his realm’s largest city.
Theoderic’s involvement with Rome’s bishops did not end with the
Laurentian schism. He routinely called upon Rome’s clerics to serve on state
embassies to Constantinople, typically on missions oriented around gain-
ing imperial recognition of his regime, though in one celebrated case—the
embassy of John I to the emperor Justin’s court in 526 —for a religious cause,
a request to Justinian to suspend recent policies that forced the conversion of
Arians (and Arian churches) to Nicene Christianity.82 Although John was hon-
ourably received in Constantinople, the pope had not secured the response
Theoderic wanted. Shortly after returning to Ravenna, John I died. It is highly
unlikely that Theoderic directly caused John’s death, as the Liber Pontificalis
strongly implies ( John is remembered there as a martyr).83 But the pope was
80 Noble, “Theodoric and the Papacy”, p. 399.
81 Noble, “Theodoric and the Papacy”, p. 405. Valentinian I directly intervened in the dis-
puted election between Damasus and Ursinus in 366.
82 Discussed by Cohen in this volume.
83 Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, p. 276.