58 Bjornlie
the Gothic War after the capitulation of Ravenna attests to the fact that Gothic
power derived from a strategy that did not depend upon a centralized seat of
government (Totila ruled most of Italy for almost twelve years after Ravenna
fell to eastern control in 540).
In terms of administrative strategy, the Amal court seems to have pre-
ferred a style of governance in which an administrative nucleus (referred to
in the Variae as comitatus noster and officium nostrum), including the staffs
of such senior officials as the praetorian prefect, attended the itinerant ambit
of the Gothic ruler. Indeed the formula for the comes patrimonii suggests
that this official did not require formal instruction in traditional precepts
because the office received instruction through personal attendance upon
the ruler.55 This strategy corresponds to the need for royal power to be seen
regularly in regions of military settlement where the idea of the Amal dynasty
as a cohesive political entity required constant reinforcement in the face of
competing patronage and kinship affiliations that might develop locally.56 The
frequent references in the Variae to comitatus noster, the traditional language
for a mobile military retinue, when applied to administrative apparatus, indi-
cate a definite shift to a style of administration that was not as palace-bound
as its eastern counterpart.57 Similarly, the development of officium nostrum as
a means of addressing the Amal court suggests that the direct attendance of
the comitatus upon the Amal ruler involved a transition in which administra-
tive functions had ceased to transmit through clearly delineated departments
but rather through the king discharging the functions of state according to the
proximity of suitable individuals (not necessarily according to the nature of
offices that they held).58 Indeed, in parallel to the officium nostrum as a con-
flation of palatine departments, the Gothic ruler could occasionally refer to
between the Amals and the eastern empire: Johnson, “Theoderic’s Building Program”,
pp. 95–6.
55 Variae 6.9.1, ed. Mommsen.
56 On the disaggregate nature of Gothic identity and its impact on Amal policy, Heather,
“Rise of the Amals”, 122–6; iterated again in Heather, “Theoderic”, pp. 144–5, and “Gens and
Regnum”, pp. 86–91.
57 Variae 1.7.3, 1.8.3, 1.27.2, 2.18.3, 2.20.1, 3.22.1, 3.28.1, 3.36.2, 4.9.1, 4.39.5, 4.40.2–3, 4.44.2, 4.45.1,
4.46.1, 5.12.3, 5.15.1, 5.27.1, 5.32.3, 7.31.2, 7.34.1, 7.35.2, 8.32.1, 9.15.7, ed. Mommsen; on comita-
tus: Jones, Later Roman Empire, pp. 49–50, 366–73, 459–60, 566–86.
58 On the frequency of officium nostrum in the Variae and its relationship to the conflation
of competences associated with specific offices: Morosi, “I comitiaci”, pp. 101–9; also on
officium nostrum and the comitiaci: Giardina, Cassiodoro Politico, pp. 47–71.