118  

conquered Italy between 489 and 493, and the army of Italy as it
stood in 526.88
Amory is quite right that substantial numbers of Italo-Romans—
i.e. non Goths—are found in the sources serving the Ostrogothic
regime in a variety of military capacities. What he does not explore,
however, is the categorisation of the troops involved. Some Italo-
Romans do seem to have served with Gothic field armies on cam-
paign. The famous case of the two brothers Cyprianus and Opilio,
who participated in the capture of Sirmium from the Gepids, learned
Gothic, and played a prominent role in the downfall of Boethius in
the 520s is a straightforward case in point. The career of Cyprianus’
sons seems to have followed a similar trajectory. The vast majority
of militarised Italo-Romans encountered in both the Variae and
Procopius’ Gothic War, however, consist of local defense forces. Such,
seemingly, was the nature of the forces commanded by Servatus in
Raetia and Ursus in Noricum, and the detailed narrative of the
Gothic War makes a consistent distinction between the Gothic field
army and local defence forces with primarily garrison responsibili-
ties.89 While there was clearly no absolute boundary preventing Italo-
Romans from serving on particular campaigns, we have no evidence
that this happened on any substantial scale, or that such service
entailed the individuals concerned being accepted into the field
army of the kingdom in regular fashion and qualifying for annual
donatives.
In particular, there is nothing in the Gothic War to suggest either
that large numbers of Roman landowners served with militarized
contingents of their dependents, as seems to have happened in the
Visigothic kingdom of the early sixth century,90 or that the Ostrogoths
drafted into their field armies contingents—again consisting of land-
owners and their dependents—organized corporately on the basis of

88
Amory, People and Identity, pp. 93–5.
89
Servatus: Cassiodorus, Variae 1,10. Ursus is known from dedicatory inscriptions
to a Catholic Church in Noricum: Wolfram, Goths, pp. 292–3 with n. 397. In his
prosopography, Amory categorises both as Goths because they were military men,
but the former in particular is said to have led limitanei (i.e. inferior quality troops),
and I would interpret this—after Wolfram, Goths, pp. 316–7—to mean forces that
did not form part of the Gothic field army. Amory would not recognise that such
forces existed, but see below.
90
At least at the battle of Vouillé: Gregory of Tours Historiae 2,37, ed. B. Krusch
and W. Levison, MGH SSrM 1,1 (2nd edn., Hannover 1951).
   119

civitates. The latter was certainly happening in the Frankish and Visigothic
kingdoms from the middle of the sixth century.91 In the Ostrogothic
kingdom, townsmen were generally responsible—if often only in
alliance with Gothic or East Roman troops—for defending city walls,
but these units are never recorded fighting outside their walls, and
it is unclear that these forces encompassed landowners from the sur-
rounding dependent territory (the situation later among the Franks
and Visigoths) as well as actual townsfolk. I suspect, therefore, that
rather than representative of a general trend in recruiting, Cyprian
and his brother were individual volunteers seeking favour and polit-
ical promotion by serving on a particular campaign. This—rather
than the more organized conscription which followed later—may
also have been the basis on which some Roman landowners found
themselves on the losing side at Vouillé. The sources also preserve
some contradictory accounts of what happened to the military estab-
lishment of Odovacar, with one reporting that they were simply mas-
sacred. A total massacre is surely unlikely, but one can well imagine
that key elements loyal to Odovacar, cut in half by Theoderic at a
dinner party, would have been purged for the threat they would
otherwise pose to the new regime. A former bodyguard of Aetius,
it might be recalled, was responsible for the eventual assassination
of the Emperor Valentinian III, about six months after the latter
had killed his former master.92
Even if there was no absolute barrier, therefore, there is no good
evidence that Theoderic’s propaganda was substantially misleading
in its account of a functional distinction which would necessarily
have preserved a continuing sense of corporate identity among the
Gothic immigrants. Indeed, some of the institutional arrangements
surrounding military service both explain why such a boundary existed
and how it was maintained once the settlement process had dis-
persed Theoderic’s following (in so far as it did: see above). According
to Procopius, all male Goths of military age received an annual

91
Gregory of Tours, Historiae 4,30, shows that the civitas contingents in Merovingian
Gaul consisted of local Gallo-Romans; for a survey of the evidence more generally,
see B.S. Bachrach, Merovingian Military Organisation 481–751 (Minneapolis 1972) pp.
66 ff. For Visigothic Spain, see e.g. Leges Visigothorum antiquiores 9,2, ed. K. Zeumer,
MGH Fontes iuris Germanici antiqui 5 (Hannover 1894) (within which chapter,
laws 8–9 make clear that military obligations fell on Hispano-Romans).
92
Aetius was murdered on 21 or 22 September 453, Valentinian III on 16 March
454.
120  

donative in return for which they held themselves ready for military
service.93 The sources do not make it explicit how this was admin-
istered, but the money was paid out from Ravenna, at the centre
as it were, so that it is extremely likely that some kind of register
was kept of all Goths entitled to payments. Retirement from the
army involved losing the donative, and, in the one specific case for
which we have evidence, an honourable discharge was granted in
writing to the vir sublimis Starcedius.94 Whether this represents gen-
eral practice is unclear, but a centrally organized distribution of
annual payments would certainly have involved keeping a register.95
Control of such a register represented an important lever of power
in royal hands, but also had a communal dimension. The Variae col-
lection preserves one order to the Goths of Samnium and Picenum
to assemble in Ravenna as a body to receive their donatives. This
gave Theoderic the chance, as the letter declares, to investigate the
martial vigour of each individual.96 But if this was done on an annual
basis, and the many references in the Getica to “annual gifts” sug-
gest that it may well have been, then, even when not campaigning,
there will have been an annual occasion where the Gothic soldiery
of particular regions met up with one another. This will obviously
have maintained mutual recognition and sustained senses of corpo-
rate belonging.
In the highly competitive post-Roman world of western Europe,
which saw successor kingdoms seek to establish and extend frontiers,
where previously there had been none, the premium was very much
on military service. Not surprisingly, therefore, the descendants of
Roman landowners quickly began to change career paths towards

93
Procopius, Wars 5,12,47–8.
94
Cassiodorus, Variae 5,36.
95
The need to declare to which kingdom’s register one would henceforth belong
may well explain why, on the death of Theoderic when the two kingdoms were
divided again, individual Goths about whom there was any confusion had to declare
whether they would henceforth be Visigoths or Ostrogoths: Procopius, Wars 5,13,7–8.
96
Cassiodorus, Variae 5,26–7. The letters have occasioned debate. First, they sum-
mon so-called millenarii, who, in the Visigothic kingdom, were officers commanding
one thousand men. Hence some, despite their obvious sense, have thought that they
summoned only a few Goths. See, however, W. Ensslin, Theoderich der Große (Munich
1947) pp. 195–6. Second, Goffart, Barbarians and Romans, pp. 82–8, argued that they
concerned the distribution of tax shares by which all Goths—he supposes—were
supported in Italy. Again, the letters quite specifically refer only to serving soldiers:
Barnish, “Taxation”, pp. 181–3.
   121

the military service which successor state kings so needed, and were
hence likely to reward. For Ostrogothic Italy, however, there is no
evidence that this was already happening in an organized and gen-
eral fashion. All we have are one or two individuals who did cam-
paign, and no certain evidence that even these graduated to full field
army status with an annual donative. Rather, it would seem that the
sub-Roman population was largely limited to defensive garrison duties
in its home cities, while field army service, with its annual donative,
remained a privilege of Theoderic’s original followers and their descen-
dants, the youngsters of the new generations no doubt being intro-
duced to their older peers at pre-campaign musters, and in the
donative assemblies.97
The arrangements established for the practical settlement of legal
disputes in Italy also suggest, first, that there was a real difference
between how Theoderic’s followers dealt with such matters and the
mechanisms of the native Italo-Roman population, and, second, that
these differences survived for some time after the initial settlement.
As we have seen, it was an ideological conceit of Theoderic’s regime
that it preserved the existing, divinely-established, Roman order in
all matters, a key element of which was legal affairs. Roman law,
as we have seen, was the great symbol of society functioning on a
civilized, rational basis, rather than in the barbarian mode where
“might equals right”. In practice, Theoderic was clearly aware, despite
ideologically driven statements, that Romans and Goths were now
both living under Roman law, that special legal arrangements had
to be made. The administration of justice was one of the major tasks
of all the administrative officers Theoderic appointed at different lev-
els through the kingdom. Most were “counts”—comites (sing. comes)—
but had varying competences; some controlled individual cities, some
provinces, and others particular groupings of Goths. The formulae for
appointing these counts preserved in the Variae collection consistently
make the point that cases involving just Romans were to be han-
dled by Roman officials, while the Gothic officers were to handle
inter-Gothic disputes. Cases involving both Goths and Romans were
to be handled by a pair of judges, the Gothic count and his Roman
counterpart.98 Nothing could make it clearer that Theoderic was

97
In texts such as Cassiodorus, Variae 1,38, Gothic iuvenes are sometimes picked
out by Theoderic as a specific group.
98
Cassiodorus, Variae, especially 6,22–3; 7,1–4; 9–16 etc. (all separate letters
122  

expecting that the legal integration of Italo-Romans and incoming

Goths would not be straightforward: in other words, that the latter
had their own ways of doing things. What these ways were, is unfor-
tunately not illustrated anywhere in any detail. For ideological rea-
sons, Theoderic deliberately avoided issuing the kind of lawcode
which, in the cases of other western successor states, has given us
some idea of how dispute settlement might have worked.99 It has
recently been suggested that Theoderic’s legal arrangements should
not be taken as a sign that his followers operated any particularly
“Gothic” legal mechanisms. As was rightly pointed out, the old
Roman army had its own courts and operated separately, in legal
terms, from the surrounding civilian population.100 The details of the
arrangements in Ostrogothic Italy make it clear, however, that we
are dealing with a different situation. Gothic cases were judged by
Gothic officials, for instance, whether the individual was liable for
military service or not; in other words, Goths were Goths through-
out their lives, and not just when they were part of the army.101 In
my view, therefore, it is extremely likely that Theoderic’s followers,
with a continuous history of Gothicness stretching back over their
time in the Balkans, were used to operating with wergilds, feuds, kin
groups and some of the other basic legal mechanisms which appear
in the lawcodes of other successor states.
At the very least, certain prominent Goths clearly exercised such
a degree of social patronage that the successful implementation of
decisions affecting one of their subordinates required their active
assistance. One royal lady, Theodagunda, was warned to show prompt
obedience to the king’s commands in regards to such a legal case,102
and one particularly intractable dispute was even transferred to Theo-
deric’s nephew Theodahad, perhaps because he had more influence
over the people involved than the king himself.103 The arrival of

mentioning the importance of using two judges, one Roman one Goth, for “mixed”
cases).
99
Although, as Patrick Wormald amongst others has rightly cautioned, lawcodes
can never be read as a straightforward account of actual practice. See, e.g, id., “Lex
Scripta and Verbum Regis: Legislation and Germanic Kingship, from Euric to Cnut”,
Early Medieval Kingship, ed. P.H. Sawyer and I.N. Wood (Leeds 1977) pp. 105–38.
100
Amory, People and Identity, pp. 151–65.
101
Cassiodorus, Variae 5,29.
102
Ibid. 4,37.
103
Ibid. 3,15.
   123

the Goths in Italy thus posed some serious practical legal problems,
and Theoderic took appropriate steps.
Internal political structures among Theoderic’s followers likewise
acted to preserve some continuity of old identities, and hence sepa-
ration from local Italo-Romans. An interesting case in point is pro-
vided by those Rugi who, as we have seen, joined Theoderic (under
the leadership of their prince Fredericus) only just before the trek
from the Balkans began in 487. As late as 541, they were still
identifiable as a separate component of the non-Roman population
of Italy, having refused intermarriage not only with the latter but
with any of Theoderic’s other immigrant followers. They also still
had their own sub-leader, one Eraric.104 For this to have been pos-
sible over the two generations separating their first settlement in Italy
and Procopius’ report of them, it seems extremely likely that the
Rugi must have been settled in one cluster, perhaps at some dis-
tance from other elements of Theoderic’s Ostrogoths (precisely where
cannot be recovered).105 The Rugi are obviously a particular case,
but there is no reason to think them unique as a segment of Theoderic’s
following both in having a pre-existing identity and structure, beyond
their membership of the overall group, and in being settled in a
manner which preserved it. It is quite clear, first of all, that local,
semi-autonomous political structures existed within the Ostrogoths
after the Italian settlement. The narrative of the Byzantine conquest
throws up several leaders with local powerbases, which were not
under close royal control. Early on, one Pitzas surrendered with
“half ” of the Goths settled in the region of Samnium.106 These men
seem to have been loyal to Pitzas first, and the monarchy only sec-
ond. Likewise, after Wittigis’ surrender, which initially encompassed
most of the Goths, one group in Venetia, under the leadership of
Ildebad, refused to give in.107 In similar vein, at least some of the
Goths of the Cottian Alps followed the advice of Sisigis (comman-
der of the military garrisons of the region) even when this conflicted
with royal commands.108 Some further light on this phenomenon is

104
Procopius Wars 7,2,1 ff.
105
So too Bierbrauer, Die Ostgotischen Grab- und Schatzfunde, pp. 26–7.
106
Procopius, Wars 5,15,1–2. See on this Wolfram, Goths, p. 502 n. 223: this
Pitzas was not the victor of the Gepid war.
107
Procopius, Wars 6,29,41; 7,1,25 ff.
108
Ibid. 6,28,28 ff.
124  

also shed by one of the Variae. This letter records that the Goths of
Rieti and Nursia in central Italy had decided that their choice of
local leader (labeled a prior) was to be a certain Quidila son of Sibia.
This choice had been accepted by Theoderic who died almost imme-
diately, and hence a further confirmation needed to be extracted
from the king’s grandson and successor, Athalaric.109 These Goths
thus chose their own local leader (how is not specified), but had to
consult the king and obtain his approval. If we can generalise from
this unique exchange, and there is no reason to suppose that we
cannot, this illustrates the existence of a clear balance of power in
post-settlement Gothic politics. The king surely had a veto, but local
Gothic communities had at least semi-autonomous political life around
their own leaders. The existence of leaders of this type, and of the
processes by which they were appointed, not only explains the semi-
autonomous powerbases which turn up in the war narrative, of
course, but would also, once again, have served to keep post-settle-
ment Gothic communities to some extent separate from the local
Italo-Roman societies in which they were otherwise implanted.110
Indeed, although the point should not be overstressed, some of
these post-settlement political structures were probably the direct
descendants of much older ones. This is obviously true of the Rugi,
whose sense of communal identity drew heavily on a history of asso-
ciation which went back at the very least to the independent king-
dom they established on the fringes of Noricum after the death of
Attila (453), and, in some way, beyond.111 This is the best docu-
mented example, but, again, it was not necessarily unique. Not all
pre-existing identities and leaderships were destroyed even when other
Goths joined the Amal bandwagon. After resigning his claims to

109
Cassiodorus, Variae 8,26.
110
It has been argued that the title prior in Cassiodorus, Variae 8,26, is simply an
alternative for that of comes Gothorum (“Count of the Goths”), for whom a general
formula of appointment also exists in the Variae collection (7,3): Ensslin, Theoderich,
pp. 197–8. This may be, and certainly the fact that Cassiodorus drafted a general
letter for their appointment suggests that the Gothic comes was a common enough
office.
111
For an introduction to the Rugi and other groups of the “Attilareich”, see
W. Pohl, “Die Gepiden und die Gentes an der mittleren Donau nach dem Zerfall
des Attilareiches”, Die Völker an der mittleren und unteren Donau im fünften und sechsten
Jahrhundert, ed. H. Wolfram and F. Daim, Denkschriften der Österreichischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse 145 (Vienna 1980)
pp. 239–305.
   125

independence in the favour of the Amal Valamer, for instance,

Gensemund continued to lead an at least semi-independent military
force on the former’s behalf.112 And while there is no explicit evi-
dence to this effect, it seems extremely unlikely that intermediate
leadership structures among the Thracian Goths who attached them-
selves to Theoderic in 483/4 were all overturned (even though their
ruling dynasty, of course, had to be exterminated). New political
stars waxed and waned in the new circumstances created by the
Goths’ settlement in Italy, and this is only to be expected.113 None-
theless, it would clearly be wrong simply to assume that there was
no continuity from the past. Either way, the existence of local Gothic
communities with their own leaders, their own means of appointing
these leaders, and their own ties to the king, clearly allowed for the
preservation of a sense of difference among these groups, even though
the settlement had now inserted them into the middle of a whole
series of local Italo-Roman societies.
At least one further element of cultural baggage—religious per-
suasion—would also seem to have acted to preserve senses of differ-
ence between immigrants and local Italo-Romans. It has long been
assumed that, by and large, the Goths held to a non- (or rather pre-)
Nicene version of Christianity which argued that the Divine Son
should be viewed as “like” the Divine Father rather than “of the
same essence” as the Council of Nicaea had asserted in 325 and the
Council of Constantinople in 381 eventually definitively maintained.
This version of Christianity is often mistakenly called “Arianism”. In
reality, it represents an older stratum in the evolution of Christian
belief, which was transmitted, it is held, to the Goths by the fourth-
century missionary Ulfilas, complete with the associated baggage
of a Gothic translation of the Bible and Christian service books.
Although as Roman in origin as the Nicene Creed, by the sixth cen-
tury, adherence to “Homoean” (from the Greek word for “like”)
Christianity, expressed through religious books in Gothic translation,
could thus serve as another boundary to the assimilation of Goth

112
Cassiodorus, Variae 8,9, with Jordanes, Getica 48,246; the illustration works
only if the historical reinterpretation of the latter passage offered in Heather,
“Cassiodorus”, is accepted.
113
The classic illustration is Theudis, who went from his youth at Theoderic’s
court eventually to become first a dominating figure and then actually king in
Visigothic Spain: Heather, “Theoderic”, p. 157.
126  

and Italo-Roman after the establishment of the Italian kingdom. This

traditional view of the importance of religious difference in the king-
dom has, however, recently been challenged on two main grounds.
First, it has been argued, there was nothing specifically Gothic about
Homoean Christianity even by the sixth century. Rather, commu-
nities of such believers had had a continuous history in both the
Roman Balkans and Roman Italy since the fourth century. What
happened in practice was that the Homoean Church of Italy rein-
vented itself as a more specifically Gothic Church in order to attract
the patronage of Theoderic, who just happened to share the same
Creed. Second, if one actually looks at documented religious affiliations,
then a “surprisingly high” number of Catholic Goths appear. Taken
together, these two arguments reverse traditional views on the impor-
tance of different religious affiliations to a continued separation be-
tween Goths and Italo-Romans in the Ostrogothic kingdom.114 Both,
however, are deeply flawed.
To start with, while the continued existence of Homoean com-
munities in the Roman Balkans can be documented into the early
fifth century, there is no evidence for them at a later date. Likewise,
while individual Homoeans are known in Italy in the course of the
fifth century (all soldiers and military commanders of Germanic ori-
gin), no organized Homoean (“Arian”) Church with clergy and build-
ings is documented in Italy between the rise of Ambrose’s dominance
in the 380s and Theoderic’s programme of church construction from
the 490s onwards. The Homoean resurgence in early sixth-century Italy,
therefore, must be linked to the arrival of Theoderic’s Ostrogoths.115
A closer look at the prosopographical evidence also undermines
claims that the evidence throws up a “surprisingly high” number of
Catholic Goths. Table 8 of Amory’s prosopographical appendix com-
piles a list of some “46 named possible Catholics with some other
definite attested criterion of Gothic identity”. The figure is worth a
closer look, because very few of the individuals belong to the time
of Theoderic and the “Gothicness” of others is very much open to

114
Amory, People and Identity, pp. 237 ff. (the Homoean Church in Italy); pp.
476–7 (Catholic Goths = Table 8 of the prosopographical appendix). The com-
ment on the numbers (“surprisingly high”) is taken from p. 465.
115
I follow here the authoritative response to Amory’s arguments offered by
Robert Markus (“Review of P. Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy”, Journal
of Theological Studies ns 49 [1998] pp. 414–7).
   127

question. It includes the names of nine converts from Arianism, eight

of whom, according to Amory’s own arguments, may well have con-
verted only in the later stages of the war to keep their lands; i.e.,
as far as we can tell, left to their own devices, they would have hap-
pily remained Arians.116 They can certainly not be taken as exam-
ples of Catholic Goths from the time of Theoderic. Another six
names occur in inscriptions of very uncertain date, which might have
been erected either before Theoderic came to Italy (Fravita, Mustila),
or only after Byzantine pressure made conversion politic (Guntelda,
Basilius, Guntio—all three on the one inscription—and Manifrit). A
more conservative approach, less determined to find Catholic Goths,
would not be so sure that these should be included either. Another
group of three from Ravenna (named in P. Ital. 30) are held to be
Catholics, because a Catholic banker witnessed their deed in 539.
Making these three Catholics certainly involves another substantial
assumption. Popes Boniface II and Pelagius II, together with their
fathers, Sigibuldus and Uniguldus, also appear, because the fathers
had Germanic names. We can take it that the popes were indeed
Catholic, and that their fathers were of Germanic origins, but no
source either labels them or their fathers Goths, as we might expect
in an Italian context had they been so. Definitely not Gothic, or not
Ostrogothic at least, are Bessas (a Byzantine Goth), Asbadus (a Gepid),
and Cyprianus (a Roman). The list similarly contains two eunuch
chamberlains (Seda and Senarius) who can safely be taken as not
part of the Gothic inner military elite, and a vir inluster Meribaudes
who, even according to Amory, is perhaps better attributed to the
well-known fifth-century, originally Frankish then senatorial family.
I would also count as Roman Ursus, the commander of local forces
in Raetia (see above), and his wife Ursina, while Amory himself has
various reservations about the Catholicity of another six (Simplex-
Lavinia, Erdui, Trasimundus, Gundeberga-Nonnica, Montanus, and
the princess Ostrogotho-Areagni). The “surprisingly high” number
of forty-six thus quickly reduces itself to eleven, or fourteen if we
think that using a Catholic banker in Ravenna in 539 is a good sign
of religious affiliation. Not even all of these are entirely convincing.

116
The princess Matasuentha taken to Constantinople in 540, and those appear-
ing in P. Ital. 13 and 49: Sitza, Gundila, Aderit, Ademunt-Andreas, Felithanc,
Ranilo, Eusebius-Riccitanc.