AMALASUNTHA or AMALASUENTHA, queen of the Ostrogoths (d.
535), daughter of
Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, was
married in 515 to Eutharic, an Ostrogoth of the old Areal
line, who had previously been living in Spain. Her husband
died, apparently in the early years of her marriage, leaving
her with two children, Athalaric and Matasuentha. On the
death of her father in 526, she succeeded him, acting as
regent for her son, but being herself deeply imbued with the
old Roman culture, she gave to that son's education a more
refined and literary turn than suited the ideas of her Gothic
subjects. Conscious of her unpopularity she banished, and
afterwards put to death, three Gothic nobles whom she suspected
of intriguing against her rule, and at the same time opened
negotiations with the emperor Justinian with the view of
removing herself and the Gothic treasure to Constantinople.
Her son's death in 534 made but little change in the posture of
affairs. Amalasuntha, now queen, with a view of strengthening
her position, made her cousin Theodahad partner of her throne
(not, as sometimes stated, her husband, for his wife was
still living). The choice was unfortunate. Theodahad,
notwithstanding a varnish of literary culture, was a coward
and a scoundrel. He fostered the disaffection of the Goths,
and either by his orders or with his permission, Amalasuntha
was imprisoned on an island in the Tuscan lake of Bolsena,
where in the spring of 535 she was murdered in her bath.
The letters of Cassiodorus, chief minister and literary adviser of
Amalasuntha, and the histories of Procopius and Jordanea, give
us our chief information as to the character of Amalasuntha.
This article is from the 1911 edition of an
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public domain and you may copy, download, print and distribute this work
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