Part 12 (2/2)

As for the Palace, which once occupied a large space in the eastern quarter of the city, we have seen that there is a representation of it inthat church, and facing the modern Corso Garibaldi, is a wall about five and twenty feet high, built of square brick-tiles, which has in its upper storey one large and six s on columns Only the front is ancient--it is ad behind it is modern Lon in the wall, so low that the citizens of Ravenna, in passing, brush it with their sleeves, is a bath-shaped vessel of porphyry, which in the days of archaeological ignorance used to be shown to strangers as ”the coffin of Theodoric”, but the fact is that its history and its purpose are entirely unknown

This shell of a building is called in the Ravenna Guide-books ”the Palace of Theodoric” Experts are not yet agreed on the question whether its architectural features justify us in referring it to the sixth century, though all agree that it does not belong to a ree with the representation of the _Palatium_ in the Church of S Apollinare Dentro, and if it have anything whatever to do with it, it is probably not the main front, nor even any very important feature of the spacious palace, which, as we are told by the local historians,[124] and learn from inscriptions, was surrounded with porticoes, adorned with the most precious mosaics, divided into several _triclinia_, surnificent of the king's buildings, and surrounded with pleasant and fruitful gardens, planted on ground which had been reclaimed from the morass[125] But practically alothic hero except his tomb and the three churches already described, have vanished froreat mosaic which once adorned the pediment of his palace There Theodoric stood, clad in ure representing the City of Rome, also with a spear in her hand and her head arht Ravenna see with one foot on the land and the other on the sea How this great mosaic perished is not made clear to us But there was also an equestrian statue of Theodoric raised on a pyrah

Horse and rider were both of brass, ”covered with yellow gold”, and the king here too had his buckler on his left arht, extended, pointed a lance at an invisible foe

[Footnote 123: Gally Knight (”Ecclesiastical Architecture of Italy”, i, 7) seee of Theodoric Freeman (”Historical, etc, Sketches”, p 47) expresses considerable doubt: ”The works of Theodoric are Roh undoubtedly a very early fornellus and others, as quoted by Corrado Ricci, ”Ravenna ei suoi Dintorni”, p 139 I cannot verify all Ricci's quotations, but take the result of them on his authority]

[Footnote 125: An inscription quoted by Ricci tells us this:

REX THEODORICUVS FAVENTE DEO ET BELLO GLORIOSVS ET OTIO

FABRICIIS SVIS AMNA CONIVINGENS STERILI PALVDE SICCATA HOS HORTOS SVAVI POMORVM FCVNDITATE DITAVIT]

This statue was carried off from Ravenna, probably by the Frankish Emperor Charles, to adorn his capital at Aachen, and it was still to be seen there when Agnellus wrote his ecclesiastical history of Ravenna, three hundred years after the death of Theodoric

[Illustration: COIN OF THE GOTHIC KINGDOM IN ITALY]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIII

BOTHIUS,

Clouds in the horizon--Anxiety as to the succession--Death of Eutharic, son-in-law of Theodoric--His son Athalaric proclaimed as Theodoric's heir--Pope and Emperor reconciled--Anti-Jewish riot at Ravenna--Strained relations of Theodoric and his Catholic subjects--Leaders of the Roues--Cyprian accuses Albinus of treason--Bothius, interposing, is included in the charge--His trial, condemnation, and death--The ”Consolation of Philosophy”

Hithero the career of Theodoric has been one of almost unbroken prosperity, and the reader who has followed his history has perhaps grown someeary of the monotonous repetition of the praises of his mildness and his equity Unfortunately he will be thus wearied no longer The sun of the great Ostrogoth set in sorrow, and orse than in sorrow, in deeds of hasty wrath and cruel injustice, which lost him the hearts of the majority of his subjects and which have dimmed his fair fame with posterity

Many causes co's heart, as he felt old age creeping upon him Providence had not blessed hier rival, Clovis, left four martial sons to defend (and also to partition) his newly forhter Ae with Clovis'

sister

In order to provide himself with a male heir (for the customs of the Goths did not favour, if they did not actually exclude, fenty), Theodoric su hty Her in Spain Eutharic, ell reported of for bodily vigour and for statesothic court, married Amalasuentha (515), four years afterwards received the honour of a consulshi+p, which he held along with the Eames and combats of wild beasts to the populace of Ronificence But he died, probably soon after his consulshi+p, leaving two children--a boy and a girl,--and thus Theodoric's hope of bequeathing his crown to a mature and masculine heir was disappointed Still, however, he would not propose a ferandson, Athalaric, though under ten years of age, was solemnly presented by him to an assembly of Gothic counts and the nobles of the nation as their king

The procla felt that he should shortly depart this life, probably in the summer of 526 I have mentioned it here in order to complete my statement as to the succession to the throne, but ill now return to an earlier period-to the events which i as he did froothic lords of which were still an aristocracy of bitter Arians in the midst of a cowed but Catholic Roman population, Eutharic, who, as we are expressly told, ”was too harsh and hostile to the Catholic faith”, may have to some extent swayed the mind of his father-in-laay from its calm balance of even-handed justice between the rival Churches But the state of affairs at Constantinople exercised a yet h no Arian, had during his long reign been always in an attitude of hostility towards the Papal See, was now dead, and had been succeeded by Justin This man, a soldier of fortune, who had as a lad trahlands into the capital, with a wallet of biscuit over his shoulder for his only property, had risen, by his soldierly qualities, to the position of Count of the Guards the soldiers--gold which was not his own, but had been entrusted to hi,--he won for himself the diadem, and for his nephew,[126] as it turned out, the opportunity ofhis name forever memorable in history Justin was absolutely illiterate--the story about the stencilled signature is told of him as well as of Theodoric,--but he was strictly orthodox, and his heart was set on a reconciliation with the Roman See This measure was also vieith favour by the majority of the populace of Constantinople, hom the heterodoxy of Anastasius had becootiations for a settlement of the dispute went prosperously forward

The anathemas which were insisted upon by the Roman pontiff were soon conceded, the names of Zeno, of Anastasius, and of five Patriarchs of Constantinople who had dared to dissent from the Roman See were struck out of the ”Diptychs” (or lists of thoseto her coreat schism between the Eastern and Western Churches--a schism which had lasted for thirty-five years--was ended

[Footnote 126: Justinian]

It was probably foreseen by the statesmen of Ravenna that this reconciliation between Pope and Emperor, a reconciliation which had been celebrated by the enthusiastic shout of the reat church of the Divine Wisdo trouble to Theodoric's Arian felloorshi+ppers In point of fact, however, an interval of nearly six years elapsed before any actual persecution of the Arians of the Empire was atteothic king and his Catholic subjects seems to have arisen in connection with the Jews Theodoric, on account of some fear of invasion by the barbarians beyond the Alps, elling at Verona That city, the scene of hisas it does the valley of the Adige and the road by the Brenner Pass into the Tyrol, was probably looked upon by Theodoric as the key of north-eastern Italy, and when there was any danger of invasion he preferred to hold his court there rather than in the safer but less convenient Ravenna There too he may probably have often received the ambassadors of the Northern nations, ent back to their hoothic king which made ”Dietrich of Bern” (Theodoric of Verona) a naenerations of Ger in the city of the Adige, tidings came to him, apparently froe at Ravenna, that the whole city was in an uproar The Jews, of whom there was evidently a considerable nuone another into one of the two muddy rivers of Ravenna, and also, in some way not described to us, to have mocked at the supper of the Lord[127]

The Christian populace of the city were excited to such , which neither the Gothic vicegerent, Eutharic, nor their own bishop, Peter III, was able to quell, and which did not cease till all the Jewish synagogues of the city were laid in ashes

[Footnote 127: The passage of the ”Anonymus Valesii” which describes these events is so corrupt that it is hardly possible to make sense of it]