Theoderic in Italy (review)

160 Reviews writings demonstrated Scotist themes and arguments and supported the realists against the nominalists, while his largest extant philosophical work, De artificio omnis et investigandi et inveniendi natura scibilis, claimed establish the method of discovering everything that is knowable naturally. His more mundane works supported papal power, both spiritual and temporal, defended the lavish lifestyle of cardinals, and justified his own financial privileges as a Papal subdeacon. He died in 1486 and has an enormous tomb in the cloister of S. Maria di Montserrat on the via Giulia. A. Lynn Martin Department of History The University of Adelaide Moorhead, John, Theoderic in Italy, Oxford, Clarendon, 1992; cloth; pp. viii, 300; R.R.P. A U S $ 100.00. King Theoderic the Ostrogoth, who ruled in Italy from 493-526, has had a very good press: from the anonymous sixth-century Italian source which states that for thirty of these years he did nothing wrong ('Nihil enim perperam gessit'), to the medieval Germanic tradition (wherein Dietrich von Bern was equated to Theoderic of Verona, one of his capitals), and to this book, which concludes that 'his achievement was immense' (pp. 251 and 256). Above all, in Theoderic's reign Italy knew peace. When his Gothic forces, which sometimes had Roman commanders, fought beyond Italy, they generally won. He maintained the Roman system of government, bureaucracy, and taxation and legislated for the Goths. 'Edictum suum, quo ius constituit', in the source quoted previously, might be pushed even harder in attributing the Edict of Theoderic to him (p. 76). He supported drainage of the Pontine Marshes and, if there had been trains to be made to run on time, he would have done his best. The Roman equivalent, the public post, continued to function in his time. As Moorhead twice says in his conclusion, when Theoderic's reign looked backwards to antiquity, it did not do so across a gap. Several factors combine to make the appearance of John Moorhead's book very welcome. Until comparatively recently, reading on early medieval Italy for students was limited to BuUough's chapter in The Dark Ages (London, 1965). The dearth of English-language reading began to be remedied only in the 1980s. But there remains plenty of room for studies with a narrower focus than, say, Wickham's excellent Early medieval Italy, Reviews 161 which has only a few pages on Theoderic, and a broader one than the now numerous articles. Attention of m o d e m historians to Theoderic's Italy is especiahy warranted by therichnessof the primary source material available for it. There is, for example, a Latin panegyric on Theoderic, of which an English translation is much to be desired. One might be added as an Appendix III to a revised edition of this book, in order to facilitate comparison to those onfifth-centuryWestern Roman emperors, and thereby to trace ideological developments. For Italy, there is, unfortunately, no equivalent of Gregory of Tours as an engaged historian, nor of the extensive letters of Sidonius Apollinaris, but Moorhead brings in such comparative material in a useful way. As the recent translator of Victor of Vita's History ofthe Vandal persecution, which provides evidence of another very different Arian Germanic sub-Roman kingdom to compare with Theoderic's Italy, Moorhead is particularly weU qualified for his subject. Theoderic in Italy is an interesting subject perhaps especially in an Australian context, because it is concerned with a multicultural society, even in the sense of government policy. Both Gothic and Roman cultural identity was preserved in law and religion, ideology and function. This theme is stressed throughout the book and it is fascinating to read that conversion from Arianism to Catholicism was a very touchy point, as it was also in Vandal Africa. Moorhead has produced an exceptionally well-informed book, the product of diligence and, surely, patience. It is not a book that can be read quickly, and is presumably not intended to be, if one is to profit by its scholarly coverage. It has a certain ingenuousness. O n p. 27 Theoderic's murder of Odoacer is disapproved of, while on pp. 97-100 his toleration of the Jews is approved of...