What makes someone great? There is no standard metric for greatness, and the appellation “the Great” often comes with its share of controversy. Many of the names to which it has been attached—Peter, Herod, Charlemagne—are today associated with moral qualities we no longer admire. Others were called great in their own time, but saw the title disappear as their relevance to future generations waned. And even if we restrict our focus to the extent of a leader’s historical impact, the question remains complicated. For example, history has granted “the Great” title to Theoderic (also called Theodoric, 454–526), the king of the Ostrogroths, but do his accomplishments really merit this moniker? Hans-Ulrich Wiemer’s Theoderic the Great: King of Goths, Ruler of Romans helps us answer this question.
To understand Theoderic, one must understand his people. After the dissolution of Atilla the Hun’s empire, a cluster of Gothic tribes sought land in the Eastern Roman Empire, where they came to be known as the Ostrogoths, meaning eastern Goths. Raiding Goths had scourged the fledgling empire throughout the third and fourth centuries, but in the fifth century a number of these tribes unified under King Valamir (420–65)—Theoderic’s uncle—and entered a foedus (alliance treaty) with the empire. Under this agreement, the Ostrogoths were obligated to send troops to aid the empire in its wars and received payments and land in return.
Valamir was succeeded by his brother, Thiudimir, who sent his son Theoderic as a hostage to Constantinople in 461, a diplomatic practice not uncommon at the time. The young prince spent ten years in the largest and most cosmopolitan city in the Mediterranean. He learned Latin and some Greek, as well as the workings of the imperial court. This courtly education didn’t soften him in the least, however: on returning to the Ostrogoths at seventeen, Theoderic wasted no time in raising an army against a steppe tribe, the Sarmatians. He captured their city, killed their king with his own hands, and claimed his right over their lands. This success was vital in securing Theoderic’s right to the Ostrogothic throne. Though his father was the king, this provided no guarantee that Theoderic would succeed him: Wiemer describes the Goths as a “community of violence” in which social hierarchy depended on one’s ability to exercise violence effectively. Theoderic’s abilities as a warrior and leader in battle earned him the kingship after his father died in 474.
The new king spent the first decade of his rule haggling over land and subsidies with Emperor Zeno. Theoderic’s star rose and fell repeatedly as Zeno juggled relationships with the various migratory tribes whose military might he both feared and had become dependent on. The emperor made Theoderic a commander over Roman armies in 483, but their relationship soured again thereafter. In 486, after years of failing to arrange concessions from the emperor, Theoderic began ravaging Eastern Roman lands. Then, in 487, he marched his troops to the gates of Constantinople itself. He blockaded the city and soon prevailed over Zeno. The two made peace and agreed that Theoderic would lead his armies west to retake Italy from the Germanic king Odoacer.
Theoderic’s armies brought their families and homes with them, as was the custom of the Goths. They fought their way to Italy and contended with Odoacer’s armies for years. A peace was made when Theoderic besieged Ravenna in 493, and a banquet was organized to celebrate the new treaty. Theoderic took the opportunity to toast his new ally, and then picked up his sword and hewed Odoacer in two. So concluded the quest he’d set out on so many years before.
Theoderic had no shortage of challenges after his great victory, however. The Italian countryside and her people were left devastated by years of war. His army had suffered heavily from the burden of the journey and years of combat. He found himself ruling a land with a unique and complex social and political hierarchy, a culture he had to merge with that of the thousands of Ostrogoths who had settled with him. Herein lies the strength of Wiemer’s work: he illuminates the complex Roman-Gothic society that sprang up and expertly examines the complex challenges Theoderic faced and how he dealt with them, from the minutiae of land management and tax harvesting to the intricate interactions of senatorial elites in Rome. Wiemer weaves this rich tapestry deftly, and John Noël Dillon renders it into a readable English translation.
Wiemer looks in depth at Theoderic’s failures too, especially the king’s inability to create diplomatic relationships with the Gothic kingdoms that surrounded him and his failure to resolve finally the tensions with the Eastern Roman Empire. Still, the decades that Theoderic ruled were some of the most peaceful Italy had seen and did see for many years. Wiemer explains that Theoderic was able to achieve this by building a two-state system wherein Goths and Romans were seen as separate equals. The author argues that Theoderic
successfully persuaded the power brokers of this conquered land to cooperate by recognizing their privileges and conferring important tasks and offices on them. He made the state apparatus serve his purposes and, in this way, created a dual state in which the civil administration was run by Romans while the military was the Goths’ business.
Whether that system was inheritable or if its structure of division was doomed to failure is hard to say. The invading Roman armies a few years after Theoderic’s death dismantled the Ostrogothic kingdom long before it could become a dynasty.
The magnitude of Theoderic’s accomplishments—both civil and martial—is truly impressive. But does he still deserve to be called “the Great” in our times? In Wiemer’s final estimation, perhaps not: “He does not . . . belong among the ranks of those whose actions reverberated for whole centuries.” But he is also quick to add that Theoderic had a major impact on the post-Roman West and long lived on in the minds of future poets and kings.