Showing posts with label Athalaric. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Athalaric. Show all posts

Monday, November 6, 2023

Theodoric's Mausoleum

Once Theodoric was King of Italy and essentially in charge of the Western Roman Empire, he did what he could to manage Rome as it would have been managed at the height of the Roman Emperors. He embarked on an extensive building/re-building project, restoring many buildings and refurbishing aqueducts, the Senate's Curia, and other valuable infrastructure.

To manage government services, he hired Boethius, a Roman aristocrat, Christian, and "renaissance man." Things were running smoothly enough that the Eastern Emperors during Theodoric's time let him be. After all, he was "letting Romans be Romans" with their own laws, while his Goths lived under their own customs and laws. Tolerance was practiced: when a synagogue in Ravenna was destroyed by a mob in 519, he ordered the city to rebuild it.

A new Eastern Emperor, Justin I, was less open to allowing the Western Empire to function independently. In 522, a problem with the Senate looked like a conspiracy against Theodoric, so he had his chief administrator, Boethius, and Boethius' father, Symmachus, arrested in 523. While in prison, Boethius wrote his Consolation of Philosophy. He was executed in 524.

Two years later, Theodoric died of dysentery while planning to attack the Vandals after their King Hilderic killed Theodoric's sister, Amalafrida (well, she was trying to change succession rules after her husband, the Vandal King Thrasamund, died). With no male heir, Theodoric's grandson Athalaric succeeded him; Theodoric's daughter and Athalaric's mother was regent.

Theodoric's Mausoleum (pictured above) was part of his Roman rebuilding campaign. In it, his sarcophagus consists of a porphyry tub from a Roman bath situated in the center of a second story. Made of very large stone blocks from a quarry 249 miles away, it has a roof made from a single piece of stone 33 feet in diameter. The roof alone weighs 230 tonnes (a metric tonne is 1000 kilograms or 2205 pounds). Its Gothic style is unlike Roman or Byzantine. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and is the only example of a 6th century royal tomb.

Theodoric's long reign, success in leading his people, and his management of the Western Roman Empire made him an important Germanic figure; so much so, that he lived on later as a German hero, Dietrich von Bern. Let's look at those legends tomorrow.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

The Name of the Pope

It is common practice for popes of the Roman Catholic Church to take a new name—called their regnal name—upon elevation to the Throne of Peter. They will usually offer a reason for the new name. Cardinal Albino Luciani took the names of both his immediate predecessors and called himself Pope John Paul I. When he died after a very short (33 days) reign, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla chose to honor him by taking the name Pope John Paul II upon his accession.

Pope "Mercurius"
It hasn't always been thus, however. Whereas now almost all popes take the name of a saint, early popes used their own names—names that were not always common. So you had popes named Anacletus, Evaristus, Telesphorus, Hyginus, Soter, Eleuterus, Zephyrinus and others among the more common names like Felix and Boniface and John; and they only rarely needed numbers next to their names, because the likelihood of there being more than one pope named "Anterus" or "Eutychian" or "Miltiades" was slight.

The practice of taking a new name began not to honor a predecessor, however, but to avoid an embarrassment.

After the death of Pope Boniface II in October 532, there was a two-month vacancy in the position. Part of the reason for this was a (ahem) change in the process. You see, it had become common for some candidates to ensure their election through bribes and gifts. The Roman Senate forbade this practice just before the death of Boniface. Athalaric, the King of the Ostrogoths in Italy, upheld the Senate's decision, and added his own flourish: a disputed papal election that needed to come before his court would be fined 3000 solidi (a solidi was a gold coin of 4.5 grams) and the money given to the poor.

The cardinals fell into agreement on a distinguished priest of Rome, aged about 60. He was willing to take the job, but he had one concern. His Roman parents had given him a theophoric birth name—a name that honors a god in order to impart luck and protection to a child. His name was Mercurius. Father Mercurius did not think it was appropriate for a Christian pope to bear the name of a Roman god. He decided to take the name of a pope from a decade earlier who had had a good working relationship with Athalaric's grandfather.

And so Father Mercurius became Pope John II, the first pope known to have taken a new name upon election.