Res Gestae

After this, while Theodoric was remaining at Verona through fear of the neighbouring peoples, strife arose between the Christians and the Jews of the city of Ravenna; accordingly the Jews, being unwilling to be baptised, often in sport threw the holy water that was offered to them into the water of the river. Because of this the people were fired with anger, and without respect for the king, for Eutharicus, or for Peter, who was bishop at the time, they rose against the synagogues and presently set them on fire. And this same thing happened in a similar affair at Rome.

Presently the Jews hastened to Verona, where the king was, and there the head-chamberlain Triwane acted on their behalf; he, too, as a heretic favoured the Jews, and cajoled the king into taking action against the Christians. Accordingly Theodoric, on the presumption that they had resorted to arson, presently gave orders that the whole Roman[*](The Gothic population was not included, since they had taken no part in the burning.) population should furnish money for the rebuilding of the

Shortly after that the devil found an opportunity to steal for his own a man who was ruling the state well and without complaint. For presently Theodoric gave orders that an oratory of St. Stephen, that is, a high altar, beside the springs in a suburb of the city of Verona, should be destroyed. He also forbade any Roman to carry arms, except a small pen-knife.

Also a poor woman of the Gothic race, lying in a colonnade not far from the palace at Ravenna, gave birth to four snakes; two of these in the sight of the people were carried up on clouds from west to east and then fell into the sea; the two others, which had but a single head, were taken away. A star with a train of fire appeared, of the kind called a comet,[*](See Amm. xxv. 10, 2 ff.) and shone for fifteen days. There were frequent earthquakes.

After this the king began from time to time, when he found an opportunity, to vent his rage upon the Romans. Cyprianus, who was then a referee,[*](See Index II, Vol. I.) afterwards count of the privy purse and a master,[*](Perhaps magister mititm. ) was led by avarice to make a charge against the patrician Albinus, to the effect that he had sent to the emperor Justinus a letter hostile to Theodoric’s rule. When Albinus was summoned

Then Cyprianus, after some hesitation, produced false witnesses, not only against Albinus, but against his defender Boethius. Moreover, the king was plotting evil against the Romans and seeking an opportunity for killing them; hence he trusted the false witnesses rather than the senators.

Then Albinus and Boethius were imprisoned in the baptistery of a church. And the king summoned Eusebius, prefect of the city, to Ticinum, and pronounced sentence on Boethius without giving him a hearing. Presently at the Calventian estate,[*](Apparently named from an otherwise unrecorded CCalventius, modern Calvenzeno.) where Boethius was confined,[*](The sentence of death had been changed to exile.) he had him put to a wretched death. He was tortured for a long time with a cord bound about his forehead so tightly that his eyes cracked in their sockets, and finally, while under torture, he was beaten to death with a cudgel.

Then the king, on his return to Ravenna, acted no longer as a friend of God, but as an enemy to His law; forgetful of all His kindness and of the favour which He had shown him, trusting to his own arm, believing, too, that the emperor Justinus stood in great fear of him, he sent and summoned to Ravenna Johannes,[*](The first Roman pope of that name, successor to Hormisdas.) who at that time sat upon the apostolic throne, and said to him: Go to the emperor Justinus in Constantinople, and tell him

To him the Pope Johannes replied: What you will do, O king, do quickly. Lo! here I stand before you. But this thing I will not promise you to do, nor will I give the emperor your command. But anything else which you may enjoin upon me with God’s help I shall be able to obtain from him.

Thereupon the king in anger gave orders that a ship should be built, and that Johannes should be embarked on it with the other bishops; that is, Ecclesius of Ravenna, Eusebius of Fanum Fortunae,[*](On the Metaurus river, in Umbria; cf. Tac., Hist. iii. 50. Also called Fanum, Caes., B.C. i. 11, 4 (modern Fano) and Colonia Julia Fanestris; cf. Mela, ii. 4, 64; Dessau, Inscrr. 6651, 6652; C.I.L. xi, 6238, 6240.) Sabinus of Campania, and two others; and with them the senators Theodorus, Importunus, and Agapitus, with another Agapitus. But God, who does not desert his faithful worshippers, conducted them in safety.

The emperor Justinus received the Roman bishop on his arrival as he would have received Saint Peter, gave him audience, and promised that he would do everything that was asked, except that those who had become reconciled and returned to the Catholic faith could by no means be restored to the Arians.[*](See note 1.)

But while all this was going on, Symmachus, the head of the senate, whose daughter Boethius had married, was brought from Rome to Ravenna. There the king, fearing that through resentment at the death of his son-in-law,[*](Boethius; see 85–87, above.) Symmachus might take some step in opposition to his rule, ordered him

Then Pope Johannes returned from Justinus; Theodoric received him in a hostile spirit, and ordered him to be deemed as one of his enemies; a few days later Johannes died. When the people were marching before his dead body, suddenly one of the crowd was possessed by a devil and fell down; but when they had come, with the coffin in which Johannes was carried, to the place where the stricken man lay, he suddenly got up sound and well and took his place in the front of the funeral procession. When the people and the senators beheld this, they began to take relics[*](Cf. Amm. xxii. 11, 10.) from the Pope’s garments. Then the body was escorted out of the city attended by the great rejoicing of the people.