Theodoricus (3) (Theodericus), the Ostrogoth, king in Italy. The
second is the spelling of all inscriptions (Mommsen, Jordanes, 144). He was
the son of Thiudimer by his concubine Erelieva, and was born probably in 454. His father was the second brother of Valamir, king of the Ostrogoths, Vidimer being the third. The three lived in amity, occupying N. Pannonia, the part of the tribe under Thiudimer being settled near Lake Pelso at Theodoric's birth. He succeeded his father in 474 or 475 and assisted in 477 in Zeno's restoration. In 487 Zeno induced Theodoric to undertake an expedition to Italy for the purpose of overthrowing Odoacer. Theodoric willingly consented; his people, who in the course of their wanderings had mostly settled in Lower Moesia, Nova near Rustchuk being his capital, were discontented with their settlements; and in the autumn of 488 they started. It was not the march of an army, but the migration of a whole people. Their progress by Sirmium and Pannonia was slow, impeded by the winter weather and the opposition of the Gepidae and Sarmatians; not till the summer of 489 did they force their way through the Julian Alps into Italy. For the events of the war, terminated in Mar. 493 by Theodoric's complete victory, see D. C. B. (4 vols. 1900), art. "Odoacer." After Theodoric had shut up Odoacer in Ravenna in autumn 490, he sent Faustus, the chief of the senate, and Irenaeus (Gelasius, Ep. 8) to Zeno to ask his permission to assume the royal robes. Zeno died in Apr. 491, and, no answer having come from his successor Anastasius, on the fall of Ravenna the army proclaimed Theodoric king (An. Val. 53, 57). Already king of the Ostrogoths, he was thus recognized as king over his new conquests; but, like Odoacer, he assumed the title without any territorial definition such as "king of Italy." Gregory of Tours (iii. 31) indeed styles him "Rex Italiae," but this is merely a description, not a formal title; cf. the parallel of Odoacer and Victor Vitensis. This independent assumption was regarded at Constantinople as a usurpation, and not till 498 was a recognition grudgingly obtained by the embassy of the senator Festus, and the imperial ornaments returned which Odoacer had sent to Constantinople (An. Val. 64, Theodorus Lector, ii. 16, 17, in Migne, Patr. Gk. lxxxvi. 1, 189). Theodoric, while really independent, was ready to pay the emperor marks of respect, such as submitting for approval the name of the consul he nominated. But there was no real cordiality between the two. At Constantinople Theodoric was regarded merely as de jure the lieutenant of the emperor who had commissioned him to recover Italy, and the Byzantine claims were only kept in abeyance for a convenient opportunity.
His first care after the overthrow of Odoacer was to arrange the settlement of
his followers in Italy. A third part of the lands was distributed to them. The Goths were very unequally distributed. In Calabria and Apulia there were none (Procop. i. x1); they began to appear in Samnium, and then increased to the N. and E., the settlements being thickest in the Aemilia and Venetia. The Goths were probably settled by families and tribes (Var. v. 27), and did not, like the Vandals, clear out and occupy the whole of a continuous province. Their dispersion among the previous inhabitants had many important consequences, the most important perhaps being the increase of the royal power, which was further strengthened by Theodoric uniting to his hereditary kingship the derelict prerogatives of the Western emperor. He governed the two nations—the Romans and the Goths—who lived side by side without intermingling, in a twofold capacity: the former as the successor of the emperor, the latter as the king of immemorial antiquity. The Roman forms of government were kept up; the senate met, and Theodoric submitted his appointments of patricians, consuls, etc., for their ratification. The Roman systems of taxation and administration were maintained. The Goths, like the Romans, had to pay taxes, but their special obligation was that of military service. Theodoric's care for his dominions is shewn by the multifarious subjects of the Variarum—e.g. drainage of marshes, regulations of the posting service, repairs of harbours, roads, and public buildings, such as Pompey's theatre and the cloacae at Rome, fortifications, searches for mines, etc. Under his firm rule Italy enjoyed 33 years of peace and prosperity such as she had not known for nearly a century, and was not to know again for generations.