Amalasuntha
Overview
Biography
Daughter of Theoderic the Great and Audofleda, and married to an Ostrogoth noble Eutharius who descended from an early king, Amalasuntha was widowed early. They had two children, Athalaric and Matasuntha. When her father died, Amalasuntha ruled the Ostrogoths as regent for her son Athalaric then ten years old. Well-educated, in Latin and Greek as well as Gothic, according to Cassiodorus who had been her father’s secretary, praised for her wisdom and sense of justice by Procopius, Amalasuntha was partial to Roman culture and Byzantine power. She made overtures to Justinian, perhaps planning to take refuge with him, bringing her wealth and her kingdom, if need be.
Amalasuntha’s leanings towards Rome were antithetic to her Gothic nobles who plotted against her in 533; she had three of those suspected to be involved in a plot executed. When Athalaric died, she named her cousin Theodahad co-ruler hoping he would support her against the hostility of the anti-Roman Goths, though she had prosecuted him for unlawful seizure of Roman properties. He soon seized power and had her imprisoned on an island where she was murdered in 535, perhaps by the relatives of the nobles she had had executed.