by Ross Laidlaw
Cyprian, the Referendarius
He charged Albinus with having sent Justin a letter hostile to Theoderic’s kingdom. Unfortunately, we have no details about what precisely this implied. Cyprian was an interesting character and, as far as we can tell, an honest official. He had served in Theoderic’s army — one of the few Romans to have done so — and, almost uniquely among Romans, could speak Gothic. A riding-companion of Theoderic, he was, according to Cassiodorus, a man of action rather than reading. Burns asserts that in charging Boethius Cyprian ‘was just doing his job’, and cites his subsequent promotion to Comes Sacrarum Largitionum and Magister Officiorum as evidence of his probity. Given this, it is at least open to question whether Boethius was telling the truth when he claimed that the letter written supposedly by him that contained the damning words ‘libertas Romana’ was a forgery. However, as Gibbon — with the splendours of the English justice system in mind — said, ‘his innocence must be presumed, since he was deprived by Theoderic of the means of justification’.
Written at the Villa Jovis
Coming hot on the heels of the political catastrophes that afflicted the late years of Theoderic’s reign — the urban riots, defection of allies, Constantinople’s anti-Arian laws, etc. — the apparent treachery of Albinus and Boethius (just the presumed tip of a senatorial iceberg) must have been particularly cruel hammer-blows. I have taken advantage of the uncertainty regarding dates for this period to present the events covered by the chapter (which have a real sense of nemesis following hubris, befitting Greek tragedy) as occurring in rapid sequence, in order to heighten the dramatic tempo. As Moorhead says, ‘The timetable of these events is not as clear as we would like, especially as there are problems in the chronology of Anonymous Valesianus’.
imprisoned in its forbidding keep
As the tower of Pavia no longer exists (it was demolished in 1584), we can only speculate as to its appearance and function. Gibbon mentions a Pavian tradition that it was a baptistery.
The Consolation of Philosophy
Although written by a committed Christian, this celebrated work (which takes the form of a dialogue between the author and a personified Philosophy) contains not a single reference to Christianity, its tone throughout reflecting a Neo-Platonist cast of mind. Its theme is that all earthly fortune is mutable, and everything save virtue insecure. Of impeccable Latinity, its style imitates the best models of the Augustan age. It was translated into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred, and translated into various languages throughout the Middle Ages, when it achieved something of the status of a ‘best-seller’.
The death of Boethius (and thus the termination of his last work) is usually dated to 524. Moorhead, however, argues convincingly for a date of 526. As he says, ‘the later we date the execution of Boethius the easier it is to account for the perfection of the work he wrote in prison’.
Chapter 38
Ager Calventianus
Suggestions as to the exact location of the scene of Boethius’ execution vary: ‘the distant estate of Calventia’ (Burns); ‘Agro Calventiano. . between Marignano and Pavia’ (Gibbon); and ‘agro Calventiano, almost certainly a part of Pavia’ (Moorhead). These differences, I felt, gave me the freedom to make the place the Pavian equivalent of ‘Tower Green’. The method of despatch is given in ancient sources as either by cord and club (Anonymous Valesianus), or alternatively by sword (Liber pontificalis). Most modern scholars go for the cord-and-club version. Gibbon gives a gruesomely graphic description of Boethius’ death by this latter method, also of the scene where Theoderic sees in the head of a fish the avenging spectre of Symmachus — which I’ve taken the liberty of changing to that of Boethius, for obvious dramatic reasons.
an impossible distance
But not if the story of ‘Swift Nick’ Nevison (on which the Dick Turpin myth is based) is true. In 1676, he established an apparent cast-iron alibi for a robbery he committed at Gadshill near Gravesend, at four in the morning. Taking the ferry from Gravesend to Tilbury, he then rode to York via Chelmsford, Cambridge and Huntingdon, and ‘then holding on the [Great] North Road, and keeping a full larger gallop most of the way, he came to York the same afternoon’ (Daniel Defoe, A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain).
The distance from Gravesend to York is almost exactly two hundred miles, the same as that from Ravenna to Pavia. Given that the Via Aemilia in 526 would have been in far better condition than the Great North Road in 1676, that the terrain of the Po valley is even flatter than that of eastern England, and that Fridibad had the advantage of changes of mount, the saio could well have completed the journey within twelve hours. As Roman dinners started considerably earlier than ours, Theoderic could have taken to his bed by 5 p.m., and Fridibad been on the road by 6 p.m.
Theoderic was dead
He died on 30 August 526 (shortly after the execution of Boethius, Moorhead suggests), the very day on which his anti-Catholic legislation, which included the surrender of churches to Arians, was due to come into force.
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Ross Laidlaw
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