The Legacy of Theoderic
Marios Costambeys
In the penultimate sentence of his Historia Romana , Paul Deacon inscribes a solid full-stop to brief sketch Ostrogothic Italy: having killed Totila, eunuch Narses, he says, ‘universamque Italiam ad reipublicae iura reduxit’. Although phrase exemplifies studied ambiguity with which delighted tantalize readers, whole statement can be understood as judgement on Theoderic's régime that many modern historians Late Antiquity have shared. Whatever innovations Ostrogoths had attempted, in end they came nothing: Theoderic and short-lived successors made no lasting imprint, leaving few identifiable traces even archaeology.
Journal of Roman Studies