An Arena of Abuses and Competing Powers

Using Cassiodorus’s Variae (537–40), this chapter deals with Rome and its controversial image through one very important aspect of Theoderic’s political activity, his building policy. While in the case of other Italian cities, especially Theoderic’s capital, Ravenna, Cassiodorus’s letters emphasized the efficiency of building activity in terms of obedience to the king’s orders, in Rome Theoderic’s building activity is used to show local resistance. This group dealt with the repression of frequently occurring abuses, such as the misappropriation by private citizens of public building structures and of their ornaments, as well as the appropriation by private individuals of the funds allocated by public authority for the restoration of buildings in the city. Furthermore, it is only in the case of Rome that we see these letters having direct counterparts in the authorizations given by the king to private individuals to build new private buildings on what had previously been public monumental sites, even including an order to Symmachus to restore Pompey’s theatre. The panorama in Rome was therefore much more controversial than in other Italian cities, and it allows us to grasp not only the efficacy of Theoderic’s control over building, but also the difficulties he faced and the strategies he employed to create consensus in a controversial context.