Thursday, March 8, 2012

Amalasuntha

Queen of the Ostrogoths. Never heard of her until now....
Amalasuntha, born around 495, was the only daughter of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, and his wife Audofleda. Amalasuntha was both beautiful and smart. She grew up in Ravenna, which was a political and cultural centre at the time, and received an extraordinary education. She spoke both Latin and Italian fluently, in addition to her native language of course, and was very erudite and knowledgeable.

In 1515, she married Eutharic, a Visigoth prince from Iberia (modern day Spain). Their marriage was supposed to unite their kingdoms after Theodoric's death, but he died before that could happen, leaving Amalasuntha with two children, a boy named Athalaric and a daughter called Matasuentha. In 1526, Theodoric died too and the crown passed to Athalaric, while Amalasuntha became regent. Amalasuntha decided her son should have the best Roman education available, but this didn't go down well with the Goths. They wanted their king to be a warrior, not a scholar and interpreted Amalasuntha's plan as an attack on their values and culture. Soon, three noblemen plotted to do away with her, but their plans were discovered. They were executed. (Read entire post.)
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2 comments:

Holly said...

I've received a few requests to open up “Pay It Forward” to posts from a bloggers own blog. I thought I'd give it a try. Although the original idea was to share what you've seen elsewhere on the internet, I recognize that each time we post something on our own blogs we are also sharing Good News, great tips, wonderful prayers, fabulous photos, scrumptious recipes, hilarious humor, unbelievable books, stories of goodwill, or good things that have knocked our socks off. I hope you’ll post something from your blog.

I'll leave the March linky open until March 14th. (Entered links will appear in two posts.) I can't wait to see what gets posted!

Gio said...

thanks for the link, I appreciate it!