had reached the age of eight years and was
being reared under the care of his mother Amalasuntha. For his father
had already departed from among men. And not long afterward Justinian
succeeded to the imperial power in Byzantium. [H]Now Amalasuntha, as
guardian of her child, administered the government, and she proved to be
endowed with wisdom and regard for justice in the highest degree,
displaying to a great extent the masculine temper. As long as she stood
at the head of the government she inflicted punishment upon no Roman in
any case either by touching his person or by imposing a fine.
Furthermore, she did not give way to the Goths in their mad desire to
wrong them, but she even restored to the children of Symmachus and
Boetius their fathers' estates. Now Amalasuntha wished to make her son
resemble the Roman princes in his manner of life, and was already
compelling him to attend the school of a teacher of letters. And she
chose out three among the old men of the Goths whom she knew to be
prudent and refined above all the others, and bade them live with
Atalaric. But the Goths were by no means pleased with this. For because
of their eagerness to wrong their subjects they wished to be ruled by
him more after the barbarian fashion. On one occasion the mother,
finding the boy doing some wrong in his chamber, chastised him; and he
in tears went off thence to the men's apartments. And some Goths who met
him made a great to-do about this, and reviling Amalasuntha insisted
that she wished to put the boy out of the world as quickly as possible,
in order that she might marry a second husband and with him rule over
the Goths and Italians. And all the notable men among them gathered
together, and coming before Amalasuntha made the charge that their king
was not being educated correctly from their point of view nor to his own
advantage. For letters, they said, are far removed from manliness, and
the teaching of old men results for the most part in a cowardly and
submissive spirit. Therefore the man who is to shew daring in any work
and be great in renown ought to be freed from the timidity which
teachers inspire and to take his training in arms. They added that even
Theoderic would never allow any of the Goths to send their children to
school; for he used to say to them all that, if the fear of the strap
once came over them, they would never have the resolution to despise
sword or spear. And they asked her to reflect that her fat