ahad, the nearest male heir of Theodoric,
and to mount the throne together with him. Previously, however, to
announcing this scheme in public, she sent for Theodahad and exacted
from him 'tremendous oaths[61]' that if he were chosen King he would
be satisfied with the mere name of royalty, leaving her as much of the
actual substance of power as she possessed at that moment.

[Footnote 61: [Greek: horkois deinotatois].]

[Sidenote: Amalasuentha associates Theodahad in the Sovereignty.]

The partnership-royalty and the oath of self-abnegation were the
desperate expedients of a woman who knew herself to have mighty
enemies among her subjects, and who felt power slipping from her
grasp. With one side of her character her new partner could
sympathise; for Theodahad, though sprung from the loins of Gothic
warriors, was a man of some literary culture, who preferred poring
over the 'Republic' of Plato to heading a charge of the Gothic
cavalry. But his acquaintance with Latin and Greek literature had done
nothing to ennoble his temper or expand his heart. A cold, hard,
avaricious soul, he had been entirely bent on adding field to field
and removing his neighbour's landmark, until the vast possessions
which he had received from the generosity of Theodoric should embrace
the whole of the great Tuscan plain. It will be seen by referring to
two letters in the following collection[62] that Theodoric himself had
twice employed the pen of Cassiodorus to rebuke the rapacity of his
nephew; and at a more recent date, since the beginning of Athalaric's
illness, Amalasuentha had been compelled by the complaints of her
Tuscan subjects to issue a commission of enquiry, which had found
Theodahad guilty of the various acts of land-robbery which had been
charged against him, and had compelled him to make restitution.

[Footnote 62: Variarum iv. 39 and v. 12.]

[Sidenote: Amalasuentha is deposed and imprisoned by Theodahad, April
30, 535.]

The new Queen persuaded herself, and tried to persuade her cousin,
that this ignominious sentence had in some way put the subject of it
straight with the world, and had smoothed his pathway to the throne.
She trusted to his gratitude and his tremendous oaths for her own
undisturbed position at the helm of the State, but she found before
many months of the joint reign had passed that the reed upon which she
was leaning was about to pierce her hand. Only four letters, it will
be seen, of the following col