Ammianus Marcellinus Res Gestae val2.14

[79] Now King Theodoric was without training in letters, and of such dull comprehension that for ten years of his reign he had been wholly unable to learn the four letters necessary for endorsing his edicts. For that reason he had a golden plate with slits made, containing the four letters legi; ¹ then, if he wished to endorse anything, he placed the plate over the paper and drew his pen through the slits, so that only this subscription of his was seen. ²

[80] Then Theodoric made Eutharicus ³ consul and celebrated triumphs at Rome and at Ravenna. This Eutharicus was an excessively rough man, and an enemy to the Catholic faith.

[81] After this, while Theodoric was remaining at Verona through fear of the neighbouring peoples, strife arose between the Christians and the Jews of the city of Ravenna; accordingly the Jews, being unwilling to be baptised, often in sport threw the holy water that was offered to them into the water of the river. Because of this the people were fired with anger, and without respect for the king, for Eutharicus, or for Peter, who was bishop at the time, they rose against the synagogues and presently set them on fire. And this same thing happened in a similar affair at Rome.

[82] Presently the Jews hastened to Verona, where the king was, and there the head-chamberlain Triwane acted on their behalf; he, too, as a heretic favoured the Jews, and cajoled the king into taking action against the Christians. Accordingly Theodoric, on the presumption that they had resorted to arson, presently gave orders that the whole Roman ⁴ population should furnish money for the rebuilding of the synagogues of Ravenna which had been burned; and that those who did not have anything from which they could give should be whipped ⁵ through the streets of the city while a herald made proclamation of their offence. This was in substance the order given to Eutharicus, Cilliga, and the Bishop Peter, and thus it was carried out.

[83] Shortly after that the devil found an opportunity to steal for his own a man who was ruling the state well and without complaint. For presently Theodoric gave orders that an oratory of St. Stephen, that is, a high altar, beside the springs in a suburb of the city of Verona, should be destroyed. He also forbade any Roman to carry arms, except a small pen-knife.

[84] Also a poor woman of the Gothic race, lying in a colonnade not far from the palace at Ravenna, gave birth to four snakes; two of these in the sight of the people were carried up on clouds from west to east and then fell into the sea; the two others, which had but a single head, were taken away. A star with a train of fire appeared, of the kind called a comet, ⁶ and shone for fifteen days. There were frequent earthquakes.

[85] After this the king began from time to time, when he found an opportunity, to vent his rage upon the Romans. Cyprianus, who was then a referee, ⁷ afterwards count of the privy purse and a master, ⁸ was led by avarice to make a charge against the patrician Albinus, to the effect that he had sent to the emperor Justinus a letter hostile to Theodoric’s rule. When Albinus was summoned and denied this, the patrician Boethius, who was master of ceremonies, said in the king’s presence: The charge of Cyprianus is false, but if Albinus did that, so also have I and the whole senate with one accord done it; it is false, my Lord King.

[86] Then Cyprianus, after some hesitation, produced false witnesses, not only against Albinus, but against his defender Boethius. Moreover, the king was plotting evil against the Romans and seeking an opportunity for killing them; hence he trusted the false witnesses rather than the senators.

[87] Then Albinus and Boethius were imprisoned in the baptistery of a church. And the king summoned Eusebius, prefect of the city, to Ticinum, and pronounced sentence on Boethius without giving him a hearing. Presently at the Calventian estate, ⁹ where Boethius was confined, ¹⁰ he had him put to a wretched death. He was tortured for a long time with a cord bound about his forehead so tightly that his eyes cracked in their sockets, and finally, while under torture, he was beaten to death with a cudgel.