Amalasuntha

Queen and regent of the Ostrogoths (526–34). Daughter of Theodoric, she was regent for her son Athalaric from 526, and at his death (534) became Queen of the Ostrogoths. She followed her father's policies and reorganized the kingdom's administration, ruling that the monarch should arbitrate over the election of popes and bishops. Her reign was unstable due to pressure from barbarian tribes and the Goths' discontent. When her son died she shared the throne with her cousin Theodahad, who exiled her to Bolsena and had her killed. This gave Justinian the pretext for the Gothic War.

A daughter of Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great, she secretly married a slave named Traguilla.

She was married in 515 to Eutharic, an Ostrogoth noble of the old Areal line, who had previously been living in Visigothic Iberia. On the death of her father in 526, her son succeeded him, but she held the power as regent for her son. Deeply imbued with the old Roman culture, she gave to that son's education a more refined and literary turn than suited the ideas of her Gothic subjects. Conscious of her unpopularity she banished, and afterwards put to death, three Gothic nobles whom she suspected of intriguing against her rule, and at the same time opened negotiations with the emperor Justinian I with the view of removing herself and the Gothic treasure to Constantinople.

Now queen, Amalasuntha made her cousin Theodahad partner of her throne (not, as sometimes stated, her husband, for his wife was still living), with the intent of strengthening her position.

The letters of Cassiodorus, chief minister and literary adviser of Amalasuntha, and the histories of Procopius and Jordanes, give us our chief information as to the character of Amalasuntha.