THE RECONQUEST

VITIGES, BELISARIUS, TOTILA, NARSES

The failure of Theodoric, the failure of barbarism, of Arianism that
is, for barbarism and civilisation were now for all intents and
purposes mere synonyms for heresy and Catholicism, was probably fully
appreciated by the Gothic king, who was, nevertheless, incapable of
mastering his fate. The great lady who succeeded to his power in Italy
as the guardian of her son, his heir, Athalaric, was certainly as
fully aware as Theodoric may have been of the cause of that failure,
and she made the attempt, which he had not wished or dared to make, to
save the kingdom. The value of her heroic effort, which, for all its
courage, utterly failed, lies for us in the confirmation it gives to
our analysis of the causes of the Gothic failure to establish an
enduring government in the West.

That Amalasuntha wished to become a Catholic is probably true enough;
it is certain that she understood from the first that, in such an act,
she would not be able to carry her people with her. Therefore, she did
what she could short of this the only real remedy. She attempted to
educate her little son as a Roman, and hoped thus to insure his power
with the Latin population, trusting that the fact of his birth would
perhaps ensure the loyalty of the Gothic nation. In this she was
wholly to fail, because, as her attempt shows, she had not
fundamentally understood, any more than her father had been able to
do, the realities of the situation in which she found herself.

For all her genuine love for Roman things, her contempt of Gothic