Theodahad

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Theodahad
King of the Ostrogoths
Münze Follis Ostgoten Rom Theodahat.jpg
Reign from 534 to 536
Predecessor Athalaric
Successor Witiges
Born c. 480
Tauresium
Died 536
Mother Amalafrida
Coin of Theodahad.
Another coin of Theodahad (534–536), minted in Rome. He wears the barbaric moustache.

Theodahad (born c. 480 in Tauresium[1] – died 536) was the King of the Ostrogoths from 534 to 536 and a nephew of Theodoric the Great through his sister Amalafrida.[2]

He might have arrived in Italy with Theodoric and was an elderly man at the time of his succession. Massimilliano Vitiello states the name "Theodahad" is a compound of 'people' and 'conflict'.[3]

He arrested Amalaswintha, queen of the Ostrogoths from 526 to 534, and imprisoned her on an island in Lake Bolsena.[4]

Political instability within the Ostrogothic kingdom serves as a pretext to Byzantine general Belisarius to intervene in Sicily and Italy, at the service of the Emperor Justinian, causing the 'Gothic Wars. "

Witiges ordered him killed, and succeeded him as king.

Theodahad had at least two children with a woman named Gudeliva: Theodegisclus and Theodenantha.

In fiction

Thiudehad appears as a character in the time travel novel Lest Darkness Fall, by L. Sprague de Camp.

References

  1. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. Jordanes names Amalfridam germanam suam [Theoderici] as the mother of Theodehadi qui postea rex fuit
  3. Massimiliano Vitiello, Theodahad, A Platonic King at the Collapse of Ostrogothic Italy, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014. p. 15,
  4. Jordanes, LIX, p. 51, and Herwig Wolfram (1998), p. 338

External links

Regnal titles
Preceded by King of the Ostrogoths
534–536
Succeeded by
Witiges