Amalasuntha

Amalasuntha (also known as Amalasuentha, Amalaswintha, Amalasuintha, Amalswinthe or Amalasontha) (c. 495 – 30 April 534/535) was a queen of the Ostrogoths from 526 to 534. She was daughter of Theoderic the Great.

She was married in 515 to Eutharic (c. 480 – 522), an Ostrogoth noble of the old Amal line, who had previously been living in Visigothic Hispania, son of Widerich (born c. 450), grandson of Berismund (born c. 410), and great-grandson of Thorismund (died after 400), King of the Ostrogoths c. 400.

Her husband died, apparently in the early years of her marriage, leaving her with two children, Athalaric and Matasuntha (c. 517 – after 550), wife c. 550 of Germanus. 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. Her son's death in 534 made little change in the posture of affairs.