324 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xli hands the substance of supreme power. He received the pro- posal with profound respect and affected gratitude ; and the eloquent Cassiodorius announced to the senate and the emperor, that Amalasontha and Theodatus had ascended the throne of Italy. His birth (for his mother was the sister of Theodoric) [Theoda- might be considered as an imperfect title ; and the choice of Amalasontha was more strongly directed by her contempt of his avarice and pusillanimity, which had deprived him of the love of the Italians and the esteem of the Barbarians. But Theodatus was exasperated by the contempt which he deserved ; her justice had repressed and reproached the oppression which he exercised against his Tuscan neighbours; and the principal Goths, united by common guilt and resentment, conspired to instigate his slow and timid disposition. The letters of Con- ner exile gratulation were scarcely dispatched before the queen of Italy a!d 535 a was imprisoned in a small island of the lake of Bolsena, 63 where, after a short confinement, she was strangled in the bath, by the order, or with the connivance, of the new king, who instructed his turbulent subjects to shed the blood of their sovereigns. Beiisarius Justinian beheld with joy the dissensions of the G oths ; and sub- and the mediation of an ally concealed and promoted the a!d. S 535? y ambitious views of the conqueror. His ambassadors, in their public audience, demanded the fortress of Lilybaeum, ten Bar- barian fugitives, and a just compensation for the pillage of a small town on the Illyrian borders ; but they secretly nego- tiated with Theodatus to betray the province of Tuscany, and tempted Amalasontha to extricate herself from danger and perplexity by a free surrender of the kingdom of Italy. A false and servile epistle was subscribed by the reluctant hand of the captive queen ; but the confession of the Koman senators, who were sent to Constantinople, revealed the truth of her deplorable situation ; and Justinian, by the voice of a new ambassador, most powerfully interceded for her life and liberty. Yet the secret instructions of the same minister were adapted to serve 63 The lake, from the neighbouring towns of Etruria, was styled either Vulsiniensis (now of Bolsena) or Tarquinien6is. It is surrounded with white rocks, and stored with fish and wild-fowl. The younger Pliny (Epist. ii. 96) celebrates two woody islands that floated on its waters : if a fable, how credulous the ancients ! — if a fact, how oareless the moderns ! Yet, since Pliny, the island may have been fixed by new and gradual accessions. [For the date of Amalasuntha's death cp. Leuthold, Untersuchungen zur ostgotischen Geschichte, p. 26.]
