Boethius - Fall and Death

Fall and Death

In 520, Boethius was working to revitalize the relationship between the Church in Rome and the Church in Constantinople. This may have set in place a course of events that would lead to loss of royal favour. In 522, the same year his two sons were appointed joint consuls, Boethius accepted the appointment to the position of magister officiorum, the head of all the government and court services.

In 523, however, Boethius fell from power; after a period of imprisonment, he was eventually executed. The primary sources are in general agreement over the facts of what happened. At a meeting of the Royal Council in Verona, the referandarius Cyprianus accused the ex-consul Caecina Decius Faustus Albinus of treasonous correspondence with Justin I. Boethius leapt to his defense, crying, "The charge of Cyprianus is false, but if Albinus did that, so also have I and the whole senate with one accord done it; it is false, my Lord King." Cyprianus then also accused Boethius of the same crime, and produced three men who claimed they had witnessed the crime. Boethius and Basilius were arrested. First the pair were detained in the baptistery of a church, then Boethius was exiled to the Ager Calventianus, a distant country estate, where he was put to death. Not long afterwards Theodoric had Boethius' father-in-law Symmachus put to death, according to Procopius, on the grounds that he and Boethius together were planning a revolution, and confiscated their property.

"The basic facts in the case are not in dispute," writes Jeffrey Richards. "What is disputed about this sequence of events is the interpretation that should be put on them." Boethius claims his crime was seeking "the safety of the Senate." He describes the three witnesses against him as dishonorable: Basilius had been dismissed from Royal service for his debts, while Venantius Opilio and Gaudentius had been exiled for fraud. However, other sources depict these men in far more positive light: for example Cassiodorus describes Cyprianus and Opilio as "utterly scrupulous, just and loyal" and mentions they are brothers and grandsons of the consul Opilio; Theodoric was feeling threatened by international events: the Acacian Schism had been resolved, and the Catholic Christians aristocrats of his kingdom were seeking to renew their ties with Constantinople; the Catholic Hilderic became king of the Vandals and put his sister Amalafrida to death; and Arian Christians in the East were being persecuted. Then there is the matter that with his previous ties to Theodahad, Boethius apparently found himself on the wrong side in the succession dispute following the untimely death of Eutharic, Theodoric's announced heir.

The method of Boethius' execution varies in the sources; he was perhaps killed with an axe or a sword, or was clubbed to death. According to another version a rope was attached round his head and tightened till his eyes bulged out, then his skull was cracked. His remains were entombed in the church of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro in Pavia. In Dante's Paradise of The Divine Comedy, the spirit of Boethius is pointed out by St. Thomas Aquinas:

Now if thy mental eye conducted be

From light to light as I resound their frame,

The eighth well worth attention thou wilt see.

The soul who pointed out the world's dark ways,

To all who listen, its deceits unfolding.

Beneath in Cieldauro lies the frame

Whence it was driven; from woe and exile to

This fair abode of peace and bliss it came.