And, lastly, the whole nation was divided into two parties, one of which, long discontented with the clemency shown to the Italians by Theodoric and his daughter, would gladly have retrieved the mistake which, as they thought, had been made when the country was conquered, and punished the Italians for their secret hate with open violence. The number of those who held milder and nobler opinions--who, like Theodoric himself, were more susceptible to the higher culture of the subjected Italians, and desirous to raise themselves and their people to the same level--was naturally much smaller. At the head of this party stood the Queen.
This woman Cethegus now sought to uphold in the possession of power; for her feminine, weak, and divided government was calculated to undermine the strength of the nation, to excite party spirit and discontent, and to exclude all augmentation of national feeling.
Cethegus trembled at the thought that he might see an energetic man unite the strength of the whole nation. And often the traits of sublimity which occasionally were to be seen in Amalaswintha, and, still more, the fiery sparks of repressed feeling which sometimes blazed out in Athalaric's soul, caused him serious uneasiness. Should mother and son betray such feelings more frequently, then, certainly, he would be compelled to overthrow their government as zealously as he had hitherto upheld it.
Meanwhile he rejoiced in the unlimited command which he possessed over the mind of Amalaswintha. It had been easy for him to gain it; not only because he, with great subtlety, took advantage of her predilection for learned discussions--in which he was so often vanquished by the seemingly superior knowledge of the Princess that Cassiodorus, who was a witness of their arguments, could not refrain from regretting that the genius of Cethegus, once so brilliant, had rusted for want of practice--but he had touched the proud woman on a much more sensitive subject.
Her great father had been blessed with no son; only this one daughter had been born unto him. The wish for a male heir had been often heard in the mouths of the King and of his people, and had penetrated to the daughter's ears in her childish years. It outraged the feelings of the highly-gifted girl that, merely on account of her sex, she should be put lower than a possible brother, who, as a matter of course, would be more capable and more worthy of governing. So, when a child, she often wept bitter tears because she was not a boy. Of course, as she grew up, she only heard the offensive wish from the lips of her father; every other mouth praised the wonderful talent, the manly spirit and courage of the brilliant Princess. And these praises were not flattery; Amalaswintha was, indeed, a wonderful creature. The strength of her will, the power of her intellect, her love of authority, and cold abruptness of manner, far exceeded the limits which generally bound the sphere of feminine grace. The consciousness that when her hand was bestowed, the highest position in the kingdom, and perhaps the crown itself, would be given with it, did not contribute to render her more modest; and her deepest, strongest sentiment was no longer the wish to be a man, but the conviction that, even as a woman, she was as capable of performing all the duties of life and of government as the most gifted man--much more capable than most men--and that she was fated to refute the general prejudice, and to prove the equality of her sex.
The married life of this cold woman with Eutharic, a member of another branch of the family, a man of a genial temperament and high intellect, was of short duration--in a few years Eutharic fell a victim to disease--and not at all happy. She had unwillingly obeyed her husband, and, as a widow, gloried in her freedom. She burnt with the desire to verify her favourite theory in her position as Queen-regent and guardian of her son. She would govern in such a manner, that the proudest man must acknowledge her superiority. We have seen how the anticipation of ruling had enabled her to bear the death of her great father with considerable equanimity. She assumed her high office with the greatest zeal and the most untiring activity. She wished to do everything alone. She thrust aside the aged Cassiodorus, for he was unable to keep pace with the eagerness of her spirit. She would endure no man's advice, and jealously watched over her absolute monarchy.
To none but one of her servants did she willingly and frequently lend her ear: to him who often and loudly praised the manly independence of her mind, and still more often seemed to admire it in secret, and who appeared incapable of conceiving the desire to govern any of her actions: she trusted Cethegus alone.
For he constantly evinced only one ambition--that of carrying out all the ideas and plans of the Queen with the most zealous care. He never opposed her favourite endeavours, like Cassiodorus and the heads of the Gothic parties, but supported her therein. He helped her to surround herself with Greeks and Romans; to exclude the young king, as far as possible, from all share in the government; gradually to remove from the court the old Gothic friends of her father, who, in the consciousness of their services and according to old custom, often took upon themselves to speak a word of open blame; to use the money which was intended for men-of-war, horses, and the armament of the Gothic forces, for art and science, or for the embellishment, preservation, and security of Rome; in short, he aided her in every act that would estrange her from her people, or render her government an object of hatred, and her kingdom defenceless.
And if he himself had a plan he always knew how to give his transactions with the Queen such a turn, that she considered herself the promoter of every scheme, and ordered him to execute his most secret wishes as her commands.