Theoderic the Great: King of Goths, Ruler of Romans
By Hans-Ulrich Wiemer
Translated from the German by John Noël Dillon
Yale University Press 2023

Hans-Ulrich Wiemer’s Theoderich der Grosse was published in 2018, and given the fact that it’s a 600-page work of dense biographical scholarship, the appearance of an English-language translation from Yale University Press, Theoderic the Great: King of Goths, Ruler of Romans only five years later is something of a pleasant surprise. It’s certainly a towering achievement, and it opens with a note from Wiemer singing the praises of his translator, John Noël Dillon, for actually improving the original. 

It’s a cheering note, and it’s borne out in this rock-solid volume with its calm erudition and massive scholarly apparatus – 65 pages of endnotes and a further 65 pages of lavishly annotated bibliography. Theodoric has been a perennially fascinating character for historians, a violent, charismatic figure glimpsed through scattered and sometimes maddening sources, king of the Ostrogoths and eventually, after fierce wars with Clovis and Gundobad over the terrain of Provence and the Iberian Peninsula, master of a vast empire that stretched from the Adriatic to the Atlantic. Theodoric was the exact kind of historical paradox guaranteed to attract the attention of biographers; he received an extensive education from the finest scholars of Constantinople, but, as Wiemer has many occasions to point out, he also viewed killing enemies with his own hands as proof of his ability to rule. He received from his father Thiudimir and his imperial predecessor Odoacer precisely this strange split-screen cultural imperative, and although the decades of his reign were filled with blood and warfare, they also featured some learning and some justice. 

This has typically led biographers to opine. Thomas Hodgkin did this at length in his monumental Italy and Her Invaders (and his own 1891 biography of Theoderic). The great Catholic historian Georg Pfeilschifter did likewise in 1910, as did Wilhelm Ensslin in his magnificent 1947 book. Even sour Edward Gibbon grudgingly gave Theoderic some praise as “the rare and meritorious example of a Barbarian who sheathed his sword in the pride of victory and the vigour of his age.” 

Wiemer goes over this well-trod ground with an omnivorous curiosity and sweep that’s wonderful to watch. He lays his research out, and its breadth is astonishing – surely this is the final word in terms of researching Theoderic, if not the final word in terms of how eloquently that research is presented (Gibbon is a near-impossible bar to clear in that department, pace certain critics). It’s a joy to see it in English so soon and so fully.

Steve Donoghue is a founding editor of Open Letters Monthly. His book criticism has appeared in The Washington Post, The American Conservative, The Spectator, The Wall Street Journal, The National, and the Daily Star. He writes regularly for The Boston Globe, the Vineyard Gazette, and the Christian Science Monitor and is the Books editor of Georgia’s Big Canoe News.