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ssss1.This would seem to have been the charge which Boethius himself expressed by saying that he was accused of ‘having endeavoured to preserve the senators.’

The death of Boethius was followed by another execution, that of his aged father-in-law, Symmachus, the chief of the senate, whom Theodoric put to death on the mere suspicion that he resented his son-in-law’s cruel end. There seems to have been no further charge laid against him, and no formal trial, so that this action ranks with the murder of Odoacer as the second unpardonable sin of Theodoric’s life (525).

Others also suffered during the last two years of the old king’s reign. In anger at Justin’s persecution of the Arians, he threatened reprisals against the Catholics of Italy, and charged John the bishop of Rome to sail at once to Constantinople, and inform the emperor that further persecution would mean war with the Goths, and involve an attack on the orthodox throughout the Ostrogothic dominions. Moved by these threats, Justin suspended his harrying of the Arians, and treated the Pope with such respect and distinction that he roused the suspicions of the king of Italy. Theodoric thought that John had been too friendly with the emperor, and suspected that the honours and reverence shown him at Constantinople were part of a plan for seducing away the allegiance of his Roman subjects. When the Pope returned he was thrown into prison, where, being already in ill-health, he soon died. He was at once hailed as a martyr by all the Western Church (526).