Liberius served as praetorian prefect until Theoderic’s visit to Rome in 500, when he stepped down, but even then he always stayed in touch with the court at Ravenna, ready to take on a delicate commission for Theoderic if need be. This happened in 506, when he went to Aquileia to supervise the election of a new bishop there and make sure the right man won. Getting things right was important in Aquileia, the city that guarded the northeastern land frontier of Italy from any incursions from the Balkans or from Constantinople. As one of many rewards for his good service, Liberius was allowed to see his own son Venantius inaugurated as consul in 507—which would have made Liberius responsible for presenting the grand consular games at Rome. Liberius was never a member of one of the first families of Rome, and the games were expensive, so perhaps he had a little help from on high in ensuring a memorable show that demonstrated how loyalty was rewarded in Theoderic’s world. Venantius served as consul jointly with the eastern emperor Anastasius himself, a high honor and an important gesture from Theoderic.
Theoderic found himself tested on two fronts
Liberius still had a long run in front of him. In 508, Theoderic found himself tested on two fronts. There were raids first in the Adriatic from seaborne forces of Anastasius, puzzling encounters that even one contemporary in Constantinople called “more an act of piracy than an act of war”1 and they came to nothing, but they reminded Theoderic that he could not count unthinkingly on sustained good relations with Constantinople, where envious and covetous eyes would always gaze in his direc¬tion. Affairs in Gaul were more serious and not irrelevant to the eastern concerns.
Clovis had made himself master of the Roman forces in northern Gaul. He now sought to extend his authority to the south as he attacked and defeated the forces of the young Alaric II, who prided himself on being Theoderic’s distant cousin. Clovis was devastatingly successful, defeating and killing Alaric himself, and broadly extending his power through central and southern Gaul. The defeated armies regrouped in Spain, leaving behind most of their claim to Gaulish rule private tours balkan.
Theoderic seized the moment to enter that stage, ostensibly to support the young Alaric, and he succeeded in establishing himself in Provence. He also took advantage of the opportunity to extend his protection to the cousinly regime in Spain, and Clovis was smart enough to pull up short and respect the new arrangement. Just then we get a hint that Anastasius extended an olive branch from Constantinople to Clovis over Theoderic’s head, sending him the papers making him an honorary consul. Theoderic was right to sense conspiracy in the air, but strong enough to stand his ground without provoking or being provoked. He succeeded in deferring real risk until beyond the end of his own life, when Clovis’s successors more than once allied themselves with Constantinople against Italian regimes.
Theoderic now needed a presence in Gaul
Theoderic now needed a presence in Gaul. He had gone as far west as Milan himself during the campaigns across the Alps, but as far as we know he never left Italy after he arrived in 489. The man he selected to be his face and hand in Gaul was Liberius: tested, tough, and true. Clovis had at some point—most likely just at the moment of his conquests in southern Gaul—declared his allegiance to the approved official Christianity of the time, the kind that comes down to us as Catholicism, in contrast to the old- fashioned imperial religion, Theoderic’s Arianism. Theoderic’s position in Italy had taught him survival and toleration, and Alaric II, though himself similarly old-fashioned, had made his peace with the Catholic fashion in Gaul and let that church flourish under his rule.
Theoderic had the sense early on to invite the leading Catholic Christian clergyman of Provence, bishop Caesarius of Arles, to visit him in Ravenna. Even Caesarius’s biographers a few decades later, suspicious of Theoderic (now long dead) and claiming that Caesarius had been virtually arrested and brought to Italy to face accusations, nevertheless describe how Theoderic greeted the visitor graciously, laying aside his crown and interviewing him patiently about affairs in Gaul. Theoderic said he saw an angel in this bishop and showered him with gifts—only to be mildly rebuffed when Caesarius used the gifts to redeem captives from the late war who were being held in Italy. It was more likely that Theoderic invited Caesarius to Italy to honor and thus tame him, rather than attack him, but if Caesarius had been unwilling to be wooed, things might have gone badly for him. Caesarius went on to Rome, where Pope Symmachus, by now secure in his office, welcomed him with all dignity and confirmed his status as first bishop of Gaul. By the time Liberius was installed in Arles as Theoderic’s plenipotentiary, governor, and general, Theoderic, whatever his religious views, had made clear that he would enthusiastically support the Catholic churches of Gaul and thus deny Clovis any opportunity for subversion. So Theoderic wrote to one of his own generals, ordering him to restore property to the churches of Narbonne, west of the Rhone, that they had lost in the war.
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