na the daughter and heiress of
Theodorick, Amalasunta, who had made him king upon the untimely death of
her son Athalarick in 534. He was secretly proposing to cede the Gothic
kingdom of Italy to Justinian for a pension of 1200 pounds of gold. Thus
Agapetus was sent to Constantinople in the winter of 535, as Pope John I.
had been sent by Theodorick ten years before. He entered that city on the
20th February, 536; he died on the 22nd April following. In these two
months the Pope, the subject of Theodatus, did great things. A certain
Anthimus, a secret friend of the Monophysite heresy, had been brought, by
the favour of the like-minded empress Theodora, from the see of Trebisond
and put into that of Constantinople, having been able to impose himself
upon the emperor as orthodox. Agapetus was received with the greatest
honour, being only the second Pope who had visited Byzantium. He could not
negotiate a peace for Theodatus; but archimandrites, priests, and monks
besought him to proceed against Anthimus as an interloper and teacher of
error. Agapetus refused his communion to the new patriarch, required of him
a written confession of faith, and return to his bishopric, which he had
deserted contrary to the canons. The emperor, believing in the orthodoxy of
his patriarch, took part at first against the Pope, and strove to overcome
him both with threats and with presents. But Justinian, undeceived as to
the orthodoxy of Anthimus, gave him up, and Pope Agapetus pronounced
judgment of deposition upon him, and on the 13th March, 536, consecrated
Mennas, who had been duly elected, to be bishop of Constantinople. He first
required of him a written confession "to carry to Rome, to St. Peter".[131]

Soon after this the Pope died suddenly. The whole population at
Constantinople attended his funeral. Never, it was said, had the mourning
for a bishop or an emperor drawn together such a concourse of people. His
body was carried back to Rome in triumph and buried in St. Peter's.

Pope Agapetus was succeeded in 536 by Pope Silverius, chosen under the
influence of the Gothic king Theodatus. He was the last Pope so chosen; and
the moment of his election is coincident with events destined to change
permanently the material condition both of Rome and Italy.

Justinian had accomplished, with singular ease and rapidity, the first half
of his design. This was the reunion of North Africa to his empire, and the
restoration in it of the Catholic fa