Theodoric had Boethius clubbed to death and seized his estates, and the king's daughter gave them back to his sons

Boethius came from the Anicii, one of Rome's leading families. He was raised by the senator Symmachus and married his daughter, Rusticiana. He was consul in 510. In 522 both of his sons were consuls together, and he became master of offices to Theodoric, the Ostrogothic king of Italy. In 523 the official Cyprianus accused the ex-consul Albinus of writing to the emperor Justin against Theodoric. Boethius told the court: "The charge of Cyprianus is false." Cyprianus then produced false witnesses against Boethius too. He was held in a church baptistery and sentenced without a hearing, on charges of treason and magic. In prison he wrote the Consolation of Philosophy. The chronicle known as the Excerpta Valesiana says that at the Calventian estate a cord was tightened round his forehead until his eyes cracked, and he was beaten to death with a cudgel. Theodoric then had Symmachus brought to Ravenna and killed. Procopius says the property of both men was seized for the treasury. He says Theodoric later saw Symmachus's face in a fish head at dinner and wept for the wrong he had done. After Theodoric's death his daughter Amalasuntha "restored to the children of Symmachus and Boetius their fathers' estates." Boethius is buried in San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, Pavia, and his local cult as a saint was approved in 1883.