Here the reader will naturally ask, "Of what did these informers accuse him?" but to that question it is not possible to give a satisfactory answer. He himself in his meditations on his trial says: "Of what crime is it that I am accused? I am said to have desired the safety of the Senate. 'In what way?' you may ask. I am accused of having prevented an informer from producing certain documents in order to prove the Senate guilty of high treason. Shall I deny the charge? But I did wish for the safety of the Senate and shall never cease to wish for it, nor, though they have abandoned me, can I consider it a crime to have desired the safety of that venerable order. That posterity may know the truth and the real sequence of events, I have drawn up a written memorandum concerning the whole affair. For, as for these forged letters upon which is founded the accusation against me of having hoped for Roman freedom, why should I say anything about them? Their falsehood would have been made manifest, if I could have used the confession of the informers themselves, which in all such affairs is admitted to have the greatest weight. As for Roman freedom, what hope is left to us of attaining that? Would that there were any such hope. Had the King questioned me, I would have answered in the words Canius, when he was questioned by the Emperor Caligula as to his complicity in a a conspiracy formed against him. If I, said he, had known, thou shouldest never have known."
These words, coupled with some bitter statements as to the tainted character of the informers against him, men oppressed by debt and accused of peculation, constitute the only statement of his case by Boëthius which is now available. The memorandum so carefully prepared in the long hours of his imprisonment has not reached posterity. Would that it might even yet be found in the library of some monastery, or lurking as a palimpsest under the dull commentary of some mediæval divine! It could hardly fail to throw a brilliant, if not uncoloured light on the politics of Italy in the sixth century. But, trying as we best may to spell out the truth of the affair from the passionate complaints of the prisoner, I think we may discern that there had been some correspondence on political affairs between the Senate and the Emperor Justin, correspondence which was perfectly regular and proper if the Emperor was still to them "Dominus Noster" (our Lord and Master), but which was kept from the knowledge of "the King of the Goths and Romans", and which, when he heard of it, he was sure to resent as an act of treachery to himself. That Boëthius, the Master of the Offices under Theodoric, should have connived at this correspondence, naturally exasperated the master who had so lately heaped favours on this disloyal servant. But in addition to this he used the power which he wielded as Master of the Offices, that is, head of the whole Civil Service of Italy, to prevent some documents which would have compromised the safety of the Senate from coming to the knowledge of Theodoric. All this was dangerous and doubtful work, and though we may find it hard to condemn Boëthius, drawn as he was in opposite directions by the claims of historic patriotism and by those of official duty, we can hardly wonder that Theodoric, who felt his throne and his dynasty menaced, should have judged with some severity the minister who had thus betrayed his confidence.