Theodoric

EIGHTEEN

At the time when Theoderic was laying siege to Constantinople, Myrddin, true to his resolve to join Artorius, was nearing the city of Augusta Suessionum* in north-east Gaul, en route to Britannia. Armed with both safe-conduct and letter of introduction from Odovacar (who, cherishing warm memories of his meeting with Severinus, was pleased to help his acolyte), Myrddin had travelled from Noricum through northern Italy to the adjoining kingdom of the Visigoths. Although their powerful king, Euric, had died three years previously, to be succeeded by his infant son Alaric, the friendly relations established by Odovacar during Euric’s reign still obtained. Accordingly, Myrddin was able to travel in perfect security up the valley of the Rhodanus,† then west and north through Arvernum to the Liger,‡ which river formed the boundary between the Visigothic realm and that of the Salian Franks — that is, Gaul to the north of the Liger.

Within this recent and somewhat tenuous kingdom existed a surviving island of romanitas, the area corresponding to the former province of Belgica Secunda. This territory was ruled by one Syagrius, a Roman landowner who had revived the province’s name, and whose subjects — both Roman and Frankish — had accorded him the astonishing and incongruous title of ‘Rex Romanorum’. It was the capital city of this ‘king’ that Myrddin was approaching. The guards at the main gate, wearing imperial-issue armour, after scrutinizing his documents waved him through, with directions to the praetorium.§ Myrddin proceeded through well-maintained streets to an imposing public building where, after waiting his turn in a queue, he was ushered into a pillared council chamber. Swathed in an archaic toga, the affable-looking man reclining on a couch waved Myrddin to a chair.

‘Britain — bad choice,’ declared Syagrius after scanning Myrddin’s papers. ‘Place is crawling with those ghastly Saxons. Unlike Gaul, it’ll never be reoccupied by Rome.’ He smiled, charmingly. ‘I see Odovacar describes you as a healer. In that case, why not stay on here? Medics are always welcome — especially as it looks as though I’ll have to use force to see off this young puppy Clovis. Calls himself king of the Franks, after taking over — at the age of fifteen! — from his father Childeric, who died six years ago. Childeric knew his place — never aspired to anything more than client-king status, even after the Imperium Romanum in the West came to an end eleven years ago. A temporary end,’ he added, rising and beginning to pace the mosaic flooring energetically.

‘Temporary? Surely not, Highness.’

‘“O ye of little faith”!’ exclaimed the other. Whirling round, he pointed an admonitory finger at Myrddin. ‘Look how long Sidonius held out in Arverna — and that was against the mighty Euric. Now that Euric’s gone, who’s to say it won’t fall into Roman hands again? Look at my own fiefdom, Belgica Secunda; no reason why other Roman magnates shouldn’t follow my example.’ Syagrius resumed his pacing. ‘Zeno’s just waiting till the time is ripe, to replace Odovacar with a Western emperor. That should have been Julius Nepos, of course — still the legitimate, if exiled emperor when he was assassinated seven years ago, after Odovacar had taken over. Plenty of candidates waiting in the wings.’ He paused in his perambulations, then went on in musing tones, ‘Should the offer come my way, I wouldn’t be averse myself to donning the purple.’ He turned his head sideways to Myrddin’s gaze. ‘My profile — suitable for a new imperial coinage, do you think?

Murmuring polite platitudes, Myrddin acknowledged to himself that the other’s profile — eagle nose, lofty forehead, determined chin — did indeed add up to everyone’s ideal image of a Roman emperor. What drove the man? Syagrius, son of Aegidius, a general of the great Aetius who had defeated Attila at the Catalaunian Fields, was living in a fantasy world, he decided. All this talk of ‘reoccupation by Rome’, ‘client kings’, ‘Belgica Secunda’, ‘donning the purple’, ‘new imperial coinage’, suggested that the man was acting out a dream in which the barbarians were a temporary nuisance who, in the course of time, would surely be removed. Everyone — except Syagrius, it seemed — knew that the Western Empire was finished,* a fact tacitly acknowledged by the Eastern Emperor, Zeno, by not contesting Odovacar’s usurpation. (Although Odovacar had seemed to hedge his bets at first, by having Julius Nepos’ head stamped on his coinage.) Even Sidonius, who had heroically defended Arverna against the Visigoths, had accepted that the game was up, and was now living amicably among the barbarians he had once despised.

During the next few days, while enjoying Syagrius’ hospitality (Myrddin was waiting to join an armed party who would escort him to Gesoriacum† on the coast when they went there to pick up supplies), the Briton’s sense of inhabiting a strange dream world grew ever stronger. In ‘Belgica Secunda’, Syagrius had succeeded in creating a Roman ministate which somehow worked. Everything ran on Roman lines: administration, taxes, law. Even the Frankish war-bands who, under Childeric, had penetrated the region in a rather haphazard way, seemed to have accepted the authority of their Roman ‘governor’. They were apparently happy to be judged by Roman rather than by Salic law — an exception to the situation obtaining in the rest of Gaul, where barbarians and Romans adhered strictly to their own separate legal codes.

The glue holding the whole tenuous fabric of the ‘province’ together appeared to be nothing more substantial than charisma — a quality Syagrius possessed in overflowing measure. Like Aetius before him, he had the ability to establish a rapport with barbarians, chatting easily with the Franks in their own tongue, tempering their natural ferocity with tact and humour, and persuading them to integrate peacefully as part of the Roman ‘communitas’. Under the mild and just regime established by Syagrius, whose vast estates covered much of the area he claimed to rule, the machinery of society ran smoothly: the economy flourished, roads and public buildings were kept in good repair, and law and order maintained — with the help of veterans from the old Roman Field Army of Gaul.

It was all too perfect, Myrddin told himself. Sooner, rather than later, the bubble had to burst. And in fact, on the very day he departed with the ‘cohort’, there came a hint of cold reality waiting to intrude. Syagrius was visited by a messenger from Clovis, bearing a challenge to meet the Frankish king in battle on a day and at a place of Syagrius’ choosing. The latter seemed to relish the prospect, cheerfully remarking to Myrddin that he would teach young Clovis, an upstart scarcely out of his teens, a lesson he wouldn’t forget. He would show the presumptuous pipsqueak that a disciplined Roman force was more than a match for a rabble of disorderly barbarians.

‘Sin’, sin’, sin’-dex’-sin’,’ chanted the campidoctores,* as — with ancient titles resurrected from the glory days of Rome, Syagrius’ ‘legion’ marched to meet Clovis’s Franks outside Remi.† The force, arrayed in antique ridge helmets and ring-mail hauberks dug out of storage and patched up, and with dragon standards streaming, made a brave show. Someone had even managed to find a battered old legionary eagle; now, burnished till it gleamed like gold, it swayed proudly at the head of the column. In the van, together with his senior ‘centurions’ and ‘tribunes’ — young Gallo-Roman aristocrats — rode the ‘legate’, Syagrius, looking every inch the Roman general.

The mood, as evidenced by the soldiers’ singing as they marched, was confident, even carefree. Training in tactics and marching evolutions had been thorough; weapons and equipment were sound — certainly superior to those of the Franks, who mostly went into battle unarmoured and armed only with spears. The older officers alone, many of them old sweats who had seen service under Aetius against Burgundians and Huns, harboured reservations. They knew how the guts shrivelled up with fear when you faced a screaming wave of barbarians, and only the knowledge that disciplined steadiness would usually guarantee survival and victory kept you from throwing down your shield and turning tail. If enthusiasm alone were enough to win battles, a Roman victory was assured. If. The young Gallo-Romans, mostly coloni* and artisans, who had flocked to the standard of Syagrius were commendably eager. What they lacked was that important element, experience. Only the test of battle would discover if that lack would prove fatal — or otherwise.

The three-deep Roman line presented a formidable appearance: an ordered mass of armoured men, protected by a triple wall of shields topped by a frieze of glittering spear-blades. Facing their opponents across a rolling plain, some of Clovis’s veterans who had fought against Rome in the old days, and seen a Frankish charge break in red ruin against a Roman line, were for caution. ‘Better, Sire, to make honourable terms with Syagrius now,’ one greybeard warrior advised the young king, ‘than see many thousand widows made this day.’

‘There’s just one thing you’re forgetting, old Look-before-you-leap,’ smiled Clovis, clapping the aged veteran affectionately on the shoulder. ‘The last of Rome’s armies was disbanded years ago. Those fellows over there may look like Roman soldiers, but they’re not. They’re unblooded boys dressed up in Roman armour, who’ll break and scatter when we charge them. Mark my words.’

And so it proved. Before the tide of yelling fair-haired giants had closed with them, panic had begun to spread among Syagrius’ troops. In twos and threes at first, then in groups, they dropped their weapons, turned and ran. In vain the veterans railed, pleaded, threatened; there were simply not enough of them to stop the rot. With horrifying speed the army lost cohesion, then suddenly disintegrated and became a fleeing rabble, to be cut down in their thousands by the pursuing and triumphant Franks.

Being mounted, Syagrius escaped. Making his way to Tolosa, he threw himself on the mercy of the Visigoths. Had Euric still reigned, he might well have afforded the ‘Rex Romanorum’ protection. But the Council of Regency who ruled the kingdom in the name of his son, the boy-king Alaric, was divided and irresolute. They hesitated to offend Clovis, whose name was already inspiring respect, even fear, far beyond the boundaries of Frankish territory. When Clovis threatened war, the Goths surrendered Syagrius to the Franks, who promptly had him executed.

Thus was extinguished the last flickering light of Imperial Rome in Gaul.

* Soissons.

† The Rhone.

‡ The Loire.

§ Headquarters building — either a palace or municipal offices.

* It wasn’t — quite. In the next century, much of it, though not Gaul, was restored (temporarily) by the generals of the Eastern Emperor, Justinian (see Notes).

† Boulogne.

* Sin’ — sinister (‘left’); dex’ — dexter (‘right’). Campidoctores were drill-sergeants.

† Reims — where Clovis along with his chief followers was baptised in 496 as a Catholic, not an Arian, Christian, an act which did much to reconcile the Catholic Gallo-Romans to Frankish rule.

* Tenant farmers; peasants.