Theodoric

NOTES

Prologue

the army of the Romans

That this was an East Roman army doesn’t make it any less Roman. The term ‘Roman’ was flexible and inclusive, referring initially to the inhabitants of a small city on the Tiber, then to those of Latium, then Italy, and finally, in AD 212, to all free inhabitants of the empire. Roman emperors could be from many races — Spaniards, Illyrians, Africans, Arab, et al., though never, strangely, German. (The reason, perhaps, was because Germania, never having been conquered by Rome could not be fully accepted by her. An academic once seriously suggested that the rise of Nazism was ultimately due to the fact that, unlike most of the rest of Europe, ‘Germany had never been through the public school of the Roman Empire’!) Claudian, one of the most celebrated late Latin poets, was a Syrian whose mother tongue was Greek. Writing c. 400, he rejoiced that the inhabitants of the empire, though of diverse origins, ‘are all one people’. There exists a mindset which defines East Romans as ‘Byzantines’ — i.e., as different in some way from ‘real’ Romans. But when the Western Empire fell in 476, a fully Roman state continued in the East for nearly two more centuries (after which much of its territory was lost to Arabs and Avars), and its citizens certainly thought of themselves as Romans. (‘Byzantine’ was a term invented by Renaissance scholars and would have had no meaning for contemporaries of the late Ancient World — bar as an alternative to ‘Constantinopolitan’.)

converted to Christianity

According to Joseph Vogt in his The Decline of Rome, ‘it seems probable that the tribes of the great federations were already [Arian] Christian at the time they entered the empire’. Arianism differed from Orthodox Christianity in one key respect: Arians held that, as the Son, Christ was inferior to God the Father, and was therefore excluded from His divinity, a concept which appealed to Germans with their patriarchal society. To Catholic Romans, however, this made Arians heretics as well as barbarians — doubly beyond the pale. Christianity was introduced to Ethiopia at the beginning of the fourth century, but mass conversion of German tribes began only in 341 with Ulfilas’ mission to the Goths.

the blazing hulks. . swept down

The expedition of 468 shows striking parallels with the Spanish Armada. In both cases, the plan was not to engage in a sea battle but to enable a powerful invading force to land. In both cases, the outcome was decided by the use of fireships. In 1588 the Spaniards did at least have sea room to escape downwind. But for Basiliscus’ fleet escape was complicated by the difficulty of avoiding being driven on to the lee shore of the long Cape Bon peninsula. The effects of the disaster were decisive and immediate. In the West the Vandals were reprieved, while Visigoths, Burgundians and Suevi — realizing that there was no longer any central force strong enough to stop them — started carving out independent states from imperial territory. In less than a decade, the empire went from somewhere to nowhere. In 468 much of the Western Empire, though tottering, was still intact and owed allegiance to the Italian centre, an allegiance fortified by the arrival of Anthemius, who inspired genuine hopes of a revival. By 476 the bonds had all dissolved, and in that year the Western Empire came to an end.

vessels piling up on the rocky shore

Square-rigged Roman ships were a good deal less manoeuvrable than modern sailing-vessels. With a following or side wind they could make good progress, but against contrary winds, making seaway was much harder. Of course, galleys (rowed not by slaves, as depicted in the film Ben Hur, but by remiges, a category of seamen separate from the nautae who managed the sails and rigging) could move independently of the wind. According to Adrian Goldsworthy (The Complete Roman Army), experiments with a full-scale replica Roman galley showed that such a vessel could maintain a cruising speed of four knots, twice that if under sail or for short bursts as in a ramming attack.

the Vandals struck

The Vandal fleet consisted of captured Roman ships or vessels constructed by subject Roman shipwrights, sailed and navigated by indigenous north Africans. From these craft, Vandal warriors would board other ships or put ashore as raiding parties.

limped back to the Golden Horn

Procopius lays the blame for the outcome of the great adventure squarely on Basiliscus. But the simple explanation may well be just bad luck with the wind. To accommodate both possibilities, I have portrayed Basiliscus as being willing to fleece Gaiseric (who, according to Procopius, bribed the general to agree to a five-day truce in the hope that the wind would change), while not, consciously, at least, allowing this to affect his strategy.

a fourteen-year-old hostage

In the ancient world, the giving of hostages was more about diplomacy than yielding to punitive coercion. The hostage was often a junior royal, handed over as a pledge of good behaviour or adherence to a treaty. To Rome, the practice provided an opportunity to turn barbarians into lovers of the Roman way of life, therefore less likely to prove hostile.

Chapter 1

styluses and waxed tablets

Known as codices, pairs of hinged waxed boards were the notebooks of the Roman world. Writing, scratched on the waxed surface, could be readily erased by the flattened end of the pointed writing-tool, the stylus.

betting on the Blue or Green team

Blue and green were the respective colours of the rival chariot-racing teams competing in the Hippodrome. These teams inspired fanatical support from their fans, support which had a political dimension (the Blues championed the Establishment, the Greens the people) and could lead to serious rioting, as happened in the Nike riots of 532 which nearly toppled Emperor Justinian.

Aristotle on the subject of the young Alexander

The famous philosopher was the tutor of Alexander aged thirteen to sixteen. Aristotle’s image of the ‘great-souled man’ gave the future king a model for the role he wished to emulate.

Basiliscus. . has taken sanctuary in Hagia Sophia

He was eventually reprieved, thanks to his sister’s intercession with the (justifiably furious) emperor, Leo I. Hagia Sophia/Sancta Sophia (Holy Wisdom) was the predecessor of the present building erected in the sixth century by Justinian. The great cathedral is now a mosque.

Anthemius might. . be the last Augustus of the West

Not quite. Like almost all failed emperors, Anthemius was ‘disposed of’, to be followed briefly by: Olybrius, Glycerius, Julius Nepos and Romulus Augustus. Ricimer’s successor, Odovacar, another barbarian Master of Soldiers, deposed Romulus in 476 and sent the imperial regalia to the Eastern Emperor, Zeno, as the sole remaining ruler of the ‘One and Indivisible Empire’. In reality, the Western Empire was no more, and Odovacar had become an independent German monarch in Italy, like Gaiseric in Africa and Euric in Gaul and Spain.

a tough Isaurian

Rather like the Highlanders in early modern Britain, the Isaurians, an independent-minded people from south-west Anatolia, were a constant thorn in the flesh of the imperial government. So much so, that the term ‘Isaurian’ was to become virtually synonymous with ‘insurgent’.

Walls of Theodosius. . aqueduct of Valens

Both these colossal structures are still standing, testament to the strength and durability of Roman architecture. Inviolate for a thousand years until breached by Turkish cannon in 1453, the Walls are being restored to their original glory.

a tall marble column

The Column of Arcadius was modelled on the Columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius in Rome. The imagery of the latter pair, though triumphalist, is not altogether devoid of a spirit of compassion and humanity. The Column of Arcadius — an ugly example of state-sanctioned chauvinism — was redeemed by no such sentiments. The monument no longer exists, bar its base; but a drawing, showing a lynch-mob unleashing a pogrom against the city’s Goths, was made before its demolition in 1715.

Cambyses. The legendary wild boar

An appropriate soubriquet. Cambyses, king of the Medes and Persians from 529 to 522 BC, was notorious for aggression and ferocity.

Chapter 2

outside the Charisius Gate at the second hour

Constantinople is built on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by sea or arms of the sea, the landward side being sealed off by the massive bulwark of the Theodosian Walls. These were pierced by six principal gates with subsidiary military gates between each pair. The Charisius Gate in the north marked the egress of one of the principal thoroughfares of the city, the Mese; the name was also given to the main street in the south, which exited via the Golden Gate. The Roman day, from sunrise to sunset, was divided into twelve hours which varied in length according to the season. Midday corresponded to the sixth hour.

a celebrated local martyr

At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the mummified corpse of St Euphemia, according to the seventh-century chronicler Theophylact, ‘stretched out her dead and lifeless hand to take the tome’. The ‘tome’ in question was a tract written by Pope Leo, arguing that Christ’s nature was both human and divine. This was hotly contested by the opposing faction, the Monophysites, who believed that Christ had only one nature: divine. At the Council, the dispute was resolved in favour of those supporting Leo — no doubt helped by Euphemia’s posthumous sign of approval.

Tempered steel with razor edges

Steel is simply wrought iron (i.e., iron with the impurities removed by beating when white-hot) made to absorb a little carbon. This was achieved by heating the iron in a bed of charcoal. The resulting steel could then be tempered by a process of annealing. Chemical analysis of a selection of Roman swords (e.g., the Mainz ‘Sword of Tiberius’, cited by Bishop and Coulston, Roman Military Equipment) has shown them to consist of high-quality carburized steel with a soft/wrought-iron core. The best Roman steel was manufactured in Spain.

For all your courage, Goth, you’ll never be one of us

In AD 376 the Gothic nation, attacked by a terrible new enemy, the Huns, were granted sanctuary within the Eastern Empire. But, owing to ill-treatment by corrupt Roman officials, they rebelled against their hosts and defeated a huge Roman army sent to crush them, at Adrianople in 378. While one great division of the tribe, the Visigoths (‘Wise Goths’), eventually sought their fortune in the West, the remainder, the Ostrogoths (‘Bright Goths’), after a sojourn in Pannonia were suffered to settle in the East — troublesome and unwelcome guests, assigned a ‘reservation’ in the Balkans.

Chapter 3

Leo and his top general, Zeno

Leo (457-74), often referred to, most inappropriately, as ‘Leo the Great’, purely to distinguish him from his grandson and successor Leo II (474), ‘Leo the Small’, was an undistinguished Dacian officer who succeeded Marcian, the emperor whose defiance of Attila persuaded the Hun king to switch his attack to the West. Dominated by Aspar, the great general who had been instrumental in securing the purple for Marcian, Leo resented his subservient status and tried to counteract Aspar’s influence by enlisting in the imperial army a force of Isaurians. These were a wild tribal people from the Taurus Mountains, ruled by a chieftain called Tarasicodissa. Changing his name to Zeno, Tarasicodissa became the commander of the Excubitors, as the Isaurian unit was named. In about 471, in the course of settling an insurrection, Zeno had Aspar murdered, taking his place as Leo’s eminence grise. By this time Zeno had married Leo’s daughter Ariadne, thus putting himself in line for the throne, as Leo had no sons. On Leo’s death in 474, he was succeeded by his grandson Leo, a child of seven, son of Zeno and Ariadne. Soon afterwards, Leo II died in mysterious circumstances (his father being suspected of his murder), to be succeeded by Zeno (474-91). Zeno’s reign was briefly interrupted by a usurper, Basiliscus, the general whose incompetent handling of the 468 expedition against the Vandals ensured the collapse of the Western Empire eight years later. Intrigue, jealousy and murder — classic Roman politics!

look what he [Alaric] did to Rome

In 408 Alaric, king of the Visigoths, laid siege to Rome in an attempt to force the Western Emperor, Honorius, to grant his people a homeland and recognized status within the empire. Negotiations seemed to begin well, and the siege was called off. However, provoked by endless vacillation on the part of Honorius, Alaric lost patience and in 410 sacked the city. Although little damage was done and few lives lost, the sack had huge symbolic importance, sending shock waves reverberating round the Roman world.

Pridie Kalendas Junii, in the year of the consuls Leo. . and Probianus

The Romans dated important events ‘from the Founding of the City — ab urbe condita’ or AUC (753 BC) — but for most dating purposes the names of the consuls for any given year were used, one from Rome, the other from Constantinople. Dates within any given month were calculated by counting the number of days occurring before the next of the three fixed days dividing the Roman month: Kalends, the first day of the month, the Nones on the 5th or 7th, and the Ides on the 13th or 15th. (In March, May, July, and October, the Nones fell on the 7th and the Ides on the 15th, in the remaining months on the 5th and 13th respectively.) Thus, the Ides of January happening on the 13th of that month, the next day would be termed by a Roman not the 14th, but the 19th before the Kalends of February, reckoning inclusively, i.e., taking in both the 14th of January and the 1st of February; and so on to the last day of the month which was termed pridie Kalendas.

the Golden Gate

This began life as a huge triumphal arch erected c. 390 by Theodosius I. Originally outside the city, it was incorporated into the new Walls built by Theodosius II. The gates themselves were originally covered in gold plate, hence the name.

Legio Quinta Macedonica

Egyptian carvings of the fifth and sixth centuries show soldiers of this unit, identifiable from the sunflower-like design on their shields, in graphic detail. They are portrayed wearing very traditional gear that would not have looked out of place on Trajan’s Column: scale armour with pteruges (protective leather strips) at the shoulders and between the groin and knees, and classical ‘Attic’ helmets complete with brow reinforcements and cheek-pieces. (In the Eastern Empire, uniforms tended to be more conservative than in the West, perhaps because of the influence of Hellenic tradition — the conquests of Alexander, the Persian Wars, etc.)

Chapter 4

a line of figures performing a processional dance

These dances, known as Kukeri, are still performed in some places in Bulgaria, always by male dancers. Dressed in animal skins, including masks often made from the heads, they parade in a trance-like state through towns and villages, chanting and shouting, to drive away evil spirits. The dances are thought to have originated from the ancient Thracians.

the monastery of St Elizabeth

Elizabeth the Thaumaturge, or Miracle-Worker, was a popular saint who arose in Constantinople during Leo’s reign. She reputedly killed a dragon, after first ‘sealing’ it in its cave with her crucifix. For this and various miracles of healing she was canonized, her feast-day being 24 April — the day after that of St George (coincidence, or what?). The monastery described in the text is loosely based on Bulgaria’s famous Rila Monastery, dating originally from 927 (though since heavily restored), so not too remote in time from my fictional one.

Chapter 5

such blades were lethal

German master-swordsmiths of the Migration Period (Frankish ones especially) were capable of producing blades whose construction involved a very high degree of craftsmanship. The best ones were made by ‘pattern-welding’, in which several iron rods were twisted together, beaten flat, then edged with steel. When washed with acid, the sword’s flat surfaces displayed beautiful patterns rather like those of watered silk. Naturally, weapons of such quality were time-consuming to produce and therefore expensive, so were possessed only by individuals of high status.

The Norns who weave the web

Strictly, the Norns belong to Scandinavian rather than Teutonic mythology. But as the pantheon of these ethnically virtually identical peoples was intimately entwined (Odin/Woden/Wotan et al.), I felt I could legitimately mention them in this context. Although the Goths were now Christian, lingering adherence to the old warlike deities must have persisted just below the surface, especially with people nurtured on heroic myth.

Chapter 6

Thiudimer’s ‘gards’ or palace

Gothic words such as baurg (town), kind (kin), gards (large house) and haims (village) show close affinity with burg/burgh, cyn, garth, ham from our own Anglo-Saxon and Viking linguistic heritage — showing that Germanic and Nordic languages have common roots, even when spoken by peoples widely separated by geography. That we have a comprehensive knowledge of the Gothic language is thanks to one Ulfila or Ulfilas, a Gothic missionary who, from 340 till his death in 381, was largely successful in converting his people to (Arian) Christianity, and whose translation of the Bible into Gothic we still possess.

his concubine not his wife

Ancient sources — Jordanes, Anonymous Valesianus, et al. (they refer to Erelieva as concubina) — confirm that her marriage to Thiudimer was invalid. That Thiudimund could entertain realistic hopes of succeeding Thiudimer is suggested by Jordanes in Getica, where he points out that, on his father’s death, Thiudimund was completely passed over as heir, contrary to traditional practice (my italics). If his birth were legitimate (in contrast to Theoderic’s), this of course would provide a strong basis for such hopes. To reinforce this possibility, I have given Theoderic and Thiudimund different mothers, with Thiudimund’s being married to Thiudimer. Speculation, admittedly, but, in the interests of giving a dramatic twist to the story, hopefully legitimate.

Chapter 7

striped with reinforcing layers

This curious feature, known as ‘brick-banding’, is typical of the late Roman walls of many cities, e.g. Ankara, Diocletianopolis (Hissar, Bulgaria) and, most famously, Constantinople. The last example was the inspiration, nearly a thousand years later, for the variegated layering of the ramparts of Caernarvon Castle.

above them rose the citadel

Nothing Roman remains today of Belgrade’s Kalemegdan Citadel — hardly surprising, as it was razed and rebuilt many times in its long history, which stretches back to Celtic times. What can be seen today is mainly of Austro-Hungarian and Turkish (e.g., the Stambol Gate) construction from the eighteenth century. For lack of evidence on the site itself, I based the appearance of the gatehouse partly on Trier’s late Roman Porta Nigra.

a ‘ladder’ of axes raced up the face of the gate

This was suggested by an incident in the film The Vikings, starring Kirk Douglas.

Alexander, Caesar or Aetius

Nearer our own time, leaders of this stamp — charismatic personalities with the power to inspire others to want to follow them, include — Robert the Bruce, Henry V, Joan of Arc, Nelson, Napoleon (unfortunately), Shackleton and Churchill. There is evidence that, c. 471, Theoderic underwent something of a personality change (see Richard Rudgley’s Barbarians) from the timid recluse of Constantinople to the young Alexander of Singidunum.

to ferry the rest. . across the Danube

Jordanes is specific in stating that Theoderic crossed the Danube with his army, but does not explain how. He couldn’t have used Constantine’s great stone bridge at Oescus (even supposing it was still intact), as that was many miles downstream from Singidunum. Getting six thousand men across a wide river was the sort of thing Roman generals took in their stride. But for a teenage lad in charge of a large force of unruly barbarians. .? However it was done (and I’ve had to fall back on imagination here, for a solution), it was a remarkable feat.

Down crashed the massive iron grille

A Roman portcullis? An anachronism, surely? This clever device was not, however, a medieval invention. According to Peter Connolly in his magnificent Greece and Rome at War, it is first mentioned during the Second Punic War; he also states that the channels for these gates can be seen at many Roman sites, including Nimes, Aosta and Trier. The stratagem of using a stalled wagon to enter the gateway is based on a ruse by Scottish freedom fighters to take a castle in English hands (Linlithgow), during the Wars of Independence.

‘Keep Singidunum for the moment’

And keep it he did — the first incident (in 471) in an on-off relationship with the Eastern Empire which was to seesaw until 488 (when Zeno invited him to take over Italy from Odovacar), and re-emerge in the final decade of his life.

Chapter 8

Sidonius Apollinaris, former bishop of Arverna

Sidonius Apollinaris — distinguished man of letters, aristocrat, bishop (of Arverna, 471-5), son-in-law of an emperor (Avitus) — was one of the few Gallo-Roman nobles who forcibly resisted the encroachments of the barbarians. Others of his class tended to make the best terms they could with their uninvited ‘guests’ (a Roman euphemism for the German invaders!).

Chapter 9

Ambrosius Aurelianus, son of a Roman senator and resistance leader

Mentioned briefly by Gildas and Nennius, little is known about Aurelianus beyond the fact that he was of Roman descent and headed British resistance against the Saxons some time in the fifth century. S. E. Wibolt in Britain under the Romans places him early in that century; Neil Faulkner in The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain dates his campaigns to c. 475–500.

venerated as a ‘holy man’

In his Vita Severini, Eugippius (a monk who had been present at his subject’s death and gathered stories about him from his close companions) mentions the meeting with Odovacar, and describes in detail both the soldiers’ expedition to draw their final pay instalment, and Severinus’ organizing centres of defence. As Severinus refused to disclose anything about his origins, except some training as an ascetic in the eastern deserts, I felt at liberty to fill in the blanks. As he apparently spoke beautiful Latin, I thought it safe to assume that he was a cultured man of considerable education. In his account of the Batavan soldiers’ journey, Eugippius implies that they were ambushed before they reached their destination; for dramatic reasons I have had this happen as they returned.

Chapter 10

a bloodstained ‘gladius’

Aurelianus is historical, but Artorius — Arthur — belongs firmly in the realm of myth. Legends (first recorded c. 830 by a Welshman, Nennius) abound, but, so far, no hard evidence has come to light. However, the fact that the Arthur stories are known ‘wherever Celts have spoken a Brythonic tongue’, suggest that his existence may be more than merely fabulous.

Chapter 11

the highs and lows of his career

To say that the movements of the Amal branch of the Ostrogoths throughout the Balkans and Thrace in the decade 471-81 were convoluted would be like describing the ascent of Everest as a challenging hill-walk. For we’re dealing with a tangled web of marches and counter-marches, double-dealing, promises made and broken, treaties signed then ignored, shifting alliances, negotiations running into the sand, etc., involving the relationship between, on the one hand, Thiudimer and then his son Theoderic and, on the other, Leo then Zeno, with the manoeuvrings of Strabo thrown in to muddy the water. To attempt a fictional version of all this without some radical abridgement would stretch the patience of most readers beyond snapping-point. So, following the example of Howard Fast in his novel Spartacus, I’ve gone in for a good deal of pruning and telescoping. For example, the confrontation between the two Theoderics at Mount Sondis in 478, and Thiudimund’s abandoning of his wagons near Epidamnus in 479, I’ve presented as two connected incidents in a single event. Also, I’ve moved Theoderic’s route across the Balkan Mountains slightly to the west: from Marcianople (Mt Sondis) to Novae (Shipka Pass) as the latter feature makes an appropriately dramatic setting for the face-off between the two rivals.

the last Western Emperor

So ended — with a whimper rather than a bang — five hundred years of empire (and, before that, five hundred years of the Roman Republic). The orthodoxy among some historians is that the collapse of the West was an organic process rather than an event, the date of its official end, 476, simply a marker for something that had in fact been going on for a considerable time. If, however, we put the date of the fall of the West back a few years, from 476 to 468, it can be seen as a single catastrophic event; before 468, the West was still salvageable after that date, its collapse was inevitable and swift (see Notes for the Prologue).

facing each other across a river

This time-honoured tradition — with its inherent sense of drama and occasion — held a special appeal for the Goths, for whom it seems to have been a favoured way of staging ‘summit meetings’. Other shame-and-honour societies have exhibited a similar penchant for dramatic panache when holding grand assemblies — Native American ‘pow-wows’ or Highland clan gatherings, for example.

Chapter 12

a Hun great horse and a chunky Parthian

Contrary to popular belief, Hun horses were not shaggy little ponies but huge, ill-conformed brutes, inferior perhaps in intelligence and speed to the smaller north African and Arab strains, but powerful and capable of great endurance. The Parthian horse — chunky and solid, large of cheek and muzzle, with strongly arched neck and rounded haunches — was a good all-round war-horse and the favourite breed of stablemasters for the Roman cavalry. This was perhaps more for aesthetic than practical reasons; for example, it performed less well in hot conditions than the Arab or African. In imagining a Hun-Parthian cross, I’ve combined the size and power of one with the pleasing looks of the other. I thought Sleipnir should be huge — but twenty hands was perhaps stretching things a bit.

going back to Xenophon

Moves first recorded in the Greek commander’s The Art of Horsemanship, and still performed today by the famous Lipizzan stallions of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, which are direct descendants of horses bred for the Roman cavalry. Their movements and figures, especially the marvellous ‘airs above the ground’, are derived from those that Greek and Roman cavalry mounts were made to practise.

an unheard-of honour for a barbarian

Well, not quite. Stilicho, the great Vandal general of West Rome’s armies in the reign of Honorius, was made consul for the year 400, in recognition of his services. Despite this, he fell from grace and was put to death for failing to prevent the invasion of Gaul in 406-7 by a huge barbarian confederacy.

Chapter 13

Myrddin, from Cambria in Britain

Myrddin: Welsh personal name which Geoffrey of Monmouth Latinized into Merlinus (Merlin) in tales of Arthurian romance. For obvious reasons I have associated him with Artorius (Arthur); in some legends he is confounded with Ambrosius Aurelianus. Two distinct Merlins emerge from the stories — a fifth-century Welsh Merlin (cited by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Vita Merlini), and a sixth-century Caledonian Merlin. A medieval tradition ascribes to Merlin the gift of prophecy.

I have arrived at my own Rubicon

The stream separating Cisalpine Gaul from Italy proper, which Julius Caesar crossed with his legions, thus precipitating a bloody civil war with Pompey, has become synonymous with a personal moment of truth or point of no return. In Theoderic’s case, this was a consequence of Strabo’s death in 481. The demise of their leader persuaded the Thracian Goths to unite with the Amal Goths under Theoderic. This apparent stroke of luck was in reality a major headache both for the Amal king, and for the Eastern Empire. Instead of two rival Gothic factions effectively neutralizing each other, the Eastern Empire was now faced with a huge, undifferentiated, potentially hostile barbarian mass. Could it afford to tolerate such a volatile presence within its borders? If not, what stance would Theoderic be forced to adopt?

solve the problems of the Noricans

Odovacar’s ‘solution’ (which could be interpreted as an admission of failure) was to resettle the ‘Romans’ (i.e., the populations of towns and their garrisons) of Noricum within Italy. If the majority of country-dwellers had been sheltering in the towns, this would imply a mass emigration of refugees to Italy. It seems unlikely that the entire population of Noricum would have decamped, but what proportion remained behind can’t be ascertained.

it is the red dragon which prevails

The ninth-century Welsh chronicler Nennius alludes to a prophecy in which the red dragon (i.e., the Britons — the ancestors of today’s Welsh) would one day overcome the white dragon (the Anglo-Saxon forebears of most twenty-first-century English people). If there’s any truth in the prophecy, that would imply Welsh independence some time in the future. That is perhaps (some would say unfortunately) unlikely, despite the halfway house of the present Welsh Assembly. Though ethnically and linguistically far more distinct from their English neighbours than are the Scots — that ‘mongrel nation’ — Wales has been politically joined to England for four hundred years longer than Scotland, with the result that habit and conditioning have perhaps done their work too well. (A recent experiment involving DNA sampling showed the Celtic gene, as opposed to the Teutonic, to be much more prevalent among Welsh people than among Scots.) Now, if instead of dragons the prophecy had said lions. .

Chapter 14

a revolutionary new weapons system

I couldn’t resist the temptation to put back the use of Greek fire from the seventh to the late fifth century. Supposedly invented by Callinicus of Heliopolis in 668, its first recorded use was in 674 against the Arabs, then besieging Constantinople. Creating terror perhaps disproportionate to its effect (its nearest modern equivalent is napalm), it was undoubtedly the most effective form of ordnance prior to gunpowder. As with that composition, its precise origins are shrouded in mystery — sufficient licence (excuse?) I thought, to allow me to include it in the story. After all, if James Clavell in his novel Shogun, can equip troops with Elizabethan bayonets. .

the order. . for his recall

With suspicion of Theoderic’s motives at times verging on the paranoid Zeno seems to have been genuinely worried that the Amal king ‘could prove disloyal’ (to quote the chronicler Ioannis Antiochenus), and join forces with Illus against him. Hence Theoderic’s recall — a U-turn which provoked him to understandable fury, causing him to wreak revenge by (once again) beating up Thrace, then attacking Constantinople. It never seems to have occurred to the Romans that, by dealing with barbarians honestly and fairly, they might have succeeded in establishing a harmonious modus vivendi with them. This blind spot may have stemmed from a deep-seated concept of barbarians as ‘subhuman’, therefore hardly deserving of humane treatment. Perhaps the attitude was linked to an atavistic fear originating in incidents like the occupation of Rome by the Gauls in 390 BC, and the destruction of Varus’ legions by Hermann’s Germans in AD 9.

I need someone to take over in Italy

Who initiated the move to Italy, Zeno or Theoderic? Among ancient writers, Procopius, Jordanes (in his Romana) and Anonymous Valesianus come down firmly on the side of Zeno, while Ennodius and Jordanes (this time in his Gothic History) plump for Theoderic (it seems that Jordanes wanted to have his cake and eat it!). Considering that in 488 Theoderic had become a real danger to Zeno, it seems only natural that the emperor would seek to be rid of him by holding up Italy as a desirable carrot. With the notable exception of Gibbon, this is the view that most modern historians subscribe to.

threatening to send warriors

Nothing, but nothing, in the dealings of Constantinople with barbarians was ever simple. Perhaps over-reacting to Odovacar’s bellicose stance (which may have been more bluster than a real threat), Zeno mobilized the Rugians in the west to block any hostile moves by the Scirian king. This resulted in a chain reaction of retribution and misery: in 487 Odovacar attacked and destroyed the Rugian kingdom, capturing and executing its king; caught up in the conflict, the wretched inhabitants of Noricum emigrated en masse to Italy (see the Notes for Chapter 13); the son of the Rugian king escaped, and with a band of pro-Ostrogothic followers marched downstream along the Danube to join Theoderic in Moesia, as he was about to set out for Italy. Theoderic was under instructions to overthrow Odovacar and rule Italy ‘until the emperor arrived in person’ (Anonymous Valesianus). This quotation is an example of the elaborate fiction which maintained that the de facto barbarian kings of Italy were actually the appointees of the Eastern Emperor! Back to Illus: the Isaurian pretender was cornered, captured and executed in 488, the year of Theoderic’s commission to invade Italy.

the comforting illusion

In 476, Odovacar, the Scirian adventurer who had risen to become commander of the Army of Italy, was short of money to pay his (barbarian federate) soldiers — hardly surprising, as the state revenues had virtually dried up. Payment in land being the only viable alternative to cash, Odovacar applied for permission to distribute land grants, from the imperial government, which was controlled by the Patrician Orestes who had installed his son, the boy Romulus, as Western Emperor. When permission was refused, the Scirian acted swiftly. Showing a sure grasp of realpolitik, he captured and killed Orestes, rewarded his soldiers with land — either public or confiscated from Romans, sent young Romulus into exile and, to give his actions a cloak of legality, persuaded the Senate to send the imperial robes and diadem to Zeno in Constantinople ‘as one shared Emperor was sufficient for both territories’ (Malchus). They also requested that Odovacar be given the rank of Patrician and entrusted with the government of Italy. Though Zeno’s reply was carefully ambiguous (after all, Julius Nepos — the Eastern nominee, though he had been forced into exile — was anxious to reclaim his throne), behind its polished phraseology lay an acknowledgement of the truth: Italy, like Gaul, Spain and Africa, was now ruled by a barbarian king, and the Western Empire was over.

Chapter 15

crossing the Mare Suevicum

In his Gothic History (based on an earlier, more detailed work by the Roman Cassiodorus) Jordanes, a Goth living in Constantinople in the sixth century, developed three main points: a) that the Goths originated in Scandinavia, b) that they migrated south-east across what is now Poland and the Ukraine until they reached the Black Sea, and c) that they eventually divided into two groups, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, ruled by ancient royal lines, the Balthi and Amal respectively. Although his conclusions are based on oral tradition, archaeological evidence tends broadly to support them. Two cultures associated with the Goths (from grave-goods etc.), the Wielbark in Poland and the C? ernjachov north of the Black Sea, have been identified along the migration route described by Jordanes. It would be an over-simplification to identify the fourth-century groupings of the Tervingi and the Greuthungi with the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, but certainly in the fifth century these two great branches developed distinct and separate identities, each under its own ruling family.

a time of gods and heroes

The Goths seem to have shared certain ideals and aspirations with other Germanic groups, especially the linking of a man’s status with brave deeds, and a king’s sacrificing himself for his people — a tradition enacted in historical times by Ermanaric’s suicide following his defeat by the Huns. (The Goths, by this time converted to Christianity, may have been torn between admiration for a traditionally heroic act and disapproval, as suicide was condemned by the Arian Church, as well as by the Catholic.) Nordic/Teutonic mythology with its pantheon (Odin, Thor et al.), ideas of good versus evil (Balder v. Loki, Ragnarok), and the marvellous poetical and significant image of the ash tree, Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, after being handed down orally for untold generations, was eventually permanently recorded in written works such as the seventh-century Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, the Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus in the twelfth century, the Icelandic Prose Edda, and the Heimskringla of Snorre Sturlason, completed c. 1230.

Chapter 16

list of Things to be Done

The migration of a whole people necessarily involved planning and preparation on a massive scale: wagons, of course, were the sine qua non of such ventures, but archaeology is little help in visualizing what Gothic wagons were like. (With the exception of a beautifully constructed and sophisticated wagon as part of the furniture for the afterlife in a high-status barbarian grave, there is virtually no surviving evidence.) However, remains of ancient chariots show that wheel construction was highly efficient, involving spokes, hubs, axle-pins, and iron tyres; it’s safe to assume that similar technology would apply in the case of wagons. Similar problems (migration on an epic scale involving the crossing of rough terrain, especially difficult mountain ranges) tend to produce similar solutions. So, boldly sticking my neck out, I have assumed that the basic construction of Gothic wagons must have resembled in essentials that of Boer and Conestoga wagons if they were to cope successfully with the rigours of the journey. The same principle would apply with draught animals, provisioning, etc. In connection with the tools I’ve enumerated (augers, chisels, tongs, etc.), Roman and barbarian toolkits have been found, which are virtually identical to their modern counterparts.

the last day of September

I can find no source which gives an exact date for the start of the expedition. Moorhead (in Theoderic in Italy) says, ‘probably towards the end of 488’, Heather (in The Goths) states, ‘in the autumn and winter of 488/9, Theoderic. . set out’, while Wolfram (in History of the Goths) says only that ‘the Goths waited for the harvest before they left the Danubian provinces’. Gibbon’s statement that the march was ‘undertaken in the depths of a rigorous winter’ must, I think, err on the side of lateness. All in all, the end of September seems a credible date for the migration to begin. By then the harvest would be in, and they would still have time to break the back of the journey before the onset of winter. From Novae to the River Ulca — where they encountered the Gepids — via the route I’ve described (which we know is the one they took) is nearly six hundred miles. Assuming an average rate of travel of ten miles a day (which allows for inevitable delays and stopovers), they would accomplish this stretch in two months, arriving at the Ulca about the end of November. This would still give them time to push far enough up the valley of the Drava before wintering, to be able to cross the Julian Alps into Italy the following spring.

two hundred sections altogether

The wagon trains of American pioneers or Boers on the Great Trek set out not as amorphous mobs but as organized mobile communities made up of separate groupings, and operating under strict codes of discipline, with a hierarchy of command. It is fairly safe to assume that the emigration of the Ostrogoths (to which must be added Fredericus’ Rugians) must have been run on broadly similar lines. As no sources give any details, however, I’ve had to fall back on invention. How many did the Ostrogoths number? Again, no precise figures are available. Burns (in History of the Ostrogoths) suggests forty thousand, which seems far too low; Wolfram estimates one hundred thousand, a figure with which Moorhead agrees, while Richard Rudgley (in his fascinating Barbarians) suggests three hundred thousand. As a compromise, perhaps two hundred thousand would be a realistic total.

Chapter 17

To put on such a show of force

Exactly why the Gepids chose to offer battle remains a mystery. On the face of it, they had nothing to gain and everything to lose by taking on such a powerful nation. Wolfram (in his impressive and synthesizing History of the Goths) says, ‘Whether the Gepids were in league with Odovacar or whether they were doing this on their own is unknown.’ He goes on to wonder if Odovacar may perhaps have enlisted the Gepids as allies, but admits that this is only speculation. Jordanes claims that the Gepids were old enemies of the Ostrogoths — hardly in itself a valid reason for confronting them at a juncture when they were merely transients and not acting in the least aggressively. I can find no other source which offers an explanation for the Gepids’ conduct. Of course, all this uncertainty provides a splendid opportunity to devise a fictional reason, one which ties in with Thiudimund — concerning whom the records are largely (and conveniently!) blank. From the scanty information we do possess, we know that his claim to the throne was passed over (because he could offer, Wolfram says, ‘no evidence of his fitness for the kingship’) in favour of Theoderic’s; also that in 479, when leading a column assigned to him by Theoderic, he was outmanoeuvred by the Roman general Sabinianus, only escaping by abandoning his people — resulting in many being taken prisoner, and hundreds of wagons being lost. This allowed me, without distorting known historical fact, to present him as a jealous sibling who was also cowardly and incompetent. (All very useful for dramatic purposes.) As history is silent about him after 479, I was able neatly to kill him off in the battle at the Ulca, he having fulfilled his fictional raison d’etre.

you will lead the Forlorn Hope

Despite having a modern — well, early modern — ring, being chiefly associated with wars from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries, the term ‘Forlorn Hope’ (from the Dutch verloren hoop, ‘lost troop’) doesn’t mean that the phenomenon itself is anachronistic in the context here. Ancient history abounds with examples of intrepid volunteers leading desperate sorties to carry a breach etc. (e.g., Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was awarded the corona vallaris for heading a scaling-party over the walls of Carthage). With their reputation for reckless courage, acts of self-sacrificing valour by barbarians were doubtless even more common than those by Romans. But, as history was written by the Romans, such incidents were seldom recorded. An exception was made in the case of Theoderic at the battle of the Ulca. The Roman panegyrist Ennodius wrote (in Panegyricus dictus Theoderico) that he turned the tide of battle by heading a counter-attack ‘like a lion in the midst of a herd’, just when it seemed that the Gepids were gaining the upper hand. But of course on that occasion, Theoderic, acting in the capacity of Zeno’s vicegerent-to-be, was fighting on the ‘right’ side.

Chapter 18

the West’s finished

Except that it wasn’t. In the 530s, Justinian, the Eastern Emperor, began a long campaign to restore the Western half of the ‘One and Indivisible Empire’. His brilliant generals Belisarius and Narses succeeded in clearing Africa, Italy and southern Spain of Vandals, Ostrogoths and Visigoths respectively, so that by the end of his reign, in 565, the Roman Empire had almost regained the same dimensions it possessed just prior to Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul. A truly remarkable achievement, but one that was destined not to last. By the end of the century Germanic Lombards had taken over much of Italy, and in the next, Avars, along with militant Islam, were to reduce the empire to an Anatolian rump, with an archipelago of tiny imperial possessions alone surviving in the West. (The Eastern Empire survived, though in increasingly attenuated form, until 1453 when Constantinople finally fell to the Turks.) Although, in a physical sense, the Roman Empire may have passed away, it is astonishing how the idea of Rome has continued to grip the minds of rulers and statesmen: from Charlemagne crowned emperor in Rome in 800 to the failed attempt to create a European Constitution, whose aims were prematurely carved in Latin in splendid Trajanic capitals on a marble plaque in Rome.

chatting easily with the Franks

Sidonius Apollinaris wrote to Syagrius congratulating him on his ability to communicate with barbarians. ‘I am. . inexpresibly amazed,’ he commented, ‘that you have quickly acquired a knowledge of the German tongue with such ease. . The bent elders of the Germans are astounded at you when you translate letters, and they adopt you as umpire and arbitrator in their mutual dealings.’

Clovis. . inspiring respect

For most of the fifth century, the pre-eminent barbarian power in Gaul was the Visigoths, with Frankish influence west of the Rhine tenuous at best. Following the death of the great Euric in 484, that situation rapidly went into reverse. By the time of Clovis’s death in 511, the Franks had become the dominant power in Gaul — whose name in consequence changed to Frankia/Francia (France).

Chapter 19

the Forts of the Saxon Shore

To counter Saxon raids, an increasingly serious threat from the late third century on, a chain of ten massive forts was built from the Wash to the Isle of Wight, under the command of the Comes Litoris Saxonici, the Count of the Saxon shore, the second highest military post after the Dux Britanniae. When the usurper Constantine (self-styled III) withdrew the regular troops from Britain in 407, the limitanei continued to function, even after the collapse of the Western Empire in 476. The last of them, the Numerus Abulcorum stationed at Anderida (Pevensey), were finally wiped out by the Saxons in 491.

his headquarters near Castra Gyfel

Despite Ilchester’s obvious Roman ancestry, I’ve been unable to trace its Roman name. In the Domesday Book it’s Givelcestre, ‘Roman town on the Gifl’. Gifl, being an earlier name for the River Yeo on which the town stands, would have been a Brythonic appellation. In the same way that the Romans called Chester (on the River Dee) Castra Deva, I’ve guessed that they might have called Ilchester Castra Gyfel.

a magical landscape

The grassy chalk uplands of southern England (mainly in Surrey, Sussex and Thomas Hardy’s ‘Wessex’) are rich in man-made features dating from neolithic times to the Iron Age: ridgeways along the crests of the various downs, chalk-cut giants and horses, barrows, stone circles of which Avebury and Stonehenge are the most famous, hill-forts, and that amazing eminence Silbury Hill (alluded to by Myrddin in the text). A few of the above are, or may be, imposters. All the extant White Horses, bar the one at Uffington (probably first-century BC), are eighteenth- and nineteenth-century, though two others, now destroyed, are known to have existed anciently. The Long Man of Wilmington is presumed to be ancient, as is the famously priapic Cerne Abbas Giant — though there’s a theory that the latter is an eighteenth-century forgery by an aristocratic joker poking fun at antiquaries.

an extraordinary edifice

Known today as Cadbury Castle (officially South Cadbury hill-fort), this Iron Age hill-fort with late-fifth-century additions has long been held to be King Arthur’s Camelot. This theory is reinforced by ‘Camel’ place-names in the vicinity: West Camel and Queen’s Camel; while the second name-word re the nearby Chilton Cantelo becomes ‘Canelot’ by switching round the letters. The Cadbury site, along with Glastonbury a few miles to the north, is a happy hunting-ground for Arthurian enthusiasts, with Glastonbury proving an especially copious fount of associated legend — the Holy Grail, Avalon, Excalibur, the Round Table, Arthur’s Grave (‘discovered’ in 1191), etc.

Artorius’ great victory at Mons Badonicus

‘Mount Badon’, in Arthurian legend, is where Arthur won a great victory against the Saxons. Two sites have been suggested for the battle, one at Liddington Castle, an Iron Age hill-fort six miles north of Marlborough in Wiltshire (the one I’ve chosen), the other at Badbury Rings, near Wimborne Minster in Dorset.

Chapter 20

which route to follow

Sources differ as to what route through the Julian Alps Theoderic took to reach Italy. Heather in The Goths and Wolfram in his History of the Goths both say he reached his goal via the valley of the Vipava (through the southern part of the Julian Alps), whereas Burns in History of the Ostrogoths states that Theoderic advanced up the Drava River (well to the north of the Julian Alps), then crossed the Julian Alps to the Isonzo River and on to Italy. Clearly, these two routes are mutually exclusive. I’ve settled for the Drava route as being perhaps strategically preferable to the other. Also, it enables one to exploit the dramatic bonus provided by the arresting Luknja Pass (which Theoderic would have had to use), the col below the awesome cliffs of Triglav’s north face.

its junction with the Sorus

I’ve been unable to find the Latin name for the River Sora, but as the Romans called the Drava ‘Dravus’ and the Sava ‘Savus’. .

the highest summit of the Alpes Juliae

Having had no luck tracing the three-peaked Triglav’s Latin name, I’ve resorted to invention, following the example of ‘Trimontium’, the name the Romans gave the three-peaked Eildon Hills in Roxburghshire, where Agricola established a great military camp. (S

ik, Triglav’s sister peak, I’ve christened Spica, Latin for ‘spike’: appropriate, considering the mountain’s shape and present name.)

a vast stony trough

This is Vrata, the long valley that leads from the Sava up to the pass of Luknja, overlooked by the towering cliffs of Triglav’s North Face. The waterfall described in the text is the upper one at Slap Peric? nik; I’ve moved it nearer the stream (which does indeed disappear underground) to enable Theoderic’s wagons to pass beneath it. The terrain on the far side of the pass I’ve described as less steep than it actually is, in order to point up the rigours of the ascent by contrast.

Odovacar. . had withdrawn

Wolfram, Burns and Heather say that an inconclusive battle was fought between the two rivals at Isonzo Bridge, resulting in Odovacar retreating to Verona. However, Moorhead suggests that Odovacar, alarmed by the size of Theoderic’s host, withdrew from the Isonzo without giving battle. (7Ennodius, in Panegyricus dictus Theoderico, describes Odovacar as summoning all the nations against Theoderic, with very many kings coming to fight for him. Whoever these kings were — and it’s tempting to dismiss them as hyperbolic — they were conspicuous by their absence when Odovacar did eventually confront Theoderic in battle.)

Chapter 21

he had been. . entombed — alive

Rumours that Zeno had been heard crying for help from within the tomb (cries that were ignored, due to his being a hated Isaurian), gained wide circulation in Constantinople, and were long believed. Even a hundred and fifty years later, the emperor Heraclius gave orders on his death-bed that his corpse should lie in state until corruption had set in, lest he suffer the same fate.

an undistinguished. . palace official

Despite his being elderly at his accession, the twenty-seven-year reign of Anastasius was one of the Eastern Empire’s longest. It was also, despite being comparatively uneventful, one of the most successful and enlightened. A mild and by all accounts rather colourless individual, Anastasius suppressed the barbarous fights between men and wild beasts, abolished the sale of offices and an ancient tax on domestic animals, constructed aqueducts, harbours and the Long Wall to the west of the capital as an extra defence against barbarian incursion, and campaigned effectively against Persians and Isaurian insurgents. A not unimpressive record, which compares favourably with those of many Eastern emperors.

Chapter 22

Rome’s Senate House

Despite what, in the story, Cassiodorus seemed to believe, this was not the building that Scipio and Caesar knew, but an Imperial replacement dating from the reign of Diocletian and today known as the Curia.

you must have contact with the Sibyl

A reference to the authoress of the Sibylline Prophecies (foretelling the future destiny of Rome), the Oracle of Cumae.

he’s no Sulla

Lucius Cornelius Sulla, successful general and ultra-reactionary politician, became Dictator of Rome in 81 BC. There followed a reign of terror, which saw several thousand ‘enemies of the state’ proscribed and executed. The young Julius Caesar very nearly became one of Sulla’s victims, but saved himself by the coolness and courage of his deportment when interrogated.

Chapter 23

a careful sale and redistribution of land

Liberius implemented a system of parcelling out called ‘thirds’. The term is surely misleading. Given the tiny number of Goths compared to Romans, this could hardly mean that the native Italians were to be deprived of one-third of their land and property. The fact that the final settlement seems to have satisfied Theoderic’s followers, without causing undue hardship to their Roman ‘hosts’, argues that Liberius pulled off an astonishing coup, squaring the circle of conflicting interests. (See Moorhead’s Theoderic in Italy, Chapter 2.)

one young female. . called ‘Spicy’

One of the charges brought against Pope Symmachus (who seems, like some of his Renaissance successors, to have been as much worldly politician as spiritual leader) by his opponents, was that he consorted with loose women, especially one who rejoiced in the nickname ‘Conditaria’, which translates as ‘highly seasoned’, or indeed ‘spicy’, as Chadwick renders it in his Boethius.

Laurentius, must. . retire

For the sake of dramatic clarity I have telescoped Theoderic’s confirmation of Symmachus as Pope, his fiat concerning Church lands, and his decision as to the fate of Laurentius, into a single incident. In fact, final settlement of these matters was not reached till some time after 500.

he was able to back his claim

Displaying a breathtaking combination of inventiveness and lack of scruple, Symmachus produced a formidable battery of forged documents to support his claim: Synodi sinuessanae gesta; Constitutio Silvestri gesta Liberii; Gesta de Xysti purgatione; Gesta Polychronii. Anyone interested in their contents will find them admirably summarized in Chapter 4 of Moorhead’s Theoderic in Italy.

the five hundred and first

Our present system of dating from the birth of Christ, devised by Dionysius Exiguus, was only officially adopted in 527, the year after Theoderic’s death. However, it’s not unreasonable to suppose its periodic use for some time prior to that date. Official acknowledgement of any important change often lags behind a ground-swell of popular usage or opinion; e.g., the adoption in Scotland of Christmas Day as a public holiday, which, for four hundred years following its prohibition as a pagan festival by John Knox, it had not been.

The beautiful discs

This is the famous Senigallia medallion, named after the town near which a surviving example was discovered in 1894. The medallion has generally been dated to 500 and associated with Theoderic’s visit to Rome on the occasion of his tricennalia. However, my old tutor Philip Grierson has argued for a date of 509 (see ‘The Date of Theoderic’s Gold Medallion’, Hikuin, 1985).

yet were themselves still here

And, in some cases, still are: the Massimo (Maximus), Colonna and Gaetani families have pedigrees stretching back to the Roman Republic. (The consul Fabius Maximus was famous for adopting ‘Fabian’ tactics against Hannibal.)

Chapter 24

the bowels of the amphitheatre

Like one of those clever cutaway models designed to show the inner workings of the human body or the internal structure of a building, the Colosseum, in its present plundered state, shows clearly the honeycomb of passages under the arena where the animals were caged and then transported to the surface by means of a complex system of lifts and ramps.

Thrasamund’s. . hunters

The excavated Roman villa at Piazza Armerina in Sicily boasts a magnificent series of mosaics, dating from c. AD 300, showing how animals for the Roman Games were captured and transported. There are mounted men driving stags into a circle of nets; men loading elephants onto a galley; a Roman animal-catcher directing Moorish assistants to surround and net a lion; an ox-drawn cart with a shipping-crate containing one of the big cats; etc.

he strained to twist the creature’s horns

I hold my hands up; the incident’s a shameless crib from a scene in the film Quo Vadis?.

can have terrible consequences

There is ample evidence that seditio popularis (the expression surely needs no translation) at this time caused Theoderic considerable concern. The Liber pontificalis paints an alarming picture of fighting between Laurentian and Symmachan mobs (egged on, respectively, by Festus and Probinus, and by Faustus niger); of clergy put to the sword, and nuns taken from convents and clubbed; and fighting in the streets of Rome a daily occurrence. Pope Gelasius (492-96) reported that two successive bishops were murdered in Scyllaeum (Squillace), and the Fragmentum Laurentianum uses the expression ‘bella civilia’ to describe the rioting in Rome. Things got so bad that on 27 August 502 Theoderic wrote to the bishops assembled in Rome to use their influence to curb the prevailing disorder.

Chapter 25

to hold administrative posts

Under Theoderic, the administration of Italy continued virtually unchanged from imperial times. There were a few (a very few) deviations from his principle whereby the bureaucracy would be manned by Romans, the army by Goths. Count Colosseus, in charge of Pannonia Sirmiensis with troops under him, Servatus Dux Raetiarum, and one Cyprian, who served Theoderic in a military capacity, were all Romans; while Wilia the Comes Patrimonii, Triwila the Praepositus Sacri Cubilici, and the senator Arigern, were all Goths. They were, however, exceptions. To a contemporary, unless they lived in the Gothic heartland of north-east Italy with its capital at Ravenna, it would have been difficult to tell that the country was no longer part of the Roman Empire.

a panegyric. . welcoming refugees

Who were these people? Priscian is not specific, but Zachariah of Mytilene (Historia ecclesiastica) wrote of one Dominic ‘who had a quarrel with the tyrant [Theoderic] and took refuge with King Justinian’. The reference to Justinian (who was not, of course, emperor in Theoderic’s lifetime, but who might loosely be described as ‘king’ in his capacity of virtual co-ruler with Justin) means that the event occurred towards the end of Theoderic’s reign, when the label ‘tyrant’ might be held to have had some justification. Priscian however (as mentioned by Ennodius in Panegyricus dictus Theoderico), was writing at the very beginning of the sixth century, when Theoderic’s popularity was (with the exception of the Laurentian senators disgruntled by the alienation of Church lands) as yet undimmed. Perhaps it was this senatorial clique (expanded by wishful thinking into a larger and more representative group) that Priscian had in mind.

send him an expert harpist

As elsewhere, for the sake of clarity and conciseness, I’ve gone in for some telescoping of events — without, I think, compromising essential historical truth. The Alamanni were defeated by Clovis twice — in 497 and again in 506, when they sought refuge with Theoderic. A little later, we find Theoderic writing to Clovis warning him against attacking the Visigoths: ‘Put away your iron, you who seek to shame me by fighting. I forbid you by my right as a father and as a friend. But in the unlikely event that someone believes that such advice can be despised, he will have to deal with us and our friends as enemies’ (Cassiodorus, Variae). As Theoderic had already warned Clovis not to prosecute his war against the Alamanni any further, it seemed opportune to represent these events as happening more or less simultaneously, and to refer to them in a single letter, with Clovis’s appeal for a harpist thrown in for good measure.

the diptych. . presented to him

Such diptychs — among the most attractive minor works of Roman art — were often exchanged as gifts on appointment to high office, especially when someone was named as consul. Celebrated examples from c. 390–400 are: the diptych of the Symmachi (the family of the grandfather of the Symmachus in the story), defiantly displaying classical figures engaged in pagan ritual, at a time when such practices were being rigorously suppressed; that of Stilicho, the front cover showing the Vandal general, the back his wife Serena with their son Eucherius; and the consular diptych of Honorius, showing the emperor arrayed in the full panoply of a Roman general.

Chapter 26

son of. . Sidonius Apollinaris

Although Apollinaris’ visit to Clovis is fictional, it is consistent with his known behaviour. When Clovis launched his next attack on the Visigoths, Apollinaris led a contingent from the Auvergne to help Alaric II, only to be killed fighting at the battle of Vouille, along with Alaric himself.

despised for their barbarism

An opinion attested by Cassiodorus (Variae), Ennodius (Opera) and Jordanes (Getica).

The sole authority we need

A view astonishingly seeming to predict a central tenet of Wyclif, Luther, Tyndale and other early Reformers a thousand years later. The evangelizing success of the Iro-Christian Church (Armagh, Iona, Lindisfarne, Luxeuil, etc.) was soon to be eclipsed by that of Rome. Beginning with Pope Gregory the Great’s sending of Augustine to convert King Ethelbert of Kent in 596, a wave of Roman Catholic missionaries (many of them Anglo-Saxons, such as Wilfrid, Willibrord and Winfrid) had great success in converting non-Catholic areas of Europe, especially in Germany and Scandinavia. In England, in 664 at the Synod of Whitby, the differences between the Celtic and Roman Churches (concerning Easter, tonsures, the role of Scripture, etc.) were thrashed out and finally settled in favour of Roman practice.

hurled them into the flames

Clovis’s barbarous feat of throwing both the donkey and its load into the fire is a retelling of an incident which my old tutor Philip Grierson (see Notes for Chapter 23) relished recounting at tutorials, to illustrate a certain barbarian leader’s (Merovingian king’s?) jocular way of demonstrating his physical prowess.

Chapter 27

Cassiodorus

’ History of the Goths

This unfortunately has been lost, but an extant one-volume summary of it was made in the mid sixth century, entitled Getica, by Jordanes, a Romanized Goth living in Constantinople.

a sort of Debatable Land

A term borrowed from Scottish Border history. For centuries, a small strip of land straddling the present Dumfriesshire/Cumbria boundary was disputed between the Scots and the English — a situation tailor-made for exploitation by the Border reivers, with their endless capacity for guile and manipulation. In 1552, with tremendous ceremony, the French Ambassador presiding, the matter was finally settled. A trench and bank (still known as the Scots’ Dike) was driven through the middle of what was now no longer the Debatable Land, following the present Border line between the two countries.

Theoderic wearing. . a diadem

The mosaic head and bust, showing Theoderic wearing an impressive diadem, was uncovered during building work in Theoderic’s great church in Ravenna, St Apollinare Nuovo. Thought at first to represent Justinian, it is now generally accepted as portraying Theoderic.

construction of a water-clock and sundial

These, like the selection of a harpist for Clovis, were important and prestigious commissions, indicative of Boethius’ high standing in Theoderic’s court. Cassiodorus demonstrates this when he places them in positions of honour in Variae. Apart from his official work, Boethius — still only in his twenties — was tackling numerous demanding scholarly projects, such as translating from Greek to Latin all the works of Aristotle and the Dialogues of Plato.

based on the one Diocletian had built

Theoderic’s palace has gone, but is represented in mosaic in the church of St Apollinare Nuovo. Diocletian’s palace at Split (Spalato), on which it is thought to have been modelled, is immense, dwarfing the present town, which has grown up partly inside its well-preserved shell.

my noble Roman with a Gothic heart

To some scholars (e.g., Ensslin, Theoderich) it’s an article of faith that no Roman was employed in a military capacity in Theoderic’s army. Ever. However, this was not a rubric carved in stone; the example of Cyprianus adds further proof. We learn from Cassiodorus (in Variae) that Cyprianus’ father Optilio was an ‘old soldier’, and that the entire family was steeped in military tradition — presumably from imperial times. The expression ‘with a Gothic heart’ was formed as a counterpart to Sidonius Apollinaris’ cor Latinum (Epistulae V).

Chapter 28

Sabinianus. . son of a famous general

Sabinianus senior was one of Zeno’s most effective generals. In 479, during one of the interminable on/off series of campaigns waged by the empire against the Ostrogoths, he almost finished Theoderic’s career. Intercepting one of Theoderic’s columns headed by Thiudimund, he captured all the wagons and took a large number of prisoners — an incident which I’ve transposed in the story to the Ostrogoths’ crossing of the Haemus range. In 481, Sabinianus senior (aka Magnus) fell victim to intrigue and was murdered by order of Zeno — an act of senseless folly, no evidence of guilt being produced against the general. That the son’s career (he rose to become Magister Militum per Illyricum) was not adversely affected, suggests tacit acknowledgement on the part of the Eastern establishment that the murder was unjustified.

Mundo, a renegade warlord

This leader of ‘prowlers, robbers, murderers, and brigands’ (Jordanes, Getica) was enlisted by the Goths because they ‘were in desperate need of help’, according to Wolfram (History of the Goths). Moorhead (Theoderic in Italy), on the other hand, states that the Goths responded to an appeal by Mundo for help against Sabinianus. Moorhead also says that Mundo was ‘probably a Gepid’, whereas Wolfram describes him as ‘Hunnic-Gepidic’. Burns, however (A History of the Ostrogoths) has him as ‘a Hun by ancestry’. One pays one’s money and one takes one’s choice. Moorhead implies that Mundo was already a federate of Theoderic before the Sirmian campaign. But as Mundo’s base, Herta, was a hundred miles east of the empire’s western boundary (and therefore surely coming under Eastern suzerainty), I presume to question this. It seems inherently more likely that Mundo became a federate only after the Ostrogoths had occupied the area, perhaps partly to annul his outlaw status in a move aimed at self-protection.

his eyes are upon you

The idea that the Ostrogoths’ natural unruliness could be curbed by the thought that Theoderic was watching them from afar was suggested by some lines in Ennodius’ Panegyricus Dictus Theoderico. Just before the commencement of the battle against the Bulgars, Pitzia reminds the Goths that the eyes of Theoderic are upon them, and tells them to think of Theoderic should the battle ever seem to be going against them, when their fortunes will surely revive. Gibbon reinforces Ennodius: ‘in the fields of Margus the Eastern powers were defeated by the inferior forces of the Goths and Huns. . and such was the temperance with which Theoderic had inspired his victorious troops, that, as their leader had not given the signal for pillage, the rich spoils of the enemy lay untouched at their feet’. The phrase ‘Big Brother is watching you’ springs to mind; in this context however, its significance is entirely benevolent.

slaughtered to a man

Moorhead (Theoderic in Italy) states that ‘In 514 Theoderic. . put to death a man described as Count Petia’, and goes on to say that ‘there were two, and just possibly three, counts with similar names, but it is not at all clear whether the general of 504-5 was put to death in 514’. This uncertainty, plus the fact that the records are silent regarding Pitzia after 504-5 (assuming that he was not ‘Count Petia’), allowed me to have him die fighting in a desperate last stand against the Bulgars.

Chapter 29

the ‘navicularii’

The guild reached its peak under the late empire, during the fourth century, its security and continuity set in concrete, thanks to imperial legislation. We know that trade between Italy and the Eastern Empire, also with southern Gaul and parts of the Mediterranean littoral of Spain, continued (doubtless considerably attenuated) after the fall of the West. I’ve therefore hazarded the assumption that — being so firmly established even towards the West’s last days — the shippers’ guild survived that empire’s demise, a supposition reinforced by the fact that under Odovacar and Theoderic Roman administration and institutions continued largely uninterrupted in Italy.

Chapter 30

‘One of Theoderic’s “new men”’

Of a sequence of five men appointed to the post of City Prefect after 506, not one became consul or was from any of the great families of Rome. From this time, when making key appointments Theoderic turned decisively towards ‘novi homines’, men who were court apparatchiks, not aristocrats. Moorhead (in Theoderic in Italy) says, ‘it is possible that his [Theoderic’s] change of policy was connected with his final decision against Laurentius, who enjoyed widespread senatorial support in 507; perhaps a degree of punishment, and conceivably fear, were [sic] involved’.

to strengthen Rome’s defences

Refurbishment of Rome’s moenia at this time is confirmed by Cassiodorus (in Variae), who also records the burning of crops and the attack on Sipontum by the Eastern naval expedition.

a massive warship-building programme

‘Their [the Eastern expedition’s] retreat was possibly hastened by the activity of Theoderic; Italy was covered by a fleet of a thousand light vessels, which he constructed with incredible despatch’ (Gibbon).

The shipyards of. . Tergeste

Dalmatia, which then included Trieste (Tergeste), was annexed by Odovacar to his kingdom of Italy, following the death of Nepos.

friendly overtures from Theoderic

A diplomatic mission to the Burgundians had been accompanied by prestigious gifts: a sundial and a water-clock (see Chapter 27).

this part of Italy’s called Magna Graecia

Between the eighth and sixth centuries BC, a number of flourishing Greek colonies (Metapontum, Tarentum, etc.) was established in southern Italy, which thus (by the time of Pythagoras, according to Polybius) acquired the name Magna Graecia. Arriving at Crotona c. 530 BC, the great philosopher and mathematician soon exerted supreme influence in Megale Hellas, as the region was called in Greek.

Like ancient legionaries

Simon MacDowall’s Twilight of the Empire (one of the splendid Osprey series about armies and campaigns) contains graphic descriptions, together with illustrations (based on contemporary evidence) of the appearance of sixth-century East Roman soldiers. Exchange their oval shields for long rectangular ones, and they would be practically indistinguishable from legionaries of the classical period. The example of orders (still given in Latin in East Roman armies at this time) in the text, is taken from Mauricius’ Strategikon, a sixth-century training manual.

The seaboard of Apulia and then Calabria

Calabria, the ancient ‘heel’ of Italy, has since (at some time prior to the eleventh century) moved westwards, to become its ‘toe’! The ‘toe’ was anciently the region known as Bruttium.

along with the title of Augustus

‘Honorary consul’ was an established title, but ‘honorary emperor’ would be a constitutional absurdity. ‘Augustus’ admits of only one interpretation: emperor; and that Clovis certainly was not, in any sense except, perhaps, the complimentary. Yet Gregory of Tours (in Historia Francorum, c. 560) is unequivocal: ‘from that day [i.e., Clovis’s victory over the Visigoths] he was called consul or augustus’. Procopius probably had these titles in mind when he says (in Opera) that the Franks looked for Anastasius’ ‘seal of approval’. The conundrum is perhaps best explained by seeing the titles as ammunition in Anastasius’ campaign to put Theoderic very firmly in his place after the king’s Pannonian/Moesian adventure in 504 and 505, a campaign of which the naval expedition against south Italy formed a major part. In this context the award of the title ‘Augustus’ to Clovis can be interpreted as constituting a snub to Theoderic, designed to puncture any imperial pretensions the king may have entertained, reminding him that only Anastasius had the power to dispense such appellations. There can be no doubt that Anastasius intended ‘Augustus’ to be purely titular. Yet it seems rather to have gone to Clovis’ head. Gregory describes him wearing purple and a diadem, and, in imitation of Emperor Constantine, dedicating a church to the Holy Apostles (viz. Saints Peter and Paul).

his own consular nominee

This has to be yet another example of Anastasius’ determination to punish Theoderic for invading imperial territory. The sole consul for 507 was Anastasius himself, making him consul for the third time.

Chapter 31

once more come under Ostrogothic rule

The only source that I can find that disagrees with this is Wolfram’s History of the Goths wherein he says, ‘Probably in 510 Theoderic. . ceded to Byzantium. . the eastern part of Pannonia Sirmiensis’. But Burns (in A History of the Ostrogoths) states, ‘Sabinianus accepted the restoration of Ostrogothic control at Sirmium, and the Ostrogoths gave up any designs on expanding their power beyond Sirmium’ — a conclusion backed up by maps of Theoderic’s realm, as shown in historical atlases.

the wars that turned out happily for him

From a letter of Theoderic to Clovis, quoted by Cassiodorus (in Variae).

a father-figure to all Germanic peoples

Theoderic emerges as a heroic figure, of immensely prestigious status among Germanic peoples, in early mediaeval legends such as those appearing in the Hildebrandslied, which dates from the time of Charlemagne.

dark skin and tightly curled black hair

These features were probably inherited from Berber rather than negro ancestry. Though black people were by no means unknown in Roman Africa, their presence was accounted for by slavery, or by immigration via Nubia, Ethiopia and Axum (Sudan). The appearance of native North Africans is well represented in busts of Emperor Septimius Severus and his son Caracalla. Moorhead (in Theoderic in Italy) confirms that Priscian ‘was probably an African’.

dedicating three treatises to me

These tracts were De figuris numerorum, De metris fabularum Terentianis, and Praeexercitamina.

another geriatric emperor

It was an age of redoubtable old men living active or productive lives extending far beyond the biblical span: Anastasius, who died aged eighty-eight; Justinian, at eighty-two still working in his study; Liberius, commanding troops not long before his death at eighty-nine; Cassiodorus — still writing at ninety-three — who lived to be a hundred, and whose life (468–568) encompassed both the Western Empire’s fall and its partial restitution under Justinian; Narses, Justinian’s general, who, aged eighty, took Verona from the Ostrogoths, and who died in 575, aged ninety-five.

Amal pedigree has. . had to be concocted

This was actually carried out by Cassiodorus (not acknowledged in the text for reasons connected with plot development), who, digging in Ammianus Marcellinus, barefacedly added the heroic Ermanaric (who ritually committed suicide following his defeat by the Huns) to the Amal family tree, then attached Eutharic’s line to him. Ermanaric was actually a Visigoth, not an Ostrogoth, but Cassiodorus was not going to let a piffling distinction like that deter him. ‘Creative genealogy’ is not, it would appear, a modern phenomenon, but was alive and well in the sixth century.

especially should the couple have a son

Which they duly did. Their offspring, Athalaric, succeeded Theoderic while still a child, Eutharic having already died in mysterious circumstances.

Chapter 32

Theoderic felt his heart swell with pride

There is no evidence that Theoderic visited Rome again subsequent to his extended stay in 500. But, considering the symbolic importance of Eutharic’s consulship as a gesture of imperial approval for Theoderic’s own rule and his son-in-law as his successor, it would have been fitting, to say the least, for him to have been present at the investiture. So having him attend is not, hopefully, stretching possibility too far. As for Eutharic himself, the records are scanty and contradictory. According to Cassiodorus, he was old; but Jordanes maintains he was youthful and attractive (‘wholesome in body’). Some sources say he was a Visigoth, others an Amal (i.e., an Ostrogoth), while Wolfram refers to him as a ‘Visigothic Amal’ — a contradiction in terms, surely. Eutharic is certainly a Germanic name, but Cilliga is not; so his ethnic origins seem far from clear. Altogether, a man of mystery. Taking all this into account, I think it was legitimate for me to select those components which seemed best suited to the story.

patterned in a wondrous raised design

Pop-eyed, they stare out at us, those late Roman consuls, from the ivory covers of their consular diptychs, with their page-boy bob haircuts and robes of ‘wondrous design’, consular baton in left hand, mappa raised in right, ready to start the Games. (Cassiodorus’ description of the robe as ‘palm-enwoven’ may refer to the raised lines of the patterns of rectangles, flowers, etc., perhaps suggestive of the ribs and stem of palm-fronds?) Could their expressions of stoic alarm hint at uncertainty about the survival of their institution? (The last Western consul was appointed for the year 530, the last Eastern, nine years later.) Or perhaps they merely indicate concern about their ability to pay the enormous expenses incurred by giving the Games.

the roar from the Circus Maximus

Roman chariot-racing was big business, involving a vast network of organizations run by huge corporations with thousands of stockholders. It’s ironic to think that the colossal enterprise survived (in attenuated form) the collapse of the Western Empire, only to fizzle out (in Rome, not Constantinople) under that empire’s partial restitution by Justinian.

the last Western Emperor

What happened to Romulus — nicknamed, with affectionate contempt, Romulus ‘Augustulus’ — little emperor’ — after he was compulsorily retired with a generous pension (an act which reflects most creditably on the ‘barbarian’ Odovacar)? If a letter written to ‘Romulus’ by Cassiodorus in the period 507-11 refers to the ex-emperor, that means he was still alive more than thirty years after his deposition. Other than this, we can only speculate as to how long he may have survived, which allows me to have him still living (imagined as a gentle recluse) in Lucullus’ villa near Naples in 519. The villa, constructed by a famous general of the late Republic, was a celebrated beauty spot. (Gibbon gives a good description of the place and its history).

Chapter 33

a successful orchard in Ravenna

‘After the example of the last emperors, Theoderic preferred the residence of Ravenna, where he cultivated an orchard with his own hands’ (Gibbon).

the newly appointed minister

Boethius became Master of Offices (comparable in some ways to our role of Prime Minister) in 523. In the interests of the story, I have put this date back a little without, I think, distorting the sequence of historical events.

resentment over growing German influence

Germans had never been acceptable as emperors. Though it was never put to the test, there are good reasons for supposing that overstepping such a ‘red line’ could have had dire consequences. For example, in Constantinople in 400, as an indirect result of Alaric’s Goths going on the rampage in the Balkans, anti-German violence flared up and several thousand Goths were massacred. And in Italy, following the execution of the Vandal general Stilicho in 408, suspicion of the Germans in the army had led the Roman element to launch a pogrom against the families of the German troops. Despite such precedents, did Theoderic attempt to cross that line?

The rioting of 519-20, which I have suggested could well have been a cover for anti-Arian (i.e. anti-Gothic) resentment, was not an immediate consequence of any measure enforcing religious toleration, which had long been in force. (‘They respected the armed heresy of the Goths; but their pious rage was safely pointed against the rich and defenceless Jews’ — Gibbon.) So what could have sparked it off? Cassiodorus, according to Moorhead (in Theoderic in Italy) suggests that the disturbances were not specifically anti-Jewish but were rooted in some other cause. Is it too fanciful to suggest that the Terracina inscription proclaiming Theoderic emperor, which may well have been contemporary with the riots, could have been that cause? The planned coronation in St Peter’s is invention, but the fact that nearly three centuries later a German monarch (Charlemagne) was crowned there as (Holy) Roman Emperor, gives food for thought. Was the idea behind the coronation of 800 original, or was it perhaps inspired by a memory of Theoderic’s unfulfilled dream?

retribution was swift and harsh

This is confirmed by Anonymous Valesianus, who ascribes to Eutharic the punishments meted out to the Romans of Ravenna. To quote Wolfram (in History of the Goths), ‘Eutharic’s popularity among the Romans must have declined quickly for during the unrest of 520 he advocated stern countermeasures’.

his imperial dreams

The wording and imagery of the Senigallia medallion, the Ravenna mosaic portrait head crowned with a diadem, the Terracina inscription: these are but the most telling manifestations of Theoderic’s ambition to become a Roman emperor, occasions when, as Heather (in The Goths) says, ‘the mask slipped’.

Chapter 34

a sneaking sympathy for a people

Like the Visigoths (and indeed the Ostrogoths), the Jews were forced to become a wandering people, especially when (after several failed and bloody insurrections against Roman rule) they were finally expelled from Palestine by Hadrian, thereafter to encounter varying degrees of persecution in the countries where they tried to make a home — culminating in the Holocaust. ‘Nowhere is Theoderic seen more attractively than in his policy towards the Jews’, says Moorhead. Compared to zealots like the emperor Theodosius I and his partner in bigotry Bishop Ambrose of Milan, who stamped out the slightest deviation from orthodox Catholicism with fanatical thoroughness, Theoderic comes over as a model of enlightened tolerance, rare for his time and indeed for any subsequent period. When Pope Hormisdas was all for putting pressure on Justin to whip the Monophysites of Egypt into line, Theoderic may well have played a part in ensuring that moderate policies prevailed, which, by turning a blind eye to Egyptian ‘heresy’, may have averted another Schism. The conclusion of his letter to the Jews of Genoa, giving them permission to rebuild their synagogue, says it all: ‘We cannot command adherence to a religion, since no one is forced to believe unwillingly’. What a tragedy that such a gifted, courageous and resilient race, who have produced, inter alios, David, Jesus, Paul of Tarsus, the historian Josephus, the philosopher Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Einstein and Menuhin, should have suffered ‘the slings and arrows of [such] outrageous fortune’. If only they could have taken a more accomodating stance towards the Romans, the present agony of Palestine might have been avoided.

that portent of the death of kings

This is mentioned by Anonymous Valesianus, also by various Byzantine authors who date it as occurring c. 520. (The association with the death of kings comes from the Roman author Suetonius, whom the Anonymous may have read.)

named him [Justinian] as his heir

Whether Hilderic went quite as far as this is doubtful, but he certainly established a very cordial entente with Justinian, who avidly cultivated his friendship — to the extent that, according to Browning (in Justinian and Theodora), ‘For a time it looked as though Africa might be returned to Roman sovereignty without a blow being struck.’ When Justinian eventually invaded, Hilderic was murdered by the Vandal nobles, on suspicion of being a fellow traveller.

the shipyards are busy night and day

Compared to his hasty construction in late 507 or early 508 of a fleet of light vessels to counter an Eastern naval expedition against Italy, Theoderic’s building of an armada in the last years of his life (probably starting in 523) was a vast project involving the launching of a thousand mighty warships or dromons. Whereas the first was a sensible and timely response to a very real and pressing emergency, the second seems to have been an inexplicable over-reaction to largely illusory threats: a perceived Rome-Constantinople senatorial conspiracy to overthrow him; and Hilderic’s pro-Byzantine policy following his accession in 523. (Theoderic’s attitude towards Hilderic must have been coloured by the fact that the new Vandal king had thrown Thrasamund’s widow, Amalafrida, Theoderic’s sister, into prison, where she later died, and had her Ostrogothic bodyguard slaughtered.) To create such a massive armament in case ‘The Greek [i.e. the East Roman Empire] should. . reproach or. . the African [i.e. the Vandal king of Africa] insult’, as Cassiodorus put it, seems a disproportionate response, suggesting a state of mind approaching paranoia. True, the invasion did eventually materialize, but it was hardly imminent in Theoderic’s lifetime. In Theoderic in Italy, Moorhead suggests that ‘the building of the fleet may have been in response to the death, perhaps not of natural causes, of Amalafrida’, which some scholars date as occurring in 523, others in 525 or 526. Such a response surely belongs more to some distant heroic age (shades of Helen of Troy — ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’) than the cold realpolitik of late antiquity. If true, it suggests that Theoderic may have been suffering from some kind of mental breakdown.

they will remember me for this

No fear of that not happening! Massive, austere, uncompromising, the Mausoleum of Theoderic dominates the landscape and is impossible to ignore. The workmanship is superb, the limestone blocks of its construction fitting so exactly as to need no mortar. How the dome was transported across the Adriatic and manoeuvred into position remains a mystery. Even with today’s sophisticated technology, the undertaking would present a daunting challenge. Regarding its design, varying theories abound. Some claim Gothic inspiration, others classical, while one scholar (Professor Sauro Gelichi, of the University of Venice) maintains that the dome was modelled on a yurt, the circular tent used by nomads: a fascinating theory of whose validity I remain to be convinced. Overall, opinions regarding design seem to settle for a classical late-Roman structure with a few Gothic touches, especially in the decoration of the outside walls of the upper storey. Within that storey lies Theoderic’s sarcophagus of Egyptian porphyry — significantly, the material reserved for the use of emperors. Today, it lies empty, his body probably removed, at the time of Justinian’s re-occupation, by zealous Nicene Catholics.

Chapter 35

the ‘kingdoms’ of Dyfed, Ceredigion and Gwynedd

According to Winbolt (Britain under the Romans), native rulers — called gwledig — undertook the defence of Britain after the departure of the legions. In this context he mentions Ambrosius Aurelianus (actually of Roman rather than British origin), one Cunedda, who maintained a force of nine hundred horsemen on the Roman Wall, and Cunedda’s descendants who ruled in Wales, such as Keredig and Meirion who gave their names to the areas they ruled (Ceredigion and Merioneth). Arthur is referred to as a semi-mythical ‘king’ leading a British resistance movement against the Saxons.

a holy man of great repute, one Deiniol

Deiniol (later canonized) founded a college in Bangor in 525, and became the town’s first bishop in 550.

a most beautiful region

Known today as the Lake District.

Here, the Kymry are still strong

At the time of the Roman invasion of AD 43, there were two separate Celtic peoples in Britain: the Picts living to the north of the Forth-Clyde valley, and the Welsh-speaking Britons who inhabited the rest of the island. After the departure of the legions c. 407, German tribes — Jutes, Angles and Saxons from coastal northern Germany and the Jutland peninsula (who had been raiding eastern Britain for more than a century) — began to arrive in ever greater numbers, to settle south of Hadrian’s Wall. The invaders (Saxons in the south, Angles in the Midlands and the north) gradually pushed the Britons into the far west, mainly Wales and Cornwall, where they continued to live in freedom, speaking their own language. (Cornish died out about two hundred years ago, although efforts are being made to revive it; Welsh not only survived but is flourishing.)

Undoubtedly, the Romans were responsible for creating a feeling of unity among the Britons, who were a collection of disparate tribes at the time of the invasion. After the legions had left, this ‘Britishness’ was almost certainly strengthened by resistance against a common Anglo-Saxon enemy — to the extent that Ambrosius Aurelianus seems to have been a genuine national leader rather than a local warlord. That Cunedda could rule in Cumbria, and his descendants in Wales, reinforces the idea that the Britons saw themselves as a single people, the ‘Kymry’, as does a tradition (which I’ve made use of in the story) that the Votadini moved south (perhaps to Wales, but we can’t be sure) to assist their hard-pressed kinsmen in their struggle against the invader.

a great plain called Camlan

In legend, Arthur was mortally wounded at the Battle of Camlan (site unknown) and was then rowed to an island in a lake (Avalon?) by six black-clad queens. Slightly adapted, I’ve incorporated this account into the story.

an arresting spectacle

The imposing remains of Hadrian’s Wall, which crossed England from the Tyne to the Solway (a distance of seventy-three miles), are testimony to the power and organizing ability of Rome. That such a massive undertaking (not just a wall, but a complete frontier zone including huge fortresses, ‘milecastles’ and turrets, and a complex infrastructure of roads, supply depots and a port) could happen in a remote and comparatively unimportant province, speaks volumes about the empire’s vast resources and terrifying efficiency.

The term Vallum Hadriani, which is what the Romans called the Wall, is slightly misleading. Strictly, the ‘Vallum’ was the broad ditch fronting the inside of the Wall and demarcating the military zone, not the actual barrier itself.

Chapter 36

Creeping Germanization, that’s what happened

Despite Paul’s fears, it didn’t creep very far. Unlike Normanization in post-Hastings England, or Africanization in post-colonial Rhodesia, Germanization in Theoderic’s Italy was very limited, being essentially confined to manning the army with Goths — hardly a radical step, as the Army of Italy in the last years of empire had been largely made up of federates. Otherwise, the phasing out of the Roman palace bodyguard, together with sundry palace officials and the silentiarii, and replacing them with Goths, seems to have been the only other significant change. The administration continued to be run almost exclusively by Romans.

Fridibad, the ‘saio’

Theoderic’s power ultimately resided in his ability to persuade his Ostrogothic fellow tribesmen to accept his authority; unlike Roman emperors, German kings ruled by consent. Gothic nobles (comites, or counts) saw themselves as a warrior elite, the risk of them becoming ‘overmighty subjects’ always present, as men like Theodahad and Tuluin graphically demonstrated in Theoderic’s closing years. Between the nobles and the mass of the Ostrogothic people were the saiones. The term’s meaning is hard to define exactly; perhaps the English ‘sheriff’ (in the mediaeval sense) comes closest. Intermediaries, and enforcers of the king’s writ, representing the personal leadership invested in the royal power, they eschewed lofty ranks and titles. Burns (in his scholarly and highly readable A History of the Ostrogoths) is most enlightening: ‘the actual royal ‘firefighters’ were the saiones. . the king’s men [taking] charge for the king himself, wherever they went. Unless the king retained their loyalty and obedience and the respect they inspired, he could not rule.’

Chapter 37

a leading senator, one Albinus

Son of a consul (Basilius in 480) and himself a consul (in 493), Albinus was a scion of the very powerful and distinguished family of the Decii, had been connected with the negotiations to end the Acacian Schism, and was a leading member of the Senate. That he had been engaged in correspondence with Constantinople is not in doubt, though whether this was treasonable cannot be confirmed.

Cyprian, the Referendarius

He charged Albinus with having sent Justin a letter hostile to Theoderic’s kingdom. Unfortunately, we have no details about what precisely this implied. Cyprian was an interesting character and, as far as we can tell, an honest official. He had served in Theoderic’s army — one of the few Romans to have done so — and, almost uniquely among Romans, could speak Gothic. A riding-companion of Theoderic, he was, according to Cassiodorus, a man of action rather than reading. Burns asserts that in charging Boethius Cyprian ‘was just doing his job’, and cites his subsequent promotion to Comes Sacrarum Largitionum and Magister Officiorum as evidence of his probity. Given this, it is at least open to question whether Boethius was telling the truth when he claimed that the letter written supposedly by him that contained the damning words ‘libertas Romana’ was a forgery. However, as Gibbon — with the splendours of the English justice system in mind — said, ‘his innocence must be presumed, since he was deprived by Theoderic of the means of justification’.

Written at the Villa Jovis

Coming hot on the heels of the political catastrophes that afflicted the late years of Theoderic’s reign — the urban riots, defection of allies, Constantinople’s anti-Arian laws, etc. — the apparent treachery of Albinus and Boethius (just the presumed tip of a senatorial iceberg) must have been particularly cruel hammer-blows. I have taken advantage of the uncertainty regarding dates for this period to present the events covered by the chapter (which have a real sense of nemesis following hubris, befitting Greek tragedy) as occurring in rapid sequence, in order to heighten the dramatic tempo. As Moorhead says, ‘The timetable of these events is not as clear as we would like, especially as there are problems in the chronology of Anonymous Valesianus’.

imprisoned in its forbidding keep

As the tower of Pavia no longer exists (it was demolished in 1584), we can only speculate as to its appearance and function. Gibbon mentions a Pavian tradition that it was a baptistery.

The Consolation of Philosophy

Although written by a committed Christian, this celebrated work (which takes the form of a dialogue between the author and a personified Philosophy) contains not a single reference to Christianity, its tone throughout reflecting a Neo-Platonist cast of mind. Its theme is that all earthly fortune is mutable, and everything save virtue insecure. Of impeccable Latinity, its style imitates the best models of the Augustan age. It was translated into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred, and translated into various languages throughout the Middle Ages, when it achieved something of the status of a ‘best-seller’.

The death of Boethius (and thus the termination of his last work) is usually dated to 524. Moorhead, however, argues convincingly for a date of 526. As he says, ‘the later we date the execution of Boethius the easier it is to account for the perfection of the work he wrote in prison’.

Chapter 38

Ager Calventianus

Suggestions as to the exact location of the scene of Boethius’ execution vary: ‘the distant estate of Calventia’ (Burns); ‘Agro Calventiano. . between Marignano and Pavia’ (Gibbon); and ‘agro Calventiano, almost certainly a part of Pavia’ (Moorhead). These differences, I felt, gave me the freedom to make the place the Pavian equivalent of ‘Tower Green’. The method of despatch is given in ancient sources as either by cord and club (Anonymous Valesianus), or alternatively by sword (Liber pontificalis). Most modern scholars go for the cord-and-club version. Gibbon gives a gruesomely graphic description of Boethius’ death by this latter method, also of the scene where Theoderic sees in the head of a fish the avenging spectre of Symmachus — which I’ve taken the liberty of changing to that of Boethius, for obvious dramatic reasons.

an impossible distance

But not if the story of ‘Swift Nick’ Nevison (on which the Dick Turpin myth is based) is true. In 1676, he established an apparent cast-iron alibi for a robbery he committed at Gadshill near Gravesend, at four in the morning. Taking the ferry from Gravesend to Tilbury, he then rode to York via Chelmsford, Cambridge and Huntingdon, and ‘then holding on the [Great] North Road, and keeping a full larger gallop most of the way, he came to York the same afternoon’ (Daniel Defoe, A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain).

The distance from Gravesend to York is almost exactly two hundred miles, the same as that from Ravenna to Pavia. Given that the Via Aemilia in 526 would have been in far better condition than the Great North Road in 1676, that the terrain of the Po valley is even flatter than that of eastern England, and that Fridibad had the advantage of changes of mount, the saio could well have completed the journey within twelve hours. As Roman dinners started considerably earlier than ours, Theoderic could have taken to his bed by 5 p.m., and Fridibad been on the road by 6 p.m.

Theoderic was dead

He died on 30 August 526 (shortly after the execution of Boethius, Moorhead suggests), the very day on which his anti-Catholic legislation, which included the surrender of churches to Arians, was due to come into force.