Chapter Four: Opportunity
44 “All of us, beginning with himself”: Plutarch, “On Exile,” in Moralia, vol. 7, translated by P. De Lacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), 569.
44 “transferred to river barges and transported”: Z 4.10, translated by Buchanan and Davis 1967.
45 In 2014, a team of Romanian workmen: F. Topoleanu and L. Chrzanovski, “O descoperire arheologică unică la Noviodunum: Arhetipuri, tipare şi producerea traiţelor,” Peuce 14 (2016): 145–58.
47 “sweet and pleasant” and “bitter and pungent”: Plutarch, “On Exile,” translated by De Lacy 1959, 523; “happiness,” 571; “boundless aether,” 529; the moon, 533.
48 “Rome wasn’t built in a day”: Li proverbe au Vilain, edited by A. Tobler (Leipzig: Verlag von S. Hirzel, 1895), 43.
49 boorish and unrefined: Lenski 2003, 84–97.
50 a good cervesia: Balsdon 1979, 222.
50 pigs in Judaea: Balsdon 1979, 223.
50 Both Goths and Romans enlisted: J. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire: From the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian I (New York: St. Martin’s, 1958), 38–54; A. D. Lee, War in Late Antiquity: A Sourcebook (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007); and Hugh Elton, Warfare in Roman Europe, ad 350–425 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996).
51 “enduring the sun, careless of shade”: V 1.3, translated by Milner.
51 “simple-souled, content with a little”: V 1.3, translated by Milner.
51 twenty-five or thirty solidi a year: The lower number is the amount known to have been owed by wealthy landowners who did not want to furnish recruits; the higher one, paid out to a soldier. Both are discussed at Bury 1958, 50. See also Warren Treadgold, “Paying the Army in the Theodosian Period,” in Production and Prosperity in the Theodosian Period, edited by Ine Jacobs (Leuven: Peeters, 2014), 303–18.
51 a full spread: Numbers are based on the value of a nummus between 375 and 410, in K. Harl, Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 b.c. to A.D. 700 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 168, at table 7.3.
52 “the same privilege”: ThC 7.20.4.3, with tax exemptions at 7.20.4.1, 7.20.8, 7.20.11, and basic equipment at 7.20.3.
52 All retired military personnel received: Mathisen 2006, 1026.
53 “Hailing from beyond the Thracian frontier”: Claudian, H6, lines 108–09, my translation. Eunapius mentions the “Macedonian marshes” (Fr. 55).
53 “a magnet attracts iron”: Eunapius Fr. 43.
54 “the coming and going of the ships”: J 28 for this and other quotations.
55 “Bad water is a kind of poison”: V 3.1, translated by Clarke, with “snow,” “sacks,” and “marksmen” at 1.10–19.
55 “alert eyes, a straight neck”: V 1.4, translated by Milner; also “When you see these points.”
55 “more quickly imbibed” and “stiffened by age”: V 1.4, translated by Clarke.
56 cooks and pastry chefs: V 1.7.
56 “be content with crackers”: Augustan History, “Life of Emperor Pescennius,” 10.5, my translation.
57 Quintus Sulpicius Maximus: M. Boatwright, Peoples of the Roman World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 92–95.
57 “yowling wolves, roaring lions, grunting bears”: Nonnos of Panopolis, Dionysiaca 2.250–56, translated by W. Rouse (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1940), slightly modified.
58 “babel of screaming sounds”: Nonnos, Dionysiaca 2.250–56, translated by W. Rouse.
58 responsible for bestowing citizenship: Suetonius, Grammarians 22.1, discussed by Robert Kaster, Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 17–18; resistance to linguistic change, p. 29.
58 “Letters are the greatest beginning in understanding”: Flavius Kollouthos, quoted and translated by Raffaella Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 33 and 211, no. 160.
58 “from Greece to Rome, from Rome to Constantinople”: Aurelius Harpocration, preserved on a papyrus in Cologne (P. Köln 4533), quoted and translated by Kaster 1997, 22 n. 35.
58 “All arts and trades are brought to perfection”: V 3.10, translated by Clarke.
58 Two Gothic churchmen: Sunnia and Frithila’s letter does not survive, but the answer they received is Jerome L 106, translated by M. Metlen, “Letter of St. Jerome to the Gothic Clergymen Sunnia and Friþila concerning Places in Their Copy of the Psalter Which Had Been Corrupted from the Septuagint,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 36 (1937): 515–42.
59 “Who should believe that the barbarous language”: Jerome L 106, translated by Metlen 1937, 515.
59 “The word ‘water’ should be plural”: Jerome L 106 for this and other quotations; stars and daggers, at 106.7, refers to a copy of Scripture Jerome has emended.
60 “Would that many of our people”: Gregory of Nazianzus, Letter 136, quoted and translated at Lee 2007, 162.
60 “There was no process by which a foreigner”: Mathisen 2006, 1037.
61 “on a barman’s honor”: Sozomen 7.25, my translation; see also S. Doležal, “Rethinking a Massacre: What Really Happened in Thessalonica and Milan in 390?,” Eirene: Studia Graeca et Latina 50 (2014): 89–107.
61 Butheric was eventually killed by a mob: Theodoret 5.17.
61 “Great enterprises are always left to the free choice”: Jerome L 66.8.
62 “Let [the soldier] set up ambushes”: V 3.10, translated by Milner.
Chapter Five: The Mystery of Conversion
63 “Nature leaves us free and untrammeled”: Plutarch, “On Exile,” in Moralia, vol. 7, translated by P. De Lacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), 533, slightly modified.
63 Sweet “Cleopatra”: AM 28.4.
64 falsified their ancient pedigrees: Julia Hillner, “Domus, Family, and Inheritance: The Senatorial Family House in Late Antique Rome,” Journal of Roman Studies 93 (2003): 129–45.
64 “bringing up the rear of an army”: AM 28.4, translated by Hamilton, for these and the following descriptions.
65 “Burn here, burn there”: Quoted and translated at Alan Cameron, Circus Factions: Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 91.
66 Gibbon summarizes Ammianus’s episodes: Gibbon 1970 (originally 1781), chapter 31, in his narrative on the year A.D. 408.
68 Theodosius’s father had had a promising career: PLRE, vol. 1, 902–04.
68 wore his helmet even in the scorching heat: Claudian H4, line 27.
68 The best kind of leader: AM 28.4.
69 dispersal of emergency food to needy Romans: Z 5.39.
69 “like a youth who is heir to new wealth”: Eunapius Fr. 46.1.
70 “He traded jokes with the people”: Claudian H6, line 60, quoted at Cameron 1976, 166.
70 “sailed up to them in large and strong ships”: Z 4.39.
72 In 388, after Christians burned a synagogue: For religious events in the later fourth century, see D. Boin, Coming Out Christian in the Roman World (New York: Bloomsbury, 2015), 129–33.
72–73 “high reputation for eloquence”: Eunapius Fr. 58.2.
73 a cautious academic: Philostorgius 11.2, Socrates 5.25, and Z 4.54.
74 “unused to the blast of war”: Eunapius Fr. 60, with permission to share authority at 58.2.
74 “We gave to Christians and to all people”: This excerpt from Constantine’s and Licinius’s “Edict of Toleration” is from Boin 2015, 94.
75 Christian wives were told to obey their husbands: Boin 2015, 25.
75 celebrating Rome’s dead emperors: D. Boin, “The Memory of ‘Peter’ (1 Peter 2.17) in Fourth-Century Rome: Church, Mausoleum, and Jupiter on the Via Praenestina,” in The Art of Empire: Christian Art in its Imperial Context, edited by Robin Jensen and Lee Jefferson (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), 87–114.
75 to create bigger worship spaces: L. M. White, The Social Origins of Christian Architec
ture, 2 vols. (Valley Forge: Trinity International Press, 1997).
76 “No one after lighting a lamp”: Matthew 5.15, NRSV translation.
77 hand over their Bibles and empty their church coffers: Eusebius, Church History 8.2, with reference to Christians’ “freedom.”
79 Deliri, Lactantius wrote: Boin 2015, 110–50.
80 divisions spread across the Roman-Gothic border: N. Lenski, “The Gothic Civil War and the Date of the Gothic Conversion,” Greek and Roman Byzantine Studies 36 (1995): 51–87; E. Thompson, The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila, 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 2008), 164.
80 he carefully selected a set of Greek and Latin letterforms: J 51.
81 a reputation as the Gothic Moses: Philostorgius 2.5.
81 “needed its aggressiveness curbed”: Philostorgius 2.5.
83 “If anyone eats of that meat”: Saba 3.4. The Gothic word for “fool,” although not used in the story of Saba’s death, is known from Little Wolf’s translation of the Bible.
83 “Over there, on the other side of the river”: Saba 7.4.
83 Around meals of boiled game: A number of avian bones found at Nicopolis suggest that wildfowl was boiled over “a temperate fire, as traces of burning are extremely rare,” as explained by Mark Beech, “The Environmental Archaeology Research Programme at Nicopolis: Methodology and Results,” in The Transition to Late Antiquity on the Danube and Beyond, edited by A. Poulter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 233. Most Goths who lived in this area drank milk, says J 51.
83 “temperate, self-controlled in all things”: Saba 2.2.
84 “Each tribe had brought along from home”: Eunapius Fr. 48.2.
84 “fiction and sham designed to fool their enemies”: Eunapius Fr. 48.2.
85 the “Atta Unsar”: Matthew 6.9, in Gothic at Saba p. 172.
85 criminalizing nearly every aspect of pagan worship: ThC 16.10.10.
Chapter Six: Love, War, and an Awakening
87 “But this is slavery”: Euripides’s Phoenician Women, line 392, translated by Wyckoff.
87 “kept on pursuing with the javelin still embedded”: Procopius H 6.2, translated at Lee 2007, 128–29.
87 “in the blood of their comrades”: AM 16.12, quoted at Lee 2007, 126, along with “without being wounded” and discussion of sneak attacks.
88 fortissimi, nobilissimi, devotissimi: Sources collected Lee 2007, 62–63, my translations.
88 ranging in age from their twenties to their forties: Lee 2007, 77. A field army could comprise between fifteen and thirty thousand men (Lee 2007, 76).
89 surpassed only in the modern age: Eero Saarinen holds that honor for his stainless steel Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri.
90 “the middle of the earth”: Cosmas Indicopleustes, A Christian Map of the World, 2.137, translated by J. McCrindle in The Christian Topography of Cosmas, an Egyptian Monk (London: Hakluyt Society, 1897).
90 “stiff clay and marshy ground”: Z 3.16, “ships for the maintenance” at 3.18, the zoo at 3.23.
90 “lions with long manes, bristly wild boars”: AM 24.5, describing a similar Persian collection, quoted at M. Canepa, The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship Between Rome and Sasanian Iran (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 176.
91 constructed scaffolding to hoist troops: Z 3.22, with tunneling and the Persian kitchen; melted bolts at 2.50.
91 Hormizd’s wife conspired to release him: Z 2.27, AM 16.10.
91 the charge of “Traitor!”: Inferred from AM 24.5.
92 two Gothic men, Fravitta and Eriulf: Eunapius Fr. 59, preferred over Z 4.56–57; discussion at Heather 1991, 189–91.
94 September 6, 394: Rufinus, Church History, 11.32–33, Sozomen 7.22, Socrates 5.25, Theodoret 5.24.
94 ten thousand Gothic soldiers: Orosius 7.35.19.
94 impaled his head on a stick: Eunapius Fr. 60.
94 “to look out a little through the mist”: John Chrysostom, Letter to a Young Widow, section 3, translated by W. Stephens, NPNF, vol. 9.
94 painted pictures set up at the racetrack: Eunapius Fr. 68.
95 Emperors put “Victor” in their signatures: See Lee 2007, 39, 42–47 for Victory’s images.
95 “Be not disturbed, O brethren”: Theophanes, Chronicle, quoted at Lee 2007, 129.
97 the loss of Gothic lives that day: Orosius 7.35.
97 “the morale of the living”: Pseudo-Maurice, Strategy, quoted at Lee 2007, 129.
97 like a thunderbolt: John Chrysostom, Letter to a Young Widow, translated by W. Stephens, NPNF, vol. 9, for this and other quotations.
98 Roman law required widows to wait: The law, from the 330s, was preserved in the Code of Justinian (5.17.7).
98 Euphemia: F. Burkitt, Euphemia and the Goth with the Acts of Martyrdom of the Confessors of Edessa (Oxford: Williams and Norgate, 1913), 129–53, for all quotations. The story is set in 396 (Euphemia and the Goth, section 4) but is thought to have been written a century later, as pointed out by Lee 2007, 150.
98–99 no Roman laws that forbid: Ralph Mathisen, “Provinciales, Gentiles, and Marriages between Romans and Barbarians in the Late Roman Empire,” Journal of Roman Studies 99 (2009): 140–55.
99 “Don’t be shocked if I, as a foreigner”: Attributed to Philostratus the Elder, Letter 8, lines 1–5, in Alciphron, Aelian, and Philostratus: The Letters, edited by A. Benner and F. Fobes (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949).
99 “If you want someone who will stay faithful”: Philostratus the Elder, Letter 8, lines 22–24, my translation.
100 His second wife: “Galla 2” in PLRE 1, p. 382.
100 “Theodosius mourned the dead Empress”: Eunapius Fr. 60.2.
100 “dropsy”: Philostorgius 11.2.
101 the horrible massacre at Thessaloniki: Ambrose, On the Death of Theodosius, translated by J. Liebeschuetz with Carole Hill, in Ambrose of Milan: Political Letters and Speeches (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005), 189–90.
101 “the horse returns to the stable”: Ambrose, On the Death of Theodosius, translated by Liebeschuetz with Hill 2005, 190, with “citizen of paradise” at p. 203.
102 the corpse of a wealthy Roman woman: C. Papageorgopoulou, N. Xirotiris, P. Iten, M. Baumgartner, M. Schmid, and F. Ruehli, “Indications of Embalming in Roman Greece by Physical, Chemical and Histological Analysis,” Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009): 35–42.
102 Church of the Holy Apostles: M. Johnson, The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 119–28.
Chapter Seven: The Lion and the Fox
103 “The designs of a general should always be impenetrable”: V 3.6, translated by Clarke.
104 Confrontation with the Roman government: Passions in scholarly opinion about this point in Alaric’s life expose the long-standing bias against him, with Thomas Burns insisting that Alaric was just a “Gothic upstart” (Barbarians Within the Gates of Rome: A Study of Roman Military Policy and the Barbarians, ca. 375–425 A.D. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994, 210). Burns’s assessment: there “lingers a romantic sense that for some unstated reason Alaric and his followers possessed certain noble qualities” (1994, 187).
104 “command more soldiers”: Z 5.5, my translation.
104 “deemed worthy of Roman honor”: Socrates 7.10, my translation.
104 constituted a formidable “army”: J. Liebeschuetz, “Alaric’s Goths: Nation or Army?,” in Fifth-Century Gaul: A Crisis of Identity?, ed. J. Drinkwater and H. Elton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 75–83; also Halsall 2007, 194.
104 Rufinus, one of the key advisers: Marcellinus Comes, entry at 395, in Brian Croke, The Chronicle of Marcellinus: A Translation and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 6.
105 “in the bloom and flower of young manhood”: Prudentius S 2, line 7.
105 leapt down onto the arena: Theodoret 7.25–26.
105 Honorius bowed to their zealotry: With little immediate effect on g
ames, as Michele Salzman explains in On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 237–38.
106 “whether the ears would show themselves”: Eunapius Fr. 13.
106 “I can’t warn you often enough”: Claudian H4, lines 283–86, my translation.
106 “Be a citizen and be a father”: Claudian H4, line 309, translated by Platnauer.
106 “Earthly glory made these men famous”: Prudentius S 1, lines 280–81, with “outcasts” and “homeless strangers” at lines 45–56 and no limits to the Christian God at lines 427–29.
106 “If we have to hand down all our ways”: Prudentius S 2, lines 277–84, my translation.
107 “What is Roman and what is barbarian”: Prudentius S 2, lines 816–17.
107 to patch broken pipes: ThC 15.2.8–9, which includes the penalty.
108 “Just as We forbid sacrifices”: ThC 16.10.15.
109 “piggier” and “monkeyish”: Photius, in Eunapius, Testimonia 1, at R. Blockley, The Fragmentary Classicising Historians of the Later Roman Empire, 2 vols. (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1983), 3.
109 “He spoils and debases the nobility”: Photius, in Eunapius, Testimonia 1, quoted at Blockley 1983, 3.
109 “hardly any human action it could not imitate”: Oly. Fr. 35, slightly modified.
109 “buccaneering figure”: J. Matthews, “Olympiodorus of Thebes and the History of the West (A.D. 407-425),” Journal of Roman Studies 60 (1970): 79.
109 “material for history”: Photius, in Oly. Testimonia 1, at Blockley 1983, 153.
110 “displeased”: Z 5.5.
111 two broadsides against Rufinus: Alan Cameron, Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970).
111 “Have you seen his yellow-stained pelts?”: Claudian R 2.78–85, my translation.
111 conspiring to become emperor: Eunapius Fr. 64 and Z 5.7.5.
112 Fewer than twenty days had passed: Socrates 6.1, with Burns 1994, 154.
112 his family sought political asylum: Marcellinus Comes, at 396, in Croke 2017; Z 5.8.2.
114 “peace-bearing olive trees”: Ausonius, “The Order of Famous Cities,” in Ausonius, vol. 1, Books 1–17, translated by H. Evelyn-White (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919), city number 15, Athens; “fields and fruits,” city number 8, Capua; Arles, number 10.
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