114 “It is indeed a wonderful experience”: Tour of the Known World and Its People 12, in “The Expositio Totius Mundi et Gentium: Its Geography and Its Language,” by J. Woodman (master’s thesis, Ohio State University, 1964), 40, with “the beauty of its Acropolis.”
114 When Alaric arrived: Burns 1994, 183–223.
114 spied Athena striding atop the city walls: Z 5.6.
115 requests a reading of Plato’s Timaeus: Marcel Brion, Alaric the Goth (New York: R. M. McBride, 1930), 57.
115 “A destruction of such magnitude”: C. Bouras, “Alaric in Athens,” Δελτίον Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας [Bulletin of the Christian Archaeological Society] 33 (2012): 4; rightly skeptical is Benjamin Anderson, “The Defacement of the Parthenon Metopes,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 57 (2017): 248–60.
117 Sparta, Megara, Argos: Z 5.5; Eunapius: Lives of the Philosophers; Philostratus: Lives of the Sophists, translated by W. Wright (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921), 436–39.
117 katastrophe: Z 5.5.
117 “destroyer of the Greek people”: Claudian, E 2, lines 216–17, my translation.
117 legitimate conflicts during these years: Burns 1994, 167; Heather 1991, 199–206.
117 “all possible civility”: Z 5.6.
118 still quoted that Homeric scene: Julian, Letter 22, 430c–31b, translated by W. Wright in Julian, vol. 3 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1923).
119 the most read and performed Greek playwright: R. Lauriola and K. Demetriou, eds., Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Euripides (Leiden: Brill, 2015).
119 Greek theaters never went dark: P. Easterling and R. Miles, “Dramatic Identities: Tragedies in Late Antiquity,” in Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity, edited by R. Miles (London: Routledge, 1999), 95–111; and E. Scharffenberger, “Phoenician Women,” in Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Euripides, edited by R. Lauriola and K. Demetriou (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 292–319.
119 “Just as children have different spirits allotted to them”: The quote is attributed to the senator Symmachus at Prudentius S 2.71–74.
119 Athens’s antiquity was its best defense: Z 5.5.
119 “tribal leader,” or phylarch: Oly. Fr. 6.
119 to hail Alaric as their “king”: J 29; Comes, entry at 395, with discussion at Burns 1994, 278, and Kulikowski 2007, 111, 165.
120 General Stilicho took a huge risk: Eunapius Fr. 64.1.
120 arranged for her to marry his loyal Vandal chief of staff: Oly. Fr. 1.
120 had appointed Stilicho: Ambrose, On the Death of Theodosius, translated by Liebeschuetz with Hill 2005, 179–80.
121 A predictable level of hemming and hawing: Events of 395 at Claudian R 1.174–272, with Burns 1994, 153.
121 “effete, greedy, treasonous and sorrow-bringing race”: Orosius 7.38.
122 the weapons factories of Illyricum: Wolfram 1988, 143; Heather 1991, 204–05.
122 Alaric in Epirus: Summarized at Z 5.26 and based on a fragment of Oly, whose material starts around the year 407. Eunapius, by contrast, Z’s source for the late 390s, offers no information about Stilicho’s motivations in Greece, at 5.5–6. But it very probable that Stilicho expressed his desire to take Illyricum then. See Halsall 2007, 192–95; Cameron 1970, 85–86; and Burns 1994, 158.
122 countered Stilicho’s offer: Claudian E 2, line 216, and G 535–36.
122 Alaric accepted: Events of 397 discussed at Heather 1991, 204; Cameron 1970, 172–80; Halsall 2007, 191; and Kulikowski 2007, 167.
123 “The Roman Marius used to call”: Eunapius Fr. 20.4.
Chapter Eight: Into the Labyrinth
124 “To the fight / which lies before me”: Euripides’s Phoenician Women, lines 779–80, translated by Wyckoff.
124 leaders of Rome’s four imperial prefectures: A. Kazhdan, “Praetorian Prefect,” The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, online edition).
125 a “shrill” Gothic wife: Claudian G 623–28.
126 “barbarian by extraction”: Socrates 6.6, Sozomen 8.4.
126 “cruel and violent disposition”: Theodoret 5.32.
126 animalistic race: Synesius 15.1.
126 teetering on a “razor’s edge”: Synesius 14–15 for this and other quotations.
126 Gainas: Socrates 6.5; PLRE 1, pp. 379–80; and Liebeschuetz 1991, 111–31, 189–94.
126 “the principal commissions in the army to his relations”: Socrates 6.6, Sozomen 8.4, and Theodoret 5.32.
126 “Scythians”: Peter Heather, “The Anti-Scythian Tirade of Synesius’ ‘De Regno,’ ” Phoenix 42 (1988): 152–72.
127 “drive out these ill-omened dogs”: Synesius 15.12, quoting Hector’s speech at Iliad 8, lines 523–31.
127 “I was a stranger and you welcomed me”: Matthew 25.35, NRSV translation.
127 sold him into bondage: Claudian E 2, lines 329–31.
128 “ape” in fancy clothes: Claudian E 1, lines 303–10.
128 “if a woman were in charge”: Claudian E 1, lines 323–24, my translation.
128 This one could barely act the part: Eunapius Fr. 65.
128 How many slave catalogs: Claudian E 1, lines 33–38.
128 “than a poor man who stumbles into prosperity”: Claudian E 1, line 182, my translation.
128 “I dare you to find, onstage or off”: Claudian E 1, lines 301–02, my translation.
128 “Not the Aegean, not deep Propontis”: Claudian E 2, lines 307–24, translated by Platnauer.
129 “a pestilence” devouring “our land”: Claudian G, lines 175–76.
129 On April 11, 399: ThC 16.8.14.
129 “We are appropriating [this money]”: ThC 16.8.14.
129 Arcadius wrote to the governor of Illyricum: ThC 16.9.12.
130 tzangae and bracchae: ThC 14.10.2, with Philipp von Rummel, Habitus Barbarus: Kleidung und Repräsentation spätantiker Eliten im 4. und 5. Jahrhundert (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007).
130 “Happy is the one at home”: Claudian F, poem in full, my translation.
132 Gainas joined the revolt: Socrates 6.6, Sozomen 8.4, Theodoret 5.32, and Z 5.14–22.
132 A lack of opportunity to advance his career: Z 5.13.
132 “for the purpose of burning down the palace”: Socrates 6.6.
132 to turn the city into a tomb: Eunapius Fr. 67.13.
132 trying to smuggle weapons into the city: Socrates 6.6 and Sozomen 8.4, both of whom also mention the plot to rob the bankers.
133 Seven thousand Gothic Christians: Z 5.19. Liebeschuetz (1991, 112) is skeptical of the number of the dead.
133 Whether apprehended on Roman land or in Gothic territory: Gainas killed in Roman territory: Philostorgius 11.8; Gainas killed in Gothia, Z 5.21–22.
133 “seasoned with salt”: Philostorgius 11.8.
134 ready to thwart Gainas’s attempt to flee: Z 5.19.
134 Arcadius’s monument: Burns 1994, 174–75; Liebeschuetz 1991, 273–78.
134 “The truth of why things happen”: Prudentius S 2, lines 843–45, my translation.
134 “The windings of the labyrinth”: Prudentius S 2, lines 847–48, my translation.
135 “I don’t deny that the fork in the road”: Prudentius S 2, lines 847–48.
135 “My mind wavers between”: Claudian R 1, lines 1–18, my translation, with the opening two lines slightly adapted from Platnauer.
136 fear of pain or death should amount to nothing: S. Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011).
137 “watchful, sober, and discreet”: V 3.9, translated by Milner, with “caution and prudence” at 3.6.
137 “to find out everything from intelligent men”: V 3.6, translated by Milner.
137 decided to redraw the boundaries of the provinces: Burns 1994, 178–79, although I depart from his presumption of antagonism between Gainas and Alaric.
138 “universal contempt is som
etimes a boon”: Claudian, E 1, line 139, translated by Platnauer.
138 “The more conscientious generals”: V 3.6, translated by Milner.
138 a team of talented cartographers boasted: Discussion in C. Whittaker, Frontiers of the Roman Empire: A Social and Economic Study (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 19–20; and in Richard Talbert, with T. Elliott, N. Harris, G. Hubbard, D. O’Brien, G. Shepherd, and M. Steinmann, Rome’s World: The Peutinger Map Reconsidered (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 138–39.
139 “a drunkard’s babbling”: Claudian R 2, lines 287–88, translated by Platnauer.
139 “The safest policy on expeditions”: V 3.6, translated by Milner, along with “The most important to be careful about.”
139 “Just as he is said to have been hidden”: V 3.6, translated by Milner.
139 November 18, 401: Recorded in a Latin calendar, the Fasti vindobonenses priores, so called because it was discovered in Vienna (Vindobona) and printed in the series Historical Records of Germania (Monumenta Germaniae Historica) among the ancient sources (“Auctores Antiquissimi”), no. 9, 274–99, edited by T. Mommsen (Berlin: Wiedman, 1892), 299.
140 “permit the Goths to settle peaceably”: J 30, my translation.
140 “the empire had almost lost”: J 30, my translation.
141 “in respect for religion”: Orosius 7.37.2, with reference to violating one of “the most revered days of the year.”
141 place Alaric all over the map of northern Italy: Wolfram 1988, 150–53 (a “draw,” 152); Burns 1994, 188–95; Cameron 1970, 180–81; Kulikowski 2007, 170–71; Heather 1991, 206–11; and Williams and Friell 1994, 142–58. Dating Verona to 403 is J. Barrie Hall, “Pollentia, Verona, and the Chronology of Alaric’s First Invasion of Italy,” Philologus 132 (1988): 245–57.
141 “full of errors and contradictions”: Eunapius Fr. 1, with “an un-chaired meeting.”
142 “Poetry is the work of a gifted person”: Aristotle, Poetics 17.1455a in Aristotle, Longinus, Demetrius, edited and translated by S. Halliwell (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 88–89.
143 “A deficit of good ideas”: Claudian G, lines 525–53, my translation.
144 called the “City,” the Urbs: Wolfram 1998, 152.
145 A humble citizen: Claudian H6, lines 55–78.
145 “No more empty threats”: Claudian, H6, lines 133–46, my translation, with the line “terrors to the sea” modified from Platnauer’s prose translation.
146 “Foul kingdom, that Goths are taxed”: Claudian H6, lines 276–322, my translation.
147 speculating that he was dead: Z 5.27.
Chapter Nine: The Crash
148 “Who could believe that Rome”: Jerome’s Commentary on Ezekiel, preface to book 3, quoted by J. Pelikan, “The Two Cities: The Decline and Fall of Rome as Historical Paradigm,” in Daedalus 111 (1982): 85–86, slightly modified.
148 Radagaisus: Orosius 7.37.4–7.
148 bring the entire prefecture of Illyricum under western control: Z 5.29.
149 Senator Lampadius: Z 5.29.
149 he must be a mole: Orosius 7.38.
149 wanted to put his son on the throne: Oly. Fr. 5.2.
149 August 22, 408: Sozomen 9.4, Orosius 7.38.5, and Z 5.34.
149 a band of renegades from Honorius’s palace: Oly. Fr. 5.1.
149 pursued his son, Eucherius: Oly. Fr. 5.2, and Z 5.35.
150 Theodosius’s first wife, Flacilla: Theodoret 5.18, with Kenneth Holum, Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 22–45. She died around 387 after traveling to a Thracian hot spring to tend her unnamed illness. The reference to Flacilla’s eulogy is quoted by Holum at p. 23.
150 Arcadius’s wife, Eudoxia: Philostorgius 11.6.
150 Confidently marching at the front: Claudian H6, line 552, with Julia Hillner, “A Woman’s Place: Imperial Women in Late Antique Rome,” Antiquité Tardive 25 (2017): 90.
150 ripped an expensive necklace: Z 5.38.
151 “in a mist of purple blossoms”: Claudian W, lines 298–302.
151 Augusta Livia’s four-hundred-year-old jewels: Claudian W, lines 12–13.
151 She was Alaric’s age: PLRE 1 (“Serena”), p. 824.
151 “was thought to be the reason for Alaric’s march on Rome”: Oly. Fr. 7.3.
152 Romans pent up with anger: Z 5.35, with reference to thirty thousand Goths.
152 “workman’s lunch”: Martial, Epigrams 13.5, in Martial: Epigrams, vol 3: Books 11–14), translated by D. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).
153 “no demand for Indian pepper”: Pliny Natural History 19.59, in Pliny: Natural History, vol 5: Books 17–19), translated by H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), with reference to tiny gardens.
153 “dismal uniformity”: M 6.5.27.
153 stopped all boats and barges: Oly. Fr. 7.5, Sozomen 9.6–7, and Z 5.41–42.
153 “Anger and indignation”: V 3.12, translated by Milner.
153 “Thicker grass is easier to mow than thinner”: Z 5.40.
154 “more terrible than the sword”: V 3.3, translated by Clarke, for the quotations.
154 “Stilicho’s execution”: Oly. Fr. 6.
154 “pepper-sharp” burglar: Martial, Epigrams 8.59.
154 “was thought to be the reason”: Oly. Fr. 7.3.
154 “The hunter who reclines returns”: Claudian, H6, lines 3–10, my translation.
155 driven to his heinous act by evil: Socrates 7.10 and Sozomen 9.6.
155 “something deeply troubling”: Sozomen 9.6, my translation, along with “fulfilled it by going [to the city of Rome]”; Socrates 7.10.
156 loss of citizenship was one of the stiffest penalties: Mathisen 2006, 1019, discussing slaves and prisoners of war at p. 1020.
156 “more like a Roman” than a Goth: Orosius 7.37.
156 “to live with the Romans [so] that men”: J 30, my translation. “Family” or “people” makes more sense than C. Mierow’s translation of gens as “race,” since it is clear that Alaric and his supporters wanted not to abandon their Gothic heritage but, rather, to bring it with them. I do not believe that Alaric was fighting for “Gothic statehood,” as does Wolfram 1988, 161. An independent Gothic state was the result of Rome’s inaction, not Alaric’s primary aspiration.
157 five thousand pounds of gold, thirty thousand pounds of silver: Z 5.41.
157 the next round of diplomacy: Oly. Fr. 11.2.
158 living temporarily in a canvas tent: Oly. Fr. 8.1.
158 Jovius pressed the emperor: Oly. Fr. 8.1 and Z 5.48; Carlos Machado, “The Roman Aristocracy and the Imperial Court, Before and After the Sack,” in SoR, 49–76.
158 no higher rank be conferred: Z 5.37–49.
158 Jovius reported back that a resolution: Oly. Fr. 8.1.
158 “a moderate amount of food”: Oly. Fr. 8.1, Sozomen 9.7, my translation.
158 “permission to live on Roman land”: Oly Fr. 8.1, Sozomen 9.7.
159 searching for “a home”: Z 5.48.
159 the same as any citizen: Scholars have never addressed this issue directly. In Heather’s 1991 foundational Goths and Romans, Alaric is said to want “a fully recognized position for his people within the Western Empire” and to “exist as part of the western Empire” (216), but Heather never connects his analysis to the topic of Roman citizenship, an understandable omission at the time. Researchers once thought that the differences between being a Roman citizen and a non-citizen did not matter after Caracalla’s reform—it was a distinction, Patrick Geary said, summarizing a widely shared view, that “meant nothing”; see P. Geary, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 59.
159 to calculate the wall’s perimeter: Oly. Fr. 41.1 with the editor’s comments at p. 220 note 78.
160 a pragmatic intellectual: PLRE 2 at pp. 180–81.
160 Alaric was promoted: Oly. Fr. 10.1, Z 6.7–10. And Matthews 1975, 284–306, is excellent.
161 Athaulf was invited to Rome: Sozomen 9.8.
161 could agree to retire to an island: Oly. Fr. 10.1.
161 their hastily formed partnership crumbled: Z 6.6–12.
161 “enraged”: Sozomen 9.9, but see also Oly Fr. 6 and 10.2 for the sequence of events.
161 set up their tents in the northeastern district: Procopius H 3.2.
162 seventy-seven holidays had swollen into a hundred and seventy-seven: Alan Cameron, Circus Factions: Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 175–76.
162 August’s circuit of festivals: D. Boin, Ostia in Late Antiquity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 210–13.
162 sixteen main gates: Hendrik Dey, The Aurelian Wall and the Refashioning of Imperial Rome, ad 271–855 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 29.
162 “The wild and uncivilized life of man”: V 4, translated by Milner, for the following quotations.
163 the broad marble archways: Dey 2011, 29, with brick-framed passageways at p. 30.
163 “mobile tower”: V 4.17, translated by Milner; drawbridges, 4.21.
164 poured pitch onto soldiers: AM 20.11.
164 filled underground tunnels with bitumen and sulfur: Simon James, “Stratagems, Combat, and ‘Chemical Warfare’ in the Siege Mines of Dura-Europos,” American Journal of Archaeology 115 (2011): 94–97.
164 dropped oversized wooden wheels: V 4.8.
164 “The most essential part of the art of war”: V 4.27, translated by Clarke. “Surprise attack” is from Milner’s translation of the same passage (2001, 137).
164 “the dead of night”: M 1.3.15, also described as “no time . . . for conducting business.”
164 Proba: Procopius H 3.2.
165 Alaric crept in: Not “crashed,” as in Orosius’s version 7.39.
166 spare Romans who sought refuge in a church: Augustine CG 1.2, Orosius 7.39.
166 “He also told his men”: Orosius 7.39 for this story and the following quotations.
Chapter Ten: Alaric’s Dying Ambitions
Alaric the Goth Page 25