Alaric the Goth

by Alaric the Goth (retail) (epub)

  167 “Let be the past”: From the tombstone of Quintus Sulpicius Maximus, the eleven-year-old poetry champion buried at the Salt Gate, as translated at J. Raleigh Nelson, “The Boy Poet Sulpicius: A Tragedy of Roman Education,” School Review 11 (1903): 386.

  167 “Day and night I could think of nothing else”: Jerome Ez.: Preface to the Commentary on Book 1.

  167 “sea of smoke”: Jerome L 130.7.

  167 “tears and moans”: Jerome Ez.: Preface to the Commentary on Book 7.

  168 “I will put my spirit within you”: Ezekiel 37.14, NRSV translation.

  168 “the bright light of all the world”: Jerome Ez.: Preface to the Commentary on Book 1, slightly modified.

  169 “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!”: Revelation 18.2, NRSV translation.

  169 the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: M. O’Reilly makes this point in her commentary on Augustine R (81). Augustine reminded his own congregation that Rome was filled with many good, believing Christians whom God had saved. Rome was no immoral city, he said.

  169 Gog: Ambrose, Exposition of the Christian Faith 2.16.137–38, found in NPNF, vol. 10, translated by H. de Romestin, E. de Romestin, and H. Duckworth, 1896.

  169 Huns came to Europe: A. Anderson, Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and the Inclosed Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932), 3–14; also discussed at Christensen 2002, 44–50.

  170 his epic twenty-two-volume manifesto: James O’Donnell, Augustine: A New Biography (New York: Ecco), 209–43.

  170 to foreclose any return to the pagan past: Michele Salzman, “Memory and Meaning: Pagans and 410,” in SoR, 295–310.

  170 twenty edicts against paganism: The count is John O’Meara’s from his introduction to Concerning the City of God against the Pagans, translated by H. Bettenson (London: Penguin Books, 1984), x.

  171 “preferring the preservation of the city to his own private opinion”: Z 5.41, who says that the sacrifice ultimately did not take place because many members of the pagan community feared performing the rites in public—a reasonable reservation given the chilling political climate; Geoffrey Dunn, “Innocent I, Alaric, and Honorius: Church and State in Early Fifth-Century Rome,” in Studies of Religion and Politics in the Early Christian Centuries, edited by D. Luckensmeyer and P. Allen (Strathfield, NSW: St. Pauls Publications, 2010), 243–62.

  171 “managed to reach Carthage as refugees”: Augustine CG 1.32, with “moral disease” at 1.33.

  171 theory of the two “cities”: Earlier sermons, treatises, and letters contained previews of the idea, as explained by Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, new ed. (London: Faber and Faber, 2000), 285–96.

  172 “future citizens”: Augustine CG 1.35.

  172 “the quiet land of Africa”: J 30.

  172 “Gothia where there had once been a Roman state”: Orosius 7.43, slightly modified.

  172 “ancient wealth”: Ausonius, The Order of Famous Cities, translated by H. Evelyn-White in Ausonius, vol. 1, Books 1–17 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919), 269.

  173 Heraclian: Oly. Fr. 10.1 and Orosius 7.42.

  173 the “cloud of grim war”: Paulinus of Nola, Carmen 21, quoted in Dennis Trout, Paulinus of Nola: Life, Letters, and Poems (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 119.

  173 city of Nola: Trout 1999, 120–21; Augustine CG 1.10.

  173 an itinerant roadshow: M preface, 9.

  174 “glide in my little boat by the shore”: J preface, 1.

  174 capsized several of their hired ships: Oly. Fr. 16, J 30.

  174 Alaric died of “sickness”: Oly Fr. 11.2.

  174 “untimely”: J 30.

  174 Plasmodium falciparum: F. Galassi, R. Bianucci, G. Gorini, G. Paganotti, M. Habict, F. Rühli, “The Sudden Death of Alaric I (c. 370–410 ad), the Vanquisher of Rome: A Tale of Malaria and Lacking Immunity,” European Journal of Internal Medicine 31 (2016): 84–87.

  175 a tormented soul: Hesiod, Theogony, in Theogony, Works and Days, Testimonia, ed. and trans. G. Most (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), line 527.

  175 wounded honor: Sophocles, Ajax, in Ajax, Electra, Oedipus Tyrannus, ed. and trans. H. Lloyd-Jones (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), line 185.

  175 the “madness” that came from loving: Euripides, Hippolytus, in Children of Heracles, Hippolytus, Andromache, Hecuba, ed. and trans. D. Kovacs (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), lines 764–66.

  175 “with utmost affection”: J 30.158.

  175 to dam the waters of the Busento: J 30.

  175 a custom known from Dacia: Dio Cassius, Roman History, vol. 8, Books 61–70, translated by E. Cary and H. Foster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925), 68.14.4.

  175 sexual violence: Victoria Leonard, “Galla Placida as ‘Human Gold’: Consent and Autonomy in the Sack of Rome, c.e. 410,” Gender & History 31 (2019): 1–19.

  175 “bare like locusts”: J 31. For the wedding, Orosius 7.43. Jordanes claimed the two were married in Italy; see Hagith Sivan, Galla Placidia: The Last Roman Empress (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 9–36.

  176 a Roman soldier’s white formal wear: See Claudian W, lines 304–05.

  176 helped compose the wedding poetry: Sivan, Galla Placidia 2011, 21, with Honorius’s absence at p. 9.

  176 “by the treachery”: Orosius 7.43, translated by Raymond.

  176 scrutinize the empire’s maps for Roman territory: There is a range of opinion, much of it speculative, on the mechanisms by which Rome loosened its grip on its territories, from new tax laws to the divestment of land; see Halsall 2007, 425–47.

  176 to preserve the ancient right of the paterfamilias: Guillermo Suárez Blázquez, “La patria potestad en el derecho romano y en el derecho altomedieval visigodo,” Revista de estudios histórico-jurídicos 36 (2014): 159–87.

  176 a woman carrying a “formed fetus”: Marianne Elsakkers, “Gothic Bible, Vetus Latina and Visigothic Law: Evidence for a Septuagint-Based Gothic Version of Exodus,” Sacris Erudiri: A Journal of Late Antique and Medieval Christianity 44 (2005): 37–76, with the quotation at p. 72.

  178 denied Christian priests the privilege: E. Thompson, The Goths in Spain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 29.

  179 Theoderic: Sophie Patoura, “Le rôle historique des Balkans dans le processus de la chute de l’Empire romain d’Occident: Le cas des chefs goths Alaric et Théodoric,” Byzantinoslavica 60 (1999): 367–73.

  179 “A youth of tall stature”: EV 10.46.

  179 “to enjoy the advantages of the Roman Empire”: J 57 for the details.

  179 a Gothic golden age: David Gwynn, The Goths (London: Reaktion Books, 2018), with bibliography.

  179 united their kingdoms: EV 12–14 for this detail and other quotations from the paragraph.

  180 “won the good-will of the neighboring nations”: EV 12 for this detail and other quotations, including “duas gentes in uno.”

  180 civilitas returned: Wolfram 1988, 296.

  180 “Everyone could carry on his business”: EV 12, mentioning “gates, they were never shut.”

  181 Qusayr ‘Amra, Jordan: Garth Fowden, Qusayr ‘Amra: Art and the Umayyad Elite in Late Antique Syria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 197–226.

  182 Ibn Habib al-Ilbiri: Daniel König, Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West: Tracing the Emergence of Medieval Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 154, with reference to al-Qut at p. 156.

  182 “for a thousand years”: Ibn Kaldun, quoted at König 2015, 173; displacing al-Rum, the Romans, at p. 183.

  183 Hurushiyush: König 2015, 134–49.

  183 a road map to their common future: Christian Sahner, “From Augustine to Islam: Translation and History in the Arabic Orosius,” Speculum 88 (2013): 931.

  183 Petrarch, Giorgio Vasari, Flavio Biondo: Gwynn 2018, 90–94.

  184 “the Goths to the unknown edge of the globe”: Quoted at Gwynn 2018, 110. A list of Visigothic kings had alread
y, for a century or more, been circulating in Spain and Portugal in a popular book, Crónica del moro Rasis. It had been translated from Latin into Arabic, then into Castilian and Portuguese, and may have inspired Quevedo to connect the glory of a Gothic past to the dream of a future in the Americas; see also König 2015, 164, 185–87.

  184 a virtuous race of brave, patriotic warriors: Christopher Krebs, A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011).

  Chapter Eleven: Smoldering Ruins and a Lost Key

  185 “History aims”: Eunapius Fr. 62.2, my translation.

  185 “the immutable laws of the universe”: Claudian G, lines 54–60, translated by Platnauer.

  185 “A wound, though deep”: Jerome Ez.: Preface to the Commentary on Book 1.

  185 “nothing had happened”: Orosius 7.40, translated by Fear, slightly modified.

  186 “For when we return to a place after considerable absence”: Quintilian, in Institutio Oratoria, translated by H. Butler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1920–22), 11.2.17.

  186 intentionally left the wreckage in place: Gloria Ferrari, “The Ancient Temple on the Acropolis at Athens,” American Journal of Archaeology 106 (2002): 11–35.

  186 Seven addresses: In addition to Sallust’s house and Marcella’s, the five other sites are: the Lateran (Book of the Pontiffs 1.233), Anicia Proba’s house (Jerome L 130.7), the house of the Valerii family (Life of Melania Junior 14.3), Santa Maria in Trastevere (Book of the Pontiffs 1.205), and the Forum of Peace (Procopius H 1.12). From Riccardo Santangeli Valenzani, “Dall’evento al dato archeologico: Il sacco del 410 attraverso la documentazione archeologica,” in SoR, 35–37.

  186 connection to the dead apostle: In the third century, a church located outside Rome’s walls, named St. Sebastian’s, also claimed to have Saint Peter’s body.

  187 Sallust’s house: L. Richardson Jr., A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 202.

  187 “half-burned”: Procopius H 3.2.

  188 “were insufficient for the increased population”: Oly. Fr. 25.

  188 its own version of a catastrophe: Matthew Kneale, Rome: A History in Seven Sackings (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018).

  189 No one really understood what they were looking at: Paolo Liverani, “Alarico in Laterano e sull’Esquilino: Due casi e qualche riflessione,” in SoR, 277–94.

  189 pioneers in the archaeology of Rome: Marcella died in 1961, and her husband, Adolfo, was buried at her side in Rome’s Campo Verano cemetery. The family’s story has been recounted by Domenico Palombi in Rodolfo Lanciani: L’archeologia a Roma tra Ottocentro e Novecento (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2006), and in Palombi’s shorter piece “Lanciani, Rodolfo Amedeo,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani 63: 353–60 (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2004).

  190 translated his discoveries into English: “Signora Rodolfo Lanciani,” New York Times, February 18, 1914.

  190 sent bulletins to the United States: “Discoveries at Rome: Prof. Lanciani Describes His Explorations and Discoveries,” New York Times, March 19, 1887 (unattributed); “Glimpses of Old Rome,” New York Times, April 2, 1887 (unattributed); “Palaces of Noble Romans: Ground They Preferred—Some Recent Discoveries,” December 29, 1889, New York Times (no byline but sourced as “Prof. Lanciani”); “Latest Finds in Rome: Rodolfo Lanciani Describes the Dredging of the Tiber,” New York Times, June 26, 1892 (attributed to Lanciani); “The City of Rome,” New York Times, January 20, 1900 (under Lanciani’s name); “New Tales of Old Rome,” New York Times, November 30, 1901 (under Lanciani’s name).

  190 In his eighty-four years: “Prof. Lanciani Dies: Famous Scientist,” New York Times, May 23, 1929, although the paper mistakenly reported that he had been eighty-two.

  192 “felt more than ever the vast difference”: R. Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1892), 276. Lanciani excavated the tomb of the boy poet buried at the Salt Gate (1892, 280–82).

  192 “I have witnessed excavations”: R. Lanciani, The Destruction of Ancient Rome: A Sketch of the History of the Monuments (New York: Macmillan Company, 1899), 57–58, with the paragraph breaks inserted for clarity.

  194 “bigoted Christians”: Lanciani 1899, 70.

  194 “in the Gothic attack”: Recorded in the biography of Pope Celestine, discussed by Ralph Mathisen, “Roma a Gothis Alarico duce capta est: Ancient Accounts of the Sack of Rome in 410 ce,” in SoR, 87–90.

  194 “it cannot clearly be documented”: Johannes Lipps, “Alarichs Goten auf dem Forum Romanum? Überlegungen zu Gestalt, Chronologie und Verständnis der spätantiken Platzanlage,” in SoR, 116.

  194 Ennio Quirinio Visconti: The discovery of the Esquiline Treasure, made between June 1793 and March 1794, is described in Lettera di Ennio Quirino Visconti intorno ad una antica supelletile d’argento scoperta in Roma nell’anno 1793, 2nd ed. (Rome: Le Stampe del Salviucci, 1827).

  195 “We are not far . . . from the date of the sack”: Lanciani 1899, 64.

  195 One such quake ruptured the pipes: Silvia Orlandi, “Le tracce del passaggio di Alarico nelle fonti epigrafiche,” in SoR, 342.

  195 “quasi nulla”: R. Santangeli Valenzani in SoR, 38, comparing the thin evidence to the heavy impression Alaric’s attack has made.

  195 Italgas: P. Quaranta, R. Pardi, B. Ciarrochi, and A. Capodiferro, “Il ‘giorno dopo’ all’Aventino: Dati preliminari dai contesti di scavo,” in SoR, 185–214, with the bronze padlock at p. 191.

  197 “It is obvious that the capture of so great a city”: Sozomen 9.10, with Mathisen 2013 in SoR, 96–102.

  197 “punishment for God’s wrath”: Sozomen 9.6, my translation.

  197 “casual disregard and complete”: Sozomen 9.6, my translation.

  Epilogue

  199 “To weep with them that weep does ease some deal”: From Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, dramatizing the conflict between Romans and Goths through the life of a fictional Roman general (act 3, scene 1, lines 253–54).

  199 Gibbon called the burial Cosenza’s “secret spot”: Gibbon 1970 (originally 1781), 173.

  199 “with many treasures”: J 30.

  199 including the Nazis, who went to Cosenza: Kneale 2018, 29–30.

  199 Cosenza’s enterprising mayor: James Bone, “Romans in Arms over Museum to Visigoth King Alaric the Barbarian,” Times (UK), July 5, 2013.

  WORKS CITED AND FURTHER READING

  An expanded list of sources consulted in writing this book, including resources in languages other than English, is available at www.religiousdirt.com, the author’s website.

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  Brown, P. The World of Late Antiquity, ad 150–750. New York: W. W. Norton, 1970.

  Burns, T. 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.

  Cameron, A. Circus Factions: Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.

  ______. Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970.

  Cameron, A., and J. Long with L. Sherry. Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

  Christensen, A. Cassiodorus, Jordanes, and the History of the Goths: Studies in a Migration Myth. Translated by H. Flegal. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002.

  Cooper, K. The Fall of the Roman Household. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

  Elton, H. Frontiers of the Roman Empire. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996.

  Gibbon, E. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 2, 395 A.D.–1185 A.D. Originally 1781. Reprint, New York: Modern Library, 1970.

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f Barbarian History (ad 550–800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.

  Graham, M. News and Frontier Consciousness in the Late Roman Empire. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006.

  Gwynn, D. The Goths. Lost Civilizations series. London: Reaktion Books, 2018.

  Halsall, G. Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

  Heather, P. Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

  ______. The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

  ______. Goths and Romans, 332–489. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

  Holum, K. Theodosian Empresses. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.

  Humphries, M. “The Shapes and Shaping of the Late Antique World: Global and Local Perspectives.” In A Companion to Late Antiquity, ed. P. Rousseau, 97–109. Malden, MA: Wiley, 2009.

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  Kennedy, R., C. Roy, and M. Goldman. Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World: An Anthology of Primary Sources in Translation. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2013.

  Kneale, M. Rome: A History in Seven Sackings. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018.

  Kulikowski, M. Rome’s Gothic Wars: From the Third Century to Alaric. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

  Lanciani, R. The Destruction of Ancient Rome: A Sketch of the History of the Monuments. New York: Macmillan Company, 1899.

  Lee, A. D. War in Late Antiquity: A Social History. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007.

  Lenski, N. Failure of Empire: Valens and the Roman State in the Fourth Century A.D. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

  Liebeschuetz, J.H.W.G. Barbarians and Bishops: Army, Church, and State in the Age of Arcadius and Chrysostom. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.

  ______. Decline and Change in Late Antiquity: Religion, Barbarians, and Their Historiography. Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 2006.