by Ross Laidlaw
A chorus of sardonic groans greeted this observation.
‘The man’s panicking,’ Faustus murmured to Cethegus. ‘Either that or he’s hoping to curry favour with Theoderic by a flag-waving gesture.’ He stood up and called, ‘And where’s the money coming from, I’d like to know? You can be sure the Public Purse in Ravenna’s not about to cough up, and, thanks to the Church lands settlement, most of us are pretty strapped for cash.’
‘We must all do our patriotic bit. A spot o’ belt-tightening’s ’ardly going to kill us. ’Sides, Theoderic wouldn’t be impressed if ’e ’eard we was too mean to defend our noble City.’
‘Might have known it would come to that,’ Cethegus whispered disgustedly to his friend. ‘Fellow’s got the ear of you-know-who, unfortunately. We can’t afford to hand the king another stick to beat us with.’
And so (reluctantly) the vote was passed to strengthen Rome’s defences.
As Clovis’s mighty host grew daily greater on the north bank of the Liger, so Alaric’s appeals to Theoderic became ever more frequent and urgent. Torn between the desire to help his Visigothic kinsmen, and the need to keep watch from Ravenna on the Eastern war-fleet, Theoderic set in train a massive warship-building programme. A fleet of sufficient strength would neutralize the threat posed by Julian’s naval expedition, and the king would then be free to march to Alaric’s aid. The shipyards of Arimimum, of Classis* and Tergeste, rang to the thump of adze and mallet as a steady stream of galleys slid down the ways and into the holding-docks. But before enough could be built, news arrived that Clovis had crossed the Liger and was pushing south, carrying all before him.
In rage and desperation, Theoderic despatched Duke Mammo and Count Ibba with the host, to succour his beleaguered allies. Too late. Before the Ostrogoths reached Gaul, terrible intelligence began to filter through: the Visigothic host had been destroyed* — King Alaric being among those killed — the population scattered and in flight. And to compound a sorry situation, the Burgundians, despite prior friendly overtures from Theoderic, now switched their allegiance to the Franks, laid siege to Arelate, sacked Tolosa and, led by Gundobad, their king, took Barcino† in Hispania.
When Julian (aboard his flagship) heard that Theoderic’s host had marched for Gaul, his glee and satisfaction knew no bounds. Now his cup of vengeance would be filled to overflowing, and he would drink deep thereof. Anastasius’ orders regarding the expedition’s rules of engagement had been specific: it was there purely to make sure that Theoderic adhered to the terms laid down in the official warning conveyed to him by the Isaurian, Trascilliseus. Unless provoked, Julian must not commence hostilities. But what else was Theoderic’s warship-building initiative but provocation? Julian knew, of course, that it was nothing of the sort: instead, a desperate measure taken in self-defence, which circumstance had forced upon the king. However, with judicious editing, the facts in his report to Anastasius could be presented in such a way as to constitute a damning indictment of Theoderic, making him, not Julian, appear as the aggressor. With anticipation and excitement rising inside him — like sap in spring within a tree, the general snapped a command to his navarchus. The shipmaster relayed the order to the nautae — the sailors who tended the sails and rigging, as opposed to the remiges who manned the oars. Up to the masthead crept a long red pennant — the signal for the fleet to attack.
*
Tending his flock on the foothills of Mons Garganus* in northern Apulia, Marcus the shepherd selected a dry stone on which to sit while eating his midday prandium of bread and olives. The early autumn sunshine was warm, his sheep were grazing contentedly within easy eyeshot, so Marcus awarded himself a short nap. .
Awaking, he looked out to sea — and gasped. Emerging into view around the mighty headland was a mass of sails. Ship after ship hove into sight; by the time the last had cleared the promontory, Marcus had counted two hundred — some were big-beamed transports, others sleek dromons. Abandoning his charges (he could safely leave them for an hour or two; no wolves had been sighted in the area for many weeks), he began to run down the hill to spread the news to the villagers of Bariae bringing in the harvest in the fields below.
In wonder tinged with apprehension, the harvesters watched the ships drop anchor in the bay fringed by a scatter of lime-washed cottages. Soon, streams of soldiers from the transports and marines from the dromons were wading ashore. Orders in familiar Latin (‘Non vos turbatis sed mandata captate’†) carried faintly to the workers’ ears. A party of several hundred formed up on the beach (only a small proportion of the total force, judging from the numbers watching from the decks) and began to tramp up the hillside in open order, laughing and chatting as though on a spree.
‘What lingo’s that they’re talking?’ one young harvester wondered aloud, stopping work to rest on his scythe. ‘Not Latin, that’s for sure.’
‘It’s Greek, you ignoramus,’ muttered a greybeard, shaking his head in disgust. ‘When I was your age, everyone still understood some of the old tongue, even if they didn’t speak it much. Why do you think this part of Italy’s called Magna Graecia? Settled by our ancestors from across the Mare Ionium‡ centuries ago.’
‘Weird-looking bunch,’ someone observed, as the strangers drew near. ‘Like ancient legionaries.’ And indeed, with their scale-armour loricae* and classical Attic helmets, and commanded by an officer in muscle-cuirass, they needed only long rectangular shields to resemble Roman soldiers from the time of Trajan or the Antonines. Apart from swords, they were equipped with strange cylindrical bundles which they held in their right hands.
After testing the wind direction, the officer led his men to the upper margin of the fields, along which the soldiers formed a line.
‘The bastards are going to fire the crop!’ exclaimed a middle-aged harvester. ‘See the flashes from their strike-a-lights.’ And he raced uphill to confront them. ‘Stop!’ he shouted, planting himself before their officer.
With a grin, the officer unsheathed his sword and, almost nonchalantly, drew the tip across the other’s cheek. With a cry of shock and pain, the harvester clapped a hand to his face to stem the blood pouring from the wound.
No one interfered, as the soldiers flung burning torches into the standing corn. Cowed and silent, the villagers watched in helpless fury as the fruits of that year’s labour disappeared in roaring flames.
Their task completed, the soldiers returned to the fleet, which continued its progress down the coast to select fresh targets. The seaboard of Apulia and then Calabria came to be defined by a lengthening wall of smoke from burning crops as the fleet moved south, sacking Sipontum† en route. Rounding the heel of Italy into the Sinus Tarentinus,‡ it prepared to assault the city of Tarentum. But the Tarentines were made of sterner stuff than the Sipontians. Inspired, perhaps, by the defiant spirit of their forefathers, who had broken an alliance forced on them by Rome (to side instead with Hannibal), they made ready to resist. In this they were assisted by topography.
The harbour to the east of the port was sheltered by the twin islets of the Choerades, while the town itself, situated on an island, was connected to the mainland by a bridge and aqueduct — all features which militated against a concerted onslaught. Booms, formed from vessels chained together and joining the Choerades to each other and the mainland, made a defensive necklace across the harbour mouth. This forced Julian to split his offensive into two separate attacks, one by land, the other from the sea. While the dromons, harrassed by archery from the islets and the shore, attempted to sink the booms by the time-consuming method of ramming each vessel and leaving it to founder, Julian’s eight-thousand-strong force of soldiers and marines fought its way slowly along the bridge and the narrow channel of the aqueduct, the Tarentines grimly contesting every hard-fought yard. The end, however, could only be delayed, not prevented. After several hours of bloody hand-to-hand combat as Roman battled Roman, the city fell. It was then subjected to an orgy of pillage and destruction.
The capture
of Tarentum marked the culmination of the raid. Getting wind that Theoderic’s fleet was now almost strong enough to match his own, Julian, well satisfied with his campaign of retribution, gave the order to make sail for Constantinople. He had paid back Theoderic a hundredfold. As for the Isaurian, the fact that nothing had been heard from him before the expedition left the Golden Horn suggested that the king had detained him as a hostage — preferably in some dank and noisome gaol. How true the saying was that revenge was a dish best eaten cold.
In Ravenna, a mood of black depression settled on Theoderic. Fortune seemed to have deserted him: his dreams of reviving the Western Empire lay in ruins; he had been humiliated by Anastasius — forced to return his conquests in Illyricum, and watch impotently while the south of his kingdom was ravaged by an Eastern fleet. His rival, Clovis, had triumphed in Gaul, destroying the kingdom of his friends and kinsmen, the Visigoths. The Vandals and Burgundians had thrown off their allegiances, the Burgundians by siding with the Franks against the Visigoths, the Vandals (who had a powerful fleet) by withholding aid against the Eastern expedition. Hardest of all to bear, perhaps, was the knowledge that Timothy — who had once been more a trusted friend than a servant — had played him false. To rub salt into his wounds, Anastasius had chosen to honour Clovis, awarding him an honorary consulship — along with the title of Augustus — while his own consular nominee,* Venantius, had been turned down. All this was clearly intended to serve as a reminder that such titles were in the gift of Anastasius, and as a calculated snub designed to put a presumptuous monarch in his place.
In this dark hour, only the counsel of his three Roman advisers, Boethius, Symmachus and Cassiodorus, provided a modicum of comfort. Rational and positive, they encouraged him to maintain his self-belief, pointing out that his present setbacks weighed less in the balance than his achievements, which were numerous and great. The darkest hour was followed by the dawn, he told himself; then angrily dismissed the thought. A king should be above seeking consolation in such hoary saws.
* One of the high-ranking titles in the gift of the emperor: vir illuster, vir gloriosus, and so on.
* 28 September 505.
* Symmachus, Boethius and Cassiodorus. Cassiodorus, although a scion of an old Bruttium (toe of Italy) family rather than a Roman one, was very much a part of the senatorial establishment and, as such, definitely ‘one of us’.
* The port of Ravenna.
* Perhaps at Vouille, near Poitiers.
† Arles, Toulouse, Barcelona.
* Mount Gargano, a vast, isolated peak on the promontory that forms the ‘spur’ above Italy’s ‘heel’.
† Roughly translated, ‘Take it easy, but don’t forget you’re under orders.’
‡ The Ionian Sea.
* Cuirasses.
† Now Manfredonia, founded in 1261 from the ruins of ancient Sipontum, by Manfred, king of Sicily and regent of Apulia.
‡ The Gulf of Taranto.
* For the year 507.
THIRTY-ONE
It is proper for us, most clement emperor, to seek peace
From a letter of Theoderic to Anastasius, seeking reconciliation after the hostilities of 507-8; quoted in full by Cassiodorus (who wrote it), Variae, c. 537
Despite Theoderic’s rejection of wishful thinking contained in ancient maxims, the Wheel of Fortune spun a full half-circle, and his career, which in the course of his confrontation with the empire had seemed to reach a nadir, began to climb rapidly towards its zenith.
The Ostrogothic army that had failed to rescue Alaric found itself confronted by Clovis’s mighty host. In the ensuing battle, Count Ibba was victorious; the loss of thirty thousand of his finest warriors broke the power of Clovis. Mopping-up operations under Duke Mammo pushed the Franks back beyond the Liger and forced their Burgundian allies to withdraw from Provincia.* With their great persecutor defeated, the grateful remnant of the nation of the Visigoths was happy to be incorporated into the realm of its Ostrogothic cousins; thus, almost at a stroke, Theoderic saw his rule extended over southern Gaul and most of Spain.† The Vandals and Burgundians (conscious of their mistake in having roused a sleeping tiger) returned to their allegiance, while the Heruls, Rhaetians and Thuringians eagerly accepted his overtures and became his allies, forming a protective buffer zone to his kingdom, in the north. Finally, the ring of defences was closed to the eastward by an agreement sub rosa with Sabinianus, whereby Pannonia would quietly once more come under Ostrogothic rule — on the understanding that there would be no more incursions into imperial territory.
With the appointment of a Praetorian Prefect of Gaul (in reality, Gaul south of the Liger), and an ecclesiastical vicar for Spain and the whole of Gaul — the post was confirmed by Pope Symmachus, so had to be accepted, however reluctantly, by the Catholic Franks — Theoderic set the seal upon his triumph — a victory reinforced by the death of his great rival, Clovis.* A few short years had seen his fortunes change from a state of abject humiliation to one where he could, with justification, claim to have reconstituted much of the old Empire of the West. The time was ripe, he told himself, to begin the implementation of long-cherished plans — plans which would see his imperial dreams at last become reality: the official rebirth of the Western Empire, with himself crowned emperor.
‘“It is proper for us, most clement emperor, to seek peace”, blah, blah, blah. “Indeed, peace is something to be desired by every state”, blah, blah, blah. “And so, most pious of princes, it is in accordance with your power and an honour for us”, blah, blah, blah, “to seek concord with you.”’ Anastasius was in conclave, in his private tablinum in the Great Palace of Constantinople, with his two chief generals, Sabinian and Julianus, and Agapitus, the envoy of Theoderic. Anastasius looked up from the king’s letter, which he had been reading aloud. ‘Well, he sounds contrite enough,’ he murmured with a smile, handing the missive back to Agapitus. ‘You may tell your master, our vicegerent, that, provided he keeps to the agreement made with General Sabinianus here — never again to cross our frontier in arms — we accept his offer of peace.’
‘Hear, hear, Serenity,’ enthused Sabinianus. ‘I’d stake my reputation that Theoderic will honour such a mutual agreement. When I negotiated with him about the transfer of Pannonia, I felt that I was dealing with a straight and honest man, one whose word could be relied on. In these sorts of situations, I’ve learned to trust my instinct; I’ve seldom been proved wrong.’
‘Not good enough, Serenity!’ exclaimed Julianus. ‘Considering Theoderic’s outrageous conduct in invading Moesia, he should be made to pay handsomely for reparation, and to come in person to Constantinople and abase himself before your throne. Instead, we hand him back Pannonia, and are prepared, it seems, to treat him as a friend. Kow-towing to barbarians — it’s a disgrace!’
‘I think we can say that the harrying of Magna Graecia, to say nothing of the sacking of Sipontum and Tarentum, more than cancels out any debt of reparation,’ said Anastasius coldly. A compassionate man, he had been deeply troubled by rumours of gratuitous brutality connected with the naval expedition. As a result, Sabinianus had displaced Julian in favour as well as seniority. ‘As for Pannonia,’ the emperor went on, ‘he’s welcome to run it — to him it’s a useful buffer zone, to us a drain on our resources, any revenue from taxes far outweighed by the expenses of administration.’ He looked sternly at Julianus. ‘As Theoderic himself has said, the wars that turned out happily for him were those brought to completion with moderation. A lesson you have yet to learn, it would seem, General.’
And so began a Golden Age for Italy. With peace established, Theoderic’s firm and equitable rule ensured prosperity at home, while abroad his status as a father-figure to all Germanic peoples was unchallenged. A series of dynastic marriages with women of Theoderic’s immediate family helped to create a stability hitherto unknown among the barbarian monarchies of Europe. Under the Pax Theoderica, trade, agriculture and industry flourished to a degree not seen since that happiest
of epochs, the near-century from the reign of Nerva to that of Marcus Aurelius. Relations with the East thawed, to the extent that Theoderic’s consular nominees, including the once-spurned Venantius, were confirmed in office by the emperor. Supervised by presidents assisted by ‘correctors’, the administration of Italy’s fifteen regions was run efficiently, and a Gothic tendency to violence and an Italian towards corruption were, if not stamped out, at least severely curbed, by the strict enforcement of the law. Public buildings, which had gradually been permitted to fall into decay, were protected and refurbished under a preservation scheme with its own specially appointed architect.
Content to be guided as to policy by his three Roman chief advisers, Cassiodorus, Symmachus and Boethius, and with leisure to cultivate his orchard in Ravenna and take up again his interest in the arts and literature, the king entered on the happiest period of his life. The only touch of sadness was in the loss of his friendship with Timothy, who was under (not uncomfortable) house arrest. Although that friendship was broken, never to be repaired, the king’s original anger and feeling of betrayal had faded over time to dull regret. He could afford to make a generous gesture: he would arrange a secret test of loyalty; if Timothy passed, his liberty would be restored, along, perhaps, with a small pension, so that the old Isaurian could see out his days without the fear of penury.
And so, in a glow of serenity and peace, the afternoon of Theoderic’s life drew quietly towards its evening. But, unnoticed by him, a cloud had appeared on the horizon, a cloud ‘no bigger than a man’s hand’, which would grow and grow until it filled the sky.