by Ross Laidlaw
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 Thiudimu
nd 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.