Romans and Barbarians: Four Views From the Empire's Edge

by Derek Williams

  Bridge over the still-moving stream, there rumble

  The ox carts of the Sarmatian.69

  Progressively the ice builds against the coast, sealing Tomis from the south; closing that last option of a beleaguered port: evacuation by sea.

  The Euxine, called the Axine in the past,

  Now holds me captive in its cold embrace.

  No softness shields these waters from the blast,

  No foreign shipping, safe in sheltered place.

  Ringed round with ravening tribes, which endless vigil keep,

  The land is no more docile than the deep.70

  As winter advances, so does the hungry savage. Now arrows begin to fall inside the city.

  I am a captive of the counterfeit Euxine,71

  That luckless land beside the Scythian shore,

  Hemmed in by numberless and tameless tribes

  Who recognize no way of life but plunder.

  All outside is danger. Just saved by skilful siting,

  Our little hill with little walls defended.

  The foe rises quickly as a cloud of birds:

  Scarce sighted, they are already on their loot-laden way.

  Though closed the gate we gather deadly missiles

  In mid-street.72

  Now Ovid, though in his mid-fifties, must arm himself and mount the town wall. Gentle Ovid, ‘the soft philosopher of love’.73

  I shrink from matters military.

  Even as a young man

  I never handled weapon but in jest.

  Now, in middle age, I buckle sword to side,

  Fit shield to arm and helmet to grey head;

  For when the lookout signals the attack

  I rush to arm myself with trembling hand.

  The foe, with bent bow and poison-pickled

  Arrow, wheels the wall on snorting steed;

  And as the sheep, which lacks the shelter of

  The fold, is dragged o’er field and forest by

  The ravening wolf, so he who reaches not

  The shelter of the gate can count himself

  A goner, with a rope around his throat,

  Or else a dead man, dropped by deadly dart.74

  Weeks pass and the hit-and-run attacks upon the beleaguered town become more hit and less run.

  Now are the frighted walls made dizzy by the mounted archer

  As stockaded sheep are giddied by the circling wolf.

  Now is the shortbow, strung with horse hair, never slack.

  Our housetops bristle with a feathered mist of arrows

  And the stoutly crossbarred gate scarce counters the attack.75

  The barbarian is at the gate, yet there is little comfort inside it.

  The town’s defences scarce defend; and even within

  The walls a tribal riff-raff mingles with the Greek.

  What safety when unbarbered barbarians

  In skins inhabit over half the houses?

  Even descendants of the Grecian mother-city

  Instead of patriotic dress wear Persian breeches.

  What conversation! They in local lingo, I in gestures.

  Here I am the barbarian, understood by none.

  At Latin words the Getans simply gape and giggle.76

  This was a frontier town, a ‘wild west’ in the Greek east. Violence might erupt at any moment; even in the agora, close to where Ovid’s statue now stands:

  Law has no force and force is all they know

  Since force replaces justice in their eyes …77

  Here sword is law and many is the wound

  Inflicted in the middle of the market place.78

  Such then was the favour to which one of the Olympians of Latin verse had come.

  Pathetic, for one whose name was ever on

  Men’s lips, to live among the Bessans and the Getans.

  Pathetic, to do one’s stint at the gate

  And on the wall: a wall scarce strong enough

  To guard its guardians.79

  Ovid was an amiable, companionable man; Tomis shrewdly selected to ensure his dejection. He broods constantly on the total absence of Latin-speaking company, indeed of kindred spirits of any kind. He feels his powers waning through disuse and the absence of stimulus or encouragement. He struggles with composition in surroundings deeply hostile to poetry.

  Though clash of arms is ever near

  I cheer myself with versifying as I may,

  Albeit there is no one here to hear;

  In this wise may I pass the dawdling day.80

  And again

  Poetry should be free from fear;

  I cringe continually from the throat-slitting sword.

  Poetry should spring from peace;

  I am churned by suffering.

  Poetry should flow from sweet solitude;

  I am vexed by sea and storm.81

  Even so, though he never stopped complaining, neither did he stop composing. Timid as a man, his toughness as an artist is beyond dispute. However monotonous his plea, the fact is that he found the strength to write and write well. If exile were a contest to break or preserve his spirit then, in the long view, we must judge Ovid, life’s loser, the winner. At the time, however, he was a desperately lonely man. He even began to learn the despised Sarmatian tongue. Such was his need of an audience that he started to write in groping Getic:

  While some have smatterings of Greek, made barbarous

  By tribal twang, none knows a word of Latin.

  A Roman poet (Muses forgive me!)

  Here I have no option but Sarmatian;

  And to my shame, from long desuetude,

  Latin words come sluggishly. A man apart,

  I talk to myself, seeking by practice

  To keep bright the tarnished coinage of my art.82

  I have become, to my embarrassment

  Something of a Getic poet, having

  Done a piece in Getic tongue, working their

  Wild words to fit our metre. So the uncouth

  Getans begin to call me ‘bard’.83

  Ovid’s descriptions of his Getic essays are not without a rueful humour. Unfortunately none has been preserved. But would his serious work now be read? With high hopes the winter’s stanzas were collected and sent to Rome on the first ship. Would they arrive? And now that he was a non-person, would anyone spare his work a second glance? Suppose only the copy kept in Tomis would survive, one day to perplex some puzzled savage:

  Oft have I asked myself, ‘For whom this

  Careful craftsmanship? Will Getan or

  Sarmatian read my verse?’84

  Two things troubled him most. First, had his sentence a limit? Was it to be loneliness and danger without relief and without end? Might he at least be moved to some more peaceful place?

  Not just a climate cold,

  A soil shrunken under hoarfrost;

  Not even a Latinless land, or one of garbled Greek:

  But because of how I live, enclosèd by

  The thorny hedge of instant war, compared with

  Which our little wall gives grudging comfort.

  Though peace there sometimes is, belief in peace never.

  Such is this place: either under attack,

  Or in fear of it. Punishment I accept,

  But beg that I may suffer it in safety.85

  Second, there was his dread that he would die in Tomis and his troubled spirit find no rest.

  Often for death I pray, yet bite my tongue

  Lest death one day should come

  And to Sarmatian soil my bones belong.86

  But spring comes even to Tomis, lifting the winter-long blockade of the Sarmatian shore.

  Lucky who may love an unforbidden Rome.

  But joy to me is snow made soft by spring

  And water in the pond instead of ice.

  No longer is the sea fast frozen;

  No longer the Sarmatian ox-driver

  Coaxes creaking cart across the Danube.

  Soon ships will co
me, even as far as here!

  Soon a friendly sail will reach our shore:

  How I will run to meet and greet the skipper,

  Asking who he is and where he’s from.87

  Down at the harbour a stir of excitement, a whiff of the world outside. But on the inland side of town, reality was unchanged: rank fields which farmers feared to plough; and beyond, the dour steppe, with no trees to respond to the strengthening sun.

  Bare fields and leafless landscape without tree.88

  The sour steppe begets the dismal wormwood

  And from its bitter lesson do we learn

  The land’s own bitterness.89

  The steppe sprouts wormwood,

  Aptest crop for bitterest place.

  And fear: the wall slammed by the enemy,

  The dart dipped in dripping death.90

  We have said much of Tomis and its tense relationship with the surrounding Getans. What of the relationship of both to Rome? By now Greece and most of Asia Minor were in Roman hands. Nominally Tomis was imperial territory, not only through Rome’s custody of the mother-city, Miletus, but more directly in that M. Licinius Lucullus had visited the area as early as 72 BC in support of his brother’s campaign in Asia Minor; and had taken the north Pontic cities under the eagle’s wing. Getica was regarded as a protectorate, ruled by its own chiefs and after its own customs but in allegiance to Rome. Indeed its king, Cotiso, had been Roman educated and Augustus may even have contemplated marriage with his family.91 It is possible that Cotiso was still being held in Rome in polite captivity as a royal hostage: Ovid’s situation in agreeable reverse. In practice, however, Rome’s control over the untrustworthy Getans, like her protection of the insecure Pontic Greeks, was still tenuous. During Ovid’s time at Tomis the nearest Danubian base was probably a naval station, Ratiaria, 375 miles upstream. Its name, meaning ‘rafts’, suggests a lighterage depot. What is more, only two legions were presently allocated to supervise the entire distance from Belgrade to the delta. The fact is that Rome was preoccupied with problems closer to home and Tomis must look after herself. More broadly, the lower Danube had been placed under the guardianship of Rome’s ally, King Rhoemetalces of Thrace, whose territory began some 150 miles south-west of Tomis and whose capital was Viza, now a village just north of Istanbul. In the event of a crisis too big for Rhoemetalces to handle, Roman reinforcements would be sent down the Danube, assuming they could be spared, and naval units were available to move them, for no riverside road yet existed.

  So, in Ovid, we have a Roman banished to a Greek city surrounded by Getan barbarians, all under nominal Roman rule but presently being looked after by Thracian allies, who were themselves the Getans’ ethnic cousins. Doubtless the average Getan cared little for these complexities, continuing to rove and rob as steppe and season dictated.

  For thee, fair Rome, they nothing care,

  Belief in bow and quiver makes them brave.

  Inured to thirst and hunger,

  With tireless horses under them,

  They know an enemy will fall behind

  For want of water.92

  In a propaganda sense Augustus’ trump card was as peace-bringer to the Roman world. He had consecrated an altar93 to the pax Augusta; and three times closed the door of Janus’ temple, previously ‘shut but twice since Rome’s foundation … signifying peace by land and sea throughout the Roman realm’.94 One of his admiring subjects wrote that the Augustan peace had reached the limits of the known world, ‘preserving every corner of it free from fear of brigands’.95 Even the careful Ovid cannot forgo a hint of sarcasm:

  … in the wide world, take my word,

  You will hardly find a land more lacking

  The Augustan peace.96

  Of interest to all who study the Augustan period is the extent of the conviction that the world was Rome’s oyster, to swallow as it suited her. This may have gone far beyond popular jingoism; invading top decision-making, colouring Augustus’ view of the outside world and boosting his confidence in Rome’s ability to take and hold central Europe. Weighty literary sources, like Virgil at his most majestic,97 can be quoted to support divine ordination as the source of Rome’s right to rule. Even Ovid had written, from the safety of the capital:

  Gentibus est aliis tellus data limite certo:

  Romanae spatium est urbis et orbis idem.98

  (To other nations their allotted place:

  Only the globe restricts the Roman race.)

  From Tomis he would see this matter differently:

  Along the Black Sea’s northern shore

  The light of Roman day grows dim:

  From here begins Basternian and Sarmatian sway.

  Perched on the empire’s very rim,

  This land comes last of all beneath thy law.99

  The difference between these two statements implies Ovid’s acceptance of a far-reaching truth: that world dominion was not granted by Rome’s gods or decided by Rome’s poets. It rested on her military arm, whose strength and length were not indefinite. Though we do not know the exact date of the second passage’s composition, it is possible that events in Germany were bringing the emperor face to face with the same truth at the same moment. With the passing years Roman public opinion would also begin to recognize this reality, as seemingly endless campaigns beyond the Rhine reached no conclusion.

  Reading Ovid’s last work, the Epistulae ex Ponto, one is aware that something more than the usual steppe gangsterism was in progress. The Getans had stormed and taken two Thracian-manned outposts on the Danube: Aegisos and Troesmis, not far above the delta. In view of the steppe peoples’ generally poor showing against fixed defences, it is not clear how they achieved this; but being already inside the lower Danube they were able to attack from the rear in an act of treachery against an ally of Rome. The two strongpoints were retaken by Roman forces, ferried downriver in AD 12 and 15, when, according to Ovid, the Danube was ‘dyed with barbarian blood’. Though these events were only a hundred miles away, Ovid’s anxiety was mollified by the Roman intervention and also by the pleasure of receiving the officers, Vestalis and Flaccus, who presumably visited Tomis in connection with the campaigns. It is, however, possible that Ovid visited them, for he writes of ‘verses composed on the battlefield’.100 Flaccus, the commander, was the younger brother of a friend. Here was an opportunity for Ovid to push his case. To Vestalis:101

  You see yourself the Black Sea white with ice.

  You see yourself the frozen wine stands stiff.

  You see yourself the ferocious Iazygian

  Steering laden wagon over mainstream Danube.

  You see how poison, flying on fast feathers,

  Delivers death twice over.102

  To Graecinus, another brother of Flaccus, who was about to return to Rome after his tour of duty:

  Should you see Flaccus, recently commander

  Of this region …103

  Ask him of Scythia and its climate.

  How it is to live in fear of foes so near.

  Whether the slim shaft is dipped in snake venom.

  Whether the human head is used as gruesome talisman.

  Whether I lie when I say the sea freezes over

  Acres at a time.104

  The years were passing, Ovid weakening. He complained of brackish water and poor food. He suffered stomach upsets, fever, sleeplessness and a constantly aching side. He was pallid, with hair prematurely white.

  Augustus, too, was ageing. He had passed seventy-one when Ovid’s exile began. What if the emperor should die first? Would his successor grant a reprieve? Augustus did in fact die first: at seventy-seven, during the sixth year of Ovid’s absence. The poet wrote him an elegy, in Getic:

  You ask me what I wrote: a song for Ceasar,

  Telling of Augustus’ earthbound body

  But his spirit soaring high in heaven

  And Tiberius holding now the reins.105

  But no word from Tiberius; and there was little hope of reaching this
increasingly reclusive and stone-hearted man. By now Ovid himself had less than three years to live. His sole consolation was an unexpected one. Latterly the city of his exile had begun to seem less hateful. He was touched by the simple kindness of its people. Though no one could read his verse, they honoured him. Perhaps the officers’ visit enhanced his standing. He was exempted from taxes. At last Tomis was starting to seem like home!

  Dear as Latona106 to the Isle of Delos

  Which alone gave haven to her wanderings,

  So dear to me is Tomis. From home far exiled

  It has become for me a faithful home-from-home.

  Would the gods had placed it nearer to some

  Promise of peace, further from the chilling pole!107

  Tomitans, I have affection for you,

  But little for your land.108

  Ovid died in AD 17 or soon after, aged sixty. Buried obscurely, this odd-man-out in the Augustan Parnassus ended as he dreaded most: in cold Sarmatian soil, somewhere between barred gate and bare steppe. So faded a comet, whose returning fire would be hailed in many an age to come. During the resurrection of Pompeii, when the spade uncovered the numerous wall-scrawls of the common man, the lines of poetry would be predominantly his. The cultural movement known as the Twelfth Century Renaissance would call itself Aetas Ovidiana (the Ovidian Age). His would be the poetry which most delighted Dante, who made him one of the ‘four great men’ encountered in Limbo. Ariosto and Tasso, Gower and Spenser were under his spell. Chaucer would call him ‘Venus’ clerke, who wonderfullie wyde hath spread that goddess’s grete name’.109 Meres would avow that ‘the sweete and wittie soul of Ovid lives in honey-tongued Shakespeare’.110 His work, especially concerning transformations, would be a treasury of plots and ideas for writers and painters, from the elder Brueghel111 to Bernard Shaw.112 He was the least awesome and most delightful of the great Romans; a poet to be loved as long as love is loved. ‘Nor fire, nor cankering age, thy wit-fraught book shall once invade.’113

  The steppe evoked little wit. Though never losing technical mastery, circumstances turned Ovid toward inwardness and darkness and away from the brilliance and brightness which had been his genius. The gain for history was a loss for literature, which fades markedly during the closing years of the Augustan Age. Regarding the Poems of Exile: it is a happy outcome that the fruits of so unpromising a place, shipped from so far, should have been preserved, despite official frost, to survive Rome’s long life and painful death, to escape the Dark Ages, to be circulated among Meroving monasteries and Caroling libraries, finally to emerge into the safety of print and the daylight of dissemination. It is lucky, for those who study the edges of the ancient world, that such a man should have gone to such a place. Americans may still comprehend contemporaries like Henry James and Buffalo Bill114 as contrasting aspects of the same national experience. British people, too, are just able to reconcile differences represented by the view from an empire’s centre and from its edges, as in the work of opposites like Wilde and Kipling, Aubrey Beardsley and Robert Service. With Ovid the metropolitan and frontier experiences meet, though uneasily, in one man. It was an accident unlikely to be repeated. The fringes of the Roman world were the abode of backwoodsman, trader and soldier. Only occasionally and in flashes would they again be seen through the eyes of a supreme creative artist. The coincidence of voice and place which is Ovid in Tomis was unique and would not recur.