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Odita: The River Odet. (Our Latin name is conjectural.) The distances mentioned have been rounded off, as they would be in the mind of any ordinary traveler. It should be noted that this stream was deeper then than it is now, when impoundments in the watershed have diminished its sources.
Stegir: The River Steir. (This is also conjectural on our part.)
Aquilo: Locmaria, now a district at the south end of Quimper. While the existence of Roman Aquilo is attested, our history and description of it are still more conjecture.
Mons Ferruginus: Mont Frugy. More conjecture, this time based on the fact that there is iron ore in the area.
Durocotorurn: Rheims.
Apuleius Vero: The ancient tripartite system of nomenclature had long since broken down. Some people still employed it, but others, in the upper classes, did not. “Vero” is a hypothetical Gallo-Roman name commemorating the family’s most important connection of that kind. “Apuleius,” the old gens name, now went from father to eldest son, much as the same given and middle names may pass through several generations in our own era. Upon succeeding to the paternal estate, this Apuleius dropped whatever other names he had borne, if any. In this as in several more significant respects, he typifies a man of his time, place, and station in life. More provincial and thus more conservative, the Gratillonii of Britain clung to traditional usages.
The Duke of the Armorican Tract: The Roman military official in charge of defense of the entire area. (This is a shortened version of the actual title, such as we suppose people employed in everyday speech.) Armorica was, in fact, considered a military district, not a political entity. Ravages along the coats indicate that at this time the Duke’s efforts were concentrated in the east and the interior of the peninsula. This was doubtless because resources were limited and, terrible though the depredations of pirates often were, they seemed less of a threat than a possible Germanic invasion overland. Gaul had already suffered the latter, again and again, and sometimes the Romans had managed only barely and slowly to drive the barbarians back. Under such circumstances, the Duke might be glad to delegate authority in the west to some competent leader. Our idea that this particular Duke was covertly opposed to Maximus is a guess—nothing is known for certain—but not unreasonable.
Troops: Increasingly, locally recruited soldiers were providing garrisons such as here described. Not being attached to any legion, they were known as numeri or cunei rather than auxiliaries. Civilian men, limitanei, were being made into reservists. These processes had gone much further in the Eastern half of the Empire than they had, as yet, in the West.
The Pulcher villa: Baths, such as would have belonged to a substantial estate, have been excavated at Poulker (near Benodet). The form of this place name is unusual in Brittany. However, we only venture a guess as to its possible origin.
The defenses of Aquilo: Our idea of what these may have amounted to is based on the lack of archeological evidence for anything else. Actually, the Gallic wall was a good, solid structure.
Corentinus: Known in France at the present day as St. Corentin. His historicity is uncertain, but there are many legends about him, including that of the miracle of the fish and his later career as the first bishop of Quimper. For reasons discussed in the Afterword to the last of these volumes, we have conflated him with the equally enigmatic figure of St. Guénolé.
Smoke: As we remarked in the notes to Roma Mater, primitive Celtic dwellings neither needed nor had vent holes for smoke. It filtered out through the thatch, killing vermin along the way.
Pictavum: Poitiers.
Pomoerium: The space kept clear just inside and outside a defensive wall.
Consecration of the Mithraeum: Our description of this draws in part on our imaginations, but largely on the ideas of such authorities as Cumont, Stewardson, and Saunders.
Pater and Heliodromos: Father and Runner (or Courier) of the Sun, the first and second degrees of a Mithraic congregation. Although knowledge of this religion is, today, fragmentary, what we do possess shows its many resemblances to Christianity, not only in belief but in liturgy, organization, and requirements laid upon the faithful.
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Lugdunensis Tertia: The Roman province comprising northwestern France.
Church buildings: Most were quite small. The cathedral in Tours may have been the size of a fairly large present-day house.
Samarobriva: Amiens.
St. Martin as a military physician: This is not in the chronicles, but some modern biographers think it is probable.
Exorcists: In this era, such priests were not specifically charged with driving out demons, but simply with the supervision of the energumens and similar duties.
The service: Obviously this was very different from today’s ritual. It varied from place to place; what we have sketched was the so-called Gallic Mass. Strictly speaking, though, the Mass was the Communion service, reserved for the baptized.
Biblical texts: Respectively Amos viii, 8; I Corinthians ii, 14 and Matthew viii, 8.
Martin and the bishops: His refusal to attend any synods after the Priscillian affair is attested.
Greater Monastery: Majus Monasterium, which probably is the origin of the place name “Marmoutier,” although some scholars derive it from “Martin.”
Chorespiscopus: The powers granted priests in the early Church were very limited. A chorepiscopus, “country bishop,” ranked above them but below a full bishop. He had most of the powers later given a parish priest, but not all. See the notes to Roma Mater.
Paenula: A poncholike outer garment. From everyday garb of this period and later derived the priestly vestments of the Church. The paenula became the chasuble.
Cernunnos: An ancient Gallic god.
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Sarmatian: What people the Classical geographers meant by this name is obscure, and evidently varied over the centuries. To Corentinus, we suppose, the word would designate one of those Slavic tribes that were drifting into what is now Poland and Prussia as the Germanic inhabitants moved elsewhere.
Suebian Sea: The Baltic (Mare Suebicum).
Cimbrian Chersonese: Jutland. The Heruls, whom tradition says once inhabited the adjacent islands, had by now migrated south, and the Danes were moving in from what is now Sweden. Jutes and Angles were still at home, although soon many of them would be among the invaders of Britain.
Franks: This word (Franci) was a generic Roman term for Germanic tribes originating north of the River Main and along the North Sea. Moving into Gaul, they eventually gave that name to the entire country of France. Our account of their pagan religious practices draws on descriptions from other times and places; but it seems plausible to us. Whatever the details, we have scarcely exaggerated the brutality of the Franks. It was notorious. Even after they had become Christian, the history of the early Merovingians is a catalogue of horrors.
Cataphract: A heavy cavalryman.
Aquileia: Near present-day Trieste.
Death of Maximus and Victor: Authorities disagree on the precise date and manner of this, but it occurred in the summer of 388.
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The defeat of Maximus: According to one source, only two Romans died at Aquileia, Maximus and Victor. This implies that both armies were composed entirely of barbarian mercenaries, which seems to us unlikely in the extreme. Surely Maximus, at least, would have needed legionaries to drive Valentinian out of Italy, and then, lacking effective cavalry such as Theodosius possessed, would have brought them to meet the latter.
Maximus’s veterans: There is a tradition that they were settled in Armorica, and some modern historians consider it plausible. If this did happen, then doubtless the involuntary colonists included certain of the troops Maximus had left behind in Gaul, though probably only those whose loyalty to the re-established Imperium of the West was very questionable.
The gravestone: Roman epitaphs, especially when military, were generally short and employed abbreviations. Expanded and translated, this one reads
TO QUINTUS JUNIUS EPPILUS / OPTIO (deputy) IN THE SECOND LEGION AUGUSTA/HIS FELLOW SOLDIERS MADE THIS.
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Thracia: Thrace, occupying approximately what are now the northeastern end of Greece, the northwestern end of Turkey, and southern Bulgaria.
Saxons in Britain: There is good evidence for some colonization, as well as piracy, by these barbarians as early as the later fourth century. Be that as it may, Stilicho had hard fights against them.
Sabrina: The River Severn.
Silures: The British tribe inhabiting what is now, more or less, Glamorganshire and Monmouth.
Sucat (or Succat): Birth name of St. Patrick. As nearly as possible, we follow traditional accounts of him, including that interpretation of them which makes the year of his capture, rather than his birth, 389. It must be added that a number of modern scholars have called into question all the dates and other details of his story; some actually challenge his historicity. His appearances before Niall is our own idea. Even tradition does not make clear where he passed his time of servitude. Somewhat arbitrarily, we adopt the suggestion that was in County Mayo.
Temir: Tara.
Cú Culanni: Today better known as Cuchulainn, the greatest hero of the Ulster cycle. His king, Conchobar, was said by medieval writers to have died of fury at hearing that Christ had been crucified, though he himself was a pagan. This at least gives some hint at the time that tradition assigned to these sagas.
Emain Macha: The ancient seat of the supreme Ulster kings, near present-day Armagh. The Red Branch (more accurately, but hardly ever, rendered as Royal Branch) was the lodge where their chief warriors met.
Fifth: For the ancient division of Ireland into five parts, autonomous if not exactly nation-states, see the notes to Roma Mater.
Qóiqet nUlat: The Fifth of the Ulati people.
Cruthini and Firi Bolg: There were Picts (whom the Irish called Cruthini) in Ireland as well as in Scotland-to-be—and, for that matter, in northern Gaul. As we have noted earlier, they were not at all the dwarfs of modern folklore, nor backward with respect to the Gaels; however, they were a distinct people. The Firi Bolg were, in legend, the first colonists of Ireland, subjugated by the invading Children of Danu. Perhaps this tale embodies a dim folk memory of an aboriginal population whom the first wave or waves of incoming Celts overran and intermarried with. If so, pride of ancestry persisted well into historical times; and to this day, there do appear to be at least two racial types native to the country.
Conduct of the Ulati: Tradition does not say that the upper classes in Ulster were especially oppressive. However, the Uí Néill seem to have had little difficulty in keeping the Aregésla (or Airgialla), about whom more later, a puppet power. This has given some modern writers the idea that a malcontent population was present in the first place—a suggestion we have followed. Granted, at the worst the yoke would have been far lighter than that upon the peoples of the Roman Empire or, for that matter, virtually everybody today. The Irish aristocrats were not saints or libertarians, but they lacked the apparatus available to organized governments.
Starving: Among the early Irish, a man who had a grievance against one more powerful, and could not otherwise get redress, often sat down at the door of the latter and fasted. If this did not shame the second party into making a settlement, then he too was expected to deny himself food, and it became an endurance contest.
Sinand: The River Shannon. The territory we have described Niall as taking includes present-day County Cavan and part of Monaghan. Of course, our depiction of events is purely conjectural, and some modern scholars deny that it could have happened this way at all.
Mag Slecht: The “Plain of Prostrations,” In County Cavan, where stood the idols of Cromb Cróche (or Crom Cruach) and his twelve attendants. The chronicles say these were the most powerful and revered gods in Ireland until St. Patrick overthrew them.
The lunar eclipse: This took place on 13 July 390 (Gregorian calendar).
The comet of 390: It is recorded as having been visible from 22 August to 17 September (Gregorian dates). The magnitude is not known, but it was presumably conspicuous.
Polaris: Prior to the development of elevators, locations in a tall building were less desirable the farther up they were. Structures of this height were forbidden in Rome as being too hazardous, but we suppose the Ysans had more confidence in their architects, and knew how to make self-bracing frameworks.
Corentinus’s sermon: Few if any Christians of this period denied the reality of pagan gods. Sometimes they were considered to be mere euhemerizations, but oftener demons or, at best, beings with certain powers and perhaps without evil intentions, to whom it was nevertheless wrong to pay divine honors.
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Lúgnassat (later Lugnasad): A harvest festival taking its name from the god Lug. In Christian times it occurred on 1 August. The English know it as Lammas, though that name has another derivation. Lacking the Roman calendar, the pagan Celts must have set the date some other way; we guess that the moon helped determine it.
Fairs: The ancient Irish held a number of such events, at various localities each year. Religious as well as secular, they were open to all.
Cromb Cróche and the death of Domnuald: Our description of the sanctuary and the ceremonies that took place there is conjectural, though based on the chronicles, on local traditions in the area said to have held it, and on similar things in other milieus. Domnuald and his fate are imaginary, but the story does go that the slaying of a son of his made Niall ready to kill the hostages he had from the folk of the murderers.
Éricc (later eraic): Akin to the Teutonic weregild, a payment to an injured party of his heirs, the amount depending on the actual harm done and the possible provocation.
Honor price: Unlike the Germanic peoples, the Irish made some effort to equalize justice between rich and poor. A man of rank, who owed an éricc, must pay in addition an amount of goods which increased with his social standing.
Clón Tarui: Now Clontarf, a district of Dublin.
Tallten: Now Teltown, on the River Blackwater in County Meath. Our description of the size and importance of the fair (óenach) there is not exaggerated; like its counterparts, it continued for centuries after Ireland became Christian, so reliable records exist. That an eponymous goddess should have been buried at the site is not unique. For example, though the Nordic god Baldr died in the early days of the world, he seems to have had a cult.
The Dagdae (later Dagda): A god especially wise. His well is our invention.
Mag Mell: The Plain of Honey, one of the paradises that Celtic myth located afar in the western ocean. Sometimes the name was applied to all of them together. The Celts do not appear to have had any clear or consistent ideas about an afterlife. There are mentions of favored persons whose souls were borne west to abide a while before returning and being reincarnated. Probably the most usual supposition was that the dead inhabited their graves, coming out to spook around on the eves of Beltene and Samain.
Irish arts and crafts: The glorious works that remain to us prove that, for all its violence and technological backwardness, this society had as keen a sense for beauty as ever the Greeks did.
Expulsion of the Irish from Wales: This is attested.
Eóganachta: The royal family, or rather set of families claiming a common ancestor, in Munster.
Tanist: The heir apparent of an Irish king, chosen well beforehand. It was doubtless done in the hope of an orderly succession. Any man with royal blood and no physical impairment, whether born in or out of wedlock, could become king if he had the power to enforce his claim. This could easily lead to war between rival pretenders. The laws and institutions of Rome had decayed so far that the Empire must needs invent something of the kind for itself, the Caesar associated with the Augustus.
Nath Í: Tradition says that this nephew of Niall succeeded him. The medieval account of his career creates so many chronological problems that several modern scholars have decided he must be purely fi
ctional and that Niall—if he himself ever lived—should be dated a generation later than he is in the chronicles. It may be; or it may not. Given all the uncertainties, we have felt free to stay with the tradition, which better fits our story, and to put in modifications or new material of our own. The contradictions in the sources could mainly be due to their authors, drawing on oral history handed down for lifetimes, getting different persons and their acts confused with each other.
The Walls of the Ulati: Known as the Black Pig’s Dyke, remnants of ancient fortifications—earthen walls and fosses—occur approximately along the southern boundary of Ulster. They may have been raised in imitation of Roman works, or they may be older than that. They were probably not a continuous line of defense, but rather a set of strongpoints for controlling movement along the main routes of travel. Elsewhere, forest, bog and other natural obstacles would have sufficiently hindered invaders or retreating cattle rustlers. Commandments and prohibitions laid on royal persons: Those mentioned here are in the annals. A taboo applying to an individual or a class of people was known as a gess (later geas), plural gessa.
The redemption of the hostages: This is in the tradition, though it does not state where they were from. We have put the incident just after Lúgnassat, partly so we could describe a little of the fair, partly because the chronicles say that the Rock of Cashel was revealed “when the leaves were yellow,” which must have been in autumn.
Darioritum (Venetorum): Vannes.
Tambilis and Gratillonius: Most peoples, including our own until recent times, have considered a girl of sixteen to be nubile.
Veneti: A tribe in southern Brittany. Under the Empire, tribes had no independence and their identities gradually eroded, but they did constitute units of local government, not totally unlike American states.
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The Síd Drommen (or Sídtie-Druimm): This is one of several names the great rock originally bore. They all suggest the supernatural.
The finding of Cashel: We have tried to synthesize the legends, omitting Christian elements that the chroniclers inserted. There are enough pagan ones. Swine were anciently associated with the dead, which may be why kings could not own them. The yew, one of the three trees the Irish held sacred (together with the hazel and the rowan), was a patron of the Eóganachta; the name of their ancestor, Eógan, means “yew.” At his ceremony of accession, a new king always stood on a flagstone (lecc).
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