by Ross Laidlaw
Scipio’s tactics against Hannibal
Roderic and Victor were not the only ones to benefit (in their case, fictionally) from the great Roman campaigner’s ideas. General ‘Stormin’ Norman’ Schwarzkopf studied and applied Scipio’s tactics with great success in at least one battle in the first Gulf War.
standard regulation issue
From archaeological and representational evidence, we have a clear idea of the equipment of the typical East Roman soldier (both officer and other ranks) of the fifth and sixth centuries. The marvellous Osprey series about armies and campaigns (on whose illustrations in Twighlight of the Empire etc., I’ve based my descriptions) is invaluable for visualizing fighting men of the period. The gear of late Roman soldiers of the Eastern Empire tended to be very conservative. It often featured typically ‘Roman’ helmets (actually based on Greek ‘Attic’ helmets of Peloponnesian War vintage) that would not have looked out of place on Trajan’s Column.
an immensely long pike
The fearsome sarissa, or twenty-foot long pike, enabled Alexander to conquer much of Asia with the famous Macedonian phalanx — an invincible formation, provided iron discipline was maintained and enemy archers neutralized in advance. In various guises the pike-phalanx kept reappearing throughout history: as the schiltron in the Scottish Wars of Independence, and in the massed formations of Swiss mercenaries and Landsknechte of the Renaissance period and of the English Civil War, where battles could sometimes be decided by ‘push of pike’. The formation’s weakness of course was its vulnerability to archery, and later to musket fire. However, in combination with the firearm, the pike as an individual weapon lives on in the shape of the bayonet, proving its value in close combat fighting in campaigns stretching from Blenheim to Afghanistan.
a rigid code of loyalty and honour
Sharing something of the ideal values of Periclean Athens, Republican Rome, mediaeval chivalry, and the code of Bushido of Japanese samurai, the moral standards of Persian aristocracy were shaped by scrupulous observation of consideration and politeness (often taken to absurd extremes), truthfulness, fidelity and respect for superior rank.
N.B. Beyond telling us that he was a good and conscientious soldier, the records don’t explain how it was that ‘Roderic’ came to be awarded, in the words of Gibbon, ‘the dignity of senator, and the command of the guards’. So I felt I had to invent a situation which would allow Roderic to show himself, through action, as the kind of man we believe him to have been. Though fictional, the incidents in the Prologue are (very) loosely linked to real events. The Persians did invade Oriens during the reign of Anastasius, but on the initiative of Kavad* himself, not one of his generals; they eventually withdrew, not because of a decisive Roman victory but because the campaign became bogged down in a bloody stalemate; Kavad was under the influence of a powerful personality — not a general, however, but a religious impostor called Mazdak — who may or may not have encouraged him to embark on a military adventure against the East Roman Empire; the defeat of Tamshapur’s force is borrowed from an incident occurring in 622, when the East Roman emperor Heraclius routed the cataphracts and infantry of the ferocious Persian general Shahrvaraz, ‘the Wild Boar’, who actually did burn prisoners alive on crosses, and who was my model for Tamshapur. The scene of his defeat was suggested by the location of Petra (minus the rock-carved buildings) — a long, sandstone defile, exceedingly narrow in places.
Chapter 1
an Edict of Emperor Theodosius
Passed on 24 February 391, this draconian enactment — which was enforced with fanatical thoroughness by the minions of the emperor and his partner in zealotry Bishop Ambrose of Milan, banned all pagan practices within the Empire at a time when many Roman citizens still clung to pagan beliefs. Henceforth, all religious creeds, other than Orthodox Catholicism, were to be deemed illegal, including the Arian form of Christianity — the faith of almost all Germans. But this created a massive inconsistency. Owing to a severe shortage of Roman recruits, Theodosius took the dangerous step of enrolling into the army whole tribes of (Arian) Germans enlisting under their own chieftains. Clearly, there could be no question of trying to make these federates relinquish their Arian belief in order to conform to the Edict; in their case, a blind eye had perforce to be turned. However, this exception did not extend to isolated Gothic communities long settled in the Empire (sometimes referred to as ‘Moeso-Goths’, from the province of Moesia Secunda where many of them had made their homes) of which the Goths of Tauresium may have formed an example.
Born 31 August in the year. . 482
This is necessarily conjectural; we know that Uprauda was born in either 482 or 483, but not the exact date. In Roman times, 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 14 January and the 1 February; and so on to the last day of the month which was termed pridie Kalendas. In this particular entry, ‘in the year of’ is understood, ablative absolute construction being used to give, ‘Trocundus and Severinus being consuls’.
Legio Quinta Macedonica
Thanks to representational evidence (carvings of the fifth and sixth centuries), we have a very clear idea of the appearance of soldiers of this unit: oval shield decorated with ‘sunflower’ motif; scale armour or chain mail hauberk; ‘Attic’ helmet (sometimes shown with crest); spear and long sword (spatha) in the case of infantry; short recurved bow but no shield in the case of horse-archers. (See Twighlight of the Empire in the excellent Osprey series.)
Chapter 2
a vigorous bout of harpastum
Beyond the fact that it appears to have been some sort of competitive ball-game, I’ve been unable to discover any details about how harpastum may have been played, so have had to fall back on invention. Sidonius Apollinaris — Bishop of Clermont in the fifth century — refers to a game with teams of ball-players throwing and catching balls with swift turns and agile ducking. Could this have been harpastum?
that first sight of the city
Among the landmarks mentioned by Petrus, the Walls of Theodosius (at present being restored to something like their original glory), the Golden Gate, and the Aqueduct of Valens are still to be seen — all in a remarkable state of preservation.
the tall column that rose in the middle of the square
Commemorating a bloody pogrom of the Goths in Constantinople in AD 400, the Column of Arcadius was an ugly example of state-sponsored chauvinism. (Shades of the inscription on Sir Christopher Wren’s Monument in London, laying the blame for the Great Fire on the Catholics!) Although, apart from the base, the column was demolished in 1715, we know what it looked like from a drawing made earlier.
the Cistern of Nomus
Nomus was a real person (when Master of Offices during the wars with Attila, he bought time for the Eastern Empire by unobtrusively strengthening the defences of the northern frontier), but the cistern I’ve named for him is a composite invention. Readers may recognize parts of it from scenes in Istanbul: in the James Bond film, From Russia with Love, in the TV series, Francesco’s Mediterranean Voyage, by Francesco da Mosto, in the Basilica Cistern (Yerebatanserai), which still impresses visitors today.
the Department. . controlled by the city prefect
‘The principal departments [of the city prefect] were. . the care of [inter alia]. . the aqueducts [and] the common sewers. .’ (Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 17.) This passage refers to Rome, but Gibbon goes on to say, ‘a similar magistrate was created in that rising metropolis [Constantinople], for t
he same uses and with the same powers.’
Chapter 3
the capital’s prestigious Eleventh Region
This was one of the city’s most desirable districts: relatively open, elegant, containing the largest proportion of free-standing houses (domus) of all the regions, patronised by the aristocracy, and containing the fashionable church of the Holy Apostles — a bit like Edinburgh’s Morningside or Grange! The best regions were I and II around the Imperial Palace. Regions IV to VIII were the least salubrious, being the areas where labourers, artisans, and the unemployed lived — along the Mese, and around the fora and the harbours.
an overrated pastime
There is a considerable amount of evidence suggesting that some men of power or genius (intellectual, artistic, scientific, military, etc.) have shown little interest in sex — perhaps because their overriding drive/passion/obsession displaced or sublimated it. Examples are: Thomas Carlyle, Ruskin (who may have died a virgin), Isaac Newton, Erasmus, Michaelangelo. Henry VIII, despite his famously priapic reputation and his ill-starred passion for Anne Boleyn, would appear to have been less interested in sex per se than as a means of securing dynastic progeny; the same observation probably also applies to Napoleon. Hitler, despite lurid speculation of the ‘tabloid headline’ variety would appear to have been uninterested in sex, except perhaps on a semi-abstract, idealized plane.
Justinian comes over to me as very much a man of the above type — an intellectual and obsessive workaholic, to whom (as I’ve hinted in the story) sex would have been a time-wasting distraction, and may even have been physically distasteful. Which may seem a ludicrous conclusion in view of his marriage to the (allegedly) promiscuous and oversexed Theodora. That they genuinely loved one another seems certain; however, as I’ve suggested in later chapters, their love may have been more to do with a ‘meeting of minds’, than anything based on physical passion.
indicating their support for ‘the Blues’
Dominating popular entertainment in Constantinople was the sport of chariot-racing, held in the Hippodrome. Supporters of the two rival teams — known as ‘the Blues’ and ‘the Greens’ (from the colours worn by the opposing racing drivers) — extended their mutual rivalry far beyond the realm of sport. (Shades of Celtic v. Rangers fans in West Central Scotland!) In a pre-democratic age, these factions could be the voice of the people, and woe betide the emperor who failed to take notice of their complaints or demands, as voiced in the Hippodrome; Justinian very nearly lost his throne in the Circus faction Nika Riots of 532. The Blues tended to represent wealthy businessmen and landowners, while the Greens drew support from traders and artisans, many of Syrian origin. The Blues’ ‘Establishment’ credentials were further strengthened when they were backed by Justinian, whose patronage enabled them to terrorise the streets of the capital with impunity. Known as ‘Partisans’, their leaders, dressed in Hunnish fashion, were engaged in perpetual gang warfare with their rivals, the Greens: a situation with striking parallels to the urban gang culture in many cities today.
our ‘little father’ has been taken from us
The soubriquet has nothing to do with Anastasius’ stature, but was a popular endearment conferred on many Eastern emperors from Marcian on, whose generally benign regimes helped to create an image of the emperor as the loving Protector of his people. (In contrast to the policy of appeasement towards Attila of the feeble Theodosius II, his successor Marcian’s resolute stand against the Hun leader gave him popular hero status.)
Blinding or death
To forestall any possibility of his becoming a future focus for disaffection, a defeated rival for the purple was invariably either executed or — as a ‘humane’ alternative — mutilated by blinding or amputation of the nose. Disfigurement constituted an automatic bar to becoming emperor.
the most powerful post in the Empire
The powers of the Master of Offices were very great. He was in effect the head of the Empire’s central administration. In modern terms, his position would combine the roles of most senior cabinet ministers, excluding that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
a damaging schism
At the Council of Chalcedon, near Constantinople, in 451, the belief, put forward by Pope Leo, that Christ had two natures — both human and divine — was established as orthodoxy for the Church in the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. Chalcedonism was violently opposed by the Monophysites (mainly in Syria and Egypt) who believed that Christ had only one, divine, nature. As the Monophysites were now officially heretical, the effect of Chalcedon was to create religious strains within the Empire, which could threaten to degenerate into schism unless handled with tact and diplomacy. Thus, in Egypt (the source of the Eastern Empire’s vital grain supply), a blind eye had perforce to be turned to Monophysitism. After the fall of the Western Empire in 476, relations between Italy (ultra-Chalcedonian, although her German rulers were Arian) and the Eastern Empire cooled (in what became known as the Acacian Schism), because of the pro-Monophysite sympathies of Emperors Zeno and Anastasius. However, the accession of the strongly Chalcedonian Justin ended the schism, and this paved the way for Italy to become reintegrated into the Empire under Justinian.
Chapter 4
stage menials rushed around the orchestra
In the Ancient Greek theatre, the stage (a long narrow platform upon which the actors performed) was fronted at a lower level by a semi-circular space called the orchestra, in which the chorus sang and danced. The Romans (often using the same theatres that the Greeks had constructed) reversed the functions of stage and orchestra.
Eratosthenes. . who had measured the earth’s circumference
By observing the difference between the angles of the sun at two places a measured distance apart (north-south), Eratosthenes was able to calculate the angle subtended by that distance. The number of times the angle would divide into 360 degrees multiplied by the distance, gave him the answer — which was amazingly close to our own measurement of 24,000 miles. Pure geometry, pure genius!
you can’t just send me away
Beyond the fact that he was appointed governor of the Pentapolis, and that Theodora accompanied him there as his mistress, we know nothing about Hecebolus or why he should have turned her out of his house, piling insults on her as he did so (thus causing me to resort to invention). Procopius, of course, exploits poor Theodora’s predicament with prurient relish. In the Secret History he writes, ‘she was at a loss for the necessities of life, which she proceeded to provide in her usual way, putting her body to work at its unlawful traffic.’
Chapter 5
The terminus of the cursus publicus
The imperial post was one of the glories of Roman administration, with staging-posts every eight miles on the main highways where horses or vehicles could be hired, operating on a relay system. In the West, it functioned (unevenly post c. 400) almost to the end. In the East, it was discontinued early in Justinian’s reign as a cost-cutting exercise — barring, for military reasons, the road from the capital to the Persian frontier. From the time of Constantine, clerical dignitaries were accorded special travel privileges on the post.
admitted to the bishop’s presence
I’ve had to invent scenarios introducing Theodora to Timothy and later to Severus, as we don’t know how they met. But meet them she did (which seems almost incredible considering her background, and which speaks volumes for her determination and power of personality). Not only that, she formed a deep and fruitful friendship with both men — two of the finest minds in the Roman world, from which she gained a grounding in rhetoric, a taste for intellectual conversation, and a lasting respect for the Monophysites. Altogether, her experiences in Alexandria amount to something like a Damascene conversion.
the Graeco-Roman mind
The passionate concern displayed by people of late antiquity about the nature of Christ may seem to us today to be both incomprehensible and pointless — mere sterile Christological hair-splitting. But less so
perhaps, if we view this obsession as stemming from the Graeco-Roman cast of mind that sought to discover the truth via reason and logic, the two great fruits of which are (as I’ve had Timothy point out) Greek philosophy and Roman law. And lest we become too dismissive of such concerns, we should perhaps remind ourselves that our own times have witnessed preoccupations no less abstruse. Forests have died to produce endless tracts devoted to dialectical materialism, Marxist-Leninism, existentialism, etc.; while the quest to arrive at a satisfactory definition of the Trinity continues to exercise and baffle the minds of bishops at successive Lambeth Conferences. Impatience with ambiguity is what drove these late Roman theologians. The true heirs of Athanasius and Augustine may be Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins (by way of Peter Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke and David Hume) rather than Cardinal Newman or Ronald Knox.
a kindness Theodora. . would repay a thousandfold
Once married to Justinian, Theodora — as a result of the kindness shown her in Alexandria by Timothy and Severus — persuaded her husband (who could deny her nothing) to call off the persecution of the Monophysites. Not only did this happen with immediate effect (making Theodora enormously popular with the sect) but the Monophysites actually became a favoured minority at the imperial court, with Severus himself being invited to a conference between the leaders of both the Orthodox party and the Monophysites, intended to settle their differences.
Chapter 6
gazing adoringly at her lover’s face
History has many examples of strong-willed, intelligent women who, loving their own sex as well as, or in preference to, men, have had sufficient force of character to ignore the strictures of society and live according to their nature. Examples are: Sappho, Aphra Behn (that amazing polymath and early champion of women’s rights and racial equality), perhaps Queen Anne and Catherine the Great, Anne Lister — Regency landowner, diarist and proud lesbian, Colette, Radclyffe Hall, Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, Violet Keppel (Trefusis), Frida Kahlo and many individuals associated with the Women’s Liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s. With her intellectual interests, sturdy independence of mind, and passionate proto-feminism,* Theodora comes over to me as being very much cast in the same sort of mould as the above women. Which is not to say of course that she necessarily shared their sexual proclivities. Still, when you can tick three out of four boxes indicating traits in common, there’s a temptation also to tick the fourth, even when the answer is ‘unknown’. There’s a tantalizingly vague phrase in Gibbon which may or may not shed some light on the matter: ‘Her secret apartments were occupied by the favourite women. . whose. . passions she indulged’. It’s hard to know what to make of this. Gibbon doesn’t name his source; it’s certainly not Procopius, who would have had a field day in his Secret History, exploiting any kind of lesbian activity on Theodora’s part, had he got wind of it. And none of his contemporaries, as far as I’ve been able to find out, mentions anything that Gibbon might have been referring to. So, for want of any hard evidence one way or the other, to the question of whether Theodora was bisexual or lesbian, probably the least unsatisfactory answer has to be that good old Scots Law verdict, ‘Not proven’. Which allows me, I think, sufficient artistic licence to portray Theodora and Macedonia as lovers.