People
Ballista
The meagre sources for the historical Ballista, or Callistus, as he is sometimes called, are late and unreliable. His biography in the Augustan History (see above) is as untrustworthy as any in that collection. Most of the sources are translated in M. H. Dodgeon & S. N. C. Lieu, The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars AD226–363: A Documentary History (London & New York, 1991).
An officer under Valerian, Ballista served under the Macriani as either or both Prefect of Cavalry and Praetorian Prefect. He defeated the Persians at Soli, where he captured Shapur’s harem, then at Sebaste and Corycus. He was with Quietus in Emesa when Odenathus appeared before the walls. The Augustan History gives several different versions of what happened next. One of them is vaguely close to what happens in this novel.
Macrianus and His Sons
The short reign of Macrianus and Quietus can be dated roughly by papyri from Egypt. The earliest known reference to them as emperors is 17 September AD260 (P.Oxy. XLIX 3476), and the latest 30 October AD261 (P.Strasb. I 6.37–8). It all depends how long news of first their accession and then their overthrow took to reach and be accepted in Egypt.
As with Ballista, most of the literary sources are translated in Dodgeon & Lieu (op. cit.), and their biographies in the Augustan History are no more believable than his.
Their coins (whence the physical descriptions in the novel) can be found in R. Göbl, Die Münzprägung der Kaiser Valerianus I. Gallienus/Saloninus (253/68), Regalianus (260) und Macrianus/Quietus (260/62) (Wien, 2000).
In June 2008, Dr Nikolaos Gonis of University College London gave a fascinating paper in Oxford identifying a fragmentary papyrus from Egypt, [P.Oxy. inv]. 74/2, as a panegyric of the Macriani in hexameter verse. As he argued, the context does seem to be around the year AD260, but I am not yet convinced it is a work of praise of the Macriani. The poem twice mentions Mariades, the man from Antioch who became a bandit and then fled to Shapur. It is hard to see how his career or demise could have been spun to praise of the Macriani. No source says that they dealt with him.
Gallienus
Further reading on the emperor will be given in the next novel in the series, The Caspian Gates.
Hippothous
Calgacus is right in Ch. 14 to suspect that Hippothous’s life story is from an ancient Greek novel. It is An Ephesian Tale by Xenophon of Ephesus. (Had Demetrius been at Corycus, he would have spotted it straight away.) For readers who want the whole story of Hippothous and much more of a similar sort, there is an enjoyable translation by Graham Anderson in B. P. Reardon (ed.), Collected Greek Novels (Berkeley, Los Angeles & London, 1989, pp. 125–69).
Odenathus
In addition to the works cited in Fire in the East, see now P. Southern, Empress Zenobia: Palmyra’s Rebel Queen (London & New York, 2008), which is aimed at the general reader and gives good summaries of modern scholarship, if, at times, it is far too trusting of stories in the Augustan History (see above). The standard scholarly work remains U. Hartmann, Das Palmyrenische Teilreich (Stuttgart, 2001).
Places
Zeugma
The most accessible introduction in English to the twin cities of Zeugma–Apamea is N. Pollard, Soldiers, Cities, and Civilians in Roman Syria (Ann Arbor, 2000, pp. 257–61). The groundbreaking work of modern scholarship was J. Wagner, Seleukeia am Euphrat/Zeugma (Wiesbaden, 1976). Its findings are updated in D. Kennedy (ed.), The Twin Towns of Zeugma on the Euphrates: Rescue Work and Historical Studies (Portsmouth, RI, 1998). Since 2000, all of Apamea on the east bank of the Euphrates and a significant percentage of Zeugma on the west have been flooded by the Birecik Dam. Some details of the continuing work by the Zeugma Archaeological Project, especially its ambitious plan to turn the surviving remains into an archaeological park, can be found online.
Antioch
Sources for this city were given in King of Kings.
Cilicia
The essential modern works to begin to learn about Roman Cilicia, both the ‘Rough’ (Tracheia) and the ‘Smooth’ (Pedias) half, are A. H. M. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (2nd edn, Oxford, 1971, Ch. 8, pp. 191–214); and D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor to the End of the Third Century after Christ (2 volumes, Princeton, 1950: for background, Chs. 11 & 12, pp. 259–301; and for this period, Chs. 28 & 29, pp. 659–723).
The key ancient text is Strabo, 14.3.1–5.19.
Demetrius’s Cilician ethnography in Chapter 9 is constructed mainly from the First and Second Tarsic Orations of Dio Chrysostom (Orr. 33 & 34), and the Lives of the Sophists, and the Life of Apollonius by Philostratus.
The site of Sebaste, the modern village of Ayaş, is well worth a visit if you happen to be in the Turkish province of Mersin (although few non-Turks seem to holiday there). You can stand in the theatre where Ballista interviewed Trebellianus and, for the battle, follow his route from the south-western harbour to the north-east necropolis. Unfortunately, when I went there, the excellent little book Elaiussa Sebaste: A Port City between East and West, edited by E. E. Schneider (Istanbul, 2008), was not yet available. The map in this novel is adapted from there. Two things should be noted. First, the placement of the land walls is purely speculative (on the principle of excluding the necropoleis and including the civic buildings), the mainland part of the city actually may have been undefended. Second, the main, inner harbour was silted up by the sixth century AD; it is unclear how advanced this would have been in the third century AD.
The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman Worlds, R. J. A. Talbert (ed.) (Princeton & Oxford, 2000), the standard work, does not show an island called Crambusa off Corycus. But Strabo (14.5.5) has one to the east of the Calycadnus river, which must be the islet with the castle which gives the mainland Turkish resort of Kizkalesi its name (Maiden Castle).
Caesarea Maritima
King Herod’s Dream: Caesarea on the Sea, edited by K. G. Hollum et al (New York & London, 1988), is a great guide, splendidly illustrated.
Emesa
Sources for this city are given in Fire in the East.
Things
Valerian’s Eastern Campaign of AD260
‘Beyond Carrhae and Edessa we had a great battle with Valerian Caesar. With our own hands we took prisoner Valerian Caesar …’ So Shapur told it in the trilingual inscription he had put up celebrating his deeds, which is commonly known as the Res Gestae Divi Saporis. The sources from within the Roman empire have various stories of the capture, often involving treachery. Translations are to be found in Dodgeon & Lieu (op. cit., pp. 57–66).
As Shapur placed the battle ‘beyond Carrhae and Edessa’, and the Anonymous Continuator of Dio (fr.3, FGH IV, p. 193) has Macrianus waiting in Samosata, it is likely that Valerian had crossed the Euphrates there and marched down from the north, rather than cross the river at Zeugma and advance from the west, as Crassus had done three centuries earlier.
The Ride to Zeugma
In a kind review of King of Kings in the TLS, Dr Gavin Kelly of the University of Edinburgh pointed to the material I use from Ammianus Marcellinus. The debt should be acknowledged. The last great Latin historian of antiquity was a wonderful story-teller, and is a constant source of inspiration. Never more so than here, where Ammianus’s own ride to Amida was much in my mind. Ammianus is available in English translation in a three-volume Loeb edition by J. C. Rolfe (revised edn, Cambridge, Mass., 1950–52), and an accessible, but irritatingly abbreviated one volume by W. Hamilton in Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth, 1986).
A lot of the fieldcraft in these passages was learnt from Andy McNab’s Bravo Two Zero (London, 1993) – which also helped with the effects of the cold in Chapter 16.
Shapur’s Campaign into the Roman Empire in AD260
Every scholar who has studied it has produced a different reconstruction. The two most influential are E. Kettenhofen, Die römische-perischen Krieg des 3. Jahrhunderts n. Chr.: nach der Inschrift Šahpuhrs I an der Ka’-be-ye Zartošt (ŠKZ) (Wiesbaden, 1982), 106�
�22; and D. S. Potter, Prophesy and History in the Crisis of the Roman Empire: A Historical Commentary on the Thirteenth Sibylline Oracle (Oxford, 1990, pp. 337–41).
The reconstruction in this novel seems plausible to me, and I hope in the future to argue it in a scholarly article.
Bandits
Brigandage is a growth area of ancient scholarship, and will form the heart of a later novel in this series (provisional title, The Sons of Aetna). The social and economic background to banditry in Cilicia in Lion of the Sun is drawn from articles by the late Keith Hopwood; above all, ‘Bandits, elites, and rural order’, in A. Wallace-Hadrill (ed.), Patronage in Ancient Society (London, 1989, pp. 171–87); and ‘Bandits between Grandees and the State: The structure of order in Roman Rough Cilicia’, in K. Hopwood (ed.), Organized Crime in Antiquity (London, 1999, pp. 177–206).
Ballista in Palestine
The original inspirations for Ballista’s operation against the Galilean bandits/rebels (Chapter 16) were a section in Ammianus (28.2.11–14) about a village of brigands in Syria (the Maratocupreni) and a story in Plutarch (24.6–8) about Alexander the Great in Phoenicia. The exact location was decided, and the caves and end stratagem added, after reading a passage in Josephus (BJ 1.304–14). Finally, rereading Benjamin Isaac, The Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East (Oxford, 1990, p. 63), I discovered that the Maratocupreni probably dwelt in caves all along.
In the novel (Chapter 17), the martyrdom of Marinus by Achaeus and his burial by Astyrius at Caesarea Maritima happen almost exactly as in Eusebius, History of the Church, 7.15–16, but, obviously, with the addition of a watching Calgacus.
Ghosts
The ghost stories Demetrius must have been reading in Chapter 2 are in The Book of Marvels by Phlegon of Tralles. There is a splendid translation, with good introduction and commentary, of this extraordinary book, by W. Hansen (Exeter, 1996).
Euripides
A good, short introduction is J. Morwood, The Plays of Euripides (London, 2002).
On the play that haunts Ballista in this novel, see W. Allan, Euripides: Medea (London, 2002).
Traditional thinking on the play has it that Jason had previously sworn an oath to Medea, so when he breaks it, in some senses he deserves his suffering as he brings death to his sons.
In a recent article, Arlene Allan has argued that Medea is a liar throughout the play, and that Jason had not sworn an oath to her (‘Masters of Manipulation: Euripides’ (and Medea’s) use of oaths in Medea’, in: A. H. Sommerstein & J. Fletcher (eds.), Horkos: The Oath in Greek Society (Exeter, 2007, pp. 113–24).
It should be noted that, while Jason in the play is not the brightest of men, he never denies he took an oath. The way Medea bounces first the chorus into a promise (252–70), then Aegeus into an oath (734–55), suggests she would have had few problems doing the same to Jason previously.
Other Historical Novels
As in every novel in this series, it is a joy to include homages to a couple of those novelists whose work has inspired me and given me great pleasure.
First, J. G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur (London, 1973). Starting with comedy and cultural misunderstanding, then moving to violence and horror, this novel shows the literary excellence to which historical fiction can aspire.
Second, I don’t think any extended series of novels has given me more pleasure than Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin books. They demonstrate how well-researched, well-written, thoughtful historical novels can break out of narrow, artificial genre boundaries and be ranked as literary works.
Various Quotes
The quotes and echoes of Euripides in this novel owe a lot to many different modern English translators; high among them John Davie and James Morwood.
The Iliad of Homer is quoted from the Penguin Classics translation of Robert Fagles (New York, 1990).
The poem – an anonymous Greek epigram – that comes into Ballista’s thoughts in Chapter 4 can be found translated by Peter Porter in The Greek Anthology edited by Peter Jay (Harmondsworth, 1981), Number 775. The one that occurs to him in Chapter 21 is by Lucian, and is translated by Edwin Morgan in the same volume, Number 627.
When Ballista reads Plutarch, Life of Antony 10, in Chapter 20, it is in the translation of I. Scott Kilvert (Harmondsworth, 1965).
The Persian songs in the first chapter are from Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1st edn, 1859) – anachronistic, but wonderful.
Thanks
As always, it is a pleasure to thank lots of people who have helped me in different ways.
First, the professionals: Alex Clarke, Anthea Townsend, Jen Doyle, Katya Shipster, Tom Chicken, Ana Maria Rivera at Penguin; Sarah Day, for copy-editing; and James Gill at United Agents.
Next, colleagues and friends at Oxford: Louise Durning and Maria Stamatopoulou at Lincoln College; John Eidinow at St Benet’s Hall; and Ewen Bowie at Corpus Christi College. Various students who had a lot of Ballista in their tutorials: Laura Holloway, Harry Lancaster, Ollie Stephen and Nicky Wingfield-Digby.
Then, friends: Peter Cosgrove for Cyprus, Mersin and other stuff. Steve Billington for the website. Adi Nell for the animals. Jeremy Tinton for all sorts of odd ideas. Jeremy Habberley for lending Rutilus his looks, and Katie-girl for providing the most inventive obscenity in the book.
Last, family, for their love and support. In Suffolk, my mother Frances, and aunts Terry and Sheila. In Oxfordshire, my wife Lisa, and sons Tom and Jack.
Harry Sidebottom
Woodstock
Glossary
The definitions given here are geared to Lion of the Sun. If a word or phrase has several meanings, only that or those relevant to this novel are given.
Ab Admissionibus: Official who controlled admission into the presence of the Roman emperor.
Accensus: Secretary of a Roman governor or official.
A Cubiculo: Official in charge of the emperor’s bedchamber.
Aelia Capitolina: Latin name given to Jerusalem by the emperor Hadrian.
Agora: Greek term for a marketplace and civic centre.
Ahriman: The Evil One, the ‘Lie’, in the Zoroastrian religion of the Persians.
Ala: Unit of Roman auxiliary cavalry; usually around 500-, sometimes 1,000-strong; literally, a ‘wing’.
Alamanni: Confederation of German tribes. The name probably means ‘all men’, either in the sense of men from various tribes or ‘all real men’.
Alani: A nomadic people north of the Caucasus mountains.
A Memoria: Official responsible for reminding high-status Romans, and especially the emperor, of the names of the people they meet.
Amicus: Latin, friend.
Ancillariolus: Latin, literally, a maid-chaser; a flagrantly unfaithful husband.
Angles: North-German tribe living in the area of modern Denmark.
A Rationibus: In the principate, the official in charge of the emperor’s finances; later overshadowed by the Comes Sacrarum Largitionum.
Aquincum: City and military base; modern Budapest.
Armillae: Metal armlets awarded for valour in the Roman army.
Artagatis: The Syrian Goddess. One important cult centre was Hierapolis.
A Studiis: Official who aided the literary and intellectual studies of the Roman emperor.
Ataraxia: Freedom from disturbance of the mind/soul; the key aim of Epicurean philosophy.
Atrebates: Northern Gallic tribe famous throughout the Roman period for its woollens, especially cloaks.
Atrium: Open court in a Roman house.
Augustus: Name given to the first Roman emperor and taken by all his successors.
Auxilliary: Roman regular soldier serving in a unit other than a legion.
Ballista, plural ballistae: Torsion-powered artillery piece; some shot bolts, others stones.
Ballistarius, plural ballistarii: Roman artilleryman.
Barritus: German war cry adopted by the Roman army.
Batavia: Roman name
for present-day Netherlands; roughly, the area around Nijmegen.
Bavares: German tribe; part of the confederation of the Franks.
Borani (also Boranoi): German tribe, one of the tribes that made up the confederation of the Goths, notorious for their piratical raids into the Aegean.
Boule: Council of a Greek city, in the Roman period made up of local men of wealth and influence.
Bucinator: Roman military musician.
Bucinobantes: German tribe; one of those making up the confederation of the Alamanni.
Cadusii: People living to the south-west of the Caspian Sea.
Caesar: Nomen of Julius Caesar; a title of the emperors; in this period often used to designate imperial princes.
Caledonia: Area of Britain north of Roman provinces; roughly modern Scotland.
Capax Imperii: Expression used by Tacitus to designate those men ‘capable of being emperor’.
Cappadocia: Roman province north of the Euphrates.
Carrhae: City in Mesopotamia, in 53BC the scene of the defeat of the Roman general Crassus by the Parthians.
Cinaedus, plural cinaedi: Derogatory Latin term (taken from Greek – Romans liked to pretend all such habits came from the Greeks) for the passive one in male–male sex.
Circesium: Town on the Euphrates.
Circus: Latin, course for chariot-racing. The one in Rome was known as the Circus Maximus.
Clementia: Latin, the virtue of mercy.
Clibanarius, plural clibanarii: heavily armed cavalryman, possibly derived from ‘baking oven’.
Codex: A bound book (rather than a papyrus roll).
Cognomen: Second family name of a Roman; see below, Nomen.
Cohors: Unit of Roman soldiers, usually about 500-men strong.
Colonia Agrippinensis: Important Roman city on the Rhine; modern Cologne.
Comes Augusti, plural comites: Companion of Augustus; name given to members of the imperial consilium when the emperor was on campaign or a journey.
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