Theodoric

by Ross Laidlaw

  to ferry the rest. . across the Danube

  Jordanes is specific in stating that Theoderic crossed the Danube with his army, but does not explain how. He couldn’t have used Constantine’s great stone bridge at Oescus (even supposing it was still intact), as that was many miles downstream from Singidunum. Getting six thousand men across a wide river was the sort of thing Roman generals took in their stride. But for a teenage lad in charge of a large force of unruly barbarians. .? However it was done (and I’ve had to fall back on imagination here, for a solution), it was a remarkable feat.

  Down crashed the massive iron grille

  A Roman portcullis? An anachronism, surely? This clever device was not, however, a medieval invention. According to Peter Connolly in his magnificent Greece and Rome at War, it is first mentioned during the Second Punic War; he also states that the channels for these gates can be seen at many Roman sites, including Nimes, Aosta and Trier. The stratagem of using a stalled wagon to enter the gateway is based on a ruse by Scottish freedom fighters to take a castle in English hands (Linlithgow), during the Wars of Independence.

  ‘Keep Singidunum for the moment’

  And keep it he did — the first incident (in 471) in an on-off relationship with the Eastern Empire which was to seesaw until 488 (when Zeno invited him to take over Italy from Odovacar), and re-emerge in the final decade of his life.

  Chapter 8

  Sidonius Apollinaris, former bishop of Arverna

  Sidonius Apollinaris — distinguished man of letters, aristocrat, bishop (of Arverna, 471-5), son-in-law of an emperor (Avitus) — was one of the few Gallo-Roman nobles who forcibly resisted the encroachments of the barbarians. Others of his class tended to make the best terms they could with their uninvited ‘guests’ (a Roman euphemism for the German invaders!).

  Chapter 9

  Ambrosius Aurelianus, son of a Roman senator and resistance leader

  Mentioned briefly by Gildas and Nennius, little is known about Aurelianus beyond the fact that he was of Roman descent and headed British resistance against the Saxons some time in the fifth century. S. E. Wibolt in Britain under the Romans places him early in that century; Neil Faulkner in The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain dates his campaigns to c. 475–500.

  venerated as a ‘holy man’

  In his Vita Severini, Eugippius (a monk who had been present at his subject’s death and gathered stories about him from his close companions) mentions the meeting with Odovacar, and describes in detail both the soldiers’ expedition to draw their final pay instalment, and Severinus’ organizing centres of defence. As Severinus refused to disclose anything about his origins, except some training as an ascetic in the eastern deserts, I felt at liberty to fill in the blanks. As he apparently spoke beautiful Latin, I thought it safe to assume that he was a cultured man of considerable education. In his account of the Batavan soldiers’ journey, Eugippius implies that they were ambushed before they reached their destination; for dramatic reasons I have had this happen as they returned.

  Chapter 10

  a bloodstained ‘gladius’

  Aurelianus is historical, but Artorius — Arthur — belongs firmly in the realm of myth. Legends (first recorded c. 830 by a Welshman, Nennius) abound, but, so far, no hard evidence has come to light. However, the fact that the Arthur stories are known ‘wherever Celts have spoken a Brythonic tongue’, suggest that his existence may be more than merely fabulous.

  Chapter 11

  the highs and lows of his career

  To say that the movements of the Amal branch of the Ostrogoths throughout the Balkans and Thrace in the decade 471-81 were convoluted would be like describing the ascent of Everest as a challenging hill-walk. For we’re dealing with a tangled web of marches and counter-marches, double-dealing, promises made and broken, treaties signed then ignored, shifting alliances, negotiations running into the sand, etc., involving the relationship between, on the one hand, Thiudimer and then his son Theoderic and, on the other, Leo then Zeno, with the manoeuvrings of Strabo thrown in to muddy the water. To attempt a fictional version of all this without some radical abridgement would stretch the patience of most readers beyond snapping-point. So, following the example of Howard Fast in his novel Spartacus, I’ve gone in for a good deal of pruning and telescoping. For example, the confrontation between the two Theoderics at Mount Sondis in 478, and Thiudimund’s abandoning of his wagons near Epidamnus in 479, I’ve presented as two connected incidents in a single event. Also, I’ve moved Theoderic’s route across the Balkan Mountains slightly to the west: from Marcianople (Mt Sondis) to Novae (Shipka Pass) as the latter feature makes an appropriately dramatic setting for the face-off between the two rivals.

  the last Western Emperor

  So ended — with a whimper rather than a bang — five hundred years of empire (and, before that, five hundred years of the Roman Republic). The orthodoxy among some historians is that the collapse of the West was an organic process rather than an event, the date of its official end, 476, simply a marker for something that had in fact been going on for a considerable time. If, however, we put the date of the fall of the West back a few years, from 476 to 468, it can be seen as a single catastrophic event; before 468, the West was still salvageable after that date, its collapse was inevitable and swift (see Notes for the Prologue).

  facing each other across a river

  This time-honoured tradition — with its inherent sense of drama and occasion — held a special appeal for the Goths, for whom it seems to have been a favoured way of staging ‘summit meetings’. Other shame-and-honour societies have exhibited a similar penchant for dramatic panache when holding grand assemblies — Native American ‘pow-wows’ or Highland clan gatherings, for example.

  Chapter 12

  a Hun great horse and a chunky Parthian

  Contrary to popular belief, Hun horses were not shaggy little ponies but huge, ill-conformed brutes, inferior perhaps in intelligence and speed to the smaller north African and Arab strains, but powerful and capable of great endurance. The Parthian horse — chunky and solid, large of cheek and muzzle, with strongly arched neck and rounded haunches — was a good all-round war-horse and the favourite breed of stablemasters for the Roman cavalry. This was perhaps more for aesthetic than practical reasons; for example, it performed less well in hot conditions than the Arab or African. In imagining a Hun-Parthian cross, I’ve combined the size and power of one with the pleasing looks of the other. I thought Sleipnir should be huge — but twenty hands was perhaps stretching things a bit.

  going back to Xenophon

  Moves first recorded in the Greek commander’s The Art of Horsemanship, and still performed today by the famous Lipizzan stallions of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, which are direct descendants of horses bred for the Roman cavalry. Their movements and figures, especially the marvellous ‘airs above the ground’, are derived from those that Greek and Roman cavalry mounts were made to practise.

  an unheard-of honour for a barbarian

  Well, not quite. Stilicho, the great Vandal general of West Rome’s armies in the reign of Honorius, was made consul for the year 400, in recognition of his services. Despite this, he fell from grace and was put to death for failing to prevent the invasion of Gaul in 406-7 by a huge barbarian confederacy.

  Chapter 13

  Myrddin, from Cambria in Britain

  Myrddin: Welsh personal name which Geoffrey of Monmouth Latinized into Merlinus (Merlin) in tales of Arthurian romance. For obvious reasons I have associated him with Artorius (Arthur); in some legends he is confounded with Ambrosius Aurelianus. Two distinct Merlins emerge from the stories — a fifth-century Welsh Merlin (cited by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Vita Merlini), and a sixth-century Caledonian Merlin. A medieval tradition ascribes to Merlin the gift of prophecy.

  I have arrived at my own Rubicon

  The stream separating Cisalpine Gaul from Italy proper, which Julius Caesar crossed with his legions, thus precipitating a bloody civil w
ar with Pompey, has become synonymous with a personal moment of truth or point of no return. In Theoderic’s case, this was a consequence of Strabo’s death in 481. The demise of their leader persuaded the Thracian Goths to unite with the Amal Goths under Theoderic. This apparent stroke of luck was in reality a major headache both for the Amal king, and for the Eastern Empire. Instead of two rival Gothic factions effectively neutralizing each other, the Eastern Empire was now faced with a huge, undifferentiated, potentially hostile barbarian mass. Could it afford to tolerate such a volatile presence within its borders? If not, what stance would Theoderic be forced to adopt?

  solve the problems of the Noricans

  Odovacar’s ‘solution’ (which could be interpreted as an admission of failure) was to resettle the ‘Romans’ (i.e., the populations of towns and their garrisons) of Noricum within Italy. If the majority of country-dwellers had been sheltering in the towns, this would imply a mass emigration of refugees to Italy. It seems unlikely that the entire population of Noricum would have decamped, but what proportion remained behind can’t be ascertained.

  it is the red dragon which prevails

  The ninth-century Welsh chronicler Nennius alludes to a prophecy in which the red dragon (i.e., the Britons — the ancestors of today’s Welsh) would one day overcome the white dragon (the Anglo-Saxon forebears of most twenty-first-century English people). If there’s any truth in the prophecy, that would imply Welsh independence some time in the future. That is perhaps (some would say unfortunately) unlikely, despite the halfway house of the present Welsh Assembly. Though ethnically and linguistically far more distinct from their English neighbours than are the Scots — that ‘mongrel nation’ — Wales has been politically joined to England for four hundred years longer than Scotland, with the result that habit and conditioning have perhaps done their work too well. (A recent experiment involving DNA sampling showed the Celtic gene, as opposed to the Teutonic, to be much more prevalent among Welsh people than among Scots.) Now, if instead of dragons the prophecy had said lions. .

  Chapter 14

  a revolutionary new weapons system

  I couldn’t resist the temptation to put back the use of Greek fire from the seventh to the late fifth century. Supposedly invented by Callinicus of Heliopolis in 668, its first recorded use was in 674 against the Arabs, then besieging Constantinople. Creating terror perhaps disproportionate to its effect (its nearest modern equivalent is napalm), it was undoubtedly the most effective form of ordnance prior to gunpowder. As with that composition, its precise origins are shrouded in mystery — sufficient licence (excuse?) I thought, to allow me to include it in the story. After all, if James Clavell in his novel Shogun, can equip troops with Elizabethan bayonets. .

  the order. . for his recall

  With suspicion of Theoderic’s motives at times verging on the paranoid Zeno seems to have been genuinely worried that the Amal king ‘could prove disloyal’ (to quote the chronicler Ioannis Antiochenus), and join forces with Illus against him. Hence Theoderic’s recall — a U-turn which provoked him to understandable fury, causing him to wreak revenge by (once again) beating up Thrace, then attacking Constantinople. It never seems to have occurred to the Romans that, by dealing with barbarians honestly and fairly, they might have succeeded in establishing a harmonious modus vivendi with them. This blind spot may have stemmed from a deep-seated concept of barbarians as ‘subhuman’, therefore hardly deserving of humane treatment. Perhaps the attitude was linked to an atavistic fear originating in incidents like the occupation of Rome by the Gauls in 390 BC, and the destruction of Varus’ legions by Hermann’s Germans in AD 9.

  I need someone to take over in Italy

  Who initiated the move to Italy, Zeno or Theoderic? Among ancient writers, Procopius, Jordanes (in his Romana) and Anonymous Valesianus come down firmly on the side of Zeno, while Ennodius and Jordanes (this time in his Gothic History) plump for Theoderic (it seems that Jordanes wanted to have his cake and eat it!). Considering that in 488 Theoderic had become a real danger to Zeno, it seems only natural that the emperor would seek to be rid of him by holding up Italy as a desirable carrot. With the notable exception of Gibbon, this is the view that most modern historians subscribe to.

  threatening to send warriors

  Nothing, but nothing, in the dealings of Constantinople with barbarians was ever simple. Perhaps over-reacting to Odovacar’s bellicose stance (which may have been more bluster than a real threat), Zeno mobilized the Rugians in the west to block any hostile moves by the Scirian king. This resulted in a chain reaction of retribution and misery: in 487 Odovacar attacked and destroyed the Rugian kingdom, capturing and executing its king; caught up in the conflict, the wretched inhabitants of Noricum emigrated en masse to Italy (see the Notes for Chapter 13); the son of the Rugian king escaped, and with a band of pro-Ostrogothic followers marched downstream along the Danube to join Theoderic in Moesia, as he was about to set out for Italy. Theoderic was under instructions to overthrow Odovacar and rule Italy ‘until the emperor arrived in person’ (Anonymous Valesianus). This quotation is an example of the elaborate fiction which maintained that the de facto barbarian kings of Italy were actually the appointees of the Eastern Emperor! Back to Illus: the Isaurian pretender was cornered, captured and executed in 488, the year of Theoderic’s commission to invade Italy.

  the comforting illusion

  In 476, Odovacar, the Scirian adventurer who had risen to become commander of the Army of Italy, was short of money to pay his (barbarian federate) soldiers — hardly surprising, as the state revenues had virtually dried up. Payment in land being the only viable alternative to cash, Odovacar applied for permission to distribute land grants, from the imperial government, which was controlled by the Patrician Orestes who had installed his son, the boy Romulus, as Western Emperor. When permission was refused, the Scirian acted swiftly. Showing a sure grasp of realpolitik, he captured and killed Orestes, rewarded his soldiers with land — either public or confiscated from Romans, sent young Romulus into exile and, to give his actions a cloak of legality, persuaded the Senate to send the imperial robes and diadem to Zeno in Constantinople ‘as one shared Emperor was sufficient for both territories’ (Malchus). They also requested that Odovacar be given the rank of Patrician and entrusted with the government of Italy. Though Zeno’s reply was carefully ambiguous (after all, Julius Nepos — the Eastern nominee, though he had been forced into exile — was anxious to reclaim his throne), behind its polished phraseology lay an acknowledgement of the truth: Italy, like Gaul, Spain and Africa, was now ruled by a barbarian king, and the Western Empire was over.

  Chapter 15

  crossing the Mare Suevicum

  In his Gothic History (based on an earlier, more detailed work by the Roman Cassiodorus) Jordanes, a Goth living in Constantinople in the sixth century, developed three main points: a) that the Goths originated in Scandinavia, b) that they migrated south-east across what is now Poland and the Ukraine until they reached the Black Sea, and c) that they eventually divided into two groups, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, ruled by ancient royal lines, the Balthi and Amal respectively. Although his conclusions are based on oral tradition, archaeological evidence tends broadly to support them. Two cultures associated with the Goths (from grave-goods etc.), the Wielbark in Poland and the C? ernjachov north of the Black Sea, have been identified along the migration route described by Jordanes. It would be an over-simplification to identify the fourth-century groupings of the Tervingi and the Greuthungi with the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, but certainly in the fifth century these two great branches developed distinct and separate identities, each under its own ruling family.

  a time of gods and heroes

  The Goths seem to have shared certain ideals and aspirations with other Germanic groups, especially the linking of a man’s status with brave deeds, and a king’s sacrificing himself for his people — a tradition enacted in historical times by Ermanaric’s suicide following his defeat by the Huns. (The
Goths, by this time converted to Christianity, may have been torn between admiration for a traditionally heroic act and disapproval, as suicide was condemned by the Arian Church, as well as by the Catholic.) Nordic/Teutonic mythology with its pantheon (Odin, Thor et al.), ideas of good versus evil (Balder v. Loki, Ragnarok), and the marvellous poetical and significant image of the ash tree, Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, after being handed down orally for untold generations, was eventually permanently recorded in written works such as the seventh-century Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, the Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus in the twelfth century, the Icelandic Prose Edda, and the Heimskringla of Snorre Sturlason, completed c. 1230.

  Chapter 16

  list of Things to be Done

  The migration of a whole people necessarily involved planning and preparation on a massive scale: wagons, of course, were the sine qua non of such ventures, but archaeology is little help in visualizing what Gothic wagons were like. (With the exception of a beautifully constructed and sophisticated wagon as part of the furniture for the afterlife in a high-status barbarian grave, there is virtually no surviving evidence.) However, remains of ancient chariots show that wheel construction was highly efficient, involving spokes, hubs, axle-pins, and iron tyres; it’s safe to assume that similar technology would apply in the case of wagons. Similar problems (migration on an epic scale involving the crossing of rough terrain, especially difficult mountain ranges) tend to produce similar solutions. So, boldly sticking my neck out, I have assumed that the basic construction of Gothic wagons must have resembled in essentials that of Boer and Conestoga wagons if they were to cope successfully with the rigours of the journey. The same principle would apply with draught animals, provisioning, etc. In connection with the tools I’ve enumerated (augers, chisels, tongs, etc.), Roman and barbarian toolkits have been found, which are virtually identical to their modern counterparts.