by Ross Laidlaw
the last day of September
I can find no source which gives an exact date for the start of the expedition. Moorhead (in Theoderic in Italy) says, ‘probably towards the end of 488’, Heather (in The Goths) states, ‘in the autumn and winter of 488/9, Theoderic. . set out’, while Wolfram (in History of the Goths) says only that ‘the Goths waited for the harvest before they left the Danubian provinces’. Gibbon’s statement that the march was ‘undertaken in the depths of a rigorous winter’ must, I think, err on the side of lateness. All in all, the end of September seems a credible date for the migration to begin. By then the harvest would be in, and they would still have time to break the back of the journey before the onset of winter. From Novae to the River Ulca — where they encountered the Gepids — via the route I’ve described (which we know is the one they took) is nearly six hundred miles. Assuming an average rate of travel of ten miles a day (which allows for inevitable delays and stopovers), they would accomplish this stretch in two months, arriving at the Ulca about the end of November. This would still give them time to push far enough up the valley of the Drava before wintering, to be able to cross the Julian Alps into Italy the following spring.
two hundred sections altogether
The wagon trains of American pioneers or Boers on the Great Trek set out not as amorphous mobs but as organized mobile communities made up of separate groupings, and operating under strict codes of discipline, with a hierarchy of command. It is fairly safe to assume that the emigration of the Ostrogoths (to which must be added Fredericus’ Rugians) must have been run on broadly similar lines. As no sources give any details, however, I’ve had to fall back on invention. How many did the Ostrogoths number? Again, no precise figures are available. Burns (in History of the Ostrogoths) suggests forty thousand, which seems far too low; Wolfram estimates one hundred thousand, a figure with which Moorhead agrees, while Richard Rudgley (in his fascinating Barbarians) suggests three hundred thousand. As a compromise, perhaps two hundred thousand would be a realistic total.
Chapter 17
To put on such a show of force
Exactly why the Gepids chose to offer battle remains a mystery. On the face of it, they had nothing to gain and everything to lose by taking on such a powerful nation. Wolfram (in his impressive and synthesizing History of the Goths) says, ‘Whether the Gepids were in league with Odovacar or whether they were doing this on their own is unknown.’ He goes on to wonder if Odovacar may perhaps have enlisted the Gepids as allies, but admits that this is only speculation. Jordanes claims that the Gepids were old enemies of the Ostrogoths — hardly in itself a valid reason for confronting them at a juncture when they were merely transients and not acting in the least aggressively. I can find no other source which offers an explanation for the Gepids’ conduct. Of course, all this uncertainty provides a splendid opportunity to devise a fictional reason, one which ties in with Thiudimund — concerning whom the records are largely (and conveniently!) blank. From the scanty information we do possess, we know that his claim to the throne was passed over (because he could offer, Wolfram says, ‘no evidence of his fitness for the kingship’) in favour of Theoderic’s; also that in 479, when leading a column assigned to him by Theoderic, he was outmanoeuvred by the Roman general Sabinianus, only escaping by abandoning his people — resulting in many being taken prisoner, and hundreds of wagons being lost. This allowed me, without distorting known historical fact, to present him as a jealous sibling who was also cowardly and incompetent. (All very useful for dramatic purposes.) As history is silent about him after 479, I was able neatly to kill him off in the battle at the Ulca, he having fulfilled his fictional raison d’etre.
you will lead the Forlorn Hope
Despite having a modern — well, early modern — ring, being chiefly associated with wars from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries, the term ‘Forlorn Hope’ (from the Dutch verloren hoop, ‘lost troop’) doesn’t mean that the phenomenon itself is anachronistic in the context here. Ancient history abounds with examples of intrepid volunteers leading desperate sorties to carry a breach etc. (e.g., Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was awarded the corona vallaris for heading a scaling-party over the walls of Carthage). With their reputation for reckless courage, acts of self-sacrificing valour by barbarians were doubtless even more common than those by Romans. But, as history was written by the Romans, such incidents were seldom recorded. An exception was made in the case of Theoderic at the battle of the Ulca. The Roman panegyrist Ennodius wrote (in Panegyricus dictus Theoderico) that he turned the tide of battle by heading a counter-attack ‘like a lion in the midst of a herd’, just when it seemed that the Gepids were gaining the upper hand. But of course on that occasion, Theoderic, acting in the capacity of Zeno’s vicegerent-to-be, was fighting on the ‘right’ side.
Chapter 18
the West’s finished
Except that it wasn’t. In the 530s, Justinian, the Eastern Emperor, began a long campaign to restore the Western half of the ‘One and Indivisible Empire’. His brilliant generals Belisarius and Narses succeeded in clearing Africa, Italy and southern Spain of Vandals, Ostrogoths and Visigoths respectively, so that by the end of his reign, in 565, the Roman Empire had almost regained the same dimensions it possessed just prior to Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul. A truly remarkable achievement, but one that was destined not to last. By the end of the century Germanic Lombards had taken over much of Italy, and in the next, Avars, along with militant Islam, were to reduce the empire to an Anatolian rump, with an archipelago of tiny imperial possessions alone surviving in the West. (The Eastern Empire survived, though in increasingly attenuated form, until 1453 when Constantinople finally fell to the Turks.) Although, in a physical sense, the Roman Empire may have passed away, it is astonishing how the idea of Rome has continued to grip the minds of rulers and statesmen: from Charlemagne crowned emperor in Rome in 800 to the failed attempt to create a European Constitution, whose aims were prematurely carved in Latin in splendid Trajanic capitals on a marble plaque in Rome.
chatting easily with the Franks
Sidonius Apollinaris wrote to Syagrius congratulating him on his ability to communicate with barbarians. ‘I am. . inexpresibly amazed,’ he commented, ‘that you have quickly acquired a knowledge of the German tongue with such ease. . The bent elders of the Germans are astounded at you when you translate letters, and they adopt you as umpire and arbitrator in their mutual dealings.’
Clovis. . inspiring respect
For most of the fifth century, the pre-eminent barbarian power in Gaul was the Visigoths, with Frankish influence west of the Rhine tenuous at best. Following the death of the great Euric in 484, that situation rapidly went into reverse. By the time of Clovis’s death in 511, the Franks had become the dominant power in Gaul — whose name in consequence changed to Frankia/Francia (France).
Chapter 19
the Forts of the Saxon Shore
To counter Saxon raids, an increasingly serious threat from the late third century on, a chain of ten massive forts was built from the Wash to the Isle of Wight, under the command of the Comes Litoris Saxonici, the Count of the Saxon shore, the second highest military post after the Dux Britanniae. When the usurper Constantine (self-styled III) withdrew the regular troops from Britain in 407, the limitanei continued to function, even after the collapse of the Western Empire in 476. The last of them, the Numerus Abulcorum stationed at Anderida (Pevensey), were finally wiped out by the Saxons in 491.
his headquarters near Castra Gyfel
Despite Ilchester’s obvious Roman ancestry, I’ve been unable to trace its Roman name. In the Domesday Book it’s Givelcestre, ‘Roman town on the Gifl’. Gifl, being an earlier name for the River Yeo on which the town stands, would have been a Brythonic appellation. In the same way that the Romans called Chester (on the River Dee) Castra Deva, I’ve guessed that they might have called Ilchester Castra Gyfel.
a magical landscape
The grassy chalk upland
s of southern England (mainly in Surrey, Sussex and Thomas Hardy’s ‘Wessex’) are rich in man-made features dating from neolithic times to the Iron Age: ridgeways along the crests of the various downs, chalk-cut giants and horses, barrows, stone circles of which Avebury and Stonehenge are the most famous, hill-forts, and that amazing eminence Silbury Hill (alluded to by Myrddin in the text). A few of the above are, or may be, imposters. All the extant White Horses, bar the one at Uffington (probably first-century BC), are eighteenth- and nineteenth-century, though two others, now destroyed, are known to have existed anciently. The Long Man of Wilmington is presumed to be ancient, as is the famously priapic Cerne Abbas Giant — though there’s a theory that the latter is an eighteenth-century forgery by an aristocratic joker poking fun at antiquaries.
an extraordinary edifice
Known today as Cadbury Castle (officially South Cadbury hill-fort), this Iron Age hill-fort with late-fifth-century additions has long been held to be King Arthur’s Camelot. This theory is reinforced by ‘Camel’ place-names in the vicinity: West Camel and Queen’s Camel; while the second name-word re the nearby Chilton Cantelo becomes ‘Canelot’ by switching round the letters. The Cadbury site, along with Glastonbury a few miles to the north, is a happy hunting-ground for Arthurian enthusiasts, with Glastonbury proving an especially copious fount of associated legend — the Holy Grail, Avalon, Excalibur, the Round Table, Arthur’s Grave (‘discovered’ in 1191), etc.
Artorius’ great victory at Mons Badonicus
‘Mount Badon’, in Arthurian legend, is where Arthur won a great victory against the Saxons. Two sites have been suggested for the battle, one at Liddington Castle, an Iron Age hill-fort six miles north of Marlborough in Wiltshire (the one I’ve chosen), the other at Badbury Rings, near Wimborne Minster in Dorset.
Chapter 20
which route to follow
Sources differ as to what route through the Julian Alps Theoderic took to reach Italy. Heather in The Goths and Wolfram in his History of the Goths both say he reached his goal via the valley of the Vipava (through the southern part of the Julian Alps), whereas Burns in History of the Ostrogoths states that Theoderic advanced up the Drava River (well to the north of the Julian Alps), then crossed the Julian Alps to the Isonzo River and on to Italy. Clearly, these two routes are mutually exclusive. I’ve settled for the Drava route as being perhaps strategically preferable to the other. Also, it enables one to exploit the dramatic bonus provided by the arresting Luknja Pass (which Theoderic would have had to use), the col below the awesome cliffs of Triglav’s north face.
its junction with the Sorus
I’ve been unable to find the Latin name for the River Sora, but as the Romans called the Drava ‘Dravus’ and the Sava ‘Savus’. .
the highest summit of the Alpes Juliae
Having had no luck tracing the three-peaked Triglav’s Latin name, I’ve resorted to invention, following the example of ‘Trimontium’, the name the Romans gave the three-peaked Eildon Hills in Roxburghshire, where Agricola established a great military camp. (S
ik, Triglav’s sister peak, I’ve christened Spica, Latin for ‘spike’: appropriate, considering the mountain’s shape and present name.)
a vast stony trough
This is Vrata, the long valley that leads from the Sava up to the pass of Luknja, overlooked by the towering cliffs of Triglav’s North Face. The waterfall described in the text is the upper one at Slap Peric? nik; I’ve moved it nearer the stream (which does indeed disappear underground) to enable Theoderic’s wagons to pass beneath it. The terrain on the far side of the pass I’ve described as less steep than it actually is, in order to point up the rigours of the ascent by contrast.
Odovacar. . had withdrawn
Wolfram, Burns and Heather say that an inconclusive battle was fought between the two rivals at Isonzo Bridge, resulting in Odovacar retreating to Verona. However, Moorhead suggests that Odovacar, alarmed by the size of Theoderic’s host, withdrew from the Isonzo without giving battle. (7Ennodius, in Panegyricus dictus Theoderico, describes Odovacar as summoning all the nations against Theoderic, with very many kings coming to fight for him. Whoever these kings were — and it’s tempting to dismiss them as hyperbolic — they were conspicuous by their absence when Odovacar did eventually confront Theoderic in battle.)
Chapter 21
he had been. . entombed — alive
Rumours that Zeno had been heard crying for help from within the tomb (cries that were ignored, due to his being a hated Isaurian), gained wide circulation in Constantinople, and were long believed. Even a hundred and fifty years later, the emperor Heraclius gave orders on his death-bed that his corpse should lie in state until corruption had set in, lest he suffer the same fate.
an undistinguished. . palace official
Despite his being elderly at his accession, the twenty-seven-year reign of Anastasius was one of the Eastern Empire’s longest. It was also, despite being comparatively uneventful, one of the most successful and enlightened. A mild and by all accounts rather colourless individual, Anastasius suppressed the barbarous fights between men and wild beasts, abolished the sale of offices and an ancient tax on domestic animals, constructed aqueducts, harbours and the Long Wall to the west of the capital as an extra defence against barbarian incursion, and campaigned effectively against Persians and Isaurian insurgents. A not unimpressive record, which compares favourably with those of many Eastern emperors.
Chapter 22
Rome’s Senate House
Despite what, in the story, Cassiodorus seemed to believe, this was not the building that Scipio and Caesar knew, but an Imperial replacement dating from the reign of Diocletian and today known as the Curia.
you must have contact with the Sibyl
A reference to the authoress of the Sibylline Prophecies (foretelling the future destiny of Rome), the Oracle of Cumae.
he’s no Sulla
Lucius Cornelius Sulla, successful general and ultra-reactionary politician, became Dictator of Rome in 81 BC. There followed a reign of terror, which saw several thousand ‘enemies of the state’ proscribed and executed. The young Julius Caesar very nearly became one of Sulla’s victims, but saved himself by the coolness and courage of his deportment when interrogated.
Chapter 23
a careful sale and redistribution of land
Liberius implemented a system of parcelling out called ‘thirds’. The term is surely misleading. Given the tiny number of Goths compared to Romans, this could hardly mean that the native Italians were to be deprived of one-third of their land and property. The fact that the final settlement seems to have satisfied Theoderic’s followers, without causing undue hardship to their Roman ‘hosts’, argues that Liberius pulled off an astonishing coup, squaring the circle of conflicting interests. (See Moorhead’s Theoderic in Italy, Chapter 2.)
one young female. . called ‘Spicy’
One of the charges brought against Pope Symmachus (who seems, like some of his Renaissance successors, to have been as much worldly politician as spiritual leader) by his opponents, was that he consorted with loose women, especially one who rejoiced in the nickname ‘Conditaria’, which translates as ‘highly seasoned’, or indeed ‘spicy’, as Chadwick renders it in his Boethius.
Laurentius, must. . retire
For the sake of dramatic clarity I have telescoped Theoderic’s confirmation of Symmachus as Pope, his fiat concerning Church lands, and his decision as to the fate of Laurentius, into a single incident. In fact, final settlement of these matters was not reached till some time after 500.
he was able to back his claim
Displaying a breathtaking combination of inventiveness and lack of scruple, Symmachus produced a formidable battery of forged documents to support his claim: Synodi sinuessanae gesta; Constitutio Silvestri gesta Liberii; Gesta de Xysti purgatione; Gesta Polychronii. Anyone interested in their contents will find them admirably summarized in Chapter 4 of Moorhead’s Theoderic in Italy.
the five hundred and first
Our present system of dating from the birth of Christ, devised by Dionysius Exiguus, was only officially adopted in 527, the year after Theoderic’s death. However, it’s not unreasonable to suppose its periodic use for some time prior to that date. Official acknowledgement of any important change often lags behind a ground-swell of popular usage or opinion; e.g., the adoption in Scotland of Christmas Day as a public holiday, which, for four hundred years following its prohibition as a pagan festival by John Knox, it had not been.
The beautiful discs
This is the famous Senigallia medallion, named after the town near which a surviving example was discovered in 1894. The medallion has generally been dated to 500 and associated with Theoderic’s visit to Rome on the occasion of his tricennalia. However, my old tutor Philip Grierson has argued for a date of 509 (see ‘The Date of Theoderic’s Gold Medallion’, Hikuin, 1985).
yet were themselves still here
And, in some cases, still are: the Massimo (Maximus), Colonna and Gaetani families have pedigrees stretching back to the Roman Republic. (The consul Fabius Maximus was famous for adopting ‘Fabian’ tactics against Hannibal.)
Chapter 24
the bowels of the amphitheatre
Like one of those clever cutaway models designed to show the inner workings of the human body or the internal structure of a building, the Colosseum, in its present plundered state, shows clearly the honeycomb of passages under the arena where the animals were caged and then transported to the surface by means of a complex system of lifts and ramps.
Thrasamund’s. . hunters
