The standard modern attempt at a narrative of the years AD235-84 is that of J. Drinkwater in The Cambridge Ancient History (eds. P. Garnsey and A. Cameron, vol. XII, 2nd edn, Cambridge, 2005, 28-66). More accessible (i.e., in paperback) is D. S. Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay AD180-395 (London and New York, 2004, 167-72; 217-80).
For the history behind this novel, M. H. Dodgeon, and N. C. Lieu, The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars AD226-363: A Documentary History (London, 1991) is an extremely useful collection of sources translated into English with commentaries.
An indispensable tool for all research into the classical world is The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edn, Oxford, 1996, eds. S. Homblower and A. Spawforth).
People
Ballista
There was a Roman officer called Ballista (or Callistus) active in the east in this period. Ironically, the very brief ancient biography of him which survives is itself largely a work of fiction (Scriptores Historiae Augustae [now more commonly referred to as the Historia Augusta or Augustan History], Tyranni Triginta 18).What little we think we may know about him features in the third novel in this series, Lion of the Sun. For reasons that will emerge later I have given him the praenomen and nomen Marcus Clodius. It is extremely unlikely that the historical Ballista was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman. However, in the fourth century AD many German warriors rose to high command in the Roman army. The Ballista of these novels should be seen as a forerunner of this historical phenomenon.
Places
Delos
An enjoyable way to learn about the island of Delos, and much else in classical culture, is the magnificently illustrated, but very hard to find, volume by P. J. Hadjidakis, Delos (Athens, 2003 ). A very short, offbeat introduction to the island can be found in J. Davidson, One Mykonos (London, 1999). In this novel I have made the island flourish rather more after the sack of 69BC than archaeology suggests was the case.
Paphos
F. G. Maier and V. Karageorghis, Paphos: History and Archaeology (Nicosia, 1984 ), with a wealth of pictures, plans and an accessible text, is the standard work. The ‘House of Theseus’ is illustrated and discussed in W. A. Daszewski and D. Michaelides, Guide to the Paphos Mosaics (Nicosia, 1988, 52-63).
Antioch
Discussion and reading for this city will be given in King of Kings.
Emesa
The modem city of Horns has obliterated virtually all archaeological traces of the classical city of Emesa. The first century AD funeral monument of Caius Julius Sampsigeramus, almost certainly a member of the ruling dynasty, was pulled down to make way for the railway station. Modern certainties about the site of the great temple seem misplaced. As so often, the best way into the archaeology and its literature is the now somewhat elderly Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites (eds. R. Stillwell et al., Princeton, 1976), see under Emesa [Horns].
The description of the temple of Elagabalus draws on images on coins. Some of these are nicely reproduced in R. Turcan, Héliogabale et le Sacre du Soleil (Paris, 1985, see esp. plates 1-7), although my interpretations are slightly different.
For the rituals, the main inspiration (somewhat altered) is book five of Herodian’s History (translated by C. R. Whittaker in two volumes in the Loeb series (Harvard, 1969/1970).
Fergus Millar, The Roman Near East 31BC-AD337 (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1993, 302-4 ), has doubted that the elite Emesene family which produced the Roman emperors Caracalla, Geta, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus in the third century AD was descended from the royal house of Emesa of the first century AD. However, it should be noted that some of the former carried close variants of the names of the latter (Sohaemias / Sohaemus; Alexianos/Alexio); above all, both families had the nomen Iulius. It suggests that at the very least the third-century family wished to be seen as the descendants of the old royal house. Similarly, the pretender Uranius Antoninus carried the name Iulius and, like Elagabalus, was a priest of the god of Emesa. So again, pace Millar (308-9), it is likely that either he was or wished to be thought of as a member of the same family. The priest-king Sampsigeramus of this novel is a fictional member of this family.
Palmyra
A popular (but not always totally accurate) introduction to this great caravan city is R. Stoneman, Palmyra and Its Empire: Zenobia’s Revolt against Rome (Ann Arbor, 1994 ). The best place to discover the unusual world of the caravan-protecting leading men of the city is J. F. Matthews, ‘The Tax Law of Palmyra: Evidence for Economic History in a City of the Roman East’ (Journal of Roman Studies 74 [1984], 157-80). Further reading will be given in Lion of the Sun.
Arete (Dura-Europos)
The town of Arete is of course modelled on the town of Dura-Europos on the Euphrates, which was besieged by the Sassanid Persians probably in AD256. (Actually, Dura was one ancient name for the town, used by locals, Europos another, used by its original settlers; the combination is modern). For the benefit of the plot I have played around with the topography of Dura and the siege works, mainly simplifying them, and have imported the political/social structure of neighbouring Palmyra. A good introduction to the place is an account of its excavation by one of the directors of the dig, C. Hopkins, The Discovery of Dura-Europos (New Haven and London, 1979 ). The essential study of all military aspects of the town is now S. James, Excavations at Dura-Europos 1929-1937. Final Report VII: The Arms and Armour and Other Military Equipment (London, 2004 ), which is both wider ranging and more interesting than its title suggests. For the atmosphere of the place, it is still well worth looking at the boxed set of pictures published by F. Cumont, Fouilles de Doura-Europos (1922-1923), Atlas (Paris, 1926). Possibly the most accessible introduction to Dura-Europos in the Roman period currently available in English is in N. Pollard, Soldiers, Cities and Civilians in Roman Syria (Ann Arbor, 2000).
The speeches made by Callinicus and Ballista on the arrival of the new Dux at Arete are drawn from the roughly contemporary treatise on rhetoric ascribed to Menander Rhetor, specifically the section on making a speech of arrival (translation by D. A. Russell and N. G. Wilson, Oxford, 1981, 95-115).
Warfare
Naval
H. Sidebottom, Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2004 , 95-9; 147), provides an introduction to ancient Mediterranean naval war. R. Gardiner and J. Morrison (eds.), The Age of the Galley: Mediterranean Oared Vessels since Pre-Classical Times (London, 1995) is a superbly illustrated guide. Any idea of what it was like to sail a trireme must be based on the sea trials of the reconstructed Athenian trireme the Olympias: J. S. Morrison, J. E. Coates and N. B. Rankov, The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship (Cambridge, 2000, esp. 231-75). Yet, for very understandable reasons, the Olympias never goes out in a storm (it is no part of the project to see how quickly and nastily a crew of some two hundred can drown!). However, Tim Severin’s far less scientific reconstruction of a galley was caught in a gale: T. Severin, The Jason Voyage: The Quest for the Golden Fleece (London, 1985, 175-82).
Siege
A brief overview of siege warfare in the classical period is given in H. Sidebottom, Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2004, 92-4; 146). Other scholarly introductions are P. B. Kern, Ancient Siege Warfare (Bloomington, Indiana, and London, 1999), which covers from earliest times to AD70; C. M. Gilliver, The Roman Art of War (Stroud, 1999, 63-88; 127-60), which looks at Roman siege warfare down to the fourth century AD; and P. Southern and K. R. Dixon, The Late Roman Army (London, 1996, 127-67), which considers the late empire to the sixth century AD. A nicely illustrated popular introduction is D. B. Campbell, Besieged: Siege Warfare in the Ancient World (Oxford, 2006).
Sassanid Persians
Introductions to the history of the Sassanid (or Sasanid, or Sassanian, or Sasanian) dynasty can be found in E. Yarshater (ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran, volume 3 (1): The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods (Cambridge, 1983, 116-77), R. N. Frye, The History of Ancient Iran (München, 1984, 287- 339); and P.
Garnsey and A. Cameron (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. XII (2nd edn 2005, 461-80, by R. N. Frye).
For an overview of the military practices of the Sassanids, see Michael Whitby, ‘The Persian King at War’, in E. Dabrowa (ed.), The Romanand Byzantine Army in the East (Cracow, 1994), 227-63. D. Nicolle, Sassanian Armies: The Iranian Empire: Early 3rd to Mid-7th Centuries AD (Stockport, 1996) is a splendidly illustrated guide designed for a non-specialized readership. Some of Nicolle’s attributions of images are corrected by St. J. Simpson in a review in Antiquity71 (1997, 242-5).
Religions
Classical Paganism
Two well-written and enjoyable ways into Roman paganism are R. MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven and London, 1981) and R. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (Harmondsworth, 1986, 7-261).
Norse
We have no literary sources to tell us the religious views of an Anglo-Saxon nobleman in the mid-third century AD, so I have drawn material from earlier - Tacitus’s Germania, written in AD98 - and later - using both Beowulf, composed some time between c. AD680 and 800, and the even later Norse Sagas. For the latter two my guides have been Kevin Crossley-Holland’s wonderful books The Anglo-Saxon World (Woodbridge, 1982) and The Penguin Book of Norse Myths: Gods of the Vikings (London, 1993). M. P. Speidel’s provocative Ancient Germanic Warriors: Warrior Styles from Trajan’s Column to Icelandic Sagas (London and New York, 2004) suggests that such a ‘long view’ has some scholarly credibility.
Christianity
As with paganism, the two most enjoyable works that I know to begin the study of early Christianity are written by Ramsay MacMullen (Christianizing the Roman Empire (AD100-400), New Haven, 1984) and Robin Lane Fox (Pagans and Christians, Harmondsworth, 1986, 7-231; 263-681).
Zoroastrianism
A very brief introduction to Zoroastrianism under the Sassanids is given by R. N. Frye in The Cambridge Ancient History (eds. P. Garnsey and A. Cameron, vol. XII 2nd edn, Cambridge, 2005, 474-9). A rather more detailed introduction is J. Duchesne-Guillemin, ‘Zoroastrian Religion’, in E. Yarshater (ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran: volume 3(2): The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods (Cambridge, 1983, 866-908).
While Zoroastrianism seems to have been rather more tolerant under Shapur I than is suggested here, the alert reader will have noted that the main characters’ impressions of the religion are totally derived from the views of just one Persian, Bagoas, and Ballista comes to suspect that Bagoas is something of a fanatic.
The Roman Day
Based on profound knowledge of the classical sources, J. P. V. D. Balsdon, Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome (London, 1969, 17-81), is a superb guide to the ways the Romans thought about time and passed their days. There is no better introduction to Roman social life in general.
Linguistic Problems
Unlike English, Greek and Latin were inflected languages (i.e. the endings of words changed with their case or tense). After some thought and discussion I decided that to mirror this in this novel (e.g. Dominus changing to Domine, Dominum, etc., depending on its role in a sentence) would be a scholarly affectation which would irritate many English-speaking readers. The only exception to this is the plural (thus a siege engine, a ballista, becomes ballistae when there is more than one).
Previous Historical Novels
Any historical novelist who claims to have used only contemporary sources and modem scholarship is lying. All historical novelists read other historical novelists. In each novel in this series it is a joy to include homages to a few of those novelists whose work has greatly influenced me and given me a lot of pleasure.
The late Mary Renault should need no introduction. Bagoas is named after the hero of her novel The Persian Boy (London, 1972).
Mystifyingly, Cecelia Holland seems little read on this side of the Atlantic. Maximus’s original name, Muirtagh of the Long Road, is a combination of two of her heroes, Muirtagh from The Kings in Winter (London, 1967) and Laeghaire of the Long Road from The Firedrake (London, 1965).
Various Quotes
The Anglo-Saxon poetry from his youth that comes into the mind of Ballista, of course, is Beowulf.The translation used here is that of Kevin Crossley-Holland, The Anglo-Saxon World (Woodbridge, 1982, 139).
The ‘Persian poems’ sung by Bagoas are (gloriously anachronistic) quatrains from Edward FitzGerald, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (ist edn, 1859).
When Acilius Glabrio and Demetrius quote sections of Ovid, The Art of Love, the translation is that of Peter Green in the Penguin Classics Ovid: The Erotic Poems (Harmondsworth, 1982).
The translation of the Iliad of Homer is that of Robert Fagles in the Penguin Classics (New York, 1990).
Thanks
As with all first novels, the list of people whom I have to thank is long. First, my family. My wife, Lisa, for looking after our sons, Tom and Jack, and keeping some normalcy and contemporary fun in our lives when I have been living so much in an imaginary version of the third century AD. My mother, Frances, and my aunt, Terry, for their wonderful faith in the idea and for taking on the roles of tireless unpaid publicity agents. Then, colleagues and friends: Maria Stamatopoulou at Lincoln College, Oxford, and John Eidinow at Greyfriars Hall and St Benets Hall, Oxford, for helping me find the time away from teaching to write the novel. All my students at Oxford - especially Vicky Buckley, Ed Maclennan and Mohan Rao, who managed to take excellent degrees, despite their tutorials often turning into extended discussions of historical fiction. Simon Swain of the University of Warwick for checking the Historical Afterword and the Glossary for any really awful mistakes. Anne Marie Drummond, Senior Tutor at Lincoln College, Oxford, and Michael Farley of Woodstock Marketing, for providing me with two ideal refuges in which to write the thing. All my friends in Woodstock for their encouragement - especially Jeremy Tinton. Last, but crucial, Jim Gill, my agent at United Agents, and Alex Clarke, my editor at Penguin - I could not hope to have a better team around me.
Harry Sidebottom
Woodstock
Glossary
The definitions given here are geared to Fire in the East. If a word has several meanings only that or those relevant to this novel tend to be given.
Accensus: The secretary of a Roman governor or official.
Adventus: An arrival; the formal ceremony of welcome of a Roman emperor or high official.
Agger: Latin term for a siege ramp.
Agora: Greek term for a marketplace and civic centre.
Agrimensores: Roman land surveyors.
Ahriman: In Zoroastrianism, the evil one, a demon, the lie, the devil.
Alamanni: A confederation of German tribes.
Angles: A north German tribe, living in the area of modern Denmark.
Antoninianus, plural antoniniani: A Roman silver coin.
Apodyterium: Changing room of a Roman bath.
Archon: A magistrate in a Greek city; in the fictional city of Arete the annual chief magistrate.
Auxiliary: A Roman regular soldier serving in a unit other than a legion.
Bahram fires: The sacred fires of Zoroastrian religion.
Ballista, plural ballistae: A torsion-powered artillery piece; some shot bolts, others stones.
Ballistarius, plural ballistarii: A Roman artilleryman.
Barbalissos: A town on the Euphrates, scene of a defeat of the Roman army in Syria by Shapur I, probably in AD252.
Barbaricum: Latin term for where the barbarians live, i.e., outside the Roman empire; in some ways seen as the opposite of the world of humanitas, civilization.
Barritus: German war-cry, adopted by the Roman army.
Borani: A German tribe, one of the tribes that made up the confederation of the Goths, notorious for their piratical raids into the Aegean.
Boukolos: A Greek official supervising the entry and exit into a town of herds of animals.
Boule: The council of a Greek city, in the Roman period made up of the local men of wealth and influence.
Bouleuterion:
The council house in a Greek city.
Bucinator: A Roman military musician.
Caestus: Roman boxing glove, sometimes with metal spikes.
Caldarium: The hot room of a Roman bath.
Caledonia: Modem Scotland.
Campus martius: Literally Field of Mars, a Roman parade ground.
Cantabrian circle: A Roman cavalry manoeuvre.
Caracallus: A northern hooded cloak.
Carpi: A barbarian tribe on the Danube.
Centuriation: Roman system of marking out land in squares or rectangles.
Clibanarius, plural clibanarii: heavily armed cavalryman; possibly derived from ‘baking oven’.
Cingulum: A Roman military belt, one of the symbols that marked out a soldier.
Coele Syria: Literally ‘Hollow Syria’, a Roman province.
Cohors: A unit of Roman soldiers, usually about 500 men strong.
Cohors XX Palmyrenorum Milliaria Equitata: A double-strength Roman auxiliary unit, consisting of about 1,000 men, part mounted, part infantry; historically part of the garrison of Dura-Europos; in Fire in the East part of the garrison of the city of Arete.
Commilitiones: Latin term for ‘fellow soldiers’, often used by commanders wishing to emphasize their closeness to their troops.
Concordia: Latin term of harmony, concord; in Fire in the East the name of a Roman warship.
Conditum: Spiced wine, sometimes served warm before dinner.
Consilium: A council, or body of advisors, of a Roman emperor, official or elite private person.
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