Summa Risus: Collected Non-Fiction

by R. A. Lafferty

  The man who accompanied Stilicho was the intrepid Sarus, and the Goths fell back aghast and white-faced from his anger as he rode. The Goths loved Alaric, but they feared Sarus, who was likewise their blood prince.

  The intrepid Sarus! Intrepidus—the adjective always clings to him like a reiterated Homeric device. Sarus' bold feats of horsemanship in leading small bands at the battle of the River Frigidus had won him the name of the most foolhardy horseman in the Empire; and he was the man most feared in personal combat. He was the Lion. His peculiar reputation was one that not Alaric, nor any other, could ever approach. He was not to be a great general, nor even a good general; but as leader of mad-dog cavalry charges he would never be equaled.

  Sarus seems to have exercised a boyhood dominance over Alaric, and he was the only one of the kindred who never acknowledged Alaric's mastery—not at the cadet's school, not after Alaric was King, not ever. By many he was considered a better and more fiery man than Alaric, and he certainly never feared the Boy Giant. He was not ordinarily on bad terms with Alaric, except for disagreeing with him on one basic subject.

  At their present confrontation, however, Sarus was the enraged lion. He offered to take Alaric and hang him there himself with his own hands, and he swore that not one of the thousands of Goths would dare interfere. Should Stilicho give the word, Sarus was ready; and Alaric and Sarus shook with passion as they faced off. Had Stilicho given the word, the issue would have been interesting.

  But Stilicho did not want Alaric dead now; nor was he given to grand gestures after the fact. Had he wanted him dead, he would have killed him before this. Stilicho had his own sworn men everywhere, even in Alaric's retinue.

  Instead, Stilicho talked to Alaric like a Roman uncle. He needed this young man who had so much still the matter with him. He had employed far weaker reeds in the Empire business; the Roman fasces, which he employed as principle, was a collection of weak reeds made into a bundle of great strength. And Alaric might become quite a stout stick in that fasces. Stilicho told Alaric once more just what the Roman Empire should mean to all men, whether Old Roman or Vandal or Goth.

  He gave Alaric a title without a title, letting him know that henceforth he would be considered as Master General of all Illyricum, for such a time as he filled that post with honor. The formal title must be given by the Eastern Emperor Arcadius, but Stilicho had intelligence that it was forthcoming. Stilicho let it be known that he himself would be the real master—there could be no doubt on that point—and that Alaric should move wherever he was ordered by Stilicho, even against the forces of his technical master, the Emperor Arcadius, should unlikely necessity ever require it. All that Stilicho told Alaric is not known, but he talked to him for two days. Hafras, who was secretary to Alaric and unofficial Master of Offices of the Gothic contingent, was present for part of the talks, but not all.

  The intrepid Sarus, his anger cooled a little, also lectured Alaric in a manner so direct and severe as to be explicable only by their kinship. In particular, Sarus warned his fellow-Goth against the Goths. Sarus understood, much better than Stilicho did, the tide that was rising in the Goths. Sarus warned Alaric once more against Athaulf, his own brother beyond the Danube, calling him a wild beast, and saying that he was Cain. In this one matter Sarus was prescient; Sarus would, in fact, be murdered by his brother Athaulf.

  The object of their visitation accomplished, Stilicho and Sarus left Alaric, but not before Sarus, in parting, also warned Alaric against the influence of Stairnon, Sarus' own sister.

  Stilicho and Sarus rode away through the thousands of still-amazed Goths, cowering that multitude by their very presence. The two men had “face” in the Roman sense; confrontatio, confrontation. There was none who could stand up to the power of their personalities.

  Sarus has been described in later historical accounts—written from the Gothic viewpoint—as a traitor to the Gothic cause and as a traitor to Alaric. He was killed as such by his brother and enemy, Athaulf. But no man was ever less a traitor; and no man had ever let it be known so clearly just where he stood. Sarus was an Empire Goth to the point of fanaticism. In loyalty to the Empire, it might almost be said that he took up where Stilicho left off. He remained loyal to the Empire and to the incompetent Western Emperor Honorius, even after the execution of Stilicho by that unworthy. Sarus was loyal to the fetish and the name, even when the idea of Empire went underground, and no one could say what was the Empire. He was one Goth who was truly more Roman than the Romans.

  The Balthi family had had in them the ability to found one of the great dynasties of history. The explosion of sheer power in the kindred of that generation is almost without parallel; Alaric, Stairnon, Singerich, Sarus, Athaulf—all out of one nest. Unfortunately, they came still unripe into a disappearing world, and they dissipated their energies in the confusion. Their survival was less than it would have been in almost any other age. It is true that the Visigoth kingdoms of South France and of Spain in the following centuries were their heritage. And the Balthi continued as the Lords of Baux, a corruption of their name, in France for thirteen centuries. There are men in South France today who can trace their descent to the Balthi.

  The flood gates were opened now, and honors flowed to Alaric. Actually, there was a power vacuum. A strong man was needed, and he had arisen opportunely. But it did not happen spontaneously; a man is never chosen for high honors of any sort by a spontaneous movement. There is not, and has never been in the world, a really spontaneous movement of this sort. It required a detailed apparatus and an enormous amount of staff work—however it was called. Alaric had used the same surety in making a dozen bonds, and he had given pledges of an absolutely contradictory character to various groups. Often it was sword politics; but it was politics.

  Sometime in the year 397, Alaric received two honors, obliging himself by accepting them to follow two opposite courses, to work for two irreconcilable goals, to maintain two contradicting loyalties, and to live in two mutually exclusive worlds.

  A decree was published in Constantinople by the authority of the Emperor Arcadius making Alaric the Master General of Illyricum. And in the same year Alaric was raised to the Kingship of the Gothic nation; in addition to which, he was joined in marriage to that Gothic nation in the person of his cousin Stairnon.

  For the first honor, Alaric had worked deviously through a multitude of contacts; for, at intrigue, Alaric was a Stilicho in the egg. He worked through the friendships of his fellow cadets from the old School for Generals, and through their fathers and families—some of them very powerful since they were of the tight aristocracy of the nations within the Empire. He worked through the brazen-voiced soldiers in the ranks—Roman, Gothic, Gaul, Scythian—setting them to chanting his name at assemblies—Emperors have been raised by this device alone. He built up a nucleus of vociferous soldier supporters by means of quiet favor and loose gold. He worked through the other Gothic enclaves in the Imperial service, through his own personal friendship with the Emperor Arcadius, and through the influence of his cousin Singerich.

  Where Alaric could not manipulate full support, he employed half support: that of Gainas the Gothic Master of Arms of Constantinople, who added a cautious modification to Stilicho's support of Alaric, and who had begun a dream of his own; that of the eunuch Eutropius, who more than any other man of moment in the Empire at that time always knew which way the wind was blowing, and which man would rise and which would not.

  The policy of Eutropius had always been to give conspicuous aid to those who do not really need it; who have, without it, just achieved that accumulation of power that makes their rise inevitable. There will be the moment when the rising man himself may not know that he has already achieved this accumulation of power, but a dedicated student of such affairs will always observe it of him. Eutropius, the eunuch, the master of palace politics, threw his support to Alaric; seeming to be, though he was not, a decisive factor in that appointment. So Alaric was Master General. He had joined the
select circle of men, living and dead, who had held such title, and who had been of a remarkably high level of ability. Alaric was Master General of the Empire, and had pledged his life to the support of that Empire in all manner of ways.

  But the second honor, received by Alaric in the same year, was a contradiction of the first. For this second honor, that of King of the Goths, Alaric had begun to campaign before he was born—through the pretensions of his family. Alaric was born a prince of princes and was now the ruddy, handsome giant of the outstanding family of the West Goth nobility. He had the presence and the voice and the sense of timing and event by which the image of a hero is created.

  If Alaric had been a total Goth, he could not have carried the Goths along with him as he did. But none of the Gothic nobility were total Goths. Alaric, sharing this special status, was able to understand his Goths both from the inside and the outside. He was able to sweep them along with him, to panic them and work them into an hysteria; he was almost able to hypnotize them.

  This power in Alaric puzzled many; among them Singerich. This Goth turned Greek has left the opinion that Alaric was not a great orator, though he was a loud one; that he often stumbled and sputtered over his words, perhaps purposely; that the content of his orations and exhortations was often childish, and yet of just the right note to appeal to the Goths. Singerich believed that even an ox could give a more lucid speech; but even a talking ox could not have caught the interest of the Goths as did Alaric.

  Singerich, the Goth turned Greek, regarded Alaric as something of a bumpkin and as obscenely full of the old animal juices. But Alaric had, at all times, the total loyalty of Singerich.

  Sarus, the Goth turned Roman, still believed Alaric to be a backward boy who needed instruction—possibly with the flat side of a sword.

  Athaulf, the Goth who remained a Goth, regarded Alaric as the face behind which he himself must rule; as the mask he would wear and the puppet he would control. Yet, when in the presence of Alaric, the intellectually superior Athaulf became like an enthralled boy. The friendship of Alaric and Athaulf was so close that it could transcend every difference of character and regard. Athaulf was Cain to his own brother, but he was not so to Alaric.

  Stairnon, the woman of the Goths who invented the Goths and was the personification of their nation, regarded Alaric as brother, son, cousin, husband, lover; yet she never regarded him as having a mind independent of her own. She felt that he was her own creation; and, to an extent, he was.

  Alaric might have been a prophet without honor among his cousins, but none of them—except Stairnon, and she was a talented haranguer—could impel a crowd or send a sudden emotion like earth-shock or thunder through a whole countryside of people.

  Sarus could face down ten thousand sullen soldiers and stride through them like a knife, leaving them white-faced and shaken in his wake. But they wouldn't have followed him barefoot through the snow; nor could he, like Alaric, have walked on the water of the Gulf of Corinth. Singerich might entangle two Empires in his palace politics, but the soldiers of his own nation would not know who he was when they saw him. Athaulf could mastermind the whole Gothic program and look down on the entire Empire from his aerie beyond the Danube; but the hand and the mind that brought the world to an end would be Alaric's, and not his.

  Alaric was crowned King of the Visigoths and adopted their program. In doing so, he pledged his life to the destruction of the Empire in all manner of ways. From one world viewpoint or the other it became clear that he was a traitor.

  The Goths, or the Gothic Party that was in the ascendancy and whose program Alaric had adopted, had their own ideas about the Roman Empire. They believed that it had been created and developed by Divine Providence for the special use of the Goths—the true chosen people; that they, the Goths, were the heirs; and that scurvy Romans and all lesser peoples should be turned out of it like cuckoos from the nests of honest birds.

  What Alaric himself then believed is not known. He could not have been sincere in accepting both titles, but he seemed to be.

  During the following thirteen years, Alaric changed his basic belief at least twice, and must often have been unsettled in his own mind. As a Goth he was a better horseman than the Romans; but not even a superb Goth can continue to play the Roman Rider when the horses gallop off in contrary directions.

  Alaric was crowned King of the Visigoths in the year 397, the first Christian King, not Emperor, ever crowned anywhere. We do not possess the ritual of this first Christian Visigothic Coronation, though subsequent Visigothic Coronations in Spain and elsewhere became the models for all European Coronations down to the present day.

  It is certain that there were Gothic, Hebrew, Roman, and Christian elements in that crowning. We haven't the full ritual, but we have a few anecdotes, from Hafras and others, that pick out the high and low places of it.

  Alaric refused to don the Paludamentum, the purple chlamys or cloak. He said it was a gown for women. He was a Goth in trousers, not a Roman in skirts.

  Unction was used. The Biblical words “anoint thee with the oil of gladness” were employed. And the Sign of the Cross was made with chrism on the head of the new King.

  A crown was given, the ancient crown of the Goths which was a wooden one. They had not even come as far as the iron crown of St. Stephen. The Roman Emperors were crowned with gold; but wood was sacred to the old Germans, and metals were not.

  It is not known whether Mass was celebrated in conjunction with the Coronation, or whether Holy Communion was given from the Reserved Sacrament; but Alaric did communicate. The Mass for subsequent Gothic Coronations was to bear the name Missa pro Regibus in Die Benedictionis ejus—The Mass of Kings in the Day of their Blessing. The Lesson was to be Leviticus 26:6-9 and the Gospel Matthew 22:15 seq. The relevancy of neither text to the Coronations is clear.

  After this Holy Coronation, from the tents and stockades and open air, Alaric was elevated on a shield by the Gothic soldiery in the original rite.

  And again after this, and on the same day, Alaric was married to Stairnon, the Gothic Woman of Legend. Alaric had rejoined the nation of the Goths. The Goths had found their Messias in Alaric. The lines were drawn, and a wise man could count the years till the end of the world.

  12. Of Res Romana

  In the same season in which Alaric was created both Master General of Illyricum and King of the Goths, he heard in Epirus an oracular voice cry out to him from a sacred grove. There is an anomaly in these voices crying out; they are unnatural and uncanny, yet they always give their predictions in the most polished and involved manner—silky riddles intricately made.

  The oracular voice that cried out to Alaric did so in Latin verse that was somewhat in the style of Claudian:

  Rumpe omnes, Alarice mores, hoc impiger anno

  Alpibus Italiae ruptis penetrabis ad Urbem.

  “Break off all delays, Alaric. This very year thou shalt force the alpine barriers of Italy. Thou shalt penetrate to the City.”

  These oracles do not speak as clearly as they might, for surely there is more than one city, even in Italy. But there is a tradition to be followed in interpreting the oracles. The device known as “boxing the verse,” for instance, will often give up the key to the meaning. In the case of a prophetic couplet such as this, one takes the first letter of the first line, then the last letter of the first line, then the last letter of the second line, and, finally, the first letter of the second line; in the present instance, spells out Roma.

  Rome is the city to which the weird oracle referred. However, the oracle anticipated by more than a decade; the event would not come about for thirteen years. It is believed by some that the oracular voice was a Gothic one, for even unnatural voices have their nationality. The purpose of the voice may have been to plant a seed, to foist a legend, or to animate a reluctant hero.

  It has also been proposed that the voice that cried out of the grove to Alaric—who often walked in the woods alone when trying to compose his mi
nd—cried out to his inner ear only; and that Alaric himself had the message set in verse form by some talented friend so that it might go more neatly in the record. It does not matter. It is in the record now, and is part of the Gothic story.

  The very groves had cried out that Alaric should take Rome.

  If the two of them, Alaric and Rome, were preordained as adversaries, it will be of profit to examine the second adversary, Rome. This should indicate what sort of struggle it might be and what should be the odds on the outcome.

  The odds will be long, but not unreasonable. What the man should attempt was no more incredible than what the City had done. It was impossible that one man should conquer the City; but it had also been impossible that one City should conquer the world—and it had, nevertheless, been done.

  Of the various titles of Rome, the name the New Jerusalem best gives its position as a peculiar local place, and as a universal city. Rome was the City that became the World, but it was disrupted as a city in the process.

  Of the two cities, it is always Rome that is mentioned as being built on seven hills, as though it were a high city; and such aspect is never mentioned of Jerusalem. But the impression given by this is the opposite of the truth. Jerusalem is built on the top of a mountain; Rome is built in the bottom of a pit.

  One always comes on Rome suddenly, from whatever direction or way it is approached. There is no such thing as seeing it from a distance, except by looking down into it from one of the hill towns around. There is a recurring phrase in writings about the arrivals to the City, “Going down into Rome.” The hills of Rome do not rise up. They are the sides of a pit gaping down.