* The efficient state post used relays of horses operating from postal stations 8-10 miles apart. Subject to official permit, it could be used by civilian VIPs.

The swirling crowds that filled the streets and squares of Carthage — from the forum crowning Byrsa Hill, to the quays beside the great twin harbours (naval and trading) and the sprawling suburbs of Megara to the west — seethed with aggressive excitement. Almost all the faces were of Romans, Moors and native Berbers. Those Vandals rash enough to venture out of doors had encountered a barrage of jeers, insults, rotten fruit, and even stones. For at last the Romans had arrived, to drive out the swaggering yellow-haired tyrants, with their harsh German voices and ugly sun-reddened skins, who for nearly two generations had bullied and oppressed the citizens of Roman Africa. Like wildfire, the news had spread that the Roman fleet — of over a thousand sail, some claimed — was even now riding at anchor less than forty miles to the north. The hour of deliverance had surely come.

Seated before his council within the great basilica of Carthage, where the baying of the mobs sounded only as a distant murmur, Gaiseric, though he gave no outward sign, was worried, deeply worried. Since seizing Roman Africa forty years before, he had maintained his grip on the territory by a mixture of luck and cunning, fomenting dissension between his enemies to play them off against one another, then striking when, divided, they were at their weakest. But now, it seemed, luck, fate (the ‘weird’ of his ancestors in their cold northern forests), call it what you will, had finally deserted him. For let the army of the Romans, currently aboard their fleet at anchor off the western shore of Mercurii Promontorium, once disembark, and he was finished. He was certainly outnumbered, probably vastly so, and, while his Vandal warriors would fight with ferocious courage, they were no match for the armoured Romans with their iron discipline. Nor could he rely on the support of his native auxiliaries; anticipating a Vandal defeat, they would undoubtedly desert to the Romans.

The only counter left him in the game was to play for time. If only the Roman commander (one Basiliscus, so his spies in Constantinople had informed him) could be prevented from landing his army, until. . Until the wind reversed direction, pinning the Romans against the western shore of the great promontory? Lead might float. At this time of year the prevailing south-easterly, famed for its constancy from time immemorial, could be expected to blow for weeks yet. With the wind in their favour, the Romans could sail at any time they chose, to establish a beachhead westward of their present position.

Gaiseric rose, to address his assembled war-leaders and advisers. Though stooped with age, and lame from an early riding accident, the Vandal monarch, white mane falling to his shoulders, was still an impressive figure, an aura of ruthless will and power seeming to emanate from him.

‘Who can tell me of this Basiliscus?’ the king demanded, in his deep, guttural voice.

‘Sire, he is the son-in-law of Leo, the Greek who sits on the throne of Constantinople,’ offered a battle-scarred veteran. Like many present, he had adopted the burnous of the local Berbers, a hooded cloak of light material affording some protection from the fierce sub-tropical sun, to which the Vandals’ fair skins were especially vulnerable. ‘An able general, it would seem. They say he drove the last of Attila’s sons from Dacia and Macedonia when they tried to find sanctuary within the Eastern Empire.’

‘Does he love gold?’

‘What Roman does not, Sire?’ answered a grey-haired councillor. ‘But if you mean can he be bribed? Unlikely, I would say. The man is hardly poor, so why risk his reputation?’

Further discussion concerning the relative strengths of the opposing forces served only to confirm Gaiseric’s worst fears. Dismissing the council, he sent for Engedda, a ‘cunning man’, skilled in the arts of healing, wise in the ways of beasts, and the lore of weather. When the sage arrived — a tiny shrivelled Ethiopian whose black skin hung in wrinkled folds from his ancient frame — Gaiseric put the question ‘Will the wind change, and if so when?’

‘Two questions, Mighty One,’ cackled the sage. ‘My fee is therefore double. Let us say. . twenty fat kine? To great Kaiseric, who is a river to his people, such a price is nothing. As it says in our Holy Book, “The labourer is worthy of his hire.”’

‘You drive a hard bargain, Engedda,’ growled the king, secretly amused by the little man’s effrontery. With Gaiseric’s hatred of all things Roman common knowledge, no one but Engedda would have dared address him as ‘Kaiseric’, incorporating the title of a Roman emperor into the monarch’s name. As for the ‘our’, referring to the Bible, Gaiseric had to remind himself that the Ethiopians had been converted to Christianity even before his own people. (As Arians, however, the Vandals were heretics in the eyes of the Orthodox Romans.) ‘When may I expect an answer?’

Engedda rolled his eyes portentously. ‘First, I must consult the spirits of my ancestors,’ he intoned. ‘Tomorrow at noon, ask what they have told me.’

On being informed by Engedda, at the appointed time, that in five days the wind would begin to blow from the north-west, Gaiseric felt a stab of hope. In thirty years he had never known the Ethiopian to be wrong. (Of course, he told himself, Engedda’s claims concerning supernatural assistance were just part of his persona, like his magician’s rattle and the bag of bones around his neck. The sage’s uncanny ability to predict the weather had to rest on a skill at reading signs, imperceptible to others, in the behaviour of birds and insects, cloud-patterns, the dryness or dampness of the air, etc.) If, for the next five days, the Romans could somehow be kept from weighing anchor, disaster might yet be staved off. Filled with renewed vigour and purpose, the old king began to lay his plans.

‘For God’s sake, Basiliscus, give the order for the fleet to sail!’ shouted Iohannes, the commander’s senior general. He banged the table in frustration, making a silver wine-jug jump, spilling ruby drops on a chart of the North African coast. They were in the great cabin of the flag-ship, Perseus, one of the dromons that made up the strike force of the fleet. Monster galleys, these were armed with viciously pointed bronze rams which could punch a gaping hole in an enemy vessel below the waterline, causing it to sink. ‘Every hour that we delay allows Gaiseric to strengthen his resources.’

‘What resources?’ scoffed Basiliscus with a smile. A large man, running slightly now to fat, he was adored by his soldiers for the generosity of his donatives and care for their welfare. In return, he had their loyalty and trust. ‘Look, by being in no hurry we achieve two things. First, we create an impression of Roman invincibility which should shake the Vandals’ morale. Gaiseric’s luck has finally run out; he knows it and his tribe knows it. Second, we allow time for intelligence of our overwhelming strength to percolate throughout the usurper’s realm. This will encourage disaffection among his Roman subjects, and desertion on the part of his native levies. Meanwhile, our people have a chance to rest and recuperate after the voyage, furbish their gear, clean and repair the ships. .’ He gestured through the stern window at a scene where a relaxed, almost holiday atmosphere prevailed. Overshadowed by the beetling cliffs of the huge headland, naked soldiers and classiarii — marines — splashed and skylarked in the blue waters of the Mare Internum, while sailors scoured the decks and scraped the hulls of sleek dromons and round-bellied transports.

Another advantage — although a strictly personal one, Basiliscus admitted to himself — was the receipt of suffragium* from Gaiseric. Each day, an emissary from the Vandal king would appear on the rocky fore-shore and be rowed out to Perseus. In addition to assurances that Gaiseric now wished to become a Friend of Rome with federate status in the empire, the messenger would bring a bag of gold. So the longer he allowed Gaiseric to hope that his olive branch might be working, the more he, Basiliscus, benefited. Where was the harm in that?

‘What if the wind should change?’ demanded Iohannes, his patrician features flushed with anger. ‘We would lose our present great advantage of the wind-gauge. We could even be driven on to a lee shore.’

‘You worry too much, Iohannes. As every skipper knows, at this time of year the south-easterly is practically guaranteed not to change. Why else do you think that, in the old days of a single empire, the corn fleets used to sail from Egypt to Ostia between June and September? Because delivery was always on time. An emperor’s popularity, therefore security, depended on the bread dole being regular.’ Basiliscus rose, stretched, and poured wine. ‘Here, have some vintage Nomentan — help you relax.’

‘No, thanks,’ snapped the other. ‘One of us needs to keep a clear head.’

‘All right, all right.’ Basiliscus raised his hands placatingly. Iohannes’ concern was, perhaps, he conceded to himself, not unjustified. It might be wise not to tempt Providence too much. A pity to forgo his little ‘bonus’, courtesy of Gaiseric; but all good things had to end sometime. ‘We’ll do as you suggest. Anyway, in the five days we’ve been here, the fleet’s been made pretty well shipshape. Tomorrow, I’ll give the order to weigh anchor.’

Surfacing from a heavy sleep, Basiliscus was dimly aware that someone was shaking him. He sat up in his bunk, pressed hands to a throbbing head — the price of punishing that vintage Nomentan. He made a mental note to add more water next time.

‘Captain asks if you could come on deck, sir.’ His pilot’s voice held a note of urgency.

Hastily pulling on shoes and tunic, Basiliscus became aware that Perseus was rolling violently. He followed the pilot topside up a short companionway, gasped as cold spray peppered his face and a buffet of wind slammed the breath back down his throat. The sight that met his eyes in the grey light of dawn was disturbing. In the night the wind had changed; a near-gale, blowing from the north-west, was whipping the sea into a field of tossing whitecaps, with everywhere ships plunging and wallowing as they strove to point their bows into the wind. Several transports, their anchors dragging, had been taken in tow by dromons, which, with their banks of crawling oars, resembled strange monsters of the deep.

Enveloped in a hooded smock of heavy wool, the navarchus, or sailing-master, approached the commander.

‘The ships need sea-room, sir,’ he shouted above the howling of the wind. ‘We need to get clear of that.’ He pointed to the towering rampart of Mercurii Promontorium looming darkly above the anchorage. ‘No problem for the dromons, even in this sea. Harder for the transports, though — means sailing closer to the wind than they can comfortably manage.’

Driven on to a lee shore — next to fire, the mariner’s worst nightmare, thought Basiliscus. The great headland which, until a few hours ago, had formed a natural breakwater could now become their graveyard.

With storm lanterns hoisted to her mast-head and boom-tips signalling other ships to follow, Perseus weighed anchor and began to creep jerkily away from the coast, her oars, first on one side then on the other, biting air instead of water in the choppy seas. As the light strengthened, Basiliscus breathed a sigh of relief; the fleet was slowly clawing clear of danger, the transports rolling wildly as they angled sideways to the wind to make seaway.

‘Sail ho!’ The cry of the lookout in the crosstrees came faintly to Basiliscus. Peering into the distance, he made out a dancing white speck, then another, and another, as the sea became stippled with sails. The Vandal fleet!

Fighting for calm, Basiliscus told himself that his command was not at serious risk. With their vastly inferior numbers, the Vandal ships, despite having the wind in their favour, could only harry, not destroy, the Roman fleet. Then his mind seemed to freeze, as a row of glowing dots sprang up along the Vandal van. Fireships!

Basiliscus watched, horrified, as the blazing hulks swept down-wind upon his ships. Fire was the worst thing that could happen at sea: canvas, sun-dried timbers, tarred cordage — so much tinder waiting for a spark. Within minutes, all cohesion in the Roman fleet was lost, as vessels strove to flee the danger. Valiantly, the dromons tried to secure cables to the fireships to drag them clear but, overwhelmed by sheer numbers, could make little difference to the outcome.

Ship after Roman ship exploded into flame as the fireships got among them, becoming in their turn agents of destruction. Soon chaos reigned, with vessels piling up on the rocky shore, or scattering wildly in their efforts to escape. Now, like a wolf pack closing on a helpless flock, the Vandals struck. With the wind-gauge allowing them to manoeuvre as they chose, they picked off single vessels with several of their own. Then, boarding, they swamped the defenders with a tide of yelling warriors. After vainly trying to repulse one such onslaught, Iohannes, shouting defiance, leapt into the sea rather than surrender, his armour pulling him instantly beneath the waves.

Only a battered remnant of the mighty war-fleet that had set sail with such high hopes limped back to the Golden Horn. As news of the disaster spread throughout the Roman world, the Western federates breathed a collective sigh of relief. With the treasuries of both empires exhausted, no further rescue of the West could be attempted. Gaul, Spain and Italy were theirs for the taking.

In that same fateful year, the twelve hundred and twenty-second from the Founding of the City, a fourteen-year-old hostage was receiving the education of a Roman aristocrat in Constantinople. The boy was the son of Thiudimer, king of the Ostrogoths, a Germanic tribe settled in Pannonia.* His name was Theoderic.

* Cape Bon, Tunisia.

* Payment of a ‘backhander’ accompanying a transaction; in effect, a covert bribe.

* An abandoned West Roman province in the Upper Danube region.

‘“Ingentem meminit parvo qui germine quercum

Aequaevumque videt consenuisse nemus”,’

declaimed Demetrius to the semicircle of (mainly bored-looking) schoolboys. ‘He remembers the great oak as a small acorn, and sees the grove, planted when he was born, grown old with him.’ The class, sons of aristocrats, generals and top civil servants, mainly from the Eastern Empire with a few from Italia and Gaul, was being held in a room of Constantinople’s Imperial Palace, a jumble of splendid though ill-assorted buildings that sprawled downhill towards the Propontis.* The schoolmaster was expounding the ideas contained in Claudian’s poem On the Gothic War.

‘Bearing in mind that Alaric’s barbarians had crossed the Alps and were rampaging down through Italy,’ continued Demetrius, ‘what do you think Claudian was trying to tell us about this simple old man from Verona?’ He looked round his pupils’ faces expectantly. ‘Well?’

Silence, while his charges fiddled with styluses and waxed tablets, or stared out of windows at the towering bulk of the Hippodrome. Sometimes, he wondered why he bothered. Granted, for most of them Greek was their mother tongue; but they’d had Latin — Caesar, Vergil, Tacitus, Ammianus et al. — drummed into them from an early age. It wasn’t the language they couldn’t cope with, just the authors’ concepts. Horses were the only thing that occupied the minds of these upper-class lads. Soon it would be girls. And after that? A sordid scramble for money and power, which was all that seemed to matter these days. Unless, that is, you were a member of the hoi polloi, when religion and betting on the Blue or Green teams at the Hippodrome were the twin obsessions. Whatever happened to otium — leisured scholarship — which, with civic patronage, was once seen as the proper ambition of a Roman gentleman?

Before the pause could become embarrassing, Demetrius forced a smile and said, ‘No volunteers? Well, let’s start with George. Your thoughts, please.’

An open-faced boy with an eager-to-please expression rose. ‘Pigs eat acorns, don’t they, sir? Perhaps he was a pig-farmer. Barbarians probably like pork, so naturally he’d be worried.’

A murmured, derisive cheer rippled round the class.

‘Thank you, George. An imaginative contribution, if nothing else. You may be seated. Julian, perhaps we might have the benefit of your opinion?’

A tall, stylishly dressed youth stood up. His chiselled features bore a remarkable resemblance to those of Alexander the Great when a boy. So much so that his classmates had nicknamed him ‘Alexander’, a soubriquet he played up to by cultivating long, carefully disordered locks.

‘Perhaps the old fool hoped to hide from the Goths among his oak-trees,’ drawled Julian with a smirk. ‘And if they found him, well, he could always pelt them with acorns. Couldn’t he, sir?’

A delighted titter greeted this sally, not on account of any humour it contained but because it laid down a challenge to the master’s authority.

‘Sit down!’ snapped Demetrius, a spurt of anger bringing red to his cheeks. Arrogant young lout. It had been a mistake to ask him, of course — he’d simply handed the boy a chance to show off. With his wealthy family connections, subversive attitude and air of cool confidence, Julian was, unfortunately, something of a hero to many of his classmates. Aware that he must rescue the situation before it slipped out of control, Demetrius turned towards his favourite pupil, Theoderic Amalo. Though shy and awkward, the young Gothic prince could usually be relied on to come up with an intelligent answer. ‘Theo, perhaps you could shed some light where all seems darkness?’

Stooping slightly, as if to avoid drawing attention to his great height, Theoderic rose. In his mind, he reviewed the lines Demetrius had quoted. The message that Claudian was trying to get across was surely to do with familiar memory. Unbidden, a vision from his Pannonian homeland flashed into his mind, filling him with a sudden, sharp nostalgia: Bakeny Forest with its scented glades of noble trees — oaks, pines and cedar; the air filled with the plash of hidden waterfalls and the cooing of rock-doves. All at once, he knew what that old man had felt: affection for the trees, contemporary with himself; and fear that he might lose them through depredation by the Goths — his, Theoderic’s, own kinsmen, he thought with a pang of guilt.

‘Those trees were planted as acorns at his birth,’ he said, speaking slowly and with a kind of passionate conviction, something he had never before expressed. ‘He had grown old with them, as they matured. They had become part of his life. Almost friends. I think he. . loved them. So he was anxious in case the barbarians should carelessly destroy them.’

The class sat up, visibly impressed. Who’d have thought old Yellowknob could hold the floor like that? Suddenly self-conscious, Theoderic shuffled and looked down.

‘Well done, Theo,’ declared Demetrius warmly. ‘There’s nothing I can add to that.’ He breathed a mental sigh of relief. With the class now quiet and receptive, the lesson could proceed on an even keel.

Then Theoderic clapped a hand to his cheek as something struck it a tiny, stinging blow. A wax pellet dropped to the mosaic floor and rolled to the foot of the master’s throne-like chair.

‘All of you, hold up your tablets — now!’ thundered Demetrius. Cowed, the class promptly obeyed. Their genial master could, if pushed too far, change in a flash to a terrifying autocrat. A brief inspection exposed the culprit: Julian’s codex showed a hollow where a lump of wax had been gouged out. Rolled into a ball and flicked from the flattened erasing end of Julian’s flexible ivory stylus, it had made a highly effective missile. Punishment was duly meted out with a bundle of birch twigs, then, with discipline restored, the lesson resumed.

Returning to his spartan little suite in the palace, Theoderic found himself confronted by Timothy. Standing with folded arms in the middle of his charge’s tablinum or study, the bodyguard — stocky, muscular, nose flattened in some ancient brawl — looked exactly what he was: a self-reliant bruiser.

‘Timothy! You wish to speak with me?’

‘Indeed I do, young Deric, indeed I do. This Cambyses business. .’ He shook his head and chortled softly. ‘Lucky for you I’m an Isaurian — agin the government. What I should have done is report your plan to the Master of Offices. Then you’d have been confined to barracks, as it were, and I’d have been commended.’

‘But. . how did you know?’

‘To see but not be seen, to hear but not be heard — all part of my job. A gaggle of schoolboys taking on Cambyses on their own. I can think of simpler recipes for suicide.’

‘I suppose it was a stupid idea,’ Theoderic admitted, reddening. He shuffled his feet, his expression downcast.

‘Now there you’re wrong. It has the makings of an excellent idea. All it lacks is a bit of planning, preparation and expert assistance. That’s where I come in.’

‘You’d help us?’ Theoderic’s face lit up.

‘I must be crazy even to be thinking of it,’ murmured Timothy wryly, ‘but the answer’s yes. Having grown up in the back streets of Tarsus, I know how important it is to establish your status in a peer group. If you don’t, they’ll kick you to the bottom of the heap, and that’s where you’ll stay. So old Timothy understands that you need to even the score with your schoolmates. Lucky it’s me you’ve got to lend a hand. Isaurians aren’t just streetwise; most of us, and that includes yours truly, are expert woodsmen to boot. The Taurus mountains are our backyard, and they’re teeming with bears, wolves, deer, wild boar — you name it. There’s scarcely a cottage in Cilicia without its bearskin on the floor or pair of horns on the wall. Right, listen, young Deric, this is how we’ll go about it. .’

As arranged, the six boys — Theoderic, Julian, and the four of Julian’s circle who had accepted the challenge — met Timothy outside the Charisius Gate at the second hour,* soon after the opening of the gates in the Theodosian Wall. It was the feast day of St Euphemia (so no school), a celebrated local martyr, credited with performing a miracle at the Council of Chalcedon seventeen years previously. For several miles they followed the River Lycus north-west on made roads, taking turns to wheel the handcart containing a long bundle, which Timothy had brought. Arriving at the confluence of the Lycus and a small tributary, they followed the latter north along a farm track, gradually leaving behind villas and cultivation to enter an area of rough pasture climbing towards woods. Reaching an isolated farmhouse the party halted; Timothy went off to find the farmer, while the boys flopped on the ground, exhausted by the trek in the warm September sun. After quarter of an hour Timothy returned, with four rangy mongrels on leash.

‘Not much to look at,’ he said, ‘but the best boar-hounds this side of the Bosphorus. If any get killed, your dads’ll pay the bill — except Deric’s, for obvious reasons. Understood?’ He looked round the circle of tense young faces; all nodded. ‘Right, gentlemen, what I’m about to say I’ll say just once, so listen good. In a mile or so we’ll be entering Cambyses’ parish. Follow my instructions and you’ll be all right. Ignore them and you could end up dead or maimed — your silly faults but my head on the block. Which I don’t intend to let happen.’

Exchanging the leashes with Julian, the Isaurian unwrapped the bundle on the cart and handed a short spear to each boy, retaining the last for himself. They were workmanlike affairs, with sturdy hafts and broad, vicious-looking blades with a cross-bar below where the blade joined the handle. ‘Tempered steel with razor edges; extra-wide for maximum damage. The guard’s to stop the quarry getting close, if spitted. A boar’s weapons are its tusks — sickles that’ll rip you open from crotch to breastbone. Now, we don’t want that to happen, do we, lads? So here’s the plan. When we track down Cambyses’ lair — which’ll be in dense undergrowth — the first task is to persuade him to come out. That’ll be my job. You lot stand back in a semicircle, weapons at the ready. When he comes, he’ll do so in a rush. A charging boar’s a scary sight, and Cambyses is a lot of boar. It’s vital to keep your nerve and hold your ground; he won’t charge the blades. Let the dogs distract him, then, when I give the word — and not before — move in for the kill. Above all, no heroics. There are old hunters, and bold hunters, but no old, bold hunters. Remember that. Questions, gentlemen? No? Then let’s be having you.’

Deep in a thicket, Cambyses slept. At twenty years, too old for sows to feature in his reveries, he dreamt of sunlit glades carpeted by acorns, with juicy tubers just below the surface waiting to be grubbed up. Suddenly he started twitching, as something intruded on these pleasant visions. Blinking awake, he became aware of of what it was that had disturbed his rest: a familiar, hated scent. Man. His inch-thick hide seamed with scar tissue bore witness to past encounters with hunters, some of whom had suffered death or mutilation from his tushes. The scent grew stronger, stirring memories of pain and danger. Quivering with fury, the old boar raised his vast bulk from the ground and prepared to give battle.

‘They’ve got the scent, lads. Let ’em go,’ Timothy called to the three who, besides himself, had held the hounds in leash while they quartered the terrain — a soggy plateau stippled with bushes and stands of dwarf timber. Unleashed, the hounds — silent until now, streaked off, barking with excitement. They halted before a patch of dense under-growth, their baying, an eerie chiming sound, rising to a frenzied crescendo.

Lining up the boys in a wide semicircle behind the hounds, Timothy took a handful of pebbles from a pouch at his waist, and proceeded to pelt the patch of brush. For a full minute nothing happened. Then the bushes began to shake, and a moment later the quarry burst from shelter. He was a terrifying sight: huge body covered in blackish bristles streaked with yellow, tiny red-rimmed eyes blazing with hate, long foam-flecked snout, pair of wicked tusks curving from the lower jaw.

Faced with this apparition, Theoderic was seized with paralyzing fright. The urge to run was overwhelming, but, recalling Timothy’s advice, he stood firm, spear levelled — as, to their credit, did the others.

Confused by the hounds, Cambyses halted in full career, then charged first one, then another. But his tormentors were old hands at the game, and backed away from his furious rushes. At last, bewildered and exhausted, flanks heaving, the old boar stood at bay.

Julian, next in line to Theoderic, broke ranks and rushed forward, spear raised to deliver the coup de grace.

What happened next, though lasting only seconds, seemed to Theoderic to pass as though time had slowed down. Julian tripped on a tree-root and toppled forward, to lie extended on the ground. Spotting one of his enemies prostrate, the boar, like an ox turning a mill-wheel by its pole, wheeled slowly round and made for Julian, its short legs rising and falling no faster than a galley’s oars.

Then the moment passed, and the enraged brute was hurtling towards the boy like a bolt from a ballista. Unaware of making a conscious decision, Theoderic found himself sprinting forward, standing athwart Julian’s body and thrusting out his spear to receive the boar’s charge. The blade took the animal full in the throat, the impact hurling Theoderic backwards, in a spray of blood jetting from a severed artery. Closing in at once, the others quickly finished off the dying monster. Julian rose shakily to his feet.

Timothy, his face suffused with anger, struck the boy a ringing slap across the cheek. ‘Glory-hunting fool!’ he roared. ‘You nearly got yourself killed. Worse, you put your mates in danger. If it hadn’t been for Deric here. . Now, apologize and make up.’

Trembling as reaction set in, his emotions in a tumult, Theoderic extended his hand to his erstwhile enemy. His chief feeling was exaltation: surely now they would accept him as an equal and, more importantly, a Roman.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Julian stiffly, Timothy’s handprint livid on his face. ‘I behaved stupidly. I owe you my life. For that I thank you.’ He looked at the other’s open hand, then turned his head away. ‘But I don’t shake hands with Germans. You’re brave, I grant you that, but then so are all your race. For all your courage, Goth, you’ll never be one of us — Roman, that is.’

Theoderic’s euphoria drained away, replaced by a terrible feeling of failure and frustrated longing. Now he knew how Moses must have felt when, having led his people to the Promised Land, he alone was not allowed to enter.

‘Timothy of Tarsus, Your Serenity — guardian of Prince Theoderic, son of Thiudimer Amalo, joint king of the Ostrogoths,’ announced the silentiarius — one of the tribe of gentlemen-ushers who ensured that the elaborate machinery of court procedure in the Imperial Palace functioned smoothly. Bowing, he showed Timothy into the reception chamber, then withdrew.

Timothy found himself in a vast colonnaded hall, at the far end of which were two figures: enthroned, an elderly man swathed in purple robes which somehow created the effect of diminishing his slight form; and, sprawled on a bench, a colossal individual wearing undress military uniform: round pillbox cap, undyed linen tunic (somewhat soiled and worn) with indigo government roundels at thighs and shoulders. These were, respectively, Emperor Leo and his top general, Zeno, a tough Isaurian chieftain who had changed his name from the barbarous-sounding Tarasicodissa to the more euphonious Zeno in deference to the sophisticated ears of the capital’s citizens.

Making what he hoped were the correct obeisances, Timothy advanced towards the pair, halting with lowered head several paces from the throne. ‘Serenity, General, your humble servant is honoured to receive your summons, and awaits your pleasure. . er, is desirous to know how best he may be of service.’ Despite having been on the palace staff for years, this was the first time Timothy had been in the imperial presence. He was, as he admitted to himself, making up the rules of etiquette as he went along; he just hoped he wasn’t committing any major gaffes.

‘Tarsus, eh?’ chuckled the general. ‘A fellow Isaurian then. But I could have told that from your accent.’ He surveyed the other’s muscular frame appraisingly. ‘There’s a place in the Excubitors, my crack corps of Isaurians, if you’re interested — good pay, easy service, generous donatives. Isaurians always welcome.’ He turned to Leo. ‘Sorry — bad form to be speaking ahead of my emperor.’ He grinned in mock contrition. ‘Over to you, Serenity.’

‘Thank you,’ snapped Leo, a flush of annoyance spreading up his neck. Addressing Timothy, he stated, ‘We have just received a message from Theoderic’s father, requesting the return of his son. You’ve had the boy daily in your sights for the past nine years. In your opinion, would you say the time is, ah, appropriate, for the young barbarian to rejoin his tribe?’

Timothy thought carefully before framing his reply. ‘Appropriate’ was code for ‘suitable on account of the subject’s posing no threat’. In other words, had nearly a decade of exposure to the civilizing influence of Roman culture been sufficient to dilute the warlike instincts natural to any Goth, while inculcating respect and loyalty for Rome, thus rendering him more likely to prove a useful ally than a dangerous foe of the empire? The ‘Cambyses incident’ two and a half years ago had, in order to avoid awkward consequences for all involved, been kept a strict secret. So no one suspected that the shy, studious persona that the young Goth presented to the world concealed a spirit both courageous and determined. It was best, Timothy decided, that Leo remain in ignorance of this side of Theoderic’s nature. (As a result of the boar-hunt, persecution of Theoderic by Julian and his gang had stopped immediately; though shunned, he was treated with wary respect. Schooldays had ended soon afterwards, some of his classmates going, like Julian, into the army, others entering the civil service, one or two the Church. Theoderic himself continued his studies at Constantinople University, founded by Theodosius II just forty-four years previously, attending classes in philosophy and Latin grammar.)

‘Theoderic’s a quiet lad, Secrenity,’ Timothy pronounced. ‘Mild, inoffensive, a conscientious student. Overall, rather timid and ineffectual, I’d say.’

‘Timid and ineffectual?’ ruminated Leo. ‘Excellent, excellent. Well, assuming what you say is true, I think we can safely let our young barbarian go. Probably to sink without trace. Theoderic — a name written on water, it would seem.’

‘Doesn’t sound like any Goth I’ve ever encountered,’ snorted Zeno. ‘“Timid and ineffectual”’? You must be joking! Alaric himself could come over all sweet reason when it suited — and look what he did to Rome.’

Leo shook his head impatiently. ‘Spare us the history lesson, Zeno. Sometimes we have to go with our instincts and take a chance on things. I’ll have the release order made out straight away.’ He glanced at Timothy. ‘Our thanks for your advice. On your way out, tell the silentiarius to send for my scribe.’

In the name of the Invincible Augustus the Most Sacred Leo, four times Consul, Emperor of the Eastern domain of our One and Indivisible Empire, his Master of Offices requests that within the Prefectures of Illyricum and the East: the vicars of the Dioceses of Thracia and Dacia, and the governors of the Provinces of Europa, Haemimontus, Thracia, Moesia Secunda, Dacia Mediterranea, Dacia Ripensis and Moesia Prima, together with all officers and servants acting in their names, allow to pass freely without let or hindrance, affording him such assistance and protection as may be necessary, Prince Theoderic, the son of Thiudimer Amalo, king (jointly with his brother Vidimir) of the Ostrogoth nation which currently resides within the provinces of Pannonia Secunda, Valeria, Savia and Pannonia Prima, by gracious permission of the Invincible Augustus of the West, the Most Sacred Anthemius. Issued at the Imperial Secretariat within the Great Palace of Constantinopolis, and given into the hand of our trusty and well-beloved emissary Timotheus Trascilliseus, guardian of the aforesaid Theoderic. Pridie Kalendas Junii, in the year of the consuls Leo Augustus (being his fourth consulship) and of Probianus.*

With disbelief tinged with awe, Timothy finished reading this portentous document, Theoderic’s safe-conduct, with which he had been entrusted. ‘Trusty and well-beloved emissary’! Could that really refer to him, Timothy the brawler, Timothy the small-time crook, Timothy the humble bodyguard — a nothing, an invisible presence lurking in the shadows? But that was yesterday. Today, by some miraculous stroke of administrative alchemy, he had been transformed into a government official entrusted with an important mission, and holding the impressive title of agens in rebus, a catch-all job description covering anything from spy to diplomat. It felt good. With the commission in his satchel, and wearing the same undress uniform as Zeno (having semi-military rank, agentes were entitled to wear uniform, though not armour), he found himself walking with an extra swagger and confidence. Now palace underlings made way for him with respectful expressions, whereas formerly they had treated him with indifference or easy familiarity. All immensely gratifying.

Next morning at the first hour, mounted, accompanied by a small train of spare horses and pack-mules carrying luggage and supplies in the charge of a groom, Timothy and Theoderic arrived at the Golden Gate, where they were to be joined by the armed escort assigned to accompany them on their journey. They hadn’t waited long when, with a clatter of hooves and jingle of accoutrements, a dozen horse-archers plus remounts and supply wagon approached along the Mese. With their highly polished cuirasses of overlapping iron scales and red-crested Attic helmets of gleaming bronze, they made a brave show.

‘Legio Quinta Macedonica,’ observed Timothy; ‘note the sunflower motif on their shields.’ He groaned in sudden consternation. ‘Oh no! Look who their decurion is — our old friend Julian, no less.’

A splendidly mounted young officer, scarlet cloak billowing, pulled up before Theoderic.

‘You!’ exclaimed Julian. His expression of shocked amazement swiftly changed to one of calculating malice. ‘Well, Goth, this should be an interesting trip. It’s a long way to Pannonia.’ He shook his head in simulated concern. ‘You’ll need to watch yourself; a lot can happen in a thousand miles. Well, there’s the gate opening. Shall we go?’

Headed by the escort, the cavalcade proceeded through the second of the triple arches in the Golden Gate, the chief entry into the city through the Theodosian Walls at their southern end. Turning in the saddle, Theoderic looked back at the city that had been his home for the greater part of his young life: the mighty double rampart of the Walls studded with massive towers, before which even Attila had quailed, and beyond them the roofs of churches, palaces, baths, and gymnasia without number, the statues crowning the columns of Constantine, Arcadius and Marcian, the topmost tier of arches of Valens’ aqueduct. .

A wave of nostalgia and sadness engulfed the young Goth. He was leaving, probably for the last time, all the things that had shaped his life and that he held dear — Roman art and architecture, Roman thought, Roman poetry and learning, Roman law with its noble aspirations linked to equity and justice. Through his education as a hostage, in outlook he had become fully Roman. Yet because of his German blood and Arian faith Rome rejected him — as Julian had once so cruelly reminded him. (It was ironic as well as unfortunate that fate had decreed their paths should rejoin, if only for a limited period. He supposed there were worse alternatives to being saddled with Julian for several weeks: a long sea voyage, for instance, tedious, uncomfortable, perhaps even dangerous. As for the young Roman’s thinly veiled threat, he dismissed that as the empty rhetoric of a spiteful mind.) He should be glad, he knew, to be returning home. But what was home? A dimly remembered land of plains and forests peopled by warlike farmers, ignorant, illiterate, scratching a living from the soil, eked out by plundered goods and livestock. A world without culture, barren and violent, where enjoyment was equated with fighting and feasting, and personal worth with loyalty and courage: noble qualities, to be sure, but hardly the compass of a man’s full measure. How would he be judged when back among his own people? Would he measure up? One thought alone sustained and comforted him: the memory of his father. Strong, wise and loving, Thiudimer would surely help him to make the transition from Roman to Goth.

The group had travelled only a few miles along the Via Egnatia, the great artery linking the empires of the East and West, when Theoderic and Timothy, in the rear, were alerted by a distant pattering behind them. Turning, they saw a dense mass of galloping horsemen, some way off but closing fast. Splitting into two wings, the pursuers, a wild-looking lot whooping and brandishing weapons, raced past on either side to join up again some hundreds of paces to the fore. Then, swiftly wheeling round, they charged towards the other group with levelled lances.

Theoderic and Timothy spurred to the front of the column, where Julian had halted the escort.

‘Nock arrows and draw,’ ordered a white-faced Julian in a voice which trembled. ‘Loose on my-’

‘No!’ roared Timothy. ‘Can’t you see — they’re Isaurians; that’s Zeno in the van. It’s just a bluff to test our nerve.’

But Julian, clearly in the grip of panic, wasn’t listening. He opened his mouth to give the order.

‘Do not shoot,’ Theoderic heard himself say. Unbidden, the command — uttered with quiet authority — seemed to have come from someone else. It was the first time he had ever given an order, he thought, wondering. Even his bold stand against Julian over the Cambyses business had been carried through as a result of suggestions, not commands, on his part. It was Timothy, not he, who had organized the hunt, the boys unquestioningly obeying the Isaurian’s behests. And afterwards? He had happily slipped out of the limelight back into obscurity, content to be left alone to pursue a life of study and contemplation. But his countermand, however out of character, was, it seemed, effective. The archers were letting down their bows, thumb release-catches already off the strings.

Meanwhile, the ground began to tremble as the approaching cavalry thundered ever closer — a terrifying frieze of yelling warriors, flashing hooves, and wicked spear-points. Theoderic felt his bowels loosen and his palms begin to sweat. The urge to flee became almost overpowering.

‘Steady, Deric,’ murmured Timothy beside him. ‘Hold your nerve.’

With cries of fear, the escort — including Julian — broke and scattered, leaving Theoderic and Timothy alone facing the charge. Just when it seemed that nothing could halt their headlong career, the Isaurians, in a stunning display of horsemanship, reined in only paces from the pair, then, with a shout of acclamation, raised their lances in salute.

‘A true Isaurian, a true Goth,’ declared Zeno with an approving grin. He kneed his horse forwards to join them. ‘I’ve brought you some of my Excubitors to see you safely to Pannonia.’

‘I heard that,’ cried Julian, returning with a shamefaced band. He rode up to Zeno, confronting him. ‘How dare you challenge my authority? I have orders from the emperor.’

‘That’s all right, sonny. Just turn around and take yourself and your toy soldiers back to barracks. I’m relieving you.’

‘But my orders-’

‘-are from the emperor. I know; but not to worry. I’ll take full responsibility.’ Zeno smiled and continued in patient tones, as though explaining to a not-too-bright child. ‘You see, to all intents and purposes I am the emperor. He may wear the purple, but it’s me who pulls his strings. So off you go. Unless,’ he went on, his voice hardening, ‘you fancy arguing the toss with my Excubitors.’

Julian, his face a mottled red, opened his mouth as though to make an angry retort, then clamped it shut. He paused, glared at Zeno, then barked an order and departed with his troop.

‘Gilded popinjay,’ chuckled Zeno to Theoderic and Timothy, who had been listening dumbfounded to the exchange. ‘You don’t know what to make of me, right? I’ll explain. It’s bandit country where you’re going. Security’s broken down all along the Upper and Middle Danube frontier, with bands of Alan and Sarmatian raiders looting and destroying everywhere. No one to stop them, what with the Danube fleet stood down these twenty years, and the field army of Dacia confined to base except when called upon to deal with a major crisis.’

Timothy whistled. ‘Things as bad as that? I hadn’t realized. But what about the limitanei — the border troops? Aren’t they supposed to keep order on the frontier?’

‘Been pulled back to reinforce the field armies decimated in the wars with Attila. All things considered, I’d not have bet a brass obol on your making it through to Pannonia, not with that lot who’ve just left us. Don’t get me wrong; the Fifth Macedonians are a good bunch. It’s just that they’ve been trained to fight pitched battles in the field, not take on shadowy marauders using hit-and-run tactics — the sort of people you’ll be up against. As for their their boy decurion, he’s a callow green-horn who’d likely lose his head in a crisis and get you all killed. With my Excubitors, it’s an altogether different story; when it comes to dirty fighting, they’re the ones who wrote the book.’

‘May I ask a question, sir?’ enquired Theoderic, patting his horse’s neck to calm the animal, grown restless.

‘Ask away.’

‘Why are you willing to help us? I don’t wish to seem offensive or ungrateful, but some in my position might ask, “What’s in it for you?”’

‘A fair point, young man. Your question shows a Roman cast of mind: logical, rational, weighing up pros and cons, gains or losses. But I’m not Roman, I’m an Isaurian. My people have always been fiercely independent, and were never really conquered by Rome. Oh, to keep them off our backs we made a show of accepting Roman rule. In return, they’ve had the sense to leave us pretty well alone so long as we don’t cause too much trouble. Also, we provide some of the best fighting men for their legions. But back to your question. Isaurians are ruled by their hearts not their heads — the opposite of Romans. Let’s just say I’ve taken a liking to my fellow Isaurian Timothy here. As I’ve taken a liking to yourself; there aren’t many would have held their ground in face of a charge by Excubitors. I admire that. A pity, I thought, should either of you come to grief because of poor protection.’

‘And the real reason?’

Zeno stared at Theoderic, then let out a delighted whoop. ‘By the bones of St Euphemia, there’s more to you than I was led to think.’ Shaking his head, he shot Timothy a rueful glance. ‘All right, I’ll come clean. Nothing personal, young Theoderic, but I’m no great lover of your people. Ever since they wiped out our army at Adrianople nearly a century ago, they’ve been a thorn in the empire’s flesh. Most, thank goodness, have now moved on — the Visigoths to a new homeland in Gaul, the Ostrogoths to theirs in Pannonia. But here in Thrace, too close to the capital for comfort, a large contingent of Goths have been permitted to settle, officially as federates. Their leader’s your namesake: one Theoderic Strabo, known as “the Squinter”, a formidable young man who’s got the emperor’s ear, thanks to General Aspar — my rival for the top army job. He admires the Goths, by the way, and to my way of thinking has allowed far too many Goths into the army. Complicated?’

Theoderic and Timothy looked at each other. ‘Just a bit,’ admitted Timothy.

‘Bear with me. The Squinter’s federates are getting restive; seems they’re afraid that me and my Isaurians might displace them in the emperor’s favour. To keep them in check I need a counterbalance — a group powerful enough to take them on should they become a danger to the Eastern Empire. Unless your uncle Vidimir blocks the succession, which is unlikely, you, Theoderic, are set to take over from your father eventually as king of the Ostrogoths. Given that you’re willing, you could provide that balance of power — the Amal Goths holding the scales against the Thracian Goths. As a Friend of Rome, you’d have a lot to gain: the backing of both empires, generous subsidies, the security of a guaranteed homeland. What do you say?’

Theoderic’s head whirled. Things were moving almost too fast for his mind to grapple with. At seventeen, a retiring student with no experience of ordering the lives of others, he was being invited to enter the heady world of power politics, to hold the balance between, on the one hand, the huge might of the Roman Empire — or at least of its Eastern half — and, on the other, the immense and dangerous energies of volatile barbarian nations. A challenge at which the most experienced of statesmen might surely balk. Hopefully, though, his father would reign for many more years yet, years in which his son would learn from him the arts of statecraft and the management of men. And being a Friend of Rome, well, that at least represented a form of acceptance by that glittering world of power and beauty which he admired and loved, but, as a barbarian, could never fully enter.

‘What is there to say?’ rejoined Theoderic. ‘When the time comes for me to rule the Ostrogoths, I’ll gladly take up your offer.’

‘Splendid,’ pronounced Zeno, making his horse perform a cara-cole. ‘If we had wine, I’d drink a toast to that. I’ll leave you now, in the care of my Excubitors. That’s their captain, Thalassios.’ He indicated a villainous-looking individual with a leering, scarred face. ‘He’ll see you safe and sound to Pannonia. You’ve nothing to worry about till after the Succi — that’s the pass between Dacia and Thrace. Thrace being the Squinter’s fief, and the Squinter being Aspar’s ally, no one’s going to bother you this side of the diocesan border. Well, good fortune, and may the gods-sorry, God, be with you.’ And with a wave and a grin, Zeno wheeled his mount and galloped back towards the capital.

A tense hush spread throughout the mass of Goths packing the cloister’s pillared walkways. Facing each other across the grass-covered central enclosure, stripped to the waist, were the rival champions: the Goths’ a flaxen-haired giant armed with a great two-handed sword; Timothy, the choice of the Isaurians, with a slender knife. (Thalassios had reluctantly given way to Timothy, who had persuaded the rest of Theoderic’s party that his background of no-holds-barred street fighting gave him the edge.) On the face of it the pair were unevenly matched. The Goth’s huge stature, powerful physique and formidable weapon appeared to give him a distinct advantage over the short, stocky Isaurian with his puny blade.

The umpire stepped into the middle of the arena. ‘No gouging, no backstabbing,’ he announced, ‘the contestants to fight until one is killed or surrenders, in which event his life is forfeit.’ He glanced at Strabo, who was seated on a specially erected dais. The king nodded, whereupon the umpire called, ‘Begin,’ and exited the courtyard.

His sword a whirling silver blur, the Goth charged at Timothy, who waited till the man was nearly on him then skipped nimbly aside, just avoiding a ferocious cut which, had it landed, must have split him from neck to navel. Forged by master-swordsmiths and edged with razor-sharp steel, such blades were lethal. Time and again the Goth repeated the manoeuvre, on each occasion Timothy’s deft footwork proving his salvation.

‘I see what Timothy’s game is,’ Thalassios murmured to Theoderic’s party, huddled in a tense knot apart from the Goths. ‘He’s letting the big chap wear himself out, then he’ll go in for the kill.’

‘Risky,’ demurred another Excubitor. ‘If he spins things out too long, chances are the Goth’ll score a hit. Just one would finish Timothy.’

Which is what almost happened. With his opponent’s next rush, Timothy fractionally mistimed his avoiding action and the sword-tip flickered down his rib-cage. A scarlet thread tracked the point’s passage, widening instantly to a ribbon pouring blood. Timothy staggered, flung himself clear as a second blow parted the air inches from his head.

A collective sigh, like wind in a cornfield, rippled round the audience, followed by a gasp of horror from the Isaurians as Timothy appeared to slip on grass made treacherous by dripping blood, to measure his length on the ground. With a roar of triumph his adversary swung the great sword above his head.

Suddenly, in a sequence almost too rapid for the eye to follow, Timothy doubled forward from the hips, tucked his legs beneath him, then sprang upright with the speed of a striking adder. His knife, a wicked-edged Anatolian sica, insignificant to look at but deadly in close-quarter fighting, flashed across the other’s throat. The Goth, sword still raised aloft, blood jetting from a severed artery, swayed, then, with a look of surprise, collapsed, shuddered, and lay still.

The ensuing silence, born of shocked amazement, seemed to stretch out interminably, then was broken by a storm of cheering. Rough and violent they might be, but the Goths admired two virtues above all others, even when displayed by an enemy: martial skill, and valour.

Five days after crossing the boundary between the empires into Pannonia (nominally a province of the West, but long abandoned by a weakening Rome first to the Huns then, following their collapse and dispersal after the death of Attila, to the Ostrogoths), Theoderic and Timothy, having parted with their escort at the border, approached Thiudimer’s ‘capital’. This was a straggling baurg, or townlet of thatched huts, in a forest clearing north of that great inland sea the Lake of Balaton.

Thanks to the presence of Thalassios’ Excubitors, the remainder of the journey, from the Succi on, had been comparatively uneventful. Isaurians had a formidable reputation far beyond their homeland, and the sight of a well-armed band of these ferocious hillmen was sufficient to deter all but the most foolhardy of marauders. Only once did they encounter any trouble, when a party of mounted warriors sallied forth from Singidunum* and attacked them. This imperial city had recently been taken by one Babai, a Sarmatian petty warlord who fancied himself a second Alaric or Attila. Stripped of most of its garrison to replenish the distant field army, the place had fallen to a surprise attack in which luck had played a greater part than skill. Those assailing Theoderic’s group had paid dearly for their temerity, being swiftly put to rout, leaving several of their number dead on the ground.

Word of the party’s coming had preceded them; Theoderic and Timothy were still some distance from the baurg when a richly attired figure on horseback, accompanied by two retainers, appeared round a bend in the path. Theoderic’s heart swelled; apart from greying hair and beard, Thiudimer was just as he had been all those years ago: tall, broad-shouldered, with a strong yet kindly face.

Father and son embraced with exclamations of joy. ‘What a fine young fellow you’ve grown to be,’ declared Thiudimer, pretending to remove a mote from a watery eye. ‘Those Romans have looked after you well, then?’

‘Very well indeed, father,’ enthused Theoderic. ‘I can speak Latin as well as Greek, have read the works of all their famous authors, studied their philosophy and law. You should see their buildings; why, a score of our villages could fit inside their Hippodrome-’ He broke off, seeing a frown crease the other’s forehead. ‘Still, it’s good to be back home,’ he finished lamely, embarrassed by his tactlessness.

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Thiudimer glanced at Timothy. ‘And who’s this lowborn-looking fellow? A skalk — a slave — perhaps?’

‘This is Timothy, father,’ said Theoderic stoutly, ‘my bodyguard and friend. To save the lives of all my escort, he killed a man in single combat.’

‘He is welcome, then,’ said Thiudimer stiffly. ‘But why are we wasting time gossiping here like old maids?’ he went on, his face clearing. ‘A great feast is preparing, to welcome home my son. Come.’

From his hiding-place on an island at the confluence of the Sava and the Danube, Theoderic surveyed the walls of Singidunum, and felt his heart sink. Massive, striped with reinforcing layers, bristling with towers, they were typical of the thickened shells that Roman cities everywhere had grown in the age of insecurity ushered in by the battle of Adrianople. Towering above them rose the citadel, a mighty complex of bastions and ramparts. In vain he scanned the visible defences for weak points — cracks or bulges, crumbling mortar between blocks of ashlar; the place looked utterly impregnable. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, after all. His mind flashed back to when the plan had been conceived. .

To Gaius Lampridius, esteemed author, and adviser to the most noble Euric king of the Visigoths, greetings.

My dear old friend, tempora mutantur, as they say. When last I wrote to you, from Arverna,* I was organizing that city’s resistance against its annual summer siege by the Visigoths, while still nurturing the hope that Anthemius, our late Augustus, could bring Gaul, or Septem Provinciae† at least, back within the Imperium Romanum of the West. (Our new Augustus, little Romulus, is of course only a front for his father, General Orestes, one-time envoy of Attila. It’s too early yet to know what Orestes’ plans are; but we live in hope. God willing, he might even prove a second Aetius and restore the fortunes of the West.)

Since then, as all the world now knows, Arverna has fallen. Considering I’ve long been a thorn in the flesh of our new masters, I got off pretty lightly. I was carted off to exile here in Burdigala,‡ where the worst I have to endure is the drunken screeching of two old Gothic crones, next door in the draughty tenement where I presently reside. No matter how hard I try, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to barbarians: their smell, disgusting manners, outlandish appearance — furs and trousers, long hair smeared with rancid butter. . How do you, living in their midst at Euric’s court, manage to put up with them?

Now, you’ll remember, I’m sure, that some time ago I lent you my treasured copy of Mosella by Ausonius? No thought then, of course, of any quid pro quo; but perhaps that time has come. The enclosed is a little poem I’ve written in praise of Euric. I’ve laid it on a bit thick but, being a barbarian, he’s sure to lap it up. I’d be for ever in your debt if you could show it to him, with a view to his revoking my exile. I’ve heard that (for a Goth) he’s quite a reasonable fellow, so perhaps he might be willing to let bygones be bygones. If you think it would help, you could say that I’d be willing to put whatever literary talent I possess at his service — perhaps as a species of court poet? (Panegyrics to order!) There must be worse fates. I trust this finds you in good health and spirits. I know you’ll do your best for your old friend and fellow-scribbler, Sidonius Apollinaris. Vale.

Written at the Insula Marcella, Burdigala, III Nones Decembris, in the year of the second consulship of Zeno* (no Western candidate this year!)

To Sidonius Apollinaris, poet, former bishop of Arverna, greetings.

Good news, old friend. As requested, I showed your poem to Euric; I think he was more amused than flattered by your (shameless) attempt to butter him up. But he’s not the sort to bear grudges, and I think he’s rather taken with the idea of having a famous Roman poet in his entourage — along with jesters, cooks and grooms! Anyway, the outcome is that you’re forgiven, your exile is revoked, and your estates in Arvernum (which could easily have been forfeit) returned to you. So you see, ‘barbarians’, as you call them, are not perhaps as dreadful as you seem to think. At least they’re capable of generosity and fairness, which is more than can be said of many Romans.

A friendly word of caution. The world has changed and we’d be wise to accept the new realities. Whether we like them or not, the Goths are here to stay. Whatever adverse views you have of them, I must urge you to keep them to yourself. On the whole, they’re open, friendly types, but they have quick tempers and don’t easily forgive a slight. I’d hate to hear of the distinguished author of The Panegyric of Avitus coming to an untimely end because he’d offended ‘a smelly, trousered savage, with rancid butter in his hair’. They’re the masters now, and must be shown respect, if only for reasons of self-preservation.

Which brings me to another point. You seem to cherish hopes of some sort of recovery for the West. Well, let me disillusion you; it’s not going to happen. Even so recently as seven years ago, I might have conceded that you had a point. But the failure of the East-West expedition to recover Africa from Gaiseric has put paid to any chance of a Western revival. Now no Eastern army’s going to intervene to save the West. And the Army of Italy, composed of federates, is hardly likely to take up arms against the Franks, Visigoths and Alamanni — all fellow Germans, who are taking over Gaul and Spain. Anyway, what would be the point? Romulus is emperor of. . what, exactly? Italy, and a small enclave of south-east Gaul! The old Rome that we both knew and loved is passing and will soon be gone. The future lies with the German kingdoms that are taking its place. How will they fare? Maybe only the Sybils would have known the answer. But they, like Rome, belong to yesterday. With hopes that we may meet soon, perhaps at Euric’s court, your friend Gaius Lampridius bids you farewell.

Written at the Praetorium of Tolosa,* postridie Natalis

P

, in the eleventh regnal year of Euric, king of the Visigoths.†

* Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne.

† The southern of Gaul’s two dioceses.

‡ Bordeaux (in Aquitaine, the homeland granted to the Visigoths in 418).

* 4 December 475.

* Toulouse.

† 26 December 475. (‘

P

’ is a contraction, using modified Greek letters, for ‘Christi’. ‘X’, as a symbol for ‘Christ’, lingers on in ‘Xmas’.)

Striding over the flower-spangled meadows of the Oenus* valley, Severinus wondered if the detachment — from the last Roman garrison that Castra Batava was ever likely to see — had made it back from Italy. He had warned them not to go.

‘Saxons, Sire — a mighty host,’ gasped the scout, reining in his lathered mount before Ambrosius. ‘As thick as blowflies on a week-old corpse.’

‘Numbers? Distance?’

‘My guess is ten thousand at the least, Sire. Now about five miles off, I’d say.’

More than thrice our strength, thought the other grimly. Ambrosius Aurelianus: Dux Britanniae et Saxum Britannorum — Duke of Britain and ‘the Rock of the British’ — son of a Roman senator and leader of the British resistance against the blue-eyed heathens from across the German Ocean. Within two hours, his rag-tag army, the Exercitus Britanniae, could be locked in battle with the Saxon host. Less than three generations ago, he reflected, when Britannia was still a diocese of Rome, the ‘Sea Wolves’ had come as raiders only. Now, with the legions long gone and the forts of the Saxon Shore abandoned and crumbling, they arrived each year in ever greater numbers, driving the Britons from the land to seize it as their own. Already, the great province of Maxima Caesariensis* had fallen to the North and South Folk and the East and South Saxons, the native Britons fleeing to the west or across the sea to ‘New Britannia’ in north-west Gaul.

Turning in the saddle, Ambrosius surveyed his force: civilian volunteers stiffened by limitanei — second-rate frontier troops, all that remained of the Army of Britain after Constantine, self-styled ‘the Third’, had taken the legions with him to Gaul in a doomed bid for the purple. Desperate appeals for help against the Saxon menace had been sent to Aetius, the greatest general of the Western Empire — appeals perforce ignored by a Master of Soldiers struggling to save the West from extinction by barbarian insurgents. Now, any hope of help from Rome had long vanished; Aetius was dead these twenty years, slain by a jealous emperor, and the West itself was tottering towards its end. With the aid of a remarkable man, one Severinus — scholar, healer, natural leader, a member of Germanus’ second mission to counter the Pelagian heresy in Britain — he had encouraged the British to organize defence centres. These were fortified strongpoints within whose walls the local populace could gather and be safe whenever Saxon war-parties approached. It was his efforts in this field that had earned Ambrosius his nickname, ‘the Rock of the British’. For a time his scheme had proved successful, but of late the increasing frequency of attacks had begun to make such centres appear like islands in a raging Saxon sea.

Of Ambrosius’ troops, the limitanei alone had proper armour — battered ridge-helmets and mail hauberks issued by the Roman government many years before and since patched up times without number; the volunteers made do with caps and cuirasses of boiled leather. Each man carried a long spear and oval shield, the limitanei also bearing swords. The cream of the army consisted of the cavalry, positioned at either end of the three-deep line of infantry. Handpicked, sons of Romano-British aristocracy, these were natural horsemen, needing only some basic training to weld into a formidable fighting machine.

Until this year, the Saxon conquest had been a matter of slow attrition by separate war-bands. This present threat was on an altogether different scale, a mass invasion which suggested a concerted plan, perhaps masterminded by a single leader. A century before, Britain had faced a comparable danger, when a Barbarian conspiracy of Saxons, Picts and Scots, had overrun the island. But Rome then had a mighty army, and within a year Count Theodosius, father of one of Rome’s greatest emperors, had cleared the land of the invaders. Now that army was gone, replaced by federates as fickle and greedy as they were ill-disciplined and violent, ready on a whim to turn upon their masters.

To meet this new and terrible Saxon threat, Ambrosius had hastily assembled a scratch militia, organizing instruction in elementary drill and tactics by officers drawn from the all-but-vanished landowning and administrative class. On first news of the route of the enemy’s advance, using the terrain to maximum advantage he had drawn up the Romano-Britons on the crest of a low ridge flanked by woods, to negate as far as possible any Saxon superiority in numbers. Far away across the plain, the trilithons of the ancient Hanging Stones appeared as a faint tracery of concentric rings.

Entering the foothills of the Haemus range,* Theoderic looked back at the long, long column snaking behind him almost to the gates of Novae, his base in Moesia Secunda.† First came the host, fit men aged sixteen to sixty, mostly on foot and armed with spears; then the train of baggage — mules and ox-drawn wagons accompanied by women, children and the elderly, with nursing mothers, the sick and the feeble carried in the vehicles. To his left and right, now invisible because of intervening spurs, marched two similar columns, one under Soas, his trusted second-in-command, the other led by Thiudimund, to whose care he had entrusted both their mothers. (Reasoning that the circumstances hardly gave scope for Thiudimund to effect any mischief, also unwilling, for the sake of appearances, to advertise any family disharmony, Theoderic had decided, albeit reluctantly, to give his brother the charge.) Barring those Goths who had migrated with Vidimir, brother of Thiudimer, to Italy (and ultimately Aquitaine to join their Visigoth cousins), the three columns together comprised the entire Amal nation. Fixing his gaze on the formidable mountain chain looming above them, Theoderic reflected on the highs and lows of his career these last ten years: from his homecoming in Pannonia, to this new beginning, which a wonderful offer by the Romans had made possible.

Approaching the coast of south-east Macedonia, Timothy rode through an enchanted landscape: meadows thick with poppies, interspersed with noble stands of beech and oak, their silence broken only by the chatter of squirrels and the call of grouse, while inland rose pine-clad mountains streaked by waterfalls. Occasionally, a deer or boar would dash across the path ahead, and, once, he glimpsed high above him an imperial eagle, moving through the air with majestic flaps of its great wings. There had been a magic moment during his journey from Epirus, when his attention had been caught by a strange-shaped white cloud far to the south; on its remaining immobile, he had realized that in fact it was the snow-capped peak of Mount Olympus.

Skirting the battlefield of Philippi where, five centuries before, Antony and Octavian had smashed the legions of Brutus and Cassius, Caesar’s murderers, he headed south and in a few miles picked up the Via Egnatia, the mighty Roman highway linking Constantinople to Epidamnus on the Adriatic. Turning to his left, westward, he cantered along the verge of the paved road, running parallel to the Aegean, Homer’s ‘wine-dark sea’. Breezes from the offshore isle of Thasos carried a tang of cypresses and olive trees — the very smell of Greece.

Several paces behind his mount, connected to Timothy’s hand by a lead-rope, ran a beautiful dapple-grey horse, his muscles rippling like silk beneath the glossy coat. This was no ordinary steed. An enormous stallion, a cross between a Hun great horse and a chunky Parthian (the type beloved of Roman stablemasters), and a full twenty hands in height, he was the biggest horse that Timothy had ever known. He had bought him for a song from a Gothic horse-coper who had purchased him as a reject from the Roman cavalry. For, although beautiful, Sleipnir — as his Gothic owner had named him after Odin’s terrible eight-legged steed — was evil. No one had succeeded in riding him; of those who tried, a legacy of smashed limbs and broken backs bespoke their failure.

No one, that is, until Timothy. For Timothy, the breaking of horses had, from an early age, been a passion, an obsession almost. The method favoured by most Roman riding-masters — bending an animal to one’s will by harsh treatment — he despised. By a system based on rewarding and praising co-operation, balanced by withholding attention in response to bad manners or aggression, he had never, thus far, failed with any horse. Sleipnir had proved his severest test; but a challenge was something Timothy relished, and with patience and consistency he had eventually won the creature over. But woe betide anyone else foolhardy enough to try to mount him.

As he neared his destination, Lauriacum, Theoderic’s pleasurable anticipation at the throught of meeting the famous holy man of Noricum, Severinus, was tempered by a deep sadness. Everywhere throughout the former West Roman province, ruined farmsteads and the fire-blackened remains of villages made a stark and ugly contrast to the beautiful landscape of mountains, lakes and Alpine meadows. The devastation had been wrought only in recent years by bands of Alamanni, Heruls and, sadly, the northern Ostrogoths under his brother Valamir, now dead. (The Sciri had ceased their raids, banned by Odovacar of the royal house of that tribe and now king of Italy. For all that he was a barbarian ruler, Odovacar was a just and enlightened one, doing a far better job than his recent predecessors who had worn the imperial purple.)

Keen to capitalize on the power-vacuum created by the death of Strabo, and anxious (secretly) to know what the future held in store, Theoderic had decided to visit the famed sage and reputed seer to seek advice and prognostications. Forced to leave Thiudimund nominally in charge of the Amal during his absence (but with Timothy and Videric, the aged but able head of the Kuni, primed to take over at the first hint of disloyalty), Theoderic had travelled by ship from Dyrrachium* up the Adriatic coast and out of the empire, to the port of Tergeste† (Aquileia, which would have been nearer his destination, having been destroyed by Attila thirty years earlier). He had completed the remainder of his journey via the route over the Alpes Carnicae, in the guise of a wandering monk — sure defence against the attentions of raiders or bandits, such was the universal veneration in which these anchorites were held.

At the town’s main gate, Theoderic was searched and questioned by two guards in imperial-issue helmets and mail hauberks — reminders of a Roman government now defunct. Theoderic didn’t object, accepting that in these times of insecurity, strangers, especially those of Germanic appearance, were understandably regarded with suspicion. Enquiring as to the whereabouts of Severinus, he was given directions but warned that the sage was dying, and might be too ill to receive him. Outside a mean dwelling in a back street he found a throng of people, some openly weeping, waiting their turn to see the great man.

‘No more today,’ a man in the doorway called to some visitors approaching the line. Then, spotting Theoderic’s tall form among them, he added, ‘Just one more,’ and signalled him to join the end of the queue. Two hours later, when the last of those before the king had been ushered out, the porter, a spare man with a wise and pleasant face and the tallest forehead Theoderic had ever seen, admitted him to a bare lower room, then shut and barred the door behind him. Showing Theoderic to a settle, he seated himself on a stool.

‘My master is exhausted and must rest a while, but will see you by and by, Sire,’ said the doorkeeper with a smile. ‘I could hardly send away such a distinguished visitor as the king of the Amal.’

‘But, how-’ began Theoderic, amazed.

‘-did I know who you were?’ finished the other. ‘Not magic, I assure you, Sire. Merely observation, a faculty I’ve practised and developed all my life. Despite your monkish garb, your bearing, fair colouring, and blue eyes bespeak a German warrior of high rank. Among that race and class, how many have attained such a great height as yourself? You see, already the field has narrowed to a few. Your habit is worn, and ragged at the hem, besides bearing traces of salt, suggesting you have made a long journey by land and sea. Which fits the circumstances: all the world has heard that the squinting king is dead, and now waits to see what his great rival, Theoderic, will do. What more likely than that the king of the Amal should seek counsel from the sage of Noricum — as did Odovacar, on his way to Italy? The clues all point to just the one conclusion, Sire.’

‘Well, when you put it like that, it seems obvious enough,’ said Theoderic. He shook his head and laughed. ‘Still, I’m impressed. Not many would have spotted those tell-tale signs, let alone deduced anything from them.’ He went on gently, ‘I’m sorry to hear that your master is sick.’

‘His days draw peacefully to a close.’ The man paused and blinked back tears. ‘Excuse me, Sire. We should celebrate rather than grieve; he has had a long and wonderful life, full of service and achievement, and is assured of a heavenly reward. But where are my manners? You must be tired and hungry; let me offer you some repast — only poor fare, I’m afraid.’

While Theoderic gratefully partook of a bowl of thin soup, with bread and a wrinkled apple from a store-cellar, the other told him a little about himself. Named Myrddin, from Cambria in Britain, he had become, while scarcely more than a boy, an eager acolyte of Severinus when the latter visited the island as part of Germanus’ second mission, during the wretched reign of Valentinian III. When the sage stayed on to help Aurelian organize the Britons’ fight-back against the Saxons, Myrddin had become part of his team. He had returned with Severinus to the empire, eventually settling with him in Noricum as the old man’s factotum, as well as friend.

A monk appeared on the stairs leading to the upper part of the house, and said, ‘If there are any more visitors, the master will see them now.’

‘Thank you, Eugippius.’ Myrddin turned to Theoderic. ‘Severinus’ mind and memory are as sharp as ever, and you’ll find him willing to listen, and discuss any topic you wish to raise. But bear in mind he’s very weak, and will unselfishly overtax his strength if allowed to.’

‘It will be ave atque vale with but two questions in between. You have my word.’

From the battlements surmounting St Barbara’s Gate, Julian watched the flotilla creeping across the Bosphorus from Chrysopolis on the Asiatic shore. Licking his lips nervously, he glanced at the array of brazen tubes poking between the crenellations. ‘These things had better work,’ he snapped at Menander, the engineer in charge of a revolutionary new weapons system intended to counter Theoderic’s assault on Constantinople.

‘Don’t worry, General,’ replied the other calmly. ‘They performed perfectly during the trials yesterday. Those chaps have a nasty surprise coming to them.’ And he nodded towards the fleet of impounded vessels crammed with Ostrogoths, the van of which was already grounding on the narrow strip of shore below the city’s sea-walls.

Should Menander’s contraptions prove ineffective, he, Julian, would be in serious trouble. Sourly, the general reflected on the events leading up to this crisis — events for which he was being made to shoulder the blame. It all went back to the confrontation between Strabo and Theoderic at the Shipka Pass. Julian had engineered the clash, but unfortunately it had backfired badly. The empire had paid dearly for his miscalculation. Full of fury and resentment, his trust in the word of Romans shattered, Theoderic had gone on the rampage, sacking Stobi and slaughtering its defenders, then embarking on a campaign of devastation and pillage throughout Thrace. The death of Strabo and the consequent unification of all the Ostrogoths under Theoderic made the latter a doubly dangerous foe. However, Zeno’s attempts to mollify Theoderic — heaping him with gold and honours, making him a ‘Friend of the Emperor’, consul and Magister Militum praesentalis, the top post in the army — had been largely successful. (Julian, a career soldier who had come a long way from his first appointment as a lowly decurion of horse, had been especially resentful of this last preferment. He had expected to be appointed to the post himself, but had been fobbed off with the lesser assignment of Magister Militum per Thracias.) And then, just when it seemed that fences had been mended with Theoderic, this wretched business of Illus had blown up.

In his dream, Theoderic saw the ancestors of his people, the Gothones, in countless galleys crossing the Mare Suevicum* from Scandia — a cold land of fiords, forests and tall mountains — to Germania. There, under a great leader, Filimer, they began the long, long journey that ended only when they reached the northern shores of the Pontus Euxinus.† In two great clans, the Balthi, and the Amali of divine descent, they travelled with their herds and wagons, between the valleys of the Viadrus and the Vistula, across a mighty watershed, and so to the great southward-draining rivers, the Pyretus, the Tyras, the Borysthenes and the Tanais,‡ that led them to the Euxine.

That had been a time of gods and heroes, long ages before their kinsman, the missionary Ulfilas, persuaded the Gothones to adopt the faith of gentle Christos, a ‘king’ who sacrificed himself not only for his people (who rejected him), but for all mankind. Folk then believed in Odin the mighty, in Balder the good and gentle, and in evil Loki who brought about the death of Balder, and so hastened the coming of Ragnarok, the dreadful day when gods and evil beings shall destroy each other, and when Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life and Fate, shall be consumed by fire along with Earth itself. In those far-off days, a hero was the only man who mattered, brave deeds alone worthy of recounting, and a king’s self-sacrifice for his people the noblest act a leader could perform. And then. .

And then had come the Huns, thought Theoderic, awaking. Like a storm of angry locusts, the Hunnensturm had burst upon them from the east. True nomads, unlike the farming Goths, the Scythian* horse-archers — squat, powerfully built men with yellow skins and flat Oriental faces — had conquered or driven out all who stood in their path. The Balthi, who later became the Visigoths, had sought refuge within the Roman Empire; the Amal had stayed, becoming subjects of the Asiatic horde. In a heroic gesture, redolent of the ancient tradition of kingly sacrifice, Ermanaric, the Amal king, had taken his own life, hoping thus to placate the old gods, who might then help his people prevail against their oppressors. If so, the hope was vain, and the Amal — as the nation of the Ostrogoths — were destined to become the ally of Attila in his campaign against West Rome. Following the Hun king’s death (which occurred the year before his own birth, Theoderic recalled) and the disintegration of his empire, the Amal had remained for a time in Pannonia, the territory allotted to them by their Hun masters. And the rest, thought the Amal king, is history — my own and theirs, interwined.

‘You expect to get to Italy in that?’ screamed the merchant, administering a savage kick to the side of the wagon. His single eye glittering with simulated rage, the diminutive Greek advanced towards the vehicle’s owner, a huge, tow-headed Goth, who backed away in alarm. ‘Well, I, Callisthenes of Olbia, whose wagons have forded the Borysthenes and traversed the Altai Shan,* say that you’ll be lucky if this apology for a donkey cart gets as far as the Alps, which it stands as much chance of crossing as an icicle in Hades. Those spokes — they’re oak, hard but dense — like your head, my friend. They should be of ash, tough yet springy, yielding instead of cracking when the going’s rocky.’

Enjoying the performance from the sidelines were Theoderic and Timothy. ‘The man’s a treasure,’ chuckled the king. ‘Remind me how you found him.’

‘He’s from Olbia, an old Greek colony and trading-centre on the opposite side of the Euxine from Anatolia — my home turf, you’ll remember. Everyone in Anatolia — a Greek sphere of influence since long before Alexander — knows of Callisthenes the famous trader. He claims in his youth to have guided Attila to the shores of Dalai Nor,† to confer with the seer Wu Tze.’

On meeting the tiny Greek, who was one-eyed, aged and voluble — especially concerning his own alleged exploits — Theoderic had not at first been impressed, being inclined to dismiss him as a bombastic blowhard. However, within an hour of Callisthenes’ arrival at Novae, the king changed his mind. Without waiting for explanations or introductions, the little merchant had begun buzzing round the camp like an angry gadfly, examining wagons and draught oxen, poking into stores, quizzing Goths in their own tongue. . After completing an exhaustive inspection of the site, he had delivered his verdict.

‘Half your transport isn’t fit for purpose, King,’ he snapped (eschewing the usual respectful ‘Sire’). ‘Many of your oxen are in poor condition or require their hooves treated; gear’s often defective or lacking; a lot of grain and foodstuffs badly stored — which means it’ll spoil. I could go on. All in all your expedition’s anything but ready.’

‘But half our lives, we Goths have been on the move.’ Theoderic protested mildly. ‘So far we’ve managed to cope, without-’

‘Oh, yes — inside the Eastern Empire!’ cut in the little Greek, with a dismissive snort. ‘Good roads, tamed countryside. What happens when you reach what used to be the empire’s Western half? Roads in disrepair, tillage and pasture reverting to wasteland, above all the crossing of the eastern Alps to face. A journey of a thousand miles, part of it over some of the hardest terrain in the whole of Europe. I tell you this, King: if your transport and provisioning are defective, you may not make it.’

‘What must I do?’

‘Nothing. Put me in charge, and be willing to see that my instructions are carried out — to the letter, mind.’

‘To the letter.’ With difficulty, Theoderic suppressed a smile.

Like a miniature tornado, Callisthenes swept through the encampments in Moesia Secunda and Dacia Ripensis, the two provinces assigned to the Ostrogoths: observing, questioning, assessing, taking notes. His lightning tour completed, he returned to Novae, armed with a lengthy list of Things to Be Done. First, transport. To be ‘fit for purpose’ (the merchant’s favourite expression), each wagon must be eighteen feet long by four wide, the body constructed of hard-wearing timber such as oak or hornbeam. The wheels (two pairs, bound with iron tyres fitted when white-hot so as to shrink and grip securely, the front ones with pivoted axle for steering) must be of tough, flexible wood such as ash or some species of walnut; connected to the front axle, the drag pole must be sturdy and long enough to inspan twelve draught oxen by a system of yokes, yoke-pins, and rawhide ropes. Attached to the body by iron staples, there would be green-wood boughs to support a canvas tent against hot sun or foul weather. At the front there should be a large chest stretching the width of the wagon, providing seating for the driver and storage space for personal belongings, also iron hooks inside and underneath the body to support pots and pans, tools and other heavy gear. Stores must include sacks of flour and grain (plus hand querns for milling) and bags of dried meat — sufficient to feed each family as far as the edge of the Empire; also drums of fat to grease the wheels hubs, spare ropes, yokes, yoke and linch-pins; rolls of canvas and rawhide for repairs; bars of iron; tools such as augers, spokeshaves, chisels, tongs, hammers, drawing-knives to trim hooves; spare horseshoes (for those wealthy enough to own a mount), and a hundred other items. All livestock (especially draught animals) to be rigorously examined and if necessary treated, to ensure they were strong and healthy enough to cope with the rigours of the long trek.

Regarding implementation of these specifications, Callisthenes was utterly inflexible. ‘“Intolerance” is my middle name,’ he told the king. ‘To get your people to their destination safely and securely, you can’t afford any weak links in the chain. One single broken wheel or axle could bring the expedition grinding to a halt.’ Fortunately, a seemingly inexhaustible stream of funds from the Treasury in Constantinople ensured that even the poorest Gothic household could afford to meet Callisthenes’ stringent requirements. (This heightened Theoderic’s suspicion that Zeno was only too willing to part with however much gold it took, to be rid of ‘guests’ whose presence had become unwelcome.)

Regarding weaponry, Callisthenes had nothing to say, declaring that he was a trader, not an arms dealer. Theoderic had few worries on that score. As a warrior nation, the Ostrogoths were probably equipped as well as or better than any other tribes they might encounter. The great mass of the host, some forty thousand warriors, was armed with spears; a few — leaders or the wealthy — might also possess helmets, swords, and ring-mail hauberks.

With the last of the harvest in, and all items on Callisthenes’ list of Things to Be Done ticked off, the great migration finally began on the last day of September in the year of the consuls Dynamius and Sifidius.* Headed by Theoderic’s party, then Frederick and his Rugians, the wagon train set off in sections of a hundred vehicles, there being two hundred sections altogether. In charge of each section was a wagonmaster, hand-picked by Theoderic and Timothy for reliability and leadership. Conspicuous for not being chosen to fulfil such a role was Thiudimund. (Theoderic’s suspicions of treachery on his brother’s part had been aroused too many times for the king to risk entrusting him with such a key responsibility.) Predictably, Thiudimund had protested, then, his brother remaining adamant, had raged and sulked, but in the end been forced reluctantly to accept the king’s decision.

Like a long, long snake, the column of wagons wound slowly south, covering ten to fifteen miles per day. This first part of the journey was over familiar terrain: through the Shipka Pass to the Maritsa Valley, where the train picked up the great Roman highway leading them west to Philippopolis; then north-west through the Succi Pass, scene of Theoderic’s ambush by Strabo; and after a further three hundred miles to Singidunum, where, all those years ago, he had defeated Babai. Knowing that in all likelihood he was viewing these scenes for the last time, Theoderic felt a keen nostalgia as the train rolled steadily north-westwards through the diocese of Dacia. Ablaze with the reds and golds of autumn, a succession of achingly beautiful landscapes moved slowly past: forests, majestic mountains, lakes and waterfalls. Beyond Singidunum the scenery changed abruptly, rolling hills clad in woods of oak and chestnut giving place to tillage and meadow, as the Roman road led them down into the broad valley of the Danubius.

Some fifty miles beyond Sirmium, as the wagon train, with supplies now running out, approached the River Ulca (where the empire ended), outriders, who had been scouting ahead, came galloping back.

‘We can go no further, Sire,’ gasped the leading scout. ‘The way is blocked. Gepids, Sire — they’ve barricaded the far bank of the Ulca.’

* A range of mountains in central Mongolia, to the north of China’s Great Wall.

† The ‘Holy Sea’ of the Mongols, Lake Baikal.

* 488.

Spotting Theoderic, who had ridden out to scout their position, the Gepids broke into a chorus of derisive catcalls. Contrary to Frederick’s optimistic prediction, it was obvious that the Gepids were not putting on a show of bravado, but were determined to deny passage to the Ostrogoths. The king’s heart sank. The Gepids were entrenched in force behind a system of barricades surmounting the steep western bank of the Ulca, below which the river flowed sluggishly, more marsh than stream, its course delineated by a series of pools and reed-beds — the worst possible approach from which to mount an assault. Half concealed as they were behind their defences, it was hard to estimate the Gepids’ strength, but Theoderic thought they must number many thousands of hostile warriors. It was going to be extremely difficult to dislodge them from such a strong position. But unless they were removed the consequences for the Ostrogoths would be serious. With food supplies virtually exhausted, any delay would spell starvation.

What on earth had caused the Gepids to get fired up? Theoderic wondered, as he cantered back to the encampment through pasture overlooked by vineyards. To put on such a show of force, they must consider the Ostrogoths a threat — which made no sense at all. By now, all the world must know that the Ostrogoths’ objective was Italy and not Pannonia; armed confrontation must inevitably result in a bloody battle with enormous casualties. Why would the Gepids risk that, when all they had to do was wait until the Ostrogoths had passed beyond their territory?

*

At the time when Theoderic was laying siege to Constantinople, Myrddin, true to his resolve to join Artorius, was nearing the city of Augusta Suessionum* in north-east Gaul, en route to Britannia. Armed with both safe-conduct and letter of introduction from Odovacar (who, cherishing warm memories of his meeting with Severinus, was pleased to help his acolyte), Myrddin had travelled from Noricum through northern Italy to the adjoining kingdom of the Visigoths. Although their powerful king, Euric, had died three years previously, to be succeeded by his infant son Alaric, the friendly relations established by Odovacar during Euric’s reign still obtained. Accordingly, Myrddin was able to travel in perfect security up the valley of the Rhodanus,† then west and north through Arvernum to the Liger,‡ which river formed the boundary between the Visigothic realm and that of the Salian Franks — that is, Gaul to the north of the Liger.

Within this recent and somewhat tenuous kingdom existed a surviving island of romanitas, the area corresponding to the former province of Belgica Secunda. This territory was ruled by one Syagrius, a Roman landowner who had revived the province’s name, and whose subjects — both Roman and Frankish — had accorded him the astonishing and incongruous title of ‘Rex Romanorum’. It was the capital city of this ‘king’ that Myrddin was approaching. The guards at the main gate, wearing imperial-issue armour, after scrutinizing his documents waved him through, with directions to the praetorium.§ Myrddin proceeded through well-maintained streets to an imposing public building where, after waiting his turn in a queue, he was ushered into a pillared council chamber. Swathed in an archaic toga, the affable-looking man reclining on a couch waved Myrddin to a chair.

‘Britain — bad choice,’ declared Syagrius after scanning Myrddin’s papers. ‘Place is crawling with those ghastly Saxons. Unlike Gaul, it’ll never be reoccupied by Rome.’ He smiled, charmingly. ‘I see Odovacar describes you as a healer. In that case, why not stay on here? Medics are always welcome — especially as it looks as though I’ll have to use force to see off this young puppy Clovis. Calls himself king of the Franks, after taking over — at the age of fifteen! — from his father Childeric, who died six years ago. Childeric knew his place — never aspired to anything more than client-king status, even after the Imperium Romanum in the West came to an end eleven years ago. A temporary end,’ he added, rising and beginning to pace the mosaic flooring energetically.

‘Temporary? Surely not, Highness.’

‘“O ye of little faith”!’ exclaimed the other. Whirling round, he pointed an admonitory finger at Myrddin. ‘Look how long Sidonius held out in Arverna — and that was against the mighty Euric. Now that Euric’s gone, who’s to say it won’t fall into Roman hands again? Look at my own fiefdom, Belgica Secunda; no reason why other Roman magnates shouldn’t follow my example.’ Syagrius resumed his pacing. ‘Zeno’s just waiting till the time is ripe, to replace Odovacar with a Western emperor. That should have been Julius Nepos, of course — still the legitimate, if exiled emperor when he was assassinated seven years ago, after Odovacar had taken over. Plenty of candidates waiting in the wings.’ He paused in his perambulations, then went on in musing tones, ‘Should the offer come my way, I wouldn’t be averse myself to donning the purple.’ He turned his head sideways to Myrddin’s gaze. ‘My profile — suitable for a new imperial coinage, do you think?

Murmuring polite platitudes, Myrddin acknowledged to himself that the other’s profile — eagle nose, lofty forehead, determined chin — did indeed add up to everyone’s ideal image of a Roman emperor. What drove the man? Syagrius, son of Aegidius, a general of the great Aetius who had defeated Attila at the Catalaunian Fields, was living in a fantasy world, he decided. All this talk of ‘reoccupation by Rome’, ‘client kings’, ‘Belgica Secunda’, ‘donning the purple’, ‘new imperial coinage’, suggested that the man was acting out a dream in which the barbarians were a temporary nuisance who, in the course of time, would surely be removed. Everyone — except Syagrius, it seemed — knew that the Western Empire was finished,* a fact tacitly acknowledged by the Eastern Emperor, Zeno, by not contesting Odovacar’s usurpation. (Although Odovacar had seemed to hedge his bets at first, by having Julius Nepos’ head stamped on his coinage.) Even Sidonius, who had heroically defended Arverna against the Visigoths, had accepted that the game was up, and was now living amicably among the barbarians he had once despised.

Scudding through a choppy Fretum Gallicum,* the little ship, with a stiff sou-wester blowing on the quarter, approached the landing-stage of Anderida† the last of the forts of the Saxon Shore to remain in British hands, thus providing the only safe entry to Britannia along her southern shore. Beyond the pebble beach loomed the fort’s mighty ramparts, studded with huge projecting bastions ribbed with bonding courses of red tile.

The fort’s main gate opened, and a stream of people, mostly anxious-looking families clutching possessions, crowded on to the jetty. ‘Poor devils,’ the skipper muttered to Myrddin, as the sailors prepared to lower the gangplank. ‘Refugees from the Saxons, hoping to re-settle in Aremorica. Best I can do is dump them in Gesoriacum; after that they’re on their own. Some of them may make it — if they can avoid being killed or enslaved by Franks en route. ’Course, they’ll have to pay me. Most do in kind, occasionally in coins, but there are precious few of those left in Britannia — mostly old nummi of Honorius, from the last issue ever sent.’ Turning from Myrddin, he roared, ‘Get back there!’ as the gangplank thumped on the pier and a swarm of desperate passengers tried to rush it — to be beaten back by burly seamen wielding belaying-pins.

Saddened by the sight, Myrddin, clad in his monk’s black robe, with satchel over shoulder and walking-staff in hand, hurried ashore and sought admission at the gate before it closed.

*

Suddenly the mist, which had plagued the Amali almost from the moment of striking winter camp ten days before, began to thin. In moments it had gone, revealing a world utterly changed from the one in which they had wintered. The Dravus, then a wide and placid river flowing gently through a fertile valley, had become a rushing torrent confined by steep slopes, where stands of pine and hazel alternated with slabs of naked limestone. Ahead, a jagged wall of mountains loomed on the horizon. ‘Das Karnthen Gebirge,’* the guide (one of several Boii,† hardy mountaineers recruited for their knowledge and experience) informed Theoderic. ‘Tomorrow we change route, head south towards the Savus.‡ All right, Herr Konig?’

Theoderic concurred, mentally reviewing the plan. They would cross from the Upper Dravus to the Savus where, at a prearranged spot, they would rendezvous with Timothy. The Isaurian had gone ahead, a) to reconnoitre a possible southern route into Italy via the Vipava valley, through the foothills of the Alpes Juliae§, and b) to discover, if possible, what Odovacar’s movements were. Depending on what Timothy reported, a decision would have to be taken as to which route to follow: the southern, longer, but almost certainly much easier; or a short cut straight across the Alpes Juliae, which was bound to prove difficult, possibly dangerous to boot.

Next morning, the wagons, heading south and a little west, began to crawl round the southern flanks of the Karnthen Gebirge, on the tenth day descending to the Savus river at its junction with the Sorus,* the rendezvous. Here, they found Timothy awaiting them.

‘The Vipava valley route’s an easy one,’ Timothy, gratefully chewing a slice of roast chamois, told Theoderic in the latter’s wagon. ‘Broad, well-used trail, no gradient steep enough to cause a problem for wagons. I followed it right through to the Italian border, which is demarcated by the River Sontius. Posing as a trader, I crossed the river at Pons Sontii† and did some snooping. Odovacar’s there, waiting for you. Clearly, he expects you to come via the Vipava, the route favoured in the past by almost all invaders. According to the gossip, he’s mustering an army “from the kings of all the nations” — whatever that means; but so far, not that many have turned up. If there is a viable route directly over the Alpes Juliae, I’d say take it. You’d then have the element of surprise, and likely catch Odovacar before he’s had time to assemble all his force.’

Theoderic spent the next few hours agonizing over which route to take. If he opted for the short cut, he might end up losing half his wagons, or getting stuck in the mountains — when his people would be faced with slow starvation. But, if he chose the longer route, he might find himself eventually facing an Odovacar to whom he had gifted time sufficient to assemble an army of such overwhelming strength as to prove invincible. He thought of holding a council of war, but rejected the idea immediately; this responsibility belonged to him alone. That night he fell into an exhausted sleep, the problem still unresolved. Before unconsciousness claimed him, he found himself hoping that perhaps in dreams a sign might manifest itself.

When he awoke he discovered that, although no sign had come, his mind was made up: the short cut it would be.

The wagons pushed westwards beside the narrowing Savus, the distant blue mass of the Alpes Juliae looming larger by the day. A week after rendezvous-ing with Timothy, they arrived at a great side valley coming in from the left, above which, in the distance, dominating the surrounding sea of snow-capped mountains, rose a vast and snaggled peak: Tridentium,* the Three-Fanged One, the highest summit of the Alpes Juliae.

Ordering the word to be passed down the line for the wagons to halt, Theoderic, accompanied by the Boiarian guides, entered the mouth of the valley to reconnoitre the route which the guides had already recommended as offering the most direct passage through the range. The prospect presented by the valley was a daunting one indeed: a vast stony trough, its upper slopes a field of scree and boulders, leading steeply up to a narrow col. This connected, on the left, the beetling cliffs of Tridentium’s north face, with, on the right, a ferocious line of sawtoothed crags ascending to a dramatic peak, Spica.

‘Es geht nicht — impossible!’ exclaimed Theoderic, aghast, immediately regretting his choice of route.

‘Not so, Herr Konig,’ demurred the guides’ leader. ‘With care, and preparation, and perhaps a little luck, it can be done. You see that stream?’ He pointed to a barely discernible rivulet bisecting the great cirque. ‘There is a track beside it, just wide enough for a wagon, which will lead us to the summit of the pass.’

At first, the going was fair — far easier than it had seemed during Theoderic’s inspection the day before. The wagons rocked and rolled along the stony trail, with grassy patches and stands of stunted beech and larch relieving the monotony of the ubiquitous bare limestone. At one point the track passed beneath a waterfall spouting from an overhanging crag — an unforgettable phenomenon. All too soon, however, such pleasant sights were displaced by a grim testing-ground of unforgiving rock. From a point where the stream mysteriously disappeared, presumably flowing underground from its source far above, the trail steepened brutally, becoming increasingly littered with boulders, which had to be laboriously manhandled out of the path of the wagons. As they gained height, slippery scree and lying snow combined to create a serious problem, denying traction to the wagon wheels with their smooth iron tyres. Drag-ropes, hauled by everyone except the very young, had to supplement the efforts of the oxen, folk and beasts labouring for breath in the thin mountain air. Others strained to push the wagons at the rear, ready at a moment’s notice to jam boulders beneath the rear wheels should they start to slip, brakes alone being insufficient to stop the heavy vehicles sliding backwards.

Halting further progress, nightfall found the leading wagons well below the summit, a long, long snake of vehicles winding back down the corrie and along the valley of the Savus. What with the effects of cold at such high altitude, and anxiety lest their vehicles start to slip on the steep upper slopes, those in the foremost wagons spent a sleepless night. But dawn brought no relief.

As the wagons began to move again, dark storm-clouds rolled up from the south, discharging volleys of hailstones as big as sling-shot, accompanied by cracks of thunder, and lightning bolts that struck the mountain all around, leaving dark smoking patches in the snow. The oxen panicked, becoming almost unmanageable, taxing the drivers’ skill to the uttermost to prevent the wagons overturning and tumbling to destruction. Then, as suddenly as it had worsened, the weather cleared; the oxen quietened, the train proceeded without further incident, and by noon the first wagons were trundling through the pass.

Riding beside his wagon as it started the descent, Theoderic felt a surge of relief and euphoria. Thank God, he told himself, that he had after all made the right decision as to the route; and thanks to Fortuna for sending him Callisthenes, without whose advice the expedition would probably not have got this far. Further lightening his spirit, the terrain on the far side of the pass was a welcome contrast to what had gone before: grassy slopes, dotted with trees and grazing chamois, dropped gently to a fast-flowing stream of the purest aquamarine blue, the Socus.

With the most critical part of the route now pioneered, an endless line of wagons rolled over the pass and down to the Socus valley. The train followed the winding river through a landscape of stunning beauty — grassy meadows studded with stands of pine, beech, and rowan, with a backdrop of dramatic snow-capped peaks, their flanks seamed by gorges, waterfalls and precipices. Parting at last from the Socus as from an old friend, an easy traverse took the column to the headwaters of the Sontius, which they followed to the river-crossing at Pons Sontii, above which the Sontius emptied its waters into the Terginus Sinus.* Beyond the far bank, all seemed strangely quiet and deserted: no ranks of tents nor smoke of cooking-fires, no stir and bustle of a mighty host.

Feeling a little like Moses who had brought his people to the Promised Land, but, unlike the patriarch, not forbidden entry thereto, Theoderic rode across the bridge — and into Italy, where surely Destiny awaited him. The freshly trampled earth and squares of bleached grass told their own story. Learning of his rival’s unexpected advance from the north, Odovacar, his army not yet fully mustered, had withdrawn, to await confrontation at some later date.

* The Carinthian Alps.

† Bavarians.

‡ The River Sava

§ The Julian Alps.

* The River Sora, near Ljubljana, in Slovenia (see Notes).

† Isonzo Bridge.

* Triglav (see Notes).

* The Gulf of Trieste.

Zeno stirred, as his mind returned to consciousness. He opened his eyes: blackness. He tried to sit up; his head banged against an unyielding surface. He extended his hands, which encountered what felt like cold stone. Where was he? With mounting alarm, he recalled his last memory: himself lying on a sick-bed surrounded by courtiers and physicians, the Patriarch of Constantinople leaning over him, intoning the last rites.

Terror engulfed the emperor as he realized the awful truth. Through some appalling misdiagnosis, perhaps while in a cataleptic state, he had been pronounced dead, then entombed — alive! Filling his lungs with stale and fetid air, he began to shout for help.

‘We who are Rome pledge our lives for her peace, our strength for her own, and our honour for her citizens.’ With the other standing senators, dignified in their archaic togas, Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus chanted the words of the oath — old, old words which had echoed here down the long centuries of the republic, then the empire, and now, even when the empire was no more, in these strange new days of the Regnum Italiae under German kings. Barbarians might reign, but without the co-operation of the Senate — that repository of power, expertise and influence — they could not rule.

Recently enough elected to the august assembly to be awed by the atmosphere of Rome’s Senate House, Aurelius, young for a senator, resumed his seat. This building was charged with the weight of history: it had witnessed speeches which had changed the course of world events. Here, in Rome’s darkest hour, the Senate had resolved to carry on the fight against Hannibal even when the flower of her manhood had perished on the field of Cannae. Here had been voted the funds enabling Rome’s legions to build an empire extending from Hispania in the west to Persia in the east, from Caledonia in the north to Aethiopia in the south. In this spot, Christianity had been confirmed as the official creed of Rome. In the days of chaos and uncertainty following the murder of the great Aetius, who had held the crumbling fabric of the West together, the Senate alone had kept the machinery of state functioning. And now, with the fate of Italy being decided by rival barbarians in far-off Ravenna, this same assembly must decide which of the two to support.

The Caput Senatus,* Flavius Rufius Postumius Festus, venerable consul from imperial times, and fresh from a mission to Constantinople to argue the legitimacy of Theoderic’s claim, rose stiffly to address the House. Banging his staff of office on the marble floor to command attention, he announced in a reedy quaver, ‘The first and principal motion to put before you, this Nones of Februarius in the year of the consuls Eusebius and Albinus, and from the Founding of the City the twelve hundred and forty-sixth,† concerns the future rule of Italy. Its substance is known to you all: whose cause shall we decide to champion, Theoderic’s or Odovacar’s? Theoderic arrived in Italy with Zeno’s backing, but Zeno’s successor, Anastasius, perhaps because he was preoccupied with insurgency in Isauria, declined to commit himself when I pressed him for his views. Gentlemen, the floor is yours.’

First to speak was Anicius Acilius Aginantius Faustus albus, consul ten years previously, and a member of the powerful family of the Anicii. He, like Festus, had recently returned from a mission to the Eastern capital, ostensibly on behalf of Odovacar. A swarthy individual despite his cognomen, he looked round the packed marble benches with an ingratiating smirk. ‘The choice is obvious,’ he drawled, with the easy confidence bestowed by generations of wealth and privilege. ‘We back the winner.’

‘Do, pray, enlighten us,’ sneered an elderly senator. ‘Clearly you must have contact with the Sibyl — unlike the rest of us benighted souls.’

‘Do I really have to spell it out?’ sighed Faustus, raising his hands in a calculated gesture of exasperation. ‘It’s Theoderic, of course. Anyone with a smidgen of perception can see that. You’ve only to look at the man’s record. Through a mixture of persistence, leadership and sheer guts, he’s managed to unite all the Goths in the Eastern Empire, transforming them from a collection of squabbling marauders to the most powerful nation in Europe. As the hereditary monarch of an ancient royal house — one, moreover, with the backing of the late Eastern Emperor — Theoderic has the sort of influence and personality that attend success. What does Odovacar amount to? An adventurer from a minor tribe whose rise owes more to luck them ability, elected king by a rabble of rebellious soldiery, whose allegiance is precarious at best. His rule was never recognized officially by Zeno, just not contested, as being the least bad option. Then there’s the question of age. Odovacar’s a worn-out old man in his sixties; not yet forty, Theoderic’s in his prime. If you’ve any sense, like me you’ll vote for Theoderic.’

A ground-swell of approving murmurs — loudest from the Anicii and another leading family, the Decii (normally their rivals, but in this instance allies) — arose from all across the benches, drawing angry protests from those supporting Odovacar.

A tall senator with patrician features rose to his feet and pointed an accusing finger at the Anician. This was Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, Roman patriot, one-time consul and City Prefect, from the most illustrious family of Rome, whose great-grandfather had in this very Senate House led the campaign against the removal of the (pagan) Altar of Victory by Bishop Ambrose of Milan and his Christian zealots. That fight might have been lost, but the honour of the family had gained immeasurably, the name of Symmachus coming to stand for freedom of speech and thought, against bigotry and intolerance.

‘Shame on you, Faustus!’ declared Symmachus. ‘You went to Constantinople to plead Odovacar’s cause. Now you stab him in the back and tell us we should do the same.’

Faustus smiled, and shrugged. ‘Political necessity,’ he murmured.

‘Cynical expediency, more like!’ shouted Symmachus. His gaze swept round the assembly, now tense and expectant. ‘Has it come to this: that we, the Senate, the very voice of Rome, stand for nothing more than cowardly self-interest? There was a time when senators were not afraid to speak out for what was right. Odovacar has proved himself a good and just ruler — a great deal better than many of our emperors. He rewarded his soldiers, which he was compelled to do, with public land as far as possible, keeping confiscation from Romans to a minimum, something for which we should be eternally grateful. We owe him loyalty, not betrayal.’

‘Hear, hear!’ This from Marius Manlius Boethius,* another former consul from a rich and famous family, who had risen from a sick-bed to attend the meeting.

Speaker after speaker rose to express their views, most siding (some shamefacedly) with Faustus. When the vote was taken, it was overwhelmingly in favour of Theoderic. The names of those who, like Boethius and Symmachus, supported Odovacar were noted, as were those abstaining. Among the latter was Cassiodorus, who was genuinely confused. Instinctively, he sympathized with Symmachus’ stance defending Odovacar, yet he was reluctant to believe that so many of Rome’s great and good could be wrong.

Observing the awe on Theoderic’s face as they came in sight of Aurelian’s mighty walls surrounding Rome,* Timothy’s heart sank. Moments later his fears were confirmed when, making the sign of the cross (an unheard-of gesture on the part of an Arian), the king murmured, ‘Behold: the Mistress of the World.’

Assembled before the Flaminian Gate, the city’s main entrance from the north, the vast throng — senators in togas, leading citizens in brightly coloured dalmatics, robed clerics, plebs in working tunics or holiday attire — burst into spontaneous cheering. As the royal party approached the great arch flanked by white marble-clad towers, two men stepped forward. One was toga-draped, ancient, stooped and bald, but with an air of stern authority; the other was youngish, almost effeminately handsome, with the face of an Adonis carved by Praxiteles, and clad in floating, diaphanous robes of coloured silk. The first would be Festus, the Caput Senatus, Timothy thought. But the second? With a shock, he realized that (assuming the briefing was correct) this must be the new Pope, Symmachus.†

‘The Senate and the People of Rome, together with His Holiness the Monarchical Bishop of the See of St Peter,’ announced Festus in a voice trembling with age and dignity, ‘give greeting to Theoderic Amalo, king of the Ostrogoths and vicegerent of Italy in the name of His Serenity Anastasius, Emperor of the East Romans.’

Dismounting, Theoderic made an appropriate response, then, with his bodyguard and chief councillors, accompanied by the senatorial and papal parties and surrounded by exuberant and noisy crowds, entered the Eternal City by the Flaminian Way. ‘Remember thou art only a man,’ murmured Timothy with a grin; it was the ancient caution that a slave whispered in the ear of a Roman general entering Rome to celebrate a triumph.

But the jest fell on deaf ears. ‘I believe the Romans love me,’ said Theoderic, turning a rapt face to Timothy as they passed beneath the arch of Marcus Aurelius. ‘They seem to be accepting me as one of their own — perhaps even as their emperor.’

This was extremely bad news, thought Timothy, muttering something vague but tactful in reply. Staring at the man who was his friend as well as master — also still, in some unaccountable way, his charge — Timothy decided that Theoderic looked ridiculous. To please his own people, whose identity was at risk of being swamped, living as they were among the numerically far superior Romans, the king — in contrast to his previous short Roman-style haircut and clean-shaven face — had grown his hair long in the German fashion, and allowed a moustache to adorn his upper lip. The image accorded ill with the robes of imperial purple he had affected for the occasion. In consequence, he looked neither Goth nor Roman, more a freakish hybrid. Things had changed in the time since Theoderic, by eliminating Odovacar, had made himself undisputed ruler of Italy. Timothy’s mind drifted back over the past seven years.

They had been years of astonishing, solid achievement, Timothy reflected, resulting in an Italy that was (to all outward appearance) well run, stable and prosperous — as in the best days of the Caesars. Faced with the daunting and immensely difficult task of providing for his people in a foreign and potentially hostile land, and doing so without antagonizing the new Italian subjects over whom he must establish his rule, Theoderic had, thought Timothy, risen superbly to the occasion. Administered by one Liberius, a senator, a careful sale and redistribution of land had satisfied the great majority of Ostrogoths without bearing too hard on their Roman ‘hosts’, a settlement facilitated by the fact that the Romans vastly outnumbered their ‘guests’. The two peoples were to live strictly under their own laws as separate communities, with distinct functions: the Goths (concentrated mainly in the strategically important north-east of the country, between Pavia and Ravenna) to man the army, the Romans ‘to cultivate the arts of peace’, and to run the administration. This last, purged of corruption for almost the first time in its long history, functioned efficiently under the Master of Offices and the Praetorian Prefect, assisted by a shadowy tribe of ubiquitous officials known as agentes in rebus.

Theoderic himself fulfilled a double role. To the Goths, he presented the assiduously nurtured image of the successful war leader — not difficult, considering his proven record as victorious hero-king, Timothy told himself. To his German compatriots in the Ostrogothic heartlands of Venetia et Histria, Aemilia and Flaminia et Picenum, Theoderic was ‘Dietrich von Bern’ — Theoderic of Verona (his favourite residence). To the Romans, he tried to appear a worthy successor to the best of their emperors, wise, strong, and even-handed: a stance which seemed to work, as the Romans increasingly compared him to Trajan or Valentinian I. As for the Church, Theoderic was content to act as impartial arbitrator when disputes arose, a position traditionally adopted by emperors from Constantine on; here, his Arianism was actually an advantage, his judgements being perceived as unbiassed. The fact that the Churches of the West and East were in schism also benefited Theoderic by allowing him to appear, if only to a limited extent, as the champion of Rome versus Constantinople.

Preoccupied with implementing these demanding policies, prior to this first visit to Rome Theoderic had had little time to speculate about his constitutional position. The status quo he had achieved would have satisfied the ambition of most rulers — men of, say, Odovacar’s stamp, Timothy reflected. And yet he sensed that for Theoderic it was not enough. The Amal king’s dream of becoming accepted by the Romans as one of them had never been abandoned, only put on hold while he dealt with the pressing practicalities of getting his people to Italy and establishing his rule there. The recent, tardy confirmation of his status as vicegerent by Anastasius had wrought an immediate (and, to Timothy, misplaced) change in Theoderic’s priorities. Hence the visit to Rome.

To Timothy, the king’s re-awakened ambition was an unfortunate development. He had seen it all before with successful gang leaders. They acquired delusions of grandeur, craving acceptance by respectable society, striving for status, titles, above all that most Roman of accolades, civilitas.* Almost invariably with such climbers, pride came before a fall — exposure and disgrace by contemptuous members of the class they aspired to join, a knife in the back by an ex-colleague in crime with a score to settle. Take Zeno, a perfect example of a small fish swimming in a big pond: his Roman subjects had despised him as a barbarian who had got above himself. If he’d stuck to being warlord of a tribe of savage hillmen, instead of vying for the purple, he would never have endured that most horrible of deaths. Would Theoderic make the same mistake? Was he capable, Timothy wondered, of seeing himself as he really was: a barbarian leader who, by an extraordinary combination of luck, personality and circumstance, had made it big on the world stage? For his own well-being and peace of mind, he would do well to put aside any dreams of becoming Roman. That way lay disillusion.

The Romans, Timothy believed, were an arrogant and fickle race, with long and unforgiving memories stretching back to the massacre of Varus’ legions by Arminius, the German freedom fighter. In the infancy of some ancients yet alive, one of the greatest of Rome’s generals, Stilicho, debarred from the purple by reason of his Vandal blood, had perished at the hands of a Roman executioner. For all his Roman upbringing, Theoderic was still German, a fatal barrier to acceptance by the Romans. He should remember that. But would he? As much chance of that happening, Timothy admitted gloomily, as of a camel going through the eye of a needle.

During the next few weeks, Theoderic endeavoured assiduously to restore his image, which had been seriously damaged by his outburst at the palace reception. Such displays of unrestrained fury were, like drunkenness, regarded with indulgence (sometimes even admiration) by his own people, but among the Romans could result in a serious loss of dignitas — the very quality that distinguished Romans from barbarians.* Dignitas implied self-control, living according to a code in which passions were always subordinated to reason — a code (according to Roman received opinion) conspicuously absent among barbarians.

Acceptance by the Romans (and ultimately any prospect of becoming their emperor) depended, Theoderic knew, on his being accepted by their representative assembly, the Senate. Despite the Senate’s apparent lack of political power, Theoderic knew it would be a grave mistake to dismiss it as a merely passive body, whose only function was to legitimize the policies of whatever ruler was in power. In the past, emperors who had continued to flout the accepted mores of SPQR† never died in their beds. The outrages of a Nero, a Caligula, a Commodus, a Heliogabalus, or a Valentinian III, ensured their violent removal. Even in the empire’s dying days, the Senate’s disapproval was enough to ensure the execution not only of Arvandus and Seronatus, Prefect and Deputy Prefect of Gaul respectively, but of Emperor Avitus, for the crime of making terms with the barbarians — the very people about to take over the Western Empire.

As ruler, Theoderic could not apologize for his loss of temper at the tricennalia, nor for depriving the Laurentian senators of Church lands. But he did the next best thing: made himself regularly attend sessions of the Senate, where he comported himself with respectful attentiveness bordering on meekness. (Shades of Theodosius I doing penance before Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.) And, employing a tried and tested gesture guaranteed to attract popularity from plebs and patricians alike, he decided to hold Games in the Flavian Amphitheatre.* (Normally, this would have been the dubious ‘privilege’ of the Western consul, but this year both consuls were Eastern appointees.)

Compared to the ‘good old days’ of high empire, Games had become a rarity in Rome. Disruption of trade routes resulting from barbarian invasions, centuries of depletion of wildlife stock, with shrinkage of state and aristocratic wealth, had made the capture, transport and maintenance of large animals an extremely difficult and prohibitively expensive business. Nevertheless, the recent thawing of relations between the Vandal and Ostrogothic kingdoms, combined with substantial disbursements from Theoderic’s treasury, ensured ships laden with crates, containing savage beasts from north Africa, unloaded at the quays of Ostia.

Concerned about his master’s growing obsession with what was bound to be a mirage, Timothy decided to find out for himself what the Romans thought of the idea of Theoderic as emperor. With his richly varied background, which had seen his career progress from streetwise gangster to royal minder to agens in rebus with an imperial commission, Timothy was well placed to move freely between the different strata of Roman society — from its dregs in the Subura, the city’s poorest quarter, to the rarified world of Domitian’s Palace populated by (menials apart) civil servants, silentiarii, and a select band of senatorial aristocrats who constituted a kind of unofficial council for Theoderic while he was in Rome. (The king’s permanent council in Ravenna consisted of Roman officials of middle-class background, along with high-ranking duces or army commanders — almost all Goths — and a very few Goths of proven ability, sufficient to enable them to hold administrative posts.)

Timothy commenced his research beneath the arches of the Circus Maximus, the vast U-shaped stadium where chariot races were held. Known as ‘Under-the-Stands’, this was an amazing world of its own, a labyrinth of interlocking passages formed by the hundreds of arches supporting the tiers of seats above, and populated by a colourful under-class of fortune-tellers, astrologers, ready-meal vendors, souvenir sellers, pimps, prostitutes, jugglers, conjurers. . The answers to Timothy’s question about Theoderic as emperor, though varied in style of expression, were remarkably consistent in content: ‘A Jerry emperor? You’ve got to be joking!’ ‘We don’t want none o’ them Tedesci* bastards wearing the diadem.’ ‘Theoderic’s all right — gives us bread and circuses don’t he? But emperor? Nah, wouldn’t be right, would it? ’E’s German, see.’ He got similar responses in the stinking alleys of the Subura, in Chilo’s Tavern near the Porta Appia — famous as an emporium of news and gossip — and in the crowded flats of that monstrous tenement the Insula of Felicula, Rome’s tallest building, home to the families of tradesmen living just above the poverty line.

As the little ship approached the island in the Sequana* fringed by the concrete ramparts of Parisia (formerly Lutetia Parisiorum), Connal was surprised to hear the skipper order the helmsman to steer towards the wharves on the southern bank. The skipper pointed to a complex of impressive-looking buildings looming through the late-autumn drizzle half a mile distant, beyond a scatter of mean huts and muddy fields. ‘Palatia Thermarum, the old HQ of the provincial governor under the empire. That’s where you’ll find the king — if he’s not off hunting or campaigning.’

The ship having docked, Connal paid the man off and disembarked his escort plus harpist, with whose delivery to Clovis Theoderic had entrusted him. Following his manumission at the Colosseum, Connal had been recruited into the king’s household guard, a small corps of warriors handpicked for loyalty and courage. With his formidable physique and natural authority Connal had quickly risen to become their captain, creating such a favourable impression on Theoderic as to make the Celt an ideal choice of emissary to send to Clovis, with Symmachus’ letter accompanied by ‘gift’.

The group had travelled by sea from Ostia, the port of Rome, to Massilia,† thence north along the Roman road through land controlled by the Visigoths up the Rhodanus valley on foot (in preference to river travel made hazardous by the rapid current and shifting sandbanks), as far as Lugdunum.‡ Here the Rhodanus veered sharply to the east, the road now following an affluent flowing from the north. This route they took for a further hundred miles through Burgundian territory, then struck overland north-west past the site of Alesia (where, five and a half centuries before, Julius Caesar had finally crushed the Gauls led by their valiant young chief, Vercingetorix), to the headwaters of the Sequana in the kingdom of the Franks. There, they had taken passage on a supply vessel heading for Parisia.

As the vessel progressed along the winding river through rich champaign country, Connal reflected on the strange twists of fortune that had brought him to his present position.

‘Ave Petronius Rufius,’ Symmachus greeted the cloaked and hooded figure that the porter had just shown into the vestibulum of the senator’s house in Ravenna. He instructed the porter to see to the stabling of the visiter’s equipage of currus (light carriage) and pair, and to arrange for the driver to be looked after in the domestics’ quarters. ‘How was the journey?’

‘Ave Quintus,’ replied Cethegus, allowing the porter to divest him of his dripping cucullus. ‘Journey? Vile weather but apart from that it could have been worse, considering that the old cursus publicus has finally packed up. A few way-stations still operating along the Flaminia, though.’

‘Come and meet the others,’ continued Symmachus, when his guest had bathed and changed. ‘We’re all agog to hear this news you wrote to us about. Must be important, for you to have come all the way from Rome.’ Symmachus conducted Cethegus, son of Probinus, the leader of the Laurentian faction in Rome, to the triclinium, where lamps had been lit and couches and tables made ready for dinner. Here, already waiting, were the young Boethius, who had recently married Symmachus’ daughter Rusticiana, and Cassiodorus, Theoderic’s Scriba Concilii,* whose quaestorship was virtually guaranteed within the next few years. The four men were key members of Anulus, the Ring, an influential group of aristocratic intellectuals centred in Rome and Constantinople, who kept in touch and exchanged ideas through regular letters and visits.

During the meal conversation was light, consisting mainly of mutual compliments — congratulations to Cethegus on being appointed consul for the current year,* praise for Boethius’ recently published treatises on music and astronomy, and for the first instalment of Cassiodorus’ History of the Goths, an ambitious project undertaken with the approval of Theoderic and planned to be in twelve volumes. Also given due plaudits was the fare provided by their host, sows’ udders in tunny sauce, followed by sucking-pig in a casserole of garum (fish sauce) and wine, washed down with vintage Falernian.

After dinner the four retired to the tablinum, where Cethegus, whose good-humoured, somewhat battered-looking features bore an astonishing resemblance to those of the Flavian emperor, Vespasian, announced without preamble, ‘Fastida has made contact with Thrasaric,’ a statement which was greeted with polite bemusement.

‘You make it sound like, “Caesar has crossed the Rubicon”,’ observed Cassiodorus with a puzzled smile. ‘Forgive our ignorance Rufius, but who are these gentlemen? Barbarians I take it, from their names.’

‘My apologies, gentlemen,’ grinned Cethegus, enjoying the others’ reaction. ‘My warped sense of the dramatic. Don’t blame yourselves if you’ve never heard of them — not one in a thousand has. The only reason I know about them is that fossicking about in the tangled under-growth of foreign affairs has long been a hobby of mine. The pair I’ve named are involved in something I’ll call “the Sirmium question” — which is going to be very, very big in the coming months. That’s why I’ve decided to speak to the three of you in confidence. As Theoderic’s most trusted advisers, you’re the ones best placed to influence his policy. Quintus, would you think me rude if I suggested we pass round another flagon of that excellent Falernian? What I’ve got to say may take a little time.’

‘Well, that was almost too easy,’ Cyprianus chuckled to Pitzia as the two leaders, after supervising the dispositions of the Gothic camp outside the walls, returned to their improvised command post in the basilica of Sirmium, the once-mighty Illyrian city where the great Theodosius had been proclaimed emperor more than a century ago. Thrasaric and Fastida had proved to be parchment tigers. At the approach of the redoubtable Gothic host, who clearly meant business, the Gepids had produced a great deal of noise, shouting and banging spear-butts against shields. But when this tactic had signally failed to intimidate their opponents, they broke and scattered before the steady advance of their traditional foes. Fastida had fled back beyond the Danube, Thrasaric had disappeared without trace, his mother’s capture a pledge against his future good behaviour, and his force had meekly laid down their arms on being told that their lives would be spared if they surrendered. With the restitution of a retenator or governor and the return of their praecepta (rights and traditions) to the indigenous Roman population, the machinery was set in motion for the reinstatement of Pannonia Secunda as a fully functioning Roman province. (A Roman province incorporated into the Ostrogothic realm!) Mission accomplished, or so it seemed to Pitzia and Cyprianus as they made ready to return to Italy.

However, on the order being given by Pitzia to break camp, the Goths assembled in marching order — facing eastwards! Fired up by their near-bloodless victory, which had aroused but not satisfied their martial ardour, and unwilling to pillage their Sirmian hosts, whom they had just delivered from the Gepid yoke, the Goths — by one of those strange collective decisions which can suddenly infect a mass, had determined to press on into imperial territory in a quest for glory and plunder.

‘Madness!’ exclaimed Cyprianus to a desperate-sounding Pitzia, when the latter informed him of the situation. ‘Sheer madness!’ Forcing himself to stay calm, the Roman tried to assess the crisis objectively and come up with a rescue plan. He should have seen this coming, he thought grimly. This was what happened when you put a barbarian army under a leader who was not up to the (admittedly difficult) task of imposing discipline. Strictly speaking, such a force was not an ‘army’ at all, just a mob of individual warriors, all ferociously brave but basically motivated by a thirst for loot and personal glory. Pitzia — generous, and valorous to a fault — they would follow into battle anywhere. But Pitzia was not strong enough to control them when their will needed to be curbed. For that, you needed a Theoderic. And Theoderic, now middle-aged, was happy, it would seem, to delegate the responsibility to others.

The situation was potentially disastrous, Cyprianus reflected. The Goths were embarked on what was technically an invasion of the Eastern Empire, the most formidable power in the world. Success against the Gepids was one thing; taking on a disciplined Roman army quite another. The best that could be done, he thought (and it seemed a very poor best), was for him and Pitzia, accepting the fait accompli, to put themselves at the head of the host and hope that some easy pickings would soon come their way. Hopefully, reward enough to satisfy the Goths and persuade them to to turn back for Italy before the full wrath of Anastasius descended upon them.

Rumours concerning the Sirmium expedition reached Timothy (who, hoping for a change of heart on the part of Theoderic regarding his banishment, had spun out the date of his departure for Byzantium) at Brundisium, as he was about to board a trading-vessel bound for Corinthus. Thanks to the powerful state-sponsored guild of shippers, the navicularii, which, because of the benevolent and conservative administrations of Odovacar and Theoderic, had survived the passing of the Western Empire to maintain trading links with the Eastern, and even with southern Gaul and parts of Spain, the voyage back to Constantinople had posed no problems. As the ship sailed down the coast of Epirus and on into the Sinus Corinthiacus,* Timothy had time aplenty to consider his future plans.

Since his dismissal from the king’s service, he had felt slack and useless — like an unstrung bow. What would he do now? The future stretched before him, grey and drab, like those mist-shrouded flatlands of the Padus valley round Ravenna. For the first time in his life he felt old. At sixty-three — twelve years older than Theoderic — he was old, he supposed. Old enough to draw his pension as an agens of the Eastern Empire when he returned to Constantinople — assuming that his commission from Leo, granted all those years ago, was still valid. He had some money saved; and the funds allocated to him for the voyage had been generous, enough to leave a healthy surplus after he had paid his passage. Perhaps he would make a down-payment on a little wine-shop near the Iron Gate? On reflection, he found the prospect less than enthralling.

The shock of his abrupt dismissal had given way to a great sadness and concern regarding Theoderic’s state of mind. Hadn’t some Greek philosopher once said, ‘Those whom the gods destroy, they first make mad’?* Assuming it was true, the news that Theoderic had sent troops to Sirmium to take the city and occupy Pannonia was ample confirmation of his fears. Unless they could be changed or ended, Theoderic’s ambitions, which now seemed to include recovery of Western imperial territory, would surely end in tears — conflict with the East and dissension in Italy. Anastasius could hardly be expected to look favourably on his vicegerent’s plans first to take over and revive a Roman province in an area which the Eastern Empire had come to regard as its own preserve, and second to realize his ultimate dream of being crowned Western Emperor. In Italy, the Romans would never accept a German as their imperator, while the Goths would surely resent their beloved ‘Dietrich von Bern’ changing his title ‘King of the Goths’ to ‘Emperor of the Romans’. Yet Theoderic seemed blind to all of this — as though, simply by believing them, he could bring about his hopes’ accomplishment.

By the time he stepped ashore at the Golden Horn (after a short overland journey from Corinthus to Athenae, the voyage had continued from Piraeus to the Bosporus), Timothy, without being consciously aware of having done so, had arrived at a momentous decision. Alone, he could do nothing to help save his old friend and master from himself. But there was a man, probably the only one in Europe, who perhaps could: the Eastern Emperor. Somehow, he would arrange an interview with Anastasius. He would endeavour to make the emperor fully aware of his, Timothy’s, concerns about Theoderic’s imperial ambitions, while at the same time pleading the king’s cause: emphasizing the efficiency of his administration and his essential loyalty towards the emperor. A difficult balancing act? That, for sure. Timothy felt rather like the Colossus of Rhodes, whose legs were said to have straddled the harbour’s entrance. (Not, perhaps, the most comforting of similes, he reflected: the mighty statue had been toppled by an earthquake.)

*

To Theodericus Amalo, king of the nation of the Ostrogoths and our vicegerent in Italia, greetings.

Whereas it has come to our attention that within the months of Iulius and Augustus of this year present you did knowingly and without permission from ourselves both capture the city of Sirmium and occupy the disputed territory of the civitas of Bassianae, commonly known as Pannonia Sirmiensis, being the eastern sector of the former Roman province of Pannonia Secunda, and moreover thereafter did proceed without just cause or provocation to enter under arms into our imperial province of Moesia Prima, and did there, in alliance with a proscribed outlaw and criminal, to wit, one Mundo, make war against our imperial forces commanded by our Magister Militum per Illyricum, we now desire and demand that immediately upon receipt of this communication. .

Despite Theoderic’s rejection of wishful thinking contained in ancient maxims, the Wheel of Fortune spun a full half-circle, and his career, which in the course of his confrontation with the empire had seemed to reach a nadir, began to climb rapidly towards its zenith.

The Ostrogothic army that had failed to rescue Alaric found itself confronted by Clovis’s mighty host. In the ensuing battle, Count Ibba was victorious; the loss of thirty thousand of his finest warriors broke the power of Clovis. Mopping-up operations under Duke Mammo pushed the Franks back beyond the Liger and forced their Burgundian allies to withdraw from Provincia.* With their great persecutor defeated, the grateful remnant of the nation of the Visigoths was happy to be incorporated into the realm of its Ostrogothic cousins; thus, almost at a stroke, Theoderic saw his rule extended over southern Gaul and most of Spain.† The Vandals and Burgundians (conscious of their mistake in having roused a sleeping tiger) returned to their allegiance, while the Heruls, Rhaetians and Thuringians eagerly accepted his overtures and became his allies, forming a protective buffer zone to his kingdom, in the north. Finally, the ring of defences was closed to the eastward by an agreement sub rosa with Sabinianus, whereby Pannonia would quietly once more come under Ostrogothic rule — on the understanding that there would be no more incursions into imperial territory.

With the appointment of a Praetorian Prefect of Gaul (in reality, Gaul south of the Liger), and an ecclesiastical vicar for Spain and the whole of Gaul — the post was confirmed by Pope Symmachus, so had to be accepted, however reluctantly, by the Catholic Franks — Theoderic set the seal upon his triumph — a victory reinforced by the death of his great rival, Clovis.* A few short years had seen his fortunes change from a state of abject humiliation to one where he could, with justification, claim to have reconstituted much of the old Empire of the West. The time was ripe, he told himself, to begin the implementation of long-cherished plans — plans which would see his imperial dreams at last become reality: the official rebirth of the Western Empire, with himself crowned emperor.

From his place on the marble benches of Rome’s Senate House, Theoderic felt his heart swell with pride as his son-in-law Eutharic, tall, handsome, smiling, advanced towards the rostrum.

With the death of Anastasius and the ending of the thirty-five-year schism between Rome and Constantinople, Theoderic had at first been worried. The religious divide (in a world where prosperity and personal salvation depended on correct belief — an attitude not shared by the sceptical monarch) had meant that his Roman subjects were less likely to look for help and support from an emperor they regarded as a heretic. Now that religious unity had been restored, would these same subjects start conspiring with the Romans of the East, in a move towards political unity? In the event, however, his concern had proved premature. Justin, the new emperor, had been happy to confirm Theoderic and his successors as rulers of the Ostrogothic realm. And when Eutharic visited the emperor in Constantinople, Justin had been so taken with the young Visigoth that he adopted him as ‘son-in-arms’ (shield-raised according to Germanic custom), and had personally nominated him for the Western consulship, along with, and taking precedence over, himself as Eastern consul — an unprecedented honour. In addition, the emperor had designated Eutharic a ‘Flavian’, a unique privilege reserved for those deemed fit to be associated with the imperial family. Enormously relieved, the Amal king had, to mark the Rome-Byzantium entente, issued three new coins: forty-, twenty-, and ten-nummi pieces, each showing on the obverse an eagle, long a symbol of nobility and power to both Goths and Romans.

‘Do you, Flavius Eutharicus Cilliga,’ quavered old Festus, ‘swear, as consul, faithfully to serve the Senate and the people of Rome, and to reside within the pomoerium* during your term of office?’

‘I do so swear.’

‘Then I, in my capacity as Caput Senatus, with these symbols of office do hereby invest you as a Consul of Rome, your name, along with that of Justinus, Augustus of the Romans, to be entered in the Fasti this Kalends of Januarius, for the year from the Founding of the City the twelve hundred and seventy-third,† to be known hereafter and for ever as the Year of the Consuls Eutharicus and Justinus.’

Two former consuls placed upon the young man’s shoulders a robe of cream silk from Serica‡ patterned in a wondrous raised design of squares, lozenges and stylized flowers. Festus handed him an ivory baton topped with a golden finial in the form of a winged figure. Then, to loud and sustained acclamation, the new consul, followed by senators and guests, exited the Senate house and proceeded in procession to the Circus Maximus, there to inaugurate the Games, the expensive duty which every consul was expected to take up and which, for the honour of having the year named for him, could bring about financial ruin.

Within days, Eutharic was the darling of the City, charming all who came in contact with him by his open manner, friendliness and liberality. Generous sparsiones — scatterings of coin — pleased the mob, gifts of consular diptychs, waxed writing-tablets with exquisitely carved ivory covers, delighted their aristocratic recipients, while the munificence of the amusements exceeded all expectations.

But Eutharic’s charismatic geniality concealed a shrewd and calculating side. Theoderic, intensely interested in the vast and complex systems of aqueducts and drains by which water was conveyed into and removed from Rome, and which, in his fancy, resembled the vessels of a living organism, had arranged for himself and his son-in-law a tour of the city’s subterranean sewers. Led by a guide provided by the City Prefect, the royal pair, after threading a network of dank underground tunnels with deep central gutters along which noisome fluids flowed, paused for a rest inside the Cloaca Maxima, a vast arched channel deep below the Forum Romanum.

‘Built by the kings of Rome a thousand years ago,’* Theoderic said wonderingly, pointing to the massive, cunningly fitted blocks of ashlar curving above their heads. ‘I wonder, will we ever rediscover such engineering skills?’

‘I doubt it, father,’ laughed Eutharic, passing over a flask of wine. ‘The Gothic kings will have other priorities, I think. War and politics are more our line. Talking of which,’ he added lightly, ‘I take it my succession — which hopefully will not happen for many years yet — will go unchallenged?’

‘Have no fear on that score, son. As my heir, Constantinople backs you to the hilt, and Romans in Italy have lost the taste for competing for the purple. Of course, there’s poor old Romulus.’ Theoderic shook his head and chuckled. ‘But nobody remembers him.’

‘Romulus?’

‘West Rome’s last emperor. I’d almost forgotten he existed. He was put on the throne by his father, Orestes, the Roman general who ran Italy at the time, Italy being about all that was left of the Western Empire. When his Master of Soldiers — my predecessor Odovacar — demanded a pay increase for his German federates, Orestes was foolish enough to try to stall him. Bad mistake. Odovacar had him killed, pensioned off little Romulus, who was only a child, and made himself de facto king of Italy, with the tacit consent of Zeno.’

‘So where’s Romulus now, father?’

‘Living in comfortable obscurity somewhere in Campania, I believe. Must be in his fifties — a harmless nobody.’ Theoderic laughed. ‘Don’t worry, son. No one’s going to try to get his throne back for him after all these years.’

‘I see.’ Eutharic took a pull of wine and smiled. But the smile did not reach his eyes.

‘Delicious, Serenity,’ pronounced Boethius, after taking a bite from the pear Theoderic handed to him. ‘Truly delicious. I congratulate you; creating a successful orchard in Ravenna, with its fogs and marshy exhalations, seems a near-miraculous feat.’

‘Well, it was not without problems,’ allowed the king, flushing with pleasure at the compliment. ‘I had to grub up the original stock and replace it with quince for grafting. Then trenching and draining, building a wall to absorb and reflect heat, judicious pruning from the second year. Hard work, but worth it in the end, though I say it myself. But, coming to fruition, I have another crop than pears I would discuss with you, Anicius.’ The king’s hand upon the shoulder of his Magister Officiorum, the pair began to stroll beside the fruit trees.

Now approaching seventy, the king was not the man he once had been, thought Boethius. His hair had changed from gold to silver; aided by a stick, he walked with a stoop, and his health, formerly robust, had deteriorated; he was periodically troubled by stomach pains and bouts of chronic diarrhoea. Also, it seemed to the newly appointed minister that Theoderic’s mind was losing its sharpness and clarity, becoming susceptible to illusion and irrational suspicion.

However, there was no denying that at this moment Theoderic was happy. Buoyed up by the glorious hopes of Eutharic’s consulship, and by assurances regarding the succession, Theoderic was in a mood of expansive optimism, though Boethius felt it had a slightly manic edge.

‘I have put back together much of the Western Empire,’ declared the king. ‘Italy, Spain, Pannonia and much of Gaul are now a single realm. Only one thing is lacking.’

‘Serenity?’

‘What is an empire without an emperor? A building without mortar, which will crumble under stress. I intend to be that mortar; the time has come for me to don the purple and the diadem. Am I right to do so, Anicius?’

Strangely affected by the note of appeal in the king’s voice, Boethius felt a rush of concern and sympathy for the tired old warrior. For Theoderic to declare himself emperor would prove, Boethius was sure, to be a step too far. The Hispano-Romans and the Gallo-Romans might (grudgingly) accept a German emperor; but the Romans of Italy, the centre and power base of the resurrected ‘empire’? Never. And, from what he had so far gleaned about his character, neither would the emperor-in-waiting, Justinian.

Boethius, however, had no intention of trying to dissuade the king from taking that step.

Much though he liked and respected Theoderic, and appreciated the honour done himself by the appointment as Master of Offices, Boethius’ commitment to the Cause overrode his loyalty to the king. If that meant giving the nod to anything that might de-stabilize Ostrogothic rule, so be it — even if what Theoderic proposed could have appalling consequences. Little over a century before, resentment over growing German influence* in the army had spilt over into a terrible massacre of federates’ families, and for similar reasons Constantinople had witnessed a bloody pogrom of the Goths.

‘I applaud your decision, Serenity,’ declared Boethius, feeling like Brutus delivering the final dagger-thrust to dying Caesar. ‘“Theodericus Augustus”, the first in a glorious new dynasty of Western emperors.’

Striding along Ravenna’s cardo,* Eutharic chuckled to himself as Romans hurriedly made way for him. The fact that they now feared and hated him — who had been but a short time before the most popular man in Italy — bothered him not one whit. That was the trouble with dear old father-in-law: he wanted to be liked, and was hurt and puzzled when his subjects bit the hand that fed them, so to speak. If you were a ruler, the only thing that mattered was to be obeyed; if the price of that was to make those you ruled afraid of you, too bad.

Eutharic had never liked the Romans: an arrogant lot who couldn’t get used to the fact that they’d lost an empire — the Western ones anyway. This fracas with the Jews had given him the chance to rub their long noses in it. Not that he had much time for Jews, either — too devout and cliquish for his liking. But the fact that his own people, the Visigoths, had tramped around the Roman Empire for forty years before being granted a homeland, gave him a sneaking sympathy for a people who had spent the same amount of time wandering the desert before entering their Promised Land.

Hullo, what was this? A man was standing by one of the newly repaired synagogues, painting a message on a wall: ‘Iudaei spurci’.† Delighted to be gifted such an opportunity to make an example of an offending Roman, Eutharic moved up silently behind the graffitor, who was so absorbed in his work that he failed to notice the other’s arrival.

‘Good on you,’ murmured Eutharic. ‘These Yids need keeping in their place.’

‘You’re not wrong there, mate,’ replied the man, adding a crudely daubed skull to his slogan. Then his smirk faded, as he turned and saw who the commentator was. ‘Er. . just a bit of fun,’ he faltered.

‘Lick it off,’ said Eutharic, smiling pleasantly.

‘Sir, y-you don’t mean that,’ stammered the man, his face suddenly white. He laughed nervously. ‘’Course you don’t. I’ll fetch a scrubbing-brush and water. Come off in a jiffy, it will.’

‘I said, “Lick it off” you Roman bastard,’ reiterated Eutharic, his words all the more menacing for being uttered softly. His voice suddenly cracked like a whiplash: ‘Now!’

Trembling with fright and revulsion, the man began to lick, while a silent crowd, fearful and curious, gathered to watch. Fortunately, the paint was still wet enough to come off fairly easily, and within half an hour a faint smudge was all that remained. The culprit, his lips and jaws smeared with pigment, vomited on to the cobbles.

Chuckling, Eutharic walked on in high good spirits.

‘There she is, Dacore!’* exclaimed Cella to Connal. Far below them was a distant cluster of timber buildings surrounded by a palisade, near the head of an immensely long and twisting sheet of water, whose placid surface reflected the majestic surrounding mountains.

Accompanied by Cella, a full-bearded, jolly bear of a man, one of a breed of itinerant monks — a familiar sight on the roads of the Empire and the Christian West — Connal had travelled from Italy through Gaul and thence by ship to West Cambria in Britannia.† Advised by Theoderic, who had adopted the same guise himself when journeying to meet the holy man Severinus, the pair had adopted the distinctive robe, staff and scrip of pilgrims (bound for Candida Casa in Galweya and Dun Patricii in Hibernia‡). Thus equipped, they could travel without fear of molestation in Christian lands, such was the reverence in which these pious travellers were held.

Skirting the mountains of North Cambria (having learnt that Artorius was campaigning in the north-west, near the great Vallum Hadriani), they had walked in fine spring weather through the ‘kingdoms’ of Dyfed, Ceredigion and Gwynedd, to the port of Bangor. Here, they had met a holy man of great repute, one Deiniol, who was in the process of setting up a monastery-cum-centre of learning. Deiniol was able to tell them the whereabouts of Artorius, who, he assured them, was accompanied by Myrddin. On his advice, they had taken a ship to the mouth of the Deruuentis river in Reged,* in order to avoid raiding-parties of the North Angles which had recently begun to trouble the intervening coasts. From the estuary, they had travelled eastwards through a most beautiful region of tall mountains, waterfalls and silvery streams, studded with tarns and lakes.

Descending to the lakeside, Connal and Cella approached the settlement they had spotted earlier, and, after affirming their credentials (emissaries of Theoderic, king of Italia and vicegerent of the emperor, status confirmed by a sealed royal statement of authorization), were admitted by gate guards into an extensive enclosure. It was thronged with men-at-arms, artisans at work, grooms attending to horses, and was dominated by a massive timber fort overlooking a scatter of lesser buildings — stables, workshops and storehouses. They were escorted to the fort’s upper storey; it was furnished as a military headquarters, with maps set out and tables loaded with documents and writing paraphernalia, at which clerks sat working. At the room’s far end, deep in discussion with a ring of aides, towered a giant of a man, upright and robust-looking despite being advanced in years, as betokened by a mane of silver hair. He projected authority and confidence.

‘Visitors from Italy, my lord,’ announced the escort. ‘The Dux Britanniae,’ he murmured to Connal and Cella, then withdrew.

‘So, gentlemen, you’re here to convey greetings from Theoderic to Myrddin,’ said Artorius, when the pair had introduced themselves and explained their mission. ‘The King of Italy must think highly of my medicus to have sent you all this way. Your timing could be better: we’re expecting a major push by the Angles any day.’ He shot them an appraising glance. ‘It’ll get nasty. Once you’ve seen Myrddin, you have two choices. Either stay and help, as orderlies behind the lines when battle starts; or head for home. I’d strongly advise the latter. You’ll probably find Myrddin in the infirmary, mixing up his potions. Now, if you’ll excuse me. .’ With a nod, he rejoined his aides.

In an annexe off the infirmary (empty save for one unfortunate who had severed a tendon in his foot while chopping wood), they found, grinding something with a pestle and mortar, a spare elderly man with a gentle face below a cliff of forehead. Introductions over and business stated, Myrddin led them to the refectory, after ordering a meal from the outdoor kitchens.

‘King of Italy!’ he said when they were seated and his visitors were gratefully demolishing bowlfuls of game stew. He smiled and shook his head. ‘When we met — in sad circumstances, at the death-bed of holy Severinus — I sensed that Theoderic would make his mark in the world, but I never dreamt that he would rise so high. Even here, in far-off Britannia, his fame has come to our ears. I’m truly sorry to hear that fortune has treated him less than kindly of late, and that he’s in poor health.’

‘What news should Cella here take back to him regarding yourself?’ asked Connal. ‘He’ll be travelling alone, as I shall be returning to my home in Dalriada.’

‘His message will be brief, I fear. I’m really no more than an extension of Artorius — my function is to help maintain his men in good health, and to tend their wounds sustained in battle.’

‘Tell us of Artorius, then.’

‘Without Artorius — and before him Aurelianus — by now all Britain would have fallen to the Saxons and their kinsmen the Angles.’ Myrddin’s face had lit up, his voice become charged with warmth and admiration. ‘True, we have given ground, but only slowly, making the enemy pay dearly for every yard of British soil. In West Cambria, North Cambria, Cumbria and Lothian, we hold the line, thanks to Artorius’ example and great leadership. Here, the Kymry* are still strong; with the dragon standard at their head, our forces hold their own against the blue-eyed German heathens.’ Myrddin smiled and spread his hands self-deprecatingly. ‘Forgive me — I got carried away. I was forgetting that it was a “blue-eyed German”, Theoderic no less, who suggested we adopt the red dragon as our emblem.’

‘That was good,’ boomed Cella, pushing aside his empty bowl. ‘My congratulations to your cook.’ He shot the medicus a keen glance. ‘The Dux said something about an imminent attack.’

‘Correct. The Angles are concentrating their advance on the north and north-west. Already, they’ve pushed far beyond the Humbri river as far as the Uure,* from where they’re mustering their host for a push westward to Reged here in Cumbria,† where we, of course, intend to stop them.’

‘The Dux offered us a choice,’ rumbled Cella, ‘said that if we wanted we could stay and help. I have some skill as a leech, and my friend here is a fighting man.’ He looked hopefully at Connal. ‘What do you say?’

‘I’d say you’ve made an excellent suggestion,’ replied Connal with a grin.

‘Well, I won’t deny that any extra help is more than welcome, said Myrddin. ‘But it’s only fair to warn you that the coming battle is bound to be a hard-fought, bloody affair. The Angles are ferocious warriors, also stubborn and determined.’

‘I’m not averse to a good scrap myself,’ declared Connal. ‘If you can use us, we’d be glad to help.’

‘Welcome aboard, then.’

‘Paul!’ exclaimed Timothy, answering his door to a new gerulus or oddjob-man cum janitor for the household guards. ‘Last time I saw you, you were a silentiarius in the palace. What happened?’

‘Creeping Germanization, that’s what happened,’ replied Paul bitterly, setting down his laundry basket. ‘First he got rid of the protectores domestici, the Roman palace bodyguard, now it’s the turn of the silentiarii, both of them replaced by Goths. Gothic gentlemen-ushers — an oxymoron, if ever there was!’

Timothy invited Paul into his cubiculum or bedroom, while he looked out dirty tunics and bed-linen to be replaced by the clean items the gerulus handed him. The conditions of his house arrest were not oppressive. He had been assigned a small suite in the guards’ compound — part of the civitas barbara — and shared the soldiers’ facilities. This was the zone of Ravenna occupied by the Goths along the platea maior,* which also included the palace, court church and Arian episcopal complex. His bodily needs were amply catered for, and, though forbidden to leave the compound, he was permitted to move freely within its spacious confines, and make use of amenities such as the baths and gymnasium.

‘If you don’t mind my saying so, sir,’ observed Paul, rolling up the sheets Timothy passed him, ‘you seem to have come down a bit in the world yourself.’ His refined face registered concern. ‘You used to be Theoderic’s right-hand man, as I recall.’

‘Past tense is correct,’ confirmed Timothy, gesturing Paul to take the room’s only chair, then seating himself on his cot. Suddenly, activated by the Roman’s sympathy, a tide of anger, frustration, and resentment — for too long bottled up — welled up, clamouring for outlet.

‘The man’s paranoid,’ he heard himself cry, ‘obsessed with crazy notions about becoming emperor. The Romans would never wear it. More to the point, neither would Justin — for which read Justinian, if what I hear’s correct. I did the king a favour, pointing out that he was making a big mistake. And what did I get for my pains? Clapped in this hole, with a lot of sweaty Goths for company.’

‘How much do you know about what’s going on in the outside world?’

‘A fair amount. I take my meals in the mess hall with the soldiers; no one’s told me I can’t use my ears.’

‘Then you’ll have heard about the riots?’

‘Yes, also the death of Eutharic, the succession crisis, the defection of the Vandals, et cetera, et cetera.’

‘Common knowledge, sir. There’s something else — much bigger — which only a few are privy to. Something which could bring hope to a man in your position. Of course, it’s only rumour.’

‘Tell me,’ demanded Timothy, feeling a stirring of excitement.

‘Only if you promise not to breathe a word, sir. If anything got out, it wouldn’t just be my job on the line. It would be my neck.’

‘You can trust me, Paul. It’s the same axe we’re grinding.’

‘Very well, sir. Some of us silentiarii have contacts in the Senate, most of whom would welcome a change of regime. That, of course, could only happen through the intervention of Justinian, a step which some leading senators are urging him to take.’

‘Then power to their elbow!’ declared Timothy. ‘I never thought I’d hear myself say it — I who used to count myself Theoderic’s friend — but for his own good and that of Italy it’s time his rule was ended, hopefully without bloodshed. Honourable retirement with a consulship would be a kind end to a career which in many ways has been a great one.’

‘Unfortunately, that isn’t the Roman way,’ said Paul, shaking his head sadly. ‘More likely, he’d share the fate of Stilicho.’

‘Better that, perhaps, than dragging out the remainder of his days in discord and disappointment.’

‘That’s true.’ Paul rose and picked up his basket. ‘Well, I must be on my rounds; would you mind opening the door for me? Keep your spirits up, sir. Change may happen sooner than you think.’ And with a smile, he slipped out and was gone.

From Rufius Petronius Nicomachus Cethegus to Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, Magister Officiorum, greetings.

Dear friend and fellow Anular, I write to warn you of a very real and pressing danger facing many in the Senate, and especially yourself.

Theoderic has long nurtured suspicions that correspondence between senators in Italy and the court in Constantinople has been of a treasonable nature. Alas, he now has proof. You may remember that at our last meeting I mentioned a leading senator, one Albinus. It has come to my attention (I have ‘ears’ in the corridors of power here) that a letter of his to Justin has been intercepted by Cyprian, the Referendarius, or head of security. The contents could scarcely be more damning: it openly invites the emperor (he infers Justinian, of course, as opposed to Justin) to free Italy from the Ostrogothic yoke! Now, had the letter been written by some naive aristocratic youth indulging in a spot of wishful thinking, Cyprian might conceivably have let it pass. However, Albinus being a pillar of the Senate and from the great family of the Decii, the matter could not be overlooked.

If Cyprian could be portrayed as acting out of malice, it might help Albinus’ case; but I fear it would be unproductive to pursue that line. Cyprian, unfortunately, is one of that dreadful tribe of ‘honest plodders’ — not overendowed with brains but thorough, and conscientious to a fault. Two years ago he was sent on a mission to Constantinople; it would be surprising if, while there, he failed to overhear some of the talk swirling about concerning change of regime in Italy. If he goes ahead and gives evidence — which he is virtually bound to do — it will be in a full session of the Consistory which you, Anicius, as Master of Offices will be required to attend. In that event, little short of a miracle can save Albinus.

I come now to a second matter, which concerns yourself. Bad news, I’m afraid. Another letter has been intercepted, this time one of yours, also addressed to Justin. In it you say you hope for ‘libertas Romana’ — which is code, of course, for Byzantine intervention in Italy. Dear boy, your indiscretion passes belief; I need hardly point out that you now stand in the very greatest danger, should Cyprian disclose the letter’s contents. There is, however, one glimmer of hope. Thanks to my network of inquisitores, I have managed to, let us say, ‘liberate’ the original epistle. (So you owe me one, my friend.) Cyprian’s team will undoubtedly attempt to reproduce a copy from memory, but comparison of hands will enable you to claim it to be a forgery. That may be enough to put you in the clear. Let’s hope so; our old enemies in the Senate — Faustus niger and the rest of the anti-Laurentius brigade — will be salivating at the chance to pull you down. Your friend and colleague Symmachus, our new Caput Senatus (old Festus at last having gone to claim his Heavenly reward), will naturally speak up for you, and his views do carry weight.

As soon as you have read this letter, burn it. Now is a time for keeping heads down and saving skins. So, please, no outbreaks of Roman nobilitas or soul-baring, weaknesses to which I feel you may be prone. Meanwhile, as it says in the Bible, ‘be strong and of a good courage’. Vale.

Written at the Villa Jovis, Caelian District, Roma, pridie Kalendas Octobris, in the Year of the Consuls Justinus Augustus and Opilio.*

‘Timotheus Trascilliseus, former royal servant, hear the sentence of Eusebius, Count of Ticinum’,* acting under orders from the king.’ The saio delivering the message looked up briefly from the warrant, his impassive blue eyes beneath the studded Spangenhelm connecting momentarily with Timothy’s. Then he continued, ‘At the first hour of the day of six Kalends September in the Year of the Consul Olybrius,† you are to be taken to the place of execution within the bounds of this prison, there to suffer death by the sword.’ His business done, the saio turned on his heel and departed; Timothy heard the key of his cell turn in the lock.

Well, at least he now knew the worst — which was a relief of sorts. He consulted the tally of the time of his imprisonment that he had scratched on the wall. In ten days! Which was worse, to have the inevitability of death confirmed, or to suffer the suspense of uncertainty about one’s fate? At least the latter allowed one still to hope. At his age, having long outlived his biblical span, death should hold no terrors for him. But the truth was that it did. Despite the Church’s assurance of an afterlife, reinforced by the vast panoply of a glittering clerical hierarchy and glorious ecclesiastical buildings, there lurked a gnawing doubt that beyond the end of life lay. . nothingness, a terrifying oblivion where consciousness ceased for ever to exist. Life, even in the confines of this bare cell, was sweet, thought Timothy, appalled at the prospect of departing from it.

*

Suspecting that a detailed resume of the campaign would test the patience of most readers if encountered in the text, I append here a summary of the main events.

Advancing from Isonzo Bridge in the summer of 489, Theoderic defeated Odovacar’s forces at Verona, causing the Scirian king to retreat to Ravenna, which, being surrounded by marshes, was notoriously difficult to attack. When Tufa, one of Odovacar’s chief generals, deserted to Theoderic, the game seemed up for Odovacar. However, on being despatched by Theoderic to attack his old commander, Tufa again switched sides, enabling Odovacar to sally forth from Ravenna.

Now on the defensive, Theoderic took shelter in the heavily fortified redoubt of Pavia, from which precarious position he was rescued by the fortuitous arrival of a force of Visigothic allies. Now strong enough to take the field again, Theoderic was able to defeat Odovacar at the River Adde on 11 August 490, forcing him to return to Ravenna, which Theoderic then besieged. (Tufa, meanwhile, had split from Odovacar — again! — and was operating independently in the Adige valley region; he was finally brought to bay and killed in 493.)

Theoderic’s capture of Rimini in 492, enabling him to tighten the blockade of Ravenna, spelt the beginning of the end for Odovacar. In February 493 he was forced, under pressure from the effects of famine, to make terms with Theoderic, Bishop John of Ravenna acting as intermediary.

His subsequent murder by Theoderic, condemned by some as treacherous and barbaric, was in truth an act of political necessity, forced on the Amal king in the interests of his own survival. In the ancient world, power-sharing was always fraught with hazard for the parties involved. Even Diocletian’s radical experiment, the Tetrarchy, designed to ensure the smooth functioning of the machinery of rule and succession, can hardly be accounted a success story. Once that emperor’s cold and powerful personality ceased to control the system he had devised, its inherent strains began to show, soon to result in the old cycle of murderous rivalries and usurpations starting up anew.

Like the Schleswig-Holstein Question, or Fermat’s Last Theorem, the Laurentian Schism has caused strong men to weep in the attempt to unravel its complexities. It came about for the following reasons. After the death of Pope Anastasius on 17 November 498, two men were simultaneously ordained Bishop of Rome, the deacon Symmachus and the archpriest Laurentius. Theoderic’s finding in favour of Symmachus, however, failed to resolve the controversy. Laurentius’ supporters brought a number of grave charges against his rival, the main ones being: that he had miscalculated the date of Easter; that he consorted with disreputable women; that he had squandered the wealth of the Church; and that he had produced forged documents to support his claim. Theoderic accordingly ordered that a synod be held in Rome to settle the matter by giving judgement concerning these charges against Symmachus. However, as Symmachus was proceeding to the basilica of Santa Croce in Rome, where the synod was to be held, he was roughed up in a clash (in which several priests were killed) between the rivals’ followers. Subsequently, he declared his refusal to be judged by the bishops making up the synod, claiming that, as Pope, he was [conveniently] above jurisdiction. The bishops, uncertain as to their powers to proceed in judgement, dithered; but Theoderic finally unblocked the logjam by ordering that the churches of Rome be handed over to Symmachus, and that Laurentius go into compulsory retirement on an estate belonging to his patron, Festus.

The schism had wide ramifications, especially concerning senatorial families whose estates had suffered losses because of barbarian invasions, and confiscations to reward the followers of Odovacar, then of Theoderic. One result of Theoderic’s fiat in favour of Symmachus was that lands previously granted to the Church by senatorial families should remain in the pontiff’s possession. Despite doubts as to the strict legality of some of these grants or whether they had been gifted in perpetuity, alienation of land to the Church was allowed to stand — much to the dissatisfaction of most Roman senators. At the other end of the social scale, the plebs were assiduously wooed by Symmachus (quite possibly in a cynical move to reinforce his power base), who made available generous supplies of free food in a series of lean times, a stance with parallels to that of Caius Sempronius Gracchus regarding the poor of Rome, in Republican times.

As an Arian and an outsider, Theoderic was well placed to take a detached and impartial view when it came to ruling on the controversy. This was no doubt on the whole a good thing, as neither side could accuse him of bias. However, one drawback was that Theoderic’s likely impatience with the minutiae of the schism’s implications may have led him to overlook the problems arising from the disposition of Church lands. His fiat on the matter must have cost him the support of many distressed senators anxious to claw back some of the property their ancestors had gifted to the Church prior to the barbarian invasions.

Throughout the text, I have used the term ‘barbarian’ not, I hope, in a pejorative sense, but simply to designate the Germanic peoples who overran the Western half of the Roman Empire and for a time (the Ostrogoths in particular) caused considerable trouble within the surviving Eastern half. The main and most obvious difference between Romans and barbarians was about culture and literacy. Especially literacy. In recent times there has been a movement to rehabilitate the barbarians: the Vikings were explorers and traders, rather than blood-thirsty marauders; Saxons intermarried peaceably with Romano-Britons instead of going in for ethnic cleansing; the exquisite craftsmanship of Celtic and Teutonic jewellery and weaponry puts these peoples on a par with the Romans; and so on. Recently, Richard Rudgley and Terry Jones, in their identically titled books, Barbarians, put up a well-argued case for the defence. Both, however, in my view, ignore the elephant in the sitting-room: the barbarians were illiterate.

Writing alone enables ideas to be recorded and transferred, which in turn allows them to grow and develop. Without writing, sciences, philosophy, literature, etc. — the very building-blocks of civilization — would be inconceivable. All of which is rather stating the obvious. Without writing, societies are prisoners of the immediate, limited by memory and experience as to how to shape their plans and actions. Oral transfer of knowledge can’t compete with libraries.

The virtues and defects of shame-and-honour barbarian warrior societies compared to those of Graeco-Roman civilization need not be examined here, as they have been touched on fully in the text.

The popular image of the barbarian as ferociously brave, but with mind and emotions at the mercy of physical urges, in contrast to the rational Roman, whose ordered intelligence was always firmly in control of his body, is over-simplified and something of a cliche. (Shades of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Highland warriors, and the polite society of Georgian England that was given such a fright by them!) Nevertheless, although based to some extent on Roman propaganda, it does contain a useful grain of truth. However, it’s perhaps worth reminding ourselves that barbarian societies weren’t static, and could evolve quite quickly into ones that could in no way be described as such. The heroic savages described in Beowulf are separated by only a few generations from that great polymath the Venerable Bede.

Chapter 1

styluses and waxed tablets

Known as codices, pairs of hinged waxed boards were the notebooks of the Roman world. Writing, scratched on the waxed surface, could be readily erased by the flattened end of the pointed writing-tool, the stylus.

betting on the Blue or Green team

Blue and green were the respective colours of the rival chariot-racing teams competing in the Hippodrome. These teams inspired fanatical support from their fans, support which had a political dimension (the Blues championed the Establishment, the Greens the people) and could lead to serious rioting, as happened in the Nike riots of 532 which nearly toppled Emperor Justinian.

Aristotle on the subject of the young Alexander

The famous philosopher was the tutor of Alexander aged thirteen to sixteen. Aristotle’s image of the ‘great-souled man’ gave the future king a model for the role he wished to emulate.

Basiliscus. . has taken sanctuary in Hagia Sophia

He was eventually reprieved, thanks to his sister’s intercession with the (justifiably furious) emperor, Leo I. Hagia Sophia/Sancta Sophia (Holy Wisdom) was the predecessor of the present building erected in the sixth century by Justinian. The great cathedral is now a mosque.

Anthemius might. . be the last Augustus of the West

Not quite. Like almost all failed emperors, Anthemius was ‘disposed of’, to be followed briefly by: Olybrius, Glycerius, Julius Nepos and Romulus Augustus. Ricimer’s successor, Odovacar, another barbarian Master of Soldiers, deposed Romulus in 476 and sent the imperial regalia to the Eastern Emperor, Zeno, as the sole remaining ruler of the ‘One and Indivisible Empire’. In reality, the Western Empire was no more, and Odovacar had become an independent German monarch in Italy, like Gaiseric in Africa and Euric in Gaul and Spain.

a tough Isaurian

Rather like the Highlanders in early modern Britain, the Isaurians, an independent-minded people from south-west Anatolia, were a constant thorn in the flesh of the imperial government. So much so, that the term ‘Isaurian’ was to become virtually synonymous with ‘insurgent’.

Walls of Theodosius. . aqueduct of Valens

Both these colossal structures are still standing, testament to the strength and durability of Roman architecture. Inviolate for a thousand years until breached by Turkish cannon in 1453, the Walls are being restored to their original glory.

a tall marble column

The Column of Arcadius was modelled on the Columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius in Rome. The imagery of the latter pair, though triumphalist, is not altogether devoid of a spirit of compassion and humanity. The Column of Arcadius — an ugly example of state-sanctioned chauvinism — was redeemed by no such sentiments. The monument no longer exists, bar its base; but a drawing, showing a lynch-mob unleashing a pogrom against the city’s Goths, was made before its demolition in 1715.

Cambyses. The legendary wild boar

An appropriate soubriquet. Cambyses, king of the Medes and Persians from 529 to 522 BC, was notorious for aggression and ferocity.

Chapter 2

outside the Charisius Gate at the second hour

Constantinople is built on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by sea or arms of the sea, the landward side being sealed off by the massive bulwark of the Theodosian Walls. These were pierced by six principal gates with subsidiary military gates between each pair. The Charisius Gate in the north marked the egress of one of the principal thoroughfares of the city, the Mese; the name was also given to the main street in the south, which exited via the Golden Gate. The Roman day, from sunrise to sunset, was divided into twelve hours which varied in length according to the season. Midday corresponded to the sixth hour.

a celebrated local martyr

At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the mummified corpse of St Euphemia, according to the seventh-century chronicler Theophylact, ‘stretched out her dead and lifeless hand to take the tome’. The ‘tome’ in question was a tract written by Pope Leo, arguing that Christ’s nature was both human and divine. This was hotly contested by the opposing faction, the Monophysites, who believed that Christ had only one nature: divine. At the Council, the dispute was resolved in favour of those supporting Leo — no doubt helped by Euphemia’s posthumous sign of approval.

Tempered steel with razor edges

Steel is simply wrought iron (i.e., iron with the impurities removed by beating when white-hot) made to absorb a little carbon. This was achieved by heating the iron in a bed of charcoal. The resulting steel could then be tempered by a process of annealing. Chemical analysis of a selection of Roman swords (e.g., the Mainz ‘Sword of Tiberius’, cited by Bishop and Coulston, Roman Military Equipment) has shown them to consist of high-quality carburized steel with a soft/wrought-iron core. The best Roman steel was manufactured in Spain.

For all your courage, Goth, you’ll never be one of us

In AD 376 the Gothic nation, attacked by a terrible new enemy, the Huns, were granted sanctuary within the Eastern Empire. But, owing to ill-treatment by corrupt Roman officials, they rebelled against their hosts and defeated a huge Roman army sent to crush them, at Adrianople in 378. While one great division of the tribe, the Visigoths (‘Wise Goths’), eventually sought their fortune in the West, the remainder, the Ostrogoths (‘Bright Goths’), after a sojourn in Pannonia were suffered to settle in the East — troublesome and unwelcome guests, assigned a ‘reservation’ in the Balkans.

Chapter 3

Leo and his top general, Zeno

Leo (457-74), often referred to, most inappropriately, as ‘Leo the Great’, purely to distinguish him from his grandson and successor Leo II (474), ‘Leo the Small’, was an undistinguished Dacian officer who succeeded Marcian, the emperor whose defiance of Attila persuaded the Hun king to switch his attack to the West. Dominated by Aspar, the great general who had been instrumental in securing the purple for Marcian, Leo resented his subservient status and tried to counteract Aspar’s influence by enlisting in the imperial army a force of Isaurians. These were a wild tribal people from the Taurus Mountains, ruled by a chieftain called Tarasicodissa. Changing his name to Zeno, Tarasicodissa became the commander of the Excubitors, as the Isaurian unit was named. In about 471, in the course of settling an insurrection, Zeno had Aspar murdered, taking his place as Leo’s eminence grise. By this time Zeno had married Leo’s daughter Ariadne, thus putting himself in line for the throne, as Leo had no sons. On Leo’s death in 474, he was succeeded by his grandson Leo, a child of seven, son of Zeno and Ariadne. Soon afterwards, Leo II died in mysterious circumstances (his father being suspected of his murder), to be succeeded by Zeno (474-91). Zeno’s reign was briefly interrupted by a usurper, Basiliscus, the general whose incompetent handling of the 468 expedition against the Vandals ensured the collapse of the Western Empire eight years later. Intrigue, jealousy and murder — classic Roman politics!

look what he [Alaric] did to Rome

In 408 Alaric, king of the Visigoths, laid siege to Rome in an attempt to force the Western Emperor, Honorius, to grant his people a homeland and recognized status within the empire. Negotiations seemed to begin well, and the siege was called off. However, provoked by endless vacillation on the part of Honorius, Alaric lost patience and in 410 sacked the city. Although little damage was done and few lives lost, the sack had huge symbolic importance, sending shock waves reverberating round the Roman world.

Pridie Kalendas Junii, in the year of the consuls Leo. . and Probianus

The Romans dated important events ‘from the Founding of the City — ab urbe condita’ or AUC (753 BC) — but for most dating purposes the names of the consuls for any given year were used, one from Rome, the other from Constantinople. Dates within any given month were calculated by counting the number of days occurring before the next of the three fixed days dividing the Roman month: Kalends, the first day of the month, the Nones on the 5th or 7th, and the Ides on the 13th or 15th. (In March, May, July, and October, the Nones fell on the 7th and the Ides on the 15th, in the remaining months on the 5th and 13th respectively.) Thus, the Ides of January happening on the 13th of that month, the next day would be termed by a Roman not the 14th, but the 19th before the Kalends of February, reckoning inclusively, i.e., taking in both the 14th of January and the 1st of February; and so on to the last day of the month which was termed pridie Kalendas.

the Golden Gate

This began life as a huge triumphal arch erected c. 390 by Theodosius I. Originally outside the city, it was incorporated into the new Walls built by Theodosius II. The gates themselves were originally covered in gold plate, hence the name.

Legio Quinta Macedonica

Egyptian carvings of the fifth and sixth centuries show soldiers of this unit, identifiable from the sunflower-like design on their shields, in graphic detail. They are portrayed wearing very traditional gear that would not have looked out of place on Trajan’s Column: scale armour with pteruges (protective leather strips) at the shoulders and between the groin and knees, and classical ‘Attic’ helmets complete with brow reinforcements and cheek-pieces. (In the Eastern Empire, uniforms tended to be more conservative than in the West, perhaps because of the influence of Hellenic tradition — the conquests of Alexander, the Persian Wars, etc.)

Chapter 4

a line of figures performing a processional dance

These dances, known as Kukeri, are still performed in some places in Bulgaria, always by male dancers. Dressed in animal skins, including masks often made from the heads, they parade in a trance-like state through towns and villages, chanting and shouting, to drive away evil spirits. The dances are thought to have originated from the ancient Thracians.

the monastery of St Elizabeth

Elizabeth the Thaumaturge, or Miracle-Worker, was a popular saint who arose in Constantinople during Leo’s reign. She reputedly killed a dragon, after first ‘sealing’ it in its cave with her crucifix. For this and various miracles of healing she was canonized, her feast-day being 24 April — the day after that of St George (coincidence, or what?). The monastery described in the text is loosely based on Bulgaria’s famous Rila Monastery, dating originally from 927 (though since heavily restored), so not too remote in time from my fictional one.

Chapter 5

such blades were lethal

German master-swordsmiths of the Migration Period (Frankish ones especially) were capable of producing blades whose construction involved a very high degree of craftsmanship. The best ones were made by ‘pattern-welding’, in which several iron rods were twisted together, beaten flat, then edged with steel. When washed with acid, the sword’s flat surfaces displayed beautiful patterns rather like those of watered silk. Naturally, weapons of such quality were time-consuming to produce and therefore expensive, so were possessed only by individuals of high status.

The Norns who weave the web

Strictly, the Norns belong to Scandinavian rather than Teutonic mythology. But as the pantheon of these ethnically virtually identical peoples was intimately entwined (Odin/Woden/Wotan et al.), I felt I could legitimately mention them in this context. Although the Goths were now Christian, lingering adherence to the old warlike deities must have persisted just below the surface, especially with people nurtured on heroic myth.

Chapter 6

Thiudimer’s ‘gards’ or palace

Gothic words such as baurg (town), kind (kin), gards (large house) and haims (village) show close affinity with burg/burgh, cyn, garth, ham from our own Anglo-Saxon and Viking linguistic heritage — showing that Germanic and Nordic languages have common roots, even when spoken by peoples widely separated by geography. That we have a comprehensive knowledge of the Gothic language is thanks to one Ulfila or Ulfilas, a Gothic missionary who, from 340 till his death in 381, was largely successful in converting his people to (Arian) Christianity, and whose translation of the Bible into Gothic we still possess.

his concubine not his wife

Ancient sources — Jordanes, Anonymous Valesianus, et al. (they refer to Erelieva as concubina) — confirm that her marriage to Thiudimer was invalid. That Thiudimund could entertain realistic hopes of succeeding Thiudimer is suggested by Jordanes in Getica, where he points out that, on his father’s death, Thiudimund was completely passed over as heir, contrary to traditional practice (my italics). If his birth were legitimate (in contrast to Theoderic’s), this of course would provide a strong basis for such hopes. To reinforce this possibility, I have given Theoderic and Thiudimund different mothers, with Thiudimund’s being married to Thiudimer. Speculation, admittedly, but, in the interests of giving a dramatic twist to the story, hopefully legitimate.

Chapter 7

striped with reinforcing layers

This curious feature, known as ‘brick-banding’, is typical of the late Roman walls of many cities, e.g. Ankara, Diocletianopolis (Hissar, Bulgaria) and, most famously, Constantinople. The last example was the inspiration, nearly a thousand years later, for the variegated layering of the ramparts of Caernarvon Castle.

above them rose the citadel

Nothing Roman remains today of Belgrade’s Kalemegdan Citadel — hardly surprising, as it was razed and rebuilt many times in its long history, which stretches back to Celtic times. What can be seen today is mainly of Austro-Hungarian and Turkish (e.g., the Stambol Gate) construction from the eighteenth century. For lack of evidence on the site itself, I based the appearance of the gatehouse partly on Trier’s late Roman Porta Nigra.

a ‘ladder’ of axes raced up the face of the gate

This was suggested by an incident in the film The Vikings, starring Kirk Douglas.

Alexander, Caesar or Aetius

Nearer our own time, leaders of this stamp — charismatic personalities with the power to inspire others to want to follow them, include — Robert the Bruce, Henry V, Joan of Arc, Nelson, Napoleon (unfortunately), Shackleton and Churchill. There is evidence that, c. 471, Theoderic underwent something of a personality change (see Richard Rudgley’s Barbarians) from the timid recluse of Constantinople to the young Alexander of Singidunum.

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 war 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.

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 uplands 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

The excavated Roman villa at Piazza Armerina in Sicily boasts a magnificent series of mosaics, dating from c. AD 300, showing how animals for the Roman Games were captured and transported. There are mounted men driving stags into a circle of nets; men loading elephants onto a galley; a Roman animal-catcher directing Moorish assistants to surround and net a lion; an ox-drawn cart with a shipping-crate containing one of the big cats; etc.

he strained to twist the creature’s horns

I hold my hands up; the incident’s a shameless crib from a scene in the film Quo Vadis?.

can have terrible consequences

There is ample evidence that seditio popularis (the expression surely needs no translation) at this time caused Theoderic considerable concern. The Liber pontificalis paints an alarming picture of fighting between Laurentian and Symmachan mobs (egged on, respectively, by Festus and Probinus, and by Faustus niger); of clergy put to the sword, and nuns taken from convents and clubbed; and fighting in the streets of Rome a daily occurrence. Pope Gelasius (492-96) reported that two successive bishops were murdered in Scyllaeum (Squillace), and the Fragmentum Laurentianum uses the expression ‘bella civilia’ to describe the rioting in Rome. Things got so bad that on 27 August 502 Theoderic wrote to the bishops assembled in Rome to use their influence to curb the prevailing disorder.

Chapter 25

to hold administrative posts

Under Theoderic, the administration of Italy continued virtually unchanged from imperial times. There were a few (a very few) deviations from his principle whereby the bureaucracy would be manned by Romans, the army by Goths. Count Colosseus, in charge of Pannonia Sirmiensis with troops under him, Servatus Dux Raetiarum, and one Cyprian, who served Theoderic in a military capacity, were all Romans; while Wilia the Comes Patrimonii, Triwila the Praepositus Sacri Cubilici, and the senator Arigern, were all Goths. They were, however, exceptions. To a contemporary, unless they lived in the Gothic heartland of north-east Italy with its capital at Ravenna, it would have been difficult to tell that the country was no longer part of the Roman Empire.

a panegyric. . welcoming refugees

Who were these people? Priscian is not specific, but Zachariah of Mytilene (Historia ecclesiastica) wrote of one Dominic ‘who had a quarrel with the tyrant [Theoderic] and took refuge with King Justinian’. The reference to Justinian (who was not, of course, emperor in Theoderic’s lifetime, but who might loosely be described as ‘king’ in his capacity of virtual co-ruler with Justin) means that the event occurred towards the end of Theoderic’s reign, when the label ‘tyrant’ might be held to have had some justification. Priscian however (as mentioned by Ennodius in Panegyricus dictus Theoderico), was writing at the very beginning of the sixth century, when Theoderic’s popularity was (with the exception of the Laurentian senators disgruntled by the alienation of Church lands) as yet undimmed. Perhaps it was this senatorial clique (expanded by wishful thinking into a larger and more representative group) that Priscian had in mind.

send him an expert harpist

As elsewhere, for the sake of clarity and conciseness, I’ve gone in for some telescoping of events — without, I think, compromising essential historical truth. The Alamanni were defeated by Clovis twice — in 497 and again in 506, when they sought refuge with Theoderic. A little later, we find Theoderic writing to Clovis warning him against attacking the Visigoths: ‘Put away your iron, you who seek to shame me by fighting. I forbid you by my right as a father and as a friend. But in the unlikely event that someone believes that such advice can be despised, he will have to deal with us and our friends as enemies’ (Cassiodorus, Variae). As Theoderic had already warned Clovis not to prosecute his war against the Alamanni any further, it seemed opportune to represent these events as happening more or less simultaneously, and to refer to them in a single letter, with Clovis’s appeal for a harpist thrown in for good measure.

the diptych. . presented to him

Such diptychs — among the most attractive minor works of Roman art — were often exchanged as gifts on appointment to high office, especially when someone was named as consul. Celebrated examples from c. 390–400 are: the diptych of the Symmachi (the family of the grandfather of the Symmachus in the story), defiantly displaying classical figures engaged in pagan ritual, at a time when such practices were being rigorously suppressed; that of Stilicho, the front cover showing the Vandal general, the back his wife Serena with their son Eucherius; and the consular diptych of Honorius, showing the emperor arrayed in the full panoply of a Roman general.

Chapter 26

son of. . Sidonius Apollinaris

Although Apollinaris’ visit to Clovis is fictional, it is consistent with his known behaviour. When Clovis launched his next attack on the Visigoths, Apollinaris led a contingent from the Auvergne to help Alaric II, only to be killed fighting at the battle of Vouille, along with Alaric himself.

despised for their barbarism

An opinion attested by Cassiodorus (Variae), Ennodius (Opera) and Jordanes (Getica).

The sole authority we need

A view astonishingly seeming to predict a central tenet of Wyclif, Luther, Tyndale and other early Reformers a thousand years later. The evangelizing success of the Iro-Christian Church (Armagh, Iona, Lindisfarne, Luxeuil, etc.) was soon to be eclipsed by that of Rome. Beginning with Pope Gregory the Great’s sending of Augustine to convert King Ethelbert of Kent in 596, a wave of Roman Catholic missionaries (many of them Anglo-Saxons, such as Wilfrid, Willibrord and Winfrid) had great success in converting non-Catholic areas of Europe, especially in Germany and Scandinavia. In England, in 664 at the Synod of Whitby, the differences between the Celtic and Roman Churches (concerning Easter, tonsures, the role of Scripture, etc.) were thrashed out and finally settled in favour of Roman practice.

hurled them into the flames

Clovis’s barbarous feat of throwing both the donkey and its load into the fire is a retelling of an incident which my old tutor Philip Grierson (see Notes for Chapter 23) relished recounting at tutorials, to illustrate a certain barbarian leader’s (Merovingian king’s?) jocular way of demonstrating his physical prowess.

Chapter 27

Cassiodorus

’ History of the Goths

This unfortunately has been lost, but an extant one-volume summary of it was made in the mid sixth century, entitled Getica, by Jordanes, a Romanized Goth living in Constantinople.

a sort of Debatable Land

A term borrowed from Scottish Border history. For centuries, a small strip of land straddling the present Dumfriesshire/Cumbria boundary was disputed between the Scots and the English — a situation tailor-made for exploitation by the Border reivers, with their endless capacity for guile and manipulation. In 1552, with tremendous ceremony, the French Ambassador presiding, the matter was finally settled. A trench and bank (still known as the Scots’ Dike) was driven through the middle of what was now no longer the Debatable Land, following the present Border line between the two countries.

Theoderic wearing. . a diadem

The mosaic head and bust, showing Theoderic wearing an impressive diadem, was uncovered during building work in Theoderic’s great church in Ravenna, St Apollinare Nuovo. Thought at first to represent Justinian, it is now generally accepted as portraying Theoderic.

construction of a water-clock and sundial

These, like the selection of a harpist for Clovis, were important and prestigious commissions, indicative of Boethius’ high standing in Theoderic’s court. Cassiodorus demonstrates this when he places them in positions of honour in Variae. Apart from his official work, Boethius — still only in his twenties — was tackling numerous demanding scholarly projects, such as translating from Greek to Latin all the works of Aristotle and the Dialogues of Plato.

based on the one Diocletian had built

Theoderic’s palace has gone, but is represented in mosaic in the church of St Apollinare Nuovo. Diocletian’s palace at Split (Spalato), on which it is thought to have been modelled, is immense, dwarfing the present town, which has grown up partly inside its well-preserved shell.

my noble Roman with a Gothic heart

To some scholars (e.g., Ensslin, Theoderich) it’s an article of faith that no Roman was employed in a military capacity in Theoderic’s army. Ever. However, this was not a rubric carved in stone; the example of Cyprianus adds further proof. We learn from Cassiodorus (in Variae) that Cyprianus’ father Optilio was an ‘old soldier’, and that the entire family was steeped in military tradition — presumably from imperial times. The expression ‘with a Gothic heart’ was formed as a counterpart to Sidonius Apollinaris’ cor Latinum (Epistulae V).

Chapter 28

Sabinianus. . son of a famous general

Sabinianus senior was one of Zeno’s most effective generals. In 479, during one of the interminable on/off series of campaigns waged by the empire against the Ostrogoths, he almost finished Theoderic’s career. Intercepting one of Theoderic’s columns headed by Thiudimund, he captured all the wagons and took a large number of prisoners — an incident which I’ve transposed in the story to the Ostrogoths’ crossing of the Haemus range. In 481, Sabinianus senior (aka Magnus) fell victim to intrigue and was murdered by order of Zeno — an act of senseless folly, no evidence of guilt being produced against the general. That the son’s career (he rose to become Magister Militum per Illyricum) was not adversely affected, suggests tacit acknowledgement on the part of the Eastern establishment that the murder was unjustified.

Mundo, a renegade warlord

This leader of ‘prowlers, robbers, murderers, and brigands’ (Jordanes, Getica) was enlisted by the Goths because they ‘were in desperate need of help’, according to Wolfram (History of the Goths). Moorhead (Theoderic in Italy), on the other hand, states that the Goths responded to an appeal by Mundo for help against Sabinianus. Moorhead also says that Mundo was ‘probably a Gepid’, whereas Wolfram describes him as ‘Hunnic-Gepidic’. Burns, however (A History of the Ostrogoths) has him as ‘a Hun by ancestry’. One pays one’s money and one takes one’s choice. Moorhead implies that Mundo was already a federate of Theoderic before the Sirmian campaign. But as Mundo’s base, Herta, was a hundred miles east of the empire’s western boundary (and therefore surely coming under Eastern suzerainty), I presume to question this. It seems inherently more likely that Mundo became a federate only after the Ostrogoths had occupied the area, perhaps partly to annul his outlaw status in a move aimed at self-protection.

his eyes are upon you

The idea that the Ostrogoths’ natural unruliness could be curbed by the thought that Theoderic was watching them from afar was suggested by some lines in Ennodius’ Panegyricus Dictus Theoderico. Just before the commencement of the battle against the Bulgars, Pitzia reminds the Goths that the eyes of Theoderic are upon them, and tells them to think of Theoderic should the battle ever seem to be going against them, when their fortunes will surely revive. Gibbon reinforces Ennodius: ‘in the fields of Margus the Eastern powers were defeated by the inferior forces of the Goths and Huns. . and such was the temperance with which Theoderic had inspired his victorious troops, that, as their leader had not given the signal for pillage, the rich spoils of the enemy lay untouched at their feet’. The phrase ‘Big Brother is watching you’ springs to mind; in this context however, its significance is entirely benevolent.

slaughtered to a man

Moorhead (Theoderic in Italy) states that ‘In 514 Theoderic. . put to death a man described as Count Petia’, and goes on to say that ‘there were two, and just possibly three, counts with similar names, but it is not at all clear whether the general of 504-5 was put to death in 514’. This uncertainty, plus the fact that the records are silent regarding Pitzia after 504-5 (assuming that he was not ‘Count Petia’), allowed me to have him die fighting in a desperate last stand against the Bulgars.

Chapter 29

the ‘navicularii’

The guild reached its peak under the late empire, during the fourth century, its security and continuity set in concrete, thanks to imperial legislation. We know that trade between Italy and the Eastern Empire, also with southern Gaul and parts of the Mediterranean littoral of Spain, continued (doubtless considerably attenuated) after the fall of the West. I’ve therefore hazarded the assumption that — being so firmly established even towards the West’s last days — the shippers’ guild survived that empire’s demise, a supposition reinforced by the fact that under Odovacar and Theoderic Roman administration and institutions continued largely uninterrupted in Italy.

Chapter 30

‘One of Theoderic’s “new men”’

Of a sequence of five men appointed to the post of City Prefect after 506, not one became consul or was from any of the great families of Rome. From this time, when making key appointments Theoderic turned decisively towards ‘novi homines’, men who were court apparatchiks, not aristocrats. Moorhead (in Theoderic in Italy) says, ‘it is possible that his [Theoderic’s] change of policy was connected with his final decision against Laurentius, who enjoyed widespread senatorial support in 507; perhaps a degree of punishment, and conceivably fear, were [sic] involved’.

to strengthen Rome’s defences

Refurbishment of Rome’s moenia at this time is confirmed by Cassiodorus (in Variae), who also records the burning of crops and the attack on Sipontum by the Eastern naval expedition.

a massive warship-building programme

‘Their [the Eastern expedition’s] retreat was possibly hastened by the activity of Theoderic; Italy was covered by a fleet of a thousand light vessels, which he constructed with incredible despatch’ (Gibbon).

The shipyards of. . Tergeste

Dalmatia, which then included Trieste (Tergeste), was annexed by Odovacar to his kingdom of Italy, following the death of Nepos.

friendly overtures from Theoderic

A diplomatic mission to the Burgundians had been accompanied by prestigious gifts: a sundial and a water-clock (see Chapter 27).

this part of Italy’s called Magna Graecia

Between the eighth and sixth centuries BC, a number of flourishing Greek colonies (Metapontum, Tarentum, etc.) was established in southern Italy, which thus (by the time of Pythagoras, according to Polybius) acquired the name Magna Graecia. Arriving at Crotona c. 530 BC, the great philosopher and mathematician soon exerted supreme influence in Megale Hellas, as the region was called in Greek.

Like ancient legionaries

Simon MacDowall’s Twilight of the Empire (one of the splendid Osprey series about armies and campaigns) contains graphic descriptions, together with illustrations (based on contemporary evidence) of the appearance of sixth-century East Roman soldiers. Exchange their oval shields for long rectangular ones, and they would be practically indistinguishable from legionaries of the classical period. The example of orders (still given in Latin in East Roman armies at this time) in the text, is taken from Mauricius’ Strategikon, a sixth-century training manual.

The seaboard of Apulia and then Calabria

Calabria, the ancient ‘heel’ of Italy, has since (at some time prior to the eleventh century) moved westwards, to become its ‘toe’! The ‘toe’ was anciently the region known as Bruttium.

along with the title of Augustus

‘Honorary consul’ was an established title, but ‘honorary emperor’ would be a constitutional absurdity. ‘Augustus’ admits of only one interpretation: emperor; and that Clovis certainly was not, in any sense except, perhaps, the complimentary. Yet Gregory of Tours (in Historia Francorum, c. 560) is unequivocal: ‘from that day [i.e., Clovis’s victory over the Visigoths] he was called consul or augustus’. Procopius probably had these titles in mind when he says (in Opera) that the Franks looked for Anastasius’ ‘seal of approval’. The conundrum is perhaps best explained by seeing the titles as ammunition in Anastasius’ campaign to put Theoderic very firmly in his place after the king’s Pannonian/Moesian adventure in 504 and 505, a campaign of which the naval expedition against south Italy formed a major part. In this context the award of the title ‘Augustus’ to Clovis can be interpreted as constituting a snub to Theoderic, designed to puncture any imperial pretensions the king may have entertained, reminding him that only Anastasius had the power to dispense such appellations. There can be no doubt that Anastasius intended ‘Augustus’ to be purely titular. Yet it seems rather to have gone to Clovis’ head. Gregory describes him wearing purple and a diadem, and, in imitation of Emperor Constantine, dedicating a church to the Holy Apostles (viz. Saints Peter and Paul).

his own consular nominee

This has to be yet another example of Anastasius’ determination to punish Theoderic for invading imperial territory. The sole consul for 507 was Anastasius himself, making him consul for the third time.

Chapter 31

once more come under Ostrogothic rule

The only source that I can find that disagrees with this is Wolfram’s History of the Goths wherein he says, ‘Probably in 510 Theoderic. . ceded to Byzantium. . the eastern part of Pannonia Sirmiensis’. But Burns (in A History of the Ostrogoths) states, ‘Sabinianus accepted the restoration of Ostrogothic control at Sirmium, and the Ostrogoths gave up any designs on expanding their power beyond Sirmium’ — a conclusion backed up by maps of Theoderic’s realm, as shown in historical atlases.

the wars that turned out happily for him

From a letter of Theoderic to Clovis, quoted by Cassiodorus (in Variae).

a father-figure to all Germanic peoples

Theoderic emerges as a heroic figure, of immensely prestigious status among Germanic peoples, in early mediaeval legends such as those appearing in the Hildebrandslied, which dates from the time of Charlemagne.

dark skin and tightly curled black hair

These features were probably inherited from Berber rather than negro ancestry. Though black people were by no means unknown in Roman Africa, their presence was accounted for by slavery, or by immigration via Nubia, Ethiopia and Axum (Sudan). The appearance of native North Africans is well represented in busts of Emperor Septimius Severus and his son Caracalla. Moorhead (in Theoderic in Italy) confirms that Priscian ‘was probably an African’.

dedicating three treatises to me

These tracts were De figuris numerorum, De metris fabularum Terentianis, and Praeexercitamina.

another geriatric emperor

It was an age of redoubtable old men living active or productive lives extending far beyond the biblical span: Anastasius, who died aged eighty-eight; Justinian, at eighty-two still working in his study; Liberius, commanding troops not long before his death at eighty-nine; Cassiodorus — still writing at ninety-three — who lived to be a hundred, and whose life (468–568) encompassed both the Western Empire’s fall and its partial restitution under Justinian; Narses, Justinian’s general, who, aged eighty, took Verona from the Ostrogoths, and who died in 575, aged ninety-five.

Amal pedigree has. . had to be concocted

This was actually carried out by Cassiodorus (not acknowledged in the text for reasons connected with plot development), who, digging in Ammianus Marcellinus, barefacedly added the heroic Ermanaric (who ritually committed suicide following his defeat by the Huns) to the Amal family tree, then attached Eutharic’s line to him. Ermanaric was actually a Visigoth, not an Ostrogoth, but Cassiodorus was not going to let a piffling distinction like that deter him. ‘Creative genealogy’ is not, it would appear, a modern phenomenon, but was alive and well in the sixth century.

especially should the couple have a son

Which they duly did. Their offspring, Athalaric, succeeded Theoderic while still a child, Eutharic having already died in mysterious circumstances.

Chapter 32

Theoderic felt his heart swell with pride

There is no evidence that Theoderic visited Rome again subsequent to his extended stay in 500. But, considering the symbolic importance of Eutharic’s consulship as a gesture of imperial approval for Theoderic’s own rule and his son-in-law as his successor, it would have been fitting, to say the least, for him to have been present at the investiture. So having him attend is not, hopefully, stretching possibility too far. As for Eutharic himself, the records are scanty and contradictory. According to Cassiodorus, he was old; but Jordanes maintains he was youthful and attractive (‘wholesome in body’). Some sources say he was a Visigoth, others an Amal (i.e., an Ostrogoth), while Wolfram refers to him as a ‘Visigothic Amal’ — a contradiction in terms, surely. Eutharic is certainly a Germanic name, but Cilliga is not; so his ethnic origins seem far from clear. Altogether, a man of mystery. Taking all this into account, I think it was legitimate for me to select those components which seemed best suited to the story.

patterned in a wondrous raised design

Pop-eyed, they stare out at us, those late Roman consuls, from the ivory covers of their consular diptychs, with their page-boy bob haircuts and robes of ‘wondrous design’, consular baton in left hand, mappa raised in right, ready to start the Games. (Cassiodorus’ description of the robe as ‘palm-enwoven’ may refer to the raised lines of the patterns of rectangles, flowers, etc., perhaps suggestive of the ribs and stem of palm-fronds?) Could their expressions of stoic alarm hint at uncertainty about the survival of their institution? (The last Western consul was appointed for the year 530, the last Eastern, nine years later.) Or perhaps they merely indicate concern about their ability to pay the enormous expenses incurred by giving the Games.

the roar from the Circus Maximus

Roman chariot-racing was big business, involving a vast network of organizations run by huge corporations with thousands of stockholders. It’s ironic to think that the colossal enterprise survived (in attenuated form) the collapse of the Western Empire, only to fizzle out (in Rome, not Constantinople) under that empire’s partial restitution by Justinian.

the last Western Emperor

What happened to Romulus — nicknamed, with affectionate contempt, Romulus ‘Augustulus’ — little emperor’ — after he was compulsorily retired with a generous pension (an act which reflects most creditably on the ‘barbarian’ Odovacar)? If a letter written to ‘Romulus’ by Cassiodorus in the period 507-11 refers to the ex-emperor, that means he was still alive more than thirty years after his deposition. Other than this, we can only speculate as to how long he may have survived, which allows me to have him still living (imagined as a gentle recluse) in Lucullus’ villa near Naples in 519. The villa, constructed by a famous general of the late Republic, was a celebrated beauty spot. (Gibbon gives a good description of the place and its history).

Chapter 33

a successful orchard in Ravenna

‘After the example of the last emperors, Theoderic preferred the residence of Ravenna, where he cultivated an orchard with his own hands’ (Gibbon).

the newly appointed minister

Boethius became Master of Offices (comparable in some ways to our role of Prime Minister) in 523. In the interests of the story, I have put this date back a little without, I think, distorting the sequence of historical events.

resentment over growing German influence

Germans had never been acceptable as emperors. Though it was never put to the test, there are good reasons for supposing that overstepping such a ‘red line’ could have had dire consequences. For example, in Constantinople in 400, as an indirect result of Alaric’s Goths going on the rampage in the Balkans, anti-German violence flared up and several thousand Goths were massacred. And in Italy, following the execution of the Vandal general Stilicho in 408, suspicion of the Germans in the army had led the Roman element to launch a pogrom against the families of the German troops. Despite such precedents, did Theoderic attempt to cross that line?

The rioting of 519-20, which I have suggested could well have been a cover for anti-Arian (i.e. anti-Gothic) resentment, was not an immediate consequence of any measure enforcing religious toleration, which had long been in force. (‘They respected the armed heresy of the Goths; but their pious rage was safely pointed against the rich and defenceless Jews’ — Gibbon.) So what could have sparked it off? Cassiodorus, according to Moorhead (in Theoderic in Italy) suggests that the disturbances were not specifically anti-Jewish but were rooted in some other cause. Is it too fanciful to suggest that the Terracina inscription proclaiming Theoderic emperor, which may well have been contemporary with the riots, could have been that cause? The planned coronation in St Peter’s is invention, but the fact that nearly three centuries later a German monarch (Charlemagne) was crowned there as (Holy) Roman Emperor, gives food for thought. Was the idea behind the coronation of 800 original, or was it perhaps inspired by a memory of Theoderic’s unfulfilled dream?

retribution was swift and harsh

This is confirmed by Anonymous Valesianus, who ascribes to Eutharic the punishments meted out to the Romans of Ravenna. To quote Wolfram (in History of the Goths), ‘Eutharic’s popularity among the Romans must have declined quickly for during the unrest of 520 he advocated stern countermeasures’.

his imperial dreams

The wording and imagery of the Senigallia medallion, the Ravenna mosaic portrait head crowned with a diadem, the Terracina inscription: these are but the most telling manifestations of Theoderic’s ambition to become a Roman emperor, occasions when, as Heather (in The Goths) says, ‘the mask slipped’.

Chapter 34

a sneaking sympathy for a people

Like the Visigoths (and indeed the Ostrogoths), the Jews were forced to become a wandering people, especially when (after several failed and bloody insurrections against Roman rule) they were finally expelled from Palestine by Hadrian, thereafter to encounter varying degrees of persecution in the countries where they tried to make a home — culminating in the Holocaust. ‘Nowhere is Theoderic seen more attractively than in his policy towards the Jews’, says Moorhead. Compared to zealots like the emperor Theodosius I and his partner in bigotry Bishop Ambrose of Milan, who stamped out the slightest deviation from orthodox Catholicism with fanatical thoroughness, Theoderic comes over as a model of enlightened tolerance, rare for his time and indeed for any subsequent period. When Pope Hormisdas was all for putting pressure on Justin to whip the Monophysites of Egypt into line, Theoderic may well have played a part in ensuring that moderate policies prevailed, which, by turning a blind eye to Egyptian ‘heresy’, may have averted another Schism. The conclusion of his letter to the Jews of Genoa, giving them permission to rebuild their synagogue, says it all: ‘We cannot command adherence to a religion, since no one is forced to believe unwillingly’. What a tragedy that such a gifted, courageous and resilient race, who have produced, inter alios, David, Jesus, Paul of Tarsus, the historian Josephus, the philosopher Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Einstein and Menuhin, should have suffered ‘the slings and arrows of [such] outrageous fortune’. If only they could have taken a more accomodating stance towards the Romans, the present agony of Palestine might have been avoided.

that portent of the death of kings

This is mentioned by Anonymous Valesianus, also by various Byzantine authors who date it as occurring c. 520. (The association with the death of kings comes from the Roman author Suetonius, whom the Anonymous may have read.)

named him [Justinian] as his heir

Whether Hilderic went quite as far as this is doubtful, but he certainly established a very cordial entente with Justinian, who avidly cultivated his friendship — to the extent that, according to Browning (in Justinian and Theodora), ‘For a time it looked as though Africa might be returned to Roman sovereignty without a blow being struck.’ When Justinian eventually invaded, Hilderic was murdered by the Vandal nobles, on suspicion of being a fellow traveller.

the shipyards are busy night and day

Compared to his hasty construction in late 507 or early 508 of a fleet of light vessels to counter an Eastern naval expedition against Italy, Theoderic’s building of an armada in the last years of his life (probably starting in 523) was a vast project involving the launching of a thousand mighty warships or dromons. Whereas the first was a sensible and timely response to a very real and pressing emergency, the second seems to have been an inexplicable over-reaction to largely illusory threats: a perceived Rome-Constantinople senatorial conspiracy to overthrow him; and Hilderic’s pro-Byzantine policy following his accession in 523. (Theoderic’s attitude towards Hilderic must have been coloured by the fact that the new Vandal king had thrown Thrasamund’s widow, Amalafrida, Theoderic’s sister, into prison, where she later died, and had her Ostrogothic bodyguard slaughtered.) To create such a massive armament in case ‘The Greek [i.e. the East Roman Empire] should. . reproach or. . the African [i.e. the Vandal king of Africa] insult’, as Cassiodorus put it, seems a disproportionate response, suggesting a state of mind approaching paranoia. True, the invasion did eventually materialize, but it was hardly imminent in Theoderic’s lifetime. In Theoderic in Italy, Moorhead suggests that ‘the building of the fleet may have been in response to the death, perhaps not of natural causes, of Amalafrida’, which some scholars date as occurring in 523, others in 525 or 526. Such a response surely belongs more to some distant heroic age (shades of Helen of Troy — ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’) than the cold realpolitik of late antiquity. If true, it suggests that Theoderic may have been suffering from some kind of mental breakdown.

they will remember me for this

No fear of that not happening! Massive, austere, uncompromising, the Mausoleum of Theoderic dominates the landscape and is impossible to ignore. The workmanship is superb, the limestone blocks of its construction fitting so exactly as to need no mortar. How the dome was transported across the Adriatic and manoeuvred into position remains a mystery. Even with today’s sophisticated technology, the undertaking would present a daunting challenge. Regarding its design, varying theories abound. Some claim Gothic inspiration, others classical, while one scholar (Professor Sauro Gelichi, of the University of Venice) maintains that the dome was modelled on a yurt, the circular tent used by nomads: a fascinating theory of whose validity I remain to be convinced. Overall, opinions regarding design seem to settle for a classical late-Roman structure with a few Gothic touches, especially in the decoration of the outside walls of the upper storey. Within that storey lies Theoderic’s sarcophagus of Egyptian porphyry — significantly, the material reserved for the use of emperors. Today, it lies empty, his body probably removed, at the time of Justinian’s re-occupation, by zealous Nicene Catholics.

Chapter 35

the ‘kingdoms’ of Dyfed, Ceredigion and Gwynedd

According to Winbolt (Britain under the Romans), native rulers — called gwledig — undertook the defence of Britain after the departure of the legions. In this context he mentions Ambrosius Aurelianus (actually of Roman rather than British origin), one Cunedda, who maintained a force of nine hundred horsemen on the Roman Wall, and Cunedda’s descendants who ruled in Wales, such as Keredig and Meirion who gave their names to the areas they ruled (Ceredigion and Merioneth). Arthur is referred to as a semi-mythical ‘king’ leading a British resistance movement against the Saxons.

a holy man of great repute, one Deiniol

Deiniol (later canonized) founded a college in Bangor in 525, and became the town’s first bishop in 550.

a most beautiful region

Known today as the Lake District.

Here, the Kymry are still strong

At the time of the Roman invasion of AD 43, there were two separate Celtic peoples in Britain: the Picts living to the north of the Forth-Clyde valley, and the Welsh-speaking Britons who inhabited the rest of the island. After the departure of the legions c. 407, German tribes — Jutes, Angles and Saxons from coastal northern Germany and the Jutland peninsula (who had been raiding eastern Britain for more than a century) — began to arrive in ever greater numbers, to settle south of Hadrian’s Wall. The invaders (Saxons in the south, Angles in the Midlands and the north) gradually pushed the Britons into the far west, mainly Wales and Cornwall, where they continued to live in freedom, speaking their own language. (Cornish died out about two hundred years ago, although efforts are being made to revive it; Welsh not only survived but is flourishing.)

Undoubtedly, the Romans were responsible for creating a feeling of unity among the Britons, who were a collection of disparate tribes at the time of the invasion. After the legions had left, this ‘Britishness’ was almost certainly strengthened by resistance against a common Anglo-Saxon enemy — to the extent that Ambrosius Aurelianus seems to have been a genuine national leader rather than a local warlord. That Cunedda could rule in Cumbria, and his descendants in Wales, reinforces the idea that the Britons saw themselves as a single people, the ‘Kymry’, as does a tradition (which I’ve made use of in the story) that the Votadini moved south (perhaps to Wales, but we can’t be sure) to assist their hard-pressed kinsmen in their struggle against the invader.

a great plain called Camlan

In legend, Arthur was mortally wounded at the Battle of Camlan (site unknown) and was then rowed to an island in a lake (Avalon?) by six black-clad queens. Slightly adapted, I’ve incorporated this account into the story.

an arresting spectacle

The imposing remains of Hadrian’s Wall, which crossed England from the Tyne to the Solway (a distance of seventy-three miles), are testimony to the power and organizing ability of Rome. That such a massive undertaking (not just a wall, but a complete frontier zone including huge fortresses, ‘milecastles’ and turrets, and a complex infrastructure of roads, supply depots and a port) could happen in a remote and comparatively unimportant province, speaks volumes about the empire’s vast resources and terrifying efficiency.

The term Vallum Hadriani, which is what the Romans called the Wall, is slightly misleading. Strictly, the ‘Vallum’ was the broad ditch fronting the inside of the Wall and demarcating the military zone, not the actual barrier itself.

Chapter 36

Creeping Germanization, that’s what happened

Despite Paul’s fears, it didn’t creep very far. Unlike Normanization in post-Hastings England, or Africanization in post-colonial Rhodesia, Germanization in Theoderic’s Italy was very limited, being essentially confined to manning the army with Goths — hardly a radical step, as the Army of Italy in the last years of empire had been largely made up of federates. Otherwise, the phasing out of the Roman palace bodyguard, together with sundry palace officials and the silentiarii, and replacing them with Goths, seems to have been the only other significant change. The administration continued to be run almost exclusively by Romans.

Fridibad, the ‘saio’

Theoderic’s power ultimately resided in his ability to persuade his Ostrogothic fellow tribesmen to accept his authority; unlike Roman emperors, German kings ruled by consent. Gothic nobles (comites, or counts) saw themselves as a warrior elite, the risk of them becoming ‘overmighty subjects’ always present, as men like Theodahad and Tuluin graphically demonstrated in Theoderic’s closing years. Between the nobles and the mass of the Ostrogothic people were the saiones. The term’s meaning is hard to define exactly; perhaps the English ‘sheriff’ (in the mediaeval sense) comes closest. Intermediaries, and enforcers of the king’s writ, representing the personal leadership invested in the royal power, they eschewed lofty ranks and titles. Burns (in his scholarly and highly readable A History of the Ostrogoths) is most enlightening: ‘the actual royal ‘firefighters’ were the saiones. . the king’s men [taking] charge for the king himself, wherever they went. Unless the king retained their loyalty and obedience and the respect they inspired, he could not rule.’

Chapter 37

a leading senator, one Albinus

Son of a consul (Basilius in 480) and himself a consul (in 493), Albinus was a scion of the very powerful and distinguished family of the Decii, had been connected with the negotiations to end the Acacian Schism, and was a leading member of the Senate. That he had been engaged in correspondence with Constantinople is not in doubt, though whether this was treasonable cannot be confirmed.

Cyprian, the Referendarius

He charged Albinus with having sent Justin a letter hostile to Theoderic’s kingdom. Unfortunately, we have no details about what precisely this implied. Cyprian was an interesting character and, as far as we can tell, an honest official. He had served in Theoderic’s army — one of the few Romans to have done so — and, almost uniquely among Romans, could speak Gothic. A riding-companion of Theoderic, he was, according to Cassiodorus, a man of action rather than reading. Burns asserts that in charging Boethius Cyprian ‘was just doing his job’, and cites his subsequent promotion to Comes Sacrarum Largitionum and Magister Officiorum as evidence of his probity. Given this, it is at least open to question whether Boethius was telling the truth when he claimed that the letter written supposedly by him that contained the damning words ‘libertas Romana’ was a forgery. However, as Gibbon — with the splendours of the English justice system in mind — said, ‘his innocence must be presumed, since he was deprived by Theoderic of the means of justification’.

Written at the Villa Jovis

Coming hot on the heels of the political catastrophes that afflicted the late years of Theoderic’s reign — the urban riots, defection of allies, Constantinople’s anti-Arian laws, etc. — the apparent treachery of Albinus and Boethius (just the presumed tip of a senatorial iceberg) must have been particularly cruel hammer-blows. I have taken advantage of the uncertainty regarding dates for this period to present the events covered by the chapter (which have a real sense of nemesis following hubris, befitting Greek tragedy) as occurring in rapid sequence, in order to heighten the dramatic tempo. As Moorhead says, ‘The timetable of these events is not as clear as we would like, especially as there are problems in the chronology of Anonymous Valesianus’.

imprisoned in its forbidding keep

As the tower of Pavia no longer exists (it was demolished in 1584), we can only speculate as to its appearance and function. Gibbon mentions a Pavian tradition that it was a baptistery.

The Consolation of Philosophy

Although written by a committed Christian, this celebrated work (which takes the form of a dialogue between the author and a personified Philosophy) contains not a single reference to Christianity, its tone throughout reflecting a Neo-Platonist cast of mind. Its theme is that all earthly fortune is mutable, and everything save virtue insecure. Of impeccable Latinity, its style imitates the best models of the Augustan age. It was translated into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred, and translated into various languages throughout the Middle Ages, when it achieved something of the status of a ‘best-seller’.

The death of Boethius (and thus the termination of his last work) is usually dated to 524. Moorhead, however, argues convincingly for a date of 526. As he says, ‘the later we date the execution of Boethius the easier it is to account for the perfection of the work he wrote in prison’.

Chapter 38

Ager Calventianus

Suggestions as to the exact location of the scene of Boethius’ execution vary: ‘the distant estate of Calventia’ (Burns); ‘Agro Calventiano. . between Marignano and Pavia’ (Gibbon); and ‘agro Calventiano, almost certainly a part of Pavia’ (Moorhead). These differences, I felt, gave me the freedom to make the place the Pavian equivalent of ‘Tower Green’. The method of despatch is given in ancient sources as either by cord and club (Anonymous Valesianus), or alternatively by sword (Liber pontificalis). Most modern scholars go for the cord-and-club version. Gibbon gives a gruesomely graphic description of Boethius’ death by this latter method, also of the scene where Theoderic sees in the head of a fish the avenging spectre of Symmachus — which I’ve taken the liberty of changing to that of Boethius, for obvious dramatic reasons.

an impossible distance

But not if the story of ‘Swift Nick’ Nevison (on which the Dick Turpin myth is based) is true. In 1676, he established an apparent cast-iron alibi for a robbery he committed at Gadshill near Gravesend, at four in the morning. Taking the ferry from Gravesend to Tilbury, he then rode to York via Chelmsford, Cambridge and Huntingdon, and ‘then holding on the [Great] North Road, and keeping a full larger gallop most of the way, he came to York the same afternoon’ (Daniel Defoe, A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain).

The distance from Gravesend to York is almost exactly two hundred miles, the same as that from Ravenna to Pavia. Given that the Via Aemilia in 526 would have been in far better condition than the Great North Road in 1676, that the terrain of the Po valley is even flatter than that of eastern England, and that Fridibad had the advantage of changes of mount, the saio could well have completed the journey within twelve hours. As Roman dinners started considerably earlier than ours, Theoderic could have taken to his bed by 5 p.m., and Fridibad been on the road by 6 p.m.

Theoderic was dead

He died on 30 August 526 (shortly after the execution of Boethius, Moorhead suggests), the very day on which his anti-Catholic legislation, which included the surrender of churches to Arians, was due to come into force.