AUTHOR’S NOTE
Regarding the history of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, we know pretty well what happened, but not always why or how it happened. This requires the writer of historical fiction to flesh out the skeleton of available fact with speculation as to the motivation and personality traits of real persons. For example, we don’t know if Attila planned to build a ‘Greater Scythia’, as I have suggested. But it is at least arguable that he might have done. Great military leaders have tended to harbour ambitions beyond the mere acquisition of plunder and territory — Alexander and Napoleon, for instance.
Such creative guesswork aside, I have, except in a few instances, kept to the known historical facts as closely as possible. (The story of Attila and Aetius is so extraordinary and dramatic in itself that it needs little in the way of embellishment.) The exceptions are as follows. The Burgundians have been relocated to Savoy a few years before this actually happened. My character Constantius is a conflation of two real persons of that name. Even Gibbon admits that the two Constantii ‘from the similar events of their lives might have been easily confounded’; so I don’t feel too guilty about uniting them. I have made him the key figure in Chrysaphius’ plot to have Attila murdered, rather than Edecon or Bigilas (Vigilius), the two agents most closely involved in the conspiracy. Ambrosius’ meeting with Germanus is conjectural, but certainly within the bounds of possibility when the difficulty in precisely dating events in Britain for this period, is borne in mind. According to some scholars (Winbolt, Musset, et al.), Ambrosius was active in the early to mid-fifth century; others (e.g., Cleary) place him late in that century. Like Aetius, Ambrosius Aurelianus (sometimes given as Aurelius Ambrosius), who is thought to have come from a consular family, has earned the epithet ‘the last of the Romans’. The estimated date of Germanus’ second visit to Britain (440-44) virtually coincides with that for the third appeal for help to Aetius (445), permitting, I think, a fictional conjunction. Irnac I have presented as a child rather than the young man whom Priscus saw. And Daniel, Constantinople’s ‘pillar-saint’, I have placed on his column ten years before he first sat on it. In addition, I have made a few minor changes to topography: part of the necropolis of Tarquinii (the Etruscans’ southern capital) has been translated a hundred miles north — but still within Etruria — to the valley of the Garfagnana; in Gaius’ transit of the Black Forest I have telescoped one or two features (for instance, bringing the Triberg Falls a few miles further south), and have relocated the Himmelreich from the western to the eastern end of the Hollenthal. The above changes were made in the interests of dramatic emphasis or rounded storytelling, and on that count are hopefully excusable.
As for sources, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (still the most vivid and readable general account), E. A. Thompson’s A History of Attila and the Huns, and The Later Roman Empire by my old lecturer, A. H. M. Jones, were essential background reading. Of the many books kindly lent to me by my co-publisher Hugh Andrew, the following were especially valuable: Fifth-Century Gauclass="underline" A Crisis of Identity, a series of papers edited by John Drinkwater and Hugh Elton; The Early Germans by Malcolm Todd; Peter Brown’s The World of Late Antiquity; The Germanic Invasions by Lucien Musset; and — a real treasure — The Rome that Did Not Fall by Stephen Williams and Gerard Friell. Some primary sources that I found extremely useful were: Notitia Dignitatum, a list of senior army and civil posts with units, for both halves of the empire, compiled c. 400; The Histories of Ammianus Marcellinus, which gives a marvellous picture of the late Roman world in the period just before that of my story; Ptolemy’s Geographia; and excerpts from the Byzantine History of Priscus of Panium, which includes an eye-witness account of the Eastern embassy’s visit to Attila’s court.
R. L.
APPENDIX I
DID ATTILA REALLY DESERVE HIS SOUBRIQUET ‘THE SCOURGE OF GOD’?
The received understanding of Attila’s soubriquet Flagellum Dei, the Scourge of God, is of a ruthless barbarian leader heading a horde of bloodthirsty savages on a rampage through the Roman Empire. There is an undeniable element of truth in that image. To contemporaries, however, the epithet had a somewhat different meaning. Attila was seen as just retribution sent by God to chastise the Christian Romans for some (unspecified) collective fault or omission. Catastrophes, whether caused by man or nature, then tended to be regarded as the consequence of divine disapproval. Which perhaps lends a fresh perspective to the interpretation of Attila’s nickname. Had Attila been Christian instead of heathen, would he still have been seen as the Scourge of God? It’s a moot point. The Vandal monarch Gaiseric, who was Christian, and whose tally of destruction and atrocities was not so very inferior to Attila’s, was never known by anything other than his own name.
Judged by the standards of the ancient world, Attila may not have been quite the monster he appears to us. ‘Greatness’ in that world tended to be equated with scale of conquest, large numbers of enemy killed or enslaved being a bonus — vide Alexander ‘the Great’, Pompey ‘the Great’, et al. One condition of a Roman general’s being awarded a triumph was that enemy dead should number not less than five thousand. (Julius Caesar boasted of having slaughtered a million Gauls.) By this yardstick, Attila would certainly qualify as a legitimate contender for the palm of greatness! ‘Attila the Great’ — it sounds preposterous, but only perhaps because he left no legacy. Had the vast empire he built up endured, and not disintegrated immediately following his death, his reputation might today be very different. History, after all, is written by the winners.
On a personal level, Attila compares favourably with many supposedly ‘civilized’ Greeks and Romans. His legendary simplicity of dress and lifestyle (skin garments, wooden cup and platter) was in refreshing contrast to the ostentatious pomp and luxury of the imperial courts of Constantinople and Ravenna. Although his punishments could be cruel (crucifixion and impalement were favourite forms), he could — as befits magnanimous monarchs who are above acts of petty revenge — display mercy and forgiveness. For example, when Bigilas/Vigilius, the chief agent in the bungled conspiracy to assassinate Attila, was brought before him, the King disdained to punish the man as being so insignificant as to constitute no threat. This surely displays a certain nobility of character, which contrasts with the jealous vindictiveness of Valentinian III, who slew his chief general, Aetius, with his own hand, or the rancorous spite shown by the Empress Eudoxia in hounding the saintly John Chrysostom to his death.
Attila’s onslaught on first the Eastern then the Western Roman Empire, has created an indelible image of a power-hungry megalomaniac. The truth is that he had little choice. By inheriting the Hun throne, he became shackled to a juggernaut. The only way to hold the Hun nation together, and maintain personal power by rewarding his followers, was to wage war — incessant, successful war. Failure to maintain that momentum would have resulted in his swift replacement (and almost certain liquidation). So, by a (very) generous re-interpretation of history, Attila could be portrayed more as a man of his time and the prisoner of circumstances, than as the Scourge of God.
APPENDIX II
WHY DID THE EASTERN EMPIRE SURVIVE WHILE THE WESTERN DID NOT?