Roderic and Victor were not the only ones to benefit (in their case, fictionally) from the great Roman campaigner’s ideas. General ‘Stormin’ Norman’ Schwarzkopf studied and applied Scipio’s tactics with great success in at least one battle in the first Gulf War.
standard regulation issue
From archaeological and representational evidence, we have a clear idea of the equipment of the typical East Roman soldier (both officer and other ranks) of the fifth and sixth centuries. The marvellous Osprey series about armies and campaigns (on whose illustrations in Twighlight of the Empire etc., I’ve based my descriptions) is invaluable for visualizing fighting men of the period. The gear of late Roman soldiers of the Eastern Empire tended to be very conservative. It often featured typically ‘Roman’ helmets (actually based on Greek ‘Attic’ helmets of Peloponnesian War vintage) that would not have looked out of place on Trajan’s Column.
an immensely long pike
The fearsome sarissa, or twenty-foot long pike, enabled Alexander to conquer much of Asia with the famous Macedonian phalanx — an invincible formation, provided iron discipline was maintained and enemy archers neutralized in advance. In various guises the pike-phalanx kept reappearing throughout history: as the schiltron in the Scottish Wars of Independence, and in the massed formations of Swiss mercenaries and Landsknechte of the Renaissance period and of the English Civil War, where battles could sometimes be decided by ‘push of pike’. The formation’s weakness of course was its vulnerability to archery, and later to musket fire. However, in combination with the firearm, the pike as an individual weapon lives on in the shape of the bayonet, proving its value in close combat fighting in campaigns stretching from Blenheim to Afghanistan.
a rigid code of loyalty and honour
Sharing something of the ideal values of Periclean Athens, Republican Rome, mediaeval chivalry, and the code of Bushido of Japanese samurai, the moral standards of Persian aristocracy were shaped by scrupulous observation of consideration and politeness (often taken to absurd extremes), truthfulness, fidelity and respect for superior rank.
N.B. Beyond telling us that he was a good and conscientious soldier, the records don’t explain how it was that ‘Roderic’ came to be awarded, in the words of Gibbon, ‘the dignity of senator, and the command of the guards’. So I felt I had to invent a situation which would allow Roderic to show himself, through action, as the kind of man we believe him to have been. Though fictional, the incidents in the Prologue are (very) loosely linked to real events. The Persians did invade Oriens during the reign of Anastasius, but on the initiative of Kavad* himself, not one of his generals; they eventually withdrew, not because of a decisive Roman victory but because the campaign became bogged down in a bloody stalemate; Kavad was under the influence of a powerful personality — not a general, however, but a religious impostor called Mazdak — who may or may not have encouraged him to embark on a military adventure against the East Roman Empire; the defeat of Tamshapur’s force is borrowed from an incident occurring in 622, when the East Roman emperor Heraclius routed the cataphracts and infantry of the ferocious Persian general Shahrvaraz, ‘the Wild Boar’, who actually did burn prisoners alive on crosses, and who was my model for Tamshapur. The scene of his defeat was suggested by the location of Petra (minus the rock-carved buildings) — a long, sandstone defile, exceedingly narrow in places.
Chapter 1
an Edict of Emperor Theodosius
Passed on 24 February 391, this draconian enactment — which was enforced with fanatical thoroughness by the minions of the emperor and his partner in zealotry Bishop Ambrose of Milan, banned all pagan practices within the Empire at a time when many Roman citizens still clung to pagan beliefs. Henceforth, all religious creeds, other than Orthodox Catholicism, were to be deemed illegal, including the Arian form of Christianity — the faith of almost all Germans. But this created a massive inconsistency. Owing to a severe shortage of Roman recruits, Theodosius took the dangerous step of enrolling into the army whole tribes of (Arian) Germans enlisting under their own chieftains. Clearly, there could be no question of trying to make these federates relinquish their Arian belief in order to conform to the Edict; in their case, a blind eye had perforce to be turned. However, this exception did not extend to isolated Gothic communities long settled in the Empire (sometimes referred to as ‘Moeso-Goths’, from the province of Moesia Secunda where many of them had made their homes) of which the Goths of Tauresium may have formed an example.
Born 31 August in the year. . 482
This is necessarily conjectural; we know that Uprauda was born in either 482 or 483, but not the exact date. In Roman times, 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 14 January and the 1 February; and so on to the last day of the month which was termed pridie Kalendas. In this particular entry, ‘in the year of’ is understood, ablative absolute construction being used to give, ‘Trocundus and Severinus being consuls’.
Legio Quinta Macedonica
Thanks to representational evidence (carvings of the fifth and sixth centuries), we have a very clear idea of the appearance of soldiers of this unit: oval shield decorated with ‘sunflower’ motif; scale armour or chain mail hauberk; ‘Attic’ helmet (sometimes shown with crest); spear and long sword (spatha) in the case of infantry; short recurved bow but no shield in the case of horse-archers. (See Twighlight of the Empire in the excellent Osprey series.)
Chapter 2
a vigorous bout of harpastum
Beyond the fact that it appears to have been some sort of competitive ball-game, I’ve been unable to discover any details about how harpastum may have been played, so have had to fall back on invention. Sidonius Apollinaris — Bishop of Clermont in the fifth century — refers to a game with teams of ball-players throwing and catching balls with swift turns and agile ducking. Could this have been harpastum?
that first sight of the city
Among the landmarks mentioned by Petrus, the Walls of Theodosius (at present being restored to something like their original glory), the Golden Gate, and the Aqueduct of Valens are still to be seen — all in a remarkable state of preservation.
the tall column that rose in the middle of the square
Commemorating a bloody pogrom of the Goths in Constantinople in AD 400, the Column of Arcadius was an ugly example of state-sponsored chauvinism. (Shades of the inscription on Sir Christopher Wren’s Monument in London, laying the blame for the Great Fire on the Catholics!) Although, apart from the base, the column was demolished in 1715, we know what it looked like from a drawing made earlier.
the Cistern of Nomus
Nomus was a real person (when Master of Offices during the wars with Attila, he bought time for the Eastern Empire by unobtrusively strengthening the defences of the northern frontier), but the cistern I’ve named for him is a composite invention. Readers may recognize parts of it from scenes in Istanbuclass="underline" in the James Bond film, From Russia with Love, in the TV series, Francesco’s Mediterranean Voyage, by Francesco da Mosto, in the Basilica Cistern (Yerebatanserai), which still impresses visitors today.