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.