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 alclass="underline" ‘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.