The Wolves of the North (47 page)

Socratic dialogue
: Literary genre taking the form of conversations on philosophical themes, popularized by Plato’s more or less imagined discussions with Socrates.

Sophist
: Highly regarded public speaker who specialized in display oratory.

Spatha
: Long Roman sword, the normal type of sword carried by all troops by the mid-third century
AD
.

Spolia Opima
: Roman generals who personally killed the opposing
commander in combat were allowed to strip the armour from their enemy and dedicate it to the gods. The honour was so potent that Augustus, later to become the first Roman emperor, blocked the claim of one of his generals on very spurious grounds to avoid being outdone. Only known to have been won three times, the last in 222
BC
.

Stipendium
: Latin military term for a soldier or sailor’s pay.

Styx
: In Greek and Roman mythology, the river marking the boundary of the underworld. The spirits of the dead had to pay to be ferried across.

Suania
: Kingdom in the high Caucasus; included the modern district of Georgia called Svaneti.

Subura
: Poor quarter of the city of Rome.

Suebian sea
: Ancient name for the Baltic.

Syzygos
: Greek, literally ‘yoked together’, so consort. In ancient mystical religions, a term for a companion angel.

Taifali
: Germanic tribe settled around the river Danube. Ammianus Marcellinus reports that their boys had homosexual relationships with older men until they had made their first successful hunt.

Tamga
: Term for the tribal or family symbols used to differentiate the nomadic peoples and clans of the Steppe.

Tanais
: City at the mouth of the river Tanais (the modern Don), located on the extreme north-eastern shore of the Sea of Azov.

Tanais river
: The Don.

Tarandos
: One of the fantastical creatures said to live in Scythia, the size of a cow with the head of a deer.

Tarpeites
: One of the tribes of the Maeotae living on the eastern shore of Lake Maeotis, the modern Sea of Azov.

Tauma
: Persian, literally, ‘twin’; a spirit double.

Tauromenium
: Town in Sicily (modern Taormina), where Ballista and Julia own a villa.

Teiws
: God of war worshipped by the Goths.

Tervingi
: Gothic tribe living in the region between the Danube and Dnieper rivers.

Thiazi
: Giant in Norse mythology, whose eyes were placed in the heavens by Odin.

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes
: ‘I fear the Greeks, even bearing gifts.’ A much-quoted line from Virgil’s epic poem, the
Aeneid
; origin of the saying, ‘Beware Greeks bearing gifts.’

Toga
: Voluminous garment, reserved for Roman citizens, worn on formal occasions.

Toga Virilis
: Garment given to mark a Roman’s coming of age; usually at about fourteen.

Trapezus
: City on the southern coast of the Black Sea, sacked by the Goths in
AD
258.

Trierarch:
Commander of a
trireme
; in the Roman forces, equivalent to a centurion.

Trireme
: Ancient warship, a galley rowed by about 200 men on three levels.

Tumulus
: Latin term for a burial mound.

Urugundi
: Gothic tribe settled along the Don river.

Valhalla:
In Norse paganism, the hall in which selected heroes who had fallen in battle would feast until Ragnarok.

Varini
: North Germanic tribe.

Vesta
: Roman goddess of the hearth.

Vir Egregius
: Knight of Rome, a man of the equestrian order.

Vir Ementissimus
: Highest rank an equestrian could attain; e.g. Praetorian Prefect.

Vir Perfectissimus
: Equestrian rank above
Vir Egregius
but below
Vir Ementissimus
.

Woden
: High Norse god.

Wonders Beyond Thule
: Novel written in the second century
AD
by Antonius Diogenes, taking the form of a fantastical travel book in 24 volumes, now known only via an epitome. Thule was an island thought to lie in the extreme north, beyond Britain.

Wyrd
: Anglo-Saxon, ‘fate’; one of the
norns
.

Zereba
: Stockade of thorn bushes made by African tribes.

Zirin
: Cry of the Scythians, said by Lucian to signal a person’s status as an emissary and prevent the caller from being harmed, even in the heat of combat.

To avoid giving away any of the plot, characters usually are only described as first encountered in
The Wolves of the North.

Achilles
: Greek hero of the
Iliad
, Homer’s epic poem of the Trojan War.

Aegisthus
: In Greek mythology, he seduced Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon.

Aeschylus
: Greek tragic playwright of the first half of the fifth century
BC
.

Agaetes
: Semi-mythical king of Scythia.

Agamemnon
: Leader of the Greek forces in the Trojan War.

Agesilaus
: Agesilaus II, King of Sparta,
c
. 445–359
BC
. Said to have ensured a favourable omen before battle by inscribing V
ICTORY
backwards on his hand and pressing it on the entrails of the sacrificial victim.

Ajax
: Greek hero of the Trojan War.

Alaric
: Outcast from the Taifali, now a war leader for the Heruli.

Albinus
: Decius Clodius Septimius Albinus,
c
.
AD
150–97. Appointed Caesar by Septimius Severus. When the latter elevated his own son Caracalla to be Caesar, he sent messengers with orders to assassinate
Albinus. When the plot failed, Albinus declared himself emperor from his base in Britain.

Alexander the Great
: 356–23
BC
, son of Philip, King of Macedon, conqueror of Achaemenid Persia.

Aluith
: Young Herul, from the Rosomoni clan.

Amantius
: Publius Egnatius Amantius, an imperial eunuch originally from Abasgia.

Ammius
: Leader of a war band of Heruli.

Anacharsis
: Scythian philosopher who settled in Athens in the sixth century
BC
, sometimes numbered among the Seven Sages of Greece.

Andonnoballus
: Chief of the Heruli, from the Rosomoni clan.

Aordus
: Ex-slave of the Heruli freed for courage in battle, now a full member of the tribe.

Aoric
: Deceased King of the Urugundi, father of King Hisarna.

Apollonius of Rhodes
: Third-century
BC
writer, author of the
Argonautica
.

Apollonius of Tyana
: Greek philosopher and holy man of the first century
AD
, said to perform miracles.

Apsyrtus
: Brother of Medea. In some versions of the myth, he was murdered and dismembered by Jason, but in others by his own sister, to delay pursuit by their father’s men.

Artemidorus
: Greek from Trapezus, captured and enslaved by the Heruli. Later freed, and appointed a leader among the nomads.

Aruth
: Chief of the Heruli, from the Rosonomi clan.

Augustus
: First Roman emperor, 31
BC
–
AD
14.

Aurelian
: Lucius Domitius Aurelian, a Roman officer from the Danube, one of the
protectores
. A friend of Ballista at the court of Gallienus.

Aureolus
: Once a Getan shepherd near the Danube, now Gallienus’s Prefect of Cavalry, one of the
protectores
.

Ballista
: Marcus Clodius Ballista, originally named Dernhelm, son of Isangrim the
Dux
, war leader, of the Angles; a diplomatic hostage in the Roman empire, he has been granted Roman citizenship and
equestrian status, having served in the Roman army in Africa, the far west, and on the Danube and the Euphrates (
Fire in the East
); having defeated the Sassanid Persians at the battles of Circesium (
King of Kings
), Soli and Sebaste, and killed the pretender Quietus, he was briefly acclaimed Roman emperor (
Lion of the Sun
); the year before this novel takes place he served as a Roman envoy in the Caucasus (
The Caspian Gates
).

Bauto
: Young Frisian slave purchased by Ballista in Ephesus.

Berus
: Herul of the Rosomoni clan.

Biomasos
: An interpreter attached to Ballista’s embassy. See note in the Historical Afterword.

Brachus
: Spirit-twin of Naulobates.

Calanus
: Indian ascetic who attached himself to Alexander the Great’s army. Falling ill, and not wishing to be a burden on others, he immolated himself.

Calgacus
: Marcus Clodius Calgacus, a Caledonian ex-slave, originally owned by Isangrim and sent by him to serve as a body servant to his son Ballista in the Roman empire; manumitted by the latter, now a freedman with Roman citizenship.

Caligula
: Gaius Julius, Roman emperor
AD
37–41, as a child nicknamed ‘Little Boots’ (Caligula), because his father had him dressed in miniature soldier’s uniform.

Callirhoe
: Prostitute met by Ballista’s companion Maximus. Her story may have been ‘borrowed’ from the novel of the same name by Chariton of Aphrodisias.

Cannabas
: Said to have been a king of the Goths in the mid-third century
AD
, though perhaps a Roman joke about nomadic drug use from the Greek form of his name, Cannabaudes.

Castricius
: Gaius Aurelius Castricius, Roman army officer risen from the ranks, was Prefect of Cavalry under both Quietus and Ballista, served as Roman envoy to the king of Albania, now Ballista’s deputy in the mission to the Steppes.

Censorinus
: Lucius Calpurnius Piso Censorinus,
Princeps Peregrinorum
under Valerian and the pretenders Macrianus and Quietus; now serving as deputy Praetorian Prefect under Gallienus.

Circe
: Mythical witch, who delayed Odysseus’s homecoming from the Trojan War.

Cledonius
:
Ab Admissionibus
to Valerian; captured by the Persians with the emperor.

Clytemnestra
: Wife of Agamemnon; was unfaithful while her husband was fighting at Troy and, on his return, aided in his murder.

Corbicius
: In some unsympathetic accounts of Manichaeism, Mani is said to have originally been born a slave boy named Corbicius.

Datius
: Ex-slave of the Heruli freed for courage in battle, now a full member of the tribe.

Decius
: Gaius Messius Quintus. Ruled
AD
249–51, killed in battle by the Goths at Abritus.

Demetrius
: Marcus Clodius Demetrius, the ‘Greek boy’, a slave purchased by Julia to serve as her husband Ballista’s secretary; manumitted by the latter, now a freedman with Roman citizenship living in the household of the emperor Gallienus.

Demosthenes
: Son of Sauromates, a metalworker of Panticapaeum missing a slave.

Dernhelm
(1): Original name of Ballista.

Dernhelm
(2): Lucius Clodius Dernhelm, second son of Ballista and Julia.

Diogenes
: Cynic philosopher,
c
. 412/403–
c
. 324/321
BC
.

Euripides
: Fifth-century
BC
Athenian tragic playwright.

Eusebius
: Imperial eunuch originally from Abasgia; when sent back there as part of a Roman embassy, he attempted to kill the king, but failed and was himself killed in a terrible way.

Felix
: Spurius Aemilius Felix, an elderly senator; defended Byzantium from the Goths in
AD
257.

Fritigern
: King of the Borani.

Gallienus
: Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus, declared joint Roman emperor by his father the emperor Valerian in
AD
253, sole emperor after the capture of his father by the Persians in
AD
260.