Theodoric (44 page)

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.

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.

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.

Moorhead (
Theoderic in Italy
) states that ‘In 514 Theoderic . . . put to death a man described as Count Petia', and goes on to say that ‘there were two, and just possibly three, counts with similar names, but it is not at all clear whether the general of 504–5 was put to death in 514'. This uncertainty, plus the fact that the records are silent regarding Pitzia after 504–5 (assuming that he was not ‘Count Petia'), allowed me to have him die fighting in a desperate last stand against the Bulgars.

The guild reached its peak under the late empire, during the fourth century, its security and continuity set in concrete, thanks to imperial legislation. We know that trade between Italy and the Eastern Empire, also with southern Gaul and parts of the Mediterranean littoral of Spain, continued (doubtless considerably attenuated) after the fall of the West. I've therefore hazarded the assumption that – being so firmly established even towards the West's last days – the shippers' guild survived that empire's demise, a supposition reinforced by the fact that under Odovacar and Theoderic Roman administration and institutions continued largely uninterrupted in Italy.

Of a sequence of five men appointed to the post of City Prefect after 506, not one became consul or was from any of the great families of
Rome. From this time, when making key appointments Theoderic turned decisively towards ‘
novi homines
', men who were court apparatchiks, not aristocrats. Moorhead (in
Theoderic in Italy
) says, ‘it is possible that his [Theoderic's] change of policy was connected with his final decision against Laurentius, who enjoyed widespread senatorial support in 507; perhaps a degree of punishment, and conceivably fear, were [
sic
] involved'.

Refurbishment of Rome's
moenia
at this time is confirmed by Cassiodorus (in
Variae
), who also records the burning of crops and the attack on Sipontum by the Eastern naval expedition.

‘Their [the Eastern expedition's] retreat was possibly hastened by the activity of Theoderic; Italy was covered by a fleet of a thousand light vessels, which he constructed with incredible despatch' (Gibbon).

Dalmatia, which then included Trieste (Tergeste), was annexed by Odovacar to his kingdom of Italy, following the death of Nepos.

A diplomatic mission to the Burgundians had been accompanied by prestigious gifts: a sundial and a water-clock (see
Chapter 27
).

Between the eighth and sixth centuries
BC
, a number of flourishing Greek colonies (Metapontum, Tarentum, etc.) was established in southern Italy, which thus (by the time of Pythagoras, according to Polybius) acquired the name Magna Graecia. Arriving at Crotona c. 530
BC
, the great philosopher and mathematician soon exerted supreme influence in Megalē Hellas, as the region was called in Greek.

Simon MacDowall's
Twilight of the Empire
(one of the splendid Osprey series about armies and campaigns) contains graphic descriptions, together with illustrations (based on contemporary evidence) of the
appearance of sixth-century East Roman soldiers. Exchange their oval shields for long rectangular ones, and they would be practically indistinguishable from legionaries of the classical period. The example of orders (still given in Latin in East Roman armies at this time) in the text, is taken from Mauricius'
Strategikon
, a sixth-century training manual.

Calabria, the ancient ‘heel' of Italy, has since (at some time prior to the eleventh century) moved westwards, to become its ‘toe'! The ‘toe' was anciently the region known as Bruttium.

‘Honorary consul' was an established title, but ‘honorary emperor' would be a constitutional absurdity. ‘Augustus' admits of only one interpretation: emperor; and that Clovis certainly was not, in any sense except, perhaps, the complimentary. Yet Gregory of Tours (in
Historia Francorum
,
c
. 560) is unequivocal: ‘from that day [i.e., Clovis's victory over the Visigoths] he was called consul or augustus'. Procopius probably had these titles in mind when he says (in
Opera
) that the Franks looked for Anastasius' ‘seal of approval'. The conundrum is perhaps best explained by seeing the titles as ammunition in Anastasius' campaign to put Theoderic very firmly in his place after the king's Pannonian/Moesian adventure in 504 and 505, a campaign of which the naval expedition against south Italy formed a major part. In this context the award of the title ‘Augustus' to Clovis can be interpreted as constituting a snub to Theoderic, designed to puncture any imperial pretensions the king may have entertained, reminding him that only Anastasius had the power to dispense such appellations. There can be no doubt that Anastasius intended ‘Augustus' to be purely titular. Yet it seems rather to have gone to Clovis' head. Gregory describes him wearing purple and a
diadem
, and, in imitation of Emperor Constantine, dedicating a church to the Holy Apostles (viz. Saints Peter and Paul).

This has to be yet another example of Anastasius' determination to
punish Theoderic for invading imperial territory. The sole consul for 507 was Anastasius himself, making him consul for the third time.

The only source that I can find that disagrees with this is Wolfram's
History of the Goths
wherein he says, ‘Probably in 510 Theoderic . . . ceded to Byzantium . . . the eastern part of Pannonia Sirmiensis'. But Burns (in
A History of the Ostrogoths
) states, ‘Sabinianus accepted the restoration of Ostrogothic control at Sirmium, and the Ostrogoths gave up any designs on expanding their power beyond Sirmium' – a conclusion backed up by maps of Theoderic's realm, as shown in historical atlases.

From a letter of Theoderic to Clovis, quoted by Cassiodorus (in
Variae
).

Theoderic emerges as a heroic figure, of immensely prestigious status among Germanic peoples, in early mediaeval legends such as those appearing in the
Hildebrandslied
, which dates from the time of Charlemagne.

These features were probably inherited from Berber rather than negro ancestry. Though black people were by no means unknown in Roman Africa, their presence was accounted for by slavery, or by immigration via Nubia, Ethiopia and Axum (Sudan). The appearance of native North Africans is well represented in busts of Emperor Septimius Severus and his son Caracalla. Moorhead (in
Theoderic in Italy
) confirms that Priscian ‘was probably an African'.

These tracts were
De figuris numerorum
,
De metris fabularum Terentianis
, and
Praeexercitamina
.

It was an age of redoubtable old men living active or productive lives extending far beyond the biblical span: Anastasius, who died aged eighty-eight; Justinian, at eighty-two still working in his study; Liberius, commanding troops not long before his death at eighty-nine; Cassiodorus – still writing at
ninety-three
– who lived to be a hundred, and whose life (468–568) encompassed both the Western Empire's fall and its partial restitution under Justinian; Narses, Justinian's general, who, aged eighty, took Verona from the Ostrogoths, and who died in 575, aged ninety-five.

This was actually carried out by Cassiodorus (not acknowledged in the text for reasons connected with plot development), who, digging in Ammianus Marcellinus, barefacedly added the heroic Ermanaric (who ritually committed suicide following his defeat by the Huns) to the Amal family tree, then attached Eutharic's line to him. Ermanaric was actually a Visigoth, not an Ostrogoth, but Cassiodorus was not going to let a piffling distinction like that deter him. ‘Creative genealogy' is not, it would appear, a modern phenomenon, but was alive and well in the sixth century.

Which they duly did. Their offspring, Athalaric, succeeded Theoderic while still a child, Eutharic having already died in mysterious circumstances.

There is no evidence that Theoderic visited Rome again subsequent to his extended stay in 500. But, considering the symbolic importance of Eutharic's consulship as a gesture of imperial approval for Theoderic's own rule and his son-in-law as his successor, it would have been fitting, to say the least, for him to have been present at the investiture. So having him attend is not, hopefully, stretching possibility too far. As for Eutharic himself, the records are scanty and contradictory. According to Cassiodorus, he was old; but Jordanes maintains he was youthful and attractive (‘wholesome in body'). Some sources say he was a Visigoth,
others an Amal (i.e., an Ostrogoth), while Wolfram refers to him as a ‘Visigothic Amal' – a contradiction in terms, surely. Eutharic is certainly a Germanic name, but Cilliga is not; so his ethnic origins seem far from clear. Altogether, a man of mystery. Taking all this into account, I think it was legitimate for me to select those components which seemed best suited to the story.

Pop-eyed, they stare out at us, those late Roman consuls, from the ivory covers of their consular diptychs, with their page-boy bob haircuts and robes of ‘wondrous design', consular baton in left hand,
mappa
raised in right, ready to start the Games. (Cassiodorus' description of the robe as ‘palm-enwoven' may refer to the raised lines of the patterns of rectangles, flowers, etc., perhaps suggestive of the ribs and stem of palm-fronds?) Could their expressions of stoic alarm hint at uncertainty about the survival of their institution? (The last Western consul was appointed for the year 530, the last Eastern, nine years later.) Or perhaps they merely indicate concern about their ability to pay the enormous expenses incurred by giving the Games.