converted to Christianity
According to Joseph Vogt in his The Decline of Rome, ‘it seems probable that the tribes of the great federations were already [Arian] Christian at the time they entered the empire’. Arianism differed from Orthodox Christianity in one key respect: Arians held that, as the Son, Christ was inferior to God the Father, and was therefore excluded from His divinity, a concept which appealed to Germans with their patriarchal society. To Catholic Romans, however, this made Arians heretics as well as barbarians — doubly beyond the pale. Christianity was introduced to Ethiopia at the beginning of the fourth century, but mass conversion of German tribes began only in 341 with Ulfilas’ mission to the Goths.
the blazing hulks. . swept down
The expedition of 468 shows striking parallels with the Spanish Armada. In both cases, the plan was not to engage in a sea battle but to enable a powerful invading force to land. In both cases, the outcome was decided by the use of fireships. In 1588 the Spaniards did at least have sea room to escape downwind. But for Basiliscus’ fleet escape was complicated by the difficulty of avoiding being driven on to the lee shore of the long Cape Bon peninsula. The effects of the disaster were decisive and immediate. In the West the Vandals were reprieved, while Visigoths, Burgundians and Suevi — realizing that there was no longer any central force strong enough to stop them — started carving out independent states from imperial territory. In less than a decade, the empire went from somewhere to nowhere. In 468 much of the Western Empire, though tottering, was still intact and owed allegiance to the Italian centre, an allegiance fortified by the arrival of Anthemius, who inspired genuine hopes of a revival. By 476 the bonds had all dissolved, and in that year the Western Empire came to an end.
vessels piling up on the rocky shore
Square-rigged Roman ships were a good deal less manoeuvrable than modern sailing-vessels. With a following or side wind they could make good progress, but against contrary winds, making seaway was much harder. Of course, galleys (rowed not by slaves, as depicted in the film Ben Hur, but by remiges, a category of seamen separate from the nautae who managed the sails and rigging) could move independently of the wind. According to Adrian Goldsworthy (The Complete Roman Army), experiments with a full-scale replica Roman galley showed that such a vessel could maintain a cruising speed of four knots, twice that if under sail or for short bursts as in a ramming attack.
the Vandals struck
The Vandal fleet consisted of captured Roman ships or vessels constructed by subject Roman shipwrights, sailed and navigated by indigenous north Africans. From these craft, Vandal warriors would board other ships or put ashore as raiding parties.
limped back to the Golden Horn
Procopius lays the blame for the outcome of the great adventure squarely on Basiliscus. But the simple explanation may well be just bad luck with the wind. To accommodate both possibilities, I have portrayed Basiliscus as being willing to fleece Gaiseric (who, according to Procopius, bribed the general to agree to a five-day truce in the hope that the wind would change), while not, consciously, at least, allowing this to affect his strategy.
a fourteen-year-old hostage
In the ancient world, the giving of hostages was more about diplomacy than yielding to punitive coercion. The hostage was often a junior royal, handed over as a pledge of good behaviour or adherence to a treaty. To Rome, the practice provided an opportunity to turn barbarians into lovers of the Roman way of life, therefore less likely to prove hostile.
Chapter 1
styluses and waxed tablets
Known as codices, pairs of hinged waxed boards were the notebooks of the Roman world. Writing, scratched on the waxed surface, could be readily erased by the flattened end of the pointed writing-tool, the stylus.
betting on the Blue or Green team
Blue and green were the respective colours of the rival chariot-racing teams competing in the Hippodrome. These teams inspired fanatical support from their fans, support which had a political dimension (the Blues championed the Establishment, the Greens the people) and could lead to serious rioting, as happened in the Nike riots of 532 which nearly toppled Emperor Justinian.
Aristotle on the subject of the young Alexander
The famous philosopher was the tutor of Alexander aged thirteen to sixteen. Aristotle’s image of the ‘great-souled man’ gave the future king a model for the role he wished to emulate.
Basiliscus. . has taken sanctuary in Hagia Sophia
He was eventually reprieved, thanks to his sister’s intercession with the (justifiably furious) emperor, Leo I. Hagia Sophia/Sancta Sophia (Holy Wisdom) was the predecessor of the present building erected in the sixth century by Justinian. The great cathedral is now a mosque.
Anthemius might. . be the last Augustus of the West
Not quite. Like almost all failed emperors, Anthemius was ‘disposed of’, to be followed briefly by: Olybrius, Glycerius, Julius Nepos and Romulus Augustus. Ricimer’s successor, Odovacar, another barbarian Master of Soldiers, deposed Romulus in 476 and sent the imperial regalia to the Eastern Emperor, Zeno, as the sole remaining ruler of the ‘One and Indivisible Empire’. In reality, the Western Empire was no more, and Odovacar had become an independent German monarch in Italy, like Gaiseric in Africa and Euric in Gaul and Spain.
a tough Isaurian
Rather like the Highlanders in early modern Britain, the Isaurians, an independent-minded people from south-west Anatolia, were a constant thorn in the flesh of the imperial government. So much so, that the term ‘Isaurian’ was to become virtually synonymous with ‘insurgent’.
Walls of Theodosius. . aqueduct of Valens
Both these colossal structures are still standing, testament to the strength and durability of Roman architecture. Inviolate for a thousand years until breached by Turkish cannon in 1453, the Walls are being restored to their original glory.
a tall marble column
The Column of Arcadius was modelled on the Columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius in Rome. The imagery of the latter pair, though triumphalist, is not altogether devoid of a spirit of compassion and humanity. The Column of Arcadius — an ugly example of state-sanctioned chauvinism — was redeemed by no such sentiments. The monument no longer exists, bar its base; but a drawing, showing a lynch-mob unleashing a pogrom against the city’s Goths, was made before its demolition in 1715.
Cambyses. The legendary wild boar
An appropriate soubriquet. Cambyses, king of the Medes and Persians from 529 to 522 BC, was notorious for aggression and ferocity.
Chapter 2
outside the Charisius Gate at the second hour