01: The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
About
During the holidays, I was lucky enough to read an interesting essay, Ravenna, by Judith Herrin, which puts the historical role of this city in the right light. Inspired by the opera, I'm trying to jot down a timeline. Three things: not being a native speaker, please forgive my grammatical errors. Not being an expert on late antiquity, suggestions and corrections are welcome. Finally, I will post quite rarely, since I'm busy carrying on my Florio ASB and helping my daughter in writing her fanfiction.
This book, together with the Treccani encyclopaedia and other texts that I will quote along the way, are the primary and reworked sources of this attempt at Timeline
01: The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
The book that has shaped the contemporary vision of the historical revolution that takes place in the fifth century is perhaps Peter Brown's The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150–750, which with its vibrant pages has spread, in the common reader, the concept of late antiquity . Perhaps an inaccurate concept, because it inextricably links this period to an idea of decline, of antiquarian citation, melancholy and nostalgia for the past: feelings which, after all, are also common in our postmodern culture. [1]
Yet, the fifth century was above all a time of great innovations and changes: with Augustine of Hippo modern theology was born and the genre of autobiography developed, Roman law was codified, ecclesiastical canon law was born and the religious plurality that characterizes Europe, founded on the concept of tolerance.
Changes that the men of the fifth century were aware of, whatever their origin, Latin, Greek, Goth or Germanic. Proof is the inscription that headed the entrance of the Pandidakterion of Rome, [2] founded by Anicius Severus [3] in 457, imitating what was done by Elia Eudocia in 425, who thus reported
"Flee, old age, surrender to the arrival of new times"
Therefore this era should be, more correctly, defined as Paleochristian: the fundamental difference with the classical age, following Maxentius, Galerius and Constantine, the Empire was no longer pagan, but Christian. The foreigners, the barbarians, thanks to their conversion to the various variants of Christianity, managed, albeit in a chaotic and convulsive way, to integrate into the administrative structure and imperial culture.
The primary role in this complex project of cultural fusion was played by Galla Placidia, who was taken as a hostage by Alaric's Goths after the sack of Rome, so that she could act as a pawn in the complex negotiations with Honorius and Flavius Constantius. Probably, the princess, who played a marginal role in the imperial court, would never have imagined spending more than three years in the chariots of the Goths, in a continuous movement from one place to another, with her future perpetually uncertain.
Galla followed the Visigoths to Campania, where she met Paulinus of Nola, [4] who in the future will have a fundamental role in mediating between Galla Placidia and the Iberian and Gallic ecclesiastical hierarchies: she witnessed the storm of Rhegion, which sank the badly organized fleet of the Goths, defeat of the Goths by Flavius Costantius near Scolacium, [5] and the death of Alaric from malaria near present-day Cosenza. According to what Jordanes recounts in De origine actibusque Getarum, the conqueror of Rome was buried with his treasures in the bed of the Busento river, at the convergence with the Crati; to allow this singular burial he resorted to the arms of hundreds of slaves who provided for a momentary diversion of the river's waters, and who, once the work was completed, were ferociously killed so that the undertaking remained secret.
Yet, Anicius Severus, in the Res Gestae Getarum, [6] simply tells that
"The body of Alaric was cremated, according to the customs of his people and his relatives, singing a funeral hymn, scattered his ashes in the river, so that, as if dead, he was as free as when alive"
Again Anicius Severus, in the Private Commentaries, [7] recalls how his friend Guilfridus [8] had once sung him the funeral hymn of Atalaric, of which he reports a fragment, obviously translated into Latin.
Gloomy in the night songs sound
from Costanzia on the Busento,
gloomy the river murmurs him
from its sleepy whirlpool.
Up and down the river they pass
and slow shadows pass over:
Alaric the Goths weep
the great dead of their lineage [9]
So it is probable that the story of the funeral is nothing more than a figment of Jordanes imagination. Galla then witnessed the Goths appointing Athaulf, who according to both Anicius Severus and the Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, Volume 4, was a brother-in-law of Alaric. Now according to the chronicle of the bishop Idatius, Galla Placidia intervened directly in the assembly of the Goths, to support Athaulf: something that appears very improbable. More realistic is what Anicius Severus recounts, in the Private Commentaries, in which the princess limited herself to making agreements with the pro-Roman faction of the Goths: in exchange for her release, she would have supported the negotiations with Honorius.
The Chronicon Albeldense and Jordanes report that Athaulf married Galla Placidia at Foro Iuli Aemiliae in 411, [10] and then continued towards Gaul: however, given that the high sources of the time, including Anicius Severus, do not mention it, we can consider it as a sort of narrative invention, also because the immediate actions of the Gothic king suggest everything, except a desire to find a compromise with the court of Ravenna.
In the spring of 412, in fact, Athaulf led, closely followed by Flavius Costantius, his people to Gaul, passing through the military road that from Turin led to the Rhone river through the Monginevro hill. Priscus Attalus also followed him, another usurper of the imperial title, who had been elevated to the office by Alaric and then deposed for the first time in 410.
Choice, due not only to the need not to die of hunger and not to be trapped by the imperial army, but also to the political chaos of those provinces: after the defeat and death of Constantine III, the Rhenish troops proclaimed Jovinus emperor, who was immediately supported by the Gallo-Roman nobility and by the Burgundians and the Alans, eager for booty. Saro the goth, one of Stilicho's generals, an intelligent and unscrupulous man, eager for revenge against Honorius, had put himself at the service of Jovinus, obtaining the title of magister militum. [11]
Athaulf had the goal of using Jovinus as a puppet, considered more easily manipulated and less stubborn than Honorius, in order to grant the coveted lands to the Goths; to do this, he first had to reduce Saro's influence, then somehow bind the secessionist emperor to himself. According to Anicius Severus, to increase the legitimacy of Jovinus , the Gothic king was tempted, to achieve this goal, to propose marriage to Galla Placidia. Jovinus, however, was far from foolish. For which, in addition to rejecting the marriage proposal, he ordered Saro to eliminate Athaulf with a conspiracy, organized together with the more traditionalist faction of the Goths, who however was warned of the intrigue by a deserter from the rival army, according to the Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, and with 10,000 men, faced in battle, defeated and killed the enemy general
Here too we have two different versions: the first is that of Jordanes, who claims that Saro had just twenty-eight men with him and despite this, he fought like a lion. The other, more realistic, is that of Anicius Severus and Cassiodorus [12], who both speak of 2,800 soldiers. Since both sources were consulted by Jordanes, it is probable that the number of the De origine actibusque Getarum was an oversight by the copyist, which was then handed down over time.
After the elimination of Saro, Jovinus had to make the best of a bad situation, appointing Athaulfas his Magister Militum, which among other things, caused a defection among his ranks: both the Alans and the Burgundians changed sides, passing on the side of Honorius. In particular, the Burgundians were recognized by Honorius as foederati on the west bank of the Rhine, to eventually be used as a pawn against the Goths.
With Athaulf's support, Jovinus expanded his territory into southeastern Gaul; on that occasion, he decided to appoint his brother, Sebastianus, co-emperor, without first consulting the Gothic king, who, having seen the previous ones, suspected that Jovinus wanted to organize a new conspiracy against him. To avoid future problems, Athaulf decided to make an agreement with Claudius Postumus Dardanus, prefect of the praetorium in Gaul and the only high official remaining loyal to Honorius in those provinces. The Goths, in exchange for food, gold and land, killed the two usurpers and returned Galla Placidia to Ravenna. Sebastianus was immediately defeated and killed. Jovinus took refuge in Valence, where he was besieged and captured by Athaulf. Sent from Narbonne by Dardanus, he was put to death together with his loyalists, the prefect of the praetorium Decimius Rusticus and the head of his secretariat Agroezius. The heads of Jovinus and Sebastianus reached the court of Honorius in August 413 and from there sent to Carthage, to be displayed on the city walls together with those of other usurpers. [13] As usual, Honorius did not respect his word: for once, in his defense, there was Heraclian's revolt in Africa and his subsequent invasion of Italy, which made it difficult to find the grain destined for the Goths.
Tired of being taken for a ride, Athaulf decided to imitate his predecessor Alaric, engaging in a showdown with the Empire. As a first move, he put Marseille under siege, with a dual purpose: to prevent the imperial fleet from carrying out a naval blockade, which would have led the Goths to starvation and to have, with control of the port, an instrument of pressure on the Gallo-Roman nobility. A project which however quickly went up in smoke: Marseilles was defended tooth and nail by Comes Bonifacius, who according to what Cassiodorus recounts, during a sortie challenged the Gothic king to a duel, seriously wounding him: Anicius Severus, whose career was due to protection of Flavius Castinus, [14] elegantly glosses over the episode. Following the defeat, Ataulf changed plans, invading Aquitaine, thus occupying Toulouse, Bordeaux and Narbonne.
This success, however, had a very different effect from the planned one: instead of forcing Honorius to negotiate, he convinced him to put an end to the Gothic threat once and for all: he gave Flavius Costantius carte blanche to organize a punitive expedition, to force the surrender the pernicious barbarians. Faced with this threat, Athaulf played one of the last cards he had left: in 414, at the age of about forty, he married the twenty-two-year-old Galla Placidia with Roman ceremonial with the aim of convincing Honorius with good manners, given that the bad ones had failed, to recognize the Goths as allies without losing face. Furthermore, marriage seemed the way to solve the problem of dynastic succession due to the emperor's lack of heirs; any son of Athaulf would have been Roman emperor and king of the Goths at the same time, thus favoring integration between the elites of the two peoples.
The wedding was celebrated on January 1, 414, in Narbonne, in the suburban villa of the noble and wealthy Ingenius. Thanks to Olympiodorus, a native of Thebes and of pagan faith, we have a lively description of the wedding ceremony: the historian, Greek-speaking and ambassador by profession, known for always carrying with him on his travels a parrot that could sing, dance and many other things, something useful to impress the barbarian leaders, he says
Placidia, in her royal clothes, sat in a room decorated in the Roman manner, with the walls covered with frescoes and the floors inlaid with precious marbles; at her side was Athaulf, wearing a general's cloak and a gold cingulum militiae, decorated with pearls and precious stones and other Roman clothes of precious purple silk. Among the gifts that the king gave to his wife were fifty young men dressed in silk, each of whom held up two very large dishes, one filled with gold and the other with priceless precious stones, which had been taken during the sack of Rome.
Which testifies to the groundlessness of the rumors about the riches with which Alaric was buried in Cosenza. The epithalamii were then declaimed: the first to sing the wedding song was the ex-emperor Priscus Attalus, followed by Rusticus and Febadius. The Goths, with this marriage, wanted to demonstrate all their commitment to respect Roman uses and customs: Galla Placidia, on the other hand, recognized the role of the Goths, attempting with marriage to exercise her political influence over them. The marriage, but Olympiodorus' description might be biased given his beliefs, followed traditional Roman procedures throughout, in which Christianity played no role, although Galla Placidia was of Nicean obedience and Athaulf Arian. Weddings, in fact, form the basis of our current civilization, based on the synthesis of Gothic and Roman traditions.
As further evidence of this political will, the poor Cyprianus Gallus[15] was forced by the Goths to forcibly abandon his main activity, the paraphrase in verse of the books of the Old Testament, and to devote himself to writing a celebratory poem, entitled
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony [16]
If this wedding was the last occasion in which the gods of Olympus sat down to table with men, those of Athaulf and Galla Placidia, on the other hand, would bring the earth back to the golden age.
Given the result, we can say that Cyprianus Gallus did not put too much effort into carrying out the commission: but despite the evident reluctance with which he wrote the verses, Cassiodorus recounts that Athaulf rewarded him with a golden cup full of precious stones, which the poet sold, to donate all the money to the poor.
The political calculation of Athaulf and perhaps of Galla Placidia did not take into account the fact that Honorius was a man of few opinions, but decided: at the time, his basic and dominant principle was
"The only good goth is the dead one"
This did not allow him to understand that part of the will of the Goths was nothing more than to be accepted as confederates in the Roman system of government and that their elites only wanted to enter the senatorial ranks. Therefore, the emperor gave orders to Flavius Costantius to continue with his preparations. First, the Roman general blocked the Gallic ports, as Athaulf had feared, forcing the Goths into starvation, a move to which Athaulf, full of annoyance, responded by appointing Priscus Attalus [17] for the second time as usurper, in the hope of dividing the Roman camp .
A move that had no concrete result: Flavius Costantius began his military campaign, about which we have vague information, but which probably did not go brilliantly for the Goths, given that Athaulf had to flee to Tarraconense, occupying Barcelona, a city where, at the end of 414 o at the beginning of 415, the eldest son of the Gothic king and Galla Placidia was born, who, according to the Roman tradition, was given the name of Theodosius, in honor of his maternal grandfather. In this way, Galla Placidia presented her son as the herald of the new era of union between the Goths and the Romans, while Athaulf proclaimed his intention to restore the Roman empire in Gothic forms, over which Theodosius would reign.
Politically, the birth of Theodosius would have forced Honorius to recognize the ability of the Goths to support the empire, integrating themselves into its administration, improving their status: to favor this, according to what Cassiodorus recounts, Athaulf immediately sent an embassy to Ravenna, claiming willing to adopt Latin as the official language of the Gothic administration and to convert his people to the Nicean version of Christianity.
There are different versions of what happened afterwards, from the recovery of Theodosius' illness to the failure of the conspiracy of Sigeric, Saro's brother.[18] The official version of the Empire is probably that of the Res Gestae Getarum, in which Anicius Severus writes
"Emperor Theodosius, either due to his strong fiber or the loving care of his mother, recovered from the sudden illness, also thanks to the intercession of Saint Martin of Tours, to whom Augusta was very devoted; the same saint protected the magister militum and king Athaulf, noble heir of the Balti lineage"
But Anicius Severus, who was as fond of gossip as Procopius, knew a few more details, which he describes in the Private Commentaries, which we must remember, were initially intended for his family. The first is that Theodosius was treated by a Syriac doctor named Sergius, the second that it was Guilfridus's grandfather, a scutarium named Ademountus, who protected Ataulfo from Sigeric's stabs, which gave way to the fortunes of his family.
Obviously, Jordanes embroidered on both news, transforming them into anecdotes, for the amusement of the court of Constantinople; the third source, the least credible, is the bios of San Theodorus of Rhegion, [19] which is perhaps the archetype of all the agiogaphies of the Calabrian Byzantine saints. According to the story, Saint Basil the Great appeared in a vision to the hermit, who lived in the hermitage of Pentadattilos, who almost forced him to go by sea to Barcelona.
After a multitude of miracles performed during the sea voyage, [20] in which the saint calmed storms, sank pirate ships and drove away sea monsters with the sole force of prayer, he arrived in the Hispanic city, healed Theodosius and blinded Sigeric and his spatarium with a blessing Dubio, who mistook a column for Athaulf, breaking his bones trying to stab it. As icing on the cake, after so many miracles, the Gothic king made amends for his sins, returned all the looted goods to Roman monasteries and churches and converted to the Nicean creed.
This source, even more imaginative than Jordane's stories, was considered totally unreliable, until recent archaeological excavations showed the correspondence between what emerged and the description of Athaulf's palace: the author of the bios probably had to refer to a source , the X, to date unknown and lost.
Now, if it cannot be excluded that there is a foundation in the history of the Syriac doctor, net of all the embellishments introduced by Jordanes, for the conspiracy it is immediate to think that the pro-Roman faction of the Goths would not have renounced the possible benefits due to the eventual appeasement of Honorius, for the desire for revenge and the personal ambitions of Saro's brother.
[1] Tribute to the incipit of the book that inspired the Timeline
[2] One of many OTL variations
[3] Invented character, who will occasionally appear in history. Imagine him as a sort of gossipy and pedantic historian, vaguely inspired by Procopius of Caesarea
[4] ITL the theologian will have a longer life
[5] OTL where this battle in Calabria actually took place is a mystery. I based, for narrative reasons, ITL on the hypotheses of Rosario Savoia, contained in the book "Topography of Late Ancient Brutium"
[6] one of the pseudobiblions that will appear in the story
[7] Another pseudobiblion
[8] Another invented character, consider him as the archetype of the goth of good stock, who tries in every way to integrate and be accepted by the Roman senatorial class
[9] For those who know Italian literature, it is a simplified passage from a poem by Giosuè Carducci
[10] The current city of Forli: some authors claim that this marriage was celebrated, however according to the Arian rite
[11] It is probable that OTL the events are much more complex and that the chronologies of Constantine III and of Jovinus partially overlap. For narrative reasons, ITL have chosen the old hypothesis of Alfredo Carraggi, which greatly simplifies the chronology
[12] ITL the Historia Gothica is not lost
[13] To make my life easier in this chaos, I quoted part of Treccani's voice
[14] that OTL was Bonifacius's political protector
[15] OTL poet also existed... Obviously the story I'm telling is purely ITL
[16] Quotation of the title of a splendid book by Roberto Calasso, which narrates the Greek myths
[17] Priscus Attalus, who must have been a nice rogue, OTL was captured by Flavius Constantius, sent to Ravenna to participate in the triumph of Honorius over the Goths and instead of being impaled or quartered, he saved the pellaccia and was sent into exile on the island of Lipari .... ITL will continue to do damage!
[18] We have arrived at PoD!
[19] Totally invented saint, which however reflects all the standard characteristics of the Calabrian Byzantine saints
[20] The Calabrian saints are known for the quantity of miracles that are attributed to them (as a curiosity, take a look at the biography of San Francesco di Paola, who is a sort of record holder in this field)
During the holidays, I was lucky enough to read an interesting essay, Ravenna, by Judith Herrin, which puts the historical role of this city in the right light. Inspired by the opera, I'm trying to jot down a timeline. Three things: not being a native speaker, please forgive my grammatical errors. Not being an expert on late antiquity, suggestions and corrections are welcome. Finally, I will post quite rarely, since I'm busy carrying on my Florio ASB and helping my daughter in writing her fanfiction.
This book, together with the Treccani encyclopaedia and other texts that I will quote along the way, are the primary and reworked sources of this attempt at Timeline
01: The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
The book that has shaped the contemporary vision of the historical revolution that takes place in the fifth century is perhaps Peter Brown's The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150–750, which with its vibrant pages has spread, in the common reader, the concept of late antiquity . Perhaps an inaccurate concept, because it inextricably links this period to an idea of decline, of antiquarian citation, melancholy and nostalgia for the past: feelings which, after all, are also common in our postmodern culture. [1]
Yet, the fifth century was above all a time of great innovations and changes: with Augustine of Hippo modern theology was born and the genre of autobiography developed, Roman law was codified, ecclesiastical canon law was born and the religious plurality that characterizes Europe, founded on the concept of tolerance.
Changes that the men of the fifth century were aware of, whatever their origin, Latin, Greek, Goth or Germanic. Proof is the inscription that headed the entrance of the Pandidakterion of Rome, [2] founded by Anicius Severus [3] in 457, imitating what was done by Elia Eudocia in 425, who thus reported
"Flee, old age, surrender to the arrival of new times"
Therefore this era should be, more correctly, defined as Paleochristian: the fundamental difference with the classical age, following Maxentius, Galerius and Constantine, the Empire was no longer pagan, but Christian. The foreigners, the barbarians, thanks to their conversion to the various variants of Christianity, managed, albeit in a chaotic and convulsive way, to integrate into the administrative structure and imperial culture.
The primary role in this complex project of cultural fusion was played by Galla Placidia, who was taken as a hostage by Alaric's Goths after the sack of Rome, so that she could act as a pawn in the complex negotiations with Honorius and Flavius Constantius. Probably, the princess, who played a marginal role in the imperial court, would never have imagined spending more than three years in the chariots of the Goths, in a continuous movement from one place to another, with her future perpetually uncertain.
Galla followed the Visigoths to Campania, where she met Paulinus of Nola, [4] who in the future will have a fundamental role in mediating between Galla Placidia and the Iberian and Gallic ecclesiastical hierarchies: she witnessed the storm of Rhegion, which sank the badly organized fleet of the Goths, defeat of the Goths by Flavius Costantius near Scolacium, [5] and the death of Alaric from malaria near present-day Cosenza. According to what Jordanes recounts in De origine actibusque Getarum, the conqueror of Rome was buried with his treasures in the bed of the Busento river, at the convergence with the Crati; to allow this singular burial he resorted to the arms of hundreds of slaves who provided for a momentary diversion of the river's waters, and who, once the work was completed, were ferociously killed so that the undertaking remained secret.
Yet, Anicius Severus, in the Res Gestae Getarum, [6] simply tells that
"The body of Alaric was cremated, according to the customs of his people and his relatives, singing a funeral hymn, scattered his ashes in the river, so that, as if dead, he was as free as when alive"
Again Anicius Severus, in the Private Commentaries, [7] recalls how his friend Guilfridus [8] had once sung him the funeral hymn of Atalaric, of which he reports a fragment, obviously translated into Latin.
Gloomy in the night songs sound
from Costanzia on the Busento,
gloomy the river murmurs him
from its sleepy whirlpool.
Up and down the river they pass
and slow shadows pass over:
Alaric the Goths weep
the great dead of their lineage [9]
So it is probable that the story of the funeral is nothing more than a figment of Jordanes imagination. Galla then witnessed the Goths appointing Athaulf, who according to both Anicius Severus and the Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, Volume 4, was a brother-in-law of Alaric. Now according to the chronicle of the bishop Idatius, Galla Placidia intervened directly in the assembly of the Goths, to support Athaulf: something that appears very improbable. More realistic is what Anicius Severus recounts, in the Private Commentaries, in which the princess limited herself to making agreements with the pro-Roman faction of the Goths: in exchange for her release, she would have supported the negotiations with Honorius.
The Chronicon Albeldense and Jordanes report that Athaulf married Galla Placidia at Foro Iuli Aemiliae in 411, [10] and then continued towards Gaul: however, given that the high sources of the time, including Anicius Severus, do not mention it, we can consider it as a sort of narrative invention, also because the immediate actions of the Gothic king suggest everything, except a desire to find a compromise with the court of Ravenna.
In the spring of 412, in fact, Athaulf led, closely followed by Flavius Costantius, his people to Gaul, passing through the military road that from Turin led to the Rhone river through the Monginevro hill. Priscus Attalus also followed him, another usurper of the imperial title, who had been elevated to the office by Alaric and then deposed for the first time in 410.
Choice, due not only to the need not to die of hunger and not to be trapped by the imperial army, but also to the political chaos of those provinces: after the defeat and death of Constantine III, the Rhenish troops proclaimed Jovinus emperor, who was immediately supported by the Gallo-Roman nobility and by the Burgundians and the Alans, eager for booty. Saro the goth, one of Stilicho's generals, an intelligent and unscrupulous man, eager for revenge against Honorius, had put himself at the service of Jovinus, obtaining the title of magister militum. [11]
Athaulf had the goal of using Jovinus as a puppet, considered more easily manipulated and less stubborn than Honorius, in order to grant the coveted lands to the Goths; to do this, he first had to reduce Saro's influence, then somehow bind the secessionist emperor to himself. According to Anicius Severus, to increase the legitimacy of Jovinus , the Gothic king was tempted, to achieve this goal, to propose marriage to Galla Placidia. Jovinus, however, was far from foolish. For which, in addition to rejecting the marriage proposal, he ordered Saro to eliminate Athaulf with a conspiracy, organized together with the more traditionalist faction of the Goths, who however was warned of the intrigue by a deserter from the rival army, according to the Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, and with 10,000 men, faced in battle, defeated and killed the enemy general
Here too we have two different versions: the first is that of Jordanes, who claims that Saro had just twenty-eight men with him and despite this, he fought like a lion. The other, more realistic, is that of Anicius Severus and Cassiodorus [12], who both speak of 2,800 soldiers. Since both sources were consulted by Jordanes, it is probable that the number of the De origine actibusque Getarum was an oversight by the copyist, which was then handed down over time.
After the elimination of Saro, Jovinus had to make the best of a bad situation, appointing Athaulfas his Magister Militum, which among other things, caused a defection among his ranks: both the Alans and the Burgundians changed sides, passing on the side of Honorius. In particular, the Burgundians were recognized by Honorius as foederati on the west bank of the Rhine, to eventually be used as a pawn against the Goths.
With Athaulf's support, Jovinus expanded his territory into southeastern Gaul; on that occasion, he decided to appoint his brother, Sebastianus, co-emperor, without first consulting the Gothic king, who, having seen the previous ones, suspected that Jovinus wanted to organize a new conspiracy against him. To avoid future problems, Athaulf decided to make an agreement with Claudius Postumus Dardanus, prefect of the praetorium in Gaul and the only high official remaining loyal to Honorius in those provinces. The Goths, in exchange for food, gold and land, killed the two usurpers and returned Galla Placidia to Ravenna. Sebastianus was immediately defeated and killed. Jovinus took refuge in Valence, where he was besieged and captured by Athaulf. Sent from Narbonne by Dardanus, he was put to death together with his loyalists, the prefect of the praetorium Decimius Rusticus and the head of his secretariat Agroezius. The heads of Jovinus and Sebastianus reached the court of Honorius in August 413 and from there sent to Carthage, to be displayed on the city walls together with those of other usurpers. [13] As usual, Honorius did not respect his word: for once, in his defense, there was Heraclian's revolt in Africa and his subsequent invasion of Italy, which made it difficult to find the grain destined for the Goths.
Tired of being taken for a ride, Athaulf decided to imitate his predecessor Alaric, engaging in a showdown with the Empire. As a first move, he put Marseille under siege, with a dual purpose: to prevent the imperial fleet from carrying out a naval blockade, which would have led the Goths to starvation and to have, with control of the port, an instrument of pressure on the Gallo-Roman nobility. A project which however quickly went up in smoke: Marseilles was defended tooth and nail by Comes Bonifacius, who according to what Cassiodorus recounts, during a sortie challenged the Gothic king to a duel, seriously wounding him: Anicius Severus, whose career was due to protection of Flavius Castinus, [14] elegantly glosses over the episode. Following the defeat, Ataulf changed plans, invading Aquitaine, thus occupying Toulouse, Bordeaux and Narbonne.
This success, however, had a very different effect from the planned one: instead of forcing Honorius to negotiate, he convinced him to put an end to the Gothic threat once and for all: he gave Flavius Costantius carte blanche to organize a punitive expedition, to force the surrender the pernicious barbarians. Faced with this threat, Athaulf played one of the last cards he had left: in 414, at the age of about forty, he married the twenty-two-year-old Galla Placidia with Roman ceremonial with the aim of convincing Honorius with good manners, given that the bad ones had failed, to recognize the Goths as allies without losing face. Furthermore, marriage seemed the way to solve the problem of dynastic succession due to the emperor's lack of heirs; any son of Athaulf would have been Roman emperor and king of the Goths at the same time, thus favoring integration between the elites of the two peoples.
The wedding was celebrated on January 1, 414, in Narbonne, in the suburban villa of the noble and wealthy Ingenius. Thanks to Olympiodorus, a native of Thebes and of pagan faith, we have a lively description of the wedding ceremony: the historian, Greek-speaking and ambassador by profession, known for always carrying with him on his travels a parrot that could sing, dance and many other things, something useful to impress the barbarian leaders, he says
Placidia, in her royal clothes, sat in a room decorated in the Roman manner, with the walls covered with frescoes and the floors inlaid with precious marbles; at her side was Athaulf, wearing a general's cloak and a gold cingulum militiae, decorated with pearls and precious stones and other Roman clothes of precious purple silk. Among the gifts that the king gave to his wife were fifty young men dressed in silk, each of whom held up two very large dishes, one filled with gold and the other with priceless precious stones, which had been taken during the sack of Rome.
Which testifies to the groundlessness of the rumors about the riches with which Alaric was buried in Cosenza. The epithalamii were then declaimed: the first to sing the wedding song was the ex-emperor Priscus Attalus, followed by Rusticus and Febadius. The Goths, with this marriage, wanted to demonstrate all their commitment to respect Roman uses and customs: Galla Placidia, on the other hand, recognized the role of the Goths, attempting with marriage to exercise her political influence over them. The marriage, but Olympiodorus' description might be biased given his beliefs, followed traditional Roman procedures throughout, in which Christianity played no role, although Galla Placidia was of Nicean obedience and Athaulf Arian. Weddings, in fact, form the basis of our current civilization, based on the synthesis of Gothic and Roman traditions.
As further evidence of this political will, the poor Cyprianus Gallus[15] was forced by the Goths to forcibly abandon his main activity, the paraphrase in verse of the books of the Old Testament, and to devote himself to writing a celebratory poem, entitled
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony [16]
If this wedding was the last occasion in which the gods of Olympus sat down to table with men, those of Athaulf and Galla Placidia, on the other hand, would bring the earth back to the golden age.
Given the result, we can say that Cyprianus Gallus did not put too much effort into carrying out the commission: but despite the evident reluctance with which he wrote the verses, Cassiodorus recounts that Athaulf rewarded him with a golden cup full of precious stones, which the poet sold, to donate all the money to the poor.
The political calculation of Athaulf and perhaps of Galla Placidia did not take into account the fact that Honorius was a man of few opinions, but decided: at the time, his basic and dominant principle was
"The only good goth is the dead one"
This did not allow him to understand that part of the will of the Goths was nothing more than to be accepted as confederates in the Roman system of government and that their elites only wanted to enter the senatorial ranks. Therefore, the emperor gave orders to Flavius Costantius to continue with his preparations. First, the Roman general blocked the Gallic ports, as Athaulf had feared, forcing the Goths into starvation, a move to which Athaulf, full of annoyance, responded by appointing Priscus Attalus [17] for the second time as usurper, in the hope of dividing the Roman camp .
A move that had no concrete result: Flavius Costantius began his military campaign, about which we have vague information, but which probably did not go brilliantly for the Goths, given that Athaulf had to flee to Tarraconense, occupying Barcelona, a city where, at the end of 414 o at the beginning of 415, the eldest son of the Gothic king and Galla Placidia was born, who, according to the Roman tradition, was given the name of Theodosius, in honor of his maternal grandfather. In this way, Galla Placidia presented her son as the herald of the new era of union between the Goths and the Romans, while Athaulf proclaimed his intention to restore the Roman empire in Gothic forms, over which Theodosius would reign.
Politically, the birth of Theodosius would have forced Honorius to recognize the ability of the Goths to support the empire, integrating themselves into its administration, improving their status: to favor this, according to what Cassiodorus recounts, Athaulf immediately sent an embassy to Ravenna, claiming willing to adopt Latin as the official language of the Gothic administration and to convert his people to the Nicean version of Christianity.
There are different versions of what happened afterwards, from the recovery of Theodosius' illness to the failure of the conspiracy of Sigeric, Saro's brother.[18] The official version of the Empire is probably that of the Res Gestae Getarum, in which Anicius Severus writes
"Emperor Theodosius, either due to his strong fiber or the loving care of his mother, recovered from the sudden illness, also thanks to the intercession of Saint Martin of Tours, to whom Augusta was very devoted; the same saint protected the magister militum and king Athaulf, noble heir of the Balti lineage"
But Anicius Severus, who was as fond of gossip as Procopius, knew a few more details, which he describes in the Private Commentaries, which we must remember, were initially intended for his family. The first is that Theodosius was treated by a Syriac doctor named Sergius, the second that it was Guilfridus's grandfather, a scutarium named Ademountus, who protected Ataulfo from Sigeric's stabs, which gave way to the fortunes of his family.
Obviously, Jordanes embroidered on both news, transforming them into anecdotes, for the amusement of the court of Constantinople; the third source, the least credible, is the bios of San Theodorus of Rhegion, [19] which is perhaps the archetype of all the agiogaphies of the Calabrian Byzantine saints. According to the story, Saint Basil the Great appeared in a vision to the hermit, who lived in the hermitage of Pentadattilos, who almost forced him to go by sea to Barcelona.
After a multitude of miracles performed during the sea voyage, [20] in which the saint calmed storms, sank pirate ships and drove away sea monsters with the sole force of prayer, he arrived in the Hispanic city, healed Theodosius and blinded Sigeric and his spatarium with a blessing Dubio, who mistook a column for Athaulf, breaking his bones trying to stab it. As icing on the cake, after so many miracles, the Gothic king made amends for his sins, returned all the looted goods to Roman monasteries and churches and converted to the Nicean creed.
This source, even more imaginative than Jordane's stories, was considered totally unreliable, until recent archaeological excavations showed the correspondence between what emerged and the description of Athaulf's palace: the author of the bios probably had to refer to a source , the X, to date unknown and lost.
Now, if it cannot be excluded that there is a foundation in the history of the Syriac doctor, net of all the embellishments introduced by Jordanes, for the conspiracy it is immediate to think that the pro-Roman faction of the Goths would not have renounced the possible benefits due to the eventual appeasement of Honorius, for the desire for revenge and the personal ambitions of Saro's brother.
[1] Tribute to the incipit of the book that inspired the Timeline
[2] One of many OTL variations
[3] Invented character, who will occasionally appear in history. Imagine him as a sort of gossipy and pedantic historian, vaguely inspired by Procopius of Caesarea
[4] ITL the theologian will have a longer life
[5] OTL where this battle in Calabria actually took place is a mystery. I based, for narrative reasons, ITL on the hypotheses of Rosario Savoia, contained in the book "Topography of Late Ancient Brutium"
[6] one of the pseudobiblions that will appear in the story
[7] Another pseudobiblion
[8] Another invented character, consider him as the archetype of the goth of good stock, who tries in every way to integrate and be accepted by the Roman senatorial class
[9] For those who know Italian literature, it is a simplified passage from a poem by Giosuè Carducci
[10] The current city of Forli: some authors claim that this marriage was celebrated, however according to the Arian rite
[11] It is probable that OTL the events are much more complex and that the chronologies of Constantine III and of Jovinus partially overlap. For narrative reasons, ITL have chosen the old hypothesis of Alfredo Carraggi, which greatly simplifies the chronology
[12] ITL the Historia Gothica is not lost
[13] To make my life easier in this chaos, I quoted part of Treccani's voice
[14] that OTL was Bonifacius's political protector
[15] OTL poet also existed... Obviously the story I'm telling is purely ITL
[16] Quotation of the title of a splendid book by Roberto Calasso, which narrates the Greek myths
[17] Priscus Attalus, who must have been a nice rogue, OTL was captured by Flavius Constantius, sent to Ravenna to participate in the triumph of Honorius over the Goths and instead of being impaled or quartered, he saved the pellaccia and was sent into exile on the island of Lipari .... ITL will continue to do damage!
[18] We have arrived at PoD!
[19] Totally invented saint, which however reflects all the standard characteristics of the Calabrian Byzantine saints
[20] The Calabrian saints are known for the quantity of miracles that are attributed to them (as a curiosity, take a look at the biography of San Francesco di Paola, who is a sort of record holder in this field)