Theodoric (15 page)

His dream had been extraordinarily vivid and was slow to fade; Theoderic experienced an unaccountable, sharp longing for the homeland of his ancestors – those icy mountains, fiords and forests he had seen in his sleeping thoughts: a fitting stage for mighty deeds of valour, from where fallen heroes were translated to Valhalla. But perhaps such feelings were nothing more than childish nostalgia. Could the things his forebears had seen and felt really be transferred across the generations to himself? Anyway, was not Italy, sunny, rich and fertile, a more appealing vision? Of course it was, Theoderic told himself sternly, banishing northern fantasies to a dark corner of his mind. This was the real, the Roman world, where a man's status was measured in wealth and property, a world which had no place for gods or heroes.

He shaved (a Roman custom he refused to abandon), dressed and, munching a hunk of bread dipped in wine, left the house in Novae he had commandeered. Resentful Romans making way for the tall German, Theoderic strode through well-paved streets to the Amal camp outside the city walls. Here, preparations were under way against the day of departure for the great expedition. Wagons, gear and
weapons were being furbished, carts were bringing in the harvest (Theoderic had promised Zeno not to live off the land while travelling within the empire – a promise which, because of the residual affection and respect he harboured towards the old fox, he knew he would keep) – a scene replicated countless times throughout all lands assigned to the Amal in Moesia Secunda and Dacia Ripensis.

Suddenly, a huge weight of depression seemed to settle on the king's shoulders. He must say goodbye to the old freebooting past that had occupied his youth and young manhood – a colourful past of skirmishes and raids, when pitting his wits against Zeno and Strabo had made life seem at times like an exciting game. Granted, a life not lacking in hardship and privation, but with an edge and zest which would surely be lacking in the years that stretched ahead. Middle age beckoned, and with it the massive responsibility of getting his people to Italy: a prospect full of toil and tribulation, with each day presenting a remorseless tally of problems to be solved, grievances assuaged, and plans formulated. Even when they reached journey's end, there was Odovacar to be dealt with. The bold Scirian, who had risen to be king of Italy through cunning and resolve, was hardly the man to surrender his realm meekly to another. In a trial of strength between them, could Theoderic be sure the Ostrogoths would prevail? He could give no guarantee, he admitted. Perhaps the two barbarian peoples would end up destroying each other? Which of course might be the result that Zeno had planned all along – a necessary prelude to bringing back Italy within the imperial fold.

He longed for Timothy, the steadfast and resourceful friend who always knew ways to lighten his blackest moods. But Timothy had gone to Olbia on the Euxine, hopefully to bring back one Callisthenes, a famous merchant with a trading empire throughout Scythia, who should be able to provide expert advice regarding provisioning and transport for the epic trek.

Looking up, Theoderic felt his heart sink. Bounding towards him was young Frederick, the son of the Rugian king whom Odovacar had captured and murdered, after annihilating many of his people. Theoderic sighed; like all relations between the empire and Germanic peoples, the Rugian Question was complex, with far-reaching repercussions. He reminded himself of the facts. To counter Odovacar's threat to support
Illus in Isauria, Zeno had enlisted the Rugians – whose territory adjoined Noricum – to block any force the Scirian king might send eastwards. Odovacar's response had been swift and brutal; descending in strength on the Rugian kingdom, he had wreaked devastation and slaughter on such a scale as to destroy it utterly. Frederick, however, had escaped, and with a band of pro-Ostrogothic followers had managed to join up with Theoderic in Moesia, where he had offered his services in the inevitable campaign to wrest Italy from Odovacar.

Theoderic liked the young Rugian, with his open friendly manner and boyish enthusiasm; but at this moment, sunk as he was in gloomy introspection, hearty Frederick was the last person he wished to encounter. Forcing a smile, he greeted the prince with a polite, if unenthusiastic, ‘Good morning.'

‘And the same to you, Sire,' boomed the young man. He glanced about him at the busy scene with an approving eye. ‘Looks as if we'll soon be ready to begin the march.'

‘Just as soon as the harvest's in,' agreed the king. ‘We need to break the back of the journey before the onset of winter.' Now that Frederick
was
here, Theoderic decided he might as well make use of him by picking his brains as to the route. In his flight from Odovacar, the young Rugian must have covered virtually the same ground that the expedition would be following for the first half of the journey.

‘Nothing to worry about, Sire, until we reach the Ulca,'
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replied the Rugian in response to Theoderic's query about possible hazards. ‘That's the river forming the boundary between the Empire and Pannonia.'

‘Pannonia, the Amals' old homeland,' observed Theoderic. ‘But that was many years ago. We abandoned it to become . . . “guests”, let us say, of the emperor.'

‘“Guests” – I like it,' chuckled Frederick. ‘Well, Pannonia's since been taken over by the Gepids, a brutish bunch allied to Odovacar. Their orders were to wipe out me and my Rugians following our escape from the attentions of the last-named gentleman. There not being many of us, we managed to detour round them undetected. No way can you hope to do the same, unfortunately, Sire. But my guess is you won't
have any trouble; you'll only be passing through their territory, after all. They'd be mad to pick a fight with so formidable a nation as the Ostrogoths.'

‘Let us hope you're right.'

 

*
The Baltic Sea.

†
The Black Sea.

‡
The Oder, Vistula, Pruth, Dniester, Dnieper and Don.

*
Scythia: an imprecise term, roughly equivalent to the steppes of Central Asia.

*
River Vuka. The town of Vukovar has become familiar from the 1990s' Balkan conflict. On 18 November 1991, it fell to the Serbs after enduring a terrible siege.

And the children of Israel . . . about six hundred thousand on foot . . . and flocks and herds, even very much cattle . . . went out from the land of Egypt

Anonymous,
The Bible: Exodus
,
c.
900
BC
(referring to an event some four hundred years earlier)

‘You expect to get to Italy in
that
?' screamed the merchant, administering a savage kick to the side of the wagon. His single eye glittering with simulated rage, the diminutive Greek advanced towards the vehicle's owner, a huge, tow-headed Goth, who backed away in alarm. ‘Well, I, Callisthenes of Olbia, whose wagons have forded the Borysthenes and traversed the Altai Shan,
*
say that you'll be lucky if this apology for a donkey cart gets as far as the Alps, which it stands as much chance of crossing as an icicle in Hades. Those spokes – they're oak, hard but dense – like your head, my friend. They should be of ash, tough yet springy, yielding instead of cracking when the going's rocky.'

Enjoying the performance from the sidelines were Theoderic and Timothy. ‘The man's a treasure,' chuckled the king. ‘Remind me how you found him.'

‘He's from Olbia, an old Greek colony and trading-centre on the opposite side of the Euxine from Anatolia – my home turf, you'll remember. Everyone in Anatolia – a Greek sphere of influence since long before Alexander – knows of Callisthenes the famous trader. He claims in his youth to have guided Attila to the shores of Dalai Nor,
†
to confer with the seer Wu Tze.'

On meeting the tiny Greek, who was one-eyed, aged and voluble – especially concerning his own alleged exploits – Theoderic had not at first been impressed, being inclined to dismiss him as a bombastic
blowhard. However, within an hour of Callisthenes' arrival at Novae, the king changed his mind. Without waiting for explanations or introductions, the little merchant had begun buzzing round the camp like an angry gadfly, examining wagons and draught oxen, poking into stores, quizzing Goths in their own tongue . . . After completing an exhaustive inspection of the site, he had delivered his verdict.

‘Half your transport isn't fit for purpose, King,' he snapped (eschewing the usual respectful ‘Sire'). ‘Many of your oxen are in poor condition or require their hooves treated; gear's often defective or lacking; a lot of grain and foodstuffs badly stored – which means it'll spoil. I could go on. All in all your expedition's anything but ready.'

‘But half our lives, we Goths have been on the move.' Theoderic protested mildly. ‘So far we've managed to cope, without—'

‘Oh, yes – inside the Eastern Empire!' cut in the little Greek, with a dismissive snort. ‘Good roads, tamed countryside. What happens when you reach what used to be the empire's Western half? Roads in disrepair, tillage and pasture reverting to wasteland, above all the crossing of the eastern Alps to face. A journey of a thousand miles, part of it over some of the hardest terrain in the whole of Europe. I tell you this, King: if your transport and provisioning are defective, you may not make it.'

‘What must I do?'

‘Nothing. Put me in charge, and be willing to see that my instructions are carried out – to the letter, mind.'

‘To the letter.' With difficulty, Theoderic suppressed a smile.

Like a miniature tornado, Callisthenes swept through the encampments in Moesia Secunda and Dacia Ripensis, the two provinces assigned to the Ostrogoths: observing, questioning, assessing, taking notes. His lightning tour completed, he returned to Novae, armed with a lengthy list of Things to Be Done. First, transport. To be ‘fit for purpose' (the merchant's favourite expression), each wagon must be eighteen feet long by four wide, the body constructed of hard-wearing timber such as oak or hornbeam. The wheels (two pairs, bound with iron tyres fitted when white-hot so as to shrink and grip securely, the front ones with pivoted axle for steering) must be of tough, flexible wood such as ash or some species of walnut;
connected to the front axle, the drag pole must be sturdy and long enough to inspan twelve draught oxen by a system of yokes, yoke-pins, and rawhide ropes. Attached to the body by iron staples, there would be green-wood boughs to support a canvas tent against hot sun or foul weather. At the front there should be a large chest stretching the width of the wagon, providing seating for the driver and storage space for personal belongings, also iron hooks inside and underneath the body to support pots and pans, tools and other heavy gear. Stores must include sacks of flour and grain (plus hand querns for milling) and bags of dried meat – sufficient to feed each family as far as the edge of the Empire; also drums of fat to grease the wheels hubs, spare ropes, yokes, yoke and linch-pins; rolls of canvas and rawhide for repairs; bars of iron; tools such as augers, spokeshaves, chisels, tongs, hammers, drawing-knives to trim hooves; spare horseshoes (for those wealthy enough to own a mount), and a hundred other items. All livestock (especially draught animals) to be rigorously examined and if necessary treated, to ensure they were strong and healthy enough to cope with the rigours of the long trek.

Regarding implementation of these specifications, Callisthenes was utterly inflexible. ‘“Intolerance” is my middle name,' he told the king. ‘To get your people to their destination safely and securely, you can't afford any weak links in the chain. One single broken wheel or axle could bring the expedition grinding to a halt.' Fortunately, a seemingly inexhaustible stream of funds from the Treasury in Constantinople ensured that even the poorest Gothic household could afford to meet Callisthenes' stringent requirements. (This heightened Theoderic's suspicion that Zeno was only too willing to part with however much gold it took, to be rid of ‘guests' whose presence had become unwelcome.)

Regarding weaponry, Callisthenes had nothing to say, declaring that he was a trader, not an arms dealer. Theoderic had few worries on that score. As a warrior nation, the Ostrogoths were probably equipped as well as or better than any other tribes they might encounter. The great mass of the host, some forty thousand warriors, was armed with spears; a few – leaders or the wealthy – might also possess helmets, swords, and ring-mail hauberks.

With the last of the harvest in, and all items on Callisthenes' list of Things to Be Done ticked off, the great migration finally began on the last day of September in the year of the consuls Dynamius and Sifidius.
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Headed by Theoderic's party, then Frederick and his Rugians, the wagon train set off in sections of a hundred vehicles, there being two hundred sections altogether. In charge of each section was a wagonmaster, hand-picked by Theoderic and Timothy for reliability and leadership. Conspicuous for not being chosen to fulfil such a role was Thiudimund. (Theoderic's suspicions of treachery on his brother's part had been aroused too many times for the king to risk entrusting him with such a key responsibility.) Predictably, Thiudimund had protested, then, his brother remaining adamant, had raged and sulked, but in the end been forced reluctantly to accept the king's decision.