The
Apocalypse was Yesterday
|
Humanity
has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious,
but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.
|
Tom Robbins
|
The 150
years
between the battle of Adrianopolis in 378 AD. and the reconstruction of
the
Hagia Sophia in 537 AD. in Constantinople, the new Jerusalem, is the
best
documented period of the ancient world since the beginning of time.
Never
before did people let us come so close to their daily life. There are
more
epistolary collections than from all previous ages together. It was the
time
when the autobiography was born. Travelers have left us their
itineraries,
there was an Indian summer of outstanding poetry and the tomes of
sermons
reveal a fresh approach to oratory. We use to think of this time as a
time of
bad sanitation, bad government, bad food, bad teeth, bad hygiene, bad
everything. In the real world, the people felt like going towards the
promise
of a better future. It was the time when the very concept of “future”
as something
to look forward to was born; there was undeniable vitality, a reckless
and
irresponsible exuberance. In Toulouse a clairvoyant engineer attached
waterwheels to the hull of a ship and used a pair of oxen as the
propellant.
This was the modern age of the fifth century, yet much of the old pagan
decor
and architecture was carefully maintained, even the imposing facades of
abandoned temples, although the public began developing a habit of
urinating on
the marble floors. The imperial government continued to provide
foodstuffs to
the citizenry, a handout irrespective of wealth or poverty. The vast
public
baths, the arena, the theatre, and in Constantinople the notorious
hippodrome,
continued on the public budget. In Trier, Carthage, and Rome the
populace, most
of them Christians, remained convinced that the occult power of games
in the
arena protracted the survival of their city. With insane expenses to
their own
purse, the sponsors accommodated ever more grandiose displays of water
battles
and wild beast hunts. Byzantine monks returned from a long journey to
the East.
Hidden in their hollow walking staffs they had smuggled the eggs of
silk worms
through the Chinese border controls. It broke China’s monopoly, but
Emperor
Justinian’s financial wizard, John of Cappadocia made sure that silk
was still
traded under a monopoly; his monopoly. (In Syria a manufacturer carved
patterns
into wood and printed it on textiles. But only the Chinese thought of
using the
same technology for printing books, I guess that makes us even.)
The
mystique of the newly constructed dome of the Hagia Sophia drew
countless
foreigners into the treacherous city on the Bosporus, and looking up to
the
golden glow of the mosaics John Chrysostomus proclaimed a new age,
where “the
things of the resurrection now stand at the door,” and man was to change and made new in
the image of Christ. The world
was to turn into an all Christian theme park. One can feel
Chrysostomus' giddy
excitement that it was really happening now and here. “The
days for our
artifices and buildings, cities and households come to a close, men and
women
will soon breathe in the tremendous hush of God’s presence. We will
step on the
enamel-green grass of Paradise where the Easter-palms are fanning the
air, and
we shall live among the patriarchs who’ve seen the future, converse
with the
prophets, walk in the company of the apostles and live with the
martyrs, the
mighty men of power.”
Paganism
was still alive, but more and more became something of an exotic
curiosity. The
gods of the ancients retired into anonymity and under the guise of a
monk’s
hooded attire they lingered on as demons and sometimes benevolent
genies. Even
the Christians in Africa continued to celebrate the pagan cult of
daemon
coelestis (Salvian, I, c, lib.VII & VIII). People
told stories
of a traveler who’d lost his bearings in the desert and delirious with
thirst
was found by a satyr. It was a satyr of the goaty kind, walking on
hooves, with
pointy ears and hairy thighs. The strange creature provided food and
water and
the traveler repaid kindness with kindness, asking this descendant of
Pan to be
his guest in Alexandria. At the traveler’s home the satyr suddenly fell
ill and
died. Pickled in salt the corpse was sent to Antioch to be presented to
the
Emperor and was held on display there for many years. This was widely
believed
to be true. Even the eminent Jerome kept an open mind whether such
creatures
were demons or indeed existed somewhere in the remote reaches of a
universe
created and designed to resemble King Solomon’s lost temple. The belief
in the
demonic world and in blood sucking Lamias was still a common
superstition
shared by everybody, whether baptized or not. The gentiles produced a
last
harvest of talent and powerful intellects, many of them formally
baptized
without really meaning it. There was the last of the truly great Roman
poets,
Claudian (before 370 – 404 AD), a
genius
who excelled in a language that was not his mother tongue, and the
immensely
gifted narrator and historian Procopius (500
– 565
AD.). In Athens Proclos (412 –
485 AD.)
was not only producing reams of Neo-Platonic verbosity, he also was the
last
mathematician of note for a long time to come. In Africa a certain
Martianus
Minneus Felix Capella, sometime after the invasion of the Vandals,
wrote On
the Wedding of Philology and Mercury and of the Seven Liberal Arts, thus single-handed inventing the
medieval
curriculum of grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic,
astronomy and
music. And in Constantinople, an other African, Nonnos of Panopolis (400 – 476 AD.), perhaps the
technically most
versatile poet in the Greek language ever, composed the most
accomplished epic
of antiquity, the Dionysiaca,
a story
about the life and exploits of the god Dionysus who set out with his
army of
bacchantes to conquer India. A work of sheer genius, baroque, complex,
and
insufferably monotonous; the Finnegan’s Wake of ancient times. Both are books I’ve
never finished
reading. Apparently at some point after 21,000 hexameters of
unrelenting
mythology, Nonnos got fed up and went to the church across the road for
a dip
into the baptismal basin. He then published in 450 AD. a poetic
paraphrase of
the Gospel of John. Nonnos took holy orders and became a bishop.
For
him
this was a decision late in life, but in Antioch Martha, the mother of
Simeon
Stylites the Younger (521 – 597 AD.)
already trained her seven year old son like a circus monkey to step
into the
straw-sandals of that other Simeon and perch like a bird on a tall
pillar until
death. He became the first of a whole flock of child saints, crapping
and
peeing on the gawking rubbernecks underneath the pillars. A peculiar
smell of
parched and unwashed holiness, the lynx-effect of sainthood, wafted
down from
the dizzying height of forty feet above ground. Less amusing is what
happened
in Alexandria to the Neo-Platonic philosopher and mathematician
Hypathia (355 – 415 AD.). In open
daylight, the mob
stripped her naked, dragged her on her back into a church where a
certain Peter
the Reader struck her with his club until her mangled body showed no
sign of
life. The holy mob then cut the corpse to pieces and scraped the flesh
from the
bones with shells and potshards to feed it to the dogs. The whole
affair was
never prosecuted; the instigator of the crime, Bishop Cyril is still a
saint on
the orthodox calendar.
One
of
Hypathias’ students was Synesius of Cyrene (373 –
414 AD.), a true gentlemen who in the hours of leisure satirized
the
corruption of Roman officials in mythological allegories. He married in
403 AD.
and was totally taken by surprise when six years later suddenly a
committee of
Christians from the neighborhood town dragged him away from the peace
of his
estates and by popular acclaim invested him as Bishop of Ptolemais.
Synesius
neither received holy orders nor ever got wet in the baptistery. This
didn’t
stop him to become a courageous and efficient cleric, well educated,
polished,
and the most respectable humanitarian of those days. He even managed to
hold
his own on questions of dogma. He expressly stipulated his freedom to
dissent
on the creation of the soul, literal belief in resurrection, and the
final
destruction of the world. In other words, in his mind Synesius never
ceased to
be a pagan and he had the good fortune to end his life unmolested in
peace and
quiet. A peace sometimes given to the meek. Synesius was spared the
grief to
hear of the fate of his mentor. Meanwhile the great political players
of the
period were keeping busy to conclude the fragmentation of the Roman
empire.
The
currency
experienced a meltdown. In the year 476 AD. the empire was declaring
bankruptcy, quite literally, but the “Barbarians” who did the hostile
takeover
turned out to be worthy custodians; converts are always trying to do
one better
than their role models, and their subjects appreciated the efforts of
their new
masters. We know this for a fact.
Despite
the
political insecurities the population increased. People had long lost
their
right to vote at the ballots, so, for the first time in centuries, they
voted with
their cradles; a vote of confidence. We also, more than ever before,
hear of
people reaching a biblical old age. Many of the key figures made their
first
appearance late in life – Narses was in his sixties when he started his
career
– and they carried on as if they had all the time in the world. Narses
was
still making plans for the future at the age of 98; King Gaiseric died
at 88,
Emperor Justinian, like his uncle, at 83, we hear of centenarians in
the
monastic community. The invading “barbarians” understood that you don’t
slaughter the goose that is laying you golden eggs. These barbarians
weren’t
all that barbaric as the tabloids of those days would like us to
believe. Then
as now mayhem is selling better than good news. Of all nations the
Goths were
the first to read the (Christian) Bible in their own national language.
Wulfila (311 – 383 AD.) was a Gothic bishop who translated
the book even before Jerome (347 –
September 30, 420 AD.) had finished
working on the Vulgate. This Goth, like many of his contemporaries, was
a man
of immense intellectual energy. He invented an entire new alphabet,
based on
the runic script of the Germanic tribes, and he rewrote the Gothic
dictionary.
The level of literacy among his people was superior to the average in
Italy.
Who these days is still remembering the poet Fulgentius? He lived in
Carthage,
still a cosmopolitan metropolis in his days, although by then the
capital of
the Vandal King Hunneric. Fulgentius excelled in epigrams that played
on sound
bites from two languages, Latin and the language of the Vandals; he has
left us
75 allegorical narratives on mythological subjects with biblical
parallels.
The
story
of the Vandals is fascinating. Among the great players in the East –
the Goths,
Huns and Suebi – the Vandal nation was the smallest. Harassed from all
sides by
Huns, Goths, and Romans, the Vandals packed their belongings and took
to the
road as fugitives. However the most powerful man walking the Earth
between 390
and 408 AD. was the commander of the joint imperial forces Stilicho,
the son of
a Vandal cavalry officer in the imperial army. Meanwhile, after years
of
journey and defeat, a beaten people, the Vandals made their escape to
Spain in
409 AD. Their settlements facing the African coast have given Andalusia
its
present name. They settled in comfort and farmed the land. After
receiving a
bad mauling from the hands of the Goths, an ancient confederate of the
Vandals,
the Alani, a splinter group of Persian tribesmen, had lost their own
leader and
placed themselves under the authority of the Vandal’s king. So when in
Constantinople the Alani Flavius Ardabur Aspar (c.
400 – 471 AD.) became the supreme commander of the Byzantine
forces, the
king of the Vandals, at least in theory, became Aspar's king as well.
In 420
AD. this association between Alani and Vandal forces received a boost
of
confidence; in open battle they destroyed a Gothic army in Roman pay.
But the
Vandal vineyards grew on borrowed time. The western branch of the much
stronger
Gothic nation continued filtering through the Pyrenees and their
settlements
gradually encircled the Vandal possessions on the Spanish peninsula.
But with
Aspar covering his back in Constantinople, the new King of the Vandals,
Gaiseric (c.389 – January 25, 477 AD.),
had a free hand to deal with the problem. Gaiseric was a medium sized
man with
a limp and three sons taller than him, a man of few words who never let
on what
he was thinking. He turned an intimidated crowd of farmers on the run
into a
warlike nation of seafarers who commanded the strongest and most
efficient navy
in the Mediterranean. In 428 AD. King Gaiseric received an invitation.
His
"Illustrious and Magnificent Highness,"
the Count Bonifacius, Roman Governor of Africa, contemplated sedition.
He was
not only an inapt administrator, the Empress Dowager and her general
who on
behalf of the seven year old emperor held in Rome the regency, didn’t
like his
guts. It came to hostilities. Boniface asked the Vandals to send him
troops in
return for allotments of land. He, thought he could buy the king’s
services and
settle his warriors on barely arable desert in the South, where the
Vandals
were hoped to shore up the African defenses against a new menace coming
from
the Sahara, a new breed of warriors, who threw the javelin from the
saddle of a
camel. The region had seen nothing like this before; the camel was an
import
from the Arabian peninsula by the Romans themselves, in 272 AD.
I
heard a
seasoned traveler saying that history is not about good versus evil,
but smart
against stupid, with good and evil on both sides of the conflict. King
Gaiseric
spotted the opportunity of a lifetime.
The
province of Africa was the crown jewel of the empire, the breadbasket
of the
whole world and seemed indispensable for Italy’s economy. But the
region was
torn by the religious schisms between Catholics and Donatists,
Donatists and
Montanists, Montanists and Tertullianists, and the dispute wasn't
restricted to
an exchange of harsh words. The Circumcellions terrorized the peasantry
in the
hope to get killed and receive the crown of martyrdom for destroying
the local
shrines. Only there were no longer any pagan shrines left to destroy,
so these
terrorists went after Catholic churches.
King
Gaiseric convinced his people to give up all their possessions in Spain
and to
entrust their fortunes to the Sea. He held a census to assess the
shipping
space and the figures added up to barely 80,000 people, the Vandals,
their
Alani confederates – Gaiseric’s tactical reserve, the sudden appearance
of the
Alani cavalry on the battlefield used to decide the day – women,
children and
slaves, Roman fugitives, political refugees picked up from every nation
along
the long trail of the Vandal's journeys, each with his own train of
family,
friends, retainers and slaves. In three waves King Gaiseric ferried
this motley
crowd across the straights of Gibraltar and forged a Vandal kingdom on
the
Roman territories of West- and East-Numidia, (modern Tunisia) and bits
of Libya
all the way towards Tripoli, with the third biggest city of the
Mediterranean
as his capital: Carthage, a metropolis inhabited by 300,000 people,
several
times outnumbering the Vandals. Although Africa had been almost
entirely
denuded of defenders, it took Gaiseric eleven years before he actually
could make
Carthage his residence. Count Boniface had realized his mistake and
tried to
stop the Vandal’s advance. Driven back, his man were caught up with
refugees
from all over the country and sought safety in the walled town of Hippo
Regius,
modern Annaba. A long drawn out siege brought misery and disease not
only to
the people in Hippo but Gaiseric’s army as well. He ran short of
supplies. In
the streets of Hippo, St. Augustine and his priests walked in
procession to the
basilica and prayed for relief. This was to be expected, but
Augustine’s stupid
appeal to turn this war into a religious confrontation between Roman
Catholics
and Vandal Arians was to haunt the land for decades to come, while the
instigator of the sufferings, St Augustine died in the third month of
the siege
on August 28, 430 AD. The siege continued. After fourteen months a
Byzantine
expedition force under Marshal Aspar (sic!)
landed at Carthage to relieve Count Boniface. Aspar allowed the Count
to take
command over the troops he had brought with him and took position on
Carthage’s
walls to watch the events unfolding. The Vandals were outnumbered, yet
they
consummately routed the Count’s positions and Boniface shipped back to
Italy,
leaving it to Aspar to sort out the mess. Aspar and King Gaiseric
exchanged
gifts and envoys and hammered out a formal agreement that initially did
not
include the possession of Carthage. As a gesture of good will, Gaiseric
agreed
to send his oldest son Prince Hunneric as a hostage to the court at
Ravenna. At
the same time, King Gaiseric struck an alliance with Atilla the Hun. It
kept
the Romans and Goths busy. Attila had a choice. He could attack the
Byzantines
or lead his forces into Western Europe. He chose Europe. One recognizes
the
hand of Aspar and Gaiseric. On October 19, 339 AD. Prince Hunneric
returned
from his vacation and in a surprise assault took the city of Carthage.
With it
fell the secure moorings and supplies of the strongest naval base in
the
Mediterranean. The Sea Lord of the Vandal navy had a headquarter. But
it wasn’t
all plain sailing for the Vandals. In 440 AD. a confrontation with the
Byzantine fleet in the waters of Sicily ended in defeat and worse to
come could
only be prevented when Atilla agreed to pay the Balkans a visit with
his Huns.
The Byzantine forces returned to base. Two years later, the Vandal
kingdom
became the first to receive diplomatic recognition as an autonomous
state on
Roman territory. The negotiations in Ravenna concluded with Empress
Eudoxia’s
betrothal of her daughter to King Gaiseric’s son and successor, Prince
Huneric.
Gaiseric's
conquest stretched all the way to the Balearics, Sardinia and Corsica,
included
Sicily and the isles in the Adriatic. There was the inevitable land
reform and
the great land owners, the wealthiest people of the ancient world, went
into
exile and sang for a meal on the street corners of Antioch. It was
unheard of,
the eye of the needle was letting through the camel. Only yesterday
these
people had been proverbial for owning the whole of Africa between the
four of
them. The churches of the period used to preach poverty as a virtue, it
was the
“blessed pauper’s” bank deposit in heaven. "Whosoever of you has not
forsaken all his possessions, he cannot be my disciple,” says Luke (14:33)
but in Sicily the genuine have-nots, the goatherds, threw stones at
“grazing
saints,” athletes of asceticism who walked about with not a stitch of
clothing
on them, not even a loincloth, but carried a sickle or scythe to mow
the
sheep’s pastures and eat the grass as their food. A sight that made the
passing
traveler pause: “Fleeing from the light,”
says Namatianus, “these men call themselves monks or
solitaries. They
fear the gifts of fortune, and from the apprehension of losing them
embrace
voluntary wretchedness. Unable to support the blessings of the human
condition,
they exercise on their own bodies the tortures which are inflicted on
fugitive
slaves by the hand of justice“
(Itinerary
I:439-448).
In
Rome the
populace celebrated the victory over Attila’s Huns in the fields of
Chalon and
the retreating Atilla called in a favor from his ally King Gaiseric.
Once again
one recognizes the dab hand of the diplomat in Carthage who turned the
defeat
of an ally into an opportunity for himself. Letters crossed the Sea
between
Carthage and Ravenna. Subsequently the Empress Eudoxia arranged for the
murder
of her former associate in the quarrel with Count Boniface, the general
who
just had beaten Attila. The general’s staff discovered who was behind
the plot
(or received an anonymous tip) and in turn murdered Eudoxia’s husband.
The
empress wrote for help to her daughter’s father in law, King Gaiseric.
That was
all the pretext he needed. In Mai 31, 455 AD. with the tacit backing of
Constantinople, Gaiseric, commanding in person, sailed straight to
Ostia the
seaport of Rome for a second helping after the sacking of Rome 45 years
earlier
by the Goths. The word “vandal” and “vandalism” these days is standing
for
mayhem and mindless destruction. What actually happened was quite
different.
King Gaiseric was on his best behavior. He assured the magistrates that
there
would be no killing, no torturing to discover the location of hidden
treasure
and no destruction of buildings, public or private, and his expedition
force
entered Rome without firing a shot. He kept his promise. For two weeks
the
Vandals collected all the items on their shopping list. Treasures,
statues, the
gilded roof of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Everything was carted
to
Ostia and loaded into the waiting ships. The fleet departed in good
order,
nobody in Rome came to harm. The Empress Eudoxia and her daughters
sailed with
Gaiseric. But back home there was domestic trouble.
King
Gaiseric's rule was riddled with plots and conspiracies. He overcame
them all
and his retribution was harsh and inflicted heavy losses on the Vandal
nobility
who resented Gaiseric's illegitimate birth. They were haughty barons,
connoisseurs of Arabian horses, who looked with disdain on the new
breed of
Gaiseric’s weather hardened mariners. Perfumed and pampered they
presided over
opulent banquets in mosaic incrusted halls of marble with a view to
their
extended estates. They wore long flowing, almost translucent silk robes
and had
a maiden with a basket full of rose petals walk before them. The king
had not
much patience for these ponces and organized his cabinet on merit and
with no
regard for nationality. He employed virtually the entire civil service
of the
Romans to run his administration. The faith of the Vandals was Arian
but
Gaiseric himself had been baptized as a Catholic before he later
converted to
the Arian faith. He expected the same from officials of the former
Roman
administration. Not every patrician collaborated and a vessel with
fugitives
set sail from Hippo Regius for an uncertain future of hopes and
handouts in
Constantinople. Since Augustine’s inflammatory appeal, the Catholic
clergy
opposed the Vandals by every means possible and Gaiseric exercised a
heavy
hand, closed down the churches and deported and enslaved the priests
who
refused to perform the Arian liturgy. The king could not risk
tolerating
resistance. Gaiseric didn’t have much of an army, 5,000 cavalry, most
of them
Alani, mounted archers (the two Gothic Nations could put 60,000
horsemen in
heavy armor into the field, the forerunners of the medieval knight). At
least
on two occasions it was the loyalty of these Iranian tribesmen which
had
protected the king from domestic assassins. The Vandal forces were
thinly
stretched. Time and again the camel-nomads punched through the defenses
towards
the Sahara, and in one of these skirmishes King Gaiseric lost the
tallest of
his sons, Prince Genzo. In 468 AD, Constantinople made a major effort;
if the
figures can be trusted it was the greatest amphibian venture ever,
before the
landing in the Normandy. The Vandals got off to a bad start, lost their
overseas bases and were defeated in two naval battles near Sicily and
Sardinia.
Unimpeded the Byzantine expedition force landed at Tripoli in Libya.
The
Vandals threw at them their best troops, an alliance of Alani, Vandals,
and
Moorish camel corps, but were forced to retreat, screening the
main-road to
Carthage. It was time for King Gaiseric to pull a rabbit out of the
hat; and he
did. The Byzantine main fleet anchored at Cape Bon, Tunesia, and for
days did
nothing. Apparently the Vandal plenipotentiaries began negotiations of
surrender and Gaiseric kept the two sides talking while preparing his
next
move. In a night attack the outnumbered Vandal navy burned to
smoldering
tinders half of the Byzantine fleet, the rest slipped anchor and fled
in
panick. It was the signal for the Byzantine troops in Libya to run for
their
transports in Tripoli before they, too, could be destroyed. An other
Byzantine
fleet which could have saved the day mysteriously lost the commander in
an
assassination; who was behind it, has remained a well kept secret.
Constantinople
was on the brink of bankruptcy. It would take years to recover from the
debacle. Marshal Aspar lost his influence and was forced into
retirement. Three
years later an assassin paid Aspar a visit in his villa and killed him
and his
family. For King Gaiseric this was the signal to start raiding the
territories
in the East. Constantinople could not afford an other war and it sent
its
diplomats to meet the king in Carthage. The negotiations ended with a
full
recognition of all Vandal possessions in exchange for a return of the
POWs and
hostages. As a political bargain chip, Gaiseric threw in the recall of
Catholic
clerics and the reopening of the Catholic churches. The treaty was
signed, the
kingdom was secure. King Gaiseric recalled his cruisers.
During
his final years Aspar
had spent his time tutoring the future king of the Goths, Theoderic the
Great
(454 – August
30, 526 AD.). He taught him well. Under Theoderic’s rule Italy
experienced a first renaissance. The state kept teachers and doctors on
the
public budget, the senators in Rome received compensation for expenses
in the
election campaigns and for their sponsorship of the games in the arena.
Everywhere the builders erected scaffoldings; sculptors and
silversmiths
produced a dazzling array of miniature work. However, we should not
romanticize
the period; it was a tyrannical rule. At the drop of a hat members of
the
opposition found themselves imprisoned, waiting to have their eyes
gouged out
and getting bludgeoned to death. In 524 AD., one of these convicts used
his
final days on death-row to write an all time golden book, The
Consolation of
Philosophy. It remained a
bestseller and
perhaps the most loved book throughout the Medieval ages and after. Yet
the
people working the land supported the regime; Theoderic had slashed
their taxes
by half. After Theoderic’s death, the inaptitude of his successors
played into
the hands of Byzantine diplomacy; Constantinople sent an expedition
corps. The
hostilities ceased when Belisarius evacuated the population of Rome and
later
repopulated the abandoned city with squatters from the South of Italy.
It was
the end of ancient Rome and its beginning as a medieval township. The
Byzantine
taxman rolled a shroud over the land. The architect of this success,
the eunuch
Narses, retired to his extended possessions on Cape Misenum. Narses, a
man of
Persian extraction, was a political visionary and Machiavellian mind in
a
league with Richelieu and Disraeli. He was 98 and still hatching a big
scheme
that would change the future of Europe. But that’s a story for an other
time.
©
– 8/8/2008 – by michael sympson, 4,600 words, all rights reserved
