A Chronicle of the Roman Twilight

By John Ranger

The story begins in A.D. 364 when the author of this memoir, Marcus Cedranus, is 

born into a middle class landowners family in western Britain. While his material 

prospects are promising, his deteriorating relationship with his parents causes 

him to leave home for the continent. In Gaul he becomes a teamster f

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen Culture Solutions
• Release date: Sep 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638121336

John Ranger

John Ranger, retired computer programmer and database administrator who spent 32 years at IBM, has a B. Sc. degree from the University of Manitoba, Canada and a lifelong interest in Roman history. He has one son and lives in Wappingers Falls, New York.

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A Chronicle of the Roman Twilight

A Novel

Copyright © 2021 by John Ranger.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-63812-132-9

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63812-133-6

All rights reserved. No part in this book may be produced and transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Published by Pen Culture Solutions 09/27/2021

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Contents

Preface

Chapter 1   Childhood’s End

Chapter 2   Those Perfidious Goths

Chapter 3   A Gallic Intermission

Chapter 4   A Call to Arms

Chapter 5   The Caldron (383–387)

Chapter 6   Reunion (387–388)

Chapter 7   A Future Foreclosed (388–392)

Chapter 8   The End of an Epoch (392–395)

Chapter 9   A Pandemic Reborn (395–396)

Chapter 10 Our Last Campaign in Albion (396–398)

Chapter 11 Tragedy in the East (399–401)

Chapter 12 The Approaching Tide (401–406)

Chapter 13 Collapse on the Rhine (407)

Chapter 14 The Curse of the Vestal Virgin (408)

Chapter 15 The End of Eden

Endnotes

Preface

I ONCE READ THAT every great civilization eventually produces a generation that is no longer capable of either bearing the burdens or living up to the expectations of the past. Beyond doubt, the generation whose members were selected to bear that cross for Rome were the ones in charge of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires from AD 383 to 408. They were the ones who lost the future. The calamities that befell the empire during those years would eventually prove themselves impossible to surmount.

Up to the beginning of that period, the empire had seemed invincible. Its capacity to absorb tyranny, barbarian invasion, civil war, murderous plagues, and devastating economic collapse seemed infinite. Regardless of how appalling the effects of such disasters, the state always rebounded one way or another. The resilience was always there. At the beginning of 383, the Western Empire was strong and appeared secure while the Eastern Empire was still struggling to recover from the terrible losses it had suffered in its defeat at the Battle of Hadrianople five years earlier. To the extent that the East would recover, it would be largely due to an influx of soldiers from the West. But the Fates are capricious. A quarter century later, it was the western half of the empire that was struggling as never before: Britain had been abandoned; much of northern Gaul was ungoverned; a number of the fortresses on the Rhine River that had protected civilization for four and a half centuries had been destroyed; western Spain was a political no-man’s-land, and the authority of the Roman government in much of eastern Iberia was little more than a vague rumor; stretches of land on the south bank of the Danube had been given up with little hope of ever being secured for the empire again; and north Africa was in revolt.

Every generation believes that its passing marks the end of an era. As the end of the first decade of the fifth century approached, people started to witness not just the conclusion of an era but the end of an epoch. Events were in motion that would shatter the western half of the Roman world.

The Battle of Hadrianople in 378 has long been considered the key event that led to the fall of Rome a century later in 476. More recent thinking on the issue suggests that this is not the case. The fictional memoir of this novel is dedicated to the proposition that it was the chronic political instability of the West that led to its disintegration.

At the end of his great history of Rome, from the reign of Emperor Nerva to the fateful reign of Emperor Valens, Ammianus Marcellinus advised subsequent historians, be they professional or amateur, to cast what they have to say in the grand style. It is up to you to judge the degree to which I have succeeded.

John Ranger

Wappinger Falls, New York

Childhood’s End

Sorrento: October 25, 439

THE BOY WAS AWASH with sweat and almost breathless as he raced down the steps and onto the magnificent tiled veranda.

Grandpa, have you heard the news? he gasped. What news, Gratian?

Carthage has fallen to the Vandals.

The old man’s expression didn’t change. He and his oldest grandson had always been very close. As they looked at each other during a brief silence, the boy knew instinctively that his grandfather wished to be left alone. As the boy left to go inside, the old man looked off toward the northeast across the bay. A low mist obscured Naples, but Vesuvius loomed off to the right as majestic and menacing as ever. He arose from his table and walked slowly over to the railing. Looking down the cliff to the sea, he noticed two small fishing boats far beneath him. Their like had been passing by this point for a thousand years and more. He had known this day would come. Its arrival had been inevitable from the moment that Count Bonifacius had brought the Vandals over to Africa from Spain. But the realization of imminent evil never makes its final attainment any more acceptable. How could things have gone so badly? When he looked back over his life, it seemed that the empire had stumbled and groped from expectation to failure in an endless succession that he could never have foreseen when he was young. Perhaps his greatest mistake was simply in hoping itself. He felt as though his very soul cried out from within him: It was all for nothing. Every dream we dreamed, every ambition we cherished, every struggle we fought were all in vain. All our victories were mere preface to disaster.

He returned to the chair at his writing table and looked across to Vesuvius again. Had it all really happened? After all, even with young people, the passing of time tends to warp the perspective, with reality and the imagination often becoming intertwined. Britain seemed so remote now, both in time and distance. Far greater than the thirty-two years and 1,200 miles that now separated him from his birthplace there.

He had seriously questioned the value of recounting and reanalyzing the events of three decades ago both for himself and for others. For the most part, these profound and terrible disasters had become so many distant yesterdays. At least they would have been if the bad news didn’t keep getting worse. His initial feeling was that he should be content to leave them that way. Even after the passing of so many years, they still evoked considerable discomfort. The intensity of the agony they brought on had subsided considerably, as the sufferings caused by all such calamities must. If they persisted, then we would be unable to survive. But the deep-rooted sense of loss remained, as indeed it should. That brought on the most troublesome aspect of the enterprise. However, he had finally given in to the urgings of his two sons. They were eager to know of his boyhood in Britain, what their grandparents were like and, above all, of his experiences with Stilicho, Alaric, Gainas, and that host of other men at the turn of the century who had been so instrumental in determining the future course of national events.

He had started the book once before, based on diaries and letters that he had kept right up until 410. At that point, the chaos of the times forced him to suspend his efforts. But after digging everything out of a trunk two years ago, he decided to continue with it. The more he reviewed the writings of those years, the more he came to feel that he could make a substantial contribution after all. For the truth as he saw it, pertaining to much of that period, differed considerably from the views of several writers. The Catholic Church historians, above all that damned fool Paul Orosius, were the most odious of the lot. The ridiculous manner in which they continually allowed their religious convictions to distort what should have been an objective analysis was pathetic. They were not really historians but at best chroniclers, at worst mere propagandists. On the other hand, those of the pagan persuasion, showing their usual contempt for the Vandal had, for example, made statements about Stilicho’s campaigns against Alaric in Greece that were downright libelous or should have been. It is often stated that historians write with the benefit of hindsight. But the old man wondered, If hindsight is all that beneficial, then why do historians so continuously debate great past events, often on the basis of having observed the same evidence? It was advisable to keep Tacitus in mind on these matters. He had once referred to a specific incident nearly four centuries earlier that could be applied to much of history in general. He remarked that it was subject of every variety of misrepresentation, not only by those who then lived but likewise in succeeding times: so true is it that all transactions of preeminent importance are wrapped in doubt and obscurity; while some hold for certain facts the most precarious hearsays, others turn facts into falsehood; and both are exaggerated by posterity. It appeared to him that hindsight only broadened the scope of the debate rather than bringing about any universally accepted conclusions. And so he had started compiling and revising. After two years, he wondered if he would ever finish, but he managed to console himself with the notion that at least he was in the homestretch now. He smiled at the irony because he remembered another homestretch many years ago …

I was born in December 364 on my father’s ranch near Cirencester in southwestern Britain. I am certain that I could not have asked for a choicer location in which to enter this world. I am not one of those who automatically reflects upon his childhood as being the happiest and most care-free period of his existence, as many are prone to do. Childhoods are pervaded with problems that are every bit as severe to us as children as later problems are when we are adults. But what I do remember above all about this period is its almost universal tranquility. It stands in such sharp contrast to the life I have had since migrating to the continent. The area in which I lived is one of the most heavily Romanized districts on the island. And Britain itself, throughout my youth and for many decades previously, had been one of the empire’s most prosperous regions. Admittedly, the island suffered from 367 to 369 from massive barbarian attacks. In particular, they struck near York and in the area known as the Saxon Shore.¹ But military attacks on the island were the exception and not the rule.

My father was descended from a Germanic mercenary who settled near London after retiring from the army during the reign of Septimius Severus. All my relatives on my father’s side still live in London or its environs. My mother’s ancestors had come to Britain from Caledonia during the mid-200s. Since my father also had a Celtic background, my parents were fluent in both Latin and Celtic. As a result, my brother, two sisters, and I were also bilingual. When we spoke to one another, we often inadvertently mixed the languages up. We would often speak one sentence in Latin and another in Celtic, much to the consternation of our more or less strictly Latin-speaking friends in Cirencester.

For a businessman enjoying commercial ties with both urban and rural communities in Britain, as my father did, bilingualism was essential. In the cities, while everyone spoke Latin and the upper class, on rare occasion, spoke Greek as well, a sizable percentage could also speak Celtic. In the countryside, the reverse was true but in greater degree. By the time I was born, the Celtic language had absorbed and corrupted hundreds of Latin words. This osmotic process had developed both as a result of the Celtic language’s inadequacy in expressing new concepts and for the sake of convenience. In spite of Britain’s having been a part of the Roman Empire for almost four centuries, the Latin language and culture are not as deeply rooted there as in Gaul and Spain. In the latter dioceses, the original Celtic language and culture has all but disappeared except for a few isolated areas. Their increased degree of Romanization is due to their having a larger percentage of their populations descended from Roman settlers, coupled with their having been a part of the empire for a longer period.

Materially, we led a very good life. As I mentioned, my father owned a large sheep ranch that contained a sizable quarry. Our sheep were the famous Cotswold lions, the largest in the empire, having been brought to Britain shortly after the conquest for the purpose of clothing the legions. By the time I was born, the herds had grown so large that most of their wool was exported to the mainland provinces. They were willing to pay quite handsomely for it. Most of my father’s income was derived from the wool trade, although we also grew a moderate amount of grain that would also return well in a good year. Any adversities brought about by fluctuating grain or wool prices, however, were more than offset by compensation from the quarry. It provided the stone for many of the gray-walled buildings that now stand in this area. It is difficult to know how to compare conditions in Britain as recently as the 390s with the circumstances prevailing there today. I have it on reasonably certain authority that the area around Cirencester is relatively unmolested in spite of Irish attacks along the coast of Wales. But it must be kept in mind that current conditions have deteriorated from those that I am describing in the Britain of several decades ago.

It has been over forty years since I last saw my father’s ranch. The last I heard, it was owned by my sister Maria Patricia and her husband. When I was a boy, the ranch was of considerable area. But like most all other men with sizable landholdings, my father reserved only the woods and pastures for himself and farmed only about a quarter of the arable land. The remainder was let out to farmers whose families had hereditary tenure. As in the continental provinces, British tenant farmers are allowed to pick deadwood from the forests and graze their animals there. Since money was in short supply then, as now, they paid for their farming, foraging, and pasturing privileges mainly by working for my father. The time they spent in such labors ranged from two to four days a week, depending on the season, and consisted largely of cultivating and harvesting the crops. In addition, they would also obtain supplies, repair fences, perform errands, and work in the quarry. The tenant farmer’s monetary rent is very small and generally consists of only one-tenth of their annual crop produce. Their existence is rather primitive by middle-class standards. Legally, these farmers are free, but their freedom is of a much-circumscribed variety: they cannot leave the estate to which they are born, can choose a wife only from that same estate, and can never volunteer for the army. During times of military emergency, they can be conscripted but only on condition that they return to their farms as soon as the emergency has subsided. When the landowner sells his estate, the tenants go with it. Like runaway slaves, runaway tenants can be reclaimed and severely punished if the landowner feels so inclined. But in the real world, these laws are frequently bent and broken. My father owned no slaves, and neither did any of our neighbors, although certain richer families in the cities did. With foreign expansion brought to a close so long ago, the availability of slaves had long been in decline. This became more pronounced the farther north and west one went. Besides, even restricted free labor will out produce slave labor almost anytime.

Although the work was more difficult, as soon as I was old enough, I chose working in the quarry over being a shepherd. Herding sheep I found quite boring. To this day, I cannot comprehend how some men can perform this mind-numbing task for most of their lives. But in stone cutting, I obtained a much greater sense of accomplishment, and it must be admitted, the monetary return was superior. A great deal of caution had to be exercised because the stone found in the region is soft in places and can disintegrate quite unexpectedly while being worked. I took great pride in seeing the stone I had helped fashion being used to expand or repair certain of the stately mansions and public buildings in the district. During this period of my early teens, I considered becoming an architect. It was one of numerous dreams that would go unrealized.

One thing for which I have long been grateful (though I don’t recall any such feeling at the time) is the school that I attended in Cirencester. It had been expanded considerably during the reign of Valentinian I (364 to 375). This emperor is best remembered for his excellent military capabilities that were tragically combined with a savage temper. But in addition, he had a profound respect for education. He built or reconstructed a number of schools throughout the western half of the empire, including the one I attended.

He became emperor nine months before my birth and died during my eleventh year. He started his reign mildly enough, as even the worst of sovereigns usually do, but as the years wore on, his temper ever more frequently got the better of him. He often condemned men to death for trivial offenses that had not previously been capital crimes. Never once did he commute a death sentence, as even the worst tyrants had done at least on occasion in times past. The fact that he terrified our foreign enemies was little consolation for those innocent Romans who suffered so unjustly as a result of false accusations during his reign. My earliest recollection of a political statement was hearing my father say, in connection with an egregious miscarriage of justice in Africa, The trouble with our emperor is that he seems to have difficulty remembering which side of the Rhine or Danube he is campaigning on.

Fortunately, he was speaking to my mother after dinner one night, and the remark did not leave the house. Comments like that, made in the wrong company, had led many a man to the executioner in both the East and the West. Once he felt secure in his position as chief of state, the basest aspects of Valentinian’s nature soon manifested themselves. One day when my father appeared grumpier than usual, I asked him what was wrong.

You must not repeat this to anyone, he said. When I was in town this morning, I was told of a most terrible event by a man that I know. Our emperor had ordered a new and very elaborate breastplate to be made by one of his most experienced craftsmen. The man completed his work and took the new breastplate to Valentinian. The emperor at first appeared to be very pleased by it but then took the piece and placed it on a scale. Because it weighed just slightly less than was called for in the original specification, Valentinian ordered the craftsman to be executed immediately by decapitation. See how lucky we are to be living in Britain? Remember when you are older that the farther away that you can live from the seat of imperial power, the better off you are. At least when the country is being run by a malevolent degenerate like Valentinian and that worthless brother of his in the East. There are numerous other outrages of this nature that our two emperors have committed. Living under these brutes, it’s almost as though the empire has passed under barbarian control and we don’t even know it. I admired Valentinian when he came to the throne. Talk about misjudgment. His apologists point out that in his free time he is a painter and sculptor. Sure. And Nero was a poet and musician.

I had never seen my father so bitter at the government. Nowadays, six decades later, as a result of the calamities that have befallen us, Valentinian I is seen in a far more positive light. He died of a stroke in 375 while arguing with a barbarian delegation on the Danube. He was idolized by the army but hated by civilians. Their taxes had been jacked up considerably late in his reign to pay for the massive rebuilding program to strengthen our fortresses on the Rhine and the Danube. But in all fairness to the emperor, he was not a fiscal illiterate. He knew how seriously excessive taxation could hurt the economy and reduce tax revenues in succeeding years. As a result, he held them constant until it was impossible to do so any longer. Valentinian’s biggest failures were entirely of a personal nature. Criticism of his political appointments he interpreted as disloyalty to himself and thus the state. He saw himself as an absolute monarch, would never admit to having made a mistake and frequently allowed corrupt officials to remain in power regardless of how they abused their offices. Like Septimius Severus, Valentinian I strove to make the legal system as equitable as possible. He introduced a special appeals court to aid the poor and prevent the wealthy from abusing their social privileges. But like Septimius Severus, he considered himself to be far above the law that everyone else was subject to and acted accordingly. He was succeeded by his sons Gratian and Valentinian II.

Shortly after Valentinian I died, a number of terrifying natural events occurred. They foreshadowed many of the great evils that subsequently befell our greatest of empires. During a heavy thunderstorm, the imperial palace at Sirmium and its associated forum were struck by lightning and severely damaged in the resulting fire. For many generations, Sirmium had served as a headquarters for the emperors while they conducted operations across the northern Balkan Peninsula. At the same time, Crete and much of Greece were badly shaken by a series of earthquakes. In the following year, our entire defensive posture on the lower Danube was undermined by the admission of the Visigoths into the empire. This subsequently led to the most appalling devastation of Thrace and Greece, with which I would become only too familiar. But this came much later.

In 378, the terrible Battle of Hadrianople occurred in which the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens and twenty thousand men were slain in a single day by the Visigoths. Many historians consider it to have been the most salient defeat in our national history and the cause for the decline of the West. They are mistaken. It was the damnable civil wars subsequent to that tragedy that did us in. But Hadrianople, by itself, was bad enough. I was thirteen when this calamity happened. When I checked my atlas, I determined that Hadrianople lay over two thousand miles from Cirencester. What possible danger could the Visigoths pose to us from such a distance? Most people throughout the Western Empire were thinking in terms of how their taxes would be raised again to help pay for rebuilding our shattered eastern army. No one thought of a direct Visigothic impact on the West itself. Not then.

While my family could be considered upper middle class and I never suffered material want in any way, my feelings about my boyhood in Cirencester are at best ambivalent. Even with the passage of so much time, my feelings toward my father are still uncertain. He was the biggest man I ever knew, standing six feet four inches tall, weighing 275 pounds, and measuring an astonishing five feet around the chest. Not the sort of man whose admonitions one would take lightly. He was a very strict disciplinarian and ruled the household (and especially me) with an iron hand. He only thrashed me once, as I remember, for some trifling misdemeanor when I was about six. But the fact that I still remember it nearly seven decades later must testify to its severity. When I performed a task properly, nothing was generally said, because this sort of thing was expected. But whenever I fouled things up, criticism was leveled, often severely, without the slightest hesitation. While I grew up to respect and fear my father, I cannot say that I ever held any genuine affection for him. But perhaps the feeling was mutual.

The blackest episode between us arose on the occasion of my sixteenth birthday. A large celebration was held and many friends were invited to our home. My father and I started arguing over some minor matter and he simply erupted at me. He yelled that I had always been a disappointment to him and had never done anything to make him proud of me. He then proceeded to give quite a comprehensive catalog of my shortcomings, complete with unfavorable comparisons to virtually every other boy in the district, some of whom I barely knew. He had deliberately humiliated me before every friend I had, and I never forgave him for it. It was only when I broke down and started crying that my mother convinced him to leave me alone. One incident like that was one too many and I decided that as soon as possible I would leave home for good. No way would I live like that for the rest of my life. I suppose I had something like London in mind when the idea first occurred to me. After all, one hundred miles is a monumental distance to one whose previous travels have been limited. Unfortunately, the opportunity to leave came somewhat prematurely. But then the future always arrives before we are ready for it.

Seven children were born to my parents at their villa near Cirencester of which I was the second eldest. But three of my brothers died before reaching the age of five and these tragic losses, naturally, exacted a terrible toll from my parents. The death of my older brother, Valerius, two months before my twin sister, Valeria, and I were born particularly affected my father. My mother told me that he had dearly loved the boy and was inconsolable in his grief. I have often wondered if the death of Valerius governed his attitude toward me. With Valerius gone, I was the surrogate eldest son, and on one occasion after a dispute between us, I heard him tell my mother that he was certain Valerius would not have turned out the way I had. It seemed that all my failings were being measured against Valerius’ imagined successes. In my darker moments, I felt that Valerius was fortunate in a sense; at least he didn’t have to put up with the rubbish I did.

This discordant state of affairs was only aggravated by the relationship that prevailed between my father and my brother Gratian. He was eleven months my junior but very precocious. Gratian possessed a totally different personality than I had. He was a born comedian and as sly a fox as ever I knew. My father rarely got angry with him because he realized that doing so was a waste of time. Whenever he was scolded for misbehavior, Gratian, in rebuttal, could always be relied upon to come up with some subtle wisecrack. It was always of just the proper flavor to start whoever was reprimanding him laughing. Parents, churchmen, schoolteachers—the source of disapproving authority was irrelevant. Gratian could charm them all and cleverly talk his way out of any predicament. Any except the last. Another attribute that endeared Gratian to our father was his taking to certain of the manly pursuits to a greater degree than I did. While I generally enjoyed the salmon-fishing trips that the three of us would occasionally take to the Severn River, I never really enjoyed hunting, being instead more academically inclined. Gratian and our father, on the other hand, frequently hunted together using dogs and went after anything that moved. There was of course the ongoing problem of keeping the fox and wolf populations down and providing deer for our meat supply.

While my brother Gratian was handsome, highly amusing, and quite charming, he was also basically aimless. While I was poor at athletics, Gratian was very proficient. But he failed to develop this proficiency in any positive manner. At sporting meets sponsored by our city, Gratian was often too lazy to enter the various events, although he always performed well when he did. It was a similar story in school. We attended the full five years of elementary school, beginning when we were seven years old and completed the three years of secondary school at age fifteen. Or at least I did. Gratian progressed so well that the teachers allowed him to skip the second grade and to catch up with me in grade three. But apart from the initial years, he never exerted himself the way he should have. In fact, skipping the second grade was his crowning academic achievement.

My sister Valeria and I should have been quite close I suppose, being twins. But such was not the case. We were friendly enough, but that was as far as it went. The only one in my family for whom I felt genuine affection was my younger sister Maria Patricia, who was three years younger than Valeria and I. She was a very bright and attractive girl.

In the primary grades, the reading and writing of Latin and Greek were heavily stressed. Good writing was strictly enforced, and we spent countless hours at the wooden templates we all used to trace letters on our wax tablets. In addition, history, the use of the abacus, and arithmetic were taught. In the latter subject, I recall having a great deal of trouble with fractions, as did almost everyone else. In the three secondary grades, we had more history, geometry, gymnastics, poetry, rhetoric, philosophy, and music, and I fared better in those subjects for some reason.

Our home was typical of the large villas that are common in the countryside of southern Britain. Built about the year 210, it had been in my mother’s family for three generations. Alterations had been performed on various parts of it during the intervening years. The original house had been of a rectangular design consisting of six rooms and a veranda. Eventually wings had been added to both ends to give it an overall length of about 120 feet. One distinguishing feature of the British villas that tends to make them larger than their Mediterranean counterparts is the inclusion of kilns for drying grain. These are necessitated by the wetter British climate. Our bathhouse was, of course, separate from the villa in order to lessen the risk of fire. Like most villas, ours was well situated with respect to a highway and its chief market a few miles away in Cirencester.

There had been a great deal of home construction in Britain during the late 200s and early 300s, both in the cities and the countryside. This was due largely to immigration to the island from the Rhineland frontier and northern Gaul. The terrible devastation to those regions wrought by barbarian invasions during the third century had instilled a deep-rooted and permanent fear in their citizens. Certain of those who could afford it decided to leave and move to more secure provinces such as those in southern Gaul, Spain, and Britain. By far, the greater number of those emigrating chose safer havens on the continent. But those moving to Britain made a relatively greater social and economic impact on the local economy, owing to our much smaller population. As a result, Britain had become more prosperous than most continental provinces by the late 300s.

Throughout the winter and the cooler months of the spring and autumn, my brother and I had the responsibility of stoking the furnace for the hypocaust. Around the Mediterranean, most urban Romans are familiar with this device from the manner in which the warm rooms of the public baths are heated. The warmer climate obviates the need for this type of extensive heating arrangement in most private homes there, and the larger continental mansions and villas have them located mainly under their living rooms. In Britain, again due to the climate, many villas have a hypocaust system covering virtually the entire ground floor. At a nearby villa under construction, I had the opportunity to see one being built. The floor of the hypocaust consisted of tiles two feet square laid in a concrete slab. Small square pillars, about eight inches to a side, were placed in the center of each floor tile to support the raised floor above. Flues ran up the exterior walls for added warmth and to allow the smoke to escape. It would take almost two days to warm up the floors at our villa once the hypocaust was started. After that, the furnace had to be stoked only two or three times a day with wood or some coal to maintain it.

My seventeenth year had started in about as inauspicious a manner possible. Things eventually cooled down, but the bitterness remained, and the event itself proved only a prelude to what was to come. To this day, I still have the most confounding emotions about the spring and summer of 381. It was at once the happiest and most beautiful summer I had known to that point and at the same time the most destructive and hate filled. In the autumn of the previous year, my father had purchased the entire estate that lay to the north of us. As a result, his already considerable land holdings were increased by almost one-third. The couple that owned it had grown too old to manage it anymore. Not having any children, they decided to sell and move to Bath. The winter of 380–381 had been rather severe, and I hadn’t had a chance to acquaint myself with our new property. By March, all the snow was gone, so one day I rode over to get to know the terrain and introduce myself to at least some of our new tenant farmers. When I arrived at the home of a Frankish family, I saw a girl who was more beautiful than any I had ever known. Her name was Ardovanda, and I fell in love with her at first sight. I had no way of knowing that the incomparable elation I felt that spring and summer would be the source of a near-endless desolation. The feelings that I remember now stand as testament to the intensity that I felt at the time. We all have crushes that come and go, but this was different. I knew that she and I belonged together, and I wanted with all my heart to spend the rest of my life with her. I had never felt for anyone what I felt for Ardovanda, and in all honesty, I have never felt quite that way since. When we were together, I felt transported to another world.

I had not been particularly secretive about my relationship with her. Neither had I gone overboard in advertising it. I simply felt that what did or did not happen between us was our business. One day when my mother asked me where I was going, I made the mistake of telling her. I had always gotten along well with my mother to that point, and her reaction took me completely by surprise. She exploded at me in a manner quite reminiscent of the argument I had with my father on my birthday. I turned away and rode off as the most immediate solution to yet another family dispute. I was coming to realize that one never discussed anything of personal consequence in my family in a reasonable manner. As I expected, when I returned home, all hell broke loose. My father was on a business trip, but my mother obviously had been practicing her tirade for some time. She started off by denouncing me as a disgrace to the family for stooping to consort with a girl of such low station.

What would the neighbors think? As if I actually cared.

She said that my father would be furious when he found out who my girlfriend was, but that turned out to be untrue. When eventually told by my mother, his reaction was quite subdued. She railed on and on about how embarrassed the whole family would be and how difficult it would be for her to face friends and neighbors. When I naively remarked that she would like Ardovanda if she knew her, my mother shrieked back at me, "How can you be so stupid to think that I would ever want to know anyone like that!"

She then went on to describe Ardovanda, a girl she had never seen and never would, as conniving and deceitful, and she continued to denounce her in almost every way imaginable. The fact that Ardovanda’s family were tenant farmers was bad enough. Their being Franks as well only added insult to my mother’s notion of injury. At this point, I reminded her that her own ancestors were Caledonians and that where barbarism was concerned, the building of Hadrian’s Wall was hardly an academic exercise. This brought forth another eruption from her to the effect that I was never to mention the Caledonians and the Franks in the same breath again. The upshot of this dismal encounter was that I was forbidden from seeing Ardovanda under any circumstances.

In the days that followed, the atmosphere around our home was the worst ever. I had kept my temper during our first confrontation, and after a period of about five days, I approached my mother in the vain hope that she might be more reasonable about the matter. The hopeless quarrelling started all over again. She constantly demanded that I promise never to see Ardovanda again, and with equal persistence, I refused to answer her. I stormed out of the house and rode off on horseback simply to be alone. After that second confrontation, I wrote my mother off as a prize bitch that would never listen to reason on the issue. But what could I do? One thing I did was keep seeing Ardovanda but in a secretive way and with far less frequency than I would have liked. I also determined to approach my father on the matter when he returned from his lengthy business trip. I felt I had nothing more to lose, and on the first opportunity when he and I were alone, I raised the issue once again. His reaction puzzled me. He never raised his voice and showed a surprising degree of understanding about the issue. His almost apologetic tone made me wonder if he was reflecting on some long-ago love of his own that had failed for some reason. He hardly looked at me once through the entire conversation. But he also made it clear that the matter was closed: my relationship with Ardovanda was over. The day after this discussion, I spent the entire time mending fences on the south side of our estate. When I returned to my bedroom, I found a new, small leather bag with my initials on it in the center of my desk. I opened it and discovered a number of gold coins. It was an extraordinary amount of money and obviously a peace offering from my father. He always thought in monetary terms and probably thought that this gift would be sufficient to make me forget that Ardovanda ever existed. I placed the coins back in the bag and let it sit in the middle of my desk for two months. I never thanked him for it, and I never mentioned Ardovanda’s name again. I had reached a watershed with my parents. There was no future for me in Cirencester.

For the next few weeks, my father had Gratian and me working at a feverish pace along with certain tenant farmers doing various chores. I never thought much about it at the time, but we were mending fences and repairing buildings only on the original part of the estate. At no time were we working on the newly acquired property to the north. I assumed we would get there after we had tended to our original property. Then one morning my parents asked me to come into the living room. They announced that they had arranged a marriage for me.

She’s a lovely girl, dear, my mother remarked.

The way she said dear reminded me of a cobra spitting venom. The girl they referred to was named Veronica. Her father owned a transport company, and on the surface, it probably appeared to our fathers to be an ideal matchup, given their complementary business interests. But as far back as I could remember, the fair Veronica’s only interest in our family had been my brother Gratian. She generally regarded me with about as much affection as a piece of the furniture. My father, true to form, then went on at great length about the size of the dowry. He concluded by saying that late September or early October appeared to be the earliest time for the wedding. That was due to the heavy and conflicting business schedules that he and Veronica’s father had until then. My mother then chimed in again about how beautiful Veronica was. For the last time in our lives, my mother and I agreed on something. Veronica was a knockout, but the two of us would be an appalling mismatch. Whenever our families had visited, she and I had almost never spoken to one another, although she had all the time in the world for my brother. I thought she and Gratian would have made a far better match. But what had precipitated this sudden marriage announcement was the Ardovanda affair. My parents had doubtless concluded that they best do something for my adolescent bodily appetites and quickly, lest I go off and embarrass the family again.

Is that it? I asked.

This bland reaction caught them both off guard.

Uh, well, uh, I suppose it is, my father stammered. Is that all you have to say? I told them it was and left the room.

I rode to the area where I was supposed to be working and then took off on a rather circuitous route to Ardovanda’s home. As I came to the top of a hill that overlooked the place, I saw that the northern boundary of our expanded property had been partly changed since my last visit. A section of it had been moved south several hundred feet. The home of Ardovanda’s family was now part of the farm to the north of us and was empty. I rode over to the farm of another tenant family. They told me that Ardovanda’s family had moved out two weeks earlier, but their whereabouts was unknown. I went to the villa of the landowner, a man named Silanus, and asked him why the boundary had been realigned. He replied that my father had approached him with a view to swapping pieces of property of similar area and value.

And what was the purpose behind that? I asked.

If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t be here, he replied.

All I want you to do is fill me in on the details, I said. I know they are gone, and I want to know where you sent them.

Since your father instigated the transfer, why don’t you ask him? he replied.

My father isn’t home right now, I lied. And besides, the Frankish family is your property. That’s why I’m here asking you. I’ll find out sooner or later, and I’d appreciate it if you would make it sooner.

He was a friendly man whom I had known for about ten years. He obviously felt himself in a difficult position. There was an awkward silence, and then he said, All right. After all, there isn’t much you can do about it. Your dad and I agreed that, as part of the property swap, I would move the family in question north to my other estate near York at his expense. I’ll be bringing another family from my York estate down here to take their place. Your father and I have been friends for many years, and I owed him a favor. I’m sorry that it had to be at your cost, but you’re young, and you’ll get over it. Incidentally, your father gave a generous cash allowance to the family through me. I thought you might like to know that.

I thanked him and left.

I rode back the way I had come. Eventually, I stopped the horse and just sat there for the longest time, staring off into space. York was over a week’s ride away. I had never felt so alone in my life. I was devastated and cursed both my parents in ways I would never have thought possible. However, as I headed back to where I was working I started to put a plan together. The more I thought about it, the better I liked it. My home leaving, which I had first daydreamed about the previous December, mainly as an act of spite, had now become a necessity.

An annual celebration was held every August 1 to commemorate the troop landings of Claudius Caesar in 43 to start the Roman conquest of the island. Originally, these fairs had been sponsored by the nearest military garrisons. But as the conquest spread north and west, the cities evolved into civilian municipalities. They eventually took over responsibility for hosting these holidays. We Britons thought our circuses pretty exciting. However, in later years, I came to realize, after witnessing exhibitions in Rome and elsewhere, that the typical British circus was a rather tame affair. All the commonplace events were present. But the only exceptional features of the British circus were the bear acts. Britain and, to a lesser extent, Caledonia had become the chief supply sources for circus bears in the western provinces. North Africa, their original source hunting ground, had been almost emptied of them for generations. British circuses lacked exotic animals, however; they were too expensive to import.

The fair’s biggest occasions were the horse races. They have always had a powerful appeal to the people of southern Britain, and I suppose they always will. It must be something in the blood. Anyone over the age of sixteen could enter whatever race he chose. The races were of varying length, and the prize money differed accordingly, as did the entry fee. The feature race was one and a half miles, and it held the greatest interest. I had no horse of my own to enter, but that was of no concern. I would enter my father’s best horse, Cymbeline, a north-African breed. He would never give me permission for this, so I would simply do it on my own. Cymbeline was one of the finest horses in the area. While my father had frequently given me permission to ride him, I had been strictly forbidden to run him at any speed because of his advanced age. On occasion, when out of sight of our home, I would give him full rein, albeit not for a great distance. The surge of power when I let him go the first time frightened me. But the more I let him do this, the greater my conviction became that in any race this horse would be a certain winner.

My father had always taken the entire family to Cirencester for this holiday, although on two occasions we had attended the fair in Caerleon, about sixty miles to the west of us. For the August 1 fair of 381, however, I had known for quite a while that my father would be off to Alchester on a business trip. My mother had no interest in attending, and besides, she had to stay home with Valeria, who was sick. So, when the big day arrived, Gratian, Maria Patricia, and I went to Cirencester on horseback, my mount being Cymbeline. The last thing that I did before leaving home was pocket the pouch with the gold coins in it. The fair was centered on the five- thousand-seat stadium just outside the city. Since the crowds were always large, we arrived shortly after it opened. We quartered our horses at a stable just a short distance away. We met some friends of ours there, and Gratian and some of his pals eventually drifted off on their own. This was just as well for what I had in mind later on. Shortly after midday, I left the stadium to get some food for my sister and me at the concession stands. While doing so, I entered Cymbeline in the feature race. After we were through eating, I told her what I had done. I had never seen her look more surprised.

You must be crazy, she almost yelled at me. Father will string you up when he finds out, and besides, you’ve been in enough trouble lately.

Like Gratian, she was sometimes overly forward for her age but usually in an amusing way. This time, however, her tone was quite uncompromising. But it didn’t matter. I was satisfied that Cymbeline could win, with or without her blessings.

The large field of entries contained some that were little more than plow horses. We lined up, the starting rope was raised, and we were off. By the one-mile mark, Cymbeline had seized the lead, and I never looked back. He was racing like the wind, leaving the rest of the field farther behind with each succeeding stride. As we thundered across the finish line, I thought of renaming him Pegasus. Then it happened. I was sent hurtling through the air and hit the ground hard, landing flat on my back on the inner trackside. I was badly dazed but not unconscious. The rest of the horses sprinted past as people came running over to help me. I was very groggy, and it took a while before I could maneuver without assistance from anyone. As soon as my head cleared, I realized that my father had been correct: Cymbeline was too old. His heart had given out on him and he had collapsed and died. I was looking in disbelief at Cymbeline when my siblings approached. For once, Gratian was at a loss for words. That spelled out above everything how he felt about the gravity of my predicament. But my sister started laying it on without hesitation.

You’ve really had it this time, Marcus. Dad will kill you when he gets back home. I told you the idea was stupid, but you wouldn’t listen to me, would you?

As I thanked her for her reassurances, a local magistrate approached and presented me with my prize money. He also said that the race officials would dispose of Cymbeline.

When I finally regained my composure and the initial shock had passed, I realized that what I had been planning for this day would only have to be modified slightly. My brother clumsily excused himself, claiming that he had made prior commitments to the friends he had met earlier in the day. The truth was that he wanted to put as much distance between us as he could in case some of my misfortune was to rub off on him. Our father had taken me with him several times when purchasing horses and had taught me what to look for when examining them. I put this knowledge to good practice and used part of my prize money to purchase a horse that was for sale along with dozens of others. Since it was late in the afternoon, the prices had dropped, and I got a pretty good bargain. After having our supper at the fair, we bade farewell to our friends and headed for home. The journey was spent mostly in silence. The die was cast, the Rubicon crossed. When we were about a quarter mile from the ranch entrance, I stopped and told Maria Patricia of my plans.

I won’t be returning with you, Pat. I’m leaving home for good.

I said that with no small amount of dread. Thinking about leaving home was one thing, but actually hearing me say it out loud crystallized the idea and gave it a certain frightening irrevocability. My sister appeared stuck for something to say.

Do you really mean that? she finally asked.

Yes, I do, I replied. Things have gone tragically wrong for me ever since my last birthday, and they show no sign of improving. I’ve been planning this for a long time. My intention when we left this morning was to see you safely home and then leave. Cymbeline’s death hasn’t triggered anything; it only confirmed my original plan. The contempt in which our parents hold me is absolute, and they’ve earned my unyielding disgust in return. To our father, in particular, I will never be any more than an exasperating remembrance of his unachieved ambitions for me, whatever they were.

My sister just looked at me in silence.

The last eight months have been the worst I have ever known. I have generally considered myself capable of making pretty sound judgments, but those two don’t care about anything I think or feel. Incidentally, I know exactly where I’m going and what I’m going to do. But I can’t tell you any more than that. I don’t want you to be pressured into telling them anything that I don’t want you to. Tell them that I’m sorrier than they will ever imagine that things have turned out so badly between us. But as far as I’m concerned, they have no one but themselves to blame. I want you to impress upon them that it was not the accidental death of Cymbeline that caused my home leaving. Above all, it was their reaction to my feelings about Ardovanda. I’ll never forget what they said to me, and I’ll never forgive them for what they did. Their next scheduled humiliation for me, as you know, is that they want to stick me with that witch Veronica for a wife. Well, I’m tired of the buggering that I’ve had from those two, and I’m not going to take it anymore. Furthermore, you can tell the old man that I’m glad his blasted horse is dead. The only thing I’m sorry about in that connection is that I didn’t run the bloody thing into the ground sooner. Whatever belongs to me is yours. I don’t want the others to have any of it.

With tears running down her cheeks, she hugged me tighter than she ever had before. She finally accepted that I was leaving home for good and that there was no way of knowing when or if we would ever see one another again.

This is goodbye love, I said.

I then kissed her, slapped her horse, and sent him on his way. I followed her at a distance until she safely entered our main gate. Then I turned around and headed south back to Cirencester.

The city covers 240 acres and, like most cities, resembles the hub of a wheel with four highways leading out of it. By the late 300s it had become the second largest city in Britain, after London, with a population of ten thousand, including the suburban villages. Originally the site of a small Celtic village, Roman Cirencester had been established in the year 45 as an army fortress on the initial Roman frontier in Britain. As the conquest pushed westward into Wales, the city continued to develop as a purely civilian center. As the saying goes, trade follows the standards. Merchants who had originally established themselves in the city to cater to the army continued to prosper after the army moved on. They were instrumental in helping the erstwhile fort develop into a successful market town. During the late third and early fourth century, Cirencester received two augmentations to its population and economic well-being in quick succession. In addition to the influx of European immigrants, it became a provincial capital as a result of the decision by Diocletian and Maximian to divide the island into four provinces.

Continuing along Ermine Street West, I entered Cirencester through the Gloucester Gate and passed down four blocks until I came to the forum. As it was the supper period, business was rather slack. The magistrates, local officials, and businessmen had closed their offices in the basilica. There were, however, numerous traders still selling their goods in the marketplace, and the usual number of idlers had gathered. So I tied my horse to a hitching post and purchased some fruit along with some bread from a nearby bakery. I packed them in my saddlebags for the journey the following day. At this point, I had a sudden bit of good luck. A man named Silvianus, who lived in the city and had business dealings with my father, hailed me. Our families had known one another for many years and we became engaged in a lengthy conversation. Silvianus was about to leave on a business trip to Marlborough. He had borrowed a sum of money from my father several weeks earlier and now he was asking me to take his repayment home. Silvianus had placed me in a rather awkward position but I couldn’t very well refuse. So I assured him that my father would receive the money as soon as I saw him upon his return from Alchester. Strictly speaking, I meant what I said. My money concerns were over for the time being. The street crowds were starting to get rather heavy so Silvianus and I bade one another farewell and I mounted up. Large crowds in Cirencester are common during the summer. The city has several large and luxurious hotels. They cater to tourists visiting Bath, about forty miles to the southwest on the Fosse Way. As I rode along, I studied the buildings with a special intensity that I never had before. The goldsmith’s shop, the restaurants and hotels, the stores all receded behind me until I arrived at the wall. I turned around and paused to take one last look. Then I passed through the Silchester Gate that came to symbolize my childhood’s end.

It had been an extremely hot day and the heat had continued into the evening. We had eaten well at the fair so I knew I wouldn’t be hungry that first night on the road. I continued for about three hours, taking advantage of the long British twilight. This is a difficult thing to explain to people in the Mediterranean area where night falls quicker during the summer. Cirencester lies on the southern edge of the Cotswold Hills. The relatively low-lying and rather swampy area to the immediate south and west of the city contains the headwaters of the Thames. As a result, the highway is carried over it in