The Dog and the Wolf (71 page)

Dalmatia:
A province occupying, approximately, what is now most of Yugoslavia.

Pannonia:
A province occupying, approximately, what is now Hungary with parts of Austria and Yugoslavia (Croatia).

Resettlement of the Visigoths:
Stilicho’s repeated leniency toward Alaric was most likely prompted by a desire to make an ally of him for a drive that would establish the supremacy of the Western over the Eastern Empire. The policy was to prove disastrously mistaken.

Procedures possible against the Confluentians:
If these
seem limited to the modern reader, one should bear in mind that, while the Romans developed many instruments of tyranny with the inevitable social consequences, the idea of income tax as we know it never occurred to them. Besides, they would have lacked the technology to enforce it.

The wedding:
To the Romans, until very late in their history, marriage was a civil contract. Since Tertullian, Christians believed the public blessing of the Church was necessary to make it valid (a view somewhat modified today), but not until after St. Augustine did they consider it a sacrament in itself. Then marriages with pagans and heretics came to be disallowed. However, this had not yet happened at the time of our story. (Augustine issued his
De Bono Conjugali
in 401; it would hardly have reached Armorica by 403, let alone become a basis of doctrine.) Observances surely varied from place to place and time to time. Our version derives in large part from ancient customs, but we suppose that the new religion and the special circumstances caused these to be a little altered.

The prayer:
As we have explained before, early Christians had not ordinarily knelt to pray. Except when they prostrated themselves, they stood upright with arms lifted. Kneeling, though not folding of hands, presently came into use in church, but individuals alone probably, as a rule, continued the older practice.

The Virgin Mary:
Adoration of her seems to have begun in earnest during the fourth century. It was not yet anything like what it became in the Middle Ages, nor could it yet have had much currency in the North; but Gratillonius’s impulse seems to us a very natural one under the circumstances.

XVI

Head of navigation:
As we have explained earlier, today this is at Locmaria (Aquilo), and then only at high tide and for rather small craft; but apparently the Odet and, perhaps, the Steir were larger and deeper in the past, and ancient vessels generally drew less water than today’s. A change in the harbor site helps explain how Quimper (Confluentes) came to overshadow and eventually absorb the older settlement.

Bridge of Sena:
Pont de Sein. We suppose that this is the French form of a name going back to ancient times.

XVII

Brigantes:
A tribe occupying a substantial part of Britain just south of Hadrian’s Wall.

Laégare
(later rendered
Laoghaire
, now sometimes
Leary):
According to the traditional histories, he was King at Tara when St. Patrick returned to Ireland. He became friendly with the missionaries and put no obstacles in their path. Indeed, he got Patrick to help him reform and write down the Brehon Laws, the ancient Irish code, which continued in effect for centuries thereafter. However, he himself never accepted baptism. When he died he was buried according to his wish, upright in full battle gear, facing his hereditary enemies the Leinstermen.

Fox and hare:
Within living memory in Ireland, it was believed unlucky if either of these animals crossed one’s path. Galway fishermen bound for their boats would often turn home.

L
ú
g’s Chariot
, etc: It is not known what constellations the Irish and other Celts actually invented. We do know that, while ancient mariners hugged the coasts as much
as possible, the Mediterranean civilizations had developed means of measuring the altitudes of heavenly bodies with some precision, and so estimating latitude. The voyages made by more primitive sailors such as the Irish and Saxons show that they must have possessed a similar capability, perhaps learned from the Romans.

Corbilo:
Mentioned by Strabo as an important maritime city of Gaul, it seems to have occupied the site of present-day St. Nazaire. About the end of the fourth century, when its circumstances must have been much reduced, it was taken over by Saxons, presumably laeti but evidently with effective autonomy, since they were not converted for another one or two hundred years.

The hour between dog and wolf:
This French phrase for twilight,
“l‘heure entre chien et loup,
” may have ancient origins.

Torna
È
ces:
According to legend, this greatest of the ancient poets was foster-father to both Niall and Conual, and lamented them both after their deaths. The implied lifespan is great, but not impossible.

XVIII

Sanctuary:
This issue was an early one in that conflict between Church and state which was to dominate Western history for centuries and shape much of the new civilization. At the time of our story, a bishop was virtually sovereign with respect to ecclesiastical matters within his (religious) diocese, and had great temporal authority and influence as well. The Pope was only
primus inter pares
, the final arbiter of disputes between bishops but otherwise with little power unique to his office.

Arelate:
Aries. The date when it supplanted Trier is not known exactly, but 404 is a reasonable guess.

Exorcism:
Corentinus’s opinion may not seem canonical to a modern Catholic, but it should be remembered that in the fifth century much doctrine was still unformulated, while disagreements and heresies were rife. Moreover, Dahut’s case may have been unique in demonology.

Milk:
Children were nursed for a long time by modern standards, well after they began to take solid foods—which were not pressed on them in the manner of today. Lactation does in fact often inhibit impregnation.

Danastris:
The River Dniester.

Danuvius:
The River Danube. It seems likely that the Goths did not slow themselves by much plundering along the way, but pushed on to catch the Romans ill-prepared in Italy,

XIX

Terms of enlistment:
These are attested, and help show how desperate the situation was.

Niall’s successor:
According to the Irish chronicles, he was Nath I (or Nathi or Dathi), a fierce warrior who perished in 428 when struck by lightning on an expedition into the Alps. This is almost surely a copyist’s error for “Alba,” Scotland or England. His successor in turn was Niall’s son Laègare, in whose reign St. Patrick began his mission.

Gesocribate:
Virtually nothing is known of this city. Even its location is uncertain, though at or near the site of Brest. Its oblivion indicates that it was probably rather small, and may well have been repeatedly sacked until at last it was abandoned.

Crossbow:
Little is known about the ancient form of this weapon. Apparently it was drawn by hand rather than wound like the medieval arbalest, but by the fifth cen
tury it may sometimes have possessed a pawl. Given sufficient pull, arrows can certainly penetrate mail. Although the rate of discharge is low, the crossbow has an advantage in requiring less skill, hence less training, than the straight bow does.

Holy Georgios:
St. George, patron of soldiers. While the cult of saints had not yet approached its medieval intensity, unless perhaps in Egypt, the idea of their intercession, implicit in Scripture, was taking hold widely. No doubt the evangelization of the rural Empire strengthened it. Pagan halidoms were rededicated to specific saints, and people continued to seek help there.

XX

Scythia:
At this time it was a rather vague designation; but the Alani, an Iranian people with some Altaic admixture, originated north of the Caspian Sea and spread into the steppes of Russia. Some eventually reached Germanic lands and there joined in the Völkerwanderung.

Moguntiacum:
Mainz.

XXI

Vorgium
Carhaix.

Brains:
Galen, in the second century, taught that the brain is the seat of consciousness, and his medical works became canonical, although doubtless the uneducated in the fifth century clung to older concepts.

Durocortorum:
Reims.

Samarobriva:
Amiens.

Nemetacum:
Arras.

Turnacum:
Tournay.

Eboracum
(or
Eburacum
): York.

Constantinus:
Today called Constantine III or Constantine the Usurper. Virtually nothing is known about the events leading up to his try for the purple, except the names of his predecessors Marcus and Gratian, and that the latter reigned for four months (which implies that the former was no more durable). Constantine’s origin is equally obscure. Little has been recorded of his character, and that by hostile writers. He is said to have been a common soldier, but this can scarcely mean that he was when the legions hailed him. We have supplied him with a career that brought him up from the ranks. The fact that he had two sons who took an active part in his campaigns gives a clue to his age at the time. A tradition holds that he was himself a son of Magnus Maximus, who had become a folk hero among the Britons (at least, in the West; see
Roma Mater
). This seems implausible to us, but perhaps there was some more distant kinship, such as Maximus’s wife having been Constantine’s aunt.

Saxon and Scotian:
Unlettered, ferocious, and impulsive though they were, the barbarian leaders cannot often have been stupid. Else the migration of whole tribes could not have happened. Spies, scouts, talkative traders, and other such sources must have given them some idea of what was going on in those parts of the Empire that interested them. The Romans can hardly ever have been able to keep events secret. Even the huge alliance that crossed the Rhine at the end of 406 would have had intelligence of what to expect.

Gesoriacum:
Boulogne (not to be confused with Gesocribate).

Pyrenaei Mountains:
The Pyrenees.

XXII

Lemovicium:
Limoges. Earlier it was Augustoritum but in the fourth century, like so many other cities, it came to be called after the tribe in whose ancient territory it lay.

The Feast of Lug:
As we have observed before, the preharvest festival known in Ireland as Lugnasad and in England as Lammas has long been fixed at 1 August. (The customs we mention were Irish until recent times and must have been of very old Celtic origin.) We hypothesize that, like other such dates, this one was established with Christianity and the Roman calendar, and that originally it was determined by the moon.

Salaun:
Breton form of the name “Salomon,” which belonged to the legendary first King of Brittany. We shall have more to say about him later in these notes.

XXIII

The Armorican revolt of 407:
Nothing is really known about the circumstances. The chronicles say merely that Roman officials were expelled and independence declared; they attribute this to Bacaudae. That seems absurd if taken literally. There could not have been that many outlaws, nor would they have been well enough organized, nor does it appear likely they would have refrained from massacring those they looked on as oppressors. “Bacaudae” must be essentially a swear word, though perhaps with more meaning where it comes to things that happened elsewhere or later. We think our reconstruction of events that year in Armorica is plausible. Of course, all the details are fictional.

Pictavum
Poitiers. The older name was Limonum. The Pictones of Gaul were not related to the Picts of Alba, “Picti” being a name bestowed by the Romans on the
latter, the “painted people.” However, apparently some tribes related to them did live in Gaul and Ireland as well as Scotland.

Prince
(Latin
princeps):
Originally an honorific, meaning “first,” applied to various persons such as the first senator on the censor’s list in the Republic
(princeps senatus)
, later under the Empire as a title of various civil and military officials. Thus in our period it did not yet connote superiority or royal blood. Still, Armoricans might very naturally apply it to the associate and prospective successor of the man they regarded as their Duke
(dux
“leader,” especially a military leader, though this inevitably gave him command over certain civil functions as well).

Hawking:
Falconry was practiced by the Romans, albeit the slight and vague mentions of it that we have from them, and the lack of artistic representations, indicate that it had nothing like the popularity it gained during the Middle Ages.

Gelding:
Given the lack of what we consider basic prophylaxis, the death rate among new castrates—at least, human ones—was extremely high. Moreover, Roman law forbade the operation on citizens. Eunuchs were either prisoners of war or, oftener, imported from abroad, especially Persia. In consequence, they were expensive. The restrictions were later lifted.

XXIV

The Race of Sena:
Raz de Sein, between the island and the mainland.

Garrison in Britain:
Virtually nothing is known for certain, but there is some reason to suppose Constantine left a few soldiers behind—much too few to be effective, as the course of events shows.

British’Armorican alliance:
Obviously this did not come to pass in 407, but there is mention (date not deducible, reliability somewhat questionable) of joint action against the Germans in Gaul, and more than this may have taken place. If so, it was probably after 410, when Honorius’s rescript gave the Britons leave to defend themselves.

Caletes:
A tribe occupying what is now, approximately, Seine-Maritime.

Sequana:
The River Seine. Apparently the revolt in Gaul reached at least this far; and areas farther off had their own uprisings.