Theodoric

looked round his pupils’ faces expectantly. ‘Well?’

Silence, while his charges fiddled with styluses and waxed tablets, or stared out of windows at the towering bulk of the Hippodrome. Sometimes, he wondered why he bothered. Granted, for most of them Greek was their mother tongue; but they’d had Latin — Caesar, Vergil, Tacitus, Ammianus et al. — drummed into them from an early age. It wasn’t the language they couldn’t cope with, just the authors’ concepts. Horses were the only thing that occupied the minds of these upper-class lads. Soon it would be girls. And after that? A sordid scramble for money and power, which was all that seemed to matter these days. Unless, that is, you were a member of the hoi polloi, when religion and betting on the Blue or Green teams at the Hippodrome were the twin obsessions. Whatever happened to otium — leisured scholarship — which, with civic patronage, was once seen as the proper ambition of a Roman gentleman?

Before the pause could become embarrassing, Demetrius forced a smile and said, ‘No volunteers? Well, let’s start with George. Your thoughts, please.’

An open-faced boy with an eager-to-please expression rose. ‘Pigs eat acorns, don’t they, sir? Perhaps he was a pig-farmer. Barbarians probably like pork, so naturally he’d be worried.’

A murmured, derisive cheer rippled round the class.

‘Thank you, George. An imaginative contribution, if nothing else. You may be seated. Julian, perhaps we might have the benefit of your opinion?’

A tall, stylishly dressed youth stood up. His chiselled features bore a remarkable resemblance to those of Alexander the Great when a boy. So much so that his classmates had nicknamed him ‘Alexander’, a soubriquet he played up to by cultivating long, carefully disordered locks.

‘Perhaps the old fool hoped to hide from the Goths among his oak-trees,’ drawled Julian with a smirk. ‘And if they found him, well, he could always pelt them with acorns. Couldn’t he, sir?’

A delighted titter greeted this sally, not on account of any humour it contained but because it laid down a challenge to the master’s authority.

‘Sit down!’ snapped Demetrius, a spurt of anger bringing red to his cheeks. Arrogant young lout. It had been a mistake to ask him, of course — he’d simply handed the boy a chance to show off. With his wealthy family connections, subversive attitude and air of cool confidence, Julian was, unfortunately, something of a hero to many of his classmates. Aware that he must rescue the situation before it slipped out of control, Demetrius turned towards his favourite pupil, Theoderic Amalo. Though shy and awkward, the young Gothic prince could usually be relied on to come up with an intelligent answer. ‘Theo, perhaps you could shed some light where all seems darkness?’

Stooping slightly, as if to avoid drawing attention to his great height, Theoderic rose. In his mind, he reviewed the lines Demetrius had quoted. The message that Claudian was trying to get across was surely to do with familiar memory. Unbidden, a vision from his Pannonian homeland flashed into his mind, filling him with a sudden, sharp nostalgia: Bakeny Forest with its scented glades of noble trees — oaks, pines and cedar; the air filled with the plash of hidden waterfalls and the cooing of rock-doves. All at once, he knew what that old man had felt: affection for the trees, contemporary with himself; and fear that he might lose them through depredation by the Goths — his, Theoderic’s, own kinsmen, he thought with a pang of guilt.

‘Those trees were planted as acorns at his birth,’ he said, speaking slowly and with a kind of passionate conviction, something he had never before expressed. ‘He had grown old with them, as they matured. They had become part of his life. Almost friends. I think he. . loved them. So he was anxious in case the barbarians should carelessly destroy them.’

The class sat up, visibly impressed. Who’d have thought old Yellowknob could hold the floor like that? Suddenly self-conscious, Theoderic shuffled and looked down.

‘Well done, Theo,’ declared Demetrius warmly. ‘There’s nothing I can add to that.’ He breathed a mental sigh of relief. With the class now quiet and receptive, the lesson could proceed on an even keel.

Then Theoderic clapped a hand to his cheek as something struck it a tiny, stinging blow. A wax pellet dropped to the mosaic floor and rolled to the foot of the master’s throne-like chair.

‘All of you, hold up your tablets — now!’ thundered Demetrius. Cowed, the class promptly obeyed. Their genial master could, if pushed too far, change in a flash to a terrifying autocrat. A brief inspection exposed the culprit: Julian’s codex showed a hollow where a lump of wax had been gouged out. Rolled into a ball and flicked from the flattened erasing end of Julian’s flexible ivory stylus, it had made a highly effective missile. Punishment was duly meted out with a bundle of birch twigs, then, with discipline restored, the lesson resumed.

‘I hear your pet barbarian showed up your young Roman charges,’ Paulus remarked to Demetrius. The two schoolmasters were in a taberna off the Mese, the capital’s main thoroughfare.

‘The cream of Byzantium — thick and rich,’ Demetrius chuckled wryly. Nothing stayed secret for long in the palace. Probably one of the paedagogi — slaves who accompanied pupils to school, and who waited for them at the back of the classroom to bring them home — had spread the story. ‘At times, I feel I’m casting pearls before swine.’

‘Don’t we all. Your Goth — a bright lad, I hear.’

‘He’s that all right. Somehow, having just one pupil of his calibre in a class makes it all seem worthwhile. Doesn’t make him popular, unfortunately. The others tend to pick on him; that oaf Julian’s the ringleader. Poor little beggar; I speak figuratively — he must be several inches taller than I am.’

‘Then why doesn’t he give Julian a good thumping? The rest would soon leave off.’

‘Not in his nature — a gentle giant if ever there was. But if he chose to he could thrash the lot of them I’m sure. Most people tend to dismiss him as a passive ox, but I admire the lad. I feel he has an inner strength, also that he’s looking for something — trying to find his destiny, perhaps?’ Demetrius paused and shook his head. ‘Sorry. I must sound like Aristotle on the subject of the young Alexander.’

‘No, you intrigue me. What do you suppose it is he’s looking for?’

‘I believe it’s Rome. I think he wants to identify with her, be accepted by her.’

‘Rome? What’s that?’ Paulus grinned and refilled their wine-cups. ‘After the North African fiasco, the West’s finished. There won’t be a second rescue attempt; Gaiseric’s stronger than ever, Basiliscus terrified for his life, has taken sanctuary in Hagia Sophia, the Treasury’s empty, Anthemius no longer has a role. The Franks and Visigoths’ll grab what’s left in Gaul and Spain, and Ricimer could well take over Italy. Anthemius might turn out to be the last Augustus of the West. What would that leave? The Senate and the Papacy. Augustus and Constantine would turn in their graves.’

‘But Rome’s more than just a physical empire. Rome’s an idea. And even if the West goes down, the East’s still there to pick up the torch.’

‘And so the race goes on,’ intoned Paulus with mock solemnity. ‘Apologies; you’re right, of course. And who knows? Even if it falls, the West might one day be re-occupied. But back to your young hostage. What is it about Rome that he so admires?’

‘Think what an impact Constantinople must have made on him when he arrived six years ago. To an impressionable youngster from a primitive shame-and-honour society geared to a dreary cycle of petty feuds and subsistence farming, the city with its statues, paved streets, and great buildings, buzzing with cosmopolitan life and colour — it must have seemed wondrous beyond words. From the first, he showed an interest in the examples of Roman culture to be found everywhere around him: sculpture, architecture, literature, philosophy, science, law — things conspicuously lacking among his own people. He picked up Greek in no time, and was the first in his class to master Latin. He actually enjoys reading the classics. How many fourteen-year-olds can you say that of?’

‘Sounds, then, as though he could be in for a big comedown when he returns to his own people.’

‘Sadly, I have to agree. I sometimes wonder if our policy of civilizing German hostages isn’t misplaced kindness. We give them a taste of something they can never really be a part of. Anti-German discrimination’s rampant: intermarriage with Romans illegal, German clothes like furs and trousers banned, Germans barred from elevation to the purple. . I could go on. Perhaps Rome only feels at ease with those she’s conquered. That never happened with Germania.’

‘Didn’t a general called Varus try, back in the time of Augustus?’

‘Yes. Got wiped out, along with his three legions.’