479 to 488
Rocky relations between Theodoric and Zeno lead to ups and downs for the Ostrogoths, along with many diversions and detours in their search for a stable home. Finally, an opportunity arises in Italy, and Theodoric moves boldly in the direction of one last gamble.
Sidimund looked out at the hillside behind his villa. The olive trees were just becoming heavy with their green fruits, but he didn’t see them. He was too distracted. He scratched his beard with the edge of the papyrus in his hand, and made a decision. Sidimund turned to the messenger who had carried the papyrus to him. “Tell my cousin that I will do as he asks. I’ll send word to him when everything is ready.” The messenger, a compact, muscular man wearing a military cloak and belt but no armor, saluted and took his leave.
Back down the hill, past the villa, Sidimund could see the walls of the town of Epidamnus, with the roofs of the taller buildings, especially the basilica, visibnole above the line of the ramparts. Beyond that was the sea, dazzling blue in the bright afternoon light. Sidimund had been buying land at the north end of the city for quite some time, but had just moved into the villa a bit over a year ago. He knew the place, though, from many visits. He knew the city’s leading men, and many of the common people as well. His reputation had opened doors all over, though these days he often had to reassure people that he was in no danger, he and the Emperor were on good terms, there was no reason to worry.
After tomorrow, he might have a reason to worry again.
Hello and welcome to the dark ages podcast. Today’s episode: Boldness be my friend
When I finished last time, we’d left Theodoric holed up in Epidamnus, waiting to see what was going to shake out from the convoluted three-way conflict between himself, Theodoric Strabo, and Emperor Zeno. I had hoped to get Theodoric all the way to Italy for the showdown with Odoacer in the last episode, but in retrospect that wasn’t ever going to happen. There was too much set up and background needed, especially on the palace intrigue in Constantinople, for there ever to be a hope of covering it all in one episode, and we ended up stopping a full nine years short of that goal. I was disappointed, listeners, disappointed in myself. But then I got myself together and realized that none of us are here for a sprint through this stuff, if you all didn’t want details you would have stopped listening a long while back. Maybe you already did, which would pose some interesting philosophical problems.
What I’m trying to say is that while this is a relatively short episode, it is dense, ladies and gentlemen. Like a fruitcake, or a really good milkshake. It’s a blizzard of places and names, and I will be producing extra materials to help navigate it all, and posting them on the website. That website being darkagespod.com, of course. I strongly encourage you to avail yourself of them. Links in the notes to this episode, right where you’d expect.
What makes this episode so dense is a continuous round robin of conflict and negotiation that Theodoric the Amal engaged in with the Emperor Zeno between 480 and 488. Those years would see the Ostrogothic leader up and they would see him down. The Goths would find a new homeland, and then abandon it or be tossed off of it the next year. Ultimately, the whole thing came to a head, and Zeno opted for the leaf-blower strategy. That is, if you have a problem that you’re having trouble with, just turn it into your neighbor’s problem, as loudly as possible. At the end of this episode, the Ostrogoths will set out for their date with destiny in Italy, but the road they took getting there was mostly made up of detours. So. Get out the map. Onward.
I want to back up a tiny bit, to when Theodoric was on his way westward, toward Epidamnus. To quote myself at the end of the last episode, “somehow he tricked his way into the city”. That was a consequence of rushing to get to a decent stopping point and preventing the episode from running over forty-five minutes. In fact Malchus tells us exactly how Theodoric got his army into Epidamnus.
Epidamnus goes by an unreasonable number of different names, by the way, depending on who’s drawing the map. So if you’re looking for it, it may be Epidamnus, Dyrrachium, Durazzo, or today, Durres, in Albania. On my maps, at least the ones I made for this episode, it’s Epidamnus.
Epidamnus was the principal city of the province of Epirus, and the terminal port at the western end of the Via Egnatia, one of the most important roads of the empire. It faces Brindisi across the Adriatic sea, and was critical for sea-travel between Italy and the east. The story of how Theodoric came to occupy this profoundly important town, begins with the man we met at the beginning, named Sidimund.
Sidimund had started his career like many Gothic men from beyond the frontier. He joined in the plunder and pillage of the border regions, under the leadership of Valamer, and was fairly successful at it. He was a member of the Amal clan, though nowhere near the top of anyone’s list of potential leaders. He had another family connection on the Roman side of the border, his uncle Aidoingus, who was a general in the Roman army. Sidimund joined his uncle and served in the army with distinction, making other connections along the way. Soon Sidimund had built a reputation as a friend of the Romans, and his service began to bear tangible fruit. He built up his estates in Epirus, which was handy when he fell afoul of emperor Zeno and had to extricate himself from the capital when things heated up there.
It seems he wasn’t in too much trouble, and was able to work his way back into Zeno’s good graces. Good graces enough, at least, that when Sidimund told the people of Epidamnus and its 2,000 man garrison that the emperor had ordered an evacuation to make room for the approaching Ostrogoths, they believed him. Once space had been cleared out and the gates opened, Sidimund sent word to his cousin Theodoric that all was ready, he could come down and establish his kingship in Epirus.
That was what was at stake of course. Implicit in all the deals we have talked about, all the various possible modes of land ownership that I’ve suggested at one time or another, the ultimate goal for Theodoric was to establish for himself a semi-autonomous kingdom under the umbrella of the Roman empire. The attempt to create one in Macedonia had failed thanks to the intrigues of Strabo and Zeno, so now he would try again, with Epidamnus as his capital.
Earlier, I think I kind of implied that Theodoric was Thiudemir’s only son; not so, he was just clearly the best candidate for the top spot when the old man kicked off. He had a younger brother, named Thiudemund, who will figure in today’s story. While we’re on the subject, he also had one sister named Amalafrida, who will be popping up in the future as well, and at least one other, whose name we don’t know. Names are the bane of every history podcaster, and I’m afraid I don’t have a good solution. The old “casting a movie” thing ran out of steam really quickly, as I was spending more time browsing imdb than writing episodes, and I haven’t come up with anything else. Use the contact page on www.darkagespod.com to send suggestions, if you have any.
Where were we? Oh yeah, Epirus. Year 479.
When Sidimund’s message reached Theodoric, it came as welcome news, at the end of a frustrating series of events.
The Ostrogoths’ progress across the mountains had slowed, and he’d been caught by imperial emissaries who were suggesting that a new deal might be possible. He’d stopped at Heraclea, and was waiting for word from his own ambassador. While he was there, he was provided with supplies and gifts by the bishop of Heraclea, which suggested the emperor’s offer might be sincere. And indeed it was, though details were slow to arrive, and there was the usual diplomatic stalling and hemming and hawing as Theodoric waited to hear from Sidimund.
Theodoric was using the illness of a second sister (whose name we don’t know) as an excuse to put off giving the Romans an answer, when word arrived that Sidimund had accomplished the clearing of Epidamnus. Hurriedly, Theodoirc ordered his armies to pack up and move toward the coast immediately. He demanded further supplies from the citizens of Heraclea, who refused and had to watch from the citadel as their city was burned in retaliation before the Goths left.
The Romans had been caught flat footed, but they got their act together quickly, and two generals were put in charge of pursuit of Theodoric; Sabinianus and Adamantius. Sabinianus’ attitude was that those who could kick ass should kick ass, while Adamantius would have agreed with Churchill, that jaw-jaw is always better than Wa-Wa.
Theodoric split his forces into three columns, one led by him, one by his second in command, a man named Soas, and one led by his younger brother, Thiudemund. Amalfrida and their mother were in Thiudemund’s column.
The next city along the road was called Lynchidnus, on what is now called Lake Ohrid in North Macedonia. This city was well supplied and well defended, and had already heard about Theodoric’s little tantrum in Heraclea, and so the Goths were forced to move on. All along the way messages flew between Theodoirc and the Romans, and it seemed Adamantius’ more pacific approach might win out. Meeting places were proposed and agreed, and Soas, the Gothic second in command, was willing to surrender himself as a hostage for the duration of negotiations. Sabinianus, though, would make no guarantees of his or anyone else’s safety, and so the discussions fell apart.
Theodoric and Soas’s columns were able to make the run down to Epidamnus without incident. They occupied the city, but there was a problem. In the course of their journey, they’d been separated from Thiudemund’s column, and they hadn’t arrived yet.
Worries about his brother, sister, and mother were interrupted when Adamantius with a contingent of 200 men appeared outside the walls of Epidamnus, having moved with what seemed like supernatural speed across the mountains. He set up a fortified camp across the Lumi Erzen river, and negotiations began again. Theodoric took the opportunity to read the Roman generals the laundry list of grievances stemming from Zeno’s earlier betrayal. As reported in Malchus’ History:
“… you promised that the general of Thrace would immediately join me with his forces. He never appeared. You promised that Claudius, the paymaster…would come with the mercenaries’ pay. I never saw him. Third, you gave me guides who left the easier way toward the enemy and led me aside over a steep path with sheer cliffs on both sides. Here … I was not far from complete destruction with all my force, had the enemy suddenly attacked.”
Theodoric, according to Malchus of Philadelphia
Once he got that off his chest, he was open to negotiation. His first proposal was to leave his noncombatants in some place of the emperor’s choosing and then take his 6000 men
“and the Illyrian troops and whatever others the emperor would send, he would destroy all the Goths in Thrace, on the condition that he be made commander in chief and a received as a citizen to live in the Roman manner.”
Destroy the hated Strabo and become CIC? Theodoric was confident enough in the walls of Epidamnus to propose that not only should he have his cake, but it would only be right if he were to eat it too.
That 6,000 warriors is an interesting number, since it suggests that Theodoric had lost nearly half his strength since he’d left Thrace. The intervening years had not been kind. Most of those lost were probably defectors and deserters, rather than actual casualties, but it does emphasize the danger that always faced a warlord. Success would mean growth and glory, failure would mean the bleeding away of men and strength until there was nothing left.
Zeno’s proposal was actually along the same lines, though less immediately focused on destroying Strabo. Zeno proposed an area around Pautalia, which was between Illyricum and Thrace. That way, Zeno would have Theodoric’s men available should Strabo need to be dealt with, and vice-versa.
Around this time, Theodoric made the fascinating alternate proposal that he should be allowed to take his men to Dalmatia, to fight in support of Julius Nepos and restore him to the western throne. Adamantius was unmoved by this, and rejected the idea. The overriding goal of Roman diplomatic efforts was keeping the Goths away from the Adriatic at all costs.
The worry that they would develop a navy and basically become the Vandals 2.0 was a horrifying prospect. Instead, Adamantius reminded Theodoric that he had received honors from the emperor, and it was the emperor’s prerogative to revoke such honors at his pleasure. He also pointed out that there had been several times over the last year when the Ostrogoths had been surrounded by superior Roman forces, yet still they lived. Did Theodoric really think that was thanks to his own military prowess? No, Zeno was allowing him to live because he believed the young king had potential, if he would only get out of his own way. The lands that were being proposed around Pautalia were sparsely populated and fertile, the Goths would be able to settle there with little opposition and feed themselves easily and well. Regardless, under no circumstances would they be permitted to remain in Epirus, and insisting on it would bring the might of the empire down on their heads.
Its possible that rumors of Theodoric’s proposal made their way back to Odoacer, and that this triggered the assassination of Julius Nepos the follwing year. More likely in my mind, and let me be clear, this is my own personal speculation, is that there were already some kind of plans in the air, of which both Theodoric and Odoacer caught the scent. Theodoric saw an opportunity, and Odoacer saw a bud which needed to be nipped. We’ll never really know. Either way, nothing came of the plan.
Theodoric was interested in the Pautalia deal, and accepted the offer in principle. But where do we find the devil? That’s right, in the details. He asked to be allowed to winter in Epirus, his army was exhausted and he couldn’t ask them to make another trek across the mountains so late in the year. He also wanted to know where he could leave his noncombatants while he and his warriors went and secured the area around Pautalia, while the Romans were non-committal. Theodoric needed a deal, and soon. To smooth the way, he offered his mother and sister as hostages.
But he didn’t actually have them at the time, since they were still in the mountains with Thiudemund’s lost column, which turned out to be Theodoric’s Achilles Heel.
Sabinianus, the more hawkish of the two Romans, made his move. He caught and cut off Thiudemund’s contingent, and took many prisoners. Thiudemund managed to escape with the two royal women, but only by abandoning his men in a truly shameful way, even breaking a bridge behind him and ensuring their capture. Thiudemund had been passed over for the kingship for good reasons, it seems. Sabinianus now dictated Roman policy, and negotiations were abruptly halted.
Things might have ended right then and there for Theodoric, had Sabinianus pressed his advantage. Instead he consolidated his forces, gathering to him a contingent led by another Romanized Goth named Gento, as well as the regular forces of Epirus and an Illyrian army led by Hunnulf, the brother of Odoacer. All of that took time, and Theodoric was able to stay out of trouble and keep his army together through 480. And then the wheel of fortune turned again, and Theodoric emerged from this sudden crisis as suddenly as he had fallen into it.
In 481, Sabinianus was a victim of court intrigue, and lost his command. The same year, Theodoric Strabo died. All at once, two of the three greatest obstacles to Theodoric’s continued survival were removed, by luck, or fate, or divine intervention. I say two out of three because Zeno wasn’t going anywhere. But the removal of the hawkish Sabinianus and Theodoric Strabo changed everything.
By the way, I don’t know what happened to Sidimund, the man who’d gotten Theodoric into Epidamnus. The story is only attested by Malchus of Philadelphia, and he doesn’t share that information. I presume he joined Theodoric for further adventures, but I can’t say for sure.
Let’s close the door on Theodoric Strabo before we move on. While Theodoric and his Ostrogoths were struggling, Strabo and his Thracian Goths had been generally on the way up. They were George and Elaine, for those listeners with a sharp memory for ‘90s TV. I suppose Zeno would be Jerry in this analogy. Lord, punch me in the face.
In Theodoric’s absence, Strabo’s received money to pay his 13,000 men, along with command of some units of regular troops, which swelled his army to 30,000, along with being re-appointed as magister militum. He was strong enough to pose exactly the kind of threat that Zeno had been worried about all along. With no local counter available, Zeno was compelled to bring in outside contractors. He recruited a contingent of Bulgars from the steppes to move against the Thracians and try to keep them under control. This is the first ever mention of the Bulgars, a turkic steppe people who would eventually, of course, become Slavicised and give their name to Bulgaria. That’s all quite a ways off though. Strabo drove the Bulgars off, and marched toward Constantinople, in retaliation and to make the usual points about strength and necessity and so forth.
I wonder, at some point did the citizens of Constantinople start to treat the approach of all these armies like spring weather? “Oh, it’s a bit Goth-y out today, I’ll wear my heavy cloak.”
All did not go according to plan for Strabo, though. Trouble with his own commanders led to failure, as did an attempt to cross over to Asia Minor – boats continued to be to the Goths’ particular bête noire. After riding high, Strabo suddenly found himself exposed, with a fractious army deep in hostile Roman territory. He withdrew westward toward, stopping at a place called Stabulum Diomedis. A new horse had been presented to him, and Strabo was breaking in the new mount when he was thrown from the saddle. An unfortunately placed lance made the fall fatal, and so ended the career of the Squinter. For Theodoric the Amal, that lance couldn’t have been better aimed or timed if he’d handled it himself. We don’t know for sure how old he was when he died, but he had been leader of the Goths of Thrace for well over ten years.
Strabo left behind two brothers, a wife, and a son named Rekitach, who took over his father’s position. He exhibited none of the qualities of his father, and would have shot himself in the foot had there been gunpowder available. He attempted to consolidate his power by murdering his two uncles, and in the process alienated a large portion of his army, who went over to Theodoric. No word on whether or not Theodoric sent him a cake or anything. Rekitach sought refuge in Constantinople, one of many washed-up princes who found their way to that great collector of people.
Zeno wasn’t just going to hand over land and honors to Theodoric, just because Strabo was dead. He’d still have to earn it. So the Ostrogoths decamped from Epirus and headed back to Greece, plundering Thessaly as they went. They still had no farm land, and while not what you’d call admirable, plunder was the only option they had to support themselves. The thoroughness of the destruction finally moved Zeno to offer the much-desired treaty in 483. Theodoric was made commander-in-chief of Thracian forces, and the Ostrogoths were granted territory in Moesia and Dacia Ripensis, along the Danube around the fortress city of Novae. They had held territory briefly in that neighborhood before, before the great showdown with Strabo. Novae, by the way, is just outside the modern town of Svishtov, Bulgaria, and hosts a Roman reenactment every summer that looks pretty fun. Just an FYI.
There seemed to be a chance of a peaceful life for the Ostrogoths at last. If they wanted it. Which, you know, maybe? The cherry on Theodoric’s sundae was the consulship for the year 484. Legally that made him a Roman citizen, and meant that he had to be on January 1 of that year. He took the name Flavius Theodoricus. He was 33 years old (or so), consul, and king, and was treated with all the honor that implied. It was his year, and you could, if you were a symbolic thinker, you could see this as the integration of Theodoric the barbarian king, and the boy who’d been brought up as close to being Roman as he could have been. He was and always had been both, and now he had the potential to live as both.
By the way, that name, Flavius, was an extremely common choice for Barbarians taking on Roman identities. We usually identify the characters in our drama by the most memorable of their many monikers, for obvious reasons, but Stilicho, Aetius, Aspar, and Ricimer had all been Flavii.
There was one piece of business that Flavius Theodoric had to take care of while he was in the city. Possibly at the suggestion and certainly with the knowledge of Zeno, Theodoric tracked Rekitach down in a suburb called Bonophatianae and killed him in broad daylight. It’s not clear to me whether Theodoric did the deed himself or outsourced it, and morally it doesn’t really matter. Rekitach was a busted flush, he presented no threat to Theodoric whatever, and Theodoric’s motivation probably had to do with Rekitach’s murder of his uncles. All of these nobles were related to each other, the Amal clan was broad and widely distributed. Killing Rekitach was probably the fulfillment of a blood feud on Theodoric’s part. It wouldn’t be the last one in the career of Theodoric the Great.
Blood feud is one of the few features of Germanic society that comes down to us clearly and unambiguously. Modern scholars reject the idea of a single monolithic “German-ness” that was shared all across northern europe, but references to feuds appear all over the place. Most compelling is the way they shaped law codes of the time. Over the course of this season, we’ll probably be getting into discussions of law codes, as the kingdoms that replaced the empire in the west worked to synthesize their own tribal traditions with deeply admired roman legal ideas. The blood feud was antithetical to the Roman ideal of rule of law, and kings continually encoded mechanisms to prevent private vendettas from spiraling out of control into wider destabilizing conflicts. For a long time, their success was limited. In the future, when he was ensconced as king of Italy, Theodoric would promulgate his own code. But as king of a federate nation under arms, when the opportunity arose to settle his own scores, he clearly didn’t hesitate to do so.
484 through 486 were full of seemingly contradictory events. Theodoric was placed at the head of an army to go and deal with Isaurian rebels, only to be replaced by one of the sons of Aspar before there had been any fighting. An equestrian statue was erected in Theodoric’s honor, and his return to the city was celebrated with public festivities. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, and doesn’t suggest that there was an abundance of trust between Theodoric and the emperor. Shortly after returning from the aborted campaign, Theodoric left Constantinople and went back to his new kingdom at the borders of Scythia. While he had been away, presumably his people had begun to settle into their new home. At last there was land to work, food to grow rather than take, a permanent place there on the banks of the great River. And if Theodoric and Zeno had been able to get along, that might have been where the Ostrogoths’ wanderings ended. But of course they couldn’t.
Exactly what prompted Theodoric to undertake a plundering expedition in 487 isn’t known, maybe he just needed to keep his fighters busy and flush, like any warlord. Why he decided to aim them south, into Roman Thrace, rather than north into Scythia, probably was due to the simple calculation that they had more stuff in the south. It was simple blackmail, the almost traditional activity of federate leaders when there was no foreign war to keep them busy. Zeno mobilized Bulgar allies again, but the Ostrogoths swept them aside, just as Strabo had. It’s a little hard, from our modern sensibility, to see the need for this. Surely Theodoric had what he and his people had been seeking this whole time? Surely now was a time to cool it with the extortion, let things be for a year or two? Maybe he felt he needed a bigger subsidy, or titles for his followers, who knows? This time the assault on the capital was the real deal. The Ostrogoths burned several suburbs, cut the aqueducts, and blockaded the roads. There was no question of actually taking the city. Theodoric had grown up there, he knew better than that. This was just the old game, he was just playing it very enthusiastically.
Zeno probably rolled his eyes as he gave orders for Amalfrida, Theodoric’s sister, who was being held as a hostage, to be turned over to her brother with a selection of fine and shiny gifts. The Goths accepted and went home. The mores around when one did and didn’t leverage hostages seem arbitrary and confusing. Why even take them if you’re just going to hand them over the second the army appears at the gate? In this case it probably was Zeno’s calculation that harming Theodoric’s sister would turn routine plundering into actual war, and that wasn’t worth it. It’s just a little odd to see.
Zeno may have been thinking that he needed a way to get rid of this altogether too motivated barbarian king who never seemed to be satisfied and kept kicking in his door and wiping his boots on his carpet. And the opportunity presented itself almost immediately. Alas, to talk about it, I shall require one more digression.
Remember the Rugians? Another fragment of the Huns’ empire, they had been the hostile neighbor on the Ostrogoths’ western flank when they had lived in Pannonia. For years they harassed the Italian kingdom of Odoacer, as well as provided a refuge for Roman opposition to Odoacer’s regime. A treaty kept a precarious peace through the early 480s (is there any other kind of peace on this show?), but Zeno was sending support and encouragement to the Rugians, especially when it became clear that Odoacer was in talks with anti-Zeno elements in the empire and preparing for some kind of military intervention. Obviously Zeno was preparing to make a move against Odoacer, but the Scirian was faster on the draw. He interpreted a civil conflict in the Rugian royal family as a breach of the treaty, and attacked the Rugian kingdom in the fall of 487. The Rugians were defeated quickly, their king Feletheus and his queen captured and executed in Italy. Their son, Frideric, escaped and attempted a counter-assault, but was chased off.
This was the war which spelled the end of St. Severinus’ religious community, which in truth doubled as an anti-Odoacer rebel cell. I’ve talked about it before so I won’t go into it all again, except to say that after their departure, that section of Noricum, between the River Enns and the Vienna Woods would become a no-man’s land, used mainly for military staging, and would remain so for five hundred years.
Frideric, and the men left to him, retreated, down the Danube and into the Ostrogoths’ territory. They met no resistance to the move, indeed, Theodoric welcomed them with open arms. It’s possible – more than possible, really – that Zeno had made pre-arrangements on behalf of his Rugian clients. It is also possible that this whole thing simply provided a handy Casus belli for Theodoric and Zeno to mount an attack on Odoacer in Italy. The quickness with which an agreement between Theodoric and Zeno was hammered out after the Rugians’ arrival suggests that this whole plan had already been in the works for some time. In the agreement, it was stipulated that “after the defeat of Odoacer, Theodoric, in return for his efforts, was to rule [Italy] for the emperor until he arrived in person.”
I think you’ll agree, there is some wiggle room in that wording, if it is reported to us accurately. It will become an issue in the future, I assure you. So Theodoric gathered up his Ostrogoths, en masse, again. They waited for the harvest before leaving, and in 488 hit the road again, heading west this time, toward Italy. Nothing was certain about this new venture, except that it would mean war.
We will talk about that war and its outcome next time. I have to reiterate my plea to all of you to check out the maps that accompany this episode.
Once you’re done admiring the lovingly crafted maps, consider subscribing to the Facebook page or to instagram, @darkagespod. There’s twitter too, but honestly I’m not sure how long that’s going to last at this point. If you’ve already done all of those things, rate the show on Spotify or Apple podcasts or wherever else you can. Or write a review! Speaking of which, Maude the third, you didn’t have to change your review! Sorry if I made you feel some kind of way last time. And lastly, if you want to support the show, in a monetary kind of way, you can do so at ko-fi.com/darkagespod. Thats K-O-dash-F-I .com, the digital tip jar, your support is never expected, but always appreciated.
That’s all for this episode. Until next time, take care.
References
Heather, Peter J. The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014.
Martindale, J.R. The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Vol. II. vol. 2, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1980. 3 vols. The Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/prosopography-later-roman-empire/PLRE-II/mode/1up.
Wolfram, Herwig. History of the Goths. Translated by Thomas Dunlap, University of California Press, 1990.
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