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A Novel Guide To Alric’s AD 589-596 Rob Mackintosh www.robmackintosh.net

Scavengers from the Sea is first in a Series of three historical novels, set against one of the most dramatic backdrops that any author could wish for!

THIS NOVEL GUIDE TO ALRIC’S ROME provides visual background to Scavengers from the Sea, an historical novel set in the late C6th, when Rome was struggling for its very survival. With all the sweeping power of an overwhelming flood, Rome in the late sixth century had lost nearly all hope of survival, believed they were about to experience the age of miracles at the end of the world. Like Noah’s Ark and the Flood, monasteries had sprung up all over Rome as shelters from a mounting storm, taking on board the little that was left of a once-great civilization. During the fourteen years that Gregory the Great was Pope, three thousand nuns and solitary recluses prayed a perpetual shield of prayer over this encircled, starving, diseased, and plague-ridden city.

My three-part Series called A Legend of the English came about as I delved into an ancient Saxon story set in this C6th period, created at St Hild’s monastery in Whitby (a coastal town in present-day Yorkshire, England) in the seventh century. The Whitby story attempted to explain why Pope Gregory launched his mission to the Kingdom of Cantia (now the County of Kent). The Whitby story swiftly developed into a foundation legend to explain Pope Gregory’s reasons for the mission. It was launched from St Andrew’s Monastery in Rome under the leadership of Prior Augustine in the summer of the Year of Our Lord, Five Hundred and Ninety Six. My aim in writing this Series was to find answers to some puzzling questions arising from the Whitby Legend. Questions such as: ‘Who were these young Saxon boys? Why were they brought to a Roman slave market, so far from home? What happened to them after Abbot Gregory paid for their freedom? Did they eventually return home? And if so, how did that happen?’

The Nolli Map AS YOU READ ON, I recommend using the interactive Nolli App, a map produced by the University of Oregon for navigating around , to gain a better understanding of the geography of this ancient city. The App overlays current SatNav images with the C18th Nolli map, so you can easily switch between the past and the present. The App is available to download free at: www.nolli-app.com

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AT THE BEGINNING of the novel, Scavengers from the Sea, Alric and Cadmon, two Saxon boys captured as slaves, pass through the Boarium en route to a slave market at the Septa Julia. The Forum Boarium is located on the banks of the River , once home to Rome’s biggest meat and fish market from the 2nd century BC onwards. The market was located on level ground alongside the Tiber, between the Aventine, Palatine and Capitoline hills. Positioned close to the warehouses of Rome along the Tiber, the Forum was a place of significant activity. It is still the site of the Temple of Hercules Victor, the Temple of Fortuna Virilis, and the Great Altar of Hercules. A church, , replaced an earlier Customs Office in the Boarium as one of the major distribution points for ‘step bread,’ rations of flour doled out to citizens and refugees from the steps of this former Customs House. The Forum Boarium is now an unremarkable car park.

Arch of

CLOSE TO THE FORUM BOARIUM is the ancient , the only open, four-sided archway preserved in Rome, erected at a crossroads at the northeastern limit of the Forum Boarium. The Arch comprised of material from earlier buildings, including bricks and pottery shards, covered with recycled white marble. It may have been a boundary marker rather than a triumphal arch, or built to provide shelter for the traders at the Forum Boarium cattle market. The Arch was built in the 4th century AD, over the , a large subterranean sewage drain system that began above the and finally discharged as raw sewage into the Tiber River. The Arch of Janus is also where Alric unexpectedly meets Theodore, a young urchin, before they escape from pursuers through the Cloaca Maxima.

Septa Julia

ALRIC AND CADMON arrive at the slave market in the Septa Julia. Julius Caesar built the Septa Julia on the Campus of Mars where Roman citizens came to cast their votes. In the sixth century, the Septa Julia and the largely derelict Pantheon were close neighbours. The Septa Julia was the end- point of the , an supplying vital drinking water for people living in and around the Campus of Mars. It was also used as a market place for luxury goods, boasting the best shops in Rome. Slaves were bought and sold here by auction, as are Alric and Cadmon in the novel. The Prefect of Rome’s office is also located here in the novel.

2 Population of the City of Rome

THE CITY’S DEPOPULATION by this period was significant, reducing from a highpoint of over a million people to perhaps 30,000 or 35,000 during the last decade of the sixth century. The number of citizens, refugees and pilgrims coming to the shrines and other holy places still exceeded Rome’s ability to provide a subsistence level of support. The overwhelming majority of the population was tightly clustered in Insulae (apartments of five or more stories) on and around the Campus of Mars. This picture shows one such insula apartment, backing onto the .

From AD 600 onwards, the population of Rome remained constant at about 35,000 people for more than a thousand years. Two maps of Rome (the first produced in AD 1560 and the second in AD 1748, by Giambattista Nolli) show little change in population distribution between these two centuries. However, they do clearly show the absence of human habitation across a vast swathe of wilderness within the Walls to the east and southeast of the city.

Capitoline Hill

AS ALRIC AND CADMON crossed the Capitoline Hill on their first day in Rome, they would have had time to notice three significant buildings on this ancient hill. The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (Left) Emperor Theodosius I closed the pagan Temple of Jupiter in AD 392 during the persecution of pagans throughout the late . During the C5th, gold adorning the doors was stripped off, and in AD 455 Vandals plundered the temple, stripping away the gold and bronze roof shingles. A century later, in AD 571 Rome’s next saviour Narses took away many of the temple’s statues and ornaments. This is the temple that Alric and Cadmon saw as they hurried by on their way to Abbot Gregory’s monastery on the Coelian Hill. The (Centre) This imposing building erected on the slopes of the Capitoline Hill, facing into the Forum Romanum, held the official records of ancient Rome, and housed the offices of city officials. It stood below the Temple of Jupiter southeast of the Tarpeian Rock, formerly used as a place of public execution for traitors, murders, slaves and perjurers. The Citadel (Right) The Citadel on the Capitoline Hill was an ancient building of refuge in times of war within its own fortifications, providing a last line of defence for Rome in the event of a siege.

3 Forum Romanum

THE ANCIENT ROMAN FORUM extends from the Capitoline Hill to the Arch of , containing a densely packed group of buildings in various stages of decay and decline. The vast majority of the population in Rome lived on the Campus of Mars and its fringes, so there was little to attract citizens to the Roman Forum for shopping purposes. Beyond the Forum, which was most of Rome inside the Aurelian Wall, the overwhelming impression was one of wilderness.

The imperial budget for monuments in and around the Forum was thinly spread, and their upkeep were not a high priority in a city mostly static in number and starving in times of siege. Perhaps the greatest and most persistent damage came from Roman citizens themselves, who stripped metals from public statues for their own domestic adornment or commercial use. Although the Exarch of Ravenna seldom ventured to Rome, he was almost always a taker rather than a giver of Imperial funds to Rome.

The

Located just east of the Forum (see map above), Emperor built the Colosseum in AD 70-72 soon after replacing , and wiped out almost all trace of Nero’s rule Vespasian constructed this amphitheatre on the site of what had been Nero’s private lake. It fell into disuse after four centuries, when the ‘spectacle’ of the Colosseum was replaced by the spectacle of seven great basilican churches. Alric and Cadmon had no business with the derelict Colosseum, its presence loomed over the street that passing by St Andrew’s Monastery, the former Via Triumphalis.

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THE PALATINE, once the home of emperors until began to build his own city, Constantinople, in the early fourth century, was all but deserted by the late sixth century. The emperors after Constantine still maintained a palace on the Palatine Hill, but was more usually occupied by the Exarch’s emissary in Rome in the late C6th. The palace has a panoramic view overlooking the now empty , and is the largest of the palaces on the hill. It is possible that a wing of this palace housed the Exarch’s officials in Rome. The last emperor to set foot in the Holy City was Emperor Constans II in AD 663. During his brief twelve-day stay, Constans stripped Rome of everything of value, including the bronze from the roof of the Pantheon – even though since AD 609 the Pantheon had been consecrated as a church! Yet another 800 years would pass before a Byzantine Emperor entered Rome.

St Andrew’s Monastery on the Coelian Hill

THE DESCRIPTIONS GIVEN in Scavengers from the Sea, of both the monastery and its life, need no additional explanation! The monastery we see today was rebuilt on a much older site in AD 1629 and finally completed thirteen years later. Beneath lies the original where Gregory grew up as a young man, still intact, and awaiting excavation. There is still a Camaldolese monastic community at San Gregorio, where Church of England Archbishops of Canterbury traditionally visit after their election to office and consecration in Canterbury Cathedral.

Accommodation at San Gregorio Magno Abbey in Rome

For a unique experience if you are visiting Rome, both men and women are welcome to stay as guests at the monastery. Open all year round.

www.Monasterystays.com Monasterio di San Gregorio al Celio Reference: LAR209

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Agapito’s Library at St. Andrew’s Abbey

BALRIC AND CADMON’S grammar lessons take place in the library, outside the main building of the Abbey. While Cadmon later joins the Roman Cavalry in the city, Alric goes on to become a scribe, and spends much of his time in this (now derelict) library. Pope Agapitus I (AD 535-6) was founder of the Bibliotheca Agapiti, within the grounds of the former villa. Many valuable books were housed in this apsidal basilica, built so that the right-hand wall of the library flanks the narrow Clivus Scauri alleyway. The outline of this library together with some of the apsidal wall are still visible, close by the small garden chapel of St Andrew.

Lateran Palace

ALRIC BECAME A FREQUENT presence at the for training to become a scribe. The Lateran Palace was refurbished to create an imperial residence for the Pope from which to exercise both spiritual and temporal authority. This took place during the Lombard (Langobard) incursions by the late sixth century.

The street leading from St Gregory’s monastery to the Lateran is historically interesting. Glimpses of the old are still visible on the north side. (You can see this more clearly on the Nolli map of this street.) How did the Lateran come to be the seat of popes? Emperor Constantine I married Fausta, his second wife and sister of his archenemy, Emperor Maxentius, former owner of the palace. Through his marriage to Fausta, Constantine came into possession of Maxentius’s Domus Laterani, the Lateran Palace. By the time that Alric and Cadmon appear in Rome (AD 589) the Lateran had been the residence of the popes for the previous three centuries, and the Palace had become the administrative centre for much of Rome. However, Pope Gregory did not take up residence within the palace itself, as his predecessors had done, and as his successors would also do, but preferred to occupy more modest accommodation nearby to continue a monastic way of life.

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Water Mills on the Tiber

DESPITE AGRICULTURAL LAND both inside and outside the city walls, most of Rome’s precarious food supply came from the harvests of Sicily and Egypt, landed at the port at Ostia, and transported on the Tiber to warehouses that once served Rome’s huge mercantile hub. However, the mills on the Hill were difficult to defend and vulnerable to attack.

A Byzantine,General Belisarius, while opposing the Goths in AD 537-8, had found an answer to the problem of safely and reliably milling the grain. The Goths had blocked the aqueducts supplying water for drinking and operating the mills on the Janiculum Hill that provided most of the bread for the city. Belisarius was able to counter the problem by building floating mills on the Tiber. While the mills on the Janiculum and were stone-built, the floating mills on the Tiber were made of wood and simply constructed by placing two houseboats together with a wheel in between. The main mill boat was attached on its bank side and housed millstones, gears and grain. Each one was moored to the riverbank. A footbridge and gangway connected the mill to the bank. Donkeys were used, both to transport grain across the bridges and also to take the milled flour to the bakeries. The water mills had an added advantage of requiring only a small team of four people to run a mill. Unfortunately, the floating mills were also at the mercy of river currents because of heavy rainfall in Umbria or northern Lazio, swelling the river and raising the water level downstream, sometimes causing disastrous floods in low- lying areas of Rome, such as the Campus of Mars. The mills could be carried off by fast flowing tides with the millers still inside, crashing against bridges, or wedging in the arch of a bridge, which caused the waters to rise even higher. Astonishingly, Belisarius’s mills were to continue on the Tiber for another twelve hundred years.

Angel at the Bridge and ’s Mausoleum

KNOWN FIRST AS THE BRIDGE OF HADRIAN, the bridge was constructed in the first part of the second century to span the Tiber, linking the city centre to Hadrian’s newly completed mausoleum. Once the tallest building in Rome, it was used by the popes as both a fortress and a castle, and is now a museum. In the sixth century, during the papacy of Gregory the Great, both castle and bridge took on the name San’ Angelo, arising from the legend of an angel appearing on the roof of the castle to announce the end of the plague, during the course of a procession to the Basilica of St Peter.

In the novel, it is Alric who is holding the cross at the head of the procession when the angel appears. The procession then procedes to the basilica where the Apostle Peter was buried,

near to Nero’s circus where St. Peter was crucified.

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St Peter’s Basilica

THE APOSTLE PETER was crucified upside down by Emperor Nero in October AD 64, in front of an Egyptian obelisk in Nero’s circus, outside the walls of Rome. He was buried on Mons Vaticanus, near the circus. However his basilica was not built for another three hundred years, until Constantine had chosen to follow Christ. It was built along the same basilica lines as St Peters Outside the Wall. After crossing the bridge to Hadrian’s Mausoleum, Alric and Cadmon enter this basilica for the first time.

Abbey and basilica of St Quattro Coronati

ALRIC FREQUENTLY TAKES sacks of milled flour to St Quattro, and unexpectedly meets someone whom he comes to care for deeply. The present Basilica of San Quattro Coronati boasts a 12th- century church (with 4th-century origins). Its name, “four crowned saints,” comes from its original dedication to four soldiers who were martyred by Emperor Diocletian, after refusing to sacrifice to a pagan god. The abbey is only a short walk from St Gregory’s monastery, the Colosseum and San Giovanni in Laterano. The basilica also has a convent, and has a magnificent cloister. The church and cloister are a gem – and a must-see for anyone interested in Rome’s slightly off-the-beaten-path sites. The Nolli App map shows what the Abbey and its orchards may have looked like when the landscape was still substantially rural – and before the development of industry that has taken place in the centuries since.

Circus Maximus, Rome

SITUATED IN THE VALLEY between the Aventine and Palatine Hills, The Circus Maximus was first and largest stadium built in ancient Rome and the Empire. By the close of the 6th Century, the Circus had fallen into decay, used only for quarrying building materials. Always prone to flooding, the lower levels gradually disappeared beneath waterlogged alluvial soil and accumulated debris.

Rome’s Military Barracks

Known Locations FINDING A SATISFACTORY answer to where Rome’s barracks were located in the late Sixth century is problematic, as no source identifies the location of the military barracks at the time that our Saxon hero, Cadmon, served in the Roman cavalry. The locations we know are listed below.

8 The oldest archaeological findings to date are 2nd century barracks, found near to the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano during excavations for the Metro. These barracks comprised a Commander’s House, 14 different rooms, a courtyard with fountain, and under-floor heating, all about 49 feet below ground level.

The Praetorian Guard in Rome was located inside the northeast Aurelian wall, and disbanded after victory by Constantine I over his arch-rival, Emperor Maxentius, in AD 312. The Praetorian Guard was permanently disbanded, and does not seem to have been used as barracks again. Thirdly, General Belisarius arrived in Rome on December 9, AD 536 with 5,000 troops, through the . The general stationed his men and headquarters on the Pincian Hill, overlooking the north wall of the city. Their temporary barracks in tents were stationed beneath the path of the Aqua Virgo, the only reliable water supply for the city. The Ostrogoths attempted to penetrate Belisarius’s camp by using the Aqua Virgo. However, their plan was thwarted when Belisarius’s men saw their torch flames shining above in the aqueduct. None of these is entirely satisfactory for purposes of the novel.

Possible Location of Rome’s Military Barracks in the late 6th Century

THE ABOVE LOCATIONS for barracks in Rome were largely chosen for a specific military context, such as the number of troops and cavalry at the disposal of the commander, and the nature of the siege. During the last decade of the Sixth Century, which is the period that our Saxon boys Alric and Cadmon were in Rome, there were less than a thousand troops and only a handful of cavalry to defend Rome against neighbouring Langobard Dukes. In each case, Rome paid them off , and with ever-diminishing resources, until a more permanent agreement was reached towards the end of the sixth century.

In the novel, I have placed the military barracks close to Trajan’s Markets, near the Tower of the Militia (the clue is in the name!). The tower is located in Via Quattro Novembre, in an area between the Church of S. Caterina and the Markets of Trajan. The name “Militze” derived from militia, or military posts dating back to Roman times, or the Middle Ages. The tower was repaired during the C13th. It offered final protection against an invading army of the Langobards, and the streets leading to up to it are sloped and winding, placing any military adversary at a disadvantage. (You will find this easier to visualize using the Nolli App of Rome.) Nearby the Tower of the Militia there is a high stonewall, and behind it a garden, the Villa Aldobrandini. The site is much reduced from its original size, but even today it is in area sufficiently adequate to host the military barracks and stables to support a thousand men and stables for horses.

9 Also, the Military Church (the Church of the Twelve Apostles, built to celebrate the victory of Narses over the Ostrogoths in AD 551) is a short walk away from the Tower of the Militia, and the walled gardens of the present Villa Aldobrandini.

All in all, it seems a good location for Rome’s military barracks near the end of the C6th, so that this site has been included as such in the novel.

Keep in touch!

WE ALL LOVE visuals! On Pinterest, my site Rob Mackintosh has many more images that supplement the Novel Guide to Alric’s Rome for your interest. And it’s a great way to see Rome! Also, connect to my website and follow the unfolding Series, A `legend of the English’. I look forward to it! www.robmackintosh.net

Author Biography

ROB’S PASSION is the genre of historical fiction, and he is the author of a recent novel, Scavengers from the Sea, the first book in a Series, A Legend of the English. Rob is an academic, a cleric and founder of the Leadership Institute in the UK. He continues to be a leadership consultant, mentor and author. He has travelled extensively to the places where his stories unfold – Scavengers from the Sea includes travel in Kent, through France from Niece to Calais, and Rome-Ostia in Italy.

If you’d like to learn more, visit his website, www.robmackintosh.net, and get your copy today of A Novel Guide to Alric’s Rome, with engaging insights of historic places from late sixth century Rome, and some of the people and events that have shaped our world today.

Sample the Book for free https://www.amazon.com/Scavengers-Sea-Historical-Thriller-English- ebook/dp/B078QP4HQ7

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