A Novel Guide To Alric’s Rome 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 ancient Rome, 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 1 Forum Boarium 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 Tiber, 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, Santa Maria in Cosmedin, 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 Janus CLOSE TO THE FORUM BOARIUM is the ancient Arch of Janus, 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 Cloaca Maxima, a large subterranean sewage drain system that began above the Roman Forum 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 Aqua Virgo, an aqueduct 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 Capitoline hill. 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 Aurelian 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 Roman Empire. 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 Tabularium (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 Titus, 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 Colosseum Located just east of the Forum (see map above), Emperor Vespasian built the Colosseum in AD 70-72 soon after replacing Nero, 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. 4 Palatine Hill THE PALATINE, once the home of emperors until Constantine the Great 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 Domus Severiana palace has a panoramic view overlooking the now empty Circus Maximus, and is the largest of the palaces on the hill.