"Rooks and starlings darted above, blacker yet. A hawk high overhead disdained to stoop on them. Its wings shimmered golden." (p. 49)
We recently read here about a hawk wheeling in heaven. Five birds of prey with light on their wings are listed here.
Gratillonius refers to Time the Hunter and the groom refers to Epona. (p. 50)
The family is curial. (p. 53) Curials are "...landowners, merchants, producers, the moderately well-off..." (ibid.)
11 comments:
Gratillonius' family would best be considered "minor gentry" -- reasonably prosperous merchants, landowners and army officers. Upper middle class would be the closest modern equivalent, but that's not really very informative -- the Roman class system wasn't directly comparable to anything in the modern world.
Incidentally, Poul's rendering of late-Roman society is well-researched but a bit old-fashioned.
Mr Stirling,
Maybe there is some (some) parallel with the Hindu caste system? (Some Indians have escaped from their low-caste status by converting to Buddhism.)
Paul.
No, Roman society was never as stratified as that. Indian castes (the "jati" ones) are in fact very old and strictly endogamous -- this has been proven recently by DNA research.
Romans valued ancient lineage, but were also aware of the considerable social mobility that had always existed.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I was interested in you saying Poul Anderson's spade work and research for THE KING OF YS was solid and sound, but a bit old fashioned. I understood that to mean later researchers modified some of the things in the sources used by Anderson.
I happened to begin rereading THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY, by Anicius Manlius Severinus, whose gens (the Anici) happened to be one of those ancient lines the Romans valued.
Ad astra! Sean
Oops. I meant Anicius Manlius Severinus BOETHIUS!
Sean
Current research indicates that the Western Roman Empire was in better shape than shown in THE KING OF YS. In particular, the economy had largely recovered from the disasters of the 3rd century, when the whole Imperial system nearly collapsed.
The rural population in particular had almost completely recovered, though many urban areas hadn't.
Current thinking has swung around to a more "political" explanation of the Empire's collapse in the West -- that it was the result of contingent factors.
And also to developments outside the Empire: for example, the population of barbarian Germany had grown by four or five times between Caesar's time and the 400's CE, and the scale of political organization and military technique had been completely revolutionized.
Archaeological evidence has become much deeper and sophisticated in the last generation, and better-integrated with written sources, allowing them to be read in a more nuanced way. Classical writers were just as given to bias and partiality and sometimes outright ignorance as modern ones.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Now that interests me, that the Western Roman Empire was in better shape circa AD 383, the year we first see Gratillonius, than Poul Anderson and the scholars he had leaned on thought.
And what you said about political factors playing a greater in the Western Empire's collapse than some earlier writers thought brings to mind the greatest flaw in the Roman Empire's gov't: the shaky and precarious succession to the throne. Whether elective, dynastic, or a mix of both, there was no stable or firm rule or law of succession to the throne. The anarchy of the third century (235 to 284) made it too plain how easy it was for an ambitious general to reach for the purple. Which means hardly any Emperor could feel himself secure on the throne. Something you and Drake brought out very clearly in THE GENERAL books.
Arther Ferrill had written in his book about the fall of the Roman Empire that a major reason for that was neglect of the urgent need to adequately raise, maintain, train, and equip the armies needed for frontier defense. The German invasions which began in December of AD 406 would bear out that argument.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: the Roman Empire showed both the virtues and drawbacks of centralization and specialization.
The Roman army could be much more effective than the tribal militias of the barbarians, but this was achieved by concentrating the resources of a huge area and huge population on supporting a limited number of specialists. Meanwhile the civil population could concentrate on the business of everyday life, and had the advantage of free trade, easy communications, and a uniform currency and legal system over a vast domain.
Current research indicates levels of population, trade, production and commercialization within the Empire reaching levels not seen again until the modern period -- sometimes not until the 20th century.
Whereas among the Germans, every free man, the vast bulk of the adult males, was also a warrior.
You might say that the Roman Empire had a hard crust but a soft, chewy interior.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Then I conclude that once the maintaining of that "hard cust" failed or was neglected too far, the Empire fell into dire danger.
I have wondered what might have happened if Stilicho, de facto dictator of the Western Empire during the early years of Honorius' reign, had moved with all available forces to the Rhineland after crushing the invasion of Radagaisus? NOT returning the border garrisons to their posts along the Rhine river might have been the great mistake enabling the Germans to invade Gaul in December 406.
Ad astra! Sean
Note also that when the Empire fell, populations and economic complexity crashed back to levels not seen since the Iron Age. In 200 CE, it was routine to ship building stone and fish sauce from Britain to Anatolia or vice versa. Four hundred years later, only the most priceless luxuries could sustain trade over those distances, things intended for kings or the very rich.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, the impoverished and drastically simplified mode of life forced on people after the Empire fell made long distance trade very difficult. It would pay for merchants to export or import only very high value goods. Things like silks, ivory, spices, jewelry, books (for the drastically reduced numbers of people who could read), etc. No fish sauce or building stones!
Your comments reminded me of what Poul Anderson had Roan Tom saying at the beginning of "A Tragedy of Errors," after the Terran Empire had fallen: "Society'd fallen. And havin' so far to fall, it hit bottom almighty hard. The ee-conomic basis for things like buildin' space ships wasn't there anymore. That meant little trade between planets. Which meant trouble on most of 'em. You let such go on for a century or two, snowballin', and what have've you got? A kettle o' short lived dwarf nations, that's what--one planet, one-continent, one-island nations, all of 'em one-lung for sure--where they haven't collapsed even further. No more information-collatin' services, so nobody can keep track o' what's happenin' amongst those millions of suns. What few spaceships are left in workin' order are naturally the most valuable objects in sight. So they naturally get acquired by the toughest men around who, bein' what they are, are apt to use the ships for conquering or plunderin'...and complicate matters still worse."
So Anderson extrapolated what was seen on a smaller scale on Earth to what might happen on a far vaster interstellar scenario.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment