Siege of Rome

My third release for this month - if you include the re-release of Book One of Caesar's Sword, is the sequel, CAESAR'S SWORD (II): SIEGE OF ROME. 

Book Two of the series is set shortly after the events of The Red Death, which saw Arthur's grandson, Coel ap Amhar, rise from a lowly slave to a charioteer in The Hippodrome, to a respected soldier in the Roman army led by Flavius Belisarius, the last great general of imperial Rome.

Belisarius has re-conquered the old Roman province of North Africa, and brought the mad King of the Vandals, Gelimer, back to Constantinople as a captive, along with heaps of treasure. Encouraged by this success, the Emperor Justinian has made Belisarius a Consul, and plans to take back Italy and the lost city of Rome. Once the capital and beating heart of the Roman Empire, Rome has for over a century been in the hands of the 'barbarian' Goths and Ostrogoths. Justinian entertains grand dreams of restoring the shattered Western Empire, and ruling over East and West in the manner of his predecessors.

Emperor Justinian I

To this end, he sends Belisarius with an army of twelve thousand men, mostly mercenaries and foederatii troops, to recapture Sicily and the Italian mainland. The Goths are in turmoil, as their kings are murdering each other left and right, and Justinian hopes his golden general can take advantage of the chaos. Before long, however, a new and vigorous Gothic monarch emerges from the ruck, and the Romans find themselves stranded and hideously outnumbered in the middle of hostile territory.

Armed with just his famous grandfather's sword, Caledfwlch, and a heap of fortitude, Coel must fight to defend the walls of Rome and preserve his own life from the ever-growing numbers of deadly enemies and assassins who wish him ill...

Caesar's Sword (II): Siege of Rome

Casting fire upon the darkness...

Today sees the launch of an epic blog hop involving over thirty authors, including Julian Stockwin, Helen Hollick and Manda Scott. The theme is 'Casting Light upon the Darkness' - as you can see by the lovely graphic logo above, designed by Avalon Graphics - and there are lots of great free prizes on offer. Simply browse (or hop) the links posted at the bottom of this page to see the posts by other bloggers and enter competitions.

I am offering a free paperback copy of my medieval saga, Nowhere Was There Peace, set in England during the baronial wars of the 1260s, and published this year by Fireship Press.

If you are interested in winning a copy, just leave a comment under this post and I will select a winner a few days after the 21st!

For the hop I have chosen to write about the age-old mystery of Greek Fire, the terrifying incendiary weapon employed by the Byzantine Empire to quite literally cast light upon their enemies. 

The Empire survived for over a thousand years until the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 and the death in battle of the last Emperor, Constantine XI. Without Greek Fire, the steadily shrinking Byzantine state would probably not have endured for so long, and how this vital weapon was made remains a mystery to this day.

Medieval depiction of Greek Fire in action

Greek Fire was by no means the first incendiary weapon to be used in warfare: for instance, the Assyrians were using flaming arrows and pots packed full of combustible substances as early as the 9th Century BC. However, unlike earlier weapons, something about Greek Fire seems to have captured the imagination of contemporaries. 

One of the earliest possible references to it date from the early sixth century, when the Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I used a sulphur-based compound to incinerate a rebel fleet. It was certainly in use by the seventh century, when Constantinople was twice besieged by the combined land and sea forces of the Arab Caliphates. After four years of warfare, the Emperor Constantine IV led out his fleet in a head-on assault. His ships were equipped with Greek Fire, and the naval battle that ensued resulted in the total destruction of the Arab fleet.

These accounts suggest that Greek Fire was used primarily as a naval weapon, and carried into battle by single-deck warships called dromons, converted to house the devices needed to heat and pressurise the mixture. The specially trained crew would then direct it through a nozzle or hose, spraying enemy ships with unquenchable liquid flame. Greek Fire was notorious for burning on water, so a hideous death awaited enemy sailors even if they jumped overboard.

The Byzantine army in battle

The Byzantines were nothing if not inventive, and all sorts of variants were introduced over the centuries. Some manuals describe jars being stuffed with Greek Fire and thrown at the enemy, like early hand grenades, and caltrops smeared with tow and soaked in the substance being hurled from catapults. Cranes were fitted aboard ships and used to drop 'bombs' onto enemy ships, while siphons were fixed to the prows of Byzantine ships, so they could ram the enemy and hose him with fire at the same time.

The siphons were elaborate affairs, made of brass or iron and shaped like the heads of lions or other wild beasts. Their mere aspect was frightening, their jaws wide open to shoot Greek Fire through their mouths, as though they were vomiting over the enemy.

Greek Fire continues to fascinate because of the centuries-old mystery surrounding its composition. Knowledge of the formula was a closely guarded state and military secret. This is unsurprising, since the Byzantines could not afford their secret weapon to fall into the hands of their many enemies. The term 'Byzantine complexity' might have been invented to describe the process of keeping the formula secret: even the engineers and technicians who worked with the stuff were only made aware of certain components, while being kept ignorant of others. This meant that no-one could blab the secrets of Greek Fire to the opposition.

Many generations of scholars have tried to reconstruct the formula for Greek Fire from informed supposition and fragments of surviving sources. Certain clues can be gleaned from Byzantine military textbooks and descriptions of other incendiary weapons, such as the following from the Alexiad, written by Anna Komnene, daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I:

"This fire is made by the following arts. From the pine and the certain such evergreen trees inflammable resin is collected. This is rubbed with sulfur and put into tubes of reed, and is blown by men using it with violent and continuous breath. Then in this manner it meets the fire on the tip and catches light and falls like a fiery whirlwind on the faces of the enemies..."

No precise description of the formula for Greek Fire exists. All we know for certain is that it burned on water, could be extinguished only by sand, strong vinegar or urine, and that it was a liquid substance. Strangely, for a pre-gunpowder weapon, the discharge was apparently accompanied by a loud bang and lots of smoke. The demoralising effect on an enemy, who faced being turned into a human torch if he stuck around, can only be imagined.

Greek Fire being expelled through a portable siphon

For all that, it was not a 'perfect' weapon. It had a limited range and could only be deployed in ideal weather conditions, with a fair wind and a calm sea. Muslim navies developed various forms of protection, either staying out or range or covering their ships in flame-retardant felt and hides soaked in vinegar. 

The records indicate that Greek Fire was used often and decisively for many hundreds of years, and was still in use in the 12th century. For some reason - perhaps the secret of making it had been lost - there is no record of it being used against the Crusaders when they sacked Constantinople in 1203. Nor was it deployed in the final battle against the Turks in 1453.

One of the latest and most colourful accounts of this terrible weapon come from the Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, written during the Seventh Crusade in the mid-13th century. I'll sign off with this epic description from the memoir of Greek Fire in action: 

 “... the tail of fire that trailed behind it was as big as a great spear; and it made such a noise as it came, that it sounded like the thunder of heaven. It looked like a dragon flying through the air. Such a bright light did it cast, that one could see all over the camp as though it were day, by reason of the great mass of fire, and the brilliance of the light that it shed.” 

And below is the list of our lovely bloggers! 

1. Helen Hollick : A little light relief concerning those dark reviews! Plus a Giveaway Prize
2. Prue Batten : Casting Light....
3. Alison Morton ‎ : Shedding light on the Roman dusk  - Plus a Giveaway Prize! 
4. Anna Belfrage  : Let there be light!
5. Beth Elliott : Steering by the Stars. Stratford Canning in Constantinople, 1810/12
6. Melanie Spiller : Lux Aeterna, the chant of eternal light
7. Janet Reedman   The Winter Solstice Monuments
8. Petrea Burchard  : Darkness - how did people of the past cope with the dark? Plus a Giveaway Prize!
9. Richard Denning : The Darkest Years of the Dark Ages: what do we really know? Plus a Giveaway Prize! 
10. Pauline Barclay  : Shedding Light on a Traditional Pie
11. David Ebsworth : Propaganda in the Spanish Civil War
12. Debbie Young : Fear of the Dark
13. Derek Birks  : Lies, Damned Lies and … Chronicles
14. Mark Patton : Casting Light on Saturnalia
15. Tim Hodkinson : Soltice@Newgrange
16. Wendy Percival  : Ancestors in the Spotlight
17. Judy Ridgley : Santa and his elves  Plus a Giveaway Prize
18. Suzanne McLeod  : The Dark of the Moon
19. Katherine Bone   : Admiral Nelson, A Light in Dark Times
20. Christina Courtenay : The Darkest Night of the Year
21. Edward James  : The secret life of Christopher Columbus; Which Way to Paradise?
22. Janis Pegrum Smith  : Into The Light - A Short Story
23. Julian Stockwin  : Ghost Ships - Plus a Giveaway Present
24. Manda Scott : Dark into Light - Mithras, and the older gods
25. Pat Bracewell Anglo-Saxon Art: Splendor in the Dark
26. Lucienne Boyce : We will have a fire - 18th Century protests against enclosure
27. Nicole Evelina What Lurks Beneath Glastonbury Abbey? 
28. Sky Purington  :  How the Celts Cast Light on Current American Christmas Traditions
29. Stuart MacAllister (Sir Read A Lot) : The Darkness of Depression

The Wonder of Rome!

Welcome, Ave and Salutem to The Wonder of Rome blog hop! Myself and a whole legion (or cohort) of authors specialising in Roman-themed historical fiction have got together to write a series of posts on different aspects of the Roman Empire - all for the enjoyment of you, the lucky readers.

As you can imagine, the Empire is a pretty big topic, and the posts cover a very wide variety of subjects, so you won't get bored. The list of other participating authors is at the foot of this page - once you've read this you can 'hop' from one blog to the next.

Every author is also offering a free prize or giveaway: simply leave a comment below a post, and your name will be put into a lucky dip. The winner will be announced shortly after the hop ends on the 19th August. I am offering a free paperback copy of my novel, "Caesar's Sword."

Caesar's Sword is set during a later period of the Empire, after Rome itself had fallen and the centre of imperial rule had switched to the city of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul). The story takes place during the reign of the Emperor Justinian I (reigned 527-65) and follows the adventures of an exiled British warrior as he joins the Roman army and finds himself fighting for his life in the Hippodrome and on bloody North African battlefields.

For the hop I have chosen to write about the bucelarii, an elite regiment of Roman horse-soldiers that played a crucial role in the wars of this era. 'Bucelarii' is the Latin plural of Bucellarius, and translates as 'biscuit-eater', after the hard tack that the soldiers ate. These elite troops play an important role in my novel, and were vital to the survival and expansion of the Empire in the sixth century.

The Roman army of Justinian's reign was a very different beast to the army of the 'classical' era (roughly 100 BC-250 AD) which was made up of the famous legions and their auxiliaries. By Justinian's reign the legions were long gone: the shrunken Empire could no longer afford to maintain such large bodies of men - a legion usually comprised some 6000 men - and the army was divided into much smaller squadrons of about 900 men each.

Nor were there a great many ethnic 'Romans' serving in this much-changed army. Italy, including Rome herself, had long since been conquered by the Goths and Ostrogoths. The Emperors that now ruled from Constantinople stuffed their armies with mercenaries drawn from all over their remaining territories: fierce Germanic warrior tribes such as the Huns and the Herulii were much in demand. The old legions had largely fought on foot, with a few cavalry as auxiliaries, but by 500 AD the cream of the Roman army was mounted. Ceaseless wars against barbarian tribes that relied on light cavalry and horse archers had forced the Romans to adapt their way of fighting.

So to the bucelarii. These men were recruited by powerful individuals, such as generals and governors, rather than the state. They fought as personal bodyguards and household troops, and were usually quite small in number, though could grow to several thousand during the many civil wars that wracked the Empire. They were often better trained and kitted out than regular troops, and paid a great deal better as well. Flavius Belisarius, possibly the last great Roman general and a star of Caesar's Sword, had a personal guard of about seven thousand bucelarii at the height of his fame and power.

Flavius Belisarius

Belisarius's master, the Emperor Justinian, dreamed of restoring the glory of the Western Empire. Belisarius was the officer he picked to make that dream reality. He had a problem in that his armies were vastly outnumbered by the peoples that had invaded and occupied the old Roman territories of Italy and North Africa. Tasked with the seemingly impossible job of reconquering these lands with just a few thousand men, Belisarius had to think of some way of evening the odds.

The Emperor Justinian I and his court

His plans centred on the bucelarii. He had set about training them in the 520s, when Justinian had dispatched him to deal with the hordes of Sassanid Persians that were threatening to overrun the Empire's eastern frontiers. To counter the Sassanid horse-archers Belisarius raised an elite corps of heavy cavalry, armed with bows and lances and intended to act as skirmishers as well as shock troops.

The bucelarii were loaded down with armour and weaponry. As well as the short compound bows and lances, they carried long, heavy broadswords called spathas and a number of feathered darts clipped to the inside of their shields. The darts were intended to be thrown at close quarters, an extra nasty surprise for anyone unfortunate enough to be facing them in combat. For protection they were long scale mail coats reaching to their thighs, a type of four-piece conical helmet called a spangenhelm, and small round shields strapped to their left arms.

It took a lot of drill to train men to handle all these weapons and control their horses at the same time. Belisarius's men were trained to use stirrups to support themselves in the saddle (stirrups were a relatively new invention at this time and took pressure off certain parts of the anatomy...) and to control their horses with their knees. The Romans had always been experts at stealing fighting techniques from others and improving on them, and Belisarius did the same with his bucelarii: their archery methods were copied from the Huns, and their method of tilting with the lance from the Goths.

One training exercise required a soldier to gallop directly at a stuffed dummy hanging from a gallows. He had to string his bow as he charged, shoot three times at the dummy and finally impale it with his lance or darts. Those dummies didn't know what had hit them! Rates of pay, rations and rank were decided according to the skill of individual riders, rather than noble status.

Properly trained, equipped and led, the bucelarii were ferociously effective. They first proved their worth at the Battle of Dara, where Belisarius routed a much larger Sassanid army. The battle lasted all day, and was finally decided by a charge of the bucelarii, which Belisarius had held in reserve until the crucial moment. When he was transferred to North Africa, to reconquer the Roman province that had been overrun by the Vandals, the bucelarii again played vital roles in his victories at Ad Decimum and Tricamarum. On his return to Constantinople, Belisarius was the first Roman general in centuries to be awarded a triumph, and marched through the streets of the city at the head of his seven thousand guards.

Belisarius went on to win further victories in the West over the Goths and Ostrogoths, reconquering much of Italy and recovering (for a time) the city of Rome itself. The bucelarii were central to all his victories, and formed the nucleus of the new Roman and later Byzantine military. Capable of matching the 'barbarian' nations in mobility and bettering them in terms of equipment and strategy, they played a vital role in preserving the Empire for centuries to come.

Below are the links to all the other participating authors on this blog hop. Enjoy!

1) http://elisabethstorrs.blogspot.com.au/

2) http://www.gordondoherty.co.uk/writeblog/

3) http://scotthunterbooks.wordpress.com/

4) http://mark-patton.blogspot.co.uk/

5) http://www.ruthdownie.com

6) http://wordpress.mcscott.co.uk

7) http://www.frednath.com/blog

8) www.eaglehasfallen.com

9) http://ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/wonder-of-rome-blog-hop.html

10) http://teacake421.livejournal.com

11) http://themasterofverona.typepad.com/the_master_of_verona/

12) http://alison-morton.com/blog/

13) http://petreaburchard.com/blog-2/

14) http://timhodkinson.blogspot.com/

15) http://sjat.wordpress.com

16) http://wordpress.johnhenryclay.co.uk/

Chariots!

Many of us will have seen Charlton Heston giving it some whip in the chariot race in 'Ben Hur', or more recently, Russell Crowe dishing out orders and lopping off heads in the race sequence in 'Gladiator'. When I was planning my novel set in the Late Roman Empire, I wanted to try and capture the pulse-pounding excitement of chariot racing, Roman-style, on the page. 

The novel, "Caesar's Sword", is set mostly in Constantinople of the early 6th century AD, during the reign of the Emperor Justinian I. By this time most of the blood-spattered public games that the Roman public had been addicted to for centuries were banned, forbidden by the Christian church, who regarded them as savage pagan entertainments and a pointless waste of life. 

One sport, however, the church dared not try to ban, and that was chariot racing. The 'Romans' of Constantinople - they still called themselves Romans at this point, rather than the later Byzantines - were feverishly addicted to the races, and avidly followed the fortunes of the competing teams - much as football and basketball (etc) fans do today. 

Old illustration of the ruined Hippodrome in Istanbul (Constantinople)

The races were originally transported from Rome and consisted of four teams: the Blues, the Greens, the Reds and the Whites. By Justinian's reign only the Blues and the Greens still enjoyed considerable followings. The population of the city was sharply divided in their loyalties between these two teams, to the extent that violent clashes in the streets between gangs of rival supporters were common (sound familiar?). 

Often the violence escalated into widespread looting and general disorder, and the Emperor was obliged to send his guards out to restore order. However, the passion for the races affected all classes, and sometimes the Emperor himself gained or lost popularity thanks to his support for one or the other team. Justinian, for instance, was known to favour the Greens, and as a result was deeply unpopular with the Blue section of the city. His unpopularity was one of the reasons for the 'Nika' riots that erupted in the city in the early years of Justinian's reign, and which also feature in my novel.

The races were staged inside the Hippodrome, a gigantic U-shaped structure next to the imperial palace, and which served as Constantinople's version of the famous Circus Maximus in Rome. There was a lodge in the centre of the arena for the Emperor and his entourage to watch the races, and also to hear complaints from representatives of the Greens and the Blues: the Hippodrome was as much a government building as a sporting venue, and a complex warren of governments departments and offices existed beneath it. 

In the finest Roman tradition, the races themselves were violent and bloody affairs, and the death and serious injury of charioteers was common. The chariots were lightweight affairs usually pulled by teams of four horses, and the drivers were allowed to strike at each other with their whips, or even force their opponents into the 'Spina', a row of statues and monuments in the centre of the track. Forcing another driver to crash, injuring or even killing himself and his horses in the process, was considered a great trick. 

Emperor Justinian I and his court

As if that wasn't enough, Roman citizens used to enter the arena with bags of heavy lead amulets covered in spikes and engraved with the names of drivers they particularly hated. During races they would throw the amulets at the object of their passion, hoping to smash his skull (for this reason, drivers wore helmets) or at least distract him enough to veer off the track. Romans also created wax dolls - like voodoo dolls - of unpopular drivers and stuck nails and pins into them before a race, hoping they would meet with bad fortune. 

By the time of my story, Constantinople was sports-mad, and the contending passions of the Blue and Green faction was beginning to infect every aspect of city life and government. The atmosphere inside the city was volatile. Thrown into the melting pot were high taxes, an unpopular Emperor and a not very successful war in the East against the Sassanid Persians. The imperial city was ready to blow, and just needed one match to light the explosion...

Caesar's Sword

Arthur's (other) children

 King Arthur and Sir Mordred duel to the death at Camlann

Many with a passing knowledge of the Arthurian legend will be aware that Arthur is finally betrayed and killed by his own son, Sir Mordred, at the Battle of Camlann, thus closing the circle of treachery and incest that began when Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon, betrayed Duke Gorlois and slept with his wife Igraine (it's a cheerful tale). 

Mordred is usually portrayed in modern versions of the legend as Arthur's only son, the product of an unfortunate one-night stand with his own half-sister, Morgana. Dig a little deeper into other versions of the legend, and you will find that Arthur sired many more children. One of them, the strangely-named Sir Borre le Cure Hardy, appears briefly in Malory's La Morte D'Arthur as the result of another of Arthur's illicit unions, this time with an earl's daughter named Sanam. The horny young monarch 'had ado with her', apparently, and the result was Borre. He grew to be a 'good knight', but not so good as to be mentioned more than twice in the whole of Malory's very long tale.   

The 'Twrch Trwyth', a savage and gigantic boar hunted by Arthur's warriors

Switching to the Welsh tales, we find that Arthur has three sons: Gwydre, Amhar and Llacheu. All three come to sticky ends. Gwydre is slaughtered by the monstrous wild boar, the 'Twrch Trwyth', along with two of Arthur's maternal uncles. Llacheu is killed at the Battle of Llongborth, as recounted by the following stanza (translated from the Welsh):

"I was there where Llacheu fell,

Arthur's son renowned in song,

When ravens flocked on the gore..."

In later legend Llacheu appears as Sir Loholt, and is treacherously slain by the envious Sir Kay. 

Amhar is possibly the most interesting of the three, for he is slain by none other than Arthur, his own father. Nennius says the following in  the Historia Brittonum (written c.800AD):

“There is another wonder in the country called Ergyng. There is a tomb there by a spring, called Llygad Amhar; the name of the man buried in the tomb was Amhar. He was the son of the warrior Arthur, who killed him there and buried him.”

Incredibly, no explanation is given why Arthur killed his own son. Fertile ground for fiction here, and from this seed was born the idea for my latest book, "Caesar's Sword." I provide my own explanation for Amhar's death, as described by his son and Arthur's grandson, Coel. 

Coel has an extremely hard time of it. After the tragedy of Camlann he and his mother are forced to flee to the Continent, and from hence to Constantinople and the Eastern Empire...

I should say a big 'thank you' to Tyler Tichelaar for his fantastic book, "King Arthur's Children", which provides lots of eye-opening information about the tangled history of Arthur and his offpsring through the ages. 

Work in progress

I want to talk a little about my latest book, which I am in the last stages of editing and revising. I posted a short preview of it on here a few weeks ago, and thought it was time for something more meaty.

The working title is "Caesar's Sword: The Red Death" and the story is set outside my usual medieval timeframe. I wanted to stretch my wings a little and try to write something set during the Late Roman era. The Roman Empire is a popular subject in fiction these days, but most writers tend to stick to the 'classical' era of the first and second centuries AD. I thought it worth having a go at writing a tale set during the reign of Justinian I (527-565).

The Ravenna mosaic, showing Emperor Justinian I and his court

Justinian's reign was, to put it mildly, a dramatic one. By this time the Empire had split in half and most of the Western Empire had been conquered by various 'barbaric' peoples. The last Emperor of the West, Romulus Augustus, had been deposed and packed off into exile in 476. However, the Eastern half of the Empire, including Asia Minor and the vital breadbasket of Egypt, was still intact and ruled from Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul). It was threatened by enemies on all sides, and Justinian inherited a realm that was beginning to crumble under the relentless pressure.

Hero-worship is unfashionable these days, especially in the study of history, but it does seem that the Empire was saved, and to some extent restored, by the actions of one man. This was Flavius Belisarius, a brilliant general whom Justinian employed as a sort of firefighter, sending him to one trouble-spot after another. Belisarius was a complex and tragic figure, and a superb character to portray in fiction.

Belisarius begging for alms on the streets of Constantinople

I prefer to keep famous historical characters in supporting roles, because essentially there is nothing unpredictable about their fate: the details of their lives and careers are known, and cannot be changed to any great extent. So Belisarius and Justinian and the rest of the glittering imperial court had to be happy with playing second fiddle to my main character.

This is Coel ap Amhar ap Arthur, grandson of 'King' Arthur, or rather the Dux Bellorum who defeated the Saxons at Mount Badon and protected Britain against barbarian invasions for over twenty-one years. At the beginning of my story Arthur is dead or vanished, his armies smashed at the Battle of Camlann, where the arch-traitor Medrauat was also killed.

Arthur's son and Coel's father, Amhar, is a curious figure mentioned only briefly in Welsh legend:

“There is another wonder in the country called Ergyng. There is a tomb there by a spring, called Llygad Amhar; the name of the man buried in the tomb was Amhar. He was the son of the warrior Arthur, who killed him there and buried him.”
- The Historia Brittonum 

Why Arthur has killed his own son is not explained. I thought there was something delightfully dark and mysterious about Amhar's fate, and decided to provide my own explanation in the novel.

So what does a British warrior-prince and a descendent of Arthur have to do with the later Roman Empire? And what's all this about "Caesar's Sword"?? Stay tuned to find out....