Catumandus prefaces his Arthuriad with the above brief dedication, hitherto obscure but recently revealed by multispectral imaging. The restored text is in an uncial book hand typical of the early 6th Century AD. It is addressed to a certain Ioannes who is adulated as diligent and as understanding, more than most men, the nature of the Eternal. This man is most likely to have been Ioannes Grammaticus, better known as Philiponus, a remarkable Neoplatonist thinker whose speculations anticipated Gelileo's refutation of some of Aristotle's theories concerning the physical universe, and in particular his Dynamics, by a thousand years. All of which casts an interesting light on the society in which Catumandus lived in his latter years in Alexandria.
Part I
Full Text
The Inspiration of Myrddin
I do not fear to write to you of epic deeds in a barbaric land, most diligent Ioannes, you who more than all others understands the nature of the eternal for, as the tragic poet sings, “A chaste woman is not corrupted by dancing.”
Know then that Britain still has men of letters: priests - who write what suits the Church. She has bards: liars - who praise tyrants to earn their keep. And she has minstrels - who sing the songs of the people; in them you will hear of Arthur if you know the British tongue, but in no clear way. Already the Britons confound him with their old gods; he is a divine hero who rides about the earth, and sometimes beneath it; he is a god who will return, as gods tend to when men need them. What would the world know of Arthur if it had to rely on such tales?
My opening is in the style of Gildas, a priest I met many years ago in Britain at the court of one of its tyrants. Ironic that; for Gildas, like his pious brothers, while prating of love and repentance, was anxious that the memory of Arthur should perish from the face of the earth - so great was the Church's hatred of him. I, on the other hand, want to make sure that the fame of Arthur survives, not in some garbled way amidst a heap of fable and nonsense, but as it actually was. Yet how should the story be told? My subject is no ordinary one. As an epic maybe? Yes, Arthur was grand enough for that. Unhappily, the land he fought for was not. Epics are written to set the seal upon an age. When I left Britain no grandeur lay ahead. Its people, basking in the evening peace Arthur had bequeathed, did nothing to make sure the days to come would be worthy of him.
Perhaps Gildas would be the proper person to write of Arthur, if he had the inclination. He has the right tone, breathless and passionate and somehow fragmented, which is what the nature of the Britons demands. They are brave, yet fail to grasp victory; they love, then destroy what they desire; they dream, but never distil reality from the magic. They are anarchic, are born to lose, yet in losing glimpse the reason for their existence. How can I, seated in my study in the clear light of Alexandria, tell of them as they are? No wonder I craved for the voice of Gildas to speed me on my way.
Despite that, I shall not write like him; I am an Alexandrian and Greek in outlook, though not of the modern kind. My allegiance is still to philosophy and, if we must revere the divine, to the old gods. There are not so many of my sort left in the cities of the Empire, though enough to provide a slender audience for my work. To them I shall speak of Arthur and Britain describing what I witnessed or learned from others in the voice of reason without hinting at a purposeful hand. And if I do not call on the other Pierian Nymphs of song, it is not to misprize them, but because, in this age of confusion, I need only you Clio, stern Muse of History, to help me in my task.
In our time, the Britons have saved themselves by their own efforts from total conquest by the German tribes; alone in the West they have escaped the fate that even Rome has suffered. How many people know it was Arthur who was finally responsible for this stupendous achievement - Arthur, whose nobility is the theme of this history? Nevertheless, I am not erecting a tall column on which nothing will be engraved save scenes of victory. What is more, my pillar must stand uncapped, though around it there will twine delicate creepers giving it beauty with sudden splashes of red and purple - tender flowers doomed to a short life. For the sad truth is that had Arthur's success been complete there would have been no need for me to write at all. By the Severn or the Thames a city would have been restored; someone would have become Britain's Caesar, sending embassies to Ravenna, to Constantinople, to renew the imperial links. Arthur's name would have resounded throughout the Empire. As it is there is only myself to tell of him in the language of Hellas, to save his name from oblivion.
All the same, I begin with certain misgivings. Alexandrian in clarity my mind might be but my heart has always been drawn towards Britain; naturally so, for I am the son of Arthur and my mother and stepfather were both of high British lineage. Yet because my childhood was often far from happy, I had grown used to conjuring up in my imagination a Britain from which all discontent was banished, a dream world in which I could take refuge, but a world so unlike the land I found that even now, when I write my memories of Britain, I still fear my words may be distorted by that dream.
If then my Britain stands in doubt, what of my Arthur? For as surely as I sought an ideal in Britain, so my journey there to find him had the same purpose, though there the resemblance ends. In Arthur I found something greater than my dream - or so I believe, so I believe. Thus the question is bound to remain in the reader's mind: did I describe the true Arthur or was I, to the very end, trapped in my own longing for what my father should be? That longing started when I was no more than ten years old and living in the place of my birth, a villa on a vast estate west of Lugdunum in that part of Gaul ruled by the Burgundian king. It was then I discovered that my father was not my mother's cantankerous old husband the rich Briton in exile Publius Clodius Bellator.
It is still difficult for me to speak about Clodius with detachment, even though I am well over sixty. As a child I hated him, though in retrospect I cannot say that he was ever cruel to me. On the contrary in many respects, my education for example, he was most conscientious. Nor did I lack anything a child of wealthy parents might expect - except a father's love. No. The real cause of my hatred was firmly rooted in his treatment of my mother Elissa; a principal pleasure of his life lay in seeing how deeply he could hurt her. Her pain became part of my own young life.
One day, after Clodius had further humiliated her by giving charge of the household to a remote cousin of his, a real old harridan, from amidst her tears Elissa blurted out that Clodius was no father of mine. Distraught she drew me towards her. "Do you think that Clodius could produce such a fine boy - even with my help? Oh no. Your real father isn't bloodless and cold. He's like a god Cadfan." She paused to see how I was taking it. "He's the greatest warrior on earth."
I stared at her, my eyes wide, my brain in a whirl, as though it was going to suck both me and my thoughts into some other world. Amidst my confusion arose a great delight; I felt like a slave unexpectedly given his freedom. "Tell me mother. Tell me about him. Tell me about my father."
What she knew was limited: long ago and as early as sunrise he had ridden up with a band of warriors, clattering over the paving stones and under the very portico of Clodius' great villa, seeking fresh horses, new weapons and supplies of food. Of course, to her he had been no suppliant but a young Aeneas, proud in gait, expert in arms and celestial in origin. Had she not heard him sternly admonishing her husband, he who had skipped from his homeland to save his skin, that it was his duty to help the beleaguered army of Britons and its wounded leader, the noble Ambrosius Aurelianus. However, my mother knew little else of the circumstances of the war and it was to be a long time before I found them out for myself. For she remembered my father only as a lover - it had been easy, nor I suspect had she been unwilling, to betray Clodius - but of that she refused to say very much. But once she told me, most bitterly, of her young god's deafness to her entreaties that he should stay a while longer. More important to me and to my great delight, she always insisted that he still battled on in distant Britain and was famous for his victories. She told me his name was Artorius, in British - Arth, a bear. Secretly then I adored the dreadful strength of the bear; in many a boyhood fight I was as vicious as a bear. I even dreamed of bears. Childish no doubt, but the beginning of my search for Arthur.
Now since my charitable Christian enemies, of whom there are not a few in Alexandria, like to scoff at my claims to be the son of a hero, even a British hero, let me briefly interrupt my narrative to reveal the awful turmoil in Gaul when Arthur was fighting there, three score years ago. I can think of no better way of doing so than by quoting in its original Latin, turgid though it may seem, from an official paper now in my possession.
In the fourteenth year of the Emperor Leo in Constantinople, Anthemius was Emperor of the West. Like other of the last western emperors he struggled to retain some authority over his imperium. Britain had for long been told to look to its own defences; Africa, despite immense efforts to recapture it, remained in the hands of the Vandals, and Spain was ruled by the Visigothic King Euric, a ruthless man who was ambitious to add Gaul to his dominions. Yet some forces in Gaul retained their connection with Rome: the Burgundians were loyal and, in the north, Syagrius maintained the imperial authority. In the west, Armorica was free and had become a refuge for many Britons. These newcomers kept in close contact with their native land where determined resistance to the Saxons had for some time been organized by Ambrosius Aurelianus, a tenacious man recognized by the tyrants of the British states as the highest among them, the Riotamus - the Great King. Anthemius, hearing of the British leader's stern devotion to everything Roman, commanded him to collaborate with Syagrius in Gaul against King Euric.
Ambrosius responded to the last call from Rome with enthusiasm, though out of self interest as much as loyalty. For despite all his efforts he had never been able to dislodge the Saxons from the south east coast of Britain as the heathens were able to dominate both sides of the channel with their solidly constructed boats which could swiftly move their forces hither and thither to harass their enemies. Now, he saw the very real possibility that, once the control of Rome had been fully established again in Gaul, the Saxons might be destroyed by simultaneous attack from the British and the Gaulish sides.
Enthusiasm seized the Gauls when the Riotamus of Britain arrived; he had saved the Britons and now he would save them. Everywhere, he was acclaimed, but particularly by the townsfolk who were Catholic - King Euric was an arian heretic of the most fanatical kind. The Riotamus was thus associated both with the dignity of the Empire and with religious orthodoxy. However, where politics are concerned, mundane issues sometimes obscure those of faith and authority. In Gaul lived many Britons who had fled in terror of the heathen Saxons from the richer parts of their island. Some, who had owned property, had actually brought their title deeds with them having never given up hope of recovering their lost wealth. P. Clodius Bellator, the man whom the former Imperial Envoy Catumandus was accustomed in his youth to address as father, was one of them. Such people awaited the outcome of the struggle with both hope and apprehension.
Ambrosius crossed the Loire with his army; spirits were high though in a manner not altogether satisfactory to the local inhabitants whom the Britons despised for not preserving their liberty as Britain had done. Moreover, Ambrosius was no longer moving with confidence on his own carefully nurtured territory and some of his mood was transmitted to his troops who could not let the opportunity slip of stealing goods and even seizing some of the local slaves for themselves; all of which alienated the people. By the time King Euric's great force of Visigoths fell upon him, Ambrosius had become dangerously indecisive, the more so as the army promised by Syagrius had failed to turn up. Though the Britons fought well and long, they were defeated with great slaughter, Ambrosius himself being seriously wounded. In disarray his broken force struggled towards the hilly land east of the Loire.
In the midst of this disaster, the shaken army turned to one of Ambrosius' finest lieutenants, Artorius. Before he had come to Gaul, this warrior, though barely a man, had won renown for his bravery; now, his skill as a leader had been fully revealed for he and his companions had been the cause of a dramatic escape from King Euric's savagery: at one point in the retreat they had turned in fury and charged down a narrow defile between two arms of a forest so that for a while the Visigoths were put to flight. Artorius, the soldiers believed, could get them back home.
Once in the safety of the hills he re-organised the men, assigned them to the remaining officers and enforced discipline. The most urgent issue facing him was how to get horses and supplies, for the enthusiasm of the Gauls for Ambrosius had finally vanished with his failure. Artorius knew he must turn for help to any Britons of substance living in the vicinity, which brought him to the great estate of P. Clodius Bellator. Here he sired that idolator from birth Catumandus, ever a son of lust, when he offended against the law of God and the decencies of hospitality by bedding his host's wife. Ignorant of this or, more likely, indifferent to it, P. Clodius Bellator nevertheless provided him with what was needed to start the hazardous retreat across Gaul. This task Artorius proceeded to accomplish with ruthlessness yet so brilliantly that, in course of time, the Britons spoke of his flight to the coast, his seizure of all manner of small boats and the perilous journey over the ocean to Britain as though it had been a veritable conquest of Gaul. Such is their vanity.
At length I stopped pestering my mother for more details of Arthur; she had obviously begun to invent stories about him, just to please me. She must have been among the first in the long line of people who were to embroider on his name. Her descriptions of his armour, of his horses, of mighty Gwenwynwyn his chief companion and the other warriors who had come to our estate, became increasingly inconsistent. The only constants were his stature and his beauty. But as I grew more mature and observed how easily people in love can see their loved ones quite differently from the rest of the world, I even began to doubt what she said on that. One summer evening after coming home from hiding in the bushes near the swift flowing river to watch two of our slaves making love - the girl was married to another man - I sat silently awhile thinking about the matter. Suddenly I said to my mother, "But how did you see Arthur - with Clodius around?"
She blushed, perhaps realising that the fullness of what she had done was only just dawning on me. "Well Cadfan, Clodius was very busy - arranging Arthur's supplies. Very busy. He wanted Arthur to promise to speak to the Riotamus about his property in Britain. So he did everything he could to see that the Britons lacked for nothing."
"Did you go into the woods with him then?"
"Yes, we - be off with you and don't be so nosey."
After that I often found myself thinking about Clodius. Now I knew who I was, he no longer frightened me as before. If it came to it, I Catumandus, son of Arcturus, offspring of Zeus and the Great She Bear Callisto, could master the likes of earthly Clodius. On the other hand the change in me made it easier for us to become friendly. Indeed, I gradually became so adept at conversing with him and drawing him out that he must have thought I really loved him. Certainly it was rewarding to talk to him and my interest in him grew apace; what went on in that head of his, behind that morose countenance? What faults were masked by that pomposity? Yet he was far from ugly. Had my mother once desired him? The last thought worried me, for someone had told me that one of the slave girls had had a child fathered by two men. I went to see it; a number of women were sitting in the room with its mother. One of them said, "Oh yes, he's got Sulpicius' nose and that's Clement's mouth isn't it?" I peered closely at little Varius; he just looked generally horrid to me. The possibility that I might be partly Clodius' son disturbed me. I was still very ignorant.
This defect was remedied in my twelfth year when Clodius procured an excellent teacher for me, a Syrian slave called Posidonius, a former professor at Burdigala, where he had committed some crime for which he had been sold into slavery. No one knew what it was and Clodius never asked questions - if he had got a good bargain. Until then my languages had been Latin and the old British our household sometimes used - since Clodius had brought a number of Britons to Gaul, some of whom knew no Latin, I spoke British quite well. With the advent of Posidonius, I began to master Greek. He was a brilliant teacher, inflamed with enthusiasm for Hellas. Gradually, like a gnawing ant he worked through my mind, devouring the rubbish that was there and preparing it as a dwelling place for the ancient writers who now give me so much joy. He also, very subtly, stirred up doubt in my mind about the Christian religion in which I had, as a matter of course, been brought up. Offhandedly he let drop such facts as that the Orphics and the Mithraists had had eucharists and resurrections and that many another god had died to save men. Christianity to him was no more than a concoction of essences boiled from pagan beliefs and its alleged founder a myth - unless the name of some condemned zealot had been cast into the brew. He was careful to see that I read only the most tedious Christian tracts, then took delight in sneering at their poor Latin. Such was his scepticism that he despised all tradition and believed in nothing save what was set down in a reliable source of which, it seemed, there were mighty few. Our relationship became increasingly conspiratorial. During one lesson he furtively brought out a worn copy of Ovid's Art of Love, which we read on a hillside overlooking the villa. Later he showed off his knowledge of some bawdy poems in Gallic Latin, all with jingly rhyming endings and not at all like the sonorous measure of Ovid. One day he took along with us a pretty slave girl - ostensibly to cook our food. Under his prurient eyes she taught me, though not in so polished a manner, what Ovid's poems teach in verse. It was then that I first learned I could rut as lustily as anyone. On the way home he gave me a severe talking to: what he had arranged had been necessary to stop me falling further into the unseemly practices he knew I indulged in with other boys. A few days later, when he himself wanted to indulge in the said practices with me, I repulsed his garlic stinking mouth with my hand and said I had taken the lesson he had taught me to heart. However, our frankness on such matters made it possible for me to put the great question that was still worrying me to him. He roared with laughter. "Two fathers. What rubbish. I'll look up what Hippocrates says about the matter to prove it to you." Then he put his head close to mine. "We slaves know everything that goes on, you know. I've picked up a thing or two from the others since I've been here. Do you want to know why Clodius is so vile to your mother? Not because she slept with mighty Arthur. Oh, everyone knows you're his son." Posidonius' voice fell to a whisper. "Clodius has been like that since they were married. It started on their wedding night. He couldn't get it up at all. That's why he takes it out on her."
Though the young seldom show much sympathy for their elders, when I heard that about Clodius, I felt sorry for him. Others might laugh at him - behind his back; I redoubled my efforts to learn from him and maybe understand him. I might almost have come to like him had he not, when my mind was still tender, told me something that was truly in fearful contrast with the grandeur of Arthur. A balmy day had tempted us into sauntering together through our vineyards. The topic on which he had started to hold forth was his favourite - the halcyon days of his youth in Britain, before the revolt of the Saxon mercenaries who were widely employed as soldiers and guards. Then, the paramount chief in the land and the leader of those who wanted Britain to remain separate from the Empire was Vitalis who bore the grandiloquent title of Supernal Tyrant - Vortigern in British. "This wily man," Clodius said, "brought in more Saxons, ostensibly to protect us against the Picts and the Irish. And that they did for many a prosperous year. Yet if the Britons had been rallied to stand firm against the porridge eaters, they could have defended themselves. No." On that syllable Clodius' voice became stentorian and he frowned at the heavy bunches of grapes before him. "Vortigern needed foreign mercenaries because the magnates in the west of Britain, organized by Ambrosius' father, wanted him and all he stood for overthrown and the light of Rome to return." Clodius sighed deeply, then asked me, "Now boy. Explain why Vortigern gave Tanatus Island to Hengest and his Saxons. Can you?"
He had told me it all many times before: on Tanatus Hengest would be nicely placed either to come to Vortigern's aid in London or to block any invasion from Gaul by the Roman field army. So I answered his stale question not just glibly but with a hint of insolence in my voice.
He looked at me quizzically as if saying to himself, 'Oh, know it all do we?' Then, in the middle of our peripatetic history lesson, and with more than a hint of mockery in his voice, he said, "Some people made a big profit out of Britain's independence, and I was one of them. Rome's taxes had vanished with her officials; harvests were good and so was business. I was young but smart enough to persuade Vortigern to sell me the right of raising the supplies for Hengest's mercenaries." Clodius began to maul my neck with one of his large hands. "Cadfan, I'll give you the best bit of knowledge in the world: look after your money, and your money will look after you." I eased myself politely from his grip. "Not that the Britons had much money to use by then; all barter it was. Well my boy, I'd soon worked out how to levy heavier supplies on the country folk than were needed and, easier still, how to give the Saxons short measure. Still, Hengest wasn't the blockhead he looked. For one thing, he'd had the cunning to plant a spy on Vortigern as an interpreter - a smooth faced, silver tongued Briton no older than you, called Ceretic. Never trust a handsome boy Cadfan. No, never trust a handsome boy," he repeated grimly as though recalling some even more unpleasant incident in his life. "Hengest and I were both betrayed by him. What a fly one; he'd picked up Saxon from the mercenaries on his father's estate. A real fly one. Well, he found out what I was up to and put in his bill. Oh I paid it; initiative should be rewarded. A fine sword I gave him and some gold. Anyway, the Saxons finally saw they were getting a raw deal and were rearing to revolt. Now, believe it or not: just before the beasts broke out, Ceretic gave me the tip off; he was actually grateful. So without breathing a word to a soul I made for Gaul, with as much of the family treasure as I could. No futile heroics for Clodius. I knew Woden and Christ could never mix." Then, as casually as saying he had left the cat behind, he added that his elder brother Gwyrangon, Tyrant of the Cantiaci and the owner of both our British and Gaulish estates, was caught in the buff in his bath house and roasted alive in its furnace. Betrayal then, of Vortigern, of the Saxons and of his own family, was the foundation of Clodius' fortune.