Monday, October 30, 2006

A Gothic Weekend

We, the elect eighteen, sat about a great table and spoke of the reshaping of Europe at the hands of Scandanvia. Gotland and Borgholm giving us Beowulf the Goth and Sigurd the Volsung. We watch a Christian heresy bring about the Fall of Rome rather than the Truth. And because of Euric the Visigoth in Spain, Emperor Anthemius calls on Riotimus the Briton. Is Riotimus Arthur? He is last seen at Avallon. And was Constantine III the usurper really the father of Uther Pendragon?
And then came victuals.
And then the Sagas... and cigars...and single malt... in my library.
Some would call it a good time. Still others would say that mankind was never meant to sustain such bliss this side of Ragnarok. We did. So there.

1 comment:

Evan B. Wilson said...

Jordanes, The Origin and Deeds of the Goths:

(XLV.237) Now Euric, king of the Visigoths, perceived the frequent change of Roman Emperors and strove to hold Gaul by his own right. The Emperor Anthemius heard of it and asked the Brittones for aid. Their King Riotimus came with twelve thousand men into the state of the Bituriges by the way of Ocean, and was received as he disembarked from his ships. (238) Euric, king of the Visigoths, came against them with an innumerable army, and after a long fight he routed Riotimus, king of the Brittones, before the Romans could join him. So when he had lost a great part of his army, he fled with all the men he could gather together, and came to the Burgundians, a neighboring tribe then allied to the Romans. But Euric, king of the Visigoths, seized the Gallic city of Arverna; for the Emperor Anthemius was now dead.

Also Sidonius Apollinaris wrote this Riotimus a letter which is still extant.

For beginnings on Constantine try Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, book two:9
This Roman officer stantioned in Britain matches the Arthurian legend of Constantine, father of Uther Pendragon. Both accountings have him having another son named Constans