Reader Question Day #37 – the Tervingi, authorial inspiration, and SOUL OF SORCERY
Writers are often asked where they get their ideas. There are as many answers to that question as there are writers, but today I’m going to tell you where I got the idea for SOUL OF SORCERY.
Short answer: the idea for SOUL OF SORCERY came from the Battle of Adrianople, which took place on August 9th, 378 AD.
Now here’s the longer answer.
In 376 AD, a band of Gothic barbarians the Romans called the Thervingi turned up at the borders of the Eastern Roman Empire. Unlike previous Gothic incursions, the Thervingi had not come to raid the Empire. Rather, they wanted to settle in the Empire. You see, this new group of Asiatic nomads called the Huns had begun conquering eastern Europe, The barbarian groups already living in eastern Europe found they could either submit to the Huns as their new rulers, or flee to the west. The Thervingi opted to flee to the west, and petitioned the Emperor for permission to settle inside the Roman Empire.
The Eastern Roman Emperor at the time, a man named Valens, thought this was an excellent idea. It had in fact been common for some time for the emperors to settle defeated barbarian groups inside the Empire. The defeated barbarians provided troops and taxes for the imperial army and treasury, and eventually lost their culture, becoming as Roman as their conquerors. All these Thervingi barbarians turning up on the Empire’s doorstep was a gift out of the blue, and Valens ordered his officials to settle the Thervingi in the Empire and give them lands south of the Danube River. Meanwhile, Valens turned his attention to what he really wanted to do – a war with the Sassanid Empire in the east.
There was a problem, though. There were a lot of Thervingi. Way, way more than had ever been settled in the Empire before. Very quickly there was not enough food to feed them all, and it did not help that Valens’ officials were both a.) corrupt, and b.) stupid. One of the Roman officials decided to solve the problem by assassinating the Thervingi leadership during an official banquet. The Thervingi leaders escaped, and the barbarians revolted. Very quickly they looted most of the countryside in the Roman Balkans, and other barbarian groups crossed the Danube to join them.
Valens’ lieutenants proved incapable of dealing with the barbarians, and lost several battles to the Thervingi. Finally Valens had to make peace with the Sassanids, gather most of the Eastern Roman army, and march to deal with the Thervingi himself. He arrived in Greece in the summer of 378 AD, and decided to wait for reinforcements from his nephew Gratian, who was currently Western Roman Emperor.
Except Valens was jealous of his nephew’s prestige (Gratian had won several victories over barbarians in the west), and decided to claim all the glory for himself. He marched out and caught the Thervingi outside of Adrianople on August 9th, 378 AD. Neither the Thervingi nor the Emperor wanted a battle. Valens wanted to cow the Thervingi back into submission. The Thervingi wanted their treaty with the Empire and lands for themselves within the Empire’s borders.
So Valens and the Thervingi negotiated for most of the day, while Valens’ exhausted troops stood in the August sun. The Thervingi had also set some of the surrounding fields on fire so the smoke blew into the irritated soldiers’ faces. Finally a unit of Roman troops lost patience and attacked the Thervingi, and a moment later the entire Roman force attacked the Thervingi. The Romans were better equipped and better disciplined, but the Thervingi infantry managed to hold them off, if only barely.
And then it all fell apart. The Thervingi cavalry had been away foraging for supplies, and they returned to find the Roman army assaulting the Thervingi infantry. The horsemen promptly charged into the fray and hit the Romans from behind. Exhausted and demoralized, the Roman army collapsed in a rout, and the Thervingi pursued and killed as many of the troops as they could manage. Valens himself was killed in the collapse, and his body was never found. (One account says he was wounded and taken to a cottage. The rampaging Thervingi burned down the cottage, never realizing they could have captured a Roman Emperor alive.)
By the next day Valens was dead and about two-thirds of the Eastern Roman army had been destroyed. It was the worst defeat the Empire had suffered in nearly a hundred and twenty years. The Thervingi could not follow up on their victory (they had no siege equipment, and so could not take fortified cities), but it still took the Empire another four years to subdue the Thervingi. And when they did, the Thervingi submitted on favorable terms – they kept a large chunk of the lands they had taken in the Balkans, and remained essentially an autonomous subject nation within the Empire’s borders. Thirty years later, these Thervingi would form the core of Alaric’s Visigoths, who would sack Rome itself in 410 AD, and found a kingdom in Spain that would last until the Muslim conquest in 710 AD.
So, if you’ve read SOUL OF SORCERY, you can see where I got the inspiration for the Tervingi and their predicament in the book. Granted, the real Thervingi and the fictional Tervingi are very different, and what happens to the Tervingi in SOUL OF SORCERY is not at all like what happened to the historical Thervingi. But the root of the idea for SOUL OF SORCERY – a barbarian tribe desperately trying to get away from terrible enemy – had its genesis there.
For additional reading, my favorite book on the Battle of Adrianople is THE DAY OF THE BARBARIANS by Alessandro Barbero, and my favorite book on the late Roman Empire is Peter Heather’s THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE: A NEW HISTORY OF ROME AND THE BARBARIANS.
-JM
Nice use of history Jon!
The battle of Adrianople was a sad day in the Roman Empire’s history. Bad decisions and bad leadership combined are disastrous enough, but this was a situation where a heavy dose of ill fortune befell the Romans, on top of everything else. I can only imagine the horror the eastern Romans must have felt when they learned their Emperor was dead and most of their army had been wiped off the map!
As for the books you recommended, I’ve never read them, but I think I’m going to check them, especially the later one, by Heather.
I’m a bit skeptical when looking for a history book that deals with the Roman or medieval time period. And there is good reason for this. “Enlightenment” bias I’ll call it (and by bias I mean distortion). Despite what Edward Gibbons may have done well, his account of Rome was flawed, very flawed. Both his nasty anti-christian views (in which he blamed the enite fall of the Empire on religion, especially Christianity, and lets not forget about the whole Hypatia affair, another thing Gibbons took MASSIVE liberties with) and his enlightenment propaganda. Gibbons even tries to cast the Romans as a proto-“enlightenment” people! Gibbons was a mythmaker of grand proprotions, he is one of the founding fathers of the ‘science vs religion’ meme that still haunts us today. Thankfully these odious views don’t taint the field much anymore (the history field that is), but never the less many pop historians still like to use them. Hence why I’m cautious. The stuff you pointed out don’t seem to be hampered by those, at least not Heather’s book! So…thanks!
The medieval period suffers much of the same “enlightened” smears, or used to anyway. Ever since the dawn of the 20th century, medieval scholarship has really improved, greatly so! Most of the old bunk is now overturned, but again this is where pop historians screw things up! Alot of them like to hold to old (and wrong) notions that the medieval period was an age of darkness, superstition, backwardness, and evil! Such is of course not true, but tell that to the pop scholars! I guess their books sell better if they cast the period as the historical version of Game of Thrones. *Sigh*
Since we are on the subject: roughly, what time period does your Demonsouled series take place in? Or at least where did you intend to set it.
I know it’s a medieval fantasy, of course! But you have elements in DS from here and there, some from the high middle ages, others the “dark” ages, and others still from the roman era! For example, take the Tervingi, which you pull from Roman era, mixed right alongside with high era chivalric knighthood! An interesting blend indeed! Did you have a time period (outside a general medieval feel) that you were going with?
“I can only imagine the horror the eastern Romans must have felt when they learned their Emperor was dead and most of their army had been wiped off the map!”
Well, Valens was Arian, so I imagine at least some of the Nicene bishops were pleased. 🙂 But I think Alaric’s sack of Rome thirty years later was a bigger psychic shock to the Empire (Augustine wrote CITY OF GOD in response to it, for instance). Of course, the Battle of Adrianople was a necessary precondition for the sack, since the Thervingi eventually formed the core group in Alaric’s Visigothic coalition.
“I’m a bit skeptical when looking for a history book that deals with the Roman or medieval time period.”
Heather’s book is pretty good, and so is another one, HOW ROME FELL, by Adrian Goldsworthy. Both openly scoff at the idea that Christianity caused the fall of the Empire. Which makes sense, since Christian emperors waged war just as readily as the pagan ones did – they viewed themselves as imposing divine order on chaotic barbarians, but as Christ’s lieutenants on Earth, instead of the divine spirit of Roman destiny. Heather thinks it was the strain of dealing with the barbarians that caused Rome to fall, and Goldsworthy the Empire’s internal problems.
“Since we are on the subject: roughly, what time period does your Demonsouled series take place in?”
I would say that it has the closest resemblance to late Carolingian/early Capetian France, when the powerful lords did pretty much as they pleased and ignored the king unless he happened to get in their way. That explains why Lord Richard Mandragon and Lord Malden Roland can pretty much make their own foreign policy without regard to a king. In fact, the realm in DEMONSOULED doesn’t even have a king (a potential plot point for future books)
“Well, Valens was Arian, so I imagine at least some of the Nicene bishops were pleased.”
Actually your probably right 😉
I remember when I first learned about the Arian takeover of the Empire and their persecution of the Orthodox, I was really blown away by it! Public schooling, history programs on TV, even historical sim video games, none of them ever mentioned this. They portrayed the late Roman Empire as one where the Christians eventually converted the majority of citizens, then began persecuting the remaining pagans, then Rome fell. End of story.
Ha! So much for that!
Once I began to study on my own (years before I went to college), I realized what a simple picture of Rome had been painted for me, the true story was much more complex.
“But I think Alaric’s sack of Rome thirty years later was a bigger psychic shock to the Empire”
Oh, no doubt! My suggestion of Rome’s horror at the battle of Adrianople was not intended to take away from Alaric sack of Rome. That indeed had to have been one of the great shockers in the Empire’s history.
“Which makes sense, since Christian emperors waged war just as readily as the pagan ones did”
Yes, they certainly did. Which makes you wonder at some of the old theories. I remember being taught in School that some people thought the Roman Empire collapsed because of Christians not wanting to be soldiers and fight for the Empire, (because they believed killing was wrong, hence why they avoided military duties). *Sigh*
“they viewed themselves as imposing divine order on chaotic barbarians,”
Yes, which is why during the “dark ages” the Popes supported anyone willing to make order from all the barbarian chaos that engulfed western europe. Anyone imposing order, even tyrants, were seen as doing the will of God. Pretty interesting stuff!
“I would say that it has the closest resemblance to late Carolingian/early Capetian France”
Ah, you know your time periods! 🙂
I find that pretty cool that you do, the farthest most people get is “high” and “low” and “late”, they don’t usually know more specific names! Then again you were a history major, I’m glad you’ve remembered your stuff! 🙂
Any particular reason you set DS during this period, or was it an unintentional thing?
And one more thing: seeing as how you like to use history, rather than myth, to influence your writing, and seeing as how you do go out of your way to craft a medieval world…why some of the anarchronisms? I’ve been meaning to ask you that. Things like warrior women, for example. Granted that is standard fantasy stuff these days, and alot of your tales have strong female leads. I’m sure it’s not for feminist reasons! 😉 Is it just something you like doing? I don’t mean this in a negative sense either! Were there female warriors in the past, sure. It was rare though. How about the Middle ages (and renaissance)…actually yes! There were even a few generals that were female, rare of course, but still…. So it’s not a trope totally without merit, but…but I’ve never had a chance to ask an author why they like this trope so much!
“Once I began to study on my own (years before I went to college), I realized what a simple picture of Rome had been painted for me, the true story was much more complex.”
The Roman Empire was an extremely complicated society, and the Rome of Augustus was as different as the Rome of 376 AD is the United States of George Washington is as different as the US of 2012 AD. Plus, this complex society is not all that well documented, so there’s lots of room for people to rearrange the facts to suit whatever theory they want to pursue.
“I remember being taught in School that some people thought the Roman Empire collapsed because of Christians not wanting to be soldiers and fight for the Empire.”
Nah. People didn’t want to be in the army because being in the army was a crappy job. (Hence the emperors constantly recruiting barbarians into the army.) And while some of the Christians of Late Antiquity may have been pacifistic, these were generally not the Christians in the army or the imperial bureaucracy.
“Any particular reason you set DS during this period, or was it an unintentional thing?”
For the first book, it was unintentional. By the time I got to SOUL OF TYRANTS, I needed to think about the setting a bit more seriously, so I settled on “late Carolingian France” as how the society worked. This will definitely come into play in the sixth book, which will have San-keth worshiping Vikings showing up. 🙂
“And one more thing: seeing as how you like to use history, rather than myth, to influence your writing, and seeing as how you do go out of your way to craft a medieval world…why some of the anarchronisms? I’ve been meaning to ask you that. Things like warrior women, for example. Granted that is standard fantasy stuff these days, and alot of your tales have strong female leads. I’m sure it’s not for feminist reasons! 😉 Is it just something you like doing? I don’t mean this in a negative sense either! Were there female warriors in the past, sure. It was rare though. How about the Middle ages (and renaissance)…actually yes! There were even a few generals that were female, rare of course, but still…. So it’s not a trope totally without merit, but…but I’ve never had a chance to ask an author why they like this trope so much!”
And that will be its own Reader Question Day!
“so there’s lots of room for people to rearrange the facts to suit whatever theory they want to pursue.”
Sad but true.
“This will definitely come into play in the sixth book, which will have San-keth worshiping Vikings showing up.”
Sweet!! 😀
But will this sixth book be the last book? I know you were debating about that before….let me ask it this way, will the book be called “Soul of Skulls” (sounds appropriate for Vikings), or “Soul of Gods”? 😉
Out of necessity (one book would have been too long), I settled on two books – SOUL OF SKULLS and then SOUL OF SWORDS. Both will probably be about as long as SOUL OF SORCERY.
AWESOME!!
I was hoping you’d do two! But I thought you said that you were sure the last book in the series would be called “Soul of Gods”. Change your mind?
I did. And I wanted to do one book, but it would have been just too large. So, SOUL OF SKULLS, and then SOUL OF SWORDS.
The novella with Lucan will be called THE DRAGON’S SHADOW.
Will The Dragon’s Shadow be out around the time Ghost in the Stone comes out (like how Ghost Dagger came out around the time of Soul of Sorcery)? Or are we talking 2013?
I’m planning to do THE DRAGON’S SHADOW immediately after GHOST IN THE STONE. So, before the holidays (unless real life interferes).
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