The Songs of Slaves (69 page)

             
Ireland was outside of the confines of the Empire, protected not only by the wind and waves but also by the savage reputation of its people. The citizens of Roman Britain suffered many raids and even large attacks from the Irish Sea during this time period. Though the rural parts of Roman Britain were experiencing a gradual rejection of the Roman culture and religion that still dominated in the cities, the Irish raiders would have taken many a Christian slave back
with them. One of these slaves would become Saint Patrick, who became active in Ireland around the 430’s. But though Patrick is credited with the conversion of Ireland, it is not accurate to say that he found the place entirely Pagan and left it entirely Christian. Both through the influence of Brittonic slaves and through the work of earlier missionaries, Ireland in 398-408 would have been as I described it – Pagan, but co-existing with small pockets of the strange new religion. One of these early missionaries was Saint Declan. Though time frames vary and are heavily intermeshed with legend, Declan was active in the south of Ireland around the beginning of the Fifth Century up through Patrick’s time.

             
The remoteness of Ireland would make it a
haven
from much of the chaos of Dark Age Europe. In this comparably safe place the monastic movement would incubate and grow. These secluded centers of learning would not only foment the thought and theology of the Early Middle Ages, but would also famously preserve much of the light of the Classical World. Some of the arts of Antiquity were preserved by the Byzantines, and some even by the Persians and later the Islamic world; but a great portion of what has come
down to us from the zenith of the Greeks and the Romans has come to us through the tireless, fastidious pens of these Medieval Irish scribes. Without their work and devotion over the centuries, much of what we now know would have been lost. As I have read ancient philosophy, I have been struck by just how much of it is ideas that are very familiar to all of us. The reason for this familiarity is because what we know and believe and the way we approach thinking and learning are based on these early ideas. Much of who we are, both as individuals and as a culture, would be missing or entirely different if not for the monks of some faraway place and time sitting in a dim, cold room copying it all by hand and passing it on. I ended Chapter Thirty by tying Connor into this event; not to suggest that this rescue of classical thought happened all at once or was the work of any one person, but just to present one link of the chain between then and now. 

Acknowledgements

             
I researched this period and topics related to this writing for a number of years, and read everything I could find in English. As such, it is impossible to render a complete list of sources. Understandably, some of the information was contradictory, and I had to meld the sources into what was the more probable. There were a number of books and sources that I relied on more heavily, which deserve recognition.

             
First amongst these would be Sir Edward Gibbon’s
The Decline and
Fall
of the Roman Empire
, originally finished in 1788. While vague at times, this masterwork provides a great sense of the sweep of history. Having read about every classical source, Gibbon is able to provide a view of events that considers numerous angles; and for this reason – as well as the great style of the prose – more than two hundred years later it is still the book that other books are based on.

             
A more contemporary survey, but one that is good for many of the same reasons, is John Julius Norwich’s three-volume
Byzantium.
Focusing on the Eastern Empire, Norwich offers a perspective that many
other historians miss. Though only the first chapters of his works are relevant to this book; I would recommend the three volumes to everyone, as they provide a view into a section of history that is all but forgotten by the mainstream.

             
Professor J.B.
Burry’s
The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians
is another time-honored source that is similar to Gibbon’s work in terms of research and style, but goes into greater depth into the Germanic perspective. A more contemporary source that covers much of the same subject matter – and one of the first books I read on the topic – is
Barbarians and Romans, The Birth Struggle of Europe, A.D. 400-700
by Justine David Randers-
Pehrson
. It was actually a line from Randers-
Pehrson’s
book that inspired me to write this one.

             
A book that I kept by my elbow as I wrote the latter half of this novel is
AD 410 – The Year That Shook Rome
by Sam Moorhead and David
Stuttard
. Along with providing a good understanding of the events, this book went farther than any others into their actual sequence. The timelines, maps, and blow-by-blow account of the politics found in the work proved
invaluable to me in keeping this novel as close to the facts as possible.

             
Much of the information of slavery herein is based on
The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity
by William L.
Westerman
, as well as the aforementioned sources. For other questions of everyday Roman life, the military, et cetera, I found that sometimes the best place to explore the answer was with the various well-established reenactment groups, such as Nova Roma (novaroma.org). A fantastic online source can also be found at roman-empire.net. 

             
Another glimpse of life in Late Antiquity, as well as an invaluable source in understanding the religious turmoil of the day is Giusto
Traina’s
428 AD: An Ordinary Year at the End of the Roman Empire
.

Though only the first few chapters are relevant to this book, the popular history
How the Irish Saved Civilization
by Thomas Cahill provides a good account of the early conflicts between Celtic and Catholic Christianity touched on in the first section of this novel, as well as inspiring some of the thematic framework I would return to. 

             
Though works of historical fiction, I have learned a great deal from the excellent books of Dr. Harry Sidebottom (
Warrior of Rome
series) and Wallace Bream (
The Eagle in the Snow
). Of course, I could not neglect to include in these acknowledgements Bernard Cornwell, whose masterful novels have taught me a great deal about experiencing history. 

             
Most of the quoted material from Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, the Bible, et cetera is from academic online libraries and are old enough translations, I believe, to be public domain. A few quotes are hopefully faithfully rendered though they are simply from memory; and the scholarly reader will find a few
that may have some paraphrase or arrangement of my own.

             
Finally, I would like to acknowledge and thank my family; especially my wife and my older brother for their assistance with editing, support, and for always showing an interest.