New Character

Things keep moving in the novel, and while I get more info to write from Valentis point of view, I have just introduced a new character in The Goth.

Please, meet my, for the time being, new Roman POV character, Paulus Cornelius Ruber Theodoricus.

He's a tough and mean (OK, it's actually an overall good guy, but he's Roman, and this is a novel about Alaric and his People) military praepositus in the Equites scutarii Illyriciani, Serianae unit (which is listed in the Notitia Dignitatum, but I have to make sure it existed in 376 CE), because his adoptive father was a member of the Senate in Constantinopolis thanks to (and despite of) his political connections as member of the stuff of Julian's (I've made him a dux on the Danube not far from Vindolanda, who marched with Julian when he was raised to Augustus by his Gallian troops and went to the East to fight against his cousin Constantius, and then surviving the turmoils of Julian's death).

He will be ``attached'' to Alaric's Goths (actually to Ambassador Wingureiks, who lead the Embassy to Antiochia) and will be present throughout the episodes that will take us to the battle of Ad Salices, in 377 CE.

As for his name, he was named Thiudareiks, and was the son of a Goth chieftain that offered him to the Romans as hostage after the relative peace of 357, after the Battle of Strassburg, but then revolted with other tribed after the movements of 358 against the Salian Franks. Quintus Cornelius Ruber was the dux in charge of the region were the Goths rioted and got to get Thiudareiks as his slave.

After years without descendancy, and noticing the nobility and general good disposition of Thiudareiks, he freed him, baptised him, and adopted him as his son. Thus Paulus Cornelius Ruber Thiudarīks was reborn (remember, Gothic -ei- is the representation of /ī/).

However, Thiudarīks has a very distinctive sound for both Latin and Greek ears, specially in Antiochia ad Orontem. Thus, Thiudarīks became Theodoricus, which is, curiously, the name of the emperor after Valens, which will die in a couple of years, and was born in Hispania, many even say in Gallaecia, my own land... :-)

As an interesting note, Theodoricus means, from the Greek name Θεοδόρος, 'little gift of God', while Thiudarīks means, more or less, 'king of the People'. Cool, uh? :-)

Take care!

ΚΑΛΛΙΣΤΗ