Valens Augustus

$ perl ../Meta/wc.pl alarico_latin1.txt 120000 2>/dev/null
W: 9347 of 120000 (MP: 37.388, PP: 18.694), %: 7.78916666666667

That's it, an update... :-)

I have calculated, however, that if 9,300 words are, roughly, the first 1/3 of the first chapter, I will need about 200,000 words to tell this story! Whoah!

I'll be optimistic, though, and keep the 120,000 words goal for the time being.

Right into the second 3^rd of the first chapter (which is--intelligently, if I may say so--called Dies I, or "Day 1", in English :-) we found ourselves in the ancient and important city of Antioquia ad Orontem, originally founded by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's Diadochi (heirs), in the province of Syria, in what nowadays is the boundaries between Turkey and Syria, and pretty close to the place where once lied the important city of Ugarit.

Antioch had an important port, Seleucia Pieria, at the delta of the river Orontes, which eventually lost its importance as the sediments transported by the river managed to render the harbor useless for big ships, at the time of the Crussades. In the meantime, it was one of the most important cities in the whole Empire, and only second to Constantinopolis and Alexandria in the Eastern part of the Empire.

North was Alexandretta, which took the role of most important harbor in the region in the Middle Ages, and westwards the important city of Aleppo, which was one of the most stable limes of the Empire in the East. South of Antioch lied Damascus, one of the oldest towns still inhabited in the whole world. Nowadays Antioch is the Turkish town of Antakya.

As mentioned in other fora, I am trying to switch points of view from the Goths to the Romans for the second part of the chapter, which will be, approximately, since Alaviv's Embassy to Valens, to the battle of Ad Salices. Later, we'll switch POVs again to the Goths, and head right into the last phase of the drama that peaked in hadrianopolis, which the sounding defeat of the Eastern comitatenses army and the death of Valens Augustus.

I've been recommended a book, Failure of Empire, by Noel Lenski, which looks really cool. However, at USD$75, it's out of my reach at the moment (not that's expensive, but I cannot justify the book for 1/3 of a chapter, maybe 2/3, at least not yet, try to explain this to my S.O... :-)

Failing University libraries, which I'll check, do my gentle readers have any other recommendations to an approach to Valentis biography, close friends, confidents at the court, and all that's missing at the Wikipedia? Web or classical better than Amazon, thanks... :-)

kallisti