Poul Anderson - Star of the Sea

“Far beyond copyist’s errors, author’s revisions, or anything else reasonable,” Floris emphasized. “Detective work proved it was not a forgery, but an authentic copy of a manuscript by Tacitus himself. And, while the phrasing varies between them, as one would expect if they led toward two separate endings—the chronicle as such, the narrative line, does not split until the fifth book, very soon after the scene where the copy that survived breaks off. Is this coincidence?”

“I dunno,” Everard replied, “and better we pass that question by. Kind of spooky, huh?” He forced himself to lean back, cross shank over thigh, drain his cup, trail out a slow streamer of smoke. “Suppose you give me a synopsis of the story—the two stories. Don’t be afraid of repeating what’s elementary to you. I confess what I remember is simply that the Dutch and some of the Gauls rose against Roman rule and gave the Empire a stiff fight before they were put down. Afterward they, their descendants, were placid Roman subjects, eventually citizens.”

Starkness responded. “Tacitus goes into detail, and I have—we have—confirmed that on the whole he reports it fairly well. It began with the Batavi, a tribe living in what is now South Holland, between the Rhine and the Waal. They, with a number of others in this area, had not formally been brought under the Empire, but they had been made tributaries. All furnished soldiers to Rome, auxiliary troops, who served their terms with the legions and retired on nice pensions, whether they settled down where they were at discharge or returned to the homeland.

“But under Nero the Roman government became more and more extortionate. For instance, the Frisii were supposed to furnish a certain amount of leather every year for making shields. Instead of the hides of the dwarfish domestic cattle, the governor now demanded the much bigger and thicker hides of wild bulls, which were growing scarce, or the equivalent. It was ruinous.”

Everard grinned on the left side of his face. “Tax collection. Sounds familiar. Go on.”

Floris’s tone intensified. She stared before her, fists clenched on her lap. “You remember, at the overthrow of Nero, civil war broke out. The year of the three emperors—Galba, Otho, Vitellius—then, in the Near East, Vespasian—devastating the Empire as they contended. Each raised what forces he could, any kind, anywhere, by any means, including conscription. The Batavi, especially, saw their sons haled off, and not only to fight in a war that was meaningless to them. Some Roman officials had an appetite for comely youths.”

“Yeah. Give government an inch, and that’s what it’ll do to the people every time. Which is why the founding fathers of the United States tried to limit federal powers. Too bad their success was temporary. Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Well, there was a Batavian family of noble birth-property, influence, descent claimed from the gods—which had supplied Rome with a number of soldiers. Prominent among them was a man who had taken the Latin name Claudius Civilis. At home, we have learned, he was Burhmund. He distinguished himself in many actions through a long career. Now he called the tribes to arms, the Batavi and their neighbors. He was no naïve rustic, you understand.”

“I do. Half civilized, and doubtless a smart, observant sort.”

“Ostensibly, he declared for Vespasian as against Vitellius, and told his followers that Vespasian would give them justice. That made it easy for Germanic troops elsewhere to set their orders aside and come join him. He scored several major victories. Northeastern Gaul took fire. Under Julius Classicus and Julius Tutor, the Gallic auxiliaries went over to Civilis, while they proclaimed their province an empire in its own right. In the Germanic tribe of the Bructeri, a prophetess called Veleda predicted the fall of Rome. It inspired the natives further, to heroic efforts, and their aim also became an independent confederation.”

That too sounds familiar to an American. We started in 1775 fighting for our rights as Englishmen. Then one thing led to another. Everard refrained from speaking.

Floris sighed. “Well, Vespasian’s cause prevailed. He himself remained in the Near East several months, having much on his hands there, but he wrote to Civilis requiring an end of hostilities. He was refused, of course. After that he dispatched an able general, Petillius Cerialis, to take charge in the North. Meanwhile the Gauls and the Germanic tribes quarreled, could not coordinate, bungled what opportunities came to them. You see, unified command was something outside their mental horizon. The Romans reduced them in detail. Finally Civilis agreed to meet with Cerialis and discuss terms. It is a dramatic scene in Tacitus—a bridge across the Ijssel, from which workers first removed the middle—the two men stood each at an end of the broken span and talked—”

“I remember that,” Everard said. “It’s where the manuscript ended, till the rest was recovered. As I recall, the rebels got a pretty fair offer, which they accepted.”

Floris nodded. “Yes. An end to outrages, guarantees for the future, and amnesty. Civilis retired to private life. Veleda—Tacitus does not say, except that she apparently helped arrange the armistice. I would like to find out what became of her.”

“Any ideas?”

“A sort of guess. If you go to the museums in Leiden and in Middelburg on Walcheren you will see stones from the second or third centuries, altars, votive blocks, carved and inscribed in Latin—” Floris shrugged. “No matter, probably. The fact is that those ancestors of us Dutch became provincial Romans, reasonably well content.” Her eyes widened. She clutched at the border of her cushion. “The fact was.”

Stillness dropped over them. How fragile the late afternoon sunlight and rustle of traffic seemed, beyond the windowpanes.

“That’s Tacitus One, right?” Everard said low after a while. “The version we’ve always used, and that I skimmed yesterday. I’m not quite clear on Tacitus Two. What does it tell?”

Floris answered no louder. “That Civilis did not yield, in large part because Veleda preached against peace. The war went on for another year, till the tribes were wholly subjugated. Civilis killed himself rather than go in chains to Rome for a triumph. Veleda escaped into free Germany. Many followed her. Tacitus-Two-remarks near the end of the Histories that the religion of the wild Germans has changed since he wrote his book about them. A female deity is becoming prominent, the Nerthus he described in his Germania. Now he compares her to Persephone, Minerva, and Bellona.”

Everard tugged his chin. “The goddesses of death, wisdom, and war, eh? Strange. The Anses or Aesir or whatever you call them—the male sky-gods—should’ve long since reduced the old chthonic figures to second place. . . . What does he have to say about happenings in Rome itself and elsewhere?”

“Essentially the same things as in the first text. The phrases often vary. Likewise do conversations and a number of incidents; but ancient and medieval chroniclers freely invented those, you know, or drew on traditions that might have drifted considerably from the facts. These variations do not prove that actual events changed.”

“Aside from in Germany. Well, it was the boondocks. Whatever happened there, for the first several decades, wouldn’t particularly touch the high civilizations. The long-range consequences, though—”

“They were not significant, were they?” Floris’s words trembled. “We are still here, we still exist, don’t we?”

Everard pulled hard on his pipe. “So far. And ‘so far’ is meaningless in English or Dutch or whatever. But let’s not go to Temporal yet. What we’ve got is an anomaly that needs investigation. I daresay it escaped notice earlier—yes, ‘earlier’ is meaningless too—because of its dates. Nearly all attention is elsewhere.”