PROLOGUE: Romans and Barbarians
1. 56.32.2.
2. Excepting – if science be broadly defined – Lucretius (99–55 BC) author of de Rerum Natura; Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79), antiquity’s foremost recorder of nature and knowledge; and Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus of Alexandria), 2nd-century geographer and astronomer.
3. L. Musset, The Germanic Invasions (London, 1975) 203.
4. Arch., 10.1.1.
5. In the light of present knowledge it may be assumed that the amphorae found in the Bay of Jars, Brazil, are from a random ship, blown off an African coastwise course (as was Cabral, Brazil’s discoverer, in 1500).
6. Hist., 16.
7. Immensa Romanae pacis maiestate, NH, 27.1.3.
8. Tac., Hist., 4.64–5.
9. Tac., An., 4.5.
10. Cicero, pro Marco Fronteio.
11. 5.26.3.
12. dB G, 6.13.
13. Pharsalia, 3.339–423.
14. Probably 2,100 miles, from Germany to the Ukraine.
15. 75.1.3–5.
16. Strabo, Geog., 3.4.16: ‘concerned not with rationality but with animal needs and instincts’.
17. Pliny the Younger to Lucius Verus, 7: ‘I class them rather as thieves than enemies.’
18. Strabo, 3.3.8: ‘the journey to their lands is long [ … ] and they have lost all instinct for sociability.’
19. Idem, 4.4.2: ‘as always those who live toward the north are more aggressive.’
20. Philippic, 1.14.
21. NH, 3.5.39.
22. Velleius, 2.117.3.
23. JW, 2.363.
24. Agr., 30.4–5.
25. Dio, 61.33.3.
26. id., 62.5.5.
EPISODE 1: The Poet
1. Usually pronounced with short o as in Thomas.
2. Durus cautibus, horrens Caucasus, Aeneid, 4, 366–7.
3. Pliny, NH, 5.31.18.
4. Geography, 11.5.6.
5. NH, 6.14.5.
6. id. 6.5.15.
7. Geography, 11.2.33.
8. Artimisia absinthium; German, wermut: both names with alcoholic connections. In Ukrainian, wormwood is chernobyl. The 1987 nuclear incident caused headshaking in the Soviet Union, owing to the prophecy in Revelation, 7.10–11.
9. Originating as a literary movement in the early 3rd century BC: Theocritus Idylls, 1–11.
10. Especially John, 10.11.
11. Judges, 6.3–5.
12. History, 4.71–72 (text reduced and paraphrased).
13. So Amm., 31.2.13: in immensum extentas Scythiae solitudines (in the measureless wastes of Scythia); and c.f. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, Vol.2, Ch.12, 358.
14. 3.351–383.
15. G. D. Williams, Banished Voices (Cambridge, 1994) 19.
16. He did, however, manage a monograph on the local fish and animals, Halieuticon, of which a 136-line fragment survives.
17. A hereditary knight, not unlike a British baronet.
18. Tristia, 4.10.26.
19. id., 4.10.21.
20. e.g. Don Juan, 5.5.7–8: ‘There’s not a sea the passenger e’er pukes in / Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine.’
21. Moore, Life of Byron, 1.347.
22. Tristia, 4.10.57.
23. 56.4.
24. I, Claudius, (London, 1934).
25. An., 10.1.
26. Tristia, 4.18.68.
27. id., 3.2.6.
28. Aurelius Victor, de Caesaribus, (4th century) 39.44: pestilens frumentariorum gens (the pestilential race of ‘corn merchants’). The existence of such a service is rarely attested and was never officially acknowledged.
29. Tristia, 2.207–10.
30. id., 2.103–4.
31. id., 3.5.49–50.
32. id., 1.2.97–8.
33. id., 4.1.64.
34. id., 4.1.69–70.
35. Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol and De Profundis.
36. Tristia, 5.7.9–21.
37. The World of the Scythians (Oxford, 1991) 65.
38. Ex Ponto, 4.9.84.
39. Hist., 4.64–5.
40. id., 4.70.
41. id., 4.75.
42. id., 4.67.
43. Strabo, Geog., 17.1.43.
44. Amm., 32.1.1.
45. Herodotus, 4.69.
46. Equivalent to Diana, Roman goddess of hunting and of chastity.
47. How steppe cavalry found its way west during the migrations period and how the sword symbol may have ended up as King Arthur’s Excalibur, see B. S. Bachrach, A History of the Alans in the West (Minneapolis, 1973), 111.
48. Amm., 31.2.23.
49. id., 22.8.4.
50. id., 31.12.18.
51. Iliad, 13. Homer’s phrase, ‘the proud mare-milkers’, almost certainly refers to the Scyths.
52. Strabo, Geog., 7.4.6.
53. id., ‘it yields thirtyfold, however crudely ploughed.’
54. id., 7.3.7.
55. Hist., 4.28. Sindica, today’s Krasnodar.
56. Panegyricus, 12.3–4.
57. Amm., 16.10.20.
58. id., 17.12.1.
59. Hist., 1.79.
60. id.
61. Amm., 17.12.13.
62. Hist., 4.46.
63. The Dobruja’s annual rainfall is sixteen inches (400 mm).
64. Quoted by A. Alfoldi. The Moral Barrier on Rhine and Danube, RFS-1, 13.
65. Tristia, 3.10. 7–12.
66. A style now associated with China and Japan.
67. This tactic, said to have won the Battle of Hastings, probably also had steppe ancestry: Bachrach, op.cit., 92.
68. Tristia, 3.10.51–70.
69. id., 3.10. 19–34.
70. id., 4.4. 55–60.
71. i.e. falsely named ‘hospitable’.
72. Tristia, 5.10. 14–22.
73. Dryden, Love Triumphant, 138.
74. Tristia, 4.1. 71–84.
75. Ex Ponto, 1.2. 17–22.
76. Tristia., 5.10. 23–38.
77. id., 5.7. 47–8.
78. id., 5.10. 43–4.
79. id., 4.1. 66–70.
80. id., 4.10. 111–114.
81. id., 1.1. 39–44.
82. id., 5.7. 47–64.
83. Ex Ponto, 4.8. 18–22.
84. Tristia, 4.1.94.
85. id., 5.2.65–72 and 77–8.
86. Ex Ponto, 1.2. 57–8.
87. Tristia, 3.12. 25–34.
88. id., 3.10. 75–6.
89. Ex Ponto, 3.8.15.
90. id., 3.1.23–6.
91. Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Augustus, 63.
92. Ex Ponto, 1.2. 81–7.
93. The ara pacis Augustae, a sculptural masterpiece, recovered in the 16th century.
94. Res Gestae, 2.13.
95. Velleius, Hist., 2.126.3.
96. Ex Ponto, 2.5. 17–18.
97. e.g. Aeneid, 1.278 and 6.851.
98. Fasti, 2.683–4.
99. Tristia, 2. 197–200.
100. Ex Ponto, 1.8.10. In propinctu could also mean ‘in readiness for battle’.
101. Unlike Tristia, the Pontic Letters were addressed to individuals.
102. Ex Ponto, 4.7. 7–12.
103. id., 4.9.75.
104. id., 4.9. 80–85.
105. id., 4.13. 18–28.
106. Mother of Apollo.
107. Ex Ponto, 4.14. 57–62.
108. id., 4.14. 23–4.
109. House of Fame, 3.1.97.
110. Frances Meres, Palladis Tamia, (London, 1598), 282.
111. The Fall of Icarus.
112. Pygmalion (1912).
113. Leonard Digges (1588–1635).
114. Wm. Cody (1846–1917), who boasted killing 4,280 buffalo in eighteen months.
115. Dio, 55. 4–21.
116. An., 1.6.
117. Suet., Aug. 19.65.
118. Tristia, 1.3.85.
EPISODE 2: The Lawyer
1. Usually pron. Tyoot in English, Toyt in German.
2. There is at least one bust of Ovid extant (Uffizi Gallery, Florence).
3. First proposed by Philipp Cluverius, Germaniae Antiquae (1631).
4. The Hünnering.
5. Staatliche Museen, Berlin; with copies in the Kulturgeschichtliches Museum Osnabrück, which also houses objects from the Varus battlefield.
6. Particularly to his Oath of the Horatii, painted Rome 1785 (Louvre, Paris).
7. By the Fr. Sculptor F. A. Bartholdi (1884).
8. Like Czar and Shah, a word derived from Caesar.
9. Ger., 46.
10. id.
11. id., 1.1.
12. dBG, 4.17–19.
13. id., 4.19.
14. Some ten miles downstream from Coblenz.
15. He crossed again in 53 BC.
16. Geog., 7.1.2.
17. Wear, Wye, Vézère, Isère, Isar, Yare, Oise, Ouse, Isonzo, etc.
18. Strabo, Geog., 7.2.1.
19. Pourrir = to rot.
20. e.g. ‘the inscrutible oriental’.
21. An expression having its origin in Dryden, Conquest of Granada, 1.1: ‘Ere the base laws of servitude began / When wild in woods the noble savage ran.’
22. In Gk. elektron (associated with words for ‘sun’), origin of our term electricity, due to its generating a charge when rubbed. Latin sucinum, related to sucinus = sappy, seems closest to amber’s true origin.
23. Compare glass; Ger. glantz = lustre; Fr. glace = ice.
24. Ger., 45; following Pliny, NH, 37.11.42.
25. An., 3.53.
26. NH, 37.45.
27. An., 2.62.
28. Notably the Pyhrn Pass (nr. Windischgarsten) due south of Linz.
29. J. Wielowiejski, Der römisch-pannonisch Limes und die Bernsteinstrasse, RFS, 13 (1983) 799.
30. Ger., 5.
31. id.
32. Evidently replicas, all bearing the same date and still being minted, reputedly in Italy, by some astute entrepreneur.
33. Ger., 5 and 42.
34. id., 23.
35. id., 72.
36. Decline and Fall, 9.358 and 359.
37. dBG, 4. 1–2.
38. German kochen (to cook) = Latin coquere.
39. Ger., 16.
40. Long bridges.
41. dB G, 1.48.
42. From clinch or clench, secured by pinning sideways. Planks were overlapped rather than edge-joined.
43. Danish Nat. Mus., Copenhagen.
44. Ger., 19.
45. id., 20.
46. id., 37.
47. Boswell, Life of Dr Johnson, (for the year 1778).
48. Ger., 13 and 14.
49. Of Franconia-Thuringia.
50. Sp., tudesco.
51. Amm., 27.2.2. avers it was dyed.
52. Ger., 13.
53. Jewish War, 7.78.
54. Ger., 13.
55. Amm., 27.10.5.
56. dB G, 6.23.
57. Ger., 15.
58. Geog., 7.2.3.
59. Life of Caius Marius, 17.1.
60. Ger., 9.
61. Jove’s Day, seen more clearly in It. Jiovedi.
62. M. Todd, The Northern Barbarians (Oxford, 1975) 19.
63. P. Salway, Roman Britain, (Oxford, 1984), 544–5.
64. dB G, 4.1. The largest German group; opp. the middle Rhine.
65. Ger., 5.
66. e.g. Pliny NH 5.10.3., 6.15.40; Tac. Ger., 1.6–8; Strabo, Geog., 2.5.12.
67. Surveyor = agrimensor (lit. ‘field measurer’).
68. NH, 6.38.210.
69. id., 3.5.39.
70. Arch., 6.1.12.
71. Ger., 33.1.
72. Aeneid, 1.278–9.
73. id., 6.851.
74. Aug., 18. Dio (51.16.5) tells us that part of Alexander’s nose fell off during the ceremony.
75. id., 31.
76. Life of Caesar, 58.
77. Ger., 46.
78. 20.30.26.
79. An., 2.6.
80. Then called Lake Flevo.
81. i.e. the ‘Wading Sea’.
82. Tac. Ger., 17.
83. Iceland?
84. Reported by the Greek explorer of the North Sea and beyond, Phytheas of Marseilles, c. 300 BC.
85. As perhaps befell Caligula (Dio, 59.21.3).
86. Dio, 55.1.33.
87. The ‘supreme souvenir’: when a commander, in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy commander, seized his armour or similar spoils.
88. Velleius, 2.105.
89. J. von Elbe, Die Römer in Deutschland (Berlin, 1977), 107.
90. The author’s assumption. There is no direct evidence that Varus was charged with this function.
91. Tristia, 4.2. 1–2 and 16–17.
92. 2.117–18.
93. The rebellion of Tacfarinas, AD 14–24.
94. Nearer the truth would have been ‘deciding where cities might be founded’. There is no record of a Roman town in trans-Rhenine north Germany during the Augustan or any other period; nor of wintering beyond the Lippe.
95. 56. 18–19.
96. 2.118.
97. id.
98. 56.19.
99. Dio, 56. 20–22.
100. Suggested by W. John, Die Örtlichkeit der Varusschlacht bei Tacitus, (Göttingen, 1950).
101. A tactic of desperate defence, by which the enemy is made to pay twice; eg. Rorke’s Drift, Natal, 1879.
102. 56.22.
103. A lineage of battlefield suicide: his father, S. Quintilius Varus, after fighting on the losing side at Philippi; his grandfather’s fate unknown.
104. 2.119
105. Either today’s Haltern or Hamm.
106. Frontinus, Strat., 2.9.4.
107. Velleius, 2.111.
108. By Dio’s time the western Rhine bank was called Upper and Lower Germany.
109. Dio, 56.23.
110. To reduce unsettling changeovers.
111. Aug., 23.
112. Known as the Res Gestae, inscribed in his temples and best preserved at Ankara.
113. Hist., 1.89.
114. At the time of writing, a century later.
115. An., 2.88.
116. Correctly, Boudicca.
117. Meaning his ancestry included the opposing leaders at the time of Actium; An., 2.53.
118. An., 1.13.
119. Pron. ‘vike’ by English tongues; ‘fake’ by Dutch.
120. In military areas also the name given to civilian settlements near forts.
121. The next tribe westward from the Cheruscans.
122. An., 1.60–61.
123. Henry V, prologue to act IV.
124. Quotations on Caecina battle from Tac., An., 1.63–8.
125. id., 1.70.
126. id., 2.23–4.
127. In Tac., An., 2.10 and Strabo, Geog., 7.14.
128. An., 1.11.
129. 56.33.5.
130. An., 2.26.
131. Suet., Tiberius, 43 (caper = billy goat).
132. An., 2.26.
133. J. F. C. Fuller, The Decisive Battles of the Western World (London, 1954), 181. Also E. S. Creasy, The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World (London, 1931), 19.
134. Die Örtlichkeit der Varusschlacht (Berlin, 1885).
135. W. Schlüter, Römer in Osnabrücker Land (Osnabrück, 1991).
136. An., 1.60. See also Livy, 1.165–70 and 1.184–5, on Trasimene (217 BC), when a Roman army was caught on constricted ground (saltus) between lake and hills.
137. J. A. S. Clunn, forthcoming: Auf der Suche nach den verlorenen Legionen, epilogue. His account proposes that Varus committed suicide in a temporary camp at Felsenfeld, a few miles east, on the previous day.
138. Hist, 28.5.8.
139. Amm., 21.11.12.
EPISODE 3: The Soldiers
1. The tour of Greece is described in Dio, Bk. 52.
2. Museo Nazionale.
3. Dio, 59.12.3.
4. Vespasian, 5.
5. It was usual for a commander to march in the middle.
6. The job of the second in command. Vespasian was perhaps a busybody.
7. Tac., Hist., 25.
8. Today’s Sousse, Tunisia.
9. Suet., id., 4.
10. JW, 6.331.
11. Strabo, Geog., 2.5.8.
12. Suet., Nero, 18.
13. dB G, 4.22.
14. Leaving place-names from Brentwood to Borehamwood via Theydon Bois, Northwood, Cheshunt and so on.
15. The divisions we call England, Wales and Scotland did not exist. Their names are used here for convenience only.
16. Twenty centuries have not invalidated this view.
17. dB G, 5.12.
18. Caligula, 46.
19. Gk. thanatos = death. Related in garbled form by Procopius, de Bello Gothico, 1.4.20.
20. Dio, 60.19.
21. Claudius, 17.
22. Dio, 60.19.1.
23. 55.19.4.
24. Claudius, 17.
25. 153 BC.
26. 19.2.3. At the siege of Amida, on the Tigris, AD 359.
27. As artillery would launch another future emperor: Napoleon and the siege of Toulon.
28. Vespasian, 4.
29. A post-Roman term. Approximately Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset.
30. Older readers may recall the difficulties with gut-stringed tennis rackets.
31. Amm., 23.4.5.
32. Josephus, JW, 5.63.
33. The anonymous de Rebus Bellicis, 18.5.
34. 23.4.14.
35. For a recent exposition, S. James and V. Rigby, Britain and the Celtic Iron Age (London, 1997) which, despite new insights into British separateness, fails to face serious problems posed by language and place-names.
36. Fr. = Wales.
37. Et gallos quidem, qui Celtae sunt (as for the Gauls, who are the Celts); Amm., 15.11.12.
38. The Galatians of St Paul’s Epistle.
39. S. Piggot, Ancient Europe, (Edinburgh, 1965), 16.
40. The Conn Cétchathach cycle, 8th century AD.
41. Livy, 1.36.1 and 1.44.3.
42. Eclogues, 66.
43. Nr. Christchurch, Hants.
44. Most notably the gold stater of Cynobellinus, minted about 25 AD.
45. Geog., 4.1.2.
46. As proven at the Iron Age Experimental Farm, Butser, Hants.
47. A name deriving from the eponymous Greek colony of Emporion.
48. dB G, 7.23.
49. By comparison, Britain’s largest medieval castles (Dover, Windsor and Caerphilly) are in the thirty-acre class.
50. Geog., 4.4.3.
51. Chainmail seems to have been a Celtic invention.
52. dB G, 5.21.
53. Pliny, NH, 4.14. 102.
54. Mature Celtic style, 500 BC to the Roman conquest. Continental and centred to the north of the Alps.
55. dB G, 4.5.
56. Ger., 28.
57. 62.9.2.
58. Agr., 12.
59. Hist., (intro) 5.
60. 72.14.
61. Welsh Derwydd = druid and derwen = oak.
62. Amm., 15.9.8 and Strabo, 4.4.4–5.
63. dB G, 4.33.
64. Geog., 4.5.2.
65. S. C. Standford, Native and Roman in the Central Welsh Borderland, RFS, 8 (1989) 52.
66. Vespasian, 4.
67. Today’s Jodefat, ten miles north of Nazareth.
68. JW, 3.166–7.
69. id., 243–9.
70. Suet., Nero, 40. also C. Cavafy’s poem on these same events: Poems (Athens, 1948) and various anthologies.
71. 3.118.
72. Father of one of our sources, the historian G. Suetonius Tranquillus.
73. Dio, 61.33.3.
74. Tac., An., 14.29–30.
75. 62.2.
76. 62.5.
77. Compare Tac. Hist., 4.17: ‘Slavery might serve for Syrians and the East, but many in Gaul had been born before there was such a thing as Roman taxes.’
78. 62.6.
79. Tac., An., 14.33.
80. Hist., 4.74.
81. No longer believed to have been at Stanwick, where a 1980s dig uncovered enough Roman material to suggest that this Brigantian stronghold remained pro-Roman.
82. Agr., 20. For the same method applied in North Africa, see An., 3.74.
83. id., 9.
84. id., 3.
85. Though the generally more important Histories and Annals are partially missing.
86. Agr., 11.
87. id.
88. id., 12.
89. id., 14.
90. id., 21.
91. id., 10.
92. id., 12.
93. id., 24.
94. id., 23.
95. id., 27.
96. id., 24.
97. Due to storms, dB G, 4.29, 5.11, 5.23.
98. Agr., 25.
99. Lit. ‘under skins’.
100. Though there are different schools of thought.
101. Near Braco, Perthshire, some six miles west of Gleneagles.
102. Agr., 25.
103. id., 30.
104. id., 35.
105. The Antiquary, Ch. 4.
106. The Camp at Durno, Aberdeenshire and the Site of Mons Graupius, Britannia, 9 (1978), 271–87.
107. Pron. ‘ben-a-kee’. Stress on final syllable and the ch guttural.
108. Agr., 33.
109. id., 38.
110. Satires, 4.111.
111. Dio, 67.6.
112. id., 67.4.
113. id., 67.6.
114. id., 67.9.
115. id., 67.12.
116. Agr., 39. 1–2.
117. id., 40.
118. Dio, 60.20.3.
119. Hist., 1.2.
120. Estimated by S. S. Frere, Britannia (London, 1967) 135.
121. G. S. Maxwell, Sidelight on the Roman Military Campaigns in North Britain, RFS, 13 (1983), 62.
122. Near Edzell (ten miles north-west of Montrose), the empire’s most northerly fort. Invisible on the ground.
123. Tu vero felix Agricola, opportunitate mortis (happy in the timeliness of your death). Agr., 45.3.
124. Earlier passed on Caligula, later on Commodus.
125. Panegyricus, 52.4–5.
126. Decline and Fall, Ch. 1, 7–8.
EPISODE 4: The Artist
1. T. Nagy, Traian und Pannonien, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte Pannoniens, RFS, 13 (1983) 377.
2. Fronto, to Lucius Verus, 17.
3. The Column’s emphasis on construction may thus be in part a personal quirk.
4. Epitome de Caesaribus, 41.13.
5. Dio, 68. 7.6.
6. id., 68.6 and 7.
7. The Acta Diurna, begun by Julius Caesar. No trace remains of this priceless source.
8. Panegyricus, 20 and 65.
9. id., 88.
10. Sculptor Torrigiano, erected by Sixtus V in 1587.
11. From Ulpius, Trajan’s family name.
12. Museo della Civilità Romana, Piazza G. Angeli, EUR, Rome.
13. Die Reliefs der Traianssäule (Berlin, 1896–1900).
14. Die Traianssäule: ein römisches Kunstwerk zu Beginn der Spätantike (Berlin-Leipzig, 1926).
15. A. Malissard, La comparison avec le cinéma: permet-elle de mieux comprendre la frise continue de la Colonne Trajane? Mitteilungen des deutchen Archaeologischen Instituts; 83 (1976).
16. There are, however, changes of elevation, for example to allow the viewer to see inside encampments.
17. Hy. V: 1, Prologue, 16 etc.
18. id., IV, Prologue, 53.
19. Cichorius, 1896; Petersen, 1899; Stuart-Jones, 1910; Davies, 1920; Lehman-Hartleben, 1926; Richmond, 1935; Patsch, 1937; Rossi, 1971; Syme, 1971; Gauer, 1977; Lepper and Frere, 1988; Settis et al., 1988; to mention but a quarter of contributors.
20. Römische Geschichte, Bk. 5, Ch. 6, 205 (1919 edn, Berlin).
21. Trajan’s Army on Trajan’s Column (London, 1935), 3.
22. id.
23. Trajan’s Column and the Dacian Wars (London, 1971).
24. op. cit., 3 and 4.
25. i.e. papyrus or other temporary medium.
26. 68.6.1.
27. 68.8.1–2.
28. Mentioned by Dio, 68.9.4.
29. By G. Tocilescu in 1900.
30. A common classical motif and origin of the English word pelmet.
31. Nuovi Risultati Storici della interpretazione della Colonna Traiana, Roma, 2.3.
32. Tac, Ger., 46.
33. Tristia, 3.10.75.
34. Here we have a contradiction in that the oaks are shown in leaf.
35. Eng. scythe, from Scythia.
36. Ger., 46.
37. Domitian’s Praetorian Prefect, killed in the earlier fighting.
38. Laberius Maximus, one of Trajan’s commanders.
39. 68.9.3.–10.2.
40. The adjacent Roman province.
41. 68.10.3.–11.3.
42. As, today, outward-tending walls are sometimes held by cramping irons, with discs showing at each end.
43. 68.14.4–5.
44. The denarius is believed to have been the biblical ‘silver penny’, specified in Matthew 20.2. as a worker’s daily pay.
45. M. Speidal, The Captor of Decebalus: a new inscription from Philippi, JRS, 60 (1970) 142–53.
46. R. Vulpe, Les Valla de la Valachie, de la Basse Moldavie et du Boudjak, RFS, 9 (1972), 267.
47. K. T. Erim, The School of Aphrodisias, Archaeology, 20 (1967) 18–27.
48. 69.4.
49. 69.3.3.
EPILOGUE: Barbarians and Romans
1. Agr., 12.
2. Ger., 33.
3. F. Križek, Die Römischen Stationen in Vorland des Norisch-Pannonischen Limes bis zu den Marcomannkrieg, RFS, 6 (1967), 131–7.
4. An., 2.62.
5. 72.36.4.
6. Amm. 23.6.68. This curious passage describes the Chinese donating silk to the barbarians, presumably as payment to maintain peace on their frontiers.
7. Roman Commerce with the East, ANRW (Berlin, 1987).
8. Dio, 72.11.3.
9. id., 72.15.1.
10. Getica, 4.25.
11. 20.4.6., 31.4.9., 31.8.9., 31.10.1.
12. Letters, 20.