Fantastic Metropolis

As Justinian would discover when he attempted to re-conquer the west and restore the Roman Empire, he simply didn’t have the power to do so while holding off the Parthians to his east and dealing with the Vandals and Ostermanli in North Africa. In the history we know, his wife died, costing him the support he’d come to depend upon (Theodora was brave, intelligent, loyal and determined… it’s quite possible that Justinian and Theodora were the first true equals to rule a nation as man and wife, and without her he was less effective by half.) and forcing him to overextend his reach until his death brought a period of weakness to the Empire.

But according to the Historiae Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Arthur was the son of Uther Pendragon, who was the son of Constans, a descendant Constantine himself. This makes Arthur a natural rival for the empire of the east… or, in the eyes of Justinian and Theodora, two of the greatest diplomats in history, a natural ally in a campaign to conquer the west. With a descendant of Constantine on both Imperial Thrones, who is to say what would happen? Justinian and Arthur were, in effect, distant cousins.

Imagine; instead of having to fight in three arenas at once, the Byzantine army under Belisarius (who was unanimously considered even to this day as one of the greatest generals who ever lived) could expand in the east, throwing back the Parthians and reclaiming North Africa from the Germanic tribes. Meanwhile, with the support of his brother monarch in the east, Arthur has no logistical difficulties (Byzantium owned the Mediterranean) and can easily conquer the Ostrogothic pretender on the throne of Rome. Such adventures for the Briton Army were common in history, but the difference is that Arthur, working with Theodora and Justinian, could well accomplish what no Briton had since Constantine himself, and together crush the Germans. The year 550 could well be a new ad urbe condita for Rome, as the two emperors split the city between them, each preferring to rule from his own city and appointing governors to meet in Rome… Belisarius and Merlin, perhaps?

From here, who knows? Would Arthur take a Byzantine wife to seal the deal rather than marry Guinevere, leaving her free to follow her heart? With the Empire re-established, the riots that endangered Constantinople and probably contributed to Theodora’s early death would not happen, and the Imperial Marriage in the East would prosper, leading perhaps to a large dynasty. Would that dynasty intermarry with the Western Imperial Line, combining the two descendant lines of Constantine in one? A strong, Christian, unified Roman Empire would be much less likely to suffer the losses of any of its territory to Islam, but at the same time the Roman tradition of religious tolerance might well allow Islam to grow and spread as it did Christianity itself… would the old pattern reassert itself, or would the two faiths learn to co-exist in a world where the Crusades would never happen?

It is not hard to see the Pendragon and the Double Eagle, ruling over a whole new world. But then again, as we’ve learned, I am obsessed with King Arthur. None of this, of course, addresses the magical side of things… what if the demons of Procopius’ Anekdota made common cause with the black fae who supported Morgana Le Fay? What of the Grail in a world where the Arthurian line rules from Britain to Palestine? It’s easy to imagine Arthur getting his hand on the infamous Spear of Destiny… would the Spear and the Sword cause his descendants to reach out into Asia, forestalling the coming Mongol Invasion by expanding along the conquests of Alexander the Great, the figure known even today by the people of those realms as Sikander Dulkarzein, Alexander the Two-Horned One. Would the Arthurian Empire make war on India or merely make contact with it? What effect on the world would a powerful military in Europe, able to resist the Magyars and Vikings, have on the admixture of cultures we saw in our own history? It’s possible that the Arthurian lands would actually hinder the development of Europe by preventing new ideas and new laws from being introduced.

Still, I somehow like the idea. The Justinian-Arthurian line of Emperors has the potential to eclipse the Julio-Claudians, the Antonines… and bring about a Renaissance ten centuries early. In my head, I can see the glittering gold dragon standard held high over the seven hills of Rome, a Rome with its great monuments intact, symbol of a new world. A world built from solid myth. I don’t think even the fae could dislike that.

Discuss this and other heresies at Matthew Rossi’s message board.

Matthew Rossi, the author of Things That Never Were (MonkeyBrain, 2003), is entirely unexciting on first glance. His hair is a dirty blond color, his eyes a dull green that calls to mind beer bottles abraded by the ocean, and his demeanor mildly absent-minded. He has no dark secrets. He does not know the 72-fold Name of God, nor can he catalogue the mysterious hosts that populate the otherworld lying alongside this one. Any rumors that he raises young turtles to grow up and become Gamera are lies intended to smear him. His leather jacket does not hold the Sigillum Dei Aemeth, the Yellow Sign, or the secret true path of the Otz Chaim, and he is certainly not Atlantean in any way. He’s from Rhode Island.