2,000 Years Later-- Roxolani Helmet Comes Back

[Alanus]

The novel takes place in the 350s. Hard to find anything concrete, even in Dixon & Southern. Basically, I went with the premise that the cavalry was still an auxilliary equites legionis and attached to the Tenth Gemina at Vindobona. Maybe this changed after Adrianople, when we see independent alas recorded in the Dignitatum.

I postited Junius Soranus as Vindobona's commander; and one of the ala commanders is Theodosius the First. Writing for a general reader, I used modern expressions, and Fritigern ends up as a captain, gets offered a promotion, but leaves and returns to Gothia to oppose Athanaric's persecution of the Christians. This would link to a sequel, where Fritigern and Soranus (now top rank in Scythia Minor and on his last tour) fight Athanaric again and retrieve the bones of Saint Saba and the martyrs around 370. (straight out of Socrates Scolasticus, Zosimus, and Zosiman.)

The important thing I'd like to get across is that Fritigern was a Christian years before modern historians claim his conversion shortly after he led the Tyrfingi across the Danube. I also think he was sainted, because the Gothic Church had a feast-day in his honor (along with the martyrs). Soranus, too, was quite devout for a military man, a Cappadocian and well acquainted with church leaders. There were very few honest men of honor during this period of history, and Fritigern was among them. We might add Alaric to that small few, a man who fed a quarter million people while searching for a homeland.