From Zero to Hero: the conqueror of Rome.

Theodosius Dagisthaeus is one of the triumvirate of expendable protagonists sent to steal the secret of silk from China by the Emperor Justinian in my novel The Charioteer. Like his companions who are based on real individuals, Dagisthaeus is based on a late Roman general active in the mid Sixth Century.

Born into a noble Ostrogothic family in the service of the Eastern Roman Empire, Dagisthaeus enjoyed a meteoric early rise becoming Magister Militum per Armeniam (Commander of the Roman forces in modern day Georgia) in 548CE, fighting against the Sassanid Persians. This can only have been down to his family connections given his age, but at first the campaign went extremely well. The Roman forces advanced on the city of Petra and besieged it, but the young general failed to defend mountain passes against a relief force, sending only one hundred men to hold a vital approach to Petra. The Sassanid forces, numbering nearly thirty thousand under their general Mihr-Mihroe, were almost able to surprise Dagisthaeus who had failed to storm Petra, and he was forced to withdraw with his allies.

The Sassanids reinforced Petra and then withdrew due to lack of supplies, but left the garrison strengthened. Dagisthaeus and his allies proceeded to harry and ambush Sassanid forces, winning minor battles, but the chance to capture Petra was lost. This process continued for a couple of years with the Romans unable to take the city or stop it from being reinforced, but the Persians unable to expel Roman troops from the area. The campaign had broken down into a costly stalemate by 549CE.

Eventually Rome’s Lazic allies started to complain to the Emperor in Constantinople. Dagisthaeus was arrogant, incompetent, and an abject failure according to the Roman allies. He had insulted their leaders and failed in his duty. The failure at the siege of Petra was compounded when it was revealed Dagisthaeus had dictated a letter detailing the rewards he expected for capturing the city. When this was presented to the authorities in Constantinople, the young general was recalled and imprisoned, and the campaign in Lazica put under the command of Bessus – a general who had fought in the Italian campaigns. Bessus’ arrival soon saw the Sassanids expelled from Petra and the territory secured.

Dagisthaeus remained in Constantinople in disgrace and was not appointed to another command for two years, slipping out of the historical record. Whilst it is certain that some of his disgrace was down to politics, the contrast with Bessus’ success and his failure in Lazica was stark. It is at this point the author in me sent him galloping across Crimea and the Steppe on the Silk Mission that was happening at the same time. It is a fiction on my part, but the two historical details were too coincidental for me not to use them.

By 551CE, Dagisthaeus had certainly redeemed himself enough to be given a command under the eunuch General Narses in the Italian campaign. At the Battle of Taginae in July 552, Dagisthaeus was given a command on the right flank of the Roman battle line in the decisive confrontation with the Gothic king Totila. Despite a lack of numbers, and a surprise charge by the Ostrogoths, the Romans decimated the Goth forces with missile fire and then destroyed them in a counter charge. Totila was killed in the final mêlée and over the next two years the remaining Goth and Frank forces in Italy were crushed.

At the siege of Rome, Dagisthaeus was so central to its recapture that Procopius remarked in his history that Bessus had captured Petra but lost Rome, whilst Dagisthaeus had lost Petra but captured the eternal city. His redemption was, it seems, complete.

There is no record of Dagisthaeus after 560CE, but his career is typical of an officer during the reign of Justinian. When it came to writing The Charioteer, the character of a spoiled aristocrat desperate to redeem himself simply leaped out of the pages, that he was imprisoned and in disgrace when the Silk Mission actually happened was manna from heaven to an author.

The Charioteer is available on Amazon from Sharpe Books.