Hello Tom. I'm new here. In fact I joined because of your Arturius work. (Someone on the King Arthur FB page pointed it out.) I put an intro to myself in a test post, but briefly I am a physicist by profession, but an amateur of history. I have a bunch of history pages at http://www.ict.griffith.edu.au/wiseman/History.html, including one Alternate history, and links to my papers (some peer-reviewed) in Arthurian-related history and literature.

Anyway, I really liked what you did, especially your justification for the Roman war, and your use of the Bible (which Paul Aurelian would certainly have done). I've got some detailed feedback I could give you if you want. But I also thought you might be interested in a work of mine, which takes a similar approach to yours in many ways. But I went the full hog and wrote a book. Here's its web page: http://www.ict.griffith.edu.au/wiseman/ThenArthurFought/ThenArthurFought.html.
I've pasted its cover at the end of this message just for fun (I didn't mean it to be this huge, but that's just the size of the file on the book's webpage.)

I call my book a quasihistory. To quote from my preface, "a work with the appearance of a history, and not actually falsifiable." I'm curious as to why you consider your work an "alternate history" rather than a quasihistory (to use my term). As I said, I'm new to this forum, so perhaps I don't understand its scope.

Best, Howard.
Hi Howard!

Apologies that I've taken this long to get back to you! Thank you very much for your high praise; I'd love detailed feedback. :)

In many ways, your work is what I aspire to, except on a considerably more ambitious scale. I've been focusing on the "history" which could have been absorbed by "later writers" and transformed into the heroic legend that we all know and love. I've been toying with the prospect of turning this into an illustrated mini-publication and even have an artist in mind, but I might have to find more disposable income before entertaining that notion. :p

It is indeed more of a pseudo-history than alternate history, but it's very much square peg, round hole - and this board gets more attention than the more fantastical "Alien Space Bats" subforum, which is flooded with A Song of Ice and Fire fan fiction anyway (kidding, I love you guys.)

Thanks once again and I'm looking forward to your feedback!

Best,
Tom Colton
 
A King Arthur Timeline? Nice.

You'll have to forgive me, though. Because thanks to a certain Japanese Visual Novel, I can't help but concieve Arturius Aurelianus as, instead, a crossdressing Arturia Pendragon.
 
Hi Howard!

Apologies that I've taken this long to get back to you! Thank you very much for your high praise; I'd love detailed feedback. :)

No worries. Of course I'd like feedback from you on my book, if you have time to read it. The nice thing about effectively self-publishing (e.g. with lulu as publisher) is that one can constantly revise.

Ok, here are the comments I made while reading, from typographical to stylistic, making a mythical twelve in total ;-)
1. I wouldn't call Dumnonia an "outcrop". Why not a peninsula?
2. You seem to have something missing in " whereupon ??? took up the names Marcus Aurelius"
3. You imply Julian, son of Constantine, was left in Britain and took part in the British revolt. Actually he accompanied his father to Gaul and was murdered with him in September 411 while under arrest [Sozomen]
4. Your timeline is a bit unlikely, though certainly not impossible, in having Artorius Constantine born c.405 at the latest, but his grandson Arturius still vigorously fighting in c.537, at least 132 years later. (Mind you, my timeline is only a little less stretched out in this regard).
5. I like your idea of someone disfigured by fire claiming to be Vortigern as a way of reconciling Nennius' accounts.
6. Very frequently (maybe ubiquitously) you have Castum where you mean Castrum.
7. I guess you do know, from your careful wording, that tributary in reference to a river is a recent borrowing from Latin (by the analogy you mention).
8. I thought the tale of C and O really stretched credibility in terms of supposedly being part of an account by a Christian monk. The actual work is a magical light-hearted romp of course, and no one could imagine it to be true even if it were a tale told in the 6th century.
9. No Gwydre map Arthur?
10. In the Roman War episode, why is Lucius Tiberius sent to Armorica? If the aim is to force Arthur to relinquish the relics, why not to Britain?
11. When you have the Armoricans fighting with Arthur to liberate Armorica from the yoke of the Franks (Clothar?) and the Romans (Lucius Tiberius) are these Armoricans who have been expelled back to Britain? Or a fifth column? Or are parts of Armorica not in fact under this yoke?
12. In a footnote you say "Geoffrey has Gawain dying on the shores of Southampton." Actually it is Richborough.

If you want more feedback, I think you would get a lot more if you posted your work in the King Arthur facebook page. Serialised like here, so that each bit ends in footnotes would be well received I think. Just a suggestion.

In many ways, your work is what I aspire to, except on a considerably more ambitious scale. I've been focusing on the "history" which could have been absorbed by "later writers" and transformed into the heroic legend that we all know and love.

Thanks. I've toyed with the idea of writing a version of my book that could have been written in the late 6th century (the same time as your Paul Aurelian, but I have a different author in mind). But I'm torn by this problem: if such an account survived how did it get so distorted by later writers, and how come some parts ended up in some chronicles and others parts in other chronicles. Consequently I've just gone with a synthesis that is quite, but not exactly, like a medieval chronicle.

I've been toying with the prospect of turning this into an illustrated mini-publication and even have an artist in mind, but I might have to find more disposable income before entertaining that notion. :p.

Yes, I gather that can make a big difference, even just in terms of cover art. I'm working now on a condensed e-book (kindle) version of my work, and wondering about professional cover art for that.

It is indeed more of a pseudo-history than alternate history, but it's very much square peg, round hole - and this board gets more attention than the more fantastical "Alien Space Bats" subforum, which is flooded with A Song of Ice and Fire fan fiction anyway (kidding, I love you guys.)

Well I make a distinction between pseudohistory, such as that of Geoffrey of Monmouth i.e. "rightly described as ... false history, because of its anachronisms, hyperbole, and blatant contradictions of more reliable chronicles." and quasihistory: having "the appearance of a history, and not actually falsifiable." (quotes from my Preface). [Is there really an alien space bats subforum?] I know I'm splitting hairs, but I wonder about an alternate historiography genre --- where the history itself is a quashistory, but the historiography is different from our world. So then one would not have to worry about the issues I mentioned above i.e. if such an account survived how did it get so distorted by later writers, and how come some parts ended up in some chronicles and others parts in other chronicles.

Best,
Howard
 
Thanks so very much, Howard! I'll respond to each of these.

1. I wouldn't call Dumnonia an "outcrop". Why not a peninsula?
2. You seem to have something missing in " whereupon ??? took up the names Marcus Aurelius"
3. You imply Julian, son of Constantine, was left in Britain and took part in the British revolt. Actually he accompanied his father to Gaul and was murdered with him in September 411 while under arrest [Sozomen]
4. Your timeline is a bit unlikely, though certainly not impossible, in having Artorius Constantine born c.405 at the latest, but his grandson Arturius still vigorously fighting in c.537, at least 132 years later. (Mind you, my timeline is only a little less stretched out in this regard).
5. I like your idea of someone disfigured by fire claiming to be Vortigern as a way of reconciling Nennius' accounts.
6. Very frequently (maybe ubiquitously) you have Castum where you mean Castrum.
7. I guess you do know, from your careful wording, that tributary in reference to a river is a recent borrowing from Latin (by the analogy you mention).
8. I thought the tale of C and O really stretched credibility in terms of supposedly being part of an account by a Christian monk. The actual work is a magical light-hearted romp of course, and no one could imagine it to be true even if it were a tale told in the 6th century.
9. No Gwydre map Arthur?
10. In the Roman War episode, why is Lucius Tiberius sent to Armorica? If the aim is to force Arthur to relinquish the relics, why not to Britain?
11. When you have the Armoricans fighting with Arthur to liberate Armorica from the yoke of the Franks (Clothar?) and the Romans (Lucius Tiberius) are these Armoricans who have been expelled back to Britain? Or a fifth column? Or are parts of Armorica not in fact under this yoke?
12. In a footnote you say "Geoffrey has Gawain dying on the shores of Southampton." Actually it is Richborough.
1. Fair enough, edited.
2. My proofreading is bad. It should be "whereupon he took the names..."
3. Upon a closer look (through Jones's Prosopography of the Roman Empire) you're right, although there is a little bit of wiggle room in the exact phrasing:

"Constantine, with his son Julian, was sent into Italy, but he was waylaid and killed."

Technically nothing is said about Julian dying but that's splitting hairs. And here I thought I was being clever by using Julian as a backup son for continuity (I've got a chart of his projected reign which I'll repost here eventually.)
4. Yeah, I figured that most of it can be covered by people siring children late in their lives, a la John Tyler and his 20th-century grandchildren, or other chronological tricks. I think I have Ambrosius and Uther born in about 434 and 438 AD (i.e. Artorius Constantine siring them at 29-33 at the youngest), then Arthur born in about 490 AD (making Uther 52 - old but not super improbable), which makes him 26 at Badon Hill (young but not an inexperienced youth) and 47 at Camlann (old but not one foot in the grave.) I put Mordred's birth at about 500AD, given that Anna/Morgause/Gwyar could be much older than Arthur, and a ten-year age gap between Arthur and Morded makes their marriages to Guinevere and Guinevach not hideously daddy-issues-creepy.
5. Thanks! I figured that was the easiest way of resolving the two accounts. :)
6. D'oh! I'll fix that in its final draft.
7. Indeed, I've gone with how people in 570AD used terms and aphorisms as far as I can.
8. It is very obviously a fairy tale, yet was so unique vis-a-vis Arthurian canon (and also let me shoehorn in Caball and Eliwlod) that I couldn't resist.
9. I didn't find out enough about him to work in. Have you got a source on his literary traditions?
10. Armorica is closer and is Lucius's staging ground, figuring that the Britons are stronger in their own country, so why risk another sea voyage?
11. That's a good question. There would obviously be people who'd lived there before the great British flight, but also a great number of British exiles who'd fled during the Saxon invaston. It should be Clothar, but the name "Clodius" would be more well-known to an author of the time.
12. Hm, I must've misread my copy of Historia Regnum Britanniae.

Thanks once again for all these points! I'll respond to your other comments later today. :biggrin:

Although a quick one: Here's the Alien Space Bats forum.
 
"Constantine, with his son Julian, was sent into Italy, but he was waylaid and killed."

Technically nothing is said about Julian dying but that's splitting hairs. And here I thought I was being clever by using Julian as a backup son for continuity (I've got a chart of his projected reign which I'll repost here eventually.​
Huh, I'd misremembered that passage. However Procopius says "Constantine, defeated in battle, died with his sons" which pretty much wraps it up for Julian. (Though not for his descendants, in my version!)
 
I'd just like to say thank you very much to everyone who's voted for my TL. Even though I've lost my early lead, the fact that through your support that this pet project of mine has gotten as far as it already has means a great deal to me. :biggrin:
 
To give this a massively belated bump, here's the infobox which I promised more than a year ago but only got round to doing recently.

infobox-png.368594


I might draw up a new monarchs/warlords list in the future, but screenshotting is surprisingly difficult on this Mac.
 
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