Three Six Seven

by Peter Vansittart

367 AD. At the edge of a Roman Empire whose power is faltering under attack from without and within, lies Britain, a land rich in possibilities but drained in taxes, wasting under imperial neglect and menaced by sporadic barbarian incursions.In Silchester, at the heart of the prosperous trading empire of his own making, Drusus Antonius Muras, a powerful, ambitious businessman, is compiling a balance-sheet. His subject is her assets, liabilities, the actual and the potential. Under the direction of the right man, a man with talents to manage, take charge, subdue, an independent Britain could astonish the world.But at first gradually, then with frightening momentum, barbarian raids increase until Britain is facing the an apparently concerted invasion by Picts, Scots, Scanians, Attacots, Brigantes... They attack from all sides, swarming over the Roman defensive walls and penetrating deep into Britain. Besiged in Silchester, Drusus determines to exploit the uncertainty of the times to seize his chance.In Three Six Seven Peter Vansittart presents Drusus' own account of that extraordinary year, one of the most momentous in the history of Britain. Charting the rise and fall if this 'very important man' he creates a novel in incident, character and style, a masterly portrait of an exceptional man at an exceptional time.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Roman, Dark, British Literature, Ancient

236 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 1983

About the author

Peter Vansittart was a master of the historical novel and a writer of outstanding talent. He wrote more than 40 books, which also encompassed anthologies, works on literature and social history.

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was captivated by this fascinating and unusual novel, written in the author's inimitable, polished, and sophisticated style. It recounts the events of one momentous year in British history: AD367, the year of the 'Barbarian Conspiracy' and the years following. Drusus, a Gaul who has settled in Britain and become a wealthy and respected tradesman, narrates.

Now an old man living in penury near Milan, Drusus has penned his memoirs, emphasizing the 'Barbarian Conspiracy' and its aftermath. In the 'Conspiracy', Scots and Attacotti from Hibernia; Scanians; Saxons; Jutes invade Britain, leaving a wake of destruction. Also, bands of bacaudes plague the countryside and upset the balance of society. The bacaudes are deserters from the military, runaway slaves, thieves, bandits, the landless, and others of the disaffected. Count Theodosius arrives from Gaul, bringing with him Magnus Maximus. Drusus calls the latter that man . Barbarians are defeated at London; after the victory, Theodosius and Magnus Maximus exchange roses--one white, one red. I thought immediately of 'Wars of the Roses'; to me, this symbolized the impending struggle for power of the two men. Theodosius plans to 'reconquer' Britain. Drusus is charged with restoring trade. However, Drusus convinces Magnus Maximus to usurp imperial power. The stars of both men quickly rise, then fall just as rapidly. For a short time Magnus Maximus declares himself Emperor of Britain, Gaul, and Germania. We can imagine Drusus's bitterness in his writing: although Magnus Maximus fell, the name of Macsen [as the British tribes call him], will live forever in song and story and the name of Drusus will pass into obscurity.

I loved the author's style: acerbic, sardonic, cynical: no one or nothing was safe from the attacks of his pen, not even the most 'sacred cows'. Often it made me think of The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary of Ambrose Bierce or of the witticisms of Oscar Wilde. I loved such aphorisms as "Human behaviour is easy to change, human nature is not." I also enjoyed Drusus's surreal fever dream, to me a portent of future events. All the characters were very well drawn, especially the egotistical Drusus. It might help for non-Britishers to read up on a little British history of this period. The novel starts slowly, probably because the author is setting up the story, but gains momentum. Very highly recommended!

[Bryn Hammond · Rating 5 out of 5]

The narrator was a vicious satire – impersonated with ferocious sarcasm by the author – on the Defender of Western Civilization, as incarnated in Rome under deluge by barbarians. I’m here for that. Drusus’ self-flattery and self-deception skate near to being too vast to swallow, but nah, no doubt he exists. In legions.

I think this is the best of the four Vansittarts I’ve read. His writing is a wonder, constantly inventive, and this one remains strong in forward impetus.

Needs to be re-issued. I like my paperback cover (Robin Clark 1984), but it’s not on site for display.

[Ozymandias · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story: 5 (slow moving and distracted with an ultimately rushed ending)
Characters: 7 (only the lead is developed but he’s witty and entertaining)
Accuracy: 5 (research limited in scope and by refusal to conform to reality)

I’m pleased to say I enjoyed this book far more than Vansittart’s other book, The Wall. This one actually has a plot and *gasp* things actually happen! And we get to see it happen no less! Remarkable. The story here concerns the year 367, the source of the rather odd title (though I like the subtitle “Memoirs of a Very Important Man” much better). In that year was the “Great Barbarian Conspiracy” in which several different barbarian groups teamed up to invade Britain. They were highly successful and it took a major army to clear them out. That’s the historical plot of the book. Our lead character’s more local plot is his attempts to enhance his own status. His plan is to establish an independent Britain, a somewhat dubious prospect (when the Romans did abandon Britain in 410 it was met with pleas for help from the local Britons) but not an impossible ambition. He’s not solely motivated by self-interest in doing this either. He recognizes the predatory nature of the Roman state and the advantages posed to the provinces by a local, independent ruler. But of course he also wants to be standing behind that ruler whispering in his ear.

Disappointingly, what’s set up as a plan is really an aspiration. He wants a free Britain but has no means of getting it. Which means that this part of the book is basically undeveloped. And since we rarely leave Silchester (down in the south of England not far from Reading) we don’t get a great view of the barbarian invasion (which came mainly from the north). There are some action scenes and a lot of descriptions of massacres, but mainly events are carried out through efforts to piece together what’s going on through rumors. It’s a novel approach to the matter but it mostly works. The first half or so of the book was the most compelling on this subject. After the invasion occurs there’s much less need to sort out what’s going on (barbarians are everywhere, got it) so the story can get a bit repetitive. The last third in particular (at least before the army shows up) is very dull as nothing happens yet we just keep going.

The lead character, Drusus, is entertaining enough. Vansittart seems to specialize in witty observations and emotional detachment, and for that he’s chosen well in Drusus whose pretensions and wit can’t mask an essentially empty and pompous soul. He’s a wealthy businessman and relatively educated man in a time when such things aren’t really valued like they used to be. Drusus is forever tooting his own horn and convinced that others are stealing his best lines. And he does have some good ones. I think his character is established pretty clearly by one of his earlier comments:

“My story, a sermon of major importance, will astonish only those of you not worth addressing. I have, as I am sure you have noted, very decided opinions on government, morals, culture, race, which the combined resources of history are unlikely to refute and which should ensure that my name survives those of most emperors, politicians, and all poets save Vergil and, perhaps, Horace.”

That shows well his pomposity, his grandiose sense of self-importance, and his sense of history.

The downside of having such a character as a narrator of course, is that it diminishes the value of his other characters. Since we only witness them through Drusus we see mainly their foibles and shortcomings. Drusus is very snarky about people that lesser men would consider friends but he considers useful tools. As such we’re left with some amusing observations and little sense of character. Probably the best presented is Sylviana, who Drusus is somewhat in love with, and who he views with an awkward combination of jealousy at her new husband and a conviction that she wants to come back to him. But who cares about other characters when you can hear so many of Drusus’ cutting remarks? Like “my ability to shed friends and lovers reassured me that I was driving forward.” Or with regards to the trinity: “I preferred deities to keep their identities more under control.” Such biting wit is enough to keep the one man show from getting too boring.

One of the most distinctive features of the book is the writing style, which is full of extremely long, elegant sentences, that never end and are filled with digressions and detailed asides. This style often overrides the function of the story. Rather than a string of connected events being brought together, the book is a long interconnected string of musings. Which works as a pseudomemoir I suppose, but often feels unfocused and easily distracted. The scattered nature of the plot gets worse as the book goes on, although it does pull together by the end.

With any piece of historical fiction there are going to be questions of accuracy. There are a number of details he handles well. The inclusion of curials is worthy of praise as they would have been the class responsible for local government yet they rarely appear in literature. On the other hand, there are issues he handles more poorly. There are a number of issues ranging from the army using old-style legions of 6,000 men (they had perhaps a sixth of that and were now garrison forces) to the identification of the vicar as a governor in charge of four cantons (the vicar was in charge of the diocese which had four provinciae under their own independent governors) to claiming that Valerian was captured by Goths (it was the Persians). The very title itself is awkward. While we date in AD now, that’s an invention of the middle ages. Normally I’d just dismiss dates in AD as translations of regnal years or Anno Mundi (years since the Creation), but here the book is specific that the new system of Anno Domini was established empire-wide by Theodosius. He even makes a big deal about the numbers that make up the date, giving each a religious significance. This is especially rubbish since the Romans wouldn’t have written it 3-6-7 but CCCLXVII, so you couldn’t find the numbers three or six anywhere. The book isn’t the worst I’ve read in terms of accuracy, but it does make plenty of mistakes.

One of the odder mistakes is a decision I can’t even view as a mistake since it was clearly intentional. And that’s the use of decidedly nonstandard words for common Roman ones, whether that’s an unusual variation like Treves (Trier) or Boudiga (Boudica), an incorrect spelling like chi-rhu (☧, pronounced chi-rhō), or an entirely invented word like Jeheshuan. Jeheshua is supposed to be Jesus (The Hebrew Yeshua being a variant of the older Yehoshua/Joshua) but it’s not Hebrew, not Latin (Latin has no sound for sh), and not English. So why does he use these words? That question has me stumped. I suppose Treves can be considered closer to the Roman name of Augusta Treverorum than Trier is, but he uses modern names for every other city bar St. Albans (including the obviously Saxon Silchester). And that doesn’t explain his other odd choices. I think he’s just being willfully iconoclastic. He’s using bizarre and unfamiliar terminology for the sheer joy of using bizarre and unfamiliar terminology. He gets an enormous thrill elsewhere from dwelling on the non-rational and I suspect that’s how he regards real life as well. Truth is only wisdom if it’s obscure. Looking for deeper meaning behind this is pointless. It’s just childish perversity.

We get a lot of errant nonsense here too. Just listen to this interminable monologue from the local bishop:

“We get too many converts from the stupid, lazy or the wilfully ignorant whom Jeheshua very properly damned. As a teacher he lacked patience, a grave fault. They think we offer them mere physical immortality, instead of a greater intensity of what they may already possess. Expansion of vision and understanding after the death of the primal self, which I always think of as a wounded snake. Thus we die in order to live. Knowledge of one’s own nature is the true Kingdom, the term Jeheshua uses, slightly crudely. He was a teacher who despised education as rendered useless by the approaching destruction of existing institutions. Our emperors may have averted this by acknowledging his suzerainity, though he seems to have forgotten the poor Britons. When bothering to perform miracles, he demonstrated, like you yourself, that obstacles can be overcome by will.”

Does that sound like any priest you’ve ever met? It’s absurd and ahistorical nonsense (people were getting murdered for far less heretical statements) but it fits Vansittart’s eclectic beliefs. He loves not merely the irrational but the the non-rational: ideas that not only ignore logic but which exist in a worldview that has no place for it in the first place. Reason only distracts us from the deeper truths of the universe. And he hates boundaries. Conformity. Structure. There should be no limitations on metaphysical thought such as those applied, for example, by Christian theology or philosophical schools of thought. Knowledge should come from all places simultaneously, and since he adores the non-rational this means that balancing contradictory beliefs is no obstacle. He is, in short, almost unbearably pretentious and New Agey whenever any character monologues on religion, regardless of their affiliations. And any subject can evoke such a digression; historical accounts, food choices, slavery, the weather… By the end I was thoroughly sick of it.

I did enjoy this book, certainly much more than I did The Wall, but it still feels self-indulgent. It allows stylistic considerations to impact the plot and at many points fails to justify its own existence. Still, I enjoyed much of it and appreciated the viewpoint of Drusus. That alone gets you over some of the rougher patches.