—Act I, scene i, lines 31-33

The Goths were a group of Germanic tribes who began raiding the Roman Empire about the middle of the third century, not long after the time of Caracalla. They were badly defeated in 269 by the Roman Emperor Claudius II, who called himself Claudius Gothicus in consequence, but who died the year after.

The Gothic menace lightened for a century thereafter. In 375, however, a group of these Goths (of tribes known as Visigoths) were driven into the Roman Empire by the Huns. Within the border of the Empire, they defeated the Romans in a great battle at Adrianople in 378. Theodosius, whom we have mentioned earlier, then ascended the Roman throne and managed to contain the Gothic menace by diplomacy and judicious bribery, rather than by military victories.

After Theodosius' death, the Visigoths raided Italy and took Rome itself in 410. They were not defeated at this tune but wandered out of Italy of their own accord and finally set up a kingdom in southern France that eventually expanded into and over all Spam. In 489 another branch of the Gothic nation, the Ostrogoths, invaded Italy and set up a kingdom there.

Up to this point, there isn't much hope of finding any Roman that can serve as an inspiration for Titus Andronicus. Nowhere is there a general who fought long wars against the Goths and won. We must look still later in time.

In the prose story The Tragical History of Titus Andronicus, the Goths are said to have invaded Italy under their king "Tottilius."

Actually there was a king of the Ostrogoths, of nearly that name, who fought in Italy. He was Totila, who ruled from 541 to 552.

Here is what happened. Although the Germanic tribes had settled the Western provinces of the Roman Empire, the Eastern provinces remained intact and were ruled from Constantinople. In 527 Justinian became Roman Emperor in Constantinople and was determined to reconquer the West. In 535 he sent his great general, Belisarius, to Italy, and with that began a twenty-year (not a mere ten-year) war of Roman and Goth, in which the Romans were eventually victorious.

Belisarius won initial victories, but the Goths rallied when Totila became king. Belisarius was recalled and replaced with another general, Narses (a eunuch, the only one of importance in military history), who finally defeated Totila in 552 and completed the conquest of Italy in 556. In the Tragical History Titus Andronicus was a governor of Greece and came from Greece to rescue Italy, and that fits too.

Again, the name "Andronicus" is best known in history as that of several emperors who ruled in Constantinople, so that the very name of Titus Andronicus focuses our attention on the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. Finally, both Belisarius and Narses were ill requited by ungrateful emperors, and the tale of Titus Andronicus tells how the general of the title is ill requited by an ungrateful Emperor.

We can suppose then that Titus Andronicus was inspired by the events of the tune of Belisarius and Narses, but none of the events in the play actually match the events in history.

The two royal brothers retire before the awesome name of the victorious general.

In comes Titus Andronicus with a coffin and draws sad attention to his family's sufferings in the wars:

—Act I, scene i, lines 79-81

Priam is, of course, the King of Troy (see page I-79) whom legend credited with fifty sons. Of Titus' twenty-five sons, no less than twenty have died in the course of the ten-year war with the Goths. The twenty-first is brought back dead in his coffin from the latest battle, while the last four living sons attend it sorrowfully.

Also with them are Tamora, the captured Queen of the Goths, and her three sons.

Andronicus' first care is to bury the dead son with due pagan rites. He reproaches himself for being so slow to do it:

—Act I, scene i, lines 86-88

The Styx is the river that marks the boundary of Hades. The shades of dead men cannot cross that river till they have been buried with the proper ritual, and must till then hover disconsolately on its shore.

Andronicus' sons demand that a human sacrifice be dedicated on the occasion of the funeral of their dead brother so that his soul may rest in peace. (An example of why the play cannot be placed in a Christian setting.)

Titus Andronicus orders Alarbus, the oldest son of Tamora, Queen of the Goths, to be so sacrificed. Tamora pleads against it in a speech that can't help but appeal to us, but the stern Titus insists, not out of cruelty but out of what he conceives to be religious devotion.

Chiron, Tamora's youngest son, cries out:

—Act I, scene i, line 131

When Greece was at its height, the Scythians were a nomadic people who lived on the plains north of the Black Sea. The Greeks knew little about them, but knew the area they inhabited to be tremendous and their numbers large. They were for some reason considered the epitome of bar-barousness by the Greeks, and their name, so maligned, has been used in that fashion ever since.

Tamora's remaining son, Demetrius, sounds a darker note:

—Act I, scene i, lines 136-39

The Trojan Queen is Hecuba (see page I-85), who had sent her youngest son, Polydorus, for safekeeping to the court of the Thracian king, Polymnestor. After the fall of Troy, when all of Hecuba's other children were killed (save Helenus), Polymnestor was persuaded by the Greeks to kill Polydorus too.

Hecuba discovered this and persuaded Polymnestor to visit destroyed Troy by promising to reveal to him a treasure in its ruins. He came to Troy with his two sons and, according to the tale, Hecuba in a fit of despairing fury managed to stab his two sons to death and tear out Polymnestor's eyes.

Nevertheless, the sacrifice takes place and Lucius, the oldest of Titus' remaining sons, announces the result in triumphant goriness:

—Act I, scene i, lines 143-44

With that, the tale of double revenge begins-first Tamora's and then Titus'. And Demetrius' allusion to Hecuba indicates the crude and brutal bloodiness of what is ahead.