Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations Read Free Page B

benefited greatly from expert studies and scholarly consultations. In short, every single section of my little cathedral has been built from the bricks, stones and drawings of someone else.
    I have always loved Plato’s metaphor of the ‘ship of state’. The idea of a great vessel, with its helmsman, crew and complement of passengers, ploughing its way across the oceans of time, is irresistible. So, too, are the many poems which celebrate it:
O navis, referent in mare te novi
fluctus! O quid agis? Fortiter occupa
   portum! Nonne vides ut
    nudum remigio latus… 18
    Or again:
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate! 19
    These lines from Longfellow were written out by President Roosevelt in his own hand, and sent to Winston Churchill on 20 January 1941. They were accompanied by a note which said, ‘I think this verse applies to your people as it does to us.’ 20
    The same thoughts come to mind when brains are racked about kingdoms that have vanished. For ships of state do not sail on for ever. They sometimes ride the storms, and sometimes founder. On occasion they limp into port to be refitted; on other occasions, damaged beyond repair, they are broken up; or they sink, slipping beneath the surface to a hidden resting place among the barnacles and the fishes.
    In this connection, another string of images presents itself, in which the historian becomes a beachcomber and treasure-seeker, a collector of flotsam and jetsam, a raiser of wrecks, a diver of the deep, scouring the seabed to recover what was lost. This book certainly sits comfortably in the category of historical salvage. It garners the traces of ships of state that sank, and it invites the reader, if only on the page, to watch with delight as the stricken galleons straighten their fallen masts, draw up their anchors, fill their sails and reset their course across the ocean swell.
    Norman Davies
    Peterhouse and St Antony’s
    April 2011

Tolosa
    Sojourn of the Visigoths
    (ad 418–507)
     



Alt Clud
    Kingdom of the Rock
    (Fifth to Twelfth Centuries)
     



Burgundia
    Five, Six or Seven Kingdoms
    (c. 411–1795)
     



Aragon
    A Mediterranean Empire
    (1137–1714)
     



I
    Perpignan is the chef-lieu of France’s most southerly department, the Pyrénées-Orientales (dép. 64), one of five such departments within the Region of Languedoc-Roussillon. As the corbeau flies, it is situated 510 miles south-south-west of Paris, close to the Franco-Spanish frontier. In former times it was the provincial capital of historic Roussillon, which today borders the Spanish districts of Lleida and Gerona and the Principality of Andorra. The Côte Vermeille, the ‘Scarlet Coast’, lies immediately adjacent on the Golfe du Lion, 12 miles to the south, and beyond it the Costa Brava. The best way to get there is by TGV Express; fast, luxurious trains leave the Gare de Lyon four times a day for Avignon, and thence along the plain of Languedoc via Montpellier, Béziers and Narbonne. The journey takes 4 hours 45 minutes. Passengers arriving in the daytime are usually greeted by the strong southern sun, which bathes the city on average for 300 days each year.
    Alternatively, one can fly to the regional airport of Perpignan-Rivesaltes, which hosts flights from domestic and international destinations including Paris-Orly, London-Stansted, Charleroi and Southampton. On entering the terminal building, the first poster one sees reads:

VISITEZ LE CHÂTEAU DES ROIS PLACE-FORTE D’UN ROYAUME EPHÉMÈRE
    (‘Visit the Castle of the Kings, Fortress of an Ephemeral Kingdom’). 1 Few visitors could be expected to know beforehand what the ‘Ephemeral Kingdom’ refers to.
    The old city lies on the southern bank of the River Têt, which is lined by the Boulevard de la France Libre. An inner ring road is formed by the boulevards Foch, Wilson, Briand and