(urth) Appian

[Roy C. Lackey]

Note: In this post, "Old Autarch" refers to Severian's immediate
predecessor.

As Tony said, Appian has been accepted as the name of the Old Autarch for a
long time by many people. Both Andre-Driussi and Borski have endorsed the
notion in print.

Tony Ellis wrote:
>>As you say, Appian dates from too long ago. In 'The Cat' we're told that
Appian was Autarch 62 years before Severian's reign. Even if we
generously make Appian 18 at the time, that would still make the Autarch
Severian knows a man of 80.<<

True, the age of the Old Autarch presents something of a problem, but he's
not alone. I'll try to assemble the facts in so far as they can be
determined from the text(s), but first I need a measuring stick --
Severian's age at the time he became autarch.

Personally, based on scattered comments by Sev himself, by Gurloes and,
particularly, Thecla, I have a hard time seeing him as any more than 18 when
he became autarch, but my opinion must take a back seat to the numbers
afforded by the text.

When Sev first met Agia, he thought she was "twenty or a little more". She
later acknowledged she was 23. Hildegrin, while making a snide comment about
Agia, said that Sev "was probably born only a couple years sooner" than she.
That all seems to establish that Sev was about 25 when he became autarch.

Sancha was 14 at the time of the scandal. Lomer was 28. When Sancha "came of
age" (18?, 21?), she was permitted by the Autarch Appian to move down south.
She returned to the House Absolute fifty years later, age about 70. She died
seven years after returning (age 77), when Sev was about 20. Lomer was still
in the antechamber five years after she died.That would make Lomer about 96
when Sev first met him, which strikes me as a bit hard to believe.

Odilo II (author of "The Cat") became Steward when Sev was 10, so Sev was 13
when Sancha returned to the House Absolute. We know the Old Autarch was
definitely ruler when she returned, because he opened the whorehouse about
the time Sev was born. So, if Appian wasn't the Old Autarch, then Appian
died while Sancha was down south.

Not long before dying, the Old Autarch said, "You remember everything, and
so you must recall the night you came to my House Azure. That night someone
else came to me. I was a servant once, in the House Absolute.... That is why
they hate me. As they will hate you, for what you once were. Paeon, who
trained me, who was honey-steward fifty years gone by. I knew what he was in
truth, for I had met him before. He told me you were the one... the next. I
did not think it would be quite so soon..." (CITADEL, chapter XXV)

Trained to do what? Wrangle bees? Be a good ruler? To serve tea? It seems to
me that Paeon was not a mere man, if he was a man at all. He goes from a
"who" to a "what". He may have been some variety of Hierodule, or a man the
Old Autarch knew years before who had died or disappeared and returned as an
eidolon that night, recreated just for the occasion of heralding the certain
knowledge that Sev would be the next autarch.

At any rate, the quote seems to suggest that Sev's predecessor was hanging
around the House Absolute, if only as a servant, long before Sev was born.
How much time passed between the Old Autarch gaining the throne and going to
Yesod? Why the incidental mention of honey-steward, if honey is not related
to the name Appian, regardless of whether or not the etymology is correct?
If Paeon trained Sev's immediate predecessor, he may also have been involved
with autarchs before him. He may have arranged things so that the Old
Autarch, groomed to satisfaction, was in the right place at the right time
to eat *his* predecessor's forebrain. The Old Autarch certainly knew that he
would encounter Sev up north and be replaced.

Palaemon said that the roads had been closed, when he was Sev's age (25), by
the Autarch Maruthas. How old is Palaemon? Did Maruthas reign before or
after Appian? If before, then Palaemon had to be *at least* 82 when Sev
became autarch, even if Maruthas died in the same year Appian let Sancha
leave the House Absolute. If after, then at least two autarchs died while
Sancha was away, and Palaemon's age can be less than 82.

All in all, I think the preponderance of evidence suggests that Sancha's
Appian was not the Old Autarch, and that the last four rulers of the
Commonwealth were, in order, Appian, Maruthas, the Old Autarch and Severian.
Sev, though he has all the guy's memories, goes out of his way *not* to
mention the guy's name. Why? And what was the name?

-Roy