Fall 2018 , Reports
The Barbarians at the Gates
By Paul Joseph De Mola, FRGS Wed, Oct 10, 2018
Were the "barbarian" invasions of the western Roman Empire key to its collapse? The answer is more complex than most of us have thought.
Barbarians: their very name conjures images of an uncivilized hoard hell-bent on wreaking havoc on society and bringing an empire to its knees. When it comes to Rome’s encounters with barbarians, the truth is a bit more complex. In this article, I explore some of those complexities in the light of archaeological evidence, historical documents and social theory. Questions such as the role barbarians played in late Imperial society and their impact on Roman identity, as well as the Empire’s evolving policies toward different tribal groups will be discussed. This I shall cover within a theoretical framework that tests the dichotomy of decline and transition.
The “barbarian†invasions of Late Antiquity are intimately associated with the decline of Western Roman Imperialism (c. AD 300-550) and seen historically as the inauguration of an era commonly called the Middle Ages (Fig.1). Much later, medieval historians, such as Francesco Petrarca, referred to this period of history as the ‘Dark Ages’ (Findlen 2002: 219-21). The Renaissance had revived an interest in the classical arts and ancient figures such as Saint Jerome — who observed the sacking of Rome in AD 410 as an apocalyptic event — had great influence on neoclassical authors. Germanic tribes looking to become part of Roman society and reap the blessings thereof were described as illiterate hoards of dirty, smelly, uncultured sub-humans.
https://popular-archaeology.com/article/the-barbarians-at-the-gates/
