2
THE EMPIRE AND THE
BARBARIANS
The questions dealt with in this chapter have been transformed by a deluge of
publications in recent years. Attention has shifted from the problem of the late
Roman army and its use of federate troops to the barbarians themselves, the
impact on them of their contacts with Rome, the development of concepts of
ethnicity as they came under Roman infl uence, Rome’s usually unsuccessful,
or at least short term, attempts to deal with the issue, and the gradual emer-
gence of discrete groups and eventually of the early medieval kingdoms. Mod-
ern studies of migration and ethnic identity are also infl uential, and have been
used as a corrective to the old stereotypes of barbarian invasion, based on
prejudiced Roman sources, and sharp distinctions between civilized Romans
and the barbarian ‘other’.^1 These newer approaches also imply a critical read-
ing of the very infl uential Getica, the mid-sixth century Latin work written in
Constantinople by Jordanes, which employs the familiar technique of geneal-
ogy to claim for the Goths a mythic beginning in Scandinavia before their
encounter with the Roman empire.^2 Equally, and in contrast with much earlier
scholarship, it has now been suggested that the overall ethnic term ‘Germanic’
is better avoided. On the newer and sceptical model, the barbarian groups did
not come with their ethnicity ready made but developed it under the infl u-
ence of contacts with Rome.^3 A similar process is argued to have taken place
in relation to the Arab federates in the east in the sixth century (Chapter 9).
Rome had indeed long used and integrated barbarians, even while attempting
to assert Roman identity over foreigners. Numbers, cultural transfer and iden-
tity formation are all key issues now, as are debates about the interpretation
of material evidence. Another development has been a new understanding of
frontiers and their functions, which has moved away from the old notion of
a clear-cut fortifi ed barrier.^4 The concept of hordes of barbarians pouring in
and overwhelming the empire has been well and truly discarded. In the light
of these developments, Roman policy towards the barbarians has also had to
be rethought. But as we have seen, these changed approaches have also gone
along with a re-assertion of what is often called ‘the fall of the Roman empire
in the west’. From the perspective of this book this needs to be placed in the
context of greater continuity in the east in late antiquity, and these issues will
recur in the following chapters.