The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, 395-700 AD

THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITY

ill-fated Romulus Augustulus. It is a dreary and confused story, in which the
principal players vary between barbarian or Roman commanders and mem-
bers of the civilian aristocracy, with the eastern emperor invoked at times for
the sake of respectability and at times attempting to interpose his own choice.
Only occasionally did these power struggles at the top have a direct impact
on government; Majorian (457–61), for instance, issued reforming legislation,
but soon fell at the hands of Ricimer. There was no western Leo or Zeno.
No western emperor had succeeded in establishing strong government after
the death of Theodosius I, and while the eastern government in the later fi fth
century under Marcian and Anastasius had become progressively more civil-
ian in style, the exact opposite happened in the west. Nor could the western
government be said to represent strong military rule; on the contrary, both
the territories occupied by the western empire and the Roman army had itself
by now suffered fragmentation on a major scale. These processes are closely
interconnected, with roots reaching back to the fourth century, but they will
be treated separately here for the sake of clarity.

Romans and barbarians: the late fourth century onwards

We have inherited a dramatic view of the Roman empire in the west as being
submerged by successive waves of northern barbarian invaders. In fact, inter-
action with peoples from beyond the Rhine and the Danube had been a fact
of life since the Marcomannic wars of Marcus Aurelius in the late second
century, and indeed earlier. Until the mid-fourth century, however, it had gen-
erally been possible to contain them by a judicious deployment of force and
diplomacy. These were settled peoples with social hierarchies. The arrival on
the scene in 376 of the Huns, a nomadic people perhaps originating in the
steppe-lands of modern Khazakhstan,^11 was a decisive moment on any view;
as we have seen, Ammianus believed that it forced the Tervingi and Greuth-
ingi to cross the Danube into Roman territory and led to their settlement in
the Balkans by the Emperor Valens.^12 The Greek and Roman sources depict
the event in lurid colours, but the Goths were neither a terrified rabble nor
part of a great wave of invaders sweeping over the Roman empire. Complex
social and economic factors lay behind their appearance in later Roman his-
tory, and when they came, they came as an organized military force. Only two
years later came the battle of Adrianople (378), a blow that Rome never for-
got. The Roman defeat was the signal for other barbarian leaders to cross into
Roman territory. Alaric and his Visigoths entered Italy in 401, were defeated
by Stilicho in 402, but returned in 408 to sack Rome two years later (Chapter
1). In 405 a certain Radagaisus collected a large barbarian army from across
the Rhine and Danube and invaded Italy; on his defeat by Stilicho, 12,000
of them were enrolled in the Roman army.^13 But from then on groups of
Alans, Vandals and Sueves were on the move across Germany and Gaul and
into Spain and almost at the same time the usurper Constantine moved from
Britain into Gaul.^14 The numbers involved are hard to assess on the basis of