8 Arnold, Bjornlie, and Sessa
self-identify as ‘Goth’ and/or ‘Roman’ probably shifted from generation to
generation, region to region, and perhaps even from individual to individual.
As the contributions of Swain and Halsall show in this volume, ethnicity in
Ostrogothic Italy was an extraordinarily complex matter that continues to pro-
voke heated debate among modern scholars.
Social relations, too, were in flux during this period, and again, we must look
to the 4th and 5th centuries for insight into patterns that were arguably inten-
sified under the Ostrogoths. The expansion of the imperial administration and
the addition of a second Senate in Constantinople under Constantine mas-
sively expanded the numbers of salaried official posts and hence the number
of wealthy men who qualified for aristocratic status. Changes in how sena-
torial status was achieved soon followed under Valentinian I, which directly
rewarded men who had served in the government with higher senatorial hon-
ors and which subsequently demoted birth or marriage as the primary means
of acquiring elite status. Barbarians, we know, were among the beneficiaries of
these changes to the Roman system of social ranking and honour acquisition.
Landowning, always the chief medium of wealth in the ancient world, also con-
tinued to structure Ostrogothic society, as Grey’s discussion of property owner-
ship and peasant labour in this volume shows. However, the influx of men with
money from lucrative civil careers or from highly remunerable positions in the
army allowed for a new generation of landowners to emerge in Italy, whose
elite status was no longer tied to a purely Roman aristocratic lineage. Again,
some of these new landed elites were barbarians. One well-known example
is Flavius Valila, vir illustris and magister utriusque militae, who founded and
endowed a private church on his extensive properties outside of Rome.8
This is not to say that traditional Roman senatorial aristocrats—the Anicii,
the Decii, and so on—disappeared during the Ostrogothic period. On the con-
trary, many found advantageous positions in the Ostrogothic regime based in
Ravenna.9 Moreover, the Roman Senate continued to function as a powerful
local governing centre, as Radtki’s chapter demonstrates. However, these fami-
lies now had to compete with a range of new elites, including the wives, sisters,
and daughters of barbarian leaders. Cooper’s contribution argues that some
royal barbarian women, such as Theoderic’s daughter Amalasuentha, exer-
cised agency in political affairs through marriage alliances and their influence
as regents for young barbarian kings. As she notes, however, female regency
8 For Flavius Valila see Martindale, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (cited as PLRE
hereafter) 2, p. 1147 and Pietri/Pietri (eds.), Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire (cited as
PCBE hereafter) 2.2, pp. 2247–8.
9 See also Barnish, “Transformation and Survival”.