Goths And Gothic Identity In The Ostrogothic Kingdom 227
Catholicism.136 Theoderic never explicitly associated the name of Goth with
his church137 because he knew that “most people who were considered Goths,
like most people in Italy, were or became Catholics”.138 But reactions against
this analysis have been adamant that while there were individual Arian sol-
diers of barbarian origin in Italy in the 5th century there is no evidence for an
organized Arian church in Italy between the time of Ambrose in the 380s and
Theoderic’s Arian patronage of the early 6th century. The revival of the Arian
church must be associated with the coming of the Goths.139
Moving Forward
It is hoped that a tour of these seemingly irreconcilable debates does not leave
the impression that the field is in a state of disarray. Quite the contrary: acute
disagreement has stimulated ever more sophisticated arguments and sharp-
ened our knowledge of the many contours and nuances of the sources. They
have served as a kind of intellectual pressure cooker, with the beneficial result
that this little corner of history has been more thoroughly inspected than
many others no less deserving of similar scrutiny. Each of the above models
has merits. Individual facets of opposed positions are, in isolation, entirely
plausible and likely true. Ultimately, though, some arguments affirm that the
Goths were a collectivity and possessed a sense of distinctive Gothic identity,
while others hold that such a thing did not really exist. These cannot both be
right. What to do?
Distances between opposed positions need to be shortened. Extreme inter-
pretive polarities have already engendered a certain degree of scholarly tribal-
ism (if I may be allowed the pun); if allowed to deepen or become entrenched,
this will inevitably result in an intellectual inertia that will hinder the coopera-
tive growth of the field. Steps should be taken to maintain the analytical rigour
that these debates have fostered, but should also work to rehabilitate unten-
able models built on otherwise sound analysis. Two such steps come to mind.
First, the formative force that Rome exerted on barbarian peoples in and
outside the empire must continue to be recognized. Scholars across the inter-
pretive spectrum have already acknowledged this to differing degrees, and this
mode ought to be maintained and even strengthened. For centuries during
136 See the prosopographical appendix in Amory, People and Identity, pp. 348–484.
137 Amory, People and Identity, p. 258.
138 Ibid., p. 274.
139 Markus, review of Amory; Heather, “Gens and Regnum”, p. 126.