Empires and Barbarians

by Peter Heather

  Even without the Huns, moreover, these processes of development would eventually have undermined the Roman Empire. Looked at in the round, what emerges from the first-millennium evidence is that living next to a militarily more powerful and economically more developed intrusive imperial neighbour promotes a series of changes in the societies of the periphery, whose cumulative effect is precisely to generate new structures better able to fend off the more unpleasant aspects of imperial aggression. In the first millennium, this happened on two separate occasions. We see it first in the emergence of Germanic client states of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, and again – this time to more impressive effect – in the rise of the new Slavic states of the ninth and tenth. This repeated pattern, I would argue, is not accidental, and provides one fundamental reason why empires, unlike diamonds, do not last forever. The way that empires tend to behave, the mixture of economic opportunity and intrusive power that is inherent in their nature, prompts responses from those affected which in the long run undermine their capacity to maintain the initial power advantage that originally made them imperial. Not all empires suffer the equivalent of Rome’s Hunnic accident and fall so swiftly to destruction. In the course of human history, many more have surely been picked apart slowly from the edges as peripheral dynasts turned predator once their own power increased. One answer to the transitory nature of imperial rule, in short, is that there is a Newtonian third law of empires. The exercise of imperial power generates an opposite and equal reaction among those affected by it, until they so reorganize themselves as to blunt the imperial edge. Whether you find that comforting or frightening, I guess, will depend on whether you live in an imperial or peripheral society, and what stage of the dance has currently been reached. The existence of such a law, however, is one more general message that exploring the interactions of emperors and barbarians in the first millennium AD can offer us today.

  MAPS

  1. Roman and Barbarian Europe at the birth of Christ

  2. Germanic political groupings in the time of Tacitus

  3 Germanic Europe in the mid-fourth century

  4. The Marcomannic War

  5. The Agri Decumates and Elbgermanic Triangle

  6. Third century Germanic expansion to the Black Sea

  7. The Crisis of 376–80

  8. The Crisis of 405–8

  9: Repeat migrations

  10. Attilas subjects

  11. Early Anglo-Saxon England

  12. Discontinuity in northern Gaul

  13: Empires of the Franks

  14. The Ottonian Empire

  15. The strange death of Germanic Europe

  16. Slavic Europe in 900 AD

  17. Proposed Slavic homelands

  18. Slavic Central Europe

  19. Slavic western Russia in the tenth century

  20. State formation in Eastern Europe

  21. Viking diasporas

  NOTES

  PROLOGUE

  1 Annal of Fulda 882 for the incident with Poulik (1986) on the archaeology.

  1. MIGRANTS AND BARBARIANS

  1 Bohning (1978), 11.

  2 For useful summaries of the modern evidence, see Salt and Clout (1976); King (1993); Collinson (1994), 1–7, 27–40; Holmes (1996); Cohen (1995), (1996), (1997), (2008); Vertovec and Cohen (1999). Canny (1994) provides an introduction to early modern migration evidence. 200,000 Germanic-speaking peasants: Kuhn (1963), (1973); Bartlett (1993), 144–5; and see, more generally, Phillips (1988), (1994).

  3 For an introduction to the pre-Roman world of the Celts, see e.g. Cunliffe and Rowley (1976); Cunliffe (1997); James (1999). In fact, there is no one-to-one equation between Celts and the Oppida culture, and Roman conquest did advance just beyond its bounds: see Heather (2005), 49–58.

  4 For useful introductions to the early Germanic world, see Hachmann (1971); Todd (1975), (1992); Krüger (1976), vol. 1; Pohl (2000). Note, though, that there is a strong tendency in some of this literature to avoid discussing Germanic groups around the Vistula and further east – a squeamishness resulting from the Nazi era, when the fact that ancient Germanic speakers had once dominated these lands was used as an excuse for territorial aggression.

  5 For an excellent, recent overall introduction, see Batty (2007); on the broader cultural role played by Scythia in the formation of the Greek world view, see Braund (2005).

  6 Khazanov (1984) provides an excellent introduction to the world of the steppe.

  7 ‘The Veneti have taken’: Tacitus, Germania 46.2 (cf. 46.4 on what lay beyond); see also Pliny, Natural History 4.97; Ptolemy, Geography 3.5.1 and 7. On the geography and ancient archaeological patterning of the society and economy of these regions, see Dolukhanov (1996). Within the Russian forest zone, many of the river names are actually Balt rather than Slavic in origin, even in areas where Slavs would be dominant by the year 1000 AD. It is thus unclear whether Tacitus’ Veneti are likely to have been Slavic-speakers, Balt-speakers, or speakers of a tongue ancestral to them both (see Chapter 8).

  8 Nomads too played their part: the Huns in the fall of the Roman Empire, the Avars in the slavicization of central and eastern Europe, and the Magyars and Bulgars in laying the foundations of two substantial political entities whose lengthy histories underlie the existence of modern Hungary and Bulgaria.

  9 The literature on the cultural significance of the rise of nationalism is now vast, but for introductions, see Gellner (1983); Anderson (1991); Geary (2002).

  10 Early modern and modern accounts of Germanic migration consistently pictured migrants as family groups, while more contemporary Roman sources, when they said anything, also sometimes recorded the presence of women and children alongside the warriors. (I have simplified here, and the actual evidence will be surveyed in subsequent chapters.) Students of the collapse of the Roman Empire are broadly divided between viewing the Germanic invasions as its cause, and as its result. For useful overviews of the range of opinion, see Demandt (1984) and Ward Perkins (2005). With regard to the Slavs, one body of opinion has wanted to identify a very large, if submerged, population of Slavic-speakers throughout central and eastern Europe since the Bronze Age, but the evidence remains unconvincing (see Chapter 8). For a useful survey of traditional approaches to the Vikings, see Sawyer (1962), chapter 1. Nationalist conflicts also led to the downplaying of the so-called ‘Normanist’ view, that Vikings were responsible for the first Russian state: see Melnikova (1996), chapter 1 (and see also my Chapter 9).

  11 Childe (1926), (1927).

  12 See note 9 above. The general point is accepted even by those, such as Smith (1986), willing to conceive of relatively solid and sizeable group identities in at least some corners of the pre-nationalist past.

  13 Leach (1954); ‘evanescent situational construct’: Barth (1969), 9. For more recent overviews, see e.g. Bentley (1987); Kivisto (1989); Bacall (1991).

  14 That hypothesis was already marked in the work of Kossinna himself: see especially Kossinna (1928). It showed itself even more strongly in the equally influential work of Gordon Childe (see note 11 above), who generalized many of Kossinna’s ideas, while dropping some of his assumptions about Nordic racial superiority. On Kossinna’s legacy, see e.g. Chapman and Dolukhanov (1993), 1–5; Renfrew and Bahn (1991).

  15 For an overview of these intellectual developments, see Shennan (1989); Renfrew and Bahn (1991); Chapman and Dolukhanov (1993), 6–25 (which includes an instructive difference in emphasis on the part of the two authors); Ucko (1995). The work of Ian Hodder – especially (1982) and (1991) – has been particularly important in rehabilitating the view that patterns of similarity and difference in material cultural items might sometimes reflect important aspects of human organization.

  16 Clark (1966) represents a key turning point away from the invasion hypothesis. For accounts of the range of explanatory hypotheses that have been tried since, see e.g. Renfrew and Bahn (1991); Preucel and Hodder (1996); Hodder and Hutson (2003).

  17 Halsall (1995b), 61
; and see his further comment: ‘[The invasion hypothesis] is rarely given much credence in archaeological circles today. It is too simplistic, rather on a par with asserting that the change from neo-classical to neo-Gothic architecture or from classical to romantic art in the nineteenth century was the result of an invasion’ (p. 57). This ‘before’ and ‘after’ approach to migration is quite common. See, for a further example, the comments of Nicholas Higham in Hines (1997), 179, where a reinterpretation of a set of remains that had excluded migration from its discussion is lauded as ‘more complex’. The discussion in question is in Hines (1984).

  18 Wenskus (1961); cf., amongst others, Wolfram (1988) on the Goths, and Pohl (1988) on the Avars.

  19 Geary (1985) and (1988) provide introductory essays composed from this perspective, Halsall (2007) a full-scale study of the fourth to sixth centuries. The migration topos features in Amory (1997) and Kulikowski (2002).

  20 On the ‘wave of advance’ model, see, most famously, Renfrew (1987), chapters 1–2, 4 (summarizing previous approaches), and 6 (the model itself).

  21 For a detailed case study of ‘elite transfer’, see my Chapter 6.

  22 See note 13 above. Smith (1986) explores some historical applications of this more solid vision of group identity; Bentley (1987), 25–55 uses Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus as the basis of a theorized approach towards how identity might be programmed into the individual by the society in which they grow up. When talking about the kinds of differences that prevent the individual from changing group identity so easily (religion, language, social values and so on) the ‘primordialists’ can sound as though they are still stuck in the intellectual world of pre-1945, making out checklists and ticking boxes. But in the primordialist view, it is not these ‘things’ themselves that decide identity, but the individual’s reaction to them. In most of Europe, being a Catholic or Protestant is not a major determinant of group affiliation, but in Northern Ireland, for particular historical reasons, the same religious difference functions as a strong symbol of communal allegiance. It is not the item ticked in a box that decides group affiliation, but how individuals react to that item.

  23 On the Greeks and Romans, see Sherwin-White (1973). Halsall (1999) objects to my earlier use of this analogy, but he doesn’t seem to realize that Gastarbeiter and migrants without green cards don’t enjoy remotely full citizenship rights in the societies in which they live, and ignores substantial evidence that even in the first millennium group identity was sometimes made the basis of differentiated rights in culturally complex contexts: see Chapter 5. He also takes the to my mind bizarre view that just anyone could turn up to claim a share when barbarian conquerors of different parts of the Roman west were handing out economic assets: see Heather (2008b).

  24 Cf. Antony (1990), 895–9; Antony (1992) notes that these revised understandings render obsolete many older theoretical discussions that assumed much starker archaeological correlates of migration.

  25 Härke (1998), 25–42, offers a fascinating insight into which contemporary archaeological traditions are more accepting of migration as a possible engine of change, and which more dismissive. British ‘immobilism’ – rejection of migration – finds parallels in the old Soviet Union and Denmark; the German tradition still incorporates migration as one of its basic paradigms.

  26 Jerome (1926).

  27 A recent five-hundred page book devoted to migratory activity around the fall of the Roman west, for instance, contents itself with drawing on a few summaries of the literature drawn up for archaeologists rather than engaging with it at first hand: Halsall (2007), 417–22. By contrast, the same book devotes an entire chapter to the group-identity question, based on intense (and insightful) engagement with the specialist literature.

  28 On Irish and Dutch migrants, see Bailyn (1994), 1–2. On overall patterns in modern instances, see Fielding (1993a); King (1993), 23–4; Rystad (1996), 560–1. On the historical parallels, see Canny (1994), especially 278–80 (with full references).

  29 On the calculation of costs, see Rystad (1996), 560–1; Collinson (1994), 1–7 (both with useful further references.). On return migration, see e.g. Gould (1980); Kuhrt (1984).

  30 For reviews of changing policies towards migrants in Western Europe, and their overall effects, see Cohen (1997); King (1993), 36–7; Fielding (1993b); Collinson (1994), chapter 4; Rystad (1996), 557–62; Cohen (2008). Obviously in recent years, EU enlargement has led to a huge influx of Eastern European migrants.

  31 ‘Gives a shock’: King and Oberg (1993), 2. For general discussions of a qualitative definition of mass migration, see e.g. King and Oberg (1993), 1–4; Fielding (1993a).

  32 For discussion, though, of the high Middle Ages, see Phillips (1988), (1994); Bartlett (1993), 144–5.

  33 In the 1990s there were discussions of how an end to Fordist mass-production techniques in industry were likely to affect future migration flows: Fielding (1993a). We now partly know the answer, with skilled labour being sucked into Western Europe, for instance, while the demand for mass labour in the Middle East continues to grow apace: Cohen (2008).

  34 On Spanish migration to the new world, and British migration to Australia and New Zealand, see Sanchez-Albornoz (1994); Borrie (1994), 45ff. The convict ships to Australia were another kind of involuntary state-assisted scheme.

  35 Bartlett (1993), 134–8.

  36 Helpful general discussions of motivation include Fielding (1993a); Collinson (1994), especially 1–7; Voets et al. (1995), especially 1–10; Rystad (1996); Vertovec and Cohen (1999); Cohen (2008). Some case studies are provided by the essays of Atalik and Beeley, Cavaco, Montanari and Cortese, Oberg and Boubnova, in King (1993).

  37 See e.g. Cohen (1996), (2008).

  38 See e.g. Rystad (1996), 560–1; Bailyn (1994), 4–5.

  2. GLOBALIZATION AND THE GERMANI

  1 Ammianus 16.12.23–6. For attempts at localizing these early units, see Krüger (1976–83), vol. 1, 44–55, 202–19. For the view that little changed between the first and fourth century, see e.g. James (1989), 42, after Thompson (1965), 40.

  2 The literature on Arminius and Maroboduus is enormous, but for introductions, see Krüger (1976–83), vol. 1, 374–412; Pohl (2000), 21–4. On early kingship, and its general lack, see Green (1998), chapter 7. On Maroboduus’ lack of heirs, see Tacitus, Germania 42.

  3 Chnodomarius, Serapio and Mederichus: Ammianus 16.12.23–6; Vadomarius and Vithicabius: Ammianus 27.10.3–4; Gundomadus: Ammianus 16.12.17. Optimates: Ammianus 16.12.23–6. This view of hereditary canton kingship would be accepted by the vast majority of scholars working in the field: see e.g. Pohl (2000), 29–30, 102ff.; Drinkwater (2007), 117ff. (with full references). Some of the old sub-group names within the Alamanni (Brisigavi, Bucinobantes, Lentienses) survive as modern place names (Breisgau, Buchengau, Linzgau).

  4 On the first- and second-century leagues and alliances, see e.g. Tacitus, Germania 38–40 (on the Sueves). For more general commentary, see e.g. Hachmann (1971), 81ff.; Krüger (1976–83), vol. 1, 374–412; Pohl (2000), 65f. The revolt of Julius Civilis, for instance, combined elements from the Batavi, Frisians, Caninefates, Bructeri and Tencteri (Tacitus, Histories 4.18; 21) but no unity survived his fall.

  5 ‘There fell in this battle’: Ammianus 16.12.60; Julian’s diplomacy is recounted at Ammianus 17.1, 17.6, 17.10 and 18.2. Vadomarius: Ammianus 21.3–4; Macrianus: Ammianus 28.5, 29.4, 30.3.

  6 Early Medieval Ireland and England provide, respectively, more and less articulated examples: see e.g. Binchy (1970a) and the papers in Bassett (1989) for an introduction. I take here a very different view to the minimalist line in germanophone scholarship, a full introduction to which is provided by Humver (1998), and to Drinkwater (2007), 121ff., who argues that there was no urge to unification among fourth-century Alamanni, although he does admit that once Roman manipulation was removed in the fifth century, unification happened.

  7 See Wolfram (1988), 62ff., with further arguments in Heather (1991), 97ff. a
gainst e.g. Thompson (1966), 43–55; cf. Thompson (1965), 29–41. The three generations are: Ariaricus (in power in 332), Ariaricus’ anonymous son, and the son’s son Athanaric. For this particular reconstruction of Gotho-Roman relations, which is again argued against Thompson (1966), see Heather (1991), 107–21. Others would reconstruct Gotho-Roman relations differently, but none doubts that the Tervingi survived heavy defeat at the hands of Constantine, or that the position of ‘judge’ survived.

  8 Batavi: Tacitus, Histories 4.12; Germania 29. Chatti, Bructeri and Ampsivarii: Tacitus, Annals 58; Germania 33. Hermenduri: Tacitus, Annals 13.57.

  9 On Ejsbøl Mose, see Ørsnes (1963). Sacrifices of the weapons of a defeated enemy are reported at Caesar, Gallic War 6.17; Tacitus, Annals 13.57.

  10 Chnodomarius: Ammianus 16.12.60. Drinkwater (2007), 120–1 supposes that the king and his three friends had fifty followers each, rather than Chnodomarius having all two hundred, but if that were the case, it is hard to see why he was king. Tervingi: Passion of St Saba. On retinues more generally, see e.g. Hedeager (1987); Todd (1992), 29ff. (with references). The contrast with the public bodies of the early Roman period is very striking: see Thompson (1965), 29ff.