The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization

by Bryan Ward-Perkins

  40. 442 settlement: Chronicle of 452, entry 127 (p. 660); Wood, in Cambridge Ancient History, xiv. 534.

  41. Sidonius Apollinaris, Letters, VII.7.2: ‘Facta est servitus nostra pretium securitatis alienae.’

  42. A. Loyen, ‘Les Débuts du royaume wisigoth de Toulouse’, Revue des études latines, 12 (1934), 406–15.

  43. Paulinus of Pella, Thanksgiving, lines 498–515 (the 420S is a probable, but uncertain, date: Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, I, ‘Paulinus 10’). Visigothic expansion: Heather, Goths, 185–6; Wolfram, History of the Goths, 175–6.

  44. The most impressive case for the fall of the West as a ‘consequence of a series of contingent events’, remains Bury, Later Roman Empire, 308–13 (the quotation, with Bury’s own italics, is from p. 311). Whether Stilicho could have destroyed Alaric (and, if so, why he didn’t) has been hotly debated: S. Mazzarino, Stilicone: La crisi imperiale dopo Teodosio (Rome, 1942), 272–5, 310–18.

  45. Courtois, Les Vandales et L’Afrique, 173, 199, 201.

  46. Heather, Goths, 230–5.

  47. For the possibility that the eastern government might have faced lesser problems in raising its taxes than the West: Jones, Later Roman Empire, 1066–7; B. Ward-Perkins, ‘Land, Labour and Settlement’, in Cambridge Ancient History, xiv. 342–3; and, specifically for western problems, Matthews, Western Aristocracies, 268–9, 277–8, 285.

  48. Events immediately following Hadrianopolis: Ammianus Marcellinus, History, XXXI.15–16. The rebuilding of the eastern army: Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops, 23–31. Western help to the East in 395 and 397: Jones, Later Roman Empire, 183. Imperial policy towards the Goths: P. Heather and D. Moncur, Politics, Philosophy, and Empire in the Fourth Century: Select Orations of Themistius (Translated Texts for Historians, 36; Liverpool, 36), 199–207, 211–13.

  49. Campaigns against the Huns: S. Williams and G. Friell, The Rome that Did Not Fall: The Survival of the East in the Fifth Century (London and New York, 1999), 63–93. Naissus: Priscus, History, fragments 6.2, 11.2.51–5 (Blockley, ii. 230–3, 248–9). 447 tribute: Priscus, History, fragment 9.3.1–35 (Blockley, ii. 236–9). The peoples present in Aetius’ army: Jordanes, Gothic History, 191.

  50. Long Walls: J. G. Crowe, ‘The Long Walls in Thrace’, in C. Mango and G. Dagron (eds.), Constantinople and its Hinterland (Aldershot, 1995), 109–24. City wall: F. Krischen, B. Meyer-Plath, and A. M. Schneider, Die Landmauern von Konstantinopel, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1938–43). Law of 418: Theodosian Code, IX.40.24.

  51. Hunnic raid of 395: E.A. Thompson, A History of Attila and the Huns, (Oxford, 1948), 26–8. Value of different parts of the empire: M. F. Hendy, Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy c.300–1450 (Cambridge, 1985), 616–18. Policy debates: Goffart, ‘Rome, Constantinople’, 16–17.

  52. Roman–Persian relations: R. C. Blockley, East Roman Foreign Policy: Formation and Conduct from Diocletian to Arcadius (Leeds, 1992), 30–96, 123–7. Effects on Balkan security of a major campaign elsewhere: ibid. 57, 59–62, 76–7.

  53. Goths in 410 and 415: Wolfram, History of the Goths, 159, 170. Vandal sea-power after 439: Courtois, Les Vandales et L’Afrique, 185–96.

  Chapter IV. Living under the New Masters

  1. Hydatius, Chronicle, entry 41 [49].

  2. Africa: Nov. Val. 34.1–2, in Theodosian Code. Other African evidence of dispossession and exile: Courtois, Les Vandales et L’Afrique, 279–82. Britain: Gildas, The Ruin of Britain, 25.1 (as translated by Winterbottom). Migration to Brittany: L. Fleuriot, Les Origines de la Bretagne (Paris, 1980), esp. 110–18.

  3. See, in particular, Goffart, Barbarians and Romans, H. Wolfram, Das Reich und die Barbaren zwischen Antike und Mittelalter (Berlin, 1990), 173–7, and Wolfram, History of the Goths, 295–7 (arguing for tax grants); versus S. J. B Barnish, ‘Taxation, Land and Barbarian Settlement in the Western Empire’, Papers of the British School at Rome, 54 (1986), 170–95, and J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, ‘Cities, Taxes and the Accommodation of the Barbarians: The Theories of Durliat and Goffart’, in W. Pohl (ed.), Kingdoms of the Empire: The Integration of Barbarians in Late Antiquity (Leiden, New York, and Cologne, 1997), 135–51 (arguing for land grants).

  4. Cassiodorus, Variae II.16 (as translated by Barnish, 29–30; the emphases are, of course, my own).

  5. Jones, Later Roman Empire, 257; Cassiodorus, Variae VII.3 (for the comes Gothorum).

  6. Barbarians acquiring land by fair means or foul: Goffart, Barbarians and Romans, 93–7. Example of an earlier, Roman abuser of power: Sidonius Apollinaris, Letters, II.1.1–3. Theodahad: Procopius, Wars, V.3.2 (supported by Cassiodorus, Variae IV. 39, V.12). Tanca: Cassiodorus, Variae VIII.28 (as translated by Barnish). Cunigast: Boethius, Philosophiae Consolatio, ed. L. Bieler (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, XCIV, Turnholt, 1984), I.4 (English translation: Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, trans. V. E. Watts (Harmondsworth, 1969), 41).

  7. Cassiodorus, Variae XII.5.4.

  8. Sermo 24 (’In litanis’), in Patrologiae Latinae Supplementum, III, ed. A. Hamman (Paris, 1963), cols. 605–8, at col. 606: ‘et tamen Romano ad te animo venit, qui barbarus putabatur’ (translation, slightly adapted, from R. W. Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul: Strategies for Survival in an Age of Transition (Austin, Tex., 1993), 120).

  9. Survival of Roman families in Gaul: K. F. Stroheker, Der senatorische Adel im spätantiken Gallien (Darmstadt, 1970); Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats, 60–4. From Spain we have, unfortunately, no detailed evidence. Victorianus of Hadrumentum: Victor of Vita, Vandal Persecution, III.27; Courtois, Les Vandales et L’Afrique, 276–9 (for other examples). Ine’s laws: F. Liebermann (ed.), Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, i. (Halle, 1903), clause 24.2 (translation from D. Whitelock, English Historical Documents, i. c.500–1042 (London, 1955), 367).

  10. Victor of Vita, Vandal Persecution, I.2 (as translated by Moorhead); discussed by Goffart, Barbarians and Romans, 231–4.

  11. C. Courtois et al., Tablettes Albertini: Actes privés de l’époque vandale (Paris, 1952).

  12. Ostrogothic Italy: Cassiodorus, Variae IX.14.8: ‘Gothorum laus est civilitas custodita’ (for the meaning of ‘civilitas’: J. Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy (Oxford, 1992), 79–80).

  13. Victor of Vita, Vandal Persecution, III.3 (decree of 484), II.8 (Catholic North Africans in the Vandal household).

  14. Liebermann (as cited in n. 9), clause 33, ‘the king’s horse-Welshman (cyninges horswealh)’. See p. 71 for Romans in Frankish royal service in around AD 500.

  15. Gallic aristocrats in barbarian service: Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats, 125–9. Cassiodorus, Variae I.4.17 and IX.25.9, testify to Cassiodorus’ wealth, but not to its origins. Paulinus of Pella, Thanksgiving, lines 293–303 (service to Attalus); lines 498–515 (sons at Visigothic court); lines 306–7 (those flourishing under Gothic rule).

  16. Syagrius: Sidonius Apollinaris, Letters, V.5.3. Romans in Visigothic military service: Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats, 126–7. Cyprianus: P. Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy 489–554 (Cambridge, 1997), 154–5, 369–71 (390–I, for the similar career of Liberius).

  17. Salic Law, 41.1. 5, 8, and 9. A Roman in the king’s retinue was worth 300 solidi, a Frank 600.

  18. In my discussion of Italy I am disagreeing with Amory, People and Identity—an intelligent and useful book, but, in my opinion, a wrong-headed one. Amory sees the ethnic labels of early sixth-century Gothic Italy as artificial—used to distinguish soldiers (termed ‘Goths’) from civilians (termed ‘Romans’). He is right to stress that the Goth/Roman distinction was not black and white, that some people had moved towards delicate shades of grey, and that people had other preoccupations and loyalties, which sometimes overrode ethnic identity. But this does not prove that Roman and Gothic identities had disappeared. Modern experience shows that all ethnic groups have fuzzy edges and potentially divided loyalties.

  19. 537–8 story: Procopius, Wars, VI.1.11–19 (tē patriō glōssē)—this Goth was also able to communicate with an enemy sold
ier (presumably in Latin). Bessas: Procopius, Wars, V.10.10 (tē Gotthōn phōnē), with V.16.2. Amory, People and Identity, discusses language at pp. 102–8 (arguing, very implausibly, that the ‘Gothic’ learned by Cyprianus and spoken by these soldiers was just the universal argot of the late Roman army).

  20. Senigallia medallion: W. Wroth, Catalogue of the Coins of the Vandals, Ostrogoths and Lombards … in the British Museum (London, 1911), 54. Amory, People and Identity, 338–46 is wrong to assume that a moustache alone (as worn by Theoderic and Theodahad) is the same as a beard-with-moustache (which some Romans did wear). Theodahad’s coins: Wroth, Catalogue, 75–6. Theodahad’s learned nature: Procopius, Wars, V.3.1.

  21. Letter to Clovis: Cassiodorus, Variae II.40 (the quotation, as translated by Barnish, is from II.40.17). Letter to Gallic subjects: Cassiodorus, Variae III.17 (trans. by Barnish).

  22. Lampridius: Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, II, ‘Lampridius’; Sidonius Apollinaris, Letters, VIII 9.1. Bridge at Mérida: J. Vives, Inscriptiones cristianas de la Espãna romana y visigoda (2nd edn., Barcelona, 1969), 126–7, no. 363. Epiphanius: Ennodius, Vita Epifani, in Ennodius, Works, 84–109, at 95 (paras. 89–90): ‘gentile nescio quod murmur infringens’.

  23. Limited Visigothic persecution: Heather, Goths, 212–15; Wolfram, History of the Goths, 197–202. Romans in Visigothic service: Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats, 126–8; Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, II, ‘Leo 4’. Freda: Ruricius, Letters, I.11; Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, II, ‘Freda’. Romans at the battle of Vouillé in 507: Gregory of Tours, Histories, II.37; Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, II, ‘Apollinaris 3’.

  24. Events in 506–7: Wolfram, History of the Goths, 193–202; W. E. Klingshirn, Caesarius of Arles: The Making of a Christian Community in Late Antique Gaul (Cambridge, 1994), 94–7. Preface and Subscription to the Breviarium, describing its making and diffusion: Theodosian Code, Vol. I/1, pp. xxxii–xxxv of the Mommsen and Meyer edition (they are not translated by Pharr). Council of Agde: Concilia Galliae A.314–A.506, ed. C. Munier (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, 148, Turnholt, 1963), 192–213 (quotation is from p. 192). Projected council of 507: Sancti Caesarii Episcopi Arelatensis, Opera Omnia, ed. G. Morin, ii (Maredsous, 1942), Ep.3 (translation in Caesarius of Arles, Life, Testament, Letters, trans. W. E. Klingshirn (Translated Texts for Historians, 19, Liverpool, 1994), Letter 3).

  25. Procopius, Wars, VIII.xxxiv.1–8.

  26. Examples of changes of identity that have occurred: B. Ward-Perkins, ‘Why did the Anglo-Saxons not Become More British?’, English Historical Review, 115 (2000), 513–33, at 525–7.

  27. Droctulft: Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards, III.19. For an introduction to the debate over Germanic identities and ‘ethnogenesis’: Pohl, ‘Conceptions of Ethnicity’, 15–24; and the early and influential article by Patrick Geary, ‘Ethnic Identity as a Situational Construct’, Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, 113 (1983), 15–26. It is unsurprising that the two Europeans most centrally involved in this debate, Wolfram and Pohl, are both from Austria, a nation that had to rethink its position within the Germanic world three times in the twentieth century (in 1918, 1938, and 1945).

  28. Salic Law, 41.1. The phrase ‘If any kills a free Frank or barbarian who lives by the Salic law …’ (my emphasis) shows that individuals from other tribes were already choosing to live by Salic law in around AD 500 (and were therefore halfway to becoming ‘Franks’). Romans apparently did not yet have the choice (or were not making it), unless this is reading too much into a single phrase. Gregory of Tours: E. James, ‘Gregory of Tours and the Franks’, in A. C. Murray (ed.), After Rome’s Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History: Essays Presented to Walter Goffart (Toronto, 1998), 51–66. However, a contemporary of Gregory, Venantius Fortunatus, who had come to Gaul from Italy, remained very aware of a distinction between those of Roman and those of ‘barbarian’ blood.

  29. Cyprianus and his sons: Cassiodorus, Variae V.40.5, VIII.21.6–7 (from which the quotation is taken), VIII.22.5; Amory, People and Identity, 444, ‘Anonymi 20–20a+’. For a good general discussion of cultural mixing: Moorhead, The Roman Empire Divided, 21–4.

  30. Jovinianus: Ennodius, Works, 157, Poems 2.57, 58, 59. Syagrius: Sidonius Apollinaris, Letters, V.5 (the quotation is from V.5.3).

  31. Gregory of Tours, Histories, V.17. Gregory, certainly, was unimpressed.

  32. Romanization of the Franks: P. J. Geary, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe (Princeton, 2002), 135–41. Visigothic Spain: Heather, Goths, 287–97; D. Claude, ‘Remarks about Relations between Visigoths and Hispano-Romans in the Seventh Century’, in W. Pohl and H. Reimitz (eds.), Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300–800 (Leiden, Boston, and Cologne, 1998), 117–30.

  33. Sidonius Apolliniaris, Letters, IV.17 (quotation from IV.17.1). For Arbogastes, who also received a verse letter from Auspicius bishop of Toul: Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, II, ‘Arbogastes’.

  34. Remigius’s letter: Epistolae Austrasicae, ed. W. Gundlach, in Epistolae Merowingici et Karolini Aevi, i, (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae, III; Berlin, 1892), 113, no. 2.

  Chapter V. The Disappearance of Comfort

  1. I have rehearsed some of the arguments of the following two chapters in Ward-Perkins, ‘Specialized Production and Exchange’.

  2. The classic expositions of this view are M. I. Finley, The Ancient Economy (London, 1973), 17–34, and Jones, Later Roman Empire, 465, 824–58. Changing views of the ancient economy are fully discussed (with further bibliography) in P. Horden and N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (Oxford, 2000), 146–50, 566–7.

  3. A good brief overview of much of the evidence is K. Greene, The Archaeology of the Roman Economy (London, 1986). Many aspects of the later Roman economy are covered by C. Panella, ‘Merci e scambi nel Mediterraneo tardoantico’, in A. Carandini, L. Cracco Ruggini, and A. Giardina (eds.), Storia di Roma, III. ii. L’età tardoantica: I luoghi, le culture (Turin, 1993); and by the papers in Hommes et richesses dans l’Empire byzantin, i. IVe–VIIe siècle (Paris, 1989), and Economy and Exchange in the East Mediterranean during Late Antiquity, ed. S. Kingsley and M. Decker (Oxford, 2001).

  4. D. P. S. Peacock, Pottery in the Roman World: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach (London and New York, 1982), is an excellent and thoughtful introduction to Roman pottery. D. P. S. Peacock and D. F. Williams, Amphorae, and the Roman Economy: An Introductory Guide (London and New York, 1986), however, is disappointing, being little more than a typology. The groundbreaking work on late antique tablewares was J. W. Hayes, Late Roman Pottery: A Catalogue of Roman Fine-Wares (London, 1972).

  5. For a fuller discussion of the evidence potsherds can provide, see ‘From Potsherds to People’, at pp. 184–7.

  6. Hayes, Late Roman Pottery, 422.

  7. If I remember rightly, all decorated and fine-ware sherds, and all fragments of rims, bases, and handles, were spared this cull.

  8. For a recent attempt to circumvent these problems: Economy and Exchange, 55.

  9. E. Rodriguez Almeida, Il Monte Testaccio: Ambiente, storia, materiali (Rome, 1984).

  10. However, it must also be said that we are in a league all our own—the Romans normally reused their amphorae, while I have just learned on the radio that the Naples area has such a serious refuse-disposal problem that it sends up to twenty trainloads of garbage a week to Germany for disposal. The report did not say why it had to travel quite so far.

  11. See the distribution maps in Hayes, Late Roman Pottery, and Atlante delle forme ceramiche, i. Ceramica fine romana nel bacino mediterraneo, medio e tardo impero (supplement to Enciclopedia dell’ Arte Antica; Rome, 1981).

  12. For the details, unfortunately not quantified: C. Delano Smith et al. ‘Luni and the Ager Lunensis’, Papers of the British School at Rome, 54 (1986) 117.

  13. This evidence is usefully summarized (with the relevant bib
liography) in A. Wilson, ‘Machines, Power and the Ancient Economy’, Journal of Roman Studies, 92 (2002), 1–32, at 25–7.

  14. C. Malone and S. Stoddart (eds.), Territory, Time and State: The Archaeological Development of the Gubbio Basin (Cambridge, 1994), 184; J. Carter, ‘Rural Architecture and Ceramic Industry at Metaponto, Italy, 350–50 B.C.’, in A. McWhirr (ed.), Roman Brick and Tile (Oxford, 1979), 45–64, at 47.

  15. Malone and Stoddart (eds.), (as cited in n. 14), 192–6.

  16. My Mum lives under one, so I know.

  17. Peacock, Pottery in the Roman World. I am simplifying somewhat Peacock’s full categorization.

  18. R. Marichal, Les Graffites de la Graufesenque (XLVIIe supplément à Gallia, Paris, 1988). For the excavated remains of one of these kilns: A. Vernhet, ‘Un Four de la Graufesenque (Aveyron): La Cuisson des vases sigillées’, Gallia, 39 (1981), 25–43. These graffiti are discussed further by me at pp. 159–60.