Barbarians within the Gates of Rome
Thomas S. Burns
Number of quotes: 56
Book ID: 37 Page: 1
Section: 3C
The Battle of Adrianople is generally regarded as a disaster from which Roman power never recovered. Contemporaries Ammianus Marcellinus, Jerome, Orosius, and others seem to leave no room for doubt about that. For the secular Ammianus, the events of 9 August 378, a dry and dusty day indeed, marked a check to the relentless and basically successful reassertion of Roman dominance depicted in the rest of his extant work.
Quote ID: 745
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 37 Page: 17
Section: 3D
Later, after Theodosius had subdued various groups of Goths following the Battle of Adrianople, another contemporary, Eunapius, commented that “they all claimed to be Christians and some of their number they disguised as their bishops and dressed them up in that respected garb. . .” Some even went so far as to pretend to be “monks”. According to Eunapius, this was as simple as changing clothes. He went on to report that they really worshipped their old gods, which was probably true even though they may well have included Christ in their prayers. Perhaps not all Gothic monks were mere pretenders; events will reveal their fate too.
Quote ID: 746
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 37 Page: 25
Section: 3D
The Gothic (Tervingi) leaders apparently had to accept Christianity, at least tacitly, as a precondition for receptio.
Quote ID: 747
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 37 Page: 77
Section: 3D
“On January 25, 381, Athanaric died; in the year 382 the entire Gothic people with its king delivered itself to the Roman world.” So reads the Consularia Constantinopolitana for the years 381 and 382. For some scholars, the year 382 “marks the end of the Roman Empire,” for it began the penetration of the barbarian world into the Roman one and was the beginning of the process that led to the creation of the barbarian kingdoms in the next and following centuries. In this view, the Middle Ages had begun.
Quote ID: 748
Time Periods: 4567
Book ID: 37 Page: 83
Section: 1A,4B
The destiny of Rome cast so clearly by Vergil at the very dawn of the Empire was broadened and “humanized” in Themistius’ [317–390 - jdc] vision. The haughty would still submit, but now Rome would triumph as a cultural force by virtue of its intellectual powers; its Reason would transform the barbarians into civilized men. The emperor’s task was to create the conditions necessary for Reason’s conquests. Be the emperor Julian, Valens, or Theodosius, Themistius always strove to enlist him in the challenge by praising his personal manifestations of imperial virtue and cajoling him to use the carefully prepared moment to plant the seeds of Reason and Roman culture among the barbarians. In so doing the emperor became not merely the acknowledged leader of a political force, the Empire, but truly the guardian, almost the “tutor”, of Mankind. The barbarians would, of course, accept the abundant wisdom of their own submission to a higher purpose.
Quote ID: 749
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 37 Page: 83
Section: 4A
Many have seen in Themistius an important philosophical bridge between the purely pagan world of traditional Hellenistic philosophy in its Roman form and the Christian outlook rapidly taking over men’s minds.Rather, Themistius stands early in the process by which Hellenism found a safe niche in East Roman and later Byzantine Christian society.
Quote ID: 750
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 37 Page: 83/86
Section: 3D
Theodosius, “like Achilles,” who sent out Patroclus to save the hard-pressed Greeks, sent Saturninus but with far happier results. Instead of arming his Patroclus in splendid breastplate and shield, Theodosius bestowed upon him “patience, gentleness and clemency (or a sense of humanity).” Saturninus, suitably armed for the battle of Reason over barbarism, thus triumphed as soon as he approached the enemy. His method was simple. By setting before them the fruits of friendship and service to the cause of Empire, their savagery “was tamed.” “One might almost say that he led them bound with their hands behind their backs, so that one might wonder if they had indeed been persuaded or conquered.” The humbled barbarians presented their swords in surrender and “clasped his knees” in token of submission.Elsewhere, Themistius says that he himself had seen the “bringing of the barbarians into peace.” Imperial clemency revealed itself in the granting of pardon to the barbarians for their wrongdoings. The roads and mountain passes stood open, and villas and farmsteads smiled again amid the harvest. The entire Empire, like some great organism, ceased to suffer from its many wounds and drew a collective sigh of deliverance. The great ship had safely returned to port; peace was restored. Themistius not only asks his audience to accept the fact that the Goths had not been totally crushed and humbled in the traditional Roman sense but to applaud it. The Goths had not been led off in chains but had been transformed into something better: they were now productive members of a redefined Roman Empire, an Empire for all Humanity. Themistius suggests that the question of whether the Romans could have militarily crushed the Goths into obedience was debatable, but not worth debating. More important, the barbarians were better men. Still more important, the Romans were better men and the Empire was a better Empire.
Which, then, is better: to fill Thrace with corpses or farmers? To make it full of graves of humans? To travel through wilderness or cultivated land? To count those who have perished or those who are plowing? To resettle the Phrygians and Bithynians, perhaps, or to make them live with those whom we have subdued? I hear from those who return from there [Thrace] that they are now remaking the iron from their swords and breastplates into hoes and sickles, and that they who previously were lovers of Ares are now worshiping Demeter and Dionysus.
. . . .
Clearly the peace that he had in mind was one of a higher level than any Rome could have forced upon a defeated foe. A treaty was between two groups; the peace of Themistius’s oration produced one people working together within one civilization. The peace negated the boundaries of groups and of geography and even transcended consuls and emperors.
Quote ID: 751
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 37 Page: 89
Section: 3D
Gratian and Theodosius had saved the Empire.
Quote ID: 752
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 37 Page: 164
Section: 3D
Theodosius had transferred the entire prefecture of Illyricum to the East in 392. At some later date Pannonia alone was again restored to the West, and that date is a part of our discussion. The return of Pannonia fixed the boundaries between Arcadius and Honorius, and the Roman East and West, forever.
Quote ID: 753
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 37 Page: 165/167
Section: 3D2
Stripped of the charges of ravaging and murdering, Alaric’s actions in Epirus, however decried by Claudian, only seem bad by association and, in fact, were just what Alaric ought to have been doing if magister: fighting and rendering justice.. . . .
If Illyricum, by then a new Western diocese, was not then within his sphere, how could Honorius appoint Alaric to command the Roman troops there, as comes rei militaris, and name Iovius as praetorian prefect of Illyricum?
Quote ID: 754
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 172
Section: 3D2
On 12 July 400, the citizens of Constantinople rose.Being barbarian did not inhibit the imperial guard. Seven thousand of Gainas’s followers are said to have sought asylum in a church near the palace. Arcadius himself ordered their deaths.
No one in authority made any effort to stop the massacre. Patriarch Chrysostom never condemned it.
Quote ID: 755
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 176
Section: 3D2
A more distant consideration was Alaric, who was unpredictable, usually loyal but always restless.According to Jordanes, Alaric was first king in the consulship of Stilicho and Aurelianus, that is in 400. . .
Just prior to this, the customary payments to Alaric’s force as Roman auxiliaries ceased.
Quote ID: 756
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 178
Section: 3D2
Alaric had always known that his position was precarious. But he had fared well under Rufinus and Eutropius. The collapse of Eutropius’s regime, however, was disastrous for him. Rome had set him and his men adrift. As far as he was concerned the emperor had dismissed him without cause. The massacre of the Goths in Constantinople in July 400 must have led Alaric to ponder his own fate. He bided his time.
Quote ID: 757
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 37 Page: 179
Section: 3D2
Why Alaric destroyed the peace in 401 and risked all troubled Jordanes in the sixth century and virtually every commentator since. Look again at the circumstances from Alaric’s perspective. He was dismissed from Roman service. He had been deprived of his command. He stood at the head of a body of armed men in a diocese that until recently he had defended against Stilicho but over which he now held no authority whatsoever. That he and his men were as far away as Pannonia had made it relatively safe for the Eastern court to renounce him, but he was well placed to invade Italy. This would explain why he was able to strike so quickly and at the most opportune moment in 401. No one other than he himself was providing for his men. Since he had no command, Alaric had no way to requisition supplies legally. He still had an army but no way to pay it. His claims to kingship were recent and dependent upon his ability to take care of his followers. He was in a tight spot. Rather than accept himself as nothing more than an outlaw, Alaric had fallen back upon Gothic concepts of leadership, knowing that in Roman eyes there could be no such thing as a “king” inside the Empire. Alaric took what circumstances allowed. To the Romans he may have been an outlaw leading armed men without legal right to do so, but to his Gothic followers he was a tribal leader.
Quote ID: 758
Time Periods: 56
Book ID: 37 Page: 179
Section: 3D2
He evidently was seeking a secure base from which to bargain his way back into Roman office, for that is exactly what he soon succeeded in doing.
Quote ID: 759
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 181
Section: 3D2
No, Claudian’s Alaric is still a Roman general, but in revolt.Claudian cannot, despite himself, envision him otherwise. Alaric could not do so either. Alaric was a Roman soldier, a general, claiming to be legally able to requisition supplies from the grateful population in a blighted diocese.
Quote ID: 760
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 181
Section: 3D2
Four men of barbarian blood emerged as Rome’s senior generals: Stilicho, Gainas, Alaric, and Fravitta. Each found himself with no alternative to getting involved in court politics. In the case of the later three this was directly linked to their need to guarantee supplies and replacements for their armies. All personally identifiable barbarians in the Roman army held traditional Roman commands. They acted out their lives inside the Empires’s military and political structures.Gainas and Aurelianus decided to transfer the diocese of Pannonia to the West in late 399. They acted with full knowledge that their decision would cast Alaric into limbo. Confronted with the loss of his command and its right to draw Roman supplies, Alaric fell back upon Gothic traditions of leadership. His followers declared him rex Gothorum, a completely illegal position in Roman eyes. There was no concept of a king within the Roman Empire in 400.
Quote ID: 761
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 186
Section: 4B
Early fifth century. . .In 400, charged by an imperial edict. . . This edict goes on to require similar screening among those young men claiming Christian clerical exemption.
Quote ID: 762
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 37 Page: 188
Section: 3D2
Alaric was only primus inter pares before his war council. His fame is mainly posthumous. It is inextricably linked to the capture of Rome in 410, an event of little military or policy-making consequence but one fraught with emotional, intellectual, and religious significance.
Quote ID: 763
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 204
Section: 3A3
At Toulouse there was no garrison, so the bishop was the logical spokesperson for Roman interests.
Quote ID: 765
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 37 Page: 207
Section: 1A
It is just one more indication of the contemporary make-believe that consistently blamed “barbarians” for all of Rome’s troubles....
Quote ID: 766
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 37 Page: 216
Section: 3D
Stilicho, not the emperor, would go to Constantinople armed with imperial letters, four legions, and a labarum, a standard carrying the sign of Christ and closely associated with the emperor on coins and in processions.
Quote ID: 767
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 37 Page: 220
Section: 3D2
Alaric may have been a heretic, but he was at least a Christian who had spared the holy places and holy virgins in Rome.Yet the Goths were fellow Christians, even if Arians.
Quote ID: 768
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 221
Section: 3D2
In his peculiar late-Roman Christian manner, Orosius tells us that Stilicho died because he wanted to go down in history as the father of an emperor, but that he deserved to die because as the man on watch he had allowed Alaric, symbolizing all barbarians, to enter forever the gates of Rome.Anti-barbarian slogans were rallying cries for some members of the aristocracy, Christian and pagan, mostly outside Stilicho’s circle.
Quote ID: 769
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 222
Section: 3D2
Roman authors cast stereotypical barbarians in the role of underminers of the very Empire that in fact real barbarians were dying to defend against other, equally real barbarians and roman usurpers.
Quote ID: 770
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 224
Section: 3D2
The new regime moved swiftly to replace Stilicho’s men at court.The purge of Stilicho’s appointees quickly gathered steam. Heliocrates, appointed comes rerum privatarum at Olympius’s request, received an imperial decree ordering that all property of Stilicho’s supporters be confiscated. Stilicho’s chief household officer and his head secretary were tortured and then killed when they refused to supply names to their tormentors. Honorius ordered the eunuchs Terentius and Arsachius to return Stilicho’s daughter Thermantia to her mother, Serena, in Rome and to execute her brother, Eucherius. Serena moved quickly to protect her son, however, and Honorius’s assassins found Eucherius in asylum in a church in Rome, having been rushed to safety by some of Stilicho’s barbarian troops.
Quote ID: 772
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 225
Section: 3D2
One of Stilicho’s last acts had been to order those towns providing billets for his barbarian troops to shut their gates against them. These men, supposedly his “supporters”, had drifted home in confusion after Sarus rebelled and killed Stilicho’s Hunnic bodyguard. When the towns barred their gates they made it impossible for these barbarian soldiers to be reunited with their wives and families. Their helpless dependents now bore the weight of Olympius’s wrath. The regular Roman garrison troops slaughtered them and seized their property throughout all the towns in which they were resident, “as if on one command, when told of Stilicho’s death.”. . . .
Such focused cruelty clearly rallied these barbarians to a new standard of mutual interest . . .
What would these barbarian auxiliaries have thought beyond their justifiable outrage? Unspeakable betrayal. In their passion for vengeance, they decided to flee to Alaric and join forces with him. Alaric had yet to march on Italy, but remained in Noricum where he received the barbarian refugees.
Quote ID: 773
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 37 Page: 225/227
Section: 3D2
At any rate, Alaric did not jump to attack Italy. Instead, he reportedly offered to exchange a few hostages, specifically Gaudentius’s son Aetius and Jovius’s son Jason, sought a modest sum of money, and requested permission to move his troops to Pannonia. If true, this means that Alaric had offered to return to his status as a mere comes in Illyricum provided that the state pay his relocation expenses.The ancient hostage was a far cry from the ancient prisoner - a distinction that modern events make it difficult to recall. Aetius, for one, never regretted his several occasions as a hostage to Alaric and later with the Huns.
. . . .
When this overture was rebuffed, only war could follow. Alaric, typically concerned with troop strength, ordered his brother-in-law Athaulf to bring up his army of Huns and Goths from Pannonia I. This force too was Roman but was made up exclusively of auxiliaries. . .
Quote ID: 774
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 37 Page: 227
Section: 3D2
Only six weeks or so had elapsed between the death of Stilicho on 22 August and Alaric’s drive into Italy in October. Furthermore, the towns and garrisons opened their gates in welcome, just as they should have done to a Roman general marching along a planned route. Zosimus says that Alaric proceeded as if it were a festival.
Quote ID: 775
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 228
Section: 3D2
Until the death of Stilicho and Honorius’s rejection of him in favor of Olympius’s men, Alaric was a commander in the Roman army, legitimate, a Roman. Olympius’s palace coup had removed those whom Alaric regarded as also legitimate. Still convinced of his own legitimacy, Alaric was determined not to share their fate.Unlike some, particularly Generidus, Alaric was Christian, albeit an Arian, so that even allegations of paganism were inappropriate.
There was no way to drive out men of “barbarian ancestry” from the army or its command. Roman society had long ago abandoned that as an anachronism. Rome had by now a well established pattern of favoring Christianity, and Christianity had lent its strong support to dynastic succession. In this one respect, at least, blood mattered. Alaric was beyond redemption for one reason only: his late role as a key lieutenant of Stilicho. He was the last important Stilicho supporter left capable of realigning military and political power by his personal affiliations, and that is why he could not remain alive.
Orosius saw him as a pagan, virtually an Antichrist at the head of pagan armies seeking to plunder Christian churches and bring down the pious emperor. He had offended man and God. Jerome saw Stilicho as a semi-barbarian traitor, who deliberately armed the enemies of Rome against it. His crimes put good Christians to the test.
[My note: the word "semi-barbarian" fell where at the end of" semi"... there was a hypen to get to the next line "barbarian." Is is supposed to have a hyphen anyway?]
Quote ID: 776
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 37 Page: 229
Section: 3D2
Pagans too regarded Stilicho as a betrayer of Rome and its gods.For Rutilius Namatianus, Stilicho’s treason included letting the barbarians into the heart of the Empire, there to learn its true weakness. And “nor was it only through Gothic arms that the traitor made his attack: ere this he burned the fateful books which brought the Sibyl’s aid.” Stilicho replaced Nero in Tartarus, for “Stilicho’s victim was immortal, Nero’s mortal; the one destroyed the world’s mother, the other his own.” The burning of the Sibylline Books is mentioned only in Rutilius,. . .
Orosius seems to have forgotten that none other than Augustine had once praised Stilicho for his Christian zeal.
Quote ID: 777
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 229/230
Section: 3D2
For his part, Alaric seems to have appreciated the religious energy of his age and acted to accommodate or even exploit it. For example, he was apparently the first to use bishops as envoys and to observe holy asylum for the Christian women when he sacked Rome.. . . .
His new religious sensitivity was in keeping with his political foresight.
Quote ID: 778
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 230
Section: 3D2
Eucherius secretly left the safety of the Church and attempted to link up with Alaric, en route to Rome, but imperial troops caught up with him and took him back to Rome, where he was executed. His barbarian guards only now left for Alaric’s camp. Here, as near Ravenna, Stilicho’s former soldiers did not want to join Alaric until they had no choice.Assertions that Stilicho and his elite circle were worshipers of the ancient gods cannot be dismissed as a quirk of Zosimus’s later pagan longings. The family of Stilicho was eradicated with the ardor of Christian zealotry that was a hallmark of the dynasty.
In the age of Theodosian Christianity, austere and punishing, false accusations that he (Stilicho) had favored the ancient gods were sufficient grounds for the extinction of his line. For others he was later condemned as a traitor for opening the Empire to barbarians. Among pagans, he and his wife were denounced for slandering the ancient gods. Rumors were not facts or even consistent.
Pastor John’s Note: He pleased no one as he attempted to navigate the narrow channel between old and new.
Quote ID: 779
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 37 Page: 231
Section: 3D2
The barbarians of the late fourth century practiced various mixtures of paganism and Arian Christianity.
Quote ID: 780
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 37 Page: 232
Section: 3D2
The imaginary Alaric ultimately was much more important than Alaric the general.Olympius and his fellow conspirators, by branding Alaric an enemy of Rome once again, provided him with recruits and left him no choice but to strengthen his position as rex by denying him access to comparable Roman command, the magistership.
Quote ID: 781
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 233
Section: 3D2
The events of 408-10 underscore the point that even during this famous clash the terms barbarian and Roman were largely rhetorical. Barbarians and Romans, to the extent that such terms still had any clear meaning, served on both sides during the struggles.
Quote ID: 782
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 234
Section: 3D2
The first crisis passed once the senators, after much discussion, finally agreed upon a payment to be given to Alaric . . .At the height of the siege Pompeianus, urban prefect, seriously considered trying a few pagan incantations to bring on thunder and lightning, reportedly effective elsewhere against Alaric’s men. He even convinced Pope Innocent I to go along. Innocent, however, agreed only on the condition that the sacrifices be conducted in private. Nothing came of this after visiting Tuscan priests declared that the Senate had to perform the rites in the Forum. The essential point is that everyone, including ordinary Roman townsmen and barbarian soldiers, was caught up in the spiritual struggle going on around them. Money rather than gods resolved the impasse. Alaric made peace and pledged to fight alongside the emperor against any foe. No treaty was signed.
There was no public display of Rome coming to terms with a foreign people, as might have happened with a new group of barbarians recruited to serve as auxiliaries. Alaric saw himself as still a general in the Roman army and simply pledged his personal loyalty as a soldier to fight for the emperor. He withdrew his forces from Rome to regroup and allowed supplies to enter the city without harassment. While Alaric remained in Tuscany, slaves flocked to his standards.
Quote ID: 783
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 235
Section: 3D2
The year 409 opened with unexpected good news for Honorius from an unlikely source, Constantine III. The usurper sent an embassy of eunuchs (note, in contrast, Alaric’s use of bishops) to seek pardon for his “unanticipated” elevation at the hands of his soldiers.
Quote ID: 784
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 37 Page: 236
Section: 3D2
Alaric’s men captured Maximillianus and held him for ransom. The Senate sent a second embassy to Ravenna led by Pope Innocent I and escorted by a barbarian guard.
Quote ID: 785
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 240
Section: 3D2
Rather than take Rome, Alaric decided to give diplomacy another chance, and sent Orthodox bishops from all the towns under his control to Ravenna with a new set of conditions.These conditions when met would secure his friendship and an alliance with the Romans to defend the Empire against anyone who took up arms against it.
Quote ID: 786
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 241
Section: 3D2
This time Alaric abandoned working with Honorius’s government and in late 409 set up Priscus Attalus, then urban prefect, as emperor. Attalus, a pagan, accepted Arian Christian baptism.Attalus dreamed of restoring the Senate to its rightful place and bringing Egypt and the East under Rome once again.
Quote ID: 787
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 244
Section: 3D2
Alaric struck camp and marched on Rome once again. This time he was determined to force the Senate to its knees. There was no need for a prolonged siege, for Heraclianus’s stranglehold had created a continuous famine. Some of our sources duly offer treachery as an explanation for the sudden collapse of Rome’s defense, but the facts are otherwise. Rome opened its gates in desperation. There was no need for a “third siege”. Alaric gave orders to respect those who had sought asylum in holy places, especially the basilicas of Saints Peter and Paul, then turned his men loose. And so on 24 August 410 began a three-day-long Sack of Rome.
Quote ID: 788
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 245
Section: 3D2
Alaric, the sole surviving general from the days of Stilicho, King of the Goths, Sacker of Rome, died of sickness at Consentia in Bruttium.His followers diverted the course of the Busentius River and there committed the body of their leader, Alaricus rex Gothorum but not magister militum, to the afterlife. The captives who dug the graves were slain and the river returned to its channel. Despite recent bogus announcements to the contrary, Alaric and his share of the spoils of Rome still lie there undiscovered. The “Sack of Rome” in 410 was not the victory of barbarism any more than had been Constantine the Great’s “Sack of Rome” after his victory at the Mulvian Bridge in 312. From the perspective of the Roman Army, both were the predictable consequences of civil war.
Alaric steadfastly demanded a Roman generalship and thereby recognition of his followers as Roman soldiers, but Honorius always refused.
On 24 August 410 a very frustrated Alaric seized Rome a final time and gave his troops free rein. By sparing some Christians seeking asylum, he secured for himself a special place in history.
Quote ID: 789
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 256/257/260
Section: 3D2
Athaulf had acted completely within the law, handing Jovinus over to Dardanus for execution.. . . .
From his victory over Jovinus until his death in 415, Athaulf fought both for and against Rome, but most notably for Rome against the Vandals left behind in Spain by Gerontius.
. . . .
Until the end Athaulf remained committed to gaining Roman acceptance.
PJ note: a reason for the victory of trinitarianism
Quote ID: 790
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 263
Section: 3D2
Those Goths following Alaric and Athualf in Italy, Gaul, and Spain, however, had rediscovered an identity. Honorius had given them no choice. The settlement of 418 allowed this identity to evolve along with other new identities that were emerging during the transformation of the Christian-Roman world.
Quote ID: 791
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 276
Section: 3D2
Paulinus makes it clear that, to his surprise, the Goths had maintained the rule of law - Roman law - including that governing the sale of land. Little by little, more swiftly with the reign of Euric, Gothic modifications and overt direction replaced the regular functioning of Roman institutions.By 456-57, They constituted part of still another new type of auxiliary force. The Visigoths preserved a great deal of Roman administrative procedure. They were now a large and fairly unified group living under their own king and legally accepted within the Empire. Let me stress: Wallia and Theodoric were accepted as kings within the Roman Empire.
Since Wallia died so soon, Theodoric I was really the first of a new breed of reges Gothorum. Theodoric’s problem was no longer Roman supplies but civil administration. He had to define the Goths, his rule over them, and - a new thing under the sun - his rule over the Romans in Aquitaine.
Quote ID: 792
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 278
Section: 3D2
For Hydatius the early fifth century Goths were essentially soldiers, often fighting alongside the Romans. The archaeological record suggests that these two populations had become virtually indistinguishable. The term foederati was equally well known in the East at this time but was evolving in a peculiar direction.
Quote ID: 793
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 281
Section: 1A
That Roman policy changed at all was because those in authority changed it, not because someone else “forced” them to. Sometimes changes were so gradual as to escape notice by contemporaries. What decreased rapidly after 418 was the range of options available to the Roman command.
Quote ID: 794
Time Periods: 15
Book ID: 37 Page: 282
Section: 3D2
Because Alaric and Athaulf were unable to gain recognition of their commands inside the Empire, the decade 408 to 418 witnessed the forced birth of a new Gothic self-awareness as they and their followers were repeatedly forced back upon their own resources and traditions.Roman strength kept the Goths at bay; Roman weakness allowed them to remain together. From this limbo state arose a new Gothic identity that was more newly created than remembered.
Quote ID: 795
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 283
Section: 3D2
In the case of the “Visigoths”, their territory was within the province, or the two provinces, of Aquitaine.By establishing the Goths in Aquitaine under their own king, the Roman authorities for the first time recognized and supported “kingship” within the Empire. King Wallia (415-18) never held a Roman command, nor did his successor Theodoric I (418-51). They were kings of those Goths under them, rex Gothorum. They were now acknowledged and supported by Roman authority as the rulers, both civilian and military, over their peoples.
Quote ID: 796
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 37 Page: 284
Section: 3E
While the West drifted into the era of barbarian kingdoms and warlords, the East held to the course set by Constantine the Great.
Quote ID: 797
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 37 Page: 299
Section: 3D2
Some scholars tend to forget that a great number of barbarian soldiers, almost certainly a decided majority, were volunteers.
Quote ID: 798
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 37 Page: 314
Section: 3D2
Orosius, 7.34. The special position of Theodosius as a Christian hero as seen in the early ecclesiastical writers was even more pronounced in Orosius, who saw him as the model Christian ruler and did much to pass this image on to the medieval West. This image of Theodosius affected all historiography concerning him until modern times. For the diocese of Illyricum and the exceedingly complex problems concerning its creation ca. 400, see chpt 6.
Quote ID: 799
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 37 Page: xix
Section: 3D
. . .Roman soil derived from the need to billet and move Roman troops and the practice of receiving barbarian peoples into the Empire - receptio.
Quote ID: 744
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 37 Page: xiii
Section: 3C,4B
Nonetheless there is a line leading from the Roman defeat near Adrianople in 378, through the “non-event” of the Sack of Rome in 410, to the settlement of the Goths and their allies in Aquitaine in 418.
Quote ID: 742
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 37 Page: xviii
Section: 3B1
One of the most enduring of all ancient stereotypes was that of the barbarian. Already honed to precision in Greek literature, the technique of using the “barbarians” as foils to the civilized Romans had a long history that bridged the transition to the Christian Roman world of late antiquity. The intellectual abstraction “barbarian” influenced every literary source cited in this study whether pagan or Christian.
Quote ID: 743
Time Periods: 45
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