Rome And The Barbarians 100 B C A D 400

This historical analysis of Roman-Barbarian relations from the Republic into late antiquity offers a striking new perspective on the fall of the Empire. The barbarians of antiquity, often portrayed simply as the savages who destroyed Rome, emerge in this colorful, richly textured history as a much more complex factor in the expansion, and eventual unmaking, of the Roman Empire. Thomas S. Burns marshals an abundance of archeological and literary evidence to bring forth a detailed and wide-ranging account of the relations between Romans and non-Romans along the frontiers of western Europe. Looking at a 500-year time span beginning with early encounters between barbarians and Romans around 100 B.C. and ending with the spread of barbarian settlement in the western Empire, Burns reframes the barbarians as neighbors, friends, and settlers. His nuanced history subtly shows how Rome’s relations with the barbarians slowly evolved from general ignorance, hostility, and suspicion toward tolerance, synergy, and integration. This long period of acculturation led to a new Romano-barbarian hybrid society and culture that anticipated the values and traditions of medieval civilization.

The artists of Ancient Rome portrayed the barbarian enemies of the empire in sculpture, reliefs, metalwork and jewellery. Enemies of Rome shows how the study of these images can reveal a great deal about the barbarians, as well as Roman art and the Romans view of themselves.

The death of the Roman Empire is one of the perennial mysteries of world history. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Peter Heather proposes a stunning new solution: Centuries of imperialism turned the neighbors Rome called barbarians into an enemy capable of dismantling an Empire that had dominated their lives for so long. A leading authority on the late Roman Empire and on the barbarians, Heather relates the extraordinary story of how Europe's barbarians, transformed by centuries of contact with Rome on every possible level, eventually pulled the empire apart. He shows first how the Huns overturned the existing strategic balance of power on Rome's European frontiers, to force the Goths and others to seek refuge inside the Empire. This prompted two generations of struggle, during which new barbarian coalitions, formed in response to Roman hostility, brought the Roman west to its knees. The Goths first destroyed a Roman army at the battle of Hadrianople in 378, and went on to sack Rome in 410. The Vandals spread devastation in Gaul and Spain, before conquering North Africa, the breadbasket of the Western Empire, in 439. We then meet Attila the Hun, whose reign of terror swept from Constantinople to Paris, but whose death in 453 ironically precipitated a final desperate phase of Roman collapse, culminating in the Vandals' defeat of the massive Byzantine Armada: the west's last chance for survival. Peter Heather convincingly argues that the Roman Empire was not on the brink of social or moral collapse. What brought it to an end were the barbarians.

La construction européenne est, depuis son origine, en perpétuel mouvement. L'évolution est constante tant au point de vue des espaces concernés que de celui des compétences, des politiques et des institutions. L'Europe des Vingt-Cinq est inachevée car, en son sein, le projet de traité constitutionnel n'est pas encore traduit dans la réalité. Le serait-il que la défiance des uns, l'indifférence des autres, pose la question de l'inachèvement de l'Europe du citoyen. Pourtant, la politique étrangère, celle de la défense ou encore la politique sociale (pour ne rien dire d'une politique économique) sont autant d'enjeux et de défis, aujourd'hui comme demain. Et ils sont de taille. L'Europe est inachevée, aussi, parce que, au-delà des adhésions annoncées de la Bulgarie et de la Roumanie, puis de la Croatie, la question du sud-est européen reste posée comme l'est celle de la vocation de la Turquie à rejoindre ou non l'Union. L'Europe est encore inachevée en tant que projet. Europe des patries, Europe fédérale, confédérale, des régions, des peuples ? En bref, quelle Europe, aujourd'hui qu'il n'est plus censé exister une « Autre Europe » ? Inachevée sans aucun doute, l'Europe est à inventer ou mieux, à réinventer. Et cet inachèvement même réclame sans doute une pédagogie qui ne soit ni celle de l'apologie sans discernement ni celle de la critique aveugle.

Describes what the work of archaeologists has revealed about the Roman armies and the "barbarians" from Northern Europe whom they fought in the period of approximately 150 B.C. to 150 A.D.

A fresh and vivid narrative history of the Roman Empire from the point of view of the “barbarian” enemies of Rome. History is written by the victors, and Rome had some very eloquent historians. Those the Romans regarded as barbarians left few records of their own, but they had a tremendous impact on the Roman imagination. Resisting from outside Rome’s borders or rebelling from within, they emerge vividly in Rome’s historical tradition, and left a significant footprint in archaeology. Kershaw builds a narrative around the lives, personalities, successes, and failures both of the key opponents of Rome’s rise and dominance, and of those who ultimately brought the empire down. Rome’s history follows a remarkable trajectory from its origins as a tiny village of refugees from a conflict zone to a dominant superpower. But throughout this history, Rome faced significant resistance and rebellion from peoples whom it regarded as barbarians: Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Goths, Vandals, Huns, Picts and Scots. Based both on ancient historical writings and modern archaeological research, this new history takes a fresh look at the Roman Empire through the personalities and lives of key opponents during the trajectory of Rome’s rise and fall.