People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489-554The barbarians of the fifth and sixth centuries were long thought to be races, tribes or ethnic groups who toppled the Roman Empire and racist, nationalist assumptions about the composition of the barbarian groups still permeate much scholarship on the subject. This book proposes a new view, through a case-study of the Goths of Italy between 489 and 554. It contains a detailed examination of the personal details and biographies of 379 individuals and compares their behaviour with ideological texts of the time. This inquiry suggests wholly new ways of understanding the appearance of barbarian groups and the end of the western Roman Empire, as well as proposing new models of regional and professional loyalty and group cohesion. In addition, the book proposes a complete reinterpretation of the evolution of Christian conceptions of community, and of so-called 'Germanic' Arianism. |
Contents
Ethnicity ethnography and community in the fifth and sixth centuries | 13 |
The Ravenna government and ethnographic ideology from civilitas to bellicositas | 43 |
Individual reactions to ideology I names language and profession | 86 |
Complementary and competing ideals of community Italy and the Roman Empire | 109 |
Individual reactions to ideology II soldiers civilians and political allegiance | 149 |
Catholic communities and Christian Empire | 195 |
Individual reactions to ideology III Catholics and Arians | 236 |
The origin of the Goths and Balkan military culture | 277 |
Conclusion | 314 |
Other editions - View all
People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489-554 Patrick Amory,Amory Patrick No preview available - 1997 |
Common terms and phrases
allegiance Amal Amalafridas Amalasuintha Anastasius Anonymus Arian Arian church Athalaric Athalaric's attested Avellana Balkans barbarian groups Belisarius Bessas bishops Boethius Byzantine army Cassiodorus Catholic century Christian civilian classical ethnography clergy comes Constantinople culture Cyprian Danihel emperor Ennodius ethnic Eugippius frontier Gaul Gelasius gentes Gepids Germanic names Getica Goffart Gothic army Gothic language Gothic Wars Gothorum Goths Goths and Romans Graeco-Latin Greek Gundila Hormisdas Ibid identity imperial inscription Iohannes Italian Italy John Jordanes Justinian king Krautschick language late antiquity Latin names letter Liberius magister militum Mediterranean military Mommsen Moorhead Mundo Odoacer Opilio Ostrogothic Ostrogothic Italy papal patricius PItal PLRE2 PLRE3 political pope Procopius Procopius's prosopography provinces Ravenna reference regions rhetoric Roman Empire Rome royal schism Scythian senate sixth-century soldiers sources suggests Theodahad Theoderic Theoderic's Thiel Tjäder Totila tradition Tuluin Tzalico Ulfilas Vandals Variae Vigilius vir spectabilis Visigoths Witigis Wolfram