Rome and the Barbarians, 100 BC-AD 400 (review)

The study of Roman-Barbarian relations is as old as Roman history. Professor Thomas Burns, using the knowledge gained over a thirty-year career, has provided us with an excellent study on the topic of Rome and the Barbarians over a five-century period, beginning with the late second century BC and culminating with the late fourth-early fifth century AD.

Burns breaks the stereotype of the barbarians as destructive savages held in check by the Roman Empire. In its place he offers a balanced view of an evolving relationship between complex, diverse societies on the barbarian side and the civilized Romans with their stereotyped perceptions of the barbarian "other." He points out that what began as a relationship between unequals, as Rome pushed the northern frontiers further from their Mediterranean core, would culminate during the third to fifth centuries with the frontier cultures asserting their influence in the core regions of the Empire. In so doing the foundations of Medieval Society were established.

Burns emphasizes that it was Rome assuming the role of aggressor that provoked conflicts. That the Romans manufactured threatening "others" in their history and used them to justify subsequent military actions in the present. He points out that the extension of the patron-client institutions created ties between Roman and Barbarian elites that facilitated initial conquest and subsequent provincial rule. Chapter 3, dealing with Caesar in Gaul, is particularly enlightening in its presentations of the Roman perspective and the creations of the Germans as distinct from the Gallic Celts.

In the following chapters Burns points out that the Principate engaged in a policy of controlled barbarian migration into its frontier provinces, while at the same time urbanization and the emergence of an administrative staff in the provinces served to facilitate the transfer of wealth and technology from the core to the periphery. He emphasizes that this process affected populations beyond the political-military frontiers. In this section Burns uses Pannonia as the province for the in-depth study of the process (Chapter 5).

The Crisis of the Third Century is interpreted as being a stage in the evolution of the empire's history as the shift in the flow of power takes place and the frontiers begin to exert their cultural influence on the Mediterranean core. The centrifugal forces that threatened imperial unity and the institutional changes, particularly of the army, are considered within the context of evolving Barbarian-Roman relations as the frontier population and ethos came to dominate. The Tetrachic-Constantinian settlement is placed in the context of this new evolutionary stage of the Empire's history. The impact of Christianity is given consideration but could have been elaborated upon more fully. The final resolution to the label of Barbarians came by the fifth century when the term lost its original meaning as the distinctions between Roman and Barbarian withered, to be replaced by other criteria of distinctions.

The book is enhanced by Burns's very effective integration of the traditional literary sources with the testimony of the archaeological evidence. His participation at several excavations enables him to achieve a seamless fusion of the material with the literary testimony, moderating the misleading distortions of some of the latter.

In summary, Professor Burns has produced a scholarly work that sheds light on an important aspect of Roman history and is valuable to both the scholar and the beginning student.