The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders by Peter Heather (review)

Peter Heather’s lengthy study assesses four successive efforts by various entities to become the legitimate successor to the Roman Empire in Western Europe. Throughout, Heather displays a broad knowledge of the political, military, and religious history of the late Roman, early Byzantine, and Carolingian worlds.

Part One explores the career of the Gothic king Theodoric by tracing how Theodoric came to rule Italy with the tacit approval of the East Romans, how and why he embraced the persona of romanitas, and why the rule of the Goths fell apart so quickly after his death. Part Two proceeds similarly with the reign of the East Roman (Heather’s preferred parlance) emperor Justinian. Here, Heather suggests that although Justinian’s reign began rather tenuously, he managed to achieve genuine strength through large political gambles (the promotion of a law code and the invasions of North Africa and Italy). This part concludes with a lengthy consideration of whether or not the wars in Italy brought ruin to the empire (Heather proposes that they did not). Part Three spans the rise and fall of the Carolingians and especially the ways in which Charlemagne came to seek the authorization provided by Pope Leo and the means by which his efforts to enact clerical reforms throughout his reign ultimately benefitted the Roman Church. Part Four progresses differently than the others in that it examines the Roman Church as a different kind of political entity that could lay claim to Roman imperial power and prestige. Heather proposes that the Papacy’s ability to actualize its age-old claim to Christian authority only became possible through the political developments in the Carolingian and post-Carolingian environment.

An important question for Heather throughout the volume is why none of these successor states was ever able to sustain the power and prestige of the original empire. He offers several compelling reasons, which might be summarized as technology, succession, and Islam. In other words, none of these successor states enjoyed the same degree of technological advantage (militarily, economically, and agriculturally) over their neighbors that the original Romans possessed. Moreover, each medieval reincarnation of Rome lacked the internal cohesion to absorb eventual dynastic challenges when its most dynamic leaders passed. Finally, the rise of Islam forever altered the political dynamics of the Mediterranean and offered a direct counter to any claim of unchallenged political dominance in the original geographic space of the Empire. It is worth noting that Heather’s consideration of the East Romans as true successors to the Roman Empire is limited to their possession of Italy, and, thus, essentially restricted to the reign of Justinian.

Heather possesses an exceptional command of the sources (especially the late-ancient sources) and demonstrates an enviable instinct to know when a particular ancient source should be considered more or less suspicious on a given point. What is more, the book is written with a lively and accessible prose that invites the non-specialist. These skills make possible the kind of grand narrative account that offers plausible explanations for dramatic, albeit slow moving, changes that occurred throughout the European Middle Ages.

Given the generalist’s grand-narrative approach of the book, specialists in any one of these four areas will surely find certain claims or glosses problematic (especially regarding the rather static portrayal of Christianity in Rome’s successor states). And, at times, the book reads like little more than a summary account of medieval warfare. But Heather provides several connective insights that are well worth considering. For example, he situates the rise of Papal States within the context of East Roman struggles with Islam and Iconoclasm. And his discussion of Charlemagne as the de facto leader of Latin Christianity vis-à-vis Justinian’s previous role is quite suggestive for further reflection.

Given the scope of the project (and the book’s length), it is perhaps surprising that Heather never really engages what one might call the discourse of Romanitas—in other words...