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Key Conflicts of Classical Antiquity
Rome's Gothic Wars: From the Third Century to Alaric
Late in August 410, Rome was starving, its residents were turning on one another, and, to make matters worse, the Gothic army camped at Rome's gates was restless. The Gothic commander was Alaric, a Roman general and barbarian chieftain. Leading an army that was short of food and potentially mutinous, sacking Rome was his only way forward. The old heart of Rome's empire fell to a conqueror's sword for the first time in eight hundred years. For three days, Alaric's Goths sacked the eternal city. In the words of a contemporary, the mother of the world had been murdered. Alaric's story is the culmination of a long historical journey by which the Goths came to be a part of the Roman world. Whether as friends or foes of the Roman empire, the Goths and their history are entwined with the larger history of Rome in the third and fourth centuries. Rome's Gothic Wars explains how the Goths came into existence on the margins of the Roman world, how different Gothic groups dealt with the enormous power of Rome just beyond their lands, and how, in two traumatic years, thousands of Goths entered the imperial provinces and destroyed the army that was sent to suppress them, leaving the emperor of the eternal city dead on the field of battle. Unlike other histories of the barbarians, Rome's Gothic Wars shows exactly how and why modern historians understand the Goths the way they do – and why our understanding is so controversial. Michael Kulikowski is associate professor of history at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. A recipient of the Solmsen Fellowship at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he is the author of Late Roman Spain and Its Cities, which was awarded an Honorable Mention in Classics and Archaeology from the Association of American University Presses. His scholarly articles have appeared in Early Medieval Europe, Britannia, Phoenix, and Byzantium, and he has appeared on the History Channel's Barbarians series.
238 pages, Hardcover
First published September 30, 2006
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About the author
Michael Kulikowski
18 books21 followersMichael Kulikowski is the author of Rome’s Gothic Wars, Late Roman Spain and Its Cities, and The Triumph of Empire. Kulikowski has appeared in a number of documentaries on the History Channel, including Barbarians Rising, Rome, and Criminal History: Rome, and writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal and London Review of Books. He is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Classics at Pennsylvania State University.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
November 25, 2019
Characterised by excellent scholarship, and supported by a comprehensive and analytical study of the few available primary sources and of the more recent archaeological findings, this book is concise but highly informative and of great interest.
The author's well-reasoned interpretation and incisive criticism of the available sources (and of their weaknesses and inconsistencies, especially in relation to Jordanes) are highly convincing and generally well supported. Do not trust the few unjustified negative comments in some of the reviews of this book, which is actually of excellent quality and highly recommended.
Just a note: it does require some good prior knowledge of the period, so it would probably not work well as a general introduction to the subject.
4.5 stars, rounded up to 5.
The author's well-reasoned interpretation and incisive criticism of the available sources (and of their weaknesses and inconsistencies, especially in relation to Jordanes) are highly convincing and generally well supported. Do not trust the few unjustified negative comments in some of the reviews of this book, which is actually of excellent quality and highly recommended.
Just a note: it does require some good prior knowledge of the period, so it would probably not work well as a general introduction to the subject.
4.5 stars, rounded up to 5.
January 14, 2015
After acknowledging “the historian has a duty to make history intelligible” (p. xi), Professor Kulikowski proceeds to obscure the already obscure subject of Romano-Gothic relations. Rather than “help those who are just beginning the advanced study of late antiquity,” he abandons serious scholarship and builds a house of cards which admits little scrutiny.
Professor Kulikowski starts with the humble-sounding premise that “even the most basic facts are either unknown or else uncertain because of contradictory evidence” (p. 12), then proceeds to savage his own sources.
Even more startling is his thesis that “the Roman empire create[d] the Goths as we know them.” (p. 13) Time and again throughout the first half of Wars, Kulikowski tells us “as we will see”, then spends the second half saying “as we have seen” never having supported his intriguing thesis. In the end the reader is left with an assertion—a plausible scenario, but not the only plausible scenario.
The key chapter is “The Search for Gothic Origins” in which Kulikowski deconstructs ancient and modern theories that the Goths or their prehistoric antecedents came from the region of modern Scandinavia and/or Poland. Then he examines archeological evidence in the region from which the Goths first came to the attention of classical cultures. While he acknowledges that the Alans and Sarmatians lived as a horse culture on top of an agricultural substrata, he avows that the remains uncovered in the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov cultural zone support his assertion “that there was no Gothic history before the third century. The Goths are a product of the Roman frontier, just like the Franks and the Alamanni who appear at the same time.” (p. 67)
In the subsequent chapter, he gives us a closer look at his reasoning process. In a single paragraph, successive sentences assert “suggests”, “most likely”, “seem”, “perhaps”, “can probably be inferred”, and “may” leading to “It is thus quite likely…” And yet he has the temerity to assert, “as we saw in the last chapter….”
In addition to needing a refresher in basic logic, the good professor should have sought grammar assistance from the English department. The text is replete with participles and passive constructions, which will not help those beginning students he proclaimed as his target audience. While Professor Kulikowski tends to cite (and analyze the reliability of) ancient sources, he rarely quotes those sources, leaving the reader to accept his analysis of what the source did nor did not report.
Maps in Wars are woefully inadequate, both in number and detail. Kulikowski’s statement on page xii that the Department of History “produced [them] at short notice” implies that these maps were provided were an afterthought.
Make no mistake, Professor Kulikowski’s theory is a provocative and insightful one. But the norm for historical writing these days is provocative new theories. Modern historians are not content to stand on the shoulders of their predecessors for a slightly better view. Modern historians feel compelled to tear down everything before them and start anew—even if it means they are writing fiction. Kulikowski explains his new theory well enough; he just never proves it.
Despite its shortfalls, Rome’s Gothic Wars offers a good review of the current state of knowledge about Romano-Gothic relations between A. D. 376 and 410. Professor Kulikowski offers insights to Rome’s degeneration from an externally invincible empire to a shadow of its former self—the “eternal city” sacked and independent barbarian kingdoms established within its borders.
Professor Kulikowski starts with the humble-sounding premise that “even the most basic facts are either unknown or else uncertain because of contradictory evidence” (p. 12), then proceeds to savage his own sources.
Even more startling is his thesis that “the Roman empire create[d] the Goths as we know them.” (p. 13) Time and again throughout the first half of Wars, Kulikowski tells us “as we will see”, then spends the second half saying “as we have seen” never having supported his intriguing thesis. In the end the reader is left with an assertion—a plausible scenario, but not the only plausible scenario.
The key chapter is “The Search for Gothic Origins” in which Kulikowski deconstructs ancient and modern theories that the Goths or their prehistoric antecedents came from the region of modern Scandinavia and/or Poland. Then he examines archeological evidence in the region from which the Goths first came to the attention of classical cultures. While he acknowledges that the Alans and Sarmatians lived as a horse culture on top of an agricultural substrata, he avows that the remains uncovered in the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov cultural zone support his assertion “that there was no Gothic history before the third century. The Goths are a product of the Roman frontier, just like the Franks and the Alamanni who appear at the same time.” (p. 67)
In the subsequent chapter, he gives us a closer look at his reasoning process. In a single paragraph, successive sentences assert “suggests”, “most likely”, “seem”, “perhaps”, “can probably be inferred”, and “may” leading to “It is thus quite likely…” And yet he has the temerity to assert, “as we saw in the last chapter….”
In addition to needing a refresher in basic logic, the good professor should have sought grammar assistance from the English department. The text is replete with participles and passive constructions, which will not help those beginning students he proclaimed as his target audience. While Professor Kulikowski tends to cite (and analyze the reliability of) ancient sources, he rarely quotes those sources, leaving the reader to accept his analysis of what the source did nor did not report.
Maps in Wars are woefully inadequate, both in number and detail. Kulikowski’s statement on page xii that the Department of History “produced [them] at short notice” implies that these maps were provided were an afterthought.
Make no mistake, Professor Kulikowski’s theory is a provocative and insightful one. But the norm for historical writing these days is provocative new theories. Modern historians are not content to stand on the shoulders of their predecessors for a slightly better view. Modern historians feel compelled to tear down everything before them and start anew—even if it means they are writing fiction. Kulikowski explains his new theory well enough; he just never proves it.
Despite its shortfalls, Rome’s Gothic Wars offers a good review of the current state of knowledge about Romano-Gothic relations between A. D. 376 and 410. Professor Kulikowski offers insights to Rome’s degeneration from an externally invincible empire to a shadow of its former self—the “eternal city” sacked and independent barbarian kingdoms established within its borders.
December 11, 2024
One of the best locations within a bookstore to find interesting material is in the new arrivals section where the books haven't been shelved yet. It seems that a stack of books had recently appeared that were part of a scholar's library or research references. I was nearly at the point of purchasing the entire stack but knew it was out of my budget for the day - so, I picked up this pristine copy of Rome's Gothic Wars.
We hear bits and pieces in history classes or in media about the fall of Rome but not nearly as much as the early Roman republic or the first emperors. But what really happened in the 300s that led to Alaric and the Goths to sack the city of Rome in 410? Kulikowski dives deep into the problem the Roman empire was having both internally and externally that gave the Goths the means to assimilate enough power to change history. But, who were the Goths?
It seems that the core of this book is dispel the historical notion that the Goths were a people who migrated from the Scandinavian regions to the northeastern borders of the Roman empire just north of the Black Sea (note that the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths are just geographical cultural separations of the the general term "Goths"). Much of this history was based on a book written in the 500s by Jordanes called Getica. This source attempted to describe the origins of Gothic history based on previous, currently undiscovered Roman histories. Kulikowski calls out that Jordanes was biased and probably not reliable. He notes that culturally, groups of united populations either migrate, evolve from one culture overtaking (or overpowering) another, diffusion over time of cultural change, or just are part of "civilizing" the Roman frontier (mixing Roman culture with populations on the frontier). In the author's mind it was the latter.
Basically, the emperors of Rome, according to the author, were the core problem. Their status was determined by battles won on the frontiers as generals. Each had to outdo the other to reach a high position. As the Roman empire expanded so did the mixing of cultures. As the Goths integrated with Roman customs and economies, they assumed more power. Additionally, they were pushed more into the protection of the empire due to external "barbarian" pressures. Unfortunately, the Romans betrayed Gothic leaders and started a skirmish that eventually led to emperor Valens marching to the eastern front and attacking the Goths at Adrianople (western Turkey) in 378. The Romans were overpowered and defeated leading to the rise of Alaric and Gothic power.
There's much more to the book - but an excellent scholarly overview of the 3rd and 4th centuries in Rome. Whether Kulikowski's theories on the rise of the Goths is true, remains to be seen - but archeological evidence seems to support it. 4 solid stars!
We hear bits and pieces in history classes or in media about the fall of Rome but not nearly as much as the early Roman republic or the first emperors. But what really happened in the 300s that led to Alaric and the Goths to sack the city of Rome in 410? Kulikowski dives deep into the problem the Roman empire was having both internally and externally that gave the Goths the means to assimilate enough power to change history. But, who were the Goths?
It seems that the core of this book is dispel the historical notion that the Goths were a people who migrated from the Scandinavian regions to the northeastern borders of the Roman empire just north of the Black Sea (note that the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths are just geographical cultural separations of the the general term "Goths"). Much of this history was based on a book written in the 500s by Jordanes called Getica. This source attempted to describe the origins of Gothic history based on previous, currently undiscovered Roman histories. Kulikowski calls out that Jordanes was biased and probably not reliable. He notes that culturally, groups of united populations either migrate, evolve from one culture overtaking (or overpowering) another, diffusion over time of cultural change, or just are part of "civilizing" the Roman frontier (mixing Roman culture with populations on the frontier). In the author's mind it was the latter.
Basically, the emperors of Rome, according to the author, were the core problem. Their status was determined by battles won on the frontiers as generals. Each had to outdo the other to reach a high position. As the Roman empire expanded so did the mixing of cultures. As the Goths integrated with Roman customs and economies, they assumed more power. Additionally, they were pushed more into the protection of the empire due to external "barbarian" pressures. Unfortunately, the Romans betrayed Gothic leaders and started a skirmish that eventually led to emperor Valens marching to the eastern front and attacking the Goths at Adrianople (western Turkey) in 378. The Romans were overpowered and defeated leading to the rise of Alaric and Gothic power.
There's much more to the book - but an excellent scholarly overview of the 3rd and 4th centuries in Rome. Whether Kulikowski's theories on the rise of the Goths is true, remains to be seen - but archeological evidence seems to support it. 4 solid stars!
May 3, 2018
Quite a short but an incisive book, worth reading even if you are interested in the wider 'barbarian' question, like me.
How living on the edges of an empire creates barbarian groups and polities. The Goths did not exist until Romans told them they did.
So much of this is consonant with the situation in China, re its steppe barbarians. From the way the luxuries trade creates and controls an elite beholden to the empire, down to the massacres of barbarian leaders at feasts. Popular tactic.
The great strength of this book was to discuss historiography. As he says at the start, most introductions to a subject don't make historiographical issues transparent, but write as if conclusions are certain. Kulikowski argues that admitting to the uncertainties of history-practice needn't be confusing -- on the contrary, the puzzles and the conflicting interpretations are themselves the most exciting part of doing history. Amen to that. So he is transparent about the steps by which he works towards his views. This doesn't make a difficult read.
I find him persuasive, along with Halsall Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376-568. They have a different take to Peter Heather who looms largely over the field.
One funny thing about this book is that he begins in story format, with Alaric at the gates of Rome being bad-tempered (as if we know he was an angry individual. He was a barbarian, so he must be). Then Kulikowski straight away explains that that kind of history is impossible to write without its being fiction. But I'd almost put his book down -- so be more patient than I am.
How living on the edges of an empire creates barbarian groups and polities. The Goths did not exist until Romans told them they did.
So much of this is consonant with the situation in China, re its steppe barbarians. From the way the luxuries trade creates and controls an elite beholden to the empire, down to the massacres of barbarian leaders at feasts. Popular tactic.
The great strength of this book was to discuss historiography. As he says at the start, most introductions to a subject don't make historiographical issues transparent, but write as if conclusions are certain. Kulikowski argues that admitting to the uncertainties of history-practice needn't be confusing -- on the contrary, the puzzles and the conflicting interpretations are themselves the most exciting part of doing history. Amen to that. So he is transparent about the steps by which he works towards his views. This doesn't make a difficult read.
I find him persuasive, along with Halsall Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376-568. They have a different take to Peter Heather who looms largely over the field.
One funny thing about this book is that he begins in story format, with Alaric at the gates of Rome being bad-tempered (as if we know he was an angry individual. He was a barbarian, so he must be). Then Kulikowski straight away explains that that kind of history is impossible to write without its being fiction. But I'd almost put his book down -- so be more patient than I am.
January 10, 2018
Although this book is about the Goths from the third century to Alaric's sack as the title suggests, it is really about much more than that. A great deal of space is devoted to the historiography of the study of the Goths and historical methodology. For this, Kulikowski needs a serious commendation. Far too many books on ancient history, and especially introductory-level works ignore just how we do the history and prefer to skip over the debates in the field, making such things appear to be settled. This is simply not how history works any more as Enlightenment positivism is (thankfully) long dead. This is precisely why Kulikowski's book needs to be commended. Instead of telling us exactly who the Goths were and what they did, he presents numerous points of view and introduce students to the uncertainty present in so much of our historical material. However, this is also this book's greatest weakness. He often argues for a particular interpretation over others, except that far too frequently these are only weakly supported. No doubt if he had more page space he would be able to explore these arguments in full, but as it stands some of them (the Romans' creation of the Goths; the early career of Theodosius) are so briefly mentioned and unsupported that one has to wonder about their validity. The maps are also not sufficient for the subject matter. They lack detail beyond the frontiers, and the map detailing the Santana-de-Mures/Cernjachov culture is particularly bad, as it does not really show the exact limits of the cultures, just the places mentioned in the text. As a whole though, this book is an excellent discussion of the early years of the Goths leading up to the siege of Rome. Kulikowski needs to be commended for his choice to write with such a strong focus on methodology and historiography, asit enlivens the discussion even if it detracts from the space needed to make his own arguments complete. More than just a book on the Goths, I would recommend this as an excellent work on understanding ancient history in general given the focus on historiography, methodology, and wide range of modern interpretations.
June 19, 2008
I was recently asked by Cambridge University Press to review "Rome's Gothic Wars: From the Third Century to Alaric (Key Conflicts of Classical Antiquity) by Michael Kulikowski. I finally got a chance to begin reading it and find it clearly written and thankfully devoid of the stilted academic jargon that pervades many history texts. As most of my studies have focused on the Roman Republic, I am learning all kinds of fascinating things about this later period.
For example, I did not realize that there were reports of cannibalism inside the city of Rome during Alaric's siege. Kulikowski also postulates that one of the stimuli for the beginning of Gothic
invasions of the Empire was in response to Caracalla's granting of citizenship to all free residents of the empire. He felt that this action opened up the possibilities for anyone - not just provincial elites who had gained senatorial rank - to gain the throne.
Evidently, Mr. Kulikowski has another problem with Caracalla. He says in his opinion, much of the civil unrest in Rome itself resulting from the long string of assassinated emperors was triggered unwittingly by Caracalla when he defeated the last Parthian king. This left a power vacuum in the east that was filled by the much more problematic (for the Romans)Sassanids who were not content to control the former Parthian Empire but launched numerous incursions into Roman territory. Less successful responses to these incursions would often result in deposition of the current emperor. Likewise, success would bring a new challenger to the imperial throne.
He also went on to describe the problems created by Roman interference in Barbarian tribal control with Roman subsidy of particular tribal leaders. Although this may have brought temporary loyalty, ultimately it garnered a larger core of support around these subsidized chieftains who would then be in a position to challenge the authority of Rome itself along the frontiers. He pointed out that Decablus was just such an example. The Romans initially subsidized his power base in Dacia.
I found an article that described how this came about:
"In 60 BC, King Burebista of Dacia began a series of expansionistic moves to relieve pressure from nomadic incursions, which eventually threatened Roman Danubian and Black Sea territories. Julius Caesar began to lay plans for a campaign in Dacia and Partha, which came to naught when both Caesear and Burebista were assassinated in 44 BC.
Later, during the reign of Nero (54-68 AD), Dacian raids into Roman Moesia became so serious that the Romans engaged the Roxolani to help defend their frontier, thus placing Dacia's sometime Sarmatian allies on their enemies list.
In 85 AD, King Decebalus assumed the Dacian throne, adopting a hostile Roman policy that posed a serious challenge to the Emperor Domitian (81-96 AD). A Dacian army raided across the Danube into the Roman province of Moesia, killing the Roman governor and looting the countryside. This prompted an retaliatory expedition under command of praetorian prefect Cornelius Fuscus that was wiped out in eastern Dacia (including the loss of Legio V Alaudae) . A second Roman expedition was severely defeated in 87 AD.
Finally, a Roman army under Tettius Julianus defeated the Dacians at Tapae in 88 or 89 A.D. King Decabalus of Dacia was forced to pay tribute and allow Roman armies passage through Dacian territory. Domitian, however, was distracted by Saturninus' Revolt on the Rhine Frontier and uprisings by the Sarmatian Iazyges, Marcomanni and Quaid tribes on Rome's Pannonian frontier. He sought the favor of Decabalus to avoid a Dacian-Sarmatian alliance, offering skilled artisans and hostages to ensure Dacian neutrality while he contended with his other headaches." - DBA Resource (http://www.fanaticus.org/DBA/armies/d...)
I couldn't help but think that we certainly didn't learn much from these Roman experiences in political interference since we so recently repeated their mistakes!
Kulikowski, also pointed out something that is important to know if you are reading original historical sources from the period. He says that, even though the Goths contemporaries referred to them as Goths, historical scholars of the day used the formal designation "Scythians" because the Goths had originated north of the Black Sea in the same region once occupied by the true Scythians recorded by Herodotus.
I also found little controversies pointed out by Michael Kulikowski quite interesting. He appears to be very skeptical of Jordanes narrative of the origin and migration of the Goths from Scandanavia to the Black Sea region ("Getica"). Supposedly, Jordanes sixth century account was based on the lost barbarian histories by Cassiodorus. But Kulikowski maintains that Jordanes work was prepared while attached to the court of Theodoric so he feels it was meant to provide a glorious history of descent for that monarch and can't be solely relied upon when no other sources are available - much like the skepticism that always surrounds the narratives by Suetonius.
He went on to say that the connection between the Goths and Scandanavia has been disproved archaeologically but did not elaborate on how. He feels the Goths arose as a result of barbarian relationships with the Roman army along the frontiers in the third century and that they did not exist as a recognizable cultural group before that time.
Kulikowski, also observed that Constantine apparently deliberately shifted from the former emperors' claims to be descended from Hercules to claim a descent from Claudius Gothicus. The author seemed to think this was a way to demonstrate a rejection of pagan philosophies.
All of these issues prompted me to seek out other academic opinions and more information.
Judith Weingarten, who studied classical archaeology at Oxford and is a member of the British School of Athens, disagreed with Kulikowski's suggestion that Caracalla's granting of citizenship to all free residents was a crucial trigger to the Gothic migrations:
"Caracalla's father, the Emperor Septimius Severus, had already started the rot: as the first of the Soldier Emperors, he came to power over the bodies of three emperors (all murdered in a single year!) and fought two bloody civil wars against rival generals to boot. He was, however, the last emperor, for a very long time, to die in bed. For the next 60 years, emperor after emperor - and there were many - fell to the assassin’s knife - and that is only to speak of the so-called legitimate emperors, who managed to fight off and kill their rivals - the losers then being called ‘usurpers’ or ‘pretenders’. [An old English jingle makes the point: Treason doth never prosper/ what’s the reason?/ For if it prosper/ none dare call it treason.] Caracalla’s murder, in turn,, did usher in a new age of instability. Legitimacy gave way to force and absolute depotism, in which the losers, their friends and supporters, were slaughtered and their property confiscated.
In my opinion, the true reason for Caracalla granting citizenship to all free men in the Empire, was his need to raise revenue: in return for citizenship, he taxed them. When even that was insufficient, he debased the currency...."
Another historian, Volker Carlton Bach of Denmark, took issue with the speculation that Constantine's rejection of the emperor's traditional descent from Hercules was a demonstration of rejection of pagan philosophy.
" I think this is based on a misunderstanding. The descent of the Herculian Emperors (not the Jovian ones) from Hercules was purely a notional, cultic (for want of a better word) concept. The closest we have today, I think, is the link between the popes and St Peter - not an arogation of genetic descent, but a claim of spiritual successorship and close association. The Romans knew that Maximian and his successors were not the great-great-great-repeat ad nauseam-grandsons of the heros Hercules. After all, they had real mothers and fathers, and in some cases even knew both with a degree of certainty. The descent claim from Claudius Gothicus, on the other hand, *is* a 'real' paternity claim, similar to the adoption of Antonine nomenclature by third-century emperors. So Constantine doesn't really replace one claim with another. The Herculian designation was unnecessary simply because with Constantine's victories, as it had been used to distinguish junior colleagues from senior (Jovian) ones. Constantine was *the* emperor, so that was that. Claudius Gothicus, on the other hand, was a very attractive ancestor to claim, a successful and legendary warrior and, unlike Aurelian or Diocletian, without anti-Christian baggage."
Any book that can generate this type of quality discussion is a worthy addition to any history enthusiast's collection. I notice it is one of a series of introductory-level texts exploring the key conflicts of classical antiquity. I look forward to reading others in this series.
For example, I did not realize that there were reports of cannibalism inside the city of Rome during Alaric's siege. Kulikowski also postulates that one of the stimuli for the beginning of Gothic
invasions of the Empire was in response to Caracalla's granting of citizenship to all free residents of the empire. He felt that this action opened up the possibilities for anyone - not just provincial elites who had gained senatorial rank - to gain the throne.
Evidently, Mr. Kulikowski has another problem with Caracalla. He says in his opinion, much of the civil unrest in Rome itself resulting from the long string of assassinated emperors was triggered unwittingly by Caracalla when he defeated the last Parthian king. This left a power vacuum in the east that was filled by the much more problematic (for the Romans)Sassanids who were not content to control the former Parthian Empire but launched numerous incursions into Roman territory. Less successful responses to these incursions would often result in deposition of the current emperor. Likewise, success would bring a new challenger to the imperial throne.
He also went on to describe the problems created by Roman interference in Barbarian tribal control with Roman subsidy of particular tribal leaders. Although this may have brought temporary loyalty, ultimately it garnered a larger core of support around these subsidized chieftains who would then be in a position to challenge the authority of Rome itself along the frontiers. He pointed out that Decablus was just such an example. The Romans initially subsidized his power base in Dacia.
I found an article that described how this came about:
"In 60 BC, King Burebista of Dacia began a series of expansionistic moves to relieve pressure from nomadic incursions, which eventually threatened Roman Danubian and Black Sea territories. Julius Caesar began to lay plans for a campaign in Dacia and Partha, which came to naught when both Caesear and Burebista were assassinated in 44 BC.
Later, during the reign of Nero (54-68 AD), Dacian raids into Roman Moesia became so serious that the Romans engaged the Roxolani to help defend their frontier, thus placing Dacia's sometime Sarmatian allies on their enemies list.
In 85 AD, King Decebalus assumed the Dacian throne, adopting a hostile Roman policy that posed a serious challenge to the Emperor Domitian (81-96 AD). A Dacian army raided across the Danube into the Roman province of Moesia, killing the Roman governor and looting the countryside. This prompted an retaliatory expedition under command of praetorian prefect Cornelius Fuscus that was wiped out in eastern Dacia (including the loss of Legio V Alaudae) . A second Roman expedition was severely defeated in 87 AD.
Finally, a Roman army under Tettius Julianus defeated the Dacians at Tapae in 88 or 89 A.D. King Decabalus of Dacia was forced to pay tribute and allow Roman armies passage through Dacian territory. Domitian, however, was distracted by Saturninus' Revolt on the Rhine Frontier and uprisings by the Sarmatian Iazyges, Marcomanni and Quaid tribes on Rome's Pannonian frontier. He sought the favor of Decabalus to avoid a Dacian-Sarmatian alliance, offering skilled artisans and hostages to ensure Dacian neutrality while he contended with his other headaches." - DBA Resource (http://www.fanaticus.org/DBA/armies/d...)
I couldn't help but think that we certainly didn't learn much from these Roman experiences in political interference since we so recently repeated their mistakes!
Kulikowski, also pointed out something that is important to know if you are reading original historical sources from the period. He says that, even though the Goths contemporaries referred to them as Goths, historical scholars of the day used the formal designation "Scythians" because the Goths had originated north of the Black Sea in the same region once occupied by the true Scythians recorded by Herodotus.
I also found little controversies pointed out by Michael Kulikowski quite interesting. He appears to be very skeptical of Jordanes narrative of the origin and migration of the Goths from Scandanavia to the Black Sea region ("Getica"). Supposedly, Jordanes sixth century account was based on the lost barbarian histories by Cassiodorus. But Kulikowski maintains that Jordanes work was prepared while attached to the court of Theodoric so he feels it was meant to provide a glorious history of descent for that monarch and can't be solely relied upon when no other sources are available - much like the skepticism that always surrounds the narratives by Suetonius.
He went on to say that the connection between the Goths and Scandanavia has been disproved archaeologically but did not elaborate on how. He feels the Goths arose as a result of barbarian relationships with the Roman army along the frontiers in the third century and that they did not exist as a recognizable cultural group before that time.
Kulikowski, also observed that Constantine apparently deliberately shifted from the former emperors' claims to be descended from Hercules to claim a descent from Claudius Gothicus. The author seemed to think this was a way to demonstrate a rejection of pagan philosophies.
All of these issues prompted me to seek out other academic opinions and more information.
Judith Weingarten, who studied classical archaeology at Oxford and is a member of the British School of Athens, disagreed with Kulikowski's suggestion that Caracalla's granting of citizenship to all free residents was a crucial trigger to the Gothic migrations:
"Caracalla's father, the Emperor Septimius Severus, had already started the rot: as the first of the Soldier Emperors, he came to power over the bodies of three emperors (all murdered in a single year!) and fought two bloody civil wars against rival generals to boot. He was, however, the last emperor, for a very long time, to die in bed. For the next 60 years, emperor after emperor - and there were many - fell to the assassin’s knife - and that is only to speak of the so-called legitimate emperors, who managed to fight off and kill their rivals - the losers then being called ‘usurpers’ or ‘pretenders’. [An old English jingle makes the point: Treason doth never prosper/ what’s the reason?/ For if it prosper/ none dare call it treason.] Caracalla’s murder, in turn,, did usher in a new age of instability. Legitimacy gave way to force and absolute depotism, in which the losers, their friends and supporters, were slaughtered and their property confiscated.
In my opinion, the true reason for Caracalla granting citizenship to all free men in the Empire, was his need to raise revenue: in return for citizenship, he taxed them. When even that was insufficient, he debased the currency...."
Another historian, Volker Carlton Bach of Denmark, took issue with the speculation that Constantine's rejection of the emperor's traditional descent from Hercules was a demonstration of rejection of pagan philosophy.
" I think this is based on a misunderstanding. The descent of the Herculian Emperors (not the Jovian ones) from Hercules was purely a notional, cultic (for want of a better word) concept. The closest we have today, I think, is the link between the popes and St Peter - not an arogation of genetic descent, but a claim of spiritual successorship and close association. The Romans knew that Maximian and his successors were not the great-great-great-repeat ad nauseam-grandsons of the heros Hercules. After all, they had real mothers and fathers, and in some cases even knew both with a degree of certainty. The descent claim from Claudius Gothicus, on the other hand, *is* a 'real' paternity claim, similar to the adoption of Antonine nomenclature by third-century emperors. So Constantine doesn't really replace one claim with another. The Herculian designation was unnecessary simply because with Constantine's victories, as it had been used to distinguish junior colleagues from senior (Jovian) ones. Constantine was *the* emperor, so that was that. Claudius Gothicus, on the other hand, was a very attractive ancestor to claim, a successful and legendary warrior and, unlike Aurelian or Diocletian, without anti-Christian baggage."
Any book that can generate this type of quality discussion is a worthy addition to any history enthusiast's collection. I notice it is one of a series of introductory-level texts exploring the key conflicts of classical antiquity. I look forward to reading others in this series.
December 6, 2022
History is written by the victorious and the powerful. As one of, if not the most, most powerful groups in the ancient world, ancient Roman authors had ample opportunity to shape history through their own accounts of events. This bias, clearly present in ancient historical sources, confounds the modern historian’s ability to construct an accurate account of events in the distant past. In Rome’s Gothic Wars, Michael Kulikowski attempts to explore the history of the Goths without falling into the trap of misinterpreting biased sources as fact or making unfounded claims based on faulty evidence. In his cautious analysis of Gothic history, he questions the validity of many ideas of the period’s history often held as foundational tenets.
Kulikowski asks his readers to consider how “we know what we think we know about the Goths” to encourage the reevaluation of so-called facts that may be little more conjecture based on ancient historical fiction. He argues in favor of conservative interpretations of sources due to their dubiousness. However, his own reconsideration of these sources leads him to develop somewhat radical conclusions regarding the Goths. He rejects many of the claims in Jordanes’s , the predominant source for much of Gothic history, and forms a theory redefining the Goths and their formation.
Jordanes was a barbarian and author of De origine actibusque Getarum (Getica), the document from which much of Gothic history originates. Unfortunately, Jordanes had a pesky habit of engaging in fabrication of false narratives in his history-writing that is considered objectionable by the standards of contemporary history. Jordanes’s account of how he gathered much of the information in Getica provides some explanation for the improbable nature of his claims. Much of Getica includes information Jordanes apparently gathered during a three-day period reading the now-destroyed Gothic histories by the Roman author Cassiodorus. Without long-term access to a copy of the works from which he sourced much of the information in his writings, Jordanes’s history is undoubtedly rife with inaccurately recalled information if not pure conjecture. Kulikowski explains that though historians know, because of this, to take caution when interpreting Getica, many still hold dear the idea of a Gothic origin in Scandinavia. The story goes that the Goths left Scandinavia thousands of years before Jordanes’s writing, a fierce group of barbarians on the brink of discovering their love for quarreling with the Romans. Unfortunately, like many of Jordanes’s claims, this one is founded in a desire to create a “single linear narrative” of Gothic history intertwined with the familiar history of Rome. These intentions create an attractively straightforward but unreliable history.
The allure of the continuous history presented in Getica has tempted historians for many years. Kulikowski performs the unenviable task of attempting to convince his peers to upend their theories of Gothic history by rejecting the theory of ethnogenesis in Scandinavia. Though Kulikowski’s idea is radical, it is hardly more radical than believing Jordanes’s claims despite the mountain of evidence against them. Kulikowski’s postulations are based in a firm belief in the historical method and thus in the fact that if many aspects of Getica are indubitably falsified, then one cannot give full credit to the integrity of certain favorable aspects of the document. Instead, Kulikowski posits that the Goths who began to appear in third-century Roman literature were the product of the forces of Roman frontier interactions with barbarians and that the Roman narrative of ethnogenesis grew out of a desire to make sense of the irritating barbarians with whom they kept experiencing conflict.
Thus, Kulikowski demonstrates the application and merits of his premise. Though it may require reconsidering many of the accepted facts of history, to do so, he argues, is the only honest way to study a source. Since Jordanes has proven time and again to be an unreliable source, a sincere study of his work cannot be built around his unauthenticated claims. As he slowly works his way through the history of the Goths, Kulikowski tries to review each source and weigh its merit and credibility before making claims based on its information. Unfortunately, this level of scrutiny often leaves him with few sources to draw from or no way to make definitive claims about the history.
Some critics of Kulikowski’s work may point out that he often posits his own theories and ideas in an indirect manner using words like “most likely,” “possibly,” and “perhaps,” to avoid making definitive claims. This may give the impression that Kulikowski is engaging in the exact theorization and postulation that he repeatedly criticizes. However, he seems to take issue with stubbornly-held positions that stand in opposition to more reliable evidence, not with the concept of educated inference. It would be impossible to write about events from nearly two thousand years prior to your existence without making at least a few guesses. As he is clear in his intentions to avoid conjecture, one may assume his use of such phrases is to avoid misleading his readers about when an idea is based on direct quotations from sources and when one is not. Once again referring to the debate over Gothic origins in Scandinavia, Kulikowski criticizes the idea stemming from Getica because “contemporary evidence supports neither migration stories nor any narrative derived from Jordanes.” He explains that the reasonable conclusion is made in consideration of other third and fourth-century evidence and states that “the Goths were a product of the Roman frontier itself.
Contemporary understandings of Gothic history are based on the continual rumination on and dissection of the same few writings and Kulikowski tries to break this loop by considering new evidence where it is appropriate. He uses archaeological and anthropological evidence such as that found in the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov zone to validate his ideas in the wake of his rejection of Getica as a valid source. With physical evidence regarding the burial customs, economic habits, and trade conventions of the Goths found in the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov zone, Kulikowski is able to make claims with far more foundation than those he rejects.
Still, what happens when one’s sources all appear to be suspect? Kulikowski often notes that ancient authors have engaged in “rampant hyperbole” or written “heavily fictionalized” works. But as there is no way to build a narrative without some reliance on these sources, even he must allow them some credence in order to explain the Goths. Generally though, he tiptoes around dubious sources and weaves as complete a tale as possible. He makes few radical new claims and tries to err on the side of admitting his lack of information instead of engaging in speculation.
Kulikowski’s central point is this: due to the rarity and unreliability of sources on Gothic history, it is especially important that one remain open-minded as to their interpretations to avoid making incorrect or unfounded assumptions or conclusions about their meanings. In his history of the Goths, he uses as much hard evidence as possible and carefully considers written sources to avoid said assumptions. By showing his process of historical review in action, Kulikowski demonstrates its value both in the study of Gothic history and more broadly in ancient history. He disputes many traditional beliefs in the study of Gothic history and thus adjusts the traditional “Roman vs. barbarian” narrative usually associated with the Roman-Gothic relationship. Kulikowsi complicates the narrative not to be contrarian but rather to encourage the reader to reject the foolishly simplistic narrative to which they are accustomed in light of a more banal but accurate one. He asks his readers to reconsider their entire perceptions of the Goths and their history and provides compelling evidence for how and why one should.
Kulikowski asks his readers to consider how “we know what we think we know about the Goths” to encourage the reevaluation of so-called facts that may be little more conjecture based on ancient historical fiction. He argues in favor of conservative interpretations of sources due to their dubiousness. However, his own reconsideration of these sources leads him to develop somewhat radical conclusions regarding the Goths. He rejects many of the claims in Jordanes’s , the predominant source for much of Gothic history, and forms a theory redefining the Goths and their formation.
Jordanes was a barbarian and author of De origine actibusque Getarum (Getica), the document from which much of Gothic history originates. Unfortunately, Jordanes had a pesky habit of engaging in fabrication of false narratives in his history-writing that is considered objectionable by the standards of contemporary history. Jordanes’s account of how he gathered much of the information in Getica provides some explanation for the improbable nature of his claims. Much of Getica includes information Jordanes apparently gathered during a three-day period reading the now-destroyed Gothic histories by the Roman author Cassiodorus. Without long-term access to a copy of the works from which he sourced much of the information in his writings, Jordanes’s history is undoubtedly rife with inaccurately recalled information if not pure conjecture. Kulikowski explains that though historians know, because of this, to take caution when interpreting Getica, many still hold dear the idea of a Gothic origin in Scandinavia. The story goes that the Goths left Scandinavia thousands of years before Jordanes’s writing, a fierce group of barbarians on the brink of discovering their love for quarreling with the Romans. Unfortunately, like many of Jordanes’s claims, this one is founded in a desire to create a “single linear narrative” of Gothic history intertwined with the familiar history of Rome. These intentions create an attractively straightforward but unreliable history.
The allure of the continuous history presented in Getica has tempted historians for many years. Kulikowski performs the unenviable task of attempting to convince his peers to upend their theories of Gothic history by rejecting the theory of ethnogenesis in Scandinavia. Though Kulikowski’s idea is radical, it is hardly more radical than believing Jordanes’s claims despite the mountain of evidence against them. Kulikowski’s postulations are based in a firm belief in the historical method and thus in the fact that if many aspects of Getica are indubitably falsified, then one cannot give full credit to the integrity of certain favorable aspects of the document. Instead, Kulikowski posits that the Goths who began to appear in third-century Roman literature were the product of the forces of Roman frontier interactions with barbarians and that the Roman narrative of ethnogenesis grew out of a desire to make sense of the irritating barbarians with whom they kept experiencing conflict.
Thus, Kulikowski demonstrates the application and merits of his premise. Though it may require reconsidering many of the accepted facts of history, to do so, he argues, is the only honest way to study a source. Since Jordanes has proven time and again to be an unreliable source, a sincere study of his work cannot be built around his unauthenticated claims. As he slowly works his way through the history of the Goths, Kulikowski tries to review each source and weigh its merit and credibility before making claims based on its information. Unfortunately, this level of scrutiny often leaves him with few sources to draw from or no way to make definitive claims about the history.
Some critics of Kulikowski’s work may point out that he often posits his own theories and ideas in an indirect manner using words like “most likely,” “possibly,” and “perhaps,” to avoid making definitive claims. This may give the impression that Kulikowski is engaging in the exact theorization and postulation that he repeatedly criticizes. However, he seems to take issue with stubbornly-held positions that stand in opposition to more reliable evidence, not with the concept of educated inference. It would be impossible to write about events from nearly two thousand years prior to your existence without making at least a few guesses. As he is clear in his intentions to avoid conjecture, one may assume his use of such phrases is to avoid misleading his readers about when an idea is based on direct quotations from sources and when one is not. Once again referring to the debate over Gothic origins in Scandinavia, Kulikowski criticizes the idea stemming from Getica because “contemporary evidence supports neither migration stories nor any narrative derived from Jordanes.” He explains that the reasonable conclusion is made in consideration of other third and fourth-century evidence and states that “the Goths were a product of the Roman frontier itself.
Contemporary understandings of Gothic history are based on the continual rumination on and dissection of the same few writings and Kulikowski tries to break this loop by considering new evidence where it is appropriate. He uses archaeological and anthropological evidence such as that found in the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov zone to validate his ideas in the wake of his rejection of Getica as a valid source. With physical evidence regarding the burial customs, economic habits, and trade conventions of the Goths found in the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov zone, Kulikowski is able to make claims with far more foundation than those he rejects.
Still, what happens when one’s sources all appear to be suspect? Kulikowski often notes that ancient authors have engaged in “rampant hyperbole” or written “heavily fictionalized” works. But as there is no way to build a narrative without some reliance on these sources, even he must allow them some credence in order to explain the Goths. Generally though, he tiptoes around dubious sources and weaves as complete a tale as possible. He makes few radical new claims and tries to err on the side of admitting his lack of information instead of engaging in speculation.
Kulikowski’s central point is this: due to the rarity and unreliability of sources on Gothic history, it is especially important that one remain open-minded as to their interpretations to avoid making incorrect or unfounded assumptions or conclusions about their meanings. In his history of the Goths, he uses as much hard evidence as possible and carefully considers written sources to avoid said assumptions. By showing his process of historical review in action, Kulikowski demonstrates its value both in the study of Gothic history and more broadly in ancient history. He disputes many traditional beliefs in the study of Gothic history and thus adjusts the traditional “Roman vs. barbarian” narrative usually associated with the Roman-Gothic relationship. Kulikowsi complicates the narrative not to be contrarian but rather to encourage the reader to reject the foolishly simplistic narrative to which they are accustomed in light of a more banal but accurate one. He asks his readers to reconsider their entire perceptions of the Goths and their history and provides compelling evidence for how and why one should.
November 24, 2012
Reads like a jumbled together dissertation. It has some nice promise about tackling the tricky historiography of the "Goths," spending an entire prologue and chapter to this effort. It doesn't continue through the book, other than to throw occasional notes bashing the reliability of the primary (or in most cases, the oldest surviving secondary) sources. It reads unevenly and never really sets down on a particular narrative, or even a method of presenting the history. The people and places involved in the history come and go into the text without any real plan leaving the reader perplexed as to trying to grasp the history as it is presented. There is a very good, much shorter, text buried in here, but in bringing up the page count the text looses the context of the history.
August 10, 2012
Great historiographical approach to the Goths that I feel many authors tend to take at face value.
March 20, 2019
My first book solely focusing on the Gothis aspects of the Roman Empire. This text covered everything from the early Gothic auxiliaries, to the destruction of the Eastern Roman army at Adrianople, to the final sack of Rome. Alaric finally created a separate Gothic kingdom within the western Roman Empire, but only after his death. I encourage anyone interested in Roman history to read this book.
July 4, 2017
This book is excellent, but only for the hard core history buff. The casual reader, need not apply. The author not only reviews Gothic history, but delves into the value of the various sources, and how they have been interpreted and reinterpreted over the centuries.
August 12, 2019
Fine historic work with good discussion of the available written and historic sources. Unfortunately, despite the amazing drama of the period and charismatic characters like Alaric and Stilicho, the book remains rather dry.
June 27, 2024
A reasonable analysis of the gothic wars, their cause and effect on the Roman Empire. Unfortunately, the author spends more time on why the contemporary accounts are unreliable than providing his assessment of the historic events in the book.
March 13, 2022
Not an easy read. Very dry reading and extremely difficult to get into.
March 19, 2023
The book delivers on all fronts. I think WarpDrive's review sums it up perfectly.
January 15, 2015
I found this to be a very frustrating read. It seemed more like a series of lecture notes that would be expanded upon in class, and therefore made to feel more continuous than the long run of names, dates, and places that ended up thoroughly jumbled together in my mind. The author repeatedly alluded to future and past dates without referencing the importance of those dates except in the initial instance. This is not my area of expertise. I needed a simpler and more repetitive approach to what actually happened, and not a lot of tangential diatribes against where other historians have built their logic on faulty and unreliable sources. There was one source in particular upon which Dr. Kulikowski harangued repeatedly--however he also trotted out several of his own sources with little or no explanation on why they should be considered reliable where others were not.
In short, this would probably be a good source for a history paper if you're taking a 300+ level history class on the Roman empire, but I'd advise laymen or minor history enthusiasts who are merely looking for information about this particular period of history to give it a pass.
In short, this would probably be a good source for a history paper if you're taking a 300+ level history class on the Roman empire, but I'd advise laymen or minor history enthusiasts who are merely looking for information about this particular period of history to give it a pass.
Read
June 23, 2011An uneven survey of the relations and conflicts between the later Roman Empire and the Goths. Kulikowski's book is surprisingly opinionated for a survey aimed at a general audience. Much of what he says is interesting--the discussion of Gothic origins in chapter 3 definitely gives one a sense of both the lay of the current scholarly land and Kulikowski's own very definite views--but one wonders if the amount of space devoted to this and other debates is necessary, particularly given the book's brief length.
August 26, 2011
A historical work on the Gothic Wars around the 3rd Century. It is a very technical and scholarly work. I found it a difficult read but I can't say I didn't learn from the book. The sacking of Rome by Alaric is moving.
December 13, 2014
The author spends so much time arguing on why certain information may or may not be correct, which detracts from the narrative. Otherwise, the tragedy is well told.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews