Goths and Romans: 332-489 by Peter Heather

Goths and Romans: 332-489 Reviews

• 
  Anatolikon

  Highly revisionist when it came out most of this book is now orthodoxy. Heather challenges the construction of Gothic history that derives heavily from Jordanes, a late source produced in the Ostrogothic kingdom that was designed to provide a certain history. In this, Heather is reacting mainly to Herwig Wolfram. This means challenging the idea of the movement of the Goths from a Scandinavian homeland. Instead, they were along the Roman borders all along as the Sintana de Mures culture, which stretches from the Danube to the Dnieper. They entered the Roman Empire as a variety of groups under pressure from the Huns. The Romans were busy in the east and were unable to settle them as they normally would. The settlement (possibly as dediticii; or at least that was the claim) took place in 382. The larger Gothic confederations that formed after this time and their dynastic politics probably related to the danger posed by the Romans rather than some mythical, ancestral relations from beyond the Danube.
• 
  Michael Smith

  Even with a background in classical studies, I’ve always been much more interested in the supposed “barbarians” who gave the Greeks and the Romans so much trouble, especially the Visigoths and the Franks -- perhaps because I have all sorts of Gothic, Frankish, and Celtic DNA in me. Like so many studies of this type, Heather’s work began as his doctoral thesis on the effects of the Goths on the empire of Rome, especially in Greece and the southern Balkans, where the Goths first ran into the Romans and the Amalring family began to reach its greatest power. He was also interested in looking more closely at the history of the Goths written c.550 by a scholar named Jordanes, of whom almost nothing is known -- but whom Heather is convinced was more of a publicist than an uninterested historian. Not a bad supposition for any writer of that period, actually. But since every writer on the Goths and their motivations and actions since then has been based very heavily on Jordanes, reevaluating his influence has probably far-reaching consequences. Along the way, though, the author was pulled off course by his growing fascination with the Goths themselves, and this study takes him places he hadn’t expected to go. The result is to see the Gothic invaders (or militant migrants) as a people who might have blended more easily than most into the Roman world and its seductive culture, but whose ruling clans made sure their people retained their self-identity. This was especially true of those Goths who joined with Attila in the 5th Century. In fact, it is due probably to the continued influence of the Amals and the Balthi that we even consider the Goths an important and separate people. For a thoroughly scholarly work heavily laden with footnotes, this is still a very readable work and I can recommend it to anyone who shares my interest in Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval period.
• 
  Birgitta Hoffmann

  A well argued detailed discussion of the relationship between the Roman empire and the Goths from the first official contact to the invasion of Italy.
  This is not a book for beginners, but if you want a critical assessment of the this period, this book should be on your reading list.
• 
  Séamus Fanning

  This is a book review I wrote for school . . .
  
  Watch out, spoilers.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  GOTHS AND ROMANS 332 – 489 was written by Peter J. Heather and first published in 1991. This book, as the title suggests, is set in Europe mostly around the Black Sea and Italy in late Antiquity, between 332 and 489 AD. This book was a historical monograph written not for pleasure reading but for scholarly purposes. It's packed with names, dates, events and places.
  I will begin this book review with a short summary of what it covers, and I hope that spoilers will be forgiven. This book was structured as follows:
  The preface was followed by three parts. Part I covers the various sources of Gothic history. In Chapter 1 Heather explains how historians pieced together Gothic history. Chapter 2 goes deeper into one of these sources in particular (Jordanes' Getica) and examines the tribal divisions, groups and regions of the Goths (the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Tervingi, Greuthungi, and the Amals and the Balthi dynasties.
  The introduction to Part II lists the significant people and recordings of Gothic history to be discussed in that part (Jordanes and Cassiodoris among others). Chapter 3 covers what happened to the Goths before the Hunic invasions, and discusses the consequences and outcomes (divides, unifications, and migrations). It explores the relationships between Gothic tribes, their culture and society, and introduces the Romans into the picture, who had previously been neglected. Chapter 4 covers the Danube Crossing (the migration caused by the Huns), the relationships between the Goths (especially the Tervingi) and Romans. It examines the tension with the Roman and Gothic co-existence and the rebellion, opposition, then war that followed. Chapter 5 covers a peace between the Goths, especially the Tervingi and the Romans (382 AD) and what terms and conflicts followed, and the transformation of the lives of the Goths influenced under the Romans. Chapter 6: With the Goth Alaric came another revolution followed by a migration from Italy to Gaul.
  Part III contains an introduction which states the sources of the knowledge of Gothic history of Part III. This section talks about the rise of the Ostrogoths. Chapter 7 examines the conflict between two Goth groups, the Pannonians and the Thracians and talks about them. Chapter 8 starts going into the rule of the Amal dynasty and discusses the late ruler, Zeno. (Perhaps in an attempt to be entertaining, the author called one part of this chapter “The Empire Strikes Back”.) Chapter 9, the final chapter, explains the problems in Gothic history (there are many different, sometimes conflicting versions). Finally, there is a 35-page long conclusion that acts as a quick wrap-up to the book.
  This book was an extremely information-packed, detailed, long, history book. It had everything I wanted to know about Goths and much I'm glad I know now. Many dates, names, examinations, contradictions of opinions, events, people and their families, battles, more dates, a few maps, sources, chapters, an index, more dates and honestly too much knowledge for someone who does not wish to fry a few neurons trying to retain it all. The book is well structured, easy to consult and look things up in, and overall very well researched.
  Attention-wise, this book was a nightmare. I found myself putting it down quite a few times after realizing I'd been staring at the same word for a few minutes while wondering what Leonardo da Vinci would have invented were he alive today, or other random daydreams. P.J. would say one thing about a certain matter, say it was reasonable, then contradict it with another source that stated the opposite, then return to his first opinion, only to contradict that one again, saying that history is an unreliable matter. He also repeats quite a few things, adding on when he could have said something earlier. Also, I think people without basic or more-than-basic knowledge of Gothic history will find themselves confused at some moments (there are some things that are expected to already to be known, or something that was mentioned a few hundred pages back, like a person or the date of a battle that have slipped your mind.)
  I think that if somebody gave me a copy of another one of P.J.'s books I would probably read it (except if I had a choice to read something I usually read), especially if his other books were on ancient Greeks, ancient Egyptians, ancient Americans.
  In conclusion, sometimes a slightly tiring and confusing book, it was very well structured, very well researched, deeply informative, and really detailed, fit for a scholar – a good book.