Original Reviews

          James O’Donnell, like all historians of the later Roman Empire, must address the issue Edward Gibbons posed so many years ago in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Stating the question somewhat differently: When did the Mediterranean cease to be Roman? Much longer than generally assumed; Rome was mostly successful in dealing with what O’Donnell calls its “immigrant problem.” The intrusion of new populations arriving as warrior bands from beyond the Rhine and Danube is generally assumed to be a major cause of that fall. In fact many of those “barbarians” where partly romanized by the time they reached the more settle areas of the empire.

          The emperor that O’Donnell refers to in his title as most responsible for the “ruin” is Justinian whose dates are 527 to 565 AD. That will surprise many readers. Most historians of the Roman empire give credit to Justinian (the Great) for restoring Roman power with the campaign he waged against the Persians, his efforts to recover North Africa, and to restore east/west unity by his Italian wars. In fact Justinian was never a military leader, and never allowed his generals to finish his wars. He neglected instability in the Balkan hinterland of his capital city, Constantinople. Constantine never believed in diplomacy as a means of enlisting the fighting capabilities of frontier military leaders (those barbarians) as his predecessors had done. He refused to buy them off, in other words – with costly repercussions.

          Under Justinian’s regime Roman law was codified, given some coherence. O’Donnell: Roman law was divorced from its context, centralized, standardized, made inflexible. Justinian presided over a gathering of church officials in 532 aimed at establishing a unity of Christianity, east and west. O’Donnell: The various ‘Christianities’ found around the empire were reduced to an imperial religion, radiating from the courts in Rome and Constantinople.  Diversity became heresy.

          O’Donnell focuses on individuals, most of them military commanders in the Roman army. His short descriptions of their careers are surprisingly detailed and interesting. He finds amongst the elite of the late classical world, many talented men of various ethnicities but generally priding themselves in their Roman-ness.

          For example he follows the career of Theoderic, who ruled the old empire from the new capital, Ravenna in the fifth century, AD. Theoderic entered Italy with a band of perhaps 20,000: soldiers on horseback, their families, their baggage carts, and livestock.

          This is usually viewed as a “barbaric invasion.” True, Theoderic was an Ostrogoth, an eastern Goth. (O’Donnell has little confidence in these ethnic labels.) But he was brought up at the imperial court in Constantinople. His father was an Arian Christian, like many warriors in the Roman army in which he served. (Labeling has given ‘Arian’ a specificity that it never had in Theoderic’s time.) His mother was ‘orthodox.’ From his teenage years he was consistently Roman, fluent in Latin, respectful of Roman citizenship. His campaigns in Italy and elsewhere look like those of other generals before and after who are impeccably Roman.

          Once he had defeated Odoacer, another of those ‘barbarians’ who controlled Italy and gave it some stability in the late-fifth century, Theoderic set about consolidating the empire. He built palaces in his capital, Ravenna, but also restored the center of imperial Rome, which had tumbled down from neglect.

          A final chapter introduces the “final consul.” Gregorius was from a rich Roman patrician family. He proved to be an effective administrator, holding power in the 590’s AD. He also undertook the rebuilding of Rome, where he resided, and arranged for the defense of the empire’s Italian remnant from the Lombards. He was called papa. Gregorius was the bishop of Rome; we know him as Pope Gregory I, respected for his monastic reforms and his restructuring of the church’s liturgy.

          Left out of this maze of individuals and careers is much attention to the economic and material factors underlying this Roman ‘ruin.’ But that would have complicated further this already complicated story of the late empire.