Bryan Ward-Perkins Arguments On The Barbarian Invasion Of Rome

Bryan Ward-Perkins, an archaeologist by training and currently a professor at Oxford University, places great emphasis on the material culture of Rome at the collapse of the Western Empire by focusing his arguments on the violent barbarian invasions and Rome’s ultimate failed policy of accommodating them into the empire as well as reexamining the physical transformation that Rome experienced in its last years. These two main arguments may stem directly from his training and findings while excavating Ancient Roman sites in Italy and contends the idea of peaceful assimilation and evolution made famous by Peter Brown’s The World of Late Antiquity. In support of Perkins, Richard Burgess affirms that Rome indeed rapidly declined basing his conclusion

Indeed, Ennodius’ letter to Liberius endorses the peaceful assimilation theory stating that “you have enriched the countless hordes of Goths with generous grants of lands, and yet the Romans have hardly felt it.” This supports Pohl’s critique that Perkins is selective. However, the sources do not mention cemetery evidence, a case that may offer ideas about barbarian assimilation. Following Pohl’s argument on smooth assimilation in Gaul, the disappearance of Visigoths in the archaeological evidence of the 5th century may be explained that they took on Roman burial customs and were buried in Roman urban cemeteries. Conversely, Romans may have also adopted barbarian customs, but the conclusion is only left to an incomplete hypothesis. Political relationships and changing ideologies all blurred the distinctions between barbarian and Roman, ideas Pohl could have mentioned in his critique. Thus, Perkins’ idea of violent imposition of barbarian customs by relying on material culture seems

While Burgess and Perkins focus on the declining economic output of Rome based on pottery and coinage, the sources do not mention possible ideological shifts towards a culture that favored towards temporary structures and abandoning the economic complexities Roman civilization featured. Similarly, “the disappearance of comfort” that Perkins and Burgess relate to the economic complexity and sophistication of the empire cannot necessarily be attributed to a decline of literacy or the “chief benefits of society” since this step backward may have been a response to the rise of corruption that plagued the later Roman empire given that influential Romans exploited the economic complexities to their advantage. This leads to the argument that the grants of land Rome gave to the barbarians and the effects of Roman corruption forced a mistrust between both barbarian and Roman an issue Perkins and Burgess overlook. Rome’s policy of assimilation was mutually beneficial; Romans needed manpower for the military and agricultural production and there was a strong push towards assimilation that turned foreigners into citizens, while barbarians needed refuge from the Huns and fertile land. However, in the prelude to the Gothic revolt, military officials who were responsible for the welfare of the Goths were corrupt and made the Goths pay for supplies that the emperor had intended to give them for free.