The emphasis on barbarian invasions of the empire in both traditional and recent interpretations of Late Antiquity reflects the preeminence of a scheme of historical analysis that places the Mediterranean heartland of the Roman Empire at the center of things. As a result, the invasions of foreign peoples can - as has been stated by an anthropologist investigating the relationship of imperial China with its nomadic neighbors - ‘‘consist of seemingly random events presented chronologically, with one obscure tribe following another’’ (Barfield 1989: 1). Both ancient sources and modern analyses often adopt that point of view, relegating the history of the invading peoples to the margins (in every sense) and giving little consideration to their concerns. To proceed in that way is to risk diminishing the barbarian peoples to mere stereotypical marauders bent on destruction (Ward-Perkins 2005: 1-10; see Gillett, Halsall, and Vanderspoel, chs. 26-8, in this volume). If, however, we attempt to comprehend the barbarian invasions not only from the perspective of the invaded, but also from that of the invaders, it is important to attempt to see the Roman Empire as part of an interlocking system of regions encompassing Eurasia (and parts of Africa) as well as the Mediterranean. After all, the political displacement of the Roman Empire by a number of successor states suggests a narrative in which the histories of the Roman and non-Roman worlds not only collided, but also overlapped and intersected.
Any attempt to elucidate non-Roman perspectives on the history of Late Antiquity is fraught with difficulty, above all on account of the sources. The Romans themselves grant occasional glimpses of the world beyond the frontiers. In ad 356, for example, the eastern praetorian prefect Musonianus sought to gain diplomatic advantage over the Persians when he learned that Shah Shapur II was beleaguered by troubles on his distant, central Asian frontiers (Amm. Marc. 16.9. 2-3). Our sources are sometimes very detailed indeed: for instance, Priscus of Panium’s account of his journey to the court of Attila the Hun, located beyond the Danube frontier (Priscus, fr. Blockley 1981: 11. 2), or, more than 100 years later, Menander the Guardsman’s reports of Constantinopolitan diplomatic exchanges with peoples living north of the Black Sea and the Caucasus, such as the emerging Turks (e. g., Menander Protector, fr. Blockley 1985a: 10. 1). While such notices show that the Romans were aware that the peoples beyond the imperial frontiers had their own complex political concerns, the very fact that much of our understanding of the non-Roman peoples is often limited to accounts handed down by writers from within the empire presents several problems. For instance, we must be on guard against the sort of aloof Roman cultural bias that we saw in Ammianus’ account of the Huns (Heather 1999). More importantly, however much detail imperial sources might give on particular incidents, the overall picture of the non-Roman peoples that they present is generally fragmentary (on the Huns, see Sinor 1990).
Archaeology can provide some help, but presents its own problems. It is very difficult indeed - and some would argue flatly that it is impossible - to deduce not only political history but also ethnic identity from material remains alone (see Brandt, ch. 11, in this volume). In addition, modern scholarship is currently deeply divided on issues of what theoretical models to apply to the development of barbarian societies in Late Antiquity (Gillett 2002b; Noble 2006). That leaves us with numerous unanswered questions. Roman sources, for example, suggest that the Germanic tribes east of the Rhine underwent some process of confederation into larger units during the third century. Archaeology, however, sheds little light on that development (Elton 1996: 15-16; Todd 1998: 461-3). It is likely, nevertheless, that traffic to and fro across the frontiers of the empire - which were always as much zones of communication as of demarcation (Whittaker 1994) - meant that peoples outside the empire were strongly influenced by aspects of Roman culture (Heather 2005: 84-94). In some cases, we are left groping for answers about how the mechanisms of interaction worked. Excavations of a settlement at Gudme on the Danish island of
Funen yielded a hoard of 285 Roman silver coins of mid-fourth-century date, all but one of which came not from across the nearby Rhine frontier, in the Roman west, but from mints located in the eastern provinces (Hamerow 2002: 157-9). The reason for their presence is not easy to determine, even at a site that had long-standing contacts with the Roman world (Wells 1999: 247-52).
There is one frontier where it is possible to examine in detail Roman action in a broader geopolitical context: namely, that of the east. We have already noted how Roman sources acknowledged that Sasanid Persia, a realm that stretched deep into central Asia, was often beleaguered by problems on frontiers other than the one it shared with Rome. By exploiting sources other than traditional classicizing histories (for example, ecclesiastical sources, numismatics, and writings in Syriac, Armenian, and Arabic), we can get a sense of the broader geographical arena within which Romano-Persian relations were played out (Fowden 1993; Humphries 2007b). For instance, the long succession of wars fought between the emperor Constantius II (ad 337-61) and Shah Shapur II (ad 309-79), involved not only conflict along the frontier in northern Mesopotamia, but also diplomatic exchanges with polities in other regions such as Himyar in southern Arabia and Axum in the Ethiopian highlands (Thelamon 1981: 47-9, 72-5). We also know that the Roman Empire was not the only foe that Shapur had to contend with, even along his western frontier. to a detailed (if somewhat tendentious) account preserved by the medieval Arab al-Tabari, which can sometimes be supported by archaeology, we know that early in his reign he launched a series of punitive expeditions into the Arabian peninsula (al-Tabari 1. 836-9, tr. Bosworth 1999: 54-6; see Potts 1990: 239-41; Hoyland 2001: 27-30). Such episodes from the age of Shapur II can be reduplicated for much of Late Antiquity, when we see Romans and Persians jostling for influence throughout a region stretching from the Caspian Sea and Caucasus mountains in the north to the Gulf of Aden at the southern end of the Red Sea (Fowden 1993: 100-37). Occasionally, our geographic horizons can stretch even further, such as when we read (again in al-Tabari) of the last Sasanid shah, Yazdgerd III (ad 632-51) seeking help from the Chinese emperor against the Arabs (al-Tabari 1. 2683,2688-9, 2690-2, tr. Smith 1994: 54-62).
It is clear that reverberations of Romano-Persian interaction were felt far beyond the immediate frontier zone. It was a conduit rather than a barrier for trade networks linking the Mediterranean world with regions producing silk and spice in central Asia, India, and the Far East (Miller 1969). Other exchanges, particularly cross-cultural ones, piggy-backed on that trade (Bentley 1993: 29-110; Foltz 1999; Ball 2000: 106-48). Religious history yields striking examples. Manichaeism, which originated in Mesopotamia in the third century, reached as far west as North Africa and Italy, and spread eastward, along the silk routes of central Asia, to China (Lieu 1992). So-called ‘‘Nestorian’’ Christianity, which was effectively banished from Roman soil after the council of Ephesus in ad 431, also spread through Asia (Foltz 1999: 62-73) as well as into Arabia (Potts 1990: 241-7). Occasionally, too, there are hints that events in one part of Eurasia could have ramifications in another. It has been suggested, for example, that an upsurge in
Romano-Persian hostilities in the sixth and seventh centuries caused such disruption in trade routes crossing through Mesopotamia that there was a consequent upsurge in trade across Arabia, as well as in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean (Daryaee 2003; Morony 2004: 184-8).
Such interactions show that the Mediterranean world of Late Antiquity was part of a larger cultural and economic zone. Indeed, interesting light can be shed on the fortunes of the Later Roman Empire by looking at it from such a broader geopolitical point of view. Population movements that, when portrayed as barbarian invasions or viewed from within the narrow confines of the Roman world, often seem singularly cataclysmic, were experienced in different although equally disruptive ways by communities in central Asia (Christian 1998: 209-43). Just as the Roman Empire was assaulted by nomadic Huns in the fifth century, so too Sasanid Persia faced invasions by Hunnic Hephthalites through the Caucasus and Khorasan mountains flanking the Caspian Sea (Bivar 1983: 211-14), while a related tribe, the Hunas, launched attacks through the Hindu Kush on the Gupta kingdom in India (Chakrabarti 1996: 187-8; Litvinsky 1996b: 141-3). The Persian shahs Kavad I (ad 488-96, 499-531) and Khusro I (ad 531-79) recognized that such invasions were a common threat and suggested to the Romans that they mount a joint defense of the mountain passes in the Caucasus (Blockley 1985b).
These last examples provide a striking indication of how adoption of a different geographical perspective can shed new light on the accepted grand narrative of late antique history. All too often, the focus of discussions of the late antique world is the Mediterranean, with occasional glances to more far-flung regions (particularly in Europe). Recent studies have emphasized that a focus on the Mediterranean as a basic unit for analysis is not entirely satisfactory (Malkin 2005). By looking for common features, it tends to overshadow the local peculiarities that can be identified, as we have seen, in late antique economic life, political actions, and historical narratives. Moreover, a focus on the Mediterranean serves to downplay the links particular regions within it had with neighboring areas of Eurasia (and Africa). There is plainly a need to think of the shape of the late antique world in ways that allow for an intersection between local and global perspectives, in addition to Mediterranean ones. There are already signs that scholars are beginning to break free of the tyranny of ‘‘Mediterraneanism.’’ Inspired by the letter of Shah Khusro II to the emperor Maurice, in which Persia and the Roman Empire (based at Constantinople) are described as the two eyes of the world (Theophylact Simocatta 4. 11. 2-3), Garth Fowden has written of a ‘‘Mountain Arena,’’ stretching from the Bosphorus to Afghanistan, and from the Caucasus to Ethiopia and southern Arabia, as the crucible within which the political ramifications of monotheism were worked out in Late Antiquity (Fowden 1993). Similarly, Barry Cunliffe has suggested a coherent history for communities stretching along the Atlantic littoral from Iceland to Morocco (Cunliffe 2001). One value of using these different geographical categories is that they allow us to consider comparative material that can help us to refine our analyses of accepted grand narratives (Little 2004: 920-6). But their utility is greater than just that. As this chapter has suggested, part of the challenge facing those who wish to interpret the world of Late Antiquity is the need not only to acknowledge those features that highlight its unity or diversity but also to appreciate how developments in the Mediterranean intersect with those over a wider geographical area.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Any study of the issues addressed in this chapter must now begin with CAH xii-xiv and the masterly synthesis of Wickham 2005. For political cohesion and its limits, see especially Millar 1992, Lendon 1997, Kelly 2004: all usefully examine continuities and discontinuities between the early and late empire. There is likely to be much debate about the coherence of the late Roman world as a result of Heather 2005 and Ward-Perkins 2005, both of which (but especially the latter) may be read as a counterblast to Brown 1971b. Regional diversity is discussed not only by Wickham 2005, but also in the relevant chapters in CAHxiv and, from the perspective of urban history, Liebeschuetz 2001a. Interactions between the Mediterranean world and the wider Eurasian land mass are most easily accessed through Fowden 1993; in addition, Bentley 1993, Litvinsky 1996a, and Christian 1998 provide useful overviews, while Elizabeth Key Fowden 1999 offers a perceptive case study of the world between Rome and Persia. For questions of methodological paradigms, see Little 2004 and Malkin 2005.
I append full references to some of the less familiar sources I have referred to. al-Tabari (1999), The History of al-Tabari, v: The Sasanids, the Byzantines, the Lakmids, and Yemen, tr. C. E. Bosworth, Albany, State University of New York Press. al-Tabari (1994), The History of al-Tabari, xiv: The Conquest of Tran, tr. G. Rex Smith, Albany, State University of New York Press.
Chronicle of Zuquin (1999), The Chronicle ofZuquin, iii and iv: ad 488-775, tr. Amir Harrak, Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.
Faustus of Byzantium (1989), The Epic Histories attributed to P‘awstos Buzand (Buzandaran Patmut‘wnk), tr. Nina G. Garsoian, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Pseudo-Dionysius (1996), The Chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, tr. W. Witakowski, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press.
Pseudo-Joshua (2000), The Chronicle of Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, tr. Frank R. Trombley and John W. Watt, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press.
Sebeos (1999), The Armenian History attributed to Sebeos, tr. R. W. Thomson and James Howard-Johnson, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press.
Wolf, Kenneth Baxter (1990), Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press.
World History
