When did the Roman Empire fall (your thoughts)?

[Alanus]

Back to Marja,

Although this is almost "off topic," our best source on the Gothic problem remains as Ammianus, incidentally a pagan. Perhaps our worst (yet invaluable) source was Socrates Scholasticus (a Christian and evidently related to Junius Soranus), then the copyists Zosimus (a pagan) and Sozomen (a Christian).

It's through Socrates that we get the tale of Fritigern refraining to capture Theodosius, but there is a far more important passage in his 3rd book. He mentions two events that are most likely linked and appear (to me) to actually occur at the same time. Fritigern leads Roman forces into Gothia and "defeats" Athanaric, and Soranus retrieves the "bones of the martyrs." I believe this was actually a singular event. Interesting that Roman authorities would hand over command of a Roman contingent to a "barbarian," the first time this Tyrfingus shows up in the historical record. This can be dated roughly between 369/70 to 375, and it's more likely that Soranus and Fritigern acted jointly in bringing the relics of the holy persons into the Empire. Soranus was a Cappadocian, as was Ulfilus, but Orthodox. Evidently, it didn't matter, the bones of both Orthodox and Arians were among those retrieved. And this shows that not all the Christians left Gothia two decades earlier with Ulfilus.

Clearly, Fritigern was a Christian years prior to his leading the Tyrfingi across the Danube... which is not how most modern historians see it. Furthermore, the Gothic Church celebrated a feast-day in October dedicated to Fritigern and the martyrs. We have, for too long, dismissed the Goths as being "psudo" Christians when, in reality, they were just as Christain as Romans of that persuasion. The same thing goes for the Alans who were converted to Arianism in Pannonia by Bishop Amantius. The kicker, of course, is the wonderful parade of the Goths through the streets of Rome as they delivered the "Service of Peter" back to the Church.

When it came to fine points of the Bible, the Goths were no less Christians than their southern counterparts. And as you noted, they were not "Germans," nor were they simplistic or "ignorant." In the long run, Fritigern stands up today as "The" moralistic man of his era, and I find it hard to compare a Roman to his ethics and virtues beyond Soranus.