Gallic appearance

[tlclark]

Vortigern Studies\\n[quote]The Franks did not overrun Gaul. They got Roman jobs and kept these. the only Roman that was finally defeated was Syagrius in his 'kingdom of Soissons'. Clovis did that, he was of the Toxandrian Franks, and his father Childeric had been staunch Roman ally and even magister militum per Gallias.

Exactly right.

Clovis was the last person to have been accorded a triumph in the West as far as we know.

It's hard to think of these guys as usurpers if they are granted triumphs and wear "Roman clothes" in triumph ceremonies.

Heck! Charlemagne wore "Roman Clothes" when he went to Rome. It really isn't until then that they acknowledge the break with the past, even then there is the recognition that this is "Roman lands" hence the marriage of Otto I to Theophanu in an attempt to re-unite the Roman Empire. They never really let the idea of empire go, long after the empire has ceased to exist.

That's a pretty strong cultural prediliction and it's born out of the fact that there is no real 'end' of the empire. It's cultural institutions just fade away, but everyone remembers that they should be there and what it was like before.

I love Averil Cameron's take on this and highly recommend Cameron's book as a the best overview of the Late Antique period.

Travis