Rome\'s Gothic Wars by Kulikowski

[EBosman]

Hello,

Has anyone read "Rome's Gothic Wars: From the Third Century to Alaric" by Michael Kulikowski? If so, could you please share your thoughts on it.

http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/c ... 0521846331

Thank You

Emil

[Robert Vermaat]

http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?t=11920

[EBosman]

Thank you, Robert. I ran a search using the term "Kulikowski" before creating the topic but it only picked up one reference and that was in one of your posts about him being a speaker at a symposium in Illinois. It seemed strange to me that someone here hadn't already mentioned this book. Now I know my instincts were correct. I look forward to reading your views on this book.

Best

Emil

[Robert Vermaat]

No problem Emil.

I'll let you know when I recieve it!

[Robert Vermaat]

The book arrived today.

[EBosman]

That is excellent news ( a bit late on my part, but I've only just returned from an extended holiday). Do you have any preliminary impressions to share?

Best,

Emil

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Emil, Ron and I have agreed not to post until we both have read the book and shared comments..

[EBosman]

Thank you, Robert. I'll stay tuned.

Best

Emil

[Dan Diffendale]

I too will post a review, on my blog, Tria Corda (if Cambridge was gonna send me the book, well why not? )

[Robert Vermaat]

Recent review here: http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/a/257941.htm

[Robert Vermaat]

As promised!

[size=150:wckoy6i2]ROME’S GOTHIC WARS – FROM THE THIRD CENTURY TO ALARIC[/size]
By Michael Kulikowsky
Cambridge University Press 2007, 225 pages, 4 maps.
ISBN o-521-84633-1

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This book takes a fair bit of getting used to. The title is disappointing, with the dust jacket promisising an account of all wars between Rome and the Goths. But then a quick glance at the inside and the reader is set straight – the narrative halts after the sack of Rome. This is strange, as we shall see.
After a fast prologue of fourteen pages that tells of Alaric’s problems and motives before his historical sack of Rome, the first chapter which is in fact a slightly longer introduction. This is used by Kulikowski to address wide-ranging topics such as Gothic and Roman ‘identity’, the world outside Rome’s borders and the developments of the Empire during the third century.

So far, with almost a quarter of the book behind us, Kulikowsky has promised the reader quite a bit, (writing ‘as we shall see’ at least once on most pages), and the third chapter indeed takes a deep plunge into hard research to finally make good on those promises. Too bad, really, that we never receive a good direction to the actual spot where ‘we shall see’ what the author promised to show us! Also, it may seem a long detour to finally get to the Gothic wars themselves, and it is. The author first takes us back in time past the nineteenth-century and Renaissance views of historical science and the sources, before striking a dulling blow against the prime source of Gothic history, Jordanes. At this stage, I can only advise the reader to keep reading, for this is where Kulikowsky really earns his spurs.

Kulikowsky makes short shift of Jordanes’ myth of the Gothic migration out of Scandinavia all the way to Russia. Pushing aside this non-history as well as modern views that still support it, the author hones in on archaeology and the birthplace of the Goths as an ethnic group. We receive the author’s view of the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov culture (try pronouncing that name!) and his conclusion that this cultural zone is where the culture which we can address as ‘Gothic’ really came into being. But did a Gothic people ever exist? Kulikowski seems of the opinion that they did, but not before the fifth century. He sees the Goths as primarily a product of Roman policies, a group grown together out of many, responding to waxing and waning of Roman power. Even the Goths that bring down the Romans at Adrianople coalesce out of unrelated groups before the famous battle and vanish thereafter. The Tervingi, in his view, were no coherent group, they had no royal line going back to Scandinavian origins, nor one that was even related to Alaric.

The trouble is, the book is far too short for Kulikowski too become convincing enough. And while he does not have to convince this reviewer, it is a shame that his explanation of this view receives such poor attention, for after all it is the author’s main topic. Even though the first part of the book is the most important one, he speeds through it as if there is no time to dwell. Maybe if the book had been twice as long, the author could have shown what his disagreement with those who support ‘ethnogenesis’ or similar views is really based on. Those who have read the works of, say, Liebesschütz, will not have heard much news.
The journey has taken us through half the book but even so leaves us with a feeling of broken promises.

The second half of this work is a riveting narrative that is very well told, even though it halts after the sack of Rome. Which is indeed strange, for Kulikowski’s main theme is that we can hardly speak of ‘the Goths’ until that campaign of Alaric is over!

The book is a good read though, which will be appealing to those who want to read more than a superficial account of Gothic history and the fall of the West Roman Empire.
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[Jona Lendering]

Thanks Robert - I obviously need to read the book.

He sees the Goths as primarily a product of Roman policies, a group grown together out of many, responding to waxing and waning of Roman power.

Exactly as one might have expected. I always wonder to what extent the fact that there were two provinces along the Rhine helps to explain why there are two tribal federations on the other bank. Is it just coincidence that the Alamans lived opposite Germania Superior and the Franks opposite Germania Inferior? We will never know.

[Robert Vermaat]

Is it just coincidence that the Alamans lived opposite Germania Superior and the Franks opposite Germania Inferior? We will never know.

Well, the Alamanni lived opposite more than one province - they lived across the river from Germania I, Maxima Sequanorum and Raetia II.

Of the Franks, which 'group' do you have in mind? The Rhine Franks, who indeed lived across the river from Germania II, or the Franks who were settled inside Toxandria (Belgica II) by the emperor Julian, or those settled in Belgica I after becoming a regular source of federates for Western emperors as well as usurpers?
All three groups consisted of more than one political group with each their own leader. Of the Salian or Toxandrian Franks we klnow most, because they were the group in which Clovis managed to become to single king, before taking over the the Franks in Belgica I and violently subduing the Rhine Franks.

Here, too, not one simple tribe of ethnically similar barbarians!

[Jona Lendering]

Here, too, not one simple tribe of ethnically similar barbarians!

I should've expressed myself more clearly. They were, of course, different groups, but the Romans conceptualized them as two main groups. I wonder if it is possible that the two governors started to use two names for "those on the other side of the river", so that the impression arose that there were only two ethnic groups. (When the Rhine army had one commander, the Romans had only one name and called everyone across the river, no matter what his ethnic affiliation, "German".) It's just a wild thought that occured to me.