What made loss of control of Africa dangerous for Rome was the imperial government's inability to demand the abundant grain that had become Africa's prosperous tribute to backward and overpopulated Italy.22 In the short run, the decline in Rome's population made the shortfalls manageable, but in the long run this would prove to be the moment when the complex interlocking economic system that sustained Roman rule tipped beyond recall toward regional autonomy and away from central authority.
With Africa essentially independent, the Roman Mediterranean would be at best a confederation and never again a unified empire.
Africa apart, Aetius dominated the west from 433 to 450. He demonstrated what central leadership could accomplish, especially when he suborned the Huns, supposedly the empire's greatest enemy, to his own support. He checked the Visigoths and kept them bottled up in southwestern Gaul, while settling and securing the Rhine and upper Danube frontiers as far east as Austria. Away from the frontier, Gaul had been more unsettled than perhaps he anticipated, with bands of fighters called Bagaudae flourishing at various locations in west central Gaul. The Bagaudae challenge our modern interpretations no end, with every choice of words betraying some overinterpretation. Were they brigands, rebels, freedom fighters, terrorists? The fairest assessment is that they represented the emergence of ill-defined groups of upstarts, differently configured in various places, who filled the vacuum created when the sweep of disruption revealed the weakness of Roman governance and left some of the usual controls of Roman society broken and lax and certain people dispossessed and rootless. Another gang called themselves Burgundians; their leaders appear to have come across the Rhine and settled in eastern Gaul in the two decades following the Vandals. Aetius, summoning Huns as allies, took a firm position. Contemporary sources said he massacred 20,000 Burgundians, before forcing those remaining to settle in modern Savoy in southeastern Gaul. When our historical maps break out the colored arrows to show them settled there, this looks like the result of just another successful barbarian invasion, but any real Burgundian was relieved to be alive and would surely be aware of just how strong the Roman state still was.
Patrons and partners
Aetius's greatest achievement came in 451 with the defeat of his patrons and partners, the Huns. Few historical names are as familiar yet, oddly, as unimportant as that of Attila the Hun. He is envied and admired by history buffs and business-management writers who conveniently forget that as a leader, he was a catastrophic failure. From the 370s to the 450 s, the Huns bobbed and weaved and feinted just outside Rome's reach. From a series of camps and headquarters far enough from the Danube to stay out of range of Roman raids, they counterraided and terrorized Roman and non-Roman populations. Attila was one of several opportunists who flourished in the late 440s. He was lucky enough to entertain a Roman balkan tours 2023, Priscus, who visited his camp and wrote of what he saw there. Priscus's whole history has not survived, but one fragment is like a precious video clip of life in Attila's circle. When we read it in a moment, we should avoid the modern mistake of believing Priscus's portrayal of a powerful, domi¬nating bogeyman. We'd do better to envision Attila as the bad cop and Aetius as the good cop, and then wonder who used whom in the pathologi¬cal relationship that emerged.
The Attila whom Priscus visited made forays close to the Danube with his troops, but his real base was safely far behind that line. When Priscus and his party reached Attila, they found numerous Romans visitors ahead of them, including the governor of Noricum. They also observed a man whom Aetius had sent to Attila to serve as secretary—or minder, or spy, or a little of all three. So far from Rome, but in a way not so very far after all. The royal approach was hypnotically attractive. Here is part of Priscus's clip:
When Attila entered the village he was met by girls advancing in rows, under thin white canopies of linen, which were held up by women who stood under them, and were so large that seven or more girls walked beneath each. Many lines of these damsels came singing Scythian songs under their canopies. When he came near the house of Onegesius, which was along his way, Onegesius's wife came out, with a number of servants, bearing meat and wine, to greet him and beg him to accept her hospitality. This is the highest honor that can be shown among the Scythians. To gratify the wife of his friend, he ate, just as he sat on his horse, his attendants raising the tray to his saddlebow. He tasted the wine and went on to the palace, which was taller than the other houses and built on an elevated site.
WordPress.com
No comments:
Post a Comment