Hans-Ulrich Wiemer
Autor de Theoderic the Great: King of Goths, Ruler of Romans
Obras de Hans-Ulrich Wiemer
Krieg, Handel und Piraterie : Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des hellenistischen Rhodos (2003) 3 copias
A Companion to Julian the Apostate (Brill's Companions to the Byzantine World) (2020) — Editor — 1 copia
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Wiemer begins by setting the scene, from the challenges posed by our sources and the difficulty of names (who were the Ostrogoths?) to the complexity of early Gothic history, the impact of Attila the Hun and the much-debated ‘decline and fall’ of the Roman Empire in the West. All these elements are essential background to Theoderic, who in 493 led 100,000 men, women and children from the Balkans into Italy where he overthrew Odovacer who in turn had deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last Western Roman emperor. For the next 30 years, Theoderic successfully ruled over both Goths and Romans, pursuing a policy which Wiemer accurately describes as ‘integration through separation’. Theoderic’s subjects were divided by culture, language and religion; the king did not seek to force assimilation. Instead, he sought to balance the varying concerns of Gothic warriors, Roman senators and Catholic bishops who regarded Theoderic and his Goths as ‘Arian’ heretics. Wiemer is careful to warn against exaggerated assessments of Theoderic’s achievements, for all levels of society did not benefit equally and we must recognise such limitations before proclaiming his reign a ‘Golden Age’. Yet it is impossible not to be impressed as Wiemer presents in striking detail the administrative structures which Theoderic preserved, the expansion of Ostrogothic power as he pushed back the Franks to the north and absorbed Visigothic Spain, and the remarkable diplomacy with which Theoderic respected the papacy while promoting the ‘Arian’ Christianity to which he and his followers remained devoted. Across three decades, Theoderic delivered a degree of peace and stability which Italy would not experience again for centuries, only for his kingdom to shatter not long after his death as the armies of the Eastern emperor, Justinian, invaded in 535 and began 20 years of warfare that devastated Italian society.
Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.
David M. Gwynn is Reader in Ancient and Late Antique History at Royal Holloway, University of London and author of The Goths: Lost Civilizations (Reaktion, 2017).… (más)