People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489-554. (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series, Band 33).

Aus der Bibliothek von Prof. Wolfgang Haase, langj�igem Herausgeber der ANRW und des International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT) / From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - leicht besto�n, ansonsten tadelloser Zustand / slightly scuffed, otherwise perfect condition - Did the cultural transformation of the later Roman Empire really involve migrating barbarian tribes bearing a distinguishable Germanic culture? Previous studies of this question have begun from the assumption that barbarian groups were ethnic groups or the seeds of ethnic groups. In contrast, this casestudy of the Goths of Italy in the late fifth and early sixth century begins from the assumption that the ethnographic language used to describe the barbarians makes them look like ethnic groups to twentieth-century observers. -- Since this ethnography was classicizing, biblical and. above all, ideological, the ancient texts that use it must be constantly questioned and compared with other evidence for ancient communal behavior. Ostrogothic Italy provides a large and comparatively neglected body of data on individual behavior and group allegiances. The Prosopographical Appendix to this book groups together evidence for 379 individuals who could be considered �Goths� under various institutional ideologies at play in sixthcentury Italy. The chapters successively examine these ideologies and their impact upon �Goths" and �Romans,� that is, the Italians who inhabited the regions of Italy, in a time of political, social and religious upheaval. -- The inquiry suggests new ways of understanding the appearance of barbarian groups and the end of the western Roman Empire, as well as proposing new models of regional and professional loyalty and group cohesion in the period. ISBN 9780521571517