Tales of the Barbarians: Ethnography and Empire in the Roman West

175 Pages·2011·1.181 MB·English

by  Greg Woolf(auth.), Neville Morley(eds.)

Tales of the Barbarians
Tales of the Barbarians: Ethnography and Empire in the Roman West Greg Woolf
© 2011 Greg Woolf. ISBN: 978-1-405-16073-5
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Why Plato Wrote
Danielle Allen
Tales of the Barbarians: Ethnographyand Empire inthe Roman West
Greg Woolf
Tales of the
Barbarians
Ethnography and Empire
in the Roman West
Greg Woolf
Thiseditionfirstpublished2011
(cid:1)2011GregWoolf
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Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-1-4051-6073-5(hardcover:alk.paper) 1. Acculturation–Rome. 2. Rome–
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Contents
Translations Used vii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Telling Tales on the MiddleGround 8
Chapter 2: Explaining the Barbarians 32
Chapter 3: Ethnography and Empire 59
Chapter 4: Enduring Fictions? 89
Notes 119
References 146
General Index 164
Indexof Main Passages Discussed 168
For my mother
Translations Used
Except where otherwise noted, translations are reprinted by permission of
thepublishersandTrusteesoftheLoebClassicalLibrary,Cambridge,MA:
HarvardUniversityPress,copyrightbythePresidentandFellowsofHarvard
College. Loeb Classical Library(cid:1) is a registered trademark of the President
and Fellows of Harvard College. All other translations are by the author.
The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus, during the Reign of the Emperors
Constantius, Julian, Jovianus, Valentinian, and Valens, trans. C.D. Yonge.
London:Bohn’sClassicalLibrary,1862.
Appian’s Roman History, trans. Horace White. Loeb Classical Library. London:
WilliamHeinemann,1912.
Dio’s Roman History, trans. Earnest Cary and Herbert Baldwin Foster. Loeb
ClassicalLibrary.Cambridge,MA:HarvardUniversityPress,1914.
Diodorus of Sicily, trans. C.H. Oldfather. 12 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cam-
bridge,MA:HarvardUniversityPress,1933–9.
The Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, trans. Earnest Cary and
EdwardSpelmann.LoebClassicalLibrary.London:WilliamHeinemann,1937.
Hippocrates,vol.1,trans.W.H.S.Jones.LoebClassicalLibrary.London:William
Heinemann,1923.
Justin,HistoryoftheWorldextractedfromTrogusPompeius,etc.,trans.JohnSelby
Watson.London:GeorgeBell&Sons,1890.
Livy in Fourteen Volumes, trans. B.O. Foster. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge,
MA:HarvardUniversityPress,1924.
Manilius Astrononomica, trans. G.P. Goold. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge,
MA:HarvardUniversityPress,1992.
PartheniusofNicaea.Thepoeticalfragmentsandthe’Erotika` payh´mata.Edited
withintroductionandcommentariesbyJaneL.Lightfoot.Oxford:Clarendon
Press,1999.
Plutarch’s Lives, vol. 2, trans. Bernadotte Perrin. Loeb Classical Library. London:
WilliamHeinemann,1914.
viii TALES OF THE BARBARIANS
Polybius,TheHistories,trans.W.R.Paton.LoebClassicalLibrary.Cambridge,MA:
HarvardUniversityPress,1922.
Posidonius III, The Translation of the Fragments, trans. I.G. Kidd. Cambridge
Classical Texts and Commentaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999.
TheGeographyofStrabo,trans.H.C.HamiltonandW.Falconer,3vols.London.
GeorgeBell&Sons.1903.
Tacitus, Germania, Translated with Introduction and Commentary, trans. James
B.Rives.ClarendonAncientHistorySeries.Oxford:ClarendonPress,1999.
Vitruvius, On Architecture, trans. Frank Grancer. Loeb Classical Library.
Cambridge,MA:HarvardUniversityPress,1934.
Introduction
JosephConrad’sHeartofDarknessbeginswithastory,toldonthedeckofa
cruisermooredontheThamesestuarywhereagroupofoldfriendspassthe
time as they wait for the tide to turn. As the sun sets over London, the
narrator begins his tale of the degeneration of imperial rule and Western
rationalityinthedepthsofAfrica.‘“Andthisalso,”saidMarlowsuddenly,
“has been one of the dark places of the earth.”’
ThephraseisaquotationfromPsalm74,anappealtoGodnottoforsake
hispeopleinthemidstoftheheathen,averysuitableepigramforthisnovel.
Verse20intheKingJamesBiblereads‘Haverespectuntothecovenant:for
the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty’.
NeitherConradnorMarlowfollowsupthatthoughtimmediately.Conrad
continuesbycharacterizingthislatter-dayOdysseusasaninveteratefollower
oftheseas,amanwhosewanderingmindisuntypicalofsailors,especiallyin
his yarns, because to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a
kernelbutoutside,envelopingthetalelikeamistyhalo.Marlow,forhispart,
continues:
Iwasthinkingofveryoldtimes,whentheRomansfirstcamehere,nineteen
hundred years ago – the other day ... Light came out of this river, you say
Knights?Yes;butitislikearunningblazeonaplain,likeaflashoflightningin
the clouds. We live in the flicker – may it last as long as the old earth keeps
rolling!Butdarknesswashereyesterday.Imaginethefeelingsofacommander
ofafine–whatd’yecall‘em?–triremeintheMediterranean,orderedsuddenly
tothenorth;runoverlandacrosstheGaulsinahurry;putinchargeofoneof
thesecraftthelegionaries–awonderfullotofhandymentheymusthavebeen,
too–usedtobuild,apparentlybythehundred,inamonthortwo,ifwemay
believewhatweread.Imaginehimhere–theveryendoftheworld,aseathe
Tales of the Barbarians: Ethnography and Empire in the Roman West Greg Woolf
© 2011 Greg Woolf. ISBN: 978-1-405-16073-5
2 TALES OF THE BARBARIANS
colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a
concertina–andgoingupthisriverwithstores,ororders,orwhatyoulike.
Sand-banks,marshes,forests,savages,–preciouslittletoeatfitforacivilized
man,nothingbutThames waterto drink.No Falernianwine here,no going
ashore.Hereandthereamilitarycamplostinawilderness,likeaneedleina
bundleofhay–cold,fog,tempests,disease,exile,anddeath–deathskulkingin
theair,inthewater,inthebush.Theymusthavebeendyinglikeflieshere.
TheHeartofDarknesswaspublishedin1902,justfiveyearsafterKipling’s
poem‘Recessional’,andthisopeningframevoicesasimilarconsciousnessof
the imminent end of empire. Rome, as so often for this generation, offered
compellingresemblancesandcontrasts.Marlowgoesonatoncetoprovide
someofthelatter:wearenotquitelikethem,wearemoreefficient,theywere
nocolonistsandbarelyhadanadministration.Theyweremereconquerors,
who‘grabbedwhattheycouldgetforthesakeofwhatwastobegot’andhe
continuesinsimilarvein.Thereaderisnottakenin,ofcourse.WhatMarlow
foundupriver,at‘thefarthestpointofnavigationandtheculminationofmy
experience’,willshatterforeverhisandourfaithinthecomfortingnarratives
ofthecivilizingprocess.WearenobetterthantheRomans,andourfatewill
be no different from theirs.
ThinkingabouttheBritishempireintermsofancientRomewasperhaps
inevitable.SomuchoftheparaphernaliaofBritishrule–titlesandslogans,
symbols and ornaments – had been created in the Victorian era, when the
statusofClassicsintheeducationoftheBritishelitewasatanalltimehigh.1
Yet there has been a price for historians in this Romanizing of Europe’s
imperialadventures.WheneverBritainbecomesthenewRome,theancient
Britons, the Gauls and other western peoples become Victorian savages,
illiterate tribesmen hidden in the dark forests of an unexplored continent.
Rome’s penetration of Europe was easy to imagine as a precursor of the
ScrambleforAfrica.Manyversionsoftheanalogyhavesincebeenpresented.
TherehavebeennobleBritons,andBritishvictimsaswellasBritishsavages.
Scholarshavedrawnattentiontothelimitationsofthecomparison,fromat
least the beginning of the twentieth century.2 Yet successive generations of
revisionistshavefounditeasiertoexchangedominationandexploitationfor
the civilizingprocessthan todecolonize our historiesofthe Roman West.3
Post-colonialstudieshaveinmanywaysonlyprolongedourdoubleidentifi-
cation with Roman imperialism and its victims.
Thisbookisintendedasacontributiontothisprojectofdecolonization.
Decolonizingdoesnotmeanredressingthebalance.Thisisnoattempttogive
voicestothosewhomIshallcontinuetocallbarbarians,andcertainlynotto
proclaimtheirwaysoflifebetterthan(orevenmerelydifferentfrom)what
replacedthemunderRomanrule.Iamnotsettingoutto‘taketheirside’,asif
byaffirmingsolidaritywithsomeofmyconqueredancestors, Icanexpiate