The Goths by Peter Heather

Gordopolis · Post by **Gordopolis** » Wed February 8th, 2012, 9:00 am

Just starting Peter Heather's 'The Goths'.

Engrossing stuff so far. Anyone else read it?

Gord

fljustice · Post by **fljustice** » Wed February 8th, 2012, 4:50 pm

I read Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire: a New History of the Rome and the Barbarians (2006) and Goths and Romans 332-489 (1991) several years ago. The books are stuffed with pink sticky notes, so I must have found them useful! General impression, is that I found him quite credible.

SGM · Post by **SGM** » Wed February 8th, 2012, 6:53 pm

Nope. The one I read was by Herwig Wolfram.

Gordopolis · Post by **Gordopolis** » Wed February 8th, 2012, 7:30 pm

[quote=""SGM""]Nope. The one I read was by Herwig Wolfram.[/quote]

Ah, that one has been recommended to me as well. Is it good?

Gordopolis · Post by **Gordopolis** » Wed February 8th, 2012, 7:31 pm

[quote=""fljustice""]I read Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire: a New History of the Rome and the Barbarians (2006) and Goths and Romans 332-489 (1991) several years ago. The books are stuffed with pink sticky notes, so I must have found them useful! General impression, is that I found him quite credible.[/quote]

Two more dents in the bank account methinks

SGM · Post by **SGM** » Wed February 8th, 2012, 8:09 pm

[quote=""Gordopolis""]Ah, that one has been recommended to me as well. Is it good?[/quote]

I enjoyed it at a time when I was going through a phase of the fall of Rome leading to the development of France up to about the end of of the first millenium CE and wasn't in the mood for heavy analysis. I must have found it an easy read and it filled in a gap for me.

I am not a Roman addict (not since childhood anyway) but always end up going back to the Roman collapse to trace my understanding of the Western European countries we have today. This is usually followed by a phase of interest in countries that definitely weren't part of the Roman sphere of influence just to read something different.

Gordopolis · Post by **Gordopolis** » Wed February 8th, 2012, 10:25 pm

Interesting, I'm pretty keen on the end of Rome as opposed to the high period. I am also intrigued with how Europe developed after the fall of Rome in the West.

Shield-of-Dardania · Post by **Shield-of-Dardania** » Fri March 2nd, 2012, 8:39 am

The way I see it, the fall of Western Rome made space and paved the way for the rise of Byzantium.

Gordopolis · Post by **Gordopolis** » Fri March 2nd, 2012, 10:40 am

Yes, I see something of a 'last bastion' mentality in the late Eastern Empire and latterly Byzantium, and this probably emanated from the fall of the Western Empire and the realisation that Rome was not actually eternal.

G

SGM · Post by **SGM** » Fri March 2nd, 2012, 6:29 pm

What I found interesting was that Rome was an urban empire but after its fall in the West, the elite retreated to their rural villas and Western Europe became, again, and agricultural society and a reversion to personal rather than public rule. Well, for a couple of centuries that was the case anyway. But Byzantium until its fall retained the public and urban ethos of the old Rome.