Theoderic and the Roman Imperial Restoration [Paperback]

Theoderic and the Roman Imperial Restoration offers a new interpretation of the fall of Rome and the 'barbarian' successor state known as Ostrogothic Italy.Theoderic and the Roman Imperial Restoration offers a new interpretation of the fall of Rome and the barbarian successor state known as Ostrogothic Italy. Relying primarily on Italian textual and material evidence, Jonathan J. Arnold demonstrates that the subjects of the Ostrogothic kingdom viewed it as a revived Roman Empire and its king, Theoderic, as its emperor. Most accounts of Roman history end with the fall of Rome in 476 or see the Ostrogothic kingdom as a barbarous imitator. This book, however, challenges such views, placing the Theoderican epoch firmly within the continuum of Roman history.Theoderic and the Roman Imperial Restoration offers a new interpretation of the fall of Rome and the barbarian successor state known as Ostrogothic Italy. Relying primarily on Italian textual and material evidence, Jonathan J. Arnold demonstrates that the subjects of the Ostrogothic kingdom viewed it as a revived Roman Empire and its king, Theoderic, as its emperor. Most accounts of Roman history end with the fall of Rome in 476 or see the Ostrogothic kingdom as a barbarous imitator. This book, however, challenges such views, placing the Theoderican epoch firmly within the continuum of Roman history.This book provides a new interpretation of the fall of the Roman Empire and the barbarian kingdom known conventionally as Ostrogothic Italy. Relying primarily on Italian textual and material evidence, and in particular the works of Cassiodorus and Ennodius, Jonathan J. Arnold argues that contemporary Italo-Romans viewed the Ostrogothic kingdom as the Western Roman Empire and its barbarian king, Theoderic (r. 489/93526), as its emperor. Investigating conceptions of Romanness, Arnold explains how the Roman past, both immediate and distant, allowed Theoderic and his Goths to find acceptance in Italy as Romans, with rls?