Romans and Barbarians: Four Views from the Empire's Edge, 1st Century AD [Hardcover]

Derek Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1999

From 27 B.C. to A.D. 117, the Roman dreams of boundless empire began to falter. The very size of their conquests made them hard to manage, and the caesars also had to accept the scale of intractability of the problems posed by the barbarians. The period covered by the book is one of great change and the opening of a new era. For the once mighty Romans this was a time when power was passing; for the barbarians it was the late Iron Age: a time of transition when internal stresses and fear of Roman aggression were creating dangerous shifts in the tribal equilibrium.

Romans and Barbarians sees the clash of cultures from the standpoint of four individuals whose curious fate it was to venture or be sent beyond the outer watchtowers of the Roman empire. They bore witness from the grassy steppe of Europe's southeastern corner; from across the grim Carpathians, towering beyond the Danube; from the fearsome German forest; and from beyond the Firth of Forth in the wilderness of northern-most Britain. Each portrait reveals different aspects of the Sarmatian, German, and Celtic peoples facing the empire's European frontiers. Together these four viewpoints provide a rich portrait of the classical and Iron Age worlds, mutually uncomprehending yet strangely unable to do without each other. The outcome is a skein of violence, tragedy, misadventure, and courage, offering a preview of the cruel but creative forces from whose fusion modern Europe was eventually to emerge.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In 9 B.C. the Roman general Drusus, brother of Tiberius and stepson of the emperor Augustus, encountered a towering German priestess who "cursed him and prophesied doom." Months later Drusus met that doom, dying of an infected wound in a remote outpost on the Elbe River "on a night of shooting stars, to the howling of forest wolves." His fate was shared by many Romans who marched north to encounter the Germanic and Celtic peoples of northern Europe, shadowy presences on the Roman frontier, the elusive and dangerous other. Derek Williams, an English journalist and historian, does a fine job of reconstructing Roman attitudes toward those people of the far frontier, basing his narrative on literary descriptions from the poet Ovid, the historian Tacitus, and other contemporary Roman chroniclers. (He recognizes the limitations of this one-sided literature, for the barbarians had no system of writing by which they could leave behind their view of the matter of Rome.) Among the high points of Williams's well-written discussion is an analysis of Trajan's Column, the monument in the Roman Forum that details, frieze by frieze, the Roman conquest of Dacia, or what is now Romania; Williams compares the column with German monuments, most from the 19th century, and with other testimonials to Trajan's campaigns. This is a vigorous, imaginative, and nicely evenhanded reading of ancient history. --Gregory McNamee

From Booklist

By the close of the first century A.D., Roman frontiers had stabilized after three centuries of expansion. Thus, the task of the military on the periphery of the empire became essentially defensive, with a primary aim of controlling, if not completely staunching, the flow of "barbarians" across the frontiers. Williams has provided a valuable survey of the interaction between Romans and their supposedly less civilized neighbors at three key points: in Britain and northern Gaul, where Romans confronted Celts; along the Rhine, where Romans confronted Germanic tribes; and beyond the Danube, where Romans encountered a variety of peoples moving westward from the steppes and central Asia. Williams acknowledges that his sources are one-sided, since Germans and Celts left no written records. Nevertheless, he has provided a balanced picture that convincingly illustrates that Roman technological superiority has been overstated. Particularly in the area of animal husbandry and efficient farming, Romans were often the students rather than the teachers. This is a well-researched and richly illustrated reexamination of a series of relationships that shaped Western culture. Jay Freeman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 237 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr (February 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312199589
• ISBN-13: 978-0312199586
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,153,987 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars From a Roman viewpoint, March 31, 2001

By 

Rick A. Riedlinger (Ft Lauderdale, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Romans and Barbarians: Four Views from the Empire's Edge, 1st Century AD (Hardcover)

I found this book an interesting examination of the Roman empire's European neighbors in the first century CE from a 'Roman' viewpoint.
The prologue contains good information on different aspects of the Barbaricum and also acquaints us with a few past and present theories dealing with some of those aspects.
The first chapter, The Poet, is a story of the exile of P. Ovidius Naso (the poet Ovid) to the city of Tomis (later Constantsa) on the Black Sea. A very good depiction of the Sarmatians sets the background for the story. The second, The Lawyer, deals with the Varus disaster: the loss of the legions under his command to Armin (sic- author's compromise) as well as Rome's later revenge for this action. The origins of the statue of Hermann, the hunt for the actual battlefield and a wealth of historical detail makes this chapter a must read for anyone with an interest in Iron Age Germanic tribes and their interaction with the Romans. The third section, The Soldiers, is about the Roman invasions and conquests in Britain, from Julius Caesar to the end of the first century CE. There is a lot of information on the British Celts, much of which opposes many of the commonly held and romantic views of their culture.
The fourth chapter concerns the Dacians and their defeat by Trajan. Included is a lengthy discussion of both Trajan's Column and Trajan's Trophy, the latter with depictions of Suebian warriors. In this chapter mention is made of the cooperation between the Dacians, who were Sarmatian, and some Celts and Germans.
For those interested in either the 'barbarians' or the Romans of the first century, I recommend this book highly.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very informative and a great read, February 24, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Romans and Barbarians: Four Views from the Empire's Edge, 1st Century AD (Hardcover)

An historian turned writer, Williams provides a book that is most easy and enjoyable to read, but is packed with information you won't find anywhere else. I am especially impressed with how he tries to relate archeological findings with studies of ancient texts. As he tells us in the prologue, scholars in these disciplines rarely talk to each other, and indeed are often antagonistic. This tension is highlighted most dramatically in the chapter on the 'Teutoburg Forest' battle in Germany, where recent archeology tells us that the battle occurred not in a forest at all, but in an area between a hill and a marsh. I was astounded to read this: I had never seen it before because the information is published mainly in German, or is out of print. If you are interested in ancient history and can find this title, get it. I found my copy in a used book store.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good read of Rome, May 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Romans and Barbarians: Four Views from the Empire's Edge, 1st Century AD (Hardcover)

Rome was surrounded by barbarian tribes as these tribes have not left us their written history they have become what the writer quite correctly states as prehistoric. Most of what we know of these people is what the Romans wrote about them. Which is not much! This is a problem as its very hard to write a study from Roamn literature about Roman and the Barbarians because there is so little written about it.

The book as a whole is certainly a good read. I found very interesting in particular, Ovid on the Black Sea and his life in a small town on the edge of the Roman empire. It was really interesting and I hope the writer writes some more about Ovid life there in a future book.

However unfortunately after reading this book I did not feel that I had learnt much about these barbarian tribes. A little about what Romans thought about these people. Overall I have not found anything new that has not been presented before in other books.

The writer also subscribes to a popular view that I don't, that the Roman never fell but evolved into medieval society.