Barbarians

'And now what will become of us without barbarians?
Those people were a sort of solution.'

'Waiting for the Barbarians'
C. P. Cavafy

History is written by the victors, and Rome had some very eloquent historians. Those the Romans
regarded as barbarians left few records of their own, but they had a tremendous impact on the Roman imagination. Resisting from outside Rome's borders or rebelling from within, they emerge vividly in Rome's historical tradition, and left a significant footprint in archaeology.

Rome's history, as written by the Romans, follows a remarkable trajectory from its origins as a tiny
village of refugees from a conflict zone to a dominant superpower, before being transformed into the medieval and Byzantine worlds. But throughout this history, Rome faced significant resistance and rebellion from peoples whom it regarded as barbarians.

Gibbon saw the Roman Empire as one of the highest points of human achievement destroyed by
barbarian invaders. But this 'decline and fall' has been reappraised by some as transformation, through religious and cultural revolution.

Based both on ancient historical writings and modern archaeological research, this new history takes a fresh look at the Roman Empire through the personalities and lives of key opponents of Rome's rise, dominance and fall - or transformation. These include, among many others: Brennus,
the Gaul who sacked Rome; the Plebs, those barbarous insiders and internal resistors; Viriathus,
the Iberian shepherd and skilled guerilla; and Boudicca, the Queen of the Iceni and the scourge of
Rome.