Alaric between the East and the West: searching for the place in the empire (399-402)

Abstract

The paper considers the events of 400-402 in Roman Empire related to the name of the leader of Gothic military formations of Alaric. The data of the sources and the main view points of the researchers of this period were analyzed in terms of interaction of Rome and barbarian communities, the search for barbarian proper place in the empire. Conflict of interests of different political fractions of Roman elite made it difficult for barbarian to adapt in to empire structure on social and mental level; this conflict made the official ideological and logistic discourse unpredictably uncertain and inconsistent. Alaric tried to act parallel in Roman and barbarian discursive space manipulating them in his interest. However he did not succeed in implementing the strategy. This fact explains inconsistency of barbarian integration into empire structure.

Keywords

• integrative social processes
• Goths
• barbarians
• federate
• East Roman empire
• West Roman empire