The history of the Romans and the "barbarians" they encountered as their mighty legions advanced the frontiers of Classical civilization has in large part been written as a story of warfare and conquest. But to tell the story on only that level leaves many questions unanswered. These 36 lectures examine the complex relationships between each of these native peoples and their Roman conquerors as they intermarried, exchanged ideas and mores, and, in the ensuing provincial Roman cultures, formed the basis of Western European civilization. Who were the Celts, Goths, Huns, Persians, and so many others met by the Romans as they marched to the north and east? What made them barbarians in the eyes of Rome? What were the political, military, and social institutions that allowed Rome to wield its power against these different cultures for almost three centuries? How were barbarian peoples assimilated into Roman society? Throughout these lectures, and the introduction of each new barbarian culture, Professor Harl emphasizes three crucial aspects of Rome's relationships to them: the ability of the Romans to adapt and build pragmatically on existing structures of the barbarian world; the ways the Romans looked on these barbarians not only as outsiders, but also as potential allies and provincials; and what barbarian societies were like at the time of Roman contact and conquest, and how, through assimilation, they contributed to the successful establishment of Roman provinces.
Rome and the Barbarians
01: Greek and Roman Views of Barbarians
Professor Kenneth W. Harl introduces the course and its main themes, beginning with an explanation of exactly what the ancient Romans meant by the term "barbarian."
02: The Roman Republic
This lecture introduces the constitutional and political institutions of Rome during the "Middle Republic" years, when Rome emerges with her political, military, and constitutional institutions in place.
03: Roman Society
This lecture looks at the societal bonds in the early Roman Republic that cemented the various social classes, or ordinates, as well as the Italian allied communities, into a wider Roman Republic, or "Res Publica."
04: The Roman Way of War
This central lecture introduces the third of the key institutions of the middle and late Roman Republic (the army) and discusses the extraordinarily successful and brutal Roman way of war.
05: Celtic Europe and the Mediterranean World
You meet the Celtic-speaking peoples of western and central Europe, in many ways the epitome of "barbarians" to both the Greeks and Romans.
06: The Conquest of Cisalpine Gaul
Professor Harl explains the role played by the Celts (known to the Romans as Gauls) in northern Italy and the profound influence they had on early Rome.
07: Romans and Carthaginians in Spain
This episode deals with the initial Roman intervention in, and eventual conquest of, the Iberian Peninsula.
08: The Roman Conquest of Spain
Professor Harl takes a closer look at the period from 197 B.C. to 133 B.C., when the Romans were forced to come to terms with the commitments they took on by defeating the Carthaginians in Spain.
09: The Genesis of Roman Spain
This lecture discusses the development of Roman Spain, moving us into the area of social and economic changes brought on by the Roman conquest.
10: Jugurtha and the Nomadic Threat
This lecture discusses the relationship between Rome and the barbarians of Roman North Africa, especially the Numidians and their king, Jugurtha - with whom Rome blundered into an ugly frontier war.
11: Marius and the Northern Barbarians
Gaius Marius, the victor over Jugurtha, fights a series of battles against the dreaded Germanic-speaking northern barbarians that shape not only the direction of Roman foreign policy but, ultimately, Roman attitudes toward those barbarians.
12: Rome's Rivals in the East
Professor Harl shifts the focus away from the western Mediterranean to the peoples who lay to the east, at the frontier Rome inherited by taking over the hegemony of the Hellenistic world.
13: The Price of Empire—The Roman Revolution
This lecture examines the impact on Rome's institutions of her wars, conquests, and territorial acquisitions.
14: Julius Caesar and the Conquest of Gaul
The entire axis and dimension of the Roman world is transformed during this key period in the career of perhaps the most memorable of all Romans.
15: Early Germanic Europe
In this first of a series of lectures introducing new barbarians, Professor Harl discusses the Germanic tribes who came to epitomize the most ferocious barbarians the Romans had encountered.
16: The Nomads of Eastern Europe
This lecture introduces still more barbarians to the mix: the various Iranian-speaking nomads of eastern Europe.
17: Arsacid Parthia
This lecture examines how the Parthians came to become the dominant barbarian power in the Near East and the great rival of Imperial Rome for almost 300 years.
18: The Augustan Principate and Imperialism
The focus returns to Rome proper: what the Roman Empire was all about, how it evolved from the institutions of the Republic, and how changing political arrangements altered those institutions and, ultimately, Rome's relationship with the barbarians.
19: The Roman Imperial Army
As Rome moves from Republic to Empire, the Roman Imperial Army becomes a very different institution.
20: The Varian Disaster
In beginning a set of five lectures that discuss the different relationships between Rome and its various foes on the imperial frontiers, Professor Harl examines one of the most dramatic events in Roman imperial history.
21: The Roman Conquest of Britain
This lecture reveals some of the differences in how the Romans reacted to a Celtic-based civilization, as opposed to the German tribes in the imperial age.
22: Civil War and Rebellion
The record left by Tacitus reveals how the Roman Empire was ripped apart by civil wars and rebellions between A.D. 68 and 70, illuminating both the institutional weaknesses in the constitutional and military arrangements made by Augustus and Rome's relationships with its various provincial frontier peoples.
23: Flavian Frontiers and the Dacians
With this lecture and the next, Professor Harl concludes Rome's creation of its frontier, setting the stage for an examination of why Rome fell and the role played by the barbarians.
24: Trajan, the Dacians, and the Parthians
This lecture concludes imperial Rome's wars of conquest against her barbarian foes by concentrating on the career of the emperor Trajan, the first man of provincial origins to become emperor.
25: Romanization of the Provinces
In the first of three lectures dealing with the social and economic transformations of the frontier provinces, Professor Harl looks at the ability of the Romans to adapt existing institutions, bring in their own concepts of citizenship and political organization, and incorporate her foes into the Roman system.
26: Commerce Beyond the Imperial Frontiers
The economic and social changes brought on by imperial Rome had a profound impact not only on the traditional societies of the provinces, but on the barbarian peoples living beyond the Roman frontier.
27: Frontier Settlement and Assimilation
This lecture examines how the movement of barbarians along Rome's frontiers took place and the kind of exchanges (both social and material) that ensued.
28: From Germanic Tribes to Confederations
The "3rd-century crisis" is seen as the era when Rome would be profoundly altered by the unique changes going on in the frontier provinces and the distinct provincial societies emerging as a result of immigration, trade, and military service by the barbarians.
29: Goths and the Crisis of the Third Century
As Goths begin to attack the mid and lower Danube, they are seen by Roman authors as a particularly vicious and new threat at a time when Rome is already feeling mounting pressures from her own civil wars and the Sassanid Shahs of Persia.
30: Eastern Rivals—Sassanid Persia
This lecture examines why the Persians represented such a formidable threat and why the Romans massed so much of their forces in the East, thus exposing their Danube and Rhine frontiers to the Goths and West Germanic tribes.
31: Rome and the Barbarians in the Fourth Century
This lecture explains the changes that occurred in the Roman world as a result of the wars and invasions of the 3rd century A.D. and the ways in which the emperors Diocletian and Constantine were fundamental to those changes.
32: From Foes to Federates
In this lecture, Professor Harl deals with the relationships between the barbarian foes of Rome and the new imperial order created by the emperor Constantine in the early 4th century A.D.
33: Imperial Crisis and Decline
The Battle of Adrianople in A.D. 378, in which Goths defeated the Eastern Roman field army (slaying the emperor Valens) proves decisive in its aftermath as it alters the character of the late Roman Army.
34: Attila and the Huns
This lecture takes a close look at the Huns along with their most famous king and their role in the breakup of the Empire and the shaping of the political and cultural landscape that followed.
35: Justinian and the Barbarians
Two related subjects are covered: the aftermath of the Hun attacks, with the breakup of the Western Empire and collapse of the imperial government, and the reign of the emperor Justinian, the dominant figure of the 6th century A.D.
36: Birth of the Barbarian Medieval West
This lecture concludes the course by reminding us of how Rome, though its empire was broken up in the West and greatly contracted in the East, has indeed survived in many ways.
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