The Restoration of Rome
Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
In 476 AD, the last of Rome's emperors, known as "Augustulus," was deposed by a barbarian general, the son of one of Attila the Hun's henchmen. With the imperial vestments dispatched to Constantinople, the curtain fell on the Roman empire in Western Europe, its territories divided among successor kingdoms constructed around barbarian military manpower.
But, if the Roman Empire was dead, Romans across much of the old empire still lived, holding on to their lands, their values, and their institutions. The conquering barbarians, responding to Rome's continuing psychological dominance and the practical value of many of its institutions, were ready to reignite the imperial flame and enjoy the benefits. As Peter Heather shows in dazzling biographical portraits, each of the three greatest immediate contenders for imperial power--Theoderic, Justinian, and Charlemagne--operated with a different power base but was astonishingly successful in his own way. Though each in turn managed to put back together enough of the old Roman West to stake a plausible claim to the Western imperial title, none of their empires long outlived their founders' deaths. Not until the reinvention of the papacy in the eleventh century would Europe's barbarians find the means to establish a new kind of Roman Empire, one that has lasted a thousand years.
A sequel to the bestselling Fall of the Roman Empire, The Restoration of Rome offers a captivating narrative of the death of an era and the birth of the Catholic Church.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Following up on his Fall of Rome: A New History, Heather zeros in on three pivotal figures of Late Antiquity: the Goth emperor Theodoric, the Greek/Roman emperor Justinian, and the spiritual progenitor of modern Europe, Charlemagne. Each man is meticulously examined in the context of his time and in his attempts to save or reconstitute at least the image of Imperial Rome. Theodoric and Charlemagne, in particular, used Christian bishops as state officials to legitimize their authority. However, it is the final section of the book that breaks ground that might be debated by some scholars. Here, Heather makes a cogent argument for the slow growth of papal power, culminating in 1215 C.E. with the Fourth Lateran Council, which has long been considered a watershed. This, he avers, created a new Roman empire that still exists. The transition from the first empire to the present is wonderfully retold, with the rise of the Islamic states appearing like a wild card, diverting the flow of history. Heather's style is seductive and his British wit enlivens this engrossing history of the piecemeal "restoration" of a Rome that lingers still. Illus.
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