Preface Prologue Ch 1: Migrants and Barbarians Ch 2: Globalization and the Germans Ch 3: All Roads Lead to Rome? Ch 4: Migration and Frontier Collapse Ch 5: Huns on the Run Ch 6: Franks and Anglo-Saxons: Elite Transfer or Volkerwanderung? Ch 7: A New Europe Ch 8: The Creation of Slavic Europe Ch 9: Viking Diasporas Ch 10: The First European Union Ch 11: The End of Migration and the Birth of Europe Notes Primary Sources/ Bibliography

Empires and barbarians : the fall of Rome and the birth of Europe

Part I. Romans and Barbarians in the Imperial World: 1. Introduction: how the west was lost and where it got us 2. Defining identities 3. The late Roman Empire in the west 4. Society beyond the frontier 5. Romans and Barbarians before 376 Part II. A World Renegotiated: Western Europe, 376-526: 6. 376-82: The Gothic crisis 7. 383-410: The crisis of the empire 8. 410-55: The triumph of the generals 9. 455-80: The parting of Gaul and Italy 10. 480-550: Kingdoms of the empire 11. Provincial society in the long fifth century 12. Beyond the old frontier Part III. Romans and Barbarians in the Post-Imperial World: 13. Mechanisms of migration and settlement 14. New kingdoms, new identities, new peoples? 15. The roots of failure: a changed world.

Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568: Defining identities

The Steppe World and the Rise of the Huns

The Reinvention of Iran: The Sasanian Empire and the Huns

Neither Conquest Nor Settlement: Attila’s Empire and Its Impact

X THE END of the fourth book of his Ecclesiastical History, Socrates turns to the migration of the Goths into the Roman Empire and their defeat of the Emperor Valens at Adrianople in 378. He introduces this section with an excursus (4.33) on the conversion of the Goths to Christianity, a subject much closer to his theme of church history than Adrianople. Socrates recounts a civil war between the rival chieftains Athanaric and Fritigern; when Fritigern was worsted, he sought help from Valens, who offered him military support to defeat his rival; in thanks for this support, Fritigern converted to Christianity and caused his followers to do the same. Socrates goes on to describe the missionary activity of the Gothic bishop Ulfilas, who played a role in engineering the Gothic conversion: Ulfilas' proselytizing had provoked the rancor of Athanaric, who began a ruthless persecution against Gothic Christians, dated from other sources between 369 and ca 372. Given that Socrates provides a narrative of the Gothic conversion and associates it with a datable persecution, one would assume that we could easily derive a date for the conversion of Fritigern's Goths. Socrates, however, is not the only source to discuss the question nor to offer information on the date of the conversion. Sozomen, supplementing Socrates' material with other sources, dates the conversion to 376-a date supported by Theodoret, who may have used him as a source, and J ordanes, who probably did not. Moreover, Socrates is the only independent source for the civil war between the Gothic leaders Athanaric and Fritigern. The absence of this civil war from the more reliable contemporary account of political events in Ammianus Marcellinus has led some to question whether Socrates offers fabricated or confused material. These discrepancies have produced much debate: four different dates and a variety of modes of conversion have been proposed. A brief review of

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Noel Lenski

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The Gothic Civil War and the Date of the Gothic Conversion