The Barbarian Kingdoms

I dreamed I was at a dinner party in the late nineteenth century.

Attended by German professors of classics.

In celebration of some festschrift or other. All the attendees were learned, all had published significant contributions to the literature on Late Antiquity, all were familiar with the cursus honorum.

There was not one among them who was not qualified to supervise a habilitationshcrift on Romanitas.

And like the armies in the clashes of the third century before the establishishment of the Dominate they took the familiar defensible positions.

This was during the goose course, Poppo proclaiming that the Barbarian Kingdoms viewed themselves as continuations of Rome.

“They did not know it fell, the Empire, these proud men, eg the Lombards.” so, Poppo.

While Reitzenstein opined “We should not think them fools, the barbarian kings eg the Visigoths. They used the words to get the power. As strong men always do. Rome, Christ, dish, water, woman, star. All words, which without the sword, are nothing but farts of air.” He drained another beer stein.

Then quietly, maliciously, spoke up the great father doctor, the elder Hermann, Johann Gottfried Jakob Hermann, and he said “Twas ever thus. The Rome of Augustus was not/the little Etrurian town of seven hills. There was no Rome, nor ever will be.”

The mood grew dark but velvety over twilight and cigars and each man drew attention to his inner Rome.

As it always is with men, with scholars, and with Germans. The cognac turned them existential.

Was my wife ever my wife? wondered Hermann.

Do I even know the empire fell, thought Poppo. The younger man helped him rise.

They wandered and waddled through the streets of Heidelberg, to their rooms, some alone some not.

We should not think them fools these nineteenth century professors, they were like you and me. They knew what was coming as we do.

And each was smart enough to ask the question, the question — what is left of me now, now that I have been conquered

By the barbarian kingdoms?