Winner of an Honorable Mention in the Association of American
Publishers' Professional and Scholarly Publishing Awards in Classics and
Archeology
The history of Spain in late antiquity offers important insights into
the dissolution of the western Roman empire and the emergence of
medieval Europe. Nonetheless, scholarship on Spain in this period has
lagged behind that on other Roman provinces. Michael Kulikowski draws on
the most recent archeological and literary evidence to integrate late
antique Spain into the broader history of the Roman empire, providing a
definitive narrative and analytical account of the Iberian peninsula
from A.D. 300 to 600.
Kulikowski begins with a concise introduction to the early history of
Roman Spain, and then turns to the Diocletianic reforms of 293 and their
long-term implications for Roman administration and the political
ambitions of post-Roman contenders. He goes on to examine the settlement
of barbarian peoples in Spain, the end of Roman rule, and the imposition
of Gothic power in the fifth and sixth centuries. In parallel to this
narrative account, Kulikowski offers a wide-ranging thematic history,
focusing on political power, Christianity, and urbanism.
Kulikowski's portrait of late Roman Spain offers some surprising
conclusions. With new archeological evidence and a fresh interpretation
of well-known literary sources, Kulikowski contradicts earlier
assertions of a catastrophic decline of urbanism, finding that the
physical and social world of the Roman city continued well into the
sixth century despite the decline of Roman power. This groundbreaking
study will prompt further reassessments of the other Roman provinces and
of medieval Spanish history.
