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Tuesday 7 October 2008

Brave new world

Rome and the Barbarians

In his introduction to the catalogue, Aillagon cites the debates surrounding the inclusion of some reference to Europe’s ‘Christian roots’ in Giscard d’Estaing’s Constitution for the European Union. He notes that ‘there was little mention of the “Barbarian roots” of European culture’. He goes on: ‘This is a curious and unwarranted omission, no doubt resulting from the morally pejorative connotations of the word “barbarian”, which would have made any reference to it seem somewhat shocking or even scandalous to any European citizen who did not know much about the richness and complexity of the continent’s history!’

Monique Veaute, a Rome-based cultural events organiser, is Aillagon’s successor as executive director at the Grassi. In her introductory preamble in the catalogue, headed ‘On the Good Use of Immigration’, she quotes Alessandro Barbero’s recent The Day of the Barbarians (which deals with the period around the defeat of the Emperor Valens by the Ostrogoths at Adrianople in 378) as saying: ‘The Roman Empire was already in itself a multiethnic empire, a crucible of languages, races and religions, and it was perfectly capable of absorbing a mass migration without being destabilised.’ But the fact is that the Roman empire proved itself incapable of defending itself against mass migration and, even though many incomers were already Christians (if frequently followers of Arianism), it was destabilised and did collapse, first in the West and then in the East.

Veaute takes a positive view of ‘this beneficial migration’, dismissing as ‘reactionary history’ more negative descriptions of the outcome. For, ‘a new word, one that was to produce in Europe as many effects as the military conquests, if not more, finally prevailed: integration, the promise of a new world’.

Aillagon ends his notes in the exhibition guide: ‘Rome and the Barbarians together had given birth to Medieval Europe.’ Most barbarian peoples left little permanent mark and we know of their history only through the Greek and Latin annals and fragmentary remains, such as grave goods. It took centuries for Western Europe to recover from barbarian depredations. When the next great wave of invaders, the Mongols, erupted from Asia, Europe was so backward, and there was so little left to loot, that they turned their attentions to the Islamic world, where there were rich civilisations worth sacking.

The revival of European civilisation was spurred on primarily by the long and painstaking revival of knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages and cultures, and by the Christian Church, which had its origins and first flourished within the borders of the Roman empire.

Rome and the Barbarians continues at Palazzo Grassi in Venice until 20 July; then moves to the Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle in Bonn from 22 August till 7 December.

More articles from: Roderick Conway Morris | this section

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