Rome after Odoacer

[Kosmo]

Theodoric has a good press because he was praised by panegyrists, but the end of his reign was plagued by executions like those of Boethius and pope Symmachus and worsening relations with catholics inside and the "Byzantines" outside.

This changes also promted a change of view with the romans speaking now of abuses, violence and forced conversions.

After all he confiscated many properties of romans, forbidden them to carry weapons and violently prevented any merger of the 2 people while persecuting catholics and taking their churches.

Only the weakness of the East and gothic military strenght at that point explain the lenght of his reign. A roman army could count on the support of the population at the end of his life. 25 years later was the end of the game for ostrogoths.

Longobards got most areas of Italy but the coasts and some inland areas were kept by romans in a great difference of what had happened before when entire regions fell.

The main roman region was the one that connected the capital of the exarhate, Ravenna, to Rome. This lands crossing Italy and dividing the lombard realm were kept until the 700's when they were conquered by longobards and retaken by franks that gave them to the pope freeing him from lombard and byzantine threat.

A map of Italy in 1859 still showed the areas where romans had resisted the lombards in Central Italy 1300 years before!

[Northern Neil]

A map of Italy in 1859 still showed the areas where romans had resisted the lombards in Central Italy 1300 years before!

I believe one of these areas is to this day called Romagna (Romania) meaning the bit of Italy that remained in the Roman Empire.

[Ludovicus]

It seems that schools teaching Latin and (maybe) Greek continued under the barbarians. By the time of Pope Gregory the Great (540-604), secular learning was in fast decline. Some scholars consider his age the first years of the post Roman era, and he the first pope of the Middle Ages.

Edited February 13, 2008 by Ludovicus