| Summary: | <p>This thesis develops the strand of scholarship on ethnic identity of the Vienna school, by examining relations between Roman and ‘barbarian’ elites within the Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries, studying the impact and role of identities in shaping the political and social realities of the times, while at the same time critically analysing the literary image of these groups and individuals created by Roman authors. The study also explores concepts such as those of ‘boundary’, and ‘intersectionality’.</p> <p>A survey of the above-mentioned phenomena is the subject of the first part of the thesis: ‘Roman commanders – barbarian warlords’. The second focus of the thesis is on political and diplomatic forms in the emerging sub-Roman kingdoms, which are the subject of the second part: ‘Emperors, kings and <em>amici</em>’. The final part, ‘Bishops and women: At the intersection of ethnic, religious and gender identities’, returns to the subject of the impact of identity within the elites, but concentrates on its role for the clergy and women, considering its influence on the Church, and the intersection of gender roles and identities. </p> <p>Processes of ethnicization were fuelled in different ways: on the one hand, by Roman imperial ideology and the old elites, as a way of controlling groups and individuals by ‘othering’ them; on the other hand, by some leaders of ‘barbarian’ groups (both those politically aligned with the Empire and those who had a more difficult relationship with it), who were interested in limiting the ‘normalisation’ of their own groups or in reifying their differing identity. As imperial power waned and left a vacuum, new opportunities opened up to barbarians. The new patterns allowed the barbarian and Roman elites to become one, and eventually transform into the aristocracy of the early Middle Ages.</p>
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