The Late Roman West and the Vandals

The impact of Roman civilisation on the Empires clients in the West forms the subject of the first parts of this volume. Even the most successful Germanic kingdoms of the 5th-6th centuries, the author argues, such as that of the Vandals in North Africa, could not escape the grasp of the Roman Empire: their politics and culture remained conditioned by imperial models and by the continuing reality of imperial power throughout late antiquity. The subsequent articles deal with the Historia Augusta, but approaching that difficult text from the periphery, by first attempting to establish its broad literary and topical context before considering questions of its nature and date. Limpact de la civilisation romaine sur les clients de lempire en Occident forme le sujet des premires parties de ce recueil. Selon lauteur, mme les royaumes germaniques, bnficiant du plus grand des succs aux 5e et 6e sicles, tel celui des Vandales en Afrique du Nord, ne pouvaient chapper lemprise de lempire romain: leurs politiques et leurs cultures restaient sous linfluence des modles impriaux et de la ralit constante du pouvoir imprial tout au long de lAntiquit tardive. Les tudes suivantes traitent de lHistoria Augusta, approchant cependant ce texte ardu depuis sa priphrie, tentant tout dabord dtablir son contexte littraire et thmatique, ce, avant den considrer la nature et la date.