Emigrants, Exiles, and Survivors: Aristocratic Options in Visigothic Aquitania

Abstract

Two OPTIONS THAT THE INHABITANTS of the western part of the Roman Empire had as the barbarians arrived to stay circa A. D. 400 and afterward were to remain or to leave. The Spanish priest Orosius strongly recommended the latter possibility with the biblical injunction cum vos persecuti fuerint in una civitate, fugite in aliam (Contr. pag. 7.41, ca A. D. 415). He had already followed his own advice and moved to North Africa (ibid.5.2). In the face of what must have been viewed as impending ruin, many other well-to-do individuals-for the poor, of course it would have been Hobson's choice-also chose to depart, especially from previously peaceful areas unaccustomed to a barbarian presence. Aristocratic flight is attested in the early fifth century, for example, from Spain, Italy, Africa, Britain, and Illyricum. In Gaul, too, it generally has been accepted that there was a withdrawal of sorts by the aristocracy from the Rhine frontier after the transfer of the Gallic prefect from Trier to Arles circa 395 and the barbarian invasion of 406.2