Sarus the Goth: from imperial commander to warlord

Abstract

The genesis of the first western kingdoms in early medieval Europe has often been framed as the consequence of barbarian invasions bringing down the Roman empire in its western provinces. This article considers a considerably more corrosive factor in the breakdown of western imperial structures, i.e. the warlordism of its own military personnel, via a case study of the Gothic aristocrat Sarus’ micro‐politics of mobility. This article will show that Sarus is one of the earliest attested cases of men willing to opt out of imperial service and use violence to reintegrate themselves later. Re‐examining the rapidly shifting political circumstances, it will demonstrate that Sarus was increasingly forced to move and take independent violent action, together with his men, in order to survive. This has major implications for a newly developing early medieval European phenomenon: the transformation of regular imperial commanders into irregular warlords.