This book provides a new interpretation of the fall of the Roman Empire and the barbarian kingdom known conventionally as Ostrogothic Italy. Relying primarily on Italian textual and material evidence, and in particular the works of Cassiodorus and Ennodius, Jonathan J. Arnold argues that contemporary Italo-Romans viewed the Ostrogothic kingdom as the Western Roman Empire and its barbarian king, Theoderic (r. 489/93 526), as its emperor. Investigating conceptions of Romanness, Arnold explains how the Roman past, both immediate and distant, allowed Theoderic and his Goths to find acceptance in...