Tribute and the Transformation of the Later Roman World (c.284-602 CE)

Although historians of Late Antiquity have frequently discussed tributary arrangements, the topic has lacked systematic analysis. Traditional views of tribute as a dead-weight on Rome's finances and a morbid sign of its decline and fall have been largely superseded. However, existing research (Gordon 1948; Blockley 1983; Lee 2007) has tended to interpret the Later Empire as a period when the Romans 'lost control' of a centuries-long policy of 'subsidising' peace as a 'cheaper option' than war. This understanding fed into the renewed debates about the fifth-century crisis of the western empire, such as Heather (2005) arguing tribute stimulated the growth of new barbarian elites who led campaigns into the Empire, or Halsall (2007) arguing Roman attempts to slacken tribute 'sucked in' barbarian groups which had grown dependent on it.

My primary research question is whether tribute during the Later Empire can be understood as the Romans 'losing control' of their policy. My hypothesis is to the contrary: reconceptualising tribute as an economic exchange between two parties will lead to a complex understanding of the imperatives behind the relationship. I will revive the approach suggested by Philip Grierson (1958), who included tribute as a category of non-commercial economic exchange. Following Grierson, Early Medieval historians developed a rich literature about non-commercial exchange (Davies/Fouracre 2015), drawing on anthropological theorists like Marcel Mauss (1950). However, this has not been widely taken up by historians of Late Antiquity. Instead the language of tribute, which contemporary sources called 'gifts', has remained insufficiently theorised, modern historians insisting on describing it with a commercial metaphor of 'price' and 'payments'.