Peter Heather

And...

Burgundians who have also fled Huns there in sort of Geneva and the Rhone Valley, they break out, start making an independent empire.

This is what happens.

Groups duck out of participation in an imperial project.

They realize that the center does not have enough money and enough military force to force them into.

a political relationship, and they start creating their own structures.

And Roman landowners, we have a lovely letter collection from a man living in central southern France at the time.

They're caught between a rock and a hard place.

Their lands are where they are.

Their land is the total source of their wealth and elite status.

You can't move it.

You know, it's not movable wealth, not stocks and shares.

It's where it is.

You're faced with a quandary.

What is the best path to secure your future?

Do you try and stay part of a Roman Empire for as long as you think there's going to be one?

Do you start cozying up to the nearest barbarian king, Goth or Burgundian?

And you can see what's very nice about this letter collection, I think,

It's a man called Sidonius Apollinaris, and you see his friends, and they make different choices.

It's one of those moments where you don't know what's going to happen, and people are guessing.