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Date of Award
2024
Document Type
Restricted Thesis: Campus only access
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
History
First Advisor
Dr. Walter Stevenson
Abstract
In sixth century Iberia, near a century after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, King Leovigild of the Gothic Kingdom was able to unite and reconquer his Kingdom’s territory by using Romanitas, symbols of Roman power and legitimacy, through a strategy of Aemulatio Imperii. The dominance and prestige that the Roman Empire had enjoyed over the previous centuries now was used by this Gothic king to underpin his rule with the legitimacy he sorely needed in the unstable political climate of his day. This ideological and iconographical campaign took shape through the king’s self-fashioning as a Roman monarch, numismatic campaign, military dominance, as well as legal and ecclesiastic reform, but most significantly through the creation of a new city that borrowed heavily from Roman building practice and city features. By taking advantage of the legitimacy of the Roman Empire, Leovigild was able to unify the Gothic kingdom and save it from dissolution.
Recommended Citation
Tune, William, "The Shadow of Empire: Gothic Aemulatio Imperii in Sixth Century Spain" (2024). Honors Theses. 1766.
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/1766