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

虽然古代晚期的历史学家经常讨论朝贡安排，但这个话题缺乏系统的分析。传统观点认为，进贡是罗马财政的沉重负担，是罗马衰落和衰落的病态标志，这种观点在很大程度上已被取代。然而，现有的研究（Gordon 1948; Blockley 1983; Lee 2007）倾向于将后帝国解释为罗马人“失去控制”的一个时期，这个时期长达几个世纪的“补贴”和平政策是比战争“更便宜的选择”。这种理解为关于五世纪西方帝国危机的新辩论提供了支持，例如Heather（2005）认为进贡刺激了新的野蛮人精英的增长，他们领导了对帝国的战役，或者Halsall（2007）认为罗马人试图放松进贡，“吸引”了已经依赖它的野蛮人群体。我的主要研究问题是，后帝国时期的进贡是否可以理解为罗马人对他们的政策“失去控制”。我的假设正好相反：将贡品重新定义为双方之间的经济交换，将导致对这种关系背后的必要性的复杂理解。我将恢复菲利普·格里尔森（Philip Grierson, 1958）提出的方法，他将贡品纳入非商业经济交换的范畴。继Grierson之后，早期中世纪历史学家借鉴了马塞尔·莫斯（Marcel Mauss, 1950）等人类学理论家的观点，发展了大量关于非商业交换的文献（Davies/Fouracre, 2015）。然而，这并没有被古代晚期的历史学家广泛接受。相反，贡品的语言，当代文献称之为“礼物”，仍然没有足够的理论化，现代历史学家坚持用“价格”和“支付”的商业隐喻来描述它。

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views of tribute as a dead-weight on Rome's finances and a morbid sign of its decline and fall have been largely superseded.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'.