ABSTRACT
The theme of Roman and barbarian interaction, with its hint of a binary relation, is of course a convenient shorthand, a Pandoran lid that opens to reveal a multiplicity of hybrid cultures. For historians and archaeologists influenced by anthropological and post-colonial theories, Roman and barbarian identities are not essentialist or homogenous. Roman and barbarian interaction is characterized rather by hybridization, mimicry, ambivalence, and fractured identities. 1
