ABSTRACT
Modern discussions about Romans and barbarians focus mainly on northern and western barbarians such as Alamanni, Franks, Goths, and Huns; these are considered the barbarians par excellence, who differ in almost every respect from Greco-Roman civilization. In his fifteenth Oration Libanius described the barbarians as raging and ravening wild beasts who slew their kinsmen at table and drank toasts over their dead bodies. In Late Antiquity friendly and less friendly interactions between Romans and Sasanian Persians took place on a regular basis. Whereas the Roman image of Parthian society has received considerable attention, the same cannot be said of the perception the Romans had of Sasanian society. The Roman image of Persian culture was to a large extent characterized as the negative embodiment of Greco-Roman values and it helped therefore to confirm Greco-Roman identity and superiority. Procopius' occasional remarks about Persians repeated in general what others had written before him.
