ABSTRACT
These are the two research questions Woolf poses in his book Tales of the Barbarians, a study of how the Roman empire made sense of the barbarians on its western frontiers. They are clear research questions, and Woolf (2011: 2-3) is careful to explain that he is only answering those questions not others. He makes it clear that: ‘This is no attempt to give voices to those I shall continue to call barbarians.’ Woolf does not ‘want to tell the story from their point of view’, because:
People without history are usually those who have been deprived of it by force. Pretending to restore it is a condescension that trivialises the original theft.
