Carlos Esteban’s Satire: Ostrogoths Pay the Annona

Carlos Esteban’s article in La Gaceta employs the fall of the Roman Empire to satirize alarmist immigration discourse, defending that the Ostrogoths arrived to pay the annona and work the land. The piece relies on deliberate anachronisms to criticize those who see an invasion where there is only necessary labor.

La Gaceta has published an article by **Carlos Esteban** titled “The Ostrogoths Come to Pay Us the Annona.” The text is a satire built on a deliberate anachronism: it shifts the current migration debate to the year **476**, traditionally marked as the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Instead of discussing borders and quotas, Esteban speaks of Heruli and Ostrogoths, of legions and wheat.

## The Year 476 and the Arrival of the Ostrogoths

The article sets the action in **476**, a year history textbooks identify as the end of the Western Roman Empire. In this context, the author presents the Ostrogoths not as invaders, but as “new Romans” fleeing war in the East. The figure cited in the text is clear: the Ostrogoths are not even one in ten inhabitants of the Empire. That is, a demographic minority.

The satire argues that these peoples come to pay the **annona**, the tax in kind that supplied wheat to Rome and its armies. Also to fight in the legions and till the fields. The author recalls that Roman citizenship was extended to all free men of the Empire with the edict of **Caracalla**, in the year **212**. Since then, being Roman depended on law, not blood.

## Fires, Occupations, and “False News”

The text responds to an imaginary interlocutor named Claudius, accusing him of being alarmist. Faced with fires, villa occupations, and alleged abusa of matrons, Esteban counters with two arguments. First, that they are “false news” or isolated cases. Second, that Rome was not a haven of peace before the Ostrogoths arrived. The rhetorical question posed is: wasn’t there violence before they came?

The article also attacks “pure-bred Romans.” It describes them as people who have no children, do not want to work, and live solely off free bread and circuses. It mentions that the **Colosseum** is full for every gladiatorial combat. And it asks whether the **Terentii**, **Fabii**, or **Lentuli** will work in the baths for a handful of sesterces. The diversity of the Empire, it concludes, has always been its strength.

## The Real Danger Lies in the East

The satire shifts the main threat toward the **Sasanians**, the Persian empire pressing the eastern frontier. The text asserts that Rome is on the verge of an invasion of the **limes** in **Mesopotamia**. And it argues that alarmist discourse about the Ostrogoths plays into the hands of that external enemy. Unity, it says, is more urgent than internal conflict.

Regarding integration, the author addresses several objections. That some do not speak Latin: neither do many peasants from **Gaul** speak it correctly. That they do not integrate and continue to be governed by their own law: legal diversity was also a wealth of the Empire. And he poses the key economic question: who will harvest the wheat when sharecroppers can no longer hold the sickle? Who will sustain the annona? Rome needs arms.

## A Conspiracy Theory and an Idealized Past

The text labels the idea of demographic “replacement” as a conspiracy theory. And attributes apocalyptic messages to **Ctesiphon**, the Sasanian capital. The author mocks those who have heard the same thing since they wore the toga praetexta. “Rome is not going to fall,” he writes. And if it falls, it will be due to irresponsible leaders who fail to see the real danger in defending the borders of **Armenia**.

The piece closes with a refutation of the idealized past. It denies the existence of a Rome of virtuous matrons and glorious warriors. And rejects that its narrative is a “black legend.” The irony here is subtle: the author uses the language of the Empire to speak of the present without naming it. The article provides no current figures or contemporary dates. It remains in **476** and the annona. Those looking for specific economic data on immigration will not find it here. Only a historical parable.