Moreover, Visigoths were Germanic tribesfolk whose culture and economy did not revolve around the Mediterranean Sea as that of the Roman Empire, which generally considered its 2nd or 3rd most important city to be Alexandria in Egypt (depending on contemporaneous opinion about Byzantium/Constantinople). Given the nature of Roman culture, a randomly chosen Visigoth would probably be more representative of Europeans at the time in demographic terms than a randomly chosen Roman representative. And, if we did randomly select a resident of the Roman Empire for our comparison, there’s a high chance that we wouldn’t even get a European in terms of geographical source.
So maybe the quote should be changed to “Who cares right now? We’re attacking Romans!”
I know. I was attempting to find a group who would be ransacking up the parts of Christian Europe that kept the Julian calendar around the 6th century when they changed from the date Roman was founded to the current system. The Vikings were too late, and the Huns too early. The Goths seemed about right.
Between the 4th and 7th centuries, Christian Europe was continuously overrun with barbarians who attacked cities and massacred civilians. It wasn’t until the 800s when the European monarchs were finally strong enough to do that task on their own.
The AUC had faded into disuse by Dionysius Exiguus’ lifetime. The most common dating system in use then in Europe would be the Anno Diocletian calendar, which dated years from the year when Diocletian reunified the Roman Empire and established the Dominate regime (284 AD in our current system).