The kingdoms that replaced Roman administration in the western provinces were not anti-Roman. This is the most important correction to the standard narrative of Rome’s fall, and it matters because the standard narrative — civilized Rome overwhelmed by barbarous outsiders — is both factually wrong and interpretively misleading. The Visigothic kingdom in Spain, the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy, the Burgundian kingdom in the Rhône valley, the Frankish kingdom in Gaul — these were not negations of Rome. They were, in varying degrees, continuations of Rome under different management, sustained by Roman administrative forms, legitimated by Roman imperial titles, and often governed by rulers who had spent significant portions of their careers in Roman service and who regarded Roman civilization as the culture they had inherited rather than the culture they had defeated.