For this Brown Bag lecture, Dr. Samuel Cohen discusses how the city of Rome declined in importance after the third century, its continued economic, cultural, and religious significance meant that migration into the city remained common throughout the late ancient period. This talk continues Dr. Cohen’s research into migration and the language of marginalization in Late Antiquity by considering the rhetorical work done by ‘foreigners’ and the idea of foreignness in the writings of Roman political and religious authorities. Foreignness often served a schismogenic purpose – that is, it rhetorically defined and thereby created an in-group by contrasting this in-group with an out-group. Interestingly, the in-group consisted of the ‘barbarian’ Ostrogoths, Italians, and people living in the provinces, regardless of their religion or ethnicity.