You're sitting in a crowded city square. Everyone is dressed up. The senators are wearing their best embroidered togas. The emperor is sitting on his throne at the city gates, holding a scroll, ready to hand over the keys. Everyone is looking toward the horizon, waiting for a threat that’s supposed to change everything. But then, night falls. The messengers come back from the border and say there are no barbarians. They’ve all gone home. Or maybe they never existed.
Suddenly, the crowd disperses. People look lost. They look disappointed.
C.P. Cavafy wrote the waiting for the barbarians poem in 1898, but honestly, it feels like it was written yesterday. It’s one of those rare pieces of literature that stops being "just a poem" and becomes a lens through which we view every manufactured crisis or political standoff. It’s about the psychological need for an enemy. Without an enemy, who are we?
The Anatomy of the Waiting for the Barbarians Poem
Constantine Cavafy wasn't your typical poet. He lived in Alexandria, Egypt, working as a civil servant in the Irrigation Service for thirty years. He wasn't part of the Parisian elite or the London literary circles. He was an outsider looking at the decay of empires.
The poem is structured as a series of questions and answers. It’s basically a script. One person asks why the Senate isn't making laws, and the other person answers that the barbarians are coming today—so why bother making laws? The barbarians will make them when they arrive.
This is where Cavafy gets brilliant. He shows us a society that has completely given up on its own agency. They aren't trying to fix their economy. They aren't trying to improve their infrastructure. They’ve outsourced their entire future to a "threat" that hasn't even arrived yet. It’s a sort of cultural paralysis. The poem captures that weird, stagnant energy you feel when a country is just... waiting for the end.
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Why Do We Want the Barbarians to Show Up?
It sounds counterintuitive. Why would a civilization want to be conquered?
But if you look at the waiting for the barbarians poem closely, you see that the barbarians are a "kind of solution." That’s the famous last line. "And now, what’s to become of us without barbarians? Those people were a kind of solution."
Think about that.
If the barbarians show up, you don't have to explain why the schools are failing. You don't have to fix the roads. You don't have to deal with the messy, boring reality of governing. The barbarians simplify everything. They turn complex internal problems into a single, external existential threat. It’s the ultimate scapegoat.
In the poem, the leaders are wearing "bracelets with so many amethysts" and "rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds." They are showing off for the invaders. There is a bizarre sense of vanity in their submission. They want to look good for their own destruction. It’s deeply cynical, and honestly, it’s a bit funny in a dark way. Cavafy is mocking the theatricality of politics.
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J.M. Coetzee and the Long Shadow of Cavafy
You can't talk about the waiting for the barbarians poem without mentioning the South African novelist J.M. Coetzee. He titled his 1980 novel after the poem, and it won him massive acclaim.
Coetzee’s book takes the poem’s premise and turns it into a visceral, painful reality. It’s set in a small colonial outpost where the "Empire" is obsessed with an impending barbarian invasion. The protagonist, a magistrate, realizes that the real "barbarians" are actually the imperial officers who use the excuse of a threat to justify torture and cruelty.
It’s the same theme. The threat of the "other" is used to control the "self."
This is a pattern we see in history constantly. During the Cold War, every policy was a response to the "red menace." In the early 2000s, it was the "War on Terror." We define our eras by who we are afraid of. Cavafy saw this coming over a century ago. He understood that the "barbarian" is a construction.
The Problem of No Barbarians
What happens when the threat vanishes?
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In the poem, the transition at the end is jarring. The "people have come in from the borders" and they say "there are no barbarians any more."
The reaction isn't relief. It’s confusion.
When a society builds its entire identity around an enemy, the absence of that enemy creates a vacuum. It’s a crisis of meaning. If we aren't "the people who are defending against X," then who are we? Just a bunch of people in fancy clothes with no laws and a stagnant Senate. The poem suggests that the "barbarians" were the only thing keeping the social fabric from unraveling. Once they're gone, the internal rot is impossible to ignore.
How to Read Cavafy Today
If you’re coming to the waiting for the barbarians poem for the first time, don't read it as a historical document about Rome. It’s not. It’s about right now.
- Look for the "solutions" in your own life. Are you waiting for a "big event" to change your life so you don't have to make the hard choices today?
- Identify the manufactured enemies. Notice how often political rhetoric relies on an impending disaster that never quite arrives, but justifies everything in the meantime.
- Embrace the silence. The end of the poem is silent. The "solution" is gone. That silence is where real work begins.
Cavafy’s work is often categorized as "Historical" or "Erotic," but this poem sits in its own category of "Political Psychology." It’s a warning against the comfort of fear. Fear is easy. Fear is a distraction. Managing a boring, peaceful, barbarian-free reality? That’s the hard part.
Actionable Insights for Interpreting Literature
To truly grasp the depth of Cavafy’s work, try these steps:
- Read the poem aloud. Cavafy wrote in a very specific, almost dry, rhythmic Greek. Even in translation, the back-and-forth "dialogue" structure needs to be heard to feel the tension.
- Contrast it with the news. Take a major headline about a "looming threat" and see if the poem’s logic applies. Are people using this threat to avoid solving a different, more domestic problem?
- Explore the translator. Cavafy’s tone varies wildly depending on who translates him. Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard are the gold standard, but don’t sleep on Rae Dalven’s version either. Each one brings out a different level of sarcasm or tragedy.
- Journal on the "Solution." Ask yourself: What "barbarian" am I waiting for to solve my own problems? It might be a new job, a new president, or a "perfect time" that never comes.
The waiting for the barbarians poem isn't just a classic because it’s old. It’s a classic because it’s a mirror. When you look into it, you don’t see a Roman senator. You see yourself, standing in the square, looking at the horizon, hoping for a distraction so you don't have to face the person standing next to you.