The truth about the fall of the Roman empire

[Karalysia]

You think wrong.

 

[Joecoolyo]

You think wrong.

Well that's not very helpful now, is it?

 

[Dachs]

Figuratively or literally? I figure you can be literally referring to the death of Flavius Constantinius, or figuratively referring to the rubbing of pleural layers which causes immense pain every time one breathes.

Literally! Constantius III's early death from illness when on the verge of destroying the Rhine invaders generates what in my opinion is one of the greatest what-ifs in Roman history. Unfortunately, it's an "injury what-if", with all of the baggage that that implies.

Sure there were individual episodes, but does that really count overall as conquest? When I think conquest, I think more of the Spanish expeditions into the Americas, where their goal was to actually conquer land; rather than a bunch of English settlers, who either came for economic or religious reasons, sometimes having to duke it out with the natives already living there.

I am not well grounded in the overall early history of American settlement to be able to give a clear "it was generally like this" answer. But it seems to me that most of the time, talking about how the settlement of the American east coast didn't involve "conquest" is usually part of an attempt to give moral legitimacy to it that the Spanish or whomever didn't have. I don't really care about the moral legitimacy issue myself, but ignoring salient instances of warfare and conquest in order to make a generalized historical point rubs me the wrong way.

 

[Xanikk999]

The fall of the roman empire was a gradual process brought on by many different factors. By the time of the late western roman empire in 476 A.D it could hardly be recognized as roman from the classical era. There simply is no single cause for it.

I subscribe the theory that the roman empire never really fell. It just changed over time. Although arguably you could argue that the true fall was in 476 A.D when the last emperor was deposed and replaced with someone who did not assume the same title. The state as a whole did not radically change during that time and neither did the population.

 

[GamezRule]

Well, If you want to get technical, the Roman Empire didn't fall until the 1400's.

 

[lovett]

There was essentially no religious crisis that affected the western empire's existence in the late WRE. Arianism was arguably a rallying point if it mattered at all (it didn't tend to).

I was just speaking to a historian with an interesting take on the 'Christianity caused the decline and fall' hypothesis.

Essentially, they argued that the rise of the church actually usurped the secular social structures of the empire. The church acted as a source of authority distinct from that of empire. It managed to remain vibrant, wealthy and expanding whilst the empire experienced economic (inflation, unsteady sources of taxation etc) and martial difficulties.

One important result of this was that the church provided an alternative route of advancement for men of ambition and talent. Such people sought to become priests, bishops and cardinals rather then generals, governors and administrators. The result left Rome with a shockingly small pool of high calibre leadership, and uniquely vulnerable to governmental upheaval. Essentially, it consigned the empire to maladministration.

Do you find this plausible?

 

[Incodcito]

Any nation will fall eventually.

I fixed your post.

 

[Karalysia]

Do you find this plausible?

I haven't studied the empire after Constantine but I would venture a guess that since the notions of separation church and state were not really present at the time, the church simply took on all the duties of protection, law and order and so forth so it wasn't really a loss to the empire.

 

[Mansa Musa]

Shouldn't this be in the history section?

 

[Joecoolyo]

I am not well grounded in the overall early history of American settlement to be able to give a clear "it was generally like this" answer. But it seems to me that most of the time, talking about how the settlement of the American east coast didn't involve "conquest" is usually part of an attempt to give moral legitimacy to it that the Spanish or whomever didn't have. I don't really care about the moral legitimacy issue myself, but ignoring salient instances of warfare and conquest in order to make a generalized historical point rubs me the wrong way.

Well, I'm not arguing this give legitimacy to America, or England, or whatever. I'm just doing it because, although bloody at times, using conquest to describe it isn't really accurate. A conquest is an organized military effort to subdue a region and its people, while most of the original settlers on the Eastern Seaboard didn't even plan on staying there. It doesn't really fit

 

[Tee Kay]

I'm just doing it because, although bloody at times, using conquest to describe it isn't really accurate.

It is for most cases. Rare would you find an example where European colonists peacefully take over an area with no fighting or resistance whatsoever.

A conquest is an organized military effort to subdue a region and its people

Not necessarily organized, or even with the initial aim of occupation (the British campaign in Egypt, for instance).

while most of the original settlers on the Eastern Seaboard didn't even plan on staying there. It doesn't really fit

Which group are you talking about? In any case, see above comment.

 

[Ajidica]

The church acted as a source of authority distinct from that of empire.

Based on my understanding of Byzantium, not really. The Emperor was considered equal to the Apostles and was intended to rule in conjunction with the Patriarch of Constantinople. That didn't always happen, but given the frequency that the church and the state (which weren't seen as 'separate' involved themselves in each others afairs it seems strange to call the church a source of authority distinct from the Empire.

 

[Karalysia]

Yes I've heard the Byzantine Empire called a Caesaropapism before.

 

[Joecoolyo]

It is for most cases. Rare would you find an example where European colonists peacefully take over an area with no fighting or resistance whatsoever.

But bloody does not imply conquest, it merely implies that it was bloody.

Not necessarily organized, or even with the initial aim of occupation (the British campaign in Egypt, for instance).

Then what is conquest?

Which group are you talking about? In any case, see above comment.

I'm talking about the original guys, like Jamestown. Most people who lived in Jamestown were 20-somethings expecting to get rich quick, and then move back to England. Although none got rich quick, most ended up moving back to England. It wasn't until the Puritans landed in the wrong spot that people actually decided to settle down on the east coast.

 

[Incodcito]

I haven't studied the empire after Constantine but I would venture a guess that since the notions of separation church and state were not really present at the time, the church simply took on all the duties of protection, law and order and so forth so it wasn't really a loss to the empire.

I don't know that much about Roman and Byzantine history, but my understanding is that the Western Church was a more separate authority from the government then it was in the Eastern Church...

Dachs, tell me why I am horribly wrong!

 

[sp1023]

You're not Inco; in Roman times the church and government were related, most definitely, but nowhere near to the degree that it was in the Byzantine Empire. The Patriarch of the church was second to the Byzantine Emperor in terms of control of the church (correct me if I'm wrong), and many argue that he should have been equal to the Pope, especially since Byzantium was referred to as New Rome. That would've made the Emperor even more powerful than the Pope.

 

[Tee Kay]

Then what is conquest?

What you said at the begining: "the act of military subjugation of an enemy by force of arms." It was conquest, but it was a conquest completed over hundreds of years, with many episodes of cooperation and coexistance in between the wars.

We're derailing this thread, I think.

 

[FriendlyFire]

They found that periods of warm, wet summers coincided with prosperity, while political turmoil occurred during times of climate instability.

What a quaint term for brutal civil wars the Romans kept having.

 

[Dachs]

I was just speaking to a historian with an interesting take on the 'Christianity caused the decline and fall' hypothesis.

Essentially, they argued that the rise of the church actually usurped the secular social structures of the empire. The church acted as a source of authority distinct from that of empire. It managed to remain vibrant, wealthy and expanding whilst the empire experienced economic (inflation, unsteady sources of taxation etc) and martial difficulties.

One important result of this was that the church provided an alternative route of advancement for men of ambition and talent. Such people sought to become priests, bishops and cardinals rather then generals, governors and administrators. The result left Rome with a shockingly small pool of high calibre leadership, and uniquely vulnerable to governmental upheaval. Essentially, it consigned the empire to maladministration.

Do you find this plausible?

Not really. For one thing, I have a hard time believing that the number of aristocratic persons who abandoned their wealth and avenue to government service to enter a life of celibacy and irrelevance in a monastery or in the Syrian desert was sufficiently high to limit the size of the Roman bureaucracy. The number of attested cases of this does not make up a significant cross-section of a ("the", I guess, since there's only one) late-Roman prosopography. Simply put, there's not enough hard evidence to support such a thesis.

At the same time Christianity was expanding and creating new bureaucratic structures and recruiting skilled managers for same, the Roman bureaucracy was also expanding. The period between Constantinus I and, say, Valentinianus I (picked because of the famous Romanus Episode/"Leptisgate") saw the creation of a several thousand-man civilian bureaucracy that had not existed earlier in imperial history. If sources of effective managers were drying up due to tonsuring, one would not expect the secular bureaucracy to expand contemporarily.

And finally, the whole thing suffers from the issue of actually proving that it mattered. Not only would one have to indicate that at the very least, large numbers of aristocrats who were at least competent managers were entering the Church hierarchy instead of the secular bureaucracy, but also that the loss of these people caused an appreciable decline in tax efficiency and/or quality of governance, whatever the latter is supposed to be. I don't see a particularly high likelihood of unearthing something that would do that satisfactorily.

It's not really a new thesis. You can find a version of it in Gibbon, IIRC. One of the major uses Peter Heather's 2005 book has - other than as a paperweight - is a decent lecture-hall discussion of the issue of Christianity and bureaucracy. Shame that Heather couldn't put a positive explanation into his book other than a rehash of the same tired old thesis he's been employing (with small variation) since 1990 or so.

I don't know that much about Roman and Byzantine history, but my understanding is that the Western Church was a more separate authority from the government then it was in the Eastern Church...

Dachs, tell me why I am horribly wrong!

You're not. The thing is, the Western Empire died before one can really say that caesaropapism really developed in the East. That's more of a sixth-century thing; comparing that with the fourth-century or fifth-century West would be silly.

 

[Dachs]

Hey, look, an update!

One of my favorite historians ever posted a response to this very article on his blag about a week ago, and I only noticed just now because I don't check anything that regularly except CFC and ESPN. Teaches at the University of York, one of the leading lights of northern Gallic archaeology during the Merovingian period, and is the author of a few books on Late Antiquity, including one in development on the period around the year 600. He's also the subject of a fangirl group on facebook!

He discusses the whole thing in more systemic, common-sense terms relating to the very conception behind the research, for what it's worth.

Particularly interesting quote:

So, again, this science is bolted on to explain a historical 'problem' whose outlines have been entirely changed as the result of serious historical enquiry. Sometimes they have changed so far as to make it no longer a problem at all, or at least no longer a problem that can be explained in those terms. How to explain this by analogy? This is the best I can do. It is 'a bit like' a situation where 'scientists' claim that the kind of wheat grown in later ninth-century England would produce a flour that, if used in cakes, could suddenly and unpredictably burn. 'Scientists show Alfred unfairly blamed for burning cakes!' then gets plastered across every news site in the land. But we now know that the story of Alfred burning the cakes at all is a twelfth-century invention...