Why the Roman Empire fell and the East survived

[History_Buff]

More like wanna-be time traveling whatever.

Are methods I'm talking about as outrageous? When investigators wonder why a plane fell down they play all sorts of scenarios in their head. They can't know what would happen in reality if they decide - let's think for a while what would happen if this throttle control wen't off. But they can be pretty sure what would not happen (wing wouldn't fell off for instance).

Can't such imaginary scenarios be used in this discussion too?

They can, but yours is such a huge unknown that it's tough to answer in a meaningful way. When your investigators do it, they ask things like "what if this one part hadn't failed?", or whatever. Not "what if this airplane had been designed by a different company with a different corporate culture?"

Your question is really "if you took thousands of people out of the Roman empire, what would it look like 100 or 200 years later?" You can hypothesize, but there's never going to be a clear answer. Whereas if you asked "what if this one battle had gone the other way?", then there might be room to answer.

 

[Louis XXIV]

To be fair, it is useful in knowing whether the Germanic tribes were a necessary component in the fall of Rome. That's phrased in an entirely different way, but I think it's what he was getting at.

 

[Kosez]

To be fair, it is useful in knowing whether the Germanic tribes were a necessary component in the fall of Rome. That's phrased in an entirely different way, but I think it's what he was getting at.

Yes, that's what I was aiming for. It's a pretty straightforward question. Would WRE fall even if there were no (Germanic or other) people pushing through their boundaries. If one answers yes, then one has to admit prof. Halsall is on the right track.

I'm just saying this because even if I do accept everything Dachs has written about how Barbarian ˝invasion˝ was more a product of politically motivated historians (I know from experience of my own country historical science can get corrupted by politics) than a real threat to WRE, I still would like to see arguments that don't just try to minimalize ˝barbarian˝ threat but work without barbarians in the first place.

In posts #51 and #60 Dachs is of an opinion barbarians weren't particularly interested in settling WRE. Yet in post #66 he admits Vandals primarily consisted of people with ˝antecedents on the other side of the Rhine from the Empire˝.

Dachs very convincingly argues that Barbarians had less to do with WRE's fall than Romans themselves. I wonder though, if increasing number of ˝trans-rhein˝ and ˝trans-danubian˝ people inside WRE made a major contribution to empire's unstability. In that sense, barbarians slowly invaded for hundreds of years (with Roman consent) and somehow changed the fabric of the empire so much it collapsed.

It had to be something like that, considering the fact that by 5th century Galia was a Germanic speaking land (yes, vulgar latin remained important).

 

[History_Buff]

Dachs very convincingly argues that Barbarians had less to do with WRE's fall than Romans themselves. I wonder though, if increasing number of ˝trans-rhein˝ and ˝trans-danubian˝ people inside WRE made a major contribution to empire's unstability. In that sense, barbarians slowly invaded for hundreds of years (with Roman consent) and somehow changed the fabric of the empire so much it collapsed.

Well I suspect the answer to this question at least would be a resounding no. Barbarian immigrants wouldn't have been said to destabilize an otherwise Roman state because the barbarian settlers themselves were becoming as Romanized as the pre-conquest Celts and Illyrians had been.

It had to be something like that, considering the fact that by 5th century Galia was a Germanic speaking land (yes, vulgar latin remained important).

Citation needed? What I think we've covered, between here and the "Problem with Barbarians" thread, is that the germanic inhabitants of the Empire could at least speak Latin, if it wasn't in fact their first language.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Another question: Why did the Eastern Roman Empire of 5-6th centuries largely managed to escape the civil wars and the usurpations of the West? The Eastern Emperors, at least Arcadius and the long-reigning Theodosius II seemed to be personally as weak and dominated by palatine factions as their Western colleagues Honorius and Valentinian III. Yet the ERE didn't seem to have a provincial elite, resentful at the imperial abandonment, a la Gaul and partially North Africa in the West. I guess you could portray the Isaurian affairs of Leo I and Zeno in such a way, but they are not really the same thing. Why did the ERE "wait" 'till 7th century to start its own destructive civil wars?

I still would like to see arguments that don't just try to minimalize ˝barbarian˝ threat but work without barbarians in the first place.

I guess the response would be that there's no Empire without barbarians, like there're no barbarians without the Empire. But yeah, let's have something preventing the trumpeted 406 invasion (I am under impression that it, no matter its scale, was an invasion of elements alien to Rome). Let's keep Alaric, since the guy alternated between "barba-a-arian" and "Holder of Roman titles, of Gothic descent, leading Gothic troops for Rome" as circumstances fitted/demanded, something the leaders of the infamous Rhine-crossing warbands didn't, when they ravaged Gaul.

Anyway, Stilicho was too preoccupied with his fighting the ERE over Illiricum. Why did he do such a thing, it seemed to prevent effective dealing with the 406 invaders and Constantine "III". Personal greed?

Also, how effective was Constantine "III" in dealing with the barbarians who invaded Gaul? They seemed to coexist, not managing to defeat each other.

In that sense, barbarians slowly invaded for hundreds of years (with Roman consent) and somehow changed the fabric of the empire so much it collapsed.

Yeah, this wasn't so.

It had to be something like that, considering the fact that by 5th century Galia was a Germanic speaking land (yes, vulgar latin remained important).

Really? It's the first time I hear that late antique/early Medieval Gaul was a largely Germanic speaking land at all, never mind by 400!