I Figured It Out; The Fall Of The Roman Empire

[Silentium]

I think a big part of it also had to do with the very high number of non roman soldiers in the later empire. when a big chunk of your army is spanish and german and sarmatians who are fighting to protect something that is not theirs, they will probably lose faith.

Exactly, the sad thing is there were no Italians/Romans in the legions in that period, they were all foreigners..mostly mercenaries. The good old “bloodthirsty” Roman/Italian legions were only a memory of the past.

Edited June 21, 2006 by Silentium

[PerfectimusPrime]

Most of the legionaries of the time were still drafted from the urban-poor, foreign mercenaries wern't as numerous as claimed. The loss of general morale and discipline in the army was caused by the lack of payments, worthless currency, loss of trust to the Imperial government and many many more.

 

Rome by now also drafted or raised legionaries from the provinces, this allowed them to raise greater amounts of men who were sometimes more Roman then the Italians themselfs. The deromanization of the army was a bi-product (sp?) of the economical problems and civil wars rather than the cause of the fall of Rome, and it was really felt during the dying days.

[Lex]

Actually I think the reason the Romans starting bribing barbarians to not attack them was because their army was no longer capable of protecting the borders. Look at Justinian's policy along the Danube river or against the Persians as an example.

 

As for the reasons that barbarians were being hired into the army to such a great degree, I think much of it has to do with the manpower shortage that came with what was most likely a declining population base. Many segments of the population were effectively barred from military service. For example, many landlords would pay an additional surtax to exempt their coloni from conscription. Also, the native troops that were raised had to be armed, fed and paid by a corrupt system that did not provide adequate resources.

 

I meant that when the Romans started getting into the habit of bribing the barbarians not to attack them, this led to a downward spiral since it made the Empire look weaker and gave the barbarians even more confidence and resources. This made Roman prospects of protecting the borders far weaker and simply strengthened their enemies instead. Bribing them was only making things worse.

 

The Romans were not solving their problems by bribing the barbarians, it was just an expensive delaying tactic and was bad for the economy since every year the barbarians would just demand more and more and leech of the Empire while at the same time more non-Romanised barbarians were being used on a large scale in the legions. From a strategic point of view this is a massive mistake, since the Romans ended up teaching the barbarians their tactics and equipping them with better armour and weapons and most importantly they were starting to slowly form the majority of the army, or at least the element with the most power.

 

I would also like to clarify that when I say

[Lo-Lo]

The Late Roman empire after Diocletian was already a quasi-totalitarian state. Constantine and others might have used Christianity as an excuse to persecute people for political reasons.

 

But Roman emperors had never needed an excuse to persecute people for political reasons before, so why latch on to a tiny sect for that reason?

 

For what it's worth, I reckon the fall of the empire was due to a lot of factors, a lot of it the dilution of Roman structures and identity - the settlement of lots of 'barbarians' to create what turned out to be ineffective buffers, poor management of the frontiers and the resources esp. the army and I agree with what people have already said about Rome not meaning as much, the main blow to this in my book being the 212 Constitutio Antoniniana - how can you bribe people with citizenship when everyone has it, it has become worthless.

[PerfectimusPrime]

But Roman emperors had never needed an excuse to persecute people for political reasons before, so why latch on to a tiny sect for that reason?

 

Well, excuse might have been the wrong word. I mean, with it they could rule more effiencently.

[Lo-Lo]

Do you think Christianity provided that much political control?

 

(I don't know - i'm interested what you think)

[Legio XX Valeria Victrix]

I think a big part of it also had to do with the very high number of non roman soldiers in the later empire. when a big chunk of your army is spanish and german and sarmatians who are fighting to protect something that is not theirs, they will probably lose faith. i think all the guys with the big guns that knew how to use them kinda got fed up with it and decided to basically quit.

I'd be careful about saying that. Trajan, Septimus Severus, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius were all "provincials". Some of them did grow up in Italian colonies but there is no guarantee they were of pure Italian stock. The great Stilicho was a Vandal.

[Tobias]

That's true. I believe the great Aetius himself, famed for his victory over Attila the Hun, had a Germanic father and an Italian mother...

But it is true that some peoples lost the faith they had in the Roman Empire and felt less loyalty or sense of purpose; that was fairly widespread in the last years.

[Legio XX Valeria Victrix]

Also I would like to add that we are exaggerating the effects of Christianity on the Romans' fighting spirit. Wasn't the Byzantine Empire Christian? We have to admit that it fielded a very effective fighting force for centuries after the collapse of the West. Were the Crusaders not Christian? Look at their reputation as fighters. If anything Christianity took the edge off the disgusting cruelty that the Romans were wont to exhibit throughout their history. Too bad it didn't do the same for the Crusaders.

[Felix Marcellus]

Wow, lot's of great posts on this thread. I'd like to take this opportunity to balance out all your long intellectual explanations for Rome's fall with my short and simple explanation. Rome was too big.

[Hamilcar Barca]

If anything Christianity took the edge off the disgusting cruelty that the Romans were wont to exhibit throughout their history.

 

The Byzantines weren't model christians either. Yes they fought and often won fantastic victories in the name of God but that didn't mean they were compassionate and merciful. Its a long standing paradox that Christinaity did absolutely nothing to stop horrific violence. Disgusting cruelty pops up frequently in Byzantine history. The Hippodrome massacre of 533, The Arabic mass executions by Basil I in 878(?) The Bulgar blinding incident of Basil II, or how about the execution of Andronicus I Comnenus in 1185 (Hung in a pillory for a week while they bet him with bludgeons, smashed out all his teeth with a hammer and axed off his right hand. The mob then paraded him through the streets of Constaninople tied to a camel and led him to the Hippodrome for more torture. He then had poured boiling water over his face and his right eye was plucked out before been flayed alive. Death only came to him after he was disemboweled.), the list goes on and on. All these actions were done in the name of God.

 

Its also worth noting that according to the Byzantines, all attempts to ursurp the throne were legitamate by God... as long as you succeeded. The morality of what you did to attain power was a redundant factor. Likewise a fall from grace was seen as nothing more than God shifting his favor from one person to the next.

 

Medieval Christiniaty was mostly a farce.

[Northern Neil]

Medieval Christiniaty was mostly a farce.

 

Absolutely. Although individual christians were and are compassionate, I believe that even by the third century it was by no means a foregone conclusion that someone who was a christian was by definition compassionate. By Constantine's time, of course, they were able to be 'bought' by the emperor in order to manufacture a new state religion which then became the mediaeval church, and far from making it fall, it actually perpetuated the Roman state long past its sell - by date - the cost being the death of the classical world.

[Ursus]

This has honestly been an interesting discussion. I have delighted in the merits of it.

 

However, it's starting to grow beyond it's original bounds as a discussion of the de-Romanization of legions. Discussion of the merits or lack thereof of Christianity in Roman culture could best be done on the Temple forum.

[Legio XX Valeria Victrix]

Actually, don't misunderstand me. I don't want to imply that the Byzantines were model Christians. I am just saying that a lot of institutionalized brutal practices of the Roman Empire (gladiator games, massacre of inhabitants in captured towns, e.t.c) disappeared, or almost disappeared, with the rise of Christianity. I'm not Christian myself but I am trying to look at things objectively. The examples you quoted, Hamilcar, are very valid but then, which Kingdom or Empire did not have a residue of cruelty?

[Querelle]

I think the post so far make too much of military shortcomings like Adrianople, decline of the legion etc. The question remains WHY these were allowed to happen in the first place.

The fall-of-rome-subject is obviously huge, but I would still like to list the few basic reasons I come to think of that Rome would eventually collapse.

 

1. Demographic pressure - stagnating or declining population within the borders while heavy increase outside. (very similar to modern day western culture, even though the parallell should probably never be mentioned in this forum)

 

2. Lack of institutions, and espacially for appointing power, maintaining power and passing power on.

Ever since the moral and factual collapse of the republic the romans lacked mens to legitimize ruling. The divinity of their augustuses evidently never hindered civil wars, and political murdery.

Compare later monarch rulers, with god-given hereditary rights backed by the church, or later citizenship-nationalist-representative legitimity of parliaments, presidents etc.

 

The Christian church could probably have played a part as nation-builder, sanctioner of power and so on, and DID in the longer lasting byzantine part.

 

This, however, brings the next point:

 

3. Totalitarianism

probably similar to the centralism mentioned in earlier posts.

The institutions which DID appear post-republic, were, besides insufficient, oppressive and dictatorial and would hinder progress - be that economic, cultural or military. This factor did much to destroy the east.

 

 

nuff said.