The Taboo Roots Of Imperial Collapse

[Classique et Germanique]

From Tenney Frank, Race Mixture in the Roman Empire.

 

According to him, the original Latin population suffered a massive and devastating displacement from the Servile Wars onwards. By the 2nd century, the overwhelming part of the Italian population was of Oriental or mixed-race stock, which has led to the embrace of foreign cults, chronic laziness, and lower ethic.

 

That is, the Romans did not change their mood and soul, it was the people who changed dramatically. This hypothesis is very tempting, albeit it brings us back to Arthur de Gobineau and other Romantic racialists, if not to stuff like the Bell Curve. I would like to get opinions from the numerous pundits dwelling this board.

 

(please apologize my poor English, I am French)

 

The work from Tenney Frank =>

 

[edit by PP] complete work removed for both size and concerns over fair use... here is the link

Race Mixture in the Roman Empire by Tenney Frank

Edited June 21, 2006 by Primus Pilus

[Pantagathus]

With the amount of people the Romans put to the sword while unifying Italy coupled with the amount of Roman colonies received in other non-Roman cities on the peninsula, I think the premise is generally rubbish.

 

Changes to the social environment changed for sure, but I wouldn't say it was caused by the Latin peoples inundation by foreign racial groups as the Empire grew.

[Favonius Cornelius]

I think what was flooding into Rome was new ideas, money and power, that made the change. You can't expect a civilization of any kind to have as drastic a change as the Roman's had and not be different. People flooded in too, but the above mentioned have a more potent effect on changing people's lives.

[Severus]

From Tenney Frank, Race Mixture in the Roman Empire.

 

According to him, the original Latin population suffered a massive and devastating displacement from the Servile Wars onwards. By the 2nd century, the overwhelming part of the Italian population was of Oriental or mixed-race stock, which has led to the embrace of foreign cults, chronic laziness, and lower ethic.

 

I'd need to see facts about the "overwhelming" number of oriental or mixed stock citizens in Italy, Firstly I would say that the temperment and mores of Roman Italy was changed by endless war, an influx of wealth and prosperity from those wars, and changing values of successive generations (which is present in all cultures). Embracing foreign cults was common in the ancient world. Chronic laziness become apparent even in the time of Augustus, there was difficulty raising legions in Italy during the disaster in Germany. People gave up working on their farms (partly due to the giant slave tended latifundia) to live shiftless lives in the city where they were provided free bread and games. Is there evidence to blame this shirking of duty on orientals or mixed race citizens?

 

 

That is, the Romans did not change their mood and soul, it was the people who changed dramatically.

I believe this is an incorrect assumption. Rome was still a vital and functioning empire in the 2nd century A.D., when did the orientals show up and start polluting the gene pool? Roman citizens (people of Italian stock) were tired of serving in the legions, they wanted to enjoy the benefits of society; peace, prosperity, law, etc.

This hypothesis is very tempting,

 

Tempting to who?

[Favonius Cornelius]

For some reason, I've noticed that people interested in history who come to post here have a heavy fascination and interest in ethnic/racial breeding stock and lineage. Kind of like looking for some uncovered 'dirty truth' about a culture or people.

[Primus Pilus]

I think there is some basis for Frank's conclusions regarding population shifts based on conquest and slave imports etc. However, I'm hot quite sure how it is relevant to the fall of the empire, considering that the massive influx began largely with the 2nd Punic War, and the western empire lasted another 7 centuries from that point (and of course another millenium in the east).

 

Was 'Italian' indifference (and other imported people) a factor in the eventual fall of the empire? Maybe. We've discussed the notion of indifference as a result of Caracalla's mass citizenship law as well as the implications of extending citizenship beyond Italic peoples, etc. Might non 'Roman' cultural shifts have also been a factor? Possibly. However, I will never be able to lay exclusive or majority blame on the notion of "laziness of foreigners" or reduced foreign "ethic" or lack of racial purity when Rome never would've established an empire as large as it did without the influx of foreign labor and auxilia military. Frank's hypothesis regarding dilution of Italian/Roman racial purity may have some semblence of accuracy, but then again I've never bothered to do any DNA tests myself.

[phil25]

The theory might apply LATE in the empire, but I don't see the seeda of the decline of Rome as being rooted in that.

 

Decline lay in the very acquisition of an empire; the lack of permanent systems and methods of government to deal with such an empire in a consistent way; the "running out of energy" which meant the empire went from expansion to defence (a different position morally too) about the time of the Julio-Claudians; the rise of new and aggressive enemies prepared for Rome etc.

 

I see imperial collapse as a relative term. Like we are dying from the moment of birth - if you want to see things in that negative way.

 

No, I don't really see ethnic changes as a cause - they don't explain bad decision-making; ineffective pre-occupied emperors or changes in aim.

 

Phil

[M. Porcius Cato]

The race theory doesn't explain why the west fell sooner than the east, nor why the fall in Britain occurred so quickly and when, nor why the fall in Africa occurred so quickly and when. In short, it doesn't explain any of the major facts of the fall of the empire.

 

To my mind, Peter Heather's theory remains the best one for explaining the fall of the empire. The empire was destroyed by the migration of Germanic peoples who were hostile to Rome and who encountered an empire that was so economically ravaged by nearly a century of civil wars and disastrous economic policies that it could not mount a sufficient defense. On top of all that, does it really matter whether 5, 15, or 50% of the population were descended from Latins (or Venus for that matter)?

[Classique et Germanique]

I am delighted to see so many people interested in the issue. But apparently nobody has downloaded the document, so I have edited my post in order to provide the whole text in extenso for an easier reading.

 

Most of your questions are adressed here and the discussion may keep going on now.

[Primus Pilus]

Most of your questions are adressed here and the discussion may keep going on now.

 

Actually it doesn't seem that any of us have questions. It appears that we are rather collectively dismissive of the notion.

[Classique et Germanique]

Actually it doesn't seem that any of us have questions. It appears that we are rather collectively dismissive of the notion.

 

Ok, I think I should do the same. The theory was just fascinating. It really choked me. Therefore I have felt the need to share it. One would have had to imagine the Italians of the Empire not as an European people as commonly thought, but as a mostly Oriental breed, perpetually on the dole, which was devouring the wealth of conquered territories in an everlasting feast , and guarded on the limes by Gallic, Balkan, and Teutonic legionnaires.

 

Then during the late Empire, this disparate people would have been elimitated from the peninsula in a massive die-off triggered by the collapse. Indeed, the population of Rome went gradually from roughly 1.000.000 to 30.000. Later, the Italians would have been replaced by different waves of invaders, because they do not look Semitic today.

 

So Ancient Romans as a kind of dwellers of Atlantis? But if it looks as a crank theory, most probably it is. Thanks for your opinions.

[Primus Pilus]

Actually it doesn't seem that any of us have questions. It appears that we are rather collectively dismissive of the notion.

 

Ok, I think I should do the same. The theory was just fascinating. It really choked me. Therefore I have felt the need to share it. One would have had to imagine the Italians of the Empire not as an European people as commonly thought, but as a mostly Oriental breed, perpetually on the dole, which was devouring the wealth of conquered territories in an everlasting feast , and guarded on the limes by Gallic, Balkan, and Teutonic legionnaires.

 

Then during the late Empire, this disparate people would have been elimitated from the peninsula in a massive die-off triggered by the collapse. Indeed, the population of Rome went gradually from roughly 1.000.000 to 30.000. Later, the Italians would have been replaced by different waves of invaders, because they do not look Semitic today.

 

So Ancient Romans as a kind of dwellers of Atlantis? But if it looks as a crank theory, most probably it is. Thanks for your opinions.

 

Well I don't think the idea of a massively diverse population is out of the question. What you describe... various people of differing communities filling different roles isn't necessarily a disagreeable concept. I think what we are resistant to is the notion that non Italian racial makeup contributed vastly and directly to the fall of the empire.

[Northern Neil]

I was under the impression that Italy was split between 5 different peoples as early as the 8th century BC- Greeks, Italics, Etruscans, Celto - Ligurians and Illyrians. Not much racial or linguistic uniformity here in the first place, I wouldn't have thought.

[Rameses the Great]

Well, first we have to define who are the Romans and where did they come from. Greece is out of the question because of the cultural and racial indifferences. They suggest that the Romans were Celts who had made a civilization based on Latin and Greek means.

 

Who were the Romans ethnically? Maybe because they were Celts the Greeks saw them as 'barbarians.' We don't know but I don't think Germans, Celts, Illyrians, and North Africans did much to stop the greatness of Rome. It fell from leadesrship and massive armies that wanted to share in Roman life.

Edited June 20, 2006 by Rameses the Great

[Primus Pilus]

Well, first we have to define who are the Romans and where did they come from. Greece is out of the question because of the cultural and racial indifferences. They suggest that the Romans were Celts who had made a civilization based on Latin and Greek means.

 

Actually Rameses, the thread has nothing to do with Roman ethnicity, but rather the ethnicity of the rest of Italy and the 'empire'.

 

At any rate... I think Neil's very valid point about the tribal and ethnic diversity in Italy from the beginning of Rome's rise makes the concept of ethnic mixing as a cause for the fall of the empire fairly irrelevant.