Research Paper Topic:Fall of Rome-New Look

[longshotgene]

Hello everyone,

 

I thought I would pose this new question to you. I am getting ready to write a research paper for my classical studies major. The topic is on the Fall of Rome. However, I propose that the fall actually began with the introduction of foreign emperors: namely Trajan and Hadrian. By looking at the research I will show that Trajan expanded the empire into a position it could not hold. Hadrian came along and realized this, and gave most of what Trajan conquered back to the original owners. To mount this, he created a frontier border system, which was the first true sign that the empire had realized its limitations. By doing this, Hadrian began a defensive position in the Empire, and no longer was it an offensive position. I realize the same could be said during the reign of Augustus, but Augustus never set up a gigantic defensive perimeter. Besides, most of Rome's would be enemies were terrified of Rome. Hadrian actually set up man-made defenses, which clearly stated the fear Rome felt. Yes, future emperors did attempt to expand, but all it did was stretch the already thin troop supply even thinner. Tell me what you think.

[Gaius Octavius]

Trajan: http://www.unrv.com/five-good-emperors/trajan.php

 

Hadrian: http://www.unrv.com/five-good-emperors/hadrian.php

 

Might change your mind about those two being 'foreign'. Those articles are well researched and most reliable.

[Primus Pilus]

Hello everyone,

 

I thought I would pose this new question to you. I am getting ready to write a research paper for my classical studies major. The topic is on the Fall of Rome. However, I propose that the fall actually began with the introduction of foreign emperors: namely Trajan and Hadrian. By looking at the research I will show that Trajan expanded the empire into a position it could not hold. Hadrian came along and realized this, and gave most of what Trajan conquered back to the original owners. To mount this, he created a frontier border system, which was the first true sign that the empire had realized its limitations. By doing this, Hadrian began a defensive position in the Empire, and no longer was it an offensive position. I realize the same could be said during the reign of Augustus, but Augustus never set up a gigantic defensive perimeter. Besides, most of Rome's would be enemies were terrified of Rome. Hadrian actually set up man-made defenses, which clearly stated the fear Rome felt. Yes, future emperors did attempt to expand, but all it did was stretch the already thin troop supply even thinner. Tell me what you think.

 

I think it's an excellent idea. You are thinking outside the proverbial box so to speak. The theory of Roman expansion as a cause for the fall isn't necessarily new but identifying it specifically during the time of Trajan (the obvious apex of territorial expansion) should prove promising.

 

As for your foreign emperor theory... this you would be a far more difficult challenge. Trajan and Hadrian (even Septimius Severus later) may have been provincial by geographic origin, but they were still Roman. Pursuing this course would probably require a more detailed treatise on the Roman exclusionary practices regarding Plebs in the struggle of the orders, Italians (the social or marsic war), Gauls until Claudius, etc. Why would the introduction of an emperor of provincial origin be so much more damaging than other political evolutions resulting in the acceptance of a particular group or what have you. Is your thought process to prove that Trajan wished to prove himself via military conquest because he was an outsider? Military conquest had long been a glorification practice dating from the Republic and even for certain emperors (Caligula in Germania, Claudius in Britain, Nero in Armenia, Domitian in Dacia/Germania). None of these save Claudius were quite to the comparative level of Trajan's expansive campaigns, but proving that this was the result of a provincial emperor rather than a general emperor would be difficult. Perhaps tying in Claudius as almost a Julio-Claudian outsider to Trajan as a provincial outsider could be interesting. I'd look forward to reading this, but would expect this part to be far more difficult than the first.

 

PS. excellent choice of avatar.

[Kosmo]

It will be hard to call those two foreigners. They were the succesors of roman colonists in Spain.

Hadrian did not give back the provinces of the East conquered by Trajan, the war was still raging and this places were really not annexed. I doubt that he had other option with a big jewish revolt behind him, an intact parthian army in front and with the failure at Hatra. He only abandoned some areas in Dacia (belonging to Moesia Inferior) north of the Lower Danube and maybe some areas in the plains of Tisa river. He kept Dacia and Nabatea and this is what Trajan really conquered.

His defensive work, namely the Hadrian Wall, was in a remote area with little significance for the empire and there was a thread around here about an older frontier system further north prior to Hadrian. Sombody living in the times of Hadrian would have not thought that this was the end of the roman expansion. One needs hindsight for that.

And after all the roman empire existed many centuries after that.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Hello everyone,

 

I thought I would pose this new question to you. I am getting ready to write a research paper for my classical studies major. The topic is on the Fall of Rome. However, I propose that the fall actually began with the introduction of foreign emperors: namely Trajan and Hadrian. By looking at the research I will show that Trajan expanded the empire into a position it could not hold. Hadrian came along and realized this, and gave most of what Trajan conquered back to the original owners. To mount this, he created a frontier border system, which was the first true sign that the empire had realized its limitations. By doing this, Hadrian began a defensive position in the Empire, and no longer was it an offensive position. I realize the same could be said during the reign of Augustus, but Augustus never set up a gigantic defensive perimeter. Besides, most of Rome's would be enemies were terrified of Rome. Hadrian actually set up man-made defenses, which clearly stated the fear Rome felt. Yes, future emperors did attempt to expand, but all it did was stretch the already thin troop supply even thinner. Tell me what you think.

Salve, LS.

 

As in any other work about the "fall" of Rome, your first problem is your operative definition; what was it and when did it happen.

 

It is not clear to me what exactly made those Emperors "foreign" to Rome.

 

From your brief explanation, I don't get the causal relationship between the foreign condition of both Emperors and the defensive problems of the Empire.

[P.Clodius]

Did it 'fall' at all, did it just evolve/devolve?

[Gaius Octavius]

Thanks be unto Viggen:

 

http://hnn.us/articles/40538.html

[Maladict]

Kudos for being original, but what you're trying to do won't be easy.

It probably comes down to your definition of "Fall".

For me, a period of consolidation following expansion, without significant set-backs, does not constitute a fall.

 

 

However, I propose that the fall actually began with the introduction of foreign emperors: namely Trajan and Hadrian.

 

I hope you mean they just happen to be foreign, not that there's some kind of connection.

I don't think you want to go there.

 

By looking at the research I will show that Trajan expanded the empire into a position it could not hold.

 

Not easy, especially because it was given back so soon as you mention. It's hard to know if it could have been held if they had tried. The case of Dacia suggests they could, for a century and a half at least.

 

Hadrian came along and realized this, and gave most of what Trajan conquered back to the original owners. To mount this, he created a frontier border system, which was the first true sign that the empire had realized its limitations. By doing this, Hadrian began a defensive position in the Empire, and no longer was it an offensive position. I realize the same could be said during the reign of Augustus, but Augustus never set up a gigantic defensive perimeter. Besides, most of Rome's would be enemies were terrified of Rome. Hadrian actually set up man-made defenses, which clearly stated the fear Rome felt.

 

I'm not sure what you mean with that last sentence. There were no man-made defenses in the Augustan or Flavian periods? And fortifying a frontier does not necessarily imply fear.

Edited October 4, 2007 by Maladict

[M. Porcius Cato]

How would your theory account for the fact that the west declined long before the east?