Climate Change and the Fall of the Roman Empire

[Iskander 3.1]

From NPR:
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/22/133143758/could-climate-change-have-led-to-the-fall-of-rome

I found this to be very interesting and I hope that other armchair scholars of Roman history think so too. Any thoughts/ideas are welcome but PLEASE don't turn this into an argument about global warming (:dancinglock:).

[-42-]

Doubtful, Rome had quite a few nails in her coffin aside from any percieved climatalogical issues. And tree ring data has been shown to be unreliable at best.

[Vaginacles]

If it is the case, poor agricultural productivity merely exacerbated the already declining tax base due to an overtaxed military industrial state. I don't think its even a major cause of the fall of rome, though more important than the claim of civic "decadence".

[Blxz]

Even so, the medieval warm period and the little ice age showed a similar rise and fall (i use the term loosely here) of civilizations and the like. Climate plays a big role in many things. Such a broad topic. Having said that I didn't read your link so I could be way off. I did write a paper about this late last year though and there is some evidence to suggest that broad scale climate change affects nations worldwide with warming being beneficial and cooling having negative effects.

Lets all go fire up our SUV's and reap the benefits of a warmer earth =)

[abou]

It's something that I'll listen to later. My degree in undergrad was evolutionary biology -- which of course includes a bit of ecology -- so I'm curious as to what is said. Hopefully they aren't confusing bad weather with climate: the latter being an aggregate of weather.

[Kuningaz]

Well, I've read about a theroy that claimed the germanic migration was mostly caused by a harsher climate in northern europe and less by pressure from the steppe peoples. So you could say that climate change accelerated Rome's fall quite a bit... However I think that corruption, 'decadence' and especially the reliance on foreign (germanic) soldiers and generals were the main cause of the end of the Western Empire.

[antisocialmunky]

Well, I've read about a theroy that claimed the germanic migration was mostly caused by a harsher climate in northern europe and less by pressure from the steppe peoples. So you could say that climate change accelerated Rome's fall quite a bit... However I think that corruption, 'decadence' and especially the reliance on foreign (germanic) soldiers and generals were the main cause of the end of the Western Empire.

This was the first thing I thought about because climate would have had more influence on the borders of various agricultural growing areas than the middle of them. I don't think Carthage and Egypt would have been too greatly effected by that sort of thing.

[vollorix]

I might be horribly mistaking, but was not the climate change responsible for the downfall of the first(?) egyptian dynasty ( the one before the invasion of Hyxos(sp?) ? Of course, those were more ancient times, but weren´t those tough guys responsible for the Pyramid building? ;)

[abou]

Doubtful, Rome had quite a few nails in her coffin aside from any percieved climatalogical issues. And tree ring data has been shown to be unreliable at best.

Actually, tree rings are pretty good. The only place tree rings are worthless is in environments where there is not a winter to cease growth -- e.g. the tropics. Furthermore, as any good experiment, the researchers pooled data from other sources such as peat bogs to corroborate findings.

What I am taking away from this is that issues with climate change or El Nino/La Nina events could have been the hair on the camel's back. If you live in the west, food isn't so much of a problem. The agriculture industry is pretty good at taking care of things. Still, even in the UK when the snows hit in December, you can get food shortages. Go back 2,000 years, add in everything that was going on that we are familiar with it looks bad. But even then consider such things as decreased tax revenues from poor harvests for the Romans. Even further, consider being a Germanic tribe when you yourself have a poor harvest. The relatively prosperous regions of the south under the control of Rome look very tempting.

In the end, does climate change -- or maybe the better term for that specific era would be variability -- have a role to play? I'd say very possibly so; especially considering the confounding factors that we are more familiar with.

[Ibrahim]

Doubtful, Rome had quite a few nails in her coffin aside from any percieved climatalogical issues. And tree ring data has been shown to be unreliable at best.

trees tend to add rings of growth every year (the borders are, as abou said, due to winter); these rings tend to vary in thickness, according to precitpitation and soil fertility. the thicker the ring, the better the condition. bear in mind, the technique is most accurate when a tree ring sample is used to look at conditions that the tree lived in (i.e., the place/region where it lived); you can't se a ring in Arizona to construct models for data in Germany.

and as abou said: it is pretty good. for example, it was used in Virginia to confirm the existence of a drought in the first few years of Jamestown colony (which exacerbated problems between the Natives and Jamestown); the same being the case for the Anasazi tribes (apparently, there was a long drought, or series of droughts, starting in IIRC 1250). it is also why we have strativarius violins: the cooler, drier conditions in the norther hemisphere generally meant thinner rings; oddly, this means a (supposedly) better violin (have no clue why-I'm a paleontology/geoscience student).

and since abou is right, and scientists were smart enough to pool data together accurately, a chronology of tree ring data has been assembled for various localities in the northern hemisphere, going back IIRC to ~10,000 Bp. the Southern Hemisphere unfortunately is not as well catalogued (for example, almost all the data for the "little ice age", comes fromt he Northern Hemisphere. It doesn't mean it didn't really exist, just that we only have data for the Northern Hemisphere.)

[QuintusSertorius]

This was the first thing I thought about because climate would have had more influence on the borders of various agricultural growing areas than the middle of them. I don't think Carthage and Egypt would have been too greatly effected by that sort of thing.

On the contrary, desertification hit north Africa pretty hard, destroying what was once fertile land. Probably a combination of over-farming and changes in climate.

Worth noting that over the span of time we're talking, changes in climate on a regional level wouldn't be unusual. Rivers can appear, disappear or change course in a couple of millenia, for example.

[antisocialmunky]

I was referring specifically to the time period he's referring to.

[Blxz]

I was referring specifically to the time period he's referring to.

Yes, but the changes could have started a century before that, only to be felt once some invisible critical threshold has been crossed. You can't just look at the time period on isolation; need to consider both before and after for some length of time.

[antisocialmunky]

Then you are aware that the Sahara used to be a rain forest and have been drying up since pretty much forever. Maybe a asteroid landing in it helped it out but as far as long trends go, its been going on for a pretty long chunk of human history. That being said, the expansion of the Sahara waxes and wanes from time to time and maybe climate change has something to do with it. As for agricultural production in those areas at that particular time, I'm not aware that there were food production issues.

Well not including political things like the conquest of Carthage.

[Vaginacles]

Well, I've read about a theroy that claimed the germanic migration was mostly caused by a harsher climate in northern europe and less by pressure from the steppe peoples. So you could say that climate change accelerated Rome's fall quite a bit... However I think that corruption, 'decadence' and especially the reliance on foreign (germanic) soldiers and generals were the main cause of the end of the Western Empire.

explain your decadence theory

[fireblade]

Hi, I'm not an expert on this matter, but wouldn't the roman empire in it's prime have been able to smash any migration coming its way to bits?

The fall of the empire was a combination of factors, which include the increase in barbarians, but a lot of others as well (especially turning their back on the old gods, oh wait)

[Basileus_ton_Basileon]

turning their back on the old gods

You may have a point there actually. Polytheism and Monotheism cultures tend to brew up entirely different sets of thought. These may range from general perception to natural phenomons and superstitions to how open/closed-minded of the general masses.

[Kuningaz]

explain your decadence theory
Well, decadence may not be exactly the right word for this, but what I meant was the increasing unwillingness of Romans to serve in their own armies and the general reluctance to wage war (they'd rather pay their enemies off). Plus the emperors' court(s) was/were ripe with intrigues that damaged Rome's ability to resist their multiple enemies.
And yes, it took A LOT to take the Roman Empire down, especially the East's resiliance was astonishing.

[Vaginacles]

Well, decadence may not be exactly the right word for this, but what I meant was the increasing unwillingness of Romans to serve in their own armies and the general reluctance to wage war (they'd rather pay their enemies off). Plus the emperors' court(s) was/were ripe with intrigues that damaged Rome's ability to resist their multiple enemies.
And yes, it took A LOT to take the Roman Empire down, especially the East's resiliance was astonishing.

i don't know if this was necessarly true, considering that the roman military in the 4th century was more or less equal to the 2nd century imperial army. Plus, with the new inherited system of profession reforms by Diocletian, all sons of soldiers were compelled to be soldiers as their main profession. It still doesn't address why the east survive but the west fell, since the eastern roman empire had just as many, if not more, barbarian auxillia compared to the western empire.

[Blxz]

Then you are aware that the Sahara used to be a rain forest and have been drying up since pretty much forever. Maybe a asteroid landing in it helped it out but as far as long trends go, its been going on for a pretty long chunk of human history. That being said, the expansion of the Sahara waxes and wanes from time to time and maybe climate change has something to do with it. As for agricultural production in those areas at that particular time, I'm not aware that there were food production issues.

Well not including political things like the conquest of Carthage.

Fully aware. Also I'd have to agree with you, food production is not the issue when it comes to the fall of the empire, at least not in that area. But climate itself has much to do with many different things. General unrest in the populace perhaps; neighbouring regions maybe? I don't go for this whole 'climate change' thingy. Natural, cyclic variation, yes. I think a combination of factors co-incided and together caused a nation, in what could have been a slightly weak moment, to topple. The fact that half of it survived shows...something. I forgot what i was writing during that sentence, damn people at the door. And its far too late for me to really care anymore. But I'm not here to argue. There are many people, possibly many of them in this thread, who know much more than me and may even be willing to debate it.

Its unfortunate I think, especially for the poor people who had to live through it. But its been and gone, lets just hope it doesn't happen again.

[Skullheadhq]

How funny, I had the dutch translation of this article in my geography test a few days ago.

[Vaginacles]

Fully aware. Also I'd have to agree with you, food production is not the issue when it comes to the fall of the empire, at least not in that area. But climate itself has much to do with many different things. General unrest in the populace perhaps; neighbouring regions maybe? I don't go for this whole 'climate change' thingy. Natural, cyclic variation, yes. I think a combination of factors co-incided and together caused a nation, in what could have been a slightly weak moment, to topple. The fact that half of it survived shows...something. I forgot what i was writing during that sentence, damn people at the door. And its far too late for me to really care anymore. But I'm not here to argue. There are many people, possibly many of them in this thread, who know much more than me and may even be willing to debate it.

Its unfortunate I think, especially for the poor people who had to live through it. But its been and gone, lets just hope it doesn't happen again.

How much would a cooling of climate affect agricultural productivity in the levant, nile, and anatolia regions compared to gaul, spain, britain, and north africa? I think the western empire was hit harder by climate change compared to the eastern empire that relied on flood plains and already warm climate regions.

[Rahl]

A cooling of climate can effect even hotter regions in negative ways, less rain, floods, whatever... the climate is a very complex thing and the dumb theories and discussions of the last years show that our understanding of it isn't very great. If you don't get exact information on how the weather changed in certain regions it all becomes just speculation.

[antisocialmunky]

Fully aware. Also I'd have to agree with you, food production is not the issue when it comes to the fall of the empire, at least not in that area. But climate itself has much to do with many different things. General unrest in the populace perhaps; neighbouring regions maybe? I don't go for this whole 'climate change' thingy. Natural, cyclic variation, yes. I think a combination of factors co-incided and together caused a nation, in what could have been a slightly weak moment, to topple. The fact that half of it survived shows...something. I forgot what i was writing during that sentence, damn people at the door. And its far too late for me to really care anymore. But I'm not here to argue. There are many people, possibly many of them in this thread, who know much more than me and may even be willing to debate it.

Its unfortunate I think, especially for the poor people who had to live through it. But its been and gone, lets just hope it doesn't happen again.

Which is what I said about the Northern Europeans. They were the most heavily impacted during the Little Ice Age which would give some hints as to how a somewhat similar temperature fluctuation would have affected Europe.

Also, Volcanoes are such climate trolls.

[Karel de Stoute]

I don't think climate was a big factor when you look at the fall of the roman empire. Germans did not come to live in Gallia because it was becomming to cold in Germania but because they were invited to serve as foederati and protect the borders.
That was necesarry because the empire was just getting to big and roman virtus became forgotten(i blame the christians) so not enough citizens could be motivated to serve in the armie. But those barbarian armies were still alowed to serve under their own kings. And since the time of Marius, the best way to get political power is with a couple of legions by your side. That means military and political power was now in the hands of rivaling barbarians who were busier fighting eachother than actually defending the border. En plus, in the tirth century of the christian calander, the western part of the empire was struck by an economic crisis. No more wars of conquest, population went down because of plague, precious metals and money became scarce so trade fell back. Thats why people relied more on local rulers both for protection and income(farmland). Situation in the east was different because thats where all the big cities and the money were so economic crisis wasnt as bad and foreign invaders could be bribed. This is just a very rough scetch. But i think that climate change at the same time was just coincidence: West fell because of reasons i just discribed but eastern empire lived on for another 1000 years. excuse my english, i'm a dutch speaker

[Ludens]

Hello Karel de Stoute, welcome to the .Org and to EB. ~:wave:

However, please refrain from taking cheap shots at Christianity. If you can make a convincing argument that it was the Christians who brought down the empire, then by all means do, but just posting "blame the Christians" is close to trolling. Lack of enthusiasm for warfare was a problem long before Christianity ever became the official religion.

[Karel de Stoute]

Hello Karel de Stoute, welcome to the .Org and to EB. ~:wave:

However, please refrain from taking cheap shots at Christianity. If you can make a convincing argument that it was the Christians who brought down the empire, then by all means do, but just posting "blame the Christians" is close to trolling. Lack of enthusiasm for warfare was a problem long before Christianity ever became the official religion.

Well, i'm not saying they brought the empire down on their own but i think the first christians were a bigger factor in the decline of the western roman empire than the climate. It is a fact that christians began forming a state within the state. That way they also threatend the unity of the empire. The first christians were very much concerned about the afterlife so that they began to neglect this life. This is both a reason for the decline of the empire as a result of it. They for example did not want to participate in sacrifices to the old gods. Because of that emperors blamed them that the gods had forsaken the empire and before christianity became the state religon they were prosecuted for it.

[antisocialmunky]

It is true that the Christians were concerned with the abstract 'Kingdom of Heaven' but they divorced themselves from politics in general until much later on... like around the time of the Arian Heresy. Also the Christians were persecuted for not worshiping the images of the Emperor, not the 'old gods' as the Romans were pretty chill with letting people worship their own stuff as long as you gave your dues to the Empire. This was problematic with the Jews before as well.

And the fact that the heart of Christianity was always in Asia until the Great Schism doesn't help your theory very much.

[Karel de Stoute]

I was refering to the prosecution of the christians by decius. All people in the empire were ordered to sarifice to the gods for the safety of the empire. If they did, they got a paper that said they were good subjects and followers of the old ways. A lot of christians refused to do this. And the rise of christianty was just one of many internal problems the roman emperors had to face. They eventualy overcame this problem by making it the statereligion. But when christanity became the statereligion, the roman empire was already divided in eastern and western half. In a way it is ironic that the first christians were one of the reasons for the fall of the roman empire, but the biggest remains of the empire to this day are the organisatory structures of the catholic church who are based on civil government as it was in the roman empire(bishops in province capital etc.).

[Vaginacles]

I don't think the Late Roman military was a voluntary organization, it was a hereditary profession. Thus i don't see how youcan say enthusiasm for war was a factor in the fall of Rome, unless there is evidence of significant desertion within the roman army.

[durnaug]

I always liked the idea that the Roman elite slowly poisoned themselves because of all the lead they used in their water systems and liquid containers.

[antisocialmunky]

I was refering to the prosecution of the christians by decius. All people in the empire were ordered to sarifice to the gods for the safety of the empire. If they did, they got a paper that said they were good subjects and followers of the old ways. A lot of christians refused to do this. And the rise of christianty was just one of many internal problems the roman emperors had to face. They eventualy overcame this problem by making it the statereligion. But when christanity became the statereligion, the roman empire was already divided in eastern and western half. In a way it is ironic that the first christians were one of the reasons for the fall of the roman empire, but the biggest remains of the empire to this day are the organisatory structures of the catholic church who are based on civil government as it was in the roman empire(bishops in province capital etc.).

It wasn't necessarily to the 'old gods' but to the Emperor and the safety of the Empire. The term 'old gods' which people keep using is ambiguous anyway in this context unless its something like Optimus Maximus as patron and symbol of Roman supremacy which would have fed back to the Emperor. Various parts of the empire had their own historic Pantheons based on a set of archetypes common throughout the Mediterranean, Europe, and Near East.

Back to the topic at hand: Really, I'm not sure what your argument is other than Christians existed as a distinct group during the Empire and therefore Christians contributed in some not insignificant way to the Roman Empire. So I am confused.

[Ibrahim]

I don't think the Late Roman military was a voluntary organization, it was a hereditary profession. Thus i don't see how youcan say enthusiasm for war was a factor in the fall of Rome, unless there is evidence of significant desertion within the roman army.

there was plenty of that actually: IRC there were several laws drafted regarding punishments for shirkers and those who tried to mutilate themselves to escape military service (basically a form of Draft-dodging).

@ new guy: I see no real evidence of Christianity actually destroying the Empire, in any way: if anything, the Eastern Empire benefited from the new way at which the empreror was looked at: since he is (in eastern christian eyes) is the most powerful man short of God and Jesus in Christianity, then he is only accountable to the above two. that in turn means that:

a-he is God's representative on Earth (an idea that was co-opted by the papacy)
b-he clearly has the divine right of rule, as if he didn't, he wouldn't be so powerful
c-if the empreror's christian, and satisfies a & b, then he is also the secular defender of the faith.

the idea thus of a divine power ascribed to the empreror was not changed with Christianity: it took on a new form. this was expressed in a way, when Byzantine emprerors got into the habit of interfering and trying to rectify arguments within Christianity.

the west, the part that did collapse, didn't do that. the religious influence there wasn't, as far as I can tell, as strongly invested in the person of the empreror, but rather in the person of the Pope (who while politically involved, was still a bit player (yeah, hard to believe)). in fact, the last major rebellion prior to the division of the Empire, was led by a Pagan, from the west, and against a Christian Empreror (Theodosius).

of course, these weren't the only differences: the west was more ravaged by war (mostly rebellions), hampered by a lack of a cohesive command, lack of funds for an army, and massive infighting in the upper echelons of government (e.g. what happened to Stilicho). While the east also had infighting in the upper echelons, there were to its fortune several strong characters, and the provinces, while also ravaged, was still more than productive enough to supply an army.


in fact, if one notices, the army is the key wo what happened in the west and east. every other "cause" led to that one logical conclusion: whether or not the military was going to collapse. that in and of itself was what did this.

[Karel de Stoute]

Roman state religion and the deification of the emperor were a form of ideology with the purpose of uniting the empire through a common pantheon and establishing the autority of the emperor as a God/King/pharaoh(they got the idea in the east) with a statue in every town and his head on every coin. Decius for example ordered the whole empire to make sacrifice to the gods of which he is one for this reason. Because most people were polytheistic in that time, they didn't have a problem to erect another shrine for the emperor or to make an extra sacrifice. But then you have your jews and christians. They refuse to acknowledge the existance of any other god then their own. This was a serious threat to the ideology wich kept the whole empire together. Apart from that, the first christians were also as i said before very fixated on the afterlife. Why serve the emperor in this life if the only thing that mattered were God and the next life? These problems were fixed by Theodosius by adopting christianty as the new statereligion and portraying himself as the most important servant of Christ. In the west, this idea was adopted at the same time by the other emperors(edict of thessalonica). However, in the West other factors indeed made the collapse inevitable. But the barbarian kings who established their kingdoms on the remains of the empire and the pope who also became a major political factor adopted the idea of a christian emperor. Thats the irony i was talking about: first on of the reasons for decay, later the biggest heritage of the roman empire.

+I think a lot of (pagan) emperors would say i'm right when i say that christianty was a threat to the unity of the roman empire(that's why they were prosecuted). Again, not saying christianity is THE reason for the downfall, just one of many factors

[antisocialmunky]

Well you seem to be pointing at it more than any cause and your argument still seems to be that a group of distinct people neither supporting or opposing the ruling power contributed to its down fall by simply existing as a distinct group of people. I mean, the only thing that they really did was go around teaching about their beliefs, converting people who believed, and being the weird group that didn't participate in social activities like the theater and blood sports.

And that was only in periods before the religion turned into a political institution reinvented to give power and legitimacy to the state. So in that much I do agree. I agree that the heritage of Rome is a pretty strange amalgamation of of a political tool, Roman tradition, and Christian ideas.

[Karel de Stoute]

Well you seem to be pointing at it more than any cause and your argument still seems to be that a group of distinct people neither supporting or opposing the ruling power contributed to its down fall by simply existing as a distinct group of people. I mean, the only thing that they really did was go around teaching about their beliefs, converting people who believed, and being the weird group that didn't participate in social activities like the theater and blood sports.

And that was only in periods before the religion turned into a political institution reinvented to give power and legitimacy to the state. So in that much I do agree. I agree that the heritage of Rome is a pretty strange amalgamation of of a political tool, Roman tradition, and Christian ideas.

I just find history of early christianity very interesting. And if the first christians were harmless as u say, why did diocletianus forebid the whole religion? That wasn't just because big D was an asshole

[Kuningaz]

It still doesn't address why the east survive but the west fell, since the eastern roman empire had just as many, if not more, barbarian auxillia compared to the western empire.
Well, actually one of the bigger differences between East and West was, that the Eastern emperors managed to replace much of their germanic auxiliaries and officers by the semi-hellenised Isaurians (natives of Asia Minor). Of special importance was, that they were able to replace and restrict the power of the magister militium (commander-in-chief of the Roman army). In the west the last MMs would grow ever more important and disloyal eventually leading to the last western MM (not sure about his name but he was a Herulian) to dump the last western Emperor (Romulus Augustulus, a child) and basically declare himself king of Italy. So it was not only the use of barbarian auxilia that undermined Roman power but more importantly that they allowed them to take command of the army.
And sorry for my English, it's not my native language and I'm kind of tired ;)

[antisocialmunky]

I just find history of early christianity very interesting. And if the first christians were harmless as u say, why did diocletianus forebid the whole religion? That wasn't just because big D was an asshole

As far as I know, he was just highly conservative in religious matters and one of his co-emperors Galerius was responsible for pushing him toward extreme persecution. Not sure why really. Wikipedia talks about the two going to an Oracle of Apollo who said something about the earth being forsaken due to impiety which the two concluded must have been Christians. Diocletian wanted to bar Christians from governmental posts while Galerius wanted to kill them.

I can't really give you a good reason why. People always do things for reasons, just not always good reasons.

I dunno maybe they blamed them for the whole Third Centry?

[Vulg]

They have noticed that atmospheric conditions shifted when the Roman Empire fell as Lead content in the atmosphere significantly dropped thus pollutants whilst they were around were higher with open cast lead mines etc.

[Ibrahim]

I just find history of early christianity very interesting. And if the first christians were harmless as u say, why did diocletianus forebid the whole religion? That wasn't just because big D was an asshole

wow, that is most unshakable logic: if sth is not harmful, why persecute it? it wasn't because the persecutor was a *insert epithet* therefore, whatever is being persecuted must be harmful (what you in effect said about Christianity earlier vis a vis the Roman Empire). pure genius....

you do realize that, just because a people or an idea have **** fall on them, doesn't mean they deserve it, or were/are a threat, right? all it just means the person whose causing this was doing so for a reason-whether to be a **** (like Hitler), because he was paranoid, or he didn't know any better.

look, if you don't like Christianity, or think it or its adherents caused Rome's fall, you are more than free to do so: but to let your bias ask something this crass? dude, you do realize what you are implying, right?

[Karel de Stoute]

People have never been prosecuted just because somebody doesn't like them. Hitler for example used the jews as a scapegoat for everything that was going wrong in germany at that time as did the roman emperors with the christians. But the difference between the two is that the romans might actually have had a point. One of the first who brought forward this 'little theory' about christians was Edward Gibbon(decline and fall of the roman empire) who wrote this:
"As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse of Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, zeal, curiosity, and more earthly passions of malice and ambition, kindled the flame of theological discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody and always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their country. Yet party-spirit, however pernicious or absurd, is a principle of union as well as of dissension. The bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits, inculcated the duty of passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox sovereign; their frequent assemblies and perpetual correspondence maintained the communion of distant churches; and the benevolent temper of the Gospel was strengthened, though confirmed, by the spiritual alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser motives, the standard of the republic. Religious precepts are easily obeyed which indulge and sanctify the natural inclinations of their votaries; but the pure and genuine influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though imperfect, effects on the barbarian proselytes of the North. If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors." and also this:"In discussing Barbarism and Christianity I have actually been discussing the Fall of Rome."


This theory was later disputed by other historians but i believe it still stands to an extend, namely that christianity was indeed one of the internal factors that contributed to the decline of the roman empire.
I would also like to say i have nothing against christians but is it so hard for you to believe that not everything about the spread of early christianty was good

[antisocialmunky]

I'm not going to get involved in a slippery slope of specific counter examples like the Jim Crow Laws in the United States because I don't feel like taking anything to the backroom would be productive. Suffice to say that sure it may have had been a cause as much as the weather could have been but as a large contributing factor, you haven't put forth anything concrete. I and no one is disputing Christianity may have influenced the decline of the Roman empire especially after it became more and more fractured and politically charged after the 2nd Century but to blame the decay of Roman virtue on large part of Christians seems untenable as other things probably had a bigger effect.

So saying:


That was necesarry because the empire was just getting to big and roman virtus became forgotten(i blame the christians)...


seems strange as it doesn't address long term trends like the increasing instability of Rome during the late Republic over a hundred years before anyone cared about Christianity. It doesn't address the collapse during the 3rd Century, and it doesn't explain away why the late Dominate looked like a retarded version of 'Clue'. It doesn't address why the Eastern, more Christian part of the empire survived. My point is that if it had any major effect, it was eclipsed by other factors like redistribution of wealth, breakdown of the economy and international trade, and a crappy autocratic governmental system without even rules for succession.

Also I call Godwin's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law).

[Karel de Stoute]

Instability of the late republic resulted in the principate and no lack in virtus during the civil wars wich resulted in principate. Gibbons theory in simple explanation: Rise of Christian religion and values = decline of roman state religion and roman values. Happened at the same time the empire desintegrated. Maybe this was not a coincidence? definitly a bigger factor than the weather.

And why do you think the east was more christian then the west? Earlier sure, missionaries past in the east before they came to the west but they certainly got in the west to. Christianity started as an urban religion and most cities are indeed in the east. Those cities, as the centre of the economy were also the reason the eastern empire survived longer. But the most important city of christianty(as an institute, so not bethlehem because Jezus was born there...) was Rome where both Paulus and Petrus are buried. Missionaries and Churchfathers are to be found in every part of the empire: from the south of Gaul, to Carthago, to Micra Asia, to Alexandria you can even find them in Ireland.

And all this because i was accused of taking cheap shots at christians. I rest my case before Hitler comes up again.

[Ibrahim]

very well. now that you clarified, I can be assured.

two problems though:

1-I never said Christianity was all good, or even implied it. (last part). and to address the other point, no, I am not accusing you of making cheap shots on Christianity, or having any issue with Christians. just to get that out of the way.

2-my problem wasn't what you said, but how you said it (I did use the word "imply"). and yes, people really do do things to other people for the heck of it. your example had a reason (not a good one), but others do not. but yeah, let's leave the third rail of the backroom behind, and go back to the topic.

[Ca Putt]

Personally I don't think the climate change was one of the important reasons for the roman downfall, it may have invoked some extra non-roman agression in combination with a (compared to late rome without climate change) slightly weaker roman empire.
climate changes often control the rise and fall of civilisations, but not all ciilisations are equally vunerable. early city state civilisations(not greek others more obscure ones) often vanished because the area they lived in became less fertile or their trading partners suffered from a similar problem or the trade routes became impassable or a different trade route became more faorable. egytian dynasties ended because the eyptian economy did not rely on tourisim but the nile and it's fertile mud. the state was not only an agrarian state(is that correct or did i just write that egypt was a state modeled after a tribe in tracia?) like most medieval Kingdoms or russia. the agriculture was not only the basis of their economy but of everything they did(thus the high importance of the sun god). a few bad harvests and the people were not just hungry and pissed of but the ruler had lost all his credibility. not to mention that, apart from the nile, there is very little to live from in egypt even 2000 bc.

rome on the other hand was based on military, their true religion was the military. the roman state was build on their military prowess(not some romantic warrior code) and the order they could establish through their military which in turn was supported through the order...
military(not warrior) societies like the romans do not fall because the harvest was bad(well unless ofcource someone else is ery good at abusing those situations ;) ) the peasants get hungry and start revolting or their ports become useless. they fall because of overstreaching(includeing doing silly things), inner decline through corruption, decay of the ruling/fighting class, inner conflicts or simply bad management, stagnation(as there is noone to loot, tax or blackmail and your neighbors just ignore you) or they are simply defeated fair and square by someone with better military trix or more men.
these reasons are offcource cummulative and can provoke each other. climate changes are often merely the last nail in a military society's coffin.
with the end of the roman empire almost all of these points applied:
overstreaching and corruption are self explanatory
the fact that large parts of the army were not patriotic roman citizens but germanic etc. loaned troops while the romans prefered to see violence in the arena over actually fighting themselves. not to speak of the ruling class ;)
while germanics and picts are hard to tax nomads are impossible to tax without even thinking of looting or blackmailing them which would be even less worthwhile, whereas it would have been utterly wrong to do that with the eastern empire.

rome was hold together by law and military power. as they crumbled so did the empire.

ps: another nice exampe for the fall of empires to climate changes are the Maya(and the Inka afaik) as the droughts in the late middle ages depopulated their cities which made them vunerable for smaller ... kingdoms and the spanish eventually. talking about building in a weak spot.

[antisocialmunky]

Instability of the late republic resulted in the principate and no lack in virtus during the civil wars wich resulted in principate. Gibbons theory in simple explanation: Rise of Christian religion and values = decline of roman state religion and roman values. Happened at the same time the empire desintegrated. Maybe this was not a coincidence? definitly a bigger factor than the weather.

And why do you think the east was more christian then the west? Earlier sure, missionaries past in the east before they came to the west but they certainly got in the west to. Christianity started as an urban religion and most cities are indeed in the east. Those cities, as the centre of the economy were also the reason the eastern empire survived longer. But the most important city of christianty(as an institute, so not bethlehem because Jezus was born there...) was Rome where both Paulus and Petrus are buried. Missionaries and Churchfathers are to be found in every part of the empire: from the south of Gaul, to Carthago, to Micra Asia, to Alexandria you can even find them in Ireland.

And all this because i was accused of taking cheap shots at christians. I rest my case before Hitler comes up again.

Correlation is not Causality. Its not because you are being accused of taking a cheap shot at Christianity but because you're saying it was a significant factor in the fall of Rome while only supply some sort of vague set of 'virtues' based on the views of one man (a somewhat notable one) Edward Gibbons from the 1800s. You have to note that as intellectual as he was, he's a secondary source from 1200 years after the fact colored by the same 'Enlightenment' Age attitude that painted the middle ages as hyper-religious and primitive - the same attitude that propagates today in the from of the myth of Medieval Europeans thinking the world was flat. I mean, you could at least quote a primary source or some sort of closer secondary source like Vegetius.

I dunno, like I said before I'm not strictly disagreeing with your assertion, just the scale of your assertion. Maybe you're referring to after the 3rd/4th Century and I'm referring to the pre-3rd/4th Century Christianity when it became more politicized and institutionalized and it became a bigger factor. I mean, Christianity was around in the Third Century and the Illyrians who took control of the military and government managed to somehow deal with a situation in many ways very similar to the economic and military hardships of the 5th Century. I mean, I would be hard pressed to blame people for 'not caring enough and acting Roman enough' when basically the whole autocratic government was non-functiona, all your money is worthless, and you had to basically sell yourself into indentured servitude for protection and a means of living.

And Christianity while it did spread everywhere did so first in Asia. It radiated out of Asia into everywhere else. All the big controversies were in the East, all the big meetings were in the East. The Leadership was based in the East and most of the sects of Christianity developed in the East.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumenical_council#The_first_seven_ecumenical_councils

Until the Great Schism that is.

[Karel de Stoute]

primary sources of romans being negative about christians:
-Tac. Ann. 15.44
-Pliny, Letters 10.96-97
-suetonius life of nero chapter 16
all 3 refer to christians as a depraved superstition
-suetonius life of claudius chapter 25: "Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome."
-a (christian) source revealing that romans even concidered the christians as atheists: Apostelic fathers, Martyrdom of Polycarpus
I'm sure more exist but i'm to lazy to look it up. Gibbons theory was deduced from sources like these.
Vegetius made works about roman military and veterinaryologie

About Christians in the west: Augustinus of Hippo, Ambrosius of Milan, Pelagius, Gregorius the great, Benedictus of Nursia, Columbanus.... don't forget Rome as nr1 city even today

But to get back ontopic: Some historians also believe that the roman empire didn't really fall but that there was a continuancy. Barbarians adopted the habbits of the romans(Charlemagne as the holy roman emperor) The real rupture on economic level came in the 7th 8th century when Europa was being cut off from the rest of the world by the rise of Islam(Henri Pirenne thesis).

[antisocialmunky]

Yeah but Vegie was around for the decline of Rome and his writings hint at some of the big issues relating to military matters of the empire. I was also referring to decline of the empire specifically.

Most of that was about the not worshiping images of the Emperor and not attending the Circus or Theatres so people branded them as 'haters of men' IE anti-social. Critical analysis of said sources is good too if you are copy/pasting form sections on Wikipedia, you might as well copy the whole thing.

[Karel de Stoute]

i kind of edited my post after you entered and i referred to Gibbon to prove that other people had put some serious tought in the subject. However, i totally agree that other things were more important and deserve more of our attention

[antisocialmunky]

That's very much so in many place much like the Hellens did with the institutions of the Persian Empire. ;)

[vartan]

I was just skimming this utter joy of a thread and remember coming across a claim that the Roman Empire was divided in two by the time Christianity became the state religion of the Empire. Needless to say, this is a false claim. Diocletian's two Augustus (emperors) and two Caesar (junior emperors) system would suggest that the Empire was divided more so, in four. But move to when Christianity becomes state religion. The Tetrarchy is long gone and the Empire is run by one Emperor. The Empire has multiple provinces and regions, but those aren't what make an Empire multiple empires. You must look to the administration. The state was run by one emperor, not two at this point. That came later, much later.

[Randal]

I always liked the idea that the Roman elite slowly poisoned themselves because of all the lead they used in their water systems and liquid containers.

This theory has been discredited. It simply makes bugger-all sense on close examination and the original proponents were non-historians who used some... exceedingly dubious argumentation.

I've a friend who wrote her dissertation on the subject and... well, she's been very thorough in analysing all the arguments and proving they didn't work.

In a nutshell: the Roman aqueducts, unlike the 19th century lead pipes, did not poison the water, in part because they were never stagnant. (the 19th century pipes were shut off each night, so the water you drank in the morning had been soaking in lead all night.) Roman cisterns and baths weren't lead-coated no matter what Nriagu and his colleagues claim. Neither were Roman utensils and amphorae made of lead or lead-coated except in some possibly very rare cases.

The only way Romans could conceivably get (and presumably did) get lead-poisoning was by drinking wine which used lead as a sweetener. However, this was done with cheap wine drunk by the lower classes, not the expensive vintages the elite drank. Moreover, the practice of using lead in wine continued until the... 17th or 18th century. It didn't cause the fall of any other empire in history, and those later Europeans who drank the stuff didn't even water their wine like the Romans did. You'd have to be a heavy drinker indeed to poison yourself with cheap Roman wine.

[durnaug]

This theory has been discredited. It simply makes bugger-all sense on close examination and the original proponents were non-historians who used some... exceedingly dubious argumentation.

I've a friend who wrote her dissertation on the subject and... well, she's been very thorough in analysing all the arguments and proving they didn't work.

Damn and I really liked that theory. But wait a minute, I found this on Wikipedia so it must be right! ;-)

[antisocialmunky]

Though it is ironic that they put enough lead and CO2 emissions from their mining operation to make it really obvious from the Greenland ice cores.

"The researchers, led by Claude Boutron, a geologist at the Domaine University at Grenoble in France, estimate that about 400 tons of lead fell on the Greenland ice cap during the 800 years of the Roman Empire. This is about 15 per cent of the lead that has fallen on the area in the past 60 years of using lead additives in petrol, they say."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ice-pack-reveals-romans-air-pollution-1450572.html

Heh, sniped the thread back on topic.

[Randal]

*looks at the wikipedia article on lead-poisoning*

Yep, they're quoting Niagru. Note how to get his figure he claims aristocrats had a daily intake of 2 litres of unwatered wine. Which he assumes had a high lead-content. Again, unlikely.

As for climate change, it may have had its influence on the development and prosperity in specific provinces, but I don't think it's really necessary as a factor to explain the fall of the western empire. Political and socio-economic factors seem to be more than enough to give a clear picture to me.

The lead in Greenland makes sense, in the first few centuries of the empire industry was at a very high level, not equalled until the 19th century I believe. And Romans did use lead for plenty things. It's still... 1/90th of what we produced in the last 60 years according to the data. If I have the maths right.

[VikingPower]

Christianity did not corrupt the Roman empire, but the Roman empire corrupted peoples vision of Christianity by making it a state-religion with all its stupid superficial customs. For all wordly institutions which claim to represent Christianity do always in the end become a whimsical and marketited religions. Like was it anywhere mentioned in the Gospels that the faith should be run by some worldy government or that some elected officials should be as some kind of intermediaries between the divinity and the individual? Better to keep oneself to the original and simple meaning of the Gospels in regard to humanity, justice, mercy, and faith, rather than by participating in any formal customs of worldy religions which have nothing to contribute to personal spiritual growth and in knowing noble nature of the divinity.

[vartan]

Christianity did not corrupt the Roman empire, but the Roman empire corrupted peoples vision of Christianity by making it a state-religion with all its stupid superficial customs. For all wordly institutions which claim to represent Christianity do always in the end become a whimsical and marketited religions. Like was it anywhere mentioned in the Gospels that the faith should be run by some worldy government or that some elected officials should be as some kind of intermediaries between the divinity and the individual? Better to keep oneself to the original and simple meaning of the Gospels in regard to humanity, justice, mercy, and faith, rather than by participating in any formal customs of worldy religions which have nothing to contribute to personal spiritual growth and in knowing noble nature of the divinity.
Pretty much, unfortunately. Except the Roman Empire didn't lead to the later and pervasive notion of divine rule and whatnot, but rather it was the Christian Roman Empire (read post-Constantinian era). This is important because to further their cause, the bishoprates of the Empire seized and took advantage of the coercive powers of the state. It's no wonder then the Christian-based rhetoric for rule by medieval W. European rulers (Charlemagne being the best-known). Hal Drake writes about this, and although we probably should not expect and/or look for power politics in all decisions, it is not far-fetched to see the practicality behind said decisions of the bishoprates (see Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). So although a really great piece of Roman-Christian history to study, this is definitely not the annihilator of Rome. I also highly recommend this book (http://www.amazon.com/Violence-Belief-Late-Antiquity-Christianity/dp/0812241134/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top) if you are interested in late antique militancy, especially on the part of both Christianity and Islam. Just make sure you are open to novel ideas because today we are taught usually to separate the two and not to find common ground.

[Andronikos]

That book looks great. I once read a book that that stated that origin of militarized Islam is in crusades and reconquista, when highly developed Muslim states were destroyed and warlike people (Seljuk Turks, Mameluke dynasty and tribes from Sahara) took over and proclaimed themselves defenders of Islam. But that book was published during socialism so it may be biased against religion.

And to topic: I don't have access to the original publication on the climate change and the fall of Roman empire, but a friend of mine who does says, that their charts aren't very persuasive and there are hardly any trends.

[Karel de Stoute]

That book looks great. I once read a book that that stated that origin of militarized Islam is in crusades and reconquista, when highly developed Muslim states were destroyed and warlike people (Seljuk Turks, Mameluke dynasty and tribes from Sahara) took over and proclaimed themselves defenders of Islam. But that book was published during socialism so it may be biased against religion.

And to topic: I don't have access to the original publication on the climate change and the fall of Roman empire, but a friend of mine who does says, that their charts aren't very persuasive and there are hardly any trends.

i don't think your right about islam, it was militarized from the very beginning just look at how fast mohammed and his succesors conquered an islamic/arabic empire.

[vartan]

That book looks great. I once read a book that that stated that [...]
Time to throw that book away and get the linked one. Time for some new historiography. It's 2011 already!

[antisocialmunky]

It depends on what you mean by 'very beginning'? When he was driven out of Mecca, when he disappeared in Jerusalem and his disciples wrote the texts to be the Quran, or when the political leadership developed.

[Randal]

You could make that case about less advanced military societies taking over for Spain, perhaps. There the Almoravids intervened and took power after the Catholic kingdoms started to make progress, and they were far less advanced on a cultural level than the caliphate of Cordoba had been.

But in the middle east this claim seems rather weird. The crusaders didn't have that big an impact, and they were actually a response to the Seljuk invasions, not a cause for them. Well, that's why Alexios asked for help, the crusaders ended up mostly fighting the Fatimids who'd just been starting to recover some of their lost territory from the Turks.

[Ibrahim]

i don't think your right about islam, it was militarized from the very beginning just look at how fast mohammed and his succesors conquered an islamic/arabic empire.

which is why it took 13 years for him to-somehow-find a city that could accept him (well, the Pagan Arabs in the city of Yathrib chose him, not the other way round), and another 5 years to actually start gaining territory (once the siege of Yathrib ended), and only really unified Arabia in the last 2-3 years of his life? (for a grand total of 20 years).

or perhaps why all the verses pertaining to war are from the later part of his life (after leaving Makkah)*, and mostly directed against the people he was already having trouble with? mind you, he spent 13 years in Makkah being a prophet, and only 10 in Madinah...and he was pretty old on leaving Makkah (for a dark age man-even Arabs), at 53. and he was a merchant, not a general. (his only experience IIRC prior to Madinah was as an 18 year old in a minor war).

yeah, keep to your corner believing that....



You could make that case about less advanced military societies taking over for Spain, perhaps. There the Almoravids intervened and took power after the Catholic kingdoms started to make progress, and they were far less advanced on a cultural level than the caliphate of Cordoba had been.

But in the middle east this claim seems rather weird. The crusaders didn't have that big an impact, and they were actually a response to the Seljuk invasions, not a cause for them. Well, that's why Alexios asked for help, the crusaders ended up mostly fighting the Fatimids who'd just been starting to recover some of their lost territory from the Turks.


yeah, I'm reminded by this example of the book Ibn Khaldun wrote: he talked about a cyclical model of civilization, where a culture rises to power, becomes very civilizaed, becomes less miltant in nature, and are eventually conquered by their "barbarian" (i.e. weaker, or less advanced). then the cycle repeats itself. so in this case: Celtiberians, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Arabs, then Berbers, then finally Spaniards.


*if you look at a Qur'an printed today, you'll often see the name of a chapter at the head of one, followed by "surah makkiyyah", or "sura madaniyyah". those refer to places of origin of the full surah: often, there will be an admixture of some verses from one area to another in a single chapter. not a single war related verse is, AFAIK, from Makkah-where the religion's basic beliefs were founded.

@ASM: the Qur'an was compiled after Muhammad's death, mostly from scraps of writing, memory, and so on. the leadership was in his lifetime (as mentioned, he was elected), and the first war verse as such was form ~2 years after leaving-not long before Badr.

[OvidiusNasso]

which is why it took 13 years for him to-somehow-find a city that could accept him (well, the Pagan Arabs in the city of Yathrib chose him, not the other way round), and another 5 years to actually start gaining territory (once the siege of Yathrib ended), and only really unified Arabia in the last 2-3 years of his life? (for a grand total of 20 years).

or perhaps why all the verses pertaining to war are from the later part of his life (after leaving Makkah)*, and mostly directed against the people he was already having trouble with? mind you, he spent 13 years in Makkah being a prophet, and only 10 in Madinah...and he was pretty old on leaving Makkah (for a dark age man-even Arabs), at 53. and he was a merchant, not a general. (his only experience IIRC prior to Madinah was as an 18 year old in a minor war).

yeah, keep to your corner believing that....

So he managed to raise an army, defeat every other pagan tribe usually in agressive warfare, and leave an army to his heirs capable of conquering the Sassanid Empire, and most of the Byzantine Empire, and then have enough determined military know how to place very large garrisons in conquered without any militarization?









*if you look at a Qur'an printed today, you'll often see the name of a chapter at the head of one, followed by "surah makkiyyah", or "sura madaniyyah". those refer to places of origin of the full surah: often, there will be an admixture of some verses from one area to another in a single chapter. not a single war related verse is, AFAIK, from Makkah-where the religion's basic beliefs were founded.

@ASM: the Qur'an was compiled after Muhammad's death, mostly from scraps of writing, memory, and so on. the leadership was in his lifetime (as mentioned, he was elected), and the first war verse as such was form ~2 years after leaving-not long before Badr.


But that doesn't overcome my point, he conquered a very diverse area and left an army capable of destroying two powerful empires and garrissoning an extremely large amount of populated land.

[Ibrahim]

So he managed to raise an army, defeat every other pagan tribe usually in aggressive warfare, and leave an army to his heirs capable of conquering the Sassanid Empire, and most of the Byzantine Empire, and then have enough determined military know how to place very large garrisons in conquered without any militarization?

*the sound of my point flying over this guy's head*

that's a strawman of what I said: I am not denying Muhammad's success as a general while in Madinah or the aftermath (mostly-I'll get to that later). I was implying that the militarization, if it happened in his lifetime, was more likely in the latter half of his career, not the early half, when the tenets of the faith were mostly in place (i.e, it's not the most central aspect of Islam)-not to mention the circumstances of the militarization. this is why I mentioned the Qur'anic source: the Makkan half was basically the one when the theology and beliefs of a Muslim were laid down. the madani verses regarded mostly matters of secular importance: should a war be fought, how so, what laws to use for the community, and so on (in fact, that's where all the complaints with the book are for the most part). the second fallacy relates to the fact that you seem to (as far as I can tell from what you posted) assume Muhammad used brute (or near pure) force/military force to unite Arabia (or by extension, militarization). he didn't. here's the low-down.

1-he didn't "raise" an army. he already had one once he was elected leader of Yathrib (renamed al-madinah). this was because every man of fighting age in a tribe was, in Arabian custom, a soldier. had to be, considering how common raiding was. all the more so now that Madinah was a target of Makkah. (also, a note: Yathrib-at least the Pagan part-was in a state of civil war as recently as a few months prior to the bay3ah that elected Muhammad. many of the men in the city were thus veterans.)
2- no, he did not do that (the boldened part). how the heck could he? you do realize how many tribes lived in Arabia, that could easily defeat him?: more tribes (in fact, most), joined him because they were impressed by the tenacity of Madinah in its wars, not because he defeated them. and he never really ruled over 100% of Arabia: Oman and Bahrayn (yes, they existed then), remained mostly autonomous-they eventually swore fealty as well.
3-no, most of his battles weren't purely aggressive. the first 5 years were pretty much defensive affairs; other causes include: the attack on Makkah was due to a violation of a treaty (sul7 7udaybiyyah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Hudaybiyyah)), or because a tribe was known/suspected of preparing an attack on Madinah, usually as allies of Makkah, or because an emissary was killed (an act of war), because a tribe betrayed them, or simply to make sure a group of tribes knew about him, and make them ally with him. only the last part (which, to be fair to you, is a possible alterior motive to some of the others), can be safely concieved as aggressive. In short, he went to war for reasons that aren't unusual for the time and place-religion wasn't required for them, nor was any specific verse saying "attack tribe X". I'm more surprised at how quick (and surprisingly unblooded), the wars were, considering that some Arab tribes fought for 40 years on end.... two were just concluding a peace treaty when the wars between Makkah and Madinah were raging.
5-he didn't leave much of an army behind as such, as many of the tribes who fought with him ended up rebelling on Abu-Bakr (wars of Apostacy), since some either went with other "prophets" (trying to milk that for what it's worth-look up Musaylamah al-khaththab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musaylimah), making the motive Power), thought their allegience was purely to Muhammad, or a combination of both. In fact, had it not been for Khalid ibn-al waleed, Yamaamah might have destroyed the early Islamic state. It's what happens when Urban Arabs try to rule Nomads: the Nomads get bored, pick up sticks, and raise heck elsewhere. they also want power over the Urban ones....

6-the Muslims only destroyed 1 empire (Sassanid Persia), and they were very lucky in doing so: it helped the Sassanids were deprived of their best soldiers and were poorly led. and the early Muslims were almost ejected from Iraq after the battle fo the Bridge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_bridge). in fact, the Arabs, even with Sassan weakened, were still outnumbered (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nah%C4%81vand), outgunned (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_al-Q%C4%81disiyyah) (for lack of a better word), and could barely hold on to Iran or Iraq on conquering it (they only held it by building a couple of very well placed cities: Kufa is the more famous one). some parts of Iran (Daylam), held out for almost 200 years, fighting a guerilla war. the Byzantines? they only lost because Frankly, fightin Khalid ibn al-waleed is like messing with Reb Brown: you simply don't do it (his transfer from Iraq was one reason why the battle fo the Bridge was lost: Elephants don't help either). it also helped that they were tired, their army poorly deployed (IIRC too far north), and worse led (5 commaders arguing over how best to deafeat Khalid is never a good idea). Heraclius should have done this himself-he had a better chance on his own frankly.
EDIT: I forgot to address this part as well: one of the ulterior motives for the conquest of lands beyond the Peninsula was actually money: money to maintain the army (as it existed), to maintain the loyalty of the tribes (by bribing them), as well as to spread what they believed to be justice and a better society. the loyalty of the tribes was further enforced by making them take part in the army, and winning some glory for themselves, as well as distracting them from killing each other. direct conversion of Byzantines and Persians, surprisingly, was not actually a motive: in fact, proselytizing was strongly discouraged under Umar Ibn al-khattab (the 2nd Caliph), in order to maintain the loyalty of the Arabs-since making Muslims of a Persian or Syrian would make them equal in regards to perks to Arab Muslims-in principle anyhow. the policy continued into Abbasid times, when Persians were given incentive to convert. the same story is in Egypt and where I'm from (the Holy Land). the latter never really became Muslim till the 9th century, and it never really went far beyond 50%-till last century anyhow. Now I'm not saying there weren't any people who genuinely believed in a "conquer by sword ideal", but as far as I can tell you, they weren't the Caliphs...

(as a caveat: before war was officially declared prior to Badr, raids were made by Muslims are caravans going to Makkah. it is interesting to note that these were not under Muhammad's orders, as many fo the groups were simply sent to look at a given area (scouting). they were forbidden to fight initially. the first verses were specifically after Muslims heard that their Makkan property had been liquidated for Trade in Syria)


one other thing: you can always look these up: Wikipedia is surprisingly accurate, especially compared to what I grew up with (so no, you can't claim Arabs are hiding anything; in fact, the grammatical erros in some articles point to Arab writers of them, though most probably weren't.). the motives for many of the battles are explained in most.

now to be charitable, there is of course, as always, controversy over his motivations and his methods-perfectly reasonable, especially as the mists of time have already enveloped the events in a shroud-a partial one-of legend, committed by people of a different attitude towards violence compared to today. I myself am going in pat from Arab sources (having grown up there, surrounded by books in Arabic on the subject), and from works of non-Muslims who have given this considerable study. they may very well be biased towards Muhammad, but without real evidence for the other side available to me, I can't be prevailed upon to take your view seriously.

and one other thing: I don't mind one bit if you have a conflicting view. but I will expect at least a good line of evidence-even a basic one for what you have to say: part of the reason I suspect you (@ Karel) are getting a (relatively) negative reaction so far, is because you seem to be going by outdated, or biased sources on the subject-notably with Christianity and the Empire. why you do so is known only to you on Earth. but It's not good for this dialogue.

EDIT: wait, is the guy I'm directly replying to Karel? the last part is confusing me. if not, my apologies. now if you'll excuse me, I have a paper to write on a Deuterosdome evolution pape (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2833208/?tool=pmcentrez)r.

[Andronikos]

But in the middle east this claim seems rather weird. The crusaders didn't have that big an impact, and they were actually a response to the Seljuk invasions, not a cause for them. Well, that's why Alexios asked for help, the crusaders ended up mostly fighting the Fatimids who'd just been starting to recover some of their lost territory from the Turks.

Actually this kind of agrees with claims in that book.

Today I bought an issue of Historical Review (I translated the name to English) dedicated to Arabs, from pre-Islam times to modern era, I am looking forward to reading it.


yeah, I'm reminded by this example of the book Ibn Khaldun wrote: he talked about a cyclical model of civilization, where a culture rises to power, becomes very civilizaed, becomes less miltant in nature, and are eventually conquered by their "barbarian" (i.e. weaker, or less advanced). then the cycle repeats itself. so in this case: Celtiberians, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Arabs, then Berbers, then finally Spaniards.

Sounds logical, examples from other parts of the world could be surely found.

[antisocialmunky]

I would argue its more based on economics and decreased free flow of wealth/power due to it being bottled up in the hands of too few entities so you can't actually get anything done that needs to get done. And then stupid stuff happens like Machus.

[Ibrahim]

Today I bought an issue of Historical Review (I translated the name to English) dedicated to Arabs, from pre-Islam times to modern era, I am looking forward to reading it.

I'd like you to share that: it should be interesting :beam:




Sounds logical, examples from other parts of the world could be surely found.

I thought about it, and realized China v. Mongolia, Tbite v. China, greek v. Persians, Arabs & Byzantines v. Perians (OK, the Byzatine part is debatable), and so on, make good examples.

[Karel de Stoute]

i saw a great movie today, it's called "agora", has anybody else seen it before?
And with militarization since the beginning i meant since the time of mohammed... it would be better to look at the crusades and reqonuista as a response to this

[antisocialmunky]

i saw a great movie today, it's called "agora", has anybody else seen it before?
And with militarization since the beginning i meant since the time of mohammed... it would be better to look at the crusades and reqonuista as a response to this

The last time I watched something like that, it ended up being 'Lebanon' and a poorly written art flick.

[Ibrahim]

i saw a great movie today, it's called "agora", has anybody else seen it before?
And with militarization since the beginning i meant since the time of mohammed... it would be better to look at the crusades and reqonuista as a response to this

nope, never did.

[OvidiusNasso]

*the sound of my point flying over this guy's head*

that's a strawman of what I said: I am not denying Muhammad's success as a general while in Madinah or the aftermath (mostly-I'll get to that later). I was implying that the militarization, if it happened in his lifetime, was more likely in the latter half of his career, not the early half, when the tenets of the faith were mostly in place (i.e, it's not the most central aspect of Islam)-not to mention the circumstances of the militarization. this is why I mentioned the Qur'anic source: the Makkan half was basically the one when the theology and beliefs of a Muslim were laid down. the madani verses regarded mostly matters of secular importance: should a war be fought, how so, what laws to use for the community, and so on (in fact, that's where all the complaints with the book are for the most part). the second fallacy relates to the fact that you seem to (as far as I can tell from what you posted) assume Muhammad used brute (or near pure) force/military force to unite Arabia (or by extension, militarization). he didn't. here's the low-down.

1-he didn't "raise" an army. he already had one once he was elected leader of Yathrib (renamed al-madinah). this was because every man of fighting age in a tribe was, in Arabian custom, a soldier. had to be, considering how common raiding was. all the more so now that Madinah was a target of Makkah. (also, a note: Yathrib-at least the Pagan part-was in a state of civil war as recently as a few months prior to the bay3ah that elected Muhammad. many of the men in the city were thus veterans.)
2- no, he did not do that (the boldened part). how the heck could he? you do realize how many tribes lived in Arabia, that could easily defeat him?: more tribes (in fact, most), joined him because they were impressed by the tenacity of Madinah in its wars, not because he defeated them. and he never really ruled over 100% of Arabia: Oman and Bahrayn (yes, they existed then), remained mostly autonomous-they eventually swore fealty as well.
3-no, most of his battles weren't purely aggressive. the first 5 years were pretty much defensive affairs; other causes include: the attack on Makkah was due to a violation of a treaty (sul7 7udaybiyyah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Hudaybiyyah)), or because a tribe was known/suspected of preparing an attack on Madinah, usually as allies of Makkah, or because an emissary was killed (an act of war), because a tribe betrayed them, or simply to make sure a group of tribes knew about him, and make them ally with him. only the last part (which, to be fair to you, is a possible alterior motive to some of the others), can be safely concieved as aggressive. In short, he went to war for reasons that aren't unusual for the time and place-religion wasn't required for them, nor was any specific verse saying "attack tribe X". I'm more surprised at how quick (and surprisingly unblooded), the wars were, considering that some Arab tribes fought for 40 years on end.... two were just concluding a peace treaty when the wars between Makkah and Madinah were raging.
5-he didn't leave much of an army behind as such, as many of the tribes who fought with him ended up rebelling on Abu-Bakr (wars of Apostacy), since some either went with other "prophets" (trying to milk that for what it's worth-look up Musaylamah al-khaththab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musaylimah), making the motive Power), thought their allegience was purely to Muhammad, or a combination of both. In fact, had it not been for Khalid ibn-al waleed, Yamaamah might have destroyed the early Islamic state. It's what happens when Urban Arabs try to rule Nomads: the Nomads get bored, pick up sticks, and raise heck elsewhere. they also want power over the Urban ones....

6-the Muslims only destroyed 1 empire (Sassanid Persia), and they were very lucky in doing so: it helped the Sassanids were deprived of their best soldiers and were poorly led. and the early Muslims were almost ejected from Iraq after the battle fo the Bridge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_bridge). in fact, the Arabs, even with Sassan weakened, were still outnumbered (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nah%C4%81vand), outgunned (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_al-Q%C4%81disiyyah) (for lack of a better word), and could barely hold on to Iran or Iraq on conquering it (they only held it by building a couple of very well placed cities: Kufa is the more famous one). some parts of Iran (Daylam), held out for almost 200 years, fighting a guerilla war. the Byzantines? they only lost because Frankly, fightin Khalid ibn al-waleed is like messing with Reb Brown: you simply don't do it (his transfer from Iraq was one reason why the battle fo the Bridge was lost: Elephants don't help either). it also helped that they were tired, their army poorly deployed (IIRC too far north), and worse led (5 commaders arguing over how best to deafeat Khalid is never a good idea). Heraclius should have done this himself-he had a better chance on his own frankly.
EDIT: I forgot to address this part as well: one of the ulterior motives for the conquest of lands beyond the Peninsula was actually money: money to maintain the army (as it existed), to maintain the loyalty of the tribes (by bribing them), as well as to spread what they believed to be justice and a better society. the loyalty of the tribes was further enforced by making them take part in the army, and winning some glory for themselves, as well as distracting them from killing each other. direct conversion of Byzantines and Persians, surprisingly, was not actually a motive: in fact, proselytizing was strongly discouraged under Umar Ibn al-khattab (the 2nd Caliph), in order to maintain the loyalty of the Arabs-since making Muslims of a Persian or Syrian would make them equal in regards to perks to Arab Muslims-in principle anyhow. the policy continued into Abbasid times, when Persians were given incentive to convert. the same story is in Egypt and where I'm from (the Holy Land). the latter never really became Muslim till the 9th century, and it never really went far beyond 50%-till last century anyhow. Now I'm not saying there weren't any people who genuinely believed in a "conquer by sword ideal", but as far as I can tell you, they weren't the Caliphs...

(as a caveat: before war was officially declared prior to Badr, raids were made by Muslims are caravans going to Makkah. it is interesting to note that these were not under Muhammad's orders, as many fo the groups were simply sent to look at a given area (scouting). they were forbidden to fight initially. the first verses were specifically after Muslims heard that their Makkan property had been liquidated for Trade in Syria)


one other thing: you can always look these up: Wikipedia is surprisingly accurate, especially compared to what I grew up with (so no, you can't claim Arabs are hiding anything; in fact, the grammatical erros in some articles point to Arab writers of them, though most probably weren't.). the motives for many of the battles are explained in most.

now to be charitable, there is of course, as always, controversy over his motivations and his methods-perfectly reasonable, especially as the mists of time have already enveloped the events in a shroud-a partial one-of legend, committed by people of a different attitude towards violence compared to today. I myself am going in pat from Arab sources (having grown up there, surrounded by books in Arabic on the subject), and from works of non-Muslims who have given this considerable study. they may very well be biased towards Muhammad, but without real evidence for the other side available to me, I can't be prevailed upon to take your view seriously.

and one other thing: I don't mind one bit if you have a conflicting view. but I will expect at least a good line of evidence-even a basic one for what you have to say: part of the reason I suspect you (@ Karel) are getting a (relatively) negative reaction so far, is because you seem to be going by outdated, or biased sources on the subject-notably with Christianity and the Empire. why you do so is known only to you on Earth. but It's not good for this dialogue.

EDIT: wait, is the guy I'm directly replying to Karel? the last part is confusing me. if not, my apologies. now if you'll excuse me, I have a paper to write on a Deuterosdome evolution pape (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2833208/?tool=pmcentrez)r.

As much as you think I missed your point you missed my point.

Any one of the extreme military achievements you mentioned during and immediatly after the death of Mohhamad would have been impossible without a very high level of militarization in Islamic Society at the time. The Arabs had no advantages over the Persians or Byzantines in any way at any of their battles. Leadership can only go so far, the Arabs who destroyed Sassanian Persia and conquered most of the Byzantine Empire (from rulers of all of North Africa, Egypt, the Levant, and Asia Minor and the Balkans to the Balkans and parts of Asia Minor) clearly were not tribal. Now what is more they garrissoned their conquests with large armies and continued to threaten other powers and expand after their dramatic victories over Persia and the Byzantine Empire. Now on top of those the Arabs were able to supply and maintain their armies in very difficult campaigns and supply them hundreds of miles from home.

It isn't about wether Mohhamad was good or not, the military achievements his people did during and immediatly after him just aren't possible in a non militant society. You could argue that Arab Society was already militant but does that really makes the difference?

I also consider the life of Mohhamad to be the start of Islam, because no religion that has a founder still alive could claim to be an old religion, I'm not trying to disrespect or cast doubt on Islam I'm just saying that it is inconceivable that the Arabs would risk and spend so much in very uncertain and unlikely to win wars without having the earlier stated militarization.

[Ibrahim]

As much as you think I missed your point you missed my point.

Any one of the extreme military achievements you mentioned during and immediatly after the death of Mohhamad would have been impossible without a very high level of militarization in Islamic Society at the time. The Arabs had no advantages over the Persians or Byzantines in any way at any of their battles. Leadership can only go so far, the Arabs who destroyed Sassanian Persia and conquered most of the Byzantine Empire (from rulers of all of North Africa, Egypt, the Levant, and Asia Minor and the Balkans to the Balkans and parts of Asia Minor) clearly were not tribal. Now what is more they garrissoned their conquests with large armies and continued to threaten other powers and expand after their dramatic victories over Persia and the Byzantine Empire. Now on top of those the Arabs were able to supply and maintain their armies in very difficult campaigns and supply them hundreds of miles from home.

It isn't about wether Mohhamad was good or not, the military achievements his people did during and immediatly after him just aren't possible in a non militant society. You could argue that Arab Society was already militant but does that really makes the difference?

I also consider the life of Mohhamad to be the start of Islam, because no religion that has a founder still alive could claim to be an old religion, I'm not trying to disrespect or cast doubt on Islam I'm just saying that it is inconceivable that the Arabs would risk and spend so much in very uncertain and unlikely to win wars without having the earlier stated militarization.

ah, I see where you are going, and if you meant all that, then in general, yeah, I agree. no, no disrespect taken, and my bad in turn for missing your point. I still maintain that the resulting garrisons were not-initially-large. they were well placed though. it also helped in the future that the Arab rulers tapped into Syrian manpower, in order to fill their army quotas, and later added the Berbers (who took nearly 70 years to defeat).

[OvidiusNasso]

ah, I see where you are going, and if you meant all that, then in general, yeah, I agree. no, no disrespect taken, and my bad in turn for missing your point. I still maintain that the resulting garrisons were not-initially-large. they were well placed though. it also helped in the future that the Arab rulers tapped into Syrian manpower, in order to fill their army quotas, and later added the Berbers (who took nearly 70 years to defeat).

It's ok and I'm glad we agree on most things, although at any rate whatever position advantages they used the garrisons were clearly large by Arab standards, and the ability to recruit Berbers and Syrians without just getting betrayed instantly testifies to their military organization.

I used to know a lot more about this since I had at one point put a very unskilled study into it, but wasn't the leader of the Berbers a Jewish Queen? I forget her name, and just checking on that. Regardless the Berbers put up a very long fight.

[Ibrahim]

It's ok and I'm glad we agree on most things, although at any rate whatever position advantages they used the garrisons were clearly large by Arab standards, and the ability to recruit Berbers and Syrians without just getting betrayed instantly testifies to their military organization.

I used to know a lot more about this since I had at one point put a very unskilled study into it, but wasn't the leader of the Berbers a Jewish Queen? I forget her name, and just checking on that. Regardless the Berbers put up a very long fight.

al-kaahinah (lit. the priestess/soothsayer). she was not likely Jewish though, as she was described as carrying a "wathan" or "sanam" round (idol or icon). this would actually imply either a pagan root or a Christian one-Jews do no IIRC have sacred imagery of that nature. the source of this claim was in the 19th century as well-with no mention of that AFAIK in the accounts of previous historians.

Algerian Jews have oral traditions about her as well, that seem to imply she persecuted them.

[OvidiusNasso]

al-kaahinah (lit. the priestess/soothsayer). she was not likely Jewish though, as she was described as carrying a "wathan" or "sanam" round (idol or icon). this would actually imply either a pagan root or a Christian one-Jews do no IIRC have sacred imagery of that nature. the source of this claim was in the 19th century as well-with no mention of that AFAIK in the accounts of previous historians.

Algerian Jews have oral traditions about her as well, that seem to imply she persecuted them.

Thank you for that tidbit, if I ever visit Israel I will ask about her, although I am surprised we aren't bombarded with stories of her today with all the new emphasis on education away from warfare and politics.

[Ibrahim]

Thank you for that tidbit, if I ever visit Israel I will ask about her, although I am surprised we aren't bombarded with stories of her today with all the new emphasis on education away from warfare and politics.

well, make sure they're of Algerian descent. there are still quite a few in Algeria Itself (even more in Tunisia-it's IIRC around 10 % Jewish). perhaps the Tunisian ones have sth to say about this as well?