We all know Rome ended blah blah AD, but at what point was it truly finished as in never going back to its former glory?
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We all know Rome ended blah blah AD, but at what point was it truly finished as in never going back to its former glory?
The final split after the death of Julian the Apostate.
From Marius onwards at the latest I would say. Once the Principate got underway it was a permenant dive overall; with a few false rallies. Had Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Marcus Antonius, Brutus etc. all died in infancy it might have survived. The Republic required massive reform and the practical extension of enfranchisement to however, not a line of despots.
I think he meant the empire and not the republic.
Rome became doomed when the Vandals conquered North Africa in 429 and Rome lost a huge portion of her revenue. From that point on, things just spiraled downhill.
You misunderstand, Rome as a nation, Republic or Empire, was doomed from the time of Marius.Quote:
Originally Posted by penguinking
The Principate never became a true monarchy and Rome never developed beyond a city state. Instead the Empire effectively became one man's private holdings and the army his personal mercenaries. Once that happened it was going to go south sooner or later.
Surely all empires are destined to "go South". Name a single empire that has stood the test of time. Where is the British Empire now? Spanish? Mongol? Roman? Byzantine? Ottoman? All empires are destined to fall eventually.
When it stopped expanding and turned in on itself.
I disagree. Using your logic, you could argue that Rome was doomed from the time of Romulus because he founded it. All empires are doomed to eventually fall. And to say it was downhill from the time of Marius isn't even accurate either - Rome reached its peak during the late Principate, with a wonderful succession of rulers - Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, and while it had some wackos like Caligula, Nero and Domitian, the Early Principate also had some very good Emperors such as Augustus, Tiberius (or at least Tiberius in the early part of his reign), Claudius, Vespasian and Titus. No, honestly, Monarchy was a much more viable form of government than their Republic (and I mean their Republic, not ours), which was populated with traditionalists without the vision to see the inherent problem with a constitution designed to rule a city being used to rule an Empire. No, even if all the people you cited hadn't been born, the Republic would have fallen. It was inevitable.Quote:
You misunderstand, Rome as a nation, Republic or Empire, was doomed from the time of Marius.
The Empire experienced a lot of setbacks throughout the 300's, but they also rallied a lot too. I would say that by the end of the reign of Honorius, there was no chance of them recovering - he'd inherited the western Empire in fairly good shape from his father Theodosius, but he was grossly incompetent, controlled completely by his advisers. Such incompetence didn't really inspire loyalty and a lot of usurpers and governors started revolting in the hopes of taking his throne. It was around this time that the Barbarians started invading, having been pushed out of their native lands by other barbarians, and in this time what Rome really needed was to be united in the face of this common enemy. Instead, the various Roman factions generally ignored the Barbarian threat and concentrated instead on determining who was allowed to wear a crown. By the end of Honorius' reign (which, unfortunately was a long one), Rome was completely dependent on military dictators (all of whom were either German or commanded German troops) for protection. Most of the previous setbacks were bad, but this was really the point of no return. -MQuote:
We all know Rome ended blah blah AD, but at what point was it truly finished as in never going back to its former glory?
Hears what I learned this year in history class:
With out details Rome was doomed when they went to war with Carthage I believe, and also when they started being ruled by poor leaders. When they split the Empire into Easterns and Western Empires Rome was already on a down fall but that made it worse....:D I know nothing compared to yall I jus like playing the game and learning about:D
First symptoms of future problems were when the army turned professional, but was bound to the commander more than to the state itself. Major problem was lack of loyalty towards Rome, not towards Caesar Pompey or Crassus. It created tons of problems later, including dismantling of the republic and in principate times - civil wars with apotheoses - the time of soldier emperors.
As for decline of the Empire, there are lots of theories for that. Some state the economic crises (as we see that the equipment of later legionnaires is worse than that of the Augustan times), the richest parts of the Roman Empire actually were at that time part of the Eastern Roman Empire, which caused bankruptcy of the treasure. This, combined with Barbarian onslaught on the Empires' western borders caused collapse.
Other theories are more controversial, like those, based on Gumilev's theory of inner energy of civilization. According to this, when the inner energy is spent we see the depopulation, sharp decline in prestige of the state (people stop asking what they can do for their country and start asking what their country can do for them), the benefits of the state are forgotten and neglected in favor of the personal gains. The loss of core ideology (such as traditional Roman paganism), which is replaced by foreign young and aggressive ideologies (like Christianity and Mythraism). According to this theory, the barbarians that attacked Rome in the 4-5th centuries were not stronger than those that Rome fought them throughout the history, it was Rome that became much weaker.
Zues!
You need a new history teacher.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kekailoa
No, I like the idea Rome was doomed by Carthage.
That's what Scipio thought, apparently. By destroying Carthage unnecessarily, Rome became corrupt.
Pure truth. Sorry, but the rest is only the usual blabla.Quote:
Originally Posted by penguinking
Peter Heather's Excellent book The Fall of the Roman Empire proposes that the Roman Empire was not on the brink of collapse, not even into the 5th century AD. What brought it to an end were the "barbarians"- centuries of imperialism turned the neighbors it called barbarians into an enemy capable of dismantling the Empire. The Huns drove the Goths to seek refuge inside the Empire, but the ham-handed Roman response created a conflict which they lost. The Goths won Hadrianople in 378 and sacked Rome in 410, although in the meantime Theodosius managed to come to terms with the Goths and reunite the Eastern and Western halves of the Empire by 395. If he hadn't died relatively young then what?
But the Vandals blew through Gaul and Spain before taking North Africa in 439, denying huge resources to the Romans. Then came Attila, the Wrath of God. (I'd have loved to see Klaus Kinski do Attila). All Odoacer had to do in 476 AD is pick up the pieces.
Well worth reading.
This certainly was not the end of the Eastern Roman Empire, not for a thousand years. And I think that Justinian's ambitions were not doomed to failure: Belisarius had recovered Africa and all of Italy by 540 AD. If he had truly accepted the offer to become Emperor of the West, who knows what could have happened? And even though it didn't turn out that way, his success shows that Rome was still a viable idea even into the 6th century AD.
So I'd have to disagree with PVC: if Rome was doomed from the time of Marius, why did it take 500 more years to fall? That just doesn't make sense to me.
And as far asRome developed so much beyond a city state that the city itself ceased to be central to the Empire: long before the Western Empire fell Rome had become an antiquated backwater. Even in Italy Ravenna and Milan were more important, not to mention Constantinople. The idea of 'Rome' had been exported, that is to say, had developed beyond the original city itself.Quote:
The Principate never became a true monarchy and Rome never developed beyond a city state.
As far as Rome not being a true monarchy, I guess I'd have to know what is meant by 'true monarchy'. Many nations/empires/kingdoms from before Rome to after it experienced frequent dynastic changes and experimented with various ways of delegating authority. I don't see how the later Roman Empire, say from the 2nd century AD onwards, doesn't fit into that spectrum.
I can name you two empires that has stood the test of time and are still around, India and China.
As for the cause of the fall of The Roman Empire, which is what we are discussing here under the guise of chronology, I can but say that the more I learn, the more I learn I do not know. My specialisation as a historian is Danish Viking- High Middle Ages, secondarily Iron Age and Roman history (I would estimate that I have read 20k+ academic pages on Roman history), so I know a lot, but not enough to say what caused the fall of the empire. And I think that no one can ascertain it for certain, nor that it was one single cause. Nothing in history is caused by a single cause. probably internal dissention, economic weakness, demilitarisation/military weakness and some ideological changes as well that all played their role in the fall.
Were I to wager a guess about when the empire was doomed I would say 406 AD when Stilicho pulled the border garrisons away from the Rhine, allowing the Vandals, Alanss, Suebi and Burgundi to overrun the Western Empire where the Goths were already on a rampage (on New Year's Eve no less). The Empire never recovered from that, even though most of the Germanic Kings and Chieftains would gladly have settled for a high place in the Roman System and a place for their tribe to live. The Empire was deteriorating and they instead had to build new realms on its ruins, Bachrach has some insightful points about the integration of Roman and German, mostly in Gaul -> France.
I'm not sure that India and China as empires have stood the test of time. India was British possession for hundreds of years and the Chinese empire fell in the early part of the 20th Century. But it's impossible to name a single factor for any empires demise. Yes there will be key factors, but it's the whole jigsaw that represents the cause. If for the sake of argument, you wished to mark a point of no return, I'd say the final split of east and west. The West didn't have the wealth of the East and slowly died. then the East lived on for centuries.
India only achieved full unity in 1947: before hand, there were at least 2-3 empires in India, or were ruled by the British. China was repeatedly borken up (after the Han, the Tang, and that one sung dynasty).Quote:
Originally Posted by Macilrille
even at the height of the mughals mind you, southern India remained independant, even in the reign of Akbar or Aurungzeb (I misspelled I know).
Let's look at some quotations from historians and commentators....
"Having given up the habit of controlling their children, they let their children govern them, and took pleasure in bleeding themselves white to gratify the expensive whims of their offspring. The result was that they were succeeded by a generation of idlers and wastrels, who had grown accustomed to luxury and lost ALL sense of discipline" (Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome, 78-79).
Carcopino goes on to say that at the same time there was "an epidemic of divorces," and quotes Seneca as having stated, "They marry in order to divorce" (Ibid. pp. 97, 100).
He also tells us that a strong "women's rights" movement developed in Roman society: "Some wives evaded the duties of maternity for fear of losing their good looks, some took pride in being behind their husbands in no sphere of activity, and vied with them in tests of strength which their sex would seem to forbid; some were not content to live their lives by their husband's side, but carried on another life without him ... It is obvious that unhappy marriages must have been innumerable" ( Ibid. pp. 90, 93, 95).
Regarding schools he wrote:
"They undermined instead of strengthened the children's morals, they mishandled the children's bodies instead of developing them, and if they succeeded in furnishing their minds with a certain amount of information, they were not calculated to perform any loftier or nobler task...The pupils left school with the heavy luggage of a few practical and commonplace notions, laboriously acquired, and of so little value, that in the fourth century, Vegetius could not take for granted that new recruits for the army would be literate enough to keep the books for the corps" (Ibid. pp. 106-107).
"The Roman virtues - honesty, candor, frugality, and patriotism - withered and died. What was left was a people whom neither the vices of the rulers, nor the increasingly bold attacks of foreign enemies could shake out of their apathy," Myers wrote.
"In all the great cities of the provinces, the theater held the same place of bad preeminence in the social life of the inhabitants...The Roman stage was gross and immoral. It was one of the main agencies to which must be attributed the undermining of the originally sound moral life of Roman society. So absorbed did the people become in the indecent representations on the stage, that they lost all thought and care for the affairs of real life" (Myers, Rome: Its Rise And Fail. pp. 515, 516).
Turning back to Carcopino: "The thousands of Romans who, day after day, from morning till night, could take pleasure in this slaughter, and not spare a tear for those whose sacrifice multiplied their gambling stakes, were learning nothing but contempt for human life and dignity" (Carcopino, Daily Life In Ancient Rome, pp. 238, 240, 243).
T. frank in the American Historical review wrote: "This orientalization of Rome's population had a more important bearing than is usually accorded to it, upon the larger question of why the spirit and acts of Imperial Rome are totally different from those of the Republic" (July, 1916).
Immigrants (who had influxed rapidly into the Roman Empire) "did not spring from the soil of rome, their recollections and affections were elsewhere. While the statesmen and leading men wore themselves out in trying to preserve what remained of the ancient spirit and old customs, down below, amongst those classes of the population which were constantly being recruited from slavery, there was a continual working to destroy it" (Historians History Of The World, Vol. 6, p. 365).
Government started to give out free handouts. This welfarism became a "leading fact of Roman life. The evils that resulted from this misdirected state charity can hardly be overstated. Idleness and all its accompanying vices were fostered to such a degree that we shall probably not be wrong in enumerating the practice as one of the chief causes of the demoralization of society" (Myers, Rome: Its Rise And Fall. p. 523).
So, as inevitably happens when government gets involved in what should be private matters, government got involved even more to "sort out" the problems its own interference an dpolicies had mainly caused in the first place: "There were land taxes, property taxes, occupation taxes, poll taxes." As a result, "the heart was taken out of the enterprising men."
After the tex burden became so great and the business owners descreased "the government intervened and bound the tenants to the soil [the beginning of serfdom], and the businessmen and the workmen to their occupations and trades. Private enterprise was crushed and the state was forced to take over many kinds of business to keep the machine running....This led to still further strangling taxation with repeated devaluations of the currency that fatally weakened the middle class, and decimated its natural leaders. The attempt to cure the resulting disorder with the complete regimentation of the totalitarian state merely gave a temporary check to the progressive decay. Disintegration followed the stifling of initiative .... " (Haskell, The New Deal In Old Rome, pp. 216-218, 220-21, 231-32).
So what set the rot in Rome?
The same things that have set the rot in our society.
Yeah, and oriental people like all the same...Quote:
Originally Posted by Macilrille
Maybe you could mind reading some basics history of that people before posting nonsense... India has never been an unified empire, the various dinasties/empires that ruled the north of the country more often than not had little in common with each other... Same for China : different dinasties, different peoples, different cultures... a lot of political instability in some ages, unification in others... and regarding today, the current regime has NOTHING in common with the ancient traditions, apart from propaganda, obviously: actually, it fought fiercely against the old chinese ways (resulting in big cultural losses for the country)
To say that the chinese empire survived the test of time because of the modern china is like to say that the European Union is the descendant of the Roman Empire... :laugh4:
About the reasons you posted, it's not entirely true in my view: that of 406 was one of the greatest blows Rome suffered, but not a lethal one, after that western romans achieved again the goal to become at least the dominant political power in Europe, and slowly began to regained what had lost.
The point of no return was reached first with Attila, that caused an inimmaginable havoc in roman Gaul and in the already suffering Italy, and wipe out the last valuable military forces of Aetius, then with the Vandal invasion of africa, the empire lost its cash cow = no new soldiers. After that the end was almost unavoidable... almost!
A little known emperor, Majorian, gained back a lot of territories and pacified Gaul and Spain: he assembled a great army and fleet, and when everithing was ready to reconquer Africa, the fleet's officers defected to Gensericus, leading to the assasination of the politically weakened emperor. Indeed, it was a pity, and a chance lost. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorian
And, btw, the roman empire fell or in 1204 (4° crusade) or in 1453 (Memhet II take Costantinople) , not surely in 476... or someone still believe papist propaganda?
India was never really a political entity before modern times. It was more like what we would term Europe today ie a group of peoples who share a cultural heritage but are divided among different countries and languages.Quote:
Originally Posted by Macilrille
China fits the statement a bit better but was still ruled by foreigners or divided among different empires at many points in history eg mogols, warring states peroid.
edit: bah! aper beat me to it.
Japan.
I think it was after it stopped gaining new territory. The Roman Empire was based completely around conquering, and after they stopped gaining any new territory they began to run out of money for the armies. After Augustus, Roman territory pretty much stayed the same with a few minor increases (Trajan)
OWNED!!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Hax
When it was divided between 2 brothers.
actually, I beat Aper before he beat you. so there.:laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by bobbin
Somehow, that sounds frighteningly familiar to me. Still, it's an argument, although I doubt that a single reason was solely responsible for the fall of the Roman empire.Quote:
Originally Posted by oudysseos
Indian & Chinese culture/civilization yes, but political entity? No.Quote:
Originally Posted by Macilrille
India today is united, although a few Indians might disagree with that statement as Pakistan & Bangladesh are not part of India. And Mahatma Gandhi was also very much against it.
And that proves....Quote:
Originally Posted by Hax
They've only been united for a few hundred years. Plenty of time for dissolution to set in again. Or more likely conquered by outsiders.
My university teacher in ancient history brought us a sheet of paper which read:"Reasons for the decline and fall of the roman empire".
On that sheet of paper where about 70 to 100 terms. Economic crisis, barbarian invasion, incompetence, even weird terms like homosexuallity, but many more then I can recall right now. What she said is, that this are all terms used by historians to explain the decline of Rome. She showed us that for a simple reason, to prove that there is no exact explenation for the decline of Rome.
You people may interpret all the signs and effect, but the decline was so complexe and is far beyond grasping with the limited sources, that we will never fully understand why it happen.
Oh, and the famous historian Habsbawn made an interessting theisis about the decline. He mentions that the cours of history was often determined by civilization against barbarians. He mentions all the ancient empires that were effected by that, but only the Western Roman Empire was completley destroyed. This set out a motion throughout the history of Europe to reinvent and reconstruct the Roman Empire, most notably the Resnaissance. Thus Europe set out for a different path of history. It's a bit vague how I can discribe it, but if someone is interessted in the passage I can type it down.
Well, TBH Japanese history is so riddled by internal strife and dynastic struggles that a Portugese commentator (Possibly Francis Xavier, I'm quoting out of memory here) called the Japanese people "the most belligerent nation on earth, who live only to fight each other." Granted, he visited in Japan during the height of the Sengoku Jidai, when things were unnatturally violent even on Japanese standards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hax
Japanese culture and the nation as a whole have never been conquered or properly subjected to foreign rule, but like all nations it has suffered from fighting between two transitional political entities. Empires, like all political entities, will eventually fall, but cultures can last millenia, like in China. The main point is to distinguish between a culture and it's political entity. Rome may have fallen but it's culture and customs lived on, or alternatively the "true" customs of the Pagan city-state died before the actual empire, depending on how you look at it.
Edit: Dammit, didn't realise that Krusader allready adressed this point. Now all I did was waste space.
Actually, their throne dates back to 550 BCE. The warring Shogunates were never (AFAIK) conquered by foreigners of any kind, and the Japanese culture was never really influenced by anything since the original occupation of Honshu and the rest of the islands, so I guess you can define Japan as one of the oldest still standing original empires. Of course, they had their changes in government and stuff, but the Emperor is still the highest entity, who held this position for over 2,500 years.Quote:
They've only been united for a few hundred years. Plenty of time for dissolution to set in again. Or more likely conquered by outsiders.
@Zeibek: No problem, of course. However, I wish to stress the point that, as you said, Japan was never subjugated by a foreign entity.
Of course, you have other lands, such as Portugal and Spain who can date their roots back to the founding of the kingdom of Leon, but they too have had their share of subjugation.
The Empire was doomed after good emperors started trying to establish dynasties eg. Marcus Aureilius, Septimus Severus, Constantine, Theodosius( arguably good emperors)
Christianity probably played apart in the empires fall aswell as germanic barbarians serving in the army and returning to thier lands with more knowledge of roman tactics, equipment and political system, meaning that germanic tribes became confederacies united due to want of roman lands and a more evovled political structure due to romman influence, and religion in some cases.
By 753 B.C., it was doomed. :skull:
I see your point. However, by this definition an empire survives as long as it's underlying culture does. The British, or the Ottoman Empire for that matter, was never subjucted by a foreign entity yet it has ceased to exist. Fact is empires are just abnormally large political entities that often occupy an area of many ethnicities, and the empire is considered dead after it is reduced to the territory of it's underlying culture or is completely destroyed. In this case Japan is poor example, as the Japanese empire lasted only for a couple of decades, and never made any permanent inroads into subject areas.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hax
I hate being a pedant, but actually the idea of the Japanese emperor holding a position of power is a very recent one, developed by Chugoku daimyo before the Meiji Restoration in order to create a mythically legitimized opposition to the Tokugawa administration. Even during the early days when the Japanese were only colonizing Honshu and Kyushu the Emperor's state held only a primus inter pares position. Generally after the Kamakura period the emperor became little more than a pawn in the machinations of aristocratic families. He did exist, but for about 700 years he only had a secondary symbolic value to anybody. There are even stories that during the Tokugawa regime the Emperor lived in a house made of reeds and that his children ate mudcakes. These are of course exaggerations, but prove the point well enough.Quote:
Emperor is still the highest entity, who held this position for over 2,500 years.
I understand. Thank you for your enlightening :bow:
Are you Japanese?
Well, weren't they influenced by the Chinese in the form of religion, philosophy, and other things as well as elements from the West during Sengoku Jidai and since the late 19th century?Quote:
Originally Posted by Hax
:juggle2:
Religion stayed pretty much with Shinto, Buddhism and Taoism, afaik.Quote:
Well, weren't they influenced by the Chinese in the form of religion, philosophy, and other things as well as elements from the West during Sengoku Jidai and since the late 19th century?
Philosophy is pretty hard to think away from religion, but anyways; I should have noted that I meant until about 1850.
Heh, hardly. I just have a thing for that little archipelago and the wacky people inhabiting it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hax
Ah yes. I have recently been very interested in the Japanese culture. Thanks for helping me out with this stuff.
Wrong. The Indian Sub-Continent is still divided into India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma. The idea of "India" has changed over the last 60 years, with it previously referring to the whole of the sub-continent, to the now predominantly Hindu citizens of "Republic of India". Likewise, Pakistan is a totally artificial construct created by the British (Sorry: We screwed up yet another place in the world) that is made up of Indians who happen to be Muslims, whilst totally ignoring the many many cultural, linguistic, religious and ethnic differences between the various peoples.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ibrahim
I'd consider the Catholic Church an Empire. It has a lot of power and influence, it's very rich, and the decisions that the Pope makes can affect the whole world.Quote:
Originally Posted by We shall fwee...Wodewick
I would agree with that (Apart from the Rome being a city state bit). However, a modern, western democracy would have been very hard to maintain in antiquity, and there is also the issue of slave labour.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
M-M-M-MONSTER KILLL!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Hax
Culturally and politically, Japan as an entity has remained separate and independent. Yes, it's had it's strife and chaos (Boshin Wars, Post WWII).
But where we to talk about Empires that are still powerful today, and always have been throughout their existence...I don't know. The USA might take a turn for the worst now, and I suppose you could consider the EU...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeibek
Me too! :2thumbsup: I'm going to apply for the Jet Programme after University, where I'm either going to do PPE, or International Relations and Japanese (Sorry, no history folks). I'm currently learnijng Katakana, and I've memorised all the "a"s and the "i"sQuote:
Originally Posted by Hax
I wouldn't say that Rome was necessarily doomed by the time of Marius, but the roots of what brought it down were definitely sown in the political changes in the first century BC.
I would say that the Crisis of the Third Century, though, was when the empire started to go downhill. But still, Diocletian and his successors were able to hold it together, so I would not say it was necessarily doomed yet. As people have pointed out, once the Vandals took North Africa, the Western Empire was in real trouble, as that was the main source of grain.
However, I think even up to Justinian, the idea of a Roman Empire was still viable. The reconquest of the Empire was intially very successful. And even before that, the Vandals, Goths, Franks, ect. were very willing to become Romanized, and adopted Roman culture, language, law, ect. So if things turned out differently, I could see a Mediterranean world governed by the Byzantines, with "barbarian" Romanized states on its fringes. However, the force that really doomed the idea of a Roman Empire was Islam. It swept through the Byzantine Empire, took Egypt (the other main source of grain), North Africa, and Spain. And most importantly, the regions conquered by the Arabs rapidly abandoned the use of Greek (or, in the West, Latin) and the age-old Mediterranean culture in favor of the new, Arab culture. From then on, the culture makeup of the Medierranean changed, and even the Byzantine Empire, at least in my opinion, changed fundamentally and stopped being truly “Roman” so Roman civilization was essentially dead.
But my favorite reason for Rome’s fall is Voltaire’s: “This empire fell because it existed. Everything has to fall”
@Subotan: Very, very interesting. I also just found a page on Wikipedia that states that the Greek wind God Zephyr influenced the Japanese wind God Fujin.
I've done some research into Japanese mythology as well, especially on Shingon and Shinto mysticism.
Great post! Just shows how much influence one man can have in changing the course of history.Quote:
Originally Posted by Uticensis
Deep. :shame:Quote:
But my favorite reason for Rome’s fall is Voltaire’s: “This empire fell because it existed. Everything has to fall”
Aye, I remember seeing a post on the .org about the transformation of Zephyr through Indian/Chinese Gods into Fujin.Quote:
@Subotan: Very, very interesting. I also just found a page on Wikipedia that states that the Greek wind God Zephyr influenced the Japanese wind God Fujin.
Nice. I'm currently on completeing my first (and thanks to a tight schedule last) Japanese language course. It's kind of wierd that you're going through katakana first since it's only used in the transcription of foreign words. We've almost gone through the hiragana, though I haven't bothered to memorise all the characters. It's really cool to be taught an orthographic system based on completely different principles than our boring Latin one, I can't help but feel smart every time I mitigate a vowel at the end of a syllable or turn "ki" into "gi" by adding just two strokes on the corner of the character. Downside with all this is that we haven't studied the language itself as much as we have the writing system :shame:Quote:
Originally Posted by Subotan
But luckily I'm not even in university yet, so I'll have plenty of time to learn it later on :beam:
I'm doing it on my own, with the help of self-made flash cards (Paper slips) colour coded into the different vowels, Wikipedia, the 45 minute bus journey to school and various podcasts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeibek
Yeah, I realise that now, but I've already made the "cards", so I may as well finish my "course".Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeibek
It's confusing at first, before you realise that each character represents a syllable, rather than a letter. Now I love it :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Zeibek
Yes, oh God yes. Likewise with "hi", with the addition of "quotation marks" or "A degree symbol", it instantly means something different. I also wondered what would happen if you mixed "bo" and "po" in a RL situation, and I came out with something in English like "I just bobbed a pupple" :smash:Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeibek
I'm in exactly the same boat as you. My knowledge of vokab is limited to "Konichi-Wa".Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeibek
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fixiwee
Joe's Law
Given mitigating factors the more complex a culture/civ becomes, the more likely it will collapse under stress.
I believe some have a clear view of the cause and effect. I've posted on this topic several times and if you'll want will do so again. It will clear up a lot of misconceptions.
CmacQ
Im quite interested in some of the replies here, having thought it was widely accepted that Augustus et al had managed to put a system in place that fixed many of the problems inherent with the Roman "republican" system. Obviously that view is still in dispute with many people.
I have to say though that an empire that was doomed 20+ generations before its actual collapse has some pretty impressive longetivity. Few other empires have even lasted so long from start to finish.
Among the more interesting theories that I have heard for the end of the empire was the massive increase in the number of men becoming monks, leading to decline in population etc. This theory is based on the fact that at one point apparently one third of all men in Egypt had got the weird haircut and all that went with it. Not sure how much I believe it however...
One thing to note is the Roman "virtue" of looking back in awe of their superior ancestors. This to me is a sure sign of a society in decline. Roman authorsunanimously look back at (for them) historical times as better than where they were currently living at. This is not a healthy habit, especially as it was often not true. Debate exists over the reasons for this attitude, whether it was simply guilt, or far more complex feelings in regard to the fact their societal ancestors had conquered the world while they lived comparatively easy lives. Many Romans even idealised the lives of the "savages" they conquered, living much closer to the land and avoiding the corrupting influences of power and money.Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
This sort of attitdue was instrumental in forming the opinions quoted by Dol Guldor, and certainly an older, more judgemental and - dare I say it - more simplistic view of history compounded these views, condemning the Romans for destroying themselves. But when were these people writing, who were they actuall condemning?
Anyway, its an interesting topic that has been debated for 1500 years without resolution, and Im sure will be discussed for 1500 more - at least.
Yeah, that's a pretty old-fashioned theory. It is part of Edward Gibbon's explanation of why Rome fell (the loss of manpower was part of the "triumph of religion and barbarism" that he said brought down the Empire). Hardly any serious historian puts much emphasis on that anymore. The amount of manpower that went into the Church was only a drop in the bucket. And, anyway, the Church took over some functions of the state, starting in the time of Constantine and expanding more and more over time, so I think things evened out in the end.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses
This was common in the Greco-Roman world. The people in the past were always thought to be better. This goes all the way back to early Greece: the ancestors were out with Achilles doing heroic deeds, killing crazy numbers of Trojans, blah, blah, blah. Whether its a healthy habit or not, I think all cultures do this to some extent.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambyses
I don't think this has anything to do with Rome's fall. Indeed, I don't think we should look at the fall of Rome as the people becoming weak or decadent. That's a very Victorian mindset. In all times, there a smart and stupid people, and strong and weak people. I think it is better to look at the fall of Rome as the failure of a very complex machine.
I like the idea too.Quote:
Originally Posted by chenkai11
But, I think the Second Punic War was not the beginning of the end. One could argue the destruction of Carthage, but not the second. The second was a result of two expanding powers clashing over important economic areas turning into a revengefest.
Btw, I noticed someone mentioned something about America appearing to fall. Would anyone consider America a true empire? Can anyone in this day and age have an empire like the Romans did? America dominates the world because they are the most influential and culturally widespread, not because of military prowess. Whoever America consumes the most from becomes the most powerful i.e. China. Could one consider America a modern-day Rome?
Please, no ragging on America without real input to my question. It gets old and I"m pretty sure it will get the thread closed.
Well, the British Empire was largely cultural as well to begin with. At the end of the day America has de facto control of Canada, Britain and Australia. That's a lot of muscle before you add in the lesser states surrounding them and then the EU, where control is less strong.
Blast it, I was just about to comment about this book.Quote:
Originally Posted by oudysseos
I second everything Oudysseos said.
Right,
This is a copy of one of my posts from a thread about urban conscription. It includes a lot of information about the decline.
Part I
In fact forced conscription was applied by the various so-called Roman dynasties’ and governments that followed the Republic. In times of perceived emergence these conscriptions were instituted throughout the extent of the Empire. Here is an example;
http://books.google.com/books?id=920...t8Pc#PPA134,M1
Of course the most renowned case was the mass conscription imposed by Augustus.
http://books.google.com/books?id=xue...aQwlt3EE4Yv4vQ
By the Late Empire Period, conscription was an everyday fact of live. Yet, throughout the Euro-Mediterranean world, economic, agricultural productivity, and population levels had dropped significantly. This was particularly marked in the more northern latitudes, which by the way included much of the West and conversely much less of the East. Thus, for increasingly fewer material and human resources in the west there were competing interests that progressively wrenched the fabric of the state. This is a very complex subject and I’ll try to abbreviate it as much as I can.
One element of the problem was that the entire demographic profile and social structure of the populations that composed the empire had been dramatically altered. Again, this was particularly marked within the West, and again this was largely because of the acute labor shortage. Overall in the West, the unskilled lower-class had mushroomed and the manufacturing/merchant middle-class had shrunk radically. It appears that Late Roman society had become more rigid and hierarchical with harsh laws that prohibited mobility and fixed everyone as to occupation and specific loci.
Another major problem, and this is the crux of the answer to your question, was the rise of not senatorial authority, rather the Senatorial Aristocracy and decline of the Principate's muscle and ability to direct the resources of the West. These traditional aristocratic families had become essentially independent of the Principate. They didn’t owe their power or prestige to the state and in fact, considered themselves superior by birth, as many late western emperors came from the lower social class associated with the military. Typically, these aristocrats had gained their status through the latifundia system and lived on their large estates paying little attention to contemporary problems, other than those that affected them directly.
This of course brings us back to the massive labor shortages in the west by the late 4th and 5th centuries AD. In the rural settings we have the Latifundia System with agricultural land concentrated in the hands of a few large landowners of the Senatorial Aristocracy, yet actually farmed by coloni, or semi-free persons whom later would be known as serfs. This system was again somewhat of a sick radical change from the slave-based system that had lead to the massive land consolations in the late Republican and early Empire periods.
These coloni of the 5th century were in fact poor subsistence farmers who managed their own small plots of land, as sharecroppers, which also contributed to the drop in agricultural productivity. In effect the Senatorial Aristocracy, by way of the latifundia would frequently defy the authority of the state, hired their own private armies, and tax collectors could rarely collect from or the military conscript among the farmers on the latifundia. Thus, large segments of the so-called Roman West passed outside the effective control of the state.
Turning to the urban setting we have the dismal Collegia System (sound familiar as it is only fitting that the modern institution suffers from more than just the same title). Because of the damans of the Roman state and urban based Senatorial Aristocracy the Collegia system did for innovation and what remained of the manufacturing/merchant middle-class, that the latifundia system did for the lower-class and agriculture.
So, to answer your question, when the army or tax man came’a callen in the West, he got not butt'a up turned middle finger, from the Senatorial Aristocracy. There is much more to this like the institutional mutilation of their coloni to disqualify them for military service, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
CmacQ
Part 2
The answer to your first question is yes and no. Yes, there was a corresponding drop in economic activity, agricultural productivity, and population levels, but not to the extend as in the West. Actually these processes are the most marked in what is modern Britain, France, and the other more northern latitudes than anywhere else in the West or East. We also have another no, in that the East reacted to these processes differently and thus the societal changes were far different.
This is where it gets very unclear. The so-called Roman Empire represents the best documented example of a long term Systems Collapse ever. However, all we know for sure is what did happened, not what the causality of the systems collapse was. I believe most historians view this as a managerial problem; as per your question's listing of 'corruption, overtaxing, and competition by big business.' I simply do not think this was the case, rather these were managerial responses to more systemic factors.
To me it appears that everything stems from the drop in the economy, agricultural productivity, and population levels, and not the reverse. Although we don't actually see clear indicators of these three processes until the end of the 2nd century AD. they become very pronounced by the late 4th and early 5th centuries. Regardless, there also is evidence not of a decline, but a gradual yet significant slow-down or decreased economic, agricultural productivity, and population growth as early as the reign of Augustus. Given that the Julio-Claudian Empire should have provided greater economy stability and promoted both agricultural productivity and population growth, this makes little sense.
I have my own very simple answer concerning the cause, but the collection of direct evidence that would prove this, remains unfinished. As to your middle class query; right, this was one reason why the military used the barbarian levy. These were made available through foedus agreements directly with the state, thus bypassing the problems associated with the Latifundia System. Here by the state I'm actually referring to the Magister utriusquae militiae and not the Principate, which was yet another diversion of imperial authority. Sorry, this answer is very incomplete as there is much to say about the Collegia System. But I must get some sleep, I can't think clearly right now.
But, here is a hint; check out the history of China and see if similar managerial responses and societal changes as those witnessed in the West, occurred at the same time. Depending how far north within China one goes, the answer can be a resounding yes.
CmacQ
Part 3
Right, the urban based Collegia System, started as groups or clubs often associated with some such religious affiliation. However, by the Empire Period they had become roughly analogous to the guilds of the Euro-Medieval world. They included groups of business men and those employed within a given trade and/or industry. Technically, this system should have resulted in greater standardization, increased industrial productivity, and massive innovation. But, in fact the complete opposite occurred.
Again, the underlaying problem was the overall drop in population levels, particulary in the northern segments of the West, and the resulting labor shortages. The various arms of the government exacerbated this. First, the state (the Principate/ Dominate, Magister Utriusquae Militiae, Praetorian Prefect, Promagistrates Provincia, or other imperial officials and affiliates) came to use the Collegia System to assure that promised services and/or goods were produced and delivered. In good times, this may have occurred at or above cost, but in bad times it increasingly happened below cost. Of course, this practice adversely effected the profit motive while promoting the decline of the benefits the Collegia System may have provided. The local urban based Senatorial Aristocracy and Curia governments made similar damans, as well.
Of course the Curia governments/class/upper-middle class, or curiales referred to the wealthy merchants, businessmen, and medium-sized landowners who served their city as local magistrates and Decurions (municipia senators). They were responsible for public building projects, temples, festivities, games, and local welfare. They often paid for these themselves as a way to increase their personal prestige. Early in the imperial period the Decurions postings were actively sought as they would get a front row seat at the local theatre and be accepted into the Honestiores societies. However, by the middle 3rd century AD, with declining state revenue and increased costs the Decurions became little more than imperial tax collectors. In this period any shortfall in the local tax collection was of course taken out of their own pockets.
Now, related to this is another area were things get extremely weird as events and practice impacted the Collegia System. Right, despite the overall economic decline in the West, the budget of the state actually more than doubled; say from the middle 2nd to the early 4th century. Because, the opportunities for the state to acquire wealth, in the traditional method, as was done in the Late Republican Period (which actually was the reason the Empire came into being) were either limited or no longer available, this makes no sense whats so ever? How could this have happened? Also much of the expansion in the budget concerned the acquiring of goods produced by the Collegia System, to be consumed directly by the state.
Well, the imperial government increasingly made up the short fall of monetary intake by the practice of Bona Damatorum. The target of this was typically prominent citizens, or the Decurions mentioned above that had illegally fled their posting in an attempt to seek relief from the often ruinous burden of the office. Here is the kicker, its these Decurions that provided the capital that supported and/or fostered the manufacturing/merchant middle-class. The aristocracy and Curia likewise followed ensuite in the persecutions of the Decurion membership. The result was a massive decline in available capital and the size of the middle-class. Can anyone say exodus to the East? Next we have laws that fixed occupations and locations.
Again, this is a very complex subject and my offering only an outline. I think this may answer russia almighty's question about 'forced conscription of any of the Italian city dwellers into the legions.'
I also hope these posts may aid in your understand the decline. So I'm forced to agree with Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla that Rome was doomed around the beginning of the 1st century BC.
CmacQ
cmacq, I definitely agree with you that economic decline had a huge impact on the fall of the Western Empire (consequently, a similar phenomenon can be observed in the East in the late Sixth, early Seventh century, especially with the loss of most productive provinces to the Muslims-only difference is the East was slowly able to recover).
But economic decline was by no means the only factor. And certain historians, especially recently, have brought up doubts about the true impact of economic decline (I would refer you to Ward-Perkins "Jones and the Late Roman Economy," and the above mentioned book by Peter Heather, who puts the emphasis far more on barbarian invasion).
And I would disagree with your statement that the senatorial aristocracy essentially crippled the ability of the Roman government to collect taxes: with the institution of the "capita" tax, the state seems to have actually become more efficient in their extraction of tax money, even if this often had to be collected "in kind." However, the problem is that this placed an inordinately high tax burden on the coloni, which led to depopulation when they fled the land, also leading to the "agri deserti" problem. At the same time, the tax burden also affected the curial class, causing them to shirk their former responsibilities, the effects of which you explained very well in your third post.
Right, but again I don’t think this process was a managerial problem, rather a managerial response to a problem/stress caused by an intrinsic phenomenon.
I believe the initial stress was stagnation followed by a slight decrease in economic productivity, primarily agricultural, over an extremely long period. Over time this resulted in a slow but progressive population decline and the managerial response in the west, while temporally effective for monetary reasons, only exasperated the problem. Now, the reason for the problem is a bit more tricky. But interestingly enough the problem doesn't appear to have been confined to the temporal or geographic extent of this particular polity. Thus, I’ve long suspected the causality of the problem is environmental. And that of course, would be the oscillation from a warm-and-wet to cool-and-dry regime, within a 650±50 year reoccurring cycle, but as noted above, not all the data is in yet. Still, from what there is, I think it may have begun sometime in the 1st century BC.
Indeed theoretical and highly provocative to say the least.
CmacQ
It doesn't seem all that strange or provocative, tbh. I mean, what you are describing would be more of an ultimate cause rather than a proximate cause, of which economy, poor leaders, external pressure, etc. fall under. It could be (and probably was) a major reason why various tribes up and migrated en masse. Or more like the climate changes on the steppe say, which causes Ye Olde Steppe Horde to head further south and west, generally, which beings them into conflict with local tribes/states, which triggers THEIR migration which pushes them further west and/or south, bringing them into conflict, et cetera et cetera, until the cross the borders of the Roman Empire and interact with them, peacefully or not (usually not). One could argue that a more lenient policy towards the "barbarians" could very well have prevented the collapse of the Western Empire by allowing fresh blood into the system, plus a needed influx of manpower, but again, that is only a possible proximate cause.
Also looking at the geography could possibly provide an answer. For those starting to migrate from the Siberian tundra, continuing to head west is far more viable than trying to go thru the Caucasus mountains and their not-likely-to-be-friendly natives. As one proceeds further west you get the option of raiding south towards Greece but that is broken terrain with a bunch of not-to-be-trifled-with entities and later, the eastern half of the Empire, an even more daunting challenge. So you keep heading west, or one should say the people Ye Olde Steppe Horde has displaced are now heading west, between the Alps and not-agriculturally-friendly Germany (not yet, at least), leaving you with the fertile land of France and the Western Roman Empire. If the lay of the land had been different we could very well be speaking of how the Western Empire held out against all odds and carried on the legacy of Rome for who knows how long while the Eastern half got overrun by barbarians. All in all, I'd say Mother Nature in all her intangibility provides a lovely ultimate cause, but is generally not an answer that satisfies people, so much haranguing over proximate causes arises, and with good reason. Ultimate causes are meant to show broad trends and generalizations while proximate causes deal with more specific cases.
The problem with the Roman Empire is that it was big enough to be complex enough that mere proximate causes are so plentiful that you can't help but fail to sufficiently explain its failure using them. Thus the penultimate causes of economy, stagnation, mismanagement, and external pressure are used, since they are sufficiently broad that they can provide a happy medium for us persnickety humans, yet they can easily be further broken down into smaller proximate causes when detail is needed.
However, if I were to pick a single time when Rome was "doomed", I'd say when it got too successful too quickly and outstripped the capability of its government and the people in the government to assimilate the expanding borders and ethnicities being incorporated into the Republic. So anywhere between the end of the Second Punic War and the destruction of Carthage. Lets say after the battle of Magnesia and the Treaty of Apamea.
Men, this is most interesting, but I fear this mass of infos can be confusing... and quite pointless, in relation to the topic.
I mean, most of us know, more or less, the flaws of the late roman empire, but:
1) often the principate was not better or more efficient, only differently organized
2) no ancient civilization seems efficient or well organized in modern eyes
3) WHO DAMNLY CARES about barbarization?? Until the fought for the empire, barbarians were a resource, it's ludicrous to adhere mindlessly to ancient authors and their outdated moralism... see Stilico, or the half Hun Aetius
I quote Peater Heater again, but according to ancient sources, the western part of the empire managed to recover after every blow and to gain the upper edge, until the loss of Africa crippled most severely its finances, and after that, still the empire was going to resurrect with Majorian, but a bunch of disloyal officier doomed it.
The empire was going through great tranformation in late antique, that probably weakened it... and so??? It's life baby, change never stops , sometimes strenghten you, sometimes weakens you, the important in the end is to survive, and clearly changes alone are not sufficient to explain the end of the western part, or its eventual survival, if we not take in account some extraordinary figures, most of all Attila, Aetius and Gensericus.
If the eastern part of empire had fallen in 753 agains the Caliphate armies, generations of historians would have spent their lives explaining how was inevitable the collapse of the empire against early Islam, because of greater changes in the climatic, demography, blabla... to skyrocket into greater exlanations it's a most dangerous attitude in history.
P.S.
PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT CULTURAL CHANGES THAT MADE THE EMPIRE NO MORE ROMAN!!! IT'S TOTALLY NONSENSE!!! Like if cultures can be isolated and preservated from the flow of history, what are you talking about!!! If Byzantine people still called themselves, and thought sincerely to be, Romans, and if the political entity called roman empire embodied primarily by its great eastern capital still survived at least until 1204, this should be enough for everyone. For me it is, at least.
If you choose to believe the lies of the Pope, who needed the empire to be thought dead to legalize his political power in Latium, and his project to become the master of puppets of the west, claiming a greater authorithy because of the greatest cheat in european history, the donation of Costantine, proved to be false in XV century by Lorenzo Valla, in which the emperor donated the west to the Bishop of Rome (who lately appointed the Holy Barbarian Emperor to be is political arm, in the intentions of the Pope, history went differently), well, it's entirely another matter... a matter of faith! :laugh4:
None want to comment? I expected some rants about this :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Aper
Here's my take on things:
(1) The Rome we are talking about was never a fixed thing.
(2) Rather, Rome was continually reinvented as a different thing (if you look at it closely enough) with the same name.
(3) 'Rome', in this sense, ends whenever we (now, looking back) deem the new invention of it to be TOO different to justifiably call it 'Rome'.
(4) The doom of this 'Rome' is whatever proximal event precipitated the new 'non-Rome' reinvention (whether this is Augustan reforms, too many barbarians, Attila or whatever).
(5) Rome, as the notion that it is a cohesive thing, is doomed to change, from inception.
(6) You will never get anything other than a mish-mash of pretty much everything can be plausibly linked to have doomed 'Rome'.
(7) But that is not what you want to know.
(8) What you want to know are specific things like:
What stopped making it possible for groups of men (wearing red and Lorica ______ta) to be organised and fight other people for the defense of boundaries on a map? Or,
What stopped making it possible for certain acts to be procedural sanctioned through a codified set of laws in southern France? Or,
When was it no longer possible for caartographers to draw maps that included a huge red chunk covered with "ROME"? Or, whaterver.
(9) Each of these questions will have complex answers, but answers they will have.
(10) When was Rome doomed depends on how Rome is defined, and the more complex this definition (eg. all of the above) the more complex the answer.
(11) Hence there are many wonderful stories to answer 'When was Rome doomed'
(12) And life is about stories after all, and this is a good thing.
(13) Thanks for the question.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joszen1
I totally agree with Shaka Joszen here. Especially with points 6 and 12!
I highly doubt there is a definitive reason for the fall of Rome. Many factors were contributory and we're not going to find those factors either, because even the most trivial of things could have had a major influence on the faith of Rome.
But let the stories and theories be, it's fun and interesting to read and some people earn their money with them...
Rome was doomed when the last Roman Emperor was deposed. >_>
Sorry, I can't agree with nearly anything you said in your post. I've decided to quote only this part because in my opinion it is a huge mistake and lack of understanding of the importance of culture and religion in historical process. The "state" is much more than just the assembly of different official titles, bureaucracy and army. Quite obviously different states live by completely different laws, what is acceptable in one state is unimaginable in another. Decision-making processes that are traditional in one state are unacceptable for another. According to your theory that culture (and here I mean religion, traditions, common language and ideology) is not important, how could you explain those differences?Quote:
Originally Posted by Aper
When Roman and romanized population of the Empire began to dwindle (and there's no doubt that depopulation process was under way in late antiquity in those parts of the world), it was gradually replaced by the influx of not romanized barbarians. The empire could not romanize them unlike early empire which successfully romanized most of it's conquered population. Interesting question that I can't answer is why that happened, why Gauls, Iberian tribes and many others were gradually romanized and in time become true "citizens" of the empire, while 4-th, 5-th century invaders were not. In any case, the result was that vast areas of the empire were populated mostly by non-Romans, again not merely by ethnicity, but by language, traditions and religion and it's very hard to sustain a Roman Empire without Romans. The issue is very complex, but I hope the bottom line is clear.
What you write about the Byzantians is only partially true. Yes, they still called themselves Romans, but for the most part of its history Byzantian Empire had very little in common with the Roman Empire of the ancient era. In one of the books about the Byzantian Empire I've even read that it ceased to be "Roman" after Arab sieges of Constantinople. I don't know Byzantian history well enough to comment on this with some authority, but the author says that after Arab wars the empire had undergone deep changes that made anything Roman Byzantians still had no more than just a "heritage".
P.S. There are several great posts by cmacq, but after reading them I still couldn't find out what was the cause for the depopulation, which also in my opinion was one of the main reasons for the decline of the WRE.
I agree with your statement here but would interject that if you filter your views through a modern intolerance with certain religions or cultures then you can draw conclusions quite easily.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Ulpius
Cmaq - well reasoned, informative posts as always.
I will admit straight out I'm not enormously knowledgable about Roman History, and due to classes lately it's been a while since I've been able to enjoy my history. However maybe those who've actually studied the subject could reject this academically, but what about the inheritance of Pergamum? I've gotten the impression that even when they controlled part of Asia Minor, it was more of a vassal state than anything else. Only once it became a full Roman territory did it seem to lead into further expansion into Asia, and with this increasing load on governing larger distances, this to me seems like it left a lot of room for new wealth to be acquired and to raise a new class of politician that was capable of exploiting the republican system as it stood. But then maybe I'm way off my mark here, it's approaching the third day of nearly no sleep as I try to finish up assignments that taking much longer than they should do a shitty connection that keeps falling offline.
Perhaps Rome became doomed (in the barbarian department anyway) when they stopped splitting up "barbarian" settlers like the Goths under Alaric, Burgundians under Gundobad ( i think) and Franks under Clovis (i probably i have the name wrong, i can't remember who origionally lead the Franks into the empire). Also anti barbarianism (eg. Stilicho's case) probably played it's part in alienating "barbarians" within the Empire (like the goths who joined Alaric) and putting them off Romanisation, why become like those that hate you?
Plus ofcourse by the time of the fall many many "barbarians" had nice shiny roman equipment from victories on the battle field and serving in the army( as auxilia and later foderati) since the empire's inception.
Hope this is clear enough to get my point across, that Rome created formidable enemies.
I realise there was a multitude of other problems and reasons
cmacq: The environmental theory for depopulation is an interesting one. I’ve only heard of a few historians who advocate it, so if you have any good articles to refer me to, I would love to read more about it. However, I generally have found it unconvincing. For one, I’m wary about projecting modern problems, such as the effects of climate change, on the ancient world. Additionally, I’m deterred by Occam’s razor: it seems like its an unnecessary factor. There were enough problems that could effect Rome’s population and economy (major plagues, especially in Italy and Gaul in the third century; barbarian invasion, which hit the northern provinces around the Rhine pretty hard; over taxation, leading to abandonment of the land), and not enough concrete evidence, especially in the primary sources, of things that would one would expect from climate change (severe droughts happened, but no more frequently than I think can be expected).
Marcus Ulpius: I think you overstate the problem of barbarization. Its one of those old ideas of Rome’s decline that goes make to Edward Gibbon and his “triumph and religion and barbarism.”
You say you can’t understand why the barbarians of the 4th-5th century did not want to become Romanized like the Iberians and Gauls of earlier time, but they actually did. There is a famous quote about Athaulf, the founder of the Visigothic kingdom in Gaul and Spain: “I longed for [The Roman Empire] to become Gothia, and Athaulf to be what Caesar Augustus had been. But long experience has taught me that the ungoverned wildness of the Goths will never submit to laws, and that without law, a state is not a state. Therefore I have more prudently chosen the different glory of reviving the Roman name with Gothic vigor, and I hope to be acknowledged by posterity as the initiator of a Roman restoration.”
The barbarians still looked at Rome as the ideal. The difference was, how one participated in being Roman had changed, not the desire of outsiders to become Roman. Before the barbarian invasions hit really hard, the Germanic tribes on the other side of the Rhine tried to emulate Roman ways, and archeology as shown a lot of Roman style in their material culture. But by the fifth century, becoming Roman was no longer about submitting to the Roman state like it had been in the times of Caesar and Trajan: the central state was too weak for that to be an attractive option. Instead the barbarians, as far as they wanted to be Roman, wanted to be the defenders of Roman culture. Just look at how Alaric, as he was supposedly trying to take down Rome, kept trying to accumulate Roman military ranks, even on the eve of his sack of Rome. Or how Theodoric governed the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy: maintaining Roman culture to an incredible degree, but with the Goths as a separate, semi-Romanized military class. Indeed, the barbarians did want to become Romanized, and many barbarian states adopted Roman language, law, customs, ect. Think about it: almost no Gothic survives to this day (and much of what does comes from the mid-fourth century, before the Goths entered Roman territory), and French, the language of the Frankish conquerors of Gaul, is a Romance language, not a Germanic one. Even Arianism, which became the “Germanic Christianity” for a while, gave way to Roman Catholic Christianity when the barbarians wanted to align themselves with the Roman way of life.
Edit On the issue of whether Byzantium was Roman or not (thus, whether Rome fell in 476 or 1453), I would say it fell somewhere in between. I generally consider the Arab invasions and the Byzantine Dark Age the events that separate an Eastern Roman Empire from a Byzantine Empire proper. However, as with most judgments in history, the line is subjective. In fact, one can say Rome fell in 1806 when the last Holy Roman Emperor abdicated. I wouldn't agree, but it's all about what you happen to think makes a state "Roman."
When Constantinople was sacked by the Ottomans in 1453Quote:
Originally Posted by Raphia
About Byzantium, surely we can't judge weather the true descendants of rome were roman or not? They didn't just claim to be roman, they were roman, even if they were hellenised. Cultures evolve, roman culture is no exception, the roman empire finally fell when it's last great city fell, Nova Roma.
Technically the roman empire may have died with the Ottomans, as they claimed to be the new roman empire..as did the russian empire aswell.
Uticensis explained well what I mean for "barbarization" : germanic meatshields for the army. Despite what ancient (or modern until late XX century) reactionary authors thought, culture/administration of the empire was NEVER "barbarized": actually, all the barbarian kings who ruled west tried to present themselves as "heirs" of the western roman empire, I'm thinking in particular at Theodoricus, the ostroghotian king of Italy: roman population under his rule almost couldn't sense the difference with the previous regime.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Ulpius
Barbarians more often than not wanted desperetely to be part of the roman world, not to destroy it: simply, the WRE was not ready/strong enough to control this huge mass of people: but even after the end of WRE as a political entity, its cultural strenght was unchanged, proved by the fact that barbarians continued to romanize themselves, leading to that huge fake called Holy Roman Empire; the descendants of the germanic conqueror of europe looked for all middle-ages at roman empire as a "paradise lost", as the ultimate political and sometimes cultural goal to achieve.
So the entire meaning of my post was that roman culture was most important for the survival of the state, but roman culture doesn't mean that of republic/principate only!!! The attitude of isolate supposed golden age from supposed dark age is a degeneration of the academic/scientific attitude, and reflect prejudices of the author more than actual facts.
Anyway I'm very interested in critics if you want to tell me what else you don't agree with, you are welcome :2thumbsup:
EDIT: congrats to Uticensis for that clear and informative post, you explained very well what I have in mind but I can't write because of my poor english :embarassed:
Rome was doomed when Constantine wiped out Roman Paganism (that was rome's original identity) and abolished "Forward policy" with defensive reserve fighting sytem; I am sure you know better than me the Field Reserve Army, and frontier troops, the comitatentes and limitanei things.
also this sytem created strong general cos in german limes and in the limes of Balkan peninsula a general can get more than 4 legions, and historically that resulted in Strong General usurpers who fought with emperor for crown that triggled endless destability....
Ottoman Sultans even claimed themselves as the successor of Roman Empire, although it is another debate, I can say that SPQR was pagan Rome, Byzantines were Christian Rome and who knows maybe Ottomans were Muslim Rome.Quote:
Technically the roman empire may have died with the Ottomans, as they claimed to be the new roman empire..as did the russian empire aswell.
I read all of the histories of that 3 Roman or claimed to be ones, They have common standing armies, their geoghrophical epansion nearly same, they all fought endless battles with persians,
and interestingly their standing armies became corrupted and triggered their doom...
P.S. also Pagan romans deified their Emperors, Byzatines accepted many emperors as saint, and also many ottoman sultans were accepted as Avliyah (same discorce as saint in islam) ...
just a speculation you know I do not want to divert the topic.
Well thing is, just as those scholars who are real experts, we cannot arrive at a conclusion as to what/when the Roman Empire really fell or was doomed. In fact probably the most accurate one was the Voltaire quote.
However, we see in the preceeding discussions much of the difficulty of making conclusions in history, many of the contributing factors, and lo and behold, we see that there was probably no single fact. IE no single time. Even if we ask questions of things that are happening now, we cannot necessarily say for certain, how could we then be able to do so for past events?
Anyway, there are good points here, I just do not think we will ever know why, when might be ascertainable. I would reiterate my claim that it was New Year's Eve 406, it was- after all- those same invaders who later took North Africa, but NVM, for who is to say that Belisarius' reconquests in the 6th Century could not have lasted had things gone different?
Byzantium... they called themselves Roman, they thought of themselves as Romans, how then dare we sit here today, knowing next to nothing of what was compared to those who lived in it, and say they were not Romans? That is on par with saying I am not a Dane cause I do not till my own farm, worship The Old Norse Pantheon and sail around looting in the rest of Europe. The time span between them and me is the same. I do inhabit the same geographical location, w and I am their descendant,hich the Byzantines did not and might have been, but I hope you get the point of the comparison anyway. Being that things evolve. I doubt Cincinnatus or Lucius Junius Brutus would have recognised many people of Constantine's Rome as Romans (nor the city itself). And as someone else said, Russia and the Holy Frankish-German Empire called themselves Roman far into modern times. These two latter I would judge both so culturally, demographis and geographically removed from the mediterennean world that was Rome's that they can hardly have been counted as such. They wanted to be though, for various reasons, but...
That means the question also becomes, what constitutes Roman?
It is an interesting point though that though it has for long been in fashion to claim that Islam was the upholder of learning and Greek-Roman science and knowledge through "the dark of the Middle Ages", fact is that most of what we got we got directly from its source in the Byzantine Empire which was still around with the knowledge at hand. I am no Islamophobe (though I do subscribe to Jyllandsposten when I can afford it), but credit where credit is due, political correctness where it is due- ie where the sun does not shine...
India, point taken, it has been united before, but never under one dynasty. But as for China, I reitareate my point. For the following reason, no matter who has headed the Cinese State as such, the state apparatus/administration never changed much. The vast size and complexity of this, combined with the need to keep it running smoothly in order to actually keep such a large population from squalor and starvation has made it well-nigh impossible to change, no matter who held the throne. This is indeed, I think, basic Chinese history, but I freely admit I know not much more beyond that and the Landes- Frank debate of 9-10 years ago. Should I be misinformed I would not mind enlightenment (though probably by pm or another thread as China has little to do in EB). My speciality is Danish Viking - High Middle Ages, Roman, Danish Iron Age, Middle Ages in General, French Decolonisation, WWII and Military History in general. Those are my specialities, and I shall gladly e-mail whoever told me quite rudely to read some basic history, a copy of my Master's Dissertation on Power Politics in 12th Century Denmark. It contains enough new scholarship that some twat just got a Ph.D Stipend largely by copying it :-( It is in Danish however, so I expect that most will gain little from it, but if you want, you can have it.
Anyway, I ramble, my point is that historical processes of such magnitude as this are complicated matters and probably irresolvable. But as someone else said, it puts bread on some peoples' tables and enlightenment is good. I want to thank for the Climactic change abstract, I knew it in basics, your abstract has shed some more light on it and I must admit that though it was probably a contributing factor, I am not convinced at all that it was the reason.
Thanks for the information, cmacq. That is very interesting indeed. Would the initial economic decrease be a consequence of climate change or are there other causes?Quote:
Originally Posted by cmacq
rome became a symbol of power so it is normal for the later states to claim a successor of them.
and I think sembolically Rome is still alive.... :book:
The romans believed that aslong as the empire was believed in, then there was a roman empire.
Did Moussolini claim to be rebuilding the roman empire at any point? cus i get the suspicion he may have.
Also don't forget Napolean...toga, leafy crown thing, empire, triumphal arches, emperor...
Infact rome may have contined in the guise of:
the "Barbarian" kingdoms, ottoman empire, Holy roman empire(lesser extent obviously), Muscovy, Russian Empire, Napolean's empire, Moussolini's Italy and even the third riech...all aspired to be like the roman empire, perhaps aslong as that ideal lives there will be roman empires.
Romans were not even a distinct ethnic grop, anyone could have been a roman citizen, from the army or being a freed slave.
Perhap rome has yet to fall....aslong as there is the potential to recreate it then it is still there.
Sorry for being abit off topic and maybe completely wrong aswell.
Well it can be argued that the Roman Empire still exists in the form of the Roman Church. This is one institution which has continuity from before the fall of the Empire up to the present day. The administration of the Church is in many ways similar to that of the Empire, especially geographically.
Leaving that aside, however, something which has not been discussed a great deal here yet is the Roman psychology. I had a very specific point when I said that Rome was doomed from the time of Marius. From Marius onwards it ceased to be "For the Glory of Rome" and became "For the Glory of the General". Once you understand that the Emperor was merely the greates General the precarious nature of his position become obvious. The rebellion against Nero answered the question, "What do you do when you have another, better, General?" then when Vespasian's troops declared him Imperator on the Rhine the system was in a dive.
The insistance of Augustus that he was not King, merely high priest, Supreme Commander and People's Champion, meant that the "Emperor", as we understand him today, never existed constitutionally. This led to an instability, particually when more competant and charismatic generals were around.
Various fixes to the system were tried. Nero and Domitian killed all their relatives and rivals; Marcus Auralius tried to great a dynasty, which would have restricted legitimate claims; Diocletian tried old fashioned Roman Virture; Constantine a fusion of three new religions; and Justinian old Roman piety.
They all failed and none of the answers they tried survived them. The closest was Constantine, but the Church became too powerful and eventually excomunicated the Emperor in the East.
I totally disagree that after Marius Rome was lost. Good emperors expanded, the only problem was not all emperors were good but some were dangerous madmen or selfish glory hunters.
I think after Adrianople disaster/goths break through, the western half was lost. I would say Eastern/Byzantine Empire was lost after Manzikert or the plunder of Constantinople of Venice.
Fluvius (should that not be Flavius, "The Blonde"?), I love that endquote, it is so correct. I wish someone would do the same for MTW II.
Phillipus, I beg to differ, a state exists as long as its administrative apparatus does and runs it, whoever is head of the state. So no matter that there were struggles for the throne, Rome carried on. Something else killed it.
The bane of the Republic though, was definately its own city state constitution that could not cope with the challenges of empire, but the Roman empire continued after that, so that is another story.
We can guesstimate, speculate, and argue all we want. The State that called itself the Roman Empire that was centered around the City of Rome fell in 476AD when its last emperor was deposed. The Eastern part of that empire which had broken away nearly 150 years earlier to form a separate empire outlasted its western counterpart for a good 1000 years further due to having more population, a better tax system, have reformed its military apparatus, and the fact that more than half of its holdings were protected from the "barbarians" that mauled the west by a single city with titanic defenses. This eastern Empire still called itself Roman until its fall in 1453AD to the Ottoman Turks, after centuries of neglect, military disasters, religious unrest, its trade moving to other places and a gradual erosion of its institutions by foreign powers, but we know it in our modern version of world history as the Byzantine Empire. THESE ARE THE POLITICAL FACTS!
Now as a symbol of culture, as a legacy, as a thing to look back on and try to recreate, the Roman empire is still with us today and will be here as long as Western Civilization exists.
I agree no one can deny that modern western civilization was willed from Roman cradle.