Context
The period of the fall of Rome lasts roughly from 200-500 CE and comprises the
decomposition of a highly developed civilization in the face of challenges
emerging from peoples much more primitive in technological, cultural,
linguistic, and even religious terms. These three-hundred years demonstrate,
from Britain all the way to the Adriatic Sea, the shift from Roman order to
bloody and lawless disorder. Indeed, while the eras of Republican and
Classical Imperial Rome were full of revolts, military difficulties, and
economic downturns, it is when studying Rome's last generations that we can
fully understand the nostalgia that people of the Middle Ages and Renaissance
held for the glorious vision of Rome that died along with Marcus Aurelius.
In effect, then, Roman history beginning with Constantine, as the historian Bury
puts it, is European Medieval history. By Constantine's time, the historical
circumstances that were to mark the years up through 600 and beyond were already
in evidence: Barbarian tribes were seeping into Britain and Western European
lands; Emperors as semi-deified, withdrawn, and absolutist kings; involuntary
peasant labor on lands not their own; personal bonds and personal law beginning
to replace impersonal law common to large expanses of territory; and, of course,
the Catholic Church, which would provide spiritual and moral direction, as well
as temporal leadership and material support, during the darkest times of the
early Medieval period.
Looked at differently, the decline period of Roman history constitutes not so
much a break, or numerous breaks, from the classical period, but aggravations
of preexisting conditions. Under this conception, it is argued that the
pressures of encroaching Barbarians amplified already existent systemic problems
within Roman politics, and in doing so overburdened the military, bureaucratic,
and financial capacities of the Empire. The external pressures the Empire faced
uncovered its internal difficulties, and once these problems were evident, the
conceptual bond that held together Rome's large population of un-free subjects
and semi- and non-literate citizens disappeared. Faced with all of these
problems, the Empire simply couldn't cope. For example, Roman leaders had
always faced multiple military threats on opposite ends of impossibly long
borders. Similarly, in dealing with these and other threats, Roman policy-
makers had often followed a pattern of trying to take the road of least
resistance, and, after finding that insufficient, having to expend more time and
manpower than would have been originally necessary. Yet, they had succeeded.
Continuing, Romans were aware of the challenges and dangers of Barbarian
incursions from the middle of the first century CE. Domestically speaking, the
problem of not having firm principles for the succession of rulers had been
apparent to all from before the time of Caesar. Thus, we must always question
the helpfulness of 'rise, zenith, and decline' schemes of understanding
historical events: the problems that felled the Roman Empire were evident even
at its greatest height.
So, what was paradigmatically, drastically different about the late Roman
period? If we wished to take the mystery out of it all, we could claim that the
fall of the Roman Empire was scripted. First, the empire was too
big, and the lanes of communication--in military, food supply, and of course
cultural terms--were far too tortuous. To respond to a threat from Parthian
Persia, for example, Marcus Aurelius had to remove troops from the
Rhine frontier at a time when Barbarians were pushing up against those very
borders, and setting in motion the numerous conflict to come. This brings us to
the second given of the period: an identifying part of ancient and pre-modern
history was the conflict between settled, sedentary, agrarian societies and
polities, on the one hand, and nomadic, pastoral, raiding cultures, on the
other. The two never coexisted, and could never work out a sustainable
symbiosis. Furthermore, the nomads were always attracted to the materials of
the settled civilizations, and also wanted to access its culture, though semi-
nomadic understandings of sedentary culture were probably quite limited. Thus,
this settled-nomadic conflict was bound to affect Rome quite negatively, at the
very time when other military threats, and civil war, emerged. One could even
ask whether a settled society in the pre-modern world was ever able to defeat
nomadic incursions over the very long term, such as Rome faced.
Third, it is important to ponder what Rome was. Conventionally it was a
state, and one can locate a reasonably linear decline on the state level. Of
course, the Diocletian and Constantine years showed new vitality on the
state level, though that vitality changed the polity forever. Still, on the
merely political level, Roman decline is clear, and uni-directional. But then,
there is the category of Rome as culture and society. Here it is instructive to
ask: to what degree were those living within Roman borders Romanized in culture,
language, and notions of political order? The answer to this question is
impossible to quantify, but it is clear that there was some disjunction between
political elites, political structures, cultural elites, and the rest of the
masses, which of course outnumbered the elites. What did Rome mean for them,
and did that meaning disappear in 476? Roman forms of organization in state and
society demonstrated a resilience up until 476 and even after. Emperors in the
weakest of times, when the decomposition of the state must have been obvious to
all, struggled to maintain Roman form, parlance, and dignity, not as a
superficial show, but as a mechanism to provide continuity and logic. More
impressively, not only did native Roman leaders and local administrators try to
keep up cultural appearances, the Barbarians entering Roman lands also
enthusiastically tried to maintain what they thought Rome was. The Barbarian
mantra for the period covered in this SparkNote could be: 'we've come to enjoy,
not to destroy.' Even Theodoric the Ostrogoth, ruling the Ostrogothic
Kingdom of Italy on now defunct Roman lands, maintained Roman political
parlance, Latin language, Roman architecture, and Roman hierarchies, even
maintaining some relationship with the Eastern Roman Emperor. Pushing the point
to its farthest, one could begin to suggest a cultural melding between Roman and
German. Of course, the Church and Christianity are added to this mixture, one
has what many historians view to be the three pillars of European identity.
What the above suggests, therefore is the following: a) 'decline and fall' is a
tricky concept, rendering too superficial our understanding of the final
centuries of Rome. Continuities, aggravations of existing conditions, and
elements outlasting 'disappearance' are essential to this period of Roman
history. b) Roman fall, or at least severe transformation, was made ever-more
inevitable as it--a pre-modern, pre-industrial, pre-democratic state--increased
in size, and was faced with the settled-nomadic conflict. c) Late Roman
history is indistinguishable from early medieval history and the two must be
studied together. By providing following generations with Christianity and a
political-cultural ideal, the Spirit of Rome pervaded Europe as a whole,
continuing to the Renaissance.
