Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
When did the Roman Empire fall (your thoughts)?
Quote:Even worse, using mercenary or "federate" troops meant relying on untrustworthy elements for the bulk of combat power. I think that Roman commanders would've preferred to have an army of citizen soldiers. They had to have, or tolerate mercenaries and "federates" because lack of enough citizen recruits left them with no choice. By or after 408, the only way to fight one barbarian group was to hire another.

@ untrustworthy or not, it seems that politics meant that you could do worse than mercenaries: a Roman commander could be betrayed by other Roman armies who did not turn up to help (Julian fought alone at Argentorate) whereas federates did what they were hired to do (the Goths at Frigidus).

@ 408: how do you know that? We simply do not have enough sources to know that. After 430 or so maybe, but 408 is too early I think. Romans of course hired troops all over the place, but that could also be strategy: let barbarians fight each other.
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
Reply
Quote: whereas federates did what they were hired to do (thee Goths at Frigidus).

All too often federates were backstabbers. The Vandals got "federate" status in the treaty of 435 but a few years later they took Carthage.

Quote:@ 408: how do you know that? We simply do not haave enough sources to know that. After 430 or so maybe, but 408 is too early I think.

IIRC in 409 Honorius sought to hire 10,000 Huns, and Roman victories in Spain several years later were the work of hired barbarians.
Reply
Quote:IIRC Diocletian did visit Rome but wasn't impressed by its people

I was under the impression that he purposefully avoided the city. So, I learn something. Thanks Tim!


Quote:How about c 268 CE when the Illyrians replaced Gallienus? The latter and his father were from an old and distinguished family whereas the Illyrian emperors had more humble origins.


In my above lengthy explanatory text I did note the rise of the Severan Emperors, who open the tumultuous era, as the start of the end and the rise of Diocletian who stabilized with his innovative methods the Empire eventually dividing it, as the end of at least what we may call "Roman Empire as they knew it".

By all means picking any point within the period starting from the Severans and ending with Diocletian will do for me.

However we do need to acknowledge what most of the world is not ready to acknowledge, that the Roman Empire did not have an end at that time but simply underwent a continuous linear change that saw the transfer of rule from the Italic peninsula to the Greek (and Greek speaking) East.

It was thus all a political and power transmutation. I would therefore avoid at all costs mentioning a single battle. For me the battle of Adrianopolis is a minor event inflated by western historiography anxious to put in central-northern Europeans into historic context. In its real historic context, Gothic raids had occurred repeatedly prior to the battle of Adrianopolis and even after it and then there are raids by many other tribes but none of these could compare to the massive magnitude of the Gaulic raids of the 3rd BC century - if Gauls had not been the end of hellenistic Greece how could Goths be the end of Roman Empire - particularly when all evidence shows regions sprung back to flourishing economies only a few years after?

Speaking only of the western part of the Empire, this disintegrated only well after the Roman oligarchies left it aside concentrating in the rich-producing East. The fall of Rome was actually the well-expected result of total abandonment of the city decades if not a century and a half before. So if we are to stick to the end of the Roman Empire as "people want to have it" then this definitely has to be between the rise of the Severans and the rise of Diocletian.
Reply
Quote:I would therefore avoid at all costs mentioning a single battle. For me the battle of Adrianopolis is a minor event inflated

And by that I mean it has to be considered a minor event for Rome that became an Empire simply by losing more battles than what its opponents were able to win...

Choosinge a military defeat as the end of Roman Empire would thus be totally unfitting let alone totally unhistorical. Even the only End that can be termed as the "technical end of Roman Empire" that is in 1204 BC cannot be described as a military end. It supposedly comes from the successful siege of Venitian-led Frankish mercenaries of the 4th Crusade. But in reality this was not even any proper battle: outside the walls there was a pretender-fraction to the Roman throne accompagning the Crusaders, them a relatively small bunch, more a riff-raff of petty looters than any army. Inside the walls there was no army but city-militia i.e. a police force which was more busy overlooking the 30% of the city's population which was still of Latin element/sentiment despite earlier purges 2 decades before (initiated by Latins' extreme violence against local Greeks); these even participated in the loot of the city in the second siege of 1204 and they may explain the particular ease of entry of the Franks in such a fortified city that numerous other and far superior armies had failed to do, an entry that happened twice that year.

The most important realities of history always pass in small letters - e.g. the Eastern Roman Empire had not been "conquered" or disintegrated by the 4th Crusade but was already disintegrated by regional Roman governors who, following Andronikos Komnenos last efforts to do something about it, had practically curved out their own independent states in western and northeastern Minor Asia, in the Aegean islands and in southern and western Greece in all but name, finally naming it after they called it a fall of Constantinople in 1204. Constantinople however was already "abducted" by Latins since the 1090s.

The point is that there is a serious notable unwillingness of western (and the same holds true for eastern) historiography to acknowledge the root-causes upon the geographical transfer of oligarchies just prior and during such eras of downfall, a vacuum which is replaced by mere reference to "significant battles", an act that tears any historical legitimacy. In the case of the Roman Empire - that is from 27 BC to 1204 BC, its whole history has been re-written since the ludicrous work of Gibbon in the 18th century and the concurrent addition of the 18th century invention of... "Byzantines", in front of the terror of the Greek revolution of the 1760s and the 7th Russo-Ottoman war - events that have been formally quasi-silenced in mainstream (i.e. what is taught at schools) European historic account.

History has to be studied as it was. Roman Empire founded in late 1st BC century ended in 1204 AD having had Rome as capital for about 250 years, other for 50 years and Constantinople for about 900 years making it the longest continuous Imperial system known. If Rome has to be reduced to the initial oligarchies of the city of Rome then the Roman Empire lasted about 80 years till the fall of the Julio-Claudians. If Rome has to be the city only, then it ended at latest by Diocletian. If Roman Empire "must be" reduced to "Latins" then we face a serious problem : all oligarchies that created Rome had as maternal language Greek. not Latin. As "late" as the mid-1st BC century, Rome's hero Ceasar died uttering his last words in his mother-tongue, i.e. Greek. Not complicated at all.
Reply
Quote:I was under the impression that he purposefully avoided the city. So, I learn something. Thanks Tim!

Why didn't you hit the "thank you" button in my post? So far I've gotten just 3. Sad

Quote:In my above lengthy explanatory text I did note the rise of the Severan Emperors, who open the tumultuous era,

By "tumultuous era" you mean the third century crises? Things didn't really go to pieces until some time after the death of Alexander in 235.


Quote:Speaking only of the western part of the Empire, this disintegrated only well after the Roman oligarchies left it aside concentrating in the rich-producing East. The fall of Rome was actually the well-expected result of total abandonment of the city decades if not a century and a half before.

From what I've read the aristocracy in the west was "incredibly wealthy" c 400 CE. Rome itself was still rich in the fifth century, or it wouldn't have been such a lucrative target for Alaric and the Vandals.
Reply
Ave, Nikanor:

Thank you for presenting a unique perspective on this subject. While I agree with most of what you said there are a couple of points I'm confused about.

i.e. everything to tell us that there was no universal state law, thus in a very basic way no precise Empire in the sense we give it today and it is our definitions that are raising the trouble. We should thus rather see it more as the 'Roman system'.

While I agree there was a great deal of regionalism within the empire I'm not sure you can say that there was no universal state law imposed on the provinces. Take treason, for example. I don't believe the Romans officially tolerated any perceived form of treasonable activity among their subjects, hence, the crucifixtion of Christ in remote Judea. But, again, I would agree that there were far more local, ancestral laws that continued to be observed than those imposed by Rome.

Even so, a growing number of non-citizens obtained Latin Rights which Hadrian greatly expanded.

By 212, Caracalla granted Roman citizenship to all free people within the Empire, giving them more rights, privileges, and obligations.


- In this sense, there is absolutely no clear end to the Roman Empire, i.e. of the 'Roman System'. The finance and the power was almost since the beginning based in the East and by late 3rd AD century the capital of the Empire had already moved repeatedly in the East, and by early 4th century AD Constantine moved it permanently in Constantinople, i.e. at the Empire's most strategic position.

I think we can only say this with hindsight. At the time I don't think the move looked so permanent. After Constantine's death there was rarely a time when there was only a single emperor. So, there was no single capital. (As late as the mid-seventh century it was believed that Constans II contemplated moving the capital to Syracuse.)

Even in the fourth century Rome was still a powerful symbolic capital. Consuls were selected from each half of the empire, a Western and Eastern colleague.

But more important than the capital is the fact that each half of the empire was ruled by a single dynasty (with brief interuptions) and each half followed the same laws.

~Theo
Jaime
Reply
Quote:By 212, Caracalla granted Roman citizenship to all free people within the Empire, giving them more rights, privileges, and obligations.

At the time only the latter were considered very relevant. Confusedmile:
Reply
Quote:All too often federates were backstabbers. The Vandals got "federate" status in the treaty of 435 but a few years later they took Carthage.
One occasion does hardly makes this an 'all too often' practise, does it?

Quote:IIRC in 409 Honorius sought to hire 10,000 Huns, and Roman victories in Spain several years later were the work of hired barbarians.
So how is this proof for your statement that "By or after 408, the only way to fight one barbarian group was to hire another"? Honorius needed forces loyal to his person in a time of crisis, and the situation in Spain is not easy to analyse due to a dour lack of sources. Some modern authors think that no Roman troops were present after Constantine III! Anyway, which troops were hired barbarians there? Instead of federates I mean?
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
Reply


Possibly Related Threads…
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  BBC The Rise and Fall of an Empire Kefka 24 6,916 10-17-2011, 05:22 PM
Last Post: Kefka
  Before Fall of Empire Armies (Romans, Huns and Goths...) P. Lilius Frugius Simius 23 4,648 05-30-2005, 04:05 PM
Last Post: P. Lilius Frugius Simius

Forum Jump: