10-17-2012, 06:06 PM
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.
