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The fall of the Roman Empire

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  Posted by Zork (U9018754) on Sunday, 15th July 2007

  The Roman Empire was a great empire, they had many victories and conquerd a lot of territory, but there was a drawback to having so much territory and so many people. The Romans could not defend their borders because they were to large and there were so many people that they were becoming economicly drained. Yes they won many victories, and I think conquering so much land led to the fall of the Roman empire.

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  Posted by Alaric the Goth (U1826823) on Tuesday, 17th July 2007

  One of my favourite history books is entitled ‘The Fall of the Roman Empire’. The author, Michael ‘x’ (I will have to check on his surname!) argues that the (Western) Empire was perfectly capable of militarily overcoming its external enemies (Goths, Vandals, Franks, Huns, etc.) but that there were so many divisions in its society that it couldn’t do so and consequently it fell.
  
  Divisions existed between city dwellers and rural people, between slaves and free, between the army and the populace, between Christians and continuing pagans, between ‘barbarian’ and Roman (I am thinking not just of the ‘external threat’ but of the barbarians admitted into the Empire, e.g. the late Roman army was ‘barbarian’ to a large extent). And the big division that existed between the Greek-speaking Eastern Empire and the Latin West, with it becoming usual for there to be an Emperor for each. One could go on.
  

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  Posted by Colquhoun (U3935535) on Tuesday, 17th July 2007

  I am currently reading Peter Heather's Fall of the Roman Empire that argues the opposite. The external enemies eventually overwhelmed the Western Empire all starting with the handling of the Goths during the Hadrianople campaign and subsequently in 378.
  The WE was actually in pretty good nick in the 4th century with agricultural production and population at levels that wouldn't be seen again until the Renaisance.
  

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  Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Tuesday, 17th July 2007

  The entire premise of the opening post is wrong. The more land that you conquer, the less, propoertionately, of a border (all other things being equal) you will have to defend.
  
  Imagine if you are a village that is precisely one mile square. Your border will be 4 miles in total. If you conquer the surrounding area so that it is 2 miles square, your border will have increased to 8 miles, but you will now have 4 square miles (4 times the original area) thus presumably a population 4 times the size, from which to draw soldiers. In Rome's case, when it's only possession was Italy it had a border of say 1500 miles, with a population of 10 million defending it, but ended up with an empire with a border of 8,000 miles or less (I discount the Atlantic seaboard from which there was no threat), but a population of some 100 million.
  
  The larger the population, the more taxation you can get and the more soldiers you are able to pay for.
  
  The large empire should win every time, for it should be able to gather together really vast armies, and take on its much smaller opponents one by one, and win every time by sheer weight of numbers.
  

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  Posted by Alaric the Goth (U1826823) on Tuesday, 17th July 2007

  But Rome had the problem that it had grown large, but didn’t have easily-defensible frontiers. It saw, probably quite rightly, the Mediterranean as key to its success, for it could be used to ferry troops and supplies around and, more importantly, to bring North African grain to its major cities.
  
  Where does one put a boundary if one wants to control the whole southern shore of the Med? Somewhere in the middle of the Libyan dersert?
  
  And in the North, the Rhine and Danube provided natural frontiers, but the gap between them necessitated construction over difficult terrain of the ‘limes’ and its forts. Better if they had maybe conquered Germania and what is now Poland. They seem to have been left with their long Northern frontier facing across to some of their fiercest enemies.

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  Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Tuesday, 17th July 2007

  Alaric, the Rhine-Danube seems to be a natural boundary and a relatively-defensible line. of course there was the area between the 2 rivers, but that is only about 100 miles which, given Rome's resources, should not have been too much of a problem.
  
  In AFrica there was always the threat from nomads but really, it must be assumed that their numbers were relatively small.
  
  The real problem was in the East, with no readily-definable frontier line, and a powerful state, Persia/Parthia facing Rome there. Again, Rome should have been able to cope because it was so much larger, and most of the time it did cope. The Eastern Empire remained largely intact until the beginning of the 7th century, when the Muslim armies took Syria, Palestine and Egypt.

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  Posted by Colquhoun (U3935535) on Tuesday, 17th July 2007

  The main reason that the Romans didn't conquer Germany, except for the western bit this side of the Rhine, was because it was too poor and sparcely populated during the expansion period. The costs of invasion and occupation would have far outweighed the benefits. Because Germany was so poor it would not have been able to support the troops required to garrison it meaning supplies would have to be expensively brought in from Gaul.
  

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  Posted by Zork (U9018754) on Tuesday, 17th July 2007

  WEll I've heard that so many barbarians came into it's boundries it fell so most of my history books are simaler to yours, but it could have been both internal and external enimies put together. It was probrobly very hard to take care of both of them at the same time.

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  Posted by Zork (U9018754) on Tuesday, 17th July 2007

  That's true, but if that was the case then what do you think caused exactly caused the fall of the Roman empire?

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  Posted by marduk-slayer of tiamat (U2258525) on Tuesday, 17th July 2007

  the fall of the west could be said to have been caused by hadrian for example. as he at least nominally set the roman empire at its limit if i remember rightly. after him the romans never conquered any more territory untill after the west fell in it entirety. the excursions into babylonia and scotland (as exaples) dont count in my opinion as they where never invasions per se.
  
  the east can be said to have fallen as a direct result of crappy emporors during the aftermath of manzikert, and the 4th crusade, which annhialated any hope of its recovery.

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  Posted by Colquhoun (U3935535) on Tuesday, 17th July 2007

  One can't really claim that Hadrian was the cause of the fall of the Western Empire - it lasted for more than 400 years after his death!!!
  
  A more plausable theory would be the failure to deal with the succession of invasions starting at the end of the 4th century with the Goths.
  It was not just the defeat at Hadrianople - the Romans had lost battles before - but the fact that the eventual peace treaty allowed the Goths to establish themsleves as an separate force within the empire. This was different than previous treatment of immigrants, previously immigrant tribes had always been disarmed and spread out to different locations whereas the Goths were allowed to settle as a group.

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  Posted by marduk-slayer of tiamat (U2258525) on Tuesday, 17th July 2007

  aye but the way i look at it if the romans hadnt stopped expanding, even if they had merely slowed down in expansion they wouldve at least expanded into sarmatia, wouldve had a massive amount of room to expand into and wouldve had a massive amount of terrain in which to retreat if needed. they couldve easily performed teh kind of defence in depth that wouldve ensured the west's survival.
  
  and the disaster of adrianople is an odd one for me-your right that allowing the goths to exist as a semi independent force within the empire screwed them majorly, but to my mind this was an eastern disaster. the army of the west wasnt within 300 miles of the battle if memory serves.
  
  although you could say that it mightve been the simple situation of the west that doomed it. it had every bit as large a territory to defend with a third the population and quarter the army the east could raise. we can also see plainly from history that the east had some kind of almost unique toughness to it-something that allowed it to pull itself back together on almost every occasion. the west simply doesnt seem to have had that kind of gumcheon to it in my mind.

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  Posted by Colquhoun (U3935535) on Tuesday, 17th July 2007

  The trouble with expanding indefintely is the law of deminishing returns - the effort required to conquer a territory evenbtually outweighs the benefits from doing so. For example Celtic Gaul was reletively wealthy before the Romans with many permanent towns and a settled population. In comparison east of the Rhine the population was much smaller and mostly pastoral with few if any significant permanent settlements.
  An army needs supplies, if the Romans had conquered Germany then supplies would have to be transported all the way from Gaul as Germany could not support the seize of army needed to occupy it.
  
  While Hadrianople was a defeat for the east it was the west that ultimately suffered - most of the subsequent depredations of the Goths were on the west not the east e.g. Alaric sacking Rome, establishment of Gothic kingdoms in Gaul and Espania.
  
  The east always had the advantage of a virtually impregneble capital that dominated the link between Europe and Asia. The walls of Constantinople defeated the Goths without an arrow being shot and there was no practicle way for them to attack the Eastern heartland without first taking Constantinople.

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  Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Wednesday, 18th July 2007

  The reason why the Goths were allowed into the Empire, and keep their weapons, was so that they would provide an additional force that would bolster the frontier. In one way this was nothing new. The Romans had always had large numbers of auxiliaries, who were non-citizens working under Roman commanders. The difference, of course, was that the Goths did not have Roman commanders.
  
  Perhaps the division of the empire, at the death of Theodosius in 395, WAS the critical mistake. From then on the West had to defend itself without relying on Eastern help. It seems it did not have enough resources to do so. But it is very remarkable that the invaders were able to go through the whole of Gaul, then Spain, and then cross into Africa, without any opposition, apparently. The question that needs to be answered is : Where did the Western Roman army go?

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  Posted by marduk-slayer of tiamat (U2258525) on Wednesday, 18th July 2007

  the majority (from what ive read-the west isnt my area of interest) implies that a majority of the wests army was foederati/auxillia as opposed to legionaries (comitenses and limeitani)
  p'raps these foederati where rather fickle?

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