- For the book see The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. For the movie see The Fall of the Roman Empire
Decline of the Roman Empire is a historical term of periodization which describes the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The term was first used and coined by Edward Gibbon in the 18th century in his famous book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but he was not the first, and not the last, to speculate on why and when the Empire collapsed. It remains one of the greatest historical questions, and has a tradition rich in scholarly interest. In 1984, German Professor Alexander Demandt published a collection of 210 theories on why Rome fell.Template:Fn
The traditional date of the Fall of the Roman Empire is September 4, 476 when Romulus Augustus, the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire was deposed. However, many historians question this date, and use other benchmarks to describe the "Fall". Why the Empire fell seems to be relevant to every new generation, and a seemingly endless supply of theories are discussed on why (or if at all) it happened.
Mainstream theories
Influential theories and theorists include:
- Edward Gibbon placed the blame on a loss of civic virtue among the Roman citizens. They gradually outsourced their duties to defend the Empire to barbarian mercenaries who eventually turned on them. Gibbon considered that Christianity had contributed to this, making the populace less interested in the worldly here and now and more willing to wait for the rewards of heaven.
- Henri Pirenne published the "Pirenne Thesis" in the 1920s which remains influential to this day. It holds that the Empire continued, in some form, up until the time of the Arab conquests in the 7th century, which disrupted Mediterranean trade routes, leading to a decline in the European economy.
- Historians of Late Antiquity, a field pioneered by Peter Brown, have turned away from the idea that the Roman Empire "fell". They see a "transformation" occurring over centuries, with the roots of Medieval culture contained in Roman culture and focus on the continuities between the classical and medieval world. Thus it was a gradual process with no clear break.
- Historians such as Arnold Toynbee and James Burke argue that the Roman Empire itself was a rotten system from its inception, and that the entire Imperial era was one of steady decay of its institutions. The Romans had no budgetary system, so the Empire relied upon either the booty from conquered territories (this source of revenue ending, of course, with the end of Roman territorial expansion) or upon a pattern of tax collection that ultimately drove small-scale farmers into destitution and onto a dole that required even more exactions upon those who could not escape taxation, or into dependency upon a landed élite exempt from taxation; meanwhile the costs of military defense and the pomp of Emperors continued. Financial needs continued to increase, but the means of meeting them steadily eroded.
Philosophy of theories
Theories sometimes reflect the eras in which they are developed. Gibbon's criticism of Christianity reflects the values of the Enlightenment; his ideas on the decline in martial vigor were a warning to the growing British Empire. In the 19th century socialist and anti-socialist theorists tended to blame decadence and other political problems. More recently, environmental concerns have become popular, with deforestation and soil erosion proposed as major factors, and epidemics such as malaria also cited. Ramsey McMullen in the 1980s suggested it was due to corruption. Ideas about transformation with no distinct fall owe much to postmodern thought, which rejects periodization concepts (see metanarrative). What is not new are attempts to diagnose Rome's particular problems, with Juvenal in the early 2nd century, at the height of Roman power, criticizing the peoples' obsession with "bread and circuses" and rulers seeking only to gratify these obsessions.
One issue to consider with any theory on why the Western Empire fell, is the continued existance of the Eastern Empire (Byzantium), which lasted for a thousand years after the fall of the West. For example, Gibbon implicates Christianity, yet the eastern half of the Empire was even more Christian than the west. And any environmental or weather changes impacted the east as much as the west. However, Gibbon did not consider the Eastern Empire to be much of a success, and wrote that "In the revolution of ten centuries, not a single discovery was made to exalt the dignity or promote the happiness of mankind. Not a single idea had been added to the speculative systems of antiquity, and a succession of patient disciples became in their turn the dogmatic teachers of the next servile generation."
Notes
- Template:FnbAlexander Demandt: 210 Theories, from Crooked Timber weblog entry August 25 2003. Retrieved June 2005.
References
- Alexander Demandt (1984). Der Fall Roms: Die Auflösung des römischen Reiches im Urteil der Nachwelt. ISBN 3406095984
- Edward Gibbon. "General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West", from the Internet Medieval Sourcebook. Brief excerpts of Gibbon's theories.