The collapse of the Roman Empire.

[Odin]

I've been reading a very good book on Late Antiquity called The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians by Peter Heather. Heather claims that it was mainly 2 things, the rise of Sassanid Persia and the arrival of the Huns, that ultimately lead to the collapse of the Western Empire.

The need to counter the Sassanid threat stretched the Roman military machine to it's limit, the Roman economy was groaning under the strain. Things were fine as long as the Germans acted as the usually did (that is, the "normal" levels of raiding the Rhine-Danube limes could handle), but when the Huns arrived the Germans stopped acting like they usually did. What started as a relative "trickle" of refugees in 376 became a raging torrent by 407 as the Huns pushed westward, Rome's northern frontiers were simply overwhelmed, the Roman state could not hold off the Sassanids and the incoming waves of Germans at the same time.

[molly bloom]

The Byzantines fought the Sassanids but at the same time there was great internal dissent- from the Jews in the Middle East who had been persecuted by over-zealous Christians and from fellow Christians (Nestorians, Monophysites) who had been declared heretics by the Orthodox Church.

The Nestorians had then been shown favour by the Sassanids and allowed to spread their version of Christianity through the Sassanid lands and then into Central Asia.

The refugees from Justinian's closure of the thousand year old Academy at Athens had been sheltered first at Edessa, then when the Byzantines attacked that city, at Nisibis and Jundishapur in the Sassanid Empire, where medical schools and proto-universities were set up.

The Caliphate then 'inherited' these schools when they defeated the Sassanids.

Both the Byzantines and the Sassanids had used Arab kingdoms as buffer client states and used them to war by proxy against each other.

When the states were absorbed by their respective sponsors, this brought the two empires into direct conflict with the newly unified Muslim Arabs...


The Sassanid Empire before the capture of Jerusalem and Egypt:

[Odin]

Originally posted by molly bloom

The refugees from Justinian's closure of the thousand year old Academy at Athens had been sheltered first at Edessa, then when the Byzantines attacked that city, at Nisibis and Jundishapur in the Sassanid Empire, where medical schools and proto-universities were set up.

The Caliphate then 'inherited' these schools when they defeated the Sassanids.

Interesting. I thought the Sassanids were somewhat Hellenophobic.

[Barnabas]

I think the western roman empire always kinda sucked, the east was always much wealthier, rome failed to develop properly Gaul and Hispania.

the east could pay brives to defend itself from huns and barbarians, the west was poor and defensless.
in the east there was a coin economy, in the west you could say faudalism had started even before rome fell

antiquity style economy just never clicked in the west.

The only big cities in the west where Rome and Carthague, and Rome was big because it was an imperialistic parasite capital, when the capital was moved to constantinople the population of rome fell drastically.



My why the western empire fell reason is, it always kinda sucked

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Odin


Interesting. I thought the Sassanids were somewhat Hellenophobic.

They certainly were more inclined to (re)Aryanize the culture of Iran than the Parthians, and were generally less tolerant than the Achaemenids or Parthians had been to religions other than state Zoroastrianism.

However, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, so the Sassanids were willing to use and shield the Jews against the Graeco-Roman Christians, the non-Orthodox Christians against the state Church of the Byzantines, and the Arabs/non-Greeks against the Eastern Roman empire.

The Nestorians and Monophysites had many Arabs in their ranks who could translate from Ancient Greek into Syriac and Arabic.

In the Sassanid Empire (especially around Ctesiphon the capital and in Mesopotamia) the boundary between Arab/Iranian had become somewhat blurred, with Persian words entering Arab vocabulary and merchants and city dwellers being effectively bi- or tri- lingual.

The real synthesis came during the first splendours of the Abbasid Empire.

Because of the ancient history of the Iranians, and because the armies of the Caliphate conquered only the Sassanid Empire whole, its system of government and ideas of bureaucracy were taken as a model, as were the luxury goods, the long distance trade routes, the advances in the natural sciences and attitude towards gaining knowledge.


The great arch at Ctesiphon:

[One_more_turn]

Romans ran themselves into the ground through endless civil wars, betrayals and massacres of their own people, and utter economic mismanagement.

In 4th and 5th century, Romans no longer had the unity and resolve to face the Barbarians as they did against Hannibal 600 years ago. The national spirit was gone and Romans knew better than to trust other Romans. It was no wonder that later emperors would rather have Germans as bodyguards.

[Dr Strangelove]

The western empire suffered major defeats from 5 separate barbarian groups in relatively rapid succession, the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, the Huns, the Vandals, and the Lombards. Of these groups all but the Huns accepted as payment sovereignty over some portion of the western empire. Had there been only one or two barbarian groups the western empire might have absorbed them and lived on. Consider how China from the 12th century on suffered several successive waves of conquest but managed to absorb each conquering tribe into it's culture. In the case of 5th and 6th century Rome though, with 6 different tribes holding some of the most important regions of the empire: Vandals - North Africa, Visigoths - Hispania, Ostrogoths - Italy, Lombards - Northern Italy, Franks - Northern Gaul, Burgundians - Rhone Valley, there was no real opportunity to reconsolidate the Roman empire. While at various points along the historical time-line leaders of some of these groups attempted to resurrect the Roman empire under his rule none of them really possessed the allegiance or the leadership qualities or the power to succeed. Eventually one, Charlemagne, came close but by the time of his reign the wealth and culture of Rome had largely wasted away. The barbarian warlords who vanquished China from the 12th century on inherited a massive bureaucracy ready made to mold them into new Chinese emporers, but there was no one left to show Charlemagne how to be a Roman emperor.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Barnabas
I think the western roman empire always kinda sucked, the east was always much wealthier, rome failed to develop properly Gaul and Hispania.

the east could pay brives to defend itself from huns and barbarians, the west was poor and defensless.
in the east there was a coin economy, in the west you could say faudalism had started even before rome fell

antiquity style economy just never clicked in the west.

The only big cities in the west where Rome and Carthague, and Rome was big because it was an imperialistic parasite capital, when the capital was moved to constantinople the population of rome fell drastically.



My why the western empire fell reason is, it always kinda sucked

Economy wasn't as important in ancient warfare as it is today. What can you buy with more money? More swords? All swords cut the same. Logistics? They didn't have that back then. Mercenaries? You better not.

Romans lost their peasant base, their army started to seriously suck and that's basically it.

Remember how they came back after Hanibal destroyed them at Cannae? That was fighting spirit!

[Barnabas]

Cannae was ancient history for the romans of the year 400 something

And economy is important to explain the collapse of a civilization

[One_more_turn]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Consider how China from the 12th century on suffered several successive waves of conquest but managed to absorb each conquering tribe into it's culture.

You probably don't know that China had been overrun by the Barbarians during the same time as Romans, albeit almost a century earlier. In 311 Chinese capital Luoyang was captured by Huns, in 317 Changan had also fallen, and the ruling dynasty had to flee south across Yangtze.

In the north, where the majority of Chinese population lived, 16 barbarian tribes would fight for supremacy over the next 100 years, until Tobas (a proto-mongol tribe) emerged victoriously in 420AD. Around 530AD, the Toba dynasty split into 2 parts under a civil war, and one part was eventually usurped by a Chinese general around 580AD, who finally united China in 589AD. By this time, there was no 'civilization gap' between former Barbarians and Chinese.

I'm always puzzled why the Barbarians had so successfully adopted Chinese culture and civilization during that era, while failed to do so in Roman territory.

[One_more_turn]

I think Romans seriously missed something in their culture: love and mercy. They apparently didn't know these 2 concepts, and it was a dog-ate-dog society where winners took all and those with biggest stick (army) always won. Ever since Diocletian and Constantine imposed their ruinous military totalitarianism, late Romans must have been thoroughly fed up with the empire. So when the Barbarians finally came, they didn't bother with resistance.

For average people, Roman Empire was a terrible place.

[Barnabas]

Some historian, whose name I cant remember, called the roman empire, a jail for dozens of millions of people.

[Colonâ„¢]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
The western empire suffered major defeats from 5 separate barbarian groups in relatively rapid succession, the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, the Huns, the Vandals, and the Lombards. Of these groups all but the Huns accepted as payment sovereignty over some portion of the western empire. Had there been only one or two barbarian groups the western empire might have absorbed them and lived on. Consider how China from the 12th century on suffered several successive waves of conquest but managed to absorb each conquering tribe into it's culture. In the case of 5th and 6th century Rome though, with 6 different tribes holding some of the most important regions of the empire: Vandals - North Africa, Visigoths - Hispania, Ostrogoths - Italy, Lombards - Northern Italy, Franks - Northern Gaul, Burgundians - Rhone Valley, there was no real opportunity to reconsolidate the Roman empire. While at various points along the historical time-line leaders of some of these groups attempted to resurrect the Roman empire under his rule none of them really possessed the allegiance or the leadership qualities or the power to succeed. Eventually one, Charlemagne, came close but by the time of his reign the wealth and culture of Rome had largely wasted away. The barbarian warlords who vanquished China from the 12th century on inherited a massive bureaucracy ready made to mold them into new Chinese emporers, but there was no one left to show Charlemagne how to be a Roman emperor.

There was actually, namely the Catholic Church*. Heads of state drew from Catholic scholars and their knowledge of canon law, which was based in Roman law. That was a major incentive to convert to Christianity in the first place, since it provided them with access to the legal expertise to administrate their lands.

Your dissertation is flawed because the Greco-Roman heritage did survive, as has been argued countless of times on this forum before. The fall of the Roman Empire would actually be comparable to the fall of a Chinese dynasty, expect that the new order didn't consist of a unified state.

*heck, Christianity itself was part of Roman culture.

[Agathon]

If you had a wife like Theodora (God's gift), I doubt that you would be able to focus on effective ruling.

[Barnabas]

Justinian reconquest of the west, one could say had bad consequences

All Justinian achieved by weakening/destroying the vandals visigoths and ostrogoths was making the islamic conquest much easier, and making the franks (future hegemonic western country) stronger