Fall of the Western Roman Empire
The fall of the Western Roman Empire, also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome, was the loss of central political control in the
In 376, a large migration of Goths and other non-Roman people, fleeing from the Huns, entered the Empire. Roman forces were unable to exterminate, expel or subjugate them (as was their normal practice). In 395, after winning two destructive civil wars, Theodosius I died. He left a collapsing field army, and the Empire divided between the warring ministers of his two incapable sons. Goths and other non-Romans became a force that could challenge either part of the Empire. Further barbarian groups crossed the Rhine and other frontiers. The armed forces of the Western Empire became few and ineffective, and despite brief recoveries under able leaders, central rule was never again effectively consolidated.
By 476, the position of Western Roman Emperor wielded negligible military, political, or financial power, and had no effective control over the scattered Western domains that could still be described as Roman.
While its legitimacy lasted for centuries longer and its cultural influence remains today, the Western Empire never had the strength to rise again. The Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire, survived and remained for centuries an effective power of the Eastern Mediterranean, although it lessened in strength. Additionally, while the loss of political unity and military control is universally acknowledged, the fall of Rome is not the only unifying concept for these events; the period described as late antiquity emphasizes the cultural continuities throughout and beyond the political collapse.
Historical approaches and modern syntheses
Since 1776, when Edward Gibbon published the first volume of his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Decline and Fall has been the theme around which much of the history of the Roman Empire has been structured. "From the eighteenth century onward," historian Glen Bowersock wrote, "we have been obsessed with the fall: it has been valued as an archetype for every perceived decline, and, hence, as a symbol for our own fears."[5]
Another paradigm of the period
From at least the time of
The more recent formulation of a historical period characterized as "
Timespan
A synthesis by Harper (2017) gave four decisive turns of events in the transformation from the height of the empire to the early Middle Ages:
- The Antonine Plague that ended a long period of demographic and economic expansion, weakening but not toppling the empire.
- The Crisis of the Third Century, in which climatic change, renewed pandemic disease, and internal and external political instability led to the near-collapse of the imperial system. Its reconstitution included a new basis for the currency, an expanded professional government apparatus, emperors further distanced from their people, and, shortly, the rise of Christianity, a proselytizing, exclusive religion that anticipated the imminent end of the world.
- The military and political failure of the West, in which mass migration from the Eurasian steppeovercame and dismembered the western part of an internally-weakened empire. The eastern empire rebuilt itself again and began the reconquest of the West.
- In the lands around the Mediterranean the Late Antique Little Ice Age and the Plague of Justinian created one of the worst environmental cataclysms in recorded history. The imperial system crumbled in the next couple of generations and then lost vast territories to the armies of Islam, a new proselytizing, exclusive religion that also looked forward to an imminent end time. The diminished and impoverished Byzantine rump state survived amid perpetual strife between and among the followers of Christianity and Islam.[16]
The loss of centralized political control over the West, and the lessened power of the East, are universally agreed, but the theme of decline has been taken to cover a much wider time span than the hundred years from 376. For
Gibbon was uncertain about when decline began. "In the first paragraph of his text, Gibbon wrote that he intended to trace the decline from the golden age of the Antonines"; later text has it beginning about A.D. 180 with the death of Marcus Aurelius; while in chapter 7, he pushes the start of the decline to about 52 B.C., the time of Julius Caesar and Pompey and Cicero.[18] Gibbon placed the western empire's end with the removal of the man Gibbon referred to as "the helpless Augustulus" in 476.[19]
Underlying causes
When Gibbon published his landmark work, it quickly became the standard, and remained so for over 200 years.
He began an ongoing controversy about the role of Christianity, but he gave great weight to other causes of internal decline and to attacks from outside the Empire.
The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and, instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The victorious legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of strangers and mercenaries, first oppressed the freedom of the republic, and afterwards violated the majesty of the purple. The emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike formidable to their sovereign and to the enemy; the vigour of the military government was relaxed, and finally dissolved, by the partial institutions of Constantine; and the Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians.
— Edward Gibbon. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 38 "General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West"
After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four principal causes of the ruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a period of more than a thousand years. I. The injuries of time and nature. II. The hostile attacks of the Barbarians and Christians. III. The use and abuse of the materials. And, IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans.
— Edward Gibbon. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 71 "Four Causes of Decay and Destruction."
Contemporary views
Modern historiography diverges from Gibbon.[26] While most of his ideas are no longer accepted in totality, they have been foundational to later discourse and the modern synthesis with archaeology, epidemiology, climatic history, genetic science,[27] and many more new sources of history beyond the documentary sources that were all that was available to Gibbon.[14][28]
While Alexander Demandt enumerated 210 different theories on why Rome fell, twenty-first century scholarship classifies the primary possibilities more concisely:[29][30]
Climatic crisis
A recent summary interprets disease and climate change as important drivers of the political collapse of the empire. There was a Roman climatic optimum from about 200 BCE to 150 CE, when lands around the Mediterranean were generally warm and well-watered. This made agriculture prosperous, army recruitment easy, and the collection of taxes straightforward. From about 150, the climate became on average somewhat worse for most of the inhabited lands around the Mediterranean.[31][32] After about 450, the climate worsened further in the Late Antique Little Ice Age that may have directly contributed to the variety of factors that brought Rome down.[33]
The Roman Empire was built on the fringes of the
Migrational crisis
From 376,
Political crisis
Until late in the fourth century, the united Empire retained sufficient power to launch powerful attacks against its enemies in Germania and in the Sasanian Empire. Receptio of barbarians became widely practised: imperial authorities admitted potentially hostile groups into the Empire, split them up, and allotted to them lands, status, and duties within the imperial system.[43] In this way many groups provided unfree workers (coloni) for Roman landowners, and recruits (laeti) for the Roman army. Sometimes their leaders became officers. Normally the Romans managed the process carefully, with sufficient military force on hand to ensure compliance. Cultural assimilation followed over the next generation or two.
Financial crisis
The Empire suffered multiple serious crises during the third century. The rising
The Empire survived the "Crisis of the Third Century", directing its economy successfully towards defense, but survival came at the price of a more centralized and bureaucratic state. Excessive military expenditure, coupled with civil wars due to unstable succession, caused increased taxes to the detriment of the industry.[47] Under Gallienus (Emperor from 253 to 268) the senatorial aristocracy ceased joining the ranks of the senior military commanders. Its typical members lacked interest in military service, and showed incompetence at command.[48][49]
Under Constantine, the cities lost their revenue from local taxes, and under Constantius II (r. 337–361) their endowments of property.[50] This worsened the existing difficulty in keeping the city councils up to strength, and the services provided by the cities were scamped or abandoned.[50] Public building projects had declined since the second century. There is no evidence of state participation in, or support for, restoration and maintenance of temples and shrines. Restorations were funded and accomplished privately, which limited what was done.[12]: 36–39 A further financial abuse was Constantius's habit of granting to his immediate entourage the estates of persons condemned for treason and other capital crimes. This practice reduced future though not immediate income, and those close to the emperor gained a strong incentive to encourage his suspicion of conspiracies.[50]
Social crisis
The new supreme rulers disposed of the legal fiction of the early Empire (seeing the emperor as but the first among equals); emperors from Aurelian (r. 270–275) onwards openly styled themselves as dominus et deus, "lord and god", titles appropriate for a master-slave relationship.[51] An elaborate court ceremonial developed, and obsequious flattery became the order of the day. Under Diocletian, the flow of direct requests to the emperor rapidly reduced, and soon ceased altogether. No other form of direct access replaced them, and the emperor received only information filtered through his courtiers.[52] However, as Sabine MacCormack described, the court culture that developed with Diocletian was still subject to pressure from below. Imperial proclamations were used to stress the traditional limitations of the imperial office, while imperial ceremonies "left room for consensus and popular participation".[53]
Official cruelty, supporting extortion and corruption, may also have become more commonplace;[54] one example being Constantine’s law that slaves who betrayed their mistress's confidential remarks should have molten lead poured down their throats.[55][56] While the scale, complexity, and violence of government were unmatched,[57] the emperors lost control over their whole realm insofar as that control came increasingly to be wielded by anyone who paid for it.[58] Meanwhile, the richest senatorial families, immune from most taxation, engrossed more and more of the available wealth and income[59][60] while also becoming divorced from any tradition of military excellence. One scholar identifies a great increase in the purchasing power of gold, two and a half fold from 274 to the later fourth century. This may be an index of growing economic inequality between a gold-rich elite and a cash-poor peasantry.[61] "Formerly, says Ammianus, Rome was saved by her austerity, by solidarity between rich and poor, by contempt for death; now she is undone by her luxury and greed (Amm. xxxi. 5. 14 and xxii. 4.). Salvianus backs up Ammianus by affirming that greed (avaritia) is a vice common to nearly all Romans".[62] However, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi (consul 133 BC) had already dated the start of Rome's moral decline to 154 BCE.[63]
Within the late Roman military, many recruits and even officers had barbarian origins. Soldiers are recorded as using possibly-barbarian rituals, such as elevating a claimant on shields.[64] Some scholars have seen this as an indication of weakness. Others disagree, seeing neither barbarian recruits nor new rituals as causing any problem with the effectiveness or loyalty of the army, at least while that army was effectively led, disciplined, trained, paid, and supplied by officers who identified as Roman.[65]
Geography
Height of power, systematic weaknesses as direct causes
The Roman Empire reached its greatest geographical extent under
The empire had both strength and resilience. Its financial system allowed it to raise significant taxes which, despite endemic corruption, supported a large
Nevertheless, it remained a culture based on an early
Rise of Christianity, possible decline of the armed forces
In 313, Constantine the Great declared official toleration of Christianity. This was followed over the ensuing decades by the search for a definition of Christian orthodoxy all could agree upon. Creeds were developed, but Christianity has never agreed upon an official version of its Bible or its doctrine; instead it has had many different manuscript traditions.[76] Christianity's disputes may have effected decline. Official and private action was taken against heterodox Christians (heretics) from the fourth century up to the modern era. Limited action against pagans, who were mostly ignored, was based on the contempt that accompanied Christianity's sense of triumph after Constantine.[77] Christianity opposed sacrifice and magic, and Christian emperors made laws that favored Christianity. Constantine's successors generally continued this approach, and by the end of the fourth century, Christianity had become the religion of any ambitious civil official.
The wealth of the Christian Church increased dramatically in the fifth century. Immense resources, both public and private, were used for building churches, storage barns for the grain used for charity, new hospitals for the poor, and in support of those in religious life without other income.[78] Bishops in wealthy cities were thus able to offer patronage in the long-established manner of Roman aristocrats. Ammianus described some who "enriched from the offerings of matrons, ride seated in carriages, wearing clothing chosen with care, and serve banquets so lavish that their entertainments outdo the tables of kings".
But the move to Christianity probably had no significant effects on public finances.[44] The large temple complexes, with professional full-time priests, festivals, and large numbers of sacrifices (which became free food for the masses), had also been expensive to maintain. They had already been negatively impacted by the empire's financial struggles in the third century.[79]: 353 [80]: 60 The numbers of clergy, monks, and nuns increased to perhaps half the size of the actual army, and they have been considered as a drain on limited manpower.[81][82]
The numbers and effectiveness of the regular soldiers may have declined during the fourth century. Payrolls were inflated, so that pay could be diverted and exemptions from duty sold. The soldiers' opportunities for personal extortion were multiplied by residence in cities, while their effectiveness was reduced by concentration on extortion instead of military exercises.[83] However, extortion, gross corruption, and occasional ineffectiveness[84] were not new to the Roman army. There is no consensus whether its effectiveness significantly declined before 376.[85] Ammianus Marcellinus, himself a professional soldier, repeats longstanding observations about the superiority of contemporary Roman armies being due to training and discipline, not to individual size or strength.[86] He also accuses Valentinian I of being the first emperor to increase the arrogance of the military, raising their rank and power of the military to excess, severely punishing the minor crimes of the common soldiers, while sparing those of higher rank who felt able to commit shameful and monstrous crimes.[87] Despite a possible decrease in the Empire's ability to assemble and supply large armies,[88] Rome maintained an aggressive and potent stance against perceived threats almost to the end of the fourth century.[89]
313–376: Civil and foreign wars
Constantine settled Franks on the lower left bank of the Rhine. Their communities required a line of fortifications to keep them in check, indicating that Rome had lost almost all local control.[54] Under Constantius, bandits came to dominate areas such as Isauria, which were well within the empire.[90] The tribes of Germania also became more populous and more threatening.[44] In Gaul, which did not really recover from the invasions of the third century, there was widespread insecurity and economic decline in the 300s,[44] perhaps worst in Armorica. By 350, after decades of pirate attacks, virtually all villas in Armorica were deserted. Local use of money ceased around 360.[91] Repeated attempts to economize on military expenditure included billeting troops in cities, where they could less easily be kept under military discipline and could more easily extort from civilians.[92] Except in the rare case of a determined and incorruptible general, these troops proved ineffective in action and dangerous to civilians.[93] Frontier troops were often given land rather than pay. As they farmed for themselves, their direct costs diminished, but so did their effectiveness, and their pay gave much less stimulus to the frontier economy.[94] However, except for the provinces along the lower Rhine, the agricultural economy was generally doing well.[95]
On January 18 350, the imperial
Julian (r. 360–363) won victories against Germans who had invaded Gaul. He launched a drive against official corruption, which allowed the tax demands in Gaul to be reduced to one-third of their previous amount, while all government requirements were still met.[97] In civil legislation, Julian was notable for his pro-pagan policies. Julian lifted the ban on sacrifices, restored and reopened temples, and dismantled the privileged tax status and revenue concessions of the Christians. He gave generous tax remissions to the cities which he favored, and disfavor to those who remained Christian.[98]: 62–65 [99] Julian ordered toleration of varieties of Christianity banned as heretical by Constantius;[98] possibly, he would not have been able to persecute effectively such a large and powerful group as Christians had now become.: 62 [100]: 345–346 [101]: 62
Julian prepared for civil war against Constantius, who again encouraged the Germans to attack Gaul. However Julian's campaigns had been effective and only one small Alemannic raid, speedily dealt with by Julian, resulted.: 74
Julian's successor Jovian, acclaimed by a demoralized army, began his brief reign (363–364) while trapped in Mesopotamia without supplies. To purchase safe passage home, he had to concede areas of northern Mesopotamia, including the strategically important fortress of Nisibis. This fortress had been Roman since before the Peace of Nisibis in 299.[102]
The brothers Valens (r. 364–378) and Valentinian I (r. 364–375) energetically tackled the threats of barbarian attacks on all the Western frontiers.[103] They also tried to alleviate the burdens of taxation, which had risen continuously over the previous forty years; Valens in the East reduced the tax demand by half in his fourth year.[104] Both of them were Christians, and re-confiscated the temple lands which Julian had restored. But they were generally tolerant of other beliefs. Valentinian in the West refused to intervene in Christian controversy. In the East, Valens had to deal with Christians who did not conform to his ideas of orthodoxy, and persecution formed part of his response. He tolerated paganism, even keeping some of Julian's associates in their trusted positions. He confirmed the rights and privileges of the pagan priests, and confirmed the right of pagans to be the exclusive caretakers of their temples.[105]
Valentinian died of an
376–395: Invasions, civil wars, and religious discord
Battle of Adrianople
In 376, the East faced an enormous barbarian influx across the Danube, mostly Goths, who were fleeing from the Huns. They were exploited by corrupt officials rather than effectively relieved and resettled, and they took up arms and were joined by more Goths and some Alans and Huns. Valens was in Asia with his main field army preparing for an assault on the Sasanian Empire. Redirection of the army and its logistic support would have required time, and Gratian's armies were distracted by Germanic invasions across the Rhine. In 378, Valens attacked the invaders with the Eastern field army, now perhaps 20,000 men, probably much fewer than the forces that Julian had led into Mesopotamia a little over a decade before, and possibly only 10% of the soldiers nominally available in the Danube provinces.[107] In the Battle of Adrianople (9 August 378), Valens lost much of that army and his own life. All of the Balkan provinces were thus exposed to raiding, without effective response from the remaining garrisons who were "more easily slaughtered than sheep".[107] Cities were able to hold their own defensive walls against barbarians who had no siege equipment, therefore the cities generally remained intact, although the countryside suffered.[108]
Partial recovery in the Balkans, internal corruption and financial desperation
Gratian appointed a new Augustus, a proven general from
The final Gothic settlement was acclaimed with relief,
Theodosius's financial position must have been difficult, since he had to pay for expensive campaigning from a reduced tax base. The business of subduing barbarian warbands also demanded substantial gifts of precious metal.[118] At least one extra levy provoked desperation and rioting, in which the emperor's statues were destroyed.[119] Nevertheless, he is represented as financially generous as emperor, though frugal in his personal life.[120] By the end of the 380s, Theodosius and the court were in Mediolanum, and northern Italy was experiencing a period of prosperity for the great landowners who took advantage of the court's need for food, "turning agrarian produce into gold", while repressing and misusing the poor who grew it and brought it in.[121] Paulinus the Deacon, notary of Ambrose the bishop of Milan, described these men as creating a court where "everything was up for sale".[122] Ambrose himself preached a series of sermons aimed at his wealthy constituents, asserting that avarice leads to a breakdown in society.[123]
For centuries, Theodosius was regarded as a champion of Christian orthodoxy who decisively stamped out paganism. His predecessors
Civil wars
Theodosius had to face a powerful usurper in the West;
Theodosius restored Valentinian II, still a very young man, as Augustus in the West. He also appointed Arbogast, a pagan general of Frankish origin, as Valentinian's commander-in-chief and guardian. Valentinian quarreled in public with Arbogast, failed to assert any authority, and died, either by suicide or by murder, at the age of 21. Arbogast and Theodosius failed to come to terms and Arbogast nominated an imperial official, Eugenius (r. 392–394), as emperor in the West. Eugenius made some modest attempts to win pagan support,[119] and with Arbogast led a large army to fight another destructive civil war. They were defeated and killed at the Battle of the Frigidus, which was attended by further heavy losses; especially among the Gothic federates of Theodosius. The north-eastern approaches to Italy were never effectively garrisoned again.[139]
Theodosius died a few months later in early 395, leaving his young sons Honorius (r. 393–423) and Arcadius (r. 383–408) as emperors. In the immediate aftermath of Theodosius's death, the magister militum Stilicho, married to Theodosius's niece, asserted himself in the West as the guardian of Honorius and commander of the remains of the defeated Western army. He also claimed control over Arcadius in Constantinople, but Rufinus, magister officiorum on the spot, had already established his own power there. Henceforward the Empire was not under the control of one man, until much of the West had been permanently lost.[140] Neither Honorius nor Arcadius ever displayed any ability either as rulers or as generals, and both lived as the puppet rulers of their courts.[141] Stilicho tried to reunite the Eastern and Western courts under his personal control, but in doing so achieved only the continued hostility of all of Arcadius's successive supreme ministers.
Military, financial, and political ineffectiveness: the process of failure
The ineffectiveness of Roman military responses during Stilicho's rule and afterwards has been described as "shocking".
Corruption, in this context the diversion of finance from the needs of the army, may have contributed greatly to the Fall. The rich senatorial aristocrats in Rome itself became increasingly influential during the fifth century; they supported armed strength in theory, but did not wish to pay for it or to offer their own workers as army recruits.[146][147] They did, however, pass large amounts of money to the Christian Church.[148] At a local level, from the early fourth century, the town councils lost their property and their power, which often became concentrated in the hands of a few local despots beyond the reach of the law.[149]
395–406: Stilicho
Without an authoritative ruler, the Balkan provinces fell rapidly into disorder. Alaric was disappointed in his hopes for promotion to magister militum after the battle of the Frigidus. He again led Gothic tribesmen in arms and established himself as an independent power, burning the countryside as far as the walls of Constantinople.[150] Alaric's ambitions for long-term Roman office were never quite acceptable to the Roman imperial courts, and his men could never settle long enough to farm in any one area. They showed no inclination to leave the Empire and face the Huns from whom they had fled in 376. Meanwhile, the Huns were still stirring up further migrations, with migrating tribes often attacking the Roman Empire in turn. Alaric's group was never destroyed nor expelled from the Empire, nor acculturated under effective Roman domination.[143][144][151]
Stilicho's attempts to unify the Empire, revolts, and invasions
Alaric took his Gothic army on what Stilicho's propagandist
Many of Stilicho's Eastern forces wanted to go home and he had to let them go (though Claudian claims that he did so willingly).[154] Some went to Constantinople under the command of one Gainas, a Goth with a large Gothic following. On arrival, Gainas murdered Rufinus, and was appointed magister militum for Thrace by Eutropius, the new supreme minister and the only eunuch consul of Rome. Eutropius reportedly controlled Arcadius "as if he were a sheep".[b] Stilicho obtained a few more troops from the German frontier and continued to campaign ineffectively against the Eastern empire; again he was successfully opposed by Alaric and his men. During the next year, 397, Eutropius personally led his troops to victory over some Huns who were marauding in Asia Minor. With his position thus strengthened, he declared Stilicho a public enemy, and he established Alaric as magister militum per Illyricum. A poem by Synesius advises the emperor to display manliness and remove a "skin-clad savage" (probably Alaric) from the councils of power and his barbarians from the Roman army. We do not know if Arcadius ever became aware of the existence of this advice, but it had no recorded effect.[155] Synesius, from a province suffering the widespread ravages of a few poor but greedy barbarians, also complained of "the peacetime war, one almost worse than the barbarian war and arising from military indiscipline and the officer's greed."[156]
The magister militum in the
In 399,
In 401 Stilicho travelled over the
However, in 405, Stilicho was distracted by a fresh invasion of Northern Italy. Another group of Goths fleeing the Huns, led by one
In 406, Stilicho heard of
In 407, Alaric marched into
The empress Maria, daughter of Stilicho, died in 407 or early 408 and her sister Aemilia Materna Thermantia married Honorius. In the East, Arcadius died on 1 May 408 and was replaced by his son Theodosius II. Stilicho seems to have planned to march to Constantinople, and to install there a regime loyal to himself.[173] He may also have intended to give Alaric a senior official position, and to send him against the rebels in Gaul. Before he could do so, while he was away at Ticinum at the head of a small detachment, a bloody coup d'état against his supporters took place at Honorius's court. It was led by Stilicho's own creature, one Olympius.[174]
408–410: End of effective regular field armies, starvation in Italy, sack of Rome
Stilicho's fall and Alaric's reaction
Stilicho had news of the coup at Bononia, where he was probably waiting for Alaric.[175] His army of barbarian troops, including a guard of Huns and many Goths under Sarus, discussed attacking the forces of the coup, but Stilicho prevented them when he heard that the Emperor had not been harmed. Sarus's Gothic troops then massacred the Hun contingent in their sleep, and Stilicho withdrew from the quarreling remains of his army to Ravenna. He ordered that his former soldiers should not be admitted into the cities in which their families were billeted. Stilicho was forced to flee to a church for sanctuary, promised his life, and killed.[176]
Alaric was again declared an enemy of the Emperor. The conspiracy then massacred the families of the federate troops (as presumed supporters of Stilicho, although they had probably rebelled against him), and the troops defected
As a declared 'enemy of the Emperor', Alaric was denied the legitimacy that he needed to collect taxes and hold cities without large garrisons, which he could not afford to detach. He again offered to move his men, this time to Pannonia, in exchange for a modest sum of money and the modest title of Comes. He was refused, as Olympius's clique still regarded him as a supporter of Stilicho.[181] He moved into Italy, probably using the route and supplies arranged for him by Stilicho,[175] bypassing the imperial court in Ravenna which was protected by widespread marshland and had a port, and he menaced the city of Rome itself. In 407, there was no equivalent of the determined response to the catastrophic Battle of Cannae in 216 BCE, when the entire Roman population, even slaves, had been mobilized to resist the enemy.[182]
Alaric's military operations centred on the port of Rome, through which Rome's grain supply had to pass. Alaric's first siege of Rome in 408 caused dreadful famine within the walls. It was ended by a payment that, though large, was less than one of the richest senators could have produced.[183] The super-rich aristocrats made little contribution; pagan temples were stripped of ornaments to make up the total. With promises of freedom, Alaric also recruited many of the slaves in Rome.[184]
Alaric withdrew to Tuscany and recruited more slaves.[184] Athaulf, a Goth nominally in Roman service and brother-in-law to Alaric, marched through Italy to join Alaric. A small force of Hunnic mercenaries led by Olympius killed some of Athaulf's men on this journey. Sarus was an enemy of Athaulf, and on Athaulf's arrival went back into imperial service.[185]
Alaric besieges Rome
In 409 Olympius fell to further intrigue, having his ears cut off before he was beaten to death. Alaric tried again to negotiate with Honorius, but his demands (now even more moderate, only frontier land and food
Alaric moved to Rome and captured Galla Placidia, sister of Honorius. The Senate in Rome, despite its loathing for Alaric, was now desperate enough to give him almost anything he wanted. They had no food to offer, but they tried to give him imperial legitimacy; with the Senate's acquiescence, he elevated Priscus Attalus as his puppet emperor, and he marched on Ravenna. Honorius was planning to flee to Constantinople when a reinforcing army of 4,000 soldiers from the East disembarked in Ravenna.[190] These garrisoned the walls and Honorius held on. He had Constantine's principal court supporter executed and Constantine abandoned plans to march to Honorius's defence.[191] Attalus failed to establish his control over the Diocese of Africa, and no grain arrived in Rome where the famine became even more frightful.[192] Jerome reports cannibalism within the walls.[193] Attalus brought Alaric no real advantage, failing also to come to any useful agreement with Honorius (to whom Attalus offered mutilation, humiliation, and exile). Indeed, Attalus's claim was a marker of threat to Honorius, and Alaric dethroned him after a few months.[194]
In 410 Alaric
Procopius mentions a story in which Honorius, on hearing the news that Rome had "perished", was shocked. The emperor thought that the news was in reference to his favorite chicken, which he had named "Roma". On hearing that Rome itself had fallen, he breathed a sigh of relief:
At that time they say that the Emperor Honorius in Ravenna received the message from one of the eunuchs, evidently a keeper of the poultry, that Roma had perished. And he cried out and said, "And yet it has just eaten from my hands!" For he had a very large cockerel, Roma by name; and the eunuch comprehending his words said that it was the city of Roma which had perished at the hands of Alaric, and the emperor with a sigh of relief answered quickly: "But I thought that my fowl Roma had perished." So great, they say, was the folly with which this emperor was possessed.
— Procopius, The Vandalic War (De Bellis III.2.25–26)
The Goths move out of Italy
Alaric then moved south, intending to sail to Africa. His ships were wrecked in a storm, and he shortly died of fever. His successor Athaulf, still regarded as an usurper and given only occasional and short-term grants of supplies, moved north into the turmoil of Gaul. In this region, there was some prospect of food. His supergroup of barbarians are called the Visigoths in modern works: they may now have been developing their own sense of identity.[199]
405–418: In the Gallic provinces; barbarians and usurpers, loss of Britannia, partial loss of Hispania and Gaul
The Crossing of the Rhine in 405/6 brought unmanageable numbers of Germanic and Alan barbarians (perhaps some 30,000 warriors, 100,000 people[200]) into Gaul. They may have been trying to get away from the Huns, who about this time advanced to occupy the Great Hungarian Plain.[201] For the next few years these barbarian tribes wandered in search of food and employment, while Roman forces fought each other in the name of Honorius and a number of competing claimants to the imperial throne.[202]
The remaining troops in Britannia elevated a succession of imperial usurpers. The last,
In 410, the Roman civitates of Britannia rebelled against Constantine and evicted his officials. They asked for help from Honorius, who replied that they should look to their own defence. While the British may have
In 411,
Heraclianus was still in command in the diocese of Africa. He was the last member of the clique which had overthrown Stilicho to retain power. In 413 he led an invasion of Italy, and lost to a subordinate of Constantius. He then fled back to Africa, where he was murdered by Constantius's agents.[208]
In January 414 Roman naval forces blockaded Athaulf in Narbo, where he married Galla Placidia. The choir at the wedding included Attalus, a puppet emperor without revenues or soldiers.
Settlement of 418; barbarians within the empire
In 416 Wallia reached agreement with Constantius; he sent Galla Placidia back to Honorius and received provisions, six hundred thousand
Constantius had married the princess Galla Placidia (despite her protests) in 417. The couple soon had two children,
This settlement represented a real success for the Empire - a poem by
421–433: Renewed dissension after the death of Constantius, partial loss of the Diocese of Africa
Constantius died in 421, after only seven months as Augustus. He had been careful to make sure that there was no successor in waiting, and his own children were far too young to take his place.
Galla Placidia, as
In 428 the Vandals and Alans were united under the able, ferocious, and long-lived king
433–454: Ascendancy of Aetius, loss of Carthage
Aetius campaigned vigorously, somewhat stabilizing the situation in Gaul and in Hispania. He relied heavily on his forces of Huns. With a ferocity celebrated centuries later in the Nibelungenlied, the Huns slaughtered many Burgundiones on the middle Rhine, re-establishing the survivors as Roman allies, the first Kingdom of the Burgundians. This may have returned some sort of Roman authority to Trier.[232] Eastern troops reinforced Carthage, temporarily halting the Vandals, who in 435 agreed to limit themselves to Numidia and leave the most fertile parts of North Africa in peace. Aetius concentrated his limited military resources to defeat the Visigoths again, and his diplomacy restored a degree of order to Hispania.[233] However, his general Litorius was badly defeated by the Visigoths at Toulouse, and a new Suevic king, Rechiar, began vigorous assaults on what remained of Roman Hispania. At one point Rechiar even allied with Bagaudae. These were Romans not under imperial control; some of their reasons for rebellion may be indicated by the remarks of a Roman captive under Attila who was happy in his lot, giving a lively account of "the vices of a declining empire, of which he had so long been the victim; the cruel absurdity of the Roman princes, unable to protect their subjects against the public enemy, unwilling to trust them with arms for their own defence; the intolerable weight of taxes, rendered still more oppressive by the intricate or arbitrary modes of collection; the obscurity of numerous and contradictory laws; the tedious and expensive forms of judicial proceedings; the partial administration of justice; and the universal corruption, which increased the influence of the rich, and aggravated the misfortunes of the poor."[234]
Vegetius's advice on re-forming an effective army may be dated to the early 430s,[235][236][self-published source?][237] (though a date in the 390s has also been suggested).[238] He identified many deficiencies in the military, especially mentioning that the soldiers were no longer properly equipped:
From the foundation of the city till the reign of the Emperor Gratian, the foot wore cuirasses and helmets. But negligence and sloth having by degrees introduced a total relaxation of discipline, the soldiers began to think their armor too heavy, as they seldom put it on. They first requested leave from the Emperor to lay aside the cuirass and afterwards the helmet. In consequence of this, our troops in their engagements with the Goths were often overwhelmed with their showers of arrows. Nor was the necessity of obliging the infantry to resume their cuirasses and helmets discovered, notwithstanding such repeated defeats, which brought on the destruction of so many great cities. Troops, defenseless and exposed to all the weapons of the enemy, are more disposed to fly than fight. What can be expected from a foot-archer without cuirass or helmet, who cannot hold at once his bow and shield; or from the ensigns whose bodies are naked, and who cannot at the same time carry a shield and the colors? The foot soldier finds the weight of a cuirass and even of a helmet intolerable. This is because he is so seldom exercised and rarely puts them on.[239]
A religious polemic of about this time complains bitterly of the oppression and extortion[141] suffered by all but the richest Romans. Many wished to flee to the Bagaudae or even to foul-smelling barbarians. "Although these men differ in customs and language from those with whom they have taken refuge, and are unaccustomed too, if I may say so, to the nauseous odor of the bodies and clothing of the barbarians, yet they prefer the strange life they find there to the injustice rife among the Romans. So you find men passing over everywhere, now to the Goths, now to the Bagaudae, or whatever other barbarians have established their power anywhere ... We call those men rebels and utterly abandoned, whom we ourselves have forced into crime. For by what other causes were they made Bagaudae save by our unjust acts, the wicked decisions of the magistrates, the proscription and extortion of those who have turned the public exactions to the increase of their private fortunes and made the tax indictions their opportunity for plunder?"[240]
Gildas, a 6th-century monk and author of De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, wrote that "In the respite from devastation, the island [Britain] was so flooded with abundance of goods that no previous age had known the like of it. Alongside there grew luxury."[241] Nevertheless, effective imperial protection from barbarian ravages was eagerly sought. About this time authorities in Britannia asked Aetius for help: "'To Aetius, thrice consul: the groans of the British.' Further on came this complaint: 'The barbarians push us back to the sea, the sea pushes us back to the barbarians; between these two kinds of death, we are either drowned or slaughtered.' But they got no help in return."[241]
The Visigoths passed another waymark on their journey to full independence; they made their own
In 439, the Vandals moved eastward, temporarily abandoning Numidia. They
Genseric settled his Vandals as landowners.
The losses of income from the Diocese of Africa were equivalent to the costs of nearly 40,000 infantry or over 20,000 cavalry.[251] The imperial regime had to increase taxes. Despite admitting that the peasantry could pay no more, and that a sufficient army could not be raised, the imperial regime protected the interests of landowners displaced from Africa and allowed wealthy individuals to avoid taxes.[252][253]
444–453: Attacks by the empire of Attila the Hun
In 444, the Huns were united under Attila. His subjects included Huns, outnumbered several times over by other groups, predominantly Germanic peoples.[254] His power rested partly on his continued ability to reward his favoured followers with precious metals,[255] and he continued to attack the Eastern Empire until 450, by when he had extracted vast sums of money and many other concessions.[256]
Attila may not have needed any excuse to turn West, but he received one in the form of a plea for help from
In 454, Aetius was personally stabbed to death by Valentinian. "[Valentinian] thought he had slain his master; he found that he had slain his protector: and he fell a helpless victim to the first conspiracy which was hatched against his throne."[258] Valentinian himself was murdered by the dead general's supporters a year later.[259] A rich senatorial aristocrat, Petronius Maximus, who had encouraged both murders, then seized the throne. He broke the engagement between the princess Eudocia and Huneric, heir to the Vandal throne. This amounted to a declaration of war with the Vandals. Petronius had time to send Avitus to ask for the help of the Visigoths in Gaul[260] before a Vandal fleet arrived in Italy. Petronius was unable to muster any effective defence, tried to flee the city, and was torn to pieces by a mob who paraded the bits around on a pole. The Vandals entered Rome, and plundered it for two weeks. Despite the shortage of money for the defence of the state, considerable private wealth had accumulated since the previous sack in 410. The Vandals sailed away with large amounts of treasure and also with the princess Eudocia. She became the wife of one Vandal king and the mother of another, Hilderic.[261]
The Vandals conquered Sicily. Their fleet became a constant danger to Roman sea trade, and to the coasts and islands of the western Mediterranean.[262]
455–456: Failure of Avitus, further losses in Gaul, rise of Ricimer
457–467: Resurgence under Majorian, attempt to recover Africa, control by Ricimer
Majorian and Ricimer were now in control of Italy. Ricimer was the son of a Suevic king, and his mother was the daughter of a Gothic one, so he could not aspire to an imperial throne. After some months, allowing for negotiation with the new emperor of Constantinople and the defeat of 900 Alamannic invaders of Italy by one of his subordinates, Majorian was acclaimed as Augustus.[citation needed]
Majorian is described by Gibbon as "a great and heroic character".
The fleet was burned by traitors, and Majorian made peace with the Vandals and returned to Italy. Here Ricimer met him, arrested him, and executed him five days later.
467–472: Anthemius; an Emperor and an army from the East
After two years without a Western Emperor, the Eastern court nominated Anthemius, a successful general who had a strong claim to the Eastern throne. He arrived in Italy with an army, supported by Marcellinus and his fleet. Anthemius married his daughter Alypia to Ricimer, and he was proclaimed Augustus in 467. In 468, at vast expense, the Eastern empire assembled an enormous force to help the West retake the Diocese of Africa. Marcellinus rapidly drove the Vandals from Sardinia and Sicily, and a land invasion evicted them from Tripolitania. The commander in chief with the main force defeated a Vandal fleet near Sicily, and landed at Cape Bon. Here Genseric offered to surrender, if he could have a five-day truce to prepare the process. He used the respite to prepare a full-scale attack preceded by fireships, which destroyed most of the Roman fleet and killed many of its soldiers. The Vandals were confirmed in their possession of the Diocese of Africa. They soon retook Sardinia and Sicily. Marcellinus was murdered, possibly on orders from Ricimer.[273] The Praetorian prefect of Gaul, Arvandus, tried to persuade Euric the new king of the Visigoths to rebel, on the grounds that Roman power in Gaul was finished anyway; the king refused.
Anthemius was still in command of an army in Italy. Additionally, in northern Gaul, a British army led by one Riothamus, operated in imperial interests at the battle of Déols.[274] Anthemius sent his son Anthemiolus over the Alps, with an army, to request the Visigoths to return southern Gaul to Roman control. This would have allowed the Empire land access to Hispania again. The Visigoths refused, and defeated the forces of both Riothamus and Anthemius at the battle of Arles ; with the Burgundians, they took over almost all of the remaining imperial territory in southern Gaul.[citation needed]
Ricimer then quarreled with Anthemius, and besieged him in Rome, which surrendered in July 472, after more months of starvation.
472–476: Final emperors, puppets of the warlords
After the death of Olybrius there was a further interregnum until March 473, when Gundobad proclaimed Glycerius emperor. He may have made some attempt to intervene in Gaul; if so, it was unsuccessful.[277]
In 474 Julius Nepos, nephew and successor of the general Marcellinus, arrived in Rome with soldiers and authority from the eastern emperor Leo I. By that time, Gundobad had left to contest the Burgundian throne in Gaul.[277] Glycerius gave up without a fight, retiring to become bishop of Salona in Dalmatia.[277] Julius Nepos ruled Italy and Dalmatia from Ravenna, and appointed Orestes, a former secretary of Attila, as magister militum.
In 475, Orestes promised land in Italy to various Germanic mercenaries,
In 476, Orestes refused to honour his promises of land to his mercenaries, who revolted under the leadership of Odoacer. Orestes fled to the city of Pavia on August 23, 476, where the city's bishop gave him sanctuary. Orestes was soon forced to flee Pavia, when Odoacer's army broke through the city walls and ravaged the city. Odoacer's army chased Orestes to Piacenza, where they captured and executed him on August 28, 476.
On September 4, 476, Odoacer forced Romulus Augustulus, whom his father Orestes had proclaimed to be Rome's Emperor, to abdicate. The Anonymus Valesianus wrote that Odoacer, "taking pity on his youth" (he was then 16 years old), spared Romulus' life and granted him an annual pension of 6,000 solidi before sending him to live with relatives in Campania.[279][280] Odoacer installed himself as ruler over Italy, and sent the Imperial insignia to Constantinople.[281]
From 476: Last Emperor, rump states
By convention, the Western Roman Empire is deemed to have ended on 4 September 476, when
Odoacer began to negotiate with the East Roman (Byzantine) emperor
The mostly powerless, but still influential Western
Legacy
The Roman Empire was not only a political unity enforced by the use of military power; it was also the combined and elaborated civilization of the Mediterranean Basin and beyond. It included manufacture, trade, and architecture, widespread secular literacy, written law, and an international language of science and literature.[287] The Western barbarians lost much of these higher cultural practices, but their redevelopment in the Middle Ages by polities aware of the Roman achievement formed the basis for the later development of Europe.[289]
Observing the cultural and archaeological continuities through and beyond the period of lost political control, the process has been described as a
See also
- Succession of the Roman Empire
- Comparative studies of the Roman and Han empires
- Fall of the Eastern Roman Empire)
- Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
- Last of the Romans
- Late Roman army
- List of Roman civil wars and revolts
Notes
- ^ * Numerous literary sources, both Christian and pagan, falsely attributed to Theodosius multiple anti-pagan initiatives such as the withdrawal of state funding to pagan cults (this measure belongs to Gratian) and the demolition of temples (for which there is no primary evidence).[130]
- Theodosius was also associated with the ending of the Vestal virgins, but twenty-first century scholarship asserts the Virgins continued until 415 and suffered no more under Theodosius than they had since Gratian restricted their finances.[131]
- Theodosius did turn pagan holidays into workdays, but the festivals associated with them continued.[132]
- Theodosius was associated with ending the ancient Olympic Games, which he also probably did not do.[133][134] Sofie Remijsen says there are several reasons to conclude the Olympic games continued after Theodosius I, and that they came to an end under Theodosius the second, by accident, instead. Two extant scholia on Lucian connect the end of the games with a fire that burned down the temple of the Olympian Zeus during Theodosius the second's reign.[135]
- ^ a b c d See: Zosimus. book 5 – via Wikisource.
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- ^ Heather 2006, pp. 291–292.
- ^ Gibbon 1782, Chapter XXXIV: Attila. Part I..
- ^ Ward-Perkins 2005, pp. 54–62.
- ^ Ward-Perkins 2005, pp. 58–62.
- ^ Jones 1964, pp. 206–207.
- ^ Heather 2006, pp. 293–294.
- ^ Gibbon 1782, Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila. Part I. [1].
- ^ Heather 2006, p. 298.
- ^ Heather 2006, pp. 295–297.
- ^ Jones 1964, pp. 205–206.
- ^ Heather 2006, p. 330.
- ^ Heather 2006, p. 332.
- ^ Gibbon 1782, Chapter XXXIV: Attila. Part I. [2].
- ^ The Life of St. Severinus Archived 2012-04-23 at the Wayback Machine (1914) by Eugippius pp. 13–113, English translation by George W. Robinson, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- ^ Bury, J. B., The Cambridge Medieval History Vol. I (1924), pp. 418–419
- ^ Gibbon, Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila. Part III. [3].
- ^ Heather 2006, pp. 375–377.
- ^ Halsall 2007, p. 256.
- ^ Gibbon 1782, Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire..
- ^ Heather 2006, p. 379.
- ^ a b Heather 2006, p. 381.
- ^ Halsall 2007, p. 260.
- ^ Heather 2006, pp. 382–383.
- ^ Halsall 2007, p. 261.
- ^ Gibbon 1782, Chapter XXXVI: Total Extinction Of The Western Empire. Part II..
- ^ Martindale 1980, pp. 708–710, Chapter Marcellinus 6.
- ^ Halsall 2007, pp. 266–267.
- ^ Jones 1964, p. 241.
- ^ Halsall 2007, p. 391.
- ^ Halsall 2007, p. 273.
- ^ Halsall 2007, pp. 276–277.
- ^ Halsall 2007, p. 277.
- ^ Halsall 2007, p. 278.
- ^ a b c Halsall 2007, p. 279.
- ^ "Romulus Augustulus – Roman emperor". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 2015-06-01. Retrieved 2022-06-21.
- ^ De Imperatoribus Romanis, archived from the original on 2015-06-01, retrieved 2013-06-24
- ^ Gibbon, p. 406
- ^ Halsall 2007, pp. 280–281.
- ^ Jones 1964, p. 246.
- ^ Halsall 2007, pp. 405–411.
- ^ Ward-Perkins 2005, p. 118.
- ISBN 90-04-12524-8
- ^ Halsall 2007, pp. 284–319.
- ^ a b Halsall 2007, p. 287.
- OCLC 47237751.
- ^ Ward-Perkins 2005, pp. 87–122.
- ^ Bowersock 2001, pp. 87–122.
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