Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Just finished a long read of Peter Heather's book on the fall of the Roman Empire.

He concentrates on the continental evidence without much detail on Britain but it does give clear ideas as to why the Western Empire fell.

It did not decline because of internal implosion but because of outside threat.

His narrative is that the sequence of events that lead to the Fall began with the renewed Persian threat (with the rise of the Sassanians. The Romans need to keep a proportion of their forces on this front and this meant that no longer had the overwhelming numbers to defeat the barbarian threat on the Rhine and the Danube.

This Germanic threat had been there since Arminius defeated Varus in the Forest in Augustus' reign so why did it now overwhelm the Romans. Firstly, the Persian threat, secondly, the Huns, with their new technology of bows and their skill in horseback shotting pushed the Goths, Vandals and other groups across the Rhine/Danube and to seek shelter in the Roman Empire - this lead to the destruction of Balkan areas and the death of the Emperor at Hadrianopolis (378AD), the Romans, unable to completely defeat the Germans began to settle them in Roman territory. The next explosion led by Alaric lead to the sack of Roman in 410AD - and the emergence of increasingly powerful Germanic coalitions. The Goths and Vandals swept through the Empire, and even crossed over into Africa, Eventually, the Huns themselves invaded the Empire in 2 great raids lead by Attila. The Hunnic Empire fell apart with the death of Atilla. Roman Emperors tried a divide and rule policy but increasingly had to give up territory, so that they no longer were getting any tax revenue from Africa, or from much of Spain or Gaul. Although recent archaeology suggests that farming was continuing without sign of a decline, the loss of territory meant that a tax shorttal which left the Romans struggling to maintain an army sufficient to take back the initiative from the Goths.

Help from the East was attempted but the last great effort failed as the Roman fleet was defeated, with African controlled by Vandals, Visigoths and other in Spain, Visigoths, Franks and Burgundians in France, By 476 Rome had no longer the power to build a coalition to clear away the barbarians and Rome fell leaving Italy to be controlled by the Goths.

Heather reports although the Romans had between 300,000 and 600. 000 troops, many were frontier troups or were needed on other fronts so that the Romans only had perhaps 30,000 to take on the Eastern Barbarians. Although this would once have been enough, Heather suggests that the pressure of life on the frontier lead to increasing group size. Large groups gave some protection from roman incursion and ofter the prospect of large sums of money in the form of 'tribute' in return for leaving Rome in peace. Small groups mean the fear of extinction and a lack of booty from the Empire, Large groups gained the respect of the Romans and a large group could command 300 lbs of gold as an annual payment to leave the Roman empire alone Attila commanded a much larger sum.

So it was not the internal weakness of the Empire but a strengthening of enemies along the Rhine that did for Roman,


Book Details

Heather, Peter 'The Fall Of Te Roman Empire - A New History' Macmillan, London, 2005

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