THE GERMANIC INVASIONS AND THE FALL

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST

While Christianity was conquering the Roman Empire from within, another
force, that of the Germanic barbarians, was threatening it from without. The
Germans, who had already almost brought Rome to its knees in the third century,
were held off from the time of Diocletian until shortly before the reign of
Theodosius the Great. But thereafter they demolished western Roman resistance
and, by the end of the 5th century, succeeded in conquering all of the Roman
west. Germanic Kingdoms then became the new form of government in
territories once ruled over by Caesar and Augustus.
It was once customary to think that the Germans were fierce and
thoroughly uncouth savages who wantonly destroyed the Western Roman Empire
out of sheer hatred for civilization.
But that’s a misunderstanding. The Germans were barbarians in Roman eyes
because they did not live in cities and were illiterate, but they were not therefore
savages. On the contrary, they often practiced settled agriculture-although they
preferred hunting and grazing and were adept in making iron tools and weapons
as well as lavish jewelry. Physically they looked enough like Romans to intermarry
without causing much comment, and their Indo-European language was related
to Latin and Greek, prolonged interaction with the Romans had a decisive
civilizing influence on the Germans before they started their final conquests.
Germans and Romans who shared common borders along the Rhine and Danube
had steady trading relations with each other. Even during times of war Romans
were often allied with some. German tribes while they fought others. By the
fourth century, moreover, German tribes often served as auxiliaries of depleted
Roman armies and were sometimes allowed to settle on borderlands of the
empire where Roman farmers had given up trying to cultivate the land. Finally
many German tribes had been converted to Christianity in the fourth century,
although the Christianity they accepted was of the heretical Arian version. All
these interactions made the “barbarians” very familiar with Roman civilization
and substantially favorable to it.
The Germans began their final push not to destroy Rome but to find more
and better land. The first breakthrough occurred in 178 when one tribe, the
Visigoths, who had recently, settled on some Rome lands in the Danube region,
revolted against mistreatment by Roman officials and then decisively defeated a
punitive Roman army in the Battle of Adrianople. The Visigoths didn’t
immediately follow up this victory because they were cleverly bought off and
made aliens of the empire by Theodosius the Great. But when Theodosius died
in 195 he divided this realm between his two sons, neither of whom was as
competent as he, and both halves of the empire were weakened by political
intrigues. The Visigoths under their leader Alaric took advantage of this situation
to wander through Roman realms almost at will, looking for the best land and
provisions. In 410 they sacked Rome itself- a great shock to some
contemporaries- and in the following years marched into southern Gaul.
Meanwhile, in December of 406, a group of allied Germanic tribes led by the
Vandals crossed the frozen Rhine and capitalized on Roman preoccupation with
the Visigoths by streaming through Gaul into Spain. Latter they were able to cross
the straits into north-west Africa, then one of the richest agricultural regions of
the empire. From Africa they took control of the central Mediterranean, even
sacking Rome from the sea in 455. By 476 the entirely ineffectual western Roman
emperor, a mere boy decisively nicknamed Augustulus ( “little Augustus”), was
easily deposed by leader of a mixed band of Germans who then assumed the title
of king of Rome.
Accordingly, 476 is conventionally given as the date for the end of the
Western Roman Emprise. But it must be remembered that a Roman Emperor,
who maintained some claims to authority in the West, continued to rule in
Constantinople.
Two questions that historians of the German inversions customarily ask
are : How did the Germans manage to triumph so easily ? Why was it that they
were particularly successful in the west rather than the east? The case of the
German victories appears particularly striking when its recognized that the
German armies were remarkably small : the Goths who won at Adrianople
numbered no more than 10.000 men, and the total number of the Vandal
“Hordes” was about 80.000. but the Roman armies themselves were depleted
because of declining population and the need for manpower in other
occupations, above all in the new bureaucracies. More than that, German armies
often won by default because the Romans were seldom regarded with horror-
many German soldiers had even risen to position of leadership within Roman
ranks- and the coercive regime begun by Diocletian was not deemed to be worth
fighting for.
The reasons why the Germans fared best in the west are complex- some
having to do with personalities and mistakes of moment, and others with
geographical considerations. But the primary explanation why the Eastern Roman
Empire survived while the Western did not is that the East was simply richer. By
the fifth century most in Roman cities had shrunk in terms of both population
and space in a small fraction of their earlier size and were often little ,ore than
empty administrative shells or fortifications. The economy of the West was
becoming more and more strictly agricultural, and agricultural produce served
only to feed farm laborers and keep rich landlord in luxuries. In the East, on the
other hand, cities like Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria were still teeming
metropolises because of their trade and industry. Because the Eastern state had
greater reserves of wealth to tax, it was more vigorous. It could also afford to buy
off the barbarians with tribute money, which it did with increasing regularity.
Constantinople was able to stay afloat while Rome floundered and then sank.
The effects of the Germanic conquests in the West wore not cataclysmic.
The greatest difference between the Germans and the Romans had been that the
former did not live in cities, but since the Western Roman cities were already in a
state of decline, the invasions only served at most to accelerate the progress of
urban de On the land Germans replaced Roman landlord without interrupting
basic Roman agricultural patterns .Moreover, since the Germans never
comprised very large number they usually never took over more than a part of
Roman lands. Germans also tried to wail themselves of Roman administrative
apparatuses, but these tended to diminish gradually because of the diminishing of
wealth and literacy. Thus the only major German innovation was to create
separate tribal kingdom in the west in place of a united empire.
The map of western Europe around the year 500 reveals the following
major political divisions. Germanic tribes of Anglo axons, who had crossed the
English Channel in the middle of the fifth century, were extending their rule on
the island of Britain.
The Germanic Wars is a name given to a series of wars between the Romans and
various Germanic tribes between 113 BC and 596 AD. The nature of these wars
varied through time between Roman conquest, Germanic uprisings and later
Germanic invasions in the Roman Empire that started in the late 2nd century BC.
The series of conflicts, which began in the 5th century under the Western Roman
Emperor Honorius, led (along with internal strife) to the ultimate downfall of
the Western Roman Empire.
The Fall of the Western Roman Empire (also called Fall of the Roman
Empire or Fall of Rome) was the process of decline in the Western Roman
Empire in which it failed to enforce its rule, and its vast territory was divided into
several successor polities. The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed
it to exercise effective control; modern historians mention factors including the
effectiveness and numbers of the army, the health and numbers of the Roman
population, the strength of the economy, the competence of the Emperor, the
religious changes of the period, and the efficiency of the civil administration.
Increasing pressure from "barbarians" outside Roman culture also contributed
greatly to the collapse. The reasons for the collapse are major subjects of
the historiography of the ancient world and they inform much modern discourse
on state failure.
Relevant dates include 117 CE, when the Empire was at its greatest territorial
extent, and the accession of Diocletian in 284. Irreversible major territorial loss,
however, began in 376 with a large-scale irruption of Goths and others. By 476
when Odoacer deposed the Emperor Romulus, the 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. Invading "barbarians" had established their own power in most of the
area of the Western Empire. While its legitimacy lasted for centuries longer and
its cultural influence remains today, the Western Empire never had the strength
to rise again.
The Fall 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.
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.
The Fall of the Western Roman Empire was the process of decline in the Western
Roman Empire in which it failed to enforce its rule. The Fall is not the only
unifying concept for these events; the period described as Late
Antiquityemphasizes the cultural continuities throughout and beyond the political
collapse. 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 Dio
Cassius, the accession of the emperor Commodusin 180 CE marked the descent
"from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron". Gibbon started his story in 98
and Theodor Mommsen regarded the whole of the imperial period as unworthy
of inclusion in his Nobel Prize-winning History of Rome. Arnold J.
Toynbee and James Burke argue that the entire Imperial era was one of steady
decay of institutions founded in republican times. As one convenient marker for
the end, 476 has been used since Gibbon, but other markers include the Crisis of
the Third Century, the Crossing of the Rhine in 406 (or 405), the sack of Rome in
410, the death of Julius Nepos in 480, all the way to the Fall of New Rome in 1453.
The Roman Empire reached its greatest geographical extent
under Trajan (emperor 98–117), who ruled a prosperous state that stretched
from Mesopotamia to the coasts of the Atlantic. The Empire had large numbers of
trained, supplied, and disciplined soldiers, as well as a comprehensive civil
administration based in thriving cities with effective control over public finances.
Among its literate elite it had ideological legitimacy as the only worthwhile form
of civilization and a cultural unity based on comprehensive familiarity with Greek
and Roman literature and rhetoric. The Empire's power allowed it to maintain
extreme differences of wealth and status (including slavery on a large scale), and
its wide-ranging trade networks permitted even modest households to use goods
made by professionals far away.
Its financial system allowed it to raise significant taxes which, despite endemic
corruption, supported a large regular army with logistics and training. The cursus
honorum, a standardized series of military and civil posts suitable for ambitious
aristocratic men, ensured that powerful noblemen became familiar with military
and civil command and administration. At a lower level within the army,
connecting the aristocrats at the top with the private soldiers, a large number
of centurions were well-rewarded, literate, and responsible for training,
discipline, administration, and leadership in battle. City governments with their
own properties and revenues functioned effectively at local level; membership of
city councils involved lucrative opportunities for independent decision-making,
and, despite its obligations, became seen as a privilege. Under a series of
emperors who each adopted a mature and capable successor, the Empire did not
require civil wars to regulate the imperial succession. Requests could be
submitted directly to the better emperors, and the answers had the force of law,
putting the imperial power directly in touch with even humble subjects. The cults
of polytheist religion were hugely varied, but none claimed that theirs was the
only truth, and their followers displayed mutual tolerance, producing a
polyphonous religious harmony. Religious strife was rare after the suppression of
the Bar Kokhba revolt in 136 (after which the devastated Judaea ceased to be a
major centre for Jewish unrest). Heavy mortality from 165 in the Antonine
Plague seriously impaired attempts to repel Germanic invaders, but the legions
generally held or at least speedily re-instated the borders of the Empire.
In 313 Constantine I declared official toleration of Christianity, followed over the
ensuing decades by establishment of Christian orthodoxy and by official and
private action against pagans and non-orthodox Christians. His successors
generally continued this process, and Christianity became the religion of any
ambitious civil official. Under Constantine the cities lost their revenue from local
taxes, and under Constantius II (r. 337–361) their endowments of property. This
worsened the existing difficulty in keeping the city councils up to strength, and
the services provided by the cities were scamped or abandoned. Public building
projects became fewer, more often repairs than new construction, and now
provided at state expense rather than by local grandees wishing to consolidate
long-term local influence. A further financial abuse was Constantius's increased
habit of granting to his immediate entourage the estates of persons condemned
of treason and other capital charges; this reduced future though not immediate
income, and those close to the emperor gained a strong incentive to stimulate his
suspicion of plots.
Constantine settled Franks on the lower left bank of the Rhine; their settlements
required a line of fortifications to keep them in check, indicating that Rome had
lost almost all local control. Under Constantius, bandits came to dominate areas
such as Isauria well within the empire. The tribes of Germany also became more
populous and more threatening. In Gaul, which did not really recover from the
invasions of the third century, there was widespread insecurity and economic
decline in the 300s, perhaps worst in Armorica. By 350, after decades of pirate
attacks, virtually all villas in Armorica were deserted, and local use of money
ceased about 360. 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. Except in the rare
case of a determined and incorruptible general, these troops proved ineffective in
action and dangerous to civilians. Frontier troops were often given land rather
than pay; as they farmed for themselves, their direct costs diminished, but so did
their effectiveness, and there was much less economic stimulus to the frontier
economy. However, except for the provinces along the lower Rhine, the
agricultural economy was generally doing well. The average nutritional state of
the population in the West suffered a serious decline in the late second century;
the population of North-Western Europe did not recover, though the
Mediterranean regions did.
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, their opportunities for personal extortion were
multiplied by residence in cities, and their effectiveness was reduced by
concentration on extortion instead of drill. However, extortion, gross corruption,
and occasional ineffectiveness were not new to the Roman army; there is no
consensus whether its effectiveness significantly declined before 376. Ammianus
Marcellinus, himself a professional soldier, repeats longstanding observations
about the superiority of contemporary Roman armies being due to training and
discipline, not to physical size or strength. Despite a possible decrease in its ability
to assemble and supply large armies, Rome maintained an aggressive and potent
stance against perceived threats almost to the end of the fourth century.
Julianus (r. 360–363) 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. In civil legislation Julianus was
notable for his pro-pagan policies. All Christian sects were officially tolerated by
Julianus, persecution of heretics was forbidden, and non-Christian religions were
encouraged. Some Christians continued to destroy temples, disrupt rituals, and
break sacred images, seeking martyrdom and at times achieving it at the hands of
non-Christian mobs or secular authorities; some pagans attacked the Christians
who had previously been involved with the destruction of temples.
Julianus won victories against Germans who had invaded Gaul. He launched an
expensive campaign against the Persians, which ended in defeat and his own
death. He succeeded in marching to the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, but lacked
adequate supplies for an assault. He burned his boats to show resolve in
continuing operations, but the Sassanids began a war of attrition by burning
crops. Finding himself cut off in enemy territory, he began a land retreat during
which he was mortally wounded. His successor Jovianus, acclaimed by a
demoralized army, began his brief reign (363–364) trapped in Mesopotamia
without supplies. To purchase safe passage home, he had to concede areas of
northern Mesopotamia and Kurdistan, including the strategically important
fortress of Nisibis, which had been Roman since before the Peace of Nisibis in
299.
The brothers Valens (r. 364–378) and Valentinian I (r. 364–375) energetically
tackled the threats of barbarian attacks on all the Western frontiers and 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.
Both were Christians and confiscated the temple lands that Julianus had restored,
but were generally tolerant of other beliefs. Valentinian in the West refused to
intervene in religious 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. The wealth of the church increased dramatically, immense
resources both public and private being used for ecclesiastical construction and
support of the religious life. Bishops in wealthy cities were thus able to offer
vast patronage. Edward Gibbon remarked that "the soldiers' pay was lavished on
the useless multitudes of both sexes who could only plead the merits of
abstinence and chastity", though there are no figures for the monks and nuns nor
for their maintenance costs. Pagan rituals and buildings had not been cheap
either; the move to Christianity may not have had significant effects on the public
finances. Some public disorder also followed competition for prestigious
posts; Pope Damasus I was installed in 366 after an election whose casualties
included a hundred and thirty-seven corpses in the basilica of Sicininus.
Valentinian died of an apoplexy while personally shouting at envoys of Germanic
leaders. His successors in the West were children, his sons Gratian (r. 375–383)
and Valentinian II (r. 375–392). Gratian, "alien from the art of government both
by temperament and by training" removed the Altar of Victory from the Senate
House, and he rejected the pagan title of Pontifex Maximus.
The final Gothic settlement was acclaimed with relief, even the
official panegyrist admitting that these Goths could not be expelled or
exterminated, nor reduced to unfree status. Instead they were either recruited
into the imperial forces, or settled in the devastated provinces along the south
bank of the Danube, where the regular garrisons were never fully re-established.
In some later accounts, and widely in recent work, this is regarded as a treaty
settlement, the first time that barbarians were given a home within the Empire in
which they retained their political and military cohesion. No formal treaty is
recorded, nor details of whatever agreement was actually made, and when "the
Goths" re-emerge in our records they have different leaders and are soldiers of a
sort. In 391 Alaric, a Gothic leader, rebelled against Roman control. Goths
attacked the emperor himself, but within a year Alaric was accepted as a leader of
Theodosius's Gothic troops and this rebellion was over.
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. Nevertheless, he is represented as financially lavish, though personally
frugal when on campaign. At least one extra levy provoked desperation and
rioting in which the emperor's statues were destroyed. He was pious, a Nicene
Christian heavily influenced by Ambrose, and implacable against heretics. In 392
he forbade even private honor to the gods, and pagan rituals such as the Olympic
Games. He either ordered or connived at the widespread destruction of sacred
buildings.

PLAN:
1. THE VICTORIES OF THE GERMANICBARBARIANS
2. CHARACTER OF THE HERMANS
3. THE VISIGOTHS AND THE VANDALS
4. REASONS FOR THE GERMAN SUCCESS
5. WHY THE EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE SURVIVED AND THE
WESTERN COLLAPSED
6. CONSEQUENCES OF THE GERMANIC INVASIONS