As the situation worsened, civic pride waned and many Roman citizens lost trust in their leadership. When these Eurasian warriors rampaged through northern Europe, they drove many Germanic tribes to the borders of the Roman Empire.
The Romans grudgingly allowed members of the Visigoth tribe to cross south of the Danube and into the safety of Roman territory, but they treated them with extreme cruelty. According to the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman officials even forced the starving Goths to trade their children into slavery in exchange for dog meat.
In brutalizing the Goths, the Romans created a dangerous enemy within their own borders. When the oppression became too much to bear, the Goths rose up in revolt and eventually routed a Roman army and killed the Eastern Emperor Valens during the Battle of Adrianople in A. The shocked Romans negotiated a flimsy peace with the barbarians, but the truce unraveled in , when the Goth King Alaric moved west and sacked Rome. The Edict of Milan legalized Christianity in , and it later became the state religion in These decrees ended centuries of persecution, but they may have also eroded the traditional Roman values system.
Christianity displaced the polytheistic Roman religion, which viewed the emperor as having a divine status, and also shifted focus away from the glory of the state and onto a sole deity. Meanwhile, popes and other church leaders took an increased role in political affairs, further complicating governance.
The 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon was the most famous proponent of this theory, but his take has since been widely criticized. While the spread of Christianity may have played a small role in curbing Roman civic virtue, most scholars now argue that its influence paled in comparison to military, economic and administrative factors. But during the decline, the makeup of the once mighty legions began to change. Unable to recruit enough soldiers from the Roman citizenry, emperors like Diocletian and Constantine began hiring foreign mercenaries to prop up their armies.
Watch it now, on Wondrium. Another significant factor is Christianity. When Christianity became the state religion, the Church reduced the state resources by acquiring large pieces of land and keeping the income for itself. The society had to support various members of the Church hierarchy like monks, nuns, and hermits.
Another impact of Christianity was a psychological one. It put a lot of emphasis on the next life and personal salvation, weakening traditional Roman values like service to the state and civic participation. The power structure, social hierarchy, and the value system of the society changed by Christianity. Learn more about Roman literature. Another interesting interpretation of the Roman Empire collapse is based on a biological model.
According to this model, all nations are biologically like human beings. They are born, grow into maturity, diminish in strength, and finally die. Nothing can remain in the same state, and everything has to go through this natural progression. According to this theory, decay and decline are inevitable by-products of growth and prosperity.
Gibbon has expressed it in this way:. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The Western Roman Empire had clearly fallen by the s. Italy was controlled by Justinian, many of its cities were ruined and much of its infrastructure was severely damaged.
When later historians looked for the moment when the Western Empire fell, they found Marcellinus and his claim that Rome fell under Odoacer.
In the memorable framing by the historian Brian Croke, the fall of Rome in is a manufactured historical turning point that has become an accepted historical fact.
For 1, years, we have picked the wrong time and blamed the wrong person for the fall of Rome. This mistake matters for two reasons. His words had real, deadly and long-lasting consequences. Second, the manufactured fall of Rome reveals the unstable boundaries between historical epochs. But, if we recognize that Rome did not fall in , the lessons we take from Roman history become quite different.
It instead shows how a false claim that a nation has perished can help cause the very problems its author invented. We ignore this danger at our peril. Contact us at letters time. Odoacer forces Romulus Augustus to resign in AD. By Edward J. Edward J. The author and editor of several prize-winning books, including The Final Pagan Generation, he lives in Carlsbad, California. TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions.
Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.
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