How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower

One of the unresolved questions still keeping historians at work concerns the fall of the Roman Empire.So far hundreds of books and articles discussed and scrutinized every detail of the Empire's demise and each one has come up with different answers.Indeed,such a topic is barely possible to handle for one single historian.One must be in an extremely good command of primary and secondary sources and if he or she wants to have a wide audience, he or she must also be able to write in a very lively style, since such a topic could become boring in a matter of seconds if the style of writing is dry and contains only an endless number of facts. However, in the case of Mr. Goldsworthy's case, this is not the case.Not only does he have a brilliant command of his sources ,but he has also the ability to keep the reader's interest alive along 448 pages,the length of the text.What is original about this book concerns his conclusions and they are very simple: the real reason for the fall and demise of the Roman Empire had to do with the endless number of civil wars which started maily in 217 AD and proved to be fatal for the Empire which expired in the fifth century. Each conflict has sapped the empire's energy.Corruption was rampant and just to illustrate, one emperor, Elagabalus,had nominated his governors on the merit of the size of their respective penises.One cannot escape the famous -and cited-sentence written by Gibbon in the 18th century who proclaimed that "the story of the Empire's ruin is simple and obvious;and instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed,we should rather be surprised that it lasted so long". In addition, the author has managed to examine almost every aspect of the Roman life under the tens-perhaps-hundreds- of emperors.The period between the second and fifth century was one of extreme economic crises, religious strife, plagues and endless wars.There was a succession of earthquakes in the fifth century which spread devastation throughout the Eastern Empire.Consider this:in sixty years there were more than sixty emperors! Sometimes one brother would kill the other in order to ascend to the throne.This book also examines at length the relations between the Empire and the Sassanid Persians. Towards the end,Mr.Goldsworthy warns us about making analogies with the Romans when talking about the demise of other Empires or superpowers, such as the USA.For example, he writes(on p.419) that "theses days,countries and governments do not face enemies likely to overthrow them by military force."And then(p.421):"Like the Romans,the bodies involved are usually just too big to come to immediate and final collapse". When speaking about the collapse of superpowers,such as the USA,one should be extremely careful in pronouncing their downfall, because such a process in not only uncertain, but also extremely slow and takes a very long time.However, no superpower is guaranteed its supremacy and this is true of modern America as well as it w

Goldsworthy has written an outstanding history of the fall of Rome. He feels that the barbarian tribes and the Sassanid Persian Empire (Goldsworthy rejects the notion that they were as strong as many modern authorities claim)lacked the resources to do more than conduct deep raids in into the Empire. Overthrowing the Empire or even permanent settlement was impossible until the Empire became much weaker. The enormous size of the Empire and its vast resources gave it great recuperative powers, and the ability to repel invades and repair damages. This ability to respond to invasions declined with time due to deliberate administrative policy at the Imperial level. Emperors' most important concern was staying in power, even at the cost of the welfare of their inhabitants. In this they were similar to modern political leaders. The Emperors felt that generals who were successful against invaders were potential, if not probable rebels. Thus the field armies were often starved of resources unless the Emperor could command in person. This policy was the result of the assumption that eventually the barbarians or the Persians, even if not driven out, would leave with their loot. and in time the Empire would respond with a counter-raid. As the Empire became more localized due to changing administrative and miitary organization, it became increasingly difficult to mobilize resources on an empire-wide level. What resources that did exist became less effectively used as the bureaucracy increased in size, declined in quality and became more corrupt(as per Ramsey MacMullen). The Notitia Dignitatum was actually a TOE of the Empire's military at full strength. There was always the possibility that units could be given staffs, recuited up to strength and properly funded if needed. But as a rule the units, particularly in temporarily quiet areas, were starved of men and money to prevent rebellion. An extension of this policy was the increasing use of barbarian mercenaries, whomit was felt could not aspire to the imperial titlr. Only when the Empire became too weak and poorly administrated to marshall its resources did raids turn into invasions. The book has an outstanding up-to-date bibliography and notes, with many useful maps. There is an error in the geneological table on p.265

Given the title and subject matter, it would be easy to assume this book would be too heavy to casually enjoy. Yet, as with his superb "Caesar", Goldsworthy again shows that worthwhile history treatises can be written that are objective, intelligently narrated, interesting and easy to follow. You don't have to be a scholar or history buff to enjoy this. You just have to like to read.

The work is divided into three parts. Part 1 traces the reign of Marcus Aurelius through the Crisis of the Third century to the rise of Diocletian. In many ways the reign of Marcus Aurelius was the height of the empire left by Augustus, but the generations that followed witnessed a painful transformative process. Part II begins with Diocletian's attempts to rebuild from the rubble, reorganizing the empire into a new entity. It ends with the political split of the empire between East and West. Part III then details the sordid legacy of the Western Empire as emperors fought rivals, and barbarian warlords fought Roman generalissimos who were themselves often of barbarian extraction. The West increasingly loses ground until it is a patchwork of barbarian kingdoms loosely carrying on Roman traditions. Part III ends with the rise of the Islamic invaders who in turn dismember the outer realms of the surviving Eastern empire. Goldsworthy's book is largely in response to the most recent scholars, such as Peter Heather, who paint a picture of a vibrant later empire only torn apart by Germanic supertribes and a reborn Persian superpower. Goldsworthy disagrees on both fronts. He claims there is no sufficient evidence to paint the later empire as being as prosperous or as strong as Augustus' Principate. Nor does he see the Persians or various barbarian tribes as being especially larger or more organized opponents than what confronted the earlier emperors. Instead Rome's greatest enemy was itself. The constant civil wars fought after Marcus Aurelius destabilized Roman society and weakened the borders, allowing otherwise weak enemies to exploit Roman instability. The later emperors cared more about mere survival than about imperial welfare at large, which led to deleterious reforms. Senators were excluded from military command so as to no longer threaten the emperor, but ironically this opened the power struggle to a much wider and far less predictable strata of society below them, namely Equestrian officers and bureaucrats. Furthermore, the split between the civil bureaucracy and the military forces, and the increasing division of both into smaller units, was designed to prevent any one official from having the resources to overthrow the emperor. But this also had the effect of reducing the empire's ability to quickly marshal the necessary resources to oppose foreign invasion. The result was of course an increasing trickle of foreign foes who were allowed to occupy the land, thus depriving the West of needed tax revenue, which in turn weakened the army and bureaucracy, and so encouraging more infiltration and forced settlement. The tale of western Roman collapse is a long and depressing epic, but Goldsworthy tells it expertly. The prose is enchanting: intelligent but direct and always engaging. Where some saw his Caesar biography as rather needlessly verbose, the author manages in this work to condense about four hundred years of Roman history into as ma