How often do you think about the Roman Empire?
- Thread starter besserheimerphat
- Start date
At the same time Christianity is one of the things that enabled it to survive as long as it did; thinking in terms of the degree of consolidation of power that it enabled.
Our culture has parallels with the Romans but also very distinct differences. Trying to avoid the cave here, which seems to be the natural trajectory here so I will leave it at that.
Oh **** my bad, thought this was in the Cave. Moving on. I don’t want to get anyone else in trouble.
Hard to have a thread on any historical topic without a large chunk being religion and politics.
Was going to say we get a pretty heavy load of them yearly at church during the Easter season
..So the christianity thing is complicated. We like to think of the pagan Roman empire as the "definitive" version, but the eastern half existed significantly longer as an Orthodox Christian nation than the Western half did, period. And they definitely saw themselves as Roman - the whole "Byzantine" thing is a backwards-looking misnomer applied with more than a little bit of malice. Those Romans would've considered "Roman" and "Christian" to be basically synonyms.
The "Christianity made Rome fall" bit is the thesis of Gibbon's Decline and Fall, but he definitely has his biases against the East, so take that with a grain of salt (also, that is a ~250 year old source [first volume ironically published in 1776], so take it with several grains of salt!).
(full disclosure: I'm using the conversion of Constantine and the building of Constantinople in the 300s CE as the beginning of the Eastern Roman Empire through the fall in 1453 as my lifespan of the East, so a thousand year lifespan, give or take - and I'm using the end of the 2nd Triumvirate in ~27 BCE as the beginning of the Western Empire, with the traditional end date of 476 CE, so give or take 500 years)
This is my dirty academic secret that I hide from my technical brethren - I have an undeclared Classics minor, so I think about Rome a lot. I probably fall into the daily category
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CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
..So the christianity thing is complicated. We like to think of the pagan Roman empire as the "definitive" version, but the eastern half existed significantly longer as an Orthodox Christian nation than the Western half did, period. And they definitely saw themselves as Roman - the whole "Byzantine" thing is a backwards-looking misnomer applied with more than a little bit of malice. Those Romans would've considered "Roman" and "Christian" to be basically synonyms.
The "Christianity made Rome fall" bit is the thesis of Gibbon's Decline and Fall, but he definitely has his biases against the East, so take that with a grain of salt (also, that is a ~250 year old source [first volume ironically published in 1776], so take it with several grains of salt!).
(full disclosure: I'm using the conversion of Constantine and the building of Constantinople in the 300s CE as the beginning of the Eastern Roman Empire through the fall in 1453 as my lifespan of the East, so a thousand year lifespan, give or take - and I'm using the end of the 2nd Triumvirate in ~27 BC as the beginning of the Western Empire, with the traditional end date of 476 CE)
This is my dirty academic secret that I hide from my technical brethren - I have an undeclared Classics minor, so I think about Rome a lot. I probably fall into the daily category
Nice post. Also, nerd.
..So the christianity thing is complicated. We like to think of the pagan Roman empire as the "definitive" version, but the eastern half existed significantly longer as an Orthodox Christian nation than the Western half did, period. And they definitely saw themselves as Roman - the whole "Byzantine" thing is a backwards-looking misnomer applied with more than a little bit of malice. Those Romans would've considered "Roman" and "Christian" to be basically synonyms.
The "Christianity made Rome fall" bit is the thesis of Gibbon's Decline and Fall, but he definitely has his biases against the East, so take that with a grain of salt (also, that is a ~250 year old source [first volume ironically published in 1776], so take it with several grains of salt!).
(full disclosure: I'm using the conversion of Constantine and the building of Constantinople in the 300s CE as the beginning of the Eastern Roman Empire through the fall in 1453 as my lifespan of the East, so a thousand year lifespan, give or take - and I'm using the end of the 2nd Triumvirate in ~27 BCE as the beginning of the Western Empire, with the traditional end date of 476 CE)
This is my dirty academic secret that I hide from my technical brethren - I have an undeclared Classics minor, so I think about Rome a lot. I probably fall into the daily category
So 1, completely agree that the Byzantine thing is backwards and malice. They certainly referred to themselves as Roman.
2 - I kinda agree, kinda disagree on the Christianity thing. I think that in terms of it being the sole reason for the fall of Rome - agreed, it is really not that simple and that GIbbon certainly had his biases and its more nuanced than that.
HOWEVER... there is merit in that that kind of social and cultural upheaval, certainly did percipitate some of the changes that lead to the fall of the empire.
Did Christianity by itself cause the fall? nope.
But could it be seen as a kicking off point that lead to it? Yes, IMO. Because even if for no other reason, the establishment of Constantinople as a rival city and new capital / center of the empire which then ultimately helped lead to the breaking apart of the empire into 2, which later lead to religious differences between the east and West - there certainly is merit in the idea that the conversion of Constantine and Christianity did lead to the decline.
Would it have happened anyways? Probably? Because nothing lasts forever and there were cracks. In that time period an empire that large and diverse was ultimately going to fall and fall hard, in my opinion. When you factor in tribal migrations, plague, logistical problems even for a empire that tried to plan out some of the known difficulties - the end was probably inevitable. But I do think that Christianity's role in the fall of the empire, while generally over blown by people such as Gibbon, also can't be underscored either.
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, as with most things
Without a doubt it's more complicated than that, but I think my main point was that for a significant fraction (depending on which arbitrary dates one wants to pick as "beginning" and "end", possibly even a majority) of the empire's life, the concepts of "Being Roman" and "Being Christian" were very much intertwined - like I'm pretty sure if one could talk to someone living in Constantinople in about 450 CE or so, they would say one couldn't be Roman without being Christian, if they would even recognize the two concepts as distinct from one another. The whole idea of a separation between nationality and religion is a pretty modern concept.
I'd also argue that Rome itself ceased to be the capital of the Empire round about the crisis of the 3rd century - particularly by the era of the Dominate the "capital" was wherever the Emperor happened to be (which definitely gets messy during the Tetrarchy because there's four of them).
The fall of the West probably was inevitable, but the lesson I draw from it is that Rome as an institution failed to do what it had done many times before - successfully integrate a new population (in the final case, the germanic/frankish peoples) and get them to buy into the concept of the empire. They'd done this a LOT over their history - one could measure the life of the empire as which region provides the leadership for and maybe "driving force" of the state; starts in Rome itself, then moves to the surrounding Italian cities, then Greece, Hispania, North Africa, Dacia/the Balkans, etc. I suspect there's a thesis for a book in here somewhere
.That's actually the parallel I'd draw with the US - we've also successfully integrated disparate populations and gotten "buy-in" on the values and ideas we (claim to) espouse over our history and (in my opinion) gained strength by doing so. Are we reaching a stage in our development where we're not able to do that anymore? Maybe. But I don't want to get this thread banished to the Cave, so I'll stop there.
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Without a doubt it's more complicated than that, but I think my main point was that for a significant fraction (depending on which arbitrary dates one wants to pick as "beginning" and "end", possibly even a majority) of the empire's life, the concepts of "Being Roman" and "Being Christian" were very much intertwined - like I'm pretty sure if one could talk to someone living in Constantinople in about 450 CE or so, they would say one couldn't be Roman without being Christian, if they would even recognize the two concepts as distinct from one another. The whole idea of a separation between nationality and religion is a pretty modern concept.
I'd also argue that Rome itself ceased to be the capital of the Empire round about the crisis of the 2nd century - particularly by the era of the Dominate the "capital" was wherever the Emperor happened to be (which definitely gets messy during the Tetrarchy because there's four of them).
The fall of the West probably was inevitable, but the lesson I draw from it is that Rome as an institution failed to do what it had done many times before - successfully integrate a new population (in the final case, the germanic/frankish peoples) and get them to buy into the concept of the empire. They'd done this a LOT over their history - one could measure the life of the empire as which region provides the leadership for and maybe "driving force" of the state; starts in Rome itself, then moves to the surrounding Italian cities, then Greece, Hispania, North Africa, Dacia (the Balkans), etc. I suspect there's a thesis for a book in here somewhere
That's actually the parallel I'd draw with the US - we've also successfully integrated disparate populations and gotten "buy-in" on the values and ideas we (claim to) espouse over our history and (in my opinion) gained strength by doing so. Are we reaching a stage in our development where we're not able to do that anymore? Maybe. But I don't want to get this thread banished to the Cave, so I'll stop there.
There's also a clique of historians who consider the whole "fall" of the "Roman Empire" a bit of a misnomer. Even outside of the issue with the Eastern Romans you bring up, the various successor kingdoms in the west saw themselves as continuations of Roman administration and power. Those included Vandal North Africa, Ostrogothic Italy, Visigoth Iberia, Merovingian France, and even Anglo-Saxon England.
The Roman Empire never really "fell." It wasn't high and mighty and then gone the next day or even within a generation. It kind of slowly drifted apart and back together again and then apart and did this a few times until eventually the various portions went their own way and history continued unabated.
The last emperor you can unambiguously claim ruled a "united" empire was Theodosius I, who died in 395 and split east/west between his sons. Romulus Augustulus wasn't deposed by the Ostrogoths until 476. I know life moved slower back then, but 81 years is a good stretch of time for a "downfall."
But sending the regalia back to Constantinople with a note pinned to it saying, effectively, "Don't appoint anyone else to the West, losers" is such a badass moment, lol.
And one could argue that Justinian is the last to rule a "united" empire of East and West if we're using "holds both Rome and Constantinople" as the goalpost - but I maybe just want an excuse to bring up one of my favorites.
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
Without a doubt it's more complicated than that, but I think my main point was that for a significant fraction (depending on which arbitrary dates one wants to pick as "beginning" and "end", possibly even a majority) of the empire's life, the concepts of "Being Roman" and "Being Christian" were very much intertwined - like I'm pretty sure if one could talk to someone living in Constantinople in about 450 CE or so, they would say one couldn't be Roman without being Christian, if they would even recognize the two concepts as distinct from one another. The whole idea of a separation between nationality and religion is a pretty modern concept.
I'd also argue that Rome itself ceased to be the capital of the Empire round about the crisis of the 3rd century - particularly by the era of the Dominate the "capital" was wherever the Emperor happened to be (which definitely gets messy during the Tetrarchy because there's four of them).
The fall of the West probably was inevitable, but the lesson I draw from it is that Rome as an institution failed to do what it had done many times before - successfully integrate a new population (in the final case, the germanic/frankish peoples) and get them to buy into the concept of the empire. They'd done this a LOT over their history - one could measure the life of the empire as which region provides the leadership for and maybe "driving force" of the state; starts in Rome itself, then moves to the surrounding Italian cities, then Greece, Hispania, North Africa, Dacia/the Balkans, etc. I suspect there's a thesis for a book in here somewhere
That's actually the parallel I'd draw with the US - we've also successfully integrated disparate populations and gotten "buy-in" on the values and ideas we (claim to) espouse over our history and (in my opinion) gained strength by doing so. Are we reaching a stage in our development where we're not able to do that anymore? Maybe. But I don't want to get this thread banished to the Cave, so I'll stop there.
Well, the Roman version of "integrate" was often a euphamism for "conquer" or something wilder. If they couldn't integrate this new population of outsiders, it's most likely because that new population was too strong for them or had better things to be than Roman.
Goths, for sure.
I can see it now: pale, black haired, fishnet clad 20-somethings pulling down the Washington Monument.
The Eastern Empire at its greatest extent...
I think you're missing too much of Iberia and modern France to call it truly "restored."
Theodosius the Great was the last who was indisputably the ruler of a united empire.
