The Fall of the Western Roman Empire

By 476 A.D., after a 1100 year reign that saw the Roman Empire grow from a humble collection of house holds on the hills of Rome to the largest Empire in the ancient world, the grand Western Roman Empire was about to fall to the Barbarian hordes of the North. Like all empires, the key to the success of the Roman Empire had long been its infamous army. This infamous army, over the pervious thousand years, had brought the whole known Mediterranean world with in the folds of the Empire at sword point. However, by the end of the fifth century, the Roman Army had become so weak through a series of interconnecting political, economic and social factors that it simply was unable to defend the Empire against the Barbarian onslaught.

The Roman Empire had reached its political zenith of power by the end of Marcus Aurelius’ rule in 161 A.D. The Empire was rich and stretched from the modern day Scottish board to the Persian Gulf with an estimated population of 80 million. All major rivals in the region—the Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians—had been crushed and subjugated, which only left the backwards, blue faced Germanic tribes who existed on the fringes of civilization. Times were good, but the next 300 years would bring several major politic shifts that would ultimately destroy the Western Roman Empire. The first major political shift in the Empire occurred under the reign of Emperor Diocletian (b. 245-313 A.D). The Empire was a bureaucratic monstrosity, so out of necessity Diocletian effectively split the Empire into an eastern and western half along the classic Greco-Roman cultural lines. The Eastern half of the Empire was comprised of the heavily urbanized and rich trading cities of Greece, Persia, and Egypt, whereas the Western Empire was comprised of rather poor, small cities and extensive farmland that made up the bulk of Western Europe and North Africa, at the time. Along with the physical division, each half of the Empire would have its own independent emperor who in turn would control his own army. Because of this division, the eastern half of the Empire enjoyed a clear political, military and economic advantage over the western half for the next 1000 years.

The second major political shift was the devaluation of the position of emperor itself. In fifty years proceeding Diocletian’s reign, the Empire fell under the rule of twenty-two separate Emperors. This near constant turnover in leadership greatly effected the Empire’s ability develop any of the necessary policies needed to help carry the Empire forward. To combat the problems of instability in the Empire, Diocletian through a series of autocratic reforms established himself as dominus of the Empire. Along with this new master and slave relationship Diocletian formed with his subjects, he also enacted a series of land reforms the effectively tied the previously semi-independent tenant farmers of the Empire to the land on which they worked. Other reforms that prevent men from leaving their current occupation along with forcing their son to take up the same occupation as their father were also placed into effect with dire consequences. In an attempt to shore-up the Empire, Emperor Diocletian simple hasten the fall of the Empire.

The third major political shift the Empire faced was from the oncoming barbarians. The Romans had long known about the Barbarian tribes of Northern Europe, however, a chain of events soon brought the Empire and these groups into conflict. For unknown reasons, the Huns, a nomadic tribe of excellent horsemen, began to push westward from their traditional homes on what is known today as the Russian steppe land into Europe. As the Huns pushed westward, they dislodged several of the Gothic tribes found in Eastern Europe, and these tribes in turn began to move into areas controlled by the Roman Empire. By 376 A.D. a major barbarian group called the Visigoths had moved into to the Balkans. To stop the movement of barbarian hordes, Emperor Valens and the Roman Army met the Visigoths on the fields of Adrinaople in 378 A.D. By the end of the day the Roman Army was defeated and Emperor Valens lay dead. The next hundred years would see an every increasing flight of Barbarian tribes into lands controlled by the Roman Empire. In 410 A.D. at the hands of the Visigoths, Rome was sacked, much to the duress of men such as St. Augustine for which the event became to subject of his The City Of God. In 429 A.D. Rome suffered another devastating blow as the Empire’s North African providences fall to the Vandals—another displaced Germanic tribe—and along with it much of the imported grain necessary to feed the city. It was with this clash of cultures that would eventually end the Western Roman Empire.

Towards the end, the Roman Empire faced a two major economic issue that seriously hampered the Empire’s ability to adapt and defend itself against the barbarian invasions. Like nearly all-ancient societies, the Roman Empire had a large slave based, agricultural economy. This arrangement presented a major problem for the state, not in moral terms, but in terms of research and development. Because of the Empire’s heavy reliance on slavery, the state simply never developed new technology. When a problem presented itself, instead of developing and employing labor saving devices—such as windmills and other devices—the Romans simply used more slaves.

The second major economic issue the Empire faced was the inability to raise the necessary taxes to pay for its expensive army. In the beginning of the third century, the Roman Army was estimated at having “as many as 450,000 legionary and auxiliary troops.” The cost to arm, train, feed and house such a huge army was enormous and when combined with repeated bouts of inflations the wreaked havoc on the economy, the State’s treasury was hard pressed. Emperor Diocletian made several disastrous attempts to solve the State’s financial problems. In 293 A.D. he debased Roman currency which in turn caused mass panic and hording of goods. To combat the problem of hording in 301 A.D. he issued his Edit on Maximum prices which “forbade hoarding and set ceilings on what could legally be charged or paid for about a thousand goods and services.” In short, slavery failed to help encourage better working practices and the ever increasing financial quagmire of the Empire weakened the Western Empire’s ability to cope with the challenges of the future.

On the social front, the Roman Empire faced a struggle of epic proportions, the rise of Christianity. For years Christianity and the Empire had been locked in a dance between all out persecution and acceptance. The monotheistic views of the Christians, along with their embrace of the doctrines as set out in the New Testament, flew in the face of the civic religion of the Empire. Over time their influence began to spread and with the battlefield conversion of Emperor Constantine in 313 A.D., the Catholic Church was well on its way to becoming a major force. However, at exactly the same time in which the citizens of the Empire were being asked to ‘turn the other cheek,’ and the military death cults were being dismantled, the dark clouds of invasion began to loom over the Alps. This was not the right time for the Roman Army to turn their swords into plowshares.

            In the end, it was through a series of interconnecting political, economic, and social factors that weakened the Western Roman Empire and more importantly, its army, thus preventing it from defending the Empire. In 476 A.D., the Western Roman Empire ended at the hands of the Barbarian General Odoacer when he simply deposed the boy Emperor Romulus Augustulus, and refused to take the now worthless title of Emperor for himself. The causes for the fall of the Western Roman Empire are clear—although somewhat simplified—however, in various forms the Empire would live on. The Eastern Roman Empire would last just short of another 1000 years, only to fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 A.D. As for the Western Empire, it left behind an extremely rich legacy that has become the foundation stones on which Western civilization has been built.