Fall of the Western Roman Empire

“ In proportion as Roman prosperity in commerce became greater by having enterprisingly pushed itself forward among other countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa, so did the zenith of her power gradually approach, her commerce became menaced, and her existence threatened by those whom she had conquered. The barbarian hosts under Alaric, Genseric, and Attila, driven by necessity, arose, invaded Rome, and finally made terms with the Eastern Empire at Byzantium, thus accomplishing the fall of the Western Empire and the degradation of Rome. ”

“ The East was an easy conquest, the Gauls themselves could be repelled, Hannibal in the end overcome, after the tribes of Latium had been vanquished. But the district in which the hardy races dwelt, who so long repelled, and maintained a doubtful conflict with the future masters of the world, is now a desert. It could not in its whole extent furnish men to fill a Roman cohort. Rome has emerged from its long decay after the fall of the Western Empire; the terrors of the Vatican, the shrine of St Peter, have again attracted the world to the Eternal City ”

“ Though the Roman people are, of all others, those whose rise and fall are the most distinctly known; yet, in some circumstances, their case does not apply to nations in general. Had they cultivated commerce and the arts, with the same success that they pursued conquest, they must have become wealthy at a much earlier period, and they would not have found themselves in possession of an almost boundless empire, composed of different nations, subdued by force, and requiring force to be preserved. ”

“ But the empire of the Romans filled the world, and when the empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. The slave of Imperial despotism, whether he was condemned to drag his gilded chain in rome and the senate, or to were out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or the frozen bank of the Danube, expected his fate in silent despair. ”

“ But the strongest cities and empires are often nearest a fall; they are founded, to be again sooner or later torn to pieces. Every state has even within itself the seeds of its own destruction; these will occasion the dissolution of every body politic no less certainly than the internal weakness of the animal body must bring it to a fatal period. This was the condition of the Roman empire in its decline, when its rulers, to preserve Italy which they regarded as its heart or head, abandoned its extremities to the Goths and Vandals. ”

“ And now let the pageant move on to the closing scenes of Roman sway. Rome is sinking fast. Within, her citizens have lost their old courage and genius for government. Without, the fierce Goths and Vandals are assailing her provinces. Rome’s grip on her Empire is being loosened more and more every day, and the wild hordes on her frontiers grow bolder and bolder as the Roman garrisons are withdrawn to defend the great city itself. So it is in Britain, where the Caledonians swarm over Hadrian’s Wall and fall upon the Britons of the south. ”

“ The arms of the republic, sometimes vanquished in battle, always victorious in war, advanced with rapid steps to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and the Ocean; and the images of gold, or silver, or brass, that might serve to represent the nations and their kings, were successively broken by the iron monarchy of Rome.
The rise of a city, which swelled into an empire, may deserve, as a singular prodigy, the reflection of a philosophic mind. But the decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. ”

“ We need not prove that it was for the lasting good of the world that Rome was not crushed by the Celtic invaders of 390 B.C. or the Teutonic swarm of 112 B.C. It is equally plain that the development of the human race was largely helped by the subsequent spread of the Empire, till it embraced all Europe west of the Rhine and south of the Danube, all Northern Africa, and Asia west of the Euphrates. It is enough to say that Roman law is a dominating [Pg 381] power in most of the codes of modern Europe, and an important element in all. ”

“ Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive empire, the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences to mankind; and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise the improvements, of social life. In the more remote ages of antiquity, the world was unequally divided. The East was in the immemorial possession of arts and luxury; whilst the West was inhabited by rude and warlike barbarians, who either disdained agriculture, or to whom it was totally unknown. ”

“ Degenerate morals keep pace with civil contests. Rome revels in the spoils of all kingdoms and countries, is intoxicated with power, becomes cruel and tyrannical, and, after yielding up the lives of citizens to fortunate generals, yields at last her liberties, and imperial despotism begins its reign,—hard, immovable, resolute,—under which genius is crushed, and life becomes epicurean, but under which property and order are preserved. The regime is bad; but it is a change for the better. War has produced its fruits. It has added empire, but undermined prosperity ”

“ When the proud city, whose subject territories are bounded by the Euphrates and the Atlantic, acknowledges the fear of an enemy at her very portals, the beginning of the end is at hand. The Roman Empire at the close of its third century is no longer dreaming of more distant conquests; it is struggling for life itself. ”

“ Italy, and Rome in particular, lost by the change: they no longer monopolized the wealth and power of the world, but the other provinces gained. The Empire was much too large for one single man or a single central administration, under the dwindled influence of the Roman name, and amidst the numerous causes of local dissension and discontent, private ambition, social corruption, and foreign hostility, that had accumulated for three centuries, since the time of Augustus. ”

“ It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should discover in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and corruption. This long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated. The natives of Europe were brave and robust. Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum supplied the legions with excellent soldiers, and constituted the real strength of the monarchy. ”

“ When Rome had once tasted the fruits of foreign conquest, the extension of such conquests became the great object of Roman ambition. It was not by accident but by deliberately planned wars of conquest that the so-called world empire of the Romans was acquired.
With the United States the comparatively few and unimportant insular possessions are still a matter of secondary concern. But few of the citizens of this country give any thought or attention to these possessions, and many even favor their abandonment. ”

“ It seems to be the destiny of the Roman empire to perish rather than reform; they must cease to be, in order to cease to be vicious. A part of the inhabitants of Treves, having escaped from the ruins, petitions the emperor for—what? A theatre, spectacles, public shows! A city which thrice overthrown could not correct itself, well deserved to suffer a fourth destruction. * * * Would that my voice might be heard by all Romans! I would cry: Let us all blush that today the only cities where impurity does not reign are those which have submitted to the barbarians. ”

“ The question is, how to take Rome, and keep it, by destroying the Roman Empire.
Let us consider the two combatants—their numbers, and their position.
One glance at the map will shew you which are the most numerous. When you cast your eye over the vastness of the Roman Empire from east to west—Italy, Switzerland, half Austria, Turkey and Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, Spain, France, Britain—and then compare it with the narrow German strip which reaches from the mouth of the Danube to the mouth of the Rhine, the disparity of area is enormous; ten times as great at least ”

“ Rival military powers were ruthlessly destroyed, and conquered peoples were plundered that Rome might be great. During the period of rapid expansion Roman rule was always harsh and often corrupt. The only benefit it offered was the gradual extinction of international warfare, and it was difficult for suffering subjects to see that this was much of a gain. ”

“ The resuscitation of the Roman Empire had been a dream of ambition and ignorance on the part of a great man, but a barbarian. Political unity and central, absolute power had been the essential characteristics of that empire. They became introduced and established, through a long succession of ages, on the ruins of the splendid Roman Republic destroyed by its own dissensions, under favor of the still great influence of the old Roman senate though fallen from its high estate, and beneath the guardianship of the Roman legions and Imperial praetorians. ”

“ The ancient boundary between the Roman Empire and Germany was restored, but at a cost which the former could not pay a second time. For a hundred and fifty years longer the Emperors preserved their territory: Rome still ruled, in name, from Spain to the Tigris, from Scotland to the Desert of Sahara, but her power was like a vast, hollow shell. Luxury, vice, taxation and continual war had eaten out the heart of the Empire; Italy had grown weak and was slowly losing its population, and the same causes were gradually ruining Spain, Gaul and Britain. ”

“ After the destruction of Carthage, the Romans had no jealousy of cities that once were equals. Their arts were made to subserve Roman greatness, indeed, but they were left free to develop their resources. The development of resources was a vital principle of the Roman government. Spain, Syria, and Egypt, were never more prosperous than under the imperial rule. All the provinces were more thriving under the emperors than they had been under their ancient kings, until the era of barbaric invasions. If war had been the mission of the republic, peace was the pride of the empire. ”

“ We must remember that the phrase “dismemberment of the Empire” is far from embracing all the aspects of the momentous events which distinguish that eventful age. The process of Romanising was going forward actively at the same time. The German peoples who settled in the western provinces, at first as unwelcome subjects, soon to become independent nations, were submitted there to the influences of Roman culture, which were never more active and efficacious than when the political power of Rome was waning. ”

“ Finally the tide of influence swept so strongly in the direction of Illyricum that the seat of Roman influence was transferred to the East, and the Roman Empire entered a new phase of existence. The [18] regeneration was effected, in a measure, by the civilisation of the new Rome in the East; but this was the development of an offspring state rather than the regeneration of the old commonwealth itself. Then in the West the northern barbarians, grown stronger and stronger, came down at last in successive hordes and made themselves masters of Italy, including Rome itself. ”

“ Rome had passed through a few years of terrible turbulence after Nero’s suicide in 68. When Vespasian, the steady-headed general with the Army’s strength and loyalty behind him, surged to the crest of the turbulence as Emperor in 69, Rome realized in order to stabilize her entire Empire, she must crush rebellion or revolution wherever found. If one city like Jerusalem, or one little province like Judea not much larger than Vermont or New Hampshire, could defy Roman power, all the Eastern provinces would flame in revolt ”

“ If the advance of Rome destroyed no true nations, her government at least made the development of truly national characteristics impossible, while she herself formed no Roman nation. Thus, for better or worse, the empire was non-national. But, as we have already seen, the decline of Italy made it more and more clear that the strength of the empire lay in the Provinces. Now, having no share in initiative and no responsibility, the Provinces steadily lost vitality under Roman civilization, and became more and more helplessly dependent on the central power. ”

“ Yet the Roman population never made a move against the intruders. The bulk of the opposition was furnished by mercenaries usually Germans themselves who would fight only as long as they were well paid, and by a minority of Roman aristocrats who had preserved some memory of the old Roman patriotism. We can say with absolute truth that the Roman Empire fell because the great majority of its inhabitants made no effort to preserve it. ”

“ But it was all-important to mankind what nations should divide among them Rome's rich inheritance of empire. Whether the Germanic and Gothic warriors should form states and kingdoms out of the fragments of her dominions, and become the free members of the Commonwealth of Christian Europe, or whether pagan savages, from the wilds of central Asia, should crush the relics of classic civilization and the early institutions of the Christianized Germans in one hopeless chaos of barbaric conquest. ”