Western Roman Empire

“ We cannot, therefore, hope to fix any year or event which may properly be taken as the beginning of that long period which followed the downfall of the Roman state in western Europe and which is commonly called the Middle Ages. Beyond the northern and western boundaries of the Roman Empire, which embraced the whole civilized world from the Euphrates to Britain, mysterious peoples moved about whose history before they came into occasional contact with the Romans is practically unknown. ”

“ But the warlike Germans, who first resisted, then invaded, and at length overturned, the Western monarchy of Rome, will occupy a much more important place in this history, and possess a stronger, and, if we may use the expression, a more domestic, claim to our attention and regard. The most civilized nations of modern Europe issued from the woods of Germany, and in the rude institutions of those barbarians we may still distinguish the original principles of our present laws and manners. ”

“ We are also indebted to Rome for many practical skills and for important engineering knowledge, which was saved and passed on to Western Europe through the medium of the monks. On the other side of the picture, the recent great World War, with all its awful destruction of life and property, and injury to the orderly progress of civilization, may be traced directly to the Roman idea of world empire and the sway of one imperial government, imposing its rule and its culture on the rest of mankind. ”

“ Our caption “Later Roman Empire in the West” or “Western Empire” must be understood as applying rather loosely to the peoples now under consideration. We have already (in Vol. VI) witnessed the overthrow of Rome by the Goths and the deposition of the last legitimate emperor of the old Roman line. It has been urged, however, that no really critical alteration in the sweep of world-historic events attended this change.
The fall of Rome marks a convenient epoch in the retrospective view of the historian ”

“ Just why the Roman government, once so powerful and so universally respected, finally became unable longer to defend its borders and gave way before the scattered attacks of the German peoples, who never combined in any general alliance [Pg 13] against it, is a very difficult question to answer satisfactorily. The inhabitants of the Empire appear gradually to have lost their energy and self-reliance and to have become less and less prosperous. ”

“ In addition to the partition of the empire, the period between 395 and 493 is marked by the complete breakdown of the Roman resistance to barbarian invasions, and the penetration and occupation of the western provinces and Italy itself [pg 352] by peoples of Germanic stock. The position of Roman and barbarian is reversed; the latter become the rulers, the former their subjects, and the power passes from the Roman officials to the Germanic kings. Finally, a barbarian soldier seats himself upon the throne of the western emperor, and a Germanic kingdom is established in Italy. ”

“ The Roman empire—that greatest monument of human power, as Dean Church has called it—began the fusion of races into one vast political society; its dominion extended continuously from Britain on the west to Asia Minor and the countries bordering on the Caspian Sea; it settled the law and language of Southern Europe. The establishment of the Roman empire is a cardinal epoch of the world's political history. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the historic survey upon which we are now to enter, we shall see that the Roman Empire represented a crude method of nation-making which began with a masterful career of triumph over earlier and cruder methods, but has now for several centuries been giving way before a more potent and satisfactory method. And just as the merest glance at the history of Europe shows us Germanic peoples wresting the supremacy from Rome, so in this deeper study we shall discover a grand and far-reaching Teutonic Idea of political life overthrowing and supplanting the Roman Idea. ”

“ While this Ecclesiastical Dominion was rising up, the northern barbarous nations invaded the Western Empire, and founded several kingdoms therein, of different religions from the Church of Rome. But these kingdoms by degrees embraced the Roman faith, and at the same time submitted to the Pope's authority. The Franks in Gaul submitted in the end of the fifth Century, the Goths in Spain in the end of the sixth; and the Lombards in Italy were conquered by Charles the great A.C. 774. ”

“ First, the whole eastern part of the Roman empire was made up of many various nations having a long and sometimes renowned history, kingdoms, and politics much anterior to Rome herself, of which the Romans had taken violent possession, but wherein remained still the fruits of a rich and undisturbed civilisation. ”

“ In ancient times the Romans were the only people in whom were combined a superior political organization and a superior civilization. The result was that they subdued the Greek states of the East, which were ripe for destruction, and dispossessed the people of lower grades of culture in the West. The union of Italy was accomplished through the overthrow of the Samnite and Etruscan civilizations. The Roman Empire was built upon the ruins of countless secondary nationalities which had long before been marked out for destruction by the levelling hand of civilization. ”

“ A city-state could not rule, with justice and efficiency, an empire.
THE PROFITS OF CONQUEST In the old days, before Rome entered on a career of foreign conquest, her citizens were famous among men for their love of country, their simple lives, and their conservative, old-fashioned ways. They worked hard on their little farms, fought bravely in the legions, and kept up with careful piety all the ceremonies of their religion. But now the Roman republic was an imperial power with all the privileges of universal rule. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Roman Empire in the East, though threatened by enemies from without and weakened by civil conflicts from within, endured for more than a thousand years. Until the middle of the eleventh century it was the strongest state in Europe, except during the reign of Charlemagne, when the Frankish kingdom eclipsed it. Until the middle of the fifteenth century it preserved the name, the civilization, and some part of the dominions, of ancient Rome. ”

“ Beyond the Roman Empire lay territories and peoples associated with Rome by treaties, bound to Rome by trade and travel, in some cases paying tribute to Rome, but enjoying sufficient autonomy as peoples, nations and empires maneuvering for position and advantage, frequently allying themselves with non-Roman areas and occasionally conspiring to by-pass Roman authority and even to challenge Roman supremacy. ”

“ The Roman Empire, the inheritor of all the power, the civilization, the intellectual and material wealth and grandeur of its predecessors, with its own new and specific force in addition, made of the whole world one dominion, brought the East into subjection to the West, and established in Rome, the Eternal City, the permanent capital of the earth. ”

“ It preserved the idea of Roman imperialism, after the secular empire of the West had disappeared, and even kept the tradition of the secular empire alive. It modelled all its machinery on the Roman Empire, and consecrated the Roman claim to universal dominion, with the Roman law of maiestas against all who disputed its authority. ”

“ Well may the Roman empire be called universal, since it controlled all the nations of the earth known to the Greeks. It was the vastest centralization of power which this world has seen, or probably will ever see, extending nearly over the whole of Europe, and the finest parts of Asia and Africa. We are amazed that a single city of Italy could thus occupy with her armies and reign supremely over so many diverse countries and nations, speaking different languages, and having different religions and customs. ”

“ The vast structure of Roman civilization had split West from East. The Eastern Empire retained its form and continued its culture for centuries after its break with the West. Meanwhile the West fragmented into smaller and smaller units, increasingly self-contained and increasingly isolated. Cities raised and manned their own walls. The countryside broke up into smaller and smaller divisions over which the Holy Roman Empire exercised little more than a shadowy authority. ”

“ In ancient history all that is most memorable and instructive gathers round cities; civilization and empire were concentrated within walls; and it baffled the ancient mind to conceive how power should be possessed and wielded by numbers larger than might be collected in a single market-place. The Roman Empire, indeed, aimed at being one in its administration and law; and it was not a nation nor were its provinces nations, yet everywhere but in Italy it prepared them for becoming nations. ”

“ The improvements of the world therefore, whether in literature, sciences or arts, descended with the line of conquest from one nation to another, till the whole were concentred in the Roman empire. Their tendency there was to inspire a contempt for nations less civilized, and to teach the Romans to consider all mankind as the proper objects of their military despotism. ”

“ The Roman Empire really perished from no other cause than the general extinction of the Roman race. As the barbarians swarmed into Italy the best part of the old Italians took refuge in Rome, where the old spirit, the old manners and institutions—so to speak, the Roman essence—was concentrated and preserved to effect a new and peaceful conquest of the world. This Roman nation desired to have its own autonomy and to be subject neither to the Roumanians of the east nor the barbarians of the west. ”

“ This much, however, may be said, that whilst British Imperialism is not exposed to many of the dangers which proved fatal to Imperial Rome, there is one principle adopted by the early founders of the Roman Empire which is fraught with enduring political wisdom, and which may be applied as well now as it was nineteen centuries ago. ”

“ Rome at her greatest dominated a population of one hundred and twenty millions. [17-1] In these seven nations more than one hundred and forty-one millions are white people, [17-2] nearly all speaking the same language, and all enjoying individual liberty of substantial equality. They govern themselves and they govern other peoples of other languages, colours, and ideals, to a total of nearly four times the entire Roman Empire. ”

“ Yet a certain pre-eminence came by a kind of natural selection to the Emperors who reigned in the Eastern seat of Empire. In the days of transition, the true middle ages, the days when Roman and Teuton stood side by side, ready to be fused, but not yet fused, into the compound being of the modern world, every cause, every accident, tended in every way to make the Eastern Rome the truest and most abiding representative, not indeed of Rome’s moral influence, but of Rome’s abiding power. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whether he traces the progress of hostile religions, or leads from the shores of the Baltic, or the verge of the Chinese empire, the successive hosts of barbarians—though one wave has hardly burst and discharged itself, before another swells up and approaches—all is made to flow in the same direction, and the impression which each makes upon the tottering fabric of the Roman greatness, connects their distant movements, and measures the relative importance assigned to them in the panoramic history. ”

“ The remarkable aptitude for civilisation of the Germanic races made them early recognise the value of that of Rome. Young nobles were educated in the capital of the empire and trained in the army; the actual commercial interests, the servitude of the one race in the countries of the other, brought about a mutual relation whose most powerful lever was the Roman military service, which thousands of Germans joined, satisfying in that way their thirst for war and glory as well as their desire for monetary gains. ”