Transcript Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire

Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire
RISE OF ROMAN EMPIRE
Rise of Military Commanders: Marius, Sulla and Client armies
Civil Wars (44 BCE Julius Caesar’s assassination to the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE)
Golden Age or Augustan Age under Octavian, named Emperor Augustus, who ruled 27
BCE-14 CE. Writers Virgil and Horace, historian Livy.
Pax Romana (27 BCE-180 CE)
Maximum extent of Empire and best Latin literature Tacitus’s Critique of Rome.
Roman Hegemony on the Mediterranean coasts; 12 emperors discussed by Suetonius and
then Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Monarchial form of government: Augustus could veto or initiate legislation in
Senate. Augustus declared Julius Caesar a god, emperors worshipped. Assemblies ceased
after 98 CE. Senate usurped functions. By end of Pax Romana, Senate weak before
Emperor and simply approved Emperor’s decrees.
Height of Roman Culture: Pantheon, Colosseum, city of Pompeii, Trajan’s
Column, Arch of Titus, Equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, Juvenal, Pliny the
Elder, Quintilian, Tacitus, Seneca
WHAT ARE THE KEY DATES IN THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE?
Cato the Elder (234-146 BCE) criticized Republican Rome for abandonment of Republican
values.
Juvenal and Tacitus during the Pax Romana were very critical of Roman corruption.
Greatest Extent of Empire under Trajan, 117
Diocletian Split empire, assigning West to Maximian 284-6
Emperor Constantine established capital in Constantinople, and in 313 decreed toleration of
religion. First emperor to become a Christian
Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the state religion, forbidding paganism, 383
Visigoths sacked Rome 410, and then Augustine wrote City of God
Atilla the Hun invaded western empire, 451
Vandals sacked Rome 455
Visigothic leader Odoacer seized power in Rome, 476—end of Roman Emperorship in the
West
Eastern Emperorship continued as under Justinian (ruled 527-565) and long into Byzantine
civilization (until 1453 when Constantinople conquered by the Turks.
Historical Interpretations
Gibbon’s Religious and Moral Explanation brought on a debate
Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776:
“As the Happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear, without
surprise or scandal, that the introduction, or at least the abuse, of Christianity had some
influence on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire”
“But the decline of Rome was the natural and inevitible effect of immoderate greatness.”
(Greek “hubris” as in Thucydides’ explanation of defeat of Athens by Sparta)
Twentieth Century Debate on:
Did Rome Decline or was it transformed?
What caused the changes?
Socio-Economic Causes
Loss of self-sufficiency
Wallbank: Slavery and underdeveloped technology, restricted internal market on account
of split between patricians and plebs and slaves
Westermann: Lack of free economy, landed estates imitating Persian serfdom
Rostovtzeff: Antagonism of city and country, soldier peasant against bourgeoisie
Baynes: Peasants fear army
King: Economic decline of the cities, state became a machine to support the army
Political-Military Causes
Unsuccessful attempt of Diocletian (2 emperors & 2 caesars, 293) and other
emperors to reconstitute the empire. (Hunt et. al. emphasize ineffectiveness of
political rearrangement, despite increasing autocracy in term "Dominate" replacing
"Principate" established by Augustus)
Many military takeovers of the emperorship
Jones: Internal weaknesses common to East and West, but only the West fell. West
was more exposed to attack from German tribes
Greer: No principle of political succession
Baynes: State’s over taxation hurt agriculture
Gibbon: Imperial conquests had already corrupted Roman Republic, weakening selfdiscipline
Bury: Rome needed to recruit German tribesmen to Fight Rome’s wars.
Transformation of army into camps along borders.
Heitland: Rome never developed representative institutions that could give
continuous reform
Intellectual-Religious Causes
Augustine’s Christian Otherworldliness, seeing the city of Rome as unimportant
compared to the city of God and advising spiritual withdrawal when Rome was sacked.
Clergy undermined civic virtue, preaching pacifism. Others did preach just war theory
Machiavelli and Nietzsche would later call for restoration of pagan manly virture
Margaret King: “Then, in the third century, the tide turned. A deep and persistent crisis
took hold. Prosperity faded; poetry and philosophy languished. The borders could be
held only by enormous efforts that required the reorganization of the army, the economy,
and the machinery of the state. Thenceforth, until the final collapse of authority in the
Western Empire in the late 400s, although Rome survived, it bled” (Margaret King,
Western Civilization: A Social and Cultural History, Brief edition, 2001, p. 119).