The Fall of the Western Roman Empire circa 476ad
Continuity and Change after the Fall of the Roman Empire
The dissolution of the Western Roman Empire left a hankering after some sort of political unity across at least Western Europe,
and more widely, which found expression in the coronation of Charlemagne in 800, followed a century later by the institution of
the long-lived but effete and misnamed Holy Roman Empire, then by Napoleon's brief but highly influential ascendancy, and currently
by the European Union.
Barbarian kingdoms had established their own power in much of the area of the Western Empire. In 476, the Germanic barbarian king
Odoacer deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire in Italy, Romulus Augustulus, and the Senate sent the imperial insignia
to the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno. The Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire, survived and remained for centuries an effective
power of the Eastern Mediterranean, although it lessened in strength. Since 1776, when Edward Gibbon published the first volume
of his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Decline and Fall has been the theme around which much of
the history of the Roman Empire has been structured. "From the eighteenth century onward," historian Glen Bowersock wrote,
"We have been obsessed with the fall: it has been valued as an archetype for every perceived decline, and, hence, as a symbol
for our own fears."
Pirenne postponed the demise of classical civilization to the 8th century. He challenged the notion that Germanic barbarians
had caused the Western Roman Empire to end, and he refused to equate the end of the Western Roman Empire with the end of the
office of emperor in Italy. In recent decades archaeologically based argument even extends the continuity in material culture
and in patterns of settlement as late as the eleventh century. In terms of religion, Christianity, whose dominance was established
by imperial decree in the 4th century, has remained the principal religion of Europe ever since.
"Roman civilization did not die a natural death," wrote the French historian André Piganiol: "it was assassinated." (Piganiol, 732)
Barbarian invaders of the Roman Empire during the Migration Period 100-500bc
The long era of Roman military superiority came to a crashing end with the defeat and death of Roman emperor Valens at
the hands of the Goths at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. via
The Last Straw : After the Sack of Rome 410ad
In 410, Rome was sacked by Alaric the Goth, the first time it had been captured since 390 BCE, 800 years earlier. Christians
and pagans alike were cast into despair. Even from as far away as Bethlehem, the Christian theologian Jerome lamented:
"If Rome can perish, what can be safe?" (Jerome, Ep. 123, 16)
Alaric Entering Athens Unknown (Public Domain)
Greek Colonization
The first appearance of Europe to designate the continent comes from Greece in the 6th century BCE, but it is unclear when the term was first used. The name may derive from the myth of Europa (known by the 8th century BCE when it is referenced in Homer's Iliad) in which the Phoenician princess is abducted by Zeus, king of the Greek gods, who, in the form of a bull, carries her off to Crete where she becomes queen of the first European civilization: the Minoan, which flourished from c. 2000 to c. 1500 BCE and, according to some scholars, created the first European written language. This claim regarding Europe's name has long been challenged, however, from the time of Herodotus up to the present day.
Europa & Zeus Carole Raddato (CC BY-SA)
The Minoan civilization, like the Phoenicians, was a seafaring people with trade contacts throughout the Mediterranean. The Minoans competed with the Mycenaean Civilization (c. 1700-1100 BCE) in trade, and Minoan and Mycenean artifacts have been discovered in Anatolia, Egypt, Cyprus, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Sicily, among other places. The Archaic Greeks (c. 800-480 BCE) continued to follow these trade routes but went further and established colonies from southern Italy to Anatolia up toward the Black Sea. Among these was the colony of Massalia (modern-day Marseille, France), the birthplace of Pytheas (l. c. 350 BCE) the geographer, who is said to have produced the work On the Ocean: the famous voyage of Pytheas exploring Europe c. 325 BCE.
Harper in (2017) gave four decisive turns of events in the transformation of Europe from the height of the empire to the early Middle Ages:
*The Antonine Plague that ended a long period of demographic and economic expansion, weakening but not toppling the empire.
*The Crisis of the Third Century, in which natural climate change, renewed pandemic disease, and internal and external political instability led to the near-collapse of the imperial system. Its reconstitution included a new basis for the currency, an expanded professional government apparatus, emperors further distanced from their people, and, shortly, the rise of Christianity, a proselytizing, exclusive religion that anticipated the imminent end of the world.
*The military and political failure of the West, in which mass migration from the Eurasian steppe overcame and dismembered the western part of an internally-weakened empire. The eastern empire rebuilt itself again and began the reconquest of the West.
*In the lands around the Mediterranean the Late Antique Little Ice Age and the Plague of Justinian created one of the worst environmental cataclysms in recorded history. The imperial system crumbled in the next couple of generations and then lost vast territories to the armies of Islam, a new proselytizing, exclusive religion that also looked forward to an imminent end time. The diminished and impoverished Byzantine rump state survived amid perpetual strife between and among the followers of Christianity and Islam. via
Prominent Cities of Europe from Antiquity to the Present
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1777)
Enlightenment thinkers and British citizens of the age steeped in institutional anti-Catholicism, Gibbon held in contempt the Middle Ages as a priest-ridden, superstitious Dark Age. It was not until his own era, the "Age of Reason", with its emphasis on rational thought, he believed, that human history could resume its progress. According to Gibbon, the Roman Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions in large part due to the gradual loss of civic virtue among its citizens. So, that brings us full circle, the invasions began with the Barbarian invasions, but the continuity of religious and cultural erosion prevails far into the present.
The cataclysmic end of the Roman Empire in the West has tended to mask the underlying features of continuity.
But what do I know? Go ask Nero. via
dr. π (pi)
.
The dissolution of the Western Roman Empire left a hankering after some sort of political unity across at least Western Europe,
and more widely, which found expression in the coronation of Charlemagne in 800, followed a century later by the institution of
the long-lived but effete and misnamed Holy Roman Empire, then by Napoleon's brief but highly influential ascendancy, and currently
by the European Union.
Barbarian kingdoms had established their own power in much of the area of the Western Empire. In 476, the Germanic barbarian king
Odoacer deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire in Italy, Romulus Augustulus, and the Senate sent the imperial insignia
to the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno. The Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire, survived and remained for centuries an effective
power of the Eastern Mediterranean, although it lessened in strength. Since 1776, when Edward Gibbon published the first volume
of his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Decline and Fall has been the theme around which much of
the history of the Roman Empire has been structured. "From the eighteenth century onward," historian Glen Bowersock wrote,
"We have been obsessed with the fall: it has been valued as an archetype for every perceived decline, and, hence, as a symbol
for our own fears."
Pirenne postponed the demise of classical civilization to the 8th century. He challenged the notion that Germanic barbarians
had caused the Western Roman Empire to end, and he refused to equate the end of the Western Roman Empire with the end of the
office of emperor in Italy. In recent decades archaeologically based argument even extends the continuity in material culture
and in patterns of settlement as late as the eleventh century. In terms of religion, Christianity, whose dominance was established
by imperial decree in the 4th century, has remained the principal religion of Europe ever since.
"Roman civilization did not die a natural death," wrote the French historian André Piganiol: "it was assassinated." (Piganiol, 732)
Barbarian invaders of the Roman Empire during the Migration Period 100-500bc
The long era of Roman military superiority came to a crashing end with the defeat and death of Roman emperor Valens at
the hands of the Goths at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. via
The Last Straw : After the Sack of Rome 410ad
In 410, Rome was sacked by Alaric the Goth, the first time it had been captured since 390 BCE, 800 years earlier. Christians
and pagans alike were cast into despair. Even from as far away as Bethlehem, the Christian theologian Jerome lamented:
"If Rome can perish, what can be safe?" (Jerome, Ep. 123, 16)
Alaric Entering Athens Unknown (Public Domain)
Greek Colonization
The first appearance of Europe to designate the continent comes from Greece in the 6th century BCE, but it is unclear when the term was first used. The name may derive from the myth of Europa (known by the 8th century BCE when it is referenced in Homer's Iliad) in which the Phoenician princess is abducted by Zeus, king of the Greek gods, who, in the form of a bull, carries her off to Crete where she becomes queen of the first European civilization: the Minoan, which flourished from c. 2000 to c. 1500 BCE and, according to some scholars, created the first European written language. This claim regarding Europe's name has long been challenged, however, from the time of Herodotus up to the present day.
Europa & Zeus Carole Raddato (CC BY-SA)
The Minoan civilization, like the Phoenicians, was a seafaring people with trade contacts throughout the Mediterranean. The Minoans competed with the Mycenaean Civilization (c. 1700-1100 BCE) in trade, and Minoan and Mycenean artifacts have been discovered in Anatolia, Egypt, Cyprus, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Sicily, among other places. The Archaic Greeks (c. 800-480 BCE) continued to follow these trade routes but went further and established colonies from southern Italy to Anatolia up toward the Black Sea. Among these was the colony of Massalia (modern-day Marseille, France), the birthplace of Pytheas (l. c. 350 BCE) the geographer, who is said to have produced the work On the Ocean: the famous voyage of Pytheas exploring Europe c. 325 BCE.
Harper in (2017) gave four decisive turns of events in the transformation of Europe from the height of the empire to the early Middle Ages:
*The Antonine Plague that ended a long period of demographic and economic expansion, weakening but not toppling the empire.
*The Crisis of the Third Century, in which natural climate change, renewed pandemic disease, and internal and external political instability led to the near-collapse of the imperial system. Its reconstitution included a new basis for the currency, an expanded professional government apparatus, emperors further distanced from their people, and, shortly, the rise of Christianity, a proselytizing, exclusive religion that anticipated the imminent end of the world.
*The military and political failure of the West, in which mass migration from the Eurasian steppe overcame and dismembered the western part of an internally-weakened empire. The eastern empire rebuilt itself again and began the reconquest of the West.
*In the lands around the Mediterranean the Late Antique Little Ice Age and the Plague of Justinian created one of the worst environmental cataclysms in recorded history. The imperial system crumbled in the next couple of generations and then lost vast territories to the armies of Islam, a new proselytizing, exclusive religion that also looked forward to an imminent end time. The diminished and impoverished Byzantine rump state survived amid perpetual strife between and among the followers of Christianity and Islam. via
Prominent Cities of Europe from Antiquity to the Present
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1777)
Enlightenment thinkers and British citizens of the age steeped in institutional anti-Catholicism, Gibbon held in contempt the Middle Ages as a priest-ridden, superstitious Dark Age. It was not until his own era, the "Age of Reason", with its emphasis on rational thought, he believed, that human history could resume its progress. According to Gibbon, the Roman Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions in large part due to the gradual loss of civic virtue among its citizens. So, that brings us full circle, the invasions began with the Barbarian invasions, but the continuity of religious and cultural erosion prevails far into the present.
The cataclysmic end of the Roman Empire in the West has tended to mask the underlying features of continuity.
But what do I know? Go ask Nero. via
dr. π (pi)
.