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April 19, 2019

 The Downfall of the Roman Empire

The Fall of the Western Roman Empire refers to the occurrence of when the most powerful

civilization in the world began losing power over its Western provinces and could no longer exert

any influence over them to maintain an empire. The Roman Empire was one that was unparalleled

in its time, and provided its considerable population the best possible lifestyle considering all

aspects, in that time. Therefore, when such a tremendous Empire began crumbling, it came as a

shock to most. Numerous theories have been considered and the fall of the Roman Empire has

been a hot topic for conversation and speculation, both academic and otherwise, ever since.

Historians have been trying to understand the reason for the fall since it happened and have

provided numerous reasons; some of them include the size and the abilities of the army of the

empire, the sheer numbers of the Roman population, the climate during those times, the power

struggle amongst the inner ranks, the fluctuating and rapidly changing religious landscape of the

time, and the level of competency of the empire, to name a few. To elaborate on the aforementioned

speculated reasons for the downfall of the empire, some historians believe that the size of the

empire was too huge and the Roman army lacked the abilities required to manage and defend an

empire of this size and geographical sprawl. Other historians say that the extremely large

population of the Roman Empire coupled with the sharply changing climate caused natural

calamities and brought on diseases which ate away at the empire from the inside. Yet other

historians believe that the entire downfall can be attributed to political reasons and, especially, the

internal scuffle amongst the higher ranks, and the constant fight for power, as well as the protection

of the incompetent just because they are the ones who are in power. This paper will discuss the

take of three historians regarding their beliefs about what when wrong with the Roman Empire,

and how such a great civilization faced collapse.

 Adrian Goldsworthy, in his book “The Fall of the West: The Slow Death of the Roman

Superpower”, discusses how the fall of the empire was just the fate of the empire, and nothing in

their control. He starts out his discussion from the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries and then

links them all to come to a conclusion. This is a unique approach to investigate the downfall of the

empire because it expresses the fact that the downfall was not a sudden external attack; instead, it

was a slow and steady process of internal deterioration in the empire. And the conclusion that was

reached by Goldsworthy was that political structures were at the bottom of it all. He believed that

the marginalization of the senatorial class meant that the person who could potentially become an

emperor, or even a usurper, could be from a wider range of people now. Anyone who had any

power or could exert control over the troops was a threat to the ruling class. This meant that the

traditional methods of choosing the leaders would not be applicable any longer if this was

continued to be allowed, and would thus challenge the status quo that so clearly benefit the ruling

class of the empire, because it protected their status and lifestyle, no matter how unfit for the role

and incompetent they were. Therefore, in order to create a safer environment for them, the

aforementioned decided to apply the “divide and rule” principle; the broke down provinces into

even smaller ones, and created a clear difference between the military and the civilians. While this

achieved the fact that no one stood up as a potential emperor to them, the various borders and

levels of control caused ruling to be a more difficult matter. Since the ruling class could not always

be present anywhere an issue arose, therefore, these problems were just left up to whoever was

facing them to solve it on their own. Because of this, Goldsworthy concluded that the Roman

Empire was an empire which did not have a very effective ruling system, or a structure to support

it and a philosophy to back it. It only served to keep the emperors and the ruling class in power.

This meant that the ruling class may sometimes be completely incompetent and yet still be
protected in their position owing to the political structure. The structure coupled with corruption

and incompetent leaders drove the Roman Empire to the ground (Adrian Goldsworthy, The Fall

of the West: The Slow Death of the Roman Superpower).

Another take on the fall of the Roman Empire is discussed by the British scholar Peter

Heather in his book “The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians”.

In this book, Heather moves back to the traditional view of the fall of the Roman Empire; that is

to say, he rejects to sugarcoat it by considering it “late antiquity”, which is a term that was coined

by historians to support their claim that the fall of the empire was merely a step during the creative

transformation of Europe. Heather brings back the narrative of the attack of the barbarians and

insists that the empire did not crumble under its own weight; instead, it was attacked from the

outside and butchered into nonexistence. He supports his claim by examining the fact that even in

the latter half of the fourth century; the empire was standing strong as ever. Despite having internal

problems, which each and every empire does, it was not even close to the brink of a collapse. Yes,

there was a constant scuffle for power amongst the inner ranks, but that did not affect the Empire

on such a scale that it would wipe it out altogether. Therefore, the only explanation for the fall was

the external attack of the barbarians. The defenses and the army, already at a disadvantage because

of the geographical sprawl of the Empire, were weakened even further because of inadequate

attention being paid to them and as a result, could not protect the empire from the external attack.

In addition, he furthers his argument by stating the fact that if internal problems were the cause,

then even after the attack of the barbarians, not all of the empire had collapsed. Only the

geographical locations that were exposed to the attack, mainly the western frontier collapsed,

whereas the eastern Mediterranean continued to flourish based on its fortunate geographical

positioning which protected it from the aforementioned attack. The empire that was left standing
in the east slowly morphed into what is now called the Byzantine Empire by the historians. This

empire was not brought down until as late as 1453, when the Turkish invaders finally captured

Constantinople (Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the

Barbarians).

The final historian whose point of view regarding the collapse of the Roman Empire will

be discussed in this paper is Kyle Harper and his book, “The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and

the End of an Empire”. The author provides quite a unique perspective regarding the collapse;

nature. He uses data extracted from natural archives and examines the work of scientists and

historians alive to deduce that the collapse of such a great empire was merely “the triumph of

nature over human ambitions”. He argues that it was neither internal risks nor external threat which

took such a great empire down; despite all the advancements of the Romans, there was nothing

they could do against pandemic diseases. He then goes on to explain the reasons and how there

were devastating cases of the plague, smallpox, and possibly Ebola as well. The aforementioned

diseases alone managed to collectively wipe out half of the population in several areas of the

empire. He uses these examples to show how diseases weakened the empire from the inside. The

reason he states for these diseases is the extreme changes in the climate of the Mediterranean, the

huge cities with a large population in each, a food chain that was highly vulnerable to diseases,

and the strategic position of Rome, what with it being the center of trade and travel of quite a vast

network. Because of all the aforementioned factors, the empire was exposed very often to different

and foreign diseases that the natives were not equipped to handle, and the doctors and healers of

the area were unaware of. Therefore, Harper makes use of this book to communicate the immense

power of nature, and no matter how great a civilization or a leader is, they are rendered utterly

helpless when faced with nature. He also highlights how a changing climate can affect the people
living there, and ultimately succumb to diseases (Kyle Harper, The Fate of Rome: Climate,

Disease, and the End of an Empire).

Out of the three historians that have been discussed above in this paper, the one that

personally appealed the most to the writer is Adrian Goldsworthy. Heather argues that the external

attacks by the barbarians in the West, and eventually the attack of the Turkish on the Byzantine

Empire in the East is what caused the complete downfall of the empire, whereas Kyle takes a

completely fresh perspective by bringing nature into the fold, and argues that it was neither

internal, nor external human forces that brought the empire down and instead it was the changing

climate and the resulting diseases which wiped out such a powerful empire. However,

Goldsworthy arguments resonate the most with the writer because internal structure of any body,

be it an empire or an organization, is what determines its eventual success. The internal structure

was designed in such a way that it only assisted in protecting the emperors and the ruling class; it

did not assist with effective ruling. Therefore, an empire with a weak structure will sooner or later

collapse in on itself because of its inefficiency and incompetence. Because they were incompetent,

they were not able to face the external attack of a much smaller barbarian force. Had the political

structure been strong and self-sufficient to defend them, the barbarians would have stood no chance

in front of the well-trained and well-armed armies of the Roman Empire, as it was in the beginning.

This counters Heather’s point where the attributes the fall to external attacks because an empire

with a strong internal structure and with resources as much as the Romans had available to them,

would never succumb to such an attack. To counter the attack of Kyle and his attribution of the

fall to the climate change as well as the spread of diseases, the point regarding the weak internal

structure has risen again. An empire with a strong internal structure would have measures in place

to contain the spread of disease. In case of a spread, it would have a plan formulated beforehand
on how to deal with it, and how to minimize the effect of it. In addition, it would also have

encouraged the study of medicine so that when faced with a natural problem such as a disease, the

entire empire would be ready and well prepared to face it with adequate medicines and treatments.

Therefore, out of the three historians whose point of view has been discussed, Adrian

Goldsworthy’s perspective makes the most sense.

Bibliography

Goldsworthy, Adrian. The Fall of the West: The Slow Death of the Roman Superpower. Orion

Publishing Group, 2009.

Heather, Peter. The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. Pan

Books, 2006.

Harper, Kyle. The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire. Princeton University

Press, 2017.