Corruption and the Decline of Rome

An excellent book that uses all the evidence of other theories (at least that I’ve read) of Rome’s fall and comes with a compelling, thoroughly convincing explanation: rampant governmental corruption crippled the administration militarily and economically. MacMullen illustrates his point with several revealing anecdotes from Roman contemporaries. He shows us how Roman justice and law really worked: by influence and money. He covers how worthless latter Roman troops were -- and how valuable barbarians came to be. He makes the valuable point that the barbarians who destroyed Rome were citizens of the Empire. MacMullen rightly points out that not all the Empire crumpled at once and some traditions (such as civic benficience) continued show more sparingly. He shows a compelling picture of a society gone amok, sunk in a morass of greed, extortion, and influence-pedalling.

Perhaps most importantly the book brilliantly portrays what other books I’ve read seem to only gloss over: the exact nature of the patron-client relationship. MacMullen shows the terror the lower class held the potenti in, how jobs, justice, and favors were parlayed. How dignitas worked into this relationship (which explains more fully Caesar crossing the Rubicon and Domitian’s assassination and the prevalence of unanimous votes in the Senate), how slaves parlayed their position, and why soldiers (especially the Praetorian Guard) became dependant on their commanders (and how brutalized soldiers were by their officers and why they turned to extorting from urban dwellers to survive). I loved the vivid descriptions of corruption and extortion. Despite the lack of a definate chronology, it brought Roman society alive. The subverting of Diocletian’s caste system was well explained.

The only problems were the somewhat strange turns of phrase MacMullen used sometimes. However, some passages were very vivid and clear. The last chapter wasn’t as concise a summing up as it could have been, and it seemed to repeat conclusions of the third chapter. Some of the maps were missing crucial labels and the proofreader seemed absent at times. The book also exhibited the annoying feature of other academic history book’s I’ve read: it assumes the reader knows German and French. (I would expect it to asssume a knowledge of Latin.) show less

This examines how the Roman Empire weakened itself from the top.