The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians

The fall of the Roman Empire, a topic about which much ink has been spilled. Memorable are also the series of sword and sandals films of the 1960s with valiant Romans and vile Goths and Huns. Peter Heather has written a good account of the gradual decline of the Roman Empire that accelerated in the final decades before 476. It is interesting that Rome adjusted relatively well to the challenge of the Persian Sassanid Empire than the smaller challenge of succeeding barbarian invasions. Rome's perimeter defense once breached resulted piece by piece in the loss of valuable territories (and thus of taxes, supplies and manpower).

While Heather mentions, again and again, the rather limited size of the barbarian armies of around 30-50.000 men, show more he only shows that the Romans had very limited central reserves to assist the border troops. Heather is correct that the strained public finances did not allow Rome to keep up a large standing reserve army. It is, however, puzzling, why Rome didn't try to revive the citizen army of the republic. After all, Rome managed to compensate the huge losses inflicted by Hannibal and raise new forces seemingly like it had dragon teeth at its disposal. Instead, Rome's oligarchy preferred its empire go down than empower its co-citizens. The oligarchy arranged itself with the new rulers, giving up part of their large land holdings in order to keep their status. It was the rule of law and central government that was lost which plunged Europe into a dark age. show less

The fall of the (western) Roman Empire has inspired a great deal of industriousness on the part of historians, with Gibbon's monumental The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire standing as the origin of modern historiography on the subject. Heather's motivation for penning another weighty tome (albeit much smaller than Gibbon's) on the topic is to argue, contra Gibbon and many others, that the principal cause was exogenous and not endogenous. The fifth-century western empire was, he argues, to me pretty convincingly, not appreciably more "decadent" than either its fourth-century self or its eastern contemporary. What was different was the barbarians beyond the Rhine-Danube frontier.

The Germanics, Dacians, and others of show more the early imperial period could occasionally inflict serious defeats on Roman armies, most famously in the Teutoburger Forest in AD 9, but lacked the economic, demographic, and organizational wherewithal to stand up the the Romans in the long run. The border between empire and barbaricum was eventually drawn not according to the barbarians' ability to resist but according to what the Romans thought profitable to conquer. Compared even to Gaul, Germania had little wealth to tax. But across the following centuries the the world beyond the frontier underwent a profound economic and demographic development which left the barbarian groups of the later fourth century much closer to parity with Roman military power than their ancestors had been a few centuries earlier - they could muster many more warriors, with better equipment, and this larger number of warriors was divided among a smaller number of therefore individually much stronger political units. Much of the impetus for this development, Heather says, ironically enough came from interaction, both military and commercial, with the Romans, who in a sense created their own Nemesis.

Then, from the 370s on, the arrival and rising power of the Huns gave these newly more powerful barbarian groups - mostly Germanic or at least Germanic-lead, but also including multiple groups of Iranian-speaking Alans - a very strong incentive to migrate west and south into Roman territory. The Roman armies failed to ever thoroughly subdue the original Gothic incursors of the 370s - who inflicted a famous defeat of the Romans at Adrianople in 378 - because repeated new incursions were set off by continued Hunnic activity, both by the rise and the fall of Attila's empire, whose fall sent new waves of warlike refugees across the Danube. By the 470s, the western empire had ceased to exist - the decisive point being the loss of the North African provinces to the Vandals and the failure of the efforts to regain them, because their rich tax revenues combined with their previously unthreatened position meant they were critical contributors to imperial finances - while the eastern empire survived because its principal tax bases in Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt lay beyond the invaders' reach.

Heather writes well and his arguments are mostly convincing - to me at any rate - but a good deal of the argument here was repeated in his later book Empires and Barbarians, which I read a few years ago, which means I enjoyed the book perhaps less than I ought. But it's warmly recommended to anyone coming more innocent to the subject, or who has read accounts stressing internal causes and wants a contrary argument to compare. show less

In this book, Heather presents an alternative argument to the prevalent view explaining the cause of the fall of the empire: that Rome's own internal transformations had so weakened it by the fourth century, that it was ready to collapse under its own weight by the fifth. Heather seeks to find the explanation of this collapse elsewhere: that Europe's barbarians, transformed by centuries of contact with Rome, eventually brought the empire down. Heather then proceeds with an exploration of the workings of the later Roman empire and the changes that created it.

Pax romana
Heather opens part 1 with a battle scene in 54 BC in what is now eastern Belgium, in which he invites the reader to have a close inspection at the details of the show more engagement which demonstrated the astonishing fighting capacities of the legionnaire, who was the foundation of the military might of the Roman imperial power. While the Roman military system and Rome's conquests were the results of centuries of warfare, Rome did not depend on military force alone to build the empire. Targeted diplomacy (as well as ruthlessness, where necessary) was its twin strategy, but more than to build or to expand its territories, it was geared towards ensuring the integrity of its borders. We are introduced to the Romans and what initially defined Romanness: the perpetuation of the ruling class's vision of an exclusively educated elite destined to lead humankind. By the 4th century, republicanism or its pretence had practically disappeared, no one thought of the emperor as anything but an autocratic monarch who was expected to behave like one. By this time, too, the Empire was governed by two emperors, to rule the eastern and the western halves. Heather regards as the fundamental change of all being the dimension of the imperial evolution that underlies the rest of the changes: the creation of Roman rural and urban landscapes outside Italy, and the expansion of the political community which led to the sidelining of Rome and her Senate. With the arrival of the legions, life was transformed in the conquered provinces and provincials everywhere began to remake their lives after the Roman patterns and value systems. When the same political culture, lifetyle and value systems established themselves in this huge area, all inhabitants became legitimately Roman. This new identity was bound to motivate the new Romans to assert their right to involve in the political process, and to partake of the power and largesse that the empire's vast estate brought with it. One of the consequences of this to be seen later was that it emboldened usurpers to the throne.

Germania, or east of the Rhine, however, in the late Roman period, remained beyond the imperial frontier (this ancient line being discernible still in the divide between the Romance and the Germanic languages). The legions, in the conquests of the 1st century, halted on the Rhine and the Danube -- and explains why late Romans didn't consider the German tribesmen to be a real threat, and instead focused their attention to the east, to Persia, where the greater threat lay. Roman expansion halted on this frontier because beyond that, the level of economic development was starkly subsistence that the income derived did not justify the costs of conquest (population had no coinage, literacy,not even villages to speak of).

Heather discusses the client kingdoms, and the expansion of Germania through the three centuries, brought about by migrations from the northwest to the southeast, the changes in the political structure of the barbarian groups, intensive agriculture and development of their economic sectors. It is interesting to note that the foundation of these transformations were the interactions of these groups with the Roman empire at the frontier, and the influence of the Roman way of life on these border and client kingdoms. The developing Germanic world, however, posed only a latent threat to the empire, as it lacked overall unity. The Empire cultivated a relationship with these kingdoms in order to keep them in check and ensure stability, through a system of payments and controls. So far the barbarians knew where they stood.

Barbarian invasions
The first crisis with the barbarians occurred in 376 -- a vast number of Goths appeared in Roman territory on the Danube seeking safe haven. They were driven there by the heavy fighting with the people of the Huns, who had arrived from the northeast. The Huns appeared thus on the world stage. The Huns threw the Roman Empire and a large number of Gothes into a new and unprecedentedly close relationship, both parties of which didn't desire it, and were not committed to the asylum agreement they negotiated in 376. Food shortages and black-marketeering inside the Danube led the Goths to start hostilities which broke into open revolt. In the meantime, the Goths had found new allies: Huns and Alans who were recruited to the Gothic cause with promises of booty. The Gothic forces attacked the frontier cities and towns on the Thracian Plain through raiding forces. Roman forces from the east, who were busy in Persia, had to be brought in to put the Goths in their place. Against all expectations, the Roman army suffered a devastating loss, and the victory at Hadrianople gave the Goths free hand to range across Thrace in 378. A peace treaty was signed which included land grants, and it seemed, that the Goths had given up fighting for farming. For now, anyway.

This was the first of the series of losses against waves of invasion by the barbarian hordes and signalled the beginning of the (Western) empire's downfall. The second crisis occurred about 30 years after, when the Roman frontier security was breached by four major invasions from the west, within a short period. These invasions were caused by the displacements brought about by a second Hunnic advance into Europe, into its very center. While the Vandals, Alans, and Suevi were rampaging Gaul and Spain, the Western empire's instability was worsened by the revolt of Constantine III. In 410, a Gothic supergroup led by Alaric, sacked Rome. Heather describes it as "one of the most civilised sacks of a city ever witnessed." Alaric's Goths were Christian, and left untouched Rome's holiest sites. Invasions and successive usurpations weakened the central authorities. The first impact was felt in the serious decline of tax revenues from Spain and parts of Gaul, occupied by the Visigoths, now territories lost to the Roman system. This significant loss of income would cause substantial damage to the army, a key pillar of the empire. Recruitment and training suffered, so that the quantity and the quality of the Roman army was now different from what it was at the height of the conquests.

In 428, the Vandals, under Geiseric sailed from Iberia to the north African coast. The goal was the city of Carthage -- the jewel in the Roman crown. North Africa was Rome's granary, and it not only supplied wheat, but olive oil and wine. In short, it fed Rome. Moreover, the revenues that North Africa generated enabled the empire to support its army, the single largest expense item of the imperial budget. North Africa came under Geiseric's control, and the disappearance of a major source of wealth resulting in reduction in revenues for the western Roman state was a fiscal disaster. In the meantime, attempts to recover the lost provinces ended in catastrophic failures, and further plans were junked because of a bigger threat now looming: Attila the Hun.

Fall of empires
In a matter of four decades, the Huns rose from nobodies to superpower. Attila had risen through the incorporation of a large number of Germanic groups, and the removal of surplus kings. He launched massive military campaigns against the Empire in the 440s and early 450s. His death, however, in 453 led to the collapse of the Hunnic empire, after which the different Gothic groups went their own separate ways, and new independent groups arose from the wreckage of the empire. Hunnic domination had served as a counterforce that controlled the numerous Gothic and independent groups, and its extinction released these divergent groups and factions to once again, and with greater impunity this time knowing how much weakened the Roman empire was, to harass what was left of the western Roman state. Rome was sacked by Geiseric's Vandals, and the newcomers established themselves as part of the Empire's body politic, the Visigothic king even playing a key role in deciding the imperial succession. This signalled the birth of a new order. Without the Huns to keep in check other immigrants in the west, and the empire's own military power diminished, there was no choice but to let them in. The Roman west faced a crisis of imperial succession, and while eastern emperors tried to restrore stability in the west, none of the regimes installed succeeded. By this time, with the falling away of territories, all that was left of the western empire was just Italy and a tiny territory in southeastern Gaul. The struggle for power in Italy became a less and less attractive proposition to would-be emperors, and the last regimes were so short-lived as one after another ruler decided to leave and abandon the west. In 476, the western Roman empire ceased to be.

In sum, according to Heather, the western Empire broke up because of the presence of too many immigrant groups who established themselves on its territory, and who managed to expand through warfare their holdings, thus decreasing the sources of revenues of the Empire to maintain its army and the integrity of its territories, which led to the weakening of the central authorities.

I found Heather's arguments compelling, and the way he presented his counter-arguments to the prevailing ones. He mentions where gaps and lack of documentary evidence lie, and where suppositions are derived from flimsy available evidence, so that arguments are advised to be regarded with caution. Despite the dense subject, his writing is neither dull nor turgid, and I found myself drawn into the narrative immediately and all the way to the end. Though there are plenty of names mentioned, and though he inserts into the narrative details of court infighting where it was necessary to explain certain decisions, on the whole it does not get confusing because Heather focuses on major players and major events, and doesn't introduce more information than needed to get the big picture. The more than 100 pages of notes, timeline, glossary, dramatis personae, etc. are a big help, and maps are inserted where you need them. This organization of the book never made me feel as if I was drowning in details. show less

My rating is unfair: this is a very good book, that will appeal to all kinds of readers. Heather's sentences are very readable, he tells a good story, he takes into account pretty much every factor you possibly could to explain the "fall" of the Empire (including the possibility that it wasn't a fall etc...), and he addresses major scholarly debates. His case is well laid out and convincing: the fall of Rome in the west can only be understood in the context of profound changes in other parts of Eurasia, which forced populations to move, alliances to change, and so on.

But honestly, this is far too long. It turns out that taking account of pretty much every factor, and telling a good story about each of them in clear sentences can make a show more really dull book. Sometimes you don't need a story, you know? Sometimes you don't need to repeat every single fact about the Huns to make the argument that the Huns are important for understanding the fall of Rome.

So I got bored. But if you care about the subject matter, and have a higher tolerance for blow by blow military history than I do (you know what matters about a battle? Who won, and maybe why. Otherwise, please don't tell me about it. It's like describing a football game between two teams the reader doesn't care about), you'll love it. And if you have my very low tolerance, you should still read it, because there are great tales and great arguments. And every dull battle report is followed by something interesting. show less

Heather makes the point that the Western Roman Empire collapsed, not because of some inevitable internal decline, but because of growing pressure from outside by what can be conveniently called 'Barbarians'. This in turn weakened the Empire, which set in motion a vicious circle ending in the dissolution of 476.

This is narrative history at its best. The chatty tone (calling fibulae 'safety pins' for instance) can be a little unsettling at first, but he knows his stuff. He keeps the narrative line uncluttered (East Roman politics, or internal Germanic developments are only mentioned when the are relevant to the main story line. Likewise, people are introduced as and when they are needed to explain the course of events. This makes for a show more certain back and forth in chronology, but it keeps the main argument easy to follow. show less

Peter Heather (Oxford) is a leading expert on barbarians (he's written 3 books about Goths and Huns), and is under contract (for some of these books) by a leading European-wide institution. The book is subtitled "Rome and the Barbarians", and thus unsuprisingly, in his final analysis Rome fell because it was overwhelmed by external barbarians, and not (entirely) because of internal reasons, which is usually the more common explanation (Christianity, civic pride, economic and cultural stagnation, etc..) - and further, the barbarians invaded the Empire because they were in effect blowback from 400 years of Imperial aggression ("By virtue of its unbounded aggression, Roman imperialism was ultimately responsible for its own destruction"). show more Rome in effect created the barbarian menace, who were forced into more politically organized and dangerous super-groups.

This is a compelling history that I highly recommend for its riveting narrative, asking the key questions (and providing answers, even if educated guesses), dispelling old notions, illuminating a lot of new information about the barbarians and the Huns in particular, and providing a structured story from start to finish that is unforgettable. Heather reminds me of Runciman in his classic political narrative style. I've read 4 other narratives of this period and they all leave more questions than answers about a very complicated series of events to the point it just seems like one random contingency after the next, as un-interesting as the trajectory of a pin-ball game; but "Like a late Roman emperor, Heather is determined to impose order on a fabric that is always threatening to fragment and collapse into confusion; unlike most late Roman emperors, he succeeds triumphantly." show less

Historic orthodoxy dismisses barbarians and puts forward reasons like corruption, decline in agriculture, over-taxation, and religion in the center of what brought the empire down. To Peter Heather it was the barbarians who destroyed it.

Historians, while attributing fault to the barbarian forces, felt a power as great as Rome couldn't have been brought down by disparate hordes of illiterates. Rome had established a civilization -- it had central administration, weapons factories, schools of philosophy, forms of banking, experienced armies, trade was thriving -- so it feels that a cogent explanation would admit barbarians had something to do with empire's demise but they shouldn't have been the central acting force. All research is then show more wrongly focused on what fundamental weaknesses of imperial life did barbarians aim to exploit.

The historic narrative of Peter Heathers' book is as much a probe in imperial Roman life as it is an attempt to perceive what took place on the other side of the Empire's frontier in the development of two centuries of barbarian life.

Around the fourth century AD Rome reached the natural limit of its expansion. While there were always more territories to conquer the benefit of this had to be judged against the potential bounty and later on against the expense of maintaining standing armies to defend larger borders. After successfully taking over the land around the Mediterranean Sea, which in the face of all ancient civilizations (Greek, Egyptian) provided reach bounties, it found a diminishing return when faced with the challenge of fighting the primitive barbarians inhabiting less populated land of what is today Germany and Eastern Europe.

The life in the empire was marked by officials using power to enrich themselves and their associates. What we'd today define as "corruption" in ancient Rome it merely reflected the normal relationship between power and profit. Since this didn't impede the spectacular rise of the empire we shouldn't assign it too much fundamental significance in its downfall.

Ancient agriculture suffered from two limitations. First, the productivity of any piece of land was limited to the number of laborers that worked on it, and second, in absence of fertilizers ancient farmers were unable to significantly increase the output of foodstuff. During its entire time of existence Roman economy was not operating much above subsistence levels. To fend off Persia, Rome had to impose new taxes. Part of the historic orthodoxy was the notion that the land owning classes were over-taxed into oblivion. The evidence of which were documents about abandoned agricultural lands which, it is tempting to think, were uneconomical to work on.

Archaeological work has made it possible to test levels of rural settlement and agricultural activity over wide geographic spread and different points in time of the Roman period. They showed that the 3rd and the 4th century, when the new (more demanding) tax was introduced, saw unimpeded economical development -- field tests of what is today Greece, Spain, southern France, Syria, Tunisia and Libya demonstrated that prosperity didn't begin to decline until the 5th century.

Fourth-century sources mention taxation discontent and there was only one known major tax riot. Emperors knew that importance of consent in imposing taxation. Citizens were constantly reminded that taxes paid for the army, which was the defender of the Roman world.

With the conversion to Christianity in 312 emperor Constantine began the dismantling of the ideological structure of the ancient Roman world. According to the famous historian Edward Gibbon this was a key moment in the story of the collapse. He believed that Christianity pacified the society, that military spirit was subdued.

Christianity brought a cultural transformation, but it could hardly be claimed that it had deleterious effect upon the functioning of the Empire. Religion and Empire reached a balance. Roman imperialism claimed that it was divinely predestined to conquer and rule the world. After adoption of Christianity as religion of the state, the theology was quickly reworked and it was claimed that the Empire fulfilled God's will. While the Emperor could no longer be deified, state propaganda claimed that he was hand picked by God to rule with Him.

The central arch that this book follows in explaining the fall of the empire is by exploring the life of the barbarians, their progress in agriculture, the concomitant increase in their population density, and in the formation of more hierarchical societal structures.

Occasional raids grew into more permanent settlements. The western Empire at first lost insignificant territories. For a long time the tribes that moved in didn't dare challenge the central authority. Yet, damage inflicted by protracted warfare, combined with permanent loss of territory lead to massive decline of revenue for the central state.

While the numerous victories earned Attila fame the entire direct interaction with the Huns was only a sideshow to the dislocation of the tribes that were forced to cross the frontier. Attila never threatened alienation of huge chunks of western Empire's taxpayers. The groups that fled in 408 did precisely that.

Vandals, Alans and Suevi removed most of Spain from central imperial control. Worst, Vandals and Alans shifted operations to North Africa, seizing the richest provinces of the Roman west in 439. Reduced revenue lead to reduction in the capacity of military forces that Rome could maintain.

As the Roman state lost power the provincial land owning elites faced new reality. With their wealth defined by the land they stood on, they realized that they have to make accommodations for the new dominant forces in their respective provinces. Between 410 and 450, for example, they came to terms with Goths and Burgundians as autonomous elements of central Roman state, but the trajectory of the west was inescapably set towards fully independent Goth and Burgundian kingdoms.

Any of the conventional explanations fail in one important aspect. While, according to them, the western Empire collapsed, suffering the same downsides the eastern Empire not only survived but even thrived in the sixth century. If the reasons for the collapse were valid it should have disintegrated soon after the western part. While the east defended successfully its richest province, Egypt, the west lost Norther Africa, and that was the most central element of its undoing.

This book is insightful, comprehensive, and was delightful and educational to read. show less