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Actually, from what I understood from listing to a TTC lecture series about this, the "decline and fall" of the roman empire is somewhat of a fiction, in that i

by swombat 14y ago

Actually, from what I understood from listing to a TTC lecture series about this, the "decline and fall" of the roman empire is somewhat of a fiction, in that it wasn't a brutal event, more of a long slow disintegration over the span of a thousand years. To give some sense of perspective, that's 3 times longer than the US has existed, and people have been clamouring that the US is in decline for the last 50 years. What happened is that regions progressively became more independent and broke off from the central hegemony of Rome and then Byzantium. It took until the 1400s for that last official centre of Roman power to dwindle, and even through to today, Rome has maintained a huge influence on the rest of the world through the Roman Catholic Church. So, rather than falling down, the Roman Empire slowly but surely transformed into something else. Arguably, we (western civilisation) are the direct descendants of the Greco-Roman Civilisation, and so one could make a (somewhat strained) argument that the Roman Empire is alive and well today, just in a different, more modern form, that has undergone 2000 years of evolution. What to make of this myth of the downfall of the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages, etc? Well, according to that lecture series, this was largely a myth concocted during the Enlightenment to position it in history. The Renaissance needed to frame itself as a major cultural change, so it helped to frame history as "the Classical period, the Dark Ages, and now the Renaissance" - and draw on a fine period of history to support all the new ideas and revolutions brewing (i.e. "things were good back in Roman times, then things were really bad because of the Church, and now things are better again because we're standing up to the Church"). For the people living through the supposed transition between the Classical Period and the Dark Ages, though, apparently, there was no such stark difference.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago
Kind of but not entirely true - I will defer to real historians but roughly it breaks down like this 100 - 180 AD : golden age of emperors, what we think of when we think Rome 200-350 : serious decline and infighting, split into four regions, during this period attempts to enforce price controls to stem inflation. Rome itself stopped being political centre 350-400 Constantine recovery (unites to one region again - one empire of three parts, one god of three parts, one emperor - gettit?) 400 + : total collapse of western empire - communications fail, smaller regions contest with each other, and inflation wrecks the value of economies as trade collapses. Eastern empire carries on with vastly reduced army and trade links to Persia. This really was a dark ages - impoverished, illiterate, backwards looking and lacking trade with most of the world. There was no single definition of dark AGRs - mostly because there are few ways to be right and many ways to be wrong In short, the glory of empire did not last as long as everyone thinks - mostly Rome was a trade agreement that everyone else was keeping up in lieu of anything better.
- swombat 14y ago
  Well, that's the thing. Yes, the central control collapsed (though I still wouldn't underestimate the influence of the Church, which effectively controlled kings' actions through the threat of excommunication). However, on a local basis, there was no such great disaster, just a long slow change. And it was not really a dark age. As I said in my previous post, the dark age narrative is largely an invention of the 17th-18th century. What actually happened in that period was the development of a whole lot of great stuff like city states, art, commerce, banking, kingdoms, navigation tools (compass), military inventions (crossbows, guns), hourglasses, farming technology (ploughing), metallurgy, optics (eyeglasses!), mechanical clocks, textile technology (spinning wheel), the printing press, windmills, glassmaking... For the people living in those times, it probably didn't feel anything like a "dark age". Just a fairly smooth progression upwards, with the usual ups and downs of wars, plagues and other disasters that are hardly confined to the middle ages. I know the narrative of "here's the awesome roman empire, and now the church takes over and you have the dark ages, and now reason comes back in the form of the renaissance" is very compelling, particularly if you don't like the church very much, but it is just a narrative, and is not very well supported with facts.
  - serans 14y ago
    I am no historian, but what I was taught in high school is that "dark ages" are called so because of the little knowledge we have about them compared to the comparatively well documented Roman Empire and Renaissance periods, not because they were themselves "dark" in any sense.
  - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
    Quite a lot depends on when we say the dark ages began / ended. By say 1066 I would say Darkness was lifted, trading and Europe stabilised and by 1200 and Marco Polo Western Europe became fully involved / aware of with the rest of the Eurasia continent. Taking 1066 as a uk centric cutoff much of the above had either not been invented / rediscovered Kingdoms and city states - The Roman Duc and knightly organisation of armies appeared before 350, banking was I thought super charged by the crusades. Compasses - Marco Polo, the Mongols, guns - not till what 1300? I am aware there is always some in Europe knew but it did not benefit most. So it does depend in definitions (as always). If its the simplistic Romans/bad church/good renaissance then yes I agree with you, but if it is Good Romans/messed up Romans/dark ages/Europe starts to join the world/renaissance Then I am much happier to argue for a period of 400+ years where development in Europe was largely static and the agrarian based economies just slowly adjusted to lower levels of trade etc, and certainly 450-550 was just a morass of backwards sliding.
paganel 14y ago
I'm there with you, as in I also think that there wasn't one particular event that triggered the fall of the Roman Empire (the year Rome was sacked etc.), but the changes between the "civilized" Romans and the "barbarous" migrants/germanic/slavic populations were nevertheless huge. For example I live in the Lower Danube area, from where the Romans retreated around 275 AD. Reading about the near-by Roman city of Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulpia_Traiana_Sarmizegetusa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulpia_Traiana_Sarmizegetusa) it's surprising to see that only 2 generations after the retreat of the Romans the local people would revert to living in sunken huts, oftentimes a stone's throw away from the ruined Roman villas. The same people probably also lost the art of writing, because in the case I'm reading about there are no written documents or stone-graves or anything that could attest to the fact that they knew how to write for more than 700 years. The thought that this kind of things could happen again should be on the back of our minds. For example I'm a little bit worried that more and more information about our civilization is only stored in electronic format. It suffices for us not being able to produce electricity for like 2-3 weeks and all of this will get lost.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
michaelochurch 14y ago
For the people living through the supposed transition between the Classical Period and the Dark Ages, though, apparently, there was no such stark difference. Yes and no. Roman decline really happened, but the significance attached to 476 AD is an artifact developed later, when the decline actually happened over hundreds of years. As you noted, the Eastern Roman Empire carried on for another thousand years, and the Catholic Church remains the largest religion in the world. There was a decline in trade complexity, literacy, and probably standard of living at the top of society. Medieval historians did believe they were in a time of decline and ruin (this was heavily influenced by Christianity and its apocalyptic prophecies) but the average Germanic peasant didn't know enough to care either way, and probably had no substantial change in his material well-being from 100 AD to 600 AD (or 1700 AD). One of the things to keep in mind is oblique comparison. Most people who perceive decline compare their status to that of elite people in the past, creating a sense that things were better then. You'd certainly be better off as a Roman patrician than as a peasant in 7th-century Bavaria, but that's not a proper comparison. From the perspective of a literate elite, there was civil and industrial decline, explaining the impressive infrastructure that had fallen into disrepair. For the average European, there probably wasn't a directional change, but the average European left no writing.
- lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  Thank you - that has made a difference I could not express much clearer. Would it be fair to say that the average rural worker since the invention of farming had a sh*t standard of living till sometime in 20th century. It is just the upper levels of society that saw and benefited from swings in civilisation. Interesting.
- Retric 14y ago
  There where significant advances in mathematics and technology in the dark ages along with a massive population boom. Most notably algebra, armor, bows (long, compound), clocks, and fortifications. But, also agriculture, animal husbandry, musical instruments, tools, manufacturing, and many others. What was missing was a unified empire and the trappings of such, but there where a lot more practical advancements than most people understand. PS: The roman army was great for it's time, but they would have been decimated by far smaller 'dark' age equivalents. The closest real world comparison was Hernán Cortés and the fall of the Aztec Empire using 6 guns ~2,000 people, 100 horses they could easily take on the euqivelent of an 100,000 man incan army. (Incan army was larger than that but they had native help.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hern%C3%A1n_Cort%C3%A9s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hern%C3%A1n_Cort%C3%A9s
Spooky23 14y ago
The whole "Dark Ages" thing is a little contoversial, because it depends on your point of view. If you were living around the Mediterranean basin, things weren't so bad. If you were living in the periphery of the empire, civilization basically disappeared and reverted to tribal living or feudalism. One of the big changes with Rome was that at some point, they became too big. Earlier in Roman history, the Romans would either kill everyone (Ceasar's conquest of Gaul killed a substantial proportion of the population) or begin a process of Roman-ifying the populace. The Roman armies kept the peace and spread the civilization. The problem is that you had this built-in tension between keeping Rome (the City) under control, which was extremely challenging, and keeping the provinces in line and secure. Emperors had to spend fortunes subsidizing the City with grain, festivals/circuses and other support. Getting those fortunes meant levying onerous taxes, and collecting in the provinces meant enpowering the local Roman officials and military -- which in turn created rivals to the emperor. Another issue is that as time went on, gaps in agricultural technology fundamentally changed the society. The core of the Roman republic was citizen solders and civil servants -- many of which were yeoman farmers. As crop yields declined and demand grew, these farmers went out of business and consolidated into much larger estates that were dependent on slavery. All of these things resulted in changes to the character of the Roman system. Roman armies were not made up of Romans. Roman generals were not necessarily loyal to Rome. It just turned into a big mess.

by swombat 14y ago

lifeisstillgood 14y ago

Kind of but not entirely true - I will defer to real historians but roughly it breaks down like this 100 - 180 AD : golden age of emperors, what we think of when we think Rome 200-350 : serious decline and infighting, split into four regions, during this period attempts to enforce price controls to stem inflation. Rome itself stopped being political centre 350-400 Constantine recovery (unites to one region again - one empire of three parts, one god of three parts, one emperor - gettit?) 400 + : total collapse of western empire - communications fail, smaller regions contest with each other, and inflation wrecks the value of economies as trade collapses. Eastern empire carries on with vastly reduced army and trade links to Persia. This really was a dark ages - impoverished, illiterate, backwards looking and lacking trade with most of the world. There was no single definition of dark AGRs - mostly because there are few ways to be right and many ways to be wrong In short, the glory of empire did not last as long as everyone thinks - mostly Rome was a trade agreement that everyone else was keeping up in lieu of anything better.

swombat 14y ago
Well, that's the thing. Yes, the central control collapsed (though I still wouldn't underestimate the influence of the Church, which effectively controlled kings' actions through the threat of excommunication). However, on a local basis, there was no such great disaster, just a long slow change. And it was not really a dark age. As I said in my previous post, the dark age narrative is largely an invention of the 17th-18th century. What actually happened in that period was the development of a whole lot of great stuff like city states, art, commerce, banking, kingdoms, navigation tools (compass), military inventions (crossbows, guns), hourglasses, farming technology (ploughing), metallurgy, optics (eyeglasses!), mechanical clocks, textile technology (spinning wheel), the printing press, windmills, glassmaking... For the people living in those times, it probably didn't feel anything like a "dark age". Just a fairly smooth progression upwards, with the usual ups and downs of wars, plagues and other disasters that are hardly confined to the middle ages. I know the narrative of "here's the awesome roman empire, and now the church takes over and you have the dark ages, and now reason comes back in the form of the renaissance" is very compelling, particularly if you don't like the church very much, but it is just a narrative, and is not very well supported with facts.
- serans 14y ago
  I am no historian, but what I was taught in high school is that "dark ages" are called so because of the little knowledge we have about them compared to the comparatively well documented Roman Empire and Renaissance periods, not because they were themselves "dark" in any sense.
- lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  Quite a lot depends on when we say the dark ages began / ended. By say 1066 I would say Darkness was lifted, trading and Europe stabilised and by 1200 and Marco Polo Western Europe became fully involved / aware of with the rest of the Eurasia continent. Taking 1066 as a uk centric cutoff much of the above had either not been invented / rediscovered Kingdoms and city states - The Roman Duc and knightly organisation of armies appeared before 350, banking was I thought super charged by the crusades. Compasses - Marco Polo, the Mongols, guns - not till what 1300? I am aware there is always some in Europe knew but it did not benefit most. So it does depend in definitions (as always). If its the simplistic Romans/bad church/good renaissance then yes I agree with you, but if it is Good Romans/messed up Romans/dark ages/Europe starts to join the world/renaissance Then I am much happier to argue for a period of 400+ years where development in Europe was largely static and the agrarian based economies just slowly adjusted to lower levels of trade etc, and certainly 450-550 was just a morass of backwards sliding.

paganel 14y ago

I'm there with you, as in I also think that there wasn't one particular event that triggered the fall of the Roman Empire (the year Rome was sacked etc.), but the changes between the "civilized" Romans and the "barbarous" migrants/germanic/slavic populations were nevertheless huge. For example I live in the Lower Danube area, from where the Romans retreated around 275 AD. Reading about the near-by Roman city of Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulpia_Traiana_Sarmizegetusa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulpia_Traiana_Sarmizegetusa) it's surprising to see that only 2 generations after the retreat of the Romans the local people would revert to living in sunken huts, oftentimes a stone's throw away from the ruined Roman villas. The same people probably also lost the art of writing, because in the case I'm reading about there are no written documents or stone-graves or anything that could attest to the fact that they knew how to write for more than 700 years. The thought that this kind of things could happen again should be on the back of our minds. For example I'm a little bit worried that more and more information about our civilization is only stored in electronic format. It suffices for us not being able to produce electricity for like 2-3 weeks and all of this will get lost.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

michaelochurch 14y ago

For the people living through the supposed transition between the Classical Period and the Dark Ages, though, apparently, there was no such stark difference. Yes and no. Roman decline really happened, but the significance attached to 476 AD is an artifact developed later, when the decline actually happened over hundreds of years. As you noted, the Eastern Roman Empire carried on for another thousand years, and the Catholic Church remains the largest religion in the world. There was a decline in trade complexity, literacy, and probably standard of living at the top of society. Medieval historians did believe they were in a time of decline and ruin (this was heavily influenced by Christianity and its apocalyptic prophecies) but the average Germanic peasant didn't know enough to care either way, and probably had no substantial change in his material well-being from 100 AD to 600 AD (or 1700 AD). One of the things to keep in mind is oblique comparison. Most people who perceive decline compare their status to that of elite people in the past, creating a sense that things were better then. You'd certainly be better off as a Roman patrician than as a peasant in 7th-century Bavaria, but that's not a proper comparison. From the perspective of a literate elite, there was civil and industrial decline, explaining the impressive infrastructure that had fallen into disrepair. For the average European, there probably wasn't a directional change, but the average European left no writing.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago
Thank you - that has made a difference I could not express much clearer. Would it be fair to say that the average rural worker since the invention of farming had a sh*t standard of living till sometime in 20th century. It is just the upper levels of society that saw and benefited from swings in civilisation. Interesting.
Retric 14y ago
There where significant advances in mathematics and technology in the dark ages along with a massive population boom. Most notably algebra, armor, bows (long, compound), clocks, and fortifications. But, also agriculture, animal husbandry, musical instruments, tools, manufacturing, and many others. What was missing was a unified empire and the trappings of such, but there where a lot more practical advancements than most people understand. PS: The roman army was great for it's time, but they would have been decimated by far smaller 'dark' age equivalents. The closest real world comparison was Hernán Cortés and the fall of the Aztec Empire using 6 guns ~2,000 people, 100 horses they could easily take on the euqivelent of an 100,000 man incan army. (Incan army was larger than that but they had native help.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hern%C3%A1n_Cort%C3%A9s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hern%C3%A1n_Cort%C3%A9s

Spooky23 14y ago

The whole "Dark Ages" thing is a little contoversial, because it depends on your point of view. If you were living around the Mediterranean basin, things weren't so bad. If you were living in the periphery of the empire, civilization basically disappeared and reverted to tribal living or feudalism. One of the big changes with Rome was that at some point, they became too big. Earlier in Roman history, the Romans would either kill everyone (Ceasar's conquest of Gaul killed a substantial proportion of the population) or begin a process of Roman-ifying the populace. The Roman armies kept the peace and spread the civilization. The problem is that you had this built-in tension between keeping Rome (the City) under control, which was extremely challenging, and keeping the provinces in line and secure. Emperors had to spend fortunes subsidizing the City with grain, festivals/circuses and other support. Getting those fortunes meant levying onerous taxes, and collecting in the provinces meant enpowering the local Roman officials and military -- which in turn created rivals to the emperor. Another issue is that as time went on, gaps in agricultural technology fundamentally changed the society. The core of the Roman republic was citizen solders and civil servants -- many of which were yeoman farmers. As crop yields declined and demand grew, these farmers went out of business and consolidated into much larger estates that were dependent on slavery. All of these things resulted in changes to the character of the Roman system. Roman armies were not made up of Romans. Roman generals were not necessarily loyal to Rome. It just turned into a big mess.