Roman Empire

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*The [[Vatican|Papal States]], always playing for the lead role, considered the Holy Roman Emperors to be vassals of the pope, with true earthly power emanating from the pope alone.<ref>[http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/eccles/innocent.html The-orb.net]</ref>  Which it did, whenever the Holy Roman Emperors wanted it to.
 
*The [[Vatican|Papal States]], always playing for the lead role, considered the Holy Roman Emperors to be vassals of the pope, with true earthly power emanating from the pope alone.<ref>[http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/eccles/innocent.html The-orb.net]</ref>  Which it did, whenever the Holy Roman Emperors wanted it to.
  
*The Latin Empire was established in 1204 after the Fourth Crusade sacked and captured Constantinople. The "Empire" consisted entirely of the city and a tiny bit of surrounding land. It was referred to by the Latin states in the region as the "''Imperium Romaniae''," a name intended to link the state to Ancient Rome while at the same time not intruding on the domain of the Holy Roman Empire. Like the "Byzantine" Empire, it's modern name was applied to it only recently in order to distinguish it from the other states calling themselves "Rome" at around the same time. The Empire didn't last long, assaults from all sides drained it's resources and manpower until 1261 when Constantinople was retaken and the Empire fell, although pretenders to the title would continue to claim the title for long afterwards.
+
*The Latin Empire was established in 1204 after the Fourth Crusade sacked and captured Constantinople. The "Empire" consisted entirely of the city and a tiny bit of surrounding land. It was referred to by the Latin states in the region as the "''Imperium Romaniae''," a name intended to link the state to Ancient Rome while at the same time not intruding on the domain of the Holy Roman Empire. Like the "Byzantine" Empire, its modern name was applied to it only recently in order to distinguish it from the other states calling themselves "Rome" at around the same time. The Empire didn't last long, assaults from all sides drained its resources and manpower until 1261 when Constantinople was retaken and the Empire fell, although pretenders to the title would continue to claim the title for long afterwards.
  
 
*The Ottoman Empire: After the Fall of Constantinople, Mehmed claimed the title of "Caesar of Rome" (Kayser-i Rûm). The claim was not recognized by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Rome, or Christian Europe. Mehmed's claim rested with the concept that Constantinople was the seat of the Roman Empire and its last remaining territory after the transfer of its capital to Constantinople in 330 CE and the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Mehmed also had a blood lineage to the last Byzantine Imperial family; his predecessor, Sultan Orhan I had married a Byzantine princess, and Mehmed may have claimed descent from John Tzelepes Komnenos.
 
*The Ottoman Empire: After the Fall of Constantinople, Mehmed claimed the title of "Caesar of Rome" (Kayser-i Rûm). The claim was not recognized by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Rome, or Christian Europe. Mehmed's claim rested with the concept that Constantinople was the seat of the Roman Empire and its last remaining territory after the transfer of its capital to Constantinople in 330 CE and the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Mehmed also had a blood lineage to the last Byzantine Imperial family; his predecessor, Sultan Orhan I had married a Byzantine princess, and Mehmed may have claimed descent from John Tzelepes Komnenos.

Revision as of 11:55, 1 July 2014

The rise and fall of the Roman Empire from 510 BCE to 530 CE.
Pars seriei de

Roma Antica

Caesar.jpg
Historiae civesque
The Roman Empire was an ancient power that ruled most of Europe along with all of North Africa and parts of the Middle East from roughly 1st century B.C.E., to roughly 4th century C.E and existed on all the way up to the mid 15th century when the last remnants of its Empire were taken by the Ottomans. Originating in Italy, the Roman Empire was the direct successor to the Roman Republic, which had already established Rome as a dominant force in the west a couple centuries earlier.

The beginning of the Roman Empire played a strong role in the build-up of eschatalogical theories prior to and during the life of Jesus. Messianic expectations at the time of Jesus were known even in Rome. For example, the prophecy that "a savior would come out of Judea" was popular in the Roman Empire; so popular that the biographer Suetonious saw fit to include it in his De Vita Caesarum.When? However, Suetonious identified the savior as Vespasian in his Life of Vespasian, since Vespasian did, as it was said, "save the State" during the year of the four emperors.

Contents

Chronology

Ancient Italy

The first hints of Italian civilization appeared around 5,000 BCE, as Neolithic farmers began to settle the peninsula. By 1500 BCE, the northern “Terramaricoli” culture was exporting mineral supplies from the Alps to the pastoral, migratory Apennine culture occupying the center of the peninsula. As these cultures drew close through trade, Mycenaean trade exposed the Italians to proto-Greek culture. By 1,000 BCE, a new "Villanovan" culture had began working with copper and was occupying the rich valley of Etruria north of the future location of Rome.[1] These Villanovans were supplanted by the Etruscan culture in the 8th century BCE, which was heavily influenced by seafaring Greeks.[2] Their culture was domineered by the Romans, who borrowed and then improved on their grid-like cities, architecture, and religious rituals.

Early Rome

From approximately 750-500 BCE, Roman culture existed politically as a city-state which grew to become a kingdom as it enveloped surrounding cultures. This kingdom came to an abrupt end during the reign of the 7th king of Rome, Tarquin the Proud. Traditionally, Targuin was a cruel tyrant whose oppressive reign forced the Romans to exile him. Through the true reasons for his exile are debated, the Romans elected not to reinstate him, and instead establish two annually elected magistrates which came to be known as "consuls".

Roman Republic

Republican Rome had a "constitution" in the same sense that Britain today has one. The laws were not codified in a single document, but encompassed hundreds of years of tradition. At its maturation, the Republic consisted of several branches of government. The two consuls, who initially were chosen by the Senate but later by popular election, held veto power over each other. There was a princeps, who represented the lower class plebeians and served as a check against the consuls. The Senate consisted of approximately 300 men, at first exclusively upper-class patricians. Later, plebeians gained representation in this legislative body. This system resulted in a period of stability from the 5th century BCE to approximately 150 BCE that served to make Rome the most powerful military force in the west and led to great conquest.

Roman Empire

As class conflict between the patricians and the plebeians grew more pronounced, Rome came under the threat of military invasion, first by the Carthaginians, later by Germanic tribes. The rise of charismatic generals like Gaius Marius, a fiercely ambitious man who nonetheless earned the support of the lower class, led to a new "Internecine Period". The Republic was thrown into disarray. It seemed that virtuous rulers had been traded for power-grabbing, myopic generals. A semblance of political unity appeared with the First Triumvirate - an uneasy alliance between the general Pompey, the wealthy Crassus, and an upstart politician named Julius Caesar. Julius was a populares who relied on the support of the lower and middle classes to gain power. After the death of Crassus, he declared war on both Rome and Pompey, defeating him in 48 BCE. By 46 BCE, he was the sole dictator of Rome. On March 15th, 44 BCE, however, Julius was assassinated by political opponents who feared the rise of a despot.

The conspirators could not maintain popular support, and were crushed by Mark Antony and Caesar's adoptive great-nephew, Octavian. Octavian forced Antony into exile and later suicide, instituting himself as pricep, or first citizen of Rome in 27 BCE. Taking the name Augustus, he proceeded to truly fulfill the populares reforms of Julius and became the first true emperor of Rome, leading a stable and peaceful Empire. He cut the size of the military and reorganized it so the Empire would have about 300,000 men under arms, manning the borders, with limited mobility. He decided against expanding the Empire after the Battle of the Teutoberg Forest in 9 CE and the loss the Romans incurred at that site. The empire continued to expand slowly under the reigns of later emperors, but the Empire itself was free from strife. This was the famous pax romana, or Roman Peace.

However, by the 3rd century CE, the empire was on the brink of collapse due to economic depression, invasion, and civil war. It was in 285 CE, during this period of unrest that the Roman Empire was split into West and East each ruled by it's own Emperor in a division of labor tactic in order to make the massive Empire easier to manage. Poor leadership, the collapse of the unified trade network and constant invasion would spell the death of the Western Roman Empire. The city of Rome was sacked in 410 by the Visigoths and the emperor Romulus was overthrown in 476.

Post-"Fall" Rome

Accounts of the the remains of the Western half of the Empire's immediate descent into poverty have been somewhat exaggerated by biased sources. Rather, rulers such as Theoderic the Ostrogoth and his followers (the Amal clan), after defeating Odoacer in 493, ruled from Ravenna in the Roman style, trying to maintain much of Roman life and infrastructure.[3] Theoderic even employed Romans in the administration to ensure this continuity and sense of Roman stability. Indeed, in the eyes of the people of Italy, the formal pronouncement of the end of the Roman rule in Italy wasn't apparent; [more detail please] it was only a label that was applied in retrospect. One example was Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (or just Cassiodorus), who, writing as Theoderic, famously urged all Romans to "clothe themselves with the morals of the toga" - i.e., retain your Roman ways, in spite of the "barbarian" rule.

Of course, while the Western half of Rome fell, the Roman Empire itself continued on in the East in what historians would later refer to as the "Byzantine" Empire. The Eastern half the Empire always tended to be wealthier and more populous than the West; this allowed them to finance larger armies and pay off potential invaders, thus allowing the Eastern half of the Empire to survive when the Western half could not. From its new capital at Constantinople the Roman Empire would survive for nearly another thousand years. The name "Byzantine" was applied to the empire retroactively; during its lifetime it continued to be known simply as the Roman Empire to itself and its neighbors.

The Empire was able to regain much of its lost territory under Emperor Justinian I beginning in 533 CE led by the general Belisarius. It was able to reconquer its provinces in Southern Spain, Sicily, and much of Italy, including Rome. Unfortunately the protracted war devastated the Italian countryside, with the Eastern Romans only reclaiming a ravaged husk which left their possession soon after the death of Justinian with the rise of the Longobards in 568.[4] Many Romans - Eastern and Western - blamed Justinian for this devastation.[5]

While Justinian would be the last Emperor to make a serious attempt at reconquering the West, and the Roman Empire was never able to fully regain its former glory, the Empire still remained the preeminent power in the Mediterranean throughout much of the Middle Ages until Constantinople was finally seized by Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire in 1453. While it did face devastating blows from the Arab Conquests and the ill fated Fourth Crusade it wasn't all despair and decline. The Empire had several cultural resurgences and continued to maintain its traditions, learning and systems of law from antiquity.

Interpretations of the Fall of Rome

Historians, with varying motivations, have proposed equally varying reasons for the fallWhen?[please explain] of the Western Roman Empire. The rationales range from the idiotic and transparently biased to the mundane, with some outlying probable causes.

  • Edward Gibbon, author of the monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, actually blamed Christianity, in relevant parts, for detracting from the civic republicanism and sense of unified purpose that had built the Republic. Most of this can be traced to Gibbon's own deep distaste for Christianity[6], although it is a colorable argument that Christianity, by splitting Roman society along (first) class lines and (later) violently among factions, the rise of Christianity inhibited a unity that would have forced awareness of, and staved off, latent problems in the Empire. However, this explanation does not account for other important variables.
  • Luttwak[7] argued that Rome's fall was due simply to a decay of military prowess, and strategy, and the supposed problem of outsourcing one's army to one's enemy. This theory has been rather controversial and was argued against by multiple professional historians. Luttwak suggests that Rome abandoned its policy of fostering "buffer states" around its borders, which would be loosely defended by, and tributaries to, the Roman throne, and forestall barbarian incursions from entering Rome while the strategy was in operation. Coupled with a sudden upsurge in the violence of the barbarian hordes, caused by Attila the Hun pushing Gothic tribes out of their homes on the eastern steppes and into the empire, the overtaxed Western Roman army could not handle the incursions any longer, and collapsed. Roman tendency to depend more heavily on mercenary soldiers - which was a critical fault of Hellenic Kingdoms, allowing for their easy conquest 700 years earlier by Rome - did not help Rome's defense, according to Luttwak. Contrarily, a more common view today is that the Hellenic Kingdoms fell primarily due to the superior flexibility of the Roman army and that barbarization of it did not necessarily have any appreciable effect relating to the fall of Rome.[8]
  • Additionally, Rome at some point ceased in fact to be the heart of the empire, and thusly abandoned, justly fell. Constantine's shift of the capitol to Constantinople (modern day Istanbul, ancient Greek Byzantium) in the early 4th century focused the empire increasingly east, which Christianity's rise further impelled. As focus shifted away from Rome, so did money, trade, and defensive forces. Although Rome remained the spiritual center of the world, and of great symbolic value[9], without such trade the city stumbled and fell.
  • Decay of morality is often proposed as a theory for the fall of the Roman empire. Its descent into decadence and perversion has become almost iconic in popular culture.[10] However, this theory is most often advocated by persons attempting to use this theory to support a stricter moral agenda in contemporary society, and justly reeks of bias.[11] The most that this theory can be justified is in the proper condemnation of the luxuries heaped on later emperors, and their corresponding inattention to issues of import to the empire.[12] This is not to say that faltering morality is to blame: rather, that a ruling class inculcated with a sense of entitlement is fatal to any government.

Would-be successors

Aside from the Byzantine Empire, many empires and states have claimed, sometimes grandiosely, and with varying degrees of histerical historical accuracy, to be the successor to the Roman Empire.

  • The Carolingian Empire was founded about 400 years after the fall of Rome by Charlemagne the Great, a Frank. He was crowned "Emperor of the Romans" by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day, 800 CE (to create a counterbalance to the guys in the East). Charlemagne left the empire to his sons, who squabbled and broke it apart.[13]
  • The Holy Roman Empire (Sacrum Imperium Romanum) arose in Central Europe when German King Frederick I Barbarossa, who had gotten hold of Italy as well, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Adrian IV in 1155. It was succeeded by the German Empire (the Second Reich), which was succeeded by you-know-what.
  • The Papal States, always playing for the lead role, considered the Holy Roman Emperors to be vassals of the pope, with true earthly power emanating from the pope alone.[14] Which it did, whenever the Holy Roman Emperors wanted it to.
  • The Latin Empire was established in 1204 after the Fourth Crusade sacked and captured Constantinople. The "Empire" consisted entirely of the city and a tiny bit of surrounding land. It was referred to by the Latin states in the region as the "Imperium Romaniae," a name intended to link the state to Ancient Rome while at the same time not intruding on the domain of the Holy Roman Empire. Like the "Byzantine" Empire, its modern name was applied to it only recently in order to distinguish it from the other states calling themselves "Rome" at around the same time. The Empire didn't last long, assaults from all sides drained its resources and manpower until 1261 when Constantinople was retaken and the Empire fell, although pretenders to the title would continue to claim the title for long afterwards.
  • The Ottoman Empire: After the Fall of Constantinople, Mehmed claimed the title of "Caesar of Rome" (Kayser-i Rûm). The claim was not recognized by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Rome, or Christian Europe. Mehmed's claim rested with the concept that Constantinople was the seat of the Roman Empire and its last remaining territory after the transfer of its capital to Constantinople in 330 CE and the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Mehmed also had a blood lineage to the last Byzantine Imperial family; his predecessor, Sultan Orhan I had married a Byzantine princess, and Mehmed may have claimed descent from John Tzelepes Komnenos.
  • Russia, after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks, had ambitions of becoming the "third Rome," as it was the world's largest remaining Orthodox state. The Slavic word tsar derives from Caesar, and the first Russian "Tsar of all the Russians" was Ivan IV, "The Terrible", crowned thus in 1547.
  • The British Empire colonized large parts of the world, spreading its language, culture, and a tradition of democracy bureaucracy to grateful people of color everywhere. They self-consciously compared and contrasted themselves with the Roman Empire, even today sometimes resorting to Latin.[15]
  • Italy, homeland of the Romans, aspired under the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini to regain the glory of its imperial Roman past. After gloriously invading Ethiopia and Albania, the would-be New Rome was repulsed by the Greeks, and became overshadowed by its fascist younger brother Germany to the north.
  • America: Many commentators have noted that the British Empire was more analogous to the Greeks, and the United States of America, with its violent, least-common denominator culture largely borrowed from the British Empire turned out to be more like Rome. Today it is exceedingly popular for pundits both left and right to compare current events in the US to the Decline and Fall of the first Rome.[16][17] Most of them are poorly informed about the true history of Roman decline and rely on popular myths and dubious references. Caution is advised.

See also

Notes pedis

  1. Max Cary and H.H. Scullard, A History of Rome, (New York: Palgrave, 1975), 7-9.
  2. T.J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC), (New York: Routledge, 1997), 45.
  3. Peter Wolfram, The Goths
  4. Paulus Diaconus, Historia Langobardorum
  5. Procopius, the Secret Histories
  6. Forgive a citation to Wikipedia. My copy of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is in Atlanta.
  7. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire.
  8. Adrian Goldsworthy, The Complete Roman Army, Thames & Hudson 2003 ISBN 0-500-05124-0
  9. Augustine's City of God, testifies to the fact that Rome was conceived of as the "mother of civilization.
  10. See, Hedonism-bot in Futurama, and the portrayal of Commodus in the film Gladiator.
  11. Conservapedia blames homosexuality, for example... which, as one can see, may be in line with their own agenda.
  12. Nero was legendary for hoarding gold and imperial resources, and neglecting his people and his empire. The emperor Vespasian, who followed Nero, reverted this trend, but the resurgence of this theme is common in Roman history.
  13. The-orb.net
  14. The-orb.net
  15. royal.gov.uk Annus Horribilis
  16. hotbedinfo.com: Top 10 Similarities
  17. Tomorrowsworld.org: the wingnut view
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