Western Civilization I
Notes from 6/18

The period of Roman Peace or the Pax Romana ended in 192 with the death of the Emperor Commodus. During the third century, dozens of emperors came and went, these were mostly political gamblers and warlords who for a short time had purchased the loyalty of their soldiers. Two of the important stabilizing elements of the Empire – strong, effective emperors, and disciplined armies – began to fall apart.

The economy was in dire straits, mostly because of the rising costs of defending the Empire’s borders against increasing numbers of barbarian raiders. Also, emperors had tried to maintain loyalty among the citizens of the city of Rome (whose population had exceeded 1 million) with donations of free food and public games ("bread and circuses"). This was also a major drain on the economy.

Other problems included the decline of the civil service. As the economy worsened, there were fewer people of independent means who could afford to take positions within the government, which were unpaid. The bureaucracies, which during the Pax Romana, had become hallmarks of efficiency, were becoming corrupt and incompetent.

Diocletian (r. 284-305) and Constantine (r. 324-337)

The 3^rd century’s political crises finally ended in 284, when an army officer, Diocletian, seized the throne. He recognized that the Empire was too large and unstable to be governed by one man, so he appointed 3 co-rulers. This Tetrarchy (rule of 4) foreshadowed the later division of the Empire between east and west.

After Diocletian retired in 305, the complex system of co-rule broke down. Several men fought for control; by 324 the emperor Constantine had emerged again as sole ruler. He reigned until 337, most importantly known for having not only protected Christianity, but, towards the end of his reign, actually converting.

But Constantine had no plan for avoiding the perennial problems of succession. He had killed his eldest son, Crispus, on rumors of a coup plot. His remaining sons – Constantine, Constantius and Constans, were raised to the rank of caesar, and the empire divided among them. But Constantine was killed trying to invade the territory of Constans, and Constans in turn was killed by a usurper, Maxentius. Constantius emerged as the sole ruler, and reigned from 337-361.  He was succeeded by his cousin Julian (called "the Apostate" because he renounced Christianity), who reigned until 363.

Division Between East and West.

The difficulty of ruling a unified Roman Empire, and protecting its extensive borders, was becoming increasingly self-evident. In 393, the Emperor Theodosius split the empire between an eastern half and a western half. Rome remained the capital in the west (Theodosius’ son was appointed emperor there); the city of Constantinople (today called "Istanbul") became the capital in the east.  The next several decades would witness increased pressures on the western half from barbarian incursions, and the eventual seizure of the throne in Rome by a Germanic chief named Odoacer, in 476.  In many histories, this date is given as the "official" end of the Roman Empire.

The "Barbarians"

The term "barbarian" was first used to by ancient Greeks to describe any one of numerous foreigners who spoke a strange or unintelligible language, but it came to refer to the several dozen Germanic, Celtic and Slavic tribes that migrated westward into the Roman Empire, especially after the 3rd century C.E.   The first such group I talked about was the Huns.  They were probably of Mongolian origin; perhaps in reaction to climatic changes they began to sweep out of Asia towards central Europe.  As the Huns moved further westward, they began to push other peoples further west as well, placing additional pressures on the Roman Empire's long borders.  The Hunnic kingdom reached its height between 433 and 453 C.E., during the reign of the king known as Attila.  But after Attila's death, the kingdom disintegrated.

Another group, the Visigoths ("West Goths") was the first to be dislodged by the Huns as they pushed westward.  In 376, under their king Alaric, the Visigoths were allowed to enter the Roman Empire.  But they were treated poorly by their Roman hosts, even though they had allied themselves with the Emperor Theodosius in fighting the Huns.  They soon turned against the Romans, and by 410 had sacked the city of Rome.  One thing was becoming clear to the Romans: the barbarian style of mounted warfare (i.e., men on horses, wearing armor), was vastly superior to the Roman foot soldier.  The movement toward mounted warriors (which cost money) would ultimately lead to the development of a privileged warrior class in post-Roman Europe, the nobility of the early Middle Ages.

The Visigoths themselves set up their own kingdom in Gaul (France) which was still technically Roman soil, and then removed to Spain, where they remained.  Another Germanic tribe forced to push westward by the Huns was the Vandals.  Starting around 406, they moved from central and eastern Europe, first into Gaul, then Spain, and finally North Africa, where they established a kingdom at the old city of Carthage.  They too attacked Rome, plundering the city first in 455.  As the Vandals (from which the word "vandalism" comes) and other groups plundered Greco-Roman coastal cities, people began to flee those cities and seek safer havens in the interior regions of Europe.

The Ostrogoths ("East Goths") moved into the territory that had been vacated by the Visigoths in the 5th century; they soon became the real power behind the Roman throne.  In 476, it was the Ostrogoth chieftain Odoacer who crowned himself Roman Emperor, as noted previously.  I also talked about other "new peoples" of Europe, such as the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who settled on the island of Britain after the Romans evacuated Britain in 407 C.E., the Alemanni, who would settle in what is now modern Germany, and the Franks, who would settle in Roman Gaul (which is why it's now called France).

I then described some of the more important aspects of Germanic society and culture.  First, Germanic society was not egalitarian, but was instead a hierarchy based on chiefs, who had distinguished themselves in battle, free warriors, commoners and slaves.  Extended family units (called "kindreds") were the most important social organizations.  They fought and migrated together, held certain kinds of property in common, and settled disputes among their members.  When we think about the society that would emerge after the collapse of Rome, we will see many elements of the Germanic social organization in the feudal system of the early Middle Ages.

Germanic tribes were originally polytheistic, worshipping two sets of higher and lower order gods.  However, after 350 C.E., they gradually converted to Arian Christianity (named after its founder, Arius; no relation to the term "Aryan"), and later to Roman Catholicism.