I titled it "World Drama" which probably wasn't the best title, but the topic was broad enough I wasn't sure what else to do ... also, note that this is not a research paper, so there are no footnotes, and since it's a different professor, the formatting is different.
And ... after I blog this, I have to finish up my final major paper for the semester (I have one due a week from today, but it's one of the shorter political science papers, and as opposed to this week's craziness, I have a week to write it!)
The history
written about how Rome fell varies widely depending on the perspective of the
author: Was it the barbarians? The Christians? Did Rome actually fall? The analysis
of the three books compared in this paper, The
Fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather, The World of Late Antiquity by Peter Brown, and Are We Rome? by
Cullen Murphy, will discuss these
questions and compare and contrast opinions. While there has been varied
research done on the topic of the fall of Rome, the story takes a great deal to
unravel and as of yet, the evidence is inconclusive. Therefore, this paper will
not attempt to determine conclusively what really did happen to the Roman
Empire in the fifth century AD, but will instead focus on the different views
presented by the three books mentioned above, analyze the things they have in
common, determine what is incompatible, and gather some options for what may
have happened in the fifth century.
In The Fall of the Roman Empire, Peter
Heather argues that the reason Rome fell – he believes it did – was because of
the influence of the barbarian armies invading the Empire. To his research, the
problems lay not with the Roman people but with the inevitability of the
barbarians. The attack of the Huns, specifically the Hunnic Empire under Attila
the Hun, followed after the barbarians who pressed across the Danube seeking
safety from these Huns. These barbarians were the Goths (joined later by the
Visigoths and Ostrogoths), who would attack Rome on many strategic points across
the perimeter of the Empire until it disintegrated from the pressure. The reason
for Rome’s downfall, Heather concluded, was the military aspect of the Gothic
tribes which Rome allowed into her Empire and incorporated into her auxiliary
armies. By training the barbarians to work as a Roman legion – how to fight,
how to win – the Romans had, in effect, signed and sealed their own death warrant.
Instead of being able to effectively counter their foes, the Roman legions found
their ranks infiltrated – and then deserted – by Gothic tribesman who reverted
in loyalty back to their native tribe and fought against the Roman army when
battle approached. The result was that not only did the barbarian enemy have a
significant force of well-trained soldiers but also that the Romans were
missing much-needed men from their ranks during crucial battles.
These people who
were changing sides were, according to Heather, the driving force between what
he saw as a rather decisive (not to say spectacular) fall of Rome in 467 AD.
The transition from having a Western Empire (Emperor of Rome) to not having one
(ceding imperial power to the Eastern Empire in Constantinople and
establishment of barbarian kingdoms) was the defined breaking point that
changed the whole structure of power in the West. From being an Empire with
power to have an army, make decisions, and form treaties with other kingdoms,
Western Rome was now just another client kingdom of the Eastern Roman Empire –
much as Rome had had client kingdoms for centuries. The Emperors of Rome, which
for so long had been the powerful force behind the Empire and later powerful
military faction leaders, ceased to exist. The army (that part of it which had
not already defaulted back to the barbarian hoards) was dissolved. The purple and scepter were sent to
Constantinople, in acknowledgment that there was no longer an emperor in Rome,
and the Western Roman Empire came to an end.
Peter Brown takes
a different view of the Mediterranean world in the fifth century. In the West as in the East, a new well of
power had been filling – that of the sect of the Christians. Although the
Christian movement began with humble origins, it had been carried to Rome at
the very height of the Empire and was firmly entrenched by the time the
Emperors (and the Empire) became Christian (in name, at least,) and long before
the Empire began to have serious problems and crumble. The so-called “fall” of
Rome, Brown argues, was not so much a fall as a transition. The power of rulers
may have been taken out of Rome in 467, but the last emperors of Rome, the
military kings, had not been Roman for some time. As such, the loss of them to
another barbarian king was scarcely more shock, if at all, then the perpetual
upheaval and transfer of powers that had been going on for the last forty years
of the Empire. The main difference was that the legions in control were no
longer Roman: (and as Brown points out, agreeing with Heather, even the legions
were not the best example of Roman civilization by this time).
The real source of
direction for the majority of Roman citizens was in the local counties. The
Roman Senators, the aristocratic elite, had long since withdrawn from Rome as
the center of all activity and retired to live in as much peace as they could
manage in their home estates, ruling local districts. These estates developed a
degree of autonomy in the politically tumultuous times; in the ‘end’ as the
emperors changed places with alarming frequency, any stability and structure in
society was compliments of the landed elite. These wealthy landowners, finding
the Roman Senate to be a non-entity, managed to integrate themselves into the
new power that was rising all throughout the Empire – the Christian Church. The
greatest danger for the senators lay not in losing the Emperor’s support, but
in losing the public image that was so necessary for them to maintain in order
to convince those of a lower social station that they were still in charge. In
tumultuous times, there were all manner of social handouts and benefits
designed to remind the people who their benefactors were, and remind that all
the things which consisted of stability, prosperity, and well-being came from
having the landed class there to take care of the situation. There was a great
need to court favors with the people, and as the population grew increasingly
Christian, those favors took on an increasingly Christian slant. Instead of
building amphitheatres, the wealthy now built basilicas for church services and
donated wealth. Roman culture had long been established with the wealthy
providing public funding; the difference in the culture from Constantine
through the Late Antique period was, to Brown’s perspective, simply a
transition in who received the wealth.
According to Heather,
the Roman Empire fell when the barbarians became too strong for the military
power of Rome to hold out and Romulus (the last emperor of western Rome) mailed
the imperial purple to Constantinople. The decisive moment was when the
military might of Rome was not sufficient to keep on winning battles, and the
barbarians set up kingdoms – the Goths in western Gaul and parts of Spain, the
Franks in north-eastern Gaul. Britain, which had been invaded by the Saxons as
early as 410, was not a loss factor since Roman troops had pulled out instead
of being conquered. ‘Fall’ for Heather is a very simple, clear term (although
the factors that go into this fall he does not pretend are as simple): The
western Empire fell when it was no longer holding its own against those forces
that wanted the same territory it wanted.
To Brown, the fall
of the Roman Empire was more complex – unlike Heather, he continues his book
further than the fall of the Western Empire and examines the Eastern Empire as
well – which militarily survived considerably longer, arguably until the
Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453. Certainly Brown did not think that
the Roman Empire had survived until that time – much more realistically, he
realized that the Late Antique period and onward had a different culture than
the one that had been governed by any Roman ideals at all, much less ones from
the Western part of the Empire. But since the Eastern side of the Empire was
not captured by barbarians or any other factor that might be considered the end
of the Western Empire, then how did the Eastern Empire also cease to be Roman? The
focus of Brown on both sides of the Empire caused him to view the fall of the
Western side as only a part of the changes that were occurring instead of the
end of Rome altogether as was Heather’s focus.
The argument
presented by Brown was two-fold: firstly, that the fall of the Western Empire
was not the end of Roman civilization but merely the loss of the historic
capital (which hadn’t been the center of the Empire for quite some time at that
point, Ravenna having been the center of operations in the latter part of the
Western Empire at the end). Civilization, Brown thought, was carried on by the
residents (note that this is not restricted to citizens) of the Empire, and
that the Empire could not fairly have been said to have fallen until Roman
civilization had been replaced. Even if the physical, military fall of Rome
preceded that of Constantinople by a thousand years, the fall of Roman culture
marked the end of the two parts of the Empire much differently.
The mode of this
replacement was Brown’s second focus. The civilization that hung on in the Roman
Empire, particularly in the East, was not the same kind of civilization that
had characterized Rome over the centuries. Roman civilization had certainly
changed, from the early virtues of dignitas, pietas, and gravitas. The original
meanings of these virtues had been replaced as early as the beginning of the
Empire with new ideas of loyalty and what it meant to be Roman as the Republic
ended and a new system to balance society had to be found. These views were
again changing, and just as Rome changed from Republic to Empire at the time of
Caesar Augustus, the Western Empire changed again from Empire to a
Christian-pagan collection of city-state-like bishoprics. For Brown, it can be
argued that the Republic ended when Caesar was claimed to be god; the Empire
ended when Christ became its God.
In the West, the
military takeover of the barbarians did not inhibit Christianity, but endorsed
it (with the brief interlude that was the reign of Julian the Apostate). In the
East, the military did not fall at the same time as the Western Empire,
(indeed, held out rather successfully against the Persian Empire), but the
cultural transition was in effect in the East just as in the West – the crucial
difference. The difference was largely in philosophy and thought; the East had
always been more cultured and the example to the West. Eastern theology looked
a lot like Greek philosophy; indeed the changes went both ways, creating a new
Greco-Christian culture. Greek religious philosophy had to be modified to fit a
mono-theistic religion instead of the traditional Roman and Greek gods, and
Christianity explained its principles using the language of Greek philosophy.
The fact that
there was not an entire cultural revolution and a discarding of all things
Roman and Greek should not be taken to mean that there was no change. Just as
in the transition from Republic to Empire the people were still the same people
and kept much of their culture intact, the end of the Empire as seen by Brown
is not a brutal severing of all things Roman to become all things Christian,
but instead a cultural melding and transition from being either pagan or
Christian into a new kind of civilization, the culture of Late Antiquity, where
bishops and monks set the standard for Christianity and pagans still existed.
The difference was that the elite were now largely Christian, and so the trend
of society was set in a Christian direction. The fall of Rome for Brown was the
change of Roman civilization as it was known into something else that contained
elements of that same civilization by a rising faction of society. Rome
(western or eastern) did not fall, it morphed.
Cullen Murphy
takes a still less severe outlook on the so-called ‘fall of Rome’, arguing
instead that Rome did not really fall. It is difficult to compare his writing
with that of Heather and Brown, since his point is different. However, it is
possible to look at what he says about Rome and America, evaluate the strength
of his arguments, and relate the ones that have to do with the ending (or
continuation) of the Empire with Heather and Brown.
Roman civilization
still lived on under the barbarians; changing rulers did not fundamentally
change the society. In this argument Murphy is joined by Heather, who pointed
out similarly that the later Roman emperors were themselves non-Roman if not
actually barbarians. Roman society changed with the remarkable influence of
Christianity in the Empire; societies change over time, as Brown showed. Murphy
did not see any decisive ending to Rome as it was known; it simply progressed
as cultures will and therefore did not fall. To prove its continued existence,
he pointed briefly to the British Empire and in mere passing to the Holy Roman
Empire, then focused mainly on the United States – which he clearly believes to
be the American Empire. He argues that the similarities between the Roman
Empire and the United States are such that even though the societies are not
identical (after 1500 years that could scarcely be expected of any civilization),
there are enough commonalities to make the United States worthy (or perhaps
condemned) to be the descendent of the Roman Empire. In order for Rome to fall,
for Murphy there would have had to be an end Roman military power (which,
according to Heather, there was) and also an end to Roman culture (which Brown
says happened through metamorphosis into Christianity). However, by citing
aspects of modern American culture, Murphy says that Rome (Roman civilization,
to be more precise) is still in existence. Regardless of what Mediterranean
culture looked like after the fifth century, Murphy points to American culture
and says that Rome did not actually fall.
The arguments that
Murphy makes are not entirely irrelevant: he points specifically to the
inwardness of American culture, which is largely mono-lingual and cares an
astonishingly small amount about what is happening in the rest of the world. This
parallel with Rome is not a stretch of the imagination. He also points to
feelings of superiority in civilization, which Americans and Romans alike
suffer from – but Rome was not the only ancient civilization that had this
issue; recall Antony living in Alexandria and the inferiority complex the Romans
had to the Egyptians. The imperious cultural persuasion that America suffers
from is certainly not new, nor was it new to Rome – so does the fact that
America possesses a superiority complex similar to the Romans necessitate that
we are a descendent of Roman civilization, or merely show that civilizations
with much power tend to think highly of themselves? As proof that America is a
present-day Rome, the argument is incomplete.
Murphy’s argument
is also unconvincing in the area of a central capitol. While it is true that
both Rome and Washington DC have similarities (he points to isolation from the
rest of the culture and heavy reliance on importation), it would be
narrow-sighted to think of one city as the basis of all society in either civilization.
While America has its large cities (those named include New York, Boston, and
San Francisco) as did Rome (Constantinople, Alexandria, and Milan), to say that
the culture revolves around them in the same way would be a mistake. Washington
DC, without doubt, makes a major impact on America, and its sack would be a
huge blow. If America and Rome have the same essential civilization, as Murphy
is attempting to prove, then the sack of Rome by the Visigoth king Alaric in
410 would have had a similarly enormous impact. However, according to Heather
(who did focus on the military issues in the end of the Western Empire), the
city’s moveable treasures were taken, but the Roman society itself was not devastated.
Rome as a city was a major sink-hole in the economics of the empire, the
aristocracy (which was no longer in Rome) was the important part. By the time
Rome fell (by Heather’s standards), Rome was important mainly for morale and
prestige – the emperors no longer even lived there.
Washington DC is a different story
– it may be modeled after a part of Roman culture, but it looks more like the
Rome of the latter Republic than the Rome of the fifth century, and its
importance has a lot to do with the place. The impact on the national economy
after the 2001 terrorist attacks is just one example of the importance of a
place: the deaths of the people, while tragic, were not the impacting factor;
it was the destruction of the technology and information that struck the
heaviest blow. This is very different than the Roman Empire at any point in its
history.
Were Murphy to be
making an argument that America has characteristics of the Roman Republic, his
argument would be more understandable – from the argument over the importance
of the capitol to the similarity of an inward-looking culture, Americans and
Romans have many similarities. However, Murphy is aiming for a conclusion that
America is a continuation of Rome so that Rome would not have had to fall –
which would require a reversal in culture. For this reason, the argument of the
importance of the capitol is unconvincing. That the men who wrote the American
constitution were drawing upon the Roman republic is well known; that America
is following the course of the Roman Empire is not so easily proved. It may
well be obvious five hundred years from now, but to draw a parallel of
continuation instead of being content with similar themes is more like prophecy
than history.
The conclusion
that the United States bears resemblance to the Roman Empire, if not actually
being a latter-day Empire itself, is not so hard to imagine. The small
beginnings, fierce loyalty and patriotism, fighting to protect the country (or
city), and determination to preserve freedom are commonalities of both early
America and early Rome. The move to a greater dependence on government handouts
(grain in Rome, welfare checks in the United States), more power handed to the
government, inflated bureaucracy, and meddling abroad came with time to both
civilizations. Like the Romans to the Greeks, Americans still have a proud
sense of being the best country in the world while feeling the cultural
inferiority of having very little history and wishing they had British accents.
Had Murphy made
the argument that there were many similarities in American and Roman culture
(which he seemed to do for a large portion of the book), that would not have
been so much of an issue. The societies have enough in common that it is
relatively easy to finish the comparison and say that there is a strong
resemblance between cultures. However the claim central to Murphy’s book is
that we as Americans are the modern-day Rome. A culture with many similarities
to the early Roman Empire we may well be, but to say that these similarities
exist and therefore Roman culture did not end but lives on in the American
Empire is quite different. Murphy’s central question (unsurprisingly) ‘are we
Rome?’ is answered by him in the positive, which conclusion makes sense in the
light of the research done by Heather and Brown. American society, as shown
above, does indeed show common traits with Roman society. The idea of ‘are we
still Rome’, or perhaps ‘is Rome us’ is more problematic. In this, Murphy does
not have support from either Heather or Brown, who both argue that Roman
civilization and society did end, even if they have different ideas about how
this occurred.
Ultimately,
Heather argues for a decisive fall of the (Western) Roman Empire at the defeat
of the legions and cessation of the office of Western Roman Emperor. Brown sees
the change as softer and more natural, a morphing of the pagan cultures and
Christian culture into a new Greco-Christian culture that flourished in Late
Antiquity and developed throughout the Middle Ages. Murphy clings to American
culture as a remnant of Roman culture to show that Rome did not fall. It would
be most enjoyable to put them all in a coffee shop together and watch Heather
pull out his sword, Brown his Bible, and Murphy his toga and iPod.
No comments:
Post a Comment