I’m a huge fan of Ammianus, so he has certainly rubbed off on me. I’ve also spent some time translating a few of Julian’s works. They are definitely offbeat and certainly Late Antique, but are more than pseudo-intellectual.
I don’t love Theodosius, either. He just looms very large because we happen to have some good sources for the end of the 4th century, and their authors either love him or loathe him.
Gibbon is definitely a fun read. He is a marvelous stylist and his wit is incisive. The problem with using Gibbon for Roman history is that we simply know so much more now than he did. He had no archaeology, no prosopography, no documentary sources, and largely terrible manuscripts for the historiographical sources he did use. Decline is an amazing achievement given how little real material was available when he wrote it. What he knew he knew well, but his interpretations are not so reliable anymore.
If I am ever elected POTUS, I pledge to model my administration on the reigns of Caligula, Nero and Elagabalus – allowing, of course, for the great advancements of civilization, then to now, in the development of psychoactive substances.
Why would you say that the pagans had already lost?
I view this war and the final battle (was it the Frigidus?) as one example of a truly decisive battle. If Arbogast had won, things would have been very, very different.
This is the war in which one religion established itself as the only legal religion and all other religions as illegal, ‘pagans’ not being just one religion.
But what I hate Theodosius even more for is that, in his religious fervor he actually relied on God to defeat the Goths. To the extent of keeping the army inside its barracks while he lay prostrate before the altar, praying for God to intervene.
As direct consequence Italy was devestated and Rome sacked(!!!).
While indeed no one is an actual hollywood style villain, I do hold Theodosius responsible (to a large extent) for the demise of the western half of the empire.
What? That didn’t happen. First of all, the Visigoths didn’t sack Rome until 410, and Rome wasn’t sacked in the Gothic War, and most of the war didn’t take place in Italy, it took place in Illyria. But, I’m not familiar with Theodosius relying on God to defeat the Goths.
As far as I know, what happened was, after Valens was killed at Adrianople, Gratian put Theodosius in charge of the Eastern army. Theodosius then ran around for a while unsuccessfully trying to raise troops, after the number of recruitable men had taken a nosedive after the defeat at Adrianople. So, Theodosius recruited a lot of foederati troops, who he didn’t trust, who he then shipped down to Egypt to replace the garrison troops he pulled from there. He then got in a bunch of battles with the Goths, suffering some early defeats, in large part due to the foederati troops defecting, but then he and Gratian were able to push the Goths into Thrace, where he signed a treaty with them, letting them settle in Thrace.
IE, morale had been ruined after the defeat at Adrianople, so, instead of directly fighting the Goths, Theodosius planned a war of attrition, arranging for his troops to ambush and skirmish with them so as to win small battles and increase his troops’ morale, and kept on doing it until the Goths fell out among themselves.
The rulers of the late Roman Empire were not stupid. They knew that trying to defend far-flung provinces was impossible. But why did they abandon Brittania? The island was easily defensible, and it had a thoroughly romanized population. It should have been easy work to fend off the saxons, Picts, etc.
My real question: at its peak, the Imperial Army was a well trained, well equipped fighting force. It posessed weapons that made it a formidable army. Did the army fall apartr because Rome no longer had the industrial capacity to equip large armies? Or was it mainly because it attempted to integrate too many disparate peoples into the army? Looking at the imperial soldiers of the 2nd century, versus the 4th, one notices the sloppy appearence of the soldiers of the 4th century-less armor was worn, and the helmets look second-rate.
I suspect that the absence of bonuses (from conquests) made a military career less attarctive to young men, and so the armies of the 4th century had to make do with inferior and less-motivated recruits.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Alan Cameron has a recent book on the subject. Read the preview here. Interestingly, he opens the introduction with the same Gibbon quote that T2BC deploys above. On page 4:
This is more or less the view of Bloch and Alfoeldi. It’s undergone substantial revision at least since Peter Brown in the 70s. We know a lot more now about religious and spiritual life in the 4th century, and it has substantially changed interpretations about the survival and vigor of late imperial paganism.
This is very offbeat. If you are going to blame any individual for the fall of the West, I think that’s got to be Aetius for losing Carthage in 439. Chris Wickham argues pretty convincingly that this was the tax spine and chief food source of Rome. The west was holding on reasonably well despite the sack until Carthage fell. Then, deprived of food and revenue, it was all over. If Aetius had moved his ass and dealt with Gaiseric properly, things indeed might have gone quite differently.
Yup. One reason the Battle of Cape Bon has sometimes been held up as the final death knell of the WRE. Had it suceeded Anthemius may have had the resources to stabilize his rule. Then again it may have been too late. But as final blow-outs go, it was a big one.
Not certain Elagabalus should be put in the same category as Nero or Caligula. That said, if you do plan on modeling yourself after him, you know what to do with your balls, dont you?
Same category of extravagance, same category of decadence. Different category of crazy. Maybe I’ll try El’s way if I last long enough in office to get bored . . .
You might be thinking about Theodosius’s son, the Emperor Honorius, who was a big fan of cockfighting. The story goes that after the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410, Honorius was told that Rome had been destroyed, and went into a panic, only calming down when he learned that the messenger was referring to the city, and not to his prize rooster, who was also named Roma. Honorius also killed Stilichio, probably the only one who could have saved Rome, but that’s neither here nor there.
