# Fall of the Roman Empire **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 6, 2011, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333 "2011-09-06T00:14:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/21 "2011-09-06T15:15:11Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > As to why Theodoric invaded Rome, it was largely because Zeno told him to, having become sick of Odoacer’s support for rebellion against him. I have never understood why this concept gets such short shrift. Theodoric knew Zeno well; he knew the Byzantine court and politics like an insider, having been raised there as a royal hostage. It’s also important not to anachronize the modern tendency to see a government (king, republic, etc.) as the governing body for a land area. In the period under question, both a German _Reich_ and a Roman _imperium_ were rule over people. Clovis was not King of France but King of the Franks. Odoacer had thrown out the last puppet Western Emperors, and was a severe pain in Zeno’s side. Theodoric’s Ostrogoths could have also been a problem for him, but there was a logical solution. The Ostrogoths went into Italy not as barbarian invaders, but as _foederati_ of the Empire – the Eastern Empire as we’d see it now, but remember that to the imperial citizenry there was only one Empire, which might have muiltiple Emperors for convenience in governing, but with a single imperium uniting them. Though Realpolitik and the vicissitudes of fate tended in practice to undermine it (as Boethius and Cassiodorus found to their dismay), the principle, the theory on which Zeno and Theodoric worked was that there was only one Emperor, Zeno, whose rule in the West was through his viceroy Theodoric, the King of the Ostr4ogoths, who dispensed justice to Ostrogoths according to Gothic customary law and to Romans according to Roman civil law. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/22 "2011-09-06T16:56:44Z")
[QUOTE=Simplico] But Rome didn’t fall in 100 AD (or 200 AD or 300 AD or even 400 AD).Certainly having to fight Persia was a drain on their resources and manpower, but it was something they’d managed to do for hundreds of years before the sack of Rome. [/QUOTE] The Sassaniads. In about the mid thrid century AD a new dynasty came into power in Persia, one which desired to restore the Empire to the days of Xerxes and Darius. The Romans had earlier been on the offensive in the East now they were despertaly trying to hold on the the Euphrates and Roman Arabia (Jordan and NW S Arabia) in order to protect Syria, Anatolia and ultimaty Egypt all of which were their richest provinces. There were several disaters, a whole Roman Army was captured along with the Emperor and while Antioch was sacked and 250,000 people sold into slavery. The demands on the East were much much greater then at any time before earlier. If there were troops available, first priority was the Euphrates Frontier and the Limes Arabicus not the Rhine and Hadrians Wall. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/23 "2011-09-06T17:21:39Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > Good point, again emphasising that although we Westerners obsess about the Western empire, it really wasn’t the focus of the Empire. A cultural bias we inherited from the Romans. To them, for a very long time, the city of Rome was not simply the capital of the Roman Republic/Empire, it **was** the Republic/Empire; all outside was merely Roman territory. (This was literally true for religious purposes – Rome ended at the [_Pomerium._](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomerium)) City politics and imperial politics were one. It’s been noted that you can read Suetonius without being reminded more than intermittently that Rome has an empire outside the city. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/24 "2011-09-06T17:29:52Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > A cultural bias we inherited from the Romans. To them, for a very long time, the city of Rome was not simply the capital of the Roman Republic/Empire, it **was** the Republic/Empire; all outside was merely Roman territory. (This was literally true for religious purposes – Rome ended at the [_Pomerium._](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomerium)) City politics and imperial politics were one. It’s been noted that you can read Suetonius without being reminded more than intermittently that Rome has an empire outside the city. Bollocks. It is a bias that’s self created. Rome was not central to the empire in the Seutonius (early empire) fashion in its last centuries, the capital got transferred to Constantinople, Rome got its wheat allocation reduced, etc. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/25 "2011-09-06T18:37:54Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > Bollocks. > > It is a bias that’s self created. Rome was not central to the empire in the Seutonius (early empire) fashion in its last centuries, the capital got transferred to Constantinople, Rome got its wheat allocation reduced, etc. :dubious: I know. When I said “for a very long time,” I did not mean “for the entire history of the Empire.” ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/26 "2011-09-06T18:46:11Z")
It was definitely Augustus’ plan that Roman Empire would permanently incorporate Germany (he saw that permanent expansion was not feasible, and put a lot of effort in to trying to establish permanent defensible borders). As other posters have pointed out the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest put paid to that plan, and from that point on the Rhine was the de-facto border of the Roman Empire Germany. However there is no evidence the Western Empire would have lasted longer if things had worked out differently. Its perfectly possible that all that would have happened is the blood and treasure that would have been necessary to keep “Magna Germania” in the Roman fold would have just hastened the end. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/27 "2011-09-06T21:37:45Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > It was definitely Augustus’ plan that Roman Empire would permanently incorporate Germany (he saw that permanent expansion was not feasible, and put a lot of effort in to trying to establish permanent defensible borders). > > As other posters have pointed out the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest put paid to that plan, and from that point on the Rhine was the de-facto border of the Roman Empire Germany. > > However there is no evidence the Western Empire would have lasted longer if things had worked out differently. Its perfectly possible that all that would have happened is the blood and treasure that would have been necessary to keep “Magna Germania” in the Roman fold would have just hastened the end. Why? In Augustus time there was an even bigger disaster when an attempt to capture what us now Yemen failed with greater losses then in Germany. Hell there even was a garrison in Ethiopia. The conquest if either would have led to far greater riches then Germania. Why should the failure at Teutonberg Wald whose effects were swiftly avenged lead to the fall of the empire nearly four and a half centuries later. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/28 "2011-09-06T21:58:27Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > However there is no evidence the Western Empire would have lasted longer if things had worked out differently. Its perfectly possible that all that would have happened is the blood and treasure that would have been necessary to keep “Magna Germania” in the Roman fold would have just hastened the end. Most of the peoples the Romans conquered eventually stopped rebelling. Even the Jews, **very** eventually. It was not nationalist revolts that brought down the Empire. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/29 "2011-09-06T22:22:33Z")
The problem is that if you start conquering those northern barbarians, where do you stop? You march a Legion into Germany and conquer the closest tribes and then you find there are more tribes just to the east of them. You conquer those tribes and there’s another bunch of tribes past them. And another bunch past them. Do you keep marching until you reach the Urals? And what do you have to show for it - a bunch of trees? Augustus Caesar decided to leave it alone. He said that the Rhine River was a strong defensible frontier and that’s where we’re stopping. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/30 "2011-09-06T23:12:29Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > But in re the assimilation issue raised by BG, I’d say the Romans DID assimilate that last wave. The Franks were speaking a Latin dialect fairly rapidly, in fact all the Germanic invaders of the solidly Latin speaking regions ended up speaking Latin dialects.. In fact, they did not for a very long time. Charlemagne was still speaking a Germanic dialect three centuries later. Latin (or its descedants) however, _eventually_ prevailed for many reasons. It was the language of the overwhelming majority of the population, it was the prestigious language of the not forgotten Roman Empire, it was the only written language, it was the language of the Catholic Church. On the other hand, regarding your first sentence, “assimilation” was well underway _before_ the fall of the western empire. The Germanic leaders were very familiar with the Empire and its customs, were perfectly able to make use of its administrative system, held Roman titles and ranks, frequently belonged to “federed” people (that is, defending the borders of the empire in exchange of the right to settle there as opposed to being invaders), might be commanders of the Roman armies themselves, that by this time included many Germans, etc… So, by the time the fall of Rome was approaching, there wasn’t any more a clear distinction between “barbaric German invaders” and “civilized elements of the Roman Empire” (though distinctions like “this guy is a roman and this other one is a German” would last for a while, if only for legal purposes). ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/31 "2011-09-06T23:49:47Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Most of the peoples the Romans conquered eventually stopped rebelling. Even the Jews, **very** eventually. It was not nationalist revolts that brought down the Empire. Many of the provinces of the edge of the empire (such as Dacia and Mesopotamia) were generally a drain on the Imperial resources throughout their period of Roman rule. I’m sure a hypothetical “Magna Germania” would have been more like these than more tranquil and easily defended provinces. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/32 "2011-09-06T23:50:40Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > In fact, they did not for a very long time. Charlemagne was still speaking a Germanic dialect three centuries later. Maybe, but if you look at the Oaths of Strasbourg, Louis the German and Charles the Bald are using both Old French and old German to each other. Louis’s oath to Charles: > [@](#): > > Pro Deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro comun salvament, d’ist di in avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo, et in adjudha et in cadhuna cosa si cum om per dreit son fradra salvar dift, in o quid il mi altresi fazet; et ab Ludher nul plaid nunquam prindrai qui meon vol cist meon fradre Karlo in damno sit And Charles’s oath back: > [@](#): > > “In godes minna ind in thes christiânes folches ind unsêr bêdhero gehaltnissî, fon thesemo dage frammordes, sô fram sô mir got gewizci indi mahd furgibit, sô haldih thesan mînan bruodher, sôso man mit rehtu sînan bruodher scal, in thiu thaz er mig sô sama duo, indi mit Ludheren in nohheiniu thing ne gegango, the mînan willon imo ce scadhen werdhên.” ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/33 "2011-09-06T23:55:01Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The problem is that if you start conquering those northern barbarians, where do you stop? You march a Legion into Germany and conquer the closest tribes and then you find there are more tribes just to the east of them. You conquer those tribes and there’s another bunch of tribes past them. And another bunch past them. Do you keep marching until you reach the Urals? And what do you have to show for it - a bunch of trees? > > Augustus Caesar decided to leave it alone. He said that the Rhine River was a strong defensible frontier and that’s where we’re stopping. Prior to Teutoburg Augustus had planned the Elbe to be the frontier, believing this to be more defendable. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/34 "2011-09-07T00:00:12Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Why? In Augustus time there was an even bigger disaster when an attempt to capture what us now Yemen failed with greater losses then in Germany. Hell there even was a garrison in Ethiopia. The conquest if either would have led to far greater riches then Germania. Why should the failure at Teutonberg Wald whose effects were swiftly avenged lead to the fall of the empire nearly four and a half centuries later. I don’t think the defeat of Aelius Gallus was any where near as bad as the defeat at Teutonburg. He was able to return with many of his 10,000 men (with many of the casualties coming because the the elements rather than enemy action), compared to complete the loss of 20,000 men, and all their associated forts and garrisons (and their officers, regimental eagles, etc.), this was a small set back. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/35 "2011-09-07T00:06:17Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Maybe, but if you look at the Oaths of Strasbourg, Louis the German and Charles the Bald are using both Old French and old German to each other.: Yes, and that’s a benchmark event regarding both the French language and French kingdom. But that happened long after the fall of the Roman Empire. The statement I was responding to was : > [@](#): > > The Franks were speaking a Latin dialect **fairly rapidly** (bolding mine) and I wouldn’t call a process that took almost 400 years (476- around 840) “fairly rapid”. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/36 "2011-09-07T01:40:52Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Prior to Teutoburg Augustus had planned the Elbe to be the frontier, believing this to be more defendable. But he didn’t keep going back. If you go to the Elbe, the Oder is next. If you go to the Oder, the Vistula is next. If you go to the Vistula, the Neman is next. If you go to the Neman, the Dnieper is next. Too many conquerors keep going until they eventually go too far. Augustus was smart enough to realize he should set himself a limit. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/37 "2011-09-07T02:15:59Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But he didn’t keep going back. > > If you go to the Elbe, the Oder is next. If you go to the Oder, the Vistula is next. If you go to the Vistula, the Neman is next. If you go to the Neman, the Dnieper is next. > > Too many conquerors keep going until they eventually go too far. Augustus was smart enough to realize he should set himself a limit. He was indeed. But that limit in Germany was meant to the Elbe, not the Rhine. The Teutoburg Forest changed that. The question is how much that ultimately changed the history of the later Western Roman Empire. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/38 "2011-09-07T11:41:21Z")
I don’t know much, but instead of Rome’s “Fall” I think of it more as a “Fade”. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/39 "2011-09-07T20:14:08Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > and I wouldn’t call a process that took almost 400 years (476- around 840) “fairly rapid”. Maybe not for you. It was remarkably rapid for in cultural affairs. In less time than it took for us to go from Skhakespeare to texting, the various peoples of France had msotly united in one (rather beautiful) language. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333/40 "2011-09-08T10:26:14Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > There is good reason to believe that the barbarians did not so much cause as reveal the collapse of the Western empire. The OP’s question is somewhat like asking “how did such a small Moorish army manage to conquer Hispania?” They didn’t so much conquer as merely move in, same as the “invading barbarian hordes” had done over a larger area a couple of centuries before: any central power was too busy running after its own tail to actually organize anything. And in the case of the “invading barbarian hordes” and as has already been mentioned, often they were invited/hired in as mercenaries. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fall-of-the-roman-empire/595333.md?page=3)