About book The Fall Of The Roman Empire: A New History Of Rome And The Barbarians (2007)
Admittedly, I have very little knowledge about the Roman Empire. This has not stopped me from creating a construct in my mind about how Rome fell. The image I’ve created is actually very simple, subtle, and elegant. First, picture a room the Coliseum. Now imagine the Coliseum filled with men, women, and goats. Everyone is naked, including the goats. Men are having sex with women. Men are having sex with men. Women are having sex with women. The goats are having sex with everyone. There is an elephant in the corner, watching. Besides the sex, there is food. Long tables groaning with suckling pigs, racks of lamb, and skewered chicken. And the booze! There are flagons of wine and barrels of beer, and it flows like the Tiber. Also, the Coliseum is on fire. There you have it. The fall of Rome as it plays out in my head. Just imagine every porn movie ever made, combined with the binge drinking of The Real World, the overeating of Man vs. Food, and the fires from Backdraft. I came up with this construct because at one time or another, I read somewhere that Rome fell due to its moral decay. And to me, nothing symbolizes moral decay better than a bunch of people having sex with goats, eating turkey legs, and getting drunk while on fire. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the story told in Peter Heather’s The Fall of the Roman Empire is quite a bit different than the scenario I just described. More importantly, Heather has a different take than that of Edward Gibbon, the author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. According to Gibbon (so I’m told), Rome collapsed because of civic decay, a loss of manliness, the outsourcing of soldiery, and the effects of Christianity. Heather, on the other hand, blames the barbarians. The bulk of Heather’s story (excluding an introductory chapter) starts in the 300s and ends in the 400s. Thus, if you know most of your Roman history from watching movies – like me – you can place The Fall of the Roman Empire sometime after the period covered by Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus and before William Wyler’s Roman Holiday.According to Heather, the fall of Rome was precipitated by waves of migration, brought about by invasion, and not by invasion alone. It began in the north, with the rise of the Huns. The Huns forced other barbarian groups, including the Goths, to flee into Roman territory. Unable to keep the Goths out, Rome reached a tenuous détente with these groups, allowing them to seek refuge within their borders. This worked out fine, until various barbarian coalitions decided to become, you know, barbaric. The lesson: never trust anyone calling him or herself a barbarian.In 378, a Gothic army defeated the Romans at Hadrianople; in 410, they sacked Rome itself. Later, the Vandals vandalized Gaul and Spain and, more importantly, conquered the resource-rich territory of North Africa. As Heather explains, these were not simply military crises; rather, they precipitated political and economic catastrophe that spread to the Empire at large: Every temporary, as well as permanent, loss of territory brought a decline in imperial revenues, the lifeblood of the state, and reduced the western Empire’s capacity to maintain its armed forces…As the Roman state lost power, and was perceived to be doing so, provincial Roman landowning elites, at different times in different places, faced an uncomfortable new reality. The sapping of the state’s vitality threatened everything that made them what they were. Defined by the land they stood on, even the dimmest, or most loyal, could not help but realize eventually that their interests would be best served by making an accommodation with the new dominant force in their locality.In the 440s, the Huns – which had heretofore had an indirect effect on the Empire – rampaged across Europe, and towards Rome itself, under the leadership of Attila. Though Attila’s Huns defeated several imperial armies, Heather downplays Attila’s achievements. Indeed, according to Heather, Rome was hurt worse by Attila’s death than by his conquering armies. Following Attila, the Hunnic Empire fragmented. Suddenly, Rome lacked a stable power with which they could barter, bargain, and sometimes rely on for military assistance. Instead, the Western Empire was forced to expend precious assets attempting to form coalitions with various immigrant groups. Despite great expenditures, Rome was never able to achieve stability. The final gasp of the Western Empire was the disastrous attempt of the Byzantine Armada to recapture Carthage from the Vandals. When this failed, “it doomed one half of the Roman world to extinction.” To be sure, though, this extinction did not occur amidst an orgy of goat sex, gluttony, and flames. On the contrary, it occurred more gradually, as a dawning realization, a new state of affairs. It is also important to note that Heather’s book covers the fall of the Western Empire; Rome itself has not crumbled by the final pages.When I evaluate history books, I look at two things: scholarliness and accessibility. Unfortunately, quite often, these two things do not go hand in hand. A great writer is not necessarily a great historian, and vice versa. Here, a good balance is struck. First, Heather is a renowned historian of the barbarians (I assume there are very few openings for this position). You see evidence of this not only in his amply annotated notes section, but in his analysis of the evidence he presents. It is readily apparent that he is not simply regurgitating the ideas of others. Instead, he presents his own theories and ideas, based on his own extensive research in the field. This wealth of knowledge and experience is especially important when dealing with ancient history, which requires a great deal of extrapolation to cover the gaps in the historical record. Second, Heather writes for the general reader, the common man, a person such as myself who knows only as much about Rome as a two-hour guided tour of the Coliseum and repeated viewings of Gladiator can offer. The book is arranged into three sections. In the first, Heather gives a helpful overview of the Roman Empire before things started going to hell. He devotes a chapter to the Romans, a chapter to the barbarians, and a chapter to the logistical difficulties of running a vast empire when information moved at the speed of a horse over uncertain roads. In the middle section, Heather recounts the wars on the frontier, the devastating loss of the North African breadbasket, and the rise of Attila. Finally, the last section covers the breakup of the Huns and its calamitous effect on the Romans. There are also several helpful addendums, including a dramatis personae (if you, like me, keep confusing Valentinian I and Valentinian III), a glossary, and perhaps most obliging of all, a timeline. In short, Heather does not treat Roman history as a Member’s Only Club, where reading all six volumes of Gibbon is a prerequisite to entry. This is not to say that he is a master prose stylist or that he has crafted a seamless narrative. In fact, I’m not sure that’s possible. The trouble with ancient history is that we have to extract a lot from a little. Entire stories must be spun from surviving fragments of some guy’s diary. Thus, any account of Rome must be constantly interrupted by disclaimers, by hemming and hawing, and by the admittance that, for certain events, no one really knows. I found it hard to really get into a rhythm when Heather kept pausing to examine a shard of pottery or a sword found in a swamp. Heather also has a tendency, which seemed to grow, towards lame humor. He makes the kind of sad, weak jokes that a hopelessly out-of-touch father might make to his teenage daughter’s friends. I suspect that many readers might find this annoying. Frankly, it didn't bother me all that much. There’s no need to be starchy in the presentation of this subject, because it’s starchy enough. We should take a lot of things seriously. The history of Rome is not one of these things. Moreover, the fall of Rome happened so long ago that it’s hard to believe it occurred on the same planet we now inhabit. We are left with ruins, only, to note its existence. The injection of humor, however pale it might seem, is a welcome bit of humanity, a reminder that we are all fellow travelers. As much as I love history, I will never be a student of Rome. It has never truly appealed to me, even after I visited Italy, walked the streets of the Eternal City, and consumed vast quantities of their cheapest wines. At this point, I suppose it will never be more than a passing fancy, something I pick up and put down like a fussy baby. I guess that makes me an honest dilettante. And that is the basis upon which I recommend this book.
Initially, I used this book as a sleep aide. Gradually, however the author's down to earth turn of phrase won me over. Although an academic tome by almost any standard, he brings life to this civilization that managed to survive as a nation state for half a millenium. Any question about Heather's depth of preparation is quickly put to rest when the citations compose more than 10% of the 570 pages.From high school, my impression was that decadence of the society led to its eventual downfall. This moralistic imperative, along with the Huns, made for a simplistic cautionary tale. After reading this historical treatment of the Roman era, the certitudes of a thumbnail overview are quickly revised. Equally suspect are any parallels between the crassness of most popular current entertainment with the cliche of "bread and circus" for the rabble.The Roman empire worked for five centuries because it had a recipe for success. Take one large army, with its basic structure of a small, well trained and iron disciplined basic squad. Conquer and subjugate any nation close, ever spreading influence and spanning geographic boundaries. Impress the locals into said army and extract enough of the pie, but not too much from whatever resources are in the region. Set up landowners with a share of the profits going to local officials. Decentralize by having regional administrators that know the lay of the land. Make these locals only advance by learning "grammar" (the language and secret handshake of those in power). REPEAT!In the fifth century, things finally began to unravel. The various "barbarian" groups began to acquire the technology of agriculture that the Romans used. Their people no longer had to be on the move to get fed. Larger alliances were formed. The slowness of communication worked to the advantage to those on the edge of the empire. As a separate issue, the Huns began to nibble at the resources and dilute the force of the army. Finally, an offshoot the the Germanic groups with a 30,000 army took the breadbasket of the empire, North Africa. Without the money to pay the troops, things began to get back to the local tough taking over his little fiefdom. The above are just a few of the forces at work in the latter stages of the Roman Empire. The inner politics of who ruled at any given time was like Survivor with murder allowed. Brother killing brother, only to be replaced by a returning war hero. The clean line of succession probably never lasted for very long. These people loved power, even if meant that a target was placed on your back as soon as you took over.When I worked in Germany, I always wondered at the small castles on the rivers and the big walled city of Trier. The latter was not an outpost, it was a little Rome. The former was what happened when the big dog left.In the end, this book is too diverse to summarize in any meaningful way. Take a look at it and tell me what you think!
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This is hands down one of the best written, most entertaining and easily digested books I have ever read regarding the fall of the Roman Empire. Mr. Heather gives a reader enough back story regarding Rome and its neighbors to understand the strategic situation before he then outlines his theory of just what happened to destroy the Western Roman Empire and how it was more a gradual process than we have been led to believe. His reasoning for each point is well-thought-out and explained with just enough statistical information to educate the reader but not so much as to overwhelm him. For anyone who has one iota of interest in the fall of the Roman Empire, this should be a must read. Whether you agree with the author's premise or not, you will find yourself amazed that history can be this readable.
—Bookwraiths
Roman generals, barbarians, and a compulsive historian to tell the taleRemember having to memorize all those dates when you were back in school? 1066, 1776, and all that? Right? So, what epochal events do you associate with the years 376, 405, 410, and 476? Give up? No, I’m not going to give you the answers. If you really want them, you can immerse yourself in the pages of Peter Heather’s The Fall of the Roman Empire. By the time you’re finished — assuming you have the stomach to get through the whole ordeal — you’ll know not only what significance those dates hold but also the names of godknowshowmany inconsequential Roman emperors, generals, and barbarian kings. Frankly, I can’t believe I read the whole thing.Here, dates and battles and names aside, is the message that British historian Peter Heather was attempting to get across:Gibbon got it all wrong. The Roman Empire didn’t fall because of its internal weaknesses.What actually happened, according to the latest findings by archaeologists and historians, is that the barbarians ganged up on the Romans. OK, it was a little more complicated than that. Around the middle of the 4th Century, the Huns — those nomadic horsemen from the Central Asian steppes — began pushing westward. They didn’t get as far as the Roman frontier, but their relentless drive pushed hordes of Germanic tribes (the original barbarians, from the Roman perspective) further west, and the Germani began crowding the borders that Rome had so carefully kept sparsely populated. In fact, about 100,000 of them actually managed to cross into Roman territory in the Balkans — and that started the ball rolling. They had permission from the Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople — you remember, of course, that the Empire was then divided in two? — but the hapless fellow later had occasion to regret the decision, because the Germani started raising all manner of hell very shortly. (For good reason, too. The Roman generals and provincial officials assigned to their settlement took them to the cleaners.)Later, when the Huns, eventually under the gifted leadership of Attila, moved all the way westward toward the Romans’ Rhine frontier in what is now Germany, the Germanic tribes living there decided the time was convenient to actually invade Roman territory, namely Gaul (now France), Spain, and later North Africa. Though Roman generals began hiring Huns as mercenaries to help them fight the other barbarians, and they actually had some success from time to time, it was a losing battle. Soon enough, Germanic armies managed to sack Rome, not once but twice within the space of a half-dozen years. For several more decades, the Romans tried to pretend nothing had happened while the territory under their control steadily shrank. After all, Rome had ruled the world (well, the Mediterranean, anyway) for nearly half a Millennium, so how could it possibly all end? Eventually, though, before the end of the 5th Century, all the last of the Western Emperors had left was Italy. Being able to read the writing on the wall, he turned out the lamps in Rome and retired to his summer villa.Why did all this happen? Peter Heather says it was the Romans’ own fault. Their unnecessarily harsh imperial policies drove the Germani to attack them. I would add that Rome had simply bitten off more than it could chew. The Empire had overreached.Now, why couldn’t he just have said that?
—Mal Warwick
A true paragon among history books. Lively and engaging, Peter Heather takes into account the whole picture of life in the Later Roman Empire to support all of his reasoning (much in contrast to Gibbons, say). He balances an extraordinary feel for the sweeping trends of history and the importance of the actions of particular leaders.Another one of the attractions that only sweetens the deal is the author's ability to engage in (restrained) counterfactuals. He has a great enough grasp of the material where he can point out how history might have turned out differently (such as with the Vandals' invasion of Africa), but he is never liable to stray from the available evidence.
—Jan
