So I just finished reading The Fall of the Rome Empire by Michael Grant, find it here: https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Roman-Empire-Michael-Grant/dp/0684829568

Great book and some really solid historical research. There are a couple of overarching ideas that I think go unchallenged when people talk on this topic and this book does a great job diving into those details and making those corrections. 

The east did not fall 

This is the biggest issue with this topic and I think one that gets overlooked in pop history. While we call the east roman empire the Byzantines, they did not. They called themselves Roman. And… yea, they really were roman. They had roman law, followed roman traditions, and provided support (often, not always) to the western empire. The Eastern Roman held on until the 15th century, although decline slowly started in the 11th century. Still, that is a much longer time than the 5th century fall of the west. 

Why does this matter? Because there are many, many narratives about why the western roman empire fell but many of those stories would also equally describe the east. So why didn’t the east fall? This is the problem with a lot of pop history on the subject and it can be a great slice of applied social science. Whenever someone says “the roman empire fell because of X, so we should stop doing that too” go and see if the eastern roman empire was doing it as well. If they were, then that didn’t cause the fall. One of the important ideas in science is to have falsifiable theories, i.e., theories that can be disproven. History has given us a great A/B test for those ideas. 

The west did not fall… it was conquered

This is another key idea. Normally when people talk about the fall of the roman empire they begin to look for internal problems or cultural issues… but Rome was conquered by an external party. Repeatedly. Maybe Rome was good but the Germanic tribes were just better? I think we still carry a bit of this anti-barbarian bias in our analysis but the fact of the matter is the various Germanic tribes built large, complex, and very capable military forces. That is not just “bravery” and strength from “hard living” or other nonsense ideas assigned to “barbarians” but that the Germanic tribes in particular had well practiced strategic adaptation by chieftains, reliable social structures, and a sizable iron industry. 

The highly localized structure of the Germanic Tribes made low level chieftains well practiced diplomats as they could not just ask a higher power but had to build coalitions at the local level. Adapting a specific tribe to a military niche or a flexible alliance were common. While Romans had their famous standardized legions, Germanic tribes often called up much larger forces with more mixed units. Within those masses would be smaller, more professional forces of specific types to counter specific military problems. 

As small independent tribes, these groups may side with one roman faction or another at different times. This well practiced political flexibility of leadership and variability of unit types often placed them as king makers at key points in time. They then leveraged that power into more land, more resources, and placed themselves into yet another, more powerful, king maker position. This was supported by a local iron industry that was both widespread and far larger than expected. For decades now archaeologists keep finding more and larger ancient iron forges from this era. This means Rome’s normal technological advantage was not there. 

The hard truth is… the Romans got out played while maintaining a high quality force. Even if many of Rome’s internal issues were addressed and more unity was in place, those Germanic tribes would still be at the gate, well armed, and in larger numbers. Any weakness in the passing of the crown, which was common in Rome, was aggressively exploited by the less formal Germanic chieftains who played those games with each other at all times. 

When they weren’t engaged in king making, they were ambushing Roman forces and making Rome fight not as their larger, complex but capable military, but as small units against smaller units where artillery or logistical advantage were not really a factor. As an ally, they were uniquely capable of eroding Rome from the inside. As an enemy, they were uniquely capable of eroding Rome from the outside. And because there were so many factions within the Germanic tribes, Rome was never fully sure which they were dealing with. This caused distrust, which undid Rome’s great power: their ability to integrate new peoples. The disunified Germanic tribes did not transition to Roman. 

A shift in cities 

It is also important to note the shifts that had already happened within the Roman Empire. Rome had already moved from being the king of cities to a 2nd or 3rd tier city below places like Constantinople, Alexandria, Corinth, and yes, even Carthage. These had grown to be larger and more important cities within the empire and seen as the choice governor appointments over places like Hispania or Gaul. 

Did Rome fall… or did Rome just move elsewhere? Both are true, but I think the latter makes more sense and is a far more honest reflection of the changes that had already happened. Much like the loss of Normandy did not end the English crown, being Roman no longer required Rome itself. And while no one was happy with Rome getting (partially) sacked, it was better that it happened to Rome than some of the other cities in the Empire. 

So let’s talk about that “(partially) sacked” part. The city and nearby estates were sacked, the Germanic tribes are partially-kind-of-mostly christian at this point. They did not sack the Vatican. There were sacred lines they did not cross. That line used to be the Rubicon, now it was the faith. While there was a shift between cities, there was also a shift away from government into faith. The church was becoming more important than the state, and while the state fell the church did not. At the time, this was generally seen as a good trade. Better to lose a 3rd rate but historic city and the riches within than lose the faith that binds us all together. 

Why we talk about imperial overstretch wrong today 

So this is the one that took me by surprise. Most references to imperial overstretch completely misunderstand that argument. Today, the argument is generally used by the left to point out the problems with having too large a military and getting yourself drawn into too many global conflicts.

But that is not actually the argument. The argument is that having a too large military causes a high tax burden and the high tax burden angers the people at all levels of society. Society then rewrites itself to push off the tax burden on to the other parts of society. This creates disunity by completely drowning one part of society in taxes, completely destroying it in the process so the burden falls on the next part, destroying it, and so on and so forth. At its core, this is not a liberal anti-military argument, it is a conservative anti-tax argument. 

The failure of local government 

And that tax burden was a real issue. Specifically in the roman case there was a class of people called curiales which acted as the local city council. They oversaw local laws, were responsible for local taxes, and governed the area as an inherited title. Early in the empire this was a good position to hold but as time went on it became the worst of both worlds. These local city councils were personally liable for taxes not collected. For most of the empire’s history, they always collected “extra tax” which they kept and were able to do so without angering too many people.. mostly. Now, they struggled to collect enough taxes. This forced the local government to be more and more heavy handed with the lower classes to raise taxes, it meant the higher nobility senators quickly wrote laws removing themselves from these titles, and there are many cases of lesser noble families bankrupting themselves due to having to pay the taxes from their own coffers year after year. 

As time went on, the emperor had to create new laws limiting the travel of Curiales, punishment for those who aided Curiales from flee from their inherited noble rank, and in 365 AD, Emperor Valen wrote an edict forbidding judges and city councils from granting the title of Curiales as punishments for criminal acts. Just imagine a government position so screwed up, that instead of running for the office to get the job, you got the job because you got in a bar fight and committed assault, and then the emperor steps in and says “no, that is too cruel a punishment for assault, just send him to the gladiatorial pits instead. That will only end his life, not that of all of his descendants”. 

How do you trust that Curiales to survey your land? To record your trades or legal proceedings? To entrust them with your children when they reach age for military training? During a trial? The roman countryside was built around these offices and they had completely fallen apart as a means of government. This is what bound the bulk of the countryside and estate to the city network that was the Roman Empire. 

Dropping out of society 

The Curiales were not the only people dropping out of the empire. Civic duty had collapsed, but like the Curiales each of those collapses was very specific and hard to find a good alternative for. The empire used to attract new soldiers with promises of land… but they ran out of land. Getting local titles seemed like a double edge sword so that could not be leveraged either. The edges of the empire were now either ocean, desert, or Germanic tribes so filling in gaps by recruiting outside the empire did not work any more. 

Social developments were also making this harder. Christian monks and scholarly orders had started to pop up. Many of these ran for the hills to get away from the sin of roman cities, thus removing many of the most educated people of the time from society. Small factions developed all along Christianity… but not in a splintering way. Each was independent, disconnected, and kept to themselves. They were friendly to each other, letters were exchanged and often monks would visit each other, but as a whole they left everyone else alone and were left alone. They did not challenge the authority of the Pope in Rome so the church did not really push back against them, even if they were a bit outside doctrine. 

The big take-away 

The final result of this book was great. A lot of the little fissures in roman society became even more clear while at the same time it never looked past the fundamental historical truths that it was taken down by a capable outside opponent and the east did not fall due to similar internal issues. It showed that at the end of the day, the western roman empire kind of just didn’t have much to offer its citizens anymore, or maybe what it had to offer was more toxic than beneficial. The things that bound the empire together stopped working and where simply never replaced, fixed, or improved upon. Maybe there are paths that could have saved them… but those are few and hard to see.