Why Rome Fell?

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CJH RE:Why Rome Fell? Huns, Goths and Battle of Adrianoble. 4/24/2005 4:50:20 PM

But the battle of Adrianople was fought against the army of the eastern empire in the southeastern part what is today Bulgaria. It was the eastern empire emperor who had admitted the Goths and it was the exploitive practices of the residents of that area that turned the Goths against them. I don't believe the West Roman Empire was involved in the battle at all.

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CJH RE:Why Rome Fell? 4/24/2005 5:20:57 PM

Constantine, I reread my post and I do not see any reference to anything "genetic" in it anywhere. Could you please explain "the issue of genetic stock" for me because I don't see how you came up with it? The social progress of freed slaves in the society of the city of Rome seems fairly well documented in history. The change in character of the people of the city of Rome over the course of the centuries is fairly well observable. And Michael Grant did explain that these former slaves were from the province of Asia. There is not much to dispute about these changes in Rome's people. You can bring up environmental factors such as invasions and plagues. But sustained, significant environmental change does not occur, just the degree that invasions or plagues are documented. In Rome's early years, outbreaks of disease occurred every spring with the coming of warm weather. There was a great plague as well as a famine during the reign of Marcus Aurealius when the empire was at its height. Its not the problems which define a great people. It's how those people deal with the problems that sets them apart. In the late 2nd century BC Rome lost in succession 5 consular armies, that's about 100,000 men, wiped out by invading Germans. That didn't stop the Romans from eventually wiping out the invaders. At the battle of Cannae, the Romans lost 70,000 dead. That didn't stop them from eventually beating Hannible. Polybius said that the Romans were the most dangerous when they were the most threatened and that bears out. My point is that Rome fell due to internal decay of all kinds and definitely not from outside factors.

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Pars RE:Why Rome Fell? Huns, Goths and Battle of Adrianoble. 4/24/2005 7:48:59 PM

Adrianoble is in fact in Turkey but very close to Bulgaria. The West and East Roman Empires were very closely allied at the time and for outsiders they were the same Empire. After their defeat against Visigoths, Eastern Roman Empire admitted defeat and gave Visigoths foederati lands in the Balkans. A foederati was technically a vassal of the Empire in really was not. That was the first time great Roman Empire had admitted defeat against a small tribe. Next year a Germanic tribal confederation tried its like against the Empire and next year another coalition. Until 1 day a confederation commanded by Alaric crossed the Rhine and entered West Roman Empire. They defeated the Roman Army and Western Empire also selected the easy solution of East Empire and gave them a foderatii. Of course this only encorage the rest. The cycle that leads to end has began.

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CJH RE:Why Rome Fell? Huns, Goths and Battle of Adrianoble. 4/24/2005 9:23:21 PM

I was wrong. Adrianople is on the European Turkey side of the Turkish-Bulgarian border. I have always seen the lasting significance of the battle as ending the primacy of infantry and ushering in a thousand years of dominance of cavalry. This dominance lasted until the era of the Swiss or Italian pikemen (Or was it the English longbow?) made cavalry an auxiliary force again.

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Caesar Maximus RE:Why Rome Fell? Huns, Goths and Battle of Adrianoble. 6/22/2005 11:25:00 PM

Gratian lost this battle because he was severely outnumbered, and refused to wait for his nephew's army from the West. As a far as ai know the cavalry battle between OStrogoths and Romans was quite evenly matched, but Visigoth infantry overwhelmed the Roman centre.

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Pars RE:Why Rome Fell? Huns, Goths and Battle of Adrianoble. 6/25/2005 7:46:22 PM

As Gratian himself iniated the battle, he should not be severely outnumbered. In fact if the Visigoths have outnumbered Romans they would not defend behind the Wagon Lager. It is the unexpected arrival of Goth cavalry that turned the battle.

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Caesar Maximus RE:Why Rome Fell? Huns, Goths and Battle of Adrianoble. 6/26/2005 7:40:28 PM

Some texts i've read say he was considerably outnumbered (by about 40,000). Of ocurse sources for details on this battle are somewhat thin, so no-one knows for sure. The Goths may have retreated simply because the army b4 them was still large, and it was Roman. Remember the Goths didn't initially want to fight the Romans, and Valens' subordinates had defeated the Goths in battles the previous year. Yes the return of the Gothic cavalry was important, but they had already returned by the time the battle commenced.

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Thomas RE:Why Rome Fell? 11/1/2005 9:31:46 AM

Generally: The Roman Empire was under pressure from 2 direction in more or less 400 years: The Goths in Europe and the parthians in the east. This - if nothing else - served to strain the concept of unity of command. In that period the enemies of Rome learned steadily from Rome - especially organisation. Another factor - very often overlooked - was that the benefits to the members of the empire gradually fell. The internal trade actually fell, as every city/hamlet aquired the skills, so trade was superfleous. The economy also suffered from the very lack of technological development, and benefits of scale of production. If you needed to double the production of pottery, you had to build two potteries, which due to the increased societal organisation is actually a drawback of economy of scale.

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Thomas RE:Why Rome Fell? 11/1/2005 9:56:30 AM

Actually did the Roman Empire fall???? The Imperial administration continued in the Catholic church. I admit they have a goth emperor at present, but fall....

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longrifle RE:Why Rome Fell? 11/21/2005 12:19:21 AM

Well, although I really suspect it was because they started putting sugar in grits and cornbread, I'll take a stab at a non-southern answer. The Biblical answer, found in the book of Daniel, is because the God of heaven and earth establishes and destroys kingdoms according to his soverign will and purpose. And it is not always granted man to know the purposes of God. Don't like that answer either? Well although I really believe that's ultimately the bottom line, I aknowledge that God works through things like empires overextending themselves, greed, complacency, easyliving, decadence, and invaders, just to name a few. In short, from a humanistic viewpoint, a lot of things contribute to an empire falling, be it Roman, Mongol or any other. I suspect that many things working together contributed to the decline of Rome, some more than others, but that no single defining cause ended the Roman Empire. Of course, by now you know who I believe controls those many things working together.

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