Decline of the Western Roman Empire

With the Roman Empire split into two different halves, and at certain points on the Tetrarchy, even smaller pieces, the Western half will decline very rapidly. During the 400s, bands of foreign barbarians carved the Western Empire into independent kingdoms, and by 476, it was no more. Germanic tribes were putting pressure on Rome since the days of the Republic. What we know about the Germans comes from Roman sources, particularly Tacitus. There were multitudes of clans who fought Rome and each other, and they were generally referred to as the Goths or the Barbarians. These barbarian migrations, again, are going to increase over time. Much of this pressure during late antiquity and after was due to external pressure. The leading hypothesis, or at least the leading hypothesis for a very long time, was the idea that in Asia, there was a group known as the Huns, H-U-N-S, who were displaced by the Chinese. And so they will move west and attack the next group they find. And then that group will run and either move in or attack. And then the next group will, you know, so on and so forth, like a domino effect. And regardless of whether or not that was actually the case, because there is some dispute, the Romans won't let them in. That's why Augustus had set those firm borders and had wanted the army on the exterior because he saw the threat from the outside. And that's why he also limited expansion. But these barbarian groups organized themselves and they grew and eventually appointed kings of their tribes. Of particular note are the Visigoths. They were one of the groups that are considered to have been fleeing the Huns. Um, because of this and, and, you know, for a variety of reasons, the Eastern Romans allowed them to allow the Visigoths to settle in their lands in 376 CE, but they also mistreated them because of the belief of, they had a belief of superiority, that they were superior to these groups. Of course, they're going to treat them like trash. Um, so the Visigoths. after two years of this mistreatment, are going to revolt. And they're going to meet the Eastern Roman Army at the Battle of Adrianople in 378 CE. And when they win, and when they crush that Roman army, they have an open path to Constantinople. Go back to the map here. You see Adrianople right here. Well, there's... Pretty much an open door to get over here to Constantinople. Well, this was the first time the Roman army had been crushed in hundreds of years. And the east, of course, is going to be substantially weakened in terms of defense. So knowing that their capital was wide open, the eastern Romans decided to get rid of themselves, get rid of the Ostrogoths. I'm sorry, the Visigoths. The eastern emperor... will pay them off to leave. They'll pay them to leave the east and go rampage, go do whatever they wanted to do in the western half of the empire. And the Visigoths were like, you're paying us to leave and go rampage elsewhere? All right. And that's exactly what they'll do. You can go back to the map. You see the, um... No, they'll win in Adrianople. They will rampage a little more through the east, and eventually they'll make their way to Rome. And then after sacking Rome, and we'll get to that in a second, they'll rampage a little more and then eventually settle down in what we know as Spain and Portugal. So they wound here at Adrianople, and they campaign and pillage and do all this. And in 410 CE, they will sack the city of Rome. In fact, the leader of the Visigoths demanded that the city of Rome pay him his weight in gold. Rome refused, and so the Visigoths will sack the city, will attack and plunder and loot the city. And they took everything they could of value. This was the first foreign occupation of Rome in over 800 years. Rome had not been occupied by a foreign power since the Etruscans. And once they've taken their wealth, that's when they will rampage around the rest of Italy a little bit. And then they'll eventually make their way to Spain. But perhaps the... The... Of these barbarians, quote unquote. None were so feared, none were so fearsome as the Huns led by Attila the Hun. And he was the leader of what was called the Hunnic Empire. He was, you know, obviously his, you know, they're nomadic people. They lived on horseback. Not all, you know, not all the time, obviously, but the... Their warfare was horseback. They were a horse culture. And they're going to view what's happening in the Western Empire, the Visigoths stomping through other groups, like the Ostrogoths are going to come in, the Franks, the Vandals. Eventually, you see the Vandals went a long, long way around. And they'll look at the West and say, well... Or the empire as a whole. They're going to look at this and say, well, everything looks pretty ripe for the taking. And so Attila is going to lead his people in too. And he'll join in the action. He'll invade the eastern half three different times. But he was never able to take Constantinople. Though he did get the east to agree to a yearly tribute. Basically, they'll pay him a set amount of money each year to basically say, hey, you're great. Here's some money. Please leave us alone. Then he will turn his focus to the West. In particular, he's going to go after what was called Gaul. We'll go back to the wide map. Basically what we now call France. Then they called it Gaul. Last talked about Gaul, or only talked about Gaul, that was where... Julius Caesar's campaigns had been. So he will start marching through Gaul. The Western Romans were so afraid that they actually made an alliance with pretty much all of the Germanic tribes to try and defeat the Huns. and you can see here the cities that were threatened and sacked this all culminated in the battle of shalom so this is the western roman armies this is as you see the romans the visigoths and and their allies versus the huns and their allies the outcome of the battle of shalom in 451 ce is unknown we have no no idea who won the battle. What we do know is that shortly thereafter, Attila will retreat out of Gaul. Now look, you can win a battle and then leave the area. So he may have won and then, whether it was illness or something else may have caused him to retreat. Or he very well could have lost. We don't know. There are no records of what happened here. So he retreats. Now, that doesn't mean he's done, because in 452, he'll invade northern Italy. He actually made it to Rome. But once again, he'll retreat for unknown reasons, and he'll die early in 453 again under unknown circumstances. So it may seem like I or we don't know a lot about Attila the Hun, and we don't. He was a huge, important, significant figure here. Very little is actually known about him and his—we know the general movements, but they weren't necessarily keeping a strict chronicle of it, and the Romans were under such chaos that they didn't necessarily keep a good record of it. And if they did, it has since been destroyed. So— Probably the biggest threat that they had faced to this point was Attila, and for whatever reason, for unknown reasons, he retreated and left. So this is 453. The official end of the Western Roman Empire came in, or what we consider to be the official end, came in 476, when the Ostrogoths will invade. They not only will... sack the city of Rome, that's becoming pretty commonplace, they will depose the emperor and the leader of the Ostrogoths will become the new Roman emperor. So technically the Roman empire doesn't go away, but the leaders of the Roman empire will now be one of those barbarian tribes. And so the traditional Roman empire is considered to have ended here. So the Ostrogoths deposed the emperor in 476, the Western Roman empire emperor. they'll take over rule of the region for themselves. Now, Why? Do I have a separate slide? Yeah. Why did this happen? Actually, you can see the Rome wasn't even the capital. It was at one point moved to Ravenna. But you can see all these different invasions, the Visigoths, Adrianople, all that. Vandals coming in, the Huns coming in. What are the actual factors that led to the fall of Rome? And we've talked about most of them, but let's put a nice little bow on the Roman Empire, at least the Western Roman Empire. One is, you know, and obviously these are not 100% because it's hard to pin down in a fall that took place over 200 years, nearly 300 years, what was the one contributing factor? So these are all general... general reasons. So some may be more true than others. You know, it's just good, the best historical guesses and educated guesses that we have. One would be Christianity. The factors are contributing factors to the fall of Rome. And the reason that Christianity would be considered a factor in the fall of Rome is that the belief behind this is that it softened the Roman military resolve. That for them, salvation And conversion of the barbarians was more important than military glory, than military defeating them. Well, if you convert them to Christianity, then you're fine. Of course, this is controversial, as this is difficult to prove or disprove. Other more concrete factors are that the economy never fully recovered from the third century crisis in the West. Another would be poor leadership. was really the only good leaders after Marcus Aurelius are Diocletian and Constantine. There's a few other minor ones here and there, but really that's 150, 200 years of bad leadership. And this bad leadership also did things like excessive taxation. There's also lots of corruption. Really, the gathering of power in the role of the emperor is one of the biggest problems here. That started under Trajan and was completed with the dominant or dominus under Diocletian. Because now, with no division of power, with no collegiality, if the emperor is bad, the whole empire is bad. Whereas that may not have been the case if you have, obviously, a heavily modified senate. And then finally, outside pressures. So really, you know, Christianity could be the internal pressure, and then you have the economy, then you have poor leadership, and now outside pressures. The continuing invasions were economic and a military drain. They were also economic and military disasters for the West. The inclusion, the army at one point was so desperate for soldiers that they will allow people of... barbarians of Germanic descent, these different tribes, to join the army. And that's going to weaken it because they won't be as well trained. They won't have the same resolve. Fierce warriors, good warriors, not Roman legionnaires. It's a different thing. And another factor, the final factor, would be the splitting of the empire. The wealth and stability were in the east. The west had neither of those things. There was still some wealth. But the East was suffering from these things, but not nearly as badly. So those are the contributing factors to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. And now, like I said, the different Germanic tribes continue to call it the Roman Empire. It won't be until somewhere in the later 400s and early 500s where the title of Roman Empire actually goes away, at least in the West. So that's what happens here with the Western Roman Empire. What about the East? Well, the East is going to be something quite different. It's going to be something that we call the Byzantine Empire, and that's what we'll do in the next lecture.

There were multitudes of clans who fought Rome and each other, and they were generally referred to as the Goths or the Barbarians. These barbarian migrations, again, are going to increase over time. Much of this pressure during late antiquity and after was due to external pressure.

The leading hypothesis, or at least the leading hypothesis for a very long time, was the idea that in Asia, there was a group known as the Huns, H-U-N-S, who were displaced by the Chinese. And so they will move west and attack the next group they find. And then that group will run and either move in or attack.

And then the next group will, you know, so on and so forth, like a domino effect. And regardless of whether or not that was actually the case, because there is some dispute, the Romans won't let them in. That's why Augustus had set those firm borders and had wanted the army on the exterior because he saw the threat from the outside. And that's why he also limited expansion. But these barbarian groups organized themselves and they grew and eventually appointed kings of their tribes.

Of particular note are the Visigoths. They were one of the groups that are considered to have been fleeing the Huns. Um, because of this and, and, you know, for a variety of reasons, the Eastern Romans allowed them to allow the Visigoths to settle in their lands in 376 CE, but they also mistreated them because of the belief of, they had a belief of superiority, that they were superior to these groups.

Of course, they're going to treat them like trash. Um, so the Visigoths. after two years of this mistreatment, are going to revolt. And they're going to meet the Eastern Roman Army at the Battle of Adrianople in 378 CE. And when they win, and when they crush that Roman army, they have an open path to Constantinople.

Go back to the map here. You see Adrianople right here. Well, there's... Pretty much an open door to get over here to Constantinople.

Well, this was the first time the Roman army had been crushed in hundreds of years. And the east, of course, is going to be substantially weakened in terms of defense. So knowing that their capital was wide open, the eastern Romans decided to get rid of themselves, get rid of the Ostrogoths. I'm sorry, the Visigoths. The eastern emperor...

will pay them off to leave. They'll pay them to leave the east and go rampage, go do whatever they wanted to do in the western half of the empire. And the Visigoths were like, you're paying us to leave and go rampage elsewhere? All right.

And that's exactly what they'll do. You can go back to the map. You see the, um... No, they'll win in Adrianople. They will rampage a little more through the east, and eventually they'll make their way to Rome.

And then after sacking Rome, and we'll get to that in a second, they'll rampage a little more and then eventually settle down in what we know as Spain and Portugal. So they wound here at Adrianople, and they campaign and pillage and do all this. And in 410 CE, they will sack the city of Rome.

In fact, the leader of the Visigoths demanded that the city of Rome pay him his weight in gold. Rome refused, and so the Visigoths will sack the city, will attack and plunder and loot the city. And they took everything they could of value. This was the first foreign occupation of Rome in over 800 years.

Rome had not been occupied by a foreign power since the Etruscans. And once they've taken their wealth, that's when they will rampage around the rest of Italy a little bit. And then they'll eventually make their way to Spain. But perhaps the... The...

Of these barbarians, quote unquote. None were so feared, none were so fearsome as the Huns led by Attila the Hun. And he was the leader of what was called the Hunnic Empire. He was, you know, obviously his, you know, they're nomadic people.

They lived on horseback. Not all, you know, not all the time, obviously, but the... Their warfare was horseback. They were a horse culture.

And they're going to view what's happening in the Western Empire, the Visigoths stomping through other groups, like the Ostrogoths are going to come in, the Franks, the Vandals. Eventually, you see the Vandals went a long, long way around. And they'll look at the West and say, well... Or the empire as a whole.

They're going to look at this and say, well, everything looks pretty ripe for the taking. And so Attila is going to lead his people in too. And he'll join in the action.

He'll invade the eastern half three different times. But he was never able to take Constantinople. Though he did get the east to agree to a yearly tribute. Basically, they'll pay him a set amount of money each year to basically say, hey, you're great. Here's some money.

Please leave us alone. Then he will turn his focus to the West. In particular, he's going to go after what was called Gaul. We'll go back to the wide map.

Basically what we now call France. Then they called it Gaul. Last talked about Gaul, or only talked about Gaul, that was where...

Julius Caesar's campaigns had been. So he will start marching through Gaul. The Western Romans were so afraid that they actually made an alliance with pretty much all of the Germanic tribes to try and defeat the Huns.

and you can see here the cities that were threatened and sacked this all culminated in the battle of shalom so this is the western roman armies this is as you see the romans the visigoths and and their allies versus the huns and their allies the outcome of the battle of shalom in 451 ce is unknown we have no no idea who won the battle. What we do know is that shortly thereafter, Attila will retreat out of Gaul. Now look, you can win a battle and then leave the area.

So he may have won and then, whether it was illness or something else may have caused him to retreat. Or he very well could have lost. We don't know. There are no records of what happened here. So he retreats.

Now, that doesn't mean he's done, because in 452, he'll invade northern Italy. He actually made it to Rome. But once again, he'll retreat for unknown reasons, and he'll die early in 453 again under unknown circumstances.

So it may seem like I or we don't know a lot about Attila the Hun, and we don't. He was a huge, important, significant figure here. Very little is actually known about him and his—we know the general movements, but they weren't necessarily keeping a strict chronicle of it, and the Romans were under such chaos that they didn't necessarily keep a good record of it. And if they did, it has since been destroyed. So— Probably the biggest threat that they had faced to this point was Attila, and for whatever reason, for unknown reasons, he retreated and left.

So this is 453. The official end of the Western Roman Empire came in, or what we consider to be the official end, came in 476, when the Ostrogoths will invade. They not only will... sack the city of Rome, that's becoming pretty commonplace, they will depose the emperor and the leader of the Ostrogoths will become the new Roman emperor.

So technically the Roman empire doesn't go away, but the leaders of the Roman empire will now be one of those barbarian tribes. And so the traditional Roman empire is considered to have ended here. So the Ostrogoths deposed the emperor in 476, the Western Roman empire emperor.

they'll take over rule of the region for themselves. Now, Why? Do I have a separate slide? Yeah.

Why did this happen? Actually, you can see the Rome wasn't even the capital. It was at one point moved to Ravenna. But you can see all these different invasions, the Visigoths, Adrianople, all that.

Vandals coming in, the Huns coming in. What are the actual factors that led to the fall of Rome? And we've talked about most of them, but let's put a nice little bow on the Roman Empire, at least the Western Roman Empire.

One is, you know, and obviously these are not 100% because it's hard to pin down in a fall that took place over 200 years, nearly 300 years, what was the one contributing factor? So these are all general... general reasons. So some may be more true than others.

You know, it's just good, the best historical guesses and educated guesses that we have. One would be Christianity. The factors are contributing factors to the fall of Rome. And the reason that Christianity would be considered a factor in the fall of Rome is that the belief behind this is that it softened the Roman military resolve. That for them, salvation And conversion of the barbarians was more important than military glory, than military defeating them.

Well, if you convert them to Christianity, then you're fine. Of course, this is controversial, as this is difficult to prove or disprove. Other more concrete factors are that the economy never fully recovered from the third century crisis in the West. Another would be poor leadership.

was really the only good leaders after Marcus Aurelius are Diocletian and Constantine. There's a few other minor ones here and there, but really that's 150, 200 years of bad leadership. And this bad leadership also did things like excessive taxation.

There's also lots of corruption. Really, the gathering of power in the role of the emperor is one of the biggest problems here. That started under Trajan and was completed with the dominant or dominus under Diocletian. Because now, with no division of power, with no collegiality, if the emperor is bad, the whole empire is bad.

Whereas that may not have been the case if you have, obviously, a heavily modified senate. And then finally, outside pressures. So really, you know, Christianity could be the internal pressure, and then you have the economy, then you have poor leadership, and now outside pressures. The continuing invasions were economic and a military drain. They were also economic and military disasters for the West.

The inclusion, the army at one point was so desperate for soldiers that they will allow people of... barbarians of Germanic descent, these different tribes, to join the army. And that's going to weaken it because they won't be as well trained. They won't have the same resolve.

Fierce warriors, good warriors, not Roman legionnaires. It's a different thing. And another factor, the final factor, would be the splitting of the empire. The wealth and stability were in the east.

The west had neither of those things. There was still some wealth. But the East was suffering from these things, but not nearly as badly. So those are the contributing factors to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. And now, like I said, the different Germanic tribes continue to call it the Roman Empire.

It won't be until somewhere in the later 400s and early 500s where the title of Roman Empire actually goes away, at least in the West. So that's what happens here with the Western Roman Empire. What about the East?

Well, the East is going to be something quite different. It's going to be something that we call the Byzantine Empire, and that's what we'll do in the next lecture.

Transcript for:Decline of the Western Roman Empire

Transcript for:
Decline of the Western Roman Empire