Category:Decline and Fall

Revision as of 03:28, 16 May 2009

When thinking about Rome, it is easy to see that something, and something very big indeed, was, but no longer is. Something that no longer is has clearly ended, so natural curiosity brings several rather obvious questions to mind. "When did it end?" and "Why did it end?" Asking and attempting to answer these questions has been an industry of writers and historians for a very long time.

One problem with these questions is the deceptive ease with which one can pose them. A much more difficult thing is to define what "Rome" means when we ask when or why "it" fell, or even to clearly state what "fall" means. "Rome" can mean the city itself, the governance of the city and the people in it, the larger cultural world the these people projected around them, the political structure that maintained a widespread system of taxation, communication and military defense, the large number of communities that came to function locally under that system and that were inspired or influenced by cultural influences flowing out from one or more centers, and many more possibilities. Terms such as "Rome" "the Republic" and "the Roman Empire" mask a degree of diversity and decentralization that is foreign to modern people. Furthermore, when something is and later is not, it begs the question to say that something "fell" until the idea of "change" has been fully explored.

Dates often proposed for the "fall of Rome" are commonly a thousand years, more or less, after the traditional date for the "birth of Rome", and many changes took place over those ten or so centuries. Nevertheless, there was a time when people began to notice that things had become very different, or that "something" had ended, and it was not long before writers took up the theme. Augustine of Hippo (d. 430 CE) wrote De Civitate Dei contra Paganos as a refutation of the idea that Rome was sacked because the Romans had abandoned their traditional gods. Augustine accurately observes that Rome had suffered reversals long before the Christian era, but in addition to the historical argument, much of De Civitate is taken up with criticisms of the "pagan" world, its culture, religions and institutions, from a Christian viewpoint. Augustine would not be the last writer to use the "fall of Rome" as a vehicle for the advancement of a particular point of view.

In the modern era, all writers on this topic work in the shadow of Edward Gibbon, whose "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" was published as a series of volumes from 1776 through 1789. Hallmarks of Gibbon's work are the preference for primary literature, its thoroughness, and its rejection of supernatural causes, making it an important statement of Enlightenment methodologies and a precursor to contemporary practice.^[1] His basic research has remained an important framework for the work of others. In his interpretation, Gibbon was a historical progressivist, and his work may also be read as a commentary on the British Empire in which he lived.

Since the publication of "Decline and Fall", additional historical detail has been added to Gibbon's framework, primarily through the contributions of archaeology and the related field of epigraphy. Gibbon's fundamental factual framework has stood unchanged in its essentials. Subsequent editions, updating and commenting on Gibbon's original include those by J.B. Bury (1909-1914), Hugh Trevor-Roper (1993-1994) and David Womersley (1994). The interpretation of these facts, however, has provided an opportunity for expression of a very wide range of views. Michael Rostovtzeff, a Russian, took an economic view, framing his "decline and fall" argument in terms of capitalism and revolution while Otto Seeck and Tenney Frank (late 19th - early 20th c.) stress the importance of race, to name just a few examples. These interpretations attempt to explain "why Rome fell" and also serve as commentary on modern society, often using the "fall" as an implied cautionary tale.

The topic of explaining the fall of Rome continues to fill the lives of scholars and to trouble the lives of students. New titles are published regularly^[2], and the "fall of Rome" provides a heavy weight for each generation of students to use to exercise their mental muscles as they attempt to master history, academic writing and critical thinking.^[3]

References

1. ↑ Stanford Magazine: The Decline and Fall of Footnotes
2. ↑ For example, read a Bryn Mawr Classical Review of two recent efforts: Review of Peter Heather, "The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History" and Bryan Ward-Perkins, "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization" by James J. O'Donnell
3. ↑ John Brown University Undergraduate Journal: The Fall of the Roman Empire by Jacob Little. A nice piece of undergraduate writing which demonstrates the cultural biases of the writer.