Free Essay On Foundations Of The Western World

Although the Western Roman Empire fell in the 5th Century AD, it had clearly been in demographic and economic for about two centuries before that time. It had suffered a major crisis in the 3rd and 4th Centuries that brought it to the brink of collapse, and was only saved by the tremendous efforts of the emperors Diocletian and Constantine. A combination of internal weaknesses and external forces led to its collapse, although long before the removal of the last emperor Romulus Augustulus (Little Augustus) in 476 AD it had become a shell of its former self. By that time in the history of the Late Roman Empire, the emperors controlled little outside of Italy and were puppets of the Germanic rulers like Odoacer. Most of the provinces had also come under the control of Gothic and Vandal kings, although the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) did not fall at the same time and over the next several centuries even attempt to expand Roman rule in the West again.
In this sense, the Western Roman Empire did not really ‘fall’ but just underwent a slow process of disintegration and dissolution, with some temporary periods of revival. In the 3rd Century, the so-called Barracks Emperors had usually been short-live and continually engaged in civil wars that weakened the empire internally just as various German tribes began attacking from without. Although the population of the empire at its apex is unknown, it might have been 50 million, but a series of epidemics in the 3rd and 4th Centuries may have reduced it by half. This meant that the military and economic strength of the empire was weakened just as the external pressure was increasing, and indeed the invaders had quite possibly brought new diseases with them. When Diocletian came to power in 284 AD, he attempted to restore order, by reorganizing the imperial administration, appointing a co-emperor to rule in the East, with two Caesars to act as subordinate military commanders and successors to the emperors. He doubled the size of the army, increased taxes and ordered wages and prices frozen, while also forbidding anyone to change occupations and forcing sons to follow the same professions as their fathers. Diocletian resolved the 3rd Century Crisis and preserved the empire temporarily, but made it an even more authoritarian state than it had been in the past.
During the Late Empire after Constantine, Christianity had also become the official state religion, and after the time of Emperor Theodosius I, the only religion allowed. Edward Gibbon believed that the Western Empire was actually weakened by Christianity, such many Romans who still believed in the old gods or other religions withdrew their loyalty from the state. In addition, there were constant conflicts between different factions of Christians like the Gnostics and the Arians, and even when many of the German tribes were converted it was mostly to the Arian version, which was considered ‘heretical’ and unorthodox by the Catholic Church. Diocletian, the last important non-Christian emperor, thought the new religion was divisive and had brought down the wrath of the gods. He attempted to destroy it completely and launched the most massive persecution against the Christians yet seen in the Roman Empire, but in the West Constantine and his family and supporters were already sympathetic to Christianity. After Diocletian abdicated, Constantine was the victor in the latest round of civil wars, and not only converted to Christianity but made it the official state religion. Indeed, the organization of the Catholic Church itself, with bishops controlling dioceses (provinces) under the control of a pope-emperor, was modeled after the Roman state.
Perhaps the most important thinker of the Late Roman Empire was the Christian theologian Augustine, Bishop of Carthage (Hippo) in North Africa. Alaric, king of the Visigoths, had once been an ally of the Romans and assisted them in defeating other Germanic invaders, but he turned on Rome when he concluded that his services had not been rewarded adequately, and in 410 AD captured the city of Rome itself. Augustine was a loyal Roman and duly appalled by such a development. In response, though, he wrote City of God, which reminded Christians that their true home was in heaven and that the Kingdom of God was eternal, regardless of the fate of earthly cities and empires. At the time of his deaths, the Vandals had already taken over most of North Africa and were besieging Hippo, so it was quite clear that the Western Roman Empire was in severe decline.
What was left of the empire in the 5th Century was under the control of German tribal leaders, although they retained the emperors as figureheads. During the invasions of Attila the Hun, the Germans even united with the remnants of the Roman armies to defend Italy and Gaul, and in later years, the Franks would convert to Catholicism and set about reviving the Roman Empire in the West. This was in fact accomplished by the Frankish king Charlemagne, founder of the Holy Roman Empire, which was centered in Germany. In that sense, the German ‘barbarians’ did not turn out to be the destroyers of Rome at all but its greatest imitators and defenders.