The Fall of the Western Roman Empire

You may recall from our earlier study of English history that Rome recalled its armies from Britain in 410AD in order to defend Rome against Attila the Hun. This was, however, only the final tragedy in this sad drama. The beginning of the Roman decline began in the 3rd century when the Roman Empire suffered a series of political, social, economic and military disasters. It's an interesting story so let's take a quick look at this sad chapter in Roman history.

The trouble began with an emperor named Alexander Severus.

He was a mild-tempered Syrian who had become Emperor after the assassination of his cousin in 222AD. You may be surprised to learn that a Syrian could be Emperor but remember that the Roman Empire encompassed a large part of the Mediterranean world. At this time emperors could come from almost any part of the vast Roman Empire as long as they were rich and powerful. Remember also that the Roman army at this time was also composed primarily of non-Romans. It would not be unusual, for example, to find Egyptians serving on the German frontier or Germans serving in Egypt! Their method of warfare was particularly brutal but effective.

Historical records indicate that Emperor Severus was a fairly decent emperor whose only real fault was that he preferred to negotiate rather than fight. His troubles began when the old enemy of Rome, the Germanic tribes, crossed the Roman frontier and burnt a few Roman forts and settlements. Rather than engage in a costly and tiresome conflict, Emperor Severus decided to pay off the Germanic tribes with gold and silver to keep the peace. His army, however, felt that this was a disgracefully weak thing for a Roman emperor to do. Ignoring the discontent within his army, Severus pushed ahead with his policy of appeasing the Germanic tribes. Not surprisingly he was killed by his own contemptuous men in 235AD.

Things did not improve for the Roman Empire with the death of Severus, however. In fact, things got a lot worse! His death set off a scramble for power among the Roman military elite. Roman military leaders began to fight with each other to become the next emperor. Over the next 50 years more than twenty emperors came and went each worse than the last. The Roman Empire was now in constant turmoil. Trade began to suffer as it became more and more difficult to communicate with other parts of the Empire. Foreign tribes, sensing opportunity in the confusion, invaded and inflicted a great deal of damage to Roman settlements. The Roman army fought the tribal warriors but they also fought each other as various generals competed to become the next Emperor. In the midst of all this chaos and instability an old enemy returned to kill the Romans: plague. This virulent disease, most likely smallpox or measles, spread rapidly through the Roman armies and then through all parts of the Empire killing perhaps 30 – 40% of the population, young and old, rich and poor. It returned several times over the next 50 years even claiming the life of Emperor Claudius II in 270AD.

Well, to make a long story short, the once mighty Roman Empire was gradually broken into pieces. Britain, Spain and Gaul (France) split away to form the Gallic Empire. Syria, Egypt and Palestine united to form the Palmyrene Empire. This left Rome in the center virtually alone. One crisis followed another as successive waves of barbarians invaders struck at the heart of the Empire while at the same time the eastern and western wings of the Empire resisted all attempts at reintegration.　

By 395AD the Empire had evolved into two distinctly separate sections: the Western Empire incorporating Italy, France, Spain, Britain and North Africa and the Eastern Empire composed of Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor (Turkey), Greece and Macedonia.

The Western Empire spoke Latin as it always had but the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire　spoke Greek, the dominant language of the region. In both empires, Christianity became the official religion after centuries of restrictions and suppression. For the first time in the history of the Roman Empire, religious leaders began to exercise great influence over political leaders and the symbol of the Christian cross became the symbol of the Roman army.

The final collapse of the Western Empire came about as a result of events many thousands of miles away in China. The Huns, who had raided China for centuries, were forced to turn westward to find plunder after the construction of the Great Wall of China. As they moved west in 370AD they displaced vast numbers of tribes who fled before the terrible raids of the horse-mounted Huns. One of these barbarian tribes, the Visigoths, fled westward into Eastern Roman territory where they were reluctantly permitted to settle on the fringes of the Eastern Empire in return for their military service. However, the Romans cheated and mistreated the Visigoths which forced them to turn from peace to war. Realizing the weakness of the Roman Empire, the Visigoths under their leader Alaric turned against the Eastern Roman Empire sacking many of the most famous cities of Greece and selling their citizens into slavery before moving on to Italy where they sacked Rome in 410AD before eventually settling in Spain. Remember the Visigoths! They still have an important role to play in our story!

The Roman government had, as we know, recalled its armies from all over the Empire to defend Rome from these barbarian invasions. The removal of these armies from the frontiers essentially opened the gates to other barbarian tribes like the Franks, Alemanni, Burgundians, Saxons and Swabians who pushed deep into Roman territory and carved out territories for their own people.

The Romans were powerless to stop this tidal wave of barbarian humanity. Remember what happened to the Celtic Romans once the Roman army departed? The same thing was happening all over Europe at this time. Barbarians were advancing everywhere and there was nothing the Roman army could do to stop them. They simply did not have enough men. This vast tribal migration severely reduced the total area under complete Roman control to a narrow strip along the Mediterranean. While the names of many of these tribes are now lost to history, we still remember the particularly violent ones such as the Vandals who moved eastwards in front of the advancing Huns into Spain and then south into North Africa. There they captured Carthage in modern-day Tunisia. A few years later they plundered Sicily and then Rome in 455AD. It is from this tribe that we get the words “vandal” and “vandalism”. You see, even though these events occurred 1,500 years ago, the violence of these deeds has been preserved in our language.

Imagine living in these chaotic times! In the 5th century AD, a vast tide of European humanity was on the move, their flight accelerated by the Hun army that was approaching from the East. The Hun army first plundered many of the weakly-defended cities of the Roman Empire in the East.
The Hun horde was not an army in the traditional sense but more like a huge roving band of horse-mounted pirates looking to rob, pillage, rape and plunder any city, any village or anyone that was weak and undefended. They had no time for protracted sieges or complicated operations. There method was simple: get in and get out and steal everything of value that wasn’t nailed down. Their baggage train carrying all of their stolen treasure must have stretched for many miles.

The Hun horde was defeated not by any Roman army but by the massive walls surrounding the imperial capital of the Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople.

Undeterred by this minor setback Attila continued to raid westward following the Danube River into the heart of Germany and France burning and pillaging many of the largest cities in Europe, turning vast populations of Romans and barbarians into refugees. Basically, civilization as the Romans knew it was coming to an end. Law and order had ceased to exist, trade was disrupted, and crops failed or were burned before they could be harvested. People lived in real fear of not surviving the next day. The old Roman social order had disintegrated. It was the end of the old Roman world.

Riding ahead of Attila’s relentless advance came Hun emissaries bearing a message from Attila to the Roman Emperor of the West. It said, “My Lord and your Lord, Attila, bids me tell you that you will give him half of your empire and your daughter to be his wife.” His messengers were given a polite hearing but were given a firm refusal. Meanwhile the Roman Emperor of the West hurriedly gathered all of his armies including his new allies amongst the Visigoths (remember them?) who for once realized that Attila represented a greater threat than the Romans to their own security. The two massive armies met in France near Chalons in a tremendous battle in June 451AD. Attila was repulsed but not defeated. The losses on both sides were very heavy. Witnesses describe the battlefield as covered in armor-clad corpses stacked several bodies deep in many places. A small stream that flowed nearby was said to have turned red with the vast amounts of human and animal blood which drained into it.

Although the Roman and Visigoth armies had won, they were not anxious to pursue the retreating Huns. The Visigoths argued for another attack and a final defeat of the Huns. The Roman Emperor feared that the powerful and dangerous Visigoths would use this opportunity to seize power from the weaker Romans. While the Romans and Visigoths argued, the Huns moved slowly eastward like a plague of locust devouring Roman cities, villages and farms as they went. The Hun horde later turned south and raided Italy burning and pillaging their way right up to the very gates of Rome itself before stopping their relentless advance. But why did they stop when the city was theirs for the taking? The answer may lie in religion. Attila’s change of heart came after a dramatic face to face meeting with Pope Leo the Great. He went out to meet Attila clad in his most ornate robes with a retinue of priests carrying flowing silk banners emblazoned with the symbol of the cross. Historians of the time suggested that Attila was frightened by a vision of an archangel holding a flaming sword over his head. Others say that the large sum of gold handed over to Attila somehow convinced Attila to spare Rome. Whatever the reason, Rome was spared the ravages of the Hun army. Within a year Attila died while in bed with one of his many young wives. His vast horde army fell apart and drifted eastward while his sons quarreled over his vast wealth plundered from half the world.

Although Rome was saved, the Empire was far too weakened after wars and famine to resist any further invasions. The few Roman armies which were left were now composed almost completely of foreign troops, the majority being from Germanic tribes. They seized the opportunity which a weakened Rome presented. Why should they serve and protect an Emperor and an Empire which was so obviously powerless? Why not take power for themselves? Well, this is exactly what they did in 476AD. A famous German general, Odoacer, deposed the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, and proclaimed himself king. Thus the once great Western Roman Empire came to an end.

476AD is a date you should remember. Not just because it marks the end of the Western Roman Empire, but also because it marks the beginning of the period known as the Middle Ages. Why is this period referred to as the “Middle” Ages? Well, the Roman Empire was seen by historians as a glorious period in human history when civilization made great advances in science, art, medicine, and engineering. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire came a period of cultural and economic decay in which many Roman cities were abandoned and much of the learning and knowledge of the Romans was lost in the confusion which followed. Wars, famine, disease and pestilence were common occurrences with the only stable influence being the Catholic Church. This unfortunate situation continued until the beginning of the Renaissance in the 15th century. Thus the Middle Ages are the period of history between the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476AD and the intellectual revolution of the Renaissance in the 15th century.