For most modern students or observers, the collapse of the Roman Empire seems to be a great even in history -- a single , almost monolithic milestone in history -- demonstrating the potentials of a great Empire and also imperial corruption. Although Imperial Rome “fell” in the fifth century A. D. , strands of Roman culture endured throughout the Venetian Republic, the Byzantine Empire, and in Western Christendom, which “preferred the Latin language over the vernacular for the next thousand years.
In fact, the cultural and political behemoth known as the Roman Empire was not brought down by a single, cause; but rather by a collection of damaging and erosive influences. Also at play, perhaps, were positive and constructive influences of cultural evolution, as well as evolutions in spiritual and religious beliefs as well a s technology, warfare, and politics, (Bonta, 2005). One of the primary reasons for the Roman Empire’s collapse was a cultural and moral “revolution” in the post-Republic Empire, which saw “a revolution not only in political but in moral and even religious manners.By the first century B. C.
, sexual mores had been abandoned, and the former sanctity of marriage forgotten. Crime, once almost unknown in Rome, became rampant” and crime undermined civic pride and civic authority. Similarly, on a cultural and moral level, Mithran cults “contaminated” the “simplicity of the authentic Roman religion;” so, by the late 2nd century A. D. , the religion of Mithra “had permeated every level of Roman society.
The cult was considered "a vast secret society consecrated to emperor-worship and to the amoral doctrine of radical dualism--the idea that good and evil are eternal, absolutely equivalent principles that must both be appeased,” (Bonta, 2005). Erosion in military capacity also played a key role in the slow de-evolution of the Roman empire. Roman military strength had always been an important part of the early Roman concept of virtue and morales; that is: a “martial” sense of ethics pervaded early Roman culture. Her citizen soldiers were fearless and superbly organized.The Roman genius for order soon led to innovations in military science that made the Roman legions a virtually invincible fighting force for centuries”; however, Rome's military pride and conquests reinforced a predilection for warfare that helped to ultimately undermine Roman strength, (Bonta, 2005).
Even Republican Rome was “unwilling to interrupt her ceaseless warfare at the water's edge, and plunged into overseas empire building at the first challenge from abroad. In fact, the notion of Rome as a martial state may well eclipse the historical resonance of the Roman Republics or other eras: “the Roman Empire that defined the "classic" may be seen as a dictatorship, supported by military force" and no other variation was ever disassociated, completely, from military conquest and martial authority. (Potter, 2004, p. 4).
Another aspect of the decline was that Roman culture de-emphasized the value of human life and individual dignity.“The Twelve Tables of Roman law required the killing of deformed infants,” and the Roman armies usually fought “without negotiation and without quarter for the vanquished. This “classic” Rome was facilitated by “a system of government that allowed countless peoples to communicate through a shared culture;”but the hearkening to military conflict ultimately spelled a weakening of power: “Rome failed as the Mediterranean world's sole superpower and the shared culture derived from the study of the "classics" gave way [..
. ] to new cultures, shaped from the amalgam of "classics" with the reformed style of Judaism that became Christianity” and thus refuted the wasting of human life, (Potter, 2004, p. 4). Civic unity had long been a strength of “classic” Roman culture. “Until the late second century B.
C. , Rome had never seen bloodshed from civil unrest. The various disputes between the plebeians and patricians had always been resolved by negotiation and political reform. ” Partisan violence finally erupted in the late 2nd century B.
C. , leaving in their wake, a succession of military dictators. In the next century, “devastating civil wars [... ] tore the republic apart” resulted in an end to Roman liberties.
“From that time forward, Rome was never free from factional violence" and this factional violence led to deep divisions in civic unity and Imperial capacity to make war and to uphold laws, (Bonta, 2005).Political assassinations and riots, unknown in the early centuries of the republic, became commonplace. ” Rampant civil unrest revealed certain flaws in the Roman systems of government and in the Roman constitution, most prominently: a lack of a representative government. Though Rome “provided for deliberation and even the enactment of laws by the masses in popular assemblies” there was no representative government , and therefore the disenfranchised citizenry gained greater cause for civil unrest or outright revolt. The inability for the Roman beureuacracy of law to govern itself also contributed to the ultimate downfall of the Roman Empire.
Widespread corruption and incompetency in beureuacratic function, especially in matters which pertained to the conducting of wars, defensive or offensive, created deep damage to the Roman Empire, (Bonta, 2005). If there were many negative influences working to slowly chip away at the edifice of Roman civilization, as noted in the discussion above, most of these negative influences evolved organically our of Roman thought and disposition, as well by way of “decadence” in the interpretation of civic identity and loyalty.The sprawling mass of Roman dominance resulted in a likewise bureaucracy “connected with the army now stretched beyond the frontiers into tribal lands, creating a form of "Roman" who was brought up outside the empire and yet played a role in the defense of the state. To be in the army, and in the service of the emperor, was to be "Roman, " even if one's roots were beyond the Rhine or Danube, (Potter, 2004, p. 443). This resultant loss of a homogenous Roman identity begs the question of cross-cultural evolution, an historical reality which may have played a key role in the collapse of the Roman Empire.
Peter Brown published his World of Late Antiquity, a book which was to have a remarkable effect on how the end of the ancient world was viewed by historians. Brown defined and described a period, which he termed 'Late Antiquity', stretching from the third century to the eighth century AD; but he saw it as characterized not by the disappearance of Roman sophistication and civilization, but by lively and positive developments. Brown invited his readers to reject the old language of 'decline and fall' and to embrace instead a vision of this as a period when Roman culture was transformed and revitalized. Ward-Perkins, 2005)In conclusion it seems evident that the collapse of the Roman Empire emerged from specific “organic” identities at very level of Roman society including the religious, psychological, sociological, military, economic, and cultural levels. Perhaps the term “collapse” is not very accurate, though the obvious tendency to view the evolution of the Roman Empire as sudden and based on a single, primary event will always be a tempting, if imprecise, view.
