سقوط الإمبراطورية الرومانية الغربية

"سقوط روما" redirects here. For other uses, see نهب روما.

"سقوط الامبراطورية الرومانية" redirects here. For الفيلم, see سقوط الامبراطورية الرومانية (فيلم).

خريطة متحركة للجمهورية والامبراطورية الرومانية بين 510 ق.م. و 530 م

  الجمهورية

  الامبراطورية

  الامبراطورية الرومانية الشرقية/البيزنطية

  الامبراطورية الغربية

سقوط الإمبراطورية الرومانية الغربية (ويسمى أيضاً سقوط الامبراطورية الرومانية أو سقوط روما)، هي عملية أفول في الامبراطورية الرومانية الغربية التي فشلت في فرض حكمها، وتقسمت أراضيها الشاسعة إلى عدة كيانات سياسية. فقدت الامبراطورية الرومانية قوتها التي سمحت لها بممارسة السيطرة الفعالة على الغرب؛ ويشير المؤرخون المعاصرون إلى العوامل التي أدت إلى هذا والتي تشمل كفاءة وعدد الجيش، صحة وأعداد السكان الرومان، قوة الاقتصاد، تنافس الأباطرة، الصراعات الداخلية على السلطة، التغيرات الدينية في تلك الفترة، وكفاءة الادارة المدنية. الضغط المتزايد من البرابرة خارج الثقافة الرومانية ساهم أيضاً بشكل كبير في انهيارها. أسباب الانهيار من الموضوعات الهامة ضمن تأريخ العالم القديم والتي قدمت الكثير من المعلومات عن سقوط الدول.

التواريخ ذات الصلة والتي تشمل عام 117 ق.م، عندما كانت الامبراطورية في أقصى اتساعها، والتقاء ديوكلتيانوس العرش عام 284. ومع ذلك فقد بدأت خسارة الأراضي الكبرى عام 376 مع ثورات واسعة النطاق بين القوط وجماعات أخرى. عام 395، بعد الفوز في اثنين من الحروب المدنية المدمرة، توفي ثيودوسيوس الأول، تاركاً جيشاً ميدانياً وامبراطورية منهارة، لا زالت تعاني مع القوط، ومنقسمة بين ولديه العاجزين. بحلول 476، عندما خلع اودواكر الامبراطور رومولوس، كان الإمبراطور الروماني الغربي يمتلك قوة عسكرية، سياسية، ومالية لا تذكر، ولم يكن له سيطرة فعلية على المقاطعات الغربية المتفرقة التي لا يزال من الممكن وصفها بأنها رومانية. أسس الغزاة البرابرة سلطتهم الخاصة في معظم أنحاء الإمبراطورية الغربية. في حين أن شرعيتها استمرت لقرون أطول وتأثيرها الثقافي لا يزال قائماً اليوم، لم تكن لدى الإمبراطورية الغربية قوة للصعود مرة أخرى.

لم يكن السقوط هو المفهوم الوحيد الموحد لهذه الأحداث؛ فقد أكدت الفترة التي وصفت بالعصر العتيق المتأخر على الاستمرارية الثقافية أثناء وبعد الانهيار السياسي.

 النهج التاريخية

المقالة الرئيسية: تأريخ سقوط الامبراطورية الرومانية الغربية

منذ عام 1776، عندما نشر إدوارد گيبون الجزء الاول من كتابه تاريخ تراجع وسقوط الامبراطورية الرومانية، كان التراجع والسقوط موضوعاً للكثير من الدراسات التاريخية للامبراطورية الرومانية. "منذ القرن الثامن عشر وما بعدها"، كتب المؤرخ گلن باورسوك، "كنا مهووسين بالسقوط: فقد تم تقييمه كنموذج أصلي لكل تراجع متوقع، وبالتالي، كرمز لمخاوفنا الخاصة."

 نموذج آخر لتلك الفترة

المقالة الرئيسية: القِدم المتأخر

منذ عهد هنري پيرن (1862-1935) على الأقل، وصف الباحثون استمرارية ثقافة روما وشرعيها السياسية لفترة طويلة بعد عام 476.^:5–7

أرجأ پيرن زوال الحضارة الكلاسيكية إلى القرن الثامن. وتحدى فكرة أن البرابرة الجرمانيون كانوا سبباً في نهاية الإمبراطورية الرومانية الغربية، ورفض مساواة نهاية الإمبراطورية الرومانية الغربية بنهاية منصب الإمبراطور في إيطاليا. وأشار إلى استمرارية اقتصاد البحر المتوسط ​​الروماني حتى بعد الغزوات البربرية، واقترح أن الفتوحات الإسلامية وحدها هي التي مثلت قطيعة حاسمة مع العصور القديمة.

يؤكد التصور الأحدث لفترة تاريخية تتميز "العصور القديمة المتأخرة" على تحولات العالم القديم إلى عالم العصور الوسطى ضمن استمرارية ثقافية. في العقود الأخيرة، امتدت الحجج القائمة على علم الآثار لتشمل استمرارية الثقافة المادية وأنماط الاستيطان حتى القرن الحادي عشر. بملاحظة الواقع السياسي المتمثل في فقدان السيطرة (وما يترتب على ذلك من تفتت للتجارة والثقافة واللغة)، وكذلك الاستمرارية الثقافية والأثرية، وُصفت العملية بأنها تحول ثقافي معقد، وليس سقوطاً.^:34 "لقد تغيرت النظرة إلى العصور القديمة المتأخرة بشكل كبير: لم تعد هذه الفترة تُعتبر حقبة من الانحدار والأزمة، بل حقبة من التحول في منطقة البحر المتوسط".^:3,4

 الفترة الزمنية

المسارات التي سلكها الغزاة البرابرة للإمبراطورية الرومانية خلال عصر الهجرات.

قدم تحليل هارپر (2017) أربعة تحولات حاسمة في الأحداث في التحول من ذروة الإمبراطورية إلى أوائل العصور الوسطى:

• الطاعون الأنطوني الذي أنهى فترة طويلة من التوسع الديموغرافي والاقتصادي، مما أدى إلى إضعاف الإمبراطورية، لكن دون إسقاطها.
• أزمة القرن الثالث، التي أدت فيها التغيرات المناخية الطبيعية، وتجدد الأمراض الوبائية، وعدم الاستقرار السياسي الداخلي والخارجي إلى انهيار شبه كامل للنظام الإمبراطوري. وشملت إعادة بنائه أساساً جديداً للعملة، وجهازاً حكومياً مهنياً موسعاً، وابتعاد الأباطرة أكثر عن شعوبهم، وبعد ذلك بوقت قصير، ظهور المسيحية، وهي دين تفردي تنبأ بنهاية العالم الوشيكة.
• الفشل العسكري والسياسي للغرب، حيث أدت الهجرة الجماعية من السهوب الأوراسية إلى تفكك الجزء الغربي من إمبراطورية ضعيفة داخلياً. أعادت الإمبراطورية الشرقية بناء نفسها وبدأت استعادة الغرب.

في الأراضي المحيطة بالبحر المتوسط، خلّف العصر الجليدي الصغير في العصر العتيق المتأخر وطاعون جستنيان واحدة من أسوأ الكوارث البيئية في التاريخ المسجل. انهار النظام الإمبراطوري في غضون جيلين، ثم فقد أراضٍ شاسعة لصالح جيوش الإسلام، وهو دين دعوي جديد، ويتبنى نهجاً متفرداً، ويؤمن أيضاً باليوم الآخر. أما بقايا الدولة البيزنطية المنهكة والفقيرة، فقد صمدت وسط صراع دائم بين أتباع المسيحية والإسلام.

إن فقدان السيطرة السياسية المركزية على الغرب، وتراجع قوة الشرق، أمران متفق عليهما عالمياً، ولكن تم اعتبار موضوع الأفول يشمل فترة زمنية أوسع بكثير من المائة عام التي بدأت عام 376. بالنسبة لكاسيوس ديو، فإن تولي الإمبراطور كومودوس الحكم عام 180 ميلادي يمثل الانحدار "من مملكة الذهب إلى مملكة الصدأ والحديد". منذ عصر الإنسانية، يُعتقد أن عملية السقوط قد بدأت مع قسطنطين الكبير، أو مع أباطرة الجنود الذين استولوا على السلطة من خلال قيادة الجيش من عام 235 حتى 284، أو مع كومودوس، أو حتى مع أغسطس.

لم يكن گيبون متأكداً من متى بدأ الأفول. "في الفقرة الأولى من نصه، كتب گيبون أنه ينوي تتبع الأفول من العصر الذهبي للأبطال الأنطونين"؛ ويذكر نص لاحق أنه بدأ حوالي عام 180 ميلادياً مع وفاة ماركوس أوريليوس؛ بينما في الفصل السابع، يؤجل بداية الأفول إلى حوالي عام 52 ق.م، في زمن يوليوس قيصر وپومپي وشيشرون. حدد گيبون نهاية الإمبراطورية الغربية مع إزاحة الرجل الذي أشار إليه گيبون باسم "أغسطس العاجز" عام 476.

يرى كلٌّ من أرنولد توينبي وجيمس برك أن العصر الإمبراطوري برمته كان عصر أفول مطرد للمؤسسات التي تأسست في عهد الجمهورية. وقد استبعد تيودور مومزن الفترة الإمبراطورية من كتابه الحائز على جائزة نوبل تاريخ روما (1854-1856). ومنذ عهد گيبون، استُخدم عام 476 كعلامة مناسبة لنهاية الإمبراطورية، إلا أن من بين التواريخ الرئيسية الأخرى لسقوط الإمبراطورية الرومانية في الغرب أزمة القرن الثالث، وعبور نهر الراين عام 406 (أو 405)، ونهب روما عام 410، ووفاة يوليوس نپوس عام 480.

 الأسباب، بحسب گيبون (1776–1789)

عندما نشر گيبون عمله الرائد، سرعان ما أصبح النص القياسي. كتب پيتر براون أن "عمل گيبون شكل ذروة قرن من الدراسات التي أجريت على أساس الاعتقاد بأن دراسة الإمبراطورية الرومانية المتدهورة هي أيضاً دراسة لأصول أوروپا الحديثة". كان گيبون أول من حاول تفسير أسباب سقوط الإمبراطوريات. ومثل غيره من مفكري التنوير الآخرين والمواطنين البريطانيين في ذلك العصر، الذين غرقوا في معاداة الكاثوليكية المؤسسية، احتقر گيبون العصور الوسطى باعتبارها عصراً مظلماً يسيطر عليه رجال الدين والخرافات. وكان يُعتقد أنه لن يستأنف التاريخ البشري مسيرته إلا في عصره، "عصر العقل"، الذي ركز على التفكير العقلاني، حيث كان يُعتقد أن التاريخ البشري سيستأنف تقدمه.

لقد أثار جدلاً مستمراً حول دور المسيحية، لكنه أولى أهمية كبيرة لأسباب أخرى للتدهور الداخلي وللهجمات من خارج الإمبراطورية.

قصة خرابها بسيطة وواضحة؛ وبدلاً من التساؤل عن سبب زوال الإمبراطورية الرومانية، ينبغي أن نتعجب من طول أمدها. فالجحافل المنتصرة، التي اكتسبت في حروب بعيدة رذائل الغرباء والمرتزقة، قمعت أولاً حرية الجمهورية، ثم انتهكت هيبة الإمبراطور. أما الأباطرة، حرصاً على سلامتهم الشخصية وسلامة العامة، فقد لجأوا إلى حيلة دنيئة تمثلت في إفساد النظام الذي جعلهم خطرين على سيدهم وعلى العدو على حد سواء؛ فضعفت قوة الحكم العسكري، ثم انحلت في نهاية المطاف، بفعل مؤسسات قسطنطين الجزئية؛ واجتاح العالم الروماني طوفان من البرابرة.

— إدوارد گيبون. أفول وسقوط الإمبراطورية الرمانية، الفصل 38 "ملاحظات عامة حول سقوط الإمبراطورية الرومانية في الغرب"

بعد بحث دقيق، استطعتُ تحديد أربعة أسباب رئيسية لخراب روما، والتي استمرت لأكثر من ألف عام. أولاً: عوامل الزمن والطبيعة. ثانياً: الهجمات العدائية للبرابرة والمسيحيين. ثالثاً: الاستخدام المفرط للموارد. رابعًا: الخلافات الداخلية بين الرومان.

— إدوارد گيبون. أفول وسقوط الإمبراطورية الرمانية، الفصل 71 "أربعة أسباب للتدهور والدمار."

 الآراء المعاصرة

يختلف التأريخ الحديث عن گيبون. على الرغم من أن معظم أفكاره لم تعد مقبولة بشكل كامل، إلا أنها شكلت أساساً للخطاب اللاحق وللتوليف الحديث مع علم الآثار وعلم الأوبئة وتاريخ المناخ وعلم الوراثة، والعديد من المصادر التاريخية الجديدة الأخرى التي تتجاوز المصادر الوثائقية التي كانت كل ما هو متاح لگيبون.

بينما قام ألكسندر دماندت بسرد 210 نظرية مختلفة حول سبب سقوط روما، تُصنّف الدراسات الأكاديمية في القرن الحادي والعشرين الاحتمالات الأساسية بشكل أكثر إيجازاً:

 أزمة المناخ

يُفسر ملخص حديث الأمراض وتغير المناخ كعوامل هامة في الانهيار السياسي للإمبراطورية. شهدت الفترة الرومانية فترة مناخية مثالية امتدت من حوالي 200 ق.م. حتى 150 م، حيث كانت الأراضي المحيطة بالبحر المتوسط ​​دافئة وغنية بالمياه. وقد ساهم ذلك في ازدهار الزراعة، وسهولة تجنيد الجيش، ويسر تحصيل الضرائب. ومنذ حوالي عام 150 م، تدهور المناخ في المتوسط ​​في معظم الأراضي المأهولة حول البحر المتوسط. بعد حوالي عام 450، ازداد المناخ سوءاً خلال العصر الجليدي الصغير في العصر العتيق المتأخر، وهو ما قد يكون ساهم بشكل مباشر في مجموعة العوامل التي أدت إلى سقوط روما.

بُنيت الإمبراطورية الرومانية على أطراف المناطق المدارية. وقد ساهمت طرقها وبحارها، التي أنتجت وفرة في التجارة، دون أن يدرك أحد أنها خلقت بيئة مرضية مترابطة أطلقت العنان لتطور وانتشار مسببات الأمراض. ساهمت الجوائح في حدوث تغييرات ديموغرافية هائلة، وأزمات اقتصادية، ومجاعات في أزمة القرن الثالث. أدى ارتفاع معدل الوفيات في الفترة 165-180 بسبب الطاعون الأنطوني إلى إعاقة محاولات صد الغزاة الجرمانيين بشكل خطير، لكن الفيالق بشكل عام حافظت على حدود الإمبراطورية أو على الأقل أعادت ترسيخها بسرعة.

الإمبراطورية الرومانية في أوائل القرن الثاني.

 أزمة الهجرات

بدءاً من عام 376، انتقلت أعداد هائلة من السكان إلى الإمبراطورية، مدفوعة بالهون الذين ربما يكونون قد انتقلوا بدورهم بسبب تغير المناخ في السهوب الأوراسية. أدت هذه الغزوات البربرية في نهاية المطاف إلى ظهور ممالك البرابرة على معظم أراضي الإمبراطورية الغربية السابقة. لكن الضربة القاضية لم تأتِ إلا مع العصر الجليدي الصغير في العصر العتتيق المتأخر وما تلاه.

 الأزمة السياسية

أعاد أورليان توحيد الإمبراطورية عام 274، ومنذ عام 284 أعاد ديوكلتيانوس وخلفاؤه تنظيمها مع التركيز بشكل أكبر على الجيش. وذكر يوحنا الليدي، الذي كتب بعد أكثر من قرنين، أن جيش ديوكلتيانوس بلغ في إحدى المراحل 389.704 رجلاً، بالإضافة إلى 45.562 في الأساطيل، وربما ازداد العدد لاحقاً. ومع محدودية وسائل الاتصال في ذلك الوقت، احتاجت الحدود الأوروپية والشرقية إلى اهتمام قادتها الأعلى. حاول ديوكلتيانوس حل هذه المشكلة بإعادة تأسيس نظام الخلافة بالتبني، حيث يتولى إمبراطور كبير (لقبه أغسطس) وإمبراطور صغير (لقبه قيصر) الحكم في كل نصف من الإمبراطورية، لكن هذا الحكم الرباعي انهار في غضون جيل واحد، وعادت العائلات البيولوجية للأباطرة لتصبح الورثة المتوقعين للعرش، وكانت النتائج في الغالب مؤسفة. بعد ذلك، أصبحت الحرب الأهلية الوسيلة الرئيسية لإقامة أنظمة إمبراطورية جديدة. ورغم أن قسطنطين الكبير (حكم: 306-337) أعاد توحيد الإمبراطورية، إلا أن جيل أبنائه خاض حروباً أهلية مدمرة فيما بينهم ومع مغتصبي السلطة. مع اقتراب نهاية القرن الرابع، أصبح التقسيم أمراً مقبولاً على نطاق واسع. ومنذ ذلك الحين، عاشت الإمبراطورية في توتر دائم بين الحاجة إلى إمبراطورين وبين انعدام الثقة المتبادل بينهما.

حتى أواخر القرن الرابع، احتفظت الإمبراطورية الموحدة بقوة كافية لشن هجمات قوية ضد أعدائها في جرمانيا والإمبراطورية الساسانية. وأصبح استقبال البرابرة ممارسة شائعة: إذ سمحت السلطات الإمبراطورية بدخول جماعات يُحتمل أن تكون معادية إلى الإمبراطورية، وفصلتها، ومنحتها أراضٍ ومكانة وواجبات داخل النظام الإمبراطوري. وبهذه الطريقة، وفرت العديد من الجماعات عمالاً غير أحرار لملاك الأراضي الرومان، ومجندين للجيش الروماني. وفي بعض الأحيان، أصبح قادتهم ضباطاً عسكريين أو موظفين مدنيين. عادةً ما كان الرومان يديرون هذه العملية بعناية، مع توفير قوة عسكرية كافية لضمان الامتثال. ثم تلا ذلك استيعاب ثقافي في عادات روما وتوقعات مواطنيها، وعادةً ما كان ذلك يستغرق جيلاً أو جيلين.

الإمبراطورية الرومانية في ظل الحكم الرباعي، توضح الأبرشيات ومناطق مسؤولية الحكام الأربعة.

 الأزمة المالية

المقالة الرئيسية: أزمة القرن الثالث

عانت الإمبراطورية الرومانية من أزمات خطيرة متعددة خلال القرن الثالث. فقد ألحقت الإمبراطورية الساسانية الصاعدة ثلاث هزائم ساحقة بالجيوش الميدانية الرومانية، وظلت تشكل تهديداً قوياً لقرون. وشملت الكوارث الأخرى حروباً أهلية متكررة، وغزوات بربرية، ومزيداً من الوفيات الجماعية في طاعون كبريانوس (من عام 250 فصاعداً). ​​لفترة وجيزة، انقسمت الإمبراطورية إلى الإمبراطورية الگالية في الغرب (260-274)، ومملكة تدمر في الشرق (260-273)، ودولة كفل رومانية مركزية؛ وفي عام 271، تخلت روما عن داتشيا الرومانية شمال الدانوب. كما تعرضت حدود الراين/الدانوب لتهديدات أكثر فعالية من جماعات بربرية أكبر، طورت زراعة محسنة وزادت من تعدادها. عانى متوسط ​​طول قامة السكان في الغرب من انخفاض خطير في أواخر القرن الثاني؛ ولم يتعافى عدد سكان شمال غرب أوروپا، على الرغم من أن مناطق البحر المتوسط ​​قد تعافت.

نجت الإمبراطورية من "أزمة القرن الثالث"، موجهةً اقتصادها بنجاح نحو الدفاع، لكن البقاء جاء بثمن باهظ تمثل في دولة أكثر مركزية وبيروقراطية. تسبب الإنفاق العسكري المفرط، إلى جانب الحروب الأهلية الناجمة عن عدم استقرار الخلافة، في زيادة الضرائب على حساب الصناعة. في عهد گال‌ينوس (الإمبراطور من عام 253 حتى 268)، توقفت الطبقة الأرستقراطية السناتورية عن الانضمام إلى صفوف كبار القادة العسكريين. وكان أعضاؤها النموذجيون يفتقرون إلى الاهتمام بالخدمة العسكرية، وأظهروا عدم كفاءة في القيادة.

الإمبراطورية المنقسمة عام 271م.

في عهد قسطنطين، فقدت المدن إيراداتها من الضرائب المحلية، وفي عهد قسطنطيوس الثاني (حكم 337-361) فقدت أيضاً هبات ممتلكاتها. وقد أدى ذلك إلى تفاقم الصعوبة القائمة في الحفاظ على قوة مجالس المدن، وأُختلست الخدمات التي تقدمها المدن أو التخلي عنها. تراجعت مشاريع البناء العامة منذ القرن الثاني. لا يوجد دليل على مشاركة الدولة أو دعمها لترميم وصيانة المعابد والأضرحة؛ بل كان لا بد من تمويل عمليات الترميم وإنجازها بشكل خاص، مما حدّ من نطاقها.^:36–39 ومن بين أوجه الاستغلال المالي الأخرى عادة قسطنطيوس في منح ممتلكات الأشخاص المدانين بالخيانة وغيرها من الجرائم التي تستوجب عقوبة الإعدام، إلى حاشيته المقربة. وقد أدى هذا الإجراء إلى تقليل الدخل المستقبلي، وإن لم يكن الفوري؛ كما اكتسب المقربون من الإمبراطور حافزاً قوياً لتشجيعه على التشكيك في وجود مؤامرات.

 الأزمة الاجتماعية

تخلص الحكام الجدد من الخيال القانوني للإمبراطورية المبكرة (seeing the emperor as but the first among equals)؛ وبدأ الأباطرة من أوريليان (ح. 270-275) فصاعداً يُطلقون على أنفسهم علناً لقب دومينوس وديوس، أي "السيد والإله"، وهي ألقاب مناسبة لعلاقة السيد والعبد. تطورت مراسم البلاط الملكي بشكل متقن، وأصبح التملق والتزلف هو السائد. في عهد ديوكلتيانوس، انخفض تدفق الطلبات المباشرة إلى الإمبراطور بسرعة، ثم توقف تماماً. لم يحل محلها أي شكل آخر من أشكال التواصل المباشر، ولم يكن الإمبراطور يتلقى سوى المعلومات التي تُنقل عبر حاشيته. مع ذلك، وكما وصفت سابين مكورماك، فإن ثقافة البلاط التي تطورت في عهد ديوكلتيانوس كانت لا تزال خاضعة لضغوط من القاعدة. فقد استُخدمت الإعلانات الإمبراطورية للتأكيد على القيود التقليدية للمنصب الإمبراطوري، بينما "تركت المراسم الإمبراطورية مجالاً للتوافق والمشاركة الشعبية".

ربما أصبح القسوة الرسمية، ودعم الابتزاز والفساد، أكثر شيوعاً أيضاً؛ ومن الأمثلة على ذلك قانون قسطنطين الذي ينص على أن العبيد الذين يخونون أسرار سيداتهم يجب أن يُسكب الرصاص المنصهر في حناجرهم. في حين أن حجم الحكومة وتعقيدها وعنفها كان لا مثيل له، فقد الأباطرة السيطرة على مملكتهم بأكملها بقدر ما أصبحت تلك السيطرة تُمارس بشكل متزايد من قبل أي شخص يدفع ثمنها. في غضون ذلك، استحوذت أغنى عائلات أعضاء مجلس الشيوخ، المعفاة من معظم الضرائب، على المزيد والمزيد من الثروة والدخل المتاحين مع انفصالها في الوقت نفسه عن أي تقليد للتفوق العسكري. يشير أحد الباحثين إلى زيادة كبيرة في القوة الشرائية للذهب، بلغت ضعفين ونصف من عام 274 إلى أواخر القرن الرابع. قد يكون هذا مؤشراً على تزايد التفاوت الاقتصادي بين نخبة غنية بالذهب وطبقة فلاحية فقيرة نقداً. يقول أميانوس إن روما كانت تُنقذ سابقاً بفضل تقشفها، وتضامنها بين الأغنياء والفقراء، وازدرائها للموت؛ أما الآن فقد أهلكها ترفها وجشعها. ويؤيد سالڤيانوس كلام أميانوس مؤكداً أن الجشع (أڤاريتيا) رذيلة شائعة بين جميع الرومان تقريباً. ومع ذلك، كان لوكيوس كالپورنيوس قد حدد بالفعل بداية الانحدار الأخلاقي لروما عام 154 قبل ق.م.

في الجيش الروماني اللاحق، كان العديد من المجندين وحتى الضباط من أصول بربرية. وتشير السجلات إلى أن الجنود كانوا يستخدمون طقوساً يُحتمل أن تكون بربرية، مثل رفع المدعي للعرش على الدروع. رأى بعض الباحثين في ذلك مؤشراً على الضعف. بينما يخالفهم آخرون الرأي، إذ لا يرون في تجنيد البرابرة أو الطقوس الجديدة أي مشكلة في فعالية الجيش أو ولائه، على الأقل طالما كان هذا الجيش يُقاد ويُدرب ويُدفع له ويُزود بالإمدادات بكفاءة من قبل ضباط ينتمون إلى الرومان.

 الجغرافيا

أشار أرنولد جونز إلى أن الآراء الأكاديمية السابقة غربية. كانت معظم نقاط الضعف التي ناقشها الباحثون "مشتركة بين شطري الإمبراطورية"، بل إن المسيحية كانت أكثر انتشاراً في الشرق منها في الغرب. كانت النزاعات الدينية حادة، والبيروقراطية فاسدة واستغلالية، وكان هناك نظام طبقي، وأصبحت الأراضي مهجورة في الشرق كما كانت في الغرب. ومع ذلك، صمد الشرق في القرن الخامس، وقاوم في القرن السادس، بل واستعاد بعض الأراضي في القرن السابع. لم يكن للشرق سوى ميزة واحدة ظاهرة: الموقع الجغرافي. فقد كان أقل عرضة للخطر، من الناحية الاستراتيجية، من الغرب. وكان أضيق معبر بحري إلى أراضيه الأساسية محمياً من البرابرة الشماليين بفضل تحصينات وقوات القسطنطينية البحرية والبرية، بينما تبلغ المسافة بين مصب الراين ومصب الدانوب حوالي 2000 كم (مسافة الدائرة العظمى)، ويمكن عبورها بسهولة أكبر. "أدت غارات البرابرة إلى إفقار المقاطعات الحدودية الغربية وتفريغها من سكانها، وفرض ضغطهم المتواصل على الإمبراطورية عبئاً دفاعياً أرهق جهازها الإداري ومواردها الاقتصادية... [مما لعب] دوراً رئيسياً في سقوط الغرب".

 أوج السلطة، الأزمات والتعافيات

بلغت الإمبراطورية الرومانية أقصى اتساع جغرافي لها في عهد تراجان (ح. 98-117)، الذي حكم دولة مزدهرة امتدت من مملكة أرمينيا إلى المحيط الأطلسي. امتلكت الإمبراطورية أعداداً كبيرة من الجنود المدربين والمجهزين والمنضبطين، والذين تم اختيارهم من بين سكانها المتزايدين. كما تميزت بإدارة مدنية شاملة مقرها في مدن مزدهرة، مع سيطرة فعالة على المالية العامة. اعتبرت النخبة المتعلمة حضارتها الشكل الوحيد الجدير بالاهتمام، مما منح الإمبراطورية شرعية أيديولوجية ووحدة ثقافية قائمة على إلمام واسع بالأدب والبلاغة اليونانية واللاتينية. سمحت قوة الإمبراطورية لها بالحفاظ على تفاوتات هائلة في الثروة والمكانة الاجتماعية. سمحت شبكاتها التجارية الواسعة النطاق حتى للأسر المتواضعة باستخدام سلع مصنوعة من قبل حرفيين من أماكن بعيدة.

كانت الإمبراطورية تتمتع بالقوة والصمود. سمح لها نظامها المالي بجمع ضرائب كبيرة، والتي، على الرغم من تفشي الفساد، دعمت جيشاً إمبراطورياً رومانياً ضخماً بالإمدادات والتدريب. أما مسار الشرف ( cursus honorum)، وهو سلسلة موحدة من المناصب العسكرية والمدنية مُخصصة للرجال الأرستقراطيين الطموحين، فقد ضمنت حصول النبلاء الأقوياء على فرصة الإلمام بالقيادة والإدارة العسكرية والمدنية. وعلى مستوى أدنى داخل الجيش، يربط بين الأرستقراطيين في القمة والجنود العاديين، كان عدد كبير من السنتوريون يتقاضون رواتب مجزية، ويتمتعون بمستوى تعليمي عالي، ومسؤولون عن التدريب والانضباط والإدارة والقيادة في المعارك. عملت الحكومات المحلية، بما تملكه من ممتلكات وإيرادات، بكفاءة عالية على المستوى المحلي؛ إذ أتاحت عضوية مجالس المدن فرصاً مربحة لاتخاذ القرارات بشكل مستقل، وعلى الرغم من التزاماتها، فقد أصبحت تُعتبر امتيازاً. في ظل الأسرة النرڤا-أنطونية، التي تبنى كل منها خليفةً ناضجاً وكفؤاً، لم تكن الإمبراطورية بحاجة إلى حروب أهلية لتنظيم الخلافة الإمبراطورية. كان بالإمكان تقديم الطلبات مباشرةً إلى الأباطرة الأكفاء، وكانت الردود تتمتع بقوة القانون، مما جعل السلطة الإمبراطورية على اتصال مباشر حتى مع رعاياها المتواضعين. كانت الطوائف التي تؤمن بتعدد الآلهة شديدة التنوع، لكن لم يدعو أي منها أنه الحقيقة المطلقة. وقد أظهر أتباعها تسامحاً دينياً متبادلاً، مما أدى إلى انسجام ديني متعدد الأصوات. كانت الصراعات الدينية نادرة بعد قمع ثورة بار كوخبا عام 136، وبعد ذلك توقفت يهودا المدمرة عن كونها مركزاً رئيسياً للاضطرابات اليهودية.

ومع ذلك، ظلت ثقافةً قائمةً على اقتصاد الكفاف المبكر، مع وجود مؤشراتٍ غير فعّالةٍ فقط على نظرية جرثومية الأمراض. وعلى الرغم من وجود المجاري المائية المرفوعة، لم تكن إمدادات المياه تسمح بمستوى جيد من النظافة. فقد كان يتم التخلص من مياه الصرف الصحي في الشوارع، أو في المصارف المكشوفة، أو عن طريق الحيوانات التي تتغذى على الجيف. وحتى في ظل المناخ الروماني الأمثل، كان فشل المحاصيل المحلية الذي يؤدي إلى المجاعات احتمالاً قائماً دائماً. وحتى في الأوقات الجيدة، كان على النساء الرومانيات أن ينجبن، في المتوسط، ستة أطفال لكل منهن من أجل الحفاظ على عدد السكان. كان التغذية الجيدة والنظافة الجسدية من امتيازات الأغنياء، والتي كان يتم الترويج لها من خلال خطواتهم الثابتة، ولون بشرتهم الصحي، وعدم وجود "رائحة كريهة لمن لم يستحموا جيداً". كان معدل وفيات الرضع مرتفع للغاية، وكان الإسهال سبباً رئيسياً للوفاة. وكانت الملاريا متوطنة في العديد من المناطق، ولا سيما في مدينة روما نفسها، وربما شجع على ذلك حماس الرومان الأثرياء للمسطحات المائية في حدائقهم.

 صعود المسيحية، واحتمال تراجع القوات المسلحة

للمزيد من المعلومات: History of late ancient Christianity

انظر أيضاً: Christianization of the Roman Empire as diffusion of innovation

In 313, Constantine the Great declared official toleration of Christianity. This was followed over the ensuing decades by the search for a definition of Christian orthodoxy all could agree upon. Creeds were developed, but Christianity has never agreed upon an official version of its Bible or its doctrine; instead it has had many different manuscript traditions. Christianity's disputes may have effected decline. Official and private action was taken against heterodox Christians (heretics) from the fourth century up to the modern era. Limited action against pagans, who were mostly ignored, was based on the contempt that accompanied Christianity's sense of triumph after Constantine. Christianity opposed sacrifice and magic, and Christian emperors made laws that favored Christianity. Constantine's successors generally continued this approach, and by the end of the fourth century, Christianity had become the religion of any ambitious civil official.

The wealth of the Christian Church increased dramatically in the fifth century. Immense resources, both public and private, were used for building churches, storage barns for the grain used for charity, new hospitals for the poor, and in support of those in religious life without other income. Bishops in wealthy cities were thus able to offer patronage in the long-established manner of Roman aristocrats. Ammianus described some who "enriched from the offerings of matrons, ride seated in carriages, wearing clothing chosen with care, and serve banquets so lavish that their entertainments outdo the tables of kings".

But the move to Christianity probably had no significant effects on public finances. The large temple complexes, with professional full-time priests, festivals, and large numbers of sacrifices (which became free food for the masses), had also been expensive to maintain. They had already been negatively impacted by the empire's financial struggles in the third century.^:353:60 The numbers of clergy, monks, and nuns increased to perhaps half the size of the actual army, and they have been considered as a drain on limited manpower.

The numbers and effectiveness of the regular soldiers may have declined during the fourth century. Payrolls were inflated, so that pay could be diverted and exemptions from duty sold. The soldiers' opportunities for personal extortion were multiplied by residence in cities, while their effectiveness was reduced by concentration on extortion instead of military exercises. However, extortion, gross corruption, and occasional ineffectiveness were not new to the Roman army. There is no consensus whether its effectiveness significantly declined before 376. Ammianus Marcellinus, himself a professional soldier, repeats longstanding observations about the superiority of contemporary Roman armies being due to training and discipline, not to individual size or strength. He also accuses Valentinian I of being the first emperor to increase the arrogance of the military, raising their rank and power to excess, severely punishing the minor crimes of the common soldiers, while sparing those of higher rank who felt able to commit shameful and monstrous crimes. Despite a possible decrease in the Empire's ability to assemble and supply large armies, Rome maintained an aggressive and potent stance against perceived threats almost to the end of the fourth century.

 313–376: civil and foreign wars

Constantine settled Franks on the lower left bank of the Rhine. Their communities required a line of fortifications to keep them in check, indicating that Rome had lost almost all local control. Under Constantius, bandits came to dominate areas such as Isauria, which were well within the empire. The tribes of Germania also became more populous and more threatening. In Gaul, which did not really recover from the invasions of the third century, there was widespread insecurity and economic decline in the 300s, perhaps worst in Armorica. By 350, after decades of pirate attacks, virtually all villas in Armorica were deserted. Local use of money ceased around 360. Repeated attempts to economize on military expenditure included billeting troops in cities, where they could less easily be kept under military discipline and could more easily extort from civilians. Except in the rare case of a determined and incorruptible general, these troops proved ineffective in action and dangerous to civilians. Frontier troops were often given land rather than pay. As they farmed for themselves, their direct costs diminished, but so did their effectiveness, and their pay gave much less stimulus to the frontier economy. However, except for the provinces along the lower Rhine, the agricultural economy was generally doing well.

On January 18 350, the imperial magister officiorum gave a banquet in Augustodunum while his master, Western Emperor Constans, was away hunting. During the feast Magnus Magnentius, commander of the imperial household troops, appeared in an imperial purple toga and announced himself to be the new Emperor. Constans was soon murdered and Magnentius took over most of his western domains. He made peace overtures to Constantius in the East, but these failed. In the ensuing bloody civil war Magnentius marched against Constantius with as many troops as he could mobilize, stripping the Rhine frontier of its most effective troops. Magnentius died and so did many of his men. Meanwhile, Constantius sent messages to the German tribes east of the Rhine, inviting them to attack Gaul, which they did. In the next few years a strip some 64 كيلومتر (40 mi) wide to the west of the Rhine was occupied by the Germans, and a further 190 كيلومتر (120 mi) into Gaul the surviving population and garrisons had fled.

Solidus of Julian, c. 361. Obverse: Julian with the beard appropriate to a Neoplatonic philosopher. Inscription: FL(AVIVS) CL(AVDIVS) IVLIANVS PP(=Pater Patriae, "father of the nation") AVG(=Augustus). Reverse: an armed Roman, military standard in one hand, a captive in the other. Inscription: VIRTVS EXERCITVS ROMANORVM, "the bravery/virtue of the Roman army"; the mint mark is SIRM, Sirmium.

Julian (ح. 360–363) won victories against Germans who had invaded Gaul. He launched a drive against official corruption, which allowed the tax demands in Gaul to be reduced to one-third of their previous amount, while all government requirements were still met. In civil legislation, Julian was notable for his pro-pagan policies. Julian lifted the ban on sacrifices, restored and reopened temples, and dismantled the privileged tax status and revenue concessions of the Christians. He gave generous tax remissions to the cities which he favored, and disfavor to those who remained Christian.^:62–65 Julian ordered toleration of varieties of Christianity banned as heretical by Constantius; possibly, he would not have been able to persecute effectively such a large and powerful group as Christians had now become.^{:62:345–346:62}

Julian prepared for civil war against Constantius, who again encouraged the Germans to attack Gaul. However Julian's campaigns had been effective and only one small Alemannic raid, speedily dealt with by Julian, resulted. Constantius died before any serious fighting and Julian was acknowledged as master of the entire Empire. He launched an expensive campaign against the Sasanian Persians. He succeeded in marching to the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, but, at the suggestion of a Persian agent, burned his boats and supplies to show resolve in continuing operations. The Sassanids then burned crops so the Roman army had no food. Finding himself cut off without supplies in enemy territory, Julian began a land retreat, and during the Battle of Samarra, he was mortally wounded.^:74

Julian's successor Jovian, acclaimed by a demoralized army, began his brief reign (363–364) while trapped in Mesopotamia without supplies. To purchase safe passage home, he had to concede areas of northern Mesopotamia, including the strategically important fortress of Nisibis. This fortress had been Roman since before the Peace of Nisibis in 299.

The brothers Valens (ح. 364–378) and Valentinian I (ح. 364–375) energetically tackled the threats of barbarian attacks on all the Western frontiers. They also tried to alleviate the burdens of taxation, which had risen continuously over the previous forty years; Valens in the East reduced the tax demand by half in his fourth year. Both of them were Christians, and re-confiscated the temple lands which Julian had restored. But they were generally tolerant of other beliefs. Valentinian in the West refused to intervene in Christian controversy. In the East, Valens had to deal with Christians who did not conform to his ideas of orthodoxy, and persecution formed part of his response. He tolerated paganism, even keeping some of Julian's associates in their trusted positions. He confirmed the rights and privileges of the pagan priests, and confirmed the right of pagans to be the exclusive caretakers of their temples.

Valentinian died of an apoplexy while shouting at envoys of Germanic leaders. His successors in the West were children, his sons Gratian (ح. 375–383) and Valentinian II (ح. 375–392). Gratian, "alien from the art of government both by temperament and by training", removed the Altar of Victory from the Senate House. He also rejected the pagan title of Pontifex Maximus.

 376–395: invasions, civil wars, and religious discord

 Battle of Adrianople

In 376, the East faced an enormous barbarian influx across the Danube, mostly Goths, who were fleeing from the Huns. They were exploited by corrupt officials rather than effectively relieved and resettled, and they took up arms and were joined by more Goths and some Alans and Huns. Valens was in Asia with his main field army preparing for an assault on the Sasanian Empire. Redirection of the army and its logistic support would have required time, and Gratian's armies were distracted by Germanic invasions across the Rhine. In 378, Valens attacked the invaders with the Eastern field army, now perhaps 20,000 men, probably much fewer than the forces that Julian had led into Mesopotamia a little over a decade before, and possibly only 10% of the soldiers nominally available in the Danube provinces. In the Battle of Adrianople (9 August 378), Valens lost much of that army and his own life. All of the Balkan provinces were thus exposed to raiding, without effective response from the remaining garrisons who were "more easily slaughtered than sheep". Cities were able to hold their own defensive walls against barbarians who had no siege equipment, therefore the cities generally remained intact, although the countryside suffered.

 Partial recovery in the Balkans, internal corruption and financial desperation

Gratian appointed a new Augustus, a proven general from Hispania called Theodosius. During the next four years, he partially re-established the Roman position in the East. These campaigns depended on effective imperial coordination and mutual trust—between 379 and 380, Theodosius controlled not only the Eastern empire, but also, by agreement, the diocese of Illyricum. Theodosius was unable to recruit enough Roman troops, relying on barbarian warbands without Roman military discipline or loyalty. (In contrast, during the Cimbrian War, the Roman Republic, controlling a smaller area than the western Empire, had been able to reconstitute large regular armies of citizens after greater defeats than Adrianople. That war had ended with the near-extermination of the invading barbarian supergroups, each supposed to have more than 100,000 warriors.)

The final Gothic settlement was acclaimed with relief, even the official panegyrist admitting that these Goths could not be expelled or exterminated, nor reduced to unfree status. Instead they were either recruited into the imperial forces, or settled in the devastated provinces along the south bank of the Danube, where the regular garrisons were never fully re-established. In some later accounts, and widely in recent work, this is regarded as a treaty settlement, the first time that barbarians were given a home within the Empire, in which they retained their political and military cohesion. No formal treaty is recorded, nor details of whatever agreement was actually made. When the Goths are next mentioned in Roman records, they have different leaders and are soldiers of a sort. In 391, Alaric, a Gothic leader, rebelled against Roman control. Goths attacked the emperor himself, but within a year Alaric was accepted as a leader of Theodosius's Gothic troops and this rebellion was over.

Theodosius's financial position must have been difficult, since he had to pay for expensive campaigning from a reduced tax base. The business of subduing barbarian warbands also demanded substantial gifts of precious metal. At least one extra levy provoked desperation and rioting, in which the emperor's statues were destroyed. Nevertheless, he is represented as financially generous as emperor, though frugal in his personal life. By the end of the 380s, Theodosius and the court were in Mediolanum, and northern Italy was experiencing a period of prosperity for the great landowners who took advantage of the court's need for food, "turning agrarian produce into gold", while repressing and misusing the poor who grew it and brought it in. Paulinus the Deacon, notary of Ambrose the bishop of Milan, described these men as creating a court where "everything was up for sale". Ambrose himself preached a series of sermons aimed at his wealthy constituents, asserting that avarice leads to a breakdown in society.

For centuries, Theodosius was regarded as a champion of Christian orthodoxy who decisively stamped out paganism. His predecessors Constantine, Constantius II, and Valens had all been semi-Arians, whereas Theodosius supported Nicene Christianity which eventually became the orthodox version of Christology for most later Christian churches—his Edict of Thessalonica described Arian Christians as "foolish madmen". Therefore, as far as Ambrose and the Christian literary tradition that followed him were concerned, Theodosius deserved most of the credit for the final triumph of Christianity. Modern scholars see this as a Christian interpretation of history. Theodosius did not stamp out paganism, which continued into the seventh century.

 Civil wars

Theodosius had to face a powerful usurper in the West; Magnus Maximus declared himself Emperor in 383, stripped troops from the outlying regions of Roman Britain (probably replacing some with federate chieftains and their war-bands) and invaded Gaul. His troops killed Gratian and he was accepted as Augustus in the Gallic provinces, where he was responsible for the first official executions of Christian heretics. To compensate the Western court for the loss of Gaul, Hispania, and Britannia, Theodosius ceded the diocese of Dacia and the diocese of Macedonia to their control. In 387 Maximus invaded Italy, forcing Valentinian II to flee to the East, where he accepted Nicene Christianity. Maximus boasted to Ambrose of the numbers of barbarians in his forces, and hordes of Goths, Huns, and Alans followed Theodosius. Maximus negotiated with Theodosius for acceptance as Augustus of the West, but Theodosius refused, gathered his armies, and counterattacked, winning the civil war in 388. There were heavy troop losses on both sides of the conflict. Later Welsh legend has Maximus's defeated troops resettled in Armorica, instead of returning to Britannia, and by 400, Armorica was controlled by Bagaudae rather than by imperial authority.

Theodosius restored Valentinian II, still a very young man, as Augustus in the West. He also appointed Arbogast, a pagan general of Frankish origin, as Valentinian's commander-in-chief and guardian. Valentinian quarreled in public with Arbogast, failed to assert any authority, and died, either by suicide or by murder, at the age of 21. Arbogast and Theodosius failed to come to terms and Arbogast nominated an imperial official, Eugenius (r. 392–394), as emperor in the West. Eugenius made some modest attempts to win pagan support, and with Arbogast led a large army to fight another destructive civil war. They were defeated and killed at the Battle of the Frigidus, which was attended by further heavy losses; especially among the Gothic federates of Theodosius. The north-eastern approaches to Italy were never effectively garrisoned again.

The Eastern and Western Roman Empire at the death of Theodosius I in 395

Theodosius died a few months later in early 395, leaving his young sons Honorius (r. 393–423) and Arcadius (r. 383–408) as emperors. In the immediate aftermath of Theodosius's death, the magister militum Stilicho, married to Theodosius's niece, asserted himself in the West as the guardian of Honorius and commander of the remains of the defeated Western army. He also claimed control over Arcadius in Constantinople, but Rufinus, magister officiorum on the spot, had already established his own power there. Henceforward the Empire was not under the control of one man, until much of the West had been permanently lost. Neither Honorius nor Arcadius ever displayed any ability either as rulers or as generals, and both lived as the puppet rulers of their courts. Stilicho tried to reunite the Eastern and Western courts under his personal control, but in doing so achieved only the continued hostility of all of Arcadius's successive supreme ministers.

 Military, financial, and political ineffectiveness: the process of failure

The ineffectiveness of Roman military responses during Stilicho's rule and afterwards has been described as "shocking". There is little evidence of indigenous field forces or of adequate training, discipline, pay, or supply for the barbarians who formed most of the available troops. Local defence was occasionally effective, but was often associated with withdrawal from central control and taxes. In many areas, barbarians under Roman authority attacked culturally-Roman "Bagaudae". The fifth-century Western emperors, with brief exceptions, were individuals incapable of ruling effectively or even of controlling their own courts. Those exceptions were responsible for brief, but remarkable resurgences of Roman power.

Corruption, in this context the diversion of finance from the needs of the army, may have contributed greatly to the Fall. The rich senatorial aristocrats in Rome itself became increasingly influential during the fifth century; they supported armed strength in theory, but did not wish to pay for it or to offer their own workers as army recruits. They did, however, pass large amounts of money to the Christian Church. At a local level, from the early fourth century, the town councils lost their property and their power, which often became concentrated in the hands of a few local despots beyond the reach of the law.

 395–406: ستيليخون

في غياب حاكمٍ ذي سلطة، سرعان ما غرقت مقاطعات البلقان في الفوضى. خاب أمل ألاريك في الترقي إلى منصب قائد الجنود بعد معركة فريگيدوس. قاد قبائل قوطية مسلحة في ثورة، وأقام نفسه كقوة مستقلة، وأحرق الريف حتى وصل إلى أسوار القسطنطينية. لم تكن طموحات ألاريك في تولي منصب روماني طويل الأمد مقبولة تماماً لدى البلاط الإمبراطوري الروماني، ولم يتمكن رجاله من الاستقرار لفترة كافية لزراعة أي منطقة. لم يُبدوا أي رغبة في مغادرة الإمبراطورية ومواجهة الهون الذين فروا منهم عام 376. في هذه الأثناء، كان الهون لا يزالون يُثيرون المزيد من الهجرات، حيث كانت القبائل المهاجرة تهاجم الإمبراطورية الرومانية بدورها. لم تُدمر جماعة ألاريك ولم تُطرد من الإمبراطورية، ولم تندمج في المجتمع الروماني تحت سيطرة رومانية فعّالة.

 محاولات ستيليخون لتوحيد الإمبراطورية، الثورات، والغزوات

An ivory diptych, thought to depict Stilicho (right) with his wife Serena and son Eucherius, ca. 395 (Monza Cathedral)

Alaric took his Gothic army on what Stilicho's propagandist Claudian described as a "pillaging campaign" that began first in the East. Alaric's forces made their way along the coast to Athens, where he sought to force a new peace upon the Romans. His march in 396 passed through Thermopylae. Stilicho sailed from Italy to Roman Greece with his remaining mobile forces, posing a clear threat to Rufinus's control of the Eastern empire. The bulk of Rufinus's forces were occupied with Hunnic incursions in Asia Minor and Syria, leaving Thracia undefended. Claudian reports that only Stilicho's attack stemmed the plundering, as he pushed Alaric's forces north into Epirus. Burns' interpretation is that Alaric and his men had been recruited by Rufinus's Eastern regime, and sent to Thessaly to stave off Stilicho's threat. No battle took place. Zosimus adds that Stilicho's troops destroyed and pillaged too, and let Alaric's men escape with their plunder.

Many of Stilicho's Eastern forces wanted to go home and he had to let them go (though Claudian claims that he did so willingly). Some went to Constantinople under the command of one Gainas, a Goth with a large Gothic following. On arrival, Gainas murdered Rufinus, and was appointed magister militum for Thrace by Eutropius, the new supreme minister and the only eunuch consul of Rome. Eutropius reportedly controlled Arcadius "as if he were a sheep". Stilicho obtained a few more troops from the German frontier and continued to campaign ineffectively against the Eastern empire; again he was successfully opposed by Alaric and his men. During the next year, 397, Eutropius personally led his troops to victory over some Huns who were marauding in Asia Minor. With his position thus strengthened, he declared Stilicho a public enemy, and he established Alaric as magister militum per Illyricum. A poem by Synesius advises the emperor to display manliness and remove a "skin-clad savage" (probably Alaric) from the councils of power and his barbarians from the Roman army. We do not know if Arcadius ever became aware of the existence of this advice, but it had no recorded effect. Synesius, from a province suffering the widespread ravages of a few poor but greedy barbarians, also complained of "the peacetime war, one almost worse than the barbarian war and arising from military indiscipline and the officer's greed."

A contemporary depiction of Honorius on a consular diptych issued by Anicius Petronius Probus to celebrate Probus's consulship in 406, now in the Aosta museum

The magister militum in the Diocese of Africa declared for the East and stopped the supply of grain to Rome. Italy had not fed itself for centuries and could not do so now. In 398, Stilicho sent his last reserves, a few thousand men, to re-take the Diocese of Africa. He strengthened his position further when he married his daughter Maria to Honorius. Throughout this period Stilicho, and all other generals, were desperately short of recruits and supplies for them. In 400, Stilicho was charged to press into service any "laetus, Alamannus, Sarmatian, vagrant, son of a veteran" or any other person liable to serve. He had reached the bottom of his recruitment pool. Though personally not corrupt, he was very active in confiscating assets; the financial and administrative machine was not producing enough support for the army.

In 399, Tribigild's rebellion in Asia Minor allowed Gainas to accumulate a significant army (mostly Goths), become supreme in the Eastern court, and execute Eutropius. He now felt that he could dispense with Alaric's services and he nominally transferred Alaric's province to the West. This administrative change removed Alaric's Roman rank and his entitlement to legal provisioning for his men, leaving his army—the only significant force in the ravaged Balkans—as a problem for Stilicho. In 400, the citizens of Constantinople revolted against Gainas and massacred as many of his people, soldiers and their families, as they could catch. Some Goths at least built rafts and tried to cross the strip of sea that separates Asia from Europe; the Roman navy slaughtered them. By the beginning of 401, Gainas' head rode a pike through Constantinople while another Gothic general became consul. Meanwhile, groups of Huns started a series of attacks across the Danube, and the Isaurians marauded far and wide in Anatolia.

In 401 Stilicho travelled over the Alps to Raetia, to scrape up further troops. He left the Rhine defended only by the "dread" of Roman retaliation, rather than by adequate forces able to take the field. Early in spring, Alaric, probably desperate, invaded Italy, and he drove Honorius westward from Mediolanum, besieging him in Hasta Pompeia in Liguria. Stilicho returned as soon as the passes had cleared, meeting Alaric in two battles (near Pollentia and Verona) without decisive results. The Goths, weakened, were allowed to retreat back to Illyricum where the Western court again gave Alaric office, though only as comes and only over Dalmatia and Pannonia Secunda rather than the whole of Illyricum. Stilicho probably supposed that this pact would allow him to put Italian government into order and recruit fresh troops. He may also have planned with Alaric's help to relaunch his attempts to gain control over the Eastern court.

Chi-rho pendant of Empress Maria, daughter of Stilicho, and wife of Honorius, now in the Louvre, Paris. The pendant reads, around a central cross (clockwise):
HONORI
MARIA
SERHNA
VIVATIS
STELICHO.
The letters form a Christogram.

However, in 405, Stilicho was distracted by a fresh invasion of Northern Italy. Another group of Goths fleeing the Huns, led by one Radagaisus, started the War of Radagaisus and devastated the north of Italy for six months before Stilicho could muster enough forces to take the field against them. Stilicho recalled troops from Britannia, and the depth of the crisis was shown when he urged all Roman soldiers to allow their personal slaves to fight beside them. His forces, including Huns and Alans, may in the end have totalled rather less than 15,000 men. Radagaisus was defeated and executed, while 12,000 prisoners from the defeated horde were drafted into Stilicho's service. Stilicho continued negotiations with Alaric; Flavius Aetius, son of one of Stilicho's major supporters, was sent as a hostage to Alaric in 405.

In 406, Stilicho heard of new invaders and rebels who had appeared in the northern provinces. He insisted on making peace with Alaric, probably on the basis that Alaric would prepare to move either against the Eastern court or against the rebels in Gaul. The Senate deeply resented peace with Alaric.

In 407, Alaric marched into Noricum and demanded a large payment for his expensive efforts in Stilicho's interests. The senate, "inspired by the courage, rather than the wisdom, of their predecessors," preferred war. One senator famously declaimed Non est ista pax, sed pactio servitutis ("This is not peace, but a pact of servitude"). Stilicho paid Alaric four thousand pounds of gold nevertheless. Stilicho sent Sarus, a Gothic general, over the Alps to face the usurper Constantine III. Sarus lost this campaign and barely escaped, having to leave his baggage to the bandits who now infested the Alpine passes.

The empress Maria, daughter of Stilicho, died in 407 or early 408 and her sister Aemilia Materna Thermantia married Honorius. In the East, Arcadius died on 1 May 408 and was replaced by his son Theodosius II. Stilicho seems to have planned to march to Constantinople, and to install there a regime loyal to himself. He may also have intended to give Alaric a senior official position, and to send him against the rebels in Gaul. Before he could do so, while he was away at Ticinum at the head of a small detachment, a bloody coup d'état against his supporters took place at Honorius's court. It was led by Stilicho's own creature, one Olympius.

 408–410: end of effective regular field armies, starvation in Italy, sack of Rome

 Stilicho's fall and Alaric's reaction

Stilicho had news of the coup at Bononia, where he was probably waiting for Alaric. His army of barbarian troops, including a guard of Huns and many Goths under Sarus, discussed attacking the forces of the coup, but Stilicho prevented them when he heard that the Emperor had not been harmed. Sarus's Gothic troops then massacred the Hun contingent in their sleep, and Stilicho withdrew from the quarreling remains of his army to Ravenna. He ordered that his former soldiers should not be admitted into the cities in which their families were billeted. Stilicho was forced to flee to a church for sanctuary, promised his life, and killed.

Alaric was again declared an enemy of the Emperor. The conspiracy then massacred the families of the federate troops (as presumed supporters of Stilicho, although they had probably rebelled against him), and the troops defected en masse to Alaric. The conspirators seem to have let their main army disintegrate, and had no policy except hunting down anyone they regarded as supporters of Stilicho. Italy was left without effective indigenous defence forces thereafter. Heraclianus, a co-conspirator of Olympius, became governor of the Diocese of Africa. He consequently controlled the source of most of Italy's grain, and he supplied food only in the interests of Honorius's regime.

As a declared 'enemy of the Emperor', Alaric was denied the legitimacy that he needed to collect taxes and hold cities without large garrisons, which he could not afford to detach. He again offered to move his men, this time to Pannonia, in exchange for a modest sum of money and the modest title of Comes. He was refused, as Olympius's clique still regarded him as a supporter of Stilicho. He moved into Italy, probably using the route and supplies arranged for him by Stilicho, bypassing the imperial court in Ravenna which was protected by widespread marshland and had a port, and he menaced the city of Rome itself. In 407, there was no equivalent of the determined response to the catastrophic Battle of Cannae in 216 BCE, when the entire Roman population, even slaves, had been mobilized to resist the enemy.

Alaric's military operations centred on the port of Rome, through which Rome's grain supply had to pass. Alaric's first siege of Rome in 408 caused dreadful famine within the walls. It was ended by a payment that, though large, was less than one of the richest senators could have produced. The super-rich aristocrats made little contribution; pagan temples were stripped of ornaments to make up the total. With promises of freedom, Alaric also recruited many of the slaves in Rome.

Alaric withdrew to Tuscany and recruited more slaves. Athaulf, a Goth nominally in Roman service and brother-in-law to Alaric, marched through Italy to join Alaric. A small force of Hunnic mercenaries led by Olympius killed some of Athaulf's men on this journey. Sarus was an enemy of Athaulf, and on Athaulf's arrival went back into imperial service.

 Alaric besieges Rome

In 409 Olympius fell to further intrigue, having his ears cut off before he was beaten to death. Alaric tried again to negotiate with Honorius, but his demands (now even more moderate, only frontier land and food,) were inflated by the messenger and Honorius responded with insults, which were reported verbatim to Alaric. He broke off negotiations and the standoff continued. Honorius's court made overtures to the usurper Constantine III in Gaul and arranged to bring Hunnic forces into Italy, Alaric ravaged Italy outside the fortified cities (which he could not garrison), and the Romans refused open battle (for which they had inadequate forces). Late in the year, Alaric sent bishops to express his readiness to leave Italy if Honorius would only grant his people a supply of grain. Honorius, sensing weakness, flatly refused.

Alaric moved to Rome and captured Galla Placidia, sister of Honorius. The Senate in Rome, despite its loathing for Alaric, was now desperate enough to give him almost anything he wanted. They had no food to offer, but they tried to give him imperial legitimacy; with the Senate's acquiescence, he elevated Priscus Attalus as his puppet emperor, and he marched on Ravenna. Honorius was planning to flee to Constantinople when a reinforcing army of 4,000 soldiers from the East disembarked in Ravenna. These garrisoned the walls and Honorius held on. He had Constantine's principal court supporter executed and Constantine abandoned plans to march to Honorius's defence. Attalus failed to establish his control over the Diocese of Africa, and no grain arrived in Rome where the famine became even more frightful. Jerome reports cannibalism within the walls. Attalus brought Alaric no real advantage, failing also to come to any useful agreement with Honorius (to whom Attalus offered mutilation, humiliation, and exile). Indeed, Attalus's claim was a marker of threat to Honorius, and Alaric dethroned him after a few months.

In 410 Alaric took Rome by starvation, and sacked it for three days. He invited its remaining barbarian slaves to join him, which many did. There was relatively little destruction. In some Christian holy places, Alaric's men even refrained from wanton violence, and Jerome tells the story of a virgin who was escorted to a church by the invaders, after they had given her mother a beating from which she later died. The city of Rome was the seat of the richest senatorial noble families and the centre of their cultural patronage. To pagans it was the sacred origin of the empire, and to Christians the seat of the heir of Saint Peter. At the time, this position was held by Pope Innocent I, the most authoritative bishop of the West. Rome had not fallen to an enemy since the Battle of the Allia, over eight centuries before. Refugees spread the news and their stories throughout the Empire, and the meaning of the fall was debated with religious fervour. Both Christians and pagans wrote embittered tracts, blaming paganism or Christianity respectively for the loss of Rome's supernatural protection and all attacking Stilicho's earthly failures. Some Christian responses anticipated the imminence of the Last Judgment. Augustine of Hippo in his book "City of God" ultimately rejected the pagan and Christian idea that religion should have worldly benefits. He instead developed the doctrine that the City of God in heaven, undamaged by mundane disasters, was the true objective of Christians. More practically, Honorius was briefly persuaded to set aside the laws forbidding pagans to be military officers, so that one Generidus could re-establish Roman control in Dalmatia. Generidus did this with unusual effectiveness. His techniques were remarkable for this period, in that they included training his troops, disciplining them, and giving them appropriate supplies even if he had to use his own money. The penal laws were reinstated no later than 25 August 410, meaning that the overall trend of repression of paganism continued.

Inscription honouring Honorius, as florentissimo invictissimoque, the most excellent and invincible, 417–418, Forum Romanum

Procopius mentions a story in which Honorius, on hearing the news that Rome had "perished", was shocked. The emperor thought that the news was in reference to his favorite chicken, which he had named "Roma". On hearing that Rome itself had fallen, he breathed a sigh of relief:

At that time they say that the Emperor Honorius in Ravenna received the message from one of the eunuchs, evidently a keeper of the poultry, that Roma had perished. And he cried out and said, "And yet it has just eaten from my hands!" For he had a very large cockerel, Roma by name; and the eunuch comprehending his words said that it was the city of Roma which had perished at the hands of Alaric, and the emperor with a sigh of relief answered quickly: "But I thought that my fowl Roma had perished." So great, they say, was the folly with which this emperor was possessed.

— Procopius, The Vandalic War (De Bellis III.2.25–26)

 The Goths move out of Italy

Alaric then moved south, intending to sail to Africa. His ships were wrecked in a storm, and he shortly died of fever. His successor Athaulf, still regarded as an usurper and given only occasional and short-term grants of supplies, moved north into the turmoil of Gaul. In this region, there was some prospect of food. His supergroup of barbarians are called the Visigoths in modern works: they may now have been developing their own sense of identity.

 405–418: In the Gallic provinces; barbarians and usurpers, loss of Britannia, partial loss of Hispania and Gaul

The Crossing of the Rhine in 405/6 brought unmanageable numbers of Germanic and Alan barbarians (perhaps some 30,000 warriors, 100,000 people) into Gaul. They may have been trying to get away from the Huns, who about this time advanced to occupy the Great Hungarian Plain. For the next few years these barbarian tribes wandered in search of food and employment, while Roman forces fought each other in the name of Honorius and a number of competing claimants to the imperial throne.

The remaining troops in Britannia elevated a succession of imperial usurpers. The last, Constantine III, raised an army from the remaining troops in Britannia, invaded Gaul and defeated forces loyal to Honorius led by Sarus. Constantine's power reached its peak in 409 when he controlled Gaul and beyond, he was joint consul with Honorius and his magister militum Gerontius defeated the last Roman force to try to hold the borders of Hispania. It was led by relatives of Honorius; Constantine executed them. Gerontius went to Hispania, where he may have settled the Sueves and the Asding Vandals. Gerontius then fell out with his master and elevated one Maximus as his own puppet emperor. He defeated Constantine and was besieging him in Arelate when Honorius's general Constantius arrived from Italy with an army (possibly, composed mainly of Hun mercenaries). Gerontius's troops deserted him, and he committed suicide. Constantius continued the siege, defeating a relieving army. Constantine surrendered in 411 with a promise that his life would be spared, and was then executed.

In 410, the Roman civitates of Britannia rebelled against Constantine and evicted his officials. They asked for help from Honorius, who replied that they should look to their own defence. While the British may have regarded themselves as Roman for several generations, and British armies may at times have fought in Gaul, no central Roman government is known to have appointed officials in Britannia thereafter. The supply of coinage to the Diocese of Britannia ceases with Honorius.

In 411, Jovinus rebelled and took over Constantine's remaining troops on the Rhine. He relied on the support of Burgundians and Alans, to whom he offered supplies and land. In 413, Jovinus also recruited Sarus. Athaulf destroyed their regime in the name of Honorius, afterwards both Jovinus and Sarus were executed. The Burgundians were settled on the left bank of the Rhine. Athaulf then operated in the south of Gaul, sometimes with short-term supplies from the Romans. All usurpers had been defeated, but large barbarian groups remained un-subdued in both Gaul and Hispania. The imperial government was quick to restore the Rhine frontier. The invading tribes of 407 moved into Hispania at the end of 409; the Visigoths left Italy at the beginning of 412 and settled themselves around Narbo.

Heraclianus was still in command in the diocese of Africa. He was the last member of the clique which had overthrown Stilicho to retain power. In 413 he revolted and led an invasion of Italy, and lost to a subordinate of Constantius. He then fled back to Africa, where he was murdered by Constantius's agents.

In January 414 Roman naval forces blockaded Athaulf in Narbo, where he married Galla Placidia. The choir at the wedding included Attalus, a puppet emperor without revenues or soldiers. Athaulf famously declared that he had abandoned his intention to set up a Gothic empire, because of the irredeemable barbarity of his followers, and instead he sought to restore the Roman Empire. He handed Attalus over to Honorius's regime for mutilation, humiliation, and exile. He also abandoned Attalus's supporters. One of them, Paulinus Pellaeus, recorded that the Goths considered themselves merciful because they allowed him and his household to leave destitute, but alive, without being raped. Athaulf moved out of Gaul, to Barcelona where his infant son by Galla Placidia was buried, and where he was assassinated by one of his household retainers, possibly a former follower of Sarus. His ultimate successor Wallia had no agreement with the Romans; his people had to plunder in Hispania for food.

 Settlement of 418; barbarians within the empire

Areas allotted to or claimed by barbarian groups in 416–418

In 416 Wallia reached agreement with Constantius; he sent Galla Placidia back to Honorius and received provisions, six hundred thousand modii of wheat. From 416 to 418, Wallia's Goths campaigned in Hispania on Constantius's behalf, exterminating the Siling Vandals in Baetica and reducing the Alans to the point where the survivors sought the protection of the king of the Asding Vandals. (After retrenchment they formed another barbarian supergroup, but for the moment they were reduced in numbers and effectively cowed.) In 418, by agreement with Constantius, Wallia's Goths accepted land to farm in Aquitania. Constantius also reinstituted an annual council of the southern Gallic provinces, to meet at Arelate. Although Constantius rebuilt the western field army to some extent, he did so only by replacing half of its units (vanished in the wars since 395) by re-graded barbarians, and by garrison troops removed from the frontier. The Notitia Dignitatum gives a list of the units of the western field army 425ح. 425. It does not give strengths for these units, but A. H. M. Jones used the Notitia to estimate the total strength of the field armies in the West at 113,000 : Gaul, "about" 35,000; Italy, "nearly" 30,000; Britain 3,000; in Spain, 10–11,000, in the diocese of Illyricum 13–14,000, and in the diocese of Africa 23,000.

Constantius had married the princess Galla Placidia (despite her protests) in 417. The couple soon had two children, Honoria and Valentinian III. Constantius was elevated to the position of Augustus in 420. This earned him the hostility of the Eastern court, which had not agreed to his elevation. Nevertheless, Constantius had achieved an unassailable position at the Western court, in the imperial family, and as the able commander-in-chief of a partially restored army.

This settlement represented a real success for the Empire – a poem by Rutilius Namatianus celebrates his voyage back to Gaul in 417 and his confidence in a restoration of prosperity. But it marked huge losses of territory and of revenue; Rutilius travelled by ship past the ruined bridges and countryside of Tuscany, and in the west the river Loire had become the effective northern boundary of Roman Gaul. In the east of Gaul the Franks controlled large areas; the effective line of Roman control until 455 ran from north of Cologne (lost to the Ripuarian Franks in 459) to Boulogne. The Italian areas which had been compelled to support the Goths had most of their taxes remitted for several years. Even in southern Gaul and Hispania large barbarian groups remained, with thousands of warriors, in their own non-Roman military and social systems. Some occasionally acknowledged a degree of Roman political control, but without the local application of Roman leadership and military power they and their individual subgroups pursued their own interests.

 421–433: Renewed dissension after the death of Constantius, partial loss of the Diocese of Africa

Constantius died in 421, after only seven months as Augustus. He had been careful to make sure that there was no successor in waiting, and his own children were far too young to take his place. Honorius was unable to control his own court, and the death of Constantius initiated more than ten years of instability. Initially Galla Placidia sought Honorius's favour in the hope that her son might ultimately inherit. Other court interests managed to defeat her, and she fled with her children to the Eastern court in 422. Honorius himself died, shortly before his thirty-ninth birthday, in 423. After some months of intrigue, the patrician Castinus installed Joannes as Western Emperor, but the Eastern Roman government proclaimed the child Valentinian III instead, his mother Galla Placidia acting as regent during his minority. Once again a civil war took place. Joannes had few troops of his own. He sent Aetius to raise help from the Huns. An Eastern army landed in Italy, captured Joannes, cut his hand off, abused him in public, and killed him with most of his senior officials. Aetius returned, three days after Joannes' death, at the head of a substantial Hunnic army which made him the most powerful general in Italy. After some fighting, Placidia and Aetius came to an agreement; the Huns were paid off and sent home, while Aetius received the position of magister militum.

Galla Placidia, as Augusta, mother of the Emperor, and his guardian until 437, could maintain a dominant position in court, but women in Ancient Rome did not exercise military power, and she could not herself become a general. She tried for some years to avoid reliance on a single dominant military figure, maintaining a balance of power between her three senior officers, Aetius (magister militum in Gaul), Count Boniface (governor in the Diocese of Africa), and Flavius Felix (magister militum praesentalis in Italy). Meanwhile, the Empire deteriorated seriously. Apart from the losses in the Diocese of Africa, Hispania was slipping out of central control and into the hands of local rulers and Suevic bandits. In Gaul the Rhine frontier had collapsed, the Aquitanian Goths revolted and launched further attacks on Narbo and Arelate, and the Franks, increasingly powerful although disunited, were the major power in the north-east. Armorica was controlled by Bagaudae, local leaders not under the authority of the Empire. Aetius at least campaigned vigorously and mostly victoriously, defeating aggressive Visigoths, Franks, fresh Germanic invaders, Bagaudae in Armorica, and a rebellion in Noricum. Not for the first time in Rome's history, a triumvirate of mutually distrustful rulers proved unstable. In 427, Felix tried to recall Boniface from Africa. Boniface refused, and overcame Felix's invading force. Boniface probably recruited some Vandal troops among others.

In 428 the Vandals and Alans were united under the able, ferocious, and long-lived king Genseric; he moved his entire people to Tarifa near Gibraltar, divided them into 80 groups nominally of 1,000 people (perhaps 20,000 warriors in total), and crossed from Hispania to Mauretania without opposition. It was the beginning of Vandal conquest of Roman Africa. They spent a year moving slowly to Numidia, defeating Boniface. He returned to Italy where Aetius had recently had Felix executed. Boniface was promoted to magister militum and earned the enmity of Aetius, who may have been absent in Gaul at the time. In 432 the two met at the Battle of Ravenna, which left Aetius's forces defeated and Boniface mortally wounded. Aetius temporarily retired to his estates, but after an attempt to murder him he raised another Hunnic army (probably by conceding parts of Pannonia to them) and in 433 he returned to Italy, overcoming all rivals. He never threatened to become an Augustus himself and thus maintained the support of the Eastern court, where Valentinian's cousin Theodosius II reigned until 450.

 433–454: ascendancy of Aetius, loss of Carthage

Aetius campaigned vigorously, somewhat stabilizing the situation in Gaul and in Hispania. He relied heavily on his forces of Huns. With a ferocity celebrated centuries later in the Nibelungenlied, the Huns slaughtered many Burgundiones on the middle Rhine, re-establishing the survivors as Roman allies, the first Kingdom of the Burgundians. This may have returned some sort of Roman authority to Trier. Eastern troops reinforced Carthage, temporarily halting the Vandals, who in 435 agreed to limit themselves to Numidia and leave the most fertile parts of North Africa in peace. Aetius concentrated his limited military resources to defeat the Visigoths again, and his diplomacy restored a degree of order to Hispania. However, his general Litorius was badly defeated by the Visigoths at Toulouse, and a new Suevic king, Rechiar, began vigorous assaults on what remained of Roman Hispania. At one point Rechiar even allied with Bagaudae. These were Romans not under imperial control; some of their reasons for rebellion may be indicated by the remarks of a Roman captive under Attila who was happy in his lot, giving a lively account of "the vices of a declining empire, of which he had so long been the victim; the cruel absurdity of the Roman princes, unable to protect their subjects against the public enemy, unwilling to trust them with arms for their own defence; the intolerable weight of taxes, rendered still more oppressive by the intricate or arbitrary modes of collection; the obscurity of numerous and contradictory laws; the tedious and expensive forms of judicial proceedings; the partial administration of justice; and the universal corruption, which increased the influence of the rich, and aggravated the misfortunes of the poor."

Vegetius's advice on re-forming an effective army may be dated to the early 430s, (though a date in the 390s has also been suggested). He identified many deficiencies in the military, especially mentioning that the soldiers were no longer properly equipped:

From the foundation of the city till the reign of the Emperor Gratian, the foot wore cuirasses and helmets. But negligence and sloth having by degrees introduced a total relaxation of discipline, the soldiers began to think their armor too heavy, as they seldom put it on. They first requested leave from the Emperor to lay aside the cuirass and afterwards the helmet. In consequence of this, our troops in their engagements with the Goths were often overwhelmed with their showers of arrows. Nor was the necessity of obliging the infantry to resume their cuirasses and helmets discovered, notwithstanding such repeated defeats, which brought on the destruction of so many great cities. Troops, defenseless and exposed to all the weapons of the enemy, are more disposed to fly than fight. What can be expected from a foot-archer without cuirass or helmet, who cannot hold at once his bow and shield; or from the ensigns whose bodies are naked, and who cannot at the same time carry a shield and the colors? The foot soldier finds the weight of a cuirass and even of a helmet intolerable. This is because he is so seldom exercised and rarely puts them on.

A religious polemic of about this time complains bitterly of the oppression and extortion suffered by all but the richest Romans. Many wished to flee to the Bagaudae or even to foul-smelling barbarians. "Although these men differ in customs and language from those with whom they have taken refuge, and are unaccustomed too, if I may say so, to the nauseous odor of the bodies and clothing of the barbarians, yet they prefer the strange life they find there to the injustice rife among the Romans. So you find men passing over everywhere, now to the Goths, now to the Bagaudae, or whatever other barbarians have established their power anywhere ... We call those men rebels and utterly abandoned, whom we ourselves have forced into crime. For by what other causes were they made Bagaudae save by our unjust acts, the wicked decisions of the magistrates, the proscription and extortion of those who have turned the public exactions to the increase of their private fortunes and made the tax indictions their opportunity for plunder?"

Gildas, a 6th-century monk and author of De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, wrote that "In the respite from devastation, the island [Britain] was so flooded with abundance of goods that no previous age had known the like of it. Alongside there grew luxury." Nevertheless, effective imperial protection from barbarian ravages was eagerly sought. About this time authorities in Britannia asked Aetius for help: "'To Aetius, thrice consul: the groans of the British.' Further on came this complaint: 'The barbarians push us back to the sea, the sea pushes us back to the barbarians; between these two kinds of death, we are either drowned or slaughtered.' But they got no help in return."

The Visigoths passed another waymark on their journey to full independence; they made their own foreign policy, sending princesses to make (rather unsuccessful) marriage alliances with Rechiar of the Sueves and with Huneric, son of the Vandal king Genseric.

In 439, the Vandals moved eastward, temporarily abandoning Numidia. They captured Carthage, where they established the Vandal Kingdom, an independent state with a powerful navy. This brought immediate financial crisis to the Western Empire. The diocese of Africa was prosperous, normally required few troops to keep it secure, contributed large tax revenues, and exported wheat to feed Rome and many other areas. Roman troops assembled in Sicily, but the planned counter-attack never happened. Huns attacked the Eastern empire, and "the troops, which had been sent against Genseric, were hastily recalled from Sicily; the garrisons, on the side of Persia, were exhausted; and a military force was collected in Europe, formidable by their arms and numbers, if the generals had understood the science of command, and the soldiers the duty of obedience. The armies of the Eastern empire were vanquished in three successive engagements ... From the Hellespont to Thermopylae, and the suburbs of Constantinople, [Attila] ravaged, without resistance, and without mercy, the provinces of Thrace and Macedonia" Attila's invasions of the East were stopped by the Theodosian Walls; at this heavily fortified Eastern end of the Mediterranean there were no significant barbarian invasions across the sea into the rich southerly areas of Anatolia, the Levant, and Egypt. Despite internal and external threats, and more religious discord than the West, these provinces remained prosperous contributors to tax revenue; despite the ravages of Attila's armies and the extortions of his peace treaties, tax revenue generally continued to be adequate for the essential state functions of the Eastern empire.

Genseric settled his Vandals as landowners. In 442, he was able to negotiate very favourable peace terms with the Western court. He kept his latest gains and his eldest son Huneric was honoured by betrothal to Valentinian III's daughter Eudocia. She carried the legitimacy of the conjoined Valentinianic and Theodosian dynasties. Huneric's Gothic wife was suspected of trying to poison her father-in-law Genseric; he sent her home without her nose or ears, and his Gothic alliance came to an early end. The Romans regained Numidia, and Rome again received a grain supply from Africa.

The losses of income from the Diocese of Africa were equivalent to the costs of nearly 40,000 infantry or over 20,000 cavalry. The imperial regime had to increase taxes. Despite admitting that the peasantry could pay no more, and that a sufficient army could not be raised, the imperial regime protected the interests of landowners displaced from Africa and allowed wealthy individuals to avoid taxes.

 444–453: attacks by the empire of Attila the Hun

In 444, the Huns were united under Attila. His subjects included Huns, outnumbered several times over by other groups, predominantly Germanic peoples. His power rested partly on his continued ability to reward his favoured followers with precious metals, and he continued to attack the Eastern Empire until 450, by when he had extracted vast sums of money and many other concessions.

Attila may not have needed any excuse to turn West, but he received one in the form of a plea for help from Honoria, the Emperor's sister, who was being forced into a marriage which she resented. Attila claimed Honoria as his wife, and half of the Western Empire's territory as his dowry. Faced with refusal, he invaded Gaul in 451 with a huge army. In the bloody battle of the Catalaunian Plains, the invasion was stopped by the combined forces of the barbarians within the Western empire. They were coordinated by Aetius, and supported by what troops he could muster. The next year, Attila invaded Italy and proceeded to march upon Rome. An outbreak of disease in his army, lack of supplies, reports that Eastern Roman troops were attacking his noncombatant population in Pannonia, and, possibly, Pope Leo I's plea for peace induced him to halt this campaign. Attila unexpectedly died a year later (453) and his empire crumbled as his followers fought for power. The life of Severinus of Noricum gives glimpses of the general insecurity, and ultimate retreat of the Romans on the Upper Danube in the aftermath of Attila's death. The Romans were without adequate forces; the barbarians inflicted haphazard extortion, murder, kidnap, and plunder on the Romans and on each other. "So long as the Roman dominion lasted, soldiers were maintained in many towns at the public expense to guard the boundary wall. When this custom ceased, the squadrons of soldiers and the boundary wall were blotted out together. The troop at Batavis, however, held out. Some soldiers of this troop had gone to Italy to fetch the final pay to their comrades, and no one knew that the barbarians had slain them on the way."

In 454, Aetius was personally stabbed to death by Valentinian. "[Valentinian] thought he had slain his master; he found that he had slain his protector: and he fell a helpless victim to the first conspiracy which was hatched against his throne." Valentinian himself was murdered by the dead general's supporters a year later. A rich senatorial aristocrat, Petronius Maximus, who had encouraged both murders, then seized the throne. He broke the engagement between the princess Eudocia and Huneric, heir to the Vandal throne. This amounted to a declaration of war with the Vandals. Petronius had time to send Avitus to ask for the help of the Visigoths in Gaul before a Vandal fleet arrived in Italy. Petronius was unable to muster any effective defence, tried to flee the city, and was torn to pieces by a mob who paraded the bits around on a pole. The Vandals entered Rome, and plundered it for two weeks. Despite the shortage of money for the defence of the state, considerable private wealth had accumulated since the previous sack in 410. The Vandals sailed away with large amounts of treasure and also with the princess Eudocia. She became the wife of one Vandal king and the mother of another, Hilderic.

The Vandals conquered Sicily. Their fleet became a constant danger to Roman sea trade, and to the coasts and islands of the western Mediterranean.

 455–456: failure of Avitus, further losses in Gaul, rise of Ricimer

Avitus, at the Visigothic court in Burdigala, declared himself Emperor. He moved on Rome with Visigothic support. He gained acceptance by Majorian and Ricimer, commanders of the remaining army of Italy. This was the first time that a barbarian kingdom had played a key role in the imperial succession. Avitus's son-in-law Sidonius Apollinaris wrote propaganda to present the Visigothic king Theoderic II as a reasonable man with whom a Roman regime could do business. Theoderic's payoff included precious metal from stripping the remaining public ornaments of Italy, and an unsupervised campaign in Hispania. There he not only defeated the Sueves, executing his brother-in-law Rechiar, but he also plundered Roman cities. The Burgundians expanded their kingdom in the Rhône valley, while the Vandals took the remains of the Diocese of Africa. In 456, the Visigothic army was too heavily engaged in Hispania to be an effective threat to Italy. Ricimer had just destroyed a pirate fleet of sixty Vandal ships. Majorian and Ricimer marched against Avitus, and defeated him near Placentia. He was forced to become Bishop of Placentia, and died (possibly murdered) a few weeks later.

 457–467: resurgence under Majorian, attempt to recover Africa, control by Ricimer

During his four-year reign Majorian reconquered most of Hispania and southern Gaul, meanwhile reducing the Visigoths, Burgundians and Suevi to federate status.

Majorian and Ricimer were now in control of Italy. Ricimer was the son of a Suevic king, and his mother was the daughter of a Gothic one, so he could not aspire to an imperial throne. After some months, allowing for negotiation with the new emperor of Constantinople and the defeat of 900 Alamannic invaders of Italy by one of his subordinates, Majorian was acclaimed as Augustus.

Majorian is described by Gibbon as "a great and heroic character". He rebuilt the army and navy of Italy with vigour and set about recovering the remaining Gallic provinces, which had not recognized his elevation. He defeated the Visigoths at the Battle of Arelate, reducing them to federate status and obliging them to give up their claims in Hispania; he moved on to subdue the Burgundians, the Gallo-Romans around Lugdunum (who were granted tax concessions and whose senior officials were appointed from their own ranks), and the Suevi and Bagaudae in Hispania. Marcellinus, magister militum in Dalmatia and the pagan general of a well-equipped army, acknowledged him as emperor and recovered Sicily from the Vandals. Aegidius also acknowledged Majorian and took effective charge of northern Gaul. (Aegidius may also have used the title "King of the Franks"). Abuses in tax collection were reformed and the city councils were strengthened. Both were actions necessary to rebuild the strength of the Empire, but disadvantageous to the richest aristocrats. Majorian prepared a fleet at Carthago Nova for the essential reconquest of the Diocese of Africa.

The fleet was burned by traitors, and Majorian made peace with the Vandals and returned to Italy. Here Ricimer met him, arrested him, and executed him five days later. Marcellinus in Dalmatia and Aegidius around Soissons in northern Gaul rejected both Ricimer and his puppets and maintained some version of Roman rule in their areas. Ricimer later ceded Narbo and its hinterland to the Visigoths in exchange for their help against Aegidius; this made it impossible for Roman armies to march from Italy to Hispania. Ricimer was then the effective ruler of Italy (but little else) for several years. From 461 to 465 the pious Italian aristocrat Libius Severus reigned. There is no record of anything significant that he even tried to achieve, he was never acknowledged by the East whose help Ricimer needed, and he died conveniently in 465.

 467–472: Anthemius; an emperor and an army from the East

Tremissis of Anthemius

After two years without a Western emperor, the Eastern court nominated Anthemius, a successful general who had a strong claim to the Eastern throne. He arrived in Italy with an army, supported by Marcellinus and his fleet. Anthemius married his daughter Alypia to Ricimer, and he was proclaimed Augustus in 467. In 468, at vast expense, the Eastern empire assembled an enormous force to help the West retake the Diocese of Africa. Marcellinus rapidly drove the Vandals from Sardinia and Sicily, and a land invasion evicted them from Tripolitania. The commander in chief with the main force defeated a Vandal fleet near Sicily, and landed at Cape Bon. Here Genseric offered to surrender, if he could have a five-day truce to prepare the process. He used the respite to prepare a full-scale attack preceded by fireships, which destroyed most of the Roman fleet and killed many of its soldiers. The Vandals were confirmed in their possession of the Diocese of Africa. They soon retook Sardinia and Sicily. Marcellinus was murdered, possibly on orders from Ricimer. The Praetorian prefect of Gaul, Arvandus, tried to persuade Euric the new king of the Visigoths to rebel, on the grounds that Roman power in Gaul was finished anyway; the king refused.

Anthemius was still in command of an army in Italy. Additionally, in northern Gaul, a British army led by one Riothamus, operated in imperial interests at the battle of Déols. Anthemius sent his son Anthemiolus over the Alps, with an army, to request the Visigoths to return southern Gaul to Roman control. This would have allowed the Empire land access to Hispania again. The Visigoths refused, and defeated the forces of both Riothamus and Anthemius at the battle of Arles; with the Burgundians, they took over almost all of the remaining imperial territory in southern Gaul.

Ricimer then quarreled with Anthemius, and besieged him in Rome, which surrendered in July 472, after more months of starvation. Anthemius was captured and executed (on Ricimer's orders) by the Burgundian prince Gundobad. In August, Ricimer died of a pulmonary haemorrhage. Olybrius, his new emperor, named Gundobad as his patrician, then shortly died himself.

 472–476: final emperors, puppets of the warlords

After the death of Olybrius there was a further interregnum until March 473, when Gundobad proclaimed Glycerius emperor. He may have made some attempt to intervene in Gaul; if so, it was unsuccessful.

Tremissis of Julius Nepos

In 474 Julius Nepos, nephew and successor of the general Marcellinus, arrived in Rome with soldiers and authority from the eastern emperor Leo I. By that time, Gundobad had left to contest the Burgundian throne in Gaul. Glycerius gave up without a fight, retiring to become bishop of Salona in Dalmatia. Julius Nepos ruled Italy and Dalmatia from Ravenna, and appointed Orestes, a former secretary of Attila, as magister militum.

In 475, Orestes promised land in Italy to various Germanic mercenaries, Heruli, Scirian and Torcilingi, in exchange for their support. He drove Julius Nepos out of Ravenna and proclaimed his own son Flavius Momyllus Romulus Augustus (Romulus Augustulus) as Emperor, on October 31. His surname 'Augustus' was given the diminutive form 'Augustulus' by rivals, because he was still a minor. Romulus was never recognized outside Italy as a legitimate ruler.

In 476, Orestes refused to honour his promises of land to his mercenaries, who revolted under the leadership of Odoacer. Orestes fled to the city of Pavia on August 23, 476, where the city's bishop gave him sanctuary. Orestes was soon forced to flee Pavia, when Odoacer's army broke through the city walls and ravaged the city. Odoacer's army chased Orestes to Piacenza, where they captured and executed him on August 28, 476.

On September 4, 476, Odoacer forced Romulus Augustulus, whom his father Orestes had proclaimed to be Rome's Emperor, to abdicate. The Anonymus Valesianus wrote that Odoacer, "taking pity on his youth" (he was then 16 years old), spared Romulus' life and granted him an annual pension of 6,000 solidi before sending him to live with relatives in Campania. Odoacer installed himself as ruler over Italy, and sent the Imperial insignia to Constantinople.

 From 476: last emperor, rump states

Europe and the Mediterranean in AD 476

By convention, the Western Roman Empire is deemed to have ended on 4 September 476, when Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus and proclaimed himself ruler of Italy. This convention is subject to many qualifications. In Roman constitutional theory, the Empire was still simply united under one emperor, implying no abandonment of territorial claims. In areas where the convulsions of the dying Empire had made organized self-defence legitimate, rump states continued under some form of Roman rule after 476. Julius Nepos still claimed to be Emperor of the West, and controlled Dalmatia until his murder in 480. Syagrius, son of Aegidius, ruled the Domain of Soissons until his murder in 486. The indigenous inhabitants of Mauretania developed kingdoms of their own, independent of the Vandals, and with strong Roman traits. They again sought imperial recognition with the reconquests of Justinian I, and they later put up effective resistance to the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. The civitates of Britannia continued to look to their own defence as Honorius had authorized; they maintained literacy in Latin and other identifiably Roman traits for some time although they sank to a level of material development inferior even to their pre-Roman Iron Age ancestors.

The Ostrogothic Kingdom, which rose from the ruins of the Western Roman Empire

Odoacer began to negotiate with the East Roman (Byzantine) emperor Zeno, who was busy dealing with unrest in the East. Zeno eventually granted Odoacer the status of patrician and accepted him as his own viceroy of Italy. Zeno, however, insisted that Odoacer had to pay homage to Julius Nepos as the Emperor of the Western Empire. Odoacer never returned any territory or real power, but he did issue coins in the name of Julius Nepos throughout Italy. The murder of Julius Nepos in 480 (Glycerius may have been among the conspirators) prompted Odoacer to invade Dalmatia, annexing it to his Kingdom of Italy. In 488, the Eastern emperor authorized a troublesome Goth, Theodoric (later known as "the Great") to take Italy. After several indecisive campaigns, in 493 Theodoric and Odoacer agreed to rule jointly. They celebrated their agreement with a banquet of reconciliation, at which Theodoric's men murdered Odoacer's, and Theodoric personally cut Odoacer in half.

The mostly powerless, but still influential Western Roman Senate continued to exist in the city of Rome under the rule of the Ostrogothic kingdom and, later, the Byzantine Empire for at least another century, before disappearing at an unknown date in the early 7th century.

 الذكرى

المقالة الرئيسية: ذكرى الامبراطورية الرومانية

لم تكن الإمبراطورية الرومانية مجرد وحدة سياسية تم فرضها بالقوة. فقد كانت أيضاً الحضارة المشتركة والمفصلة لحوض البحر الأبيض المتوسط وما وراؤه. ويشمل ذلك التصنيع والتجارة والهندسة المعمارية، ومحو الأمية العلمانية على نطاق واسع، والقانون المكتوب، ولغة دولية للعلوم والأداب. كان البرابرة الغربيون يفقتدون للكثير من هذه الممارسات الثقافية العالية، لكن اعادة تطورهم في العصور الوسطى على يد السياسيين المدركين للإنجاز الروماني شكل أساساً للتطور اللاحق في أوروپا.

رصد الاستمرارية الثقافية والأثرية من خلال وبعد فترة من السيطرة السياسية المفقودة، العملية التي وصفت بالتحول الثقافي المعقد، بدلاً من السقوط.

 انظر أيضاً

• دراسات مقارنة لامبراطورية الهان والامبراطورية الرومانية
• سقوط الامبراطورية البيزنطية (سقوط الامبراطورية الرومانية الشرقية)
• تأريخ سقوط الامبراطورية الرومانية الغربية
• آخر الرومان
• الجيش الروماني المتأخر

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 وصلات خارجية

• “The Roman Empire's Collapse in the 5th Century” BBC Radio 4 discussion with Charlotte Roueché, David Womersley and Richard Alston (In Our Time, Mar. 18, 2004)