End Of Roman Empire, Unc, Mar 2010

Why This Book?
1600 th anniversary of sack of Rome by Alaric
Already c.200 theories about why the Roman Empire fell
Since Gibbon barely anyone has told the story of how it fell
Academic fixation on why has meant much of the story has been overlooked or misunderstood

Barbarian Raids across Europe in the 260s AD

AD 276 – 376 Barbarians in the Empire
First barbarians settled in Gaul by the emperor Probus (276-282)
Treaty with the Goths
c. 340
Soldiers, slaves and farm-hands

Happy Days Are Here Again!
Roman soldier spearing falling barbarian
AD 355-61
Felicium Tempus Reparatio

But barbarians become Roman generals
Stilicho, generalissimo of the West during the reign of Honorius (395-408)
Half Vandal, half Roman

Enter Diocletian AD 284 Tetrarchs in Venice

Class fixing Piercebridge Ploughman

Rich getting richer Hoxne Treasure, Suffolk

Enter Constantine and Christianity

The barbarian invasions 376-407

Across the Danube

Crisis at Hadrianople, 378

Division of Empire, AD 395

Order Restored? Suppliant Goths under Theodosius’ family at Constantinople

Battle of the River Frigidus, AD 394 Eugenius Theodosius I The Roman army; citizens and increasingly barbarians

Alaric unleashed - 395… Ludwig Thiersch

Alaric moves West – 401-3

Honorius flees to Ravenna

Usurpers and barbarians in Gaul Constantine III 407-11

Alaric besieges Rome 408

Fruitless negotiations Priscus Attalus 409-10 St Apollinaire, Ravenna

Alaric sacks Rome 8/24
Johan Winckelmann, etching, 1782

Kenneth Setton, 1962

Meanwhile in Ravenna… John W. Waterhouse, 1883

How should we view the barbarians?

What did they want? Esquiline Treasure, Rome (British Museum)

Who were they? Refugees?

Economic Migrants?

Controlling access

A threat to authority?

Clash with authority

Migrant Workers

Swelling the ranks

The old order of Rome Symmachus, the Senate and Honorius

The old order in the West?

Does the world need new leaders to face these changes?

The Road to Africa The fields of Dougga Appian Way

Burial of Alaric, 410/11 Lithograph, 1895

Galla Placidia c.388-450

Wedding of Galla Placidia

Galla Placidia ‘sold back’ to Rome for 600,000 modii of grain
Roman Modius on a coin of Nerva, AD 96-8

Vandals take Africa, AD 439

The barbarian dream?

Aesop
‘ I’d rather have one grain of corn than all the jewels in the world.’

What of Rome? Last emperor of the West, Romulus Augustulus, deposed in AD 476

Ostrogothic Rome, AD 49

Cannon: 14 feet; 15 tons; 500lb stone ball; Walls of Theodosius

Mehmet II; Hagia Sophia as a Mosque

What will the challenges of the next 100 years be?
Environmental: water, sea-levels, temperature, desertification....food shortage
Economic – shortage of scarce resources
Population increase
Migration, warfare and renegotiating the world order
The emergence of a new kind of leader able to cope in a different world
How will archaeologists detect many of these changes in coming millennia?

End Of Roman Empire, Unc, Mar 2010

by Sam Moorhead on Feb 25, 2010

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