I never agreed with the "Barbarian Invasion" theory as being a primary cause, I think it was a secondary. Why? Yes, the migrations took lands and reduced Roman population and influence, but the fall of the West was an internal collapse, not external. The death knell of the Western Roman Empire was 313 CE with the Edict of Milan and 323 CE when Christianity became the official religion. Romans gotta be Roman, and Christianity stopped the Roman way. This change brought chaos both internally and externally, and frankly, Rome never stabilized or recovered. Christianity destroyed the traditional systems and models that were established and relied upon. It affected every aspect of Rome from their military, social organization, geopolitics...to how Romans internally saw themselves and their place in the great scheme of things.
I agree on αἴκα! The romanitas still work, but Theodosius the great should been not been absend from the battlefield of frigidus river. The gread emperor Theodosius stays in a church and he was still praying .Goths mercenarys pay the price for victory. Goths mercenarys pay the price for victory at the catalaunic field against the huns. We have a lot of examples of rise and fall of empires. Now today. we have an example russian minorities of Sibiria pay the price of the lunatic Vladimir Putin. We can make a list of the western part of Rome.. Feed, Fond, Fight no feed , no fond, no fight, that´s absolute ill.
The weather in Colonia Agrippina was worse than in Londinium. Of course, the need to cross a substantial body of water was a disincentive for keeping up a large contingent of legionnaires - and leaving Britannia made the defence of Gallia somewhat easier.
As a Celtic inhabitant of the British Isles with a love of Roman history, I can confirm that the weather here continues to be shit. Caesar had the right of it when he described the place as perpetually cloudy and wet. Until the summer of course, when it becomes Australia for random periods of time, which is especially horrid as we're not used to that kind of torture.
Orrr maybe it could just be that you Brits are absolute fucking pussies when it comes to hot weather that you can't handle it when it gets just a tad bit over 30C because you tend to get so fucked up on drugs every time you visit Portugal or Spain for your yearly holidays that you forget.
Not your fault, my friend. You were fighting with one hand behind your back, and having to deal with scheming carpet knights at Ravenna. You could only do so much with what you had.
@@septimiusseverus343 It's like what a decent US military field commander today has to endure from the machinations of the perfumed princes and princesses back in DC.
As I said before, if Rome was united it could have easily defeated the invaders. But also, the problem of a lack of new recruits in the west needed to be fixed. I think they needed to find a way to instill the military virtues of old into the population or at least offer a desirable reward like guaranteed rights that elevate them above pseudo-serfs.
I never agreed with the "Barbarian Invasion" theory as being a primary cause, I think it was a secondary. Why? Yes, the migrations took lands and reduced Roman population and influence, but the fall of the West was an internal collapse, not external. The death knell of the Western Roman Empire was 313 CE with the Edict of Milan and 323 CE when Christianity became the official religion. Romans gotta be Roman, and Christianity stopped the Roman way. I mean can you imagine if a truly united Western military actually went to war with the barbarians? They never would have stood a chance.
Totally agree. It was due to many causes, economic, political, hell even spiritual! the increase of plague, climate change, and yes a decline in the population overall because of all these factors and religion (Christian society is full of taboos, and thus much less keen on being promiscuous like the ancient religions).. what I never understood is how all notion of the roman culture was practically lost overnight.. doesn't seem to have been a transition... also why the ERM or Byzantium lost practically all notion of the Roman tech advances and culture practically becoming a glorified medieval kingdom, that I've never been able to understand...
@The ice pick that killed Trotsky Indeed, recruiting new entrants into the field armies proved to be very difficult, therefore the lost legions from Frigidus had not been replenished. In fact, Valentinian III and Majorian realized that, and wanted to re-introduce the right to bear arms, but it came too late. The loss of the old martial vigor, especially in Italia, is fascinating, we must dedicate a video to that phenomenon.
@@Maiorianus_Sebastian Ah, the right to bear arms! The very right the would-be constructors of an Imperium in our own day want to abolish! Could the Principate have survived among an armed and martial people? But if the French, to name only one, had maintained the right of armed self-defense, I can virtually guarantee that Charlie Hebdo would still be in existence. For good or ill I can make no such definitive statement about Emmanuel Macron!
The most IRONIC part about this though is for the rest of history European countries would build palaces, make art, name themselves, and build languages ALL based on the Romans. To this day, their presence is honored & championed in museums, movies. History has a sense of humor haha.
Hey, Kings&Generals recently had a VERY informative video on the Feudal system, starting with the Coloni and emperor Diokletian, in effect making the Coloni into slaves. By the way, during the migration period lots of simple village castles were raised all over South-Eastern Norway as well, so even barbarians feared the invading barbarians flying from the Huns. Very nice video :-)
What's sad is that the economic reforms of diocletian were meant to stabilize the roman economy temporarily not be used a long term crutch which was caused by rampant inflation. Unfortunately is his successors did not even understand fully half the systems he put in place or why jusy that they worked. I think this mostly came down to greed on the part landowner s, but also due to the ineptitude of government officials, who did not have good understanding of there own apparatus. Then of course there was systemic corruption and bribery on top of all that. It's a wonder the unified empire lasted as long as it did.
Definitely would like to see more content on the state of Italy as it evolved in this period, not just Rome or the exarchate or lombard states but the semi free city states emerging, the rise of the papal demesne, or earlier the environment in the period of dominance of the foederati in Italy in the very last years before 476
Low birth rate. Overgreedy upper class. Lack of the political and economic freedom necessary to maintain a culture of civilized masculinity. Loss of the old religious values. Mass immigration from dissimilar cultures. A culture of hedonism. Acceptance of homosexuality. Women's rights, or at any rate power. All feeding back into reason #1.
Thanks so much for watching our latest video right away! Since this channel is all about the late Roman Empire, we are pretty sure that you will also enjoy the upcoming topics ;)
@@wynnschaible Hello, I cannot agree here. Sure, decling birth rates and population shrinkage I do accept, although you can imagine that it is extremely difficult to get reliable numbers on the demographics of the roman empire in different times. But acceptance of homosexuality and women's rights is just a projection of modern values onto old roman society. The romans always had a tendency towards homosexuality, in fact sexuality was very fluent in Rome. Trajan and Hadrian, the best emperors also had male love interests. Yet, the empire was at its height during these times. And women's rights: The women didn't have any rights whatsoever until the very end. Until the end, they were only a bit better than slaves. However, an exception were the female members of the imperial family, but they always exerted a lot of power, even as early as Augustus. I am therefore sorry to say, that your theory is oversimplified.
@@Maiorianus_Sebastian I am sure it is, as are all theories. But in terms of the ladies, conditions in the Roman upper classes, as I read the sources, were not that different from those in the Imperial family,. And while Roman sexuality was never 'ours', the Cena Trimalchionis, for instance, could not have taken place under the Republic except in its last days. Did I mention the complete absence of any real hold of the traditional religion? What I say is perhaps best understood in light of Toynbee's theories on the "Secession of the Intellectuals." And THAT had certainly taken place in Rome. As it has here. It is certainly difficult -- perhaps impossible -- quite possibly futile -- to view the past without looking through the filter of our own time. Keep up your excellent work!
Another fantastic video! Say didn't the Bagaudae resist the germanic invaders quite vigorously. I remember originally reading about them from Brayan Ward- Perkins' monograph, where other than an anti roman rebel they were also given as an example of native resistance.
70 years is a life of almost 3 human generations. That's a quite long time. Thank you for another great and interesting video. But I think it's impossible to blame one event or battle for the collapse of a huge empire. Empires fall due to many reasons, it's never a single event.
No, Rome fell because of the same reasons america is going to fall, its government was infiltrated by people who want to destroy it. Stilicho, aetius, and majorian the three great heroes of the age who could have saved rome were all killed by people in the government, was it really because of jealousy or incompetence? Three times in a row? Three? Nah, theres no way they just had a lifetime of bad luck, the game was rigged from the start, im srry thats just my two cents on the subject i think saying that it was a multitude of all these different things is like saying it was a coincidence of all coincidences that everything lined up perfectly to make it collapse it was basically a miracle like getting the magic triple 7 ten times
But Sir, I never said it was a single event. In the video I actually said there were quite a few events that caused the Fall, and in fact in the next video, even more will be added. I think that this is an extremely complex topic, and there are certainly 20+ reasons for the Fall, that all acted simultaneously.
The parallels to today are uncanny for anyone paying attention. What I find interesting is inability of history buffs to fully appreciate their own historic circumstances, even when they've seen this film before.
But let us not forget that Odoacer and Theodoric after him maintained Roman law and traditions and that the Senate still convened under them. There is a science fiction story entitled "Lest Darkness Fall" which depicts a 20th Century archeologist being sent back to around AD 500 by a lightning strike and who somehow wins Belisarius to the side of the Goths thereby preventing the Gothic wars and maintaining the integrity of the Romano-Gothic State. In this alternative reality, darkness does not fall.
Integrity is not really the word. Odoacer really did upend the constitutional order for well and good imo. ERE always had ambition to force a unipolar order but it was based on a legal contortion itself as was the authority granted to Theodoric, an imperfect bandage over the wound. I really don’t think belisarius could have seriously considered being minted western emperoras as realistically viable, it is very fun and instructive to think about though!
"therefore it really was where the fate of the world was decided on those cold winter days of 406 AD" thinking about those words really shows how fickle history is,the future of an entire empire was sealed because of an exceptionaly cold winter
Thank you very much Sir, I will :) In fact, the whole channel shall revolve only around 3rd century AD, until the 7th century AD. Maybe in the future, we can discuss the eastern empire more, so basically until the 15th century :)
Wonderful video! And funny (i.e reports that Britain's weather has not changed.) The problem, however, is that cascading events following 406 AD also preceded 406 AD.
I've over time started to wonder if the first major turn in fortunes for Rome was when the Republic failed to reform and adjust to its new far larger scale. Once the Republic fell, the potential for infighting got substantially worse with the many weakening effects that generates over time. Of course that alone was far from enough to end the Roman Empire, as could be seen in how long it lasted afterwards. But it does kind of feel like the original vigor it originally had started to decline after that. The ability to generate wealth and raise armies became less good, the leadership less talented. Unsurprising perhaps when some armies are lost in civil wars and a to talented a leader is now a threat to the leadership, rather then some one to be celebrated. Just one of many issue slowly weakening the state till it could no longer sufficiently respond to disasters hitting it I guess.
A high-quality TV series on that very topic would be so interesting. I'm sure there would be popularity for it as it has virtually never been presented. Most productions on the Roman Empire have never gone past the 3rd century AD. Maybe based on Gibbons' classic series?
Of the 340,000 estimated invaders, perhaps half were relatively benign, occupying land that was mostly abandoned. But others were quite destructive, as the Alemanni systematically massacred Romans and destroyed their cities along the west bank of the Rhine and the Vandals, Alans and Sueves reportedly destroyed most traces of civilization in Hispania which reverted to its bronze age state. Archeologists are still discovering thousands of skulls with blunt trauma damage in the areas devastated by the Alemanni from the third to the fifth century.
Yes, indeed. It was brutal. That is what I try to convey with the channel here. Because nowadays "peaceful" theories are in fashion. A main goal of this channel is, to debunk these theories that the germanic invaders settles peacefully.
Very depressing. Especially realizing had the Romans themselves been more united internally and not under honorius, they would've overcome the the post-406 situation. Agreed with your last point about the fall of the west sealing the fall of the east. As a byzantist and someone from the area that was Phoenice Maratima, I have often lamented Yarmouk 636 and the fall of our lands to the barbarians. However had the west still been around, even a temporary loss of Syria would've easily been recovered. The ERE after the West fell was just playing defensive most of the time, surrounded by hostile foes on all sides. Amazing they lasted 1000 years.
I think the fall of the roman empire had many factors, the germanic tribes alone would never have been a problem. The constant civil wars, plagues, lack of a solid economy, there were years of inflaction, and the roman state had to create more money leading to devaluation of the coins, lack of true roman recruits, lack of diplomatic action with the barbarians, constant shift in power, and many more factors led to the end of the empire. and 70 years in those days were like 200 years on our lives, the average life on those days were 30/40 years old. If the empire didn't had that many civil wars or economic problems they could easly had dealt with the germanic invasions, it was not a new event this massive migrations, Marcus Aurelius reign was almost the entire time defending the germanic borders, so it was nothing new, maybe now the germanic tribes were more united and better equipped yeah maybe, but this massive migrations had women, children, old people, waggons etc, it was not a military invasion, most of the time was just entire tribes migrating fleeing from other tribes or the huns.If the empire had a solid union and organized troops it would be easy to stop the invasions, the roman empire had milions of people. I tried many times to understand the diference and the major turning point between the times of Germanicus invading and destroying the germanic tribes and the germanic invasions in 406 AD, i think the christianity had some blame, it made the people soft, less wealing to die and fight, its a big difference having a God of War and having Christ telling that you should love your neibor as yourself (don't miss read me i think christianity was very important for society envolve, i am just justifing the fall of Rome), those two diferent types of religions, one that said that you go to hades if you die fighting other saying you go to a paradise if you dont kill, they are antagonist religions, its like the viking with valhala, and Thor and Odin that gives people reason to become warriors. So my 3 main reasons for the fall of Rome are: -Constant civil wars -Diferent religion (more pacifist) -Economic problems (lack of a economic structure, industry, very slave dependent)
Religion wasn't a reason which caused the fall of the west. If so the East would have fallen as well, instead they thrived for many centuries while maintaining elite martial prowess.
Totally agree. Not to mention other issues like the increase of plague, climate change, and yes a decline in the population overall because of all these factors and religion (Christian society is full of taboos, and thus much less keen on being promiscuous like the ancient religions).. what I never understood is how all notion of the roman culture was practically lost overnight.. doesn't seem to have been a transition... also why the ERM or Byzantium lost practically all notion of the Roman tech advances and culture practically becoming a glorified medieval kingdom, that I've never been able to understand...
The fall of the roman empire is the most complex topic in history. There is no single reason for it, but a complex interplay of at least 20 reasons, that all played out simultaneously. I shall make another video with additional reasons for the fall :)
@@ariyoiansky291 Can't fully agree here. We shall analyze why the east didn't fall when the west fell, and this has a lot to do with geography. But we will go into detail in future videos. But religion did play somewhat of a role in the west. Else Majorian would not have addressed the issue of declining birth rates due to christianic religios vows, in one of his Novella Maioriani laws.
@@j.c.mgomez2515 I don't think it was lost overnight, i think it took centuries and there was a transition. Christinaity took 300 or more years to become offcial, it was not overnight, during the early Empire, there was a time of expansion, imperialism, there were slaves and gold flowing to Rome of the campaigns. With the end of expansionism, the gold and slaves stopped coming, and Rome was very dependent of slaves and foreign gold. Less and less money was conducted to education, tecnology, the state money was to pay the huge armies, and constant increase salary to the legionaries, constant civil wars led to hunge devaluation of money. That led to lack of money again to education even more, construction manutention, after earthquakes, and other natural disasters. The change of culture, they started to build churchs, the old classical temples stoped to exist, the army need to be more flexible and less tanky, there was no money to buy fancy armors and weapons anymore. The church was against many scholars and education in general as we see in the movie Agora. Plagues, invasions, civil wars, hard life in cities led people to flee to the countrysides to work for a lord, it was the begining of feudalism the same thing we see in midle ages, cities lost huge % population, Rome had 1/2 milions in the 2nd century AD, and in the end had like 80k, 100k top, that is a huge decline, imagine how New York would look like if it went from 10M to 1M or less, it would be a gigantic city with only a few people, it would look like a ghost city, now imagine Rome like that, and after sacks, it would have been in ruins or a huge part of it would be in ruins. The end of Rome didn't hapened in 10 days or 50 years it was the result of centuries of decline.
20:15 Reconstruction: * Constantine the Great confused with Constantius III, as winner * and with usurper Constantine III as coming from Britain * and ultimately Constantine with Artorius (the one killing a wife with the one sparing a wife) -> lead to Nennius claiming Arthur conquered Constantinople. When Tolkien was making an Arthuriad, he conspicuously was impatient with Nennius' boring and counterfactual claim.
Surely Adrianople was at least as significant a turning point as the crossing of the Rhine by the Germanic peoples. Adrianople wasn't just about Valens making some bad calls as a commander. The legion, the basic military system Rome had used up to that point, was shown to be defective. After that, the Romans paid barbarians to fight for them.
I agree it was earlier. I never agreed with the "Barbarian Invasion" theory as being a primary cause, I think it was a secondary. Why? Yes, the migrations took lands and reduced Roman population and influence, but the fall of the West was an internal collapse, not external. The death knell of the Western Roman Empire was 313 CE with the Edict of Milan and 323 CE when Christianity became the official religion. Romans gotta be Roman, and Christianity stopped the Roman way. This change brought chaos both internally and externally, and frankly, Rome never stabilized or recovered. Christianity destroyed the traditional systems and models that were established and relied upon. It affected every aspect of Rome from their military, social organization, geopolitics...to how Romans internally saw themselves and their place in the great scheme of things.
Disagree. Rome was too far from the frontiers, the armies and imperial courts, and a veritable playground for disaffected politicians and generals. The true action was happening in the provinces. Mediolanum (and then later Ravenna), proved to be a better situated capital to respond to the strategic situation of the late WRE, allowing the emperors to deal with internal and external threats much more efficiently as they arose. Constantine made the right decision to found a new eastern capital as well, as Constantinople gave easy access to the Danube and Euphrates, was well - defended, and guarded the trade routes from the Aegean to the Black Sea, and from Europe to Asia. The Eternal City itself had become irrelevant as a political and military stronghold as a result of the Crisis of the Third Century.
16:47 this is currently America's problem. The similarities of our country and its greedy leadership and Rome is incredible and scary. 😐 In the next 30-50 years the US could be in the same boat. Scary to think I could see this in my lifetime or my kids could. Mighty empires fall from ignorance, overconfidence and arrogance. Our military is having issues retaining members and an even harder time recruiting new ones.
With the difference that today we can clearly see that decomposition is a targeted process and not some random interplay of unpleasant facts. Thus, it is reasonable to speculate that it was similar in the case of Rome.
The Roman Empire was one of the GREATEST cultural civilizations our history has ever recorded. The events of 406 led almost directly to the great sacking of 410
The statement that the events of 406 decided the fate of Europe contradicts your other state that the fall of western Roman empire was _not_ set in stone.
9:10 I need to make a comment on this images implication that because the Romans have become wealthy and decadant, they no longer wanted to fight for their Empire. There were always wealthy people that didnt want to themselves fight and die for the Empire. The difference, in my opinion, is that the poor populations of the Empire no longer wanted to fight for the Empire. The fact that the average standard of living actually went up after the fall of the Empire should speak volumes of the terrible state the poor populations were in at the time. The real takeaway for me is that the Empire no longer responded to the needs of the majority of its population - and that this is the real reason behind the lack of new recruits.
@p0xus Hello ! Well, this picture was to be taken symbolically. You would find, that as a video creator, it sometimes is very difficult to find the right picture, or video, in order to convey certain things. But I cannot agree on "The fact that the average standard of living actually went up after the fall of the Empire". This is wrong, and actually completely against modern archeological findings, that indicate that the living standards across the former western empire, declined DRASTICALLY afte the Fall. This is nicely described in Bryan War Perkin's excellent book "The Fall of the Roman empire". He presents compelling archeological evidence, that debunks your theory.
Standard of living and quality of life went down considerably after the fall of the Western Empire. Before, all the regions were connected, this was now cut off and regions were mostly isolated. Currency in circulation went down drastically, barter became the main form of trade again, quality of goods massively declined as did availability, construction and manufacturing knowledge was rapidly lost. Also, the separation between civilian and military life also began to end. For the average person, these changes would have been a nightmare.
The "western portion of the empire " never fell . It was abandoned by its elite who went back to the eastern portion where they came from . Rome enslaved many Germanic tribes as well as committing genocide on them .
I would say the Goth entry in the 370s was the event that started the ball rolling--but really, there were so m any events that could be considered the tipping point. That said, thank God the empire fell--while better in some ways from the "barbarians" it was worse in many others, and the lack of public support for its preservation (especially from the lowest, rural, classes) was one of the principal reasons for the fall.
Zap Branding: Stop killing each other and fight the barbarians, you cowards! What's your opinion on the Franks on this period? On one hand I have heard, multiple times, that the Frank foederati were some of the most loyal alies Rome had in this period. But not the non-foederati Franks were also part of the migrating germanic tribes so...
Not sure if you get the Bagaudae issue well enough (should not trouble you, it's confusing and secondary interpretations often horrible and misleading). AFAIK the 5th century bagaudae happened almost simultaneously in what some sources call "Armorica" (land by the sea) but is actually Aquitaine, incl. the related Basques of North Iberia, and not the Lugdunense "Armorica", and also in Helvetia (but there they were crushed). There's been an interpretation floating around that the Bagaudae and the Suevi particularly became allied... but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The main data point is a narration of events in Turiasum (modern Tarazona) in which confusedly a bishop was killed while both bagaudae and Suevi troops were present. A proper reading shows clearly that the Suevi actually massacred the bagaudae rebels, although it's not clear who killed the bishop (nor it does matter). In general it's obvious that the barbarians became thugs for hire for the provincial Roman oligarchs and never had any interest in protecting or recruiting the peasants. The Aquitanian-Tarraconense bagaudae (Basque bagaudae, it's even likely that the word "bagauda" is Basque, something like "we stand", and related to modern Basque "guda" = rightful war) may well have been triggered by the settling of the Visigoths in Aquitaine by Rome, it's unclear but very likely, as Basques and Visigoths would remain bitter enemies at least until the establishment of the Duchy of Vasconia and Aquitaine after the Merovingian invasion of the early 7th century (and subsequent revolts). The Bagaudae did fight the Romans anyhow but they did so in Tarrraconensis, at the Ebro Valley, which is dotted of many mints and coin findings, a clear signal of payment to troops which has led to the theory of an "inner limes" around Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza), a major Roman base in Hispania since the Cantabrian Wars. Caesaraugusta was anyhow looted by the Bagaudae, we know that much. It is without doubt because of the success of the Bagaudae that the Basque People (language and non-Roman laws) survived: for more than 150 years the area between the Upper Ebro and the Garonne remained independent (with only occasional Visigothic incursions that we know of) it was some sort of "anarchy", of self-ruled communities that I imagine somewhat similar to the Old Swiss Confederation. This only ended (in part, there's a legal and linguistic legacy all the way till present day) with the Merovingian invasion in the 620s, creating more standard (pseudo-feudal) states like the Duchy of Vasconia first and the Kingdom of Pamplona/Navarre later (among other semi-autonomous states).
Those stupid Roman officers at the limes caused the Goths, admitted with official permission into the Empire, to eventually revolt and invade Roman territory. They were starved, abused and exploited. The Goths even had to sell a child into slavery just to get one dog to eat to keep the rest of the family from imminent starvation. (These Goths were not just warriors, they were whole families). Then, the Romans were astonished and outraged when the Goths fought back! I wouldn’t expect the desperate fathers and sons to do anything else, no man worth the name lets his dependents starve to death.
What people dont understand is that being Roman just didnt mean as much at this point. It was no longer a special status or a civilization to be envied. It was clearly past its golden age and the economic and military polices chosen to prop up the dying empire are what destroyed the image of invicibility it had upheld. A century of cultural admixture further reduced the identity of the Romans and gave its enemies the means and method to take over. Romans everywhere gave legitimacy to their barbarian counterparts simply by choosing to coexist instead of outright genocide, and of course being Christian was WAY more important than being Roman. The clergy deserves some blame for the fall of Rome, but at the same time they simply did to the Romans what thr Romans had done to everything else: subsumed institutions and practices that worked or were too widespread to stop, and centuries of interal bickering eroded the rest bit by bit until Rome was little more than an inheritance.
The later (post 300) Roman Empire also suffered the effects of a solar minimum similar to the 'little ice age' of the seventeenth century. That would mean no Rhine freezing over, and perhaps less Germanic migration.
I can't remember where I read it, and to be perfectly honest i may have made it up; but i think the crossing of the Rhine was the largest human migration event in written history
I was considering once that Egypt was the last holdout of the Macedonian-Hellenistic conquest that occurred during the time of Alexander the Great. Nearly 300 years later, in 31 BC, Egypt became a Roman province. Egypt had taken to using Roman mercenaries, just as the Persians had become lazy and relied on Greek mercenaries. So, it is no surprise that the Roman were relying on Germanic mercenaries, who'd ultimately be the vanguard of their downfall.
The 406 invasion is arguably the only successful barbarian invasion, the only one where the barbarians crossed the limes without permission, and then defeated not only the frontier defence but also the central field army. They subsequently chose to retreat from reinforcements from Britain and Italy, but only to seize the economically prosperous regions of Spain and Africa which had been Roman since the 2nd Punic War six centuries earlier. The Vandals then maintained a reign of maritime terror throughout the western Mediterranean including pirate attacks on Italy which led to the word Vandal being a synonym for looting an pillaging. The Vandals were not finally defeated until over a century later in the reign of Justinian.
And they only succeeded due to not of their own powers but of the fact of many unlucky things were happening in Rome, but one VERY major mistake not based on luck that Rome had, was SEVERAL CIVIL WARS... 🤦♂️
@@lyricofwise6894 The Emperor Honorius authorizing the termination of the commander of his army was just one of many selfish brain-dead decisions. It was rumoured that when Honorius was informed "Rome has fallen!" a few years later, he was very upset until he learned it was not his pet rooster that had died, just the City.
_"much less often were they friendly to each other in the 5th century AD"_ Tell that to Imre Nagy and Alexander Dubček. Tell that to the people who were sterilised by decision and physical action of doctors of medicine. Oh yeah, people were _even less_ friendly back then ... I have my doubts.
It's interesting how the Chinese Empire despite invasions and civil wars and divisions into smaller kingdoms always managed throughout its history to eventually reform and keep its culture, religion, language etc but Rome didn't
The crossing of the Rhine began the end of the Roman Empire as we knew it. But it wasn't the reason. Military incompetence, corruption, bankruptcy, the insustainable nature of slave economics have all been bandied about. But my belief is that the one event that began the fall of Rome was not one but two - the Antonine Plague, and the Plague of Cyprian.
The empire was doom to die as soon as it began deciding to based their economy of slavery and conquered nation's treasures. Right at the start and Roman empire also didn't start falling in 406 AD.
The event that drove the Roman empire to new heights was the same that sealed the western empire's eventual fate. Top heavy leadership leads to instability. A strong and wise leader may strengthen the empire during their rule, but over centuries of peaks and troughs from emperors that could be wise or total trainwrecks, collapse is expedited. Augustus set Rome on a path to burn hot and fast. It would have lasted far longer had it remained a republic. With 20/20 hindsight, we could say that had Marcus Aurelius been capable of eliminating the position of emperor at the end of his reign and reinvesting much of the power back into the senate, Rome would likely have continued to persist far longer. Ultimately, Rome never again was as simultaneously strong and stable as it was during the period of the "5 good emperors," and though temporary periods of partial recovery over the next couple centuries occurred it never again found that degree of strength nor stability. Therefore, the beginning of the end occurred far earlier than most claim. The death of Marcus Aurelius was the beginning of the end for Rome.
All empires fall, the only thing that could have been changed is the timeline. Once the empire was divided military strategy could no longer be coordinated, and since the west was the poorer they were in a downward financial spiral. For example most of northern Britain was out of roman control in the late 300s.
Infighting most of all, which was partly because of a lack of clear transfer of power - it wasn't a birth right in the same sense of European monarchies, or a constitutionally secured process. That's why., since if this problem was solved they could have defeated the barbarians.
WRE lost for similiar reasons ere lost egypt and syria to arabsbecausse a set of border fortresses with persia were only defense byzatines had given geography of Levat and Egypt so when these places fell the fall of levnt and egypt was inevitable
Interesting video, especially for some details like the specialized production of arms which was disrupted by the invasions, but I think that the invasion of 406 was not the main cause but a consequence of the main cause which was the demographic collapse. The fact that they hired so many barbarians in the army was a consequence of the demographic crisis. A problem that is present in all conflicts, also today.
Today in the United States, along our southern border, people are coming into the country without any legal basis for doing so. For reasons that are not clear, the government is allowing them to come in and stay, again, without any legal basis. They are entering our cities and using resources paid for by American tax payers, many if whom live paycheck to paycheck. Why the border has not been closed is a mystery. We are at a very dangerous moment in our history. In addition, there is extreme disharmony and disunity among both our citizens and elected leaders fomented by grifters and sociopaths. Sadly, I see this once great nation going down, down, down at a time when real leadership is greatly needed worldwide. We have learned nothing from the past.
Sadly, a bipartisan bill addressing border security was tanked for political reasons. The people responsible voted for Trump and/or enabled Trump. The US has been going downhill seriously since Nixon. Sadly, I am not optimistic about the future
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Nice
I never agreed with the "Barbarian Invasion" theory as being a primary cause, I think it was a secondary. Why? Yes, the migrations took lands and reduced Roman population and influence, but the fall of the West was an internal collapse, not external. The death knell of the Western Roman Empire was 313 CE with the Edict of Milan and 323 CE when Christianity became the official religion. Romans gotta be Roman, and Christianity stopped the Roman way. This change brought chaos both internally and externally, and frankly, Rome never stabilized or recovered. Christianity destroyed the traditional systems and models that were established and relied upon. It affected every aspect of Rome from their military, social organization, geopolitics...to how Romans internally saw themselves and their place in the great scheme of things.
I agree on αἴκα! The romanitas still work, but Theodosius the great should been not been absend from the battlefield of frigidus river. The gread emperor Theodosius stays in a church and he was still praying .Goths mercenarys pay the price for victory. Goths mercenarys pay the price for victory at the catalaunic field against the huns. We have a lot of examples of rise and fall of empires. Now today. we have an example russian minorities of Sibiria pay the price of the lunatic Vladimir Putin.
We can make a list of the western part of Rome.. Feed, Fond, Fight no feed , no fond, no fight, that´s absolute ill.
This is a criminally underrated channel
Your voice is great for history lesson. Inquisitive and suspense making.
Thanks a lot Sir, your friendly words are highly appreciated :)
"Last I heard, the weather there has not improved since Roman times..." 😅
Heheh XD
@@Maiorianus_Sebastian nothing else to do here but sit in the pub and discuss our rebellion..
I loled while driving. That was very funny.
The weather in Colonia Agrippina was worse than in Londinium. Of course, the need to cross a substantial body of water was a disincentive for keeping up a large contingent of legionnaires - and leaving Britannia made the defence of Gallia somewhat easier.
As a Celtic inhabitant of the British Isles with a love of Roman history, I can confirm that the weather here continues to be shit. Caesar had the right of it when he described the place as perpetually cloudy and wet.
Until the summer of course, when it becomes Australia for random periods of time, which is especially horrid as we're not used to that kind of torture.
Orrr maybe it could just be that you Brits are absolute fucking pussies when it comes to hot weather that you can't handle it when it gets just a tad bit over 30C because you tend to get so fucked up on drugs every time you visit Portugal or Spain for your yearly holidays that you forget.
Prefer British weather than Australian weather...As a Brit living in Australia
If only I had seen how serious the crossing was...
Not your fault, my friend. You were fighting with one hand behind your back, and having to deal with scheming carpet knights at Ravenna. You could only do so much with what you had.
@@septimiusseverus343 It's like what a decent US military field commander today has to endure from the machinations of the perfumed princes and princesses back in DC.
As I said before, if Rome was united it could have easily defeated the invaders. But also, the problem of a lack of new recruits in the west needed to be fixed. I think they needed to find a way to instill the military virtues of old into the population or at least offer a desirable reward like guaranteed rights that elevate them above pseudo-serfs.
We are losing those military virtues ourselves, for many of the same reasons for which the Romans lost them.
I never agreed with the "Barbarian Invasion" theory as being a primary cause, I think it was a secondary. Why? Yes, the migrations took lands and reduced Roman population and influence, but the fall of the West was an internal collapse, not external. The death knell of the Western Roman Empire was 313 CE with the Edict of Milan and 323 CE when Christianity became the official religion. Romans gotta be Roman, and Christianity stopped the Roman way. I mean can you imagine if a truly united Western military actually went to war with the barbarians? They never would have stood a chance.
Totally agree. It was due to many causes, economic, political, hell even spiritual! the increase of plague, climate change, and yes a decline in the population overall because of all these factors and religion (Christian society is full of taboos, and thus much less keen on being promiscuous like the ancient religions).. what I never understood is how all notion of the roman culture was practically lost overnight.. doesn't seem to have been a transition... also why the ERM or Byzantium lost practically all notion of the Roman tech advances and culture practically becoming a glorified medieval kingdom, that I've never been able to understand...
@The ice pick that killed Trotsky Indeed, recruiting new entrants into the field armies proved to be very difficult, therefore the lost legions from Frigidus had not been replenished. In fact, Valentinian III and Majorian realized that, and wanted to re-introduce the right to bear arms, but it came too late. The loss of the old martial vigor, especially in Italia, is fascinating, we must dedicate a video to that phenomenon.
@@Maiorianus_Sebastian Ah, the right to bear arms! The very right the would-be constructors of an Imperium in our own day want to abolish! Could the Principate have survived among an armed and martial people? But if the French, to name only one, had maintained the right of armed self-defense, I can virtually guarantee that Charlie Hebdo would still be in existence. For good or ill I can make no such definitive statement about Emmanuel Macron!
Rip Aetius, Stilicho, and Majorianus 😔
The most IRONIC part about this though is for the rest of history European countries would build palaces, make art, name themselves, and build languages ALL based on the Romans. To this day, their presence is honored & championed in museums, movies. History has a sense of humor haha.
Nonsense.
Most used Germanic language
Another ! Fantastico. Grazie. You’re the best
Fascinating, insightful, informed perspective of the momentous decline of the Roman Empire.
Thanks a lot :) I am happy to read that.
The subtle background music is poignant and perfect!
Hey, Kings&Generals recently had a VERY informative video on the Feudal system, starting with the Coloni and emperor Diokletian, in effect making the Coloni into slaves.
By the way, during the migration period lots of simple village castles were raised all over South-Eastern Norway as well, so even barbarians feared the invading barbarians flying from the Huns.
Very nice video :-)
Very interesting! Thanks for Sharing it!
What's sad is that the economic reforms of diocletian were meant to stabilize the roman economy temporarily not be used a long term crutch which was caused by rampant inflation. Unfortunately is his successors did not even understand fully half the systems he put in place or why jusy that they worked. I think this mostly came down to greed on the part landowner s, but also due to the ineptitude of government officials, who did not have good understanding of there own apparatus. Then of course there was systemic corruption and bribery on top of all that. It's a wonder the unified empire lasted as long as it did.
That is an interesting and kinda depressing subject
@@Not-Ap seems it is happening again in westerns Nations...
I'm excited for the video delving deeper into the loss of martial vigour of the italic romans.
Me too Sir, me too ! :)
Just look at the decline of martial vigour of Westerners today. Soft, lazy and terrified of dying.
Definitely would like to see more content on the state of Italy as it evolved in this period, not just Rome or the exarchate or lombard states but the semi free city states emerging, the rise of the papal demesne, or earlier the environment in the period of dominance of the foederati in Italy in the very last years before 476
This reminds me of what is happening today in Europe with these massive immigration flows which we cannot handle.
I agree. There are a lot of simmularities to what is happening today. Not only in Europe but also in US. Or is it just Perssons and my impression?
Love seeing these late empire videos! Looking forward to your video on why Rome couldn't maintain Roman soldiers!
Low birth rate. Overgreedy upper class. Lack of the political and economic freedom necessary to maintain a culture of civilized masculinity. Loss of the old religious values. Mass immigration from dissimilar cultures. A culture of hedonism. Acceptance of homosexuality. Women's rights, or at any rate power. All feeding back into reason #1.
Thanks so much for watching our latest video right away! Since this channel is all about the late Roman Empire, we are pretty sure that you will also enjoy the upcoming topics ;)
@@wynnschaible Hello, I cannot agree here. Sure, decling birth rates and population shrinkage I do accept, although you can imagine that it is extremely difficult to get reliable numbers on the demographics of the roman empire in different times. But acceptance of homosexuality and women's rights is just a projection of modern values onto old roman society. The romans always had a tendency towards homosexuality, in fact sexuality was very fluent in Rome. Trajan and Hadrian, the best emperors also had male love interests. Yet, the empire was at its height during these times.
And women's rights: The women didn't have any rights whatsoever until the very end. Until the end, they were only a bit better than slaves. However, an exception were the female members of the imperial family, but they always exerted a lot of power, even as early as Augustus.
I am therefore sorry to say, that your theory is oversimplified.
@@Maiorianus_Sebastian I am sure it is, as are all theories. But in terms of the ladies, conditions in the Roman upper classes, as I read the sources, were not that different from those in the Imperial family,. And while Roman sexuality was never 'ours', the Cena Trimalchionis, for instance, could not have taken place under the Republic except in its last days. Did I mention the complete absence of any real hold of the traditional religion? What I say is perhaps best understood in light of Toynbee's theories on the "Secession of the Intellectuals." And THAT had certainly taken place in Rome. As it has here. It is certainly difficult -- perhaps impossible -- quite possibly futile -- to view the past without looking through the filter of our own time. Keep up your excellent work!
@@Maiorianus_Sebastian Indeed I will! I am eating worms and squid and awaiting their arrival with baited breath! (boo! hiss!)
Another fantastic video! Say didn't the Bagaudae resist the germanic invaders quite vigorously. I remember originally reading about them from Brayan Ward- Perkins' monograph, where other than an anti roman rebel they were also given as an example of native resistance.
The bagaudae are only documented from the chaos of the 3rd century. It is an anachronism to invoke them more than a century later.
70 years is a life of almost 3 human generations. That's a quite long time. Thank you for another great and interesting video.
But I think it's impossible to blame one event or battle for the collapse of a huge empire.
Empires fall due to many reasons, it's never a single event.
No, Rome fell because of the same reasons america is going to fall, its government was infiltrated by people who want to destroy it. Stilicho, aetius, and majorian the three great heroes of the age who could have saved rome were all killed by people in the government, was it really because of jealousy or incompetence? Three times in a row? Three? Nah, theres no way they just had a lifetime of bad luck, the game was rigged from the start, im srry thats just my two cents on the subject i think saying that it was a multitude of all these different things is like saying it was a coincidence of all coincidences that everything lined up perfectly to make it collapse it was basically a miracle like getting the magic triple 7 ten times
But Sir, I never said it was a single event. In the video I actually said there were quite a few events that caused the Fall, and in fact in the next video, even more will be added.
I think that this is an extremely complex topic, and there are certainly 20+ reasons for the Fall, that all acted simultaneously.
@@brandonjade2146 Not to mention America and China are locked in the same dance as Rome and Persia in the old times
Tremendous research and imagery. Thanks for the hard work. Made my day!
Thanks a lot, very glad to read that the hard work is appreciated :)
The parallels to today are uncanny for anyone paying attention. What I find interesting is inability of history buffs to fully appreciate their own historic circumstances, even when they've seen this film before.
I agree with you .
Yes. Anyone with a degree of insight sees this. The U.S. is being overrun, imo.
But let us not forget that Odoacer and Theodoric after him maintained Roman law and traditions and that the Senate still convened under them. There is a science fiction story entitled "Lest Darkness Fall" which depicts a 20th Century archeologist being sent back to around AD 500 by a lightning strike and who somehow wins Belisarius to the side of the Goths thereby preventing the Gothic wars and maintaining the integrity of the Romano-Gothic State. In this alternative reality, darkness does not fall.
Integrity is not really the word. Odoacer really did upend the constitutional order for well and good imo. ERE always had ambition to force a unipolar order but it was based on a legal contortion itself as was the authority granted to Theodoric, an imperfect bandage over the wound. I really don’t think belisarius could have seriously considered being minted western emperoras as realistically viable, it is very fun and instructive to think about though!
"therefore it really was where the fate of the world was decided on those cold winter days of 406 AD" thinking about those words really shows how fickle history is,the future of an entire empire was sealed because of an exceptionaly cold winter
Great show - fascinating period of history.
Truly fine documentaries on an often forgotten period. Keep up the great work!
Thank you very much Sir, I will :) In fact, the whole channel shall revolve only around 3rd century AD, until the 7th century AD. Maybe in the future, we can discuss the eastern empire more, so basically until the 15th century :)
13:18 Lmao so true!
As always, a fantastic and very informative video, friend. Thankyou so much for all your hard work, it truly paid off.
Hello Septimius Severus, thanks a lot :)
I really appreciate that people like you understand how much work goes into making these videos, thanks !
Wonderful video! And funny (i.e reports that Britain's weather has not changed.) The problem, however, is that cascading events following 406 AD also preceded 406 AD.
I just discovered your channel and checked out this video; very impressive! I'm now a subscriber.
I've over time started to wonder if the first major turn in fortunes for Rome was when the Republic failed to reform and adjust to its new far larger scale. Once the Republic fell, the potential for infighting got substantially worse with the many weakening effects that generates over time.
Of course that alone was far from enough to end the Roman Empire, as could be seen in how long it lasted afterwards. But it does kind of feel like the original vigor it originally had started to decline after that. The ability to generate wealth and raise armies became less good, the leadership less talented. Unsurprising perhaps when some armies are lost in civil wars and a to talented a leader is now a threat to the leadership, rather then some one to be celebrated.
Just one of many issue slowly weakening the state till it could no longer sufficiently respond to disasters hitting it I guess.
410 AD
Thanks Alaric.
Before departing for Rome he destroyed Grecee
Bedankt
Hello Niels, thanks a lot, I really appreciate your generous donation.
A high-quality TV series on that very topic would be so interesting. I'm sure there would be popularity for it as it has virtually never been presented. Most productions on the Roman Empire have never gone past the 3rd century AD. Maybe based on Gibbons' classic series?
"Sorry too busy burning a billion dollars to insult Tolkien"
- Amazon
great video, which I just happened to find in the recommendation!
good luck!
Love 🏹🛡⚔️🏛 this channel so badly
Narrations is superrrrr too 👌
Of the 340,000 estimated invaders, perhaps half were relatively benign, occupying land that was mostly abandoned. But others were quite destructive, as the Alemanni systematically massacred Romans and destroyed their cities along the west bank of the Rhine and the Vandals, Alans and Sueves reportedly destroyed most traces of civilization in Hispania which reverted to its bronze age state. Archeologists are still discovering thousands of skulls with blunt trauma damage in the areas devastated by the Alemanni from the third to the fifth century.
Yes, indeed. It was brutal. That is what I try to convey with the channel here. Because nowadays "peaceful" theories are in fashion. A main goal of this channel is, to debunk these theories that the germanic invaders settles peacefully.
surpreme as always
amico romano ∆
Bravo!
Fantastic channel, very interesting stuff.
Very depressing. Especially realizing had the Romans themselves been more united internally and not under honorius, they would've overcome the the post-406 situation.
Agreed with your last point about the fall of the west sealing the fall of the east. As a byzantist and someone from the area that was Phoenice Maratima, I have often lamented Yarmouk 636 and the fall of our lands to the barbarians. However had the west still been around, even a temporary loss of Syria would've easily been recovered. The ERE after the West fell was just playing defensive most of the time, surrounded by hostile foes on all sides. Amazing they lasted 1000 years.
Excellent, fascinating, intelligent analysis. You really should write a book.
GREAT summary. What a mess for Rome. Sad
Makes you long for the days of Aurelian who would have swiftly and brutally silenced all these threats.
Hehe, yes, and Majorian would have, he almost was a second Aurelian, but he was brutally betrayed twice, and too soon !
I blame Ricimer.. nature knew how evil he would become and the Rhine froze in fear/hate... a million curses upon his unholy name.
There is a great historical novel by Wallace Breem titled “The Eagle in the Snow”.about this topic.Please read it.
So good that book is rich literature so evocative I found it very moving
I think the fall of the roman empire had many factors, the germanic tribes alone would never have been a problem. The constant civil wars, plagues, lack of a solid economy, there were years of inflaction, and the roman state had to create more money leading to devaluation of the coins, lack of true roman recruits, lack of diplomatic action with the barbarians, constant shift in power, and many more factors led to the end of the empire. and 70 years in those days were like 200 years on our lives, the average life on those days were 30/40 years old. If the empire didn't had that many civil wars or economic problems they could easly had dealt with the germanic invasions, it was not a new event this massive migrations, Marcus Aurelius reign was almost the entire time defending the germanic borders, so it was nothing new, maybe now the germanic tribes were more united and better equipped yeah maybe, but this massive migrations had women, children, old people, waggons etc, it was not a military invasion, most of the time was just entire tribes migrating fleeing from other tribes or the huns.If the empire had a solid union and organized troops it would be easy to stop the invasions, the roman empire had milions of people. I tried many times to understand the diference and the major turning point between the times of Germanicus invading and destroying the germanic tribes and the germanic invasions in 406 AD, i think the christianity had some blame, it made the people soft, less wealing to die and fight, its a big difference having a God of War and having Christ telling that you should love your neibor as yourself (don't miss read me i think christianity was very important for society envolve, i am just justifing the fall of Rome), those two diferent types of religions, one that said that you go to hades if you die fighting other saying you go to a paradise if you dont kill, they are antagonist religions, its like the viking with valhala, and Thor and Odin that gives people reason to become warriors. So my 3 main reasons for the fall of Rome are:
-Constant civil wars
-Diferent religion (more pacifist)
-Economic problems (lack of a economic structure, industry, very slave dependent)
Religion wasn't a reason which caused the fall of the west. If so the East would have fallen as well, instead they thrived for many centuries while maintaining elite martial prowess.
Totally agree. Not to mention other issues like the increase of plague, climate change, and yes a decline in the population overall because of all these factors and religion (Christian society is full of taboos, and thus much less keen on being promiscuous like the ancient religions).. what I never understood is how all notion of the roman culture was practically lost overnight.. doesn't seem to have been a transition... also why the ERM or Byzantium lost practically all notion of the Roman tech advances and culture practically becoming a glorified medieval kingdom, that I've never been able to understand...
The fall of the roman empire is the most complex topic in history. There is no single reason for it, but a complex interplay of at least 20 reasons, that all played out simultaneously. I shall make another video with additional reasons for the fall :)
@@ariyoiansky291 Can't fully agree here. We shall analyze why the east didn't fall when the west fell, and this has a lot to do with geography. But we will go into detail in future videos. But religion did play somewhat of a role in the west. Else Majorian would not have addressed the issue of declining birth rates due to christianic religios vows, in one of his Novella Maioriani laws.
@@j.c.mgomez2515 I don't think it was lost overnight, i think it took centuries and there was a transition. Christinaity took 300 or more years to become offcial, it was not overnight, during the early Empire, there was a time of expansion, imperialism, there were slaves and gold flowing to Rome of the campaigns. With the end of expansionism, the gold and slaves stopped coming, and Rome was very dependent of slaves and foreign gold. Less and less money was conducted to education, tecnology, the state money was to pay the huge armies, and constant increase salary to the legionaries, constant civil wars led to hunge devaluation of money. That led to lack of money again to education even more, construction manutention, after earthquakes, and other natural disasters. The change of culture, they started to build churchs, the old classical temples stoped to exist, the army need to be more flexible and less tanky, there was no money to buy fancy armors and weapons anymore. The church was against many scholars and education in general as we see in the movie Agora. Plagues, invasions, civil wars, hard life in cities led people to flee to the countrysides to work for a lord, it was the begining of feudalism the same thing we see in midle ages, cities lost huge % population, Rome had 1/2 milions in the 2nd century AD, and in the end had like 80k, 100k top, that is a huge decline, imagine how New York would look like if it went from 10M to 1M or less, it would be a gigantic city with only a few people, it would look like a ghost city, now imagine Rome like that, and after sacks, it would have been in ruins or a huge part of it would be in ruins. The end of Rome didn't hapened in 10 days or 50 years it was the result of centuries of decline.
20:15 Reconstruction:
* Constantine the Great confused with Constantius III, as winner
* and with usurper Constantine III as coming from Britain
* and ultimately Constantine with Artorius (the one killing a wife with the one sparing a wife)
-> lead to Nennius claiming Arthur conquered Constantinople.
When Tolkien was making an Arthuriad, he conspicuously was impatient with Nennius' boring and counterfactual claim.
Surely Adrianople was at least as significant a turning point as the crossing of the Rhine by the Germanic peoples. Adrianople wasn't just about Valens making some bad calls as a commander. The legion, the basic military system Rome had used up to that point, was shown to be defective. After that, the Romans paid barbarians to fight for them.
I'd say the Fall of the Roman Empire started earlier than that. As soon as the capital was moved to the east that was the beginning of the end.
According to Nietzsche the fall of Rome and Western civilization started with Plato. See: "Why Nietzsche Hated Plato"
I agree it was earlier. I never agreed with the "Barbarian Invasion" theory as being a primary cause, I think it was a secondary. Why? Yes, the migrations took lands and reduced Roman population and influence, but the fall of the West was an internal collapse, not external. The death knell of the Western Roman Empire was 313 CE with the Edict of Milan and 323 CE when Christianity became the official religion. Romans gotta be Roman, and Christianity stopped the Roman way. This change brought chaos both internally and externally, and frankly, Rome never stabilized or recovered. Christianity destroyed the traditional systems and models that were established and relied upon. It affected every aspect of Rome from their military, social organization, geopolitics...to how Romans internally saw themselves and their place in the great scheme of things.
Disagree. Rome was too far from the frontiers, the armies and imperial courts, and a veritable playground for disaffected politicians and generals. The true action was happening in the provinces. Mediolanum (and then later Ravenna), proved to be a better situated capital to respond to the strategic situation of the late WRE, allowing the emperors to deal with internal and external threats much more efficiently as they arose. Constantine made the right decision to found a new eastern capital as well, as Constantinople gave easy access to the Danube and Euphrates, was well - defended, and guarded the trade routes from the Aegean to the Black Sea, and from Europe to Asia. The Eternal City itself had become irrelevant as a political and military stronghold as a result of the Crisis of the Third Century.
@@unarealtaragionevole No it wasn't Christianity. Look at the east, they went on to thrive for another 1000 years.
@@septimiusseverus343 Interesting perspectives!
I watched all of this presentation .
16:47 this is currently America's problem. The similarities of our country and its greedy leadership and Rome is incredible and scary. 😐
In the next 30-50 years the US could be in the same boat. Scary to think I could see this in my lifetime or my kids could. Mighty empires fall from ignorance, overconfidence and arrogance.
Our military is having issues retaining members and an even harder time recruiting new ones.
With the difference that today we can clearly see that decomposition is a targeted process and not some random interplay of unpleasant facts. Thus, it is reasonable to speculate that it was similar in the case of Rome.
Ironically Captivating History published the video "How Did the Roman Republic Start?" today :-)
I love your videos, keep it up.
The Roman Empire was one of the GREATEST cultural civilizations our history has ever recorded. The events of 406 led almost directly to the great sacking of 410
The reason for the fall of Rome is just one expression "a perfect storm" of different elements. The same happens in planes accidents
For an emperor, usurpers were more personally dangerous than barbarians; a successful usurper meant a dead emperor.
Their selfish motivations meant a dead empire.
The statement that the events of 406 decided the fate of Europe contradicts your other state that the fall of western Roman empire was _not_ set in stone.
The Huns played the main role in the great invasions that contributed to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
The Roman Empire did survived and thrived to become a world wide empire through the Holy Roman Catholic Church. 😊
9:10 I need to make a comment on this images implication that because the Romans have become wealthy and decadant, they no longer wanted to fight for their Empire.
There were always wealthy people that didnt want to themselves fight and die for the Empire. The difference, in my opinion, is that the poor populations of the Empire no longer wanted to fight for the Empire. The fact that the average standard of living actually went up after the fall of the Empire should speak volumes of the terrible state the poor populations were in at the time. The real takeaway for me is that the Empire no longer responded to the needs of the majority of its population - and that this is the real reason behind the lack of new recruits.
@p0xus Hello ! Well, this picture was to be taken symbolically. You would find, that as a video creator, it sometimes is very difficult to find the right picture, or video, in order to convey certain things.
But I cannot agree on "The fact that the average standard of living actually went up after the fall of the Empire". This is wrong, and actually completely against modern archeological findings, that indicate that the living standards across the former western empire, declined DRASTICALLY afte the Fall. This is nicely described in Bryan War Perkin's excellent book "The Fall of the Roman empire". He presents compelling archeological evidence, that debunks your theory.
Standard of living and quality of life went down considerably after the fall of the Western Empire. Before, all the regions were connected, this was now cut off and regions were mostly isolated. Currency in circulation went down drastically, barter became the main form of trade again, quality of goods massively declined as did availability, construction and manufacturing knowledge was rapidly lost. Also, the separation between civilian and military life also began to end. For the average person, these changes would have been a nightmare.
The "western portion of the empire " never fell . It was abandoned by its elite who went back to the eastern portion where they came from . Rome enslaved many Germanic tribes as well as committing genocide on them .
I would say the Goth entry in the 370s was the event that started the ball rolling--but really, there were so m any events that could be considered the tipping point.
That said, thank God the empire fell--while better in some ways from the "barbarians" it was worse in many others, and the lack of public support for its preservation (especially from the lowest, rural, classes) was one of the principal reasons for the fall.
Zap Branding: Stop killing each other and fight the barbarians, you cowards!
What's your opinion on the Franks on this period?
On one hand I have heard, multiple times, that the Frank foederati were some of the most loyal alies Rome had in this period. But not the non-foederati Franks were also part of the migrating germanic tribes so...
Eastern Roman Empire: Western Roman Empire!
Not sure if you get the Bagaudae issue well enough (should not trouble you, it's confusing and secondary interpretations often horrible and misleading). AFAIK the 5th century bagaudae happened almost simultaneously in what some sources call "Armorica" (land by the sea) but is actually Aquitaine, incl. the related Basques of North Iberia, and not the Lugdunense "Armorica", and also in Helvetia (but there they were crushed).
There's been an interpretation floating around that the Bagaudae and the Suevi particularly became allied... but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The main data point is a narration of events in Turiasum (modern Tarazona) in which confusedly a bishop was killed while both bagaudae and Suevi troops were present. A proper reading shows clearly that the Suevi actually massacred the bagaudae rebels, although it's not clear who killed the bishop (nor it does matter).
In general it's obvious that the barbarians became thugs for hire for the provincial Roman oligarchs and never had any interest in protecting or recruiting the peasants. The Aquitanian-Tarraconense bagaudae (Basque bagaudae, it's even likely that the word "bagauda" is Basque, something like "we stand", and related to modern Basque "guda" = rightful war) may well have been triggered by the settling of the Visigoths in Aquitaine by Rome, it's unclear but very likely, as Basques and Visigoths would remain bitter enemies at least until the establishment of the Duchy of Vasconia and Aquitaine after the Merovingian invasion of the early 7th century (and subsequent revolts).
The Bagaudae did fight the Romans anyhow but they did so in Tarrraconensis, at the Ebro Valley, which is dotted of many mints and coin findings, a clear signal of payment to troops which has led to the theory of an "inner limes" around Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza), a major Roman base in Hispania since the Cantabrian Wars. Caesaraugusta was anyhow looted by the Bagaudae, we know that much.
It is without doubt because of the success of the Bagaudae that the Basque People (language and non-Roman laws) survived: for more than 150 years the area between the Upper Ebro and the Garonne remained independent (with only occasional Visigothic incursions that we know of) it was some sort of "anarchy", of self-ruled communities that I imagine somewhat similar to the Old Swiss Confederation. This only ended (in part, there's a legal and linguistic legacy all the way till present day) with the Merovingian invasion in the 620s, creating more standard (pseudo-feudal) states like the Duchy of Vasconia first and the Kingdom of Pamplona/Navarre later (among other semi-autonomous states).
Those stupid Roman officers at the limes caused the Goths, admitted with official permission into the Empire, to eventually revolt and invade Roman territory. They were starved, abused and exploited. The Goths even had to sell a child into slavery just to get one dog to eat to keep the rest of the family from imminent starvation. (These Goths were not just warriors, they were whole families). Then, the Romans were astonished and outraged when the Goths fought back! I wouldn’t expect the desperate fathers and sons to do anything else, no man worth the name lets his dependents starve to death.
Its like, like crossing the Rio Grande in real time.
FJB. 🤠
How about Europe letting in millions of non-Europeans in last 10 years?
The narrator sounds like Peter Lorre.
Damn son....
The beginning of the end was Stilicho gaining power and influence.
No, I don't see how he could have done differently with the resources he had. Combined with the idiot Emperor at the time.
What people dont understand is that being Roman just didnt mean as much at this point. It was no longer a special status or a civilization to be envied. It was clearly past its golden age and the economic and military polices chosen to prop up the dying empire are what destroyed the image of invicibility it had upheld. A century of cultural admixture further reduced the identity of the Romans and gave its enemies the means and method to take over. Romans everywhere gave legitimacy to their barbarian counterparts simply by choosing to coexist instead of outright genocide, and of course being Christian was WAY more important than being Roman. The clergy deserves some blame for the fall of Rome, but at the same time they simply did to the Romans what thr Romans had done to everything else: subsumed institutions and practices that worked or were too widespread to stop, and centuries of interal bickering eroded the rest bit by bit until Rome was little more than an inheritance.
The later (post 300) Roman Empire also suffered the effects of a solar minimum similar to the 'little ice age' of the seventeenth century. That would mean no Rhine freezing over, and perhaps less Germanic migration.
Thanks for mentioning this fact Flying Isaac :) I really appreciate it.
I can't remember where I read it, and to be perfectly honest i may have made it up; but i think the crossing of the Rhine was the largest human migration event in written history
No, the Rio Grande River was
@@kelly8431 Definitely, and we're giving up our civilization to an incursion of Barbarians!
@ghost, and no one is doing a thing about it… sad
Optimum!.
I was considering once that Egypt was the last holdout of the Macedonian-Hellenistic conquest that occurred during the time of Alexander the Great. Nearly 300 years later, in 31 BC, Egypt became a Roman province. Egypt had taken to using Roman mercenaries, just as the Persians had become lazy and relied on Greek mercenaries. So, it is no surprise that the Roman were relying on Germanic mercenaries, who'd ultimately be the vanguard of their downfall.
The 406 invasion is arguably the only successful barbarian invasion, the only one where the barbarians crossed the limes without permission, and then defeated not only the frontier defence but also the central field army. They subsequently chose to retreat from reinforcements from Britain and Italy, but only to seize the economically prosperous regions of Spain and Africa which had been Roman since the 2nd Punic War six centuries earlier. The Vandals then maintained a reign of maritime terror throughout the western Mediterranean including pirate attacks on Italy which led to the word Vandal being a synonym for looting an pillaging. The Vandals were not finally defeated until over a century later in the reign of Justinian.
And they only succeeded due to not of their own powers but of the fact of many unlucky things were happening in Rome, but one VERY major mistake not based on luck that Rome had, was SEVERAL CIVIL WARS... 🤦♂️
@@lyricofwise6894 The Emperor Honorius authorizing the termination of the commander of his army was just one of many selfish brain-dead decisions. It was rumoured that when Honorius was informed "Rome has fallen!" a few years later, he was very upset until he learned it was not his pet rooster that had died, just the City.
What’s crazy is this is literally happening in America as we speak. We have migrat caravans crossing into our country 7,000 at a time.
Spoiler: The Roman Empire has fallen since.
_"much less often were they friendly to each other in the 5th century AD"_
Tell that to Imre Nagy and Alexander Dubček. Tell that to the people who were sterilised by decision and physical action of doctors of medicine.
Oh yeah, people were _even less_ friendly back then ... I have my doubts.
It's interesting how the Chinese Empire despite invasions and civil wars and divisions into smaller kingdoms always managed throughout its history to eventually reform and keep its culture, religion, language etc but Rome didn't
The crossing of the Rhine began the end of the Roman Empire as we knew it.
But it wasn't the reason.
Military incompetence, corruption, bankruptcy, the insustainable nature of slave economics have all been bandied about.
But my belief is that the one event that began the fall of Rome was not one but two - the Antonine Plague, and the Plague of Cyprian.
👍👍👍
The empire was doom to die as soon as it began deciding to based their economy of slavery and conquered nation's treasures. Right at the start and Roman empire also didn't start falling in 406 AD.
The event that drove the Roman empire to new heights was the same that sealed the western empire's eventual fate. Top heavy leadership leads to instability. A strong and wise leader may strengthen the empire during their rule, but over centuries of peaks and troughs from emperors that could be wise or total trainwrecks, collapse is expedited. Augustus set Rome on a path to burn hot and fast. It would have lasted far longer had it remained a republic.
With 20/20 hindsight, we could say that had Marcus Aurelius been capable of eliminating the position of emperor at the end of his reign and reinvesting much of the power back into the senate, Rome would likely have continued to persist far longer.
Ultimately, Rome never again was as simultaneously strong and stable as it was during the period of the "5 good emperors," and though temporary periods of partial recovery over the next couple centuries occurred it never again found that degree of strength nor stability. Therefore, the beginning of the end occurred far earlier than most claim. The death of Marcus Aurelius was the beginning of the end for Rome.
You're a German talking about why rome fell? Just look in the mirror Barbar. German huns are responsible.
He's of Romanian origin. Cut it with the anti-German racism. WW2 ended nearly 80 years ago, get over it.
Caesar crossing the rubicon. Sure it was also the end of the Roman Republic, but the Roman Empire was stillborn.
Agree
Isnt todays European Union with common economy, currency, external policy the legacy of Roman empire?
All empires fall, the only thing that could have been changed is the timeline. Once the empire was divided military strategy could no longer be coordinated, and since the west was the poorer they were in a downward financial spiral. For example most of northern Britain was out of roman control in the late 300s.
Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes seemed to be fine with the English weather thou.
Infighting most of all, which was partly because of a lack of clear transfer of power - it wasn't a birth right in the same sense of European monarchies, or a constitutionally secured process. That's why., since if this problem was solved they could have defeated the barbarians.
WRE lost for similiar reasons ere lost egypt and syria to arabsbecausse a set of border fortresses with persia were only defense byzatines had given geography of Levat and Egypt so when these places fell the fall of levnt and egypt was inevitable
Interesting video, especially for some details like the specialized production of arms which was disrupted by the invasions, but I think that the invasion of 406 was not the main cause but a consequence of the main cause which was the demographic collapse. The fact that they hired so many barbarians in the army was a consequence of the demographic crisis. A problem that is present in all conflicts, also today.
Today in the United States, along our southern border, people are coming into the country without any legal basis for doing so. For reasons that are not clear, the government is allowing them to come in and stay, again, without any legal basis. They are entering our cities and using resources paid for by American tax payers, many if whom live paycheck to paycheck. Why the border has not been closed is a mystery. We are at a very dangerous moment in our history. In addition, there is extreme disharmony and disunity among both our citizens and elected leaders fomented by grifters and sociopaths. Sadly, I see this once great nation going down, down, down at a time when real leadership is greatly needed worldwide. We have learned nothing from the past.
Womp womp
Sadly, a bipartisan bill addressing border security was tanked for political reasons. The people responsible voted for Trump and/or enabled Trump. The US has been going downhill seriously since Nixon. Sadly, I am not optimistic about the future
I would argue the gothic revolt in the 370 s this set up an independant state within the supposed borders of the empire.
Roman Barbarians.
The title is misleading. The "Western Roman Empire" does not have the the same end as the Roman Empire.
I prefer British weather than Italian weather any day
Your English pronunciation has a Latin ring to it. May I inquire as to what your native language us?
Love your accent
Hehe, thanks :) i really appreciate it.
I see... So, the big takeaway here is that you should *not* call your Goth gf "Hun".
These videos always get me emotional 😢. Even after 1500 years we still wish for Roma!