Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire

by Baker, Simon

  Constantine died on 22 May 337. His reign had been the longest of any emperor since the very first – Augustus. Some time before his death he was baptized, an indication of the sincerity of his belief. After that time he wore only white, forsaking the robes of imperial purple for the dress traditionally adopted by a Christian initiate. The man who attended his deathbed was a man he had liberated when he defeated Licinius some thirteen years earlier, a man whose company he had often shared since that time, the bishop of Nicomedia.

  Christianity continued to thrive on the imperial templates Constantine had set. Only one of the Roman emperors who came after him was pagan. The attempts of Julian the Apostate to turn back the clock between 360 and 363, although vigorous, ultimately failed. At the end of the fourth century, in Rome alone there were seventy priests and twenty-five churches. The sumptuous development of St Peter’s reflected the extraordinary patronage of the Roman élite, the Church hierarchy and the emperor himself, and Rome would become a principal destination for pilgrims. However, this success of Christianity did not hold true for the new, unified and restored Roman empire.

  Constantine’s successors were his three sons. On his death they had agreed to share power, but almost immediately began arguing and killing each other. The fractures in the Roman empire that Constantine’s work had temporarily healed would quickly reappear. Within fifty years they would be gulfs. In 364 a new dynasty was founded under Valentinian I. He chose to divide the empire in half once again, splitting it between an eastern and western emperor. However, the force that would put a fatal stress on the empire came not from weak leadership within, but from the frontiers. The barbarians were coming.

  VI

  FALL

  AD 476 is the official date for the end of the western half of the Roman empire. It fell not with any grand, dramatic fanfare, nor with the crashing boom of fire and iconoclasm, war and revolution. Instead it fell with the gentle rhythmic pounding of a horse’s hoofs and perhaps the whirring rumble of wheels on a single imperial wagon. Those sounds belonged to a messenger heading east to Constantinople, rushing across the Roman roads of the empire and carrying with him the imperial vestments, diadem and purple cloak of the western Roman emperor. He had been sent by Odovacar, a Germanic king based in Italy, and instructed to deliver the possessions to the eastern Roman emperor. Odovacar had come to a decision: they wouldn’t be needed any more.

  Odovacar was, by origin, from the Germanic tribe of the Sciri. He had been a highly successful general in the Roman army in the middle of the fifth century. By 476 so successfully had he built up a loyal power base of Roman soldiers and landowners in Italy that he was able to launch a coup d’état and become the effective ruler of the whole peninsula. There was, however, one problem with his complete grasp of power in Italy: there still existed a western Roman emperor. Admittedly, he was a very nominal emperor – a boy of sixteen and the son of a usurper, and since he controlled nothing outside Italy, he posed absolutely no threat to Odovacar’s position. Nonetheless, this was the time to make a clean break – a chance to tie up loose ends.

  Odovacar wrote to Zeno, the Roman emperor of the east, informing him that he was going to depose the western emperor. This decision, though, was perhaps less significant than the one that followed. Odovacar also made it clear that he had no intention of appointing another emperor. The ancient post, forged by Augustus over five hundred years earlier, was now so utterly devoid of meaning and power that it really was not worth his while. Zeno’s reply implicitly agreed. Although the eastern emperor paid lip-service to constitutional rectitude by telling the king that his status would need to be recognised by the western emperor’s predecessor, there was no hiding the reality: Zeno effectively acknowledged Odovacar’s seizure of power. When he received that news, King Odovacar ceremoniously dispatched to the eastern emperor the vestments, diadem and cloak of the now defunct western office.

  The ancient sources do not tell us very much about the character of King Odovacar. They leave only questions, one of which is whether he had a sense of irony. The name of the boy emperor whom he had just deposed was Romulus Augustulus. The names – one of the mythical founder of Rome and the other meaning ‘Little Augustus’ – reflect how Roman history had neatly come full circle from Rome’s earliest ruler to its most recent; from the first emperor, who had created the age of the Caesars, to its last, a powerless, deposed child. The Roman empire in the west had risen, ruled the Mediterranean world for over seven hundred years and had now fallen, fragmenting into kingdoms ruled by ‘barbarians’. While the eastern Roman empire, administered from Constantinople, survived for another thousand years in the form of the Byzantine empire, the western half – Rome, Italy and western Europe – fell into the Dark Ages. How had the greatest, most influential empire of the ancient world come to this? How had it fallen?

  The answers given to this, the most enduring question of ancient history, have run well into the hundreds. They range from malaria, lead poisoning and tumours created by too many hot steam baths to soil erosion and climate change; from childlessness and depopulation to ineffective government and bankruptcy; from the disillusion of provincial élites and the collapse of moral standards to the crumbling of traditional religions and the disintegration of army discipline. In the eighteenth century Edward Gibbon devoted three volumes of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to answering the same question. Reflecting the age in which he wrote, Gibbon chronicled the best part of three hundred years of Roman history in the West (from 180 to 476) and pinpointed Christianity as a chief culprit. Belief in the afterlife, he suggested, utterly sapped Romans of the steely resolve and discipline required to suffer hardships for the sake of maintaining the empire. Gibbon’s view of an inevitable, slowly evolving and complex process was highly influential over the centuries that followed him. Recent scholarship, however, has taken a different view. The Roman empire collapsed staccato style; it did so not inevitably, but under the impact of key, spectacular shock waves in its last hundred years; and the people who created those crises were barbarian invaders.1

  This chapter will focus on one of those critically decisive moments: the sack of Rome in August 410. It will tell the story of how the greatest city of the ancient world, the city-state that ruled a massive empire for over seven hundred years, fell to barbarians and was ritually sacked. The destruction of the ancient city is an enlightening, pivotal moment because the forces that brought about the sack epitomize the shock waves that shattered the western Roman empire between 376 and 476. Perhaps the greatest of these forces was the motivation of the barbarians. Their invasions came down to a single belief – that the Roman empire was an El Dorado that offered a chance for a better life. They came not to destroy Rome, but to become part of it. However, in trying to win acceptance within the empire, to win peace terms and a slice of that prosperity, destroying the empire is exactly what would happen.

  The man who led the sack of Rome was a Goth by the name of Alaric. Almost everything about him and his vast number of followers subverted the Roman concept of a ‘barbarian’. He was no mindless, irrational thug, but a Christian and a man of his word. His troops were no hot-headed, marauding horde, but an organized and efficient army. They besieged Rome not for immediate, smash-and-grab looting of gold and treasure, but with foresight, with a view to executing a long-term plan. In short, Alaric the Goth, the barbarian, the sacker of Rome, was much more of a Roman. Extraordinarily, he had fought and trained in the Roman army and showed a strategic thinking and determined, calculating mind that resembled not barbaric invaders but the greatest Roman generals – a Caesar or an Augustus, a Vespasian or a Constantine. In one respect, though, he was very un-Roman. The sack of a foreign city would not, for him, rate as a success or victory, but as a complete and utter failure.

  This is the story of how ambition, betrayal and internecine conflict felled the greatest city of the ancient world. The same themes on which Romulus had founded Rome some 1200 years earlier would come back to
haunt the city once again at the very moment of its destruction.

  BREACHING THE EMPIRE

  AD 376. The Roman empire had for over a decade been unofficially divided into two halves. The emperor Valens ruled in the east from Constantinople, and the emperor Gratian ruled from the imperial capital of Milan. In that year, however, Valens was not to be found in his eastern seat of government. He was closer to the frontier of the Roman east, in Antioch, trying to put out a fire: King Shapur, the leader of a resurgent Persian empire, was threatening the eastern Roman border. Valens was channelling all the resources he could to face the threat. Huge numbers of the eastern army at his disposal were being deployed, and to feed them, Valens was taking a bigger cut of the agricultural tax. In the mid-fourth century the economy and manpower of the Roman empire were robust enough to sustain such demands. What the empire was not prepared for, however, was a dramatic chain of events taking place on its border in the northeast. On the river Danube, at some point between modern Bulgaria and Romania, the Roman empire was about to witness the greatest refugee crisis of the ancient world. It would also find itself fatally exposed.

  Facing the rushing expanse of the Danube, perhaps as many as 200,000 Goths had gathered on Rome’s northern frontier. They were not an invading army, but a nation of Gothic families – men, women and children seeking asylum en masse. They had come in their wagons, with their livestock, ploughs and whatever possessions they could carry – chairs, hides, wheelmade pottery, silver drinking vessels and utensils of bronze and iron. On reaching the border, they had camped out on the northern bank of the broad river, and their leadership had sent an envoy humbly asking permission from the emperor Valens to cross the frontier and live in his dominions.2 They had come because they had been forced to: life outside the empire’s northern borders had become too dangerous. They had been hounded out of their lands along the northwestern shores of the Black Sea and south of the Carpathian mountains (see map, page 373). These were lands that they had occupied because it was here they could settle, establish their farms and benefit from the economies of the client-states of Rome – the communities in the regions bordering the Roman empire who traded with the Romans. However, in the year 376 the wealth of the lands the Goths had adopted had come under the envious eyes of others who wanted a slice of the action.

  The people who had set the crisis on the Danube in motion, the people who were ‘the seed-bed and origin’ of the crisis, were the Huns. The best Roman historian of this period, Ammianus Marcellinus, describes them as abnormally ‘savage’, possessors of ‘squat bodies, strong limbs and thick necks’, a people ‘so prodigiously ugly and bent that they might be two-legged animals’.3 A less partisan, more modern view, however, reveals that they were a nomadic people, expert in the use of the bow, who came from the Eurasian steppes. This was territory that stretched from Mongolia to the eastern margins of Europe. The poor quality of the land and the unfriendly weather conditions there dictated the people’s roaming way of life. Perhaps spying the wealth of the Black Sea region, the Huns had moved west, causing havoc by raiding and destabilizing Gothic territories en route. This was the ‘big bang’ moment – the moment that forced the Goths off their lands and on to the Roman empire’s frontiers.

  In approaching Rome, however, the Goths, a nation of farmers, were taking a huge gamble. Seeking asylum was a decision they had pondered for a long time. It was true that the Roman empire represented a stable, developed economy, that life within its frontiers offered the chance for a better, more protected future than life outside. That old life was now overshadowed by the constant threat of assault from the Huns. Yet at the same time, in crossing the frontier they were putting their entire nation at the mercy of Rome; they were exposing themselves to a new potential threat – that of slavery or death. The Gothic leaders had eventually made up their minds: life under Rome would be the lesser of two evils. Cautiously they sent their request to Emperor Valens. Little did they know that they were not the only ones to handle the crisis tentatively.

  In the east Valens should have been delighted by the news of the Goths’ arrival: they represented the prospect of raw recruits for the Roman army. Indeed, by filling the ranks with them, said the flatterers in Valens’s court, the empire would stand to make more money from the provinces. In place of the usual levy of troops, the eastern Roman court could ask the provinces to contribute gold instead. The truth, though, was very different. Valens and his advisers were more probably thrown into a complete panic over the situation on the Danube. With the bulk of the Roman army on the eastern frontier, the troops in the west were spread very thinly along its northern borders. The shortage of soldiers meant that far from being in control of the situation, the Romans were in no position whatsoever to police the refugee crisis. Nonetheless, Valens gave permission for one of the Gothic tribes to cross the Danube. Transported in Roman ships day and night, the Tervingi tribe was ferried across the dangerous rapids of the river, and poured over the frontier like ‘lava from mount Etna’. Meanwhile, the Roman forces available patrolled the river, keeping out the Greuthungi tribe. To those who made it over the border, however, it would quickly become apparent just how unprepared the Romans were for their arrival.4

  During the winter of 376–7, while the Roman generals on the border waited for Valens to spare troops from the eastern frontier to help deal with the refugees, the Goths endured a long, agonizing delay. The sea of tents and makeshift homes on the Roman side of the Danube belied the horrendous conditions they experienced that bleak, freezing winter. Poor sanitation and a crippling shortage of food made their life hell. The Roman generals had no inclination to do anything about it. In fact, they were quite prepared to make it worse. Turning black marketeers, they seized an opportunity to make a quick profit out of the suffering ‘barbarians’. In exchange for slaves and even children of some of the poorer Gothic citizens, the Roman generals gave the starving refugees fresh food. The Goths who had traded must have been doubly revolted to discover that they had bartered away children for dog meat.5

  Tensions between Roman and barbarian quickly reached boiling point. In order to prevent the crisis spiralling out of control, the chief Roman general ordered the Goths to move on to the Roman regional base at Marcianople. However, he did not have enough soldiers both to police the frontier and to accompany the Tervingi Goths. The Greuthungi Goths, realizing that the border was no longer being patrolled, secretly crossed the river in makeshift rafts and canoes made from hollowed tree trunks, and thus slipped quietly into Roman territory. With the Greuthungi following at a significant distance behind, the Tervingi and the Greuthungi reached Marcianople. They were, however, in for another nasty surprise.

  The majority of the Goths were kept outside the walls of the town by Roman soldiers. Inside, the Roman generals invited the ‘barbarian’ leaders to a sumptuous dinner. Perhaps in a bid to throw the Goths into confusion and thus seize control of the situation, the Romans made a botched attempt to assassinate the Gothic leaders. For the Goths, after their months of misery, this was the last straw. When their people outside Marcianople heard about the assassination attempt they were incandescent with rage. Hearing the riotous fury outside, the Gothic leaders thought quickly on their feet: they told the Romans that if they pressed ahead and killed them, there would certainly be a war. Only by setting them free could that be avoided.

  Given the shortage of troops, the Romans were forced to release the Gothic leaders. But this was the most disastrous of all outcomes. The masses of refugees were not only starving, but utterly alienated and seething with anger. Once reunited with their angry, disenchanted leaders, the refugee Goths quickly overcame the Roman soldiers guarding them and pillaged Marcianople. War had been declared.

  The war took place between 377 and 382, and the battlefield was the Balkans. Valens made a hasty peace with the Persian king, released whatever forces he could from the eastern frontier and raced to tackle the Goths. Although the conflict was unfolding in his half of the Rom
an empire, Valens nonetheless called upon the western emperor to help. Gratian agreed, but was unable to release his army immediately; he was preoccupied with securing the middle Danube from a further breach in the frontier made by a Germanic tribe called the Alamanni. During this delay, the Goths raided freely just to survive, and the people of Thrace bore the violent brunt of Roman inaction. Soon, however, the Goths would be brought into line again. It would not be long before they faced the full force of the Roman army.

  The great conflict between the Goths and Valens’s troops turned on the events of 9 August 378. The battle was fought at Hadrianople (modern-day Edirne in Turkey) and it was riven with mistakes from the start. As the weeks of the summer passed and Gratian’s army failed to appear, Valens’s troops grew demoralized. Then, when the Romans believed they had the Goths in a position to engage them in battle, a fateful Roman council of war was called. Valens’s generals informed him that the enemy army was much smaller than it really was. Furthermore, while some officers advised caution, others did not. The latter were in belligerent mood, and in order to get their way, they knew how to press the emperor’s buttons. Valens was jealous of Gratian’s military success in the west. This was his chance, they now told him, to show what the eastern empire was made of. Valens had long ago run out of patience waiting for Gratian to arrive. Now, piqued and prodded by his hawkish generals, he decided to go it alone, to deal with the Goths once and for all. His advisers were right, he believed: he really did not need Gratian.6