The Roman Empire: Fall of the West; Survival of the East

© 2012 James F Morgan. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/20/12

ISBN: 978-1-4772-9318-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-9316-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-9317-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012921956

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Table of Contents

Introduction: A 500 Year Old Mystery

1.   Italy And The Pax Romana

2.   The Empire In Decline

3.   North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, And Tunisia)

4.   Libya (Tripolitania And Cyrenaica)

5.   Egypt.

6.   Palestine

7.   Lebanon

8.   Syria

9.   Turkey

10.   Greece

11.   Hispania (Spain And Portugal)

12.   Fall Of The West: Survival Of The East

Map 1: The Roman Empire

Map 2: Greece And Turkey

Notes

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION:

A 500 Year Old Mystery

The great Roman Empire grew from a small village located on the Italian coastline. She managed to overcome her neighbors, to expand, and to eventually build an empire that circled the Mediterranean and reached from the highlands of England to the sands of Arabia. Her achievements in literature, the arts, law, engineering and architecture qualify her as the greatest empire in the ancient world. Upon gaining the status of an empire, she flourished for two centuries, declined for two centuries, and then split into two separate empires… the Eastern Roman Empire (later know as the Byzantine Empire) and the Western Roman Empire. The Eastern Empire survived for more than a thousand years, while the Western Empire collapsed in less than a century. At the time of the collapse of the Western Empire, people simply accepted the collapse as the way things were. Then about 500 years ago scholars began asking, Why did the Western Roman Empire collapse so quickly, and why did the Eastern Roman Empire manage to survive for a millennium? Many reasons have been presented, but these reasons are seen as factors that contributed to the fall, and were not the actual cause. What than caused the fall of the Western Empire, and how did the Eastern Empire manage to survive for so many centuries to come?

My interest in the Roman Empire began about fifty years ago when I lived in Libya on the Mediterranean shore of Africa. There was little or no agriculture as most of the coastal region was a weed strewn desert. Yet my associates told me repeatedly that this land had once been the breadbasket of the old Roman Empire. How, I asked, could this wasteland have nourished that once great empire? No one could tell me. In later years I begin to read and to research the subject. My search started in Libya, and soon expanded to the Italian peninsula, and then around the Mediterranean.

At the old Roman city of Leptis Magna in Libya, I was impressed with the extensive ruins and carvings in marble, but I also wondered why the Romans would build such a magnificent city in a weed strewn wasteland. At Thysdrus in Tunisia, I saw a massive amphitheatre, one of the largest in the Roman Empire. At the time of my visit the region could only support a small improvised village (El Dijm). Why, I asked, would the Romans build such a massive structure in an arid desolate land? A few miles from Athens, home of the great Greek civilization, I walked along a dirt road. The soil in the fields on either side were a hard-pan clay that were completely devoid of vegetation. How, I asked, could the ancient Greeks and the Romans who followed, have nourished their empires on these depleted lands?   

Many who visit these lands decide that there must have been a significant change in the weather, but those who have studied the subject have concluded that the weather has remained remarked stable and unchanged for more than two thousand years. Etesian winds still blow in the eastern Mediterranean as described by Aristotle more than two thousand years ago. The rain in the Holy Land still falls in the autumn and the spring as described by the biblical prophet Joel (2-23), and autumn rain in Italy still follows the long dry summer as reported by the Roman writer Columella, in the first century AD.

The Roman Empire was a military nation that was built by the sword. She was also a nation with many internal conflicts… Christianity vs. paganism, the poor and deposed vs. the rich and privileged, and her seemingly endless civil wars. Historians tend to focus on the sword, the turmoil, and the internal conflicts. However Rome was also an agricultural nation that lived by the plow and the sickle. By following Roman history from an agricultural and economic perspective, I found that mismanagement and misuse her vast agricultural domain brought a serious decline in production in the west, and with it, the inevitable collapse of the Western Empire. Different conditions in the east enabled Eastern Empire (the Byzantines) to survive for a millennium, but never to flourish as the Roman Empire did during her first two hundred years.

An additional comment: In ancient times writers not only numbered their chapters, but numbered paragraphs as well. This tradition is still used today in the Holy Bible. If a writer wrote more than one book, it was a common practice to number his first book as number one, his second as number two, and so on. To reference a writer’s third book, sixth chapter, ninth paragraph, one would write: (3-6-9). This system has been used on many of the references in this book.   

CHAPTER ONE

Italy and the Pax Romana

We let contracts at auction for the importation of grain from

our provinces across the sea, that we will not suffer hunger.

Lucius Junius Columella, 1st century AD

A seemingly endless wave of immigrants brought new ideas and developments from the great civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean to the southwest coast of Italy. By 1000 BC villages began to expand, and soon grew to city-states. One of them was known as Rome.

During the sixth century BC Rome was controlled by the Etruscans, a militant but culturally advanced people, who lived to the north of the Romans. From the Etruscans the Romans learned the basics of agriculture, irrigation, smelting, and martial arts. By the close of the sixth century BC the Romans had ejected their Etruscan overlords, and in the years to come, one at a time, they overcame their neighbors in the Italian peninsula. By the third century they had become lords of the entire Italian peninsula, and still had a thirst for new lands to conquer.

The island of Sicily was the next logical step. In a series of wars known as the Punic wars, Rome challenged and conquered mighty Carthage… a trading nation located in what is now Tunisia (more on the Punic Wars in the later chapters). This brought wide areas of the western Mediterranean under Roman control. Simultaneously, the Romans had invaded Macedonia to the east, than Greece, and, in time, continued on into Asia. By the close of the first century AD the Roman Empire circled the Mediterranean, and included Britannia (England), and all of Europe south of the Rhine and Danube Rivers.

As the Romans conquered new lands, they shared the loot and plunder of their wars with their newly acquired allies… up to the conquest of the Italian peninsula. After that time, not wanting to further dilute the rewards of warfare, newly conquered lands were annexed as provinces. Roman legions remained in the new provinces, and a Roman governor insured that the peace was maintained and that annual tribute was forwarded to Rome.

In her early days Rome was a kingdom, but then adopted a republican form of government. This lasted for several centuries, but became unstable as ruthless power seekers sought to dominate the senate, the ruling body.They would stop at nothing to achieve their goal. At first they used mobs and riots, but then moved on to armies and civil wars. After a century of conflict and wars, in 31 BC Octavian (who took the name Augustus), overcame all his rivals, and became the supreme power or principate of all Roman lands. Rome had been conquering new lands since her days as a kingdom and continued during her days as a republic. Now, with the accession of Augustus, Rome’s many ethnic groups and nations were ruled by an emperor and Rome was recognized as an empire.

This new empire was abundantly rich from the plunder and loot derived from her many conquests, the many mines, particularly the gold and silver mines, seized by the army, and the cornucopian of rich agricultural products produced throughout most of the empire. Many of the lands conquered by the Romans had been unstable as a result of continual raids, intrusions, and warfare from neighboring tribes and states. As a result, agriculture had been an unpredictable and marginal activity. With stability and peace imposed by the Romans, agriculture became a profitable enterprise and the farmer flourished. A symbiotic relationship resulted in which the Romans provided protection for the farmer, and the farmer provided bountiful crops for the empire.

With the accession of Augustus there began a 200 year period of Pax Romana or Roman peace. This was a period in which no nation was strong enough to challenge Roman rule, and there were no serious threats to the borders. By bringing their culture, their system of justice, and by imposing Roman peace, the provinces enjoyed economic expansion, and a rising standard of living. The vast number of roads, bridges, aqueducts, and magnificent buildings built by the Romans during the Pax Romana are unequaled in the ancient world. Her contribution to the arts and literature are equally impressive. Some historians believe that the world has never known such a period of peace and prosperity.

While the great Roman civilization is viewed by many with awe and wonder, there was also a dark side and many internal problems. Rome was a military state with an insatiable appetite for conquest, for plunder, and for prisoners of war (slaves). With each victory there was an orgy of plunder, theft, and enslavement of prisoners who would be forced to perform the hard labor in the mines, in the forest, and on the farms. Theirs was a practice of plunder in distant lands and slavery in the homeland. This was the dark side.

As for the many internal problems let us start with agricultural production in the Italian peninsula which had been instrumental in building the empire. It is often overlooked, but the once rich and fertile lands of Italy were managed with wanton neglect bringing erosion, depletion, and ruin to an important source of production.

Before mankind arrived, the Italian peninsula was heavily wooded. The Roman writer Livy wrote of the Ciminian forest, somewhere north of Rome, as being more impenetrable and appalling than the forest of Germany. (Livy 9.36.1) In the fifth century BC at a time when the Athenians were looking for a source of timber with which to build a fleet of ships, the Athenian statesman Alcibiades noted that Italy had an abundant supply of the timber best suited for war ships. [1] The Greek writer Strabo wrote of the Avernian forest as being a wild and untrodden forest of large trees. (Geography 4.5.4)

When the first settlers arrived in Italy, the destruction of the forest began. Wood was needed for cooking, for shelter, to build ships, and, as the seasons changed, to stay warm through the winter. There was a need for wide clear areas for crops and grazing lands. The topsoil had accumulated humus and decayed trees for thousands of years. It was deep and unbelievably rich. Agricultural yields were bountiful, and communities flourished. There may have been some erosion in those early days, but it didn’t matter. The topsoil was deep and rich. Wheat, barley, vegetables, fruit, and nut trees were some of the early crops. Sheep were the preferred grazing animal.

Rain in the Italian peninsula falls in the fall, the winter, and the spring, and almost never in the summer. However the land had numerous rivers, streams, and springs that flowed year around. More and more land was cleared, and because of the dry summers, the settlers began to irrigate the land.

The first clue or indication of erosion is found about 200 BC. The Tiber River, which flows past Rome, was silting up at the mouth of the river at the port of Ostia. Ships began to land at Puteoli, 150 miles (240 kilometers) south of Rome and the goods were hauled overland.[2] Before he died in 44 BC Julius Caesar proposed building dikes along the Tiber to control flooding and silting. He was unable to do so, and the silting continued. The Greek writer, Strabo, described Ostia as being harbor-less because of silting. Ships had to anchor far out in the surge (Geography 5.3.5) while tenders lightened their load. It remained for the emperor Claudius, in the first century AD, to undertake the project. A short distance north of Ostia, he had a new harbor of Portus built with warehouses and docks along with a canal connecting to the Tiber River [3]. As more and more trees were cut in the drainage area of the Tiber, the erosion increased. It was during this time that the writer and naturalist, Pliny, the Elder, wrote that fir trees could only be found high up on the mountains. [4] The erosion continued, and by the beginning of the second century major work was again necessary. The emperor Trajan had a new harbor of Portus built with connecting canals to the Tiber and the harbor of Claudius. [5]

Silting was a big problem, but flooding was even worse, and it became more serious each century. The writer, Pliny the Elder, in the first century AD noted that the Tiber was subject to frequent and sudden flooding, and no where greater than in Rome itself (NH 3.5.55). In the fourth century AD the poet Claudius Claudianus (known as Claudian) referred to Rome as my flooded city. He wrote of pestilence, heaps of corpses, and corrupted air. He wrote of people being trapped in the upper levels of their homes, and others being drowned as their houses washed downstream.

Why tell of Tiber’s flooded stream, sweeping between

roofs, and threatening the very hills. [6]

Had those floods existed when Rome was just beginning, the future city would surely have been built elsewhere.

When reading about Rome’s earliest times, one reads about extensive irrigation systems. When discussing later periods, they are no longer mentioned. What happened to the extensive irrigation systems? Perhaps we receive a clue from references to the Pontine Marshes, a marshy area near Rome. It seems that these marshes were drained and utilized for agriculture before 600 BC… the time period in which the extensive irrigation systems were developed. Somewhere along the way the drainage canals silted up, they were neglected, and the region became swampy again. Malaria was rampart. The emperors Augustus and Nero both attempted to reopen the drainage canals, but were unsuccessful. [7] Why couldn’t two different emperors clean up or reconstruct what had been built six centuries earlier? Erosion and silting were out of control. The marshes were clogged and the irrigation systems ruined.

In earlier times when all of Italy was covered with dense forests, the fall, winter, and spring rains soaked into the deep humus soil, and seeped out, feeding springs, streams, and waterways on a year around basis. With the clearing of the forest, rain water drained at a faster rate, taking some of the rich humus soil with it. It happened slowly, but each year the water ran off at a faster rate, and each year carried increasing amounts o of soil. Heavy runoff in the spring became torrents and then floods. Not only was the Harbor of Ostia silting and clogging, so too were other harbors around Italy, and also around the Mediterranean. Erosion was taking place wherever agriculture was conducted which was throughout Italy. In time Italy lost its once rich fertile soil.

In the first century BC times must have been very good. The Roman writer, Marcus Terentius Varro, wrote a book, De Re Rustica, in which he wrote:

You who have wandered over many lands, have you ever seen

any better cultivated than Italy? Is not Italy so stocked with

fruit trees as to seem one great orchard? (DRR 1.2.3. & 1.2.6)

While times may have been good, there were places where erosion and depletion were well under way. Varro also wrote:

In thin soil as in Pupinia (near Rome) you see no sturdy

trees, nor vigorous vines, nor stout straw. (DRR 1.9.5)

In the next century, Lucius Junius Columella wrote 14 books… also named De Re Rustica. In just one century, things must have changed dramatically. In the opening sentences of the first paragraph, of the first chapter, of the first book of a 14 series of books; he wrote;

Again and again I hear leading men of our state condemning

the unfruitfulness of the soil. I hear complaints that the soil

was worn out and exhausted by the overproduction of earlier

days, and can no longer furnish sustenance with it’s old time

benevolence. (DRR 1.1)

Columella went on to discuss the problems associated with poor soil. He recommended leaving the soil in fallow for a period, plowing crosswise to the slope, and using manure frequently. Like many who wrote on agriculture, he observed that virgin and wooded areas yielded abundantly when first cultivated, but in time lose their fertility.

The soil, deprived of it’s old time nourishment, grows lean. (DRR 2.1.6)

Apparently in the first century after Christ, it wasn’t just the leading men of the state who were aware of the diminished fertility of the soil. It must have been widely recognized as there were many theories as to the cause. Some blamed the weather. Some blamed the Christians. Before the Christians were around, the soil was rich and fertile, and then when the Christians appeared, the soil lost it’s fertility. It must have been the Christians. There were some who believed that just as people age and lose their fertility, so too does the soil. [8] Pliny the Elder, well aware of deteriorating soil conditions, wrote;

Some believe that the land of Italy has been exhausted (NH 17.3.41)

He attributed the great fertility of the soil in earlier times to