How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower
By Adrian Goldsworthy
(Yale University Press, 560 pages, $32.50)
Adrian Goldsworthy is a great name for a classicist, and,
fortunately, Adrian Goldsworthy is a classicist of the first
order. He earned his doctorate at Oxford, and is the author of
several books, including the critically acclaimed biography,
Caesar, published in 2008. With
How Rome Fell, he takes on a subject much debated
since Gibbon, and comes up with a compelling answer.
Many recent analyses of the collapse of Roman power have made a
point to draw parallels with modern day America, and to disparage
American foreign policy in general, and that of George W. Bush in
particular. Goldsworthy makes clear in his preface that such
comparisons are of little value simply because the United States
and Rome, and the context of their times, are so vastly
different. He is far too diplomatic to level heavy criticism on
his colleagues who have chosen, nonetheless, to do so. He even
extends such professional courtesy to Terry Jones (of Monty
Python fame) whose book and miniseries Barbarians
takes pains to make such comparisons and to criticize the
Iraq war. Goldsworthy merely comments that it is “highly
entertaining stuff, even if the message is somewhat strained.”
Aside from being cool towards trying to make serious comparisons
of ancient states with modern ones, Goldsworthy is a European
scholar who believes that the decline and fall of American power
would be a bad thing — and that is refreshing.
Like Gibbon, Goldsworthy begins his narrative in the late second
century, with the reign of Marcus Aurelius. He then takes the
reader on the journey through Rome’s ups and downs, innovations,
and adaptations through to the final collapse of the Western
Empire, making use of the latest research and archeological
discoveries. He also includes a brief discussion of the
continuation of the empire in the east, the short-lived
reconquest of Italy and North Africa during the reign of
Justinian, and the emergence of Muslim power that would topple
the Persian Empire, and ultimately put an end to the remains of a
shriveled Eastern “Roman” Empire in 1453.
Though the text is usefully footnoted, it is written with the
general reader in mind. Goldsworthy does not overwhelm the reader
with the names of many minor figures (doing so to a fault when he
mentions one of Aurelian’s generals in Egypt, but neglects to
point out that the general was the future emperor Probus). He
does write the occasional tantalizingly unclear sentence, but for
the most part, Goldsworthy’s prose is lucid and engaging.
Goldsworthy does not put the blame of the fall of the Western
Empire on overwhelming military pressure from the various
Germanic tribes (or the Huns) that eventually broke through the
Rhine-Danube frontier, or the rise of Persian power in the east.
The Goths, Vandals, Franks, and other tribes that eventually
toppled the Western Empire were neither more powerful nor more
united than they were in the second or third centuries. Their
attacks may have been more frequent, but probably only as a
result of inviting Roman weakness. Likewise, Persia, though a
strong adversary, never posed a serious threat to Rome’s
survival. Depopulation may have played a role in Rome’s weakness
in the fourth and fifth centuries, but population estimates are
too sketchy for Goldsworthy to base any theory on that. But it
certainly was a fact that the Roman Empire was subject to
extensive internal warfare from the end of the second century on,
that took a heavy toll on treasure and manpower.
Though many have argued that the lack of a clear succession
mechanism in the imperial system was inherently destabilizing,
Goldsworthy argues that it is not a coincidence that it worked so
well for nearly two centuries (at least in comparison to the
later empire) before murder and civil war became the usual manner
of deciding emperors. The problem, as Goldsworthy views it, was
that by the end of the second century, the façade of republican
government, which Augustus so carefully endeavored to preserve,
had largely been stripped away (entirely so, by the time of
Diocletian at the end of the third century). Though the Senate
never had much power during the early empire, emperors knew that
any challengers they may face would likely come from the
senatorial class. Based in Rome, and in constant contact with the
Senate, emperors understood the issues of state, and could keep
tabs on potential dissent. By distancing themselves from the
Senate and Rome, setting up new imperial residences in places
like Trier, Milan, and Ravenna, creating vast bureaucracies of
court officials, for the purpose of protecting themselves from
imperial rivals, and constantly conducting military campaigns in
person so as to keep military commanders from gaining too much
popularity and favor with the army, the result was, in fact, a
system that guaranteed incessant plotting, purges, warfare, and
inefficiency.
The apparatus of government evolved into a means to protect the
emperor and enrich and the bureaucracy. Goldsworthy writes:
At a basic level the emperors and government officials of the
Late Roman Empire had forgotten what the
empire was for. The wider interests of the state […]
were secondary to their own personal success
and survival. […] There had been plenty of selfish and corrupt
individuals in earlier periods of Roman history, just as there
have been in all other societies. The difference was that by
the late empire it was difficult for them to behave in any
other way.
This is what led to the empire not being able to deal effectively
with problems that it had successfully dealt with in the past,
eventually leading to its collapse.
The empire survived in the east largely, argues Goldsworthy,
because of the luck of geography, its richest provinces shielded
from the Germanic invasions by the Bosphorus and the walls of
Constantinople. The Persian Empire on its eastern border was
formidable, but easier to deal with than the multitude of forces
facing the West. It also benefited from the emergence of some
strong leaders such as Anastasius and Justinian. But the
surviving Eastern Empire never regained the status of a dominant
power.
Though Goldsworthy does not believe in trying to equate Rome with
modern societies, there are general lessons from history that he
thinks are instructive. In the case of Rome, he believes the
cautionary tale is the uncontrolled growth of bureaucracy. He
warns, “Bureaucracies are stubborn, they tend to expand on their
own and develop their own agendas.” This leads to its members
losing touch with the original and wider goals, and instead
becoming focused on preserving, expanding, and using the system
for their own benefit. Interestingly, as an example of this, he
brings up nationalized health care. “Thus in Britain we have a
National Health Service in which the number of administrators has
increased as the number of beds for patients has fallen.
Seemingly incapable of such basic tasks as keeping wards clean,
as an institution its attitude at times seems ambivalent to the
fate of patients, concerned only with numbers passing through the
system.”
How Rome Fell is an interesting and compelling
analysis. It is definitely worth the price to obtain and the time
to digest, even if you are not a student of classical history.
Rome may not be America, but Roman history still provides
valuable lessons.
