The Rise of Kingdoms in the Roman Empire: Part IV
The role of emperor had gone through many changes by the time Odoacer sent the weak, young western emperor, Romulus, into very early retirement. The eastern or what we call the Byzantine emperor, controlled land that would stay part of the Roman Empire until the mid-fifteenth century and had managed, by and large, to resist (what were considered) barbarian influxes [Whittaker p.244].
Barbarians wanted land to settle their families on in the Roman Empire (or they wanted food) more than they wished to overthrow the emperors. Many wanted to share the wealth they saw among the Romans, like profit from trade, especially trade in slaves, and border raids. The barbarian intruders wanted to benefit from being part of Rome by being made citizens of the empire.
That was true on most fronts, but there were other, more problematic areas. The Byzantine emperor had trouble controlling the Caucasus, and, the Sassanid Persians continually challenged Roman territorial borders from the East -- until finally the two empires wore themselves out fighting one another, allowing an outsider, Arabia, to gain the upper hand.
A few generations after the Fall of Rome in the West, the famous Illyrian ruler Justinian (d. 565), a rare Byzantine emperor with great power, used his capable general, Belisarius, to reconquer parts of the western empire that had been lost in Italy, Africa, and Spain. (The re-conquest didn't last.)
Justinian also codified those laws of the Roman Empire that had been written since Theodosius II wrote them in 438. Justinian created an enduring system, known as the Corpus iuris civilis 'Body of the Civil Law', that became the basis for the English, and subsequently, American legal systems.
Justinian also closed Athens' Academy, where Plato had taught almost a millennium earlier, because it was too pagan. An aside that shows the interaction between the Roman Empire and the East: In A.D. 529, the Persian king welcomed some of the displaced scholars to a Persian academy.
Justinian was an exception. Especially in the West, the formerly lofty title of "emperor" wasn't worth much any longer.
Change of Title
Despite the lack of an earthshaking event in A.D. 476, it is as reasonable a date for the beginning of the Middle Ages as any, and better than most because it highlights one of the main differences between the late classical and medieval periods. The medieval world was filled with kings and lesser rulers, controlling their little kingdoms and fiefdoms, whereas the ancient world was dominated by men like the emperors who ruled vast domains. Besides the Romans, there were the aforementioned, empire-building Persians to Rome's east who kept Rome's expansion in check. Rome had lost territory and its leaders Crassus and Julian the Apostate, among others, to the Persians' formidable horsemen. The medieval era's collection of small rulers wasn't completely new to the Romans, but the assumption of the kingly title marked what could be viewed as the end of a 360 degree rotation of Roman history, especially if you're a fan of the cyclical theory of history and social change.
Cyclical Theory of History
The cyclical theory of history is self-explanatory. History repeats itself. It can be viewed as a wheel with an arbitrary starting spoke that follows the preceding, ending spoke in a never-ending roll through time with names and places changing, but patterns happening over and over again. In terms relevant here, the move is from popular rule to autocratic and back again.
The Obligatory Comparison With Today
This theory is particularly popular among those who like to look to Roman history to see parallels with events of their own day. Today, the word imperial carries negative connotations. That hasn't always been the case. In earlier generations, imperial powers like that of Great Britain could proudly be compared with ancient Rome. Today, the U.S. is the nation most likely to be compared with the Roman Empire, with a decidedly negative spin cast upon the world's superpower's domination.
The Barbarian Then and Now
The concept of the barbarian for the U.S. today is similar to the barbarian back then. In "Late Antiquity: Before and After," Bryn Mawr Classical Review co-founder James J. O'Donnell vividly demonstrates how similar things are because of the attitudes we have to outsiders:
"What we now understand we could have learned ...[is] that "barbarians" can be a kind of solution to a society's misunderstandings of itself and its world. I have found terrible poignancy and power in the classroom the last two years in bringing to students contemporary accounts of the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410, as nearly exact a parallel to the experience of 9/11 as could be imagined: "barbarian" invaders who had given full warning of their hostility and intent seized and sacked the city for three days. The shock felt through the Romanized world is proverbial and deserves scrutiny."'And I was stunned and stupefied, so much so that I couldn't think about any thing else day and night. I felt as if I were being held hostage myself and couldn't even open my mouth until I knew for sure what had happened. Hanging there, caught between hope and despair, I was torturing myself with the thought of what others were suffering. But after the brightest light of all the lands was extinguished after the head of the whole Roman empire was lopped off to speak truly, after the whole world had perished in a single city, I fell silent and was humbled, and I kept my silence and my sorrow was renewed. My heart grew warm within me and fire blazed up in my thoughts.'""That is Jerome reacting in far-off Bethlehem, and we read his words as though they were written in September of 2001, not of 410."
Earlier in the history of the U.S., the founding fathers deliberately copied Roman institutions, but their hope was to take that part of the Republican Period that worked well and avoid the problems that led to its decay and emergence as the empire, as Adrian Goldsworthy says in his preface to How Rome Fell.
The Rise of Kingdoms in the Roman Empire Part
1 - Ancient History: From Prehistory to the Early Middle Ages2 - Other Dates for Rome's Fall: Pros and Cons
3 - How the Romans Handled Problems of Imperial Successions
4 - The Barbarian at the Gates
5 - Early Rome and the Issue of Kings
6 - Caesar's Role in the Collapse of the Roman Republic
7 - Challenges the Empire Faced and Resolved by Division
8 - Administrative Units of the Later Roman Empire
9 - Kings Replace the Roman Emperor
Notes
Also see: Hun-Driven Barbarian Invasions.
