Did the often phrased ‘Fall of Rome’ ever truly happen?
Rome is obviously still there and it can be said that Rome didn’t really ‘fall’... Instead, it merely transformed from a pagan empire that converted to Christianity into a Christian empire that perverted Christianity. The Holy See is still a monarchy and empire that exist to this day. The supposed end of the Roman Empire was followed by the ‘Dark Ages’, but even in the dark ages Christ was worshiped and flourished through the empire of the Holy See, which was and still is located in Rome.
It can be said that empires do not really fall, but rather that they transform into something else that isn’t recognized as being civilized.
“The Fall of Rome: And the end of civilization” Ward-Perkins
This is a look into the changes in the material culture of the Roman Empire through examinations of the archaeological record - the usual potsherds and middens, but also the remains of villages, etc. The upshot is that the “Fall of Rome”, in the west anyway, was a human catastrophe unprecedented in historical times.
Its obvious that in the course of the fifth century the population collapsed to a small fraction of what it was in the fourth century. And the fall in the standard of living likewise resulted in a material condition well beneath even the pre-Roman era. Scary book.
Rome “moved” to Constantinople, now Istanbul, until taken over by muslims through treachery.
And this you read in what primary source, exactly?
Show me a historical source from A.D. 300-700 that documents this "perverted Christianity."
Well, yes, but not as popular history has it. The Western Empire crumbled, and the management of Rome itself was taken over by "barbarians", (who spoke Latin and were pretty good administrators). The economy actually improved a little, due to lower taxes and less corruption, until Islam exploded out of Arabia. That trashed the economy of the entire Mediterranean, leading quickly into what Enlightenment historians dubbed The Dark Ages. Dark to them because so little was written down for them to study, owing to the loss of Egyptian papyrus.
Read Henri Pirenne's "Mohammad and Charlemagne" and also Emmett Scott's "Mohammad and Charlemagne Revisited" which adds the findings of modern archaeology to Pirenne's original thesis. Both still in print.
Alrighty, then:
Our 'transformation' is occurring as some of us play semantics.
/s
The argument that the Roman empire continued in the form of the Byzantine empire headquartered in Constantinople is valid. The Byzantine emperor had effective political control over a relatively large geographic area.
The argument that the Roman empire continued in the form of the papacy is pretty weak. The bishop of Rome effectively controlled only a very small area of Italy. To say that being head of state of the Lazio region of Italy is to be an emperor stretches the common understanding of the words emperor and empire. I guess you’re suggesting that the pope’s influence throughout western Europe was emperor-like, but that’s anachronistic. The medieval popes had far less control over the Catholic Church than the popes have had in the last 200 years. The pope’s authority beyond the borders of the papal states was limited for centuries to the role of settling theological disputes. They weren’t appointing bishops worldwide, nor were they exercising the sort of operational control of the Catholic Church that they’ve assumed in the period following the French Revolution. What happened is that the decline of the Catholic monarchies in Europe left a power vacuum that the papacy has stepped into.
I would somewhat agree.
They "transform" into oblivion, relatively speaking. That is relative to their previous power and presence.
In somewhat modern times, think of:
- Britain (sun never set on)
- Spanish (second most spoken language in the world)
- Portuguese (largest maritime empire in the world at the time)
- Dutch (another maritime empire)
All once greater world powers. Where are they today? The trash heap, used-to-be's mostly.
Go further back, and you see....
- Sumer
- Indus Valley
- Hittites
- Persian
- Greeks
- And, of course, the big one -- Rome
All relegated to the dustbin of history. Gone.
Keep another point in mind. When Rome (western Rome) collapsed, the modern world at the time was set back to the Stone Age, and it took almost a thousand years to get the mojo back. Roughly until the Renaissance. The same is roughly true for the Bronze Age Collapse around 1200 BC.
The so-called modern world at the time was stopped dead in their tracks, and it took almost a millennium to recover.
And here we are again today at the cusp!
Saying Rome (western Rome) did not collapse is like saying the Titanic just took on a little water.
The empire falls. Just because it calls itself by the same name is irrelevant.
Jerod is PARTIALLY correct - “Rome” as the empire didn’t fall until 1453.
The predecessors of the Ottomans had the title Sultan of the Rum (i.e. Rome) when they conquered most of Anatolia. But the Ottomans themselves didn’t take up the title of Basileus/Augustus.
fyi. the title of the “Emperor” varied from “Princep” (First citizen) that Augustus took, to “Dominus” - which Diocletian took until the arrival of the 6th century when “Basileus” i.e. “Monarch” came to be used officially.
As an aside - when the Hellenic Kingdom of Greece took over the ionian islands in the 1919-1920 Turkish-Greek war, they conquered an island (can’t remember the name) and kids came out to watch. the Greek soldiers asked them what they were looking at, and the kids said “we’re looking at you Hellenes” - and when the kids were told that they too were Greek, they said “No, we are Romans” :)
But Jerod, you are incorrect about your first paragraph in multiple other cases:
1. “It merely transformed from...” — the Roman empire became officially Christian in 378 AD under Emperor Theodosius (Constantine had been dead half a century) - and the Western Roman empire was given up to the East in 476 AD - so it was already Christian for nearly a century before the west was “lost”
2. The Gothic kings still gave a lip service to the emperor in Constantinople “yeah, yeah, you’re the emperor, now leave us alone” and the emperor acknowledged that they were the confederati - or “rulers I LET rule”
3. It didn’t fall because it became Christian (despite what Gibbon’s propaganda hit piece tried to say)
4. and no, the Roman Empire didn’t “pervert Christianity” — the same or similar doctrines (Eucharist, baptism, Tehotokos) is found in
A. the Ethiopian church which was in an allied empire but not next door
B. the Assyrian church of the east which was in an ENEMY empire (the Iranian Sassanid empire)
C. the Marthomite church of India which was far, far away from Rome
5. The Holy See as a monarchy only dates from 781 AD and Charlemagne emphatically made it under his domain. This was before Charlemagne declared himself Western Caesar in 800 AD.
6. “the empire of the Holy see” — that’s utter nonsense, there was no such empire. There were the Papal states and they only really came to fore AFTER the middle ages
7. the “Dark ages” - historians don’t use that term any more as it was created in the 1700s and 1800s by anti-Christians who saw the rise of Christianity as a bad thing, and they themselves were part of the “Enlightenment”
7.1. During the Middle Ages - literacy only fell from around 550 AD to around 750 AD — this was caused by the Gothic wars when the Roman empire tried to reconquer Italy and Spain.
7.2. from 800 you have the Carolingian renaissance when literacy rose once more
7.3. Science and inventions happened during the middle ages - but this was no longer under the centralized states of the Classical period. They were driven by smaller states or more likely by monasteries.
8. “Even in the Dark ages Christ was worshipped” — well, duhh, during the Middle Ages, Christianity SPREAD through Europe. In 476 AD Christianity was mostly in what was the Roman Empire and it was (in Europe at least) Catholic/Orthodox. Outside the empire there were the Arian Goths (who believed that Jesus was a “lesser” god)
8.1. during the Middle Ages the English (Anglo-Saxons) were converted to Christianity
8.2. during the Middle Ages the Germanics in what is now Germany and then later the Scandanavians were converted to Christianity
8.3. during the Middle Ages the Slavs were brought into the Christian fold and finally the Balts (Lithuanians, latvians) in the period 1300-1450)
So, the Middle Ages was when Christianity really became dominant in all of Europe.