The Fall Of Western Roman Empire
The Fall Of Western Roman Empire
The fall of the Roman Empire is generally perceived to have culminated through one single, though profound, event: the sack of the great city of Rome. The event itself, where the glory of Rome and all it represented came crashing down, is often perceived to be the marking stone for the end of Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. However, the actual “fall” of the empire consists of more than just the invasion of Rome by the Goths, and the causes of this collapse, and what it represented, is highly debated by many modern day historians.
Michael Rostovtzeff is such a historian, who feels that the actual destruction of the Western Empire constituted the decay of an ancient civilization the Romans represented. This culture was symbolized by the economical, social, and political manifestations of the Roman Empire as well as the intellectual and spiritual aspects that comprised different facets of actually maintaining and running an empire as large as what western Rome once controlled (Rostovtzeff, 10). Though Rostovtzeff does articulate that the invasion of the Western Roman Empire through the ‘barbarians,’ i.e. the Germans and Sarmatians, played a part in hastening the decay of the Empire, he stresses that it is the “barbarization from within” which led to the disintegration of the empire (Rostovtzeff, 1). He points out how even before the barbarian invasion, the cities of the Empire were slowly decaying, with the social system following suit, foreshadowing the eventual decay of an ancient civilization.
He points out that an aspect of this decay is the tremulous stability the Roman way of life had over the people of the empire. In page two, he clarifies this opinion by stating how the people of the
Empire, the ‘masses’ of the country, could no longer be absorbed by the cities and what Rostovtzeff believes is that “the barbarism of the country begins to engulf the city population.” This is the main point throughout the essay, that the mentality of the lower classes, which he calls the “masses,” of the empire became so prevalent that they encroached upon the sensibilities and society that was the backbone of ancient civilization, antiquity incarnate.
He explains that it was “the mentality of the lower classes, based exclusively on religion and [was] not only indifferent but hostile to the intellectual achievements of...