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This post is available as a video at https://youtu.be/5bxkmoxzi3U.

1. Introduction

The traditional date for the end of the Roman Empire is 476, when Odoacer invaded the city of Rome with a German army and deposed Emperor Romulus Augustulus. How did the once-mighty Roman Empire sink so low that a barbarian horde could topple it? Scholars have offered a wide variety of reasons for the decline:

• The rise of Christianity
• Barbarian invasions
• Manpower shortage and population decline
• Proletarian revolution of the soldiers against the bourgeoisie
• Roman blood diluted with barbarian blood
• Upper classes suffering from lead poisoning
• Change in climate
• A series of unfortunate events that just happened to occur together, making the fall of the Empire an accident rather than an inevitability

I prefer to rephrase the question from “Why did the Empire fall?” to, “Why did it stay together, and what changed so that its citizens let it fall apart?” So I’m looking at is as a cost-benefit analysis by the individual citizens, although the Romans wouldn’t have used those terms.

2. Roman achievements during the Empire

Before we consider why the Empire fell apart, we’ll look very briefly at why the Empire began, and what level of civilization it reached.

Beginning ca. 90 BC, civil wars tore the Roman Republic apart: check out the biographies of Sulla, Pompey, Julius Caesar, and Crassus, for example. The wars were ended by Octavian, who in 31 BC defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium. Under the title “Augustus”, he then became the first emperor of Rome. Augustus was a different type of ruler from any during the Republic: he had sweeping powers, and he held them for 45 years. But he kept the outward trappings of the Republic’s government, including senators, consuls, and tribunes.

The two centuries that followed the Battle of Actium were the Empire’s high point culturally, economically, and politically.

2.1  Law and citizenship

The Roman Republic was founded in 510 BC. Over the course of the next thousand years, the Romans created a rational, internally consistent law code that favored individuals and property rights. Roman law was so useful that it was revived to govern business relationships beginning ca. 1100 AD, when the economy of Europe began to revive from the Middle Ages. Rome’s laws remain the basis for modern law codes in much of Europe, Japan, and parts of South America.

Under Roman law, those with the status of citizen could vote, hold elective office, make contracts, own and inherit property, and marry (with their children automatically becoming citizens). They were exempt from some local taxes and regulations. In the judicial system, they could sue and be sued, could have a legal trial and appeal the judge’s decision. Unless found guilty of treason, no Roman citizen could be tortured, whipped, or sentenced to death. Women who were citizens had fewer rights than men, but they could own property, engage in business, and get divorced.

All those rights made the status of Roman citizen one to aspire to. But Roman law also recognized that foreigners who lived within the Empire or dealt with its citizens had rights. Under international law (the ius gentium, law of nations), foreigners had the right to own property, make contracts, and conduct business. Hence even for non-citizens, living in the Empire was profoundly better than living beyond the Empire’s borders, where brute force and authoritarian rule prevailed.

2.2  Architecture & engineering

Think of a Greek temple …. Now think of a Greek temple that looks different. Can’t do it, can you? Greek temples were beautifully proportioned stone boxes on platforms, built with post-and-lintel construction. Their proportions were so rigidly set that we can calculate the size of a whole temple if a single metope survives. The interior of such temples was never meant for public gatherings; it was secondary to the exterior.

The Romans introduced and disseminated widely two major innovations in architecture: concrete and the arch. Combining these two allowed much greater variety in the size and shape of buildings, including huge, soaring spaces. To make the exterior and interior more appealing, the concrete was faced with marble or with brick that was plastered and painted.

And the Romans didn’t just build magnificent buildings. Roman engineers constructed enormous aqueducts to provide water to cities. They built public baths with elaborate heating systems. They devised sewage systems that were not surpassed until the 19th century. They constructed sturdy roads for trade and communication inside cities and between distant points of the Empire.

Many of these works were so well constructed that they continued in use long after the Roman Empire had fallen. Some are still in use today – for example, the Cloaca Maxima at Rome, the aqueducts at Segovia and Nimes, and the bridge at Alcantara.

Members of a steadily increasing middle class in the Empire were able to afford elegant, comfortable homes. Roman engineering and technology (including aqueducts, sewers, and cast concrete) made their lives comfortable, even in crowded cities. Moderate taxes paid for such infrastructure, as well as the legal system and defense of the borders.

2.3  Exchange of goods & ideas

The early Roman Empire (ca. 31 BC-180 AD) was the era of the Pax Romana, a period of peace and prosperity. On the Empire’s borders, Roman soldiers kept out the looting barbarians. On the Mediterranean, the Roman navy kept pirates under control. On land, well-built Roman roads allowed fast, safe travel.

During this period, people, goods, and knowledge circulated widely. In the city of Rome, you could buy Greek olive oil, French wine, even Chinese silk. If you wanted the best physicians, you could travel to Pergamon, a famed medical center in modern Turkey. If you had a curious mind, you might visit one of Rome’s dozen libraries. You might even sail to Alexandria, where the Great Library had been established in the 3rd c. BC. Its founder’s goal was for it to become a repository of all knowledge. The Library held tens of thousands of papyrus scrolls – perhaps hundreds of thousands – that dealt with everything from mathematics, astronomy and physics to poetry. If you couldn’t travel to Alexandria to read a particular book, scholars there could copy it and send it to you.

2.4  Art in the Empire

I’m an art historian, so I can’t ignore Roman art. That said, the Romans showed no great creativity in that realm. They appreciated Greek sculpture enough to develop a way to make highly accurate copies of it. (See Sculpture Synopsis 4.) But they didn’t create such new, original works. The same was true of painting. Most or all of the architectural views, still-lifes, landscapes, and scenes of everyday life that decorated Roman homes were copies of Greek models.

Roman portrait busts, which originated in wax death masks, were extremely realistic. They were created for religious rather than artistic purposes.

The Romans’ only contribution in sculpture was a type of narrative relief that represented the achievements of Roman emperors. Early examples, such as the Ara Pacis, were executed with a high level of technical skill.

In the Ara Pacis, the faces and poses are individualized. But ultimately such narrative reliefs were propaganda pieces, and their style changed to serve that purpose better. When the emperor appeared, he was the hero of the story, set front and center. Other figures were cookie-cutter repetitions. The artists of these reliefs also reduced the illusion of depth, crowding all the figures into front plane so that the story was easier to read. (See Innovators in Sculpture Chapter 7 for more on this type of art.)

Next week: what happened in the Roman Empire in the late 2nd to 4th c. AD.

More

• Why am I writing on the Fall of Rome just now? By 1988 I had decided not to pursue a career in academia that would directly use my Ph.D. in Classics … but I still enjoyed thinking about Greek and Roman civilization. This four-part essay is a lightly edited version of part of a course in Greek and Roman art and history that I offered at my home. No footnotes, but you should be able to find any information you’re curious about on the Net. I posting it now because it fits tidily after the Sculpture Synopsis post on Roman art.
• Feel free to have a nice long think about the parallels of the later Roman Empire with the United States in the 21st century. I won’t be spelling them out (this is not a political blog), but they’re pretty striking.
• Want wonderful art delivered weekly to your inbox? Check out my Sunday Recommendations list and rewards for recurring support: details here. For examples of favorite recommendations from past years, click here.