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The Roman Empire reached its greatest physical extent under Trajan (emperor 98–117), who ruled a prosperous state that stretched from Mesopotamia to the coasts of the Atlantic. Its financial system allowed it to raise significant taxes which, despite endemic corruption, supported a large regular army with logistics and training. The cursus honorum, a standardized series of military and civil posts suitable for ambitious aristocratic men, ensured that powerful noblemen were familiar with military command. At a lower level within the army, connecting the aristocrats at the top with the private soldiers, a large number of centurions were well-rewarded, literate, and responsible for training, discipline, administration, and leadership in battle.[5] City governments with their own properties and revenues functioned effectively at local level; membership of the city councils involved lucrative opportunities for independent decision-making, and, despite its obligations, was regarded as a privilege. Under a series of emperors who each adopted a mature and capable successor, civil wars were not required to regulate the succession. Requests could be submitted directly to the better emperors, and the answers had the force of law, putting the imperial power directly in touch with even humble subjects.[6] The mutual tolerance of pagans produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.[7] Religious strife was rare after the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 136 (after which the devastated Judaea ceased to be a major centre for Jewish unrest). Heavy mortality from 165 in the Antonine Plague seriously impaired attempts to repel Germanic invaders, but the borders of the Empire were generally held or at least speedily restored.[8] Map of the Roman Empire in the early second century The Empire suffered a serious crisis in the third century, associated with the rise of the Sassanid Empire which inflicted three crushing defeats on Roman field armies and remained a potent threat for centuries.[9] Other disasters included repeated civil wars, barbarian invasions, and more mass mortality in the Plague of Cyprian. Dacia on the north of the Danube was abandoned, as were some other peripheral territories, and for a short period the Empire was divided into a Gallic Empire in the West, a Palmyrene Empire in the East, and a central Roman rump state. The Rhine/Danube frontier also came under more effective threat from larger barbarian groupings, which had developed better agriculture and larger populations.[10] The Empire survived the crisis of the third century, directing its economy successfully towards defence, but survival came at the price of a more centralized and bureaucratic state. Under Gallienus the senatorial aristocracy ceased to provide the senior military commanders, its typical members being neither interested in military service nor good at command.[11] [12] The divided Empire in 271 CE The divided Empire in 271 CE The empire was reunited under Aurelian in 274 and reorganized by Diocletian (from 284) and his successors with more emphasis on the military. John the Lydian, over two centuries later, reported that Diocletian's army at one point totalled 389,704 men, plus 45,562 in the fleets, and numbers may have increased later.[13] With the limited communications of the time, both the European and the Eastern frontiers needed the attention of their own emperor. Diocletian tried to solve this problem by re-establishing an adoptive succession with a senior (Augustus) and junior (Caesar) emperor in each half of the Empire, but this system of Tetrarchy broke down within one generation; the hereditary principle was re-established with generally unfortunate results, and civil war was thereafter the main method of establishing new imperial regimes. Although the Empire was again re-united by Constantine the Great, towards the end of the fourth century the need for division was no longer disputed. From then on, the Empire existed in constant tension between the need for two emperors and their mutual mistrust.[9] For another century the united Empire was powerful enough to launch attacks against its enemies in Germania and the Sassanid Empire. Receptio of barbarians was widely practiced; potentially hostile groups were admitted to the Empire, split up, and allotted lands, status, and duties within the imperial system. In this way many groups provided unfree workers (coloni) for Roman landowners, and recruits (laeti) for the Roman army. Sometimes their leaders became officers. Normally the process was carefully managed, with sufficient military force on hand to ensure compliance, and cultural assimilation followed over the next generation or two. Map of the Roman Empire under the Tetrarchy, showing the dioceses and the four Tetrarchs' zones of influence Map of the Roman Empire under the Tetrarchy, showing the dioceses and the four Tetrarchs' zones of responsibility The legal fiction of the early Empire (in which the emperor was but the first among equals) was disposed of; the emperors, beginning with Aurelian, openly styled themselves as dominus et deus, lord and god, titles appropriate for a slave towards his master.[14] An elaborate court ceremonial was developed, and obsequious flattery became the order of the day. Under Diocletian, the flow of direct requests to the emperor was rapidly reduced and soon ceased altogether. No other form of direct access replaced them, and the emperor received only information that was filtered through his courtiers.[15] Official cruelty, supporting extortion and corruption, may also have become more commonplace.[16] While the scale, complexity, and violence of government were unmatched,[17] the emperors lost control over their whole realm insofar as that control came increasingly to be wielded by anyone who paid for it.[18] Meanwhile the richest senatorial families, immune from most taxation, engrossed more and more of the available wealth and income,[19] while also becoming divorced from any tradition of military excellence.[20] Within the late Roman military, many recruits and even officers were of barbarian origin, and there was increasing use of possibly-barbarian rituals such as elevating a claimant on shields.[21] This has been seen as a potential weakness; others disagree, seeing neither barbarian recruits nor new rituals as causing any problem with the effectiveness or loyalty of the army.[22] 313–376; the fragile state. Abuse of power, frontier warfare, rise of Christianity In 313 Constantine declared official toleration of Christianity, followed over the ensuing decades by establishment of Christian orthodoxy and by official and private action against pagans and non-orthodox Christians. His successors generally continued this process, and Christianity became the religion of any ambitious civil official. Constantine settled Franks on the lower left bank of the Rhine; their settlements required a line of fortifications to keep them in check, indicating that Rome had lost almost all local control.[16] Under Constantine the cities lost their revenue from local taxes, and under Constantius II (r. 337–361) their endowments of property.[23] This worsened the existing difficulty in keeping the city councils up to strength, and the services provided by the cities were scamped or abandoned.[23] Public building projects became fewer, more often repairs than new construction, and now provided at state expense rather than by local grandees wishing to consolidate long-term local influence.[24] A further financial abuse was Constantius's increased habit of granting to his immediate entourage the estates of persons condemned of treason and other capital charges; this reduced future though not immediate income, and those close to the emperor gained a strong incentive to stimulate his suspicion of plots.[23] Under Constantius, bandits came to dominate areas such as Isauria well within the empire.[25] The tribes of Germany also became more populous and more threatening.[10] In Gaul, which did not really recover from the invasions of the third century, there was widespread insecurity and economic decline in the 300s,[10] perhaps worst in Armorica. By 350, after decades of pirate attacks, virtually all villas in Armorica were deserted, and local use of money ceased about 360.[26] Repeated attempts to economize on military expenditure included billeting troops in cities, where they could less easily be kept under military discipline and could more easily extort from civilians.[27] Except in the rare case of a determined and incorruptible general, these troops proved ineffective in defense and dangerous to civilians.[28] Frontier troops were often given land rather than pay; as they farmed for themselves, their direct costs diminished, but so did their effectiveness and the stimulus to the local economy that their pay supplied.[29] However, except for the provinces along the lower Rhine, the agricultural economy was generally doing well.[30] The average nutritional state of the population in North-Western Europe did not recover from its late second-century shock, though the Mediterranean regions did.[31] The numbers and effectiveness of the regular soldiers may have declined during the fourth century: payrolls were inflated so that pay could be diverted and exemptions from duty sold, their opportunities for personal extortion were multiplied by residence in cities, and their effectiveness was reduced by concentration on extortion instead of drill.[32] However, extortion, gross corruption, and occasional ineffectiveness[33] were not new to the Roman army; there is no consensus whether its effectiveness significantly declined before 376.[34] Ammianus Marcellinus, himself a professional soldier, repeats longstanding observations about the superiority of contemporary Roman armies being due to training and discipline, not to physical size or strength.[35] Despite a possible decrease in its ability to assemble and supply large armies,[36] Rome maintained an aggressive and potent stance against perceived threats almost to the end of the fourth century.[37] Solidus, obverse showing Julianus as philosopher, reverse symbolizing the strength of the Roman army Solidus of Julianus, c. 361. Obverse: Julianus with the beard appropriate to a Neoplatonic philosopher. Inscription: FL(AVIVS) CL(AVDIVS) IVLIANVS PP(=Pater Patriae, "father of the nation") AVG(=Augustus). Reverse: an armed Roman, military standard in one hand, a captive in the other. Inscription: VIRTVS EXERCITVS ROMANORVM, "the bravery/virtue of the Roman army"; the mint mark is SIRM, Sirmium Julianus (r. 360–363) launched a drive against official corruption which allowed the tax demands in Gaul to be reduced to one-third of their previous amount, while all government requirements were still met.[38] He won victories against Germans who had invaded Gaul. All Christian sects were officially tolerated by Julianus, persecution of heretics was forbidden, and non-Christian religions were encouraged, some Christians even being compelled to make restitution for pagan property stolen or destroyed. However, rather than bring all of Gaul firmly under central control or reduce the overall tax burden, he launched an expensive campaign against the Persians,[23] which ended in defeat and his own death. Jovianus in his brief reign (363–364) had to concede northern Mesopotamia and Kurdistan, Roman since before the Peace of Nisibis in 299, to purchase safe passage home for himself and his main field army.[39] The brothers Valens (r. 364–378) and Valentinian I (r. 364–375) energetically tackled the threats of barbarian attacks on all the Western frontiers[40] and tried to alleviate the burdens of taxation, which had risen continuously over the previous forty years; Valens in the East reduced the tax demand by half in his fourth year.[41] Both were Christians and confiscated the temple lands that Julianus had restored, but were generally tolerant of other beliefs. Valentinian in the West refused to intervene in religious controversy; in the East, Valens had to deal with Christians who did not conform to his ideas of orthodoxy, and persecution formed part of his response.[42] The gods had protected Rome for centuries, but their role was transferred to the Christian god with surprising ease.[10] The wealth of the church increased dramatically, immense resources both public and private being used for ecclesiastical construction and support of the religious life.[43] Bishops in wealthy cities were thus able to offer vast patronage. Gibbon remarked that "the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity", though there are no figures for the monks and nuns nor for their maintenance costs. Pagan rituals and buildings had not been cheap either; the move to Christianity may not have had significant effects on the public finances.[10] Some public disorder also followed competition for prestigious posts; Pope Damasus I was installed in 366 after an election whose casualties included a hundred and thirty-seven corpses in the basilica of Sicininus.[44] Valentinian died of an apoplexy while hectoring Germanic leaders; his sons Gratian (r. 375–383) and Valentinian II (r. 375–392) succeeded him in the West. Both were children. Gratian, "alien from the art of government both by temperament and by training" removed the Altar of Victory from the Senate House, and he rejected the pagan title of Pontifex Maximus.[45] 376–395; invasions, civil wars, and religious discord Battle of Adrianople In 376 the East faced an enormous barbarian influx across the Danube, mostly Goths who were refugees from the Huns. They were exploited by corrupt officials rather than effectively resettled, and they took up arms, joined by more Goths and by some Alans and Huns. Valens was in Asia with his main field army, preparing for an assault on the Persians, and redirecting the army and its logistic support would have required time. Gratian's armies were distracted by Germanic invasions across the Rhine. In 378 Valens attacked the invaders with the Eastern field army, perhaps some 20,000 men – possibly only 10% of the soldiers nominally available in the Danube provinces[46] – and in the Battle of Adrianople, 9 August 378, he lost much of that army and his own life. All of the Balkan provinces were thus exposed to raiding, without effective response from the remaining garrisons who were "more easily slaughtered than sheep".[46] Cities were able to hold their own walls against barbarians who had no siege equipment, and they generally remained intact although the countryside suffered.[47] Partial recovery in the Balkans Gratian appointed a new Augustus, a proven general from Hispania called Theodosius. During the next four years, he partially re-established the Roman position in the East.[48][49] These campaigns depended on effective imperial coordination and mutual trust – between 379 and 380 Theodosius controlled not only the Eastern empire, but also, by agreement, the diocese of Illyricum.[50] Theodosius was unable to recruit enough Roman troops, relying on barbarian warbands without Roman military discipline or loyalty. By contrast, in the Cimbrian War the Roman Republic, controlling a smaller area than the western Empire, had reconstituted very large regular armies of citizens after much greater defeats than Adrianople, and it ended that war with the near-extermination of barbarian supergroups, each recorded as having more than 100,000 warriors.[51] Theodosius's partial failure[52][53] may have stimulated Vegetius to offer advice on re-forming an effective army (the advice may date from the 390s[54] or from the 430s[55]): From the foundation of the city till the reign of the Emperor Gratian, the foot wore cuirasses and helmets. But negligence and sloth having by degrees introduced a total relaxation of discipline, the soldiers began to think their armor too heavy, as they seldom put it on. They first requested leave from the Emperor to lay aside the cuirass and afterwards the helmet. In consequence of this, our troops in their engagements with the Goths were often overwhelmed with their showers of arrows. Nor was the necessity of obliging the infantry to resume their cuirasses and helmets discovered, notwithstanding such repeated defeats, which brought on the destruction of so many great cities. Troops, defenseless and exposed to all the weapons of the enemy, are more disposed to fly than fight. What can be expected from a foot-archer without cuirass or helmet, who cannot hold at once his bow and shield; or from the ensigns whose bodies are naked, and who cannot at the same time carry a shield and the colors? The foot soldier finds the weight of a cuirass and even of a helmet intolerable. This is because he is so seldom exercised and rarely puts them on.[56] The final Gothic settlement was acclaimed with relief,[49] even the official panegyrist admitting that these Goths could not be expelled or exterminated, nor reduced to unfree status.[57] Instead they were either recruited into the imperial forces, or settled in the devastated provinces along the south bank of the Danube, where the regular garrisons were never fully re-established.[58] In some later accounts, and widely in recent work, this is regarded as a treaty settlement, the first time that barbarians were given a home within the Empire in which they retained their political and military cohesion.[59] No formal treaty is recorded, nor details of whatever agreement was actually made, and when "the Goths" re-emerge in our records they have different leaders and are soldiers of a sort.[60] In 391 Alaric, a Gothic leader, rebelled against Roman control. Goths attacked the emperor himself, but within a year Alaric was accepted as a leader of Theodosius's Gothic troops and this rebellion was over.[61] Theodosius's financial position must have been difficult, since he had to pay for expensive campaigning from a reduced tax base. The business of subduing barbarian warbands also demanded substantial gifts of precious metal.[62] Nevertheless he is represented as financially lavish, though personally frugal when on campaign.[63] At least one extra levy provoked desperation and rioting in which the emperor's statues were destroyed.[64] He was pious, a Nicene Christian heavily influenced by Ambrose, and implacable against heretics. In 392 he forbade even private honor to the gods, and pagan rituals such as the Olympic Games. He either ordered or connived at the widespread destruction of sacred buildings.[65] Civil wars Theodosius had to face a powerful usurper in the West; Magnus Maximus declared himself Emperor in 383, stripped troops from the outlying regions of Britannia (probably replacing some with federate chieftains and their warbands) and invaded Gaul. His troops killed Gratian and he was accepted as Augustus in the Gallic provinces, where he was responsible for the first official executions of Christian heretics.[66] To compensate the Western court for the loss of Gaul, Hispania, and Britannia, Theodosius ceded the diocese of Dacia and the diocese of Macedonia to their control. In 387 Maximus invaded Italy, forcing Valentinian II to flee to the East, where he accepted Nicene Christianity. Maximus boasted to Ambrose of the numbers of barbarians in his forces, and hordes of Goths, Huns, and Alans followed Theodosius.[67] Maximus negotiated with Theodosius for acceptance as Augustus of the West, but Theodosius refused, gathered his armies, and counterattacked, winning the civil war in 388. There were heavy troop losses on both sides of the conflict. Later Welsh legend has Maximus's defeated troops resettled in Armorica, instead of returning to Britannia, and by 400 Armorica was controlled by Bagaudae rather than by imperial authority.[68] Theodosius restored Valentinian II, still a very young man, as Augustus in the West. He also appointed Arbogast, a pagan general of Frankish origin, as Valentinian's commander-in-chief and guardian. Valentinian quarreled in public with Arbogast, failed to assert any authority, and died, either by suicide or by murder, at the age of 21. Arbogast and Theodosius failed to come to terms and Arbogast nominated an imperial official, Eugenius (r. 392–394), as emperor in the West. Eugenius made some modest attempts to win pagan support,[64] and with Arbogast led a large army to fight another destructive civil war. They were defeated and killed at the Battle of the Frigidus, which was attended by further heavy losses especially among the Gothic federates of Theodosius. The north-eastern approaches to Italy were never effectively garrisoned again.[69] The Eastern and Western Roman Empire at the death of Theodosius I in 395 Theodosius died a few months later in early 395, leaving his young sons Honorius (r. 395–423) and Arcadius (r. 395–408) as emperors. In the immediate aftermath of Theodosius's death, the magister militum Stilicho, married to Theodosius's niece, asserted himself in the West as the guardian of Honorius and commander of the remains of the defeated Western army. He also claimed control over Arcadius in Constantinople, but Rufinus, magister officiorum on the spot, had already established his own power there. Henceforward the Empire was not under the control of one man, until much of the West had been permanently lost.[53] Neither Honorius nor Arcadius ever displayed any ability either as rulers or as generals, and both lived as the puppets of their courts.[70] Stilicho tried for the rest of his life to reunite the Eastern and Western courts under his personal control, but in doing so achieved only the continued hostility of all of Arcadius's successive supreme ministers. Financial, military, and political ineffectiveness: the process of failure The ineffectiveness of Roman military responses from Stilicho onwards has been described as "shocking",[71] with little evidence of indigenous field forces or of adequate training, discipline, pay, or supply for the barbarians who formed most of the available troops. Local defence was at times effective, but was often associated with withdrawal from central control and taxes; in many areas, barbarians under Roman authority attacked culturally-Roman "Bagaudae".[72][73][74] The super-rich senatorial aristocrats in Rome itself became increasingly influential during the fifth century; they supported armed strength in theory, but did not wish to pay for it or to offer their own workers as army recruits.[75][76] They did, however, pass large amounts of money to the Christian Church.[77] The fifth-century Western emperors, with brief exceptions, were individuals incapable of ruling effectively or even of controlling their own courts.[70] During the fifth century, incoming non-Romans managed to establish polities on Roman soil, eventually founding their own kingdoms on most of what had been the Western Empire. 395–406; Stilicho 406 representation of Honorius attended by a winged Victory on a globe and bearing a labarum with the words "In nomine XRI vincas semper", "In the name of Christ thou wilt always conquer The emperor Honorius, a contemporary depiction on a consular diptych issued by Anicius Petronius Probus to celebrate Probus's consulship in 406, now in the Aosta museum Without an authoritative ruler, the Balkan provinces fell rapidly into disorder. Alaric was disappointed in his hopes for promotion to magister militum after the battle of the Frigidus. He again led Gothic tribesmen in arms and established himself as an independent power, burning the countryside as far as the walls of Constantinople.[78] Alaric's ambitions for long-term Roman office were never quite acceptable to the Roman imperial courts, and his men could never settle long enough to farm in any one area. They showed no inclination to leave the Empire and face the Huns from whom they had fled in 376; indeed the Huns were still stirring up further migrations which often ended by attacking Rome in turn. In the event, Alaric's group was never destroyed nor expelled from the Empire, nor acculturated under effective Roman domination.[79][73][74] 1883 depiction of a court scene, Honorius feeding his fowls with obsequious courtiers in attendance The Favorites of the Emperor Honorius, by John William Waterhouse, 1883 Stilicho's attempts to unify the Empire, revolts, and invasions The Monza diptych, Stilicho with his family An ivory diptych, thought to depict Stilicho (right) with his wife Serena and son Eucherius, ca. 395 (Monza Cathedral) Stilicho moved with his remaining mobile forces into Greece, a clear threat to Rufinus's control of the Eastern empire. Rufinus, lacking adequate forces, enlisted Alaric and his men, and sent them to Thessaly to stave off Stilicho's threat, which they did.[69] No battle took place. Stilicho was forced to send some of his Eastern forces home.[80] They went to Constantinople under the command of one Gainas, a Goth with a large Gothic following. On arrival, Gainas murdered Rufinus, and was appointed magister militum for Thrace by Eutropius, the new supreme minister and the only eunuch consul of Rome, who controlled Arcadius "as if he were a sheep".[81] Stilicho obtained a few more troops from the German frontier and continued to campaign ineffectively against the Eastern empire; again he was successfully opposed by Alaric and his men. Next year, 397, Eutropius personally led his troops to victory over some Huns who were marauding in Asia Minor. With his position thus strengthened he declared Stilicho a public enemy, and he established Alaric as magister militum per Illyricum. A poem by Synesius advises the emperor to display manliness and remove a "skin-clad savage" (probably Alaric) from the councils of power and his barbarians from the Roman army. We do not know if Arcadius ever became aware of the existence of this advice, but it had no recorded effect.[82] Synesius, from a province suffering the widespread ravages of a few poor but greedy barbarians, also complained of "the peacetime war, one almost worse than the barbarian war and arising from military indiscipline and the officer's greed."[83] The magister militum in the Diocese of Africa declared for the East and stopped the supply of grain to Rome.[69] Italy had not fed itself for centuries and could not do so now. In 398 Stilicho sent his last reserves, a few thousand men, to re-take the Diocese of Africa, and he strengthened his position further when he married his daughter Maria to Honorius. Throughout this period Stilicho, and all other generals, were desperately short of recruits and supplies for them.[84] In 400 Stilicho was charged to press into service any "laetus, Alamannus, Sarmatian, vagrant, son of a veteran" or any other person liable to serve.[85] He had reached the bottom of his recruitment pool.[86] Though personally not corrupt, he was very active in confiscating assets;[81] the financial and administrative machine was not producing enough support for the army. In 399 Tribigild's rebellion in Asia Minor allowed Gainas to accumulate a significant army (mostly Goths), become supreme in the Eastern court, and execute Eutropius.[87] He now felt that he could dispense with Alaric's services and he nominally transferred Alaric's province to the West. This administrative change removed Alaric's Roman rank and his entitlement to legal provisioning for his men, leaving his army – the only significant force in the ravaged Balkans – as a problem for Stilicho.[88] In 400 the citizens of Constantinople revolted against Gainas and massacred as many of his people, soldiers and their families, as they could catch. Some Goths at least built rafts and tried to cross the strip of sea that separates Asia from Europe; the Roman navy slaughtered them.[89] By the beginning of 401 Gainas's head rode a pike through Constantinople while another Gothic general became consul.[90] Meanwhile, groups of Huns started a series of attacks across the Danube, and the Isaurians marauded far and wide in Anatolia.[91] In 401 Stilicho travelled over the Alps to Raetia, to scrape up further troops.[92] He left the Rhine defended only by the "dread" of Roman retaliation, rather than by adequate forces able to take the field.[92] Early in spring, Alaric, probably desperate,[93] invaded Italia, and he drove Honorius westward from Mediolanum, besieging him in Hasta Pompeia in Liguria. Stilicho returned as soon as the passes had cleared, meeting Alaric in two battles (near Pollentia and Verona) without decisive results. The Goths, weakened, were allowed to retreat back to Illyricum where the Western court again gave Alaric office, though only as comes and only over Dalmatia and Pannonia Secunda rather than the whole of Illyricum.[94] Stilicho probably supposed that this pact would allow him to put Italian government into order and recruit fresh troops.[84] He may also have planned with Alaric's help to relaunch his attempts to gain control over the Eastern court.[95] Christian pendant of Empress Maria, daughter of Stilicho and wife of Honorius. Christian pendant of Empress Maria, daughter of Stilicho, and wife of Honorius. Musée du Louvre. The pendant reads, around a central cross (clockwise): HONORI MARIA SERINA VIVATIS STELICHO. The letters form a Christogram However, in 405, Stilicho was distracted by a fresh invasion of Northern Italy. Another group of Goths fleeing the Huns, led by one Radagaisus, devastated the north of Italy for six months before Stilicho could muster enough forces to take the field against them. Stilicho recalled troops from Britannia and the depth of the crisis was shown when he urged all Roman soldiers to allow their personal slaves to fight beside them.[95] His forces, including Hun and Alan auxiliaries, may in the end have totalled rather less than 15,000 men.[96] Radagaisus was defeated and executed and 12,000 of the prisoners were drafted into Stilicho's service.[96] Stilicho continued negotiations with Alaric; Flavius Aetius, son of one of Stilicho's major supporters, was sent as a hostage to Alaric in 405. In 406 Stilicho, hearing of new invaders and rebels who had appeared in the northern provinces, insisted on making peace with Alaric, probably on the basis that Alaric would prepare to move either against the Eastern court or against the rebels in Gaul. The Senate deeply resented peace with Alaric; in 407, when Alaric marched into Noricum and demanded a large payment for his expensive efforts in Stilicho's interests, the senate, "inspired by the courage, rather than the wisdom, of their predecessors,"[97] preferred war. One senator famously declaimed Non est ista pax, sed pactio servitutis ("This is not peace, but a pact of servitude").[98] Stilicho paid Alaric four thousand pounds of gold nevertheless.[99] Stilicho sent Sarus, a Gothic general, over the Alps to face the usurper Constantine III, but he lost and barely escaped, having to leave his baggage to the bandits who now infested the Alpine passes.[99] The empress Maria, daughter of Stilicho, died in 407 or early 408 and her sister Aemilia Materna Thermantia married Honorius. In the East, Arcadius died on 1 May 408 and was replaced by his son Theodosius II; Stilicho seems to have planned to march to Constantinople, and to install there a regime loyal to himself.[100] He may also have intended to give Alaric a senior official position and send him against the rebels in Gaul. Before he could do so, while he was away at Ticinum at the head of a small detachment, a bloody coup against his supporters took place at Honorius's court. It was led by Stilicho's own creature, one Olympius.[101] The Fall of the Western Roman Empire was the period of decline in the Western Roman Empire in which it disintegrated and split into numerous successor states. By 476 CE, when Odoacer deposed the Emperor Romulus, the Western Roman Empire wielded negligible military, political, or financial power and had no effective control over the scattered Western domains that could still be described as Roman. Invading "barbarians" had established their own polities on most of the area of the Western Empire. While its legitimacy lasted for centuries longer and its cultural influence remains today, the Western Empire never had the strength to rise again. One hundred years previously, in 376 CE, large numbers of Goths crossed the Danube River. They sought admission to the territory of the Roman Empire, a political institution which, despite both new and longstanding systematic weaknesses, wielded effective power across the lands surrounding the Mediterranean and beyond. The Empire had large numbers of trained, supplied, and disciplined soldiers, it had a comprehensive civil administration based in thriving cities with effective control over public finances, and it maintained extreme differences of wealth and status (including slavery on a large scale).[1] It had wide-ranging trade networks that allowed even modest households to use goods made by professionals a long way away.[2] Among its literate elite it had ideological legitimacy as the only worthwhile form of civilization and a cultural unity based on comprehensive familiarity with Greek and Roman literature and rhetoric. The events of the decline became the subject of debate at the time, which often took on a strongly religious flavor. Like the events surrounding the fall of the Roman Republic, much of this period is unusually well-documented, though there are very few statistics which directly describe the strength of the economy, army, civil administration, or "barbarians". Modern historians nevertheless debate the relative importance of these and other factors, in particular, whether the state was significantly weaker by 376 than it had been in previous centuries, and why the West collapsed while the East did not. The collapse, and the repeated attempts to reverse it, are major subjects of the historiography of the ancient world and they inform much modern discourse on state failure.[3][4] |
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