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Chapter 1: What were the key factors leading to the collapse of the Roman Empire?
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We've got hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, and there's always something more to discover. Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyit.com slash subscribe. Rome. For centuries, the unshakable titan of the ancient world. Its territory spanning three continents.
Its soldiers gazed out on the frontier from massive defensive fortifications. Its engineers built cities, moved rivers and turned the desert green. Rhodes stitched its provinces together from the sands of the Sahara to the great rivers of the East to the misty crags beneath Hadrian's Wall. Its legions conquered and campaigned to the edges of the known world.
Its emperors claimed dominion over millions of human beings. Yet, by the late 5th century, that empire, which had believed itself immortal, was gone. across much of Western Europe and North Africa. The last emperor deposed, the imperial court dissolved, the map redrawn, new kingdoms now claimed Rome's lands as their own. So what on earth happened?
It's one of the greatest questions of all, folks, and right now, here, we on Dan Snow's History are going to answer that question. Today we are delving into the internal and the external forces that unstitched the Western Roman Empire, while acknowledging that the eastern half of the Empire endured and evolved into something new and long-lasting.
We're going to explore how regional loyalties replaced imperial unity. We're going to look at Rome's relationship with frontier peoples, how it broke down, how it became corrupted, how the empire's vast size really was one of the roots of its vulnerability, and how changes on the distant Asian steppe, not for the last time in history, would plunge Europe into an epoch of fire and violence.
This isn't just a story about collapse. It's a story about change, about one world ending, another beginning, about transformation as much as finality. This is the last of our episodes on our little series about the Roman Empire.
Over the last two weeks, we've heard about how the empire rose, what it was like at its height, and there are links to those episodes in the show notes, so be sure to go and check those out before listening to this final episode all about the empire's demise. I'm so happy to say that I'm joined by Peter Heather, Professor of Medieval History at King's College London.
an expert in the later Roman Empire and its successor states. He's the author of The Fall of the Roman Empire, A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. He's the co-author, you'll have heard him on this podcast before, he's written a book called Why Empires Fall, Rome, America, and the Future of the West. I used to read his books when I was a kid, when I was a student.
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Chapter 2: How did the third-century crisis contribute to Rome's downfall?
It looks different to sort of the Aztec empire. It's based around the Mediterranean. Is it unwieldy geographically, or does this actually make it quite coherent? Is it easy to move troops and supplies around?
Well, you've got two things going on. First of all, it is the biggest state that Western Eurasia has ever seen. It's much bigger than Charlemagne's empire. It's much bigger than the Holy Roman Empire. You know, it is colossal. It goes from Scotland to Iraq. I mean, that tells you it's huge. And of course, it's bigger than it looks because...
Land transport moves, you can do a kind of rough calculation and come up with a round number about 20 times more slowly.
Than today.
Than today. So it's actually measured in, because the real distance is how long it takes you and me to get from one place to another. That's the real measure of distance, not miles or kilometers or anything like that. So it's actually 20 times bigger than it looks. It's like running all of Eurasia now. That's the scale you're talking about. So it is colossal. Transport is slow.
On the other hand, it's also the longest-lived state that Western Eurasia has ever known. At its fullest extent, apart from that Dacian hump, it's lasting for 500 years, half a millennium. So time from us to Henry VIII. Nothing has lasted that long. Makes the British Empire look like a complete joke. Flash in the pan. Yeah, absolutely. Nothing. Complete nothing. So it's doing something right.
Although it's colossal and unwieldy, it works in an amazing way.
Part of that I learned from your books is some of that is luck. I mean, they get quite lucky in that there's no massive empires, for example, pushing in through what is now Northern Europe.
That's right. I mean, there's a pattern of underdevelopment still. What's different from China is that the Roman system doesn't take in all the kind of arable farmers of Western Europe. Some are left outside, whereas the Chinese system incorporates basically all the sort of arable farmers of the eastern end of Eurasia. But that farming area is still very underdeveloped.
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Chapter 3: What role did external pressures play in the fall of the Western Roman Empire?
So we get lots of coups at the center for control of that potent military force, but you don't see anyone challenging it, trying to fragment it.
Okay, but then the problem is the emperor has to get that field army to wherever there's trouble on the borders.
Yes, he does. And that's a huge space. It is a huge space. And this, I think, is the... great downside of the third century crisis is that it becomes clear that if you've got enough force to counter the Persian threat, and Persia doesn't go away, it's countered, but it's not destroyed, then you've got to have an emperor in the east close to that concentration of military force.
And if you've got an emperor in the east, he's too far away from the west to control political developments there. So it's often talked about as a system. It's not really a system. It's a series of improvisations in each political generation. But we usually end up with more than one emperor because of that. You've got to have one in the East.
And if you've got one in the East, the West is too far away.
And so is there a formal divide between what becomes this sort of East and West empire?
It is broadly if you started at the northern end of Greece and went straight up. It's more or less there.
Albania.
Yeah.
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Chapter 4: How did the Eastern Roman Empire survive while the West fell?
Yeah, tractors mean that modern playing techniques pull it all up. So you just go forward, collect it all, look at it. And what's emerged from that is not only where there are settlements in the Roman period, but when they're there, because you can date them to within a decade.
And the staggering, or it would have been to my older colleagues' fact, we're sort of getting used to it but still thinking about it now, that has emerged from all of that is that across the vast majority of this imperial landscape, the period of maximum rural population and rural productivity is the 4th century. Not earlier. You know, this is, you know, it's the total game changer, actually.
Amazing. I think we're all still kind of wrestling with the significance of that and what that does to your understanding of Roman collapse. Because it basically takes out all the old explanations about social and economic collapse. There might be other internal reasons, but it's not going to be straightforward social and economic. It's not that.
So things are going pretty, so we're approaching 400 AD. Things are going pretty well.
Yeah, yes, you wouldn't be looking at it and thinking crisis and actually the sort of material or non-material cultural remains of the 4th century suggest creativity, they're plentiful, there's a lot of people doing a lot of interesting things. The amount of writing, once you realize, which a lot of classicists didn't, that Christian fourth century people are still Romans.
You do look at what Christians are writing as well as in the traditional genres, but you add it all in. The amount of creative writing generated in the fourth century is colossal. Okay, so things are fine. You would think so. Well, apart from that, you've had to divide the empire. Yes, yeah. There are issues, and no human state that we've ever seen is without its problems.
Well, indeed, indeed. Who are we to point the finger? Indeed. Right, so let's get into those years beyond 400. What starts to happen?
Well, we get a very interesting effect. There's some kind of problem on the Great Eurasian Steppe in the world of the nomads. So east of the River Volga. Not exactly sure what causes it. There is some ice core evidence that it was getting a bit hot and dry. It may be, therefore, that the nomad world is facing a problem about grazing and animals. But... That's certainly a plausible candidate.
The other would be that actually it's empire building going on because they do that as well.
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Chapter 5: What were the internal conflicts that weakened the Western Roman Empire?
Yes, after a while.
So you've now got the Goths sort of running wild in the Balkans.
Well, the end result of this conflict is that I think East and West agree that they can't at the moment terminate the Goths' independent existence. So we get a treaty in 382, I think dragged kicking and screaming out of the empire. Which recognizes Gothic autonomy on Roman soil.
Within the Balkans?
Within the Balkans.
Okay. Not a great sign?
No. And we've got the speeches that the then Eastern Emperor's spokesman gave while trying to sell the agreement to the Senate of Constantinople, which is a gathering of Eastern landowning opinion. And he pretty much admits, which is...
astonishingly rare that the empire has been forced into it but he also looks forward to gothic autonomy disappearing in the medium term yeah he projects that as a likely outcome yeah sure of course like our public sector debt issue it'll just sort of disappear growth will make it disappear right
Let's get back to the West. What is the problem here in Western Europe?
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Chapter 6: How did the barbarian invasions impact the Roman territories?
They assumed there must be some terrible disease in the Roman world, because this is in the space of two years. These barbarian kings are just feasting on the corpse of what had been the Western Roman Empire.
Yes, that's right. And the thing is made worse by the fact that the Goths, who'd made the treaty in the Balkans in 382, also go into revolt, and they move into Italy in 408.
Right, so they decide to, again, leave the Eastern Empire alone.
They now march up through... Yeah, they want a deal. They want a better deal. They've been frozen out of the political establishment of the Eastern Empire. The West is obviously in trouble. They can see they can get a better deal from that. And this is Alaric who moves into Italy.
He marches up through what is now places like Croatia and Slovenia into Italy.
And then he gets lots of reinforcements from the leftovers of Radagaisis' attack.
Oh, they're still hanging out.
They're still there.
There's a few of them around, yeah.
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Chapter 7: What changes occurred in Britain after the fall of Rome?
And beautiful gardens and lovely temperatures. The Atlas Mountains mean there's plenty of rainfall, enough rainfall to generate really prosperous agriculture. And it's a beautiful place to live. And more than that, it is the jewel in the crown because there are no enemies there. You know, Berbers raid from the desert occasionally, but they're not a major enemy.
You've never had to have a large military establishment there. It doesn't cost the empire a lot, and it contributes a huge amount. Not anymore, it doesn't. No, it does not.
Falls over like a pack of cards.
Yes. The best bit is really Tunisia and Western Algeria, and the vandals seize that in 439. And that is another real moment of crisis because a great flow of revenues is cut off. And the central army, which is what keeps the empire in being, relies on that flow of revenues.
So the process, at least as I understand it, that brings about the imperial unraveling is the loss of tax base, which then leads to the weakening of the military forces at the center until the center is no longer the center. It doesn't have that preponderance of force anymore.
How long does this stagger on?
It staggers on for about two political generations after... So about 15 minutes. Well, yes, in Roman terms, yes. Because they do realise that the way to fight back is actually to retake North Africa. Yeah. And the Eastern Empire is still willing to play.
Yeah.
It never writes the West a blank check. But again, the idea that the East leaves the West to its fate is just not supported in the evidence. So there are three... projected and actual expeditions to recapture North Africa from the Vandals, two of which the East are substantially involved in. The first one we got, it's immediately afterwards in 442.
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Chapter 8: What lessons can we learn from the Roman Empire's collapse?
Some marry off that unmarried sister to the local barbarian chief and hope that they can keep the party going.
Yes, absolutely.
So we've got the Burgundians, we've got the Goths invading Spain. Come on, finish off Italy for me.
Yes, we've had renegades from... Because Attila's empire's been and gone.
Attila dies.
He dies in 453, and his empire breaks up, well, in a succession dispute between his sons, which gives everybody the chance to clear off because they don't want to be part of the Hunnic Empire. Quite a few of them have ended up in Italy, including a man called Odoacer, who is a senior general. But the tax revenues are not there to support that army anymore, and it revolts.
And it revolts over a lack of pay, which is not surprising. We've got to find a different way of paying it. There's no more money in the Roman treasury? No, there is not.
And he topples the last Caesar?
He does, yes. And crowns himself? He calls himself king, but doesn't say what he's king of.
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