Fall Of The Roman Empire

This is a response to another thread, but I felt it needed a new subject.

A most interesting topic, and I didn't respond at first because of the Star Trek association. Of course everyone will mention Gibbon as that is the 'go to' reference. But obviously that work was quite wrong (though highly debatable and aways will be. Please dont disparage me because I disagree with him).

This topic in my opinion is highly relevant to current socio-politic ideology and incredibly relevant to ancient coinage. My opinion (and it is just that), the Roman empire fell because they lost their cultural identity. One can see the progression and the degradation. The division. The influx of various cultures who were not officially included into the Empire. I know, I am over-simplifying but I do not wish to write a comprehensive opinion on the matter, nor how it applies to our current world.

But it is very interesting. If people just read about the history they could perhaps see some of my opinion or grow their own (I have no wish to convert anyone, but would love to hear other ideas). But maybe just the opposite? I love history and would love for people to chime in. An exchange of ideas is the whole point of Coin Talk, is it not?

So, I would put forth a few coins from the time frame of the Roman Empire, with different messages, and people can discuss (I know, this thread may be hovering on the fringes of the CT rules, but lets keep it to the Roman culture and NOT any current culture. Here are the coins, some from early times, some from later, what are interpretations and opinions?

 

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Yes and no! The Rome of 300 BCE was quite different from the Rome of 100 BCE due to the influence of thr new Greek colonies it aquired. Roman culture, which was quite austere by nature, had mutated into a more refined and more culturally Hellenistic society, yet the essence of Rome and it's power survived and thrived. So new cultural influences do not necessarily bring decline or spell doom.


*A little Hellenism never hurt no one

And even at Pompey we have found names in property boundaries that are quite foreign, suggesting a large foreign population. Yet the Pompey of the first Century CE was quite Roman in nature, despite the prevalence of foreign Gods and foreign religious and cultural influences, so obviously mass migration did not doom Roman society at that point either.

Examining tomb inscriptions might shed some light. The new Romans, of foreign extraction, at heart wanted to be Romans too, and adapted quite easily to their new lives and to the duties expected of them in their new societies. The new culture and ideas they brought with them became Romanized and uniquely adapted to their new society. Which is not odd considering Rome was always an amalgamation of different cultures (Latin, Greek, Etruscan, Galic, etc).


* He might have spoken with a funny accent, but he was quite an emperor.

Even foreign Emperors from the provinces did not necessarily doom Rome. Trajan spoke Latin with such a heavy provincial accent that people poked fun at it, and he was a little rough by Roman high society standards, yet him and Hadrian (another outsider from the provinces) saw Rome at the height of it's glory, despite being foreigners by Roman standards.

Again, these new Romans were quite Roman in character, and wanted to be part of Rome and benefit and fit into their new society in the same way the migrants and new Romans from years past had desired to do so. That trait more than compensated for their foreign names, accents, and somewhat foreign mannerisms and customs.

Even in the late empire we find recent Romans of foreign barbarian stock rising to promimence and doing their best to protect, preserve, and ensure the well-being of their new Homeland, and trying to preserve and promote a Roman essence and spirit.


*This provincial peasant of barbarian stock did wonders for the Empire

So no, foreigners did not just come in wanting to destroy the empire and change everything to the barbarian way. Many tried and adapted to Roman culture, and did their upmost to preserve Rome, even if they themselves were of lowly barbarian stock.

What doomed the Empire (which was still relatively strong and stable in the 4rth century despite the chaos of the previous century) was the collapse of the army and the tax base in the wake of the disaster of 379 CE. I wrote a thread about it recently. No matter how much the new and old Romans might have wished to preserve the empire, you can't do so after failing to preserve the borders against opportunistic conquerors, and losing wealthy provinces (with the respective loss of manpower and tax revenue) to better organized barbarian groups that had learned from the Romans how to beat the Romans at their own game.

You see, the Barbarians were not so primitive and disorganized anymore by the late 4rth century, and the new migrant Romans and old stock Romans failed to cope with that and address the threat in a timely and appropriate (effective) manner.


* This emperor learned that lesson the hard way.

While history has modern parallels, one should be careful not to assume the world of ancient times and the problems they faced fit neatly to the modern world we live in, otherwise one can draw the wrong conclusions from history by failing to account for the differences. Yes, some of the problems we face today have many similarities, but there are also many uniquely different causes too.

Keep in mind that culture, like language, is fluid and forever changing. Even in a somewhat close society, culture will change over time (just look at Japanese society from the 10th to 14th century). That in itself is not necessary degeneracy, but evolution. Cultural degeneracy is a far more complex topic, which I will not address here as my post is getting rather long.

 

I agree with Sallent. I'd challenge @Ken Dorney to elaborate a couple of points. First, how did 'loss of cultural identity' come about? Influx of cultures doesn't, on its own, imply loss of cultural identity. The US built its cultural identity on being a melting pot, and I see something similar in the Roman extension of citizenship. You could be a Roman citizen in a remote outpost in Northumbria, but the most highly educated slave in Rome was outside. And Roman identity was maintained in the East long after the fall of the Western Empire. Second, what's the process that took Rome from loss of cultural identity to collapse of empire? Why was cultural identity so important in holding it together? At the very least it must be one factor among many, so why is that decisive and how did it stop them beating back barbarians?

 

I knew I'd stir up a firestorm with this.

Actually, it does. Maybe not a loss in hindsight, but certainly a change (and that change is absolutely a loss to those that came before). As Oz pointed out Romans of the 4th Century BC were not the same as those in the 2nd Century BC (and all subsequent centuries as well).

But it is not the emperors we should be examining. It is the common man and woman. There is ample evidence to illustrate the hierarchy of Romans, from citizens to non-citizens (and of course there was certainly a strict linear difference during different centuries).

In the beginning they all wanted the protection and benefits that came along with being 'Roman'. But in the end it was something else. It was culture. They were not Romans. They were Celts, Goths, and a huge variety of other identities. They had no real interest in being Roman and they carved out their own kingdoms from what was once a Latin empire. They wanted the benefits of being so (at least during certain times).

No, dont call me a racist, I am Irish, and the Romans (while trade existed) never conquered us!

Just look at the late empire. Nobody can deny that many of those late emperors were not Roman (well, duh, obviously not), and cant deny that they were nothing other than what they were. Non-Roman conquerers (barbarians if you will) who were simply opportunistic hangers-on to a dying culture.

And it may indeed be the fault of the Romans themselves. They were very tolerant religiously and culturally. They were very accepting. As long as one sacrificed to the emperor you were golden (that is one reason why Christians had a tough time, they were not tolerant in kind).

Ah. I see where people can see me as intolerant, racist, etc. I am not. I am just trying to understand and interpret a dead culture (I am sure many Italians would disagree). In college I studied anthropology, so this topic is of great interest to me.

I know many people cant see this idea. They maybe dont have anything to compare it to. There are many modern parallels, examples of which are endless. But that wont change, humanity seems doomed to repeat itself. We just cant learn from the past.

Anyway, the coins I pointed out to originally show an interesting change. From early on there was a culture of being Roman, the founding and what it meant to them. During the late period it changed to "Restoration of the Happy Times". Just what do think people think of that?

Anyway, very tired. Its late, and I am sure some people think I am a racist at this point. Not so. Its a dead culture after all. What harm can come of it?

 

I'll think about the substantive points and maybe respond later. But I was just thinking about how to debate this on the way to work, because it's easy to fall into misunderstandings and caricatures. I think we can all agree that there were lots of 'causal factors' at work and none was sufficient on its own. So in practice I think a lot of the debate is about which factors are under-rated and which are over-rated. And I suspect that in academic circles there is a tendency to downplay the factors Ken mentions because cosmopolitan academics tend to downplay the importance of national identity (a lot of us have been taken by surprise in the past year or so!). I'm open to the idea that these factors are under-rated in academic studies. But I suspect they may be over-rated in wider culture, and I suspect that 'cultural identity' would mean something very different in a Roman context. But I'm going to think a bit more about it before replying further...

 

The Roman Empire started with the assassination of Julius Caesar. Then, under Augustus or Octavius, General Agrippa launched a military campaign against Marc Anthony who was almost ruling Egypt aside with his mistress the famous Cleopatra VII. Later and later, how many Emperors were assassinated to be replaced by others who were seeking power and Authority. They weren't seeking the interest of Rome. Even under Diocletian, There were 4 rulers of the Roman Empire. Divisions led to the fall of the Roman Empire. The Roman culture was not so great as the Greek, Phoenician, Persian or Judean cultures.
Maybe the Roman Empire survived because of their military genius.
Napoleon conquered Egypt alone because of his military genius.
That is my humble opinion. I don't even have a degree in History. They are mere reflections. Hope we can elaborate and come out with a total point of view or a more comprehensive perspective.

 

The problem with your hypothesis is that Rome did not collapse from within, despite the frequently civil wars (dating back to the Republic), occasional breakups of Roman authority in several provinces (think of all the British rebellions, the Gallic Empire, the Palmyrene Empire, etc). And yes, no one is arguing that civil wars didn't weaken the Empire (they did), but even with them the Rome of the 4rth century was still the most powerful empire in the known world by a long shot.

The fact is that when provinces occasionally broke away, most sought to rule themselves under the same model as the Roman Empire, with many of the same titles, institutions, traditions, etc. We even see evidence of that on the coinage. The idea that Rome was conquered from the inside, and that the provincials and new arrivals were any less Roman or wanted to be some non-Roman "nationality" is imply not supported by the known history. *And I use nationality quite loosely there, as nationalism as we know it is a modern phenomenon of the last 200 years.


*You call me Gallic Empire, we call ourselves the new Roman Empire.

And yes, structures changed. As Roman society changed, power fled from Rome and new centers of power and imperial structures arose in the 3rd and 4rth century, but that was due to the provincials becoming Romanized, wealthy, and no longer needing Rome to be Romans and conduct their business. Quite simply, once centers of Roman literature, Roman art, and trade developed outside of Rome, the idea of power being concentrated in a single city became obsolete. In fact, the greatest Latin writers and politicians of the 3rd and 4rth centuries were almost all provincials. That's not decline, but a success story. Just like in the US, at one point culture, power and money was all concentrated in the west coast in places like New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Now we have great centers of commerce, wealth, cultural and political importance in places like California, Texas, Florida, etc. I don't see that as decline but rather success.


* The provinces are the new Rome

The reality remains that Rome fell from outside. Had the Barbarian tribes not been forced by hundreds of years of Roman raids and interference to become better organized political entities, and learned from the Romans how to beat the Romans at their own game, Rome would have continued for hundreds of years more...despite the occasional civil wars, despite the changes in religion, and despite the cultural changes.

And yes, in the last few decades a host of barbarians did infiltrate and played the dying Romans for their own benefit, but that was after Rome was already mortally wounded and in terminal decline. Don't blame them for trying to pillage a weak and dying corpse of an empire. When the Empire was strong, prior to 379 CE, that stuff didn't happen.

And as far as change, that's a good thing. Societies need to change for us to evolve and progress. Personally, I'm glad society changed and didn't stay the same as in the middle ages, and I'm glad the US of the 20th century was so different from the US of the late 18th century when only a few elite rich people had the right to vote for president, society was pre-industrial and isolated, and millions of human beings were kept in bondage.


* Every new generation there are people like me who shake things up a little.

You seem to think culture remains constant, but it doesn't. Every generation changes it up a little and every generation re-inteprets their past history and the ideas and beliefs of their founding fathers to suit their own purposes. Which is why the American Constitution was so genius, as it could change and adapt to the times (and it has.) If you read The Federalist Papers, you'd realize that's exactly what the American founders intended. Contrary to what some people claim today, they never intended for a document written in the 18th century to remain unchanging as if it were some sort of Holy Bible. They knew culture and society changes with time (after all, they were students of Roman history) and created a living document that would change and adapt to future generations.

 

*PS: what you call a "firestorm", I call healthy discussion. Nowhere in my posts am I angry or do I take your claims personally. I disagree with a lot of what you say, and agree with some of what you say. When I disagree, I give examples of why I disagree, and I do have an open mind towards being proven wrong or corrected. Otherwise why bother discussing things?

I'm actually rather enjoying this. It's not often in real life one can have an argument or discussion regarding classical history and parallels to modern society. Most people's understanding of ancient history is so basic that the best they can come up with is gross generalizations. I find this thread quite refreshing for a change.

* One thing though, I will not discuss current politics as that is against the rules. Frankly, anything within living memory is off limits to avoid that issue (so in this thread I won't go past the 1920s to draw on for specific examples).

 

Yup.

 

this is a book review I did on a book written about this topic, it's fairly long though.


The End of the Roman Empire is a small book that looked at the historiography of a big debate—“Why did the Roman Empire in the West collapse?” The editor of this book, Donald Kagan, is actually a historian specializing in ancient Greece. Kagan took excerpts from historians that have written on the fall of the Western Roman Empire. He divided the book into three sections. The first section, the Problem of Decline and Fall Stated, was actually an attempt to define the problem. The second section, The Causes, listed some of the many problems that various historians have said caused the fall of the West. The third section, Decline, Transformation, or Fall, attempted to answer if the West actually fell, or if it only transformed into something else.

The first section began with Michael Rostovtzeff. He said that the decay of Roman civilization had two aspects. The first aspect was political, social and economic. The second aspect was intellectual and spiritual. Politically, there was “a gradual barbarization of the Empire from within.” The Germans replaced the ruling classes of Rome, so the real question might be, “why was Italy unable (or unwilling) to assimilate the Germans?”[ii] Frank William Walbank said that because of light thrown on new evidence, it was possible to analyze the “course of decay in the Roman world with a high degree of objectivity.”[iii] The third excerpt in this section was from A. H. M. Jones. Jones pointed out that the East did not collapse and suggested that historians needed to look at how the East differed from the West, when attempting to analyze the Fall.

The second section was the core of the book—the causes of the Fall. J. B. Bury dismissed several causes for the Fall, such as depopulation and lack of manpower, and religion. Bury pointed out that Christians believed in just war, so historians should not blame Christianity for the Fall. Rather, Bury said the Fall was “a series of contingent events.”[iv] The events were the Huns, the defeat of Valens, Rome allowing the Goths to settle in the Empire, and a feeble-minded boy ruling in the West. The biggest problem, according to Bury, was a decline in the military spirit of Romans. Gibbon was up next, and his opinion was generally one of decay. Rome had been in decline for many years. In the times of the Roman Republic, every citizen took an oath to serve his country. Rome was “sometimes vanquished in battle, always victorious in war.”[v] Gibbon also disliked the Eastern Empire. He said that the Byzantine Empire watched the misfortunes of Italy “with indifference, perhaps with pleasure.”[vi] Gibbon also believed that Christianity helped to cause the collapse, but the Eastern Empire that survived was also Christian. The Crusades also proved that Christianity could create highly motivated warriors! Michael Rostovtzeff looked at the problem from a Marxist viewpoint. There was constant civil war and many external foes, but the civil strife was the key problem. Upper class Romans destroyed the middle class and the masses of people “had little share in the brilliant civilized life of the Empire.”[vii] There was also antagonism between the cities and the countryside. The soldiers sided with the peasantry. Rostovtzeff summed up by saying that the crisis was definitely social in character. F. W. Walbank said the problem was more of a technological issue. Italy had no new productive forces. Hieron of Athens made many clever inventions that Greece only used to trick people at the temples. Rome, the inheritor of Greek inventions, also did not come up with any new technologies, or better uses for existing technologies. Slavery was also a problem that linked with this problem. Countless slaves toiled for the wealthy landowners. Society was divided into two classes with conflicting interests. Slaves were not interested in coming up with innovative techniques and Romans did not worry because they had slaves to do the work. It was “the complete stagnation of technique.”[viii] Ultimately, low technique and the institution of slavery caused the Fall of the Roman Empire. Salvian the Presbyter, who wrote circa 440 A. D., said that the real problem was taxation. Romans under the rule of barbarians were happier and did not want to escape. G. E. M. de Ste. Croix argued that some emperors did show concern for the peasants, because they did not want to ruin them completely. Emperors needed peasants for taxation and a possible source for the army.[ix] The empire actually needed an emperor, or at least a competent one. The causes of the Fall were economic and social.

Michael Grant said that the Fall happened because of outside invasion and internal weakness. Grant had thirteen defects, which displayed “a unifying thread, the thread of disunity.”[x] Grant also talked about the implications of free will. Pelagius wanted people to try to do something, while Augustine argued that one should serve a higher Fatherland. “His attitude contributed to its downfall.”[xi] Help from within was not part of the ethics of fourth century Christians or pagans. The beliefs of the time did not help the defense of Rome at all. Ramsay MacMullen also talked about social problems, but started by saying that the Roman army had lost its professional edge.[xii] This was because soldiers were turning into civilians and civilians were turning into soldiers. The soldiers of the frontier became more farmer than soldier, while in places like Antioch and Alexandria, there was an army of monks in turreted monasteries.[xiii] A. H. M. Jones said that the way to look at the problem of the Fall was to view the ways in which the two halves of the Empire differed; of course, this is the rest of Jones’ argument that Kagan started in section one. Jones said that the West was more exposed to attack. The East was also probably more populated. The East had greater political stability and their social and economic structure was healthier than in the West. “The heavy burden of taxation was probably the root cause of the economic decline of the Empire.”[xiv] There were also too many idle mouths to feed. The Romans were also very apathetic. The civic patriotism of the older Empire had faded away. The teaching of the Church “may have encouraged apathy and defeatism.”[xv] In the end, according to Jones, it was pressure from the barbarians that caused the Western Empire to collapse. Ammianus Marcellinus also said the Goths caused the Fall. When the Goths settled in the Roman territory, “the ruin of the Roman Empire was brought about.”[xvi]

Norman H. Baynes looked at many reasons that other historians said caused the collapse of Rome. He pointed out some problems with each argument. These reasons were soil exhaustion, climatic change, and blaming the third century emperors. Baynes especially disliked the concept of “mongrelization,” that Greek and Oriental slaves changed the character of the Romans. Baynes also disagreed with Rostovtzeff that there was a “class conscious alliance between the soldier and worker of the land.”[xvii] The real reason that Baynes saw for the collapse of the West was lack of men and money, or simply--poverty.[xviii] Edward N. Luttwak agreed with part of what Baynes had to say. According to Luttwak, the West just did not have a strong enough frontier defense. There were still strong armies in the West, but they could not be everywhere at once. Keeping with the military theme, Arthur Ferrell said that it was a failure of tactics that led to the fall of the West. The Roman Army was just not as well trained as it used to be. As the Western army became barbarized, it lost its tactical superiority.[xix]

The final section was the Decline, Transformation, or Fall. Peter Brown was the first author, and he said it was a social and spiritual revolution. Much like Henri Pirenne[xx], Brown said that as the West lost access to the Mediterranean, society changed.[xxi] Instead of a Fall, Brown referred to this process as the evolution of the Late Antique world.[xxii] Ramsay Macmullen had a section that spelled out how he believed that there was not an actual fall, but rather a social transformation. Arthur Ferrill, however, said there was a definite collapse of the West, and had a specific reason for it. “The destruction of Roman military power in the fifth century A. D. was the obvious cause of the collapse of Roman government in the West.”[xxiii]

This was an ambitious book to be so small. It gave a nice view of some the arguments for the Fall of the Western Roman Empire. The way Kagan divided the book into three sections felt unnatural and contrived. Kagan used all three authors from the first section twice, and really just continued their initial arguments. The last section seemed a bit weak also. Ramsay Macmullen has written some great material, but the example of his work in this book did not did not do him justice. The last excerpt also seemed anticlimactic—the West fell because of the destruction of their military power. It was a nice start for the topic of the Fall, but this book really answered no questions, but may have raised many more. Of course, the purpose of this book was to give an overview of the topic, which it did admirably. However, there was not any recent scholarship and some of the excerpts made it seem like the Germans did not contribute as much to the Fall as internal issues. This may have been because in the past historians did not want to credit “barbarians” with much. Times have changed, but this book almost seemed locked in the past.


Donald Kagan, The End of the Roman Empire, Yale University (1992) : 10.


[ii] Kagan, The End of the Roman Empire, 12.


[iii] Ibid., 16.


[iv] Ibid., 24.


[v] Ibid., 27.


[vi] Ibid., 27.


[vii] Ibid., 34.


[viii] Ibid., 44.


[ix] Ibid., 62.


[x] Ibid., 67.


[xi] Ibid., 77.


[xii] Ibid., 82.


[xiii] Ibid., 87.


[xiv] Ibid., 104.


[xv] Ibid., 108.


[xvi] Ibid., 111.


[xvii] Ibid., 121.


[xviii] Ibid., 123.


[xix]Ibid., 143.


[xx] Henri Pirrene, Mohammed and Charlemagne, New York: Dover Publications, 2001.


[xxi] Kagan, The End of the Roman Empire, 148.


[xxii] Ibid., 156.


[xxiii] Ibid., 168.

 

Yup. The problem was not the immigration. It was the Empire turning its back on the various cultures within its borders and not including them or keeping promises to them.

 

-1
Are there no online venues for the discussion of politics (AKA 'parallels to modern society')? Are there no places where criminals of Rome can be tried using standards that would not be invented for a thousand years after they lived? Are there no coin topics worthy of discussion other than "Is it real?" or "What's it worth?"?

Would it be appropriate for people to post questions/answers/opinions about coins that they do not own, are not considering buying and are not currently up for sale but brought up some interesting topic? Does anyone care about coins they do not and will not own?

 

I would describe the OP topic as akin to a nuclear power plant:

Just like a well-regulated and controlled nuclear fusion reaction is beneficial, this thread if handled correctly benefits everyone and has the potential to teach about ancient coins and ancient history...and it's applications to modern life.

If handled poorly, it can quickly become Chernobyl, and I'm bailing and denying I ever participated in it, or that it even happened (kind of like the Soviets handled the real Chernobyl for a while).

 

I agree. This thread has the potential to be Epic, as long as it remains civil.

Edited to add Epic, and "Educational".

 

I see no problems with anyone posting coins they dont own, or asking any question which is coin related. And this topic to me is related. We see the transformation of the empire directly on their coins. The coins are a direct result of their changing culture, the various influences....

 

I think that, among the many factors leading to the collapse of the Western Empire, that one may be found in examining environmental changes that made it increasingly difficult for a complex society to function. It does not take a great deal of environmental degradation to upset an economy that is perilously close to the edge to begin with to cause it to go into a death spiral. We simply do not know, because the Ancients paid little attention to this, but a gradual fall off in precipitation, the gradual drop off in the labor needed to keep marshes from becoming malarial, the failure of city sanitation, the silting up of harbors, the appearance of plagues from abroad for which the native population had little immunity. All or some of these factors may have so destabilized life in parts of the Empire that they overwhelmed the populace and made it impossible for it to absorb societal shocks it had hitherto been able to cope with. There is no one reason for the collapse of the Western Empire, but more likely a cascading conglomeration of happenings beyond their ken or ability to control.

 

As an economist, and one that deals with prices and inflation on a daily basis, I think that the economic health of the empire is all to often overlooked. In my the economic collapse of the Roman Empire was the greatest factor in the fall of the Roman empire.

Debasement of coinage due to military wages arising from constant civil war, and the ensuing inflation and economic instability killed off the Western Roman Empire in my opinion. In the time of Augustus the silver denarius contained 95 percent silver. During the Severan emperors, and especially that of my bête noir Caracalla, the silver content dropped to 50 percent. At the introduction of the antoninianus it was already debased, with a silver value of 1.5 denarii despite a face value of 2. With the instability brought on by the barracks emperors of the 3rd century, the currency of Rome was quickly debased to token coinage with almost no silver content.

The impact on the economy was devastating. Inflation was rampant, as much as 1000 percent during the crisis of the 3rd century and into the 4th century. Diocletian issued his Eddict on Maximum Prices which established price ceilings for hundreds of goods and services as well as enacted the death penalty for hoarders and speculators. Taxes, the lifeblood of the state, devolved from payment in coinage to payment in service or in kind for the common person, a repudiation of government issued coins. Under the ever rising tax burden and crippling inflation, people left the land, their jobs, and even their cities, in an attempt to find better economic opportunities. Tax evasion was common.

The breakdown of the economy was so sever that people were compelled by law to remain in their official occupation. Children were bound to their father's profession. The peasants were bound to the soil. Goods vanished from the economy and a black market flourished while corruption became rampant.

This is my long winded way of saying that the Roman economy collapsed. The trade, banking, and industry that prevailed during the first two centuries was largely destroyed by inflation, taxation, and corruption. In its wake was left a fragile Empire that lacked the economic resources to withstand the Germanic incursions of the 4th and 5th centuries.

P.S. I apologize for the length. Economists aren't usually good writers.

 

The loss at battle of Adrinople would have been nothing to the Roman army in earlier times, look at something like the Cimbrian War, The Roman Empire used to be able to take a loss and just go on as if nothing had happened, if you look at a list of Roman battles, the republic seems to lose more battles than it won up until the 1st Century BC

In the Cimbrian War:

• 1st battle- Battle of Norea- 24,000 Dead Romans
• 3 years later- Battle of the River Rhone- Another roman army is raised to repel the Cimbri- but he loses swiftly and returns to Rome in disgrace with high casualties.

107 BC

• 2 years later, in 107 BC another tribal confederation of peoples, the Helvetii ally with the Cimbri + Teutons + proceed to ambush a Roman army and kill or capture most of them as well as killing the Roman Consul Lucius Cassius Longinus, + capturing 4,000 Romans

what does Rome do after that, they just raise another army.

• At the Battle of Arausio The Roman Consul + proconsul didn’t get along and made separate camps letting the Cimbri fight one half of the army before going up against the other, the Romans ended up backed up against a river where they were massacred. It may have been worst defeat in roman history with up to 80,000 soldiers + 40,000 camp followers killed, (supposedly only 200 survived including the commanders)

"Upon his return to Rome, Caepio was tried for "the loss of his army" Caepio was convicted, and was given the harshest sentence allowable: he was stripped of his citizenship, forbidden fire and water within eight hundred miles of Rome, nominally fined 15,000 talents (about 825,000 lb) of gold, and forbidden to see or speak to his friends or family until he had left for exile."

After this Rome was basically defenseless - but luckily for Rome the Cimbri went off to deal with another tribe...

but at this point Rome had experienced losses about 5-10 times worse than Adrianople

But then Rome brought in its best general Marius, who reformed the roman army + in 2 separate battles destroyed both tribes.

 

I think you just hit the nail on the head. None of are wrong, and all of us are right. All of these issues contributed to the ultimate end. But it also leads to another very interesting idea. The Romans always seemed to be a culture looking back. Take the Republican moneyer series. Often they depicted ancestors and events of the past. During the empire it was all about victories, what titles they had earned. Sure, there were many issues that were a bit optimistic (or downright propaganda), but are there issues which look forward instead of back? Not sure, really, but its an interesting question.

 

I am by no means an expert on late Roman History, but one difference that jumps out between the world of 200BCE and the world of 400 CE is that the nature of warfare had changed. The Rome of 200 BCE, like their enemies, relied on farmers for their troops, except maybe the Carthagenians whom relied on mercenaries. The point is that these were part-time warriors, and a loss of an army could be much more easily replaced as long as you had the manpower and a few months to train the new army. By around 400 CE the barbarian enemy had changed, and the armies of part-time warriors had given way to hierarchical and better organized states and alliance networks with a permanent warrior class. This warrior class could devote itself specifically to training and preparing for war, and were by this point as well armed and trained as the Romans. In fact, many of their generals and officers were former Roman soldiers themselves, having been forced by Rome to fight for them as part of peace treaties. These were no longer the mobs of barbarians Caesar had to contend with in Gaul, or Claudius' generals had to deal with in Britain, but rather professional soldiers well knowledgeable in Roman tactics. They also had the weapons and skills to take on Rome, and a strong, large, and well organized state apparatus to sustain them.

Therefore, when Rome suffered a massive defeat, it could not simply hope to conscript and train some farmers in a few months and challenge these warriors. The Romans had to pay massive amounts of gold to make them go away, and give up land. The money and loss of land (which equalled loss of future income and manpower) only made things worse, as they were no longer dealing with smaller tribes that could be easily bribed and manipulated into fighting each other (the tactic Rome had used for hundreds of years to keep the Germans at bay.)

So why were these barbarians not like the barbarians of the past? Why had the Barbarian enemy changed so radically from 100 BCE, or even 200 CE, by the time the 4rth century rolled around? I think two factors are at play:

1: The Roman policy of raiding barbarian tribes once every generation to remind them of the power of Rome finally got the tribes to slowly consolidate into ever larger and more powerful political entities to deal with the Roman threat, until they eventually became kingdoms large enough to field their own professional class of full-time warriors.

2: The Roman policy of recruiting these Germanic warriors to fight their civil wars taught these better organized barbarians proper Roman army techniques and tactics, until they were finally as well armed and skilled as the best Roman army out there...and with a better organized states (proper kingdoms) behind them with the money and hierarchy to maintain order, the training and techniques could be maintained, refined, and reinforced to new recruits joining the barbarian warrrior class and armies.

The barbarian army at Adrianople was as well armed, as well trained, and as capable of using tactics as their Roman nemesis.


* I might have been a philosopher, but I never realized the effects all that raiding of Barbarian tribes would have on their political development.