It was the final institution of the Empire that was still running, the Senate also survived the fall of the Empire but died less than a century after I believe. Also in France for example while the Franks made up the nobles, the existing Gallo-Roman nobility simply transitioned towards roles in the Church. The Church thus became the refuge for the Roman elite after the Empires fall, that and when combined with the fraudulent Donation of Constantine it was seen as the inheritor of the Empire with the authority to decide who could receive the title of Emperor.
Is there any way for Rome to survive?
- Thread starter NotTheCrab
- Start date
There are plenty of povs that could see this happen, but I assume this question focuses on post-Theodosius Western Rome.
The most popular scenario is a surviving Majorian, who would restore western Rome and ending the Vandals by conquering Carthage. Potential other situations would be Stilicho surviving and managing to handle the Alaric situation better, Constantius III surviving and preventing Honorius from running the empire alone and incompetently. If you want to go into an Eastern Rome that stays more Roman than Greek, if you have Justinian's conquests happen quicker, preserving Italy and succeeding in at least taking half of Spain, you'd have a solid Latin western part that would provide the depth necessary to handle the Islamic conquests without a complete collapse into a mere regional power.
Simple is an institution that was born and evolved in the empire, which for a variety of reasons after the 7th century, found itself massively involved in the government of the Italian province ( the Exarchate of Ravenna ) which eventually saw it gradually replace the central government first in the Roman duchy then in the entire region and with popular consensus demand autonomy and then subsequently separate from Constantinople to self-govern, after all, as I have already mentioned previously, many of the political traditions of medieval Rome have clear imperial origins ( the method of papal election, which until the 11th century, was a copy of the one used in Constantinople for the Basileus ( naturally with the necessary modifications to adapt to the needs of the Urbe, but mainly based on the acclamation of the clergy, nobility and Roman people ) complete with participation and consent of the Roman population who could make the difference in the government of a Pontiff ( who was easily expelled from the city if he was not liked ) the same Senate, technically disappeared in 630, which was resurrected by the powerful Capitoline aristocracy as an instrument to be used to oppose papal policies ( until the 15th century, the SPQR, was in alternating phases, a strong counter-power of the Pope, even going so far as to cause the slap of Anagni, the Avignon captivity and the Western schism and even threatening to create its own Emperors ( as well as actively proposing itself as an alternative way of Imperial legitimation, already with Conrad III and Frederick Barbarossa and then with more success during the reigns of Henry VII and Louis IV ) complete with the granting of titles such as Roman Senator and Patrician ( in the maximum period of strength of the Senate, there were 56 representatives who met on the Palatine Hill, with the Popes who fought several times to reduce their number ) this is why, I hate the discussions on who should be the true heir of Rome ( I 'll give a simple example : between HRE / Papacy and Byzantium, everyone would be divided in supporting their more than legitimate theses, but I prefer a more nuanced vision of romanitas, which recognizes that during In the Middle Ages there were many variations of it and recognizing one does not necessarily mean ignoring the other )
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In my opinion, easily one of the best ways to make the Western Roman Empire survive is have Majoran conquer the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa. However, a extra chance at having the Roman Empire hold onto North Africa is have the Roman Empire come to some sort of agreement with Donatist, a North African Christian heresy that attracted many Berbers.
Yes, probably simpler just to have Donatism not take off in the first place.
I think the main problem of the West empire surviving is that it was simply a growing mess that would get worse before it got better, the costs of having to safeguard such massive borders when their return where so little was both steadily devaluing the coinage as well as making the military much more of a political institution, something that went hand in hand with a growing feeling of regionalism by many areas as they felt that the fat and lazy emperors in Rome were not doing their proper job compared t their local, dynamic generals who defeated the ever raiding Germanics and was a known face in the province... This guy sounds like a better emperor material if you ask me, especially compared to the Neros we had...
Thus, Third Century Crisis.
Afterwards, the West was on borrowed time as the weakness of the empire were made clear and even the reforms of Diocletian failed to prevent the slow death of the Western empire as the constant damage thanks to several raids, the still huge cost of defending such a massive empire and other factors(plagues that ravished the empire, bad harvests, wars with the Persians, Christianity) eventually made the West simply unable to be kept as it was too much cost, too much land to defend and too far away while it gave so little in return.
Compare that to East where it was much more wealthy, much more easy to defend(despite the border with the Persians, they usually agreed to the peace treaties and are easier to deal with diplomatically compared to the Germanics) and was more compact and easier to communicate and even then, it had it's own issues that eventually became really apparent in the Byzantine era, even without the rise of Christianity in the empire, there was a real sense of alienation between the Greeks who ran the empire in Constantinople\Alexandria\Antioch compared to the locals of Syria, Egypt and Palestine who resented such dominance and thus were easy for the Arabs and Persians to help during their conquests of the Empire and Byzantine never managed to regain those areas back in the case of the Arabic invaders, showing that even the mighty east had institutional problems of their own.
Thus, Third Century Crisis.
Afterwards, the West was on borrowed time as the weakness of the empire were made clear and even the reforms of Diocletian failed to prevent the slow death of the Western empire as the constant damage thanks to several raids, the still huge cost of defending such a massive empire and other factors(plagues that ravished the empire, bad harvests, wars with the Persians, Christianity) eventually made the West simply unable to be kept as it was too much cost, too much land to defend and too far away while it gave so little in return.
Compare that to East where it was much more wealthy, much more easy to defend(despite the border with the Persians, they usually agreed to the peace treaties and are easier to deal with diplomatically compared to the Germanics) and was more compact and easier to communicate and even then, it had it's own issues that eventually became really apparent in the Byzantine era, even without the rise of Christianity in the empire, there was a real sense of alienation between the Greeks who ran the empire in Constantinople\Alexandria\Antioch compared to the locals of Syria, Egypt and Palestine who resented such dominance and thus were easy for the Arabs and Persians to help during their conquests of the Empire and Byzantine never managed to regain those areas back in the case of the Arabic invaders, showing that even the mighty east had institutional problems of their own.
The whole Goths invasion wouldn't have to happen and would probably be avoided if anti¿one in Roma would have taken care either to ensure that they weren't forced/provoked to rebel/invade or less likely to be possible, to have enough forces ready to crush them.
One, even better may have been to keep the Vandals out of Africa, either cause they would have been defeated/destroyed in Spain. Or that they were successful enough as for if not all, at least carve out, for them, a part of Hispania.
True, but how much of the Goth's mistreatment was down to malice and how much was due to incompetence or an inability to handle that many people at once?
I would say a mix of the two things, especially if we consider that the imperial administrators on the border could not / wanted to take the risk of welcoming this enormous amount of people ( about 200 thousand Goths, according to Ammianus Marcellinus ) without the authorization and imperial supervision ( with Valens about 2000km away, I'll let you imagine the time that was lost, waiting for his answers on the matter ) in fact I believe that the death of Valentinian I made the situation worse, because with him alive, he could have easily taken control of the situation and perhaps avoid the escalation between Goths and Romans of Otl
Yeah, I'd say it's a mix of both. Keeping the situation from escalating would be best, but if all else fails, beating the Goths at Adrianople also keeps things from spiraling out of control. If only Valentinian didn't get so mad...
I fully agree with what you said, even if the fact of being the only Patriarchate in the West and of the Latin rite, helps the Papacy a lot in its growth of influence and power in the Roman-Germanic world, furthermore the donation of Constantine as far as fraudulent ( something that Otto III's jurists had already heavily suspected ) was not based on nothing, but rather on the trend of consolidating an independent power base of the Papacy in Italy ( something already begun with the donations of Sutri and that of Pepin ) finally it was very useful to once again increase the pontifical prestige at an international level in relation to the ideological and political challenge raised by the Salian and Hohenstauffen Emperors, on who should be the real universal power of Christianity, the falsified document practically served a Rome, to as a further legitimation of its claims and ambitions international towards the monarchies of Europe ( given that stating that even the great and very famous Constantine had not only had to rely on, but even request Papal assistance ( going as far as making a huge donation to it ) to better govern, had to serve as a warning and immense propaganda tool, in particular, regarding what the sovereigns could hope to achieve who ?, instead of collaborating with Rome, ended up being in conflict with it, i.e. nothing ! , at least according to the official ideology of the reforming Popes )
Can anyone think of any external threats that could truly topple the empire from without after the migration period? Obviously anything is possible, but honestly, with a surviving ERE you definitely butterfly away the Roman-Persian War of 602, and thus Islam and the Caliphate. And if the WRE makes it intact past the Gepids and Lombards and such, there's no major threats in the west until the Magyars show up, and they're really nothing the Romans hadn't been dealing with for the last few centuries (Huns, Avars, Slavs, and Bulgars). What other threats might appear?
if you want an "ultimate unavoidable 'not our fault but we're being blamed for it anyway'" cause, maybe "naturally-occurring" climate change caused by the likes of a volcanic eruption--think more along the lines of the Toba Catastrophe, especially as a contextualizing example, rather than the Yellowstone supervolcano going off
It certainly depends on many factors, but I would not exclude that the WRE would have to face, like Otl Frankia, Viking incursions on its northern or less defended territories, as well as any Germanic entity formed West of the Rhine ( probably the Saxons, given that they would be the main power military of the area, in case the Franks were wiped out or assimilated by Rome ) there could be the unlikely migration of the Seljuk Turks in the future ( since I imagine that with a fairly stable ERE and Sassanids, they would be diverted north from Otl ) but as already mentioned it would not be so different from the other steppe peoples previously faced by the Empire, and finally there would be ( in the very remote eventuality that something similar to Otl happens ) obviously the Mongols, for the rest I don't see many possible external threats to the Rome, rather just new and devastating divisions within the state