Expert: Francesco Marchesani - 8/12/2003

Question
I'm having a difficult time with the study of the Roman Empire.  The empire was divided into the east and the west, and many factors contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire-Christianity, barbarian attacks, political and military instability, etc.  

Did Rome really fall, or did it just transform into something else?  Some features of Roman culture have survived, but some are lost forever; some things got worse and some things got better, and these are lessons that we ourselves can learn from today.  

Could you please give me some insight on this subject matter?  

Thanks so much!
Kim

Answer
The main factors of the collapse of the Roman empire (but not of the roman civilization and culture, which survived, and shaped the barbarian societies) were both internal and external: internally, the Roman world experienced a demographic decrease, which prevented the empire from building up big armies, and keep a thriving economic system to pay soldiers and build defensive structures; externally, a huge movement of populations from the central asian steppes westward caused many other peoples to flee, and eventually reach the roman borders looking for shelter and protection. These populations were already romanized, so they were easily accept within the empire; the following populations, instead, were barbarians, looking for a rich country to plunder.
The Roman state as a political body disappeared, but its social, legal, and religious structure remained intact: the barbarians aknowledged the superiority of the Roman law system, for example, and kept it in place. Also, the Latin language didn't disappear, it slowly developed into modern languages by accepting barbarian words.