Expert: Maria - 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
Hello Kim,

This is a very broad question indeed and it would need a long and detailed answer, but this is not the place to do it.
Anyway I can at least try to give you an insight on this matter, by answering your main questions.

1st.QUESTION:” Did Rome really fall, or did it just transform into something else?”
ANSWER:
First of all, the Roman Empire in its exact sense began with Augustus in 27 BC, though it had really begun in the 3rd. century BC after the First Punic War(264-241 BC), when Rome, founded in 753 BC, became the new great power of the Mediterranean, and showed her ambition to expand eastward. In those times however there was still the Republic which lasted in fact from 509 BC  to 27 BC.

This empire (that embraced in Europe  Italy, Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Nederland, Belgium, Swiss, Austria, Greece, Albania, Jugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania; in Asia Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Arabia, Palestine, Israel, Syria; in Africa  Maroc, Algeria,Tunisia, Libia, Egypt) was divided in two parts  on the death of the emperor Theodosius, in 395 AD, when Arcadius, the elder son, received the East (capital city Constantinople aka Byzantium), and Honorius, the younger son, received the West.

From then on there were two Roman Empires:
1-The Western Roman Empire that fell in 476 AD .
2-The Eastern Roman Empire as known as The Byzantine Empire, which survived for a thousand years after the western half had crumbled into various feudal kingdoms and which finally fell to Ottoman Turkish onslaughts in 1453.

Therefore your question :” Did Rome really fall, or did it just transform into something else?” can have two answers, as we could superficially say that both empires transformed into something else, since the Western one transformed into various feudal kingdoms, while the Eastern one, which combined Roman political tradition, Hellenic culture, and Christian beliefs, became the Ottoman empire.

But  this answer is false, especially as regard to the Ottoman Empire which had nothing to do with the Roman culture and political tradition.

So, we can ultimately say that what really fell was the military and economic power of the Roman Empire (Western and Eastern), while what survived was its culture, that is still today  the most important background of our Western Society.


2nd.QUESTION:” Some features of Roman culture have survived, but some are lost foreve...”
ANSWER:
You're right: some features of Roman culture have survived mostly in the field of jurisprudence, engineering, art, literature, language, architecture, road network and  city planning.

Unfortunately our Western Society lost  for example an attitude of the Romans, i.e. their ability in taking  the best features out of every people they were ruling: for instance, they took culture from the Greeks and provided a stable framework of government for many peoples with widely different customs.
This attitude led to a lack of violent rebellions against the Romans, which explains why their empire could last so long.
In fact rebellions only happened towards the end of the empire, when the central power had become very weak, so that the so-called Barbarians were able to stage successful rebellions against the Roman rulers as the enormous extension of the Empire caused internal difficulties; the Roman Legions could not defend the borders effectively against invading barbarians and effective communication with officials and legions to control the empire was impossible due to the enormous distances between the officials.

Hope this can be helpful to you.

Best regards
Maria