It's hard to be goth
The Germanic tribes of the Goths appeared in the Danube region only in the 3rd century AD. e., coming from Scandinavia. They were tough warriors and dashing riders, but they preferred to fight on foot. The Romans were constantly in contact with the Goths: either fighting with them or conducting trade.
In the 370s, the situation in the region changed dramatically. From the east, new, previously unknown conquerors poured into the territory of the Goths. These were the Huns - a truly nomadic people who covered thousands of kilometers in their wanderings from the steppes of Mongolia to the Danube itself. The Goths faced a question: submit to the conquerors from the east, whose appearance inspires awe, or negotiate with Constantinople on the settlement of the Gothic tribes south of the Danube in Thrace, rich in pastures. The Gothic leaders preferred the second option.
Map of the Gothic War 377−382.
Relocation and rebellion
In 376, the Goths humbly asked the emperor to settle them in Roman territories. They agreed that the Gothic tribes would move to Thrace with the rights of colons (semi-dependent peasants). However, due to the abuses of the Roman bureaucrats, which reached the point that the Goths were forced to sell their own children into slavery in order not to die of hunger, the Goths decided to take up arms.
The Gothic leader Fritigern rebelled against Roman power. After the victory over the Thracian governor, everyone flocked to his banners more people. These were Roman deserters, Gothic federates who had long lived in the empire, slaves and even workers. For Emperor Valens, the suppression of the uprising was complicated by a large-scale war with the Sassanids in the east, which attracted all the forces of the empire.
Even in the 4th century, the Roman army used tactics from the time of Caesar
Throughout 377, the strength of the Germans only increased, largely due to the influx of barbarians from across the Danube. While the Romans stuck to their tactics guerrilla warfare, they were able to squeeze the Goths, but the new commander decided to give them battle in the open field. Despite the uncertain outcome, the Roman army, bloodless and suppressed, could no longer adhere to its previous tactics and opened the road to the south for the Goths after they were joined by significant detachments of Huns and Alans, tempted by the booty.
By 378, it became clear that the Goths needed to defeat the Romans in a pitched battle in order to consolidate their gains and settle with imperial federates. The Romans realized that only a large field army could expel the Goths from Thrace. To do this, the emperors agreed to oppose the Goths together and force them to leave the empire. It is noteworthy that although the Roman army nominally numbered 500 thousand (!) people, assembling a separate field corps was a difficult task, since the troops were tied to the borders. To fight the Goths, as many troops as the Romans could afford were transferred from the east.
Army compositionThe Roman troops were represented by the most in different parts, which only managed to be collected to suppress the uprising. These were heavy horsemen, who, however, made up a small part of the cavalry, and horse archers, but the main striking force of the army was still considered heavy infantry, armed with swords and spears. The tactics of the Roman army remained unchanged since the time of Caesar: infantry in the center, formed in two lines with archers between them, and cavalry on the flanks. However, after 400 years high-quality composition The Roman infantry decreased significantly; the infantrymen often did not carry safety weapons and were poorly trained.
The Goths rebelled due to the abuses of Roman officials
The Goths and their allies (Germanic tribes, Romans, Alans, Huns) were armed with Roman weapons and also placed cavalry on the flanks. However, the cavalry of the Goths was more regular and massive, especially considering the presence in their army of such first-class horsemen as the Alans. However, the tactics of using infantry differed sharply from the Roman ones and consisted of “breaking through” the enemy’s formation in a deep column.
On the eve of the battle
In the summer of 378, the main forces of the Romans (15-20 thousand) concentrated near Constantinople and moved to Thrace. Not far from Adrianople, the army of the Goths set up camp. The emperor convened a military council to decide whether to engage in battle immediately or wait for reinforcements to arrive. The courtiers convinced Valens to attack the Goths, because according to intelligence data, there were only about 10 thousand Germans. Interestingly, Fritigern himself sent an embassy to the emperor asking him to make peace on the terms of 376. In this sentence one can also see a sober calculation: if the Romans had used tactics of attrition, Fritigern’s forces would have melted away faster than he would have been able to defeat the Romans in the field. On the other hand, the German leader probably did not want to destroy the empire, much less create his own kingdom on its fragments. He sought to settle on the borders as a federate, to fight and trade as an imperial subject. However, the emperor rejected the offer and decided to give battle.
Emperor Valens (328−378)
Second Cannes
On the morning of August 9, 378, the Roman army left Adrianople and headed towards the Gothic camp, set up 15 km from the city. The German leader, in order to gain time and wait for reinforcements, resorted to negotiations, which he skillfully delayed. The negotiations came to nothing, and the opponents took up swords.
Scheme of the Battle of Adrianople
The attack of the Roman cavalry, located on the right flank, began even before the infantrymen had time to reform into battle formation. Unexpectedly for the Romans, this attack turned into a disaster. Instead of ordinary reconnaissance in force, the Roman horsemen entered the battle, but were defeated by the Gothic cavalry that approached the main forces. Pursuing the retreating Germans, they cut into the flank of the Roman infantry, while the cavalry of the left wing of the Roman army was defeated by Fritigern's cavalry, which approached unnoticed.
The Battle of Adrianople is called the “second Cannes”
Valens's army found itself in a vice, and along the front a deep column of Gothic infantry was approaching it. Initially, the Roman infantry held firm, but seeing that there was nowhere to wait for help, they began to flee, with the exception of a few legions that strictly kept the formation. The emperor tried to bring reserves and court guards into battle, but neither one nor the other was in place - the units either fled, succumbing to general panic, or were deliberately withdrawn from the battle by the emperor's enemies.
Valens was abandoned by his closest associates. According to one version, the emperor was wounded by an arrow, carried out by bodyguards and hidden on a farm, where, however, the Goths soon showed up. The defenders bravely fought back, and then the Goths simply set fire to the farm along with the defenders, where the emperor died.
Battle of Adrianople
After the battle
According to the historian, two thirds of the Roman army died, among the dead were many senior officials empires. Ammianus Marcellinus compares Adrianople with the Battle of Cannae, when in 216 BC. e Hannibal, in similar circumstances, defeated the army of the Roman consuls.
After the victory, the Goths still could not take the well-fortified Adrianople and were forced to retreat. The new emperor Theodosius fought with the Goths until 382, when, due to the exhaustion of the parties, it was decided to proceed to negotiations. The agreement concluded this year repeated the points of the agreement of 376: the Goths settled on south coast Danube, maintaining customs and autonomy, and were obliged to fight in the army of the emperor.
After the battle, the appearance of the Roman troops completely changed
However, the peace did not last long. Just 30 years later, Alaric's Visigoths would march west, sack Rome, and create their own kingdom in southern Gaul. For the Germanic peoples, Adrianople predetermined their dominance in Europe in subsequent centuries, and for the Roman Empire, 378 became a fatal year, tipping the scales in favor of the barbarians. Soon barbarian kingdoms will appear throughout Europe, and the title of Roman Emperor will become a formality.
The meaning of the battle
In the history of military art, the Battle of Adrianople opens new era heavy cavalry: first in the Roman army, then in the armies of the barbarian states, where this process would end after Poitiers (762) or even after Hastings (1066). The military reforms carried out by Diocletian and Constantine at the beginning of the 4th century were not implemented quickly enough in the army. Realizing that the field armies of that time, consisting of horsemen, were much more effective than the old system developed during the time of Caesar, the Roman emperors until 378 continued to consider the infantry the main branch of the army, not noticing the decline of the Roman infantry, recruited from citizens. After Adrianople, the appearance of the Roman (and then Byzantine) army changes forever. The main striking force becomes the cavalry, fewer and fewer units are recruited from the citizens themselves, and the proportion of federates and barbarian mercenaries becomes more and more. However, soon this new army will have to undergo a severe test on the Catalaunian fields.
We now come to the second reason for the collapse of the Western Roman Empire: the general inability of the army to carry out its assigned tasks. The collapse of the armies of Rome, at first glance, seems unexplained phenomenon, since foreign mercenaries were, at least theoretically, both in numbers and equipment stronger than their opponents, and Rome had always previously defeated the opposing enemy. In fact, the prevailing negative public mood and the almost complete loss of mutual understanding between the army and the people led to a fatal weakening of its forces.
Our main source of information about the army of late Rome will be the list of official positions, Notitia Dignitatum, which lists the main official positions in the Western and Eastern Empires as of 395. Moreover, when talking about military leaders, details are added about the units they commanded.
The list of official positions is at the same time an extremely important and completely misleading document. According to his statistics, the number of troops of the united empires was between 500,000 and 600,000, double the force that defended Ancient Rome two centuries earlier. Of this total number of soldiers Western Empire owned slightly less than half - probably about 250,000; majority military units located on the borders along the Rhine and Danube or near the borders.
Such a number of soldiers, taking into account precedents, should have been more than enough to protect the borders of the empire from barbarian invasions, since the barbarian detachments were never particularly large in number - no more than those whom the Romans had completely crushed in previous times. It should be said that the troops of the Visigoth Alaric I and the Vandal Geiseric amounted to 40,000 and 20,000 fighters, respectively, and in the hordes of the Alemanni there were no more than 10,000 soldiers.
But if we look more closely at the forces that opposed the conquering tribes, the emerging picture begins to change in a strange way. The Roman armies of that era were divided into two parts - elite field troops and border forces. The latter were less mobile and more difficult to use for specific military tasks, since they were scattered among local garrisons and ensured the internal security of the country. In addition, as follows from the law of 428, they were treated with much less respect than the field troops.
Studying the List and other sources of information, you discover that no less than two-thirds of the entire army of the Western Empire consisted of border troops, that is, units of lower qualifications. Since the field troops suffered heavy casualties in foreign and civilian soldiers, more soldiers were needed to staff them, perhaps at least two-thirds of the personnel. These reserves were supplied to the border armies, in particular, from the tense areas of North Africa and Gaul, which significantly undermined security on the borders.
The pagan historian Zosimus concludes that Constantine the Great, who was largely to blame for the weakening of the frontier forces, was largely responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire. And the situation in field troops did not improve as they were forced to fill their ranks with large numbers of low-level former border troops. The field commanders had other problems as well. For example, their connections in North Africa could no longer be transferred to other crisis zones due to the need to ensure the security of grain supplies to Rome from these areas.
If we talk about the actual number of soldiers who participated in the battles under the command of Roman military leaders of that time, then the situation looks even more serious. Zosimus notes that the 55,000 soldiers brought onto the battlefield by Julian the Apostate were one of the largest armies of the time. This seems quite strange. In the next generation greatest number The number of soldiers who ever participated under Rome's greatest general of the time, Stilicho, in the battle against the Ostrogothic leader Radagaisus in 405 did not exceed 30,000, and may have been little more than 20,000. The largest number of soldiers for any fighting Roman army was 15,000, and the expeditionary force was no more than one-third of that number. These data are very different from theoretical figures List of official positions. They are much closer to the realities of the late Roman Empire. The sensational numerical superiority over the German conquerors hardly existed at all.
An anonymous fourth-century writer expressed concern about this situation in his Treatise on War. He also approached his emperors - who were probably Valentinian I and his brother - with proposals to put military affairs in order. These were extremely sensible proposals. The author wanted the rulers, among other things, to save army personnel through mechanization. In particular, he proposed a whole series of new types of siege machines and other equipment. His proposals went unanswered, apparently being intercepted and shelved before they could come to the attention of the emperor. The treatise of the anonymous writer was valuable not only because he, unlike most of his contemporaries, believed that something real could be done to improve this world, but also because he clearly understood the gravity of the situation with army recruitment and proposed measures that need to be taken to improve the situation.
Why did this situation turn out to be so bad? Violent attacks on the borders were nothing new, but they were, of course, repeated more and more often - mainly due to internal weaknesses that provoked external invasions.
There can be no doubt that the weakness of the army of late Rome was largely due to the constant failure of the imperial authorities to recruit recruits. From the beginning of the fourth century AD. this was the main source of army replenishment. Valentinian I, the most prominent military leader of his time, organized military conscription every year, and Theodosius I even tried to recruit recruits on a national scale at the beginning of his reign.
However, the categories of citizens exempted from military service were excessively numerous. Senators, priests and many officials were exempt from conscription; Other groups freed included cooks, bakers, and slaves. Intensive purge operations were carried out to recruit recruits from the remaining population. Even men from the vast estates of the emperor himself were recruited. And other landlords were not very in solidarity with the state. They were supposed to supply recruits to the army in proportion to the size of their lands, but in many cases they flatly refused to do this. Even when they had to give in, they tried to send into the army only those whom they already wanted to get rid of. They cited the fact that the recruitment of soldiers was a heavy burden for the rural population, which was exhausted both numerically and spiritually. And, indeed, there was a lot of truth in these words. Well, since the townspeople were of little use as soldiers, the main burden fell on small farmers and peasants between the ages of nineteen and thirty-five.
Due to active resistance to recruitment into the army, it soon became clear that the usual measures of recruiting soldiers would not be enough. The formation of regiments became the order of the day, and they tried to call for the preservation of their father’s profession, i.e. there was an increasing tendency to force the sons of soldiers or former soldiers in turn become soldiers.
Although this doctrine had long been proclaimed, it was not widely obeyed in the early 300s, but already in the fifth century this rule became mandatory, as well as for the civil service. Moreover, implementation was strictly enforced - to the extent that the government had the power to carry out its decisions. But the results remained far from satisfactory.
The Christian philosopher Sinesius of Siren (Shakh) declared that to save the Empire it was necessary to bring the entire nation under arms. Like the author of the treatise On Matters of War, this philosopher views the problem from the perspective of its impact on the Romans. Regretting the lack of sufficient sources of both recruits and veterans, he proposed shortening the length of military service to make it easier to recruit evaders and resisters. Of course, his proposal, even if accepted, would hardly have played a big role in solving the problem. Since in the Western Empire, where, as we will see, serious social tension arose, destroying the last patriotic feelings, it began to seem that the conclusions of St. Ambrose that military service has generally ceased to be considered as an ordinary duty, and is now looked upon as slavery, which everyone seeks to avoid. Universal duty service could no longer be imposed by force.
As the borders of the Empire narrowed, the supply of soldiers fell more and more on Italy itself. But the Italians were not able to bear this burden, and they did not even have the slightest desire to do so. According to the law of 403, an annual call for recruits still existed. However, in accordance with two regulations from 440 and 443, calls for recruits in the West were already limited to emergency situations only. Moreover, Valentinian III, the author of these edicts, declared that “no citizen of Rome can be forced to serve,” except in defense of his home city if it is in danger. And after the death of the energetic Aetius, no one at all heard about the conscription of a citizen of Rome for military service.
The Senate aristocracy, which dominated the civil administration in this final period of history, was naturally reluctant to support such depletion of labor on its farmlands. The government, however, has long since made one important conclusion from the current critical state of affairs: if it fails to recruit recruits from the landowners, then let them pay in money in return.
IN last period of the fourth century, certain steps had already been taken to exploit this alternative. Ultimately, the senators formally agreed that 25 gold coins should be paid for each undrafted recruit for whom they were responsible. In the same way individuals could buy their way out of conscription. The historian Ammianus condemned this replacement of service. But given the looming crisis, such a decision made sense. Since it was very difficult, almost hopeless, to collect the required number of civilian recruits, even through compulsory conscription, the money at least guaranteed the service of German soldiers and their pay. In addition, their service as soldiers of Rome was guaranteed by the decisions of the emperors, one after another, allowing the Germans to settle in the provinces as federates and allies. Instead of the Roman army, the West could afford to have an army of Germans. Meanwhile, the Roman army gradually melted away, so that by the time the Western Empire finally collapsed there was nothing left of it at all.
Ambrose's remark that in his time being a soldier was viewed as slavery, which had to be guarded against, was absolutely correct. Therefore, it is rather strange that the pages of historians of Rome of the last two centuries are full of complaints that soldiers were created excessively favorable conditions: One Roman emperor after another was accused of spoiling and spoiling his soldiers. Loud and clear, these complaints were heard from Septimius Severus (193-211). They gave Gibbon the basis to call Septimius Severus the main author of the decline of Rome. From this time onward, soldiers received higher and higher salaries in in various forms: In the form of food, clothing and other goods. Constantine's generosity towards his troops was subsequently also declared excessive.
As Ammianus says, it was Valentinian I who “was the first to enhance the role of the military, raising them in rank and increasing their allowances to the detriment of the general interests.” Theodosius I was also accused of being too accommodating to the army. For example, the issue of agricultural equipment and seeds to the military caused general irritation, since the emperor allowed them to engage in farming in their free time - as farmers and hired workers, while citizens of other categories were poorly provided with such work. But behind all these criticisms was hidden the traditional point of view of the upper classes, who nostalgically wanted to control the state themselves and associated their departure from this control with the growing influence of the army.
In fact, despite the boiling of political passions in many cases, the military was never overpaid or rewarded, so that reforms such as those carried out by Severus and Valentinian I raised their earnings only to normal levels. By the fifth century this situation had not changed much, except that even this payment was not always issued regularly to the military, since communications were in poor condition.
For the same reasons, the results of every attempt to satisfy the military turned out to be useless. And the main attraction of military service in the old days, when the townspeople of Rome went to the legionnaires after being drafted, and after demobilization to auxiliary work, has now ceased to exist, since starting from 212 the townspeople were equal in rights with any inhabitants of the Empire, except for slaves. In addition, one way or another, the military suffered its share of the hardships of this harsh century. No benefits offered to them could counterbalance the factors that undermined their diligence.
So, young men of the late Roman Empire did everything they could to avoid military service. Their tricks took on bizarre forms. This becomes clear from the text of the laws of that time, which reveal the desperate steps taken to avoid military conscription. As indicated there, many young men resorted to self-harm in order to become unfit for service. This was punishable by law by being burned alive. However, Theodosius I decreed that such offenders should no longer tempt their fate, but instead, despite self-inflicted injuries, were still required to serve in the army. Landowners, who were required to supply their tenants as recruits, could instead bring two crippled men instead of the healthy man for whom they were responsible. Landowners were also very vigorously discouraged from hiding young men from officers collecting recruits. Indeed, in 440, hiding recruits was punishable by death.
The same fate awaited those who sheltered deserters. Previously, the sentences were more lenient. Poor criminals were sent to hard labor in the mines, and the rich had half their property confiscated. The rich, as a class, were constantly accused of indulging in subterfuge and harboring fugitives in order to swell the ranks of their own agricultural workers. Harsh official criticism was also directed at the agents of the landowners and estate managers, who in some provinces were even prohibited from owning horses in the hope that this measure would prevent them from inciting desertion.
Another indicator of the state's concern with the problem of desertion was the introduction of laws on the branding of new soldiers: their skin was branded like the skin of slaves in barracks-prisons. The increasing cruelty of legal measures of this nature showed how difficult it was for the government to maintain control over the state. Moreover, an additional danger came from the union of deserters into bands of robbers, which was specifically addressed in a series of laws.
One of the resolutions reveals the striking influence of the situation in the country on the border fortifications: from the law of 409 it becomes clear that their hereditary defenders were disappearing. This was the completion of a process that had been developing for a long time: in the years immediately following the defeat at Adrianople, in 378, one could see a whole wave of desertion, abandonment of defensive positions and flight from garrisons, the strength of which had fallen sharply.
Thus, as the Germans continued to invade the Empire via the Rhine and Danube, it became clear that everywhere cities and fortified points could not be effectively used for confrontation. Salvian, presbyter of Massilia (Marseille), painted a very gloomy picture of the terrible misfortunes of his time: according to him, the cities remained unguarded even when the barbarians were already approaching them; The defenders and residents of the city, of course, had no desire to die, and at the same time, none of them lifted a finger to protect themselves from death. True, often Roman soldiers, despite a complete lack of enthusiasm, continued to fight well if they had capable and courageous commanders. For example, Stilicho several times defeated armies much larger than his own. But in many other cases, the Imperial troops felt doomed even before they caught a glimpse of the German warriors. Many centuries later, this did not cause any surprise to Karl Marx, who pointed out that there was no reason for these forcibly conscripted serfs to fight well, since they had no interest in the fate of the country. On the other hand, as the witness of those years, Sinesius from Sirena (Shahkha), angrily noted, if the army does not sow fear among its enemies, it is cruel to its fellow citizens.
The rhetorician Libanius of Antioch (Antakya), a contemporary of Constantine, showed why this happens. He talks about soldiers in rags hanging around wine shops far from the front lines and spending their time in brawls at the expense of local peasants.
Ammianus draws the same way sad picture. Before becoming a historian, he was himself an officer, and therefore, describing the savage cruelty and treacherous inconstancy of the troops, he described, basically, only what he knew well. What soldiers liked best, wrote the sixth-century bishop Ennodius of Ticinus (Pavia), was to bully the local farmer. Military service they were tired of it in the camp. They complained that their elders were constantly oppressing them. As soon as attempts were made to move soldiers from the places where they grew up to other areas, they immediately ceased to obey. As they said then, they were more like foreign occupiers than an army of Roman citizens. As a result, they were greatly hated and feared. In North Africa, for example, Augustine criticized the ruler's personal guard for their outrageous behavior. And the parishioners of his church hated the army so much that they lynched its local commander. “The chief cities of the frontiers,” wrote Gibbon, “were filled with soldiers who considered their fellow citizens the most implacable enemies.”
Isn't all this an exaggeration? Perhaps, to some extent, since everything given above is taken mainly from writers who selected the most characteristic things from their surroundings in accordance with their political and social views. Nevertheless, all these reports, combined with the gloomy phrases from the imperial laws, indicate unmistakably that there was trouble in the army.
Military expert Vegetius believed that a solution to the problem was possible only with a return to the discipline of ancient times. There are always conservatives who say these things. However, it is not possible to simply set the clock back. Valentinian I did everything he could, since he was known to be ruthless towards violators of discipline. But he was unable to carry this process to its logical conclusion because, although he was very strict with the soldiers, he felt that he had to get along with the officers if he was to be sure of maintaining their loyalty.
IN officer corps There were still many good warriors left in Rome. But they often departed from the wonderful traditions of the past. The soldiers of the border garrisons, in particular, depended on the mercy of their officers, who shamelessly exploited them, taking away part of their salaries, and turned a blind eye to violations of discipline in the form of compensation. There were stories of officers deliberately allowing undermanned units to pocket the rewards of soldiers who did not actually exist.
A Greek at Attila's court told Priscus of Panin (Bar-barok) in Treis, the envoy of the Eastern Empire, what a low opinion he had of the officers of Rome. In his description of the war
against the Western Empire as "more painful" than the war against the Eastern Empire, Attila makes few compliments to the notorious power of the West, since he did not find the soldiers of the West formidable and impressive; but he highly appreciated the fighting qualities of the Goths, who by this time formed an important part of the army of the West. That is why the emperors were happy to exchange the military obligations of citizens of the Roman provinces for gold: they could recruit German recruits in return for this money. Recruitment itself was nothing new. At the dawn of the empire, auxiliaries army units included many Germans, mostly serving under Roman officers. Then, at the beginning of the fourth century, Constantine dramatically increased the role of such soldiers, contracting with each of them on an individual basis to serve under Roman command. In the light of such rulings, Porphyry, who wrote a bad poem of praise in honor of Constantine, could rightfully tell him: “The Rhine provides you with an army.” With the exception of some prisoners of war who were compulsorily drafted, these Germans were in no way enemies of Rome and were eager to enlist in the army. They saw service in the army of the Roman Empire as an opportunity to make a career.
Julian the Apostate (361-363) expressed his disapproval of Constantine's "probarbarism." But he did not have enough time during the short period of his reign to reverse this trend, and he probably never would have done it, since German soldiers had already become indispensable.
When Valens is in front of crushing defeat At Adrianople, he invited the Visigoths to the provinces of Rome, the main justification for this act was the need to increase the army, as well as the growth of income, since the amounts that the inhabitants of the provinces had to pay for exemption from military service exceeded the cost of paying remuneration to the Germans. Then, in 382, Theodosius I made energetic, fateful decisions. The German "allies" or "federates" whom he recruited as soldiers were not simply individual recruits. The tribes as a whole were now recruited into service, together with their leaders, who received from the Emperor of Rome an annual sum of money and goods to pay the soldiers whom they continued to command. These people served in the army as volunteers under very good conditions. They were allowed to resign if they found a replacement.
In 388, Ambrose points out the decisive role of the Germans in the army of Theodosius. He could also add here the non-Germans - the Huns, who at that time also provided Rome with a large number of soldiers. Once started, the participation of new federates in the army grew rapidly. And it grew with particular speed, since the battles between Theodosius I and other claimants to the throne involved many Germans and non-Roman troops on both sides.
Although court flatterers praised the wisdom of the emperors in recruiting soldiers from the Germanic tribes, the process was widely criticized by other Romans and Greeks. Sinesius considered it useless to entrust the guarding of a flock of sheep to a pack of seasoned wolves attacking the sheep - people of the same race as Roman slaves. Jerome also stated that the Romans were now the weakest nation on earth, since they were entirely dependent on the barbarians to fight for them. And the fifth-century pagan historian Zosimus, who agreed with Jerome on little, also wrote that Theodosius had reduced the truly Roman army to almost nothing. This was not entirely true. But this was very little different from the truth, since the Roman army, with the exception of the Germans, was quickly fading away.
Since the problem of recruiting men had become quite hopeless, Theodosius's action to replace the Roman soldiers with Germans appears to have been the best practical means at his disposal. They also provided remarkable opportunities for racial cooperation, but due to a combination of Roman prejudice and Germanic recalcitrance, these opportunities could not be effectively exploited and, subsequently, illusions about the reliability of the foederati unit disappeared.
In order to insure their dubious service, the central government made sporadic attempts to mobilize local self-defense groups against the incessant external invasions. There were already precedents for such actions, for example, the defense of Treveri (Trier) from a usurper in the 350s. But then, in 391, the right to use the army against "bandits" was granted, contrary to the usual practice, to all without exception, on the principles laid down in the History of Augustus thus: Men fight best when they defend their property. At the end of the fourth century, sporadic outbreaks of local defense began to occur again, but they were few and ineffective. During the desperate crisis of the German invasion of Italy in 405, the state appealed to the provinces to unite as temporary volunteers in the struggle “for homeland and peace” - but without much success. The separatist movements in the British provinces three years later can be seen as attempts at joint self-defense. And soon, in 410, Honorius sent instructions to the local authorities in Britain on how to organize independent defense. Thirty years later, the British received a similar message again. In Italy, when Geiseric and the Vandals threatened the country, the authorities called on citizens to take up arms. Also in Gaul in 471-475. Bishop Sidonius called on the population of Arvergne (Auvergne) to defend their capital Arvergne (formerly Augustonemet, now Clermont-Ferrand) from the attack of the Visigoths. These attempts at local self-defense deserve only mention, since they were rather the exception. They did not play a significant role in military events. As for the army of Rome itself, without taking into account the uncontrollable federates, its end was already near. Valentinian III's legal accession to the throne could hardly hide the desperate situation, since the emperor directly declared that his military plans had completely failed.
Everything was falling apart everywhere. Britain, despite all the exhortations, was already completely lost. In the provinces in the Danube Valley, the troops were disbanded at the beginning of the century, the border around them crumbled and no one paid them wages. Only the part of the river closest to Italy remained in the hands of Rome until the end.
One Egippius, a local monk, in his biography described the last days of the Danube garrison, around 482. He told how the border forces and the border itself finally crumbled, and described how the last surviving unit at Castra Batava (Passau) sent several people to Italy to receive the payments due to them. At this time there were no longer any Roman troops in Italy itself. The last army of the Roman state, the army of Odoacer, who deposed last emperor The West consisted entirely of federates. If the Romans had been able to maintain an army, they could have saved the country from collapse. Their failure to rebuild the army was one of the main reasons for the collapse of the empire. In late Rome there was a complete absence mutual sympathy between the army and citizens; and this contradiction between the needs of defense and the desire of the people to provide it made a significant contribution to the fall of Western Rome.
But why did these contradictions reach such catastrophic proportions? The answer lies just below the surface and lies in the deep schism that rocked later Roman society. We will now study this split.
Guests of the Eternal City are in a hurry to first see the ruins of the great Roman empire. During excursions, the question is often asked about the reasons for the decline of the Roman Empire: tourists cannot imagine that such a gigantic colossus, which had experience, unlimited material and human resources, which conquered the most rebellious, could collapse without a good reason.
Indeed, the detailed answer to this reasonable question is interesting, but not so simple. And it is unlikely that during a city tour the guide will be able to deviate from the given topic for more than 5 minutes. We would like to help everyone who is curious, so we are publishing material from the famous columnist of the magazine “Knowledge is Power” Alexandra Volkova.
210 shades of the fall of Rome
Fifteen centuries ago, Rome died, felled by the barbarians like a withered tree. In his cemetery, among his crumbling monuments, another city grew up long ago, which bears the same name. And for centuries now, historians have continued to argue about what destroyed Rome, which seemed to be the “eternal city.” Rome, whose “images of civil power” were awe-inspiring greatest kingdoms ancient ecumene. Rome, whose defenseless remains were so busily robbed by vandal thieves.
So why did Rome perish? Why did the torch of all countries go out? Why was the head of the greatest power of antiquity so easily cut off? Why was the city that had previously conquered the world conquered?
The very date of the death of Rome is controversial. “The death of one city entailed the collapse of the whole world,” this is how Saint Jerome, a philosopher and rhetorician who moved from Rome to the East, responded to the death of Rome. There he learned about the capture of Rome by the Goths of Alaric. There the city mourned forever lost.
The horror of the rumors about the three days of August 410 echoed like the roar of an avalanche. Modern historians They are calmer about the short stay of the barbarians on the hills of Rome. Like a camp of gypsies through a provincial town, they walked, noisily, through Rome.
It was “one of the most civilized sackings in the history of the city,” writes British historian Peter Heather in his book The Fall of the Roman Empire. “The Goths of Alaric professed Christianity and treated many of the shrines of Rome with the greatest respect... Even after three days, the vast majority of the city’s monuments and buildings remained untouched, except that what was valuable was removed from them that could be carried away.”
Or did Rome perish in 476, when the barbarian Odoacer deposed the last ruler of the Western Roman Empire - its “fifteen-year-old captain” Romulus Augustulus? But in Constantinople, the “emperors of the Romans” continued to rule for many centuries, holding at least an inch of imperial land under the pressure of the barbarians.
Or, as British historian Edward Gibbon believed, the Roman Empire finally died in 1453, when its last fragment, a reflection of its former glory, faded and Constantinople was occupied by the Turks? Or when Napoleon abolished the Holy Roman Empire in August 1806? Or was the Empire doomed already on the day of its Transfiguration, its rebirth, when in 313 Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, ending the persecution of Christians and equating their faith with paganism? Or did the true, spiritual death of ancient Rome occur at the end of the 4th century under Emperor Theodosius the Great, when the desecration of pagan temples began? “Monks armed with clubs emptied sanctuaries and destroyed works of art. They were followed by a crowd thirsty for booty, which robbed villages suspected of wickedness,” - this is how the Russian philologist and historian I. N. Golenishchev-Kutuzov described the self-mortification of Rome, the death of its very flesh. Rome died, and the barbarians only populated its cemetery, dotted with church crosses? Or did it all happen later, when by the end of the 7th century the Arabs settled in most of the Roman lands and there were no more free lands left to weld them into an exact copy of the sovereign Rome with fire and sword? Or…
The reason for the death of Rome is even more incomprehensible because historians cannot even confirm the date of his death. To say: “Rome was still here, Rome was no longer here.”
But before that, Rome stood tall like a Lebanese cedar. Where did foulbrood come from in its powerful wood? Why did the tree of power sway, fall, and break? Why did it so clearly resemble the image that, according to the Book of the Prophet Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of?
Healthy :
Already Orosius, having completed “History in seven books against the pagans” in 417, showed how the history of the world inevitably unfolds. How one world kingdom is replaced by another, another, more and more powerful: Babylonian - Macedonian, Carthaginian, Roman.
For a millennium, the pattern of this change in state formations was justified by a philosophical conclusion, the logic of which was unthinkable to shake. In Dante’s treatise “Monarchy” it is formulated as follows: “If the Roman Empire did not exist by right, Christ, having been born, would have committed injustice.”
But the Roman kingdom will also perish, crowning the change of earthly kingdoms and the triumph of the Kingdom of Heaven. And it’s true that Alaric had already taken Rome, and his Goths marched through the “eternal city”, like the shadows of the future armies of the Human Enemy.
During the Enlightenment, it seemed that an encyclopedic complete answer to this question was given: the monumental epic of the British historian Edward Gibbon, “The History of the Decline and Collapse of the Roman Empire” (1776−1787), was published.
In principle, the conclusions he made were not entirely new. Almost three centuries before him, the outstanding Italian thinker Niccolo Machiavelli in his book “The History of Florence” described the fall of Rome in such terms. “The peoples living north of the Rhine and Danube, in fertile areas and with a healthy climate, often multiply so quickly that the surplus population has to leave their native places and look for new habitats... It was these tribes that destroyed the Roman Empire, which was made easier for them by the emperors themselves who left Rome, their ancient capital, and moved to Constantinople, thereby weakening western part empire: now they paid less attention to it and thereby left it to be plundered by both their subordinates and their enemies. And truly, in order to destroy such great empire, based on the blood of such valiant people, considerable baseness of the rulers, considerable treachery of the subordinates, considerable strength and tenacity of external invaders were required; Thus, it was not just any one nation that destroyed it, but the combined forces of several nations.”
Enemies standing at the gate. Weak emperors who sat on the throne. Their erroneous decisions entailed a heavy chain of irreparable consequences. Corruption (in that era the list of states was too short for Rome to take its proper place in the second hundred most corrupt).
Finally, which is very bold for that time, the caustic historian called one of the main vices that destroyed Rome the general passion for Christianity: “But of all these changes, the most important was the change in religion, for the miracles of the new faith are opposed by the habit of the old, and from their collision arose there is confusion and destructive discord among people. If the Christian religion represented unity, then there would be less disorder; but the enmity between the Greek, Roman, Ravenna churches, as well as between heretical sects and Catholics, depressed the world in many different ways.”
This verdict of Machiavelli instilled in modern Europeans the habit of looking at Late Rome as a state that had fallen into complete decline. Rome reached its limits of growth, weakened, became decrepit and was doomed to die. A sketchy outline of the history of Rome, reduced to theses, turned under the pen of Edward Gibbon into a multi-volume work, on which he worked for almost a quarter of a century (according to him, the first time the idea of writing a history of the fall and destruction of Rome flashed through him on October 15, 1764, when, “ sitting on the ruins of the Capitol, I deepened in dreams of the greatness of ancient Rome, and at the same time at my feet barefoot Catholic monks sang vespers on the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter"). The idea that Christianity destroyed Rome permeated his books.
“Pure and humble religion crept quietly into the human soul,” wrote Edward Gibbon, “grew in silence and obscurity, drew fresh strength from the opposition it met, and at last planted the victorious sign of the cross on the ruins of the Capitol.” Even before the complete triumph of Christianity, Roman pagans often asked the question: “What would be the fate of the empire, attacked on all sides by barbarians, if the entire human race began to adhere to the cowardly feelings of the new (Christian - A.V.) sect?” To this question, writes Gibbon, the defenders of Christianity gave unclear and ambiguous answers, because in the depths of their souls they expected “that before the conversion of all human race into Christianity, wars, governments, the Roman Empire, and the world itself will cease to exist.”
The world survived. Rome died. However, presented in brilliant literary language, seasoned like spice with irony, Gibbon's epic gradually fell into decline in the 19th century. Its author was an excellent storyteller. His majestic work, as on ancient columns, rests on the works of ancient and modern writers.
But the more diligently the historians of the 19th century studied archaeological finds, as well as the inscriptions and texts that have come down to us, preserved on papyri, the more carefully they engaged in a critical analysis of the sources, in a word, the deeper they dug, the more the pillars on which the legacy of Edward Gibbon rested were shaken. It gradually became clear that the decline and collapse of the Roman Empire could not be reduced to a single cause.
With each new historian who stepped onto the scientific field, these reasons became more and more numerous. In his lectures on imperial Rome (they were published only recently), the famous German historian Theodor Mommsen drew a line under the theories of the death of Rome, which the 19th century left to descendants.
Orientalization. Barbarization. Imperialism. Pacifism. And, most importantly, the loss of military discipline.
Mommsen himself, being a liberal nationalist, willingly talked about how “our Germans” contributed to the fall of Rome. By 1900, ancient history was gradually turning into a tournament of propagandists, honing their murderous ideas on familiar examples from the distant past.
For example, for the founders of Marxism-Leninism, some events in Roman history (especially the uprising of Spartacus) were the clearest example of class struggle, and the actions of the popular leaders of the uprising were an object lesson in how revolution should not be carried out. IN Soviet time any work devoted to the history of Rome would certainly include quotes like these:
“/Spartak is/ great commander... noble character, a true representative of the ancient proletariat” (K. Marx). - “Spartak was one of the most outstanding heroes of one of the most major uprisings slaves... These civil wars run through the entire history of class society” (V. Lenin).
But Rome avoided the triumphant march of the proletarian revolution. Rome was depopulated. Rome at the end of its history was like a tree that had shed its leaves. The easier it was for the barbarians to fill this void, as Oswald Spengler, the herald of the “decline of Europe,” said after analyzing the “decline of Rome”:
“The well-known “decline of antiquity”, which ended long before the attack of the Germans nomadic peoples, serves as the best proof that causation has nothing in common with history. The Empire is enjoying itself complete peace; it is rich, it is highly educated: it is well organized: from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius it produces such a brilliant cohort of rulers that it is impossible to point out a second such in any other Caesarism at the stage of civilization. And yet the population is rapidly and massively declining - despite the desperate laws on marriage and children issued by Augustus... despite massive adoptions and the continuous settlement of depopulated lands by soldiers of barbarian origin and colossal charities, founded by Nerva and Trajan for the benefit of children of poor parents. Italy, then North Africa and Gaul, and finally Spain, which were more densely populated under the first emperors than all other parts of the empire, become deserted and deserted.”
In 1984, the German historian Alexander Demandt, in his monograph “The Fall of Rome,” summed up the two-century search for the causes of the disaster. In the works of philosophers and economists, sociologists and historians, he counted no less than 210 factors that explained the ill-fated history of Rome.
We have already named some reasons, citing detailed arguments from their supporters. Here are a few more.
Superstitions. Soil depletion, causing massive crop failures. The spread of homosexuality. Cultural neurosis. Aging of Roman society, increasing number of elderly people. Humility and indifference that gripped many Romans. Paralysis of the will to everything - to life, to decisive actions, political actions. The triumph of the plebeians, these “boors” who broke through to power and are not able to wisely rule Rome/the World. A war on two fronts.
It seems that historians who undertake to explain the deplorable fate of the Roman Empire do not need to strain their imagination and invent a new theory. All possible reasons have already been named. They can only analyze them in order to choose the one that was the “supporting structure”, the one on which the entire edifice of Roman statehood rested. There are so many reasons and they seem to explain what happened so well that maybe it’s only because the fall itself didn’t happen at all?
In fact, on the surface of the same 5th century there are many fatal, turbulent events. Alaric enters Rome. The Huns rush to Europe. "Battle of the Nations" on the Catalaunian fields. Vandals robbing the “mother of European cities.” Deposed boy Romulus Augustulus.
A storm is raging on the surface of the century. In the depths it is quiet, calm. In the same way, the sower goes out to sow seeds. Sermons in churches still sound the same. There are endless christenings and funerals. Cattle are grazing. Bread is being baked. The grass is being cut. The harvest is being harvested.
In 1919, watching how at the turning point of the era, having passed the abyss of war. having been shattered by several states in a row, Europe still continues to live - dancing, cinema, cafes, christenings and funerals, bread and food, cattle and the eternal wheel of politics - the Austrian historian Alfons Dopsch put forward a polemical thesis. There is no clearly defined boundary between Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Early Middle Ages- this is only late Antiquity and vice versa. Night flowing into day - day merging with night, we will change it, easily recalling Escher's engravings.
If there is a clear line, a dividing line, after which it is no longer possible to say: “We are still on the ancient land,” but must be: “Antiquity is left behind,” then this line is the 8th century, the Belgian historian Henri clarified in the early 1920s Pirenne.
Eighth century. The unprecedented advancement of Islam, which was already ready to convert even Gaul-France, as happened with most of the lands of Ancient Rome. The Roman world was the world of the Mediterranean. In the chaos of the ecumene, the Roman power suddenly froze on a frame from the Mediterranean Sea, like a dress put on a mannequin freezes. Now the peaceful sea, once cleared of pirates by the decisive onslaught of the emperors, becoming a smooth road connecting all parts of the Empire with each other, has turned into a field of war. Wars between Muslims and Christians. The first moved north, restoring the Roman Empire in their own heterodox way. The latter retreated to the north, dropping one area of earth after another from their hands. In the end, the onslaught weakened and the offensive stopped. But there was nothing left to recreate the Empire from. There is nothing to attach to, nothing to connect the individual parts with.
In recent decades, having gone through all 210 (and even more) shades of the death of Rome, historians increasingly agree with the idea of Dopsch and Pirenne. Rome died, but none of the people living then noticed that this happened. The whirlwind of political events blinded me and did not allow me to see how one era was degenerated into another. The unhurried progress of everyday affairs reassured me, deceptively assuring me that nothing around me was changing, that we were all living as before, and there could be no other way. So in the old days, a lost sailing ship could get across from Atlantic Ocean to Indian, and no one from the team noticed this for a long time.
In 1971, the British scientist Peter Brown, in his, as experts note, still relevant today book “The World of Late Antiquity,” proposed once and for all to abandon the expression “decline of Rome,” since it is burdened with negative meanings, and instead use the more neutral formula “religious and cultural revolution." Is the problem formulated by Edward Gibbon irrelevant?
Little of! Instead of decline and collapse, we should talk about change and renewal, advocates of this school urged. And now, in the traditions of political correctness that prevailed by the end of the 20th century, the sack of Rome by vandals began to be sadly called “annoying omissions in the integration process”...
But then the pendulum of opinions swung in the opposite direction again. Peter Heather's 2005 book, The Fall of the Roman Empire, as sharply as it scrupulously challenges the benign picture of the degeneration of the Roman Empire, its quiet transformation into barbarian kingdoms.
He is not alone in this. Oxford archaeologist Brian Ward-Perkins came to equally categorical conclusions. He writes about the “deep military and political crisis” that the Roman Empire experienced in the 5th century, about the “dramatic decline in economic development and well-being.” The people of the Roman Empire suffered "terrible shocks, and I can honestly only hope that we will never experience anything like it."
It is hardly a coincidence that scientists began to say similar opinions after September 11, 2001, when it became obvious that the “end of history” was again being postponed, and we may have to experience another conflict of civilizations. Again the horrors of wars, the nightmares of fears? Decline and collapse again... But what?
“The Romans, on the eve of the catastrophes that awaited them, were just like we are today, confident that nothing threatened their familiar world. The world in which they live may change only slightly, but on the whole it will always remain the same,” writes Ward-Perkins, introducing into the worldview of the Romans meanings that we, also accustomed to our little world, would not like to put there. After all, even the Roman Tacitus taught all adherents of the muse of history Clio to speak about the past sine ira ei studio, “without anger or partiality.” But Tacitus was also sure that Rome, in which he lives, the world in which he lives, is eternal and unchanging.
So why did Rome die after all?..
The world wants to know. The World Tree is also open to all winds of disaster.
Military theoretical thought in the period from the 2nd century BC. e. to the 4th century AD e.
Numerous wars from the 2nd century BC. e. to the 4th century AD e. found their reflection primarily in the works of ancient historians. The largest historian of the ancient world in the 2nd century BC. e. (about 210-128) was Polybius. He was born in Greece but lived in Rome for many years. Polybius was an eyewitness and participant in the third Punic War and an adviser to the major Greek commander Scipio Aemilianus.
Polybius's General History covers the period from the Second Punic War (218 BC) to the Roman conquest of Greece (146 BC). Of his 40 books, the first five have reached us in full, while the others only in fragments. From them we learn about the strategy and tactics of the Roman troops. The description of the Roman wars, according to Polybius, was supposed to show the power of Rome and the futility of individual states resisting it. Polybius's "General History" was an ideological justification for the Romans' desire for world domination, a preaching of Roman expansion similar to that of the Punic Wars. “History” The police had to convince the people of the need to submit to Rome. Therefore, Polybius repeatedly emphasizes the benefits of historical knowledge. “Knowledge of the past,” he writes, “more than any other knowledge can serve to benefit people” (254).
Regarding the question of the research method, Polybius argued for the need to study historical phenomena in their interrelation, to study the historical process as a whole. “It is true that from one part one can get an idea of the whole, but it is impossible to accurately know the whole and comprehend it. From this it is necessary to conclude that history in parts provides only very little for an accurate understanding of the whole; This can be achieved only through cohesion, comparison of all parts, sometimes similar to each other, sometimes different, only then is it possible to see the whole, and at the same time take advantage of the lessons of history and enjoy it” (255). Polybius then pointed out that preliminary review with the whole helps to understand the parts, and familiarity with the particulars greatly contributes to the understanding of the whole. He considered this dual way of studying history to be the best and followed it.
Polybius not only recorded events, but also analyzed them deeply. He recommended that historians and readers pay attention “not so much to the presentation of the events themselves, but to the circumstances preceding them, accompanying them, or following them” (256). Polybius demanded that wars be studied in connection with one another, without tearing them apart or tearing them out of the general historical connection individual battles: “In our opinion, the most necessary parts of history are those that set out the consequences of events, the circumstances surrounding them, and especially their causes. Thus, we find that the Antiochian War arose from Philippi, Philippi from Hannibal, Hannibal from Sicily, that the intermediate events, with all their multiplicity and diversity, all together lead to the same goal. All this can be understood and studied only with the help of general history, but not from the description of wars alone, such as those of Perseus or Filippova; Will any of the readers imagine that the descriptions of battles alone offered by these historians give him a correct idea of the consistent course of the entire war” (257). What the ancient historian Polybius correctly spoke about, demanding that all military events be studied in connection, was deliberately ignored by Delbrück, who reduced the history of military art to a simple listing of battles. The basis of this anti-scientific approach is the distortion of the connection between strategy and tactics dictated by Clausewitz, the subordination of strategy to tactical successes in war. The lessons of history show that tactics are part of strategy, subordinate to it, serving it.
In his " General history“Polybius paid main attention to the voits, which gave military historians the basis to call it “Military History.” Polybius was an expert in military affairs; he not only described wars and battles, but also explored the causes of victories and defeats, the advantages and disadvantages of battle formations, tactics, and strategic forms. His analysis of military events is of great depth. There is every reason to call Polybius a major military historian of the slave society.
From historians of the 2nd century AD. e., who paid great attention to issues military history, Appian and Arrian should be noted.
Appian wrote the Roman History in 24 books; 9 books have reached us completely, some of the books are in fragments, some have been lost completely. Books describing the wars have been preserved - "Hannibal's", "Mithridat's", "Civil".
Describing Appian, Engels wrote: “Of the ancient historians who described the struggle that took place in the depths of the Roman Republic, only Appian tells us clearly and expressively why it was fought: over land ownership” (258). Marx said that Appian “... tries to get to the bottom of the material basis of these civil wars” (259). This is the value of Appian's work.
According to Appian, the purpose of his work was to glorify "the valor of the Romans." He saw the reason for the power of imperial Rome in the fact that the Romans “surpassed everyone with their valor, endurance and perseverance.” Glorifying the greatness of slave-holding imperial Rome, Appian tried to prove the expediency of the Romans' enslavement of the peoples of Europe, Asia and Africa. This is class entity“Roman History”, and it was this aspect of Appian’s work that attracted and continues to attract the attention of ideologists of the reactionary classes.
Arrian was at one time a Roman general. His work “Anabasis of Alexander” is compiled from primary sources and provides fairly reliable material about the war between Macedonia and Persia. The Roman writer's treatment of the Macedonian period was intended to equip Roman commanders with the combat experience of Alexander the Great and familiarize them with the Middle Eastern theater of war.
Characteristic feature major historians of the ancient world was that their historical views in most cases were naive materialistic, and military and general history were presented in close, inextricable connection.
Military historical works accumulated factual material that required theoretical generalizations. Military scientific thought developed in this direction. Military theory, as such, primarily appeared in historical form, in the form of thematic military-historical examples (“Strategems” by Frontin, Polien, etc.).
Frontinus lived in the 1st century AD. e. He combined military and government activities with theoretical work. In Britain, as a legate, he, according to Tacitus, “conquered the strong and warlike tribe of the Silures, overcoming not only the courage of his enemies, but also natural difficulties.”
In his work, Frontin first of all defined “Strategems” as brief records of the historical “acts of commanders.” In the “stratagems,” modern “commanders have at their disposal examples of thoughtfulness and foresight that will feed their own ability to invent and create similar military plans themselves; in addition, comparison with already proven experience will allow you not to be afraid of the consequences of new plans” (260). "Strategems" is a review of all types of military stratagems, collected from historical works and systematized by type. Strategy, according to Frontin’s definition, is everything that “the commander does according to a pre-thought-out plan, in the proper manner, with all formality and constancy” (261).
Frontin systematized “types of military stratagems” based on the sequence of military operations. He distinguished four main types: preparing for battle and creating a favorable environment for himself, conducting battle and ensuring victory, besieging and defending fortresses, and maintaining discipline in the army. The authorship of this last section of the “Strategems” has been questioned.
Frontin considered the necessary conditions for preparing a battle and ensuring success to be keeping his plans secret and reconnaissance of the enemy’s plans, acting in accordance with the situation, ambushes, continuous replenishment of equipment, dispersing enemy forces and exerting moral influence on his troops. The latter meant: to calm the soldiers' mutiny, to restrain the untimely impulse to fight, to create a fighting mood in the army, to dispel the fear inspired by unfavorable omens.
Success in battle, according to Frontin, is ensured by the correct choice of time and place for the battle, the correct formation of the battle formation and disorganization of the enemy’s ranks, the organization of ambushes, the construction of a “golden bridge” for the enemy, concealing one’s failures and the decisive restoration of the battle formation. After a successful battle, you must complete the defeat of the enemy; in case of failure, you must skillfully correct the situation, not allowing the army to lose heart.
For a successful assault on the fortress, Frontin recommended ensuring the surprise of the assault, misleading the besieged regarding the nature of the attackers’ actions, causing betrayal in their ranks, creating a shortage of supplies for the besieged, preventing reinforcements from approaching, diverting rivers and spoiling the water, morally influencing the besieged (inspiring that the siege will be long, to instill fear), break into the fortress from the side from which the besieged are not expecting the enemy, and lure the besieged into an ambush, carrying out a feigned retreat. To successfully defend the fortress, you need to be vigilant, bring in reinforcements and bring in supplies, fight traitors and defectors, make forays and ensure the resilience of the besieged.
IN last section“Strategist” talks about measures to ensure discipline in the army, about justice, steadfastness, benevolence and moderation, which contribute to maintaining high military discipline.
The peculiarity of Frontin's book is that he does not describe all these requirements of the art of war, but illustrates them with a large number of instructive historical examples, presented in a laconic form. The limitation of such a presentation lies in the fact that historical facts are considered without connection with the situation and individual aspects of it are turned into absolutes. For example, he writes that the outcome of the battle near Cannes was decided by the wind, which brought dust into the eyes of the Romans.
In the 1st century AD e. Some military theorists have already tried to free the presentation from historical form, limiting themselves to rare references to historical examples. Military theoretical issues were systematized, and works took the form of instructions. An example of this military literature are the “Instructions for Military Leaders”, written in the middle of the 1st century AD. e. Onysandrom. In this book, the author sought to give the military leader recommendations on a large number practical issues, starting with the demands that war places on a commander.
In his work, Onisander paid much attention to the question of how to ensure, maintain and increase the moral fortitude of the army. In this regard, he says that war must be started “for a just cause.” “I think,” he writes, “that we must first of all be convinced of the necessity of war and reveal to the whole world the justice of the reasons prompting us to start one. This is the only means of gaining the favor of the deity, receiving the help of heaven and encouraging the army to endure the dangers of military operations. People who are calm in their conscience and convinced that they are not making an unjust attack on others, but are only protecting their safety, use all their strength to achieve this; meanwhile, those who believe that the deity is angry with an unjust war, from this thought come into fear, lest they should suffer some calamity from the enemy” (262).
In the 1st century AD e. The ruling class of the Roman Empire sought mainly to ensure the preservation of previously conquered territories and suppressed the resistance of enslaved peoples. Onisander called the fulfillment of this task the “just cause” of a defensive war. Convincing soldiers of the just nature of the war was supposed to increase their moral fortitude in battle. In fact, the Roman slave army fought unjust, predatory wars. Therefore, the task of the ideologists of the Roman slave owners was to disguise the true nature of the wars, portraying them as wars waged to protect the security of the state. As a means of ideological influence, Onisander recommended using religion, which promised divine help in a “just” war and predicted the successful outcome of the war through religious fortune-telling during sacrifices. The author of the “Instructions to Military Leaders” considered instilling confidence in the troops in victory as one of the most important tasks commander.
Second basis successful war Onisander named a war plan, the significance of which he compared with the significance of the foundation of a house. Without a solid foundation, the house will fall apart, he said, and in war one cannot achieve success without a well-thought-out plan for its conduct, without which the army can be exhausted, frustrated and exposed to the danger of defeat. The war plan must be developed “on solid foundations,” without leaving without attention a single means necessary to improve one’s army and navy. Onisander was one of the first to try to reveal the meaning of the war plan.
Moving on to expounding the foundations of successful military operations, the ancient theorist begins with the issue of organizing the marching movement. First of all, in his opinion, it is necessary to ensure order on the march and the constant readiness of the army for battle, even when the enemy is far away. The means of ensuring the safety of the march is military reconnaissance, which must be entrusted to the cavalry. When crossing mountain passes, Onisander recommended first occupying with several detachments Mountain peaks. When going on vacation, at least for one day, it is necessary to build a fortified camp (with ramparts and a ditch) and organize a guard, strengthened at night. During longer periods of rest and during periods when direct combat operations are not taking place, an experienced commander must always organize training for his troops, “because the army, no matter how tired it is, must consider training as rest, a sure way to fight so as not to be afraid of any military dangers" (263). The ancient theorist immediately warns that idleness undermines military discipline and sharply reduces the combat effectiveness of troops.
The death of Rome and its causes
In early Christian writings and in subsequent works of historians and moralists, a recurring theme is the idea that the death of Rome was a natural consequence of its sexual degradation, luxury and degeneration of the Roman people. In this chapter we will try to assess to what extent this assumption is correct and to what extent it should be rejected.
Let's leave the noisy streets modern Rome and delve into the sacred silence of the ruins of the Forum. Look at the ancient walls, at the snow-white columns against the background of azure skies; then turn your gaze to the Palatine, where, among the stones of the imperial palace, pine trees rise like a dark wall, shaded by trees in blue color. Or take a stroll along the Via Sacra, under the colossal arch erected in honor of Titus' victory over the Jews; approach with awe the huge Flavian amphitheater, which stands before you like a rugged mountain range, and you will be involuntarily overcome by the feeling that Hölderlin expressed in the following words:
Cities and peoples, tired of hard labor,
They strive to forget themselves in the arms of death.
Their search for an ideal was in vain,
But the oblivion of eternal sleep is sacred.
In Rome, the mystery of the birth and death of people and nations becomes urgent and pressing, like in no other city in the world. If even a people like the Romans, whose empire seemed eternal, ended up crumbling to dust like a one-day moth, what is the purpose of our lives, our works, our hopes and our beliefs?
We would be mistaken if we thought that these questions and thoughts arose only in our time and that the Romans themselves never reflected on them. People realized a long time ago that any empire, no matter how great and powerful they may be, is still doomed to destruction. Already during the 3rd Punic War, the historian Polybius reflected on the transient happiness of the peoples of the world: and it is clear that he did not believe in the eternity of Rome, although he did not say so openly. Everyone knows the impressive scene from his 38th book, preserved for us by Appian, in which we see the proud conqueror of Carthage among the ruins of that ancient rival of Rome, grimly reflecting on the fickleness of human destiny. He quotes two famous lines from the Iliad:
One day there will be a day when sacred Troy will perish,
Priam and the people of the spearman Priam will perish with her.
And thus foreshadowing the fate of his homeland, Polybius adds: “Only a great, perfect and unforgettable person is able, at the moment of triumph over his enemies, to think about his fate and the capriciousness of fortune and, in the midst of his own happiness, remember that happiness is transitory.”
Extremely interesting words (usually not attracting the attention of modern authors) are contained in a letter addressed to Cicero; in it, Servius Sulpicius, one of his friends, tries to console the addressee about the untimely death of his daughter (Cicero. Letters to loved ones, iv, 5):
“I will tell you about an incident that brought me some comfort, in the hope that my story will ease your grief. Returning from Asia, I sailed from Aegina to Megara and looked at the surrounding lands. Aegina remained behind, Megara was in front, Piraeus was on the right, Corinth was on the left - once flourishing cities, now defeated and lying in ruins. This is what I was thinking about: “Just think, we, ephemeral creatures, consider it unbearable when one of us dies or is killed (and this is despite the transience of our lives), when here, in such a small space, lie the unburied remains of so many cities! Servius, control yourself and remember that you are a man.” Believe me, my friend, these thoughts helped me a lot to gather my strength. And I advise you to think about the same thing. Quite recently, in a short period of time, many famous people died, our Roman state suffered great losses, and all the provinces were shaken to their foundations. Why grieve so much over the death of a single girl? She would have died either now or a few years later, since she was mortal.”
Could a Roman who believed that his state would exist forever write such words? When the republic died, replaced by the Principate, such voices began to be heard more and more often. Horace in the famous “Roman Ode” (iii, 6) declares that the world is declining with each new generation. Lucan, a poet of the era of Nero, sees danger in the excessive size of the empire and in the “envy of fate.” Other authors observe spiritual degradation around them. Velleius Paterculus, a contemporary of Tiberius, points to the decline of the arts, saying (i, 17): “The greatest obstacle to achieving the perfection of a work is inconstancy ... the natural decline of that which does not move forward ...” And this, he argues, happened in Rome with rhetoric , sculpture, painting and carving.
Tacitus in his “Dialogue on Orators” points to the decline of rhetoric (Dialogue 28): “Who does not know that eloquence and other arts have fallen into decline and lost their former glory, not because of the impoverishment of talents, but due to the negligence of youth, and the carelessness of parents, and the ignorance of teachers, and the oblivion of ancient morals? This evil first arose in Rome, then spread to Italy, and is now penetrating into the provinces.”
Even Seneca, who usually points to the good side of any era, I am forced to admit that the Roman Empire entered a period of aging, having lost its freedom under the principate (quoted from: Lactantium. Divine Ordinances, vii, 15).
The historian Florus, who lived in the 2nd century AD. e., compares the development of the Roman nation with the development of man (i, 1): “If we imagine the Roman people as one person and consider their whole life as a whole: how they arose, grew and, so to speak, reached the prime of life, how they later grew old, then four stages and periods can be counted. The first age - under the kings - lasted almost four hundred years, during which the Roman people fought with their neighbors around the city itself. This is his infancy. The next age - from the consuls Brutus and Collatinus to the consuls Appius Claudius and Quintus Fulvius - covers one hundred and fifty years during which he conquered Italy. It was the most turbulent time for warriors and weapons. Therefore, who would not call it adolescence? Then there are one hundred and fifty years before Caesar Augustus, during which he conquered the whole world. After all, this is the very youth of the empire and, as it were, some powerful maturity. From Caesar Augustus to our century there are less than two hundred years, when, due to the inactivity of the Caesars, the Roman people seemed to have grown old and boiled over.” Florus also sees in the vastness and power of the Roman Empire one of the reasons for its decline (i, 47; also iii, 12): “And I do not know whether it would have been better for the Roman people to confine themselves to Sicily or Africa, or even to dominate them without touching them.” in Italy alone, rather than, having risen to such greatness, ruin oneself by one’s own efforts. After all, civic passions were generated by nothing more than an excess of happiness. First of all, we were spoiled by defeated Syria, and then by the Asian heritage of the king of Pergamum. These treasures and riches fell upon the morals of the century and dragged down the state, mired in the mire of its own vices... Where would the slave wars come from if not for the overabundance of slave servants? And could an army of gladiators have marched against their masters if the extravagance that had spread to gain the support of the plebs had not encouraged their love of spectacle and had not turned the execution of enemies into a kind of art? As for the more obvious vices, are they not the result of the desire to pursue master's degrees, in turn caused by the thirst for wealth? This is where the Mariana and then the Sullan storm came from. And magnificent feasts and wasteful generosity are not from wealth, which does not immediately give rise to poverty? She abandoned Catiline against her homeland. Where, finally, does the passion for domination and power come from, if not from excessive wealth? This is what armed Caesar and Pompey with the torches of the Furies to the destruction of the state.”
Finally, Zosimus, a historian of the era of Honorius, was the last to write about the same thing. True, he was not a Christian, but a staunch supporter of the old state religion. He saw the invasions of the Goths and Vandals and believed that the death of the empire (or, as he calls it, the transfer of power to the Germans) was a consequence of the fact that Rome turned away from the faith of the fathers. His opinion was so unpopular among Christians that scholars explain the damage to Zosimus’s texts by their pagan content. However, in many respects they represent an important addition to Christian thought and writings of the time. Zosimus' opinion about the causes of the death of Rome appears in the sections describing the reign of Theodosius (iv, 59):
“The Senate still adhered to the customs of its ancestors, and nothing could force it to commit sacrilege towards the gods. Theodosius gathered the senators and made a speech, calling on them to forget their, as he put it, errors and convert to the Christian faith, which would mean forgetting any sins and any impiety. His speech did not convince anyone; no one wanted to forget the traditions that had developed since the founding of Rome and prefer the stupid teachings of Christians to them. They said that thanks to the help of the old gods, Rome had not been conquered by any enemy for one thousand two hundred years, but no one knows what will happen if the old faith is replaced by a new one. Theodosius objected that the common people were not able to pay for sacrifices and religious ceremonies and that he himself wanted to do away with them, because he did not like them, and money was required for military needs. Although the senators responded that holy rites could not be properly performed unless the state paid for them, the law on sacrifices was repealed and the ancient Roman traditions were forgotten. And as a result of this, the Roman power and empire weakened and became a home for barbarians - or rather, having lost all of its inhabitants, it fell into such decline that even the places where cities had previously stood were forgotten.”
Elsewhere (ii, 7) Zosimus says that after Diocletian, who neglected rituals, “the empire gradually died, imperceptibly plunging into barbarism.”
It is not surprising that Christian authors, for their part, always explained the decline and fall of Rome as the fulfillment of God's will. It is enough to refer to the most important and interesting of these authors - the early Christian writer Minucius Felix (late 2nd century), Augustine himself (4th-5th centuries) and Augustine's follower, the historian Orosius. Whatever our opinion of these authors, who, of course, judged Roman life exclusively from their own religious point However, we will be able to learn a valuable lesson from their writings: we will learn to avoid the mistake of many eminent modern scholars who idealize the Roman Empire and its gigantic organization.
Christian writers understood one truth better than anyone: the Roman Empire, in essence, as Minucius says, “was built and expanded through robberies, murders, crimes and baseness,” as we tried to show in the chapter on the cruelty of the Romans. Augustine, in his City of God, goes further and provides a deeper analysis. He gives numerous examples to prove that an empire based on such violence and injustice inevitably contained within itself the seeds of decline. The noble through-thought of his entire work is perhaps most clearly expressed in the following passages (iv, 33): “So, this God, the Author and Giver of happiness - since he alone is the true God - himself distributes earthly kingdoms to both the good and the evil. And He does this not indiscriminately and as if by chance (for He is God, and not Fortune), but in accordance with the order of things and times - an order that is hidden to us, but completely known to Him. He is not subordinate to this order, however, slavishly, but reigns over it as a Master and rules over it as a Ruler. But He bestows happiness only on the good.”
Augustine agrees with the greatest of his pagan predecessors that "the wonderful feats of Rome had two primary sources - freedom and the thirst for glory." But he also expresses another thought, in which I see a great achievement of his philosophy of history. For him, the grandiose successes of Roman policy are not proof of the great humanity of the Romans, for we must not forget, as he says, that the empire grew due to injustice towards those with whom it waged just wars. In other words, the peoples conquered by Rome were broken by its power only because they were even worse than the Romans.
Augustine’s thoughts on the problem of imperialism are so interesting and so understandable to the modern reader that we will quote them here: “Wars and the conquest of other peoples evil people seem to be happiness, but kindness seems only a necessity. This necessity can be called happiness only because everything could be even worse if the righteous were conquered by the unrighteous. But who doubts that it will be great happiness to live in accordance with good neighbor How to defeat an evil neighbor in a war? Only vicious people go so far as to seek an object of hatred or fear in order to defeat this enemy in battle.”
This is the verdict of a true Christian on imperialist politics, and it expresses the great achievement of political thought of which only Christianity was capable. Augustine could not believe in the eternity of the Roman Empire because, as a devoted Christian, he believed in the biblical words that “heaven and earth will pass away.”
Orosius, a Christian historian who was a spiritual disciple of Augustine, believed that the first signs inclinatio imperii(decline of the empire) appeared even with the assassination of Julius Caesar.
So, all these Christian authors were of the view that Roman Christianity should take over as inheritance from pagan Rome the task of shaping world history and carry out this task until the end of time. new basis, more sound and better in accordance with the divine will. This view gained currency during the German invasions, when world spiritual leadership passed to Christians at the same time that power over the world fell into the hands of the conquerors. But the scope of our book does not allow us to develop this topic further.
So, we come to the following results. Many ancient authors felt that some internal changes were taking place in the Roman Empire, and they expressed this idea in different ways. But it gained universal recognition when Christianity on the spiritual side and barbarians on the political began to overcome the internally degrading imperium Romanum.
But even now it is not entirely clear to us what reasons led to this collapse, change, decline or development - from which side to look. Moreover, we do not know what role the degradation of sexual life played in this process; we don't even know if she played any role at all. So let's try to forget about all known concepts historical process and all philosophies of life, so that the most in an objective manner use the available evidence and look for any indication of the reasons that gave impetus or influenced this development.
It can be said that the Roman tribe combined a variety of elements (perhaps even foreign Etruscan blood). And it is permissible to make the assumption that a people having such an origin can conquer and rule the world for some time, but then - when the conquests that fueled its ambitions are finally completed - are doomed to degeneration, since they are not a single whole. However, ethnological issues are extremely difficult to consider, and we will omit them. However, it is clear that after Rome conquered Carthage, Greece and Asia Minor, many different tribes poured into Italy, mixing with pure Roman blood. This was a serious departure from the old ideals, since the empire was built on the solidarity of the old aristocratic families. In addition, the best Italian blood was exhausted in constant and cruel wars, and there was nothing to compensate for this loss. The establishment of veteran colonies proved a poor remedy for depopulation, since the retired soldiers who inhabited them probably could not be considered representatives of the old Roman stock. Even at the end of the Republic the proportion of pure Romans in these colonies was small; and long before the empire formally ceased to exist, they underwent changes and an influx of new population, which further reduced the proportion of the true Roman breed.
We noted above that already at the end of the Republic, the old Roman families were greatly reduced due to the increase in childlessness in each generation. Even then, this posed such a serious threat that Augustus was forced to take action by issuing his own laws on marriage, although his initiatives were not successful.
In the second half of the 2nd century AD. e. the entire empire was devastated by the plague, about which Zosimus says (I, 26): “No less ferociously than the war that broke out everywhere, the plague indiscriminately struck cities and villages, killing the few surviving people. Never in previous times have so many people died from it.” This happened around the year 250. About the year 268 Zosimus says again (i, 46): “All the invading Scythians were infected with the plague: some of them died in Thrace, others in Macedonia. The survivors either enlisted in the Roman legions or received land, which they cultivated carefully and without laziness. The plague also broke out in the Roman army, striking many, including the emperor.” The provinces, depopulated by the plague, could barely cope with the growing threat of German invasions.
We cannot trace the entire course of Roman politics in the last years of the empire: in any case, this would be simply a superficial retelling of a well-known segment of history. However, it would be appropriate to remind readers of some important facts.
In 251, Emperor Decius fell in battle with the Goths, who came from the east and invaded Thrace and Asia Minor. In 260, the tithe fields between the Rhine and the Trans-Rhine Limes (fortified by a border rampart) were abandoned and occupied by the Alamanni. Around this time, thousands of peaceful Germanic settlers entered Roman territory. They received the right to settle in the empire as colons; as federates they had the duty to defend the borders and were accepted into the Roman army in huge numbers. Probus (276–282), an emperor who encouraged the cultivation of vineyards on the Rhine and Mosel, and other emperors like him tried to strengthen and rejuvenate the army with such measures. Obviously, the politicians of that time hardly imagined the full danger of such a step. The same policy was developed under Constantine (306–337). When the Vandals, pressed by the Goths, asked permission to settle in the empire, Constantine gave them lands in Pannonia.
This was the situation when the Mongol tribes of the Huns arrived from the east (around 375): the last stage of the long war between the Romans and the Germans began. Fleeing from the Huns, the Western Goths also asked for protection beyond the borders of the empire. Valens allowed them to cross the Danube. Soon, due to the abuses of Roman officials, the Goths rebelled. The Romans suffered a heavy defeat at Adrianople, Valens died. However, this time the empire was saved by Theodosius (of course, since the time of Constantine, Christianity had become the state religion). He made an alliance with the Goths as foederates and attempted to unite the two peoples into one, allowing Goths to join the army and hold official positions. But after his death, the empire fell apart into two parts, Eastern and Western, which were nominally ruled by the sons of Theodosius, Arcadius and Honorius, but in reality by their Germanic commanders Alaric and Stilicho. At this time, an event occurred that had not occurred since the invasion of the Gauls in 387 BC. e., - Rome was besieged, taken and plundered by enemies. Alaric, leader of the Western Goths, took Rome in 410. We learn from Zosimus that during the siege, public competitions continued to be held in the city!
Different parts of the empire were taken over by different Germanic tribes. The Vandals founded their state in North Africa, the Franks - in Belgium, the Anglo-Saxons - in Britain. But the most dangerous enemies of Rome were the Huns, led by the terrible Attila, who had already invaded Gaul. Only the energetic cooperation of the Western Goths and the Romans, led by Aetius, was able to stop their advance in the famous bloody battle of the Catalaunian fields in 451. However, the empire was doomed. In 455, the Vandals attacked Rome by sea and plundered the city for two weeks. And finally, the 16-year-old Emperor Romulus (received the contemptuous nickname Augustulus, “Augustishka”) was deprived of power by Odoacer, a German, whom his fellow tribesmen elected leader. This happened in 476.
Usually this date is chosen from an eventful centuries-long history as the final point of the Western Roman Empire. Since then, the Western Roman Empire became a battlefield and prey for warring Germanic tribes. As we know, the Eastern Empire lasted for several more centuries; sometimes it also laid claim to power over the West, but was unable to establish itself there for long. The West, as the empire of the truly Roman people, disappeared forever.
The foreign policy events just described probably contributed to the collapse of the empire, but they were not the only cause. It never happens in history that decisive changes are brought about by a single cause. Of course, it is unknown whether we will ever be able to realize full meaning and all the most long-term consequences such a colossal event as the fall of the Roman Empire. There are always irrational factors hidden from our minds, and they will always be hidden from us. Historians, like any researchers, should not forget about Goethe’s “First Phenomenon,” whose existence we know, but whose nature we will never understand. Now it is enough for us to know the reasons that an impartial researcher can identify and evaluate.
For example, in the events we are discussing, the economic factor is also of great importance, although until now it has usually not been taken into account. This question, as far as we know, was first considered by Max Weber in his remarkable essay “The Social Causes of the Decline of Ancient Civilization” (see book: Weber M. Articles on socio-economic history). This brilliant work should be carefully studied by any researcher. classical period. Of course, it is not our task to fully analyze Weber's essays; We will limit ourselves to reproducing his conclusions to the extent that they are relevant to our topic.
According to Weber, the course of development of ancient civilization was as follows. It was predominantly an urban civilization. The city consumed what it itself produced. There was no trade, with the exception of coastal cities, and this trade was limited mainly to luxury goods, with almost no dealing in everyday goods. In mainland cities, trade was practically unknown; subsistence farming predominated there. Therefore, a higher type of civilization arose only in seaside towns. This civilization was based exclusively on slave labor and could not exist without a huge number of slaves, the number of which was constantly renewed due to wars. “War in ancient times was also a hunt for slaves. The war contributed to a stable supply of goods to slave markets, thereby providing conditions for the use of forced labor and population growth."
So, the “necessary condition” for the existence of such a civilization was a slave market. If the supply of slaves ceased, the consequences for civilization were "the same as the consequences for the blast furnaces of the depletion of coal." But this is exactly what happened when Tiberius stopped the advance on the Rhine. The flow of men and women to the slave markets dried up. There was a colossal shortage of workers. The vast plantations where slaves worked were gradually abandoned. Slave barracks turned into settlements of peasants forced to work for the owner of the estate, that is, a return to subsistence farming took place everywhere.
Weber concludes his essay with these words: “Civilization has become rural. The economic development of antiquity has completed a full cycle. Her spiritual achievements seem to have been forgotten. With the disappearance of trade, the beautiful marble cities disappeared, and with them all the spiritual life that depended on them - art, literature and science, as well as refined forms of trade legislation. And on the estates possessores And seniors The songs of the troubadours and minnesingers are not yet heard...” However, this change brings some consolation and points to a better future: “Countless serfs and slaves have regained their right to family and property; they gradually freed themselves from their status as “talking furniture”, taking their rightful place among humanity, and their family life took place in the conditions of the growing strength of Christianity with its strict moral restrictions... The cultured and elegant aristocracy slipped into barbarism.”
According to this theory, which seems well founded to us, the ancient civilization perished because it did not know how to use the human masses except as slaves for the pleasure and profit of a small class of conquerors and exploiters. However, Weber denies the popular opinion about the “imaginary luxury and true immorality of the upper classes” or about the “destruction of ancient civilization due to the emancipation of women and the weakening of marriage bonds among the ruling classes. This civilization was destroyed by more significant factors than sins individuals».
There can be no doubt that, along with purely economic reasons the decline of ancient civilization there were also spiritual ones - in general, usually defined as “the rise of Christianity.” The old state could not find support in a religious attitude to life - an attitude that not only stigmatized the empire and the way it was governed - the principate, but also developed, in contrast to existing ideas about human life, a new, almost ascetic ideal of victory over the worldly principle.
Let us consider a few particularly striking features of this teaching in order to understand its true nature. Does it not affirm the ideal that Rome lacked for so long - the value of human life as such? Be like the Creator, it says, who makes no distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, when distributing His benefits, “for He makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” God alone is the Lord, the Master. In front of him All people are brothers. The meaning of their existence is to help each other bear the burden of life and love each other, that is, one person must be tolerant and forgiving towards the other, put up with him and do good to him, even if he is an enemy. In the face of this brave new world with a high spiritual purpose, all the wealth, all the power, all the luxury of our world becomes meaningless - unless it is used to help the less fortunate and fortunate fellows. In this new world, the one who has the highest power is the highest, but he serves and humbles himself before others. And you should not pay for injustice with revenge: offer the other to the one who hits you on the cheek. Property is deprived of any meaning: do not prevent the one who takes your outer clothing from taking your shirt. We must strive to become like God. But God is not the envious and vengeful god of the Jews, and not the deities from ancient mythology, capricious as people and endowed with human weaknesses, not a Roman emperor with all his sins and vices, and not a cold, lifeless philosophical idea. God is the Father loving Father all people hugging their children, even when they return after long wanderings away from home.
This is the new Gospel. In itself it probably represents no more than an affirmation of the pure and simple humanity that has always lived in the hearts of men and is ready for self-expression; but until now these ideas have not been formulated so unambiguously and clearly. It is very immaterial to us whether these profound thoughts were expressed, even in part, by the historical figure, Jesus (although we believe that they were so); or, as many researchers believe, they were “in the air” and took shape as a natural counterbalance to the horrors, violence and madness of Roman sadism. It is enough for us to know that this is a new teaching existed as a new attitude towards life, as an internal victory over life and all its nightmares.
At present there is hardly any need to emphasize that in the new Gospel the Roman state and all its ideals were denied and rejected. For example, Nietzsche (who later, as we know, had no particular inclination towards Christianity) wrote this in Antichrist: (Nietzsche F. Essays. T. VIII. P. 305): “These holy anarchists declared it a pious act to destroy the “world” - that is, the Roman Empire - so that not a stone would remain of it and that the Germans and other barbarians would become its rulers. Nietzsche misses one thing: the original Gospel does not say a word about the destruction of the empire or anything like that. However, there, in just one word, the entire insignificance of this empire (and any other, both ancient and modern) is expressed. “My kingdom,” it says, “is not of this world.” And this does not mean: “My kingdom is a utopia.” This means: “My kingdom is the kingdom of love, virtue, spirit, and it lives in the heart of any person who is inspired by them.”
Another passage from Nietzsche contains so much beauty and true insight into the spirit of Christianity that we cannot help but quote it. (The Will to Power, Branagh edition, 1921). “Jesus pointed directly to the ideal state - the kingdom of heaven in the hearts of people. Among the adherents of the Jewish religion, he did not find anyone capable of this... The ideal life of a Christian lies in love and humiliation, in such deep feelings that they extend even to the most humiliated; in the absolute denial of the right to self-defense or of victory as a personal triumph; in faith in the possibility of earthly happiness, despite poverty, oppression and death; in a forgiving spirit, renouncing anger and contempt; in refusing any rewards and refusing to be considered anyone's creditor. This is a life without a spiritual and religious master - a proud life, the wealth of which is in the will to poverty and service... Thief on the cross. This robber, dying in agony, decided: “Only one thing is true - to suffer and die, like this Jesus, humbly and meekly, without anger and hatred”; So he accepted the Gospel and ended up in heaven.”
So, Nietzsche believes that the teaching of Jesus is, in its essence, primarily a guide to life. However, a new look at life (so simple and so revolutionary), at our attitude towards life and towards fellow people - the Gospel, that is, the Good News - did not reach those simple, innocent people to whom it was addressed. He was heard by people who had long ago lost their primitive innocence among the thorns and labyrinths of Greek philosophy and Hellenistic-Roman civilization. And this became the reason for one of the greatest tragedies in world history. The new recipients of the Gospel transformed it into such a complex philosophical and theological system that people entered into heated battles over the meaning of each of its phrases or words. These disputes lasted many centuries, and partly continue to this day; and in the end their participants completely forgot true meaning words of Jesus. In this regard, we must remember what Nietzsche so insistently said: “The Church is precisely what Jesus opposed, what he called his followers to fight... What is like Christ in the ecclesiastical sense is in essence like Antichrist: these are things and people instead symbols, this is history instead of eternal truths, these are forms, rituals and dogmas instead of life rules and life according to these rules. Absolute indifference to dogmas, cults, priests and theology - this is Christian!.. The Kingdom of Heaven is a state of the heart (after all, it is said about children that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them), and not something elevated above the earth. The Kingdom of God will not come in a chronological and historical sense, not on some day of the calendar, not so that yesterday it did not exist, but today it exists. The Kingdom of God comes as a change in the hearts of individual people - something that comes all the time and has not yet come.”
This is precisely the true meaning of Jesus' teaching. I am sure that many of Jesus' earliest followers lived by this teaching. But as it spread wider and wider, and the so-called educated classes of the time began to take an interest in it (instead of simply living by its rules), it became more and more tightly entangled in a web of alien elements, like ivy entwined around a tree, leading to the deadening of its simple central postulates. As a result, Christianity became a vinaigrette of these old truths and countless new borrowings - Greek philosophy, mysticism and the diverse local rituals of neighbors and distant peoples. And under the later emperors it became the official religion of Rome, concluding a disastrous alliance with the Authority - with a position that was diametrically opposed to everything that Jesus said and taught.
It is not our task to trace the course of further development of Christianity. We only wished to demonstrate as clearly as possible that true Christian ideals should not have entered into an alliance with such a power as the Roman Empire, and that, in fact, they played a role in undermining that structure from within and ultimately leading to its collapse.
Some authors (notably Ferrero in The Decline of Ancient Civilization) have argued that, along with all the other reasons for the collapse of the Roman Empire, we should not underestimate the significance of the collapse of the organization and system of government of the empire. Ferrero believes that after Alexander Severus the Senate lost any power, opening the way to the unchecked despotism of the army and those emperors whom the army placed on the throne. “Good” emperors, from Vespasian to Marcus Aurelius, ruled in active cooperation with the Senate; and from this, he believes, the whole empire benefited. Ferrero writes: “The century during which the fate of the world was in the hands of this aristocracy was marked by constant economic prosperity. Both the Senate and the Emperor were respected and had real power, without the disputes and conflicts between these branches of government that historians have brought to light when they stubbornly try to present the first two centuries of the Principate as a monarchy.”
But to the question why a regime so useful for the empire ceased to exist, Ferrero cannot give any other answers other than the “gradual disintegration” resulting from “internal exhaustion”, and ultimately from the Stoic and Christian teachings, which “have their own fundamental idea on the equality of all people and nations before the moral law” pierced “the armor of the principles of aristocracy and nationalism.” Therefore, Ferrero is forced to admit that the degradation of the management system cannot be decisive factor in the collapse of the empire, as his other works try to convince us. All the reasons he named, without a doubt, should have contributed to the overall result. But they were not the main reason, just like the bureaucratic apparatus of Diocletian, which cost enormous sums of money, which were obtained through sharp increases in taxes, which contributed to the paralysis of the world economy. The state of affairs we have described was caused by everyone the above-mentioned reasons, acting not independently of each other, but jointly.
And what consequences, we can now ask, did the degradation (or, rather, new development) of Roman morality have? Of course, it was not as significant as many historians believe, following Augustine. On the contrary, it seems that the Romans changed their attitudes towards love, marriage and sex life as the world around them changed. When everything on which a person’s life is based becomes doubtful and unreliable, his sex life is also doomed to deviations. On the other hand, a person who has found in the teachings of Jesus a new attitude towards life and humanity finds new meaning and new values in love; and such a change is by no means a degradation.
So, we have found out: it is incorrect to say that ancient civilization Immorality ruined her. The real reasons its fall and transformation known as the Decline Ancient world, have a different nature and relate to other aspects of human life.
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From the book Secrets of Civilizations [History of the Ancient World] author Matyushin Gerald NikolaevichThe Fall of Democracy and the Death of Rome The Last Years of the Republic. Continuous wars led Rome to the division of society into two groups: a small and closed rich elite and an impoverished, dispossessed, landless people. Constant hostility, which stopped with
From the book Bytvor: the existence and creation of the Rus and Aryans. Book 1 by SvetozarFormation and death of Etruria. The formation and rise of Rome After the destruction of Troy, part of the Rus (Trojans) under the leadership of Aeneas went west and settled on the Apennine Peninsula. The local peoples of the Apennine Peninsula belonged to gray people and in the 12th century BC.
author4.2. The legend about the founding of Rome by Romulus absorbed information about Constantine the Great’s transfer of the capital of the empire from old Rome to new Rome. “Ancient classics” say that the quarrel between Romulus and Remus occurred during the founding of the city of Rome in Latinia and Etruria. It is believed that speech
From the book Tsarist Rome between the Oka and Volga rivers. author Nosovsky Gleb VladimirovichChapter 8 Alexander Nevsky and the Battle of the Ice in the “ancient” history of Rome (Moses’ crossing of the sea and the death of the Pharaoh’s troops. The Istrian War of Rome) 1. A reminder of various reflections Battle on the Ice in Greco-Roman “antiquity” and in the Bible 1) Let us recall that in the Old Testament