Today is Valentine’s Day, or St. Valentine‘s Day. Who was Valentine and why does he get a day named after him? The truth is, nobody really knows. Valentine or Valentinus was the name of an early Christian saint and martyr. The trouble is that nothing is known of him except his name. He may have been a Roman priest who was martyred in 269. There was a Valentine who was bishop of Terni who may have been the same man. St. Valentine was dropped from the Roman calendar of Saints in 1969 because of these uncertainties but local churches may still celebrate his day.
It is also not certain how Valentine’s day became associated with love. Some have speculated that the holiday was a Christian substitute for the Roman festival of Lupercalia. However, there is no hint of any association of Valentine’s Day with romance until the time of Chaucer. The holiday seems to have really taken off with the invention of greeting cards.
The question of the cause of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire has fascinated historians and history buffs. pundits and moralists for centuries. There is something mysterious in the manner in which an empire that bestrode the world like a colossus collapsed into decay and ruin. Yet, it is a question that has increasingly annoyed me over time.
Part of the annoyance stems from the assumption that the decline and fall resulted from some fatal flaw in the Roman system. Perhaps it was the slave economy, or maybe the fact that the Emperors never quite worked out a peaceful means of transferring power between dynasties. Whatever the reasons given, the view seems to be that the fall of the Roman Empire was inevitable and that it is astonishing that the Empire managed to last as long as it did.
The astonishing thing about the Roman state is how long it actually lasted and how resilient the Romans were when facing crises that destroyed states in similar circumstances. According to legend, the city of Rome was founded by Romulus in 753 BC. There is no reason to believe the legend gives an accurate account of the founding of Rome, but there is no great reason to doubt the general story. Archeology suggests the legendary date wasn’t too far off. The last remnant of the Roman Empire, the city of Constantinople, fell to the Turks in AD 1453. That adds up to an amazing 2,206 years.
There is not a single contemporary state, with the possible exception of China, that can boast of the longevity of the Roman state in all of its forms, from a small city in Italy ruled by a king, to a Republic that dominated Italy and then the known world, to an Empire that ruled the known world, to a city on the Bosphorus ruled by an Autocrat.
Rome existed as a superpower longer than any other state, except for China. After the Third Punic War, ending in 146 BC, the Mediterranean became what political scientists call a unipolar world. There was a single power that dominated the region: Rome. Rome had rivals, the Hellenistic kingdoms of Macedonia, Seleucid Syria, Ptolemaic Egypt, and later the Parthians and Sassanid Persians. None of these rivals was a peer competitor with Rome.
Roman Republic in 146 BC
This situation lasted until the beginning of the fifth century. Between the defeat at the Battle of Adrianople in AD 378 and the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410, Rome ceased to be the uncontested ruler of the world. The best year to consider the end of Rome as a superpower might be 406, when German tribes swarmed over the Rhine, never to be driven back. This means that Rome was a unipolar power from 146 BC to AD 406, 552 years. The Roman Empire, at its heights lasted longer than any European colonial empire.
The Roman Empire at its height in AD 117
Even after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, the Eastern half, misnamed the Byzantine Empire, centered on Constantinople, endured.
The Empire divided into East and West in AD 395
No longer a unipolar power, the Byzantine Empire remained the strongest and wealthiest state in the Mediterranean region.
Even so, the Romans continued to endure many onslaughts by the Muslims and even regained its strength somewhat, until the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.
Byzantine Empire 1100
Weakened, the Romans continued as one power among many, and not always the strongest, until fatally wounded by the Sack of Constantinople in 1204. Amazingly, the Romans regained their capital in 1261, but the Empire, now confined to the neighborhood of the City, lasted, under continuous attack for two more centuries before finally succumbing.
If we consider the rise of Rome as a major power beginning roughly with the First Punic War around 264 BC and ending with the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, Rome was at least a regional power for around 1335 years. In that time, Rome survived many crises. The story of the rise of the Republic included many devastating defeats. The Romans should have sued for peace after Hannibal destroyed their army at the Battle of Cannae. Anyone else would have. The Romans kept on fighting even as Hannibal marched up and down the Italian peninsula, defeating every army sent against him.
The civil wars and political instability at the end of the Roman Republic ought to have broken up the Roman Empire. Instead, Augustus made necessary changes that ensured the Empire continued.
The Crisis of the Third Century was caused in part by climate changes that destroyed Han China, the Parthians, and the Kushans in India. The political unrest of the period, with emperor succeeding emperor in violent and quick succession, along with a devastating economic collaspe should have destroyed the Roman Empire as similar conditions ended the other major empires of Eurasia. The Roman Empire briefly broke up into three smaller empires, but Rome survived and recovered its strength.
The savage armies of Islam swept all before them from the Visigoths in Spain to the borders of China. Rome’s rival, Sassanid Persia, was defeated and conquered. Rome lost half its remaining empire and was restricted to Greece and Asia Minor, but Rome survived and kept on fighting. Even in the end, when Rome was reduced to Constantinople, the Romans endured and continued the hopeless fight against the Turks.
We should not be asking what caused the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. We should be asking how the Roman Empire lasted so long and endured so much. Instead of wondering what the Romans did wrong, we should ask what they did right. The Roman state had its flaws. The inability to transition power peacefully from the late Republic on was among the most obvious defects of the Roman system. Yet, Rome was among the most enduring states in history, one that left its legacy to the present day. We can learn a lot from the Romans. There is much more to learn than the reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire.
David's Commonplace Book 