
When Rome Fell, the Chief Culprits Were Climate and Disease. Sound Familiar? - Erlangolem
https://undark.org/article/book-review-harper-fate-of-rome/
======
scythe
_" From the eighteenth century onward, we have been obsessed with the fall: it
has been valued as an archetype for every perceived decline, and, hence, as a
symbol for our own fears."_

~ Glen Bowersock

The most important reason for the fall of Rome is frankly obvious, so obvious
it's never mentioned: the severe political divisions within the Empire which
caused it to fracture. The bulk of the intellectual and economic power in Rome
shifted to the Eastern Empire, which lasted in its original form until the
eighth century, and in some form until the fifteenth. The seeds of the fall of
the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century were sown when Theodosius
divided the Empire among his sons in 395, and there is hardly any comparable
event today. There were various other reasons, of course; disease certainly
didn't help, neither did the appearance of the Sassanids, the increasing
irrelevance of the Senate, or famines in Gaul. But everyone on the right and
the left wants Rome to have fallen because of its mishandling of their
favorite political issue, be it inflation, military conscription, climate
change, taxation, or as one amusingly inaccurate meme charges, _religious
intolerance_. These accusations are all silly. The Roman Empire saw _multiple
civil wars_ between the reign of Constantine and the conquest by Odoacer. No
developed country today faces such an issue. As soon as it was no longer able
to draw support from the East, the Western Roman Empire began eighty years of
monotonic decline.

If there is any moral to the story, it's that monarchy is unsustainable -- but
we all knew that, anyway.

~~~
boomboomsubban
>The Roman Empire saw multiple civil wars between the reign of Constantine and
the conquest by Odoacer.

We may not see that today, but that was fairly common for Rome. Marius and
Sulla's civil wars, Caesar's civil wars, and Octavian's civil wars all took
place in a century. And chalking it all up to "monarchy is unstable" ignores
the collapse of the Republic and the 4-15 centuries that the monarchy did
pretty well.

~~~
scythe
I didn't mean that the civil wars were the primary cause of decline (although
they helped) but that they serve to distinguish the Roman Empire from modern
countries and weaken the possibility of comparison. My point is really that
the Western Roman Empire never had a chance -- Rome started in southern Italy
and expanded because its early enemies didn't recognize it as a threat, but
they couldn't get away with that again, of course.

As to whether the monarchic system was the reason Rome couldn't keep the whole
Empire under one roof -- well, the Byzantines lasted, but they did so while
controlling much less territory (Justinian's conquests were quickly lost), so
while my argument is weak, I admit, your counterexample is also. The monarchy
was successful from Octavian until Commodus; after that, it is hard to name
two good rulers who succeeded each other, and impossible to name three. I
think it is not by accident that during this early period the Senate was still
politically relevant and vaguely democratic. But I am also just strongly
tempted to blame regional divisions on poor governance, although there were
probably other factors, and I am hardly a scholar.

~~~
boomboomsubban
"It never had a chance" was a five century long empire. Sure it was destined
to fall, but that's the nature of empire so far, which invited comparison to
modern times. And your description of the early expansion somewhat works for
the conquest of Italia, but after that they were considered a threat.

>I think it is not by accident that during this early period the Senate was
still politically relevant and vaguely democratic.

The senate had no actual power starting with Augustus, who turned it into a
ceremonial institution. The only time it did have a shred of power was a
succession crisis, and it maintained that power throughout.

>But I am also just strongly tempted to blame regional divisions on poor
governance, although there were probably other factors,

I don't understand what you're saying here.

~~~
scythe
The Western Roman Empire existed on its own for 83 years, not 500. It split
off in 393 with the death of Theodosius and was conquered by Odoacer in 476.
That's hardly longevity.

>The senate had no actual power starting with Augustus, who turned it into a
ceremonial institution.

Early Emperors cared what the Senate thought, even if they didn't have to.
Later ones didn't.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Senate#Senate_of_the_Rom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Senate#Senate_of_the_Roman_Empire)

>Around 300 AD, the emperor Diocletian enacted a series of constitutional
reforms. In one such reform, he asserted the right of the emperor to take
power without the theoretical consent of the senate, thus depriving the senate
of its status as the ultimate depository of supreme power. Diocletian's
reforms also ended whatever illusion had remained that the senate had
independent legislative, judicial, or electoral powers. The senate did,
however, retain its legislative powers over public games in Rome, and over the
senatorial order.

------
jhanschoo
Unfortunately, science journalism tends to fail to capture the role that books
like this play in academic history. I doubt that the author says that climate
was a leading factor in Rome's fall, but I'm sure he makes a strong argument
that we should not neglect its role.

It's important in the sense that it investigates a typically neglected
dimension, but I think historians will be hesitant to rank factors that led to
the fall. Sufficiently self-aware historians are aware that the etiology of
past events is a tricky business, and the best one can do is discuss a
sequence of events with great detail that may or may not be linked by
causation.

~~~
barkynoggins
If you know historians, you'll know they actually squabble like children over
stuff like this. Of course, No True Historian would ignore the role of climate
in causing radiating invasion waves. Even if it was a cold day making Attila
mad, it's still an equal factor.

God our universities have rotted.

------
anvandare
Another collapse by changing environment is (likely) that of the Maya
civilization:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Maya_collapse#Drought_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Maya_collapse#Drought_theory)

A civilizational collapse is rarely caused by a single event, but instead by
multiple events - each which would be survivable on their own - causing a
complete breakdown in the system. A society can survive a drought, a war, a
plague, a famine, but all four at once might just be too much.

It's not for want of a nail that a kingdom is lost, but because of all
accumulated failures and breakdowns which led to the point where loss of a
single nail was just that one failure too much. Death by drowning in a million
raindrops.

------
whb07
Couple things I hold to be true:

1\. Everyone thinks they know why Rome fell

2\. It never involves the state of the monetary policy in place

Quick bit of evidence, the Roman government pursued fast and loose debasement
of their currency to prop up their heavy spending and terrible policies.
Meaning, they were “printing too many coins” by diluting the amount of
precious metal in each coin.

Emperors got loose printing money to support a heavy military spending to gain
power and support from them. As seen in modern countries once hyper inflation
hits, its game over.

~~~
yequalsx
Is it possible that 2 is a consequence of other factors? Like climate change
or some other combinations of forces? Was the economy unable to support the
number of forces due to climate change and as a result debasement of currency
was seen as the best way forward?

Hyperinflation wasn’t game over for Germany. It had a brief empire shortly
after it’s hyperinflation period.

~~~
whb07
Yes, but they are tied! I can't remember which emperor said something along
the lines of "as long as i have the army behind me", but the scales had been
tipping beyond the balance between gov / private citizens.

I think its hard to find out which came first, but the moment the government
started minting 99% gold coin (and they got away with it) -> 95% gold -> 90%
gold till its a worthless "gold" coin too many bad things got put in motion.

I do agree its a confluence of factors. Maybe they expanded too much -> need
more money -> print money -> cant exactly fire all the expeditionary forces ->
print more money -> squeeze taxes out of populace -> people are getting fed up
so output and tax revenues go down -> empire is too big -> attacks on Germany
and Europe from the barbarians -> print more money to pay military -> squeeze
people - > ad nauseum.

There's an established economic principle that "bad money drives out good". So
while I do not think that just printing money is the only cause, once it
occurs its down hill. You have to somehow figure out how you will try and
reign it all in (thats what they tell themselves at least).

As to the Germany example, the hyper inflation can be fixed though who can
really tell how traumatizing and painful it can be to those going through it.
For sure it caused some discord and animosity and some people attribute it to
the rise of Hitler and so forth.

My point generally is that historians should look at the entirety of factors
and weigh them together. It is all too easy to point a quick finger at the
military expansion, or climate or whatever and not combine them all. Very few
places look at monetary theory probably because its relatively new (really
with Friedman's work in middle 20th century), but also because it muddles the
simplistic reason.

edit: clarity

------
gaius
This is obviously wrong. No sane person would argue that climate change in
Roman times was man-made, therefore there was no possible action Rome could
have taken to mitigate it.

~~~
jstanley
That doesn't follow. Just because the cause wasn't man-made doesn't mean a
man-made mitigation can't work.

For example, rain is not caused by human activity, and yet man-made roofs
still work.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
Plus capturing more water, diverting water, those are things that can address
lack of rain. Grow crops that use less rain per produced food. There are
endless things man can to do counter natural events. For us, besides all those
things, don't build in flood plains, don't build in the forest that has
frequent fires (probably most of them). or build houses that won't be
destroyed by fires. [http://abcnews.go.com/US/mans-concrete-home-survives-
raging-...](http://abcnews.go.com/US/mans-concrete-home-survives-raging-
wildfire-washington/story?id=33286398)

------
JoeAltmaier
The chief reason for _many_ civilizations to fall. Mayan (repeatedly), Aztec,
those in the Arabian desert, Ur, Babylon and on and on.

------
woodandsteel
I like to think of the fall of empires on two levels. On the level of
specifics, I would suppose there are in each case generally a number of
different causes, interacting in various ways.

On a more general level, empires as such are an unnaturally large and complex
form of social organization, and for that reason they inevitably collapse at
some point or another.

------
mci
The chief culprit was permitting tens of thousands of barbarians to enter the
empire. They never integrated or left. Within a hundred years, the western
part of the empire collapsed.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_War_(376–382)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_War_\(376–382\))

~~~
boomboomsubban
They had let tens of thousands of outsiders in before without issue. The
difference here was the Goths beat the Romans on the field, forcing Rome to
accept a bad deal. This was a result of a long period of famine and pestilence
creating budget problems, leaving provinces to go into revolt, and the army
stretched too thin to deal with everything.

~~~
Amezarak
The Gothic emigration much more resembled the emigration of the Cimbri or the
Teutons than it did the resettlement of a few ten thousand peoples around the
empire.

The Goths were relatively barbarian, fundamentally hostile to the empire
except in the dire emergency precipitated by the Huns, and further, the
original Gothic revolt predated the problems you're talking about and the
defeat of the Romans in the field.

It was also almost certainly much more than a few ten thousands, despite the
usual tactic of modern historians who downplay numbers in general with
handwavy arguments about how _that 's just not possible_, etc. and discount
the accounts of contemporary sources without any hard evidence contradicting
them.

> _It was thought expedient that an accurate account should be taken of their
> numbers; but the persons who were employed soon desisted, with amazement and
> dismay, from the prosecution of the endless and impracticable task;(67) and
> the principal historian of the age most seriously affirms that the
> prodigious armies of Darius and Xerxes, which had so long been considered as
> the fables of vain and credulous antiquity, were now justified, in the eyes
> of mankind, by the evidence of fact and experience. A probable testimony has
> fixed the number of the Gothic warriors at two hundred thousand men; and if
> we can venture to add the just proportion of women, of children, and of
> slaves, the whole mass of people which composed this formidable emigration
> must have amounted to near a million of persons, of both sexes and of all
> ages._

[http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/volume1/chap26.htm#goth](http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/volume1/chap26.htm#goth)

If they had numbered only a few ten thousand, the Roman logistics system would
not have struggled so much to keep them fed, nor would it have been a major
problem to account for them all.

~~~
boomboomsubban
>The Goths were relatively barbarian, fundamentally hostile to the empire
except in the dire emergency precipitated by the Huns, and further, the
original Gothic revolt predated the problems you're talking about and the
defeat of the Romans in the field

The Goths were a major part of the Roman army for a century before the
uprising discussed, and the famine and pestilence were also becoming a major
issue around the same time. And the Goths were no more barbarian than much of
Caesar's army, their hostility came from the overall problems the empire
faced.

>If they had numbered only a few ten thousand, the Roman logistics system
would not have struggled so much to keep them fed, nor would it have been a
major problem to account for them all.

The empire was struggling to feed itself, even a relatively small number of
people in one area can cause problems. And the contemporary sources are
dismissed because we know the things written down are propaganda based largely
on guesswork. Modern historians realize a million people suddenly showing up
would leave a massive archaeological record that isn't there.

~~~
Amezarak
> The Goths were a major part of the Roman army for a century before the
> uprising discussed

Different Gothic tribes cannot be conflated. Also important to note is that
the 'Romanized' Goths only became so because they devastated, conquered and
kept Roman territory - they weren't friendly settlers, they were neighbors the
Romans had to learn how to deal with and use against other enemies.

> And the famine and pestilence were also becoming a major issue around the
> same time.

Not until later, and then in part because of Gothic devastation. If the Roman
Empire had not been able to feed a few ten thousand armed people, it would
have fallen nearly immediately, since that would have meant it would have been
unable to field any significant armies.

> Modern historians realize a million people suddenly showing up would leave a
> massive archaeological record that isn't there.

It is.

Further, it's very hard to explain why it'd be hard to census only 90k people,
an activity performed regularly.

~~~
boomboomsubban
>Not until later, and then in part because of Gothic devastation. If the Roman
Empire had not been able to feed a few ten thousand armed people, it would
have fallen nearly immediately, since that would have meant it would have been
unable to field any significant armies.

The Crisis of the Third Century is what lead to the weakened state unable to
cope with the Goths. Outside invasions were part of the problem, the Plague of
Cyprian was a much larger part. The breakdown that occurred during this period
led to widespread problems, they trade routes were damaged making it difficult
to suddenly feed an unexpected influx of people.

>Further, it's very hard to explain why it'd be hard to census only 90k
people, an activity performed regularly.

First, there wasn't a ton of time between their arrival and their revolt to
count them. Second, the census had suffers a long period of decay by that
point. Third, counting nomads is no easy work, and the general strategy of
assessing taxes based on property didn't apply yet.

------
m0llusk
Rome was built on conquest and ran out of adjacent countries to plunder.
Serious problems handling environmental and political challenges didn't come
up until after economic stagnation had set in.

------
yters
Rome fell because they killed all their kids due to their party lifestyle, and
had to use slave labor to support themselves.

------
quantumleap22
Rome devolved into a multicultural empire where the elites imported foreign
tribes to provide cheap labor, usury was rampant and the native stock stopped
having children.

Sound familiar?

~~~
alvar0
And currency debasement:
[https://www.goldbroker.com/media/image/cms/media/images/silv...](https://www.goldbroker.com/media/image/cms/media/images/silver-
commodity-money/roman-currency-debasement-silver-content%E2%80%93denarius.png)

Too familiar

------
nkkollaw
This is ridiculous.

------
alvar0
Sounds ridiculous actually. We are Rome indeed but the similarities are not
exactly climate and disease...

~~~
titanix2
Yes the article is written like if environmental changes were the only factor.
It may very well have undermined the inner streng of the empire (as a child I
learn about the lead pipes that would have been a major issue because of
saturnism) but it still needed external interventions to collapse. The article
even mention the Byzantine Empire which have a very clear date and cause of
falling that is definitely not climate related.

