The evolution of the classical world in late antiquity The later Roman Empire or late antiquity?
Change and development in late antiquity Summary of this book
This book is concerned with the final three and a half centuries of classical antiquity. This lengthy period in the history of the ancient world was characterized by profound transformations in its character, and led to the emergence in the west of medieval European civilization, and, in the east, of a world dominated by a new religion, Islam.
The ancient classical world was formed from the interlocked civilizations of the Greeks and the Romans. Greek culture was based on a closely integrated community of city-states, which first took shape in the Aegean region around 1000 BC. These city-states, called poleis, evolved a style of self-government that was designed to preserve and promote their collective and community interests, which we still designate by the word politics. Over a period of some 1,500 years, these small - and medium-scale communities explored and developed amid myriad variations a pattern of social organization and collective action which
A History of the Later Roman Empire, AD 284-641, Second Edition. Stephen Mitchell. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Has inspired all western democracies today. Although Greek city-states were a highly localized form of political organization, each making its own political decisions, they were bound together by strong cultural and social ties. Except to a very limited degree, the homogeneity and unity of the Greeks was not based on ethnicity, however that be defined, but on a shared language and a common religious outlook. While individual city-states aspired to run their own business and restricted membership to their own citizens, there were virtually no limits to the spread of Greek culture, which proved overwhelmingly attractive to the other peoples of the Mediterranean and the Near East. The outcome was a process which we call Hellenism. Innumerable communities beyond the core region of the Aegean adopted the language, religious notions, and political ideas of the Greeks. They thus created the foundations of a common culture whose features could be identified among peoples extending from Spain to Afghanistan.
As this culture spread more widely, especially in the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East, it adapted to other forms of political organization, in particular the creation of large territorial kingdoms and empires. The emergence of such large scale territorial political units had been an eastern development, exemplified by the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and, especially during the seventh to fourth centuries BC, which were a critical period for the history of the Greek city-states, of Persia. This model of the large hegemonic empire was fused with the Greek city-state system after the fall of the Persian Empire to Alexander the Great between 334 and 323 BC. During the following three hundred years most of the east Mediterranean and the Near East was controlled by the Graeco-Macedonian kingdoms that succeeded Alexander. Increasing numbers of the inhabitants of these regions began to use the Greek language, modified their religious beliefs and institutions in conformity with Greek models, and adopted the city-state as the basis for local community politics. The whole era is consequently known as the Hellenistic period.
From the third century BC the Romans exercised a fundamental and dramatic infiuence on the Hellenistic world. Rome itself was in origin a city-state, which broadly resembled the Greek political pattern. However, like the other city-states of central Italy it belonged to a different cultural tradition, with its own language and religious system. During the fourth and third centuries BC Rome succeeded in conquering much of Italy. The growth of Roman power led in the third century BC to a hegemonic clash with Carthage, the other major power of the western Mediterranean, which resulted in Roman dominion extending beyond the Italian peninsula to Spain, north Africa, and Sicily. After the defeat of Hannibal, the Carthaginian leader, Rome became embroiled in the affairs of the east Mediterranean. Two further centuries of expansion and conquest extended the limits of the Roman Empire to the river Euphrates during the first century AD.
Along this eastern frontier the Romans confronted Persian power in a new guise: the successive empires of the Parthians and Sassanians, based in Lower Mesopotamia and the Iranian plateau, which had regained control over the eastern parts of the Hellenistic world. Throughout the remaining centuries of antiquity the Roman and Persian empires faced each other across a line which extended from the east end of the Black Sea to the Persian Gulf. Territory on either side of this frontier was disputed between the opposed great powers, and regularly became a theater for war and campaigning.
The Romans thus incorporated within their empire almost the entire Hellen-ized world. They made no efforts to suppress or replace the system of city-states, or Greek culture as a whole, but rather incorporated both of these into their empire. The Romans were successful from the outset as conquerors, but more important than this was their ability to evolve a style of imperial rule which was sustained for almost a thousand years. One of the crucial strengths of the Roman Empire was its capacity to incorporate newcomers and outsiders. Thus, so far from being defined by ethnic or even broader cultural boundaries, the Roman state was continually replenished and revitalized by new blood drawn from its subject provinces. As early as 200 BC the granting of Roman citizenship to outsiders was a recognized source of political resilience, and the strategy of inclusivity was particularly critical when a succession of imperial dynasties, which began with Augustus, took over from the earlier republican system of government. Although the privileges of citizenship became less significant in the late empire, the habit of absorbing new human resources from marginal areas was ingrained, and was exemplified throughout late antiquity in the relationships between the Roman Empire and its barbarian neighbors. Moreover regional differentiation within and between provinces was overridden by the emergence of hierarchies throughout the empire that conformed to one another and to a Roman archetype. Provincial societies, both in the eastern and in the western empire, were highly stratified, with a massive and growing gulf between the rich and the poor. The richest property owners, who controlled most of the empire’s resources, were those most closely aligned with the ideals and objectives of the Roman state.
Equally important for the longevity of the Roman Empire was an evolving mastery of the arts of hegemonic rule. In the initial phases of conquest there was a greater emphasis on outright military power. This was achieved not simply by the courage and commitment of citizen soldiers and by ambitious and talented military leaders, but by a much higher degree of military organization than was achieved by other ancient states. After the creation of the monarchic system by Augustus this experience and talent for organization was transferred to the mechanisms which were devised for ruling provinces, assessing and collecting taxation, and developing a universal legal system. The empire combined Greek political ideas, including theories about just rulership, with a practical attention, based on experience, to the crafts of administration.
The emperors also adapted techniques, which had been honed in the eastern monarchies, for projecting an ideal image of the rulers, which embodied their imperial might. These conveyed a fundamental message that the earthly empire was sustained as part of an overall structure of cosmic order, and that harmony and stability was guaranteed by a religious compact between the rulers of men and the divine world. As the Roman polity developed into a worldwide empire increasing emphasis was placed on the state religion. It was an article of faith that Rome’s success was due to the support of the gods. Roman emperors were seen as controlling all religious activity in their territories, and were regarded as custodians of a pact with the gods, the pax deorum. This central feature of the ideology of Roman rule was projected in all the available media of imperial propaganda: panegyric speeches, the designs of buildings and sculptures, commemorative inscriptions, the legends and designs used on Roman coinage.
These structural features are clearly identifiable in the history of late antiquity. Rome’s empire and the opposing eastern empire of the Sassanians in Persia continued to be the dominant powers, and they set the framework within which large scale interstate activity took place. Rome continued to control her subjects by deploying organized military power, by employing the sophisticated machinery of government and administration, and above all by maintaining an ideology of empire that was rarely called into question. During late antiquity, when the Roman world, and especially the Roman state, became Christian, the substance and form of this ideology inevitably changed, but the significance of religion in maintaining the Roman Empire increased. The city-states of the earlier classical periods were still the most important settlements and communities of most of the ancient world, especially in the eastern parts of the Roman Empire, but they too underwent radical changes. They lost most of their political independence and the right to self-determination. But they remained for most people the most important fora of social, economic, and religious activity and retained their overall importance within the wider scheme of ancient civilization.
Historical circumstances brought about a major geo-political split between the western and eastern parts of the Roman Empire. Between the fourth and the seventh centuries, German-speaking tribes such as the Alemanni, Franks, Vandals, and Goths, the Huns, Alans, and Avars, who had moved west from central Asia, and the Slavs and Turks, broke through the old frontiers of the Rhine and Danube rivers. As the northern boundary of the empire collapsed, much of the Balkan region slipped from Roman control, and regular overland communications between east and west were seriously threatened. While the former eastern provinces of Asia Minor, the Near East, and Egypt remained relatively unscathed, the western empire proved unable to defend itself militarily from the barbarian newcomers. Accordingly, Rome devised new strategies of accommodation, by which the barbarian peoples were integrated into the western classical world. The major Germanic tribes divided up large parts of Roman territory into kingdoms, although they continued in most cases to acknowledge the sovereignty of the emperors. Roman military and political weakness in the west thus led to the abandonment of the former Roman provinces in Britain, Gaul, Spain, and the Danubian region. Even Italy itself was relinquished after the fall of the last western emperor in 476. But the idea of a unified empire, including these territories, was never abandoned, and during the sixth century the emperor Justinian made a partially successful attempt to reunite eastern and western territories under a revived system of direct imperial rule.
The Roman state during this period was anything but weak and degenerate. The empire was resilient and highly effective. Emperors, whatever their individual qualities, generally had long reigns. Internal conflict and civil war between rival contenders for power extended through the third and fourth centuries, but the imperial system as such was not called into question. Remarkably, the same situation can be observed both in Sassanian Persia, Rome’s eastern counterpart, and in the major Germanic kingdoms which were established in north Africa and western Europe. Their rulers too evolved ideological and administrative systems which provided long periods of stability.
World History
