DanM

The only possble chance the Romans of the 5th and 6th centuries would have had to defeat the Persians would have required two things happening at the same time. First, they would have needed a military commander on par with Belisaurius or Heraclius to have complete control of the army and no pressure along the European front. Second, they would have needed a period of relative instability within the Persian Empire. Either a civil war over a disputed succession, a weak and unpopular king or a widespread invasion like those of the White Huns along the eastern flank of the Persian Empire. The Persian Empire was a patchwork of fiefdoms and principalities. As such, it required the firm hand of a strong monarch. Otherwise, it had great difficulty mobilizing its resources. Think of the 16th or 17th century Polish Kingdoms and I believe you will have a good idea of what the Persian Empire would have been like without a strong King. Only if the Romans were ably led by a united military command in a period of relative peace on other fronts and facing a divided Persian army could they possibly hope to win a crushing victory. Even then, its highly unlikely they could muster the manpower to hold their gains unless they could win the loyalty of enough Persian nobles. It all comes down to the material strength that could be mustered by the Empire at this time. Any strategy that does not take these limitations into account is little more than wild fantasy.

My point was to say that a common mistake of historians and anthropologists is to try to place other peoples within their context of values and when these people do not easily fit, they too often try to make them fit. This means revisionist history and that, of course, means bad history. To either assume that Romans lived by our moral standards or assume they were just like some more modern form of evil are both equally distortive and equally bad ways to attempt to understand them. To me, it would make a lot more sense to ask ourselves what sort of values conditioned the Romans to accept the cultural norms of their time with respect to sex, violence, civic duty, etc, instead of just labeling these guys and moving on. Thats too easy and, in my opinion, lazy. It might make some people uncomfortable to recognize some of the more destructive and violent elements within all of us. The parts of human nature we are not proud of possessing. These things are largely controlled by the conditioning we received as we were raised in our modern culture, but each one of us would have been capable of things we may not want to admit if we had simply been conditioned differently. So before you condemn these guys too quickly, ask yourself what you might do if you had been taught a different set of values.

It was in A.H.M. Jones' "The Later Roman Empire" Volume I. The specific things I was looking at were on pages 438 and 439. Now that I look at it again, I notice that there are some things referred to simply as nummi and others that are given a modifyer such as "The Aurelianic nummus", the "centenionales nummi". None of it is crystal clear from a quick skim and, unfortunately, I do not have the time for a more detailed examination since my home is in danger of flooding this weekend and I am busy packing. Do me a favor and take a look at those pages if you get a chance. Maybe I misread something. It wouldn't be the first time.

Thats cool. I am pretty set in my opinion that Justinian ruined the later Empire so I guess we are all entitled to our views.

They had all sorts of technological breakthroughs, but they failed to exploit them beyond the point of making cool toys. I don't know what it was that kept them from using known technologies such as steam power, but I believe this missing thing would have kept them from expoiting electricity as well. At least until something changed in Roman society.

All very good points Ursus. I think you hit the similarities to other religions and schools of thought right on the head. Augustine of Hippo was one of the most influential early Christian thinkers and he borrowed heavily from neoplatonic thought. I know he isn't the only example, but he is an easily recognizable one. And I believe Peter Brown talked a bit about how Christianity was opposed by the conservatives somewhat because it brought ethical values to the masses where neoplationic values an ethics had previously been a way to seperate the upper classes from the masses. Its been at least a year since I have read anything by Peter Brown so I might be a little fuzzy here. As for Christianity and the fighting spirit of the citizens, thats just BS. First, look at great Christian Emperors of the later period like Heraclius and Nicephorus Phocas (I seriously doubt I spelled his name correctly). Second, you have to look at he reduction in pay, supplies and equipment that also contributed to the lower desire of men to join the army. Finally, there was a manpower shortage and many wealthy Roman landowners would not let their coloni join the army and would do anything possible to prevent their joining. Using Christianity as a scape goat is just a weak attempt to find a simple solution to a complex problem.

Cool pic, but he kinda looks the way I imagine an Australian pimp would look. lol

I agree that he has not gotten the recognition he deserves. Yes he was alive at the end. To top it off, his attempts to heal the monophysite schism failed around this same time and his health was really, really bad. A lot of the more imaginative Byzantines thought it was all part of curse because he married his niece or cousin or something like that. It was a very sad end for a great emperor and a great man.

I agree, but its hard to have a conversation with someone who is so indoctrinated into the cultural norms of today that they think these things are some sort of absolutes which must govern all societies. If the United States or any other nation assumed a foreign policy along the lines of the Romans, we would be viewed as the worst, most evil country to ever exist. People just can't seem to get it into their heads that most powerful nations were brutal until the 20th century and I think that misconception leads to a lot of misunderstandings about historical events and historical figures.

I just don't agree. The documentation shows that Cata and Cicero were just as greedy and grasping while govenors for the Republic as were the later Imperial govenors. I think much of the malaise you describe is more attributable to the evils of centralization. As the Imperial entourage and the govenors gained ever more power, their capacity to steal increased beyond the means of the Imperial economy. When you combine it with the fact that the Empire had relatively static borders after the time of Augustus, much of the booty that enriched the late Republican Romans was no longer available in the same quantities. The way I see it, the fatal flaw of the Empire is that it never learned how to centralize its power in a way that was economically sustainable. Without a more even/fair rule of law and a more bearable tax structure, the Empire really never had a chance and I think it was an amazing feat that it lasted as long as it did.

Agreed. Most expansionist governments showed a remarkable lack of care for human life until the 20th century, but I think they all differ in motives for their behavior an that is why the Nazis and the colonial empires such as the British are not comparable. The colonial powers were willing to be disrespectful of human life if it helped them make a a little money, but they weren't trying to exterminate anyone. Ditto for the Romans. Like the colonial powers of more recent times, it was a comercially motivated venture instead of some sort of racially motivated one. If any modern power could be called racists, then my country, the USA, has to be put high on the list. Our enslavement and later descrimination against people of African descent is impossible to defend as anything more than the exploitation of human life for profit. Also our treatment of the native population was closer to an act of genocide than anything the colonial powers did (except maybe for the Spanish). Don't get me wrong. I love my country. I just won't let that love blind me to our past misdeeds. And for my money, the Beligians, Spanish, Japanese and Turks were more brutal colonialists than the Brits. .........those darn Belgians!!!

I don't know of any such references, but I do know that some Roman coins made it to China as well as the Nestorian form of Christianity. My guess is that both were brought to China by Persian merchants, but I also assume that a handful of Romans probably reached China from time to time.

Yes he was. I rechecked my sources before I responded here to make sure I did not make some mistake. Chosroes, the favorite son but not the eldest son of Cavades rose to the throne in 531 AD and stayed on the throne until 579 AD. And the guy was an absolute stud. In my humble opinion he was one of the finest Persian kings of his era. Not really. It was all the Byzantines could do to hold their own against the Persians. Even the great Belisaurius had mixed success against the Persians. Simply put, the Roman troops of Justinian's era were of uneven quality and I would put the commanders in the same category. Belisarius was exceptional. Sittas and Mundus were very good, but both died too soon. Germanus was solid, but not of the same quality as the three previously mentioned. Of the rest, none was all that special. Not to mention the fact that the geography of the fertile crescent makes such a total victory as you suggest highly improbable. For most of their history of conflict, the Roman-Persian wars consisted of raids from secure fortress cities of either side along the Mesopotamian front. Justinian was able to conquer the west because of inherent weaknesses in the kingdoms of the west and because he had an exceptional military leader who did amazing things even though Justinian did not trust him enough to give him a free hand. The Vandals should have been able to beat the army of Belisaurius. It was only due to a series of very odd choices by Gelimer (the Vandal King) that Belisarius was able to win such a complete victory with such a small force. Ditto for the Goths. If they had been ably led, then th Romans would have not been able to take Italy. I think you completely overestimate the material strength of the Roman Empire at the time of Justinian. To even win the temporary gains in the west, he had to (1) pay incredible subsidies to the Persians for the "eternal" peace and (2) weaken the balkans defenses to the point where the area was virtually defenseless against barbarian raids.

Would you care to list the other reasons you see?

Then you would really love reading about the later Empire. There are so many theories on why it fell that you will almost never run out of ideas to ponder.

Once Choroses was firmly established upon the Persian throne, there was absolutely nothing Justinian could have done to conquer Persia. The Persian Kingdom was only vulnerable when it was ruled by a weak or unpopular King. The opportunities in the West were due to the opportunities created by those kingdoms as anything else. And much of the reason they proved so costly was due to strategic mistakes made by Justinian.

And don't forget that much of the money the Imperial government paid for equipment, pay and supplies never reached the men because greedy govenors and army officers stole it. The later Empire was a functioning kleptocracy. AHM Jones' "The Later Roman Empire" has a section on the decline of the limitanei of the later Empire. By the time of Justinian, a significant portion of the soldiers on the books (and payrolls) had little to no military value.

I gotta ask this question. Who is the guy in the photo attached to your letters?

Actually, the typical Roman was probably more familiar with the nummi than the sesterces. As for the Civil Wars, the later ones probably resulted in the need for in-kind transactions because of the raging inflation and massive devaluation of the currency. For a while, even the government took its taxes in kind and paid its bills in kind.

No problem at all. If you are interested, however, there is a very good book on the Berbers. Its titled "The Berbers" and its authors are Michael Brett and Elizabeth Fentress. I also liked Peter Brown's biography on Augustine of Hippo. It did a good job of explaining daily life in the later Empire as it related to the North African provinces. I can probably find more books that address Roman North Africa even if they are not dedicated to it. If you are interested, let me know.

But the legions of the Republic were of a homogeneous group of men. They were the same culturally, religously and were much more patriotic. The auxilluary forces were augmentations of an army that was essentially Roman. The Imperial armies were anything but a closely united group. Isurians, Armenians, Thracians, Germans, Arabs, Persians and a host of others all mixed together more like mercenaries than anything else. There was no ideological or cultural center to hold the men of the Imperial armies together as there had been with the Republic. Also, the pay and discipline were very different in the later days than the early ones. Yes the Republicans were able to augment the Roman army with foreign elements, but the Imperial army was little more than a patchwork of foreign elements. See the differnce? It wasn't until after the Arab conquests when the Empire was reduced to Asia Minor and parts of the Balkans that the troops became a more united and cohesive mix of men. Still, its hard to look at this as progress since it required the amputation of Syria and Egypt to accomplish it.

Darn! You took my answer. I was going to say lots of good reading material.