The Fall Of Rome Was By Barbarians

[DarkSpartan]

the legend of Spartacus lived on. For the Romans, the story of the slave revolt was an awful warning: it suggested that a society built on the backs of slaves might one day be overthrown by them. Four centuries later, this is exactly what happened, and Rome fell to the 'Barbarians'.

 

is this statement true? if not what do you believe contributed to the fall of rome

[Primus Pilus]

There is virtually no connection between Spartacus, slavery and the fall of Rome due to migrating Germanics. These Germanics were not slaves, and many were allied tribes who provided the bulk of Rome's military in the late western imperial era . The social and cultural dynamic was a completely different entity from the late republic until the late western era and aside from the contiguous history, there really is no truth in that statement.

 

Spartacus and the Third Servile Was was the last of the great slave rebellions. It never happened again. If you represent the 'plight' of the common man as akin to slavery, I suppose you could manipulate the statement to make your point, but as it stands I disagree completely.

[Virgil61]

The revolt of Spartacus isn't related to the incursions of Barbarian tribes centuries later. I google the quote, it's from a review of the movie Spartacus, sounds like the reviewer needs a history lesson.

 

You might want to do a search for previous threads on why the Roman Empire fell, there've been several.

[P.Clodius]

That's like blaming George Washington for the Great Depression

[Lost_Warrior]

I don't know if this is true or not (help me, someone?) but I've heard that the "barbarians" defeated the Romans by dropping out of trees onto their heads

[Favonius Cornelius]

I'm curious about something. During the last years of the Western Empire, were there major slave revolts, and did they join the now wandering tribes in their carving up of the Empire?

[Primus Pilus]

No, slave revolts had long since disappeared. As the west broke into a feudal system, slaves and the lower classes shifted into a different form of servitude, that of serfdom. Slaves, for simplicity purposes, essentially gained 'freedom' from bondage to individuals and families, and became bonded to the territories of feudal lords.

 

The growth of Christianity also played a major role, as the church was officially against the institution. Despite the hypocrisy of the church itself, and its priests, owning slaves its opposition helped to eradicate it. Unfortunately, one could argue that serfdom in the post Roman dark age era was a lesser position than that of a slave in the Imperial era.

[Ursus]

the legend of Spartacus lived on. For the Romans, the story of the slave revolt was an awful warning: it suggested that a society built on the backs of slaves might one day be overthrown by them. Four centuries later, this is exactly what happened, and Rome fell to the 'Barbarians'.

 

is this statement true? if not what do you believe contributed to the fall of rome

I really think this is from left field.

 

Unless you want to get Nietzschean and say the "slave morality" of new religious cults triumphed over the master moralty of the old guard.

[Hamilcar Barca]

Who ever said that slaves caued the downfall of Rome is an igonorant fool.

[Felix Marcellus]

I don't think the guy who started this post was implying that actual slaves caused the downfall of Rome. I think he's trying to extrapolate the irony out of the fact that Rome (Western Empire anyway) was finally conquered by barbarians.... Who in Rome's better days potentially would've been Roman slaves.

 

This thread only works if you believe the German Tribes would've been Roman Slaves if Rome was still at its height. It's possible.

 

I think if you're looking for Irony it would perhaps be better to make a statement saying, "The Romans achieved their dominance by fending off and subsequently conquering barbarian nations such as Gaul, Briton, parts of Germania, Illyria, etc. Who would've thought that centuries later it would've been barbarians that finally brought about Rome's downfall.

 

After all, barbarians weren't the only ones taken as slaves by Rome. Carthaginians were enslaved, Greeks were enslaved. I know the Romans saw the Carthaginians as barbarians, but realistically they were civilized people. As were the Greeks. So, comparing slaves to barbarians isn't really appropriate.

[Onasander]

Who ever said that slaves caued the downfall of Rome is an igonorant fool.

 

 

Hmmmm, perhaps it did. Had the roman's stuck to their old ways and kept all the vital work inhouse, manning their armies with their own people, farming their own fields, perhaps they would of stayed a vibrant, republican minded state.

[Hamilcar Barca]

Well if you choose to look at the question ultra loosely then tangify from it then I see how you could present a very warped argument in its favour; but I know many people who actually believe that slaves in the raditional sense took over the empire, having based their knowldege on a film made in the 60's

The way the quote was implied was that the Roman slaves revolted and conquered the empire in a way similar to what Spartacus probabaly dreamed of. Roman slaves did not conquer Rome.

 

Yes, the Goths and the Germans etc caused the eventual downfall of the empire but they were NOT slaves, they were slowly integrated within the borders of the empire after emperors had no choice but to except them owing to a series of unprecedented military reverses, the crucible of this attrition of course been the Adrianople disaster of 378. This empire may have lasted much longer had it not been for the absolutely apalling leadership of Theodosius' sons. Theodosius himself had practicly restored the empire by 390, crushing both rivals and invaders but Honorius and Arcadius were quick to change all that though... Within a year of the famed general Stilicho's murder by Honorius, Rome had been sacked. Of course Stilicho was a barbarian, but he considered himself Roman and was a loyal and brilliant commander, not like the later Richimer - the puppet master of the last 9 'emperors.'

[Demson]

After all, barbarians weren't the only ones taken as slaves by Rome. Carthaginians were enslaved, Greeks were enslaved. I know the Romans saw the Carthaginians as barbarians, but realistically they were civilized people. As were the Greeks. So, comparing slaves to barbarians isn't really appropriate.

 

 

Celts, Germanics, Iberians, etc. were not civilised?

 

Of coure not. They wore fur loincloths and spend their days headbutting each other over the domination of females. Right? Right?

[Northern Neil]

To pick up on an earlier point, it seems to me that the Celts (far from being barbarians) were civilised in every sense of the word. Their organisation of minor kingdoms centred on large hillforts seems, to me, to be similar to the Greek system of city states. Given that there are indications that the larger hillforts had public buildings and acted as a central distribution point for food and supplies, the similarity grows stronger still. The only difference, I suggest, is that literacy was not widespread. Indeed, the Romans kept the existing tribal administration, centering it on towns such as Verulamium, Lyons and Paris.

 

Back to the point, it is still widespread to regard, like Gibbon, the end of the Antonine period as being the start of the 'decline'. Far from it - In 300 AD there was absolutely nothing to indicate that the West would start to fragment a century later. Indeed, 'Romania' was flourishing. The 'golden age' was an anomalous time in which the Parthians / Persians constituted no significant threat, and power was centralised into one regime. It could be said that the 3rd century 'anarchy' and the resulting system of rule by two or more emperors was a return to form, echoing the days when Sulla, Crassus, Pompey, Caesar and others jointly ruled the republic with their rivals.

 

The 'super - tribes' such as the Visigoths and Allemanni had, by the 5th century, acquired a lot of adherents who were indeed former slaves, and even disaffected Romans. I believe that the partial Romanisation of the Barbarians was instrumental in bringing about the collapse of the West. They wanted to be an active part of it, rather than to destroy it. Problem was, as tax revenues from the lost provinces dried up (along with the grain, which was diverted to the east by the Romans themselves) the western empire suffered an economic collapse, which in turn between 406 and 476 increasingly rendered the state unable to cope with the financial burden of maintaining an army capable of defending the empire against the barbarians. The only solution was to employ the barbarians themselves, which led directly to the formation of the independent germanic kingdoms. Peter Heather in his recent book 'The Fall of the Roman Empire' champions this theory.

[longbow]

Of coure not. They wore fur loincloths and spend their days headbutting each other over the domination of females.

 

Lmao