Several good reasons could be urged for the removal of the world's metropolis from the Tiber to the Bosporus. The Roman Empire was ceasing to be one empire. Constan- Foundation of tine wanted a great city for the eastern half to Constantinople balance Rome in the western half. Again, Constantinople, far more than Rome, was the military center of the empire. Rome lay too far from the vulnerable frontiers; Constantinople occupied a position about equidistant from the Germans on the lower Danube and the Persians on the Euphrates. Finally, Constantine believed that Christianity, which he wished to become the prevailing religion, would encounter less opposition and criticism in his new city than at Rome, with its pagan atmosphere and traditions. Constantinople was to be not simply a new seat of government but also distinctively a Christian capital. Such it remained for more than eleven centuries.1 After Con 395 A.D. After the death of Constantine the Roman world again. entered on a period of disorder. The inroads of the Germans across the Danube and the Rhine threatened the European provinces of the empire with dissolu- stantine, 337tion. The outlook in the Asiatic provinces, overrun by the Persians, was no less gloomy. Meanwhile the eastern and western halves of the empire tended more and more to grow apart. The separation between the two had become well marked by the close of the fourth century. After the death of the emperor Theodosius (395 A.D.) there came to be in fact, if not in name, a Roman Empire in the East and a Roman Empire in the West. More than four hundred years had now elapsed since the battle of Actium made Octavian supreme in the Roman world. If we except the abandonment of Trajan's con- Political situ'quests beyond the Danube and the Euphrates, ation in 395 no part of the huge empire had as yet succumbed to its enemies. The subject peoples, during these four centuries, had not tried to overthrow the empire or to withdraw from 1 Until the capture of the city by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 A.D. 2 See pages 200, 219. A.D. its protection. The Roman state, men believed, would endure forever. Yet the times were drawing nigh when the old order of things was to be broken up; when barbarian invaders were to seize the fairest provinces as their own; and when new kingdoms, ruled by men of Germanic speech, were to arise in lands that once obeyed Rome. 76. Economic and Social Conditions in the Third The "fall" of Rome Rome, it has been said, was not built in a day; the rule of Rome was not destroyed in a day. When we speak of the "fall" of Rome, we have in mind, not a violent catastrophe which suddenly plunged the civilized world into ruin, but rather the slow and gradual decay of ancient society throughout the basin of the Mediterranean. This decay set in long before the Germans and the Persians became a serious danger to the empire. It would have continued, doubtless, had there been no Germans and Persians to break through the frontiers and destroy. The truth seems to be that, during the third and fourth centuries of our era, classical civilization, like an overtrained athlete, had grown "stale." It is not possible to set forth all the forces which century after century had been sapping the strength of the state. The Depopulation due to the slave system most obvious element of weakness was the want of men to fill the armies and to cultivate the fields. The slave system seems to have been partly responsible for this depopulation. The peasant on his little homestead could not compete with the wealthy noble whose vast estates were worked by gangs of slaves. The artisan could not support himself and his family on the pittance that kept his slave competitor alive. Peasants and artisans gradually drifted into the cities, where the public distributions of grain, wine, and oil assured them of a living with little expense and almost without exertion. In both Italy and the provinces there was a serious decline in the number of free farmers and free workingmen. But slavery was not the only cause of depopulation. There was a great deal of what has been called "race suicide" in the old Roman world. Well-to-do people, who could "Race easily support large families, often refused to be suicide" burdened with them. Childlessness, however, was not confined to the wealthy, since the poorer classes, crowded in the huge lodging houses of the cities, had no real family life. Roman emperors, who saw how difficult it was to get a sufficient number of recruits for the army, and how whole districts were going to waste for lack of people to cultivate them, tried to repopulate the empire by force of law. They imposed penalties for the childlessness and celibacy of the rich, and founded institutions for the rearing of children, that the poor might not fear to raise large families. Such measures were scarcely successful. "Race suicide" continued during pagan times and even during the Christian age. The next most obvious element of weakness was the shrinkage of the revenues. The empire suffered from want of money, as well as from want of men. To meet the heavy cost Loss of of the luxurious court, to pay the salaries of the revenues swarms of public officials, to support the idle populace in the great cities required a vast annual income. But just when public expenditures were rising by leaps and bounds, it became harder and harder to secure sufficient revenue. Smaller numbers meant fewer taxpayers. Fewer taxpayers meant a heavier burden on those who survived to pay. These two forces - the decline in population and the decline in wealth worked together to produce economic ruin. It is no wonder, therefore, that in province after province Economic large tracts of land went out of cultivation, that ruin the towns decayed, and that commerce and manufactures suffered an appalling decline. "Hard times" settled on the Roman world. Doubtless still other forces were at work to weaken the state and make it incapable of further resistance Influence of to the barbarians. Among such forces we must Christianity reckon Christianity itself. By the close of the fourth century Christianity had become the religion of the empire. The new faith, as we shall soon see, helped, not to support, but rather to undermine, pagan society. Decline of paganism 77. The Preparation for Christianity Several centuries before the rise of Christainity many Greek thinkers began to feel a growing dissatisfaction with the crude faith that had come down to them from prehistoric times. They found it more and more difficult to believe in the Olympian deities, who were fashioned like themselves and had all the faults of mortal men.1 An adulterous Zeus, a bloodthirsty Ares, and a scolding Hera, as Homer represents them, were hardly divinities that a cultured Greek could love and worship. For educated Romans, also, the rites and ceremonies of the ancient religion came gradually to lose their meaning. The worship of the Roman gods had never appealed to the emotions. Now it tended to pass into the mere mechanical repetition of prayers and sacrifices. Even the worship of the Cæsars, which did much to hold the empire together, failed to satisfy the spiritual wants of mankind. It made no appeal to the moral nature; it brought no message, either of fear or hope, about a future world and a life beyond the grave. Stoicism During these centuries a system of Greek philosophy, called Stoicism, gained many adherents among the Romans. Any one who will read the Stoic writings, such as those of the noble emperor, Marcus Aurelius, will see how nearly Christian was the Stoic faith. It urged men to forgive injuries to "bear and forbear." It preached the brotherhood of man. It expressed a humble and unfaltering reliance on a divine Providence. To many persons of refinement Stocism became a real religion. But since Stoic philosophy could reach and influence only the educated classes, it could not become a religion for all sorts and conditions of men. Many Greeks found a partial satisfaction of their religious longings in secret rites called mysteries. Of these the most 3 See page 201. 1 See page 77. 2 See page 196. |