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Text | Historic Exploration
Edit | Historic Exploration
Italy was the core region of the Western Roman Empire, and the political decline of this region was due to a variety of factors. The political necessity of partition led to a decline in the administrative status of Italy.
The constant lack of territory of the Western Roman Empire made the former territory of the Western Roman Empire unwhole, and the Italian region could not represent the former Western Roman Empire.
1. The loss of Italy's centrality
This trend was already evident before Odoacer took power in Italy, and when he came to power, it was natural that the political changes in Italy should not be extended to the great changes produced by the Roman Empire.
The weakening of political status due to the partition of regions was the first to occur, and the city of Rome is the best representative of the Italian region. Even though the city of Rome was so symbolic to the Roman world.
Before the establishment of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, many Roman emperors had been tired of saddle horses for a long time, struggling to secure the borders of the empire.
Marcus Aurelius spent most of his later years in a military camp in the nearby Germania region, where Trier became a major military town of the Roman Empire and where the Roman emperor was in charge of government affairs.
The Empire's subdivisional jurisdiction tended to be more and more pronounced. The partition of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires led to the emergence of two capitals and two governments in the Roman Empire, and the core position of Italy was naturally diluted.
Although the Eastern and Western Roman Empires remained closely connected and aided each other most of the time. However, different governments meant different political cores, and the Eastern Roman Empire's attention to the Italian region was limited.
The change in the capital of the Western Roman Empire also speaks volumes. During the time of Honorius, the capital of the Western Roman Empire changed from Rome to Ravenna. The move was the result of a political and military catastrophe, when the Visigoths Alaric started a war in Italy, occupied the city of Rome, and even briefly installed a puppet emperor.
Alaric's military campaign was a great blow to the authority of the Western Roman Empire. The fall of Rome had a very bad political repercussions, but Honorius chose to take refuge in Ravenna and abandon the confrontation with Alaric.
Ravenna's proximity to the Adriatic Sea made it easy to receive aid from the Eastern Roman Empire, and the proximity to swamps made the city difficult to defend. Ravenna later officially assumed the role of capital of the Western Roman Empire.
The location of the capital for security reasons foreshadowed the fragility of the Western Roman Empire. Rome's military capabilities could not even protect Italy from war, let alone the rest of the Western Roman Empire from barbarians.
The continuous loss of land in the Western Roman Empire was the main reason for the loss of Italy's central position. Once too much land is lost, and the decree of Italy no longer covers the rest of the Western Roman Empire, then Italy can no longer be called the core area.
In 406 AD, the Vandals, Suebi, Alans, and other barbarian tribes united to cross the Rhine and penetrate deep into the Western Roman Empire. At that time, Stirricus was focusing on the recovery of Illyria, and this "catastrophe" was often used to refute Stirrico's failure to defend the border, but it also showed that the military strength of the Roman Empire was stretched and the border defense was difficult. "
This complex conglomerate of Germanic groups reached Gaul first, with some of the Alans remaining in Gaul and the Vandals and Suebi entering the Iberian Peninsula.
During Aetius' struggle with Berniface, the Vandals took advantage of the situation to enter North Africa. After the baptism of the Vandals, Spain was ruled by the Visigoths. In the course of their conflict with the Western Roman Empire, the Visigoths migrated from Italy to Gaul and finally into Spain.
Gaul was the last to break away from the Western Roman Empire, thanks to Aetius' Gallic policy. As the political foundation of Aetius, Gaul was well protected, although it was a necessary place for the barbarians who migrated westward.
The proximity to Italy brought Gaul closer to Italy, and the proximity of Gaul to the border was exploited by Aetius as an advantage for receiving military aid from the Huns.
Aetius's efforts allowed Gaul to survive a series of infiltrations and onslaughts, and it was not until the end of the Western Roman Empire that most of Gaul became the territory of the barbarian kingdoms.
Several attempts by the Roman Empire to regain lost territory failed, and the alliance between the Vandals and the Alans was counterattacked by the Western Roman Empire in Spain, but Spain was still free from the control of the Western Roman Empire. In Gaul and Spain, the Visigoths who had settled there were attacked by the combined forces of Aetius and the Huns, and as the Visigoths thwarted the attack, the Roman counteroffensive was halted.
During the reigns of Emperor Theodosius II of the Eastern Roman Empire, Emperor Leo launched a large-scale military campaign to reconquest North Africa. These two military operations also ended in failure.
The Roman Empire's failure to reconquista exacerbated its decline. The barbarians went their own way in the areas they occupied, and the political groups that had supported the rule of the Roman Empire gradually turned to cooperate with the barbarians.
The wealthiest class in the cities, who bear a large share of the tax, has previously suffered financially as a result of the tax apportionment, and has become an unpaid "hereditary servant" of the state.
"With the arrival of the barbarians, this chain of interests was broken. The emergence of barbarian power in the Western Empire in the 5th century can reasonably be seen as opening a pre-existing fault line between the central and local Roman landlord classes.
Maintaining the loyalty of landlords, some of whom were hundreds of miles away, was not an easy task, and it was not easy to maintain the balance between coercion and incentives.
In addition, in southern Gaul, Italy, and Spain, a considerable number of Roman landowners chose to bet on the new local powers. As a result, they remained the landowning class in the post-Roman era.
In this way, at the end of the process, a characteristic peaceful character emerged, and in fact the upper echelons of Rome were transformed from the Roman Empire into the arms of the barbarian courts.
As the Western Roman Empire's ability to control land continued to decline, the Western Roman government, with Italy at its core, existed in name only. No legislature was recognized, no centrally controlled tax system fed a centrally controlled professional army, and participation in bureaucracy, the military, and court politics was interrupted.
The remaining Roman landowners were too busy pursuing their personal interests at the court of the New Kingdom to care about the core system of the unified empire. Peter Heather called this process the destruction of Central Rome.
As a result of this change, Italy lost its place in the western world, and Odoacer inherited not a complete Western Roman Empire, but only an Italian region that had lost its central position.
II. Changes in the political power of Italy
As the decline of the Western Roman Empire intensified, so did the balance of political power in Italy. First of all, the Roman senators still played an important role in Italy and held the vast majority of the wealth.
The political power of the barbarians in Italy was expanding, and so were their economic needs and political ambitions.
Despite the decline of the Roman Empire, the wealth of the Roman senators still accounted for a large proportion of the Roman world's wealth.
The estate of Petronius Probus, the most prominent statesman of the 4th century, in the 70s of the century, was "scattered in almost every corner of the Roman world".
The situation in different regions has led people to adopt different local strategies to survive and promote their own interests. Local landlords represented those who had succeeded under the political order of the Roman Empire.
As a group, most of them would lose their place in the political revolution represented by the destruction of the empire. Those who got the most from the old system embraced it the longest.
The army was the main way for the barbarians to integrate into the Roman Empire, and Emperor Theodosius adopted a policy of softness towards the Goths, who had suffered heavy losses to the Roman legions at the Battle of Adriaple.
At the beginning of the barbarian alliances, the assimilation of the barbarians by the Roman Empire was successful. Barbarian soldiers identified themselves as Romans, and even more so officers who served in the Roman army, who were reluctant to return to their own ethnic group or homeland when they retired, preferring to retire in the Roman Empire.
However, the alliance system made a bad start, as barbarian soldiers were recruited individually as individuals, while the alliance system recruited soldiers in groups.
The Roman army commanders were of course appointed by Rome and provided the equipment and training for them, but the status of the generals who commanded the barbarian soldiers changed, and the barbarian leaders could become the commanders of the armies of the barbarian allies, as was Araric.
The impact of the alliance system on the independence of the barbarians was also far-reaching, and they maintained the independence of a group within the empire, occupied land, and had an internal management mechanism, which was almost equivalent to a state within a state, and can also be seen as the prototype of the later barbarian kingdom.
In the 5th century, the participation of barbarians in politics also changed. The Roman local regimes became more dependent on the barbarians, and regimes that were largely independent of the barbarian settlers were only in vogue in the early 5th century, and after 450 they ceased to exist and the barbarian settlers were included in their regime.
The dramatic change in the nature of the regime has produced important results. No supporter wants to support a regime that is a dime a dime. Thus, one consequence of the inclusion of migrants in the government consortium is that the amount of returns they expect is increasing day by day.
In the west, simplistic, hereditary administrative systems developed with the collapse of imperial power. With real power in the hands of landed soldiers, the rulers of the government thereafter had to please them for support.
On the one hand, the Roman senators were inclined to maintain the old order, and on the other hand, the barbarians were eager for more political and economic benefits, and the changes in political power in Italy had a profound impact on the authorities in Italy.
summary
Odoac's control of the Italian region was aided by the support of the Italian barbarians. Since Orester rejected the Barbarian allies' land claims, Odoac had the possibility of gaining support through the Barbarians.
The Barbarian allies certainly did not have a favorable opinion of Orest's son, Emperor Romulus, and would support the deposition of Romulus.
Another reason is that the Barbarian Leaguers have become the main military force in Italy, and there is little power left to hinder the further demands of the Barbarian Leaguers.
After Odoacer took power, the Roman senators would become an important part of Odoac's regime, and the interests of the barbarians needed to be met first, but the Roman senators could not be ignored either, and maintaining a delicate balance was of paramount importance to Odoac.
bibliography
[1] Chen Zhiqiang, A General History of the Byzantine Empire, Shanghai: Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2013. [2] Liu Yangang, The Nightmare of the Roman Empire, Marcellinus's Eastern Wars and the Oriental Barbarians, Shanghai: Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2018.
[3] Wang Mingke, The Nomad's Choice: Facing the Nomadic Tribes of North Asia in the Han Empire, Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2008.
[4] Li Yun, Outline of Roman History, Changsha: Yuelu Publishing House, 2021.
[5] Yang Gongle, Outline of the History of Rome, Beijing: The Commercial Press, 2015.
[6] Yang Gongle, History of Ancient Rome, Beijing: Beijing Normal University Press, 2021.
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