Afterword: The Reasons for the Decline of the Roman Empire
The British historian Gibbon, in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, divides Roman history into three stages. The first stage is the first four centuries, when the Romans gained a foothold in the Italian peninsula with experience in warfare and governance, the second stage, the next three centuries, the defeat of enemies on all sides, across Europe, Asia and Africa, and the last 300 years, which are consumed in superficial prosperity and internal corruption.
The last 300 years began at the end of the 2nd century and the beginning of the 3rd century. In this era, the Germanic barbarians in the north began to invade on a large scale, and the borders of the empire began to be unstable, and later Western Rome died at the hands of the Germanic barbarians, so some people explain the reason for the fall of Rome in one word: barbarian invasion.
Of course, this is only an external factor, and corruption is the root cause of the empire's decline. Gibbon said that the Guard's lawlessness and political abuse were the symptoms and causes of the decline of the Roman Empire. The shameful auction of the throne by the Guards in 193 AD was a symbolic scene of the fall of the Roman Empire.
The first emperor, Augustus, established the Guards to defend his power, but also posed a deadly threat to himself. The Guards, who were stationed in the city and had nothing to do, spied on the weakness of the civil officials, knew all about the immorality and evil deeds of their masters, and became more and more arrogant and complacent, so that the emperor had to accommodate their deviance, and even buy unreliable loyalty with large rewards. Since Claudius ascended to the throne in the 1st century, a reward had been given to each new emperor who ascended the throne, and this became a legitimate claim of the Guard. The Roman Guard, similar to the Shence Army controlled by eunuchs in the late Tang Dynasty, swelled to the point of controlling the deposition of the emperor. Of course, the corrupt Roman Guards were not the main force of the army, and if the emperor was not recognized by the frontier legions, a civil war broke out, which later evolved into a situation in which the legions continued to support the emperor. An 18th-century writer commented: "What is an emperor? It is nothing more than the military electing agents of a tyrannical government for private gain!"
Civil strife coupled with external worries, constant wars, withering people's livelihoods, inflation, economic deterioration, coupled with an increase in the number of troops, has increased the cost of national defense. The wool comes out of the sheep, and the burden on the people is even heavier, falling into a vicious circle. The emperor had to implement a series of reforms to cope with the declining situation. These reforms had their pros and cons, some of which worked in the short term, but in the long run, hastened the collapse of the empire.
In 212 AD, Caracalla issued the Edict of Antoninus, which stipulated that all free persons living in the Roman Empire had Roman citizenship. Caracalla explained in the announcement:
I should not only share the responsibility of protecting the Empire with my subjects, but also share the honor of the Empire with them. With this decree, honors that were once enjoyed only by Roman citizens will now be bathed equally in every citizen.
It was a decree of trans-epochal significance, and Caracalla was literally enacted in the spirit of egalitarian idealism. Perhaps his idea was to curry favor with the inhabitants of the province at large, to gain support and to arouse their patriotic fervor. Since the founding of the country, Rome has taken the assimilation of the losers as a national policy, granting Roman citizenship to people of different regions, different nationalities, and different cultures, and gradually snowballing into a great power across Europe, Asia and Africa. Of course, the expansion of citizenship was a long struggle, and the native Italians fought for it from Latin to Roman citizenship after two years of the War of the League. When Caesar granted Roman citizenship and a seat in the Senate to the Gallic elders, he was hated by conservatives and became one of the reasons for his assassination. But when Roman citizenship was granted to all freemen without discrimination, and the policy was opened to the last level, there were unexpected results.
The Roman Empire was a hierarchical society, consisting of Roman citizens, provincial residents, emancipated slaves, and slaves. After the War of the League, all Latin citizens in Italy had become Roman citizens. Provincial residents were required to pay a provincial tax of 10% of their income, which amounted to a protection fee, because the Roman legions were formed by citizen soldiers to defend their homes and countries. However, after the reform of the army, the legionnaires were changed from one-year compulsory soldiers to 20-year professional soldiers, and Roman citizens were exempted from the obligation to serve as soldiers without paying provincial taxes. During the reign of Augustus, Roman citizens were given a 5% levy on inheritance and emancipation to pay pensions to retired soldiers. The 30 legions were not enough to defend the vast frontier, so the inhabitants of the province formed auxiliary legions, and after 25 years of service, they automatically acquired Roman citizenship and could pass on their status to future generations. Slaves who serve for a certain period of time, with the consent of their masters, can be freed to become emancipated slaves, start a family, have children, and accumulate a certain amount of assets, and then they can obtain citizenship. Caesar also granted citizenship to teachers, physicians, and practitioners to meet educational and medical needs. Therefore, the social hierarchy of Rome maintained a certain fluidity, and there was an upward passage and hope at the bottom. However, when all people were equal, the original owners of citizenship felt that their rights and interests had been lost, the legionnaires lost their sense of class superiority and sense of responsibility to defend their homes and the country, and the residents of the province lost the desire to work hard because of the easy access to their rights. Rome's most characteristic social mobility disappeared and various contradictions erupted after social rigidity.
The most immediate consequence is fiscal deterioration. The provincial tax of 10% was a stable fixed tax, and Caracalla abolished the inheritance tax and the emancipation tax to 10%. As a result of this policy, historians such as Gibbon have speculated that Caracalla's purpose in issuing this edict was to generate revenue, as citizenship was extended to all residents of the provinces, and inheritance and emancipation taxes were also extended. However, the inheritance tax and the emancipation tax were one-time, and the inheritance of the immediate family did not need to pay taxes, and in the third century, there were fewer and fewer slaves, and the tax source of the emancipation tax was greatly reduced. In addition, due to the abolition of the difference in status between auxiliary soldiers and legionnaires, the income and benefits have been raised, and military spending will inevitably increase greatly. This policy directly led to a reduction in taxation and an increase in spending, and if Caracalla was not too bad at mathematics, he would not have made such a low-level mistake. Therefore, some people think that he issued the edict in the spirit of idealism. As Caesar famously said, "Every decision that leads to a bad outcome has good intentions." Although Caracalla is brutal and ruthless, he is also a hot-blooded young man in his early 20s, lacking an understanding of the grassroots and human nature, and makes hasty decisions with a pat on the head. In order to make up for the fiscal shortfall, he had to increase various temporary military taxes, and the damage caused to the people by this irregular and non-transparent tax system can be imagined. After Caracalla's assassination, the inheritance tax and the emancipation tax were restored to 5%, but the citizenship rights could not be recovered, and the provincial tax could not be collected, which brought endless consequences to the Roman Empire.
Another far-reaching reform is the military. The main arms of the Roman legions were the hoplites formed by the citizen soldiers, and the auxiliary regiments formed by the provincial soldiers were light infantry, both supplemented by a certain amount of cavalry. In order to cope with the barbarian cavalry assault, Rome gradually developed cavalry as the main branch of the army, and severed the relationship between the senate and the army, and the senior military officials were no longer selected from the senate, but directly appointed by the emperor. The traditional cultivation of talents in Rome is that both the administration and the military must be trained, and the training goal is to cultivate all-round talents in civil and military affairs. The senators, who enjoyed life in the capital, lost the power of the army and the opportunity to exercise, and became even more corrupt and incompetent. The officers became pure warriors, and the emperors were almost all soldiers, and all of them were cavalry captains. The Roman army was no longer at a speed disadvantage and could repel the invading barbarians, but it could not change the situation in which the battlefield was located within the borders, and could not attack and defend as in the past.
In addition, making peace with the barbarians, paying tribute to them, and allowing them to settle in the frontier also achieved the effect of maintaining peace and stability in a short period of time, but in the long run, it was also one of the factors leading to their demise.
In the 4th century, Rome would also undergo more large-scale reforms depending on the situation. But from the 3rd century onwards, Rome was no longer able to fall down and get up again and again, as it had been in the previous millennium. The root cause of Rome's downhill path was the corruption of man. Just like in ancient China, after the corruption and degeneration of the ruling class, it fell into a cycle of dynastic change.
Gibbon said that the people of this century had the name of the Roman, but they did not have the spirit of the Romans.