I once saw a saying to describe the software industry: from the beginning of development, after continuous iteration, after a period of time, software has long been unrecognizable. In fact, if you generalize, everything applies to this statement, more common such as mobile phones.
When mobile phones first appeared, their most important function was to make calls, and until the first decade of the twenty-first century, their functions were still mainly telephone calls. However, in less than two decades, today's mobile phones have already undergone earth-shaking changes, and the once most important function has long lost its status.
This is just a common phenomenon, and there are many subtle changes that we have not noticed. Through the cumulative changes, the world as we know it has changed. If the time scale is extended, the same is true for a huge empire, and the historical situation of the empire is always emotional.
Like the Roman Empire, which had a huge influence on European history, its changes are as unforgettable as the vicissitudes of the sea.
In the late Roman Empire, barbarians who had lived in Central and Eastern Europe poured into the empire, shattering the Roman Empire into pieces. Even the barbarians built their kingdoms on the ruins of the Roman Empire, showing the Romans their achievements as victors.
Two hundred years back, the Romans, despite the rampant internal tyranny, had difficulty mobilizing the full power of the empire. However, the rulers were still able to gain the advantage of war against the barbarians, could not effectively maintain the stability of the frontier, and once had the ability to penetrate deep into the barbarian living areas, and may incorporate their territories into the rule of the Roman Empire.
With the exception of the barbarians, in these two hundred years, the Romans completely lost the foundation of their rise: the spirit of martial arts. The Roman legions, which had made the Mediterranean regions tremble, gradually became neither Roman nor legionnate.
By the fourth and fifth centuries AD, there were fewer and fewer Romans who had previously dominated the Roman legions, their proportion gradually decreased, and more and more barbarians from the frontier areas were brought into the Roman legions, and later even the defeated or allied barbarians were directly included in the Roman legions.
Over time, in order to maintain the combat effectiveness and cooperation of barbarian soldiers, the Roman legions began to form teams directly composed of barbarian tribes. By this time, the Roman legions had long since ceased to be known, and the legions of barbarian warriors merely retained the names of the Roman legions.
Of course, the combat strength of the barbarian Roman legions is still worthy of recognition, and the last emperor in the history of the Roman Empire to achieve imperial unification, Theodosius the Great, was able to win the unification war by relying on the support of various barbarian tribes.
However, this was also the last unification of the Roman Empire, and after that, until the fall of the Empire, the Romans never achieved the unification of Rome. The disintegration of the empire also meant a change in the center of rule, and the most important city in the Roman world was the place where the Romans started: the city of Rome.
However, in the absence of a unified culture, the strong Greek culture has always influenced the East. Eventually, the emperors left the city of Rome, and in order to gain better control over the Greek regions in the east, some emperors built a new giant city in the east: Constantinople. The other emperors who guarded the west did not return to the city of Rome.
Stationed first in Milan and then threatened by the Visigoths, the emperors chose the city of Ravenna as their royal seat until the fall of the Roman Empire.
At a time when the Roman Empire was on the verge of extinction, it is not known whether the people at that time recalled the ancients two hundred years ago. At that time, the Romans, who had just experienced the "Golden Age", did not succumb to the pressure of internal and external difficulties, but actively resisted, and finally continued to live for the Roman Empire for two hundred years.
In contrast, the late Roman Empire was not only fragmented, but also lost the ability to rule over the regions. I can only watch myself go to extinction, and reading this makes people sigh.
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