Cross-posted to Substack: https://spencersnotes.substack.com/p/book-review-how-rome-fell-by-adrian

Thinking about Rome is having a bit of a Renaissance. Last year, we discovered that men do it all the time, and this year a (disappointing, unnecessary) sequel to Gladiator has us all doing it. Most of what I know about Rome is from osmosis while studying other periods of history. I was vaguely aware there was a Republic, followed an Augustan Principate Empire, followed by a more nakedly autocratic Dominate after the reign of Diocletian, ending with an ambiguous "Fall" in 476. As Goldsworthy writes, if there's one thing people know about the Roman Empire, it's that it fell. That about summed up my knowledge of the Empire before reading this book, so it seemed reasonable to read a book about The Fall. After reading this book, I am slightly more knowledgeable about the Late Roman Empire and slightly more inoculated against tenuous comparisons between this or that aspect of American society and late Roman society. But not wholly inoculated, as we will soon see.

The book begins with an academic controversy. Apparently, there is some conflict in academic circles over whether Rome "fell" at all. According to Goldsworthy, some academics treat Late Antiquity as a period of gradual change and transition, with lots of continuity from the empire of Augustus and no dramatic "fall" in 476. This matches my experience. I was told in my freshman medieval history class of the inaccuracy of the term "Dark Ages" as a description of the post-Roman West. As a characterization of the entire post-Roman world up to the Renaissance, this is surely an unjust epithet. But there is no doubt that in the centuries immediately following the collapse of the Western Empire, the inhabitants of the former Roman world were poorer, less literate, and more violent than their Roman predecessors. There was, in fact, a Fall.

One reason for this suspicion of the "decline" narrative, according to Goldsworthy, is that empires in general are out of fashion in the academy, so to treat the disappearance of an empire as "decline"—implying that the world was worse without an empire—is regarded as improper. There are also the more common, boring reasons that in law, religion, philosophy, and society there was genuine continuity, creativity, and innovation, so scholars specializing in these topics are less bought into the story of decline. The availability of written sources, mostly by literate men engaged with the Roman tradition, biases historians in that direction. There is, Goldsworthy writes, a lack of "reliable and detailed narrative histories--for the third century, much of the fourth century, and all of the fifth century." Finally, there is a bias against narrative history itself, especially in contrast with social, economic, environmental, or intellectual history.

Goldsworthy makes some concessions to the anti-Fall crowd, but as the book's title suggests, he disagrees with the premise that there was no Fall at all:

I simply do not believe this, and hope to show that it makes no sense whatsoever in light of the evidence, let alone sheer common sense. In addition, the reasons for the collapse of Roman power deserve an explanation, and oddly the most important factor tends to be dismissed.

Goldsworthy saves, except by implication, this "most important factor" for the end of the book, preferring to let the narrative speak for itself. Following this introduction is a romp through about three centuries of imperial history, which mostly goes like this: after Flavius' sudden death the soldiers declared Maximus emperor, who was then immediately challenged by Julius from Gaul, resulting in a two year civil war. The victor of this civil war was neither Maximus nor Julius, but an obscure general from rural Dalmatia named Maximianus. Maximianus spent a relatively peaceful reign ineffectually fighting various tribal peoples who Augustus' army would have easily crushed. He named his nephew Justinianus co-ruler, then died. Justinianus proved to be ineffectual and controlled by his mother, so the soldiers proclaimed a new guy emperor, and the cycle began again.

Allow me to stop being tongue and cheek. Goldsworthy is a good writer, and he tells the story of the Late Empire well. It is a story full of much humanity and intrigue, but I'm not really one to assess the merits of Goldsworthy's narrative. Did he under or over-emphasize this or that event? Did he misinterpret a source? I don't know. As far as I can tell, he presents a concise account of the chief political and military events from the time of Commodus to the abortive attempt by Justinian to reconquer the Western provinces in the 6th century.

As for that "most important factor" in Rome's fall? Civil war and internal dysfunction. That's How Rome Fell. Goldsworthy has no patience for the notion that various Germanic peoples presented a unique threat to the Late Empire or caused its collapse. If the Empire controlled its resources more effectively, he argues, it would have easily sent the Goths (and the Franks and the Huns, etc.) packing. Not only did civil wars and threats of usurpation directly weaken the empire by pitting Romans against Romans, but they also indirectly weakened it by changing the political culture of the empire:

Almost as important as the physical price of civil war was its impact on attitudes and behavior from the emperor down. Personal survival became the first objective of every emperor and shaped all their decisions and the very structure of the empire. In the quest to protect themselves successive emperors gradually reshaped the empire itself and, ironically enough, often made themselves more rather than less vulnerable.

The emperors' need to ensure their personal survival led to the sidelining of the senatorial class from which the emperors had traditionally drawn their senior administrators and successors. The political marginalization of the Senate expanded the ranks of men who could hope to be emperor, if only they could persuade enough troops to back them. Likewise, the fear of usurpation and the need to ensure legitimacy led to an inflation of the Emperor's personal bodyguard and staff, further isolating him from day-to-day political affairs.

As power diffused from Rome and the Senate, the Imperial bureaucracy became more unwieldy, the Emperor became more isolated and less able to sense the mood of the elite, and the Empire, despite being far richer and more powerful than any of its neighbors, failed to effectively control its vast resources and eventually did Fall.

The Part About Bureaucracy

There is an intriguing epilogue to the book, in which the professional historian deigns to give his drooling, hooting, chest-beating readers what they came for: how this all applies to today. I'm skeptical of the attempt to "apply" the lessons of the past to contemporary affairs. The result of this process is usually a demonstration that "the Bad Party is Bad (Vote for the Good Party!)" or risible nonsense like Graham Allison's Destined for War: Can China and America Escape Thucydides' Trap?. But I'm willing to give Goldsworthy a chance, because he treats the Fall of Rome as a humanistic reminder of the "diseases of civilization" complex societies can fall prey to rather than an opportunity to proffer social-sciencecy "predictions."

The "simple moral" of Late Roman history is that as institutions grow larger and more insulated against competition, they tend to lose sight of their purpose:

At a basic level the emperors and government officials of the Late Roman Empire had forgotten what the empire was for. The wider interests of the state—the Res Publica, or "public thing", from which we get our word "Republic”—were secondary to their own personal success and survival.

This is not because the emperors and officials of the Late Empire were more selfish, crass, and venal than those of the Principate (though some certainly were), but because the incentive structure for any particular member of the government rewarded concentrating on (1) avoiding death and (2) narrow, immediate victories rather than the long-term success of the empire.

The foibles of bureaucracy are not the occasion for Goldsworthy to advocate libertarian crusade, but to critique the culture of target-setting, narrow, easily achievable goals, and the crushing of common sense and individual initiative that often develops at large organizations, public or private. Because of the dominance of these institutions, they rarely face acute pressure to reform or become more efficient. Indeed, individuals can often be punished for showing initiative or otherwise disrupting routine operation. Slowly, however, the rot spreads, leaving the institution unprepared to weather serious crises.

Goldsworthy thinks this is happening in the contemporary Anglophone world. From our 2024 perspective, we can at least appreciate the comparison: political will to address the looming crisis of the US national debt is basically zero, and governments across the Anglosphere are struggling to get anything done besides produce paperwork. Let's consider two egregious examples. First, there is Lower Thames Crossing in Britain, the planning document of which costed £295m to write. (To date, construction has not begun on the 14 mile tunnel). Second, consider the case of California High Speed Rail, which has spent billions of dollars since 2008 but has dramatically scaled back its ambition to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles. Needless to say, sixteen years after the project began, you cannot take a train from LA to San Francisco.

The systems which govern Western democracies, despite their lofty rhetoric, have often forgotten what they are for, Goldsworthy suggests. They are driven more by procedural rules than by tangible outcomes. Reform is likely to prove difficult, but without it the risk of decline remains:

It is no easy thing to keep or to recapture this sense of perspective and purpose. Bureaucracies are stubborn, they tend to expand on their own and develop their own agendas. This is not inevitable, but it is always likely. If this trend is to be reversed, then this process needs to start at the very top.

Sound familiar?