The Roman Empire ruled over different countries, races, religions and languages for a long pe-riod of time. Oxford defines the word ‚decline’ as follows: „A continuous decrease in the num-ber, value, quality etc. of sth“ (Turnbull, 2010, p. 393). Therefore it is important to consider, as mentioned, the number, value and quality of the aspects of Roman life which represents a mat-ter of religion, culture and politics which are all influencing each others.
In addition ‘decline’ is a long-term process, which takes often place stealthy and unnoticed, by individuals living through such negative changes and transformations. The defintion of ‘fall’ is therefore difficult to give: How should one declare an exact moment in Roman History to be the ‘fall’ …show more content…
The Roman Empire took advantage of other cultures, as for instance of the Greek culture, or other religions, as Judaism, but failed in finding a way to solve the problems with the barbarian tribes. According to several ancient sources, and pieces of propaganda, the distinction between the Romans and the barbarians was told to be enormous. This paper will consider the, by Ro-man sources, distinguished differences and try to draw a connection between the history of events in the above mentioned period of Roman History. In addition a description of the grow-ing distrust of the Romans, caused by propaganda, towards barbarians will be proved with sev-eral ancient sources and its effect on events, which caused a ‘decline’ in Roman political, reli-gious and cultural life. The East of the Empire could be excluded from the mentioned definition of decline, due to their insurmountable wall system around the eastern capital, Constantinople. As the Theodosian Code describes its creation: “[...]the towers of the New Wall, which has been constructed for the defense of this most splendid city [...].” (Lect 18, sl. 9). Not only was the city of Constantinopel protected by the construction of walls, but also by its favorable location, en-closed by the sea. In fact, these two protections and the banishement of barbarian soldiers with-in the eastern army, after the attempt of Gaïnas, to damage the city: “The emperor with timely wisdom proclaimed Gaïnas a public enemy, and ordered that all the barbarians who remained shut up in the city should be slain.” (lect 18, sl. 12), made it impossible for problems, compara-ble to those of the West, to
In addition ‘decline’ is a long-term process, which takes often place stealthy and unnoticed, by individuals living through such negative changes and transformations. The defintion of ‘fall’ is therefore difficult to give: How should one declare an exact moment in Roman History to be the ‘fall’ …show more content…
The Roman Empire took advantage of other cultures, as for instance of the Greek culture, or other religions, as Judaism, but failed in finding a way to solve the problems with the barbarian tribes. According to several ancient sources, and pieces of propaganda, the distinction between the Romans and the barbarians was told to be enormous. This paper will consider the, by Ro-man sources, distinguished differences and try to draw a connection between the history of events in the above mentioned period of Roman History. In addition a description of the grow-ing distrust of the Romans, caused by propaganda, towards barbarians will be proved with sev-eral ancient sources and its effect on events, which caused a ‘decline’ in Roman political, reli-gious and cultural life. The East of the Empire could be excluded from the mentioned definition of decline, due to their insurmountable wall system around the eastern capital, Constantinople. As the Theodosian Code describes its creation: “[...]the towers of the New Wall, which has been constructed for the defense of this most splendid city [...].” (Lect 18, sl. 9). Not only was the city of Constantinopel protected by the construction of walls, but also by its favorable location, en-closed by the sea. In fact, these two protections and the banishement of barbarian soldiers with-in the eastern army, after the attempt of Gaïnas, to damage the city: “The emperor with timely wisdom proclaimed Gaïnas a public enemy, and ordered that all the barbarians who remained shut up in the city should be slain.” (lect 18, sl. 12), made it impossible for problems, compara-ble to those of the West, to