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AJ_Lounes t1_it384pi wrote

Some probably did.

But for the most part, I don't think it was the case.

The process of the Fall of the western part was in fact quite long and not to be seen as one big wave of soldiers invading and killing everything. If it had been the case, then probably more roman migration would have occured indeed. But actually, the "barbarians" were already in the Roman landscape since quite some time. Quite a number of them was holding high positions within the military and it is even said that, by the end of the western part, most of the armies was barbarian or coming from barbarian bloodlines. All of this while the last emperors were losing in power and prestige.

Also, the Fall of the empire was probably not perceived the same way according to where you were living in the Empire. A citizen of the City was probably more concerned of losing the Emperor than let's say a farmer in the countryside who only knew approximately the emperor's face thanks to the money coins.

We must also not forget quite an interesting fact. The "barbarians" had no interest in destroying the Roman culture and infrastructures of supply and power. It appears that they actually wanted to preserve and pursue it (just have a look at how some leaders even yeeeears after the Fall did their best to bring the Empire, or at least the idea of the Empire, back). Some of the new people in charge actually asked for councelling from romans of long roman bloodlines on how to keep everything in place.

This probably helped in having the smoothest change as possible and so to not "scare" the roman people.

I would add that even 100-200 years after the fall, people who were descending from old roman families were much respected and had quite some positions of power, still as councellors or within the Church, which worked closely with the new powers in place across West Europe to maintain society.

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GeneParmesanPD t1_it47oz4 wrote

I just want second everything in this post and recommend Peter Heather's "Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe" to OP, as I think it would help answer his question and is probably my favorite work regarding migrations and power changes during late antiquity and the middle ages.

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Rear-gunner t1_it592yk wrote

very good book, but this issue was not discussed.

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GeneParmesanPD t1_it5b54t wrote

It doesn’t outright discuss migration of Western Romans to the East, but it does touch on most of what u/AJ_Lounes mentions above in regards to how the fall of the western empire didn’t trigger a mass migration of citizens to the Eastern Empire.

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adam_demamps_wingman t1_it5xlde wrote

Are there any podcasts on the Roman Empire you might recommend?

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Bloodshot_Bear t1_it61g9g wrote

The History of Rome Podcast by Mike Duncan

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adam_demamps_wingman t1_it63s9z wrote

Thank you. I’ve listened to quite a few of those. Once in a while In Our Time covers a Roman individual.

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blonardo t1_it68ev1 wrote

Dan Carlin has a bunch that are wonderful:

Punic Nightmares (about the punic wars) Celtic Holocaust (rome and the Celts) Death Throws of the Republic (great set about the fall of the republic and rise of the empire and lots of info on causes. Thors Angles - basically it's about the 'dark ages' but covers a lot of the fall of Rome's influence etc.

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[deleted] OP t1_it3apnb wrote

I know decline was quite long period, that is why I mentioned in my post decline and fall. Since decline was happening for centuries not over night. That is why it might be bad question. Since many people could migrate during that time but in smaller groups, like we have today in EU. Balkan countires lost up to 1/3 of pop since early 1990s. From migration to wast mostly. I mean it in that way. Not like 1mil from middle east and africa comming in few mounths.

In advance sorry for bringing bit of politics, just wanted to give example of what I want to say.

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AJ_Lounes t1_it3cvle wrote

Indeed, I saw afterwards that you've mentioned it was a long period yourself.

No worries for the politics side, that's what History is.

You're right. However, I would go back to what I said about how the barbarians were actually trying to respect and pursue what the Romans had established rather than erasing everything to start their own thing from scratch. The examples you're mentioning are right, but they are people who are moving away from places where sometimes bombs are literally raining and food supplies are almost non-existent.

If we go back to the barbarians, they in fact had all the interest possible of having the roman machine to keep on going, with already established laws, cereals farmed and functioning water systems. As I said above, would the barbarians had come into the empire in a more "viking" way, then no doubt the roman migration would have been much much more significant.

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MoreanSwordsman t1_it3ui8b wrote

So the barbarian invaders just wanted to make a regime change while keeping the system functioning?

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AJ_Lounes t1_it48qar wrote

In a way, yes. The roman power ran out of recognition and prestige with time. One of the strenght of the Empire through its History was obviously its military. But it also became its weakness during the fall. There are 2 main things to remember when it comes to this :

  • Very often, the peoples located on lands the Empire would conquer didn't necessarily pay their tribute with money but with men who would join the military. It was at the time win-win for the Romans. Not only it was growing their ranks but it was also automatically preventing the conquered to make up a new armed force. On the barbarian perspective, joining the roman army was giving them the opportunity of eventually gaining ranks and perhaps lands, and even citizenship.
  • That leads immediately to the second point. Lands. Recognized and respected soldiers were given lands by the government. They were not the absolute rulers of their lands, the Emperor was obviously willing to remain the top leader over its territory, but those soldiers with property still had some liberty. Looking at History, such a system can only work when the initial power is strong. Which was not the case during the empire's last century. The Empire got more and more fragmented.

But that's only for the political part. Culturally, the Romans inprint remained in Europe and was respected by the barbarians. When the barbarians rulers arrived with their courts and nobles, they knew that the main people was remaining roman. According to some (rare) testimonies which arrived to us, they understood they needed to work with the people already settled in good terms. One of the best example for this might be the Franks.

According to quite some historians, we might want to thank Christianism for this whole process of (not full, but still) preservation. The barbarian rulers understood they needed the roman people. The roman people was responding positively to the Church. So the barbarian needed the Church. And the Church needed strong protective rulers who eventually all got baptized. The Church ultimately gained power (it was the Franks who actually recognized first the Vatican as a state and well, the Vatican was in a way benefiting of Rome's aura) and more and more churches and cathedrals were built, which also led more or less directly to the preservation of some Ancient texts and works which were also rewritten in churches' offices.

And as we've discussed above, many rulers, even hundreds of years after the Fall, had in mind to restore the glory of the old Empire which was still seen as a wonder.

To conclude : the Fall of the Western Empire was the fall of its political system. But not of its people, culture or infrastructures. Sure, time did its work, adjustments were made here and there, romans and barbarians shared couches, but the whole presence and aura of the Empire was still there.

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MoreanSwordsman t1_it4p62v wrote

First, thank you very much for this productive input. I got a question: So why was the Roman infrastructure and architectural culture destroyed gradually? When you go to Rome today, you hardly can find a complete temple. Even the well known Forum Romanum is nothing more than a few stone blocks..

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AJ_Lounes t1_it4vorx wrote

Thanks ! It is true the preservation is quite different from one thing to another. There are a bit of various reasons. Time is obviously one of them but not only. It happened sometimes that in order to build other monuments or support economy or war effort in troubled times that some monuments or places actually got destroyed to recycle the materials.

I imagine also that more modern conflicts could have damaged some places. Also, I don't remember precisely the place name, but I believe Mussolini actually ordered the destruction of old buildings to clear space and build a massive street through Rome.

If we look on the brightside however, we do have some monuments such as the Coliseum or the Pantheon which have made it quite good so far despite a few damages here and there. If we think also about the main roads paved by the romans, we are in a way still using some to this day technically, but obviously they're under concrete now..

I would also add that due to the fragmented political power and emergence of brand new regimes across Europe that the places of power changed of location too and so, I guess, the money allowed to maintain certain buildings in good shape.

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Peter_deT t1_it5sxv4 wrote

Squared stone blocks are expensive to make. Cheaper and easier to take them from some abandoned building. Rome went from maybe 500,000 plus to 20,000 over two centuries, and stayed at 20,000 for several centuries more. Basically a mid-size town in the middle of a large field of ruins.

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outsidenorms t1_it50mch wrote

As rome unwound, plebeians would take marble and stone from the colosseum to sell for food. This after a full year of no sun, a plague, and hardly any food. Other sites were just ignored as it was too expensive to maintain. The church came in and rebuilt but in their vision.

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aphilsphan t1_it56qva wrote

I always think of the symbolic end of Rome as 660. Constans II comes over from Constantinople. He visits Rome which after all is still part of his empire. He walks around marveling at the glories done centuries ago. Rome has only about 50k people at this point, just the Papal bureaucracy really. It isn’t even the capital of Byzantine Italy. That’s Ravenna.

He orders his men to strip all the remaining precious metal gilding from the monuments. He even takes all the copper.

Then no Roman Emperor returns until the 15th century, unless you count Charlemagne and tue HRE.

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outsidenorms t1_it5eojg wrote

This is where I start to get sad…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_(410)

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aphilsphan t1_it7r6un wrote

Historians used to think of 410 as almost a rowdy tourist visit. I’m not sure that’s true anymore. It was the Vandals in 455 that really ruined things, then Belisarius versus the Ostrogoths and Lombards that did the coup de grace. But if you think about it, in 405 the Danube and Rhine frontiers are leaking but they are still there and 5 years later the Visigoths are in Rome. Very sad.

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clovis_227 t1_it52048 wrote

The new barbarian kingdom let taxation slip, since their armies were mostly landed now, not paid. Moreover, the aristocracy in the west became much more rural. Finally, there was a greater focus on churches and monasteries instead of the usual civil infrastructure.

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aphilsphan t1_it563u8 wrote

They didn’t so much let taxation slip as they inherited a system of taxes in kind. The money economy was going away. It becomes much harder to rebuild a needed aqueduct for a city 500 miles away when you can’t pay the workers from the surplus you’ve got elsewhere. All you can do are smaller projects using your local surpluses.

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Fiona_12 t1_it435ko wrote

Yet so much of the Roman infrastructure was destroyed.

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carrotwax t1_it459wh wrote

Over a long time. Upkeep requires investment. There's a lot of American infrastructure seriously in need now, and that's over decades, not centuries.

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letsgotgoing t1_it4fu5x wrote

The romans used volcanic ash in their concrete. Huge difference in how long their structures survive even harsh conditions vs modern concrete. https://www.historicmysteries.com/roman-concrete/

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TPMJB t1_it5y1m5 wrote

Has anyone tried to recreate this in modern buildings? I'm actually semi-interested in building a house

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voss749 t1_it7di7w wrote

Roman concrete has longer drying time and lower strength but it is MUCH more durable. Roman concrete was still gaining strength for DECADEs after construction was completed.

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TPMJB t1_it7fdr4 wrote

I want to make a house that will outlast me lol. This brick house I have is 50 years old and falling apart -_-

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TheHipcrimeVocab t1_it539bn wrote

Wasn't people's wealth in the past much more tied to the land and their family/social networks than in the present? It's not like there was a job market back then. You don't send out resumes. It's not like you can just show up in a city and expect to make a living. To do what? Odd jobs? Crime? People were generally much less mobile and footloose in the past and much more embedded in local contexts prior to the Industrial Revolution and depersonalization of relationships allowed by money and bureaucratization.

I would imagine those who had extensive experience in governmental administration and/or made their living though education/literacy would be able to move, but that's a small subset of the population.

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aphilsphan t1_it55dhb wrote

I always remember that, yes Rome itself was outside the empire for 60 years after 476, but then it was back in and stayed in until about 750. Then in 800 the Pope looked around and said, “yep it’s back again” and crowned Charlemagne “Emperor.”

So the idea took forever to die.

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GonzoCreed t1_it50mb6 wrote

Out of curiosity, are there any known holdouts of Roman cities continuing to operate after the fall of the western Roman empire?

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peach_antique t1_it54ccf wrote

It depends on what these key words mean - "operate" on what level? and "fall" as in 476? A number of cities continued to provide public services, pay to keep up their existing infrastructure and construct new buildings. It depends on how you define the specific romanitas of a city! In Ostrogothic Italy, some aqueducts were repaired or built anew in Ravenna, Rome, Naples, for instance. Vandal North Africa also remained pretty urban. Overall, cities definitely get less important for a few hundred years, for sure.

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AJ_Lounes t1_it51iar wrote

Very interesting question. I honestly don't know.

If any kind of resistance was there, I think it was more of a cultural one rather than an organised armed one.

But it is definitely something that needs to be studied ! We never know and might be surprised

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BrokenDroid t1_it5hbvj wrote

This comment is inline with everything i learned in college 20 years ago. Huzzah!

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HalfAndXel t1_it61ayy wrote

I remember in a history class I took in college we saw a picture of an inscription on a tomb that referred to the guy as a (a frank I think? Idk one of the 'barbarians') and a Roman.

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q-hon t1_it66r6g wrote

I can't find the exact quote but it's something like "I am a Roman, a soldier, and a Frank."

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galliohoophoop t1_it52bfc wrote

Didn't most of the aristocracy migrate to the new capital with Constantine over time?

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AJ_Lounes t1_it53p26 wrote

I don't know the numbers but some of the aristocracy definitely did. However I guess it was more the aristocracy from the City, who were more linked to the power itself and the emperor.

For aristocracy or land owners of the rest of the Empire, as long as the barbarians were not messing everything up, I guess the bargain was alright.

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ungovernable t1_it681ro wrote

There's a lot of junk conjecture in this thread, so first, I'm going to repost a link that a mod posted further down the line that I think will shed a lot of light on the subject:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period

Second, while the "sudden collapse" way of thinking about the Western Roman Empire (i.e. that in 475 there was a prosperous empire, and that by 477 "here thar be dragons") is severely outmoded, the idea that the collapse and the decades that followed represented some sort of "smooth," barely-noticeable administrative change is complete fantasy.

For example, the city of Mediolanum (Roman-era Milan) was utterly obliterated in the Gothic Wars in 538, and the majority of its inhabitants were either killed or enslaved. Hardly a mere change in the process of government to see the second-largest city in the Western Empire bludgeoned out of existence.

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AJ_Lounes t1_it6oivf wrote

As you've stated, this event occurs within the Gothic Wars, an attempt of reconquer by the Eastern empire. It goes a bit beyond the only migration process itself we were discussing here, although it is a consequence of it. Quite sadly, the large amount of deaths actually occured with the attempt of reconquer, Justinian plague etc

It is obvious that nothing is white or black. Yes, violent episodes occured without a doubt throughout the territory, the barbarians themselves were not a unique people, they all had different ways of bringing changes into the places they arrived. The Wisigoths for example did not have the same relationship towards religion than let's say the Vandals. For very much detail, each tribe and place should be studied separately.

Changes were not unseenable, true. They were even needed. Otherwise, the Empire would not have "fallen". But as I have emphasized, this is why the old roman families and clergy was, and has been, very important in the process. Small populations of the countryside were more in contact with their local bishop than the king.

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Josquius t1_it6lrd4 wrote

Really the Romans probably did more to bring down their own empire than did the barbarians from the outside with all the corruption and tax farming and the like. The far more simplified structure of the Germanic tribes would have been a help.

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Sparkykun t1_it71h6m wrote

Many Romans were already moving into France during the time of Caesar, so at the time of collapse, there is a sizable population of Romans established in France already

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AJ_Lounes t1_it735hw wrote

You're right, as Gaul became a province with Caesar and then fully part of the empire. By the collapse, the population was well romanized.

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