Re: Most Important, Best, and Worst Roman Emperors


alanmc95210@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Bill Johnston wrote:
I could be wrong...but by the time the actual Huns invaded the empire
in the 450s, there wasn't much left of the western legions...the army
put together by Aetius to fight Attila was IIRC mainly Germanic
foederati such as the Visigoths. Presumably this was because the
Western Empire lacked the tax base to support a substantial army any
longer.

And part of the reason for the loss of tax base was the loss of
population. The Antonine plague devastated the Empire- A. McIntire

This was likely a long-term factor, although I was thinking of the
fallof from the early 400s onward as territory and tax revenue was
ceded to Germanic foederati.

The big collapse was in the first decade of the 400s, when there was a
nasty combination of multiple Germanic invasions and civil war by
generals attempting to oust Honorius (also anti-Germanic riots that
made 1000s of Germanic Imperial troops go over to the Visigoths). The
result was that much of the Western tax base- Gaul, Spain, and Britain-
was permanently lost. Even in Italy, the govt was unable to collect
most taxes for many years because the area was too Goth-mangled to pay
them.

Having lost the ability to raise the cash necesarry to support a large
army, it was thus unable to regain any lost territory. The loss of
north Africa later was the nail in the coffin.

Better leadership and luck during this period might have given the
Western empire decades more to live, although given the underlying
weaknesses, some kind of debacle like this was probably inevitable.



I dont really know enough about this, but it seems like the central
government was degrading before this (leading up to the big early 400s
collapse) as well...less ability to collect taxes, especially from
rich, powerful landowners?

.

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