We are all familiar with Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776). Though it is often the first book we think when discussing about the decline of Rome, it is by no means the first attempt in history that tries to explain what exactly happened to the Roman Empire in the Late Antiquity. Multiple Renaissance humanists like Leonardo Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini have pondered this question as well. However, the one who truly took it to another level was Flavio Biondo. As the title of his largest historiographical work, Historiarum ab inclinatione Romanorum imperii decades (The decades of histories from the decline of the Empire of the Romans, 1453), might reveal, Biondo built his whole work (or at least the first 10 books) around the subject. But why and when did Biondo think this inclinatio started? Below, I try to present how Biondo sees this topic.
In the first pages of Decades, Biondo states the starting date of the inclinatio very clearly:
imperii inclinationem [...] dicimus principium habuisse a Gothorum in urbem Romam irruptione. - Decades, p. 4
(we say that the very decline of the [Roman] empire originated from the invasion of the city of Rome by the Goths.)
Biondo places the beginning of the inclinatio to the famous sack of Rome, due to the fact that after this, the Roman empire was faced with many consecutive disasters (multas clades) culminating to the abdication of Romulus Augustulus in 476. What is rather curious, is that Biondo dates the sack to the year 412 and not to 410. The reason for this is not clear, but it can be due to the sources he used. The boy emperors Arcadius and Honorius, under whose rule this terrible event took place, represent to Biondo the trend of decadence, which increased during the fifth century.
However, Biondo does not think that solely the inadequacy of emperors was the only cause for the inclinatio to begin. He comments the assessments of previous humanists regarding the decline in order to form a synthesis of sorts. Biondo writes that there are many who think that the decline started in C. Caesaris dictatura (during the dictatorship of Gaius [Julius] Caesar). However, immediately after Biondo writes his reply:
ea ratione non approbamus, quia aucta potius quam imminuta fuit sub Caesarum multis Romana potentia. - Decades, p. 4
(we do not approve this reasoning, because for many the might of Rome under the Caesars was increased rather than diminished.)
Thus, Biondo points out the fact that Rome's golden age happened after the fall of the republic. Under the emperors the military might of Rome especially grew, as did the wealth of the empire. Nevertheless, Biondo acknowledges the possible allure to arrive to the conclusion above:
dicimus haudquaquam absurde sentire qui eam imperii quassationem ab Caesaris oppessione reipublicae [...], quod simul cum libertate interierint, bene et sancte vivendi artes, et sublato per unius potentiam legum metu, principibusque virtutem et animi magnitudinem ducentibus suspectam, ignavi fortibus, bonis perditi, gravibus et sanctis ganeones ac adulatores, fuerint in magistratibus honoribusque prelati. - Decades, p. 4
(we say that it is by no means unreasonable to think that the disturbance of the empire was caused by Caesar's oppression of the republic [...], because simultaneously the arts of living well and piously perished with liberty, and the fear of the laws was removed by the one in power, leading people to suspect the virtue and the greatness of spirit of those who lead, the strong became lazy, the good were lost, and the gluttons and flatterers were preferred in magistrates and honours over the serious and saintly ones.)
This particular cause for the decline was given by Biondo's mentor, Leonardo Bruni, in his History of the Florentine People (1442), and Biondo's comment above was pointed specifically to him. It seems that, unlike Bruni, Biondo thought that even though the liberties of the people were suppressed during the first century BCE, it was still not dramatic enough to Rome than the chain of events which the Gothic assault started. Where there is wealth, there is naturally corruption, but Biondo did not see these faults as overshadowing the entire imperial period. Moreover, Biondo seems to imply towards the thriving literary culture of the first two centuries CE as a counter-argument, including the works done by such favourites of his like Tacitus and Suetonius.
A second possible cause, which had been suggested during the period when Biondo wrote his Decades was the transfer of the throne of Rome to Constantinople:
...translationem sedis imperii factam a Constantino Byzantium, quemadmodum remotam inclinationis futurae causam fuisse non abnuerim, ita illius principium non concesserim appellandam, cum et ipse et alii decem in imperio successores, quos ea habuit translata Byzantium sedes, imperii iura, partim auxerint, partim in maiestate solita conservaverint. - Decades, p. 4
(...I would not grant the translation of the throne of the empire to Byzantium by Constantine, to be called the primary cause, although I do not deny it having been a remote cause for the future decline, since he [Constantine] himself and ten other successors of the empire, whose thrones he had likewise transferred to Byzantium, they in part augmented the laws of the empire and in part preserved its accustomed majesty.)
As can be seen, Biondo does not accept this cause either as the primary cause, although he admits it having possibly a remote influence in the beginning of the inclinatio. The successors of Constantine succeeded in maintaining, and even augmenting, the glory of Rome for a while, but eventually the division of the empire caused the western half to be overrun.
The third cause, and to some the greatest of the three, for the decline was said to have been the neglected religion:
Tertiam vero quam affertur causam a neclecta religione sumptam, quo magis est pia, duco superioribus meliorem. Nanque Romani imperatores in illo insolentissimo fastu dominationis immensae, exquisitis in Christianos tormentis grassantes, nec stragum immanitate deterrebantur, nec siginis ab iniquo proposito movebntur. Quamobrem post decem persecutiones publico edicto in Christianos factas, occulto dei iudicio tracti fuere ad incognitam tunc ruinae potentatus immeriti causam. - Decades, p. 4
(The third [cause], which is announced to be the greatest cause indeed comes from the neglected religion, wherefore it is more pious, that I consider it to be better from the ones mentioned above. For the Roman emperors in that most insolent arrogance of immense despotism, after having hunted and tormented the Christians, were not discouraged by the excess of the massacres, nor were they moved by the signs of unjust declaration. Therefore, after ten persecutions done against the Christians by a public proclamation, they [emperors] were dragged by the concealed judgement of God to the unknown and undeserved cause of the destruction of the power [of Rome].)
This account is most interesting. It was seen that the diminishing of the Roman power was a punishment for the persecutions of Christians during the first two centuries by the emperors. Biondo sees this accusation as somewhat undeserved for the reasons mentioned above concerning Constantine the Great and his successors. Moreover, Biondo sees that the Christian emperor redeemed the empire by allowing the practice of Christianity, although the transfer of the throne to Byzantium was still a mistake:
Flavius etenim Constantinus quem dixere(runt) Magnum, princeps Christianissimus, admissae a Romano populo in religionem ulciscendae impietatis minister, ea ratione a deo nostro assumptus fuit, ut cuius mutavit sedem imperii, vires ex solidiore solio in lubricum poneret, brevi ad nihillum unde creaverant redituras. Ipsam itaque imperii inclinationem, sive ob praedictas omnes causas, sive obearum aliquam sit facta, dicimus principium habuisse a Gothorum in urbem Romam irruptione. - Decades, p. 4
(For Flavius Constantine, whom they called the Great, the most Christian emperor, admitted by the Roman people as an agent of impiety to avenge the religion, was chosen by our God for the same reason, that he moved the seat of the empire, and placed the strength from more solid seat to an unsteady one, soon they had created nothing where to return. We say, therefore, that the very decline of the empire, whether it took place on the account of all the aforesaid causes, or on account of some of them, originated from the invasion of the city of Rome by the Goths.)
As the last phrase shows, Biondo does not want to lock the causes of the decline, but keeps an open mind, highlighting that the inclinatio was not a simple event, caused by singular reasons. One thing is certain though. For Biondo the downhill started from the sack of Rome by Goths in 410. Cementing this date, Biondo presents this date using three different chronologies:
Que die, quam Calendarum Aprilis fuisse satis constat, destinata hactenus Romanae urbis imperii inclinatio inchoavit. [...] Annus ergo quen a condita urbe sexagesimum quartum et centesimum supra millesimum numerabant, qui et salutis Christianae duodecimus et quadringentesimus fuit, nobis primus erit ab inclinatione imperii constitutus. - Decades, p. 10
(On that day, which corresponds adequately to have been the first of April, started the decline of the city of Rome and the empire. [...] Thus, the year which numerates the 1164th from the foundation of the city, and what was the 412th from the Salvation of Christ, will be established to us as the first from the decline of the empire.)
From this begun the inclinatio Romanorum imperii, which at first seemed to destine the Roman world (and Italian peninsula in particular) to never-ending misery and devastation. However, it ended up creating something new. For Biondo sees the destruction of the Western Roman Empire as a necessary step in the path towards the rise of Italian cities. With the supremacy of Rome halted, other cities such as Venice, Florence and Milan could begin to prosper, ending up as the powerful city states of the fifteenth-century Italy.
No comments:
Post a Comment