religion. (See Chapter 10.)
The religious intolerance and persecutions instituted by the Christian Roman Empire, in East and West alike, fractured this unity. Even before 380, when Christianity became the exclusive official religion of the Empire, all those who were not adherents of that religion—and of its dominant denomination—found themselves the targets of incessant attacks, which sometimes spurred them into active disobedience. The usurper Firmus was able to hold out against the imperial government in Africa between 372 and 375, with the support of the Donatists, a “heresy” that was particularly popular in that area. The ousting of the Eastern Emperor Zeno by Basiliscus in 475 was achieved with the support of another group of “heretics,” the Monophysites, who were very strong in Egypt and Syria, and who sided with the Muslims in their conquest of Egypt (639–646.) It is clear, from among other things, the long saga of the Altar of Victory, that there were a good many pagans in the aristocracy up to and beyond the end of the fourth century. It is significant that Eugenius, the puppet emperor chosen by Arbogast with the support of the Senate in 392, made a point of restoring the Altar of Victory to its place in the Senate house and appointed the influential pagan aristocrat Virius Nicomachus Flavianus as praetorian prefect of Italy. Significantly, Priscus Attalus, selected by the Visigoths as emperor in 409 and again in 414, was a pagan. Some modern writers, in their concern to kill off paganism as early as possible, have gone out of their way to disprove the existence of an active pagan resistance in the late fourth century. Yet pagans did not need to be activists in order to feel less than loyal toward an intolerant, persecuting government. And, though supposedly extinguished by 423, paganism clearly continued to have considerable numbers of adherents for a long time thereafter. As late as the reign of Justinian (527–565), John of Ephesus boasted of converting 70,000 pagans in Asia Minor, one of the most Christianized parts of the Empire, and, in addition, a large number of pagans, including some highly placed men, in Constantinople itself, which had been established as a Christian capital by Constantine in 330.
The poisonous religious atmosphere of the fragmented society that was the Christian Roman Empire helps to explain the divided loyalties that weakened the West in the face of the “barbarian” invasions and also the loss to the East of the bulk of its territory to the Muslims in the seventh century (some of which was, however, reconquered in the ninth and tenth centuries, only to be permanently lost in the aftermath of the Battle of Manzikert of 1071.)
So What?
How significant, then, was the “fall” of the western empire after all? In other words, what difference does it make whether the West fell, was pushed, or never came to an end at all? My own view is that the importance of this question has been grossly exaggerated. All the time and effort spent on the question of the fall of the Roman Empire could have been far better spent on the related, but quite separate, question of continuity and change. (See Chapter 5 .)
East Is East, and West Is West
The significance of this question becomes all the more apparent by comparing continuity and change in the West with those same features in the East. Though what is now generally called the Byzantine Empire lasted over a thousand years (albeit for quite some time in a very shrunken state), its heritage is rather restricted. The only territory that can be considered a linear descendant of Byzantium in the modern world is that now occupied by Greece and the Greek-speaking part of Cyprus. In these two states alone is Greek the official language spoken as their first language by the population at large. This is a major negative feature. Though the Byzantines always thought of themselves as “Romans” (and Orthodox Christians are still referred to in Turkish as Rûm), their empire was essentially a Greek empire. From the time of Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE), Greek became the lingua franca of the Eastern Mediterranean even though Roman rule made Latin the official language of the whole Roman Empire until it was replaced in the East by Greek in 610.
In terms of religion, Byzantium has left a more robust heritage. The Eastern Orthodox Church, made up of a number of autonomous (or autocephalous) national churches, is today the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with 220 million adherents, largely concentrated in Eastern Europe. However, most of the autonomous churches have quite a tenuous connection with Byzantium. The liturgical language in most such churches is either Church Slavonic or a vernacular language, and though the Patriarch of Constantinople, known as the ecumenical patriarch, has priority over all other patriarchs, he is only primus inter pares (first among equals).
Another heritage of Byzantium which cannot be ignored is, ironically, the result of its demise, namely the rescue of thousands of Classical Greek texts, which were smuggled to the West after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and are thought to have had some effect in developing the Italian Renaissance.
None of these features, however, really provides much continuity with the Byzantine Empire.
Gothia or Romania?
The position in regard to the western empire is very different. As the Visigoth King Athaulf (r. 411–415) recognized, no “barbarian” kingdom of Gothia would ever come into existence (Orosius 7.43.4–6). The only “barbarians” who gave their name to a country were the Franks and the Angles though the language of France is a Romance language, like those of most of the rest of the western empire, and that of England (an integral part of Britain, from the area’s Roman name) has become suffused with Latin loanwords
The Roman Catholic Church, with its subdivision into dioceses and provinces, terms taken over directly from the Roman Empire, still has its headquarters in Rome, under a bishop who is called in Latin by the same title as the Roman emperor as head of the old pagan state religion: Pontifex Maximus (chief priest). Politically, too, the image of the western Roman Empire survives in the ideal of a united Europe. And a modern version of Roman Law still dominates the continent.
Three Revolutions
Constantine initiated the dominance of Christianity in the Roman world, though he was not actually baptized until on his deathbed in 337, and though Christianity did not become the sole official religion of the Empire until 380. The significance of this is that it replaced the tolerant communal Roman pagan state religion with an inherently intolerant creed religion, which has remained the dominant religion in Europe ever since. This represents both continuity and change, a major break with the past on the part of Constantine and his successors, and continuity from then on down to the present.
That revolution also had two major continuing spin-offs, namely the rise of Islam, a creed religion that became intolerant on the Christian model, and rabbinical Judaism, which, under the influence of Christianity, changed from a tolerant communal religion into an intolerant quasi-creed religion. (See Chapter 10.)
Constantine’s second revolution was the establishment of Constantinople, which would come to be the permanent Christian capital of the Byzantine Empire until its fall to the Ottomans in 1453.
By bringing members of the senatorial aristocracy back into high office, Constantine effected a third revolution, which endorsed, boosted, bolstered, and reactivated the aristocratic ethos that had been the hallmark of Roman society from the early Republic. This revolution, too, proved long-lasting, surviving until the French Revolution, and still not entirely extinct. (See Chapter 5.)
Structural or Individual?
One important question that has not received sufficient attention is how much of the continuity of the western empire was structural, and how much was personal. We know, for example, that aristocracy and the aristocratic ethos survived the dissolution of the western empire. But who were the aristocrats who carried on this Roman tradition? Were they descendants of the old Roman senatorial aristocracy? Or were they “barbarian” aristocrats