Why Rome Fell

Prologue to Part Two

Prologue to Part Twohis Prologue is essentially a bridge between Parts One and Two. A.H.M. Jones’s masterly roundup of possible explanations for the demise of the Western empire is a useful sounding board. This is followed by a foretaste of my own conclusions on whether there was decline and fall or drift and change.

In his magisterial Later Roman Empire 284-602, my esteemed and beloved doctoral supervisor, the late Professor A.H.M. (“Hugo”) Jones of Cambridge, sums up in these words his explanation of what he unashamedly calls “the fall of the West”: “[D]irectly or indirectly, it may be plausibly argued, barbarian attacks probably played a major part in the fall of the West.” (Jones, 1964, p. 1027.) From the fact that, “[W]hile the Western parts were being parcelled out into a group of barbarian kingdoms, the East stood its ground,” he concludes that “the empire did not, as some modern historians have suggested, totter into its grave from senile decay, impelled by a gentle push from the barbarians.” (Ibid., 1026f.)

But Jones does not, nevertheless, completely discount evidence of internal “decline.” In masterly fashion, he then weighs up one after the other of the possible explanations for the West’s succumbing to barbarian attacks:

• Division: “Some critics have stressed the evil consequences of the division of the empire, particularly after 395, and have urged that if its whole resources had been pooled the Western fronts could have been held.” (Ibid., ...