Why is there no Roman state in western Europe?

[Thanas]

You are correct, but that does not contradict my statements. My point is that any state which we might call a "Roman" state needs an argument for why it is a Roman state, one that people will take seriously. No Roman of 400 would take "crowned by the bishop of Rome" as justification for calling a man the Roman Emperor. But a Frank of 800 AD might very well have seen that as legitimate. And if that attempt to build legitimacy were accompanied by a serious attempt to rebuild all that Rome was, including institutions and so on... we might well call that a 'return of Rome.'

In practice, Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire was not something most people would call a 'return of Rome' in Western Europe. It was quite different. But it at least had some kind of vaguely coherent claim; it had an argument in favor of being a Roman successor state, which is a necessary but not sufficient condition for actually being one.

But this argument of Charlemagne is only to serve as a counterpoint to the only legitimate Roman state there was in his day, not an attempt to rebuild the Empire in itself. He wanted to claim kinship to Rome as a political tool to distance himself from East Rome, not to rebuilt something he cared for.

It's not as simple as "Christianity destroyed Roman culture." It's more like "the shift to Christianity altered Roman culture in certain fundamental ways, and acted as a catalyst for continuous, ongoing change in other ways. By the time this ongoing change had been underway for several hundred years, there was no real way to go back and say "let's recreate a recognizably Roman society." You couldn't do it even if you wanted to. Medieval Christians were not Roman citizens of five hundred years earlier, so there was essentially no chance of creating a culture identical to that of Christian late-imperial Rome, let alone the earlier pagan Rome.

You are once again overestimating the role of christianity in the changing of the empire. By all serious accounts it played a very limited rule in forcing social change. By focusing on christianity as if it were the catalyst or something like that you ignore that christianity was only picked up as a result of change and did not cause that change by itself.

Christianity causing certain social structures to be uprooted or at least reduced in importance

Such as?

In many cases, the occupiers borrowed liberally from the legal customs of the Romans, so former Roman citizens who now lived under the barbarians may have felt that they were still being treated justly.

-In many cases, the 'occupiers' were seen as a protection against other barbarian groups, and the generally violent and unsettled times associated with the fall of Rome. When your city has been burnt down around your ears by Attila the Hun a few decades ago, and Theodoric the Goth is the new man on the block who is beating the Huns soundly, you're not going to complain that he 'isn't Roman enough.' Especially since he certainly aspired to the same kind of stable, peaceful civilization they had, and let Roman citizens live under the Roman legal code.

I agree with those.

-"Roman" identity was not a uniform quasi-ethnic nationality stretching across Europe; to be a "Roman" was to be a citizen of the empire, and if the empire was now an irrelevant concept, how could you rebel against a Germanic king in the name of "being a Roman?"

Well, we do have Romans rebelling against the Gothic invaders with the help of the Byzantines, so there is that. But these revolts happened in Italy and coincided with massive help from Justinian. If similar help had been provided, to, say, the Spanish nobles this might have happened as well, but Justinian didn't get to that. However, rebellions certainly helped the Byzantines reconquer Italy and North Africa.

[ray245]

Well, we do have Romans rebelling against the Gothic invaders with the help of the Byzantines, so there is that. But these revolts happened in Italy and coincided with massive help from Justinian. If similar help had been provided, to, say, the Spanish nobles this might have happened as well, but Justinian didn't get to that. However, rebellions certainly helped the Byzantines reconquer Italy and North Africa.

Is there any reason there was no major rebellion before Justinian's reconquest of the western provinces?

[Thanas]

Because usually nobody rebelled without promise of success, because if you did not win you and everybody you knew were dead. No laws of warfare back then. Read up what happened to Byzantion when it rebelled against Severus.

[ray245]

Yet this did not stop the various tribes and provinces from rebelling against roman rule..so why were things different during late antiquity?

[Thanas]

Yet this did not stop the various tribes and provinces from rebelling against roman rule..so why were things different during late antiquity?

The same tribal structures that allowed rebellion to occur did not exist anymore, nor did the heavy-handed treatment that caused rebellions in the first place?

[His Divine Shadow]

Hmm, my question is not whether the people in Frankish Gaul felt a connection to a Greek Emperor in Constantinople, but why didn't Roman culture dominate over the Frankish minority in Gaul? Why did the Roman population in Gaul chose to adopt a Frankish identity in the end? Why weren't the Roman population in Gaul, Hispania or North Africa able to form kingdoms that readily identify themselves as Romans?

The rulers had no interest in being Romans, they were perfectly content being french. Also, the tech to keep the Roman way of life going wasn't there anymore, so even if they wanted to, they could not. Keep in mind however that when the tech survived to some extent they did, as in Rome, Ravenna etc.

However, we do not know how the general population felt. We know how a small elite of frankish kings and nobles felt. We do not know much about everyday life. We do know that the people in the cities clung to Roman life as long as they technologically and economically could.

Somewhat OT but what where these technologies that where lost and required for the Roman lifestyle?

[Thanas]

Off the top of my head:
- Glass making. Probably the biggest single one. Without large glass windows neither the Roman baths nor most of the Roman palaces work/can be heated. Guess why most early medieval churches have small windows, if any at all. Heck, even simple Roman houses had glass windows.
- Use of water in specialized mills. Like this one. One single mill avaiblable to satisfy up to 30.000 people per day. That is the true Roman genius.
- Mining and iron production, both scale (nearly global production, on levels not reached until the 1800s again) and technology. In some areas there was no iron mining despite deposits until the 1800s because if you needed iron, just crack open a roman building and rip the iron out of the walls. Heck, in Greece I know people whose wedding gold was "freshly" procured from Roman tombs in the area.
- Roman specialized concrete - standard concrete still existed, but the specialized concrete for underwater harbour construction etc.
- Architectural knowledge, like how to construct a bridge that will stand for centuries without moving or breaking apart. See this for the most striking example. Look at the picture. See those breakwaters at the front to prevent winter ice from crushing the bridge? Something that was not built again until the high middle ages. Also, note what those breakwaters are made of. Black stone, (iirc Basalt) because unlike other stone, it will not gradually suffer from water erosion etc. And the Romans transported the whole stones from far aways just to build a bridge that holds.

Even today the orignal foundations still hold cars and trucks. Think about that. A bridge that was build over 2000 years ago is still carrying trucks and cars today. While serving as a direct access point to a highway and being probably being one of the three big ways into one of the largest German cities today. Do you feel comfortable saying that about today's bridge construction?

- More architectural knowledge and institutions, like road maintenance and road construction
- Specialized fishing and transportation technology aka "how do I transport living seawater fish from Great Britain all the way to Rome without spoiling it". Something we need refrigerators for, but which the Romans did regularly and with ease.
- Specialized nautical institutions and technology. Like Lighthouse constructions, using a comprehensive signal system, keeping logs of obstacles empire-wide....heck even something as simple as a road travel map encompassing all of Europe.
- A system of taxation that made long-range trade possible and plannable
- Sound engineering. Sounds trivial at first. But consider - there were no microphones. Yet if I stand in the middle of a Roman amphitheater and just speak normally, even those in the upper ranks can hear me. If I raise my voice, it will easily cut through crowd noise. (I am not pulling a leg, I've tried this multiple times). Compare this to the pitiful sound engineering in, say, churches of the Carolingian times, where it is most likely just flailing around like "MUST HAVE ABSIS. ABSIS GOOD FOR SOUND."


But most importantly, the complex super-regional economical trade or resource exploitation. Look at a Roman city. Here is what it needs:
- Vast amounts of firewood, if only for the Thermae. Lower Germany is reckoned to be nearly entirely deforested due to the appetites of those Thermae, especially those at Cologne and Trier. One could not do that in the middle age due to loss of available workers as well as the fracturing of the political landscaep.
- Vast amounts of Grain, in some cases exported halfway around the known world. Also vast amounts of specialized foodstuffs (olive oil, garum, oysters etc.) that make Roman life possible but which also need safe routes of travel and lots of workers.
- Vast amounts of Iron, lime, stones and marble for building. Not possible due to the above-mentioned restrictions.
- Clean water. Records show that the average Roman in a city like Trier used from 120-200 liters of fresh water per day. We Germans today use less than that and that is with industrialization etc. To have such water, you need an aquaduct. How do you build an aquaeduct?

Well, you need to keep the exact degree of down angle for distances of up to hundreds of kilometers. Exactly the same or the whole aquaeduct is useless. You also need to build the thing simultaneously in several locations (or you will never finish) and hope the pieces do match when fit together. The amount of planning and engineering that must have gone into those, especially in the hilly/rocky terrain of Italy and lower Germany...Oh, and you have to clean them from sediment every decade. (Fun fact: In the middle ages those sediments had by then turned into a soft, easily cuttable stone and were sold as valuable ornament materials all over Europe. Nearly every palace of that time has this sort of stone, most often used for figures or arches.)

All those things are what made Roman life possible. Remove any single one of them and the system collapses or loses the things which made it Roman.

I always considered the comparable high standard of life and technology, which easily was centuries ahead of all the Rest of Europe until the tall end of the Renaissance (and only then concerning Northern Italy), the most impressive feat of the Romans, much more impressive than all their military prowess combined. Heck, Roman sound engineering is still not matched in today's sports arenas.

[ray245]

But didn't the traditional Roman way of life faded even in the ERE? Constantinople is still a pretty major city...but didn't the rest of the cities in the ERE shrink massively?

I mean if we can continue to accept a person living inside the ERE during the 11th century as a Roman despite him no longer adhering to the traditional Roman lifestyle, why is it necessary for anyone who lives in western Europe to have the same kind of lifestyle before we can call him a Roman?

[Thanas]

But didn't the traditional Roman way of life faded even in the ERE? Constantinople is still a pretty major city...but didn't the rest of the cities in the ERE shrink massively?

Yes, quite massively. Up to 96% shrinkage in some cases.

I mean if we can continue to accept a person living inside the ERE during the 11th century as a Roman despite him no longer adhering to the traditional Roman lifestyle, why is it necessary for anyone who lives in western Europe to have the same kind of lifestyle before we can call him a Roman?

We call them Romans in the legal sense, not in the cultural sense. Which is why we call it the Byzantine Empire.

[energiewende]

Napoleon abolished it in 1806, though one could probably argue moderately convincingly that the Vatican See is a continuation of Ancient Rome.

Alternatively, the EU is beginning to adopt Latin for some purposes (we can't agree on any of the languages we can understand, so let's settle for a language none of us understand).

[Thanas]

Napoleon abolished it in 1806, though one could probably argue moderately convincingly that the Vatican See is a continuation of Ancient Rome.

Sure, it certainly has the most valid claim after the utter destruction of the ERE.

And the Holy See is still there after all.

Alternatively, the EU is beginning to adopt Latin for some purposes (we can't agree on any of the languages we can understand, so let's settle for a language none of us understand).

*Ahem.*

Btw, one of the earliest speeches given by the President of the Baltic States to the EU Parliament was in Latin. Happened in the early 90s.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

This is somewhat unrelated but sparked by something you mentioned in your post, Thanas. The thermae used a large amount of wood, something that had uses in more superficially utilitarian purposes, to the point of deforestation and thus resource depletion. Were there any cases where this led to changes in behavior, or at least calls for it, or were the thermae considered important enough to keep up as a priority?

[ray245]

We call them Romans in the legal sense, not in the cultural sense. Which is why we call it the Byzantine Empire.

I think this does get back to my original point, which was why was there no Romans states surviving in the legal sense? Can we consider the Domain of Soissons legally at the least as a Roman kingdom?

[Thanas]

I think this does get back to my original point, which was why was there no Romans states surviving in the legal sense? Can we consider the Domain of Soissons legally at the least as a Roman kingdom?

I'd rather put them in the line of romanized Gallic empires, like the one of the third century. In any case, you are fixating too much on purely legal terms for my liking. The Roman way of life is a much better way to track than any legal pretexts.

This is somewhat unrelated but sparked by something you mentioned in your post, Thanas. The thermae used a large amount of wood, something that had uses in more superficially utilitarian purposes, to the point of deforestation and thus resource depletion. Were there any cases where this led to changes in behavior, or at least calls for it, or were the thermae considered important enough to keep up as a priority?

First, the Romans did not care much about environmental damage unless it impacted their ability to live. Hence we get strip mining Spain and Portugal to such a degree that it would make West Virginia and Kentucky look reasonable (and no, I am not kidding), while on the other hand we get great irrigation programs to stop (and even turn around) the encroaching desert in North Africa. However, to my knowledge, the deforestation never reached such levels as to threaten the Romans and they might even have viewed it as beneficial (for example, deforesting the thick German and danube forests is good for noticing encroaching German warbands) in some parts. Had the Romans held on to the Rhine area for another three hundred years it might have changed (and my personal opinion is that it would have) but due to the destruction caused by the fifth and sixth centuries the thermae never worked again and the population shrunk to a tenth of its size, so the forests quickly recovered.

Second: A Roman Imperial city had to have Thermae. To not have Thermae was to show a loss of status and face. Therefore, the Romans would have kept the Thermae running as a matter of state principle unless the costs got too prohibitive and the Imperial coffers were quite deep. Compare it to the WTC monument - would any US gov seriously consider shutting it down to gain more building space in Manhattan?

[Sea Skimmer]

Considering that wolves were still a serious man eating problem into the 1700s in France and Germany, I would tend to imagine that deforestation was seen as a serious improvement.

[Thanas]

What are your sources about the wolves attacking humans?

[Thanas]

Still waiting.

[Sea Skimmer]

Its common sense you can observe everywhere in the world that still has dangerous wildlife that people have problems with them and will do all they can to drive them to extinction. I don't give a fuck enough to look it up books referencing back Louis XIV for you on Google thoug, you want that as a concession fine by me.

[Thanas]

Its common sense you can observe everywhere in the world that still has dangerous wildlife that people have problems with them and will do all they can to drive them to extinction. I don't give a fuck enough to look it up books referencing back Louis XIV for you on Google thoug, you want that as a concession fine by me.

I am wondering about the sources specifically for the Rhine region because I have not seen one. Your statement was especially bewildering in the context of there not being man-eating wolf packs recorded to the west of the Oder in the 18th century in Germany. There is only a single city even recording wolfes being disruptive to farming and that was due to a very harsh winter. Thus, I cannot help but wonder if you know what you are talking about when talking about the Rhine region. I do hope you are not going "well France had that problem therefore the Rhine region must have that one as well".