Inspired a bit by a post on r/Askhistorians. It seems at some point in the Middle Ages, the city of Rome fell from the millions of inhabitants it had in imperial times to just a few thousands. It decayed enough for a cow herd to graze in the old city's forum undisturbed. Could Rome have just gone the way of Carthage and Palmyra? And what would have this mean for later Italian history?
Could Rome have been abandoned?
- Thread starter Tocomocho
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I don't think it could be completely abandoned a la Carthage for two reasons. For one there will almost always be a settlement on the Tiber where there are bridges across the river. While some cities in the area were abandoned in the middle ages, like Tusculum, the strategic value alone will ensure that Rome is reoccupied. Add to that the importance of the Major Basilicas to Christianity and the city will never go away completely. Even if the Papacy leaves Rome the Basilicas will remain. Look at Aquilea, that was a great city, abandoned under worse circumstances but the Cathedral remains standing and maintained by the Church amidst a field of half buried ruins. So there is bound to be some kind of small settlement either between the Tiber or Tiber island and the Capitoline or maybe north of the Capitoline on the plain of the ancient Campus Martius where the OTL medieval city gravitated. At a minimum this would continue as a local administrative or commercial center, local or regional crossroads with a significant Church presence maintaining all the old holy sites. And that's probably the worst case scenario.
To get Carthage I think you would need the Arabs to conquer the Italian peninsula and set up their government at a new settlement on the coast at Ostia or Civitavecchia. I can conceive of a good POD for this and it would have to last at least a few centuries with the Catholic Church being reestablished in Milan, Ravenna or more likely some place in France. But then you've completely butterflied away Europe as we know it and any sense of 'Italian' history. And frankly if the Arabs can some how take and hold Italy the odds are not good for Carolingian France.
To get Carthage I think you would need the Arabs to conquer the Italian peninsula and set up their government at a new settlement on the coast at Ostia or Civitavecchia. I can conceive of a good POD for this and it would have to last at least a few centuries with the Catholic Church being reestablished in Milan, Ravenna or more likely some place in France. But then you've completely butterflied away Europe as we know it and any sense of 'Italian' history. And frankly if the Arabs can some how take and hold Italy the odds are not good for Carolingian France.
But would there be bridges? Did 7th century Lombards have the technical capability to rebuild the bridges with 15...25 m spans between surviving piers, if the span is destroyed for military reasons? Especially if making a large investment there is a military danger?
OTL Rome did not fall to Lombards till 8th century and then Franks bailed them out after fall of Ravenna.
Suppose that Rome does fall in late 6th century - and that, instead of being taken over intact and becoming a local administrative centre under Lombard kingdom, it is ravaged by repeated counterattacks of Roman Empire, and becomes a buffer zone between Romans and Lombards? Say, Romans based in Tusculum and Lombards founding a base in Veii or so?
Open Tiber valley would be a logical development for a march/buffer zone. Once the physical infrastructure of Rome is deliberately slighted by one and then other side, not hoping to hold the spot and wishing to deny it to the enemy, like breaching gaps in Aurelian Walls somewhere, and in the bridges, would either side be able to reestablish a fort in the ruins? The valley would still be subject to raids by the people from the other side who raid, raft or swim over the river... did 7th century Lombards have the social organization to build new castles AND support them in deserted marchlands?
I guess I'm still skeptical that you could reduce Rome to an empty field or wilderness. Even if the Lombards cannot rebuild bridges you have to cross the Tiber somewhere and I still think that would be Rome. All the roads or trade routes in the region already lead there and, afterall, Rome was build where it was for a reason, because it was a logical crossing point on the Tiber based on local topography.
As for the other infrastructure most of it was destroyed or rendered in operable OTL. When the aqueducts failed the city just mover northwest to be closer to the Tiber and didn't seriously rebuild or reoccupy the Quirinal, for example, until until the water connections were restored in the 17th century. The Aurelian walls encompassed such a large area relative to what was actually inhabited in OTL medieval Rome that it's easy to see them becoming superfluous and a new much smaller inner fortification built around the Vatican or Capitoline hills. Many Roman cities contracted to within their Roman walls during the period but were not abandoned. And rebuilding is not so hard considering all the supplies you have to work with. The ancient city is a veritable quarry with plenty of old marble statues lying around you can burn to make lime for mortar.
The only case I can think of a major Roman city being completely devastated is Aquilea. It took the city being destroyed several times by the Huns, Visigoths and Lombards. And the only reason that it wasn't reoccupied and rebuilt over time is that the people in the area found a better place to settle, namely Venice. Not to mention that it was not as important to the Catholic Church as Rome. You can move the Papacy and diminish the importance to the Church and even right off a couple Major Basilicas like Santa Maria Maggiore or the San Giovanni in Laterano but you can't move the burial spots of Sts Peter and Paul so San Pietro in Vaticano and San Paulo fuori le Mura will always be destinations for pilgrims.
I could certainly see a scenario where Rome is reduced to a small backwater village but I can't see it being completely abandoned. Eventually it will pull back from the brink and either rebuild like OTL or stabilize as a small regional center. You could push it closer to oblivion that it got OTL but I don't see it being completely extinguished.
As for the other infrastructure most of it was destroyed or rendered in operable OTL. When the aqueducts failed the city just mover northwest to be closer to the Tiber and didn't seriously rebuild or reoccupy the Quirinal, for example, until until the water connections were restored in the 17th century. The Aurelian walls encompassed such a large area relative to what was actually inhabited in OTL medieval Rome that it's easy to see them becoming superfluous and a new much smaller inner fortification built around the Vatican or Capitoline hills. Many Roman cities contracted to within their Roman walls during the period but were not abandoned. And rebuilding is not so hard considering all the supplies you have to work with. The ancient city is a veritable quarry with plenty of old marble statues lying around you can burn to make lime for mortar.
The only case I can think of a major Roman city being completely devastated is Aquilea. It took the city being destroyed several times by the Huns, Visigoths and Lombards. And the only reason that it wasn't reoccupied and rebuilt over time is that the people in the area found a better place to settle, namely Venice. Not to mention that it was not as important to the Catholic Church as Rome. You can move the Papacy and diminish the importance to the Church and even right off a couple Major Basilicas like Santa Maria Maggiore or the San Giovanni in Laterano but you can't move the burial spots of Sts Peter and Paul so San Pietro in Vaticano and San Paulo fuori le Mura will always be destinations for pilgrims.
I could certainly see a scenario where Rome is reduced to a small backwater village but I can't see it being completely abandoned. Eventually it will pull back from the brink and either rebuild like OTL or stabilize as a small regional center. You could push it closer to oblivion that it got OTL but I don't see it being completely extinguished.
Could it be abandoned during the dark or middle ages? Not without a massive change to the overall history of Europe that would involve massive depopulation and abandonment of Christianity, in my opinion.
However, it could have been abandoned in the early years of the city, and there were proposals to do just that, made by the Romans. I have a hunch this isn't what you were looking for, though.
However, it could have been abandoned in the early years of the city, and there were proposals to do just that, made by the Romans. I have a hunch this isn't what you were looking for, though.
Peter and Paul are the founders of Christianity. Not of 'catholicism', 'orthodoxy', whatever. I would imagine the Arians would honour anyone from before the life of Arius.
norse
Banned
Thankyou
Although I think I was responding to the OP. I was asking if Rome was ever underpopulated in the medieval ages.
I don't see the Lateran being abandoned; after all, it's the Pope's Cathedral.
Okay, how about like it happened to ancient cities of old as Babylon, reduced over time to a small town or village, a shadow of it's glory?
Certainly underpopulated, though never abandoned.
Despite the late classical sacks of Rome and the ravages of the Gothic and Lombard Wars, Rome maintained some semblance of the old civic life centered on the Forum. Many of the city's old structures suffered the greatest damage not from the sacks, but from the earthquake of 847 (before which the Basilica of Constantine and the Colosseum itself were essentially intact).
Even afterwards, the Forum continued to be in use; the OP is correct about it being turned into cattle pasture, but this didn't actually happen until the Normans under Robert Guiscard sacked Rome in 1084. After this, the surviving population concentrated in the Field of Mars, and the Forum - along with most of the rest of the city - was given over to agriculture or waste. We tend to think of Rome falling along with the Western Empire and beginning its recovery thereafter, but Rome as a city hit rock bottom not in the 5th or 6th centuries, but in the 11th. Rome had been in better condition after Alaric, Gaiseric, and Totila than it was after Guiscard.
By then, however, Rome had been firmly established as the spiritual capital of Christendom. Though the city itself was in a shambles, it was never going to be totally abandoned or reduced to complete obscurity, even though it had lost all economic significance aside from what we would today call "religious tourism."
I think any abandonment of Rome in the Christian era is difficult to imagine, but Muslim control/disruption of Italy is probably the most credible scenario. The Vatican itself was burned by "Saracens" in 846 (it was, at that time, outside the city walls), only one year before the disastrous earthquake of 847. In 849 a large Saracen fleet was crushed at the Battle of Ostia by a Papal-led maritime league. It's possible to imagine a different outcome of these years - the incursion of 846 is much stronger and actually penetrates the Roman walls (which were indefensible anyway), and/or Ostia is won by the Saracens, leaving Rome open to yet another sack. (Ostia was only lost by the Saracens because of a storm, so all you need to do is change the day's weather.) It's not inconceivable that this pile of disasters in the 840s could lead to the Pope deciding that some other city - any city, really - would be vastly preferable to Rome.