BG!you are out of context! of course it is true 100% and you didn't pay attention(or you didn't read) what I wrote:sixth century had nothing to do with WRE and that was the one that collapsed;ERE had a sound economy always and its capital did not come mainly from agriculture,but from trade conducted mainly by Greeks,carriage of goods carried by Greek ships and Greek practices.From the separation of the empire in East and West these facts became more apparent since the taxes of the east went to Constantinople and the fewer taxes of the west went into a corrupt system in Rome or Ravenna,its system of administration was cumbersome and could not be maintained; in the fifth century the movement of tribes that crossed the Rhine unopposed,caused great destruction before they were reduced in consequence by any legions were left,England was abandoned...the rest you know;Julian the Great was the last emperor to hold intact the Rhine and to defeat the barbarian cavalries in 357,but it was the last victory of a conventional Roman army with legions;what happened in the east was done to stem the Persian threat hence the prepoderance cavalry,kataphract lancers and archers etc.Salon-syr Marne or as you know it katalonian fields there were assorted Roman and barbaric groups,but not Roman army as we knew it... ^th century belongs to the east,and a different history.
It is not nessecary to have only decedent emperors;Constantine and Thedosius were competent emperors but what followed after Theodosius?
"The late Roman State"? you speak about WRE I trust?
With respect... bollocks.
Agriculture was
always by far the primary source of revenue for the Roman Empire, both in the East and the West. Commerce was never more than a small sector of the economy when compared to agriculture.
"Greeks" were a minority in the Eastern Empire, which was in any case, until the seventh century, still largely a Latin state. Maurice, hailing from Cappadocia, was probably the only sixth century Emperor to speak Greek as a first language, and even he was probably descended from an Italian Senatorial family, according to Byzantine writers. So, the East was not saved by "Greek techniques". Rather, what saved the East was favourable geography and good luck- nothing more, nothing less.
Administrative systems were essentially identical in both East and West- how else do you think the single document that is the
Notitia Dignitatum could apply to both halves of the Empire?
You're seriously calling the arrogant weirdo Julian "the Great"? The guy who pissed off pagans and Christians alike, before dying inglouriously after a completely failed invasion of Iran? Really? In any case, the idea that the Rhine collapsed after he marched East is absurd- if the Rhine frontier was gone, why did Valentinian I rule primarily from Trier? Why did Symmachus and his friends not mention the collapse of the Rhine, and instead comment on its productivity and peace in the 370s?
What did follow after Theodosius? Well, Constantius III was a good Emperor of the West despite his short reign, and Anthemius was very able, but fatally holed below the waterline by the failure of the Vandal expedition. In the East you see the harmless nonentities that were Arcadius and Theodosius II replaced by tough military men like Marcian and Leo I, who successfully faced down the Hunnic threat and made strenuous efforts to put the West back together.
In short, I find all of your arguments unconvincing- especially the part about "Greek superiority", which is demonstrably untrue.