The Fall of Roman Civilization

Angel Heart

Banned
I'm sure that there have been a lot of WI scenarios abou the Roman Empire. I excuse myself if this isn't alternative but more of a question for a better understanding:
Why did all the technological and cultural achievements perish with the fall of the Western Roman Empire? The Romans didn't dissapear just over night, so why couldn't they pass their knowledge to further generations or to the Germanics before merging with or being absorbed by them?

And also: Why did the once outlawed Christianity became so successful in the Roman Empire? Constantine once converted to Christianity in the 4th century AD, but what about the West?
 

Nikephoros

Banned
The knowledge wasn't so much lost, as it was marginalized. Simply put, the new barbarian administrations couldn't afford to maintain it. Also, in the case of Italy, much of it was destroyed in war.
 
Oh, merciful heavens. Realise first of all that this is the kind of simple question that has generations of scholars despairing over. So, I hope you don't expect a simple answer - the simple ones have all been proven wrong so far. In the shortest possible terms:

- not all knowledge or achievement was lost. There is, however, the problem that we don't exactly know how much of it did survive. A good deal of it did, sometimes in the strangest of corners, sometimes right where you'd expect it. (We need to keep in mind that e.g. the successors to Roman building tradition aren't at work in St Denis or Yeavering, but the Hagia Sophia, the Great Mosque in Damascus or the walls of Antioch. Gaul and Britain were relatively uncivilised by comparison.)

- The Germanic tribes were singularly poor candidates for the purpose for a number of reasons (social structures inimical to urbanisation, strong traditions of low-level warfare, a self-definition against the Roman as a cultural Other). The Romans were much more successful with the Gauls, even the Isaurians and Illyrians, and their star pupils, the Arabs. The 'Fall of Rome' was a global phenomenon by the ancient world's standard, but the depth and finality of that fall in large parts of Western Europe was strictly local.

- The Christianity thing; first it needs saying that Constantine was a 'Western' emperor by any standard you might choose to apply. Whatever he was trying to achieve with his conversion, imposing an Eastern religion on the resentful West was not it. Quite possibly it was the opposite, gaining support in a resentful, but much more strongly Christian, East. Beyond that, you are probabnly looking at a combination of social mechanisms (exclusionary and community-building functions are written into Christian practice early), a favourable social environment (strong interest in Judaism, Neoplatonic influences, detribalisation on a large scale, familiar institutions under threat), later on government support and the cultural prestige of Rome. It bears remembering that Chriostianioty survived and thrived mainly in urban environments. Large parts of the former Roman provinces of Gaul, Germany, Raetia, Moesia, Pannonia and Britain needed reconversion.
 
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