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TheFlemishDuck

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It seems clear that towards the end of the Western Roman empire there was a severe lack of manpower for the army going so far that there even had to be recruited among Barbarians. I estimate that by the Time of Emperor Valerians death that the Roman Empire had maybe half of the army numbers that it had at it's peak?

And yet, the Roman Empire by that time was far more poppulated than it was century's ago? Shouldn't Rome have had far more manpower considering it's size of poppulation?

The difference seems most telling when comparing the situation after Adrianople with the situation after Canae. Rome had lost several battles and armies to Hannibal and serious numbers at that but Rome managed to constantly find manpower to build new armies. Why was this not the case after Adrianople?
 
The Roman attitude towards war changed, being a soldier was a profession for failures, and no longer a way to advance in life. Especially since the Empire stopped expanding and thus land grants weren't really a thing anymore. The citizens did their best to avoid serving and Rome had to increase the auxiliary participation. Simple case of decadence colapsing the empire.
 
Are you sure that the population base grew? AFAIK it shrunk pretty monotonously after the expansion stopped.

As opposed to the period they fought Hannibal atleast, but thats more a reference to how easily they seemed able to replentisch manpower back then practicly from the city of Rome alone. I presume that the demographics didn't change all that much since Augustus for what regards the Roman empire at it's peak, perhaps declined a bit even as Rome was often hit heavy by widespread outbreak of disease.

What surprises me is how many historians put emphasis on many factors when it seems apparently easy to recognise that Rome's access to manpower was crittically depleted before Adrianople to the point here the Empire was at significantly reduced strenght and that aparently mostly because of a lack of willingness to fight. Rome had it's fair share of economic woes and issue's of succession with civil wars that did a lot of dammage, but Ototh up to Adrianople the Empire had been doing reasonably well for century's and it seems like the Roman empire could have continued if only it would have had the army strenght that it "should" have according to it's size of economy and poppulation.

edit:
Though if i can believe Wiki, then the empire had far more troops than ever before under Constantine, around 400K troops apparently. That seems surprising to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Size_of_the_Roman_army

It doesnt say how we go from a 400K army during Constantine to a far smaller army by the time of Adrianople.
 
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The principle difference is it now had the wrong kind of population, too many poor ( who had to be equipped trained to do the job and had no political say in the Empire despite high tax burden, with no desire to serve in a harsh environment for little pay, ( pay stayed the same for 150 years and was about the same as day labour rates, not allowed to marry, 25 years service and then given what?, cash bonus was good, a say in political life was then given, but unless new good crop lands were acquired they get given less productive land to retire on, and thats what had been going on for quite a while).

Its the end result of the socio economic system Rome adopted over time, that has created a huge pop base with no political investment in keeping the empire as it is, arming them is politically a problem, as they pose an internal threat, it was cheaper/safer to pay others to do the job and empoly the external threat agaisnt other external thtreats.

In Hanny`s time the poor ( tax class 6 the lowest) made up around 20% of the pop, by end of empire that was more like 80%.
 
Somewhere there is a rapid decline in army numbers though, or atleast it seems like that. By the death of Constantine (337 AD) the Roman empire would have a peak of 400K soldiers, more than it ever had. If you read up accounts of battle's in that time you get impressions of rather large armies.

But by the time of Adrianople 4 decades later (376) It seemed that Valens had to scrape the barrel of the Eastern Empire to muster 60K men and it was a disaster when that army got lost and indeed Adrianople kinda gives the turning point where the Empire starts to decline. The Roman Empire had appeared to be in a relativly good shape under Constantine, you'd think a 400K army would have been sufficient to hold the Barbarians at bay. It does not appear to me as like Valens and Valerian had a combined troop strenght that got near to what Constantine got, not even half of that i would immagine, the Roman numbers taken into battle seems to be far smaller than during Constantine's time.
 
Paper strengths still looked good, PFD strength did not.

When you have 80% of your society knowing/thinking society is working for there benefit, you have a reserve manpower pool for your mil machine, when it suffers high loss, in combat disease etc, that loss is not as hard to replace as a society that has 20% thinking the same thing and 80% thinking, actually change is just what we need as im getting no joy from how society works for me. So casualty replacement was the issue of the later empire even without combat, the supply of suitable replacements was limited, and an event that saw high losses, had a greater impact ( includding financial cost to the state to arm and equip/train) then than it had in the past. One reason why roman grand strategy was to avoid large scale battles in that period if it could.
 
So casualty replacement was the issue of the later empire even without combat, the supply of suitable replacements was limited, and an event that saw high losses, had a greater impact ( includding financial cost to the state to arm and equip/train) then than it had in the past. One reason why roman grand strategy was to avoid large scale battles in that period if it could.

Which is exactly the opposite how the early Roman strategy worked... their preferred method was war of attrition and they won their wars due to their enormous staying power. No wonder that their efficiency dropped like a rock, because the legions are meant to fight differently.
 
After some point, the wealthier members of society could buy their way out of military service. Nobody wanted to serve if there was any other alternative. It even got to the point where they were drafting people as punishment for minor crimes.

Life during the Republican period was fairly hard, and even the wealthy weren't exactly burdened with luxuries. You could get people to serve in the army because life wasn't much worse in or out, and there was at least the opportunity for loot and plunder along with the risk, to either come back wealthy or dead. By the mid Imperial stage, personal wealth had soared, life was easy, and nobody had any rational reason to suffer military discipline, rations, and life in the field for up to 25 years before receiving a pension that was considered fairly generous 200 years earlier but had been rendered almost laughable since then. The land grants were gone, the opportunity for loot was minimal, and the risks were the same or higher. Basically, you were throwing away 25 of the best years of your life for almost no chance of improvement.

Hiring barbarians to fight for you was a lot more comfortable, never mind what it did to the value of the currency over time, or that the barbarians fighting for you got the training and equipment to be a major threat to you as well as to the enemy.
 
After some point, the wealthier members of society could buy their way out of military service. Nobody wanted to serve if there was any other alternative. It even got to the point where they were drafting people as punishment for minor crimes.

Life during the Republican period was fairly hard, and even the wealthy weren't exactly burdened with luxuries. You could get people to serve in the army because life wasn't much worse in or out, and there was at least the opportunity for loot and plunder along with the risk, to either come back wealthy or dead. By the mid Imperial stage, personal wealth had soared, life was easy, and nobody had any rational reason to suffer military discipline, rations, and life in the field for up to 25 years before receiving a pension that was considered fairly generous 200 years earlier but had been rendered almost laughable since then. The land grants were gone, the opportunity for loot was minimal, and the risks were the same or higher. Basically, you were throwing away 25 of the best years of your life for almost no chance of improvement.

Hiring barbarians to fight for you was a lot more comfortable, never mind what it did to the value of the currency over time, or that the barbarians fighting for you got the training and equipment to be a major threat to you as well as to the enemy.
this just isn't true.

personal wealth for the elites in the mid-late imperial period was probably greater than it was for the same cohort in the republican one. however for most people, life was basically the same. life has never been particularly easy for a peasant.

were the land grants gone? sure. but rome built its empire on legions who weren't granted land. that only came after the Gracchi & Marius... they'd already taken over most of Spain, Africa, Greece, Italy, etc.

It was cheap and easy to hire barbarians, yeah. But there was not a manpower shortage in the Empire. There was a shortage of conscriptable men, since they were tied to peonage to the great land holders. Serfs by another means. And that German fella is willing to fight, and he ain't farming, so hire him.
 
Making assumptions or estimates about Roman demographics is quite risky, after two centuries of discussions the most that scholars have been able to offer is a series of educated guesses that differ wildly between 50 million inhabitants and almost 100 million people at its peak under the Antonines. The count that I‘ve seen used most often by historians is that of 75 million inhabitants for the whole empire at its peak immediately before the Antonine plague.

When dealing with the demographic situation during the late IV century CE, the first thing that should be noted is that the preceding century had been one of economic and demographic growth in most parts of the empire, as attested by archeological excavations, except in some specific areas where the situation is less clear, like in northern Gaul (north of the Loire). So, if there was a manpower crisis during the late IV century, demographic causes should be discarded almost for sure. The demography was definitely weaker under Diocletian and Constantine, who managed to keep standing armies of considerable size.

If there was a manpower crisis (something that is far from clear) the reasons for it must‘ve been of a different nature. Personally, I‘d rather blame a combination of fiscal and recruiting issues, which were the result of a trend that had begun a long time ago, during the late II century CE, and which had not been reversed in the two centuries that followed.

Starting with Septimius Severus, Roman soldiers, including auxiliaries, became very well paid civil servants. The pay increases ordered by Septimius Severus, Caracalla and (possibly) Maximinus Thrax had been brutal, and they had brought the Roman treasury to near bankruptcy; nowadays there‘s little doubt that this massive burden in military spending was the reason behind the accelerated devaluation of Roman silver coinage during the III century CE. And of course, trying to reign in the spending and cutting the soldiers‘ pay was a suicidal thought for any emperor, those who even dared to talk about it were promptly murdered by their own men.

It was probably mainly because of this (although there were other reasons as well) that the III and IV centuries CE the Roman authorities began recruiting more and more foreign "barbarians". As technically these men were not regular Roman soldiers (neither legionaries nor auxiliaries, they were laeti or foederati), they were not entitled to the same pay and fiscal privileges that regular Roman soldiers enjoyed, and an additional advantage was that they could be recruited for a specific campaign and dismissed immediately after its end, which saved a. lot of money as the Roman treasury was spared having to pay them during peaceful times. Probably, recruiting barbarians had other advantages for the emperors of these centuries. They were probably less inclined (given the transient nature of their service) to take part in armed plots and coups, and in some cases specific "barbarian" groups could be very loyal to the person of the ruling emperor (and far more trustworthy than most Roman soldiers). Yet another advantage was that the III and IV centuries CE saw Roman arms to endure some incredibly bloody wars, against foreign foes and in civil conflicts. For example, the 250s saw the Roman army suffer three catastrophic defeats at Barbalissos, Abrittus and Edessa that probably wiped out entire legions (including most of the eastern army). In these circumstances, if the Romans had not ready an available pool of trained manpower (like it happened with the veterans during the Late Republic that were called back to arms during the civil wars of that era), the only way to patch together a new border defense force quickly enough was by recruiting foreigners amongst warlike neighboring peoples. It’s worth noting that the Roman emperor who made most use of "barbarians" in his army was Constantine the Great, who organized them in the new units called auxilia palatina, and he owed most of his military successes to these men. Finally, another reason for this policy was a very simple and pragmatic way one: many neighboring societies were warlike ones were warfare was endemic, and taking part in wars was essential for any young free man who wanted to prove his manhood. These youths were going to cause trouble anyway, and recruiting them into Roman service was a way to ensure that their energies would be channeled to Rome’ advantage. The other two alternatives were to pay subsidies to their tribes (essentially bribing their elders to control them), or waging wars of reprisal, which in the rarified Roman political atmosphere of those times was a risky affair. The most successful emperors like Constantine the Great used a combination of the three approaches, and all emperors employed at least two of them.
 
Thank you for the insightfull post. I was surprised how fast the Western Roman empire declined at some point from a level where it still appeared fairly strong, the more so given that the empire had gone trough a lot of rough moments before and came trough anyway.
 
Thank you for the insightfull post. I was surprised how fast the Western Roman empire declined at some point from a level where it still appeared fairly strong, the more so given that the empire had gone trough a lot of rough moments before and came trough anyway.
I do think there's a bit of map-painter's bias; as in - just because an Empire has the same borders as before doesn't mean it's just as strong. The WRE seems to have held all the borders all the way until it suddenly held none of them. Alternatively, the Empire kept shifting strength outwards to maintain the borders, so when those collapsed there was no real fallback position.

Likewise I might be suffering from reverse map-painter's bias by thinking it was a very weak Empire when the borders collapsed, when in fact it still took nearly a century for the west to really collapse entirely (during which time it kept occasionally reasserting authority over large chunks of the former western Empire and then losing that authority again).

And a final possibility is that the Huns provided a large enough unbalancing factor that a previously strong-enough Rome that needed a bit of smart dealmaking with the neighbours suddenly couldn't make deals with enough of them.
 
One theory I have read:

An important factor with regards to manpower was the growing autonomy of local landowners. As defense against both bandits and foreign raiders became the responsibility of a local lord, his insentive to keep able bodied men at home grew. When asked by imperial officials if there were available men it was then better to lie. As the emperor failed to hold the frontiers and keep the peace, available manpower shifted from imperial to local service.
 
One theory I have read:

An important factor with regards to manpower was the growing autonomy of local landowners. As defense against both bandits and foreign raiders became the responsibility of a local lord, his insentive to keep able bodied men at home grew. When asked by imperial officials if there were available men it was then better to lie. As the emperor failed to hold the frontiers and keep the peace, available manpower shifted from imperial to local service.
This is true but that proto feudalism happened rather late.
 
One theory I have read:

An important factor with regards to manpower was the growing autonomy of local landowners. As defense against both bandits and foreign raiders became the responsibility of a local lord, his insentive to keep able bodied men at home grew. When asked by imperial officials if there were available men it was then better to lie. As the emperor failed to hold the frontiers and keep the peace, available manpower shifted from imperial to local service.

Yes, that‘s quite en extended opinion. But in my opinion it‘s quite simplistic and unaware of what was the social, fiscal and political reality of the Roman empire.

Landed potentates had always enjoyed an immense degree of autonomy in the Roman empire, it was nothing new in the IV or V centuries CE. What happened from the III century onwards was that in the West (or at least in substantial parts of the western empire) these landed magnates became separate from city life, when cities were the building blocks of the Roman empire.

The High Empire (the Principate) can best be described as a confederation of cities under the leadership of Rome, the same that Rome had done with the cities of Italy during its initial wave of conquests. In Italy, Sicily, parts of North Africa and the East this was an easy task, because a dense network of cities already existed. These cities were coerced by Rome to become Roman subjects, under several ad hoc arrangements, from a city being considered a Roman ally (like for example Aphrodisias in Caria, Delos or Rhodes), to being put under supervision of Roman magistrates, but in all cases local institutions and laws were maintained. These subject cities had to acknowledge the leadership of the Senate and the people of Rome in the person of their magistrates (they had to obey them), they had to pay a tribute to Rome (which varied depending on the case of each city and in which circumstances it had become subjected to Rome), acknowledge the superiority of Roman law (their authorities had no legal jurisdiction over Roman citizens) and had to help Rome in case of war, if Rome asked them so.

The exception were the cities which dared to resist and were destroyed, like Carthage or Corinth, but in these cases the Romans rebuilt them after some time as Roman colonies, assigning them large territories carved out from Roman public lands (ager publicus).

Thus, the whole apparatus of Roman administration was dependent on cities. Each province was subdivided into territoria, each of whom which was led by a city. In the case of some Greek provinces, the most predominant among the cities in a province received the title of metropoleis (that did not necessarily imply that the Roman governor lived there, though) and it was there where the council of provincial sities took place (a gathering of delegates from the city councils (boule) of each city. And each city, if it had the rank of a “Roman ally“ had even the privilege of sending its own embassies to Rome, bypassing the authority of the Roman governor.

As you can image, the problem came when the Romans conquered areas where no substantial cities existed, like most of Spain, Gaul and North Africa west of Tunis, Britain, and the Rhenish and Danubian provinces. Here it was the Romans who had to create cities ex novo, in order to be able to administrate these territories. The best known case is that of Gaul, where the Roman administrative structure was set up during the long reign of Augustus. Augustus built a new city in the territory of each Gaulish tribe (for example, Lutetia Parisiorum in the lands of the Parisii), and so it transformed (by decree) each tribal land area into an urban territorium, and an important part of the establishment of Roman rule in the province was convincing the old tribal leadership to take residence in the new cities and adopt a Roman way of life.

As these new cities had no real urban laws or traditions to rule themselves, Augustus had to create them either as Roman coloniae or municipia, and whenever possible he settled them with either Italian colonists or veterans from his legions (although the overwhelming majority of these settlements were made in Italy, southern Gaul and Spain, like at Emerita Augusta, Caesaraugusta, Asturica Augusta, etc.).

This makes the question arise of how “real“ were these cities. Did they really fulfill the functions that a city is expected to fulfill (commerce, manufacturing, etc.) or were they just glorified showcases of Roman propaganda, where the local Romanized elites (and the emperor at times) spent ridiculous amounts of money in unnecessary public buildings?. For example, the amphitheaters in some western cities had a seating capacity larger than the urban population (and one should take into account that slaves could not attend the spectacles).

Recent archaeological research has showed that already in the late II century CE a process of contraction and downsizing in the cites of the western empire had begun in some areas, especially in Gaul. The start of this process coincides with the Antonine plague, but it can not be related to any situation of war or insecurity, because with the exception of the civil war between Septimius Severus and Clodius Albinus Gaul was completely at peace at this time. And the Antonine plague affected all of the empire, and many areas recovered from it in a period of a few decades, so in itself it‘s not a satisfactory explanation either.

It could be put in relation too with the trend, which began already in the late I century CE, of emperors meddling increasingly in urban government. One of the first examples can be found in the surviving letters from Pliny the Younger to Trajan. Pliny was governor of the rich province of Bithynia et Pontus, and in it Pliny informs Trajan of a situation in his province that seems to have been quite common at the time. The two largest cities in the province, Nicaea and Nicomedia, were always in a fierce competition with each other, and this time both cities had embarked in such grandiose building plans that both municipal councils were on the verge of bankruptcy. Pliny had intervened and taken control of municipal finances in both cities, slashing completely the funding for unnecesary new lavish buildings, and Trajan approved his actions.

As the II century went by, epigraphical evidence shows more and more examples of imperial functionaries (procuratores) sent to the provinces by the emperor with the precise purpose of fiscalizing the public spending of the cities in the province. and this development seems to have been very badly received by the provincial landed aristocracy almost everywhere (except in cities which were already in financial trouble, which actually welcomed the intervention). This development seems to have intensified under Marcus Aurelius and his successors, when the Roman fiscus began to experience growing difficulties. Given the fiscal problems that plagued the emperors beginning with Septimius Severus, it‘s quite logical that they decided to tighten the screws of the urban aristocracies and to ensure that “profligate spending“ was cut back in order to ensure that more money would flow to the imperial treasury.

Today scholars believe that it was this situation that caused the almost total stop in public urban building in most of the western empire between the II and III centuries, and which caused the former urban aristocracies to retreat from urban life. But what‘s interesting to notice again is that this process also happened in the eastern empire and northern Africa, and there the results were very different. There was a certain stop in public building activity, but it did not happen everywhere (Thysdrus in Tunis still built a colossal amphitheater in the III century, and Hierapolis in Phrygia kept up a lavish public building program). So, the real puzzle is why did it happen differently in Gaul, Spain, Illyricum and the Danubian provinces.

In my opinion, the answer must lay in the fact that urban aristocracies in the east and west were very different. Eastern urban elites possessed landed estates, but most of them still lived in cities and kept urban life and institutions going on. Most of them had also commercial interests, and so living in commercial cities was essential. In contrast, the western aristocracy, beginning with the Roman Senate, was essentially a landed aristocracy, like in medieval Europe. In the High Empire they lived in cities because that was the “civilized“ way of life (the very word “civilized“ comes from the Latin word for “city“), but not because they really needed it. When living in cities became unattractive due to the changed circumstances of the III century, they just went back to living in their estates, which were after all the real source of their wealth, and without these elites, the western cities struggled to survive, and with it the whole Roman administrative and fiscal apparatus.

It“s startling to notice that although the eastern empire was altogether richer than the western part, archaeology has found nowhere in the east such luxurious villae like the ones that were built in the western empire during the IV century CE. Apart from the obvious case of Rome, splendid villae (some of them even rivaling the imperial ones in central Italy) have been found in Sicily, Africa, Spain, Gaul and even Britain. Some of them, like the one at Chiragan near Toulouse or the so-called “palace of Maximian“ near Cordoba are so immense and luxurious that some archaeologists believe they had been imperial residences, or at least part of imperial estates.

So, a landed aristocracy enjoying large autonomy was nothing new by the late IV century CE, at least in the West. It had been the current state of affairs for at least the last 200 years by then, and more if you take into account the role of the Senate. Before its ranks were enlarged to ridiculous levels during the IV century (by then the Senate had lost any kind of real political power), the 600 men sitting at the Curia in the Roman Forum were the largest landowners in the Roman empire (after the emperor himself) and they were all exempt from direct taxes, a fiscal privilege that continued during the IV and V centuries. By the late IV century CE, most land in the western empire must‘ve been either owned by the emperor, or owned by senators, or by the Church (which by this time also enjoyed the same privileged as the senators). This means that the emperors must‘ve gained very little money from direct taxes (the land tax for obvius reasons, and the poll tax because unfree people -a legal cathegory that included not only slaves- paid far less than a free person). The other source of income were indirect taxes, but if there‘s one sure trend in archaeology in the late Roman empire in the west it‘s the slow but continued decrease in trade, again with the exception of North Africa. But even in the case of North Africa, there were further problems, because African traders were charged with the food supply of the city of Rome, and the Roman state usually paid them with ... tax exemptions. In my opinion, if there was some reason for the troubles of the western empire in the late IV and V centuries CE, the reason must be found in the social and fiscal situation, which was the logical culmination of a very long historical process. The separation of the two halves of the empire at that critical moment in time probably made things much worse, because the western empire was deprived from the financial help of the eastern empire, which still had a functional fiscal system in place.
 
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Yes, that‘s quite en extended opinion. But in my opinion it‘s quite simplistic and unaware of what was the social, fiscal and political reality of the Roman empire.

Landed potentates had always enjoyed an immense degree of autonomy in the Roman empire, it was nothing new in the IV or V centuries CE. What happened from the III century onwards was that in the West (or at least in substantial parts of the western empire) these landed magnates became separate from city life, when cities were the building blocks of the Roman empire.

The High Empire (the Principate) can best be described as a confederation of cities under the leadership of Rome, the same that Rome had done with the cities of Italy during its initial wave of conquests. In Italy, Sicily, parts of North Africa and the East this was an easy task, because a dense network of cities already existed. These cities were coerced by Rome to become Roman subjects, under several ad hoc arrangements, from a city being considered a Roman ally (like for example Aphrodisias in Caria, Delos or Rhodes), to being put under supervision of Roman magistrates, but in all cases local institutions and laws were maintained. These subject cities had to acknowledge the leadership of the Senate and the people of Rome in the person of their magistrates (they had to obey them), they had to pay a tyribute to Rome (which varied depending on the case of each city and in which circumstances in had become subjected to Rome), acknowledge the superiority of Roman law (their authorities had no legal jurisdiction over Roman citizens) and had to help Rome in case of war, if Rome asked them so.

The exception were the cities which dared to resist and were destroyed, like Carthage or Corinth, but in these cases the Romans rebuilt them after some time as Roman colonies, assigning them large territories carved out from Roman public lands (ager publicus).

Thus, the whole apparatus of Roman administration was dependent on cities. Each province was subdivided into territoria, each of whom which was led by a city. In the case of some Greek provinces, the most predominant among the cities in a province received the title of metropoleis (that did not necessarily imply that the Roman governor lived there, though) and it was there where the council of provincial sities took place (a gathering of delegates from the city councils (boule) of each city. And each city, if it had the rank of a “Roman ally“ had even the privilege of sending its own embassies to Rome, bypassing the authority of the Roman governor.

As you can image, the problem came when the Romans conquered areas where no substantial cities existed, like most of Spain, Gaul and North Africa west of Tunis, Britain, and the Rhenish and Danubian provinces. Here it was the Romans who had to create cities ex novo, in order to be able to administrate these territories. The best known case is that of Gaul, where the Roman administrative structure ws set up during the long reign of Augustus. Augustus built a new city in the territory of each Gaulish tribe (for example, Lutetia Parisiorum in the lands of the Parisii), and so it transformed (by decree) each tribal land area into an urban territorium, and an important part of the establishment of Roman rule in the province was convincing the old tribal leadership to take residence in the new cities and adopt a Roman way of life.

As these new cities had no real urban laws or traditions to rule themselves, Augustus had to create them either as Roman coloniae or municipia, and whenever possible he settled them with either Italian colonists or veterans from his legions (although the overwhelming majority of these settlements were made in Italy, southern Gaul and Spain, like at Emerita Augusta, Caesaraugusta, Asturica Augusta, etc.).

This makes the question arise of how “real“ were these cities. Did they really fulfill the functions that a city is expected to fulfill (commerce, manufacturing, etc.) or were they just glorified showcases of Roman propaganda, where the local Romanized elites (and the emperor at times) spent ridiculous amounts of money in unnecessary public buildings. For example, the amphitheaters in some western cities had a seating capacity larger than the urban population (and one should take into account that slaves could not attend the spectacles).

Recent archaeological research has showed that already in the late II century CE a process of contraction and downsizing in the cites of the western empire had begun in some areas, especially in Gaul. The start of this process coincides with the Antonine plague, but it can not be related to any situation of war or insecurity, because with the exception of the civil war between Septimius Severus and Clodius Albinus Gaul was completely at peace at this time. And the Antonine plague affected all of the empire, and many areas recovered from it in a period of a few decades, so in itself it‘s not a satisfactory explanation either.

It could be put in relation too with the trend, which began already in the late I century CE, of emperors meddling increasingly in urban government. One of the first examples can be found in the surviving letters from Pliny the Younger to Trajan. Pliny was governor of the rich province of Bithynia et Pontus, and in it Pliny informs Trajan of a situation in his province that seems to have been quite common at the time. The two largest cities in the province, Nicaea and Nicomedia, were always in a fierce competition with each other, and this time both cities had embarked in such grandiose building plans that both municipal councils were on the verge of bankruptcy. Pliny had intervened and taken control of municipal finances in both cities, slashing completely the funding for unnecesary new lavish buildings, and Trajan approved his actions.

As the II century went by, epigraphical evidence shows more and more examples of imperial functionaries (procuratores) sent to the provinces by the emperor with the precise purpose of fiscalizing the public spending of the cities in the province. and this development seems to have been very badly received by the provincial landed aristocracy almost everywhere (except in cities which were already in financial troubles, which actually welcomed the intervention). This development seems to have become progessively stronger uner Marcus Aurelius and his successors, when the Roman fiscus began to experience growing difficulties. Given the fiscal problems that plagued the emperors beginning with Septimius Severus, it‘s quite logical that they decided to tighten the screws of the urban aristocracies and to ensure that “profligate spending“ was cut back in order to ensure that more money would flow to the imperial treasury.

Today scholars believe that it was this situation that caused the almost total stop in public urban building in most of the western empire between the II and III centuries, and which caused the former urban aristocracies to retreat from urban life. But what‘s interesting to notice again is that this process also happened in the eastern empire and northern Africa, and there the results were very different. There was a certain stop in public building activity, but it did not happen everywhere (Thysdrus in Tunis still built a colossal amphitheater in the III century, and Hierapolis in Phrygia kept up a lavish public building program). So, the real puzzle is why did it happen differently in Gaul, Spain, Illyricum and the Danubian provinces.

In my opinion, the answer must lay in the fact that urban aristocracies in the east and west were very different. Eastern urban elites possessed landed estates, but most of them still lived in cities and kept urban life and institutions going on. Most of them had also commercial interests, and so living in commercial cities was essential. In contrast, the western aristocracy, beginning with the Roman Senate, was essentially a landed aristocracy, like in medieval Europe. In the High Empire they lived in cities because that was the “civilized“ way of life (the very word “civilized“ comes from the Latin word for “city“), but not because they really needed it. When living in cities became unattractive due to the changed circumstances of the III century, they just went back to living in their estates, which were after all the real source of their wealth, and without these elites, the western cities struggled to survive, and with it the whole Roman administrative and fiscal apparatus.

It“s startling to notice that although the eastern empire was altogether richer than the western part, archaeology has found nowhere in the east such luxurious villae like the ones that were built in the western empire during the IV century CE. Apart from the obvious case of Rome, splendid villae (some of them even rivaling the imperial ones in central Italy) have been found in Sicily, Africa, Spain, Gaul and even Britain. Some of them, like the one at Chiragan near Toulouse or the so-called “palace of Maximian“ near Cordoba are so immense and luxurious that some archaeologists believe they had been imperial residences, or at least part of imperial estates.

So, a landed aristocracy enjoying large autonomy was nothing new by the late IV century CE, at least in the West. It had been the current state of affairs for at least the last 200 years by then, and more if you take into account the role of the Senate. Before its ranks were enlarged to ridiculous levels during the IV century (by then the Senate had lost any kind of real political power), the 600 men sitting at the Curia in the Roman Forum were the largest landowners in the Roman empire (after the emperor himself) and they were all exempt from direct taxes, a fiscal privilege that continued during the IV and V centuries. By the late IV century CE, most land in the western empire must‘ve been either owned by the emperor, or owned by senators, or by the Church (which by this time also enjoyed the same privileged as the senators). This means that the emperors must‘ve gained very little money from direct taxes (the land tax for obvius reasons, and the poll tax because unfree people -a legal cathegory that included not only slaves- paid far less than a free person). The other source of income were indirect taxes, but if there‘s one sure trend in archaeology in the late Roman empire in the west it‘s the slow but continued decrease in trade, again with the exception of North Africa. But even in the case of North Africa, there were further problems, because African traders were charged with the food supply of the city of Rome, and the Roman state usually paid them with ... tax exemptions. In my opinion, if there was some reason for the troubles of the western empire in the late IV and V centuries CE, the reason must be found in the social and fiscal situation, which was the logical culmination of a very long historical process. The separation of the two halves of the empire at that critical moment in time probably made things much worse, because the western empire was deprived from the financial help of the eastern empire, which still had a functional fiscal system in place.
Thank you for this really insightful and illuminating description. So the problem wasn't that the Empire was shrinking demographically or territorially, but that the Romans ... Well they just weren't that good at keeping the empire running?? Whenever I read descriptions of how incredibly laissez-faire the emperors seemed to have taken the whole social situation, and how ramshackle and provisory the Empire's institutions really were organized, I can't help thinking of the so much more amazingly stringent and coherent way the Chinese had organized their empire since the Han. And how much more proactive the Chinese emperors (and their advisors) dealt with the social issues. Chinese state philosophy seemed to have been much more aware of the need for social equality and the necessity of sustaining a free peasantry to keep an agrarian society thriving. Whereas Roman philosphy and thinking seemed to have been competely oblivious to such issues. (No surprise since Rome was such an aristocratic society and the philosophers were mostly landed aristocrats themselves.)

I just can't help thinking that it was amazing that the Roman empire lasted as long as it did with such a ramshackle and thoughtlessly arranged basis of governance. The Chinese really figured out the whole "empire" thing much earlier than the Romans and made an art of governance where Romans remained dilettantes until the end.
 
Thank you for this really insightful and illuminating description. So the problem wasn't that the Empire was shrinking demographically or territorially, but that the Romans ... Well they just weren't that good at keeping the empire running?? Whenever I read descriptions of how incredibly laissez-faire the emperors seemed to have taken the whole social situation, and how ramshackle and provisory the Empire's institutions really were organized, I can't help thinking of the so much more amazingly stringent and coherent way the Chinese had organized their empire since the Han. And how much more proactive the Chinese emperors (and their advisors) dealt with the social issues. Chinese state philosophy seemed to have been much more aware of the need for social equality and the necessity of sustaining a free peasantry to keep an agrarian society thriving. Whereas Roman philosphy and thinking seemed to have been competely oblivious to such issues. (No surprise since Rome was such an aristocratic society and the philosophers were mostly landed aristocrats themselves.)

I just can't help thinking that it was amazing that the Roman empire lasted as long as it did with such a ramshackle and thoughtlessly arranged basis of governance. The Chinese really figured out the whole "empire" thing much earlier than the Romans and made an art of governance where Romans remained dilettantes until the end.
Alternatively, the ramshackle nature of Rome is precisely why it lasted so long; local elites could rely on a lot of leeway, and they couldn't be sure any sort of new government would let them have quite so much freedom to play in their own sandbox. Though from the whole recent thread on the Sassanians, I think they weren't much more organized (and obviously medieval Europe had plenty of periods of disorganized governments), and they also laster for a rather long while.
 
Thank you for this really insightful and illuminating description. So the problem wasn't that the Empire was shrinking demographically or territorially, but that the Romans ... Well they just weren't that good at keeping the empire running?? Whenever I read descriptions of how incredibly laissez-faire the emperors seemed to have taken the whole social situation, and how ramshackle and provisory the Empire's institutions really were organized, I can't help thinking of the so much more amazingly stringent and coherent way the Chinese had organized their empire since the Han. And how much more proactive the Chinese emperors (and their advisors) dealt with the social issues. Chinese state philosophy seemed to have been much more aware of the need for social equality and the necessity of sustaining a free peasantry to keep an agrarian society thriving. Whereas Roman philosphy and thinking seemed to have been competely oblivious to such issues. (No surprise since Rome was such an aristocratic society and the philosophers were mostly landed aristocrats themselves.)

I just can't help thinking that it was amazing that the Roman empire lasted as long as it did with such a ramshackle and thoughtlessly arranged basis of governance. The Chinese really figured out the whole "empire" thing much earlier than the Romans and made an art of governance where Romans remained dilettantes until the end.

I think it was Diocletian who tried to fix the prices of every good across the empire (took a long time to codify all that) and people had to abide to it on potential punishment of death, and afcourse it was completly ignored.

At times the emperors seem no more than glorified generals that are supposed to hop from war to war to defend the empire in person. Being able to make reforms seems only for the succefull ones that can last a while and thats ambitious past the 3rd century. Many times the millitary seems the real power but then again they just need someone to lead them and collect their pay while the rest of the apparatus will function as is. Tax system is not so good and there is a lot of corruption. What certaintly is not helping is the distance's involved for communications and deployment even taking in mind Roman roads. And looming more in the backgroud is rising inflation and lack of knowhow as how to deal with it.

When you try to imagine a more centralised system with better governance then the Tetrarchy had it's merrits, atleast as long as the parts could agree on who would be the glorified generals leading their armies while governance could happen from a regionaly central location. Social issue's eitherway will likey remain, it's a society that likely is going to be ruled by elites and have a fair segment of slaves. But perhaps it wouldnt have been to hard to have an warrior caste that leaves members sufficiently better of, a few hundreds of thousand wasn't nessecarily such a large part of the total Roman poppulation.

The more deep rooted issue of inflation seems the product of every issue that was apparently too hard to tackle. The roman empire needed more productivity, or emperors shouldn't have been so lured to minting it from Dacia when they apparently needed the gold. Even before Constantine inflation had already run so rampant iirc that soldiers were paid in goods rather than coins, i presume future emperors just found it ever harder to deal with.