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A History of Rome to 565 A. D. cover

A History of Rome to 565 A. D.

Chapter 140: EPILOGUE
By Arthur E. R. Boak
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About This Book

The work traces Rome’s development from its Italian precursors and early annalistic records through monarchy, republic, principate, and the late autocracy. It surveys territorial expansion across the Mediterranean, constitutional change, social and economic transformations, military organization, and provincial administration, and examines religious and intellectual life including the eclipse of paganism and the rise of Christianity. Chapters treat imperial bureaucratic and military reforms, the settlement of Germanic peoples in western provinces, and eastern attempts to restore imperial authority. Organized chronologically with thematic chapters, maps, and a bibliographical note, it aims to serve introductory courses and guide further research.

[pg 403]

EPILOGUE

The Lombard and Slavic invasions. In 568 A. D., three years after the death of Justinian, the Lombards descended upon Italy from Pannonia and wrested from the empire the Po valley and part of central Italy. The Romans were confined to Ravenna, Rome, and the southern part of the peninsula. Towards the close of the sixth century (after 581 A. D.) occurred the migrations of the Bulgars and Slavs across the Danube which resulted in the Slavic occupation of Illyricum and the interposition of a barbarous, heathen people between the eastern empire and western Europe. Early in the seventh century the Roman possessions in Spain were lost to the Goths.

The papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. The weakness of the imperial authority in the West led to the strengthening of the papacy and its acquisition of political power in Italy. It was the papacy also which kept alive in western Europe the ideal of a universal imperial church, for the whole of western Christendom came to acknowledge the supremacy of the Roman see. Nor was the conception of a reëstablished western empire lost to view; and it was destined to find realization in the Holy Roman empire of Charlemagne and his successors. Of great importance for the future development of European civilization was the fact that the western part of the Roman empire had passed under the control of peoples either already Christianized or soon to become so, and that the church, chiefly through the monasteries, was thus enabled to become the guardian of the remnants of ancient culture.

The Byzantine empire. The loss of the western provinces and Illyricum transferred the center of gravity in the empire from the Latin to the Greek element and accelerated the transformation of the eastern Roman empire into an essentially Greek state—the Byzantine empire. The Byzantine empire inherited from the Roman its organization and the name Romaioi (Romans) for its citizens, but before the close of the sixth century Greek had supplanted Latin as the language of government. This transformation further accentuated the religious differences between East and West, which led ultimately to the separation of the Greek and Roman Catholic Churches.

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The Mohammedan invasion. Before the middle of the seventh century Egypt and Syria were occupied by the Saracens, whose conquest was facilitated by the animosity of the monophysite native populations towards the rule of an orthodox emperor. However, the loss of these territories gave fresh solidarity to the empire in the East by restricting its authority to the religiously and linguistically homogeneous, and thoroughly loyal, population of Asia Minor and the eastern Balkan peninsula. This solidarity enabled the Byzantine empire to fulfill its historic mission of forming the eastern bulwark of Christian Europe against the Turk throughout the Middle Ages.