Why did the Dark Ages begin?
When the Roman empire dissolved as a unified force it lost its grip on the European continent, and everything the empire and its legions had ensured — security, order, peace, prosperity — dissolved along with it, and that, in a nutshell, is why the dark ages began.
Then why did the empire fall?
There is no nutshell for that.
For the last two hundred years since Gibbon, it has been common to attempt to create a simple nutshell answer to that question by pointing to Christian influence as a primary cause of the fall of Roman empire. But historians now recognize that by the time Christianity was established enough (in the 300s) to be a serious influence, the empire was already in decline. [1]
Most historians agree the direct causes contributing to the slow crumble of the world’s first super power were multiple, but premier among those many causes was Rome’s own sociology. Roman society was based on status to the point it often rewarded status over merit; this led to corruption, and nepotism, and sanctioned ethnic and gender biases, and many other injustices common to Roman life which created the human needs which Christianity filled. It can be said, then, that Roman society crumbled under the weight of its own sociological nature.
376–476 CE
But the barbarians did have a starring role in that drama. Let’s look for an example at Alaric the Bold, a Goth and vassal of Rome, who became King of the Visigoths in 391 CE. (The Visigoths were the western tribe of the Goths — a Germanic people — who settled west of the Black Sea sometime in the 3rd century CE.)
394 CE
The Roman emperor in the East at this time was Theodosius the Great. He longed to reunite the empire that Diocletian, emperor of Rome from 284–305, had divided into east and west in 286 CE. After many conflicts of power, betrayals and civil wars, Theodosius, along with Alaric, a Roman vassal who led a Gothic force of 20,000, defeated the Frankish usurper Arbogast at the Battle of Frigidus and united the empire for the last time.
Many Visigoths died gaining that dream for Theodosius, and while their deaths helped to purchase Theodosius’ dream for him, Alaric did not get the recognition — or the position or rewards from Rome — he had wanted in return for his part. Tensions from mistrust, ambition, and resentments grew between Roman and Goth. This was not the first time merit was overlooked in the empire, but it is one of the last few truly impactful times, and it demonstrates that the treatment of “non-Romans” in Roman society was a contributing factor to its decline.
Theodosius’ unity didn’t last long. Only a few short years after achieving his life long goal, Theodosius died in 395 CE and the empire is once again divided into two parts: the Eastern Empire, governed by his elder son Arcadius, and the Western Empire, by his younger son Honorius.
395 CE
When Theodosius died, Alaric and his Visigoths decided their treaty with Rome was at an end. In the past, walking away from a treaty with Rome was easier said than done and would generally have repercussions, but Alaric gathered his people anyway and left, only to find there was no relief for him at home.
The Huns were pressing in from the East.
The Huns were among the fiercest fighters the world has ever seen. No one knows exactly where they came from, but Kazakhstan is likely. Hun children learned to ride horses before they could walk. They cultivated the unique ability of using a bow and arrow with accuracy — an asymmetrical composite bow which they crafted and perfected — from the back of a galloping horse. This is what led to their very descriptive appellation of ‘centaur’. [2]
When Huns conquered, they burned everything to the ground and left no living beings of any kind at their backs. They were difficult to fight, not only because they were fierce, but also because they had no supply lines to cut but scavenged and hunted, and when in need, ate their own horses.
The Huns were a contributor to the fall of the Roman Empire. Their invasions of the regions around the empire, which were particularly brutal, were a cause of what is known as the Great Migration (also known as the “Wandering of the Nations”) between roughly 376–476 CE. This migration of peoples, (such as the Alans, Goths, and Vandals), into the empire’s territory disrupted Roman society.
For example, the Visigoths under Fritigern were driven into Roman territory by the Huns in 376 CE. After suffering injustices and even abuses by Roman administrators — they were after all only barbarians and not Romans — these Goths rose in revolt, initiating the First Gothic War with Rome of 376–382 CE. The Romans were defeated, and Emperor Valens was killed, at the Battle of Adrianople in 378 CE. [3]
Alaric now had the Huns to one side and the Rome he had abandoned at his back. Determining he was better off facing Rome than Huns, Alaric gathered most of the federated Goths from the provinces, and invaded Thrace as his first step toward taking the Eastern Roman capital of Constantinople. If he could not gain position and rewards through merit, perhaps it could be done through force — a method Rome was quite familiar with.
Within the empire, the death of Theodosius had created a power struggle because his sons were minors — too young to rule on their own merit — and needed guardians. General Flavius Stilicho was the magister militum in the West and he claimed guardianship over both young emperors, but he was unable to physically secure that claim because he was still in the West with the army when Theodosius died.
Rufinus was the praetorian prefect of the East who resided in the Eastern capital of Constantinople. Rufinus and Stilicho were rivals. After Theodosius’ death, ignoring Stilicho’s claim, Rufinus immediately took physical charge of the one son, Arcadius, who was supposed to become emperor in the East.
Such maneuverings among Roman leaders took attention away from ruling and were exploited by others, as this was by Alaric.
It gave Alaric the room to run around pillaging and looting. Rufinus negotiates with Alaric, most likely by promising him lands, and Alaric avoided Constantinople itself and instead simply went on his way looting the countryside.
General Stilicho, protector of Rome and all things Roman, comes out of the West with an army determined to stop Alaric. Alaric took cover behind a circle of wagons in Thessaly, where he stayed, besieged, for several months.
Eventually Arcadius commanded Stilicho to leave Thessaly and Stilicho obeyed the emperor, sending his Eastern troops to Constantinople, and leading his Western ones back to Italy.
This suited Alaric just fine as he then returned to pillaging and looting the countryside with no opposition.
But Stilicho doesn’t stay gone. He returns some time later with a rebuilt army of mostly barbarians — no longer in need of those Eastern troops from Constantinople, and once again Alaric is besieged. Once again Stilicho retreats — but now no one knows why.
The next thing that happens that same year is Stilicho — a leader in the West — gets declared a public enemy in the Eastern Empire.
398 CE
Alaric’s rampage was enough to make the Eastern Roman government offer him terms in 398. They gave him the Roman command he wanted and gave him free rein to take what resources he needed, including armaments, in his assigned province.
So the General attempting to defend Roman territory is declared a public enemy while the Visigoth who is doing the raiding is rewarded. These are typical of the decisions resulting from personal ambition, power struggle and status that destabilized the empire and led to its fall.
Stilicho, in the meantime, strengthened his hold on power in the West.
400 CE
In the year 400, there was a new praetorian prefect in the east, and he stripped Alaric of his title. But there are consequence to letting go of the tiger’s tale.
On July 12 of that same year, there was a riot in Constantinople and many Gothic soldiers and their families were slaughtered. These combined events made Alaric insecure and angry. So, while Stilicho was busy elsewhere fighting an invasion of Vandals and Alans, Alaric led an invasion of Stilicho’s Western empire in Italy in 401.
Alaric the Bold burned, plundered, and pillaged his way through Northern Italy, capturing a few unnamed cities, and besieging the Western Roman capital Mediolanum, (which was moved to Ravenna in 402 after Alaric’s invasion) arriving outside the Emperor’s palace in Milan in the Spring of 402 AD. Honorious, hearing reports of the onslaught of Visigoths rampaging towards his castle, prepared to flee for his life with an entourage of dignitaries, taking emergency refuge in a small walled fort just south of the Alps. The Goths followed, surrounded the fortress, set up siege equipment, and prepared to capture an Emperor worth a lifetime’s amount of ransom.
But Stilicho returned. In a surprise attack on Easter Sunday in 402, in advance of his main body of 30,000 troops, General Stilicho swam his vanguard across the Addua River. When they reached the far side, they pulled themselves out of the water and began lining up in battle formation.
Alaric started receiving reports of Roman Legionnaires marching through every mountain pass in the Alps that led to his location, all streaming towards the Goths’ position in sweeping arcs. Alaric took heavy casualties, and a number of Goths in his army started deserting him. Many went over to the Romans.
Stilicho defeated Alaric at the Battle of Pollentia breaking the siege and rescuing the besieged emperor. Stilicho captured Alaric’s camp, took Alaric’s wife prisoner, freed all the slaves Alaric had taken during his march, and recovered priceless treasures that had been looted from towns ranging from Constantinople to Rome. Alaric escaped with about half of his force intact.
For being the Defender of Rome, Stilicho was given a Triumph through the streets of the city. Sitting in the spot of honor next to the Emperor, Stilicho led a parade of his victorious soldiers, prisoners, and treasure while all the citizens of the city came out and cheered their hero. In the last 100 years of the Western Roman Empire, only three men received this honor, and Stilicho was the only one who had accomplished the feat without having to kill other Roman citizens in the process.
This battle was the last victory ever celebrated in a triumphal march in Rome.
In 403, Alaric tried to attack the Italian city of Verona, but Stilicho had bribed some of Alaric’s disgruntled chieftains to spy on him for Rome, and when Alaric emerged from the mountain pass outside Verona he was attacked on three sides by Roman forces and his army smashed. He only personally escaped by the speed of his horse. A truce was made and Alaric retreated to Illyricum.
405 CE
Stilicho is no fool, however, and he now understands that defeating barbarians requires barbarians. He makes an ally of Alaric, who deeply admires Rome, and who agrees to help him claim the praetorian prefecture of Illyricum for the Western Empire. But the best laid plans of mice and men ‘gang aft agley’ as the poet says. Who knows what Stilicho might have accomplished through taking up those reins of power, but it was prevented when hordes of Vandals, Suebi and Alans flooded into Gaul (modern France).
The weakened frontiers in Britain and Gaul had dire consequences for the empire.
In the dead of winter, Stlicho rode his horse hard across the Alps into Gaul, braving the ice and snow, and started cobbling together every single fighting man in the Western Roman Empire into his command. He recalled garrisons as far north as Hadrian’s Wall in Scotland. He left entire regions undefended on critical borders. He pulled recruits from German tribes that were among Rome’s biggest enemies and stripped garrisons from cities. Through this variety of desperate methods, including efforts to enroll slaves in the army in exchange for their freedom, Stilicho scraped together thirty legions (roughly 30,000 troops), and then Stilicho led this ragged coalition of Romans, Alans, and Huns to defeat Radagasius at Ticinum(Pavia) in 406.
Once again Stlicho proves himself the protector of Rome. Yet this will not be enough to save him.
408 CE
The eastern Roman Emperor, Arcadius, died on May 1, 408 of illness. His uncle Theodosius II is declared emperor in his place.
Stilicho went to Constantinople to represent his emperor at the ceremony, but an enemy started the rumor that Stilicho only went to Constantinople to put his own son on the throne.
Honorius, Stilicho’s own western Roman emperor, believing the rumors of Stilicho’s treason, ordered his arrest and execution. Stilicho refused to allow his followers to resist the emperor’s authority and he was executed on August 22, 408.
The half-Vandal, half-Roman general is credited with keeping the Western Roman Empire from crumbling during his 13 years, and his death would have profound repercussions for the West. [4]
The reign of emperor Honorius, even by Western Roman standards, was chaotic, as it was plagued by both internal and external struggles, but without Stilicho, it grew worse.
The minister, Olympius, headed the conspiracy that had successfully orchestrated the deaths of Stilicho and many of the key individuals related to his regime, including Stilicho’s son, and the families of many of his federated troops.
Olympius was the force behind the throne, and it was he who helped his emperor replace Stilicho and his followers. This new government was strongly anti-Germanic and obsessed with purging any and all of Stilicho’s former supporters. Roman soldiers began to indiscriminately slaughter allied barbarian soldiers and their families in Roman cities. They made them sell their children into slavery in order to buy dog meat to save themselves from starving. Goth refugees fled by the thousands.
This was a nice boost for Alaric since they sought refuge with him in Noricum. 30,000 men flocked to his camp, clamouring to fight their cowardly enemies. Alaric — aware of the weakened state of defenses in Italy with Stilicho gone—complied, invading Italy once again only six weeks after Stilicho’s death, leading the disgruntled former Roman soldiers across the Julian Alps, to stand before the walls of Rome in September 408 and begin a strict blockade.
Alaric and his Goths sacked Ariminum and other cities along the way as they moved south at a leisurely pace. There was now no one with sufficient know-how to oppose him. Why hurry? Alaric reached Rome and besieged the city, which remained under siege, with two minor interruptions, from 408 to August 24, 410.
When the ambassadors of the Senate tried to argue Alaric away with hints of what the despairing citizens might do if he didn’t leave, Alaric only laughed and gave his celebrated answer: “The thicker the hay, the easier mowed!” After much bargaining, the famine-stricken citizens agreed to pay a ransom of 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, 4,000 silken tunics, 3,000 hides dyed scarlet, 3,000 pounds of pepper and 40,000 freed Gothic slaves.[5]
410 CE
Throughout his career, Alaric’s primary goal had always been to secure for himself a regular and recognized position within the Empire’s borders. His demands were grand, but the emperor would have been smart to grant them. Honorius, however, was neither smart nor far-seeing.
Honorius was not a happy camper. The resolution of the first siege of Rome made him look weak. He raised an army and went after Alaric. Alaric killed all but 100 of them. Alaric, in return, demanded yearly tribute. The Romans refused. They’re Romans — they don’t pay tribute — they receive it. Alaric was furious. Now we’ve got bad blood. So Alaric laid siege to Rome again in 409 — when just in the nick of time, 4000 eastern Roman soldiers show up and save the day. Alaric, being pragmatic, decided to negotiate some more.
Alaric and Honorius arranged to meet — but there was betrayal and Alaric is attacked! Outraged and frustrated, Alaric gave up on negotiating and headed back to Rome, which he besieged for the third and final time. On August 24, 410, the Goths entered Rome and pillaged the city for days.
A great deal of recorded history was lost. Many Romans were taken captive, some to be ransomed, others to be sold into slavery, and still others to be raped and killed.
Still, historians say the sack was comparatively restrained: there was no general slaughter of the entire population and most of the buildings survived even if their contents didn’t.
Rome was no longer the capitol by the time Alaric reached it, but it was still the “eternal city” and the empire’s spiritual ‘heart’. It may have held as many as 800,000 people, making it the largest city in the world. Panic swept the streets at Alaric’s arrival. Stilicho’s wife Serena, a cousin of emperor Honorius, was in the city and believed by the Roman populace, with little evidence, to be encouraging Alaric’s invasion. Galla Placidia, emperor Honorius’ sister, gave her consent to execute Serena because of this rumor and Serena was then strangled to death. Eventually, Honorius payed Alaric a ransom and, once again, Visigoths head back the way they came.
But the sacking of Rome had shocked people across both halves of the Empire. This was the first time Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy in 800 years — since the 4th century BC. The Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II, the successor of Arcadius, declared three days of mourning in Constantinople.
410 CE
Alaric died later that year. The Visigoths moved to the south of France (Gaul) and later helped the empire fight Attila the Hun.
The “sacking of Rome” in 410 is seen as a major landmark in the Fall of the western Roman empire. Jerome, an early Christian historian was living in Bethlehem at the time, and he wrote that “The City which had taken the whole world was itself taken.” The entire Roman world grieved.
In the aftermath, a permanently weakened Empire spent the next several decades under constant threat. Rome was raided again in 455, and finally, in 476 Romulus, Emperor in the West, was overthrown by Odoacer, who is assumed to be of Germanic descent, but is actually ethnically unknown. What is known is — he wasn’t Roman. He was a military leader, and he led the revolt that deposed Romulus Augustulus on 4 September AD 476. Augustulus had been declared Western Roman Emperor by his father less than a year before, but had been unable to gain sufficient allegiance or recognition to consolidate power.
With the backing of the Roman Senate, Odoacer ruled as the first barbarian leader of Rome since its inception. Rome’s single emperor was replaced by more than a dozen kings and princes. This is cited as the deathblow to the western empire by most historians.
Rome had been getting weaker for decades. The empire was having money problems and relied too heavily on slave labor. The military became too expensive — and too barbarian filled. Taxation became oppressive. Expansion was no longer providing new slaves; as a result, agricultural production began to decline.
Some historians say the fate of the west was sealed when Diocletian divided the empire into two halves in the late third century.
Others claim Rome’s fall began when it switched from Republic to Empire.
Everyone seems to agree corruption was a factor in its decline and fall. What we know, today, about politics, government, and what makes a country peaceful and prosperous, is that corruption is a good way to start wars and destroy your country. The history of the decline of the Roman empire is certainly testimony to that.
All of this is why empire fell and the dark ages began. [6]
The fall was followed by a very real decline in the quality of life. The Dark Ages were dark not only because written sources were few and far between — and therefore are “in the dark” to us — but also because life became nasty, brutish, mean — and dark. The achievements of civilization — art and education — law and order — economic prosperity — tend to go by the wayside when government falls apart.
The west returned to a primarily agrarian form of life with people huddling in huts clustered around whatever qualified as a “fort” bartering for food. Christian churches and monasteries were all that stood between the people and total anarchy. These monastics salvaged and preserved what they could, and it is not too much to say Christianity saved what ‘civilization’ was saved from the ruins.
Some historical commenters focus on the brutality of much of Roman society, the large scale slavery, the massive inequality of the entrenched social hierarchy that kept nepotism in place and prevented achievement from being rewarded, and they see the Dark ages as a necessary evil to creating a world which valued all human beings.
But that is hindsight only.
By the 600’s the barbarians settled a little and things improved spasmodically.
The Christian era hit its peak in its golden age around 1200 and then began to decline — also into corruption — in the thirteen hundreds.
Secularism rose, fought for power as nation states, and has had its own struggles with war and corruption over the centuries.
And so far, no empire has ever again come close to the achievements of Rome.
Its loss is why the dark ages began.
Footnotes
[1] The Western Humanities, Complete
[2] 8 Incredible facts About The Huns You May Not Have Known
[5] Western Roman Empire — Wikipedia
[6] The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade