What's wrong with it? Why do people discredit it?

>written by a known romantic.
You say that like it's a bad thing

>>Rome has slave-based economy
>>end of expansion = end of wars = end of slave income
this part sounds like bullshit desu

A myriad of reasons no two historians will ever agree on, you're better off just asking what the eastern empire hard that the west didn't and it mostly comes down to money and manpower.

That is the only part in there that is certainly truth though

Slaves were majorly war prisoners. If you realm is too big to expand anymore, you stop waging wars, which means you stop getting war prisoners.

That was the only thing that didn't sound like bullshit desu

From what i've heard it mostly comes down to moral decay, but thats what Gibbon says and you guys say its bullshit, so i wanna hear what you think

>moral decay

Genuinely curious, how would a nation's morals contribute to its success or failure? I can understand something like laziness or complacence hurting, but outside of that, there's been all sorts of successful nations with widely varying morals and values

Gibbon is not completely 100% utterly wrong but its important to realize a lot of what he wrote was also a cloaked attack on clericalism and Christianity in his own time the same way many historians will write about past events to criticize their own era without naming names.

If you're really curious you're better off looking up modern analyses on why Rome fell.

People basically lost interest in the state. They stopped caring about politics, allowing for corrupt and bad politicians to take control, they stopped having national pride, meaning nobody wanted to conscript when they needed to, and their quality of work dropped significantly too, since they had no real motivation to work, other than sustaining themselves.

Morale is really important factor when it comes to society, thats why every society needs to have religion, to give it a unifying element and drive to do shit.

The Romans stopped fighting for the state before Julius Caesar was even born.

It's drenched in anti-clericalism because that was the vogue during the enlightenment in France which Gibbon was a part of the milieu of. Plus post-reformation proddy thought increasing anti-church sentiment I believe. I'm reading it right now (6th attempt) from the start, it's very well written and a good exposition on Rome and why it fell if you take into account its age and Gibbon's biases.

ok, like what?

just because he had a personal bias does not inherently mean he was wrong though, the amount of money and energy spent on religion in the late empire surely did not help the precarious position of the WRE.

Too old and the guy was more than a little anti-Byzantine. Amazing prose though, I think it's worth a read if you have the time, just be sure to take some of his claims with a grain of salt.

Rome wasn't some kind of modern nation-state m8. What you're saying doesn't make any sense for an empire that had mercenary armies, leadership based on succession/violent take-over, and an economy based on slavery.

This

It's 250 years old and so uses a lot of sources that are either misinterpreted, or are outright fabrications e.g. Ossian or De Situ Britanniae. Plus, Gibbon's protestant upbringing means his vehement loathing for organised religion and Enlightenment ideas of "degeneracy" are too woven into the work to allow him to look at stuff objectively.

It's still a fantastic work in its own right, and worth reading. The writing is god tier. Though it should be read with his "footnotes", since they are pretty hilarious.

Right, but the bulk of the Empire was built by citizen-soldiers and later, legions where the cream of the crop were made up of Italic peoples. Italy in late antiquity was actually fairly well populated and could have, theoretically, fielded several armies. But the will just wasn't there anymore.

Whenever I read a pre-1940s work of historical scholarship, even one as old as Gibbon, it reads beautifully. Modern scholars cannot prose-style for SHIT.

Why is this?

>"Maxentius was 8 feet tall and could crush boulders with his bare hands"
thanks Gibbon

The lower Italic composition of the army is just because of how massive the army was. Half the officers and about a quarter of the entire army were still Italian in the late fourth century.

>The lower Italic composition of the army is just because of how massive the army was.

I know it increased significantly in Diocletian and Constantine's time, but my more general point is that people had become too used to peace and comfort as a result of the switch from a citizen-army that fought all the time to a professional army fielded largely with Italian and Western European troops to a professional army fielded increasingly with non-Romanized foreigners.

Bro, the Marian legions were literally made up of homeless people lured into service by promise of war spoils. What you're talking about is mostly a fantasy
.

The Marian legions were made up of (largely) landless proles, but Roman proles all the same. That said plebeians still formed a significant part of them.

>mostly a fantasy

What's a fantasy is believing that degeneration isn't a thing, whether it's biological or spiritual or cultural.

It’s more because the arrival of the Huns from the east made German tribes move westward towards Roman borders, this creating border tensions

Roman poles who fought for pay and land, not some silly sense of national pride.

It can and was for both.

That's objectively not true. But, admittedly, Gibbon isn't fair in this regard.

Massacres and pillaging by Pagans, Jews, and "Mohammedans" are dealt with greater care and urging for the reader's understanding.

Massacres and pillaging by the Christians are the symptoms of a dangerous and private organization, that wants nothing more than to strangle public society and grow at the expense of the people; who in turn, have been encouraged to retreat from the real world.

Essentially his book was in the "Enlightenment" tradition of dishonest reaction, to what was still a highly Christian present (at least among the common people).

That would be a nice statememt to make if we actually had access to first hand accounts. But we dont, and Roman legions were shown to be willing to forsake the state for a populist leader, or just higher pay, a la Ceaser.

It's only good with literaturists. With historians and the like, 'educators' so to say, it creates a monobiblos that idiots rely on for centuries.

Gibbon's worth is bullshit, Frazer's work is bullshit, and so on. Just because they have different ideas, doesn't mean that it isn't bullshit from STEMspergs trying to pose as 'objective'.

>That's objectively not true
Wrong! Sorry athecuck!

What new findings does it miss?

Enlighten me, user

>thats why every society needs to have religion

Wanna know how I know you're conservative?

Rome had an official religion. It was called Christianity. They had a functioning state thanks to Diocletian. They had a feudal society. at this time.

It was a massive culmination of different factors, it was the reliance on mercenaries and death if the militant traditions of Rome (along with Christianity) , the rise of the Arian Christians, inflation of the Danarius, the Huns, the division between Eastern and Western Rome, and failing crops. Those are the main theories anyways, and it's likely that there is a grain of truth in all of them

Rome didn't fall because it became weaker. Rome fell because the Barbarians finally got their shit together and became a force that the Romans were incapable of dealing with.

Essentially this.

I'll give you a theory, and you decide if you like it. I've read Hans Delbrück's History of the Art of War. From a mostly military perspective the Roman Army could be described as a body of well trained and disciplined heavy infantry with archer, cavalry and siege attachments all of whom were paid on a regular basis. That last note is important because after the empire splits, the poorer Western half has trouble paying for the Army. There's also a gradual transition towards greater and greater use of cavalry as way of countering mounted enemies.

t. Cicero

>They had a feudal society. at this time.
Wat

It misses the marxist re-interpretation of it

I own this book, but now i'm reading that it's inaccurate.

Is it worth reading?

I love the Roman empire but i'm admittedly a total history pleb because i had an abysmal education and have mainly picked up stuff from books and youtubers that would probably get me lots of snide >(yous)

oh and i read that Puffin Classics book Caesar : The Civil War

Depends what you want to focus on. Religion? Robin Lane Fox "Pagans and Christians" and basically anything by Peter Brown, although I'd recommend "The World of Late Antiquity". Other ones would be "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization". These mainly deal with "Later Rome", though, if you're interested.

I'd say give Gibbon a try, his main focus last I've read was that Christianity (and monotheism) was the main culprit for the fall of Rome, i.e theological debates distracted Emperors and the State itself was distracted by religious factions, but he also mentions stuff like the fact that the Imperial System of Government was a cause of the Empire's decline. I.e the system didn't really encourage meritocracy, when it was built by the citizen armies of the Late Republic.
I'd say read up even though you might disagree with the author (I don't really agree with Peter Brown's perception of Late Rome being a "recreation" or "rebirth" rather than a "decline", but I still enjoyed reading his books), you might find interesting perspectives or just facts in general.

>Is it worth reading?
Yes

Ok thanks.
I'm leery of asking for suggestions on here because i'm sure you've heard it all before so thanks for the advice

I mainly just like military and 'life' stuff.

I think the only subject i feel remotely able to discuss properly is Mongolia but i want to know about Rome too

>I mainly just like military and 'life' stuff.
Kulikowski, M., Rome’s Gothic Wars, Key Conflicts in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2007)
Heather, P. J., Goths and Romans, (Oxford, 1991)
Burns, T. S., Barbarians Within the Gates of Rome: A Study of Roman Military Policy and the Barbarians, c. 375–425 AD
Thompson, E. A., A History of Attila and the Huns

If you wanna focus on Late Rome, since you mentioned Caesar I think these would be an interesting look.

thank you very much

Gibbon is still a legend. Sorry your
"Feminist/Marxist discourse" meme professors
don't agree.

>legend
>for making-up a bunch of shit for the purpose of proving to Mom that there is no SO CALLED GOD
>just so he could fuck african girls

Also regards to "life" I have a few, must read I'd say:
Clark,G., Women in Late Antiquity: Pagan and Christian Lifestyles (Oxford,1993)
Cooper, K., The Fall of the Roman Household
Cooper, K., The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Woman in Late Antiquity

I recommend reading the first book of Hans Delbrück's History of the Art of War, (1920) University of Nebraska Press; Reprint edition, 1990. Translated by Walter, J. Renfroe. He was a soldier before he became a historian, so the perspective is very methodical in its approach. He weighs primary sources on troop numbers against contemporary arable land acreages to establish total population numbers from which the troops were drawn.

it's an old penguin classic print. They all look like that.

Because Rome never fell.