I imagine, this would be such a brutally hard time as it was beginning of the middle ages ages, but also probably a simpler time of peace of people that lived village side away from Rome? I could imagine Rome being a remnant city that was fallen into partial ruins with no upkeep. How a mighty glorious empire, at it's heartland, becomes just another place with big problems.
So sad that the greatest city built by man kind was destroyed like that, it would be a dream to see Rome in the II century AD with 1Milion population, in the peak of the Empire. Rome would have been out of this world.
For most people it was an awful place to live. Imagine the population-density of Bombay, India, five-times over. People literally lived shoulder-to-shoulder, among the constant smells and noises of urination, defecation, copulation, butcher shops, bloody street fights, and fires. But, they got a ration of bread, every month, and some cheap entertainment to watch. Kind of like a 6-pack of beer and the Superbowl on the big screen for free.
The disaster of the Tiber floods in the 580s apparently wrecked most of the forum concrete floors, and significantly accelerated the disappearance of the foundations underneath accumulating dirt and foliage. Pope Gregory helped out the locals affected by the flooding, but imagine the cholera victims...
Are you planning on presenting Rome on even later dates, like 650, 700 until like 1000 ad etc? I think it would be really fascinating since this period is not much researched or talked about.
Hello, yes, I think I will also cover these periods. For example the visit of Constans II to Rome in 663, the itinerary of Einsiedeln from around 800 AD, and so on. But for the time being, I have made a lot of videos about the urban transformation of Rome, so I would first like to explore som other topics :)
@@Maiorianus_Sebastian ..it would also be a good idea if you could organize a live excursion to certain locations e.g. to the mausoleum of Augustus or of Hadrian or to his villa outside Rome or the imperial quarters on the Palatine Hill and also to a part of the via Appia with the many mausoleums. But maybe you have some nice ideas. BTW you make beautiful videos of Rome at that times ... great👍 very interesting.
While it isn't as popular as a topic of conversation, we do know a lot about those time periods and we have a lot of research performed on them. Also, while everyone talk about the "Fall of Rome", in reality the culture of Rome spread far and wide across Europe. Many European kings said they were Roman, studied Roman writings, had Roman culture, and often even had some connection to Rome. Through people like the Carlovingians, we have written records of this time period. Tax records, travel records, religious records, deeds, etc.
It is actually a miracle how Rome avoided the faiths of Ctesiphon, Seleucia, Sardis, Niniveh, Babylon and countless other ancient cities that were completely abandoned and left to the mercy of nature or lack thereof, no wonder it is called the Eternal City, but it is not, one day it too will be completely abandoned and empty of people, such is the circle of life.
It probably had to do with where it was located. That areas is still quite green and fertile, despite the age of the land and climate differences. Also the hills and walls provided a good defense too. Even in it's dilapidated state in the 600's.
When Rome was occupied by Italy in 1870, the number of its inhabitants were about 250.000 people, it was a little town in comparison with London or Paris.
This is exactly what I wanted to learn of! I have always wondered how come it all decayed so quickly. By 1000s it seems like a completely different city. If only gothic war was not that destructive. We would probably have more monuments preserved. Or, at least, not just 2 or 3 columns from one temple.
Unfortunately, as has happened time and time again, the marble and building materials used on these great monuments would have been ripped from the building to be reused even without the sack. By the time the Western half fell the city was in rapid decline and had been so for a 100+ years - due to factors like the Imperial capital being moved first to Constantinople and then to Ravenna etc when the Empire split. The popes were a gift and a curse too, often encouraging the dismantling but at other times (for example the Parthenon) turning temples into churches which is why they’re preserved to this day.
A lot of material was taken as spoil, the better sold (for re-use and ancient stone work can be found in late palaces and churches), what appeared routine was burned for lime or broken up for construction material. Earthquakes were a factor as even the moulded concrete of the Basilica of Maxentius or Constantine or other concrete wonders like baths, couldn't withstand those too much, plus limited to no maintenance. Other structures were a mix of timber and brick and needed routine maintenance which they no longer got.
As a teenager, I marveled at Justinian and Belisarius's reconquest and reconstitution of the Western and Eastern Empires into the Roman Empire. As an adult, I evolved to realize Justinian overstretched his resources due to vanity and not pragmatism of the age. His insecurity also blocked Belisarius from truly winning in the West and even, in a flight of fancy, appoint Belisarius as Caesar of the reduced West. This would have allowed Belisarius to focus on "fortress Italia" with a breadbasket of Africa.
I understand Justinian’s fears of being overthrown by a popular General, it had happened to the Romans hundreds of times by then but I feel like he should’ve seen the loyalty in Belisarius, plus he had no children & only a bunch of nephews. Justin II was horrible & the other Justin was killed by his counter-part in fear of an overthrow. Justinian should’ve just straight up adopted Belisarius as his son & made him a Caesar so that way he could defend the West while his rival Narses would be transported to the East to deal with the Persians & that way there wouldn’t be any conflicting orders between two rival factions leading 1 Army
@@iDeathMaximuMII the best thing Justinian could have done for the west would be to leave it alone. The destruction of the Ostrogoths, Vandals, and weakening of the Visigoths was an absolute distaster that only worsened the decay. The Empire was too weak to undertake the maintenance and protection of those regions and mostly just impoverished the people of the west with extreme taxation while providing no benefits in return. The Germanic Kings were much better. If Justinian wanted to restore the west, the best bet would be to support the Ostrogoths in conquering Africa and uniting the Gothic Kingdoms, as that would effectively bring the restoration of the Western Empire, minus most of Gaul and Britannia
@@jackwalters5506 there is prestige problem when Rome isn't reclaimed, which proved to be true. Now most call it byzantine, not Romans. Of course I believe that he shouldn't have overstretch the empire .
This shows exactly what and how apartment owners do to the apartments. Nothing gets rebuild or renovated. This was just another Bronx 1000s of years ago. Nothing has really changed.
The difficulty those property owners faced was that rent control severely constrained the return from these buildings, but also New York City suffered severely from the loss of its former light industries and other economic activities employing men and women in number. These apartments consequently fell to the unscrupulous who might torch them for insurance. The housing of the poor in Rome was never that good, witness how Crassus ran a very successful extortion racket, slum landlord operation in the late Roman Republic. Rome decayed due to how it no longer enjoy imperial income, but instead whatever the Pope and pilgrims could provide, or what the new Roman nobles skulking in monuments converted to castles wanted to.
Right imagine being born when the city was still grand and populated and then by the time your an old man the city is a mere shadow of its former self.
For those interested in a story in this setting, try Richard Blake's "Conspiracies of Rome". Takes a while to get going, but it does a good job of describing a tiny population rattling around inside a massive decaying city.
The last act of the Senate in the West was, grimly appropriately, to erect a monument to one of the worst Roman Emperors of all time with how they erected a statue of Phocas and his wife.
I’ve never been to Rome however my parents were there and took many pictures.I had the opportunity to visit England and one the highlights of my trip was to the city of Bath.It really offered insight to what the ancient baths of Rome must’ve looked like before its decline.Many of the buildings in Bath survive today which is very nice.The city with its bath-stone shines so bright even on the cloudiest days.Thanks for sharing this historic look into Ancient Rome.
I think in some cases we should consider going beyond preservation of the ruins, and actually reconstruct and restore parts of ancient cities, like Rome, to their former splendour. Not the whole city - just key places, such as the Roman Forum and the Coliseum. I think that would be so cool!
I read somewhere that the coliseum is being partially restored so maybe in a few years or so we could talk about it’s full restoration. As for the rest of the monuments that is a bit tricky as many of them are just n really bad shape and the money it would cost to repair them will be quite a lot but it wouldn’t be impossible but I wouldn’t try to repair them all at once. And that’s even if the Italians would even want to see their full restoration.
Make replicas. It's also profitable through tourism. Too much archaeological interest and stuff we don't know or haven't recollected yet about the places and old buildings.
Fully agreed, places like the circus maximus, forum romanum and the Imperial Palace would look amazing. If people think it would be too expensive, I disagree. Al you would have to do is to commercialise it and you would have beautiful restorations and would be swimming in money too. Of course it would have to be done with realistic materials and not cheeped out.
It might be blasphemous and obviously the loss of Roman glory and devastation of the city from countless wars was heartbreaking and unacceptable, but I must say, it would be pretty interesting to grow up next to an entire city of ancient ruins. Imagine being able to explore all the ancient buildings without anyone stopping you. It was definitely still a fascinating setting.
This subject discusses what I had been curious about for awhile ---- the terrestrial and social landscape of a collapsed, once great culture. Though the barbarians' role in Rome's disintegration is absent in the U.S.'s self-destruction, the commonalities come into focus in this video. Thanks Maiorianus!
1:36 Watching the capital of one of the biggest empire that ever existed being destroyed not by another powerful empire, but by just a bunch of barbarians seems someting taken out from a nightmare. Rome's inner inestabilty made possible something the Julio-Claudians would have found completely laughlable. Also, it's pretty ironic how the only institution that remained from the Empire was the Christian Church, despite Nero and many other roman emperors trying to destroy it at its beginning
The same thing is happening to United States. Both civilizations used to be about what we could achieve by cooperating / working together. But once it's built, it's built. Meaning, niether institutions adapted from the mindset of "we can achieve worldwide envy if we all work together" into "we have achieved worldwide envy; Now how do we stop all the freeloaders prospering off of what we achieved when they'll never know what ot's like to work together to achieve anything great in their whole entire lives?" All these organizations we have; FBI, IRS, etc... It just teaches people that cheating gets you farther than honesty. If these or the Roman institutions were created out of honesty, they would have fixed their oversights of the past instead of cheating by putting a band-aid over them so they can hide those mistakes under an even thicker layer of beaurocracy. They were created out of selfishness, and offered to the people as a route to "trained selfishness." No legio is going to want to be the 4,000th statue of a Roman hero by dying in battle against suicidal barbarians when the wine flows so well, the roads are so maintained to bring in the bread, the aquaducts are so advanced, there are legions so much closer to Capitol to protect it, and the growing border only means death is certain if they keep fighting these tribes. There was more "incentive" to run away.
@Tacidian The popes relied on irrationality, delusion, fear of death and the sword of kings to suppress freedom of thought and expression. They put Western civilization in mental vice, stultifying scientific and civil growth for a millenium, during which they escaped justice for their crimes against humanity. To compare their reign over Roman empire to the progress of ancient Greece and Rome would be ludicrous.
Christianity was a sign of the collapse of the empire , you can see Europe under cristianity for the next 1500 years and we where poor and 95% population was illiterate. When Europe stopped to believe in god owned the whole world. Roman elite choosed cristianity over Mithraism, it’s a fake religion.
The Church had been the state religion of the Empire for hundreds of years when the Western Roman Empire collapsed. It's not really that surprising that the Church survived considering it was the most important, respected and stable institution the WRE had by that time.
@@skaldlouiscyphre2453 Yes, I agree with you that it's not really surprising. The continually oppressed superceding established authority may seem ironic to some, but it's more a parallel to human nature and the willpower of the living. Christianity won out from the beginning by the idea of introducing to all people (slaves and peasants alike) with a connection to personal morality. Compared to this new religion, Roman worship seemed like a casino... to try your luck at offering worship to one or more of a cocaphany of diverse Gods, and see if your prayers are met. It has its limits, and though fun, its novelty wore out for people throughout the centuries. Worshipping one God was not as fun, but Christians didn't care because it was less confusing and animalistic. Once this appeal, this allure, was introduced to the Roman world, they lost the fuel to the Empire's engine: The Slaves. It was the idea of higher morality and humane conduct that defeated their deep traditions. As such, the first Christians didn't need huge temples to gain a greater following. They didn't need conquest of expensive campaigns. They didn't need Triumphant marches and statues, whereas the Roman religion did. This was a huge threat to Roman culture, hence the violent backlashes, and one that the traditions ultimately could not stop. For Christianity took away their slaves that everything Roman culture relied upon. They did it by telling a better story than faith's prior, but also by giving all people in the world an option they didn't previously have; The option to strengthen their faith in a cause from their own personal willingness to lead a "moral" life. True?...
Thanks so much for watching this video and for your nice compliment Michael! I am so glad that you enjoyed it :) And also thanks a lot for becoming a member of Maiorianus! It is highly appreciated :)
Great video, but let me say that Rome was under the rule of the eastern empire led by his Exarch in Ravenna. There was also a Duke controlling the area of modern day Lazio region which was under the exarch power. The pope in this period increased his power and influence but he never overtook the eastern empire’s authority. It would then take empires power in mid VIII century with the iconoclastic fight and the end of Ravenna exarchy by the lombards and pope’s bond with the franks.
I cant imagine the thought of the romans who lived in the 600’s . Living in the shadows of the still standing temples such as Jupiter would have still blown my mind even in it’s decaying form .
I can't imagine living as a resident of Rome in this era, most knowing very little about their Roman ancestors. Seeing these massive buildings around me. An of course, the tech to build these things have been lost hundreds of years ago. Truly a dark age.
Technically the Senate was still around in 600 A.D, we just don't really know much about it at the time. Records from the time mention that they erected statues of Phocas and Empress Leontia in 603. Also, the Palatine Palace was probably still in decent condition by 600 A.D, as it was still actively used. Whenever a new Emperor took office, the Imperial Portrait would be taken to the Palatine Palace and be displayed, as per ancient custom. There was also a chapel dedicated to St. Caesarius added to the palace at some point, we don't know exactly where in the palace though. The chapel was still used for important Papal ceremonies in the late 7th Century, so it's possible that when Emperor Constans II visited, he stayed at the Palatine. Interestingly, in the 8th Century, Pope John VII wanted to construct an Papal Palace on the Palatine, though it's unknown whether or not this would be a brand new structure or a restoration of the existing palace, his plans probably didn't happen since his Pontificate only lasted 2 years. Also, I find your claim about the Romans of the 7th Century not being able to fathom the older ruins to be spurious. There were still great construction projects in Rome after this, they were just less frequent due to the diminished population/economy. Leo III's rebuilt Lateran Palace for example was a monumental work, very much comparable to what one would find in Constantinople. All the major churches were also largely well maintained would remain very impressive throughout the Middle Ages.
@@nathanpangilinan4397 Could have been worse. Their last act could have been to erect a statue to any of the Angeloi, or to Constantine X, it wasn't that grim.
Thank you so much for this! For years I've wondered, how come the greatest city on Earth - Rome, became so neglected and abandoned. This must be the best video essay on the topic.
This is an unbelievably interesting video. Thanks for making it. I wonder: are there any references to Narses living in the Imperial palace that can be read, and secondly, what exactly happened to the Imperial Palace itself? Thanks again for making such an excellent video.
Hmm, i dont know why i havent been a member yet, sorry about that. I have several now after telling myself years ago id only pick one to support for a few months at a time lol, but that has gone out the window and now i just try to not get myself into trouble by having too many. I know the little change a month wont do much but i gotta at least show some support for the huge amount of work you do..
Hello Vats, and nice to see you here :) And of course Thanks a lot for supporting the channel, I really really appreciate it a lot. It is not space, but certainly also very fascinating, and maybe you will even turn into a Rome fan yourself, after watching some of the videos :) Anyways, good to have you here and all the best from me and Jixuan :)
That was wildly interesting and absolutely fascinating with the kind of details I've never heard before, plus the great graphics. I subscribed. At 2:43 I really liked seeing Nero's circus where the Vatican is today, if I'm not mistaken on that. Also... there is such a historical poignancy to this.
The repeated flooding in Rome didn’t just spread moisture, it spread raw sewage, too. Typhoid fever, perhaps cholera and typhus, and other fecal-borne infectious diseases must have been rife. They didn’t have the closed, sanitary sewers that we have today. The layers of flood-borne silt and filth deposited added to the burial and spread of vegetation in low-lying areas like the Forum Romanum. Standing water also encouraged mosquito-borne diseases like malaria.
Excellent observation Kimberly. Yes, you're right, that was an additional factor that was really brutal. Almost always, Tiber floods caused the outbreak of diseases, and as you said, this is no coincidence.
Fascinating !!! I'm really happy, this is the RU-vid channel I have been looking for quite a long time. This is such and intriguing and complex people, and we actually don't talk a lot about it. This specific video is heartbreaking. I have recently read a biography of Pope Gregory the Great by French author Anne Bernet, and indeed this was such a sad time. I think it is very hard for us, who are used to comfort, to fathom how catastrophic the decline of the Western Roman civilisation must have looked to the People of that time. No wonder the people of the years 500-600s looks so much versed into prayer, religious littérature, and anything linked to Christianity: this is pretty much the only part of the Roman culture they still have left.
These were the DARK AGES, not the "early middle ages". The Dark Ages started to give way tot he middle ages with Charlemagne. The sack of Rome by Alaric didn't destroy the city but it left Rome impoverished. The capital had by then had been moved to Ravena.
Unutterably sad, especially as we are living in a period when our own cities are decaying. Autosacking, windows and doors boarded up and not being repaired, depopulation as a result of increasing lawlessness, political ruling class that lacks even the will to combat the decay -- and the area of dishabitatio grows. And we do not even have a Gothic War for excuse!
@@geraldbennett7035 lol progressivism yea really does suck specially if u live in a city that is progressive i wish hoardes of barbarians would come and just destroy city at this point happy I moved away
Really? And who is responsible for wrecking the middle class, for being against union, minimum wage, providing welfare, infrastructure and services? The same people who call all of the above "communism" are the ones taking us back to the middle ages. And the brainwashed mob aids them in their pursuit of backwardness.
@@wynnschaible You exemplify the evil forces of fascism that want to destroy us. Anti union, anti democracy, racist, ignorant, oligarchical, opposed to any form of justice and progress. We have been going down since Reagan and Thatcher, they dismantled our economic and social system. Just like in ancient Rome, the most evil and self serving people destroy an entire civilization. Destroying statues? Do you think the Germans removing statues of Hitler is a bad thing? Evil+stupid=fascist terrorist oligarchy
Hi Maiorianus, I loved this video, I checked out your video list and they look so interesting. I hit subscribe and I look forward to watching more, 🍷Cheers🍷!!
Hey Sebastian, this is so fascinating, I'm imaging what it would have been like to walk the streets of ancient Rome! Hope you guys are well & keep up the great work! 👍👍
Just got back from Rome. Seeing a video like this is so interesting but I cant help but feel sad about it. I think about all of the larger than life people who dedicated their lives, Caesar, August, Cicero, Antony , Brutus etc . All the wars and the struggles and the city that was so far ahead of its time. Then it all stopped and everything that was built and toiled over for a thousand years just died out. Crazy how that works . Literally everything has a beginning, a middle and an end.
We have seen much the same transformation in our own time, like in Detroit, for example! You can see videos of Detroit these days on RU-vid! It's not hard to see the similarities!
I was basking in my own thoughts the other day and realized that most of us just leap from steady sequences of "nows" and a few backwards glances but the future always seems to include flights of fancy but somehow the utter desolation of our great cities and monuments don't usually seem to get included. Some, maybe, tend toward "down-arrowing" due to being depressive for any number of reasons but even people like the poor Ukrainians now seem to see the future as a time of repair and renewal--eventually. But I doubt most people ever realized how Rome expanded into the massive city it became due to a relative handful of overall population getting very wealthy and capable of funding those ambitious projects, often due to their vanity. The lion's share of the residents of the city lived far more humble lives and were perhaps even disgusted by all that bombast. I'll never know; maybe they envied it all instead. But, to follow the narrative in this video, it seemed like not a few outside forces had had enough of Rome this and Rome that and felt it was time to let the old bitch turn into cow pastures and building materials. Given how extremely hard the common working slobs had to work building all those remarkable structures and how truly remarkable they were in terms of the architecture and engineering they were, they should and could be up and functioning to this day but I certainly can appreciate the process of launching the decay and rot, too. Great time capsule, Maiorianus! You've provided a window into an importaant time in not only Rome's history but into human history. We human tend to repeat our behaviors, so who's next, I wonder?
This video was so hard and sad to watch how badly such a glorious city decayed but I still want to see how Rome was in 10th century 12th and 15th century The sad thing is Rome wasn't conquered by another equal but looted and destroyed by complete barbarians who had no idea about civilization how sad that is
Yea and if the eastern Roman Empire had been pagan instead of Christian (or if Belisarius had been the one to reconstruct Rome in 600 ad instead of narses) Rome would never have been destroyed in the first place
At 3:49 where you say the Senate had disappeared completely, that's not quite accurate. It was mentioned a final time in 603 in connection with a statue of the emperor Phocas, perhaps the same one that would be mounted on his column six years later. In 630 the Curia building was repurposed as a church.
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We have to give all credit to the Catholic Church Leadeship by keeping the Eternal City on such times.
@@Marcus280898 Ronan Gods allowed so much disgrace fall on the head of the pagans rhet could hardly be gods. Jupiter let Rone be burnt by Gauls on 390BC, after let his own Temple be burnt four times!!! Jupiter also didnt prevented tbe bloodbaths of Sula, Octavian, Caligula, Neo, Domitian., Comodus, etc… You dont need to be a new Augustine to account how incompetent and lazy Pagan Gods were… with gods like them, who needs Demons?
No Rome population after the Gothic Wars was around 30,000 but with Justinians policies it recovered to around 60,000 to 70,000 and stayed that way up until Heraclius. After Heruclius Rome went in to a decline and the population of the city fall to a mere 20,000 and never surpassed 50,000 until 1500s
So you want to tell me that Rome recovered from 30,000 in AD 560 to 70,000 by AD 600? I think you are confusing some numbers here. Sure, Rome then recovered some peopke, but AD 600 was the absolute low point, I think 70,000 is more likely in AD 800. Maybe you can show me some sources where you have this info from?
@@Maiorianus_Sebastian Threw multiple sources in the internet and from this video.m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-I7kdwyiaLFo.html And I have come to believe that the city of Rome after it reconqest by Emperor Justinian started again to grew to proximity 60-70 thousand but when the Lombards took the fertile land around the Po river the city started to fall again. The population of the city never made it pass 50,000 inhabitants till the 1400s.
The unity of the classical Roman Empire was broken already when the reconquest of Italy began under Belisarius. After the recapture of the city of Rome, Narses didn't see any need for repairing the ancient imperial capital, even treated the local Romans as foreign subjects, not as liberated compatriots...
What’s sad is so many people ignore half of the Roman empires greatness by calling the later half the byzantine empire. Which confuses everyone and makes humans separate the empire and disregard the second half as Roman .
I have often argued that the "Dark age" followed by the "Middle ages" are nondescriptive of the period. The video explains that the only institution that survived the fall of Rome was the Church. Europe looked to Rome, in the face of the Vatican, as it had become accustomed. The Church was the great political force throughout this period albeit losing its power gradually. As such I have considered that a better appellation for this period is the "Ecclesiastic Age."(edit) Europeans of the period would hardly recognize themselves as being in the "Middle Ages" but they would most certainly understand the Ecclesiastic age. Even today when looking at the period, what immediately stands out, is that the Church dominated European affairs and the appellation makes that clear. We don't call the Renaissance the Latter ages.
@@dewd9327 The appellations are Eurocentric. Did China also experience a renaissance in the same period--and who knows what the Aztecs were up to? Clearly the reference is to Western Europe.
@@dewd9327 Didn't I mean to be defensive. I have some roots in the "New World" so I was anticipating the common criticism of Eurocentric history. I also appreciate my European roots.
The key point is that the 'building materials' of the swift decaying imperial Rome (then already a backwater, not a strategically/ politically important site) 'were collected or even looted to build new buildings.' That is, a new kind of Rome was beginning to emerge .. from amid and upon the rubble of the old. And it is this Rome that survives to this day; not the Rome of the Latins, the Senators or Emperors .. whose relics were preserved where need or desire prevailed or left where no use (other than as a quarry) could be found - or for a function newly invented.
According to Edward Gibbon the immediate cause of Rome’s Fall from greatness was the inability of later Roman soldiers to support the ancient vitality and martial discipline and rigours of military life.Is he right though? He did write The Book on the topic.
it always amazes and saddens me that through out history, including recent modern history great works are abandoned to decay for no perceptible reason.
They cared about it(and Italy) enough to wage long war over having it under direct control.After all they saw it "cradle of the Roman state"(which is directly quotation of them).However they were no longer in position to finance it(which this video ignores),in fact they had huge problems to properly finance even core provincies of the Empire and Italy was just perifery.Not only they could not afford any significant restoration(...by the way-it is not true that Narses did not renovated anything,preserved inscriptions says he actually did)but were usually unable to dispatch needed military forces.Not like that they didn't wanted-they really could not,not without endangering their really vital provincies.The other reason was mere fact that old Rome was no longer more important in their eyes than New Rome,which they saw as more perfect version of original Rome.
Rome at that point had suffered the after-effects of catastrophic plague, climatic disaster which saw several years of severely reduced sunshine, and the Justinianic War (which saw Justinian doubledown on his penny pinching reconquest model, and where the aqueducts had been severed and mostly not repaired as they were afterwards not needed) and was at that point a part Italian principality ruled (and fed via diaconiae funded by Papal farms and intermittent grants from the East Roman Emperors) by the Pope and part Eastern Roman (ER) outpost ruling by the Military Duke answering to an often rebellious exarch in Ravenna, but other times the effective ER authority was in Sicily after the Lombard invasion reduced the exarchate to coastal and fortified centres) from the Palatine Hill. Unlike Constantinople it no longer benefitted from the annonae (except what the diaconiae could provide) and other subsidies that Constantinople enjoyed. Constans II had looted it of every bit of bronze from public buildings some decades later, and the handing over of the Pantheon to Pope Gregory the Great by Emperor Phocas who was also so kind also to erect the last triumphal column with his image in bronze, was a poor consolation. It was a sort of tax cow, although in 687 Pope Sergius and the Roman militia stopped any attempt at arresting him (which ER Emperors had done repeatedly). There also arose a lot of anti-ER sentiment, which Sergius tried to calm. I think the Roman being the place of martyrdom, starting with the Prince of the Apostles, St Peter, followed by St Paul, made it a place that Latin (and many Greek, which many Popes were) Christians would always want to visit, was key to survival as somewhere more than a local town (like the way Antioch is now the minor Antakya in Turkey). I've never been to Rome where I didn't have severe time constraints. There's so much, and a lot from this era, if you look. Thank you again for your unfailing efforts at providing high quality and regular late Roman related content.
Hello Isaac, yes, very nicely written :) You have boiled down the essence of the problems of those times. Indeed, the 7th century was for Rome a century of steep decline, and as you correctly pointed out, it was here that the basis was sown for the later rupture between the Eastern Roman empire, and the latin west. It was here, that the basis for the later schism was created, which would ironically spell doom for the East itself, as the West, having been so estranged from their eastern brethren, was now reluctant to help against the constant foreign invaders, threatening the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire. Thanks for your comment and the kind words, I am really happy that other people are as fascinated about late Rome as I am. I still have about 260 topics that I want to discuss in an equal amount of videos, so there is still a lot of content about the Late Roman Empire :)
What? The worst sack of Rome took place in 1527! "When the French king Charles VIII marched his armies into Italy in the year 1494, few would have predicted the sad situation the peninsula would find itself in over the next fifty years. Warfare between the various states in Italy - Florence, Milan, and Venice, to name a few - had long been the norm, but now foreign powers were getting involved and turning Italy into a battleground. It would be the Italians that would suffer the most, with many of their cities being sacked and plundered. The list of these would include Capua in 1501; Padua in 1509; Vicenza in 1510; Udine in 1511; Ravenna, Brescia, and Prato all in 1512; and Genoa in 1522. However, none of these cities would experience the devastation that would take place in Rome in 1527." - “Hell itself was a more beautiful sight to behold”: The Sack of Rome in 1527
E. Roman emperor (Ex centurion, usurper, and murderer of the Patriot Emperor Maurice and of all the members of his family) Phocas: I declare Rome head of all churches... Bishop of Rome, Gregory I : Emperor Phocas is the restorer of liberty... Historiographers on Phocas : Worst Emperor in the history of Eastern Roman Empire.
A great video about a truly great city in its saddest era. I so often try to imagine a world in which this decay never happened despite the still grandiose look of the ruins of ancient Rome I saw from May 16th to May 22nd during a visit in Rome. No picture, no video can give one the true gigantic scale of ancient buildings like the Amphitheatrum Flavium or the Thermae Caracalla or the Mercati Traiani or the Mons Palatinus with the remainders of the ancient Imperial palaces and the sheer size of the Circus Maximus. One has to be there to experience that scale, the size of the masterworks of ancient Roman architects and builders. My main imagination is that of an alternate Rome which managed to avoid the fall to Odoacer in 476 thus no Gothic Wars, no resulting famines, only the floodings of the Tiber and the earthquakes which was manageable by the Romans of my alternate history. So, in 2022 in my alternate history: - The Stazioni Termini di Roma ends at the fully operational Thermae di Diocletiano. - One still can visit gladiatorial games (no deaths anymore) in the fully intact Colosseo - Still have a stroll through the Foro Romano with all the temples, basilicae, imperial Fori still intact. - Not to forget the Campo Martio with the Pantheon, the Thermae di Agrippa. - And we have an ultramodern Rome too with high rise buildings up to 250 meters tall, of glass and steel in the outer municipalities. The Empire still rules almost all of the Mediterranean Sea, has transcontinental provinces like Florida, Cuba, a Roman California, Honcong et Canton, Mesopotamia, Guyana, Tasmania, Goa-Magna, the Maldives, Hainan and many others. It's area is about 6.5 million square kilometers and it has a population of almost 620 million. And the Romans now mostly speaking Italian but Latin is being kept intact as the courts language, the language of the military and in the states official authorities in most documents.
Roman Population : Death of Augustus : 1 million Death of Diocletian : 1.2 million Division of Empire 395 : 1.1 million End of the Western Empire 476 : 500.000 Begin of Gothic wars 535 : 400.000 End of Gothic wars 555 : 100.000 Crowing of Charles the Great 800 : 20.000
You would also have seen magnificent churches, for example Saint Peter’s Basilica, Santa Pudenziana, Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Sabina, Santa Costanza. All except the first still stand today.
As a Sunni Muslim I’m fascinated by the events around the world during the early period of Islam. What was happening in Rome, England, Japan, China, Byzantine Empire, etc., while Mohamed (PBUH) and the Ansar were just getting started, so fascinating tbh
