History Books Review

In this unscripted episode I speculate about why the Holy Roman Empire tends to be written out of European history, and suggest it is time to take it a bit more seriously.

In the Victorian world women were subservient to men.  It sounds great in thery, but how did it actually work? 

A view from inside the Blair government in the years leading up to the war in Iraq.

The private life of Belisarius is revealed in the Secret History.  Or is it?

Mary Beard sums up the Roman Empire for the general reader.

Belisarius is recalled after almost completely defeating the Goths in Italy.

Belisarius had done well to capture Rome, but could he hold in the face of a determined counter attack by the Goths?

Belisarius invades Italy and captures Rome.  But the Goths soon regroup and lay siege to him.

Belisarius recaptures Africa from the Vandals in a risky but brilliant campaign.

Radical threats led to radical changes to the way the Romans fought.

The basic thesis of the book is that post war governments have used the emergency war powers to issue state funded Propaganda to win support for their political objectives.

Justinian puts an end to a centuries old ph

Justinian constructs one of the great buildings of history, the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.  But what did he mean by it?

The early reign of Justinian and Theodora was challenged by an outbreak of rioting that nearly led to them fleeing the city.  But Theodora was made of sterner stuff.

Justinian was responsible for one of the most remarkable bits of economic espionage in history, giving him an edge on his enemies and creating the basis of the lingerie industry at the same time.

Byzantine history starts in earnest with the end of the western Roman Empire, but events in Italy remain important.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is permeated from beginning to end with the atmosphere of the Enlightenment.  But at the end of the third volume, he comes out and says directly what he believes in.

The extent of the continuity of institutions in Roman Gaul during and after the barbarian invasions is something that has been widely debated and will no doubt continue to be debated.  But in Britain there is no argument.  The Romans pulled out and their state was completely destroyed and replaced by invaders from the continent. 

Towards the end of volume 3 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Gibbon speculates about the reasons for its fall.  And so do I

The last remnants of Roman authority are swept away by the Visigoths and the Franks, while Clovis the Frankish ruler establishes the basis for the kingdom of France.

The fall of the empire, perhaps paradoxically led to greater religious uniformity than had ever been achieved before or since.  Paganism was eliminated.  Heresy was repressed. Before long, the only people left to persecute were the Jews.

Simeon Styllites was a major celebrity in the fifth century, gathering attention from the public and the court alike.  What does Gibbon make of him? I find out in a reading from the book.

One of the effects of the growth of Christianity into a mass religion was the development of monasticism.  The early monks were rather different to later ones, but even so their fanaticism was evident early on and meets with Gibbon's most extreme disapproval.

The collapse of the Western Empire took around 80 years from the invasions at the beginning of the fifth century to the deposition of the last emperor in 476.  It was a grim tale of failure and disaster, which got steadily worse as things went along.  In this episode we track the last events in the empire's history.

  Even after the sack of Rome by the Vandals, there was still some fight left in the western empire.  A series of emperors tried to turn the tide back in favour of the Romans.  They largely failed, and are largely forgotten by all but historians who specialise in the period. But it is instructive to remember that their failure was not inevitable.

Rome had been saved from Attila by luck. Genseric's Vandal kingdom in Africa should have been easy to deal with.  In fact, it was the Vandals that did most to destroy the empire in the west.

Attila is surrounded and trapped by the Romans, but escapes or rather is allowed to escape.  He soon regroups and resumes his persecution of the Western Empire by an invasion of Italy.  

The invasion of Gaul by the forces of Attila the Hun is one of the great turning points in history, and although he was repulsed really marks the last major event in the history of the western half of the Roman Empire.  This was the last time the Romans would defeat barbarians in a large set piece battle.

Faced with the arrogance of Attila, the court at Constantinople found some courage to face down the demands he continued to place on them.  But this didn't alter his overwhelming military advantage.  They might have found their backbone but still lost their empire had Attila not chosen to start his conquest of the Roman world in the West rather than the East.

  The Romans having failed to beat the Huns on the field, resort to dirty tricks.It didn't work out well for them, but it did give us a superb account of what life was like in the camp of Attila.

The Huns swept into the Eastern empire and crushed the Romans, driving them back to their capital.

The Huns were formidable fighters whose skill and numbers meant they were always a potential threat to the empire.  But it took leadership for that threat to manifest itself, and that leadership was provided by the famous Attila.

Genseric was one of the German barbarians who did the most to wreck the Roman Empire.  Interestingly, he was very far from having the biggest bunch of barbarians to call on.  In many ways his career was one of the most unlikely of the age.   But it was deadly to the future of Rome in the West.

The death of the hapless Honorius finally allowed some people with genuine talent to reach the top rungs of Roman government.  Normally this would have been a good thing, but their internal disputes created even more problems for an empire whose position was rapidly deteriorating.

Theodosius II was a hands off emperor leaving the running of the empire to officials and his sister.  This was pretty much down to his lack of ability and ambition, but it was also the case that the imperial system made it hard for a monarch to make a mark.

St John Chrysostom has become an iconic figure in Eastern Christianity, and is very respected in the west as well.  His undoubted talents and his perhaps more doubtful sincerity have given his reputation an easy ride, but he had rather more trouble while he was still alive.

  Germans were good soldiers and many had risen to very high rank in the Roman army.  This posed a risk, a big one.  The career of Alaric in the west showed just how risky.  But Constantinople came close to having its own Alaric in the form of Gainas, an ambitious Gothic general.

To mark the 100th Episode I throw the podcast open to questions from listeners.

  Gibbon is not keen on the Byzantine Empire, although some people have exaggerated how much he disliked it.  But it was certainly a very different kind of empire to the one from which it developed.  Europe was to draw its heritage mainly from the West, and despite its longevity the theocratic Byzantine state has not been one that has had many admirers.

  After the disastrous invasion of Gaul by the barbarians in 405 the Roman Empire hung on in the North largely thanks to the activity of Constantine III.  His position was precarious but he survived by quick wits and deft diplomacy.  How long he could have kept this up is hard to tell.  As it was he wasn't recognised by the official Roman Empire and they killed him.

Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers is a fascinating look under the bonnets at the engines of history since 1500.

  Alaric had been joined in his invasion of Italy by his cousin Adolphus.  It was he who took over leadership of the Goths.  He was not interested in Alaric's African adventure and quickly concluded a peace treaty with the Romans and set off to Gaul to found a kingdom.

  The death of Alaric prevented him from turning his short term success into something more enduring, but even so he had a remarkable effect on the empire.

Does the growth of huge airports and their associated infrastructure and hinterland mark a change in the world as profound as that which accompanied the growth of cities?

  The Gothic chieftain Alaric returned to Italy where he undertook three sieges of Rome and his final one led to the sack of the city.

  The elite Romans of the late empire were a privileged group whose wealth was astonishing.  Meanwhile the masses lived off of handouts.  None of them knew what was about to hit them.  

Scottish independence is a big deal for me emotionally and for history as a whole.  Here are my thoughts on the issue off the top of my head.

  Feeble minded Honorius who was most happy feeding his chickens had been under the protection of Stilicho, and was married to his daughter.  But he came to hate him and had him killed, just when the empire needed his skills most. On his own his advisors led him to one misjudgement after another.    

Neglected by the rest of the empire and cut off from it by barbarians, the few remaining troops in Britain select a leader with an impressive name and set about conquering the western empire. By now, there is not much left to conquer.  

Stilicho holds the Germans back in Italy, but the effort leads to Gaul being depleted of troops.  In the winter of 406/407 barbarian tribes pour across the probably frozen Rhine breaching the empire's unmanned defences.  The border will never be re-established.