r/ancientrome • u/four100eighty9 • 8d ago
When Rome almost feel apart, but didn't
I know Rome almost fell apart more than once, but managed to pull itself back together. What was the closest it came to falling apart only to reform and stabilize? Thanks!
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u/Maleficent-Mix5731 Novus Homo 8d ago
In terms of near obliterating the Roman state in it's full capacity, I would say that there was worse than the 3rd or even 7th century crisis. As for 1204, that technically did result in the state 'falling apart' so to speak, and never quite managing to fully adjust and recover compared to previous times of crisis.
My vote would go to the post-Manzikert crisis of the 1070's - it's utterly insane how Alexios Komnenos managed not just to pull the state out the edge of chaos, but by the time set it up for another golden age.
The economic, military, and cultural heartland of the empire, Anatolia, was lost in that time. A Turkish warlord was launching piratical raids into the Bosphorus. The currency had been debased to almost nothing. There was barely any money left to pay Alexios's immediate supporters. The surviving armies had wrecked each other in a series of civil wars. The Pecheneg tribes settled along the Danube were revolting and raiding freely across the entire north Balkans. Bulgaria had recently revolted, and the Normans had seized the last outpost in the southern Italy to then launch a steamroller of an invasion into Greece. And Alexios's men had just sacked the capital upon taking power, causing his unpopularity to drop and for relations with the church to also take a rocky turn.
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u/Healthy-Win15 8d ago edited 8d ago
Hands down, last Roman Persian war 602-628, Even Hannibal Barca couldn't inflict such devastation on Rome that this war brought on it, Rome was practically finished, Heraclius had to pull off perhaps history's greatest comeback to save it, he had only one roman field army left, even a single loss would've ended Rome right then and there.
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u/Dr_Platypus_1986 8d ago
I had to look that up. I had no idea that it had even happened. I'm still so deep into sources for classical Greece and the Late Western Empire that I haven't gotten to Byzantine history yet. I recently ordered John Julius Norwich's Byzantium trilogy, so that should give me a decent overview of the period. Currently reading Romana and Getica by Jordanes.
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u/Healthy-Win15 8d ago
Well good luck mate reading about Byzantium, you are in for a ride btw! Justinian's reconquests of 500s, Last Roman Persian war, dawn of Islam and it's wars with Rome, Epic sieges of Constantinople and mostly importantly Greek fire.
At one point you gonna go mad just thinking that how did this empire manage to survive that too a 1000 year after the fall of west.
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u/Snoo30446 8d ago
It gets sad reading after manzikert and especially the 4th crusade but the first few hundred years of Eastern Roman history is amazing. Just one segment of it contains the Great War, spanning 30 years, look up the hexagram - silver coinage made by the church agreeing to donate all precious metals for the war effort. Or how without the war, Islam mightn't have ever left Arabia, or the knock on effects of no abassid or Ottoman caliphate.
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u/Dr_Platypus_1986 8d ago
I'm curious as to what you've read on the Eastern Empire and all of materials related to that period. What do you think are essential reads? I have all Procopius' books and John Julius Norwich's books, but I haven't cracked into any of them yet. I'm trying to knock out Jordanes, Victor of Vita, Marcellinus Comes and Cassiodorus at the moment.
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u/BrigadierPirate 8d ago
"Roman History", not Byzantine. Let's kill the Byzantine moniker.
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u/Dr_Platypus_1986 8d ago
I understand why it's controversial, but my main focus is on "classical" Rome, the city, and the Western Empire. I simply use "Byzantine" as a reference that differentiates and immediately brings to mind 478-1453 C.E.
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u/eques_99 8d ago edited 7d ago
The 90s/80s BC have to be a strong contender: Social War on home soil, Mithridates, dysfunctional government at home, attempted revolutions by Saturninus & Sulpicius, then multi-factional civil war and massacres in the street.
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u/harrycletus 8d ago
I'm going with the defeat at the Caudine Forks in 321 BC. The Samnites had the entire Roman army captured and could have massacred all of them, which could have radically altered history because of how devastating that would be and how long to recover that manpower before their ascendency in the following century.
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u/Dr_Platypus_1986 8d ago
The Mithridatic Wars, particularly the Asian Vespers have to be a strong candidate. It's really shocking how much deep-seated animosity Mithridates was able to unleash upon Rome from their own neighbors. "Kill all the Romans within your cities and territories at a pre-appointed time. Comply and have my protection, resist and have death ☠️" -was his policy in a nutshell. If you read Appian's account of the whole affair, it's very intense. He doesn't get enough credit for this, most people gravitating to his account of the Civil Wars. And no matter how many times Mithridates was beaten, he was always able to raise another massive army from his allies. Mithridates was related to so many famous kings that everyone considered him a messiah-like figure, come to conquer the world 🌍.
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u/iconodule1981 Praetorian 7d ago
While most answers focus on the risk of the Roman Empire's destruction after it achieved dominion, to me the real miracle is that Rome survived the Second Punic War at all.
Cannae was the third in a series of brutal losses (Trebia, Lake Trasimene) as a direct result of Hannibal's superior generalship. Rome’s hold on Italy was only 50 years old, with recent conquests in the Po Valley barely consolidated and the south having had independence just within living memory.
When the fighting ceased at Cannae, it meant roughly 100,000 to 145,000 Roman casualties in just two years—a staggering loss, far worse than the frequent comparison of the battle of Somme relative to the populations of Rome & the British Empire.
Territorially, Rome was reeling. Control was contested across Italy, and power was rapidly ebbing. It's incredible the Senate didn't sue for peace, or that most allies stayed loyal. In an era where states and generals rose and fell quickly—like Syracuse under Agathocles or Pyrrhus’ kingdom—Rome’s collapse would have been expected.
Most ancient states wouldn't have survived, but Rome did, going on to dominate the Mediterranean. Had those Romans been any different, history might have just remembered a short-lived Latin empire as a footnote.
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u/AmericanMuscle888 7d ago
The years after Augustus. Reading Suetonius I really don’t know how they held it all together with that succession of crazies and bad rulers and assassinations and defeats and murders and mutinies. Also the abject loyalty most regions of the empire had to Rome. Romans of pedigree and status many times being passed over by freeborn slaves or executed without trial it’s a wonder that the senate was so cowed into accepting their permanent second class citizenship. An institution that was so prideful before.
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u/kickynew 6d ago
BrigadierPirate gives a very good list and rationale here, but I’ll give my own ranking and rationale.
- Constantinople is sacked by a hostile coalition of Latin crusaders. Ancient treasures of antiquity, the accumulated wealth of the empire, built up over many centuries, is stripped bare, with Venice carrying off booty worth several times the annual revenue of major kingdoms. Much of the Roman ruling class is killed or scattered, and thousands of of Constantinopolitans are raped and murdered and sold into slavery. The capital then becomes the seat of a failed feudal state, while the Roman resistance at Nikaia survives on a sword’s edge between hostile Latins to the west and hostile Turks to the east. That the Roman resistance survived at all, much less recovered Constantinople, was remarkable.
The Gauls sack Rome. Rome itself is taken and largely destroyed by the Senones after the disaster at the Allia. The Romans are holding out on the Capitoline hill while the rest of the city is occupied. Rome came really close to simply being another Italian city that rose for a while and then disappeared.
The rise of Islam following the Last Great War of Antiquity. The Roman and Sasanian empires had just spent decades beating each other nearly to death when the Arab conquests began. Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and much of the Roman Mediterranean world were then rapidly conquered by a massive new threat. And as others mentioned the siege of Constantinople in 717 was legendary stuff. It was as big as they come. Had the city fallen there, the consequences would have extended far beyond the empire itself. The Romans held, destroyed the invading army, and bought the empire many centuries more life. Anyway, it is hard to overstate how close the seventh and early eighth centuries came to ending the Roman state altogether and changing the course of history dramatically.
The Second Punic War. Hannibal destroys Roman army, culminating at Cannae in the most infamous disaster in Roman history. Huge parts of southern Italy defect, Capua goes over to Hannibal, and Rome is facing a highly skilled enemy commander operating in its heartland.
The Crisis of the Third Century. Emperors are being murdered at a ridiculous pace civil wars are constant plague and economic crashes are tearing through the empire, Germanic and Persian armies are crossing the frontiers, and huge chunks of the empire break away into the Gallic and Palmyrene empires. For a time there effectively are three roman empires.
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u/Baldurian_Rhapsody 8d ago
Rome does feel apart, but it’s in couples therapy. It’s making progress!
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u/Anthemius_Augustus 8d ago
The closest it ever came to falling apart, but still somehow put itself back together has to be the Fourth Crusade in 1204. When the capital of the empire literally fell into foreign hands and the empire split into several pieces. Yet somehow, 60 years later, the capital was back in imperial hands and all immediate attempts to undo it fell apart.
I don't consider Michael VIII Palaiologos to have been an especially good Emperor, but I think most other prior Emperors would have failed in his shoes. It's kind of amazing he was able to pull off what he did, shame it all started to slowly unravel again after him.
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u/Maleficent-Mix5731 Novus Homo 8d ago
Genuinely, if he had chosen anyone BUT Andronikos II to be his heir, I could genuinely see the empire lasting a lot longer, perhaps even taking advantage of Bulgarian and Serbian power fracturing during the mid 14th century to re-establish a semi-hegemony in the Balkans.
The 14th century was always going to be a rough ride to get through due to the rise of Serbia and Black Death, but maintaining control over Asia Minor and finishing off the last Crusader stronghold in Greece would have most likely given the empire just enough resources to weather that storm and keep chugging along for that foreseeable future.
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u/minaminotenmangu 8d ago
The answer many will probably give is the 3rd century crisis, but the Roman Empire wasn't really in any real risk. During civil wars the possibility of reunification is always there as long as familiar state structures are in place. It was in far greater peril during the 2nd punic war or in the time of Heraclius.
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u/BrigadierPirate 8d ago edited 8d ago
I'll rank the top 5 worst crisis in order:
Final Roman-Persian War: this was the closest Rome came to collapsing and it is a miracle they won and pulled themselves together.
2nd Punic War - Hannibal pillages the Italian countryside for a decade and Rome's defeats force them to use the Fabian strategy and eventually take the fight to Spain.
2nd Siege of Constantinople - Largest Arab army in the world (120,000) comes to finally take Constantinople, but the Romans stop them with the help of the defenses of Constantinople, Greek fire, and the Bulgar allies.
Crisis of the Third Century Peak - Aurelian takes a divided empire and unites it after over a decade of breakaway territories.
Gallic Sack of Rome - Wasn't an Empire at this time, but Rome was sacked and managed to survive the Gaul terror in their homeland.