WHY DID ROME FALL?—A SIMPLE EXPLANATION.

WHY DID ROME FALL?—A SIMPLE EXPLANATION. I have always had a fondness for the small class of detective stories where a major clue is in plain sight to everybody from the beginning (Simenon has a brilliant example of this). A new book by Adrian Goldsworthy, HOW ROME FELL, which is a history of the Roman Empire which begins with the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 A.D., promises a simple explanation of the fall of the Roman Empire. He cites a historian who compiled over 200 explanations of why the Empire fell. I peeked at the end, and his explanation is convincing, and has the appeal that it has been in plain sight all along. He argues that starting from 180 A.D. every adult emperor faced at least one attempt to depose him. “Personal survival became the first objective of every emperor and shaped all of their decisions….” Goldsworthy thinks the decline in the third century of the use of senators for important offices also weakened the Empire—but for an unusual reason. The emperor could keep an eye on the senators, who were based in Rome. With the decline, a potential usurper could be anyone. A narrative of the period from 180 A.D. to 476 A. D. has always seems to me to consist of a series of assassinations and civil wars. Now that it has been pointed out to me, it seems obvious that these usurpations and attempted usurpations must have weakened the Empire greatly.