La caída del Imperio Romano: Las causas militares

by Arther Ferrill

¿Qué ocasionó la caída de Roma? Desde los días de Gibbon, los eruditos han debatido la cuestión con vehemencia y llegan a respuestas que van desde la decadencia racial hasta la extendida inmoralidad y una excesiva burocratización. En los últimos años la explicación más probable ha sido ¿No fue, por encima de todo, un derrumbamiento militar? El autor lo cree así y lo argumenta en este interesante libro. En la última década del siglo IV d. C., el emperador Teodosio gobernó todavía sobre un Imperio tan extenso como el del gran Augusto y dirigió un imponente ejército de cientos de miles de hombres. Menos de ochenta años después, tanto el Imperio como el ejército habían sido destruidos. ¿Cómo sucedió? Las invasiones bárbaras desempeñaron desde luego su papel, pero la causa fundamental recae en el interior del mismo ejército. Una inmensa reserva móvil creada por Constantino (306-307) debilitó fatalmente las fuerzas fronterizas y reforzó a la caballería a expensas de la infantería. La introducción de aliados bárbaros como refuerzo del ejército bajó la moral y la disciplina de la infantería. Todavía, en las batallas cruciales contra los godos y los hunos, fue la infantería, no la caballería, la que decidió la suerte del Imperio. La derrota de la infantería romana condujo a la caída de la misma Roma.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military Fiction, Ancient History, Roman, Military History, War

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Arther Ferrill, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Washington at Seattle, is also a respected expert on Ancient Rome and military history. He has written four books and is a regular contributor to The Quarterly Journal of Military History and other periodicals as an author and in review of other authors. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1964.

Reviews

[Mieczyslaw Kasprzyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a book in the 70s (the excellent "Unless Peace Comes") in which the author reminded us that when a civilisation ends, an empire falls or a man loses everything then for that civilisation, empire or man it literally is the end of the world. For the Poles I grew up around, the Poland they knew ceased to exist on September 17th when the Soviets invaded a Poland engaged in a struggle for survival with the Nazis. The Poland that came into existence after the war was a totally different one without its Jewish element, with its borders moved westwards so that for those from the East there was no longer a Polish home, and freedoms were curtailed. I grew up in a world where we lived constantly in fear of nuclear holocaust (the Cuban Missile Crisis and Reagan’s administration were real lows) and today we have the economic disaster and the threat of Peak Oil, energy resources running out and climate change!
Small wonder I love Apocalyptic and dystopic fiction - they’re like primers for the world to come!
Arther Ferrill reminds us, right at the beginning of this book, that the fall of the Roman Empire was the end of civilisation: “...there was one respect in which they excelled without question... That was in the creation of a basic standard of living that remains a marvel in the history of western civilisation. Unlike most living before or since, until very recent times, the inhabitants of the Roman Empire had ample supplies of fresh water for drinking and bathing, often transported hundreds of miles in the famous systems of aqueducts.... The fact is that Romans did bathe, in elaborate, publicly supported, heated baths, found all over the Roman Empire from Hadrian’s Wall to the Greek East. That alone makes them nearly unique in western history...” You would struggle to find another empire that lasted as long!
Ferrill then goes on to analyse the causes of the fall. He reminds us of the various theories from Gibbons’ “Decline and Fall” through to modern analysis. He points out that many theories, about economic collapse, bureaucracy, decadence and political inadequacy, of an Empire tottering “into its grave from senile decay, impelled by a gentle push from the barbarians” are not sufficient. The Roman world spread from the North of England to the deserts of Syria, from the Danube to the Atlas Mountains. The flaws and faults historians have identified apply to the totality of this world, yet it is the West that fell (in less than a lifetime!) - the East continued to thrive and survive for almost another thousand years!
In the end, Ferrill points out, the West fell because it was invaded by the barbarians and could not adequately defend itself. It fell because of the destruction of Roman military power. Ferrill goes on to analyse this decline in the Roman military machine - the most powerful fighting force until the Napoleonic era. And what a fascinating tale unfolds. Ferrill loves his subject and covers it in an interesting and, most of the time, very clear fashion. We watch enthralled as decisions are made and revealed as stepping-stones to doom - politicians and generals, seeking power, turn on themselves and, in the process, destroy everything. Decisions are made whose ramifications will, in the distant future, prove disastrous.
This is good stuff. Short, succinct, informed. It rings alarm bells! Power-seeking politicians always make short-term decisions. The sheep are herded into the slaughterhouse unaware of the fate that awaits them. And who can blame them? The Polish Jews and Christians walked in the streets of Warsaw, Krakow and Lwow on the 31st of August, 1939, without a real care in the world.... just as we walk ours!

[Checkman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Professor Ferrill has written a historical treatise about the fall of the Western Roman Empire from a military perspective. It's not a long book, but it is very through. In chapter one he briefly examines other theories regarding the fall of the (western) Roman Empire and pointedly demolishes them. It's his thesis that the main reason was a military failure on the part of the Romans. For the remainder of the book Professor Ferrill then precedes to competently support his thesis. The result is a classic scholarly work with illustrations (maps, line-drawings and photos), bibliography and end-notes. The book is written for both the lay person ,as well as the specialist, meaning it's more accessible and lacking that clinical "Academia" attitude that is sometimes found in scholarly writing.

If I can find any real fault with Professor Ferrill's book it would be that he's too focused on the military explanation. Armies do not exist in a vacuum. The societies that they protect, and sometimes repress, feed and support those very armies. If one is going then the other will inevitably follow. Look at it as a variation of the chicken and egg question. Ferrill presents a strong case that the primary reasons was military, but he only gives only cursory aknowledgement to the fact that by the fifth century the Empire was experiencing very serious problems with population decline (disease, falling birthrates etc), economic collapse (rampant inflation, large tracts of land uncultivated), political anarchy and just an overall malaise; that was both a product of the before mentioned factors as well as a cause (don't you hate that type of description?). It can be argued that even if the Roman Army had been able to hold the line, the Empire would have ended simply because of old age. All things built by Humans are mortal.

However, I have to admit that what I'm really doing is just me getting my own opinion into the mix. I can hear a voice in my head telling me that if I think I have a case then I should write my own damn book and shut up. Well said. Okay, so back to my review. Professor Ferrill's "The Fall of the Roman Empire" is a competent work in which he ably supports his thesis. That's just how his peers taught me to do it when I was a history student at Boise State University (Class 1990) many years ago. In the end that's the only thing that matters. Agree or not agree Professor Ferrill got the job done.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Para bien y para mal, breve.-

Género. Historia.

Lo que nos cuenta. Enésima aproximación al fenómeno de la caída de Roma, interesado en diferenciar declive y caída propiamente dicha, centrado en las causa endógenas relativas a los cambios en la gran estrategia del imperio, en la formación y disciplina de sus soldados y en el origen de éstos.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this a supplementary reading for Yale's Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy. The basic thrust of this book it to get down to the detail as to why the Western Empire collapsed from a military perspective. It boils down to:

1. A shift from perimeter defense to a mobile strike force (cheaper to maintain) which allowed barbarians to invade and settle on the Roman side of the Danube and Rhine.

2. Barbarization of the Roman army. By the end of the 4th Century, the Roman army was a shadow of its former self, having lost the discipline and training to fight in close formation, and the recruitment of barbarians. The army ceased to use armor, square shields, could not march as far, could not fight in formation.

3. A shift to cavalry--infantry wins battles--as the infantry declined cavalry became the elite units, but were less effective.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a self-conscious defense of the thesis that the Western Roman Empire fell primarily as a consequence of the degeneration of its military against all comers. This collapse, Ferrill goes on to specify, was primarily a result of the 'barbarization' of the Roman army, their prior successes being substantially the result of maintaining (a) a superior infantry--the result of drill and discipline, (b) superior systems of supply, (c) superior siegecraft & (d) naval superiority. The barbarization of the military was itself the result of (a) a decline in training, (b) increasing reliance on barbarian auxiliaries. In addition, Ferrill critiques gradualists like Brown who qualify the proposition that we can determine an approximate date for the "fall" of Rome.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I veer between 3 and 4 stars with this. Considering how well Ferrill connects the dots of Western Roman military politics over several crucial generations, I give him 4.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not sure Ferrill ever successfully answers why Rome fell.


There are flaws in this book. Ferrill makes some overbold claims (Huns fought on foot.... really?). He fails to go far enough at other points (preferring his own thesis to the simple realization that Rome's endless civil wars clearly bled it down). He accepts at face value some dubious statistics (Late Rome's army being larger than Caesar's despite never approaching 40,000 in any campaign) His attempt to clear Honorius' reputation isn't effective. Clearly something rotten lay in a Roman Empire that cut itself in half, and then for two generations abandoned its people for Constantinople and Ravenna, and partitioned its own provinces to please barbarian levies it shouldn't have ever needed.


The subject matter of a very interesting era save this book. In fact, it's hard to think of a more exciting period than that of the Gothic Wars, Hunnic Wars, and collapse of Rome. Unlike many historians, Ferrill never strays from the most important feature of this age: military collapse. He provides a good analysis as to why the barbarian invasion succeeded by focusing on how Rome weakened itself at a crucial period by embracing two dubious "reforms": 1) the palatine comitanses limitanei dual army and 2) enlisting mass immigrants without proper oversight. Imperial attention on their palatine bodyguards denuded the Rhine-Danube riverine border, probably the easiest place to stop barbarians. Imperial reliance on barbarian immigrant recruits to flesh out the army was made far worse by their policies reverting into appeasing the worst type of immigrant recruits and dispiriting the native Roman levies. It's a very politically incorrect thesis at points, but it seems largely true. If Ferrill is even half correct, there was in fact a clear institutional causation in recruitment that largely led to Rome's military decline and collapse.


Ferrill successfully weaves a narration that focuses on just how badly led the Roman Empire was. Sometimes, imperial infighting prevent Roman armies from focusing on eliminating barbarian threats. At other points, Theodosian imperial ideology got in the way of correctly dealing with the Goths, who had by now clearly pushed far beyond any karmic justification for rebellion and by 400 were mere brigands slaughtering Balkan provincials. Ferrill does not pretend to be an unbiased observer, which is fine. Rome deserves its partisans. He reserves particular vitriol against Theodosius the not so Great, whose 'accommodations' policies exacerbated the tactical defeat at Adrianople into a strategic defeat.


Is it a great book? No, after reading I saw it as a good analysis that correctly focused on military affairs, but it was not ground breaking or even fully convincing. Yet whether right or wrong, Ferrill writes a book that deserves the time of any reader who wants to quickly review logical military reasons why Rome fell.

[Gille Liath · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fall of the Roman Empire is one of the most complex phenomena of history, with some considering it the end of civilisation - at least temporarily - and others arguing that it never even happened. Through the fog of details Arther Ferrill - despite his mis-spelled name - does a pretty good job of identifying the key factors. Some are difficult to argue, like the removal of the imperial govt to Ravenna, where it could exert no direct influence on events; others are a little hard to credit, like the apparent refusal of Roman troops to wear armour because it was too heavy - that can't be true can it?? Anyway I would like more evidence, but it's the nature of the subject that evidence is sparse at best.

Ferrill persists in drawing comparisons with the C20th US military, some of which are totally inappropriate and suggest a lack of historical perspective: for example Iwo Jima is described as 'one of the bloodiest battles' of WWII with 7000 casualties. I hate to break it to you, but in terms of the overall war it was little more than a skirmish - eg Russian casualties at Stalingrad were at least 100 time greater, and the enemy force they faced 20 times bigger.

There are also some incorrect - or at least misleading - statements, as that Christianity in Britain was 'swamped' by 'brutal Saxons'; this is true only of the part that eventually became England. Again, Ferrill says that the province of Africa was 'lost forever' to the Vandal invasion. The Western Empire collapsed not long after this, so didn't really have chance to recover it; however it was recovered by the Eastern Empire, and held for another 200 years until the Arab conquest.

Still, he is surely right in his main points: that the Western Empire did fall, it's not a figment of historians' imagination; the Eastern Empire stood largely because of the strength of Constantinople as a fortress; and this fall is primarily a military phenomenon, ie it happened because the Romans could no longer defend their territory from their enemies. In this it contrasts with the 'fall' of the British Empire, to which he compares it at the end - if that can be called a fall which was largely a voluntary withdrawal and in which the core territory remained intact and unthreatened. The British, unlike the Romans, accepted that their empire was no longer either morally tenable or necessary.

It's not one of the all-time great works of History. The writing is a bit clunky and he does have a tendency to keep hammering these main points (perhaps because they have so often been doubted by other historians). But if you want a clear, agenda-free, course-of-events account of one of the great historical puzzles, you could do worse.

A point for consideration: are Alaric the Goth, Gaiseric the Vandal and Attila the Hun the three great ethnic 'thes' of history?

[Thomas Mosher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long story short: The Empire fell due to invading barbarians, inadequate trained armies, ineffective generals and multiple assinations of useless emperors. The Empire had a good run while it lasted.

[Paul Gier · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a bit repetitive and sometimes hard to follow because of jumping around in the timeline. Overall it seems to provide a strong case that the Western Roman empire collapsed primarily because of a decline in the quality of the military due to incorporating the Visigoths and later other barbarians.