The strongest bonds of political loyalty across the west had ceased to be between disparate peoples and their emperors or the abstract imperial system. They were now loyal to the tribe, the general, and the momentarily ascendant warlord. Landowners across the provinces had paid tribute to (and held office in) the Roman Empire on the understanding that it offered military might to defend their lives, laws to protect their property, and an aristocratic culture to bind them to their neighbors. Now all of this was broken. Rome’s consensus—its collective identity—had been shattered. An end was in
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