(October 28, 2010 at 5:03 pm)Cerrone Wrote:(October 28, 2010 at 4:45 pm)Minimalist Wrote: No. Rome had no trouble maintaining her far-flung empire until the military disasters of the mid 3'd century any more than Britain had trouble maintaining her empire in the days before radio communication. The provincial governors, either imperial or senatorial, had great discretion but as we know from Pliny's correspondence they regularly wrote reports to Rome. Those governors were also rotated frequently.
Well, maybe i shouldve said that if a province wasnt substainable it wouldve ended up being abandoned, as britain eventually was. There'd be no sense in occupying land that wasnt of any economic or military importance afterall.
The reason the Empire was held together up until then was because of the idea of the triumverate, it took the admin pressure off of the roman senate and decentralized governance amongst provincial leaders. It still took a little over a week at the very best for a message from York to reach Rome, and if the governors had to wait 2 weeks to send and receive orders for eveyr facet of administration you can imagine how the empire wouldve been totally unworkable.
But that being said, the empire in the first days of the triumverate was half the size as it was in 300AD, and if the idea of decentralized government wasnt welcomed in the Octavians days it wouldve been desperately needed by Constantines time, else the empire wouldve collapsed.
There is an argument that the instituitioanlisation of christianity directly led to the fall of the western roman empire.
The argument goes like this.
Before the catholic church the way to power for a clever roman was through the legions and conquest, so the brightest and best of rome were expereinced soldiers and generals BUT post Attilla the Hun and the alleged miracles of the pope to avert the crisis(the huns said he just paid them off) the church became an equal path to power and gradually gained more and more power as a rival to the emperor so the brightest and best no longer went into the military but into the church. Slowly eroding both the military prowess and the quality of the emperors.
So that when a crisis came in the form of eastern europeans displaced by the mongols the empires miltary had been left to atrophy.
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.