1
00:00:00,042 --> 00:00:03,088
Hi there, my name’s John Green, this is
crash course: world history, and today we’re

2
00:00:03,088 --> 00:00:05,047
going to talk about the fall of Rome.

3
00:00:05,047 --> 00:00:08,059
Mr. Green, Mr. Green, Mr. Green!
Who’s that pretty lady?

4
00:00:08,059 --> 00:00:13,001
That lady, me-from-the-past, is Emperor Justinian.
We’ll get to him in a minute.

5
00:00:13,001 --> 00:00:14,389
[music intro]

6
00:00:14,389 --> 00:00:15,078
[music intro]

7
00:00:15,078 --> 00:00:17,016
[music intro]

8
00:00:17,016 --> 00:00:18,055
[music intro]

9
00:00:18,055 --> 00:00:19,093
[music intro]

10
00:00:19,093 --> 00:00:21,032
[music intro]

11
00:00:21,032 --> 00:00:25,001
How and when Rome fell remains the subject
of considerable historical debate—

12
00:00:25,001 --> 00:00:28,949
but today I’m going to argue that the Rome
didn’t really fully fall until the middle

13
00:00:28,949 --> 00:00:30,026
of the 15th century.

14
00:00:30,026 --> 00:00:33,019
But first, let me introduce you to The Traditional
View:

15
00:00:33,019 --> 00:00:35,319
Barbarians at the Gates.
My, don’t you look traditional?

16
00:00:35,319 --> 00:00:37,309
If you want to be really technical about it,
the city of Rome was

17
00:00:37,309 --> 00:00:41,519
conquered by bar bar bar barbarians in 476
CE.

18
00:00:41,519 --> 00:00:45,199
There was a last Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus,
who ruled the empire for less than a year

19
00:00:45,199 --> 00:00:48,409
before being deposed and sent into exile by
Odoacer,

20
00:00:48,409 --> 00:00:51,329
who was some kind of barbarian- we don’t
know for sure.

21
00:00:51,329 --> 00:00:54,449
Ostrogoth, Hun, Visigoth, Vandals;
they all looked the same to the Romans.

22
00:00:54,449 --> 00:00:59,429
Rome had been sacked by barbarians before,
most notably by Alaric the Visigoth in 410-

23
00:00:59,429 --> 00:01:02,085
Is it Uh-lar-ick or Uh-lair-ick?
The dictionary says Uh-lair-ick but

24
00:01:02,085 --> 00:01:06,053
The Vampire Diaries say Uh-lar-ick so
I’m going to go with Uh-lar-ick.

25
00:01:06,053 --> 00:01:11,979
But anyway, after 476, there was never again
a “Roman” emperor in Rome.

26
00:01:11,979 --> 00:01:14,509
Then there’s the hipper anti-imperialistic
argument—

27
00:01:14,509 --> 00:01:16,659
that’s nice, but if you really want to go
full hipster

28
00:01:16,659 --> 00:01:19,009
you should probably deny that you’re being
hipst—

29
00:01:19,009 --> 00:01:20,859
right, exactly—which goes like this:

30
00:01:20,859 --> 00:01:23,509
Rome was doomed to fall as soon as it spread
outside of Italy

31
00:01:23,509 --> 00:01:26,159
because the further the territory is from
the capital,

32
00:01:26,159 --> 00:01:27,052
the harder it is to govern.

33
00:01:27,052 --> 00:01:30,539
Thus imperialism itself sowed the seeds of
destruction in Rome.

34
00:01:30,539 --> 00:01:33,679
This was the argument put forth by the Roman
historian Tacitus,

35
00:01:33,679 --> 00:01:36,229
although he put it in the mouth of a British
chieftain.

36
00:01:36,229 --> 00:01:39,509
That sounded dirty, but it’s not,
it’s all about context here on Crash Course:

37
00:01:39,509 --> 00:01:44,064
"To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give
the lying name of empire; they make a desert

38
00:01:44,064 --> 00:01:46,049
and call it peace.”

39
00:01:46,049 --> 00:01:48,031
There are two ways to overcome this governance
problem:

40
00:01:48,031 --> 00:01:51,299
First, you rule with the proverbial topaz
fist—

41
00:01:51,299 --> 00:01:56,049
that’s not the proverb? Really, Stan?
It’s an iron fist? But topaz is much harder

42
00:01:56,049 --> 00:01:58,045
than iron.
Don’t these people know their Mohs scale

43
00:01:58,045 --> 00:01:59,056
of mineral hardness?..

44
00:01:59,056 --> 00:02:01,024
Regardless,
the Romans couldn’t do this because their

45
00:02:01,024 --> 00:02:06,009
whole identity was wrapped up in an idea
of justice that precluded indiscriminate violence.

46
00:02:06,009 --> 00:02:10,095
The other strategy is to try to incorporate
conquered people into the empire more fully:

47
00:02:10,095 --> 00:02:13,015
In Rome’s case,
to make them Romans.

48
00:02:13,015 --> 00:02:15,033
This worked really well in the early days
of the Republic

49
00:02:15,033 --> 00:02:19,053
and even at the beginning of the Empire.
But it eventually led to

50
00:02:19,053 --> 00:02:21,001
Barbarians inside the Gates.

51
00:02:21,001 --> 00:02:24,081
The decline of the legions started long before
Rome started getting sacked.

52
00:02:24,081 --> 00:02:30,849
It really began with the extremely bad decision
to incorporate Germanic warriors into the

53
00:02:30,849 --> 00:02:31,209
Roman Army.

54
00:02:31,209 --> 00:02:35,599
Rome had a long history of absorbing people
from the empire’s fringes into the polity

55
00:02:35,599 --> 00:02:39,009
first by making them allies and then
eventually by granting them full citizenship

56
00:02:39,009 --> 00:02:39,599
rights.

57
00:02:39,599 --> 00:02:42,075
But usually these “foreign” citizens had
developed ties to Rome itself;

58
00:02:42,075 --> 00:02:46,015
they learned Latin, they bought into the whole
idea of the aristocratic republic.

59
00:02:46,015 --> 00:02:49,209
But by the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, though,
the empire had been forced to

60
00:02:49,209 --> 00:02:53,769
allow the kind of riffraff into their army
who didn’t really care about the idea of

61
00:02:53,769 --> 00:02:56,019
Rome itself.
They were only loyal to their commanders.

62
00:02:56,019 --> 00:02:58,879
—And as you no doubt remember from the historical
examples of

63
00:02:58,879 --> 00:03:04,329
Caesar, Pompey, Marius, contemporary Afghanistan—
this is not a recipe for domestic bliss.

64
00:03:04,329 --> 00:03:07,017
So here is Rome,
stuck with a bunch of expensive and bloody

65
00:03:07,017 --> 00:03:11,189
wars against Germanic peoples who were really
good at fighting

66
00:03:11,189 --> 00:03:14,087
and then they had a great idea:
Why not fight with these guys?

67
00:03:14,087 --> 00:03:18,079
So they essentially hired them
and soon the Roman Legions were teeming with

68
00:03:18,079 --> 00:03:21,036
these mercenaries
who were loyal mostly to gold,

69
00:03:21,036 --> 00:03:24,329
secondarily to their commanders,
and not at all to Rome

70
00:03:24,329 --> 00:03:27,319
which is a place that very few of them ever
even saw.

71
00:03:27,319 --> 00:03:30,002
I mean, why would they give a crap about the
health and well-being of the empire?

72
00:03:30,002 --> 00:03:32,469
Am I allowed to say crap, Stan?
Nice.

73
00:03:32,469 --> 00:03:36,079
This was of course a recipe for civil war,
and that’s exactly what happened with general

74
00:03:36,079 --> 00:03:40,439
after general after general
declaring himself Emperor of Rome.

75
00:03:40,439 --> 00:03:41,969
So there was very little stability in the
West.

76
00:03:41,969 --> 00:03:48,959
For instance, between 235 and 284 CE, 41 different
people were either emperor or claimed to be

77
00:03:48,959 --> 00:03:48,989
emperor.

78
00:03:48,989 --> 00:03:51,719
And after the year 200,
many of the generals who were powerful enough

79
00:03:51,719 --> 00:03:54,028
to proclaim themselves emperors weren’t
even Roman.

80
00:03:54,028 --> 00:03:56,609
In fact, a lot of them didn’t speak much
Latin.

81
00:03:56,609 --> 00:04:00,719
Oddly enough, one of the best symbols of the
new face of the Roman Empire was sartorial.

82
00:04:00,719 --> 00:04:04,000
Instead of the traditional tunic and toga
of the glory days of the Senate,

83
00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:09,319
most of the new general-emperors adopted that
most practical and most barbaric of garments:

84
00:04:09,319 --> 00:04:09,095
pants.

85
00:04:09,095 --> 00:04:14,209
Oh, which reminds me,
it’s time for the Open Letter.

86
00:04:14,209 --> 00:04:20,032
An Open Letter to Pants:

87
00:04:20,032 --> 00:04:26,005
Dear Pants,

88
00:04:26,005 --> 00:04:28,095
Although you eventually became a symbol of
patriarchal oppression,

89
00:04:28,095 --> 00:04:32,025
in your early days you were worn by both men
and women.

90
00:04:32,025 --> 00:04:34,007
And in the days of the Roman Republic, they
hated you.

91
00:04:34,007 --> 00:04:38,056
They thought you barbarous.
They thought that people wearing you was

92
00:04:38,056 --> 00:04:42,016
the definition of people lacking civilization.

93
00:04:42,016 --> 00:04:45,056
They ventured north and the wind blew up through
their togas

94
00:04:45,056 --> 00:04:48,057
and lo and behold, they adopted pants.

95
00:04:48,057 --> 00:04:52,045
And there’s a history lesson in that, pants,
which is that when people have to choose between

96
00:04:52,045 --> 00:04:56,035
civilization and warm genitals,
they choose warm genitals.

97
00:04:56,035 --> 00:04:57,077
Best Wishes,
John Green

98
00:04:57,077 --> 00:05:00,058
And now a note from our sponsor:
Today’s episode of crash course is brought

99
00:05:00,058 --> 00:05:03,027
o you by
the all-new Oldsmobile Byzantium,

100
00:05:03,027 --> 00:05:08,003
mixing power and luxury in a way-
Really? Oldsmobile isn’t a company anymore?

101
00:05:08,003 --> 00:05:10,015
And Byzantium is a place?
Are you sure?

102
00:05:10,015 --> 00:05:12,096
So remember when I said the Roman Empire survived
til the 15th century?

103
00:05:12,096 --> 00:05:17,072
Well that was the Eastern Roman Empire, commonly
known as the Byzantine Empire

104
00:05:17,072 --> 00:05:21,069
(although not by the people who lived in it
who identified themselves as Romans).

105
00:05:21,069 --> 00:05:23,091
So while the Western empire descended into
chaos,

106
00:05:23,091 --> 00:05:27,052
the eastern half of the Empire had its capital
in Byzantium,

107
00:05:27,052 --> 00:05:32,052
a city on the Bosporus Strait that Constantine
would later rename Constantinople,

108
00:05:32,052 --> 00:05:35,088
thereby paving the way for
They Might Be Giants only mainstream hit.

109
00:05:35,088 --> 00:05:43,084
Constantine had lots of reasons to move his
capitol east.

110
00:05:43,084 --> 00:05:48,078
For one thing he was born in modern-day Croatia,
also he probably spoke better Greek than Latin,

111
00:05:48,078 --> 00:05:52,088
and plus the eastern provinces were a lot
richer than the Western provinces and

112
00:05:52,088 --> 00:05:56,019
from a looting perspective,
you just want to be closer to where the good

113
00:05:56,019 --> 00:05:57,016
warring is.

114
00:05:57,016 --> 00:06:00,058
The enemies in the East, like the Persian
Parthians and the Persian Sassanians,

115
00:06:00,058 --> 00:06:03,038
were real empires,
not just bands of warriors.

116
00:06:03,038 --> 00:06:07,085
And no matter who you were in world history,
if you wanted to make a name for yourself

117
00:06:07,085 --> 00:06:11,049
in terms of war,
you really needed to be up against the Persians.

118
00:06:11,049 --> 00:06:12,073
EVEN IF you were—
wait for it—

119
00:06:12,073 --> 00:06:13,066
the Mongols.

120
00:06:13,066 --> 00:06:16,095
Not this time, friends.

121
00:06:16,095 --> 00:06:19,041
As the political center of the Roman Empire
shifted east,

122
00:06:19,041 --> 00:06:23,054
Constantine also tried to re-orient his new
religion, Christianity, toward the east,

123
00:06:23,054 --> 00:06:26,092
holding the first Church council in Nicaea
in 325.

124
00:06:26,092 --> 00:06:29,048
The idea was to get all Christians to believe
the same thing-

125
00:06:29,048 --> 00:06:31,086
that worked-
but it did mark the beginning of the emperor

126
00:06:31,086 --> 00:06:34,061
having greater control over the Church.

127
00:06:34,061 --> 00:06:38,038
That trend would of course later lead to tensions
between the church centered at Constantinople

128
00:06:38,038 --> 00:06:41,027
and the one centered in Rome.
But, more on that in a bit.

129
00:06:41,027 --> 00:06:42,093
To give you a sense of how dramatic this shift
was,

130
00:06:42,093 --> 00:06:46,013
by the 4th century CE, Constantinople’s
population had soared

131
00:06:46,013 --> 00:06:49,055
while Rome’s had gone from 500,000 to 80,000.

132
00:06:49,055 --> 00:06:53,051
And although the Byzantines spoke Greek not
Latin, they considered themselves Romans

133
00:06:53,051 --> 00:06:57,049
and if they did then we probably should too.
Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.

134
00:06:57,049 --> 00:07:00,031
There was a lot of continuity between the
old, Western Roman Empire,

135
00:07:00,031 --> 00:07:04,001
and the new, Eastern one.
Politically, each was ruled by a single

136
00:07:04,001 --> 00:07:07,031
(sometimes there were two, and once there
were four– but let’s forget about them

137
00:07:07,031 --> 00:07:10,044
for now)
who wielded absolute military power.

138
00:07:10,044 --> 00:07:14,045
War was pretty much constant as the Byzantines
fought the Persian Sassanian Empire

139
00:07:14,045 --> 00:07:16,011
and then various Islamic empires.

140
00:07:16,011 --> 00:07:19,048
Trade and valuable agricultural land that
yielded high taxes meant that the Byzantine

141
00:07:19,048 --> 00:07:23,064
Empire was like the Western Roman Empire,
exceptionally rich,

142
00:07:23,064 --> 00:07:28,037
and it was slightly more compact as a territory
than its predecessor and much more urban,

143
00:07:28,037 --> 00:07:32,032
containing as it did all of those once independent
Greek city states,

144
00:07:32,032 --> 00:07:34,027
which made it easier to administer.

145
00:07:34,027 --> 00:07:38,078
Also like their Western counterparts, the
Byzantines enjoyed spectacle and sport.

146
00:07:38,078 --> 00:07:43,026
Chariot races in Constantinople were huge,
with thousands turning out at the Hippodrome

147
00:07:43,026 --> 00:07:44,074
to cheer on their favorites.

148
00:07:44,074 --> 00:07:47,052
Big bets were placed and there was a huge
rivalry not just about sports

149
00:07:47,052 --> 00:07:50,063
but also about political affiliations between
the two main teams,

150
00:07:50,063 --> 00:07:53,088
the Blues and the Greens-
Thanks for putting us on the Greens, Thought

151
00:07:53,088 --> 00:07:56,066
Bubble.
That rivalry was so heated that riots often

152
00:07:56,066 --> 00:08:01,003
broke out between them.
In one such riot, an estimated 30,000 people

153
00:08:01,003 --> 00:08:01,072
were killed.

154
00:08:01,072 --> 00:08:05,008
Thanks Thought Bubble.
But perhaps the most consistently Roman aspect

155
00:08:05,008 --> 00:08:08,047
of Byzantine society was that they followed
Roman law.

156
00:08:08,047 --> 00:08:11,007
The Romans always prided themselves on being
ruled by laws,

157
00:08:11,007 --> 00:08:13,013
not by men,
and even though that’s not actually the

158
00:08:13,013 --> 00:08:17,079
case after the second century BCE,
there’s no question that the Eastern Roman

159
00:08:17,079 --> 00:08:20,091
Empire’s codification of Roman laws
was one of it’s greatest achievements.

160
00:08:20,091 --> 00:08:24,018
And much of the credit for that goes to the
most famous Byzantine Emperor,

161
00:08:24,018 --> 00:08:26,076
at least after Constantine,
Justinian.

162
00:08:26,076 --> 00:08:28,092
I like your brooch, sir.

163
00:08:28,092 --> 00:08:36,819
In 533 Justinian published the Digest, an
800,000-word condensation of 1,528 Latin law

164
00:08:36,819 --> 00:08:37,011
books.

165
00:08:37,011 --> 00:08:39,589
And to go along with this he published the
Institutes,

166
00:08:39,589 --> 00:08:43,769
which was like a curriculum for the Roman
law schools that existed all through the Empire.

167
00:08:43,769 --> 00:08:47,519
Justinian, incidentally, was by far the most
awesome of the Byzantine emperors.

168
00:08:47,519 --> 00:08:49,062
He was like the David Tennant of doctors.

169
00:08:49,062 --> 00:08:54,399
He was born a peasant somewhere in the Balkans
and than rose to became emperor in 527.

170
00:08:54,399 --> 00:08:58,149
He ruled for almost 30 years and in addition
to codifying Roman law,

171
00:08:58,149 --> 00:09:01,939
he did a lot to restore the former glory of
the Roman Empire.

172
00:09:01,939 --> 00:09:04,879
He took Carthage back,
he even took Rome back from the Goths,

173
00:09:04,879 --> 00:09:05,939
although not for long.

174
00:09:05,939 --> 00:09:09,041
And he’s responsible for the building of
one of the great churches in all of time—

175
00:09:09,041 --> 00:09:13,042
which is now a mosque—
the Hagia Sophia or Church of Saint Wisdom.

176
00:09:13,042 --> 00:09:16,011
So after one of those sporting riots destroyed
the previous church,

177
00:09:16,011 --> 00:09:19,055
he built this,
which with its soaring domes became a symbol

178
00:09:19,055 --> 00:09:22,012
for the wealth and opulence of his empire.

179
00:09:22,012 --> 00:09:25,092
The Romans were remarkable builders and engineers
and the Hagia Sophia is no exception:

180
00:09:25,092 --> 00:09:29,399
a dome its equal wouldn’t be build for another
500 years.

181
00:09:29,399 --> 00:09:31,329
But you would never mistake it for a Roman
temple;

182
00:09:31,329 --> 00:09:35,043
It doesn’t have the austerity or the emphasis
on engineering that you see, for instance,

183
00:09:35,043 --> 00:09:36,329
the Coliseum.

184
00:09:36,329 --> 00:09:39,043
And this building in many ways functions a
symbol for the ways the

185
00:09:39,043 --> 00:09:42,025
Eastern Roman Empire was both Roman and not.

186
00:09:42,025 --> 00:09:44,049
But maybe the most interesting thing Justinian
ever did was

187
00:09:44,049 --> 00:09:47,959
be married to his controversial Theater Person
of a wife,

188
00:09:47,959 --> 00:09:50,092
Theodora.
Hey Danica, can we get Theodora up here?

189
00:09:50,092 --> 00:09:53,061
Wow that is perfect.
It’s funny how married couples always look

190
00:09:53,061 --> 00:09:54,005
like each other.

191
00:09:54,005 --> 00:09:58,048
Theodora began her career as an actress, dancer,
and possible prostitute before become Empress.

192
00:09:58,048 --> 00:10:03,081
And she may have saved her husband’s rule
by convincing him not to flee the city during

193
00:10:03,081 --> 00:10:05,499
riots
between the Blues and Greens.

194
00:10:05,499 --> 00:10:08,087
She also mentored a eunuch
who went on to become a hugely important general-

195
00:10:08,087 --> 00:10:11,899
Mentoring a eunuch sounds like a euphemism,
but it’s not.

196
00:10:11,899 --> 00:10:14,097
And she fought to expand the rights of women
in divorce and property ownership,

197
00:10:14,097 --> 00:10:17,049
and even had a law passed taking the bold
stance

198
00:10:17,049 --> 00:10:20,589
that adulterous women should not be executed.

199
00:10:20,589 --> 00:10:23,005
So, in short,
the Byzantines continued the Roman legacy

200
00:10:23,005 --> 00:10:27,092
of empire and war and law
for almost 1000 years after Romulus Augustus

201
00:10:27,092 --> 00:10:28,899
was driven out of Rome.

202
00:10:28,899 --> 00:10:32,709
The Byzantines may not have spoken Latin,
and few of their emperors came from Rome,

203
00:10:32,709 --> 00:10:38,031
but in most important ways they were Romans.
Except one REALLY IMPORTANT way.

204
00:10:38,031 --> 00:10:40,649
The Byzantines followed a different form of
Christianity,

205
00:10:40,649 --> 00:10:43,959
the branch we now call Eastern or sometimes
Greek Orthodox.

206
00:10:43,959 --> 00:10:47,249
How there came to be a split between the Catholic
and Orthodox traditions is complicated –

207
00:10:47,249 --> 00:10:48,959
you might even say Byzantine.

208
00:10:48,959 --> 00:10:51,329
What matters for us are the differences between
the churches,

209
00:10:51,329 --> 00:10:53,259
the main doctrinal one being about the dating
of Easter,

210
00:10:53,259 --> 00:10:57,024
and the main political one being about who
rules whom.

211
00:10:57,024 --> 00:11:00,005
Did I get my whom right there, Stan?
YES!

212
00:11:00,005 --> 00:11:03,017
In the West there was a Pope and in the East
there was a Patriarch.

213
00:11:03,017 --> 00:11:05,389
The Pope is the head of the Roman Catholic
Church.

214
00:11:05,389 --> 00:11:09,023
He sort of serves as god’s regent on earth
and he doesn’t answer to any secular ruler.

215
00:11:09,023 --> 00:11:12,709
And ever since the fall of Rome,
there has been a lot of tension in Western

216
00:11:12,709 --> 00:11:16,839
Europe between Popes and kings
over who should have the real power.

217
00:11:16,839 --> 00:11:18,079
But in the Orthodox church they didn’t have
that problem

218
00:11:18,079 --> 00:11:22,055
because the Patriarch was always appointed
by the Emperor.

219
00:11:22,055 --> 00:11:24,519
So it was pretty clear who had control over
the church,

220
00:11:24,519 --> 00:11:29,779
so much that they even have a word for it-
caesaropapism: Caesar over Pope.

221
00:11:29,779 --> 00:11:33,819
But the fact that in Rome there was no emperor
after 476 meant there was no one to challenge

222
00:11:33,819 --> 00:11:36,054
the Pope,
which would profoundly shape European history

223
00:11:36,054 --> 00:11:38,879
over the next, like, 1200 years.

224
00:11:38,879 --> 00:11:42,569
So I would argue that in some important ways,
the Roman Empire survived for a thousand years

225
00:11:42,569 --> 00:11:46,005
after it left Rome,
but in some ways it still survives today.

226
00:11:46,005 --> 00:11:49,189
It survives in our imagination when we think
of this as east

227
00:11:49,189 --> 00:11:50,629
and this as west;

228
00:11:50,629 --> 00:11:53,099
It survives in football rivalries that have
their roots in religious conflicts;

229
00:11:53,099 --> 00:11:56,959
and it survives in the Justinian law code
which continues to be

230
00:11:56,959 --> 00:11:59,509
the basis for much of civil law in Europe.

231
00:11:59,509 --> 00:12:01,097
Next week we’ll talk about the emergence
of Islam over here...

232
00:12:01,097 --> 00:12:06,029
How’d I do, Stan?
Well, you can’t win ‘em all.

233
00:12:06,029 --> 00:12:07,589
Thanks for watching.

234
00:12:07,589 --> 00:12:09,439
Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan
Muller,

235
00:12:09,439 --> 00:12:12,939
our script supervisor is Danica Johnson.
The show is written by my high school history

236
00:12:12,939 --> 00:12:16,036
teacher Raoul Meyer and myself and
our graphics team is Thought Bubble.

237
00:12:16,036 --> 00:12:18,024
Last week’s Phrase of the Week was
“Aristotelian logic”.

238
00:12:18,024 --> 00:12:21,008
You can guess this week’s Phrase of the
Week or suggest new ones in Comments,

239
00:12:21,008 --> 00:12:25,042
where you can also ask questions that our
team of historians will endeavor to answer.

240
00:12:25,042 --> 99:59:59,999
Thanks for watching, and as we say in my hometown,
Don’t forget to be awesome.