WEBVTT 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 00:00:03.088 --> 00:00:05.047 going to talk about the fall of Rome. 00:00:05.047 --> 00:00:08.059 Mr. Green, Mr. Green, Mr. Green! Who’s that pretty lady? 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. 00:00:13.001 --> 00:00:14.389 [music intro] 00:00:14.389 --> 00:00:15.078 [music intro] 00:00:15.078 --> 00:00:17.016 [music intro] 00:00:17.016 --> 00:00:18.055 [music intro] 00:00:18.055 --> 00:00:19.093 [music intro] 00:00:19.093 --> 00:00:21.032 [music intro] 00:00:21.032 --> 00:00:25.001 How and when Rome fell remains the subject of considerable historical debate— 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 00:00:28.949 --> 00:00:30.026 of the 15th century. 00:00:30.026 --> 00:00:33.019 But first, let me introduce you to The Traditional View: 00:00:33.019 --> 00:00:35.319 Barbarians at the Gates. My, don’t you look traditional? 00:00:35.319 --> 00:00:37.309 If you want to be really technical about it, the city of Rome was 00:00:37.309 --> 00:00:41.519 conquered by bar bar bar barbarians in 476 CE. 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 00:00:45.199 --> 00:00:48.409 before being deposed and sent into exile by Odoacer, 00:00:48.409 --> 00:00:51.329 who was some kind of barbarian- we don’t know for sure. 00:00:51.329 --> 00:00:54.449 Ostrogoth, Hun, Visigoth, Vandals; they all looked the same to the Romans. 00:00:54.449 --> 00:00:59.429 Rome had been sacked by barbarians before, most notably by Alaric the Visigoth in 410- 00:00:59.429 --> 00:01:02.085 Is it Uh-lar-ick or Uh-lair-ick? The dictionary says Uh-lair-ick but 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. 00:01:06.053 --> 00:01:11.979 But anyway, after 476, there was never again a “Roman” emperor in Rome. 00:01:11.979 --> 00:01:14.509 Then there’s the hipper anti-imperialistic argument— 00:01:14.509 --> 00:01:16.659 that’s nice, but if you really want to go full hipster 00:01:16.659 --> 00:01:19.009 you should probably deny that you’re being hipst— 00:01:19.009 --> 00:01:20.859 right, exactly—which goes like this: 00:01:20.859 --> 00:01:23.509 Rome was doomed to fall as soon as it spread outside of Italy 00:01:23.509 --> 00:01:26.159 because the further the territory is from the capital, 00:01:26.159 --> 00:01:27.052 the harder it is to govern. 00:01:27.052 --> 00:01:30.539 Thus imperialism itself sowed the seeds of destruction in Rome. 00:01:30.539 --> 00:01:33.679 This was the argument put forth by the Roman historian Tacitus, 00:01:33.679 --> 00:01:36.229 although he put it in the mouth of a British chieftain. 00:01:36.229 --> 00:01:39.509 That sounded dirty, but it’s not, it’s all about context here on Crash Course: 00:01:39.509 --> 00:01:44.064 "To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a desert 00:01:44.064 --> 00:01:46.049 and call it peace.” 00:01:46.049 --> 00:01:48.031 There are two ways to overcome this governance problem: 00:01:48.031 --> 00:01:51.299 First, you rule with the proverbial topaz fist— 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 00:01:56.049 --> 00:01:58.045 than iron. Don’t these people know their Mohs scale 00:01:58.045 --> 00:01:59.056 of mineral hardness?.. 00:01:59.056 --> 00:02:01.024 Regardless, the Romans couldn’t do this because their 00:02:01.024 --> 00:02:06.009 whole identity was wrapped up in an idea of justice that precluded indiscriminate violence. 00:02:06.009 --> 00:02:10.095 The other strategy is to try to incorporate conquered people into the empire more fully: 00:02:10.095 --> 00:02:13.015 In Rome’s case, to make them Romans. 00:02:13.015 --> 00:02:15.033 This worked really well in the early days of the Republic 00:02:15.033 --> 00:02:19.053 and even at the beginning of the Empire. But it eventually led to 00:02:19.053 --> 00:02:21.001 Barbarians inside the Gates. 00:02:21.001 --> 00:02:24.081 The decline of the legions started long before Rome started getting sacked. 00:02:24.081 --> 00:02:30.849 It really began with the extremely bad decision to incorporate Germanic warriors into the 00:02:30.849 --> 00:02:31.209 Roman Army. 00:02:31.209 --> 00:02:35.599 Rome had a long history of absorbing people from the empire’s fringes into the polity 00:02:35.599 --> 00:02:39.009 first by making them allies and then eventually by granting them full citizenship 00:02:39.009 --> 00:02:39.599 rights. 00:02:39.599 --> 00:02:42.075 But usually these “foreign” citizens had developed ties to Rome itself; 00:02:42.075 --> 00:02:46.015 they learned Latin, they bought into the whole idea of the aristocratic republic. 00:02:46.015 --> 00:02:49.209 But by the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, though, the empire had been forced to 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 00:02:53.769 --> 00:02:56.019 Rome itself. They were only loyal to their commanders. 00:02:56.019 --> 00:02:58.879 —And as you no doubt remember from the historical examples of 00:02:58.879 --> 00:03:04.329 Caesar, Pompey, Marius, contemporary Afghanistan— this is not a recipe for domestic bliss. 00:03:04.329 --> 00:03:07.017 So here is Rome, stuck with a bunch of expensive and bloody 00:03:07.017 --> 00:03:11.189 wars against Germanic peoples who were really good at fighting 00:03:11.189 --> 00:03:14.087 and then they had a great idea: Why not fight with these guys? 00:03:14.087 --> 00:03:18.079 So they essentially hired them and soon the Roman Legions were teeming with 00:03:18.079 --> 00:03:21.036 these mercenaries who were loyal mostly to gold, 00:03:21.036 --> 00:03:24.329 secondarily to their commanders, and not at all to Rome 00:03:24.329 --> 00:03:27.319 which is a place that very few of them ever even saw. 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? 00:03:30.002 --> 00:03:32.469 Am I allowed to say crap, Stan? Nice. 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 00:03:36.079 --> 00:03:40.439 after general after general declaring himself Emperor of Rome. 00:03:40.439 --> 00:03:41.969 So there was very little stability in the West. 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 00:03:48.959 --> 00:03:48.989 emperor. 00:03:48.989 --> 00:03:51.719 And after the year 200, many of the generals who were powerful enough 00:03:51.719 --> 00:03:54.028 to proclaim themselves emperors weren’t even Roman. 00:03:54.028 --> 00:03:56.609 In fact, a lot of them didn’t speak much Latin. 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. 00:04:00.719 --> 00:04:04.000 Instead of the traditional tunic and toga of the glory days of the Senate, 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:09.319 most of the new general-emperors adopted that most practical and most barbaric of garments: 00:04:09.319 --> 00:04:09.095 pants. 00:04:09.095 --> 00:04:14.209 Oh, which reminds me, it’s time for the Open Letter. 00:04:14.209 --> 00:04:20.032 An Open Letter to Pants: 00:04:20.032 --> 00:04:26.005 Dear Pants, 00:04:26.005 --> 00:04:28.095 Although you eventually became a symbol of patriarchal oppression, 00:04:28.095 --> 00:04:32.025 in your early days you were worn by both men and women. 00:04:32.025 --> 00:04:34.007 And in the days of the Roman Republic, they hated you. 00:04:34.007 --> 00:04:38.056 They thought you barbarous. They thought that people wearing you was 00:04:38.056 --> 00:04:42.016 the definition of people lacking civilization. 00:04:42.016 --> 00:04:45.056 They ventured north and the wind blew up through their togas 00:04:45.056 --> 00:04:48.057 and lo and behold, they adopted pants. 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 00:04:52.045 --> 00:04:56.035 civilization and warm genitals, they choose warm genitals. 00:04:56.035 --> 00:04:57.077 Best Wishes, John Green 00:04:57.077 --> 00:05:00.058 And now a note from our sponsor: Today’s episode of crash course is brought 00:05:00.058 --> 00:05:03.027 o you by the all-new Oldsmobile Byzantium, 00:05:03.027 --> 00:05:08.003 mixing power and luxury in a way- Really? Oldsmobile isn’t a company anymore? 00:05:08.003 --> 00:05:10.015 And Byzantium is a place? Are you sure? 00:05:10.015 --> 00:05:12.096 So remember when I said the Roman Empire survived til the 15th century? 00:05:12.096 --> 00:05:17.072 Well that was the Eastern Roman Empire, commonly known as the Byzantine Empire 00:05:17.072 --> 00:05:21.069 (although not by the people who lived in it who identified themselves as Romans). 00:05:21.069 --> 00:05:23.091 So while the Western empire descended into chaos, 00:05:23.091 --> 00:05:27.052 the eastern half of the Empire had its capital in Byzantium, 00:05:27.052 --> 00:05:32.052 a city on the Bosporus Strait that Constantine would later rename Constantinople, 00:05:32.052 --> 00:05:35.088 thereby paving the way for They Might Be Giants only mainstream hit. 00:05:35.088 --> 00:05:43.084 Constantine had lots of reasons to move his capitol east. 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, 00:05:48.078 --> 00:05:52.088 and plus the eastern provinces were a lot richer than the Western provinces and 00:05:52.088 --> 00:05:56.019 from a looting perspective, you just want to be closer to where the good 00:05:56.019 --> 00:05:57.016 warring is. 00:05:57.016 --> 00:06:00.058 The enemies in the East, like the Persian Parthians and the Persian Sassanians, 00:06:00.058 --> 00:06:03.038 were real empires, not just bands of warriors. 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 00:06:07.085 --> 00:06:11.049 in terms of war, you really needed to be up against the Persians. 00:06:11.049 --> 00:06:12.073 EVEN IF you were— wait for it— 00:06:12.073 --> 00:06:13.066 the Mongols. 00:06:13.066 --> 00:06:16.095 Not this time, friends. 00:06:16.095 --> 00:06:19.041 As the political center of the Roman Empire shifted east, 00:06:19.041 --> 00:06:23.054 Constantine also tried to re-orient his new religion, Christianity, toward the east, 00:06:23.054 --> 00:06:26.092 holding the first Church council in Nicaea in 325. 00:06:26.092 --> 00:06:29.048 The idea was to get all Christians to believe the same thing- 00:06:29.048 --> 00:06:31.086 that worked- but it did mark the beginning of the emperor 00:06:31.086 --> 00:06:34.061 having greater control over the Church. 00:06:34.061 --> 00:06:38.038 That trend would of course later lead to tensions between the church centered at Constantinople 00:06:38.038 --> 00:06:41.027 and the one centered in Rome. But, more on that in a bit. 00:06:41.027 --> 00:06:42.093 To give you a sense of how dramatic this shift was, 00:06:42.093 --> 00:06:46.013 by the 4th century CE, Constantinople’s population had soared 00:06:46.013 --> 00:06:49.055 while Rome’s had gone from 500,000 to 80,000. 00:06:49.055 --> 00:06:53.051 And although the Byzantines spoke Greek not Latin, they considered themselves Romans 00:06:53.051 --> 00:06:57.049 and if they did then we probably should too. Let’s go to the Thought Bubble. 00:06:57.049 --> 00:07:00.031 There was a lot of continuity between the old, Western Roman Empire, 00:07:00.031 --> 00:07:04.001 and the new, Eastern one. Politically, each was ruled by a single 00:07:04.001 --> 00:07:07.031 (sometimes there were two, and once there were four– but let’s forget about them 00:07:07.031 --> 00:07:10.044 for now) who wielded absolute military power. 00:07:10.044 --> 00:07:14.045 War was pretty much constant as the Byzantines fought the Persian Sassanian Empire 00:07:14.045 --> 00:07:16.011 and then various Islamic empires. 00:07:16.011 --> 00:07:19.048 Trade and valuable agricultural land that yielded high taxes meant that the Byzantine 00:07:19.048 --> 00:07:23.064 Empire was like the Western Roman Empire, exceptionally rich, 00:07:23.064 --> 00:07:28.037 and it was slightly more compact as a territory than its predecessor and much more urban, 00:07:28.037 --> 00:07:32.032 containing as it did all of those once independent Greek city states, 00:07:32.032 --> 00:07:34.027 which made it easier to administer. 00:07:34.027 --> 00:07:38.078 Also like their Western counterparts, the Byzantines enjoyed spectacle and sport. 00:07:38.078 --> 00:07:43.026 Chariot races in Constantinople were huge, with thousands turning out at the Hippodrome 00:07:43.026 --> 00:07:44.074 to cheer on their favorites. 00:07:44.074 --> 00:07:47.052 Big bets were placed and there was a huge rivalry not just about sports 00:07:47.052 --> 00:07:50.063 but also about political affiliations between the two main teams, 00:07:50.063 --> 00:07:53.088 the Blues and the Greens- Thanks for putting us on the Greens, Thought 00:07:53.088 --> 00:07:56.066 Bubble. That rivalry was so heated that riots often 00:07:56.066 --> 00:08:01.003 broke out between them. In one such riot, an estimated 30,000 people 00:08:01.003 --> 00:08:01.072 were killed. 00:08:01.072 --> 00:08:05.008 Thanks Thought Bubble. But perhaps the most consistently Roman aspect 00:08:05.008 --> 00:08:08.047 of Byzantine society was that they followed Roman law. 00:08:08.047 --> 00:08:11.007 The Romans always prided themselves on being ruled by laws, 00:08:11.007 --> 00:08:13.013 not by men, and even though that’s not actually the 00:08:13.013 --> 00:08:17.079 case after the second century BCE, there’s no question that the Eastern Roman 00:08:17.079 --> 00:08:20.091 Empire’s codification of Roman laws was one of it’s greatest achievements. 00:08:20.091 --> 00:08:24.018 And much of the credit for that goes to the most famous Byzantine Emperor, 00:08:24.018 --> 00:08:26.076 at least after Constantine, Justinian. 00:08:26.076 --> 00:08:28.092 I like your brooch, sir. 00:08:28.092 --> 00:08:36.819 In 533 Justinian published the Digest, an 800,000-word condensation of 1,528 Latin law 00:08:36.819 --> 00:08:37.011 books. 00:08:37.011 --> 00:08:39.589 And to go along with this he published the Institutes, 00:08:39.589 --> 00:08:43.769 which was like a curriculum for the Roman law schools that existed all through the Empire. 00:08:43.769 --> 00:08:47.519 Justinian, incidentally, was by far the most awesome of the Byzantine emperors. 00:08:47.519 --> 00:08:49.062 He was like the David Tennant of doctors. 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. 00:08:54.399 --> 00:08:58.149 He ruled for almost 30 years and in addition to codifying Roman law, 00:08:58.149 --> 00:09:01.939 he did a lot to restore the former glory of the Roman Empire. 00:09:01.939 --> 00:09:04.879 He took Carthage back, he even took Rome back from the Goths, 00:09:04.879 --> 00:09:05.939 although not for long. 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— 00:09:09.041 --> 00:09:13.042 which is now a mosque— the Hagia Sophia or Church of Saint Wisdom. 00:09:13.042 --> 00:09:16.011 So after one of those sporting riots destroyed the previous church, 00:09:16.011 --> 00:09:19.055 he built this, which with its soaring domes became a symbol 00:09:19.055 --> 00:09:22.012 for the wealth and opulence of his empire. 00:09:22.012 --> 00:09:25.092 The Romans were remarkable builders and engineers and the Hagia Sophia is no exception: 00:09:25.092 --> 00:09:29.399 a dome its equal wouldn’t be build for another 500 years. 00:09:29.399 --> 00:09:31.329 But you would never mistake it for a Roman temple; 00:09:31.329 --> 00:09:35.043 It doesn’t have the austerity or the emphasis on engineering that you see, for instance, 00:09:35.043 --> 00:09:36.329 the Coliseum. 00:09:36.329 --> 00:09:39.043 And this building in many ways functions a symbol for the ways the 00:09:39.043 --> 00:09:42.025 Eastern Roman Empire was both Roman and not. 00:09:42.025 --> 00:09:44.049 But maybe the most interesting thing Justinian ever did was 00:09:44.049 --> 00:09:47.959 be married to his controversial Theater Person of a wife, 00:09:47.959 --> 00:09:50.092 Theodora. Hey Danica, can we get Theodora up here? 00:09:50.092 --> 00:09:53.061 Wow that is perfect. It’s funny how married couples always look 00:09:53.061 --> 00:09:54.005 like each other. 00:09:54.005 --> 00:09:58.048 Theodora began her career as an actress, dancer, and possible prostitute before become Empress. 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 00:10:03.081 --> 00:10:05.499 riots between the Blues and Greens. 00:10:05.499 --> 00:10:08.087 She also mentored a eunuch who went on to become a hugely important general- 00:10:08.087 --> 00:10:11.899 Mentoring a eunuch sounds like a euphemism, but it’s not. 00:10:11.899 --> 00:10:14.097 And she fought to expand the rights of women in divorce and property ownership, 00:10:14.097 --> 00:10:17.049 and even had a law passed taking the bold stance 00:10:17.049 --> 00:10:20.589 that adulterous women should not be executed. 00:10:20.589 --> 00:10:23.005 So, in short, the Byzantines continued the Roman legacy 00:10:23.005 --> 00:10:27.092 of empire and war and law for almost 1000 years after Romulus Augustus 00:10:27.092 --> 00:10:28.899 was driven out of Rome. 00:10:28.899 --> 00:10:32.709 The Byzantines may not have spoken Latin, and few of their emperors came from Rome, 00:10:32.709 --> 00:10:38.031 but in most important ways they were Romans. Except one REALLY IMPORTANT way. 00:10:38.031 --> 00:10:40.649 The Byzantines followed a different form of Christianity, 00:10:40.649 --> 00:10:43.959 the branch we now call Eastern or sometimes Greek Orthodox. 00:10:43.959 --> 00:10:47.249 How there came to be a split between the Catholic and Orthodox traditions is complicated – 00:10:47.249 --> 00:10:48.959 you might even say Byzantine. 00:10:48.959 --> 00:10:51.329 What matters for us are the differences between the churches, 00:10:51.329 --> 00:10:53.259 the main doctrinal one being about the dating of Easter, 00:10:53.259 --> 00:10:57.024 and the main political one being about who rules whom. 00:10:57.024 --> 00:11:00.005 Did I get my whom right there, Stan? YES! 00:11:00.005 --> 00:11:03.017 In the West there was a Pope and in the East there was a Patriarch. 00:11:03.017 --> 00:11:05.389 The Pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church. 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. 00:11:09.023 --> 00:11:12.709 And ever since the fall of Rome, there has been a lot of tension in Western 00:11:12.709 --> 00:11:16.839 Europe between Popes and kings over who should have the real power. 00:11:16.839 --> 00:11:18.079 But in the Orthodox church they didn’t have that problem 00:11:18.079 --> 00:11:22.055 because the Patriarch was always appointed by the Emperor. 00:11:22.055 --> 00:11:24.519 So it was pretty clear who had control over the church, 00:11:24.519 --> 00:11:29.779 so much that they even have a word for it- caesaropapism: Caesar over Pope. 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 00:11:33.819 --> 00:11:36.054 the Pope, which would profoundly shape European history 00:11:36.054 --> 00:11:38.879 over the next, like, 1200 years. 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 00:11:42.569 --> 00:11:46.005 after it left Rome, but in some ways it still survives today. 00:11:46.005 --> 00:11:49.189 It survives in our imagination when we think of this as east 00:11:49.189 --> 00:11:50.629 and this as west; 00:11:50.629 --> 00:11:53.099 It survives in football rivalries that have their roots in religious conflicts; 00:11:53.099 --> 00:11:56.959 and it survives in the Justinian law code which continues to be 00:11:56.959 --> 00:11:59.509 the basis for much of civil law in Europe. 00:11:59.509 --> 00:12:01.097 Next week we’ll talk about the emergence of Islam over here... 00:12:01.097 --> 00:12:06.029 How’d I do, Stan? Well, you can’t win ‘em all. 00:12:06.029 --> 00:12:07.589 Thanks for watching. 00:12:07.589 --> 00:12:09.439 Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller, 00:12:09.439 --> 00:12:12.939 our script supervisor is Danica Johnson. The show is written by my high school history 00:12:12.939 --> 00:12:16.036 teacher Raoul Meyer and myself and our graphics team is Thought Bubble. 00:12:16.036 --> 00:12:18.024 Last week’s Phrase of the Week was “Aristotelian logic”. 00:12:18.024 --> 00:12:21.008 You can guess this week’s Phrase of the Week or suggest new ones in Comments, 00:12:21.008 --> 00:12:25.042 where you can also ask questions that our team of historians will endeavor to answer. 00:12:25.042 --> 99:59:59.999 Thanks for watching, and as we say in my hometown, Don’t forget to be awesome.