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History of the Ancient World
The Tragedy of Empire: From Constantine to the Destruction of Roman Italy
“As Kulikowski presents it, the end of the Roman Empire in the West was mean and dirty―and thoroughly Roman…In a brilliant tour d’horizon of the West from Ireland to the Black Sea, he measures the effect of the fall of Rome on the world beyond Rome.”
―Peter Brown, New York Review of Books
“A tour de force history of the inner workings of the late Roman Empire.”
―Kyle Harper, author of The Fate of Rome
“Kulikowski writes boldly and fluently about imperial politics, incorporating the latest scholarship yet avoiding getting bogged down in academic controversies. Highly recommended.”
―Hugh Elton, author of The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity
“Weaving together…complex family affairs, rebels, battles, coups, and intrigue into engaging prose, Kulikowski’s book is an enjoyable read for anyone who is interested in late Roman history.”
― Minerva Magazine
One hundred years before the reign of Julian, the last non-Christian emperor of Rome, Diocletian had come to the conclusion that an empire stretching from the Rhine to the Euphrates could not effectively be governed by one man. He had devised a new system of governance to respond to the vastness of the Roman Empire, its new rivals, and the changing face of its citizenry.
Michael Kulikowski traces two hundred years of Roman history―from the late fourth century to the end of the sixth―during which the Western Empire ceased to exist while the Eastern Empire remained politically strong and culturally vibrant. He captures the changing structure of imperial rule, the rise of new elites, foreign invasions, the erosion of Roman and Greek religions, and the establishment of Christianity as the state religion.
―Peter Brown, New York Review of Books
“A tour de force history of the inner workings of the late Roman Empire.”
―Kyle Harper, author of The Fate of Rome
“Kulikowski writes boldly and fluently about imperial politics, incorporating the latest scholarship yet avoiding getting bogged down in academic controversies. Highly recommended.”
―Hugh Elton, author of The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity
“Weaving together…complex family affairs, rebels, battles, coups, and intrigue into engaging prose, Kulikowski’s book is an enjoyable read for anyone who is interested in late Roman history.”
― Minerva Magazine
One hundred years before the reign of Julian, the last non-Christian emperor of Rome, Diocletian had come to the conclusion that an empire stretching from the Rhine to the Euphrates could not effectively be governed by one man. He had devised a new system of governance to respond to the vastness of the Roman Empire, its new rivals, and the changing face of its citizenry.
Michael Kulikowski traces two hundred years of Roman history―from the late fourth century to the end of the sixth―during which the Western Empire ceased to exist while the Eastern Empire remained politically strong and culturally vibrant. He captures the changing structure of imperial rule, the rise of new elites, foreign invasions, the erosion of Roman and Greek religions, and the establishment of Christianity as the state religion.
424 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2019
44 people are currently reading
520 people want to read
About the author
Michael Kulikowski
18 books21 followersMichael Kulikowski is the author of Rome’s Gothic Wars, Late Roman Spain and Its Cities, and The Triumph of Empire. Kulikowski has appeared in a number of documentaries on the History Channel, including Barbarians Rising, Rome, and Criminal History: Rome, and writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal and London Review of Books. He is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Classics at Pennsylvania State University.
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February 27, 2021
This is a book about the later Western Roman Empire after the death of Constantine. It is a well crafted and fairly comprehensive political and cultural history that helps explain how Western Europe moved towards a post-Roman existence which would lead eventually to the “Middle Ages”, the Renaissance, and and eventually modernity. The story is complex and more than a little depressing. This is one of the few periods that makes our own current political/economic/cultural realities seem positive and encouraging.
It is also a story that makes you wonder how we come to know anything about peoples and their cultures, especially in the distant past (here 1500+ years ago). Sometimes the stories about the past that we know and accept stem from people who lived long afterwards. For example, the phrase “Middle Ages” had little or no relevance to the people at the time and the name only arose long afterwards the actual time period as a way to conceptually separate modern history from classical history. In Kulikowski’s book, while some events are well documented, it is also clear that major parts of this period are hard to explain because of a paucity of source materials. We do not really know what happened.
“The Tragedy of Empire” (TTOE) begins with the Emperor Constantine (more or less - Diocletian) and then tells the story of how the empire was governed up through the fall of Rome and through the reign of Justinian in the Eastern Byzantine empire. This was a time when there were multiple emperors (four at some times) and two for most of the time relevant to the book (one for the Eastern Empire and one for the Western Empire). This split was due to the recognition that the entire Roman Empire was just too complicated for a single ruler to manage, no matter how talented. These rulers did not last very long in office (or live very long), so there are lots of rulers and their families that get mentioned in passing. If one was just considering the personal histories of the various emperors, I have trouble seeing how such a book would succeed. There are just too many rulers to keep track of while following even a small number of general narratives. I have read a bit on Roman and Byzantine history and it is really hard to keep track of everyone, beyond a few of the greats. The first literature I read about Rome was Graves’ “I Claudius” books. Even then it was hard to keep track of a small number of the first group of memorable emperors.
So why are there so few memorable emperors? Professor Kulikowski helps the reader in making sense of what is going on. To start with, he explains how the later empire was organized and shows that there was considerable decentralization of activities and delegation of authority. By streamlining the bureaucracy, the emperors did not need to be memorable or even competent, since the work was being done by others, often at more local levels. Then there are the relations between emperors and the military. The argument here is that in the later empire, the local cliques of military leaders were the source of much real power and that these were the groups that supported the emperors, who themselves were more like figureheads. The implication of this is that how the empire was organized and how imperial structures got rationalized during this period did much to shape how Europe developed after the empire was gone. Most people appreciated some order in their lives and these structures tended to outlast their immediate leaders or their regimes.
But sometimes the emperors were not entirely figureheads! TTOE is effective at explaining the importance of the churches and religious leaders in supporting imperial regimes. Sure, enemies need to be defeated, but religions and popular bishops were also valuable tools in getting and keeping popular support. This is the lasting influence of the ties that Constantine forged in helping to make Christianity the religion of the empire. The transition to Christianity was not immediately successful and took time to work out. It would have helped if there was a single church (and its doctrines) but that was never the case, and religious controversies, often very violent, were a constant component of the story. Religious controversies linked into the large geographic extent of the two parts of the empire resulting in the Western and Eastern Churches and the continuing potential for conflict between the two, leading up to a later great schism. We see the results today in the split between the Catholic and Protestant world on the one hand and the Orthodox world on the other.
So there were forces that had the potential to unify the empire, even while there were also forces of disunity, coupled with a huge geographic expanse (Britain to Persia), along with the absence of any modern technology for records keeping, communication, or transportation. Thinking about the forces of disorder throughout the book really brings home the organizational problems and general lack of infrastructure facing the empire and makes one wonder how anything ever got done. Even with Roman roads and the control of the Mediterranean Sea, communications and travel were impossibly slow compared with today. While on the subject of infrastructure, Kulikowski is also exceptional in discussing the issues of financial structures on which imperial success in both the Eastern and Western empires depended. This includes such issues as collecting taxes, paying the military, and feeding everyone.
... and then there are the Barbarians - lots of barbarians. While there are too many of these to remember or list here, Kulikowski does a good job at explaining what role these various groups played in the life of the later empire. While the stereotypes of about the barbarians are well known, the real roles of these peoples in the later empire were complex and not easily simplified. The barbarians were as much a part of the late empire as the actual Roman citizens were. In fact the “fall of Rome” was not the dramatic and sudden collapse that some have suggested but rather a much more gradual process of substituting more local controls in the place of more centralized but increasingly ineffective imperial controls, especially in the western empire.
I cannot possibly go into a plot line - it is just too complicated. The strength of this book can be seen in how Kulikowski handles particular situations as indicative of and associated with general decline processes. For example, the chapter on the Battle of Adrianople in 378, in which a Roman army was destroyed and an emperor killed, is a well done set of stories within stories that link the conduct and even tactics of a battle with the broader processes of imperial governance. A second example comes later in the book and discusses the Vandal King Gaiseric, who eventually came to dominate the African provinces that produced the grain needed to feed the western empire. Once that Roman supply chain for food was disrupted by a local conquest, it produced shockwaves concerning food, tax revenue, and soldiers which quite likely hastened the decline of the western empire. This is not a book that is big on battles and their tactical details but Kulikowski is able to tie near run battles with broader trends in politics and economics and the result is a breathtaking view of a period that is just not written about frequently, at least until some recent work on the late empire or the early medieval era.
If I had any misgivings (besides not knowing Latin or Greek), it would be with the expended discussion of the early Byzantine Empire through Justinian. it is a good story, just one that seems a bit different from the story of the western collapse. While Kulikowski does show that the western empire came to be seen more as a “failed state”, the story of Justinian seems like a different universe altogether from the fate of the west. I realize that this is a more common position to take, for example in Judith Herrin’s recent book on Ravenna. But that is OK - there are lots of possible time frames that could bound a history of the late empire.
It is also a story that makes you wonder how we come to know anything about peoples and their cultures, especially in the distant past (here 1500+ years ago). Sometimes the stories about the past that we know and accept stem from people who lived long afterwards. For example, the phrase “Middle Ages” had little or no relevance to the people at the time and the name only arose long afterwards the actual time period as a way to conceptually separate modern history from classical history. In Kulikowski’s book, while some events are well documented, it is also clear that major parts of this period are hard to explain because of a paucity of source materials. We do not really know what happened.
“The Tragedy of Empire” (TTOE) begins with the Emperor Constantine (more or less - Diocletian) and then tells the story of how the empire was governed up through the fall of Rome and through the reign of Justinian in the Eastern Byzantine empire. This was a time when there were multiple emperors (four at some times) and two for most of the time relevant to the book (one for the Eastern Empire and one for the Western Empire). This split was due to the recognition that the entire Roman Empire was just too complicated for a single ruler to manage, no matter how talented. These rulers did not last very long in office (or live very long), so there are lots of rulers and their families that get mentioned in passing. If one was just considering the personal histories of the various emperors, I have trouble seeing how such a book would succeed. There are just too many rulers to keep track of while following even a small number of general narratives. I have read a bit on Roman and Byzantine history and it is really hard to keep track of everyone, beyond a few of the greats. The first literature I read about Rome was Graves’ “I Claudius” books. Even then it was hard to keep track of a small number of the first group of memorable emperors.
So why are there so few memorable emperors? Professor Kulikowski helps the reader in making sense of what is going on. To start with, he explains how the later empire was organized and shows that there was considerable decentralization of activities and delegation of authority. By streamlining the bureaucracy, the emperors did not need to be memorable or even competent, since the work was being done by others, often at more local levels. Then there are the relations between emperors and the military. The argument here is that in the later empire, the local cliques of military leaders were the source of much real power and that these were the groups that supported the emperors, who themselves were more like figureheads. The implication of this is that how the empire was organized and how imperial structures got rationalized during this period did much to shape how Europe developed after the empire was gone. Most people appreciated some order in their lives and these structures tended to outlast their immediate leaders or their regimes.
But sometimes the emperors were not entirely figureheads! TTOE is effective at explaining the importance of the churches and religious leaders in supporting imperial regimes. Sure, enemies need to be defeated, but religions and popular bishops were also valuable tools in getting and keeping popular support. This is the lasting influence of the ties that Constantine forged in helping to make Christianity the religion of the empire. The transition to Christianity was not immediately successful and took time to work out. It would have helped if there was a single church (and its doctrines) but that was never the case, and religious controversies, often very violent, were a constant component of the story. Religious controversies linked into the large geographic extent of the two parts of the empire resulting in the Western and Eastern Churches and the continuing potential for conflict between the two, leading up to a later great schism. We see the results today in the split between the Catholic and Protestant world on the one hand and the Orthodox world on the other.
So there were forces that had the potential to unify the empire, even while there were also forces of disunity, coupled with a huge geographic expanse (Britain to Persia), along with the absence of any modern technology for records keeping, communication, or transportation. Thinking about the forces of disorder throughout the book really brings home the organizational problems and general lack of infrastructure facing the empire and makes one wonder how anything ever got done. Even with Roman roads and the control of the Mediterranean Sea, communications and travel were impossibly slow compared with today. While on the subject of infrastructure, Kulikowski is also exceptional in discussing the issues of financial structures on which imperial success in both the Eastern and Western empires depended. This includes such issues as collecting taxes, paying the military, and feeding everyone.
... and then there are the Barbarians - lots of barbarians. While there are too many of these to remember or list here, Kulikowski does a good job at explaining what role these various groups played in the life of the later empire. While the stereotypes of about the barbarians are well known, the real roles of these peoples in the later empire were complex and not easily simplified. The barbarians were as much a part of the late empire as the actual Roman citizens were. In fact the “fall of Rome” was not the dramatic and sudden collapse that some have suggested but rather a much more gradual process of substituting more local controls in the place of more centralized but increasingly ineffective imperial controls, especially in the western empire.
I cannot possibly go into a plot line - it is just too complicated. The strength of this book can be seen in how Kulikowski handles particular situations as indicative of and associated with general decline processes. For example, the chapter on the Battle of Adrianople in 378, in which a Roman army was destroyed and an emperor killed, is a well done set of stories within stories that link the conduct and even tactics of a battle with the broader processes of imperial governance. A second example comes later in the book and discusses the Vandal King Gaiseric, who eventually came to dominate the African provinces that produced the grain needed to feed the western empire. Once that Roman supply chain for food was disrupted by a local conquest, it produced shockwaves concerning food, tax revenue, and soldiers which quite likely hastened the decline of the western empire. This is not a book that is big on battles and their tactical details but Kulikowski is able to tie near run battles with broader trends in politics and economics and the result is a breathtaking view of a period that is just not written about frequently, at least until some recent work on the late empire or the early medieval era.
If I had any misgivings (besides not knowing Latin or Greek), it would be with the expended discussion of the early Byzantine Empire through Justinian. it is a good story, just one that seems a bit different from the story of the western collapse. While Kulikowski does show that the western empire came to be seen more as a “failed state”, the story of Justinian seems like a different universe altogether from the fate of the west. I realize that this is a more common position to take, for example in Judith Herrin’s recent book on Ravenna. But that is OK - there are lots of possible time frames that could bound a history of the late empire.
May 18, 2020
I am an absolute sucker for books that take place AFTER epoch-defending events/times end. I feel like the Big Events are all copiously-covered by historical literature; there's no shortage of books on World War II, the Roman Empire, the Civil War, etc.
But I am much more interested in the codas to these events. Okay, cool: Japan has surrendered. Rome has "fallen". Lee has knelt to Grant at Appomattox.
Now what?
The Tragedy of Empire tries to answer this question, at least as regards the fall of Rome, by starting in Constantine's reign, a decent consensus choice for "last high point of the Roman Empire". We go from Rome's final peak through the absolutely tragicomic "fall" of the Western Roman Empire, that part ruled generally from some city in Italy (though not always Rome near the end; 'sup, Ravenna?) and not the eastern-ish half ruled mostly from Constantinople.
I was generally disappointed in this book. It is HEAVILY weighted towards a discussion of political, military and religious leaders and issues directly related to those topics; social, economic, and climactic factors, not so much. That’s fine, there is certainly a valid story to be told discussing primarily the lives and actions of the leading military, political and religious figures of the day, but it’s not the story I particularly want to read.
To be fair, there are (very) short sections two-three times throughout the book that talk (very) briefly about socioeconomic factors, or the changing climate we now know greatly affected the Roman world during this time; that’s good, but it’s not nearly enough.
But Kulikowski seems mostly interested in simply condensing and recording all that the primary sources have to say about the rulers through this time period. It does not matter if those rulers were good, bad, or barely noticeable; he gives the reader what is known about them. One might argue that it’s not particularly important to capture in great detail the life and doing of some Roman “Emperor” from the 420’s who was placed on the throne as a front by men of actual power, who did absolutely nothing while “ruling”, and who was summarily slaughtered in his bed after a glorious reign of a few weeks, but this book is going to tell you about him. His name was on a law promulgated somewhere once, and therefore He Matters.
The book would probably be better for the more-casual reader if the author exercised any editorial authority on which rulers to just leave the fuck out, either due to there not being much primary source material about them or because they simply didn’t do jack shit worth talking about. But, and all snark aside, this is a valid choice, I do believe Kulikowski expressly wanted to capture everything known about every leader of the era, good, bad or indifferent. In that, at least, he succeeds.
If you like old school, Great Men Make History-style recitations of high-ranking individuals and what they did or did not do well, this book will be your jam. Everybody else would be vastly better served reading something like Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe by Peter Heathers for a great, modern, general overview of all of the factors that contributed to Rome’s “fall” or The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire by Kyle Peters, for a view that specifically focuses on climate and health as primary driving factors of the fall. Actually, reading Kulikowski’s book AND Peters’ work would combine to give you a good understanding of all that went in, but the Heathers book combines all of that together in a well-written narrative that would be my single recommendation on the topic as a whole.
But I am much more interested in the codas to these events. Okay, cool: Japan has surrendered. Rome has "fallen". Lee has knelt to Grant at Appomattox.
Now what?
The Tragedy of Empire tries to answer this question, at least as regards the fall of Rome, by starting in Constantine's reign, a decent consensus choice for "last high point of the Roman Empire". We go from Rome's final peak through the absolutely tragicomic "fall" of the Western Roman Empire, that part ruled generally from some city in Italy (though not always Rome near the end; 'sup, Ravenna?) and not the eastern-ish half ruled mostly from Constantinople.
I was generally disappointed in this book. It is HEAVILY weighted towards a discussion of political, military and religious leaders and issues directly related to those topics; social, economic, and climactic factors, not so much. That’s fine, there is certainly a valid story to be told discussing primarily the lives and actions of the leading military, political and religious figures of the day, but it’s not the story I particularly want to read.
To be fair, there are (very) short sections two-three times throughout the book that talk (very) briefly about socioeconomic factors, or the changing climate we now know greatly affected the Roman world during this time; that’s good, but it’s not nearly enough.
But Kulikowski seems mostly interested in simply condensing and recording all that the primary sources have to say about the rulers through this time period. It does not matter if those rulers were good, bad, or barely noticeable; he gives the reader what is known about them. One might argue that it’s not particularly important to capture in great detail the life and doing of some Roman “Emperor” from the 420’s who was placed on the throne as a front by men of actual power, who did absolutely nothing while “ruling”, and who was summarily slaughtered in his bed after a glorious reign of a few weeks, but this book is going to tell you about him. His name was on a law promulgated somewhere once, and therefore He Matters.
The book would probably be better for the more-casual reader if the author exercised any editorial authority on which rulers to just leave the fuck out, either due to there not being much primary source material about them or because they simply didn’t do jack shit worth talking about. But, and all snark aside, this is a valid choice, I do believe Kulikowski expressly wanted to capture everything known about every leader of the era, good, bad or indifferent. In that, at least, he succeeds.
If you like old school, Great Men Make History-style recitations of high-ranking individuals and what they did or did not do well, this book will be your jam. Everybody else would be vastly better served reading something like Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe by Peter Heathers for a great, modern, general overview of all of the factors that contributed to Rome’s “fall” or The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire by Kyle Peters, for a view that specifically focuses on climate and health as primary driving factors of the fall. Actually, reading Kulikowski’s book AND Peters’ work would combine to give you a good understanding of all that went in, but the Heathers book combines all of that together in a well-written narrative that would be my single recommendation on the topic as a whole.
January 5, 2024
這兩本《帝國的勝利》與《帝國的悲劇》是馬可孛羅在2021年引進，由英國Profile Books出版社與哈佛大學聯手打造的古代史書系其中之二。這系列每一本，都向不同的作者針對其擅長的領域來邀稿，而這兩部作品則都是同一個撰寫者：麥可．庫利科斯基(Michael Kulikowski)，也因此，我就把最後這兩冊當作一卷的上下部分來看了。
《帝國的勝利》與《帝國的悲劇》總描述的時段從哈德良到西部帝國崩潰為止。要知道，羅馬這個千年國家是不斷變化的政體，它最初的城邦，擴張成一個初步的「霸權」國，經歷了奧古斯都的「羅馬革命」成為一個城邦聯合體，然後，在三世紀以後為了因應日益艱困的環境，再次轉型成複雜的中央集權官僚制，其最終型態就是後世所見到的「拜占庭式專制國家」。庫利科斯基在這兩本完成的，就是描述後半部分的這段轉型的故事。
在庫利科斯基的筆下，中期的羅馬帝國從哈德良時代開始了基礎的官僚化，在社會上也同時出現了轉變。在奧古斯都的「羅馬革命」時代就已經開始被「新陳代謝」掉的傳統貴族，全面讓位給新興的騎士階級。他們也許還有部分保留了財產跟名譽、聲望，但在實權上都被取而代之，皇帝的政府內部真正執政的是那些看起來位於社會的中間階層，他們擔任了在秘書、財政、軍事等各種實職，是皇帝名符其實的左右手。而到了卡拉卡拉把公民權全面的賦予整個帝國之後，社會流動與變化就更大了。許多被「羅馬化」的「外省菁英」開始入主中央，到了戴克里先時代為了統治廣大帝國而複雜化的官僚人員成分就更加全面性。
隨著三世紀的危機，為了讓皇帝能更有效的統治而不得不擴張的官僚架構，其必然之惡，是隨之而來的是它的擁腫與腐敗。或許上層階級還能逃過一劫，但中低底層往往都被為了養活這批官員的稅賦給壓得喘不過氣。與此同時，這些職掌權柄的人也趁機擴張了自己的私利，造就了比共和晚期更加誇張的貧富差距，四世紀最頂端的貴族財富甚至連克拉蘇都要瞠目結舌。這邊，庫利科斯基說了一個我之前不曾見過的新說。作者指出，這幾年的考古新資料證實，東帝國在約四世紀後取得了新的金礦，這讓君士坦丁堡有別於西部的同僚羅馬，有餘裕解決一直困擾政府的貨幣貶值的問題；同時，也讓皇帝能夠貫徹發薪水給那些官僚，保障他們的忠誠度與向心力。而這恰恰是���帝國崩潰的原因之一：皇帝付不出薪水，只好默許他們自己去另覓財路，中央政府對他們來說也日益可有可無。大量的貴族與官僚擁有私產與莊園，他們也掌握了地方化的權力，而為了維持這些利益，跟當時入侵的蠻族合作還比聽從羅馬來得有效率多了。
此外，個人覺得，在庫利科斯基的筆下，四世紀後的西部帝國政府，彷如民國的北洋時期，雖然有個中央，但底下山頭軍閥林立，每個有實權的不是進來自己稱王，不然就是挾天子以令諸侯，直到最後權威喪盡，一位軍頭奧多亞塞(Odoacer)覺得皇帝已經是「雞肋」，就此將之廢除，然後轉變成供奉遠在天邊的東帝國，一來既可以繼續維持自己的合法性，又不用有人時時掣肘自己。作者描述這個現象是：「無人聞問的衰亡」。導讀的翁嘉聲老師說作者這是一個有別於彼德‧布朗的「古代晚期」學派對西部羅馬帝國衰亡的不同詮釋，個人其實倒不太在意，反正關於這方便的歷史說法千千萬萬種，一般讀者只要明白知道「帝國始終不庭的在變化」這個事實就好了。羅馬從「一個帝國」變成「一國四府」，最後變成「一國兩府」，最後變為「半個帝國」，歷史現況就大概就是這樣。至於怎麼詮釋，那是學術圈要忙的事情。
作者這兩本都是採行敘事體的方式撰寫，描述的跨度很長，出現的事件與名詞等也很多，書的厚度也很可觀，讀者需要一點耐心。不過好在是兩位譯者都有出色的完成其工作，至少閱讀上是不用費勁。
會特別提這點是，這系列第三本，也就是個人沒有撰寫長評的《帝國的誕生》的譯者王約就失敗了，那個翻譯就真的是讓人忍無可忍，這點讓我覺得十分可惜。馬可孛羅這套名家說史系列，堪稱是目前繁體書市在這個主題上的決定版，在深度跟可讀性來說都是上乘之作，但卻有一本敗筆，令人扼腕。(而且還是最精彩的共和末期)
不過，我看簡體書市似乎要引進這一系列，就不知道是不是自行再譯，若如此，也許如果覺得缺了一塊的讀者，或許有補救的機會。
另外一個遺憾的點是，中文版推出了五本，而其實英文版則還有最後的一本：《New Rome: The Roman Empire in the East, AD 395 – 700》，由著名的拜占庭史家Paul Stephenson撰寫，在2022年推出。但就我所知，馬可孛羅似乎沒有想要推出的計畫。惜哉！
扣掉以上不談，這套名家說史系列，還是值得對歐洲古典史有興趣的讀者架上珍藏。
《帝國的勝利》與《帝國的悲劇》總描述的時段從哈德良到西部帝國崩潰為止。要知道，羅馬這個千年國家是不斷變化的政體，它最初的城邦，擴張成一個初步的「霸權」國，經歷了奧古斯都的「羅馬革命」成為一個城邦聯合體，然後，在三世紀以後為了因應日益艱困的環境，再次轉型成複雜的中央集權官僚制，其最終型態就是後世所見到的「拜占庭式專制國家」。庫利科斯基在這兩本完成的，就是描述後半部分的這段轉型的故事。
在庫利科斯基的筆下，中期的羅馬帝國從哈德良時代開始了基礎的官僚化，在社會上也同時出現了轉變。在奧古斯都的「羅馬革命」時代就已經開始被「新陳代謝」掉的傳統貴族，全面讓位給新興的騎士階級。他們也許還有部分保留了財產跟名譽、聲望，但在實權上都被取而代之，皇帝的政府內部真正執政的是那些看起來位於社會的中間階層，他們擔任了在秘書、財政、軍事等各種實職，是皇帝名符其實的左右手。而到了卡拉卡拉把公民權全面的賦予整個帝國之後，社會流動與變化就更大了。許多被「羅馬化」的「外省菁英」開始入主中央，到了戴克里先時代為了統治廣大帝國而複雜化的官僚人員成分就更加全面性。
隨著三世紀的危機，為了讓皇帝能更有效的統治而不得不擴張的官僚架構，其必然之惡，是隨之而來的是它的擁腫與腐敗。或許上層階級還能逃過一劫，但中低底層往往都被為了養活這批官員的稅賦給壓得喘不過氣。與此同時，這些職掌權柄的人也趁機擴張了自己的私利，造就了比共和晚期更加誇張的貧富差距，四世紀最頂端的貴族財富甚至連克拉蘇都要瞠目結舌。這邊，庫利科斯基說了一個我之前不曾見過的新說。作者指出，這幾年的考古新資料證實，東帝國在約四世紀後取得了新的金礦，這讓君士坦丁堡有別於西部的同僚羅馬，有餘裕解決一直困擾政府的貨幣貶值的問題；同時，也讓皇帝能夠貫徹發薪水給那些官僚，保障他們的忠誠度與向心力。而這恰恰是���帝國崩潰的原因之一：皇帝付不出薪水，只好默許他們自己去另覓財路，中央政府對他們來說也日益可有可無。大量的貴族與官僚擁有私產與莊園，他們也掌握了地方化的權力，而為了維持這些利益，跟當時入侵的蠻族合作還比聽從羅馬來得有效率多了。
此外，個人覺得，在庫利科斯基的筆下，四世紀後的西部帝國政府，彷如民國的北洋時期，雖然有個中央，但底下山頭軍閥林立，每個有實權的不是進來自己稱王，不然就是挾天子以令諸侯，直到最後權威喪盡，一位軍頭奧多亞塞(Odoacer)覺得皇帝已經是「雞肋」，就此將之廢除，然後轉變成供奉遠在天邊的東帝國，一來既可以繼續維持自己的合法性，又不用有人時時掣肘自己。作者描述這個現象是：「無人聞問的衰亡」。導讀的翁嘉聲老師說作者這是一個有別於彼德‧布朗的「古代晚期」學派對西部羅馬帝國衰亡的不同詮釋，個人其實倒不太在意，反正關於這方便的歷史說法千千萬萬種，一般讀者只要明白知道「帝國始終不庭的在變化」這個事實就好了。羅馬從「一個帝國」變成「一國四府」，最後變成「一國兩府」，最後變為「半個帝國」，歷史現況就大概就是這樣。至於怎麼詮釋，那是學術圈要忙的事情。
作者這兩本都是採行敘事體的方式撰寫，描述的跨度很長，出現的事件與名詞等也很多，書的厚度也很可觀，讀者需要一點耐心。不過好在是兩位譯者都有出色的完成其工作，至少閱讀上是不用費勁。
會特別提這點是，這系列第三本，也就是個人沒有撰寫長評的《帝國的誕生》的譯者王約就失敗了，那個翻譯就真的是讓人忍無可忍，這點讓我覺得十分可惜。馬可孛羅這套名家說史系列，堪稱是目前繁體書市在這個主題上的決定版，在深度跟可讀性來說都是上乘之作，但卻有一本敗筆，令人扼腕。(而且還是最精彩的共和末期)
不過，我看簡體書市似乎要引進這一系列，就不知道是不是自行再譯，若如此，也許如果覺得缺了一塊的讀者，或許有補救的機會。
另外一個遺憾的點是，中文版推出了五本，而其實英文版則還有最後的一本：《New Rome: The Roman Empire in the East, AD 395 – 700》，由著名的拜占庭史家Paul Stephenson撰寫，在2022年推出。但就我所知，馬可孛羅似乎沒有想要推出的計畫。惜哉！
扣掉以上不談，這套名家說史系列，還是值得對歐洲古典史有興趣的讀者架上珍藏。
September 5, 2021
Broadly, I struggle with history books. There is an obsession with smaller fonts to fit more words into less space (an annoying publishing habit which does however allow us to find more history on the bookshelves of shops). Unavoidably we are bombarded with masses of names, places (in their previous and current iterations) and the other mess that comes from the complexity of looking back on any form of scale. However, here Kulikowski has minimised those frustrations for me.
The content itself is incredibly interesting - Roman history often focuses on eras other than the decline and that period of late antiquity moving into the early middle ages is incredibly interesting. The lazy generalisation when asked the question 'Why did the Western Roman Empire fall?" has always focus on dramatic moments - the invasion of 'barbarians', Attila, over reliance on slave labour, military losses etc. In this book we find the knotty truth by following the politics of Roman leaders and Emperors, the court wrangling and movements of powerful men and women that cannot stop, and can often contribute to the decline of Rome. The complexity of the question is dealt with in real detail and helps to show how Kingdoms, laws and customs in the middle ages were influenced as a result.
Definitely worth picking up if you have any interest in the period.
The content itself is incredibly interesting - Roman history often focuses on eras other than the decline and that period of late antiquity moving into the early middle ages is incredibly interesting. The lazy generalisation when asked the question 'Why did the Western Roman Empire fall?" has always focus on dramatic moments - the invasion of 'barbarians', Attila, over reliance on slave labour, military losses etc. In this book we find the knotty truth by following the politics of Roman leaders and Emperors, the court wrangling and movements of powerful men and women that cannot stop, and can often contribute to the decline of Rome. The complexity of the question is dealt with in real detail and helps to show how Kingdoms, laws and customs in the middle ages were influenced as a result.
Definitely worth picking up if you have any interest in the period.
July 21, 2021
I only read this book because it was required for my history course. One of the driest books I have ever read, it was torture to read, I'd compare it to the begat section of the bible, too many names, nothing is explained and the author assumes the reader knows every emperor, military leader and eunuch that ever lived in the Roman empire.
October 20, 2019
Excellent - a detailed analysis of the process of change, rather than treating the ‘end of empire’ in the west as an event, shows how it was a transition between different but related forms of governance.
February 11, 2022
A very entertaining survey of the systems collapse that lead to the end of the western roman empire using up to date scholarship and research across a variety of academic disciplines. I highly recommend to anyone interested in the period.
And now onto my criticisms!
1. Initially, I assumed that all the sneering comments towards pagans in the book was the author perhaps being a devout Christian because some of them were a bit uncalled for in intensity. However, upon reflection, it appears that his anti-pagan comments weren't aimed at the pagans themselves but a backlash against the fashionable academic trend in the 1990s and early 2000s to see prominent pagans who existed well into the ascent of christianity as making some sort of anti-establishment statement or, more precisely, as leaders of a vast movement. The trend was to posit that a few holdout late 4th century pagan senators were representative of vast silent majority of low class pagans who the record misses. Kulikowski is correct that academics in the 1990s probably underestimated how quickly people became at least nominally Christian, but in his zeal to oppose their ideas he comes off sneering and dismissive even to the existence of pagans who most certainly *did* exist in the west in this period in great numbers.
2. He is a bit too willing to intuit a figure's intent in the absence of evidence. "Ricimer believed that..." Wait what? What evidence do we have for what Ricimer believed? We know what Ricimer did, and we *might* know what contemporary historians *assumed* Ricimer's plans were, but its cavalier to claim that we know the inner monologue of figures who didnt leave us an auto biography. While doing this improves the narrative prose by removing the endless caveats that should exist in scholarly writing, it could give a lay reader a bit too false a sense in our confidence and our understanding of the situation.
3. His views on ethnography are nuanced and generally good but there are a few exceptions. He is deathly afraid-- for some reason-- of calling germanic people who spoke Gothic and called themselves Goths as Goths. He goes out of his way to correctly point out that not *everyone* in the Gothic tribal structure was a Goth, but then goes way too far in asserting that we can't with any confidence call the Ripurian Goths as Goths. His main argument rests on the fact that these particular Goths left no written record, and all we have is the Roman point of view who were inclined to oversimplfy or anachronize complex tribal structures. But the evidence is rather clear that the Romans called these people Goths, the people spoke Gothic, and the same people a generation later where we DO have sources called themselves Goths. No one in academia is going to fault him for calling these people Goths.
4. This problem repeats itself later with the Sclaveni. This was the name the Romans gave to the slavic peoples living on the north side of the Danube river in the 6th century. No only does he reject the idea that we can call them slavic he claims that since there is no written evidence that they spoke slavic languages we can't assume that either. A generation or two later the descendents of these same people were indeed attested speaking slavic languages, having slavic names, and calling themselves slavs. We know from historical linguistics that the slavic languages split from proto-balto-slavic a few hundred years previously, so its quite sensical to call the sclaveni a slavic people. While I understand his hesitation (accepting the labeling of a people from their opponents rather than their own ethnonym is not considered appropriate in modern sociology) he makes an incredibly bold claim that the sclaveni were *indigenous* to the northern bank of the Danube. His evidence for this incredible claim is as such: historical linguists claims that proto-slavic languages developed further north along the Vistula for a variety of good reasons, but since we don't have archeological evidence that some slavs migrated south to the Danube in the 6th century we must assume that no migration happened and that historical linguistics cannot be relied on, therefore our only conclusion is that the slaves were indigenous to the north bank of the Danube where we first meet them in history until proven otherwise.
This is untenable. First, Kulikowski, in other areas of the narrative, is more than willing to offer reasonable conjecture for motivations (see #2 above) or actions that we don't have specific evidence for. That he is willing to accept conjecture for historical matters (his academic discipline) but unwilling to rely on the expertise of scholars in other disciplines betrays either an overabundance of caution from a historian who is unwilling to cross a personal Rubicon or a disrespect for cross-disciplinary studies.
The fact of the matter is, the very same area where he claims we must accept the sclaveni as indigenous to was the very same place we found the (non-slavic) goths 125 years earlier, and were we found the (non-slavic, non-germanic) Dacians 200 years before that. To claim that slavic speaking people co-existed with (or were descended from?) non-slavic peoples that inhabited that area for centuries before their first attestation is making an outrageous specific claim in the total absence of evidence.
I believe that his position is part of the "pots aren't people" anti-migration movement in archeology that dominated academia from the 60s until very recently. In that paradigm any conjectured migration was by default considered not to have happened unless we had incredibly specific overwhelming evidence to support it. In this academic paradigm the idea of claiming that some tribes of slavic peoples migrated south from the vistula to the danube without leaving a trail of archeological breadcrumbs is beyond the pale.
Fortunately, the pendulum has swung back in recent years and paleogenetics and historical linguistics can detect migrations among peoples who had a material culture that *wouldn't* have left much of a trace. The simply matter is we know from Tacitus that the Romans were aware that the Slavs lived to the north and east of the germanic peoples in the 2nd century and that at that time Dacia was inhabited by non-slavic Dacians. And we know that slavic peoples suddenly appear in our sources as living in Dacia in the 6th century when previous to that the area was inhabited by Goths who subsequently moved to Italy and Gaul. Our options are that some of the slavic peoples migrated from their homeland in that 400 year period, or that they were indigenous to the area. It seems rather clear.
5. He levels withering criticism at Justinian for not only destroying Roman Italy, but also medievalizing the Roman east. He is at pains to begin calling the Roman Empire "Byzantine" though he says that isn't a perjorative (it is, and he means it as such). He attributes most of these reforms as part of Justinians misguided and barely competent zeal for change. However, this is certainly incorrect.
The bubonic plague that struck the Mediterranean in the 540s killed as much as a third of the population of the Empire, and this caused catastrophic economic effects. Its quite easy to see two halves of Justinians reign: massive economic prosperity, mostly easy reconquests of imperial territory in Africa and Italy, significant legal reforms, and a vast building program. Then after 542, when a third of the empire died, nothing was easy. The building stopped, the wars became grueling as the resources to deliver knockout blows to his opponents no longer existed, and the reforms changed from improving the old Diocletianic systems to ad hoc stop gap reforms designed to maximize revenues in a period where the state lost the ability to raise revenues the old way.
The author doesn't connect these dots. He remarks that Justinian eliminated state controlled decurial tax collections and instituted tax farmers, which undermined state control of the monetary and tax systems, and blames Justinian for foolishly eroding the Roman state. Does he think Justinian did this because he was an idiot who felt the existing system was less effective than tax farming? I have no idea. But the fact is reforms like this were forced on Justinian by the changed circumstances of a state that had its gross national product cut down by at least 33% in a two year period. Its not hard to imagine Justinian being obligated to make the best of an unimaginably bad situation because he literally had no other choice. The tax system reforms and the merging of the civil and military provincial administration draw the Kulikowski's ire, but since he doesn't link these reforms to plagueborn necessities he is left to conclude that Justinian was simply incompetent, which seems like a horrible misreading of the situation.
I'm being thorough with these criticisms because the book is otherwise excellent, so the faults stand out all the more and I'd be remiss if I didn't share my thoughts. Don't let my critique prevent you from reading this, because simply put, there isn't a better popular history on this period available and in all likelihood there won't be for a considerably long time.
And now onto my criticisms!
1. Initially, I assumed that all the sneering comments towards pagans in the book was the author perhaps being a devout Christian because some of them were a bit uncalled for in intensity. However, upon reflection, it appears that his anti-pagan comments weren't aimed at the pagans themselves but a backlash against the fashionable academic trend in the 1990s and early 2000s to see prominent pagans who existed well into the ascent of christianity as making some sort of anti-establishment statement or, more precisely, as leaders of a vast movement. The trend was to posit that a few holdout late 4th century pagan senators were representative of vast silent majority of low class pagans who the record misses. Kulikowski is correct that academics in the 1990s probably underestimated how quickly people became at least nominally Christian, but in his zeal to oppose their ideas he comes off sneering and dismissive even to the existence of pagans who most certainly *did* exist in the west in this period in great numbers.
2. He is a bit too willing to intuit a figure's intent in the absence of evidence. "Ricimer believed that..." Wait what? What evidence do we have for what Ricimer believed? We know what Ricimer did, and we *might* know what contemporary historians *assumed* Ricimer's plans were, but its cavalier to claim that we know the inner monologue of figures who didnt leave us an auto biography. While doing this improves the narrative prose by removing the endless caveats that should exist in scholarly writing, it could give a lay reader a bit too false a sense in our confidence and our understanding of the situation.
3. His views on ethnography are nuanced and generally good but there are a few exceptions. He is deathly afraid-- for some reason-- of calling germanic people who spoke Gothic and called themselves Goths as Goths. He goes out of his way to correctly point out that not *everyone* in the Gothic tribal structure was a Goth, but then goes way too far in asserting that we can't with any confidence call the Ripurian Goths as Goths. His main argument rests on the fact that these particular Goths left no written record, and all we have is the Roman point of view who were inclined to oversimplfy or anachronize complex tribal structures. But the evidence is rather clear that the Romans called these people Goths, the people spoke Gothic, and the same people a generation later where we DO have sources called themselves Goths. No one in academia is going to fault him for calling these people Goths.
4. This problem repeats itself later with the Sclaveni. This was the name the Romans gave to the slavic peoples living on the north side of the Danube river in the 6th century. No only does he reject the idea that we can call them slavic he claims that since there is no written evidence that they spoke slavic languages we can't assume that either. A generation or two later the descendents of these same people were indeed attested speaking slavic languages, having slavic names, and calling themselves slavs. We know from historical linguistics that the slavic languages split from proto-balto-slavic a few hundred years previously, so its quite sensical to call the sclaveni a slavic people. While I understand his hesitation (accepting the labeling of a people from their opponents rather than their own ethnonym is not considered appropriate in modern sociology) he makes an incredibly bold claim that the sclaveni were *indigenous* to the northern bank of the Danube. His evidence for this incredible claim is as such: historical linguists claims that proto-slavic languages developed further north along the Vistula for a variety of good reasons, but since we don't have archeological evidence that some slavs migrated south to the Danube in the 6th century we must assume that no migration happened and that historical linguistics cannot be relied on, therefore our only conclusion is that the slaves were indigenous to the north bank of the Danube where we first meet them in history until proven otherwise.
This is untenable. First, Kulikowski, in other areas of the narrative, is more than willing to offer reasonable conjecture for motivations (see #2 above) or actions that we don't have specific evidence for. That he is willing to accept conjecture for historical matters (his academic discipline) but unwilling to rely on the expertise of scholars in other disciplines betrays either an overabundance of caution from a historian who is unwilling to cross a personal Rubicon or a disrespect for cross-disciplinary studies.
The fact of the matter is, the very same area where he claims we must accept the sclaveni as indigenous to was the very same place we found the (non-slavic) goths 125 years earlier, and were we found the (non-slavic, non-germanic) Dacians 200 years before that. To claim that slavic speaking people co-existed with (or were descended from?) non-slavic peoples that inhabited that area for centuries before their first attestation is making an outrageous specific claim in the total absence of evidence.
I believe that his position is part of the "pots aren't people" anti-migration movement in archeology that dominated academia from the 60s until very recently. In that paradigm any conjectured migration was by default considered not to have happened unless we had incredibly specific overwhelming evidence to support it. In this academic paradigm the idea of claiming that some tribes of slavic peoples migrated south from the vistula to the danube without leaving a trail of archeological breadcrumbs is beyond the pale.
Fortunately, the pendulum has swung back in recent years and paleogenetics and historical linguistics can detect migrations among peoples who had a material culture that *wouldn't* have left much of a trace. The simply matter is we know from Tacitus that the Romans were aware that the Slavs lived to the north and east of the germanic peoples in the 2nd century and that at that time Dacia was inhabited by non-slavic Dacians. And we know that slavic peoples suddenly appear in our sources as living in Dacia in the 6th century when previous to that the area was inhabited by Goths who subsequently moved to Italy and Gaul. Our options are that some of the slavic peoples migrated from their homeland in that 400 year period, or that they were indigenous to the area. It seems rather clear.
5. He levels withering criticism at Justinian for not only destroying Roman Italy, but also medievalizing the Roman east. He is at pains to begin calling the Roman Empire "Byzantine" though he says that isn't a perjorative (it is, and he means it as such). He attributes most of these reforms as part of Justinians misguided and barely competent zeal for change. However, this is certainly incorrect.
The bubonic plague that struck the Mediterranean in the 540s killed as much as a third of the population of the Empire, and this caused catastrophic economic effects. Its quite easy to see two halves of Justinians reign: massive economic prosperity, mostly easy reconquests of imperial territory in Africa and Italy, significant legal reforms, and a vast building program. Then after 542, when a third of the empire died, nothing was easy. The building stopped, the wars became grueling as the resources to deliver knockout blows to his opponents no longer existed, and the reforms changed from improving the old Diocletianic systems to ad hoc stop gap reforms designed to maximize revenues in a period where the state lost the ability to raise revenues the old way.
The author doesn't connect these dots. He remarks that Justinian eliminated state controlled decurial tax collections and instituted tax farmers, which undermined state control of the monetary and tax systems, and blames Justinian for foolishly eroding the Roman state. Does he think Justinian did this because he was an idiot who felt the existing system was less effective than tax farming? I have no idea. But the fact is reforms like this were forced on Justinian by the changed circumstances of a state that had its gross national product cut down by at least 33% in a two year period. Its not hard to imagine Justinian being obligated to make the best of an unimaginably bad situation because he literally had no other choice. The tax system reforms and the merging of the civil and military provincial administration draw the Kulikowski's ire, but since he doesn't link these reforms to plagueborn necessities he is left to conclude that Justinian was simply incompetent, which seems like a horrible misreading of the situation.
I'm being thorough with these criticisms because the book is otherwise excellent, so the faults stand out all the more and I'd be remiss if I didn't share my thoughts. Don't let my critique prevent you from reading this, because simply put, there isn't a better popular history on this period available and in all likelihood there won't be for a considerably long time.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 30, 2024
Another book that I've been meaning to read for years, but put off because I recognized that it was going to be a serious intellectual workout. Was it worth the effort? On the whole, yes. Kulikowski is essentially writing about the collapse of the Post-Constantine empire as a study of system failure, pointing to the inability of the ruling elite to rise above their personal power games in terms of maintaining those structures and institutions that really made the empire work. Yes the "Barbarians" are present in this work, though Kulikowski has little patience with narratives that tend to blame these human waves for being the primary cause of collapse. As often as not these people were part of the solution, not the problem, with the problem being the failure of elite leadership. Also, Kulikowski is another non-fan of Justinian, as reflected in the sub-title of this work.
So, would I personally recommend this study? If you want a comprehensive overview of the last 200 years of the Empire as a working whole, that includes a serious examination of religion as ideology, yes. As a starting point for the general reader, probably not; they would be better off starting with the works of Peter Heather.
Also, while Kulikowsky does make a nod towards issues of plague and environmental collapse as elements in the fall of the Empire, it's just a nod. Whatever else this book is it's a summation of several generations of study of "Late Antiquity."
So, would I personally recommend this study? If you want a comprehensive overview of the last 200 years of the Empire as a working whole, that includes a serious examination of religion as ideology, yes. As a starting point for the general reader, probably not; they would be better off starting with the works of Peter Heather.
Also, while Kulikowsky does make a nod towards issues of plague and environmental collapse as elements in the fall of the Empire, it's just a nod. Whatever else this book is it's a summation of several generations of study of "Late Antiquity."
December 8, 2023
An excellent sequel to its predecessor ("The Triumph of Rome"), this book covers the Roman Empire from Constantine (approximately 320s/330s) to the 560s - covering the decline and end of the Western Roman Empire as well as the establishment and continuity of the Eastern Roman Empire. The book additionally briefly covers some of the post-imperial developments in Western Rome.
Clearly, Diocletian's reforms, going from rule by one to rule by a tetrarchy, preceded further divisions in the Empire as the system of tetrachs and Western and Eastern Emperors led to the contestation and fracturing of power. Could Rome have continued to have been governed under one Emperor only or was the increased size of the Empire always bound to result in a fracturing of authority? Either way, the divisions of the Empire and the interrelationships with peoples on the margins of the Empire ultimately led to a fracture that persists in the nations of Europe today.
Helpful for understanding this broader history, "The Tragedy of Empire" is nevertheless more difficult to read than "The Triumph of Empire." Some of the middle chapters covered so many events that it was hard to keep track of characters and developments. The back-and-forth coverage of the West and the East worked to a degree (and a Roman history without coverage of the East would have been quite lacking!), but also made things more difficult to follow. That said, this is still a good overview for those interested in the later years of the Western Empire and in understanding the foundations of the Eastern Empire.
Clearly, Diocletian's reforms, going from rule by one to rule by a tetrarchy, preceded further divisions in the Empire as the system of tetrachs and Western and Eastern Emperors led to the contestation and fracturing of power. Could Rome have continued to have been governed under one Emperor only or was the increased size of the Empire always bound to result in a fracturing of authority? Either way, the divisions of the Empire and the interrelationships with peoples on the margins of the Empire ultimately led to a fracture that persists in the nations of Europe today.
Helpful for understanding this broader history, "The Tragedy of Empire" is nevertheless more difficult to read than "The Triumph of Empire." Some of the middle chapters covered so many events that it was hard to keep track of characters and developments. The back-and-forth coverage of the West and the East worked to a degree (and a Roman history without coverage of the East would have been quite lacking!), but also made things more difficult to follow. That said, this is still a good overview for those interested in the later years of the Western Empire and in understanding the foundations of the Eastern Empire.
February 13, 2023
A thoroughly readable and coherent narrative history that provides a healthy mix of detached storytelling and considered, characterful analysis. It does enough of the former to hold the interest of the casual reader, yet also enough of the latter to be considered a worthwhile addition to the scholarly discussion. As an introduction to the uninitiated or as a reminder of the wider picture, that pursuit of an academic niche can often cause one to forget, I recommend this book highly.
As is inevitable with a history of this scope and length, there is much that some might feel is not addressed extensively enough. By and large, however, I feel that Kulikowski does an admirable job of justifying his choices of emphasis. Naturally, whether one agrees with him or not is another matter.
The only frustration I cannot reconcile with, however, is the lack of footnotes/endnotes. I understand that the appetite for these is varied, and I venture to agree with those who find them distracting when used extensively in a narrative history. Moreover, my wish for them in this case is not because I doubt Kulikowski's considerable scholarly ability; indeed, quite the opposite. Kulikowski makes many astute observations and suggests many compelling interpretations and, though he provides an extensive bibliography and suggested readings, it is frustrating that one cannot retrace his steps exactly.
Nonetheless, there is much that might be usefully gleaned from this book and so, footnotes or no, I can only reiterate my recommendation.
As is inevitable with a history of this scope and length, there is much that some might feel is not addressed extensively enough. By and large, however, I feel that Kulikowski does an admirable job of justifying his choices of emphasis. Naturally, whether one agrees with him or not is another matter.
The only frustration I cannot reconcile with, however, is the lack of footnotes/endnotes. I understand that the appetite for these is varied, and I venture to agree with those who find them distracting when used extensively in a narrative history. Moreover, my wish for them in this case is not because I doubt Kulikowski's considerable scholarly ability; indeed, quite the opposite. Kulikowski makes many astute observations and suggests many compelling interpretations and, though he provides an extensive bibliography and suggested readings, it is frustrating that one cannot retrace his steps exactly.
Nonetheless, there is much that might be usefully gleaned from this book and so, footnotes or no, I can only reiterate my recommendation.
October 11, 2025
I can't remember anything about this book aside from reading it. That it has slipped into a black hole of forgetfulness is bad - I am sure the book is good - but books that leave absolutely no impression - and after only four years is not a good sign.
I am also sure that the author, professor Michael Kulikowoski, is a descendent of Grand Duchess Olga of Russia, the sister of Nicholas II, who lived and died in Toronto, where the professor is from. The Grand Duchess married a man named Kulikowski after divorcing her first husband, a Prince of Oldenburg.
So not much about the book but I presume it is not terrible so I am giving my compromise award, three stars.
I am also sure that the author, professor Michael Kulikowoski, is a descendent of Grand Duchess Olga of Russia, the sister of Nicholas II, who lived and died in Toronto, where the professor is from. The Grand Duchess married a man named Kulikowski after divorcing her first husband, a Prince of Oldenburg.
So not much about the book but I presume it is not terrible so I am giving my compromise award, three stars.
August 4, 2022
There are better works out there. This felt like a recitation and not a reflection on the events.
September 24, 2023
Pretty okay book, but with all Roman history you need a better literary sense to communicate what’s happening
October 24, 2023
“History neither repeats nor rhymes, and the only thing it should teach us is that, constrained by custom, by psychology, and by our always faulty memories, constrained most of all by circumstance not of our individual making, humans tend to make a mess of making their own fate.”
This sentence sums up both Kulilowski's thesis of the fall of the Roman Empire and foreshadows the way that he wrote this book. He is very much of the school that Rome 'accidentally committed suicide' through the serial blunders of its elites. There is nothing wrong with that, but Kulikowski very rarely discusses anything besides the high political and ecclesiastical narratives of Late Antiquity. It is refreshing that he also devotes some time to discussing these narratives as they played out in and around Sasanian Persia, but overall the book is lacking in its consideration of non-political circumstances and pressures.
It is also written in a style that feels oddly both remote and over-familiar. People, events, primary sources, and other subjects are introduced and discussed in a way that feels like the reader is expected to already be knowledgeable about them. Sometimes the primary sources referenced are not even named, and the lack of any kind of footnotes or endnotes can make it hard to figure out exactly what Kulikowski is talking about and to track down more detailed information. At the same time, many subjects are discussed so quickly and schematically that readers who are already familiar with the period may find little that they did not already know, and be left wanting more. The 'Further Reading' section at the end of the book is a very nice resource to include though.
Overall, there are many, many, MANY worse histories of the end of the Roman world out there. 'The Tragedy of Empire' is better than most, but has little else to specifically recommend it besides Kulikowski's snark, which can be quite entertaining. It is probably best suited to intermediate students of Late Antiquity. Those looking for an introduction to the period will probably need to do some Googling while reading, and those looking for a deeper study may be disappointed.
This sentence sums up both Kulilowski's thesis of the fall of the Roman Empire and foreshadows the way that he wrote this book. He is very much of the school that Rome 'accidentally committed suicide' through the serial blunders of its elites. There is nothing wrong with that, but Kulikowski very rarely discusses anything besides the high political and ecclesiastical narratives of Late Antiquity. It is refreshing that he also devotes some time to discussing these narratives as they played out in and around Sasanian Persia, but overall the book is lacking in its consideration of non-political circumstances and pressures.
It is also written in a style that feels oddly both remote and over-familiar. People, events, primary sources, and other subjects are introduced and discussed in a way that feels like the reader is expected to already be knowledgeable about them. Sometimes the primary sources referenced are not even named, and the lack of any kind of footnotes or endnotes can make it hard to figure out exactly what Kulikowski is talking about and to track down more detailed information. At the same time, many subjects are discussed so quickly and schematically that readers who are already familiar with the period may find little that they did not already know, and be left wanting more. The 'Further Reading' section at the end of the book is a very nice resource to include though.
Overall, there are many, many, MANY worse histories of the end of the Roman world out there. 'The Tragedy of Empire' is better than most, but has little else to specifically recommend it besides Kulikowski's snark, which can be quite entertaining. It is probably best suited to intermediate students of Late Antiquity. Those looking for an introduction to the period will probably need to do some Googling while reading, and those looking for a deeper study may be disappointed.
April 22, 2025
Kulikowski offers a detailed and thoroughly researched account of the slow decline of the Western Roman Empire, while also presenting the continuity of the Eastern Empire. As someone who enjoyed Kulikowski’s The Triumph of Empire, I approached this book with high expectations, but I found it to be a more demanding and less enjoyable read.
While the scholarship remains impressive, the narrative often feels dense, especially in the middle chapters where events, names and shifting power dynamics come in rapid succession. It can be difficult to keep track of the numerous emperors, generals and invasions without constantly referring back. The structure—switching between the Eastern and Western parts of the empire—helps convey the complexity of the period but sometimes adds to the challenge of following the storyline smoothly.
That said, I appreciated Kulikowski’s critical approach, particularly his refusal to romanticize figures like Theodosius I and Justinian. He presents them not as heroic saviors but as leaders who contributed to the empire’s long-term instability. Despite the book’s difficulty, it’s a valuable read for anyone looking to go beyond simplified narratives and confront the chaotic, often tragic, reality of Rome’s final centuries.
While the scholarship remains impressive, the narrative often feels dense, especially in the middle chapters where events, names and shifting power dynamics come in rapid succession. It can be difficult to keep track of the numerous emperors, generals and invasions without constantly referring back. The structure—switching between the Eastern and Western parts of the empire—helps convey the complexity of the period but sometimes adds to the challenge of following the storyline smoothly.
That said, I appreciated Kulikowski’s critical approach, particularly his refusal to romanticize figures like Theodosius I and Justinian. He presents them not as heroic saviors but as leaders who contributed to the empire’s long-term instability. Despite the book’s difficulty, it’s a valuable read for anyone looking to go beyond simplified narratives and confront the chaotic, often tragic, reality of Rome’s final centuries.
May 6, 2023
A wealth of information but written in the most turgid and dry style imaginable. At once a superficial analysis of religious disputes (while at once telling us they were incredibly important) and a meticulous run through of Emperors, their wives, their wives' cousins and so on.
The decision to use the Latin names of cities (usually without their current name) is also baffling as it renders useless the description of any campaign because the distance and direction of advance is unknown.
I could not possibly commend this book. Neither the author nor its editor had any regard for the views of the casual reader and this book was a deadening slog to finish.
Finally, the author's lack of self awareness was also apparent when he described a contemporary text along the lines of a boring recitation of dates and names. There can be no better epitaph for this book.
The decision to use the Latin names of cities (usually without their current name) is also baffling as it renders useless the description of any campaign because the distance and direction of advance is unknown.
I could not possibly commend this book. Neither the author nor its editor had any regard for the views of the casual reader and this book was a deadening slog to finish.
Finally, the author's lack of self awareness was also apparent when he described a contemporary text along the lines of a boring recitation of dates and names. There can be no better epitaph for this book.
March 12, 2025
An extremely detailed and well-reasoned account of the Later Roman Empire. This period, much like the third century that preceded it, can be very confused in the sources, and Kulikowski cuts a very straightforward path through the complexities and murk.
At times, his reading of Christianity seemed somewhat simplistic, and perhaps somewhat oversecular (almost hostile?). There were also several odd references to modern popular culture that seemed very out of place, and perhaps speak to his personal political leanings. The book suffers from a dizzying array of figures, all of whom are named, and at times it was difficult to keep them all straight, especially when they existed within a web of alliances (or several webs that shifted).
All in all, highly enjoyable.
At times, his reading of Christianity seemed somewhat simplistic, and perhaps somewhat oversecular (almost hostile?). There were also several odd references to modern popular culture that seemed very out of place, and perhaps speak to his personal political leanings. The book suffers from a dizzying array of figures, all of whom are named, and at times it was difficult to keep them all straight, especially when they existed within a web of alliances (or several webs that shifted).
All in all, highly enjoyable.
November 23, 2023
Amazing. Immensely detailed while still being very readable, and at times interspersed with ironic humour. I particularly enjoyed how the author takes the time to deconstruct historical misconceptions about the fall of the western empire, being clear about the warlords (both internal and external) who dragged it down to its grave. He also avoids glorification of much-lauded emperors like Theodosius I and Justinian, instead being frank about their failures and the state they left the empire in. It's not necessarily an upbeat narrative (as keeping with the title), but it feels like a relatively objective and honest one.
I will be taking a look at the author's other works in future!
I will be taking a look at the author's other works in future!
August 29, 2024
This and Imperial Triumph are an amazing pair of books. I feel like I triumphed by reading them. The trail of names was a challenge to follow, but I enjoyed it also. The author draws on written, archeological, linguistic, and other resources. It's a complicated puzzle, but I found it fascinating to follow. So much more than a list of Emperor's names. I recommend both of these books, if you want a challenge. Or, that's what I found them to be. The Further Reading section contains suggestions on numerous topics and people. It is exciting to have a peek into the complexity of these times.
March 15, 2022
A wonderfully rich political narrative that offers much that is original and much that is not. The geographical range is formidable for a history of western Rome, but necessarily so. I read this after Paul Stephenson’s New Rome, in the same series, and note some overlap in coverage, but enjoyed the entirely different approaches and distinctive styles. I learned a great deal from both separately and more from both together.
November 6, 2021
How refreshing and fascinating to learn something about the Persian/Parthian empire! Normally these books are euro-centric, and you hear nothing much about anything outside that, but here the narrative tells the reader about events in a larger context and that's amazing!
I enjoyed this! Academics and interested parties will feel the same, I think!
I enjoyed this! Academics and interested parties will feel the same, I think!
January 16, 2025
This is a concise but dense history of the Roman Empire up to Justinian. It focuses heavily on political history and as a result the name-dropping can feel excessive at times. The author does shatter many myths hailing from Victorian times on the fall of the west and its aftermath, so is a worthy read for those interested.
May 9, 2023
Impeccable, timing, epic, sound, healthy, classic, martial,... with a political and religious vision to top the huge tragedy when the Western Roman Empire collapsed. Although for some, the written style would make them boring...
November 18, 2025
Informative, but like another review said: the book feeling more like a recitation than reflection.
Not only is it just going through the motions, the author has no character to his writing style. No, I retract that statement. He does: BORING.
Not only is it just going through the motions, the author has no character to his writing style. No, I retract that statement. He does: BORING.
November 22, 2020
Very interesting and detailed book. However, the sheer number of name and titles can be hard to remember and follow in parts.
November 14, 2021
This was a very dense account of the end of the Roman Empire. It was solid if not inspired.
April 9, 2022
Well, Rome went dark. Not the easiest read and a bit too much Latin for a survey ... Onto Gibbon and more declining and falling.
May 1, 2022
No notes and some unconvincing arguments. Otherwise fine, a good further reading section.
May 4, 2025
Sources on this period of history that aren’t either Gibbon’s absurdly massive volumes or on the latter hand some incredibly spurious nonsense are very rare, so it should be seen as important.
November 5, 2025
A fine read if you are an academic or want to be an academic. I love history, but the wealth of details is so overwhelming that it becomes a burden.
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