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The Dominate, different from the Princepate, in it's way of rule. Focus and wealth in the Empire moved from the West and moved to the East.ĭiocletian while part of the traditional 'barrack emperors' was not one of military rule. I don't think they were intentionally doing this to be cheap, but rather there were no other way for them to acquire these kind of finances.Įmperor Diocletian stabilized things for a while by dropping the pretense of Princeps and setting up a military rule, but at this point it was on the downhill slide. While negative spending did not occur for the Romans, they did deflate their currency which in a sense is spending tomorrow's money through inflation. Unlike todays governments they did not borrow on future revenue streams (bonds) and could not keep up with the maintenance required of the Empire. So there are still formal way of succession, just, few respected it.Īdditionally, the Roman government was always government on the cheap. Unlike say when Claudius Gothicus died, the army proclaimed Aurelian and rejected Quintillus brother of Claudius proclaimed by the senate. Romans in Rome still respected the typical succession, father to son, brother to brother, see after Decius' death, they proclaimed Hostilian as emperor alone with Trebonianus Gallus who was proclaimed by the army, and unlike the typical third century way these two reign together just fine. I think it's different to say someone has no formal way of succession, vs in chaos no one respected the formal way of succession.
![germanic tribes defeated romans at battle of arausio germanic tribes defeated romans at battle of arausio](https://migrationperiodrpg.weebly.com/uploads/2/2/1/0/22100846/6972238_orig.jpg)
They had no formal mode of succession and thus they kept on having civil wars to figure out leadership. It should also be noted that the German chiefs regarded themselves as successors to the Roman Empire which is why they adopted Latin or at least the local vulgar equivalent and why French, Italian etc exists rather than most of Europe speaking German. By the time we regard the official end of the Western Empire comes, it wasn't really Roman anymore. You then had a couple of centuries of German war leaders playing an increasingly important part in selecting Emperors and intermarrying into the Roman elite. If you look at the Great Conspiracy of the mid 4th century you see whole chunks of the Roman military joining the Barbarians suggesting they weren't being paid. One of the reasons the capital was moved to Ravenna was so the Imperial court could be closer to the armies on the frontier and thereby exert more direct influence.Ĭorruption and incompetence at high level is what seems to have done the Empire in. The problem seems to be the way Armies were paid indirectly by the generals that led them rather than central government so their loyalty shifted quickly to the people most likely to pay them - their generals. The Roman Empire was already splitting into two by the time the Germans were pushing at the borders. Google Crisis of the 3rd century for details that led to the collapse. Mass migration that was impossible to manage It is kinda like comparing the USA of 1800 to USA of 2018.in 1800 Russia was not a threat.but in 2018 it is. Things change over time and all empires eventually end. Thus the Romans of Julius Caesar are not the Romans of Diocletian. The empire was so weak it could not effectively stop them and in some cases tried to buy them off with land and money which only let the barbarians know how weak the Romans were.Īlso keep in mind the Empire and Barbarians are not static. With all this inner decay, there was a mass migration of "barbarians" into the Empire. In some cases the eastern empire was also fighting with the western half which did not help things. Focus and wealth in the Empire moved from the West and moved to the East. Emperor Diocletian stabilized things for a while by dropping the pretense of Princeps and setting up a military rule, but at this point it was on the downhill slide. Additionally, the Roman government was always government on the cheap. So they were so focused on fighting each other that they had less resources to manage the borders of the empire. I am no expert.but in the 3rd century AD.the Roman Empire was breaking down.