Goths traversant une rivière, Évariste-Vital Luminais (1822-1896). The Goths came en masse and
unopposed, as immigrants. They discovered that Roman civilians would not defend
themselves and had not done so for a long time.
When
discussing the influx of Syrian refugees into Europe, we often ignore one
thing: most of them are neither Syrians nor refugees. The majority are Iraqis,
Iranians, Afghans, Pakistanis, or even Bangladeshis. They live crummy lives but
are in no immediate danger, their motive being simply the prospect of a better
life in the West.
A
Pakistani identity card in the bushes, a Bangladeshi one in a cornfield. A torn
Iraqi driver's license bearing the photo of a man with a Saddam-style mustache,
another one with a scarfed woman displaying a shy smile.
Documents
scattered only metres from Serbia's border with Hungary provide evidence that
many of the migrants flooding Europe to escape war or poverty are scrapping
their true nationalities and likely assuming new ones, just as they enter the
European Union. Serbian border police say that 90 percent of those arriving
from Macedonia, some 3,000 a day, claim they are Syrian, although they have no
documents to prove it. [...]
"You
can see that something is fishy when most of those who cross into Serbia enter
January first as the date of their birth," said border police officer
Miroslav Jovic. "Guess that's the first date that comes to their
mind." (The New Zealand Herald, 2015)
A
breach has opened up in the defenses of Europe, and large numbers of people are
pouring through. Meanwhile, another breach has been made in Libya.
Steve
Sailer has compared this influx to the entry of the Goths into the Roman
Empire (Sailer, 2015). They too came en masse and unopposed, as refugees. Is the comparison
justified? There are both similarities and dissimilarities, but the latter, I
will argue, are such that the current crisis may actually be the worse one.
Let's
begin with the similarities:
Demographic
imbalance
Contemporary
observers (Augustus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Plutarch, Stobaeus) believed
that birth rates had fallen considerably, largely because too many people were
postponing marriage and resorting to abortion or infanticide within marriage
(Harris, 1982; Rawson, 1986). This opinion is supported by archaeological evidence
that Roman towns and cities lost population between the 2nd and 5th centuries,
with no signs of population growth elsewhere. Using this evidence, Latouche (1947) argued that birth rates were falling throughout the Empire by the 3rd
century. Nonetheless, other historians tend to be dismissive, saying that the
contemporary observers in question had pro-family biases.
There
is agreement on one point: infantile mortality was high, particularly in urban
areas. Even a modest fertility decline would have led to a shrinking population
(Frost, 2010b). Just to keep the population stable, each Roman mother would
have had to bear at least five children (Parkin, 1992).
Conditions
were better for growth just outside the Empire, where people enjoyed increased
opportunities for trade without the cultural influences that tend to delay
family formation and reduce fertility (Wells, 1999, p. 225). The result would
have been an increasing pressure of population on the Empire's borders.
Controlled
immigration: beginnings of the mass influx
The
fall of Rome evokes horrific images of death and plunder. At first, however,
the barbarians came peacefully, being recruited as soldiers and rewarded with
land grants at the end of their military service (Goffart, 1980). It was with
this outcome in mind that the Goths, fleeing the advance of the Huns in the 4th
century, showed up along the Danube and begged to be allowed in. But this time
the influx would be much greater, perhaps in the hundreds of thousands. They
were nonetheless allowed in, and the Emperor's entourage saw this influx as
business as usual.
Optimism among the
elites
By
that time, Rome's capacity to assimilate was at its height. Ethnic and regional
identities were dissolving throughout the Empire and being replaced by a common
identity of Roman civilization or humanitas.
This broader identity seemed to be spreading even beyond the Empire:
The
most profound effect of the interactions was to spread Roman goods, practices,
and values beyond the provinces out to regions far removed from the territories
conquered by Rome. When auxiliary soldiers returned home to regions such as
Denmark or Poland, they brought with them not only their weapons and perhaps
Roman bronze vessels and ornate pottery, but also personal familiarity with
large-scale political organization, cities, writing, and all of the myriad
other features that distinguished Roman civilization from the cultures of the
peoples of northern Europe. (Wells, 1999, p. 225)
Christianity
was likewise making inroads. For all these reasons, the northern barbarians
didn't form a rival civilization like the Persian Empire to the east. They were
merely disparate tribes being drawn economically and culturally into Rome's
orbit and apparently destined to become future Romans. This should be kept in
mind when we read about the optimism of the Emperor's entourage, who considered
the Gothic influx to be a godsend of future soldiers and loyal subjects (Pohl, 1997, p. 4). Goffart (1980, p. 35) is not far off the mark when he states,
"what we call the fall of the Western Roman Empire was an imaginative
experiment that got a little out of hand."
Why things went
wrong
To
some degree, optimism was justified. Large numbers of barbarians had become
useful citizens, particularly soldiers. But past success is no guarantee
against future failure. First, a demographic pressure cooker was developing
beyond the Empire's borders, and many more barbarians would soon follow the
example of the Goths. Second, even as longtime Roman soldiers, they often felt
greater loyalty to their own people than to abstract principles of humanitas. Third, many had trouble
accepting the Roman idea that only the State may use violence.
Barbarians
considered violence to be legitimate. In their eyes, every adult male had the
right to use violent means when and if appropriate, even to the point of
committing murder. In barbarian society, a victim of violence could go to a
court of law, but the court's decision had to be enforced by the victim and his
kinsmen. In short, no one had an inherent right to life and property. That
right had to be continually earned through one's ability to defend oneself and
rally support from friends and family (Frost, 2010a).
Things
were very different within the Empire, as summed up by the term Pax Romana. Only the State had the right
to use violence, and people who usurped that right were branded as bandits and
treated as such. It was this pacification of social relations that made
possible the creation of a large complex society where people could live,
trade, and come and go in relative peace.
The
barbarian influx would destroy the Pax
Romana. If we take the case of the Goths, so many were allowed to enter
that the Empire lacked the means to feed them. The resulting famine pushed them
to plunder towns and villages for food. At that point, they saw with their own
eyes the defenselessness of the average Roman, who in any altercation would not
defend himself and would typically flee.
The
Romans did have a system of collective defense. By the 4th century, there was
an extensive network of walls, forts, and watchtowers along the border, as well
as defense in depth—legions stationed farther behind to contain any incursions.
But this system failed to allow for a situation where large numbers of
barbarians would be invited to cross the militarized border zone with no
opposition whatsoever. At that point, they entered the so-called 'civil zone,'
where defenses were much weaker.
The
resulting crisis tended to feed on itself. When large numbers of barbarians were
invited in, even more decided to invite themselves. The border ceased to exist.
There was no longer any barrier between the barbaric outer world and the
pacified Roman world, which was home to millions of people who didn't know how
to defend themselves and who had not done so for generations.
And
so the inevitable happened. The barbarians didn't wish to destroy Roman
society—they just wanted to help themselves to its wealth—-but their very
presence made the survival of Roman society impossible. No, they didn't
completely destroy the heritage of Rome. They came to plunder, not to destroy;
moreover, they were already semi-Roman and semi-Christian, and in time the
kingdoms they founded would preserve some of that heritage. But the Empire did
collapse, as a French historian has wryly pointed out:
For
the decisive point is that Rome had shown its weakness by admitting peoples
onto its territory whom it had been unable to subordinate and whose presence it
had regularized without having vanquished them in the field. Contrary to what
is commonly said today, the invasions really did happen. The Barbarians were in
no way "invited" to settle in the empire. They entered in large
numbers by immigration and also, at least in equal numbers, by violent
invasion, by piercing the defense lines, plundering the cities, and massacring
people as much in Italy and Greece as in Gaul, Spain, and Africa. (Voisin, 2014)
And now the
differences
While
the fall of Rome resembles the current crisis, there are differences. First,
the demographic imbalance between Romans and barbarians was hardly comparable
to the one that now exists between Europeans, on the one hand, and Muslims and
Africans, on the other. When the Roman Empire collapsed, barbarians replaced
the native population in only a few areas: England, Flanders, southern Germany,
parts of Switzerland, and Austria (furthermore, the case of England is disputed
by some historians). Elsewhere, they were no more than 5 to 10% of the local
population. The population replacement now under way—which is merely in its
initial stages—promises to be much greater.
Second,
the peoples of Africa and the Muslim world may covet Europe's higher standard
of living, but they don't see themselves as future Europeans. They see
themselves as Africans and Muslims, and that's not going to change. The
difference is crucial. Whereas Europe was still European when the Dark Ages
ended, it may be something else when this is all over.
The
outcome will depend on what you do or fail to do. When people look on and say
nothing, they hand over the keys of history to those who have no such
inhibitions.
References
Frost,
P. (2010a). The Roman State and genetic pacification, Evolutionary Psychology, 8(3),
376-389.
Frost,
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Goffart,
W. (1980). Barbarians and Romans A.D.
418-584. The Techniques of Accommodation, Princeton University Press.
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W.V. (1982). The theoretical possibility of extensive infanticide in the
Graeco-Roman world, The Classical
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http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/pop_0032-4663_1947_num_2_4_1870
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T.G. (1992). Demography and Roman
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W. (1997). Kingdoms of the Empire. The
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S. (2015). Civilization capitulates to barbarism at the Danube in "The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," The
Unz Review, September 7
http://www.unz.com/isteve/civilization-capitulates-to-barbarism-at-the-danube-in-the-decline-and-fall-of-the-roman-empire/
The New Zealand
Herald.
(2015). The big migrant passport scam, September 7 http://m.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11509101
Voisin, J.L. (2014). Ce que
nous enseigne la chute de l'empire romain, Le
Figaro, October 17
http://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/histoire/2014/10/17/31005-20141017ARTFIG00353-ce-que-nous-enseigne-la-chute-de-l-empire-romain.php
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P.S. (1999). The Barbarians Speak. How
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