The fall of the Roman Empire

When I am not trawling through philosophy books or audio files, you can find me digging through some history topics.  This particular blog is not on a book or audio, but actually on an educational TV show.  Here we shall delve into the fall of the Roman Empire.

Eugen Weber

 I have got to admit the Roman Empire has baffled me.  How did they do it? How did such an Empire expand and last for so long as it did.  I was in such anticipation when it came to the episode 14: The fall of Rome, which is shown on the Annenberg Media site.  The episode comes from a course called “The Western Tradition” hosted by the late Eugen Weber.  The TV show was shown back in 1989.  You can see this episode here.

As I had noted earlier I was in such anticipation when I started to watch the episode and I am glad to say I was not disappointed.  I still feel a lot was missed out of that particular episode, but to be fair you can only pack so much information within 30 minutes.   What was missing in length was made up for by the episodes content.  You will need to pay quite close attention to this episode, because Eugen will often slip in his critique of why certain things happened during the fall of Rome.  So it is a good note that Eugen does not just only report on the events of western history, he examines it as well.

Fall of Rome

When Rome fell, it was not pleasant.  It was inevitable that the barbarian hordes be it the Goths, Vandals or Huns swept through Rome, which is probably what many would say why Rome fell in the first place, but there was other contributing factors.  The fall or Rome was made worse due to corrupt despotic rulers, a chaotic tax system, disease and pestilence ravaging the city and mass migration.  This is only just a small part of why Rome fell, which is covered in great detail in this particular episode.

I have many courses and lectures on the might of Rome and its gradual decline, but this episode is a good start for anyone looking into the history of Rome.  You actually might be surprised by its findings.