Five Fundamental Reasons Why the Roman Empire Fell

The Roman Empire Was Doomed

"The Fall of Rome." Thomas Cole (February 1, 1801 – February 11, 1848).

Why did the Roman Empire fall? 

The Roman Empire lasted for about 1500 years and, if you count the beginning of the Roman culture from Rome's founding, about 2000 years. There is a wealth of information, first-hand accounts, and histories of the Empire. However, despite this, the causes for the Roman Empire's ultimate collapse remain controversial.

I believe there are five obvious reasons why the Roman Empire could not last. While I could write for days on this topic, I am going to spare you and only write briefly on each contributing factor.

This article will take an unusual approach compared to almost every other historian that approaches the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Instead of focusing just on the classical Empire, the one with Trajan and Nero and Marcus Aurelius and so on, here we also are going to look at similarities with the Byzantine Empire that lasted for another thousand years. The Eastern Roman Empire had the same flaws and vulnerabilities as the classical empire and perished for eerily similar reasons.

While the Roman system changed substantially between the time of the founding of the Republic and then on to Augustus and the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the same core factors contributed to its ultimate failure regardless of which epoch you choose to focus on. The system did evolve, but the underlying authoritarian ethos remained intact all the way through, like a historic house that just gets a new coat of paint or aluminum siding. 

I am going to list my five reasons for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in no particular order because they all intertwined and contributed to each other. There are just capsule summaries with minimal examples because I am not trying to prove anything here. Nobody is ever going to prove anything regarding the decline of the Roman system, there are just too many factors, theories, and opinions. Instead, I am trying to make this as readable and enjoyable as I can. 

I could give you ten more different examples for each point, though.

Edward Gibbon (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,) spent his life on this topic and today his main theory - that the Roman civilization fell due to growing decadence - is largely ignored or derided. However, Gibbon's theory has a germ of truth, though not in the moralistic way he apparently meant. I will get to that below. But the main point is that simply spending time and writing endlessly on this is not the answer. You can have ten citations on every page like Gibbon and still not solve this. The causes are too complex and conclusions shift according to the writer's own judgments (Gibbon had very definite ideas about religion and morality and a parochial attitude based on his allegiance to the British Empire). There is no "answer," there are only lessons to answer questions that you, the reader, have facing today's world.

There should be just enough in this article, though, to make you think about this topic from a new perspective and help you to draw your own conclusions. Life is for the living, the future is what matters.

Hannibal Barca of Carthage. Rome found it easier to defeat Carthage than endless bands of migrants coming across its borders at random (marble bust found at the ancient city-state of Capua in Italy).

The Types of Rome's Enemies Changed To The Empire's Disadvantage

When you look at the history of Rome's conquest of the Mediterranean basin and then later areas somewhat removed from it, certain things stand out. Competing civilizations at that time were based on the same basic model of a central government, associated cities, heavy taxation to fund large armies or armies of virtual slaves, and integrated economic systems. The "barbarian nations" of 200 B.C. were vastly different than those of 700 A.D.

Rome's major early adversaries all featured this pattern. Rome's first large-scale opponent for control of the Mediterranean was Carthage. Yes, it was a hard-fought series of wars, but once Hannibal Barca was defeated for the final time at the Battle of Zama, resistance was over. Roman soldiers destroyed the capital city and salted its fields and that was that. Roman control of the Mediterranean was never again seriously challenged. The same pattern asserted itself in Egypt, Greece, and Gaul. Fight the enemy's main armies, defeat them, and after that live happily ever after.

The same pattern held true for the Byzantines. Heraclius could defeat the Sassanids, Basil II the Bulgars, and these ended specific threats. However, ultimately the Byzantines ran into essentially nationless crusading barons from the West and hordes of loosely amalgamated Arab tribes from the East that swarmed the frontier. No matter how many of these attackers the Byzantines defeated, they were constantly replaced by others of a similar mindset. Capture one city and another enemy sprang up somewhere else. There was no Carthage to conquer and end matters once and for all.

Society in the Roman Empire and its remnants also was changing. Rome was an empire of cities. Over time, for various reasons, cities went into decline. For a society that revolved around cities connected by limitless roads, this was cataclysmic. Rome's enemies were far ahead in this trend, largely eschewing cities that Rome could conquer and thereby end their threats. If the Roman legions subdued one barbarian village, there were a hundred others of roughly equal size left.

The nature of Rome's enemies thus changed as time went by. They increased in number and changed in form. Adversaries stopped being far-flung empires where you could capture the capital, defeat the king, and end all resistance or impose an enforceable peace and demand tribute. Formal armies turned into roving bands of nomads and wanderers, forest people who had no obvious capital and really not even a form of government aside from tribal leaders. A band of them would cross a river here, another band there, and do whatever damage they could. The Roman defenses could not police every square inch of the frontier and thus breakthroughs became endemic. The invaders of 450 A.D. more resembled the partisan of 1943 than the Carthaginian armies of elephants of 200 B.C.

The result was endless warfare. Frontier battles never ended and drained wealth and manpower. Search and destroy missions into Germania or the Balkans never erased threats, only temporarily minimized them. The Roman frontier became like a basket full of water that had numerous leaks. No matter how many holes they plugged up, there were others elsewhere growing larger.

Painting of Alexius I, from a Greek manuscript in the Vatican library. Alexius instigated the First Crusade, which arguably helped Byzantium. However, he also began the economic alliance with Venice in 1082 that led to dire economic consequences for the Empire.

The Roman Economy Collapsed

Economic collapse of the Roman economy is a favorite of historians because it has a lot of merit and some proof based on historical records. The most obvious data historians point to is inflation, which took off during the Third Century. However, in my view, Roman inflation was the result of other underlying factors. Inflation was a symptom, not a cause.

When you write "economic collapse" it comes across as a sudden thing, like a house that suddenly explodes. Rome's economic collapse in both the Eastern and Western Empires was a slow, grinding, gradual process that lasted for centuries in each case. There were insidious factors that were never corrected because they were not recognized as problems - in fact, in some cases (like Byzantium's treaties with Venice and Genoa), they were actually seen as positives (as the situation deteriorated, any contact with the powerful western nations as prized even though they were strangling the Empire by cutting off the Empire's revenue and vigor). The Roman Empire's economic collapse was not like a balloon being punctured with a pin. Instead,  it was more like a slow leak where the balloon is tied together that is invisible but inexorable.

The early (and most successful) Roman economy was built on slavery. This is not something anyone wants to hear today, because slavery is bad and nobody wants to say anything positive about it in any way, shape, or form. But slavery was the boon and then curse of the Roman economy.

Slavery is an inefficient economic system. Much better is freedom and positive incentive, which brings innovation, entrepreneurship, and satisfaction. However, as an expansionary power, Rome secured a steady supply of slaves by defeating rivals and this sustained its early growth. 

Why Rome was able to expand in its early days is a completely separate topic, but let me address it briefly. Essentially, Rome was in a favorable location where it could defeat smaller adversaries, and the adversaries only gradually became bigger over time. As each small enemy was defeated, it provided a supply of slaves who could build weapons and fortifications and ships that would enable Rome to defeat the next, slightly larger, adversary. This has some similarities to the Third Reich's conquest of smaller nations in 1939-1941 that gave it economic power and enabled it to finally take on the big dogs of the USSR and the USA.

There is a fundamental problem with this growth model. What happens when you run out of new slaves from conquests? Rome found out the answer to this the hard way when it stopped expanding and stopped getting new supplies of slaves. The answer is economic stagnation. In Rome's case, the decline did not set in immediately after Emperor Trajan took the empire to its greatest extent ca. 117 A.D. The economy was good enough to keep things going for a long time after that. However, by the Third Century a hundred years later, the economic stagnation due to the lack of new conquests to feed the slavery machine was in full swing. That also happens to be when Roman inflation skyrocketed.

The cause of Byzantium's economic decline is slightly different but arose from the same fundamental problems of relying on others to do the dirty work. While never a particularly expansionary power, Byzantium relied heavily on trade and certain key industries (such as agriculture in Egypt, silkworms, agriculture, and customs dues from trade) for its income.

Well, Egypt was lost early on during the Arab invasions and silkworms alone could not take up the slack. Byzantium was never a big exporter of agriculture, most of its production being needed for internal needs and the endless civil wars continually laying waste to valuable cropland. That leaves customs dues, which actually provided a pretty good revenue stream. However, it, too, eventually dried up, and here is where we see the beginning of the true decline of the Byzantine state.

We even have a specific villain: Venice, and to a much lesser extent Genoa. The first economic treaty between Constantinople and Venice was made in 1082 by Emperor Alexius I Komnenos. He had his reasons, and they were good ones. Alexius covered current needs (a feared invasion from the West) by enlisting a powerful Western ally. This economic alliance worked out fairly well, at least at first. Venice became virtually an economic partner to Byzantium, supplying ships in exchange for reduced customs dues and other special privileges (eventually, Venetians weren't even subject to Byzantine law any longer).

Alexius had no way of knowing these agreements would become the cancer eating away at the soul of his kingdom. The whole mindset of the Byzantines, however, was that what was established in the past was the best way. So, as time went on, the increasingly onerous treaties with Venice were seen almost as obligatory and part of the national identity, like calling themselves Romans.

We all know how that turned out. The Venetians got a taste of Byzantine wealth derived from trade revenues and decided they'd like to have all that income for themselves. This led to the Fourth Crusade, in which crass Venetian leaders cleverly manipulated a Crusade begun with high-minded initial motives into a vulgar and unprovoked invasion of Byzantium.

Byzantium ultimately recovered to one extent or another from the Fourth Crusade, but its leaders did not learn their lessons. Incredible as it may seem, the Byzantine Emperors quickly returned to the practice of disadvantageous trade treaties with Venice, the very invader that had almost destroyed the Empire in 1204. These treaties sapped the Empire of absolutely critical revenue and led to the collapse of the Byzantine navy and merchant fleet. Why build ships when the Venetians were taking care of that now? This accelerated the economic stagnation mentioned above in multiple ways. Much as the car industry generated huge swathes of employment in the US economy of the 1950s, the shipping industry had powered a large part of the Byzantine economy. Now, it was basically gone.

By the time of Andronicus II ca. 1300, the process of essentially paying Venice to take care of all shipping needs was irreversible. It led to the increasing impoverishment of the Empire. By the mid-1300s, the Imperial Court was reduced to eating off of wooden plates. An empress hocked the crown jewels to - you guessed it - Venice. The Venetians almost defeated the Empire in 1204, but they finally did destroy it through one-sided trade agreements.

Economic collapse is the saddest way for an empire to disintegrate, but it is a common feature of history. Just look at Spain in the 1700s or the Ottoman Empire in the 1800s. While the specific causes were unique to the classical Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire, the process of destruction from within was the same.

Migrations from the East were continuous and unstoppable, both during the classical Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire (Modified from World History: Ancient Civilizations, 2006, pp. 503).

Migratory Patterns Were Unstoppable

All students of Rome are familiar with the frontier fortresses along major rivers (Rhine and Danube primarily) and in Anatolia that ultimately failed. Their failure, however, was only symptomatic of the larger cause: unstoppable migratory patterns out of Asia. This vulnerability was common to both the classical Empire and the Byzantine Empire. Really, the only difference was who was invading.

These migrations are known quaintly as the "barbarian invasions." It is a term favored by the Romans themselves. It makes the process sound as though a bunch of cavemen just suddenly decided to head west for no particular reason aside from plunder and conquest. The more modern term is "the migration period," which is a more accurate description.

The most famous of these migratory invasions in the classical period was by Attila the Hun, who ultimately was at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plans but caused immense damage. The later Ottoman invasion that led to the defining endpoint to the process in 1453 also is well known. Attila and the Ottomans were simply part of a larger movement from east to west that began roughly in 300 A.D. and pretty much ended, strangely enough, around the time of the fall of Constantinople in 1453 (the Ottomans kept trying to expand west for another 200 years, but failed). The Roman Empire - both classical and medieval - was supremely unlucky to face this endless threat throughout its existence.

Was this migration just a bunch of predatory tribes bent on looting Roman civilization? Absolutely not. The process was too sustained and too painful for it to have been generated solely by predatory instincts for lands and booty (though, at times, that surely was a motivation for certain invaders). It was a movement of people for far larger reasons than mere avarice.

 

Almost everything about these migratory patterns is debatable aside from their effect, but that is clear-cut. They overwhelmed the Roman and Byzantine defenses like a flood breaking through a levee. Whether the migration was due to disease or oppression in the east or whether the decline of the Roman Empire was an independent factor that actually spurred on the migration is ripe for discussion.

My own view is that a changing climate was a key culprit in these migratory waves. The benign Mediterranean climate of the Republic and early Empire gradually got colder and less moist. The climatic changes culminated in the "Late Antique Little Ice Age," spurred on by various volcanic eruptions. This climate change brought about plagues (the Antonine Plague marked the high point and beginning of the decline of Roman civilization, the Plague of Cyprian in the Third Century accelerated the decline, and the Bubonic Plague in the Sixth Century eliminated the final attempt by Justinian to put the broken Empire back together again. In Byzantium, the Black Death of the 14th Century (said to have arrived in Constantinople on a ship of dying men) was really the final nail in the coffin of the struggling Byzantine Empire.

If you believe that climate change is too abstract and gradual to account for the collapse of a mighty civilization, a similar process appears to have destroyed the Sumerian civilization. Their crops failed, wheat fields had to be replaced with less useful barley, and eventually, their cities became uninhabitable. Cities once on the coast and with farmland all around are now in the middle of barren deserts. This made the Sumerians vulnerable to attacks from the "barbarian" hill people to the north. The sequence was slightly different ("history does not repeat, it rhymes") but the outcome was an even more total collapse. The Romans and Byzantines actually held on fairly well in comparison.

The thing about the climate is that it is always changing. Always has and always will. Humans either adapt or their societies vanish.

While Rome and Byzantium rebounded from these successive disasters, they had a cumulatively destructive effect. The rebounds were successively weaker and diminished by rampant unhappiness that led to coup attempts and disunity. The change was most pronounced and had the most effect on Roman civilization in the northern areas of the Empire such as Gaul and Latin Britannia. For instance, Roman crops did worse as time went on and Roman villas became less comfortable. Note that more and more revolts began in those areas as time went on (most successfully with Constantine the Great). Climate change clearly spurred on the unstoppable migratory patterns from the coldness of the steppes that had the most noticeable and dynamic impact on Roman social infrastructure. 

The changing climate had a variety of negative effects and seems the most obvious watershed between classical civilization and the Middle Ages. However, I am not going to try and solve that ancient historical question here. The migrations happened, and they led to Rome's and Constantinople's downfall. The factors underlying the migrations are irrelevant to our analysis here.

The bottom line is that both the Roman and Byzantine empires found themselves confronted with an irresistible force, and they turned out not to be immovable objects. You can try to stand on the beach and sweep back the tide with a broom, but you are doomed to failure.

Andronicus III and his wife, Anna of Savoy. Andronicus III engaged in civil wars during the 14th Century, and Anna pawned the Byzantine crown jewels to Venice in 1343 to finance her own civil war (Wurttemberg State Library).

Rome Never Solved Its Succession Problem, Leading to Coups and Endless Civil Wars

When you read through Gibbon's history of Rome and consult other sources, you quickly realize that there were an awful lot of civil wars in Roman history. One after another, somewhere there was always a general or a wealthy landowner who figured he (or sometimes she) could run things better than the existing government or was entitled to succeed a deceased emperor. There were various causes for these wars, but one enduring problem led to the worst of them: royal succession.

Civil wars and coups began early in Rome's history and never stopped. Caesar and Pompey, Brutus and Marc Antony, Praetorians deciding the next emperor supposedly by rolling dice, one Byzantine general killing another in his bed - there was just one conflict after another related to succession.

The Romans tried various formulations to solve this. The most successful was the system of "adoption" during the Second Century. In this formulation, one emperor "adopted" someone worthwhile. Everyone who mattered accepted the adoptee as the lawful successor and things proceeded smoothly thereafter. This led to a century of peace, the high tide of Roman culture.

This system broke down, however, as generals remembered they could use their military forces to make themselves emperor rather than just accepting the current emperor's choice. This factor is interwined with the migratory patterns discussed above and the changing nature of Rome's enemies because larger and larger garrisons had to be maintained far from the central government. This gave remote generals a ready power base, such as Constantine the Great in the British Isles. Civil wars contributed greatly to the crisis of the Third Century. The same type of thinking led directly to the collapse of the Western Empire in the Fifth Century with the assassination in 461 of the last "good" emperor, Majorian, in a classic power grab. 

The Byzantines ultimately settled on hereditary succession, and to some extent, this worked out better than the chaotic classical solution. The downside was that this resulted in a lot of very incompetent emperors (such as Andronicus II), as opposed to in Rome where the winners were usually competent generals. It's difficult to judge which system was more devastating to the sustainability of the empire, but at least incompetent Byzantine emperors didn't lay waste to valuable economic regions.

However, civil wars continued long past the time when the empire could survive them. These included the battles waged by Andronicus III in the 1300s as he tired of waiting for his ineffective father to die. These civil wars sapped the Empire of much-needed strength at critical points when it needed to focus on rebuilding rather than infighting. The coup against Majorian, for instance, basically sealed the Western Empire's fate. One can easily theorize a vastly different outcome of the Empire without the constant self-destruction caused by succession issues.

Byzantines use Greek Fire during the first Arab siege of Constantinople(674-678AD). For some reason, the Byzantines lost knowledge of or simply stopped using this effective weapon, a sign of a retrograde civilization.

Romans Stopped Innovating

Of all the reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire, failure to continue innovating is the least obvious but most pernicious. Very few historians put this on their lists, but it absolutely was a top reason for the decline and fall of Roman civilization. Put simply, the Roman Empire stopped moving forward and became a retrograde civilization.

Nobody can deny Roman engineering advances. They built aqueducts, laid down permanent roads throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, invented concrete, and perfected architectural techniques that culminated in the magnificent Haghia Sophia. Their achievements were stunning and can still be seen all across the Roman sphere of influence. But just because progress is made at one point during a civilization does not mean that it continues. Curiously, Roman technical advances simply stopped and actually in some ways reversed themselves.

I can easily make the case that world civilization as a whole was in a retrograde phase up until the rise of the Roman Empire. The Chinese Empire, for instance, became inward-looking and non-expansionary. The heights of western civilization achieved during the ancient Egyptian Empire were followed by the Bronze Age collapse. If you look for great, enduring achievements between the building of the pyramids and the great Greek revival, you aren't going to find much. There was no hint of a cultural resurgence at least until the Greek and Roman civilizations hit their strides 2000 years after the Pyramids were built (and perhaps it was much more than 2000 years depending on how you view certain evidence about the Pyramids' history).

Once the Roman Empire had conquered its main enemies, it also became inward-looking. Basically, Rome became satisfied with what it had and "sat back on its laurels." Gibbon calls it decadence, but that is a misleading characterization that casts moral blame in the wrong direction. It was more like senility, though they both would have had the same result. Instead of the pursuit of pleasure at the expense of industry, the growing sickness in Roman civilization was a sort of oppressive lethargy, perhaps complacency, perhaps dissatisfaction due to constant taxes and a constantly diminishing future, perhaps partly due to not making education more of a priority. The synapses stopped functioning as they had when Caesar took his legions across the English Channel in an audacious gambit that astonished his contemporaries.

I'm going to wrench a comparison way out of context here because it may help you understand my point. In mid-1944, the German line in the USSR had been pushed back in the south but the front further north was still exactly where it had been in late 1941. An oppressive complacency settled over the German high command. They decided - without regard to what was actually happening on the Soviet side - that the next attack would come in the south because, well, it just had to. They wouldn't even consider that it might be a massive thrust in the center toward Minsk because such a thing was inconceivable. It was almost as though they could not force their brains to function any longer to recognize the real threat. The Red Army then struck with savage fury and success precisely where the Germans projected it could never happen. The years of war had dulled their minds to the possibilities and they marched to their doom with blinders on.

The Byzantines stopped thinking just like that. Their old customs were comfortable and they had to be followed to the letter until the end. And, the end came a lot quicker for them precisely because of their slavish devotion to what they thought was their only way of living - following the ways of the glorious past.

While there was heavy Roman trade with India and other Asian areas, there was a lack of exploration for exploration's sake. Basic science that had characterized Greek civilization was minimized. Rome was more interested in amassing wealth through trade and conquest than in innovating and expanding its economic possibilities through inventions and scientific advancements. Roman academics stopped making technical advances that could contribute to its survival and prosperity. The armies were still using the same old roads built during the Republic during the Empire's final days, shipbuilding stagnated, Rome's unique and efficient military equipment more and more began to resemble that of the uneducated barbarians. Progress just stopped.

The Byzantine civilization increasingly showed the same retrograde tendencies as the centuries rolled by. It experienced a brief cultural resurgence during the age of Justinian, who was profoundly hated by the people because he did the things that a growing empire required. He taxed people and businesses heavily, he gave them few comforts, he kept his eye on far-flung affairs rather than improving the lot of ordinary citizens. Justinian's focus was on the future, but his (Roman, or more accurately Roman descendants) citizens had had enough of the government's grandiose plans. While Justinian's reign accomplished great and enduring feats of architecture and culture in general, its achievements could not last because the Roman system did not foster continuing creativity.

There was one last brief cultural resurgence in the 1300s, and one can still see some of the traces of this final flowering of culture in Istanbul churches. However, even this focused on impractical things like church construction and artistic achievements. New weapons? New, effective military tactics? Not a hint of them. A growing obsession with religion, exemplified by Andronicus II consulting with astrologers before making his decisions, sapped brainpower that could have been used to figure out ways to restore the Empire.

The Byzantines were still following the old Roman military playbook in the 11th Century. This featured huge armies marching in long columns under crusading warlords. But the world had changed. The old tactics led directly to the disaster at Manzikert because Byzantine enemies were not standing still. The Seljuks and later Turks even used some of the old Roman tactics, such as forming a crescent defensive line, to entrap the Byzantine formations. Classical Romans had used these tactics successfully, but the Byzantines adopted the old Roman forms without understanding the substance that led to victory. The Byzantines simply fell into the same traps that Roman enemies once did because Byzantine society was in a retrograde phase where old lessons were forgotten.

European visitors to the Byzantine court remarked on the wondrous mechanical creations that they observed in the Eastern Emperor's palace ca. 800-900 A.D. This was during a time when their own countries were in a retrograde phase following the collapse of the Western Empire. Most famous of all, the Byzantines developed the famous Greek Fire that won them many critical sea battles. There were mechanical birds that chirped and jumped around, a throne that ascended to the ceiling - these were marvels of the day. Perhaps they were remnants from antiquity, but there is no record of them in the classical records so it appears that Byzantium did have a period of creativity.

Unfortunately, the Byzantines at some undetermined point stopped moving forward just as the earlier Romans in the Western Empire (broadly speaking) had. Basil II, who reigned ca. 1000 A.D., is often cited as the best Byzantine Emperor. However, his achievements were solely military. There was no technological innovation, no great buildings were built, no great works of art created. Aside from military advances, the reign of Basil II was as barren as any other during the Eastern Empire.

A symptom of this stagnation was the Byzantines' enduring commitment to being "Roman" right up until the end. They could never admit nor accept that they had formed a new civilization that had to develop in its own new direction, which was obvious to everyone but themselves. They honored the past at the expense of the future. The technical advances that characterized their early years, such as the aforementioned Greek fire, stopped and were sometimes even forgotten for unknown reasons. 

And that is one of the odder and more telling aspects of Byzantine civilization. The late Byzantine courtiers arrived at the point where they did not even understand the purpose of court formalities established centuries earlier (and Byzantium had a lot of court formalities). The Byzantines followed the form and not the substance because the inspiration that generated the substance had been forgotten over the endless centuries. The old forms were followed anyway because nobody any longer had the inspiration to create new forms and "we're Romans, this is what we do, this is our heritage, this is what sets us apart." there was no thought of establishing new norms, a more modern government, an economy based on science and new technology. This is a classic sign of a retrograde civilization.

Here's the clearest example. Byzantine emperors were considered the supreme authority on earth, just as the Constantinople Patriarch was considered the highest religious authority. These forms could not be deviated from without calling into question the entire foundation of the Byzantine state, its purpose and function on earth. Even as the empire shrank to the walls of Constantinople itself and the cemeteries just outside the walls, these fictions and beliefs were followed, much to the amusement and bemusement of outsiders, because there was nothing else to be done. There was no alternative, the state had been put on cruise control a thousand years earlier and the controlling mechanism was broken. 

There's a story that may be apocryphal that a bunch of Hollywood old-timers was playing poker one night when the subject turned to what they wished they still had from their youths. There were various answers along the lines of strength, love, health, and so forth. The last to answer was director John Huston, who simply frowned and said, "I wish I still cared." And that was the disease that afflicted late Roman and Byzantine society. Society was not moving forward, everyone could see it, the future was limited and increasingly bleak, and the mass of people simply stopped caring any longer.

That was the "decadence" Gibbon was groping toward but couldn't quite see. The power and dynamism left the Roman culture. It wasn't so much a moral failing as a rational conclusion drawn by many, many people independently that it was now "every man for himself" and thus abstractions like patriotism and self-sacrifice for the good of the state were obsolete. Gibbon was right, but it was not moral weakness or gluttony that led to the collapse in first the West and then the East. It was a rational response to a dying, outmoded system.

The stagnant, obsolete Roman model survived throughout the Middle Ages through a combination of luck, national pride, heroic efforts by unknown warriors, clever (at times) leadership, brutality, political double-dealing, and fortunate location. Its initial enemies such as the Sassanids were similar derelict remnants of the past and could be overcome because they were in even worse shape. Once Byzantium came to grips with rising, dynamic, energetic powers such as the Seljuks and then the Ottomans, however, it had more than met its match. It lost one region, then another, then another, occasionally counterattacking but always on the strategic defensive.

And so, the Empire stumbled along, relying on the brilliant investments of the past such as the sturdy (and thousand-year-old) walls of Constantinople. Byzantium lasted far longer than it should have. The old methods did work, they just were gradually superseded by newer and better systems.

It may seem confusing to ascribe the same causes of decline first to the Western Empire and then the Eastern Empire because the respective downfalls were so widely separated in time. If they used the same system and it was flawed, why did the problems not afflict both at the same time ca 500 A.D.? Why did the Byzantine half of the Empire last for another thousand years?

The key is to understanding (which the Byzantines themselves were unable to do) is that the Eastern Empire was a new civilization that went through roughly the same life cycle as its predecessor. The age of Justinian was like the earlier age of Augustus, for instance, and the reign of Basil II was comparable to that of Constantine the Great. They bookended the greatness of Byzantium. Basil II was the last gasp of dignity and his gallant attempt to reverse the tide only failed because - you guessed it - his terrible successors almost immediately squandered all the resources built up over the preceding thousand years. 

Compare Rome and Constantinople to offspring that have the same inherent affliction as their parents. It only manifests itself late in life, perhaps when people are in their 50s or 60s. The inherent defects gradually took down Byzantium just as they had Rome. The last vestiges of the inner mojo was gone by the time of Honorius in the West and Andronicus II in the East (likely much earlier than that in each case, but it was absolutely and completely gone by then). The respective empires could not be rejuvenated any more than today someone with Parkinson's can be completely cured. It is in the bones, in the blood, in the muscles and arteries. The inner disease lingered and manifested itself subtly and gradually, with good days and bad. Finally, it kills you, and death is almost a welcome release from the unceasing torment.

There may be a lesson in there for the present day, both for national and local governments.

If a society is not moving forward, it is moving backward. This sad tendency displayed itself throughout the two phases of Roman civilization, namely, during the classical era and the Byzantine epoch. While completely overlooked by most students of history, it was probably the most important cause of the decline of Roman society.

The Fall of Constantinople, 1453. Failure to handle the issues listed above led to this.

Conclusion

There are many lists of the reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire. Generally, they include things like invasions and civil wars, and these certainly contributed to the decline. This topic has been the life's work of famous historians such as Edward Gibbon but there is no consensus. It is a great topic because there will never be definite answers, just hypotheses that can never be proven or disproven.

What I have done here is set forth a series of fundamental problems that Roman civilization faced but could not surmount. Migratory patterns, civil wars due to lack of clear rules of succession, the changing nature of enemies, economic collapse, and a growing inability to innovate and move forward. These are all issues we can appreciate today.

Whether one of these factors was more important than another is beside the point. They all contributed to the collapse of the Roman Empire because they lay at the heat of the Roman and Byzantine systems. Solving any one of them would not have been enough, though solving any of them certainly would have helped matters substantially. Given all the handicaps it faced and internal inefficiencies, the wonder is not that the Roman Empire fell when it did, but that it lasted as long as it did.

2021

Did the Crusades Hurt Byzantium?

Prelude to the Downfall of Byzantium

The soldiers of the Second Crusade besiege Damascus ca. 1148 (William of Tyre, Histoire d'Outremer, ca. 1479, illuminators Master of the Flemish Boethius & Master of Edward IV). Shown are the armies of King Baldwin III of Jerusalem, King Louis VII of France, and at right, Emperor Conrad III of Germany (British Library).

What was the effect of the Crusades on Byzantium? The Crusades had a huge impact on the Byzantine Empire even though it was a Christian state. You might think that the Byzantines thus had little to fear from the Crusades due to the fact that all Crusaders took an oath not to attack fellow Christians, but this was not the case. What resulted was a great tragedy that benefited a few adventurers, hurt many, and led to the downfall of Byzantium.

What gave the Crusades cohesion was their religious foundation. When that was lost, their objectives changed dramatically. Crusader, Psalter, with litany, prayers, and Easter tables (The “Westminster Psalter”), c. 1200, f. 220 (British Library).

First, to set the stage, what were these Crusades? They were military expeditions to the Middle East styled as religious efforts to "recover" the Holy Land (which the Latins had never possessed unless you go back to the days before the formation of the Eastern Roman Empire). There were numerous Crusades and nine to the Holy Land. The First Crusade was in 1099 and the final official Crusade to the Holy Land was in 1271. However, there also were expeditions known as Crusades as late as 1444. Their effectiveness decreased with time. Most of the Crusades had extremely limited impact on Byzantium except for a couple, the First and Fourth.

As can be seen in this map of the first four Crusades, all land routes to the Middle East were long and arduous, and they all ran through Constantinople (upper right).

The Effect of the First Crusade on Byzantium

The overall effect of the Crusades on the Byzantine Empire was highly destructive, though they got off to a fairly good start. The first few Crusades arguably were beneficial. Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus instigated them by sending legates to a "church council" at Piacenza who subtly made the case for helping out the Byzantines from the threat from the East after the disaster at Manzikert in 1071. This was the spark that led to all the Crusades that followed and is an excellent example of how the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

 "Battle delivered under the walls of Antioch between the crusaders led by Bohemond and the army of Karbouka, general of the Sultan of Persia, June 1098." Henri Frédéric Schopin (1804-1880). The Crusaders won this battle. Antioch was a previous Byzantine possession that by agreement should have been given to the Byzantines, but the Crusaders made it into an independent Crusader State led by Bohemond instead.

The problems between Crusaders and Byzantium began with the First Crusade and got worse with each succeeding one. The Latins viewed the Byzantines as unreliable allies, and the perception became the reality because the western European armies were none too polite as they rolled through the Byzantine territory. They took what they needed and occasionally even occupied Byzantine cities. By the time the Crusaders got to Constantinople, there had been pitched battles between the Crusaders and the Byzantines that were only ironed over through strenuous diplomacy based on a common goal. Emperor Alexius got his "allies" across the strait into enemy territory as quickly as he could, thereby preventing further problems, but according to his daughter, he was unhappy they had ever entered his kingdom.

Crusaders led by Godefroy de Bouillon (c1060-1100) of the First Crusade (1095-1099) storm a castle held by Saracens, who fire arrows down as the Crusaders attempt to scale the walls. From a manuscript of Roman de Godefroy de Bouillon ca. 1754.

Despite all the problems, things worked out reasonably well during the First Crusade for both Byzantium and the Latins. Crusaders were skilled fighters using advanced equipment and scored many victories that the Byzantines were unable to match. The Byzantines regained some cities that the Crusader assault captured when the Latins voluntarily (per agreement) handed them over. This helped to maintain good relations with the Crusaders as long as they were actually fighting the enemy. The Crusading armies distracted the Turkish forces that had swallowed large chunks of Byzantine territory over the past 500 years. The Byzantines ultimately proved too weak to hold on to these territories for long, but for a while, there was a brief Renaissance of Byzantine influence.

A painting by Jean Fouquet (1420-1481) depicting the Second Crusaders (1147-49), led by Louis VII and Conrad III, as they arrive at Constantinople. The painting is a bit fanciful because Constantinople, lying on uneven ground, could not have a moat.

The Effect of Subsequent Crusades on Byzantium

The problems between the Crusaders and the Byzantines increased with the next two Crusades, in 1049 and 1089. The Byzantines by this time really didn't want any help from the Latins, having seen the high price it carried, but the Crusades had taken on a life of their own. They were seen by many in Western Europe as a way to gain kingdoms and wealth, particularly by younger sons or brothers of kings who had small armed forces of their own but really wanted their own kingdoms. However, the Byzantines were not on board with these objectives, and rumors began to swirl in Western circles that Emperor Manuel I Comnenus (grandson of Alexius) actually tried to join forces with the Saracens (the medieval term for Muslims) to drive the Crusaders back. During the Third Crusade, the reigning Emperor, Isaac II, also apparently tried to make an alliance with the Saracens against the Crusaders. Once again, there were pitched battles between Byzantine and Crusader forces as the undisciplined Crusaders rampaged through the Byzantine lands en route to the Levant. The Crusaders got through, but there were a lot of hurt feelings and much ill will.

Twentieth-century depiction (Said Tahsine (1904-1985 Syria)) of a victorious Saladin accepting Guy de Lusignan's surrender after the battle of Hattin ("the Horns of Hattin") in 1187. That battle led directly to the fall of Jerusalem. Needless to say, Middle Eastern Muslims look at the Crusades from a completely different perspective than many Europeans may.

The Crusaders, experiencing reverses in the Holy Land such as the loss of Jerusalem in 1187, also began blaming a supposed lack of Byzantine help (although the Byzantines by and large upheld their agreements) for their own military failings. Furthermore, the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church that had begun in 1054 was widening all the time, and the Crusaders increasingly took a cynical view of their "friends in the East" despite the very real help they offered (such as transporting them by ship into Asia Minor).

A possible portrait of Saladin made during his lifetime. It was found in a work by Ismail al-Jazari (1136-1206) published circa 1185.

While there were many factors at play, the fundamental change in why the Crusades turned against Byzantium was that they lost their pan-European religious character and increasingly became single-nation expeditions. There was little enthusiasm in 1202, when the Fourth Crusade began, for new Crusades in most western countries after the loss of Jerusalem and the failure of Richard the Lionheart to recapture it. Generally, one Crusade per generation was quite enough. Due to military exhaustion, the peace treaty that Richard negotiated with Saladin in 1192 began to look like a pretty good deal to many warriors now wary of fighting the surprisingly tough "infidel" for fun and profit.

A painting by Francesco Hayez (1791-1882) of the First Crusaders at the walls of Jerusalem in 1099. (Royal Palace of Turin, Italy)

The Disastrous Effect of the Fourth Crusade on Byzantium

So, trying to recapture Jerusalem was out for the time being. That had been done and access to the city for pilgrims assured by a treaty. Unfortunately for bloodthirsty Crusaders, there weren't a whole lot of other worthwhile targets. Only European adventurers with idle hands and their men at arms wanted to "take up the Cross." A half-hearted plan to attack Egypt never amounted to anything, but that didn't stop the Crusaders. They boarded Venetian transport ships on a cash-and-carry basis (the Venetians were not interested in religious boondoggles) and then had to admit they couldn't pay for their passage. The Venetians, now with ships full of armed warriors who were completely at their mercy and who had to do their bidding to ever see home again, saw little profit in Egypt. They did, however, have a huge vested interest in trade routes flowing through Byzantium. Seeing their opportunity, the Venetians adroitly convinced (or coerced) the Franks into attacking the "easy" target of Constantinople in order to satisfy some unpaid bills. The Venetians who wanted to destroy Byzantium took the Franks, who had no quarrel with the Byzantines, to Constantinople instead of Egypt and waited for events to unfold.

Venetian Doge Enrico Dandolo Recruiting for The Crusade by Jean Leclerc (1587-1633). Dandolo was the guiding force behind the entire Fourth Crusade and ultimately got exactly what he wanted out of it.

The Franks and Venetians used the usual pretext for invasions during the Middle Ages of finding a pretender to the Byzantine throne. This enabled them to claim the moral high ground, as they were simply "dispensing justice" by capturing the city in order to install the "rightful claimant" on his throne. This plan quickly fell apart, though, when the Byzantines, who were no dummies, simply said, "Okay!" and installed the pretender on the throne without giving up their city. This was extremely shrewd politics, one might even say Byzantine in both senses of the word, but not at all what the Crusaders (mostly the Venetians) really wanted. It settled nothing as far as the Crusaders were concerned because they couldn't have cared less which Byzantine ran Byzantium, they wanted it for themselves.

Trade routes of the 14th Century. It is plain that whoever controlled Constantinople (center right) controlled access to major trade routes (and thus wealth) in the Black Sea and also overland to Europe. Enrico Dandolo would have been as aware of this as anyone.

After that, the veneer of legitimacy completely disappeared. The Venetians still wanted the city (and its trade routes), and it didn't matter what the Franks wanted because they weren't going anywhere without the Venetian ships. The Crusaders grudgingly set up camp outside the city and awaited a "provocation." We all know how that works, where an intimidating figure "gets in your face," annoys you, and just waits for you to start a fight you have no hope of winning. An incident came along soon enough as the city's inhabitants roughly treated some high-handed Crusaders visiting a local market (it was not at all unusual for Crusaders from any of the first four Crusades to be arrogant and dismissive in their dealings with the Byzantine locals, not paying for goods and so forth). To this was added the fact that the new (Crusader-supported) Emperor also couldn't fulfill his fanciful financial promises to the Crusaders (he was promptly replaced by the Byzantines when he proved of no use in getting rid of them). The Crusaders were "insulted" and this called for a reckoning, just as the Venetians had hoped all along.

This painting by Delacroix (1798-1863) depicts the entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade. (Louvre, Paris). Note that the actual breach into the city was not on horseback, but from Venetian ships over the sea wall.

Now with a new "justification" for attacking a nation that had done them no harm, the Crusaders bided their time. The Franks and Venetians "got all their ducks in a row" by dividing the Empire up between them, and finally attacked Constantinople in a coordinated assault. The Franks took the city on the second attempt by using the tall Venetian ships to get over the sea walls that had frustrated so many previous attackers. In the final analysis, advancing ship design finally robbed the fabled Constantinople walls of their defensive power. This was inevitable at some point, and within a couple of hundred years at most the land walls also became obsolete. Without the invulnerability of the old Roman walls, Byzantium was just another ephemeral Middle Eastern power.

A somewhat more accurate depiction of the fall of Constantinople showing Crusaders scaling the sea walls to gain a foothold in the city.

The loss of Constantinople was catastrophic for the Byzantine Empire. It was somewhat akin to what would happen if a foreign power somehow occupied London and then held it for decades. All of Byzantine life flowed through and from the capital city. The Byzantines regrouped in separate camps both in Anatolia and in Epirus to the west, but the aura of Byzantine power was shattered forever. They also lost one of the prime advantages of holding Constantinople, its position astride the main trade routes from the East that filled the state coffers with taxes and duties. Without Constantinople, the Byzantines could not control access to the Black Sea, and now the Venetians could sail through without hindrance. It was a boon to Venice that turned it from a moderately successful trading city into the dominant sea power in the eastern Mediterranean. Basically, the Fourth Crusade reversed the fortunes of Venice and Byzantium.

Émil Signol (1804-1892) titled this painting "Taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, 15th July 1099". Jerusalem was captured from the Muslims during the First Crusade, 1095-1202, and held for almost a century (Palace of Versailles, France).

The Fourth Crusade of 1204 thus began the true decline of the Byzantine State. The Crusaders, frustrated at lack of success against the Turks, took Constantinople instead despite the fact that it was a Christian city (they already had taken the Christian port of Zara and been excommunicated for doing so, thereby robbing the expedition of any true religious character). The Fourth Crusade thereby lost all focus and just turned into a band of amoral soldiers of fortune out for personal gain. It was a great betrayal of the original purpose of the Crusade and, though the Byzantines eventually recovered their capital in 1261, the Byzantine State never was the same.

The Crusaders built the Church of Saint Anne in Jerusalem ca. 1140 while Jerusalem was the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, one of the Crusader States.

Events After the Fourth Crusade

Some later Crusades were attempted during this period, but the Western powers were now wary of Byzantium. Siding with the Byzantines would be seen as a slap at fellow Latin pretenders to the Byzantine throne, and Crusaders were not interested in supporting their former numbers who had taken Constantinople, either (and trying to help them at all likely would turn into a permanent affair). There was no profit in that. The entire region became a political quagmire. In any event, the former leaders of the Crusades, aside from some individuals (usually French kings) trying to make a religious statement or pursuing imperialistic goals, basically lost interest. The Western powers never again mustered sufficient strength to make a real effort until it was their own kingdoms (such as at the two battles of Vienna) at risk.

Roger de Flor arrives in Constantinople, by José Moreno Carbonero (1858-1942).

As the Byzantine world shrank in the 14th and 15th Centuries, it became a staple of Byzantine government policy to try to get the Crusaders to come back and fight off the Turks. The Byzantines made all sorts of extravagant concessions to do this, such as legally "granting" the old Roman province of Britain, which the Byzantines somehow figured they still owned, to its current rulers. The Western nations, however, never did more than pay this idea lip service. Future Crusades simply bypassed Constantinople altogether as Western navies improved and armies no longer had to make the long march overland. Some Western paid adventurers such as Italian mercenary Roger de Flore of the Great Catalan Company arrived to "help" Byzantium. However, they weren’t Crusaders at all and had taken no oath (for what that was worth). The Byzantine Emperor Andronicus II welcomed them anyway because he was increasingly desperate for any aid against the advancing Saracens. These soldiers of fortune did more harm than good to Byzantium but certainly hurt both sides as they grabbed whatever booty they could find. It didn’t help that the Byzantines had problems paying these mercenaries as promised, so there are two sides to that story.

A reasonably accurate depiction of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453.

Conclusion

While the Byzantines under Michael VIII did recapture Constantinople in 1261, the Latin Crusaders had robbed the city of its treasures and turned it from virtually a living museum of antiquity into a hollow shell. The inhabitants, desperate for sustenance, began planting crops within the city walls, unheard of during the Empire's height, and the population fell from year to year. The cataclysm of the Fourth Crusade reduced Byzantium from a major power with influence throughout the Mediterranean to a regional force that rarely again influenced events outside of its own diminishing borders. The road from the Fourth Crusade to the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 was a straight line. Without the continuing Byzantine presence in Anatolia, though, the Turks would have taken the city perhaps as much as two centuries earlier.

The Genoans and Venetians, however, were there to stay despite the eventual fall of the Latin kingdom of Constantinople. They were the Westerners with the only real pecuniary interest in the region due to its trade routes, so they had an interest in keeping Constantinople out of the hands of the Turks. They remained active in the Byzantine Empire until the end. However, they were only interested in trading profits that they could derive as the Byzantine Empire crumbled, not in helping the Empire. Nominally trading partners, they sucked money out of the Byzantine State. It should be noted, however, that there were some Venetians in Constantinople in 1453 helping to defend the city, and they fought heroically against the Turks (unlike the Genoese, who stayed out of it) to protect their interests there, but it was a hopeless cause.

So, overall, the Crusades were a nail in the coffin of the Byzantine Empire. In many ways, though, the damage inflicted on the Empire was due to its own ambivalent attitude in the midst of the battles between the Latins and the Saracens.

"The City Walls (Descending to the Port)" (Istanbul) engraved by J.G.Varrall after a picture by W.H.Bartlett. Published in Beauties of the Bosphorus, 1838.

2020

The Fourth Crusade Captures Constantinople

The Great Betrayal

The Capture of Constantinople in 1204 (Domenico Tintoretto, 16th Century).

"Kill them all. God will know whose are His." ("Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius") - Arnaud Amaury, ca. 1209.

By the year 1200, the Byzantine Empire had survived for over 800 years. It had withstood ferocious assaults from the North (the Bulgars, Pechenegs, and Russians), the West (Normans), and the East (the Persians, Arabs, and Turks). The Empire's strength lay in its ability to bend with the blows that constantly rained down on it, giving ground as necessary in the knowledge that the Roman walls of Constantinople were invulnerable. This strategy kept the old Roman traditions still practiced along the Golden Horn alive even as the world around them changed dramatically.

 Mosaic of John II Comnenos in the Hagia Sophia, Istanbul.

Unfortunately for the Empire, cracks were beginning to appear, not just in the walls themselves, but in the Empire's sustainability. The catastrophic 1071 loss at Manzikert had been only partially redeemed in subsequent decades, mostly due to the intervention of Crusaders invited into the region by Emperor Alexius Comnenus (1081–1118). The 12th Century had been a curious mixture of revival and decay, as Alexius's main successors in the Comnenian Dynasty (John II (1118–43). Manuel I (1143–80) and Alexius II (1180–83)) proved to be capable military leaders if uneven administrators.

The Byzantine Empire before the Fourth Crusade.

The problems for Constantinople were deep and enduring. The fundamental strength of a nation lies in its economy, and the military brilliance of the Comnenian Restoration only masked the rot that set in at the Empire's foundation. While the Crusaders had reopened a land road to the Levant and restored some areas in western Anatolia to Byzantine control, most of Anatolia was lost forever. This had been the Empire's source of men and materials since its founding, and there was no chance of getting the region back despite desperate efforts to do so. 

Manuel I Comnenus.

The situation is best encapsulated by the reign of Manuel I. He completely understood the threat from the East and vigorously pursued a policy of collaboration with the Pope and other power-brokers of Western Europe. While making the Empire's final attempt to recover Sicily, Manuel otherwise allied himself with Western leaders and the princelings of the Crusader states. His strategies did achieve some successes, but his grand attempt to recover the interior of Anatolia only led to another military disaster, this time at Myriokephalon. Barely escaping with his own life, Manuel was forced to make peace with Sultan Kilij Arslan II. The Empire had lost the greater part of Anatolia, the old source of its strength, for good.

The Great Schism of 1054 split the Christian world in half. However, friendly relations and meetings continued between the two factions.

Meanwhile, the Crusaders were indifferent allies at best. They had their own difficulties maintaining their hard-won kingdoms in the Middle East and never viewed the Byzantines as "one of them." It wasn't that they hated the Byzantines, but the only thing that really held the Crusaders together at all was the rather abstract cohesion of Catholicism. The Byzantines might have been Christian, but they weren't Roman Catholic. The Great Schism of 1054 had seen to that, and while the differences in the religions might seem slight, any difference was critical when that was the only thing providing the Crusaders with an identity.

Frederick I Barbarossa ("red beard").

Manuel, who always maintained a very Western orientation at court with jousting tournaments and similar affairs, had helped the Second Crusade pass through his territory without incident in 1147. This had been the policy of Alexius during the First Crusade., and once again it avoided problems. The Third Crusade of 1189-1192, however, was a different matter altogether. Emperor Isaac II Angelos was a much different man than Manuel. As Frederick Barbarossa approached at the head of a massive army, Isaac's paranoia flared out of control. After some rather high-handed military and diplomatic moves by Barbarossa, Isaac decided he didn't need this wild card of an army tried to make a deal with Saladin, who had just recaptured Jerusalem, to keep them out. This came to nothing, but there were some scattered military "incidents" between the Empire and Barbarossa's forces as the latter passed through the Empire, and it left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. 

Richard the Lionheart.

Barbarossa's army (he died en route, dissipating the entire effort) and the other Crusaders including Richard the Lionheart failed to recover Jerusalem, leaving the Crusaders frustrated and resentful. However, the Third Crusade did strengthen the Crusaders' position in the Levant despite the failure of its ultimate objective. Richard negotiated a peace deal with Saladin that, while far from ideal, provided a modus vivendi that neither side was anxious to disrupt, at least in the near future. The Crusaders began looking around for other ways to occupy themselves.

Meanwhile, Jerusalem wasn't the only worthwhile target in the East, however. There was one much closer at hand. That it was the home of "fellow Christians" who had been somewhat helpful in the past was a minor detail.

Pope Innocent III.

First Attacks On Constantinople

Pope Innocent III decided to get the Crusade ball rolling again in 1198. He issued a papal bull (Post miserable) and sent emissaries to the various kingdoms that could send troops. The Germans and English, however, were not interested after having fought the Third Crusade so recently. King Philip of France, however, signed up, and the other kingdoms grudgingly contributed financially after a lot of nudging from Innocent. The character of the Crusade was established from the outset as basically a French expedition. Pope Innocent didn't really care about the objective, but he required all leaders to swear an oath that they would not attack a Christian city and would bring along a Papal representative.

An ancient map of Venice, which began as a Roman/Byzantine city under the exarch of Ravenna.

Since nobody wanted to take on Saladin directly again and disrupt the treaty at Jerusalem, the French began a long preoccupation with Egypt (e.g., the Seventh Crusade of King Louis IX and Napoleon's Egyptian expedition) by setting Alexandria as the objective. Since marching there through the Levant was out of the question, the French engaged the Venetians to supply transport ships. This is one of the first appearances of the Venetians in Byzantine history, and it would be quite an entrance. The Venetians were not about to just give up their shipping "for the cause," so they demanded full payment. After the French boarded the ships, they had to admit that they did not have sufficient funds. This left them in a very difficult position, as the Venetians were their only source of food and water, too. A stalemate developed, with many of the French left by the Venetians on an island where they were completely dependent on the ships.

The Crusaders Conquering the City of Zara (Zadar) in 1202, painted by Andrea Vicentino (1539-1614).

The Venetians, seeing a chance to kill two birds with one stone, offered the French a way out by forgiving the debt on one condition: they conquer and sack the city of Zara (Zadar). Zara was well known to everyone as a Christian city under the control of Béla III, King of Hungary and Croatia. Basically, Zara was their neighbor's property which just so happened to be nearby and relatively defenseless. The French, in serious difficulties, agreed, and Zara was taken despite its inhabitants making show demonstrations of being fellow Christians by painting crosses on the city's walls and the like. The Pope heartily disapproved and excommunicated the attackers, which only had the effect of turning the "Crusade" into a massive pirate expedition.

A painting of the Venetian lagoon by David Roberts (1796-1864). Trade was the source of Venetian power, and the idyllic scenery hid predatory business practices.

The Venetians were no dummies and realized they now had control over a potent weapon. The Francs had shown they had no money and, more importantly, no scruples. What the Crusaders did have in abundance, though, was a lot of armed troops that could conquer just about any seaside city that wasn't expecting an attack. The Venetians had just such a city in mind: Constantinople. While no longer much of a military threat, the Byzantines were major trade competitors throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. This was an area of very valuable trade, being the source of very expensive and desirable spices, silk, and other rare commodities. 

Alexius IV Angelos, pretender to the throne.

All the Venetians needed was an excuse to attack Constantinople, and Byzantine politics provided the standard pretext for any invasion during the Middle Ages: an exiled prince seeking to reclaim his throne. Such claimants were always readily available in medieval times when the need arose. Alexius IV Angelus was a former Emperor (his father was Isaac II who we met above) following a successful coup in 1195 against his father by his uncle, Alexius III. Alexius IV made all sorts of extravagant promises to the French and the Venetians about how he would reward them and help the Crusade ... once they put him back in power. Whether or not anyone believed such promises is another matter, but they provided the requisite pretext for a predatory invasion of Byzantium.

Alexius III Angelos.

The French and Venetians cynically brought Alexius IV to the outskirts of Constantinople and made it clear that they were only there to reinstall the poor young man as Emperor. When the citizens of Constantinople turned a deaf ear, the Crusaders began attacking the city. Alexius III, the incumbent, turned out to be a terrible military leader, and the citizens of Byzantium had no great love for him. Eventually, the Crusaders broke into the city, only possible using the Venetian ships, but the Byzantines still had enough troops on hand to keep the battle fairly even. Alexius III lost his nerve, however, and deserted the city in the night.

This did not mean that the Crusaders had taken Constantinople because they had not. The Byzantines remained in nominal control, but the French and Venetians were the true power in the city now even as they pretended to let things play out in Constantinople before launching any more attacks. 

Doge Enrico Dandolo (Tintoretto).

Enrico Dandolo, the Venetian Doge (leader), came up with a plan. He decided to move things along rather than wait for the Byzantines to figure things out. Everyone was amazed when the Crusaders had someone drag Isaac II out of his prison, and then when he promptly appointed Alexius IV as the new Emperor. Now, there was nothing standing in the way of the young Emperor fulfilling his promises to the Venetians and French - or was there?

Doge Enrico Dandolo crowns Baldovino the first emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople (Giacomo Leonardis).

Final Latin Capture of Constantinople

With Alexius III gone and their protege Alexius IV on the Byzantine throne, the Crusaders seemed to be sitting pretty. This was the realization of every half-baked scheme to champion a "true king" against an actual one. Alexius IV had full command of the Byzantine army and navy and the key to the treasury. What could go wrong?

Doge Enrico Dandolo.

It turned out that everything could go wrong because there was no money in the treasury. Alexius wanted to pay the Crusaders what he had promised them, but even confiscating church property and other radical measures only got him halfway there. The Crusaders began getting angry at the delay in payment, while the inhabitants of the capital tired of the foreigners lording it over them. The situation was ripe for misunderstandings and violence. If the French Crusaders had their own way, they likely would have just sailed away at this point, but Dandolo wanted not only his payment from them, but now he also wanted the throne of the Byzantine Empire.

Alexius V Ducas "Murzuphlus."

In January 2004, things came to a head. The Byzantine leaders - senators, clergy, administrators - were tired of taking orders from the Latin stooge Alexius IV. He couldn't even keep the Latins happy, so what good was he. The city elders met at St. Sophia and decided to replace Alexius IV, whose unpopularity had grown in tandem with the sheer hatred of the Crusaders, with a nonentity named Nicholas Canabus. Before this could be done, however, Alexius "Murzuphulus" Doukas (Ducas) suddenly staged a coup and seized power ("Murzuphulus" was his nickname due to his thick eyebrows which loosely translates as "Mr. Unibrow"). Within weeks, both Isaac II and Alexius IV (and also Canabus) were dead at Doukas's hands and Doukas the usurper was proclaimed Alexius V. While in normal times the citizenry would instantly riot at such a blatant seizure of power, this was such a moment of crisis that it passed quietly. A man of action and no friend of the Crusaders, Alexius V quickly slammed shut the city gates and told the Francs and Venetians that all deals were off.

David Aubert (1449-79) - 15th-century miniature.

Naturally, this did not please Enrico Dandolo. He began agitating for an all-out attack on the city "to avenge Alexius IV." The Franks and Venetians made plans to split the Empire between them, and on 9 April 1204 launched their attack. It failed, but the Venetians changed their tactics, and on 12 April 1204 their ships again got the Franks over the walls near the Petria Gate. 

It was the first time that Constantinople had fallen to an outside invader. Alexius V escaped on a fishing boat and headed into Thrace to join up with Alexius III (who soon became his father in law). The victors quickly put into motion their agreed-upon plans for splitting up the empire, which they were to hold until 1261. The Franks became the rulers of Constantinople, while the Venetians took over key trade routes and began carting the glories of the Roman Empire back to Venice.

The Eastern Mediterranean after the fall of Constantinople.

Conclusion

The Byzantines in Constantinople were beaten, but the Empire was far from vanquished. In fact, power centers soon developed in Anatolia at Nicaea, on the Black Sea coast at Trebizond, and also to the west. The Crusaders controlled the city and, at first, made some inroads in Thrace. However, their attempts to conquer the rest of the Empire failed over time and they were soon restricted to the environs of the city itself. This, of course, was more than they deserved, but far less than they had hoped for when they planned their final assault in April 1204. It was the fruit of a great betrayal of their Crusading oath to the Pope not to attack a Christian city.

The Fourth Crusade, conceived with honorable intentions, was a misbegotten adventure that never should have been launched. It came too soon after the previous Crusade and failed to generate widespread interest. Turned into a one-nation expedition rather than a multinational cause, the Fourth Crusade from the outset lacked any kind of high-minded purpose. Instead, it degenerated into a predatory and imperialistic adventure that differed little from pure piracy. The fruits of their conquest can still be seen today in Venice, where artifacts from Constantinople such as the Triumphal Quadriga at St. Mark's Basilica constitute some of the city's most prized possessions.

A lasting reminder of the Fourth Crusade.

2020