Category Archives: Historical

Composite Research

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      Research is fundamental in all three areas I work: Writing, Law, and History. Most students don’t know how to research; they don’t even know how to begin. This post is a guide on how to start the research process and hopefully jump-start those long projects you’ve been putting off.

      The first thing to realize is that there will be little or no information on your topic directly and therefore, you’re putting together a puzzle with bits in different boxes. Create a folder for your research and create a few documents inside: a research journal, a list of sources, a list of future sources, and a blank template for your final project.

      Next think of your key terms and for argument’s sake, let’s say it’s Hopi Clowns. From this point you’re going to assemble secondary sources. Here’s where some researchers and I disagree. Many people say to start with primary sources, and books in particular. I always start with secondary sources, because they’re more focused, you can get through them faster, and you can build a book list from their references.

      Go onto a secondary source database (I suggest JSTOR, but there are others). Look for a few documents with your key terms (put them in quotes to focus things so it looks for the specific phrase). When it spits back a list of article, download them in PDF format to your research folder.

      Then go through them one at a time. For the most part, you’ll be cruising; the documents won’t be directly on topic. They will have your terms and when you reach those terms start your journal. A good rule to go by is that you should type anything you want to remember in your journal. If you see a good fact, check if it’s cited and note the citation in your journal. Write down your thoughts on anything important, and then go back to cruising. When you reach the end of your document you should put in your source page (cite it correctly to save time later), and list any future sources you found from it in your future sources document.

      Eventually your research will gain momentum and you’ll find yourself journaling new search terms and new future sources at a faster rate than you can read them. This is good; it means you’re in the middle of the research process. Keep plugging away and as you start to find bits of information that confirm each other, start noting them in your final product (along with a citation).

      Eventually, you’ll start running into the same facts again and again. Now it’s time to hit your primary sources. Hopefully you’ve tagged a few books on your future sources list, you should have these sent to your library (start this while you’re still in secondary source mode). Now continue the process. If you can get through a few primary sources and you know what’s coming the whole time (the subject has become that familiar to you), you’re reaching the final phase.

      Finally, when you’re running into the same information again and again, look back through your journal and find which sources you want to cite and start drafting your paper. Good luck, research seems tedious, but if done correctly the amount of hours will yield results.

The Fall of Rome – Pt. 2: The Anti-Gibbon

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The compilation by Mortimer Chambers The Fall of Rome: Can it be Explained, starts off with a bang by including Edward Gibbon. Almost everyone, even the occasional layperson, has heard of Edward Gibbon. The second excerpt follows hot on Gibbon’s trail with J.B. Bury. Professor Bury is a Byzantine historian and his description of Rome’s fall reads, at times, like a systemized deconstruction of Gibbon’s theories.

Professor Bury begins by breaking the question of Rome’s fall into two separate questions: what were the “causes which changed the Roman State from what it was in the best days of the Republic to what it had become in the age of Theodosius the Great[?]”[1] and “why the State which could resist its enemies on many frontiers in the days of Diocletian and Constantine and Julian suddenly gave way in the days of Honorius.”[2]

Gibbon goes unnamed in this portion of Bury’s work, but it’s hard to miss the reference to “The illustrious historian whose name will always be associated with the ‘Decline’ of the Roman Empire.”[3] Bury systematically dismantles two theories of causes for Rome’s fall: Christianity and Depopulation.

The reason for Rome’s “fall,” by which Bury means the second of the two questions above, is a series of events leading to the removal of Rome’s final emperor. Bury gives a list of events that lead to the so-called fall of Rome. They are as follows in chronological order:

  • The Huns pushing the Goths into Illyria
  • The Emperor Valens mismanaging the Goths and losing his life.
  • Theodosius allowing the Goths to settle.
  • The Death of Theodosius.
  • Ascension of Honorius (A man Bury concludes was unfit to Rule).
    • Contingent to this, the guardianship of Rome being placed in the hands of a German, Stilicho.
    • Bury also points out that elevating foreigners to high command was a disastrous practice that allowed Stilicho to take command.

There is then a break in the narrative as Bury describes how the Emperor Nepos and his Master of Horse were engaged in civil war. That same Master of Horse, Orestes, put his son on the throne. His son: Romulus Augustulus was not a legal emperor, but that didn’t matter. Unfortunately for Orestes, he refused to let German troops settle on Italian Land. This shouldn’t have been a problem, but for the list above. The Germans chose Odovacar who killed Orestes. Romulus was sent for a quiet retirement as Odovacar had no wish to kill the boy.

As for Nepos, he tried to appeal to the Emperor in the east who had his own problems. The Byzantine Emperor Zeno dissolved the idea of an Eastern Emperor and let Odovacar stay as a vassal charged with protecting Rome.

I highly suggest at least reading this section of Bury’s work as a few historical loose ends are tied up, but what about his theory? On the whole I have to say that Bury’s explanation of the so-called “Fall of Rome” is far more convincing than Gibbon’s. While Gibbon’s explanations are fanciful, Bury’s are logical.

In truth, there wasn’t a big day in history when you went to Bed and Rome existed and woke up and it was gone. Historians have used their vernacular to give that impression, but it is inaccurate. Like so many other things in history the process was a gradual evolution of politics. You could no more assign a date for the fall of Rome than you could set a date for when the monarchs of England became figureheads rather than heads of state. For my money, Bury’s explanation is the best.


[1] J.B. Bury. “The Later Roman Empire,” in The Fall of Rome: Can it be Explained, ed. Mortimer Chambers (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston 1963), 14.

[2] Bury, “Later Roman Empire,” 14.

[3] Bury, “Later Roman Empire,” 13.

The Fall of Rome – Pt. 1: Edward Gibbon

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The first article included in The Fall of Rome: Can it be Explained? Is an excerpt from Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. As a personal aside, I have reservations always when reading Gibbon. Gibbon’s work in the historical field is foundational and certainly renowned. I have reservations, not because he lacks qualifications, but because Gibbon is most identified with blaming Christianity for the fall of the Roman Empire.

To Gibbon, Rome became a power because of the universal mindset of its people to sacrifice all for the nation. He draws on Polybius for this comparison saying the historian “deduced the spirit and success of a people incapable of fear and impatient of repose.”[1] There was a sort of innate martial spirit in the people of Rome, and Gibbon blames Christians for its disappearance.

While the secular and pagan pursuits of the empire prior to Christianity encouraged motivation in the current world, after Christianity the focus became the afterlife and what had once been a motive to empower the state empowered the church instead. Now these are Gibbon’s words, “The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of the military spirit were buried in the cloister.”[2] This was one of Gibbon’s explanations (certainly the most famous) for the fall of the Roman Empire. The Christian church had destroyed whatever military spirit was left.

Gibbon’s attitude is not entirely condemning. He is quick to admit the impact of Christianity on the barbarian cultures. “If the decline of the Roman Empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors.”[3] Gibbon’s argument goes on, but that’s the main idea.

If a label had to be put on Gibbon, we might call him a humanist. Certainly he seems to believe that society’s problems can be solved by a “virtuous”[4] mankind. This virtuous humanity discovers, invents, and is impossible to turn aside.

Gibbon makes a compelling case and although it would be easy for me to nitpick his arguments as a Christian I prefer to add my own take to his argument. Perhaps a mindset change did occur in Rome that led to its fall, but Gibbon supposes that Christianity was far more widespread than I believe it actually was. Certainly state-sponsorship did allow Christianity to flourish, but we could no more call these people “devout,” than we could those who converted to Islam for court appointments in the Muslim Caliphates.

Here is the summation. Perhaps the attitudes of people did change, but it was not the doctrines of Christianity that did so. Rather it was widespread corruption and the tendency of toadies to sacrifice their integrity for gain. The grubber, not the holy man, was responsible for Rome’s fall in this example. The label of Christianity is therefore inappropriate though it would be an easy mistake to make.


[1] Edward Gibbon. “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” in The Fall of Rome: Can it be Explained, ed. Mortimer Chambers (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston 1963), 8.

[2] Gibbon, “Decline and Fall”, 9.

[3] Gibbon, “Decline and Fall”, 12.

[4] Like morality this word has changing definitions, particularly in Latin. It should not be confused with our modern notion of virtue.

The Fall of Rome – Introduction

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Why did Rome fall? This is a question that gets kicked around a lot in historical circles and there is still no concrete answer. The easiest answer is “many things,” but what were these things and were they problems.

My conjecture is that many things all at the same time compounded, but that the true cause of Rome’s fall was the age of the empire. An insightful collection by Mortimer Chambers, entitled The Fall of Rome: Can it be Explained assembles several of the most common arguments.

Chambers himself is curious as to why the fall of Rome defies explanation, but he is adamant that, “The reader must decide for himself how much of the truth any or all [of the collected explanations] contain.”[1]

To that end I will be reviewing each argument in turn and forming my own conclusions. At the end of Dr. Chambers’s collection, I will present my thesis on the fall of Rome.


[1] Mortimer Chambers, edit., The Fall of Rome: Can it be Explained? (Holt, Reinhart, and Winston Inc., 1963), 1.