Valuable lesson indeed. I wish you could do this more often, Paul.
If you enjoy the history of this era, or just after the fall rather, I highly recommend an historical novel, "The Column of Phocas" by Sean Gabb of our very own UK Libertarian Alliance.
I also hope he is beavering away at a sequel!
Valentinian is no more the father of the West than Trajan the father of Romania.
Mr. Clausewitzian: If you believe you have a case, then present it and defend it. An isolated sound bite is not enough to convince anyone.
Whether or not Valentinian is "a father" of the west is a matter of opinion (and definition), but in any case the history lesson is fascinating. Keep it up, Paul!
I highly recommend Gibbon's History of Rome, in its 6 volume unabridged version, for anybody who likes history.
Thank you for this reminder that our situation today has resulted in part from the actions of individuals.
The 1st Amendment in the Bill of Rights was written by classical scholars who would have been familiar with much of what Paul has written about.
It was no accident that freedom of expression and the denial of state power to any religion were part of the very first of the most important rights delineated.
And it is also no accident that these principles are both the targets of a concerted attack by the collectivist/islamicist alliance around the world.
The disgraceful "human rights" conference recently held in Switzerland is only the most current, and most visible, example of this campaign to abridge these two critical and interwoven concepts.
Splendid!
Thanks Paul Marks for filling an enormous gap in my knowledge.
An interesting article. Have you read Tom Holland's latest book Millennium in which he suggest the meeting at Canossa between the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory was significant in splitting secular power from the religious in the west.
As an aside Holland is excellent in is previous books Republic and Persian Fire, classical periods where he is more naturally at home.
Paul, first class sir. Very interesting read, thanks.
Thanks for that Paul.
I shall be doing some research into the things you've said - it's something my knowledge is a bit low on.
Ah! The good old days... Friendly lot, the Romans.
Topically (today, with the potential flu pandemic), wasn't it during the time of Diocletian that the Roman Empire nearly collapsed due to a plague, now thought to be measles? Big diseases can also alter society, like the Black Death liberated peasants from serfdom in England. Maybe Diocletian made his 'tying' law for peasants to prevent the mass exodus from the land that England later saw?
Not sure about the reference to Julian. The policy of the Apostate was to reestablish some balance between the new power of Christianity and the recently downgraded pagans.
My understanding was that Christianity under him wasn't an impediment; it just wasn't the advantage it had been under Constantine.
Rodney Stark has a number of books bearing on these points, such as
The Victory of Reasonand
The Rise of Christianity. He makes the point that the loss of the writings of classical authors, if it occurred, was a good thing for Northern Europe. Adherence to Classicism doomed Spain and the Islamic world to poverty and underdevelopment.
It sticks in my Objectivist craw to admit that Christianity could have been a force for good, leading to the rise of individualism, but Stark makes a great argument to that effect.
I can tell that there is not a great deal of familiarity with the Roman Empire around here. This is not an impressive article, and the thesis is nonsense.
It's very remarkable: what it takes to impress some people.
Dale,
"The Column of Phocas" was republished as "Conspiracies of Rome". It has a sequel, "The Terror of Constantinople".
Erudite and thought-provoking, but I take issue with three points.
1)
Although, hypocritically, he did not try and impose his opinions (or perhaps those of his spiritual guide Ambrose of Milan) on the Visigoths - instead he made an alliance with them for the conquest of the Western Empire. An alliance that made itself felt at the terrible battle of the Frigid River in 394 when the Western army was broken by the alliance of the East and the barbarians.
This is an enormously tendentious way of putting it. Eugenius was a usurper, appointed on the instigation of Arbogast; Theodosius was appointed by Valentinian's son Gratian, partly to sort out endemic rebellions on the part of self-serving generals. There's no question of the east conquering the west, because the empire hadn't been divided yet. If one wants to take a neutral position (and I'm no fan of Theodosius), then one claimant to the purple used barbarian troops to defeat another claimant to the purple, who was also using barbarian troops.
2)
This is a devstating position for persecutors - as right from the time of Augustine onwards they have tended to rely on the civil power to do their dirty work.
I don't understand how someone writing about the origins of the West can dismiss Augustine with such easy contempt. This isn't an Origen or Chrysostom we're talking about: writing off Augustine is one step off writing off Paul. More specifically, Augustine's political theology didn't ally Christianity with the civil power, rather it decoupled Christianity from the imperium without embracing otherworldliness, a sort of midpoint between Eusebius and Anthony Abbot. While we're talking about fathers of the West, I think Augustine has as good a claim as anyone in late antiquity to that title. (Another good candidate is Charlemagne, a man born a savage who became a Roman Emperor ... and repelled the Saracen).
3) Finally, I'm not sure Valentinian's position on religious co-ercion can be that strongly distinguished from Constantine's or Theodosius'. Leaving bishops to make up their own mind is what Constantine did over the Donatist schism, Christological disputes or the dating of Easter. Theodosius also gave the bishops freedom of action, that's why they liked him so much. This is a far cry from religious liberty per se.
Myself I'm pretty anti-erastian, but I wouldn't say that letting prelates get up to whatever suits them is a surefire recipe for success. It certainly places you full square against the whig tradition (not necessarily a bad thing).
So why is there a Church of England?
Perhaps we should celebrate Valentinian with a holiday every February 14.
For good or ill Trajan is the "father of Romania".
One can think that the slaughter of so many of the population of Dacia was a wicked thing (and I agree it was) - but it is the case that not just the name, but the culture and language of Romania are from Rome.
From Trajan - and from the centuries of Roman rule (and unflux of people from various parts of the Roman empire), even after Roman rule collapsed - these things did not end.
Was there a great plague at the time of Diocletian?
Not as far as I know - the last great plague had been in the time of Marcus Aurelius (long before).
I should also have mentioned that the interpretation of the just price to mean government mandated price (as opposed to a price arrived at by the civil, peaceful, interaction of buyer and seller) had got a "great leap forward" (reference half intended) under the would be eastern despot Diocletian (he not just of price controls but of state arms factories and support for hereditory occupations).
Although I am biased against the man because he seems so unRoman - with (for example) his instance that people grovel on the floor when they came into his presense (in the manner of eastern despots).
Of course what Clauswitzian may have meant was that Valentinian was no more an INTENTIAL father of the Wet than Trajan was an intential father of Romania.
Indeed that indepenent nations (although how independent these nations are with the rise of the Eurepean Union is a different question) is the opposite of what these two Roman Emperors intended.
I agree - and I apologize for my slowness of mind in working out what Clauswitzian meant.
Another point (before I forget) is that a game could (in the old days) have been played by with my posting "how much is A.H.P. Jones and how much is non Jones or anti Jones"
I will not go into these matters here - but I must make the nod to those people who will be thinking this.
Gabriel.
I do not deny the historical points you make - well some of them anyway.
Charles the Great did not "repell the Saricen" - the main fighting (both by the Franks and, before, by the mixed peoples of the area of Toulouse, what had been once the Visigothic kingdom of this area) had been done long before his time.
It is true that he launched raids on the Muslims from time to time - but he gave more attention to attacking the Saxons (for which he had a religious excuse I know) and Fresians, and taking over Bavaria (for which he had no religious excuse at all).
Did I dissmiss Augustine?
My attack was on Theodosius - and I stick to it (although I do not deny the legal points you made - including the formal one that no matter how many times the Empire had been divided there was still legally only one Roman Empire).
However, although I greatly respect Pope Benedict XVI (a leading scholar on Augustine), I can not claim any great regard for Augustine himself.
Predistination has attracted the work of great minds from Augustine's day to our own - and their work has many subtle details that my own crude brain would not be capable of.
However, my crude mind is capable of noting something that their superior minds do not note (perhaps because they are so involved in the difficult work that I am not capable of).
Predestination is a load of dingo's kidneys.
It utterly contradicts the basis of Christianity (and the Jewish faith) that human beings have a choice about whether they do certain evil things - that there is such thing as agency (free will).
And a million fine scholars finding wonderful ways to show that predestination does not contradict this does not alter the basic crude fact that it does.
Any more than vast numbers of brillent mathematicians (each one with vastly greater ability with numbers than someone like me) saying that 1 + 1 does not = 2, does not alter the fact that 1 + 1 does = 2.
When one starts to talk of God predetermining (from the begining of time) who is to be saved and who is not - then one has left the path of good sense (period).
Nor is it just this:
There are also such things as Augustine's teaching that those scholars who argued the world was very old (which it is) should have their work suppressed - because their work contradicts (his view of) the Bible and was, therefore, wrong.
So it is not just a matter of his support of religous persecution.
It is also his support for wrong headed (although, no doubt, incredibly learned) theology, and his opposition to basic science (it its conclusions were not in accordence with his interpretation of the bible).
None of the above should be taken to mean that I do not accept that Augustine did not make postive contributions that were both brillent and true (different things of course).
However, you were correct in smelling out that I can not stand the man.
As for the basic point about Valentinian not having a fundementally different view of the role of the state in religion than that of Constantine and so on.
Actually I find myself on the side of Augustine there.
He understood that the two opinions were widly different.
It is true that he agonized deeply on the choice between them - before comming down on (what I hold to be) the wrong side.
It is also quite true that Augustine held that the state had no right to persecute the true Church.
However, opinions of what is the "true Church" is vary.
After all (as Jones was fond of pointing out) Valens (the brother of Valentinian) sought the best theological advice he could.
And it is most likely ture that this "Arian persecutor of the Church" was supported by many Bishops in the East (indeed it was the religous authorities who suggested his position to him - not the other way round).
So "uphold the true church and only persecute heretics" is a false position (no matter how clever and learned it may be).
Lastly on the Visigoths:
They are a complicated topic.
They have a good side as well as a bad side - and it is a good side that does not end with the collapse of Visigothic Spain.
I am not qualified to write on them - but then I am not qualified to write on Valentinian either (as I can read neither Latin or Greek).
I am also "conflicted" on the Visigoths as I love Rome (inspite of all its degeneracy) yet I feel more positively towards the Visigoths than any other people who invaded the Roman Empire (in spite of the Visigoths being the first sackers of Rome).
But in these degenerate days some alternative to the void must be offered.
If no one else writes on the Visigoths I may revisit the topic.
One of the odd things about Augustine (that I have been told - it may not be true) was that he could not read Greek.
Even Roger Bacon (in 12th century England) could read Greek, for a fifth century Roman theologian to not be able to do so is weird.
Of course I can not either - but I am a barbarian.
That should have been "13th century England" (the 1200's) - do not get old people, one's brain turns to Swiss cheese.
Ah, Paul, each year I find I prefer swiss cheese more and more to the alternative....