A QUEDA DO IMPÉRIO ROMANO

Embarcado que estou nesta onda romana, aproveito para mais uma vez recorrer à sabedoria de Michael Grant, autor de diversas obras sobre a antiga Roma, matéria em que é um dos maiores especialistas a nível mundial.

Referi anteriormente o seu livro sobre os imperadores romanos; é agora ocasião de inquirir porque caiu, de forma aparentemente pouco perceptível, o Império Romano (do Ocidente).

A melhor resposta encontra-se na introdução do seu livro The Fall of the Roman Empire (1976, revisto em 1990). A minha edição é de 1996.

Escreve o autor: «The fall of the Western Roman Empire was one of the most significant transformations (a favourite word for the whole process, especially in Germany) throughout the whole of human history.A hundred years before it happened, Rome was an immense power, defended by an immense army. A hundred tears later, power and army were vanished. There was no longer any Western Empire at all. Its territory was occupied by a group of German kingdoms.

Hundreds of reasons have been suggested for the collapse of the Roman West. Some indications of their variety can be obtained from reading Edward Gibbon's superb and never truly superseded History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88). He lists at least two dozzen supposed causes of that decline and fall - military, political, economical, and psychological. Many of these "causes" will be referred to in the pages that follow. But the historian himself made no attempt to marshal them one against another, or choose between them. That is rather disconcerting for the reader who is searching for quick answers. But it also shows a good deal of prudence. For an enormous, complex institution like the Roman Empire could not have been obliterated by any single, simple cause.

It was brought down by two kinds of destruction: invasions from outside, and weakness that arose within. The invasions are easy to identify, and they will be described in the preliminary section of the present volume. However, they were not sufficiently formidable in themselves to have caused the Empire to perish.

It perished because of certain internal flaws which prevented resolute resistence to the invaders: and the greater part of this book will be devoted to discovering those flaws.

I have identified thirteen defects which, in my view, combined to reduce the Roman Empire to final paralysis. They display a unifying thread: the thread of disunity. Each defect consists of a specific disunity which split the Empire wide apart, and thereby damaged the capacity of the Romans to meet external aggressions. Heaven forbid that we ourselves should have a monolithic society without any internal disunities at all, or any differences of character or opinion. But there can arrive a time when such differences become so irreconcilably violent that the entire structure of society is imperilled. Thar is what happened among the ancient Romans. And that is why Rome fell.

This theme has always attracted keen interest, largely because of the guidances and warnings it is supposed to offer to later generations, and this relevance has never seemed more visible than today. Britain thinks of its vanished empire. The United States of America think of their current leadership, and of how it might be in danger of coming to an end. The Soviet Union seems to be showing at this very moment how smaller peoples break away from empires. France is the country where, in ancient times, this first happened. Germany spans the east-west border, and is very conscious os its role as the destroyer of the Western Roman Empire. Italy is the country where that empire ruled and fell. And so on. I have not, in this revised edition, attempted to flag or discuss every echo, every sililarity. But one or another of them, in various parts of the world, readily leaps to the eye.»

[A propósito do último parágrafo, recorde-se que esta Introdução foi escrita em 1990]

As treze falhas apontadas por Michal Grant encontram-se detalhadas nos capítulos do livro:

I - THE FAILURE OF THE ARMY
1 - The Generals against the State
2 - The People against the Army

II - THE GULFS BETWEEN THE CLASSES
3 - The Poor against the State
4 - The Rich against the State
5 - The Middle Class against the State

III - THE CREDIBILITY GAP
6 - The People against the Bureaucrats
7 - The People against the Emperor

IV - THE PARTNERSHIPS THAT FAILED
8 - Ally against Ally
9 - Race against Race

V - THE GROUPS THAT OPTED OUT
10 - Drop-outs against Society
11 - The State against Free Belief

VI - THE UNDERMINING OF EFFORT
12 - Complacency against Self-Help
13 - The Other World against This World

Antes de entrar nos capítulos acima indicados, Grant apresenta um resumido "Historical Survey of the Roman Empire". E conclui a obra com dois apêndices (Some Religious Disunities e Why Did the Eastern and Not the Western Empire Survive?), uma List of Emperors and Popes, um A Who's Who of Ancient Writers e uma lista de Some Books on the Decline and Fall. Além de uma profusão de elucidativos mapas.

 O livro de Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), acima referido por Michael Grant, é sem dúvida um monumento de erudição e a obra mais importante que se escreveu sobre a queda de Roma. A ela foram beber todos os historiadores posteriores e ela mantém em geral plena actualidade, apesar de ter sido escrita há mais de duzentos anos. 

A minha edição em língua inglesa (1998) inclui os 71 capítulos, ainda que alguns não integralmente transcritos, e mesmo assim ocupa mais de 1.000 páginas, impressas em letra miudinha.

 Existe uma tradução portuguesa (mais resumida) publicada em dois volumes, o I de 1994 e o II de 1995, Declínio e Queda do Império Romano, que segue a versão inglesa organizada por D.M. Low, em 1960.

Não permite o espaço entrar em pormenores sobre a obra de Gibbon, publicada inicialmente em seis volumes e cobrindo quinze séculos de história (abrange também o Império Romano do Oriente). As suas opiniões religiosas - e o livro está delas recheado devido ao próprio objecto estudado - reflectem um certo espírito britânico da época: uma crítica ao Cristianismo, considerado mais intolerante do que o Paganismo, palavras muito duras para com os Judeus (o que o levou a ser acusado de anti-semitismo) e considerações pouco favoráveis ao Corão.