(4) GALLIC EMPIRE

(260 – 274 AD)

And now we start to dip beneath the surface of the Roman Empire iceberg, with one of two breakaway states as the Roman Empire broke into three parts during the Crisis of the Third Century – in the western part of the Roman Empire as the Palmyrene Empire took over the eastern part.

The Gallic Empire – the name given to it by modern historiography – was established by a Roman commander (of German origin) Postumus in 260 in the wake of barbarian invasions of Gaul and instability in Rome. At its height it included Roman territories in Germania, Gaul, Britannia and Hispania.

There followed a series of contenders for it, resulting in and becoming more heated after Postumus’ assassination in 269, albeit with the ’empire’ losing much of its territory in the process (particularly Hispania) – before a certain restorer of the world, Emperor Aurelian, took all of it back at the Battle of Chalons in 274, because he was just that good.

In fairness to the Gallic Empire, they largely kept to themselves as a de facto separate state, not attempting to invade Italy or otherwise seize the central Roman administrative apparatus.

The Western Roman Empire in 400 AD by Shuaaa2 for Wikipedia “Western Roman Empire” under licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

(3) WESTERN ROMAN EMPIRE

(395 – 476 AD)

That “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, retreating to the breath of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear and naked shingles of the world”.

We’re still at the surface of the Roman Empire iceberg – in the fundamental continuity from the classical Roman Empire, after its formal division into de facto separate eastern and western empires in 395 AD (although they still saw themselves as the one empire) – with the latter pretty much falling stillborn from that division, somehow limping through the 81 years of its sorry existence until the barbarians clubbed it on the head and put it out of its misery.

We’re a long way from the Rome that made the Mediterranean their Mare Nostrum, along with making everything else part of their Pax Romana. Hell, Rome wasn’t even the capital of the western empire from 402 AD – that was Ravenna and historians should really call it the Ravennan empire rather than add insult to the injury to the western empire’s ignominious decline.

Indeed, there’s been a video meme to this effect – with Ryan Gosling’s sad sack of a beaten character from Blade Runner 2049 standing in for the western empire, in contrast to Ryan Gosling’s exuberant showboating Ken from the Barbie film standing in for the eastern empire.

Or for that matter, a meme of that heartfelt scene from Avengers: Endgame with Thor back from the future seeing his mother one last time in the past – Freya as the Roman empire in the 2nd century saying sadly to Thor as the Roman empire from the 5th century “The future has not been kind to you, has it?”

I exaggerate for rhetorical effect, but it’s not hard to see the eastern empire abandoning the western empire as a hopelessly lost cause or an act of cutthroat triage, much like the western empire then did with Britain.

And perhaps I exaggerate the plight of the western empire, but not by much. While I tend to see the western Roman empire as doomed with just too many things coming together against it – not least too many barbarians – it might have at least endured longer or better than it did, but for two of the worst emperors in Roman history, compounded by the length of their reigns somehow enduring for most of it, nearly 60 years or so between them.

I am of course talking about Emperors Honorius and Valentinian III, although they might as well have been the same emperor, given how uncannily similar they were – with each of them betraying the loyal subordinate who was the one holding things together and stabbing that man in the back, Stilicho for Honorius and Aetius for Valentinian III (literally for the stabbing in the back part), each with one of the two notorious sacks of Rome following shortly afterwards, the Visigoths for Honorius and the Vandals for Valentinian III.

On the other hand, there was also Emperor Majorian reigning from 457 to 461 AD – the empire’s last best hope for someone like Aurelian two centuries earlier to pull it out of its spiral of doom, as Majorian defeated all of Rome’s enemies he fought even in that twilight of the empire, until he too was betrayed and assassinated. After that, it was all downhill into the Dark Age, until the last western emperor was deposed in 476 AD.

Yet for all that, it still is what I see as the Roman Empire proper, even if much diminished. And as I observed in my Top 10 Empires, I just have a particular interest in empires holding the line against all odds as they decline and fall. And let’s face it – even as a shadow of its former self, I still see it as being able to take any of the others below it in the top ten, hence the ranking.

The eastern Roman empire at its greatest extent in 555 AD under Justinian the Great – map by Tataryn for Wikipedia “Byzantine Empire” under licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

(2) EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE / BYZANTINE EMPIRE

(330 / 393 – 1453 AD)

We’re still well above the surface of the Roman Empire iceberg here – in the fundamental continuity of the Roman Empire from its classical empire to its eastern empire that endured for over a millennium after the fall of its western half. Historiographical convention has snubbed it as the Byzantine Empire, so as to avoid acknowledging it as the glorious continuation of the Roman Empire – it just stayed more to the east and became more Greek after a certain point. But for familiarity with that convention and for convenience (as it’s shorter), I’ll keep using Byzantine rather than eastern Roman Empire.

There seems to be two recurring arguments among Roman history enthusiasts – whether one ranks the Roman Republic over the Roman Empire, and whether one ranks the Byzantine Empire over the Roman Empire. I’ll have a look at the former in my special mentions but there’s a solid argument to be made for ranking the Byzantine Empire over the classical Roman Empire.

Sure, the Byzantine Empire wasn’t as big as the Roman Empire. After its relatively brief glory days as half the former Roman Empire – or its briefer and even more glorious days when it took a damn good swing at reclaiming the western half under Emperor Justinian – it spent most of its time at about a quarter the Roman Empire. At best, that is – because it spent substantial amounts of time as not much more than its capital in Constantinople.

But for sheer endurance, it has to take the title from the Roman Empire, lasting for a millennium past the fall of the western half, including feats of rebounding from defeats that bordered on resurrection. More like Lazarus Empire, amirite?

And that endurance and those feats were achieved against a more formidable and seemingly eternal encirclement by enemies, from west and east, by land and sea – from which the Byzantines could rarely catch a break, except by soundly defeating one or more of those enemies, and usually not even then.

In the end however, the empire suffered one defeat too many – wounded, fatally as it turned out, from the Fourth Crusade that sacked Constantinople in 1204, although it resurrected itself even from that for two centuries. Alas, it simply lacked the scale of time or resources to see it through, particularly against a rising rival empire in its prime – the Ottoman Empire, which finally conquered Constantinople in 1453.