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This chapter analyses why the Roman empire — from the 3rd century onwards, decayed and contracted — as well as why the east Roman empire of Constantinople survived until the 15th century. It discusses the foundations of the ideology of the Roman empire, valid until the end of the pre-Reformation period (as reflected in authors like Eusébios (Eusebius) of Kaisáreia, Augustine, or Paulus Orosius), and examines the circumstances and meaning of the repeated revival of a western Roman empire (800, 962, 1312). The final section is dedicated to the theory of empire of three important political thinkers of the ‘age of the scholastics’: Engelbert of Admont, Dante Alighieri, and Pierre Dubois. The chapter emphasizes that supralocal political structures in pre-Reformation Latin always remained weak and were based on voluntary adhesion, the perception of a common identity, rather than on forcible submission.

This chapter reviews the traditional understandings of the Roman Empire and reflects on how recent developments in the study of imperialism more generally could influence the future of Roman studies. It explores problems with the orthodox paradigm of Romanization and highlights the need for alternative interpretative frameworks. It presents a case for applying the concept of creolization to the Roman Empire, despite its connotations primarily with the New World and slave society. Creole language and creole material culture are built up by the integration of the language and traditions of the underclass with elements of language and culture of the dominant colonial society, resulting in a “highly ambiguous material culture, in the sense that it is imbued with different meanings in different contexts.” In principle, these approaches adopted in North American historical archaeology to understand the material culture and social behavior of the slaves and underprivileged classes can also be applied to the archaeological record of the Roman world.

This chapter discusses the definitions and characteristics of the economic processes and trends in the Roman Empire, and outlines the methods by which quantification of data in written and archaeological sources can lead to a better understanding of economic integration, growth, and decline in the period c.100 BC to AD 350. These are then further analyzed in the context of a number of economic institutions and practices, including economic policy, monetization, trade, markets, commerce, investment, industrial production, technology, specialization of the labour force, and education. It suggests how we can identify a series of indicators of trends, which may be different in different regions, that can yield an idea of how the Roman economy compares with earlier and later periods of the classical world and with other cultures and empires.

This chapter focuses on four main chronological periods: the era prior to the arrival of the Huns, when the Goths were settled beyond the Danube; a first major phase of Gothic intrusion into the Balkans from 376 to the definitive departure of Alaric's Goths for Italy (407–408); the Hunnic era down to the late 460s; and, finally, from the arrival of the Amal-led Goths in Macedonia (473) until the departure of Theoderic the Amal for Italy (488–489). In each of these periods, the rhythm of relations between the Goths and the institutions of the Roman Empire as well as the population of the Balkans varied substantially, although some common themes and threads of development emerge. In each of them, it is also important to make a conceptual distinction between the Romanness generated by and for the central Roman state, and the Romanness of the provincial Roman populations of the Balkans.

Starting from a famous address by Francis Haverfield, this chapter reflects on the relationship between Romano-British archaeology and the politics of the British empire, challenging any simple equation between the Roman empire and the modern. It also considers the nineteenth-century history of Hadrian's Wall, and its restoration.

This chapter draws together the implications of the previous chapters in order to investigate the size of the Roman economy at its maximum extent. If one takes Roman Italy as being comparable to the Netherlands in 1600, then the Roman Empire as a whole is comparable to Europe as a whole. The putative advantages of the early modern Netherlands over Roman Italy are less clear than their advantages over the Roman Empire as a whole. Roman Italy was heavily urbanized, and it is probable that the proportion of the labor force in agriculture there was less than 50 percent. Rome did not have a bond market, but it had a more sophisticated financial system than the Netherlands. The comparability is enhanced by noting that neither the Netherlands nor Rome had an industrial revolution.

This chapter argues that when America completed its continental conquest and embarked on overseas conquests analogies between the ancient Roman and modern American empires—often themselves mediated by British imperial discourses about antiquity—were utilized to articulate and celebrate American empire. Fully aware of Great Britain's claims to being the new Rome, Americans asserted that the United States, not Great Britain, was the modern successor of the ancient Roman Empire. The American ex‐colonies themselves began to stake a claim to the inheritance of classical antiquity, both by employing the same compelling strategies and techniques of cultural ownership that had been so extensively employed by the British, and by forging new independent analogies and connections with Roman civilization and empire. Across the nation, negative references to the decadence, immorality, and imperial overreach of ancient Rome, previously common in America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and a defining feature of late Victorian discourses, were now overshadowed by a celebratory linking of the ancient Roman and modern American empires. Visual representations and recreations of Roman imperial prosperity and luxury stimulated consumerism and consumption in the cornucopia of the new American empire.

Engaging with Fergus Millar’s observation that ‘Italy under the Empire has no history’, the introduction outlines the aims of the book, which is envisaged as a contribution to the history of imperial Italy. It focuses on the paradox that the ‘golden age’ of the Roman Empire has often been thought a time of decline or even crisis for the Italian peninsula. It also emphasizes the multiplicity of local situations emerging from the documentary and archaeological evidence, and outlines the themes of the following chapters.

In recent years, there has been a revival of interest in Late Antiquity and especially in observing — and trying to account for — the changes and evolutions which separate the Roman world from the early medieval successor states in the West, and the Byzantine Empire in the East. Most historians, once mistrustful of archaeology's potential role, now accept that this relatively new discipline can contribute substantially to the study of the ancient past. However, archaeology, like history, is constrained by its own limitations: excavation can provide no answers to questions not rooted in the data it extracts from the ground. This chapter, and the chapters which follow, cover a wide spectrum of issues, going beyond the problem of continuity or collapse on the lower Danube. Modern research programmes operating within the region and further afield, both in the northern Balkans and in Asia Minor, are analyzed. Cities and urbanism in the Roman Empire are discussed.

In Late Antiquity, the Balkans were transformed from a relatively prosperous region to one of great insecurity, with emperors increasingly inclined to ignore problems as long as they did not threaten the security of Constantinople itself; the Roman troops in the Balkans might appear inadequate in both quality and quantity for dealing with the challenges from beyond the Danube, particularly those posed by the great federations of Huns and Avars. Huns and Avars both shattered the Roman Empire's defences, but the process took time. Overall, the performance of the Roman army in the defence of the Balkans might seem mixed for such a significant area, although periods of considerable success should be recognized. Logistics as well as strategic and tactical thinking were powerful advantages for the Romans, and were exploited right through until the early seventh century.

Scholars have generally agreed that all Roman money consisted of coins. This chapter argues that this consensus view is badly mistaken. Specifically, it is argued that that bullion was very seldom used for making payments during high classical times, except in emergencies and across the borders of the Roman Empire.

This chapter explores aspects of identity in the Roman provinces, with an emphasis on examples from Britain and North Africa. The first section reviews current approaches to identity and related problems (including a reprise of some of the difficulties with the Romanization paradigm). The second section explains the notions of “discrepant experience” of empire and the existence of “discrepant identities” within provincial communities. The third and fourth sections illustrate this theme with reference to two provincial areas: Britannia and Tripolitana. In exploring issues like religion and the epigraphic habit, the chapter attempts to identify distinct communities that utilized culture in very different ways one from the other.

The last generation has seen an ‘explosion’ in the study of late antiquity. Whether people call it ‘the later Roman empire’ or ‘late antiquity’, the term now in much more common use in English. Handbooks are rapidly appearing to help their teachers meet this demand and they too express the current understanding of what is to be included. This chapter argues that a particular model for the study of this period has come to have a strong influence on students and scholars alike, and it asks how and why this is so, and what implications there are for the future study of the subject. Andrea Giardina has called this a particularly Anglo-centric phenomenon.