Title kinda says it. Basically a year ago I took a class on the classical era (for the fourth time). But I was treated to a different take on Rome's fall than the usual one. The main text was Chester G. Starr's "The Ancient World," but when we got to the fall of Rome, the professor handed us a chapter pulled from a supplementary text. Problem is, I can't remember what book that chapter was pulled from (the whole book was about the theory, prof just provided one chapter). I wanted to review it, and I was hoping you gents could help me out.
From what I can remember, it went this way.
Basically, the Emperor at the time had decided to accept a bunch of Visigoths and assorted barbarians into the empire. The author asserted that this was widely ridiculed as a stupid move by his peers and by the public, but he believed it was a calculated risk. Plenty of germanics had integrated successfully into the empire, and they were more bodies for the meat grinder and taxes for the coffers. But they had to be integrated in a timely manner. However, the emperor was busy with a fucking war in the east, so until they could be processed, they were put into camps. The camps were pretty shitty, and the people were starving while the officer in charge made bank off a black market of vital goods. Two or so odd years of this go by, and eventually they get sick of it and flipped the fuck out in a germanic rage. The busted out of the camps and basically went around pillaging and looting.
The emperor eventually engaged them in a battle, but ignored his generals and was presumably KIA (never found his body or something). Eventually the germanics settled down in little fiefs within the empire, but the problem was that they didn't really integrate past that point. They didn't pay taxes and they didn't become Roman. They were like micro-nations within the empire, unintentionally eating holes in it.
So is this ringing any bells for anybody? Because as a history buff, I'd like the opportunity to review this. It made a lot of sense at the time, but it doesn't read like it because I'm still missing quite a few pieces. I just put down what I could recall. Plus, it was just nice to see a novel theory for why Rome fell, one that wasn't a restatement or re-articulation of the other ones I've read.