106 Chapter 6
low, and they had no incentive to improve efficiency to
encourage growth. Without growth, the number of rich
could not increase, and it was only they who, in the
Roman system, could provide a market for luxuries and
craft goods.
Arguably, had the Roman economy been able to
expand, the empire might have been able to meet its
military obligations. Instead, the imperial government
was forced to extract more and more resources from an
economy that may already have been shrinking. Taxes
and forced requisitions to support the army consumed
capital, reduced the expenditures of the rich, and drove
ordinary people to destitution. Basic industries such as
the trade in earthenware vanished, and food shortages
became common as harvests were diverted to feed the
troops. Trade languished.
Economic decline, though general, did not affect
all regions of the empire equally. Those provinces clos-
est to the front suffered the most because they were
subject to requisitions of food, draft animals, and equip-
ment and because governors could extract forced loans
from citizens who found themselves in harm’s way.
Both east and west suffered, but the strain was greater
in the west because the Germans exerted a steady, unre-
lenting pressure while the cyclical nature of the strug-
gle with Persia allowed time for the eastern provinces
to recover between wars. Africa and Egypt, far from the
battlefields, were troubled only by the same ruinous
taxes that afflicted everyone.
The crisis fed upon itself in an unending spiral of
decline. The imperial government became more brutal
and authoritarian in its efforts to extract resources from
an ever-narrowing economic base, and with each exac-
tion, poverty increased. The social consequences were
appalling. A steady decline in population is evident
from the mid-second century onward, which inhibited
recruitment for the army and reduced the tax base even
further (see table 6.1). Growing poverty and political
helplessness blurred social distinctions and encouraged
resistance that, in turn, forced the government to adopt
even sterner measures.
Much of this new authoritarianism was the legacy
of Septimius Severus, emperor from 193 to 211. Having
commanded legions on the Danube, he believed that
the full human and economic resources of the state had
to be mobilized to meet the German threat. He intro-
duced laws that imposed forced labor on the poor and
trapped the decurions (officials who served as an urban
elite) in an inescapable web of obligations. The army,
meanwhile, was showered with favors. Severus doubled
the soldier’s pay—the first increase in more than two
hundred years—and allowed officers to wear the gold
ring that signified membership in the equestrian order.
Such measures improved morale, but they were not
enough. Hard terms of service and the declining popu-
lation of the interior provinces continued to make re-
cruitment difficult. To compensate, Severus opened
even the highest ranks to men from the border
provinces and, for the first time since the days of Mar-
ius, allowed soldiers to marry.
These reforms, though rational and probably nec-
essary, widened the gap between soldiers and civilians.
The post-Severan army, composed largely of men with
only the slightest exposure to Roman culture, was privi-
leged as well as self-perpetuating. Children raised in the
camps usually followed their father’s profession. When
they did not, they remained part of a garrison commu-
nity whose political and economic interests were in
conflict with those of the society it protected.
Because the soldiers, now half-barbarian them-
selves, continued to make emperors, the implications ofThese estimates (in millions) of the population of the Ro-
man Empire are necessarily imprecise, but they show dra-
matic population declines in every region of the empire
after about A.D. 200. The Balkan figures include Illyria,
Pannonia, Dacia, Macedonia, and Thrace. The dramatic
decline around 400 marks the loss of Dacia. Note that,
even at its peak, the population of the empire remained
small relative to the size of the army it was forced to
maintain.
Region A.D. 1 200 400 600
Africa 3.75 4.0 3.5 2.75
Asia Minor 6.0 7.0 6.0 5.0
Balkans 2.8 3.25 1.75 1.25
Britain a 1.75 aa
Egypt 4.75 4.75 4.0 3.25
Gaul 5.75 7.5 5.75 4.75
Greece 2.0 2.0 1.5 .8
Italy 7.0 7.0 5.0 3.5
Spain 4.5 5.0 4.5 3.5
Syria and Palestine 2.25 2.25 1.75 1.5
Total 38.8 44.5 33.75 26.3
Source: Figures derived from C. McEvedy and R. Jones, Atlas of World
Population History(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978).
aBritain was not part of the empire.TABLE 6.1The Population of the Roman Empire,
A.D. 1–600