Day of Empire_ How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--And Why They Fall - Amy Chua [37]
Worse still, a plague of intensifying ethnic conflict swept over Rome beginning in the late fourth century AD. By this time, hundreds of thousands of principally Germanic “barbarians” had immigrated into Roman territory. These Germans—many of whom were refugees fleeing the Huns—included the Goths, Vandals, Bur-gundians, and Lombards from the northeast and the Franks, Alamanni, Saxons, and Frisians from the northwest.
These Germanic immigrants occupied a highly precarious position within the Roman Empire. On the one hand, they represented potentially fearsome enemies—invaders who had pushed their way across the Danube through the empire's collapsing frontier defenses. On the other hand, they represented potential allies, offering desperately needed manpower for the badly depleted Roman military.
At first, Rome's traditional strategy of tolerance and uncoerced assimilation appeared to be succeeding with the various Germanic tribes. They were allowed to live under their own rulers, following their own customs and laws. Their men filled the ranks of Rome's armies. The sons of their chiefs were classically educated and allowed to rise, in some cases to the highest positions of military command. They were given ample land and converted in large numbers to Christianity. Far from planning to sack and pillage Rome (as they would eventually do), the Germanic chiefs initially embraced the idea of contributing to and being part of the great Roman Empire. The Visigoth leader Ataulf spoke of “restoring the fame of Rome in all its integrity, and of increasing it by means of the Gothic strength.”35
But the assimilation of the Germanic immigrants was never complete and always turbulent. From early on, the Germans were subjected to periodic Roman abuse and contempt. Their sons were sometimes taken as hostages to ensure obedience. Their wives and daughters were taken as slaves. At the same time, the usually starving Germans—although given land, they were ignorant of agriculture—often pillaged and attacked their more prosperous Roman neighbors. Revolts broke out as some Germanic tribes sought more autonomy. Distrust and hostility intensified on both sides.
Essentially, the famous Roman tradition of tolerance had hit a limit it could not cross. The Germans disgusted the native Roman people, who complained of the Germans’ “nauseous smell” and the repulsive rancid butter they smeared in their yellow hair. Even highly literate Romans who argued for coexistence with the “noble savages” described “the Alamanni as drunkards, the Saxons, Franks, and Heruli as wantonly brutal, and the Alans as rapacious lechers.”
In the late fourth century, Rome for the first time adopted policies of apartheid against one of its subject peoples, barring intermarriage, forbidding Romans from wearing trousers and other barbarian clothing (as opposed to togas or tunics), and condemning the barbarians’ form of Christianity as heretical. Officers of German heritage were accused of disloyalty, denied posts, and persecuted. Mob lynchings of Goth soldiers grew common. In the worst cases, there were pogroms and massacres, fueling the fire that would eventually lead to the sacking of Rome.
A famous victim of this strife was the mixed-blooded Stilicho, son of a “barbarian” father—actually a Roman cavalry officer of Vandal descent—and a Roman mother. Stilicho was a towering example of the ability of men of non-Roman stock to rise through the imperial ranks. By 400, he was one of the most powerful men in the empire: a general in the Roman army and father-in-law