quote of the day
“The most important dividing line between “ancient” and “medieval” – the profoundest marker of the “fall of Rome” was not a matter of language or culture, of the shift from togas to tunics or from stuffed swan to roast meat. The most important dividing line was the loss of the power and capacity to tax.” ~ David Frum, reviewing Chris Wickham’s The Inheritance of Rome
The entire review is excellent, as are all of Frum’s book reviews – but especially his reviews of books that detail Roman history and politics.
It’s problematic that Frum doesn’t cite ANY sort of scholarship for his claims, beyond asserting, every so often, that Wickham made a certain claim. Given the explosion of recent scholarship on the fall of the Western Roman Empire, this makes his review hard to assess qualitatively. There’s no doubt that the picture of the fall of the western empire has changed dramatically over the last 30 years, but without knowing on what Frum bases his claims, it’s very hard to say that the book review possesses much in the way of real quality.Report
Incidentally, one might point out that, if any detail shows the shallowness of Frum’s knowledge of Roman culture, it is his ludicrous idea of a shift from togas to tunics. First, we know that the toga had become regarded as a burdensome and archaic form of dress as early as the time Augustus (hardly contemporary with the fall of the Western empire), second, no serious scholar imagines that the toga was “replaced” by the tunic. The two garments served different purposes, and co-existed perfectly well throughout the history of the western empire. If there is a fundamental sartorial shift, it is the “Germanization” of clothing – i.e. the wide-spread use of trousers and tunic in combination.Report