The Decline of Classical Citizenship and the Rise of Ethnic Solidarity in the West

Abstract

Abstract This chapter has as its subject the breakdown of imperial cohesion, and the creation of new collective identities in the West. Inasmuch as it is concerned with division and increased diversity, it corresponds to Chapter 8 dealing with the growth of disorder in the East. The Eastern chapter was to a considerable extent concerned with urban disturbances, not least riots involving the factions. Urban disorder was not a major problem in the West in later Late Antiquity, since most cities had ceased to have large urban populations. In the West the scene was from the early fifth century dominated by the disintegration of the Empire and the establishment of barbarian kingdoms in its provinces. This was in the first place a military and political development, but the military and political events occurred against a background of changing attitudes to the Roman Empire, and to the duties and loyalties associated with being a Roman citizen. Something like this change of mentality happened in the East too, even though in this book it is only discussed with Western examples.