ians. They were not really barbarians except from the Roman point of view, but that's how the Romans described them, and the description has more or less stuck. On their eastern frontier, the Romans found themselves engaged in a long and costly series of wars with the New Persian Empire, wars which weakened the Romans a great deal and gained them very little.In the first place, they were unable to continue the investment necessary to maintain the unity of the eastern and western halves of the empire, and so divided the empire into two parts. The western section was far less developed and well-populated than the eastern portion of the old empire, so it was necessary to increase taxes there. The result of this was the disappearance of the middle class and the flight of independent farmers to the protection of their wealthy (and tax-exempt) noble neighbors. The West slowly sank while the East, freed of the expense of maintaining the West, soon began to flourish. The old state religion hadn't seemed to work very well in keeping people peaceful and loyal to the central government, so Constantine, for reasons best known to himself, chose to make a mystical eastern cult known as Christianity the state religion. It took a long time for these reforms to take hold, but, by 400, the empire was a far different place than it had been.Barbarian Invasions The Barbarian Invasions were the Germanic tribes invading the Roman Empire and coincided with the disintegration of the Roman Empire. The Roman world suffered a series of disasters, barbarians were only one. Huns, Vandals.. in general there was no resistance, because the masses knew it was useless. The west fell back again into the elementary economic life of primitive peoples. The indications are that they were few in number, but once they invaded a country, they would be joined by the oppressed.ConclusionWestern Europe was at the end of the great belt of civilizations and was cut off from the advan...
