The Mediterranean and the Dilemma of the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity

Abstract

The present article is a preliminary study for a revision of the role that the Mediterranean played in the transition of western Europe from antiquity to the Middle Ages. It re‐examines the significance of the Mediterranean in maintaining the political and economic cohesion of the Roman empire up to the fifth century CE, and reviews the role of the Vandal realm in Northern Africa in disrupting its unity. On the other hand it presents a brief survey of the peculiar character of the relationships that evolved between the eastern Roman empire (Byzantium) and the Sassanian Persian empire. It is suggested that it was mainly in consequence of the growing interdependence between these two great powers of late antiquity that the eastern and western parts of the Roman empire drifted apart. The Vandals stepped into a vacuum in the western Mediterranean. Justinian's attempted reconquest of the west was foredoomed to failure, since it entailed the termination of the symbiotic relations that had developed with Persia in the Fertile Crescent in the fifth century. For the Byzantine empire this meant war in the east as well as in the west. This war weakened both Byzantium and Sassanian Persia, and facilitated the triumph of Islam at the beginning of the seventh century CE.

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