The Imperial Life Cycle, Part 2

Last week, I wrote about the life cycle of an empire as described by Robin Pierson of History of Byzantium and Patricia Crone. The fact that both the Islamic Caliphate and the Roman Empire went through very similar cycles is an interesting historical quirk. It is a quirk that we can leverage for worldbuilding. By taking this outline for our worldbuilding, we can quickly write a history for an empire's rise and fall that sounds convincing and has more depth than a surface-level, unchanging, static imperial regime.

Last week, we went through what I'd call the empire's "rise"--its birth and reformation into something solid and lasting. This week, we'll cover what I'll call the empire's "fall", as it discards many of the pretenses of its original traditions, until its ultimate collapse.

Subscribers to the blog can also read me putting this into practice in my own world, which makes up the second half of the article.

Historical Cycle

Phase 4: Civilized Outsiders

Host of the podcast Robin Pierson notes that "the armies of the conquest [and the initial civil wars] needed replenishing," and so outsiders from the newly conquered regions are integrated into the military hierarchy. When the next crisis of stability comes--after Mu'awiya's death, or after Nero and the extinction of the Julio-Claudians--it is these new military leaders who dominate. They're still a part of the dominant group, but they're no longer from the original imperial core.

In the Caliphate, the Umayyads of Mu'awiya maintain the top position in the empire, but Syrians and Iraqi Arabs, rather than Arabian Arabs, begin to occupy core titles, including even Caliph as Syrian branches of the Umayyads take over the top position. In the Roman Empire, this phase is represented by leaders like Trajan, a Spanish Roman whose military success would elevate him to the imperial title.

In short, power shifts. The new ruling group is still of the dominant group (Romans, Arabs), but they are provincial and usually military in their origins, rather than being from the original imperial core.

Phase 5: Authoritarian Overthrow and Cultural Shifts

Another crisis will spark a rejection of those traditional pretenses, as the provincial leaders that arose in the previous phase now cement their power and fully replace the original leadership.

In the Caliphate, this is the overthrow of the Umayyad regime by the Abbasid Regime, in a revolution started in Persia. In Rome, this is represented with the Crisis of the Third Century, where provincial leaders mostly from Illyria (the Balkans) successively came to be rulers of the Empire.

This phase is marked by a major shift in the locus of power. Both al-Mansur and Constantine established new capital cities (Baghdad and Constantinople, respectively), moving the physical center of power away from the previously dominant group's heartland. They also do away with those pretenses of respect for tradition. The "Dominate" came to replace the "Principate" in Rome, as the Emperors became more removed and inaccessible. Authoritarian rule is celebrated as putting an end to crisis and instability, without the baggage of a republican or tribal origin to give lip service to.

The change in leadership will also leave a cultural mark on the empire, as the provincial culture asserts itself. The Abbasids will, over the generations, start having a form of Persian be the court language rather than Arabic. The Roman Empire after Constantine was increasingly Greek so that, by the time of the fall of Rome, much of the empire located around the new capital was thoroughly Hellenized, culturally and linguistically.

Phase 6: An Invitation to Invade

Who now makes up the army for this stabilized, autocratic empire? The provincials are now the leaders and so are too prestigious to be on the front lines. So you turn to the people at your gates, your former enemies, and offer them land and title if they defend you instead of raiding you. The Romans made deals with various German groups, and the Abbasids did the same with the Turks.

These groups will amass more and more power in the regions where they are settled, until all of a sudden, they have so much regional autonomy that it is easy for them to break away. The empire is carved up into smaller kingdoms by the former soldiers of the empire--the Western Roman Empire becomes Francia, Visigothic Spain, independent Britain; the Caliphate is divided into Ottoman, Mughal, Safavid, and Mamluk kingdoms.