People often remark on the decline of civilizations with something to the effect of "an empire is never truly destroyed from without, but rather decays from within." I tend to agree with this sentiment. The process of such self-destruction is not always obvious to contemporaries, however. A policy of decay often unfolds in shades of subtlety, where threads of indolence, abandonment, and contraction intertwine. The actors doggedly play out their parts in this grand pratfall, seemingly ignorant to the larger geopolitical context which envelops them. As one historian aptly notes, with regard to Rome:
What is genuinely striking about the process of the 'Fall of the Roman Empire', to which it is necessary rapidly to add 'in the West', as its eastern half was to survive for another 1000 years, is the haphazard, almost accidental nature of the process. From 410 onwards successive western imperial regimes just gave away or lost control of more and more of the territory of the former Empire. At the same time, it must be appreciated, no emperor or Master of the Soldiers would have thought they were actually abandoning or putting outside the Empire the various provinces that they thus surrendered. In terms of constitutional theory practical authority in areas of administration and defence were being delegated to imperial appointees in the persons of the Germanic kings. These remained in theory subordinate to the higher authority of the emperors, even though the latter ceased to obtain material benefit from or to exercise direct control over the provinces. In this way the western Empire delegated itself out of existence.
~ Colins, Roger. Early Medieval Europe, 300-1000. Palgrave Macmillan: London. 2010.
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