Decline or collapse, or whatever word one uses -- is not subjective, as this article seems to imply. There are loads of metrics -- levels of urbanisation, existence of monetary system and taxes, levels of literacy, state funded infrastructure projects, literary projects, libraries and institutions of education. All of these pretty much disappeared in western europe between 400 and 700AD or were reduced to tiny isolated examples. Same dynamic with Hittites or Harappan city states. You can call it something else than a collapse but it's not a "subjective value judgement".
Those are metrics for how we might identify something as a collapse, the author seems to be saying something else namely that there wasnt a collapse in the mind of the people back then, instead some power structure slowly erroded until a new one took over. Its fuzzy no concrete no matter how we define it, the life lived and the recorded history are two very different things.
It seems likely that somewhere, sometime, someone sat around thinking, "My great uncle was proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul, but my grandchildren can't read and are subsistence farmers."
"To Agitius, thrice consul: [...] The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians; between these two means of death, we are either killed or drowned."
ok, to really flesh it out for you then -- this is a desperate letter by the representatives of roman citizens in britain to Aetius, consul, to send help or do something since barbarians, crop failures, raids etc.
it certainly gives the impression of people witnessing and being subject to the collapse of the civic society.
if you want more than an anecdote read the whole account of roman collapse in britain by gildas, a contemporary. its pretty desperate in tone and attitude.
It's it is not, however, a desperate letter talking about the collapse of a civilization. You would be able to find similar letters begging for Romes intervention during Romes reign.
It's not proof of anything even close to awareness of the collapse of civilization.
>> you would be able to find similar letters begging for Romes intervention during Romes reign.
which ones specifically then?
and more importantly, its not just this letter, as i mentioned above the whole gildas’ de excidio goes explaining in quite detail the sudden and devastating effect of the collapse of roman authority in britain.
do you have any evidence to back up your insistence that majority of the population went on like business as usual?
Your examples don't portray someone aware of the collapse of a civilization it portrays someone aware of the lack of roman authority. That is in no shape or form the same.
And no I don't have any examples handy that I can point to right now, but I am sure there are plenty if you dig a little.
