the germanic deal with rome

Italy's nearest land neighbors - the Germanic tribes - had always been troublesome, but once the seat of the empire's power moved to Constantinople the Persian Empire became a bigger threat and the Empire came to rely more and more on Germanic soldiers to fight its wars until the Germans, inevitably, had so much military power that they usurped the emperorship in the west for themselves and with successive migrations of Germanic tribes into Italy - and elsewhere in Europe - the ethnic mix of Rome changed to reflect the new Germanic arrivals.

By 390, Emperor Theodosius -- a Visigoth (Germanic) Spaniard who had converted to Christianity and was heavily influenced by the Bishop of Rome, Ambrose -- attempted a new policy of SOCIAL UNIFORMITY by imposing upon everyone the observance of Christian traditions that led to the persecution of the traditional Pagans (as well as other religions).

By 410, Rome itself was "sacked" (according to the Christians) or "delivered" (according to the Pagans) by King Alaric of the Germanic Goths. The Germanic tribes - the Angles and Saxons - had by then also taken over Roman Britain, almost obliterating the native Britons in the same way that the Greeks and Phoenicians (Syrians) had obliterated the native Latini in Italy.

By 491, with the death of the Roman Emperor Zeno in the East, there was no longer an Roman emperor in the west and the Pagan Germanic tribes had total control of western Europe.

The Germanic tribes were not Christians and their own religion -- although Pagan -- differed from that of the Romans. They did not worship Roman gods. What set them aside from the Romans was their ethnicity. The Germanic tribes were predominantly white skinned, blond-haired and blue-eyed like the Vikings -- from which they probably descended -- and the Romans were predominantly olive skinned, black-haired and brown-eyed like the Syrians and Greeks, from which they definitely descended.

At this point in time, western Europe might also have unshackled itself from other foreign eastern influences such as the Abrahamic religions of Judaism and Christianity, but the complete economic and social breakdown of the old western Roman Empire caused more and more Romans -- most of whom were by now Christian converts, and of Greek and Syrian ethnicity -- to turn to religion for salvation and successive bishops of Rome harnessed these fears so successfully that the Germanic conquerors were forced into making a deal.

In return for agreeing to the conversion of all Pagan lands in the west to Christianity, the Bishops of Rome would pacify the natives and give temporal control of them to the Germanic conquerors. The deal also included mutually beneficial ways in which the spiritual and temporal rulers would enrich each other.

There is no concrete evidence of this deal, but the rise of fabulously wealthy Germanic kingdoms ruled by divine right and Papal blessing -- and the emergence of the Holy Roman Empire -- shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire in the west attests to the fact that something very fishy happened in Rome.

How else could the proudly Pagan Germanic tribal leaders have agreed to the mass conversion of their people -- first by mild means such as incorporating Pagan traditions into Christian practices, but later by brutal means -- if there was not incredible wealth to be made from it? And how else could the Greek-Syrian Church of Rome -- sacked, impoverished and left in ruins -- have agreed to barbarian kings ruling the land if there was not incredible wealth to be made from it, too?

The more people tithing to the Church, the richer the Pope became. And, the more people scared out of their wits by the fear of Abraham's God, the easier they were to control and tax and the richer the Germanic kings became.

It was a clever deal, mutually beneficial to both the Pope in Rome and the Germanic leaders, and it persisted until recent times.