The main thrust of Arnold Toynbee’s work in his book “A Study of History” is the theory of Challenge and Response. That a civilization progress or fall as an answer to the challenge inflicted on it by the following factors: a hard environment; a new environment; one or more ‘‘blows,’’ such as a military defeat; pressures, such as a frontier society subjected to frequent attack; and penalizations, such as slavery or other measures in which one class or race is oppressed by another.
As an example, I will make use of the Holy Roman Empire to prove the claim of Arnold Toynbee. In ancient Rome, there stood a wall now known as The ‘Roman Limes.’ It represents the border line of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent in the 2nd century AD. It stretched over 5,000 km from the Atlantic coast of northern Britain, through Europe to the Black Sea, and from there to the Red Sea and across North Africa to the Atlantic coast.
The Latin noun limes had a number of different meanings: a path or balk delimiting fields, a boundary line or marker, any road or path, any channel, such as a stream channel, or any distinction or difference. The word limes was utilized by Latin writers to denote a marked or fortified frontier. This latter sense has been adapted and extended by modern historians concerned with the frontiers of the Roman Empire. The Latin word limes originally was an expression used by land surveyors and indicated the boundary between two fields, for example the path between two meadows. Several ancient authors, however, use the expression to describe the outer frontiers of the Roman Empire. Modern scholars use the word in an even wider sense to describe several aspects of the imperial system of defense, which includes tactical and strategic aspects, the diplomatic and military means, fortifications, economic means, religion, and so on.
Roman writers and subsequent authors who depended on them presented the limes as some sort of sacred border beyond which human beings did not transgress, and if they did, it was evidence that they had passed the bounds of reason and civilization. To cross the border was the mark of a savage. They wrote of the Alemanni disrespecting it as though they had passed the final limitation of character and had committed themselves to perdition. They tried to make use of the wall as a symbol of holiness, of some sort of understanding of what a Roman soldier or citizen should be like.
But the truth is that the wall was built in order to protect the empire from invasions. More so of invasions from a small yet powerful tribe. (Chatti" eventually became "Hesse" through a series of sound shifts.) The barbarians of the northern bordern sometimes known as barbaricum are a threat to the empire. This is where a tribe known as the Chatti used to invade the borders of the empire. While Julius Caesar was well informed about the regions and tribes on the eastern banks of the Rhine, he never mentions the Chatti. But the Chatti were disciplined warriors famed for their infantry, who (unusually for Germanic tribes) used trenching tools and carried provisions when at war. Instead of invading the barbaricum, the Roman Empire created the limes.
In Brittania the Empire built two walls one behind the other (known as the Walls of Hadrian), for Mauretania there was a single wall with forts on both sides of it. In other places, such as Syria and Arabia Petraea, there wasn't a continuous wall; instead there was a net of border settlements and forts occupied by the Roman army. In Dacia, the limes between the Black Sea and the Danube were a mix of the latter and the wall defenses: the Limes Moesiae.
The remains of the Limes today consist of vestiges of built walls, ditches, forts, fortresses, watchtowers and civilian settlements. Certain elements of the line have been excavated, some reconstructed and a few destroyed. The two sections of the Limes in Germany cover a length of 550 km from the north-west of the country to the Danube in the south-east. The 118-km-long Hadrian’s Wall (UK) was built on the orders of the Emperor Hadrian c. AD 122 at the northernmost limits of the Roman province of Britannia. It is a striking example of the organization of a military zone and illustrates the defensive techniques and geopolitical strategies of ancient Rome According to Arnold Toynbee’s challenge and response theory, when a civilization responds to a challenge, it will grow but when it fails to respond to it, the civilization will undergo a period of decline or may even fall. In the case of Rome, the walls are built not just as a defensive strategy but for some other reasons.
According to Arnold Toynbee, when a civilization responds to a challenge, it will grow but when it fails to respond to it, the civilization will undergo a period of decline or may even fall. In the case of the Roman Empire, it did not fall but rather made its empire stronger by preventing the attacks of the invaders from all its frontiers. The civilization went on because it responded to the challenge and that is the blows or invasion from other tribes. Toynbee is correct saying that a civilization is constantly being bombarded by challenges and it has to make a way to continue or if not, it will collapse.
As an example, I will make use of the Holy Roman Empire to prove the claim of Arnold Toynbee. In ancient Rome, there stood a wall now known as The ‘Roman Limes.’ It represents the border line of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent in the 2nd century AD. It stretched over 5,000 km from the Atlantic coast of northern Britain, through Europe to the Black Sea, and from there to the Red Sea and across North Africa to the Atlantic coast.
The Latin noun limes had a number of different meanings: a path or balk delimiting fields, a boundary line or marker, any road or path, any channel, such as a stream channel, or any distinction or difference. The word limes was utilized by Latin writers to denote a marked or fortified frontier. This latter sense has been adapted and extended by modern historians concerned with the frontiers of the Roman Empire. The Latin word limes originally was an expression used by land surveyors and indicated the boundary between two fields, for example the path between two meadows. Several ancient authors, however, use the expression to describe the outer frontiers of the Roman Empire. Modern scholars use the word in an even wider sense to describe several aspects of the imperial system of defense, which includes tactical and strategic aspects, the diplomatic and military means, fortifications, economic means, religion, and so on.
Roman writers and subsequent authors who depended on them presented the limes as some sort of sacred border beyond which human beings did not transgress, and if they did, it was evidence that they had passed the bounds of reason and civilization. To cross the border was the mark of a savage. They wrote of the Alemanni disrespecting it as though they had passed the final limitation of character and had committed themselves to perdition. They tried to make use of the wall as a symbol of holiness, of some sort of understanding of what a Roman soldier or citizen should be like.
But the truth is that the wall was built in order to protect the empire from invasions. More so of invasions from a small yet powerful tribe. (Chatti" eventually became "Hesse" through a series of sound shifts.) The barbarians of the northern bordern sometimes known as barbaricum are a threat to the empire. This is where a tribe known as the Chatti used to invade the borders of the empire. While Julius Caesar was well informed about the regions and tribes on the eastern banks of the Rhine, he never mentions the Chatti. But the Chatti were disciplined warriors famed for their infantry, who (unusually for Germanic tribes) used trenching tools and carried provisions when at war. Instead of invading the barbaricum, the Roman Empire created the limes.
In Brittania the Empire built two walls one behind the other (known as the Walls of Hadrian), for Mauretania there was a single wall with forts on both sides of it. In other places, such as Syria and Arabia Petraea, there wasn't a continuous wall; instead there was a net of border settlements and forts occupied by the Roman army. In Dacia, the limes between the Black Sea and the Danube were a mix of the latter and the wall defenses: the Limes Moesiae.
The remains of the Limes today consist of vestiges of built walls, ditches, forts, fortresses, watchtowers and civilian settlements. Certain elements of the line have been excavated, some reconstructed and a few destroyed. The two sections of the Limes in Germany cover a length of 550 km from the north-west of the country to the Danube in the south-east. The 118-km-long Hadrian’s Wall (UK) was built on the orders of the Emperor Hadrian c. AD 122 at the northernmost limits of the Roman province of Britannia. It is a striking example of the organization of a military zone and illustrates the defensive techniques and geopolitical strategies of ancient Rome According to Arnold Toynbee’s challenge and response theory, when a civilization responds to a challenge, it will grow but when it fails to respond to it, the civilization will undergo a period of decline or may even fall. In the case of Rome, the walls are built not just as a defensive strategy but for some other reasons.
According to Arnold Toynbee, when a civilization responds to a challenge, it will grow but when it fails to respond to it, the civilization will undergo a period of decline or may even fall. In the case of the Roman Empire, it did not fall but rather made its empire stronger by preventing the attacks of the invaders from all its frontiers. The civilization went on because it responded to the challenge and that is the blows or invasion from other tribes. Toynbee is correct saying that a civilization is constantly being bombarded by challenges and it has to make a way to continue or if not, it will collapse.
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Sources:
Limes. http://www.wikipedia.org/limes/html. Retrieved 14 September 2008
Toynbee, A. J. (1935-1948). A study of history (Vol. 1). London: Oxford University.
Staloff, Darren (2000) “The search for a meaningful past,philosophies,theories, and interpretation of human history”. New York: The Teaching Company
Limes. http://www.wikipedia.org/limes/html. Retrieved 14 September 2008
Toynbee, A. J. (1935-1948). A study of history (Vol. 1). London: Oxford University.
Staloff, Darren (2000) “The search for a meaningful past,philosophies,theories, and interpretation of human history”. New York: The Teaching Company
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