I am listening to ANCIENT ROMANS by Thomas R Martin. Struck at how closely the fall of western civilization follows the fall of Rome.

Chickensoup | Chickensoup

[Chickensoup]

I am listening to ANCIENT ROMANS by Thomas R Martin. Struck at how closely the fall of western civilization follows the fall of Rome. It is available through Blackstone audio using their Downpour app.

How MIGRANTS took over civilization and the outcome is the end of this fascinating book about the rise of Mediterranean civilizations. Not to be missed.

https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Rome-Justinian-Thomas-Martin/dp/0300198310

[Chickensoup]

I am listening to ANCIENT ROMANS by Thomas R Martin. Struck at how closely the fall of western civilization follows the fall of Rome. It is available through Blackstone audio using their Downpour app.

How MIGRANTS took over civilization and the outcome is the end of this fascinating book about the rise of Mediterranean civilizations. Not to be missed.

https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Rome-Justinian-Thomas-Martin/dp/0300198310

[Phoenix8]

I have a book, a biography, on the great Cicero of Rome. He lived right in the time parallel to what seems like we are beginning. That is the fall of its Republic. I noticed some interesting parallels as well.

I should re-read it.

[pepsionice]

You can add a increasing taxation situation, inflation, and heavy reliance upon slave-labor to accomplish public projects. Some historians will even say by the early 300s...the empire was sinking.

[Chickensoup]

Yes. Martin talks pretty plainly about what migration did to Rome.

[jerod]

Did the often phrased ‘Fall of Rome’ ever truly happen?

Rome is obviously still there and it can be said that Rome didn’t really ‘fall’... Instead, it merely transformed from a pagan empire that converted to Christianity into a Christian empire that perverted Christianity. The Holy See is still a monarchy and empire that exist to this day. The supposed end of the Roman Empire was followed by the ‘Dark Ages’, but even in the dark ages Christ was worshiped and flourished through the empire of the Holy See, which was and still is located in Rome.

It can be said that empires do not really fall, but rather that they transform into something else that isn’t recognized as being civilized.

[jimfree]

It’s a natural progression. Has little to do with how advanced a society is except relatively within its era.

[Nifster]

And for similar reasons

[buwaya]

“The Fall of Rome: And the end of civilization” Ward-Perkins

This is a look into the changes in the material culture of the Roman Empire through examinations of the archaeological record - the usual potsherds and middens, but also the remains of villages, etc. The upshot is that the “Fall of Rome”, in the west anyway, was a human catastrophe unprecedented in historical times.

Its obvious that in the course of the fifth century the population collapsed to a small fraction of what it was in the fourth century. And the fall in the standard of living likewise resulted in a material condition well beneath even the pre-Roman era. Scary book.

[MCF]

All great civilizations collapse. We often point to Rome but there have been many others since. Britain had a greater Empire then Rome but now look at it. It’s history was like Rome’s in fast forward. The ruins of mighty civilizations litter the planet, as ours will someday too.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Add continual debasement of their coinage by reducing precious metal content.

[NetAddicted]

Rd later.

[The Truth Will Make You Free]

Rome “moved” to Constantinople, now Istanbul, until taken over by muslims through treachery.

[Claud]

it merely transformed from a pagan empire that converted to Christianity into a Christian empire that perverted Christianity.

And this you read in what primary source, exactly?

Show me a historical source from A.D. 300-700 that documents this "perverted Christianity."

[Claud]

This is a fascinating period to study with relevance to our present day:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century

[Flavious_Maximus]

Once you have a specific class of parasite voting themselves the treasury, it’s all over. Now the takers far outnumber the producers.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

John Adams

[Chad C. Mulligan]

Did the often phrased ‘Fall of Rome’ ever truly happen?

Well, yes, but not as popular history has it. The Western Empire crumbled, and the management of Rome itself was taken over by "barbarians", (who spoke Latin and were pretty good administrators). The economy actually improved a little, due to lower taxes and less corruption, until Islam exploded out of Arabia. That trashed the economy of the entire Mediterranean, leading quickly into what Enlightenment historians dubbed The Dark Ages. Dark to them because so little was written down for them to study, owing to the loss of Egyptian papyrus.

Read Henri Pirenne's "Mohammad and Charlemagne" and also Emmett Scott's "Mohammad and Charlemagne Revisited" which adds the findings of modern archaeology to Pirenne's original thesis. Both still in print.

[Chad C. Mulligan]

Should add that what came out of the death of Roman administration of the western Mediterranean and Gaul was a big improvement in that the new society did NOT depend on slave labor. It was the widespread use of slaves by rich Senators that induced the death of the Roman Republic just before the birth of Christ.

BTW Gibbon, whose gigantic "Fall of the Roman Empire" influences some historians even today, was a rabid anti-Christian bigot. Keep that in mind.

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[pepsionice]

Wasn’t some form of counterfeiting going as well?

[Right_Wing_Madman]

Did the often phrased ‘Fall of Rome’ ever truly happen?

476 AD is normally considered the "fall of Rome," when the German barbarian king Odoacer deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire in Italy.

However, a better date for the fall of Rome might be the Gothic Wars in 535-554 when the great city was finally destroyed.