Posted on 08/27/2006 4:30:46 PM PDT by tobyprissy
Well the causes of Rome's fall is one of the great puzzles of history -- it's always fun to kick it around for while, but I am not about to argue with Gibbon about it at this time (he was wrong, of course.)
I was always less interested in Rome's fall, than I was in Rome's origins, myself. Were they, indeed as depicted by Virgil, descendants of refugees from the fall of Ilium (Troy), to the Achaeans, or not? Many people long thought Homer (if Homer was a single individual and not a composite of several) to have been completely in error of the existence of Ilium/Troy, until Schliemann, following clues in Homer's verses, actually found the city's ruins. Could Virgil have had a definite knowledge now lost to us?
the infowarrior
I tend to think that Rome started as a Latin city, located in the right place to gain the most from the Etruscan culture, while retaining the greater military seriousness of the Latins. And they were lucky!
Watching the History Channel a couple days ago, they discussed the Ottoman Empire, and their "system" of succession. Enthusiasts boast of ten successive strong rulers. Well, you might - if you are willing to go with their system.The Calif had a harem, of course - but he serviced a given member of it only until she had a son (half of the harem, logically, would have had only one child; half of the rest, only two). It was considered unfair to any given son to have any full brothers, since all the Calif's sons were mortal enemies. When the Calif died, there was a power struggle among all his sons - and the victor of that struggle made sure that he was the only one who survived it.
The Spartans culled their own herd via infanticide, but the victorious Ottoman sultans culled their fathers' progeny from dozens of sons down to one. Pretty much assuring that the top dog was a ruthless SOB.
The similarity of the Ottoman Empire to the Roman and the Carthagenian is in the fact that their armies were a major profit center. A system which was unstable, and which was either expanding its borders and seizing booty or else was in trouble internally. Basically a cancerous system.
"The day will come when even this ordeal will be a sweet thing to remember.”
The exact citation is the Aeneid, Book I, line 203.
"it may be that in the future you will be helped by remembering the past" (forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit).
Ok, thanks. I guess it all depends on whether 'iuvo' is taken to mean 'please' or 'help'. (I assume the original had 'Carthaginiam', rather than 'Arabiam' -- ;>).
They also had such wonders as chattel slavery, mass murder as a form of public entertainment, and the 'representative government' you speak of was more akin to the Politburo under Stalin.
All your "wonders" and my "things" made them far and away closer to what we consider modern civilization than anything else at the time. By the time of the Punic Wars, even the Greeks had mostly regressed under the Macedonian dynasties.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.