Posted on 07/16/2007 5:34:07 PM PDT by blam
Not enough conquests to supply slaves to work the gold and silver mines that paid the amount of troops needed to maintain the extensive borders.
The problem is, ancient history was already rewritten.
Only Gibbon’s attempt to deny the Christian with its capital at New Rome (a.k.a. Constantinople) as the organic continuation of the Roman Empire, so as to claim the ‘glories’ of pagan Rome for an anti-Christian ‘Enlightenment’, made 476 into a significant event.
The retirement of the last Western Augustus to a villa near Naples, with the decision of the Eastern Augustus, Zeno, to assume the sole Emperorship, and allow administration of the West to be given over to Odovacer as Patrician of the Romans, was not understood by any contemporary as ending Roman rule over Italy: the pattern of sometimes one, sometimes two, Emperors or Augusti (one for the East and one for the West) had been set by Diocletian’s reforms, and the capital moved to Constantinople by Constantine.
Direct Imperial rule was reestablished in the West under Justinian, and even after effective control passed back to the local Germanic ‘nobility’, there is ample documentary evidence that people still regarded the Emperor in Constantinople as, at least theoretically, the highest political authority.
Even the Imperial coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo in 800 was understood by Charlemagne as reestablishing the office of Western Augustus, at least until his position was not recognized by the actual Roman Emperor at Constantinople, at which point he began styling himself ‘Holy Roman Emperor’, and referring to the Roman Emperor, Irene (yes, she was styled Imperator and Basileus, not Empress), as ‘Emperor of the Hellenes’—and insult, since until about 1800 Hellene was understood as ‘pagan’.
The Alexiad, a biography of the Emperor Alexius I by his daughter, consistantly refers to the Empire at the time of the Crusades as the Roman Empire.
The book sounds like an inadequate attempt at fixing the rewrite that already took place.
Don’t forget Constantine, and the rise of Christianity.
no, this is a genuine piece of research.
If you have a FReeper ping list, I’d be happy to be on it.
What part of Meechegan are you from?
Very informative and very interesting.
I appreciate the time you took, and I appreciate the education.
:-)
Thank you, Ken.
I’m catching on.
(I am glad to have made this mistake because I’m learning much.)
ping
Woo hoo!! Run, FRed, Run!!
Maybe you should take another look at the book cover.
Edward Gibbon’s history of the decline and fall ends in 1453 with the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. That’s one long fall, and it puts into perspective the fact that the Roman empire never really decisively “fell” - it gradually evolved into something else. And in a sense it still exists in the form of the Roman Catholic Church, which is organized along the lines of the later imperial government.
I rely far more on the old answers because they just make far more sense.
"The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had already long ceased to be in any real sense a republic at all. When the sturdy Roman plebeian, who lived by his own labor, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who with his fellows formed in war the terrible Roman legion, had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the gratification of a thirst for vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and who directly or indirectly sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the Republic was at hand, and nothing could save it. The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted for nothing.”
Teddy Roosevelt on the Fall of the Republic
Do you see parallels when socialism-seeking liberals re-interpret the Constitution's words to avoid amending them? How long before America ceases to be a Republic and becomes the dreaded democracy?
So...Rome fell due to illegal immigration. And because the Romans lacked the will to oppose it. Sounds familiar (unfortunately). If you’re really interested in ancient Rome, then watch “I, Claudius”. While fiction, much of it is based on fact. Those Romans were one wild bunch, especially Livia, Caligula, and Messilina. Wow!!
Rome fell because Chuck Norris didn’t like their attitude. Plus he needed the Coliseum to film his fight scene with Bruce Lee in Return of the Dragon.
Nope, that isn’t it — Rome fell because Chuck Norris gave the Forum a roundhouse kick! You can still see the damage done to the Coliseum.
And in a sense it still exists in the form of the Roman Catholic Church..
The Eastern Orthodox Church is the natural and historical inheritor of Rome/Christendom...and since its subjugation by islam...only Russia can possibly claim the mantle as in Byzantism which refers to a renewed Russia to counter the increasing secularism of the West.
That’s BS. Even when I’m driving, I can do a couple of 800mi (~1500km = 33.3x) days in a row. If all goes well, one can do even better by flying.
“The Eastern Orthodox Church is the natural and historical inheritor of Rome/Christendom...and since its subjugation by islam...only Russia can possibly claim the mantle as in Byzantism which refers to a renewed Russia to counter the increasing secularism of the West.”
The protestant churches are as derivative from the church of Rome as the Russian church is from Constantinople.
Also, as a matter of fact, there are other eastern european countries that maintained the faith far better than the KGB riddled church of the Kremlin.
The bottom line is that there is a direct lineage from the Roman Empire to the Holy Roman Empire and then to the current superpowers.
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