210 reasons for the fall of Rome

The Spectator (UK) ^ | 07/12/03, 07/19/03 | Peter Jones

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old&section=current&issue=%202003-07-12&id=3275&searchText=

 

ANCIENT AND MODERN

Peter Jones
 

 

Greeks and Romans loved lists, from Tables of Persons Eminent in Every Branch of Learning together with a List of Their Writings to Words Suspected of Not Having Been Used by the Ancients. In the same spirit, this column will over the next two weeks publish, from Professor Alexander Demandt’s Der Falls Rom (1984), a list of the 210 reasons for the fall of the Roman empire. As modern empires rise and fall in these troubled times, the lessons of history — or should that be historians? — may help us find our bearings:

‘Abolition of gods, abolition of rights, absence of character, absolutism, agrarian question, agrarian slavery, anarchy, anti-Germanism, apathy, aristocracy, asceticism, attacks by Germans, attacks by Huns, attacks by nomads on horseback. Backwardness in science, bankruptcy, barbarisation, bastardisation, blockage of land by large landholders, blood poisoning, bolshevisation, bread and circuses, bureaucracy, Byzantinism. Capitalism, change of capitals, caste system, celibacy, centralisation, childlessness, Christianity, citizenship (granting of), civil war, climatic deterioration, communism, complacency, concatenation of misfortunes, conservatism, corruption, cosmopolitanism, crisis of legitimacy, culinary excess, cultural neurosis. Decentralisation, decline of Nordic character, decline of the cities, decline of the Italic population, deforestation, degeneration, degeneration of intellect, demoralisation, depletion of mineral resources, despotism, destruction of environment, destruction of peasantry, destruction of political process, destruction of Roman influence, devastation, differences in wealth, disarmament, disillusion with state, division of empire, division of labour.

Earthquakes, egoism, egoism of the state, emancipation of slaves, enervation, epidemics, equal rights (granting of), eradication of the best, escapism, ethnic dissolution, excessive aging of population, excessive civilisation, excessive culture, excessive foreign infiltration, excessive freedom, excessive urbanisation, expansion, exploitation. Fear of life, female emancipation, feudalisation, fiscalism, gladiatorial system, gluttony, gout, hedonism, Hellenisation, heresy, homosexuality, hothouse culture, hubris, hyperthermia. Immoderate greatness, imperialism, impotence, impoverishment, imprudent policy toward buffer states, inadequate educational system, indifference, individualism, indoctrination, inertia, inflation, intellectualism, integration (weakness of), irrationality, Jewish influence.’ (To be continued next week.)

 

 

http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old&section=current&issue=%202003-07-12&id=3296&searchText=

 

ANCIENT AND MODERN

Peter Jones


Last week this column began publishing Alexander Demandt’s list of the 210 reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire (from Der Falls Rom, 1984). The list is now completed, and a conclusion drawn:

‘Lack of leadership, lack of male dignity, lack of military recruits, lack of orderly imperial succession, lack of qualified workers, lack of rainfall, lack of religiousness, lack of seriousness, large landed properties, lead-poisoning, lethargy, levelling (cultural), levelling (social), loss of army discipline, loss of authority, loss of energy, loss of instincts, loss of population, luxury. Malaria, marriages of convenience, mercenary system, mercury damage, militarism, monetary economy, monetary greed, money (shortage of), moral decline, moral idealism, moral materialism, mystery religions, nationalism of Rome’s subjects, negative selection. Orientalisation, outflow of gold, over-refinement, pacifism, paralysis of will, paralysation, parasitism, particularism, pauperism, plagues, pleasure- seeking, plutocracy, polytheism, population pressure, precociousness, professional army, proletarisation, prosperity, prostitution, psychoses, public baths.

Racial degeneration, racial discrimination, racial suicide, rationalism, refusal of military service, religious struggles and schisms, rentier mentality, resignation, restriction to profession, restriction to the land, rhetoric, rise of uneducated masses, romantic attitudes to peace, ruin of middle class, rule of the world. Semi-education, sensuality, servility, sexuality, shamelessness, shifting of trade routes, slavery, Slavic attacks, socialism (of the state), social tensions, soil erosion, soil exhaustion, spiritual barbarism, stagnation, stoicism, stress, structural weakness, superstition. Taxation, pressure of terrorism, tiredness of life, totalitarianism, treason, tristesse, two-front war, underdevelopment, useless diet, usurpation of all powers by the state, vaingloriousness, villa economy, vulgarisation.’

One might conclude that this magnificently self-contradictory list makes a mockery of history as a rational, let alone objective, study; and indeed it would do, were history merely the collection of data. But it is not. As the Greeks first asserted, its purpose is to try to understand and explain the past as a sequence that makes intelligible human sense, without recourse to supernatural explanations. The list is a striking testimony to our curiosity, ingenuity and determination to know. If some of the historians have got it wrong, they too are only human, and even their mistakes tell us something about humankind.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Very interesting list, with a lot of things worth debating. (Note: Blue emphasis added by me)

[Support Free Republic]

Aww man! Enough of the fundraiser posts!!!

Only YOU can make fundraiser posts go away. Please contribute!

[rellimpank]

--how many years did it take?

[headsonpikes]

I think I'll have to go with 'concatenation of misfortunes'.

Although 'tristesse' is an intriguing alternative.

[stainlessbanner]

Does Der Falls Rom go into more detail about each of these?

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Does Der Falls Rom go into more detail about each of these?

Unfortunately, I don't know any more about the work than was mentioned in the article.

[RightWhale]

All that and they missed the main reason. They closed the frontier.

[Billthedrill]

They missed global warming. On the upside, you never once heard Caligula say "I did not have sex with that [fill in the blank]"...

[stayout]

They missed global warming

Here in California Gov. Davis' version of the list includes "President Bush."

[Billthedrill]

OK, I know it's a cheap shot, but honestly, when you read about corpulent, intoxicated, orgy-loving Roman aristocrats in the fading ages of the latter-day Empire, groping their way to the vomitorium so they could come back and gorge themselves some more...I defy you not to think of Teddy Kennedy...

[freekitty]

"--how many years did it take?"

I think it took Rome 500 years to fall.

[SteamShovel]

I think it took Rome 500 years to fall.

But I wouldn't take "comfort" in the fact that we are only 227 years into it. Things happen so fast these days, I think we are in danger soon (next 50 years or sooner, maybe much sooner than we would all like). All we need is another "slick wille" to be in charge, let the terrorists in Guantanamo go, let Afghanistan and Iraq sink into become seething terror training camps after we abandon them, and life as we know it now could end. With the socialist stuff going on in the undercurrent all the time, Democrats blocking conservative judges until they can get back into power, things could be quick. We may not live to see the end, but we will certainly see the culture slip and our freedoms erode greatly.

< rant >Look at the red-light cameras beginning to go up all the time. I think we are heading to 24-7 surveillance. Those turnpike "auto toll" devices bug me too. How long before we begin to see local income taxes being levied by municipalities that know you traveled through their territory while being paid to drive? The same goes for airports like O'Hare. If you had a lay-over and were "on the clock" at work, doing your taxes could get more complicated and painfull. With the rampant sexual and homo-sexual adgendas in the public schools, most of the norms that hold a society together are being quickly eroded. Al-Quaeda could hit us hard, bio-warfare or nukes could do great damage, but we could just as easily be taking ourselves down without their help too.< /rant >

[Plutarch]

I thought it was due to climatic disruption caused by Earth coming too close to comet debris.

[Jeff Gordon]

polytheism

Since the Roman Empire had been firmly under Christian leadership for over 100 years before the Fall, one should argue that Christianity was a prime cause of the Fall. Had Rome remained polytheistic, it might have survived longer.

[apackof2]

Had Rome remained polytheistic, it might have survived longer

Oh pleeeeeeeeeeeeease

[LibertarianInExile]

Dead on. If it weren't for those people who insisted on belief in a single god, instead of reasonably believing in a Pantheon, if it weren't for their 'belief' in the face of EVIDENCE of divine intervention, like the rise of the Empire under the worship of Jupiter, Rome would never have fallen.

Jupiter and Ares and Juno and Vulcan were almost certainly setting things aright. It's just too bad no one really believes the true faith anymore, that they all worship this silly heretic who got nailed to a tree or some fat Indian or a bunch of false Indian gods. The whole world's going down the toilet as a result. Rome simply needs to go back to fundamentals and she'll rise up again.

[SunkenCiv]

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