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When Rome Fell, the Chief Culprits Were Climate and Disease. Sound Familiar?
Undark ^ | March 16, 2018 | Madeline Ostrander

Posted on 03/19/2018 5:36:17 AM PDT by C19fan

‘ARE WE ROME?” asked the author Cullen Murphy a decade ago, in a provocatively titled book that compared the 21st-century United States with the final days of the Roman Empire. Lately there’s been no shortage of Cassandras who emphatically answer yes.

“The speed with which we’re recapitulating the decline and fall of Rome is impressive,” opined the conservative commentator Bill Kristol, in a tweet this past July, taking issue with President Trump’s treatment of the press. “What took Rome centuries we’re achieving in months.” And the Cornell historian Barry Strauss bemoaned the parallels between alleged American failings and those of ancients in an online column for Fox News in October 2016: “Just think about what Rome had and what we have. Morals out of a bacchanalia? Check. Abuse of public office for private purposes? Check … Oh the times, oh the customs! Where is Cicero when we need him?”

(Excerpt) Read more at undark.org ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: barrystrauss; billkristol; godsgravesglyphs; romanempire; rome
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When people talk about parallels between Rome and the US they usually mean the fall of the Republic not so much as the fall of the Western Empire. I read about disease and history. The Roman Empire started to be ravaged by epidemics when regular trade opened up with China, Central Asia, and India via the Indian Ocean or the Silk Road. Roman women luved silks but plague went along for the ride too.
1 posted on 03/19/2018 5:36:18 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: C19fan

Those noxious chariots really messed up the atmosphere. All that Roman smog!


2 posted on 03/19/2018 5:39:15 AM PDT by miss marmelstein
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To: C19fan
So climate caused,or helped cause,the fall of Rome? Yah,OK...I can see all those SUVs circling the Colosseum and all those 747s flying overhead.

I saw a documentary not long ago that said that there's irrefutable evidence that Central Park in Manhattan was once enveloped by a glacier almost a mile thick.And yet for centuries there hasn't even been a hint of a glacier there.

3 posted on 03/19/2018 5:42:01 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (You Say "White Privilege"...I Say "Protestant Work Ethic")
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To: C19fan
I thought it was Poor Leadership ,LOL , the First Demonut Party
4 posted on 03/19/2018 5:42:12 AM PDT by butlerweave
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To: miss marmelstein

See Post #3


5 posted on 03/19/2018 5:42:27 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (You Say "White Privilege"...I Say "Protestant Work Ethic")
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To: C19fan

Socialism defeated rome.


6 posted on 03/19/2018 5:43:10 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: C19fan

I would disagree.

I think the Roman Empire disintegrated as a cohesive unit because of uncontrolled migrations of people who would not assimilate. The laws, the culture, the political administration could not handle the influx of outsiders who held on to their barbarian ways.

Sound familiar?


7 posted on 03/19/2018 5:46:17 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (The government cannot protect you and isn't even trying. Self-defense is a right.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

Hostile illegal immigrants and sexual perversions. History repeats.


8 posted on 03/19/2018 5:50:22 AM PDT by LYDIAONTARIO
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To: C19fan

“The speed with which we’re recapitulating the decline and fall of Rome is impressive,” opined the conservative commentator Bill Kristol,

One of the major contributors to the fall of Rome was migration, you putz.

So build a Wall.

Romans SHOULD have done that.


9 posted on 03/19/2018 5:56:10 AM PDT by JPJones (More tariffs, less income tax.)
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To: C19fan

What is NOT mentioned is:

There WAS a Roman Warming Period, there were NO SUV’s and it was WARMER than the Current Warming Period.

And when it ended, Rome did indeed fall.

Warming is good.


10 posted on 03/19/2018 5:59:03 AM PDT by JPJones (More tariffs, less income tax.)
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To: ClearCase_guy
I think the Roman Empire disintegrated as a cohesive unit because of uncontrolled migrations of people who would not assimilate. The laws, the culture, the political administration could not handle the influx of outsiders who held on to their barbarian ways.

This.

11 posted on 03/19/2018 5:59:33 AM PDT by IYAS9YAS (There are two kinds of people: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.)
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To: ClearCase_guy
I would disagree.

I think the Roman Empire disintegrated as a cohesive unit because of uncontrolled migrations of people who would not assimilate. The laws, the culture, the political administration could not handle the influx of outsiders who held on to their barbarian ways.

Sound familiar

BINGO, WE HAVE A WINNER.

12 posted on 03/19/2018 5:59:53 AM PDT by machman
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To: ClearCase_guy

A fellow historian!

Yeah, I would agree that it was the Gothic and Hunnic migrations that really did in the Roman empire.


13 posted on 03/19/2018 6:01:16 AM PDT by Ueriah
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To: C19fan

Bull Shiiet! Rome fell because Romans didn’t want to fight anymore so some of their Legions were 80% and more non Romans who were there for the money. When ruthless barbarians came after them they collapsed.


14 posted on 03/19/2018 6:01:40 AM PDT by jmaroneps37 (Conservatism us truth. Liberalism is lies.)
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To: LYDIAONTARIO

Right! Moral decay and she didn’t defend her borders that’s what killed Rome and the did not have half of thier ruling class trying to get as many barbarians as possible to flood the country.


15 posted on 03/19/2018 6:05:02 AM PDT by gibsonguy
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To: LYDIAONTARIO

Right! Moral decay and she didn’t defend her borders that’s what killed Rome and the did not have half of thier ruling class trying to get as many barbarians as possible to flood the country.


16 posted on 03/19/2018 6:05:58 AM PDT by gibsonguy
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To: ClearCase_guy

Reading Gibbon, I think he said (to explain the immense disproportion of slaves to others), the gold, silver and other precious materials which were available, was NOT enough for valuation of commodities in the empire.

Slaves became currency... does THAT sound familiar?


17 posted on 03/19/2018 6:07:47 AM PDT by SMARTY ("Nearly all men can stand adversity...to test a man's character, give him power." A. Lincoln)
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To: JPJones

Indeed, Rome thrived thanks to the well documented Roman climate WARMING period and fell because of immigration and because of its corrupt politicians and stupid “elite” the like of Bill Kristol.


18 posted on 03/19/2018 6:09:10 AM PDT by miniTAX (au)
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To: C19fan
Explanations of "Why Rome fell" are as numerous as explanations of the cause of the American Civil War. Serious historians understand the principle of multiple causation, ie, events of this magnitude are determined by a confluence of factors.

It is true, the rise and fall of Rome parallels climate fluctuations. This has nothing to do with us today because we are undergoing no such fluctuations. It might, if the predicted cooling begins to occur.

19 posted on 03/19/2018 6:13:57 AM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: C19fan

It was illegal immigration that caused the fall of the Western Empire.


20 posted on 03/19/2018 6:14:53 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here of Citizen Parents__Know Islam, No Peace-No Islam, Know Peace)
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