Posted on 12/20/2005 6:04:54 AM PST by robowombat
This fall of Rome comparison is old and very tired. No one really knows why Rome fell and if you ask 10 historians you will get 10 different answers. How did Egypt fall, how did the Soviet Union fall, how did the British Empire fall?
Bump for later read.
Baghdad is said to have been founded in A.D. 762, so it didn't exist yet in the days of Caesar or Trajan. Caesar never got that far east, but Trajan's last campaign was in Mesopotamia shortly before his death.
Those ten historians may differ on the finer points but all will agree on a common element that lead to the downfall of the societies you mentioned: internal corruption and political greed.
I disagree. I don't think anyone knows for sure what caused the fall. Internal corruption and political greed could have just as easily been a sympton and not a cause. Comparing the fall of Rome to an modern nation state is pointless.
You read the entire article in under three minutes?
ping
Rome no longer exists, not even thru the Catholic Church. Reason, during the Medieval Age, the various post Roman kingdoms and empires did attempt to recreate the Roman Empire, but each time they failed. After 300 years of trying, the Europeans intellects gave up and concluded that they must create their own system which formed the basis for the Renaissance (based on faith and reason, plus rudimentary structures for modern banking and property rights).
I normally quit reading nonsense once I recognize it as such. In my case this article was burdened by false analogies, historical distortions of fact, and illogic in the first two minutes. If the premises are faulty, why listen for a conclusion?
What apparently really happened, is that a climate change had occurred that put pressure on the "horse people" of the steppe, who pushed outward against both the Persians and the Germanic tribes, who then pushed against Rome.
Dr. Fears seems ultimately to have missed out on the real problem with Rome: it fell because Roman citizens had lost their energy -- they were decadent, and had decided to hire foreign soldiers to fight their wars for them. In the words of John Adams, they had ceased to be "moral and religious." And so when push came to shove, they found themselves morally unequal to the task of defending themselves.
All of which are, to some degree, correct. There's rarely a single cause for great historical events -- if we can even properly call a centuries-long process an "event."
About all we can really say is that the Roman Empire fell apart from within at the same time it was being defeated militarily from without. Dr. Fears is correct when he points out the bloat and inefficiency within Roman institutions.
IMHO, such bloat and inefficiency occurs when a government tries to make up for the decay of individual virtue. As John Adams said about our own Constitution:
"We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."
The Roman citizenry had to a large extent lost the civic virtues -- a sense of duty to Rome -- and were instead focused on their own affairs and gain. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the latter, but if it's not balanced by a sense of responsibility to the larger group it becomes decadence. That is the real lesson of Rome, and we can see it at work here.
That's preposterous.
The actual Spartan citizens were raised like worker bees. Called 'the Upbringing', it, too, was brutal. There was no individual freedom in Sparta. Athens was better, but most of the residents were not citizens with political rights, but resident aliens, or slaves. Think for yourself what this means for present day America.
I find the article to be pretty shallow. But there is one point that applies and that is that I believe the U.S. is indeed at a crossroads as to the question of whether we will remain a constitutional republic or morph into something else. Our constitution has been stretched and trimmed very much in the past 100 years and the process is accelerating. Governance by crisis is very much at the heart of this and I see no end to it. Some of the crises are real and some are manufactured (Clinton was especially good at that though he is certainly not unique). Our freedoms are slowly but surely curtailed and restricted for the "greater good". One of these days(if it hasn't already happened) we will turn a corner and find that the written constitution is largely irrelevant to how the nation is actually governed having been "interpreted" into something it was never meant to be. The outward forms will probably endure but the intent will be long gone.
Great points. Love your tagline.
That's preposterous.
Casloy is absolutely spot on. History does NOT repeat. For example, Rome never abolished Slavery, we did. Rome did not have virtually instantaneous communications, we do. Rome did not know much about any of the societies beyond the Med and Europe. We do. To compare the two societies is hysterically stupid. There are "no lessons of history" ok? That is just babble from those who want to use history to rationalize their stupid political opinions.
Thanks, I like it, too.
Absurd nonsense. This is the conventional thinking of certain hard right politicians who try to manufacture "historical proof" to rationalize their current political opinions. Rome did NOT fall from an excess of Government. IF anything, Rome broke down because it had no ability to communicate efficiently over the distance it controlled. It concentrated power in the hands of an Emperor who could not manage the number of task necessary to govern such a large area and the break down of the rule of law. When any thug with an army could decide to try and make his self Emperor, the legitimacy of institutions was destroyed. Rome did NOT fall from an excess of Government. That is just historically incorrect.
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