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Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
The Roman republic was aggressively expansionist from the very beginning. I can provide specific examples if you like.
Now, I will agree that ultimately it was the sheer size of the empire which caused its fall.
The basic story goes something like this.
1. In a pre-telecommunication era, it was just too easy for rebel generals on the frontier to revolt against emperors in Rome (or vice versa)
2. Hence the emperors were chronically insecure in their position.
3. Hence they had to pay huge sums to the army and the Roman mob to remain in power.
4. Hence they needed huge revenues.
5. Hence they imposed crushing taxes, debased the currency, imposed price controls, destroyed the money economy, and implemented feudalism.
6. Hence the tax base shrank such that it was no longer adequate to pay the army.
7. Hence the army became weak, unable either to maintain order within the empire or defend the frontiers.
8. Hence the barbarians just walked right in and deposed Romulus Augustulus without much ado, even to much applause.
Classical Roman, Greek, Near Eastern, Germanic, Celtic, and Slavic religions were quite compatible, all being polytheistic, and in many cases historically related. It was only with the arrival of Christianity that religion became an issue of serious political concern (excepting earlier issues with the Jews). There was certainly no balkanation resulting from religious diversity prior to Christianity, and what there was after Christianity came much later in the game, and was mostly a problem for the Byzantines after the Western Empire had already fallen. How about race? it was never much of a concern to anyone. Emperors came from all over the empire: Italians, Spaniards, Africans, Greeks. I'm aware of no example of a civil war or other civil disorder based on race. How about language? Language barriers can always generate friction, but, in the Western Empire, everybody had pretty much adopted Latin (if in a vulgar form) before the empire started experiencing serious problems. In general, the sorts of identity politics we "enjoy" today were basically alien to classical civilization. These sorts of things cannot explain the decline and fall.There were many other ways that bringing in/absorbing far too many foreigners contributed to their decline and fall as well.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
Regarding the aforementioned expansionist tendencies of the Republic, from the beginning, this map is illustrative:
I pointed out the Whiskey Rebellion and Shay's Rebellion as the point when the inception of our Republic became still born. You retorted that at the time the Republic could be saved even still. Here we are some 240 yrs. later and you are blaming this failed experiment on foreigners. Washington didn't lead troops against foreigners over a domestic whisky tax. Gov. James Bowdoin didn't lead state militia against foreigners because of mercantile land grabs. Both did it against U.S. citizens. None of the downfall of the New Rome had to do with foreigners.
The best thing for Europe and the cause of liberty was the Fall of Rome. Rome was a giant militaristic behemoth feed on war, theft, and slavery. Its shattering allowed the German tribes to bring ideals of society that were much more egalitarian in nature which, combined with the worth and worthiness of the individual found in Christianity, formed the basis for the European birth of what would be the ideals of liberty as we now understand them.
Also, anyone thinking Byzantium had some kind of strong leadership needs to peruse a list of all the revolts that took during the life of the Empire. There was no cohesion to it, just simple brute force that enacted a bloody, oppressive rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...and_civil_wars
"Strong leadership" is just another code phrase for fascism, ancient Rome of course being where the idea of fascism even comes from. Anyone yearning for the "glory of Rome" is yearning for their own enslavement. Indeed, the American empire now is more like Rome than we have ever been at any time, and we see how that is slowly causing the ideas of individual liberty and freedom be destroyed.
@PierzStyx
The late empire was certainly as you described, and it was a good thing it fell.
Earlier? I think Gibbon's description is still apt:
The earlier empire was a vast free trade zone, within which war had essentially been abolished, governed by a rather libertarian law code.If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
Slavery was fundamental to the Roman empire in a way few other civilizations ever matched, and in any case it was a fundamental crime that condemns the "greatness" of Rome, they can't be used as an example to any enlightened society.
The abolition movement began in the south and would have ended slavery peacefully, Yankees ended it violently, the British ended it in their empire, Rome never did and never even felt the call to do so.
Only the countless men, women and children they killed in their conquests.
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
Slavery was not the primary source of Roman prosperity (indeed, slavery retarded economic development in Rome, as it does everywhere).
...which then saved the lives of countless more people who would otherwise had died in wars between the states the Romans absorbed.Only the countless men, women and children they killed in their conquests.
The pax romana was quite real.
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