The Sacking of Rome

Maybe we can avoid flatlining if we are having occasional ejaculations. I'm just sayin'.

 

If you really studied Rome as I did, you would realize that most of the time they had been badass, and I mean really badass: the principles of their Mos Maiorum are something that inspires me. And don' t think about patricians that had money and stuff: think about the common plebeian, he had to live everyday in a desolating misery, without power, struggling to stay alive in a society that didn' t really care about them, but still they were happy to be alive celebrating the seasons and their traditions, with a freedom of religion and life in general comparable only to these times; Romans may not have been the greatest, but they have laid the basis of our best things (and some bad things too, in the last period of the Res Publica there were bad politicians as well as now)
Read a book called "Rome" of Alberto Angela, it is very explicative about Romans, in the good and bad side of them.

 

Hi

I study Ancient History, and my focus (alongside Ancient Greek Religion) is Late Antiquity, which is the period under discussion here. Many academics now believe that Rome did not "collapse" but rather a combination of a number of factors led to a slow economic decline in the western half of the empire. The eastern half of the empire continued on quite well for itself for many, many years (becoming what we call the Byzantines). Even then the "barbarian" tribes mostly moved down south toward Italy due to the Huns, and many of them quickly became "romanised". Even though there was a gradual economic decline we hesitate now to suggest a cultural decline too. Decadence is something the victorians liked to blame for the "collapse" of their invented neo-classical view of Rome. The Romans were no more or less immoral than the people that surronded them, they were just more organised.

The Byzantine empire is amazing, so if you get a chance look into it.

 

Is economic slowdown considered to be a symptom of the decline or cause of it? What factors are considered to be the cause? Are morals not part of it?

 

The question of economic decline as cause or symptom is a hotly debated one. Personally I think the biggest problem was political breakdown, mostly caused by migration of large people groups and also divisions within Christianity. I just have little belief that the Romans of the LA period were more immoral than the emperors of the early principate. However what can be said is that it was a more violent period within the empire due to internal struggles. But the rise of Christianity also led to the creation of large scale charity and even the building of the first hospitals ect. So it's swings and roundabouts really.

All in all everyone now talks about the 'transformation' rather than 'decline' of the Roman Empire. However you could say that our society is definetly more decadent than previous generations, and I think that the rise of internet Pornography is a symptom of a larger problem, that we will see the effects of in coming years.

 

It is more corrupt, and more spiritually dead, than any that has come before it. However, this is not to say it is all bad at all. Consumerism is somethng I hope humanity looks back on the same way we look back at 90's fashion, in bewilderment and regret.

 

I think we all agree that there were various forces going on but that morality, including family and sexual aspects of it, were part of the reason why Western Roman Empire collapsed and there was a few centuries of cultural decline.

By the way: I have been listening to audio recordings of Will Durant's Story of Civilization. It's fascinating. I like in particular his masterful depiction of society in all of its aspects.

 

Yes, I agree.

I have not heard of Will Durant, or The Story of Civilization. It sounds good though. Is he discussing the origin of civilization then?

 

He seems to be in the first volume (I have not read/listened to that one):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Durant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Philosophy

I think he is truly brilliant, it's not just good content but also such a pleasure to read/listen to.

 

Thanks for the links. I will give it a listen sometime soon. You never know, could be a bit of late night revision.

 

This was such a weird "that escalated quickly" thread lol. I like that Hardcore History Link, and The Story of Civilization. Thanks!

 

Has anyone referred to J.D. Unwin's classic work yet? I glanced back a page or two but I'm not sure if it was brought up? It's called Sex and Culture, a pdf copy is available here: https://archive.org/details/b20442580

A little background on Mr. Unwin from wikipedia if anyone cares, I felt it was relevant to the topic at hand:

In Sex and Culture (1934), Unwin studied 80 primitive tribes and 6 known civilizations through 5,000 years of history and found a positive correlation between the cultural achievement of a people and the sexual restraint they observe.[1] "Sex and Culture is a work of the highest importance," Aldous Huxley wrote;

Unwin's conclusions, which are based upon an enormous wealth of carefully sifted evidence, may be summed up as follows. All human societies are in one or another of four cultural conditions: zoistic, manistic, deistic, rationalistic. Of these societies the zoistic displays the least amount of mental and social energy, the rationalistic the most. Investigation shows that the societies exhibiting the least amount of energy are those where pre-nuptial continence is not imposed and where the opportunities for sexual indulgence after marriage are greatest. The cultural condition of a society rises in exact proportion as it imposes pre-nuptial and post-nuptial restraints upon sexual opportunity.[2]

According to Unwin, after a nation becomes prosperous it becomes increasingly liberal with regard to sexual morality and as a result loses it cohesion, its impetus and its purpose. The process, says the author, is irreversible:

The whole of human history does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it has been absolutely monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs.[3]

 

Wasn't Rome the one with like plenty of fukked up emperors lmao. There were guys like Nero, Tiberius, Commodus, Caligula etc. Pretty sure thats what led to the downfall lmao

 

Try the Mongolian empire