5 ms·

There is a strange tendency in modern scholarship to try to say, "actually the fall of Rome wasn't that bad". Which I guess is true from the perspective of seve

There is a strange tendency in modern scholarship to try to say, "actually the fall of Rome wasn't that bad". Which I guess is true from the perspective of several hundreds of years later after new, more successful societies have begun to form, but the fall of the Roman empire really was quite bad. Trade networks collapsed, entire industries disappeared, and animals and people shrunk in size because there wasn't as much to eat. The article does make an interesting point though that the decay was from the top. And I think this is largely true. Societies don't usually collapse because they get overrun, they get overrun because they're already weak.

gumby 6y ago
> There is a strange tendency in modern scholarship to try to say, "actually the fall of Rome wasn't that bad". Not sure why that is particularly strange. In the age of overt empire, Gibbon wrote an explicitly cautionary tale, like the momento mori that accompanied a triumph. But we aren't in that same age. From a broader perspective, the nature of "structural" Rome, especially once Octavian (Augustus) took control, lead to sclerosis as the control and wealth and power overwhelmed other activities of state and society. For example the literature of the republic and early empire is greater than that of later periods not because people became dumber but because society, even if richer over all, could not afford it. Arguably the empire continued, not just in the east but through what remains of Charlemagne's realm (more diffuse yet of greater scope): hundreds of millions of people speak a form of Latin (we call it Spanish or French or other names); many legal systems contain roman influences (though sometimes vestigial, with a legislative chamber called a "Senate"), and many cultural norms trace back to or through Roman times. == You can see this today, writ small (I'll ignore the politics of the larger scope). The older megacorps (think US Chamber of Commerce members) are focused more on extraction (of rents or of re-mining the same seams) rather than customer benefit. The "newer" (only a few decades old) tech upstarts themselves have largely entered late middle age and are heading to the same fate. Google, once an admirable innovator, is regularly pilloried on this site for having lost its way; some companies required a near death experience (Apple) or spell of privation (Microsoft, IBM) which may help (MS) or may not (IBM). Even in the old guard, GE is haeding downward, and though they've been around for a while and have in the past been a force for good, will anyone mourn? I've long believed there's a Hayflick limit for both companies and social systems. And as it is for humans, it's a good thing.
- ksdale 6y ago
  I think your comment and the parent are addressing slightly different points. Your assertion about the destruction and rebirth of companies/societies as good and necessary can be true at the same time as the assertion that that process is an absolute nightmare for the people involved. I think I agree with you about the Hayflick limit idea, but I also think it's useful to point out, as the parent does, that a sclerotic, moribund empire is probably a better place to live for the majority of people in it than not an empire, assuming there is trade and general stability.
  - gumby 6y ago
    > ... a sclerotic, moribund empire is probably a better place to live for the majority of people in it than not an empire, assuming there is trade and general stability. Is it? It took a plague to launch a revolution in agriculture in Europe, leading to an increase in calories production, an expansion of human life span, and opening up an expansion in trade (which reflects an increased amount of consumption of goods beyond simple survival). The preceding periods of semi-stasis were ones of no expansion in human quality of life and punctured by the opposite when you happened to be in the wrong place during a struggle between elites. In our concrete world: had Apple not been able to blow up the oligopoly where the phone carriers controlled what phones were available and what they could do, would we have the current explosion of software, tools, etc? In the US in particular the sclerotic phone oligopolies kept the mobile phone market at least a decade behind Europe and Japan.
    - ksdale 6y ago
      Are you asking whether the 50% of people in Europe who died from the plague, and the survivors would have preferred to not have the plague? This is exactly the issue I'm talking about. It's very plausible that the world got much better after the plague, and that the plague was an important catalyst. But it also seems obviously true that absolutely no one alive at the time would choose the plague in order to cause that improvement.
trgn 6y ago
Yes, flippantly, because each new generation of historians needs to find a new hook to hang their career on. They add nuance, but it's unclear if it will stick. The same happens for example with the rehabilitation of the Vikings, which were savages who built a culture, by any account, on pillage, rape and murder, supported by the archaeological record (the many burnt settlements) and the historical one (the many first hand accounts of the despair and fear they sowed). The stability of the roman empire was a marvel. After incessant war within the borders during the republic, violence moved to the borders of the empire. To be Roman, and citizenry became quite broadly spread, during those few centuries, was to be free and safe. Fiction can often capture this truth better than any scholarship. In "Augustus", a portrait of the first roman Emperor, the author John Williams conjures a scene where Augustus, near the end of his life, contemplates his successes and failures on the deck of his cruise-ship. An Egyptian freighter pulls alongside, and the crew sings him a song, thanking him for the stability he brought, the captain recalling the pirates that used to terrorize the Mediterranean. Now, they could voyage safely. That change, in just a generation, exemplified the stability of the roman empire. While adding color to this history is great, it often tends to cheapen this enormous achievement.
- Joker_vD 6y ago
  I've seen around the internet an illustration from a history textbook that had vikings loading their drakkar, and a burning village in the background, with a mocking caption added: "Vikings rescuing the women and valuables from the burning buildings after all the men in the village have suddenly and mysteriously died". Hey, it could've happened like this, right?
- Talanes 6y ago
  Viking was a profession, not a culture group, so forgive me if I take the rest of your historical expertise with a giant grain of salt.
  - graeme 6y ago
    In English the word commonly refers to the norse people of the time as a whole. “ In modern English and other vernaculars, the term also commonly includes the inhabitants of Norse home communities during this period.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings
hacknat 6y ago
What's interesting is it's not even close to being a new observation. Taking the blame for the fall of Rome off of the shoulders of "the Barbarians" is as old as Gibbon[1]. Elites got to define history (especially before the printing press). Of course they blamed "the Barbarians", but what's really true is that Roman society started eating itself. The claim that the fall of Rome was a "good" thing, on the other hand, is simplistic beyond belief. [1]https://smile.amazon.com/Decline-Empire-Volumes-Everymans-Library/dp/0307700763 https://smile.amazon.com/Decline-Empire-Volumes-Everymans-Li...
pasabagi 6y ago
>there wasn't as much to eat. Do you have any citations? I was always told that the average level of nutrition often increased once the Romans were no longer in charge - since less tax was being levied. I think the idea that the Roman Empire was bad for its citizens varies in persuasiveness depending on the era. The Roman Empire was very unstable and extremely prone to brutal civil wars, and when it wasn't in a state of active conflict, the maxim of Severus "Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, scorn all others" was pretty much the norm. Which isn't exactly great for everybody who isn't a soldier. That all said, there were definitely times in which the Roman empire was stable and prosperous - but I think the system itself didn't encourage it.
microtherion 6y ago
What I take from the scholarship (e.g. Chris Wickham's _The Inheritance of Rome_) is less "the fall of Rome wasn't that bad" as "various things changed in various places, but there wasn't a single event where everything changed" and "the `barbarians' who supposedly took over Rome were virtually indistinguishable from the `Romans` who preceded them". And there were surprising details, such as that after the Arabic conquest of many areas, the conquerors pretty much kept relying on Roman era tax rolls and local organization.

gumby 6y ago

> There is a strange tendency in modern scholarship to try to say, "actually the fall of Rome wasn't that bad". Not sure why that is particularly strange. In the age of overt empire, Gibbon wrote an explicitly cautionary tale, like the momento mori that accompanied a triumph. But we aren't in that same age. From a broader perspective, the nature of "structural" Rome, especially once Octavian (Augustus) took control, lead to sclerosis as the control and wealth and power overwhelmed other activities of state and society. For example the literature of the republic and early empire is greater than that of later periods not because people became dumber but because society, even if richer over all, could not afford it. Arguably the empire continued, not just in the east but through what remains of Charlemagne's realm (more diffuse yet of greater scope): hundreds of millions of people speak a form of Latin (we call it Spanish or French or other names); many legal systems contain roman influences (though sometimes vestigial, with a legislative chamber called a "Senate"), and many cultural norms trace back to or through Roman times. == You can see this today, writ small (I'll ignore the politics of the larger scope). The older megacorps (think US Chamber of Commerce members) are focused more on extraction (of rents or of re-mining the same seams) rather than customer benefit. The "newer" (only a few decades old) tech upstarts themselves have largely entered late middle age and are heading to the same fate. Google, once an admirable innovator, is regularly pilloried on this site for having lost its way; some companies required a near death experience (Apple) or spell of privation (Microsoft, IBM) which may help (MS) or may not (IBM). Even in the old guard, GE is haeding downward, and though they've been around for a while and have in the past been a force for good, will anyone mourn? I've long believed there's a Hayflick limit for both companies and social systems. And as it is for humans, it's a good thing.

ksdale 6y ago
I think your comment and the parent are addressing slightly different points. Your assertion about the destruction and rebirth of companies/societies as good and necessary can be true at the same time as the assertion that that process is an absolute nightmare for the people involved. I think I agree with you about the Hayflick limit idea, but I also think it's useful to point out, as the parent does, that a sclerotic, moribund empire is probably a better place to live for the majority of people in it than not an empire, assuming there is trade and general stability.
- gumby 6y ago
  > ... a sclerotic, moribund empire is probably a better place to live for the majority of people in it than not an empire, assuming there is trade and general stability. Is it? It took a plague to launch a revolution in agriculture in Europe, leading to an increase in calories production, an expansion of human life span, and opening up an expansion in trade (which reflects an increased amount of consumption of goods beyond simple survival). The preceding periods of semi-stasis were ones of no expansion in human quality of life and punctured by the opposite when you happened to be in the wrong place during a struggle between elites. In our concrete world: had Apple not been able to blow up the oligopoly where the phone carriers controlled what phones were available and what they could do, would we have the current explosion of software, tools, etc? In the US in particular the sclerotic phone oligopolies kept the mobile phone market at least a decade behind Europe and Japan.
  - ksdale 6y ago
    Are you asking whether the 50% of people in Europe who died from the plague, and the survivors would have preferred to not have the plague? This is exactly the issue I'm talking about. It's very plausible that the world got much better after the plague, and that the plague was an important catalyst. But it also seems obviously true that absolutely no one alive at the time would choose the plague in order to cause that improvement.

trgn 6y ago

Yes, flippantly, because each new generation of historians needs to find a new hook to hang their career on. They add nuance, but it's unclear if it will stick. The same happens for example with the rehabilitation of the Vikings, which were savages who built a culture, by any account, on pillage, rape and murder, supported by the archaeological record (the many burnt settlements) and the historical one (the many first hand accounts of the despair and fear they sowed). The stability of the roman empire was a marvel. After incessant war within the borders during the republic, violence moved to the borders of the empire. To be Roman, and citizenry became quite broadly spread, during those few centuries, was to be free and safe. Fiction can often capture this truth better than any scholarship. In "Augustus", a portrait of the first roman Emperor, the author John Williams conjures a scene where Augustus, near the end of his life, contemplates his successes and failures on the deck of his cruise-ship. An Egyptian freighter pulls alongside, and the crew sings him a song, thanking him for the stability he brought, the captain recalling the pirates that used to terrorize the Mediterranean. Now, they could voyage safely. That change, in just a generation, exemplified the stability of the roman empire. While adding color to this history is great, it often tends to cheapen this enormous achievement.

Joker_vD 6y ago
I've seen around the internet an illustration from a history textbook that had vikings loading their drakkar, and a burning village in the background, with a mocking caption added: "Vikings rescuing the women and valuables from the burning buildings after all the men in the village have suddenly and mysteriously died". Hey, it could've happened like this, right?
Talanes 6y ago
Viking was a profession, not a culture group, so forgive me if I take the rest of your historical expertise with a giant grain of salt.
- graeme 6y ago
  In English the word commonly refers to the norse people of the time as a whole. “ In modern English and other vernaculars, the term also commonly includes the inhabitants of Norse home communities during this period.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings

hacknat 6y ago

What's interesting is it's not even close to being a new observation. Taking the blame for the fall of Rome off of the shoulders of "the Barbarians" is as old as Gibbon[1]. Elites got to define history (especially before the printing press). Of course they blamed "the Barbarians", but what's really true is that Roman society started eating itself. The claim that the fall of Rome was a "good" thing, on the other hand, is simplistic beyond belief. [1]https://smile.amazon.com/Decline-Empire-Volumes-Everymans-Library/dp/0307700763 https://smile.amazon.com/Decline-Empire-Volumes-Everymans-Li...

pasabagi 6y ago

>there wasn't as much to eat. Do you have any citations? I was always told that the average level of nutrition often increased once the Romans were no longer in charge - since less tax was being levied. I think the idea that the Roman Empire was bad for its citizens varies in persuasiveness depending on the era. The Roman Empire was very unstable and extremely prone to brutal civil wars, and when it wasn't in a state of active conflict, the maxim of Severus "Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, scorn all others" was pretty much the norm. Which isn't exactly great for everybody who isn't a soldier. That all said, there were definitely times in which the Roman empire was stable and prosperous - but I think the system itself didn't encourage it.

microtherion 6y ago

What I take from the scholarship (e.g. Chris Wickham's _The Inheritance of Rome_) is less "the fall of Rome wasn't that bad" as "various things changed in various places, but there wasn't a single event where everything changed" and "the `barbarians' who supposedly took over Rome were virtually indistinguishable from the `Romans` who preceded them". And there were surprising details, such as that after the Arabic conquest of many areas, the conquerors pretty much kept relying on Roman era tax rolls and local organization.