11 ms·

Before the Fall of the Roman Republic

68 points by electric_muse 5y ago

jdlyga 5y ago
It's a pretty good book. Mike Duncan was asked constantly if the United States was Rome and is the American Empire about to fall. Mike's position is the late Roman Republic, before Julius Caesar and the empire, is most similar to the present day US. Both countries had just seen their biggest rival Carthage/USSR fall, and so ambitious people started looking inward to gain power instead of outward. This led to a lot of political division and slow erosion of political norms.
- ceeplusplus 5y ago
  Ray Dalio seems to think the opposite: that the US is in the falling Empire stages (think 3rd-4th century AD) where there is a lot of internal strife and the economy is stumbling. A new enemy is rising to challenge the existing superpower and the will to expand and fight is no longer there (Germanic tribes and the Sassanids for Rome, China for the US). I think peak US ala the Roman Republic would've either been right after WW2 or right after the USSR fell (Gulf War era basically).
  - burlesona 5y ago
    That's a popular take, but I don't know how much it holds water. What really does seem to be the sad, sad reality is that America needs external enemies or else it feeds on itself. Since the fall of the USSR politics have gotten steadily nastier, but all the sudden people are finding lots of common ground in solitary against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But will that solidarity last more than a few news cycles?
    - pfraze 5y ago
      We have a little bit of a self-vision problem. Historically, America focused on conquering new frontiers: manifest destiny (with all the nastiness that includes), industrialization, the space race, computing. It's not really clear what the next national frontier will be, and a lot of the domestic politics are anchored more around the allocation of resources from past frontiers rather than the establishment of a new frontier. This is all orthogonal to external enemies like the USSR, which I just see as a relatively generic phenomenon; countries frequently unify around external enemies, and you're probably right that the current situation with the USSR won't have a very long-lasting effect.
      - thehappypm 5y ago
        Wow. I hope we can galvanize around something that is a real enemy (climate change, disease) rather than made-up stuff.
        seanw444 5y ago
        Wouldn't that be nice. Unfortunately we've got politicians with pockets to line. Progress would be antithetical!
    - drewcoo 5y ago
      After the cold war ended we had Iraq. And then the war on terror. War makes money. I hear people say that our response to 9/11 shows that the terrorists won. I think actually bin Laden did a huge favor to the military industrial complex - they won.
    - socksset 5y ago
      Dalio said without reservation or probability that at the start of COVID we were in a global depression. Oops, 100% wrong but no one cares. IMO the entire narrative that Americans are so divided is largely an illusion. People are highly divided over wedge issues in online arguments. If you turn off the internet, the phone and FOX/CNN/MSNBC people are pretty much the same. Sporting events are a good example of reality. If the media narratives were true getting a 100k people in a sports stadium would result in utter chaos. We are certainly not as divided as in the 60s. That is so apparent if you read any history from that time. Actually, if we suffer from anything it is exactly represented by Dalio. Conflating extreme wealth accumulation with extreme intelligence and wisdom. The ideas of billionaires are given far too much weight. Not based on the ideas themselves but on the size of their net worth. IMO if Feynman or Einstein were alive today no one would listen to them, "If you are so smart why don't you have a billion dollars???"
  - pfraze 5y ago
    I remember reading this theory a bit ago and I thought it was one of the more compelling observations. It depends on whether you're focusing on foreign or domestic politics, because both fit in various ways. When the republic fell to an empire, it was due more to domestic issues: the agrarian middle class was displaced by slave labor and mostly forced into professional military careers, and the very rich infought into conquering the state. The the empire fell (at least, the Western empire) it was foreign issues: the central state was over-extended and unable to hold the full Pax Romana territory any longer. The useful lesson from the "falling Empire stages" is to gracefully cede influence without entering into counterproductive wars with new rising powers, as you mention with China.
- _8j50 5y ago
  USSR fell in 1989, the climate in the US is a post-iraq thing and China is fiercely rivaling and competing against the US in all fronts. Even America's reaction to Russia bs Ukraine is tailored to send a message to China. The Xenophobia in America is a walk in the park compared to any European country. Still the best place for immigrants. Income inequality is bad but povery has improved a lot and so has crime compared to previous decades. I mean, the great depression was literally before WW2 which is obviously a worse time than now (ask any black person or non-european immigrant how unequal or xenophobic America was back then!) after which there was a great economic boom. Perhaps the past is easier to measure than the present? A lot of the political norm that is being erased now is for 20th century norms. I would say Andrew Jackson shooting people on the whitehouse lawn was a norm. Congress attending Church every sunday at the Capitol was also a norm and it was erased. I think a lot of people correlate without articulating causation to sound smart.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    When do you think America's political divisions got so tribal? I couldn't tell.
    - thehappypm 5y ago
      Facebook launched its news feed feature in 2006, and set the stage for a generation of doomscrollers.
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        So, you don't think there was tribalism pre-2006? I'm just curious, do you remember that time? Was it much better then? I ask because it seems like we have mostly the same politicians (McConnell, Pelosi, Biden, even Trump ran as an independent) as we did then.
        irrational 5y ago
        I remember pre-2006. I was in my mid-30s by then. I don’t recall much open animosity between Republicans and Democrats. Certainly nothing like today. There was a lot of coming together post 9/11. I do think social media was the main instigator of the country falling into open tribalism.
- AmericanChopper 5y ago
  The Republic didn’t fall because it ran out of enemies. It fell because the centre of Roman power was incredibly disconnected from the source of Roman power. The source of Rome’s power came from a small number of people who had extraordinary leadership and military command talents, who were able to win the victories required to expand Roman territory beyond the top half of the Italian peninsula. Yet the senate, responsible for wielding the power won by these generals, were just a bunch of aristocrats and demagogues, who routinely saw Rome’s most competent generals as their greatest threat. This tension exists for the entire republic era, and you could just as easily predict that Romans would have to start “looking inwards for power” after the Pyrrhic War. The senate had a well established history of turning against its greatest generals by Caesar’s time. You mention the defeat of Carthage, but who defeated Carthage, and what happened to them afterwards? Scipio Africanus did at the Battle of Zama, and he was promptly exiled from Rome afterwards by his political rivals (and was lucky to avoid execution really). It is absolutely no surprise that the Roman republic eventually fell to an extremely competent general leading an extremely loyal army, after having the senate try to take him down a peg.
  - whakim 5y ago
    The major link in the chain that you're missing here is the breakdown in the elaborate series of checks-and-balances that underpinned the Roman Republic. For most of the Republic, the army consisted of a citizen militia commanded by military leaders whose terms measured months at most, not years. Even if they possessed "extraordinary leadership and military command talents," generals never spent years in the field with their soldiers. As Rome got bigger and wars became further-flung, you begin to see people in charge of armies for much longer which allowed them to build up the ironclad loyalty required to lead an army against Rome. Scipio Africanus is an early example, but this sort of thing became much, much more common in the late Republic.
    - AmericanChopper 5y ago
      I wholeheartedly disagree that those checks and balances actually did underpin the republic in any way. The senate always attempted the keep them in place, but always abandoned them in a crisis. The first Punic war was won by a dictator of Rome. The only thing that changed over time was the scale of the crises that Rome got itself into. Those checks and balances were simply not needed during peaceful times, and consistently failed any time they were tested during conflict. It’s like how people say Athens never had the position of “dictator”, yet for every significant crisis Athens got into, it found itself ruled by a dictator.
- billfruit 5y ago
  "The Roman Revolution" by Ronald Syme seems to have a good reputation, how does it compre with this. https://www.amazon.com/Roman-Revolution-Oxford-Paperbacks-No https://www.amazon.com/Roman-Revolution-Oxford-Paperbacks-No... (Also posted as a top level comment.)
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  >and so ambitious people started looking inward to gain power instead of outward. This led to a lot of political division and slow erosion of political norms. On the other hand the narrative that America is going the way of Rome has been an ongoing thing since at least the 1950s, in different decades the thing that the person crafting the narrative felt was really bad became the cause of Rome's fall. I suppose it is a favorite to write about because Rome was a Republic once, and America is a Republic, and Rome fell and it was a big, big deal. So people can get really worked up over this idea. Many of the 'causes' of the coming downfall have been bad morals in one way or another; narrative is that Rome fell because of its weakening moral fiber, so in the '50s this weakening was caused by miscegenation, in the 60s debauchery and emasculation of the younger generations, 70s the same and maybe just being tired out by the discipline required for maintaining empire, 80s homosexuality, I think 90s was emasculation of younger generations again although I think there was still quite a bit of gay panic then too. So nowadays hmm, "ambitious people started looking inward to gain power instead of outward" oh yeah, putting personal ambition ahead of social duty, that's a recurring one, I think it was a common complaint in the 50s as well. I mean I sure do think things are not that great, but not sure if I buy that there are any more actually relevant similarities between the fall of Rome and U.S than there are between the Kennedy and Lincoln assassinations.
_8j50 5y ago
You know, a lot of people like to correlate things with the fall of the roman empire but when it comes to causality theu theorize. Ok, maybe this was true about the romans, so what? It's the symptom, not the disease, and as symptoms go they can indicate any number of diseases. I can agree that income inequality, racism and xenophobia are symptoms of an underlying disease but even if America has the same disease as the Rome, this is a different host with different strength, weaknesses and immune system. Rome wasn't found upon rebellion, it didn't have a civil war at the scale of america andnit didn't have WMDs, fighter jets, interlinked supply chains and the internet. It could be worse or better or a seasonal bug. You should also understand that the eastern Roman empire lasted up until only a few hundred years ago. And it was no joke. It took over a millenium for Rome to fall. Constantinope fell on 1453, columbus discovered america on 1492. If Rome is strictly western Rome then the equivalent would be America losing global influence and military power but still remaining relatively prosperous and strong with perhaps few states splintering. Different variable, different input, similar symptomps but likely different output imo. You know what parallel scares me? Rwanda.
- frisco 5y ago
  > Rome wasn't found upon rebellion, it didn't have a civil war at the scale of america The founding of Rome involved one brother killing the other over a hill… and if you don’t think they had large scale civil war, you simply haven’t read Roman history
  - pfraze 5y ago
    IIRC Rome was conquered (EDIT: sacked, see replies) at least once during its history as a republic and forced to rebuild. An event like that could just as easily have indicated "the end" for them, but it didn't for whatever reason.
    - throwoutway 5y ago
      Rome itself became less important over time, and the later emperors never even went there as they were too busy fighting the many civil wars, traitors, etc. or just being assassinated
burlesona 5y ago
Nice article, but the author says up front that he wrote the book with an angle: > I jokingly said when I started writing, that I wanted people to come out of it with a general feeling of unease about what’s going on in the United States and in the West generally. To emerge from reading the book, go back to flipping on the news, and think, “This is not good.” So... if you read it and think "wow this is eerily parallel to our current reality," it's going to be hard to know how much of that is because it _really was_ eerily parallel, and how much is because the author _wanted it to feel_ eerily parallel.
- im3w1l 5y ago
  Just like a lawyer in court he wants you to come to a given conclusion but he is constrained by the facts.
  - vixen99 5y ago
    Provided the author <is> constrained by the facts, that's a perfectly reasonable position. If he ignores facts unhelpful to his view he'll be seen through by astute critics.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      The author in question is a fairly renowned historian with multiple serious books and podcasts ( in which btw he makes a point of correcting himself when listeners point out mistakes, usually of the bad pronunciation or mistaken year variety), and has a reputation to maintain.
      - Tainnor 5y ago
        I greatly admire Mike Duncan and I have listened to every episode of his History of Rome _and_ his current Revolutions podcast, as well as read the book this article is about, but ... I think the assertion that Mike Duncan is "a fairly renowned historian" needs some qualifications. For one, I don't think he has a history degree. And while he seems to be very good at compiling various sources and summarising them in a way that is accessible to the general interested public (and I do agree that he doesn't pretend everything is simple when it's not, and that he corrects his mistakes), that doesn't mean that he does original research, or if he does, that this research is in any way peer-reviewed by the larger community of historians. This is not a bad thing, but it's something to keep in mind when reading a book that tries to paint a particular narrative. (And I did really enjoy reading the book, FWIW)
throwawaycities 5y ago
Income equality and xenophobia isn’t exactly unique to the US, I don’t think China or Russia has any less income inequality or (governmental) xenophobia. I’d argue xenophobia is very limited in a population of >300M, it’s just one of those issues where the minority is very vocal which the media loves to magnify. There was just an article on HN about people grossly overestimating the size of subgroups in the populace and I’m sure xenophobes would be one of those overestimations.
- groby_b 5y ago
  Metrics: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=US-RU-CN https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=U... The Gini coefficient gives you a measure of income inequality, and the US "wins", handily. Systemic racism & xenophobia is a bit harder to measure. There's the IPC index, but I can't find a reference comparing the three countries. Immigration rates point to all three being rather bad, with China being the worst. (In that they are the one of the three to have a negative immigration rate) It's worth keeping in mind that "xenophobia" doesn't make sense, per se. There is, at least in the US, a clear hierarchy of immigration nations, and some are very welcome, while others are decidedly not. I'd assume the same is true in Russia and China. (I vaguely know it to be the case in Russia. I have no idea about China)
  - barry-cotter 5y ago
    > Naturalization is exceptionally rare in mainland China; there were only 1,448 naturalized persons reported in the 2010 census[47] out of the country's total population of 1.34 billion.[48] Acquiring Chinese nationality is more common in Hong Kong; the Immigration Department naturalized over 10,000 people between the transfer of sovereignty and 2012,[49] and continues to receive over 1,500 applications per year since 2016.[50] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_nationality_law#Acquisition_and_loss_of_nationality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_nationality_law#Acquis...
  - throwawaycities 5y ago
    Here is an article from 2019, the World Bank data you linked includes up until 2018, anyway the article includes the gini coefficient sourced from OECD and it has Russia at #11 (.38), US at #9 (.39), and China at #2 (.51) out of the countries they included in their rankings. This seems very close to the 2018 World Bank data you linked for Russia and the US, but as you will note the last year of available data for China with the World Bank is 2016 at which point the gini coefficient exceeds Russia. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/39510157 https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/39510157
boomboomsubban 5y ago
*2017. Was really confused why they'd print an article about Duncan's first book shortly after the release of his second about Lafayette.
OrvalWintermute 5y ago
This article is so poorly written because it attempting to cater, and it misses several key facts. The best example is this gem > The ultimate consequences of allowing the Italians to become full roman citizens was nothing. There were no consequences. Rome just became Italy and everybody thrived, and they only did it after this hugely destructive civil war that almost destroyed the republic right then and there. This is incorrect. Citizenship ( and subsequent Military outsourcing) was devalued in imperial times because citizenship was liberally granted . "Barbarian" tribes on the borders would be granted citizenship. Even the Apostle Paul was reputed to be a citizen. This dynamic led the eventual collapse of the Roman work ethic, and the filling of Rome with destitute populations depending on handouts (bread & circuses). The cultural loss of Roman-ness Would this cavalier attitude come back to bite them? Of course it did. Many times, but foremost is the name Arminius [1]. Yes, the same Arminius, a barbarian child, became a Roman citizen, and later on as an officer, led Roman legions to the great debacle of the Teutoborg Forest [2]. Because he knew Roman tactics inside & out, it enabled him to destroy completely three legions (17th, 18th, and 19th legions, three cavalry detachments and six cohorts of auxiliaries) - Some of the auxiliaries may have become part of the ambushing force. Later on, this became so rampant that even words to describe the outsourced military to barbarians became synonomous with the barbarians themselves. When they eventually threw off their labors, conquering Rome was easy, as many of the barbarians were the standing military of Rome at that time. Similarly, it was also Alaric of the Visigoths that sacked Rome, having become familiar with Roman tactics after working for them for years. After several shakedowns, he finally just took Rome. Of course, I am not talking about other key points such as currency devaluation & Inflation/Hyperinflation " Nero was one of the first emperors to devalue the denarius, and by the time Gallienus took the throne in 253 AD, the coins contained approximately 5% silver and consisted of a bronze core with a thin layer of silver. By 265 AD, the denarius contained 0.5% silver; the result was inflation of up to 1,000% across the empire. By this time, Rome had no more enemies to steal from so taxation was raised. The resulting mess completely paralyzed trade. By the end of the 3rd Century AD, the vast majority of trade was localized with barter methods used instead of the exchange of currency." [3] I recognize the fully irony of the military outsourcing of the Romans, and ours, with Blackwater and the other associated Private Military Companies. Our currency debasement, and more recently, inflation, just to name a few. There are many more parallels. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminius [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest [3] https://historycollection.com/downfall-5-reasons-roman-empire-collapsed/ https://historycollection.com/downfall-5-reasons-roman-empir...
billfruit 5y ago
"The Roman Revolution" by Ronald Syme seems to have a very good reputation, how does it compre with this. https://www.amazon.com/Roman-Revolution-Oxford-Paperbacks-No/dp/B0000CKU96 https://www.amazon.com/Roman-Revolution-Oxford-Paperbacks-No...
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  That seems to be discussing the period shortly after this book. Duncan's book is more about the Sulla and Marius generations, and ends when Caesar is still a small player. Syme's book seems to be about the rise of Augustus.
bearbearbear 5y ago

68 points by electric_muse 5y ago

It's a pretty good book. Mike Duncan was asked constantly if the United States was Rome and is the American Empire about to fall. Mike's position is the late Roman Republic, before Julius Caesar and the empire, is most similar to the present day US. Both countries had just seen their biggest rival Carthage/USSR fall, and so ambitious people started looking inward to gain power instead of outward. This led to a lot of political division and slow erosion of political norms.

ceeplusplus 5y ago
Ray Dalio seems to think the opposite: that the US is in the falling Empire stages (think 3rd-4th century AD) where there is a lot of internal strife and the economy is stumbling. A new enemy is rising to challenge the existing superpower and the will to expand and fight is no longer there (Germanic tribes and the Sassanids for Rome, China for the US). I think peak US ala the Roman Republic would've either been right after WW2 or right after the USSR fell (Gulf War era basically).
- burlesona 5y ago
  That's a popular take, but I don't know how much it holds water. What really does seem to be the sad, sad reality is that America needs external enemies or else it feeds on itself. Since the fall of the USSR politics have gotten steadily nastier, but all the sudden people are finding lots of common ground in solitary against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But will that solidarity last more than a few news cycles?
  - pfraze 5y ago
    We have a little bit of a self-vision problem. Historically, America focused on conquering new frontiers: manifest destiny (with all the nastiness that includes), industrialization, the space race, computing. It's not really clear what the next national frontier will be, and a lot of the domestic politics are anchored more around the allocation of resources from past frontiers rather than the establishment of a new frontier. This is all orthogonal to external enemies like the USSR, which I just see as a relatively generic phenomenon; countries frequently unify around external enemies, and you're probably right that the current situation with the USSR won't have a very long-lasting effect.
    - thehappypm 5y ago
      Wow. I hope we can galvanize around something that is a real enemy (climate change, disease) rather than made-up stuff.
      - seanw444 5y ago
        Wouldn't that be nice. Unfortunately we've got politicians with pockets to line. Progress would be antithetical!
  - drewcoo 5y ago
    After the cold war ended we had Iraq. And then the war on terror. War makes money. I hear people say that our response to 9/11 shows that the terrorists won. I think actually bin Laden did a huge favor to the military industrial complex - they won.
  - socksset 5y ago
    Dalio said without reservation or probability that at the start of COVID we were in a global depression. Oops, 100% wrong but no one cares. IMO the entire narrative that Americans are so divided is largely an illusion. People are highly divided over wedge issues in online arguments. If you turn off the internet, the phone and FOX/CNN/MSNBC people are pretty much the same. Sporting events are a good example of reality. If the media narratives were true getting a 100k people in a sports stadium would result in utter chaos. We are certainly not as divided as in the 60s. That is so apparent if you read any history from that time. Actually, if we suffer from anything it is exactly represented by Dalio. Conflating extreme wealth accumulation with extreme intelligence and wisdom. The ideas of billionaires are given far too much weight. Not based on the ideas themselves but on the size of their net worth. IMO if Feynman or Einstein were alive today no one would listen to them, "If you are so smart why don't you have a billion dollars???"
- pfraze 5y ago
  I remember reading this theory a bit ago and I thought it was one of the more compelling observations. It depends on whether you're focusing on foreign or domestic politics, because both fit in various ways. When the republic fell to an empire, it was due more to domestic issues: the agrarian middle class was displaced by slave labor and mostly forced into professional military careers, and the very rich infought into conquering the state. The the empire fell (at least, the Western empire) it was foreign issues: the central state was over-extended and unable to hold the full Pax Romana territory any longer. The useful lesson from the "falling Empire stages" is to gracefully cede influence without entering into counterproductive wars with new rising powers, as you mention with China.
_8j50 5y ago
USSR fell in 1989, the climate in the US is a post-iraq thing and China is fiercely rivaling and competing against the US in all fronts. Even America's reaction to Russia bs Ukraine is tailored to send a message to China. The Xenophobia in America is a walk in the park compared to any European country. Still the best place for immigrants. Income inequality is bad but povery has improved a lot and so has crime compared to previous decades. I mean, the great depression was literally before WW2 which is obviously a worse time than now (ask any black person or non-european immigrant how unequal or xenophobic America was back then!) after which there was a great economic boom. Perhaps the past is easier to measure than the present? A lot of the political norm that is being erased now is for 20th century norms. I would say Andrew Jackson shooting people on the whitehouse lawn was a norm. Congress attending Church every sunday at the Capitol was also a norm and it was erased. I think a lot of people correlate without articulating causation to sound smart.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  When do you think America's political divisions got so tribal? I couldn't tell.
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    Facebook launched its news feed feature in 2006, and set the stage for a generation of doomscrollers.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      So, you don't think there was tribalism pre-2006? I'm just curious, do you remember that time? Was it much better then? I ask because it seems like we have mostly the same politicians (McConnell, Pelosi, Biden, even Trump ran as an independent) as we did then.
      - irrational 5y ago
        I remember pre-2006. I was in my mid-30s by then. I don’t recall much open animosity between Republicans and Democrats. Certainly nothing like today. There was a lot of coming together post 9/11. I do think social media was the main instigator of the country falling into open tribalism.
AmericanChopper 5y ago
The Republic didn’t fall because it ran out of enemies. It fell because the centre of Roman power was incredibly disconnected from the source of Roman power. The source of Rome’s power came from a small number of people who had extraordinary leadership and military command talents, who were able to win the victories required to expand Roman territory beyond the top half of the Italian peninsula. Yet the senate, responsible for wielding the power won by these generals, were just a bunch of aristocrats and demagogues, who routinely saw Rome’s most competent generals as their greatest threat. This tension exists for the entire republic era, and you could just as easily predict that Romans would have to start “looking inwards for power” after the Pyrrhic War. The senate had a well established history of turning against its greatest generals by Caesar’s time. You mention the defeat of Carthage, but who defeated Carthage, and what happened to them afterwards? Scipio Africanus did at the Battle of Zama, and he was promptly exiled from Rome afterwards by his political rivals (and was lucky to avoid execution really). It is absolutely no surprise that the Roman republic eventually fell to an extremely competent general leading an extremely loyal army, after having the senate try to take him down a peg.
- whakim 5y ago
  The major link in the chain that you're missing here is the breakdown in the elaborate series of checks-and-balances that underpinned the Roman Republic. For most of the Republic, the army consisted of a citizen militia commanded by military leaders whose terms measured months at most, not years. Even if they possessed "extraordinary leadership and military command talents," generals never spent years in the field with their soldiers. As Rome got bigger and wars became further-flung, you begin to see people in charge of armies for much longer which allowed them to build up the ironclad loyalty required to lead an army against Rome. Scipio Africanus is an early example, but this sort of thing became much, much more common in the late Republic.
  - AmericanChopper 5y ago
    I wholeheartedly disagree that those checks and balances actually did underpin the republic in any way. The senate always attempted the keep them in place, but always abandoned them in a crisis. The first Punic war was won by a dictator of Rome. The only thing that changed over time was the scale of the crises that Rome got itself into. Those checks and balances were simply not needed during peaceful times, and consistently failed any time they were tested during conflict. It’s like how people say Athens never had the position of “dictator”, yet for every significant crisis Athens got into, it found itself ruled by a dictator.
billfruit 5y ago
"The Roman Revolution" by Ronald Syme seems to have a good reputation, how does it compre with this. https://www.amazon.com/Roman-Revolution-Oxford-Paperbacks-No https://www.amazon.com/Roman-Revolution-Oxford-Paperbacks-No... (Also posted as a top level comment.)
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>and so ambitious people started looking inward to gain power instead of outward. This led to a lot of political division and slow erosion of political norms. On the other hand the narrative that America is going the way of Rome has been an ongoing thing since at least the 1950s, in different decades the thing that the person crafting the narrative felt was really bad became the cause of Rome's fall. I suppose it is a favorite to write about because Rome was a Republic once, and America is a Republic, and Rome fell and it was a big, big deal. So people can get really worked up over this idea. Many of the 'causes' of the coming downfall have been bad morals in one way or another; narrative is that Rome fell because of its weakening moral fiber, so in the '50s this weakening was caused by miscegenation, in the 60s debauchery and emasculation of the younger generations, 70s the same and maybe just being tired out by the discipline required for maintaining empire, 80s homosexuality, I think 90s was emasculation of younger generations again although I think there was still quite a bit of gay panic then too. So nowadays hmm, "ambitious people started looking inward to gain power instead of outward" oh yeah, putting personal ambition ahead of social duty, that's a recurring one, I think it was a common complaint in the 50s as well. I mean I sure do think things are not that great, but not sure if I buy that there are any more actually relevant similarities between the fall of Rome and U.S than there are between the Kennedy and Lincoln assassinations.

_8j50 5y ago

You know, a lot of people like to correlate things with the fall of the roman empire but when it comes to causality theu theorize. Ok, maybe this was true about the romans, so what? It's the symptom, not the disease, and as symptoms go they can indicate any number of diseases. I can agree that income inequality, racism and xenophobia are symptoms of an underlying disease but even if America has the same disease as the Rome, this is a different host with different strength, weaknesses and immune system. Rome wasn't found upon rebellion, it didn't have a civil war at the scale of america andnit didn't have WMDs, fighter jets, interlinked supply chains and the internet. It could be worse or better or a seasonal bug. You should also understand that the eastern Roman empire lasted up until only a few hundred years ago. And it was no joke. It took over a millenium for Rome to fall. Constantinope fell on 1453, columbus discovered america on 1492. If Rome is strictly western Rome then the equivalent would be America losing global influence and military power but still remaining relatively prosperous and strong with perhaps few states splintering. Different variable, different input, similar symptomps but likely different output imo. You know what parallel scares me? Rwanda.

frisco 5y ago
> Rome wasn't found upon rebellion, it didn't have a civil war at the scale of america The founding of Rome involved one brother killing the other over a hill… and if you don’t think they had large scale civil war, you simply haven’t read Roman history
- pfraze 5y ago
  IIRC Rome was conquered (EDIT: sacked, see replies) at least once during its history as a republic and forced to rebuild. An event like that could just as easily have indicated "the end" for them, but it didn't for whatever reason.
  - throwoutway 5y ago
    Rome itself became less important over time, and the later emperors never even went there as they were too busy fighting the many civil wars, traitors, etc. or just being assassinated

burlesona 5y ago

Nice article, but the author says up front that he wrote the book with an angle: > I jokingly said when I started writing, that I wanted people to come out of it with a general feeling of unease about what’s going on in the United States and in the West generally. To emerge from reading the book, go back to flipping on the news, and think, “This is not good.” So... if you read it and think "wow this is eerily parallel to our current reality," it's going to be hard to know how much of that is because it _really was_ eerily parallel, and how much is because the author _wanted it to feel_ eerily parallel.

im3w1l 5y ago
Just like a lawyer in court he wants you to come to a given conclusion but he is constrained by the facts.
- vixen99 5y ago
  Provided the author <is> constrained by the facts, that's a perfectly reasonable position. If he ignores facts unhelpful to his view he'll be seen through by astute critics.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    The author in question is a fairly renowned historian with multiple serious books and podcasts ( in which btw he makes a point of correcting himself when listeners point out mistakes, usually of the bad pronunciation or mistaken year variety), and has a reputation to maintain.
    - Tainnor 5y ago
      I greatly admire Mike Duncan and I have listened to every episode of his History of Rome _and_ his current Revolutions podcast, as well as read the book this article is about, but ... I think the assertion that Mike Duncan is "a fairly renowned historian" needs some qualifications. For one, I don't think he has a history degree. And while he seems to be very good at compiling various sources and summarising them in a way that is accessible to the general interested public (and I do agree that he doesn't pretend everything is simple when it's not, and that he corrects his mistakes), that doesn't mean that he does original research, or if he does, that this research is in any way peer-reviewed by the larger community of historians. This is not a bad thing, but it's something to keep in mind when reading a book that tries to paint a particular narrative. (And I did really enjoy reading the book, FWIW)

throwawaycities 5y ago

Income equality and xenophobia isn’t exactly unique to the US, I don’t think China or Russia has any less income inequality or (governmental) xenophobia. I’d argue xenophobia is very limited in a population of >300M, it’s just one of those issues where the minority is very vocal which the media loves to magnify. There was just an article on HN about people grossly overestimating the size of subgroups in the populace and I’m sure xenophobes would be one of those overestimations.

groby_b 5y ago
Metrics: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=US-RU-CN https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=U... The Gini coefficient gives you a measure of income inequality, and the US "wins", handily. Systemic racism & xenophobia is a bit harder to measure. There's the IPC index, but I can't find a reference comparing the three countries. Immigration rates point to all three being rather bad, with China being the worst. (In that they are the one of the three to have a negative immigration rate) It's worth keeping in mind that "xenophobia" doesn't make sense, per se. There is, at least in the US, a clear hierarchy of immigration nations, and some are very welcome, while others are decidedly not. I'd assume the same is true in Russia and China. (I vaguely know it to be the case in Russia. I have no idea about China)
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  > Naturalization is exceptionally rare in mainland China; there were only 1,448 naturalized persons reported in the 2010 census[47] out of the country's total population of 1.34 billion.[48] Acquiring Chinese nationality is more common in Hong Kong; the Immigration Department naturalized over 10,000 people between the transfer of sovereignty and 2012,[49] and continues to receive over 1,500 applications per year since 2016.[50] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_nationality_law#Acquisition_and_loss_of_nationality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_nationality_law#Acquis...
- throwawaycities 5y ago
  Here is an article from 2019, the World Bank data you linked includes up until 2018, anyway the article includes the gini coefficient sourced from OECD and it has Russia at #11 (.38), US at #9 (.39), and China at #2 (.51) out of the countries they included in their rankings. This seems very close to the 2018 World Bank data you linked for Russia and the US, but as you will note the last year of available data for China with the World Bank is 2016 at which point the gini coefficient exceeds Russia. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/39510157 https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/39510157

boomboomsubban 5y ago

*2017. Was really confused why they'd print an article about Duncan's first book shortly after the release of his second about Lafayette.

OrvalWintermute 5y ago

This article is so poorly written because it attempting to cater, and it misses several key facts. The best example is this gem > The ultimate consequences of allowing the Italians to become full roman citizens was nothing. There were no consequences. Rome just became Italy and everybody thrived, and they only did it after this hugely destructive civil war that almost destroyed the republic right then and there. This is incorrect. Citizenship ( and subsequent Military outsourcing) was devalued in imperial times because citizenship was liberally granted . "Barbarian" tribes on the borders would be granted citizenship. Even the Apostle Paul was reputed to be a citizen. This dynamic led the eventual collapse of the Roman work ethic, and the filling of Rome with destitute populations depending on handouts (bread & circuses). The cultural loss of Roman-ness Would this cavalier attitude come back to bite them? Of course it did. Many times, but foremost is the name Arminius [1]. Yes, the same Arminius, a barbarian child, became a Roman citizen, and later on as an officer, led Roman legions to the great debacle of the Teutoborg Forest [2]. Because he knew Roman tactics inside & out, it enabled him to destroy completely three legions (17th, 18th, and 19th legions, three cavalry detachments and six cohorts of auxiliaries) - Some of the auxiliaries may have become part of the ambushing force. Later on, this became so rampant that even words to describe the outsourced military to barbarians became synonomous with the barbarians themselves. When they eventually threw off their labors, conquering Rome was easy, as many of the barbarians were the standing military of Rome at that time. Similarly, it was also Alaric of the Visigoths that sacked Rome, having become familiar with Roman tactics after working for them for years. After several shakedowns, he finally just took Rome. Of course, I am not talking about other key points such as currency devaluation & Inflation/Hyperinflation " Nero was one of the first emperors to devalue the denarius, and by the time Gallienus took the throne in 253 AD, the coins contained approximately 5% silver and consisted of a bronze core with a thin layer of silver. By 265 AD, the denarius contained 0.5% silver; the result was inflation of up to 1,000% across the empire. By this time, Rome had no more enemies to steal from so taxation was raised. The resulting mess completely paralyzed trade. By the end of the 3rd Century AD, the vast majority of trade was localized with barter methods used instead of the exchange of currency." [3] I recognize the fully irony of the military outsourcing of the Romans, and ours, with Blackwater and the other associated Private Military Companies. Our currency debasement, and more recently, inflation, just to name a few. There are many more parallels. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminius [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest [3] https://historycollection.com/downfall-5-reasons-roman-empire-collapsed/ https://historycollection.com/downfall-5-reasons-roman-empir...

billfruit 5y ago

"The Roman Revolution" by Ronald Syme seems to have a very good reputation, how does it compre with this. https://www.amazon.com/Roman-Revolution-Oxford-Paperbacks-No/dp/B0000CKU96 https://www.amazon.com/Roman-Revolution-Oxford-Paperbacks-No...

boomboomsubban 5y ago
That seems to be discussing the period shortly after this book. Duncan's book is more about the Sulla and Marius generations, and ends when Caesar is still a small player. Syme's book seems to be about the rise of Augustus.

bearbearbear 5y ago