> more political science than history? The fall or the Roman Empire is a part of history, but how it’s used in political discourse has nothing to do with histor

> more political science than history? The fall or the Roman Empire is a part of history, but how it’s used in political discourse has nothing to do with history, until decades from now anyway This exact example shows how interwoven they are. Which "fall" are you referring to? The end of the western Roman empire, or the end of Byzantium hundreds of years later? Or do you mean the replacement of the republic by the empire proper, and later the decline and division? What you consider the empire and its fall, if you choose to consider it one, isn't just semantics, it's a meme that defines a history based on a political need: for the Holy Roman empire of Germanic Nation, Rome was the mantle of legitimacy from an older time, for the various post renaissance empires the fall and the subsequent "dark ages" was some darkness to push back with their own order and light, for Nazi Germany and various connaisseurs of "degeneration theory" the fall always serves as a reason why they must impose strict social and moral control...history is inevitably tied to the time and politics it is born from (acting as a lens) and the goals it served (possibly subconsciously)