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Lead poisoning probably did not cause the downfall of the Roman Empire
- bombcar 4y agoIt's interesting to note how many historical figures we really only know about through one or two sources, and those sources may be themselves biased.
- foolfoolz 4y agoi don’t believe anything that happened before hd video
- umeshunni 4y agoOr after deep fakes
- 0x00000000 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_time_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_time_hypothesis
- comrh 4y agoOne thing I really got out of the History of Rome podcast by Mike Duncan is if anyone tells you there was ONE cause of the fall of Rome, they're full of crap.
- RajT88 4y agoWhat I find recently is that the folks suggesting Rome fell because of ONE cause, that one cause tends to be some political fringe talking point. So there's some other clues in there.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- MichaelZuo 4y agoI would even extend the point to applying to the failure or success of all complex systems.
- dralley 4y agoAnd if you really want to boil it down to a single reason, the best candidate would be "becoming militarily dependent on hired mercenaries and then not paying them" rather than something more interesting
- comrh 4y agoI always thought favoring biological heirs was up there too. The Five Good Emperors were all adopted and some of the absolute worst leaders only got there through luck of birth.
- ricree 4y agoProbably true, but it was so baked into the system that it was hard to escape. Even the five good emperors chose their successors via adoption, so on paper it was still direct inheritance. For Marcus Aurelius to pass over his son would have been a huge break from tradition. The best attempt to escape this was Diocletian's tetrarchy, but that just led to yet another civil war.
- dukeofdoom 4y agoI can see that happening. Thinking about Canada. The other day I calculated it would take 25 hours of work for the minimum wage worker to afford a weekend camping. And I think that's a pretty good indication we're pretty close collapse. Workers not being paid enough, and out of control inflation is how the soviet system collapsed.
- hengri 4y agoDo you think that average people throughout history had the means of going on weekend camping trips.
- SoftTalker 4y agoIDK. Camping can be very cheap. I went on camping trips all the time as a teenager and I had almost no money. Unless by "camping" you are talking about towing a small mobile home into a paved "campground" with electricity, water, showers and bathrooms.
- narag 4y agoThat's very reasonable. But there was a slow collapse of the economy that is an intermediate cause in the chain of events that is central to the fall. You can speculate what caused that collapse, that in turn caused the fall and there are also many causes to consider, but again, there is one intermediate cause that is Christianism. The religion altered several aspects of the economy: slavery, commerce and lending. Now you can again speculate about what make them think it was a good idea to adopt Christianism as official religion. If a previous crisis existed that shook the foundations of the empire. Anyway, it seems the solution solved nothing. So xxx --> Christianism --> Economy --> Fall
- boomboomsubban 4y agoIf you blame Christianity, what about all of Constantine's other major changes? Was it the Tetrarchy? The formation of Constantinople? The restructuring of the government or military? The introduction of a new currency? All monumental changes that had about as much of an effect as the change of religious policy. I'm no fan of Christianity, but the claim that it was central to the fall always comes off as somewhat lazy. Religion needed reform, and maybe they could have done it in a different manner which would have led to a more stable West but it just as likely could have destroyed the East.
- narag 4y agoIf you blame Christianity, what about all of Constantine's other major changes? It's the Economy, Steve. In particular, if you discourage commerce, you're playing with fire in an empire with such an extension. I'm no fan of Christianity, but the claim that it was central to the fall always comes off as somewhat lazy. I thought I'd added enough nuance. The three aspects I mentioned are not trivial and can be connected directly. In fact, it's not something that just occured to me, there's abundant literature on them and are considered most probable causes by a lot of scolars.
- gjm11 4y agoIt is, to say the least, not obvious that Constantine's conversion to Christianity was the thing he did that had most impact on commerce in the Roman Empire. You did indeed mention "three aspects". But merely mentioning a thing proves nothing. For instance, you say that the Roman Empire's adoption of Christianity had an effect on the practice of slavery, which had an effect on commerce. Plausible, for sure. But Christian Rome didn't abolish slavery or slave-trading, or anything like that. Do you have evidence that what changes Christianity brought to the institution of slavery in the Roman Empire actually harmed its economy? Again, you mention lending. Many Christians have been opposed to lending at interest, or to lending at (what they see as) excessive interest. But so far as I can tell the Roman Empire did not abolish or greatly restrict lending when it became Christian. Constantine himself set a maximum interest rate of 12%, which doesn't seem unreasonably low, and it seems that that stayed in place for at least the next couple of centuries. (And, in particular, until after the fall of the Western empire.) So I think you need more detail and more evidence for the claim you're making. Also: "Christianism"? The usual term is "Christianity", as I'm sure you know. People sometimes make a distinction between "Islam" the religion and "Islamism" the political ideology, but if you make a similar distinction then it seems to me that what the Roman Empire converted to was Christianity rather than Christianism. Are you making that distinction, or some other distinction, or are you just hoping that your choice of wording will annoy Christians? (I am not a Christian and think it's very plausible that the Roman Empire's adoption of Christianity was bad for it and for the world. Also, possibly, for Christianity. So I'm not making the criticisms I do out of a desire to support Christianity and suppress criticism of it.)
- krylon 4y agoI had a great history teacher in school who would use every opportunity (and there were many, obviously) to drive home this point. Not just Rome: most, if not all, major historical events and developments are driven by multiple causes.
- hutzlibu 4y agoIf the hypothesis is correct, that lead significantly decreased roman mental capabilities, then this might be the root cause, for everything else. Stupid people make stupid decisions. But wether the effect is significant enough, I am not qualified to judge.
- vmurthy 4y agoIf you look at _any_ complex event (war , disease , great success , great failure) you can use the same rule of thumb. As an example, did Europe in the middle ages succeed only because of science and technology? Did they take more risks because they could get credit? It's all layers and makes for a richer understanding of the world :)
- Alex3917 4y agoIn the U.S., lead was purposely added to food until 1988, so it’s not like this is an exclusively ancient problem.
- AaronM 4y agoThat's a bold claim, do you have a source to back that up?
- mschuster91 4y agoI'd be interested too, the only thing I could find was the Lead Contamination Act of 1988 that was supposed to fight contaminated water coolers - pretty bizarre that this was actually a thing. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/senate-bill/2610?s=1&r=67 https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/senate-bill/261...
- cryptoz 4y agoNo OP and I don't know about 1988, but lead pipes are still common in the US, either many states have them or all states do. Flint, MI has a plan to eliminate them this year, maybe. https://www.nrdc.org/lead-pipes-widespread-used-every-state https://www.nrdc.org/lead-pipes-widespread-used-every-state
- ch4s3 4y agoLead in pipes is only a problem if you have the wrong water chemistry. If the water is naturally or or treated to have the right pH then lead phosphates form and no lead leeches into the water. Still, I wouldn't want lead pipes.
- Spooky23 4y agoLead pipes are overblown as a risk. The bigger issue is putting criminally incompetent people in charge of water.
- RC_ITR 4y agoI think GP is referring to the ban on lead solder for tin cans that went into place in 1980. A bit of a stretch to call it intentionally adding lead to food, but in practice, not that different.
- dukeofdoom 4y agoI was surprised how nice their homes were. Had nicer villas than most people's homes.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Psyladine 4y agoWhile not a proper historian I find Dan Carlin's observations very interesting, especially him comparing how, historically speaking, the middle class of their period had a lifestyle quite envious to our own, more akin to how we imagine the "idle rich" today (servants for all menial tasks, expansive homes, lackadaisical lifestyles and high quality education for personal pursuits). Underlaid of course by the same conceits we apply to the modern rich: they live on the backs of millions who, comparatively, are effectively slaves. https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-26-blitz-addicted-to-bondage/ https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-26-blitz-...
- ztrww 4y agoHistorically the middle class in the past is the modern rich of today. It consisted of the bourgeoisie and the well educated elite who still had to work for their living (i.e. business owners, lawyers etc.) it wasn’t much more than a few percent pf the total population. Prior to the 20th century describing any person earning an ‘average’ income as middle class wouldn’t make much sense.
- thaumasiotes 4y agoThe whole point of the term "middle class" was to refer to very rich people. Modern use has somehow forgotten that. But the idea of being "middle class" is that you aren't upper class (because you're lowborn), and you aren't lower class (because you're rich).
- ugl 4y agoThe infloor and in-wall heating systems are just recently being re-introduced! 2000+ years later. Even small buildings in the wilds of england are found with hypocaust tiles. I just saw a video introducing a brand-new underfloor heating system using hot air! The not leaking liquid was a big selling point. Everything old is new again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocaust
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago> Take Caligula as an example. We all know him as the mad emperor who supposedly once declared war on Neptune, then ordered his soldiers to attack the sea and take seashells as booty. The problem is that this story and the others like it all come from extremely late, hostile sources such as the biography Life of Caligula by Gaius Suetonius Tranquilus (lived c. 69 – after c. 122 AD) and Roman History by Kassios Dion (lived c. 155 – c. 235 AD). Actually, I think Caligula was more trolling than insane. Reading about him, reminds me not so much of insanity, as if a 4chan poster was suddenly given absolute power. It my view, he had the Roman Army march around collecting sea shells for the lulz. Absolute power can be its own madness apart from lead.
- anyonecancode 4y agoThat's an interesting take -- and observing how some ultra-wealthy people today behave who aren't even emperors, just really rich -- seems plausible.
- bombcar 4y agoThe "make my horse a senator" has always seemed to be a clear insult to the Senate and not actually thinking the horse should serve. It's like voting in a cat as mayor, it's saying the job is so pointless an animal could do it.
- colechristensen 4y agoBasically when an emperor died he was either transformed into a god or demonized depending on which was more politically convenient to his successor. The truth seemed more like the emperors were quite similar in their cruelty and competence compared to the exaggerations of the surviving propaganda about them.
- freeflight 4y ago> demonized depending on which was more politically convenient to his successor Didn't they straight up remove some people from historical records? [0] That's something that stuck with me when visiting the Pula Arena in Croatia; In there was plaque, as old as the colosseum, where a name was scratched out. Sadly the plaque didn't have any explanation with it, so I just assume that's a case of damnatio memoriae. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae#Ancient_Rome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae#Ancient_Rome
- 1970-01-01 4y agoThe Mausoleum of Augustus was designed to hold the ashes of not only Augustus, but also his family/descendants. Maybe we could analyze those ashes for lead before jumping to any conclusions.
- Ekaros 4y agoSo often any of these single causal theories forget to look at timespan. Which was either decades or centuries... If system survived previously with mostly same things in place there is really no reason why such thing as lead pipes would be the cause of downfall part. By any reasonable conclusion the culprit in such case should be some disruptive innovation. In the end gradual natural degradation of system is much more reasonable.
- monkeydreams 4y ago> So often any of these single causal theories forget to look at timespan. So often people forget the last 'W' question - Who, What, When, Where, Why and Why Now?!
- namaria 4y agoThis line of publishing, much like nutritional science, is great for scientists. You can fudge data into flip flopping conclusions every couple of years. Infinite papers = tenure.
- swatcoder 4y agoIf you could earnestly profile even a few scientists who have personally flip-flopped their way to tenure like that, you'd surely have a red carpet welcome across a thousand podcasts and alt-media outlets Heck, maybe you could even get tenure somewhere if you happened to have academic creds of your own. Surely someone's done it? Are you familiar with any such profiles that you could share?
- ARandomerDude 4y agoHow to get published: "Other authors are wrong." How not to get published: "The general consensus is right." So although individuals may not flip-flop constantly, fields as a whole do. Pick almost any topic in almost any field (especially humanities) and read papers 10-20 years apart. There's a constant cycle. The cycle becomes self reinforcing too, because now you can interact with previous criticisms (Dr. A said this, but Dr. B said he was wrong. In fact, A was correct because B neglected to consider...).
- dllthomas 4y ago"One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs."
- layer8 4y agoInterestingly, at some point “N” began being used for zero, though apparently only some centuries after the fall: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numerals#Zero https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numerals#Zero
- glouwbug 4y agoPlebs would often go down to the water line and hold their ears up to Unix shells to see if they could hear the C
- dqpb 4y agoWhat does the “Fall of Rome” actually mean? It’s not like everyone died or disappeared. They just stopped being ruled by a particular government.
- hansworst 4y agoI’m guessing it means that things went from one single government with lots of power ruling over a large population to many governments ruling smaller groups of people.
- drewcoo 4y agoIt means "you should check Wikipedia." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empi...
- dang 4y agoThat's pretty good snark, but please don't be snarky on HN - it's a kind of collective poisoning in its own right. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dqpb 4y agoOk > the fall of Rome was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vast territory was divided into several successor polities. So it’s exactly what I said it was.
- MagnumOpus 4y agoA lot of people died - starved or got killed by disease, pillagers or such like. The population of Italy and Greece post the Empire was probably only half of what it was during the Roman times. But even beyond that, the “fall” of Rome (the city) meant that its one million former inhabitants now largely became rural subsistence farmers rather than artisans/craftsmen/smiths/teachers in a city with theatres, race tracks, running fresh water, spas and food trucks. If the US underwent the same sort of change, you might call it “fallen” too…
- bitwize 4y agoThis was the pet theory of my chemistry professor in college. Having learned more about the Roman Empire, which didn't fall so much as shrank and withdrew to the east before being conquered by the Ottomans, I can look back and say "Yeah, I bet as a chemist he'd like to believe that."
- londons_explore 4y agoThis article argues against the fall of the roman empire being caused by severe lead poisoning. I would argue that it was more likely caused by widespread minor lead poisoning. If everyone is more forgetful and learns slower, then that isn't something that will be written in history books - the people themselves will just consider that 'normal'. Yet an empire of forgetful and slow-learning people won't be efficient. Every task will take more man-hours to achieve. Productivity will be lower. Accidents will happen more frequently. Crime will be higher. Strategic mistakes will be made by rulers, but will also be made by local rulers and individual families. "Should we plant corn or wheat this year?" - someone with intellect may read a book to discover the best crop or do a small scale trial, while someone with lead poisoning may just do the same as he did last year because it takes less mental effort.
- WanderPanda 4y agoThe sad thing is that this point of view is just not accepted to be discussed e.g. in case of (covid) vaccines or other large scale innovations. I'm not a fan of intelligence measuring the potential of a society but just to give an idea of the non-linearities that can be in play here: A reduction of just 3 IQ points on average leads to a 10 fold decrease in people of IQs around 140.
- soco 4y agoLooking at the worldwide reception of vaccines in general, one could argue the downfall has started way earlier.
- bonzini 4y agoI'll bite, what the heck do COVID vaccines have to do with it?
- londons_explore 4y agoMany vaccines have some of the side effects of infection. One such side effect (of both vaccine and disease) is minor neurological impairment. ie. you might not be able to remember where you parked your car last tuesday afterwards. The side effects are typically so minor and/or rare that the risk-benefit analysis strongly favours taking the vaccine over risking getting the infection. It's a controversial topic because humans are bad at judging small risks, and therefore there are groups of people 'scared' of the side effects of the vaccine and unconvinced by experts saying the risk-benefit is worth it. Some experts believe it is better to say "it is safe" rather than try to explain that there are in fact risks, but they're risks worth taking. Note: The above isn't covid specific - the same could be said of nearly any disease and vaccine.
- leobg 4y agoBeethoven, too, is suspected to have died from lead poisoning. In his case, too, a drinking cup for wine made of lead is the prime suspect.
- ugl 4y agoLead, or pewter [0]? Which was and still does sometimes contain lead which acidic drinks like wine can leach the Pb into solution. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewter
- airstrike 4y agoDon’t (virtually) all crystal “glasses” also contain lead?
- hgomersall 4y agoYeah, and most leach into the wine. It's less of an issue with wine glasses since the wine is not in them very long, but decanters are a cause for concern. Tbh, I refuse to use crystal glass at all. Cheaper stuff is simply safer.
- amelius 4y agoStupid question, but what if someone offers you a drink in it?
- verve_rat 4y agoTomatoes took a while to get popular in Europe because rich people where eating them off of pewter plates and the acid in the tomatoes leached the lead out and made them sick. It was the poor people without pewter plates that made tomatoes in Europe popular.
- hansoolo 4y agoHe couldn't have seen it coming
- varjag 4y agoIt is less widely known that the fall of Soviet Union was caused by widespread use of asbestos in roof shingles.
- hef19898 4y agoBut only if combined with lack of those on the roof of Chernobyls turbine hall. Those are directly related, everybody knows this.
- londons_explore 4y agoHere is a counter-point[1] which finds high levels of lead toxicity in regular citizens. While this article seems to mostly be reasoning based on a literature review, the counterpoint uses analysis of roman skeletons. [1]: https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/londinium-romans-blood-lead-levels-so-high-they-may-have-lowered-birth-rates/4010808.article https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/londinium-romans-blood-l...
- joe_the_user 4y agoYour article seems reasonably persuasive. The thing about the OP is that it's about what the Roman knew - but just any sort of pre-scientific knowledge of poisons tends to neglect questions around long term exposure.
- ineedasername 4y agoThat article ends with a note about the source of lead being indeterminate, with a chance the lead leached into human remains after burial. The issue also isn't just "did they have high lead levels?". The Roman empire around, with its lead pipes, for a long time. Why after hundreds of years would the lead of resulted in the downfall of Rome when Rome had flourished under the same lead-filled conditions previously?
- R0b0t1 4y agoWhile harder to define, it seems like as time goes on the Roman state apparatus becomes overtaken with people who are more likely to look out for their immediate benefit as opposed to act altruistically for Rome or their immediate community members. My interpretation of this was the selfless people all died in battle, alternatively it could be the slow buildup of not only the individual but the societal effects of lead poisoning.
- sk8terboi 4y ago
- Manuel_D 4y agoThe Roman empire had long assimilated other cultures into a pan Roman identity. This is not a compelling reason, either. Contemporary explanations typically point to two main causes: * The split between the Eastern and western Roman empire caused the comparatively less wealthy Western empire to weaken considerably. Remember, the Eastern Roman Empire didn't collapse and lasted well into the medieval era. * Lower crop yields due to changing climate patterns. Immigration is a symptom of this, lower yields prompting societies to migrate towards more productive areas.
- neap24 4y agoThat’s right, we all know the real cause for Rome’s downfall was PM2.5
- formerkrogemp 4y agoAnd geriatric politicians caused the fall of pax Americana by reacting too late for climate change. The wheel goes round.
- koheripbal 4y agoIt's funny, because the min age requirement in US politics is exactly a result of the study of disastrous young leaders in Rome. I wonder if the next empire will set an age range, like 35-65.
- xor99 4y agoHmmm... the offending compound was lead acetate which was also used as a general sweetener, sugar substitute, and to preserve fruit/veg. So I think the scope for the influence of lead poisoning is a bit higher than suggested in the article. It's still a huge stretch to blame it for the entire downfall though ofc!
- vintermann 4y agoWell, if I hadn't known, you would have a hard time convincing me that crime waves in the 20th century were caused by leaded gasoline too, but the evidence really is quite damning. I think we can agree that the Roman Empire fell as a result of some bad decisions. (Exactly which bad decisions, we may argue about). If lead really messes with your brain in subtle, dangerous ways - and it does - then it is at least plausible that some of those bad decisions would not have been taken. But where we do have a large variety of comparable countries which phased out lead in gasoline at different times, we don't have a large variety of 1st century Mediterranean empires which phased out lead at different times. So we really can't know with any certainty. So maybe it's more useful to focus on the more immediate causes of the fall of the Roman empire. It does depend on what we hope to get out of that sort of discussion - if it's a do and don't for modern politics, I still think "don't underestimate environmental poisons" is pretty well-justified.
- panick21_ 4y agoThis 'lead causes the downfall of Rome' claim was always totally absurd. How anybody could take it seriously is just crazy. And of course for the majority of the population living in the Roman Empire, it didn't actually fail it continued to exist. Is there even a clear indication that lead use was significantly higher in the Western empire? If anything I would expect far more lead to exist in the east. In general, any analysis of 'Fall of Rome' that does not take into account the East and how id didn't Fall can be pretty much dropped instantly. It ends up that you are not really talking as a Fall, but more like a reduction in size of an empire. Looking at it that way, its actually more reasonable to look at Roman history as one of continues success and then decline. One could argue that the first ~1000 years of Roman state were it consistently getting bigger and then 1000 years where it consistently gets smaller. It started out as city state with king and ended as city-state with an emperor (ie King with a different name). How does lead factor into this story? As 1 of 10000s of different factors that played a role. It was likely used for a reason that made sense to people back then and the overall effect could still be positive overall effect.
- brailsafe 4y agoI thought the downfall of the roman empire was the result of near constant idealogical and physical warfare, a series of plagues, and then division and getting conquered
- chewz 4y agoEveryone knows that the downfall of Roman Empire was cause by removal of Statue of Victory from Rome's Senate by christian zealots. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altar_of_Victory#Removal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altar_of_Victory#Removal
- rurban 4y agoClose. This was the downfall in popular belief. The real cause was of course the victory of Christianism over Rationalism, which caused hundreds of years of dark ages.
- gjm11 4y agoDo you think the Roman empire was notably rational, and that if Constantine hadn't converted to Christianity it would have been more rational than it was under Christianity? That seems highly not obvious to me, and I would be interested in any evidence you have.
- rurban 4y agoThat's what we learned in our history lessons. The roman empire was not build upon military, technological or social achievements, but on a strong organizational and legal structural framework, the res publica. A rational framework. Which was based on philosophical and political advantages (still a monarchic slave economy), but mostly it was a stable and written groundwork. Different to the US legal system btw, which bends fore-, backwards and even more backwards all the time, depending on your social and economical status. The allowance and then even the adoption of Christianity allowed the Christians to refuse to pay the Fiscus Judaicus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Milan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Milan Before, their refusal with their continuous insurgencies led to drastic persecutions, and now this principal to honor the res publica was just abolished, the roman state gave up on the martyrs. Monotheism led to sanctioning of completely irrational stories as told in the bible and various other lunatics, in contrast to the more rational polytheist societies.
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- marsven_422 4y ago
- Gordonjcp 4y agoI thought we already knew that it was because of ergotamine poisoning because they only ate rye shipped from Rome, which went foosty on the way with ergot mould?