Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

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Ned
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Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

Post by Ned »

(Don't take the title too seriously. It is not a serious historical assay, it is only allegorical).

Rome has never fallen – it’s still with us today. Actually, we, in the ‘Western’ world are it.

There is a direct, continuous (although fading in and out) line that connects us to our heritage. It is the same philosophy: values, methods, aims, decadence -- just as it was back in Nero’s time (although with a lot more lying and denial). Everything we pursue today: science, ‘democracy’, technology, ‘justice’, bureaucratic and hierarchical structures, ‘civilizing’ the savages – were there already: in Rome.

The rest of the world is our playground: to conquer and loot at our whim and pleasure. Science and technology gives us the weapons, organizational ability gives us the methods to accomplish this. In this, we are ‘superior’ to the rest of the world and we never let them forget it.

A cruise missile here and there and the occasional ‘punishing war’ will serve as a reminder. And our trump-card: our nuclear arsenal, that can destroy all life on Earth, is our final argument. That is why we go to any length to make sure that the ‘savages’ don’t get their own. We certainly would not like it used against us, even as a threat.

However, just like in Nero’s time, we are so decadent, so out of touch with reality, that we seem to be helpless against the hatred and determination of the ‘savages’. We bumble from one attempt at conquest or reprisal to another, bleeding our blood and money on the battlefields, losing way more than what we gain.

In the meantime, the Planet is steadily being destroyed under our feet and we face self-destruction when we run out of victims to feed on.

Yes, we are actually eating the rest of humanity alive.

Yesterday’s headlines on CBC website: “25 million people starve to death each year”, “14,000 new HIV patients every day”. Aids is spreading from Africa to Eastern Europe, Russia, India and China. The planet is fast running out of resources and pollution (especially outside ‘Rome’) reach catastrophic levels. This is the price the rest of the world has to pay for our ‘affluence’.

We pretend that globalization is helping those poor people ‘over there’. We are giving them jobs in the factories we set up on their land to spread civilization. First we had to destroy their way of life, foist the most ruthless among them to do our slave-trading for us and prop them up with weapons and loans so they can suppress their own people for us.

Then, since they are so deep in debt for the unpaid weapons, we make them pay for it by growing exotic fruit and coffee beans for us; make our shoes, clothes and play-things for us; let us extract and cart away all their natural resources, shipping it to the west in a never-ending convoy of transport ships.

In exchange we let them live in the shanty towns surrounding our modern factories, and not quite starve on the wages we pay them. The lack of minimum safety standards and pollution preventing safeguards is just an unfortunate side effect they have to live with.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is true, we, in the ‘Western Democracies’, are still the Empire of Rome, in aims, methods, values, ruthlessness and appetite.
David Handeye
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Re: Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

Post by David Handeye »

No, this is not true. Rome had another language, another food, another religion, another policy, another society, another law, another economy, another system of measuring, of numbers, of grammar, of education, of speaking, of counting, of living, of thinking no, Rome is not any more, it does not exist any more. They were another people, nothing to do with "Western". We have nothing of ancient Rome, neither of allegorical.
Wyman
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Re: Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

Post by Wyman »

David Handeye wrote:No, this is not true. Rome had another language, another food, another religion, another policy, another society, another law, another economy, another system of measuring, of numbers, of grammar, of education, of speaking, of counting, of living, of thinking no, Rome is not any more, it does not exist any more. They were another people, nothing to do with "Western". We have nothing of ancient Rome, neither of allegorical.
Now stop placing complexities into an otherwise simplistic worldview; facts always seem to ruin a good narrative. :wink:
David Handeye
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Re: Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

Post by David Handeye »

Wyman wrote: Now stop placing complexities into an otherwise simplistic worldview; facts always seem to ruin a good narrative. :wink:
To say the truth I didn't read all that narrative, just the title :P
Last edited by David Handeye on Tue May 26, 2015 2:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Melchior
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Re: Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

Post by Melchior »

David Handeye wrote:No, this is not true. Rome had another language, another food, another religion, another policy, another society, another law, another economy, another system of measuring, of numbers, of grammar, of education, of speaking, of counting, of living, of thinking no, Rome is not any more, it does not exist any more. They were another people, nothing to do with "Western". We have nothing of ancient Rome, neither of allegorical.
We are more Roman than you think. More Roman than the Arab world or most of Asia.
David Handeye
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Re: Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

Post by David Handeye »

No, I don't agree Mel, sorry. We have nothing of them.
Melchior
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Re: Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

Post by Melchior »

David Handeye wrote:No, I don't agree Mel, sorry. We have nothing of them.
Roman law, names of the months, and many, many customs, quite a few directly or indirectly through the church. Our debt to Rome is enormous, but you don't see it because it's part of our daily lives.
David Handeye
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Re: Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

Post by David Handeye »

Melchior wrote:
David Handeye wrote:No, I don't agree Mel, sorry. We have nothing of them.
Roman law, names of the months, and many, many customs, quite a few directly or indirectly through the church. Our debt to Rome is enormous, but you don't see it because it's part of our daily lives.
Yes, I'm not saying you are wrong, for these and many other aspects you are perfectly right. Their heritage is under our eyes, despite they were another kind of people very different from us, nowadays. They had basically a different way of thinking; for example, let's take their language: when the first Romans began to get a sort of auto-determination of themselves, as people, they decided to adopt a precise language, different from other dialects then spoken from very advanced cultures, such as Etrurian, Greek, Oscus, Samnites, etc., just for differentiate themselves, and they chose a precise kind of language, with Oscus alphabet, Sabelli fonetics, Etrurian words, but most important a different grammar structure, now I haven't possibility to look upon the dictionary by my smartphone, but they chose una struttura lessicale ipotattica, instead of una struttura lessicale paratattica, which means that they privileged subordination to coordination. This is a mirror of their way of thinking and basically of the model of society they had in mind. They thought and act in a hyerarchical mode. The way they draw the streets they built was not the more easy, comfortable, but the less distance from two points, even if the street was to be up of a mountain; I mean they did not think to round the picks, they just went straight ahead. Even if nowadays Christian saints are a mirror of their gods, first Romans, I mean the monarchy period, 7th, 6th century B.C., prayed looking at the ground; while late Romans, imperial period, prayed looking at the sky. They had a logical way of thinking and acting, which nowadays is disappeared, in my opinion. They used to eat garum, which is just a stinking shit, but they loved it. Their principal target in life was otium, while Bizantinian one was negotium, almost like nowadays. And for many other aspects, I think they were very different from us, and if they weren't so, maybe they couldn't conquer half the world. But, at least, law was one and clear, and if you went against the law you were certainly and severely punished.
Melchior
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Re: Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

Post by Melchior »

David Handeye wrote:
Melchior wrote:
David Handeye wrote:No, I don't agree Mel, sorry. We have nothing of them.
Roman law, names of the months, and many, many customs, quite a few directly or indirectly through the church. Our debt to Rome is enormous, but you don't see it because it's part of our daily lives.
Yes, I'm not saying you are wrong, for these and many other aspects you are perfectly right. Their heritage is under our eyes, despite they were another kind of people very different from us, nowadays. They had basically a different way of thinking; for example, let's take their language: when the first Romans began to get a sort of auto-determination of themselves, as people, they decided to adopt a precise language, different from other dialects then spoken from very advanced cultures, such as Etrurian, Greek, Oscus, Samnites, etc., just for differentiate themselves, and they chose a precise kind of language, with Oscus alphabet, Sabelli fonetics, Etrurian words, but most important a different grammar structure, now I haven't possibility to look upon the dictionary by my smartphone, but they chose una struttura lessicale ipotattica, instead of una struttura lessicale paratattica, which means that they privileged subordination to coordination. This is a mirror of their way of thinking and basically of the model of society they had in mind. They thought and act in a hyerarchical mode. The way they draw the streets they built was not the more easy, comfortable, but the less distance from two points, even if the street was to be up of a mountain; I mean they did not think to round the picks, they just went straight ahead. Even if nowadays Christian saints are a mirror of their gods, first Romans, I mean the monarchy period, 7th, 6th century B.C., prayed looking at the ground; while late Romans, imperial period, prayed looking at the sky. They had a logical way of thinking and acting, which nowadays is disappeared, in my opinion. They used to eat garum, which is just a stinking shit, but they loved it. Their principal target in life was otium, while Bizantinian one was negotium, almost like nowadays. And for many other aspects, I think they were very different from us, and if they weren't so, maybe they couldn't conquer half the world. But, at least, law was one and clear, and if you went against the law you were certainly and severely punished.
All I'm saying is that we owe more to Rome, and are more like the Romans, than the rest of the world, which for the most part isn't even civilized. Large parts of the world are poor and miserable precisely because they were never Romanized. Look at Germany today, for instance, versus Iraq.
David Handeye
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Re: Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

Post by David Handeye »

Well, ancient Chinese, Indian people, had a great and advanced culture even if they never were romanized.
Melchior
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Re: Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

Post by Melchior »

David Handeye wrote:Well, ancient Chinese, Indian people, had a great and advanced culture even if they never were romanized.
Had.
David Handeye
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Re: Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

Post by David Handeye »

Had, ok, I got it.
spike
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Re: Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

Post by spike »

The fall of the Roman Empire is no more a myth than the fall of communism is.

Both empires did leave legacies and remnants that are still with us. But their governing systems did collapse. They collapsed because they couldn't adjust to the changing world. They were both obstacles to modernity. They had to get out of the way so that humanity could develop and progress.

Similarly, the Ottoman Empire collapsed because it grew stale and thus became a hinderance to the continuance of Civilization.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

David Handeye wrote:No, this is not true. Rome had another language, another food, another religion, another policy, another society, another law, another economy, another system of measuring, of numbers, of grammar, of education, of speaking, of counting, of living, of thinking no, Rome is not any more, it does not exist any more. They were another people, nothing to do with "Western". We have nothing of ancient Rome, neither of allegorical.
All modern legal systems are ultimately based on the Lex Romanorum. The Catholic Church wears purple because it was the Imperial colour worn by all Emperors who took the title Pontifex Maximus; when Rome was Christianised the Pontiff simply adopted a new religion; he's now called the Pope.

Latin is thoroughly embedded in scientific and legal language. Where do you think Latin comes from?
The medieval monarchies of Europe all paid allegiance to Rome because it was the direct legislative inheritor of the Roman empire in which ultimate and godly power resided.

Charlemagne and others traced a direct claim to the "Roman Empire" now the "holy" Roman Empire whose title remained with the Austrians right into the 20thC. At the start of WW1 the houses of Europe had eagles as their symbols traced to the Eagles of the legions of Rome.

In Russia Czar, or Tsar literally means Caesar, and is a claim about inheritable power.

The monarchical and hierarchical systems can be seen as direct successors to the Christianised Empire at time of Constantine.
The notions of civic responsibility, sanitation, largesse, taxation, social benefits, competitive games all have their roots in ancient Rome.

This is not "NOTHING".
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Did you know that the “Fall of The Roman Empire” is a myth?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

spike wrote:The fall of the Roman Empire is no more a myth than the fall of communism is.

Both empires did leave legacies and remnants that are still with us. But their governing systems did collapse. They collapsed because they couldn't adjust to the changing world. They were both obstacles to modernity. They had to get out of the way so that humanity could develop and progress.

Similarly, the Ottoman Empire collapsed because it grew stale and thus became a hinderance to the continuance of Civilization.
It was not stale: it backed the wrong side in WW1.
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