Roman Empire and Middle Ages, page 1
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reply posted on 13-8-2004 @ 04:08 PM by amantine
I think the world would have to be an entirely different place for the roman empire not to fall. The roman empire was not that stable at all. Politically it wasn't very stable, which is the reason for the civil wars. Almost every emperor died due to violence. The roman empire also had a problem with the distribution of land. Almost all the land was owned by a few very rich nobiles and equites. That's what started the whole trouble with the populares and the optimates. In the last few centuries of the western roman empire there were large periods of chaos. Rome was not a perfect empire.

They also tried to control way too much land. I think they should have used the technique they used in gallia narbonensis in the rest of the empire. The richest and most powerful from the indigenous people of gallia narbonensis could get jobs in the roman administration and I believe there were even senators from gallia narbonensis.

However, I disagree with your point about the religions of Rome. Rome was not religiously strict. They had no problem with other religions, like the jews or sects like the Isis and Mithras culti, as long as they still payed their tribute to the Roman gods. The christians wouldn't do that and that, in combination with the fact that the christians became a large group, got the christians into trouble. The roman attitude towards gods is different from ours: do ut des, I do something so that you will do something.

It is my unproven opinion also that polytheistic religions are much more tolerant to other religions, because they can mix with and adapt to new religions much more easier than monotheistic religions.

There was no religious censorship I know of, like in christianity, and there were quite a few secularizing voices. In Epicurus' works the gods don't interfere with men at all. I believe it was Cicero that attacked the ancient art of predicting the future with the organs of animals, the flight of birds and the stars.


reply posted on 23-8-2004 @ 11:17 AM by Nygdan
Originally posted by Blackout
As we all know, the Germanic tribes eventually toppled the Roman Empire.


While I wouldn't dispute that they were an inmportant contribution to the fall of the empire, I would definitly be wary of listing them as the main reason for it. The huns, for example, weren't germanic, neither were the alans and many other barbarian groups. Also, the danger of barbarians had allways been present, so other factors were important torwards the end of the empire too.

A shadow of its former glory,[...] the Byzantine Empire at its height never lived up to compete with the Roman Empire at


In terms of terrirtory of course, but I would say that the Byzantine Empire was very much advanced, socially culturally scientifically religiously and politically.


[quote\ Do you think that we would be more advanced today if the Roman Empire never fell thus plunging Europe into the Dark Ages?

I think that, overall, the history and civilization of europe as a whole would've very much resembled the history and civilization of the byzantine empire, had the roman empire continued.

They did not have a Renaissance where everyone thought it was cool to gain knowledge and set religion aside.


Keep in mind that the 'Renaissance' (meaning 'rebirth') was the 'rediscovery' of classical greek/roman/and arab texts on medecine, 'science', and philosophy.

It certainly is argueable that, without a period of 'loss', that the continued knowledge of these texts might not have lead to the 'enlightenment' and the modern world. The arab/islamic kingdoms certainly retained this classical knowledge, but it didn't result in their becomming hyperadvanced. As far as religion goes, in europe I think that greco-roman beleifs wouldn't have been very important, and that at the end of the empire there were more christians than greco-roman pagans of various sorts.


here is a link to a google newsgroup archive search on this subject in the group
soc.history.what-if
makeashorterlink.com...

The subject is something that comes up everyonce in a while and the threads on it can be very informative.

sauron:
I Don’t think the Roman Empire was totally destroyed it became the Roman Catholic Church


The Church and the Empire were two different organizations. The Pope was never an imperial official, and the church officials weren't either. Of course, later on, there might've been people who held offices in both. The RC Church certianly does carry over lots of stuff from the empire tho, such as the use of 'dioceses' and the like. But to say that the church is a continuation of the empire is a bit of a stretch, to say the least.


reply posted on 23-8-2004 @ 05:52 PM by Nygdan
Originally posted by nathraq
After the tribes began to unite( under the common name Alemanni), that's when the real trouble began.


I don't recall ever hearing of all the german tribes uniting. The Alemanni are one particular tribe.


Again, I wouldn't argue that the germans weren't important, but keep in mind that not all barbarians were germans and that even the barbarians themselves don't appear to have been sufficient, on their own, to bring the empire down.

Personally, I would say that a major problem Roman society had was the withdrawl from public/secular life that seemed to affect so much of the populace. People literally stopped caring about what it meant to be 'Roman' and progressively lost interest in that society.

Also, consider the barbarians. They had allways been attacking the empire, and the empire had been able to withstand them. However, some have argued that, torwards the end, the general mode of dealing with invasions changed. Instead of using deterence to keep them from raidng the provinces in the first place, and having effective local forces to boot them out when they did invade, and then relentlessly pursuing them in their own territory on punitive expeditions to let them know that attacking the empire wasn't worth it, the empire started to 'centralize' its military strenght. Not centralize on an empire wide scale (ie hoarding legions in italy and sending them out from there) or even on the regional scale, but perhaps rather province wide. When the barbarians would attack, the public would hole itself up in the cities (which the german tribes especially had a hard time sacking, probably due to lack of effective seige equipment) and leave the countryside (with its towns and population) to the ravages of the invaders. The local militias/levess couldn't stop the barbarians, and the main line legions and auxillaries would require -time- to get to the problem zones, time in which the barbarians would leave with plenty of 'booty' and such.

So the people in the countryside must've been wondering, what exactly are they paying these taxes and submiting to military recruitment for?

Likewise, the imperial administration must've been wondering, why are we wasting troops and resources on backwards provincials, especially when they are needed in other areas.

So they pulled out, like in Britain. And by leaving, the barbarians were able to come in, and repeat the process for the next province, and ultimately were able to threaten Italy and Greece itself.

The Byzantine Empire, it must be remebered, was able to effectively deal with the babarians until, when, the 1400's no?

So, again, I agree with your point, that barbarians were a large part of the problem, but I personally think that the other issues are very interesting.

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