The Decline of the Roman Empire
“From the eighteenth century onward, we have been obsessed with the fall: it has been valued as an archetype for every perceived decline, and, hence, as a symbol for our own fears”1 Bowersock, "The Vanishing Paradigm of the Fall of Rome" Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 49.8 (May 1996:29-43) p. 31.
When, how and why the Roman Empire fell is not completely clear. However, in order to make a point, I am going to briefly discuss some of the dozens of theories as to why it collapsed. When it collapsed and how it collapsed are kind of irrelevant to me in this discussion, as the point I would like to emphasize throughout this book is not the “whens” or “hows,” but the “whys.” Mainly, why does the survival of our species seem to be threatened periodically throughout our history, but despite this fact, we somehow do not succumb to the threats of complete annihilation? Ultimately, we survive.
The next important why, in my opinion, would be - why do we survive? How do we survive would be a question that does not interest me so much simply because there are many different ways that a person could find a way to survive so “how” we survive could not have one specific answer. However, “why” we survive is a different question. How many answers could there be. We want to survive. Human beings, regardless of what type of person they may be, want to live. Why do we want to survive? Do we even know why we want to or did the Universe simply equip us with a primal instinct for survival. If that is the case, it wouldn’t matter what the circumstances are, like breathing, our species would survive, unconsciously and involuntarily.
In fact, I take back what I said earlier. “How” and “why” we survive must be answered together so that the answer can make sense and have meaning. Why does Life survive? Life wants to. How does Life survive? Life is programmed to. As long as Life wants to survive, Life is programmed to survive. Once Life does not want to survive anymore, we can imagine something like a “computer virus” invading our system and the internal program to survive deconstructing and no longer performing at its optimal potential.
My next “why” is why does the Universe want us, or appear to want us to survive and live on? This entire book is really asking this question in a hundred different ways. This question is another question that can’t be answered specifically, but has a different answer in every unique circumstance. So knowing this, I can always ask this question in relation to any circumstance or decision that I am in the midst of and create an answer that serves a higher purpose.
My answer to “why does the Universe appear to want us to survive” is always that I don’t know, but I do believe that there is some sort of deeper purpose within the system of the Universe and with that knowledge alone, I can make a better decision. I can assume that one of the purposes must be so that the free will of humans can evolve to a level of certainty. We can no longer stay confused as to what is right and wrong. We have to be attuned to a higher purpose, such as peace, so that we can instinctively move through our life towards that purpose. When I say instinctively, I mean the same way we are programmed to simply survive we need to program ourselves through our gift of free will to not just survive, but to instinctively propagate patience, trust and faith in the Universe and amongst ourselves.
The Fall of the Roman Empire is a very lengthy subject with many opinions and facts that, unless you devote yourself to in-depth study of the topic, you won’t have a complete understanding as to what took place during this period in history. I chose to summarize certain aspects because it seems to me that there was a major transition over a few hundred years due to the activity of the Romans, their constituents and their enemies that contributed to a major shift in our spiritual evolution - the same spiritual evolution that I believe was always evolving, will always be evolving and is, at this very moment, evolving. As we all know, after the disappearance of the Roman Empire, Christianity and Catholicism were formed and from then on the Church (today the Vatican) sets the religious standards for the rest of the world.
As I said before, this subject is very exhaustive and since I do not claim to an expert on the subject, I am unable to provide you with substantial amounts of information and facts. I am, therefore, reducing my argument to one fact. The Roman Empire eventually disintegrated for various reasons, however, due to the intensity and suffering of the common person during the collapse of this great empire, the entire mindset of people AROUND THE WORLD changed during this period.
After the third century when the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire, political and military problems were so great that the Empire shrank and nearly collapsed. By the end of the fourth century, the Empire was split into Western (most of what we call Europe today) and Eastern (mainly Greece, Italy and some of Asia and Africa) halves. The West was increasingly rural, subject to invasion and in general decline. The East turned into the long-lasting Byzantine Empire. By the end of the fifth century, what was once the Western Empire was little more than just a memory. According to some historians, the period from 450-500 A.D. was the darkest in the history of western civilization. The Byzantine Empire was unable to re-create the peace and minimal military expansion that was established by Caesar Augustus (sometimes called the Pax Romona or Pax Augustus) so eventually literacy, commerce and law became scarce within the Empire.
Instead, people became illiterate and the arts, philosophy and other leisure activities that contributed to the stability of the Roman political system were gone. Roads became too dangerous to travel as the law was one of arbitrary violence and force. Because people could not freely travel about due to the danger amidst them, they were limited to learning and experiencing from the small area of their birthplace, the same place they ultimately would die. Commerce shrunk to subsistence living and barter became the main mechanism of trade as the coins of the old Roman Empire were used up. The population ultimately waned as a result of this instability.
Whatever the reason for the permanent destruction and replacement of the Roman Empire with a different type of era, I would like to emphasize that perspective matters in as much as it can illustrate to someone the varied ideas there are regarding almost any subject and with that knowledge, we can more readily accept our own perspective. In other words, if there was only one “right” answer, we would all have to agree, but because there is never one “right” answer, we can make up our own – which is what I am about to do.
1. Due to the incredible size of the Empire, a huge budget was necessary to maintain many key elements in its survival, such as roads essential for communication, transportation, and the moving of armies and aqueducts. Many of Rome's cities relied on the water that it provided. At the time, the Empire was fighting enemies on all sides due to its expansion into their territories and was already contributing huge sums of silver and gold to support its armies. To try to combat both problems, the Empire was forced to raise taxes, causing inflation to skyrocket. This in turn caused the major economic stress that others attribute as one of the causes for Rome's decline.
Because maintaining an army to defend Rome’s borders from foreign attacks was a constant drain on the government, frustrated Romans eventually lost the desire to defend the Empire. The Empire had to begin hiring soldiers recruited from the unemployed city mobs or worse from foreign countries (Germanic mercenaries). Such an army was not only unreliable, but very expensive.
Due to the semi-“Germanization” of the Roman military, the Romans gradually entrusted the role of defending the Empire to the German mercenaries who eventually turned on them, ultimately corrupting the integrity of the Empire.
The Sassanids (Persian Empire) were powerful enough to push the Romans away from the Euphrates and from much of Armenia and southeast Turkey, which turned the Persians into a genuine threat to the Roman Empire. It took the Roman Empire about half a century to cope with the Sassanid threat, which it did by stripping the western provincial towns and cities of their regional taxation income, leaving a negative long-term impact. Due to lack of tax money, the development of local infrastructure in the Western Empire decreased, allowing other hostile invasions into Roman territory.
Since private farmers were not able to compete with the wealthier farmers who were able to use slave labor, agricultural production consequently diminished. The combination of the decline of agricultural output as well as an increase in population caused the per-capita energy resource availability to drop. The Romans solved this problem in the short-term by conquering their neighbors to appropriate their energy surpluses such as metals, grain, slaves, etc. However, this solution merely exacerbated the issue over the long-term. As the Empire’s land and population expanded, the cost of maintaining communications, civil government and land maintenance increased. Eventually, these costs grew so great that any new challenges such as invasions and crop failures could not be solved by the acquisition of more territory. At that point, the Empire fragmented into smaller units.
Gradually, environmental degradation caused population and economic decline. Deforestation and excessive grazing led to the erosion of meadows as well as croplands. These activities resulted in fertile land becoming nonproductive. Besides affecting the human population, food and water shortages contributed to the extinction of many animal species in the region, such as the gomphothere, an elephant-like species.
Output from the silver mine at Rio Tinto reached an all time high in 79 A.D., corresponding to the beginning of the era of coin debasement, inflation and over-taxation. The Roman Emperor debased the coinage because Roman mines had peaked and output was declining. The thesis is that mines of all commodities were being depleted, including gold, silver, iron and so forth. This led to the decline of Roman technological and economic sophistication.
A severe decline in morals and values, according to many historians, also contributed to the collapse of the Roman Empire. Emperors like Caligula and Nero became infamous for wasting money on lavish parties where guests drank and ate until they became sick. Prostitutes were everywhere and the most popular amusement was watching the gladiatorial combats in the Coliseum.
There were many public health and environmental problems. Many of the wealthy had water brought to their homes through lead pipes, causing a high death rate due to lead poisoning. Because of the general economic stress, many poor people lived in terrible, cramped and unsanitary conditions which consequently spread uninterrupted strains of disease throughout their community. Alcohol use also increased adding to the incompetency of the general public.
The Romans never created an effective system to determine how new emperors would be selected. The choice was always open to debate between the old emperor, the Senate, the Praetorian Guard (the emperor’s private army) and the army. Gradually the Praetorian Guard gained complete authority to choose the new emperor, who rewarded the guard who then became more influential, perpetuating the cycle. Then in 186 A.D., the army strangled the new emperor and the practice began of selling the throne to the highest bidder. During the next 100 years, Rome had 37 different emperors, 25 of whom were removed from office by assassination. This contributed to the overall weaknesses, decline and fall of the Empire.
Once the Romans stopped conquering new lands, the flow of gold into the Roman economy decreased. Yet, much gold was being spent by the Romans to pay for luxury items. This meant that there were less gold coins to use. As the amount of gold used in coins decreased, the coins became less valuable. To make up for this loss in value, merchants raised the prices on the goods they sold. Many people stopped using coins and began to barter to get what they needed. Eventually salaries had to be paid in food and clothing and taxes were collected in fruits and vegetables. Most Romans were not rich and lived in squalor in exchange for rent. Anyone who could not pay the rent was forced to move out and live on the crime infested streets. Because of this, the cities began to decay.
In summary, there are a combination of theories as to what specifically caused the fall of the great Roman Empire. Let’s review the reasons listed below and you can decide for yourself if you notice correlations relating to the situation in America.
Major tax increases to support numerous wars.
Unfriendly foreigners enlisted in the Roman army and the Romans trusted them, until it was too late.
Private farmers (smaller businesses) were not able to compete with the wealthier businesses resulting in less goods being produced, despite population increase.
Environmental degradation caused population and economic decline.
Commodity output reached its peak in 79 A.D. resulting in inflation and coin debasement.
A severe decline in morals and values.
Public health and environmental problems.
The voting process was not as ethical as it should have been.
Government officials used actual gold to pay for luxury items, thereby making coins less valuable.
I don’t know about you, but it looks to me that we should really think about our future, if there is one, as a world “super-power.”
Since I am not a historian and I particularly can’t stand doing research papers, I’m simply going to tie these two pivotal moments in history together and highlight the correlation between these two history changing moments with what is currently happening in our world.
Let’s first discuss the similarities between our first obvious evolutionary transition, the “Great Leap Forward” and the situation in the world right now.
Right now, as I am writing this book, there is worldwide interest in a mosque that a group of Moslems are considering building very close to the site of Ground Zero.
I doubt I even need to explain what I am trying to get at, but let me try to anyway. We can’t know the outcome of this battle before it happens, but we can use our extensive knowledge of the past to make an educated assessment of the situation. If we are in a transitional phase of our evolution, then we can learn from history that anything that brings us closer or encourages us to cooperate as a collective unit of people all working together for the same goal (spiritual growth) will be able to successfully carry us forward into the purpose of our existence.
We can see this from the effect of whatever caused the “Great Leap Forward.” Humans evolved into something greater than we were. And, on the flip side, those that didn’t keep up with the evolutionary trend became extinct. We know this from the fact that one type of hominoid (in this case, the Cro-Magnon) either conquered the other (in this case, the Neanderthal) or interbreeding (genetic manipulation) caused the other type to become extinct. Whichever way it happened, one type of hominoid did not survive the transition.
I propose that the evolutionary change that took place 50,000 years ago was not necessarily a physical change. There may have been some physical changes but the most important change was really philosophical. Somehow, in a world where individual survival was all that was understood, the choice to unite in groups was brought forward. Apparently, a collective decision was made by the majority of the hominoids existing at the time to move towards a world where humans interacted with each other. This is not deciding whether or not we have to brush our teeth to prevent cavities. This is a decision that requires us to leap into the unknown and take a chance.
We were forced to make a philosophical decision, because there were no hard facts on which to base this decision. We came across some fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language that we needed to solve. Using some sort of systematic approach, we were able to reason that combining human power and strength might make us stronger as a species. We can see now that this philosophical decision was an immediate success, but we didn’t understand the complete picture at the time.
Further, we must discuss this new philosophy of human interaction. This steadily becomes much trickier than we ever thought it would be. That’s actually the problem with philosophy. Something may make sense initially, but once put into practice, new ideas and problems that were not thought of previously all of a sudden pop up and require solutions.
The point I want to loudly emphasize here is this; we are still, to this day, trying to find solutions for that philosophical decision we made 50,000 years ago. However, we can use our collective history to make the next educated philosophical decision. I know that I may sound like a typical Bible thumper, but, I hate to say it, the signs are here.
Let’s go back to the players on Team “Build Mosque” and Team “DO NOT Build Mosque,” and we can’t forget those independent parties that never seem to be heard. What I want to point out before we start to analyze our position in this philosophical war around one mosque, is that if you think about this coming from a perspective of detachment, you will discover that the whole argument is silly. Build the mosque, don’t build the mosque – if either of these decisions were made, could either decision ever really hurt me if I am not attached to the problem? But, we have one huge side issue; this “problem” could cause World War III and with all the nuclear weapons out there, there isn’t much chance of survival if it ever gets to that level. So now, I (and everyone else IN THE ENTIRE WORLD) am attached to this problem. Here we are, sitting with fundamental problems inhibiting our existence once again. It’s time to make another historical philosophical decision, or an educated decision grounded in a leap of faith, that catapults us into the next phase of our existence.
How do we make an educated philosophical decision? This sounds like a really dumb question to me because 50,000 years ago we were able to do it without any written history, science or knowledge of any kind. Today, we have unlimited amounts of historical, scientific, political and religious data to see a much clearer picture of our world and ourselves than we had 50,000 years ago. If you don’t mind me saying so, we should be ashamed of ourselves if we still can’t get it right!
The Fall of the Roman Empire should be a significant reminder to us that when leaders become tyrannical and citizens feel like there is a definite imbalance in the system, that is when life in the fast lane comes to a crashing halt. I am not really sure why the leaders of our generation cannot see this clearly, but in case any of them happen to read my book, just a reminder – you need us, the little people, on your side in this fight for survival.
All you have to do is remember all the great empires that are no longer with us because the rulers no longer cared about the little people. They thought that we were unnecessary in this world. Even if the intent of the leaders is, and was, not to aggressively destroy all the “have-nots,” neglect of the world’s underprivileged is just as bad. The world rulers that are working against the unity of the Universe, be wary because the work that is set out for you is going to be tough and eventually the rest of us are going to wake up and realize that we need, want and ache for survival. Once we wake up and realize this, it’s on! The human race will survive. History has proven it to us. Empires may not survive, but the human race will. Not only will the human race merely survive, we will inevitably become unified and conflict will only be a concept of the past.
Now, with that being said, what can we do as a united front with regard to this mosque issue? I don’t know about you, but I would like to continue moving towards a new spiritual attitude that may bring us closer to our purpose, or at least the knowledge of our purpose. First I remind myself that, if I could decide for everybody trying to keep everyone’s happiness in mind, I would very soon understand that not everybody is going to be happy, ever. Since I do not want to take the responsibility of making the right decision here, I go to plan B – relying on a higher power to take care of these great problems for me. We all need to realize that there is nothing that is going to be 100% successful short of trying to live our own life as spiritually as possible, maybe even positively influencing others around us along the way. This is because we are all different. We all tick according to our own settings. We can only worry about our own behavior and we cannot force others to behave the way we want them to. Our job as the little people in this scenario is to have faith; this is all we can do. We didn’t cause the situation at hand and we cannot solve it.
Our next hurdle in the struggle with faith is accepting that faith insists that we have trust in a greater power. In order to maintain faith, we are required to trust that the Life Force of the Universe intends to deal with our species gently and mercifully. In an attempt to help you through this hurdle, I would like to clearly point out once again that we can feel comfortable trusting in the grand scheme of things because the Life Force hasn’t failed us yet. The world is still here, more heavily populated than ever. That is all we have to remember. We can also feel comfortable with the philosophy that we touched upon 50,000 years ago that lead to a “great leap forward.” We need other humans in our life for many different reasons and if we don’t or can’t incorporate others into our lives, we cannot evolve. It’s that simple.
Without some sort of people skills (ethical and unethical), we would most likely cease to exist because in order to grow as a human we have to learn how to interact with each other. Animals and plant life understand that they have to follow the patterns of nature and interact with one another in order to survive. We have not figured that out yet.
If your belief is aligned with my belief, you will accept that there is enough basis within my “proof” to accept it as a possible truth. If you don’t believe the way I do, you will realize, rightfully so, that two random moments in history are not enough proof of anything. There is an infinite amount of history to sift through detail by detail before you can be comfortable enough to accept a truth based on such a small increment of the total information available. After you study everything there is to study on the subject, at least a few times over, and find that all of the historic detail actually confirms the opposite of what you have believed until now, maybe then you will be ready to accept a new belief totally opposite of what you initially swore you would take to the grave.
I say forget about trying to confirm or reject any belief system as true (or false for that matter). Believe what you want until proven otherwise. The key is to know that what you believe is not necessarily true in every situation but you should also be aware that it may be true, even if it sounds ridiculous.
I am very aware that trying to “prove” that we have the potential to change our reality by learning from history and limiting my proof to two single historical moments that took place with thousands of years between them, that my basis is at best, very flimsy. However, maybe not if you understand that all I am trying to say is that anyone, when they believe something deeply enough will be able to sell that belief by finding as many proofs or confirmations of that belief, even if it means that you will sometimes be pulling those proofs from very flimsy sources or unsubstantial or non-contextual evidence, as someone who is reading this book may accuse me of doing. What I am really trying to do is to build a viable case that we all invent beliefs based on facts that we hear throughout the day and accumulate, regardless of the source of the information.
However, like everything else, there are pros and cons to creating whole beliefs from an incomplete or inaccurate set of details. Accepting the details presented to you as proof without any research of your own is not only foolish, but dangerous. Let’s take for example the situation in totalitarian countries. The populace are only presented with the details that the regime wants them to have in order to maintain control of the population. The people who live in these countries are brainwashed into thinking that they don’t have a way out. They rely on their “government” for their sense of security. They depend on their leaders so much that they are afraid of what their leaders would do if they were to resist. Where would they go? Their land is all they have and leaving their land would be more devastating than revolting against what the rest of the world would consider substandard living conditions.
But must these people continue to accept these substandard conditions and unreasonable laws? I say no. I say that they only think they must because they don’t have all the facts. They only have the facts that were presented to them by people who specifically did not want to expose the whole truth in order to protect themselves and their power. If all of the information concerning personal freedom would be made available to them, you might then see groups within these countries gather in protest against their oppressors and a statement of freedom would then be made.
Everybody should be free to choose how to live. That choice should not be threatened by the idea of death. Everybody should be willing to DIE for that right. How could I say that? Because, a “life” without the basic human right of free will is equivalent to living life without an energy source. We don’t operate solely according to nature, like everything else does. Our free will is our power. Our free will is what creates our experiences, good or bad. What we do with that power is what the purpose of life is. If that power is unfairly stripped from us in any way by others, we lose the only unique power we have as human beings. We are then forced to live according to how someone else thinks we should, kind of like someone’s animal.
In the case of the mosque, if anyone expects the entire world to agree collectively with any one measly, inconsequential, isolated philosophy with regard to this highly heated dispute, they would have had to have fallen hard on their head first.
Conflict causes division. Sometimes the conflict is simply a fight over who is right and who is wrong. Does it matter who is right and who is wrong? If all you care about is being right, which would cause you to insist others agree with you, you can take your insignificant opinion and keep it to yourself. No one cares about only your opinion. However, if you care about the state of the world from the depths of your heart, your opinion will matter because it would never be forced down another’s throat. For the state of the world to flourish, we cannot, under any circumstance, take away anyone’s personal free will. The only thing we can do is learn from our experiences and work on ourselves so that we may be a confident and valuable, non-aggressive influence in the world around us.