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The Fall of the Roman Empire and Me
A friend of mine posted a list on Facebook of things that contributed to the fall of Rome and I disagreed with about half of them so I did some research. My idea of research is to go on YouTube, find university lectures about Rome, and listen to them when I drive to the golf course or pick up kids.
So now I'm the poster boy for A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing. I found that historians have come up with over 200 reasons for the fall of Rome, and that people of any political persuasion can cherry pick them to justify their beliefs.
All I'm going to do is point out a couple of things I didn't know. One is that in the final days of the empire there was a bad winter and the Rhine River froze over. The Romans had the crossings and bridges fortified, but that year the barbarians could just walk across the ice between the fortifications. Bad news for the Romans.
I also didn't know that the barbarians had assimilated into the Roman armies and that some of the armies were commanded by barbarians.
I didn't know that the barbarians were caught between the Huns in the east and the Romans in the west. Attila the Hun was an overpowering motive to march west.
My deep studies, well over three hours, also reinforced my theory that people who love strong man rulers are doomed to disappointment. If you like dictators, emperors, tzars or kings, your chances of getting a good one are tiny.
Rome had that problem. Lots of emperors, most of them useless or horrible, and the empire crumbled.
My personal feeling is that Rome had bad leadership, was overextended and fell apart economically, and like all human enterprises, had a life cycle that went through youth, middle age and old age. Empires rise and fall. They get old and corrupt.
Can we equate that to modern times? I'm sure we can learn lessons, but I'm not sure anyone in power will use them. America is an empire, and there's nothing to say it won't go through the same process. There is definitely a huge element of corruption, with money having far too much influence in elections and government. There is also an element of over-extension, where our vast military forces are becoming harder to support economically. It's definitely possible that some other empire will rise to power. Historically it always happens.