Nature has dictated that life is a cycle. We are born, we grow, we age, we die. If we have children, we are present in the future, through our DNA.
Civilizations, being made up of humans, are subject to the same, natural rules. They are born, they grow, they age, they crumble, and yet, like our own children, the culture of the civilization carries on through its DNA. Its traditions are its grandparents, the holders of the history and wisdom that are the glue of the culture. Whilst the buildings are subject to crumbling into the dirt, the culture remains. This is what carries. It is the DNA.
The example I will use to expound on this is Rome.
Currently, the fashionable phrase we hear among the politically conservatives, goes somewhat like this: If we don’t straighten out, we will fall just like the Roman empire!
This is, of course, one of those meme items that makes its way through social media like crap through a goose. Now that Elon Musk referred to it, such memes, again, are lighting up the social media sky. All those bloggers and essayists that have been writing about this theme, can write new essays, or get out their old essays out, and share them like mad.
The fall of Rome trope is just like the falling of the sky, trope. It’s used as a warning that Doom and Gloom is on its way. What one is supposed to do about this, no one ever says. There is never a real call to action, just the warning, like every prophet gives us, to change our ways.
The people whose ways are to be changed, aren’t interested in changing them. Aye, there’s the curmudgeon. The progressive raison d’être, is to change the culture and its civilization. The progressives rather like the idea that the American empire will fall. They can then resurrect it in their own image. However, they too, do not understand what it means, for an empire to “fall.”
Little Miss History here, that would be me, got exasperated with all of this shallow history. Ergo, today’s piece is meant to take a closer look at the fall of Rome meme.
The origin of this concept is by one Edward Gibbon, a late 18th century historian. He wrote a book, titled, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It got shortened it to The Fall of the Roman Empire. The important word in that title, is decline. That’s the real meat that has to be studied. By the time you sense the falling, it’s too late to do much about it. Except to position yourself to deal with the fallout.
All empires, at some point, fail. The USA won’t be any different.We are not so special, because in spite of our myths of being a free people that live in a democracy, we are subject to the rules of nature. Which is this: everything dies. That includes the big and powerful. All the oligarchs and all the homeless, the middle class, the poor, the famous.
Just as we cannot prevent death, we cannot prevent the end of an empire. One reason this is so, is because as generations change, succeeding generations will have different ideas on politics, and how to organize the country. Since people are reactionary, and since wisdom is not wide spread, they will make decisions that are advantageous to their lives, but not to others. People in a democracy always end up fighting one another, at some point, especially those with opposite views. That’s when the bully game begins. This can lead to violence, as in a civil war. There is already talk of breaking up the States. As more and more people actually pick up and leave, and migrate to other places, it becomes a de facto break up of the USA. But at some point, when those who have moved want to end their participation in the government of the US, violence is probable.
If the migrators are careful for what they wish for, they can prepare for the worst, and hope for the best.
Let’s look at Rome.
Rome was not a democracy. So right there, when comparing the USA with Rome, that is a problem. Rome began as a kingdom, with elected kings. After 500 years, the senators, made up of the Patrician families, called an end to the kings, and turned Rome into a republic.
Who were the Patricians? Descendants of the founding families of Rome.
Rome had a good run with its republic. It lasted some 400 years. However, as empires grow, they become unwieldily, and things can be too big to handle. Neglect pops up here and there, causing its edges to fray.
Rome didn’t fall, it contracted. That is to say, its huge empire began to break up as more and more immigrants made their way to a sparsely populated Europe. Immigrants to a sparsely populated area tend to take over the location. France was, before the German Franks arrive, Gaul. The Franks, and later tribes, were so influential, Gaul became more German than Celtic. Ergo, France.
This is a key factor in our own history, that we Europeans migrated to this country. And, seeing it sparsely populated, we grabbed up land, and created farms and cities. The indigenous population were, for the most part, still living the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They were easy to shove aside because they didn’t have the resources the Europeans had, namely transportation, (horses and wagons), and the weaponry.
The entire continent developed through this method. Just as Europe had developed three thousand years before us. Indeed, the entire history of the world is based on people migrating from once place to another. There are two basic reasons for these migrations: 1-opportunity for a better life; 2-political relief, as in refuges fleeing a war, or tyranny.
Rome fought off the migrants for hundreds of years. Except many of these migrants they needed in their armies. Rome too, had the same issue of any oligarchy; they had all the resources under their thumb, had thousands of slaves, and a small middle class. Plus, Rome played the “let’s keep expanding” game. However, when a time of shifting comes, life gives us changes. The population at-large has a tough time of it, whilst the oligarchs ride it out. That’s when people moved out of Rome. And the Germans moved in.
Being that the people had very little political power, when things got rough, when the fighting among the oligarchs went from being a nuisance to serious, the senate would call for a dictator. And this individual did have the power to straighten out the mess. During the final century, BC, Rome experienced civil wars, which were nothing more than the Patricians fighting among themselves. The man who came out on top, Gaius Julius Caesar, was murdered. (44 BC) Back into civil war they went, and the next man to come out on top, was another Caesar, Octavian, who became the first emperor, (33 BC) Augustus.
When does the empire go into decline? Not yet. Instead, the empire, under Constantine, moves east. (331 AD) To Anatolia, to a small city on the Bosporus, that will become Constantinople. This becomes the seat of government.
The Roman army is removed from Britain and Europe, and that is when the big shift takes place, as the German tribes flood in to take those locations for themselves. Genghis Kahn also shows up. He doesn’t stay, but he spreads his DNA around enough that millions of people, today, have this guy’s DNA. German warlords, like Odoacer, take control. They align themselves with the Italians. Odoacer becomes the first German king of Italy in the 5th century.
The Roman empire remains in Constantinople.
I would imagine, if the USA had such a shift in power and location, the southern border would be no more, and the demographics would change dramatically. The Southwest would be flooded by members of the various Mexican cartels that could very well set up their own small country, and rule it. So yes, the attempt to control who comes into a nation is a good idea. Nonetheless, history demonstrates that it is one of the events that happens when a country is failing. This does not, however, damage the rulers. They are above the fray, literally and figuratively. The question then becomes, what oligarch will make an alliance with what drug lord?
John Adams, one of my favorite history professors at UCLA, in our class on the Middle Ages, pointed out to us that the same people in control of Europe during that period, were from the same families that had come across the borders, hundreds of years before. The aristocratic families of the 13th century, were the descendants of the warlords of 6th century. Even today, professor Adams told us, many of these same families can trace their lineage to such people as Charlemagne, including the royal family of England.
Moderns do not consider this angle when they think about the American empire falling. That it won’t so much fall, as it will break up, and reconfigure. This can be a great inconvenience to the middle class, and disastrous to the poor. But to the Bill Gates, and Elon Musks of this world, well, they are insulated. They will retreat to their estates, and hire their own armies to protect them.
Musk, to his credit, is much more attentive to the situation than Bill Gates, who has turned himself into a member of the bully class. However, both men, and their families, will not feel the effects of the breakup, or contraction, like the rest of us will.
Here we are, then, with Rome’s power base in Constantinople, whilst the European Romans shift. And yes, this could happen to the USA. Not that the president would move the capital, but the states can break up, and the border become even more porous.
If you want to compare apples to apples, we need to look at Athens. Athens was a democracy, but not at all like ours. Athens had strict rules about who could vote. We have loose rules about who can vote. Athens had a direct democracy. We have an indirect, or layered, democracy. In Athens, only citizens that could trace their lineage to Athenians could vote. They also had to be male, and had served in the army. About 10-20% of Athenians qualified to vote. Nonetheless, they would argue over issues, sometimes violently. This democracy fell apart a couple of times, and Athens would return to the kingdom model. In other words, that beloved democracy was quite unstable.
Whether a democracy is direct, the people make the laws, and vote on them, or indirect, the people vote in representatives to make the laws, democracy always lends itself to infighting and breakdown. What we see in the USA today, is the beginning of the breakdown. We have already begun the big shift, with citizens moving to locations that are more friendly to their lifestyle. Anthropologists say that people are their locations. When their location has shifted, changed because of factors beyond their control, they migrate. It has been this way for thousands of years, this movement of people. We see it today, and it is unsettling.
One can choose to stay and fight, and that too, is unsettling, due to the enemy being one’s own neighbors. Thus are civil wars made. With 8 billion people in the world, it can be difficult to find big, empty spaces if that is one’s inclination. A part of the American mythos is the “pioneer spirit.” However, that pioneer spirit is the essence of those who pick up and move, no matter their culture, or their location.
That pioneer spirit was evident in the humans who learned to control fire, and wanted to cook their food, versus the traditionalists, who wanted to keep eating it raw. The cooked food eaters moved away. They joined with others who ate cooked food. The raw food eaters empire died out, only to be recreated by their children, who decided to eat cooked food. Except for sushi.
Keep what is good from the old ways, and throw out the rest. That is one of the points of a good education. It means eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Then we know what to keep, and what to throw out.
Rome’s empire may be gone, but the Romans are still very much with us. Every time you hear Italian, Spanish or French spoken, that is Rome. When you drive a Ferrari down a paved road. That is Rome. Walk into a Roman Catholic Church. That is Rome. When you say emperor, that is a Latin word. Or hear a Latin Mass, and sing a Gregorian chant, you participate in that language that they spoke. No, Rome, like Greece, Carthage, Egypt, Persia, Assyria, and Sumer, all remain a part of our Western traditions.
Through us, Rome lives.