The stanning of Rome will continue until morale improves 
I like my women like I like my empires: Overextended, inefficient and unable to sustain their decadence.
…unmanageably large and on the brink of fracturing?
I'm literally obsessed with Rome. I find it absolutely fascinating. But because it was so incredibly vulgar and dysfunctional. The Roman dominate was an utterly unhinged period of time. Getting named emperor was a more or less guaranteed death sentence. At one time they had 4 emperor's at the same time. Not 4 rivals, 4 colleagues. Batshit
Tetrarchy my beloved
Show
My DND campaign has a roman tetrarchy analog but I was bold and made it a pentarchy for tie breaking and drama
just Augustii and Caesars and in a group huddle, just a couple of besties
There’s honestly some very good arguments that Christianity brought down the Roman civilization, and indeed, put us on the path to the dark ages. That’s what I find fascinating. It was so advanced, and in the blink of an eye, not even a memory.
Ehhh I think that argument is weak. For one, the adoption of Christianity as the state religion happens a good deal before the collapse of the WRE. Second, the underlying issues that cause the collapse don’t have much to do with Christianity (the empire outgrowing its administrative capacity, reliance on conquered peoples for the military, power games in the capital, constant juggling of where the troops are stationed) and many of them were present before Christianity got adopted. Third, and perhaps most critical, the East doesn’t collapse and continues to function under Christianity and, later and farther east, Islam.
Not to mention that the “dark” in dark ages refers to the relative lack of written records in the West in the era compared to late antiquity before it and high medieval/renaissance after it. Most of those records being written by bishops, so said records are skewed towards a religious viewpoint.
All good points. We spent a good part of our class time examining Christianity’s importance in the medieval history courses I took in college. Like you said, the eastern empire chugged right along no problem. There were plenty of more convincing factors than some emperors deciding to worship a corpse.
I only made that original comment because I’m watching Vikings slop right now, and it’s interesting to consider the illiterate saxons and franks being completely ignorant of who had built the walls they lived within.
The idea that the "dark ages" (they weren't dark), the political/economic/etc. fracturiing of rome, was Christianity's fault is one of those really big red flags that people dont know what they're talking about tbh
It's by way of Christendom that ANYTHING survives of Rome, aside from some ruins, practically speaking.
Christendom preserves the language Christendom preserves a ton of the pagan culture. Not on purpose, of course, but just because the Catholic church is and was itself an institution of Rome itself. Catholicism is like, if the united states collapsed but inexplicably the judiciary carried on and continued to make rulings for 1500 years. Christianity was converted into a state religion, so it took on the shape of the dominant culture.
The dark ages as a concept aren't real. There was political upheaval in europe, but the caliphates of the Islamic world were going through a golden age. China, India, etc. were all going through entirely different situations and knowledge production didn't cease for a moment.
Count me among those who are fascinated with and loves learning about rome, but absolutely hates rome as a polity. Evil ass motherfuckers. Absolutely evil. The parts the United States lowkey exalt is actually the monstrous nightmare that was the Roman state enforcing its power. The sheer cruelty and brutality of Rome, spread across millennia... wretched evil.
All good points. We spent a good part of our class time examining Christianity’s importance in the medieval history courses I took in college. Like you said, the eastern empire chugged right along no problem. There were plenty of more convincing factors than some emperors deciding to worship a corpse.
Replied to the wrong bear but yolo
Except it wasn't advanced. It was a massive slave empire and society that actively regressed the technology around it, mostly stealing what they did know from the Greeks and the Egyptians. That's why they disappeared so quickly. They were talented military campaigners and builders of military structures, however they also were too stupid to realize that you don't chase horse archers into the middle of the desert, and never actually figured out how to build real ships.
They literally didn't even have iron ploughshares despite having access to all of the things to make them, that it was Germanic immigrants that first developed it on the outskirts of the empire.
Christianity didn't bring down the Roman empire, their inability to move from slave based wealth and production to mechanical economies of scale brought down the Roman empire.
Literally their best known philosopher was a Roman Emperor going "Don't worry about stuff you can't control, just try to be a decent person to those around you and be civic minded, and things will probably work out." And that is considered to be the soaring heights of Roman philosophy.
The greatest and most progressive thing that ever occured in history was the splintering and fall of the Roman Empire.
'Roman' technology was not stolen, they were part of the same medditerrnean cultural milieu as the greeks and (greek-dominated) egyptians. ancient people didn't have patents i dont think they particularly cared or took pride in what heap of things "their" society invented vis-a-vis others.
"technology" is a very industrial way to view past societies anyway, inventions are contingent on utility to the existing social structure, not what a different one might be able to achieve with it. more sturdy cargo ships weren't necessary under a regime that financed a lion's share of shipping in order to facilitate their cities and armies, removing that to incentivise greater investment in individual shipments would essentially collapse their state.
The Athenians absolutely took pride in their ship-building culture and ship performance in comparison to the Spartans. Additionally many ancient peoples absolutely viewed themselves as superior sailors and kept ship-building techniques as closely guarded guild and city secrets. And it was 'stolen', in that they saw what the Greeks were doing and copied it, and there are extremely few examples of Roman pre-Grecian influence art. Some extremely intense arena architecture though which varied from the Greek tradition. However, Romans were infamously worse sailors and shipbuilders than the Cathaginians or pretty much any other former Greek colony. The Romans lost thousands of men and supplies, repeatedly, to crappy seamanship, and I am pretty sure that if they knew how to build ships better, they probably would have wanted to.
As to the utility issue, that exactly my point though. People don't have some kind of perfect knowledge of what actually creates utility for themselves, especially cultures as a whole. It's not contingent on the actual utility value, it is contingent on the perception of the utility value. Iron ploughshares crop up all over the Germanic outskirts, but it isn't until the total collapse of Roman hierarchy and the loss of importation of massive slave populations that they make their way into the Italian peninsula. The perceived utility of the ploughshare was low, however, iron ploughshares could easily have done to slavery in Rome what the cotton gin did to slavery in the American South, (and to some extent, it kinda did, as peasant yields would have been too poor without it to sustain the practice). However, it made absolutely no headway culturally until after the old way had passed.
Have you ever actually talked to an archeologist? They talk about the development of 'techniques and tools' which create a shared cultural 'technology'. 'Technology' is a much different thing from 'industry', however, many pre-industrial cultures absolutely participated in proto-industrial practices, such as mass systematic animal butchery. The difference of course being that only a small portion of their lives were oriented around those practices. Conflating the two is to lose the meaning of both.
taking pride in and enumerating the things your people 'invented' is a nationalist and liberal schema that would confuse ancient people, how you sail or build a boat is very different from thinking you did it first and are owed credit when others do so.
the 'inventor' is a historiographical construct to produce aspirational narratives to capitalist subjects, and historians back-dated them to ancient times for nationalist purposes. Archimedes produced no actually useful or widely used devices but he's great for a greek nationalist (and classicist english who claim to carry forward that tradition) narrative. Further, putting Archimedes next to Edison makes the inventor-entrepenuer timeless, above reproach, and casts persons like Edison's wealth as resultant of "invention" rather than the traditional skullduggery accompanying the accumulation of capital.
there are extremely few examples of Roman pre-Grecian influence art
"Greek" influence is confused for and conflated with what is indigenous medditerrenean. people act like these people are incredibly distant and isolated--Rome was founded all of 200km from a very prominent greek colony (Neapolis). do you think it's more likely a people would abandon their own traditions for another or that people living close together already shared a hell of a lot before they became imperial states?
idk where you're getting this iron plough thing, the romans were in italy when it was introduced, roman slavery declined in roman territories that weren't taken over too, and it's mostly about fiscal policies that shifted the basis of taxation from cities to rural areas.
i used 'industrial' because i didn't want to say 'liberal' and make you think i'm condemning you politically. i hope i explained what i meant adequately above. people's opinions/analysis of ancient rome are not politically salient in 2026, this heap of stuff is academic (derogatory) but fun to talk about.
You moved the goalposts like, three times there, but I will take this all in good faith.
I am not talking about the idea of a singular inventor-entrepreneur. I am talking about a culture. A learned and shared pattern of behavior. Cultures 'invent' things. Maybe you are just hung up on the wording. Certain cultures are known by their generation of certain types of behavior. Yes, the idea of a singular 'Greek' culture is nationalist revisionism, however that doesn't mean that ancient people didn't take a level of civic m pride in the things their cities produced.
Yes, these people were 'close' but there are still distinct styles that develop, and that is how archeologists are usually able to determine things removed artistic influence. Athenian pottery is different than even Ithican pottery is different from Minoan A is different than Minoan B is different than pre-Greek influence Roman is different than Grecian-influenced Roman is different than after Rome conquers Greece. Sure though, all of it is part of a larger Mediterranean culture, however, a large part of that Mediterranean culture first gets its shape in Greece, and it spills out from there with the Greek colonial projects. And I am not saying this phenomena is unique to the Greeks, you can see the same kind of thing with the Phoenecians before then.
The Romans were in Italy when the iron ploughshare was introduced, but it did not gain any traction until after the decline of mass importation of slaves and general collapse of the West Roman state. Idk what any of that has to do with the fiscal policies of empire vis-a-vis the point I was making. All you've done is confuse the issue.
There are absolutely some levels of political saliency from Rome to the modern day, though extremely strained and not usually very helpful, but none of that is what I was talking about, so idk why you brought it up.
At this point, I will just have to agree to disagree with you, as I don't think we are really talking the same language here at all.
Edit: As well, the studies and analysis I am referencing come from Marxist historians. I mean, we can definitely question if the entire idea of culture is some sort of liberal totem, but just taking this analysis as 'liberal' is... an interesting choice to say the least.
No doubt. I do kinda blend the technology and works of Greece and Rome together in my head, since you’re right, they just took it and continued living in it, so that’s on me for not delineating better.
I kinda like it because it's just one big blob and that makes something in my lizard brain happy. Terminal paradox worms
I kinda get it. We're all one human race, we're all in this together yk? But maybe the giant blob should be a "help each other" blob
Biggest communist praxis ottoman empire did was destroying roman empire. No, I will not elaborate
I disagree the ottoman empire restored the Roman empire under a new dynasty just like the komnenos did.
