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[USEC_OFFICER]

It's not a good assumption to make that the Romans raised the standard of living of the local peoples, especially after 300 AD.  Serfdom was a Roman invention.  There is some archaeological evidence to suggest that the standard of living went up after the barbarians moved in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso

Yes, I did go by Monty Python as if it were historically accurate.

Only if you lived in the cities (and were reasonably wealthy/successful). If I remember correctly the Roman Empire was still largely agrarian, and the number of cities and towns was smaller than today. And of course the incredibly wealthy from the cities bought up large tracts of land from the small, independent farmers (assuming that they didn't just steal it when the farmers were off fighting), which they then turned into huge estates which were tended by large numbers of slaves. The small farmers, with nowhere else to go, headed to the cities/towns, where all the jobs were filled by other farmers or slaves. The Romans didn't have Bread and Circuses to show how awesome they were (though it was a factor). Without them the unemployed in the cities would probably revolt and overthrow the upper classes (the army probably wouldn't interfere too much, since they wanted a piece of land when they retired, and thus would probably be sympathetic).

Even with Bread and Circuses life was pretty crap. Sure, you were fed, and the public fountains would provide water, but shelter was another thing altogether. If you could scrape together the money, you could live in an Insula (a kind of apartment complex). Insula were designed to stuff as many people as possible in a small amount of space, so they were cramped and uncomfortable. They were also horrible death traps, since they were made out of wood, often over five stories tall, and people would light braziers for warmth.

Yes, the various barbarian groups might have slaughtered, looted and plundered, but they also overthrew the old social order, one that was highly biased towards the rich. For the average Roman, the barbarian invasion meant that they would get a small chunk of land for them to tend, which was more healthy than lying about in the cities. Additionally, while the knowledge for making roads/aqueducts/etc. might have been forgotten, the ones that the Romans build where still usable, and would be used well into the Middle Ages.

[darkflagrance]

Bear in mind that the Roman economy and administration got much worse over time. The taxation was back-breaking and the government had to use tricks like the census and occupation inheritance to maintain a manageable and usable tax base. As such, the long-term sustainability of Roman public projects and benefits is questionable. Assuming that infrastructure could have been maintained at original levels of consumption (which were partially financed by invasions that ceased shortly after the creation of the empire) is also a bit of a problem.

[RedKing]

Yes, the various barbarian groups might have slaughtered, looted and plundered, but they also overthrew the old social order, one that was highly biased towards the rich.

And replaced it with one biased towards the guy who had the most warriors in his band. Not a great improvement by any means.

Which is not to say that some of the early Gothic administrators weren't good. Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, was also probably the best ruler of the Western Empire that they'd had since Constantine.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Yes, the various barbarian groups might have slaughtered, looted and plundered, but they also overthrew the old social order, one that was highly biased towards the rich.

And replaced it with one biased towards the guy who had the most warriors in his band. Not a great improvement by any means.

Warriors that need food, weapons and other various things, and don't have the time to farm their own land, or have the money to buy slaves to do it for them. Not a great improvement, but an improvement none the less.

[RedKing]

Yes, the various barbarian groups might have slaughtered, looted and plundered, but they also overthrew the old social order, one that was highly biased towards the rich.

And replaced it with one biased towards the guy who had the most warriors in his band. Not a great improvement by any means.

Warriors that need food, weapons and other various things, and don't have the time to farm their own land, or have the money to buy slaves to do it for them. Not a great improvement, but an improvement none the less.

I don't see how that's an improvement. During the Imperial era, the armies were supported via taxes as an arm of the state, and made up mostly of common citizens or even largely non-citizens (as military service was a route to citizenship). During the Dark Ages, the armies were mostly mercenary bands of barbarians or they were nobility (by virtue of being the only local armed force) who effectively owned the local non-military population.

[mainiac]

Well the skeletons from before and after the barbarian takeover tend to show that the poor were better fed afterwards.

It's important to keep in mind that a lot of our modern notions about what makes people prosperous just don't apply to pre-industrial societies.  It really comes down to what's happening with the farms.  The Roman system towards the end let the large landowners squeeze the poor for every penny.  Replacing that with a system of small scale landowners who's word is law but who just don't have the ability to squeeze as hard is a win for the farmers.

[Azkanan]

Can someone reupload the image in the OP. My ISP has that as a blocked site.

As for many of the arguements placed here on how the Romans would not be able to support as a large entity... That brings me back to Debate #1. Is anything that can become large and continues to do so, doomed to collapse?

[MonkeyHead]

I would say that any large enough cultural entity formwd from the aquisition of other cultures will breed enemies, and could be toppled by instability from within or without with greater ease than a smaller/compact state (which posesses more "unified" peoples). Happened with The Ottomans, Romans, British Empire... In those cases, large scale conflicts contributed to the fall of the empire by absorbing manpower away from "holding" on to territory.

Constant growth must beocme unsustainable at some point. Stopping leads to stagnation.

[Azkanan]

Constant growth must beocme unsustainable at some point. Stopping leads to stagnation.

And reduction leads to inexistence.

Oh universe, you are so beautiful.

[scriver]

Yes, the various barbarian groups might have slaughtered, looted and plundered, but they also overthrew the old social order, one that was highly biased towards the rich.

And replaced it with one biased towards the guy who had the most warriors in his band. Not a great improvement by any means.

There's no difference either way, the one with the biggest army is the one with the biggest pouch of gold.

I need to add a disclaimer?

The ultimate goal of human civilization for united, peace and prosperity is a one-world-government, which exception to other possible theories.

No, the thing I was questioning was the part about a one world government, why would this have anything to do with civilization? Why would "civilization" in itself have a goal? It doesn't.

I also dispute that Romans were in any way more "civilized" than their neighbours - unless you think of "they built big stuff" as civilized.

[Virex]

Rome reaching China would take a long, long time.  Technology would need to improve a lot.  There was a lot of room in between Rome and China.  At one point there were two great empires (Persia and Ethiopia) in between them and still plenty of territory in smaller states.

Ethiopia, or actually the Aksumite Empire didn't lie between Rome and China, it was to the south of the Egyptian territories. It was an important local power, especially by 400 a.d. but mainly by virtue of being the most important center of trade between the Roman Empire and the countries in India.

[RedKing]

The Kushan Empire however (no, not the guys from Homeworld), did lie between the two -- around modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. Chinese merchants traded with the Kushanites, who traded with the Persians, who traded with the Romans in Asia Minor and the Levant.

[mainiac]

Rome reaching China would take a long, long time.  Technology would need to improve a lot.  There was a lot of room in between Rome and China.  At one point there were two great empires (Persia and Ethiopia) in between them and still plenty of territory in smaller states.

Ethiopia, or actually the Aksumite Empire didn't lie between Rome and China, it was to the south of the Egyptian territories. It was an important local power, especially by 400 a.d. but mainly by virtue of being the most important center of trade between the Roman Empire and the countries in India.

Ethiopia was next to the Red Sea, which was the main route between the two.

[Wayward Device]

There are two quite interesting factors in the decline of the Roman Empire that no ones mentioned yet. Sure, they're not magic-bullet-it-was-definitely-this type stuff, but still:

1.Lead. Good old Pb. The Romans were crazy or it. Lead pipes, lead cosmetics, lead based paint. More to the point, they also flavored their wine with it. Lead poisoning can have some really horrible effects: abdominal pain, confusion, headache, anemia, irritability, and in severe cases seizures, coma, and death. Not to mention what it does to developing fetuses. The fact that the richer you were the more exposed to lead you were would mean that the effects would be most prominent in the ruling classes. While not really a definite factor in the collapse of the empire, it can't have been a good thing.

2.The shift in Legion training, tactics and equipment in later periods. Usually, when we're talking about the glorious pwning of everyone else by the Romans we mean the time after the reforms of Gaius Marius (who basically switched Legion recruitment policy from "Are you a citizen? Got some Land? Got armor? Got a sword, shield and three spears? You're in." to "I don't care how poor or foreign you are, join the Legion for 25 years, get paid a good steady wage + all the loot you can plunder and get citizenship and a land pension at the end of it all") but when Rome was still expanding. During this period Legions were usually composed of 5500 legionaries plus about 500 auxiliaries, usually foreign mercenary cavalry or archers, often recruited form local enemies of whoever they were fighting at the time. At this time legionary armor was relatively heavy and offered excellent protection (I can't remember the latin name of it off the top of my head, but I'm thinking of the type of banded legionary armor that became popular in the Late Republic/ Early Empire because it was cheaper and quicker to produce than chainmail). Later, when everything was falling apart, the Empire had been split into East and West and the barbarian invasions were on the increase the setup was different. Legions weren't composed of 5,500 heavy infantry plus appropriate support troops but 1000 infantry in much lighter armor. The reason for the switch to much lighter armor was both financial (thanks to the shrinking revenues of a collapsing empire no longer being topped up by mad war lootz) and ergonomic. The later era legionaries, lacking the iron hard physical training of their forbears, absolutely hated the idea of having to wear really heavy armor all the time (30-35lbs).     

[Funk]

The Germanization of the army greatly weakened it and add to the tax cost.

The end of state religious eclecticism marked a decline in to an age of religious intolerance that plaged europe for the next 1700 years.