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[Lord Shonus]

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.

The "religious intolerance that plagued Europe" only really lasted from 1521 to between ~1650 and ~1750 (depending on region.) The Church's supplanting of the various pagan faiths was nowhere near as generally harsh as popular media would have you believe, focusing on assimilating by the Word rather than by the Sword. Likewise, the Crusades were, except perhaps to the masses, about ending the causes of strife in Europe*, not purging the infidels (indeed, relations between Christian and Muslim before the First Crusade were so cordial that armed escorts were provided to parties of pilgrims headed toward the Holy Land.) The true intolerance was caused by the emergence of sects which challenged the temporal power of the Roman Catholic Church.

* The main reasons that there was so much warfare in Europe were the dozens of feuds that had accumulated between the various landholders, and the large number of excess sons who had no hope of an inheritance. For these, the only real options were joining a monastery (the monasteries, meanwhile, were full), subsisting on the charity of the elder brother who inherited the land (who often distrusted him), or to take new estates by the sword. Fighting side-by-side in a common cause would burn away the ancient feuds, while the vast lands of the Middle East would have provided ample room to carve out estates, meaning that excess sons would have someplace to go.)

[Zrk2]

The best way to get a handle on the decline of Rome is to read about the Marian Reforms and what caused them. Then fast forward and consider how those problems would continue in the future, as ultimately the same reasons that caused the reforms caused the collapse of the empire.

[Jelle]

Stagnation? Seems to me the roman economy was much like modern day capitalism, the rich get richer the poor get poorer to a point where progress grinds to a halt?
But then I ne ver realy read in that stuff so I'm just basing off impression.
Or they grew complacant because of the luxury they (the rich?) enjoyed.
Or maybe the empire grew so large that the political system became slow and incompetent, the flow of information can't have been that fast without advanced technologies, information their government would have needed to base decisions on.

[mainiac]

The best way to get a handle on the decline of Rome is to read about the Marian Reforms and what caused them. Then fast forward and consider how those problems would continue in the future, as ultimately the same reasons that caused the reforms caused the collapse of the empire.

Um no.  Pre-Marian Rome had civic-farmer-soldier in the model common throughout the Greco-Roman-Phoenician classical Mediterranean.  Migration period Roman empire had professional soldiers from both Roman and barbarian populations.  Post migration eastern empire used a mixture of mercenaries and professional soldiers paid in the form of temporary land ownership (themes).  So the declines did not feature troops similar to the pre-Marian armies.

The problems causing the reforms were gone centuries before the decline of even the western roman empire.  The enemies fought differently.  There weren't Italiac peoples to assimilate.  Citizen militias were no longer the main defense of the empire.  Just completely different situations.

Stagnation? Seems to me the roman economy was much like modern day capitalism, the rich get richer the poor get poorer to a point where progress grinds to a halt?
But then I ne ver realy read in that stuff so I'm just basing off impression.

Not really.  The roman economy didn't really have "progress".  What it did have were plagues and wars killing off enough people that the population declined and there were fewer people to farm and serve in the army.  Don't get me wrong, they did introduce serfdom and start squeezing the peasants more.  But they did so because the population decline caused a loss of farm output.

[Farmerbob]

The Roman Empire collapsed because the politicians slowly got too far away from reality to rule effectively.  Expansion happened too fast, as noted above.

It was worse for the Romans in one way, because their communications were so much slower.

It was "better" for the Romans in the short term because they could just use nearby garrisons to stomp the locals.

In the long term, using said garrisons on the conquered lands ended up causing more and more problems, which were typically resolved by applying more and more violence.  Political solutions did happen now and then, but they were typically short lived because of the huge delays in communication compared to the local governer's quick solution of just poking holes in people to make them behave.

[Azkanan]

[Virex]

The true intolerance was caused by the emergence of sects which challenged the temporal power of the Roman Catholic Church.

I would hardly consider the Cathars and Hussites as sects that suddenly emerged and threatened the Catholic Church, but still they attracted 4 crusades between them.

[mainiac]

The Roman Empire collapsed because the politicians slowly got too far away from reality to rule effectively.  Expansion happened too fast, as noted above.

Rome reached it's maximum extent in 117.  The Barbarian invasions didn't put any real dents in their territory until well into the 4th century.  If they were growing too fast, why did it take two centuries to show?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

How exactly does one measure innovation?

[Virex]

How exactly does one measure innovation?

You take the amount of inventions you think are made in a certain time-frame, rule-of-the-thumb them over the population and then handwave in an adoption rate?

[Loud Whispers]

Debate 1: Is it a general law of the universe that anything and everything larger than its average will collapse? Stars, galaxies, empires, egos; anything I can imagine that becomes large, collapses.

Debate 2: Chinese VS Roman war that was sure to ensue? Would we have a one-world-government by now, and how would we have faired today technologically, ecologically, economically... without the dark ages that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire?

1. Their economy crashed, their government broke (several times), Christianity happened (and felt like screwing up the Roman empire) and generally being ransacked by barbarians tends to destroy empires

2. China as a whole > Rome. That said, feudal china probably would've just been introduced to what the Romans called pax imperialis... And there's no contest, we would've faired much better in every field possible if Christianity hadn't destroyed so much

[Azkanan]

It's actually the population part I was more interested in, with the graph

[scriver]

Stagnation? Seems to me the roman economy was much like modern day capitalism, the rich get richer the poor get poorer to a point where progress grinds to a halt?
But then I ne ver realy read in that stuff so I'm just basing off impression.

Not really.  The roman economy didn't really have "progress".  What it did have were plagues and wars killing off enough people that the population declined and there were fewer people to farm and serve in the army.  Don't get me wrong, they did introduce serfdom and start squeezing the peasants more.  But they did so because the population decline caused a loss of farm output.

No, he's right. By the end the gap between what the average person and a "capitalist" could expect to earn in a year was so huge, it was impossible for poor people to live (and inflation running wild in the West Empire certainly didn't help any). That's how serfdom came into being, after all - people literally had to sell the last thing they owned, their very lives, freedom, and potential as workforce.

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.

The "religious intolerance that plagued Europe" only really lasted from 1521 to between ~1650 and ~1750 (depending on region.) The Church's supplanting of the various pagan faiths was nowhere near as generally harsh as popular media would have you believe, focusing on assimilating by the Word rather than by the Sword. Likewise, the Crusades were, except perhaps to the masses, about ending the causes of strife in Europe*, not purging the infidels (indeed, relations between Christian and Muslim before the First Crusade were so cordial that armed escorts were provided to parties of pilgrims headed toward the Holy Land.) The true intolerance was caused by the emergence of sects which challenged the temporal power of the Roman Catholic Church.

* The main reasons that there was so much warfare in Europe were the dozens of feuds that had accumulated between the various landholders, and the large number of excess sons who had no hope of an inheritance. For these, the only real options were joining a monastery (the monasteries, meanwhile, were full), subsisting on the charity of the elder brother who inherited the land (who often distrusted him), or to take new estates by the sword. Fighting side-by-side in a common cause would burn away the ancient feuds, while the vast lands of the Middle East would have provided ample room to carve out estates, meaning that excess sons would have someplace to go.)

You really should look up the the Northern Crusades and what happened to the not yet Christian "nations" around 1000 - Christianity was waging war and civil war against the pagans all over north Europe back then. More than one kingdom had to be baptised in blood before the Pope was willing to accept it's existence.

[sonerohi]

I'd imagine that without Christianity, or with an official endorsement for Christianity, Rome could have hung in there for a few more generations. The thing that really ended the empire was, as said by two posters earlier, lead and the wealth gap. When Emperors are sad, they cheer up with a nice jug of wine and a circus. So when the citizens are also, the Emperor gives them the remedy that works for them. Except the peasants are starving to death and being ground into a fine dust by the economy, wallowing in filth. And the jug of wine and a circus is expected from the very best of Roman leaders. For the ones who had a little too much lead or inbreeding, they might decide horse-Senators and lion fighting will fix everything.

[Loud Whispers]

I'd imagine that without Christianity, or with an official endorsement for Christianity, Rome could have hung in there for a few more generations. The thing that really ended the empire was, as said by two posters earlier, lead and the wealth gap. When Emperors are sad, they cheer up with a nice jug of wine and a circus. So when the citizens are also, the Emperor gives them the remedy that works for them. Except the peasants are starving to death and being ground into a fine dust by the economy, wallowing in filth. And the jug of wine and a circus is expected from the very best of Roman leaders. For the ones who had a little too much lead or inbreeding, they might decide horse-Senators and lion fighting will fix everything.

Lead? Roman doctors and lead mine owners were already catching onto the effects of lead poisoning observed on slaves who worked in aforementioned mines, and proposed alternative pipes. If medical science didn't devolve into "put rats in the wounds" or "smear pigeon blood everywhere" we would really have gotten somewhere, quicker. The populace was cheered up with free games sponsored by the patron, or could pay for the theatre, or even run their own parties - happiness was not an issue. Wine could be bought incredibly cheaply - and was not in short supply. "Peasants" didn't exist and famine was only an issue in the worst periods of Roman history, as well as its end. This was not an issue either, the Romans recovered and expanded through worse famines than the ones they experienced in its last years. As for the inbreeding example and horse-senator example, that is the WORST example possible of Roman history, where a madman rose to power. I don't suppose you know how that happened? Nero killed every opposing senator, there was nothing they could do, well, until they killed him.

[Farmerbob]

The Roman Empire collapsed because the politicians slowly got too far away from reality to rule effectively.  Expansion happened too fast, as noted above.

Rome reached it's maximum extent in 117.  The Barbarian invasions didn't put any real dents in their territory until well into the 4th century.  If they were growing too fast, why did it take two centuries to show?

Because the Romans grew too fast, they were not able to slowly absorb their conquests peacefully, which meant unrest, which meant putting down the locals with a garrison.  Repeat the last few steps every generation or two until something blows up in a couple hundred years.