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[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.

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.

True.
Question: Why do we want Rome and China to fight? If they team up, they can still run the world pretty effectively, and use each other as scapegoats.

[micelus]

This is why.

[Willfor]

True.
Question: Why do we want Rome and China to fight? If they team up, they can still run the world pretty effectively, and use each other as scapegoats.

Alternate history story potential.

[scriver]

@Loud Whispers -  Could you explain what your definition of "peasant" is?

[mainiac]

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.

No, serfdom arose because Constantine legislated that the underclass of tenet farmers were no longer allowed to leave the land.  He did this because of the population decline.  Nobody sold themselves into serfdom.

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.

Nice theory, except it doesn't actually square with the historical records.  There were revolts for a while after Roman rule started.  However they were long, long since past by the time that the barbarian invasions started.

[Loud Whispers]

@Loud Whispers -  Could you explain what your definition of "peasant" is?

A farmer class (of populace in a feudal system)

[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.

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.

I wasn't referring to the armies, I was referring to the socio-politcal-economic realities that were forcing change on the Roman government.

[mainiac]

I wasn't referring to the armies, I was referring to the socio-politcal-economic realities that were forcing change on the Roman government.

Roman society had changed enormously.  They'd gone from a small city state modeled in the classical antiquity model surrounded by people like them to a huge empire with disparate peoples.  The social pressures were very different.

[Muz]

They were just complacent, like the other empires that collapsed. I've been playing a political simulator game, and I realized that once people get powerful enough, they tend to collapse.

Sometimes they get decadent and compete via worthless luxuries.
Sometimes they feel they're invincible, and downplay or antagonize a threat until it's too late. Boredom, bloodlust, and overconfidence are fatal traits when combined together.
Sometimes they have an immense army and no more enemies, so instead of powering down their army, they use it to overexpand and conquer people without winning their hearts and minds.

Romans probably fell by a combination of these. I don't respect them too much, to be honest. Not a fan of decadent empires.

I think best were probably the Chinese, who have lived on through this day, and managed to repopulate the world without conquering anything. Followed by the British, who colonized much of the world and made English the world's lingua franca and took a couple of world wars to destabilize. Rashidun Caliphate was pretty awesome too, they defeated both the Byzantines and Persia in only 10 years after forming a single city-state with far less troop numbers and military history, then conquered an area larger than the Roman Empire within 40 years, and had a similarly permanent cultural impact.

[NRDL]

What political simulation were you playing, Muz? 

[Grakelin]

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

Bible.ca?

[Gamerlord]

ptw

[mainiac]

I think best were probably the Chinese, who have lived on through this day, and managed to repopulate the world without conquering anything.

China has gone through tons of empires over the period of it's existence.  All it's existed as is a group of people that we collectively call Chinese.  It has been conquered by foreigners repeatedly and has been divided into many different states many times.  Calling modern China the same state as the Han empire would be like calling NATO the re-emergence of the Roman Empire.  Sure the territory, culture, customs, language and form of government have changed and there is no continuous government or unity.  But a lot of the people are partially decedents of the old empire.

And no, the Chinese have not gone for millennia without conquering anything.  For one thing, what we call China is a bunch of conquered peoples that were forcibly integrated.  For another thing they've invaded a buttload of places that aren't part of China.  Mongolia, Vietnam, Korea and Tibet were all occupied for centuries.

[Frumple]

*coughs* Mainiac, mainiac. Read Muz's post again. Pay especial attention to the first mini-paragraph, and the rest of the stuff in that last one.

I about had the same reaction, honestly, but then I looked a little more carefully

E: ... at least I hope Muz was talking about the simulation. Otherwise, carry-on.

E2: Anyway, to actually contribute something, the only thing I've read recently on Rome was this, which was pretty interesting. tl;dr version, Rome became powerful by being (comparatively) tolerant and its fall went hand in hand with a reduction in tolerance. The author's got a pretty compelling message, actually.

[mainiac]

Doh