[HN Gopher] The Road from Rome
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       The Road from Rome
        
       Author : diodorus
       Score  : 15 points
       Date   : 2021-04-16 22:19 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (aeon.co)
 (TXT) w3m dump (aeon.co)
        
       | greenwich26 wrote:
       | I'm skeptical of the author's premise because there were plenty
       | of barbarian tribes outside Rome's borders, who made almost no
       | progress in their civilization for the thousand years that Rome
       | stood. If Europe had fallen entirely to them, why should anything
       | have changed? Even the simple (re)invention of writing may have
       | not come for another thousand years (by which point all of Europe
       | would have been conquered by Arabs anyway). The point is: the
       | iron age is slow.
       | 
       | Rather it all seems to depend on the crucial fact that the
       | barbarians immediately adopted the culture, religion, and
       | especially the (highly written) language of the Romans. Which is
       | highly peculiar: not often in history do the conquerors adopt the
       | customs of conquered. But without this transformation, I don't
       | believe Europe in the West would have become anything but tribes
       | of illiterate savages, like it was in the North.
       | 
       | So if the fall of Rome was for Europe's benefit in the long run--
       | and it may have been--then it's because we got very very lucky.
       | In the meantime, don't be too hasty to throw away today's great
       | civilizations. I do not think it is usually so easy to revive
       | them.
       | 
       | P.S. The author's insistence on pausing every few sentences to
       | needlessly scourge "colonialism" and "slavery" and "white
       | supremacy" and other assorted buzzwords is very irritating.
        
         | 5etho wrote:
         | this p.s. is simply not true
         | 
         | article is bery pleasant to read, I as a history buff even
         | learn few new things
        
       | alricb wrote:
       | Local agricultural optimums in Northern Europe played a role too.
       | How good was agriculture in the Parisian basin during the late
       | Roman empire? Was it possible for farmers to get the iron
       | implements and draft animals needed to make heavy soils
       | productive?
       | 
       | Separating the Middle East/North Africa and Europe on the
       | "dominant state" chart is an interesting choice, since the Roman
       | Empire controlled most of both for centuries. Controlling a large
       | portion of Europe is difficult unless you're a maritime-ish power
       | with access to the Mediterranean.
        
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       (page generated 2021-04-17 23:01 UTC)