[HN Gopher] Rome: Decline and Fall? Part II: Institutions ___________________________________________________________________ Rome: Decline and Fall? Part II: Institutions Author : picture Score : 113 points Date : 2022-01-28 18:12 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (acoup.blog) (TXT) w3m dump (acoup.blog) | stereolambda wrote: | While the subject matter of the series is very interesting, I | feel that it is a trend of nuancing things out of proportion. | | Yes, the Roman emperorship claim was continually picked up, but | there were differences (in the West especially) in the | organization and reach of these regimes. The Church became more | of a parallel branch of power and not a subordinate. Yes, | literacy was not lost altogether and people of these periods | preserved some books. But there was lots of stuff that would've | been preserved by a more diverse culture, where intellectualism | wasn't confined to Christian monasteries. There's a whole long | story of how the West lost and then gradually recovered Plato and | Aristotle, because for the long time they couldn't read Greek, | the Ostrogothic king killed the early potential translator to | Latin (Boethius) and then there were ages before these | foundational texts were regained from Arabic and then Byzantine | sources. Lots of philosophical and historical books (such as many | parts of Livy's history of Rome itself) were preserved only as | summaries, because apparently no one wanted/needed to even read | them. | | Myself, I would distinguish the (okay, gradual) fall of the | empire as the political regime and the decline of the | civilization. The former, I think, was actually a good thing, | since I cannot imagine another road to the modern experience of | personal and political freedom (however flawed and maybe | fleeting) from the centralized and despotic culture of the late | Empire. (I don't have strong convictions about the causes of the | latter). | zozbot234 wrote: | > But there was lots of stuff that would've been preserved by a | more diverse culture, where intellectualism wasn't confined to | Christian monasteries | | The previous post in the series argues convincingly that this | simply wouldn't have happened - that "preserving stuff for | posterity" just wasn't a norm in the Classical world, and that | even the Musaeum and Library of Alexandria (a rather unique | institution in the Classical world that would have been roughly | comparable to a modern research university) did a pretty poor | job of it by later standards. The monasteries really were | unique. | stereolambda wrote: | I'm not saying this would be preserved for the preservation's | sake, but because it would be interesting to people, | especially those who didn't feel the need to conform to a | very strict worldview and reject pagan lies and frivolities. | (This isn't necessarily a dig at Christianity itself, things | were always a little different with lay intellectuals: but | these kind of disappeared for a while, in the Latin West of | course.) As I hinted at, the stuff that was lost was not some | random antiquarian junk but books of well established, even | then, usefulness for science/scholarship. | zozbot234 wrote: | What's the stuff that "would have been preserved" by the | Classical world but was _not_ preserved by the monasteries, | and the existing tradition in general? Religious texts? We | actually got their most esoteric and intellectually | interesting stuff, in the form of Classical philosophy. | | We may have lost much of the mass culture that was closely | linked to pagan religion, but we can get the gist of it | from what Christianity and other later religions managed to | pick up - and even _that_ was soon after transformed and | improved in refinement beyond all recognition. The stuff | simply wasn 't as interesting as we sometimes suppose. | stereolambda wrote: | There is an interesting, but very incomplete list here: h | ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_literary_work#Classical | _w... | | Some of this would obviously be lost in a civilizational | decline regardless of existence of extra-monastic | science. But I mentioned books of Livy histories which | would be preserved if people were actually interested in | lay history of Rome, their supposed quintessential state. | Today we cannot figure out many facets of Roman | Republican system in like 1st century BCE and before. If | Classical-style philology survived on a serious scale, we | would get the second part of Aristotle's Poetics and more | of the classic Greek tragedies and poetry. We have only | scraps of Hellenistic philosophy (Stoic and even moreso | Epicurean, Sceptic), and mostly only the Latin imitators, | because again they stopped reading Greek and had to avoid | these "suspicious" worldviews. The books on these topics, | if you actually read them, have to largely rely on | connecting scraps and conjecture. We cannot really say we | "actually got their most esoteric and intellectually | interesting stuff" with any certainty. | | I think the point of monasteries monoculture stands, but | it's really secondary. My main point is that cultural | decline cannot be explained and nuanced away. Say, we | wouldn't get the Arabic and Byzantine retransmission, and | got only the things preserved in the West in 700 CE, | would you also be so content? | zozbot234 wrote: | > which would be preserved if people were actually | interested | | And this is the non-obvious point that the first part of | OP disagreed with. Preserving and copying texts on any | sort of scale without anything like a printing press was | _hard, specialized work_. And there were few or no | institutions explicitly devoted to that task - to the | best of our knowledge, anyway - prior to the Christian | monasteries. The Musaion and Library of Alexandria is | described as exceptional simply because it did engage in | some primitive version of that work, and even _that_ was | not considered important enough to be kept functional for | more than a few centuries. | jcranmer wrote: | An argument I'd like to see a little more is one that argues that | the Roman Empire actually 'fell' in the Crisis of the Third | Century. This seems to account for many of the continuity | arguments and catastrophe arguments at the same time (although my | understanding is that the economic cataclysm actually happens | relatively late--I'm sure this will be addressed in Part III, | though): the post-Roman states are largely continuous with the | post-Crisis Roman norms, although on a much smaller scale due to | the loss of state capacity. | wffurr wrote: | Isn't this addressed pretty early on in this essay? | | "But here too, we have to be careful in defining what that | governance meant, because the Roman Empire of August, 378 AD | was not the Roman Empire of August, 14 AD." | | "are we comparing [the decline of the fifth and sixth | centuries] to the empire of Hadrian (r. 117-138) or the empire | of Valentinian (r. 364-375)? Because most students are | generally more familiar with the former (because it is was | tends to be get focused on in teaching), there is a tendency to | compare 476 directly with Rome under the Nervan-Antonines | (96-192) without taking into account the events of the third | and early fourth century." | zozbot234 wrote: | It definitely didn't "fall" at that time in any real sense, but | it seems to have started a terminal decline that continued all | the way through the Early Middle Ages (with no clearly | identifiable "fall" event, albeit the convention of picking 476 | CE, being roughly at the midpoint, is arguably as good as | any!). By the same standard, one could argue that recovery and | renewed growth following this "decline" state began roughly in | the Late Middle Ages and continued throughout the Renaissance | and the Early Modern Period, essentially setting the stage for | the Age of Exploration and Industrial Revolution as truly | "disruptive" events from a long-run POV. | wins32767 wrote: | While there is no one event, the population collapsed, the | security situation deteriorated, material conditions became | dramatically worse and literacy rates plunged through the 5th | and 6th centuries. Mass death and poverty combined with a | collapse governmental capacity is more than just a "terminal | decline" in my book. | glogla wrote: | Ah, what a wonderful find. That whole site is a perfect weekend | rabbit hole to fall to. | jnurmine wrote: | One of the books I'm currently reading is Edward J. Watts' | "Mortal Republic - How Rome Fell into Tyranny" which details how | Rome the republic transformed into a dictatorship. It is | intriguing, parts are like the TV-series House of Cards with an | abundance of dirty tricks pulled by opponents against each other. | | One thing I've never quite understood from history books though: | there was so much wealth, people with big palaces, large tracts | of land, artwork (like statues), gold, from wealthy families, and | so on. Where did all that wealth go in the end? | zemnmez wrote: | A lot of it was moved to Byzantium / Constantinople / Istanbul | by Constantine, who tried to pay all the Roman elite he could, | especially senators to move to his 'New Rome'. The ERE would | continue to be wealthier until the sack of Constantinople by | crusaders due to its domination of the European silk trade | (after stealing the secrets via a Christian mission to China). | That is a little ironic considering the first crusade was | initiated by the Emperor in the east to recapture Jerusalem and | the middle east. | | After the sack of Constantinople, much of that wealth, | including the secret of silk-making was taken back to Italy, | and the ERE would never recover from this. | | For reference, the amount looted from Constantinople during its | sack is meant to be around 900,000 silver marks -- enough to | raise the entire Venetian navy almost 6 times over. (https://en | .wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Constantinople#sack_of...) | | Of course, a huge amount of wealth remained in the west, even | after Odoacer's conquest (see this mosaic of the palace of | Theodoric: https://www.worldhistory.org/image/3090/palace-of- | theodoric-... which is in undeniably Roman form). That said, | the ERE would continue to be the center of wealth in Europe up | until at least the sack. | | I think it's important to note that Odoacer, in destroying the | WRE was not considered by his contemporaries to have destroyed | the Roman Empire. He immediately sent the imperial regalia to | the Emperor in the east and declared himself a Viceroy of the | eastern Roman emperor. In this way, I think the ERE thought it | kind of convenient, as they now, at least on paper had full | control of the whole Roman empire. The identity of 'Roman' in | the West was not broken, so I've read until the ERE decided to | 'reconquer' Rome and mainland Italy for being barbarian, which, | as you can imagine would throw your personal identity for a bit | of a loop. | | Despite still being greatly dilapidated when Constantinople was | finally invaded by the Ottomans 200 years after the sack, it | was still famous for silk. Mehmed The Conqueror is attested to | have said, upon wandering its ruins: The spider | is curtain-bearer in the palace of Chosroes, The | owl sounds the relief in the castle of Afrasiyab. | scythe wrote: | >That is a little ironic considering the first crusade was | initiated by the Emperor in the east to recapture Jerusalem | and the middle east. | | I don't think this is quite right. The sequence of events is | roughly as follows: | | 1054: Great Schism, Patriarchate of Constantinople diverges | from Papacy in Rome. | | 1071: Battle of Manzikert, Seljuk (Turkish) Empire conquers | most of Anatolia | | [also 1071: Norman invasion of southern Italy and Sicily, | final _de facto_ eviction of Byzantines from Italy] | | 1095: First Crusade, Frankish armies storm the Levant and | capture Nicaea and Jerusalem -- also the only Crusade that | had any real success, others at most reversed previous | losses. | | It seems more than a little suspicious that all of this | happens so quickly. It can't just be about Jerusalem, which | had fallen to the Muslim conquests four centuries prior. | Rather, after the Schism, there is a "switch" from formal | (but usually ignored) ERE suzerainty over European kingdoms, | with European military assistance under the banner of ERE | armies, to European armies fighting as "equal partners" of | the ERE. This second arrangement worked well _at first_ , but | it was less stable and less successful in the long run, | ultimately leading to the disastrous Fourth Crusade and the | Fall of Acre. | | In fact, the ERE/Byzantines had already been making gains | against the Arabs in the Levant up until the Schism: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Antioch_(968%E2%80%93. | .. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab%E2%80%93Byzantine_wars#By. | .. | Dumblydorr wrote: | Rome's territory was sacked by "barbarians", nevermind the | pilfering and stealing other "Romans" did. Consider that when | emperors died, the usual course was to murder their whole | family and sack their belongings, all for good measure. It was | not a stable thing to be at the top in Roman society, you | gained a target on your back due to your wealth and power in an | inherently violent society. Combine all this with looting over | the centuries, and what's left to us is a lot less than | originally existed. | SkyMarshal wrote: | Sounds a little like the Communist Party of China, with its | regular purges of high level rivals. | pchristensen wrote: | The land, as well as much of the art, palaces, etc are still | there. But everything requires upkeep, so without the engine of | the empire and economy, stuff decays, often past the point of | repair (think Detroit ruin porn). A palace can't survive | without the staff to maintain it. | jnurmine wrote: | Indeed you are right, the land is there, and palaces might be | nothing more than a pile of rocks now, however: having wealth | meant both getting enemies, but also having resources to get | protection and arrange things; with enough money/wealth, one | could, for example, get out of the hotbed of assassinations | and political intrigue (=Rome) to a more secluded place, | build a stronghold of some sorts, become a mini-monarch / | local player, and over time grow the wealth and build a | dynasty. | | I'm thinking about long-lived dynasties, like the House of | Yamato (1000+ years; Imperial House of Japan), or Bagrationi | in Georgia, and so on. | | Yet, from ancient Rome, not one of the powerful ancient | families seems to have survived, and the same disappearing | act happened with the rather massive wealth that was sloshing | around back then. I mean that was a bit surprising to me. | | I would have expected some wealthy modern "noble family" to | be able to trace its roots to Rome and the wealth obtained | when, say, some of their ancestors were Roman Senators, who | decided to sail to a secluded location, assume control of | lucrative trade routes, and so on. | Leary wrote: | Would love to see more analysis of the external reasons for | Rome's decline. Namely, who were the people who could vigorously | challenge Rome? | erulabs wrote: | I haven't read this part II yet, although I very much enjoyed | part I - it's an after-work read for sure - I wanted to mention | for anyone interested in Roman history, spotify has "The History | of Rome" podcast that has been going for something like 15 years | now, and is super excellent. It's become my favorite thing to | listen to while I cook or clean. | | It looks like this covers Diocletian's monetary reforms, which is | one of my absolute favorite parts of roman history - looking | forward to it! | ch4s3 wrote: | I'd also recommend Mary Beard's book SPQR [1]. | | [1]https://www.amazon.com/SPQR-History-Ancient-Mary- | Beard/dp/16... | jmckib wrote: | Did you catch this article from the other day? I don't know | much about Diocletian's monetary reforms (I'm still busy | reading up on the history of the Republic), but his _Edict of | Maximum Prices_ was mentioned in it. | https://www.bookandsword.com/2021/05/08/how-much-did-a-tunic... | mongol wrote: | I like Emperors of Rome podcast Very interesting and pleasant | ricree wrote: | > "The History of Rome" podcast that has been going for | something like 15 years now, and is super excellent | | If you're talking about Mike Duncan's podcast, note that it | ended in 2012 with the deposing of the final Western Emperor. | | There is a spiritual successor by Robin Pierson called "The | History of Byzantium" that picks up shortly after the end and | is still ongoing after over 230 episodes. | | Duncan's current podcast is "Revolutions", which covers a | variety of historical revolutions. I've been listening for a | bit now and am only on the third (French) of ten revolutions. | Definitely recommend the show for people seeking a history | podcast. | nescioquid wrote: | Great article. One bit piqued my interest in particular: | | > ... when actually performing a regular census proved difficult, | Constantine responded by mandating that coloni - the tenant | farmers and sharecroppers of the empire - must stay on the land | they had been farming so that their landlords would be able to | pay the taxes, casually abrogating a traditional freedom of Roman | citizens for millions of farmers out of administrative | convenience. | | Are the roots of serfdom traceable back to this mandate? It's | tempting to imagine so, as serfs were not slaves per se, but tied | to the land they worked. | thaumasiotes wrote: | _Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Pre-Modern World_ ( | https://www.amazon.com/dp/1780747411/ ) presents serfdom as one | outcome of a battle between the head of state and local | nobility that was common across societies, with serfdom being | what the nobility wants and freeholding being what the head of | state wants. The analysis is that each side wants peasants to | have the status that makes tax collection easier for their | side. | | Interestingly, those positions have reversed in the modern day, | with the analogue of serfdom -- W2 employment -- heavily | favored by the state, and the analogue of freeholding -- | employment as a contractor -- preferable to employers (who | mostly lack the power to implement it over the state's | objection). | somewhereoutth wrote: | Your modern day analogy fails. | | Corporations prefer contractors because they can use the | power asymmetry to extract more value for lower pay. | | Formal employment is favoured by a _democratically elected_ | state, as it works to restore the power balance to the voters | through appropriate regulation (assuming of course you live | in a modern well functioning democratic society - which I | understand is not the case in many places). | biorach wrote: | Excellent article. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-01-28 23:00 UTC)