How Rome began to collapse under its own weight. Image by Sean Wallis
I’ve been following Mike Duncan’s History Of Rome podcasts. They are awesome and I like them cause I can do repetitive stuff at work and still listen. I’m at around 140 BC. What’s interesting is that the roots of collapse seem to have set in. And it began with great success.
The early podcasts were about war and war and bits more war, but now Rome has basically established its bona fides. At this point, too much growth becomes a cancer. Roman elites begin exploiting the wealth from acquired territories and using slaves to replace local labor. This is interesting because American businesses are now getting wealth based on foreign labor and markets. But I digress.
For all these years, the Republic had survived for two major, overarching reasons. The lower class plebians had been not so impoverished that they were driven to violent revolution to improve their material lot in life. And the upper class was unified enough that their internal rivalries did not spill out into the public sphere. Both of these critical lynch pins were about to be removed, living civil war and violent class conflict as the order of the day. (Taking Stock, Podcast)
Duncan’s podcasts are absolutely superb and really brings Rome alive. I guess you’ve read and seen ‘I Claudius’ and ‘Claudius, The God’? I also recommend the recent BBC/HBO series “Rome”, another superb production, which shows that Roman morality was not Christian morality. e.g. Atia’s classic line when torturing a servant who tried to poison her “a confession not being legal without torture” :) and of course “I was at an orgy, mother” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86ui4h0lYqg
You can get box sets of “Rome” at some DVD boutiques in Liberty Plaza or the usual download places.
Anyway, Rome’s collapse was a long, slow drawn out affair and I wouldn’t draw too many comparisons with the US, which continues to defy predictions of its own demise. An interesting side note is how the Brits – who were ruled by a Libyan (Septimius Serverus) and were civilised by the Romans – didn’t get decent indoor plumbing and heating back again until the 1970s.