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One last thing, Roman was a great regional power but was by no meaning a global one. Empires or equal power and area existed in Asia, South America and Africa, so to call the Roman empire a super power is rather tendentious and Eurocentric.
Oh, what total nonsense that arises when the "All Civilizations Are Equal" brood stands up on their chairs and starts to scream.
Yes, there were any number of large, regional empires. But what civilization comes even close to the Romans and the Greeks for sheer influence on global civilization today? The Mayans? The Moguls?
Perhaps the Abbassids deserve some mention for their advances in mathematics and science (And their preservation of Classical Roman and Greek thinking, which is an incredible irony, isn't it?), but no other civilization comes remotely close. For Greek and Roman concepts in government, science, logic, law, commerce, literature, engineering, etc., etc. continue to resonate down through the centuries.
Meanwhile, aside from all the furor over the year 2012, how have the Mayans affected us? Or the African kingdom of Zimbabwe? Or the Khmers? For all the effect they had on the way we conduct our lives today, they might as well never have existed.
Heck, even the Chinese, who gave us gunpowder and paper never did much with their inventions, and turned inward.
This topic can still be saved as a good viable historical discussion and not a political-current events disscussion if we remove the silly U.S. comparisons and blaming the fall of Rome to "decadence and overindulgence" and discuss and debate the real historical reasons for the fall of rome:
Depopulation of Italy and advancement of the Germanic tribes
Over expansion and reliance on foreign soldiers in the legions (Germanic and Gual),
The rise of Christianity
Almost constant civil wars and the failure of complete unification.
And finally just a decision by an emporer to move his home from Rome to Constantinople.
Just my opinion...
The abandonment of the principles of a republic.
Debasement of currency. By 300 AD Roman coinage that used to be silver was bronze covered with a silver wash. Imagine that.
So far, with the exception of the present, every nation/empire which could lay claim to being the most powerful political entity in the world or reachable region, has lost that status.
The Soviets lost their empire. The British lost their empire, so did the Spanish, so did the Ottomans, The Byzantines, the Mongols, Charlemagne, Rome, Alexander, the Persians...all ephemeral.
So, as a predictive model, history suggests the time will come when America forfeits the status. The interesting argument would be whether there is something unique about American dominace which makes it immune to the forces which brought down the others.
Less interesting are these super broad attempts to try and compare Rome to America. Their values eroded...our values have eroded! Gasp! Such an exercise puts me to mind of the people trying to extract meaning from coincidences, as in "Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and was killed in a warehouse....Oswald shot JKF from a warehouse and was captured in a theater!!!!" Yes...therefore the same forces were responsible for both deeds?
So, yeah, of course there will be similarities between Rome and modern America, especially since we begin with the premise that we are searching for the most dominat global powers of history. However, for every congruency, one may also point to a difference. Romes problems included strong enemies on their immediate borders, one third of their population forced to endure slavery to support the other two thirds, no peaceful, orderly means for replacing the emperor was ever established, and most importantly, the empire had fragmented into Eastern and Western halves, it was just the western portion which collapsed in the 5th century.
Does the above sound like a list of the problems which currently plague the US? If it goes down, won't it be the result of our failures to respond efficiently to our own problems rather than because of exactly the same problems which faced Rome?
Following the path of the thread, it now seems imprative to ask this question:
By "Ancient Rome" and "United States", do we mean the cultural attributes that characterized the time and place, or the central political apparatus that ruled an empire?
Get real, Rome did not have trial lawyers, the ACLU type organizations, no quotas, no PC and no restraints of any kind. When Rome set out to conquer, they killed everyone, end of problem. To compare us with Rome is ridiculous.
The Romans built most of there Empire particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean by peacefully co-opting local states. The Romans did things like giving local rulers the protection of Roman legions if they would pay taxes, repect the rights of Romman citizens, and let Romans do business in there territories. This is how Roman power was extended to Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Judea and much of Spain and North Africa.
One problem Roman failed to solve was the problem of keeping power centralized in Roman hands. Rome soon found its Imperiator coming from the many non-Roman provinces of the Empire. For example Trajan was of Spainish orgin.
Oh, what total nonsense that arises when the "All Civilizations Are Equal" brood stands up on their chairs and starts to scream.
Sorry to deprive you of your gotcha moment, but we weren't discussing the inherent merit of one empire vs another or its subsequent influence, simply whether one can describe an empire confined to the Mediterranean rim with portions of south western Europe and the Middle East an area of 2.2 million square miles, as being a "global power".
Originally Posted by JRBurwell I have 30 years of America military experience and am currently a Command Sergeant Major. That having been said, being an amateur historian, given equivalent weapons and proficiency in the use thereof, why do you think that the USMC would route the Roman Legion?
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No. But of course, with all that technology the Romans would have no use for their Legions. They would have created a different organization. Rome biggest asset was perseverance, they could loose 100 battles, but never the war.
Last edited by Leovigildo; 06-29-2009 at 10:34 AM..
Get real, Rome did not have trial lawyers, the ACLU type organizations, no quotas, no PC and no restraints of any kind. When Rome set out to conquer, they killed everyone, end of problem. To compare us with Rome is ridiculous.
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Wrong.
The greatest Roman ability was negotiation. They wouldn't have emerged from the Latium if it weren't by pacts.
Oh, yes, they had lawyers, thousand of lawyers, lobbying (read Yugurta), civil right (Tribunes of the Plebs), etc, etc.
Rome was a legalistic state.
Rome only killed and slaved entire populations when "treachery" was involved, or when they saw the city or civilization as treacherous and dangerous.
That was the case at the third Punic war, or the mass killings in Greece after the armed insurrection that killed thousands of Roman settlers.
Roman motto was "Gold to the friends, iron to the enemies".
Rome went to extremes to protect their allies.
Last edited by Leovigildo; 06-29-2009 at 10:38 AM..
Originally Posted by JRBurwell I have 30 years of America military experience and am currently a Command Sergeant Major. That having been said, being an amateur historian, given equivalent weapons and proficiency in the use thereof, why do you think that the USMC would route the Roman Legion?
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No. But of course, with all that technology the Romans would have no use for their Legions. They would have created a different organization. Rome biggest asset was perseverance, they could loose 100 battles, but never the war.
The crucial philosophical point here is that the US would never have gone to war against the Romans. If an enemy is at all formidable, all we do is scream insults and make faces at them from the safety of our side of the ocean. We don't send in troops unless we have at least a ten-to-one superiority in every aspect of war, enough to guarantee a quick and decisive victory, and we still often come out with a bare stalemate,, if we don't turn tail and run the minute we take a few casualties.
If the Romans has invaded us, it would be a different matter. I have no doubt that the Amerians would successfully defend our own shores against just about any earthly invader. But the Romans, if nothing else, were very circumspect about the practical limitations of expanding their empire, which may be much of the reason it lasted as long as it did.
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