Posted on 07/03/2015 5:44:58 AM PDT by NYer
Julius Caesar
After my most recent visit to Rome I’ve been reading more about the history of Rome, and the parallels with twenty first America are fascinating.
Many people know about the fall of the Roman Empire and follow the usual narrative that Rome collapsed from within because of moral decadence.
Of course, the story is more complicated than that, and it begins not with the fall of the empire, but with the beginning of the Empire.
The Roman Republic stood for about 500 years. The Senate was made up of patricians and plebeians. The patricians were the historic, aristocratic landed families. The plebeians were the ordinary citizen commoners.
The Republic began to weaken and crumble for various reasons. Financial corruption was rife, warring factions in the Senate caused chaos and out of the strife a few patrician families, plebeians who had gained power and powerful generals emerged to struggle for power. The elite powerful families consolidated their power and gradually the power of the senate faded. The form of the republic remained, but the power had left the people and was centered in the hands of the few who had, by corruption, military force and self serving alliances, gained control.
Hello America! One of the most severe warnings that has come out to last week’s Supreme Court ruling was that from Justices Roberts and Scalia who observed that the will of the American people had been usurped by a handful of non elected lawyers. When you combine this fact with the amazing development of political dynasties in this country the parallels are too disturbing. What political dynasties? First there was the Roosevelt and Kennedy clans. Now we have the Bush and the Clinton clans. Is it possible that next year we will have to choose between Hilary or Jeb? Already the will of the American people is being trampled by political dynasties,vested interests, and the force of powerful economic and military interests.
Meanwhile, the plebs were continuing down a different path. A commenter on this post on FB writes:
The term “liberal” was taken from Liber Pater (the free Father) Roman deity of viticulture and wine; fertility and freedom. Liber Pater was the patron deity of Rome’s plebeians.and is synonymous with the Greek Dionysus/Bacchus.
In Italy during the 2nd Century this cult’s orgiastic rites, and its excesses were so infamous that the senate even tried to ban it.
Liberals today are the modern plebs, and is based both politically/socially on a philosophy advocating the freedom of the individuals including intoxication;abundance, and sexual gratification which is hedonism, ie. the seeking of pleasure.
In 44 BC Julias Caesar became, in effect, the first emperor.
Of course he did not declare himself as such. He battled his way to the top and pretended that the Republic still stood. His assassination, however, was not enough to stop the rise of the Empire.
After the smoke had cleared from the civil wars, Augustus Caesar emerged as sole emperor and there was little opposition.
At that point Rome entered the period of the Empire in which great wealth and military victories continued, but great decadence and corruption got worse. The city descended into increased sexual depravity, violence, reliance on government hand outs, laziness and addiction to entertainment and violent games. Homosexuality, abortion, infanticide, prostitution, murder, rebellion, adultery and total depravity continued to rise, and the consequences were disastrous.
One of the most destructive factors was young men’s attitude to responsibilities of marriage and civil life. The Roman young men refused to marry and have children. With free access to same sex relationships, pederasty and prostitutes what need have they of a wife and the encumbrance of children? Those who did marry limited the number of children, abortion methods were crude and women died if not in childbirth, then through botched abortions. Female children were killed. The number of eligible females declines. Family life fell apart further.
Emperor after emperor tried with tax breaks, grants and incentives to prop up the birth rate which was plummeting due to abortion, infanticide, plague and war. They bribed young men to marry and raise a family. It didn’t work. They faced a demographic winter and the barbarians invaded and took over Rome without a fight because there simply weren’t enough Romans left to fight.
Hello America and Europe! Does all this sound familiar?
Notice the immigrants flooding into Europe and America even now. Look at the attitudes of too many of our young men to marriage and family life. Look at our addiction to violent games, our social chaos and our sexual depravity.
Those who ignore the tragedies of history are bound to repeat them.
Ping!
Spooky
Great article and Father Longenecker is exactly right. The only difference in the United States and the Roman Empire is the United States will never last 500 years. This country has managed to accomplish it’s total descent into depravity in less than half the time it took Rome.
Having read a lot about roman history, I’ve been seeing more parallels between modern American and the last century of the Roman Republic than with the last century of the Roman Empire.
Roman traditions were being abandoned, sometimes for the best of reasons, while lip service was still paid to them. Even after the takeover by the Caesars, the Republican fiction was maintained, and lip service paid to it for at least another century.
The Roman Republic was a churning maelstrom of intrigue, plots, conspiracies, and almost unending combat between Rome and its neighbors. Part of the chaos arose from growing pains; Rome gained so much power so quickly that it terrified other tribes, and the rulers of Rome hadn't grasped the full meaning of their positions, nor were they able to formulate a consistent moral approach to governance. They lacked the philosophical framework -- and certainly the MORAL structure -- to provide continuity, consistency, and responsible leadership.
The Empire changed all that by concentrating the power in one individual. As the individual went, so went Rome.
And even that is a gross oversimplification.
It isn’t all that complicated:
Discipline, hard work and sacrifice beget success.
Success begets power.
With power & success come great prosperity.
Great prosperity begets complacency.
Complacency begets decadence (including a loss of confidence in the culture and the will to defend ourselves).
Decadence becomes decline.
Decline eventually results in ruin.
There are definitely parallels with Rome. We are in the full blown decadence/decline stage now. Like Rome, we think our cultural hegemony can substitute for real military power. It can for a while, but not for the long term. Like Rome, we will coast on our reputation for a while until the barbarians wake up and realize its all just a facade. Also, like Rome, we are letting the barbarians invade and are doing nothing (not just us, the entire West).
However, unlike Rome, we have advanced technology. We may yet be able to manufacture robots to do what people won’t.
THE GREAT APOSTASY!
CCC #675: The Church’s ultimate trial
Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. the supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.
The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgement after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.
Instead of the western Roman Empire, there is a profound and ironic lessen to be learned from the survival of the eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople. Specifically in an event and its aftermath called The Nika Riots.
In AD 532, sports, most especially chariot racing, was almost synonymous with politics. The four dominant factions or teams were the Blues and the radical Greens, the Reds and the Whites, an almost eerie similarity to today’s Democrats and Greens, Conservatives and Republicans.
The Blues dominated politically, and were favored by the Emperor Justinian I. But this relationship had become strained because the previous year, some leaders of the Blues and Greens had been arrested for murder during some lesser sports related riot, and were sentenced to be hung.
But two of them, one Blue and one Green, escaped and held out in a church surrounded by an angry mob of Blues and Greens. This came at a bad time, as Justinian I was negotiating with the Persians, today’s Iranians, in an effort to avoid war. Plus there was widespread public resentment over high taxes.
Justinian I, a fine administrator but a mediocre leader, ordered their sentence commuted, but the mob demanded a full pardon. Their anger carried over to the next sporting event, which in turn led to violent rioting and arson throughout the city, burning down half of it.
Many senators saw this as an opportunity to replace Justinian I as well, so conspired with the rioters to create chaos.
Eventually things culminated with a great gathering of Blues and Greens in the Hippodrome stadium, to debate deposing Justinian I and naming a new Emperor.
However, the Empress Theodora I, was made of sterner stuff, and refused to allow Justinian I to abdicate or flee, and made him and his generals form a plan to save the Empire.
So a trusted Eunuch was sent to the Hippodrome with a large bag of gold. He met with the Blue leaders and reminded them that Justinian I had long supported them, and wished them well. They took the hint, so as a group, without saying anything, got up and left the stadium.
“More power for us,” thought the radical Greens, who decided to name one of their own as the new Emperor, not realizing that the stadium had been surrounded by a lot of soldiers very loyal to Justinian I.
Who then entered the stadium and killed about 30,000 Greens.
In retrospect, this event alone preserved the eastern Roman Empire for at least another 200 years, and both Emperor Justinian I and Empress Theodora I have been named Saints of the Orthodox churches. And though it survived many other crises, it remained a Christian city until AD 1453, by which time Rome had again become the center of Christendom.
Something to remember the next time you see the Democratic National Convention.
When it comes to the Byzantine Empire, I often think about holy pictures better known as icons.
Shakespeare, Ben-Hur and Masala....
Don’t forget: the aristocrats continued to accumulate more land (plantations) and farmed them with slave-labor — at the expense of the Plebes. This changed the economic equation for many leaving military service as just about the only occupation. If one survived that, you might just be allowed to hack away at a few acres in some forsaken province.
For those in the major cities it was “Bread & Circuses” to keep them distracted from the real game.
Ironically, the images of Saint Justinian and Theodora are most often seen in Roman style mosaics and coins instead of icons. I think mostly because they were very popular subjects for mosaics.
The Nika Riots....Origin of the expression, “what’s up, my Nika?” ???
bookmarked
Back in the late 60's, a friend of mine predicted the events we are seeing unfold today. He was a young Italian immigrant. In Italy, students receive a classic education; i.e. - an entire year of study is devoted to the study to all aspects of a particular ancient culture including language, religion, arts, society, et al. At university, he was immersed in both Ancient Rome and Greece.
Now, recall the late 60's in the US. Gloria Steinman led the feminist movement. It was a time of great change. My friend assessed the 'culture' and pointed to history. He said that in both ancient Rome and Greece, similar circumstances had occurred. He continued: "Women rose to power and were soon followed by a rise in demands by the homosexual community. These hastened the collapse of society." He then predicted that I would witness this in the US in my lifetime. At the time, I laughed but never forgot his prediction. Here we stand today, on the cusp of cultural collapse in the US and, for the matter, in most of western society.
What a sad and sorry nation we've become ...
I guess there was a truth in the old German saying about women: Kirche, Kuchen und Kinder. Church, cooking, and children.
It certainly did in 1969.
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