History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [ch. VII, last 2 paragraphs]

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ^ | 1776 | Edward Gibbon

[matt1234]

Since Romulus, with a small band of shepherds and outlaws, fortified himself on the hills near the Tyber, ten centuries had already elapsed. During the four first ages, the Romans, in the laborious school of poverty, had acquired the virtues of war and government: by the vigorous exertion of those virtues, and by the assistance of fortune, they had obtained, in the course of the three succeeding centuries, an absolute empire over many countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The last three hundred years had been consumed in apparent prosperity and internal decline. The nation of soldiers, magistrates, and legislators, who composed the thirty-five tribes of the Roman people, were dissolved into the common mass of mankind, and confounded with the millions of servile provincials, who had received the name, without adopting the spirit, of Romans. A mercenary army, levied among the subjects and barbarians of the frontier, was the only order of men who preserved and abused their independence. By their tumultuary election, a Syrian, a Goth, or an Arab, was exalted to the throne of Rome, and invested with despotic power over the conquests and over the country of the Scipios.

The limits of the Roman empire still extended from the Western Ocean to the Tigris, and from Mount Atlas to the Rhine and the Danube. To the undiscerning eye of the vulgar, Philip appeared a monarch no less powerful than Hadrian or Augustus had formerly been. The form was still the same, but the animating health and vigor were fled. The industry of the people was discouraged and exhausted by a long series of oppression. The discipline of the legions, which alone, after the extinction of every other virtue, had propped the greatness of the state, was corrupted by the ambition, or relaxed by the weakness, of the emperors. The strength of the frontiers, which had always consisted in arms rather than in fortifications, was insensibly undermined; and the fairest provinces were left exposed to the rapaciousness or ambition of the barbarians, who soon discovered the decline of the Roman empire.

[beebuster2000]

Trojan War (1100 BC) and the Crusades (1100-1300 AD) as the same event, just told differently and assumed to be separate events

thats the dumbest thing i have read in a while.

[Yollopoliuhqui]

The “New Chronology” is the result of work by Russian statistician Anatoly Fomenko. From Wikipedia:

Mathematical work

Anatoly T. Fomenko is a full member (Academician) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1994), the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (1991), the International Higher Education Academy of Sciences (1993) and Russian Academy of Technological Sciences (2009), as well as a doctor of physics and mathematics (1972), a professor (1980), and head of the Differential Geometry and Applications Department of the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics in Moscow State University (1992). Fomenko is the author of the theory of topological invariants of integrable Hamiltonian system. He is the author of 180 scientific publications, 26 monographs and textbooks on mathematics, a specialist in geometry and topology, variational calculus, symplectic topology, Hamiltonian geometry and mechanics, and computer geometry. Fomenko is also the author of a number of books on the development of new empirico-statistical methods and their application to the analysis of historical chronicles as well as the chronology of antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Fomenko is the author of extensive writings in his original fields of mathematics, and is also known for his original drawings inspired by topological objects and structures.
[edit] Historical revisionism

Fomenko is a supporter of drastically revising historical chronology. He has created his own revision called New Chronology, based on statistical correlations, dating of zodiacs, and by examining the mathematics and astronomy involved in chronology. Fomenko claims that he has discovered that many historical events do not correspond mathematically with the dates they are supposed to have occurred on. He asserts from this that all of ancient history (including the history of Greece, Rome, and Egypt) is just a reflection of events that occurred in the Middle Ages and that all of Chinese and Arab history are fabrications of 17th and 18th century Jesuits.

He also claims that Jesus lived in the 12th century A.D. and was crucified on Joshua’s Hill; that the Trojan war and the Crusades were the same historical event; and that Genghis Khan and the Mongols were actually Russians. As well as disputing written chronologies, Fomenko also disputes more objective dating techniques such as dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating (see here for an examination of the latter criticism). His books include Empirico-statistical Analysis of Narrative Material and Its Applications and History: Fiction or Science?.

Most Russian scientists considered Fomenko’s historical works to be pseudoscientific.[2][3]

[dsc]

“Most Russian scientists considered Fomenko’s historical works to be pseudoscientific.”

Thanks. I think I’ll go along with most Russian scientists, unless and until more information surfaces.