[teeman8r]

Rome was a great civilization,but it failed. Guess why?

Trump. right?

/sarc

[sappy]

wrong. it was the gunshow loophole. sarc/

[USMCPOP]

“...Trump. right?...”

No, it was a long time ago. Bush’s fault.

[Cronos]

Rome technically never failed, it lived on to today

Rome was more than just the Empire -- it evolved

1. The Roman kingdom gave way to the Republic (circa 500 to 27 BC)
2. The republic was kinda ok until power got concentrated in teh hands of the elites and it took the Gracchus brothers and Marius to change things, but it still muddled along through the social wars (where the other Latin states said "we will fight you so that you assimilate us") right until Augustus set up the Principate (from 27 BC to around 300 AD)
3. Through to the Dominiate (300 AD onward) where it was a hereditary state as we know it with a Basileus in charge
4. After the WESTERN half fell, Rome continued administratively in the EASTERN half until 1453 -- they never called themselves "Byzantines" (that was an invention by the jealous Westerners in the 18th century) but called themselves ROMANS.
5. Roman culture in the east spread to Romania, Bulgaria, Russia -- Russia continued with the Roman despotism and Ivan IV styled Moscow as the "Third Rome"
6. Roman culture in the west continued even after the fall of Rome -- Charlemagne and the Ottonian dynasty specifically called themselves Emperors. Western civilization is a continuation of Roman civilization with Christian influences
7. The Arabs and the Ottoman Turks specifically aimed to emulate Rome - calling themselve the Sultanate of the Rum etc
8. America was consciously built on an idea of Rome with the Senate etc.

Rome as a civilization did not fall but is one of the great originator civilizations that left influences throughout the world (along with the Tang, the Mauryan, the Achaemenid and the Akkadian civilizations)